Forced

".......you should have seen him, big dumb -and- gullible." Diamond Tiara giggled and tipped a plastic teapot over an empty coffee mug. The imaginary steam rolled up under the chin of her favorite doll,  Molly, and up and around her long bunny ears.

"Of course I messed with him! I had him saying 'yes ma'am'." Diamond Tiara answered one of Molly numerous silent questions.

"Well yeah he was cute, but I wouldn't bank on him having much in the brains department." Diamond giggled at her own imagination. "Daddy says I don't have to marry for money, but I can't marry a lunkhead."

Diamond's little game of tea went on well into the night, making her blissfully oblivious to her own bedtime. Thank goodness it was the weekend, or the desk in the second row of Ms. Cheerilee's classroom would have been little more than a very uncomfortable mattress come morning.

Unbeknownst to the filly, her curious game of imaginary socializing being as engrossing as it was, her father slunk down the white carpeted hallways towards his study. His breath reeked of the whiskey he had been pouring down his throat since he had awoken from his short, restless nap in the cushions of his home theater. He had awoken to the bright blues of his flat screen's idle animation, the light managing to tickle his eyeballs through the veil of their lids.

Filthy rolled himself off of the sofa and walked out of the room, not bothering to switch off the electronics on his way out. Outside in the immaculate hallway of the Filthy estate, no maids were present nor butlers to ask him if he was hungry; Filthy had offered the house-care staff a paid vacation in order for proper grieving with his daughter. The silence struck him harshly, more so than the glaring sterile white of the walls and carpet. His hoofs barely even made a sound as he whisked himself away to the parlor, an urgency rooted in the newly acquired monophobia giving a panicked speed to his hoofs.

Thoughts of his wife were rushing back. Red soaked through her clothes as he drug her up out of the street.

Filthy's shaking hooves turned the knob of his study door, a room filled with bits and bobs of fiction, charters, trade regulations, the occasional naughty magazine, and of course the halfway drained bottle of whiskey hidden just behind the first bookshelf.

He slid open the first drawer in his desk, viciously rooting about for the shot glass he knew was there. Filthy eventually grew tired of the search, concluding that perhaps a maid had taken it to the kitchen to be washed, and hefted the bottle out of it's hiding place.

After crashing down roughly in a chair in front of his desk, Filthy spent the next hour of wakefulness pushing himself further and further into a drunken haze. Soon he had forgotten the pained expression on Penny's face, not remembering her last agonized moments. But rather, he simply remembered that he missed her.

"You know Filthy, you oughta stay here. You don't wanna swing hammers for a living son."

Filthy didn't open his eyes, he just answered back while rubbing a temple with his hoof.

"It's not like I'm going empty-hooved Dad, I've got a publisher interested in my idea."

"And then what? You write a string of best-seller's while trying to raise a foal in a single-bedroom?"

"That's the plan, until I can afford a bigger apartment." Filthy answered back calmly, despite his bottom hoof tapping impatiently against the wooden floor.

"So let me get this straight, you're gonna write books all day long and only have a fifty-fifty chance of getting them published while your marefriend supports you and the baby by working at the piggly-wiggly?"

"That's not how it's gonna be!" Filthy's eyes snapped open with the intensity of his shout.

And there was his father. Clear as day, lighting a cigar in the brown leather armchair behind his desk.

"I thought you told me you quit?" Filthy slumped further down into his chair, the empty bottle of whiskey resting under one hoof in his lap. His father exhaled the sweet smelling smoke out of his nostrils.

"No I'm just a good actor. Can't have anyone but my replacement knowing about these habits."

"Dad I don't wanna run the business. I told you, I'm leaving with Penny next week."

"Yeah I heard you the first time Filthy." His father took another puff, holding the smoke in for a few seconds while he riffled through a stack of papers on his desk.

"It's not like I need you to take over Filthy. There's plenty of stallions working in the marketing division right now doing good work," Filthy watched with intrigue as each word was accented by a wisp of smoke, each smokey tail seeming to hang onto vowels. "There's a few mares too, but you know how they can be."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Filthy asked, rubbed his brow and stirred the last remaining drops in his bottle.

"Well...I guess you're old enough to know that you old man gets a lot of attention from the younger mares. Especially now that I'm thinking of retiring. It'd be nice if they'd stop throwing themselves on my desk when your mother isn't here though."

"Dad. Don't tell me--"

"No, no, son I'm much too old to be fooling around behind your mother's back anymore." His father shook his head, jostling his tidy mane as he took another deep inhale.

"Look, Dad I don't want to argue about this again. I can do this, and Penny isn't helpless."

"Oh I know she isn't helpless. Pincher's rarely are, assuming the apple didn't fall far from the tree. But she IS pregnant Filthy. And much too early if you want my honest opinion.

"I don't."

"Well be that as it may, why not just spend a few more years here until you save up enough money for a nice little fixer-upper instead of those dingy apartments." His father set the cigar down and folded his hooves on the desk.

"Dad...I'd just rather the baby grow up normal. Have a normal name for fuck's sake." Filthy expected his father to cross the room and slap him, but nothing came.

"So poverty is normal to you. To my son." The old stallion raised his brow.

"And what if it is? You think I like the idea of putting ponies out of business?" Filthy spread his front hooves wide, the liquid in his bottle making hollow splashes against the thick glass.

"I hired each one of those ponies I put out of business." The old stallion thumped his hoof against the desk with "each" and "one".

"But not before they lost their lives' savings pouring their ambitions into a waste paper basket." At this point Filthy had leaned forward for his wording between his bared teeth to be heard, hoping his father felt every bit of contempt he had inside of him.

"And how did this affect you hmm? Those new toys and games too good for you?" His father was bordering upon hysterics, throwing his hooves up as he lost his normally vast amount of patience.

"The ponies at school sure thought so."

"And here we are Filthy." His father spoke as if he had just solved the million dollar question. "This is all about your boo-hoo-ing about how you didn't have any friends at school. How your only friend was the daughter of an employee I hired out of pity."

Filthy stood and slung the bottle as hard as he could, hoping this time it would collide with his father rather than the wall as it did so many years ago. He barely registered the breaking glass against the bookshelf beyond the liquid that had just splashed against his copy of "The City Beneath the Sea". His breathing had reached the point where his body shook, the needless adrenaline coursing through his veins like a sick drug and making him feel the need to vomit in his current state of inebriation.

But his father had gone. That night had already been lived.

And here he was. Almost a decade later in the very place he swore he would never be. Only this time, he was alone.

"Daddy." As if on cue, a scared but determined voice sounded from behind him.

Filthy turned with some drunken difficulty to the door to see his daughter. She was sitting back on her haunches with her jaw set stiff, trying her best to look stern although her eyes had welled up.

"You need to go to sleep." She said simply, holding a hoof out for Filthy to take. He didn't say a word as he crossed the room toward her. It was as if the filly had spoken a magic word that existed in her storybooks, her guidance seeming to be unquestionable and her logic the finest.

He followed the filly like a catatonic patient, allowing her to lead him to the bathroom and all. They walked together down the now haunting white hallways towards the upstairs living room. Even now in the dead of night it seemed cosy with its myriad of paperback novels and soft sofas. Diamond led Filthy toward one just near the cold fireplace, and pushed him into a comfortable position on it.

Filthy watched wordlessly as Diamond crawled onto the sofa next to him, keeping a fair amount of space before Filthy put his hoof around her. He pulled the filly close and leaned his head into her stomach, where he took a deep reassuring breath from her fur.

Be it the dim lights and the comfortable rise and fall of his daughters stomach, or the weight of the alcohol in his own, Filthy fell into a rather deep sleep. That night he did not awaken from the dreams of his wife.