Life With A Fire-Breathing Girlfriend Read online

  I got dressed and went downstairs. Rose was in the kitchen, frying up a whole pound of bacon at once. Another pan held a mass of shredded potatoes. Rose was wearing one of my dress shirts and nothing else. The view got me thinking of kilts again. It took me a few moments to realize her hair was different. It was longer in front and had a distinct purple sheen to it.

  She set her spatula down and kissed me. Last night, I had to bend my head to reach her lips. Not this morning. She was at least three inches taller than she’d been last night. I started undoing buttons on the shirt she was wearing.

  It wasn’t my imagination. The changes were real, and they were spectacular.

  I started a pot of coffee and sat down at the table. “Rose, last night you said some truths were too big to talk about yet. I think this one should be manageable. What is going on?”

  She moved the bacon in with the hash browns and started scrambling a dozen eggs. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just the acceptance. Our bodies are adjusting until they match.” She poured all the food she’d made onto a turkey platter and set it on the table. “Go ahead and serve yourself,” she said. “I’ll take the rest. I’m hungry this morning.”

  I poured my coffee—lots of cream, lots of sugar—and put a normal portion of food on my plate. Rose still finished eating before I did. I stared at the empty platter. “Is your appetite always like this?”

  “More or less. From time to time it will be much greater. Don’t worry about the expense. I can pay for the extra food I’ll need.” She sniffed my coffee. “Is that black gold? Texas tea?”

  I laughed. “No, this is just coffee. Would you like to try it?”

  “Yes, please!” She took a sip, followed by a deep drink. She set my mug down and licked the coffee mustache off of her upper lip. When she did, I got a great look at her tongue. It was narrow and the tip was neatly forked. She caught my look and smirked. When she opened her mouth again, her tongue was normal.

  No matter how good the sex is, non-human body parts should have me freaking out. I wasn’t. It seemed perfectly…normal. Something like that should be bothering me, and it wasn’t. Even the fact it didn’t bother me didn’t bother me. I shook my head and made a new cup of coffee for her.

  After breakfast, I showed her how to load the dishwasher, and then went upstairs to help her find some clothes to wear while shopping. While she was dressing, I pressed her for more details. “Rose, who and what are you? Miriam was being sarcastic last night, but she was right: you’re not human. I’d like the big, scary explanation, please.”

  “You’re fast. Mother told me the freaky pothead she picked last time took two weeks to put it together.” She sat on the bed. “My people call themselves ‘The Glorious Immortal Sovereign Overlords of the Eternal Sky and All Our Shadows Fall Upon’.”

  I stared at her. “Oh, crap—you’re a cat?”

  She stared at me. “What… you… ohhh!” She pummeled me with a pillow, knocking me back onto the bed. She pinned my wrists with one hand and straddled me. “I am not a cat!” I tried to move my arms, but her hand might as well have been forged from high-carbon steel. She pressed her chest against mine and whispered, “Name me!”

  I shook my head. “No, no, stop. I can’t work like this. Too much implied teen angst.”

  She released my wrists. “I don’t know what that means.” She moved to the side so I could sit up.

  “I do think I know what you are,” I told her. “You’re big. You have some kind of conservation of mass thing going on, which is why you eat so much. You can fly. You’re natural form isn’t humanoid at all, thus the tattoo. You aren’t afraid of anything; in fact, you expect people to be afraid of you. If that wasn’t enough, your last name is a dead giveaway.” I traced my finger down her cheek. “You’re a Dragoness, and I bet you’re a long way from home. Now, why are you here? What do you need from me that you can’t get from the Humans back where you come from?”

  “You’re right. The Humans at home do fear us. It poisons their souls. Even if one of them wished to help, terror and hatred contaminate the energy they give off.” Rose pressed my hand against her abdomen. “I need your energy for my eggs.”

  “My energy—mine specifically, or would any guy do?”

  She pressed her fingers over my heart. “Not just anyone. Only special people will do. People with wonder in their hearts. Male or female makes no difference.”

  Aha. “So, you’re bi? I mean, you like sex with both men and women? Is that normal for Dragons, or are you just kinky? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Rose laughed. “Don’t be silly. The kinky part for me is being with one of you naked apes. Gender isn’t an issue when I’m mating outside of my species. Besides, what you and I do is nothing like a mating flight. You cannot give me children—your seed can’t fertilize my eggs. When I’m ready, I’ll return home, and those males who are interested and able to keep up will try to catch me in my first mating flight. And no, I’m not involved with anyone back home. We don’t form romantic attachments or become bonded until after the mating flight. It makes things easier, socially.”

  “As for you and I... We cannot be together forever. I will have to leave one day, and that day will be in about three years. Until then, we are just having fun.” She moved my hand over her abdomen again, then slid it a little further south. “I like having fun, and I need it.”

  I was trying to pay attention. I really was. “What do you mean, you need it?”

  “Not the sex. Your energy. I need your sense of wonder. Your belief. Your attention. Your love. It gives my eggs vitality. We reproduce only two or three times in a thousand years, and then only half of the clutch reaches adulthood under normal conditions. By infusing my eggs with your energy, they gain a better chance at life. Your energy can mean doubling the number of eggs I clutch. You can’t impregnate me, but you give me more children, and make all my children stronger. My people are fighting for survival, and we will do whatever it takes to win—including having sex with naked apes. No offense.”

  “None taken. Primate and proud. Now, why am I not freaking out about you not being human, or having non-human body parts?”

  Rose smiled. “That’s the acceptance. When you accepted me, you accepted everything about me, in advance, even the things you didn’t know about. I accept you in the same way. Nothing you say or do will ever drive me away. Even our sex drives are synchronized, and it will be like this for the next three years.”

  I pulled away from her. “So, you’re telling me that I have to spend three years having all the sex I can handle with my ideal woman in order to save Dragons from extinction?”

  “Yes”

  I threw my head back, laughing and pumping my fists. “Oh, yeah! This beats the shit out of clapping to resurrect a fairy!”

  Rose furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about? Clapping doesn’t do shit for fairies.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll explain later.”

  “That’s what you said about your friend, Sharon,” Rose said. “I’ve told you my great truth. I’d like to hear yours now.”

  “That’s fair, I suppose.” I took her hands and tried to quell the wrenching feeling in my gut. “When I was a kid, my folks would spend several weeks each summer with some relatives who lived in a tiny little town in Oklahoma. Sharon’s parents owned the grocery store and ran the post office, which was in the same building. Anything they didn’t carry, you had to go to another town for. Her parents were my relatives’ next door neighbors. So, that’s how we know each other.”

  “Then, the year we graduated from high school, Sharon talked her folks into letting her come back to Colorado with us when our summer visit was over. She had never seen a city with more than five stoplights in her life. She’d never seen real mountains. She was just blown away by it all. She got a job, decided to go to school out here, and wound up getting married to Manya. Her parents all but disowned her until about a year ago, whe
n she and Manya decided to have a baby.”

  Rose cocked an eyebrow at me. “Your people don’t have that kind of magic.”

  I shook my head. “Not to create a baby from two women, no. They needed some male genetic material, and I was the one they came to for a donation.”

  “What kind of…oh.” Rose sat back on the bed, tapping her finger tips on her thigh. “Did you mate with Sharon?”

  I laughed. “No, I got to do my part with a couple of magazines and a test tube. Right now there’s a mess of frozen fertilized eggs sitting in a lab somewhere, waiting to be implanted in Sharon as soon as she’s ready. Her doctor is worried about gestational diabetes, so she’s been losing weight and working out.” I pulled Rose close to me and kissed her. “I did a favor for two friends, and that’s all. I’ll have a place in the child’s life, but it won’t be as a parent. You have nothing to be jealous of.”

  “I’m not jealous,” Rose said. “You gave them a wonderful gift, very like the one you’re giving me. How can I be jealous of that?” She kissed me and pushed me back down on the bed.

  Something told me we were going to have to have a conversation about boundaries during working hours, or I was never going to get anything done.

  Chapter Four

  “Mine!” “Mine!” “Mine!”

  Shopping with a Dragon can be interesting. She refused to let me use my credit cards at first. Instead, we stopped by a jewelry store so she could sell a small stack of coins. I didn’t see her carrying them; she just pulled them out of the same place she got the top hat and her driver’s license (which was a real, valid, Washington state license that said she lived in Seattle). The coins were solid gold, larger than a Krugerrand by half again, and fetched nine thousand plus change. The dealer checked twice to make sure they were real, and even called for a mall cop to come over and watch us in case we decided to run during the test.

  The mall cop turned out to be someone I knew; that didn’t mean I was happy to see him. Randall was another MDSFS member, currently on a six-month suspension for trying to grope three women. He was in his late forties, slumpy, and combined a bad comb-over with a walrus-sized Cheesy Cop Mustache. He was still a virgin and prone to oversharing personal information, loudly and often. He boasted about living with his mother, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out she was mummified and tucked into a corner somewhere. He had no social skills at all, as evidenced by managing to make himself a pariah among a group of people who make a point of being inclusive.

  I gave him a nod and a frosty glare. I hadn’t just voted for permanent expulsion and calling the police; I had been the prosecutor during his hearing. I noticed his eyes flicking to Rose’s chest; it was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra. It didn’t bother me when other guys stared, but Randall was a different matter.

  He planted himself in the doorway and gave me a nod while he caressed his pepper spray holster. I guess the warm fuzzy feeling was mutual. Still, Randall had enough professionalism not to say anything to us directly until we were leaving the store. He waited until the shop owner handed Rose her check, then stood away from the door. “Stay safe out there, miss.”

  I gave him a smile for that. He followed us for a little bit, always staying outside the stores we visited. He finally wandered off when I wasn’t looking and I was more than happy to discover him gone. Keeping Rose on task was a lot more involved than I had expected.

  To begin with, Rose had no concept of delayed gratification. Her instinctive response to anything that sparkled was to grab it and yell “MINE!” Apparently, ‘mine’ is the Draconic word for both ‘jewelry’ and ‘art collection’. I talked her out of everything except a gold and ruby pendant shaped like a dancing flame. I stopped arguing with her when she started haggling with the shop owner in his native Farsi.

  After Rose handed over another stack of gold coins and went to put the necklace on, the owner leaned over. “You have a remarkable woman there. Where did you find her?”

  “Last night, down on Federal. She’s not Human, though. She’s a Dragon in human form.” I smiled at him and added, “And that’s the truth.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. “Well then, God be merciful to you.” He looked at the stack of coins Rose had given him, noting the same thing I had: the writing was in no known Earth language. He dropped the coins in his pocket and excused himself, ducking into his office. I’m certain he was trying to look those coins up on the Internet. I made a mental note to do the same thing myself. I doubt either of us was the first to have noticed the writing.

  Once I got Rose into a clothing store, I still had to talk her into buying underwear. Apparently, her planet hasn’t invented it yet. The sales girls were all too young to understand (much less convincingly explain) the long-term effects of gravity, but Rose reminded me she could change her shape at will. Gravity was not the boss of her.

  I said, “Tell me, do you have treasures in your hoard that you only show to special visitors? Things precious to you?”

  “Things I don’t want other people to see, right?” She smiled. “No, I don’t. Beautiful, valuable items are to be flaunted, and you should bask in the envy of those who covet what you have.”

  I sighed. “Rose, it would make me more comfortable if you would wear underwear in public. It’s the dominant social norm. I promise, I’ll tell you if there’s something we go to where underwear is optional. It makes me happy to see you wearing it.”

  She kissed me. “Show me what you want me to wear, and I’ll wear it.”

  Note to self: If logic fails, try appealing to hedonism.

  After loading up on the frilly and the lacy, street clothes came next. Rose had a strong preference for cotton and leather. Her wardrobe taste turned out to be a mix of African Safari and Burning Man. It wouldn’t have worked in Oklahoma City, but around Boulder nobody would bat an eye. Despite her discomfort with synthetic fabrics, I did talk her into adding a silver spandex cat suit with matching boots. You never know when you’ll have to go someplace where they won’t let you in unless you’re in a sexy Cyborg costume.

  Hey, it could happen.

  After the clothes we picked up some fudge and a couple pounds of assorted chocolate truffles. While I paid, Rose wandered into the shop next door and found a set of hatchling dragon figurines: hatchies on the computer, hatchies making a mess in the kitchen, hatchies holding up their boo-boos to be kissed. Rose was both enchanted and slightly appalled at their “charming yet comic antics” (to quote the ad copy on the display), but she was hooked. By the time I arrived, Rose was helping the cashier box up the whole clutch of hatchlings, one and all. I watched her through the window, smiling and laughing with the cashier, and saw Randall standing behind me, reflected in the glass.

  “She’s cute,” he said. “Nice ta-tas.”

  “Why aren’t you doing something useful, like chasing skateboarders?” I didn’t turn around. “Oh, right. That would be actual work.”

  “My suspension is up in two months. You gonna’ bring her to the meetings? It gets awful cramped in that room. People bump into each other all the time.”

  If we had been in a music store, I swear, I would have grabbed a guitar and gone all El Kabong on his ass. “Do yourself a favor, asswipe. Don’t tickle a sleeping dragon.” I turned to look at him directly. “Or grope one. Now, stay the hell away from us, or I let your boss know about the things you just said about my girl.” I pulled my cell phone out of my shirt pocket and waved it at him. “Video is worth a thousand words.”

  Randall tapped his fingers on his pepper spray again, then dropped his hand to his side and shrugged. “I have to study for my armed duty exam anyway. You two have a nice day.” He sauntered off, leaving me staring in horror and wondering who would be insane enough to trust that sociopathic loser with a gun.

  I shook my head and took several deep breaths before entering the store. Rose set the figure she was wrapping down and took my hands. “You turned angry. What happened?”

 
“Nothing important. I was just talking to a guy who needs to be fed to a giant singing plant from outer space.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Would a non-singing variety from another dimension count? I could arrange that.”

  “Works for me.” I replied. To my eternal regret, I put the preemptive strike out of mind and handed the saleslady my credit card. When she set our purchases on the counter, I looked at all the bags we were already carrying and sighed. I spent a few minutes rearranging and consolidating things, but we were still loaded like Sherpas heading up Everest as we made our way out of the mall.

  Thankfully, I’d decided to use the mall’s valet parking service on the way in. Deity-of-your-choice bless whoever thought of that idea. We got Rose’s check deposited, went home, and unloaded. Rose tried on several outfits before deciding what to wear right before we had to leave for dinner. I guess when you don’t wear clothes you never get to play dress-up.

  Sharon and Manya lived in the heart of Cherry Creek, on a gentrified, oak-lined street that reminded me of that small town in Oklahoma where Sharon and I met. Smoke from their backyard grill wreathed the lawn, heavy with the scents of garlic, ginger, and cardamom. Sharon met us at the door with tall glasses of mango lassi and abundant thanks for the chocolates.

  We ate outside on their deck, surrounded on all sides by herbs, flowerbeds, ivy-covered brick, and walls of pampas grass. True to her word, Manya had added a chicken vindaloo with mango chutney and mint raita to the menu. Having tried her vindaloo already, I stuck with the butter chicken. My tastebuds might be weak but they were alive.

  Rose, however, loved it a trifle too much. I had to remind her that Humans don’t eat chicken bones. I snuck a few off my plate onto hers so it didn’t look like she was dropping them into the bushes. Pet owners don’t care for that sort of thing.