The Gruesome TRUTH About
Vampire Bites

Hello. My name is Morgan and I'm a Goth chick. (grin)

I've been dressing up in the funky clothes and playing fortune-teller / tarot reader in the local and not-so local clubs when they throw their Gothic parties. Part of the Gothic 'dress-code' is vampire fangs.

I spent the money on a set of caps made from actual dental porcelain. They were crafted directly over my teeth so my caps are a perfect fit over top of my not-so-impressive canines. The gentleman who made them is a professional and makes them for movies. They were carefully shaped so that I can close my mouth fully and chew, to some limited extent.

Wearing them for 6 to eight hours straight has been a very interesting experience. Anyone interested in the actual logistics of humans with over-long canines should really try it.

First of all, they are pointed - which means that if you are not used to them you can (and I did) scrape the interior of your bottom lip when talking. Surprisingly, I never bit my tongue - though I did stab my bottom lip on more than one occasion.

You can smile and hugely, without showing fangs by keeping your jaw tightly clamped.

Speaking is an exercise in careful manipulation of the lips. You have to enunciate slowly or you slur your words. I was a fortune-teller in a noisy bar so toss in projection.

Drinking anything is better done with a straw. Drinking from the edge of a glass is a serious exercise in lip manipulation as the fangs block the glass from getting in your mouth, so you have to stretch the lip out to catch it.

Then comes eating. Chewing is a front to back motion as the fangs lock over your teeth when you clamp down - preventing Any side-to-side motion at all. Late-night breakfast is where I stabbed my bottom lip a lot.

If you ever want to see the type of bite fangs make, get an apple. Fangs in a human mouth create two long and ragged tears that start deep and become shallow as you close your jaw. A fanged humanoid bite on the throat will rip through the muscles as well as the arteries creating a very painful, very messy and very fatal wound.

The best place for a humanoid with fangs to draw blood with the least amount of damage is the wrist. The wrist has the thinnest skin and you can create two holes rather than two tears, however, the holes are not small or neat.

Think in terms of a pencil stab, since the base of the average fang is about that in diameter. On top of this, the lips have to close to prevent dribbling and maintain suction. This means that not only will you have two rather deep and messy holes when you are done, but a bruised imprint of the rest of the teeth as well. Think in terms of a rather nasty hicky and remember the entire mouth is engaged in suction.

No, I never drew blood from anyone's wrist, but an idiot acquaintance of mine who was very drunk was asked by an equally drunk female acquaintance to bite her. His fangs were not nearly as sharp or as long as mine, and he punctured her wrist very easily. He told me that it felt like a pop. Interestingly enough, he said that his mouth did not fill with blood, as the fangs plugged the holes.

As far as I know, he didn't actually draw or drink any of her blood but he was afraid to let go and have her bleed everywhere, hence the hickey-like bruising. We've all seen what kind of bruise a syringe drawing blood makes - and it's a tiny needle! If he had drawn on the wound at all, you can pretty much guess that it would have bruised her whole forearm.

The girl showed up the following weekend with her wrist still sporting two holes and bruised from the imprint of his mouth bragging about her Real Vampire Bite. However, as far as I know, she never let anyone bite her again, so perhaps she learned something.

So - the next time you want to write about what the bite of a fanged human looks like, whether it's for a vampire, a werewolf or anything else, keep in mind that apple.

 

Copyright (C) Morgan Hawke 2003
All Rights Reserved - All Wrongs Revenged.