Mirror the Fun

Princess' apartment was, unsurprisingly, exactly to my tastes. It was made up of only a few rooms, but what there was was compact, functional, and crammed floor-to-ceiling with books. Flash led me around overflowing bookshelves and several teetering towers to the kitchen table. "Keep your voice down," he instructed. "Twilight's resting. She always naps after we argue about anything. She says she doesn't like to make any big decisions until she's slept on it." A well-hidden flicker of worry crossed his face as he sat opposite me. "Spike's staying with Rainbow Dash, so we don't have to worry about him."

Between us was a vase of roses, some of which had had some of their petals picked off. I carefully folded my hands in front of me. The atmosphere was very different than our previous encounters. There were no expectations here, imagined or otherwise, and no history to speak of; even though we'd made love, we were like two perfect strangers meeting for the first time. "Princess loves you," I said. "Princess Twilight, I mean. She just wants you to be happy."

"She mentioned you call her that." He laughed, just once. "I do too, sometimes. She only lets a few people do that. You must be special."

"I guess."

We fell silent. I looked at him the way I used to when I passed him in a hallway: not quite at him, head slightly tilted, doing everything I could to etch his face into my mind without him noticing that I was staring. Now that we were face to face, I finally caught him doing the same, facing just slightly away while his eyes traced the stripes in my hair. Now more than before, it was unnerving. He didn't even think I was his girlfriend. Why was he looking at me like he thought I was attractive?

"She's afraid of you," Flash said once we were done sizing each other up. "She won't admit it, but she is. At first it was just jealousy, but she's been acting nervous ever since she talked to you."

"That's ridiculous," I scoffed. Then my stomach dropped as I realized he was serious. "Seriously? Why? I'm nothing compared to her."

"You think there's nothing special about taking college-level courses during high school?"

I must have looked stunned, so he quickly continued. "I did some digging. Nothing personal. I just have some friends who go to your school, and I asked them what they knew. That's all."

"Oh." I looked away. "So what? It's not that special."

"Maybe not to you, but..." He sighed. "When Twilight came to this world, the biggest thing she lost was her education. Back in Equestria she was considered a genius, but here everything that she'd spent her whole life studying is meaningless. Our biology is different, the laws of physics are different, all her literature and historical references sound like horse puns, and we don't even have magic. The only thing she can still do is math, but only after converting everything back into base twelve. She tried attending high school, but she had to drop out when she realized she was years behind everyone else. She's done nothing but study ever since, and she's only starting to catch up.

"And then you showed up - naturally human and years ahead of her. It completely tore her up. Her friends are still there for her, but she keeps calling them your friends. Since they would have been, if you hadn't gotten..." He gestured awkwardly. "Thrown off track."

I didn't even want to know how much he knew about that. "So what?" I mumbled. "She has her life, and I have mine. We don't even have to see each other again if she doesn't want to. What, does she think I'm just going to waltz in and steal all her friends away?"

"Well, you already tried it once."

"That wasn't-!" I winced as realization crashed through me. Flash glared at me darkly. "I wasn't trying to steal you," I said. "I didn't know. I just wanted to believe so badly that you and I were... that you..."

"You thought I belonged with you."

"...Yeah."

"Well, there you go." He sighed. "Twilight likes you. She likes being around you. But she thinks... she thinks... that if she and Sunset hadn't interfered, then I would have ended up dating you instead of her. In her mind, she's the one who stole me away from you. Now that I've met you, she's scared that I'm going to start thinking that, too."

"But you're not." I felt a flicker of something that I prayed wasn't hope. "...Are you?"

"No!" The verbal sucker punch came as a relief. "She's the version of her that I fell in love with. I don't care that she isn't from this world. I wouldn't trade her for anything."

"...Yeah." I took a moment to still my heart as the boy of my dreams finally, directly rejected me. "It would never have worked, anyway," I said, hiding a quiver in some small consolation. "You and me. It's better that you're with her. You're perfect... and she's a princess."

He reddened slightly. "Hey..."

"And she can do magic," I added. "I can't top that. And she's in a rock band, and I can't even sing. She was saving the world with her friends while I was blowing off mine to study for exams. Her life's exciting and magical, and me, I'm..." One more bitter sigh, just to drive the point home. "I'm just another Twilight."

"Twilight..." Flash shook his head. "Those aren't the reasons I fell in love with her."

This sounded condescending until I realized he was blushing. "No?" I said, almost not wanting to hear the response.

"No. Her being a princess had nothing to do with it." His blush deepened, and I glimpsed a nervousness in his face that I'd thought I would never see again. "Look, I never told Twilight this, but to be honest... when I first started to get a crush on her, it was because I thought she was you."

...

I had nothing. Just like when he'd first appeared in front of me at the school, my brain immediately checked out, convinced that what had just been said could not possibly have actually happened. "What?" my mouth forced out on autopilot.

"It's true." He was the most beautiful crimson I'd ever seen. "This might sound creepy, but back in the ninth grade I had the biggest crush on you. I think a lot of the guys did. You were beautiful, you were smart, you were funny, and..." He struggled a little, watching for my reaction. "And for me, you always looked so determined. Like you were always thinking two steps ahead of everyone else, and no matter what life threw at you, you would always find a way to come out on top. I always wished I had that kind of confidence, instead of just faking it. And you can sing," he added. "You used to sing to yourself all the time, in between classes. Remember?"

I did remember. I used to sing to myself all the time, until Sunset Shimmer told me that I was bothering people and I should cut it out. "You liked that?" I squeaked.

"Everyone did. I spent the whole year trying to think of a way to talk to you, but you were always so busy with your books that I never had a chance. I even took second-year astronomy just because I heard you were in it, but that was when you started disappearing. And after that, there was Sunset."

Inner knives scraped the flesh from my bones. He had always been this close, just one romantic comedy bump away from us falling in love? I could scarcely imagine the surgical precision it would have taken to keep us apart, the single-minded dedication Sunset Shimmer must have had for ruining my life. "Why her?" I croaked. "If you really liked me, why didn't you try to find me? Why would you date her?"

"Because she was there." He had the decency to look ashamed of this. "She was the only girl I knew who would actually talk to me instead of blushing and tripping over herself. I started thinking that maybe she was the only one I would ever have that with. Plus, I... kind of felt sorry for her. She came to me one day crying about how her 'best friend' had ruined her life. I only found out later that was you. At first I just went out with her to make her feel better, but she started making a big deal of it, and it got harder and harder to get away from her. I just thought that as long as I was stuck with her, I could at least try to make her a better person." Catching my expression, he quickly added, "I promise, I had no idea that she was behind any of it. If I'd known that she was the one who did that to you, I never would have had anything to do with her."

The Unspeakable Incident. I shuddered, silently praying that my deepest shame wouldn't be dragged back to me again, not here. "How much did you find out?" I asked.

"She told me the rumours. She was a good actress, but I never believed them, and I never told anyone. It was all just too crazy to be true." Some small consolation, at least. "Eventually she got tired of me, and I got tired of her keeping secrets from me. We split up, but by then she was too obsessed with some other plan to care. A week later Princess Twilight turned up, and..." He shrugged. "You know the rest."

I did, but what could I say? My brain uselessly wracked itself, my carefully cultivated crush reaching out to grasp at his, a crackling candle trying to rekindle another that had long burned down to nothing. "I should thank you, I guess," he continued, oblivious. "If it hadn't been for you, I might never have met my Twilight. And... I'm sorry I never talked to you. If I'd gotten to know you better, then maybe I could have stopped Sunset from hurting you. I guess we'll never know." He turned away contemplatively, and for a moment I thought I saw all the regrets and might-have-beens that I'd been feeling pass through him. Then his expression darkened. "Not that it matters, since all you wanted was to get in my pants."

Something in me snapped. Hold on. "What?"

"What do you mean, what?" The anger was back, memories pushed aside. "You lied to me. You got off on me, and you got your petty revenge on Princess, too. You got what you wanted, and then you vanished. You would never have come back if Princess hadn't found you. Is that all I am to you?"

I added things up and gasped in horror. "You thought this was just about sex?"

The faintest flicker from him. "Wasn't it?"

"You didn't know?"

"Know what?"

I slapped both palms down on the table and stood up, suddenly shouting. "That I'm in love with you, idiot!"

It was his turn to look deer-in-the-headlights stunned. I drew myself back carefully, realizing that I was breathing heavily. "I was the one who had a crush on you," I said. "I waited a whole year wishing that you would talk to me. You're the only guy I've ever been interested in; the only one I ever thought might actually understand me. You were the reason I ever tried making friends, and thinking about you kept me going after my brother left. I've spent all of high school thinking that I wasn't good enough for you. Don't you get it? I didn't want you. I wanted to be yours."

He still just stared. I couldn't look at him any longer. "But it doesn't matter," I said, turning away. "It doesn't matter what either of us feels, or used to feel. You're with her now. I'll just learn to be happy for her instead."

I took a few teetering steps away, needing space. As my foot hit carpet, Flash's voice broke behind me. "Twilight, wait..." Then again, much more sharply. "Wait!"

The warning clicked, half a second too late. My head turned as my descending foot nudged an encyclopedia, sending a tremor across the room that I could practically feel in the air. In slow motion, the eight-foot stack of textbooks next to me wavered, tilted, and started to fall.

Shock made itself known and was categorized instantly as my brain started guessing at mass, downward velocity and angles of impact instead of devoting itself to the arguably more important task of moving my body out of the way. But by the time the practical side of myself started to kick itself into gear, too late, Flash was already by my side. He yanked me by my arm out of the pillar's path, then again into the middle of the room as another mountain tumbled. I clung to him as the chain reaction spread, toppling stacks of books that seemed deliberately positioned to create thundering crashes instead of the series of dull thuds I would have expected. Fluttering pages and tough spines brushed against our ankles. When I opened my eyes again, the cave of an apartment had turned into an ocean. I also noticed that my head was firmly pressed against Flash's chest.

Flash's hands made their way to my shoulders. He tensed, as if he were about to push me away, but he didn't. "We have got to stop bumping into each other like this," he whispered.

It was surreal how something so right could twist me up so much. "Maybe, in some other life... in some other reality..." I started.

"In every other reality," Flash assured me. "But not this one."

We stayed there far longer than we needed to. I slowly encircled him with my arms, terrifyingly aware that he could throw me away at any moment, almost wanting him to. "I'll leave in the summer," I said. "I'll move away to the city. I'll find my own life, with my own friends, and my own boyfriend, if I can find one. Princess won't ever have to worry about me taking you from her ever again."

"You would do that for her?"

"She can have the life she took. I don't want it any more." My voice cracked. "You were the only good thing left in it."

He mulled this over, slowly. "Then... if I asked you to stay, would you do that?"

"Yes." The 'But why would you?' was unspoken but implied.

"And..." I could feel him getting warmer through his clothes. "What if I asked you to... spend another night with me?"

I stiffened. He can't mean... "What?" I said, moving away of my own accord.

He tried to look me in the eyes, but was blushing too deeply. "Princess and I were talking, and... she had an idea. She figured the only difference between her and you was that you're open to... physical stuff, and she isn't. So she thought that if she could learn to enjoy it the way a human does, I wouldn't have a reason to chase after you any more. Basically... she wants you to teach me to make her feel how I made you feel."

Deliberately over-complex phrasing aside, I got the idea. "You mean you want me to teach you, the love of my life, to have sex with someone else?"

"I knew you wouldn't go for it." He took a few careful steps away and slumped down on half a stack of biology books. "I was against it, anyway," he added. "I've hurt her enough already. I don't want her to force herself through more of that because of me."

A couple of final pieces slid into place. I weaved over to him, much more worried about accidentally breaking a cover on the way. "You think she doesn't want you?" I said.

"Well, every time we do anything more than kiss, she flinches, she cries, and one time she threw up, so you tell me." He spat out a lot of bitterness all at once, then continued more softly. "And it's... tough, you know? She's the most beautiful person I know, and she does so much to make me happy, and sometimes, all I want is to give some of that back and take her over the moon." A smile played around the edges of his lips, quickly dissolving. "But I know that every time I touch her, I'm just reminding her of the body she can never go back to. I don't want to do that to her. I can live without sex; we've never needed it to be happy. It's just hard being so close to her and always having that one place inside her that I can't reach."

His frustration found a comfortable echo in me. The barriers between us were almost tangible, suddenly clear to me; with three words, I knocked them down. "I'll do it."

He looked up. "Huh?"

"I'll help you both." I took his hand and searched for a place to sit down, settling for his lap. "She's unhappy because she can't give you what you want," I said, "and you're unhappy because you can't give her what she wants. She's me, and you're my alternate universe boyfriend. If I'm the one who can help you, it would be wrong not to." That, and I really, really wanted to see him naked again, but that was just a bonus.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," he said, but his hand tightened around mine.

"I want to." I leaned into him, already feeling our pulses quickening. "Do you want to?"

We stared into each other's eyes. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. "Stars, I want you," he breathed.

Flash's other hand found its rightful place on my hip, tracing along the top of my skirt. I rested mine on his shoulder. "So... how do we do this?" I asked. "One night isn't really enough to qualify me as a teacher. You might have better luck with the internet."

"She doesn't like the internet. She says it's full of liars and weirdos." He blushed again, a new kind, shaded with desire. "But you're more... uh... hands-on. Since the two of you are physically the same, what turns you on should work for her as well."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Because we diverged a few years ago, and most of sexual attraction is psychologicaaaaaaaaah..." The word collapsed as Flash reached up, under the edge of my shirt, and stroked the small of my back. All the weight dropped from my shoulders and I slumped onto him in a blissful haze, leaning us against the slope of books.

"That's one we figured out," Flash told me with a grin. "All we have to do is let Princess convince herself that it's okay for her new body to feel good. The better we can make her feel, and the more you can prove that it feels good, the easier it'll be for her. But for that, we'll need to experiment."

I felt like I could melt. Flash's looks and voice were magical enough, but a guy who knew my secret weak spots was fulfilling a whole new level of secret fantasies. "Experiment is my favorite word," I told him, pulling myself closer to him. "It'll have to be done scientifically. Rigidly structured. Tightly controlled. Extremely thorough."

"No stone unturned?" His fingers kept making small circles around the base of my spine, drawing all my body's focus to my pelvis. Beneath me, I could feel something beginning to stiffen. "Could take a while."

"Could take weeks. Months, even." It was dizzyingly hot. Our clothes were suffocating. "We might need to keep at it all summer long..."

We slid together down the pile of books, lying almost horizontal on a bed of pages. The tips of our noses touched. "Take me, Flash," I whispered. "Take me for all the myriad ways we could have done this in another life. I'll let you live a lifetime with the Twilight you love. Just let me live a lifetime with you, right here."

Our lips grazed each other, then melted together. I pressed myself into him, boiling energy uncoiling all the way from the tip of my tongue to the inferno between my legs. I would have sworn I could feel the fabled spark of magic until Flash shook his head. "Mm. No. No." He twisted his head away, quickly kissing my cheek for comfort. "No. We can't. We still need to talk to Princess. She needs to know you're doing it for the right reasons."

The mention of her brought a few of my senses back to me. "...Yeah. It wouldn't be right." Deflated and unsatisfied, I squirmed across him, catching brushes of his hardness across my legs before he inevitably pushed me away.

"We'll figure something out." He stroked my hair, letting it fall across us both. I could still hear desire in his voice, but he kept it tempered with false professionalism. "We'll ask how far Princess wants us to go, and we'll set a date, and-"

My own voice cut between us. "Actually, I was hoping we could start now."

We both flinched to the right. Princess was standing in a far doorway, leaning against the frame and smiling. She was wearing a fuzzy pink robe with her crest stitched onto it; it looked hand-stitched, and I would later realize that it must have been. She watched us calmly, the redness of tears around her eyes already fading and no signs of sleep on her face.

Even before realization had fully hit us, Flash and I were already scrambling up. We fumbled over each other, his hand still inside my shirt, mine trapped behind his shoulder, our cheeks flush as we staggered upright. "Twilight, we didn't- we weren't- nothing happened!" Flash blurted.

"I'm sorry!" I cried at almost the same time. "I wasn't trying to steal him! I just... we just..."

We both trailed off as we realized Princess was laughing. She covered her mouth, almost doubled over as she watched us try to untangle ourselves. Flash gulped. "Uh... how much of that did you hear?" he asked.

"All of it." She smiled at me. "I woke up as soon as you knocked on the door. I'm not that heavy a sleeper."

Unflinchingly, she walked over the lake of hardbacks and up to Flash, putting her hands behind his neck and kissing him. "You worry so much about me," she teased. "But I know how you feel about me. I've always known. And if you want my body even half as much as I want yours, then I will never do anything to keep it from you."

She smiled a strange little half-smile at me. "Twilight... are you sure about this?"

"I want to make things right." Looking at them was becoming easier with each passing second. Yes, it was Princess who was clinging to Flash, but I couldn't add 'instead of me' to that; she was me. As long as I imagined I was looking in a mirror, it was almost like I was in her place. "I'm sorry about your books," I added, shuffling on the surface.

She shrugged dismissively. "It's okay. They were due for a reshelving anyway." She took Flash by his hand and led him towards her room, beckoning me after with a long finger. I followed, trembling.

Despite the different shape, the bedroom had been arranged into an almost exact replica of my own, everything laid out in what I considered the exact optimal arrangement. Books, less dangerously stacked, were piled in the corner in the same way, and the walls were almost the exact same shade of blue. A television set replaced my computer, however, and her bed was nearly twice as wide. Princess pushed Flash down onto the edge of this, perching herself on his lap in the same way that I had less than a minute ago. "Twi..." he protested feebly, one last time. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Stop it," she chided. "Don't think of me that way. I'm not human, but I'm not a pony, either. Here and now, I'm your Twilight, and you're my Flash. Nothing else. And even if it takes a little extra work..." She drew closer to him. "This..." She held his wrist and slid his hand inside her robe. "...is what I want."

She kissed him, leaning them both back over the bed. His defenses fell away and he melded into her, giving in to animal passion. I stood by the doorway, watching with silent breath. They embraced one another, teasing each other ever so gently. I saw his hand move inside her robe, and my own breast tingled, as though a reflection of him was caressing me as well.

They moved over each other for about a minute, an erotic show like something out of my dreams. Then Princess opened one eye and gazed at me, as though remembering that I was there. "Flash?" she whispered, moving her lips to caress the edge of his ear. In the quiet room I could hear every word. "Kiss her."

He paled a little. "In front of you?" he whispered back. "I thought..."

"She's me, silly. The real me." She laughed. "And this is your chance to fall in love with me all over again." When he didn't immediately move, she nipped at his earlobe, whispering more intently. "Make her feel good, Flash. I want you to make her feel good."

She slid off of Flash and beckoned me closer, still giving me that same strange half-smile. I staggered near as though magnetically drawn, while Flash stood up. "This doesn't change anything," he said, putting his hands on my sides.

"I know," I answered, though I shivered under his touch. "It was just a high school crush. We'll get over it." I slid up to him, raising my own arms around his back. I blushed. "If you think about it," I added, "we were never even properly introduced."

This made him laugh. "Yeah." He finished the embrace, crushing me against him. "Flash Sentry," he said. "I've been wanting to get to know you since the ninth grade."

"Twilight Sparkle," I giggled back. "The same."

We stared into one another's eyes as though for the first time, our faces inches from each other. "Even if it came a little late," Flash said, "and even if we got off on the wrong foot... it's nice to finally meet the real you." By degrees, he closed the gap between us. "And... there's something else I've wanted to do since I first saw you, too..."

When he kissed me, it was different from all the times he had previously. This one was slower, probing, exploring, waiting at each turn to measure my reaction. I tried not to disappoint. Every questioning advance was met by a stronger one in return, inviting him to cross my boundaries further. One eye opened, as my double's had, and I saw Princess watching us with a smile and a look of fascination that I had only rarely seen even on myself. For some reason, this look spurred me on, and I threw myself at Flash and delved into his mouth with renewed passion.

I'd only enjoyed him for a minute when I felt one of his hands being lifted away from me. One eye cracked open again. As he and I made out, Princess was sucking on his fingers. She encircled one with her tongue, then two, tugging on the belt of her robe. It fell open, revealing lavender curves shadowed within. She removed the hand from her mouth and traced it down her neck, across her chest and stomach, and then lower still.

Flash's eyes didn't open, but the hand on my back began to clutch at me tighter. His tongue lanced out between my lips, filling me with the taste of him. Princess made small moans as she rubbed herself with her boyfriend's fingers. There was a slightly pained look on her face, but also a smile, like she couldn't believe that she liked what she was doing. She crept closer and closer, her breathing becoming heavier, then all at once pulled Flash's face away from mine and forced herself onto him.

Flash buckled slightly, leaning back under the weight of two Twilight Sparkles, but managed to keep himself steady with one hand on both of us. I planted more kisses on his cheek and neck while Princess glued herself to his lips, both practically straddling one of his legs. Not to be outdone, I lifted up the edge of my skirt and invited Flash's hand underneath it; to my delight, he began to rub the spot on my back as he had before, then began to work his way up my bare back. I started working on the edge of his shirt as well, lifting it up inch by glacial inch and stroking the lithe muscles underneath it. Eventually, I could stand it no longer and pulled Flash back away from Princess, kissing him once again.

We went back and forth for a while, taking it in turns to make out with Flash while the other roamed over his body. I continued lifting up his shirt, yearning for more contact with his chest and stomach, while Princess moaned and nipped at his neck and ear. Eventually, his hand reached the back of my bra, and through skill or luck he unhooked it on his first try. Another tug loosened it. Without hesitation, his hand found its way to my right breast. I gasped into him as he fondled me, feeling the little buds on my chest stiffening to life. Brimming with desire, I slid my hand down his front, but halted at the waist of his pants, this time fearing a reprimand not from him, but from Princess. Summoning my courage, I moved down those last few crucial inches to cup the delicious bulge in his front... only to be met by another hand rising from below.

The kissing stopped. Princess and I looked at each other, then down at our hands overlapping over Flash's crotch, then up at Flash's cautiously overjoyed face. Then we both laughed. "Great minds think alike?" I offered between fits of giggles.

Princess nodded. "So that's what I look like when I kiss," she said. "I always wondered. You two look good together."

Flash and I blushed, burying ourselves against one another. "I'm sure you look even better," I said.

"You're both beautiful," Flash added, giving me another squeeze.

Princess just grinned, wrapping her fingers around mine and pulling them away. "Let's get these things off," she whispered.

To my surprise, instead of falling onto Flash as I expected, Princess put herself to the task of undressing me. She expertly unbuttoned my shirt and lifted it over my head. My bra tumbled unnoticed to the floor. "This is going to sound weird," she said, rubbing my bare shoulders, "but... I really like touching you. It's like you're a part of me. It's even started to feel like something's missing when you're not around."

Flash's hands rose up to cup my breasts, sending shivers of excitement through me, and her touch massaged all the apprehension out of me. "I like it too," I said back. "It's soothing." Flash kicked his shoes off, and I followed suit, then stripped him of his shirt. In no hurry, I kissed my way down his front, bending down as I reached his waistline. As I removed his pants, exposing his half-stiffened and growing manhood, Princess slid down my skirt, leaving us both bare. She let her robe fall away from her and hugged us both, wrapping all three of us together in a warm, naked embrace.

Now that our clothes were off, the differences between the two of us were more apparent. I looked her up and down as she backed off, and she did the same to me, twirling once when she saw me staring. She was more toned across her middle, evidence of a more active lifestyle than mine, and completely unshaven around her crotch and armpits. What really caught me off guard, though, was her weight. Princess was by no means fat, a size larger than me at most, but a diet of Twilight Specials had given her curves that my rail-thin body couldn't match. Her breasts had a much more pronounced swell to them, enough for gravity to actually take effect, and the rest appeared to have collected on her hips. I'd never been envious of anyone's butt before, but this mirror of my own was making a strong case for being the first. "Wow," I breathed, clinging to Flash and looking up at him. "I can't believe you couldn't tell us apart."

He smiled back at me. "Really? You think I'd call my girlfriend a fake because she wore her hair differently and lost some weight?"

Princess circled me, looking at me with a different kind of envy. "I wish I was that thin," she complained, pressing herself against me from behind to compare our hip sizes. "I can't afford to outgrow my clothes. I can't order new ones without an official crest. But I guess you can help with that, right?"

Her touch sent an electric tingle through me. Even though she was me, it was dawning on me that I'd never been this close to another girl before, unless you counted Lyra and the Vinegar Incident. It wasn't a hot feeling, like it was when Flash touched me, but it wasn't a bad one either. Further confusing matters, Flash reached around me to embrace us both from the front, leaving me sandwiched between them. "Yeah," I mumbled back, lost in the sensations surrounding me.

I felt Princess grin. "Let's get you on the bed."

With four hands on me, I found myself being moved over to the bedside. I sat down, hunching forward as I felt myself being examined. Flash and Princess stood over me like co-conspirators at my trial, plotting a sweet vengeance for what I'd done to them. "Flash?" Princess whispered, delivering her sentence. "Love her."

"With pleasure." Flash bent down to me and kissed me again, then trailed down further, parting the bangs that had fallen across my chest. This time was not slow; there was a hunger, an urgency, to his descent. My legs trembled, but they parted at his touch. The next thing I knew, Flash was on his knees, his lips pressed against my lips of another kind.

Floodgates opened to a river of nectar. Any remaining tension left me in a shudder radiating from my core, all energies directed to the golden wellspring bubbling up in me. I scooted my hips forward, pushing myself into Flash's mouth, but I was only able to get out a few breathless gasps of pleasure before Princess delicately pulled him away. She knelt down beside him, and I turned beet-red as I saw her staring at my labia with the same aroused curiosity that I'd seen on her earlier. It made sense, embarrassing as it was; I guessed that this was an anatomy lesson for her as much as a sexual one. "So that's what I'm supposed to look like..." she said, chewing a finger thoughtfully.

"That is what you look like," Flash reassured her, nuzzling her shoulder while I covered my face with my hair.

"Um..." Princess reached out a finger towards me, then glanced at my face and stopped halfway, perhaps realizing just then how weird that would be. She let her hand fall away, masking disappointment. "Why do you shave?" she asked. "Aren't you worried about the smell?"

I just blinked at her, and even Flash didn't seem to know what to make of this. "Huh?" we said at the same time.

"Your pheromones?" She looked back and forth at us both. "Pubic hair traps the chemicals secreted by sweat, enhancing the smell that tells your partner that you're in an aroused state. Doesn't shaving it off make you less attractive?"

There was an awkward silence as we contemplated how to explain this to her. "I just... liked the way it looked," I answered, electing to sidestep the issue. "Sight and touch are more important to humans than smell. Besides..." I circled a finger over my smooth pubic mound. "I kinda like how it feels."

"It doesn't make a difference to me," Flash said. "You smell beautiful no matter what." He wrapped a few strands of Princess' hair around his finger and held them under his nose.

"Well... if you're sure." She didn't seem convinced, and kept looking down at her own lap. "Is he doing it right? I don't know how it's supposed to feel."

At this point, I was starting to get impatient; having Flash this close but not touching me was maddening. "Yes. Well..." I stopped, torn between my desire to help and my desire to feel his tongue in me again as soon as possible. In halting, staggered movements, I leaned back and ran three fingers down my slit, parting myself for him. I was already much wetter than I'd ever gotten touching myself on my own. Slowly and carefully, I slid my middle finger deep inside myself, then traced it back up and made small circles over my clitoris. "H-here," I choked out over tormenting needles of ecstasy. "Everything else feels good too, but this... this is the important part."

Nodding with understanding, Flash moved back in. I withdrew my fingers and immediately crashed back onto my elbows as his tongue flowed into me again. An involuntary moan escaped me as he licked me from end to end, then prodded experimentally at my clit. "Oh, yeah..." I hissed out, arching my back against the bed. He paused, then slashed out into me again; another pause, another touch. I opened my eyes and saw him peeking at me from between my legs, wearing nervousness stronger than mere inexperience. That was when I realized: He was still handling me as though I was Princess. All that he'd done to me already, all the pleasure he'd brought, had been him being cautious.

And after the night with him I'd already had, the thought of him not holding back gave me shivers.

"More," I begged, hoping to get the message across with some degree of tact. "Give me all you've got. You're not going to hurt meeeeeeeeee!" I squealed the last part as Flash took the hint and pressed himself fully into me. The last thing I saw was his shoulders relax; then, I could only see the stars bursting behind my eyes. All inhibition gone, he lapped at me like an animal, rubbing against every part of me. I moaned and writhed against the bedspread, grasping at the covers. My clit was on fire, aching to be sucked on, and Flash obliged, heating the ocean inside me to steam. His hands slid under my butt, squeezing and cradling me as I lifted myself towards him, and my lower half became a bowl from which he drank.

Something teased at my fingers. I looked up between heaving breaths to see that Princess had moved up to sit on the bed beside me, watching Flash in action with an open-mouthed smile. She fumbled for my hand and grasped it in her own, while her other hand stretched between her spread legs in an uncoordinated up-down motion. Even after being human for two years, I could tell that she hadn't gotten the hang of masturbating yet. This thought barely had time to flicker; somehow, feeling her that close, feeling her watching me, made everything else I was feeling more intense. Flash ate me like a piece of fruit, worming at the hardened pit like he was trying to dig it out. I was his plum, his tender slice of sweetness waiting and loving to be enjoyed by him. Then I thought about him sticking his penis in the fruit and realized that the metaphor was breaking down somewhat. Also, that I was more than ready for the main event.

"Flash," Princess said, once again mirroring my thoughts. "She wants you."

"Yeah?" He pulled away, planting a final few kisses on me, and stood. My eyes, fueled by a hunger I couldn't name, slowed the motion down and grabbed every detail of his muscles and sculpted arms that they could catch. When his penis came into view, I almost broke; if my legs hadn't felt like jelly, I might have flung myself from the bed and taken it into my mouth then and there. I'd thought often about his penis before, and become closely acquainted with it quite recently, but I'd never wanted to suck on it so much as right then and there. However, Flash instead leaned over me on the bed, starting to angle himself towards the one place that was crying out for it even more. "Ready, Twilight?" he asked, grinning down at me.

I laughed in exhilaration and smiled back. "So ready."

"Oh, Fla-aaash," Princess called in a singsong voice. She slipped from the bed, still holding onto my hand, and reached around underneath it. I heard a box click. When she appeared again, she was holding a condom. "Don't forget your saddle," she teased, holding it out to Flash.

Flash and I glanced at each other and silently agreed not to mention that he'd already ridden me bareback. "Oh, right," he said awkwardly, straightening up and taking it from her. With a rip, he tore the wrapper open and rolled the sheet of latex onto himself. The result looked admittedly strange, like a thick, one-fingered glove, and there was a faint rubbery smell that I could detect even from several feet away. Still, this did little to quell my enthusiasm as Flash lined himself up again. "Ready?" he repeated. With a frantic nod from me, he entered.

Having sex with a condom wasn't too different than having sex without. If I'd been in a more analytical mood, I might have said that the quality of the friction had changed, and the extra layer only left me yearning to be just that tiny fraction of an inch closer to Flash. However, this was like comparing an original Star Swirl manuscript to an equally rare second edition; no matter the authenticity, just taking it in was cause for celebration. I sighed with release as I absorbed every inch, feeling the absolute bliss of interlocking parts that had been made for each other sliding together. Flash stayed above me, holding himself up with his arms as our lower parts connected. He started to grind back and forth, slowly at first, but building momentum.

Princess let out a moan. She was back on the bed again, holding on to me and rubbing herself, leaning back further and further as she tried to take all of us in at once. I gripped her hand tightly as the sensations again began to overpower me. I had set something loose in Flash; within just a few thrusts, the gentleness had disappeared from his motions. I'd made myself the willing dumping ground for two years of sexual frustration, and all of it was being pounded into me at once. With a wild, hungry look in his eyes, he slammed his hips into mine, hammering me into the bed. It might have hurt if I'd been any less wet, but as it was, it was the rush that I'd been waiting just as long for. "Oh, yes!" I cried, feeling every thrust as a shockwave that traveled through my whole body and burst inside my synapses. "Yes, Flash, yes! Give it to me, Flash, give it to me!"

Hearing his name spurred Flash on even further. He bent down and kissed me, dancing tongues with me even as I screamed into his mouth. My free hand grappled at him, feeling him and pulling him closer, while my weakened legs flexed around his. This was also, it seemed, exactly what Princess had needed to hear. She was right beside us on the bed, kissing Flash's neck and shoulders in time with his movements, all the while gripping my hand and fingering herself. "Do it, Flash," she whispered between kisses. "Rut her hard. Rut her hard and make her cum!"

The pounding went on and on; if there was an upside to using a condom, it was that it seemed to extend Flash's downstairs stamina. He kept up a powerful, rapid pace, starting to let out small moans as his breathing became laboured. Just hearing his pleasure added an extra dimension to mine. I drifted on my back across an ocean of pleasure, not serene, but riding crested waves with every thrust. Or maybe I was the ocean, a high-rise water coaster that he rode in a cart made of pistons, rocketing ten-foot ripples to the horizon. Either way, it was the ride of a lifetime. Pushing it even further, Flash leaned back and vibrated my clit with his thumb, turning my latest gasp of ecstasy into an embarrassingly high-pitched squeal.

Listening to all of this was evidently more than Princess could bear. "Flash, do me," she begged, throwing herself across him. "Do me!"

His thrusting slowed, but didn't stop, and a degree of calmness returned to him. "You sure?"

"Yes. Look at me." She fell back across the bed again, and I looked before I could stop myself. She was thrumming two fingers fully inside of herself, and was teasing for a third. She repeatedly licked her lips, all but drooling over what he was doing to me. "Flash," she said, "if you don't stick that thing in me right now, I'll have to hold you down and jump on it myself."

Flash nodded. He kissed me one last time and then withdrew, leaving me whimpering faintly with disappointment. In instants she was pressed against him, grinding lustily against his leg and stroking his slick erection, but she still had time to hear and look back at me. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "Were you close?"

I considered this. "No," I answered once I'd caught my breath. "I had a while to go. But don't worry about me, anyway. This is your night."

She looked at me doubtfully, still stroking Flash, looking torn as I had been between discussing sex and getting it. "Will I know if I'm about to orgasm?" she asked nervously. "I thought I was last time, but... then I threw up on the carpet."

I worked enough life into my pelvis to sit up. "Maybe?" I said after some thought. "I don't know how it works for us. I've never had a vaginal orgasm."

This made both of them pause. "Really?" Flash said. "Because I thought... after the first time..."

He turned too red to continue. I stared at him for a second before it clicked. "Oh! No, I didn't. I was just... enjoying myself." I turned a shade to match. "But- but just because I didn't orgasm doesn't mean I didn't like it!" I blurted as well. "It still feels amazing. You're really good at... um..." Words failed me, but from the stupid expression on my face, I think he got the idea.

This seemed to calm Princess' nerves, letting her lustful expression return. "All right," she said in a sultry voice. "Make me feel amazing."

I scooted off to the side, resting against the wall, while Princess grabbed Flash by the penis and pulled him onto the bed. Instead of leaning back on the sheets as I had, she got down onto her hands and knees, tossing her hair over one shoulder. She rubbed herself and wiggled her hindquarters as Flash knelt down behind her, looking back with a teasing smile. The position seemed odd to me, so unlike any stance that I would take, until this last movement drew it all into focus. Oh, right, I reminded myself again. She's a... I curtailed this thought before it could complete itself. That was just too weird for right now.

I wasn't sure if I should watch, or if I would be able to stand doing so, but as Flash neared her I found that I wasn't able to look away. He held himself back from simply thrusting in as he had with me, instead moving slowly, teasing her with his tip before sliding the head inside. "Oh," Princess gasped, her front half falling onto the bed. "Don't stop," she added shakily as Flash hesitated. "Don't stop unless I say stop. Please... more..."

Flash put his hands on her hips and gently, almost surgically, slid himself in another two inches. A range of emotions flickered across Princess' face, from nausea all the way to euphoria and back again, but her body remained locked in place, her cheek flush against the sheets and her butt high in the air. All at once her eyes clamped shut and her breathing quickened, bordering on hyperventilation, and her arm lashed out and scrabbled desperately on the sheets for mine. I quickly moved in and grabbed her, holding back an inner ew as I felt the sticky touch of vaginal fluids on her fingers. Still, this was enough to slow her breathing as she clutched at me tighter than she ever had before, reassuring herself that she was in safe hands. Flash started to move again, but found that he didn't have to; Princess began to move her hips on her own.

The movement was barely noticeable at first, just an experimental rubbing, then with longer and longer strokes became a back-and-forth rocking. Princess kept her eyes closed, but a smile grew on her face, only occasionally twitching. She arched her back and raised herself up slightly, then pushed herself all the way onto Flash's penis and held it there, testing the feel of it inside her. He rubbed her back, massaging worry out of her while she ground against him. And then she started moving.

Watching Princess and Flash move together was altogether different than it must have been to watch me. Even though one was on her hands and knees, it was abundantly clear who was in control; Princess set the pace, working him like a toy as she began to throw her whole body into the motion. Her face became dopey and dreamlike, and she began to make small gasps of surprise and pleasure with each movement. Above her, Flash maintained a look of loving concentration. He rubbed her back and shoulders, easing her into it. There was a loving tenderness between them that had been utterly absent with me. They had the thoughtless synchronization of a couple perfectly attuned to the other's movements, a bond that could only be formed by time and friendship as much as instinct. Now the envy started to set in. And yet, even as my heart burned to see it, I couldn't bring myself to look away.

Princess started to get braver. She raised her head up to its original position and threw herself backwards, working up a faster rhythm. Now Flash had to hold on to her hips to hang on, pulling himself forward to match her. Stroking turned to a gentle pounding. Princess' butt jiggled whenever they connected, which was mesmerizing to watch, and her breasts and hair began to sway. She made a noise that seemed half snort, half whinny, at once inhuman but, coming from her, somehow natural. The sound set a strange quiver loose in me. Am I... getting turned on by this? I realized in confusion. I wanted to reject the idea, but couldn't deny it. This was hot.

Retreating into myself as much as I could, (which wasn't much, as most of the room was taken up storing images of Flash's glistening, naked body,) I tried to rationalize this as much as I could. Flash was in top form, obviously, but this was like watching porn of myself. Except not of me, but someone like me, with the body that I wanted, and the boyfriend that I wanted, and who looked beautiful even when she was being awkward... Was this jealousy, or vanity? Or... could it just be that I didn't look as awful as I thought to begin with?

Then Princess did something that I doubt I would have been brave enough to do in her place. She let go of my hand.

Suddenly, the training wheels were off for both of us. She was riding Flash without the reassuring touch of her human self to guide her, and I could no longer pretend that it was an extension of myself that was having sex with the love of my life right in front of me. We both tensed up, but then released it in a shared breath. I dissolved any thoughts of shoving Princess away and leaping on Flash for myself again; it was important to remember that her ordeal was harder than mine. She kept her eyes closed, bucking her hips and shaking her head as though searching for something. "Flash, hold me," she ordered.

Flash obeyed without question. He leaned over her, wrapping one arm around her chest and holding himself up with the other, all the while thrusting into her from behind. Now they really did look like rutting quadrupeds, one mounting the other. "Oh, yeah," Princess murmured. Her smile returned wider than before as Flash nibbled at the tip of her ear, whispering sweet nothings to her. "Oh, yes!" she moaned, twisting and writhing against him.

An intensity built up, the pair of them moving faster and faster against each other, almost reaching the speed at which Flash had been pounding into me. He moaned and leaned his head back. In response, Princess raised herself up and leaned back into him, lifting one arm up and grabbing him by his shoulder. They slowly reared up together, Princess bending back with her spine arched, until they were practically fully upright. She twisted to the side and pulled Flash's head towards her, kissing him powerfully. His hands cupped her breasts, molding and squeezing them. I caught a shine of dampness trickling down her inner thigh, and finally understood what she had meant about smell; the scent of sex was intoxicating. My legs spread seemingly of their own accord and I rubbed myself, one hand on my chest, the other lower, letting envy fuel my delirious desire to be in her place.

Flash lasted just a minute more until he began to slow; the demands of two Twilight Sparkles were finally starting to wear him down. He broke away from the kiss and panted for breath, still rubbing his nose through her hair. Princess smiled and looked at me, and I finally realized that I'd been gaping at them with my mouth open. She giggled and fell forward again, wiggling her hips, while I blushingly composed myself. "Having fun?" I prompted.

"Yeah..." she moaned. She rode Flash for a few more strokes and then eased herself off of him. "Let's switch things up," she said, rolling on the bed next to me. "The real Twilight needs love too."

Don't call me that, I groaned inwardly. "You don't have to," I protested.

"But I want to. Flash, will you?" He nodded, still catching his breath. Princess tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Now, how to do this... Flash, lie down."

Flash ended up on his back in the middle of the bed, rock-hard erection sticking straight up in the air. Princess and I both took a moment to admire it before continuing. She held on to me, sliding me one way or the other while she debated to herself, then swung my leg over his crotch and planted her plump purple posterior directly over his face, facing me. "This should work out for all of- Oh!" she cried as Flash immediately began licking at her dripping slit. Her gasps grew louder as she carefully settled down, steadying herself against his chest.

I stared for a few seconds, but the pressure against my loins was too much to be ignored. I raised my hips up and eased Flash back into me, sighing with pleasure at the feel of being filled up again. I waited a moment for more, only slowly understanding that this time, I was the one in control. Instead of moving right away, though, I sat in bliss, soaking up the feeling of having something inside me. But the cries and moans from in front of me spurred me on, and I started to move.

Being able to set my own pace added a whole new thrill to the experience. I couldn't match Flash's rapid-fire thrusting, even with my negligible weight, but I set a decent rhythm as I bounced up and down on him. I felt my inner walls being pulled and stretched with each lift and squat. It reminded me of the thrill of horseback riding, but one on wings a mile high, with our bodies and minds even more conjoined.

In front of me, Princess was staring at me open-mouthed - Is that what I look like? I wondered - and once I'd caught her gaze, it was impossible to look away. She bent down lower and lower, stretching out along his body. Flash had put both hands on her butt, kneading her and opening her up further to his reaching tongue. Watching her get eaten out while I had sex stirred conflicting feelings in me; I almost felt as though I were in her place, and vice versa.

Something seemed to be building in her. She shuddered and fell completely forward across Flash, though her eyes remained fixed on mine. From my position it looked like she was bowing, her expression pleading, asking for permission. Then her legs shook, and her eyes trailed downwards. I saw then that she was only inches away from my crotch, and, as she strained forward, that distance shortened. Shocked as I was, I couldn't stop myself from bouncing, and when her lips stretched out and grazed the tip of Flash's penis, they grazed me as well.

My brain mulled this feeling over and presented me with well-reasoned options of confusion, disgust or dismissal, but they were each quashed under the much more urgent inner cry of Oh stars, do that again! I didn't have long to wait. Trembling with new-found desperation, Princess wormed her way forward with her knees wrapped around Flash's head and planted another kiss on him. She grabbed my hips and slammed me down onto him, moving me like a toy, harder, faster. While Flash licked her, she stuck her tongue out and licked us both, timing with her thrusts to swipe her tongue all the way up his length and score a line directly to my clit. I shrieked in shock and pleasure, and she did the same, getting spurred on as I struggled to keep either my balance or my head. I settled for the former and gave in to the dual assault.

Princess started to shake. She moved faster and faster, her fingernails digging into my sides, as a shudder ran all the way down the length of her spine and collected at her hips. She started to cry out in between licks. "Flash, I'm- I'm c- I'm c-c-" All of a sudden she slammed me down and held me there, burying her face into me. "Oh Celestia-a-aaaaaaa!" she screamed as her whole body spasmed. What Flash said was considerably more muffled, but I got the idea as he pulsed and burst inside me, this time contained by the condom.

Both of them twitched for a few seconds more, then lay still, panting for breath. Princess shifted her hips to give Flash some room to breathe and nuzzled sleepily against me. I carefully lifted myself off of Flash and moved to the side. In a lusty haze, Princess grabbed at him, ripped his condom off and tossed it carelessly to the side, and suckled at the tip of his softening length while I retreated, like an abandoned toy, to the far corner of the bed.

Where I belonged.