This early in the morning, Octavia could never tell up from down. The only way she could get her bearings upon waking was to check where other ponies were standing. Then again, given her roommate-cum-lover’s ridiculous magical tendencies, “the surface Vinyl is walking on” did not always equal the floor... But truthfully, Octavia was simply not a morning pony. Too long of nights composing, too tiring of days with the foals... And unlike her marefriend, she had no night of carousing or bloodstream coursing with various substances to help her cope.

All of that considered, she wasn’t very surprised to find Vinyl at the kitchen table, smiling and bobbing her head to a beat only she could hear. What was surprising was that, rather than the usual bowls of cereal and fruit she woke up to, there was...

“Breakfast?”

“Yup! Dig in, Tavi-babe, it’s all yours. I already finished up.”

Vinyl was up before her. This was natural. Vinyl was overly-excited. That was also natural. But Vinyl cooking?
“Alright, who are you and where is my marefriend?”

A few moments later they both cracked up at the shared joke- It was an old one between them. The first time Vinyl had made her dinner, she had suspected, truthfully, that it was some kind of bizarre magical accident, or a replacement of some kind. Vinyl had, ah, proven her veracity, rather pleasantly, but to this day they still mocked the ridiculous evening’s events. She looked over the platter of food, pleased to see some of her favorite dishes involved.

“Was this a special occasion I forgot?”

The unicorn leaned in and kissed her cheek, forcing her to sit down at the table before heading to the sink and starting to clean up.
“Nnnnope! Just felt like it. Plus, it’s tutor day- You could use the energy, right?”

She grimaced. It had been such a pleasant morning until she remembered just what kind of work she would be doing. Octavia didn’t... hate children, of course not. But even now, her third year working as a musical theory tutor, she just couldn’t get used to the high-energy antics of the fillies and colts in her classes. Occasionally, she made a jab that Vinyl was actually just there as a bit of practice dealing with the terminally childish. For now, however, she decided not to insult her (beautiful, accommodating, loving) breakfast-providing marefriend and just dig in to the meal.

“So, uh, babe...”

Octavia looked up through a mouthful of shredded oats. She must have looked ridiculous, and could only imagine how her parents would have reacted... But her manners usually didn’t kick in until about noon, on a good day. Hopefully this was going to be a good day.
“Mmmfh?”

Vinyl shifted back and forth on her hooves.
“I’m heading out. Gonna be back fairly late. Got some interesting work on the side, by commission.”

...Had she just said she was taking on more work? Ludicrous.
“No, wait one moment. Did the infamously, neigh, iconically lazy Vinyl Scratch just say that she willingly took on more work than absolutely neccesary?”

“Hey! I resent that statement.”

“The word is represent, darling.”

They burst out laughing again, and Vinyl finished putting away the now-clean cooking equipment.
“But seriously, yeah, I’m heading out and I might not be back until around bedtime.”

She hadn’t been kidding. Sweet Celestia, maybe this was an imposter. No, that would be far too ludicrous, even for her admittedly-madcap day to day life.
“...Well, be safe then, and tell me all about it when you get back.”

Her marefriend leaned over and kissed her cheek, dropping those glasses of hers just long enough to throw Octavia a smoldering glance. If she didn’t have a class scheduled in a few minutes, she might have taken that glance up on its offer.
“Oh don’t you worry a single hair on your mane- I’ll do way more than tell you.”

“I will believe it when I see it. Or feel it, I suppose.”

“Hah, or hear it.”
Vinyl covered her mouth with one hoof after that, as if she had let some secret slip.
“...Anyway-see-ya-later-gotta-go-BYE!”

And with that, the mare rushed out the door. Octavia shook her head and looked at the clock. Ten minutes to ten, first class was at ten fifteen... She could afford to take her time. So rather than rush to prepare herself, she leaned back in the chair and savored the meal her lover had made.

There would be time enough to worry about Vinyl’s strange behavior later.

--------

The business card she had gotten last night / that morning (time was a nebulous concept for her on a good day) had an address on the back, and Vinyl made her way there quickly. Hopefully the shop wasn’t one of the ones where everything was all garish lights and barely-decent displays; she liked a good time as much as the next mare, but there’s these things called taste and restraint, yaknow?

But she shouldn’t have been worried- The place was about as far from that ideal as you could get. Literally named, The Black Door was an unassuming building on one of Canterlot’s famous Intersecting Plazas with, yes, a jet black front door. And window frames filled with black-painted wood. And primarily-black stone facing, and even a black lamp-post that burned with... Nope, the fire was normal. OK, good. At least it’s not THAT terrifyingly foreboding.

She sidled up to the place, shot a quick glance both ways, and then knocked, three times rapid. No answer... A quick pull of her magic and the door opened. Rather than the shop itself, it led into a cozy little antechamber- Not large, but not the stifling pure-black of the outside. Warm light filtered in from above, and the door out of the little room had an eye-height shutter on it. Vinyl shrugged and knocked on that door.

The little shutter opened to reveal a pair of eyes, unsettlingly close.
“Hello and welcome to The Black Door! If you would like to come inside, we have to magically confirm that you are of-age and not disguised in any way.”

“Hey Matte!”

“Hello again Vinyl. Just hold still a second for the scan.”

Seriously?
“Wait, you really have to do that? But you can tell it’s me.”

“You did hear the bit about ‘disguised in any way’, neigh? That includes magic.”

“...Point. Just get it over with.”

Whatever he used, it was subtle- She didn’t even know it was done until she heard the door in front of her pop open. It took a little effort to swing it on the hinges the rest of the way, revealing...
“Buck me.”

Rack upon long rack of toys, devices, and all sorts of things spread out before her. On one side, magazines and filmstrips showing quite a lot of very exposed pony. On her other, everything from lubricant to aphrodisiac cooking ingredients. And in the middle was a simply staggering display of top-shelf sex toys, quality apparent even at this distance. Fake plots, fake cocks, strap-ons, switches and crops, bridles and riding saddles... A notable absence of clothes compared to other shops, but even Vinyl could tell you it was a bad idea to try and compete with The Crop on those grounds.

Matte was already trotting back to his counter, overseeing things with a broad grin.
“Like whatcha see?”

“And what I don’t.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Que?”

“I’ve been looking for somepony who actually sells quality merchandise for a while. Most of the sellers out there almost seemed ashamed of their own work, or they’re just making disposable stuff for a quick buck. Hee, geddit? It’s a pun.”

“Well, it’s nothing but quality here, trust me- Me and Nickel make most of it ourselves. Not the pictures, of course- We’re not a film studio, yaknow? But the devices are mostly our work.”

Now that... She’d been impressed already, but to hear that those two made everything in the shop? She honestly, literally, did not believe that. Whether he was a liar or not, who knew, but there was no way Vinyl actually thought that two ponies were responsible for this ludicrous stock. It was just too much, too good. But... until she saw otherwise, she’d take him at his word. No sense in distrusting her new business partner, after all.

She stepped up to the counter, eager to get to development. Long-dormant bits of her brain dedicated to engineering ludicrous gear were already firing once more.
“So, what’s the first order of business, Mr. Finish?”

“First? I guess first is... Take a look around!”

She looked at him quizzically.
“I already did. We were just talking about it.”

“Pfft, no, I mean really look around. See what you like! It would be damn hard for us to make any progress developing new toys without inspiration from the old, right?”

Aaah, now she got it. That was... a pretty good idea. The difference between this stuff and what she was used to was like night and day. Buck, part of why she hadn’t told Octy where she was working, or on what, was because of the last time... Nothing in Equestria could ruin the mood quite like a brand-new toy actually breaking, straight-up jagged-edges snapping in half. It hadn’t been in anypony at the time, but they were both still a bit gunshy thanks to it.

So Vinyl made her way around the shelves and took in the sights. No real need to look at the smut, that wasn’t what they were working on (but in the back of her head, there was already a plan to make a movie whose audio could caress the viewer...) today. Plot devices... Octavia loved her dearly, but they hadn’t come to have the anal discussion just yet. Maybe once this new bit got working, she’d figure something out (a plug that had several distinct speaker-faces to create a flow of music that passes through the pony in all directions...) to change her mind.

Across the counter, Matte Finish watched a genius mind buzzing as its owner absent-mindedly shuffled through the aisles, and he couldn’t help but smile.

--------

It was almost impossible to describe just how rough Octavia’s average day of tutoring was. It began with the ridiculous demands of the foal’s normal teachers, sent to the company that hired her. She would easily lose half of her lunch break each day, if not more, sorting through their manure. Then the actual issues of dealing with the foals themselves. Octavia was positive she would go to her grave not knowing how the little ones managed to twist and abuse sound in such... creative ways. And the parents...

Well, that was the last straw. If she kept up on that train of thought she would simply break. So instead, she calmly trotted into the room for her next lesson. The school they were using today had mercifully-good acoustics, so she did not need to call on one of the unicorn instructors to soundproof the room. And in the room itself... She almost considered herself like an aunt to the little dear at this point, and her mother was a good friend of Vinyl, and herself if she was totally honest. But nothing said stress quite like...

“Hello Ms. Octavia! Dinky is already ready already in the other room with her instruments and everything! Although I think one of the chairs is broken, the leg sorta came off...”

She sighed and smiled.
“Thank you, Ms. Hooves. I’m sure somepony will take care of it.”

And so it began.

--------

A good hour down the drain looking over the place, and Vinyl’s head was swimming with ideas. Somewhere during her traipsing trip through the shop, Nickel had come in through... Actually, she had no clue how the mare had gotten in. It certainly hadn’t been the front door, and she didn’t show up behind the counter... Eh, she’d figure that out later.

“Hey!”

Her former sorta-classmate nodded to her.
“Good morning, Vinyl! How do you like the place?”

“You do some killer work here, Ch... Nickel. I think I’m ready to do some work. So, we got a workshop in mind? I know some engineers downtown who can...”

Nickel smiled and bucked the wall behind her casually with one hoof. The door (rather well-hidden, she could barely see the seams when it was open) popped open, revealing a sloping ramp down into the ground below.
“No need- We’ve got our own on-site.”

“Classy. We heading down, then?”

“Let’s.”

It was a short walk, although after a little bit the ramp began to curve in on itself, spiralling down until she could no longer see the shop behind them. It came to an abrupt stop at a tiled floor, immaculately sterile surroundings despite them being easily two floors beneath ground level. Everything was immaculately clean, although instead of the blinding white she was used to from the University’s labs, it was done in a (much nicer) palette of reds and blacks. The door, on the other hand, was solid metal. Nickel’s grey magic spread around the handle and popped it open, letting her see inside. For the second time in a day, Vinyl had to close her suddenly-dropped jaw.

“Welcome to The Lab, Vinyl- I think you’re going to be pleased.”