I kneeled and held the mare's face in my hands, whispering softly to her. "Please don't worry, where I came from, I ate a lot of meat," I said softly to her. This caused her to back away from me, showing some worry.
"What kind of meat?" she asked in an almost accusatory tone. I immediately regretted my confession.
"Um, I'd have to explain my culture and customs to you, and I hope you would not judge me by your standards," I replied in an almost diplomatic tone of voice. This put her off a little bit, and the other two girls gave me a sidelong glance, as if to signify they didn't approve of my answer, either. "Okay, I confess, I ate meat from cows, pigs, and chickens -- and some other animals and fish as well," I stated, hanging my head in defeat. A pregnant pause ensued as the pony tried to digest my words. The two girls exchanged a look, glanced at the pony, then turned to me. Nanaimo maintained a neutral expression but seemed a little distant.
"Well, you don't have to worry about that now, because all the meat here is synthetic," Vanessa interjected. "What you did in the past is in the past, you just have to accept that as part of who you are. I'm not going to judge you by what you did in the past," she added warmly, smiling at me again.
"Please forgive me," I offered reverently, but scratched the pony behind her ears. She glowered at me for a moment, but the sensation of scratching her behind her ears was a magical one, one she could simply not resist. She cooed under my touch, but as soon as I stopped, she glowered at me again, a low growl escaping her lips. "Don't judge me by your standards! I don't recall wishing for something like this!" I shouted, the mare withering under my outrage.
"Calm down, you both need some food in you, come on, let's go! We're burning daylight here!" Makwela practically commanded, her tone sharper than I thought necessary. She joined her companion, but both of them beckoned us to follow them.
"Mike, we need to talk," Nanaimo said in a low tone, a menacing quality to it. Her dark expression spoke of her anger with me and I wilted under her harsh gaze. I felt my blood begin to churn inside and anger and resentment began to boil as I remembered cultural differences between humans and ponies.
"I told you not to judge me by your standards, Nanaimo -- you know I love you and I would never do anything to hurt you, at least, not intentionally," I answered softly. "I wouldn't have paid someone over nine hundred dollars to make you and ship you to me," I added firmly. "It felt so nice to hold you close to me, to hug you and kiss you and tell you I love you I don't know how many times, but I want you to know you're MY mare, and I won't have any other mares beside you," I averred even more emphatically.
We had stopped again and the girls were quite a ways ahead of us before they noticed our absence. This matter rose to my attention and I alerted the pony to my concern, so we went in the direction I figured they might have gone, though they too had turned back to try to get to us. It took a bit longer than any of us had expected to reunite, but we found ourselves in front of a Samantha's Kitchen restaurant, so we entered and were seated promptly, the four of us being offered a large circular booth with a large round table in front of it. Once again we were presented with a menu the size of a phone book. I picked it up and flipped through the pages; the images and the descriptions of the items making my mouth water. The breakfast section was comprehensive, but had exactly what I wanted. I offered the menu to Nanaimo so she could peruse it and had a similar reaction to mine. The two girls already knew what they wanted, so they did not need to look at the menu. Less than a minute after having put the menu back on the table, the waitress brought us a tray of glasses of water and took our orders, seeming to almost know exactly what each of us wanted.
Makwela had ordered a fruit salad, and it looked positively scrumptious. Vanessa had ordered French toast and eggs over easy. Nanaimo had ordered hay pancakes with syrup and a side of hay bacon, hay fries, and lightly toasted bread. I had ordered the King's Breakfast, which was three eggs, three pancakes with syrup, three slices of toasted bread, three sausage links and three slices of bacon, along with a large glass of orange juice. My female companions gave me a sidelong glance again, but I chalked it up to being quite hungry after having died in my home world. Within five minutes, the waitress had returned with our food. I asked for a bottle of Tabasco sauce, along with some salt and pepper. Our waitress had seemingly anticipated my desires, producing the items from her apron pockets and placing them on the table. I took note of the fact that our waitress was wearing only the apron and nothing else, my reaction being that of raising both eyebrows in surprise.
Vanessa giggled at my reaction. "You know, since we live in a domed city and the weather is perfect all the time, many of us don't wear much clothing," she stated mirthfully, chuckling lightly through her words. "And since I'm the one who does most of the payments for you, your pony, and my girlfriend, I don't wear much either."
"You're very sexy," I averred as I stared a bit more than I should have at the thick girl, her nudity quite obvious from the translucent lavender plastic dress she was wearing. She smiled warmly at me before she giggled again, then took a bite of her French toast. My mouth watered at the sight of her food, but I tucked into mine shortly, savoring the flavor of all of it. I was amazed by the quality of the flavors, it seemed like the food was engineered precisely to my strongest desires regarding texture, flavor, appearance, and consistency with my memories of those sensations. My mare concurred with my assessments of the food as she licked her lips in anticipation, and hummed in approval at the quality of her breakfast as well.
"Thank you," Vanessa giggled as she tucked into her breakfast with gusto, her hands wielding the knife and fork almost effortlessly as she cut up her toast and practically gobbled it up, downing her orange juice with one long gulp. This display of her seeming gluttony caused me some concern, but she giggled again at my reaction. Makwela seemed to eat her food with almost mechanical precision, perhaps borne of a streak of autism, but she too enjoyed her meal. Nanaimo and I ate our breakfast silently, occasionally exchanging glances as we ate our food. Her curiosity got the better of her.
"Let me have a piece of that sausage link, it looks like you're enjoying the flavor too much," the mare opined. She lazily played around with some of her hay fries. I cut a small piece off and offered it to her on my fork, and she removed it quite skillfully with her lips and tongue, then began chewing. "Wow, I should get some of this, it's amazing!"
"Yeah, this is the best breakfast I've had in years," I averred. That sounds so corny, I haven't eaten any breakfast at a sit-down restaurant in years, I silently mused. The waitress returned with a small plate with two sausage links on it and set it on the table in front of the pony. She gobbled them down in two quick bites and grinned at the flavor. Presently, we finished eating and Vanessa went over to the payment machine. There was a second machine, and Makwela hopped aboard that one, seemingly enjoying making the payment far more than I thought she should have.
"I want to try that some time," I mused aloud, earning a few chuckles and giggles from the girls who heard me say this.
"We don't have payment machines engineered for males," the waitress chortled. "Unless..." she added, letting her words trail off.