Tailor Made wasn’t exactly amicable to the idea of us going to the orgy on her account. You see, apparently she sent girls there every year to give a good name for her brothel and keep the politicians and lawyers from shutting her down. It was a stupid and flimsy arrangement, but it kept her in business. So, the idea of sending Starshine and I in their place was a bit . . . unnerving for her.
“You want me to jeopardize my entire business for . . . for Dirty Joke?” she said, barely keeping her voice down below screaming.
We were in her office, sitting the same chairs as the night before. Only, this time, there wasn’t any drinking or smiling going on. Tailor Made was staring us down, with her head in her hooves and her mane all flopping about. Dirty Joke was still up in the room. Somehow, he didn’t want to face a mare so pissed off at him.
“I’d be putting myself on the line for two mares I barely know,” she said. “How do I justify doing that? How do I risk putting so many girls back out on the street? For most of them, being in a brothel is their escape. They get a place to live, steady work, and girls that they know and can count on. They count on me.”
Starshine sat up in her chair. “You’re not the only one risking all this,” she said. “Half my friends are dead now and the rest are Celestia knows where, all because of Amethyst. This whole thing is her fault, and we need to get back at her however we can.”
“Amethyst isn’t our concern.”
“If she keeps having her way, she will be. She’s got the ear of the mayor, and she’s not one to let this city have brothels all over the place. She’ll come for you eventually.”
“I’m ready to take that risk.” Tailor Made’s eyes narrowed. “I just can’t do it, girls. Maybe if you two were actually girls here, but you’re not. I’m sorry.”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t just about to let her walk away, but what exactly could I do? I couldn’t make her any promises, since there was no guarantee that we could get away with our plan, but I wanted to make her feel sure that the whole thing would work. I decided to go for broke.
“What if, instead of just asking for the stallion’s approval for the story, I slept with him?” I asked. “I mean, that’s what he’s there for, and if it doesn’t work out we did the duty that your girls always do. It’s a win-win, right?”
She stared at me. “You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
“You are willing to get dolled up and go fuck a bunch of stallions so you can get a story out there?”
My stomach flopped. “A bunch?”
Tailor Made snorted. “You didn’t think it’d be just him, did you?” she asked. “This is an orgy, girls. You go there to serve a bunch of creepy, pent-up rich stallions so that they don’t force us out of business for not giving them sex. It’s not a pretty business.”
“Minty, I don’t know—” Starshine began, but I interrupted her.
“We’ll do it,” I said.
Tailor Made took a moment to answer, then sighed and lowered her head. “I think I must be insane, but if you two will really do the same job as my girls, if you’ll really fuck . . . then fine, I’ll let you. But only if you promise to make that mayor give us all-time immunity once your story is published.”
“Deal.” I reached over and shook her hoof. “We won’t let you down, Miss Made, I promise.”
“You better not,” she said, “or I’ll take you both down first.”
* * *
Starshine paced around our room in the brothel. She had on a long, white gown, same as me. They were the getups we were supposed to wear to the orgy/party/thing. They billowed when either of us tried to walk and were tight down the middle. More worryingly, they split right above the flank so our rears always hung out of them. It was an . . . odd . . . feeling, to say the least. Dirty Joke kept watching us with this stupid grin on his face that I kind of wanted to smack off.
“Why did you agree to this again?” Starshine was saying. “Why oh why are we doing this?”
“You’re the one who wanted to do all this for Dirty Joke,” I said. “So now here we are, going to an orgy. Did you really think this whole thing wouldn’t involve sex at some point?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t figure I would get passed around like a collection jar,” Starshine said.
Dirty Joke scratched his head. “I’m still very vague onto the details of how, exactly, dressing up and going to have sex is going to help you in any way but loosening yourselves up.”
I sighed and rubbed my head. “The big thing is that we are going there to see the stallion from the Times. He goes to the orgy to have sex with mares. We get him alone in the room and I can talk to him about the story. Most stallions think with their little heads anyway, so I can probably convince him easier if he’s turned on.”
Dirty Joke looked me up and down. “You think you can turn him on?”
“At a place like this, I don’t think they’ll care much about what we look like. Stallions like this are randy and needy and as long as we shut up, they probably won’t care.”
“So why do I have to go, then?”
“You got us into this,” Starshine said. “Besides, we need you there as a guarantee to us that we won’t get into something we can’t handle. You’re the one who knows all about Amethyst, so it’s up to you to help us with it. Got it?”
Dirty Joke sighed. “Got it. So when do we leave?”
I pulled out two masks that Tailor Made had given us. “Right now.”
* * *
We were taken to the place in a car that had arrived in front of the brothel for us. It was an all-black steam limousine with chrome highlights and a bar in the back. The front seat was partitioned from the back with a window that remained closed the whole time. Instead, me and Starshine had the back to ourselves. It was a little cozy, but a lot bigger than most cars I had been in. I looked at the bar, though my stomach was doing too many flip flops to even think about drinking.
I felt like I was going to throw up, but I couldn’t get the bile to come up. Instead it was like my stomach was an angry hurricane of self-loathing and disgust that wouldn’t quit and I had to try to balance in the eye of the storm. That, and shame. Shame was there, too. It wasn’t really a part of the storm, though, as much as a boiling ocean washing over my brain.
Even with my eyes closed, I kept seeing spots that I desperately tried to keep from turning into more ocean metaphors. All I wanted to do was get to the stupid party and then get as far away from that part of the city as I could. The only thing I was grateful for at that moment was that Dirty Joke had to take a separate car because the limo was only for girls. Then again, that wasn’t exactly how I wanted to be treated, but I wasn’t really expecting the stallions organizing an orgy to be egalitarian.
“Minty, are you okay?” Starshine asked, putting a hoof on my shoulder.
I shook her off. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t give me that, Minty. You were screaming in your sleep, signed us up for an orgy, and now you look like you’re going to vomit all over this limo. What is up with you? Ever since that day you got back from the hospital, you’ve been worse and worse.”
“I’ve just been having some problems,” I said.
“That’s a bit of understatement, don’t you think?”
The limo lurched forward and we were on our way. The driver didn’t seem to care much for the other cars, because he swerved around them and in and out of the traffic like it wasn’t there. The constant movement of the car didn’t do wonders for my stomach, and I ended up leaning against Starshine. Not that I quite wanted to, but I just had to do something. I basically ended up with my head on her lap, and her hooves on top of my head.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Starshine,” I said, my voice just barely above a whisper.
“I know,” she said.
“I’m so scared . . . I can’t stop doing bad things, even if I don’t want to. I just keep doing them because they feel good . . . what does that make me?”
She rubbed her hoof in my mane. “That makes you a pony, Minty. None of us can be perfect all the time, even in the best of circumstances . . . and I don’t imagine you’re anywhere near that right now.”
“I have it better than a lot of ponies do,” I said.
“Really? Because we’re going to an orgy to get a story made by some stallion so we save another stallion’s life. I wouldn’t say what we’re doing is all that great right now.”
I looked down. “What, you’re not going to joke about how I like sex so much that I shouldn’t be bothered?”
“Having sex because you want to and because you have to are very different things,” she said. “You know . . . I don’t blame you for all you’ve been doing. I don’t think it’s good, but I’m not going to judge you or anything. After I lost my wings, I did a lot of bad things too. Things I’m not so proud of. So it’s not like you’d be the first.”
I looked back at my leg, the one that had been shot. I had it curled up on the backseat with me while I lay on Starshine’s lap, and I could still see the scar that would mark it forever. It still ached, though it was slowly getting better. The doctor had still said I’d walk with a little bit of a limp for the rest of my life, though.
“I guess part of it is just regret,” I said. “I feel regret all the time toward practically everypony. I do things with Scout because I feel guilty about Shuya, and with Grapevine because I feel like she’s been snubbed and left out on her own otherwise. But I do all this, and Sterling’s left in the dark.” I sighed. “There’s no way to win.”
“Well, you made me happy, at least,” Starshine said. “I didn’t think you’d even come with me on this . . . I didn’t write up that stupid story about you, by the way. I just, I don’t know, you’re the only other pegasus I know and it’s just been lonely without somepony else to talk to. It’s been nice.”
I gave her a small smile. “Even with this orgy thing?”
“Well, if it gets an old friend out of trouble and takes down Amethyst too, well, I’m alright with that. I’ll do anything to get her, you know? She’s going to pay for what she did to Shuya and the rest.”
I paused for a minute and just watched the city pass by outside the window. We were heading out of the grimier parts and into what looked like a dirty version of suburbs. Actual houses instead of tenement buildings, though they still looked like they were falling apart. There was one larger than the rest, and had limos parked all around it. We drove toward it.
“Do you think we can really do this?” I asked.
“No,” Starshine said, “but we’re going to have to anyway.”
“Whatever happens . . . I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I got myself into this just as much as you did. I guess we get to reap what we sow.”
The car stopped outside the house, and I squeezed her hoof. “Am I a good friend?”
“You’re getting there,” she said.
Then, the door was opened by a pony in a black suit and it was time to go. It was late in the day and the sun was going down, so the house was lit up from the outside and inside by Hearths Warming lights. It was still a couple months away, but I guess they wanted to add a festive touch to the debauchery.
I don’t know why I was being so grim about the whole thing, really. It wasn’t like they invited me specifically, really. I came on my own. But I don’t know, there was just something so . . . off about it. Maybe it was because all the mares that joined us on the sidewalk as we walked up toward the house were done up like us, while it was the stallions that were clearly the dominant ones at the house. I guess it was some sort of power fantasy for them. I had heard about stuff like that, since the Elements of Harmony and Princesses were all mares, it must have been a blow to them to lack so much power.
Still, that was little comfort when I had to walk with my flank practically hanging out of the dress, wagging at anypony who happened to look my way. The worst part was that I had to keep telling myself over and over that nothing about it excited me or made me feel a little sexy. Nope, nothing at all. Minty Flower the abstinent, that was me. Because obviously going to a consensual orgy was much worse than openly cheating on the one pony who had ever unconditionally loved you.
Celestia, sometimes I don’t know how anypony puts up with me.
Starshine kept close to me the entire time that we walked up to the house. I felt almost like her big sister, walking beside her since I was so much taller than her. Funny, since I was fairly sure she was older than me. And also the mental image of a big sister leading her little sister to an orgy disturbed me enough that I wanted to scrub my brain out with soap.
I was so desperate to keep talking to myself that I was just rambling in my mind. I was trying to block it out, to keep it from seeming real to me. I wasn’t some Rainbow Dash, the kind of mare who could be all professional but sleep with everypony around and not be judged for it. I was a self loather, a real tragic work. I wouldn’t be surprised if my pine box fell off the hearse.
We made it up to the house, and a couple ponies in white suits ushered us on with soft, slightly-menacing smiles. They were predators, and us fishes were swimming right into the school of sharks.
The interior of the house was made up of a wide parlor with doors all along the walls that presumably led to where the real action was. I saw a lot of girls there already, and even more stallions. The ratio wasn’t exactly in our favor, but then again I wasn’t surprised. Just as soon as Starshine and I walked in, gazes were fixed on us. I felt embarrassed and excited at the same time, all beneath a vague layer of revulsion.
We stood near the front door, unsure of what to do. No stallions had approached us yet, but by the look of it they expected us to come on to them, or something. The masks that everypony were wearing made it hard to tell, really. My and Starshine’s were simple, but some of the stallions had really elaborate masks with feathers and jewelry and gaudy colors.
I was about to try to make a move and start finding out where that head editor for Newsday was when somepony tapped me on the shoulder. I whirled around to find Dirty Joke standing with us, a cheap mask covering his face. Even with that, I could tell he was grinning.
“Some party, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re just having a great time,” I said. “Fantastic, even. Can’t you tell?”
He laughed. “And here I thought you might stop being sarcastic for even a minute. Silly me.”
Starshine nudged him. “Hey, now that you’re here, can you help us?”
“Help you do what?”
“Tell him, Minty.”
I sighed. “Alright, here’s the thing, Dirty. We need you to look around this place and try to find the editor of the newspaper Newsday, got it? We need you to find him and send him to us. Starshine and I are going to try to woo him and get him to publish the stuff from your journal, setting all his readers against Amethyst.”
“So you expect me to spend an orgy talking to stallions,” Dirty Joke said.
“We’re the ones that have to go into one of those rooms and ‘wait’ until he arrives,” I said. “Unless you swing in the direction of stallion on stallion, I wouldn’t start complaining.”
Dirty Joke sighed, but nodded and hurried off. Hurried off faster than I would have liked, of course. I wouldn’t have minded if he had stayed with us all night. It would have at least given us some reason to stay away from the rooms.
Our relative peace didn’t last long, however. A trio of stallions in high class outfits and masks approached us. They walked with a stride that said they were used to getting their way, and would make trouble for anyone that tried to bother them. Perfect.
“You ladies found a room yet?” the lead one asked. “There’s an empty room near the back and we’re just . . . dying . . . to try a couple young mares like yourselves out. What do you say?”
With every last part of my body telling me not to, I answered: “Sure.”
I’m not sure how I could tell with them having masks on and all, but their smiles just got creepier. They led me and Starshine down the large room to the end, where a plain white door awaited us like the gates of Tartarus. There was a particular thing, walking to that door. I guess it must be how prisoners feel walking toward the gallows. I couldn’t really back down, so I had to make myself go forward instead of curl up in a ball on the ground. I had done worse things physically for a story, I suppose, but they hadn’t felt this bad on my brain.
At least they didn’t make us wait. Pretty much as soon as we got in the room, they were leaping into action. They were like racers pent up at the starting gate, all pawing the ground and snorting. They didn’t even bother to undress us, though I suppose the open backs of our clothes were there for that purpose. It might have been kinky if it were any sort of romantic.
I won’t describe what happened afterward, because anyone who’s ever had sex before knows what it’s like, and personally I didn’t like to think about it. It wasn’t graceful, it wasn’t pretty, it was just . . . sex. I learned something important that night, too. See, I had always thought sex was about romance and love and the intimacy of it . . . but that wasn’t true. At least, not all the time.
Those three stallions weren’t out to be intimate, or even really to get their rocks off. No, they were having sex because of how it made them feel. They say everything is about sex, and I say that’s true, except for sex. Sex is about power.
The power that those three wanted so bad was what they took out on us. I don’t know what they did in real life, but it must have been demeaning. More than likely, they worked under a mare. I guess it gave them a rush to be able to dominate me and Starshine, to make believe that they had absolute power over us and could do whatever they wanted.
The sex wasn’t any good, sloppy even. None of them were skilled or any big, but that was so far from the point that actually having sex with either of us was probably at the back of their minds. What were they thinking? Maybe about a marefriend, a wife, or a boss that they felt pressed under. Maybe it just made them feel like they had some control over their lives. I know that if I were in their position, I would want the same thing. Hell, I was in their position, in a way. Seemingly powerless against Amethyst who so deftly was able to walk in and sweep me aside like I was gutter trash.
It was at that moment, about the time two of them took me at once, that it started to dawn on me exactly what they were doing. They were acting like me. I thought back to how I had done it with Grapevine, and with Scout. At first, they had come on to me. They had both felt their lives out of control, so of course they craved that power. But then, I kept coming back. Again and again I would instigate it, I would control it, and I would have the power. That was my own power fantasy.
For the first time that night, the thing wanting to make me throw up wasn’t the stallions at the orgy. They at least finished after a while, and left us alone after that. It was just as well. I lay on the floor, panting, with sticky cum all over my coat that would definitely take forever to get out. I groaned.
“So can I vote for never doing that again?” Starshine asked.
“I’ll double that,” I said. “No, triple it. That was . . . no. Just no.”
“Just no?”
“Just no.”
I watched Starshine crawl over to me. She had been up on the plus couch in the center of the room, while the two who had gotten to me preferred the hard wooden floor. I could barely move, so Starshine had to practically drag me onto the couch to lay with her. It was funny, too. I wanted to laugh. Here Starshine was, acting all sweet, and . . . why? She had been sweeter to me than anypony else. In my mental state, she had never taken advantage of me. She had gotten me out of that house to help someone in need but also, I figured, to get me away from the downward spiral I was in.
And, even after I had been the one to suggest going to the orgy, it was she who held me on the couch while I started to shake. She had quit her job for me, taught me how to fly, and led me to stories that I got all the credit for. She had her faults, but I realized then that Starshine was one of the best friends I had ever had.
“So I guess they aren’t the kind of gentlecolts to leave a lady with a goodbye,” Starshine said to break to the silence. “I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said.
She laughed. “Did even one of them hit your spot?”
“Nope.”
“Same here. I’m not even sure they know you’re supposed to make the other feel good.”
“With those sizes? Please, they didn’t have a chance of it in the first place.”
We both laughed at that. Sure, we were both sore in places that you really don’t want to be sore in, but it was funny in the insanity of it all. Here we were, going from reporters one day to whores the next. Life was like that, I suppose. You never knew what it was going to throw at you. I probably should have been more upset, but I just couldn’t stop thinking it was funny no matter how hard I tried.
Starshine and I lied around on the couch for a while after that, still in a tumble of hooves and manes that probably made us look ridiculous. But, you know, I had spent so damn long being so damn serious that I just rightly didn’t give a fuck.
Because you know what? Fuck conventions, fuck normalcy, fuck monogamy, fuck sex, just fuck it all. I was honestly the happiest I had been in weeks, curled up on that couch. I didn’t feel guilty, I didn’t feel lousy, and I didn’t want to get up. I had found happiness at an orgy and you know what? I really didn’t care.
So, of course, it eventually had to end. It at least lasted a bit longer than I had thought, but the door eventually banged open. I was really hoping that it wouldn’t be more randy stallions, and for once I smiled when I saw it was Dirty Joke. He had managed to find a ridiculous mask and a rainbow-striped toga to wear. Next to him were a couple of stallions.
One was shorter and kind of fat, and was breathing pretty hard. I guess he’d been at it at least once that night, or was really bad at holding in his excitement. Dirty Joke nodded to him.
“This is Special Edition,” he said. “He’s the editor for Newsday
I stared at him and kind of wrinkled my nose. He wasn’t a looker, but was also the most important pony in the room, much to my displeasure. His gaze swept over the two of us, though I couldn’t see his eyes to tell what he was thinking. My heart beat faster until he settled on looking at Starshine over me.
“Well, well, you do indeed have two lovely ladies here,” Special Edition said, not taking his eyes off of Starshine.
“Yes, and they’d be more than happy to, er, accommodate you to help you decide if you want to run that story or not,” Dirty Joke said. “Right, girls?”
We both nodded our heads with varying degrees of authenticity. It was easier for me, because I wasn’t being stared at like a particularly green patch of grass. Starshine, for her part, didn’t seem to waver very much. I thought she was pretty brave to do that. Then again, if there was anypony I knew who was incredibly brave, it would be her. That much was evident when I looked at the holes in her back that went all the way to her spine.
Special Edition nodded. “Well very good, then. My associate and I do appreciate the offer from both of you girls. What’s to say we get started, yes?”
He didn’t really wait for anyone else to agree. He just moved toward Starshine in a lumbering way, and she got off the couch and went over to him. I felt bad for her and wanted to say something, but I couldn’t find the words and didn’t want to offend the one pony who could help us. He at least seemed pretty drunk, but I hoped he wouldn’t forget about helping us once he got sober.
I had barely noticed the other stallion that had come with Special Edition, which was strange because, when I looked at him, I had to admit he was good looking. He was tall and thin, but not too much. I could see the muscles in his totally-not-succulent flank and the hard lines on his jaw. The mask he wore was practically featureless, which only did him better. The only other thing he wore was a black cloak.
He didn’t speak to me for even a single word. I suppose that would have ruined it. Instead, he came over to me like I had asked, and sat beside me. That was the thing that struck me, that he didn’t just immediately throw himself upon me. I had an obligation to him, but he made it seem like he was giving me a choice. I was thankful for that.
I got up on his lap and wrapped my hooves around his back to steady myself. I won’t go into detail on him either, since it would be obscene, but he was a lot better than the last bunch. He was smooth and warm, like good alcohol going down. Not that he went down on me. I mean, I would have liked him to, but he didn’t, so . . . oh Celestia, I’m not good with words about him. It was nice, alright? He was very nice.
After we got into it, I really felt sorry for Starshine. I could hear Special Edition grunting and groaning as he laid into her with all the grace of a pig mounting a sow. I could see Dirty Joke watching, and he didn’t seem very happy. The worst thing, though, is that he just wouldn’t cum. Like, he just kept going like the little fucking engine that could.
I think everypony in the room let out a collective sigh of relief when he finally came. My guy followed not too long after, but at least he was nice about it. He sort of held me while he did instead of humping it into me, which would have been rude. I was probably over-romanticizing him, but I didn’t really care. Sure, he came to an orgy to prey on me because he knew I had to, but at least he was nice about it. At that point in time, I really didn’t care.
After everypony came—except poor Dirty Joke . . . oh, yeah, and us, but we were just girls!—we all kind of laid back and did nothing for a little bit. I didn’t really know what to say, and I wasn’t about to be the first to start talking. Not in that kind of crowd, no thank you.
Luckily for me, at least that time, I didn’t have to speak at all. The sound of a door caving in outside our room did all the talking for us. There were shouts and screams coming from outside, which were cut short by the sound of a shotgun going off. Even from the room we were in, the sound was deafening. I hoped it hadn’t hit anypony.
Then, I heard more banging on doors, the ones to the little rooms we were in. My stomach sank like a stone. I had hoped that, maybe, it was just some sort of minor dispute that would be solved quickly, but I knew we would have no such luck.
“Everybody out!” said one of the voices from outside the room. “All yo whores get out of those rooms before we start bashing heads in!”
I didn’t need any more prodding than that. Starshine was right with me as I scrambled off the couch and toward the door. I threw it open and piled into the main room, which had filled up with frightened mares and stallions both. I saw Dirty Joke come out, followed by Special Edition. The pony who had been with me, though, didn’t come with them. I didn’t see him in the room, either, so I figured I had missed him.
My attention was pretty quickly drawn back to the front of the crowd, however. I saw now that the enforcers weren’t just brutes, but police officers. They all had scowls on their faces and guns in their hooves. They scanned the room, while the pony at their head licked his lips and grinned at all of us.
He spoke with a booming voice, a voice that was all too familiar: “Where . . . is . . . DIRTY JOKE?!”
Behind me, I heard Starshine mutter, “I knew that guy was bad news . . .”
Red Rover looked over the crowd a few times, brandishing his shotgun. The look in his eyes gave me the feeling that he wasn’t all there, and he had a long scar going up from one corner of his mouth. I started to back away from the rest of the crowd toward the rear of the room almost involuntarily, desperately hoping he wouldn’t see me.
But, of course, that was just a fantasy. Red’s eyes locked onto me, and his mouth curved into a wicked grin in the direction of his scar. He brushed back his mane with one hoof and grinned. “Well hello there, Minty, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he said while walking toward me. The crowd parted in front of him, leaving me isolated to his desires.
He walked up to me until we were practically touching, that grin still on his face. “Well, well, Minty,” he said, “I always knew you were a whore, but I can’t say I expected to find you here. Having a good time?”
“I’m not a—”
He slapped me hard, right across the face. The room was so quiet that the sound of it was deafening, and I felt like my ears were ringing. One side of my face started to feel sore and I wondered if it would swell up. Despite myself, despite how much I loathed it, I felt tears start to well up in my eyes.
“Oh, did that hurt?” Red laughed. “Good. You see, Minty, I once thought we were friends. Once. Now, I know better. I should have known you’d be here with Dirty Joke. Did you not think we would find you? It was painfully obvious after we got a little . . . information . . . out of Miss Tailor Made.”
I spat on the ground, and saw blood in it. “What are you?” I asked, choking the words out.
“I’m just the product of the times, Minty,” he said. “The foam that’s risen to the top of this nasty city. I’m glad I was able to see that before it was too late.”
I shook my head. “No, this isn’t you,” I said. “You used to believe in honor, in respect, and in taking care of all the poor in Fillydelphia.”
Red reached down took a knife in his hoof and pressed it into my mouth. I could feel it weighing on my tongue, the sharp blade a reminder that if I so much as tried to talk I would cut my tongue to ribbons. I started to shake.
“Do you want to know how I got this scar?” he asked. “You see, after you and your ‘friend’ went out to go raid Amethyst’s office like the cowards you are, those fools in the warehouse decided to find out what they could get from me. They tried to beat me, Minty!” He started to laugh. “But no, no, I wouldn’t let them get to me. I didn’t let them break me no matter how hard they tried. When they weren’t looking, I escaped! They shot at me but, well, all they did was give me something to remember them by.”
He slowly withdrew the knife from my mouth and licked the blade. “When I led my stallions back to that warehouse, Minty, I wanted to crush them. To kill them all. But all it did was cost me some of my best officers and gave me a lot of dead rebels. So . . . many . . . died for nothing! Tonight’s different, though. You know why?” He pressed his head to mine. “Because I’m going to enjoy this.”
I shoved him away. He felt clammy, like a dead fish when he pressed himself against me. I wanted to touch him even less than any of the other stallions there. “Get off me, you’re crazy!” I said.
Red just shook his head. “A little fight in you, huh? I like that!”
From behind him came a deep voice: “Then you’re going to love me.”
A figure in a dark cloak sprang out from the crowd, smashing one of his hooves into Red, sending him to the ground. A few of the guards raised their guns, but throwing knives sliced through the air and embedded themselves in their foreheads.
It wasn’t hard to figure out who the cloaked figure was, and I had never been happier to see the Assassin appear. He nodded to me. “Get Dirty Joke and your friend out of here,” he said. “Now!”
Red was getting up off the ground, laughing. “Oh, I should have known . . .” He reached for his shotgun, but the Assassin kicked it away. The two of them squared off, the Assassin out of knives since they were all inside Red’s henchstallions, and Red with his knife between his teeth.
I didn’t see much more after that. There wasn’t much to do, anyway. I couldn’t find Special Edition, so I just grabbed ahold of Starshine and ran toward the front of the house. Dirty Joke was right on our tails, and I heard shouting from the back. I didn’t care. I just ran and ran, even after we were out of the house.
I didn’t stop running for a long time.
* * *
We were listless after that. There was too much to say, and at the same time nopony wanted to talk about anything. We were safe, saved by the Assassin, but what did it matter? A few more of Amethyst’s police officers were dead for no reason other than our stupid asses. They may have been working for her, but that didn’t make me feel any better about taking lives. They probably had families themselves.
I felt like a monster.
And worse, I was a monster who had made love to the Devil. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed before, but that silent pony in the mask . . . a mask so close to what the Assassin used that I must have been blind not to see it. And I had ridden him like I was at a rodeo. I felt really great about that, let me tell you. I could hardly stand being in my own skin. And not because of disgust, either. Because I didn’t feel disgust at what I had done. To tell the truth, the horrible truth, I wanted to do it again.
We crept back to the whorehouse like rats returning to their holes. I don’t think any of us had anything to say the whole way. Even when we saw the smoke, we didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until we had come up on it, when we saw the flames erupting from the windows of the brothel, that one of us finally said anything.
“That journal was in there, wasn’t it?” Starshine asked.
Dirty Joke nodded. “Yep.”
“Do you think anypony made it out?”
“Do you see anypony on the street?”
There wasn’t anyone near us. Starshine hung her head, and Dirty Joke turned away. He was shaking. It was funny, because I had hated him for so much of our little adventure . . . but I don’t know why. When I saw him shaking and crying, I guess I finally saw who he really was. Better than me, for sure.
Dirty Joke turned out alright in the end. It was what he caught himself in, the cruel realities and ministrations of ponies more vain than he, that broke him. I never saw him again after that night.
Starshine and I eventually walked away from the burning brothel, leaving the work that had surely been Amethyst’s behind us. But, before we had gone too far, I looked back one last time. The last time I ever saw Dirty Joke was him outlined in the flames that crept into the night, like the final watcher of a fallen wall.
After that, we went home.