She woke to the scratchy white noise of a laboring air conditioner. It was too chilly in the room, and she had pulled the coarse white sheets and orange chenille bedspread up around her chin trying to get warm. She was disoriented at first, gazing blankly around the big impersonal room, dimly lighted by sun leaking between the closed slats of the venetian blinds. Then she saw the other bed, a twin to hers, but still perfectly made up. Interview with the Vampire was lying open on the other bed, just where she had left it before turning off the light and going to sleep. So her son David hadn't come back at all last night. She had stayed up waiting and reading until 2 o'clock; there was so much she had wanted to talk about. But his bed was untouched. What bed was he sleeping in, and with whom? A small prickle of alarm—or was it jealousy?—coursed up through her body and ended with a faint sour taste that she tried to swallow away.

           Shivering in her thin white T-shirt, she ran barefoot across the rough carpet to turn off the air conditioner and open the blinds. The dim ugliness of the motel room was blasted by intense sunlight, causing her to squint and take a small step backward. When her eyes adjusted, she peered out into a foreign world. It was almost all green, a different kind of Emerald City where grandly old-fashioned and elaborate buildings were slowly being engulfed and digested by the relentless vegetation. "But that's a house plant!" she had said wonderingly to David yesterday afternoon. They were looking out this same window, across the street at the Hemingway House, which apparently was being devoured by layers of trailing vines. The vines were the same yellow and green Devil's ivy that she grew in a sedate 8-inch pot at home in California. David too had joked about their luxuriant surroundings and the ugly motel yesterday afternoon. "We're staying in the neighborhood eyesore, the Conch Motel, but we get to look out at the landmarks and the cute Victorian bed-and-breakfasts Be glad we're not staying in a $200 historical site and have to look at the Conch motel."

           They had landed in Key West and checked in at the motel yesterday morning, and then gone out to breakfast at a place her guidebook recommended. It was packed with tourists and yet charming in a slightly calculated, seedy-tropical sort of way. They sat outside in a small yard shaded by huge old ficus trees. The ground was covered in wood chips, and nonchalant chickens searched around the chair legs and sometimes pecked at a brightly painted toenail or a discarded paper napkin. The tables and chairs were enameled in bright unmatched crayon colors, and the waiters and waitresses were uniformly young, gorgeous, and full of enthusiasm for the menu, local sights, or anything else you might be tempted to ask about. They looked like aspiring Hollywood celebrities. Their waiter, in particular, was a David Bowie look-alike, with the same steely blue eyes, the same slightly waved and carefully highlighted hair. He was tall and slim, and wore hiking boots and ostentatiously tight corduroy shorts that showed off his beautiful tan legs with their thin, curly golden hair.

           Any man who takes such pains with his appearance must be gay, she thought morosely, and then shifted her gaze to her son, comparing the two. David was the same height but much narrower, not quite his full size yet. And he wore a baggy navy T-shirt and loose wrinkled brown shorts. He had the blue eyes and the wavy blond hair, but it was pulled back into a scraggly ponytail. She found his scruffy appearance reassuring; he was not a sexual being yet. It was not too late to have their talk.

           But maybe this waiter was straight, an aspiring Hollywood star, or a porn star, or maybe a gigolo she thought, with an inner smile that just barely reached her lips. I wonder how you ask about that? "What would you recommend for breakfast?" she asked him in a tiny, quavering voice.

           He described every dish on the menu in enthusiastic detail, and ended by confiding that the banana pancakes were his personal favorite. He had a deep, lazy voice. She was nearly speechless. She kept thinking that "banana" or "banana pancakes" was some sort of slang or a coded symbol for what he was offering to do. She even wondered if he had winked slightly while saying it. Dammit, how can I be so naive? Is he really trying to tell me anything?

           Meanwhile, David was asking him about conch —what is it, do they serve it for breakfast, etc. The waiter —Vic was his name—was really warming up to his subject; he sounded like a guidebook on the Comprehensive History of Conch. And David was clearly enjoying this strange performance; he rolled his eyes, made faces, and laughed encouragingly. She tried to interrupt, asking for "coffee right away", but the two of them barely acknowledged her.

           "What a crazy guy!" chuckled David, after Vic had finally gone to serve another table. "A real local character!"

           "Do you think he's gay?" she asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from the waiter and back toward her real area of concern.

           David pondered. "I don't know … I think he's manic; I think he's probably pansexual." He smiled at his own overstatement and began nicking bread crumbs to the ground, with his eye on the nearest chicken. The chickens didn't notice, but he attracted a large flock of sparrows.

           "Well, he's in the right town, it's very open here. Did you see the sign that said, `Come in and meet hot, sticky men'?" Oh damn, she thought, why do I have to do this? Why can't his father take a little responsibility? She was so afraid he would grow up like his father, who of course never could take a little responsibility. His father was bright, charming good looking, and hadn't done a thing with his life because he was utterly at the mercy of his hormones. Way past adolescence now, and yet he had been helplessly tossed about in a tidal wave (or was it a cesspool?) of androgens for most of his adult life. It seemed he would give up any other accomplishment for a half-hour of passion. She didn't want that for David. She hoped to warn him, hoped she had set a living example of a reasonable compromise between total capitulation to your sex organs versus having some stability in your life.

           Vic was back with their breakfast before she could wade into this viscous subject, however; banana pancakes for her, fried eggs and conch fritters for David, and a sweating glass pitcher of fresh orange juice, locally grown as Vic told them. The weather was mild and sunny, the food delicious, and Vic's behind in the tight blue cords fascinating. All these things, plus a chicken pecking at her ankle bracelet, conspired to erase from her mind the weighty thoughts about David's future sex life. Before she knew it, he and Vic were talking about the local night scene, and Vic had offered to show David his favorite dance club. Of course she was welcome to come along, added Vic politely; but it was the first time he had spoken without his customary manic flurry of enthusiasm.

           Of course she had not gone. On her own, not needing to continue being a good example, she had briefly considered going to check out the `hot, sticky men' place—after all, they would be gay, so it wasn't actually as if she would be doing anything, just talking or maybe dancing a little. But she knew herself better than that, and so she elected to stay behind and just read the vampire novel she had started on the plane.

           And now it was morning, almost 10 o'clock, and David wasn't back. "Tina, you are a mess!" she whispered into the bathroom mirror. Without her contacts all she could see was long bushy brown hair, a pink blur of sunburned face, and a smear of white T-shirt. But she had meant a mental mess; physically she thought she still looked pretty good for someone teetering on the brink of middle age. "You may have lost David," she whispered, trembling a little in the antiseptic chill of the bathroom. She had broached the subject to him yesterday afternoon, about the mistakes both she and his father had made in their early years, and his father was still making. About the fact that he had probably inherited an unusually strong sex drive, and he must be alert not to let it take over his life, at least not in a destructive way.

           They had been on a boat when she said this, sailing back from an afternoon of snorkeling in fine clear water where the reef was scarcely ten feet below the surface. They had photographed the multicolored fish, especially the big iridescent parrot fish that lived here in such flamboyant abundance. They had tried to attract more with bits of their ham sandwiches, but the fish weren't interested. David had even followed what he thought to be a barracuda; they would know when the pictures were developed. The afternoon had been almost effortless; it was like floating in a large warm bathtub while you watched the fish swim by. But now they were flopped on the deck of the sailboat, as if after a hard day's work, lazily drinking beer and reapplying sunscreen. When she judged the other passengers were temporarily out of earshot, she moved over close to David and started to talk.

           He heard her out without much change of expression. But when she was finished he looked cornered, as if he would like to snatch up his nippers, jump off the boat, swim back to shore, and then run like crazy. He was silent for a long minute, eyes darting about to locate any possible escape. He knows exactly what I'm talking about, she thought. It may be too late, because he's already experienced it.

           Then he recovered somewhat and did what he has always tried to do since age 3 or 4; dazzle her with words. "Mommy, this is a bit of a shock, but I'm grateful you brought the subject up. It has been on my mind, but not quite as clearly as the way you put it. I'm almost at a loss for words … (my dear little liar, she thought) … It is obviously such an important subject that we should really take the time to go over it in great detail. I'm so glad you want to discuss it, because it's so difficult to get a grasp on these very personal issues … Etc., etc., etc."

           Wave your arms, talk fast, use big words, and maybe they will be so smitten that they won't notice that you didn't really say anything yet, my cute darling David, she thought fondly.

           But to his credit, he would always think about what she said, and he would come back with an honest, thoughtful answer in a day or two. So she had ignored his filibustering on the boat; she would wait until he was ready to really talk. But he hadn't come back last night, and he hadn't called to say where he was. Was that his answer? Was he telling her, this is who I am going to be, my father's son, and neither your warnings nor my good intentions can prevent it? It's too strong for me to fight it? Might as well get started?

           "I've got to talk to him," she mumbled into the mirror, munching the toothbrush as she groped for a lipstick with the other hand. In minutes she was out the door, having simply added shorts and rubber flip flops to the night's T-shirt. She had no idea where to find Vic; she didn't even know his last name, and couldn't remember the name of the club where they had gone. So she drove back to the restaurant and parked across the street, gazing at the pink stucco building with its blue shutters and tangle of vegetation. It was shadowed by ficus and tall palms, and slowly being swallowed by the rampant vines. She sighed, squared her shoulders, and opened the car door, wondering if she could put any kind of legal pressure on Vic. David was, after all, still a minor. But David himself was the problem, not Vic. They could fly home to California, but it wouldn't take long before he found another Vic there.

           She surveyed the warm shady dining room with its big lazy overhead fans; it was crowded as usual. Tourists were sitting lined up at the coffee bar, waiting to get tables. But no sign of either Vic or David. Then she walked out to the garden, still glistening from the previous night's rain. Shafts of sunlight cut through the trees, and steam was rising from the wood chips wherever the sun touched them. She wound her way through the tables and out to the grassy alley in back, where the stucco restroom was carefully painted to resemble a wooden outhouse. Still no sign of David or Vic. Feeling suddenly tired and heavy, she plodded back inside and flopped down at the coffee bar, where she ordered the local diet-buster special, Cuban coffee. The waitress did know Vic, and she thought he was due in at eleven today. She had no idea where he liked to go dancing.

           Tina sat musing cup in hand. David might have an answer for her today. Or maybe his behavior last night was his answer. The way he admired Vic made her wonder if he were gay. When he was a little boy he used to love wearing women's jewelry; he would even bring it to school, carefully hidden in the pocket of his jeans. But she had appreciated watching Vic too, hadn't she? She would find out if there were a teen chapter of Sex and Love Addicts for David. She would even be willing to pay for therapy if he wanted to try it.

           By this time her bladder was beckoning her back to the little painted outhouse behind the dining room. It was five minutes until eleven, if the Coca Cola clock in the dining room was accurate. She got up and went quickly out the back door, her thongs squishing in the long wet grass, perspiration starting to bead on her face. There were two men outside the restroom door; she would have to wait. But one of them was holding the smaller one by both shoulders, and bending to kiss him on the neck.

           "David!" she shrieked with a sudden shock of recognition, and began to run toward them. The larger man turned to look at her; she saw steely blue eyes and then the twin rivulets of blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. "Oh my God," she squawked and reached in her purse for the bright yellow canister of Mace. "Step back, get away from him," she ordered loudly, holding the Mace up before her like a crucifix. "Help, someone call 911," she yelled as an afterthought.

           Vic laughed nastily, a thin film of blood foaming his perfect white teeth, their even line broken by two long, delicately curved fangs that glistened already in the morning sunlight. "Think you can hurt me with that little spray can? Better back off, Momma, before I take a taste of you too." And he turned his attention dismissively back to the neck that bore two puncture wounds oozing David's thick bright red blood.

           "You're a crazy man! There are no vampires!" she yelled impotently to his broad back. "And besides, vampires can't be out in the daylight!" "Mommy, just let him do it. I want him to," said David weakly, ending with a little cough. "No, he'll do it over my dead body! … But why, why would you want him to?" Vic stopped sucking and looked at David; apparently he was curious too.

           "Mommy, you were right about the sex drive I inherited. I've been pretty much out of control since my last birthday. But if I let Vic make me a vampire, then I'll never need sex again …"

           "No," she started to protest, but her cry was cut off by the wail of police sirens very close to the restaurant. Vic lunged at David and David stepped back, but he looked weak, confused, and undecided. She sprayed them both with the Mace, and Vic bumped blindly into her, groping for David.

           But it wasn't Vic, it was David gently shaking her by the elbow and saying "Mommy, time to wake up. Come on, get up, I got you some Cuban coffee." And it wasn't police sirens, it was the annoying shrill of her travel alarm clock. The big, impersonal room was dimly lit by sun leaking between the closed slats of the venetian blinds. And she could see that the other bed had been slept in; Interview with the Vampire was tossed casually on the floor, her place lost. Shivering in her thin white T-shirt, she ran barefoot across the rough carpet to turn off the air conditioner and open the blinds.