Authors: Emma Taylor
Stacie’s mouth was dry. She reached for a glass of apple juice she’d poured out this morning and drank it down in one gulp. It was stale but it wet her mouth and that was all that mattered. She cleared her throat and then said, “So, what?”
“What do you mean?” Ragnar said.
“So, what?” Stacie repeated. “Say all this is true, say you are dragons, say that I’m a
half-scale
, so what? What does this mean, practically speaking? What’s going to change? If I’m a
half-scale
, I’ve been one all my life, so why does it matter?”
“Ah,” Ragnar said. “That’s the thing. Right
now
you’re a half-scale, but we’re here because you’re developing into a full-fledged dragon. You’re changing, Stacie. Soon your dreams will literally come true. We’re here to guide you through your transformation.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Stacie guffawed.
“Ha-ha-ha! Yeah right!”
She slapped her knee and rocked back on the couch. Then she killed the laughter and stood up and headed for the door. She held it open and regarded the men. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “It was very kind of you. Now, if you’d be so kind…” She gestured at the open doorway.
“Come on,” Joshua said.
They walked through the apartment door.
Just as she was about to close the door, Joshua stuck his foot in the way and handed her a piece of paper. “Take it,” he said, in a voice that she couldn’t argue with. She took the piece of paper and closed the door behind them.
*****
Meet us at the café on the corner of…
Joshua had asked her to meet him and Ragnar at a café near her workplace, in the note he had given her. He asked her to meet them there after work, and added that they wanted
to explain everything
. Stacie couldn’t sleep that night. She held the note in her hand as though it would impart its meaning to her somehow. None of it made any sense. Two men had broken into her apartment and hadn’t taken anything, threatened her, assaulted her, killed her, or done
anything
apart from say strange, meaningless things.
Half-scale, ha!
They
were
crazy she told herself, over and over. But the more she protested, even to herself, the weaker her protestations seemed. Was she protesting because it actually
was
absurd, or because she knew, deep down, that something was happening? It didn’t have to be dragons. Maybe it was a mental breakdown. But something was definitely changing within her.
It was those dreams. They came to her almost every night now; dreams of soaring over America, over the entire world. Dreams of having wings and being free. They were dreams in which she was completely untethered, free to do what she wanted when she wanted with whomever she wanted. Her life was no longer self-consciously mediocre. It was sublime. But that was all they were; dreams. There was no way she would read more into it.
So why did she find herself at that café, waiting for Ragnar and Joshua?
They entered around five minutes after she arrived. It was snowing and Joshua was wearing a Sherlock-Holmes-style black coat with black boots. Ragnar was wearing an army-like jacket with jeans and sneakers. They brushed the snow from themselves, looked around, and sat down.
“Drink?” Ragnar asked.
Stacie said she’d have another coffee.
Ragnar returned with three coffees and they just sat there for a minute. The café was full of other people, all talking desultorily into the winter lowlight. Finally, Joshua set his coffee down, wiped his beard, and almost shouted at Stacie. “You’re in denial. You know you are. We know you are. You’re trying to trick yourself into thinking this is all just a bad dream. But it isn’t, and you know it. How long have you had the dreams for?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said ridiculously.
“We’ve known about them for two months,” Joshua said. “How long have they been happening?”
One and a half years.
“You’re crazy,” she said.
“You know we’re not,” Joshua said. “You know we know. We know you’ve had these dreams for at least two months. But we don’t know
how much
longer than that. Weeks, months, years? We need to know, Stacie. To know how far along in the changing process you are. Goddam it, you can’t keep living in denial.”
“I don’t even know you!” Stacie snapped.
Everyone in the café turned. Stacie blushed and stared down at the table until everybody went back to their conversations.
“Okay,” Ragnar said. “Okay, Stacie, then get to know us. Let me propose something. Let Joshua and I take you out. If you are to be a dragon, if you are to be a Queen, it is only right that two Drakes court you.”
“Wait—what?” Stacie breathed. “
Both
of you?”
“Yes,” Ragnar said, not taking his eyes from her eyes for a moment. “That is not strange to dragons, only to many humans.”
Joshua was nodding along with him. “Let us earn your trust,” he said. “We’ll take you to dinner, and then—” He met her eyes with a meaningful stare. It was so intense that Stacie had to avert her eyes and turn to Ragnar. Even after she’d done this, she felt him gazing at her. The eyes were roaming over her neck and down to the top of her chest. She had taken her winter coat off and was wearing the blouse and pencil skirt she always wore to work. Joshua was devouring her with his eyes; gorging himself. And Stacie discovered something she hadn’t expected. She
liked
it.
“So, a date?” Stacie asked, gripping onto this one piece of half-normality. “When?”
“Tomorrow night,” Ragnar said, and then rose to his feet. Joshua rose with him, and then the two of them were looking down at her. Joshua regarded her with open lust. His eyes were still devouring her. Ragnar looked less sure of himself, more curious, like a teenage boy who wants to explore a woman for the first time.
“Wear something sexy,” Joshua said gruffly.
Stacie blushed, and was about to reply when the men paced from the café. She stayed long enough to finish her coffee, and then disappeared into the winter night. Her thoughts were racing.
They may be dragons and this may be insane and the world may have gone all topsy-turvy and logic may no longer exist but at least I get to, finally, go on something resembling a grown-up date. It beats the rutting at college and the sweaty frat boys and the disappointment and the ennui of taking an Arts course and realizing life was not that artful, after all.
‘Wear something sexy,’ he’d said.
She just hoped she
had
something sexy.
*****
The dream was beautiful, something to be cherished. She was a goddess in the dream, something otherworldly. In the dream, she was somebody who could not be told what to do and when to do it. In the dream she felt invincible, and now she had discovered that the dream was not
just
a dream; it was a portal into a strange part of reality. But there was a problem with that. Sometimes, the dream ended badly. Sometimes, she was soaring over America only to clip her wing on the side of an airliner and toppling face-down toward the ground, and then she would plummet, plummet. Bolting upright in bed, sweat glistening on her skin, she would pant heavily and tell herself it was just a dream. It was a comfort, and it helped her return to sleep. But now… it was not a dream. She would fly, yes, but did that mean she would fall, too?
She tried to push these thoughts from her mind as she lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, but they wouldn’t budge.
Oh look at you Stacie, all profound because you’re a victim of your own dreams. Oh how beautiful you’re living the poetic and profound life you always wanted and now you have two men who want you. How did you do it!
She giggled at herself and then turned on her side and closed her eyes, tight. She wouldn’t allow her delusions of falling to ruin what could be the best date of her life. With Ragnar- and never mind that that was clearly not his name-
and
Joshua. She knew what men, and some women, called a woman who went with two men. But she didn’t care. Her excitement was too big.
Her fear was, too.
Michael’s fingers were like pink pieces of fat; pure fat, unconnected to any human body. They were like overfed worms, or air-filled snakes. Stacie wasn’t sure how they moved without constantly getting in the way of each other, like piglets clambering for their mother’s teat. She knew he was speaking, was saying something disgusting, but she couldn’t take her eyes off those fingers. She had the urge to turn and run whenever she saw them wriggling.
With an effort, she made herself listen. “I
need
you, Stacie,” he said. He was old and fat and mean and Stacie wanted nothing more than to hit him or flee.
“I’m—” For some bizarre reason, she didn’t want to shut this man down. He would get upset, and Stacie wasn’t a fan of making people upset; even people who deserved it. But she had to do this. She took a deep breath, met Michael’s eyes, and said, clearly, unconfused, “No. Not now, not ever. You are too old. I am not interested. Please stop talking to me.”
There it was; clear, concise, and in plain words. There was no way, even
his
mind, could morph that into something else.
Suddenly, his teeth were bared and he was leaning forward in his chair. “Slut,” he barked. “You’ll pay for this.”
“Go back to your desk,” Stacie said, struggling to keep her voice level. “Or I’ll contact human resources.”
With a grumble, Michael the Fat Old Pervert, waddled back to his desk.
Though she was shaken by the incident at work, Stacie still wanted to go on her date with Ragnar and Joshua. She had dreams of falling to her death; dreams that were most likely connected to these men. And she had been sworn at and insulted at work. But still, all she wanted to focus on, to hone her attention to a fine point on, was what dress she would wear tonight, and how dinner would work. She had never had a date with two men before. Would she sit in the middle? Or would she sit at one side of the table and them on the other? If they held hands, would they
all
hold hands? Was there some kind of system in place for things like this, or was she just going to take it as it came?
She got a text from Joshua telling her they would pick her up in two hours. That gave her lots of time to prepare. She thrust Michael’s piggy fingers and pug face from her mind and concentrated on the task at hand. She emptied her closet in the hopes of finding something suitable. She did this every time she had to dress nicely. She emptied her entire closet and walked up and down the bedroom, with her hands behind her back, like a general surveying his troops, casting stern and disgusted eyes on them.
Wear something sexy
,
he’d said.
And in the dream, your wings snap and you fall… fall, until there is nowhere else to fall except the ground, and your skull is crushed and there is Fat Michael, laughing at you, calling you that horrible S-word.
She shook the thoughts from her mind and picked up a red sparkly dress. She hadn’t worn it in a couple years, and wasn’t sure it would still fit.
Turned out it did, with a bit of squeezing. She put on some short heels- long heels never agreed with her- and then sat at her vanity table to do her makeup. She made her eyes dark; because that’s how she felt, and made her cheeks red and flushed; like she’d just been out in the cold. Then her phone was ringing. She answered to Joshua’s Texan twang. “Outside,” he said.
She stood before the mirror and smoothed her dress down. A scared, excited, slightly horny woman stared back at her. She walked down the stairs to Ragnar and Joshua, with the distinct feeling that she was walking into a new life. This was a life that could end in flight, or end in… but she wouldn’t think about that now.
Ragnar was outside the car. He was wearing a black suit with a tie. Joshua was behind the wheel. He was wearing a blue shirt, all raggedy and untucked. Ragnar opened the door for her and she climbed in. Then he went around to the other side and climbed into the back with her.
“Let’s go,” he said, and Joshua drove.
Stacie liked to think of herself as a fully grown woman, not a girl. She liked to think she had come to terms with life and could no longer be reduced to girlishness. But she almost squealed when she saw the inside of the restaurant. The chandeliers were the main source of her delight. They dangled from the ceiling like diamond earrings, reflecting the light with beacon-intensity, spraying it outward. Three of the beautiful, glittering things hung from the ceiling, sparkling so bright it was hard to look at them.
The carpet was like something from ancient Egypt, all fur and fluffy, like a blanket you just wanted to curl up in and sleep forever. On the walls there were expertly painted pictures of landscapes of faraway lands; rolling hills, bubbling volcanoes and steam-filled mountain lakes. The tables were a marble-like material, though Stacie was nowhere near
bourgeois
enough to know what kind of marble.
She sat at one end of a table and the two men sat at the other. The waiter asked if they would like to order anything and Joshua, without asking anybody else, ordered champagne. For some reason, Stacie liked that he hadn’t waited to ask their opinion. It probably said something messed-up about her, she thought. But right now, she didn’t care. The champagne was brought over and poured and the three of them began to look through the exceedingly posh menu, with calligraphy of which a queen would be proud.