A few months had passed and things weren’t getting any better. As a matter of fact, they seemed to be getting more dangerous and more risky. It had been one of the rarely occurring free days at the farm and Big McIntosh woke to a start. He heard Applejack’s voice chiming out from the bathroom and telling Granny Smith that she was going down to Ponyville on a date with her friends. Big McIntosh jumped out of his bed and went for the door to the hallway, but he stopped in his tracks. What was he going to do? It’s not like he could just waltz right up to Applejack and tell her that she couldn’t go. He bit the top of his hoof in nervousness and his eyes darted about quickly as he tried to think about what to do, but it all ceased and he resorted to pacing back and forth across his room quickly when he realized that there was nothing he could do and that he would have to accept defeat.

He heard Applejack come out of the bathroom and so he opened his door just a crack and poked his head out into the hallway. He heard her tell Granny Smith goodbye and then he saw her shadow and heard her hoofsteps as she went down the stairs. With each and every step she took, it sounded like a big swing from the pendulum of doom as it picked up momentum. He closed the door and turned around and ran over to his bed, jumped on top of it, and looked out the window. Surely enough, he saw Applejack step off of the front porch and walk down the hill and away from the farm. He watched her walk all the way through the barnyard and down through the gate; he watched her walk until he couldn’t see her anymore.

When he could no longer see her, he plopped down onto his bed and wallowed in fear and confusion? She was going to see her friends! Her friends! Four of whom he’d slept with, and the main one being his sister! Oh, and he knew how mares worked too. They would all sit down and get to talking, first about how they were all doing, and then they would move onto innocent stuff, and then finally on to personal experiences and… secrets! He just knew that one of them would share the details of her relationship with him, and worse yet maybe even tell of the sex. He buried his face into his pillow as the feeling of defeat came over him and he realized that either way he was in hot water. All he could do now was stare out blankly into his room and imagine, speculate, how it would all play out.

Twilight Sparkle would want to show off her new “strong” and “loyal” and “smart” stallionfriend, and Rarity too would want to show off her stallionfriend, only she would mention the things that they had done. Rainbow Dash had promised to keep her mouth shut, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t mention that she had a little sexual excursion with a big red stallion at the Sisterhooves Social, and sweet little Fluttershy, well, she might blush and mention that she was seeing Big McIntosh. Whichever way it went, if it even went like that, Big Mac would be caught.

It was as simple as that. He would be caught and they would all turn on him because he broke all of their hearts and even went so far as to take the innocence from several of them. He would just have to accept whatever punishment would be dealt to him while accepting that he deserved it, no matter how horrid it might be. Still laying in his bed, he wondered what would happen to him. He wondered if he should just brace himself for a quick, albeit sharp, hurtful, and embarrassing chewing out, or if he should really be wondering about how to spend his final hours.

In any event, all of this thinking tired Big McIntosh out and he fell back asleep. When he awoke, the evening was nigh and he found that he was still alive and didn’t seem to be hurt. However, when the realization of the time hit him, he jumped up once more. He wondered if Applejack was already home or was still in Ponyville with her friends, perhaps plotting. He peered out the window and by either luck or coincidence, saw Applejack coming back up towards the house. He looked hard and he looked long at her, careful to not shuffle the curtains around too much in the event that he should draw her attention. He saw that she was alone; that was good. He also saw that she seemed to be… smiling… and she was walking at a leisurely pace too. Her teeth weren’t grit with anger and she wasn’t rushing up to the house as quickly as she could. Could it be a trap? Did she know that he was spying on her and just putting on a ruse?

He wanted so much to go down to her and get closer, but at the same time he didn’t dare. He looked down and watched her walk casually into the kitchen. Big Mac let loose a sigh of relief as a glimmer of hope came over him that he really might be off the hook. He sat down on his bed and wiped the sweat off of his brow. However, there was a loud knock at his door that made him jump out of his skin. Part of the reason for his jumping was because he knew who it was. Beads of sweat started to return to his forehead as he got up from the bed and slowly, cautiously walked across to the door. With a shaky hoof, he reached for it. He wiped the sweat away and took a deep breath and tried to make it look as if nothing was wrong. There was another knock and then Applejack called out his name. “Big Mac? Where are ya?” she asked, casually, Big McIntosh noted. He pulled the door open and merely looked at her. She smiled quickly at him and then continued, “You been in bed all day? Huh, that ain’t like you…” she was quiet for a moment and then continued, “Well, Granny Smith wants us to feed the critters.” Big Mac looked at her kind of suspiciously, eventually Applejack nudged him and asked, “Ya comin’?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac replied and went out into the hallway with her. He closed the door and then followed her down the stairs and out into the barnyard. While they were gathering up corn and seeds to feed the animals around the farm, Applejack couldn’t help but flirt with Big McIntosh a little more. She knew that it made him nervous, so that was part of why she did it. She thought that it was cute the way he tried to resist her, and she loved how he wasn’t able to. As she loaded food into the buckets, she inched closer and closer to him until she eventually started to bump him with her butt. He tried to get away from her, but at the same time she saw that he was blushing and kept stealing glances at it.

“Ya know you want it…” she told him and turned slantways to give him an even better view. For a second, it looked like he was going to reach out and touch it, perhaps even spank it, but before he could and to carry on her tease, Applejack flicked him across the nose with her tail, picked up her bucket, and then moved off.

As she rounded the corner and left him alone, Big Mac slapped himself in the face. He was allowing himself to be tempted, and worse yet, he actually wanted to follow through with those temptations. He shook his head several times to knock all of those thoughts away and then resumed with his barnyard duties. As he went over and fed the pigs, he glanced silently across the way and saw Applejack dumping food out for the chickens. He heaved a sigh of relief as he saw how normally she was doing everything. So, apparently none of the girls had said anything to each other about their relationships with him.

Of course, it all made sense! Applejack, naturally, wouldn’t say anything because of him being her brother. Twilight Sparkle most likely had a fear of being judged or perhaps kept it quiet in front of Applejack. Rarity wasn’t one to go dragging her dirty laundry about for her friends to see, especially when it was this dirty. Rainbow Dash had indeed kept her promise and proved that she wasn’t a snitch, and then Fluttershy, of course, just wasn’t one to talk much. He was in the clear for now.

He finished feeding and then went up to the farmhouse when he heard Granny Smith ringing the bell for dinner. It was an unusually quiet dinner that night, but that was good for him. All of the fear and suspense that he felt today gave him a real wakeup call and he decided right then and there that he was going to put a stop to these relationships, whether it be all or all but one. No more lusting after Applejack, no more late night visits to Fluttershy’s cottage or to Twilight’s library, and no more “fitting sessions” at the Carousel Boutique with Rarity, and best of all, no more fear. As he ate his food in silence though, a terrible thought occurred to him. How could he possibly decide who to keep? That is, if he even kept anypony at all! On the one hoof, he felt like he wasn’t worthy of any of them, but on the other hoof he wanted to have a special somepony so very badly. It truly hurt him to have to make this decision, but at the same time he knew that it was only hurting them and himself more to keep this lie going.

Twilight Sparkle was sweet and smart and beautiful and Big McIntosh had been the first to commit to her. What would it make him look like if he rejected her? Rarity was absolutely gorgeous, certainly wasn’t lacking with smarts, and to date her would mean to be the envy of all the males in Ponyville. Fluttershy… sweet Fluttershy. The mare that he had longed for for so long was finally his and now here he was cheating on her with her best friends and debating whether or not he should end his relationship with her. He needed some space and some more time to think. He decided now, he would sneak out to the barn and go up into the loft so that he could be alone and think.

Big Mac finished eating his food rather hurriedly and then stood up and walked towards the sink so that he could put his plate into the soapy water. Before he could take more than a few steps though, Granny Smith extended her foreleg outwards and stopped him in his tracks. She looked up at him, over at Applejack, and then said sharply, “Neither of ya’ll forget that tomorrow is Applebloom’s birthday.”