Try to imagine: it was a night just like this one.
Warm and clear, with the first tinges of autumn beginning to snap through the air. Although the days were still quite warm, the nights were steadily decreasing in temperature with the approach of winter. The streets of Canterlot were well lit from the magical lampposts which shone rosily despite the chill; my hooves made shallow, empty noises against the impersonal yet lavish apartments which surrounded me. A cool breeze lifted the mane from my neck and sent a chilly finger down my spine. My white coat twitched from the chill, and I felt grateful for the ascot and vest I wore.
To be truthful, the chill was not just from the autumn air. It was from what I was about to do.
Please try to forgive me, my friend. Withhold your judgment until my tale is complete.
She touched me, you see. The Canterlot social circles were full of cool, callous politeness. It was rare to completely enjoy a conversation—you simply pretended you did. It was second nature for us to hide our true feelings and stow them away safely behind a mask of good humor and etiquette. Nice little laughs and compliments left and right, saying how wonderful it was to see you again, you looked lovely, and a thousand other lies.
But it was rare, so very rare, to genuinely like a pony. And even rarer still to have them like you.
It wasn’t just because she found me rich and powerful. Every pony in Canterlot viewed me with rose-tinted lenses, thinking that I was the most refined, the most rich and elegant stallion available in the kingdom. She knew that I was rich, and I would be naïve to say she didn’t care—I rather think she cared quite a bit. But it was the novelty of seeing someone so unaccustomed to Canterlot social ladders climb them so quickly. I loved exposing her to the nuances of the fine dining life, showing her how to exert your good looks and your supposed money to get whatever you wanted.
A dressmaker from Ponyville. Of all the mares I thought would catch my eye, that would have never been my first choice. There was just something about her, the way she tried so hard to fit in, and in many ways succeeded. The inelegance among the refined. She enjoyed the luxury surrounding her through unspoiled eyes, taking nothing for granted and just happy to be there. But there was something that made me hang back, made me watch her a little more warily. She could hold her own in any conversation thrown at her, and seemed to have all the right connections—what was she still doing in Ponyville?
If she had moved to Canterlot, however, I don’t think I could have restrained myself.
After all, I was married.
Yes, that wife of mine does seem to occasionally get in the way, doesn’t she? It wasn’t as though I didn’t love her, good Celestia no, I loved Fleur very much. But...
Ah, I hate that word. But.
She loved me dearly, of course. I had no reason to fault her, save perhaps her willingness to flirt with other gentlecolts. Even that, I cannot hold her to, for that is an essential part of being a member in high standing of Canterlot. Still, every time I saw her straighten the necktie of another stallion, I felt a little twinge deep down. A little question would struggle to surface in my mind: was she faithful? Those whispers in another colt’s ear, was that playful and innocent? Or was I simply a blind old fool, being taken for a con by a mare much younger than I?
How could I hold her age against her? I was, after all, visiting a filly younger than even Fleur...
Rarity.
Damn that name. Damn that filly for being so abominably attractive and devastatingly intelligent. And yet how could I blame her...? I was the one, after all, taking advantage of her.
Yes, my friend. I was the one who wooed her. Won her. Courted her lightly and treaded carefully through the hoops she set for me. I broke down all the barriers she had about having an affair with me—it would just be a little fling, I purred in her ear. A harmless night of pleasure, for the both of us. My wife need not know, nopony would know. It would just be the two of us, alone in the dark with nothing but flesh and sweat and perhaps a bit of magic.
How could she say no...? I was practiced in such things. Fleur was not the first mare I had married, nor would Rarity be the first innocent filly to fall to my charms. I sometimes hated my ability to charm others, always knowing the right things to say. I wish the filter between my brain and my mouth wasn’t quite so practiced.
And so here I was, going to meet her in one of Canterlot’s finest hotels. I had arranged everything, given Fleur my excuse for the night, begged her pardon, and then left. We would have the entire night and most of the morning to sate our basest pleasures.
If somepony found out, I was finished.
Affairs simply weren’t done. There were some ponies with open marriages, and even more commonly, a stallion with three or four mares in his house; but a quick, secret, dirty little fling between a married stallion and a young filly simply was not done. I suspended my entire career on this one night, the one act of treachery against my wife and the sanctity of marriage.
I snorted. The sanctity of marriage. What a laugh.
I entered the hotel and retrieved my key to the Sweetheart’s Suite. I was nervous, not for my actions but for the consequences of them.
And that troubled me most of all. That I felt not the slightest bit of guilt for carrying this out, not the single shred of doubt. I wanted this to happen. I would make it happen. But I feared what was going to befall me if word of this ever got out.
By the Sisters, I was a cowardly old stallion.
“Come in,” I heard her call, in that faux-Canterlot accent. Sometimes I wondered what she sounded like when she wasn’t pretending.
I stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind me. It was dark in the room, illuminated only by a firefly lamp in the corner. Shadows stretched and flickered to the frenzied movements of the insects trapped beneath the glass. She was on the bed, hindquarters sprawled out, curled purple mane falling prettily over her shoulders. Her left cutie mark caught the light and I saw the gems reflected there.
Gems and crowns. How fitting.
I nuzzled her smooth white back, tracing the slight curve up her withers and then the graceful slope of her neck. She was quivering beneath my touch, even more nervous than I. Surely it wasn’t for her social status, she lived in a small town far away from Canterlot. It was nerves, since after all, I was a much older stallion and much larger than her too. Surely, she was intimidated...
“I’ve been thinking,” Rarity said quietly, looking up at me from beneath lowered lashes, “this might not be a very good idea.”
“Oh?” I queried, loosening my ascot. “How so?”
“Well...” she swallowed and looked away, “if things ever came out...I would never want anything to impact your status in society. Or, by Celestia, your status with your wife.”
“Let me worry about my marriage,” I said, perhaps a trifle coldly. I saw her flinch. “Please,” I sighed, “things are not as simple as they appear. I simply...”
“What?” she asked softly.
“I simply want to be for once. Just to live. If only for a few hours. Could we do that, perhaps? Together?”
Silently, she pulled me closer, and our horns crossed. I rubbed her cheek with my nose.
She put out the lamp, and together we simply lived.
Now I have told you my tale, my friend. Now you know what I am made of—I am ashamed to say that I went straight home to my wife the next morning. I swore to myself that I would never see Rarity again, that I would never visit her or speak her name. I have confided in you, my friend, the only pony I can trust.
And I will confide in you one more thing: the slippery slope towards addiction pulls you down quickly.
Because at the moment, I am on a train heading for Ponyville. I don’t know what will happen once I reach there—will I kiss her? Hold her? Beg her to come back to Canterlot with me? Or will I apologize, and make things right, and treat her like a gentlecolt?
I do not know.
And I pray that you are never burdened with the answer.
Author's Note
Yes, this now exists. Just to get my feet wet in the fanfiction world, I've always been a lover of some good Fancity.
