My name is Alastair Rashkel and I'm a big and tall Black man living in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. Anyone looking at me sees a regular-looking brother, and that's cool with me. It just means that my disguise is working like a charm. You see, I'm no ordinary brother. I'm actually a Vampire. Been one all my life. Vampires do exist. We look like normal people, we hold jobs, pay taxes and live our lives in the open. Sunlight doesn't bother us any more than it bothers the average human being. The Vampire Community is thriving, in part because of the sheer ignorance of Humans.
These days, I work as a Corrections Officer for the State of Massachusetts. It's an okay job, I guess. Although I was born and raised in the Southern city of Atlanta, I've grown to love it in the Northeast. I moved to Massachusetts as soon as my college days began, and I haven't left it since. After graduating from UMass-Amherst with a bachelor's of science degree in Criminal Justice, I thought about going to the Boston Police Academy or Suffolk Law School but ended up taking the first job I could find.
The Department of Corrections was hiring and I was both overeducated and overqualified for that job. The pay was better than I expected, though. Couldn't look a gift horse on the mouth. It is a Recession, after all. Working in law enforcement makes me particularly useful to the Pride, as the Black Vampire Community of America is called. Lots of Black male and Black female Vampires out there work for the police, the department of corrections and the courts. We want to make sure our brethren stay out of trouble. Secrecy is key to a Vampire's survival. And unfortunately, there are hotheads in every community. And I seem to be a magnet for them.
Relationships suck whether you're mortal or immortal. No way around that. I recently ended two relationships. After graduating from college, I met this pretty young Black woman named Madeline Rydell. She was tall, curvy, busty, dark-skinned and big-bottomed. Just the way I liked my women. Madeline was a nascent Vampire, and she was new to the city. She moved to Brockton, Massachusetts, from Detroit, Michigan. We had a good time hunting Humans in the big city and also hitting the club scene. Madeline was a lot of fun. Still, she forgot to tell me that she was married to Adam Luther, a handsome Black male Vampire who's one of the Princes of the Underworld in Detroit. Adam Luther came to New England for his wayward bride-to-be. And this marked the beginning of the end for Madeline and I. Females lie, folks. Doesn't matter if they're mortal or immortal. They lie to men. They lie to women. They lie to themselves. And they're damn good at it. Yeah, I had to let Madeline go. She was hot, great in bed and had a fantastic ass but she wasn't worth losing my eternal life over.
My next relationship was with this gorgeous Black Vampire named Harrison Thomas. He's a member of the Massachusetts State Police force and looks so good in his uniform, it ought to be a sin. He's tall, dark and handsome. Everything I liked in a man. Even though I've considered myself bisexual all my life, I haven't done much exploring in the world of male to male sex. Harrison was a really cool guy. The kind of man who knows what he wants and goes for it. He's openly bisexual, and has a wife and two sons. His wife is a lovely African-American schoolteacher named Miranda who knows about her husband's bisexuality and is fully supportive. Aren't Black female Vampires awesome? Harrison was leading the kind of life I wished I had. And I was really drawn to him. We had some spectacular sex together. We would go camping in Vermont and swim in Cape Cod. He even took me to Martha's Vineyard on his boat. Is the guy cool or what? Like most good things, our relationship wasn't meant to last. Harrison was great in bed, but he was looking for a permanent fuck buddy while I longed for someone who could love me. I've looked for that with Madeline and couldn't find it. I thought I had found it with Harrison but I was wrong. Thus, once again, I was forced to move on with my life.
Some people have everything handed to them in this life and it tends to turn them into monsters. Take my sister, Julia Rashkel for example. She's a six-foot-tall, athletic and fine-looking young Black woman. Beauty, intelligence and immortality. She's got it all. All those things made her the apple of our parents eyes. My folks, Atlanta City Mayor Julianna Kingston Rashkel and State Senator Roger James Rashkel made their daughter into a real-life BVP. What is a BVP? Simply a Black Vampire Princess. They spent a fortune on making her exactly that. They sent her to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, for her undergraduate studies and later she attended Georgia Tech. All on our folks dime. Me? I had to win myself an academic scholarship to UMass-Amherst because my folks doubted my worth as an asset. Sounds harsh but it's true. Vampire families assess their offspring as potential assets, special projects or liabilities. For most of my life, they had serious doubts as to which category I fell into.
I guess what's true with the Humans is also true of Vampires. They value their daughters and treat them like princesses while treating their sons like dirt. That's why males across the world aren't doing so good academically, socially and physically. The world assumes we're made of rock and seldom offers us any help. That's the plight of many men and that's the plight of this Black male Vampire as well. Oh, well. I left the city of Atlanta behind and didn't look back because as far as I was concerned, there's too much drama down there. The Pride runs the town, and since I was the ultimate outsider, I'm pretty sure my opportunities for advancement in both the Human and Vampire worlds would have been limited. I was just glad to get away from my family. Unfortunately, sometimes the past can catch up with you. My sister Julia came to Boston with some of her girlfriends, and these Undead ladies decided to have themselves a good time.