I was 19 when I encountered a really hot girl at a club and left with her. But we never got to the point of having sex. We kissed and ran our mouths over each other, and during this time my date Kelly bit me hard on the neck. And that was the end of my life as Brad.
I awoke an undetermined time later in a bed, somewhere, with my whole body feeling numb. I continued lying there, and after maybe an hour or so my date showed up, though she was dressed differently from how she was when I met her. More of a goth look.
“Where are we, Kelly?” I asked, but my voice sounded really weird.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. And you’re in our home in Trans-Sylvania.”
“Transylvania? Like where Count Dracula is from?”
“Almost. But the place in the human world only has one S. We are somewhere else, like a parallel universe, and underground, and we call this place Trans-Sylvania,” she replied, leaving a clear gap between the two S sounds.
“So are you actually a vampire?” I asked.
“Yes. And now you are, too. Humans get that part right.”
“Is that why my voice sounds weird? It doesn’t actually sound like how I imagine a vampire’s voice.”
“No. Can you move your body yet? Why don’t you take a look at it?”
I managed to move one arm enough to pull back the covers I was under and turn my head to look down at my body. To my surprise, what I found there was a female body. A young woman’s, looking about my age of 19. That was the reason my voice sounded strange. My whole body had changed. I had breasts and curves and when I moved my hand down between my legs, I confirmed that part was changed too. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being a vampire, but about being a girl, I was ecstatic.
I always felt that I was trans, but the community was so hostile to trans women I had always kept it closeted. They were literally getting murdered out there and nothing was done about it since the hater government was voted in. So, while I had privately dressed up as a girl, I had never dared go out as one, with the sole exception of last Halloween, when it wasn’t weird to be out in a costume with a full face mask.
It would have been even worse to be seen as a girl dating another girl, as was my preference. I had hoped for one of two things: To find a girl who would accept that aspect of me, and help me with it, maybe even get me out secretly into events as a girl, or, by finishing college, to be able to get a job that would allow me to move to one of the more expensive but more liberal parts of America where the local governments protect trans people. I didn’t know whether Kelly knew this, but I wasn’t entirely able to hide it from her now.
“Wow! I’m a girl vampire!”
“This happens to all vampires.”
“All vampires are female?” I asked.
“No, only the ones who were male as humans. Female humans turn into male vampires.”
“Is that only because we’re in Trans-Sylvania?” I asked, saying it the way that Kelly had done.
“No, not really, but there is a connection there. All vampires live in Trans-Sylvania, though we do visit the human world at times. But in the past, even the ones who didn’t live here changed sex during their conversion. We are responsible for the term trans being applied in modern times to humans who want to change sex, but we’ve long tried to find people like that, rather than converting random people.”
“Does that mean you started out as a man?”
“Yes. We only change once, during our conversion to vampires. You’ll have an eternity as a female vampire now if you don’t do one of those things that can get you killed.”
It was getting better and better. “And those are?” I asked.
“You know the human myths about vampires?”
I nodded.
“They are partially correct. Direct sunlight is the most important one. If you step right out into the blazing sun you’ll die quickly. Even partial sunlight isn’t good for you. That’s why we all live underground here.”
“Got it. No sun.”
Kelly went on with the next reason. “Getting stabbed in the heart by a wooden stake is fatal.”
“But wouldn’t that kill a human too?”
“Yes. It’s only notable because it can kill a vampire. You might think that, say, cutting off a vampire’s head would be fatal, but no. You’ll be out of commission for a bit, but you’ll come back if that happens, unless you were cut with a silver blade. Silver is another thing to beware of. Cuts made with silver can permanently scar you and are fatal if they do anything that would kill a human.”
“Interesting. So I should be careful visiting old rich folks who have silverware made of real silver. Anything else?”
“Holy water and holy symbols are a problem only if used by true believers really connected to their God. It’s rare to encounter those these days, but the few who exist are likely to be equipped with such items.”
“What about garlic?” I asked.
“Garlic is unpleasant, but at worst it’ll make you sick, and then only if you ate a dish with a lot of it. Someone waving around cloves of garlic won’t do anything.”
“Do I have to keep going back to the human world to drink blood?”
“No, that’s made up. One of our few laws is that cannibalism is banned, specifically eating or drinking any human or vampire parts, just because of that rumor that leads some new converts to think they should drink blood. None of us actually want to, and when we bite you to convert you, we’re injecting you with what makes you a vampire, not drinking your blood. We eat the same food as humans. The food comes ultimately from farmers, though we convert it to what we need. Some of us vampires are farmers who grow crops on the surface, but live underground most of the time, in rooms like this one. This is your room in our home.”
“So I’m part of your family now?”
“You could say that. We’re all one big family. There aren’t separate houses down here; it’s one continuous burrow with tens of thousands of rooms. Can you move yet?”
I tested my arms and legs. Still a little numbness but I could move everything, and I carefully got out of bed. I was a bit wobbly at first, due to the different balance of the female body, but I quickly adapted and within a couple minutes I was walking comfortably. I was aware I was naked, but there were two reasons I wasn’t worried about giving Kelly a peek. First, she was my date from just before I got here, and second, she and I were both obviously female.
“Can you get me some clothes?” I asked.
“All your old clothes are here. Let me show you how to use them. Just grab anything.”
She pointed out my dresser from my previous life, which someone had moved here, still full of all my old male clothes. I grabbed underwear from the top drawer because it seemed like a place to start. I started to put them on, but she stopped me.
“No, change it first.”
“Huh?”
“Stare at it and think about what you really want.”
I gave it a try, and soon found myself holding red satin panties.
“Amazing!” I said as I put them on. They fit perfectly.
“You can make whatever you want, so these are all the clothes you’ll ever need. It doesn’t have to be the same kind of garment, but it’s easier if you try to match the mass. You can change them again and again, and they’re always like new after you do, so nothing ever wears out. That’s how you do laundry, too. If you have any questions about different types of clothes you just aren’t sure about, feel free to ask me.”
It was obvious this body needed a bra. Of course I had nothing comparable. What of mine was about the mass of a bra? I pulled out a pair of socks. One sock was clearly less material than a bra, though the shape was so different it wasn’t clear. I held up both socks together, and in a moment I was holding a red bra that matched the panties.
I put my arms through the straps and positioned the cups over my breasts. My breasts! When I dressed up as a girl, I had to stuff the cups with something, but no more. I reached behind my back and hooked it together, then checked it with my hands. It fit perfectly! It was smooth everywhere, not too tight nor loose.
“Is the sizing automatic?” I asked Kelly.
“Yes. If you are thinking of something for you to wear yourself, it’ll automatically come out in the right size. You can make something for someone else, but you either have to know their size and think about that size, or know the person well enough you can picture it on them.”
I took the bra off for a moment to check its size.
“36D,” I read off the tag.
When I lived with my parents, my mother had measured me and bought female clothes for me, including a bra. Sadly, overuse in fantasy time at home had worn them out before I went off to college, and since I was going to have a roommate I thought it better to just toss them. That bra was a 38, but I felt like a 36 is what I would have wanted to be if I could have chosen my size. And I had chosen a D cup; though big, it made me unmistakably female when I played dress-up. As far as I was concerned, this size was perfect.
In response to my reading of the size, Kelly said “I should also mention that they are sized in the sizing system you know. You were American, but other countries have different sizing systems, some of them based on centimeters. And there are vampires who have been around since before this sizing system was established. They learned the British and American sizing system, based on inches, because it was the first system developed. I’ll give you a conversion chart later.”
I wasn’t sure why I’d need the chart. Was I likely to be trading bras with other women here? Maybe they had stores, for vampires who want to go beyond what they know. Whatever the case, I ignored that for now, put the bra back on, and thought about what to cover it with. I knew I didn’t know everything about women’s clothes, but I knew enough to choose something now. What I was thinking of was a dress. Not an elaborate one. One that was elegant in its simplicity.
A dress was a bit longer than a shirt, so I took a T-shirt and shorts together and converted it into a cocktail dress the same red as the other items. I had it on in an instant, and I thought it looked great on me. Another thing came to mind.
“Should I wear pantyhose, Kelly? I’ve never worn them.”
“You can make them if you want, but most of us don’t. They’re a nuisance, and most of us who care enough to have smooth legs here have legs that are naturally smooth enough and hairless. The ones who wear hosiery like that are more likely to wear the kind of stockings that go with a garter belt, with visible patterns on them, and only when they expect them to be seen by a lover who appreciates that sort of thing.”
Her response was spoken dryly, so I felt that Kelly must not be one who appreciates stockings of that sort. So I said, “OK. Guess I’ll skip them for now. Let me figure out some shoes.”
I knew I wasn’t ready for high heels, but I converted one of my old sneakers into a pair of sandals with a one-inch heel and straps in the same red color as the rest of my outfit. There was a lot less shoe, even with the heel, so one sneaker made two new shoes.
I put them on, and now I was dressed. And how! I’d dressed up as if to go on another date with Kelly, though I didn’t know whether she was into girls. Well, to really prep for a date, I’d have to put on makeup, but I didn’t see any, nor a mirror, so I skipped that for now and hoped my face looked fine.
“Somebody’s gonna love you!” she said.
“I was kinda hoping that would be you.”
“Nah, I only do guys, and I’m taken. I was only there because I was asked to bring you in, and I’ll be your guide to get you started here.”
“What, your family was specifically targeting me?”
“Yes. Humans get it right in terms of how we make more vampires, but we do it quite rarely because we tend to live a really long time. We only make a new vampire after one dies, to keep the numbers steady. One of the jobs some people do here is search the world for good candidates, people who would like to change sex but are afraid to really do it, and one of them identified you.”
“So you know I am secretly trans.”
“Yeah. I don’t know a lot of detail; they only told me that you were 100% in the closet about it. There’s one other constraint on our recruits; they can’t have established ties, like being married or engaged. They have to be easy to write out of history.”
“Wait, what? I was just erased from history?”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you become a vampire and are brought here. At least, it does if you haven’t left too big a mark on the world. We bring all your simple possessions, except your car, which is in Limbo. I’ll show you that later. Anything fixed in place has to stay, so if you owned a house, someone else would end up owning it. But the rest of your stuff is here.”
She pointed to one wall which had a number of boxes stacked up against it. I couldn’t clearly identify it due to the boxes, but I trusted that it was my stuff.
“So you said someone died to make a space for me?”
“An old widow named Genevieve Thomas couldn’t bear living anymore, and she suicided by sunbathing.”
“Oh, right, you said the sun thing about vampires was real. Is that a common way we die?”
“Well, we don’t commonly die at all, but yes, if you’re looking to suicide, that’s a common way. It’s the only easy nonviolent way for us to die. It’s theoretically possible for you to die if you simply stop eating, but it takes a long time, and I’ve never heard of it actually happening. But enough about death; let me show you around.”
There were three doors in my room, one on one end and two on the other, and we went through the the door which was by itself. This opened up into a long hallway with many doors.
“Take note of your room number, 3794. That means you are near the end of hallway 7 on floor 3.”
“Do I need keys?”
“No keys. There are no locked doors here. We are family; we don’t mess with each others’ stuff.”
“Huh. OK.”
I was indeed almost at the end of the hall. There was only 3796 past my room on my side of the hallway, and 3797 across from that. The rooms in the other direction went on farther than I could see. But we walked down the hall, and after 3750 on my side of the hall and 3751 across from it, there was a crossing hallway. Down that hall, about 60 feet to either side, there were parallel hallways. In one direction, there was only one more hallway. The crossing hallway continued a short distance to an open doorway and a room beyond.
As she showed me the stairs, Kelly explained, “The floors are numbered going down, so this, the third floor, is the third one from the top. There are just two more levels above and then the stairs to the surface. There are a lot more levels below, but it doesn’t really matter. Unless you’re trying to visit someone you’ve never visited before, you’re never going to need to cross over all these stairs. There are other ways I’ll show you later.”
We went in the direction where there was only one crossing hallway, which had rooms numbered in the 3800s. We went into the room beyond the intersection, which looked like a sort of cafeteria. There were about 20 people mostly sitting in small groups, but there was room for hundreds.
“You’re probably hungry, so it’s a good time for me to explain how we eat here.”
Kelly led me to the wall next to the entrance to the cafeteria. On each side of the entrance, there was a minimalist sort of buffet line along the wall. There was a stack of plates, a hopper full of something that looked like uncooked rice with a dispenser at the bottom, bins of utensils, a rack of glasses, and a single dispenser for what looked like water.
“Grab a plate. You can make it deeper into a bowl if you like.”
And Kelly demonstrated, using the same sort of stare that let me change my clothes into ones appropriate for my new body. It was a broad-sided bowl, basically a plate with the sloped sides going up at a 45 degree angle instead of being very shallow. I repeated the action on the plate I picked up.
“Dispense as much of this as you like, and then change it into what you want to eat in the same way. It’s not really a regular mealtime for me, so I’m going to eat light.”
Kelly turned her bowl back into a plate and turned a handle on the side of the rice container, which dispensed enough rice in two full revolutions to cover the plate about halfway up the sloped sides in rice. Then, with the stare, she turned it into a meal that looked like a bacon-wrapped filet mignon, a few of those tiny potatoes, and a small pile of green beans. But I realized that I was in fact quite hungry, so I left my plate as a bowl and turned the handle several times to fill it to the top with the rice. Since as far as I was concerned it was breakfast time, I changed it into a big stack of pancakes surrounded by lots of bacon, sausages, hash browns, and a couple of buttered rolls. It was easily three normal breakfasts.
Kelly grabbed a fork and knife and added them to her plate. At the next station, Kelly took a glass, filled it with water from the dispenser, and then changed it into some dark liquid. I changed mine into orange juice. Then I followed her to a table where we sat and ate. Despite my having just changed this from uncooked rice and plain water to this meal, it tasted exactly like it was supposed to. When I finished off the orange juice, I went and refilled my glass and made more. I also decided I needed a little more food, so I turned my empty bowl back into a plate, and with a covering of the rice made a ham steak with a pineapple ring.
“All done?” Kelly asked when I didn’t go back for thirds.
“Yeah. I’m surprised I was so hungry. Was I out for a while?”
“Yeah. It’s Sunday afternoon.”
“Oh. That explains it.” It had been Friday night when she bit me.
“The whole becoming a vampire thing isn’t instant. Your body takes a little while to reconfigure itself into your ideal of the opposite sex.”
“My ideal? Ah, yes, that makes sense. So we’re all hotties here?” I wasn’t actually sure how I looked, since I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror, but the parts of me I had seen looked nice.
“Well, some people have different ideals than others. But mostly, yes. And you’ll keep updating each time you sleep, if your ideal changes, but in the future it’ll just be normal sleep periods and not multiple days. Come, let’s dispose of this and I can show you what you look like.”
I followed her to an area beyond the short buffet line where we set the used plates, after first dumping the crumbs in a trash bin. Kelly showed me how to transform the plate and glass and utensils into clean ones before leaving them there.
As we left, Kelly explained, “Someone on each floor has the job to recycle those. He’ll transform the stack of used plates into a stack of clean ones, and likewise for the other things. The trash gets turned into fertilizer or seeds for the farmers.”
We went back to my room, which as Kelly promised was unlocked. She simply turned the knob and opened the door, and quickly led me to the other end of my room.
“The weird shimmery door leads to Limbo. We’ll go there in a bit, but I want to show you what’s behind this ordinary door first, which is the bathroom.”
She opened the door, and there was a pretty basic white bathroom there with a toilet, sink, and shower stall.
“I want to point out that everything here is optional. Each night when you sleep, your body changes to your ideal, which includes being cleaned. And you can force that during the day as well. That change also includes eliminating all your built-up wastes, so you can always avoid needing the toilet by remaking yourself. It used to be that was how all vampires always took care of that, but modern humans have gotten so used to using the toilet that we put them in all the rooms.”
It all worked like I expected. But then Kelly showed me more.
“The hand soap dispenser is drawn from a common supply. It’ll never run out. But you can turn it around this way and pump some out on the side of the sink. Use this if you need any other supply that isn’t here. Shampoo, toilet paper, whatever.”
Peeking under the sink, I saw that indeed the chrome dispenser tube at the corner of the sink was fed by a tube from behind the wall rather than from a disposable container below the sink, as I would have expected. The soap was a kind of gel, rather than a watery fluid.
Seeing how there was a rack that looked like it could hold three spare rolls of toilet paper alongside the dispenser, but there was only half a roll on the dispenser and one spare roll, I made a good sized glob of soap and turned it into a roll of toilet paper and added it to the rack. I figured I’d do other stuff when I needed it.
Kelly continued, “I also want to point out that you own this room now, and the same way you changed the other stuff, you can reconfigure the room. It takes a little more effort, but you can change the shower stall to a bathtub, put in a bidet, or whatever you want. Don’t worry about the plumbing; it’ll all reconfigure itself for what you install.”
“Automatically, just like the clothes sizing? Neat!”
Kelly nodded.
“Can I only change things I own?”
“Only stuff you own and community property, which is everything here not assigned to someone. That applies to the rice and water and plates and stuff for our meals. Those things are ours collectively rather than belonging to any one of us, so anyone can convert it.”
“What’s with this dark panel in place of a mirror?”
“Oh, another thing humans get right is that we don’t show up in mirrors. That holds true for shiny surfaces in metal or glassware as well. For a long time that meant always needing to groom each other in pairs, but modern technology has improved that. If you go back into the main room you should find your phone somewhere.”
Indeed, it was sitting there plugged in and fully charged.
“The panel is an external monitor and the other hanging thing is a movable dock. Put your camera in selfie mode and you’ll get something the equivalent of a mirror, but it shows our images.”
I did that and it worked wonderfully. The arm allowed me to move the phone about, allowing me to see myself from different sides. It was better than a mirror.
“Huh. Seems like I look fine without makeup.”
“That’s part of the whole ideal form thing. Most women here don’t use anything more than lipstick and perhaps eye shadow, which is mainly about using different colors on different days to match your clothes, mood, or whatever.”
I pumped a glob of soap into my hand and turned it into a tube of bright red lipstick matching my current outfit, and put some on.
“Perfect,” I said. I took my phone and headed out of the bathroom.
Kelly followed, and said, “This is a good time for me to help you get your phone set up to work in Trans-Sylvania.”
“Oh, right. It won’t see any networks it knows.”
Kelly produced a SIM tool from somewhere, and popped out my SIM and handed it back to me.
“This one’s now useless. It corresponds to an account that never existed in the current reality.”
She put in a new one and handed my phone back to me.
“Now it will connect to the local wi-fi within Trans-Sylvania and do wi-fi calling. When you’re among humans, it’ll be treated as roaming in an account you’ll never have to worry about, but you’ll have connectivity. You have my number and I’ve got yours, and you can add other people here as you meet them. Don’t try to add humans; they won’t be able to call you, and in most cases, you won’t be associating with them enough that you need to save their numbers. If you need to, you can dial 0 plus country code, area code, and number to call phones in the human world.”
“Great!”
She fiddled with my phone a bit and handed it back to me with a web site loaded.
“Bookmark this site. You can find the size conversion charts I mentioned, maps of Trans-Sylvania, and lots of other useful information there.”
I did that, and located the conversion charts, though I didn’t feel they were especially relevant right now.
“One more thing. In Settings you should be able to set your name. The way we do names here is that, as the one who made you a vampire, my first name Kelly should be your last name. You can pick any first name you want.”
“Hmm, yeah, I can’t be Brad anymore. I didn’t really use the name anywhere, but I called the female-dressed version of me Brandy. So I’m Brandy Kelly.”
“Great, Brandy. Oh, somewhere around here you’ll find your old driver’s license. You can update it.”
I found my wallet on a table and pulled out my license.
Kelly said, “Just do that stare trick and aim for an updated license.”
I did, and a moment later I was staring at a license for Brandy Kelly from Trans-Sylvania, with a picture of the new me and Brad’s original birth date.
“This trick is amazing. I’ll have to keep it in mind for other stuff.”
“You should be aware it only works within Trans-Sylvania. Once you walk through that door, your powers are more limited.”
She was referring to the door to Limbo, which she now opened.