I wanted to run as far as possible, until not only could I no longer see them or hear them, but until the flower trio had fallen behind the fucking horizon.

My fat ass settled for a few buildings down and to the left. As good a place as any to have an emergency think.

A part of my mind, the one that had spent too much time on imageboards, was laughing at me. Look at this beta male anime-protagonist horseshit. Three hot babes invite you to jack off at their place and you run away like a faggot? Better check your nose to see if it's bleeding, too!

I shut that part down quick. Because, in my defense, I was freaking the fuck out. My capacity for any kind of boner that wasn't the 'why' variety was zero. Take a moment to appreciate the whiplash I was experiencing – last night I was nearly lynched for masturbating in public, and today I was not only allowed to, but invited to do it in someone else's private home. Any sane man's first reaction would have to be: "What the fuck?"

I leaned up against the wall of the building and slid down until I was in a sitting position. It was time to figure out some shit.

Three events, so weird on their own that I couldn't possibly have come to a conclusion at the time, suddenly formed a pattern. Lyra and the nudity issue, Pinkie Pie and the case of the stares, and the flower trio… thing.

Lyra had observed what I'd done accidentally (and said sarcastically) and thought it was okay. My socially unacceptable position had also failed to garner a reaction from Bon Bon.

Pinkie Pie had not only been okay with my actions, but had interpreted them in some mysterious way and used that to make a decision on my behalf.

And the flower trio… Damn. Not only had they rationalized what I'd done in the past, before the spell, but they used that as the basis to rationalize me doing the same stuff in the future. And they were fine with that.

I couldn't escape the conclusion. The spell, the merging with the cosmic concept of Normal, hadn't just made everyone okay with me. It made them rationalize everything I did and said – past, present, and future. If I did something, it was okay. If I said something, it was a reasonable request.

If it had just been that, as understandable as that, it would have been enough. It would've been amazing. But no, it clearly wasn't that simple.

Did it work when people who heard me told other people? Would it just fractal out, nonstop? Would it have a limit? Was there a 'telephone game' effect where the message could be distorted by each speaker, or would the essentials magically remain intact? Did the message stick in their minds the way I intended, or the way they understood it?

How did the effect come into play in people's thought processes when they weren't near me to get my input? What was Pinkie planning right now, based on what I'd done and said earlier? Would the flower trio have come to their… conclusion if I hadn't confronted them, made it an issue?

I had half a mind to round up a group of willing subjects and start testing on them, set up carefully designed experiments to suss out every aspect of this power until I understood it completely. But I grew tired of that idea in an instant. I was no scientist. I didn't have the energy to spend so much time crafting scenarios, eliminating variables, and analyzing data.

Beyond my lack of drive, though, this was just not a power I wanted to spend the rest of my life mastering. If it helped me live a free, comfortable life without hurting or offending anybody (and happened to sate some of my pent-up sexual desires), then I didn't want much more than that. But I was getting way ahead of myself.

The growling of my stomach broke me out of my thoughts. It was noon, I'd slept through breakfast, and I was hungry. I was also poor, only possessing a meager stipend that Lyra and Bon Bon were willing to loan me until I got some kind of income, so I couldn't really afford lunch…

I had an idea.

I walked (because I sure as hell wasn't running) to the nearest restaurant I could remember the location of. A while back, I'd once dared to try the local burger chain, but… Well, they didn't refuse to serve me, exactly, but the cold glares I'd gotten from everyone in the room shunned me out of there pretty quick.

This time, I got the reaction I'd been praying for but didn't truly believe would actually happen... When I walked in, nobody made a fuss. The ponies at the tables closest to the door gave me a glance, but then promptly returned to their food and conversations. I marveled at what the past two weeks of human-pony interaction had done to me – that this most basic of things was suddenly an incredible blessing!

There was a bit of a line up to the registers. Lunch rush, after all. When I got there myself, I was served by a young dark blue stallion who looked none too happy to be where he was at this moment in time. All I could do was sympathize. Minimum wage: been there, done that.

"What can I get for you?" the stallion asked.

I thought about the bits I had in my pocket and the crazy idea I was about to try. "Um… I'll take two of the egg sandwiches, no daisies, for here." Just in case, I could theoretically afford that if I used the last of my money.

"Alright," my checker replied. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, um…" My heart beat harder in my chest as I contemplated the social faux pas I was about to commit. "Is there any chance I could get it for free?"

I waited. Listened for any reaction, even from the ponies behind me in line. I expected one of them to scoff or be shocked or something, but I heard nothing. My gaze stayed on the uniformed stallion in front of me, who looked a little annoyed. Judging a little closer, though… not so annoyed that I had asked for something impossible, but more that I had interrupted the muscle-memory tedium of his shift and was forcing him to actually think.

He groaned. "I'll have to ask my manager. Hey, Grill! Can you call for Patty?"

A few moments later, a heavyset orange mare with… pretty huge breasts straining the front of her uniform, wearing a cap and a nametag that declared her the manager, stepped to the stallion's side and looked at me. "What's goin' on?"

"He wants to know if he can get this meal for free. Uh, two egg sandwiches, if that helps," the stallion offered lamely, clearly not sure what the protocol was here.

Patty studied me for a long moment, and gave me a slightly confused look. "Okay… For some reason, I don't think it should be a problem, but... what's the reason exactly?"

I swallowed. "Uh, yeah, I'm the human that nearly got-"

"Oh, the human," Patty interrupted me. She shook her head like she'd forgotten something important. "Right. Say no more." She pressed a few buttons on the analog cash register, popping it open and printing out my receipt. To her employee, she said, "Press these buttons to print out a second receipt, then write 'human – fee waived' before you stick it in the till. The night manager will take that into account when he tallies up the day's sales."

She proceeded to demonstrate the procedure herself, leaning down to pen the instruction onto the tiny slip of paper. Her breasts, easily bigger than her head, pressed against the counter, causing the window of cleavage contained by her uniform to bulge out significantly. Leaned forward as she was, I could see her hips flaring out to her sides behind her. The mare's tail swished once, outlining her rear and giving me a view of how far back that booty went.

I was staring again, and I was pretty sure the stallion next to her could clearly see me staring, but if he did he made no mention of it, preferring to just nod passively as he received what was no doubt another set of mildly annoying special instructions.

She finally, mercifully, got back up and put the marked receipt in the register. "And that'll do it. I'll have to put together a memo or somethin' to make sure all our employees know how to do this. You might have to explain it to them for a while, though. Sorry about that."

I was stunned about halfway through that spiel, but I couldn't summon up the nerve to correct her until a few seconds later. I put up my hands and said, "Oh, no, no, that's okay…"

"Sir? You wanna step aside?" the stallion at the register cut in. "Your order's on its way, and there's a line behind you."

"Oh, right, thanks." I moved to the side to wait, and Patty moved parallel to me.

A bubbly light-blue mare behind me stepped up to the register and asked, "So, like, can I get mine for free too??"

"Uh, no," the stallion mumbled. "Humans only."

The mare frowned. "Darn." She didn't sound all that disappointed, like it had been a long shot anyway. "Okay then, I'll have-"

I tuned her out and continued speaking to Patty. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is… I'm hoping I don't have to ask for a free lunch all the time, y'know. I'm trying to figure out my income situation somehow after all this, and…"

Patty gave me a dismissive wave. "Hey, don't sweat it none. I've been overhearing some of the staff this morning. Apparently you got, what, nearly run out of town by the torches-and-pitchforks crowd, then you turn around and say, 'I forgive you and let's live and let live'?" She shook her head. "I'll admit, I thought you were a bit of a creep before, but after that? You're okay in my book, buddy."

Despite the backhanded compliment, I blushed a little, the first one that wasn't for naughty reasons in a while. "Oh, thanks, but… I should be paying for my meals at some point, right? Goodwill only goes so far against a business's bottom line."

Patty's head bobbed in that 'yeah, I see what you mean' kind of way. One of her legs started to bounce absentmindedly, which did wonderful, wonderful things to what little I could see of her bare chest. "That's true of most ponies, I s'pose. But I doubt anyone 'round here will complain about you for a while. Besides, we've already got a procedure for cases like yours, like you saw."

Yeah, right. I suspected the 'human gets a free lunch' procedure hadn't existed until I'd asked and had it sent up the chain to somepony with the authority and confidence to invent it.

Patty gave me a friendly pat on the arm. "So until you figure things out, don't get riled up over a few sandwiches. Anything else I can get you, since you're gettin' this for free anyway?"

That didn't sound bad at all. I looked up at the options and said, "Some potato wedges and a drink would be great, thank you."

The big, soft manager mare rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Right. Go to all that trouble for the one of two people in Ponyville who doesn't eat hay or flowers, a.k.a. half our menu. Figures." She grinned at me and turned back towards the kitchen. "I'll have that for you in a jiffy."

How did that old saying go? 'Hate to see you go but love to watch you leave'? The burger joint's uniform called for a pair of relaxed slacks, but up against this mare's wide backside they stood no chance of being anything but tight. They hugged her ass and conformed to it, highlighting the ways it bulged out like two round pillows from beneath her tail and over her thick thighs. Nothing was done to hide how the cheeks swayed and rubbed against each other as she walked. It was hard to look at that and not imagine how the bare booty beneath those pants might feel against my hands, against my face, against my dick as she gently rocked up and down against it before-

She went around a corner, and I was back in a burger joint in Ponyville.

I gulped and hunched over the counter a little. There was no doubt I was growing a boner this very second. I was scared of getting called out in public again, but I was weirdly even more scared of accidentally creating some kind of bizarro-world scenario like I had with the flower trio. I wasn't sure how just having a boner in public would do that, but at this point I wasn't ruling anything out.

Taking a deep breath, I focused on the important things. I'd come here with the intention of doing a basic, mundane test of my 'rationalization' hypothesis, and it worked like a charm. The evidence that I could get away with just about anything was mounting. I wasn't sure how to feel about that yet.

A few ponies came in and stepped into line while I waited, several of which were more great-looking mares that I tried not to ogle too obviously. And then…

"Twilight!" "Princess Twilight Sparkle!" "Hello, Princess." "Greetings, Your Majesty!"

The purple alicorn, wearing a v-neck cardigan and a modest skirt, sheepishly grinned and waved at everypony in the restaurant before getting into line herself. Her eyes widened when she noticed me waiting by the counter. "Oh, Pascal! Hey there!"

I smiled and waved. "Hey, Twilight." Considering she was one of the people responsible for my sudden change in fortunes, I was pretty happy to see her. "So… you really get that reaction every time you come here?"

She chuckled and brushed a section of her long straight hair behind her shoulder. "Just about. I honestly haven't gotten used to it yet."

"Fascinating. I was just happy to get in here at all without anyone making a fuss."

This surprised her. "Wow! That's an incredible change, then! So you're saying that… 'it' worked?"

I guess the normalization spell or whatever was better off as a secret. "Uh, yeah. Seems to be the case so far." I suddenly realized that having a talk with the mage was probably important. "Hey, are you ordering for here? We should compare notes."

"That sounds like a great idea," Twilight replied. "Okay, I'll order in."

My food arrived not too long after Twilight finished her order. Patty brought out my tray (and for some reason she winked at me) and returned to the back of the restaurant, while Twi and I sought out one of the last unoccupied tables towards one of the corners of the building. Not a booth, just a small table with a wooden stool on either side.

I took my seat with my tray of food, and Twilight carefully sat down opposite me. I couldn't help but notice the way she adjusted, the way the peak of her bustline grazed the table as she sat down, and how she then scooted her seat until she was just at the right distance that her breasts wouldn't be crushed against the edge.

Then she looked at me like this was normal for her, while I just stared for a few extra seconds.

"So how was your morning?" Twilight asked.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Well, uh, I got to sleep in, which was nice."

She frowned at that. "Oh… Well, I suppose after last night I can make an exception, but you really should stick to the schedule I laid out for you. We took some… ahem, drastic measures, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still maximize the potential for successful human-pony interaction."

My eyes narrowed. After all the nonsense I'd been through the last two weeks, she still wanted me to stick to the schedule. Well, I had some words for that.

I wasn't going to use those words, though. I still owed her for pretty much everything.

"Actually… No offense, Twilight, but after everything that's happened, I'd rather just live my life my way from now on."

I'd apparently caught Twilight off guard. "You mean… Oh. You… don't want to go by the schedule anymore?"

"I never really liked the schedule in the first place. But when the Princess of a strange new land tells you to live by a schedule, what choice do you have?"

She looked down at the table, her expression a sad one. "...You're right. I guess, all this time, we were never giving you a choice, were we?"

I shook my head.

Twilight's order came up, so she got up in a slight huff and went over to the counter. I dug into my food while I waited, and I reflected on the conversation so far. Some of the ponies I'd talked to today had been instantly okay with whatever I said or did, but for some others, there was resistance or at least inertia. But no matter what, even if it took a while and some coaxing along from me, they seemed to always came around to my side. Like the flower trio.

Fuuuck. Now I was thinking about Daisy and Rose and Lily again. The word 'resistance' bounced around in my mind; how theirs had crumbled without warning and suddenly they were okay with me masturbating just about anywhere. Come to our place, they'd said. Jack off anywhere. In their house. In their beds. In their flowers. On their breasts…

Twilight came back with her tray, loaded with a combo of hayburgers and hay fries. I noticed this time how she kept the tray level with the bottom of her melon-sized breasts, using it as sort of a guideline as she sat down. I noticed this time how the seat of her pants compressed against her stool and spilled ever so slightly over the sides.

The alicorn ate a few fries before saying, "Well, I still believe in the power of the schedule, but I think I owe you the choice of your own destiny. I won't ask you for reports, or impose any sort of schedule on you, from now on. Will that be enough?"

"Um… Perfect. I wasn't going to write down logs for today either way."

She smiled wryly. "I still recommend you stick to the cleaning regimen I prescribed. It helps limit your natural scent, which as we discussed can set ponies on edge."

I had a few problems with this – I didn't think the prescription soap was helping, I wasn't sure what she said was the actual effect of my 'pheremones,' and I doubted that it'd actually be a problem anymore – but hell, the sad fact was my hygiene was in a better state than it had been in a while. The personal effects on my mood and self-esteem were positive. Besides, I didn't have to tell her I'd only be taking normal showers from now on. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Thanks. So… Wow, we got off track. How was the rest of your morning?"

My mind flashed back to Lyra, Pinkie, and Daisy. I swallowed hard. "It was… weird."

"How so?"

"Just…" How could I explain this? How could I even say what I was about to say? I couldn't bring myself to drag Twilight directly into this. "I'm…"

"Is something wrong?" She looked genuinely worried. I was very obviously stressing out.

I had to stand up, to get some mental distance, to look at the ceiling and clear my thoughts. When I was mostly ready, I looked back down at her. "Everyone's okay with me now, right? But they weren't okay with me before, at all. I'm still expecting them to lash out at me like they always did, but they're not. They're being super-nice now. Like, way more than I was expecting."

I realized too late that looking down at her at this angle gave me a perfect view of Twilight's cleavage. I could see hayburger crumbs dotting the tops of her tits.

"Well," she said, setting her hayburger down, "you had a traumatic experience. It makes sense for those situations to stress you out more than they should."

"But it's more than that," I insisted. "Like… I was already in complete culture shock before, and now that culture's done a complete 180 while still staying the same, and now I'm… double-shocked by both at once. I'm freaking out!" It was as much as I could say without directly saying it.

Twilight gave me an unsure shrug. "I'm afraid I still don't understand. Pascal, the point of the 'operation' was to make it easier to acclimate to our world without offending any more ponies. But your behavior still has to change for that to happen."

"M-MY behavior?!" I echoed, incredulously. Three mares had just told me I could masturbate in their flower garden, and I was the one who had to change MY behavior?! To fit this new fucked-up reality?!

An apologetic look crossed the pony-woman's features. "Sorry, that was too far. You went through an incredible amount of stress last night. You pulled through it valiantly, but now it's all catching up to you." She fixed a searching, hopeful gaze on me. "If there's anything I can do to help…"

She did not just say that. Twilight did not just say that. Around my confused, lustful mind…

I let out a long, deep groan. I looked her straight in the eye. And with every ounce of seriousness and evenness I could muster, I said, "Honestly, a fucking orgasm would be nice."

It was rude and vulgar and I knew it. I was being deliberate. I needed to shock her, needed to get through to her how serious my situation was. I needed something that would cross the line, break the illusion that I could say anything, do anything, and no one would mind…

To my abject horror, she smiled kindly and said, "Okay."

Her horn started to glow. My belt and my pants came undone where I stood. I panicked. My hands moved to block it, then hesitated, then became confused and just hung limply by my sides as my underwear tugged downwards and freed by cock, shortly followed by my sack.

I looked around the room. By some fucking huge coincidence, the table we'd picked off in the corner had a view of every possible angle in the restaurant. Everyone at every table and everyone in front of the counter could see my exposed dick if they looked. Some did look. Some hadn't yet.

A groan escaped me and I closed my eyes for a second as my package was engulfed in a soft, tingling, slightly cool grip. I felt pressure all around my cock, along with a ridge of more insistent force sliding gently up and down my shaft. My balls were pushed and bounced ever so delicately at the same time.

Twilight's expression had barely changed at all. "Now, I've never done this before…" – Fucking bullshit! This was so much better than…! – "...but from what I've read, this technique should be ideal for your needs."

Blearily, I looked back up at the restaurant crowd. We'd attracted a great deal of attention now, but none of it was shocked or angry or even that excited. There was a smirk here, a blush there, but somehow I knew that the only reason they were looking was because we'd been just a little bit too loud, that we'd broken into their personal bubble. Already, most of them were getting back to their meals, to their conversations… completely ignoring the human cock getting magically stroked in public.

In utter shock, I glanced back down at Twilight. My eyes overshot her head and landed on her chest. Her fucking tits, pushed against the edge of the table as she leaned in to concentrate. I could see the cleavage rise and fall as she took steady breaths to keep her focus.

The pace of the ring of pressure gliding along my dick changed just a little bit, more than enough to be noticeable. A little slower, then a little faster… A little slower, then a little faster…!

Fast. Faster! I tried to say something, but when I looked at Twilight's face, I was stunned. The way she looked, with her eyes bright like that, her cheeks relaxed like that, her smile warm like that… This wasn't Twilight's 'I'm jacking off a stranger's cock in public' face… This was her 'I'm so glad I can help out a friend' face.

She looked… happy.

I gave up. I gave in. "G-g-god… Fuuuck… Aaaaauuuuuuugh!"

My orgasm came tearing out faster than anything I'd experienced before. Shot after shot of white cum blasted out of my cock. And still she stroked with her magic, sending convulsions through my body that I could only endure helplessly. My back arched, my hips twitched freely, my hands clenched and unclenched. And still it went on for a little while longer.

At last, it slowed to a dribble, after who knows how many shots. My eyes had closed, mostly out of self-preservation than anything else, and it took a while before I dared to open them.

What I saw first made my heart skip a beat. I saw streaks of white floating in clouds of purple. It took me a second to realize that what could only be my semen was currently floating in Twilight's magic between us.

"Hmm," she hummed thoughtfully, studying the liquid like she might study a paper. "Don't want to stain anything… What should I do with this?"

The words came out of my head before I'd fully finished thinking them. "Well, uh… You could, I guess, wash it down a sink, or a toilet, or, uh… swallow it…"

Twilight smiled, that adorable little smile. "That's probably simpler." Before my eyes, the cum gathered together until it was formed into a single spherical blob of my own reproductive matter.

And then she puckered up, floated the ball of semen to her lips, and started sucking at it!

My knees trembled, threatening to give way. Unbearable tension flowed through my body as the willing spirit and the weak flesh battled for the right to react to what was happening.

After a sip or two, she pulled back and smacked her lips. "Wow, that's… a little different." Then she went back for more.

I'd never appreciated a pony's lips as much as their boobs or butts, but my brain was making up for lost time. They were soft and full and luscious, and I suspected that other ponies elsewhere might have even bigger, plumper, softer, velvety pairs… Yet the ones before me had no need to compete. Right at this very moment, they were the most beautiful I'd ever seen.

And they were sucking on a solid bubble of my cum.

My legs actually collapsed. I barely caught myself on the edge of the table and just watched, transfixed, as Twilight slurped the rest of my emissions. I knew my limits, you see. I was an overweight virgin with chronically low blood pressure that masturbated daily. There was no way I was getting a second erection so quickly. But goddamn if my body wasn't going to try!!

And then finally it was gone, the last of it swallowed gracefully by the alicorn student. "Hmm!" A cast of her horn summoned a notebook and quill into existence, and she started scribbling furiously. "Not as much as the statistical average volume of a stallion, same for the size, but the taste is qualitatively much better than I expected. Is that true of all pony mares with human semen, or is this reaction particular to me? This could merit further evaluation…"

I buried my head in my arms and tried not to sob. Fuck you, Twilight! I couldn't take any more!

She put her notebook back into whatever magical cloud she'd pulled it from, and suddenly seemed to notice me again. "Oh! Heh heh, whoops! I guess that took a lot out of you."

"To say the least," I grumbled, muffled by my arms.

"Are you alright?" she asked, sounding worried.

I did my best to look up at her, supremely aware of how my cock still stuck out of my open pants beneath the table. "Can't complain." My wit was all I had left.

Twilight smiled an 'oh well, what can you do' smile. "I guess one orgasm isn't going to solve all your problems, is it? It helped, though, right?"

"Mmrgh," was all I could say, burying myself in my arms again.

The alicorn picked up her tray. "Well, I'm coming up on my next appointment. Feel free to come by the castle if you need any more help. Any time. Well, maybe not any time, not if I'm studying something important or dealing with a friendship problem, but… You get the idea!"

I gave her a thumbs up. Didn't even look at her.

"Um… Okay! Later!"

I just sat there, knelt there rather, until I heard the restaurant door open and close. Slowly, I crawled back onto my stool and looked around. I was getting a few looks from curious observers, but still nothing resembling what I thought was a normal reaction. One unicorn stallion at a nearby table even grinned at me and held up his hand in a high-five position.

I air-high-fived him, but there was no heart in it. The unicorn was nonetheless satisfied and went back to his food, and I just sat there, drained of all energy. The thought occurred to me to stuff my junk back in my pants, but then another thought occurred to me: Why bother at this point?

Patty came up to my table, smirking a bit at my plight, and gestured at the cup in front of me. "Can I get you a refill?"

I slumped onto the table. "Yessss pleeeease."