Anon's adventures in foalsitting, in which he demonstrates the super power of somehow NOT having sex with those in his care,.
Since coming to Equestria, Anon has adapted to a lot. He got used to the low door frames, the dramatic decrease to meat in his diet, and even the absence of the internet. Now tasked with a week of foalsitting, he's about to face his biggest challenge yet. The aggressive sexual advances of Sweetie Belle. Will he be able to resist the temptation of fine filly flank?
Yes. As surprising as it may seem, it turns out he's not in the slightest bit attracted to children.
"And I gave you the contact information for the hotel, right?"
"Yes, Rarity. Three times in fact."
"Oh, sorry Nonny dear, I'm just a bundle of nerves over this trip. Thank you again for being available so last minute, and for graciously opening up your home."
"It's literally my job, or at least one of them. The foalsitting agency gave me a call and I answered. And there's no way I'd fit in any of the beds at your place, so this is really the only option. But it's all fine, I'm great with kids. Now go enjoy your week in Las Pegasus."
"Yeah, Rarity! I'll be fine!" Sweetie Bell chimed in as she practically pushed her sister toward the door. "Anon is great, and I'm a big pony anyway, so shoo!"
"Alright then, I suppose I better be off if I'm going to get a good seat on the train. Farewell, Sweetie!" Rarity waved a hoof as she left, barely clearing the doorway before Sweetie Belle slammed the door shut with an exasperated sigh of relief.
Anon looked around awkwardly. "So, uhh...right. I guess I should give you the tour. This here is the living room. Both bedrooms and the bathroom are down that hall to the right, and to the left is the kitchen and dining area with a door out to the backyard. You hungry?"
Sweetie Belle fixed him with a half-lidded gaze and a smirk that could only be described as predatory. "Oh, you could certainly say that. I've definitely got an insatiable craving for something." She took a step forward.
"Alright then. How does a peanut butter and jelly sandwich sound?"
"Mmm, sounds delicious. I could certainly swallow down plenty of your nut butter." She licked her lips as she slinked forward. "But I don't think a simple sandwich is going to satisfy me."
"So...two sandwiches?"
Sweetie shook her head, resisting the urge to facehoof. "No. I have a very...particular craving. I need something hot.
"Hot?"
"And thick."
"Thick?"
"Something to really...fill me up down there. Something special you can keep stuffing into me all night long until I'm ready to pass out."
"Hmm...I...oh-OH! I think I see what you're getting at." Anon gave a confident nod.
"You do?" Sweetie responded with a satisfied sultry grin.
"Yep. PASTA!"
Sweetie stood there, blinking in shock as Anon rushed past her to the kitchen and began pulling out various pots, pans, and assorted cooking equipment, setting a large pot of water on the stove to boil. Her mouth was still hanging open when she heard a question float out from the kitchen.
"Okay, critical decision time. Are we doing a red or white sauce?"
Sweetie quickly shook her head clear. "I want you to give me your special hot and sticky white sauce. I want to be pumped so full of it that it feels like I'm about to burst and it starts leaking out of me."
"Hell yeah! Alfredo it is then. Not to brag, but I make some damn good alfredo sauce. Just give me about 20 minutes or so and we should be good to go."
There was a muffled smack of a small hoof impacting a small face as Sweetie Belle grumbled and shuffled over to a chair to pout as she waited for dinner. To her further irritation, it ended up being every bit as delicious as it had been hyped up to be. As it turned out, Anon was quite handy in the kitchen. Now if she could only figure out how to get him handsy in the bedroom. It was while reaching for a third helping of pasta that inspiration struck again. All it took was a little twist and a shift of weight and suddenly she had "accidentally" lost her balance. On her way to the ground, she managed to strike the edge of the pot with her hoof, tipping it over and spilling its contents all over herself.
"Sweetie Belle!" Anon leaped to his feat, voice filled with real concern for a moment. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, I'm not hurt or anything," she quickly reassured. "But...uggh...just look at me!"
And while he did so, she took this perfect opportunity to provide a better view. Rolling onto her back, she managed to strike a position that perfectly framed her assets. Between her lithe and sinewy legs sat the small bumps of her teats, like little underripe fruits on a vine. And a little further below, the cute pink blossom of her marehood. An untouched jewel that looked tight enough to crush coal into diamonds. Quivering with excitement and youthful energy. And over the whole of her body, a thin glazing of white sauce that she had been careful to smear over as wide an area as possible. She briefly stuck out her tongue to catch a bit that dripped from the end of her nose.
"I'm absolutely filthy. Just a dirty dirty little filly." She gave another stretch and waved a hoof over herself for emphasis.
"Yeah, you're a real mess alright." Anon responded, giving a low whistle at the sight before him.
"So what are you going to do with me?" The same sultry grin crept back onto Sweetie Belle's face.
"Well, that should be obvious. I'm pretty sure there's only one thing to do with a filly this dirty."
She suddenly found herself scooped up into his powerful arms, feeling the heat radiating from his chest as he carried her with long confident strides toward the hallway that led to the bedroom. Her grin widened. It continued to widen right up until she saw him walk straight past the bedroom and into the bathroom where she was promptly and unceremoniously dropped into an empty bathtub before being blasted by a stream of cold water from the shower head.
"AAAAHHH!"
"Oops, sorry about that. I forgot for a second that the water is pretty cold when it first comes out and takes a few seconds to warm up. My bad."
Sweetie said nothing and pouted internally as he proceeded to rinse and scrub her clean. She had at least been somewhat successful in getting his hands on her, even if they were primarily occupied with running shampoo through her mane, which admittedly did feel nice. It seemed this was going to be harder than she thought. No matter. She still had a whole week and she was far from out of tricks.
"Hey Sweetie, I'm back with the groceries and...what's with the getup?" Anon stared in confusion at the small filly in a ludicrously ruffled Prench maid outfit.
"Oh, you know. Just trying something out." She smiled back innocently.
"Uh huh. And you just...had that pre-packed away in your bags did you?"
"Yep. You never know when you might need it."
"Need it for...oh! Is this part of that 'crusading for cutie marks' stuff you and your friends are into?"
"Uh, I, yeah. Yeah, this is crusader business. Trying to see if I can get a cutie mark in maid...ing? Maid-ening? Maid stuff." Sweetie quickly shook her head clear, getting her mental hooves back under her and setting a sly smirk on her face. "So, are there any...services I can provide you...master?"
"I dunno." Anon thoughtfully stroked his chin. "I mean, you're my guest and I'm the one who is supposed to be taking care of you for the week. It doesn't really feel right to put you to work."
"Come on, please? It's for our cutie marks! That means we Crusaders have to try a wide variety of positions. We need to get really experimental with it."
"Well..." Anon continued to scratch his chin in thought. "I suppose if it's for Crusader business..."
"Yes?" The grin returned to her face once again.
"Then I guess there are a few things I could use you for."
Her grin widened. "Oh, yes! Use me for whatever you want. For as long and hard as you want. I live to serve."
"Great! This way." Her grin vanished again when he lead her to a closet and began pulling out and showing her the various cleaning supplies. "It's been a while since I've been able to give the area behind the toilet a good scrubbing, and there's a bit of a soap scum problem in the bathtub I've been ignoring a bit too long. Then there's the window blinds that could use a good wipe down, and I've got a little backlog of laundry to work through as well."
As Sweetie Belle spent the next two hours dusting, scrubbing, and performing various household chores, she became intensely aware of how ill suited her costume was to actual cleaning, the over-exaggerated ruffles doing little more than getting in the way and soaking up dirt and grime. It was also not the right time of year to be wearing something that layered. With Celestia's summer sun blazing down without mercy, Sweetie soon found herself sweating profusely in the uncomfortable outfit. Finally deciding that this just wasn't worth it, even if she had managed to swipe a pair of Anon's used underwear from the laundry pile, she quickly wriggled out of the uniform and gave it a quick scrub before hanging it up with the rest of the clothes. Given the weather, she thought it prudent to skip over her next idea involving the black latex body suit.
After stopping by the kitchen to down a couple glasses of water, she made her way to the back yard where she found Anon lounging in a beach chair in the shade, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks, and flipping through a comic book. Sweetie quickly closed her mouth and wiped away a bit of drool as he looked up over the page and gave her a wave.
"Hey, Sweets! How goes the maid crusading? Any new cutie marks?"
Sweetie replied with a long suffering groan. "No. I think that's a dead end."
"Just as well." Anon gave a sympathetic nod. "I didn't want to say anything at the time, but it's way too hot to be running around in that outfit."
"Believe me, I know."
Suddenly, another devious idea popped into her head. With cat-like agility, she jumped up into the chair beside him. "There's just this constant crushing, throbbing heat that makes it so hard to think."
"Yeah, someone should definitely tell Celestia to tone it down a notch, right?" Anon answered, not bothering to look up from his comic."
"Right." She slowly turned around, straddling her legs over his waist and stomach and spreading her stance slightly to give a clear view of her troubles. "I mean, even just sitting here in the shade, look how sweaty I am? I'm positively dripping." She gently waved her tail back and forth, gently fanning the scent of her arousal towards his head.
She glanced back over her shoulder and frowned when she saw the he still hadn't looked up from his comic. She swung her tail wide to briefly smack across his head and smiled when she saw him finally glance up. Before him, the tight pink lips of her entrance were flushed and swollen red with arousal and twitching with need. A heat radiating from between them with an intensity that put that of the sun beams to shame. Thin rivulets of sweat ran down the curves of her shapely rump and down her thighs as a small bead of something thicker and several times more fragrant slowly ran its way down the center, tracing every crease and line where the two folds met. Down to where a small button winked in and out in excited anticipation. There the droplet hung, threatening at any moment to break free and drop down onto his bare stomach, as her tail continued to sway back and forth like a metronome, rhythmically obscuring and revealing the entire scene while creating a warm and salty breeze to deliver the cornucopia of associated scents.
Sweetie Belle gently bit her lip as she looked backward. "Oh, gosh. I just can't think straight when I'm this hot and bothered. If only there was something that could be done to get me some...relief." She shot him another knowing glance.
"Yeah, that does seem pretty rough. But don't worry, I got you covered." He shot a grin back at her as he took a hand off the comic to reach for something.
Sweetie felt her whole body clench in excitement, nearly dislodging the perilously hanging droplet, before it was suddenly blown away by a powerful stream of cold water that knocked her off her hooves and sent her flying through the air and onto the grass. When she had shaken off the thermal shock enough to look up, she saw Anon holding the end of a hose in one hand and giving her a thumbs up.
Then, apparently struck by an idea, he disappeared around a corner and into a nearby shed where he came out with a long plastic sheet. She had no clue what one was supposed to do with a plastic sheet of those dimensions, much less outside. She continued to stare in confusion as he laid it down flat on the lawn, being sure to check for rocks, and proceeded to wet it down thoroughly with the hose.
"What are you—EEP!"
To her surprise, he quickly strode over, picked her up under his arm, spun around, and flung her like a discus at the end of the wet plastic runway, sending her rapidly careening across the yard.
"AAAAAAHHHH!" Her initial scream of terror morphed halfway into a scream of delight as she gently coasted to a stop at the end of the sheet. Despite her heart still thundering in her ears that wasn't really all that bad. She was just considering having another go at it when she looked up to see a missile of human flesh barreling straight at her.
Sweetie Belle slinked through the darkness like a prowling panther, her eyes and ears sharp, and her muscles coiled as she ever so slowly pushed open the door to her objective. Anon's bedroom. This was it. Her previous plans may have fizzled in the daylight, but under the heavy blanket of night, perhaps the atmosphere would be more to her advantage. Perhaps the change in location would help as well.
She could hear the steady breathing and low rumbling of Anon's snoring coming from the bed. Slowly, she crept forward in silence and gently clambered up onto the foot of the bed, careful not wake him. She paused for a moment to consider her plan of attack, then burrowed her way under the large singular blanket, setting a gentle glow on the end of her horn so she could see what she was doing. And there he was. Anon, bare except for a single pair of silk shorts. The only barrier between her and her prize, which she swore she could nearly make out the outline of beneath the fabric. She licked her lips in anticipation. Now she just needed to clear this last obstacle.
Crawling up between his splayed leg, she managed to grab the fabric of one of the leg holes between her teeth and slowly began to pull downward. Unfortunately, the motion caused Anon to turn in his sleep and stretch out, and Sweetie suddenly found herself pushed back with a foot mashed into her face. That was alright. She would work with that. With a devious grin, she pulled one of the toes into her mouth and began sucking, eliciting a few chuckles from the still sleeping Anon. It seemed he was a bit ticklish there.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bad thing for her. She barely had time to register the toe withdrawing from her mouth, pulled back by a powerful contraction of leg muscle, before she was suddenly seeing stars from the rapid reacquaintance of the foot with her face as the unconscious Anon delivered a kick that sent her flying across the room to land in a waste basket near the wall. The commotion nearly, but not quite, roused Anon to consciousness. He half sat up, blearily mumbling some incoherent noises that sounded like "pancakes" before falling back down to resume his snoring.
After finally managing to extricate herself from the trash, Sweetie Belle stumbled her way back to the bed, head still spinning slightly. She climbed her way back up and considered a new angle of attack that would avoid those feet. Crawling back under the cover, she made her way further up the side to get her teeth on the waistband. This would be a bit trickier to maneuver, but hopefully safer.
As she worked at the awkward angle to try and slip the waistband down his left hip, Anon suddenly began to turn on his side, rolling towards her and bringing his right leg up slightly and straight towards her head. She managed to just barely duck under it, only to have it suddenly clamp down on her neck, trapping her head into a scissor lock between the two legs.
She spent a minute wriggling in place, unable to free herself. At least she had a nice view of Anon's ass. It was too bad she couldn't do anything with it from this position. For the moment, she could at least still breathe through the grip on her neck without too much difficulty, though the blanket pulled around her meant a lot of rebreathing the same pocket of air. Though now that she focused on it, she did feel a very gentle breeze coming from somewhere. A strangely warm breeze like a steady breath.
"No....no no no no no no no no!"
Her wriggling renewed as the silent gentle breeze moving past her head began to grow in intensity into a squeaking foul wind and then a foghorn announcing a full force fetid gale blasting her in the face. She tried to hold her breath against the onslaught as she kicked her hooves out to hopefully at least open a ventilating gap in the covers, but she lost it in a sudden gasp of despair as some additional shift by Anon caused the blanket to instead pull tighter around her, sealing her in.
Now she thrashed in blind panic, lashing out with hooves and magic with every bit of strength she had, eventually dislodging herself and tumbling onto the floor. This time, the commotion was enough to wake Anon.
"Huh? Wha? Oh, hey Sweetie. What are you doing here?" Anon turned a groggy and unfocused gaze toward her.
She took a break from gasping for air to respond. "Oh, uhhh...sleepwalking? Yeah, and I guess I must have tripped."
"Right. Right." Anon nodded back. As thin as the excuse was, in his current state, he probably would have believed her if she said she had just fought off an alien invasion. He swallowed once and gave a brief grimace. "Well, I need a glass or two of water. Maybe a snack," he said as he swung his legs out and pushed to his feet. "You want some?"
"Uhh, sure, I guess."
She followed him to the kitchen where they both enjoyed some water as well as a small spread of cheese and crackers. When they had finished and Anon had cleared away the plates, an awkward silence settled over them in the still darkness of the house. Anon was the first to break it.
"Well, now I'm a bit too awake to go back to sleep immediately. How about you? Anything you want to do?"
Sweetie Belle quickly pushed aside the lingering trauma of her recent failure to leap at the new opportunity that had just fallen into her lap. She didn't have anything planned out, but one didn't just a let a chance like this fly by. She would just have to wing it.
"We should play a game!"
"Yeah, okay. I think I have a deck of cards around here somewhere."
"No, I was thinking more like...a roleplaying game."
"You want to start an Ogres and Oubliettes campaign? I don't know. That's a pretty big time commitment, and I'd have to dig out the books and dice and the character sheets. It's a whole big thing even if we use some pre-mades."
Sweetie Belle rubbed a hoof between her eyes. "No. I mean...like House. You know House, right?"
"I'm pretty sure I've heard of it? I don't really know the rules or anything though."
"It's simple. You just...act out your part. Just follow my lead."
"Okay."
She took a deep breath to center herself and then turned on the seductive charm.
"Oh, daddy! I've been a bad, bad, naughty little filly, and I need to be punished."
A brief moment of puzzlement flashed across Anon's face, followed by a spark of comprehension. "I'll say! Have you seen this power bill? You've been touching the thermostat again haven't you! How many times do I have to tell you all not to touch the thermostat!"
"I...uhh...yes! Yes I touched the thermostat and I deserve—"
"And what's even the point if you're just going to leave the door hanging open to let all the cold/hot air out! We may as well just throw our bits in the fireplace! And don't even get me started on not turning the lights off when you leave a room. Who are we lighting these empty rooms for, ghosts?"
"Uhh, this is a little too—"
"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the next 3 hours in the back yard grilling while listening to a podcast about World War II naval ships."
"Anon! Can you please take this seriously!"
"Okay." Anon suddenly turned toward her, a deathly serious look crossing his face. "Sweetie. Sit down. We need to talk."
Without thinking about it, she found herself obeying, curious as to where this was going. "I–uh–okay...?"
"There's...something important I need to tell you. Something that's been building up for a while now. Something that's been a long time coming. I wish it wasn't true, and I've done all I can to prevent it. I tried. I truly tried to make it not so. But there are some things you just can't avoid forever. Some truths you just have to face."
Sweetie Belle said nothing as she continued to stare in rapt attention.
"No, you can't run from the inevitable. What I'm trying to say is that sometimes you can feel a certain way about someone at first, but over time those feelings can...oh boy, there's really no good way to say it, is there? I guess I should just say it straight out then."
Anon's face twisted in a mask of anguish, guilt, and self-recrimination while Sweetie Belle leaned forward, wide eyed and hooked on every word.
"Sweetie...your mother and I are getting a divorce."
"..."
"..."
"...What?"
"I just want you to know that we both still love you! That hasn't changed and will never change. But we're going to be spending a lot more time apart from each other. I just want you to know that this isn't your fault in the slightest. This is entirely on us. Like I said, it was a long time coming and there was really no avoiding it. There's going to be a lot of changes to be sure, but we're going to get through this."
Sweetie Belle's only response was to slowly raise two hooves to massage her temples as she closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.
"I...you know what, no. Nevermind. I'm just...I'm going back to bed."
With that she turned and trudged her way back to her bedroom. As she rounded the corner, she could hear Anon call out after her.
Sweetie Belle grunted and wriggled on her back as she struggled to get the last stocking up her leg. She had no idea why this ridiculous getup was referred to as a "school filly outfit". She WAS a school filly, and this didn't match any dress code she was familiar with. Though come to think of it, she wasn't familiar with any dress code. School fillies just wore what everypony usually wore, which was nothing. But that was what the label on the package in Rarity's closet had said, and apparently these socks were a vital component. Thankfully, she had picked up enough sewing skill from her sister to hem and alter them appropriately to fit herself, along with the other outfits in her collection.
Finally in uniform, she peeked around the hallway corner to see anon exiting the kitchen, reading the newspaper while carrying a piece of toast in his mouth. Now was as good a time as any to strike.
"Oh, teacher!"
Anon, mouth still full of toast, looked up, looked around and behind himself, then pointed a thumb at his chest with a quizzical look on his face. Sweetie Belle nodded in response.
"Is there anything I could do to get some...extra credit?"
Anon rapidly chewed and swallowed down the rest of his toast before responding.
"Well, I do occasionally pick up a few substitute teaching gigs locally, but I've never had your class before, so I'm surprised you knew. Anyway, I'm not sure I can really do anything about getting you extra credit. I'd have to contact Cheerilee and set something up to make an addendum to the summer school curriculum, which I didn't think you were actually enrolled in. And from what I've seen of the grading system in Ponyville, it seems to be heavily pass/fail so I don't think extra credit is really even a thing."
Sweetie Belle strained at the effort of resisting rolling her eyes back into her head as he continued.
"But if there's any topics you want to brush up on with a little tutoring, I'm down to help."
She saw a chance and jumped on it "Yes! That would be great!"
"Okay. I can do some writing and literature stuff in a pinch, but my specialty leans more towards math and physical science. I've got some cool demos I can set up, and I don't think Ponyville has much in the way of museums, but there might be something within a short train ride. I just need to check if—"
"Actually, what I need is more...biological." She attempted to waggle her eyebrows to no effect.
"Hmm...not as much my wheelhouse as physics or chemistry, but I can give it a shot. So, what? Taxonomy? Photosynthesis? Natural selection? The mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell?"
"I'm thinking more the birds and bees."
"Ooh! Bees are super interesting! They can see ultraviolet, communicate through a combination of dance and pheromones, and they have 3 sexes and can change one of them into another one just by change of diet! They can even—"
Sweetie pressed a hoof to his mouth before the avalanche of bee facts derailed things even further.
"Actually, forget about bees. What I actually need help with is anatomy."
"Anatomy?"
"Yeah. Pony anatomy. And human I guess. Similarities, differences...compatibilities."
"Hmm...well I'm actually pretty in the dark there. I know a little bit about equines back home, but I'm not sure how much carries over. I know the joints are crazy different, and I have no clue about stuff like the digestive tract. Like, I know you guys definitely eat plenty of baked goods with eggs and stuff, so you're not 100% strictly plant eaters, but then again even the horses back home would opportunistically snack on a baby chick if it wandered in front of their face to no ill effects so the herbivore to omnivore boundary was always pretty porous. But they were also physically incapable of throwing up which doesn't apply to ponies here so something is definitely built different."
Sweetie Belle put aside the disturbing mental image of eating a baby chick whole to interrupt once again.
"No. Not like that. I–I mean reproductive anatomy! You know! Mares and stallions getting together? Making baby ponies? That whole process?"
"Ohhhh. Yeah, again, I'm not super sure what carries over. Other than the very broad basics, I'm working on educated guesswork here and realizing that I haven't actually sat down and cracked open a relevant biology text. I'm no doctor, but I've got the informed layman's gist of how all the plumbing and everything works for humans. But when it comes to ponies, you might actually know as much or more than I do."
"Really?" Sweetie grinned mischievously. "Well, if only there were a way for us to learn more. Together. Form our own little study group to get the basics down. Do some compare and contrast. Maybe employ some visual aids or even physical models? Get a nice, firm, solid grip on the fundamentals and then repeat and keep pounding it in until it's second nature. For science, of course."
Sweeties flashed a smile that Anon returned in kind.
"I get what you're saying. And I think I have just the thing to make sure our intellectual curiosity is deeply and exhaustively satisfied. But this living room won't do. I've got a more appropriate location in mind. One stocked with the appropriate...educational tools and resources."
Sweetie felt a spreading dampness in her hindquarters. She bit her lip and responded.
"Well, we better get going then."
Anon simply nodded, stood up and scooped her up under his arm. Then he ran straight out the front door.
***
"And here are several slides showing the different stages of pony gestation."
Sweetie Belle continued screaming internally as she had done for the past half-hour, ever since Anon had kicked open the door to the Golden Oaks library and demanded Twilight give them both an in depth lecture on pony reproduction. A demand Twilight had been positively giddy to fulfill, quickly fetching several books, a whiteboard, and a slide projector.
The 30 minutes that followed up to this point had been the most dry, clinical, and by far least sexy discussion of genitalia and intercourse she had ever endured. Made worse by Anon being such an enthusiastic student, brimming with what appeared to be genuine academic interest. She saw him raise his hand into the air once again.
"Yes, Anon?" Twilight pointed a hoof at him.
"Do ponies actually go through estrus?"
"Excellent question! Contrary to some popular myths that circulate, they do not. Ancient pony ancestors did indeed have estrus cycles, but that gradually changed over time to the point that modern ponies have stable year round libidos and can conceive at any time of year, with a menstrual cycle remarkably similar to that of humans, though slightly shorter."
Anon quickly scribbled down some notes in his notepad. "Fascinating!"
As bad as eager student Anon was, it was still way better than when he had been sharing the whiteboard with Twilight as they both ran through comparative anatomy of humans and ponies. Anon's surprisingly detailed medically accurate sketches of human genitalia alongside Twilight's own renditions. Both explaining about the mechanics of erections, the function of prostate fluid, and how vaginal secretions are produced. Stopping only for one of them to scribble in their notebook when the other brought up something they found interesting like a couple of huge nerds. Not a trace of embarrassment on either of them the entire time. Anon had looked her dead in the eye without flinching as he gave a detailed description of how the process of human ejaculation worked, along with typical volumes emitted before passing it off to Twilight to do the same. Sweetie had briefly blacked out for a minute after that, and when she came back to her senses they had somehow gotten onto a tangent.
"Oh my gosh! I love bees!" Twilight shouted excitedly. "Did you know the males are actually haploid?"
***
After 2 more excruciating hours, the majority of which Sweetie had spent in a dissociative state, it seemed things were finally wrapping up. Mercifully, the actual health lesson had essentially concluded a half-hour ago as Twilight and Anon had effectively run through all their prepared material and had moved on to increasingly unrelated tangents into other topics. Twilight was currently giving him a tour of her basement lab and explaining what every piece of equipment did. Sweetie Belle took this time to reflect on the magnitude of her most recent failure.
What if...what if Anon just wasn't into ponies at all? Could that be it? The species gap? Getting hung up on that was considered a bit...backwards here in Equestria, but Anon had mentioned humans were the only sapient species back home so maybe that colored his view of things a bit. He might just be incapable of even perceiving ponies as possible sexual partners. Then again, for all she knew he might not be into ANYONE. He could be one of those, what were they called? Asexuals? It wasn't outside the realm of possibility. He did consume a prodigious amount of garlic bread. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Anon's voice.
"Well, as fun as this has all been, we need to head out if I'm to get dinner started in time. Thank you once again Miss Sparkle, for a delightfully educational time. I'm positively kicking myself for not availing myself of your services sooner."
"Please, just call me Twilight, and you're quite welcome. For being the only library in Ponyville, so few ponies actually bother to drop by.
"Inconceivable! Though now it feels like I've stumbled onto some kind of rare secret treasure."
"That's sweet of you to say. And thank you for putting up with my little tour, by the way. It can all be a little too much for some, so I appreciate you being patient with me."
"Not at all! I was riveted the entire time you led me around." He flashed her a bright smile. "The optics were phenomenal. At least from where I stood. You should be proud."
Twilight gave a half-giggle in response "Yes, I suppose things looked pretty good from my angle as well."
Wait. Sweetie thought to herself. Are they...? Are they flirting? Is that what that is?
"Anyway, I'd invite you to stay for dinner, but Spike usually does the cooking and he's off in Canterlot at the moment. And I like you too much to subject you to my cooking." She gave a light hearted laugh that Anon quickly picked up.
"Well, I happen to be pretty decent when it comes to cooking, so how about the next time I swing by and you're without your usual chef, I commandeer your kitchen and teach you a couple of my favorite recipes, and you can teach me some more astronomy, or history, or anything else."
Okay, they are definitely flirting! Right?!
"Sounds great!" Twilight beamed. "The Tuesday after next, Spike is going to be off on a trip to the Dragon Lands. That would be perfect. Maybe as a bonus, I'll even give you the extended tour to some of the other rooms." Twilight gave a restrained giggle. "But only if your recipes really impress."
"Then I'll be sure to bring my A game. Well, it's been fun. But we really do have to hit the road now. Let's go, Sweetie."
Sweetie Belle snapped out of her incredulous open mouthed stare at the prospect of freedom. Anon's hand was on the door when they were suddenly stopped.
"Wait!" Twilight called out. "I just remembered there was a book I was going to recommend you! Just wait a minute. I'll be right back!"
She raced up the stairs, leaving the two of them to awkwardly stand around for what was closer to two minutes before a rapid series of heavy hoof falls announced her descent back down. In front of her floated a book, some kind of guide to pony history from what little Sweetie could make out, with the corner of some kind of black bookmark sticking out of it. Twilight levitated the book over to Anon's hands.
"Uh, thanks?"
Twilight opened the book to the section in the middle where the bookmark sat.
"I think you might find this part interesting. Let me know what you think of it."
Anon looked down and a huge grin began to spread over his face. "I think you're right on the money, Twilight. I believe I'm going to enjoy this immensely".
"Happy to hear it."
With a final set of goodbyes they finally departed the Golden Oaks library and made their way back to Anon's house, much to Sweetie Belle's palpable relief.
So was that actually the both of them flirting, or was that just Anon being hyper-dense again? Honestly, I can't put it past him at this point. The whole incapable of seeing ponies as sexual theory might still be on the table. Whatever. I can't wait to finally get back and take off this dumb outfit I've been stuck in all day.
As they entered Anon's house, he quickly shoved the book onto a high shelf before practically sprinting to the bathroom, which he had apparently been neglecting to visit all day. Overcome by a sudden bout of curiosity, Sweetie Belle ignited her horn and with a bit of effort, shakily levitated the book down to the floor.
Alright, let's see what has Anon so interested. Probably ancient pony bee keeping practices or something dumb like that.
She quickly flipped it open to the bookmarked section.
Whereupon she discovered that the small dark piece of cardstock was in fact, NOT a bookmark, but a hastily taken instant photograph.
A photograph of Twilight stretched out across her bed.
Wearing some very bold purple and black striped socks
