If you’ve been reading my column, you probably know that I don’t know what to make of “Port Charles” right now. While I enjoy the heightened drama of gothic life and undeath and reversals of fortune (Joshua in charge! Caleb devamped! Lucy faltering!) I’m also increasingly confused by what exactly is going on. It’s gotten to where you can’t tell the vampires from the mortals or the good guys from the bad guys without a scorecard.

Let me see if I have it straight... Caleb is no longer a vampire. Livvie is all fanged up, but Joshua poisoned her fangs, so she needs some sort of antidote which Caleb is desperate to provide, I think because he wants her to bite him and vamp him back again. Joshua is the UberVamp now and wants pure-as-the-driven-snow Alison as his bride as part of his plan to create some sort of Our Town of Vampires. (Livvie may have killed Alison with her poison fangs as I write this, but I’m guessing that’s a scam to annoy Joshua.) Rafe is still Good with a capital G. Elizabeth has crossed back to the UnVamp side. Ian is vampish; Lucy isn’t, but she’s sick and her hair is falling out. Kevin isn’t a vampire as far as I know, but Joshua is doping him up in some way so that Kevin will paint the picture of Our Town of Vampires, which will in someway help it come about. (I guess the Our Town of Vampires train set, done to scale with trees and buildings and little underpasses, wasn’t good enough. Or even the Fisher-Price Our Town of Vampires playset with little vampire Weebles. Darn. Those sound a lot more entertaining than the painting. But back to the list of Good and Bad...)  Kevin’s dad, the new Port Charles building commissioner, has been vamped to help with Joshua’s villainous urban renewal plan. Reese? Unvamped. Frank? Vamped. Jack and Jamal? No change. Casey and Ricky? I don’t know, but I think they’re still clean. Did I forget anyone?

It’s basically a case of flipping 90% of the vampires into the Not column and vice versa. Or at least I think so. I’m still not sure about Kevin.

This muddy storytelling style is making it tough for me to care about whatever romance is going on (if there is any) but one thing does seem to have continued from one arc to another. Caleb still wants Olivia more than anything. He’s no longer a vampire and he may even be sorta, kinda working with Alison and/or Rafe on the side of the Good Guys now (I honestly don’t know if he is or if he isn’t or who he’s double-dealing) but one thing has remained constant for Caleb. Whether she is Livvie or Tess, split or combined, Caleb wants Olivia by his side.

The story thread of which one drinks blood and which doesn’t and what to do about those poison fangs confuses things and keeps this pair all tortured and turbulent, but there’s no question Caleb and Livvie are hot together. And their love scenes are one of a kind, with biting and blood-sharing subbing in for something else entirely. When she was bitten by her beau on the night she became a vampire, Livvie asked if she was dying. But given the little moans and gasps, we all knew something very different was going on, something you can abbreviate with a capital O. They don’t call it “the little death” for nothing.

How Caleb, er, came through for Livvie reminds me of something a pundit once said about Scarlett O’Hara. Yeah, her head kept telling her she loved pure, dull Ashley. But a different part of her body, something a little farther south, was all about Rhett. After a night with Mr. Butler, she woke up smiling and we all knew that Rhett had delivered The Big One. So let’s just say that it seems pretty evident that Caleb, like Rhett Butler, knows how to satisfy his woman when it comes to the physical side of things, and leave it at that. And if using his teeth was part of the fun... Well, they were consenting adults.

In that spirit, here’s a little Blondie for Caleb and Livvie, about where they are right now.

Bite me with your poison, Livvie

Bite me with your love

Roll me in white satin sheets

I’ll never get enough

Bite me, bite me any time

Bite me!

Now that their positions are reversed and she’s the vampire and he’s just a man, the two still seem very connected on a physical level and their lovemaking scenes turn up the heat. I honestly don’t know what the spiritual side of this relationship is supposed to be, but the fact that Caleb has been so devoted to finding her and making her his bride means it’s something big, I guess, something he intends to keep going throughout their eternal vampire lives. Livvie has been pretty drawn to him, too, once she got the little technicalities of turning on him and staking him, being obsessed with Rafe, and being split into two out of the way. They are now working on getting the hang of sex without fangs (because of that pesky poison fang problem), indicating there is more than just dark desire between them.

So there you have it — the writers set them up with lots of smoke and fire, some bizarre cosmic connection that I think means they’re soul mates (or whatever you call eternal love for creatures without souls), lots of conflict, both internal and external, as they struggle with what’s right and wrong and good and evil, and plenty of airtime to sort it all out. Michael Easton and Kelly Monaco are talented, charismatic performers who really know how to work the sex appeal and the darker edges of their characters. They do their best to add intensity and integrity, even when they have some pretty silly stuff to perform (wandering cluelessly through billowing sheets of diaphanous fabric, anyone?)

My only problem with them is the vampire thing. I find it hard to root for love between characters who are evil at heart, no matter how sexy they are. Quibble, quibble, quibble. But both Caleb and Livvie have done some really dreadful things in the past. So even though the actors have sold me that their characters have deep feelings for each other, I’m not really seeing whatever it is that might redeem or save them, or make them good enough and fully developed enough as people to be able to feel real love. Is it asking too much of vampires and former vampires to show some loving, selfless feelings or some hint of goodness? To save the world because they want to save the world, not just to stop Joshua? Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe the promise of eternal life — together forever and ever and ever — is enough, no matter how bad to the bone they are, no matter who or what they put the bite on.

Next week, we tramp on back to the mob-infested swamp known as “General Hospital.” Will it be Ric and Liz, Zander and Emily, or Georgie and Dillon? You be the judge! Lord know, GH needs one...