Bite Me

Rediscovering vampire erotica ... the role-playing way

by Ashlea Halpern

There are vampires among us. They prowl the streets masquerading as glamorous celebrities, sultry librarians and erotic shamans — each waiting for the ideal moment to descend upon their prey and deliver the "eternal kiss."

When I was 13, I fancied myself a vampire. I wore smudgy eyeliner, iced my lips purple and obsessed over Poppy Z. Brite books. I even begged my orthodontist to file my canines. He said he'd have to ask my parents first.

It all seemed so romantic, much better than algebra class and making out in my boyfriend's Cutlass Ciera. Given my goth-tastic teenhood, I was perhaps more intrigued than your average mortal when I heard about Midnight Seduction , an erotic role-playing game centered on vampiric mythology.

Created by Temple grad/local ANoN, aka A Narrator of Nightmares, Midnight Seduction is the first book in the new Realms of Seduction series. It's designed for play amongst large groups of fetish folk, as well as swingers and couples.

Admittedly, my experience with role-playing is zilch. I also admit I'm suspicious of anyone over the age of 10 who dresses like he's/she's on the set of a period drama. But maybe Midnight Seduction would be different. There's no dice, for one. That means fate isn't left to chance — it's negotiated. It also involves vampires. Which, cinematically speaking, harbors major hotness potential. Finally, you can play it with just two people. Andy and I, gross misanthropes that we are, delighted most in this aspect. As any vampire would.

photo: Midnight Seduction

And yet, when game time rolls around, I'm so distraught at the thought of role-playing that I delay it. I watch TV. I sleep. I create a MySpace profile for our chihuahua. Then, around 11 a.m. on a Sunday, still in bed, hair tussled and teeth unbrushed, I grab the book and start to play.

Step one: We choose our characters. For this particular scene, I pick the dumb cop and he picks the vampire prostitute. The book says players are free to improvise, and so we do. Andy pretends to be Terry the Taco Hooker from Reno 911!, and I'm Deputy Clementine Johnson. But instead of trying to be seductive, we're just doing poor TV imitations. We've barely begun, and already we've broken all the rules.

Step two: Andy takes one Eros Card, which he'll use to seduce me. "The initial seduction can take place in a bar, nightclub, hotel lobby or any place that might seem appropriate to your kinks," instructs Midnight Seduction. We're already in bed, so we stay there.

Step three: Andy must entice me to accept the card, and then the seduction begins. But I can't take Terry seriously. He eventually just shoves his card in my face. It reads: "Lightly spank the character outside their clothes for 5 seconds." I do as I'm told, and Andy/Terry just buries his head in the pillow and moans, "This is the most unarousing game ever."

It's true: In this particular moment, neither of us are turned on. But after five years of seeing the same dude naked, I can't help but feel I don't need game cards to tell me what to do in bed. Wink sexily, grind pelvises, nibble one another's ears — the step-by-step instructions make me feel sexually inept.

I imagine the game works far better when you play with a handful of kinky strangers, rather than someone you know isn't a vampire. I also imagine that if I were 13 again, writing myself into an Anne Rice novel, I would've loved a big fat excuse for a supervised makeout party. Especially one involving the undead.

Questions? Comments? Bloodsucker? E-mail ashlea.halpern@citypaper.net. No phone calls.