Discovery
Amorosa
Admiral Biscuit
I hesitated in the hallway, checking once again that the number on the cocktail napkin I was holding matched the number on the room, which it did.
I didn’t have to re-check the hotel; it was my hotel.
Certain that I had the correct room, I knocked on the door, and was answered almost immediately with a familiar female voice. “Come in.”
Most human hotels I’d stayed at in the last few decades had keycards for the door, and there was no way to unlock the mechanism from the inside. That was a smart design; it meant that guests couldn’t unintentionally leave their room unlocked.
Ponies didn’t think that way at all, and in fact I’d stayed at some hotels off the beaten path which didn’t bother with locks for the rooms at all. It vaguely stuck in my mind that back on Earth, there was a certain legal responsibility the innkeeper took when he passed a key across the counter, an understanding that the room was to be private and the stay uninterrupted. Perhaps the laws were different in Equestria, or perhaps ponies weren’t rude enough to barge into a room that wasn’t theirs. Or perhaps with unicorn magic, locks were superfluous.
As soon as I opened the door, my eye was drawn to the bed; more specifically, to the mare draped across it. She had her rump facing the hallway and her tail hung off to the side, revealing herself completely. I’d grown accustomed to the ponies primarily going around nude, but this was beyond that. This was a straight-up invitation—clearly, she’d intended for more than a casual chat when she’d invited me to her room.
I should have expected it; I’d chatted with her a few more times at the bar and gotten a good picture of how she made her living. That was why I was here, after all.
I tried to keep my eyes up, but I couldn’t help myself, especially when the door clicked shut behind me and she flicked her tail then winked her clit at me.
She must have been expecting to hear hoofsteps across the floor, because I’d only taken a couple more steps before an ear cocked in my direction and she turned her head to face me. “Joe?”
“You did invite me over.” I held up the cocktail napkin with her room number written on it as proof.
“Yeah.”
“That wasn’t the whiskey talking, was it? I could leave.”
She shifted around on the bed. “No, no, not at all. Come in, come closer, sit down and make yourself comfortable. I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to.”
I glanced around the room. There were a couple of short hallways, one which led to a kitchen and one which I’d assume went to a bathroom. Closer to hand, there was her oversized bed and a comfy looking couch.
The couch was the safest bet; I could sit there and talk to her, and it wouldn’t be as intimate as sitting on a bed with her. It wouldn’t risk sending the wrong message.
She must have noticed my indecision, and tapped a hoof on the bed. “You can sit here. It’s plenty comfortable.”
I still hesitated—truth be told, I was uncomfortably far outside of my wheelhouse, and sitting down on the bed felt like more commitment than I was willing to make. Especially if I approached from the backside.
I walked around until I was at the side of the bed her head faced, and sat down.
She immediately reached out a hoof and rested it on my thigh. I couldn’t help but notice that her hoof-polish was immaculate as always. “I’ve never done this before.”
She chuckled. “I can tell. Don’t worry, lots of ponies are nervous their first time; it doesn't bother me at all.”
“This might sound crass,” I said, “to just go out and say it like this, but do you charge by the hour or the act?”
“Depends.” I was expecting a blush, but she had a serious business face. Which made sense; this was a business for her. “What do you want?”
“Well. . . .”
“You got me over a barrel here, I don’t know how long humans last, so you might get a really good value if you just want a blowjob or a quick fuck.”
“I want to be fair. What do you charge per hour?”
“Twenty bits.”
“Done.” I reached into my pants and pulled out a handful of coins.
I was expecting her to have a taxi meter or a chess clock or something special to keep time, but she just glanced at my money and the clock on the wall, then nodded her head.
“Just want to tell you, there’s some stuff I don’t do. I’m usually a pretty good judge of ponies and what they want, but I’m not so good with humans and if you’re interested in something really unusual, I might say no. Are you okay with that?”
“Yeah.”
“Depending on what turns you on, I know some other ponies, and could give a recommendation . . . what do you want?”
“Can we just talk?”
“Sure.” She nestled up against my side. I really wanted to reach down and run my hand through her mane or scratch her ears, although it felt inappropriate to do so—despite the logical part of my brain reminding me that I was paying her, and I certainly could touch her if I wanted.
“You probably don’t get many guys who just want to talk.”
“More than you’d think, Joe.” She nuzzled against my side. “Lots of ponies just want to talk, just want some companionship for a little while. Maybe they’re trying to impress their friends or co-workers by going to a courtesan, or maybe they just had a lousy breakup and need somepony to talk to—somepony to pour their heart out to who won’t judge them.”
I focused on the wall and tried to ignore the pull I felt from her. That was a natural thing to feel; that was what she did for a living and I wasn’t ready to let her lure me in.
“Whatever their motivation, it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t that seem like you’re taking advantage of peo—of ponies?”
“When I’m standing in line at the soda counter and somepony in front of me orders a banana split with extra whipped cream I don’t hear the soda jerk asking her if she really wants that, if she knows it’s not good for her, if she knows it’s gonna go right to her crest. What’s the difference? Maybe that sundae lasts fifteen minutes, twenty, and then it’s nothing but a memory. Hopefully a happy one.”
“You—” I could understand where she was coming from, but I didn’t think it was the right place. Still, was that something that I should be deciding, or was that my human upbringing or morals talking? I was in a different world with different rules, after all. Just the same. . . “A banana split isn’t the same as, as—”
“As temporary companionship? As sex? Why not? It’s good in the moment, and it’s good when you think about it later.
“You might not be a pony, but I know that you want to touch me but you’re scared. You don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Some ponies are stiff and scared like you are, and sometimes it’s easier for them to open up if they’ve paid bits, it makes it transactional.”
“It shouldn’t be transactional.”
She didn’t reply; instead, she pushed her head up under my arm, under my hand, not unlike a cat that wanted attention. I didn’t rise to the bait.
“Everything is transactional. It’s not always bits, but maybe it’s more honest when it is. Don’t tell me, but when we started talking properly in the bar you had ideas of how things might turn out, didn’t you? I did. I was curious—professional curiosity and some personal curiosity, too.”
“Personal curiosity . . . how much?”
She giggled. “I got no idea what humans really look like when they’re not all covered up in clothes. I asked around and none of my friends know, either. There are drawings in books, but that’s not the same as seeing it with my own eyes.”
“Oh, really?”
“It’s true.”
“What’s it worth to find out?”
“If you’re packing like a minotaur, I’ll give you your twenty bits back.” She held her hooves out, spanning nearly a yard. “Or you got zebra endurance, that’s the only time I really lost money but it was worth it. I don’t know why he couldn’t find a mare; he wore me out before he was done.
“I told him the next time would be free, but he never came back. He might have been a sailor or he might have finally found somepony to settle down with. Sometimes it’s sad to only see a pony a time or two and then never again, but that’s the nature of the job.”
“I can’t claim either size or endurance,” I admitted. “You’d be disappointed.”
“Disappointed is you don’t feel better when you leave than when you came in.” She rubbed her head against my arm. “You keep your hands to yourself for the whole hour, you’re gonna be disappointed. You’ll be going back to your hotel room wishing you’d been brave enough to touch me at least, and maybe you’d come back in a couple days or a week with another twenty bits and we’d be sitting on the bed together again talking while you tried to work up your courage.”
“I just don’t want to do something wrong,” I said. “Something that offends you.”
“I’m a whore, that’s a low bar.”
I could feel my cheeks getting red. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, Joe. As long as you don’t—well, the only pony I ever banned, he came in after a nasty breakup, spent the whole time he was fucking me saying how much better sex was with his former marefriend, and then after he was done, he finished off his session crying into my mane.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I get compared to other ponies sometimes, but that was just rude.”
“Was that your worst experience?”
“Overall, yeah.” She scrunched up her muzzle. “I get some stallions that think they’re hot shit, hardly last a dozen thrusts before it’s over, and of course a few teenagers where it’s their first time with a mare. Sometimes they don’t even make it in before they finish. I try to teach them as best I can, so they can make their marefriend happy.”
“Reveal to them the secrets of the female body.”
“There aren’t that many secrets to a pony who’s attentive—it’s mostly just knowing to listen to what your partner wants, really. All ponies are different, and the most important thing is communication. You’d be surprised how many of my clients are willing to ask me for something really specific but don’t think to ask their partners for the same. They know what they like, and they’re willing to ask me, but not brave enough to ask their partner.”
“Does that bother you? When you know a pony has a wife or a girlfriend?”
“It did,” she admitted. “At first, but remember they come looking for me. I don’t seek them out. I don’t know what their home life is and it’s not any of my business anyway. Think of it like this—we could be having this conversation at the bar, a piece at a time, maybe you buy me a drink or two to keep me talking. Maybe you got a partner, I don’t know. But you’re here now, so what does that say?”
“I was curious.”
“And you’re indulging that curiosity. For twenty bits.”
“Yeah . . . does that mean you’ve got to tell me the truth to any question I ask?”
She laid her head against my leg. “Ponies pay me to get what they need.”
“That’s not a yes.”
“It isn’t.”
“So you could be lying about minotaurs, or zebras, or the stallion that cried. You could be lying about how curious you are to see what’s in my pants.”
“I don’t know humans all that well, Joe, but I’ve talked to the bartender and she thinks you’re genuinely curious,” she said. “So I might be more truthful to you than I would be to any other client. I have been so far, and you’ve asked the same questions lots of other ponies have. Not all at once, and not upfront, but it comes up.”
“How about you just tell me if I’m getting too personal?”
She nodded. “I could do that.”
“How’d you get into this line of work?”
“That’s a long story, and just an hour isn’t gonna be long enough. In a nutshell I like making ponies happy, and I’m good at it. Try me, you’ll see. You ever hooked up with a pony before?”
I shook my head.
“I can make your first time one you’ll really remember.”
“I’m going to remember this.”
“Well, if you change your mind,” she looked over at the clock, “You still got most of an hour, that’s plenty of time. I think. Tell you what, though, you wanna roll in the hay, I won’t leave you hanging, no matter how long it takes.”
“Have you ever timed out a stallion before he, you know.”
“Cums? Usually, they’re nervous and can’t get it hard, or they have second thoughts and leave before they’ve finished or before they’ve even started. Sometimes they run out of stamina when we’re having sex, especially older stallions who need another ride below the crupper to prove that they’ve still got it. They’re usually really embarrassed when it happens, and I spend the rest of their time comforting them even though it’s not gonna produce a result. I’m good enough that if there’s a spark, I can make a flame.” She slid her hoof across my thigh, and I instinctively put my hand out to stop her.
She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Is this legal? What you do?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”
“It’s not most places on Earth.”
“Why not? Ponies want something, and I’ll sell it to them. Whether it’s sex or a fancy partner for a gala or a companion to pour their heart out to.”
“A gala?”
“Despite what I know you’re thinking, Joe, I provide more services than sex. If a pony decides he wants to have a companion at a fancy shindig—or even a mundane one; I once spent the day at a town fair and got third place in the pie-eating contest—I’m happy to oblige.”
“Do you charge your hourly rate? Twenty bits per hour?”
“For longer events, no. I give a discount. It’s worth it: I can eat the food and dance and listen to the music and that’s fun. Unless it’s nobility and an official function; now I have a rule against that. A bunch of stodgy unicorns all trying to out-class each other and sit in silence as Silvio Appony reveals his latest sculpture isn’t my idea of a fun time. On the plus side, unicorn nobility will only be seen with an earth pony companion if they want to be seen slumming, so I don’t get that many offers.
“It’s a good deal for a lot of my clients, too, ‘cause if they’re willing—sometimes even if they’re not—I spend a couple hours teaching them proper etiquette and how to dance. You can’t imagine how many stallions have no idea how to dance.”
“I would. It’s not that different on Earth,” I told her.
“Figures.”
“Do you ever go to a gala with one pony and there’s another one of your customers there?”
She nodded.
“Is it awkward?”
“Not really. Nopony really makes a big deal about it. I’m good at fitting in most places.”
“Even a town festival? A lot of the country ponies I’ve seen are, um, more rough and ready.”
“I took out some of my earrings and wore a checkered kerchief and besides the pie, I ate more fried food than I should have.” She giggled and leaned against my side. “It was a lot of fun, made me feel like a filly again. Sometimes it’s fun to change things up, to play a different role.”
“Is that something you do a lot?”
“Depends.” She shrugged. “I do what makes my clients happy. One of my former regulars asked if I’d wear a fake horn, once. I don’t know what he was thinking; that wouldn’t have fooled anypony.”
“A fake horn?”
“Yeah, for if you want to look like a unicorn. Sort of like a strap-on for the head. I’ve got one if you want to see what it looks like.”
“I’ll admit, I’m curious.”
“I’m not going to put it on, because it takes a while to do it right.” She hopped off the bed and headed down one of the hallways; I watched her until she disappeared from sight.
She swished her hips and kept her tail high the whole way, ensuring I had a good view. No doubt still trying to seduce me.
What am I doing? I didn’t have a good answer for that. I was curious, she’d caught my eye, and there was at least part of my mind that wasn’t opposed to finding out how she was in bed. That part of my mind constantly reminded me that I’d already paid her and she was expecting me to have sex with her—that was literally her job—so she wouldn’t think any less of me if I did. It was more a question of what would I think of me?
I was still debating it in my mind when she came back, holding an extremely realistic horn in her mouth. If it hadn’t had a harness and some straps trailing from it, it would have looked like she’d broken it off a unicorn, it was that authentic.
The straps were colored perfectly to match her coat, and quite thin. If she put on a bit of makeup to blend the edges and styled her mane around it, I thought it would be convincing, at least until she tried to do magic with it.
“It’s made with a wood core and a patented faux-alicorn coating,” she said. “Matched to both my coat and body type, and the first time I got it on right, my reflection in the mirror confused the apples out of me. It was like I was suddenly a different mare, like I’d been a unicorn all along and only just now realized it.
“The illusion was so good I thought it would be fun to wear it out in public, but when I did, it only took a unicorn about ten seconds to realize it was fake, ‘cause it turns out I’m too good with my mouth.”
“How do you mean?”
“Most unicorns have learned to do simple stuff with their horn by the time they’re in elementary school: picking up small things, making light, and so on. It’s not taught; it’s mostly instinctive, like learning how to walk.
“I’ll usually grab things by mouth or hoof without even thinking about it, when a unicorn wouldn’t. Doesn’t matter, though; I didn’t buy it to be a spy and blend in at fancy unicorn parties. The few clients who want me to wear it aren’t looking for a real unicorn experience, anyway; they want the look without the actual magic.
“It’s the same with wearing a dildo; most ponies who’d want me to wear one for vanilla sex typically go to an actual stallion instead of me.”
“Wear one?” As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted saying them, knowing I was about to get some more unvarnished truth I’d never thought about and would never forget.
“Oh, sure. Some stallions like pegging, like being fucked by a mare. Maybe they’re gay but in denial, or maybe it’s a dominance thing, kind of depends. And there are mares that want the feel of a dick inside them but haven’t found the right stallion yet. Or maybe they’re practicing something new, and they want to get it right for their partner. Like deepthroating, that takes some practice. And anal’s weird at first, too. You’d be surprised how many ponies don’t think about lube or . . . some of the other practical aspects.”
“So you’re also a sex ed instructor.”
“When I have to be.” She set the fake horn on the bedside table and cuddled up against my side again. “If you wanted to learn how to do something, wouldn’t you want to ask a pro?”
“I suppose.” I couldn’t hold back any longer, and reached for her mane. Ponies were more touchy than humans, and thus far I’d generally kept my hands to myself. I’d been an observer, but not a complete participant in their lifestyle. Here I didn’t have to hold back. Here I could indulge.
I half expected her to shy away from my touch, but of course she didn’t.
Her mane was coarse, coarser than human hair, and her hairline was nothing like a human’s. I should have expected that; I’d petted horses before. Still, it was a weird moment where my mind reverted to not thinking of her as an alien, but a horse who could talk and who I was at least vaguely considering hooking up with. It felt wrong, and it felt wrong that it felt wrong.
I couldn’t resist the allure of her ears, and ran a finger up the inside edge, then down the outside, bumping off her many piercings. “You said mares, just a moment ago. Does that mean you’re bisexual?”
“Bisexual? Like a pine tree?”
“A pine tree?”
“Sure, lots of conifers have both male and female cones . . . that’s not what you meant, is it?”
I shook my head. “I meant you like both stallions and mares.”
“Yeah, what mare doesn’t?”
“Back on Earth, that’s the holy grail, at least for guys. Men. Stallions. Although now that I think about it, it’s probably because we all want a threesome with another woman.”
“What’s a ‘holy grail’?”
“The thing that all guys want.” My mind was already going places previously unimagined.
“Told you I was good.” She rubbed her head against my side, and I instinctively scritched behind her ear. “I get some stallions who want that, who ask me if they can bring their marefriend, and at first I didn’t know if I should. That was back when I still imagined that my only clients were single ponies who hadn’t found a special somepony yet.”
I snorted at that. I couldn’t help myself; infidelity was so common on Earth any whore who thought that her customers were all single men was delusional.
“Yeah, yeah. I was young and maybe a little bit idealistic. So then I tried it a couple of times and it was difficult to balance out what two ponies wanted and needed, but it generally worked out okay, until a couple got into a full-blown argument because he apparently hadn’t mentioned to his marefriend what kind of services I offered, nor that he was one of my regular clients.”
“What did she think she was getting into?”
“She had no idea, not at first. He’d invited me to a restaurant with her—I don’t know what he told her but I think his idea was that my presence or our dinner conversation would somehow seduce her. He hadn’t counted on her figuring out by the time the appetizers came that we’d been fucking before, although she thought I was some other marefriend he had. Lucky we got that sorted out, because she was about to kick up a shindy.
“He’d paid in advance for dinner and for our time, so after she got done tearing a strip off his hide, she kicked him out and the two of us had a lovely evening together.”
“Like, you hooked up?”
“No, we drank wine and talked. I wouldn’t have minded if we had hooked up. She was cute, and the angry sex would have been fun, too. Plus, it would have served him right to have had the threesome he wanted so badly, but without him.
“She wound up kicking him out of the house and found a much better stallion who gave her a couple of cute foals. She stops by sometimes to catch up with me.”
“You ever think of asking her if she wants a threesome with her new stallion?”
“I’ve thought about it, yeah. But I haven’t asked and I won’t. If that’s something they decide they want, she knows where to find me.
“Ever since then, if a stallion asks, I say that he’s gotta pay for a session for his marefriend—just her, not him. And we talk it through and if it’s something she’s interested in, too, then I’ll go ahead and plan it.”
“How about mares? Do they ever want to initiate threesomes?”
“Sometimes, not all that often. There’s a few who want to watch, who like the idea of seeing their stallion fuck another mare, but usually it’s to see about buying something special for their partner, maybe something they don’t want to do for him.
“I also sometimes have parents fob off their colt on me, thinking that if he hooks up with a mare, that’ll make a stallion out of him.”
“You don’t—”
“Of course I do, bits are bits. But I won’t do anything that he doesn’t want to. If it’s just sitting and talking for the entire session, so be it.”
“What do you tell the parents? If they ask?”
“It’s really none of their business, but if they insist, I say that we had a lovely time together. Like we’re having right now.” She glanced over at the clock. “We still have time.”
“Not enough.”
She shrugged. “I make the rules, and I say we have all the time we need.”
“I don’t want to cut into your time with other customers.”
“I hear a hoof knocking on the door, I’ll—” She glanced around her hotel room. “I dunno, hide you in the bathroom or something.”
“Hide me in the bathroom? Are we back in elementary school?”
“Doesn’t look like you can fly, so I can’t push you out the window. Truth is, I’m not expecting anypony; today’s sort of a day off.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about prostitutes getting days off, but of course they would. If they wanted. “You must normally have some kind of schedule.”
She nodded. “Sometimes it gets complicated, working around regular clients and a few more time-consuming affairs, but I can make it work. Besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder—some ponies value me more if they can’t always get me when they want me. There’s enough cheap selltails to supply the demand for instant gratification, and those are clients I don’t really want.”
“Selltails.” I chuckled. “I hadn’t heard that expression before. We have the same sort of thing on Earth, at least as I understand it. Street-corner whores where you can have a quickie down an alley or in your car, versus the more expensive ones. It’s not an industry I know much about besides what I’ve seen on TV. What do you do about diseases?”
“Frequent checkups, clients I can trust. A genital inspection before we do anything. Plus good old-fashioned Earth pony strength.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know lots about you. I didn’t give you directions to my room the first time we met, remember.”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s a risk, sure, but not that much of a risk for me. Other ponies who want to turn a quick bit, yeah. You get what you pay for, and sometimes you get more than you paid for. As long as we’ve been sitting here talking, I have more confidence in you than ever.” She brushed her head up against my side, finally untucking my shirt. Whether that was a result she had been intending or it was an accident, I couldn’t tell.
Whatever the case, she immediately took advantage, pressing firmly against me as her head raked my shirt up a few more inches. The feel of her coat on bare skin wasn’t unwelcome, and I couldn’t help but think again what it might be like to let things progress.
I’d been to a few strip clubs and at least there I went in with the full knowledge that I wouldn’t get anything but teasing unless I spent rockstar amounts of money. That wasn’t the case here, something I found both liberating and terrifying.
How many other ponies had been on this very bed? That was something I tried not to think about in hotels.
She must change the sheets frequently; her customers wouldn’t want to deal with stained sheets or worse, damp spots. Or was the bed not actually for sex? Did ponies prefer to do it standing up, like actual horses? That didn’t seem likely; why have a bed at all then?
I could have asked her; instead, I changed tack.
“With your customers that don’t want to have sex, do you arrange in advance to cuddle? To sit and talk? Like we are?”
“Depends on what they want.”
“If I was a normal customer, would you have asked? Invited me to sit and have tea instead of trying to seduce me the moment I came through the door?”
“I wasn’t trying to seduce you.”
“You always answer the door like that? The mailpony must love bringing you packages.”
She had the courtesy to blush. “Okay, maybe I was. You’re both forthright and reserved and I haven’t completely figured you out yet. I might have hoped that in a private setting, a mare presenting herself to you would be irresistible.”
“So you were fantasizing about hooking up with me? I should have charged you twenty bits.”
“Strip off and fuck me right now, and I’ll give you your twenty bits back, plus another twenty.”
“I wasn’t being serious.”
“I am.”
“You’re not playing some sort of weird reverse-psychology game on me.” I wasn’t the best at reading ponies, but their ears usually gave them away. Of course, she’d know that, and therefore I couldn’t rely on her ears, which meant I couldn’t take her offer. But then she was the one rubbing up against me, which meant that she was sincere . . . I had a flashback to Vizzini and the wine glasses, and the realization that I was tipping on the edge of the same rabbit hole.
“So if I was a normal customer, you wouldn’t be offering me double my money for the experience; you’d be talking frankly about rates for this or that. Especially if it was something weird.”
“Weird is in the eye of the beholder. I once had a stallion pay me a hundred bits to bathe me. I figured he had some sort of shower kink and was gonna mount me in the shower, but that wasn’t it at all. He washed me and then he left.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“You never saw him again?”
“Nope. A shame—he did a really good job. I would have paid extra for that kind of service at the spa. Washed me and dried me off and brushed my coat and mane and tail. None of the other girls knew him.
“I’ve had ponies ask me to cook for them, which I don’t get. I’m not much of a chef; they’d be better off spending their bits in a restaurant. I guess they just want to share a meal. And one of my regulars pays to spend the night in my bed.”
“Don’t most of your clients pay to spend time in your bed?”
“Not this bed; my actual bed where I sleep. I don’t invite many clients back to my bedroom. Not unless—would you be more comfortable there?”
“Honestly? No.”
“I didn’t think so.” She scraped her hoof against the sheets, wrinkling them, then sighed. “He’s kind of eccentric. He’s also a little afraid of me. He’ll usually masturbate a couple times on my sheets and one time he jerked off on my lingerie. I wouldn’t have minded but of course he didn’t tell me what he’d done and I didn’t think to look—who would?—and when I went to put it on . . . I’ve got plenty, luckily, but I had to meet with a regular not wearing his favorite outfit.”
“Does that bother you? I mean, in general? A pony who doesn’t want to have sex with you, but wants to get off around you?”
“Eh, if they pay their bits and it makes them happy.”
“That sounds like an invitation.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Where’s your underwear drawer?”
She smacked me with her hoof. “You’re being silly.”
“I might be.”
“Down that hall, on the right, you can’t miss the dresser. Second drawer down from the top, that’s the good stuff. Or if you prefer it used like some ponies do, I’ve got an actual closet with a few dresses and gowns, and there’s a wicker laundry basket in there with stuff I haven't gotten washed yet. Dirty sheets, too, if that’ll get you going. Just don’t get jizz on any of the clean dresses, please, or if you do, tell me so I can get them cleaned.”
“You’re not serious.”
I could tell by her expression that she was.
“Had a pony pay for a dress, went with me to the fittings and everything, and I wore it when we went to a gala together. After, he fucked me about every way you can, tore the dress for better access the third time, and at the end of it all, he took it home with him. It was really pretty, but I can’t be mad; he paid for it, after all.”
“That’s really weird.”
“Some ponies want a trophy, something that they can look at and remember good times.”
“I suppose you’re right. Some men on earth buy underwear—used underwear. And I bet some guys would keep it if a girlfriend left it behind. Do you collect trophies?”
“Are you offering your underwear?”
“I was thinking of my shirt. You must like it, as much as you’re rubbing your head up against it.”
“You know that it’s not the shirt I’m interested in. You're not afraid of me, are you?”
“No.” I shook my head for emphasis. “I’m not a brave guy, not in a lot of things, anyway. I wouldn’t have come here if I was afraid of you.” I sighed and ran my fingers down her back, almost to her tail. Maybe that was too much, but I couldn’t help myself. “I might have beat myself up for it later, thought about the opportunity I’d been given and missed, like if you’d . . . well, I guess you did give a clear invitation.”
“Repeatedly.”
“But I didn’t miss it, and I feel like that makes the difference, like that makes this my choice rather than cowardice.”
“It’s not cowardice. Don’t think that.” She gave me a reassuring nuzzle. “I—well, I see a lot of ponies and sometimes other species, too. I don’t know how it is on Humania, but ponies have ideas in their head about how things are supposed to work, about what’s supposed to happen, and if it doesn't jibe with what they’re expecting, with what they’re thinking is gonna happen, sometimes they kind of freeze up. Sometimes I have to guide them, especially if they’re inexperienced.
“It’s weird, there’s a lot less I have to say when it’s an experienced pony, either one of my regulars or a pony who’s visited a lot of upper-class companions before, they just say what they want and I give them a price and maybe there’s a bit of haggling but after that, it’s over. I do what I say I’m gonna and they don’t surprise me. With new ponies, ones that have bits but don’t really know what they’re getting into, it’s vague ideas and something they saw in a film or a picture or read in an erotic story or maybe something that they overheard; it’s sometimes a harsh lesson in the difference between an unachievable ideal or some weird sex act no mare would actually enjoy and . . . well, and reality.”
“I’d like to think that I know the difference between porn and an actual relationship. Pornography gives people an unhealthy idea of how fast the plumber actually arrives.”
“What?”
“Never mind, that’s a human joke. Is porn something that you also dabble in, or do you prefer to keep the cameras away?”
“Depends. I sometimes pose for a few artists around town. Mostly a zebra named Acrylic; she’s friendly and really easy to work with. If that’s something you’re interested in, I can give you directions to her studio. Tell her I sent you, and she’ll give you a discount on any paintings of me.
“And I’ve been in a bunch of photoshoots and some films. It’s not as sexy as most ponies imagine; there’s a difference between being there in the moment and posing for something that’s gonna be frozen in time. Especially the films—I mostly stay away from those. There are some crews that are good, that hire talented stallions who can keep it up, who know their own bodies, but otherwise it’s a lot of waiting until they can get it hard again for another minute of film and I gotta pretend like we’re still in the middle of a marathon rutting when really the only marathon part is how long I can go without snagging a donut off the crew’s snack table.
“And the worst are the ones that think they’re some kind of artistic director, like if they do an undercranked closeup of my cunt as I’m fucking, that’s art, or a blurry cutaway to a potted flower just before he cums on my face. . . ponies don’t watch porn for the cinematography. The hottest movie I’ve ever seen was a mare who managed to crank and mostly aim her own camera from next to her head for the entire duration. Sometimes the focus sucked and she didn’t bother dubbing over a moaning soundtrack, but the moment he came and pulled out and she muttered ‘that’s it?’ before dropping the camera and reaching a hoof down to finish herself off, I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Every stallion ever. . . .”
“In a badly-written porn, this is where I’d unzip my pants and tell you ‘Prepare to be disappointed’.”
“You sell yourself short, you’ve got hands and a mouth. And you strike me as a conscientious lover, so you wouldn’t leave me hanging, even if you’d already finished.” I’d thought she couldn’t get more in my personal space, but she did, pushing my shirt up even further before running her head down my thigh. “I wouldn’t’ve given you a good offer earlier if I thought you were gonna push me to the edge and then leave me on my own.”
“Shows how much you know about guys in general.”
“I know about you, and that’s what matters here and now.”
“Here and now you’re in it for a profit, and you’d’ve never offered me double my money back to, to fuck you, not if you thought I’d take you up on it.”
“Try and see.”
“No.” I clenched my fist and pounded it against the bed. “Dammit, whenever I speak I think I’m playing into your game, whatever it is, and whatever my choice is I lose.”
“What if I just give you your twenty bits back and we fuck? Then there’s no transaction?”
“What if you give me my twenty bits back and we don’t?”
“Does that feel more honest to you?”
“Yeah.”
She turned her head towards the table. “Well, there they are. Scoop them up, I won’t stop you.”
I looked at them and then back at her. “You know I can’t.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”
“Dammit, we’ve been at this for . . . an hour?”
“Give or take.”
“And I still don’t know if we’ve made any progress.”
“What is progress?” She brushed a hoof across my leg. “You’re overthinking; it’s not the destination but the journey. We both know things about each other we didn’t before, like how red your face gets and how you hesitate and think about a way to dance around the subject of sex when you’re talking to a whore.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Say something dirty to me, right now. Tell me how you want to fuck me, how good it would feel to have your cock buried deep inside me, how you’d be biting my mane or nipping at my fetlocks, how you’d shove your face under my tail and eat me out from clit to asshole. How you’d grab the back of my neck with your strong talons—fingers—and shove my head down on your cock.”
“I—”
“Tell me that that usually doesn’t happen as I’m wiping your cum off my back or my muzzle, tell me how I touched you in a way no mare or stallion ever has as your dick shrinks back into its sheath.
“You’re not gonna.” She rubbed her head across my chest as she looked into my eyes. “Even if it was true. You’d be concerned about me, about how I felt, about what I thought. You’d be worried that I hadn’t had a good time, and it wouldn’t matter how often I’d told you that it wasn’t for me or about how I felt.
“You’d be a perfect gentlestallion, and it would both frustrate me and turn me on. A nut I can’t crack. The idea that ponies pay me and I know that most of the time I’m also getting what I want, if I really stop and think about it. And yet, you’d be in my small collection of clients where I want it just as much as they do, but I can’t tell them that because it’s not good for business. The rare puzzle I can’t solve.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not—don’t think of it like that.”
“Any stallion, if he was remotely interested, I’d have had him out by now.” She glanced down at my crotch, then back up. “And I know you’re interested.”
“Don’t go down that road. . . no matter what, this won’t turn into a pity fuck.”
“No?”
“No. That’s not what I want.”
“I know.” She slammed a hoof against the mattress. “Which is a shame, because at least that would be easy. I’m not, I don’t like puzzles. You’re gonna lead me on, or I’m gonna lead myself on, and at the end of it, one of us won’t be happy. Or maybe both of us.”
I ran my finger over her ear, across her piercings. “It won’t be both of us, for what that’s worth. Maybe—and this will bug me if it’s the case—maybe when you decide the hour is up, I’ll leave and you’ll be frustrated. Unfulfilled. And I’ll know it, and wonder if I were going to come back a second time or if I’d already burned that bridge, if you’d remember this time and have said to yourself ‘never again.’ Or maybe it’ll be like when you’re fourth and goal and willing to risk a running play, there’s no way I can know. Maybe you’re just so good you hook ponies the first time and they don’t know they’re hooked until you reel them in the second time.”
“I wish.” She slumped her head against my leg. “So that’s what you’ve decided? That at the end of this we turn out to be star-crossed lovers, cursed to never actually fuck even if both of us want it?”
“Both of us?”
“Both of us.”
“Shakespeare would have been proud.”
“You came to me, so there’s still hope for this tragedy.” She nuzzled my leg, moving dangerously close to my crotch. “What did you call it, pity fuck in the second act?”
“Not even for a refund of my twenty bits. I’m just being honest.”
“I know you are. There’s just some things that a pony won’t do for bits. One of my regulars, he’s a unicorn noble, he wanted to pee on me, and I told him that even for the title to his lands, that wasn’t gonna happen. I know some mares who would, and only for a hoofful of bits, too, not even a noble title. I wasn’t gonna tell him that, though; that was something I’d let him find out on his own.
“How’d that turn out?”
She shrugged. “Golden Flowers has a nobility, so.”
“You don’t feel like you missed an opportunity? All those noble shindigs.”
“Some things can’t be bought with bits.”
“What if I—”
“I know you wouldn't and more importantly, you know you wouldn’t.”
“As a hypothetical?”
“Maybe I’m hypothetically the Princess of Humania, or maybe you were the one who was lying and shame on me.”
“But what about your cutie mark?”
“Get a cutie mark, see the future? I wish it was that simple. They say when you get one it’s like an epiphany. Me? I wish I hadn’t been thinking the moment after I swallowed and felt the heat on my flanks and realized what had just happened that I was gonna have to come up with a real good story for my parents or my older brother. One that didn’t involve sneaking off into a dark corner at a school dance and giving a blowjob to a cute hormone-driven pegasus who I’d just met an hour before. A cutie mark that didn’t allude to my special talent being focused around sucking dicks, or ultimately one that branched out into what I discovered could be a lucrative career.
“Probably for the best I figured that out early, in fact, rather than sucking and fucking my way to a poor reputation and STDs.”
“Cutie marks are something I’ve never really understood about ponies. I met a mare once who had a mark in robbing banks, and in the short time I spent with her before the police showed up, I got the impression she wasn’t all that good at it.”
“Cutie marks don’t lie, but ponies don’t always know what they mean,” she said. “I didn’t know that at first, but I learned it. I had to go . . . strange places to figure that out, but I did. When I was a filly, I wouldn’t have believed it if I got told that my cutie mark wasn’t the end of the journey but only the beginning, but it’s true.”
“They say that there are more truck drivers who are PhDs than anybody would imagine.” I scratched behind her ear and she leaned into my side. “So it stands to reason that the same would apply across the board.”
“I never got a PhD, but I’ve got a Masters in psychology.”
“Of course you do.”
“Hey, I like ponies for more than just the sex part. Being a consort is a way to meet a lot of interesting ponies, even if having sex isn’t the best way to learn about a pony, right?”
I nodded. “So, does a pony go into a field in the service of her cutie mark, or because it called to her, and her cutie mark confirmed the wisdom of her choice?
She shrugged. “I know what I’m good at, and I know what makes ponies happy, and what else matters?”
“You were talking about film earlier,” I muttered. “Any moment, I’m expecting the soft fade.”
“That only happens once you slide down your pants.”
“Oh, really?”
“It’s true.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’ve been in those films—have you?”
“You know I haven’t.” I ran my hand through her mane. “Is this the moment when we fade out and roll credits?”
“It could be.”
“Is that the director speaking, or the actress?”
“Could be either. A good director knows when a scene’s reached its . . . climax.”
“Is there a term in cinematography for the disappointing but inevitable outcome?”
“Probably, but I don’t know it.”
“Well, I think we’re both feeling it.”
“Hotel Room Slut II: you think they’re both feeling it, but they’re not. Watch through the entire show as both partners dance around the subject of having sex and then don’t.”
“Yeah, that’s the Oscars in a nutshell. Or is it the Academy Awards?”
“Stick your hand under my tail or sniff and you’d see . . . well, it doesn’t matter. What’s the human saying, I fought a mare and the mare won? But the other way around.”
“That doesn’t feel right. I’ve met a lot of ponies, and cutie marks don’t lie; you’re good at—you’ve got your special talent.”
“Thanks.” She stuck her tongue out.
“And you can, uh, impress a stallion.”
“Or a mare.”
“Or a mare,” I echoed. “You know, you said earlier that you noticed I got all red in the face when we talked about sex.”
“You’re doing it now.”
“No, I’m not.” I reached up a hand and felt my cheek. “Well, okay, maybe a little. But that’s not my point; I don’t think I could have talked about any of this to a woman I barely knew back on Earth.”
“So maybe there is hope.”
“I wonder if that’s a consequence of being in Equestria? And if so, is it a good thing or a bad thing?”
“I don’t really see how it would be a bad thing. It’s always good to be open about your feelings, to talk to other ponies, especially to your partners.”
“But what if—back on Earth . . . well, for one you’re not supposed to have sex with anything but other humans. And it wasn’t that long ago that you weren’t supposed to have homosexual relationships, at least where I come from. Some places it’s still illegal. And before that, you couldn’t marry a person who was a different ethnicity to you. Some churches won’t let you marry outside the religion. We’ve got a lot of rules about who you can and can’t hook up with.
“So what if in my mind, I can be more open and candid with you, because deep down you’re not on my radar as a potential sexual partner? Like, even if it somehow got to the point where we were going to do it, I couldn’t perform? I’m not saying that I’d be trying to lie to you or mislead you, but that it was something so ingrained in me that no matter what. . . .”
“A lot of ponies find comfort in talking to somepony who’s not gonna judge them, and who’s gonna do what they paid for, and I bet it’s the same for humans.” She lifted her head off my leg and shifted around on the bed, pushing herself up until she was sitting on her rump. “Now, if you’re gonna make me really reach into my psychology degree, you gotta be the one lying down.”
“I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me.”
“Believe me, the ponies who say that are the ones that need it the most.” She darted in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Well, I did pay you twenty bits.”
“I don’t know for sure how it is for humans, we didn’t cover humans in my xenobiology or xenopsychology classes, but I’ve found that if I’m open to new ideas, sometimes my views change over time. Not for everything, of course.
“What do humans usually do to get to know a partner? If they’re not just paying them, that is.”
“Take her out to dinner, maybe a movie, sit and talk.”
“Well, we’ve got one of those things covered, and next time we’re at the bar together, we can share a table and you can pay my tab.”
“I can do that. I assume it’s mostly the same for ponies? Getting to know each other?”
“Spend time together doing things that both partners like doing, yeah. Lots of earth ponies find love working in the fields, that’s kinda clichéd in romance stories, though. Or hitched up together on a wagon. There’s a couple of livery mares in town who spend so much time working together I think they’re secretly a couple but you wouldn’t know it to look at them.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell with working people. I’ve spent more time with co-workers than they spent with their spouses, and I think the same might be true of ponies. Although you’d have a better sense of it.“
“It’s the same here, at least with some ponies.”
“Not that long ago, I spent some time with a crew of coal mining ponies and they struck me as having more of a co-worker dynamic, or maybe bickering sisters. That could be me thinking like a human, though. Relationships between co-workers are against the rules in bigger businesses, back on Earth.”
“Why?”
“Because you can wind up with people taking advantage of other people over jobs. A secretary gets a pay raise if she’s willing to hook up with the boss, that kind of thing. Since the military is coed now, the same thing applies there. Surely you’ve got big institutions where that’s a problem, or where it could be.”
“I don’t think we have that here, at least not to the point that I’ve heard about it. Well, I guess I have had a few ponies complain to me that they really want to get together with somepony who works for them or with them, but usually they’re asking for relationship advice or techniques that might please their potential partner, not if I think it’s a good idea or how to take what they want. I can kind of tell who’s got a chance and who doesn’t, just by listening to them talk. Ponies who brag about how great they are normally aren’t. Is that the same for humans?”
I nodded.
“I thought so. Still, there’s a lot of things about our society that are different than yours.”
“I know.” I rested my hand on her head, then started scratching behind her ear again. “Back on Earth, I’d have this constant fear that the cops were going to kick your door down, and that they’d arrest me for being with a prostitute even though we haven’t done anything yet. I don’t have that kind of fear here. And up in my hotel room, I’ve got a bucket of gems that back on Earth could buy me a mansion, and as far as I can tell nobody’s taken one yet.”
“What kind of gems?”
“Rubies, apparently.”
“Red ones?”
“Yeah, mostly. Couple of them are as big as my fist, almost.”
“Wild or farmed?”
“The rubies?”
She nodded her head.
“I dunno, what’s the difference?”
“The wild ones are just dug up wherever, and the farmed ones come from rock farms.”
“Rock farms? I—how is that a thing?”
“My special talent lies more in the bedroom than the field, so I can’t give you an exact answer, but earth ponies with the right skills put out the right kind of rocks, tend to them, and then they get gems. Same as with any seed, really.”
“The rubies came from a coal mine, and the ponies who were mining them treated them mostly as overburden. They had a huge pile of gems they didn’t want.”
“So wild, and likely not all that good.”
“That’s what I’d imagine. You want to come upstairs to my room, you can take a look at them.”
“Up to your room, huh?”
“That’s not a pretext, I swear.”
“It’d be the worst one ever,” she said. “Especially considering us here and now; if you want to mount me, just do it.”
“As tempting as your offer is, I just can’t. Not now, at least.”
“I know.” She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. “To be honest, I kinda knew from the moment you walked in that it wasn’t gonna happen today at least.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. We had a fun time and we talked about a lot of stuff. There’s some things I can’t really talk to other ponies about but it feels okay to tell you, since you’re not a pony. And even if some other mare catches your eye in the future, I can help you with that, teach you things that you should know like how to brush a coat or mane or tail, I bet you don’t know how to do that.”
“Well, I did have some horseback rid—experience with horses back in summer camp, but that was a long time ago. So I kind of know some of the general principles.”
“Horseback, huh?”
“It’s—on Earth we rode horses, and . . . that doesn’t sound better, does it?”
“I’m not gonna judge you about what you did at summer camp. Lots of ponies experiment, too.”
I could feel my cheeks burning. “We didn’t ride them, they carried us around.”
“You’re so cute when you’re flustered.” She touched my shoulder with her hoof. “I know what you meant. And if you want. . . .”
“I don’t think you’re big enough to carry me.”
“I’m stronger than you’d think. I bet I could.”
She was probably right. Ponies were stronger than I thought.
“Or if you’re feeling lonely some night and don’t want to sleep alone, I’ll share a bed with you. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to; you don’t have to worry about that.”
“If you’re not with some other stallion.”
She shrugged. “Work’s work, and maybe if you’ve got a lonely night and can’t have me, you’ll want me more.”
“Is there a discount for an overnight?”
“If it’s just sleeping, yeah. If there’s sex involved, or cooking or bathing . . . well, there’s a lot of variability.”
“I’m sure there is.” I slid forward on the bed, getting my feet planted on the floor. We’d been talking for well over an hour, and it felt like it would be rude to take up much more of her time.
“I’m fair, you know I am. I wouldn’t charge extra for things that just . . . happened, in the heat of the moment.”
“Like if I’ve got morning wood, and—“
“Or if you get frisky in the shower . . . do humans shower in the morning or at night?”
“Usually the morning. Or whenever we’re dirty.” I ran my hand down her back, scratching lightly along her spine until I reached her tail. “It’s been fun, and I will buy you dinner next time we’re in the pub together.”
“I was only kidding, you don’t have to.”
“But I want to.” I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “And if I ever get my courage up. . . .”
“You will. Even if it’s not with me, you will. And if you have any questions, I’ll answer them for you. Filly Scout’s honor.”
•••
I walked back to my hotel room in a daze. Between her personality and her perfume and her frankness, I was overwhelmed. I’d had an expectation going in, and she’d turned it on its head and I didn’t have any idea what to make of it.
I’m falling in love with her.
Shut up. I wasn’t, was I? That wasn’t a road to be taken; that wasn’t a road that would lead to anywhere but heartbreak, at least on my end.
I could have asked her what she did about clients who were too clingy, about clients who thought that there was more chemistry there than there really was. Surely that was a problem she’d encountered before.
A moment’s fumbling with the key, and I was back in my hotel room. Not as spacious as hers, not as well-furnished, but mine was a fortress of solitude and hers wasn’t.
I slid off my shoes and made my way over to the window. There was a tiny ledge outside; not intended to serve as a balcony, but rather a landing spot for pegasi who might rent the room. Did she ever get taps on the glass as customers arrived by air rather than the hallway?
Culture shock was a funny thing. I looked down at the streets below, down at the ponies going about their daily business. The street clogged with carts, the ponies who knew the city expertly dodging them, and those who did not hesitating at the corners, their heads swiveling around, looking for a clear opening. Looking for an invitation.
I could go back downstairs.
Market carts were scattered around the street. Everything had a price, be it flowers or food or the late edition of the newspaper, a ride to the train station, to Greenock, or further beyond.
Bits talk and bullshit walks.
I walked away from the window and pulled my shirt over my head, remembering once again the feeling of her pressing against my bare flesh.
My bed was not unlike hers, and for a brief moment I imagined that she was there, wondered what it would be like, wondered if I could get beyond my human inhibitions and then I pulled the covers up and rolled over on my side and tried to clear my mind.
I could see myself falling in love with her, but I couldn’t see her falling in love with me.