The Proscenium Arch

Hepzibah regarded Tempus with a sad look while she stood by his cage. One finger was in motion, leading his body to move side to side while also directing his warm chirping. She lost herself in the song, falling back into happy memories of her childhood and the comforting closeness of the walls within walls of her Colony. She saw it all in her mind, her family's living space, all the magic gems and photographs, the furniture, the back garden space with the food fungi and Citizen Blue spreading its filigreed skeletal hyphae across the space while the spore-producing regions sat in the center, looking very like collection of thin sheaves of parchment.

Her finger trembled as she started to waver in her bouncing direction of her little insect. Small lines of tears started tracing along the velvety gray softness of her cheeks, her citrine-and-sapphire eyes looking at Tempus but barely seeing the little thing through the veil of blurring tears and memory. “I'm so scared, Tempus... and the worst part is I'm also sure I shouldn't be...”

She opened the cage up and slowly reached in. Her paws gingerly lifted Tempus, who gave a curious chirp at the motion. She bore him out and slowly cradled him against her chest. “He's so good at the shield spells, they never crack until he's ready, given the untrained nature of the crowds. He's gotten good at dodging vital strikes and keeping his bones from breaking. And I always patch him up perfectly. I admit that it's a strange way to make love, but it's as safe as we can make it...” A sob rocked her body, bringing another chirp from Tempus.

“But every faux rape ends with him getting hurt...” Hepzibah whispered the sentence as she kissed the top of Tempus' head, barely feeling the ticklish press of his mandibles against her neck. “The injuries are managed but not eliminated. He's bruised and bleeding and it just is so agonizing to have to patch him up.”

Her fingers gingerly traced along Tempus' quivering wings, and down along the back of his smooth abdomen. “Maybe that's my penance... the price I pay for losing myself in the joy of being seen as sexual, of ponies seeing me as a being that could be desirable, and one that was worthy of their protection. Racham gets beaten into the ground, I paste him back together and we do it again.”

She kissed Tempus again, tears falling more freely from her eyes. “We're both guilty. He enjoys my screams and flails. I enjoy his love and the envy... the approval of my desirability in pony eyes... and we need other ponies for that. I need to watch them pity and feel for that nameless Dog, to watch them save her from harm. He needs them to prove how wonderful they are, so he never forgets, so the ugliness from his past are proven to be a lie, or the worst of aberrations...”

Hepzibah hugged Tempus tighter, eyes finally closing as her sobbing grew louder and the shudders of her body became more powerful. “I don't know which one of us is more selfish, is using the audience the most. It doesn't matter... Tempus... he's going to die...” She pulled the big cricket up and nuzzled at his head, stroking her cheek along his wiggling mandibles. “This can't go on forever. He's going to make a mistake, we're going to meet a decent professional spell-slinger. I don't worry about the police, I worry... whatever we may get out of this isn't enough. It's going to kill him.” She lowered her voice, which was already thick from her sorrow. “He's not going to stop on his own.”

Racham slowly closed the door of the bedroom. He had never intended to listen in to Hepzibah's confidence session with their cricket. They were a private thing. He should have known enough to respect that. He had only wanted to see if she was done. He had wanted to sweep her off her paws and take her to dinner before they planned a new bit of fun.

It was still inside him. That love of the thrashing and struggle, the screams of surprise and resisting. The heroic citizens rushing in to preserve the beleaguered lass and properly chastise the villain. It was the world working as it should. No matter how appealing the look and sound was, the ending was not negotiable. Bad creatures could not be allowed to succeed. It would drag down the whole world if bad creatures emerged victorious.

As a fantasy it spoke ill of him. As a reality it could be expressed safely and socially positively. A few bruises and bloody wounds were well worth the price of honoring morality. They cost little in the end... save the emotional pain of the Dog he loved. He was putting her through emotional Tartarus. She said she understood. She seemed to be getting her own sort of enjoyment from their actions and planned with as much eagerness.

She couldn't confide in him. There really were things one only shared with friends or a silent pet. Her private doubts, her secret fears. They were not so secret or private. He could see the pain behind her eyes when she daubed his blood or carefully felt along his bones or ribs. She was just as uncertain as him. But while he was disgusted and shamed by the inclination, she was in pain from the consequences of their shared indulgence.

He execrated the impetus, she loathed the inevitable climax. In a strange way they again proved how suited they were together, beyond savoring the middle portion. They hated the thing they loved but found it almost impossible to stop. They might feel wrong about it but little could be done. They'd keep doing it because there was too much appeal. They had gotten to like it even if it hurt.

He laid himself out on the bed and sighed as he sprawled. They would remain under the spell of the middle portion until the consequences finally became dire. There was a greater good to consider. Dogs needed to be known as worthy of sexualized vision. Impure and antisocial thoughts needed to be punished. Until their needs wholly outweighed the outcome there wasn't much to do.

“Racham, honey?” Hepzibah asked, opening the door and looking into the room. Tempus was sitting on her shoulder, chirping pleasantly.

Racham lifted his head up and put a smile on his face, with his usual, practiced ease. “Yes, dear?”

“Were you planning anything today or should we... just... you know..?” Hepzibah tucked her tail a bit and looked away some.

'Racham the Rake. Racham the Reprobate.' That was supposed to be his characters. It was uncomfortably close to reality. “I was waiting to come and sweep you off your paws to dinner before we got into that,” he responded.

“And that's why I love you. I'll go put Tempus away and get ready,” Hepzibah said with a happy concluding yap, moving out of the door to do as she had said.

“You don't deserve her, Racham, and you probably never did,” Racham muttered to himself before he rolled off the bed. “You should have just hated yourself for the rest of your life, ashamed of the unrealized desire. Just keep going and be the best coltfriend you can be. Make up for all the pain the best you can...”

The setting was the fringes of downtown Pasternville, on a residential street with very few folks milling around, late in the evening when things were calm and quiet, after the lights had come on. Hepzibah had applied the fur dye as usual, choosing a rich, deep brown tone, always finding that darker colors were an easier 'sell' than trying to lighten her coat. She was dressed in a simple black skirt and a black vest that went down over her teats. Racham was lurking, preparing for his role. He had dyed his whole body, as ever, choosing a bright, neon-like green color that really made him stand out. He'd attract an audience for sure.

Hepzibah went out first, as she always did, looking casual and vaguely disinterested in everything going on around her. The lackadaisical look helped her to more tightly clamp down her uncertainty and control the fear in her stomach. She'd forget it all when she lost herself in the pleasurable and ego-satisfying middle portion, the meat of the performance. It wouldn't come back until she forced her hands to set Racham right again, fixing injuries caused by actions she helped to perpetrate.

She noted, with some surprise and disdain it wasn't just ponies, donkeys and Changelings around that evening. There sitting on one of the stoops engaged in conversation was a griffin. He was one of the medium-sized breeds of the creatures, with dark feathers and some musculature to him. Hepzibah suppressed a shudder as she remembered her shameful encounter in the lounge.

She was not a bigot, she often told herself. She didn't have it in her to be a hateful bitch. She had gone to many classes with a good mix of many species. But all she knew of griffins started off from that single point, and filtered through all the things she had heard of the Kingdom.

She was above the petty suppositions about their level of intelligence or the prosaic myths of simple, earthy farmers and wise peasant laborers. She knew they were backwards because it was a fact that technological development in the kingdom was objectively low. She didn't think they swished around in 'traditional garb' but she knew they could be loud, occasionally drunken and very male-dominant. She had every inclination to think the worst.

Even though he was there, he was not much of a threat, as far as Hepzibah could see. So she simply whipped her muzzle into the air a little bit more than before and padded on, hoping that the male would not cause a problem during the next part of the act. He might hang back and drool, which would destroy the whole aura of the performance.

She could have stopped it. There was a signal for that, if things didn't feel right. If she genuinely felt menaced by the situation or thought something could go spectacularly wrong she had only to turn around and walk the other way and the two of them would be finished. They would go back home, clean up, make love and listen to Tempus serenade them while they basked in their afterglow.

Her paws acquired an odd gait as she considered turning around with every step. She could still halt it after Racham had made his appearance as the villain of the scene. She could stop when she wanted. But even though she considered it, she walked on with her new, curious gait, knowing that any moment would bring the soft and subtle clops of Racham, the stealthy villain, right up to her.

Racham hesitated, missing his cue for the first time in his long career. He could see the twist to Hepzibah's paws. She was considering turning. He was certain she would. He missed his cue, if only by a short amount, because he was certain that the next awkward step would be the one that turned her back towards him and would send them home again.

He stepped out, slowly casting his eyes onto the audience-to-be. He nearly passed over the griffin, thinking of him has just another face in the crowd. He then recalled what Hepzibah had said of her encounter. That may have been the germ of her hesitation. Acting in front of someone that brought up bad memories. She had some spunk to go through with it. There was no shame in stopping. She was becoming a real, seasoned professional.

His pace increased, ruining some of the dramatic tension and perhaps bringing some notice but he had to make up for the delay caused by hesitation. They could still hit their marks properly with just a touch of adjustment. He tried to be as stealthy as usual, leaping lightly towards the end and landing as softly as possible before throwing himself at Hepzibah's back and grabbing her up in the strong grip of his forelegs.

Hepzibah screamed as she was supposed to, with a small dab of real fear and surprise mixed in. She had been lost in her consideration and uncertainty. The attack felt real for the moment between being forced out of her mind and remembering she had a job to do. She change from real victim to fake victim involved ceasing her forceful struggles and making ineffectual twists, pushing at the sidewalk with paws and hands, intentionally letting her pads slide along, not allowing any purchase at all.

“Mm, looks like I caught a Dog all on her own,” Racham said in a dark, rasping voice. Hos hoof reached under Hepzibah's allegedly-struggling body and casually pulled her vest open, to place a hoof on one teat. He worked over the flesh and made sure to use the softest part of his hoof's underside to flick the capping nipple. “No underwear here. I wonder if it's the same under your skirt...”

“What?! What are you..? Stop!” Hepzibah screamed, in her character as the victim. She pointedly avoided looking over at the crowd. She would rely on Racham to know when they needed to wrap things up or alter their plans in any way. She followed the script. “Get off of me! D-don't touch... stop!” She let out a soft, low moan as her teat was worked over, just as she liked it. With the action hidden Racham could feign harsh motion while using all the motions that she loved.

“Looks like I was right...” Racham said with a harsh laugh. He quickly stuffed his hoof under Hepzibah's skirt and ground the smooth, polished front of it against her Dog-designed slit. He slicked up the hoof with her freely flowing juice and smeared it all around. He made sure he ground and jostled on her clit during his putative 'molestation' of her privates.

Hepzibah let out a scream tinged with pleasure, trying to hide a moan in it. It would break character to admit that Racham was very good about massaging her. Again, his hidden hoof was allowed to teat her flesh to a talented display of twists and flicks that lit up her nerves. Pleasure spiked from her nub and passed through her whole body, creating a leading spasm through her whole form. It helped to 'sell' her performance. She was feeling rather genuinely weak because that feeling made it hard to coordinate any of her limbs or fight back. She had no adrenaline to spike her muscles, only the fading of nervous butterflies turning into a rising pleasure deep within her. “No! Ta-take your hoof away from me!” She stayed on script, but found it hard to, as ever. “S-stop! Let go! Stop it! Stop!”

“You put your body out here...” Racham hissed, seeming to twist his hoof harder and more cruelly. He applied slightly more pressure, but less than what he appeared to be adding. He was parting her lips and rubbing over her engorged clit. He had her leaking into the inside of her skirt, primed and ready for sex. “You want this, don't you?”

“No!” Hepzibah screamed, as expected. She pressed her claws into her palms and bit gently at the inside of her mouth and at her tongue to get tears to start. She wasn't quite at the level of bringing fake tears on command as some could muster. “No! You can't do this to me! Don't do it! Don't..!”

“I will!” Racham strongly asserted, forcefully slapping his erection on his belly. The screaming and struggling, the imagery was surging the impure pleasure through him. But his eyes were really drinking in the sight of Hepzibah beneath her makeup. She was so beautiful, and his affection for her really sent his blood pounding through his veins and made his fat, green rod surge, trembling and almost pained with how stiff it had become.

“You can't! I don't want it! I don't want it from you!” They had intentionally left out bigotry, for many reasons, not the least of which being that it killed the mood for both. But generic resistance and the disdain of sexual interaction with the particular pony was perfectly acceptable. Hepzibah struggled, or appeared to struggle, harder. Her rear end rose and she gave the appearance of trying to worm her way forward from Racham's touch and impending penetration.

“You're going to take all of it!” Racham slammed his hooves down artfully in front of Hepzibah's shoulders, locking her down in a certain sense. His rear legs had taken position to keep her rear legs open and keep her from backing away. His rear end had come down to firmly slap his stallion baton against her struggling hind. “You! Can't! Stop! Me!” each word was punctuated by a thrust and slap that thumped the heavy pole down against one of her cheeks, creating a lot of sound, a little motion and not much in the way of pain; it sent a pleasant tingle through both of them.

“No! You can't!” Hepzibah pushed at the ground but was 'pinned' beneath Racham's broad and heavy chest. In a normal situation she could have forced him up and off with some effort. She gave a good show of it but wound up collapsing to the ground, panting and whining loudly, occasionally giving a yelp as the heavy penis whacked at her naked and vulnerable backside. “Don't do this!”

“Too late!” Racham maneuvered his blunt head against Hepzibah's well-teased, dripping and slightly spread opening, grinding away at the juicy lips and on her clit a few times. After taking up the shine from her honey he rammed forward with a strong and certain flex of his muscular thighs, pounding his way inside. He let out a triumphant moan that was more actual than artifice. The warm squeeze of Hepzibah's inner walls sent a pleasure rolling through his body, and he responded with another savage thrust that drove him nearly to the hilt.

Hepzibah's tunnel was molded to Racham, from frequent and eager lovemaking. Her muscles trembled and pulsed, massaging all around and in rolling waves of squeezing. She was lost for a moment in the bliss that was her lover mounting her and pumping hard down so far she could feel the soft taps of his stones against her thighs. She just had the presence of mind to muffle a moan against her arm, biting herself softly while drool flew in small fleck as she exhaled sharply. When she released she let out a scream of resistance and fear, head shaking strongly. “No! G-get off me! Get out of me! Someone help me!”

The clock was ticking. The dumb observers were typically paralyzed by the shock of what they were seeing, completely unsure about anything. Once involved, invoked by the alleged victim, they often pulled their heads together and decided what to do. Once they had been involved as characters themselves rather than just an audience it was a mad rush to climax before the fighting started.

Racham knew it well. He dropped his posture even more and leaving off the deepest of his thrusts for the most part. He only did the hard hilting every so often, to rock Hepzibah's body and give the impression of a more brutal attack, even though her robust form could take it with ease. His main focus was the quick thrust, using only the middle portion of his erection. That kept his medial ring constantly sliding in and out of her, stretching her opening over and over, while flicking her clit repeatedly with the bulbous flesh.

The pleasure grew in Hepzibah, forcing out little barks and yelps that she tried to make sound whiny and distressed. She had no uncertainty, no fear. She was being ridden hard, by the stallion she loved, all his focus on pure pleasure. He was giving her the treatment to send her to climax. He was thinking of her, and was at the same moment making her the envy of others, and making others think of her as worthy of consideration.

The physical stimulation and mental promotion sent hot shocks through Hepzibah's body, making her walls flutter and her body twist and contort in a manner that could be called struggling and fighting. Even her orgasmic response had become something of a performance, while her cries of pleasure had to be masked behind whines and shrieks to complete the image she was presenting. She yanked and squeezed hard on Racham's organ, already dimly aware of shouts and thumps deflecting off a shield of magic. In the experience of her pleasure she had missed the start of the attack.

Racham had just managed to bring up his shield, lost as he was in pleasuring Hepzibah, and the swiftness of the first strike. The bubble of magic had just managed to stop the griffin talons from raking at his flesh. The griffin had been the first to streak off and the first to begin battering the shell, stabbing at it and raking with his rear claws. His passion for protection was surprising yet similarly heartening. It was the point of the whole exercise.

A few more thrusts and Racham threw his head back, releasing a dark and deep whinny designed to sound domineering and cruel, his forelegs kicking wildly like some kind of mindless beast. He rammed his thick erection right to the hilt inside of Hepzibah's buttery-smooth, orgasming slit and worked through his climax with the fading squeezes and tugging flutters of her own.

He unloaded thick, hot globs of stallion seed deep inside of her, pulling back with small 'stirring' motions of his pole, leaving a heavy, slowly-flowing trail of the essence. His mushroom-like cockhead pulled slowly out of Hepzibah, making her squeal in what seemed to be dismay, some semen leaking out following the removal.

The blows on the shield were heavy and upset, with several loud screeches from the griffin. Racham slowly brought down the level of his shield, allowing cracks and splits, including a shallow penetration by the griffin's eager claws. He flashed a very quick wink to Hepzibah before surging energy into his horn which created a bright flash of light as his shield overloaded itself and shattered.

Hepzibah couldn't hesitate. As it had been in times before she rolled from under Racham and ran past the stunned crowd, vanishing into an alley. She wasn't meant to look back. She wasn't supposed to see Racham getting hurt. She was only meant to heal his hurts, not watch them happen. But she couldn't help herself. The presence of the griffin had shaken her a little. She had to look.

Racham rolled under the punishing assault of hooves, twisting and pulling away from the hits. He was wholly unprepared for the punches, rocked under the quick strikes of the griffin. He was more unprepared for the claws that whispered over his flesh as he pulled back in sudden, real fear. The pain hit him a moment later, along with the sudden realization that blood was flowing from even the shallow rake.

Hepzibah turned and ran away to where she was to find Racham later, listening to the fading griffonic curses behind her. He was... angry. The griffin had been genuinely angry, like the ponies and Changelings and donkeys. He hadn't gotten aroused by her assault, he'd gotten upset and interested in punishing Racham for it.

When she arrived at the meeting spot Racham was already there, coughing and spluttering blood into the floor of the alley. He turned a slight smile on Hepzibah and put on a brave face. “Sorry, I'm a bit early. I was worried about that griffin...”

“Just...” Hepzibah replayed what few hits she had seen, watching Racham being hurt, his disguise not hiding the truth of it being him, at least not to her. “We need to go...” She placed some gauze against his various bleeding wounds and helped him along the route they had planned out.

“You seem quiet, dear...” Racham said, as he lay on the couch, clean, patched with gauze and recovering from his ordeal after her and Hepzibah had gotten home.

Hepzibah looked away from Tempus and over at Racham, suppressing a shiver as she regarded his battered and bandaged body. “Sorry. Just... just thinking about what happened. I mean, more than usual. It was different. There was a griffin there and he... well... he cared.”

Racham looked down at his side, to the taped-down gauze patch over his ribs. “Well yes, I noticed that very well. It's why I was a little early. I never practiced dodging the strikes of a griffin. This was more luck than talent, the only time you'll hear me say that.”

“You know what happened at the lounge. When that griffin made me... made me..” Hepzibah ground her teeth lightly.

“I know. You need not say it,” Racham said gently.

“I just... I came to think of griffins like that. It's not hard to. I know they're often drunk, they think men are better than women, they're backwards when it comes to technology... I figured he'd just watch you and enjoy you seemingly violating me. I thought he'd be the same beast like that other one...” Hepzibah confessed.

“I don't need to tell you not all folks are the same. You know not all ponies are like the ones that wouldn't give you a job. I hope so anyhow. I think I'm pretty different,” Racham said with a touch of a smile.

Hepzibah barked out a small laugh and shook her head. “You're a wonderful pony. I know all ponies aren't alike. I had some in my dorm hall. Zebras too. I always knew Changelings were varied in personality. I just had no need to think well of griffins. It was sort of comfortable to just assume they were brutish slag-heads.”

“It sort of helped to make your memory easier to take. The idea that griffins are just terrible, I mean. It mitigates the idea that you encountered bad luck,” Racham noted. “Everyone hates the idea they could have fortune that bad.”

“You don't need to tell me...” Hepzibah mumbled, tail mostly tucked and gaze staring at the floor. She crossed the living room and sat down on the floor by the couch, burying her face in Racham's neck and sighing softly. “I need some time to process this but now at least I can stop being wrong about a whole species.”

Racham kissed Hepzibah's head softly and nuzzled between her ears. “And I can learn right along with you. Something more that we can share to make both of us better.”

“A fourth incident, downtown again, evening again. Different colors for perpetrator and victim, but both vanished again,” Officer Bill Cannon said, pinning a marker to a map of the city.

“I can't say we're closing in but at least he's repeating himself,” Sergeant Buck Friday noted, looking over the map. “Was there any word from the scene that was very significant?”

“There was one small thing...” Officer Cannon said, flipping through a collection of notes. “The stallion took a beating but he was panicked. That was noted by several witnesses. He was especially active, very energetic in his dodging, especially the blows of the griffin. Despite his efforts the perpetrator was not raked that badly, and that may have prompted him to teleport away faster.”

“Previous reports indicated some proficiency with both magic and fighting. But that generally indicates pony-on-pony sport combat. Fighting against a griffin is something else altogether. This also reinforces a point that was consistent from all other reports and means this is definitely the same stallion in disguises. He didn't fight back, even in a dangerous situation,” Sergeant Friday said.

“Tells us one more thing we didn't know for sure. Nothing especially informative came from all the peeping and stalking reports, against Dogs or otherwise. The Captain was looking a little pained,” Officer Cannon noted.

“He got chewed out again because we haven't got anypony in custody. Now a new attack... we're all under the microscope, and Canterlot is considering sending in some officers since it's increasingly clear we have a serial rapist on our hooves,” Sergeant Friday said with a shake of his head.

“Not that it's wrong to bring them in but it's galling. We can't take care of crime in our own city,” Officer Cannon said with a snarl, slapping his desk with a hoof.

“A sufficiently motivated perpetrator of evil can hide in all the smallest cracks and crevices, and change his look to appear like any ordinary and normally functional citizen, walking among good ponies like he belonged. This is a motivated, dedicated criminal, all the more reason to pull in any resources we need to catch him,” Sergeant Friday said with a steady voice.

“Right as usual, Buck. I'll get on the pipe and see if the Captain wants us to get those Canterlot folks down here right now or if we wait,” Officer Cannon said, taking up the phone.

“Every little bit helps,” Sergeant Friday said with a sage nod, turning his attention to the case notes and dragging his tired eyes across the lines he had read a thousand times.

A month later, after Racham had healed from his injuries and they had prepared for another excursion, he and Hepzibah were out in Pasternville again. Racham had dyed himself a dark, chestnut brown with a blaze on his face, much like he had had the first time he had groped Hepzibah in public. Hepzibah had returned to a brindle coat, with a reddish set of stripes on a very light fawn main tone. She was wearing a white blouse and long black pleated skirt.

They chose an area near the center of downtown, near the middle of the day. Though that made it very open it was a period when most would not be around, being at jobs or out in the suburbs. The area they selected was a square 'general purpose' area between two buildings that could be used as a gathering spot or as a place for informal games needing an empty space.

The narrow space would be a challenge for both of them, but it also limited the number of folk that could arrive. In fact there were only a small collection of ponies loitering and talking, seeming very interested in themselves and ignoring most of what was going on. The streets on either side were very empty, prompting Hepzibah to walk up into the open space, head high and a smile on her muzzle.

The situation was more to Hepzibah's liking. The daylight wasn't doing her any favors, given how open air served to make her feel exposed, but the setting was enclosed in some sense. Even with the sky above her could almost feel the walls on either side, a comforting feeling. The crowd was small and there were few points that would allow more, minimizing Racham's danger. Managing risk made her feel much better.

She had come in through one of the entry points and slowed her pace somewhat, trying to look blithe and happy as the sun streamed down on her. She looked aside at the ponies in the square space and gave them a friendly nod and a smile. The stallions stopped talking and just stared, seeming unsure about what to think of the situation. Once she had gotten their attention Hepzibah turned towards the other entrance, waiting for Racham to come.

She didn't need to wait long, Racham swiftly entering the space and putting a lustful smile on his face. He didn't take any time to be coy and demure about the intent of his approach. He flashed his horn as a distraction and practically threw himself onto Hepzibah, who screamed loudly. She thrashed about and gave a loud yap as her back hit the ground.

Racham tore open the lower part of Hepzibah's blouse to expose her naked teats. He palpated them roughly with both hooves for a moment, his rear legs resting carefully on Hepzibah's own rear legs allegedly to keep her from moving too much. He pushed down solidly on them and then released them after pushing both together rather firmly.

“Get off of me!” Hepzibah pushed up at Racham but gave a frustrated and surprised bark as his forehooves quickly came up and pinned her arms down, pushing down with the imitation of force. “Stop it! Get o- mmph!” Hepzibah's objection was cut off by Racham suddenly forcing a hot, shallow kiss on her. Her kept her lips still under his hard press while his dropped erection thumped solidly against his belly.

“Don't tell me you hate it!” Racham growled out after breaking the kiss with a loud pop. He dropped his hips and slowly ground his raging erection against the front of her skirt. His magic flared just enough to pull the fabric up and let his hot, naked flesh slide along her exposed vulva.

Hepzibah arched her back and yelped loudly as her clit was lightly flicked by the repeated passing of Racham's veins and medial ring. It was always hard to turn a moan into a yelp and wail of distress, but the relative safety of the location made it all the harder. She threw extra passion and affectation into her struggling and adding far more screams and cries for help. The forceful thrashing and struggling allowed her to grind her wet slit against Racham's trembling and rigid erection.

The crowd was quicker on the draw than most of the others. They were watching with great surprise and nudging one another constantly as though they were unable to believe what they were seeing. They even took a step back when Racham suddenly plunged his fat head into Hepzibah's snatch and she let out a high-pitched wailing shriek.

Racham drove down to the very hilt, fitting his whole thick pole into Hepzibah with one mighty thrust, flexing the strong muscles of his ass and thighs to accomplish the act. His thighs and testes smacked down against Hepzibah's thighs and rear, drawing out another scream from Hepzibah and a triumphant whinny from Racham, who added a toss of his head to sweep his mane grandly.

Hepzibah turned her head aside, with her imitation tears in her eyes, to plead with the small group. Her blurry vision and occasional yaps and screams made her incapable of seeing what was happening. When she could finally see her eyes went wide. The stallions were... slapping their own organs on their bellies, and watching the scene with perverted lust.

The small collection of faces were all set in the most horrible leers. It wasn't merely a perverted sexual desire written on their features; there was something darker in their piercing eyes. While their mouth-licking tongues and flared nostrils spoke of lust there was a kind of hateful intensity in their gazes, scowling dropping the corners of their mouths and their ears pulls back on their heads. The view was singularly disturbing.

The slight comfort of the walls evaporated completely, leaving her as afraid as she ever had been doing such a thing in public. She couldn't lose herself in the character of the nameless, faceless Dog. That character couldn't deal with the audience that was participating, in spirit, in the act rather than ending the act. Her breath started to pant harder, and she struggled slightly more, pushing and shoving at Racham in sudden panic.

Racham was lost in his character, and lost in the pleasure of having sex with his beautiful girlfriend in the bright, warm sun. His hips and rear flexed and shifted harder, and his affected cruel smile grew wider as the ad-libbed fight seemed to get more powerful and varied. She was learning how to really make it look good. He pushed his chest down and nickered in her face, giving numerous deep thrusts, pulling out very little and hilting hard over and over, to bounce his testes off of her.

Hepzibah looked up at Racham with genuine fear in her eyes. She thought, if only briefly, he had gone all the way into being a villain, that he was ignoring her genuine terror. But that wasn't in Racham's character; it was more probable he thought she was still acting, and doing it well. She pushed her head up and sobbingly choked out, “Racham... they're not saving me...”

The mood cracked. They were never supposed to use names except in the most extreme conditions. His hips held in a trembling limbo as he blinked slowly and looked back to the gathering, the audience, the actors. They had a job to do, according to what he knew of the nation. There was an unspoken obligation to fulfill.

The stallions were still masturbating themselves. They weren't rushing to defend Hepzibah, running for the police or even yelling threats and promises of assault. They were savoring the activity. “Fuck her!” One of them suddenly shouted.

“Pound that bitch!” Another cried out.

“Teach that bitch who's in charge!” The first cried.

“Show her what a real cock feels like!” A third yelled.

“Put her in her place!”

“I call sloppy seconds!”

That shout didn't seem to have an origin. Racham ceased to care about the particulars of the shouts, considering the reality of them were the most horrible he could imagine. It wasn't what was supposed to happen. Ponies were supposed to be good creatures, moral and upright. These ponies were like the beasts and brutes that had written to him. They were vile. But they were worse. They were bigots.

Hidden hate was a shame rightfully masked in the heart and left to fester, locked away from the light of day. Faust's two eyes of night and day were not to be polluted with the filth of hate like that. It made no sense to despise any other species. Least of all Dogs. “Not Dogs...”

The brutish stallions had been looking in on the two as though watching some kind of zoo exhibit, or some variety of sideshow. It was Hepzibah's worst fear and deepest hate, realized. She wasn't a sexual creature, a being worthy of protection and pity. They were looking in at her as a filthy, disgusting thing. The sex wasn't sex, it was punishment, it was humiliation, all for the 'crime' of being a Dog.

Even though Racham had stopped, the masturbating bigots hadn't. They were enjoying what they believed to be a show of their ideals. They worked their organs hard and fast, and climaxed thoughtlessly towards the supposed vision of degradation. Racham's shield held strong to protect her from the ejaculate, but she still had to see it and hear it splatter against the magical barrier.

Hepzibah was crying as her false world collapsed, as all the uncertain fear hit in the middle of her perverse activity, killing any potential enjoyment and leaving her regretting it all. She barely heard Racham speak, but she certainly felt his organ slowly slide out of her, and remove the pressure on her body. She looked up and saw the hazy blob that was him moving away from her.

She cleared her eyes and slowly rolled onto her front and rose, to the sounds of pained screams, heavy impacts and the varied tones of magic being unleashed. When she had the chance to look she found Racham in the middle of an unbalanced fight, one of the stallions unconscious on the ground, while three others attacked him. He made generous use of his magical shield while also bucking and kicking out.

It was an easy decision of Hepzibah to make when she rushed in and angrily cracked one of the stallions on the back of the head, her momentum carrying her into another which slammed him into a wall. She hit him across the face with a hard hook and watched as a stiff series of kicks from Racham subdued the last one.

The two stood together for a moment, surveying the scene before them. “I think we were both wrong,” Racham said at last.

“How do you mean?” Hepzibah asked.

“You believed griffins were all of impure minds. I believed, on some level, ponies could at least imitate a pure mind in the open. I never wanted to feed an evil thought again... it seems I can't even draw out pure goodness without failing...” Racham said, his voice growing soft and sorrowful near the end.

One of Hepzibah's large hands slowly landed on his back and stroked him slowly. “We were fine hiding in the house. Proving your culture good was a nice thing, but it was never important enough to risk so much...”

“Perhaps I was just trying to prove it to myself. I lied and said it was for the edification of others but in the end it was always to show that the deviants who wrote me were a lie. And that... I wasn't really evil. I came from a good place, and was punished for the things I thought, the ugly things I thought. But I was giving myself a justification to think that it was the right thing to do. I was letting myself be a deviant...” Racham said.

“No!” Hepzibah suddenly grabbed Racham's face and turned it towards her. “You had some thoughts. Just fictional thoughts. You liked the idea. It was never, ever real. You were never really a villain, it was a role you played. I should have stopped you earlier because you don't need to punish yourself for loving the concept of rape. As long as you don't really dominate someone against their will, then your fantasies can't hurt you or anyone.”

Racham looked into Hepzibah's eyes, staring like he had the first day they met. “They hurt you. Every time I needed your healing touch to cobble my worthless hide back together my deviance hurt you.”

“I hurt myself,” Hepzibah said firmly. “I went along with it because I liked being saved, liked being seen as someone that might attract notice, be looked on with pity, protectiveness and... be looked on as provocative enough to be a sexual creature. It takes to to do this dance we had. I went along for selfish reasons.”

Racham laughed lightly and leaned his head in, Hepzibah's hands loosening to allow him to press against her neck. “What a pair... and what an end. Let us bring down the curtain and snuff the lights. This production is done and there will be no revival. We can just go home, have a meal and listen to Tempus serenade us.”

“What do we do about..?” Hepzibah asked, indicating the scattered pony bigots.

“Well now, we can't simply leave trash like this in the streets. It needs to be properly collected,” Racham said with a mirthful tone. “Let us just leave here first...”

Ten minutes later the collection of ponies began to stir and groan, opening their eyes just in time to see a small police contingent enter the area, batons and manacles out. The cadre of constables seemed to be lead by two suit-wearing ponies who strode up to the fallen. Sergeant Friday looked down disdainfully on the stallions. “I understand there was a fight in here. And it looks like you got the worst of it.”

The lone unicorn in the group rose unsteadily to his hooves and shook his head a bit. “It was nuts! This bitch and her pet pony were in here and we were just minding our business and suddenly they went crazy, like their kind does...”

“Cut the road apples, mister, I don't need to see that puckey coming from either end of you to know it stinks,” Sergeant Friday snapped, interrupting the blathering unicorn. “That's not the story we heard from the one that told us where to gather up your sorry carcasses. They said you hate Dogs, they said you said so, and that you weren't just minding your business when that stallion and Dog came through here. You were sayin' it out loud, all the junk your kind says when they think they're real big. Well mister you look pretty small from here. You thought you could act tough, gang up on a couple of ordinary citizens, thought they'd get scared, maybe run away, maybe beg you not to hurt them. The real big time for small-minded punks like you. But they got one over on you, didn't they? They stood up to you. You couldn't let that happen, so you and your friends thought you'd be real brave, beat 'em back by having twice their number. Well I guess you learned your lesson, and good!”

The unicorn looked stunned for a moment, unsure how to respond to the heavy flood of harsh words. “We thought he was like us. He was raping her! Don't you get it? He started raping her and we wanted to cheer him on! I mean he was doing it in broad daylight!”

“Yeah, and there was nothing we could do,” One of the others said.

“I wasn't about to stick my neck out for some slutty bitch,” another said.

“She got what she deserved,” yet another said, shrinking down under the sudden glares of the police.

Sergeant Friday held up a hoof. “Hold it. You're telling me that this stallion here was engaged in rape... but as soon as you started encouraging it he attacked you?”

“And then that crazy bi-” Another one of the stallions started to rub his head and respond when a synchronized icy glare from Sergeant Friday and Officer Cannon got him to stammer and clear his throat. “And then after he knocked him out with magic and kicks the Dog got up and attacked us. And I... that's about all I remember.”

Officer Cannon and Sergeant Friday looked to one another, Bill rapidly scribbling down notes. “The Dog got up and helped the stallion, did she? Even though you claim she was being raped?”

"Yes!" one of the witnesses said, "She started helping her rapist beat us up! Fastest case of Stockhorse Syndrome I've ever seen."

“It's true that he was attacking her! He ran in and he jumped her and he just got on her and she was screaming and...” The first stallion silenced himself as he slightly angled his body away from the police. “She was getting raped. I know what it looks like.”

“Do you?” Sergeant Friday motioned towards the stallions, the other officers coming up to cuff the four. “Let's head back to the station and talk about why you know what it looks like and why your story differs from the one who told us to find you here.”

As the four were led away Officer Cannon turned to his partner. “How do you like that? Bigots telling us that a rapist and his victim were so disgusted they both started fighting.”

“Strange thing to hear. Now I wonder about the call we got. He had all the details, and they didn't object to the accusation. They just told us there was a rape before the beating. And the Dog was participating. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?” Sergeant Friday asked.

“Makes me wonder a lot of things. Mostly I wonder if we're going to see any more situations like this, or if we're going to catch anypony for the crime and get a victim to testify. We figured there was one perpetrator... think we could get odds on there being one victim?” Officer Cannon asked back.

“Even money on that one, I'm almost sure. We'll keep going with those Canterlot agents and do what we can, but it might not help much. At least we can run in this lot for something,” Sergeant Friday said, turning to walk away, Officer Cannon following behind him.