Awkward Silence
“... Dude, what?”
“I’m just wonderin’, y’know, Thunder? Like, you’re with a mare and she’s a unicorn, and you get things goin’ and she’s into it, and then instead of goin’ down on her she wants you to… y-you go up on her, I guess. Is that gay?”
“No, okay, Caramel, just… what d’you even mean, how is it gay?”
“I mean…”
“Dude, you’re with a mare. You can’t be gay and be havin’ sex with a mare at the same time. ‘S like a paradox, or somethin’.”
“I’m not talking about being gay. Like, just doin’ all that stuff to her horn, just the act of a hornjob. Is that single, like… separate act a gay thing to do?”
“We’re still talking about girls, right?”
“No, yeah, it’s totally a girl. Totally normal, totally straight thing other than that, but just—”
“All right, then you lost me. How is this an issue?”
“It’s not an issue, I’m not—”
“Dude, it’s totally an issue, you’re making it an issue by asking about it! What the hell difference does it make if you give a mare a hornjob if that’s what y’all are down with?”
“It doesn’t make a difference, I already said I’m not talking about anybody being gay as an individual. Li-li-like, me personally, I wouldn’t even not do it if a mare asked me to. I mean, it’d be kinda weird, but eventually it’d just be like, ‘All right, whatever, I don’t care, we’re just messin’ around, right?’ It’s not an issue, I seriously don’t care if someone actually does it or not.”
“The hell’re you askin’ about it for, then?”
“I’m askin’ about it because I-I-I… I’m curious, y’know? Like, I wanna know if it’s weird that I am cool with it. Because if you think about it, if you think about… y’know, what you’re actually doing during a hornjob, it’s kind of… it’s weird. It’s a little weird, right?”
“Okay, see, this is where you’re losing me. What is at all weird about it? I mean, I actually totally agree with you, I’d totally swing that way if that’s what a mare’s pitchin’ at me, but I seriously don’t get why you would think it’s weird. Like… it’s foreplay. It’s a warmup lap. You’re just doin’ whatever feels good to get you both in the mood. Foreplay isn’t gay, dude.”
“Wait, do you… do you seriously not get what I’m talking about?”
“I seriously do not get what you’re talking about.”
“...”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean, it’s… you’re putting your mouth around it and, like, using your tongue, going up and down and licking and sucking and shit, and it’s just… it’s phallic.”
“... What does that even mean, dude?”
“Wait, what do you mean, what does—”
“The word you’re using, the… phallic. What the hell does that mean?”
“It means i-it… it’s… it’s a dick, Thunderlane. A unicorn’s horn kinda looks like a—”
“What?”
“This is literally what I’ve been talking about for five minutes!”
“What the fuck makes you think unicorn horns look like dicks? They look absolutely nothing like dicks, Caramel! You ever seen a dick with spiral ridges and a tapered fucking point?”
“No, dammit, the point isn’t that they look exactly like… if I call something ‘phallic’, that means it’s reminiscent of a dick. Like, it symbolizes, by its very nature, something in the general neighborhood of dicks and/or what dicks are supposed to do.”
“So you’re asking me if giving a mare a hornjob makes you symbolically gay.”
“Yes!”
“... no.”
“What?”
“Caramel, you can’t be fucking symbolically gay, that’s not even close to how it works.”
“You totally can be! Thunderlane, it’s in the moondamned word for it! It’s called a hornjob, you are literally giving a blowjob to a horn! That’s absolutely—”
“Dude, okay, lemme just… dude, shut up for a second and lemme answer you.”
“Fine. Good. Please. At your leisure.”
“... Okay, that was gay. For the record.”
“Ssssshut the… fuggup.”
“Anyway, since now I understand what the fuck you’re talking about, here’s what I think about it: giving a mare a hornjob is not in any way at all gay, and the reason I think that is because at the end of the day all that matters is that you’re doing it to a mare. That’s it. End of story. Tip your fuckin’ waitresses.”
“So if you were giving a stallion a hornjob, then it would be gay?”
“Well, yeah, because it’s a guy. If you’re in the middle of foreplay with a guy, it’s gay.”
“But other than that…”
“Other than that, it’s just happy normal straight sex, and apparently neither of us care anyway so… why are we even talking about it?”
“I don’t care. I don’t. I would give a mare a hornjob, you would give a mare a hornjob, fine, great, we’re the… fuckin’ best at straightness. I was just thinkin’ about it all of a sudden and thought it’d make for interesting conversation. That’s it. No big deal.”
“All right, cool. Whatever.”
“...”
“...”
“Okay, but what if the mare also has a dick?”
“... All right, what the fuck is in this stuff?”
“No, I’m fucking serious, Thunderlane! What if she has a dick? Does that change everything?”
“Okay, so, um… Basic Anatomy 101 here, really didn’t think I’d have to break out the flashcards for this, but uh, Caramel? Generally speaking, mares don’t have dicks. Really one of their defining qualities, actually.”
“Well, what if she’s transgender?”
“Then she’d be whatever gender she’s… trans-ing into? I don’t know, don’t ponies usually switch all the parts around if they do that whole thing?”
“Some don’t.”
“Wait, really?”
“I don’t know, I guess… okay, you know what, different example entirely. Say you’re with a girl and you’re about to start, and right before things get going she casts a spell or something and gives herself a big ol’ magical schlong for, like, twenty minutes. However long you’re supposed to go for. Stars above, do mares even do that?”
“He asks, as if I know now or will ever want to.”
“All right, just assume that’s real and that’s what happens. So she’s still a mare in her head, still wants to have sex with guys and has the right parts to do it with, except now she also has a dick. If you have sex with her after all that happens, is that gay?”
“Is this what you do at work all day? Do you just memorize your delivery route and then spend eight hours thinking up weird shit to ask me when I’m too drunk to punch you for it?”
“I’m genuinely curious here. No judgment, no… weird shit. I want to know what you think about this. I wanna… I mean, we’re best friends, dude, so if you’re not cool with talking about this, it’s fine.”
“No, no, it doesn’t bug me like that, it’s just so… fuck. Okay, so gayness of having sex with a mare who has a dick, but is still somehow a girl… that’s the topic of discussion. All right. So in this theoretical scenario, are you dating the theoretical dickmare?”
“Uh… nnnnnno. No relationship, never met her before, just… random one-night stand.”
“Then I’m gonna go with ‘yes, that’s gay’.”
“Why d’you say that?”
“Well, okay, so think about what separates a gay dude from a straight dude. Like, it’s what you were talking about with symbols and stuff. If you’re fucking someone, you’re obviously physically attracted to them, right? Y’know, something about them, some primal herd-instinct hormone level shit, is giving you enough of a boner to stick it somewhere in said body and fire a round off. So if Magical Imaginary Dickmare gets you hard and the fact that she has a dick is part of what’s getting you hard, then even though it’s not technically a real dick, it’s basically the same thing. Like, it symbolizes the same thing that would be on a stallion. So either the dick is there and you bail on her, or the dick is there and you’re cool with it, and if you’re cool with it then I’m pretty sure that implies you’re kind of gay.”
“But it makes a difference if you’re in a relationship with Dickmare?”
“Yeah, if you’re in a relationship with her, then there’s some other stuff playing into why you want to have sex with her. I mean, there, you’ve basically said that you like this one mare so much that you don’t wanna have sex with anyone but her. So the fact that she has a dick isn’t the reason you’re doing it, you’re doing it because you love her and it’s something really personal and intimate you want to share with her.”
“So you think sex is an inherent part of being in love.”
“No. Kind of. I mean, it’s usually part of it if you’re in, like, a real serious relationship, but you can love someone and not have sex with them. Like we love each other. As friends, y’know? We’ve been tight since we were little kids, there was never anything sexual about that. I mean, not in a… relationship sense. We never wanted to date each other or anything.”
“Yeah, no, no dating. Just… super-tight best friends.”
“Exactly. So really, I figure whether you’re gay or straight just boils down to whether you’re having sex with Dickmare because of her body or because of her personality. If you do it because you love her and not because she has a dick, then you’re still pretty much straight.”
“So basically, if you like dicks, then you’re gay.”
“If you like dicks, then you’re gay. Cut, print, wrap it up.”
“...”
“...”
“Hey, Thunderlane?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Are we gay?”
“... No. No, not… no. Nah, dude, we’re not gay. It’s like I just said, the physical part’s the real important thing. Like, what we… I mean, earlier, that… that wasn’t about dicks.”
“It kind of was, though.”
“...”
I mean, a good… good bit of that involved dicks.”
“Yeah, they were involved. I mean, duh, of course they were involved, but the point is that wasn’t why it… I mean, if we were gay, we wouldn’t have done that with each other. We could’ve done that with any other random drunk stallion in town. Like, it would’ve just been a couple minutes, in and out, bada-boom, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.”
“It wasn’t really a couple minutes, though.”
“I don’t know, it wasn’t that long…”
“Probably thirty. Forty minutes, maybe.”
“Twenty-five tops, dude, come on.”
“Did come… I mean, we were… on. Each other. You were on me.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Inside me.”
“...”
“That’s kind of gay, Thunderlane.”
”I mean, okay, yeah, kind of. Briefly. But it’s what I said before, it’s a… it’s a platonic thing, y’know? Like, it’s on the same general level as stuff normal platonic friends do with each other.”
“Hmm.”
“Like, you know when a bunch of guys go out drinking together, and then at the end of the night they bump hooves, they hug, they jump on each other’s backs and slap flanks and shit? There’s nothin’ gay about that. They’re just friends. They’re comfortable around each other, and part of being friends is it not being… y’know, awkward to get all close together like that. Nobody’s looking at those guys outside the bar thinking, ‘Oh, they’re huggin’ it out, they must be a thing together’. No, they… I mean, even if they are together, it’s not the first thing that comes to mind.”
“Just like mares swapping clothes and sharing beds at sleepovers.”
“Dude, perfect example. Princess Twilight and her friends do that kind’a shit all the time, and nopony ever thinks any’a them are together like that. I mean, not that anyone would care if they were, but y’know, they’re... not. And they don’t even want to, so… I mean, it wouldn’t even really count if they didn’t want to, right? Like, if we… they didn’t like doing it. If it wasn’t, I dunno, good or anything.”
“...”
“So I mean, was I… it good… w-w-was it any good?”
“What, when we…”
“Yeah, I… that.”
“Oh no, yeah, it was… I mean, I don’t really have a real basis for comparison, but there were… I liked some parts.”
“Like, before? After?”
“During. Um, kind of… during a lot, y’know, like the… you on top, and with your tongue on the back of… right there.”
“Wait, I was kissing the back of your neck?”
“Yeah, that was… that was okay.”
“Oh, I was, wasn’t I?”
“...”
“Fuck, dude, that was really gay.”
“...”
“You know what? It was an experiment. That’s it.”
“Right, yeah, you said that before.”
“Yep. Totally it. Everypony experiments with shit, y’know? Mares do it all the time, why not guys?”
“I don’t think girls who are friends have sex with each other all the time.”
“No, they… dude, you know what I meant. They experiment all the time. Maybe it’s with toys, maybe it’s with each other, maybe it’s with fucking givin’ themselves dicks like your fetish or whatever.”
“I don’t have a dick fetish!”
“Well, neither do I!”
“...”
“We just… tried it out.”
“Mmm.”
“...”
“You did bring it up before, though.”
“Bring up what?”
“About experimenting. Like, that was exactly what you said before we started. Y’know, ‘No one’s gonna know, it’s just gonna bug us forever, I’ll go first if you’re gonna be weird about it’... shit like that.”
“So…”
“So I mean, you’re calling me the one with the dick fetish, but… it was your idea. You started it.”
“I don’t have a dick fetish.”
“Neither do I.”
“...”
“...”
“Any case, we’re still straight on average. Like you, how many girls have you been with?”
“... Four.”
“And you liked them, right?”
“I mean, I never… y’know, crossed the plate.”
“Wait, you never… how far did you get?”
“First… second base. Pretty consistent second base. And I guess my senior prom date went down on me, and I would’ve done it to her, but just… y’know, no good chance to.”
“Hey, no big. Same deal here, bro. Five or six girls, mostly doubles, one BJ. Same prom, actually.”
“Weren’t we together for that?”
“Oh shit, yeah, we were. At Cloudchaser’s afterparty. Dude, I think we were actually drunker then we are n—”
“No, like… in the same room. Like, right next to each other.”
“Yeah, I… yeah. So four different mares versus one… thing tonight. That’s eighty percent straight. Clear majority. And for me I’ll round up to six, so that’s… that’s more than eighty percent. We’re talking Bs, B-pluses here.”
“You’re saying I have a B-plus in being straight?”
“Well, a low B. That’s still passing, though. And I mean, think about it comparatively. I’m a squad leader on the weather team, and I got a C in Meteorology. I’m literally better at being straight than I am at my fuckin’ job.”
“I got an A in Meteorology.”
“Well, you’re not a pegasus on the weather team, so… fuckin’ doesn’t matter. I mean, you run deliveries, so… what’d you get in Physics?”
“B-plus.”
“Well, then you’re a fuckin’ nerd, and nerds can’t be gay. They’re too busy not having sex with girls.”
“Just like first-string hoofball players?”
“Fuck me, dude.”
“…”
“And you. Fuck you too.”
“... be nice.”
“You’re not being nice.”
“No, that wasn’t what I… never mind.”
“No, wait, what was it?”
“Nothing.”
“Dude, don’t leave me hangin’. C’mon, what is it?”
“No, it’s nothing, just… it’d probably be nice, y’know? To be gay?”
“Why, what d’you mean?”
“Well, no condoms.”
“Oh shit, yeah, you’re right. God, wouldn’t that be great if you just never had to worry about that?”
“Save a lot of money too.”
“Dude, no kiddin’. You know what else would be cool? You never have to argue about what to do each night. Like, can you even imagine the bitchfit we’d get from your ex-girlfriend if she saw us right now?”
“No, it wouldn’t be a bitchfit, she’d just kill me. Actually, she’d know it was your idea and kill you first, then move on to me.”
“Right, yeah, it’d be my ex who’d start throwing shit at the wall. And then dump me on the spot.”
“...”
“I don’t really miss that shit, y’know?”
“Me either.”
“This is nice. This right here, just us, free, together, doing whatever we want. It just feels ri… it’s nice.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“...”
“You know something, though, Thunderlane?”
“What?”
“This wasn’t a very good experiment.”
“How come?”
“Well, it didn’t prove anything. We didn’t have a control group, or variables or anything. We didn’t even ever really make up a hypothesis.”
“Repeated trials.”
“...”
“I mean, those are in experiments too, right? Doin’ the same thing a bunch of times and expecting different results?”
“That’s the definition of insanity.”
“Like scientists aren’t all insane.”
“Are we insane, Thunderlane?”
“We’re drunk. If you think about it, that’s about as sane as anypony can get.”
“...”
“...”
“So should we have a… should we repeat the trial?”
“Fuck no. I mean, not right now. Stars above, I don’t know how I’m not dead right now.”
“...”
“Maybe tomorrow or somethin’, I dunno.”
“Just whenever. We’re not scientists.”
“Definitely not scientists. But yeah, just… whenever.”
“...”
“Well, I should probably get goin’, then.”
“Later.”
“...”
“...”
“Caramel?”
“Yo.”
“I don’t wanna get goin’.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too far.”
“You live right down the street.”
“It’s too far to fly, though. I can’t fly when I’m drunk, my wings don’t… they stick out. Everything sticks out when I’m drunk.”
“I noticed that, yeah.”
“And Rumble’s at a sleepover and tomorrow’s the weekend, so I… I just fu… can’t…”
“You can sleep with me.”
“Really?”
“I mean, at me. At my house. If you want. There’s a couch or I… I can get some blankets or somethin’...”
“I really, really don’t wanna move, Caramel.”
“I don’t wanna move either.”
“I’m… pretty good right here.”
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
“You good right here too?”
“Move your leg and scoot back a little bit… yeah, okay. I’m good.”
“...”
“...”
“So that whole experiment thing… when did that end?”
“I don’t think it officially did.”
“We’re still experimenting now, then.”
“‘S what I figure.”
“So, just for right now… you are gay?”
“I guess I’m gay. And you’re gay too?”
“Sure. What the hell.”
“Hmm.”
“‘Kay, then.”
“Night, faggot.”
“Night, queer.”