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“It’s more like trying to get through the stuff on my DVR first!” Donna cringes, her forced giggle to prop up the lame rebuttal only making the tableau more painful.
“Oh, for the love of God.” Jody draws a breath and turns to that douchebag. “What is wrong with you?” She hadn’t meant to do it, but now heads are turning. The words had vibrated with alpha growl, at a volume one could delicately describe as unprofessional. She blunders on with her little monologue, but the effect is somewhat dampened by her blush.
By the time Donna hisses “What the H-E-double hockeysticks, Jody,” she’s already wilting.
-
It’s a few days later when she feels the prickle under her skin. She ignores it at first. Perhaps it’s the first sign of an incipient migraine. She goes about her day - Saturday, which means waking up a grumpy Alex at nine so she can get ready for group, then driving her to the Unitarian church where it’s held.
A few months ago she’d switched her gym to one near that church, so next it’s her hour of cardio. The treadmill today, she’s not feeling the complimentary spin class, and besides, she would have to wait half an hour for it to start.
Sweat tickles between her shoulder blades, but the crawling on the back of her neck relents as soon as she gets her heartrate up. Time speeds up as Shakira blasts against her eardrums. She’s no longer in her body, she is her body. Her thighs hurt, her lungs hurt, but she feels like hot liquid flowing. She thinks about the excitement of that vamp hunt, the swell of pride she’d felt seeing Donna with the machete in her hand, blood beading on her soft features.
Only her water bottle being suddenly empty takes her out of the zone. On her way to the water fountain, a blonde woman gives her a dirty look. Jody is baffled. It’s not until she’s stuck with herself in the narrow hallway that she realizes why. She’s broken through her blockers, and not in the normal, politely ignorable, “come on, it’s the gym” sense. She stinks like a goddamn chase.
She doesn’t bother with the water bottle. Doesn’t bother with a shower, either. Just heads straight for her locker, swings her bag over her shoulder, and slinks to the exit. She puts a towel down on her front seat so her sweat doesn’t soak into the fabric. Rolls down the windows, too. Hopefully she’ll be able to just air out the car next week and everything will be fine.
-
Three years ago, her doctor broached the subject. Well, now that it’s no longer necessary… Jody nearly walked out of the appointment. “No longer necessary” what, because Sean is dead? His removal from her life was a matter of medical convenience? Dr. Whitaker had quickly backtracked.
She’s gonna give up the hormone regimen that was with her through eighteen years of marriage for what? To stop having somewhat-more-frequent-than-average yeast infections? She can barely feel them anyway, ‘cause of the numbing. So she can jerk off? She’s never even spent a rut with a man.
Well, once. In college. There was an omega, they’d smell triggered each other, all that. But she was a girl. After the fact, Jody didn’t even really remember, wasn’t really there in her own head. It was just biology.
Jody’s pretty sure at this point that she’s never going to be interested in sex again. Of any kind. What’s she’s gonna think of? Sex makes babies, babies die, babies come back and rip husbands’ guts out, ropes of intestine all over the floor. Q.E.D.
The thing that eventually convinced Jody was a dry recitation of cancer statistics. Her grandmother and her great uncle both died of ovarian cancer. With Mimi she saw it first hand, if thirty years ago. A very painful way to go. Not an example Jody is interested in emulating. Long term full suppression apparently increased the risk of all reproductive cancers, especially those of the gonads. Not for the first time, she wished she had opted for surgical castration back when it was still legal.
She let Dr. Whitaker start tapering her down.
-
She races home - what are they going to do, pull her over? She’s the sheriff. Alex is going to her friend Mae’s house after group - thank god. Jody’s glad that Alex is making friends there, of course, but today it’s a much more instrumental gratefulness. She dials up Mrs. Bakersfield, Mae’s mom - come on, Sheriff, call me Leigh - and swallows to clear her throat.
“Hi Sheriff, what’s up? You need Alex home early?” Mrs. Bakersfield is very laid back and always talks just a little too loud for polite company.
“Oh, no, I was just gonna ask if you could take an Alex for a sleepover.” Jody can hear the flatness of her own voice.
“Of course, hon! Mind if I ask why?” Mrs. Bakersfield’s voice took on the musical quality of a theatrical hostess or an incorrigible gossip. Reminds her of Donna, a little.
“I’ve had an early cycle.” Jody sighs through her teeth, making sure it’ll be heard. It’s not a lie. She’s never been the sort to hide her designation, it’s right there on her driver’s license. But she’s happy to let people make assumptions.
“Oh, you poor thing! Still having heats, at your age!”
-
That first rut had been… it wasn’t exactly fun. Almost twenty years as a functional beta had left Jody unprepared for the maddening hormone cascade. She actually chewed a hole in her pillow. There were huge gaps in her memory from that week - Dr. Whitaker had told her to let it go for the full length, just once, before starting partial suppressants.
The lucid times were worse. Jody hadn’t had a real rut since she was a teenager. At 43, she’d experienced more of Sean’s ruts than she had her own. But there was a time she’d stopped suppressants on her doctor’s orders. Long before she was seeing Dr. Whitaker.
Sean and Jody could barely be in the same room while she was pregnant. Pregnant alphas don’t go into rut, not exactly. It’s more like they’ve got a low level hormone cascade all the time. Sometimes, when Sean got too close, she found herself growling. Around the five month mark, he ended up moving back in with his parents. Just temporarily, until it was safe for Jody to go back on suppressants. She was getting dangerously territorial.
While she thrashed alone in her bed in 2013, she was trapped in those four months in 1995, just her and Owen in her belly. She felt phantom kicks. Phantom cravings. When she had the wherewithal to walk, she found herself off balance, expecting a weight that was no longer there. Once, she woke up with a stabbing pain in her stomach and Owen was eating her from the inside, saw his mouth covered in Sean’s blood-
Afterward, her therapist told her she had been “triggered.” Like a college student. Like she was a quivering nineteen year old at the rape crisis center.
She had dialed Sean’s parents’ old number three times during that rut. Good thing it was out of service.
-
Jody heads to the kitchen, first. She shouldn’t need food. The suppressant should kick in in less than 24 hours. But she needs to grab a gallon jug of water from the pantry.
Next she raids the linen closet. A good pile of towels.
In the bathroom, she tries to dry swallow a partial suppressant pill and gags, grabbing for a palmful of water to help her choke down the fat, inch-and-a-half-long gel cap.
Finally, her Kindle from the couch in the living room. She’ll need something to distract herself between the waves.
She locks the door of her bedroom behind her and stuffs one of the towels in the crack. Hopefully the smell in the house will dissipate before Alex gets back. It’s just polite.
The rut is in full swing, now. Her pulse thuds in her neck, and her back drips with sweat. She rips open her closet, desperate to get at the plastic box on the top shelf. How she could have missed this before she doesn’t know. Except that it’s a month and a half early.
-
Want is a half formed thing: now that she has her prey she doesn’t know what to do with it. A house cat and a bird that’s stopped moving. There is a body under her and she tears into it, digging like an animal, pulling out ropes of intestine just to prove the meat is hers. Deeper, deeper. Until it’s stripped, pink flesh clinging to bones just like in that morgue. Bare ribs but she can hear it breathing, gasping, oh, oh, oh, rhythmic and needy, rolled up eyes in that sweet face as she fucks into the cunt below, the red O of Donna’s lips-
-
She wakes up and it’s over. Her skin is sticky but the heat under it is gone. She can breathe again, even if breathing in her own stink turns her stomach. When she opens her eyes, the clock says 8:38. Plenty of time to clean up before Mrs. Bakersfield brings Alex home.
When she starts to move in the bed, she flinches instantly. Her dick is still out, lying soft on top of her thigh, stuck just enough that jostling sends a zip of pain through her whole body. Alright then, first thing’s first. She reaches for a pump of lube from the bedside table. Coats her hands. Runs a hand along her thigh, gets everything wet, and picks up her dick. It’s floppier than she expects.
Which is how an Alpha woman’s dick is supposed to be, as far as she knows. Funny, how she’s more familiar with men’s dicks than her own. She didn’t evert once the whole time she was married, except a few times at the gynecologist.
That first rut without suppressants was the first time she’d been hard in over half her life. At first, she’d had trouble even everting. Had tried to finger herself instead, like some teenager, only to recoil in pain. It was like she’d tried to fuck a telephone pole. Apparently that, too, is normal for an Alpha woman, at least when she’s in rut and getting ready to evert. But Jody couldn’t help but think of two decades of numbness, of taking her alpha husband easily, without even a twinge.
Now, she gingerly starts the process of manual inversion. It’s not unlike turning a sleeve rightside out, except with deeply enervated flesh that’s still tender and sensitized from residual hormones. Nearly done, she gets herself with a fingernail and gasps. A little oh sound.
Memory crushes her chest like a vice. Gasping sounds. A body under hers. Sick little fantasies.
It’s just biology. Your brain just takes whatever stuff you’ve seen in the past few days and mixes it into a slurry. Makes up dreams in your mind. Images are whatever falls out of the slop.
Well lubricated now, the rest of her dick inverts on its own, slipping back inside. The fullness in her groin makes Jody squeeze her legs together. Hot shame settles in her stomach, and she squeezes harder.
-
She’s just reassembling her fleshlight after the wash, getting ready to tuck it into the plastic box for the next time she needs it when she hears Mrs. Bakersfield pulling up. Jody is pretty happy with the smell of the house, she’s pretty sure everything is all cleaned up.
Her illusions are shattered when Mrs. Bakersfield takes a sniff and winks at her from the front seat.
“Had someone over, huh?” she stage-whispers, with a conspiratorial grin on her thin lips.
Jody just gives her the deer in headlights.
Once the car is out of the driveway, Alex sniffs the air and shoots Jody a sympathetic grimace.
-
It’s three days later when Jody’s cellphone rings. It isn’t Alex’s special ringtone, so she answers without looking. Probably John up the road is fighting with his brother again, and Cindy his wife is calling her to come break it up. There are plenty of citizens of Sioux Falls who have her personal cell number.
“Heyo, Jody-o!” Trills the voice in the phone, and Jody’s stomach drops.
-
It makes sense, what Donna has suggested. She’s gotten an abbreviated version of The Talk already, but she needs a little more guidance. Maybe they could make it a regular thing. Jody’s not a full time hunter, but she has her little arsenal of tips and tricks.
All she can think about is Donna’s delicate body ripped apart. It’s not like Donna’s an omega, that’s basically what they’re for. That’s just biology. But Jody can’t not picture a rutting alpha tearing into Donna’s fragile beta cunt. She’s pretty sure Doug was a beta, he smelled like a beta, but what if he wasn’t? What if he just had good blockers? It’s sick to think about, Donna squeaking in pain as he fucked her rough and animalistic. And she’d just take it, the way she does, submitting to whatever a man might want to do to her. She wouldn’t even have the genital numbing of full suppression to get her through it.
-
Sean had never minded that Jody was an Alpha. He’d always just treated her like one of the boys. It was easy. It made her feel normal. Of course, when they got together, she had to get fully suppressed. It was just biology. Two knots is one too many, as they say. But she was perfectly happy with that, it wasn’t like becoming a sex crazed beast twice a year was something she wanted. Sexual desire was… tricky. Hard to control. She was better off without it.
-
Donna had promised to bring food, and she does not disappoint. A seven hour drive is a bit long for a home-cooked meal to last, but she brings an armful of takeout boxes and a cooler which she won’t let Jody look inside.
“That’s dessert,” she says, her smile mysterious and a finger to her full lips.
Jody had already prepped the coffee table with a stack of lore books, so they spread the boxes out around them, trying not to splash green curry on the borrowed Encyclopedia Monstrosica.
“This is awesome,” Jody says with total conviction, pointing to her pad prik.
“I know,” says Donna, talking with her mouth full, it’s so cute, “I went to this place while I was passing through a few years ago, and I knew I had to come back.”
“So I’m just an excuse,” Jody says, giving her best jilted lover look.
“Of course,” Donna grins, nudging Jody’s knee with her own.
“What were you doing in Sioux Falls, anyhow?” Jody asks. “It’s a little middle of nowhere, even if you’re coming from Hibbing.”
“Oh, one of my best friends had a float in the pride parade,” Donna says. “I wanted to show up for her, and besides, would you turn that down? Getting to sit on the float? I even got to do the confetti cannon!”
Donna grins and nudges Jody again, but Jody doesn’t really feel in on the joke.
“I guess not,” she says. She's been to Sioux Falls Pride, she's the Sheriff. It's her job to watch over all the city's parades. She supposes she can imagine Donna loving it. It suits her. Blonde hair tumbling all around as confetti flies through the air. In the summer, even South Dakota gets warm, and she likes the idea of Donna’s sparkly smile in the summer sun.
They move on to other topics.
Halfway through dinner, Alex passes through, and when Jody tries to introduce her she shrugs her off.
“I’m going out, you kids have fun,” she yells over her shoulder.
“Your daughter?” Donna asks.
“Yeah. She’s… she’s great,” Jody says. Somehow hoping that she can beam a good impression of Alex right into Donna’s brain. It’s important that other people see Alex as she is. Especially important for Donna.
They go back to hunting talk.
“A brass nail dipped in sugar water?” Donna asks, flabbergasted. Jody thinks, idly, that shock is a good look on her. The way she rolls her voice with it.
“It seems so. I’ve never seen one of these things, though. Sometimes the lore is straight up wrong,” Jody says.
“You betcha,” Donna says, staring somewhat slackjawed at the rather grotesque illustration.
Dessert is something called a French silk pie. Which Donna made herself. And apparently isn’t allowed to eat more than a tiny slice of.
“Oh, fuck off,” Jody says, and serves Donna and herself fat portions over Donna’s protests. When she digs in, the stuff is so rich that Jody almost regrets taking so much. Almost. She also regrets that she can’t eat the whole pie then and there. Silence reigns until both their plates are clean and both their mouths are stained with chocolate mousse.
-
At the end of the night, Jody shows Donna to the guest room. Seven hours is a long drive twice in a day. She knows Dean likes to walk the car crash knife-edge, but other people are sensible.
“This is very gentlemanly,” Donna says, with an impish little smile. Jody stares at her, slightly lost. “I mean,” Donna clarifies, “that I know there’s all these rules about third dates and such, but it’s a long drive. We’re grown-ups.”
It takes Jody a really, really long time to process that one.
“Dates?” she says, at last. Donna’s face crumbles.
“Oh, God,” Donna says, “I’m so sorry if I misunderstood, I didn’t mean to-”
“I’m not gay,” Jody interrupts her.
Donna’s face goes from crushed. To confused. To anxious. To amused. To pitying. To sad.
Jody would do anything to stop it from doing that. Which is why she grabs Donna and kisses her.