The days passed quickly, and finally the day of the show came. Toaster found herself back stage at the Ponyville town auditorium. Music pounded from the other side of the curtains and ponies moved about quickly. Most were workers who had been hired for this kind of production, but several others were models. Among them all was Lacy Leather, who had been darting around during the early performance but now was doing the final checks on Toaster’s outfit.

“You were right about the orange,” said Toaster, who was adding the final touches to her makeup. She looked in the mirror and almost did not recognize the pony she saw. For the first time, she was not just an ugly pony in pretty clothes but a passable pony in very, very sexy clothing.

“Of course I was right,” said Lacy, adjusting the last strap on Toaster’s corset. She herself was wearing a more ornate version of the clothing that she had been wearing in her shop before. “Is that too tight?”

“No,” said Toaster, standing up and grabbing a kimono from a hanger. Geisha training has come easily for her, but had never really been her thing. The kimonos, though, those she liked. It would also be perfect for her act. “It feels like I’m wearing nothing at all.” Toaster laughed at her own quasi-joke nervously.

“Nervous?” said Lacy.

“Yeah,” said Toaster. “I don’t…I don’t know why…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said a Bittish voice as Octavia passed Toaster. She was dressed decked out completely in pale-pink in an eloquent but highly revealing parody of formal clothing, complete with an oversized bow on the side of her neck. She had just finished her routine and dabbed her forehead with a handkerchief. “It’s completely natural, part of the thrill of the performance. I still get it every time I take the stage, whether I have a bow in hand or…” she sighed and gestured down at herself. “This.”

“You look great,” said Toaster, finding herself jealous of Octavia’s more subdued colors.

“I do. But this is not my cup of tea, so to speak. Vinyl owes me. She owes me a LOT. However, I do hope your performance goes well. Break a leg!”

“Not my own, probably,” muttered Toaster.

“Oh, come on!” said Lacy. “You made this performance happen! Not only did you volunteer yourself, but you managed to pull in Bon Bon and that sexy gray studmuffin! I mean, listen to that! Do you hear it?”

“Dubstep wubs?”

“No! Cheering! Nopony’s ever cheered at one of these things! He’s out there right now, hamming it up! Then it’s Trixie- -”

“The ‘great and powerful’!” yelled Trixie from the other side of the staging area, where she was finishing her own makeup. “Then it’s your turn, and trust me, in this…well, let’s just say I hope the janitor’s got a mop at the ready, because he’s gonna need it!”

“If I don’t fail and burn everypony to death,” said Toaster, shaking. She looked down at Lacy, who was oddly calm. “What if I mess up? What if they hate me? What if they swarm the stage, pull me off, and beat me again?”

“Again?”

“Again!”

“It won’t happen! I saw you in rehearsal and trust me, you almost switched me back to ponies. This will work.”

“I hope so.” Toaster looked around nervously. She peaked around the edge of the curtain, and saw the crowd cheering as Bread marched down the catwalk, his gray plot showing strongly against the dark brown of his chaps. He had a deadpan expression on his face, but Toaster knew that he was enjoying himself as he spun and flexed as the mares in the crowd- -and several stallions- -cheered. Toaster found herself strangely aroused as well. “I just hope Lyra gets here in time…”

“I’m always on time,” said Lyra, causing Toaster to jump and squeak. She turned around to see the teal pony behind her.

“Barely,” said Toaster, watching as Bread came back in and Trixie took her place on deck, her tight blue sparkly garments and horn ring glimmering in the light as she prepared herself to perform.

“Yeah, well,” said Lyra, wiping her mouth. “Bon Bon had some trouble getting her panties off, so I had to help her.”

“Sure,” said Lacy, playfully pushing Lyra’s shoulder.

“That was very nice of you,” said Toaster.

“It was nicer of her. But anyway, Toaster, I have a present for you.” Lyra’s magic reached into her saddlebag, and she produced a flat metallic object that was neatly folded against itself.

“You made it?” squealed Toaster, taking it.

“I did. It was actually pretty fun. It won’t work in a practical sense, but I think it should do what you need it to.”

“Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you!” cried Toaster, slipping the metal device down the collar of her kimono and onto her back.

“So that’s why you wanted it open in the back,” said Lacy Leather, finally understanding.

“It was the least I could do for you getting Bon Bon out on that stage. I mean, those socks…and hard elements in the design? I mean, that was a stroke of genius!”

“She thought you would like it,” said Lacy. “A little bit of armor goes a long way.”

Bread appeared to the side of them, and all three pairs of eyes turned toward him. From what Toaster could see, Lacy Leather did just as well with stallions as she did with mares. For Bread, she gone with a kind of pleather and chains theme, giving him chaps, narrow chains in his wings, a choker, hard metal forleg bands- -and a lacy pair of dark panties that none of the three mares could take their eyes off of.

“Sweet Satin Veil,” whispered Lacy Leather. “It’s like it’s staring back at me or something.”

“I can’t stop looking,” said Lyra. “Why can’t I stop looking?!”

“Toaster,” said Bread, apparently ignorant of the attention he was getting. “I am glad I found you.”

“You are?” said Toaster.

“Yes. I just wanted to thank you letting me in on this. And, to say, well…break all the legs.”

“With me, that’s a distinct possibility.”

“Same with my sister, actually. You are not unlike her.”

There was a sound of awe from the crowd and small explosions.

“That’s Trixie’s finally!” said Lacy Leather. “That means you’re up next!”

“CRAP!”

“Assuming we can get her off the stage,” said Lyra, pulling back the curtain slightly to see Trixie gesturing toward a less than appreciative audience.

Miraculously, though, Trixie did come back from the stage.

“Beat that, whore,” she said, slapping Toaster in the face with her tail as she walked past. Toaster responded in kind by slapping Trixie playfully with her own tail, but since it was mostly shaved it was more like a whip than a plume of horsehair. The blow dropped Trixie to the floor with one hit.

“Oops,” said Toaster.

Lacy looked down at the unconscious unicorn. “Well, at least you waited until she had finished.” The music slowed and the lights dimmed. As they did, Lacy’s eyes widened. “That’s your cue! Go!”

“Right,” said Toaster. She gulped, and then shifted to her professional self. She listened carefully to the slow, slightly electronic music, waiting for the part of the song that she was supposed to enter exactly on, desperately hoping that Lacy had remembered to coat the stage in asbestos. Then, when it finally came, Toaster closed her eyes, took a breath, and stepped forward.

The gaze of the ponies in the crowd almost had a physical force behind it, and Toaster immediately knew why Fluttershy had refused this job. The music had been slowed to create a pause, and the cheering for Trixie had stopped. The ponies just stared, and Toaster could hear some of them gasp when they saw the town whore on stage.

She did not let this distract her. Instead, she moved in perfect time to the clicking, plinking sound of the slow music. The lighting ponies turned the lights onto her as she slowly stepped forward one step at a time.

The stage itself had been constructed as a catwalk with a large circular area on the end, a cul-de-sac surrounded by fans. In the audience, Toaster saw many faces of ponies she knew: in the front row, she saw Muffins, sitting with Scootaloo- -who for some reason had not been allowed to participate in the show herself- -and higher up, Toaster saw Granny Smith and her vest-wearing relative.

The music slowed to a stop when Toaster had reached the edge of the circular part of the cul-de-sac stage. She lowered her head and stood still, and the ponies around her stayed silent, perhaps wondering if something had gone wrong. Toaster’s eyes opened slightly, and she looked to where the DJ was stationed. She saw Vinyl Scratch nod.

Then the speakers at the venue exploded with music. Toaster twisted, flexing her body as she moved and literally jumping out of her kimono. As she did, the ponies above reacted quickly, focusing the lights on her. Toaster jumped forward, and down below heard the sound of a hydraulic press activating. A pole shot up in the center of the stage.

Toaster grabbed it with her front hooves and twisted again, sliding it between the boots on her rear legs and inverting herself. She wrapped herself around the pole, descending and gyrating to the routine that she had constructed within her mind.

She kept her eyes open and kept smiling. In her mind, she imagined that the audience was filled with her clients, the ponies that she was meant to give her body to. She would perform for all of them as though they were her lovers, as though she were trying to seduce and impress them. As she began her routine, though, she realized that she did not need to try to keep her professional smile- -the one that was on her face was, in fact, genuine.

The crowd did not cheer immediately; rather, they looked too shocked to. Toaster kept going, though, moving her body to the sound of the music, demonstrating the flexibility of the corset, boots, and socks she was wearing. She dropped down to the stage and slithered outward, turning herself over and exposing herself to two colts that had a front-row seat, a gray one with a scissors cutie mark and a taller yellow one. Toaster looked them both in the eye and smiled seductively.

With a flip, Toaster was back onto the upper part of the pole, grabbing it and summersaulting downward, moving her hips against. She could see that the crowd’s entire attention was on her, which was good thing. None of them had noticed the spell that she had started to cast since she had stepped out; in the bright spotlight, none of them saw the several tiny red orbs floating throughout the room.

Toaster took hold of the pole and pushed out her plot. This part of her routine was the least assured, and though she felt better than she had in her entire life, she was still afraid.

“I trust you, Lyra,” she said to herself.

She closed her eyes and detonated her spell. The room was filled with a resounding explosion of red fire and light that framed Toaster on the stage. As the spell went off, Toaster arched her back. She felt a strange tingling sensation as the neuro-interface from the metal device mounted on her back engaged, and wondered if this was how Lyra felt with her hands.

The device activated, and in an instant, the metal unfolded, revealing a pair of steel wings. The audience gasped, and as the music rose to a chorus of distorted guitar and industrial dance, she engaged the second part of her pyrotechnic spell. Several long lines of energy in the stage glowed bright red and then ignited, flooding the stage with plumes of enchanted crimson fire.

Some of the ponies got up, looking around as though they wanted to escape, but Toaster tightened her control. The flames dropped and slowed, and she looked out at the audience as the music slowed. There was a slight pause- -and then wubs.

Now Toaster accelerated her routine. This part was much more difficult; not only was she dancing, but she was dancing while using the full extent of the sexy-Pegasus training that until this point she thought she would never have cause to use. All that while controlling the flames behind her to keep the audience from being charred into dust.

Still, even all that did not stop her. She swung her hips, her wings, and her flames, and she gave it everything she had.

Then, finally, the end came. Toaster heard the notes that signaled the termination of her segment, and she released the control on her flames for a moment as she drew power into the tip of her horn and focused it into the pole she had been dancing on. As the flames collapsed, the pole vaporized and spread out over the crowd as a shower of sparks. Toaster fell to the ground and struck her sexiest pose as the music stopped.

When the music faded, though, the sound did not. Toaster immediately panicked, just knowing that they were screaming and jeering at her, that she had failed- -but then she realized that they were cheering. Even more than that, in some parts the audience had moved from cheering to sheer moshing. The volunteer security stallions were doing everything they could to prevent the stage from being mobbed.

Toaster sat still in awe for a moment, and then stood. She smiled, but felt a tear run down her face onto and boil away on the heated asbestos floor of the stage. Nopony had ever cheered for her like that.

She bowed, and then turned back to return backstage. As she did, Lacy Leather was coming out. Lacy stopped Toaster as they met.

“You didn’t tell me there’s be pyrotechnics!” she hissed.

“I improvised!” said Toaster.

“You hella did! I think I love you!”

Lacy released Toaster and stepped out onto the stage herself.

“Ladies and gentlecolts, our newest model, Toaster!” she said to a tremendous cheer. “Modeling the latest in upper corset bustier and boots, for a filly who knows ALL The best ways to handle her stallion!”

Toaster went back to the stage and breathed a long sigh of relief. There was a reason she rarely used her magic; in part, because all it could do was burn things, but also in part because controlling took a great deal of effort.

When she finally reached the back, the other ponies were all staring at her wide-eyed, save for Trixie, who was still unconscious, and Bread, who was wide eyed and slack jaws but apparently staring at the curtain and something on the ceiling.

“Where did you learn how to do THAT?” cried Lyra.

“Prostitute school,” said Toaster.

“Impressive,” said Bread. “You really worked the whole ‘Princess of Lust’ angle.”

“Thank you, Bread,” said Toaster. As she looked at him, their eyes met- -or as closely as their eyes could meet, considering that Bread was severely derped- -and when they both saw each other’s outfits, both of their wings pompfed simultaneously.

“Bon Bon,” said Lyra, turning to Bon Bon, who had been waiting back stage, still in her socks. “You are so wearing a pair of those wings.”

“Um, no,” said Bon Bon. “I think YOU are. I’ve always wondered what having my own princess would feel like.”

“Dude,” said Lyra, addressing all of them. “Octavia, you go get Vinyl. The cider is most definitely on me tonight. Hay, I’ll even pay to get Toaster bottomless nachos!”

“I do like things bottomless,” said Toaster, waving her exposed brown plot in the air.

The others laughed.

“Hey, I’ve just got to take care of some business,” said Toaster.

“We’ve got time,” said Octavia. “Vinyl still has to pack up, and Trixie needs to…regain consciousness.”

“That, and I don’t really feel comfortable going out like this,” said Bon Bon.

“No?” said Lyra through a leash and pony-sized collar in her mouth.

“Where did you even get that?”

Toaster walked off as the other ponies laughed. Lacy Leather was returning from the stage after plugging her product wearing a smile big enough for a pony twice her size. Several medics came to help Trixie, and a few fans came backstage. Toaster saw Muffins hug Bread, and then a vest-wearing pony blush as he handed Bread the most impressively large bouquet of flowers that Toaster had ever seen.

Smiling, Toaster made her way into the back hall toward the little-filly’s room. The back hall of the venue was narrow and almost empty, save for a pale blue unicorn mare with a snowflake cutie mark waiting by the door, leaning against a wall. She had been in the show too, Toaster recalled, but for some reason Toaster could not remember her name. Toaster started to walk toward her to invite her to cider with the rest of the group, but before she reached her, the outside door opened and two identical blue unicorns stepped in. They paused in front of the mare, and they just stood there. There was no speaking, not even an acknowledgement of each other’s presence. Then, after several seconds, they left together.

“That was…weird,” said Toaster. She shrugged it off, though. She really needed to use the restroom, mostly to vomit in. She had overexerted herself by dancing too much after eating- -and after having so many bones fractured from the beating days prior.

It took her a moment to find the door, but as Toaster started to push it open, she heard a voice beside her.

“Excuse me,” it said.

Toaster jumped, immediately afraid that the stallions had come back to beat her again- -and that this time, they would finish what they started. This instinct was not helped when she turned and saw a stallion standing near her. Toaster actually cried out and froze, not knowing what to do.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

“You followed me to the bathroom!”

“No, I- -”

“Please! No more beatings! Don’t hurt me!”

“Beat you? I don’t want to beat you, why would you even say that?”

Toaster paused. Something felt strange. This stallion seemed oddly familiar. Then it occurred to Toaster, and her jaw dropped. “YOU!” she cried, recognizing her last customer at the brothel.

“So you do remember me.”

“You cost me my job!”

“I did? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- -”

“No, no,” sighed Toaster. “It was actually my fault. For being a virgin.”

The stallion’s eyes widened. “You were a virgin? You mean I almost deflowered you?”

“Still am, actually. Although I don’t suppose you’d be interested in taking a second whack at it?”

“Not in the slightest. Actually, that’s why I’m here. I just saw your performance, and, well, I wanted to thank you.”

“I was just doing my job. Well, not really. My job is actually, well, you know that already.”

“Not the show. For what you did.”

“Attempted rape?”

“Um…yes, I guess.” He shook his head. “I mean, no. When I came to buy your…services…I was in a bad place. I was losing my marriage, and my wife and I did nothing but argue. But after our…incident…I saw that I was wrong. I went back to her, and I listened to what she had to say, and we worked it out. You saved my marriage.”

“I…I did?”

“Cloud Bottler!” cried a voice from down the hall. Toaster looked to see a pale yellow Pegasus mare. “We have to get home in time to get the sitter home! She’s only- -oh! Hi there!”

She waved, and Toaster waved back. This situation was extremely awkward.

“Got to go,” said Cloud Bottler. “But, here.” He produced a flower, and passed it to Toaster with his magic. “I would give you more, but I only have this one. I stole it from some guy in a vest.”

“For me?” said Toaster, taking the zinnia in her hooves.

“Again, thank you!” he said, galloping off back to his wife. Toaster watched as he joined his wife and walked off, both of them waving back.

Toaster smiled and put the flower behind one of her ears through what little hair she had left. She just stood there for a moment, watching them go. She did not need to use the restroom anymore anyway; she only hoped that the stallion had not seen her wetting herself while they had been talking.