“You think you can handle me?” I said. “Fine! Come at me, bro!”
And once I pulled off that magnificent line, I reached up and punched the dragon in the eye.
“Ow!” it cried as it pulled its head back. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
“Ha!” I crowed as I pushed myself to my feet. “Take that, motherf
ucker!”
“You punched me in the eye.” It shook its head, blinking rapidly.
“Consider it—” I paused dramatically. “—an eye for an eye.” I winced. “Okay, that sounded a lot cooler in my head.”
“I don’t think that would have sounded cool to anyone.” It shook its head, apparently trying to clear its vision.
“Hey!”
“Seriously, though,” it said. “Of all the places to punch, your first thought is to punch an eye. Who does that?”
“You were going to eat me!”
The dragon snorted and a little lick of flame curled out its nose. “I was not, though I’m giving very serious consideration to doing so now.”
“You can’t threaten someone with imminent death and not expect some kind of reaction,” I retorted.
“It’s called posturing,” the dragon said. “It’s what I do. You humans keep showing up in my valley, tying yourselves up for no apparent reason. I come down here, roar a little bit, then break the chains and let them leave. They always run. But nooo. You had to use your tiny little human hands and punch me in the eye.”
“I don’t have tiny hands,” I said, trying to save face. “I’ll have you know, I’ve got big hands. Everyone says so.” No one said that, but he didn’t need to know.
And then it leered at me. “You know what they say about big hands. You big, little wizard?”
“Oh my goodness,” I whispered.
It curled up one of its massive paws into a fist and brought it down next to me. It was almost as tall as I was. “So big,” I breathed.
“You know what they say,” it said, “about big hands.”
“Dude,” I said. “What?” Then, “Oh man. Are you talking about your dick?”
“You seem flustered, wizard,” the dragon said, leaning close and breathing me in. “You getting turned-on?”
I really, really wasn’t. “You said you wanted to fuck me after you wined and dined me!”
“Is that what you want, pretty?” the dragon asked. “I’m a dragon, and maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll be dragon my balls across your face later.”
So, that happened. “Um. That might have been too much.”
“Or was it not enough?”
“No. Definitely too much.” I started to back away slowly. But for every step I took, the dragon took an answering step and I was always stuck in his shadow.
“Are you adventurous, pretty?” the dragon asked. “And I mean sexually.”
“No,” I said honestly. “I think I might like rimming, but I’ve never done it. And also? I don’t know if you’re sexually adventurous. I think you meant to say sexually aggressive. There’s a difference.”
“Is that right? I wouldn’t know.”
“Ugh. That was kind of rapey.”