Bon Bon's back was full of knots that only an expert masseuse had any hope of untangling. Those knots were twinging in her back as she took her seat on the sofa. All week she had been looking forward to spending a day at the spa, but now it would have to wait another week. She took a deep breath in an attempt to rid herself of the proto-headache that was beginning to form, and turned her attention to her girlfriend.
"Okay, so what is it you needed to talk about so badly?" she asked. She made an honest effort to keep the frustration out of her voice, but it didn't entirely work. She threw one leg over the other and rested her chin on her palm.
Lyra cleared her throat as she sat delicately on the edge of her favorite chair. "Well, it's..." Her voice had a false start and cracked. She coughed and tried again. "We've been together for a while now..."
"Eight months," Bon Bon said. It felt like it had been longer.
"Y-yeah, eight months," Lyra mumbled. "I just thought that since it's been that long... there's something I need to tell you."
"Really?" Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. Lyra wasn't even looking at her. In fact, she seemed to have developed a sudden interest in the floor at her feet. She was biting her lip. Bon Bon had never seen her make that face before. In fact, it was the first time in quite a long while that she had seen Lyra with any expression besides a wide and slightly vacant grin. "What is it?"
"It's... um..." Lyra giggled nervously. "Sorry, it's just so hard to say..."
"It's okay," Bon Bon said, trying to sound soothing. Perhaps Lyra was finally starting to take the relationship seriously. If so, Bon Bon wasn't about to discourage her. "You can tell me anything."
"O-Okay. I'm just going to say it." Lyra swallowed, clenched her fists, and spat the words out. "I have a penis!"
"You have a WHAT?" Bon Bon's eye twitched. She would prefer to believe that her ears were failing rather than admit that she had heard the words that had just come from Lyra's mouth.
"Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough," Lyra mumbled. She cleared her throat and spoke up. "I have... I have a penis. You know, whatever you want to call it, a dick, cock, a...a... one-eyed trouser-sna—"
"I heard you the first time!" Bon Bon snapped. "I don't need or want to hear it again."
"But, but you just said—"
"Lyra, that's not funny! When you said that you had something you wanted to talk to me about, I thought you were being serious!" Bon Bon's hands formed claws and grasped at the air in exasperation. "I've been looking forward to going to the spa all week! It was going to be my one chance to relax before I have to get back to work! But no, you said that you had something incredibly important to talk about, and noooo it couldn't wait until I got home! So I put my day off on hold and this was your big revelation!?"
"But Bon Bon, I-"
"I don't care if it's April Fools Day, or if you made a bet with Pinkie Pie to do it, or that you... you... I don't even know!" Bon Bon jumped to her feet, her voice nearing a shout. "You never take anything seriously! You never take me seriously! I've been busting my ass to make this relationship work, and this is your response? Making some stupid joke? I wanted this to work, Lyra! I've been trying! But I can't do this anymore!" She took a deep breath and slumped back into her seat. "You know, for a moment there, I actually thought you were going to open up to me. I guess I was wrong."
She stared coldly at Lyra and waited for a response. Lyra opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Lyra seemed to have grown smaller, like she was trying to disappear. She raised a shaky hand to her face and rubbed her eyes. A lump began to form in Bon Bon's throat as she caught the glimmer of a tear in the corner of Lyra's eye. Sure, after this she had to break things off, but maybe she should have been a bit less harsh.
"Bon Bon..." Lyra's voice was barely audible, as if her throat was trying to hold it back. "I wasn't joking."
Bon Bon tried to come up with a word that adequately expressed her feelings, but all she could manage was "Huh?"
"I said-" Lyra stood up, and raised her voice to a shout. "I wasn't joking!" She grabbed the hem of her skirt and held it up.
The blood drained from Bon Bon's face. Her jaw moved slackly as she tried to speak. Her tongue felt like rubber. "L-lyra, I... I'm sorry, I didn't..." She stopped trying. There was nothing she could say. She stood, took a few steps forward, and put her arms around Lyra, holding her close. She could feel Lyra burying her face in her shoulder. For a long time, neither of them moved, aside from Lyra's trembling. After what seemed like an eternity, the two girls released each other.
Bon Bon took a step back. She felt lightheaded, and her whole body was full of pins and needles. "Lyra... I just... I don't know what to say. I-I'm so sorry. For-"
"It's alright," Lyra said. She was smiling, but it was so faint that it looked like it would vanish at any moment. "If I were you I don't think I'd have believed me either." She looked at her feet and put her hands behind her back. "So... I, uh, I guess you probably have some questions..."
"How!?" Bon Bon blurted out. It wasn't the question she felt she needed to ask, but it was burning a hole in her mind. "How did you... Is it some sort of genetic thing, or what?"
"It's a botched spell," Lyra said. She sighed and took a seat on the sofa. Bon Bon sat next to her, putting her hands on Lyra's. Lyra smiled slightly at the gesture and continued. "Back when I was college a few of us got a bit drunk and snuck some spellbooks out of the school library's sealed section. I don't know what we were planning on doing. Nothing good, probably. It's all kinda hazy now, but a spell went off. We thought it had fizzled; that they were too complex for us to figure out. The next morning I woke up and found out that it... that it had...you know."
"What did you do?"
"For a while, I didn't do anything," Lyra said. "I thought that it might go away on its own eventually. You know, when the magic ran out. A few weeks passed, and eventually I just couldn't keep fooling myself."
"So you went to a doctor?"
"No," Lyra bit her lip. "I just sort of... dealt with it for a while. It was too humiliating. I couldn't tell anyone."
Bon Bon swallowed. "So you've never told anyone else?"
"After a year, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to do something." She blinked back her tears. "I dyed my mane, and checked into an emergency room under a fake name. That doctor is the only person who I ever told. I haven't even told my parents. I didn't tell anyone else. Until you at least."
"What did the doctor say?"
"There was nothing they could do. There's no known way to reverse that type of spell." Lyra buried her face in her hands. "I was so stupid. This should have been the best time of my life. You should have been the best time of my life, but I ruined everything. We- we could have been happy..." She let herself topple over, resting her head on Bon Bon's lap. Her entire body was limp. "It's over, isn't it? Us. We're through, aren't we? You probably hate me now. And if you do, I get it."
Bon Bon took a deep breath and started to run her fingers through Lyra's hair. "All I know is that even though you just... dumped this on me, well, I still love you. I'll still...I don't want you to leave." She sighed "I'm sorry. I want to give you a real answer, but I'm still not sure I know what to think. I'm a bit angry, and a bit sad, and a bit shaken and... about a thousand other things, I guess. But none of them are hate."
Lyra slowly turned, looking up at Bon Bon with damp eyes. "You don't hate me?"
"Of course not."
Lyra smiled. "That's good enough."
Bon Bon let her head flop back on the couch. Even though she had just woken up a few hours ago, she felt exhausted. Her brain didn't want to work. "You mind if I ask you a question?"
"I guess."
"Why now? I mean, we've been together for so long now... why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Lyra took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I just didn't know when to do it, I guess. I mean, It's not like a third date kind of thing. 'I like long walks on the beach, I play the harp, and also I have a penis.' You'd have run away. So I waited. I thought there'd be a point when we'd been together long enough that I could say it. I guess it never came. If it did, I missed it. I just woke up one morning and realized that I should have said something sooner. But then I was too afraid to say anything. I'm not even sure why I brought it up now. I guess it was just too much. I felt like I was leading you on. Like I was lying to you."
"Well, I'm glad that you finally told me, I guess." Bon Bon reached down and took Lyra's hand. "I don't know what I'd have done if you had told me earlier."
"But what are you, er, we going to do? Are... are we still..." Lyra shivered. "If you want to end things, I'd understand."
"I wish I knew." Bon Bon shook her head. "It's just... I'm not even sure what to think, let alone what to do. I still love you but... it's just... I'm not into... that. I mean, when I first realized that I was into girls it was kind of a big thing for me. And to find out that you..." She wasn't sure how to finish the sentence.
"Well, I am still a girl," Lyra said, "Just one with a bit of extra equipment." She laughed, weakly but genuinely. "Best of both worlds, right?"
Bon Bon chuckled. Even now, Lyra couldn't bring herself to be entirely serious. Dick or no dick, Lyra was still Lyra.
"Hey, Lyra."
"Yeah?"
"Why don't we go out tonight? Have a nice dinner, clear our heads, talk. I think I need to remind myself of the real reason I like being with you."
Lyra smiled up at her. "I'd like that."
Author's Note
Yeah, this is a bit more serious than just about any of my other stories. No clop, it's not even explicit. I can't write clop all the time, after all.
I probably could stretch it out into a bigger story, but I'm lazy and have other stuff to worry about. Maybe in the future I'll write a more serious story that's more than a one-shot. Who knows? This was just an experiment anyway.
