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SEARCHGloria Clarke, salon owner. In her other life: novelist.
“He called me from a graveyard at midnight and howled at the moon.”
“He called me from a graveyard at midnight and howled at the moon.”
It all began because Gloria Clarke, co-owner of Natural Graces Health Therapies & Day Spa in Oceanside, Calif., needed someone to take tango lessons with. She turned to an online dating site in search of a dance partner and struck up a cyber conversation with a kindred spirit she would later marry. Under the pseudonyms Vladimir and Vivienne Orloff, the two have published an account of their courtship — told in e-mails and diary entries — called The Vampire Dating Dot Com Diaries.
“Even though we lived too far apart to consider dating, we started e-mailing because we were both new to online dating and had a couple of amusing horror stories to share with each other,” she says. Then Halloween drew near and they started discussing Halloween costumes. “We both were going to be vampires! He sent me a vampire photo and I sent him mine. He called me from a graveyard at midnight and howled at the moon.” Soon after, they started e-mailing each other adventures and vignettes of themselves as vampires in ages past. “Out of the air, I chose the name Orloff, not knowing it had a shady past from Romania,” says Clarke.
The book is comprised of their e-mail correspondence from their first exchange to their first meeting four months later. And there’s a sequel. “The Vampire Dating Dot Com Diaries, More Love Bytes contains the e-mails, vignettes, and running comments from our first meeting to our decision to mix our blood and share the crypt,” says Clarke.
The books espouse a philosophy of love they call “eternity is not enough.” This philosophy includes getting in touch with their spiritual centers, building stronger bonds between male and female psyches, and forging a lasting partnership that is committed to love, strength, and creativity.
You can read more about their story at www.orloffempire.com. The books are available at Amazon.com.
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