First published by Uncanny A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy in May 2017.
Finley has just been bitten by a vampire. Now he has to deal with becoming a vampire himself, and an unregistered one at that. He certainly didn’t ask to be turned, and most definitely never filled out the proper paperwork. Plus he never would have received permission as he has taken steps to “medically transition”. He is a trans man, and whatever about doctors not knowing or caring enough about that, they certainly aren’t knowledgeable when you throw in the vampire-ness too.
This is a well written story, using that well-worn story of becoming a vampire as a comparison of what a trans person might go through. And writing that I’m left feeling strange that a fictional story of changing into a mythical creature might be something people would empathise with more than any sort of body dysphoria.
There is some explicit sex in it, so if that’s something you enjoy you’ll find it here, but it is fairly important to the story/characters development so it never feels as though the author just threw it in to be shocking. And it isn’t porn in that there is much more of a story to this than just sex.
So overall a good short story, although as is often the case in novellettes/short stories etc I’m left wanting to know more about the world and the characters.
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