The Making of Ruby Red 2:

A Very Brief Conversation About Vampires and Mesmerism

A few years back, when I was reading the front matter on my copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the academic contributor mentioned Stoker’s interest in Mesmerism, and hypnosis. It is something that, obviously, shows up in the text itself, but for our interests it’s worth exploring why.

It helps to understand the short hand of Victorian England, that is was a time of sexual repression, or at least of performative virtue and chastity, which broadly carried over and communicated puritanical ideas about lust as a tool of the devil, and sexual relations out of wedlock, and without the purpose of procreation as distasteful to say the least.  

Basically, blah blah blah, The Devil is Horny, and The Devil is temptation.

Dracula is The Devil.

Okay, he’s not, but he embodies the psychosexual temptations of evil, and the way he compels these stuffy Victorians is by appealing to their baser selves by willing them into a pliable trance state, because hypnosis was in the public conscious.

Dracula’s power is more akin to Mesmerism, which is also the real origination of the term Animal Magnetism, and while Anton Mesmer had a system, there was also an idea of raw charisma that informed his studies, and what he advertised to the world. 

It’s really one of those things given away in the name, and helps us navigate what we’re talking about now. Animal, as in base, as in not dealing with upper brain function intelligence, something that appeals and compels the lower brain functions…

You know, like lust, which is evil, which is sexy.

So, back to Dracula, and more so, back to my idea for the story this piece accompanies.

Dracula leaves his mark on his victims, he sort of sex’s them up a little because he is diminishing them, making them less human, and less alive as he feeds, and the thought of that, because I just recently re-watched the super campy Dracula with Keanu in it, got me thinking about what it would be like to have something supernatural leave its mark on you.

What if, just from being drained by a vampire, you started to become like them? Not turned into one, as it works in some stories. Not drained, then fed like in the Ann Rice novels, but that the magic they exist in leaves a lingering effect on your for a while.

And.

And since Stoker made Vampires into sex (the Vampire Brides in Stoker’s book have a couple great scenes), what if they create a hunger for and allure over their victims, something that pulls other people into it?

This was also from those wackier ideas about Vampirism being a disease too, like what if their seductive glamour and sway was communicable?

So, Britney has her run in, and now she can’t seem to stop seducing and beguiling everyone she meets, and she can’t seem to get enough of them, and sex for her has become a nourishing, predatory thing, like a succubus. Furthermore, with everything that’s happened to her, who would she be able to talk to, who would she be able to approach in confidence that would understand her, or relate to the things that have happened to her.

She is, after all, only human, and having your blood drained by a sexy lesbian Vampire would create a lot of complicated feelings and emotions, especially because who would possibly believe you?

That’s how we get to Julia the counselor, Julia who was Britney’s sorority sister, because obviously Britney was in a sorority. And, since she’s a mental health professional, Julia would understand hypnosis, that could be an in for Britney, who might still be in denial about everything, even though she acts like she isn’t at all.

Plus, there’s something fun about someone who could have a perfectly rational explanation for something running into the unexplainable as the real and only reason for what has happened.