> Hot Harvest
>  by Captain_Hairball
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Outstanding in Their Field
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was too damn hot. I don’t get those weather ponies. Autumn is supposed to be cool, so we can get the harvest in without getting heat stroke. So what did they do? They made it hot as August in the middle of October. It didn’t make sense. I had half a mind to go up to that lush Rainbow Dash and give her a talking to. But it wouldn’t have done any good. Talkin’ ain’t never done nobody any good. You just gotta do the best with what you’re given.

At least the sun was going down. It’d cool off a little, soon.

Caramel dragged an bushel of apples up to our cart, and tossed it in near the back. “Cart’s full, Boss. You wanna take it to the barn?”

“Eyup.”

I had a look at the apples, checking they were packed properly. Poked the cart a few times, just to make sure they weren’t gonna roll out while I was pulling 'em. Then I slid into the yoke, buckled myself in, and started walking.

Caramel walked along next to me. We’d both sweated barrels in the hot weather, and the rich, metallic, rugged smell of the sturdy little guy was making my cock stir in its sheath.

Caramel glanced down at my belly, and then grinned up at me. “You need any help, Boss?”

“Nope.” I grinned. This was a one horse hitch; there wasn’t room for him, unless he wanted to walk underneath me. Maybe that was what he wanted. I wouldn’t mind.

He trotted out a little way front of me. Hot or not, it was a beautiful day. The sun was bright, the birds were singing, there was the faintest tease of a cool breeze now and then. The leaves had changed, but hadn’t been taken down yet, and they looked nice against the clear blue sky. Caramel was a pretty sight at this angle, too. I didn’t much care for the girly way he wore his mane and tail, but he had a nice plot on him — I could watch the muscles shift and twist under his horseshoe cutie mark all the way back to the barn.

So I started watching. “Hey Caramel. How’d you get that horseshoe cutie mark, anyway?”

“‘Cause I’m always gettin’ lucky!” He lifted his tail at me, showing me his balls and his little ponut. He waggled them teasingly, then he took off running.

Did he think he could outrun me just because I was pulling a cart? I took off right after him. The cart bounced and shivered behind me, its old wooden sides not liking the little jog I was taking us on. And maybe we lost an apple or two. But it held together.

Now, I ain’t no coltcuddler. Let’s get that straight. But I’m a healthy stallion. I got appetites. Cheerilee don’t understand that. She thinks we ought to save ourselves, to make it special when we’re married. Like I’m even ready to get married. Sure, one day I wanna settle down and have some foals — nice tough little colts and fillies to help me run the farm. And Cheerilee’d make a good mom for ‘em. But there’s just too many fine flanks in the world that I wanna get to know better, first. And I don’t think I’ll ever get to know Caramel’s flanks well enough.

He was waiting for me when I pulled up to the gate.

Caramel grinned at me as I shuffled through. “Winded, Boss?”

“Nope,” I lied. Running with that cart was maybe a little harder than I’d anticipated.

Caramel helped me unhitch, his teeth tugging at the fur of my chest as he threaded the strap out of the buckle. It made the hair of my mane stand on end. “Should we unpack? It is it gettin’ late.”

I shook myself out like a dog, getting some of the sweat out of my fur. “Nope. It’ll keep.”

Caramel looked at me with wicked thoughts in his eyes. “Anything else you want me to do, now?”

“Eyup. Get the lube.” And I nipped him on the plot.

The little stud grinned, and bolted off to where we keep the stuff for when the cows are calving. I stretched, and stepped into the darkness of the barn. AJ and Apple Bloom were out in the south field; we should have half an hour or so before they got back. And Granny was usually busy with dinner about this time.

So I stood around, chewing a piece of straw, and thought about putting my dick in Caramel’s ass until he trotted back with a bucket of birthing goo in his mouth. AJ had had Twilight mix that stuff up for us special, and it was damn near miraculous when you needed to get large objects through tight openings.

I was good and hard from my little think, so Caramel set to work rubbing that stuff all over my cock with his hooves. I shuddered, feeling those soft, leathery hooves gliding over me. Nice thing about stallions is, they know what feels good to another stallion. And what doesn’t. So he makes sure my flare is nice and sloppy, but he’s gentle with the balls. Real gentle. He lubes ‘em up too, though. Not that we need it; I just like the way it feels.

“Ready Boss,“ he said, soft and sexy like the girl he ain’t. I snorted, shoved him over towards the back corner of the barn, and pushed my forehead up under his tail, knocking him down so his head was in the hay and his ass was in the air. Now, like I said, I’m not a coltcuddler, but I do like me a nice wide, hard ass and a big ol’ pair of balls, and Caramel has got both. I nuzzled those balls, inhaling deep, smelling the sweet sweat on ‘em. I slid out my tongue, and weighed one with it — nice and full and sloshy with cum.

“Oh Boss. Please don’t stop,” Caramel moaned. And I didn’t really want to. But we only had so much time, and I don’t like to feel hurried. So I gave that hard, sweet stallion ass a couple of nips that he’d feel for a week, and stepped up over him. I bumped my flare up against his rear, nudging it in between his cheeks, feeling the soft fur and softer skin against my hard cock.

“A little higher, Boss.”

I grunted, and pushed up a bit, and he gave a deep, shuddering moan, and I was in that tight backside.

I like stallions. I like mares, too, mind you — they’re soft and sweet and you don’t need near as much lube, at least not if you’re goin’ in the way nature intended. But with stallions, I don’t have to hold back as much. I flexed my thighs, and pushed, pressing myself deep into Caramel’s insides. He moaned into the hay, trying to muffle his voice so Granny Smith didn’t hear. No takin’ it slow, no bein’ gentle. Caramel was a good little farmhoof, and I knew from long experience he could take anything I could dish out. I bore down on him, driving into his hot, silky guts, deeper than I’d dare with any mare. I shoved into him until my balls were lying on top of his, and then kept hammering with short little thrusts.

Caramel gasped into the hay, sweat matting his fur, eyes rolling to look back at me. “Boss… you’re gonna break me… I love it. Feels so good. Don’t stop…”

“Ain’t gonna stop ’til I’m good and ready.” I grinned down at the sweaty fur of his neck and cheek. I noticed my thrusting was pushing him through the hay, so I pushed a little harder, shoving him forward a full four hooves until his head was banging up against the barn wall with a series of reverberating, hollow thumps, and pretty soon I started to feel that familiar boiling in my balls.

“Oh Boss! Oh Boss! You fuck me so good Boss! So good and deep!”

And I came. The white hot feeling burned through my body, followed quickly by the satisfying feeling of my balls unloading, shooting what felt like a gallon of jizz into the colt’s ass.

I began to pull out, nice and slow — I’m pretty tender after I come, and of course it hurts like tartarus if somebody pulls out of your ass too fast. Not that I’d know, but that’s what they tell me. I’m no coltcuddler.

“Can I suck myself off, Boss?”

“Eyup. Soon as I’m out.” Caramel’s a long little fella. And flexible. He rolled onto his side, and bent around until he could put his lips over the end of his pulsing, drooling flare. He nestled his hooves up against it on either side, and started bobbing his head as fast as he could. Watching him was making my cock starting to get hard again already.

He could only take the first few inches lying on his side like this, so I decided to be a pal and roll him upright with my hoof, so he could go a little deeper, and so I could see his plot better. He was curled up almost double, his head pressed into the hay a hoof or so from his rear hooves.

I leaned in to lick his balls again. They were even fuller than when we started; the skin almost taut. I could smell my own cum inside his ponut. I ran my tongue over his taint the way he likes, and that was enough for him. With a grunt and a gurgle, he was shooting in his own mouth.

I laughed, and nudged him on the plot with my nose so hard that he lost his balance. He landed in the hay, and his dick popped out of his mouth and started spraying his nose and cheeks.

Caramel just beamed up at me. He was really cute with streaks of cum all over his face. “You’re hard again.”

“Eyup.”

He reached a hoof out greedily for my dick. “I need more cum. I wanna suck it.”

So I stepped over his face, and he took me into his mouth. The warm sweet feeling of the inside of his mouth slid up the first few hooves of my dick. He didn’t even seem to mind that it’d just been up his ass. I ain’t no coltcuddler, but this colt? I could keep him forever.

“Applejack, it’s that weird smell again!”

Fuck me sideways. They’re home early! The thought of my sisters seein’ me like this made me instantly floppy. Caramel hopped to his hooves, his own cum dripping from his chin, his eyes wide.

“Wash up,” I rumbled, “I’ll stall ‘em.” Caramel bolted, and I took a deep breath and stepped up to the barn door. My dick was still hanging out, but if they said anything, I’d just tell ‘em I’d been taking a piss. Hopefully the fillies wouldn’t spend too long looking at their brother’s dick anyway. I leaned casually against the doorframe and watched AJ pull the cart up, Apple Bloom sitting on the edge of the wagon munching a honey crisp. She looked over at me, then immediately started cracking up laughing. I glared at her.

“Hot damn, Big Mac. You’re huge! Is that your dingle, or you have a firehose up your ass?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Hey, why are you so shiny?”

Applejack snapped, “Apple Bloom! You go get washed up for dinner RIGHT NOW. Your brother and I have to have a talk.”

“Yes’m,” Apple Bloom squeaked, and bolted for the farmhouse.

Applejack let herself out of her harness, and stepped over to me. She looked me straight in the eye, and I looked right back. Totally calm. Eyup.

“How was the buckin’? Good?” she asked, craning her neck to look behind me in the barn.

“Eyup.”

“And after the buckin’ was done, there wouldn’t have happened to have been any shenanigans, would there? Especially not any shenanigans I would be morally obligated to tell Cheerilee about?”

“Nope.”

“‘Cause my nose is tellin’ me shenanigans. Smelly, sweaty, stallion shenanigans. The sort of thing that oughtn’t be goin’ on at a workin’ farm. But I know my own brother wouldn’t lie to me. Right?”

“Nope.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes at me. “Well. If you find out that there were any of those kind of shenanigans going on around here, I’d ask you to pass along the word to those involved that they ought’a take more care that Apple Bloom don’t see ‘em. She’s too young to be exposed to that sort of thing. Understand?”

“Eyup.”

My sister turned and trotted away, head up and neck stiff, all prim and proper. I just grinned. What was she going to do? Fire me? I work hard. I deserve a good tumble when I want one. No use tellin’ her that, though. Talkin’ never did nobody any good.

Then I remembered what she said about telling Cheerilee, and the bottom fell out of my stomach. It ain’t right — element of honesty or not, family oughtn’t rat out family that way. But she might do it, just the same. And then there’d be tartarus to pay. No wedding, no foals, no funny schoolteacher to make me laugh every day for the rest of my life.

Nothing I could do about it if Applejack decided to go that way, though. So I shook my head and went in for supper.

———

We had a good supper. Haypie and apple fritters. After dinner, Caramel and I took a jug of cider out to the hillside to look at the stars.

“You think they’re evil?”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“The stars, I mean. The scriptures say they helped Nightmare Moon escape. Lots of ponies say they mean us all ill, and it’s only ‘cause they’re so far away that we’re safe from them.”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right. I mean, by lettin’ Nightmare Moon free, they gave Twilight the chance to bring Luna back, right?”

I shook my head again. “Nope.”

Caramel gave me a funny look like I had better explain myself.

I took a deep breath. “I recon the stars ain’t good nor evil. They just are what they are. If they let Nightmare Moon go, then it was just them bein’ stars, and doing what stars do. Same reason they shine at night. They are what they are.”

Caramel nodded.

“Ponies are like that, too,” I finished, and took a swig of cider. All that talking made my throat hurt.

“Well,” said Caramel, rolling over so that he was reclining with his head near my belly. “If that’s the case, then what I am is a pony who likes to suck big stallion dicks. And I didn’t get to finish you, this afternoon.”

I grinned. “Eyup.”

I lay back in the grass, hooves tucked up near my chest, legs splayed, all spread out like a centerfold in a magazine. I watched Caramel nuzzle and kiss his way across my thigh and side, and then worm his muzzle up underneath my rapidly hardening cock. He flipped his head, flopping my dick up and in his general direction, and caught it in his mouth, like Winona’ll do with a biscuit if you lay it on her snout. I shivered all over as I felt his warm, hot mouth wrap around my flare. His leathery hooves wrapped around the base of my cock, holding it steady as he bobbed on the end, going deeper and deeper with every stroke. I was always amazed how much of me he could take — Apple Bloom was right about my dick; it does look like a fire hose, but from the right angle, Caramel can swallow fully half of it, and that’s almost as much of it as I can get in even the biggest mare’s pussy.

I reached out and wrapped my left hoof around Caramel’s dick, pulling it up against my thigh and tugging gently on it. We lay like that for a long time. The moon lit Caramel’s face from behind, so that I couldn’t see much more than the gentle motion of his head, and how wide he had to open his jaw to get me in. He came first, bucking between my thigh and my hoof until his cream started to spurt, landing hot on my belly and spattering softly but audibly on the grass on the other side of me. The feeling made me groan, and in less than a minute my balls were pulling up, and I was squirting inside his mouth, feeling his throat work as he swallowed every drop.

He knows I don’t like kissing or cuddling, so when we were done, he just rolled over next to me, and we lay there, relaxing and feeling the hot cum cooling on our bodies.

“So Boss? I got something serious I gotta talk about.”

I sighed. I had enough of these kind’a talks with Cheerilee. “Nope.”

Caramel sat up. “Boss. Please.”

I sighed again. Fine. “Eyup.”

“Well, I know how you like fillies better’n colts. And you’re engaged to Cheerilee.”

For over a year, and still counting, yeah. I was never going to be able to afford the kind of wedding she wanted. “Euyup.”

“Well I met a guy. A big strong stallion, just like you. He’s a rodeo pony, so he comes and goes a lot, but…” Caramel smiled at me. “I really love him. And I think he loves me, too.”

All this sappy, girly stuff made my eyes water. I suddenly wished I had Smarty Pants with me.

“So, we’re thinking of getting married. I’d still work here for a while, at least until we’ve got enough saved up to buy some land of our own. And… he says he don’t mind if you and I do stuff while he’s away. He might even let you join in when he is here. Says he likes big stallions.”

I sat up, and wiped my eyes dry with the back of my hoof. I get awful allergies this time of year.

Caramel sat up, too, and put his arm across my shoulder. “Sorry, Boss.”

“Naw. I’m happy for you.” I stood up. “I’m gonna get cleaned up and ready for bed.” 

Caramel nodded. “See you in the morning, Boss.”

Why was I feeling so blue? Nothing was gonna change. Except that Caramel was gonna go away, soon enough. I’d see him after that, sure, but it wouldn’t be like working with him every day. And that Caramel didn’t love me. Worst of all, there was no one I could talk to about it, because I wasn’t supposed to be doin’ him in the first place.

But it’s all right. Talkin’ never did nobody any good. You just gotta do the best with what you’re given. So I went up to my room, got in bed, and pulled Smarty Pants in under the covers with me.

But I couldn’t fall asleep.
> The Not Talking Cure
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he won’t work. He just stands there holdin’ that stupid… I mean, holdin’ that doll. Sorry, Twi.”

Twilight shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. And how long has he been like this?”

“Well, he’s been down all month. I thought it was just the unseasonable heat we’ve been havin’, but when Caramel left for Las Pegasus on Friday, he just shut down. I took him to Doctor Horse, and he just said Mac was depressed. And I could’a told you that.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “You said he got like this when Caramel left.”

“Yup. For Las Pegasus. To get married.” Applejack nodded, as though that proved anything.

Twilight tapped her chin with one hoof. “And correlation isn’t causation, but…”

Applejack looked confused. “What isn’t what now?”

“I don’t mean to be indelicate, Applejack, but do Big Macintosh and Caramel have a, um, ‘special relationship’?”

“Reckon you gotta talk to him about that.” Applejack grimaced. “Good luck with that.”

We were in a private room in Twilight’s castle. I’d only ever been in the big throne room before. It looked like that took up almost the whole castle, but there were all sorts of corridors branching off from there, and lots of doors, I guess to more rooms like this one. The castle looked like Twilight and her friends had made some effort to make it homey, but it was way too big a place for just one mare and a little dragon. It echoed like crazy, too — I could make out the voices of two young mares having some kind of conversation about animals and the weather, elsewhere in the castle.

In this room, there were some big bright windows, a big chair, a long couch, and some bookshelves and tapestries. Not really my kind of place. I hugged Smarty Pants closer to my chest.

“Applejack, would you mind if I talked to your brother in private?”

“Whatever you need to do, Twi.” Applejack stepped up and wrapped her forelegs around me. “I love ya buddy,” she whispered. I sniffled. Damn allergies this time of year. Then she tapped quietly across the room, and let herself out into the hallway. 

I dropped Smarty Pants on the floor, and pushed her towards Twilight with my hoof. “She’s yours, ain’t she?”

Twilight pulled a notebook, a quill, and an ink pot off one of the shelves with her magic, and wriggled backwards into the chair. “I think you need her more than I do, right now. Now, what I want to do is called psychotherapy. It’s supposed to be great for resolving friendship problems. I’ve been reading about it for a while, and I wanted to give it a try, to judge its clinical effectiveness. Why don’t you have a seat?”

I scooped Smarty Pants back up, and stayed right where I was.

“Or just anywhere is fine. So,” she said, opening up her notebook to the first page, “what’s bothering you?”

I stared at her.

She smiled at me, and wrote something in her notebook. Then she looked back up. I continued to stare at her.

“You’re supposed to tell me why you’re unhappy, now," said Twilight, cheerfully. “Then I can tell you why you should feel better.”

I frowned, and continued to stare. My eyes were getting dry. I thought about blinking, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. She looked up at me, then looked down at her notebook, her quill working furiously. What was she even writing about? I wasn’t saying anything.

“Psychotherapy is colloquially referred to as ‘the talking cure’. That means you’re supposed to talk. I can’t read your mind, you know.” She grinned at me, then looked thoughtful. “Well, technically I can read your mind, but Celestia says that’s an ‘invasion of privacy’ and ‘an egregious abuse of my powers not befitting my position as a princess’ and that I should ‘never, ever do it again’.” But I’m like, whatever. Would you like me to read your mind? Would that be easier?”

“Nope.”

Twilight scowled. “Well, are you going to talk to me?”

“Nope.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Well, that’s a problem, because I promised Applejack I’d help you, and ‘always keep promises to your friends’ was friendship lesson number 273! Or was it 189?” She levitated another notebook over to herself, and began leafing through it.

This was stupid. I wasn’t sticking around for this. She couldn’t keep me here. I stood up, tossed Smarty Pants onto my back, and stalked towards the door. I had my hoof up to push it open when I was surrounded by a dim purple light and dragged backwards across the floor. I guess she could keep me here.

“Would it help if I told you that anything said in this room stays between us? And that I can never tell it to anyone, ever? I mean, unless you’re planning to hurt somepony. But I don’t think that that’s what this is about.”

I sighed. Talkin’ never helps matters. But since I was stuck here ’til I did talk, I figured I might as well try some of that honesty AJ is always on about. “I’m sad ‘cause Caramel is getting married.”

“Well, life is full of changes. And things will be different, between you, but…”

I rounded on Twilight. “Don’t you talk to me like that. I ain’t a foal. There’s more to it than that. You know I’ve been seeing Cheerilee since Apple Bloom and her friends set us up on Hearts and Hooves day a couple of years ago. I really care about her, and we ain’t been together, but that’s only ‘cause she don’t believe in sex before marriage. And we’re gonna get married, and I want to. But I also been toppin’ Caramel since he started workin’ with us five years ago. I ain’t no coltcuddler, but we’re friends, you know? And I gotta nut, sometimes, and he don’t mind takin’ one for the team. In fact he really loves it.”

Twilight looked confused. “You’re having sex with Caramel, but you think you’re not homosexual?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, wait, I get it. You’re working with the classical Equestrian standard, where only the passive partner in same sex relations is considered homosexual! It’s fascinating to find out that these antiquated mores are still at work in rural Equestria!” She began scribbling furiously in her notebook. "Nowadays we just call that being 'bisexual'."

I glared at her.

“Listen, I know you were raised to think it was unbefitting a stallion to engage in certain sexual acts. But these days… well, at least in Canterlot, you can do whatever you want, and as long as it’s safe and consensual, nopony thinks any less of you for it.” Twilight grinned, and blushed. “Mares, stallions, maybe even, I don’t know, something crazy like having wild, incredible sex with your brother.”

My eyes bugged right out of my head.

“N-not that I’d ever do that,” said Twilight, backpedaling frantically. “But you know, just as a purely hypothetical example of something that I would never do and that definitely never, ever happened.”

I shook my head. I was hardly one to judge. 

“Did I mention that confidentiality thing I talked about goes both ways?” A drop of sweat rolled down Twilight’s forehead.

“Eyup.”

“Okay, anyway, you were saying?

“So, I knew Cheerilee’d be powerful sore at me if she found out I’d been doin’ Caramel the whole time we’d been seeing each other. But what I didn’t know is that if… if…” my voice started to crack, and my eyes began to water “…that if Caramel found someponyelse, I’d feel so alone. Here I been makin’ a fool of the mare I love, and I've apparently been treatin’ my best friend such that he thinks he needs someone else to love him all his life. And I’ve been makin’ such a fuss about it that that I figure Cheerilee must’ve put two and two together by now, and… and…”

There was a flutter of wings, and the sound of a notebook and a bottle of ink hitting the floor, and Twilight’s arms were around me. “Oh, don’t cry! That’s a horrible situation to be in!”

“I ain’t cryin’. It’s liquid shame.”

“Just let it all out,” said Twilight, patting me awkwardly on the back. “Let all the shame out.”

I slumped to the floor, and pressed Smarty Pants against my face. “And now there ain’t nothing I can do.”

Twilight fluttered to the floor, and settled down on her haunches. “Have you tried being honest with everyone involved?”

I glared at Twilight. “Nope.”

“Because I think that’s the only way to move forward from here. It’s pretty much tell the truth, or go through the rest of your life lonely and bitter.”

“You sound like my sister.”

“Well, she is the bearer of the Element of Honesty. It’s kind of her thing.”

"If I tell everypony the truth, it's gonna make a whole huge mess of everything."

Twilight nodded, and stroked her chin. "I hadn't considered that. But honesty is supposed to be good, right?"

“I thought you were supposed to tell me why I should feel better.”

Twilight shrugged. “That doesn’t seem to be how this actually works. I’ll have to do more research.”

———

We talked a while longer — about my foalhood and what happened to my parents, mostly. When we were done, Twilight brought me some water to wash my face with, and sent me on my way. I was glad that was over. I slouched down the hallway, head hung low, Smarty Pants hanging out of my mouth by her leg and dragging on the floor. 

I got as far as the end of the hall, and then froze. I was pretty sure I’d heard a soft rustling like feathers rubbing together. “I can hear you," I rumbled.

A small blue pegasus grinned at me from behind a large decorative planter. “You got me.”

I snorted. “Both ‘a you.” A yellow nose and blue-green eye peeked around the other side of the planter and then darted back behind it. Well, if it wasn’t my two least favorite of AJ’s friends.

AJ's friends are okay, overall. I can’t say anything bad about Twilight. She's everypony's hero, even if she causes a little bit of trouble every now and then. Pinkie Pie’s a hoot. I don’t really get Rarity, since I only wear clothes if there’s a coronation or a death or something, but she’s real pretty and nice, so she’s all right. But Fluttershy’s creepy. She lives by herself in a cabin at the edge of the woods that’s full of weird animals — she’s a crazy cat lady with a taste for variety. And she doesn’t ever talk, so who knows what she’s thinking?

And Rainbow Dash? She’s just mean. Mean and conceited.

Rainbow put out her wings and forelegs and stretched sensually, wiggling her tight little plot in the air. “So we couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Twilight.”

I literally saw red. I reared up, Smarty Pants clutched in my jaws, snorted, and raised my hooves. 

“Set your jets, pal. It’s not like we could help it. The acoustics in this place are insane.” She waved at me dismissively. “Anyway, your secret’s safe with us. I’ve done way worse stuff, and Fluttershy here isn’t exactly prone to gossip.”

Fluttershy poked her head out from around the planter again, trembling, eyes wide. “I promise I won’t tell anypony. Please don’t hurt me.”

I slumped again. “So why are you botherin’ me?”

“So is it really true you're bisexual?” asked Rainbow Dash.

I didn't like the implications of that word, but I wasn't in the mood to argue. “Eyup.”

Rainbow Dash grinned salaciously. “Then we have a little proposal for you. But we gotta go someplace a little more secure to discuss it.”

Fluttershy scooted over next to Rainbow Dash, and ducked against her side. “Rainbow, I don’t know if this is the best idea.…” But Rainbow just wrapped a foreleg around her neck, and tousled her friend’s mane with her hoof.

“Don’t chicken out on me now, Flutterslut. This is gonna be epic.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Rainbow hopped up into the air and headed for an open window. “You know where Fluttershy’s cabin is?”

“Eyup.” Since before it was her that lived there.

“Then meet us there in an hour. I promise we’ll make it worth your while.”

Fluttershy ducked her head and scuffed a hoof on the palace floor. “That is, if you want to. And you think you won’t get in any more trouble.” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she squeaked, and fluttered out the window after Rainbow.

Well, if that don't beat all.
> No Strings on Me
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun glared down at me, making me sweat until my pelt was soaked and I was offensive even to myself. And I sure love me some stallion smells, let me tell you.

Stealth ain’t exactly a strength of mine, so avoiding detection meant swinging all the way to the West around town, away from the farm, with an extra little jog into the woods to avoid the schoolhouse. So I had plenty of time to think about what I was fixing to do.

Here I was, ashamed of cheating on Cheerilee with Caramel, and ashamed of lovin’ Caramel and not tellin’ him, but unless I seriously mistook Rainbow’s intentions, I was about to cheat on both ‘a them with a couple of mares I didn’t even care for. Why? Well, I was angry. I was furious at Caramel for marrying somebody else. I was mad at Cheerilee for not puttin’ out. I was mad at Twilight for all the liquid shame. I was mad at Rainbow and Fluttershy for spyin’ on me. I was mad at me for thinkin’ with my dick all the time, and I was mad at AJ for… I dunno, for bein’ a good sister by tryin’ to take care of me without interfering in my life too much. It wasn’t terribly rational.

Then I was mad at myself all over again for being so wrapped up in my own thoughts I wasn’t payin’ attention to what was around me.

“Macintosh?”

Oh, fuck me sideways. “Cheerilee.” I dropped Smarty Pants from my mouth, and casually kicked the doll behind me in the brush. I’d followed a path without thinkin’, and here I was on a rise with nothing but scattered trees between me and the school. So I was totally visible to everybody, but still looked like I was tryin’ to get away with something. I told you I was no good at stealth.

“Is it true, what people are saying?” Cheerilee was trembling as she spoke. “That you’ve been down ever since Caramel left to get married?”

“Eyup.” Word travels fast. Figure Apple Bloom’s been blabbing, most likely. Somebody else to be mad at.

“And why is that, Macintosh? Don’t think I haven’t heard the rumors about you and him. Please, please tell me they aren’t true.”

I just stared at the ground and shuffled my hoof.

“How could you?” Her voice was cracking. “What am I to you? A beard? Is that what I am?”

“No! I love you. I just… I needed to…” I couldn’t say it. All my rationalizations sounded so stupid, now. I have urges. I’m a healthy stallion. I wanted foals. Like Cheerilee was nothing but a foal machine. Like nobody else’s feelings mattered by mine.

“You just needed to make a fool of me? Well, congratulations, then!” And she slapped me, right across the jaw, and ran back to her schoolhouse crying.

I ran, too. Now, exactly where the Everfree Forest begins and ends is open to a certain amount of debate, but I gave it my best guess and pounded straight in. Branches and brambles scored my hide, but I barely noticed. I was hoping I’d get lost and run into a timber wolf or a basilisk or fall in a ditch and die, but no such luck. I’ve been all around these woods since I was a colt, and even if I’m not paying attention, my hooves knew right where to carry me. Soon enough I burst out of the thickets and into the open woods around Fluttershy’s cabin.

It was about then that I realized I’d left Smarty Pants behind. I shook my head sadly. I couldn’t even do right by a damn doll.

The door was unlocked. They hadn’t waited for me — they were sitting on the couch, slinky filly legs all tangled around each other and tongues in each other’s mouths.

I hadn’t been wrong about why they asked me over.

I had to admit, whether I liked them or not, they were some fine mares. Both skinnier than I usually go for, but damn. Fluttershy was basically all legs and butt, with a long, graceful neck, a slender, gently rounded barrel and delicate, feminine features. Rainbow was all bone and muscle, like a small, slim stallion, except for a slight but sweet bit of padding around her belly and plot. They stank with the sweet, pungent scent of filly lust, even from all the way across the room. They clearly liked each other a lot.

Fluttershy squeaked and broke the kiss as I plowed through the door, and dived behind the couch. Rainbow wasn’t as observant. “Fluttershy! What is it this time, did the wind change too fast?” She moaned petulantly, wiping the other mare’s spit from her plump lower lip. Then she noticed me and grinned. “Oh. It’s you. Finally.”

“It’s a long walk.” I stepped in and kicked the door closed behind me. “Now, what was all this about?”

Fluttershy poked her eyes up over the edge of the couch. “Rainbow wants us to fuck you.”

“What?” I rumbled, a little startled by the yellow one using that kind of language. She’d always seemed so sweet. “What’s the catch?”

Rainbow lay back along the couch, arching out her back. She slid her hoof languidly over the lower curve of her barrel, rolling it gently against her nipples and the top of her pussy. “No catch. No strings attached. Just the three of us, exploring each other’s bodies and broadening our sexual horizons.”

“Nope.” I wasn’t convinced.

Rainbow shrugged. “You seemed like you needed some cheering up.”

“She’s lying,” said Fluttershy, lifting her head over the edge of the couch. “She made a bet.”

Rainbow flapped up into the air, and chucked a throw pillow at Fluttershy’s head. “Ixnay the etbay, Utterslutflay!”

Fluttershy put her hooves up over her head. “Please don’t call me that. Also ouch.” She turned to me. “Rainbow made a bet with Lightning Dust over which one of them could find the stallion with the biggest…” She waggled a hoof in front of the middle of her chest.

Rainbow flapped languidly over to me. “All right, it’s true. Rumor has it you’re one of the biggest in the land, but you’re taken several times over, so I haven’t been able to confirm.” She rubbed her hooves together and grinned wickedly. “But if you’re gonna be back on the market…”

I looked over at Fluttershy in bemusement. “And you’re goin’ along with this?”

Fluttershy shrugged. “They need an impartial observer, to keep records.” She blushed. “Also, there is no denying that I love the dick.”

I started towards the couch. I was still rank, but I wasn’t gonna do ’em the courtesy of washing up. “Well, it’s your lucky day. Ain’t no strings on me.” I pulled up my legs onto the couch, and Rainbow sat down next to me. She ran her little hooves over my chest, digging them roughly through my thick, sweaty fur. She nuzzled up against my chest, and inhaled deeply, shuddering as she did. Apparently she liked the stallion smells even more than I did.

I leaned down to kiss her.

Rainbow shook her head, and bopped my face away with her hoof. “Unh uh. No kissing. Makes it weird.”

“Eyup.” I went for her throat, instead, and she didn’t seem to mind. I dug my teeth into her fur, pulling in a bit of skin as well.

“Ungh. Yeah. Do it again,” she gasped, and I did. She’d be feeling these bites for a while. She arched her neck back, and I ran my tongue along it, feeling the delicate trembling of her airway beneath her skin. Her haunches slid forward, and her barrel pressed up against the shaft of my cock. “Oh, yeah. That’s nice and big. Nice and hard. Quick, Fluttershy, get the tape measure.”

I snorted with anger, and scooted back away from her across the couch. Rainbow Dash sat up in alarm. “What? Where are you going?”

I just put a hoof protectively over the shaft of my rapidly softening cock, and glared at her. “Stallions have feelings, too.”

Rainbow Dash facehoofed. “You were supposed to be rugged. You were supposed to this great, lumbering, manly thing. And now you’re getting floppy? Because of feelings?”

“Well, you are sort of objectifying him.” Fluttershy flapped down from upstairs with a tape measure wrapped around her neck like a scarf. “And not in a fun way.”

Rainbow ignored her. “Aren’t you the least bit curious how big it is?”

“Nope.” I’d cared when I was a colt, first comin’ into his growth. But when it became clear that I was much better endowed than any of the other colts I knew (and I had checked, thoroughly) I stopped caring. I mean, my cutie mark’s a giant apple, full of seeds. What else did I need to know?

Fluttershy had wriggled up against the couch and was nuzzling my balls. And here I was thinking she and I didn’t have anything in common. I gasped, and pushed my hooves through her mane, holding her in place as she pushed her tongue up under lefty, and cradled it in her mouth, sucking and nibbling at the short-furred skin of my sack. She opened her mouth, and slowly slid my nut inside her mouth. Her sharp little teeth began to press into the tender flesh, and I tugged back anxiously on her mane.

“Nope.”

She nodded, and pulled back a little, content with licking. She pushed her cute little nose across my sack and under my balls, nosing at my taint and the curve of my ass. She kept her eyes closed the whole time — not keen on eye contact, this little one. I leaned my head back, feeling my short mane fall over the back of the couch, and relaxed into her ball job. Soon I felt Rainbow’s little hooves moving gently over the shaft of my cock. Rubbing from base to tip, carefully circling the flare…

“You don’t disappoint, Big Guy. I think we might have a winner!” I glanced down to see Rainbow unwrapping the tape measure from around the end of my dick.   “Y’ ain’t done, are you?” All right, I was pretty relieved I measured up. I might’ve been more worried than I let on about it.

 Rainbow Dash shook her head, picking up a little black notebook and poking Fluttershy in the ear with it. “Nope. We’ve gotta fuck you now. That’s part of the bet. Just as soon as Flutterslut there takes down your measurements.”

I pushed Rainbow’s arm away from the other mare. “No, you take ’em down. I like what she’s doing.” Fluttershy lifted her head to smirk at Rainbow, and then wriggled her little nose down between my cheeks to lap at my ponut. My thighs shivered. She was a nasty little thing, wasn’t she?

Rainbow grunted, and took a few minutes to make notes in the book, while I lifted a hind leg and scooted my ass forward so Fluttershy could get better access to my plothole. She moaned and shivered, her plump little plot jiggling. I felt her run her tongue around the muscular ring of my anus, then over the pucker, then right inside. I arched up on my back hooves, groaning in pleasure and surprise.

Rainbow laughed. “Yeah, Flutterslut’s a little fire cracker. I almost jumped through the roof the first time she did that to me.” She socked me in the shoulder. “These chicks with low self esteem, am I right?”

I grunted. I didn’t know much about that kind of girl. Rainbow turned her attention to my cock, nuzzling at the side of the shaft, kissing softly up until she reached the head. She ran her mouth around the flat end, and tried to press it past her full lips. I watched in fascination as she tilted her head to the left, and then to the right, drooling on my proud flesh, but try as she might, she couldn’t get in inside.

“You’re more than a mouthful, Big Guy. Hey, Flutterslut, you wanna give this a try?”

“If you need me to. And don’t call me that.” Fluttershy ran her hooves gently over the insides of my thighs, tracing the lines of the big muscles, and began to slowly pull herself up my body, licking the whole way. She ran her tongue over my balls, deliberately tousling the fur of my nutsack, and then slowly soaked the underside of the shaft with her spit. Rainbow was still at the top, drooling spit all over the head so that it dripped over the edge and down onto Fluttershy’s nose and pretty pink mane.

I reached up under Fluttershy to pull her into my lap, hoof cradling the curve of her small, plump cheek. I wrapped my other arm around Rainbow, pushing my hoof up under her tail, and savoring the differences between the two mares’ rumps. Rainbow’s was tight and sculpted, feminine only to the extent that she couldn’t make it any less so. Fluttershy’s was soft, yielding, and delicate. Both of them moaned and giggled from being touched there. I pushed in between both their legs from behind, mashing my hooves against their soft, dripping pussies.

Now this wasn’t the first time I’d been with two other ponies at once. Apple family reunions can get pretty wild, once the foals are in bed and the apple brandy comes out. Never close cousins, mind you. Just, you know, not so close cousins. And the occasionally not so not so close cousin. And Braeburn. Maybe Braeburn once or twice. Okay, maybe Braeburn every single year. Anyway, my point is, I was pretty experienced at this kind of thing. But it never got old.

Rainbow and Fluttershy were making out with each other around the head of my cock, chests pressed in against the shaft, hooves roving each other’s flanks and sides. They were close enough together that I found if I shifted by hips, I had a pretty nice tunnel to fuck. I shuddered, and began to buck faster, grinding against them, shoving my flare up into their faces. Chest fucking them felt amazing, so I was pretty disappointed when Fluttershy bolted behind the arm of the couch, and Rainbow hopped up to sit on my chest. “Easy there, timber wolf.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Too rough?”

“Just worried about Flutterslut, is all,” said Rainbow, straddling me, hoof resting on her chin. “But clearly we gotta get you inside us somehow. Oral isn’t going to work out for us, unless Fluttershy’s snakes have taught her how to unhinge her jaw.”

Fluttershy poked her head up from the edge of the couch, and shook it sadly. “We’re still working on that.”

Rainbow flapped up into the air, hovering so that she could compare my dick and her impossibly slim body. “Vaginal isn’t going to cut it either. With this much of a size difference, there could be significant tearing, and that’s no fun.” Fluttershy squeaked, and slid down so only her eyes were poking over the arm of the couch. Her shoulders shifted as though she were covering her pussy with her hooves. “But anal could work,” Rainbow continued, “if we lubricate well enough. The tissues down there are much more elastic, especially in a couple of fit young fillies like ourselves. Am I right, Flutterslut?”

Fluttershy made another squeak — a happy one, this time — said, “Don’t call me that, please,” and skipped over to a nearby closet, singing “mommy’s gonna get analed, mommy’s gonna get analed,” softly to herself.

Mommy?

Rainbow Dash grinned at me. “You don’t mind anal, do you pal?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think you would, you old fudgepacker.” Rainbow Dash flapped down to the ground, and turned away from me, short shaggy tail flapping up, and waggled her pert little ass at me. “Let’s keep you warmed up, pal. Come over here and get your grind on.”

I stepped up over her. The size different was a little awkward — she was just tall enough that I couldn’t stand completely over her, but not big and sturdy enough that I could put my full weight on her, either. But we needed full body contact for what we wanted to do, so I wound up leaning a little to one side, one forehoof on the ground, the other cocked up in the air next to her chest. I rumbled excitedly as I felt her back and her ass cheeks gliding against my cock. That soft, short blue fur was so smooth against my dick. I moaned, and pushed forward, pressing down against her. I could feel her knees start to buckle, then stiffen, pressing her wiry little body up against my hulking mass. I shoved harder, impressed with how well she stood up to me, in spite of her smaller size. I pressed forward until my balls were resting just above the root of her tail, and my flare bumped the base of her mane. My dick was almost as long as her whole barrel!

We stood like that for a while, sweating together, each grunting softly as I dry humped Rainbow’s back, feeling her move against me slow and sweet while my hips pumped. I leaned down, and rubbed my muzzle gently against hers. “You like this, Little Mare?”

“Not as much as I think I’m gonna like having you up my ass, Big Guy.”

“Pardon me! Excuse me!” Fluttershy wormed her way in between us, pushing a bucket of familiar-looking translucent goo in front of her.

I plopped down on my ass, and she just tilted the bucket over it, pouring out so much lube that it puddled up on my balls and the hardwood floor. “Twilight makes that stuff for you, too?”

Fluttershy nodded, and moved in to rub the lube into my shaft with her face and hooves. “Oh, yes. She makes it for all the ponies in town who tell her they’re into ‘animal husbandry’.” She made scare quotes with her sticky, dripping hooves.

Rainbow chuckled. “I don’t think she realizes what most ponies use it for.”

Fluttershy’s face fur and the front of her mane were matted with goo, and little strands connected her and my dick as she pulled away to nuzzle at Rainbow’s puckered ring, sliming it up with the goo on her face. Rainbow shivered, and kneeled down on her front legs. “My body… my body is ready,” she moaned, lashing her tail.

I suddenly felt apprehensive. “Now, you girls are clean, right? And you ain’t in heat?”

“Do I smell like I’m in heat? Get in my ass, you big sexy idiot.”

I grinned toothily, and stepped forward, flare bumping hard against Rainbow’s backdoor. It felt like a hopeless case, at first, but Fluttershy carefully held me in place, and I just kept pushing in steady, insistent thrusts, until Rainbow finally managed to push back onto me, and I was inside, my flare spreading out to lock me in. I took it slow, careful not to hurt her — she was unbelievably tight, and I know how delicate even stallions can be, back there. I’d thrust, and pause, and pull back, and thrust again, losing myself in the silky, punishingly tight grip of her ass.

“Is that all you’ve got?” moaned Rainbow, wrenching herself back against me in desperate, frustrated little humps.

“What?”

“I’ve gotten more satisfying ass poundings from my doctor’s thermometer.”

“It’s a pretty big thermometer, though,” offered Fluttershy, apparently trying to save my feelings.

Rainbow snarled, “I want it so hard and deep your cum shoots out my mouth. I know you got it in you, Big Guy. You’re not playing sissy games with your little coltcuddler pals. Rainbow Dash is a real mare, you got it?”

My nostrils flared. My heart hammered. Did she she want it hard? I’d give it to her hard. It wasn’t any of my business if she never walked again. I have got some pretty solid muscle underneath all the haypies on my ass, and I cranked it all back, and drove forward, grinding my barrel against her back, hammering her face and chest against Fluttershy’s floor.

She stamped a forehoof. “Buck yeah! That’s more like it! Get it up in there, pencil dick!”

Some people have a way of pissing you off. Even if while they’re giving you one of the finest things in life. I ain’t proud that I lost control a little. My hips still churning and flexing, I leaned down and grabbed her ear in my teeth, and not gently. Fluttershy scooted back in alarm as I half fucked, half dragged the other mare across her floor, until her face was pressed up against the wall. Then I really let go.

I bore down into her, our bodies making slapping, squelching noises as I hove in and out of her wide-stretched ponut, my legs trembling. Sweat rolled down both of our bodies, slicking down our fur, the smell mixing with the smell of lust and anal sex. Her head thumped satisfyingly against the wall, making the same hollow sound Caramel’s had. “Oh, yeah, you big…” thump “bucking…” thump “asshole.” thump “That’s…” thump “how…” thump “you…” thump “do it!”

She rolled up a little bit every time I thrusted, until she was curled up looking up at her own plot. “Sweet Celestia, that’s what I wanted to see!” moaned Rainbow. I could feel her hind legs trembling, smell her cunt dripping, so I kept up what I was doing. Her insides felt great around me — I like ’em so tight it hurts, and she sure was. Her anal muscles were brutal, wringing my cock as it slid in and out. She wasn’t as tight inside, of course, but she was marvelously silky. Delicate. Feminine, even. I chuckled. Ironic.

Rainbow had pushed a forehoof up between her legs and was rubbing desperately at her pussy. It seemed like she was almost there. I could come, too, honestly, but I wanted a crack at the yellow one’s ass first. So I gritted my teeth and thought about crop rotation while Rainbow started to lose it.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my GOSH!” she screamed, and then she came. I knew she came, because every muscle in her hard little body clamped down on my cock. I screamed, too. Like a filly — pretty undignified, but it felt like my dick was going to pop. Her tight little ass squeezed all the blood in my dick to either end. I saw white. I felt light headed. I almost passed out. And I hadn’t even come.

When her muscles relaxed, I slid myself slowly free. My dick hurt, but it hurt good. Not like getting your balls squeezed. It ached with a warm, bruised ache that made me want to giggle. I popped free of the blue mare, and stepped back from her to get a good look at her. Sweat-soaked, drooling, her eyes staring, her tongue hanging out, her hooves pushed against her cheeks. She was still doubled over, her plothole gaping big enough I was sure sure she could fit both of her own forehooves in it, if she was so inclined. A stream of lube rolled down from her battered ponut, over her pussy, and dripped slowly onto her nose. She was still breathing, and she looked happy, so I guessed she was okay? I wasn’t sure, honestly.

It was kind of disturbing, to be honest. Really hot, but also kind of disturbing. So I turned to Fluttershy. She was grinning at me — not a happy grin, but nervous and kind of crazed. Her back legs were twisted together, and her plot was pushed up against the wall so hard her cheeks pouted up against it.

“I’m, um, going to need you to be just a teensy bit gentler with me,” she whispered.

“Eyup.”

“Y-you promise?”

“Eyup.”

Fluttershy smiled, and ducked her head. “Oh good. You wanna see my plothole? I can make it wink.”

“Eyup.”

So she turned around, and lifted her tail. Her round little cheeks were soaking wet. At first I thought she’d pissed herself, but I leaned in to sniff, and no, that was one-hundred percent pure mare juice. I nuzzled her sopping pussy, lapping up the little creek of juice that was trickling out of it, and she shivered, from nose to flank, a visible ripple going through her fur as it all stood up on end.

“Oh, Mommy likes that, baby. Please lick Mommy’s pussy some more.”

I froze. I could feel my dick starting to droop a little. I took a deep breath. “Listen. I don’t care what you do with other ponies, or what you like to fantasize about. But you might want to have a little think as to who you’re with, and how he might have reason to feel about that kind of talk.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!”

“You can make it up to me by lettin’ me put my dick in your ass.”

“Okay!” She grinned. “But lick my pussy more, first! Pretty please!”

“I’d be happy to, ma’am.” I nuzzled her cheeks, lapping at the insides, then pushed my tongue in between her wet, puffy lips. Mares taste so damn good. And the texture of a mare’s pussy is like nothing I’ve felt anywhere else. Smooth and creamy like ice cream. I could eat it all day. Meanwhile I was looking down my snout at the top curve of her flanks, and that lovely little pucker. She smirked at me over her shoulder, and squeezed her ponut open. I could see right down inside! She wasn’t lying.

I kept flopping my tongue around inside her until I found a spot that made her knees wobble. Then I kept at it until her cunt clamped down on my tongue, and a bit of fluid squirted out onto my chin.

“Yay!” she gasped, softly.

I chuckled. That was cute. I sniffed at her ponut. It smelled pretty clean. And I wanted to try something. I slid my tongue out of her marehole, and rolled up up her taint until I got the that lovely, talented little ring. The fur around it was wonderfully soft, and the skin was just as silky as the skin on the lips of her pussy.

“Oh!” she gasped, ears popping up. “Oh, yes! Mo… I mean, I like that.”

“Then wink for me,” I rumbled.

She squeezed open again, and took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and licked her inside. Still clean. Amazingly soft. I felt my own knees shaking.

“O-oh! Fuck me, please!” She moaned, leaning her chest against the wall. “Mom… I mean, I want it so bad!”

I stepped forward. The lube on my dick was a little dry, but the end was dripping with pre. I nudged it up against her tailhole, expecting to have to push like I’d had to do with her friend. But I went right in. She was good at this.

I kept it slow, like I had promised. Her insides were just as tight as Rainbow’s, and just as silky. I thrusted slowly, like I promised, savoring the feeling of her all around me. My balls were boiling. I gritted my teeth, and clenched down that muscle deep inside me that isn’t used for much but holding back cum. I leaned my head up against the wall, the white hot pleasure building up into me until I couldn’t stand it any more, and the wave washed over me. I felt myself squirting inside of her, squirting and squirting, way more than I usually put out, and that’s saying something.

Then I collapsed. Slid out of her, way too fast, and plopped my ass on the floor. My cock was soft, but still long, and it lay across the floor, drooling like a drunk snake. I could feel the goofy-assed grin on my face. Fluttershy pranced in a circle and smirked at you. “Was it good for you, little colt?” I nodded. Was I drooling? I was drooling. I wiped my mouth.

I watched as Fluttershy pranced over to where Rainbow was still slumped, semi-conscious, against the wall. She squatted over her friend’s face, and I watched in fascinated horror as she let my cum drool slowly out of her wide open ass and right onto Rainbow’s nose.

“Noooo,” moaned Rainbow, and batted at Fluttershy’s hind leg with her hoof.

“That’ll teach you to call me Flutterslut, you dumb whore,” said Fluttershy, smiling sweetly.

I blinked. The yellow one was evil.

Then Fluttershy curled up next to Rainbow like a cat, and closed her eyes. Rainbow flopped over, spooning the other mare’s side, and rubbed her ass-cum encrusted face lovingly against her friend’s wing. Then she started to snore.

“Thank you very much and I had a lovely time. You can go, now,” sighed Fluttershy, not opening her eyes.

So I let myself out.

The sun was even hotter than before. My legs felt like jelly. My cock itched, and pulsed with pain where Rainbow’s ass had squeezed me. My fur was stuck to my hide all over, and the blazing, dry heat was already starting to bake it solid, making me feel even hotter. I stank to high heaven of almost everything that can come out of a pony, mare or stallion. Anyone who came within a mile of me would know exactly what I’d been up to.

Fluttershy had wanted me to call her Mommy. I shuddered. I thought of my Mother, my sweet Mother, and what she’d think of me if now. Tears dripped down my face.

I shook my head, and headed off towards Sweet Apple Acres.

It was a long walk home.

> Say (Almost) Anything
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweet Apple Acres was deserted when I finally got home. I let myself in, crept slowly past where Granny was sleeping in her rocking chair, and drew myself a bath. I found some of Apple Bloom’s bubble bath soaps, and settled myself in for a long soak. I had to get the sweat off my ass, the mare shit off my dick, and the fuzz out of my head.

Things were pretty bad. I didn’t think I could salvage everything. So what did I need? I needed to make sure everything thing was okay with AJ, first of all. Couldn’t run the farm without her. I’d made a fool of Cheerilee, and I had to try and figure out a way to make it up to her. Reckoned the engagement was off, no matter what I did, though. Caramel… well, that was my broken heart. Not his.

I slid down further in the bath, until just my nostrils and eyes were out of the water. Things just kept going round and round in my head, and at some point, I drifted off.

“Get out of there before you drown, you damn fool.” Applejack was standing over me, shaking her head.

“Eyup,” I mumbled, blinking the sleep out of my eyes.

Applejack turned to go. “Get dried up. It’s almost dinner time.”

“AJ?” I rumbled, pulling myself up out of the tub with wrinkled hooves.

“Yeah, Big Brother?”

“We gotta talk.”

Applejack nodded. “After dinner. Bring your tools.”

———

A cool breeze had begun to blow. I got to hoping the weather was about to change for the better. When we left the orchard and moved out into open fields, I could see tiny black dots darting around a massive bank of storm clouds. The pegasi were cooking up a big one. I don’t see why they don’t just do things the easy way and have the weather be nice all the time. But I kind of missed my chance to ask Rainbow Dash about it, didn’t I?

Applejack and I walked in silence. One thing I like about my sister, she doesn’t waste words. It was pretty clear where we were headed.

Last year, the Turnip Trucks fell on some hard times when Pa Neep came down with the strangles, and AJ and I had put our heads together to see how we could help. We’d finally settled on buying a parcel of land from them — a few acres of fallow land that needed a lot of work before it could be used to grow much of anything. Pa Neep got the medicine he needed, the family pulled through, and they’d harvested a bumper crop of turnips from the land they had left.

My tools rattled in my saddlebags as we walked past fields of brambles marked off by rotting fences until we crested a low rise.

“What do you think?” asked Applejack.

I frowned. Below us the river split to go around a low hill. On that hill was a tumble of wood and rot that used to be a cabin. I squinted. What was left of the roof hung in shreds from the rafters. Any windows that weren’t broken were gone entirely, and I could see through the gaping opening where the door used to be that grass and weeds were growing inside.

“Looks like shit, huh?” said Applejack.

“Eyup.”

AJ nodded. “I’ve had a look at it, though, and It’s got good bones. With a bit of effort, someone could fix it up nice. Might make a good wedding present for Caramel and What’s-His-Name, when it was done.” She grinned up at me. “Unless you think a good, hearty butt fuckin’ would suffice.”

My eyes bugged out of my head. I looked at her sideways, without moving my head. “Um, nope?”

AJ chuckled at me. “Do you really think I didn’t know, Big Brother?”

I hung my head. “Nope.”

Applejack nudged me in the shoulder. “Being bisexual in’t nothing to be ashamed of.”

I grunted and shivered at that word. It was just a five bit way to say ‘coltcuddler’.

“Now, lying to Cheerilee, that was something you ought to be ashamed of.”

“Eyup.”

 “But what’s done is done.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?” I rumbled.

Applejack raised an eyebrow at me. “You mean ’cause I’m the Element of Honesty? That’s just civic duty. It’s important, but family comes first. Now, I had to be careful never to catch you in the act. Or to talk to Cheerilee too much, so I didn’t let something slip. But you know, for you, it’s worth it.” She bumped her shoulder up against my side and smirked at me. “The question is, why didn’t you tell her?”

I grunted. Was this cabin upriver or downriver from the beaver dam? That could be a pretty serious issue.

“Macintosh,” said Applejack warningly.

“Nope.”

“Macintosh.”

“Fine. I didn’t tell her ’cause I was ashamed. And I was scared what would happen.”

Applejack gave me that smug I-didn’t-learn-anything-I-was-right-all-along look. I hate that look. “And not tellin’ her worked out great for you, didn’t it?”

“Sis?”

“Yeah, Big Brother?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

She laughed. “Okay, well, get to work.” She turned to go, pausing to kick me once in the rump. “I’m serious. Get on it. Caramel’s gonna be back in a couple of days.”

I walked down to the cabin. There were some big rocks in the river that let me keep my hooves dry on the way across, but they’d be under water in a heavy rain. A little bridge would be a nice feature, but it was a low priority until I got the violets out of the living room. I walked around the house, checking the structural beams, most of which were open to easy view. Applejack was right. They were in good shape. The foundation looked solid, too. I could do this. I’d need cartloads of supplies, but first I’d need to take a mess of measurements.

I unhooked my saddlebags and set to work.

———

I put off visiting Cheerilee until the next evening. I admit I just wanted to leave it forever. I’d fucked up, and I’d fucked up good. I didn’t feel like asking for forgiveness. I wasn’t totally sure I deserved it. But I had to try to make things right. It was the Apple family way, after all.

Cheerilee lived in a small, rented cottage near where the library used to be. I sat down in front of it. I like to think I’m a brave pony, but in all honesty, I was too scared to knock on her door. Maybe if I had some kind of portable phonograph, I could play a dramatic love song on it and get her attention that way. But I don’t even know where I’d get something like that.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. It started to rain.

I was good and soaked by the time Cheerilee thought to look out her window. She rushed to the door, and waved me inside.

“Macintosh.”

“Cheerilee.” We stood there awkwardly, carefully at the very edge of each other’s personal space. I dripped on her carpet.

“Go get dried off. Would you like some coffee?”

“Eyup.”

As I toweled off in her bathroom, I thought maybe we could be adults about this. It didn’t seem like she was too upset any more. We’d have a nice, calm discussion, and it’d all be over and we could get on with our lives.

I thumped my way into her small, cluttered kitchen and sat at her table. She put a cup of coffee, dark and sweet like I like it, in front of me, and went to a cabinet to get something. Yes, I thought, inhaling the warm, bitter scent of the coffee. Adults.

Cheerilee came to the table with a half-empty fifth of Buck Daniels clutched in her mouth. She poured a couple of shots’ worth into her own coffee cup, and pushed the bottle across the table towards me with her hoof. “Help yourself. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain creep through my body. This was bad. I glanced at her trash can, and saw that it was filled with used tissues and empty pints of that ice cream she likes, the chocolate kind with little crunchy chocolate fish and marshmallow in it. I gulped. This was really bad.

“So,” said Cheerilee, in a tone like she was sitting down with a problem foal, “what do you have to say for yourself?”

———

Two hours later, we were still going at it. At some point we’d given up on any pretext of coffee, and were just taking turns slugging shots straight from our second bottle of Buck.

“You are so unbelievably obtuse!”

I squinted at Cheerilee, so that there would be only one of her. She wouldn’t stop drifting around my field of vision, though. You’d think coffee and alcohol would make you calm but alert. Instead, I felt jittery, tired and confused. “Nope.”

“Are. You. Gay?” She thumped her hoof on the table with each word, for emphasis.

“I don’t see how this is important. This is about us. Not me being a damn coltcuddler.” I get a lot more talky, when I’m drunk. It’s one of the reasons I don’t drink much hard liquor. The other bein’ the notorious Apple family reunion of ’98. The less said about that the better.

“It is tremendously important. Because I still don’t know if you actually care about me or not.”

I sighed. “I care about you.”

“So you’re bisexual,” she said, glaring at me.

“I told you, and I told you, I ain’t no coltcuddler.” I hunched down defensively.

Cheerilee leaned forward, hooking a hoof around the bottle and dragging it towards herself. “But you cuddle colts.” She took a shot.

“I don’t cuddle ’em. I fuck ’em.”

“Are your bodies pressed close together while you do it?” She held up the bottle, tilting it to see how much was left. We were running low.

I flushed, and looked down at my hooves. “Eyup.”

“That counts as cuddling!” She slammed the bottle back down on the table. “And I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with it. If that’s what you’re into. I mean, take Braeburn. He’s a pillar of his community. A pony of sterling moral character. Kind of an idiot, and his voice could curdle cream, but still, basically a good pony. And he’s gayer than Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

I tried to reply. I suddenly found my tongue was dry. My voice cracked. I fumbled for the whiskey bottle.

Cheerilee examined my expression closely. “Oh, my sweet Celestia. You’ve fucked Braeburn.”

“Not while you and I were together,” I managed to croak.

“In this specific case, that is not the point. He’s your cousin. That’s disgusting!”

I glowered. “It’s not like I can get him pregnant,” I rumbled. I elected not to bring up Jonagold. Or Apple Brown Betty. Or Candy Apples. Or the reunion of '98. No point in muddying the waters, and it was all ancient history anyway.

“I don’t believe you Ponyville rednecks. In Fillydelphia they’ll throw you in jail for that!”

What could I say? My neck was definitely red. I took a big shot, and then another. At this point, it tasted like water to me. “I… I am not a good stallion. But I have been faithful to you… except for Caramel… since we started datin’.” I tried to say it with a straight face. Fluttershy and Rainbow were definitely a one time thing, and if I brought two of the Element Bearers into this, I could throw the whole town into chaos. Even Applejack understood that honesty has its limits.

“Right. So everything’s fine, then, I guess.” I could tell from her expression that everything was definitely not fine. “Well, how would you feel if I’d been sleeping with another mare?”

I shrugged. “Ain’t cheatin’, if it’s a filly. So long as you let me watch.”

She glared at me, a mouthed, “Redneck,” then finished off the bottle. “Say it. Say you’re a coltcuddler.”

“Nope.”

She sighed, and tossed the bottle towards the trash. It missed, and landed on her cat. “Fine. Okay. Then we have to talk about the other thing. About…” She paused, as if for dramatic emphasis. “About us.”

I nodded. “Eyup.”

And we sat in silence.

“Should I get another bottle of whiskey?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“You’re right, that’s a terrible idea. So…” Cheerilee leaned back, fluttered her eyelashes at me, and ran her hooves suggestively along the sides of her curvaceous barrel. “Do you want this?”

I nodded vigorously, and leapt to my hooves. My cock, instantly hard in spite of all the whiskey, nearly knocked over the table.

Cheerilee yipped, and grabbed the coffee cups before they slid over the edge. “Not right now, you idiot! In general! You’re on probation. At best.”

I sat back down. My flare was still peeking over the edge of the table. “Blowjob?” I asked, grinning hopefully.

“No! Right now I regret ever doing that for you.” She eyed the tip of my cock. “I guess we could have foregone the whole ‘are you gay’ discussion if I’d phrased the question this way to start.”

I slumped. Little Mac was still admiring the chandeliers, though. You just can’t break that little guy’s spirit. “Cheerilee,” I said, “I am really sorry I lied to you. I love you so much, and I’d be honored to be your husband. I’d love it if you were my only mare, forever. But…” I took a deep breath, “I don’t know if I can stay away from the colts. So maybe we should go our separate ways.”

Cheerilee folded her forelegs on the table, and put her head down on them. “What if I told you I was considering — only considering — marrying you anyway?”

I squinted at her. “I’d say you were drunk.”

“I know. But what if?”

“What about the colts?”

Cheerilee ruffled her mane. “I’m still thinking about that part.”

I sighed, and rubbed a hoof through my mane. “You know us Apples ain’t rich. I’ve been trying to save up for the kind of wedding you want, but I’m just not getting anywhere.”

Cheerilee rubbed her eyes. Moisture trickled down her cheeks. “I… I admit that in that, and that alone, I’ve been really, really selfish. As a filly, I was always dreaming about my perfect, princess wedding, and how everypony I know would be there, and how I’d lose my virginity on my wedding night, and…” She clutched her hooves to her muzzle, stifling a sob. “…I was so afraid that it wouldn’t be special enough that I just made it impossible for us to actually do.”

“Eyup,” I mumbled, “but there are different kinds of special. Caramel and his guy went to Las Pegasus, got married in a chapel or something there.”

Cheerilee looked up over her tearstained hooves. “You’re saying we should elope?” I couldn’t read her expression.

“Eyup. And then later, when we’re doing a little better, we can have a huge party for everyone we know. Just like you imagined. Then that night, we’ll pretend you’re still a virgin.”

Cheerilee leapt across the table at me, hooves going straight for my neck. I’d said something wrong, and she was going to strangle me. I knew I could never raise a hoof to her, so if she wanted to kill me, then it was over. I made my peace with the void as she landed on me and knocked me to the floor.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!” she squealed, lips pressing into my neck and cheek fur over and over. “That’s a wonderful idea!” She sat up, straddling my chest. “Or at least, I think it’s a good idea. But I’m very, very drunk right now. Maybe we should write this down?”

“Eyup,” I rumbled, looking down at her, suddenly very aware of the weight of her plump haunches on my chest. My cock, which had started to get droopy, stiffened again, the flare ramming roughly into her plot. I began to sweat.

Something was wrong with this. It was really, really wrong to take advantage of a drunk mare, wasn’t it? Especially one whose deepest dream was to lose her virginity on her wedding night. I began to sweat, and not in a good way. “Why don’t you go get some paper?”

“I should,” she purred, fluffing my thick chest fur with a delicate hoof, “but maybe first, we should see if we’re really sexually compatible.” She cocked her hips back, sliding the curve of one of her jiggly ass cheeks against the flare of my cock.

“That was what the oral sex was for, remember?” I gulped.

“Oh, oral sex,” Cheerilee purred, tapping her chin as though she had just remembered that was a thing that existed. “What a marvelous idea,” she said, slowly sliding her pussy forward across my chest, leaving a trail of wetness in its wake.

That was it. I either had to take control of the situation, or lose my ability to look at myself in the mirror forever. I heaved to my hooves, effortlessly catching Cheerilee in my forelegs, and tossing her, squealing, onto my back. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Well, at least the hardest thing I’d done since saying ‘no’ to a second, sober crack at reunion ’23.

“That was fun,” she giggled, “do it again!” I snorted. Everypony’s Pinkie Pie when they’re drunk.

I wobbled, making absolutely sure I knew which direction the floor was, and headed for her bedroom. When I got to the bedroom door, I froze, stunned by what I saw on her bed.

“I found your doll,” Cheerilee giggled in my ear, her breath tickling the tiny, sensitive hairs there. Then she licked my ear. I wished she’d stop making this so difficult.

I pulled back her covers with my teeth, and gently helped her into bed. Then I tucked her in, up to her chin, and pushed Smarty Pants in under the covers next to her.

“You really can sleep here, if you want,” Cheerilee mumbled, her big green eyes fluttering closed.

“Nope,” I rumbled, kissing her on the cheek.

She rolled over onto her side, and wrapped her forelegs around Smarty Pants. “You are a good stallion.”

“I ain’t,” I said, and stumbled out of her house, locking the door behind me.

The rain had stopped. The air was cold, and damp, but I felt warm inside. All the whiskey, probably.

I set off for home.

My talk with Cheerilee had gone… well, better than I’d hoped. If we still agreed on the wedding plan in the morning, then everything would be perfect. Of course, there was still Caramel to deal with. But that should be no problem at all, after this.

Right?

> Localized Flooding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, it is an interesting idea.”

I set down my hammer and turned to face Cheerilee where she stood below me on the ladder. “Eyup.” She held a stack of shingles up to me, and I took it in my mouth. We’d made a lot of progress today. Fully a quarter of the roof was covered.

“Where would we go?” she asked, backing carefully down the ladder. It was still naked weather for me, but Cheerilee was wearing a dark purple scarf that I thought looked really pretty on her.

“Canterlot?” I took my hammer in my mouth, and pushed another shingle into place. Where had I set the nails?

“Canterlot is nice, Macintosh, but it’s only a four-hour train ride away. I’d rather go somewhere a little more… you know, once-in-a-lifetime.”

I grunted. The nails were all the way over on the edge of the roof. Why had I put them over there? “Manehattan?”

“I was thinking maybe Germaneigh? Or Prance? Pearis is lovely in the fall.”

I sighed, and carefully pulled the little tub of nails back over to where I was working. There was no getting around this being expensive, was there? Still, even international travel was cheaper than a damn wedding, these days.

“Well, are you sure about me being… you know.” I carefully balanced a nail between my hooves, took up the hammer, and set to work.

I heard Cheerilee sigh. “I don’t know, Macintosh. I love you. Are you sure you couldn’t just limit yourself to one pony?”

I set down my hammer again. Talkin’… well, you just gotta do it sometimes. Still not sure it does any good, though. “I dunno, Cheerilee. I ain’t a good pony. You’re more than enough mare for any stallion, I tell you what, but…” I didn’t know how to finish. I started hammering again.

“Macintosh!”

I sighed, and set my hammer down again. “I’m thinkin’.”

“Macintosh! They’re here!”

I stood and turned. The crisp wind picked up my mane, tossing it in front of my eyes, and I blew it out of the way. It had been naked weather through most of the day, but now I was starting to wish I’d brought a scarf, too.

They had just crested the rise. Caramel waved. He had apparently gotten some pretensions of high fashion while he was away, and was dressed in some sort of dapper white collar and cuffs. It looked ridiculous, but it kind of made me want to fuck him, too.

Then his husband lumbered into view. I almost fell off the roof. I knew him!

Well, I’d never met him, like Applejack and Apple Bloom had. But I’d sure seen him perform. Comments came to mind as they walked towards the cabin. Comments it would be better not to give voice to, like “Caramel, why’d you marry this clown?” Comments like that definitely never do anypony any good.

Anyway, I could plainly see why Caramel had married him. I’d never seen this pony out of his makeup before, so I hadn’t realized it, but he was gorgeous. A long, inviting neck and a delicately curved jaw that just called out to be bitten. Powerful muscles rippling under a glossy chestnut and white hide. A shaggy black mane that was constantly falling in his big, soulful eyes. And that was just from the front. I found myself desperately wanting to stand behind him. Or in front of him, but I pushed that feeling way down deep inside and tried to forget about it.

By the time I had scrambled down the ladder, they were wading across the river. Yesterday’s rain had noticeably raised the water level, and they got wet up over their fetlocks.

“My cuffs are wet!” whined Caramel.

“You better take them off,” rumbled his husband.

“But I wanted Boss to see them!”

The big horse rumbled, and frowned. “I suppose there ain’t no dissuading you, then.”

Caramel and his husband trotted over to us. “Hi, guys! Applejack told us you’d be down here. Boss, this is Trouble Shoes.”

I came up to about the top of Trouble Shoes’ chest. I tilted my neck beck to look him in the eye. It was an unaccustomed sensation. I felt light-headed. “Eyup.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir. Caramel has told me a great deal about you. Perhaps more than I would particularly care to hear, in many cases.”

Caramel socked Trouble in the shoulder. “Yeah, Trouble here is a kidder.” He glanced sideways at Cheerilee. “So, uh…”

“She knows,” I rumbled, blushing and glancing at my hooves.

Caramel seemed taken aback. “Oh. And are you two, um…”

“He’s on probation,” Cheerilee offered, her voice bubbling with cheerfulness that didn’t reach her eyes. The two looked at each other. I looked at Trouble Shoes, and he suddenly noticed something wrong with his forehooves that needed his full attention. I looked longingly up at the roof — even nailing shingles was better than this. It was getting dark awfully fast. Was another storm coming?

“So, Macintosh,” said Cheerilee hesitantly, breaking the awkward silence, “I think you and Caramel have things to talk about. Maybe in private?”

I made eye contact with Caramel. He nodded. “I guess so, Boss.”

“I knew you’d have to. Don’t worry,” said Trouble, nuzzling Caramel’s cheek.

Cheerilee headed back towards where her saddlebags were propped against the side of the cabin. “Take your time. I came prepared,” she said, and pulled a book out with her mouth. “Would you like a book, Trouble Shoes? I brought a few.”

The thought of being alone with Caramel got me feeling excited. A little too excited, to tell you the truth. I got a running start towards the river, thinking maybe a bit of exercise would get the blood flowing away from little Mac, and stormed across it, water flying up so high my back got wet. Caramel hesitated at the water’s edge, looking with concern at his already sodden and soiled white cuffs. I grinned at him smugly. “Don’t wanna mess up your pretty new clothes?”

Caramel scowled. “You’re a damn showoff, Boss.”

I just laughed. “You still feeling lucky?” And I took off running.

I heard him shouting “Cold! Cold! Cold!” and then his hooves thudding on the soil. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him tearing up the hillside towards me, cuffs spotted with mud, collar flapping, bow tie threatening to come untied. I doubled my speed.

It began to rain as we thudded across tangled, open fields, and the ground, already soaked from last night’s downpour, rapidly turned to mud, making it harder to run. The warm, delicious pain of hard exercise filled me with energy and burned away the cold of the air. As I hit the road, I risked another glance back, and saw Caramel was gaining on me. He was going to catch me, and I had to say, I kind of wanted to be caught. I also knew it was a bad idea, but matters got taken out of my hooves pretty quickly.

There was a fence up ahead; I leapt towards it. One of my rear hooves clipped it on the way over. The rotten wood snapped almost instantly, but it knocked me off balance. I landed heavily on my right forehoof and went down, skidding in the mud and rolling onto my back. I looked across my belly to see Caramel trying to stop, hooves plowing up mud as he careened towards me. I felt his weight slam into my belly, and suddenly he was on top of me. I grabbed him, wrapped my dripping hooves around the back of his neck and pulled our faces together. I shoved my tongue into his damn stallion mouth and kissed him like I was going to die if I didn’t.

His barrel lay close on top of mine, our ribcages and muscles and cocks grinding together. He dug his rear hooves into the mud of the overgrown field, hips jerking. I knew that I wanted him to be the first one inside me. I knew it wasn’t right, but I wriggled back and lifted up my hind legs, wrapping them around his middle. His cock bounced down to hit the base of my tail. Caramel froze. He looked down at me, a rope of spit linking our lips briefly before it was washed away by the rain pouring down our faces. If I was lucky, Caramel couldn’t see that I was crying.

“Boss?”

“Caramel, please. I love you.”

Caramel sat up. He looked at me, his eyes full of desperate longing. And then he hauled off and punched me in the face. “You could have told me that before, you idiot!” His hooves kept coming down. I raised my forelegs over my bloody nose so that he couldn’t really hurt me — I could have thrown him off easily, but this sort of treatment was better than I deserved. His hooves kept thudding into me, and he kept shouting. “Do you know how long I’ve been in love with you, you asshole? Do you know how long I thought you didn’t care? How did you think I felt, always feeling like second best? Having to settle for second best? And now you tell me you loved me all along? I’ll kill you! I swear to Celestia I will fucking kill you and wear your balls for a hat!”

Something in the air had changed. I knocked Caramel’s hooves casually out of the way and gently planted a hoof on his mouth. There was a strangled noise from behind us. We both craned our necks to look. There was Trouble Shoes, standing in the road not ten feet away.

“You’d think I’d have expected it. And I did. And yet I still find myself totally unprepared to see this,” he snorted. And he turned and ran.

Caramel yelled, “Trouble, no!” and leapt up from on top of me. I scrambled in the mud, trying to get to my hooves, and took off after both of them. The rain was coming down hard now, and I could barely make out Caramel. I couldn’t see Trouble Shoes at all. The hoof I had landed on hurt, and I’d never been as fast as Caramel, so I was falling behind them quickly. By the time I caught up, they had reached the river.

Turns out the cabin was downstream from the beaver dam. I could see Beaver Lake behind them. Water was pouring over the top of the dam, so that it looked like a tiny waterfall. Caramel and Trouble were shouting something, but I couldn’t hear them over the the rain. Whatever Caramel had said didn’t go over well, because Trouble Shoes reared up and turned around to pound across the river. Somehow, that fool managed to land right on the already failing dam, bringing it down underneath him. Water rushed into the mostly dry river bed, knocking Trouble down. His head bobbed back to the surface two dozen hooves downstream.

Caramel dove right in after his husband. And I, being, upon occasion, a decent and upstanding pony, dove right in after to help.

The cold of the water knocked the breath out of my lungs, and then a mouthful of river water rushed in to replace it. I kicked my way to the surface, coughing, trying to get my hooves under me, only I couldn’t. The water was over my head. I’d never been much of a swimmer, so maybe diving in like this this was a really bad idea. The current tugged me under again. Yeah, it was a bad idea.

I prepared myself to die. It was the second time in two days. This was getting depressing.

Something big, and dull, and strong dug into the back of my neck and yanked me back to the surface. Trouble Shoes had grabbed me by the scruff of my neck with his teeth. He swung me towards his back, and I reached out and pulled myself onto it next to Caramel.

“Reckon you two are some of the dumbest ponies I’ve ever met. I can stand up in this water. You two can’t. What were you thinking? And I tell you what, it’s mighty neighborly of you two to come in here after me, but what if instead you’d just decided not to sneak off for a quick fuck and a lover’s spat the first chance you got?”

Caramel had wrapped his forelegs around Trouble’s neck. “I am so sorry, baby. I am so sorry I called you second best. You are the greatest pony who has ever lived.”

“Too little, too late,” grumbled Trouble, hauling himself out of the water.

———

The part of the roof I’d repaired was holding up well. So, at least I was good for something.

The four of us were huddled out of the rain, each in a separate corner of the dry area. I was shivering violently, and poor Caramel looked like he was about to shake out of his hide.

“I’m so, so sorry, baby. I just got carried away,” moaned Caramel, his bow tie and all but one of his cuffs now gone, and his mane flat against his neck.

“And how,” grumbled Trouble Shoes, “did you come to be in such a situation that you got carried away?”

“You’re a married man,” agreed Cheerilee. Her cheeks were wet, and it wasn’t from the rain.

“It was his fault!” Caramel pointed an accusing hoof at me, trembling with the injustice of it all. “He kissed me!”

That traitor. I was never letting him suck my dick again. I suddenly realized they’d stopped glaring at one another, and were all glaring at me.

“Not a coltcuddler, huh?” said Cheerilee.

“Could have fooled me,” rumbled Trouble.

On top of everything else, my nose had started bleeding again. Things could not possibly get any worse.

“There you guys are! Applejack said you’d be out this way, but I was starting to get worried.” Rainbow Dash, resplendent in goggles and her bright orange and neon yellow Equestrian Weather Service rain slicker, stepped under the roof with us and shook the rain off her wings.

Fuck me sideways.

“Is this a planned storm?” said Cheerilee. “A little warning would have been nice.”

“Naw,” said Rainbow, “Trottingham screwed the pooch. They lost control of their storm front. We tried to push it back, but it was too strong. We’re going to have to ride it out.” She ducked her head under her wing, pulled a small silver package out of her satchel, and tossed it into the middle of the floor. “That there is a magic blanket. You all need to huddle together under it and shelter in place until I can get back with help. Though in your case,” she said, glancing at Trouble Shoes and I, “Maybe you’d better take two.”

The two packets lay in the middle of the floor. We stared at them. Then we stared at each other. No one moved.

Rainbow facehoofed. “Oh for buck’s sake. This is a weather emergency, not a flight school prom! I don’t know what’s going on here, but I do know that you’re getting under those blankets so you don’t all die of hypothermia. If you don’t, Celestia help me, I will kick every one of you to death and pile your corpses under those blankets myself!”

I stood up, moved to the middle of the room, took one of the blankets in my mouth, and shook it open. I was just glad Rainbow had kept her mouth shut about what we’d done the other day. Guess that kind of shenanigans were no big deal to her.

The thin silver blankets were surprisingly warm. Cheerilee and Trouble made sure they were in between Caramel and me. Just to drive the point of how they felt about us right now home, it was me against Trouble, and Cheerilee against Caramel.

Rainbow turned to go. “Are you going to be okay out there, Rainbow?” asked Cheerilee.

Rainbow just chuckled. “Seriously?” And she pushed her goggles down over her eyes and leapt into the sky.

The awkward silence returned.

“I thought I was bad. But these two are a walking disaster area,” rumbled Trouble Shoes, after we’d been lying there for a while.

“They are indeed,” sighed Cheerilee, resting her head against Trouble’s shoulder. “What do you think we should do with them?”

I put my hooves over my ears. I didn’t want to listen to this. It didn’t help, though. I could still hear them.

“Reckon we got two choices. Option one is, we kick ’em to the curb. They’ll land on their hooves. Probably they’ll wind up together, which would be fine. The little sluts deserve each other.”

“Do you think we’d miss them?” asked Cheerilee. She sounded sad. I guess that was a point in my favor?

“Well, Caramel does have his endearing qualities. Though days like this, they are few and far between. It’s what I get for going after good looks rather than moral character.”

I craned my neck to look at Caramel for some support, but he was watching the rain with a hangdog expression on his face. So I went back to listening to the other two other ponies discussing my fate.

Cheerilee said, “And what’s our other choice? Learn to share?”

Trouble nodded. “They can’t keep their hooves off each other. If we want ’em, it’ll have to be on those terms. Does seem like we’d be letting them off the hook awfully easy, if we did that, though.”

“I very much agree, Mister Shoes. And I can’t escape the feeling that if Macintosh had been honest with us, and with himself, none of this ever would have happened.”

“You speak as though you have a particular plan in mind, Miss Lee.”

“Indeed I do. Listen closely and tell me what you think.”

———

“Now, everyone remember, this is a game,” Cheerilee reminded us. “You don’t have to play if you don’t want to.”

We were at her apartment, the next day. The cabin would have been better, being more secluded, but it was still cold and wet there. So we’d cleared her living room and drawn the blinds, and we were going to do something even I was a little uncomfortable with. I couldn’t believe this had been Cheerilee’s idea. I should have learned from Fluttershy that the ponies who seemed to be the most innocent often weren’t.

“You sure you want to watch this, Cheerilee?” I said, eyeing Trouble Shoes, who was making quiet, slobbery love to my mane and neck.

“Of course not. If I knew I was going to like it, we wouldn’t have to do it.” Cheerilee was checking Caramel’s bonds. “You have enough circulation, there, sweetheart?”

“Mgnh mky,” Caramel replied around his ball gag.

“Oh good. You boys keep an eye on him while I make the popcorn.”

I watched Cheerilee’s plump, delicious plot jiggle as she bounced happily out of the room. I shivered, wishing I could hit that tonight. Not that Trouble’s attention was unwelcome. His tongue traced the edge of my shoulder blade from point to top, soaking the fur. I bit my lip and stifled a moan, glancing over at where Caramel was trussed up on the couch. His face looked worried, but judging by his erection, he was having a fine time.

“Bet you wish you could have first crack at this, don’t you, Caramel?” Trouble began to nibble slowly up the line of my throat. He ran one massive hoof over my breast and down in between my belly and my very, very hard cock. “But he’s mine. My cock’s gonna be the first one up his virgin asshole, and all you’re gonna get is sloppy seconds.

“You boys had better be waiting for me!” called Cheerilee over the sound of popping popcorn from the kitchen.

Trouble lowered his lips to my ear. “I thought she was a virgin?”

“Technical virgin,” I replied. “You should see her collection of ‘romance’ novels.”

Cheerilee trotted back in with a bowl of popcorn balanced on her back. “Okay, you can go back to what you were doing.” She set the popcorn down on the couch, and climbed up after it.

I leaned my head against Trouble’s massive chest, and rubbed my cheek against his short, smooth fur. I looked down at his cock. It was big, but wasn’t much bigger than mine. Then again, ‘not much bigger than mine’ still means ridiculously huge. I held my nose near his wide, pulsing flare, and inhaled his scent.

I was one of those unlucky stallions who couldn’t do autofellatio, so with my hangups and all, I’d never had a dick in my mouth before. I honestly wasn’t sure where to start.

“Hey, Macintosh,” jeered Cheerilee, popping a few kernels of popcorn in her mouth, “are you going to suck it, or are you just going to stare at it all night?”

  “Sthly,” mumbled Caramel.

I sighed and settled down onto my belly. If you’re new at something, sometimes you’ve got to start from the bottom. I pushed my muzzle up under Trouble Shoes’ balls, lifting one with my face, and snuffling the variety of interesting masculine scents down there.

“Caramel told me you were partial to the testicles,” rumbled Trouble, caressing my mane. I didn’t respond, but tapped him on the chest, having him roll back against the wall so that I could get better access to his plot. I laid my hooves on his big, strong ass cheeks, kneading at the hard flesh. I ran my tongue across the smooth, leathery skin of Trouble Shoes’ sack, and he let out a husky moan. I opened my mouth and sucked a ball into it, wetting the skin down with my drool. His balls were huge, as big as grapefruits, and one of them barely fit in my mouth.

“You ready?” Trouble asked, tapping the shaft of his dick with a hoof, making it waggle.

I pushed myself up on my knees and took a deep breath. “Eyup.” And I pushed my mouth over the edge of his flare, and instantly fell in love. His flesh was hot and salty and wonderfully smooth in my mouth. His thighs shivered against my forelegs as I pushed down, seeing how much of him I could fit.

I felt a new appreciation for ponies like Caramel and Cheerilee who could fit me in their mouth deeply enough to make me come. I can eat a pie in two bites, and my jaw was already aching from being pushed open by Trouble’s massive dick. He was already getting a little out of control — his hips started to thrust, and the head of his cock surged past my tongue into the back of my throat, making me gag. I pulled off of him, coughing and spraying spit and pre, and thumped him in the belly.

“Easy,” I croaked, but I leaned forward to get him in my mouth again. I felt his flare with my tongue, familiarizing myself with every curve and angle, making note of the places that made him twitch and moan.

“He is so fucking hot,” rumbled Trouble, ruffling the back of my mane as I bobbed on his dick.

Cheerilee had one hoof slipped discreetly behind her popcorn bowl, moving gently. “Just think — he’s been holding himself back from this his whole life.”

“He definitely seems to enjoy this,” said Trouble, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek, “but I’m getting a yearning for a bit more vigorous action, if you take my meaning.”

Cheerilee giggled and waved her free hoof in a circle. “Macintosh, be a dear and turn around for the nice stallion.”

I lifted my head, several strings of drool linking my lip and Trouble’s magnificent flare, and blinked at Cheerilee. This was the bit I’d been dreading. Not that Trouble wasn’t hot, and that I didn’t, on a deep, secret level, want to be taken and owned. It was just that he was really big, and I was scared it would hurt. I knew I was being silly: Caramel assured me that in spite of his reputation for chaos, Trouble was a gentle and skillful top, but that didn’t make me any less nervous.

Still, I did want to try it. I turned around, parallel to the couch so Cheerilee and Caramel could get a good look at us, and kneeled obediently, haunches up in the air, face near the floor.

“There’s a good little mare,” rumbled Trouble, stroking my ass and then using it to lever himself upright. In the process, he somehow managed to bump the end table by the door. A vase of flowers fell to the floor and shattered. I winced.

“No! Leave it! I’ll get it later,” shouted Cheerilee as Trouble moved to go clean it up.

Trouble pulled over a bucket of Twilight’s animal birthing agent (Cheerilee had one on hoof, interestingly enough) and lubed himself up.

I nuzzled the inside of his foreleg as he stepped over me, and he leaned his head down, nibbling at my ear and licking my cheek. “Just relax, little filly. Trouble’s gonna take good care of you.” I felt his flare stroke the inside of my cheeks, prodding for the opening, then pushing up under the dock of my tail. I felt his powerful hips bearing down on me, but he just wound up shoving me across the floor.

Trouble looked up at Cheerilee and Caramel gloomily. “He’s all clenched up. I can’t get in.” What was wrong with me? Trouble’s cock wasn’t that much bigger than mine, and tiny little Fluttershy had taken me up her ass with the greatest of ease. I sighed. I was a coward. A dirty anal coward.

“Bear down, Honey. Like Caramel told you,” said Cheerilee. “Don’t worry about making a poop. We cleaned you out, remember?”

Trouble nudged me again, and I clenched my eyes, and muttered our agreed-upon safeword. “Nope.” They’d all thought they were pretty funny when they’d picked that one out.

Trouble immediately backed off, and Cheerilee wiped her left hoof on her hip and unbuckled Caramel’s gag.

“What’s up, Boss?” asked Caramel as I sat up. I glanced down at my floppy dick and felt like I was ruining the evening.

“Can Caramel take me instead? I know this is kind of supposed to be our punishment, but… I really want him to be my first.”

“Of course!” said Cheerilee.

“Hell yeah, Boss! I mean, I was sort of looking forward to being cuckolded, but we can role-play that later.” He turned to Cheerilee. “Could you get my legs, please?”

“You know, technically I think we’re all being cuckolded anyway,” said Cheerilee, fumbling with the ropes around Caramel’s legs.

I watched that lovely little twink slide sensually off the couch, ball gag still dangling around his neck. He looked good in anything. He stretched out, first pulling out his mareishly wide haunches, then hiking them up in the air, showing off their muscular curves. I slapped my dick against my belly — it sure wasn’t soft any more. We kissed briefly, and I turned away from him, lifting my tail. He slid his tongue underneath the dock, and began worshiping my ponut, running his tongue around it, then over the pucker. When it was nice and wet, he spread my ass cheeks with his hooves and begin pushing his nose in, slowly spreading me open. “Oh, nice and clean,” he purred. I pushed out, opening up for him, and he slid his muzzle inside. There was no discomfort at all as he fucked me with his face, pushing in and out up to his heavy equine jaw and broad cheekbones.

“Caramel, you nasty, nasty boy,” rumbled Trouble Shoes, leaning against the couch and stroking his heavily lubed dick with both leathery hooves.

Cheerilee had set aside her popcorn bowl and was rubbing her flower with both hooves, one pressing at her clit, the other rubbing roughly at her pouty pink pussy lips. “Oh, this is better than Fifty Grades of Hay.”

Caramel grinned at them, and got up to rub his dick against Trouble’s, smearing it with plenty of lube. Then he walked back to where I lay with my hind legs bent so that my ass was in the air. He slid over me and kissed me lightly on the ear. “You ready, Boss?”

“Eyup.”

And he slid inside me. I gasped, marveling at the strange new sensation of being penetrated. Caramel’s long, slim cock probed deep inside me, feeling like it was filling my whole belly, stroking places I hadn’t even known could give me pleasure. He easily pushed in up to his balls, so that his were knocking against mine with every thrust.

“Oh, Boss, Boss, Boss!” moaned Caramel. He wrapped his forelegs around my belly, and hammered me hard. So this was what it felt like, for him, all those times I’d taken him. I could already feel his thrusts becoming more desperate, and I knew he’d be coming soon.

“Caramel. I love you, Caramel!” I screamed, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, I’m sure. I glanced over at the couch — Cheerilee was upside down, hooves hanging down beside her head, using gravity to pull her haunches down so that she could hoof herself, ramming in up to the fetlock over and over again. I was gonna like being married to her.

“I’m gonna come, Boss,” moaned Caramel. “In or on?”

“On,” I grunted, “and then Trouble better be ready. I want more.”

Caramel pulled out of me with graceful ease, leaving me feeling empty but well used. He screamed, and I felt him squirting on my ass, hot ropes of semen spraying over my cutie marks.

“Hey, look, guys. Caramel apples!” said the little brown stallion, giggling to himself as he staggered back giddily. I heard a strangled scream from Cheerilee that told me she’d made herself come, and I could see both her hooves working more and more frantically as she went for a second one. Then Trouble stepped up, obscuring my view.

My asshole was still gaping from Caramel, so Trouble just nudged his slimy member right in. He felt as big as a train back there, and my ponut ached a little from the extra girth, but not in a bad way. He lay down over me, covering me with his hot, heavy body, and started thrusting. Caramel’s cum squeaked in between our bodies, smearing from my ass onto his belly. He bit my ear hard, making erotic pain lance through my body, and started pounding me with craftsman-like precision. Held in place by one ear, I was deliciously helpless as he used me, pinned down with that magnificent dick up my ass.

The masturbating mare on the couch was kicking the wall with delirious pleasure — either that or the neighbors were banging on it to get us to quiet down. A fresh wave of pain shot through my ear as Trouble bit down on it, drawing blood, and I felt his cock pulse inside of me, filling me with wave after wave of seed from those giant balls.

“I need to come,” I moaned, as Trouble pulled gently out of me. I rolled onto my back, cum from my ass smearing the floor, and more pouring out of my gaping ponut into the hair of my tail. My balls were aching with cum, so full they were sore to the touch, but I didn’t have to wait long. Caramel was on top of me like lightning, straddling me, pushing his ass down onto my throbbing, desperate cock, taking me in dry in his haste to service me. He planted his hooves on my chest to balance himself, and I watched his firm ass cheeks bounce up and down on my dick. Trouble squirmed in behind us, licking the cum off my tail and balls. He didn’t seem brave enough to go for the pools I could feel cooling in my still-open ass, but I didn’t blame him.

Over on the couch, Cheerilee was thumping a hoof against her ass cheeks, presumably trying to figure out a way to get a hoof in there, too.

Trouble sucked both of my leathery balls into his big mouth, and suddenly I was shooting in Caramel. The release of tension was so intense that I blacked out for a few seconds, and the next thing I knew, both of the stallions were pressed up against me. We were all kissing and stroking and cuddling, and soon Cheerilee was in there too, a blissful, post-orgasmic smile on her face as she leaned in from above to take a turn sucking on my tongue. She cuddled in with us, heedless of all the cum she was getting on her fur.   “Macintosh,” she purred, “You are going to the travel agent and booking us a boat to Prance first thing tomorrow morning.”

“A boat ride is gonna take forever,” I moaned, thinking of a week or more of blue balls before we arrived.

“Captains can perform weddings, you fool,” she said. So I cuddled in deeper against the bodies of the ponies I loved, cum and sweat drying on our bodies.

And for the first time in a month, everything was all right.