With the exercise room on the first floor, along with his office, Dr. Ace treats the journey there as an opportunity for me to learn how to navigate walking places. And I make it! Slowly. It’s tricky turning corners in hallways, and the linoleum floor is slippery sometimes, but he guides me where to put my hooves down, and how to lean into the turn. Once we get to the exercise room it’s all about something called the “One-two-step.” I guess it’s like... another way to think of walking. The beat between my hooves alternating isn’t supposed to be evenly spaced. There’s supposed to be more of a pause in between paces, so I have to plant one, two (hoof 3) and then step, like a missing... half beat? Yeah, it takes me a while to get it. I do get something else though. Something perhaps a lot more important than walking correctly.
It happens pretty soon after we start out. He’s right there right close to me, enough I can feel the warmth from his body, but he’s been meticulous about not touching me ever since we met today. I stand there eyeing him warily, and Rarity’s words come into my head. Would he really not... do that? I really just, I mean, Rarity can’t possibly know what’s really going on, so she doesn’t understand that I’m not just a little filly, and these desires to get plowed by his chiseled as fuck form are not normal desires. But maybe... I mean I do kind of... it’s not like I really want him to, even though I kind of want to feel what it’s like, but it just makes me so nervous. Maybe I’m just... being... nervous?
“Something wrong, lil’ Sweetie?” he asks, tapping the floor beside me in a deliberate show of the walking he wants me to do. It’s not that I’m nervous about him, though. I’m not wary of him at all. I’m just wary of me, and my stupid bottom that I keep wanting to do things with. I can’t believe I have a... a passage in there, instead of a dick hanging down. It makes just standing beside him such a different experience, so much more potentious because of what could happen.
“You gonna do the two-step?” he says a little louder, adding in a warm voice, “I’m right here to catch you, don’t worry.”
I should answer him. I raise a hoof and wobble, but I’m not even thinking about doing the one-two-step anymore. I’m thinking about something else. You can joke darkly about Russian Roulette all day, but when you’ve actually got a gun barrel pointed at your temple, it turns out it’s a whole lot harder to pull teh trigger. And I’ve got a gun barrel in my hips, pointed right at my testicles, now deep inside me and producing, or ready to produce, fertile eggs. Potential ponies up there.
“Come on, Sweetie,” he says in exasperation, at his wits end, “You’re doing so good! Just remember, 1 and 3, then two-step! One-two-step!”
And you know what’s worse than accidentally ghost raping Sweetie Belle while masturbating? Knowingly getting Sweetie Belle pregnant at a young age, because you went and got too friendly with some hot, hunky stallion. But am I pulling the trigger, or am I just being silly? Probably silly. But still...
It occurs to me that the last group besides us just left the exercise room. Coincidence, or design? We’re totally alone. If he did anything to me, no one would ever know.
“Sweetie,” he says, and I only let him say that one word before acting. I put my hoof down and scrunching my eyes shut, I lean to my side, right up against him. Rubbing myself right up against his warm, powerful, musky hide. It’s what I want to do. I just want to smell him and touch him and feel him, and I throw myself into it, heedlessly.
“Sweetie?!” he exclaims, pulling back, but I stumble again, and push my cheek against his side. I’m touching him I’m actually touching him! It feels so good. I haven’t touched almost anyone except Rarity, only Rarity and only on her back. Not like this!
I rub myself against him challengingly, daring him, daring my own body to respond. Thinking about my backside, and the passage that surely lurks hidden in the little pocket back there. I ignore my anxiety and lift my tail—it hits his tail, bouncily. I dare him with my body fearfully, hungrily, giving him every opportunity to just climb on me and go to town. He could ravage my virgin cunt with his stiff dick and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I could probably fit under him completely, without him even having to rear up his forehooves.
A second passes, and he says in a cautious tone, “...Sweetie, what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I say slyly, continuing to nestle into the comforting curve of his body, wiggling my hips teasingly. “What do you think I am doing?”
Ace stiffens at that. But does it stiffen? Maybe if I could just slyly reach a back hoof back to check. Ugh, stupid short legs.
“I think...” he says uncertainly, “You’re trying to get comfortable with touching me,” and his voice grows in confidence as he concludes, “By going all in, and doing it all at once!”
I um, pause, and look up from under his shoulder...elbow thing. “So you don’t want to... do anything?” I ask nervously.
“Oh Sweetie, you are so adorable,” he says, lifting his hoof and patting me on the head. “I want you to do the exercise, remember? One, two-step! It’s fine if you need some time to get comfortable first though.”
Another doctor pushes open the doors to the exercise room, wheeling in another patient.
I don’t know about aroused, but I am definitely starting to feel grumpy.
“If you’re starting to warm up to me,” Ace says, “I’ll put a hoof on your back, if you don’t mind.” He braces that large, powerful hoof in the small of my back and... pushes me separate from him. “This will help me get a feel for what you’re doing with your body,” he says encouragingly. “So don’t hold back or anything. Come on now, like we talked about it. One, two-step!”
I comply with the exercise disorientedly. I don’t do a very good job. I’m just too confused by the feelings in me. I touch him, I smell his scent all I want, and it makes my little girl place all tingly, and... and that’s all it does! It’s easy! It’s like... I’m aroused but I don’t have to continue. I don’t feel that burning need in me. I know it seems terribly obvious, something a moronic grade schooler could have figured out from observing my thoughts. Makes me glad Sweetie can’t read my thoughts, because it’d be awfully embarassing for her to own me at logic. And I know the answer! I just have so much trouble feeling confident in that knowledge. It doesn’t feel right to be okay with this, doesn’t feel like anything I’m familiar with. But somehow it does feel right.
I’m just having fun. I get the one-two-step down pat, and he has me climbing again, and I think it’s just to give me a sense of accomplishment, but I still get up there with relish and I even bounce gleefully standing there at the top of the climbing podium. I feel like a girl, and I feel that unsettlingly wistful urge to stick my butt in his crotch, but it’s just a thing. It’s like, idle speculation. I don’t have to do it if I don’t want. I don’t—
I don’t have to be slave to my feelings.
There’s one thing I do have to be slave to, though. Ace is letting me take a break, and I’m certainly grateful for it. Even if the exercises weren’t hard, I feel like I ran a marathon. An emotional marathon I guess. I’m sitting my cute little girl butt on the floor right behind my dainty little hooves that I’m braced on, and he’s making me laugh, about sherbert. And I’m not getting girlified or forced to want stuff any more than I already...do.
“So he says, ‘how about a sure bet?’” Ace says, “And Herbert says, no thanks I’m full!”
What can I say? My sense of humor is a two bit gutter whore. God I laugh at the stupidest things. But I mean, sherbert, sherbet. Get it? Heh heh.
So I’m laughing at his stupid joke, and well, one muscular contraction in the abdomen leads to another. No it’s not what you’re thinking. Okay maybe it is what you’re thinking, depending on what you’re thinking. But it wasn’t what I was thinking, not until just now. No, now I’m thinking that maybe I should not have had that second glass of water, at breakfast this morning.
“Ehehe–he, oh, um,” I say, my laughs quelling before my insecurity. Jumping to my hooves, I ask him, “Is there a... can you show me to the bathroo–toilet? I mean, I need to use the toilet.”
“Sure, no problem,” he says, gesturing with a hoof at the door. “It’s right out that door, down the hallway and to your right. Can’t miss the signs.” He continues laying there without standing. Then he gestures again, waving his hoof insistently.
Uh oh.
“Oh,” I say a bit miserably, just quivering there. “So um, you’re not going to... so I have to go there on my own?” How am I going to even...
“Of course not,” Ace smiles, surging to his hooves, “But I really wanted to see the look on your face!”
Wh—ugh! Of all the... he got me so bad. Between my blush and my self consciously um, tightened up muzzle, his eyes brighten and he says, “Yeah, that’s the one. Now lead the way, lil’ Sweetie! Try the one-two-step.”
And so I find myself standing before a pair of doors, both nearly alike. One is the men’s room. One is the women’s room. Except that ponies don’t stand on four legs. So even the stick figures indicating which gender is which are different than human English. Does uh... does a bigger butt indicate male or female? Ace is standing right there so I can’t let on that I’m too confused.
“I think you can handle the toilet on your own, right lil’ Sweetie?” he asks me.
“Um, yes, n-no problem,” I say suavely and confidently. I jerk a bit before pulling loose from the floor, stumbling across the hall to the um... big... butt door... and I put a hoof on it. I turn and look at him, searching his expression. He smiles at me a little awkwardly, as if wondering why I’m going in the wrong door. Shit I picked the wrong one didn’t I.
“You going to go in, or just keep standing there?” he asks in a chiding tone. OKAY OK. Picked the right one. Good.
“Yes,” I tell him clearly and confidently, and then push the door with my hoof. It swings inward. And um... outward. Okay, I can walk forward and catch it on my shoulder, then get around it to find... what you’d expect from a public restroom. There are rows of stalls, with doors on them, and a few sinks with a mirror in front of them. And no urinals. Phew.
It occurs to me as I klack across the tiled surface, that I’ve never felt relieved to be in a girl’s restroom before. Oh I’ve been in one sure, and panicked as soon as I realized, then felt horrible about it for days afterwards. Some enlightened egalitarian I turned out to be. A bunch of rich liars batter me with imagery of evil disgusting men fapping it to their creepy malicious desires to see the poor innocent beautiful women posing evocatively in their bathrooms, and even though I know they’re just lying to try and stop people from getting laid, knowing that doesn’t help. They can force me to feel sexist, and scared that I’ll validate those mythical creeps just by accidentally walking into the wrong room.
I think that’s the scariest thing about marketing. As long as you can’t stop from being exposed to it, even if you know it’s bunk, it can still affect you profoundly. You don’t need someone’s rational agreement to win them over. All you need is their eyeballs, and you’ve got them by the testicles. Er, metaphorically.
No, that’s not quite right. The scariest thing about marketing is that people don’t think it’s scary.
But you know, I got the evidence between my legs now, so there’s nothing to be scared about waltzing into a girl’s restroom. So I march on into a
“Hey, listen!”
“Waugh!”
No, really that was my literal reaction, not a tawdry pop culture reference.
“Sorry, again!” the real Sweetie Belle says. “You just haven’t been alone and I don’t know what to say to the doctor pony that you can say to.”
I mouth out her words silently, and then shake my head, concentrating on walking forward again until I’ve made it into a stall and closed the door. “His name is Ace,” I whisper to thin air, “So just say ‘Doctor Ace’ right?”
“But then what can you say to him?” Sweetie asks in puzzlement.
“I... I don’t know, just...” I put a hoof to my forehead, rubbing i–oh hey, I have a horn. How about that? “I’ll say... thank you for helping me walk, if he hears you,” I suggest.
“That’s a grea҉t idea!” she says enthusiastically. How can she squeak if she’s not even using my vocal chords? Or is she, and I’m just having a dissociative fugue and don’t realize she is? Or did I make her up from scratch? Oh no what if she’s just a pretend Sweetie Belle! Wh–
...
Okay, I’m going to worry about this stuff, after my bladder stops threatening to leak on me.
And of course I stumble and almost put my hoof in the bowl. Flailing, I thump on the side of the stall, falling against it. Boy I’m glad nobody’s here watching me. Except uh, Sweetie Belle, who seems to not want to laugh at my lack of coordination. But I get situated eventually and, double checking that I’m... forward enough not to miss, I settle my tail up and relax my uh, sphincter? Let my bladder contract, and relax into the relief that accompanies the sound of the stream hitting the water.
Sweetie Belle grunts.
I startle at that, freezing in place when the thought that moving might make me miss. “Sorry,” Sweetie whispers to me quietly, “I was just really needing to I mean, we were needing to pee and it was a lot of um, shutting up now.”
“You really feel everything I feel,” I remark to her as the flow gutters out leaving me, us really, just standing there quietly.
“And taste everything you taste, and hear,” Sweetie confirms, “I feel like I’m me kind of, and someone else is moving me. How does it feel for you?”
“Feels like I’m uhm, you,” I mumble, “Feels the same I guess, except that no one else is moving me. Which is why I fall over a lot.” She giggles at that.
The door to the bathroom opens and I whisper, “Ssh, ssh!” The continued clopping indicates the mare didn’t hear us though. The sound of a stall door closing apart from us. The sound of urination into a bowl. Can’t really count on privacy here. We really have to confirm Sweetie can’t be heard by others, or this is going to start getting annoying pretty quickly.
With no reason to tarry, I pat the roll to loose some toilet paper, and do my royal duties and such, then flush. The real mare who knows what she’s doing is much quicker, and I already hear the sink running when I figure out how to push a latched door open with a hoof. Pushing open the stall door, I gingerly walk out and
It’s a stallion.
There’s a tall, yellow stallion with a purple, swirly mane with a nurse’s hat on, washing up in the sink in this bathroom. I must have squeaked in terror because he immediately turns and looks at me and says,
“Oh, hey there lil’ filly,” in a sort of goofy voice. Then he turns back to the sink and resumes washing.
MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME THERE WOULD BE DAYS LIKE THESE. WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME, MOTHER. DID YOU NOT LOVE YOUR ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. WHY MOTHER, WHY.
Okay... not... not freaking out. Not. Freaking out is a null. I’m standing here. I’m just as clean and urine free as I was coming in here. I’m in the men’s... the... the toilet room. Is it unisex? Does he think my father took me in here? Why isn’t he looking at me funny?!
He finishes washing off, and rubs his hooves on a ...towel on the wall, so that’s how you do it, okay. And then he drops back to all fours, and clip clops his way right out of the restroom, door swinging shut behind him. I’m alone in the restroom once more.
“What’s wrong?” Sweetie whispers to me. “Why was that scary?”
“N-nothing, Sweetie,” I whisper back. I look at the floor, taking deliberate steps as I’ve practiced the last two days, managing to reach the sink without incident. Rearing up like I’m at my room’s mirror dresser makes it easy to get to the sink level. Reaching the chrome polished lever to turn on the water is... less easy. But I stretch my hoof out, and pull the lever, and pleasantly warm water gushes from the faucet. The soap is... the liquid kind whose top you push to squeeze some out, and it doesn’t take any hoof dexterity to do that. It’s... really weird to wash my hooves this way. I feel like I’m just washing my fingertips. Which I guess is kind of literally true. But I finish doing what the stallion did, (why was there a stallion??) get the water turned off, and push away from the sink, clopping down securely to all fours.
Huh, I think this is the first time I ever felt more secure from landing on all fours, instead of feeling like I’m going to face plant. It’s enough to distract me from the fact that I just put my clean, washed hooves down on the ground. The slippery tile still makes walking feel like climbing, but soon I’m squeezing around out the door that I pulled open, and my hooves are braced on the more secure linoleum of the hallway... or whatever this stuff is.
“All set Sweetie?” comes Ace’s voice, making me startle in place. I wasn’t even thinking about how he was there. I look up at him and he’s... still freaking hot.
I try to ignore the blush creeping onto my face as I assent with just a little, “Y-yeah.”
“Well let’s make the best of the time we have left,” he pronounces, trotting in front of me down the hall and turning around. “We’ve got all the way back to the exercise room to practice your pacing. You remember the walk?”
I pause considering my legs, and just lean forward, putting them one after the other, in the proper order. I stop and look up at him. He smiles and spins around on a... hoof, landing solidly and gesturing with his ...nose the way I am to follow. Or perhaps with his moustache? That’s a moustache you could gesture with, oh yeah. I am thinking normal thoughts. Just following the moustachedoctor.
“So Sweetie, have a favorite food?” he asks, making me stumble. I stop, and say, “Um, there was a sandwich with white... something in it, and I like salad um–” he’s walking ahead, so I start walking again, saying “Have... not eaten... much um, since... the amnesia. It’s... all been...” 1, 3, 2, 4, just keep going... remember the two-step.
“All been pretty confusing, I imagine?” Ace says.
“No I–” I stumble again, trying to look up at him.
He just pauses and waits for me with a smile. Swallowing nervously, I face forward and try to concentrate on walking.
“Must be fun to try all those foods for the first time again,” he says. I huff in frustration, but don’t stop walking. Just got to keep putting my feet up and down, and not fall over. “Anything that tasted really bad?” he asks.
“No it–” I stumble and catch myself with a hoof planted right in front of where my nose would hit. Frustration welling in my chest, I start walking again. “Everything... has tast-ed pretty good so far,” I chirp out in time with my hooves striking the linoleum. I almost hit the wall as we run into the corner. Did I mention this is hard?!
We make it back, eventually. Ace is remarkably unsympathetic with my plight because he keeps trying to strike up a conversation. It’d be a lot easier if I didn’t have to walk while talking to him. He says I can take a break when we get there. Letting my legs slide out I sit down in a flump, just that little trip making me feel exhausted. After a rest, we do more turning, and he puts his hoof on my back in the exercise room which makes it much easier, and... well his touch still makes me want to get touched a lot lower than my back, but it would be a horrendously bad idea. And I guess it doesn’t hurt to just think about it. Not like he’d ever do it. Not like I’m good enough for him.
Okay, bad thoughts. Thinking about walking, and he’s touching me and that’s okay, and everything is fine.
When Rarity comes to pick me up, I walk a few steps toward her without even thinking about it. That’s a first! I stop when I realize it though, and the moment is spoiled, so with a sigh I deliberately repeat the movements. They’re getting downright tedious at this point. I wish I could just... muscle memory or whatever. 1-3, 2-step, 1-3, 2-step, sway left right, sway left right. Rarity seems absolutely delighted by it though. I guess I must look like I’m walking more normal. She didn’t have to spend the past entire morning doing this though. Nonetheless I smile once I reach her, a genuine relief in me at having uh... walked across the room to where Rarity is. And I look away from her face, eyeing her withers hesitantly, as she starts telling about her incredible work day. I guess it couldn’t hurt. I have to um... get used to it and stuff...
I go and rub the side of my cheek on where you’d think her shoulder was. Just a little, and pull back to look up at her hopefully. She stopped talking, blinking down at me, and she smiles then, lifting a hoof to curl it over my back with a gentle snug.
“Do you feel up to accompanying me on hoof, Sweetie?” Rarity asks, shifting her shoulders to emphasize the blanket she has lightly belted on top of her torso, now a mauve one. My ears go down at that, because I really don’t want to demand anything of her, but just the thought of that long, long trip from the hospital to... wherever we’re having lunch, makes me cringe internally. It would be such good practice, but it would be so slow and straining achy in my... head. I don’t know if it’s literally straining your brain, but that feel you get trying to do something you just learned, repeatedly for a long time.
Ace comes to my rescue, saying, “She did well today, but shouldn’t be walking more than a block or two at most. It’ll take her a while to get it down pat. Sorry for the inconvenience...”
“Oh, it’s no inconvenience at all, darling!” Rarity answers, casually tossing her mane. “I will happily play pack mule if it better helps my dearest sister’s faculties return to her.”
“I think pack mules carry packed supplies, not people,” I have to point out. Rarity just raises her eyebrow at me.
Together again, we walk out of the hospital on Rarity’s hooves alone. With me atop Rarity semi-voluntarily playing the part of her captive audience, she starts up again. “So the left stitch was far more appropriate but Tighty would have nothing to do with it and I rather had to make do with the...” She really enjoys telling me about stuff like that. I can only half follow along since I don’t know a needle from a thread, but it’s just nice to hear her voice.
The real Sweetie doesn’t try any sort of Hey Rarity over lunch, and actually she didn’t say anything to Ace either. I hope she’s alright... whatever alright qualifies for, when you’re a real Sweetie Belle who is totally real and not just me being delusional, who happens not to be in control of her own body. Unfortunately, I can’t ask Sweetie, since Rarity’s right there. Around her chatter, I interrupt Rarity to ask,
“Am I playing with my friends this afternoon?”
“Oh, no Sweetie,” Rarity says, “Today is Thursday, you rem—right of course you don’t.” Rarity puts the marigold and chives sandwich floating in her magic back on her plate, tapping her hoof on the ground before carefully explaining, “Scootaloo has a mentor this summer for her mechanical aptitude, and as such she’s very busy on Thursdays. Therefore Apple Bloom has her schedule adjusted to have the bulk of her chores at the Acres today. Normally you would spend the afternoon with your foalsitter, a friend of mine by the name of Fluttershy.”
“She’s good with animals, and children!” Rarity quips cheerfully.
“But,” Rarity tilts her ears just slightly, “As I am to be your sole caretaker this week, I’m sure you won’t mind spending another afternoon at the boutique.”
“Ooh I’d love to—I mean...” Oh boy, how do I not insult Rarity, while telling her I want to go to Fluttershy’s instead? Oh my gosh, I haven’t even seen Fluttershy yet! I’ve seen Applejack, and Rarity of course and... and everyone except her and...
Pinkie Pie...
I have a really bad feeling about that. I should have at least seen that pink pony bouncing around town or something. She should have been impossible to miss, because she’s Pinkie Pie, right? Is she preparing a surprise Saved the CMC Party? Is she ...aware that I’m technically new to Ponyville...? An you forgot all your birthdays party?
“Well, there’s no need to sulk about it,” Rarity says somewhat snippishly. “I know you find my raison d’etre quite tedious, even in comparison to... Fluttershy, but it’s just one week, and it’s almost finished for that matter.”
She...what? “No, no I like staying with you Rarity!” I protest sitting up on her back. “I just thought Fluttershy would be fun for a ... I mean...” Okay, inhale, exhale. I know what I’m going to say.
“While I’m sure this ‘Fluttershy’ is lots of fun,” I say deliberately, “I truly enjoy the time I’ve spent with you, and it really is fun just watching you make dresses.”
Rarity mms, “Still, I doubt you wish to just sit there, while I run around and do everything. You said it yourself in so many words, right before your... accident.”
“I really don’t mind,” I tell her softly, and honestly it’s true. It’s so overwhelming even being in this beautiful land, that I really do just want to sit back and take it all in. Involving myself has quickly turned exhausting. Or uncomfortably arousing. Did I really go and ask that mare if she “balloons?”
“Oh no need to humor me Sweetie,” Rarity says jovially, “I would involve you more, really I would, but my orders this week have simply been... and yes I know that’s no excuse, but... if there was something I could do...”
“Maybe you could teach me to... sew?” I say hesitantly, “Not this week, I mean. But when you do have more time.”
Rarity pauses her forward march at the door of the—oh, we’re at the boutique. “That would be lovely, dear,” she says, taking the OUT sign off the door along in her magic, and trotting inside. “But please, only use the machines under my direct supervision. This week may simply have to... flop, as it were.”
“Well I sure won’t be cutting out any more gold capes,” I mutter. That actually gets a chuckle out of her. Continuity!
I spend most of the afternoon coloring, keeping a wary eye out for Rarity. Rarity only occasionally trots past the drawing table, pushing a rack of dresses, or perhaps with an array of ribbons glowing in her magic. I actually leave it to follow her around for a little. This is my very first real opportunity to explore the boutique on my own power after all.
Rarity uses the sewing machine as one would expect from watching the show, and it’s remarkably quiet for a sewing machine. Then again, my attempt to peer at her working without disturbing her, revealed the sewing needle moving at a very slow pace. Just chun-chun-chun-chun as she steadily fed the cloth into it, like four times a second or so. It’s probably her care and patience that keeps that sewing machine from sounding like a muffled machine gun, not the design of the machine itself. The only cable goes to a foot, er hoof pedal. I can’t see anywhere the machine is plugged in, which is curious but it’s probably just magic.
It’s not Rarity’s magic though. I’d be able to feel that, and also see it on her horn.
I don’t explore... too much. I still can’t even think about the stairs, and it really is mentally exhausting trying to move around. And I don’t want to be underhoof if a customer comes. There are fitting rooms, and the kitchen in the back I’ve already been to, and... her inspiration room must be upstairs, or something. But after getting tired, I just settle down at the drawing table for the most part and color, and by “color” I mean secretly whisper quietly,
“Hey, are you there?”
No answer. “Sweetie Belle?” I ask in a trembling tone.
“Oh, you mean me?” her voice comes out, as if she were speaking right across from me.
“Who else could I be whispering to?” I whisper to my imagined position of her at this drawing table.
“Sorry,” she says abashedly.
“Why didn’t you try to talk to Rarity?” I whisper to her. “Or Ace? I was starting to get worried.”
“Oh...” she says noncomitally, but then escalates her tone, saying, “I completely forgot!”
“You... forgot?” I whisper back.
“Yeah, um, it was just so fun just watching you... me do stuff,” she explains. “I just forgot what I was supposed to do.”
“It’s okay Sweetie,” I say in a forgiving tone, “But what is so fun to watch?”
“Well I never learned to walk,” Sweetie explains. Uh. “I’ve never even heard of one-two-step. It was fun watching you try it. It felt like I was trying it!”
“How do you... walk if you never learned how?” I ask her skeptically.
“I just walk,” she answers simply.
“Oh, you meant—” my excited cognition seems to equate to a quick flick of the tip of my tail. “You weren’t taught to walk by anyone.”
“Any one what?” she asks innocently.
“Any one pony” I say, with limp ears of lameitude.
“Then why not say anypony?” she asks quickly.
“They’re not ponies, where I come from,” I point out to her.
“Oh yeah,” Sweetie says uncertainly. “Then why not say any...um, what were you?”
“It’s called a human,” I mumble to her.
“Why not say anyhuman?”
“Because,” I explain to her patiently, “I don’t want to assume that I’m talking about a human.”
“Okay,” she agrees, “What creatures besides humans were in your world? I don’t think you mean the metal monsters.”
“There were only...” huh.
“Okay now I’m confused,” I mutter to Sweetie. “There are only humans in my world, so why don’t we say anyhuman? And in your world there are gryphons, and dragons, and um... breezies... so why do you only say anypony?”
Sweetie pauses silently, and then responds, “Dunno.”
“You and me both, sister,” I mumble to her.
Our conversations are short, as Rarity does poke her head in now and again to check on us. She really does seem very busy this afternoon, and I do wish I could be of more help, even though I’m not really Sweetie Belle. And Sweetie Belle agrees, about wanting to help, though she doesn’t see why I like Rarity’s boring sewing so much.
Dinner is a salad, and... hay on a plate. Genuine hay on a plate. Except it’s coated with sugar granules. And fried. No really, I watch Rarity pan fry hay, tossing it in a bowl of sugar afterwards. It’s a really simple meal, but very filling. My flat incisors go right though the hay and it’s easy to chew on my molars, and of course very sweet. The salad just goes down so easy. And finally we share a couple cookies, as if the hay churros weren’t enough. And we maybe share a giggle or two. Yes, I giggle. I can’t chuckle or guffaw with this little girl voice. It’s... kind of fun to be able to giggle like a little girl, even if I can’t make the other, more male kinds of laughing.
We read together later in the afternoon, and by that I mean Rarity reads to me out loud, after I show an interest in the book she’s curled up with. And frantically deny any interest in a bok of my own. Rarity’s reading a silly romance novel, go figure. More dramatic than erotic, with perhaps a touch of adventure mixed in. Seems familiar for some reason. But before you know it, the crickets are chirping outside the (very quiet) boutique, and it’s time for another “evening soak” as Rarity puts it.
With my body clean and dry, and my teeth sparkly shiny, and a pleased sigh in my breast, I lay back secure in the soft bedsheets. The blanket is very thin and airy, probably doesn’t increase my warmth, so much as be fluffy on top of me. Rarity caresses my head with a smile, then lifts my curls to plant another little kiss on my forehead there. “Sleep well, Sweetie Belle,” she says, trotting to the door and clicking off the light, then closing the door behind her and clopping quietly away down the hallway.
It’s so quiet that it’s almost hard to sleep. I’m not used to this kind of silence even after sleeping in it for several nights. But I am quite weary, and I should drift off in due time. Not like I mind just sitting here in peace, looking at the moonlit window, and listening to the sound of silence.
“Are you gonna do it again?” Sweetie Belle whispers excitedly.
I blink. I swear I feel my pupils narrow. “Ohh no,” I say, my legs crossing.
“Why not?” she whines. “You did it last time!”
“I–I did, but, we can’t,” I stammer. “We shouldn’t I–I mean Rarity might”
“But we’re in bed now,” Sweetie says patiently. “She won’t be here until the morning. You’re not too tired, are you?”
“I’m fine... just... it’s the sort of thing that... I mean you’ll have to, you don’t want to...” I huff in frustration. “I can’t say it right,” I say, “Because it’s a bunch of grown-up stuff that you don’t need to know about.”
“But it felt so good!” Sweetie protests. I just roll onto my back, trying to think sleepy thoughts. Sweetie is silently pensive at first. But instead of giving it a rest, she says, “Maybe we can just do the squeezy thing then, and not worry about any of that grown-up stuff?”
“It is grown up!” I hiss to her exasperatedly.
“No it’s not,” Sweetie counters pouting. “It really happened I remember it. And I’m not grown up. I just want my pee p–uh... my thing next to my pee place to do that again. You know, with the tingly waves and the squeezing?”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“We don’t have to do anything grown up,” she insists, “Just only what my little not grown up filly bottom can do.”
“Sweetie,” I whimper uneasily, just, slipping my left ha-hoof down between my legs. I shouldn’t. But she’s asking so nicely, and it would feel good...
“Pleeeease?” she asks me. I actually manage to cut off the end of her please, by laying my hoof right against my vulva. Even as it hits me, her own plea fades into a delighted gasp. How do you even gasp without a mouth?
I just bite my lower lip, and pull apart my lower lips, smushing the soft part of my hoof in there. “You’re doing it!” she whispers excitedly as I mush around in there, feeling the pleasant surge from my nether regions easing my tense muscles all over.
“Y-yeah,” I mumble, just focusing on my crotch for now. It’s distracting though, and kind of hot, how Sweetie makes pleased noises when I rub both of us in a way that feels good. They might not be real noises, but she’s really enjoying feeling like this. It’s certainly enough for me to want to continue.
To succeed though? Eh... well, the minutes go by, and I just gently rub and tug at myself down there, whatever feels best for me. Trying to get some kind of rhythm. My breathing is coming heavier, but...
“This is so nice,” Sweetie says in a delighted lazy tone. A thought occurs to me and I have to pull my hoof away. The disappointment is palpable as I do, and Sweetie says,
“Wait, why are you stopping?”
“Tissues,” I say, fumbling with Sweetie’s bed table drawer.
“Oh, right the sneezing,” she says mollified. That makes me blush because it’s not a... “You’re not supposed to say it like that!” I whisper, stuffing my hoofful of tissues clumsily between my legs.
“Say you’re getting wet,” I explain to her, “That’s when your wetness comes out of your vagina, because... um, to make you slippery down there.”
“I wonder why it’s like that,” Sweetie says. “Kind of inconvenient to have to put tissues there.”
I put tissues “there” nonetheless. “It’s important to um... not make the sheets messy,” I say. “That stuff dries sticky, and then you have to wash them.” Now I don’t actually know this for a fact, but it’s better than telling her that she’s got to conceal it so that the head patriarch doesn’t know that she’s ready to be raped into submission. Or that she’s got to conceal it because it’s some ugly and disgusting disease. Or the positive reinforcement when it makes other people want to masturbate. Or whatever the reason is that you can’t tell people about masturbation, I don’t know. It’s hard to really think about that stuff with my hoof between my thighs, even if the tissues piled up against the base of my tail are reminders.
The minutes tick by.
“Umm...” I half whimper, without stopping. Alternating between swirling and tugging seems to feel best, but... “I’m getting tired, Sweetie...” I say to her plaintively.
“Yeah this isn’t... it feels really nice, but it’s not the sneezy thing,” Sweetie admits.
“Orgasm,” I correct her habitually.
“Maybe you’re doing it wrong?” she says.
I stop literally sexually abusing my groin, and pull my hoof up, saying, “I dunno, it’s kind of new for me too.”
“But didn’t you have a bajina, where you came from?” Sweetie asks. Then she gasps, “You didn’t, did you! How did you learn to do that then?!”
“N-no I had a... it’s different than a vagina,” I say uneasily, “But it’s sort of the same. It’s called a ...penis.”
Sweetie pauses. “I know what that is! Colts have them too!” she whispers conspiratorially. “They pee out of them!”
Okay I don’t care if my hoof is... surprisingly not as wet as it could be, I need to face palm. I try cleaning it off—oh jeezus I just licked my own girl juices off my own hoof. It... didn’t taste bad, even if it was just a reflexive action. “I know, Sweetie,” I explain to her patiently. “I was a um, colt, before I woke up as you.”
Her mystically generated gasp is entirely too excited for my liking. “You were?? You know what a penis feels like then! Why do they do that moving thing? Why do they come out sometimes if you don’t have to pee? Have you ever felt funny about a filly? Is it like I feel about—”
“Sweetie!” I cut her off in a harsh whisper. “We can’t t-talk about that stuff we’re not...”
“Supposed to?” she counters snidely.
“Yes,” I say resolutely.
“Why not though?” she whines. And she’s got that heartbreaking whine, that you just want to make feel better, as opposed to Diamond Tiara’s kill it until it stops making noise whine. I stare at the ceiling, wishing I could just go to sleep at this point.
“I’m sorry,” Sweetie says in a mollified tone, “I-I didn’t know you were a colt. I thought... I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard, I didn’t mean to scare you. Oh why do I always scare away any colts I want to know?” ...I guess you don’t need lungs to cry, either.
“It’s okay, Sweetie,” I console her. A male human, telling Sweetie Belle it’s okay, in Sweetie Belle’s voice, to an empty room. “You didn’t scare me, I just... don’t worry Sweetie, I still like you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay.”
I manage to coax her out of crying, and she just sits miserably silent, so I say, “Sweetie, I’ll... tell you some things, about colts. If I’m... if I’m comfortable about it. But I just want to sleep now, so let’s find somewhere to do it later, alone.”
She sniffles, mumbling, “And Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo?”
“Ohh, no,” I answer reflexively. At her distress I add, “I mean—it’s uh, secret and... what if they tell Rarity and... I need to have a body of my own before we can tell them what’s going on. So I don’t have to die.”
She hesitates, then sighs. “That makes sense I guess. They’re my best friends though, so you know. I really want them to feel the bottom thi—the orgasm, too.”
I am so doomed.
My dreams that night are... surprisingly uneventful. It’s like whatever troubles were plaguing my mind got blown away and disoriented, or something. I dream about sitting at my computer typing, in my old retard apartment, but as soon as I try to move, suddenly I’m a pony again. Sitting there in my apartment, in my swivel chair. Sweetie’s hooves at the keyboard. I pull back, and jump down, and it really is my old apartment that I’m trotting through like I was born that way. None of the books have titles on them, just that weird swirly script that I can’t read. I look out the window, and it’s just a ...desert? Some sort of an empty flat landscape with sun shining lonely in the sky. And that’s pretty much it. I start feeling kind of woozy after wandering around for a while, and just settle down to sleep, inside my dream, descending into a blissfully dreamless rest.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle?”
I’m surprised when I waken, coming out of it woozily. Given the past days, I feel like maybe this is a nightmare I’m waking up into, but I never feel so achy or yawny when I’m dreaming. I look blearily from the bedcovers across to Rarity, who stands there in my doorway with a smile on her face.
“Time to rise and shine!” she announces trotting up to me. “I’ve made haycakes today~”
I look blearily down my bedcovers, daring the dream to turn on me. They shift a bit as my tail swishes around indifferently. I look back at Rarity. Yep, definitely awake. A magical unicorn girl whose sister made her hay for breakfast, but still definitely awake. “H-hi Rarity,” I say just a bit shyly, a genuine smile trying to creep onto my face.
“How do you feel this morning?” Rarity asks, “Up for taking care of my fur brushing, again?” That really brings a smile to my face. Soon, I’m enthusiastically dragging the stiff brush down Rarity’s back while she utters little tidbits of advice, but mostly pleased noises that are just music to my ears. ...even if they are horse noises. And then Rarity brushes my fur, scraping out all the downy tufts that accumulated over the past day and night. God that feels good.
And I help comb her hair too, and even her tail, with just a comb held in my mouth. And she does mine and... well, you know how good it feels when someone combs your hair, right? The thing is, when I was human I always had tangles. Sweetie Belle’s mane and tail simply don’t tangle. So the comb does nothing but slide smoothly through them, removing itchy loose hairs and leaving supple smooth ones behind, those lovely curls of soft pink and purple that frame my vision, and curl so bouncily up behind me. Hair that would have got in my eyes now stays well behaved and bouncily curled above.
As flexible as ponies are, there is just no way I’m going to be able to comb the back of my own neck with a brush in my mouth. My hooves won’t hold it strongly enough, and maybe if I had magic, but lots of ponies don’t. Rarity doesn’t even really use her magic, when I can comb her! It makes me wonder about how important friendship really must be to these ponies. As idyllic as this life is, there’s a distinct lack of thumbs, and because of that there are just certain things which aren’t possible to do on your own. I need her help to comb my hair, and... well, “magic” like I said, but it still sort of feels like she needs my help, even if she is just humoring me. By myself, I’d be a bedraggled mess no matter what I tried to do, but it’s almost effortless for me to take care of another pony’s needs. Could this be why they developed such a society so strongly focused on friendships?
Long story short, I love it when you comb my hair!
The haycakes are as exciting as Rarity implied. Have you ever had maple syrup that didn’t make you feel like your stomach wanted to cramp up? You have? Oh I guess that’s just me then. But it’s not Sweetie Belle! These haycakes are crunchier than pancakes, so don’t get soggy in the syrup, and there’s butter all over them, and strawberries and daisies all alongside them. Sweet plump strawberries whose seeds burst on your teeth, and strong, crisp daisies whose stems you just want to nip to pieces one after the other.
But mostly my belly fills good on two syrupped up haycakes. ...Rarity pours the syrup.
It certainly has me in a good mood though. And I almost help clean up the plates, but there’s no way I could carry them without shattering them when I face plant. But she lets me wipe the tablecloth off, which I... kind of wipe it off the table entirely, but most of the sticky spots are out of the linen fabric. And she lets me sweep the floor, sticking a push broom in my mouth, after laughing generously at my attempts to do so with my own tail. At least I sweep... part of the floor. It’s still pretty hard to move around.
Sweetie Belle uses her special private bathroom time to announce herself to me and I totally don’t miss because of that so if anyone says I did they’re lying. She and I have pretty much the same idea, to try to say Hey Rarity on the way there, when Rarity’s not looking. I make Sweetie promise to say it in a normal tone of voice though, so I don’t get so obviously startled like last time.
Rarity insists on taking me to the hospital on her back, which I’m all too grateful to concede to as Rarity can actually get there before the sun sets. I have to admire her attention to detail. She’s even gone and bedazzled her green saddle blanket, probably why the mauve yesterday. She settles down like a good little pony and I do my best to situate myself on her. The sequins on the side kind of tickle. (My legs they tickle my legs.)
So here I am atop my noble steed, Sweetie Belle’s best sister. No one but Sweetie knows of the unforgivable things I’ve done with her, and despite our best efforts it looks like she’s still along for the ride while the human has to learn how to walk like a pony. It’s almost weird to think of myself as human anymore. It’s just too easy to feel like Sweetie Belle. A human never felt a tail swishing behind them, much less moved it herself. And herself, at that. It seems so less alarming that I’ve got a baby maker inside my hips, having broke down and gotten so familiar with it that I went and had an orgasm. And my belly is full, and I get to learn more about walking today, and with Sweetie’s help I won’t have to worry about being unable to read.
It’s a strange sort of contentment I feel. So much has changed, and so much is left unresolved, but I feel like things are finally beginning to settle into place. I have some idea what to do, and some notion of who to tell and how to deal with this, and it doesn’t seem like any little filly is trapped in some hellish nightmare, since being controlled by another pony doesn’t seem to bother Sweetie Belle one little bit, outside of my reluctance to touch her vagina. Our vagina.
So it is with no fanfare and little ceremony, that Rarity’s magic envelops the doorknob, swinging the door open, and carrying me into what has somehow, against all I ever knew or even dreamed of, become my ordinary life.
Just outside the door, the mountainous plant monster attacking the town opens the cavernous mouth on its head and gives an earsplitting roar. Rarity backs up, and gently closes the door, then sprints for the back.
