The Sexiest Man in Equestria

I woke up slowly, my eyes refusing to focus and my body not wanting to move. I forced myself up anyway, stretching out as various joints let out satisfying pops. I rolled into a sitting position, and looked down at myself.

Didn't even manage to take off my clothes last night. Hot damn.

I yawned and checked the clock. 9:00 AM. Plenty of time to take a shower and change my clothes. Once I was clean again, I decided not to waste any time, and headed straight for the library. I let myself in, it being a public library, and looked around. The place itself was nice enough, with everything being cleaned and reorganized on a weekly basis, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen.

"Twilight?"

"Down here!" Figures she'd be working on something or other.

I made my way down to the basement, where Twilight was standing behind a large metal barricade, with a menagerie of instruments pointed at Spike, who stood on the other side of the room.

"Uh, what are you guys doing?"

"Well," Twilight responded, "remember when Spike went to go see those other dragons to find out the meaning of being a dragon a couple weeks ago?"

"Yeah, what about it?" She fiddled with some control piece I couldn't see.

"Well, while he was down there, I saw him jump face-first into a pool of lava." I snickered as he glared at me.

"Belly-flop king?" He snorted fire at the nickname. His more recent, natural, growth spurts had turned him into a lanky, thin-limbed landwyrm, but that didn't make it any easier for him to use a diving board properly.

"Anyway, I was thinking about it recently, and I wanted to do a couple tests to see how well his scales could effectively protect him. It's all non-lethal, of course, I don't want to actually hurt him, but it's enough to get some accurate results on dragon scale properties." I raised an eyebrow at Spike, silently questioning whether this whole thing was voluntary. He just shrugged.

"Well, I'll go ahead and wait upstairs, then. Let me know when you're done." I went back upstairs, and sat down with one of the educational books on magic. I might not be able to use it, but I like knowing how things work. An hour later, I looked up to see Twilight coming out of the basement with a tired-looking Spike. "You okay, there, big guy."

"I'm going to bed." And go to bed he did, shutting the door behind him. Which left me and Twilight alone. Together.

Yeah, that got awkward fast. After a few more seconds of the two of us sitting near each other, looking at anything else in the room, I finally managed to get something out.

"So, Twilight. About that date?"

"Yeah?" Oh, you don't sound nervous at all. Not like I'm doing much better, here.

"I got us a reservation." She immediately perked up.

"Oh! Really? For where?"

"Fancy Fields." Her eyes went wide as she turned to me.

"How did you get reservations for Fancy Fields? That place is always booked!" I shrugged and looked back at her as I thought of a perfect way to test my earlier theory of something messing with mares' heads when they're around me.

"Got lucky. Someone else cancelled, so they had an open slot. Right place, right time, I guess."

"Well, then. So what time is this for?"

"Tomorrow at seven."

"Okay. See you then, I guess?" I barely contained my reaction at the fact that I had just succeeded in that attempt to keep her from finding out that I had fucked another mare for that table, which went something like this, in about two seconds.

No. No way did I just get away with that. No way did I just prevent quite possibly the smartest unicorn in Equestria from finding out about what happened last night.

"Um, actually, Twilight, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you. Have you been feeling alright lately?" She cocked her head to the side in the most adorable expression a pony could pull off.

"Yeah, why? Has something been going around?" I screamed internally.

Am I hallucinating all this? Or is something actually messing with these ponies' minds?

"It's just that, whenever I hang out with Big Mac, and Time Turner, and the others, and we go out somewhere, all of the forwardness that I usually notice from the mares we meet is completely gone. It's like flipping a switch. Any time I'm alone with a mare, something seems to change. Like right now." She blinked in confusion.

"Now? But, I'm not really doing anything out of the ordinary."

"First of all, your tail has been flicking back and forth with increasing strength since this conversation started." She looked back as it flicked again, and blushed. "Second, I just made one of the worst lies of my life, with one of the flimsiest cover-ups I've ever thought of, and you bought it hook, line, and sinker. That reservation wasn't cancelled by the pony who made it. I fucked the mare with the reservation list to get those seats." I knew it was going to hurt her for me to say that, but the way her entire body, even her mane, just kind of sagged was nearly heartbreaking to me.

"Wha-... When was this?" I sighed and hung my head.

"Last night. That's where I was going when you showed up yesterday. I had already been planning to take you out to dinner, but the mare at the desk had the same look I'd seen before on a couple other mares, too. She wasn't going to give a reservation that was any good without that happening." She pulled her knees up to her chest, and I could see tears starting to form in her eyes.

"So, even after I asked you out on a real date, you went and had sex with her, anyway. Even after I made it clear what I wanted?" I sighed again.

"Yes. Because I felt I needed to. I wanted to give you the best night of your life, and I wasn't going to let some random chick with no self-control stop me." She glared at me.

"So you think having sex with other mares without telling me will accomplish that?"

"No! That's the problem; I want this to stop. Think about what you're feeling right now. Hurt and betrayed, like I'm trying to make you cry, right?" She nodded. "Why? I planned on going over to her house hours before you came over, and we've never done anything even remotely intimate by ourselves. You're a smart mare, Twilight, but I'm fairly sure there's something about me making mares lose their cool when I'm alone with them. Like right now. Come on, you know me. Put that analytical mind of yours to use. Why would I go through all this trouble just to hurt you?" She stared down a t her hooves silently for several seconds before answering.

"You wouldn't." She suddenly started to lose her composure, and tears poured down her cheeks. "You wouldn't." Within moments, she was sobbing like a filly. I immediately moved over to the sofa she was on and wrapped her in a hug.

"No, I wouldn't. And I never will. I promise." She turned toward me, and buried her face in my chest. I lowered my head on top of hers, partially to comfort her and partially to keep from getting impaled on her horn, and started gently petting her mane as she apologized hysterically.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"Sshhh, shhh. It's okay. I know. No harm done."

It took a few minutes for her to calm down, but she seemed much more lucid when she did.

"See what I'm talking about now, with the whole 'crazy mare aura' thing?" She chuckled and nodded.

"Yes. I'll need to run some tests to find out what's going on, come up with some possibilities, but that shouldn't take long." She gave a big yawn and the end, and curled up against me slightly.

"You were up all night again, weren't you?" She nodded, her eyes already closed as she laid on my chest. "Alright, then."

I rolled her over so I could get an arm around her shoulders, then hooked my other arm under her knees and lifted her up, then carried her to her bedroom. As I set her down, though, she put an arm behind my head and pulled me down for a kiss.

"I love you, Zephyr," she muttered as she pulled away. I thought about that for a moment. I thought about everything I knew about her. Everything I had ever seen her do. And then I realized something.

"I love you, too, Twilight."