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The camera pans over a dated brick building with large windows. There is a small waiting room inside filled with LED candles and a misting air freshener that occasionally pulses out the scent of an ocean breeze. Nandor sits on one of the soft waiting chairs, his chin in his hand, while Guillermo futzes with the tea machine.
“I think this is going to be good for us,” he says.
The camera catches Nandor’s eye roll, but Guillermo turns too slowly to see it. Nandor smile-grimaces up at him. “I would feel a lot more comfortable with a vampire therapist.” He pronounces each syllable of “therapist” with careful precision (thee-rah-pist) as if the word is slightly distasteful.
Guillermo moves to sit one chair over from Nandor and plays with the string of his tea. “We agreed that a vampire therapist would be unfairly biased against me because of my, well…”
“The murdering.”
“Shh, we can’t talk about that here.” He looks around the room like there might be microphones—or at least, more microphones than the ones the camera crew carried in. All that’s visible is the small speaker in the corner pumping out soothing ocean sounds.
“This is why I wanted a vampire therapist. We cannot talk about the murdering, we cannot talk about the bleeding and feeding, we cannot talk about Laszlo and Nadja and Colin Robinson. What can we talk about?”
“We can talk about them. We just have to be careful about how we say things.”
Nandor sighs and flops back into the chair, his knees poking out and invading Guillermo’s space even though he really is quite far away. “We could have at least gone to the witches.”
“Oh, no. I’m not going back there. Half our problems started with them!”
“’Half our problems,’” Nandor says mockingly. “What problems? Things are good. They are great. You were my familiar and now you’re my body guard and I am fully adjusted to this and not worried at all! Nor am I freaked out or upset!” He had risen and was now pacing the room. “We have no problems! Things are fine and great and fine!”
Guillermo glances at the camera and Nandor hisses.
“This again? Always with the looking at the camera, sharing your little human secrets. There should be no secrets!”
“This is why we need therapy!”
“You need therapy! I am perfect!”
At this moment the door opens and a small, older woman with glasses hanging down her shirt on a gold chain steps in. She doesn’t seem perturbed by the shouting. “Mr. de la Cruz? Mr. Nandor? I’m Dr. Horney. So nice to finally meet you both. I’m ready to—” She stops suddenly as she locks eyes with the cameras crowded into the small waiting room.
Nandor has clammed up and is brooding in the corner, leaving Guillermo to acknowledge her. He stands and spills some tea on his hand, wipes it on his corduroy pants before offering to shake. “Um, yes, that’s us.”
She takes his hand, still looking at the camera crew. “Uh, I really wasn’t expecting cameras.”
“Oh, them?” he laughs awkwardly. “I sort of, um, forgot they were there. That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”
“Are these…people part of the relationship you’re here to discuss?”
Guillermo looks at the camera, then at Nandor in the corner, the finally back to Dr. Horney. “…No?”
“Then, yes, it would be a problem. It’s a breach of confidentiality if nothing else.”
“Whatever,” Nandor says. He pushes past the cameras and into Dr. Horney’s office, his cape billowing dramatically behind him. “They can wait out here. Guillermo! Let’s go!”
“Coming, Ma—uh, coming.” He smiles apologetically at the nearest camera and slips after Nandor.
Dr. Horney gives them all one last strange look before tightly closing the door, leaving the crew in the waiting room.
--
At the vampire mansion Nadja and Laszlo sit side-by-side in their room, their coffins standing proudly behind them. They are both wearing the same shade of poisonous green; Nadja on her dress and Laszlo on his waistcoat. As he moves his hands the ruffles of his sleeves flap around.
“Frankly, I think it’s about time those two got some professional help.”
“It’s dangerous,” Nadja says flatly. “Having someone go in and root about in your head, root, root, root.” She demonstrates by twisting her hand at about eye-level, like she’s scooping out some eyeballs. “I mean, really. Only an idiot would go to someone who specializes in shrinking heads!”
Laszlo scoffs. “It’s not that kind of head shrinking. This is science.”
“Ugh.”
He leans towards the camera as if delivering important, conspiratorial information. “It’s really quite ingenious this new technology. They don’t even need to look inside your head anymore! Which, really, is quite good for the humans. Less decapitation. They just slap on a few wires and give a nice jolt and wham, bam, thank you Pam, you’re cured.” He leans back, chuckling to himself.
“It’s dangerous,” Nadja insists. “We should all just count ourselves lucky that we don’t need ‘the-rapy.’”
They sit in silence for a long time. A strange look passes over Laszlo’s face and he seems about to speak but thinks better of it. Quietly, a camera operator coughs.
--
Outside the brick building that houses Dr. Horney’s office the camera crew skulks through the bushes. They locate the window to her office and swing the camera to capture the scene inside through the leaves of a potted, artificial plant. Nandor and Guillermo are sitting on a couch, Nandor on the far left-hand side and Guillermo offset from the middle, as if he sat down first and expected Nandor to sit near him, but Nandor didn’t. Dr. Horney sits across from them with her back to the window, and is apparently talking. A terrible scraping noise emanates as the crew shoves a small clip-on microphone under the partially open window, and they gain sound.
“—which concludes the paperwork portion. Do either of you have any questions for me?”
Nandor is staring at the far wall with a look of deep discomfort. Guillermo answers for them. “That was all very clear, thank you.”
“Wonderful,” she says, her tone of voice giving nothing away. She flips over the papers on her clipboard to a blank sheet and writes at the top the date and time. “Now, I’d like to get started with a little background. People choose relationship therapy for many reasons. What brings you both here to me at this time?”
Nandor gestures broadly before Guillermo can speak. “He is not happy. We come here and speak of our troubles to you so that you might make him happy again.”
Guillermo’s smile freezes coldly on his face. “That’s part of the problem. The bigger part is everything that makes me unhappy.”
Nandor mutters something.
“What was that?” Guillermo asks tersely, although he clearly heard.
“I said, you make everyone unhappy! Sad Guillermo constantly moping around the house, bringing us all down with your sadness. Yeesh, it is like a graveyard without all the fun bits.”
“Well maybe if I got a little more appreciation I wouldn’t have to mope around the house.”
“Appreciation for what?”
“For everything! I do everything for the house! I pay the taxes and sweep the floors and clean the bod—the-the-the boudoir and scrub the windows and get you every single meal! I’m the one who brushes your hair and tucks you in at night and holds your hand to get out of, uh, bed in the evening. And what thanks do I get?”
“I have given you your days off!”
Dr. Horney has been hastily scribbling notes, but she pauses here. “Days off?” she inquires mildly.
“Yes!” Nandor shouts. “One every week! An absurd concession I should have never made.”
She nods. “I’m hearing a lot of tension right now. I’d like us to all take a deep breath and a step back for a moment. Why don’t we start with each of you trying to describe your relationship with the other in a few words?”
Nandor instantly says: “He is my body guard.”
She writes “body guard” on her clipboard with a little question mark beside it, clearly unsure what she is supposed to make of this information. “And you, Mr. de la Cruz?”
Guillermo is visibly struggling with the question. “Well, he’s, he’s um, we’re. I’m not really sure how to say it in a way that you’ll understand.”
“I’ve heard it all, Mr. de la Cruz. I can safely say that nothing you say will surprise me.”
He looks extremely doubtful of that. “I guess it’s kind of like an unpaid internship?”
Nandor hisses. “I would not stoop so low as to engage in the parasitic practice of acquiring an unpaid intern.”
“Well, how else would you describe it? I certainly don’t get paid to maintain your house for you and, oh yeah, save your life all the time.”
“It was one time.”
“It was many times! Dozens of times!”
Dr. Horney adds a little check mark beside “body guard” and says, “Let’s not worry about the specific implications of the word ‘intern’ for right now and focus on what we can agree on. Mr. de la Cruz, would you also consider yourself Mr. Nandor’s body guard?”
“Yes, although he doesn’t always treat me like it.”
“What? You do not like your gloves? I thought they were very fetching, very scary.”
“I bought those gloves!”
“Yes, but I gave you the idea. Remember? When I said, ‘ew, Guillermo, you are tracking your gross blood all over everything you touch. Look at this, Guillermo, you have gotten your bloody fingerprints on my best cape, the one that I wear to important events, now go wash it.’ And you said, very quietly so that you thought I didn’t hear but I did! You said, ‘Ugh, I should just get some gloves.’” Nandor’s impression of Guillermo’s voice is, as with most things he does, atrocious.
Dr. Horney writes “blood” in her notes and circles it.
“That’s not the—ugh.” Guillermo pinches his nose just under the bridge of his glasses. “That’s exactly what I mean! You’re always doing stuff like that.”
“Like what?” Nandor looks honestly confused, and Dr. Horney seems to pick up on it.
“Let’s try an exercise,” she suggests. “Where we use ‘I’ statements rather than ‘you’ statements. When we’re thinking about something that upsets us, we’ll try to say, ‘I was upset when this happened.’ Does that sound okay?”
Nandor grimaces.
Guillermo nods eagerly. “What I’m trying to say is that I feel frustrated when you go back to treating me like a-a familiar.”
Dr. Horney crosses out “intern” on her sheet, writes “familiar,” and underlines it twice.
“Why are you upset? Familiar is a noble profession,” Nandor says. When Dr. Horeny politely clears her throat, he amends. “Aaaaah, I mean… I am… confused about your reaction to being treated like a familiar. You were a wonderful familiar for five years—”
“Eleven. Eleven years.”
“For eleven years and I though you did a great job.” He gives Guillermo an awkward thumbs up. “I could not have been more proud of you.”
For an instant Guillermo looks like he might cry. He looks away from Nandor and clears his throat several times. “I’m surprised you would say that.”
“That is good. It is not good for a familiar to know they are doing a good job. They have to be kept on their toes.”
“Okay, see? This is just more of the—” He locks eyes with Dr. Horney, pauses, takes a deep breath and says, “When you say things like that all I hear is that I was being intentionally misled and toyed with. I hear that you really didn’t appreciate me, because if you had you would have said something sooner.”
“Did you not like the flying? And the beating off pillow?”
Dr. Horney writes that down.
“That’s all fine, but those things are so few and far between… Master, I never felt like you really cared for me.”
They paused, eyes locked across the couch. Dr. Horney is silent, giving them their moment while she writes “Master” on her notes. Nandor seems frozen as he stares into Guillermo’s large, liquid eyes.
“Oh,” Nandor says after about a minute of this. “Well. I do. I guess.”
“You guess?” Guillermo screeches.
“What do you want me to say?” Nandor is suddenly standing and he screeches back, his teeth showing and making Dr. Horney jump in surprise. He is backing up as he speaks, like a retreating animal. “Some soft little human declaration? Something sweet for you to carry back to the closet under the stairs?”
“That’s where he makes me sleep,” Guillermo says to Dr. Horney.
“Uh, what?” She seems shaken by Nandor’s display.
“Yeah. Under the stairs. I don’t even have a door. People can come in and out all the time. And they do. A hundred times a day it’s, ‘Gizmo do this,’ ‘Gizmo do that,’ ‘Guillermo there is no one to steam press my capes,’ ‘Guillermo where are the virgins?’ Well, I’m tired of it!”
He stands as well, and despite being a foot shorter than Nandor and halfway across the room, Nandor presses himself against the wall.
“I’m tired of you bossing me around!”
“I am the boss!” Nandor says, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “The Master is me!”
“Alright,” Dr. Horney says sharply. “Let’s all of us calm down. Mr. de la Cruz, please sit down. Mr. Nandor, you’re scratching the wall.”
Indeed, there are now large gashes in the wallpaper from his claws. With a hint of embarrassment, Nandor pulls himself away. He picks blue paisley wallpaper from his nails and sits down on the end of the couch. After a moment Guillermo sits as well on the far end, more distance between them than ever.
Dr. Horney waits for everyone’s breathing to calm. She consults her notes, which are completely insane, and then looks up at her clients again.
“I’d like to return to a thread that is very concerning for me,” she says. “Mr. Nandor, do you feel safe in this relationship?”
Suddenly, the tension goes out of Nandor’s shoulders and he pitches forward to hug his knees. “How could I possibly feel safe?”
Guillermo gapes at Nandor, then at Dr. Horney, then at the camera crew out the window, then back to Nandor. “Does he—do you—you’re asking if he—if he feels safe? He? Master? Nandor? If he feels safe? That’s what you’re asking me, him, right now? If he feels safe? Him?”
She holds up a hand and he clams up instantly. He looks to Nandor for guidance.
After a moment of silence, Nandor casts his gaze from the carpeted floor to the eight long scratches on the wall. “He is a killer.”
“I’m a—”
Dr. Horney raises her other hand. Guillermo falls silent.
Nandor takes a shaky breath. “I had suspected it for a long time before I found you with Carol. I came up with excuses. I thought, oh, maybe Guillermo has a little girlfriend and that is why he is always sneaking around and not dusting properly and going without sleep. This was very annoying for me but you had done your duty for a long time and I thought a little dalliance would not harm anything. But then came all the holes in the garden, all that fresh soil overturned, and I knew there was a concern.”
“Uh, Nandor,” Guillermo says, looking at Dr. Horney. With the way she’s facing, the camera can’t see the look on her face, but she’s stopped writing and is listening very intently.
“And sure! Some of those were the bodies I made, and it is really very nice of you to keep burying them. But I started to have my suspicious, yes, I did. And then when you turned Carol into a very stinky pile of dust and threatened to do the same to me, I was quite frightened, yes.”
“When did I threaten you?” Guillermo laughs, concern written plain on his features.
“You did! With your two little sticks poking me. It was really very rude and uncalled for.”
“Is that what you thought? Master, I would never threaten you, I—”
Nandor continues as if Guillermo has not spoken. “I tried very hard to come to terms with this. My own familiar, a vampire slayer?”
“Uh, Nandor—”
“But really I was just disappointed you did not tell me sooner! We could have avoided that whole massacre at the theater, and that whole month where we kept you in the basement prison and how Nadja and Laszlo wanted to kill you, which I could not abide!”
“I know,” Guillermo says. He seems to give up on making Nandor stop talking and turns away from Dr. Horney to face him. “Nandor, I know.”
“How could you know? You have never been in my boots. The relationship of a vampire to his familiar is like no other. And then you could no longer be my familiar, because you would not be safe.”
“I became your body guard to protect you.”
Nandor waves his hand dismissively. “I made you my bodyguard to protect you. Duh. This is very obvious. But now you are a big, brave, strong hunter who is always taking breaks and sassing us. So of course I am afraid of you!”
Guillermo looks contemplative for a moment. He scooches a little closer to Nandor on the couch. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Well, yes, I am very enigmatic.”
“Sure you are, Master. I wish you had just told me.”
“I do not wish for you to have to maintain such serious thoughts.”
“You can’t stop me from having to deal with difficult things,” he says. “And I…like dealing with difficult things. When it’s for you.”
“Truly?” Nandor looks at him, a small grimace of a smile playing at his lips.
“Of course.”
The gaze at each other for a long time. Nandor moves a bit closer to Guillermo, almost within touching distance, and then the moment is suddenly broken as Dr. Horney drops her pencil in shock.
“Oh, right, shit,” Nandor says. He waves his hand. “You will forget everything we have told you and, uh, you will think that we already paid.” He looks to Guillermo for approval.
“That’s fine,” he says. “Honestly I was worried you were going to try to kill her instead.”
“Excuse me?” Dr. Horney asks.
“Shit,” says Nandor. He starts waving his hand again.