Fewf, nice save there. Though I guess I should've asked for her name first.
She magicked out her resume from her yellow saddlebags (DAMN THOSE UNICORNS AND THEIR MAGIC TRICKS! My resume has a lot of spit and bite marks on it by now, since I've had to handle it with my mouth a few times. It would probably not impress an employer at all.), and set it down on the counter for me. I quickly skimmed over it...
Name: Lyra Heartstrings
"Oh, hey!" I exclaimed. "Aren't you the music prodigy they wrote about in the newspaper recently?"
"Uh, yeah, that's me!" said Lyra.
Let's look at the rest of this document...in her early 20s, attends Ponyville College, probably taking musical arts courses, only previous job experience she's had is working as a fast food cook a year ago. Not the perfect applicant, but...
"Okay, you're hired."
She immediately perks up. "Really!?" she asks.
"Yeah," I say. "To tell you the truth, I probably would've hired you unless you were senile or something. I'm really hurting for another set of hooves. I can't work fourteen hour shifts, obviously."
"Oh..." Lyra's head sags a bit. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to start off the employer-employee relationship.
I put on a fake smile for her. "But I wonder, what is such a great musical prodigy doing here in a backwater neighbourhood like Soresaddle Street? You don't really need this job, don't you?"
Lyra brightens up a bit. "Well, actually, I kinda do. I just moved out of my house, and into an apartment on the other side of Mane Street, and money's pretty tight, since my parents are pretty stingy with it. Soresaddle Street is a shortcut on the route to college, and I regularly walk this street when I'm going to and from day classes. I saw this place was hiring, and I thought 'Hey, the sooner, the better,' right?"
"I guess, yeah, bu--wait, you walk Soresaddle Street by yourself!? Isn't that a little dangerous?"
"Hey, I can protect myself, thank you very much. Besides, I walk it in broad daylight."
"Oh yeah..." Soresaddle Street is a bad part of town, but not to the point where ponies rape each other in broad daylight. It's a good thing I regard all the pornos in the store as strict fiction, else I'd think ponies get raped in broad daylight on any street in Equestria.
"You know, you're not doing the best job of impressing an employee. Maybe you should show me around the place, you know, the ropes?"
"Good point, I guess. Follow me, then."
I got off my lazy ass and took her down the first aisle, which holds mostly mainstream stuff. Nothing too racy, though calling anything "not racy" is definitely a stretch here. Lyra started down the aisle with a confident smile on her face, but by the end of the aisle, she had on the same shy expression that all other straight mares get once they've been in my shop for more than a few seconds. I always find that face to be the cutest in the world, as what's left of their innocence gets a little bit more torn apart.
"This is the bathroom," I said as I reach the door. "Forgive the smell, I kinda didn't have the best night."
I kick the door open with a hoof, revealing the bathroom in all its grimy glory. As expected, it smells like hot sick. Its appearance is not the best either, with its supremely dirty mirror and moldy floors. You can't tell by looking, but if you turn the faucet on, the shower starts dripping as well, so it's basically not worth it to ever clean the damn thing of water.
Lyra visibly grimaces at the bathroom. "Uh...nice?".
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll clean it soon. On with the tour?"
As we continue down the aisles, past the less mainstream stuff, Lyra gets more and more nervous. Interracial, zebras, toys, fillyfoolers, gays, BDSM...yeah, we've got everything here. I fall back a little bit so I can watch her expression more. Man, she's even visibly sweating now. We're not even at the last aisle yet. I wonder what she'll look like when we get there...
I don't think I really noticed it at first, but now that I think about it, Lyra's a pretty attractive pony. She's got a cute face, a well-brushed mane, some really nice curves...I wonder if she's single.
The last aisle. If she can get through the stuff here, she can get through anything the job asks of her. "You okay?" I ask her. "This last aisle contains the most vulgar stuff out of all of them. Even I sometimes avoid this aisle." Okay, that's a lie, since my apartment is right behind us, and I have to pass through the aisle every time I want to get from there to the counter.
"R-really?" Lyra stutters. "But, uh, what about up there?". She points a hoof towards the staircase.
"My flat," I say. "Off limits to employees unless I say otherwise."
"Oh..."
"You ready for this? You don't have to go through with it if--"
"No! I am going to work here, and in order to better serve the customers, I need to be able to withstand anything they can!"
"Well, alright...". Lyra's nervous face has gone away, replaced by a look of determination. Minus the sweat, she looks like she can conquer any task. I lead the way as we go down the aisle.
We pass by the gang rape porn, the hydra-on-hydra action, the foreign tentacle porn...Lyra hasn't ran away yet, but her nervous expression has quickly returned. It wasn't at all like this when I first introduced Doctor Whooves to the shop a few years ago. His innocence had already been completely shattered. He even laughed at the unrealistic expression of one of the fillies on 2 Mares 1 Cup.
As we pass the midway point on the aisle, I turn back and see that Lyra doesn't look sexy at all. In fact, she looks on the verge of being visibly in pain. Good thing that's not a turn-on for me, or I'd look like a complete ass right now.
Soon, though, we finally get to the end of the aisle, where the intensity of things lessens a bit, as you can see it from the door. I emerge completely unscathed, having walked this route many times before, but Lyra looks on the verge of collapsing as she walks out.
"I-I did it!" she stammers out.
"Heh, yeah you did," I say. "You nailed that one. I think you're ready for anything the shop has to throw at you now. Time to move on to the payment and hours now?"
"Y-yes..." she pants. Okay, maybe she does look a little sexy.
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We resolve payment and hours issues, with the exact same hours and payment Doctor Whooves had. Lyra bid me goodbye, and she would start work tomorrow at 12pm sharp, and stay until around 7:30pm.
That was a pretty nice confidence booster, that was. Unfortunately, it's only 6:00, and I still have another 8 hours or so before I close up the shop. If it was any other day where I was working two shifts, I might just go upstairs and dick around on the Ponynet to pass time, but it's my one and only day this'll happen in a long time hopefully. I don't want to disappoint my customers by not being at the desk, and despite the bell on the door, I don't really hear it half the time. Besides, I need to train myself today for working a few more 14 hour shifts over the next few days, since I'm going to supervise Lyra on her first shifts here. That seems a bit contradictory to what I just said, but it just feels like a different experience. Working with Doctor Whooves when he first came on certainly was a...different...experience.
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I sat behind the counter with a smug look on my face. The look of a new boss who's just hired his first employee. No more fourteen hour shifts for me. Soon, I'd only be seeing glimpses of the moon through all the posters on the windows every other night. On the other nights, I could do anything I want. I would be a free man. I could look up at the moon in all its glory from the town park. I'll miss how the Mare in the Moon looked in it, but I'll probably get used to it, seeing as how the whole fiasco happened only a month ago.
The bell chimed just as the 7:30 news came on. Right on time, Doctor. "Hey, Sly, wazzup?" he yelled to me with a hoof in the air.
Okay, Doctor, that move wasn't as spot on. The employees always called my old man Mr. Light. His full name was Red Light, but he insisted that people call him by that title out of respect. I'm pretty new to this whole gig, so let's not shake anything up with new attitudes. I'd like some respect, anyways. Having triple Xes as your cutie mark doesn't get you a ton of it.
"Doctor Whooves," I said, putting on my best bossy voice. "That is not how you will address me. You shall address me as Mr. Clop."
The Doctor sniggered a bit, and held up a hoof to his mouth. "Okay," he said. "Mr. Clop." He then burst out laughing.
I sighed. "Actually, yeah, you're right. Scratch that and just call me whatever. Coming from you, it sounds like an insult." Maybe it'd be better if I just acted like myself, actually.
Whooves walked up to the counter and sat down in the rotating chair. "Yeah, Sly, just chill. I get the feeling that you want to act all high and mighty like Red did, but I knew from the moment I saw you taking a few training shifts that you're not him. You're a much more cool, laid back guy. You're barely older than I am. I think it'd be better if we just treated each other like frat mates. We both haven't been to college, this could be like that for us."
"Yeah, just like college," I said, taking off the "boss" mask. "Except without the nagging professors and the hot mares and thoughts that you might get somewhere in life."
"Yep, just like that."
I joined him in this bout of laughter. He was right. Doctor Whooves had been a regular at the Mareborough for a pretty long time, and he always seemed to be the type of guy I'd hang out with. To tell you the truth, when he said he wanted to work here, I was pretty overjoyed. Just think of all the fun--
"HEY YOU DICKHEADS! STOP LAUGHING YOUR ASSES OFF AND SERVICE YOUR CUSTOMER!"
I slowly turned my head around, to stunned to think straight. Standing right in front of the Doctor and I was a fucking GRIFFIN.I've only ever seen them in a few pornos as the stuck-up shrew who needs to be "tamed", usually with a lot of long, hard objects. This particular griffin isn't helping me throw that stereotype out the window.
The Doctor was the first one of us to regain his ability to speak. "H-how can we help you, m-ma'am?"
"DO NOT CALL ME MA'AM!" screeched the griffin. "MY NAME IS GILDA, AND YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS SO!"
"Yes, Gilda," whimpered Whooves and I. Damn, I wish I had even an ounce of the bossiness she has. People would take me way more seriously. Then again, I'm not sure if I want to sound like Sergeant Asshole all the time.
"How may we help you, Gilda?" I say.
"That's better," says Gilda. She's a little bit better when she uses her indoor voice. "I'm planning to meet up with an old pegasus friend of mine tomorrow, see if she's still as cool as she was all those years ago at flight camp. I want to remind her of old times, how we used to fly with the wind ripping at our faces, how we used to prank all those less cool wannabes, and how we used to share the most rockin' porn with each other. You got anything good that fits the third billing?"
Her last line kind of threw me for a loop there. If I wanted to meet up with an old friend again, I personally wouldn't give them porn as a present. But hey, I'm not going to object to a creature that could fucking gouge my eyes out.
"I think we do have something, Gilda," says Whooves. "What kind of porn are you looking for?"
"Something nasty," she says. Fourth aisle it is, then.
We cautiously lead her down the aisle that contains all of our most "nasty" stuff. This bitch knows her stuff, and she's not fazed at all by some of the more gruesome ones.
After a bit of browsing, her eyes narrow on one in particular. "This is the one," she says as she grabs it in her claw.Sextuple Trouble, it's called, and despite a fairly tame title, the cover is anything but. A feeble, lone pegasus is in the centre of the image, surrounded by six griffins who look as hungry as lions. A gang rape title if I ever saw one. So, on top of gifting her friend porn, she wants to give her friend a porno that depicts a member of her friend's species getting brutally raped and possibly murdered by members of her species? This friendship is fucked up. Someone needs to call the Elements of Harmony.
We all walk back to the counter, the Doctor and I not saying a single word about her decision. The Doctor opens the cash register. "20 bits," he says.
Gilda scoffs. "I haven't got any money."
"Well, uh, that's a problem," says Whooves, who is still shaking a bit.
"No, it is not," says Gilda. "Because you two are going to conveniently remember that I could FUCKING EAT YOUR LIMBS whenever the hell I want! Is that clear!?"
"Yes, Gilda!" we both say.
"Good. I will now bid you foals farewell."
And just like that, that raging ball of griffin was out of our lives, hopefully forever. The Doctor turned to me after a few moments of silence.
"Tell me," he said. "Do all of your customers threaten to kill you, and then steal your wares?"
"No..." I said. We both broke out into a bout of nervous laughter. And Celestia bless us, we didn't get a single other customer that night.
---------------------------------------
It's a very good thing that that was the last time either of us ever saw Gilda. Once was enough to scar us both for life, and we were lucky that our scars were not physical ones. As Whooves had proposed before Gilda came in, our time working together was sort of like being frat mates. We would go to bars together on some nights, stay at the shop watching movies on others, but most of the time he was just a colt I could count on to keep the shop running smoothly. Unfortunately, he was just a bit too confident in himself, and he put himself out of a job.
I took a look at the clock. Still only 6:30. Guess it's just the TV and me again tonight.
The TV whirrs to life. "Right now, we are floating 5000 metres above the abyssal plain," says a stallion in a wetsuit. He's standing on the deck of a large ship, with a submarine just over the railing to his left. His Trottingham accent is a bit grating on me. They do sound nice the first or second time you hear somepony with one narrating something, but does EVERY SINGLE FUCKING HOST HAVE TO HAVE ONE!? It's like it's on their resumé.
"And to get down there, we'll have to dive deep." The camera shifts focus towards the submarine. "Really, really deep."
Cue cut to murky shot of the submarine descending in the murky blackness of the ocean. The host starts speaking over the footage.
"As the long vessel penetrates deeper and deeper, the pressure mounts. Good thing this craft isn't a novice, and is ready for this type of pressure."
Could they make it sound any more like a porno? I mean, seriously. I'm around the stuff all day, I think I know what one sounds li--
"If it weren't for the craft's resolve, the seamen would've already burst out of it."
Yeah, that's it. I'm changing channels.
"And they send the puck down the ice." Oh yeah, Equestrian Hockey League. That's what I wanna be watching.
"Oh, he just pounded him against the boards! What force! The Canterlot team doesn't like that, they're going after him! And the action begins, with multiple bodies in this! Look at all the sticks!"
Next.
A brown earth pony talking into a mic appears on the screen. "So, I'm walking into this porn shop..."
Heard every joke about one. Next.
"The mating habits of the common squirrel are--"
UUUGGHH--scarred for life, scarred for life...one more try.
The dashing salespony Vince Offer appears onscreen. "You're gonna love my nuts."
Okay, I quit. I turn off the blasted machine. No TV, no customers...well, at least I have Lyra's first day to look forward to. And y'know another I have to look forward to? That's it's bound to me a thousand times better than Whooves's.