Author's Note

Elements of this story, including the K-Colt radio station and the Vinyl Scratch radio show, are drawn from Corey W Williams' story "The Vinyl Scratch Tapes". This story not intended as a continuation of, contradiction to, alternate timeline for, or to have any other direct relationship with TVST. If you would like to read an unassociated, non-clop story about the ongoing adventures of Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, their radio show, and their budding will-they-won't-they relationship, "The Vinyl Scratch Tapes" is highly recommended.

Chapter 1

“Vinyl, you’re not listening,” had long lost any efficacy as a spoken phrase. Sure, Octavia thought it constantly. She thought it now as she slouched in her chair, resting her head in her hoof and staring irately away from her animated co-host. But she didn’t bother to say it anymore. It was more like a routine state of mind for Octavia – a constant of the daily grind at the K-Colt radio station, like brushing her mane in the morning, or knocking back a cup of horrible studio coffee on her way in the door. The grey mare gently swiveled her chair, registering the unicorn’s fanatical ranting as only a formless white noise.

‘Heh, “White Noise”,’ she suddenly chuckled at her own pun. ‘That should be her name. Because she’s white, and she has notes as a cutie mark. And she likes dubstep.’ Distantly, Octavia’s practiced peripheral awareness of all things Vinyl noted that the formless sound was growing in amplitude. Expecting that the unicorn would soon be concluding her insane rant, Octavia turned her attention from her razor-sharp wit back to the pony standing on her hind legs on the recording console.

“…shut me down. I’d like to see them try to shut me down. My music will live on in the flames of my glorious demise, and I will arise stronger than they can possibly imagine. That is the one true truth of rock and roll: we will never die!”

“Vinyl,” Octavia groaned, waving towards the lit telephone receiver on the recording console. “He just asked you how you highlight your hair.”

“Oh.” Vinyl paused, her stare most likely blank behind her heavily tinted sunglasses. Then she smiled, answering, “Fancy Brand hair dye, blue #65.”

“Oh, uh… thanks,” a muffled voice said through the speaker, almost immediately followed by a swift click and a dial tone. Vinyl climbed down from her expensive and allegedly not-at-all-fragile recording equipment.

Octavia slumped her head back against her hoof. “Oof,” she groaned, “why does everything always have to devolve into anarchy with you?”

“Hey, I can’t help it. It’s just my free, indomitable nature shining through. I take every chance to stick it to The Mare I can get.” She smirked and leaned into the microphone, “As a side note, I would totally stick it to The Mare, if you know what I mean. That plot, am I right listeners?”

“Vinyl!” Octavia shot up in her chair, her eyes going wide. “Y-you can’t just say that kind of thing about the princess!”

“What?” Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying our benevolent ruler isn’t infinitely beautiful and desirable?”

“Well n-no, I…”

“So you’re saying she’s a withered old hag.”

“No! No, of course I’m not saying that.” Octavia moved very close to the microphone and spoke panicked clarity. “Those words never left my mouth, or my mind. I-I mean, they were never in my mind at all, ever, nor would they ever be. Heh heh…”

“So which is it, Tavi? Do you think our dear Princess Celestia is attractive or not?”

“I, well, uh…” Octavia glanced about frantically. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Vinyl grin wider. Finally, her eyes landed on the recording booth window, and saw her director motioning to her. “Oh, look, our guest for the day is here. Why don’t we bring her in?”

“Oh, fine,” Vinyl conceded. “I’ll get you to say it later.”

“You…”

“Bring in the subject!” Vinyl called past the recording studio walls. A moment later, the doors opened, and a technician directed a yellow-coated earth mare into the room. The guest stood between her hosts and smiled gently.

“Our guest today is a local here in Ponyville,” Vinyl announced to the microphone. “Her given name is Golden Harvest, but all of you know her as everyone’s favorite carrot farmer, Carrot Top.”

“Hello, Vinyl,” Carrot Top chimed brightly. “Hello, Octavia. Thank you both so much for having me on the show.”

“Our pleasure, Miss Harvest.” Octavia smiled.

“Oh, please, call me Carrot Top.”

“Alright,” Vinyl continued, “and Carrot Top here is going to...” she quickly scanned her cue card. “…tell us about her top ten uses for carrots. …I’m shocked,” she deadpanned.

“Oh yes,” Carrot Top informed her happily, “You can use carrots in all kinds of recipes. Why, there are soups and salads and sandwiches. And they go especially well in baked goods. Which brings me to my first three uses – carrot cake with carrot icing and carrot jam filling.”

Over the next fifteen minutes, Carrot Top proceeded to concoct her orange delicacy. It quickly dawned on her that, as a radio show, her audience was not actually able to observer her cooking, but she soldiered on, doing her best to narrate as she went. By the time she was finished, she was pulling a baked cake out of the oven cart she had brought with her.

“Well, we probably should have had another cake ready so we wouldn’t have had to wait for that one to actually bake,” Vinyl observed. “Not that it really matters, since our listeners can’t see the cake anyway.”

“Heh, right,” Carrot rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m sort of new to this radio thing. Um…” She eyed the bowl of carefully whipped carrot icing for a moment, before dumping it haphazardly onto the cake with another sheepish grin. “I can just… spread this later.”

“Well, I think this cake looks delicious,” Octavia tried to encourage her guest while shooting Vinyl an icy glare.

“Thank you, Octavia. But now I want to go on to my next recipe. This one is a favorite of one of my good friends…” She leaned in conspiratorially towards the microphone. “…carrot muffins.” A loud “thud” shook the rather solid roof of the studio, causing Vinyl and Octavia to jump and stare upwards in confusion. Carrot Top seemed to pay it no mind, instead reclaiming her mixing bowl and depositing her ingredients into it. Soon, she had a well-mixed batter ready, and poured it into a half dozen baking cups. She placed the tray in the oven.

“Now we just have to wait ten minutes and-” Vinyl raised her hoof and pressed a button on her equipment. The console emitted a solid “click”, and the red transmitting indicator winked off, informing the trio that they were no longer on the air.

“Okay, Carrot?” Vinyl said, eliciting another concerned stare from Octavia. “I’m gonna level with you. This stuff looks and smells and probably tastes awesome. But actually watching you cook it? I’m so bored, I literally cannot feel my ears.”

“Oh, um…” Carrot Top stammered. “Well, I…”

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” Vinyl continued, leaning forward onto the recording console and lifting a large bottle of clear liquid out from underneath it, putting it down with a meaningful thud. Both Octavia’s and Carrot’s eyes bulged. “I’m thinkin’ you and me and this bottle of vodka go find a nice private room,” she lifted her sunglasses to reveal her half-lidded eyes, “and we see how many uses for a carrot I can come up with.”

“VINYL!” Octavia nearly shrieked. “You cannot just…”

“Hmm, well, that sounds a lot more interesting than anything else I had planned for this,” Carrot Top nodded.

“I… wha…” Octavia stammered.

Carrot Top leaned down and grabbed a carrot between her teeth. She shot Vinyl a smoldering come-hither look before turning towards the door with an exaggerated swish of her tail. She swayed her hips as she walked slowly towards the exit. Vinyl nearly pranced after her, levitating the sizable bottle of booze with her.

“Hey Tavi, get the oven when it’s done, would ya?” she called back over her shoulder. “And don’t eat all the muffins. I’m gonna need something to wash this down with. Thanks, hun.” With that, the studio door closed behind her, leaving Octavia standing alone.

The grey pony couldn’t find the mental capacity to move. Her brain simply churned in place, trying with consistent futility to make sense of seeing what she knew to be impossible actually happen. After an eternity of impenetrable daze, she finally found the presence of mind to let her jaw drop. Sound soon followed.

“WHAT?!” she screamed so loudly that, on the other side of the recording booth window, her manager and the station’s technicians recoiled, some diving for cover out of instinctive fear. “What was… did… is that even…” she struggled to form sentences to express her disbelief, but none in existence were actually sufficient.

“What the fuck just happened?” she decided was close enough. “How did that actually work? Why would that work? It takes a base, demented kind of nymphomaniac to suggest something like that in the first place, but who the fuck would actually agree to it?! My gods, that shouldn’t even…” Her increasingly indignant rant was derailed as she noticed her director waving towards her, motioning for her to get on with the show. Without a second’s hesitation, she let her simmering rage flow through her eyes straight into him. The poor pony blanched, and slowly sunk out of sight beneath the window frame.

Octavia finally regained enough composure to realize that the director was right. Her listeners had been in silence for the last five minutes, and somepony had to attend to them. Somepony who wasn’t too busy burying a carrot in her new best friend’s rabbit hole. Octavia took a deep breath, willing calmness into her mind. Then she took several more. And then a lot more. Finally, she exhaled one last time, and pressed the button to resume broadcasting.

“Sorry about that, folks,” she announced sweetly. “We ran into a few technical difficulties. While we were off the air, Vinyl and Carrot Top had some… pressing matters to attend to. They’ll probably be out for a while, so I’ll just move right along with the playlist here and try to… Actually, on second thought, screw that. We’ll be listening to my kind of music now, seeing as I’m apparently the only one who can be bothered to run this worthless station.” Octavia reached under her own side of the broadcasting console and retrieved a box of carefully stored records. She flipped through them until she retrieved one, and placed it on the turn table. Dropping the needle onto the groove, she returned to the microphone. “So, I hope you all enjoy Concerto No. 17 in G major, by Mozart. …They can’t all be puns, folks.”

Octavia pressed another button, and the recording light went out. The sounds of strings and woodwinds filled the room and flew across the airwaves across the reaches of greater Equestria. The mare left her place at her microphone, beginning to tidy the odds and ends that lay around the console. The clicking countdown of the oven timer caught her ear, reminding her that the precious muffins were still baking, just about done. Diligently, Octavia walked to the oven and turned off the heat. She took the oven mitt from atop the oven between her teeth. She then opened the door, grabbed the scalding hot tray in her mitted teeth, and hurled it unceremoniously into the garbage.

*--------------------------*

Octavia fumed as she made her way back to her town house. She had spent the rest of the show covering for her AWOL co-host and their special guest. The considerable amount of her personal collection she’d been able to play had done little to improve her mood, as had the fairly steady stream of callers informing her that her selection was “not bad for old stuff.” She’d taken as much of it as she could stand, and then politely but oh-so-firmly excused herself to get ready for her concert in Canterlot that evening.

‘Honestly,’ she seethed internally as she walked. ‘of all the stunts she’s pulled, this has to be the most… How does she get away with these things? Walking out in the middle of work, doing such vulgar things in a public space, in her bloody work place! Not to mention boozing on the job. For pony’s sakes, where did she even get that bottle?!’ Octavia had been working with Vinyl for several months, and she’d never caught the slightest hint of such contraband.

‘Does she always have that? Maybe she just brings it in for the cheap floozies who’ll go for getting their field ploughed in a janitor’s closet.’ Her anger flared brighter at the thought. ‘I can’t believe this. And did she ever even offer me a drink? No! That’s fine, not like I like vodka or anything. I… wait, what? No!’ She shook this latest train of thought away as hard as she could. ‘No no, no amount of alcohol is worth following that mare into any kind of bed, table, or floor.’

Octavia’s thoughts continued as she rounded the final corner to her house. ‘I’ll admit that Vinyl’s not as bad as I thought when I met her. But I’d still have to be out of my mind to do anything like that with her. Especially with that bottle of cheap donkey piss in hoof. The carrot whore got what she deserved.’

With a final, vindictive sneer, she shoved her way into her house and slammed the door behind her. It was a respectably nice abode. Nothing like the home she’d left behind in Canterlot, of course, but for a small town like Ponyville, it wasn’t such a far cry. It was well furnished, tastefully painted, and modestly decorated. A refined house for a refined pony to refinedly hurl her collar onto the floor and collapse heavily onto her refined couch with a final grunt of refined frustration.

She lay slouched on the couch for a few minutes, surrounded by silence and her own thoughts. Her anger gradually lost form and direction, but the tension still strained the back of her mind like an insect, making it hard for her to concentrate on anything. She glanced at the clock on the wall. If she left for Canterlot now, she’d arrive hours before her concert. And as much as she missed the city and all of her favorite places, she didn’t relish the thought of having to lug her bass around while she went sightseeing.

She rolled her head back, her frustration still muddling her thoughts. She knew that playing her show would help distract her, maybe even help her get back to normal by tomorrow. But that was hours away, and right now even dragging herself upstairs to practice on her own seemed like an unfulfilling endeavor. Fortunately, she had other, perfectly healthy ways of relieving stress like this.

Finally, she shifted in her seat, letting her body go limp, finding her center of comfort. She raised a hoof and pressed it against the center of her chest before slowly dragging it down across her midriff. She repeated the motion several times, gently stroking her coat, stimulating the skin underneath. She breathed deeply as the calming strokes spread warmth through her chest. As she brought the hoof down to rest against her inner thigh, she let her eyes drift half shut, and her imagination commandeered her senses. She slowly traced across her thigh and up to her crotch and began teasing herself, drawing circles around her entrance with the edge of her hoof.

Her mind cycled through a range of erotic scenarios, seeking something desirable for her mood. A pale-coated unicorn stallion gently nibbled at her neck. A younger earth mare admired the curve of her flanks, tracing them with a nervous hoof. The two sisters at the Ponyville spa giggled to each other as they gently applied far too much rubbing oil. She sighed gently as her hoof touched the edge of her vagina’s lips, probing only slightly inside. Then she let the hoof fall to her side and her eyes opened in annoyance. None of her fantasies were able to hold her interest right now. Not one of the dozen mental images of stallions or mares or both was rubbing her the right way to rub herself the right way. She groaned in frustration as she pushed her head backwards against the couch cushion.

“Stupid Vinyl,” she muttered. “I wouldn’t even be in this situation if it wasn’t for her. Her and that tart, rutting in a closet like school fillies. …Stupid Vinyl…” The thought came unbidden into her mind, but once there, it refused to leave. The face of her coworker stuck in her mind, smiling at her with half-lidded eyes. Octavia contemplated it for a moment, feeling at once repulsed, confused, and inexplicably drawn to the idea. Somehow, she couldn’t free her mind of the thought of the annoying unicorn’s eyes and mane and lips and snout. Finally, with a self-conscious glance around, she relaxed her body and brought her hoof back to her crotch. Her eyelids once again drifted closed as she began to stimulate her nethers, and in her mind’s eye, she saw a spiky blue mane and a white, spiraling horn shifting between her legs. Octavia’s hoof simulated the imaginary mare’s rough tongue licking around her swollen lips.

“Unh…” Octavia sighed quietly as Vinyl’s tongue circled towards the center, tracing up and down the length of her slit. It alternated speed, sometimes darting across her entrance, other times licking up its length in a slow, agonizing slurp. “Oh… Oh Vinyl…” Octavia barely whispered, but it was enough to spur the unicorn onwards, and her tongue finally pressed through Octavia’s lips and began to stroke against the walls inside.

Octavia was panting slightly now. She was vaguely aware of her juices beginning to flow. She pressed her back against the couch and let the other mare work on her now-aching hole. She raised her free hoof and held it on top of Vinyl’s head, silently begging her to go deeper. Her whole body tingled as she watched that blue mane bob as Vinyl worked. The DJ’s tongue traveled deeper into her, but moved no faster or more frantically than when it had started. It deliberately slid along her walls, lighting a fire wherever it touched. Octavia’s eyes shut as her body convulsed, the mounting, burning pleasure in her lower body becoming the center of her entire world.

“Mmm!” she moaned loudly as her body spasmed under the tongue’s lashings. “Uh! Uh… oh Vinyl…” As she struggled to form words through the consuming euphoria sending shockwaves from her loins, she pressed her hoof harder against her partner’s head. “Ah!”

Her imaginary eyes flew open, and Vinyl was inches from her face. All Octavia could see was her beautiful white coat, her well-sculpted horn, her deliciously soft lips, those all-consuming pools of her crimson eyes, staring back into hers, threatening to drown her in an ocean of color and warmth and… and…

The distance between their lips vanished, and Octavia’s body convulsed like she’d grabbed a live wire. Her back arched off of the couch, trying to force her body closer to the other mare’s – against it, into it, anything to increase the contact between them. Octavia’s hoof wrapped around Vinyl’s back, desperately drawing her closer as their kiss deepened. The unicorn’s tongue snaked feverishly around her mouth while her lips sucked against Octavia’s with awesome force.

Vinyl’s hoof quickly took over what her tongue had left unfinished, wasting no time in sliding into Octavia’s soaked pussy and rubbing firmly against her walls. Octavia’s hoof moved with Vinyl’s, guiding it deeper and faster and harder. Her hips bucked madly against the intertwined appendages, desperate to draw as much pleasure from their thrusting as possible. She felt the end approaching, and moaned loudly into Vinyl’s mouth.

Finally breaking their kiss, Octavia threw her head back and panted loudly, driving herself against the stimulating hooves.

“Vinyl, I... oh yes… Vinyl…” she struggled to form words, but ultimately surrendered in favor of moaning loudly as her euphoria reached the bursting point. The unicorn quickened her movements, pushing her closer. With a few final thrusts, Octavia tumbled over the edge. Her hips spasmed uncontrollably, and her back arched so hard that she thought it would break. She couldn’t breathe or make a noise. The air simply caught in her lungs, held in place by the waves of pleasure that washed over her whole being.

After what seemed like an eternity, the flare of pleasure began to fade into a gentle glow. Her body went limp in the couch’s embrace. She remembered how to breathe, and gulped down air hungrily. The blurred colors of her mind focused, and then faded into the darkness of the inside of her eyelids. Slowly, Octavia opened her eyes to find herself alone in her townhouse, still hoof-deep in her own tunnel. She slowly extracted her hoof, surprised by how wet the sound that accompanied its exit was. She held it aloft in front of her, coated by the evidence of her pleasure. She stared at it for a while as she slowly caught her breath.

“Well…” she muttered to herself, “that… happened.” Surfacing on the other side of its endorphin rush, her mind began to race. Important questions began to present themselves. Questions like, “What did I do? Why did I do it? Why would anyone do that, ever?” She forced herself to avoid panicking as she stood up, and made her way on three legs towards the bathroom to clean off the fourth.

“Okay,” she began rationalizing aloud, “okay, let’s not let our imagination run away with us, here.” She reached the sink and dipped her hoof into the streaming water. “I… I was just stressed. And bored. The idle mind does strange things, doesn’t it?”

Vinyl’s eyes drifted shut, her ears drooped, and her lips parted only slightly as she leaned in…

Octavia brought her hooves together and began scrubbing the unclean limb with an almost frantic drive.

“I-it’s because of those two. Vinyl and that… that mare. Screwing around like that. I’ve just been… thinking about it all day. It was stuck in my head. Not that... I mean, not that I’d actually want her to take me into some shed and…”

Her body pressed against Vinyl’s, rolling with the pleasure of just touching her body, feeling the other mare’s heat mix with her own as the unicorn’s forearm circled behind her head, holding their mouths together as her tongue…

Octavia spun around, suddenly feeling herself covered in sweat and less pleasant fluids. She leapt towards the bath tub, practically tearing the faucet handles from the wall as she turned the shower onto full blast. She stepped inside without even checking the temperature.

“She’s the one who’s always teasing me! Always calling me ‘hun’ or ‘sweetie’, always trying to make out with me. And then she leaves me to think about her and some slut rutting all day… I mean I wasn’t thinking about it! Why the hell would I think about it?! I…

Octavia could only moan into Vinyl’s mouth as her partner’s hoof traveled up her, into her, teasing her, playing her, fucking her…

“I had a long day and I indulged a thought. So fucking sue me!” she shouted. Gradually, the soothing cascade of hot water calmed Octavia down from her near-hyperventilation. She took a few deep breaths and stared at the shower wall.

“Okay, let’s be rational about this. So I masturbated to my friend. That’s hardly unprecedented. And it disturbed me so much that I’m now talking to myself, trying to explain it. That’s… a bit less normal, but still not unheard of. All of this is fine.”

The memory of her orgasm returned to her. Her chest tightening, her stomach going numb, her legs kicking and flailing without her command. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cum like that on her own.

“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like I was… like I’m…”

It wasn’t the hooves that had pushed her so high. It wasn’t the tongue against her slit or tickling her clitoris. It wasn’t any of that that had shocked her, burned her, overwhelmed her until she could only ride the feeling and pray that she’d come out the other side in one piece.

She sat in the shower for what seemed like hours, letting the water soak into her coat, hoping it would wash away her confusion as well as her sweat. Finally, she shook herself back into reality and turned off the shower. She stepped out and began to dry herself.

“On second thought, I am going to the city, baggage be damned. I’ve been cooped up in this little town too long, dealing with Vinyl and all her insanities. It’s no wonder I finally snapped a little bit. My goodness, I’m practically developing Stockholm syndrome here.” She chuckled to herself as she finished toweling off and went to retrieve her bass and a new bow tie.

“Yes, I think some time in the city sounds like a splendid idea.”

*--------------------------*

It was an awful idea. Any sense of relaxation or excitement she’d found in returning home had quickly waned as she’d walked through the city streets. Around every corner, in every queue, at every café and restaurant and crosswalk, Octavia had thought she’d seen Vinyl. She saw the grinning unicorn in another white-coated mare, from a flashy pair of spectacles on display, in an obviously empty space. She’d jumped in place too many times to count at the sound of a laugh or an almost familiar cheer. She’d come within bass-dropping distance of a dance club, music full-blast in the middle of the afternoon, and had actually had to turn around.

She’d finally become so frazzled that she stopped in at one of her favorite watering holes to calm her nerves before her show. And as she’d sat in a den of luxury and class, surrounded by well-dressed patrons and a well-mannered bartender, the sounds of smooth jazz in her ears and a glass of fine brandy in her hoof, all she’d found herself thinking about was what it would be like to share the moment with one loud, irritating, uncouth disc jockey.

By the time she made it to her show, she was practically at her wits’ end. She still played, of course, and killed at that. Grace and poise under pressure was a talent of hers. But the entire evening had felt off, somehow. In a theater with her name written in bold on the billboard, she felt out of place, like she wasn’t where she was meant to be, or how she was meant to be, or…

Octavia sighed and leaned back against the seat of the carriage that slowly carried her back to Ponyville. She’d retraced and recollected the last eight hours again and again, and so far it had earned her nothing but a novel combination of a headache and a churning stomach.

“Okay, look,” she finally tried to reason with herself. “It was just a long day. Vinyl crossed a line, I got angry, and it’s been bothering me ever since. Yes, that’s it!” She sat up, waving her hooves as if banishing the entire matter from her mind. “But I don’t care about that anymore. I’m just going to let it go, and tomorrow I’ll go back to work. Vinyl will be there, and she’ll do something, and I’ll get annoyed with her, and I’ll feel ridiculous for ever thinking this way.” She was grinning now, still miming her indifference with her forelegs. “We’ll argue, she’ll blow me off. Everything will go back to normal, and I won’t spend another second feeling…”

She deflated mid-pep speech, and her grin slipped away. “Just like the last ten times I’ve said that today,” she admitted quietly to herself. “My gods, I’m insane.” She slumped back against the seat and sighed again, covering her face with a hoof. She sat silently for a long time, trying to finally bring calm to the sickening rush of thoughts in her mind. At last, her hoof fell to her side and stared up at the ceiling.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “alternative theory: I like Vinyl Scratch.” With a shudder, her head rolled to stare out the window. “My gods, I really am insane. Why is this happening? I mean… alright, she’s not actually so bad once you get past the shouting and the compulsive criminal behavior. And we do get along, I guess. …probably better than I’d admit. …and her mane is really pretty…” Octavia groaned at herself.

“This is pointless. I’m not going to accomplish anything tonight. I just… I just have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll sort all of this out when I see her. …I hope…” She stared through the window, watching the night-time landscape roll by as her carriage slowly traveled home.