Rude Awakening

by ponyaddict


Apple Folly

Before I could begin my tale of woe and misadventures, Applejack cut me off.

“Beg pardon, sugar cube, but Ah need to stop ya there. This sounds awful important and I don't wanna be interruptin' ya halfway through whilst I go about runnin' mah cart here.” She gave me a sheepish grin. I didn't add that she wouldn't be the first pony to interrupt me halfway through something that morning. “Tell ya what, though. If'n you can fetch mah brother, Ah'll have him hold down the fort here and Ah'll go with ya'll to Pinkie's.”

“I can do that!” Pinkie exclaimed with a bounce. Applejack blanched a bit at the thought of how Pinkie Pie might go about the task, but soldiered on.

“Alright then. He should be down at the spa right around now, finalizin' their weekly apple order,” Applejack related.

“Oh! I know where that is. Follow me, SamshortforSamuel!” Pinkie disappeared in a blur of light red. Staring after her friend, Applejack let out an exasperated sigh.

“It's the other way...” Removing the hoof from her face, she turned again to me. “Well, looks like Pinkie ran off in the wrong direction. Ah 'spose that turns mah offer into 'find mah brother then Ah'll help ya find Pinkie Pie then Ah'll go with y'all to Pinkie's.'”

“Eeeyup,” I replied. I hadn't intended to troll Applejack by imitating her brother; it was just force of habit. I couldn't read the look she gave me.

“The spa is two blocks that way,” she pointed with a hoof. “It has a big ole sign, 'Luxury Lotus' or something like that. Can't miss it.” She looked off the way Pinkie Pie had run. “Almost can't miss it, anyway.”

“Right,” I confirmed. “Two blocks down the road, sign says 'Luxury Lotus', ask for Applejack's brother.” I placed one arm tightly against my side to hold my towel in place. Snapping to attention, I gave her my best salute, even down to the thousand-yard-straight-ahead stare.

A light seemed to flick on in AJ's head as I repeated back the instructions. “Ah'm such a silly pony sometimes. Ah plum forgot you don't know mah brother. His name's Big Macintosh. His cutie mark is... well it might be easier to show ya. Here.” She leaned down under her cart. “He's got a big 'ole half a Macintosh apple for a cutie mark.” She came back up with one of the aforementioned apples, and a great big knife. Gripping the handle in her teeth, she somehow contrived to produce enough force with just her neck and a small hop to cleave the apple clean in two. “Looks just like that there. To boot, he's red as a barn an' nearly as big as one.”

“Got it. I'll be back with him soon. And Applejack? Thank you.” Hopefully this wouldn't go wrong either. I didn't see any way for it to go wrong, though. And that gave me chills.

As I departed, AJ called after me that it's just what friends do. Friends... I hadn't done anything to be called a friend, and yet there it was. I hadn't done anything to warrant it, yet everypony I'd come across so far, barring the one I'd surprised, had offered me their friendship and goodwill without hesitation. The friends I had back home, back on Earth, were all hard-won. Sure, we'd always start talking from some common interest, games, work, school or the like, but to count someone as my friend? Someone who, if they showed up at my door naked in the middle of the night, I would loan clothing and drop everything for? There were only a scant handful of people I would do that for, but Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack had already done just that for me, a total stranger.

Lost in contemplation, I didn't notice when I walked past the spa. I didn't take notice of where I was until I saw a great tree looming ahead of me: Twilight Sparkle's library. Fearful of being spotted from its windows, I made an abrupt about-face and backtracked to the spa. In my daze I had forgotten the pony that had not welcomed me with open arms. Understandably so, as well. Finding a naked stranger in one's bathroom is the kind of thing that makes one reevaluate not having a firearm for home defense. And Twilight's magic was likely more effective than most firearms.

I shuddered.

My towel threatened to slip, but I caught it in time and redid the tuck. I looked up to see that I was standing in front of what must be my destination. The Luxury Lotus, read the sign. Beneath the establishment's name, in smaller text, it read: Spa and Relaxation Center.

Unlike some of the other edifices in town, namely Carousel Boutique and Sugar Cube Corner, The Luxury Lotus betrayed none of its intended function from the outside. The only possible clue was that all the windows were frosted for privacy. For privacy, even though I could see a few dozen naked ponies from where I was standing. Maybe they got a lot of bashful clients like Rainbow Dash.

A bell tinkled above my head as I entered. The receptionist, a lime-coated pink-maned mare I didn't recognize, looked up from her desk.

“Welcome to the Luxury Lotus,” she began in an inviting fashion. As she took in the creature standing in front of her, she faltered for a moment. She was a consummate professional, though, and her uncertainty didn't stop her for longer than just that moment. “What can we do for you today...” She stumbled on her words a bit, looking me over for some clue of something. “...ma'am?” she concluded, looking pleased with her deduction. My towel blocking the more obvious indicator of my gender, she had keyed off the signs on my chest: men's vestigial nipples.

I decided to let her mistake stand. Having worked customer service jobs myself, I know how embarrassing it is to know you'd gotten the “what gender” question wrong. “I'm actually just looking for Big Macintosh,” I said, contriving to shift my voice up as many octaves as possible. Which wasn't many. “Applejack told me I could find him here.”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Apple.” She consulted an appointment book on the desk. “It looks like his appointment still has a little while left. Um.” She was caught in the precarious position that always sucks in customer service. Her boss had given her explicit instructions to never disappoint a potential customer, as well as instructions to not interrupt Big Macintosh’s appointment. The receptionist did the only thing she could: offered me something else.

“If you’d like, I can get you set up in the massage room while you wait,” she offered. It looked like the management here was good; the staff had enough leeway to offer free services. A massage sounded heavenly, too. I was extremely stiff from sleeping on the ground. And being Pegasus-tackled. And ingloriously falling on a Unicorn. Though I was in something of a hurry to find the eldest Apple sibling and get my return to Earth back on track, my bones insisted I had time for a quick massage.

“I suppose I can stand the delay.”

“Right this way, then.” She made a mark on the appointment book and beckoned for me to follow. I was led down a short hall off the lobby to the spa proper. The back consisted mainly of a central common room, with smaller suites and supply rooms radiating off the sides. The common room was set up for socializing. A large bath dominated the floor, and various and sundry other treatment stations were set around it in clusters of two to four.

These were not our destination, however. The receptionist led me into one of the suites on the side. It was set up for a private massage; its sole furnishings were a massage table in the middle of the floor, a portable side table, and a storage cabinet.

“Here we are. Please make yourself comfortable, the masseuse should be with you shortly. I find it usually helps to have a head start on relaxing before they show up,” she advised. “I’ll let Big Macintosh know you’re waiting for him the moment he’s free.”

“Thanks, Miss... I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Quite alright. It’s Key, like my Cutie Mark,” she informed me, indicating the depiction of an iron key on her flank. An iron key on a lime background...

“So that means your coat color is Key’s lime, right?” Her smile grew frosty.

“Ahaha.” Her laughter was very obviously forced. I guess she’d heard that one before. “Very right, miss. If you’ll excuse me.” She left, closing the door behind her a little more forcefully than necessary. Before it closed, she shot me a dirty look around the doorknob in her mouth. I couldn’t help but wonder if her saliva on that doorknob would be called Key’s slime.

I didn’t mention it to her.

I was left standing alone in the salon, clad only in my waist-wrapped towel. My background level of anxiety from public nudity began to subside. For once, I was finally in a place where my attire made sense. I undid my waistwrap and laid down on the massage table, placing the towel over my butt so the masseuse wouldn’t have to get a faceful of it when she walked in the door.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long. The door opened and I heard the sound of hooffalls growing closer on the carpeted floor. They paused for a moment, before continuing off in the direction of the storage cabinet. My masseuse wasn’t much for introductions, it seemed, and was getting straight to the business at hand. Er, hoof. Whatever.

After placing some items on the side table, she pushed it over towards me. There was a brief fumbling with a container, it appeared my masseuse was an Earth Pony, and some squirting of lotion onto hooves. Hooves which soon found themselves pressing into my back.

Those hooves! Their soles and frogs were incredibly soft, nearly as soft as Rainbow Dash’s had been. There were some key advantages these had over hers, though. The first, the hoof walls on these hooves had been meticulously filed smooth and flat. They glided across my skin with finesse, not once catching or scraping.

The second, these hooves were powerful. Whoever this masseuse was, she was likely the strongest mare in Ponyville. Her movements were precise and slow. She would locate a knotted muscle and proceed to methodically work it out all the way through, as deep as it may go. There were a few times where she was pressing so firmly I could have sworn I heard my bones creaking.

I heaved a sigh of contentment. This filly was good. Luckily, her touch on my back was much more relaxing than arousing, very much the opposite of when Rarity had run her hooves over my chest. The towel helped matters considerably.

As she worked lower, though, she began to approach the towel line. She still hadn’t said anything to me, and I was beginning to wonder what she intended to do when she ran out of back to massage. The relaxation factor would most certainly go down if she did anything with the towel or the bits of body beneath it. I needed to find out, but I had some time left before she reached it. A fairly innocuous conversation starter would do, I figured.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re really good at this?” I asked by way of compliment.

The hooves paused for a moment, and the masseuse replied in a much deeper voice than I was expecting.

“Eeyup.”