“Grrk! Shit, that’s hot!”

Victor hastily wiped his hand of the boiling solution on his shirt and suckled the wound. An unnaturally large bubble from the sauce just erupted and splashed his stirring hand.

He immediately realized his mistake, but that instant was all it took for the wooden spoon to sink. He warily stared at the bubbling pot. Its vegetables floated serenely as bubbles popped around them yet maliciously holding captive his quintessential tool.

Damn sauce. If you weren't good food, I would have left you to burn.

“Are you alright in there?” The voice of a purple alicorn rang behind him. “If you’d like, I can help.”

“No, that’s alright,” Victor called out. “Just burnt myself a bit. It’s coming right now.” As he patted his face from the steam he could not help but smile. It was not often he had ponies over to join him for dinner. On top of that, the list included the latest Princess Twilight Sparkle. As uncomfortable as he was with the reason for her and her friends’ presence, he was more than happy to treat them.

He returned with a fresh spoon as fast as he could and fished the now scalding one out before throwing it into the sink. Thankfully, the curry had not burned and stuck to the pot. He eyed the second pot of the redder, more pungent batch of curry and grimaced.

Sweltering as it was, being surrounded by two boiling pots of sauce, he was lucky to busy himself with the preparations instead of tending to his guests. As a chef trainee, an opportunity to serve another was always a golden one.

Smiling at his work, Victor turned off the hot plates and carried the pots over to the dining room, the ponies no doubt craving dinner.

“Sorry it took so long, guys, but dinner’s ready.”

“Uuuuugh, finally!” Rainbow Dash howled irritatedly, raising her hooves up in the air. “You know how long you were in there for?” She leapt off her chair and stretched legs, her tail swishing behind her wildly.

“Rainbow, I know you’re hungry, but you’re still a guest in this household!” Rarity chastised beside her. “Besides, not all of us are as edgy as you, remember?”

“Ooooh, I can’t wait!” Pinkie was shaking with such anticipation her chair was vibrating along with her. “This is the first time I’ve tried real, authentic human food!” Victor snorted at the tautology, but did not speak while he laid the pots down.

“Well, remember ta thank Victor and Twilight here.” Applejack took her stetson and tried to fan herself. Just looking at Pinkie’s hyperactive antics made her tired and sweaty. “But, uh, ya never told us what ya were makin’ in the first place, sugarcube.”

Victor tried his best to ignore her stare while keeping a straight face. “Well, it’s just something I whipped up. I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just went with my original plan.”

“Uh, if you don’t mind me asking, Victor,” Fluttershy chirped as she rubbed her hooves together. “where’s Lyra gone?”

“Yeah, she’s totally missing out.” Rainbow added. She leaned in to get a whiff of the red sauce, only to pull back with teary eyes. “I mean, doesn’t she love this kind of thing?”

“Agreed, it’s odd for the host to miss out on her guest’s event.” Rarity pulled her mane back and stared at the door, as if expecting her burst in any moment.

Behind closed lips, Victor clenched his teeth. Why was she absent? “Don’t know. Probably gone to see Bon Bon. Why, is there something wrong?”

“Oh no, there’s nothing wrong, it’s just…” Fluttershy cowered in her seat. “I just thought she would have liked this, is all.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to leave leftovers for her.” Even as he said it, he could not hide his discomfort. His rule of thumb was that food was meant to be eaten fresh and seeing Lyra leave his food aside left him with a fire in his chest.

“You sure?” Twilight asked, resting her hooves on the table.

Victor promptly replaced his pout with a smirk, despite the princess keeping hers. “Yeah, I’m sure. Now…” He picked up a small ladle and poured a scoop of the yellow curry onto everypony’s respective bowls. “Let’s see if your hypothesis is true. Ice bags, ice cream, and the…coolant is in the fridge. There’s rice if it get’s too hot for you, but I doubt Rainbow Dash would want any.” He slid the bowls to each pony and looked at Rainbow, who gave an unamused look at him. “Relax, Rainbow. You’re here to eat and help Twilight with her little lab experiment, not burn your tongue off. Finish your plate, and then I’ll pour you the spicier one.”

Her pout changed into a sly grin. “You kidding? I’ve been ready for this all day!”

“Then dig in. Twilight, how’s the test supposed to go?”

She cleared her throat, a confident smile appearing on her face. “First, finish the first bowl, then we’ll take a ten minute break to see if we feel anything different, and then a repeat with the second curry.”

“If we’re done talking, then let’s get eating already.” Victor tried to keep his optimism by thinking how favorably his guests would react to his cooking and smiled even wider.

On cue, everypony cheered “Yeah!” and eagerly took their first spoonful.

Ten hours ago...

“Grrk! Shit, that’s hot!”

Victor briskly pulled his hand away from the pan and wrapped it in his apron. Trying to make food as simple as fried eggs was nothing to him, but making hot food in the summer heat was no picnic.

In hindsight, he chose a bad day to move to Ponyville. He had two weeks to adjust, but he still felt like he was being boiled alive every day. Nevertheless he kept a brave face and carried on, thinking of this as practice for his future career.

However, even during vacation, the life of a university student was not as easy as he hoped it was. Even with a steady allowance from his parents every month, he was here to gain work experience. Familiarizing himself with Earth’s first aliens was collateral.

With ponies, griffins, minotaurs, and other fantastical creatures that resided Equestria and beyond, he wanted to study them to better cater to their specific diets. It had taken years for the humans and Celestia and other ambassadors to reach a truce, and it was only three years ago travel to each other’s planets was made public.

Almost eight years had passed since First Contact. Victor had not paid much attention to it, not much of a science-fiction fan himself. It was only during high school, when a real-life pony speaker introduced himself, did he learn the magnitude of this discovery. The trade of resources, culture and most recently, technology, begun to establish a trusting bond between the worlds. However, the topic that got his attention was the fact most of the school cafeteria foods did not cater to the pony.

The biggest reason why Victor became a culinary arts student was to be able to create things no one has ever even thought of before. Sure, he could have been an artist, a sculptor, or even a fashion designer, but the aspect of experimenting with food and eating it afterwards caught his attention.

Paying for this, on top of rent, ingredients, and other miscellaneous expenses, however, quickly brought him down to earth.

Victor’s frown deepened as he now poured the eggs to a bacon-laden plate. Despite first impression, the ponies were quite accepting of carnivores and eating meat. Unfortunately, nopony in town sold meat nor ate it despite their equine physiology. He chuckled at the memory of telling the local princess, Twilight, how he once saw a horse eat a bird fallen from its nest.

Besides, they drink milk, eateggs, make soap from fat, and even take care of carnivorous animals. Must be some kind of pony-cultural thing.

Placing the pan back on the stovetop, he returned and made quick work of his breakfast. He sadly remembered his bacon was the last of the meat in his refrigerator and he needed to buy extra groceries to make up for it. Putting the plate in the sink for later, he opened the pantry and saw it crammed with various cans and other miscellanea.

That’s right, I’m not in my dorm. I need real food. Authentic food.

“Vic? Ya up already?”

He chuckled. He could practically hear her hooves dragging on the floor. “Aww, ya made me breakfast? Thanks.”

“Actually, I was just cleaning up. Breakfast was fifteen minutes ago.”

“I take back what I said,” Lyra grumbled and she wrapped her hooves around Victor’s legs. “You’re the worst houseguest ever! Don’t ya have any respect fer your host? I oughta buck ya out right now.”

He barked with laughter. The green unicorn was never an early riser unless it was a workday, and with the summer heat and her languid voice , she could have easily feigned a hangover. “Isn’t it usually the host that prepares for the guest? By the way, we’re out of meat.”

“Grr...curse you humans and your love for meat.” Lyra glanced the refrigerator and released her grip on him. “I ordered a week’s worth of bacon just for you and you go scarfing it down in just four days?” she asked with admonishment.

“Sorry, can’t help it. Human nature.” Victor got to his knees and gave a short one-armed hug before walking to the sink. “With all the physical labor we did centuries ago, we’re pretty much hardwired to love fatty foods. Either that, or I empty your fridge of every veggie I can eat to compensate.” Over the running faucet, another disgruntled groan from the unicorn.

“With all the meat you eat, I’m surprised you don’t have a gut,” she scoffed. It was clear the novelty of a human in her residence has worn off.

He smirked. “Amazing what fifteen minutes of exercise before eating can do for metabolism. Seriously though-” he looked directly at her face, smile gone “-sorry about all this. I can make it without meat for the rest of my stay and I’ll buy whatever extras I need myself.”

With his knees on the floor to properly position himself to the sink, Lyra clumsily balanced herself on her hind legs and gave him a light pat on the back. “Hey, come on. Didn’t you just say a host takes care of the guest? I can always order more bacon from the griffins. Instead of buying something for yourself, why don’t you save those bits and buy something for me instead?”

Victor nearly dropped the plate at her words. His scrubbing slowed down as her pats were getting dangerously close to the seat of his pants. “Are...you okay?”

“Just dandy,” she slurred and her patting turned into rubbing. “Hey, I got an idea...if you really want some meat, I know a certain unicorn that you could eat, ya know…?”

The desire to burst laughing at her terrible flirting was held back by the fact she was flirting. It was almost frightening how eager she initially wanted Victor to stay at her place during his vacation. In the end she assured him that she just wanted to know more about humans as well as be the first in Ponyville to befriend one, but he still remembered her manic enthusiasm.

She was now leaning dangerously close to Victor’s face, smiling hungrily. “You can’t be out of meat yet. I’m sure you’ve got something...extra to spare.Think you can share? In return, I’m sure I’ve got some meat of my own to share.”

It took all the mental strength he could muster to not scarper. Luckily, he learned from his first day here which of her buttons to push. Shivering, he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Lyra, you realize what you’re saying?”

Her half-lidded eyes drew closer to his own. “Yeah. I want you to take me to my room and-”

“Are you implying that you’re fat?”

POW!

“Say what?! I’m pudgy, not fat! Call me that one more time, I dare you! I double-dare you-”

“No Lyra, wait!” Victor raised one hand in surrender while another nursed his reddening cheek. The ponies, despite their anthropomorphic tendencies, were not built for slapping faces. The sting quickly turned numb. “I didn’t mean that, honest!”

Slowly, she got on four hooves again. She opened her mouth, but nothing but an “Ah.” of realization. She looked between her legs and gasped again. “Oh...sorry, Victor. I just-it’s this darned heat.” She wiped her forehead as her cheek turned scarlet. “It’s kinda driving me up the wall, you know?”

Still nursing his cheek, Victor shook his fist with annoyance. “What does the summer heat have anything to do with you flirting?” Victor asked exasperatedly.

Lyra fidgeted with her mane and looked at the floor. “It’s…not the temperature, Vic.” She was looking anywhere but his face and her cheeks were turning darker by the minute. “It’s...oh, how do you humans call it...oh yeah! That time of the month!”

Victor nearly tripped and caught himself on the sink. “WHAT?!”

“Or in this case, that time every year or so!” she chirped, abashed as ever. “Like most animals, we have estrous cycles and every year or so we, er, “go into heat”, if you know what I mean.”

He scowled at the euphemism. He was never an animal person, ever since he was assaulted by his uncle’s dog when he was in kindergarten. “No. Sorry, but I really don’t get what you’re saying.”

“You don’t get what-grrh!” The unicorn actually slammed her hoof to her face, narrowly missing her horn. “Alright, I’ll be blunt: I need a good lay. Like, right now.”

Victor blinked several times before responding. Eventually, his mind clicked into place and a tide of thoughts filled his imagination. “Oh...and you want...me?”

“Yes! I mean-no! I mean-” she raised a hoof to keep Victor quiet while she gathered her rational mind. Normally, he would be chuckling at her exasperation, but he was just as freaked out as she was. Two weeks with her was enough to get a good grasp on her personality, but it was no where enough time for them to even think about sex.

After a few calming breaths, Lyra stared at him. “Look, sorry for freaking you out, man. You’re going out today, right?”

“Uh...yeah?”

“Good. Just...forget about this, alright?” Lyra sighed and looked back at her bedroom. “Luckily, Bon Bon and I are prepared for this, but for some other mares...just don’t let any of them smooth-talk you into coming into their houses, alright?”

Victor felt his skin crawl. “What, you kidding?” He chuckled, but his nervousness was clear. “Why on Earth-er, Equestria would mares seduce some random man on the street?” When humans first discovered and arrived on Equestria, the first thing anthropologists, or in this case, equinologists, learned was how wary ponies were of new species, bordering xenophobia. Relations with other species, like the griffins and minotaurs, was relatively smoother to form. “Are mares that desperate in heat?”

“Depends on the mare,” she muttered as she wiped the sweat off her head. “Hopefully, this darned heat keeps their mind off of their...other one.” She trotted over to the fridge and skimmed for whatever she could.

Victor nodded weakly and went back to the sink to finish the dishes. As disturbed as he was with the idea of mares hounding a male, Lyra’s mood was unsettling. She was normally good-natured, so seeing her in such a depressed state left him a sick feeling.

Mares in heat, burning weather...geez, everypony has a lot on their plates this summer.

With the dishes done, he ran to his room to fetch his bag, filled with his laptop and library books. Lyra had been generous enough to lend him her library card to occasionally borrow cookbooks with recipes to try out. As simple as copying down recipes and jotting notes was to a university student, he was on vacation and leisurely reading through books was preferable over a numb hand.

He returned to the kitchen and was about to head out when he saw Lyra again. His eyes skimmed across her frown to her plate. Toasted bagels with cream cheese.

“How much more bland can you get?”

Lyra’s cheeks burned as she grimaced at him. Explaining her predicament and looking down her legs right in front of him was beyond humiliating in retrospect. “You don’t get much an appetite when you wake up. I’ll be sure to cook up something tastier for lunch.”

The two of them locked eyes for several tense seconds. The awkwardness had not left them since he went to get his bag. They could feel the other had something to say and was waiting for someone to break the silence.

“Well? You leaving or what?” Lyra started, trying her best not to look at his eyes.

Victor blinked before frowning. It was apparent she was on edge after revealing and explaining her heat. On top of that was her freudian slip. When he heard it, the first thing he wanted to do was step back in shock. Sex was the last thing he had in mind, with the summer heat rolling around, and how could he possess the gall to take the mare to bed?

I want to know more about heat, but Lyra would hate me even more. I could probably find out more about it at the library, but isn’t there something, anything I can do to cheer her up? Take her mind off her heat, at least?

Almost immediately, he snapped his fingers. He knew what he wanted to say, but it was not until his nails dug into his palm did he muster enough courage.

“If it’s not too inconvenient,” he begun, his cheeks warming up. “let me make dinner. For the both of us.” He finished by shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, as if to say “Pretty please?”

It was Lyra’s turn to react. Her eyes widened and the blue aura holding her bagel popped out of existence.

“Crap!” She leaped from her seat to grab it in her mouth, but it was over. The bagel had, predictably, fell on the cream cheese-side. Grumbling incoherently, she levitated it and took a knife to see if she could not scrape away the contaminated cheese.

But Victor was not deterred. “Well?”

After removing most of the cheese, she sighed and faced him. She was not going to brush him off, no matter how much she refused to look at his brown eyes. “Well, alright. But what are you gonna be making? Something vegetarian, obviously?” Being reminded of all that bacon disappearing in just a few days still slightly irked her.

He shrugged and gave a hopeful smile. “Dunno. Something human.”

That cheered her up considerably. Her eyes widened again, this time accompanied by an amused smirk. “Ooh, human food. Haven’t had one of those since-oh yeah!” She sped over to the pantry and pulled out a plastic bag filled with what looked like tiny green crystals. She levitated it over to him. “It took a few days, but here’s the first batch. I had some, but I was thinking you could try it too, seeing as you know what the original’s like.”

He held the bag up to his eyes. “Lyra, are these-”

“Prototypes of that popping rock candy you gave me. I shared them with Bon Bon and she wanted to try making them herself.” She smiled even bigger. “She wanted me to thank you for bringing them to her first. This could be the next big thing for her!”

He mirrored her jubilant smile. Lyra and Bon Bon were the closest of friends he had the pleasure of knowing. If anypony could help get her out of her funk, it was her. “Thanks a bunch.” He nodded and walked to the door.

“You got enough bits for lunch, yeah?.” As soon as she said it, her face fell. “If you’re gonna make dinner, you’re gonna need some extra bits for ingredients, no?” She got off her chair and returned to the pantry.

He scoffed. “Relax, mom. I’ve been saving up my allowances and I’ve more than enough.”

“You sure?”

He stepped back in surprise at the sudden change. Her face frowning in concern was a force to be reckoned with, with those puppy-dog eyes and drooping ears.

He steeled himself before answering. “Yeah. Don’t fret.” He shook his backpack so she could hear the jangling of bits in a spare pocket. The coins added to the already considerable weight of the bag, but he did not want to worry her any further. “I’ll be back around...4 or 5 o’clock? That should leave me enough time to make whatever dinner for the both of us.” He finished with the brightest smile he could manage, thankfully returned by Lyra.

“Perfect. Can’t wait!” Without another word, she crammed the rest of breakfast in her cheeks and levitated her plate and silverware over to the sinks. “Hee you hoon!” Still chewing, she trotted to the sink and turned on the faucet.

“See you soon!” After a brief wave, he put on his shoes and closed the door behind him.

Now, with the house empty, she swallowed her bagel and turned her focus on the dishes.

I wonder what he’s got cooking up in that head of his for dinner? I hope it’s something cold, this heat’s going to burn me up in the afternoon!

Suddenly, she gasped at the familiar feeling returning. Her hind legs clenched together, desperately trying to keep her privates from leaving a trail down her coat. She could not hold back a moan as she shuffled her legs, rubbing her vulva against itself.

Great, I just HAD to remind myself...Victor, hurry back, okay?

As if on cue, the burning in her crotch intensified and her grip on the dishes disappeared. They went ignored, however, as Lyra’s legs gave out and she panted as the sensation seemed to amplify the summer heat as well. Ignoring the urges as best as she could, she got back on her legs and limped her way to her room.

Darn it all…I’m gonna be late for work...

Author's Note

Thanks to my editor for this chapter and hopefully throughout this whole story, Lord_Ike.

I've fixed the chapter with him and I hope you look forward to the next chapter. (sorry for the short a/n.)