Scooping out dead leaves and red solo cups from the pool at Dracula’s castle, he swings his hips knowing they’re thirsty, watching the sunlight making him sweat. Chunky headphones paired to the phone strapped to his speedo, he bops to hip hop and tries to pretend he’s alone.
Alone, he thinks about everything: unpaid student loans, all his unfinished paintings piled in the closet, stumbling into bed with his ex, the sting of hot pavement on his feet, spending a nice day at the beach and what that must feel like, that he needs to pick up cat litter from the store tonight, all those sweet and funny messages from that guy who ghosted him, what true love must feel like, if he’ll ever afford a home or grow a garden, so many nights binging Netflix while slurping reheated noodles.
He knows he’s only here because he’s young, lean, and blood type O-negative.
But still he wonders if he was always going to end up here. Or was it out of his own stubborn choices?
He smacks his net against the cement, crunching a plastic cup in half.
The squashed white rim inside the cup reminds him of Dracula’s lips.
On his first day on the job, Dracula had suddenly manifested out from the shadows in the corner of the pool shed.
You are a virgin? Dracula asked.
After thinking for a moment, he then tried to widen his eyes and pretend to be embarrassed. He put his hand to his mouth to cover a gasp, then stammered in reply, Y-yes.
That was the night he would later drunk text his ex who came over reeking of cologne, and they were too drunk for anything other than stale pizza and sloppy foreplay. They both fell asleep in front of the TV and later woke to the tinkle of canned sitcom laughter, feeling nauseous and ashamed.
Dracula had leaned further out of the shadows. Eyes like throbbing cinders, liver-spotted jowls jiggling closer.
He kept still and didn’t gag at the stench of Dracula’s breath, which smelled like rotten bananas souring in the sun.
Thought you were, Dracula said, too close. You’re ripe.
He backed away just a bit and squeezed every muscle on his face into what he hoped came across as a smile, coy and devilish.
That was also the first day Dracula tipped him hundreds of dollars, the first of many days Dracula name dropped celebrities and people with ancient and obscure titles, or slipped in suggestions of how much money he could make with Dracula, if he really wanted to.
After bagging the debris he shook out of the net, he kneels and swabs one last pH test strip across the water. He shakes it in the air to dry, then waits. As the white pads slowly bleed into different colors, he considers how far he’s willing to go.
The pool boy looks up to the stained-glass windows of the castle—
Too many eyes twinkling above broken smiles.
Seth Wade is a tech ethicist studying and teaching philosophy at Bowling Green State University. You can read his fiction and poetry in publications like Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Hunger Mountain Review, Apparition Literary Magazine, HAD, hex, The Cafe Irreal, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, BAM Quarterly, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, The Gateway Review, and now Lost Balloon. He is also a Pushcart Prize nominee. You can follow him on X: @SethWade4Real or Instagram: @chompchomp4u or Bluesky: @sethwade.bsky.social
Lost Balloon 