The days counting down to Christmas Break continued to count down quietly. After Officer Howard's call explaining what Officer Barnes and my schedule would be during the roughly two weeks for Christmas Break, there were no major incidents to be wary of. The worst thing was a minor car accident in the parking lot. It wasn't the fault of any of the drivers involved. The real culprit was ice in the parking lot, which also nearly took me out as I rushed to see what was going on. Neither car was seriously damaged and the driver of the car that hit the other one spoke about his breaks locking up on the icy parking lot and he skidded forward into the other car. Looking at it, it was fairly believable. The truck looked old enough that it had been built before they invented anti-lock brakes.
It was these sorts of things that everyone had to be wary of in winter time. Temperatures had dropped below freezing, and while we hadn't gotten a major cold snap or a big blizzard, the colder temperatures were enough to freeze any water in the atmosphere, or any water that was on the ground. The snow and such created good images for a gift card, but they were still things that needed to be considered. One was to either be cautious on the road or go south until late March when the snow would begin to thaw. And even the most cautious of drivers or pedestrians could still have trouble. As the high school student and I had demonstrated. A far number of the students got a kick out of seeing me skid and slide on the ice. Once I had seen that no one was hurt, I was too relieved by that to be embarrassed.
And that was the biggest "event" of those couple of days. But on the morning with three days of school left before Christmas day, counting that day. A different event began. One that Molly and I had been waiting for since all of the political things related to Beauregard's anti-Animal-Person kick. Molly began to come into heat again. The morning started with the alarm going off, as it usually did. I slowly blinked as I roused from what was a fairly deep sleep. On the other side of the bed was Molly. She blinked her greenish-yellow eyes at me turned and sat up. Then, almost suddenly, she shot up onto her feet and rushed out the bedroom door.
"I need to pee!" Molly said quickly as she rushed out of the room.
Ignoring the flash of orange and black fur as Molly departed for the bathroom, I got up and moved shut off the radio. I figured it was a run of the mill bathroom visit and went about my morning routine and began to dress myself. I had just gotten the pants to my uniform on when I heard the toilet flush and Molly returned to bedroom.
"Good morning, George, my big male tiger," Molly said in a playful voice. Her breathing also sounded slightly heavier.
I was about to ask what had brought about her playful spirit that early in the morning, when she gave a slight hop and wrapped her arms and legs around me, pressing her chest into mine. She also gave me several firm nuzzles with her muzzle. At the same time, my nose picked up a strong and pleasing scent on Molly. It was the same scent that I caught on Molly when I transformed. The scent that I could detect on her for about week after my transformation. And as I caught that scent, I could feel the expected reaction to that scent.
"I believe the season has started," I commented I returned Molly's nuzzles and managed to gently get her off of me.
"The Christmas season started before Thanksgiving, George," Molly spoke.
"It's not the Christmas season I'm referring to," I answered.
"What other season is... damn," Molly cut herself off when when she realized that she was coming into heat again.
"Let's not panic," I told her, "Nothing is wrong."
"But it's December eighteenth!" Molly answered, "I'm at least a week early! We expected that I wouldn't come into heat again until the twenty-fifth at the earliest. As it is now, my week of estrus will end on the twenty-fourth!"
"Well... most of the guidebooks and websites that we've gathered say that a Bengal Tiger's mating season is usually during the winter," I answered, "This is the winter time. It's earlier then it was last year, yes, but it's still winter."
Molly slowly began to dress herself, clearly nervous. She didn't expect to be coming into heat again this "early" in the season.
"There's still three days of school!" Molly protested, "How are we..."
"The same way we will when I'm back on patrol," I sighed, "In the evening."
"But the kids..." Molly began to protest.
"Molly, you were working as an aide last year while you were in heat," I told her, "did you mate with any of the males in the school uncontrollably?"
"No!" Molly answered, sounding disgusted.
"That's my point," I slowly nuzzled her, "You can do it."
"But... but I've been looking forward to mating," Molly gave a whimper.
"I know," I nodded, "So have I. And I promise to do my very best this evening... even in the afternoon after school at the earliest."
Some of her nervousness over this was from an obvious worry. A mundane tigress, like all female cats, required intense sexual stimulation just to ovulate. Cats didn't mate once and the female was impregnated after one try. Documentaries on tigers and lions indicated that a mating pair would mate frequently over the course of a week and they wouldn't even eat during that time-frame. Now Molly wasn't a mundane tigress, but the situation was one where the Animatrix Serum and human biology countered. Some human characteristics weren't lost. Clemens kept his arms and legs, Molly kept her breasts, all of which were things that mundane snakes or tigresses didn't have.
In theory that meant that Molly could have retained a human woman's reproductive cycle. But the course of the events that Molly and I had experienced so far seemed to go against that. Since her transformation, Molly had not had a period and never bought any of the things human women bought to deal with that issue. I had asked her the infamous "why" question once, and she commented that she wasn't going through the symptoms related to a human woman's menstrual cycle and didn't feel she needed them. The discovery that she was in heat around the time that I transformed proved that Molly's reproductive cycle was far more like a tiger's then a human's.
The fact that Molly went through the same cycle that a mundane tigress did, Molly and I had both guessed that she would require the same stimulation that a mundane tigress would, just to ovulate. Or at least, she would need more stimulation then what a human woman would. It was partially why I was looking forward to the mating season. The fact that it arrived a week early, however, was still a surprise.
"I hadn't expected it to be this early," Molly said weakly.
"I now, but you're not a robot or some machine," I told her with a sigh, "I mean... back when you were human did your... "cycle" go on the same day every month. And I mean the date, not the day of the week."
"No," Molly nodded.
"So I'd guess this is similar," I answered, "It's different from when you were human... that is obvious, but the principle is the same. Either way... this is a blessing. You are in heat, yes... and we can begin what we will need to do to start our family. And we can love our cubs forever. You'll have to stand strong... but I know you can do it."
"Thank you, George," Molly answered and we shared a brief nuzzle.
With that we put our focus on getting ready for work. After all, we'd both get in trouble if we cut work to mate.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The day went quietly for me. Finding out Molly was in heat a weak early was a surprise, but it didn't prevent us from doing what we needed to. In a way, it was a tool Molly and I could have used to demonstrate that we weren't mundane tigers to the people that had so eagerly joined R.A.M. when we first arrived. If we were enslaved to our instincts, we would have never gone in to work. A mundane male tiger would have begun mating with the female as quickly as he could detect that the female was both receptive and willing to mate. But that would essentially amounted to the both of us "unzipping" our proverbial fly to make a point. A point that we made through other and less revealing ways.
We ate breakfast and then made our way into the schools. I of course headed toward the High School where the main DARE office was and Molly headed toward the elementary school where she taught. Once we were far enough apart, my biological reaction to her "mating scent" went down. That allowed me to get through my day quietly with no difficulties. And the day went quietly with nothing big going on. The various classes were having various Christmas parties and Officer Barnes and I heard carols or talks about what the students wanted for Christmas echo through the halls. With no major problems to deal with, we were able to relax a bit and enjoy the season.
Before leaving the school, though I did give Officer Barnes know that the mating season for Molly and I was starting. I didn't think that Officer Barnes and Officer Jenkins lived close enough to Bandhavgarh for them to hear, but Megan might be able to hear. Her ears were better then Officer Barnes' and Officer Jenkins'. If she did hear, Officer Barnes was advised to give her the same "wrestling" line that had been used to describe when Officer Barnes and Officer Jenkins were intimate with each other. He did understand, as he also knew about how badly Molly and I wanted to become parents.
As I began to walk home, I slowly prepared myself for encountering Molly's scent again. Her scent got a very obvious rise out of me while there was no danger of the two of us mating in public, as we had enough basic control to avoid that sort of thing, but if we didn't control ourselves we could very well display public affection that would be borderline illegal. Readying all of my self-control, I reached the street intersection where I normally met Molly on the way home. On this day, she wasn't there. This came as a bit of a surprise to me. I had no delays, so I knew she couldn't have gone ahead, and while the sidewalks and roads were icy and even snowy in some places, they weren't quite enough that we'd have trouble. Claws made for excellent traction when necessary.
I waited patiently at that corner until I heard the crunching of the snow and ice that betrayed that someone was approaching. After a few moments, Molly came around a bend in the road. Upon seeing me waiting for her, she speed up to a slow jog and was at my side in moments.
"You waited for me," Molly said as she gave me a hug and a brief nuzzle before we moved on.
"Yes, I'd thought you would prefer that," I commented as I breathed in her scent. It was even more attractive then it was this morning.
"Thank you, George," Molly said slowly.
We walked along quietly, showing excellent self control. There was no one around to smell the natural feline pheromones that Molly was producing as part of being in heat and as a result that thee was also no one that could smell my own "attention" to Molly's scent. I tried to keep things out of the gutter. After all, because Molly and I had been waiting for her to come into heat again, that added an obvious "twist" to the situation. Because our human minds were looking forward to mating, we had to pay extra attention to make sure we didn't do anything that would get us in trouble.
"How did your day go?" I asked, "No problems, I hope..."
"No, no problems," Molly answered, "I got through the day with no problems and the quality of my teaching didn't suffer... or at least I don't think it did."
"That's good to hear," I told her.
"Maybe, but I wasn't able to hide the fact that I was in heat that well this year," Molly answered, "Mr. Patten noticed, and so did a couple of others..."
"I'm sure they were just concerned for you," I told her, "after all you've done there... the kids love you. You saved Megan. You distracted Williams long enough for the rest of the class to escape... mostly."
"There were no problems," Molly assured me, "though I think one of the female teachers that figured it out is already planning a baby shower... or at least that was the impression I got from the squeal she made when I told her we planned to have cubs... but that isn't the big thing."
"The big thing?" I asked.
"Mr. Patten made an offer to get in touch with Clemens," Molly answered, "he might be able to help us with some of the things related to pregnancy since he works in a zoo."
"He'd help?" I wondered.
We had only met Clemens during the python-man's visit during the summer. I didn't think he would be that personally willing to help, as we didn't know him that well personally. But then, Molly did know Joseph Patten very well, and Clemens might do it as a favor to his cousin.
"Mr. Patten believes he could," Molly nodded, "and considering where he works, he'd probably know more about animal pregnancies in terms of handling them rather then simply knowing the statistics. Leon can help us a lot, but he knows a lot of theory, and there's still so much about how much the Animatrix Serum affects people that become Animal People that is simply unknown. It'd take years for Leon to collect enough data to know for sure how pregnancies for each Animal-Person species would go... such as how long it'd last and so forth."
"And there is still a lot that is guess work," I nodded.
"Yes," Molly nodded, "they're guessing that Jacki will come to term in her sixth month, three months shorter then she would as a human, but it's still longer then the pregnancy of a mundane lion."
I slowly nodded. The things where the Animatrix Serum either removed or heavily altered some "human" characteristics, but yet left some others alone or simply couldn't change... or the changes produced something that wasn't quite either like the original human genotype, or the original animal's genotype. And Jacki was a good example. By the growth and the development that the doctors monitored in her cubs, they expected her to give birth sooner then normal nine months a human woman did. A mundane African Lioness carried one to four cubs for 102 to 113 days. For Molly, a mundane Bengal Tigress carried her young for 95 to 112 days. Which would be at longest about 3.76 months for these mundane cats. A shorter period of time then the nine months for a human and even shorter then what Jacki's doctors were predicting for her.
It all left a lot of questions that couldn't be easily answered. I didn't think a real answer would be known until things related to the Animatrix Serum went as such that various transformed couples had either produced enough children to demonstrate a pattern for that species of Animal-Person, or until each Animal-Person species had produced enough members for long term survival and the resulting pregnancies were all studied from start to finish... and that would only work so long as the sentient and sapient couple decided to allow themselves to be studied like animals in the wild. Even if successful though, that method would take a long time for all the data to be collected and analyzed and all the appropriate patterns figured out. Time that Molly and I didn't really have.
"We have tonight to think these things over... among other things," Molly commented.
"Only tonight?" I asked.
"Mr. Patten generally goes to Florida to visit Clemens over Christmas, he told me that after school let out," Molly explained, "I did manage to explain some of the details related to how we're to get our family... that that's why I was late."
"It's alright to let him know," I told her, "If he hears us roaring and thinks something is wrong, we'd be having to explain what we're fairly certain you'd need to ovulate in a much more compromising position."
"I know," Molly gave a sigh, "it's still something I'd prefer to keep between us... between our sheets as it were."
I nodded.
"Anyway, it only strengthened his suggestion that we consider getting in touch with Clemens," Molly continued, "even he doesn't handle the big cats at the zoo he works at, I'd bet he knows the people who do. Leon is good for theory and would be the best at dealing with issues related to the Animatrix Serum... but through Clemens, we'd be able to get in touch with someone who would actually work with pregnant big cats."
I nodded again, "It couldn't hurt, I suppose. The more information the better."
Molly nodded and gripped my hip with one paw. She then rested her head against my shoulder.
"Yes," Molly answered, as our cabin came into view, "A lot of this is so new... it would never hurt to have more help."