Love affair with the Vampire....

So when did my love affair with vampires begin? No, I'm not one of those scary goth chicks all decked out in black....pale makeup, peircings, worshipping at the alter of Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer!

Granted, I went through my punk stage where I listened non stop to Bauhaus's "Bela Lugosi's Dead", had my anarchy jacket, my shaved hair, the day-glo.... Good Times...Good Times....

But my true love affair with the Vampire began before puberty. Yep that's right folks, I was a sucker for the Hammer films. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Pure vampire campiness filled with buxom women just swooning at the feet of the Count of Darkness! Next came t.v.'s "Dark Shadows" with Barnabus Collins, the most mysterious neighboring vamp ever! I was hooked to the melodrama, the lust, the camp!

I totally blame Frank Langella for bringing about the sexy to Dracula. Has anyone ever seen the movie version of the play he did on Broadway back in the late 70's, early 80's? The scene where he comes through Lucy's bedroom double french doors... The fire in fireplace is roaring, she is in nothing but a nightgown, he has hair worthy of the Pattinson.... The voice...oh Jesus the voice! "Now it is you my best beloved one....you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding...."

He walks over, sweeps her up, lays her on the bed, kisses her throat, her breasts all the while whispering "I need, I need your blood..." John Williams music soars in the background...I was 13. That was the first time I felt it...lust, desire... VAMPIRE!

Well, boy howdy...how quickly did I read Bram Stoker's "Dracula"? Very erotic if you know what you are looking for. Still read and re-read it to this day! Anne Rice..."Interview with the Vampire" and "The Vampire Lestat"...classic auto-erotic vamp reading for anyone who has ever gotten turned on by vampires!

Then this little book, a young adult book by a Mormon mom comes along. The longing, the need, the under current of sex and desire... WOW! Taps into what Bram Stoker did with Dracula. Stoker's book dealt with the disease du jour of the time, Anne Rice tried to exorcise her catholic guilt over her daughter's death to Leukemia, and Stephenie Meyer alluded to the dangers of pre-marital sex..... Vampires seem to live a long and healthy life.

Maybe they represent so many of the hidden taboos in our mind or the current situation of the economy that has us in it's death throes..... Vampires feed on blood. They need blood. They appeal to the most basic instincts in all of us.... lust, greed, sex, desire,....the list goes on.

All I can say is that in the latest incarnation of Vamps everywhere, Edward Cullen has my heart....