When I woke up, it felt like morning, even in the windowless bathroom. I was pretty sure I could smell coffee. I pulled myself up, and the world spun. I was miserable. The light made me feel hot and dizzy. My head hurt. I was nauseous and sluggish. I rinsed my face and mouth, but without a toothbrush and my face soap, there wasn’t much I could do. I folded the blanket and walked out into the living room to find Mike sitting on the bean bag chair next to his bong.

Mike was wearing a shirt stamped with dates like a library card. In the morning light, his white blond hair seemed to glow. He asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Like something that died,” I told him honestly and headed toward the coffee pot on the counter. There was an empty mug laid out next to a bagel and a bottle of ibuprofen. The bottle was unopened, and I had to pry off the foil seal to get the pills out.

In a teasing voice, he asked, “You look alive. Are you a vampire now?”

“Pretty sure vampires feel more alive than this. Maybe I’m a zombie?” I asked, and I got myself a cup of coffee. “Any milk or cream cheese?” I didn’t see a toaster, which was fine. I wasn’t going to look a gift centaur in the mouth.

He replied, “I don’t have any milk. I don’t take any in my coffee. There’s a little packet of cream cheese in the fridge.”

“Braaaaaains, braaaaaaains.” I gnashed my teeth at him a few times before getting out the cream cheese. I took the pills, the spread the cream cheese on the bagel, and sat down.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“I’m a knight without armor,” he said. “Really, I’m glad I was there. You can’t mess around with satyrs. You said you're a human, right?”

“I am. Can’t you tell?” I asked.

“Not really. That’s not something in my power. If you were something pretty obvious or using a weak glamor, I would be able to tell, but if you were, like a werewolf or a creature that's mostly human anyway, I would have no idea. We all get lumped together, but we don’t actually have much in common. Maybe I have some of the same lifestyle issues as a naga, but I have more in common with the average norm than I do with a kelpie.” He reached over for his bong, ashed it out in an upside down Frisbee, and refilled if with weed he kept in a sour cream container. I watched him take a massive hit and blow it into the air.

I said, with my mouth full of bagel, “None of you are the way I thought you would be even the satyr. He was a creep, but he also seemed sort of confused and bitter and out of step.”

“What did you think we would be like?”

It was a good question and one that made me think. I took my time answering him. “I thought you all would be more something. More together? More perfect? Less shallow. You’re all just people, with burps and baggage. There’s nothing terribly impressive about any of you on a personal level. No offense, but the more I know you guys, the more you seem as fucked up as everyone else.” I hoped I hadn’t offended him.

“You thought we would be perfect? No wonder you’re disappointed. I have wondered why a norm would sign up for Cinder to meet People. I guess that explains it. We’re just as fucked up as everyone else. Like, we’re magic, but we’re not that kind of magic,” he said with a shrug as if it should have been obvious.

I asked, “But, Xavious, that satyr guy, he’s been around for ages, right? How has he been around forever and still be a confused asshole?”

“He was probably always an asshole and a couple thousand years haven't improved him. You’re assuming we get better with age. Some do, but most can’t handle it. It’s hard to live a long time. It’s hard to be immortal. That’s why most things don’t survive. Sometimes the eternity itself kills them. Old Xavious is probably on his way out. Maybe he’ll adjust, and this is just a slow time, maybe he’ll go to sleep for a while, or maybe he’ll eat the wrong end of a gun while jumping off a bridge and setting himself on fire. It’s not that easy to kill yourself if you’re immortal, but it is possible.”

I wondered how old he was. He looked like he was in his twenties, but Xavious and the vampire looked young, too. Peter looked slightly older, but I didn’t know how long any of them lived. I wanted to ask him how old he was, but it seemed rude.

Instead, I asked, “Does it make it hard to date humans—I mean norms, what with our short little lives?”

He looked at me, and I couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“I don’t date humans. It’s not a good...” He paused shifting uncomfortably. “...a good pairing.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, and I frowned at him. Did he not like humans? He’d said he had a lot in common with them and been kind to me. He looked embarrassed and took another bong hit. I couldn’t figure out what I had said to upset him. I finished my coffee and bagel in awkward silence. I wanted to ask him for his phone number so I could send him a thank you for the pizza or send him over an eighth of pot or something, but after what he had just said I was worried he would take it the wrong way.

Instead, I said lamely, “Thanks for saving me and stuff.”

It seemed insufficient. I wanted to say so much more. I had no way out of that elevator, and I had been drunk and vulnerable. He hadn’t taken advantage of me and had been super respectful. He was a good man and decent human being or decent being or whatever he was.

“No worries, no worries. Anyone would have done the same thing,” Mike said, sounding embarrassed. He didn’t get up from his big bean bag chair thing.

“No, they wouldn’t have. You did, and I’m thankful. Can I make it up to you? Maybe, buy you a beer sometime?” I asked and then worried that sounded lame, too. Plus he had found me black out drunk and now I was inviting him out for a drink. He was going to think I was a total alcoholic.

“Maybe some time.” He smiled but didn’t give me his number. He got up from his bean bag couch thing, and I forgot whatever it was that I had been about to say. He was imposing and alien. It was like watching a moose drink from a stream in the woods. He was so wild and outside of my city girl experience that it was magical. Of course, he was a magical being, so that added to the element of wonder. I’d told him I had started looking to hook up with magic men to find people who were better than the norms. Mike had interpreted it to mean I was looking for someone perfect. I wasn’t. I was looking for a sense of wonder, that feeling of something special and unique. Standing there beside a being I had only read about in myths, I felt that way.

I followed Mike out the door and tried not to stare at his butt. Since he was a small horse, his butt was right below my eye level. I wondered why he didn’t wear giant horse pants, but even in my head, that sounded ridiculous. He wedged himself into the elevator, and we rode down together so he could key me out. At the door, I gave him an awkward hug that just reached around the part of him that became a horse, and my hands brushed his fur. Up close I could ever so faintly smell that wonderful horse smell along with a mix of pleasant man and weed. I left. When I looked back, he was getting on the elevator.

I went home and resolved to stop dating. Clearly, it was not working out for me, and I didn’t seem to be getting any better at it. For years, I had banged my head against a man who obviously didn’t love me, and now I was going on a series of dates with men that were equally unsuitable. For all Mike had said that he had plenty in common with norms like me, I wasn’t so sure.

Mike wasn't like me. He didn't look like me, and he didn't live in my world. We didn't even have a shared history. Many members of the magical community were out in early times, and depending on the country they lived in, some stayed out. In Europe most had gone into hiding until the Victorian age. After that, various beings and creatures came out as the world grew smaller and smaller and science explained away more and more of the mystery.

The miscegenation laws came about during the 30s and 50s, although there was always an intense social pressure against mixed marriage. Even after repealing the laws a decade ago, the social pressure against inter-dating remained. Despite being legal for all of my adult life, I didn't personally know anyone in a mixed relationship.

My track record dating human men was pitiful. Maybe I just need a random hook up. Doing something forbidden or at least daring felt right. I thought about this as I took two buses and a trolley home. It wasn’t an easy ride, but it went okay.

I had three calls waiting for me from Laila when I finally charged my phone up enough to turn it on. I sat against the wall in my apartment and called her back. I lived in a studio, although, there was a doorway to the kitchen making it technically a two roomed apartment, and my landlord charged accordingly. In the middle of the living room, I had my large bed, which was rarely made, covered in an assortment of sheets and blankets and pillows. On one wall there were two windows and between them, I had my bookshelf. The only other furniture was a small table with two chairs I kept in the small cramped area in front of the kitchen.

“Hey! Are you okay? I didn’t hear my phone in the club we went to after the bar and then by the time I called you your phone was off,” Laila said.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I tried to text you when I left the bar to meet back up, but this morning my phone died. How was the rest of the night?”

“All right. Did you know Lauren is screwing around with monsters?”

Lauren was a friend of Laila’s. We had hung out together some but didn’t work together.

“Um, what do you mean?” I asked, starting to worry about how this conversation was going to go.

“You know that app we downloaded on your phone a few weeks ago?”

“You mean Cinder?” I pulled my knees up to my chest. It wasn’t comfortable to sit on the floor, but my charger cord wouldn’t reach my bed.

Laila said, “Yeah, that one. Lauren downloaded it on her phone, and she’s been meeting monsters off of it? What is she thinking? That cannot be safe. She’s going to get raped. You don’t know how those guys are going to be. They aren’t like us.”

I said hopefully, “Maybe there are some nice guys on there?”

“What kind of nice guy would be meeting human women on a dating app? They wouldn’t be. They're just looking for snacks. If she's on there to find a relationship, that's even worse than if she's on there to just hook up.”

“Why is it worse?”

She replied, “Why worse? Because then she’s trying to date a monster! If she just wants to have weird sex, that's gross. But if she's on there trying to have a relationship? That's so wrong.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“So where did you go last night? Where did you know that guy from? He could have hung with us.”

I lied, not wanting to admit how I met Xavious. “Oh, I just know him from around. We met at the bar. I wasn’t expecting him to be there last night.”

“It’s cool you guys got to hook up, I guess, but you should have come to the club.” She spent the next twenty minutes recounting every detail of what had happened at the club and afterward while I looked at my laptop and tried to pay enough attention enough to agree with her when I needed to. The next time we worked together, she didn’t ask about Xavious at all.