You're What?
James is about to meet a close online friend, an expert on dragons. Of course, dragons aren't real, but after their voice calls and sexts, saying yes to the invite was a no-brainer.
(This is an experiment meant to push my writing boundaries. It may be clunky. Any and all feedback welcome, no matter how harsh).
Groups turned into herds, so James hung alone. Except for the past month.
Grale lived on floor 8, the 15 th room. Elevator button number 8 pressed in with a click. A night-long stay with the expert on dragons himself. A hum played instead of music. He'd learn his real name, see his roleplay partner's face. They read similar books, shared half their tastes. Even got off to the same stuff.
The elevator beeped, and the doors slid apart. He'd be tall if that voice was anything to go by. Always echoed in a cool way, with a trodden-gravel texture to it.
Ten of him could've walked side by side in the short hall. Were all the floors so spac—
Something crashed on the other side of the wall to his right. The elevator shut.
It didn't come again. Overreacting. It would've been a box or something, if a heavy one.
The room was the last, though, he could've sworn the building was wider than this.
Oak under the hand, knocked with a satisfying rap. A spring coiled as the door crept open, left unlocked, while a beam from the hall lights widened over a navy rug. Dark. “You home?"
Nothing. He yelled his name, and no answer came. Was he really going to go into a dark room where a guy with what, a foot over him, quietly waited, or worse, someone who'd snuck in and knocked him out? Yeah, this would get him kidnapped or something.
Although, Grale loved dragons too, in all the ways. Genuinely, expert and all. Besides, James was just skittish because of how long it had been since he'd had any action.
The rug was furred, no, covered by fur. A dog then. So that was why he mentioned deworming a few times. Considering his incredibly 'high' opinion of collars, and because this dog had to be big, big big, or damn fluffy, he went to shut the…shut door. Huh. A door closer.
Railing gleamed from the left above, a second floor an entresol, that some steps led to. Quite the bachelor's pad. “Grale?" He had tried to coax James into a thing called gooning before. Might've passed out.
A shadow rose next to a bed to the far right. Horse sized, not a dog. It rumbled.
He staggered back. His hip whacked a side table he gripped onto.
It started thudding toward him. Slitted amber eyes.
His fingers slipped; he fell to his butt. Warm breath engulfed everything. No. Crawl. Move. Do anything. “Stay back."
“Keep still while I fuck you."
“What? What the fuck?" The voice had been deep, gravelly. Rough. Brutal.
A maw. The nearest shape was a gaping maw.
He twisted around and lunged at the steps and didn't fall; a soft, warm shape held him up by his front.
Teeth dripped behind him.
His flailing hand found a wire and swung a lamp into an arm, a leg? Which let go at the clout and he dashed for the steps, footfall a rapid patter. His palm slid up the railing till he got to the top and panted. It was still down there. Okay. It was watching from the first level, straight below, in front.
“I can't follow you up there. The boards will break."
“What are you, a monster? A troll? An escaped experiment from a lab? Where is Grale?"
“Uh. What? No, lol. Oh shit, I'm touching stuff? I'm not dreaming. One sec."
“Then what? What are—"
The lights switched on.
There was no way. His fingers felt loose.
“A dragon?" Impenetrable navy fur. See-throughish wings. One single flight away stood a dragon. Just those stairs a few steps away. Even if it could tear him to shreds, he could—no, that was a lethal idea. The dragon was thrashing.
“Too bright." The claws of a forelimb that reached to the right stabbed holes into the white wall. “Dimmer, where's the dimmer?"
“Y-your left, no, down. There."
“That's better. Okay, door's locked." Those slitted pupils began widening to circles. “Coming down yet?" A wicked thick tongue waved about from a maw spread apart by a wet abyss.
“Did you eat Grale? Are you, are you going to vore me?"
He guffawed—eyes squeezed shut while cheek muscles drew back up into a bulge—and even leaned before he fell with a yelp but to laugh more. Claw tips mushed rug strands about. The floor creaked under a pounding paw, which slowed to taps, then shifted to wiping his eyes, till he looked up. “You serious? Sorry, sorry. I am Grale."
“That's plainly impossible."
“Doesn't it turn you on?"
All that sexting. “My entire life, not even one time, no way. No fucking way. A dragon."
Who contemplated the floor. “More specifically, a korixa." Two straight horns were covered in fur. Like a hybrid of deer and dragon. But they started behind his brow ridge and went back at a shallow angle, no curve, tapered. “We're not as cool as our scaled kin."
“Are you for real?"
“I read forums. People want scales, like on a proper dragon."
He threw his arms up. “You're a dragon. A blood and flesh dragon! Please don't tell me you've been hiding because of your fur, you blasé furball."
The corners of a great mouth curled up. He pawed the floor. “On a bit of a loop up there." His tail raised as he lowered his chest to the floor, his back arched. “'A dragon' in your area wants to fuck and is sad that you don't."
James gawked until a sweat drop fell from his eye and to his hand. More sweat pattered. “Okay, I'll come down." Below, lean limbs bent, the muscles bulging. “I can see that, that you're waiting to pounce me." If he wasn't a bottom, this would be bloody.
“Fiiinnneee. I'll be good." He lay down, rolling onto his side and sprawling out with his wings folded. “You guys like that, right? The pet play stuff."
“I, I want the dragon in full." A stupid thing to say. Grale's ears twitched, something he'd said meant relief. But once James reached the bottom of the steps, Grale would be gone. He'd blink, and Grale would be gone. He'd wake up. At the bottom step. His foot hovered above it. He'd wake up right now. Raaaight now.
“Clayil?"
His own online handle. “It's James. Yours?"
“My name really is Grale. And welcome to my home, I mean, where I live, James."
For months, he had been talking to, talking with, a dragon, utterly unaware. “Grale."
“Yeah?"
“If I step down, will you still be there?"
“If you don't I'm lunging at you."
He gulped.
Stepped down.
And walked halfway over into what felt like another world. Grale was still there.
A lengthy tail swept across the floor in front of his shoes, the simple tip brushing them. “Manners."
Right. He started awkwardly kicking his shoes off, too afraid of being grabbed while kneeling. “Do other people know about you?"
“Do other people know about you?" There wasn't anything special about him. “No one ever says yes to coming over. I'm too nerdy, too creepy, too sexual, too scary sounding. When you said yes, I was shocked. And you showed up." His tail swished the shoes aside as he rolled onto his front, that slim body at a curve. “Tried to clean everything, but these paws aren't the best for those dainty things your machines make. Sorry about the fur."
“Aren't dragons meant to speak more, er, epically than this?"
“Epically?" He chuckled, and then, onto his four limbs, he rose to pace in an oval-shaped path, eyes trained on James. It was only to make sweeping gestures with a forelimb that he ever paused. “Hear me: I, Grale, a korixa, scant count of whom remain, born in snow fallen upon the tallest peaks, inherit the might, the wisdom, of the erst hidden, for within we few doth the fate of wyrmkind lie. Though my scales are yet to grow, though my wings are yet to spread, though my fires are yet to blaze, hark: The shape thou behold'st cometh from a yore ere the making of humanity, when the world still young smouldered with ash and sulphur that choked the skies, and bygone fiends, far greater than this building, rent barrows into fells atwix peaks cleft in twain by their claws, the very highlands themselves put asunder! And yet it is we who lived on through the turning of the world. They did not. Heed these words, scion of man. Spurn or strike me at thine own peril." His wings spread, long snout framed as a broadsword between membranes of death. They shut as he dropped back down to repose. “And yada yada. That enough, or do you want the full spiel?" A paw beckoned. “Or can we have some fun?"
“Wait, you're going to grow scales? Breathe fire? But your wings already work? Why an apartment?"
And he sighed. “I'm moving to the couch. Sorry, sofa, before some pedant gets me."
The blanket-clad furniture in question, new by the look of it, sat at a distance of about double the length of Grale's body away from the backwall. Between the windows and their tied-shut curtains was a recessed flat screen.
James kept a metre from the sofa's left arm, a metre from a head that could fit his entire skull in its maw. The dark beneath the bed to the right glistered. “I really don't know what to say at this point." His mouth had dried.
Black-padded paws fumbled with a remote and the tv switched on. “They say blue balls are a myth and they were right until I met you buddy. The whole day I edged."
“But they don't say that? And it doesn't make guys attack each other."
“I'd fallen out of bed and saw the impossible—had to be a dream—and I was wrong to."
His phone started ringing. It was work calling, on a weekend no less, and it was work that was ignored. “There are other dragons?"
That long neck curved along the left sofa arm as he eyed him. “Aren't you low on money?"
He dismissed the second ring. “You're more important."
And Grale began flipping through channels, but also crawled up a bit, propping himself on the sofa arm.
On the small space yielded at the opposite end, James sat down, slowly, only to start sinking into weakened foam.
“There are," Grale said.
“There are?" He spread his weight out.
Grale stared at him. “Others. A few."
That tail tip poked his face. The fur was silky, at least. “Stop that." A hand raised to wrangle the thing, but then he remembered what, who, he was sitting next to.
“Four months since I've seen anyone, dragon or human, with only recon orders, food, and the wonders of technology to comfort." Its weight swung up in one grand arc that shoved air so hard it scrunch James's cheeks like he was in rollercoaster before it whipped about behind the sofa. “Woe is I." He resumed flipping through channels.
When the light had been on full, his fur blocked it all: that thick. Now, an abyssal shade covered all of him, a dense tuft bunched on a keeled chest, from where a thin lined trailed to halfway down his front. There, his abdomen curved in then out to longer, wavy fur rising to…
A paw went past James's head, the stretched leg's muscles flexing. Claw edges glinted by. “Whoops. They didn't have any bigger couches on the website, at least not last week, not even at retail price."
…his now casually presented sheath. A woodsy musk wafted over, yet one clean with hints of, was that—“Were you cooking a steak earlier?"
“Aw, come on, that's not funny. It took ages to clean myself. I still smell?"
“It's not exactly bad."
“Hm." A brow ridge raised, its line a wiggle. “Here I was, thinking humans washed everything or found it repulsive."
“Why didn't you tell me?"
“I could have sent photos and videos, but you're smart. And a smart person will say, 'Woah, that's lifelike. Did you animate it?'"
“So you had to get my trust to lure me."
“Prey words."
More channels. A few services, video hosting sites. They hadn't discussed much in the ways of shows, only animators.
James needed to not let this go too far, but he sidled an inch closer to him. The air warmed. “This is pretty boring."
“Yeah?"
“Yeah."
He turned it off. “Yeah."
“Can I see it?" they both asked.
Again did that tail prove its ability to vex him when it nudged the crotch of his pants. “The human goes first, so sayeth the dragon."
“You want me to show it to you like this?"
“It's clearly not soft."
Stage fright or not, the looser his trousers got, the more risk of his butt being on the line. “But you're a dragon, I can't just show my—"
“Yes and it's life changing and amazing and I the dragon really do want to see your zhick human cock."
He unzipped, undoing his belt too. And yanked a sheet from the sofa to cover himself at the same time. He wasn't thick or big, merely average. It would disappoint him.
“Dude now you're, oh. Is that what you want? Yes. I like that idea."
The tail had still been there when he put the blanket on. Roaming now. The part still visible flexed a width neither over thick nor thin, the flesh under the fur firm. “Yes."
That fur tickled the side of his shaft. It was surreal. “Yep, hard. But as hard as can be?" He kept leaned back and put a paw to his jaw. He smirked smugly; James got harder. It skimmed his tip. “We don't have those, the part that rolls."
What did his look like? Inside was where his balls lay, yet he had a sheath. Was his sheath that tight before?
“Wow that skin is soft, smooth as silk." More tail snaked under the blanket, coiling around it. “They never mention this in porn. This is awesome."
“Stop, you're gonna make me come way too early."
“You'll go again right?"
“Yeah but—"
Even more tail came, the thicker length hugging his base like a lost lover. “Then let it out." A red tip peeked from his sheath while his gaze traveled a protracted trail over every inch of torso, arms too, all to take in every shudder, every twitch to feed his own. His eyes jumped to his: the tail pumped up in an exquisite motion that set him alight. Then pulled down. “You look so good when you moan."
James's fingers dug into the sofa. His left leg found Grale's right hind: so warm. “For an edger, you sure do want me early."
“Why hide it from me?" A soft, fuzzy-furred leg gave him a headrest. “I want it."
The blanket was slipping. It was too hot anyway.
“So pent up—I should know." A whiff came with the barest hint of a spiciness as Grale's cock forced its way out, long and tapering. Dark red. It swayed. “A man and his dragon."
The blanket fell away and James came into the coiled grip. His cock pulsed within the tail, which his hips squished while rivers flowed down the sides and spurts that surged burned. Semen messed fur slick. Amid it all he tried to lock eyes with Grale's. The dragon was so gentle.
“And a dragon and his man." The loops kept squeezing and pumped up a third shot. Some squelched out the bottom when his spine arched, neck thrown back, groin made wet. “Get it all over my tail." Squeezes became milking motions mixed with long drags up, slower ones down.
James leaned back. “Dude, that is good, my god."
“We tried that once already." Air cooled his skin. The tail had unraveled. Grale fixed on his softening flesh.
“What? You seem so calm."
“It takes a while to get it up, especially past half. White on blue's not a bad look for me, eh?"
“O-only halfway, you say?"
It grew a touch more, the smell getting too much. “Always stuck in this place, masturbating, watching porn on a laptop I can barely use." He rolled off the sofa. “Can I sniff your balls?"
“Are all dragons this horny? This keen on human bits?"
“Who said I was keen? Let me sniff them."
“Give me a minute, it's sensitive." Waving at the strengthening smell did little. “How do you live like this? Don't people see you?"
“Only you can see me right now. I can switch the sight between one human per day, them's the rules. And what my abilities can handle."
“The sight—is this a bond thing?"
“The bosom of a korixa dothn't tie with thine or any other's heart, nay; verily it be so stated." He pointed a paw at the ceiling like he had an index finger. “Thou'rt leaning away from my scent. I shall ameliorate the situation for thee!" The sofa groaned as he shifted his weight off it, him curving as he went, to turn around to James. Face to face. “The dragon enjoyed that but is yet unsatisfied." His breath was warm. He hefted a paw onto his lap. The pads gave slightly, firm but soft.
“I can't go again so soon."
“Think it a warmup." He lowered his head. “May I?"
“Aren't I, well, small for someone like you?"
“If I cared about size I wouldn't be fucking a human, now would I?"
He breathed. “If I say stop."
“I stop." He pressed his cool nose to the base, nestling on his balls, and inhaled. Twice. A shiver ran James's spine while Grale sniffed. The dragon's own length pushed out farther from its confines, a dew colleting on it. He sidled his snout to the side, shaft skin sliding across his bridge. “I think I like this." He nuzzled his balls.
“Never took you for a sub."
An inch of that thick tongue lolled from near-shut lips to hover before his underside. “Oho, so that's how it's going to be?" He angled his head so that his jaw's underside faced the side of James's shaft. His maw opened, the daggers within wiped clean of saliva by a hefty tongue as though to intimidate, and it thrust forward before he could say anything in protest. But only heat touched.
“You tease."
He lifted his head then lowered it in mockery. “Sorry, but your sub needs permission."
“By all means, go ahead."
“With what?"
“Licking." He groaned but couldn't deny how much oral from a dragon excited him. So long as he kept his teeth off. “My cock. You can lick my cock."
“Golly gee, thanks sir." The tongue wrapped around all of it and saliva sizzled. James blew steam away from his face. Wetness engulfed every soon to be well-worked inch while that tongue tip snuck under his foreskin. It swept around in circles, its deep cracks spread by the pressure made to jam tastebuds in as close as possible.
“You don't have to put on a show on my account."
“My human has self-esteem issues, which can only be fixed by one thing." He climbed up, his tongue dragged with him till it pulled off, pinched foreskin following for a split second, and he faced it head on, maw open before hardened flesh.
“Woah, wait—"
He lunged onto him, snarling and reaching to grab him. And James hugged him hard first.
Grale tilted his head. Then leapt from the sofa. Midair he flipped, a shout from his hugger turned to a drone in the spin. His back sank into the bed whose springs groaned and sprung with a vengeance that bounced them. The rest of his cock popped out mid-bounce.
The bed puffed. James's balls were cushioned by Grale's sheath, dick wedged by his own body to a small knot of a cock that reached from his thigh to his collarbone. The smell seared into his nostrils, never to leave.
“Okay, man, that's too big. I can't fit that. You'll kill me."
“We'll make it fit or however the line goes."
“No. We will not."
“Prey doesn't stick up for itself." Grale lowered himself and the undersides of their cocks touched. It dwarfed his, the slab of meat rested against his gut and chest. “You're not prey." It thrust, dragging James's skin, careering along his front, and rest the thing on his face. “I'm more of a two-birds-one-stone kind of guy."
He kissed it. “Grale, you should be on top."
“I admire your bravery." He rolled over.
James licked it and it pulled back too soon but his own twitched at every thrust. He reached up and stroked a horn; Grale shivered.
“Good fucking guess." A paw pinned his wrist.
His other hand ran down and up the limb that rutted across his all but crushed body. They humped each other, the bed creaked at each thrust's apex. The knot bumped past his balls while the tip butted his chin. Pre dripped dappled them until James gasped and his toes curled. Volley after volley splattered the underside of Grale's cock.
That knot swelled. A rumble to a final thrust, the head thrown out of reach, the eyes lidded, the ears flicking—it all warned to shut his own eyes and brace: thick half-seed roped across him, cheeks then forehead given white stripes amid sweet air scented right. Warmth suffused his skin. Grale heaved hauled himself and hosed his cock down to mark it as his before he pressed tip to tip. He heaved to his face to leave the tip at his lips. Both panted.
Grale collapsed, his chest thumped into him. So did his heart, which slowed. “I haven't felt so tired in so long." He licked James's face clean.
“Two birds with one stone, hah." James reached for a tissue and got maybe a breath closer to it. Couldn't go any farther. “You need to move—oh."
A hum was all that answered, those eyes already closed. His pulse steadied, the hum relaxing still tensed limbs. It had this primal yet calm sound to it. And so, with a dragon as his blanket, a dragon's cock against his own, he fell asleep.
His face warmed. A sunbeam slipped through a gap in the curtains. Clonks and clacks came from in front of the bed: Grale was pulling out rocks that lay under it with one paw, the other placing each rock in a hexagonal pattern that three smaller hexagons lay within.
“Nice tune, last night." James rubbed his eyes. “Better than your grand speech earlier."
“They teach us the speech of revealment when we're young. The hum, they sing while we're in the egg. It's the better tune, yeah."
“You can remember that far back?"
“Hmm?" He went to each rock to perfect its placement. “No, not any of the words. I was in an egg, barely conscious. But the melody, the general feel of it, isn't something you forget."
“Can you do magic with ordinary rocks?"
“Negatory." On closer inspection, blues, reds, and greens glowed, however briefly, from cracks in the rocks. “My wings have gotten stiff. Going to stretch them in free skies now."
“Ah. Not going to have a shower first?"
“You want to be a bit musky for the meets. They last a month by the way."
He rushed out of bed. “Meets? Take me with you."
“What? Are you seriously asking?"
“Yes, yes I am."
“So this is what they meant when they said humans think they have a choice in everything. You were coming with me whether you wanted to or not as soon as you hugged me, unless your mom or dad was dying or similar. We're a pair now." He crushed every rune but one. The dust from each, all varied in colour, swirled up a metre where they hovered. “Hey, can I have your phone?"
“Sure?" He passed it over.
Grale dialed someone. “Give us 30k or James dies." He took the memory card out and smashed the phone.
“Dude, what the fuck? Did you call my boss?"
“I am kidnapping you for a month. They can't fire you for that." He crushed the last rune. Its dust swirled to fade with the rest, and dots of light poked into existence, each connecting to the other till a wall of light formed. “Let's go."
“What about your apartment?"
“Eh, we'll get a new one when we get back. Now, come on; these portals don't last long."
If he went, he'd leave behind all of his work and have a lot of lying to do after it all. If he went with a dragon. If he went with Grale. Once in a lifetime chance. “Same time?"
He nodded, and they both stepped through.