Cut and Run Chapter 3

“Frazziss. You’ve got to let me go.” I beg of her.
“Please, I can’t hold on anymore. It’s just too painful.” And it was. I tried, I tried so very hard to hold on for her. But I just wasn’t tough enough.
The tears in her eyes that had been threatening to flow, did so then. I could see them course down her face, tracing the outline of her cheek scales of that face that I had lovingly stroked so many times.
Sobbing, she opens her eyes again. It breaks my heart to see her cry. I could see the desperate longing in them, a desire for something more, something unattainable.
I try to gently pull away from her, but she refuses to release me as I sit there on the edge. Instead, she tightens her grasp as if she could make me stay with her forever.
“Please.” I say one last time.
Slowly, reluctantly, she loosens her grip. She’s finally facing the fact that despite all of her wants, all of her desires, there were some things that I just couldn’t give her.
Then at the last, she releases me.
I turn my head away so as to not see the agony that grips her mournful face. I move my legs over the edge, and face the gulf that lies before me. I gauge the distance, hoping that I might not miss the mark. I also hope that she wouldn’t pull me back again. Yet, somehow deep down, I knew that I could trust her not to.
I don’t look back, for if I did I wouldn’t be able to do what I have to next, I then hear her anguished wail as I  propel myself over the edge into the vast distance that lay beyond.
With a toe jamming double slam, my feet hit the stone floor of her bedroom, and I’m off and running to the loo. Somehow, I manage to make it to the crapper without pissing all over the place.
Sometimes, I just have to take a whiz in the middle of the night. When I was living alone that wasn’t a problem. But, when I started living with a Dragon who INSISTS on using me as her body pillow, it did. I’ve heard the rumors that Dragons were clingy, but damn!
Ah crap. By the light of the night-light I notice a sparkle on the seat. It meant that I was in such a hurry to take a piss, I forgot to lift the seat. Damn it! I’m living with a woman again, so it’s ‘Time to be a sweetie, I gotta wipe the seatie’.
I wipe the seat with T.P., flush, then I wash my hands. Opening the door  I look up and YIKES! There she is, waiting for me in the darkened room.
“What’s the matter Frazziss? Afraid I fell in?” I joke. She doesn’t say anything. She just grabs me, lifts me over her shoulder and carries me back to bed, her foot claws clacking on the stone floor as she walks. They’re muted a couple of times by a spot rug.
This time, she positions herself on the outside of the bed after pushing me to the inside. This outside-side is where I’ve been sleeping the last four months. Normally, she sleeps on the inside. I guess that spot gives her the ability to see if anyone is sneaking up on her.
 After I lie down, she smoothly wraps me in her arms and legs and hugs me close. There in the light of the moon coming in through the window, I can just make out her face pressed up against my shoulder. Her eyes are open and not staring at anything.
“Babe, what’s wrong?” I whisper. I see her eye(s) turn and look at me, then she closes them. Instead of saying anything, she just starts quivering and presses her head even closer into me. She starts breathing shallowly, the way she does when she’s holding back tears.
I just reach up and start tenderly stroking her cheek with one hand, not saying anything. After a couple of minutes, she stops shaking and relaxes. A few minutes more, she snoring.
I smile at that. It’s not loud, just a gentle susurrus that reminds me somewhat of a cat purr. That tells me she’s feeling safe again. I gently take my hand away from her so as to not wake her up, and lie it gently down at my side.
The last four months she would just wake up and release me from her arms if I had to take a whiz at night. But for the last week, she frets something fierce if I’m away from her at all. I can’t help but wonder if her change of behavior has anything to do with the package she got from her sister. It arrived the day before she started getting this clingy. But she wouldn’t talk to me about it. This was the very same sister who was willing to talk to her in defiance of their Mother who disowned Frazziss.
Looking at her there in the dark, I sigh. She’s been through a lot. Yet here she is, still plugging along. She persevered in the face of what life threw at her.
Frazziss D’Aragon; came from an elite line of Dragons. (Yeah, I know. Which dragon doesn’t?) Yes, she was born to a certain amount of privilege. But, everything wasn’t handed to her on a silver platter. The D’Aragons felt that family has to earn and maintain their status. She was given many opportunities, but it was up to her to prove her worth.
She did.
She earned straight-A’s, achieved Valedictorian in High-school, and was President of her Debate Team. Through applying herself scholastically, she managed to earn an All-Expenses paid scholarship for the college of her choice.
 But, during her college years, she goes and meets some douche-nozzle who knocks her up on her first time. What does the scum-bucket do when he finds out he’s a Daddy? He goes and kicks her to the curb. (Fucking Asshole!)
 After that, she loses her College Scholarship. She lost it from that one university that is ironically known as: Breed’em Young University; all because Scum-Bucket had some connections there.
Did she go crying home to Momma and ask for a handout? Nope. She keeps her kid, and works to support them both while working her way through college.  But she had a problem. She didn’t have anything marketable in terms of skills. College is expensive. Kids are expensive. So what kind of job was available for a steaming hot Dragon that could pay for both?
She chose to become a stripper.
Then, her Momma finds out, and disowns her for it. (As if disowning her was going to solve anything!) I never did get the full details of that.
Yet, Frazziss keeps going with the help of her best friend. Eventually, she graduates and gets a job with the Forest Service. Then, a couple years later, she loses her kid because of some asshole military pilot who flies where he knows he shouldn’t.
Even then, she keeps going. She keeps doing her job. Somehow, she keeps holding on. Then she meets and falls for me. I learn of all the shit that she went through and it just humbles me. Why? Because, I too hit a rough patch in life and what did I do? I gave up.
I worked my way through college, and set up my own business. I was successful enough in that to indulge in my favorite hobby: Hiking. Then I met my woman along the Pacific Crest Trail. She and I hit it off and we get hitched. She got pregnant with my kid. And what did I end doing?
I killed my kid.
Yeah, I know. She was born without a brain and wouldn’t-have-lived-for-long-anyways-without-the-machines.
But that’s not the way I feel about it. I feel, that I killed her when I got her Momma pregnant. Pulling the plug of the machine that kept her alive was inevitable.
Then, I snuck around my wife’s back in three ways. 1) I didn’t tell her about our baby being born the way she was. 2) I pulled the plug on our kid. 3) I went out and got a Vasectomy without her knowledge or permission.
So, I guess you could say I was a double murderer. I killed my wife’s trust too. Not that she ever found out about my stepping out on her. Because she was dead within a month of my Vasectomy.
After that, I gave up. Well almost. I stuck around long enough to take my family’s ashes on a hiking trip. I got a little sidetracked on that. But, eventually I get it done.
During that sidetrack and even though I tried to avoid it, I ended up hurting more folks. Well, I knew I was hurting them, but I was trying to keep it to a minimum. I did that to prevent my hurting them even worse after I offed myself. Yeah that. That was my endgame for when I got my family’s ashes where I wanted them.
I nearly did it too. Kill myself that is. And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling Dragon.
I’d been working to die for so long, that I forgot how to live. Frazziss? Four months and a week ago, I didn’t even know she existed. Now, I can’t see living my life without her. She helped me to remember how to live. How can I not love her?
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Four months we’ve been together. We’ve had good times, we’ve had bad times. Like any other new couple, we had a lot to learn of the other’s habits and quirks.
For example, right from the start she lets me know how to address her.
“My name is Frazziss D’Aragon.” She tells me, standing across from me in that field near Cloud’s Rest. “Not Frazz. Nor Frazzle, or Frizzle.” An hour ago she wouldn’t let go of my dick. Now, she’s all prim and proper.
 “So, what can I call you then, Babe?” I ask cheekily. She rolls her eyes, crosses her arms, and twitches her wings once. Then she lets out a heavy sigh, (as if for dramatic effect).
“You may address me as Frazziss. I will tolerate ‘Babe’ occasionally.” She growls (lowly) for a second. (I figure out later that’s her ‘mildly annoyed’ growl.)
“You may NOT call me: Handbag, Godzilla’s kid sister, Shell Slime, or any other one of those insults you used on me during the last two days. Do you understand?” She said sternly with a look that pierced my soul
“I think so, Babe.” She grimaces at me for a second. I kept on. “So, I take it that includes: Gojira?”
“Yes.”
“Drama-Bat?”
“Yes.” She frowns.
“Tinker-Toad?”
“YES!” she frowns further, with her wings spreading.
“Bacon-…”
“ALLEN!” she growls deep enough to chuff a sliver of flame. I back off.
“Ok, I’m sorry Frazziss. I promise to never call you any of those names ever again.” I tell her contritely, as close as I can right then. She stops frowning.
“Even if you deserve it?” I added quickly. At which point she gets all huffy and puts her paws on my shoulders, and surrounds me with her wings.
“Especially, if I deserve it.” She said, clearly and concisely, looking deep into my eyes with a hint of menace. Just for a second, I get a mental image of Smaug laying waste to Laketown.
“Ok Frazziss, I promise to not do that to you.” She relaxes and smiles at me then. I put my arms around her in response. She melts into my arms and we just sit there embraced for an enjoyable long while.
But there is just one thing I can’t let go of. I had to ask.
“So, why did you get all freaked out when I called you Puffball?” I feel her tense up and pull away just enough to face me. But, instead of being angry, she has a sad look on her face for a second, and then leaned over to whisper in my ear.
“Because that’s what HE called me.” (HE the Scum-Bucket.) I hugged her close for her trusting me with that secret, and I never let that word pass my lips again.
Ever.
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It’s been fun.
Eventually we get dressed after our third soiree in the field near Cloud’s Rest, and then she takes me home. Her home turns out to be one of the Forest Service dormitory rooms. Her set of rooms had been refurbished to accommodate a Dragon by lining it with concrete and granite slabs. Because you know, Dragon claws can tear up just about anything else.
They weren’t the biggest set, because she wasn’t the biggest Dragon around. But, like it or not, she needed room to stretch her wings.
I thought it hilarious at first, that even though she was a Ranger in charge of enforcing the Laws and Rules of the Park; she was a NOT a tidy housekeeper. I didn’t get much of a tour of her place once we got there. But I saw a TON of clutter. My first glance of her place, told me that she was a mild Hoarder. I just knew then, that between her clutter and my inherent tidiness, sparks were going to be flying.
She had other things in mind than giving me a tour, when we arrived. My first warning of what those were, was after I shut the front door, I feel myself scooped up in her arms and dumped onto her bed.
“Strip!” she said with a leer.
“Uh, Frazziss, didn’t we already take care of that an hour ago?” I asked her surprised. She just fixes me with a stare as she starts taking off her own clothes.
“That was an hour ago! I’m hungry for more NOW!” she says over the sound of her uniform’s Velcro straps ripping apart.
“Uh, I gotta take a whiz first.” I say as I roll off of her bed. It’s fairly up off of the floor. She tries to grab me as I jump off of her bed, but since I stumbled as I hit the ground I managed to evade her paw.
I could tell that she wasn’t pleased with that, as she growled at me with her eyes flaring in frustration. Somehow I manage to dodge her again as I duck into the bathroom and took care of business.
Luckily she doesn’t barge in. When I open the door she’s nowhere to be seen.
I’m looking around and I don’t see hide or hair of her. I didn’t hear the front door open when I was in the loo.
“Frazziss?” I call out, and that’s when I notice that her work uniform is still on the floor where she left it after tearing it off.
‘What the fuck?’ is all I can think. I didn’t hear her leave the room. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear her claws on the cold stone floor. There’s no sign of her anywhere.
I let out a little scream when I feel her scaled mitt land on my shoulder, I look over and she’s right next to me! My heart just about jumped out of my chest then!
“Where the fuck, did you come from?!” I ask her, my voice shaking with fear. She just chuckles as she plops me down onto her bed and removes my clothes for me.
“Geez Frazziss! Do you have a cloaking device?” I ask her, all freaked out.
“A Dragon’s got to keep her secrets, love!” To which I try to growl at her back, but I fail. I try to grump at her too. But it’s hard to be grumpy when she started doing that thing with her tongue.
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Sparks were inevitable.
For a Dragon she was a bit of a slob. Me? I prefer to keep things all nice and tidy. After the first week in which we did nothing but eat, sleep, and make love, she had to go back to work. The new management for the Forestry Service has a pretty liberal Mamono-Love-Leave policy. But, even they have their limits.
So, after she goes off to work, I catch up on some (much needed) sleep. After I’m rested up, I’m bored as all hell. So I start tidying up the joint. She’s got a crap ton of dishes that needed cleaning, and there is junk lying around everywhere. So I just grab a box and start sorting it all, see what might be a keeper and what might not be.
Also, I started cooking up some dinner for her. You know, something made with love, as opposed to all of the microwaved meals she had been nuking up.
When she got home she looked around her place and just about lost her shit.
“ALLENWHATTHEFUCKDOYOUTHINKYOU’REDOING!!!” is the first inkling I get that I did something wrong.
“Babe! What’s wrong? Wh-wha-what did I do?” I say all scared. (Well, you would be too if you had a pissed off dragon baring her fangs at ya!)
She was scorching mad then! Now when I say scorching- I mean that. Literally. She was so pissed off at me then that she spit out a fireball. Straight at me! Granted, it was a tiny one. But it still hurt like a motherfuck when it impacted.
The next thing I know, I’m outside, because that’s where I ran to when I went into fire-panic mode.
“Allen! Allen! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to blast you like that! Allen! Please!” She’s running after me outside, and she’s all sobbing and crying then. I realize then that it’s freezing ass cold out and I’m still dressed in my shorts and I’m shaking all over. Oh Maou I can’t remember being so scared before!
Eventually, I calm down enough to let her approach. At that point she’s almost hysterical, looking at me despondently.
“Allen, Allen, Allen, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She says all quick like. I try to put my arms around her and hug her close to me. Yet she won’t allow it.
“C’mon babe. It’s ok. It’s all right.” I try talking soothingly to her. Eventually she calms down enough to let me embrace her. When we do she’s just quivering with fear and sobbing into my neck. I just keep telling her over and over that it’s ok, and I pet her head hair, taking care to not cut my hands on her sharp horns.
“It’s, ok babe, It’s all right. I’ve got you. Everything is fine. C’mon, let’s go back inside.” After a while I coax her back in, then we settle down onto the (now free of clutter) couch. She just keeps sobbing for a few minutes all the while I’m holding her close and stroking her hair some more. Finally, she stops crying and just lies there. I open my eyes and see her staring at me.
“Do you wanna talk?” She nods sadly, swallows, then hesitantly she does.
“You moved her toys.” She says quietly.
“Whose, toys?” I ask, then it hits me.
Now, my being the idiot, totally forgot that she had lost a kid while living here in the Valley. I find some kid’s toys and think nothing of gathering them all together into a box so that I can get the rest of the place picked up.
“Oh, yeah! HER, toys. Nocti’s toys! DAMMIT!” I say knocking myself in the head with a fist.
“I’m sorry Babe.” I apologize to her. “I just wasn’t thinking. I take it that where I moved them from was where she left them before…?”  Frazziss nodded then with her lips all scrunched. (Ah crap! Now I’m REALLY feeling like a piece of shit.)
“It’s hard to let go, I know. I remember when my wom…” I hesitate and cover my mouth with a hand. Oh crap, I’m just batting a thousand today.
“When my FIRST woman died…” I trail off as I’m looking at her. She looks at me with just a hint of a smile on her face. That’s when I know that I’m forgiven for that second lapse of judgment. I went on.
“The hardest thing for me to do after was getting rid of her stuff. Not that I’m saying you should with Nocti’s.” At this, she stands up from the couch and takes a couple of steps away from me and crosses her arms.
“Allen. I don’t know what came over me! I just saw that you moved my baby’s toys and I just got so angry with you…because…because…” she trails off. I get up and put my arms around her from behind (as best I can with her wings in the way). She doesn’t resist.
“Because you thought I was trying to take away your treasure?” I whisper. She turns her head and meets my eyes with her own all widened. That look tells me that I hit the nail on the head.
“Tell you what.” I whisper again. “Why don’t you go ahead and show me where all of her stuff is? That way I’ll know what to leave alone when I go back to straightening up this place.”  I smile at her. She turns around and embraces me with her arms and wings then.
“ok.” She whispered into my neck. She continued.
“Does that mean you’re not going to leave me then?” She asks tremulously.
“Huh, what? Where did that come from, Babe?” I ask all confused.
“Because I nearly scorched you!” she said sadly, poking a claw into the front of my shirt, which now had a fairly large hole made by her mini fireball hitting me. I look down at it and smile.
“I’m NOT going to leave you over such a small thing, Frazziss!” I said to her sternly then as I reached up and held her head in my hands.
“Every couple that gets started always has things to work out. We’re no different. I love you Babe! And I’m not planning on leaving you ever! Especially not over such a trivial matter.” At that moment the oven timer went off, and she got a confused look on her face.
“Allen? What’s that?” she asked looking confused.
“That! Babe! Is Dinner! I’ve been looking through some of your Mamono cookbooks and I think I found something you’ll like!” I grinned. Her jaw dropped open in surprise.
“You cooked for me?” she asks as if this is some kind of miracle.
“Well, why wouldn’t I? You’re the one working the job. It’s the least I can do to help out around the place.” She got herself a wondrous look on her face. She reached up and put her hand/paws cradling my head.
“Why are you so good to me?” she whispered, looking me in the eyes, her own face was just inches from mine. I noticed then her purple irises contracting her pupils into slits with wondered fascination.
I felt my eyebrows scrunch together in exasperation at such a silly question. I reached up and held her head with my hand, my thumb lightly tracing her lush lips.
“You’re my woman, Frazziss. How else am I gonna treat you?”  She got a sad look on her face and closed her eyes, pressing her head into my hand as if she could soak my fingers into her. She then kissed my palm lightly with a small sob.
(I’m not sure, but I think we just had ourselves: “A Moment”.)
My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed she was pushing us both over in the direction of her bed.
“Hey! C’mon Frazziss, at least let me take dinner out of the oven, so that it doesn’t burn!” I shout as I try to wiggle my way out of her arms and wings.
“Oh pish-posh, Allen! I’m a Dragon, everything I eat is burned!” she replied grabbing what’s left of my shirt to stop me from getting away.
“Well maybe not everything I put in my mouth!” She purred.
Well I ended up getting that shirt ripped off of me getting dinner out of the oven, which I did, barely. She then let me know, that she considered the kitchen floor as good as her bed.
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It’s been funny.
I’ve been making her omelettes for breakfast (heavy on the bacon!) and one day she sits down and gets outraged at what I put in front of her.
“ALLEN!” She yells. “What is the meaning of this?!”
“Huh, what!” I go. “What’s wrong Frazziss?” I see her pointing down to her plate. I can’t see anything wrong.
“Since when do you think I became a Vegetarian!?” She yells in exasperation.
“What’s wrong?”
“THIS!” I look closer to where she’s pointing and all I can see is a sprig of parsley. I assume that it’s it.
“That’s just parsley! What’s the big whoop?”
“It’s a VEGETABLE!” she says as if this is supposed to explain everything.
“It’s traditional to put it next to food. It’s supposed to ‘freshen your breath’.” I say.
“Oh, you’re saying I’ve got bad breath, now!?” She huffs.
“No! It’s just that…” I trail off when I see her mischievous look.
“Oh, you sneaky little Minx!” I blow out my breath in exasperation. “You’re just messing with me!” She just smiled and went on to eat her breakfast with a shit eating grin. I guess I make good breakfast, because invariably she wants a second serving: Me.
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It’s been wistful.
We may both be crazy in our own ways, but we’ve got a compatible craziness. All in all, I prefer being with her than not. One of the first things I had to learn when sleeping with her was how to put up with Dragon Drool.
When she fell asleep in my arms back in that meadow last fall, she drooled all over my shirt. Now she does that every night, on me! She never drools on her pillows or sheets, just me. I can’t figure it out. But I can’t complain, she’s all too willing to leave her drool on other parts of me when she’s awake.
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It’s been interesting.
There were a few cold days that winter, but it was also mild often enough in that we went on a few overnight hikes together. Well, I would go on a hike. She would fly. After about an hour or two she’d get tired of waiting for me to catch up, then she’d swoop in and grab me. No warnings, BOOM! I’m airborne. She knows it pisses me off when she does that, but she does it anyways.
Then we fly to our destination, set up camp, and make love. I think she just wants to get to the main event all the quicker. I think that, because more than a few times we don’t even get the camp set up before we’re making love.
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It’s been sad.
One time, I was cleaning stuff out from underneath the kitchen sink and I came across a pile of crayons. They were all broken. I picked one up and noticed that it was in two pieces, they were held together with just that bit of paper that wraps them.
At first, I’m having a bit of a laugh, because I remember that when I was a kid, I hid all my broken crayons in one spot. I did that because I thought I was going to get in trouble for breaking them.
Then it hits me.
I realized that that the last person to hold that crayon was her baby. In that moment, I could feel that little girl’s worry that Mama was gonna be mad at her. And that like any other child, she felt that she needed to hide it to avoid her Momma’s anger. It just touched me.
So, I put it back in that pile of broken crayons and had another crying meltdown. I didn’t think I was crying for all that long, but the next thing I know Frazziss is there, and picks me up then hugs me for what seems the longest time.
Eventually she asks why I’m crying, and I show her the pile. Then, we’re both crying. But you what the weird thing was?  She had a bit of a laugh in between sobs. Apparently, she didn’t know about that pile. She tells me, that she wouldn’t have been mad about the broken crayons, I mean who would? In the end we decided to put all of those crayons in a bowl and leave them there in that spot.
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She’s been funny.
You are probably aware of my brand of humor by now. Well here’s hers.
Frazziss: Hey Allen, did you hear about that Satyros who got a job at a Sperm Bank?
Me: Uuuuh, no, I’ve not heard about that. What happened? (I ask all suspicious.)
Frazziss: She got fired last week.
Me: Why’s that?
Frazziss: She got caught drinking on the job. (Yuck Yuck Yuck!)
Me: Arrrgh!
Frazziss: You know what’s even worse?
Me: Oh no! Do I dare ask?....Ok go ahead, let’s get this over with!
Frazziss: They hired a Danuki to replace her. She didn’t work out either.
Me. (heavy sigh). And why is that?
Frazziss: She was caught skimming off of the top. (Yuck Yuck Yuck!)
Me. (face palms) Arrrgh!
Frazziss: That’s still not the worst!
Me: Shut up, Frazziss!
Frazziss: They replaced her with a Mucus Toad, but she got caught drinking straight from the tap! (Yuck Yuck Yuck!)
You see what kind of shit I gotta put up with, living with a Dragon? They’re all comedians.
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It’s been weird.
Winter kicks in for real, things are going great, then I get a big lesson in Mamono Sex Etiquette. It’s common knowledge that Mamono are pretty easy going when it comes to sex.
My problem was, I never learned the why’s and how’s. It’s different from what I’m used to with human Etiquette, but in a way, it’s the same.
Take us humans for instance. When we have guests drop in, what is the first thing we do? We offer them food.  Easy Peasy, right? Well, Mamono do the same. Only it’s different, because Mamono need to feed by way of sex. So, when Mamono have guests drop in, what do they do? They offer sex.
And just like when humans offer food, if you’re not interested you just turn them down, and nothing more is expected. No one ends up insulted. So, when Frazziss and I hang out with her Mamono friends, the offer is made, the offer is turned down. No problem.
But apparently, there is more to it than just that.
I found that out the hard way, when one of her friends hit on me. I think one of the biggest things I’ve always hated about being a guy, was us guy’s inherent ‘wandering eye’. A guy could have a harem of a hundred-beautiful woman, but let number hundred and one sashay by, and he’s gotta scope her out.
One day when Frazziss was on patrol, I scope out a Ranger Minotaur by the name of Tallia. I didn’t think that I was being that obvious. But the next thing I know, she turns around and hits on me. Now, I know that she and Frazziss are friends. But I’m just not comfortable with stepping out on my woman. But, she seemed to take my refusal well. Then later that day, I get an earful from Frazziss.
She explains to me that Tallia had been married to a Smoke Jumper. One day during a fire, he got trapped when the wind shifted. Tallia soldiers on. THE IMPORTANT PART: Tallia is used to getting a fair piece of Essence on a regular basis.  Now that she’s widowed, she doesn’t have it anymore.
“Ok, but what does that have to do with me?” I ask. Frazziss just sighs and rolls her eyes at me all exasperated.
“Allen, if you and your friends were out hiking and they were thirsty and you were the only one with a canteen of water, what would you do?”
“Oh that’s easy, I’d share…..” I clammed up once I got the gist of her argument. At which point I get all embarrassed and frustrated.
“Babe, I’m just not interested in stepping out on ya!” I tell her lamely. At that point, she wing-hugs me and kisses me on my nose. Then she goes on to explain it to me patiently, while holding my gaze.
“Allen, I know that being faithful is a human trait, and that it is important to you. But it isn’t that big of a deal to us Mamono.” She then put her claw-paws on my shoulders and leaned in close looking all serious like.
“Well, it would be a big deal to me if you started seeing another woman, and didn’t leave me any.” Then she smiled.
“Besides,” She continued, “Tallia shared her husband with me plenty of times when I needed it. Now, it’s time for me to repay the favor.”
What the hell am I supposed to say in reply to that? She’s my woman. Her shit is my shit. But, I had to say just one more thing before I go and help her pay back one of those favors.
“Would it be too much to ask, if she could at least buy me a drink first?” That made Frazziss laugh.
So that’s how I ended up having sex with a Dragon AND (occasionally) a Minotaur. Naturally, Tallia wears me out when we bang. But she doesn’t demand it too often. After that, Tallia’s way of letting me know that she needs something is when she hands me a bottle of beer.
Though there was the one time she approached me with a six pack in her hand. I just about shit a brick when I saw that. She saw the fear on my face and realized what I was all getting all nervous about, and laughed. She was just saying hello on the way back to her rooms.
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It’s been magical.
Speaking of which, I’ve also been working on my Mojo. That whole ‘magic tricks’ stuff I can pull out of my ass. I managed to discover that I can work stones now. It ain’t much I’ll admit, but I think it’s cool. I can take a golf ball sized rock and flatten it into the perfect skipping stone.
And that’s about it.
But I don’t go skip stones at Mirror Lake. It still hurts too much to go there. That’s where I spread my wife and kid’s ashes. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>


Back to now.
I wake up the next morning after my middle of the night piss grab. First thing I see this morning is her beautiful face. What better way is there to wake than seeing the face of the one you love? (Well there is one, but it involves a blowjob and aaaaah never mind!)
This time, she’s looking back at with her head lying on my shoulder. I reach up and start caressing her face. I’m about to say Good Morning, but that’s when she puts a claw to my lips.
“Allen, let’s go on a hike.” She says a bit shakily. Then, she lets go of my lips.
“Where?”, I ask.
“Hetch Hetchy.” She replies.
Hetch Hetchy is basically another Yosemite Valley, located several miles to the north of the main Valley. But, since it wasn’t as spectacular in looks as Yosemite, it was turned into a water reservoir for the city of San Francisco. Why does she want to go there? She tells me it’s her Safe Spot. The place she goes to for some ‘herself’ time.  I’m all apprehensive, because whatever she’s got in mind, it must be a doozy.
I wanna ask her: why there all of a sudden? She must have read my mind.
“I need to tell you something important. I want it to be,There.” I nod my head and we make ready to go. After a little personal time together first, of course.
Now remember my mentioning that she gets impatient waiting for me to catch up on a hike? Not this time. I end up hoofing it all the way over, all twenty-seven miles. But she was waiting for me when I got to the valley’s edge. She then gave me a lift the last few miles to the camping site that she’d already set up.
I didn’t pay too much attention to the spot, because one, I’m dog tired at that point and two, it’s getting dark. So, we’re in the tent, I’m sitting down, she offers me something to eat and I say no. I’m hungry, yeah. But I really wanna know what’s up first.
So, after a bit of silence she starts talking.
 “Today is a special point in our lives Allen. The reason why is that right now, I have to make a choice.” She looks again and swallows.
“My choice right now is, I can either continue sleeping with you, or not sleeping with you ever again.”  I want to say something then, but she shakes her head ‘no’. So I clam up.
“I’m not a human woman Allen, obviously. What I am, is a Dragon. I know that you have no real idea what a Dragon is. But I’ll tell you what Dragons are: We’re Selfish, we’re Possessive. Once we’ve acquired something; we never want to let go of it, or them.” She sighed, curling her tail around herself as she commanded my gaze with hers.
“This night, right now, is the point that if I continue to sleep with you then I will bond with you.” She paused again. “There will be no turning back for us. If we make love again now, we will be mated for life.”
“But if we don’t make love again. Then I’ll be free to find someone else again later.” I start to protest. But she just shakes her head no, not yet. “I don’t want to bond with someone else Allen. I want to bond with you.”
“Allen. Do you love me?” I open my mouth to say ‘Yes’, but before I do she puts a claw to my lips. I look all confused at what’s going on. She continues.
“Allen, what I want is for you to love me like the way you loved your wife and daughter.” She drops her claw.
“Call me selfish, call me greedy, call me possessive, and you’d be right. I am. Dragons are all that. I don’t want words Allen. I want Deeds.” She dropped her eyes and looks at the bottom of the tent.
“When I saved your life four months ago Allen. I broke my word.” She’s looked up at me again. “Do you really understand what an oath means to a Dragon?” She frowns with a sad look on her mug. “What it means to Dragons if one of their own breaks a promise?” I shake my head, without saying a thing.
“It means a great deal. Because Dragons KNOW when one of us breaks their word.” I’m just amazed by that. I’ve got a million questions I wanna ask her. But I see that look on her face. So, I just settle down. They can wait.
“But I can be forgiven for breaking my word, if the circumstances are explained to the Council. They always forgive oath breaking when if it’s done for love. That’s why I broke my word Allen, is that I loved you then. I knew I loved you as soon as I learned how devoted you were to your human wife. I wanted that kind of love and devotion for myself.”
 “What I want Allen is for you to burn for me. I want you to burn for me like the way you still do for your wife.” Oh Maou, she’s on the verge of crying now.
“I’m not saying that I want you to stop loving her, I’ll never expect you to do that. I just want you to burn as fiercely for me, too.” She nods her head to let me know she’s finished with her speech.
 “Ok, Babe, so what is the ‘Deeds’ you want me to prove? Talk to the council on your behalf?” She shook her head at that. She then shifted over and picked up a box. It was her sister’s package that she received yesterday. She gave it to me. I open it.
Inside are two bottles, one looked familiar.  Then I recognized one. It was Frazziss’ pendant, the ‘Forest Ranger Attitude Juice’ she had been wearing around her neck. I remember seeing it when I first met her after she saved me from dying. It was still glowing pink.
I look up at her for an explanation.
“The pink filled vial is my pendant. I know you’ve been asking about it for the last four months, and now I’ll tell you what it is. The liquid inside it ,is my own Dragon Energy.” She smiled at me. “It’s similar to Demon Energy, but it has my life force imprinted upon it.”
“Ok,” I asked all confused. “so, why carry around a vial of your own magic life force?”
“Hush,” She says. “I’ll get to that. “That black filled vial has been in my family for generations. It was given to us by the Demon Lord ages ago as payment for services rendered. It’s Succubus Nostrum.”
“Ok” I ask. “What’s Succubus Nostrum?”
“You know how that every time we make love, it turns you just a little bit more into an Incubus?”
“Yeah, I think I know that shit. It’s supposed to be the end result of all that Demonic Energy every Mamono has got.”
“These,” She said, pointing to both vials, “are a shortcut. You drink them together, and you will become an Incubus overnight.” She finished, as if this explained everything. I just got a dumb look on my face. She went on.
“But, you will become MY Incubus. Which means that…”She paused, biting her lip in thought. “You know how you can have sex with other Mamono, even other human women, if you wanted to right now?”
“Uuuuh, yeah. I guess. Tallia and such.” I answer, not understanding the point.
“If you drink both vials, you won’t want to do that anymore.” I hold off replying, because it sounds like she’s got something else she wants to get off of her chest.
“It’ll be like a Shirohebi curse. You’ll only ever want ME, Allen.” She stopped then swallowed.
“You will only want me, for forever.” She took a deep breath as if she’s afraid to say what was coming next.
“If I die before you do, then until the day you die you’ll burn for me and me alone.” Now she’s got such an intense look on her face, that it scares me.
“But with no way to quench that burning.”
“HUH!?” was all I could say. I was gobsmacked with that bit of news. I looked at that box in my hands. I’d heard rumors about something like this, but I never thought that this shit was for real. Yet here it was, sitting in a box; a pair of vials.
“Is it selfish of me to ask this of you?” She’s hissing at me now. “Yes it is! It’s extremely selfish!  But Dragons are selfish, Allen. We Dragons are Greedy when it comes to keeping what we have.” She paused, then grabbed my head with both of her claw paws and drew my head till it was inches from hers.
“Cast away your Humanity and become MY Incubus, Allen! Become MY Ideal Mate, NOW! This is the deed I demand of you!” I looked into her eyes then and I saw a Forest Fire raging within them.
“Will you burn for me Allen? Will you burn for me for forever as fiercely as I burn for you today?” What she said scared me beyond anything I had ever known before. I felt a bullet of fear sweat fall down the side of my head.
As I stared back at her intensely, I then whispered the one word that sealed my fate.
“Yes.”
She didn’t say a word, nor did she change the look on her face. Instead she released my head and then produced a small clay bowl from somewhere. It looked like something a child would make in a kindergarten class. She handed it to me and I held it between us. All the while, she kept her eyes locked with mine, breathing through her mouth in the same way she did when she ‘in the mood’.
She then picked up and opened her pink vial and poured it into the bowl. She did the same with the black vial. The two mixed there inside it, and the two gave off a slight fizz as they mixed. Just before the two mixed, I could’ve sworn that the black stuff ‘reached out’ to grab the pink.
That mixture had a weird smell to it. It smelt like ‘a turning point’. That’s the best way I could remember to describe it.
I looked down at it. That small amount of liquid, I think it was about a gill’s worth. Drinking that was going to make me lose my humanity- her words.
 ‘It’d be like I was killing mys…’ I thought and stopped. I grinned then. Her look changed from one of intensity to one of confusion.
As quick as I could, I chug a lugged that thing. It didn’t take long for the effects to hit. Every inch of the way between my lips and my stomach, it felt like I drank Everclear-soaked razor blades.
I felt my esophagus cramping in response as it slid down my throat. Then it wormed its way into my stomach, and I think it decided that I must have declared war, cause, my tummy retaliated by forcibly expelling that unwanted immigrant. I responded by sending it back down. Then I did it again, and then again. I lost count of how many times I had to gag that crap down. Finally, it went down and stayed there.
But man, that shit hurt! It didn’t get any better with every swallow, instead it just kept getting worse! Eventually, I gasp a few times from the pain.
I broke out in a sweat, and I could feel my blood pressure dropping and things were going all fuzzy around the edges. I lose my bearings for a second and when I come to, I find myself in her arms. She’s holding me baby style, and she’s crying hard enough to drip tears all over my face. I look up at her and I can see that she’s happy. But, strangely, she’s also looks frightened.
“Babe, is this supposed to happen?” I ask, shakily.
“I don’t know, Allen.” She says quietly, her eyes wide and her lips pursed.
“Huh?” I pant. “What do you mean: You-Don’t-Know? Surely your Father told you what it would be like?”
“I don’t know Allen! He refused the Nostrum!” she said, as if this somehow explained everything.
“You’re the First Allen!” she said, stroking my head and face in wonder. “You’re the First!”
“Wha…What do you mean, I’m the First?” I half yell as I start shaking uncontrollably.  She went on to explain.
“No other male has ever swallowed that Nostrum. Not a single one! The D’Aragons have offered that dose to every male who has ever gotten them Gravid, Allen! Every. Single. One! My mother, my sisters! All of them!” She said excitedly. “And not a single one of them ever accepted it. For Centuries! Ever!” she said, covering her mouth with a claw paw.
“Until Now.” She whispered shakily, drawing me close and hugging me intensely.
 “You’re the First, Allen!” She sang into my ear. “You’re the ONLY Male to accept it! Oh Maou! You’ve made me so Happy!” she cried while stroking my back with both paws.
I couldn’t say anything by way of reply then, it just hurt too much to do anything other than shake. I could feel my face getting all clammy. Yet strangely, I could feel the pain in my belly turn to warmth. Then it spread into an ever expanding circle from the core of my tummy.
But it wasn’t a good kind of warmth. It felt like I was slowly being burned by a million tiny flames. I could feel myself starting to convulse in reaction. Frazziss noticed it then.
“Allen! What’s wrong?”
I reply by screaming, it hurt that bad.
 “ALLEN!” she cries. It takes a while for me to answer, because I’m getting weaker by the moment. I pull her down close enough to whisper something in her scaled ear. It’s like I’m looking at her through a tunnel now.
 ‘Oh Maou, this tent is spinning.’ I realized.
“I love you, Frazziss!” I struggle to stay with her.
With that, I fade. Far away I can hear her screaming my name. Then, everything goes black.
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