"We were just saying that there's a little bit of Edward in every guy. You just have to look for it," Nelson says. "Imagine having somebody who loves you so much he reads everything you read."

Yeah, imagine. Many of the women here admit that their husbands haven't bothered to glance at a single page of the Twilight books. Several say their mates consider the whole phenomenon "ridiculous."

"My husband is totally unamused by this," Noble says. "He says Edward is a 17-year-old fictional character. But that's not how I think of it. I say he's a 108-year-old character."

"He doesn't get it," Robbins says. "That's what he told me yesterday. But with life so crazy, this is my escape— Twilight. Edward. Men get into that comfortable rut once the relationship is there. Life gets so busy&" She trails off, then adds, "Men and women both, they lose that need to impress each other."

She has a point. (Attending a vampire festival brings new meaning to the phrase morbid obesity.) But at least a handful of men are perceptive enough to take note.

Consider Tom Peebles, a 40-year-old pilot with Alaska Airlines who's here with his wife, Mikey, and their daughters Lynsey and Leigha. "I just read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. I'm learning about the huge difference between men and women," Peebles says. "It's definitely emotions. Edward listens." Dudes ought to consider giving that a try, he says. "It's actually fun, if you learn to do it. Embrace it." A few seconds later, a Forks tour guide flips open a school locker and tells everyone that she's foundoh my God!a love letter from Bella to Edward. The group gasps and rushes in for a closer look. The letter says: Dear Edward, I love you. Your eyes are stars in the sky. I want your fangs in my neck and for you to suck out my blood.

Or consider Mario Taravella, a 30-year-old account manager for a Tacoma aluminum company who seems to have spent some time absorbing Edward Cullen's guidance on how to turn yourself into a goth sex god. Nearly alone among the husbands here in Forks, Taravella is truly enjoying himself. He's dressed all in black. He's got a studded belt buckle. He's skinny. His T-shirt says YOUR SCENT IS LIKE A DRUG TO ME—a line straight out of the story. "I actually have a pair of fangs in my suitcase," he says. "Twilight is different from other vampire movies. Not to sound too girly, but I liked the love-story aspect. Edward's like an old-fashioned gentleman. He's got strength, speed, and a charm that women can't resist."

If the Twilight saga taps into a vein of female fantasy and male failure, then Forks—smack-dab in the part of the country that gave us Kurt Cobain and Twin Peaks—truly is the perfect setting for it. Forks is, in a way, an emasculated town. It used to be a timber hub; right on Main Street there's a commemorative slab of Sitka spruce nearly 12 feet in diameter and marked by a sign that says: WELCOME TO FORKS: LOGGING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. You can't miss the phallic symbolism. In the 1970s, thousands of local loggers lost their jobs after environmentalists used the Endangered Species Act to protect the habitat of the spotted owl. In the years that followed, Forks disintegrated into something of a ghost town; if men were lucky, they got jobs as guards at the local prison. With Twilight, though, Stephenie Meyer has miraculously revitalized the place. The motels are full, the restaurants are packed until late at night, and nearly every shop on Main Street makes a killing from Twilight souvenirs. David Cook, 20, who spent last summer working at the town's chamber of commerce, estimates that the guest book in the tourism center racked up 60,000 signatures during the past year alone. The entire local economy hinges on what you might call Edsploitation.