Traffic was my weakness. You’d think that being eighty-two years old and having been a taxi driver for the last decade that I’d be used to it, but no. Every time I got stuck in traffic I spent every last second re-evaluating my life choices. I’m eighty-two years old, in the body of my twenty-five year old self, and I’ve chosen to be a taxi driver of all things.

My mother always told me growing up that resisting temptation was important in developing strength and character. Of all the things I tossed aside when I began my life as a vampire, I couldn’t quite bring myself to get rid of that old saying of hers. And so I spend my days in trapped in tiny cars while humans pop in and out of my life constantly. It’s a little better now I’m an uber driver – I can pick my own hours, so I work a lot at night. Less daylight, less traffic, unfortunately more overwhelming stenches of garlic when you end up picking up the typical couple fresh off a date at the Italian place down the block. That’s all a myth by the way – the garlic thing, the silver bullet, wooden stake – whatever else you’ve heard, it’s probably fake. All just things made up to make humans feel more comfortable about the idea of vampires.

Anyway, for some reason I’d decided to head out for the afternoon rush hour shift, and the first guy I picked up wanted to go all the way across town. Of course. The guy in back had fallen asleep, thank the god I don’t believe in, so I turn on my own music and tune out the rest of the world. My auburn hair was pulled back in a French braid, my icy blue eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Most of the time I can fake my very pale complexion off as part of being a redhead – I just don’t have the freckles to play along with it for very long.

I finally pulled up at the hospital where the guy requested to be let out, and just as I go to pull back out into the traffic, another guy waved me down.

“Hey, are you an uber driver by any chance?” he asked. “Sure am,” I replied, looking him up and down. His scent was mouth-watering, and this might be the first time I’d been actually tempted in decades now. “I need a ride, if that’s okay. But here’s the thing, my mum just sent me this link to an article about the perils of fake uber drivers and she’s made me promise to check all their licences, do you mind?”

I laughed. A thirty-something year old man trying to appease his mother is one thing, but the idea of his mother being afraid of me – a slight, mid-20s (technically!) girl is humorous. I handed him my licence as he slides into the front seat next to me.

“Holiday Isobel Xander,” he mused. “Was your mum a big fan of Breakfast at Tiffanys?”

I get this all the time, you wouldn’t believe how often. The funny thing is, people have no idea. Nobody would believe me if I told them the truth – that I had a summer fling with Truman Capote back when I was 25, and he based Holly Golightly off little old me. I was his muse, as he often used to say that summer. That was right before I was turned into a vampire, so those memories have stuck with me a long time.

“Well now that you know my name, how about yours? Just for safety of course,” I jested, flashing him a grin and a cheeky wink.

I drove him back across the city to a flat in Brooklyn, and we talk the whole way. His name is William Rutherford Carter, but everybody calls him Will. He’s a neurosurgeon at the hospital where he’d just left after 48 hours of being the senior resident on call. I know I said I was all about temptation, but that’s when we’re talking about food, not sex. I knew by his smell he was all human, and whilst my last romantic encounters had all been with other supernatural beings, I had a feeling this human wouldn’t disappoint.

I flirted hard, my usually dormant hormones flying out of control, despite the vampire centre of my brain laughing pathetically at them. He invited me inside, of course, and we made it to second base on his couch before he sat back, panting, and told me I should go. I pouted, he pulled me closer, and we hit a home run. Many times over.

As much as I thought a one time romp would get him out of my system, Will stuck in my brain and my heart. He was a thoughtful kind of human, the romantic type – always sending flowers, buying me chocolates, and ordering pizza delivered to my address whenever he was on call during a date night of ours. He wore me down, over time, and finally I realized I had fallen head over heels for the man. There was just one thing left to do – reveal my biggest secret.

I sat him down one night, on the couch, and spilled it all out right in front of him. I told him the story of how I was turned, discussed the blood bank donations that kept my thirst at bay, and he joked about me being a vegetarian like in those Twilight books. I nearly broke it off right then and there. I couldn’t believe how easily he took it all in – but he did, and here we are three years later, still together.

As you might assume, being the only vampire in my family, I had no living relatives left. Will on the other hand, was the eldest of six siblings and had a huge extended family – all totally in love with my golden boy. I met his mother and she succumbed to my charms immediately – and within a few weeks, she was pestering us about engagement and wedding plans. One night, when we were cuddled up in bed together, Will pulled me close and we talked about marriage. It didn’t mean to me what it did to him – the till death do us part thing bothered me – because I knew it wouldn’t be my death ending the relationship. But nonetheless, I was unable to deny Will anything, and so when he dropped down on one knee the next morning at breakfast, I said yes.

We married at the courthouse – a tiny affair, but enough to satisfy Will’s family. We honeymoon in Australia, travelling the eastern coast, and I took every opportunity to show off my breath-holding skills as we snorkeled on the reefs.

The first three years of our marriage passed quickly and without incident. The only argument Will and I had were about whether or not I would change him. I argued that I didn’t want to end his life, and he countered with the argument that if I didn’t change him, his end would come a lot sooner otherwise. I had almost softened and was about to give up when I realized that I was pregnant. I didn’t know it could happen – it was practically unheard of within the vampire community, especially where females were concerned. Luckily everything stayed fairly straightforward and my pregnancy followed the pattern of a normal human gestation period.

We knew this was the start of everything strange though, and knew that we couldn’t hide our lives from Will’s family much longer. Much to their dismay, we packed up and moved to Australia before telling them I was pregnant. We settled down in the city of Brisbane, Queensland – in a little house in the outer suburbs.

Arabella Eve was born in the middle of the night on a Thursday in early Autumn. We had a planned home birth, attended by a midwife we contacted through the vampire community in Brisbane. Arabella was perfect – almost a mirror image of myself as a baby. Sustained by donor breastmilk for the first six months of her life – I couldn’t breastfeed, a vampire flaw – Arabella was happier when she could start on solid food. Her taste mirrored her daddy’s almost exactly, and we called her our little fruitbat after she ate through three punnets of blueberries in one day.

Will and I were thrilled and enamoured by our perfect little baby – and when she turned one, he once again suggested that I turn him. Just as before, nature had other plans, and I found out I was pregnant. He agreed to wait until after the baby was born before we discussed it again. Baby turned into babies – one boy and one girl – born under a full moon the next May. We named them Florence Emmeline and Theodore Lawrence. The day of their first birthday, I turned Will once and for all – and we were happily a family of five little vampires.

The kids aged on a normal human curve, but their intelligence was obvious to all who met them. Through our vampire contacts in Brisbane, we found a private tutor who agreed to take them on. He had one other student – an eleven year old boy named Gabriel Matteo, born in Italy and orphaned during the fire that roared through the only vampire settlement outside of Milan. The tutor had been travelling through Europe and stumbled across Gabriel as a toddler – taken him under his wing, and moved him to Australia. Gabriel grew to know our children, and acted as a surrogate big brother. When the tutor decided two years later to move back to Italy, Gabriel came to us, asking to stay. We took him in, and our family of five grew happily to six. Gabe was the perfect fit – although with his dark hair and eyes he looked nothing like our three red-headed babies, he did look scarily like a miniature version of Will.

Our lives continued as usual – and I’d never been happier in the first eighty-six years of my life as I have been in the past twenty. Our children are grown, and partnered themselves. All vampires with the exception of Gabe – our little dark-headed boy fell in love with a fairy. We move as a family, every decade or so, as people realize that our beauty never fades.