The Vampire's Dance

Cherisse attends a party hosted by Frank, an ex-boyfriend whose marriage proposal she rebuffed a year ago. Frank startles his guests by unsuccessfully proposing to Lola. He pays for a drunken Cherisse's taxi ride to her graveyard shift job. When she returns in the morning to retrieve her car, Cherisse tells Frank that her employer Overton is a vampire. Lola breaks up with Frank, but follows him to Cherisse's place of employment, where Overton recounts how he gave up dancing and became a night watchman 40 years ago following a life-altering event on the ballroom floor. Cherisse and Overton marry; Frank is the best man and Lola is the maid of honor. At the wedding dinner Cherisse says that she expects Overton to hasten her transformation into a vampire. Cherisse and Overton dance the tango. The next morning Cherisse asks Frank to carve a wooden stake for her. Promising she won't use it to kill Overton, she explains that the stake affords her the same peace of mind as the cotton balls she kept by her bed when she feared overhearing her parents' sexual activity. When Lola demands that Cherisse give her the stake, Cherisse replies that Lola has no claim to it because Frank and Lola are no longer a couple. Overton stuns Frank with a revelation about Cherisse and invites him to move into the newlyweds' house. Cherisse and Overton's second and final tango proves to be a climactic contest of wills.