Afterimages
“So, do you come here often?” the stallion said, and Winter couldn’t help but roll her eyes. ‘Do you come here often’, like he’d vomited up the first malformed sentence he’d seen much better looking pony say in a book that was timely around the point where Luna was banished. She swivelled around to face him on her chair. Her newly braided tail felt uncomfortable under her rump. She wished she hadn’t bothered with it. She wished she hadn’t come out at all.
“Buy me a drink?” she asked with a flutter of her eyelashes, because if he wasn’t going to be original then she sure as hell wasn’t going to be either. But clearly this didn’t matter to a specimen like him. He grinned with teeth stained by tobacco. And she didn’t know what sickened her more, the stench of his breath or the way she smiled back.
“So, tell me about yourself.”
Bloody hell, would it literally kill you to try for something even semi-inventive?
“I’m not in the city for long,” she began, “I travel for my job you see? I’m a… lounge singer. I’m staying with a friend while I’m here though.”
“Oh a friend? Am I gonna get to meet her?”
Pig.
“No. She’s taking her son out tonight. Does mean I have her place all to myself though,” she replied, and looked around the room to see if there was literally anyone else who hadn’t coupled up yet.
No such luck unfortunately.
“Oh!” he said, tucking his tail between his legs, “That’s really good of her! I mean I respect parents a lot, but I couldn’t be dealing with a kid myself you know? Do you.. have kids?”
“No. I don’t,” she replied, and his relief was embarrassingly blatant.
“Yeah, me neither. I don’t really have time for them. Me and kids have never really gotten on.”
“I know what you mean. I know from talking to my friend that having kids is hard. I don’t know if I’d be able to deal with that myself.”
“For sure,” he replied, pausing to take a swig of his beer, “It’s like ‘no thanks’.”
Winter listened to him prattle on, and she successfully predicted he was going to say ‘a kid would cramp my style’ thirty seconds before he did. Verbatim. And while he did this she remembered a softer voice and some kinder eyes. She remembered a hoof that stroked her mane, before creeping down to rest on her stomach.
The stallion whose name she still hadn’t bothered to learn continued his mindless rambling, and Winter surreptitiously downed her drink to disguise the fact that she just might cry.
She fumbled with the keys while he pawed at her. Though it was clumsy, there was a certain pleasure when he nipped at her neck. He was far better at this than he was at talking, though it was a low bar. When they got in, he pushed her against the wall to kiss her, but jumped back when she shushed him.
“I thought we had the house to ourselves?”
“No… my friend isn’t out all night. She might be in. I don’t want to deal with explaining all this. Can you just keep it down.”
“Oh yeah sure!” he exclaimed and she shushed him again.
“Can I get you a drink?” Winter asked, keen to regain at least some of the minimal amiability there had been.
“I’ll have what you’re having, beautiful.”
Winter trotted over to the kitchen and began to slap together two whiskeys. It wasn’t something she liked, but then she wasn’t exactly in the mood to mess around fixing up something fancy. Alcohol was the common denominator, and this was alcohol, so this was what they were having.
When she finished in the kitchen and walked back through to the living room, he was staring at a picture. It showed a small colt on an older stallion’s shoulders. The two of them were grinning maniacally. The colt had the same look in his eye as the father. Though it didn’t appear to be quite the same charming madness yet, it was clearly well on its way.
“This your friend’s kid?” he said, and his voice was friendly. Though Winter suspected that had something to do with his recent confirmation the colt didn’t belong to Winter.
“Yeah. Haybale.”
“Cute name. That her fella?”
Winter didn’t reply, and handed him his whiskey while gulping her own.
They drank in relative silence for a spell. When he put his drink down and made his move she could have thanked the princesses themselves. Anything to stop more of the laboured conversation.
He pressed against her. It was firm but not unpleasant. She backed slowly until she was able to find the settee, at which point they fell onto it. He did that thing with her neck again and she bit back a moan. His hair smelled like sawdust and whiskey, which thankfully overpowered the taste of cigarettes.
He came back up to plant one last kiss on her mouth, before trailing down to her neck again. And while he did this Winter allowed her head to loll to one side. It found the picture, and she remembered someone who used to do this so much better. Someone who made her feel beautiful and powerful. Who made her feel loved. She couldn’t help herself. The feeling became overwhelming, and what used to be something she could push down became tears in her eyes, and then it became a sob.
The stallion stopped immediately.
“Oh my god! Are… are you okay?”
“I just… I don’t want…” To his credit, he was off her in seconds. He stammered impotently, clearly trying to think of something to say to make her stop crying. But finally he seemed to settle on rubbing her back awkwardly. Winter continued to stare at the picture of the stallion and the colt, until her tactless bedfellow seemed to notice.
“Ohhhh,” he said, as if everything was clicking into place, “Look, I know what’s bothering you. Mares get to a certain age and they start to think about when they are gonna have kids.”
“It’s not that,” she muttered.
“Hey you don’t have to be ashamed or anything. Having kids isn’t everything. You can’t go out when you want to. You have to always be looking after them like your friend. And I’ve heard once a mare has a kid it’s all like… different. You know, down there?”
Winter bit the inside of her mouth.
“For what it’s worth, a great mare like you doesn’t wanna be tied down by a brat like that! And you can do way better than that dork!” he laughed, gesturing to the picture. And his laugh continued to ring out until Winter shoved him from the settee. Hard.
“Hey! What the—”
“Get out.” she spat.
“Wait, what did I do?”
“GET THE FUCK OUT NOW!” she screamed, jumping to all fours and looming over him.
“God, fine!” he yelled. He got up and stamped roughly to the door, “No wonder no one wants to have kids with you, crazy bitch!”
With that, Canterlot’s least eligible bachelor slammed the door. Winter remembered a stallion leaving for work with a kiss and one of his stupid jokes, and she managed only a few seconds before she broke down in tears.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she wailed, holding the picture close to her chest.
This had been the first time she’d tried since he’d died. He’d always said he wouldn’t want her to be alone after he’d gone. And as her makeup streaked and she swayed with a drunken haze she wondered what he’d think of her now. How she’d lied and said none of them were even hers just to stop herself from feeling it, if only for a night. How she’d gotten her tail braided, like a mare half her age. But she knew he’d say she was beautiful, and that made her cry more.
“Mum?” a voice rang out behind her.
“Yeah Haybale, I’m here. Are you okay?” she replied. She had gotten a lot of practise with having to suddenly cheer up when her child was around. A few whiskeys wasn’t enough to dull her edge.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I heard shouting.”
“It’s fine love. Mum was just having a friend ‘round. He said some things that made her mad. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Okay,” he said, but made no move to go upstairs, “I had a dream about daddy before I woke up.”
“How was he?”
“He was really happy,” Haybale replied, and managed a smile.
“Come on love, let’s get you back to bed,” Winter said, getting up and placing the picture down. Haybale charged towards his bedroom with the energy only children seemed to possess. When Winter turned around, she allowed herself an extra few seconds to gaze at the picture. Then she turned the light off and followed her son up the stairs.