Chapter 7

“Alexandria, do you have some time; can I talk to you, please?” I whispered urgently when I poked my head into Alexandria’s room. She looked at me curiously for a second before nodding and standing from the squatting position she was in on the floor. We walked over to the bed and sat down facing each other.
“I think that…” I started and realized that my eyes were beginning to tear up. “It’s that, well… It couldn’t possibly mean that… could it?” I looked at her hopefully through tears.
“I don’t understand, Neko-chan. Can’t you please slow down and start at the beginning?” She searched me with concern and petted my hair lightly.
“Well, I guess that Dragon…. and I… and it just sort of happened… and he’s going to hate me…” I broke off into quiet sobs.
“Dragon and you…what?” She asked me and then the light dawned in her eyes as she said, “Oh. My. Okay. So why do you think he will hate you now?”
“This morning while I was getting dressed, and I was putting on my bra, and I bumped my boob and it hurt so much! So I poked my nipple and… they hurt so much! But the bra keeps them from hurting, but…what does it mean?”
“Well, you could have just slept wrong,” She said very slowly, looking doubtful. “Or you could be pregnant.” I broke out into tears again.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, obviously confused.
“Dragon’s going to hate me!” I sobbed.
“What? No. No, he’ll be so happy! You have to tell him.” She told me with a large grin. I looked at her through the tears and smiled back.

Dragon was digging through the wardrobe in the bedroom that we had been using and was asking something about whether or not I wanted to keep all the dresses and pretty things that the wardrobe had made for me. I told him that I did and shoved some undergarments into one of the bags.
“You know, when we met I wouldn’t have imagined that you would actually like wearing dresses.” Dragon commented softly as we continued to pack. I smiled, trying to be cute, and nodded. One of the bags fell off of the bed, so I knelt to pick every thing up. When I stood up Dragon was standing with his back to me, so I went to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders lovingly. I nuzzled his neck as he held on to my arms.
“I love you so much,” I whispered softly, resting my body against his. He turned around and took me into his arms.
“ I love you, too, my dear, beautiful lover,” he told me, kissing my hair. I closed my eyes and felt soothed by his strong arms around me. After a long while he stirred and I felt him rub my back. Next his hands were under my shirt, exploring and caressing. As he got to my breasts I cried out at the immense and unexpected pain that shot through me.
He took his hands away from me and looked at me worried. “What happened?” he demanded. “What’s the matter?” He searched me with his eyes.
“Nothing,” I said as I looked away. “Nothing. I just…I just wasn’t expecting that. I’m fine.” I smiled meekly and looked back to his eyes. I could tell that he was still worried. He reached for me again, but I shied away.
“No, please don’t turn away from me,” he pleaded, trying to pull me toward him. I didn’t move, but I didn’t move away again as he hugged me. “Did I hurt you?” He asked. I shook my head slowly. “But it does hurt,” he commented, seeming to understand more than I thought he should.
“Yes, they hurt,” I confirmed.
“Are you…I mean…could you be…pregnant?” He asked, seeming to me like a little boy.
“I don’t know,” I answered him truthfully, “I could be.”
“Oh…wow!” He exclaimed and kissed all over my face.

“So you told him?” Alexandria asked me quietly. We were sitting in the back seat of the car and Dragon was driving. I nodded. “How did he take it?”
“He’s excited. Happy, I think.”
“That’s so good. I’m excited for you too, you know.” She grinned and hugged me.  
“So…now what?” I asked, taking a gulp of water.
She shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait it out, I suppose.”
“What are you girls whispering about back there?” Dragon inquired, looking at us in the rear view mirror.
“Oh, you know. Girl stuff,” I told him innocently and batted my eyelashes at him. I felt Alexandria give me a raised eyebrow silence.
I looked at her and shrugged helplessly, “What?” She just giggled at me.
“So you have any ideas about a name?”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe. What if it’s twins?” I cringed at the thought.
“Twins? You are a much stronger woman than I.”
I laughed. “Stronger? No, I’d just say more…masochistic.”
“That could be.”
“If you girls are done talking about menstrual cycles back there, I could use some help with this map.” Dragon teased us.
“Alright. Where’s the map?” Alexandria asked him.
“Under the seat.” Alexandria reached under the driver’s seat. “No, the other seat.” She gave me an apologetic look as she crowded onto my lap to reach under the passenger seat.
“It’s not here either.”
Dragon laughed as he saw me glare at him. “Oh, here it is.” He said as he picked it up from under something in the front seat.
“You just love messing with us, don’t you?” I asked him, still glaring. He laughed again and handed Alexandria the map.
I stared out the window, not really seeing the passing scenery. I thought about the possibility of being pregnant. I wondered if Dragon would prefer a boy or a girl. Which did I want? I realized that I didn’t really care, but I was just grateful for the possibility. More than anything I just felt a strange happy feeling, that wouldn’t go away, no matter how frightened I thought I should be.
After a while I dozed off, and when I woke up I found that we were in the ruin of a city. Most of the buildings were crumbled almost to ground level. There was dust, glass and broken concrete everywhere. And up through the rubble grew a jungle. There were trees in the middle of what was once a nice office building. There were exotic flowering plants where a concrete sign proclaim Perpetual Grace Hospital had once stood. I was in awe of the tragic beauty of the whole scene.
At the finish of the long and bumpy ride we parked in front of what was probably a rather expensive hotel at one point in time. It looked more complete than any of the other buildings that I had seen in the city, but was missing a couple pieces of wall. The building was magnificent, considering, but the flora was what really made the old hotel majestic. Almost every flowing plant that I had ever imagined might exist framed the structure. Every color of the rainbow was present, and even some colors that the same rainbow might envy.
“Welcome to Golden Paradise,” Dragon commented as we pulled up to admire it, and he helped Alexandria and I out of the car. When we went inside, I was astounded by the sheer mass of people. There was no room to really move freely, and I found myself becoming a bit claustrophobic, a rare sensation indeed because of my love of small spaces.
“Oh my lord, I have never seen so many people in one place before,” I voiced, trying not to sound intimidated.
“No? I thought that you would have, considering the nightclub that I met you in,” Dragon said, sounding a bit surprised.
“Well, that’s different. In the nightclubs there are lots of little groups. They are more like self-contained entities…very introverted. All of these individual people seem so much more extroverted. Like a spider luring a fly into it’s web.”
“You’re paranoid,” Alexandria whispered to me.
“It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you,” I joked back.
“Come on girls, don’t get lost now,” Dragon teased.
We fought our way through the crowd unsuccessfully, and I kept getting my feet stepped on. I went to watching my feet, in hopes that they wouldn’t get stepped on as much and also to keep from making eye contact with any one. That seemed to help with the severe claustrophobic feeling that had already overrode almost all my other survival instincts. Unfortunately, no one else had any idea where they were going, and all the bumping and shoving resulted in my fall to the floor.
“Pardon me, friend,” said a woman who had almost fallen on top of me. She looked older than me by a few years, twenty-one at a guess. She had wavy blond hair and an undoubtedly painted-on tan. She was done up in a way that only the publicly beautiful can be, flawless in her makeup. Also she was well endowed everywhere people think a woman should be, and might have been considered perfect by every man in the room.
Her seemingly kind smile evaporated when she got a better look at me, and it was replaced by a suspicious glare. “Where are you from, friend?”
“Corpus Celestial,” I stammered.
“Really?” She questioned, eyeing me. “I thought that I knew every one from Corpus Celestial that was going to be here. Who are you here with?”
“Me,” Dragon said, materializing out of the wall of people. “Hello, Amora.”
“Well, Dragon,” She practically purred, “How nice to see you again.”
I thought that I heard Alexandria mutter, “I’m sure,” under her breath as she grabbed my wrists to help me off the floor. I shot her an inquiring glance and she whispered, “Later,” into my ear.
As we walked away, Dragon squeezed my upper arm and told me, “Please stay away from her.” He handed Alexandria a key and told her that we were in room 713, then he walked away from us. I looked at Alexandria, but she only shrugged.
Our room was on the seventh floor, the thirteenth room, and I immediately thought that it could either be the best or the worst place to be in the world, depending on an individual’s superstition. My superstition made it good luck to be in a place of such powerful numbers. I pointed this logic out to Alexandria and she laughed.
“This from the person that believes a black cat crossing her path is good?” She asked.
“Yeah. I guess I kind of have reverse superstition.” I answered thoughtfully.
“But then you should think that crickets are unlucky, right?”
“Well, I guess it’s only selective reverse superstition. I don’t know why I’m that way. I know it’s strange.” I said, laughing at my own incongruous beliefs.
“So, what was up with that Amora chick, any how?” I asked a while later when we were both sitting on the beds reading.
“Oh, her?” Alexandria put her book down and I crawled onto the bed she was sitting on. “She’s been trying to get in Dragon’s pants for a couple of years. But she can’t seem to stay celibate long enough to coax him into bed.”
“Well, it makes me feel much better to know that he doesn’t just want a fuck-buddy out of life,” I commented, a bit relieved.
“If that was what he had wanted, he wouldn’t have waited until he was 21 to lose his virginity. Don’t you think he’s had offers before?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought about that,” I admitted. “So he really was a virgin?” I asked, genuinely surprised.
“You’re lucky he didn’t make you marry him first,” she jousted playfully.
I was still laying on the bed pondering what Alexandria had said about Dragon’s chastity when he came into the room. “Hey there, ladies,” he greeted us, grinning.
Alexandria gave a little wave, barely looking from her book. “Hi, Babe,” I responded, studying his sparkling eyes and large grin. “You look like you just swallowed a canary,” I told him, amused by the visual that it brought to mind.
“Oh, is this how I would look?” he asked, laughing then made a face like he was going to cough up a hairball, “Or how about like this?”
I giggled at him, “You’re strange.”
“Yeah, but you still love me,” he told me, winking. “Anyhow,” he said trying to sound more serious, but the gleam was still in his eyes, “there’s some one that I would like you to meet.” He motioned a boy into the room. “Girls, this is my little bro, Jareth.”
“Hi, Jareth,” Alexandria said, standing to shake his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I also shook his hand and couldn’t help thinking I haven’t heard anything about him!