Everything was ready. Quickly, Toaster’s eyes flitted across the room, taking one last final inventory of everything in her room. The bed was made perfectly, its glossy high-thread count comforter gleaming in the dim, incandescent light. The light itself had been set to 2000K at exactly 3 lux, directed toward the intricate glossy wallpaper. Mints were placed in a small bowl on the nightstand, and a several boxes of “supplies” had been placed around the room, including the black-marble lined bathroom, ready to accommodate the client in whatever he might need.

Toaster stopped at a mirror against one of the walls and inspected herself. Her makeup, as always, was done perfectly- -focusing almost hyperbolically on her eyes with eyeshadow and mascara, but conservative on the lips and cheeks. That was a common mistake, of course; reducing the lipstick to little more than a thin line of red accentuated the eyes far more, and eyes were what the stallions were really looking at.

She adjusted her clothing slightly, ensuring that her stockings and saddle were attached perfectly. Not that they would stay on for long, of course, but initial appearance was critical. Toaster sighed, seeing that even though the garments fit her perfectly, the color was still off. That, of course, was unavoidable. Virtually no color matched her deep chocolate coat, and those that did looked hideous against her green mane. She had been forced to go with a combination of purple and pastel blue, which was not adequate but not as stunning as she would have hoped.

Beside the mirror was a small bottle of perfume. Toaster lowered her horn to pick it up but, remembering what happened last time, decided that she should use her hooves instead. She picked it up and sprayed the highly floral scent onto herself, coughing from the acrid mist.

As she tried not to choke on the smell, she suddenly noticed that she had made a terrible mistake. She had forgotten to light the lines of candles that filled the room.

“Buck me,” she swore, knowing that it would not be the first time she would be saying that phrase this night. There was no time to find a match, so she had no choice.

Toaster lit her horn, the tip igniting deep red. A narrow beam shot out, sliding across the room. The candles were cut in half and instantly ignited from the heat. A long burn mark was also pyrolized through the wallpaper and into the gypsumboard behind them. That as bad, but at the angle she had cut the candles, the customer probably would not notice.

The nubs from the ends of the candles dropped onto the floor, rolling in every direction. As they did, the door creaked open. In a panic, Toaster swept up the tiny pieces of wax and wick and shoved them into her mouth.

Through the door stepped her customer for the night. He was an ordinary looking stallion, colored a light blue with wavy white hair. He was not terribly old, but not young either. He was wearing a tie and a jacket, as would be expected of any customer of Madame Ticker’s brothel.

Toaster swallowed the candle nubs and walked as seductively as possible over to the stallion.

“Oh my,” she said, feigning surprise and rubbing her shoulder past him as she inspected him, helping him remove his jacket. “Look at those muscles! Aren’t I a lucky filly!”

The stallion giggled awkwardly, and from his response Toaster could tell that he was nervous. He was probably new to the whole process of buying mares. That of course did not bother Toaster; there was no a stallion in existence that she would deny. Prostitution was, after all, her destiny.

She rubbed her professionally puffed tail past his nose, and he sneezed violently.

“That perfume,” he said, choking on it.

“You like it?”

“It smells like my grandma.”

“Oh,” said Toaster, freezing. Then she smiled mischievously. “So you’re THAT kind of pony…”

“What?! No!”

“Why don’t you just let grandma take care of you, then,” said Toaster, dropping the falsetto that she used to suppress the natural raspiness in her voice.

“Please don’t,” said the stallion.

“Fine, fine,” said Toaster. She leaned up against him, putting her foreleg over his back. “I can tell you’re a little new at this. There’s no need to worry. What you’re feeling is completely natural. I just want to be comfortable. We’re going to be spending all night together, after all.”

“Really?” said the stallion, somewhat surprised. “Because I checked the other mares, and they were all booked with several clients. You were the only one with open slots.”

Toaster’s eyes narrowed. “A clerical mistake, I’m sure,” she muttered. Her tone caused the stallion to recoil slightly, and she switched her tone back to her professional voice, internally cursing that she had let herself slip. “But this is good for you. Because my slot is only open for you tonight…”

She crossed the room and sprawled out on the bed, spreading her legs enough to be seductive but not enough to reveal exactly what was beneath her skirt and fluffy green tail. “So come on, you stud. This is all yours, every inch of this mint chocolate body.”

The stallion smiled nervously, and Toaster could see that the was already getting aroused. He climbed onto the bed and kissed Toaster deeply. He quickly recoiled, though, smacking his lips in disgust.
“Why do you taste like candles?” he asked.

“Reasons,” said Toaster, feeling herself breaking out into a cold sweat.
The stallion shrugged, and then turned her over onto her belly. Toaster looked back at him and saw him looking around the room.

“Um…do you have any condoms?”

“Of course not,” said Toaster, laughing. “I’m a licensed prostitute! We have daily testing for STD’s. It’s a requirement.”

“So you don’t have any, then?”

“Nope.”

“So, what? If you get diagnosed, do they fire you?”

“If they can’t treat it, yeah. Assuming we survive.”

“Sur…survive?”

“Oh yeah,” said Toaster, laying her head on the pillow of her bed, her rump still raised in the air. “There’s just so many…I mean, take swamp fever. It affects the blood, so you get anemic. Pale, thin, tired. Then comes the sudden death. Or, if you survive, you never walk again. Or the PIV. You waste away until there’s nothing left. Or syphilis. Your body gets all covered in sores, and your coat falls out…and then come the skeletal deformities, madness, and, well, dead. But of course most are just real gross. Like gonorrhea. Pus out the penis and all. Or that one disease that makes your balls fall off.”

“O…okay…” said the stallion nervously, his shaking hooves still on Toaster’s hips.

“Oh, but the worst is Aphrodite’s Revenge. It makes your insides, well…become your outsides. And you’ll never guess out of which orifice!”

“So…you don’t have any of those?”

“Nope! Tested negative! And those tests are right a whole eighty two percent of the time! Ain’t science grand?”

“Eighty…eighty two?”

“And I won’t get pregnant either! I’m on the best birth control money can buy!” Toaster paused for a moment. “At least…I think I took it this week. Did I? Yeah, I did…or did I? Hmm…probably. You might want to pull out just in case.” Her eyes narrowed seductively. “Or put a foal in me. I don’t mind. But you will be paying child support.” She laughed.

“I’m…I’m not so sure about this…”

Toaster suddenly felt her heat accelerate. It was happening again.

“Hey, now,” she said, shaking her tail just slightly. “If you’re really that concerned, you can plot me. I won’t even charge you extra. And you know I’m good for it. I could probably cinch pipe in there.”

“You mean…in the butt?”

“Unless I have a second plot, yessss.”

“But doesn’t that hurt?”

“Quite a bit, actually.” Toaster lifted her tail, exposing herself to the stallion. “So come on and make me scream.”

The stallion looked back to the door, as if he were planning to leave- -but it was clear to Toaster that he had already started thinking with his head instead of his brain. He smiled and leaned forward, pulling up Toaster’s skirt. It took all of Toaster’s strength to suppress her giggling. She was finally going to make some money.

Then, all at once, the pony stopped. Toaster felt his hooves on his flank- -on her cutie mark.

“Um,” he said. “Why…why is your cutie mark a toaster?”

Toaster pushed her face into the pillow, then turned back to her customer. She smiled and maintained her professionalism despite her panic. She put on her most seductive smile. “Because stallions put their ‘bread’ into me, of course. But don’t worry, I haven’t burned any of them yet.”

“Oh,” said the stallion, laughing as he gripped Toaster’s shoulders and prepared to take her.

“Well,” said Toaster, “actually…there was that one time. Or several times. But they all recovered! I’ve never burned a stallion so badly that he didn’t get better!”

“Um…”

“Well…except for that one time. But he survived! Oh, um, actually, ‘she’ now. Yeah. But I’ve never killed anypony through immolation! Actually…well…”

“You know what?” said the stallion, getting off Toaster’s back without even having penetrated her. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“What? No! Wait!”

“I’m sorry, miss…but I knew this was a bad idea.” He grabbed his jacket and reached for the door. “I mean, thank you for trying and all, and I’ll still pay you for your time, of course…”

He reached for the doorknob and jumped back as a narrow beam of red light reduced it to a flaming, molten mass.

“That’s not good enough,” said Toaster, slowly descending from the bed. Her desperation has now completely erased her professionalism. Her green eyes were narrowed, and her voice was now low and threatening.

“Please, miss, what…what are you doing?”

“I’m a prostitute. I have sex for bits. It’s what I do. It’s my special talent. Prostitution is my LIFE. I’m not just going to take your money, you fool! You are not leaving here until you take your horse dick, shove hard and deep into at least one of my holes, and get your money’s worth out of me!”

She reached out with her magic, which poured out of her horn like a plume of fire. IT stretched across the room, grabbing the stallion by his tie. He screamed as he was pulled forward and the heat singed his coat. Toaster knew that the walls were soundproofed, though. No pony would hear his cries for help.

“Please, stop!” he cried. “I have a wife and children!”

The intense heat from Toaster’s magic burned through his tie, and he suddenly fell backward onto the floor. He skittered toward the door, but Toaster was too fast. She leapt on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

“You are going to have sex with me,” she said, glaring into his terrified eyes and putting her hoof between his legs, finding him disappointingly flaccid. He tried to clench them closed.

“Please! Just- -just let me go!”

“Open your legs,” said Toaster, slowly. “Or I will do it for you…and you do NOT want to see what happens if I use my magic on a pony directly.”

“HELP! HELP!” cried the stallion.

“Quit it!” cried Toaster, feeling her tears smearing her thick makeup. “You wanted a prostitute! I am a prostitute! Just have sex with me!”

Her pleading was punctuated by a sudden surge of light as the stallion pulled down a lamp and slammed it into her head. Her thoughts momentarily skipped from the impact, but she held onto him even as he tried to escape, keeping her forelegs around his waist.

“Please!” she cried through her concussion. “I’ll do anything! It doesn’t have to be sex! I can just kiss! We can cuddle! Just let me do something! Please!”

“You’re crazy! CRAZY!”

Toaster was about to protest when a sharp pain suddenly hit her. It was not from the impact of the lamp against her head, but from inside her.

“Oh…I shouldn’t have eaten all those candles…”

Then, before she realized what was happening, a small sound broke the air. The room went silent, and the stallion stopped struggling. His eyes and Toaster’s both turned slowly toward her rump, where the sound had originated.

That was the last straw. Toaster just let go and buried her head into the hardwood floor.

“Um, miss,” said the stallion.

“Just go,” she said.

The stallion looked down at Toaster in pity, and then pushed open the door. Although the doorknob had been melted, the door itself had not been sealed; in fact, the mechanism that controlled the locking system had burnt away with the doorknob itself, meaning that the door swung freely. The stallion was just glad that it was only the door’s knob that had been destroyed. He vowed to return home to his wife and to never again look at another mare.

Toaster was left alone in the dimly lit room, her face buried into the wood. Yet again she had failed, and she just could not figure out why. The open door allowed some sound into the room: that of so many other prostitutes successfully pleasing their clients: carefully scripted moans and gasps and the creaking of mattresses. In all this sound, Toaster sat alone, sobbing into a cold wooden floor.