Those Four Guys

by Kodiologist

The Ravenous Beast of the Wilderness

Gilbert ultimately decided not to ask out Magma—"I'm looking for a girlfriend who'd actually be interested in having sex with me, at this point in my life, anyway"—but Hearty Hooves was able to set him up with a friend of a friend. Gilbert walked into the fancy restaurant in the financial district a few minutes early to find her already there. They greeted each other and he sat down across from her. Her name was Evening Breeze. She was a shapely unicorn with blue-purple fur, big green eyes, and a long black mane. She wore a white dress that was sheer enough that Gilbert could plainly make out her cutie mark of an inkpot. Frankly, Gilbert thought, Hearty Hooves's description of her as "scorching hot" was seeming like an understatement.

"So, my friend says you make a living as a poet." said Gilbert, once he found his tongue. "That's super-impressive! You must be really good at it."

Evening Breeze smiled, and Gilbert automatically smiled back. "That's… not entirely true, I'm afraid. I also do some freelance editing work, and that pays a lot of the bills."

"Oh, ha, sorry," said Gilbert, realizing as soon as the words left his mouth that an apology wasn't called for. "But it must be nice to be your own boss." That's such a cliché. he thought. Why would you say that? Stupid.

"I suppose." said Evening Breeze. "I've never been the best at following instructions."

Evening Breeze ordered a buttercup salad and Gilbert ordered the chicken. The waiter, seeing that Gilbert was a griffon, brought him a fork without Gilbert having to ask. This was a classy place.

"So, do you work with any interesting characters?" said Evening Breeze as their food arrived. "I was a secretary too, not long ago, and I found that you learn a lot about people from taking dictation."

"Oh, absolutely." said Gilbert. "There's this ancient pegasus who's always having me slip in some gratuitous reference to his exercise routine." Gilbert imitated the stallion's plodding, gravelly voice: "'I received your letter from the mailmare as I was finishing my last set of wing-ups this morning directly before breakfast.' Meanwhile, his wings look like wet cardboard. The only thing he's gonna push up with those things is daisies, and we're all counting down the days." Evening Breeze laughed heartily, and Gilbert wanted to tear up with happiness just seeing it. Am I actually doing this? God, I hope I'm doing this.

"Well, at least you're having some fun there." said Evening Breeze. "Speaking of which, what do you do for fun?"

Gilbert licked the end of his beak. "Well, not too much. I hang out with my friends. See some movies, fly around. I don't have a cool hobby or anything."

"Me neither." said Evening Breeze with a sheepish grin. "You know, I've been trying to learn some magic tricks, but… it always just feels like more work, and when I'm done with work, I'm really more in a mood to relax."

"Oh man, I know just how you feel." said Gilbert.

The evening went on in a fashion that was nerveracking but also, Gilbert felt, one of the best dates he'd had in a long time. He liked Evening Breeze more than he'd ever expected to like a poet, and from the way she looked at him and engaged with him, he dared to imagine the feeling was mutual.

After some time, they were outside the restaurant and Gilbert was enjoying Evening Breeze's namesake. "Listen," he said to her, "I had a wonderful time. When can we do this again?"

"Um…" Evening Breeze glanced aside. "Gilbert, you're a great guy, so I don't want to lie to you or leave you hanging. Tonight was fun, but I don't think we're going to work out."

Gilbert bit his tongue. Internally, he was screaming, but he managed to say "What happened?"

"Nothing! You didn't do anything. Only I feel we're not the best match." There was an awkward pause, and she hastily added "Sorry."

"It's… uh… it happens."

"Good night," said Evening Breeze, "and better luck in the future. I'm sure there's a girl for you out there."

"Yeah." said Gilbert weakly as she hurried away. "Good night."

---

"So you liked her, huh?" said Hearty Hooves over brunch the following morning.

"Totally." said Gilbert. "More than I've liked anycreature from just one date. I don't wanna use the 'L'-word, but… she's got everything. Brains, a great body, natural sexy grace, a job, a sense of humor, down-to-earth. Just to have it all disappear right when I thought I had it. Ugh."

"Does she make your spiky little kitty-dick hard?" said Hearty Hooves.

"Please, please, please don't call it that." said Gilbert.

"Oh, what do you call him?" Hearty teased. "Li'l G?"

"I am not in the mood for this." Gilbert hissed, stabbing his waffle with a fork. "It's nerveracking enough to think that in order to have sex with a mare, I'll have to stay hard with a blunting condom on. And they're not 'spikes', by the way. They're called 'spines'."

Hearty shook his head. "Well, where do you think it went wrong?"

"That's the thing! I have no idea! She seemed so relaxed and giggling the whole time, and she wouldn't tell me what it was."

"You did kind of put her on the spot, brokowski. Imagine if you'd had to tell a bad date to her face why it was bad. Of course you'd say something vague about 'not being a good match' instead of putting both of you through the face-meltingly-awkward experience of telling her the real reason you couldn't stand her. She took a big risk just telling you in person that she wasn't interested, instead of sending a letter."

"I guess." said Gilbert morosely. "I… may or may not have given a non-answer like that myself, to other girls. Back when I was less desperately horny."

Together, they tried to guess where Gilbert had gone wrong, if it had even been something he'd done. Gilbert mentioned how he'd neglected to dress up (not having realized how fancy the place was), how he'd admitted to having no real hobbies, and how he'd gone to the bathroom three times. Hearty opined that none of these faux pas were really enough to change a mare's mind about somecreature.

"Let's begin from the beginning." said Hearty Hooves, who was now totally dedicated to solving the mystery. "What was the first thing you said when you saw her?"

Gilbert described the date in detail and got as far as "so I ordered the chicken" when Hearty did a double-take and said "You ordered what?"

"The chicken marsala." said Gilbert. "It was great, actually. Is that not classy?"

"Oh, my dude, it has nothing to do with class. You do not eat meat on the first date with a pony."

"M—meat?" said Gilbert, incredulous. "You think that was it?"

"I'd bet a million bits." said Hearty. "Buddy, you need to remember, we're herbivores. We like to think we're a tolerant people and we welcome all these new races in our land, but… eating meat is, you know, what wolves or bears do. Or serial killers."

"But… nopony's ever, like, given me a problem about it." said Gilbert.

"Of course they don't. We're trying to be polite. But it's still unnerving. And unicorns are usually the most conservative of the three races, you know. Blue blood and all that. Evening Breeze tried to be as polite as she could, and she might not have held it against a business partner or a family friend, but a first date, somepony she's just met and is now trying to imagine being around all the time, living with, sharing her body with…" Hearty waved a hoof. "You know how you don't fart around somepony until you know 'em well, right? Same thing, except instead of looking dirty, you look like a ravenous beast of the wilderness."

Gilbert moaned. "It's not fair. Eating meat is totally natural for griffons. Ponies don't get angry at real 'beasts of the wilderness' just for doing their thing, do they? So how can they hold it against griffons?"

"Look, I'll give you another analogy. Griffons feed their chicks by, uh, regurgitation, and the nipples are totally vestigial, right?"

"Yeah."

"You know that nipples are not vestigial in ponies."

"Yeah."

"So how would you feel if Evening Breeze had whipped out her drooping, lactating udder in the middle of that fancy dinner you two were having and nursed her foal?"

Gilbert grimaced. "In public? In a restaurant?"

"For sure. Foals get hungry a lot. You sure didn't seem to mind all those nipples swinging around in that dance club the other day."

"That's—that's not the same thing."

"That's what I'm tryin' to tell you!"

Gilbert sighed. "Okay. I get it. Great. What if I apologize to her and say I won't eat meat in front of her again?"

"Let her go, brostein. She's made up her mind. That ship has sailed. The SS Gilbreeze struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and went down with all hooves."

"Yeah. You're right." Gilbert sighed again. "God, what I wouldn't do for a girlfriend. Is that so much to ask for?"

Hearty raised an eyebrow. "How sure are you that you're completely straight?"

Gilbert's feathers were ruffled. "What kind of question is that?" he said angrily. "What is your problem? How the heck would I be 'sure' or not? Just because I can't get a girlfriend, I'm gay? I don't give you crap about your orientation, do I?"

"I—I'm sorry." said Hearty, shrinking. "You're right. That was uncalled for."

They finished their meals silently. Finally, Gilbert said "I'm sorry I snapped at you like that. I'm just upset about Evening Breeze."

"It's okay, bro." Hearty still looked embarrassed, which was not an emotion that Gilbert had seen him display before.

"Did, uh… were you coming onto me?" said Gilbert.

Hearty sighed. "I… well, I like you a lot, Gil, and we're friends, and we're both pretty horny dudes, and I feel like you're just going to waste, so, yeah, I guess I was hopin'. I think you'd make a great boyfriend, Gil."

Gilbert smiled a little. "Well, I'm flattered. Tell you what, if I ever change my mind and I want to experiment with guys, you'll be the first to know."

"Seriously?" said Hearty, looking up.

"Yes, I promise. But don't hold your breath. I can't remember ever being attracted to a guy, and I don't see how that would change."

"I'll take it."

"Anyway, I don't know about you, but all this moping about Evening Breeze has gotten me pretty horny, and I'm real bored of my porn. Wanna swap mags?"

Hearty perked up and grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."

Outside the café, Hearty said "Where are we going? My place?"

"Sure." said Gilbert, and they began walking. "Straight and female stuff only, please."

"Of course, amigo. Since you've got a unicorn on the brain, how about some magic-job stuff?"

"That'd be great."

"Any interest in clopping with me? It's a—"

"Hard pass."

"Lots of straight guys do it."

"'No' means 'no', Hearty. Or rather, 'hard pass' means 'no'."

"Ah, okay, you got me there."

Author's Note:

Why are griffons monothesists? Because "God" begins with the letter "G", obviously.

Comments

[WalkinOnTheSun]

Doesn't the stuff in Chapter 2 constitute a Mature rating?

[Kodiologist]

9972647
I don't actually know.