[ 33 ]

THE MYSTERIOUS DRAGONESS WITH THE THICK TAIL

I squirm out from my hiding place and slither on my belly like a snake out to the middle of the corridor.

Well this dragonette abruptly comes to a halt and hovers there flapping her wings and treading air, looking down at me with surprise.

“Hey,” I whisper from down on the floor, as I eyeball her thick tail swishing around behind her. “You smellth goodth. Where here Dr. Terrible is?”

Because my BIOCON LEVS have run dry, my speech and cognition functions have melted.

“You talking about the Dr. Terrible?” she purrs.

I notice how the chick’s voice echoes off the stone walls. Behind this dragonette I see what I think are a pair of yellow eyeballs looking at me from down the hall, but I can’t be sure. Mainly because it’s hard for me to focus on anything with this dragonette’s fine giant tail waving around like that. And it makes my green scales pucker up and I feel kind of funny, like there are little lightning bolts shooting up and down my tail.

Now there’s really no other way for me to put this, except to say I’m overcome by a super-strong and specific desire to rub scales with this chick. Like I might go insane if I don’t rub scales with this dragoness, is the way I’m feeling.

“Just oneth Dr. Terrible,” I whisper. At that moment I start coughing like a bastard and blood spurts out my nostrils onto the floor. It’s embarrassing, to be spurting up blood like this. To completely lose control of my body in front of this chick.

Uh-oh. Here we go.

So this is what dying feels like.

“Thorry,” I whisper, looking up at the dragoness, who is still hovering above me in midair with her huge tail whipping back and forth.

I start coughing again and more blood spurts out my nostrils. And the blood seems to be gushing more freely, like a dam has broken.

“Really thorry,” I whisper. Normally, saying sorry would be a death sentence but since I’m already dying, it doesn’t matter. Now my left wing convulses and my wing bends against the floor and pushes me forward into the pool of my own blood.

“I dying fasth,” I whisper.

The way this dragonette’s enormous tail is wagging back and forth like that, I feel like I’m being hypnotized. And her thick oily funky scent shooting up my nasal passages sends a strong lust rippling through my haunches and makes my toe claws shudder. I can’t really explain it but I suddenly have the strongest desire for this older dragonette to lay my eggs. I want to mate with her. I can practically feel her ovowomb throbbing here in the corridor.

“No, I don’t imagine there is more than one Dr. Terrible,” she purrs. “They certainly broke the mold when they made that old dragon!”

Her wings are still flapping and she’s hovering here in front of me, treading air.

I force myself to look away from the tail and instead to peer into this dragonette’s hooded yellow eyes.

“He’th my grandpath. Where he? I need’th talkth wid that bastardth.” And then I add: “Niceth tail. Yours. Ith thick. Yourth tailth thick.”

She makes a little excited screeching sound in the back of her throat and then flaps her wings and flies in closer and peers down at me.

“I knew there was something familiar ’bout you,” she purrs.

She reaches out and puts a long black claw under my beak and raises it so she can see me better. Now our faces are just inches apart, and in the dim corridor light I can see each individual green scale around her eyes quite clearly and they are luscious to be sure.

Bar none, this is the most gorgeous dragonette I’ve ever crossed paths with.

At that moment, I cough up more blood out of my beak.

“You wannath lay my eggsth?” I whisper.

She huffs softly. “Why I shoulda seen it sooner. You’re the spitting image of your granddaddy. You’re a Terrible, ain’tcha?”

“Yesth ma’am.”

“ ’Course you are. Why you couldn’t hide the fact that you’re a Terrible no more than a monkey could talk with its butt. You Terribles is something special, I’ll say. You goin’ to grow up and conquer your own galaxy and rule over it with an iron talon, like your granddaddy did?”

“Yesth ma’am. I aimth to anyway.”

Now I’m struck by how yellow this dragoness’s eyes are, how piercing they are. I sense a power there that I don’t understand. Plus I can feel myself blushing just slightly. Or maybe it’s just my blood has stopped circulating and I’m dying.

I turn my scaly green head and cough up another spatter of blood onto the floor. I can taste my own blood in my beak.

Now this dragonette smiles a beakful of fangs. “Shoot,” she whispers, “I know I wouldn’t want to be some poor sucker on a planet that you invaded, that’s for dang sure. Why look at your scaly face, darlin’. It’s got Evil Ruler written all over it.”

I just manage a faint smile. I’m sure I look freaking hideous.

“You make fella feel real niceth,” I whisper. “Thanketh you for goodth death.”

I don’t bother to think about where all this is going, because it’s not every day that an older juicy babe with a powerful thick tail fawns over me like this. And she still has a claw under my beak, and now we’re just staring into each other’s eyes.

As I lay dying and staring up into her eyes like this, I think:

Well if this is how I die, then so be it.

It’s a royal send-off.

Please just let her eyes and her odor be the last things I see and smell.

The luscious dragoness flutters her wings and purrs, “Well I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She winks at me. “I taste even hotter than I talk.”

She quickly glances around to make sure we’re alone here in the stone corridor, and then she puts her black beak right up to my scaly green earhole and whispers: “I can feel you rumbling, sugar. And here we are, all alone. Maybe you want to get yourself a teensy-weensy little ol’ lick?”

Her breath is hot. Though I don’t know if it’s from her throbbing ovowomb or from the lava in her belly. She pulls back a couple inches so we’re looking directly into each other’s eyes again, and her yellow eyes start shining as if a light is emanating from within them.

I turn my scaly green head and cough up more blood.

“My name Gorkth.”

“I know who you are,” she says. “Nice to meet you, Gork. I’ve heard a lot about you. My name’s Metheldra.”

Then the dragonette reaches out with the back of her talon and wipes the blood off my beak.

Metheldra. I know I’ve heard that name before but I can’t recollect where, and like I said, it’s pretty hard for me to focus at this moment. Especially with Metheldra’s mating scent wafting up through my nostrils and kissing my brain and making me delirious with lust. I really need to rub scales with this dragonette.

“You frunds with my grandpath, Dr. Therrible?” I croak.

Something inside me is hemorrhaging, because the blood is trickling out my beak and out my flared green nostrils.

“That’s right. I help Dr. Terrible out here at the Institute.”

“What kindth of thelp? What do youth do here?”

“Why don’t you step into my lair and I’ll show you,” she purrs.

Then she reaches up and clasps my horns in her talons, as if she is assessing how badly wounded I really am. “Mmmmmm,” she says, “I see your horns have some room for growth. I might be able to help you with these horns. I’m an expert in BIOCON LEVS. I think I might be able to make these horns of yours grow.”

Then she points her powerstaff at me and pulls down my Cadet Profile on her floating screen. “I see the Oddsmakers have given you at 0.1% chance of making it through Crown Day,” she purrs. “And your BIOCON LEVS are null. I don’t mean to scare you, but your WILL TO POWER status is Goner. You seem like you’re in big trouble, Gork.” Then she purrs, “Why don’t you step into my lair?”

My right wing spasms and I flop around some more in my blood here on the floor.

I’m practically swimming in my own blood by this point.

So this dragonette’s idea of me going anywhere other than where I am seems comically deranged, considering how filthy and weak I am.

Can’t she see I’m dying?

But I’m also feeling super stirred-up and juicy. Because what I really want is for this chick to lay my eggs. This is my dying wish. Well I know how despicable this sounds, because I am dying and you’d think your thoughts and feelings would be a sight more noble than that in the face of the sacred. But they aren’t. My thoughts, I mean.

Because I’m starting to get some very clear thoughts in my head of what me and this dragoness can do if we “bump scales.”

Now you may be surprised to hear this, but I’m still a virgin. Because dragon chicks are programmed to avoid mating with a fool like me.

My datastream is a deal breaker.

You don’t want your little baby dragons to hatch out of their eggs with WILL TO POWER deficiencies.

But something about this dragoness seems different. Like her WTP is so fiendish it will override the wussy BIOCON LEVS of any fool she mates with.

So I figure if I hurry up and mate with this chick, then at least I won’t have to die a virgin.

This will at least be one shame I won’t have to endure in the Underworld, to have died a virgin.

“Whereth yer lair?” I whisper. “I’m readyth. We rubth scales. I die. You layth my eggsth!”

Metheldra smiles and points her index claw at a door in the wall I didn’t notice before. “It’s right there,” she purrs.

Then she gingerly scoops me up off the ground and presses me tightly to her bosom and carries me across the threshold.

“Now let’s get you out of that uniform and cape,” she whispers.

It feels wonderful to be wrapped up in her warm embrace, to be held so close to her green scaly bosom like this.

And if I weren’t so afraid of dying right now, I’d faint.

“Thanketh youth.”