With a relieved sigh, I signed off on the last of the inventory checks and orders for The Tall Tail. Having me experiment wasn’t causing Day Planner to reduce my workload, that was for certain. Not that she ought to. Work wasn’t going to do itself, and a taskmistress secretary certainly beat being confined to bed. Still, I was glad to be done. The real joy of running my club was walking the floor, and since the mess with Born Leader, I’d been enjoying it more than ever. I rose to enjoy it again.

“Finished, Mr. Deal? I’m impressed; your efficiency is steadily improving.” Day Planner turned at her desk to face me, a genuinely pleased smile on her muzzle.

Day Planner had been true to her word, and pushed for “experimentation” every day after I’d finished the most pressing tasks. So far, the experiments had been simple things done in my office. Could I make rings? (Sort of.) Could I slip it through a keyhole? (Easily.) Could I keep it from being blown away? (Not t all.) I assumed a similar suggestion would be coming, and braced myself. It turns out, there are things for which you just can’t prepare.

“You know, Mr. Deal, Jade’s a rather chatty mare, if you approach her the right way. Nothing seems to be off limits with her. Including the bedroom.” I blinked. “She said that, twice now, you’ve filled her to overflowing. She said when you first had your way with her, you filled everything. She said it happened on the train, too, with that rude attendant. Yet, you use me anytime you’re ‘distracted’ from work, and it’s never happened.”

I blushed, but of course Day was blunt; beating around the bush was inefficient. Whenever it worked, she took the direct approach. Still, there were limits! And it could’ve been my imagination, but I swear I heard a touch of jealousy in her voice.

“I dunno why it happens, Day! A couple of times now, it just kept on flowing! How would I know?” Hoping for a quick escape, I tossed my new fedora onto my head and trotted for the door, but Day trotted right along with me.

She stopped beside the door, not blocking my path, but making clear that she wanted another word before I went through. “You should try to find out, Mr. Deal.”

I sighed, but didn’t try to push past. Day was arguably my most productive employee, and after I’d ‘convinced’ her to stay, she’d never asked for a thing. I could at least hear her out. “Just how am I supposed to do that, Day? I mean, I’m curious too. I’m a stallion after all, we kinda take pride in… nevermind.” I shook my head, not wanting to admit anything I didn’t have to. “What am I supposed to do, rut any mare I see and take notes?”

Day Planner rolled her eyes and sighed back. “No, Mr. Deal, of course not. Think about the circumstances when it happened. Try to remember how you felt, and put yourself in situations that make you feel similarly. You’re a clever stallion, Mr. Deal. You couldn’t have built this place from nothing otherwise.”

I smiled ruefully and shook my head as I stepped past Day and out onto the landing of the stairs. Leave it to her to both compliment me, and make failure proof that I’m slipping. Clever mare. Her advice made sense, and I rolled it around in my head as I stepped down the stairs to the cabaret’s floor, but I hardly remembered how I’d felt with Bright Jade the first time. On the train, I’d been furious with the attendant for her lousy service. The second time I’d filled Jade up was the night that lousy drunk made a scene. I reached the bottom of the stairs and just kept walking, toward and out the door. I was more likely to find a reason out in the big city than my comfortable club.

Hours later, with the sun on the opposite side of the sky, I returned to The Tall Tail. After a completely pleasant day out on the town (for which I had no doubt Pirouette would lecture me at the first opportunity), I was thoroughly angry not to have managed to come up with an idea. In my foul mood, my smoke roiled inside of me. I should have been soothed a bit by the gleam of my club’s glass doors, but the sound of sobs caught my attention as I moved to push them open. I strained my ears to make out the crying in the din of afternoon noises, only to have the mystery solved as the weeping mare trampled me, sending me to the ground in an instant.

A blonde mane with streaks of pink appeared among the stars in my vision, surrounding a tear-soaked pink face. “Oh Celestia! I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching and—are you alright?”

I blinked away the stars before nodding. Concern seemed to have distracted the mare for now, but years of running a business full of them had taught me enough to know she was far from done with her tears. “I’m fine. Little scuffed, but it’s not like I was shiny and new anyway.” I sat up, and the pink mare seemed to relax a little. “More importantly, are you alright?”

With a deep breath, she put on a calm expression and nodded as my face came level to her own. “I-I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” Her voice shook, and a tear dropped from her muzzle where the fur could hold no more. I had seen it bead, and extended a hoof, catching it.

“This says you’re not, miss. You wanna step inside? We don’t open for another hour. You can let it out without being stared at. Have a drink if you want one. Or keep on your way; I don’t mean be pushy.” I shrugged. Nothing cuts pressure like indifference.

“I… um, yeah.” Her head bobbed, and I held the door open for her before she could change her mind.

I followed her in, shaking my head at Pirouette as she walked over to see what was going on. As soon as the mare spotted the bar, she made a beeline, and I frowned at her back. Nopony walks to a bar that purposefully unless their only goal in life is to shut it out. I crossed the floor, passing tables where an audience would be enjoying a stage show in just an hour. The best and worst part of running a nightclub was ponies like this one: winning a smile, or failing to. I took a seat beside “Pink” and called for Jade, whose crystalline head popped up cheerfully from behind the bar.

“Sir?” Before I’d given an instruction, Jade had a glass in front of the sniffling mare beside me. She was getting good at this.

“Whatever she wants, Jade, on the house. If she’s still in a state when customers start coming in, let her in the back so she won’t get stared at.” I patted the mare’s shoulder and rose to leave her in peace. “Bright Jade will take good care of you, miss.”

Jade nodded enthusiastically, but our guest snagged my hoof and looked up at me pleadingly. “You won’t sit?”

Alarms went off in my head. When a crying, soon to be soused mare wants the company of a stallion she doesn’t even know, things never stay simple. I was about to give in anyway when Pirouette, having watched from across the room, decided for me. “Of course he will. Won’t he?”

I sighed, resolving to put up a sign to remind my employees that they were my employees. Mother hen was right though. There was no way I could leave this soaked-faced mare alone if she wanted me there. I sat, and she relaxed. “Done Deal. If we’re drinking together, we ought to know each other’s names, don’t you think?”

“Strawberry Frosting.” She looked to Jade. “Applejack. The strong stuff.”

Those alarms were back. Eighty proof. “Up, Jade.” Jade nodded, and I watched her strain the ice and serve, and wondered just what was ahead. Three drinks later, I had my answer: more tears.

Strawberry Frosting had begun to cry again while I nursed my cider on the rocks. She started softly, but only moments later was sobbing as hard as she’d been when she ran me down. She was going to need more than a couple drinks, and customers were going to start turning up before much longer. “Hey, Strawberry. You can keep quiet if you want, but drinking works best if you let out what’s buggin’ you.” That was all the invitation she needed.

Strawberry turned from her drink to face me, and her sob story poured out easily. Drunkenly, she started with tales of how happy they’d been—they meaning Strawberry Frosting and her beau and employer, Chocolate. Stories of the good times, how sweet he was, just kept pouring out. I didn’t need to wait for the the other shoe to know where the tears came from. It was over between them; the only question was how. The smoke roiling from my pointless day out hadn’t really settled in the first place, but it was stirring on its own again. I’d heard enough crying mares to tell victims from fakes, and this poor mare was one of the good ones. As she latched onto me drunkenly, I gritted my teeth, angry as hell at this “Chocolate” stallion I’d never met.

Strawberry rambled on for a good ten minutes before sobbing, “And then I foun’ ‘im with ‘er! In our special booth, in our favorite res’a’ront!”

The smoke rushed around, battering at whatever it was in me that kept it inside. The whole room seemed a shade darker as I worked to keep the smoke in check, and a bolt from the blue hit me—rushing smoke was the the common thread Day wanted. I struggled not to let the stray thought distract me from anger at Strawberry’s ex, and made up my mind to get Strawberry her revenge, and Day Planner her answer. With Strawberry burying her face in my chest, and nopony else but Jade to see, I let the smoke loose, and it flowed thick over my body, over Strawberry Frosting’s mane, into her ears and nose. I felt her sag a bit in my forelegs as Jade cocked her head curiously.

“Hey, Strawberry. He really hurt you didn’t he?” I wrapped a foreleg around her reassuringly, and tilted her muzzle up to look me in the eye. The smoke flowing into Strawberry was darker and thicker than usual, but I let it go however it was going to.

Her expression half-blank, Strawberry nodded. “Hurt me… broken heart…” Something about the vulnerability of her slack expression turned me on, but also showed off her innocence, stoking my anger at Chocolate.

“You want to get him back, don’t you? Make him hurt like you do.” Something in the back of my mind frowned. I ignored it.

“Hurt? …no… I want,” Strawberry worked to get out her intentions. I cut her off.

“You want fair. Fair is good, right? Fair is what he did to you, happening to him. You want him to see you happy with somepony else, don’t you?”

Confusion reigned on Strawberry’s face for just a moment, but after a second, she nodded slowly. “Fair… want to be happy. Want him to see…”

I nodded, and stroked her mane comfortingly. “A photo shoot, Strawberry. You, with another stallion. Enjoying everything. And showing him you don’t need him. That you never did.”

Strawberry nodded slowly, any resistance lost in the clouds of smoke wrapping her thoughts and streams of alcohol diluting them. With effort, I thinned down the smoke, and some awareness returned to her eyes. She didn’t let me go. “Why don’t you go home and rest tonight, Strawberry? You can come back tomorrow, looking fresh and pretty. Jade over there can take the photos.”

With the resistance already drowned out, and awareness returned, Strawberry Frosting nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll do it!”

I cut the smoke off completely, and it dissipated to nothing. “Good girl,” I told her with a smile. “I’ve got a cabaret to run, but I’ll see you tomorrow, say around two. Hang around for the show if you like. You’re a little tipsy.”

“Thank you so much, Done Deal.” With a grateful smile, Strawberry Frosting moved to a table.

As the smoke continued to roil inside me, I returned the smile, and considered how I’d kill two birds with one stone.

* * * * *

“And she agreed to this?”

The next morning, I told Day Planner about the common thread I found, and that I had a test. She’d been pleased that I found the common thread, but found it hard to believe Strawberry Frosting had agreed to let me buck her while Jade took photos.

“Sort of. I used the smoke on her.”

“Oh.” Day Planner considered for a moment, then just nodded. “You’d have had to to test out the theory anyway. Best to get it done with.” With no more objection than that, Day Planner returned to her work, and I continued dealing with the papers she’d set out for me, until the office door opened and Bright Jade led in Strawberry Frosting.

It looked as though Strawberry had taken my instruction to look fresh and pretty as law. The pink mare from the night before was only recognizable by the her streaked mane, now neatly brushed into place. Where she’d seemed haggard the night before, she was a vision of loveliness. A crimson dress perfectly complimented her pink coat and highlighted her blue eyes, and a simple gold chain adorned her slender neck. I smiled, and Strawberry returned the smile with a warmth that hadn’t been there the night before.

I rose from my desk and opened the door in the back of the office, leading to my apartment. “All set, Strawberry?”

She nodded, but moved toward the door hesitantly. “I think so. I’m a little nervous, though. Do you really think it’ll… you know.” Strawberry fidgeted a little, and I gestured toward the door. Chocolate deserved this, and he was going to get it. At the recollection of Strawberry’s ex, the smoke began swirling again.

“I’m sure, Strawberry. Relax, it’ll get easier once we get started.” I gestured once more. Nopony but Strawberry, Jade, and Day were around to see, but I didn’t want to use the smoke to nudge Strawberry along. I wanted that swirling and building inside me.

Jade gently pushed Strawberry toward the door, and offered a reassuring smile. “Mr. Deal’s just trying to help. You should go.”

That was enough. Strawberry gave a determined nod at Jade, and walked up the stairs into my apartment. Jade and I followed, though at the top of the stairs, Strawberry realized she didn’t know where she was going, and offered an apologetic smile. I led her to my bedroom, thinking the whole time of how brokenhearted Strawberry had been the night before, and letting the smoke churn and boil.

When Strawberry reached the bedroom, she spotted the camera pointed at the bed, and something sank in. She turned to me, jaw dropped. “Ah… um, Mr. Deal! Done, I mean! I, uh… I thought this would be more like pictures cuddling on a couch, or having dinner together! Y-you know. Not… thi-”

Strawberry had turned to wave a hoof at the bed, but turned back to find my lips pressed against hers. Shock opened her mouth, and I let smoke in, just as I had Bright Jade, back in the cave. Shock turned to calm, and in only a moment, Strawberry Frosting was returning the kiss, tangling her tongue with my own. From the corner of my eye, I looked to Jade and found her preparing the camera, just as discussed.

I led Strawberry, now pliant, to the bed, and she lay on her side in front of the camera, just as I guided her. Like Jade, the kiss alone had her ready and eager. When my hoof reached up her dress, caressing between her hind legs, she moaned in seconds, and craned her neck to kiss again. I obliged, and the clicks of the camera began.

Jade continued shooting frame after frame, and Strawberry Frosting writhed on my hoof, sliding around on the bed, its fabric catching on the skirt and hiking it higher and higher, until Jade was taking clear shots of my hoof stroking Strawberry’s lower lips, as our mouths caressed each other, breaking only for breath or by accident. I had grown hard, and placed my shaft between Strawberry’s hind legs, using her thighs to drive myself toward climax. The smoke within me rushed, egged on by domination. I contained it, but let it grow, the experiment still on the edge of my mind.

Strawberry reached down and began to stroke my shaft, already panting each time our lips separated, and ran a hoof from my flare to my balls and back, causing me to shudder and pull her tight against my body. The sudden movement made her gasp in surprise just as the shutter clicked, a perfectly wanton expression on her lovely face. The sight of Strawberry Frosting writhing around my cock as her face spelled out desire pushed me to do more with her, and I began to thrust, sliding up so my dick rubbed at Strawberry’s crotch with each motion, moving my hoof to play with her bead.

This was more than Strawberry Frosting could bear, and she clamped her hind legs tight, making the rubbing that much more intense for both of us. She moaned loudly, still stroking my rod with her hooves as it pushed between her legs. The smoke flared in me struggling for release, and I burst, flinging cum into the air. As I pumped, the spray continued, covering Strawberry’s hooves in no time, and getting all over her stomach where my shaft was pointed. Spurred on by the sight of my cum painting the pink mare, I thrust harder still, shooting erratically.

Strawberry, suddenly, had changed her demeanor. Still panting with arousal, she looked at her hoof in confusion, and her nose wrinkled. Something was wrong. Before a problem could develop, I pulled up some of the thrashing smoke, even darker than it had been the night before, and it slid into her ear, erasing any hint of disgust on her face—arousal alone shone through. Jade halted her photography.

Caught up in the temptation of coating her, I panted dirty instructions as I kept thrusting and soaking Strawberry’s lower body. “You’re not bothered by that, Strawberry. You love it, how it feels, everything about what we’re doing! The more that’s on you, the more it’ll put Chocolate in his place. You want pictures with as much as possible!”

I released the wispy tether between myself and Strawberry Frosting, and as Jade resumed snapping photographs, Strawberry aimed my dick at herself, taking shots all over her torso. At last, though the smoke still whirled inside me, I stopped ejaculating. I remembered the cave though, and how I’d filled Jade completely. I rolled onto my back, letting my rod free of Strawberry’s thighs.

I looked over at Strawberry Frosting, and found her smearing my seed in her fur, and breathing in shudders. “Strawberry, stand over me, and use your mouth. We’re not done yet!”

Strawberry blinked with surprise, and quickly stood up on the bed, lowering her face over my shaft, and her soaked slit over my muzzle. I didn’t have to give any further instructions; she knew what she wanted, and eagerly fit the flare into her mouth, bearing down as far as she could. Moaning, I pulled her hindquarters to my face, and returned the favor, licking, sucking, and gently rubbing at her clitoris, as Jade quickly changed film and continued taking picture after picture of the messy mare above me. I scraped lightly at her lips with my teeth, and Strawberry gave a muffled cry, straining to take my cock deeper. Struggling to stay upright on three legs, with me weakening the rear ones badly, Strawberry raised a foreleg slick with semen, and began sliding it up and down my shaft, using the slippery, coated fur to please me.

I shuddered with pleasure and moved my face further between Strawberry’s legs, finding that one of her teats hadn’t been covered in my seed. Swirling my tongue around it, I sent a new pleasure up Strawberry’s spine, nearly causing her to fall over. Rather than falling, though, she retaliated, raising her head, and sucking at the tip alone, sliding soft lips across its width each time suction broke, until at last I sprayed my jizz again. Strawberry clamped her mouth over the hole, and greedily drank down one shot after another, pressing my stallionhood clear to her throat when she couldn’t keep up with the flow. I have no idea how much I came, but as it wound down, I made a point of remembering Strawberry’s tears the night before, and that son of a diamond dog Chocolate. As soon as I did, the torrent resumed, and looking up between her legs, I saw Strawberry’s stomach bulge and fill with my warm cum. Full at last, Strawberry pulled her mouth from my prick and took loads on her face and in her mane, joyously soaking herself.

Jade stopped taking pictures and I panted for breath, crawling out from under Strawberry on my messy bed. I watched her as I moved: Completely lost to bliss, Strawberry Frosting was happily smelling her semen soaked mane and sighing in delight. As she reveled in her mess, I moved around behind, not bothering with a warning—between her own juices and mine all over, she was as ready as she’d ever need to be. Jade readied herself while Strawberry absentmindedly enjoyed the feel of being coated. I slid into her from behind, filling her entirely in one motion.

Strawberry Frosting gasped, clamped her vagina down around my dick, and slammed her flank backward, taking me as deep as she possibly could, no instruction necessary. In her state of crazed arousal, she climaxed hard on that one rough thrust. As Strawberry’s forelegs gave out, I pumped her from behind, rubbing her messy muzzle against the blankets with every hump. Jade snapped shot after shot as I plowed Strawberry from behind, her eyes rolled back and a blissful smile on her half open muzzle, tongue lolling to the side.

I thrust deeper, and Strawberry slowly came around, struggling back to all four legs to push back against my thrusts. Pure luck had allowed an ear to remain unsoiled, and as I fucked her from behind, I leaned forward, nibbling on that ear gently. Strawberry Frosting came again, staggering, but remaining upright this time. Apparently, she remembered her purpose: in all her messy glory, Strawberry stared right at the camera and smiled as I unloaded inside of her. Her vaginal walls squeezed tight, making thrusting a challenge, but I kept going anyway, earning gasps and squeals of pleasure from the mare beneath me. At last, she overflowed, seed seeping out around my cock. Strawberry ground her tail against my hips, getting as much overflow in the hairs as she could.

I was far too spent for another round, but with one hole to go, I couldn’t quit. Still squirting, I pulled my stallionhood from Strawberry’s vagina, and pressed it against her ass. When I met resistance, I leaned forward and kissed the surprised mare once more, trying to ignore what I tasted on her lips. She relaxed just as she had at first, and I sank as deeply as possible into her back door, soaking even there with my cum, and again I saw her gradually bulge as she filled, her insides flushed with my seed, filled to stretching.

At last, both of us keeled over, and the only sounds in the room were our heavy breathing and the clicking of the camera as Bright Jade took the final shots. On my bed, the floor around it, the walls, even here and there in Jade’s mane, my jizz lay. I was utterly spent, and the smoke within me had died back down to usual. There was no question I was done. Strawberry Frosting, meanwhile, lay panting spreadeagled, her inflated stomach giving testimony to just how extreme we’d been—as if the semen coating nearly every inch of her body, and the rumpled, stained dress didn’t. The beauty who’d stepped into the office when the madness began was still there—but utterly buried in the proof of our act, idly sniffing at herself, and lapping up drops from her fur.

Slowly, though, Strawberry’s eyes refocused, and after a blink or two to clear away cobwebs, she stared at herself in a new light, blushing deeply at once, but even more deeply as she suddenly bounded to all four legs, wobbling unsteadily on the bed, and pressing a hoof to her mouth to keep everything down.

“Oh Celestia! What a mess! It’s everywhere! All over you and me, Done! Oh, no, no…”

Slightly worried, I struggled to my hooves and off the bed, only to have Strawberry Frosting gasp. “Wait! You’ll track it around! Um… Bright Jade, could you please go? You’re almost clean, no sense getting you dirty too!”

Jade looked at me for directions, and I shrugged. “Go on. You can go back to the bar now.”

With a nod, Jade slipped away, taking the camera and film with her. I looked back to Strawberry.

“Are… you alright, Strawberry?” I began to hold a particularly messy leg away from me, as I realized just how badly I’d been caught in the mess.

Strawberry shook her head, her nose fiercely wrinkled. “Ugh, no… so messy! Done, you have a shower, right?”

I pointed to a door outside the bedroom, and Strawberry nodded. “Right. I need to fix this mess! So I’m sorry, but please wait here!”

Without another word, Strawberry bit into the blankets and sheets of the bed, and dragged them with her, clean side down, to the bathroom. Bewildered, I could only watch and wait as water ran and I heard Strawberry fuss through the door. Eventually she returned, wet, but clean, and without the bedding. The first words from her mouth were to ask where she could dry things. I pointed her to the rooftop stairs, and off she went again while I merely watched, returning with bedding she took to hang on top of the building. I found myself grateful for having had the sense to put a large sign on the roof. It hid her literal airing of my dirty laundry.

Finally she trotted back down again, while I still stood in place. While I expected her to take her leave, instead she marched me to the bathroom! At my protest that I could wash myself, Strawberry simply said that after everything we’d done, there was no point worrying about it, and she’d get me cleaner. Baffled, I allowed it, and found myself scrubbed clean by the pretty, damp mare.

As I toweled off and wondered just what was going on, Strawberry Frosting trotted back to the bedroom. I followed just in time to see her wipe up the last of my semen from the hardwood floor—but not without a deep sniff and long, contented sigh. Rather than ask, I simply headed downstairs.

Pirouette was in the office, speaking with Jade and Day Planner about just what had been going on upstairs. As I sat at my desk, Pirouette clopped over noisily, brow furrowed and a frown on her face. As she opened her mouth to complain, though, Strawberry poked her head into the room. Pirouette shut her mouth, tactfully saving it for later.

“Um…” Clean, but no longer in a dress, a bit of the beauty was gone from Strawberry Frosting, but she remained cute, and she’d managed to get enough semen out of her body to return to her old figure. Her nervous demeanor suited the simple cuteness perfectly. “Done—I mean, Mr. Deal. Do you… need a maid?”

I blinked. “A maid? I cook and clean for myself. I can’t imagine why I’d…” The words died in my throat as I saw Pirouette’s glare.

Strawberry continued when my objection died. “Well… it’s just that even besides the mess, while I was cleaning, I noticed some awfully dusty spots. And some trash that missed the can. You know. That sort of thing.” Without a word, Strawberry ran a hoof along a wooden panel in my office, and came up with dust on her pink hoof. “Here too. Um… Do—Mr. Deal, if you look close, it’s not all that clean in here.” Strawberry trotted over to the filing cabinet and swiped again.

“If you really don’t need a maid, that’s okay. It’s just, I’m out of work, and… I think I might like it here.”

I scratched behind an ear, utterly baffled at the turn of events. Why in the world would she want to be a maid? Her cutie mark outed her as a baker or something. I just didn’t get it. “I dunno. I mean, I appreciate the offer, but…” I paused as Strawberry’s ears sank against her head, and tears formed in her eyes.

Pirouette, scowling, pushed open the door to my apartment, and bodily dragged me inside, ignoring Day Planner and Jade’s shocked expressions. She quickly popped her head back out to offer Strawberry Frosting a bright smile. “Don’t you go anywhere, hun. Done’s a good guy, but not so great at hiring, you know?”

In contrast to her cheery expression, Pirouette slammed the door and turned on me, her new expression dark as a thunderhead, and half as comforting. “Done Deal, how you run this place is your business, but you will not turn that mare out onto the street! You’re better than that! Getting a girl drunk, and having your way with her while she’s on the rebound! You’ve thrown out customers for as much! You ought to be ashamed.”

So she said, and just like that, I was. I blinked and thought about it. The poor girl had trusted me to comfort her, and I had… sort of. I’d also done whatever I wanted with her. I sighed. “You’re right, Pirouette. I suppose she’s one of mine now, huh?”

Instantly smiling her approval, Pirouette nodded. “That’s more like it. She’s not a fish; you don’t catch and release!”

I stifled a laugh, and pushed open the door. “I’m sorry, Strawberry, there was a little confusion. I probably could use a maid—but you’re wearing the cute outfit.”

Strawberry Frosting nodded effusively. “I’d love to!”

I blinked. That had been meant as a joke. “Er, well. Interested in more? I mean, you found dust in here, too. Keep the whole place clean, and I can probably swing enough for you to live on.”

Turning away from the activity and back to her work, Day Planner affirmed it. “You can. In fact, with Shot Glass still not replaced, you’ve got budget for…” Day flipped a few pages in a ledger, “four staff, and two entertainers.”

“I’ll take it!” Strawberry’s voice was so high and excited as she accepted, I thought her head would nod right off.

I managed not to laugh. “You don’t need to be that excited! It’s just maid work!”

“I… like cleaning things. It’s kind of a thing. Can’t stand dirt.” Strawberry blushed a bit as she spoke, as if it were some sort of confession.

I shrugged and nodded. So she was a bit obsessive about cleaning. “Sounds like we’ve got a deal. Why don’t you get to work on the rest of my apartment while Day and I write up the papers?”

As she practically bounced past my desk, toward the door, Strawberry stopped just long enough to whisper in my ear. “In the shower next time…”

Just like that, she was through the door and gone.

Author's Note

This chapter's mare comes courtesy of FiMFiction user StrawberryFrosting. Though it's a pure clop chapter, Strawberry will continue to make little, low impact appearances here and there, because her creator wanted to give her a permanent job at The Tall Tail! In keeping with the point of PC chapters, she'll not be a part of the plot, but will serve to flesh out the rather skeletal staff of the cabaret. Thanks for participating, StrawberryFrosting! Your mare will be well cared for!