Rarity recovered with shocking rapidity. The bullet had torn through the muscles of her shoulder and snapped the blade. Potentially quite serious, but not bad for a bullet wound. She credited her survival to my kicking that table into Flam’s face before he fired the gun. This didn’t fit with my memory of the sequence of events, but I was out of my mind on crystal math at the time. I remembered sacrificing her to save my own worthless hide, but who knows? It’s not like the drug was supposed to give me super-precise computational abilities or anything.

Oh, wait.

Anyhow, Rarity had been a terror to the hospital staff, making them move her three times before they put her in a private room with a corner window just to shut her up. She had refused surgery until Twilight agree to bring some unicorn named ‘Doctor Dust’ or ‘Dusk’ or ‘Duck’ or something to do the operation. I met him, briefly. Thick glasses and an obviously fake accent and mustache couldn’t hide a resemblance to the princess, and the white lab coat I never saw him take off seemed suspiciously full along the sides. Something weird was up with him, but he had magically fused the two halves of Rarity’s shoulder blade and gone back to wherever he was from before I could even begin to formulate theories.

By the time Toola’s orgy rolled around, Rarity was out of the hospital and rolling about Canterlot Boutique on her crutch wheel, ordering around the poor fashion students she’d brought in to replace Sassy like an unusually stylish drill sergeant breaking in raw recruits. She could not be dissuaded from attending the party, though she was persuaded to wear the pink scarf that traditionally denoted an observer. The mystery doctor had warned her against strenuous physical activity, after all. As well as travel, so she was stuck in Canterlot with me for a little while. Such a pity.

Anyway. The orgy. It was a bit more staid than I expected. Or, anyway, it looked that way at first. Toola and her friends had rented a corner suite in the Grand Plaza Hotel. In the main room of the suite, a few dozen ponies were talking and drinking, or making love quietly on couches and cushions at the edge of the rooms. Not too different from an ordinary Canterlot party, except that everyone was wearing masks. The masks were kind of a silly affectation, since almost everyone’s cutie mark was hanging out, making them easy to identify. Another tradition, I supposed. Two simple stages had been set up in the far corners of the room. One had a string quartet on it, also masked. The other had a simple set of stocks consisting of a pole, a crossbar, and two manacles that were high enough up that the poor pony tied to it would have to stand on her hind legs. A head rest was also provided, to make the position more comfortable. Rarity and I had discussed this aspect of the evening in great detail earlier, and I still wasn’t sure what to think about it.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” said Toola.

“Red wine, if you don’t mind,” said Rarity.

“I’m fine, thankth,” I said. Looking around staring at everyone’s plot, as I’m wont to do, I recognized several cutie marks that had snubbed Rarity at the art opening. They seemed fine with her in this context, and they certainly didn’t seem to mind me, judging by the regretful glances at my pink neckerchief. The Canterlot upper class were strange. But then again, I suppose no one turns down fresh meat at an orgy, however small and lean the portion.

“If you wanna mingle, Rarity, I can show her around.” said Toola.

Rarity laughed. “You just want some time alone with her, you sly minx. She won’t yield to your temptations. She’s a wholesome Whinnyappolis filly, not one of your Canterlot slatterns.”

Toola kissed Rarity rather familiarly on the mouth. Well. That was where that friendship had been. Lips closed, though, so that was okay. “Of course,” said Toola, “I know all about you country-bred mares. I just want to save you the walking.”

“I’ll believe it when my love returns with her virtue unthreatened,” purred Rarity. We nuzzled our goodbyes and Rarity went to talk to friends of hers I’d rather not know. Fancy Pants slid up by her side, smiling disingenuously, as Toola and I walked away. I snarled internally. Why did she think he was her friend? I remember her story of the time he called the Element Bearers ‘charmingly rustic’ as though it were a compliment. I’d have slapped him. Well, no, I wouldn’t have, because I’m me. But I would have wanted to!

“So, would you like to visit Eden?” asked Toola, laying a hoof on a door hidden behind a tapestry of a fig tree on the far side of the room. So there were other rooms! Of course there were other rooms.

“Let the voyage of depravity begin!” I giggled, and I grabbed a hoofful of tiny quiches from the hors d’oeuvres table before heading in.

Eden was a long, dim room, walls painted with trompe l’oeil murals of a paradisiacal garden. A maze of gauzy curtains kept the atmosphere intimate, but did nothing to block the cacophony of moans. I assumed that this was the heterosexual room, or at least what passes for heterosexual in Canterlot. Couples and small groups of stallions and mares lay tangled together on the cushions lining the floor. Some were oblivious to the action around them, lost in one another. Others were more community-minded, passing freely between groups as positions changed. I was fascinated. A mare, impaled and writhing, is always interesting to me, even if I’m not much turned on by her partner. A young orange and pink mare especially caught my eye; she looked so young I was surprised she was allowed to be here. She lay on her back, her lean but soft body spitted by two much older stallions who moved on top of her with lazy grace even as they kissed one another. She thumped a hoof against the hip of the one in her mouth, getting him to pull out so she could catch her breath. She noticed my interest, and flashed me a welcoming, innocent smile. I blushed, touched my pink neckerchief, and darted through the next curtain after Toola.

Near the back of the room Toola paused and gave me a wicked grin. She held a hoof to her lips and pulled the last curtain aside. Behind it were six compassionate mares, sensitive to the plight of straight stallions who had come to the party unaccompanied. The mares’ cheeks were soaked with fluids, their masks sticky, their manes matted to their heads. One who I was pretty sure I recognized as Upper Crust under all the ejaculate was allowing her mouth to be passed back and forth between two strapping pegasi. They weren’t being gentle, gagging her with every thrust. Even the stallions looked concerned, but when they pause to ask her if she was okay she scowled and demanded to know why they had stopped. For a second, it felt good to see such a haughty mare being so demeaningly treated. Then I immediately felt bad. Upper Crust was just a submissive, like me, who’d found a different way to feel dominated. What she was doing was nothing to be ashamed of. I pulled the curtain gently out of Toola’s hoof and we moved on.

She led me back out into the main room, and then into another. “Sodom,” she explained, giving me a wicked grin. It was similar to the last room, but the walls were painted with scenes from a burning city and the occupants were almost entirely male. I’m afraid I didn’t understand the reference — to my memory, they mythical city of Sodom was destroyed for not showing hospitality to a divine messenger, but maybe I was forgetting some details? Anyway, it was… stallionly? I’m afraid I’m the wrong pony to wax poetic about it, though Toola seemed to like what she saw there. Trenderhoof was near the door allowing himself to be used much as Upper Crust had been. He tapped a time out on his friends’ bellies so that he could say hello to me, which was nice of him. Apparently I’d made a good impression. Anyway, Toola recognized that I was bored here, and led me out and into the final room she showed me that night.

“I think you’ll like this one best,” she said, and I did.

The walls were painted with clouds and columns no doubt meant to be evocative of the classical pegasus city of Lesbos, for which mares of a certain proclivity are named.

Oh, lost Lesbos! How I long to have walked your quiet temples and sunny arcades! How I wish I could have sheltered in your sacred groves and non-triggering safe spaces! How I ache to enjoy your comfortable horseshoes and awesome folk music concerts! But alas, even if you still existed, I would fall right through you, for I am an earth pony. Oh well.

There were no curtains here. Aside from a little space around the door and a few narrow hoofpaths, the whole cushioned floor was covered with mares. Big mares and little mares. Fat mares and skinny mares. Old mares and young mares. Beautiful mares and plain mares. They twisted in between each other’s thighs. They nosed under each other’s tails. They kissed in twos and threes. Sweet voices, husky with passion, filled the air with moans and cries of delight. Toys were making the rounds. Plump, feminine haunches bobbed together, smacking into each other around double-ended dildos. Other mares were spearing each other with hoofheld dildos and butt plugs. I watched in horror and fascination as an ancient, one-eyed gray mare surrounded by a gaggle of college-age fillies allowed her admirers to transfer a large, realistic toy from between her haunches to her mouth, and back between her haunches again. Didn’t she know that was unsanitary?

I leaned over to Toola and whispered, “I am the happiest homothexual in the world right now.”

And I was, but my pleasure was far from unalloyed. I had been wracked with doubts about my relationship with Rarity from the beginning. I doubted that I was good enough for her, and that doubt was still in play. I doubted whether she really loved me. And ever since that art opening and our first big fight, I’d begun to wonder if Rarity — amazing though she was — was really the kind of mare I wanted to spend my life with. Now, added to that, I was doubting whether it had been wise to commit to be faithful to a single mare when things like this happened in the world. I was just starting to feel sorry for myself when I felt Toola reaching around to the back of my neck.

“What… What are you doing?” I asked.

Toola held up my pink neckerchief, and tossed it over her shoulder. “Rarity says it would be simply inequine to show you this room and not allow you to participate. You are given a pass for the evening. What happens in Lesbos stays in Lesbos. She adds that you are to be on time for your appointment with Mistress Derpythia at midnight, and that when you speak to her again, you are to be appropriately grateful. Public groveling is encouraged.”

I took back everything I’d just been thinking. Rarity was the best marefriend ever.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” said Toola, pecking me on the cheek, “I have an appointment in Eden. Have fun!”

———

It was one thing to stand with your muzzle pressed up to the glass of the candy store. It was another thing to be given ten bits and told to take your pick. Even more so because most of these pieces of brightly colored candy had pre-existing relationships. Or at least knew each other in normal life. I wandered amongst them for a little while, looking but not daring to touch. All of them, even the ugliest, were too wonderful to risk spoiling with my unworthy hooves, and there was always the nagging feeling that if I committed to one tryst, I might be missing out on an even better one on the other side of the room. Then I heard the door open behind me. I turned to see the teenage mare I’d seen in Eden step into the room.

She was absolutely perfect. Her yellowish orange coat was close-cropped and showed off her trim muscles and the gentle curve of her soft belly and pert, high plot. There was something familiar about the honest openness of her smile and the sturdy broadness of her hips, but I didn’t recognize her lemon tree cutie mark. She looked at me, grinned, and began picking her way across the floor towards me.

“Oh, pardon me. Excuse me. Pardon me.” She tiptoed over tangled female forms with awkward delicacy. She stopped in front of me. Was this really happening? Conventionally hot mares had not, historically, been interested in me. I mean, before Rarity. Maybe her confidence was rubbing off on me?

“Um, hi?” she said, fiddling with her long, straight pink mane. The eyes behind her domino mask were green. She was wearing blue-and-white striped socks. She had freckles.

“Yeah. Hi.” I said, crossing my forelegs and looking down. Down turned out to be straight at somepony carefully pushing a string of softball-sized beads up another mare’s ass. There really wasn’t anyplace safe to look in this whole party.

She laughed. “Oh my Faust, these things are so awkward! I think you’re cute, but like, are we just supposed to start making out, or what?”

“I have no idea. Thith ith my first one,” I said.

She put a hoof to her mouth and giggled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just your voice…”

My heart, which had been floating, suddenly dived for the bottom of my belly.

“…It’s so sweet! Where have they been keeping you?” She wrapped a hoof cautiously around my foreleg. I shifted so I could hold hooves with her and still keep my balance. I narrowly avoided stepping on an orgasming mare’s face.

“Oh. Thorry.”

“Aren’t these the worst?” said my new friend. “I’ve never been before, either. My dad said it’d be a good place to make business contacts, but all I’ve done so far is fuck a couple of old queens who were more interested in each other than in me and eat a lot of tiny quiches.”

Her dad sent her here? Faust bless you Canterlot, every time I think I’m getting jaded you find a new way to creep me the sweet heck out.

“Aren’t the tiny quiches the best?” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from the emotionally complicated topic of fathers.

“I know, right? I like the ones with the broccoli best, though…” A yelp came from underneath my new friend’s hooves. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s all right. Oh. Yes. Harder. Just like that.”

I blushed. “Do you want to go thomeplace where we can have a converthation without thtepping on anypony’s face?”

“Sounds like an excellent idea,” said my new friend.

———

Neither of us knew where the private rooms were, or even if there were any. The bathrooms all had lines. We tried a random door and blundered into the BDSM room. I had thought that what Rarity and I did was pretty extreme, but apparently it gets way weirder. I don’t even want to talk about it. My new friend told me that one of the gay stallions she’d been with earlier had mentioned a heavily curtained window at the far end of the Sodom room that opened out onto the fire escape. This proved to be the case, and soon we were both sitting on an uncomfortable iron grate, leaning against each other, giggling like schoolgirls — which for all I knew my new friend might actually be.

Once we were alone, the awkwardness faded, and soon we were kissing, dark orange lips rubbing against bright purple ones, making the roof of my mouth tingle. My hooves went right to her belly — it was soft and rounded in spite of her body being so toned. That was what made her look so young, I guessed. It was also her best feature on a body full of good ones. I slid the soft bottoms of my hooves up and down her barrel, ruffling her short orange fur, rubbing them into her softness, massaging her teeny tiny teats. She was rubbing at my hips and tummy and teats, too, and the kissing was getting heavy and wet. Definitely a good time.

“I think it’s so cute you’re wearing your glasses over your mask like that,” she giggled during a break from kissing.

“Contacts freak me out,” I explained. I didn’t know how ponies got used to touching their own eyeballs.

“I like the panties, too,” she purred, tugging the white cotton pair that Rarity had made me wear up between my lips. I yelped and jerked my hips forward. I’d been watching ponies have sex for almost an hour at this point, and I was ready to go.

“They’re really wet. You haven’t done anything yet tonight, have you?” said the filly.

She tugged my panties from side to side, rubbing the fabric against my clit. My nerve endings pulsed. “I’m tho horny. I can’t thtand it,” I said. I leaned back on the fire escape, forehooves behind me, hind legs spread. She put a hoof on the inside of my thigh and sawed my panties against my clit with the other hoof like she was trying to cut through. I could feel sweat rolling down my forehead.

“You wanna come?” she asked, grinning like like she’d emptied out the cookie jar and gotten away with it.

“Yeth. Pleathe,” I begged.

“Too bad,” she said, “not gonna let you yet.” Oh, buck me, how do I keep running into these types? Do I smell like I love to be mistreated? Probably. I really hope I do. She pushed me onto my back and leaned down so that she could bite my nipples, plucking them until they were raw and aching. She had bunched up the front of my panties around her hoof, and tugged them up hard every heartbeat or three. It was wonderful — they pushed against the mouth of my vulva and my clit, painful at the very edge of what I could stand. It wasn’t quite enough to make me come, though, because every time it started to feel like it might be, she’d slow down. The young can be so cruel.

“Pleathe. Pleathe. Let me come,” I groaned, forelegs crossed over my face.

“Ask me nice,” she said.

“Pretty pleathe?”

“Not nice enough.” She pulled my panties back , stopping stimulation almost entirely. I bucked my hips in mid-air, but she was an ace at keep-away.

“Pretty, pretty pleathe?”

“Nicer!”

“Pretty pleathe with a banana, chocolate thauce, thprinkleth and a cherry on top?”

“Good enough.” She jerked the panties forward, and began tugging fast. Her mouth went back to my aching nipples — she was gentle, this time, but she’d so ill used them earlier that even the softest lick sent pulses of hot pain through my body. My clit, raw from rubbing against rough fabric, pulsed with electric sensations I couldn’t classify as pain or pleasure. The pulse of sensation tore through my body, muscles twitching. I arched my back up off the fire escape grate. Clear fluid leaked out around the cotton clogging blocking the mouth of my pussy. I might have screamed. A lot. Loudly.

“Oh, wow,” said my new friend. “That was amazing! Do me now!”

I tried to get up. I couldn’t move. “My legth. What have you done to my legth!” I gasped.

“Take your time. I want to try these on.” She rolled my soaked, sticky panties off my thighs. I heard grunting and straining, and when I had the energy to push myself up on my elbows, I saw that the filly had managed to get the panties up over her much larger plot. Not to suggest that it was unusually large, but pretty much everypony has a bigger butt than me. The fabric strained against her round cheeks, digging into them deeply. I could clearly see her pussy through the soaking, stretched fabric. I heard a seam pop. I gulped.

The young mare leaned her back against the guardrail and spread her legs wide, hooves in the air. “Lick me,” she ordered. I lunged forward like a hungry timber wolf and pressed my mouth against the fabric, tasting only my own ultra-sweet goo at first, then her pungent, slightly citrus-y flavor. I explored the contours of her sex, probing her lips, her clit, and the opening of her tunnel with my tongue. I wrapped my hooves around her plump thighs, and nuzzled her clit with the tip of my nose, making her moan.

“On… lick right on me. Don’t do it through the cloth!” she whimpered.

“Theriously? You’re the one who put these on!” Anyway, I hadn’t declared her my mistress, and yet she’d had the temerity to top me. I had revenge to mete out! I kept right on licking through the panties. She flexed her thighs. The panties tore right down the middle. I licked her clit directly. Oh my Faust, so silky! Revenge shmevenge, I could not bring myself to stop licking. I don’t know exactly when she came, but if all the bucking screaming, and thumping me on the head with her hoof was any indication, she came at least once while I was licking her, and it was good.

Rarity cleared her throat. I my eyes popped wide open.

“I didn’t think I’d have to tell this to a mare of your education, Frazzle darling, but the point of an orgy is to have sex in front of other ponies.”

“Oops.Thorry,” I grinned, wiping my lips with my foreleg.

“Gah… gah… ra… ra…” said the filly. I had reduced her to incoherence. I was proud of myself.

Rarity was leaning on the windowsill with her good leg, looking imperious, annoyed and amused, all at the same time. Her eyes flicked up and down the young mare’s body, and she seemed to like what she saw. I guessed Rarity liked them young, the old perv. Of course, I was hardly in a position to judge, in this case. She turned her attention to me. “Did we enjoy ourselves, then?”

I nodded vigorously. Rarity cleared her throat. Oh, right.

I took her hoof in both of mine. “Lady Rarity, who in her infinite mercy allows me to transgress, I thank you from the very depths of my being. I had an awesome time cheating on you.” I licked the edge of her hoof. “There is no service I would deny my wonderful mistress, no matter how painful or humiliating, as long as it doesn’t involve bathroom stuff.” Then I licked her hoof more.

“That will do,” said Rarity, wiping her hoof on the curtains.

“Oh, my gosh, you’re Rarity!” My filly had found her tongue.

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“No, but I’m Meyer Lemon, of the Manehattan Oranges. Applejack is my Faustmother!”

Oh, buck me. And after Applejack had been so nice to me!

Rarity gasped. “Oh, heavens! It’s so good meet you, Meyer, dear!”

“Lemon, please. Meyer sounds like a colt’s name.”

“What brings you to Canterlot?”

“I just graduated. I’m sick of Manehattan. Everypony is so mean, and stuck-up, and backstabby. So I thought I’d like to go somewhere new.” She wriggled out of the ragged remains of my panties, and rolled over onto her front. She didn’t seem at all bothered by her Faustmother’s friend catching her in flagranté. And Rarity’s eyes were all over her. How could they be so cavalier about sex things? Rich ponies were weird.

Rarity gave a rueful little laugh. “You may be disappointed by Canterlot then, I’m afraid. What did you study, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Business management, with minors in marketing and art history.”

Rarity apparently had a place to carry business cards in her negligee, because of course she did. “Interesting. I’ve recently had an opening in my Canterlot location that I might like to discuss with you.”

Lemon made the business card disappear. “Oh, I’d love to.”

“How does Tuesday afternoon look for you?”

“Clear, I think. My planner’s in my coat, I’ll check before I go.”

Rarity turned back to me. “Well in any event, my plaything, Mistress Derpythia requires our assistance. I am glad I thought to bring you extra panties.”

———

Derpythia was a gray mare with a blonde mane, a disarming smile, and a bad case of strabismus. She wore a latex officer’s cap and jacket, and cowcolt-style assless chaps that showed off her bubble cutie mark and what I suspected might be the reason she’d gotten it. It was super rare for a pony to get a cutie mark based on a physical feature, but her rump was so round and jiggly it made Fluttershy look flat and saggy. Maybe she’d gotten her cutie mark while doing squats; I don’t know. She had both a crop and a flogger made of soft cloth strips hanging at her sides.

“I don’t want to be, um, rude, but… can you aim? I mean, your eyeth…” I didn’t want her hitting anything delicate. No, wait, that’s exactly what I wanted her to do. Anyway, we’d met before to discuss limits, but I’d been too shy to ask about her vision then.

“Don’t worry,” she said in a working class Cloudsdale accent that sounded very out of place at this party, “I’ve learned to compensate. Well, mostly. Depth perception — who needs it, am I right?”

Rarity gave me a placatory nuzzle. “Don’t worry, dear. Derpythia is one of the foremost phlebotomists in Equestria.”

“Phlebotomy? No! You are not getting any blood out of me! I did not agree to thith!” I hid behind Rarity, even though she was the one who’d arranged this little… adventure.

“It’s a pun, darling,” said Rarity, turning and pushing me towards Derpythia. “Flay bottomist. Do try to keep up.”

“Oh. Right. I thould have figured that out.”

“You should have, yes. But it’s all right.” Rarity patted me reassuringly on the plot. “I still love you.”

“I have no idea what either of you are talking about,” said Derpythia, grinning like she couldn’t care less. “Do you remember the safeword system, Honey?”

I nodded. “Red, yellow, green.”

Rarity smacked her lips in disapproval. “How prosaic.”

Derpythia drew her crop and slapped it against her hoof. “Then let’s smack some tush!”

Rarity and Derpythia lead me up to the stocks. I was guided up onto my hind hooves, and the manacles were fastened around my front fetlocks. Toola was introducing us. The crowd laughed. I hoped she had made a joke. I placed my forehead against the head rest, breathing shallowly. I couldn’t see the room full of ponies watching me, but I could feel their eyes on me. I braced myself, waiting for the first blow. Instead, I felt a tingling caress across my buttocks. The braided strips of her flogger teased me, sliding across my ass and over the panties covering my delicate bits. Then the crowd murmured approvingly.

“How does that feel?” said Derpythia.

“It feelth nithe,” I said.

The flogger flipped away, and slapped back against my flesh. I yelped.

“How about that, honey?”

“More, pleathe,” I whimpered. The crowd tittered and muttered in approval.

She swatted each of my cheeks in turn, pausing occasionally to tease me with the softness of the flogger’s strips. It was a gentle spanking, so far, but a burning ache was slowly building up over time. Still, I began to relax. She gave me a quick slap on each cutie mark, ran the flogger up around my dock, and then brought it down several times on my croup. I’d been nervous about this, but it wasn’t so bad. I could handle it. The humiliation of being publicly flogged was surprisingly manageable, maybe because I couldn’t see the audience. And the endorphin rush, together with the pleasure of having my rump played with, more than compensated for the pain. I was new to the sub thing, sure, but apparently I could already handle anything. I was a natural!

Then Derpythia switched to the riding crop.

The first slap came without warning, slamming into both cheeks with a loud crack. I yowled. A murmur ran through the crowd.

“How about that? Was that okay?” she asked, her voice cheerful.

“It hurt,” I whimpered. The crowd laughed

She rubbed the flat end of the crop against my flanks, caressing aching flesh. “Oh. Well. That’s too bad. Because I’m not half done yet.” Two smacks with the crop, at the point of each buttock. I yelped. Her prep work with the flogger hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but it had left my rear very tender.

She leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “If you’re okay, Honey?”

“Green,” I whimpered. I’m not ashamed to admit it — I like pain.

“That’s great. Stop me the second it gets to be too much. There’s no shame in tapping out.” Then she slapped me in the backs of the thighs. It made me flinch, but it wasn’t so bad. She moved up gradually, alternating legs until she started hitting the raw, tender flesh of my ass. I bit my lip, then bit down on the headrest, trying not to scream. All those ponies down there had been looking down their noses at me a week ago. I didn’t want them to see me as weak. I mean sure, I’d yelped a little at first — that had been surprise more than pain, I swear. But Derpythia wasn’t letting up, and the beating was starting to seriously hurt.

I focused on the pain — the constant burning of the skin of my ass, punctuated by sharp, rapid blows. Pain is funny — of you try to ignore it, or will it away, it just gets worse. If you accept it, and go into it, it becomes part of you. It doesn’t hurt any less. It’s just… there. It becomes easier to bear.

“This one’s a tough nut to crack, isn’t she?” said Derpythia to the crowd. They chuckled. This was followed by a swat right against my tailhole. I clamped down my tail, and it was lifted aside, followed by a quick smack to the dock. “None of that, now,” said Derpythia.

And this was what I deserved, wasn’t it? If you looked at things one way, I’d been given an opportunity to do magnificent things, and I’d squandered it. Rarity was injured, and Daddy was still dead. If you looked at things from another point of view, I was obsessed with a drug hallucination. Either way, not too impressive. And Rarity? Not only had I gotten her shot, but I’d ruined her social life as well. I’d made a fool out of her at Toola’s opening, and caused trouble between her and Sassy Saddles. Rarity would have been better off if she’d never met me.

The pain increased with every blow. Derpythia seemed like a kind and compassionate mare, but I think I might be frustrating her with my unwillingness to cry out. Her crop slammed into my right cutie mark, then into the one of the left. I ground my teeth. The cutie mark isn’t any more sensitive than the surrounding skin, but they’re a big part of who you are. Being hit there is frightening and humiliating, so naturally it’s wonderful as part of a spanking. But I felt like I deserved it. If she whipped them off my body, it would be too good for me. Anyway, what was a spanking, compared to a bullet in the chest?

I heard something snap. I felt something wet on my bottom. I must be enjoying this, then. But suddenly hooves were unbuckling me, and I was being helped onto all fours. What was happening? I looked at Derpythia. She was staring at the red on the broken end of her crop with horror in her pretty, crooked eyes.

“I don’t know what went wrong,” she whispered.

The audience was watching at us in shocked silence. They’d been looking for a victim. A scapegoat. I’d showed them, hadn’t I? I felt a rush of pride. Then I looked at the spots of blood on the stage and I felt my legs get weak. Derpythia was a phlebotomist after all. I squinted my eyes shut as Rarity and Toola guided me from the stage.

———
There were private rooms after all. I lay spread out on cushions while Toola dabbed alcohol on my ass. Rarity sat with her muzzle against mine.

“I’m thorry,” I said.

“Heavens, what for?” said Toola. “We’re the ones who whipped you until you bleed for our own amusement.” She didn’t sound terribly remorseful. “Did you see the looks on their faces? You were a masterpiece of terror and pity. They’ll be talking about you for months. For Faust’s sake you freaked out a professional dom!”

“Are you really all right, Frazzle, dear?” said Rarity, stroking my face.

“My ath ith fine. I’ll be thtanding at work tomorrow, but that was kind of what I was hoping for. It’th just…” I sighed. “Rarity, I’m not a good pony. I felt like I could have saved you. That bullet was meant for me. I can’t really explain how, but I know it. I felt it hitting me. I felt like I wath going to die. I don’t know if you thaw, but I had a thtone ashtray. I threw it at Flim, and not Flam.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “I fail to see the problem, darling.”

I took a deep breath, and explained what I’d seen when I’d taken the crystal math. I felt insane, but it was what I’d felt, whether it was real or not. I didn’t look at Rarity as I spoke, but when I was finished I could see that she had drawn herself up stiffly. I winced, and hid my face in the cushioned floor. “If you never want to thee me again, it’s okay,” I said.

“Frazzle Eleanor Rock,” said Rarity, “You are never to attempt to sacrifice yourself for me again, do you understand? How do you think I would feel if you died?”

I looked up from the cushions and squinted at Rarity. “I gueth you’d feel pretty upset?”

“Frazzle, I would be devastated. I would happily have lost this leg to keep you alive and whole. Though…” she frowned. “That would make it very difficult to sew. But still! I love you darling!”

“I thought you were mad, at me, though,” I said. “You know, because I’m ugly, and smoke too much pot, and your friends don’t like me.”

“Love and anger are hardly mutually exclusive, Fraz,” said Toola. “What are you, six? Oh, by the way, what do you want for band-aids? I have… looks like puppies, and bunnies.”

“Bunnies please,” I said.

Rarity stroked my cheek. “We do need to do something about your self esteem, dear. Anyhow, I thought we’d agreed not to speak of our little fight again. I was very much in the wrong, but I have already apologized.” She glanced back at Toola, and bit her lower lip. “So… Frazzle, dear… I have a confession of my own to make. I have not been unfaithful to you, but I am simply dreadful at monogamy. And we are at an orgy.”

My heart sank. “Who do you want to have thex with?”

“It’s more a matter of who wants to have sex with you, dearest heart.”

I felt my tail being cautiously lifted. I glanced back, and Toola gave me a nervous smile. I blushed. “We could make a triangle,” I suggested.

“Give me a moment,” said Rarity. “My mobility is not what it usually is, after all.”

While Rarity struggled to get into position, Toola rolled my blood stained panties down around the tops of my thighs. Derpythia had given little attention to my pussy and plothole, so it didn’t sting too much when Toola licked me slowly from pubic fluff to dock. I bit the cushion beneath me and shifted my ass up in the air, but Toola’s mouth had vanished. That bitch! I heard giggling and wet noises from nearby, and looked to see that Rarity had her muzzle wedged in between Toola’s plump pink thighs. My heart began to race, and my hide tingled as anger and jealousy burned through me. I took a deep breath, and tried to calm myself. What had I been expecting? I had to admit that Rarity looked unbelievably hot. She was such an elegant and controlled mare! Seeing her with her muzzle buried halfway in another mare’s cunt, wet up to her eyes in pussy juices, was immensely satisfying. And the humiliation of being cheated on right in front of my face? Oh, I liked that.

Toola grabbed me by a hind leg and tugged. “Get your ass over here, sexy.”

Three hours later, we fell asleep in a pile, jaws aching and hearts happy.