anemic

A Story by poetaster

flash fiction, i guess. inspired by octavia butler.

They rejected her blood again. It wasn’t because she’d had sex with a man who’d had sex with another man; she’d learn to lie on the forms about that a long time ago. Too low iron, even though she liked her leafy greens. Her life essence, it seemed, was only good enough for the mosquitoes.

Whatever. It would probably end up going to the vampires, anyway. There was another bank hold-up just last night; she’d seen on the local news. Those were actually rare nowadays. They didn’t like exposing themselves to society like that, and it was easy to see why. Just look at what happened to the zombies. So they had gotten quite good at passing; she probably even knew some right now without realizing it. But sometimes an individual vampire was desperate enough to walk in, remove eir prosthetic teeth, and terrorize a poor blood worker. The NARVP would have a lot of public relations work to do.

Some people thought it didn’t have to be this way. She’d heard of committed cross-species relationships, of exchanges being worked out: regular blood taking for security or even status in some circles. Some called it love. Strange how, to her, that and slavery often sounded alike. But her friend told her things like that had always happened in history. People used to sell their eggs, sperm, even wombs for money. The body is just another commodity. It’s all economics.

But she still felt rejected. She was trying to give hers away for free, and they still wouldn’t take it.

Spinach and a steak for dinner tonight.