Adaptation
#6 of The Story of Cattanzo and Everyone Else
Freddie and friends react to the absence of their female counterparts and continue their development.
(Note: The Incest tag is again used just in case, although the "siblings" in this story are laboratory-grown hybrids from the same batch, and are not actually related by parentage or genetics.)
When they awoke the next morning, the girls were still missing, and they would remain so for the next ten days - the two girls who had not been part of the events of the previous day were absent for even longer. With their absence, at least during the day, things generally went back to normal, although all of the classrooms suddenly looked far too large with only half their regular occupants. It was odd, not having them there, but their social spheres had remained largely apart up until very recently; and Freddie, at least was somewhat relieved that they were absent, as it meant that he wouldn't have to deal with another situation like that bizarre morning again. Of course, another part of him would have been very happy to be with them again, but for the most part he was able to ignore that and get back to his schoolwork.
After the incident, for the next few weeks, there was a short segment of classtime each day devoted to "sexual education," although the information presented was really little more than they had already figured out: the parts between a girl's legs were designed for the parts between a boy's legs to go inside of them, and when a girl was in a cyclical state called "estrus," they desired for that to happen. However, apparently this mating, or sexual intercourse, was something that was supposed to be reserved for grown-ups, and while they were apparently grown up enough in body, they were not supposed to be ready for the results that sort of activity could generate for many years. Because of that, they were in an unusual state, where their bodies were ready for something that no one else was, and it was made quite clear that, instinctual drives or not, the boys and the girls would no longer be allowed to be in any situation where mating could occur.
Left unsaid was how they boys were supposed to deal with their newfound desires, which, unlike the female "estrus" which was supposed to dissipate after some days, seemed to return to them on a daily basis; upon some rather pointed questioning by one of them, the instructor finally said something along the lines of "if you've found something that works for you, just keep on doing it and you should be fine." The next day, though, a handout was distributed to them without comment during the sex-education class, entitled "Fun things men can do with each other," followed by labels and crude black-and-white diagrams. The handout seemed incomplete, though, as one of the labels a the bottom was mostly cut off, with a blank white section on the bottom of the page. Upon examining the letters carefully, Freddie was able to determine that they spelled out something called "anal," but the rest of the information was missing. Beyond that, the handout showed mostly the things they had already been doing: using their hands, rubbing up against each other, and so on. The one thing that no one had thought to try, for whatever reason, was using their muzzles and tongues for stimulation - the night that they received the handout, Freddie and Tommy tried it out, using the diagram labeled "69" to simultaneously lick each other while laying on their sides. It was a bit awkward at first, but the awkwardness quickly dissipated when they realized it actually worked pretty well - while it wasn't quite like how those warm folds of flesh on the fox-girl had begun to wrap around his tip, it was somehow similarly pleasant, although it didn't have quite the same feeling of urgency that he'd had before. Just as he started to get into it, though, it became awkward again, as Tommy's penis started to shudder and the same sticky fluid, which he now knew was called semen, came spurting out onto his tongue. The stuff was hot, and had a strange, earthy, bitter taste to it that made Freddie want to immediately get it out of his mouth. The problem was, he couldn't exactly just get up, with Tommy's hand on his hip and his tongue pushing him ever closer to the edge, while Tommy's own penis was still twitching against his cheek, dripping more fluid. Freddie came a few moments later, the sudden release causing him to exhale sharply, panting and sputtering, the liquid in his mouth spraying out and spattering against the fur on Tommy's thigh. As Freddie's orgasm was winding down, Tommy began making a sort of gagging noise, and Freddie felt him quickly pull away, listening as he spat repeatedly into one of the nearby blankets. Once they cleaned up, they agreed that the new method seemed pretty good, but that the finale needed work.
After the ten days had passed, and the boys generally settled into the new routine of "mutually dissipating" each other's desires before bedtime, the girls returned to the facility. They only joined the boys for the time between breakfast and dinner, though - after that, they were returned to another portion of the facility, behind a door that was then secured with multiple locks. The girls, as well, were back to normal, perhaps even more so - they displayed none of the scents or behaviors that they had that one morning, and were certainly not in the mood for any mating behavior. One of the other boys, seeing one of the girls bend over to retrieve something, took it as an invitation and pounced on her, only to receive a painful knee to the groin and a viciously scratched-up face for his efforts. Even without the scientists intervening, the message was clear: outside of estrus, girls were very different creatures, and any notions the other boys might have had about mating were quickly suppressed for their own safety.
Of course, those thoughts were just suppressed, rather than extinguished, which made the tension higher and increased the need for release, making the time before sleep quickly one of the most interesting and anticipated parts of their day - and while the scientists said nothing about their behavior, the lights in their room now only dimmed halfway for an hour before going dark, giving them enough light for their nighttime activity.
It was especially bad when the heat cycle began again, much to the apparent horror of the scientists, about a month and a half before it first happened - at about dinnertime, the unusual, alluring scent began to appear in the air, and as soon as the girls had finished eating, they were hustled back to their section and disappeared again for over a week. Being exposed to the scent again, but without the opportunity to be with a female, was an intensely frustrating feeling, with his instincts pushed to the front of his mind without any reasonable outlet. By the time they returned to their room that night, his whole body felt like a coiled spring, waiting to strike. They had stripped to their underwear in preparation for their nighttime activities, but before they could contemplate what they wanted to do, Tommy crouched down on all fours to look for something. It took little more than a moment for Freddie to pounce on top of him, the sight of any butt wiggling about apparently enough to unleash his instincts. Not even bothering with the underwear, he dry-humped Tommy for several minutes, feeling him squirming beneath him and occasionally letting out an unusual yip. Surprisingly, even with the underwear in the way the friction somehow worked, and by the time he rolled off of Tommy, his boxer briefs sported a quickly expanding wet spot. Oddly enough, he noticed that Tommy's underwear were in a similar condition. They changed in silence, neither of them apparently knowing quite what to say, the aftermath of their activity quickly lulling them to sleep.
The next day, Freddie found Tommy in the hallway in between classes and apologized for what had occurred the night before, trying to explain why he'd acted that way, but Tommy didn't seem to think an apology was necessary - while he had been surprised by the mock-humping, it hadn't been all that unpleasant for him. Apparently, the confines of the underwear had pushed Freddie's penis up against his body near the waistband, instead of outward, and this had prevented the poking that Tommy had found so uncomfortable the time they had tried "mating" naked. Without that, the closeness and rhythmic humping had felt very comfortable to him for some reason, and some hastily-piled pillows had given Tommy something to hump up against as well. Admittedly, it wasn't the same as mating, but it did seem to provide an outlet for the instinctual desires when they cropped up in response to the heat.
Interestingly enough, it did seem like instinct and desire were somehow separate. Girls or no, they would go about their usual nighttime activities, but on the days when the girls were on the verge of heat and quickly removed, humping was by far the activity of choice. Most of them ended up emulating what they'd observed Freddie and Tommy do, and went at it while still wearing underwear. Some did it naked, though, and one pairing seemed to achieve the "mating" that Tommy had found so uncomfortable, the boy who was in the bottom position yelping so loudly in pain that a number of scientists had come running in shortly afterward to sort out the situation. Freddie could hear them arguing in the hallway after the incident, although he could only make out some of the words - something about lubrication, damage, and the unusual name of Dubrovnikov that he'd heard years before. Aside from the name, though, he hadn't thought much about it, until the next day when the scientists explained that, if they did feel any instinctual urges to pounce on their peers, it was very strongly suggested that they at least be wearing underwear. Given what had happened, none of the boys seemed all that eager to revisit the issue, and after a couple more months the problem became moot - once the scientists figured out the specific amount of time between the cycles, they pulled the girls out a number of days before any symptoms of heat were apparent. This meant that the girls were sequestered about a quarter of the time, and with their being closely monitored when they were with the boys, the two groups generally remained socially segregated, repressing interests they might otherwise have pursued had the situation been different. With that absence, the sense of instinctual frustration eventually dissipated, for Freddie at least - without any added chemical temptation, the activities the boys had worked out amongst themselves kept his latent sexual needs in check.
With the girls removed most of the time, though, the boys grew much closer. While the girls were absent, the undercurrents of tension and competition that their instincts seemed to bring about were no longer an issue. Furthermore, with their newfound activities, there was a topic of conversation that was not directly related to their classes. Up until that point, while it was true that they lived together, they were neither exactly family or friends - the close monitoring and specific curriculum that took up the bulk of their days meant that most of their interactions occurred as a result of something they had been assigned, and as a result, they only knew so much about their peers beyond their basic behaviors and their comparative abilities at different tasks. There was little difference in preferences to spark discussion, after all - they all ate the same things, wore basically the same clothing, shared every activity, and had virtually identical backgrounds and life experiences.
Now, though, there was something to talk about, odd as it was. Reggie became suddenly popular due to his mostly comprehensive experience with mating. While he had been so overcome at the time as to be somewhat hazy on the details, it was still a unique experience that held the rest of them rapt at even his vague attempts to describe it, for the few weeks that he remained with them after the incident - after that, he was inexplicably pulled out of the room one evening before bed and appeared to be absent indefinitely. Mating aside, though, there was the whole new topic of their nighttime activities, sharing techniques and discoveries and learning what worked out best for everyone. Divorced from the instinctual mating, and the simulation of mating that the scientists strongly discouraged, their intimate interactions seemed to preferentially evolve towards gentler fare, although everyone seemed to have their own unique permutations. Given that they were all covered in fur, touch was seen as one of the more important aspects, and much of their intimate play involved close contact, petting and rubbing against each other in various combinations. Their discussions led to even more curiosity, and where they had seemed to pair off before, they now played in different combinations most nights, their currently odd number meaning that they also sometimes interacted in larger groups. It was an unusual experience in some respects, but all of a sudden they were learning very intimate and personal things about each other, and learning how to adapt their behavior to reciprocally satisfy each other's needs. They all learned rapidly in this new, interpersonal arena, whispering about it between classes and putting their discussions in to practice at night.
Freddie, perhaps, learned most rapidly of all thanks to his innate sense of curiosity, and rather than simply deciding on something and reciprocating, he made it a habit of trying each of the things that his peers were into. Some, of course, were difficult to do simultaneously - Bill, a boy who looked a little like a tabby cat, was fond of draping himself across someone's lap and having them pet him from the tips of his ears all the way down to the end of his tail, his body flexing and arching in response to the touch, until his penis became hard and throbbed against his partner's thigh. After Bill had finished, he sat up and let Freddie try the same thing, and while the hand brushing through his fur was pleasant, it didn't really get him going, and he settled for finding a position to rub up against him, rocking his hips as Bill got distracted and ended up playing with Freddie's tail, almost cracking up when it started twitching around madly in his hands as Freddie came. Most of the other things he tried turned out better, though. Dwight, for instance, liked to grab him in a big hug, pressing his whole body against him and rolling them back and forth around an area of bedding, occasionally pausing with one of them on top to do further rubbing, their dicks occasionally pressed together but more often snuggled against the soft fur that covered their abdomens. The continual motion made for an intense experience that led them both to come rather quickly, as Dwight held him close and made a cute, high-pitched noise as he shuddered and throbbed against him. Tommy was still partial to the 69 position that they had tried before on their sides, but they had quickly become more attuned to each others' state - when the skin of their shafts started to feel especially warm and began to twitch against their tongues, they turned around and shifted into a different position, with Freddie snuggling against Tommy from behind, Tommy's fluffy husky tail twitching and curling around Freddie's penis as he wrapped his arms around Tommy's waist, moving his fingers in a gentle massaging motion across Tommy's shaft to take him the rest of the way to his climax. With all of his partners, Freddie found ways to enjoy the encounters, reveling in the constant touch and closeness, and as a result he was never the "odd man out" among the seven of them, and never had to search for a partner at night as there was always someone, or multiple someones, waiting for him.
Over time, their intimate experiences brought them inexorably together, as it permeated their lives and created between them a more fundamental sense of trust - after all, their behavior brought them as close to each other as it possibly could, and they learned that even in that naked and vulnerable state, they naturally acted in a way that brought them pleasure and comfort. This new level of intimacy also affected their behavior directly, even outside of their nighttime activities - if two of them had a dispute, for example, often another one would intervene in the quarrel by bringing them close and petting the fur on their tails or beneath their shirts, causing them to remember the intimacy that they all had and quickly defusing their anger. Afterwards, the two that had quarreled were often encouraged by the others to pair up at night, and their trust was usually quickly and effortlessly reaffirmed. Additionally, if any of them had run into a traumatic experience - a too-intrusive medical exam by the scientists, an injury while playing out in the field, or anything else - they were all quick to offer comfort and support. If the boy in question was still distraught before bed, several of them would snuggle up to him, performing his favorite activities until he was, without fail, relaxed and happy again. Their behavior, apparently somehow observed by the scientists, brought up stray mentions of the Dubrovnikov name again, along with unusual tests for "the link" involving contraptions on their heads, and a plethora of boxes with blinking lights and weird electronic traces. Those tests, however, were apparently uninteresting, as they never happened again. Whatever the link was, they didn't have it, but even without such a thing the bond between them grew ever closer.
At the same time, of course, the other parts of their lives continued apace, months passing along with an incredible variety of knowledge constantly brought before them by their teachers. These finally culminated when they had reached the approximate age of eighteen, followed by a battery of unusual tests, with strange capitalized names like SAT and GRE and unusual machine-scored sheets filled with endless rows of bubbles. They all completed them with time to spare, and apparently with fairly impressive scores, judging by the reactions of the scientists when the test reports came back.
The problem was, once the tests were complete, there suddenly appeared to be little else for them to do - the scientists were out of instruction materials, and short of some advanced seminars in their own fields of expertise, there wasn't much more that they could teach them directly. As a result, after a week of nothing more than outside play time and a slight rise in sexual encounters due to the boredom, they were all distributed tablet computers, with a wireless device designed to connect them to a restricted subset of the internet, a feed that was only supposed to deliver a series of college coursework from open universities, featuring a whole host of more advanced, specialized topics. They all took to the tablets readily, although it took the scientists a while to calibrate the touchscreens to the pads on their fingers, which apparently interacted with the surface much differently than the skin on the scientists' fingers. The tablets also had a few other things installed on them, programs for playing simple games, making music, and taking pictures using the tablet's built-in camera. While the information they could access was restricted, the tablets did open up a whole new world of creativity and fun, and provided a sliver of additional view into the world that they knew existed outside.
As their creativity and maturity grew, so did their curiosity, as well as their doubt. They realized, of course, that there was a wide world outside of the laboratory complex in which they lived, and their questions about visiting it grew with each passing day, and the deflections by the scientists grew more and more hollow. As the next couple of months passed, that doubt grew, and they began to wonder, bit by bit, whether that outside world would ever be opened to them, and what their eventual fate would be. The scientists, after all, had jobs here that they had taken after their schooling - but once their education was finished, Freddie wondered, just what was in store for them?
What none of them realized, though, was just how quickly that question was going to be answered. As so many things did, it began with a moment of carelessness - one of the assistants was running late, and the computer lab where she did most of her correspondence had already been locked. In a moment of laziness, she borrowed one of the tablets the boys had left out and punched in an administrator code, sending a couple of quick e-mails to her parents and kid brother. She remembered to log out, but didn't bother to reset the tablet completely, which left the email function active and populated with several addresses. As the tablet's applications were integrated, most of their functions were available system-wide. Because of this, when Bill was taking pictures of some of the boys goofing off the next day, he accidentally hit a new button that had appeared on the screen several times, and when it popped up a new window, he hit something else that made it go away so that he could take more pictures. However, his actions did much more than just dismiss the window, and despite the supposedly secure lockdown of the tablets, several photos of his friends were dispatched through the wireless system. As the scientists were focused far more on their research than on internet security, the images made it passed an improperly-configured firewall and onto the public internet, where they subsequently appeared in the inbox of the assistant's teenaged sibling. He, in turn, posted them to various places online, and in a world that had already experienced a minor genetic panic in response to the Dubrovnikov incident, a chain of events was set into motion - a chain of events that would, in a matter of days, bring about change at a surprisingly rapid pace.