CHAPTER 4

Jake

We Drakes had a sense of irony, using the word "Jousts" for our secret "fight clubs."To humans, a joust is a Medieval competition where two knights with lances try to knock each other from the backs of their respective horses.Knights, of course, are famous for slaying dragons.(Or in our own mythology, which we prefer, getting eaten by dragons.)But in a Drake Joust, two dragon guys wail on each other in an arena until one gets the other one down on his back.The battle is never to the death, but it's usually to great pain, and part of the point is for Drake males to show each other and themselves how "Alpha" they are.Perhaps we're not that different from humans after all.

Regardless, just like in fight clubs where human males meet, we're not supposed to talk about Jousts outside of the event.(We do it anyway on the extreme down-low, but it's really frowned on.)And as human males wear nothing but their pants to their fight clubs, Drakes go to Joust dressed in nothing but their thongs.And we stay strictly in human form — until it's time to step into the arena and do battle.

That night when we were in college together, Alex and I went out to the Joust that was held in the basement of a garage just off campus.It was set up like the Speakeasies during Prohibition in the 1920s.You gave your password to the bouncer to get in, then you went downstairs where the action was taking place.It was dark or dim except for the bright lights shining down on the arena space in the middle, which was blocked off by chains on posts.There were shelves where you put your clothes, then you gave your name to the Joust master to be called when your time came.

And then, close to naked, you joined the spectators and waited, watching other dragons go at it, until your moment arrived.

Alex and I stood in the roaring, whooping, fist-pumping crowd, standing on our human tiptoes, swaying to get a look past the guys in front of us, craning our human necks to get a better view of the two bellowing, screeching dragon guys flailing and thrashing at each other in the arena.It was Drake male nature at its most raw and primal, stripped of any pretense that we had any other shape but the shape of a winged, horned, clawed, tail-swiping reptile.It was clawed hands smashing at each other, tails pummeling and battering at each other, and scaly-muscled bodies slamming together, each one trying to throw the other to the cold stone floor and hold the opponent down.

My friend, who'd grown up in a gang, was so into it.And I'd learned from Alex to love it.The whole behavior and atmosphere of Jousting was everything that I'd been raised not to be.And back in those college days, I never missed one.It was part of the way Alex and I had bonded.

We watched and rooted, more for the Joust itself than for either of the combatants, until one finally slammed the other down onto the floor with an impact that I could have sworn made cracks in the stone, and pinned him there.Screeches and roars resounded in the basement while the Joust master counted down from five — and the one who'd fallen curled and beat his tail on the floor, surrendering to his opponent.The winner helped him up, they shook dragon hands in the most human way, and then they morphed back into men and stepped over the chains and out of the arena.

The noise of the crowd ebbed enough for the Joust master to draw two cards out of a bottle and call out two names:"James McGee…and Jake Hudson!"

Alex slapped me on the back.I was startled, not having expected to be called up so soon after we'd arrived.My friend gave me a little nudge and shouted, "Right here!"And I maneuvered my way through the nearly naked guys in front of us and stepped over the chains and into the light of the arena.

Once inside the arena, I saw whom I was up against, and immediately began to "dragon up" my body.I would need every bit of my reptilian nature and strength against this character.He was a total bruiser — a tall black guy, built like a heavyweight boxer, all muscle and aggression.When he morphed to his other body, he was even bigger, with glistening blue-black scales and eyes that looked like molten gold.I hissed at him in warning that he wouldn't flatten me without taking some lumps of his own.He made a throaty, rasping noise back at me and flexed his wings while I tucked my own wings and curled my tail, preparing for battle.Somewhere behind me, the voice of Alex came through the growing hubbub of the crowd: "Get him, buddy!"

"Getting" this James McGee character was going to be easier said than done.We started with body slams, the hard plates of his chest and belly colliding with mine in an impact that could be heard over the shouting of the spectators.The world spun in my sight, and the next thing I felt was my wings hitting the floor.Knowing McGee would be on me and have me pinned at the very beginning of the Joust, I sprang up, rearing my dragon neck and screeching at him as he charged me, preparing to butt me with his horns.I countered by bringing my tail around and clubbing his head with it, sending him staggering back.The crowd went wild.

It went on for long, brutal minutes, and I was exhilarated to find I was holding my own against this mountain of scales. Here in this arena, I wasn't just some privileged Drake boy from a good, gentle home and an educated, upper-class family.I was a primal Alpha dragon who could stand up to anyone.The contest went on with head butts; body slams; one scaly; flattened tail whipping hard against the other.I fell a few times, but always held off McGee, either with hard swipes of my tail or slashes of the backs of my claws against his chest.I kept sending the big, dark dragon back, no matter how he charged me or knocked me down.I almost believed the outcome couldn't be predicted.

And then, from across the large basement chamber came an amplified shout: "Halt!This is the police!Stay where you are; nobody move!"

For an instant, all sound and motion stopped.All heads turned to the entrance, where Haventon Police in dragon forms — one who'd shouted, with an amplifier device on his neck — came pouring into the basement.There must have been a dozen of them, some armed with heavy truncheons designed specifically for combat with Drakes, others carrying big Taser shotguns made for the same purpose.Shouts welled up in the room again as the crowd, mostly in human form and wearing next to nothing, flew into a panic and a riot situation exploded.

I couldn't hear McGee's reaction, but I felt my own voice rasping out of my dragon throat: "Oh, hell…"

Some of the guys in the crowd reflexively dragoned up and began trying to fight their way past the police and get out of the basement, sacrificing their clothes.The space became a churning mass of human and dragon bodies, the dragons leaping from the floor as they scrambled to get out, the truncheons of the cops swooshing through the air and connecting with bodies.I saw people falling and other people being zapped with Tasers and twitching, and still others being grabbed and held.

And when I looked for Alex, I saw him morphing to dragon and having at one of the Drake officers.They were struggling over the officer's truncheon, and the officer brought up his tail and wrapped it around one of Alex's arms.Alex roared furiously.The officer brought up one foot and pressed it against the scale plates of my friend's midsection, pushing him away, then beat away at Alex with the truncheon.I saw Alex fall and disappear into the frenzy of bodies, and realized that I had frozen in the uproar while McGee had disappeared somewhere over the chains.The next thing I knew, there was a tail wrapped around my waist and I was being pulled back into a pair of heavy titanium wrist cuffs.

The long and short of it is that Alex and I were both escorted to become guests of the city of Haventon for the night.My parents were scandalized, to say the least, and furious with me for having anything to do with a Joust.But they made sure my name was kept out of the papers, and with the lawyers they could afford, they got me a sentence no more severe than a suspension from school and some community service.Alex, whose family didn't have the same resources as mine had, wasn't so lucky.He got jail time, and when he got out, I had to beg my parents to use their connections to help him get readmitted to school.I was lucky that Alex didn't resent me for getting off with a slap on the horns and having the kind of advantage that I had, and for his owing my family.The whole thing could have put a chill on our friendship and maybe come between us.Fortunately, we stayed friends, and somehow grew even closer after that, for which I was grateful, and still am.

_______________

Lily grinned and softly giggled, sifting her fingers through my chest hair with one hand and petting my temporarily spent and flaccid dick with the fingertips of her other hand."You, in a Drake fight club?I have a hard time picturing that."

Behind her, Alex cracked, "Oh, but you can believe me being there."

She giggled a little bit more loudly and reached behind — taking her fingers from my dick — and gave him a playful swat.No doubt Alex was back there playing his hands, his cock, or both on her ass and between her buttocks.The past two days had been drenched in sex.We were all in bed together in the master bedroom now and had hardly let her out of there.Drake males have twice the sex drive of a human, and that's conservatively speaking.We were always good for a marathon.We'd left there only to take her to the shower to clean up or to the kitchen for sustenance, and had done hot, sexy things to her all along the way.We'd even taken turns banging her atop the kitchen counter island.After those times, she'd insisted that we wipe the counter down with disinfectant.Lily was enthusiastically receptive to our sex, but she was after all an artist and a lady, which Alex and I were appreciating even more with every passionate time we gave her.

That's the way it had been for two days.Lily had enjoyed constantly having Alex and me on top of her or with our hands or faces between her thighs.She had kept our respective pricks in her hands, mouth, or pussy and only wanted more.When we slept, it was in a three-way tangle of limbs.There were moments when I thought we should let up on her, especially when Alex banged her hard.But she hadn't minded any way we did it to her, hard and fast or slow and steamy.It makes a difference when the guy madly humping a girl actually cares about her — as Alex and I did.The first night we had her in bed, she drifted off to sleep between us after Alex came inside her, and we reached over her dozing, curvy body and clasped hands.

I whispered to Alex, "We are going to screw away every minute of pain she's had to go through."

Alex said back to me with a nod, "Damn right."And for a while at least, we let Lily rest.

Which brought us to where we were now, with Lily playfully swatting Alex and answering him with a grin, "Don't put words in my mouth."

He gave her a playful love bite on the shoulder and said, "I've got better things to put in your mouth than that."

They both chortled and laughed, and I tweaked her nipple.It was good to hear Lily laugh; good to know we were making her happy and making her forget the way her life had been.

"Sure, sure I get it," said Alex."You can't believe this guy over here going to a grungy place like a Joust.Not all of us come from classy, high tone neighborhoods like him."

"Oh, shut up," I said with mock annoyance."Don't listen to him, Lily.He's been pulling that ‘working class hero' crap on me for years."

Lily shifted onto her back in the tangle of sheets we'd made from rolling around with her and humping her for hours.Her tits and her hips and her hair falling over her shoulders made her look like some classic painting."You guys," she said in a mock scolding tone." ‘Classy' is the way a guy acts and the way he treats you, not where he comes from."She took on a more thoughtful, serious tone, looking from one of us to the other."You guys took me in.You cared about me and made me feel safe.And the sex.It's been the best sex, better than anything I've ever had.You've made me feel better about myself, and the mess my life has been.You've been the best.The very best."

"You deserve the best, Lily," said Alex.

"That's right," I said."Not just to be owned, but cared about."

"And that's what you've done for me," she said."Thank you, guys.Both of you.Thank you."

She shifted onto her side again and snuggled close to me for a kiss, which I eagerly accepted, feeding her a bit of my tongue, fondling her tit, and thumbing her nipple.She reached down for my cock, which stiffened at her touch.Behind her, Alex pressed closer, kissing her along the neck and shoulder.He reached over the curvature of her hip to feel and caress her sex, and I could guess that his cock must be growing as hard against her ass as mine was getting at the gliding of her hand along it.

Slipping her mouth away from mine, Lily said, "It feels like you guys are getting ready again."

Alex slid his fingertips along her folds, where I wanted to be at this moment."Always," he replied, flicking his tongue on her shoulder, and pecking it with a kiss."Your turn, man," he said to me.

"Yep, my turn," I said.Then, to Lily, "Want me to go down on you first?"

"Yes," she said dreamily.

She rolled onto her back and parted her legs for me, and I descended between her thighs while Alex leaned over to fondle her breasts and suck her nipples.And the Drake marathon continued.

_______________

Even Drakes can get a little worn out — happily so — from constant screwing, and Lily deserved a bit of a break.So eventually, the three of us ended up back in the bathroom suite, this time not in the shower but in the hot tub for a good long soak with Lily sitting between us — where of course Alex and I couldn't resist playing with her, and she couldn't resist playing with us, under the water.During that, we talked some more.

"I've never been to a Joust," said Lily."I saw a movie about it once.They used real Drake actors for the arena scenes, and they said the writer and the director actually went to a Joust to see what it's like and get it authentic.But you know how movies are.They make things look good on camera; they make things up.I never thought I'd know someone who was in one."

"Yeah," said Alex." ‘Cause you're like my buddy here with your delicate upbringing, right?"

"Will you stop with that?" I said, splashing at him.Alex chuckled at that, knowing how easily he could get under my scales with that kind of talk.

"It's true, though," Lily said to me."What would make you want to go to one of those things?Was it just being friends with Alex?"

"Partly," I replied."But it was being in college.You know how that is.You're away from home for the first time, away from your family, but it's still kind of a sheltered environment.You can start finding out things, experimenting with things, while it's still safe.For most guys who go to the Joust, it's like a chance to be all dragon and not human at all.It's freeing.Well, partly it was that.And it's about working off dragon aggressiveness that we don't get to show with humans.But for me, it was about learning to be tougher, more confident, something I wouldn't have necessarily had a chance to do any other way.There's human sports, but it's not the same thing."I looked past Lily to Alex."And then there was this new friend I met…"

"And somebody had to show this guy what life is really like," he said, smirking at me.

"See that?" I said, giving him a splash and pretending to be offended at him."He always says crap like that."

Alex laughed, enjoying as he always did this little game of ours.

"You guys," said Lily, "with your Jousts in college, and you," she said to Alex, "with your gang in your old neighborhood.You're so different, but you're totally loyal to each other, aren't you?I love that about you."

She kissed us, first me, then Alex.Then, to Alex, she said, "You're awfully sweet for someone who was in a gang."

"It wasn't that kind of gang, remember?" Alex said."We were just kids acting like something more than we were.Where we grew up, it was all we had.And it was really all about the loyalty."He looked over at me."Loyalty like brothers."He held up a hand and I slapped his palm.

"Like brothers," I agreed.

"And you know, the Firewings are having a reunion soon," Alex continued."My old gang mates, they all went on to have respectable, upstanding lives, like this guy's family over here."And he smirked at me again.I shrugged it off.

"Maybe I'll get to meet some of them," said Lily.

"Yeah," said Alex."It'll be cool, showing them the kind of company I'm keeping these days."

Lily chuckled and settled back in the hot tub."I sure like the kind of company I'm keeping.The handsomest, sexiest company."

Under the water, she reached to either side of her and found my dick and Alex's, and began to stroke us both.I responded to her touch, and I knew Alex was doing the same.We were both going from half-hard to fully erect.

I leaned over to suck one of Lily's nipples while reaching down to run my fingers through her pubes.Alex took the other nipple in his lips while his fingers found their way under where I was feeling to the lips of her sex.

Lily's break time was coming to an end.