A great many times in our lives, we'll meet the lecherous members of society.  Often found flaunting whatever they've been given as far as "blessings" go, lechers all want one thing: attention.  More often than not, that attention comes in the form of sex, however some only accept sex because it's the easiest way to feel loved by another (aside from the obvious benefits).  Take River Delta for example: ever since she discovered her sexuality, she's been exploring it.  Colts and stallions of all types made her fancy list, though an unfortunate few wanted a long standing relationship.  She was happy to tug along her suitors as a puppet master, even if they were stable and attractive and offered her genuine love.  Eventually, though, she'd get bored of her little game, and do one of two things to the poor soul: dump them off on the curb like a used paper bag, or cheat on them for as long as she needed that little extra bit of excitement in her life.  Contrary to popular belief, she wasn't a bad person, just certainly went against societal norms.  Most folks disapproved of her promiscuous behavior, and she simply spurned them by, well, having as much fun as she could fit into a night.  Some were jealous of her (she certainly did have ample good looks), while others simply couldn't let go of their more conservative upbringing long enough to realize the fun and freedom of sex.  Moderation, however, was the one word that she never learned.

River was equipped with hips that, when they swayed, enticed all ponies, male and female, that happened to be looking on them at the time.  She'd gotten herself into expensive clubs for free just by flaunting her body.  In general, she was what most might consider 'hot', and she definitely knew it.  So she used her body to avoid any kind of monetary exchange on her part if she could, which led her to having every single door held open for her that she could ever want.  This, however, isn't ever a good way to live, as many know.

Once it came time for her to start paying her own bills and taking care of herself, she found that her tendency to burn bridges by tugging at puppet strings and leading other ponies along had come back to bite her in the ass.  Nobody wanted to help her out, nobody cared about her, and even those that had been lucky enough to get her in bed (multitudinous though they were) weren't willing to lift a hoof to help her.  She was entirely on her own.

Finding honest work was the hardest part, I only say it was the "hardest" because she gave up on the "honest" part first.  Instead of becoming a waitress, or a sales clerk, or any of a grand cornucopia of jobs available to her at the time, she chose to do the one thing she knew she'd excel at: work at a gentleman's club.  The only one that was hiring, however, happened to be in a rather filthy part of town.  The red light district in downtown Manehattan wasn't as objectively dangerous as most ponies said it was, however it did look the part with its grimy buildings, crowded streets and incredibly deep back alley system.  The entire city was an accurate reflection of its inhabitants: filthy, greedy, hungry degenerates with no greater love in the world than cheating another pony.  River fit in just nicely.

Her attractiveness was almost matched by her naivete, though, so she had a few nights on her own in Manehattan where she actually feared for her life.  She'd heard of muggers, rapists, murderers, abusive spouses, and frankly all other manner of criminal behavior after the sun went down, but even in the day she received hungry and inappropriate looks from just about every stallion (and the occasional mare) that she walked past in the streets.  Youthful, voluptuous, and oh so bubble headed girls like her were usually prime targets, but when they know how to sell what they have to offer they have a tendency to make it by, if not in a rather dirty existence.

It didn't take long for River to become popular at her Gentlecolts' club where she, along with the aid of a long, steel pole, kept patrons entertained between the hours of six in the evening to two in the morning.  The money was great: she described it akin to turning a faucet and having bits pour out into her lap, but she quickly started to gather rumors of an even better way to make a profit.  River hesitated, though, to jump into that scene.  The stigma associated with it, the danger, even the complications that can arise both physically and mentally from such an activity as prostitution didn't seem particularly desirable to the filly.  She really was just a filly, only three months into her eighteenth year, but she felt like an adult (as all children do) and wanted to show just how much of one she really was.  She rebelled against her parents' wishes, she sought her fortune by asking the other mares about how she could get into selling her body, and they were all very eager to recruit her.  River was told to report to a building along the coast on the south side of Manehattan, not too much further from where she had been living, but definitely a long walk into a dangerous part of the city.

The time came where River needed to make a decision: start her new life full of riches and colts, or stay in her strip club, making the occasional bag of rent or grocery money that left her with few luxuries.  The decision, at least in her mind, was perfectly clear, so off she trotted.  She had been told to step into the building at exactly eight o' clock, talk to the very first mare she saw and ask to see a stallion named Pepper Jack.

The streets at night began to slowly empty out, giving way to mares of the evening who stood on street corners, as well as the scum of the earth rising up from the sewers and halfway houses and other such receptacles of society's refuse.  The occasional political figure or other might show his hooded face around town at night, but for the most part the streets were populated with shifty individuals, a rather impressive fraction of whom decided to proposition River for a multitude of different (and sometimes disturbing) things as she walked past them.  One thing in particular, however, was only an idea planted in her head just after she left her apartment: stallions sometimes just take what they want from mares.  This wasn't something that she wanted, certainly not even for any pony out there, but she knew it happened and she felt the desire to defend herself.  Because of this, she got dressed in some older lingerie, a little tight around the flanks as it was, with garters and a very lacy fashion top teddy, all covered by a long trench coat.  She did, however, hide a dagger in one of her garters, just in case something bad were to happen.

With her knife in tow, and the rest of her confident and ready to face the trials of "Personal Sales," River passed her seedy compatriots, realizing eventually that the directions that she had been given led her through back alleys on the way.  They were a veritable labyrinth, forcing the mare to stop and look up at the grimy buildings just to try and get her bearings on more than one occasion.  The fact that less than a third of the windows had candlelight in them, and more than a third were boarded up, wasn't exactly a moralizing agent, but she pressed on.  The straw that broke the camel's back, however, fell while River was trying to decide whether to turn right or left and heard a loud, feminine shriek.  

The shriek came from the left, but River just had this nagging feeling to turn right and leave the screaming mare to her own troubles.  Only three steps to the right, however, and River imagined herself being attacked, looking over and seeing somepony else deciding to leave her rather than help.  She imagined how crushed she'd be, how worthless she'd feel, and she knew that she couldn't do that to anyone else, so she took off at full sprint to the left.  What she found there was a small, black-coated mare with a filthy white mane.  Her face was somewhat battered, and she had clearly been rolled in the grime and filth at the cobblestone street, but that didn't seem to be her fault at all.  The stallion holding her down jerked his head to the side as soon as River emerged, and although he ran, River was faster.  She knew what he was doing to the mare on the ground, and just the sight of it flung her into a rage; one less rapist wouldn't be the end of the world, and it might save some young filly's future from a life of pain, so she drew her knife.  The stallion made a break for the streets, knowing that he could blend in with the crowd if he needed to, but he was stopped by the white-hot feeling of a dagger slashing at his cheek from the side.  The stallion yelped and found his second wind, kicking at River's hoof to trip her and then bolting for the roadside, eventually disappearing in the crowd.  River let out a curse under her breath as she hauled herself up off of the cobblestone ground, wiping the bloody dagger off on a newspaper that had collected itself in the corner.

River caught her breath as she walked back to the stallion's victim, an adorable little mare who was curled up in the fetal position and crying her eyes out after the horrors that she had just been subjected to.  But her savior came, donning a light brown trench coat and a small knife with her enemy's blood stained into the grooves on the metal.  She didn't have to say anything, but she did look up for just a moment with a pair of beautiful, deep blue eyes, just an instant before throwing herself onto River with a great, big hug.

The strange black pony introduced herself as Maggie, a mare of the evening already under the employ of Pepper Jack, and promised to put in a very good word for River after hearing the pony's interest in the job.  Maggie even walked with River, showed her a few shortcuts (some of which were safer than the route she was told to take) and introduced her to the management.  Maggie was given the week off after what had happened, and even paid for the night since she took the initiative to walk the new filly in, but it certainly wasn't the last that the grey earth pony would ever see of her friend.  She got a little practice during that week, but by the time Maggie had returned from her hiatus (strong as she was for returning at all) she began to learn many new tricks of the trade.  The black earth pony taught her to twist her body and rotate her hips so that clients could feel just that little extra bit.  She taught her how to kiss, on the off chance that she might need to.  She taught River about stamina and strength, maintaining power for those that clearly enjoy it.  Maggie taught River everything, and the clientele was definitely impressed by it.

Nearly a year went by, and River got far more adjusted to her new environment.  She was an expert with the customers, being asked for by name on more than one occasion each day.  Her wealth had grown exponentially as well, and she managed to have all of the nice luxuries that she could ever ask for.  Life was going exactly as she had dreamed.  That is, of course, until a single fateful night.  A new customer had come in, put down a hefty sack of bits and asked for the best girl.  Naturally, in Maggie's mysterious absence, the management picked River Delta to be the stallion's sweetheart for the night.  Things started off well: River escorted the stallion to her room and made sure he was fully aware of her rates.  The man preferred to keep his hood up the entire time, but considering her line of work and the section of the city that she was in, it really wasn't all that unusual.  After they got situated in the room, River managed to coax the stallion into disrobing for her (of course, this did require her to do so first).  

Sex, sold sex anyhow, had become so mechanical to the mare that she could barely even feel it anymore.  All customers looked the same, felt the same, even smelled the same, and she, just like many other folks, simply zoned out during her work schedule.  The issue wasn't that she'd gotten bored with sex, she just didn't often enjoy the company that she had during it, and she was required by her employers to make them feel special.  Frankly, with the exception of Maggie and Pepper Jack on occasion, she rarely had anyone to make her feel special.

Unfortunately for her, this customer did consider her to be a very special mare.  She had spent a year sleeping with nearly every stallion in the south side of Manehattan, so she stopped looking for distinguishing facial features, and missed one very important detail: the scar on this stallion's right cheek.  It'd been a very long time, and the male who had been humiliated all those months ago managed to catch a glance at River, and more importantly recognize her.  He'd spent his time saving up for this occasion, though he was surprised at just how easy it had been.  River might as well have been served up on a silver platter: she was on her back, eyes closed, mouth open, and everything exposed.  Plus, as an added bonus, he got to enjoy the lovely feeling of being balls-deep inside of someone for a little while just before he got his petty revenge.  

The stallion felt his finish approaching and smirked, though River had a bit of an instinctual streak for the way guys moved their hips.  She knew he was close too, and decided to look up and into his face; the only defining feature that she noticed was the scar.  Before she had any chance to react, the stallion dropped his hooves down and pressed them against River's throat, pinning her to the bed and beginning to strangle her.  River struggled as best as she could, accidentally kicking the table next to her bed and knocking the bag of bits that the stallion had brought for her off onto the floor.  River's struggle never ceased up until the bitter end; she refused to just lay down and die after how hard she had worked, and she knew that if she could throw the son of a bitch off of her then she could reach her knife and finish the job, but he was just too strong.  The stallion had her pinned down so thoroughly that she couldn't get a good angle, and eventually suffocated.  The mysterious assailant grabbed his bag of money and left in a hurry, never to be seen at that particular brothel again.  Four bits had fallen out of his bag as it got knocked to the floor, but neither those bits nor Maggie would be seen around that place again.