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// February 17 [Hot Tub] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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February 17

I dunno why, but when I woke up I had the feeling that today was going to be a good day. I might have had a good dream (but if I did, I didn't remember what it was). Some days are days that just feel right, and today was one of those days.

I started with a quick trot around the neighborhood. I did stop by Aric's house and fly around in back and look through the window but he was asleep and he looked pretty cute when he was sleeping and I knocked lightly on the window but he didn't wake up 'cause he'd gotten up so early to get David out of jail then I trotted back towards campus.

I was already wearing my vest; I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing that sooner. It was a little uncomfortable to trot around with it on, but I figured I could get used to it. Humans wore clothes when they were exercising, so I ought to be able to as well.

Before I was even back to campus, I lifted off. I was just that enthusiastic to fly. It defeated the purpose of trotting, and I had to keep reminding myself to keep my hooves on the ground, so my trip back was really more of a set of long jumps.

Very long jumps.

I could have taken off from anywhere, I know. It just felt right leaving from the snowy quad. I asked the airplane controller for permission to fly, and he said I could. It was the deep-voiced man. I asked him if he wanted a weather report (sometimes I hear them ask the airplanes that are flying what the weather is doing in a particular place) and he said yes, so I told him that I would let him know once I got to altitude, and then I took off into the sky.

I love flying at dawn. I can see the world waking up under me, and it's so pretty. The buildings have yellow and orange and blue-white lights around them, and the cars make their own lights on the street. When I look above, I can see airplane lights all over the sky. Then the sun starts to come up and it lightens the sky and I can't see the airplanes anymore unless they're leaving contrails behind them. Soon enough all the pretty lights of the night are washed out and vanish. The cars appear, and the buildings do too.

When I crested in the sky, I made a big, lazy circle, feeling the air ruffling my feathers. I let myself become a plaything of the air currents, going where the sky wanted me to go. Soon enough I would have to return to the ground and sit through classes, but for now I was free.

Up in the sky there are no borders.

I let the solitude wash over me. I kept my eyes heavenward.

All good things must come to an end: a pony can't fly off in one direction forever. When I felt that I was completely relaxed and one with the sky, I angled up just a little bit, bleeding off my slight forward momentum, and flew in place. I now knew the sky and what it promised. I dutifully told the airplane controller what the weather was and what it would be, then I dropped down and did a big loop and a couple of wing rolls, picking up some speed as I went. I zoomed through the sky like a hawk, and just as quickly I reached an apex and glided out like an albatross, then I headed back to campus and classes.

My morning just flew by. Philosophy felt easier now that I knew that it wasn't a certain thing. I ought to have met with the professor sooner. I still didn't get the historical context: the classes we'd had back in Equestria had only covered the most basic stuff.

Lunch was pizza, and that was really nice. Christine still didn't like pizza days, but I thought that they were fine. I did have the good sense to pick more carefully this time and not overeat. A full belly is nice; a distended belly is uncomfortable.

In Equestrian class, we talked about Canterlot. The teacher named off lots of different monuments, and that was kind of funny because there were ones that I had never even heard of. I would have expected that I'd know more about Canterlot than anyone in class, but I was wrong. So it was a really fun class for me, as well.

After class was over, Meghan asked me if I was doing anything tonight, and I told her that I didn't have any plans. She kind of had a nervous look to her (if she'd had a tail, she'd have been flicking it) and she said that ever since I'd borrowed their bathtub she'd been thinking about how her aunt and uncle who lived in Kalamazoo had a hot tub and she wondered if I'd be interested in using it sometime like maybe tonight because they weren't home and she had a key.

That sounded like it would be a lot of fun, so of course I said yes.

I was going to ask her if I could invite anybody else to join us, but then I remembered that Aric had to work in the theatre tonight because the play was starting tomorrow night.

She was really happy about that, and said that I could come to her room after dinner and she'd get us an Uber-car.

So I kinda ate a light dinner. Christine looked at my plate and joked that I'd eaten too much pizza for lunch again, and I assured her that wasn't the case, and told her what I was doing this evening.

Joe and Sean both stopped eating and looked at me and then back at each other, which was kind of odd. Christine hit Sean in the stomach with her elbow, then she asked me how well I knew Meghan. I said that I knew her pretty well; we'd gone on a road trip together and that had been a lot of fun.

Christine told me to make sure I let Peggy know where I was going, and then turned to Sean and told him that he needed to get his mind out of the gutter which I don't know why she thought it would have been in there in the first place.

Then she put a pea on her spoon and flicked it at Joe and told him that the same thing applied to him as well.

I wonder if humans find us as strange as I find them sometimes.

When I was done eating, I stopped back by my dorm room but Peggy wasn't there, so I left a note on her desk telling her what I was going to do and then went over to Meghan's room.

Just like she said, she called for an Uber and pretty soon a sleek silver car called Elantra arrived. The driver was kind of taken aback by me, and for a moment I thought he might leave, but he opened up the car and let us in.

It was a ways to her aunt's house. I tried to follow along with where we were going, but there were so many streets it was hard to keep track of them all. We went south on Westnedge for a while and then turned left Romence Road, and then I got completely lost.

We wound up in a nice little neighborhood and the Uber pilot let us out in a driveway.

Meghan walked up to the house with me following. Rather than go into the house like I thought she would, she opened a gate beside the garage (that's where some people store their cars) and we went through the backyard. The snow was a bit trodden down, but not too much. This wasn't a route that people walked too often.

I followed her up a set of steps and to a small deck. There was a big wooden box which it turned out was the hot tub.

It was interesting being on the backside of the house. From the front, there were lots of other houses pretty close, but when I was here, between the fence and the trees, I couldn't see any of them. It looked out to a small woods, and in the fading light I could see a stream meandering through the trees.

Even before Meghan took the cover off, I could feel the heat. She asked if I minded if it was outside, and I said I didn't.

She opened the door on a wooden locker, which had a bunch of towels neatly stacked up, and then she took off her jacket and pushed it into a cubby. Then she looped up her hair in a loose bun.

I might not be an expert in human body language just yet, but I could tell that she was tensing a little bit as she reached up for a button on her blouse. She fumbled with it and told me to make myself comfortable in the hot tub, so I waded right in.

There was a little bench that ran around the perimeter, and then the center was deep. A human could have stood up in it without any problems, but I would have to crane my neck to keep my nostrils above water if my hooves were on the floor.

Meghan unbuttoned her blouse and took off her shoes and socks and then looked at me as if she were waiting for something, then stepped out of her pants and blouse and put them in the little wooden locker and stepped into the hot tub. She walked over the bench and stood in the deeper water and asked if it would be okay if she took off her bra.

I told her that it would be fine by me, so she reached behind her and unfastened it and pulled her arms out of the shoulder straps all while holding it to her chest. She sank a little deeper in the water, sitting on the bench, and almost got it wet before she pulled it off (still keeping one arm over her breasts) and put it on the edge of the tub.

Then she scooched just a little bit lower in the water and stretched out her arms on the edge of the tub and got a smile on her face.

I did, too: social bathing is always nice, and it was something that I didn't think humans would like at all. So I was happy that we were doing it, and I relaxed and let the water warm me up, despite the chilly air above the hot tub.

We stayed on opposite sides of the tub for a while, then Meghan suggested if we moved towards the center we'd be able to get a better view of the woods and stream. I thought she just wanted to sit closer to me, and she should have just said that.

It did make the opposite side of the tub look a bit lonely, and I said that maybe next time more people would want to come, but she said that it was more intimate with just two.

She took her arm off the rim of the tub and wrapped it around my shoulder, and I leaned up against her side and we just sat there together watching the silent forest. She told me that in the springtime, there were deer over there and bats and birds and there was a lot to see. I told her that it was just as interesting as it hibernated.

We stayed there I don't know how long. I was really relaxed and warm and happy, and she'd completely gotten over her earlier tenseness as well. Then it was finally time to get out and Meghan asked me if I'd need help drying off.

I told her that would be kind. I could shake a bunch of the water off me but it's always easier to get all the way dry with help.

So she let me get out of the tub first and I shook off as much water as I could, then she had me go to the wooden locker and get her a robe—there were several of them folded up with the towels.

When I had it, she climbed out of the tub. I gave her the robe and she wrapped it around herself and then she tied it around herself and reached underneath to get her wet underwear off.

Then Meghan started rubbing me down, until I was nice and dry. She was really good at it, and paid close attention to everything, having me lift my legs one at a time so she could get them, and toweling under my belly and carefully drying my tail as well. She squatted down to make sure she did a good job.

Once she was finished with me, she got dressed herself. She put on her pants under her robe, but had to take it off to get her bra and shirt on. She called an Uber before she put on her socks and shoes, and then she laughed and said that she hoped it wouldn't be too long before it got here.

While we were waiting, she asked me if I'd had a good time and I said that I had, and she asked me if it was something I wanted to do again, and I said that I would like to.

We snuggled up in the back of the Uber-car as it drove us back to campus. When we got back to the dorm, I gave her a nuzzle and she leaned down and pushed back my forelock and kissed me on the forehead, then we went back to our rooms. Peggy still wasn't back, so I took my note off her desk and was going to toss it into the recycling bin, but then I thought that if Meghan and I were going to do this again, I probably ought to keep the note. So I tucked it in the back of my notebook and went to bed.