The Communal Rut

Once again, Kassy and Maxwell exchanged looks. They flew many flight routes together and were good friends, but this was different from that. This was mating and making eggs. Kassy wasn't sure she could even imagine the situation properly.

Jennifer continued her explanation, even while the freighters were busy trying to take in everything she'd just told them. "That sort of round-based, accept-reject, mate choice system is actually a really good strategy for forming proper pair relationships. I've read a few research papers! In this case it's just making sure that you all get along and treat each other well, but it's really very interesting. The system forces you to be realistic with your chances—each dragon is encouraged to call a partner who is approximately as attractive as they are, instead of strictly attempting to woo the most attractive target. Because if you aim too high, you'll be shot down and you're call is wasted for that round. At the same time, seeing who calls you will give you a perspective of how others view you in terms of attractiveness. Fascinating stuff."

By this time they'd reached the sick bay—one particular room inside the building which was filled with medical supplies and reserved for dragons who were injured or sick. Right now they were no sick dragons resting on the large cushioned floor mats, but a human was sitting on a chair by the side. Kassy recognized the human as a veterinarian who specialized in dragons—he lived in the nearby town and attended to the ranches in this part of the state. Occasionally he visited to perform health check-ups on the dragons in the ranch, or to attend to injuries or illnesses.

As they all entered the sick bay, Jennifer nodded to the veterinarian. "Hey, Quincy. I've got two more greybacks to be prepped for the rut. This is Kassy, and this is Maxwell. You remember them?"

"Ah, excellent!" Quincy was wearing a long white coat, and he fiddled with the pair of spectacles covering his eyes. Much to Kassy's amusement, his head had no hair and looked shiny. Human ages were always hard to discern, but Kassy believed that Quincy was a moderately old human—not barely into adulthood like Jennifer, but also not quite as old as Jay (Jennifer's father, who was the head rancher). "I remember you two both! I signed off on your fit-for-flight certification just...a few months ago, I believe. Good. It's good to have young stock added to the breeding pool."

Quincy stood up and approached the two freighter dragons, while Jennifer took his chair and sat down. Apollo the racing dragon had been following them all this time, and he sat down next to his owner and affectionately curled his tail around her leg.

"Let's just get started then. It's a simple procedure—perfectly safe, and won't hurt at all. We'll start with Kassy. Max, could you excuse us for a while? Just wait outside, this won't take too long." Quincy turned and gestured at Jennifer and Apollo. "You too, Jenny. I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside."

"You're enforcing reg fifteen dot fifteen?" Jennifer asked.

"It's a strict privacy thing. This counts as a health checkup, so you're not allowed to be involved."

Jennifer shrugged her shoulders and stood up. "You know we treat our dragons well—we would never try to cover up injuries or push a wounded dragon into service."

"Laws are laws, and they exist for a reason."

"True. I guess you can take it from here." Jennifer stood up and headed out of the room, only pausing to give a thumbs-up to Kassy. Apollo dutifully trotted after his owner, and once Maxwell also left, Kassy found herself all alone with the veterinarian.

---

"How come you have to ask all the others to leave?" Kassy asked.

Quincy was pulling a pair of white latex gloves over his hands. "Well, Kassy, I'm going to ask you some questions, and you need to answer me as truthfully as you can. Having Max or Jennifer in the room might make you embarrassed or unwilling to be fully honest."

"But I fly routes with Maxwell all the time, and Jennifer's a nice human."

"Even so, their priorities are not necessarily the same as ours. As a doctor it is my duty to ensure your wellbeing, but ranchers sometimes ignore the health of their dragons in favour of business interests. Not that I'm saying anything bad about Jennifer in particular, who as far as I can tell, takes good care of you. It's just that by law, ranchers or owners cannot be present when their dragons are getting medical check-ups, so that if you are feeling unwell you can report that to me without feeling stressed or pressured. That's regulation fifteen subsection fifteen of the Animals and Dragons Act, though it was actually just copied from the Employment Rights Act."

"Oh, so it's the law." Kassy nodded, though she wasn't sure she quite understood. It was a confusing, nonsensical idea—what sort of rancher wouldn't want their dragons to be healthy? Surely a healthy dragon would be able to fly faster and carry more cargo.

Regardless, the veterinarian gestured for her to sit down on one of the floor mats. "Let's begin. How are you feeling, Kassy? Any troubles or pains with your body anywhere?"

"I'm fine."

"If you have even the slightest thing that is bugging you, please just say so. It's much easier for everyone involved if we get any health issues flagged out earlier. All good? Alright. Now specifically talking about this communal rut—has Jennifer explained to you what's going to happen?"

Kassy nodded again. "She said that it's...like in the wild, where we all just group up and take turns mating with each other, so we can make eggs."

"That's correct. But is there any reason you might not want to participate? Any reason at all? There are dragons who just don't want to have eggs, or who are uncomfortable with sexual contact. I need to emphasize here that Jennifer and the other ranchers cannot obligate or force you to participate in this sort of activity. You can opt out if you want."

The tip of Kassy's tail swished from side to side. Not having had any experience with such matters, she wasn't quite sure about what the communal rut would actually be like. "I think...it should be fine? I hope."

"You can always change your mind later on, at any point at all." The human picked up a clipboard and began filling up a form. "I just need some information from you, and then we'll get into the pre-rut procedure. Kassy, have you been sick recently? Or taken any sort of medication for any reason?"

"No and no."

"Your medical chart here indicates no allergies. Is that correct?"

"I think so. No allergies." These were easy questions, and Kassy had no problem answering them.

Quincy ticked something on his clipboard. "Are you sexually active?"

The dragoness nervously tapped her paws on the ground. Now this question wasn't so easy. "Uh... I'm not sure...? I've...I've tried using my paws or my tail to... umm... to touch myself... and it felt really nice. But I haven't done that with anyone else."

"No worries. That's perfectly normal, especially for a dragoness who's so recently entered adulthood." Quincy twirled his pen in his fingers, then he resumed writing on his clipboard. "When was the last time you entered oestrus? Or you might call it 'heat'."

"I'm not sure. Never?"

"You've never gone into heat before? So this'll be your first time. Ok, now let's just have a look here. Stand up please." Kassy stood up, and Quincy went over towards her flanks. He pulled on a surgical mask as he walked. "Alright, I need you to move your tail aside and bend your forelegs. Try and spread your hindlegs apart...yes, thank you."

This crouching, rear-raised position made Kassy feel exposed. She felt the human touching her underbelly, his gloved hands brushing against her sensitive genital slit—Quincy gently poked and prodded at her, and then she felt him rubbing something against her flesh. "Is this...is this how I'm supposed to stand when a drake is mating with me?" she asked, feeling awkward yet curious.

"Exactly, although there are other possible configurations if you are feeling adventurous. Alright, that's enough for the moment."

Kassy sat back down again. "What was that for?"

"STD testing. I just need a few swabs to send off to the labs." Quincy showed her what he was holding—a pair of cotton swabs, which he placed inside two small bottles and screwed on the lids. "That's sexually transmitted diseases. Sexual intercourse involves repeated physical contact and bodily fluid exchange, which is why all you greybacks are being tested before we'll let you participate in the communal rut."

"There are...diseases you get from sex?" Kassy asked. That idea somewhat dampened the appeal of the act. She really was learning a lot today!

"Unfortunately, yes. We can treat most STDs, but prevention is better than cure. All it takes is one dragon carrying a latent infection, and we can get an outbreak across the whole ranch, or even multiple ranches." Quincy sealed away Kassy's swab samples in a zipper bag and used a marker to write her name on the label. Leaving the samples on the table, the veterinarian used a pair of scissors to cut open a sterile plastic bag, from which he removed a curious object. "Next we're going to put the restrictor in place."

"What's that?" Kassy asked.

"It's a female genital slit restrictor." Quincy held up the medical device so that the dragoness could see it—it was rounded cylinder perhaps about the girth of her tail, made from a mesh. The restrictor was a hollow shell, and it looked slightly flexible. "We're going to put it inside your genital slit," he explained.

Kassy couldn't help but cross her legs and lower her tail instinctively. "You're putting that inside me? Why?"

Quincy took a squeeze tube and began smearing gel all around the restrictor. "Restrictors are basically like...a mix of a chastity belt and a tampon, if you know what those things are. A restrictor fits inside your genital slit and completely prevents sexual contact, although it is designed to allow other normal bodily function. Some other ranches require that their dragons wear them all the time, but that's rare cause...ah... if you've got horny dragons who aren't allowed to get themselves off, they're just going to fly away and work for someone else. Or even go feral."

"But why do I have to have that thing?"

"It's only temporary. Don't worry, it won't hurt at all. You'll barely even notice it's there unless a drake tries to mate with you, and then he'll have a problem, which is exactly the idea. For the next two weeks until the communal rut, you're not allowed to have sexual contact with any other dragon just to make sure you don't pick up any STDs between now and then, because that would defeat the point of all the testing we're doing now. Any questions before I put in the restrictor?"

Kassy kept staring at the restrictor—it wasn't actually very large, but still... "Why do you have to use that? I understand what you mean about diseases and all that, but...I'm pretty sure I won't be mating with anyone until the communal rut."

Quincy shook his head. "It's not that we don't trust you, it's just that we have to be absolutely sure. Disease control is a serious issue; so if you don't want to have the restrictor put in, then we can't let you take part in the communal rut. Are you alright with it?"

"If...If I have to," Kassy said.

"Good girl. Then just stand up and bend over again, and I'll put it in."

Kassy once again raised her tail and spread her hindlegs, giving the veterinarian access to her underbelly. She couldn't see what he was doing, but she felt it. This time she felt more than just his gloved fingers lightly touching her—Quincy gently but firmly spread her genital slit open and pushed in the restrictor. The device was coated in a cool, slick liquid which helped lubricate it, and it was all over in less than half a minute. "Is that it?" Kassy asked.

Quincy patted her tail base. "Yes, just like that. That wasn't so bad, was it? You can stand normally now. Try lying down and walking around—make sure the restrictor doesn't feel uncomfortable at all."

Kassy experimentally tried sitting, then lying down on all fours, and even trotting around. She could feel the medical device inside her, but it wasn't too noticeable even though she knew it had to be there. "Can I still fly my routes? Will it fall out?"

"No, it'll stay up there until we pull it out. It's not going to just drop out in mid-air or something." Quincy chuckled and waved a finger at her. "But I have to tell you, restrictors are designed so they can only be used once! We've had dragons who tried to remove their restrictors, get some action on the side, and then put the restrictor back in and pretend they hadn't done a thing. It doesn't work like that. We'll know if you try to cheat, and we'll bar you from the communal rut. It's about keeping everyone healthy, so don't be that dragon who acts selfishly but tries to lie about it."

"I wouldn't worry about that. No one's interested in me anyway," Kassy muttered.

"You might be surprised. We're almost done now—one last thing." Quincy tapped a spot on Kassy's wing, right on the base of her wing muscles. He used an alcohol swab and wiped down her scales, cleaning the area with the liquid which felt cold. The veterinarian went back to the table and picked up a hypodermic syringe, which he filled with clear liquid from a medicine bottle. This syringe was about the size of three of his fingers put together—large for a human, but not so for a dragon. "This is the last part. It's a dose of hormones which will stimulate your body's oestrus cycle and make you go into heat just as the communal rut starts in two weeks, ensuring that you're fertile and ready to make an egg. Normally greybacks synchronize their oestrus cycles based on environmental cues and smelling each other's pheromones, but with freighters flying everywhere to deliver cargo, you guys don't spend enough time all sticking together for that to work."

Quincy placed the needle right up against her scales, right at the area between the scales where her skin was just barely exposed. "Just be strong for a moment. Just a tiny sting, like an ant bite." And then he smoothly poked the needle into Kassy's skin, piercing the scales.

"Ouch," Kassy murmured. It hurt, but not too much—though it just felt wrong to see the needle embedded in her wing.

"You're a tough dragoness... Almost done, just a bit more...and done." Quincy removed the hypodermic needle and placed a plaster over the injection point. "That's all, Kassy. We're done. In about... one and half to two weeks you'll start to go into heat. You can still go about your flight routes and business as usual, but just don't mess around the restrictor. If it starts to hurt, tell Jennifer or another rancher, and they'll call me over to check on things."

"Ok, understood."

"Any questions?"

"I...think not."

"That's all then. I'll see you in two weeks for the communal rut. You can go now." Quincy gave her a smile, and he bowed his head.

"Ok." Kassy bowed her head in return. She stood up and turned to go, but then a question came to mind. "Wait, so you mean...you did this to every dragon on the ranch, right?"

"Yes, that's correct. Well, not every dragon on the ranch—we aren't bothering with the juveniles, and of course Apollo doesn't need hormones or a restrictor put in, although I swabbed him for STD testing anyway because the lab's charging us a group rate for the tests."

"But...you did it for all the adult greybacks? Gave everyone injections and restrictors?"

"Correct. We have to use different hormones for the males and females, and the dosage also has to be adjusted for age and weight, but the end result is all the females will go into heat and the males will go into rut," Quincy explained.

"Rut?" Kassy asked.

"Basically the same thing as heat. Drakes are fertile all the time, unlike dragonesses, but when they are in rut their reproductive system goes into overdrive."

"So...so..." Kassy used her tail and pointed towards her underbelly. "You're going to put one of these things into Maxwell?"

"Yes, but not exactly." Quincy reached over the table and opened up a different cardboard box. "Females and males use different types of restrictors, for obvious reasons." He held up a transparent plastic bag which contained a different medical device—it was about the size of both his palms placed together, and looked like a flat, oval-shaped piece of hole-filled material or mesh. It appeared to be made of metal, but the thinness meant it was slightly flexible. "The design is much more straightforward for a dragoness—the female slit restrictor just physically obstructs any attempts at vaginal penetration. But for a male, the penile compartment isn't just a hole which can be simply plugged. Instead the male slit restrictor is more like a plate which redirects the penis and keeps it trapped within the genital slit. Of course, the design can't be one-size-fits-all because some drakes are bigger than others, and medically it's not safe to completely prevent erection, because that causes long-term problems with blood flow. So it has to allow partial erection, but at the same time keep the penis contained entirely within the genital slit and prevent any stimulation."

Kassy shuffled her wings on her back. "That's interesting." She was imaging Maxwell getting that device pushed into his slit to block his erection. Had she ever seen Maxwell's penis? She'd seen the genitals of some of the older dragons, but never Maxwell, despite the several months they spent flying similar routes. It was weird thinking of her colleague in such a manner. "Ok. Thanks for the information and all the other stuff."

Quincy pulled off his gloves and swapped them for a fresh pair. "You are welcome."

---

In front of the post office, Newark, New Jersey; Two weeks before the communal rut

Maxwell curled his head downwards and nosed at his underbelly. "This restrictor feels odd. It's not as uncomfortable as it was yesterday, but it's still odd."

"Stop messing with it, then," Kassy replied. It was the day after Quincy the veterinarian had given them injections and put in their restrictors. Business was as usual in the ranch, with all the dragons performing their routes as normal.

The early morning air was crisp and fresh, and Maxwell and Kassy were just about to begin the predawn New Jersey mail express. It was a high-intensity route which involved many takeoffs and landings, interspersed by short-distance flying from point to point. Right now the two freighters were sitting outside a post office in the state capital, waiting for the first mailbags of the day.

Maxwell poked at his genital slit a few times, then he straightened up and sat back down. "At least it doesn't itch. If it itched, that would be the worst."

"Yup," Kassy agreed.

Yesterday after the two freighters had had their restrictors put in place, they'd gone to a quiet area in the ranch and spent some time curiously examining each other. Kassy had curled her tail around and tried sticking it into her slit, only to find that her restrictor was preventing her from penetrating more than just a half inch or so. Maxwell had trying rubbing the side of his genital slit to induce an erection, only for his penis to be limited by his restrictor, which prevented it from growing to full size or slipping out of his slit.

In the end, they'd both concluded that yes, the restrictors would probably work to block sexual activity. It was all strictly out of a friendly curiosity, of course. Kassy admitted she liked Maxwell as a friend, but she wasn't really interested in mating with him—she wasn't sure she was interested in mating with anyone at all, and Maxwell had said something similar.