//------------------------------//
// You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense 
// Story: Stopping by Woods on a Sunny Afternoon 
// by King of Beggars 
//------------------------------//

“Rainbow said the dumbest thing the other day,” I said, munching a slice of apple from the handkerchief in my lap. The kerchief was spread out atop a book, forming a little table for my snacks. “Twilight and I were doing chem homework and talking about free radicals. So Rainbow looks up from her Men’s Fitness magazine and says, ‘What, like Nelson Mandela?’ And I was like, man, that’s dumb. That’s really dumb.”

Big Macintosh peered at me, his one visible eye narrowing in what I assumed was confusion, and his words confirmed that assumption. “I dunno who that is.”

“It’s this guy who...” I frowned, trying to figure out a way to explain who Nelson Mandela was without just bringing up more questions. “You know, just accept that it was dumb.”

“I s’pose,” Big Mac said. “Though I also s’pose that ain’t very nice to say about Rainbow. She’s a nice enough gal.”

“Well, yeah, she’s nice,” I explained, feeling a little guilty but also not. I groaned, wondering how to properly encapsulate what irked me about the situation. “But… like, how is she smart enough to make that connection, but not smart enough to know that it’s wrong?”

“I know that gal well enough to know that she’s oddly smart,” Big Macintosh said. “And I stress the ‘odd’ part. Ain’t no tellin’ what things Rainbow Dash’ll grab on to and what she won’t.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“I do think it’s a lil’ mean of you to be badmouthing her,” Bic Mac said.

I tossed a grape into the air and caught it in my mouth. “I’m not badmouthing her,” I said. “I’m just venting. You know, gossiping. We can’t gossip about the people we know? The whole clandestine nature of this arrangement aside, we’re supposed to be each other’s confidant.”

“I guess...”

He didn’t sound convinced, and a wicked urge formed in me. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint you, so I guess I could go to Rainbow and come clean about it. While I’m at it I can tell AJ about what you said about her singing in the shower.”

A moment of pause, a cleared throat, and Big Mac replied in a shaky voice, “Don’t rightly remember sayin’ anythin’ ‘bout that...”

“Oh no? You don’t remember saying her singing was so bad that half the pigs were scratching at the front door because they thought she was doing a hog call?”

“Ain’t no need to go repeatin’ things, now!” Big Mac said. I could practically hear him sweating. “Point made.”

I couldn’t hold back the little bubble of giddiness in my chest at having gotten him all flustered. It was cute when he got like that. He was a big strong fella, but that boy sure was scared of his baby sister. If this relationship thing ever got out of the bag, I’d definitely need to ask AJ for a few tips on keeping her brother on a tight leash.

Maybe the universe was listening to me, and was just as unimpressed with my bitching about my friends as Big Mac was. My little giggle fit sent my snacks – vittles, as Big Mac liked to call ‘em – rolling to the floor… the filthy, filthy… disgusting floor…

“Great,” I muttered as I shoved the surviving piece of apple into my mouth and folded up my kerchief. I stowed the cloth away in my purse and pulled out a bag of jerky I’d brought along as an emergency picnic snack. It was always good to have a backup. “Since you agree, we’ll just keep things exactly as they are.”

Mac grunted in agreement, and then went quiet for a while. He tended to do that a lot. I carried most of our conversations, which was fine, but if I was busy chewing on jerky or something, that meant long stretches of silence. Over the past few weeks, I’d learned to pick out the subtleties in those silent moments. This kind of silent was a pretty common one. He was thinking about Sugar Belle again.

I leaned down and peered through the hole in the wall. Big Mac was there, sitting on an upturned bucket, looking sullen as he twiddled the tips of his hooves together. The light of the Equestrian sun – Princess Celestia’s sun – was peeking on him on his side of the tiny portal, just like I was from this side.

I knocked on the wall. “You okay over there?”

“Eeyup,” he said unconvincingly.

Like his silences, his affirmations had a myriad of meanings. Every ‘eeyup’ was different. For Big Mac, ‘eeyup’ was a feeling, and I could read his feelings in that word pretty well after all this time.

I leaned back, chewing ponderously. “You… you want some jerky?”

Silence. Curious silence – intrigued, even.

“Whassa jerky?” he asked.

“It’s meat,” I said as I got a big piece out of the bag. “Smoked and marinated in a blend of spices and teriyaki sauce.” I took a bite and held the rest in front of the hole like a cartoon cat trying to coax a mouse out of its hole. “You know you want to try it.”

He hesitated, but I could tell he was considering it.

"What kinda meat?" he asked cautiously.

"Emu," I said

"Emu?" he repeated.

"Yeah man, come on, we both know emus are jerks," I said, giving the meat an enticing little waggle. "Partake of my forbidden fruit. Do something naughty and eat the emu meat. Let your girlfriend be a bad influence on you."

With a resolute grunt, he leaned closer and opened his mouth. I stuck the piece of jerky through the gloryhole, right into his piehole.

He hummed appreciatively as soon as the sticky-sweet tang of teriyaki flavoring hit his tongue. He chewed with loud wet smacks, clearly enjoying his bite of forbidden fruit. Macintosh wasn’t one to worry about manners when he was eating something good.

“That’s it,” I cooed. “You take my big greasy meat in your mouth, you slut.”

Macintosh snorted, and I almost missed the sound of something wet splatting against the other side of the wall amidst all the coughing. “That’s gross!” he bellowed out between wet, hacking guffaws. “You’re one nasty filly.”

“Says the guy who meets girls by poking his wiener through a hole in a stallion’s public restroom stall,” I said. I stuck out my tongue, even knowing he couldn’t see it. I was feeling impish.

Mention of our first meeting seemed to sober the poor boy up. He cleared his throat, and the sound of his big hoof striking his chest was like a hammer smacking against a tree.

“You didn’t have to hit me like that.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t going to do anything else to it,” I said. “All I wanted was to have a pee, get back on the road to the nature park, and have a nice little day to myself. Then suddenly ‘Knock knock,’ ‘Who’s there,’ ‘Erection,’ and there’s a dick in my face. So yeah, I admit that I panicked a little. I was halfway back to my car before I even realized it wasn’t a human penis.”

“It’ll be a good story to tell our kids some day,” he said, clearly trying to score a point on me.

“Oh yes, we can conceive them right in this filthy restroom,” I said, waving my arms around like a showroom model gesture-masturbating a brand new car to make it seem attractive and magical. “What a tale that’ll be for the wee young ones. Gather ‘round, ‘chilluns’, ‘maw’ and ‘paw’ will tell you why you have dimensional dual citizenship.”

He laughed again. That big, throaty guffaw of his shook the walls.

“That s’posed to be my twang?” he asked. “That thang ain’t no twang. We’re gunna need to put a little more country in you.”

“And now we’re back around to talking about your dick,” I said. “You shove that thing through the hole again and I’m keeping it this time.”

“That a promise?”

This time I laughed.

I’d never been so… pervy… with any of the other guys I’d dated. In the pony world, my relationships had been non-existent. In the human, I just snatched up whatever brainless goober looked like he could be molded into a halfway presentable trophy. I’d never cared about anyone, certainly not the way I cared about Macintosh.

Maybe this was who I was all along. Maybe I was just finally comfortable enough to let it all hang out. It certainly helped that Big Mac had let it hang out first. You can break a lot of that new relationship ice when you use a pick that big.

Our lunch date was interrupted by a very loud pop song. I couldn’t hold in the sigh as I fished my phone out of my purse. Pinkie had chosen that Coloratura song as her ringtone and made me promise not to change it.

“One second, sorry,” I said to Macintosh.

“Take your time.”

I thumbed the phone on and accepted the call.

“Hey, Pinks, what’s up?”

“Sunset where are you?” she asked. “And why do you sound like you’re in a tunnel?”

“I’m on roaming,” I said. “I drove out for a hike.”

“Again? That’s like the third time in a week!” She said something to someone in the background that was muffled. She’d probably put her hand over the receiver. “Hey, how fast can you be back? Rarity is emptying her closet out again and we’re going to have a dress up party before she donates all her old clothes.”

“Ah, that sounds like fun,” I said, cracking a little smile. “I dunno if I can make it though...”

Big Mac cleared his throat to get my attention.

“What was that?” Pinkie asked. I swear, that girl had ears like a jackrabbit in a cornfield.

Alright... maybe I'd been hanging out with Big Macintosh too much. His folksiness was starting to rub off on me, and not in the fun boyfriend-rubbing-off-on-you kind of way. I don’t even pull off the idioms right. ‘Jackrabbit in a cornfield’? Geez. Now who was stupid?

“Sunset?” she repeated. “You okay?”

“Yeah, that was just a moose,” I said. “Let me put you on hold so I can scare it away.”

I muted the call and turned to my boyfriend. “What? You know you’re supposed to keep quiet when I’m on the phone.”

“Sorry,” he said, “but I just wanted to say you should go with your friends. Sounds like it’ll be a swell time.”

“Well, I’m already here with you, having a ‘swell’ time of our own,” I said.

“I know, but you gotta make time for them, too,” he said. “Reckon I been eatin’ up a heap of your attention. You gotta tend your friendships ‘fore they wither.”

“Are you sure…?” I asked.

“Eeyup.”

I hesitated. I didn’t like the sound of that ‘eeyup’. It felt too much like he was trying to get rid of me, and a thousand little dark emotions congealed and shivered through me all at once.

I cleared my throat and took Pinkie off hold. “Hey, I’m back, and I’m still really close to the parking area so I can be there in about a half,” I said, affecting a little cheer into my voice that I didn’t really feel in my heart. “Think you can set aside something strapless for me?”

“Woo, I got you, babe!” Pinkie declared with a giggly little snort of joy. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick something perfect for when you get here.”

We hung up, and Big Macintosh and I were alone again.

“Guess I’d better go, then,” I muttered as I slipped the phone into my back pocket.

“Wanna meet up again Saturday?” Big Macintosh asked. “Around nine?”

I gathered up my things and slung my purse over my shoulder. “Sure…”

I was tempted to append that ‘sure’ with a little jab, to channel a little bit of the fiery-haired she-demon bitch I used to be. Something like, “If I don’t have any other plans.” I couldn’t muster the anger for it, though. I wasn’t angry. I was just… hurt.

I gave a little knock on the wall, and Big Mac gave one back. It was our hello and our goodbye, since we couldn’t exactly touch each other.

The scraps of my ruined picnic were still on the ground. I considered picking them up, but the ground was filthy enough, and there wasn’t enough soap in the world to get me to touch the floor in a rest stop men’s room. I kicked them away, opened the stall door, and hurried out to the car.

I threw my things into the back seat and stood there, with the door open and the trapped heat billowing out into my face. I thought about going back and knocking to see if Big Macintosh was still there.

I felt a tingle in my pants, and a second later the phone in my back pocket chimed. I thumbed it on and opened the attachment in the text Pinkie had just sent me. It was a picture of her modeling a shirt with a huge grin on her face. It was some trashy looking thing that had been cut to show off the belly, and a messy fringe of loose scraps gave the illusion that the shirt had been shredded. The word “SLUT” was written across the chest, all caps, in bright pink glittery letters.

“This is so you!” the caption on the picture read. This was also written in big, bold, glittery letters, ones that danced and blinged and sparkled.

I laughed pretty hard at that. Trust it to Pinkie Pie to put things into perspective without even intending to.

I got in the car and drove away from my worries about my boyfriend, and from secret portals to Equestria, and from disgusting public men’s room gloryholes. 


* * *


“So when all are we meetin’ this fella that’s got you all a-twitter?”

I shot Applejack a glance in the mirror. She was sitting on Rarity’s bed, wearing a bright red, full length cocktail dress – which looked silly with her cowboy hat. She was leaning back on her hands with her legs crossed out in front, trying to look all casual, but the way she narrowed her eyes told me she was giving me the once over. I hated that look. People thought AJ was dumb, but among all the girls in our group, she had the sharpest eyes. It made me feel uncomfortably naked, and not just because I was in my underwear – like, naked in the soul. Didn’t help that I was keeping this secret about me and her brother… well… kind of.

Man, this was getting complicated.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said as I reached for a pair of shorts off the top of the nearest pile. I slipped them on and turned around to admire my own butt. There was barely enough mint green silk to cover my panties, but they’d be great pajama bottoms for those hot summer nights.

“Oh, come off it,” Rainbow exclaimed from the other side of the room. She was trying on bras, which seemed pointless since Rarity was at least two cup sizes bigger than she was, but Rainbow was stubborn like that. “Me and Fluttershy are supposed to be the ones around here that fly, but you’ve been three inches off the ground for like a month.”

“Rainbow Dash has a point for once, darling,” Rarity said from where she was sorting clothes atop the bed. “So why not simply do away with this charade, ‘pony up’, and tell us who’s putting the magic in you, so to speak?”

“Nobody’s putting any magic in me,” I said.

Rarity threw a pair of acid-washed jeans over one shoulder and a weary look at me over the other.

“Perhaps I was vague,” she suggested. “In this instance, when I say ‘magic’, I mean ‘penis’.”

Everyone in the room giggled, except me and Fluttershy. Fluttershy was too timid and innocent to laugh at such ribaldry.

Good old Fluttershy, too boring to ever turn against me like this.

“I’m not getting any of that, either,” I snapped. “Where is this even coming from? My mood is exactly where it always is – in a constant state of situationally-appropriate flux. Just like everyone else.”

“You have been very chipper,” Fluttershy said, treacherously.

I shot her a frustrated look, and the poor meek girl hid herself behind a see-through night gown that didn’t cover her face, let alone her boobs. Maybe she wasn’t as innocent as I thought if she was giving that little number a look over.

“Just saying,” she muttered as she ducked into Rarity’s walk-in closet.

“See?” Applejack said. “We all noticed it. All these mysterious ‘nature hikes’, and the way you been grinnin’ when you think nobody’s lookin’, can’t be anything but a boy.”

“Or a girl,” Twilight said. She was sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard and writing out an inventory of all the items Rarity was sorting. She wasn’t trying anything on, but she was enjoying the dress up party in her own profoundly Twilightish way. “We’d be supportive either way, of course. We’d just like the opportunity to get to know whomever this person may be. You’re our friend and if he, or she, is important to you, then he, or she, is important to us, too.”

“Hear, hear,” Rarity said, holding up a hand to Twilight.

Twilight blinked at the offered hand, smiled, and foolishly attempted the high five. Twilight was, of course, supernaturally uncoordinated, and her efforts ended with a hand slapping against Rarity’s bare breast with a loud smack.

Twilight’s eyes opened wide in surprise, and she ducked down behind her clipboard with her cheeks flushed bright red. “Oh, oh I’m so sorry!” she said.

“Quite alright,” Rarity said laughing as she rubbed at her hand-shaped welt. “What’s a little grope between friends?”

“Which brings the topic back ‘round to Sunset,” Applejack said. “Who’s been gropin’ you?”

“Nice segue, AJ,” I groused. “You milk cows with those hamhands?”

The farm girl bristled at the jab. She was very self-conscious about her hands. Her big, meaty, calloused hands.

“I think it’s Berry Punch!” Pinkie Pie said, preempting what I’m sure would have been an argument that would’ve ended with AJ’s big hands around my throat. She slid out from under the bed on her stomach, dressed in one of those full-body cosplay pajamas that made her look like a cartoon penguin. She flipped onto her back, reached into the pajamas, and pulled out a notepad. “She’s my number-one pick with a bullet, but that’s just overall. In the guy category, smart money is on Bulk Biceps.”

There was a loud thump from the closet and Fluttershy tumbled out, landing safely on a pile of clothes like a beanbag chair. “Bulk!?” she asked. The flush in her cheeks had crept all the way down to her chest.

“I am also surprised,” I said, legitimately too surprised to even be upset that Pinkie Pie had been keeping a list. “Seriously? Bulk?”

“You were totally checking out his physique the other day,” Rainbow said, nodding in appreciation. She always loved a good muscleman. “Finally, someone to talk muscles with.”

“I don’t have muscles on the brain like you, Rainbow,” I said with a snort. “We were in gym class, he had his shirt off, and all I said was ‘Man, his pecs are getting enormous’. I was ‘checking him out’ the way someone might check out a botched boob job, or a needlessly big truck.”

“I dunno,” Applejack said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. The girl was quick to anger, quick to forgive. “Trucks are pretty dang sexy. What with the explosive power movin’ pistons up and down and all that vibration and what-have.”

I rolled my eyes and tried on a pair of yoga pants that left me feeling even more naked than I had been in just my underwear.  “I feel like I’m learning more about your sexual preferences than I ever wanted to know… from all of you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said with a dismissive wave. She tiptoed around the discarded clothing and squatted down next to Pinkie in a very unladylike manner. She was still nude from the waist up. “What’s the over-under on it being that Strawberry Sunrise chick she’s been getting coffee with? I got thirty bucks I could put down.”

“I can give you fifteen-to-one on Strawberry Sunrise, but you should honestly spread it around a little,” Pinkie explained.

“Shoot, what about the odds on ol’ Bulk?” Applejack asked. “If you reckon it’s smart money, I got forty-three bucks in my jeans if someone could help me find ‘em.”

“Ten bucks on Fluttershy!” squeaked a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

“Sweetie Belle, honestly!” Rarity shouted as she stomped over to the door. “A young lady does not eavesdrop!”

Their little inquisition had devolved into a back alley betting ring, and that was fine with me. I was tired of the questions.

Funny enough, nobody had bet on Big Mac. Maybe they were all too scared to suggest it in front of AJ, knowing how protective she was of her family. Maybe they just thought it was too weird.

I went back to trying on clothes. It was a good distraction from the sense of guilt I was feeling over having just lied to my friends.


* * *


Saturday came unexpectedly fast. I don’t know what it was, but the days seemed to breeze right by. Thinking back on it, most days seemed like little more than a blur since I’d starting seeing Big Macintosh. Just long stretches of fuzzy memories between clandestine meetings.

I always drove past Applejack’s family farm on the way to the rest stop. The little rural road that ran in front of her property went on another couple of miles before turning onto the 607 South. Another mile and a half was all it took to reach the rest stop. All together the trip took maybe ten minutes from AJ’s house.

The rest stop wasn’t anything special, just a little parking lot that had been carved into the woods along the highway. The dirt road that led to it was obstructed by some overgrown bushes, and the sign had fallen off, so hardly anybody ever came here. I was pretty sure the highway maintenance crews had even forgotten about the place. I wouldn’t have known it was there if Applejack hadn’t pulled over once when we were taking a drive out to the lake.

Nobody would expect there to be a portal to another dimension here.

The portal was in the men’s room, because why not? The big wooden shack that housed the toilets was divided into two areas – one for men and one for women. The women’s side was perpetually locked, with a faded “Out of Order” sign stuck to the door with brittle and yellowed cellophane tape. That little fact was the whole reason I’d braved the hazards of the men’s room in the first place. Had I been able to get into the girl’s side, I wouldn’t have met Big Mac that day.

Funny thing, fate. Kind of twisted, sure, but funny.

The first thing you notice when you walk into the men’s room is the smell of urine, which was likely because of the second thing you notice – the wet floor. It’s always wet. In the months I’d been visiting with Big Macintosh, I’d never seen another soul here. That the floor was apparently painted daily in a fresh sheen of urine was just one of those mysteries of the universe, like the Bermuda Triangle, or something. Maybe whatever had opened the portal in the second stall from the back, through a little hole drilled into the wall for men to enjoy anonymous sexual delights, was also what kept peeing here. Maybe urine was the lubricant of the dimensional machinery that kept the cogs of existence turning. Or maybe public bathrooms were just gross, on a metaphysical level. Who knows?

If Big Macintosh hadn’t done what he’d done, and I hadn’t figured out that there was a portal to Equestria here, I probably would’ve burned the whole place down with the cigarette lighter from my car’s ashtray. It would’ve been a public service.

Some days it was easier than others to meet with Big Mac. On the days when it was hard, I was usually out the door with little more than my purse, an extra pair of shoes – sneakers that I didn’t mind getting all pissy – and maybe something from my cupboard to round out the gas station snacks I’d pick up on the way. On days that it was easier, when I’d plan to spend most of the day with him, I’d have a tarp, some cushions, scented candles, and a picnic basket.

Eating in a bathroom is gross, but there wasn’t much to do about that. The portal was where it was. The hole was what it was, too. Big Mac would steal a few hours out of his own busy day, and we’d share some food through the soda can-sized hole. Whoever had cut it either had a very high estimation of himself, or really wanted to get the whole package in there.

I always tried to arrive a little early, even on days when I didn’t have a lot of time to spare. I kept a roll of electrical tape and some disinfectant wipes in my trunk, and no food was passed through the hole until I’d re-taped and wiped down everything. It was always better safe than sorry… or crabby… or gonorrhea-y.

On that particular Saturday, I had decided to spend the whole day with my extra-dimensional boy toy. I had extra snacks, some drinks in a little styrofoam ice chest, a radio, and a book.

Big Mac’s side of the portal wasn’t in as remote of an area as mine was. His was also in a public bathroom, but in Ponyville park. I’d never been there, but he said nobody ever really used the bathrooms at the park, since there were a few restaurants in spitting distance. Given the choice, folks would always choose to go to a restaurant bathroom over the public one. Public facilities smelled like piss on that side, too.

Still, sometimes our conversation would get interrupted by someone popping in to wash their hooves or relieve themselves. We’d have to clam up, and I admit, the first few times it had been kind of funny. Just a couple of crazy kids on a date, giggling into their hands and hooves and trying to stay quiet so nobody knew they were there. That was a shine that quickly wore, obviously.

Worse yet were the interruptions by his family obligations. Macintosh was a busy guy, and he didn’t live alone like I did. Sometimes securing his time with me meant trading promises. We’d have our date for as long as we could, then he’d run off for whatever errand, and I’d sit there, alone, playing around on my phone or reading. I’d gotten a lot of homework done like that recently.

Saturday’s date had included one of these scheduled intermissions. Applejack had told him he could have the day off, as long as he promised to help her with unloading the cart for the market, and then loading it back up in the afternoon when they closed up shop. The market wasn’t far from the park, according to Big Mac, so he’d be there and back within a half hour.

I spent that half hour reading through the novel I’d brought, but my attention was only half on the book. The other half was focusing on every little sound coming through from the other side of the hole. Sometimes I could hear laughing children running past, distant and faint, like they were specters frolicking in the woods behind the rest stop on my side.

Maybe this voyeurism on the world I’d left behind was its own kind of perversion. Taken from that perspective, I suppose I was using the gloryhole for its intended purposes after all.

But I had more weighing on my attentions than just my quiet, sexless kink. As much as I loved spending time with Big Macintosh, I was beginning to buckle under the weight of this secret affair.

I hated lying to my friends. I hated it fiercely, but at this point in time, I just didn’t know how to bring it up.

I mean there was the stuff with AJ. This may not have been her brother, but it was still Big Macintosh. I mean, the fact that we had two Twilights had taken a bit of getting used to on their part. I’d long ago grappled with that particular cognitive dissonance, but the girls were only just recently fully comfortable with the idea that the two Twilights were wholly separate individuals.

If I sprung this thing with Big Macintosh on Applejack? There was no telling what weirdness would go on in her head.

I heard the clip of hooves on tile coming through the hole, so I closed the book on my worries, pressing them like flowers in the pages. The steps got closer. The door to the stall on the Equestria side opened with a squeak, and I held my breath as I waited to see if it was Macintosh.

I didn’t exhale until I heard the knock against the wall. I was leaning against the opposite wall, and the plastic tarp I’d laid out crinkled as I leaned forward to knock in reply.

A patch of red fur flashed by the hole and Macintosh’s big emerald green eye was peeking through at me.

“Sorry,” he said. “Took longer than I expected.”

“Wasn’t a long wait,” I said. “Things go okay?”

A pause, and then, “Went fine.” He stepped away from the hole.

“Okay,” I said.

I didn’t like that pause, but I was just glad he was back. Better alone with him than with my own thoughts. If I’d proven anything to myself after all these years, it was that I was my own worst influence. The less time I spent with myself unsupervised, the better.

“How was the market?” I asked.

“Was fine. There was a bit of a donnybrook, though. Fluttershy took Discord shopping and he didn’t take very kindly to Spritzberry Cologne gettin’ so pushy with her free samples.” There was a shuffle of activity on his side, and when he started talking again his words were a little garbled. Back in Canterlot, snooty unicorns used to call that the ‘Earth Pony Accent’, because they had to pick up everything with their teeth. I was more than a little ashamed that I was one of those snoots.

“Poor lil’ Spritz don’t mean nobody no harm,” he explained, “but she squirts durn near everybody that gets too close to her stall. Can’t blame her for wantin’ to make a sale, but it is kind of annoyin’ when she gets ya in the eyes.”

“Yeah, we get that on this side when we go to the mall,” I said, clucking my tongue in sympathy with Discord, of all people. “The rest of the gang lets Rarity walk three paces in front of us as a vanguard when we have to pass the perfume counters. She’s got some kind of immunity to super strong perfumes… and pepper spray. We found that out by accident, but boy can she take a macing to the face.”

I heard the sound of a knife biting into a cutting board while I was talking, and a slice of apple poked through the portal once I was done. I took the piece of fruit and bit it in half, holding it in my mouth and running my tongue over the marks his teeth had made in the flesh while handing it to me.

“Anyway, once Fluttershy made Discord change Spritz back into a pony, things were fine.” He went back to chopping his apple. “Spritz even made a sale. Don’t rightly know where Discord got the money, though. Guy always says he don’t have money when it’s time to chip in for snacks on game night.”

“Isn’t he some kind of god or whatever?” I asked. “Can’t he just make snacks out of thin air?”

A pause, curious at first, then angry. Big Mac spit and I heard the sound of a knife sinking tip-first into a wooden cutting board.

“Son of a—” The rest of his curse was cut off into a series of angry mumbles.

I peeked through the hole and watched my boyfriend silently fume, chewing his lip and poking his head out the bathroom stall like Discord would be waiting right there for him to yell at.

Sweet poodles, was he cute when he was angry.

Sweet poodles? Ugh. Sometimes I hate myself.

Big Mac’s little fit only lasted a couple of adorable seconds. He plopped back down onto the floor and scooped up a couple of apple slices with his mouth.

“Only reason I ain’t called him, and he’d come, mind you, is cuz I don’t want him knowin’ about this here hole,” Big Mac groused. “I’mma tell Spike about this, though. That old boy owes me and that dragon a heap of vittles, and some pop.”

“You want me to bring you some Twinkies again?” I asked, stifling a laugh. “For your game night?”

Big Mac’s ears fluttered at the mention of Twinkies. He’d asked for a selection of human junk food, and the little creme-filled sponge cakes had definitely been his pick of the litter. I didn’t much care for them, but artificial sweeteners and chemical preservatives hadn’t really hit Equestria. They were a pretty novel thing the first time you had them, I guess.

“I reckon that might be somethin’ you could do for me,” he said.

“You got it, apple-boy.”

I gave him the finger guns. He didn’t know what guns were, and he didn’t know anything about finger-based gestures, and he also couldn’t see me, but I did it anyway. It just felt like a finger-guns moment.

“Anyway, nothin’ much else happened,” Big Mac said. “Except AJ juicin’ me about where I been goin’ lately.”

Ah. That explained the awkward pause earlier, when I’d asked him how things went at the market.

“What’d you tell her?”

“Told her I been goin’ for walks,” he said. “Same as you have. Forest outside of Ponyville is called Whitetail Woods. Lots of trails for a body to spend a day wanderin’. It’s nice and peaceful. Lonesome like, ‘cuz the trees make it so’s even pegasi can’t go spyin’ on you.”

“That sounds really nice,” I said.

I might have been using nature walks as an excuse, but I actually did enjoy going for hikes in the countryside. I’ve always been a city girl, with requisite city girl meanness. Now that I was a little older, a little different, and a lot less bitchy, I could actually appreciate the tranquility of nature.

That was probably why I like Big Macintosh so much. He was quiet and strong, calm, and just being with him made me feel the same – when he wasn’t getting me all flustered, that is.

“You could come visit...” Big Mac said. “See it yourself...”

The tarp crinkled and squealed under me as I squirmed under the weight of the suggestion. It was really out of nowhere, but it also was kind of expected. Me coming to visit had been one of those things we’’d discussed early on, just as a fantasy – pillow talk, but without any bedding. It had kind of hung in the air since then, neither of us bringing it up again. It was practically a third wheel in our relationship at this point.

“I don’t know...”

Big Mac grunted. “You’re right, that was dumb. Sorry.”

I almost flinched at the tone of his voice. He wasn’t angry… he was just hurt.

It was too much like the way he’d made me feel the other day, and hearing that in his voice resonated with the memory like a slap to the face. I couldn’t let that go.

“It’s not dumb,” I said, quickly. “It’s just...”

“It’s ‘just’, yeah, I know,” he said with a weary sigh. “It’s always ‘just’ and nothin’ else.”

I’ve always been quick to anger, and that anger ignited in me real fast, fueled by the guilt I knew he was trying to make me feel. I have plenty of things to feel guilty about in my past without my boyfriend throwing more trash on that particular dumpster fire.

“Don’t take that attitude with me,” I snapped. I gave the stall a kick that I hoped shook the wall on his side too. “You’re not the only one getting grilled by your sister. I didn’t even tell you about the little… the little dramaturgical hexad she’d arrayed my friends into, all to try to find out more about this stupid secret I’m keeping.”

“Oh yeah? What’d you tell ‘em?”

“Nothing!” I said. “I told them nothing. They were trying to say that I’ve been walking around with this dumb lovesick look on my face, and okay, maybe I have, because maybe I’m a little bit in love, but that’s not their business.” I pouted. “That’s not anybody’s business, so there's nothing to tell.”

“I guess we’re nothin’ then...”

“Don’t,” I warned. I gave the wall another tired, half-hearted kick. “Just don’t. You know it’s not like that.”

He kicked back. The sound of his big hoof knocking against the cheap plastic-laminated particle board echoed on my side like he was striking a drum.

“Do I?” he asked in a heavy voice. “What are we?”

“We’re… you know...” I sucked my teeth in frustration. “Don’t make me say it straight out. We’re seeing each other. Like romantically.”

The wall thumped again. It was a bigger, heavier sound than just a hoof, and I knew without looking that he was leaning against the wall.

“We’re seein’ each other the way a couple of school kids do,” he said. “I said I like ya, you said you liked me back, and now all we do is eat our lunch together. Can’t even hold your hoof or whatever.”

“That what this is about?” I asked. “You really need me to suck you off that badly? Well come on then, cowboy. Get it hard and let’s do this thing, if it’ll shut you up.”

“That ain’t what this is about!” he shouted. “I don’t… I don’t need that from you. Not right now, anyway. Not like this.”

“Oh? Why? Because you’ve got Sugar Belle doing it for you still?”

Silence. Embarrassed, angry, hurt silence.

“You think I’m seein’ her again?” he asked with a note of something tender quivering in his voice.

The angry thing inside of me flinched at how raw the hurt in his words were. It recoiled and slithered away, back down into that ugly pit in my heart where all the old meanness inside me still laid, dormant but breathing.

I slid over to lean my back against the wall, pressing my face close enough to whisper through the hole. We were alone, but some things you say in whispers, because they’re only meant for one other person. I knew it was just a trick of my imagination, but I could almost feel his body heat through the wall against my back.

“The other day you were thinking about her,” I said. “Don’t deny it.”

“Psh, that that magic thing you was tellin’ me about?” he asked. “That mind-ready whatsit?”

“No,” I said. “I just know you well enough to know what’s in your heart. I could tell that you were getting all melancholy over that girl... And then not ten minutes after that you seemed like you were in a pretty big hurry to foist me off on my friends.”

“It wasn’t about her,” he said. He groaned. “Dang it, it wasn’t, but it was. I was… I dunno how to say it. You know I’m bull-plop with words.”

I pulled in my legs, hugging my knees to my chest. For once, I didn’t feel like I was alone with my boyfriend, I just felt alone.

“You never even told me what happened with you two,” I said. “You just told me you dated some girl named Sugar Belle and that you broke up before we met.”

“Do you really want to hear about it?”

I dropped my hand and reached into the next stall, through the shin-high gap between the wall and floor, feeling for a hoof that I knew wasn’t there. I settled for gripping the bottom lip of the wall.

“I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t,” I said.

“It ain’t much of a story to tell,” he said. I could practically hear the shrug in his voice. “She lived far away, and we made a point to see each other regular like. Then we got busy with our own things, so we saw each other a lil’ less, and a lil’ less, then some more less. We lived too far away and we had to much goin’ on. Still cared about each other, just not enough to keep holdin’ on to somethin’ neither of us was committin’ to. We deserved better than that for ourselves – least that’s the way she put it. I just think we started takin’ each other for granted.”

He knocked on the wall, really, really softly. I knocked back.

“S’why I was thinkin’ about her that day,” he said with wet lead in his voice. “This thing we’re doin’, I like it a lot, but it’s just startin’ to feel like the same old song on a new guitar. Me and Sugar didn’t work on account of she lived so far away, and I can’t imagine seein’ a filly that lives further away than a whole other dimension. I guess I’m just waiting for the apple to hit the ground...”

“I’m not going to get bored of you,” I said.

“But you don’t wanna see me,” he said. “You don’t wanna come visit.”

“Man, it’s complicated,” I said with a groan. “I would have to go through the portal at school, because I sure can’t fit through this one. That portal connects to a mirror that was only supposed to work every thirty moons. Twilight fixed it so we can use it whenever, but I still need her to turn the dumb machine on. I can’t exactly sneak over.”

“You can just tell her you’re visitin’ a friend,” Big Mac said. There was a note of hope in those words that I hated having to crush.

“I don’t have friends on that side,” I explained flatly. “None. I was a bitch to everyone and everything. Princess Twilight knows that. Miss Princess of Friendship is going to want to know all about this friend I’m visiting, like who they are and how we met.” I rapped the wall with my knuckles. “Aside from telling her about this portal that she will most assuredly want to close, because holy cow is this a hole in Equestria’s national security plan, she’s going to want to know why we kept this a secret so long. And hey, while you’re at it, tell us how you two crazy kids hooked up. And won’t that be a fun thing to explain?”

“So what if we tell her how it happened?” Big Mac said. “I ain’t ashamed.”

“Seriously?” I asked in mild disbelief.

“You know why I did what all I did, Sunset?” Big Mac asked. “Cuz I was good and damned depressed, and heartsick over havin’ lost a filly that, at a point in time, I’d thought about marryin’. I found this hole and I knew what it was for, so when I heard someone movin’ on the other side I thought maybe I could feel like someone wanted to touch me, even if it were a stranger. Didn’t matter none to me who it were or why they did it. I just wanted to not be alone, even if it was just for a few minutes.”

“I get that,” I said, “I get that more than you’d guess, but is that actually something you want your family to hear about? Because lemme tell you, your pushy sister is going to grill us both on the details until she’s gotten every throbbing, veiny inch of the truth.”

Silence. I’d taken the wind out of his sails with that.

“Alright, yeah, I ain’t lookin’ forward to that,” he said, clearly squirming under the pressure of whatever imagined conversations might be going on in his head. He was running the mental simulations of how that discussion would go, just like I had. “But it’d be worth it in the end. I’m willin’ to take all the dirty looks for what I did if’n it means you and I can see each other.”

I hugged my knees a little tighter. “I dunno, man...”

“Oh, what fresh excuse you cookin’ up now?” he asked. He banged on the wall in frustration. “I got half a mind to go straight to Twilight myself and tell her to open the portal for me. If you won’t come here, I’ll just go there.”

“No!” I said sitting bolt upright as a surge of panic bloomed in my chest and curled its fingers around my heart. “It’s going to be bad enough dealing with your family on that side, I do not want to put up with talking to my AJ about this. And I don’t have a double on that side of the portal, but you sure as hell have one on this side. I don’t think you’re prepared for how awkward that can get.”

“More excuses,” Big Macintosh said. He cleared his throat loudly and spit, the phlegm landing in the toilet on his side with a splash. “Just tell me you don’t want to be with me and get it over with, if that’s all what this is.”

“Damn it, why are you being like this!?” I shot to my feet and kicked at the wall opposite the hole. “Why do you want things to change? Isn’t this good enough for you?”

“Sunset, we’re in a Celestia damned public toilet shoutin’ at each other through a hole cut fer strangers to anonymously gobble each other’s peckers!”

I wanted to shout something back. To tell him that maybe he was right, that maybe we should just break up. I wanted to call him every awful thing I knew from both worlds. I wanted to let him know that this fight, this relationship, this everything, was all because of him.

But the only thing that I could get out was a sad, trembling little sob.

I stood there in that bathroom, crying into my own clenched and shaking fists, with the ugly sound of my weakness echoing off the damp, humid walls. Big Mac, being the good guy that he was, just sat without a word and let me work it out. Somewhere in the anger I was feeling, I knew he would’ve already been hugging me if he could. He couldn’t, of course, because of this fucking wall in this fucking restroom, and our being in separate fucking dimensions.

Perspective is a funny thing. When it comes, it hits you like a truck, smashing down all the little barricades you put up around your ego. You protect lies with more lies, until you forget why you even started lying in the first place.

I was sitting in a bathroom, on a tarp, sharing meals with a boy that I knew I loved but had never even kissed, because I didn't want to put my mouth on the gross sex-hole that we had to peep at each other through. And this is what I was fighting for.

I'd hit rock bottom before, several times, and this? This was feeling very familiar.

I didn’t want him to listen to me like this. I reached into the tote bag with my picnic supplies and fished out the little hand-cranked radio I’d nabbed from the Emergency Preparedness Kit I had at home. Twilight had given one to everyone in the group for Christmas.

It had some juice in it, so I turned it on and wiggled the dial until I got a signal. I didn’t care what it was, as long as it covered the sound of my sobbing. I put down the radio, had a seat on the toilet, and finished my cry while the mariachi music protected what was left of my dignity.

When I’d finally finished, I grabbed a handful of toilet paper and cleaned myself up. I don’t usually feel self conscious about my appearance, but I knew I probably looked like hell. The little bit of mascara I’d put on for my date was smeared all over my hands, and more than likely all down my face. I shot a look over to the hole, expecting to see Mac’s green eye watching me with some mix of pity and disgust. All I found was a wad of paper that had been jammed in the hole to give me a little bit of privacy. I couldn’t help but smile at that.

I took another minute to let the song on the radio finish playing. I didn’t really like, or even understand, the song, but it bought me a little more time. I may have stopped crying, but I still felt a mess inside, like all my organs were jelly.

The song finished so I shut off the radio. I knocked on the wall, waited for a knock back, and pulled out the makeshift cork.

“You feelin’ better?” he asked.

“No,” I said wetly. I coughed up the frog in my throat and sniffled. “Not really.”

“You need another minute?” he asked.

We’d just been shouting at each other, but none of that vitriol was in his voice. All I could hear was worry, and maybe a bit of dread.

“No, I just need to explain this...” I said. I wrung the ball of tissue paper in my hands, twisting and tearing little bits of it off and letting them fall at my feet. Sometimes tears can bring clarity, and right now I felt very clear. My shameless emotional display had done a lot for my  personal perspective. “You’re right… you’re completely right. I have been making excuses, telling myself it was because I was embarrassed by this, or I was worried what other people would say, or if it would upset my friends... truth is, I’ve just been scared.”

“Of gettin’ hurt?” Big Mac asked.

“No, I could handle getting hurt...” I dropped what was left of the wad of paper and kicked it under the stall door. I took a deep breath, hoping it would steady my nerves. I was still relatively new to being self-reflective, but right now I was just too tired to care about trying to protect my feelings from myself. And if I was going to be examining them, I might as well share these worries with the big dumb idiot that I loved. “You know that first day, I didn’t much care about you. I mean, sure, I thought it was funny that the Equestrian double of Applejack’s brother was the guy I met, but just the idea of another portal to Equestria, one that nobody else knew about, was so damn exciting. I mean why is this here? Why is it in a restroom? Why in a gloryhole of all things?

“I get excited about stuff like that. I actually came back a few times with a voltmeter I’d rigged up to measure magical signatures to take some readings. I’ve got a notepad at home full of theories and data and all kinds of stuff. If I showed it to the Twilights they would absolutely lose their minds.”

Big Mac made a noise that I could interpret as a disgruntled moan. “So this was some kinda experiment for you?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, completely unashamed. “Magic is kind of my bag, and this was interesting.” I slapped a hand to my forehead as I realized what had him upset. “But I did like talking to you! It was nice having this little lifeline back into Equestria. I don’t exactly get the Equestrian version of the Canterlot Herald here in the human world… and then… well, you were there. You know what happened with us.”

“That doesn’t explain what had ya scared,” Big Mac said.

“Because this...” I slapped the wall with my open palm. “...this is safe. This was a way to peek in on the world I left behind without getting too close to it. I miss Equestria, but every time I think about going back, thinking about who I was when I lived there makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve gotten used to living in this world. I’ve made a new start for myself, and the idea of going back home terrifies me.”

Silence. Profound and understanding silence.

“And then there’s me...” Big Macintosh said.

“And then there’s you,” I repeated. “I’m not worried about you hurting me, I’m worried that we might work out. That I might wake up and realize that I can’t be without you anymore. I don’t want to leave my friends, only to substitute them for the pony versions of them on the other side of the portal. They’re not the same people, just like you’re not the same Big Macintosh as the one on this side. And I know you wouldn’t want to come over here, not if it meant leaving your family behind.”

I knocked on the wall. He knocked back. Just to let each other know we were still there.

“If things stayed like this,” I said, biting back more tears, “I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that. We could just be like this. It’d be perfect.”

A cockroach chose that precise moment to skitter across the tarp, its disgusting little feet scratching on the plastic as it ran up to sniff my shoe like someone’s pet dog. I lifted my foot and stomped on it.

“Sunset,” Big Mac called, “this here hole was meant to help folk have short lil’ relations, to share a connection what comes and goes in a heartbeat. It weren’t meant for anything long term.” He leaned down to the hole and peered up at me meaningfully. “This here hole is big enough fer cocks, but it ain’t big enough for hearts.”

I snorted. I snorted and I laughed like Pinkie Pie in a pillow fight.

Big Mac was a good sport about it. He was laughing, too. We sat there and we laughed like we didn’t have a care in the world. We kept laughing until long after it had stopped being funny, because we were laughing together, and we wanted this moment to last.

Once we had finally calmed down, Big Mac told me exactly what I wanted to hear.

“Sunset,” he said. “Just come.”

“Okay,” I said. “Go explain things to Princess Twilight. I’ll be at the portal in about a half hour. We’ll worry about whatever after.”

Big Mac knocked. I knocked back.

It was our normal goodbye, but it felt very final as I listened to the stall door slam closed on his side.

I started to gather up my things. Most of my picnic supplies were still in my tote, so all I really needed was my book, my radio, and the ice chest. The tarp was trash now, as far as I was concerned.

This was probably the last time I’d come here. Princess Twilight would definitely want to study the portal before ultimately shutting it down. It was too risky to have an open gateway between the two worlds, and that was more for my side than hers, truthfully. I couldn’t fit a human tank or a missile through a pleasure-hole, but some magical whatsit could turn into smoke and come on through, make themselves a nice big mess that I’d probably have to clean up. Looking back on it, it was pretty irresponsible of me to leave this thing open for this long.

I unlocked the stall door and stepped out. My sneakers squeaked the second they touched the gross, pee-covered tile, and in that moment I was glad I wasn’t coming back here.

The walk to my car felt a thousand miles long. I was still absolutely terrified of what was going to happen, but I knew this was something I’d have to do. I owed it to myself to take this step, and I owed it to Big Macintosh.

I loved him. Whatever happened after this, in this singular moment, I loved him, and that was what mattered. I’d explain things to my friends later, and I’d talk Pinkie Pie into cutting me a slice of the action she’d gotten from taking bets on my romantic interest.

I threw everything into the trunk and got into the driver’s seat. I told Big Mac I’d be at the portal in a half hour, but I took a moment to take one last look at the ugly shack that housed the restrooms.

My eyes wandered, slowly turning down to the little tray beneath my dash. I pulled on it and the car filled with the musty stink of old cigarette ash. The previous owner of my car had been a chain smoker, and though I’d gotten the smell out of the upholstery, it wasn’t ever coming out of the ashtray.

I pushed down on the little knob for the lighter and waited until it popped up with a metallic click. I pulled it out and examined the orange glow of the lighter’s coil, admiring the way little wisps of smoke rose up from it.

I shot another look at the restrooms, pursing my lips and humming in deep, deep contemplation.

“Nah,” I said as I stuck the lighter back in the tray. “I’ll wait until Twilight closes the portal. She’ll probably be upset if I burn it down before she gets the chance to check it out.”

I pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the highway, stopping only to duck into a grocery store to pick up a box of Twinkies. I could only pray that pony AJ would like them as much as her brother did, because boy-oh-boy.

This was going to be awkward as shit.


* * *