Cup Cake placed the tray of fresh chocolate chunk cookies into the display case then wheeled for the kitchen rapidly. A very sharp-eyed observer might have noticed that Sugar Cube Corner was not so busy as to require such speed, nor had she moved as fast coming out of the kitchen, even accounting for the tray.
Carrot Cake was an very sharp eyed observer of his wife. However he was much too busy noticing her actual reason for the maneuver to notice its speed. It had allowed a specific portion of her tail to "accidentally" make contact with his nose. A portion of her tail that had, less than a minute ago, been hiked up and pressed to a certain location that he had special access privileges to. Privileges that would be unique except that before going away on a one week business trip during the second year of their marriage he had gifted her with a rubber replica of his penis*. With this act he returned to her the right she had surrendered to him shortly after their honeymoon in negotiations featuring a quart of whipped cream, three donuts, and a bagel.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, and went to put Pipsqueak's shake in front of him. The stallion then turned around and walked over to the door to the kitchen and stuck his head in.
"The honey glazing smells nice today." he said, making use of their own private code. He suspected that a few of their adult customers had figured it out. This didn't especially matter. Ponyville generally took the stance that if a married couple should inspire other married couples to do what married couples do together, or even single ponies to do what single ponies do alone**, that there was no particular harm in that. Why, a mare could wink with either end at her husband on market day and receive at least a certain degree of the expected physiological response without anyone thinking the less of them. Walking into ones house while still lip-locked (front lips only) was similarly unremarkable.
"I might even make you a chocolate donut later." she replied.
"No thanks, a regular glazed donut will be quite enough... although maybe not as late as all that." He said. He found his wife's willingness for anal sex to be a quite romantic demonstration of trust. The delicacy required to remain worthy of that trust rendered the actual practice a rare occurrence. Cup was quite aware of both these facts.
"Now Carrot... you know that these things take time to cook, and we can't afford to short-cut the timing." she said.
"Oh, I'm sure Pinkie could handle the ovens and counter. For a bit." he replied, knowing that, while technically true, this was not a practical solution.
"Yes, but there are structural problems." came the next step in their oft-repeated verbal dance. Cup Cake was also aware that the meeting between carrot and cup would be delayed until the after-school rush was over and had picked her timing based on long experience. Too short a wait would remove the "simmer" value, but too long of one risked an early close, and with two foals and intentions of conceiving a third some time later that year, they couldn't afford that.
The incredible serving speed and sales skills of a pink mare would have altered all this, were it not for an unfortunate accident of carpentry. The pony who constructed Sugar Cube Corner had been trying to break into the market for highly sculpted buildings, and had offered them a nice discount as his first customer in that sub-category. The result was structurally sound, but the floorboards had acquired a distinct squeak in every room of the house that offered sufficient privacy from customers. They knew this because they had checked EVERY such room. Three times over. Including closets.
Normally this would have not been a problem, but even Ponyville had its limits. When foals gathered around milkshakes had started discussing the rhythmic squeaking noises and how they might be related to similar sounds some of them had heard in their own homes, one or two parents had mentioned it to the Cakes in a casual sort of way. The bakers had decided to play it safe and agreed between themselves to refrain from bucking during business hours.
"Hello lovey!" called out a familiar voice from behind them. Of course, these days, it didn't belong to a mare any longer.
"Hello!" called out a voice that was pitched somewhere between a stallion's and a mares. Which made sense since Icebox had been born a futa.
"Just a second... I need something-not-so-sweet before the sweetest thing."
Carrot returned to the front of the store just in time to see Pinkie toss a miniature hay-bale the size of her head, complete with edible string, into the air... or rather the size of HIR head. Shi swallowed it without chewing, as was often hir way, although not normally with hay.
The Cake's had initially expressed some concerns when Princess Twilight's analysis of historical records had indicated that Pinkie's abilities might possibly be passed on to her foals. Or rather when Twilight had talked the reality warping mare into accepting the addition of a penis and balls to her anatomical inventory. Pinkie had gone on a whirlwind dating tour of Equestria, seeking out other futas. Mr Cake still remembered when the youngest Princess had walked through the door on the first day of Pinkie's leave of absence.
[Flashback]
"Well, this is an unexpected honor!" he had exclaimed.
"Oh, don't worry about it, I'm just learning something is all."
"Well, I know how much you hate the ponyrazzi."
"Only because they get in the way of getting stuff done, but in this case, I think I can turn this to your advantage." explained the alicorn as she stepped past the counter.
"How's that?"
"Well, I rather imagine that my unwanted fanclub would just love to buy a sweet from 'The Princess of Friendship'."
"Err... I thought that you were going to just give us some bits to make up for Pinkie's absence?"
"Well, I was, but then I ran the calculations on how much it would cost to make up for not only Pinkie's absence, but the lingering effects of a loss in popularity. It seemed a bit much to ask of the taxpayers, so I considered detailing a pegasus guard who had broken a wing heroically or something, but then I realized that I could learn how to bake, and you could probably charge triple price for the results of any errors I might make, and that any lack of quality would help reinforce the idea that I'm really just another pony when you get down to it."
"I... see. I'll just talk this over with the missus." said Carrot Cake.
"Talk what over?" said Cup returning from dropping the twins off at their kindergarden.
"Twilight here is offering to fill in for Pinkie's shifts personally!"
"Actually," said Twilight, raising a hoof, "I've drawn up an alternate schedule that should proportion my accessibility and visibility to maximize your sales from ponies who are influenced by my popularity. It comes to one hour less a week, but I need that time to fit in some adjustments to my solar-tracking telescope. You know that O-69 model... can't leave it more than five hours or the azimuth goes all wonky!"
"Oh... yes... the azimuck." said Cup "Well, that sounds lovely dear!"
[End Flashback]
In any case, the Cake's concerns had proven unwarranted. Even upon hir return no-pony had felt weirded out enough by Pinkie's sex-augmentation to avoid, or cause their foals to avoid, Sugar Cube Corner. Futa's were rare in Equestria, but generally accepted. Counting a dragon and a zebra among Ponyville's residents didn't hurt either. Unlike with the tightly restricted mare-to-stallion and stallion-to-mare transformations, Pinkie's personality had not been altered.
Pinkie's courtships, first by letter, and then between two individuals that The Crowns paid a small stipend to offset their income losses for moving to Ponyville had gone... surprisingly smoothly. Many ponies had expected the repeated "Futafriend's*** and Me" parties (some by candlelight), to devolve into fighting between Froggy and Icebox, but it seemed that Pinkie had chosen better than that.
Pinkie had made hir "A million-billion-times harder than 'Chocolate or Strawberry?' " choice, and let Froggy down easy. Shi proposed to Icebox the next day. Less than a month later the two earthponies became husbife and husbife. The Cakes had been surprised when they discovered that this portmanteau was the official term rather than just something that Pinkie had made up... probably.
But right now, Carrot was watching in train-wreck fascination as Icebox curled powder blue legs around hir beloved's neck. Two manes of identical pink were explored, one short and soft, one interestingly rough and so thick that Icebox's hooves somehow actually sank in past the level of Pinkie's neck.
He and his wife had a battleplan for this situation, just like they did for "V.I.P. out of tea". This one was a lot more uncertain though.
"Umm... Pinkie, would you and Icebox like to take a run out to Ghastly Gorge?" he suggested.
Pinkie held the kiss for several minutes before pulling hir tongue back from exploring not only hir husbife's tongue, but all of his teeth... simultaneously.
"Nope! I have some chickoes! They're rubber chickens and shoes, all in one!"
Pinkie produced eight of these objects and quickly fitted them to eight hooves. Actually a ninth one that hadn't been there before ended up enveloping Icebox's tail like a snake swallowing a squirrel.
"Catch me if you can!" Pinkie shouted as she bounced up the stairs in a rapid-fire series of squeaks.
Icebox cantered after hir. Shi knew that shi couldn't catch Pinkie before Pinkie was ready. The blue futa was wise enough it had only taken hir until the fifth date to learn this. Shi knew that, unlike back then when hir reward was "merely" a kiss, that shi would have better things to expend hir stamina on trying to catch that which was both uncatchable, and firmly caught "until death do us part".
Author's Note
* "Privileges that would be unique except that before going away on a one week business trip during the second year of their marriage he had gifted her with a rubber replica of his penis." There were also certain medical personnel and objects, but their relationships with Cup's cup was strictly professional.
** "Ponyville generally took the stance that if a married couple should inspire other married couples to do what married couples do together, or even single ponies to do what single ponies do alone". Of course, thinking of a specific other pony when clopping was frowned upon for singles.
*** "Many ponies had expected the repeated "Futafriend's(3) and Me" parties (some by candlelight), to devolve into fighting between Froggy and Icebox." As in 'coltfriend' and 'fillyfriend'.
