If Bonbon didn’t walk through the door in the next fifteen seconds, Ponyville was going to explode.

Lyra was perched behind the couch like a cat waiting for a furry string arm to fly through the air in need of a pounce and claw-heavy throttling. Her eyes were locked on the door to the apartment, which she shared with Bonbon. Which she was in by herself, waiting for Bonbon to get home from work.

Lyra’s eyes flitted for an instant to the clock on the wall, its minute hand tipped with a curled four fingers and one pointing; a literal minute hand. Fifteen seconds had definitely passed, and Ponyville hadn’t exploded. Maybe in the next fifteen seconds then. Or else that would surely be the end.

It was 6:04PM. Bonbon got off work at 6:30PM. It normally took her three minutes and twelve seconds to walk home from the candy shop, or vice versa, depending on distractions, weather, windspeed, and assorted other factors that Lyra wasn’t gifted enough in science to determine. Her eyes glanced at the clock again. 6:05. Ponyville still here. Feeling of impending doomsday not abated. Next fifteen seconds, check again.

Normally, Lyra was not this needy. She knew what it was like to be away from her partner for a day, for a week, even for a month when Bonbon’s family had flown her to Trottingham for their 25th anniversary vacation, and Lyra had devolved into a mess of her pre-Bonbon self, manifesting all facets of revolting single marehood[1], only to regain her sense of self and composure when Bonbon had returned and rescued her from the disaster of herself. But that one time was an exception, because Lyra was not normally this needy.

6:08. No matter how hard Lyra tried, she couldn’t stop wanting Bonbon to come home. She needed her like candy-flavored water.

Truthfully, Lyra had been aching for Bonbon even before she woke up. She couldn’t remember the precise details of her dream, but she knew that Bonbon was there, and the wetness between her legs was as real as it had ever been when she awoke. She’d turned to Bonbon’s side of the bed, ready to lick and nuzzle into something more intense, but Bonbon was already up, getting ready, and out the door before Lyra could even beg her for just a lick before she took off. Lyra had lain in bed paused for a few minutes, her hoof hovering beside her, yearning to move downward yet knowing that there was no point without Bonbon there[2].

6:11. If time was going to pass this slowly, Lyra could at least take advantage of it. She had twenty-three minutes left, all of which could be used to intensify the rush of feeling that would come from having Bonbon back home.

First was to touch herself. Lyra had held off all day, telling herself there was no point, groaning and biting her lip whenever her hind legs rubbed together just enough to send a tingle through her spine. But since Bonbon was going to be home soon, Lyra could show her want and intention of evening activities by working herself up. Getting all hot and bothered for her mare, the mare with the mane like sugar-swirls and a voice like a rough roulette-wheel, the flower-cream coat and sweet soft hooves that could teach languages in touch alone. Lyra sucked in a long breath through her nose, ready to withdraw her hoof after only a minute. She knew the anticipation would last long enough.

For her next preparation, Lyra went to the bedroom. She got down on the floor and began to search under the bed for a small wooden box that was stashed there—no, not that one, the rubber and straps were in a drawer somewhere—that she and Bonbon liked to take out once or twice a week when their minds needed a skyward vacation without taking a trip to Cloudsdale. Lyra opened the box and took out the two joints inside, then closed the box and pushed it back under the bed.

High sex was a special treat normally saved for weekends—Lyra could feel the vibrations of memory along her body as she relived the last few times, body overflowing with bliss like it was sweating out of her, and when she came… words stopped having meaning. Bonbon.

Lyra sighed as she left the bedroom, joints in hoof, and went back to the living room. She put the two joints on the wooden artisan coffee table and laid down on the couch. 6:18. Drat.

The next best thing to seeing Bonbon was remembering seeing Bonbon. When was the last time? Usually Lyra didn’t have to reach far, but it felt like…

Three days ago? Lyra traced a hoof on her own stomach absentmindedly. Why hadn’t she… Or did it matter?

It was the weekend, then, because Bonbon had been home all day. She’d woken up first, made banana pancakes, had them all laid out by the time Lyra emerged from bed like a lithe slug, crawling low to the ground until she reached the kitchen. Just after breakfast, because every time Lyra swallowed a mouthful of pancake/heaven, she felt her heart burst into being, and her body, which minutes ago had felt primeval and unformed, was now wholly present and formed, buzzing with energy, brightness, love, sunlight for the pony that she loved the most. Bonbon didn’t even have a chance to finish her pancakes. The syrup may have been used.

The thing about Bonbon was… there were a lot of things. The things about her… where to start? Lyra loved the way she searched with her nose, rubbing and nuzzling around tender spots, even on her cheeks, ears, neck, and right next to her lips, prodding the kiss before it was a kiss, ushering lips and letting them exchange voices, sound made only in twin heartbeats.

Lyra loved the way she cared; she could picture Bonbon’s face as it came in the door, an overflow of smile no matter the weather behind her or the day itself. Lyra was always the one quick to sink, to give up, to forget to care, and so Bonbon helped and reminded her, and Lyra tried her best when it was her turn, and it may well be that all relationships were like this, or at least the ones Lyra could wrap her head around. Things could get complicated, especially when more than one pony was involved.

She could imagine exactly what it would be like as Bonbon came in the door. For one, even though it didn’t matter, really, the sky was brilliantly lit by a full spring sun, and a series of light drizzles last week meant no rain was due for a few days. Bonbon would open the door and her mane would be lit by gold, and Lyra would immediately ache for her, fight everything in instinct to spring to her hooves and run forward.

And even though she would see it, the want in Lyra’s eyes, Bonbon wouldn’t blink, would smile, hang up her things and shut the door behind her. “Hi, hun,” she’d say, her voice gravelly with a sing-song ring. “How was your day?”

And Lyra would get up then, walk slowly, legs not wobbling, mouth not vacillating between a broad grin and an aroused ‘come buck me’ look, over to Bonbon, and hug her hello, as she did every day after work, and give her a kiss on the forehead.

“Oh, uh. It was good, I guess—“

And Bonbon would tackle her to the ground, give her a second to catch her breath, and then drown her in wanting.

It was like their minds worked together sometimes—like there was a joining between them that worked deeper than anypony could articulate. It was something Lyra often thought back to; deeper than a heartbeat, deeper than a body or soul. Just the thought of it made Lyra tremble deeply.

The door opened, and Bonbon stepped inside. She hung up her candy-logo bag and spring straw hat by the door, then closed it.

Lyra waited for the scratchy ring of Bonbon’s voice. The only sound in the apartment seemed to be a low, angry-sounding breathing.

Bonbon walked into the living room, around the coffee table, and down the hallway to the bathroom. She walked inside and shut the door, still wordless.

Lyra’s mouth was closed. It seemed impossible to open. She tried a few times to form words—to herself, the apartment, bits of furniture—but no words came. She tried saying something to Bonbon, yelling it down the hallway. Her mouth remained sealed.

Only when she leaned against the bathroom door and took several deep breaths to calm the rattling in her chest was Lyra able to talk again. It felt like there was a balloon inside her that had been punctured.

“Uh, hi, hon. You okay?”

“No. Work was shit, and I’m in a bad mood.”

“Oh… Well… do you need anything?”

“No. I’ll be out in a bit.”

Lyra walked silently back to the living room and sat upright in the center of the couch. She counted two minutes and eighteen seconds on the clock before the sound of the bathroom door opening and toilet flushing came from the hallway. Bonbon was on the couch a few seconds later, resting her head on Lyra’s lap.

A miniature electricity ran through Lyra’s skin from the point where Bonbon’s nose had grazed her. She remembered the first way she had gotten ready for Bonbon to come home.

Bonbon’s eyes were closed. If she’d noticed, she didn’t seem to care.

“I got some joints out if you wanted to have a puff with me. Maybe it’ll make your day a little better?”

Before she opened her eyes, Bonbon raised one eyebrow. The first adjective that came to Lyra’s mind to describe the action was “annoyed”. Then “perturbed”. She was surprised she knew “perturbed”.

“Hun, I don’t wanna smoke tonight. Those are supposed to be for the weekend.”

“I just thought… well, why do they have to be for the weekend? I could roll some later.”

“With what? That’s the last of the stuff I picked up last month. Last month, Lyra, we shouldn’t be going through an ounce in two weeks…”

“Well, fine, I’ll pick up some more tomorrow. It’s still only Wednesday.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m not smoking that much in one week. I have a job to do on weekdays, and I don’t like showing up to work all fuzzy from the night before.”

“But… But you won’t… I just… I thought we could tonight because… I’ve been thinking about you all day, I mean…”

“Hun, not tonight, okay? I just wanna relax without getting stoned. Drop it, okay?”

Lyra considered the two joints on the table. Though the table was wood, Lyra felt like she could see a crack in it, the same way one might appear in glass, like something had been fractured in a single and complete action.

“Okay. Sorry.”

Bonbon closed her eyes again.

A minute or two passed in silence. Bonbon’s breath on Lyra’s leg was like a phantom hoof, or nose, nudging her every few seconds, reminding her not to compose herself for even a second. Surely Bonbon had to know what she was doing. She could catch the glint in Lyra’s eye across the room at a crowded party and meet her in the bathroom two minutes later—this was no challenge at all.

“So… maybe we could go to bed and I could find another way to cheer you up?” Lyra ran her hoof over Bonbon’s back, down to the base of her tail, which was flopped over the side of the couch.

The eyebrow. Eyes open.

“Hun… I’m really not in the mood. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

A single day compressed into a point. Lyra felt a puncture. A star collapsing, somewhere far away in the dark sky.

“Okay.”

A few more minutes. Lyra fumbling through threads.

“Do you think you could make dinner, tonight, hun? I’d really appreciate it.”

“Oh… sure. What do you want?”

“Just something simple. Pasta, maybe?”

Lyra nodded. “Okay.”

Bonbon lifted her head, and Lyra got off the couch and went to the kitchen. Noodles. Sauce. It was the simplest thing that required preparation, aside from maybe cereal[3]. But Bonbon needed her, and fantasies and desires were not to preclude reality. Lyra made spaghetti and a garden salad, and Bonbon ate both and declared they were good. After dinner both ponies went to bed, turned on their separate sides, in a dim light from a nearby candle.

“Hun?” Bonbon rolled onto her back, then her other side, close to Lyra, almost nestled against her.

Lyra could feel Bonbon’s breath again—her coat, the cotton-candy shampoo of her mane, the invisible weight of air where her lips could descend into twitches and stuttered wants. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind giving me a backrub? I’ve been sore all day and I could really use it.”

Memory of an ache, a moan, a contact of body and need. Lyra felt a small shiver run down her spine and end between her legs, teasing her with the agony of her day’s restraint. Mouth-touch like honeycream frosting. Lyra bit down hard on her lower lip.

“Sure. Roll over?”

Bonbon nodded and rolled onto her stomach. Her ass stuck in the air through no effort or intention—Bonbon was curvy from a canvas, the silhouette of an ancient portrait of lust and godesshood. Flashes of metaphor pelted Lyra like hail to a windowsill as she climbed over Bonbon’s hind legs, hovering just over the lush cushion that was Bonbon’s backside.

Hoof to skin. Lyra’s lip suffered another slow bite. Bonbon sighed as Lyra’s hooves worked, starting at the middle and rubbing in repeated slow circles outwards. Bonbon’s sigh returned, chorus’d, projecting, accompaniment. The warm sense of presence between Bonbon’s pillows and between Lyra’s legs practically resonated when Bonbon arched her back, moaning softly out of the side of her mouth, her teeth occupied in a mirror of Lyra’s.

“Mmm, that feels great hun.” Bonbon closed her eyes and rocked her hips upward again, her coat just missing Lyra’s skin by the smallest unit of measurement available[4]. Marrow and everything else ached downward. Lyra held her stead. Ached.

“Can you go down a bit, hun? My lower back has been killing me.”

Lyra’s hooves moved as directed. Inches from outline, taunting curvature. Lyra pressed hard into the spot just above where her hooves were begging for.

“Mmmmm…” Bonbon arced like lightning, voice on fire and full of desperate air.

This was how so many nights had started. Lyra’s memory spun reels, nights in her old apartment, before they’d moved in together, before they’d really understood the two halves of one thing, the perfection of asymmetry. It had been her hooves or hers, either or, nights flickered as the candle flames and relit when time returned. Lyra could feel the nights in her like warmth in her veins, a flowing of rush and possession.

With the grace of magnetism, Lyra lowered her body onto Bonbon’s and lowered her head forward, lips planted just at the base of Bonbon’s neck. Kissed the color cream, Neapolitan mane whisps of candy-shop scent. Ground and rocked forward. Coat on coat. Half on half.

Bonbon took in a breath like a dagger, sharp and sudden. Lyra’s hooves ran their way up her back, then down further, around both ends of her flank.

It was like a river between two points—current was a magic that knew everything without needing to know. Flow from one thing to another, a path in a heart and heart like soul flowing through starlight.

Lyra was overcome. She relearned every day how it felt to be with her dream.

“Babe…” Lyra leaned forward further, her lips brushing the outside of Bonbon’s ear. “I want you so bad right now.” Felt Bonbon’s hips, moving up into her.

“Hun, no. I said not tonight.”

Lyra’s brain mimicked: a mirror shattering—lightning rod fused to a flaming church—sun dark overhead, blotted out by a ring of empty moon.

“But… but I thought.”

“Oh my gosh. You couldn’t even give me a backrub without expecting sex in return?” Bonbon turned onto her side and pulled the blankets over herself in a motion as complete and singular as closing a door. Lyra wobbled and fell to her own side of the bed, body aching as it stepped between perception and reality.

“No, that’s not… I didn’t…”

“I can’t do this right now, Lyra. I had a horrible day and I have to be up in seven hours. Can you please just go sleep somewhere else?”

Like the living room, which was a cold couch that reeked of solitude. Lyra didn’t say that. She inherited the word ‘crumpling’, felt it through her like a new definition of herself.

“Okay.” Lyra grabbed her two pillows (both colored in Bonbon’s mane) and walked out to the living room with them, shutting the door of the bedroom behind her as she left. She placed the two pillows on the couch and sat beside them, resting her chin on her hooves, staring forward at the empty television screen.

Lyra sat for two and a half minutes before she got up and walked back to the bedroom. Tip-hooving quietly, she reached under the bed and pulled out the box she had unearthed earlier in the day. She brought it with her as she shut the door, back to the living room, where she opened the box, took out both joints, and brought them with her to the patio. The sliding screen door felt like a block of ice sometimes; like a wall to somewhere distant. Lyra shut the door behind her and took a seat, upright, in one of the two patio chairs .

The night sky was like… Lyra sighed. No metaphors.

Maybe like that then, she supposed.

Spark. Deep drag. Suppressed cough.

Lyra blew out her smoke like a flower, weaving her mouth into different shapes as the wind carried its aftertrail away.

Author's Notes:

[1]: Which chiefly consisted of excessive masturbation and eating nothing quick-cook meals, refusing to dress herself when not required, and feeling a yawning black hole of loneliness open up inside her stomach like she had come undone at the atomic level, deeper than the concept of matter could even convey, ripped in half by the absence of the other pony that made her soul complete.

[2]: Lyra’s dream had also contained the words ‘toxic codependency’, but Lyra didn’t understand what they meant.

[3]: It was also one of the only things in Lyra’s repertoire of recipes. This knowledge was a pang of discontent which Lyra did her best to skirt over, questioning what Bonbon might think of her meagre cooking ability, suggesting the simplest thing there was to make, knowing anything more would be too complicated. Feeling the shards of a day’s expectation already tender in her organs.

[4]: With the exception of atomic crossover or quantum parallelism which are both concepts that may or may not exist.