Predicament
“Are the knots secure, love?”
Hemp and fur and steel rustled against each other as Twilight Sparkle wriggled her hind hooves. A thick spreader-bar held her legs apart. She could only totter a half-inch in any direction before the ropes binding her to the bar held tight. She struggled harder, trying to kick away the knots and thrash out of them. Mere moments proved her efforts futile.
Twilight willed her legs to settle, a dark little thrill running through them. “Yeah, they seem, uh, pretty tight.”
The purple unicorn stood on the cream dais in the Carousel Boutique. A dozen full-length mirrors stood around the dais allowing Twilight to see her reflection from every angle, though they were for her partner’s benefit rather than hers tonight. A dull steel pulley system loomed above her with a hook dangling limply below, in stark contrast of the dainty, elegant decor of the rest of the shop. She fidgeted, and looked down at the selection of ropes and toys laid on a royal blue cloth, waiting to be used.
Just like her.
Two lengths of twine lay sprawled on the floor, tied to each of her forehooves at one end, limp in coils at the other. Her mane was pulled back into a pony-tail and this was wrapped into a bulky, softball-sized knot with thick hemp rope which ran upwards to the pulley system, dangling loosely.
Rarity walked behind her lover, trailing a delicate touch of magic over lavender curves as she did. She reached the wheel attached to the pulley, and began to turn. It clinked and clinked and clinked until the rope tied to Twilight’s mane was taut, and clinked until it pulled her mane upwards, squeezing tears into her eyes and tightening her throat, and clinked until she pushed off with her front legs and stood uneasy on her spread hindlegs, tottering precariously.
The wheel spun faster under Rarity’s hoof, turning the clink into a creaking whirr, until the rope between Twilight’s mane and the pulley was taut once more. The last few clinks came slow, forcing Twilight to stand perfectly upright on two hooves or dangle painfully from her tied-back mane.
Her breaths came in gulps and went out in shudders. She wobbled her front legs to and fro for balance, desperate to take any measure of strain off her scalp. The wet glimmer of tears around her eyes matched the sight of the slick, dewey slit between her spread-wide legs.
“How are the bonds? Nothing feels ready to snap off, I hope?” came a voice from below.
“Glhhrk.” Twilight coughed and cleared her throat. Talking while suspended so was new to her, and her voicebox didn’t want to cooperate. She tried again. “Good. It’s very tight.”
“Does it hurt?”
Twilight couldn’t tell if that was concern or lust in Rarity’s voice. She didn’t care. She tried to nod, and squeaked with pain as all the hairs on her forehead were yanked backwards. “Uh-huh. Good hurt.”
Rarity reached up and touched a hoof to the soft fur of her lover’s neck. “Shall we continue, then?”
Something went on a rollercoaster inside her, dropping into her stomach so hard it made her belly quiver, and then shooting up into a grin that she couldn’t even try to hide. “Yes, Mistress.”
Rarity’s eyes went down, and then came up alongside a devious grin. “Wonderful. Are you ready, my darling Twilight?”
* * *
“I’m ready. Wait!” Twilight paused, and looked away from Berry’s Bar and out into the streets of Ponyville. She made the most of her pause before speaking again. “Right, okay. Sorry,” she said, as if she’d forgotten about the unicorn next to her.
Rarity just giggled, covering her mouth with her hoof in that delicate way of hers. “Darling, it’s fine. It’s perfectly normal to feel like this before your first munch.”
“I know, I’m just... I’m being silly about it. I’m ready. Really.” Was that a lie? It felt like one. Her icy gut and leaden hooves agreed, and the constant, nagging anxiety behind every thought in her brain said she wasn’t prepared, that she was walking into social territory flagrantly different from the norm and therefore tenfold as danger-fraught, into a scene she knew nothing of but Rarity’s honeyed words, her sharp caresses, and the spicy little picture books locked away in her bedroom desk, all of those things mere sand and straw against the storm she was facing. If she was painfully honest with herself, ten years of careful study wouldn’t be preparation enough for this ill-advised dive into lunacy.
The rational part of her mind clambered over the ‘honest’ part: Preparation was a continuum. There is never a ‘completely prepared,’ and she knew that no time in the world would make her feel that way. There was only ready, and ready was thus: Twilight Sparkle, of sound and somewhat sober mind and in possession of all her physical faculties, was ready to meet the sex club.
Sex club. Element of Harmony and Faithful Student to the God-Princess of Equestria. At the sex club.
Sex club.
Sex club. It sounded sordid in the most abstract, general ways, and every specific way Twilight could think of made it sound far more sordid than even that.
She’d been intrigued from the moment Rarity had mentioned it. Even if she chickened out tonight, she’d be waiting outside Berry’s at the same time next week. There was no point in waiting. She was ready.
“I’m ready,” said Twilight Sparkle. She looped her tail over Rarity’s and they walked inside, through the busy bar and into the booths in back, where the Ponyville Omni-Knot Enthusiasts awaited.
* * *
The binder clips came first. Springy steel, glossy black, prized by librarian and designer both for their usefulness, prized doubly so by Twilight Sparkle and Rarity for their versatility. Rarity had a bucket full of them in her inspiration room. Tonight, she only needed two.
Rarity stood on her hind-hooves, bracing herself with one foreleg around Twilight’s neck and the other around her shoulder, increasing the weight and strain on Twilight’s bound, upright form and stealing another yelp from her lover. She pressed in close to her, white chest on purple fur, warm like cocoa on a winter’s morning.
Twilight strained to stay upright and not fall painfully slack against her bonds, strained to keep her head upright, already heavy and wrapped in burning muscles from mere minutes in this position, strained to stare straight forward when Rarity was pressed up against her, when those thick, springy coils of perfect purple mane bounced against her face and filled her nose with the scent of passion fruit, when Rarity rubbed her hoof soft and sensual along her aching muscles, when Rarity nuzzled along her neck and jaw and ear so close that every breath was flame, and each kiss a searing brand.
Two binder clips floated into Twilight’s vision, shrouded in blue glow. When her breath caught at the sight, Rarity nipped at her ear, eking a low, slow moan from the librarian. Twilight came to her senses, and the clips were nowhere to be seen.
“Remember, darling,” whispered Rarity, “It hurts more when I take them off—”
Twilight squealed from pain, from shock, as the clips crunched down on her sensitive teats.
Rarity nuzzled her. “Mmmnnf. How is that, love?”
Tears ran down velvety purple fur. “H-hurts—”
“Do you want to stop?”
Twilight shook her head, as much as the strict bondage would allow. “N-no, Mistress. Green, green.”
“Okay.” A kiss, just behind the ear. “Then,” a second kiss, a third, “hold out your hooves to the side.”
Twilight lifted her front hooves and held each of them out to the side, the thin twine dangling to the floor. Rarity caught the twine up in her pale blue magelight, lifting the two coils on the floor upwards like charmed cobras. Each strand looped over a pulley above Twilight, and then each loose end wrapped itself in a tight knot around the clamps on her teats.
With a few tugs and magical adjustments, each length of twine formed a taut ‘V’ between the bindings on her front hooves, the pulley above, and the clamps below. Twilight gave her front hooves and experimental tug, and hissed in pain as it yanked the clips on her teats..
Rarity smirked. “The joys of predicament bondage, no? If you drop your forehooves, you’ll feel it in those rather sensitive nipples of yours. Not to mention the work-out you’ll be getting, after all, how often do you use those muscles?” she purred, trailing a hoof over the tense thews in her lover’s withers and shoulders.
Twilight groaned. Her hooves had been suspended for less than a minute, and she could already feel the dull ache that came from carrying a too-heavy burden.
Rarity broke her embrace and dropped to all four hooves. Her silk bag of delights levitated itself onto the dais. Her voice came like sweetened espresso, thick, dark, and syrupy. “And how does that feel, Twilight?”
* * *
Twilight’s stomach was a nervous hole, and she was doing her best to fill it with gin and tonic.
Two tables had been pushed together in the otherwise-empty back room of Berry’s Bar to make room for the Ponyville Omni-Knot Enthusiasts. The air conditioning never seemed to work in the back room, and the day’s late-summer heat made the room sweltering. Pressed as she was shoulder-to-shoulder between a giggly Rarity and a chatty Noteworthy, Twilight felt all the warmer.
Noteworthy. Quilbur Davenport. Roseluck. Lily. Carrot Cake and Cup Cake. Matilda. Mr Rich—”Please, call me Filthy,” he’d said to her as she said hello. Garnet. Thunderlane. Flitter. Pokey Pierce. Cheerilee.
Twilight already knew most of the ponies at the table. She didn’t know if that made things better or worse.
“It’s good to see you here, Twilight,” said Cheerilee over the low chatter and clink of glasses, “We were beginning to wonder where Rarity was hiding you!”
Twilight’s mind went blank, grasping at the normal, socially acceptable response that could keep her floating on these strange seas. She swallowed and took a long gulp of her drink, draining half of the glass and nearly sending a wedge of lemon up her nose. “Haha—” laughter, always good, except for funerals, “—yeah. Um. To tell the truth I’ve been meaning to come along for a while now, but, uh...”
“Your nerves got the better of you every time, huh?” Carrot Cake had his elbows on the table, and grinned sheepishly at her. “You know, I did the exact same thing. Honeybun must have gone to half a dozen meetings on her own before I dipped my hoof in.”
Cup Cake giggled, an errant strand of her hot-pink mane falling across her face. “You haven’t ran for the hills yet, dearie,” she said to Twilight, “That’s always a good sign.”
This time, Twilight actually giggled. “Oh-ho, after two years in Ponyville it takes a lot to send me running. I mean, the only weird thing so far is how... normal everything is.”
“You were expecting more chin-dildos?” asked Cheerilee.
Twilight burst out laughing, and the pit in her stomach seemed to smooth over in an instant. “Y-yeah, something like that. I guess I’m not sure how to act, what’s going too far and what’s being too prudish. Come to think of it, I’d actually be less nervous if everypony was dressed in latex and whipping each other and pretending to be dogs.”
“There’s a time and a place for everything,” said Cheerilee, winking at Twilight. The librarian felt a heat run through her that had nothing to do with the sweltering room. “Don’t worry, Twilight, I’m a teacher and a top. I love rules and explaining rules almost as much as you do, so ask away.”
Her heart buoyed. The table’s collective attention had shifted off her, and Cheerilee was offering advice. She was being thrown a lifeline. A lifeline full of kinky, forbidden knowledge.
Twilight Sparkle did not squander such opportunities. “Okay. So, what’s out of bounds? Like, is there anything ponies don’t do or talk about at a munch?”
“Well, we’re in public, so no indecent exposure. Save that for the play parties,” she said, “Really though, a munch is a social thing. We talk, we drink, we see our friends and make new friends, same as any book club or night out with the girls.”
A playful note crept into Cheerilee’s voice. “That being said, this is a meet-up for kinksters. Sex and BDSM are topics that might show up more than usual. As far as what not to talk about, don’t worry. If there’s a problem with a topic, somepony will let you know and we’ll change the subject. If you have a real problem with a topic, don’t be afraid to let us know. We only like making ponies uncomfortable when they ask us nicely for it.”
Twilight grinned. “Duly noted. All right, then, more questions!”
“Ask away.”
“So, how did you get into kink? Well, that and the Ponyville Omni-Knot Enthusiasts too. And what’s an omni-knot?”
“Y’know, I think Pokey Pierce and the Cakes just added ‘omni’ so that the acronym would spell ‘POKE.’”
“Seriously?”
Cheerilee shrugged, and sipped at her ginger ale and whiskey. “Probably, I haven’t asked. Anyway, I met the kink club about a year before you arrived, I think?”
Cup Cake, who had been half-listening, said, “I think it was the fall of ninety-eight that you joined us.”
“That’s right, I remember. I’d been into kink for longer than that, but—Oh, the nachos are here!”
Three gigantic plates of nachos were piled onto the table by an increasingly drunken Berry Punch. Twilight had seen cart-wheels smaller than these plates, which heaved with corn chips, topped with great mounds of melted cheddar and scoops of sour cream, pico de gallo and hot guacamole.
The chatter of conversation quickly turned to soft crunching and little hums of happiness. Rarity ate a piled-high nacho, and then fussed away the sauce around the sides of her mouth. Twilight looked to her marefriend and looked over to Cheerilee, and they both simply nodded.
Twilight took a chip, and popped it into her mouth. It had just a hint of sour cream, and a long strand of cheese that clung to her lip. Delicious.
She didn’t know why she’d been worried.
* * *
She saw the blindfold, and something quivered between her stomach and her nethers.
Twilight had done each part of sensory deprivation individually, but had not combined them all at once, and not in such strict bondage. After the full kit was in place, she could only change her bonds through bluntly ending the scene. To make changes possible, each piece was applied one-by-one, so that Rarity and Twilight both knew that nothing was wrong.
The blindfold was thick, black cotton shaped like a filled-in figure-of-eight. There were no straps, straps could be such clumsy, inelegant things, thought Rarity, and no matter how much you fussed or how wide she made the blindfold, a glimmer of night would shine in from some angle.
The blindfold pressed onto Twilight’s face, and Rarity floated up a brush and liquid latex. In moments, the cloth was sealed over Twilight’s eyes.
“How is that, my little toy?”
Twilight grunted, her hind-legs cramping from standing upright, her teats throbbing with pain, and her forelegs already tiring and twitching. “P-pitch black, mistress.”
“Very good. I’m about to take away your hearing, and after that I’m going to gag you. To end the scene, flash your horn, and to end the scene when the blocker is in place, simply turn the blocker to dust. I trust you understand, and that I don’t have to explain it again more slowly?”
Twilight nodded. Rarity prodded her with a hoof, sending her teetering against her bonds, making her gasp with pain as the clamps pulled at her teats and her straining muscles went through more stress.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Mistress! I understand, Mistress!”
“Wonderful.”
The earplugs came next.
They weren’t really earplugs at all. Even the best earplugs couldn’t block all sound out, and headphones filled with white noise seemed so brutish. What Rarity had instead was a very special bottle of eardrops. She slipped the dropper into Twilight’s ear and pushed the viscous liquid in, drip by drip, until it pooled up dark and shiny at the edge of her earhole. A moment later, Rarity had filled Twilight’s other ear.
A shimmer came across Rarity’s horn, and the liquid changed into something that was almost jelly. It sealed thick across Twilight’s eardrum, absorbing and dissipating every vibration that entered.
Twilight’s ears screamed with silence.
She saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt only what her Mistress wished her to feel.
Twilight felt herself wink.
A hoof slipped across her lips, and she obediently opened up.
A ring-gag, this time. It forced her mouth open wide, tongue lolling out, cheeks pulled and jaw stretched. The plastic ring slipped between her teeth, and with a click of the buckle it locked into place. She couldn’t move her head for the ropes suspending her by her mane, and so saliva pooled in her mouth. Soon Twilight Sparkle, scientist, librarian, and Element of Magic, would be drooling over herself.
She might have said something like ‘Glahh,’ but of course she couldn’t hear herself any more.
She felt a soft fetlock trail over her horn, and steeled herself for the plunge to come.
The blocker-ring slipped over her horn, and she nearly destroyed it from the shock alone.
Magic was more than simple spells and incantations to Twilight. She could feel the very aether, hear the echoes of spells being cast halfway across Ponyville, sensed the ebbs and flows of all magic around her both ambient and directed. Between her skill and her knowledge, magic was a second sight.
The blocker ring replaced it with pure nothing.
There was panic, but not terror. Twilight could remove the ring if she wished. Princess Celestia had taught her how to overpower such devices when she was twelve years old. Those had been military-grade blocker rings, not a cheap commercial one like this.
She tried to control her breathing, to will herself calm.
Rarity pushed a hoof between Twilight’s legs, into her soaking wet sex and Twilight squealed and her legs shuddered and gave out and she squealed louder, harder as her weight dragged against her bound mane and felt like it was pulling her scalp off and her forehooves twitched as Rarity rubbed her so softly and the pain melted into the heat that ran through her burned through her made her melt made her forehooves into jelly made them twitch and drop and pull her nipples and make squeals and grunts that she couldn’t hear only feel sex and pain and Rarity and sex and Rarity—
* * *
Twilight laughed so hard that her lungs ached.
She had learned so much over the past few hours. She had learned, for example, that Filthy Rich’s dry humor and comic timing could put many comedians to shame. She had learned that Thunderlane, young, athletic, effortlessly charming, had an arrangement of sorts with Carrot Cake, one which Cup Cake was quite content to watch. She had seen several mares that she’d never even considered romantically in a rather different light, and had little shivers at the thought of Matilda pushing her head downwards between her thighs, or Cup Cake’s teeth on the back of her mane. She had learned of Harness Hang Syndrome, of the importance of garden shears, of recipes for roast squash, and uses both culinary and otherwise for the common cucumber.
The mountains of nachos had dwindled to plains of crumbs. The warm bar air and the strong drink had brought a heavy, sluggish, relaxed feeling over the tables. Twilight now openly leaned against Rarity, rubbing her ear up underneath the white unicorn’s chin as a cat would. Thunderlane was sandwiched between the Cakes, Matilda had perched herself on Filthy Rich’s lap while she whispered into his ear, and at the far end of the tables, Roseluck’s storytelling caught the rapt attention of Quilbur, Lily, and Pokey Pierce. Berry Punch had rang the bell for last orders five minutes ago, and now Cheerilee returned with the final round of drinks.
It had been a wonderful evening, and Twilight Sparkle wished she’d came sooner.
* * *
Rarity played her body like a conductor.
Twilight moaned, hearing nothing, only feeling the vibration as it travelled through her body. Her chin, chest and stomach, all the way down to her teats, were covered in wet trails of saliva, all drooling from the ring gag. She twitched and writhed, run through with so much pain and exhaustion and terror and sheer exhilaration that she couldn’t tell one from the other. The clamps on her nipples thrummed, pulled to-and-fro by every errant shake of her fores, weak from exhaustion. Each drop of pain seemed to cause another twitch, and each twitch brought more pain.
She had been flogged. She had been caned. She had been pleasured with the tip of the cane, and then forced to lick it clean of her juices. She had each nipple clamp removed, the teat suckled and nursed by her Mistress as shock and fire bloomed through newly-bloodened nerves, and then re-clamped. She had a vibrator pushed hard against her slit, held there for so long that a tide of orgasms flowed over her, held until she went slack in her bonds even against the pain in her scalp and in her teats, simply because she couldn’t summon the presence of mind to right herself. She had been buried under an avalanche of pure sensation, and could not tell which way was up.
She whimpered as the clamps were removed once more. This time, a tingle of magic went over them, numbing the worst of the pain, and hooves caressed her fores, gently guiding them down to her sides. With a click, the ring gag came unbuckled and then slipped from between her teeth. Another pulse of magic, and her ears filled with the roar of sound.
“How are you feeling, lover?”
“K-kiss...”
Rarity’s lipped pressed against hers, soft and warm against chapped and trembling. As a peek of tongue slipped inside, more bonds untied themselves. The tension disappeared from her scalp as the rope went slack. The spreader bar clanked to the floor. The blindfold fell away.
Rarity slowly guided her back to all fours, and then to a pile of pillows beyond the dais. Twilight could barely move. There didn’t seem to be a thought in her head, and all sensations paled to the ones she had just experienced. All she could feel was the warmth of pure catharsis.
Rarity fed her water and cuddled her from behind, and all they felt was the purest happiness.