I awoke from my dreamless sleep moments after dusk and opened my coffin. Darkness had descended upon the city and I felt the need. I was hungry. It was time to feed. It had been this way for several centuries and it wouldn't change in millennia as long as I was nourished with human blood. Not just any human blood but... well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Boris; Count Boris, to be exact from a long royal lineage in Eastern Europe. As you may have guessed, I'm a vampire. How I became a vampire is a long and interesting story but I won't relate that tale now.

My prey this night was in a modern American city. People who live here feel compelled to go out at night no matter how dangerous it might be so there is always plenty of nourishment to be had. The occasional mugger is a worry, to be sure, but no one is worried about vampires in this enlightened society. It was quite different as little as a century before when the vast majority stayed indoors at night and set wards against my kind. Being able to feed regularly was a challenge. Now, it's ridiculously easy with vampires these days the mere stuff of myths and legends recounted in books, films and television shows.

I spied my prey almost immediately, a young, pretty and well-dressed woman with long blonde hair out alone strolling in a park. She was wearing a miniskirt and high heels. Very lovely. Perhaps she was waiting for her husband or boyfriend. Or she might have been a prostitute patrolling the park for a customer. It didn't matter to me. She'd be late for any planned rendezvous. The woman was mine for now. The park was well-forested for use as cover. I caught her eye and instantly she was under my spell. It was too easy. The fetching beauty had no thought of resisting. She followed me off the pathway to a small hidden group of trees. No one will see us. Her neck was exposed and neatly punctured with my fangs. I drank. "Argh! Ptooey! Ptooey! What are you trying to do, poison me?" I yelled. The spell was broken and the woman jumped back in fright.

"I'm sorry!" she screamed and started crying. That voice!

"You... you're not a woman! You're a man dressed as a woman! A cross dresser!" He merely nodded his head and continued crying.

"Stop crying!" I hissed. "I'm not going to kill you." Normally I would have disappeared in a puff of smoke and made my escape but I didn't need this nut to start screaming about someone going around biting necks. There are some real sick individuals out there who fancy themselves vampires and do just that.

"I wish you would," the boy replied.

"What?"

"I wish you'd kill me. I don't want to live."

"Well, vampires these days don't go around killing people so you're out of luck with me. It stirs up the authorities. You're what, 18 years old? I'd say you have a lot to live for, uh... what's your name?"

"Billy. My name is Billy and I'm 20 years old."

"That's a nice name, Billy. Well, Billy, if it's any consolation to you I was certainly fooled by your appearance. I thought for sure you were a woman and believe me; I'm an expert."

"I'm tired of fooling people," the young man replied. "You're a vampire, aren't you? Why don't you go ahead and suck out all my blood? I won't resist. You'd be doing me a favor." Billy sniffled some more but at least he stopped crying.

"My recommended nightly allowance is one pint or 500 milliliters metric if I'm anyplace else besides the States so I can't oblige you there. Besides that, as you might have surmised, your blood and my tastes are incompatible. Anyway, if you want to stop fooling people all you have to do is change your wardrobe to one more appropriate to your gender. Problem solved!"

"You don't understand," Billy said sadly. "No one understands. In my mind, in my soul I know I'm a woman. I... I'd feel even more of a fraud dressed as a man than I am dressed as a woman. That would like me advising you to stop being a vampire and going back to being a man. You were a man at one time, weren't you?"

"I was indeed a man at one time," I replied. "In fact my family was royalty. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Boris; Count Boris to be exact from a long royal lineage in Eastern Europe." I bowed slightly and Billy curtseyed prettily in return.

"I've never met royalty before. You... said my blood was unacceptable. What's wrong with it? I'm not diseased or anything like that."

"Diseased blood does bother me although it won't kill me since I'm already dead, heh heh. It gives me a bit of indigestion though. Alas, I prefer the blood of young and attractive women. I was fooled by your appearance but I could never be fooled by how your blood tastes. My system is adjusted exclusively to how they taste. I'm a bit of a gourmet that way," I declared without modesty.

"I see," said Billy. "I'll just go home and kill myself then."

"What's all this about killing yourself? Being dead isn't all it's cracked up to be. I know. I've been dead for a long time. Why don't you get one of those sex change operations I've read about?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "They're expensive and even if I had the money I still wouldn't feel like a real woman. You wouldn't happen to have a magic spell on you, would you? Something that would turn me into a woman?"

"Nah! The only magic vampires do are the transformations... like I can turn myself into a bat, wolf or a puff of smoke. I once auditioned for a magic act when I needed some extra money. I did the transformations. The manager was impressed and I thought I had the job. Then the guy asks me what else I do. What else I do? Isn't that enough? The guy looks at me and tells he'll call me but don't give up my day job. A day job? A day job would be the death of me. I sleep during the day. It was all I could do not to transform back into a wolf just so I could rip his throat out." I finally got a smile out of Billy.

"I once had my fortune told by a gypsy woman back when I was a child. She said I'd meet a sorceress who would grant me my fondest wish. My fondest wish even then was to be changed into a girl but that was ten years ago and I still believed in those kinds of things."

"That couldn't have been Natasha she was talking about. She only turns guys into girls if they don't want it."

"You know a real sorceress?" Billy said excitedly. "Can she turn me into a real woman?"

"You get to know all sorts when you've been around over 800 years," I replied. "You weren't listening though. She only turns guys into women when they've been real bastards with women. You know the type... chauvinists I think you call them these days. I'm afraid you can't qualify. You'd have to make her believe you were an absolute louse with women and been that way for years."

"You can tell her I'm a bastard with women."

"Yeah, but she'd want to meet you and I don't think you could fool her. No one could act that well."

"I fooled you, didn't I?"

"Well, yeah you did do that... but it would take me a while to locate her and for her to make arrangements to get here. It would be a waste of time."

"Why?"

"Aren't you the one who's going to go right home and kill himself?"

"I don't really want to die," Billy said quickly. "It's just that... I don't want to live like I am." He started bawling again.

"All right! Stop with the crying. I'll see what I can do. She does owe me some favors since I've helped her out of a lot of jams over the years." I still hadn't fed and I was getting irritable. I got the boy's telephone number and email address. My payment would be a blood donation from the transformed Billy.

"Uh, Billy, may I ask you a quick question?"

"Of course."

"Are any of the women around here women?" Billy shook his head and pointed to the other side of the park. I thanked him and moved on.

You might be asking yourself right now why I bothered with Billy. I honestly don't know except to say that I kind of liked the kid. Anyway, it wouldn't be too difficult to contact Natasha as I already had her cell number and she didn't live too far away. The hard part would be to convince her that Billy deserved to be transformed from a man to a woman.

Like I said, you get to know all types when you've been walking this planet as long as I have and especially where I tend to frequent; society's netherworld. Now don't get me wrong. Natasha is one of the nicest sorceresses you'd ever want to meet. Just don't get on her wrong side. She has some mean spells that you'd regret being on the receiving end. I think she uses these spells to dispense justice in her view of things so she doesn't cast them just for fun. One of them is the transgender spell. I've never seen one of them done but I hear her victims don't have the need for a jock strap for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, I called up Natasha and gave a song and dance routine about how Billy was a serial abuser of women and was the perfect candidate for a sex change spell. She said she'd be interested in meeting Billy and would arrange to fly into town by commercial jet. She doesn't use a broom.

I then called Billy and we arranged an evening appointment (what else?) at his apartment. He was to forego shaving for a couple of days and dress in men's clothes and not wear any wig. I also coached him on how to act when he met Natasha. We might have pulled it off but things started to go wrong from the very start. The first thing Billy did when he answered the door was curtsey to me. He curtseyed! Did I have to tell him not to curtsey? Natasha was immediately suspicious.

"Okay, what's going on here?"

"What do you mean what's going on?"

"He curtseyed."

"He didn't curtsey."

"Yes, he did. Only women curtsey."

"I, uh bowed," Billy said quickly. "I'm just being courteous to one of royal blood."

"He's not of royal blood."

"Yes, he is," Billy replied as if it was common knowledge. "He's Count Boris, to be exact, from a long royal lineage in Eastern Europe."