Becoming Lucy

A lot of people I know these days have what you call "scene names." If you go through my phone, it's really obvious who I know from kinky stuff, because I only know their nickname or don't know their last name. It reminds me of a scene in Live Nude Girls Unite (which is a fascinating movie, btw) where Julia Query talks about running into a bunch of her peep show coworkers with her mom and only knowing their stage names.

Personally, I never feel like coming up with fake names for anything. My real name, the name my parents and grandparents call me, is unique and unlikely enough that most people assume it's not my real name, anyway. But that's way too easily tied back to, well, real life.

So Lucy...

I was really into vampires when I was a kid. I think it started off as a power thing--I was a pretty miserable kid, at a snobby private school where most of the girls had more money and different interests. I was an outcast. For some reason, my version of the "turns out I'm really the long-lost child of millionaires who will reclaim me and take me away from all of this" or "I'm secretly a princess" fantasy was the idea that some epically handsome, ;powerful vampire dude would see how special I was and turn me into a vampire and take me away from all of this.

It gradually turned into a sex thing. The movie version of Interview With the Vampire was released on video right around the time I had my first inklings of sexual feelings. And then I read Dracula. And while I didn't realize it at the time, there are now passages in Stoker's novel that I can point to and say "That's it. That's what turns me on."

The embodiment of what I wanted to be then was Lucy Westenra. Now if you've seen film versions of Dracula but not read the book, you don't know Lucy. Lucy is not the saucy bad girl that she somehow got turned into in film adaptations--Lucy is all sweetness and light. Lucy is adored by those around her, she's sweet and rich and a little frivolous. And, most importantly for me as a teenager, Lucy is the one female character in the book that we actually see transition from human to vampire. And I wanted (desperately wanted) Dracula to choose me--and so I wanted to be Lucy.

It makes even more sense considering my life now that Lucy represents me. Lucy starts out, like I said, as a perfect and lovely good girl. So sweet and sunshiney is our Lucy that three men propose to her in one day! But Lucy, being a sweet, pure Victorian girl, has absolutely no knowledge of sex or sexual power. She only gains these things through her interaction with Dracula. Dracula drinks Lucy's blood (which, as everyone knows, is a stand-in for sex in an era where sex was incredibly taboo) and Lucy gains knowledge and control of sex. She starts demanding "kisses" from her suitors, and eventually becomes a sexually powerful vampire herself.

While I realize that to Victorian readers this is all supposed to be A Very Bad Thing, I think it's a pretty apt metaphor for my own self-discovery these days. I used to be prim and proper enough to give pre-vampirism Lucy a run for her money. I was so hung up on the idea of sex that I didn't have any for six years. But these days, thanks to the deliciously dark influence of...well...lots of people, I'm taking control of my sexual side.

Lucy Weston is what they changed Lucy Westenra's name to in the 1931 film version of Dracula, which is boring and painful to watch unless (like me) your first crush was on Bela Lugosi. It also holds onto the Dracula reference while still being generic enough that it's not immediately, irrevocably tied to the novel. And the Jane? That was just my own whim, 'cause I think it sounds nice.