Page 76 of Escaping my Dragon

“What are you doing here?”

He offered me a smile that hit me between the legs. “I had some accumulated vacation time and thought I’d visit Jersey. I don’t suppose you’d show me around.”

I sure did.

I dragged him inside and showed him my bedroom. My couch. My kitchen counter.

You get the point.

While I might not remember all the parts of my adventure in Antarctica, I did recall how this man made me feel.

Special. And for once I didn’t want to dissect why.

Epilogue

The weeks and months after my adventure in the Antarctic proved hectic. My piece on the Antarctic, more specifically, the lack of any kind of dragon let alone a city-sized one, ended up airing to the highest ratings ever. Did it kill the hype? Nope. See, it wasn’t just a pilot and those watching the radar that claimed a massive, living creature had emerged from the Transantarctic Mountain. While we’d smartly fled away from the volcano, others had boldly ventured into the danger zone to document the eruption and aftermath.

They posted a few videos as proof. A mountain shaking. A dense cloud of something through which a darker mass swirled. And then the strangest video, which proved the most frustrating. Whoever filmed with their camera was running, and breathing hard, and exclaiming, in a shrill voice, “What the fuck is that? Oh my god, it asked if I was its wake-up snack.”

As to what had him frantic, when the runner did occasionally rotate to look towards what he bolted from, you could see some kind of large moving mass for like half a second.

News pundits refused to run the story, which did a great job of discouraging conspiracy theorists. Not! They claimed the lack of discourse indicated government involvement. I’m sure more than one keyboard warrior came in their pants as they waxed on at length about a cover-up.

In my show, Discounting the Existence of Dragons, I tackled the supposed monster in the South Pole. I went through the video frame by frame, trying to sharpen it and showing my audience the lack of anything that would prove a living creature. I showed it to specialists, but they didn’t provide any information as to its origin to avoid bias. Despite being unaware of the earthquakes and volcanic eruption, the theory most offered? A landslide. When the mountain collapsed, the resulting avalanche made it seem as if something emerged. Even once I did reveal the provenance, they stuck to their initial assumption. The scientific explanation that made the most sense.

As for the pilot who’d publicly discussed his experience, he didn’t end up court martialed because it was deemed he suffered a mental breakdown. Supposedly he’d been institutionalized, and no, no matter how much I begged, they wouldn’t put me in contact.

To add even more fuel to my debunk, I provided data from every single monitor available in the Antarctic. Seismic readings, radar from traffic controllers monitoring the space, and a host more. Not one showed any evidence of a beast, let alone one pegged at between a few hundred feet to three miles long.

Did everyone believe my inevitable conclusion? ‘Course not. Within minutes of my show airing, there were some keyboard trolls with orange-stained fingers, in need of a shower, claiming everything had been doctored as part of the cover-up.

In a week or so, they’d lose interest and move on to their next big deal. As for me, I’d be lounging on a beach with Noah before he started his new job as my official bodyguard. It only took one super fan throwing themselves at me screaming, “The tooth fairy is real, you bitch,” for Noah to decide to turn his vacation into a retirement from the military.

He quit because of me. Did I feel guilty about it? A little, since it was all my fault. Before being tackled to the floor by Harley Kiss My Ass—that’s literally how they signed their name on their threatening messages—I kind of said the L word. Not once, but TWICE!

It slipped out the first time when I came across Noah in the kitchen making bacon. I mean, in my defense. Bacon…

Some of the blame for the second ‘I love you’ kind of belonged to Noah. He hit a bakery and brought home my favorite pastry.

Crossed-eyed, and drooling, it only took a single bite of gooey sugary goodness and I groaned, “I love you.”

Turned out he loved me, too. Enough to want to stay with me. Good, because I couldn’t imagine my life without him. The best part of my day—other than the toe-curling orgasms—was being cradled in his arms at night and rousing to kisses in the morning.

The first night in our tropical hotel, I woke suddenly with my heart pounding.

Noah squeezed me. “Sorry if I woke you. I had the strangest dream.”

“Me, too. Guess I’ve got dragons on the brain because I dreamt of one.”

“Was it resting its head on the beach outside our balcony?” We’d gotten an ocean penthouse view.

I stiffened. “It said, nice spot. I’ll have to put it on my list of places to visit.”

“Did yours also say, don’t think forgetting me means you’re not still in my service?”

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Okay, that’s crazy we both imagined the same thing.”

“Because dragons aren’t real,” we both said at the same time.