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Freeze Frame

by ToixStory

Chapter 23: Episode 6: Another Freak, In The Freak Kingdom

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We were somewhere around Dodge Junction on the edge of the desert when the euphoria began to take hold. I remember saying something like, “You look lightheaded, Sterling, maybe I should drive . . .” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky suddenly opened up as the sun’s rays beat down on the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Pegasus. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Celestia, we’re doing it! We’re actually doing it! We’re going to Las Pegasus!”

Then it was quiet again. Sterling was laying back in his seat with his shirt open and kept only one hoof on the steering wheel. “Just now sinking in, huh?” he said, staring up at the sun with round Wonderbolt sunglasses.

“Never mind,” I said. “Pull over; I need to stretch again.” He eased on the brakes and steered the red convertible toward the shoulder of the dusty highway. There was no point in trying to explain my outburst, I thought. He wouldn’t understand.

It was almost noon, and we still had more than a hundred miles to go. They would be tough miles. We were tired and battered from the unpaved roads outside the civilized areas of Equestria. But there was no going back, and little time to rest. Press registration for the fabulous Las Pegasus Inventor’s Expo was already underway, and we would have to be there by four to claim our soundproof suite. The bits Sterling had stashed away for a room had been spent on last minute additions to the car, so we were relying on the generosity of Ornate for a room. I was a professional journalist now, after all, and had an obligation to cover the story, for good or ill.

The Chronicler’s new financiers had also given me three hundred bits in cash, most of which was already spent on a handsome set of leather luggage, a novelty floral shirt I now wore, and a floppy, wide-brimmed hat. The trunk of the car with my luggage and Sterling’s tools made us out to be a mobile mad science lab. He had all manners of tools: little tweezers that could pick the wings off a fly, wrenches that could adjust the bolts on a battleship, and indeterminate machinery that whizzed and buzzed and had flashing lights covering them so I knew they were important. We also had several drums of what Sterling referred to as gasoline, and had picked up a case of bottled drinks that fizzed in your mouth and tasted like a very tangy orange. A mare at the station had told us that they were safer to drink while driving.

All of this had been loaded the night before in a hurried rush in front of Joya’s house. I had discovered that I had nothing to take my things in since my carpetbag had been lost long before, thus the necessity of buying an entire set. I had never traveled so far from . . . anywhere, really, and needed to be prepared.

And just like that, I had ended up on a long, windy road that stretched further and further west in a rolling experiment. She was Sterling’s pride and joy, and a sight to behold. She was a monster, and a beauty. A monster of a beauty. Cherry red, with a massive engine that growled and roared and fired explosions just to propel itself down the road at speeds never attempted before by ponykind.

When I finished stretching my tired and cooped up muscles, we climbed back in the machine and Sterling started it with a crack of heat and metal and we were off, roaring down the highway at a comfortable ninety miles an hour straight on toward Las Pegasus. If we rode hard, we would make it just in time.

Either way, it was going to be quite the ride.

“Minty, this is the way to travel,” said Sterling. He tapped one of the dials on the dash and kept humming along with the rhythm section of a nameless tune. “I wish we installed a radio,” he muttered. He started singing softly to the old song. “One toke over the line, sweet Celestia, one take over the line . . .”

One toke? Maybe good enough for him, but I wanted more. I had thought about grabbing the wireless for the trip, but went against it. The roar of the sunbaked desert as it flew past us was enough for me. When the trees died and fertile land gave away . . . I felt more free than I had been since I came to Fillydelphia.

The faster we rode, the more frantic Sterling’s humming got. A constant speed was best for gas mileage, he told me, so it was good to keep a steady rhythm going. I was glad; the quick bursts of acceleration that had punctuated our trip out of the city had left me feeling woozy.

Sterling was the first to see the hitchhiker. “Hey, someone’s looking for a lift,” he said, and before I could give a thought to protest he was aiming the convertible toward the side of the road where a ratty mare with this big grin on her face waited for us.

“I’ve never seen a car like this!” she said. “It doesn’t have a smokestack or nothing!”

“Of course you haven’t,” Sterling snapped. “This car is a whole new breed of motor machine. It’s the dawn of the gasoline age . . . are you ready?”

The mare nodded eagerly and we rode off. I turned in my seat to reassure her that our speeds were, in fact, a controlled experiment when I realized that I recognized her bright orange face: she was the mare with the carrot stand back on Serenity after my night with Pullmare! Sweet Celestia, what were the odds?

From the look of her, she came to the same conclusion a few moments after I did, and her face lit up like a Cloudsdale Candle. “It’s you!” she said. “That mare about how to buy carrots!”

I nodded. “You’ve got it right, miss.”

“Wow, just to think . . . you look so different! So much older!”

Sterling grinned from the drivers seat and thumped his hoof on the dash. He was laughing. I smacked him in the back of the head, then put on my best adult voice.

“I’ve been through a lot since that morning. I’ve seen things, you get me? And I’m on my way to see more!”

She gasped. “Are you going to Los Celestias too? I’m going there to start a business; since the banks started to close back in Filly, ponies have been leaving right and left.”

“Los Celestias? Heck no!” I scrambled into the backseat beside her and put a hoof around her neck. “We’re on our way to the fabulous Las Pegasus Inventor’s Expo, the biggest inventor’s meeting in the whole world! And you want to know why I’m going along with this fine fellow behind the wheel?”

She nodded.

“To find my dream of being the greatest reporter in the world, no matter the cost! This assignment has extreme overtones of personal danger and mass hysteria, but that won’t stop me, not ever!”

She swallowed. “Wow.”

“You want me to tell you about it?”

“What?”

“Never mind, let’s just get right to the heart of it. You see, just yesterday I was sitting on a stool in my friend Joya’s house when the phone started to ring. I don’t trust that madmare’s technology, so I naturally let my landlord answer it. You know what she told me? She told me, ‘This is the call you’ve been waiting for.’”

I laughed and slapped my knee. “And you know what? She was right! This was the call I had been waiting for since I arrived at that alicornforsaken city in the first place. Do you follow me?”

The mare’s face was a mask of pure bewilderment. I blundered on: “I want you to understand that the colt at the front wheel is not just an inventor, but my coltfriend! Not just some stallion of ill repute that I picked up for a high speed trip to Las Pegasus. But it doesn’t matter, yes? We have a story to get back to!”

I could tell she was starting to tremble a little. But why? There were bad vibrations here, I was sure of it. Did she not believe me? Because my story was true. I was certain of that. And if she were to know why a high speed trip to Las Pegasus was necessary, then I would have to start at the beginning.

* * *

I had been sitting on a stool in Joya’s foyer holding up a yard of fabric while she made precise cuts in it when the phone began to ring. She’d gotten it, of course, and made some excited noises into the receiver before hanging up and coming at me with a wide smile.

“That was for you,” she said. “It was Ornate.”

“Oh yeah, and what about?”

She clapped her hooves together. “Grapevine told him about your trip to Las Pegasus tomorrow. So he wants you on assignment.”

“More note taking?” I said. My notes on the last investigation with Ivory and Starshine had passed through Grapevine and hit the front paper of the increasingly-circulating Chronicler like a megaspell. Stories about ponies poorer than the average reader sold, and sold well. It’s easy to feel better about yourself when you read about those worse off.

Joya shook her head and her smile grew wider. “He wants you to have your very own reporting case! He said Grapevine will still be editing it, but you’ll still have free reign on the story.”

I want to say I was humble, but that would be a horrible lie. I probably knocked over at least five stands and sent her cloth flying everywhere. How could I not? I was taking my own destiny by the neck and screaming, “You hear that, you son of a bitch? It’s my turn now!”

Sterling was due to arrive at six—it was around five-thirty at that time—so I realized that I must be better prepared than I already was. The first point of order was for Joya to call Ornate back and request for him to set up the hotel and everything. If I was to write, I was going to need quiet.

While she did that, I went to pack, a task I had put off as long as possible to avoid the unneeded stress until it was too late to have anything else. That was when I found out about my missing carpetbag. I searched high and low for it until Joya informed me she had thrown it out weeks before.

She said it like it was no big deal. Of course it was a big deal! It was my family’s for a long time . . . one of our few passed-down possessions. But then, I thought, that could be a good thing. I was abandoning the traditions; they were just blowin’ in the wind.

The only thing I took in the end was a crinkled list on a piece of paper with a coffee stain that contained every single bit of Starshine’s information about Sterling. His likes, dislikes, interests, all of that. I’d asked her to make one after we’d talked for a grueling three hours about my other while I fought heat and sheer exhaustion from trying to remember it all.

While I waited for Sterling to show up, I looked down at it. They were numbered in Starshine’s neat calligraphy and ordered by the most important to the least. Some items included “Never wake up before eight,” (number eighteen) and, “Hates singing in front of crowds,” (one hundred and twelve).

Seven minutes past the hour, Sterling arrived in a shining red machine that radiated sex and muscle in one complete package. The tiles were fresh rubber that still burned with asphalt in the grooves and the windshield was freshly washed.

“This is what we’re taking to Las Pegasus?” I asked.

He nodded. “Driving straight there starting early tomorrow. It’ll be on display at the expo once we get there, so we can’t ride it too hard.”

It felt like a crime to use such a beautiful machine for menial work, but I explained my suitcase predicament to Sterling and he eventually agreed to use the car for our errand. Six o’clock on a Sunday night isn’t the best time for shopping in Fillydelphia, and the sun was sinking behind the steel towers downtown by the time we found a wholesaler out on the edge of West Fillydelphia that was willing to sell luggage to us.

At first, he thought us to be robbers, and only spoke to us through the mail slot until we made it clear that we were there only to purchase goods from him. Even then, he was reluctant to sell us anything when he could be closing, and didn’t let me look at any of his suitcases until I agreed to buy an entire set.

The shopkeeper opened the door only enough to let us in and showed us his luggage section. There were various bags done in the old carpet style and all for cheaper prices, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off the modern luggage.

Pure, Equestrian steel and decorated in leather, they were the finest quality in the shop and I had to have them. When checking into a fancy hotel like the one surely awaiting us in Las Pegasus, presentation is a must. Even if I never ended up using the bags again—or even didn’t fill them up all the way—it would be worth it.

“Say, what are you two doing with all this luggage, anyway?” the nervous colt in charge of the store asked.

I stopped caressing a set of candy-apple red suitcases that matched the car only long enough to answer. “We’re going to Las Pegasus tomorrow. We need to be ready for anything, oh yes!”

The clerk seemed to accept that, but Sterling came over to question me. “Why are you acting so giddy?” he asked me.

“It just hit me,” I whispered back. “We’re going to Las Pegasus! Actually going! I’m getting out of this city finally, and with you.” His answer was a lopsided grin that I returned.

I paid the clerk in the backlog of bits that I’d been saving up from my paychecks that I had no use spending on anything besides rent. Sterling and I carted the luggage out to his car and threw it all in the trunk along with the equipment already in there.

We drove back to Joya’s and spent the night together in his backseat as an added measure to prevent theft. It wouldn’t have been hard to tell the car was occupied, from the noise we made. Afterward, we looked up at the stars for a while and fell asleep. Around five in the morning, we ate breakfast at a small cafe in The Burb and then headed out west on the highway.

* * *

“And that is why this journey is so important,” I finished, tapping the mare on the head.

“So you can use your luggage?”

I looked at her in surprise with my mouth agape and slapped the leather seat separating us from the front of the car. “Haven’t you been listening?” I said. “I’m going to be the greatest damn reporter in the world, and this trip is essential to that!”

I edged closer to her and tightened my hoof already on her shoulder. “And I’ll do anything to earn that title. Anything.”

She smiled, but I could tell she didn’t understand. Not really. Had I not been clear? I suppose that is just the nature of dreams: they only make sense the ponies that have them. What had she said bef0re? Something about going to Los Celestias. Yes, that. To me, I didn’t care about any sort of trip to that town, but she was hitchhiking across the entire country to reach her own dream. I couldn’t fault a mare for that.

We came up to an oasis of concrete and steel in the desert that advertised cool drinks and cheap meals for the weary traveler, because who else would they serve? Sterling pulled the car into the station and we all hopped out.

I found the money to buy more of the fizzy drinks inside the little store. The buggers were starting to grow on me, and I appreciated the mild buzz I got from them, though it was nothing like a strong drink. The cashier informed me it was caffeine, but I don’t trust anypony who works a store in the middle of the desert. They’re a shady bunch.

Back outside, the mare with the carrot stand and I faced the desert in the direction we were going and were able to make out a place further down the road where the path forked off in two different direction. After questioning a fellow traveler, we were informed that one way--the left--led to Los Celestias, and other to Las Pegasus.

“I guess I’ll leave you two here, then,” the mare said to me. “I’ll find another ride to Los Celestias.”

“Are you sure you have to leave now?” I said.

She smiled and nodded. “Positive. But I’ll be sure to look you up if you make it big, alright?”

After that, Sterling and I bade her goodbye and took off back down the road. He had spent the time at the station refilling the “gas tank” with cans from the trunk and seemed much more positive with his machine’s performance. I was just satisfied with the wind coursing past my face.

I looked out the side of the car and watched the rolling dunes of the San Palomino Desert roll past us all the way to the horizon. In the emptiness of the desert basin we were in, I found a sort of beauty in the starkness. It was a land untouched by ponykind; pure nature at work, and not magic. No pegasi weather teams had ever visited here, and no unicorn magic left a mark on the sand.

“You like the view?” Sterling asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s just so . . . empty. But soft, too. Makes me almost regret that we have to go back after all of this is over.”

Sterling laughed. “Just wait until we get to the city, then. You’ll probably want to settle down right then and there.”

He added a nervous chuckle to the last statement, presumably to make it seem less like he’d just suggested I settle down with him in a far-off city away from my friends. It wasn’t like I wasn’t going to berate him for it; it hadn’t been quite intentional. But it made me think.

Why hadn’t I had any thoughts like that, or even close? Long term . . . it didn’t seem like a big thing to think about. We’d been together for just a month anyway, which everypony said was just the beginning, but it felt much longer. Maybe it was because we didn’t really fight or have many problems. But was that good? Was a relationship legitimate when there aren’t differences between the two, or was it more of an extended friendship?

It was an argument that had bothered me for some time, but one I rarely put to words. It was more a disquieting feeling at the back of my mind that occasionally resurfaced. Even as I thought that, it dipped back under the surface as the road once again grew smooth and dust stopped cascading over the top of the car.

Sterling smiled at me. “We’re on our way.”

* * *

“On our way” turned out to be several more hours of driving, though it was mercifully on the same smooth, paved roads that we had ridden on. Outside the car, the smooth dunes continued, though grew rockier alongside the mountains that grew out of the ground like they belonged to an adolescent dragon. The scraggly peaks were paltry compared to those around Fillydelphia, but they fit the desert scene quite well.

I thought it to be very beautiful until we hit the actual city, and then I stopped caring about them altogether. There is something very disquieting about seeing a city suddenly just spring from the ground before your eyes as you get closer. Towers of glass rising from the sparkling sand below, trees and grass replacing desert, and even great pools of water where there rightly never should be any. As dead as the desert around it was, Las Pegasus thrived.

Other cars appeared on the road with us, but they were pieces of junk not even fit to taste our exhaust compared to the machine we rode in. Our red convertible moved like a Great Red Shark in a school of minnows down the road. The engine roared and wheels squealed as we kept our constant high speed that a steamcar could not hope to keep pace with. If there were police out and about, we either avoided them by some miracle or they decided that trying to chase us was futile.

“Which hotel is it, again?” Sterling asked.

I picked out a small tab of paper that Joya had given me from underneath my seat and looked at the name scrawled on it. “It’s called the ‘Winged Unicorn’,” I said. “Sounds fancy, huh?”

“I hope so,” Sterling said. “They say it isn’t a true Las Pegasus experience unless you stay somewhere really nice.”

“Who says?”

“I don’t know . . . ponies that are rich enough to come here, I guess. But the point is: it’s good we’re staying there.”

The highway turned into a normal straight that cut right through the heart of the city. It was there that the majority of the lit-up buildings and ponies concentrated. Flickering neon lights glowed in every hue imaginable decorated the buildings and washed the ponies under them in an artificial rainbow. And what a kind of pony that walked those streets! They styled their manes in every type of way, wore gaudy clothing and jewelry and slathered themselves in makeup. A world of freaks. But, was I different from them in my cheap outfit and out-of-place car? No, I was just another freak, in the freak kingdom.

It was not difficult to find the hotel down the long strip of road. A massive, neon-lit, statue of Princess Celestia rose on a spire above the expansive concrete building awash in golden light. The porters all wore the uniforms of the Royal Guard and one greeted us we rode up.

“You two here as guests?” he said.

“Well of course we are!” I replied. “Don’t we look like the type of first-rate travelers that would stay in an establishment like this?”

I didn’t even know where my forceful response came from. I didn’t like the look in their eyes: they were sizing us up. If we were going to hold our own in this crowd, we’d have to act like we belonged.

“Alright, alright,” the porter said. He held up a very small slip of paper. “Just take this ticket. You can use it to get your car in the morning.”

I eyed the ticket carefully before snatching it from his outstretched hoof. We decided we would retrieve our luggage from the parking lot later, and went inside with just ourselves. The interior of the building was built to resemble what I assumed to be Celestia’s throne room, with marble floors and white columns to hold up the ceiling.

Sterling went to the registration desk for our room while I stumbled over to the press sign-in table. Three very bored-looking ponies sat behind it, and eyed me with curiosity. I managed to make it to the table and nodded to them.

“I’m, uh, here to sign in,” I said. They sat back a little and I realized that I had almost yelled it like an order to them. Damn.

“Name?” one of the ponies asked.

“Minty Flower of the Chronicler. Reporter,” I said proudly.

He scanned a little list he had sitting in front of him, but eventually found my name and handed me a press pass that was stamped with my name and paper. “Don’t lose this,” he said. “It’s your ticket into the expo and the only way you can keep from paying for your room yourself.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to keep it safe,” I said. He grunted in reply and I met up with Sterling by a big fountain in the middle of the foyer, where he had our room key.

“Where are we staying in?” I said.

“Room four-nine-eight,” he said. “Up on the top floor.”

I looked at a map and saw that our wing was also the closest to the parking lot. A little bit of luck already. “Great, let’s get the luggage and find our room.”

* * *

We managed to haul in the little bit of luggage we actually needed to our room and opened the shiny red door with a golden key that they had given Sterling at the front desk. I briefly considered finding out if the key was really made of gold or not, but the sensation passed quickly.

The room we were set in had me dropping my bags as soon as we were in and touching the rich carpet with my face just to be sure it was real. The entire room was massive, with the back wall at least fifteen feet away. There was a large, Celestia-sized bed in the middle and a couch that rounded the corner with the wall. A wooden radio was in another corner, one that had large, rounded windows that looked out at the city outside. Even the bathroom had a tub big enough for three if they all stood. Or two . . .

“This is . . .this is amazing!” Sterling said.

I laughed. “I could definitely get used to this.”

We picked up our luggage and shut the door behind us with a clack of the chain lock. I set my suitcase down on the bed, and Sterling did the same. We looked up at each other.

“So we’re, uh, sharing the bed?” I said.

He nodded slowly. “Well, I just thought . . .” he said. “I mean, we’ve shared one before.”

“Yeah, but this seems official, you know?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

I paused. “No, I guess not. Just a big step.” I smiled a bit for him. “But hey, that’s what this trip is about, right?”

Sterling’s face broke into a grin that melted my heart a little. “I think you’re right,” he said. He nodded to the bathroom. “I thought I’d shower and then we can go see some of the local places before tomorrow. Do you want to, uh-”

I shook my head quickly. “No, no, I’m alright! I’m fine, I mean. Fine.”

He shrugged. “Alright. I promise I won’t use up the hot water. Mostly, anyway.”

The bathroom door closed and I could hear the water begin to run. I opened my suitcase and laid out all of my things, hesitated, and did the same for him. I figured I might as well. After that, with nothing to do, I settled on staring out the window all contemplative-like.

But it was light outside and nothing interesting enough to be written down comes to mind in the day outside a window, so I sighed and laid down on the bed. I exhaled a bit as it almost immediately contoured to my form, creating a soft pillow that embraced my body. I could definitely get used to this.

The silence of the room as I lay there was only interrupted by a soft singing coming from the shower. Another song from Sterling, apparently. “Feed your head . . . feed your head!” A weird song, for sure. Though what struck me strangest was that he was actually doing the act of singing in the shower; I hadn’t even known he’d like that.

Then again, there was a lot I didn’t understand about him. I had to have Starshine write up a list for me, for Celestia’s sake! We had been dating for an entire month--not very long at all, my inner Mother reminded me--and it seemed like I barely knew the real Sterling. I sighed when I realized, again, what I was laying on. I barely knew him and we were sharing a bed in a strange city.

I closed my eyes and listened to him sing. I was surprised: he was actually good. Back to the matter at hoof, though; the thoughts that came in the quiet when the excitement from the adrenaline rush of the trip had died down: why hadn’t I tried to learn more about him? I’d had plenty of chances, but it had seemed like every time I had time off from a story, it was spent hanging around Grapevine or Marshmallow or one of the others. My time with him was shorter and filled with . . . other things.

The answer kept teasing me, but I tried to ignore it by grabbing a pillow and placing it over my face and yell into it. It didn’t work very well. Because the only answer I could gather was, well, that I just didn’t see me and him as something that was worth getting to know him over. That, really, my mind’s eye didn’t actually believe Sterling and I was something getting worked up about.

For all my brain thought, the trip to Las Pegasus was just a stepping stone to my career as a journalist. Nothing more. I denied it as much as one can deny one’s own thoughts, but it didn’t work very well.

While I raged inside my head, however, life continued on. Sterling emerged from the bathroom, his mane still dripping and clinging to his head, and walked over to me. “Are you, uh, okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine,” I said, my words muffled by the pillow still over my face.

“Then is there a reason why you’re laying with a pillow over your face?”

“ . . . nope.”

“Alright, then. Anyway, if you want to use the shower, go ahead; I figured you might want to get some of that dirt off. Then we can go check out the city . . . I mean, if you want.”

I rose from the bed and threw the pillow off. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds great,” I said. “Just give me a minute, and I’ll be right out.”

He smiled. “See you soon, then.”

I showered, and didn’t sing. Didn’t think; just let the water wash over me. Thinking in the shower is a dangerous activity; it can lead you to a lot of ideas best left unthought. Instead, I turned the hot on as high as I could and lost myself in the steam.

* * *

Dressed once again in my cheap, tourist clothes, Sterling and I cruised down Las Pegasus’ main street in search of something exciting to do for the night before the expo. The event would consume all of our time for the next few days, so it was best to work the adrenaline out of our systems before it consumed our brains and turned us into raving monsters at an expo where formality wasn’t just used, but expected. Not that it wouldn’t have been fun.

Most of the places on the long strip of road, unfortunately, didn’t seem much different from the bars or clubs of Fillydelphia. Sure, they were seedy and covered in neon lights, but it was easy to tell that the insides were the same kind of dives.

Our Great Red Shark roared down the road, and the engine growled as it hungered for a destination. “You know, there is always gambling,” Sterling said.

“Yeah, but if I want to waste money, I want to do it on something worthwhile,” I said. “Like booze or cheap novelty shows.”

Sterling looked around, then his eyes alighted on one particular spot, and he pointed to it with one hoof. “How about that place?”

The place he pointed to was certainly a bar, but an odd one at that. The neon was muted and brick painted a dull maroon . . . it was like somepony had physically sucked the light out of the building. So of course we had to check it out.

There was a rotting parking lot that Sterling parked the Shark on and we got out and went to the entrance. The burly pony waiting in front of the door was dressed up in some tight-fitting leather harness that I chalked up to an intimidation tactic in a city of freaks.

“Names,” he said gruffly, holding tightly onto a list.

“We’re, uh, probably not on there,” I said. Before he could get angry, however, I pulled out my press pass. “I think this should suffice, though.”

The guard smiled. “Always happy to serve a member of the press; we could use the good publicity.” He opened the door slightly, but kept us from entering. “You two did read and agree to the terms and conditions for opening Sweet Fantasies, correct?”

Sterling and I looked at each other. “Of course,” we answered.

With that, we were allowed through the door and inside the mysterious building.

* * *

The room was dark, but that wasn’t the first thing to hit me. No, the first thing I noticed was the smell. The sweat and the salt of passion and ecstasy . . . the place smelled like sex. And not even the good kind, either! The stinky, nasty kind that is done in the heat of the moment in places that you shouldn’t be in. Then I noticed the other ponies.

They were all dressed in various garbs made of tight-fitting, shiny leather. It stretched around their torsos, around their tails . . . around their flanks. Some even had bright red balls in their mouths that must have been an impediment to their speech, though I gathered that was the point. In our casual clothes, we were thoroughly out of place.

Some amalgamation of a waitress approached us, in what appeared to be a maid’s uniform made entirely out of black leather. In the dim lighting, she was almost like a ghost. Despite her appearance, she was as friendly as could be, though.

“Hello, you two look like you’re new!” she said.

“Yeah, uh, you could say that,” Sterling whispered. I could tell that he wanted to make a break for it. I had to do something fast.

“But we want to try . . . whatever this is,” I assured her. Oh, I already regretted saying those words, judging by the surroundings. But this trip was about taking chances! What happens in Las Pegasus stays in Las Pegasus, right?

The waitress-maid-thing smiled. “Right this way, then.”

She led us across the room that was dominated by a large, glass-top bar against one wall and a wooden stage at the far end of it. On the opposite wall was a long line of booths, each with their own separate velvet curtain. Oh no.

At the far end of the row, the mare pulled open a curtain and basically shoved us into the booth, though left the curtain open. The bizarre thing was, the booth was no different than any wrap-around seats in any normal cafe. Well, the stains might have been slightly more questionable--though only slightly--but everything else might as well have been familiar.

Though, the thing that stuck out the most were the two mares sitting on the other side of the booth from us. They, unlike most of the others, wore no leather clothing at all, save for one of them who had a collar around her neck and the other had the leash in her mouth. Oh, and they had put a spell on themselves to make it look like Trixie Lulamoon was holding Twilight Sparkle’s collar. I couldn’t even . . . what?

“Hi,” they said in unison, winking their long lashes in both our directions.

Sterling and I just kind of stared at them and shifted nervously in our seats. After a few moments of the most uncomfortable silence I’ve ever experienced, the one that had herself looking like Trixie spoke up.

“You two are new around here, aren’t you?” she said. We both nodded. “And, let me guess, you don’t know how this place works?”

She leaned across the table toward us and smiled as we recoiled. “You two seem pretty uncomfortable. You know why that is?” We shook our heads. “Listen closely . . . to the music,” she whispered.

I did, and realized that, over the general din of the bar, I could hear a soft music playing. But it wasn’t some sort of hardcore club beat that had punctuated Equestria for the last thirty years. No, it was something more . . . innocent. Childish. The tune sounded like something from a children’s radio program.

The Trixie mare grinned. “Now do you get it? See, we ponies can separate our ‘perverted’ lives from all the happy-go-lucky and smiles our candy-colored asses provide, but when you combine the two, then things get uncomfortable.” She winked. “Or kinky.”

Sterling and I glanced at each other, then scooted away a little. The mare pretending to be Trixie sighed. “You two aren’t just here randomly, you know. This place drew you to it, so why not enjoy it? What’s so bad about consenting couples getting a little . . . freaky?”

When Sterling and I still made no move toward each other, the mare with the collar who looked like Twilight Sparkle looked to her partner for permission before speaking, “You know, if you two are slow to start, we could always help you . . .”

“How would you do that?” I said.

My question was soon answered, however, with “Trixie” sliding over to me until she was almost on my lap, and “Twilight” doing the same for Sterling. I let out a frightened squeak.

“Uh, sorry,” I stammered, “but I’m not into mares.”

She smiled. “Neither are the real Trixie and Twilight, but we can all have a little fun once in awhile.” She continued to scoot closer to me and I was running out of room to get away from her.

I held up my hooves. “Look, I’m sure you’re nice, but I know Trixie’s daughter. I’m sorry, but . . . I can’t do that. That’s just too weird for me.” The point that I was saying that in a place where weird was an understatement was not lost on me.

“Are you sure? Because it seems your friend has taken quite a liking to my pet.”

I looked over to find Sterling very close the mare garbed as Twilight. They weren’t quite doing anything yet, but Sterling was blushing and making eyes at her. The eyes he used on me. My eyes.

“Sterling!” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

He gulped. “Well, uh, just . . . don’t you think we could try to enjoy this, this one time? All four of us? You were saying all that about trying to live it up here, after all.”

Stupid words. Words were stupid. Who invented them anyway? Just coming back to bite me in the flank . . .

“Is he your coltfriend?” ‘Trixie’ whispered in my ear.

I nodded.

“Well, he seems to be taking a liking to my pet,” she said, her voice sultry. “Don’t you think you should get in there?”

“But-” I started.

She placed a hoof over my mouth. “Don’t; this is just Las Pegasus.”

I joined Sterling and ‘Twilight’ while ‘Trixie’ ordered drinks. Soon, I was losing myself under the influence of liquor and we all gathered together in the booth. The curtain was closed by some helpful waitress, but we barely noticed.

But did it help bring Sterling and I together?

No.

Next Chapter: Episode 6: One Toke Over The Line Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes
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