I never thought I’d date a monster. But monsters aren’t bad like everyone makes them out to be. They’re more beasts, really. There are a lot of myths. Ambrose had a bad temper, yeah, but he never took it out on me. And he worked really hard as a personal trainer, urging people to reach their full potential. He couldn’t work for a gym because sometimes people were wary of him, so he was an independent. He did all his own marketing and found his own clients. I went vegetarian, started working out, and started delving into meditation and stuff too. I was getting all self-actualized. I mean Ambrose was a monster in bed, but he was a regular guy too, and I really grew as a person. I liked all our times together, from sitting in the sun chewing the cud, to lying in bed curling my toes around his knotted, furry shins. I didn’t even get that angry the time his hooves tore holes in the sheets or when he tracked mud through my apartment. I bought extra flypaper and strung it up through the place so Ambrose would feel comfortable. Sure, some women do it just for the thrill — but I wasn’t one of them. I was committed.
    Colleen, however, was a monster hunter. She jumped from the Dullahan to the gargoyle; to a satyr who was really charming and jolly if a little lecherous; to an enormous Cyclops who mostly acted like somebody’s drunk uncle at a wedding, lurching, spluttering, and grunting. Next came the incubus. He was the scariest. A slithery demon with a ponytail named Geoff, he would only come by late at night, for a booty call, she told me, and she had to be asleep, or at least pretend to be, or he’d bolt. He had the coldest penis she’d ever felt. He would lie on top of her, very still, and slip it in. She wound up having two abortions before she dumped him for a werewolf. I was so grateful when that happened. I’d been really worried about her! It wasn’t like a gang where you got “jumped in” and suddenly were in the thick of it — but naturally once you’d dated a monster, you met more and more of them. At least the werewolf was human half the time, and, unlike the incubus, a pretty responsible guy. His name was Lucas, and he was great at sports and karaoke. I mean, I couldn’t express any opposition because I was dating a monster too — she’d pretty much set me and Ambrose up — but Colleen had become so promiscuous….
    Besides, Ian the Dullahan wasn’t really over her, and he was a friend of Ambrose’s. Ian would come over and sit in the corner, not saying anything, cracking his whip half-heartedly, without a lot of wrist action. It made a pathetic zutt-zutt. He’d just sit there for hours, letting the whip slip to the floor, hands on his knees. He didn’t even exercise his horse anymore. It languished in his barn. He’d given me the creeps when he was dating Colleen. But now I felt sorry for the guy. It had been almost a year, and he was still moping.
    That was when I got the brilliant plan to fix him up with Ambrose’s ex—Niko, the harpy. We’d have a party, I told Ambrose. It would be perfect.