The World At Large

by ToixStory

Episode 3: The Dirty Joke - Part 1

We did it. Sex, I mean, between me and Grapevine. It wasn’t like I planned it, mostly. I mean, I did end up spending a lot of time with her and Scout, but I don’t think it was intentional. It more just kind of happened. See, with my leg going to back to normal, where normal was in intense pain if I tried to move it, I couldn’t very well bathe myself. So I had to rely on somepony like Grapevine to do it for me, you see.

The first time she bathed me it was all kinds of awkward, and she didn’t get my “parts” very well, and mumbled that it would be better to wait until Sterling was back to do them. But I could see her looking down there. Really, it wasn’t like I minded anymore. Why should I? My cheating heart was just looking for an excuse. I had slept pretty close to Scout every night, though I kept telling myself it was to make up for Shuya. I always told myself that after that fact, to make up for it.

Anyway, it was the second time Grapevine was bathing me that her hoof just kind of fell down there and didn’t go away. She stared at me, I stared at her, and then that was it. We tumbled in the bath and got so wet that we had to sit together in a big, old towel for fifteen minutes or something. Grapevine . . . she was really good, okay? I liked it a lot. Don’t give me any of that about mares not being into sex, either. If the partner is good, I’m going to want it.

I felt awful about it afterwards, at least. Not the sex, that was great. But the guilt about actually doing it with somepony did hurt a lot. I just kept picturing Sterling, sweet Sterling, and how he would feel after he found out. It didn’t stop me from doing the same thing the next day, and the one after that. Scout and I started bathing together. She wasn’t as good as Grapevine, but tasted better.

Why was I doing this? I kept asking myself that question, over and over, like a hellish parade in my mind that never ended. When I clutched on to Scout at night, sandwiched between her and Grapevine, I would think about it. I felt happy. So damn happy. I hated myself for it.

Night after night, I slept with them. Day after day, we did it in the bathroom. It was my life until my leg started to heal. I was on sick leave from work, after all, and Scout was homeless and jobless, so what else did we have to do? Sex between two injured mares is an awkward, slow affair, but it wasn’t bad.

Sterling came back about two weeks after I got out of the hospital. Apparently he had been to a big conference about his engine, and then had gone to Germaneigh with Ivory or something. He didn’t talk about it much. I didn’t say anything to him, but I think that, somehow, he knew. We couldn’t even share the same room since Scout was in the bed with me all the time, so he ended up sleeping downstairs. Grapevine still came over a lot, but she didn’t stay the night no more.

Sometimes I would think about Sterling and almost not go down on Grapevine or cuddle with Scout at night, but I never stopped myself. How could I? They were so warm, and they just knew what I was going through. They knew the pain and the misery I had been through, so I drew toward them. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. I felt real bad about it, too. Trust me. I still hugged him and kissed him and he did his damn best to make me feel good, but I went back on him every time.

I feel bad enough about it, okay? I mean, I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t want to hurt him. A few times, when Scout was out downstairs, we would cuddle and share the bed and I’d tell him that, boy, I just loved him so much. And I did. But I loved Grapevine too, and I was starting to with Scout. It was new, twisted love that was bold and brash and largely based around sex, but it was there.

So anyway, life went on in that weird mishmash of love and sex for a few weeks as my leg healed, until one day Starshine stopped by again. Well, she had stopped by a number of times during the time between Shuya’s death and that day, but she’d mostly just chit-chatted and hung out with us. I thought about asking her to join in the sex, but decided not to. It would have been too much, I think.

This time when she visited, though, she wasn’t acting all happy and playful. Her face was set hard as stone when she walked in the room. I was still laying in bed, and kind of tired from another cardio session that day. I’d been able to walk for some time, but all the stretches and exercises still really took it out of me.

“How are you feeling?” she asked as she walked in, shutting the door behind her. I was alone in the room, so we had it all to ourselves.

“I was on my feet for three hours today,” I said. “The stupid doctors keep telling Grapevine more exercises to give me.”

Starshine walked over to my side of the bed. “Well I hope you’re not too tired,” she said, “because I need to ask you something.”

“Yeah, shoot,” I said, looking at her wing holes. They never really grew on me, and I always couldn’t help but look at them when she came over.

Starshine cleared her voice. “You’ve been out of work for almost four weeks now,” she said. “Ornate Vision is going to want you to come back soon, and you’re going to need a new story for when you come back.”

“I suppose I will,” I said. “What about it?”

“Well, I’ve got a story for you,” she said.

I mulled it over in my head. I was in need of a story, yes, but the way she said it had me a little nervous that everything was too easy. Still, I decided to bite.

“Alright, what is it?”

Starshine smiled. “It’s simple. We report on Fillydelphia’s most popular sex hotline operator.”

“Sex what?” I asked.

“Sex hotline,” Starshine said, pantomiming holding a phone in her hoof. “You call him, and he is anything you want him to be. You have sex over the phone.”

I stared at her. “So it’s like sex . . . but you do it to yourself and tell the other pony about it?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Celestia, I was suddenly glad that I didn’t like using the accursed things. I mean, what was the point of talking to a pony if you couldn’t see them? Now ponies were having sex over them? Celestia, I don’t think I was ready for that kind of information. If I had been back in Derbyshire, I might have had a heart attack at the idea. Now, I was the mare sitting in a bed with damp sheets that weren’t there because I had been splashed with water, if you know what I mean.

“So what sort of story is there to do on him?” I asked. “I mean, this sounds like something you’re familiar with, so it’s not new or nothing. What’s the scoop on it?”

At that Starshine paused. “Well . . .”

“Well what?”

She rubbed the back of her head. “He has some ties with Amethyst, and he’s afraid that she’s trying to get rid of him.”

If you’d cut my hoof off right then, you would have found my blood frozen in their veins. My head felt foggy all of a sudden, and I wavered a bit. “A-Amethyst?” I asked.

“Don’t play dumb, Minty,” Starshine said. “You know exactly who I’m talking about, and why I’m coming to you with this.”

“But why come to me with it?” I asked. “Why don’t you go to Grapevine? Why do you want me to cover some sex line operator who’s in trouble with Amethyst?”

Starshine jumped up on the bed and stood over me. She was short, but could be intimidating when she stuck her snout in my face. I could feel her breath wash over my face, hot and tasting like grease.

“Because you and I are the only ponies here who are fit to do anything about Amethyst, and have a reason to. Grapevine wants nothing to do with her, and Scout is halfway in a coma right now. It’s just me and you, Minty.”

“Find somepony else,” I said. “Heck, get the Assassin to do this. I’m done.”

Starshine loped around on the bed, her hooves pressing into the thick fabric. “I thought you might say that, Minty,” she said. “I can call on you for favors all I want, like you did me, but I can’t get you to do anything. So, I planned a different story to drop if you don’t go through.”

“What kind of story?”

“The kind that reveals a certain newsmare was shot in a drive by aiding rebels against Amethyst.”

I started to shake. “She’d . . . she’d kill me!”

“I know,” Starshine said. “Minty, I quit my job for you, I offered time to train you, and I even kept the Assassin and Shuya from having you gagged or killed for finding us in the Heights. If you can’t do this one thing for me, you’re through.” She slammed her hoof on the wall next to me. “Through!”

Her hooves were quivering, and her breath washed over me in short gasps. She looked like she might either tear through the wall or break down crying, and it wasn’t a gamble I wanted to take. I didn’t want to die, either, which may have influenced my decision a little.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” I said. “Just for the story.”

Starshine’s smile returned, like a switch had been flipped. “Great! We need to leave in a few minutes.” She jumped off the bed, and reached into the hallway, then pulled in a green paper bag. She reached inside it, and tossed me what turned out to be a white sweatshirt with a hood.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“A hoodie,” she said. “Put it on. Where we’re going, either you want to be noticed by everypony, or not at all. The both of us fall into the latter.” She took out a similar piece of clothing in gray, and wrestled it over her head. It was too big on her small frame, and hung loose around her middle.

I had to fight to get my own “hoodie” on. The thing was bulky, and I had to pack my wings even tighter against my back to fit it on me. The hood hung against the nape of my neck, and two drawstrings down the front. It was comfy, at least.

“How do I look?” I asked.

Starshine snickered. “Like a marshmallow. Now, come on. I know you can at least walk.”

I sighed and swung myself up so my back legs were hanging over the side of the bed. I lowered myself onto my good leg first, then gently onto my bad hoof. I whimpered beneath my breath as my weight shifted onto the injury for a brief moment before I slid all the way off and balanced on my three good legs.

I followed Starshine out of the room with small, measured steps. I had to be helped by her down the stairs, but we did manage to make it down to the bottom floor of Joya’s shop. It was empty, as fit the early time of the day. It was only ten, when I looked at the clock.

Joya herself bounced over to us and smiled. “Don’t you both look adorable!” she said. “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to go for a walk in the park,” Starshine said.

She bumped me with one hoof, and I nodded. “Y-eah, we’re going to go walking,” I said. “The doctor said it was good for me to, uh, exercise my leg lots.”

“Alright, well have fun!” Joya said. “Good you two have jackets on. It’s getting mighty cold out there. Fall’s here now.”

I nodded. Before I had known it, the world had passed into October. I had been a regular in Fillydelphia for five whole months now, though it felt like a lifetime to me. At least almost two years. Me and Starshine said goodbye to Joya and made our way out the door, onto the sidewalk outside. Joya had been right, as a stiff, cool breeze blew over us and I was glad to have my hoodie.

I wasn’t sure exactly where I stood on the fall, to be perfectly honest. It had always been harvest season back home, and it hadn’t been a whole lot of fun doing it in colder and colder weather, up near the Germane border. But once the work got done, fall wasn’t so bad. The leaves falling were always pretty, and the way smoke drifted out of our chimney on a cool morning had something special to it.

In Fillydelphia, city of the factory workers, fall was just when the weather got colder. For me, at least, it just meant waiting for Nightmare Night and Hearts Warming while cranking out stories once again. I just hoped I could still write, after so long away from it.

Starshine and I took the trolley toward downtown. It was funny to ride it again, especially with her. She held my hoof a little on account of us having to sit so close on the crowded trolley, and I didn’t really mind too much. Sure, she had threatened me a bit, but she wasn’t too bad. I don’t know, I guess I saw a little of myself in her, but while I was lucky enough to have Grapevine, Scout, and Sterling, she didn’t have anypony.

It helped that I was feeling awfully guilty about the whole snug I’d given her. Whenever I looked at her back and saw the holes in her back all the way down to her spine, I felt a twinge of regret that I’d ignored her for months. She’d quit her job for me, and only for me to pretty much do nothing with her, except one time in downtown Fillydelphia.

So, it was pretty okay that she was going to hold my hoof if she was scared or whatever. We rode the trolley through downtown, stopping to let off shuffling ponies to be replaced by their similar-looking replacements. Things kind of blended together for a while, until Starshine pulled me up out of the seat and stood us in the aisle.

“Next stop is ours,” she said.

I looked around for where we were, and my heart practically skipped a beat. The buildings we passed were on their last legs, and looked like they were going to heave up broken furniture and junkies. Soot stung the air and plastered itself to every available surface that had once been white. Most of the homes had been converted to businesses of some sort, with neon signs to mark them: ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES, and XXX. I may have been kind of wet around the ears as far as city things came, even now, I knew full well what the last one stood for. What made me wonder was why exactly Starshine was leading me into that place.

I didn’t get a chance to ask her, though, as the trolley came to a stop and Starshine dragged me out. We emerged back into the cold in front of a rusted trolley stop occupied by a few shady ponies and even some stallion in a slick suit. It wasn’t hard to guess why he was there.

“So we’re in the underbelly of Fillydelphia’s underbelly,” I said, passing beneath the tightly-packed tenement houses.

“Hey, it ain’t all bad,” Starshine said. “At least there’s stuff to do here.”

“Well I guess I figured that a sex line pony would be in a place like this.” I looked around. “So where do we go from here?”

Starshine pointed to a leaning building just down the front of us. “BAR” flashed in bright green neon in the window. It was early in the day, but ponies were already walking in and out of it. The whole place looked like a stiff breeze would knock it over, but it managed to stay upright anyway.

“Do we really have to go in there?” I asked.

“We’ll be safe in there,” Starshine said. “Anonymity and all that.”

I watched a well-built stallion walk out of the building with a sneer on his face before stalking off in the direction opposite of us. “I’m not sure safe is the best word . . .”

Starshine nudged me and I followed her anyway toward the bar. The front door leaned against the frame, and its hinges were so worn that when Starshine pushed it, I could see the strain of the screws to keep it in place.

The inside of the bar was dim and hazy, filled with cigarette smoke and the smell of booze early in the morning. It was pretty nasty, to tell the truth, but probably better than seeing the place in the light. It probably was covered in more fluids than I wanted to see in my life.

Anyway, the bar was comparatively deserted, but Starshine still moved toward a booth far back in one corner. It wasn’t until we had neared the table that I realized a pony was sitting at it. He was a gaunt stallion with fur the color of worn parchment wrapped around himself beneath a thick, brown trenchcoat. He looked around nervously, tapping his hoof against the table and biting his lip. When Starshine walked up to him, he practically jumped out of his skin. He swatted away some midnight-blue pieces of mane out of his face and tried to smile at us.

“Oh, Starshine, it’s you,” he said, eyeing her. I was getting the uncomfortable feeling that he really didn’t want to have a look at me, and I wasn’t sure why.

“It’s been a little while,” Starshine said. “Had to come all the way out from West Fillydelphia for this.”

“Well I’m, uh, really glad.” He poked his head at me. “Who’s she?”

Starshine nudged my side. “This is Minty Flower,” she said. “You might have heard of her. Minty, this is Dirty Joke.”

He stared at me blankly. “Should I have had?”

“She’s a reporter. Kind of famous around here.”

“I don’t read the newspaper.”

I groaned. The way the guy looked at me, it was like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to scoot closer or farther away. He looked half-drunk, and like he spent his time in the bar playing pocket pool beneath the table.

“I’m the one that’s here to help you,” I said.

He nodded. “Right, right, and I’m glad for it,” he said. “I assume Starshine has filled you in on everything?”

“No, she hasn’t,” I said. “This whole thing’s been a wild ride this whole day, so would one of you mind catching me up on what’s going on?”

Starshine helped me into the booth, and I had to slide in next to Dirty Joke, which was really lousy. He didn’t smell too good, like he weighed twice as much as he did. Starshine kept her distance, and the two kept looking at each other like a cheap romance book, and I wanted to roll my eyes.

“Tell her,” Starshine said. “Don’t leave out the details.”

“Alright.” Dirty Joke cleared his throat. “I guess if you’re here, then you probably know about Amethyst. Well, see, some of the ponies that work for her have . . . urges. I provide them a service.”

“Right, Starshine told me,” I said.

“Yes, well, some of them get very blabby when they’re done,” he said. “I think they just want somepony to talk to, really. This isn’t a problem, normally, but there’s this one pony who kept blabbing all these secrets about Amethyst to me. Now, he called and told me that Amethyst found out. I try to come home the next day, and there are police ponies outside my door.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re in some deep crap for listening to a blabbermouth on the phone?”

“Basically, yeah.”

I whistled. That was a new one. I felt like Dirty Joke or Starshine would nudge me at any moment, telling me they were kidding, but if they were they didn’t show it. I nodded like it all made sense in a sane world and told him so.

“So why don’t you just tell us what that stallion told you over the phone?” I asked. “Could save us a lot of trouble.”

He looked down and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

“You’re gonna have to speak up,” Starshine said.

“I don’t remember, okay?” he said. “I usually just zone out when my client talks to me, and don’t really pay attention. He could have told me the combination to Fort Fetlock and I wouldn’t remember now.” He paused. “But, as a little bit of insurance, I write down what the client is saying in a journal and store it away for later.”

I sighed. “So we have to go back to your guarded apartment to get your notepad? You couldn’t have brought it when you left?”

“Well I didn’t know I would return home to find it guarded,” he said. “So will you help me? If I have that journal, I can keep myself safe with blackmail.”

Starshine looked at me. “There’s bound to be some stuff in there for important eyes. Marshmallow’s eyes. We have to do this, Minty.”

Oh, of course we did. The last thing I really wanted to do was go into some strange pony’s apartment because he was in trouble, but even I had to admit that getting at Amethyst was important. She was the Queen Bitch of Fillydelphia, and helping Marshmallow oust her would be sweet. It’d be some way to make up everything to Scout, too.

“Alright, alright,” I said. “We’ll help you.”

“Great,” Dirty Joke said. “My apartment’s not far from here.”

* * *

Not far turned out to be a mile and a half through one of the worst parts of the city. Somehow it always did with ponies in Fillydelphia. Same with the idea that I had found the worst part, then I kept finding someplace worse. Most of the apartment blocks farther into the red-light district were barely standing, full of chips and cracks in their sides. Hardly anything at all was intact, including the ponies.

Most of them bore scars of one sort or the other. The mares that stood on street corners bore a very different scar, one on the inside. Dirty Joke walked right past them without a glance, though I suppose he was doing their job anyway, just not so physically. I noticed that, when he walked, his hips swayed from side to side like a mare out on the town. It was a little unsettling to look at, I had to admit.

Dirty Joke announced we had arrived at his apartment building when we stopped in front of a crumbling building that was identical to all the buildings beside it. There were only small alleys separating buildings, and most were filled with trash and rancid water.

“Ponies live here?” I asked.

“The kind that consider West Fillydelphia upscale,” Starshine said. “Dirty, which is yours?”

The stallion pointed to a window near the top, four down on its row. The window overlooked the building next to it, and the alley below. It wasn’t a very pretty view.

“That one,” he said. “You’ll never get into it from the front, though.”

“That’s not what I had planned,” Starshine said. She nodded to me. “Can you fly?”

I shrugged. “Reasonably.”

“Good, let’s get up there. Dirty, do you lock your windows?”

“Windows can have locks?” Dirty asked.

Starshine just shook her head and nodded to me again. Feeling more than a little like a pack mule, I lifted the back of my hoodie and flapped my wings a little. It felt sort of good to have them out in the open again. Dirty looked at us all crazy when Starshine offered a hoof to him.

“I can’t go,” he said. “I’m, ah, afraid of heights.”

Starshine rolled her eyes. “Really?”

“We could fall!”

“You know what? Fine. Just tell us where the notebook is and we’ll get it.” Starshine sighed. “We’ll have to search through that pigsty you call an apartment, but we’ll do it.”

“It’s right next to the red phone in my bedroom,” Dirty Joke said. “It’s the one I use for, well, you know.”

“Got it.” Starshine turned to me. “You ready?”

I flashed out my wings. They made a whooshing sound, and I felt proud that I still had it. I had flown in little bits while recovering, but never quite all at once. I was still pretty confident, though.

I grabbed Starshine around the waist and began to flap, carrying me off the ground of the alley and up toward the window Dirty Joke had pointed out. She was heavy, but I managed to keep a good hold on her. It wasn’t too bad.

“You know, your form is sloppy,” Starshine said.

I grunted. “Well I don’t see you carrying us. When are those wings going to be fixed anyway?”

“They told me soon.”

“Some idea of soon.”

We reached the window, and Starshine pressed a hoof against it. With a push, it opened and I flew in. I damn near clipped my wings, but managed anyhow. I landed on a hardwood floor and looked around, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

The air inside the apartment smelled musky, like stale sex left out too long. We were in the living room, with a big bed in the middle of it with the sheets all over the place. Magazines were strewn around, many featuring scantily-clad mares, and even a few stallions. If Starshine noticed, she didn’t say anything about it. What irked me more, though, was the pile of sex toys near the bed. Disturbed me enough that I won’t even describe them. Just trust me, they were . . . nasty.

“And ponies have sex with this guy?” I asked.

“You would be surprised,” Starshine said.

I raised an eyebrow. “How do you know him, anyway?”

Starshine started picking around the room, stepping over bottles of lube and empty plates. “How do you think, Minty? Being a wingless freak without a job really takes it out of me, and sometimes I get lonely.” She looked around a desk next to the bed. “Sometimes I just want to get off without the whole ‘relationship’ thing.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

She stepped over the floor with the air of an expert, and easily navigated around the place, checking all around the bed for the phone Dirty Joke had told us about. The way she moved was almost like she was familiar with the place.

Then, I got it. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

She looked like she almost had a heart attack.

“No, I have not!” she said. “That isn’t any of your business even if I had.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t really object to her having a thing for a prostitute. After all, I was banging three ponies at once, only one of which I was officially attached to—I was in no right to judge. But just the thought of the stallion waiting for us going down on and into Starshine . . . I just couldn’t picture it, and I didn’t want to. Either he had a silver tongue or a mighty big cock, I was sure of that.

“Right, right,” I said. “So where is that stupid journal of his, anyway?”

Starshine brushed away some kleenexes from the bedside table. “I don’t know, he said it would be here.”

“Well, he did say it was in his bedroom,” I said. “Maybe there’s another room?”

“But the bed’s right here.”

“Would you really be surprised if a guy like him was quirky like that?”

Starshine relented, and walked toward a door on the far wall that had sat there all suspicious-like while we searched. I followed her over, still gritting my teeth when I put pressure down on my bad leg. Boy, what I would have given to have been back in Joya’s house, in the bath with Grapevine and Scout instead of in a dirty apartment in Assfuck, Fillydelphia.

The far door clicked open, and we walked inside. To my great surprise, the room we found inside was, to my great surprise . . . normal. The walls were creamy white, and a fashionable light fixture hung from the ceiling. Against the wall was a wooden desk with a lamp and red telephone on it. Next to it were a number of notebooks.

“Well this is a surprise,” I said.

“It is to me, too,” Starshine said. “He never took me in here.”

She walked to the desk and rifled through the gathered journals. She looked in them real quick, then grabbed one and loped back over to me. “Got it,” she said.

“You sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure. It’s the thick one with a lot of names in it. Now, come on and let’s get out of here before somepony figures out we’re in here.”

I nodded and followed her back to the window. Just as we reached it, I heard marching hooves in the hall outside the apartment, and from the sound of it they were coming our way. My heart started to race, and I spread my wings.

Grabbing Starshine against my chest, I practically jumped out the window just as somepony started to jiggle the lever on the door. I drifted down through the tight confines of the alley until we reached the street below.

I practically had to shove Starshine off me before I collapsed to the ground. She felt a lot heavier on the way back, but maybe I was just getting tired. My injured leg was real sore, but I could deal with that. Getting sliced up by the Assassin had hurt worse, after all. The scar now went almost unnoticed below my coat, though, compared to the bullet wound. That thing was looking to be permanent.

Starshine pulled out the notebook and Dirty Joke snatched it from her. He produced a satchel reading “Fillydelphia Times,” and put the notebook inside.

“Uh, where’d you get the satchel?” Starshine asked.

“Newscolts have remarkably stubby legs,” Dirty Joke said. “It’s amazing how slow they run.”

Well, petty theft—emphasis on petty—was the least of our crimes at the moment, and at any given moment, so we let it go. We resumed walking, thankfully away from the rat-infested hellhole that was the apartment buildings. Then again, our path was taking us right back to all the whorehouses and strip clubs in Fillydelphia, so I wasn’t sure which was better.

With the notebook now with him, Dirty Joke walked with a kind of saunter, like he owned the whole town. He flicked his tail around and showed off his tailhole like it was everybody’s business and we were lucky to have him. Or maybe he was just trying to make Starshine randy. You know, either/or.

The only thing somewhat normal in the whole place was Serenity, that drifted high above us. I could really start to see the meaning of the name, as the city floated above the wastes of the city on silent air, like a steel angel. I caught Starshine sneaking glances up to it, but I guess I knew why.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure whether I was enjoying our little outing. I was helping Starshine and all, and felt pretty good about that, but I had to deal with a new character who smelled like stale semen and who made me feel like I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kick him or pin him to the ground and thrust—I mean, bad thoughts.

“Good ol’ horny Minty, that’s me,” I said under my breath.

Dirty Joke turned his head. “I heard that.”

Of course he did.

Anyway, we showed up in front of yet another pink-colored building laced with neon signs and posters advertising sexual endeavors just beyond the door. Even though it had windows out front, it was hard to see inside. Dirty Joke looked up at it for a moment, then started to walk around back. We followed him, and I kept close to Starshine. The alleyways between whorehouses were even worse than the streets out front.

We came to a garbage-ridden back alley behind the building, with a small porch stoop that led up to a steel door. In front of the door was a burly zebra, with eyes hidden by wraparound sunglasses. He snarled at us, then noticed Dirty Joke.

“Hey, Dirty, haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”

“Been selling my ass out over the phone,” Dirty said. “Pays good and hurts a lot less, too.”

The zebra nodded. “Sure, sure, I hear ya. You ever want to come on by for me sometime, though, you feel free. Though I guess that’s not why you’re here?”

Dirty Joke pointed to us. “My friends need a place where they can stay.”

“Permanently?”

“No, no, they’re not here to work. They’re my guests and we need a place to hold up for a while.”

The zebra sighed. “Dirty, this place ain’t a safehouse.”

“I ain’t lookin’ for a safehouse, I’m lookin’ for a place to spend the night with these two lovely ladies, you got me?”

“Yeah, fine, I got you, Dirty,” the zebra said.

Dirty Joke smiled. “Good.” He waved to us to follow him, and together we walked inside to whorehouse.

I was mighty sore about him calling me a lady, and about implying that I was there to have sex with him—being horny and wanting it are different!—but I was most surprised at the place we stepped into. We walked into a spotless, if small, waiting room for what looked like a homely hotel. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and the wallpaper was real and everything.

A mare at a worn oak front desk smiled at us from behind pale green fur and bright red lipstick smeared on her face. “Welcome to Tailor Made’s whorehouse,” she said in a bright voice. “You got the dough, we got the ho’.”

I was really starting to hate this day.

Author's Note:

Roxxxaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanne (Put on the Red Light)!

Comments

[ToixStory]

No, I have no idea what I'm doing.

[DireCorgiKnight]

The only thing I can say about this chapter/episode is this:

YES.

[JustAnotherTimeLord]

3206224
Only one?

[DireCorgiKnight]

3206297
If I say any more that loudly, we'd be walking into clop fic territory, my good sir/madam.

[djthomp]

And then Minty cheats on Sterling with anyone standing nearby who happens to have a pulse.

*tableflips*

[Luminous Lead]

3206582 I hear ya DJ, I hear ya.

3204003 Maybe I didn't connect the dots leading up to this point but... she really fell apart in a big way. The casual "sex, sex, sex" thing that she's on at the moment is kind of sad to see. The rest of her behaviours have also been affected enough that if Changelings were a big thing in the story I'd suspect some of that involvement.

Or it could just be a side-effect of that super serum. Why didn't I think of that at first?

[ToixStory]

3207299
Oh, It's a side effect alright...

[Luminous Lead]

3207373 Yeah, I figured being shot, stabbed, beat up, locked up, doped up and mindwiped probably wouldn't leave the mind perfectly able to deal with problems in a healthy way.

[ToixStory]

3207377
Indeed, which is why you are correct in saying that it is "sad to see" her in such a way. Yeah, leave it to me to turn sex into a sad and depressing thing.

[Luminous Lead]

3207384 When characters/people treat it like a casual thing, it loses the intimacy and "specialness" that it would otherwise have. This IS a depressing thing. (so kudos for writing it that way)

The way Minty's approaching this whole thing reminds me of that time that they went out of town (Los Pegasus?) for the car show. She didn't handle stress and separation well then either, and Trixie called her on it. I can only hope there's someone who can help her see the light. She needs someone who cares and who's not already stuck horn deep into the situation.

[ToixStory]

3207403
Glad you caught the parallels with this and the Las Pegasus trip. Yes, Minty is a very poor handler of stress and usually goes out of her way to go overboard on sex and other cheap pleasures, as we've seen. Now to see who can snap her out of it.

[RoboRed]

Poor Minty...I feel sorry for her, but the path she's on right now is inevitably going to lead her into trouble...

3204003
Well, stick to what you don't know you're doing, then. I'm quite happy with it.

[ToixStory]

3272692
V is from the graphic novel V for Vendetta. V is what the "anonymous mask" is based off of, though the character in this story bares little resemblance as a character to V or Anonymous other than a few minor similarities.

[Rukashue]

I really, REALLY hope Minty dies soon.