Death is Only a Theoretical Concept (13 page)

“
I’m
fairly sure that even asking is homophobic,” she says, but then she
blinks. “I don’t know, actually.”

“
So
he’s not completely wrong, but he’s also a fucking fag queen
himself—Ares!
Seriously
?—and that just makes it all the more
right that we do something to help Steve, well, discover himself.”
Jack’s eyes seem to glow with enthusiasm as he pounds his fist
against his kneecap, chips and fishing rods forgotten. “He should
be getting out and hooking up with dudes into that sort of thing,
and if he’s not doing that because of fucking Swanston, we, as his
friends, should do something about that. A dude shouldn’t be
turning twenty-one not knowing he’s fucking bi.”

“
I
don’t think buying him a prostitute is going to work, Jack.” Greg
stands up and moves to a higher boulder just to get out of Jack’s
reach—or odour. “My shift starts in an hour, so please get a move
on.”

“
Oh,
a hooker would be fucking weird.” Jack shakes his head, purses his
lips—and then he grins right at Johanna as he jumps to his feet,
pumping both fists in the air. “Got it! What if he fucking sees
Swanston doing his thing at Feeders? Then he’ll fucking know that
his only reason for not figuring this shit out is because
Swanston’s got issues. We just got to get him to Feeders, so we
dare him to—we dare him to fuck a vampire! There won’t be girls
looking for guys at Feeders, right?”

“
I’m
sure bi and pan people go there, too,” Johanna says, not at all
sure what to think about this plan—and she knows Jack! She was the
one that helped ensure Phil had no chance of finding any scuba gear
to hire in a hundred kilometre radius! “And tourists who don’t
realise that the vampire club has become a gay club and all the
straight vamps go to the Broken Post.”

Jack shakes his
head with such frenzied energy that Johanna feels tired just
watching him. “Yes, but he’s not going to know all that, and,
anyway, this is his first fucking opportunity to actually go and
hook a guy—we’ve given him an excuse, right? He’s not going to look
at the girls. Trust me.” He turns his head and grins at Phil, hand
outstretched. “Twenty bucks says he’s necking the first dude he
meets.”

“
Done. I know what I’m buying with the money.” Phil reaches
up, takes the hand, shakes it. “But we’ll need to make sure the
kitty’s big enough Steve’s got no choice but to go with it. He’s
been moaning about his broken tape deck for months. Can we get him
that much?”

“
I
can do that—between the cop shop and the chop shop, we’ll get
enough.” Greg nods and hands over the last of the chips to Jack,
who plonks himself down on the closest piece of basalt and shoves a
handful into his mouth. “It’ll be a relief to spend at least one
birthday not driving out to the middle of nowhere at midnight to
save idiots from zombies.” He brushes his hands on his jeans. “Yes,
I mean you lot.”

“
We
love you too, dude.” Phil snatches the chips from Jack’s hands.
“Never mind how many more fucking tourists would be shambling if
not for us.”

Greg just
snorts. “Not as many as you think, mate. I’ll text you when we’ve
got the money. What do you want me to tell Deb?”

Sergeant Debra
Nakamura, Johanna thinks, isn’t going to much care: she’s got more
important things to worry about than her son being dared to fuck a
male vampire in order to rediscover his long-repressed sexuality.
Besides, there are very few people—of any gender—that are going
bother her more than Emma the topless trapeze artist. She’s not so
sure that Steve’s dad will be quite as comfortable with it, and
from the angled set of Jack’s head, he’s thinking much the same
thing.

“
Just say we’re daring him to fuck a vampire,” Jack says
finally. “Say you talked us into doing something less dangerous
this time, or I’m running out of ideas—just bullshit them. We’ll
spring it on him and them.”

“
Right.” Greg waves and heads down the breakwater.

“
Will Steve be angry at this?” Izzy puts down her needle and
gives the group quite a worried look. “Are you not setting him
up?”

“
We’re helping him.” Phil scrunches up the chip paper and
punches Jack on the shoulder. “What friends are for,
right?”

Izzy shakes her
head. “Can you not just tell him?”

She’ll explain
at home, Johanna thinks, just as Phil and Jack burst out in
explosive, near-hysterical laughter.

No, nobody in
Port Carmila is going to sit her down and politely suggest that
Johanna needs to stop talking about her interest in men because no
one believes it, but they will invent a ridiculous excuse to go to
Sydney for the weekend and
just happen
to end up at a
lesbian bookstore where Jack talks about hot butch ladies, Phil
tries to pick out the best queer lady romances and Steve charms
half-a-dozen phone numbers from the customers. It might be a whole
lot easier just to say it, but why do that when they can interfere,
meddle and make a colossal mess of both the bookstore and Johanna’s
head, all in the name of showing their friendship?

There’s a reason
she’s writing a thesis about a tiny zombie-prone town in the middle
of nowhere, after all, and it’s not because Port Carmila is all
that historically interesting—not when she hoped to write her
thesis about topics that don’t involve the roaming
undead.

“
He
won’t mind, Izzy,” she says instead as she picks up Izzy’s cool
hand and entwines their fingers together. “He’s born here, even if
he forgets that sometimes. He’ll understand.”

Besides, she
owes him for all those bloody phone numbers.

“
Right.” Jack slaps Phil on the head as he stands. “Now we’re
done with that, anyone want to come with to the Collective? I’ve
got to knock off a flag…”

Acknowledgements

This story and
its sequels wouldn’t exist without the LiveJournal gang Kimberley
Beattie, I. D. Locke, Emily C, Saskia, Frogs, Meep, Charis, Nae and
Haldoor who, among many others I’ve forgotten, delivered such
enthusiastic and supportive comments on my work. Thank you for your
unstinting encouragement and support on my road to becoming a
writer.

And, always and
forever, thank you to Ann Langusch, Lucas McKenna, Christine Nagel.
Susanna Bryceson and Tracey Rolfe for giving me the skills to put
my words out in the world in the first place.

About the Author

S. K. Een is the
more romantically-inclined, humorous, undead, absurd, man-friendly
pseudonym of a Melbournian indie author. At
Port Carmila
they
post often-comedic ficlets, stories and other fictional works set
in Port Carmila and beyond. At
Texts From Port
Carmila
they post daily, utterly-not-worksafe doses of
Port Carmila text ridiculousness.

Een’s works
include
Death is Only a Theoretical
Concept
.

K. A. Cook is a
masculine-presenting, genderless, feminist queer driven to write
about non-binary and unconventional souls, mental illness, chronic
pain and strong women. Currently a Professional Writing and Editing
student and an editor-publisher in the making, K. A. dreams of
starting an e-press publishing queer non-romance genre fiction. In
the meantime, K. A. spends their time collecting swap cards and
fashion dolls, blogging, and coming up with ever more inventive
ways to turn their life experiences into fiction. At
Queer
Without Gender
they write personal essays about hero
narratives, creativity, the publishing industry, queerness, gender
and mental illness.

Cook’s works
include
Crooked Words
and
The Stillwater Files:
Asylum
.

Whatever Great-Aunty Lizzie
Says

Welcome to Port Carmila, population 15, 725. Half that count
isn’t even human, and that’s not including feral zombies, ghouls
and ghosts, mostly because they don’t stand still long enough for
counting. It’s a melting pot of the living, the immortal, and the
dead … where death means you still have to pay the rent, the
merfolk are experts in tax evasion, everybody hates the corny Dead
Centre of Australia T-shirts sold at the tourist information
centre, and the local police encourage you to carry a weapon at all
times, regardless of legality. Sometimes the zombies aren’t your
much-loved next-door neighbours…

For Steve
Nakamura, the high summer days at Port Carmila with his best mates
and new boyfriend should have been a breeze. Sure, there’s
tourists, ferals, immunologists and an overzealous ally boss to be
navigated, not to mention Abe’s anxiety over touching, but there’s
nothing to stop him from figuring out how to sleep with Abe and
keep on breathing at the same time—until a vampire in a frock coat
turns up at Abe’s door.

For Abe
Browning, Great-Aunty Lizzie is a harridan in heels who claims
vampire-breather relationships are inherently doomed, but, worse
than that, Steve doesn’t seem to care that he’s putting his life at
risk when it comes to Abe and the zombie hunt. What is an anxious
vampire supposed to do when Steve’s recklessness makes Great-Aunty
Lizzie’s objections all the more rational? Breaking up with Steve
should solve the problem, so why can’t Abe stand the very
thought?

Why did no one
ever mention that the hardest part of dating a breather has
nothing
to do with blood or immortality?