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.”
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- TritiumAge00 · 16k words · 572 27 · 9.7k views
- Tailslover13 · 163k words · 542 85 · 21k views
- Cordovan Splotch · 9.9k words · 412 17 · 14k views
- GrimPInkamena · 27k words · 458 25 · 12k views
- Kelvin Shadewing · 27k words · 862 48 · 14k views
- Kayeka · 37k words · 929 27 · 14k views
- inoeitall · 24k words · 931 59 · 16k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.259 seconds
Total duration
913 users online
1,469,018 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Author's Note Ch. 8:
God, this took me way too long. I'm sorry ;_;
A great and hilarious twist!
Ow, my brain.
It's okay. I've got you beat by a couple months and counting.
I knew it was a dude. There had to be a twist there. Also, WHAT THE FLYING F*CK TOOK YOU SO LONG?!
1436296 1436299
I'm glad you liked it!
1436332
I rewrote the basic premise for this chapter... three or four times? Add to that how long it takes me to write normally... I only came up with this direction with help from friend(s) a couple weeks ago. I spent the rest of the time hating what I'd done with chapter 7 before I figured out how to deal.
1436367 Welp, feel free to hit me up for idea's anytime. I'm always looking to help people who take years to update stories.
I knew it!
This fuckin' guy.
imageshack.us/a/img37/5394/twistwhatathwist.jpg
I had a freaking feeling it was him! (Also, perfect time to use my brand spankin new twist img!)
Oh yea, wtf too you so long? WRITE FASTER!
*Cracks whip*
If its a re write why do the chapters take so long
1436386
Will add you to the list of people-to-bother :P
1436394
I always picture Big Macintosh as a riddle in an enigma. Kind of like, a normal guy who secretly writes pony fanfic.
1436409
I was not terribly subtle. But I did try to make sure nothing Sam or the receptionist said would definitively clue the other in to exactly what they were thinking the other meant. Oh, misunderstandings... Hey, if they worked for Shakespeare.
1436435
Only the first chapter was a rewrite. He didn't continue it past one chapter before it was pulled down (puller unknown).
1436442 Sweet. A sorta-famous-author from the internet will bother me.
Perfect timing on when you realeased this update. I just finished another fic and was sad to see it end when I see you updated and now I know how pinkie feels going sad to really really happy. Bravo.
LOL at last line
Also will the next update also took a long time?
Nooooooo
HA! Loved the chapter, so this was well worth the wait. Did you name the receptionist Key just for the puns?
As a very minor note, I was happy to see the grammar/diction was excellent, but that's just me.
1436451 Aaaaaaaa. When did I qualify as famous?!
1436474 1436490 I'm glad you both liked it. The next one will likely not take anywhere near as long.
1436520 Heh, that chapter does that to people. 1436539 Oh, yes
1436589 You caught me. I came up with the coat color first, then thought of the name and puns when I was trying to figure out what her cutie mark should be. And given my age and education, I should be horse-whipped if the grammar and diction ever aren't excellent, so it's good to hear I'm not missing much. nao, if rarertee wer usin teh wip, i mite chanje mi riting :P
1436449oh ok
Oh dear lord. Poor Sam.
1436626 When you got a story with 20k views in the featured box.
Ok, I will say I expected the masseuse to be male. I did not, however, expect Big Mac.
I read that last part and had to keep myself from waking my family up through laughter....damn you, this smile is hurting my face XD
Oh no... Oh NONONONONO
Glad too see you got the chapter up! And what a nice twist you added at the end.
My hunger has been satiated. Go ahead and take as long as you need for the next chapter, I know you haven't forgotten us.
Chapter 8:
and 
.
My face right now is a combination of
If I was in this situation I would not have asked for a massage(no bits) I would have waited and tried not to lose what is left of my sanity from shock.
Btw the RD scene I would have just blanked out
Also: MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I'll admit it, at many points in the story, I lost it. Bad. Also, when you start dying of laughter in the middle of the night, certain roommates tend to throw things. Heavy things. At your face.
oh
my
god...
was expectina a male
but him? ->
ooh lord my sides!
oh god get me the bleach !
1437368 1437051 More will come, don't worry. I'm not going to make the mistake of promising a timetable again, though. We all saw how that worked out...
1437285 1437258 1437161 1437013 1436781 1436688 Sometimes, I almost feel bad about the things I've done to Sam. And then I remember I'm jealous because he's in Equestria, and I make him pay for it.
1437185 1436984 1436883 1436858 1436833 1437142 I'm glad y'all are liking it so far! Not all of my friends share my twisted sense of schadenfreude, so it's sometimes hard to gauge if things are going to be a flop or not. I really appreciate your opinions and reactions!
Well, while I maybe have sometimes thought the story is going nowhere (no offense, just cause 8 chapters in, and still only on introducing himself and whatnot, though I've read others that've been longer and still on the same day for a matter of chapters, and am aware of things like plot development and such, just to be clear), it does tend to be portrayed as quite comical in a character being heavily misunderstood way, which makes up for it. Especially when compared with the original that I sorta read and only barely remember, after all this time.
After all, have read a lot of stories on this site. 
Pinkie's craziness sure made it convenient for Sam to quickly get himself into ANOTHER situation that's gonna be awkward. Not to mention everypony at the spa mistaking him for a girl! dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Vinyl_Scratch_lolface.png I can only imagine the poor guy'll be startled when he sees (or realizes) that it was Big Mac, which I did NOT see coming dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/sillyfilly_Twilight_Sparkle.png , and have an awkward explanation if his towel comes loose in getting away and reveals that he's a male. Though I have to wonder why the spa'd need apples to begin with... for their products or just for the workers? dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Twilight_Sparkle.png If not the fact that he actually works there sometimes, but suppose that might be explained next chapter. Anyway, hope to see another chapter before long!
Just shoot me a PM or skype if you want me to brainstorm with you some more
What the FUUUUUUCK?
I knew it was going to be a guy, but not Big Mac. What a
Lol did Big Mac get a hooficure too and then when they told him a exotic female was waiting in the massage room for him he did what any red coated stallion would do and go to investigate.
yes my friend I can't wait to see samshirtforsamuel's reaction should be hilarious.
....
Just when I think his situation couldn't get anymore awkward.
This fic is just a rolling snowball of awkward.
Sam ain't very genre savvy, is he?
1440002 That particular bit is actually him being genre savvy :P
1439838 Fluttershy is amazing. Without her, I would have had to change the rating.
1439758 Schadenfreude, my friend. Schadenfreude.
1439452 You sure that's not just the "I was imagining making out with RD" talking? :P
1438519 Nah. Big Macintosh is a weirder guy than that. Smarty Pants, anyone? NOT wanting a piece of Cheerilee?
1438310 1438193 Mission accomplished :D
1437926 Will do. I should be set for at least a little while longer, hopefully.
1437722 It will be partially explained next chapter, which hopefully won't take 4 months this time. The rest will be left to inference. As for still doing introductions... it's the only way I can get Sam interacting with characters who don't want to tar and feather him, at this point.
1437563 I'm glad you liked it!
/omnireply
YEAH!!!
its good to see your back
and the end
i see a world of pain...
OH SHI-
1436332
Things were going far too well for it to be anyone(thing) else.
Of course it was.
1437483
If you put it that way, I'm OK with that
lol fucking hilarious! ... so does he work there or is he just fucking with'em
O god, reading every chapter all at once just about blew up my awkward meter.
Loving the story so far though.
Ugh. I was hoping he'd actually get to explain things to some of the cast. I should've known better.
Ohmygosh omygosh omygosh!!!! You finally updated!!!!! This was one of the first fics I started reading and now two million words into my journey through the world of ponyfics it has finally updated!!!!! Please please please don't take so long next time. Okay... I'm okay now... *deep breath* cool I'm glad you didn't just disappear and leave us all hanging. That always makes me really sad... if you ever need any ideas or pre readers please feel free to hit me up, I love to help out with my favorite stories.
When he mentioned how strong the "masseuse" was, I knew what was going on.
Eeyup.