Bellchaser was probably right when she said I didn’t look well. I couldn’t tell her why, of course.

Physically I was fine, after a day or two of rest. But it was like my brain had seized up. Or gotten stuck in a loop. It’s hard to describe when you only have the same mind that doesn’t work right in the first place to figure it out with – like trying to untangle the meaning of ‘this sentence is a lie’.

I’d go to the Institute, open a book, and stare blankly at it until I gave up and went home. And then I’d curl up in bed under the blankets, hoping the world would go away if I ignored it for long enough. It never did.

Each time I heard somepony in the corridor outside my room I jumped, imagining it would be the Royal Guard coming to arrest me for raping ‘O. Melody’ that day. Some of the time I managed to convince myself this was completely unrealistic; the rest I was just as convinced it was only a matter of time before that other horseshoe dropped.

Tavi had said, when she and Vinyl eventually let me go, that I had atoned for my screw-ups and we were quits. I supposed she wouldn’t tell the Guard on me then. But she says so much. It doesn’t always keep.

And if the Guard did come, what would I say? Of course I could lie, saying I did not have sexual relations with that mare, and then it would be my word against hers. Would that work? Supposedly I’m innocent until proved guilty, but that didn’t feel like a strong defense. After all, a rapist has every incentive to lie, but why would a victim suddenly up and accuse a guy who didn’t do it? Wouldn’t her word count as good proof? I might have thought so if I were the judge.

Telling the truth, however, wouldn’t be much better. Yes, I did force her to fellate me, and yes, she was tied up at the time, but it was her idea, she asked for it. Yeech, that was practically a confession. The bit about being her idea was a transparently pathetic attempt to evade responsibility; it didn’t even sound convincing to myself.

She had asked for it, hadn’t she? I wasn’t even sure anymore. Perhaps I really had done it, in a moment of insanity, and then repressed the memory and made up the story I remember as a way to reconcile it with my self-respect? It wasn’t something I think I could do, if I’m the pony I think I am, but how do you know such things?

And so it all went, round and round. I thought about how I’d appeal my case all the way to the Princesses themselves, and then I slapped myself for imagining that might be cool and dramatic when in reality it’s just desperately miserable and hopeless.

But of course life must go on. Nothing else for it to do. I go to the Institute and stare at books; I go and rescue ponies with Bellchaser. I bury myself in blankets and hope that suddenly, by some miracle, everything will be all right. Yet every morning when I decide I’m not going to get any sleep anyway and stagger out of bed, the world is still there.

* * *

The second rescue after I returned to work took us to one of those neighborhoods in Canterlot where ponies live if they want to appear richer than they are. At street level the mansions look positively regal, surrounded by leafy gardens, but really they’re just fronts. There are no back gardens – there aren’t even back sides of the houses; instead they become the front side of a house on the next street over. From the air you can see how absurdly close the streets are, but Canterlot is a unicorn city. They don’t care much about flying.

The appointment slip said we were supposed to go to a side door instead of the big center entrance. Nothing happened for a few moments after I knocked; then we heard running hoofsteps inside, and a mare’s voice called out.

“Is anypony there? Help! Break the door in if you must, or get somepony who can!”

“Not to worry, ma’am, we’ve got a key,” Bellchaser shouted back, and opened the door.

Inside was a yellowish unicorn mare, looking rather disheveled. I mean, I know I shouldn’t talk right now, but at least I had showered and combed myself – she looked more like she had dressed up for a court function and then been left to fend for herself for a week in the wilderness. Her face was a mess of runny mascara and blue eyeshadow, and her two toned-mane a horrible jumble.

“Oh, thank Celestia somepony finally came around! I thought I was going to perish in here when the food ran out.”

She backed away from the door when Bellchaser opened it, letting us into a kitchen where, apparently, a small bomb had gone off. Most of the cupboards stood wide open, and the floor was strewn with cereal in small piles, some shattered china, and various packaged foodstuffs, some of which seemed to have been trampled and bitten.

The mare noticed me looking around. “Yes, gawp all you want, but I’d like to see you get one of those things open with only your feet and muzzle to help!”

I tried to find a response that didn’t involve stating too pointedly that thousands of earth ponies regularly manage to feed themselves using only hoof and mouth. Most pegasi, too – at least those of us who were raised not to eat with our wings.

Bellchaser relieved me of answering. “We’re from the Rescue Service, ma’am. Do you have –”

“You’re the who what now? Never mind that; what you need to do now is find somepony who can get this thing off of me!” The mare gestured towards her horn with a hoof, and I saw she was wearing a magic suppressor ring. Did that mean she was our client? She didn’t look very tied up – no collar or shackles or even ornamental tack.

“Um, like this?” said Bellchaser. Her horn lit up and she lifted the ring off the client and set it down on the countertop.

“Yes! Oh, thank you, you have no idea how awful that was!” Freed of the ring, she activated her horn and slammed a few of the cabinets shut, as if to make sure she could.

Bellchaser rolled her eyes while the client wasn’t watching. “So, er, how did you come to be wearing that?”

“Why, my lousy husband put it on me yesterday morning – or perhaps the day before that, it’s all just a blur. Is today Tuesday? Then he said to wait while he fetched something from his office, and then he never came back! Can you believe that? I could have starved to death!”

“Well, if you didn’t make the appointment with us, he must have,” said Bellchaser, and launched into a quick explanation of how the Rescue Service works.

“So you’re saying he planned not to come back?” the client asked. “Why, that dirty, rotten –”

“Not necessarily, ma’am,” I said. “Most likely he was just making sure you’d be safe if he had an accident or something unexpected came up. Did he lock you in here too?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Of course he locked the doors when he left. Apparently it didn’t occur to him that I couldn’t unlock them wearing that pesky thing.”

I refrained, again, from mentioning the thousands of earth ponies who also lock and unlock their houses without any magical assistance. “It’s just that according to our work order we’re supposed to find a key in the back of the K volume of an encyclopedia.”

“What? That makes no sense. Nopony ever reads that encyclopedia; it’s just for show.” She stalked out of the kitchen, and we followed her into a sitting room where she pointed a hoof accusingly at a row of identical volumes in a bookcase.

I picked out the K volume and opened it. There was a letter taped to the inside back cover.

Dear Crusty – if The Rescue Service leads you to this letter, I’ve gone to Buckhorn Island with Golden Harvest. I’m afraid that even being an earth pony, and even being from Ponyville, she’s still more interesting company than you are. Eventually she talked me into arranging this little test, predicting you’ll be dim enough to let that silly ring keep you from calling me at work to nag like you always do when I’m the least bit late. I don’t really want to believe her, but I’ll wait all day before I leave, and since you’re reading this she must have been right. I’m disappointed with you, but thanks for making the choice easy for me. There will be some papers for you in the mail one of these days; you may need to get somepony to read them to you. – With regards, Jet Set.

“WHAT? With that frumpy little dirt-pony tart? Oh, that two-timing good-for-nothing pitiful little excuse for a turd! Despicable cur! The rat, the louse, the –”

I and Bellchaser shared an uncomfortable glance. She waited until the client paused for breath.

“Um, it looks like we have done all we came for here, ma’am. Is there anything else . . .?”

“No! Get out! Except, could you please take that thing with you? I won’t even touch it.”

“The ring? You know, those are not exactly cheap . . .”

“I don’t care! I want it out of my house, now. Oh, I’ll kill him! I’ll buck his teeth in. I’ll saw off his horn and roast it –”

We made our exit the way we came, before we became accomplices to something.

Bellchaser stomped down the street, seething with rage once we got out of the client’s sight.

“I don’t believe it! That was what it was all about?”

“I know,” I agreed cautiously. “We’re not really supposed to be used for serving divorces.”

“Oh, that’s not half of it, Finey. Look, I think I saw a cafe up by that corner there; I’ll need to drown this in something strong. Will you join me? I’ll buy.”

“Um, okay.” I had my own troubles to drown, of course – although so far I had managed to avoid descending into drinking alone. But this wouldn’t be alone, and it’d be rude to reject the invitation anyway.

“Great!” She marched onwards, still grumbling. “To think, for this I missed a Pepperhorse concert!”

The place did call itself a cafe and looked suburban chic from the outside. Inside it was just a bar, like every other in Canterlot. Perhaps the faux rich prefer not to host such a crude establishment too openly. Not for me to judge them.

I sat down at a table while Bellchaser went up to the bar. She came back with two glasses of something red. “This is ‘icebrand’,” she said. “From the Crystal Empire. Be sure to enjoy it; I wouldn’t have ordered if I knew what it cost.”

I tried it. Pretty good. I nodded to Bellchaser, who had calmed down a bit and was savoring the drink too. Eventually I felt I had to say something.

“Is it just me, or wasn’t our client back there unusually helpless without her magic?”

“It’s not just you.” She sighed and pulled out the suppressor ring the client had insisted we took with us. “How much do you know about these things?”

“Well, they make unicorns unable to do magic. Popular with ponies who’re into bondage because magic makes it too easy to untie all sorts of knots and buckles. That’s about it.”

“Right. Do you know about the safety features?”

I shrugged. Never wondered much about that; it’s a unicorn matter as far as I’m concerned.

“They’re – well, let me show you. Take the ring and slide it onto my horn.”

I hesitated. It was just a horn ring, but this ring was also a sex toy, and it didn’t feel appropriate to use that sort of thing on a colleague that, I think I’ve mentioned, is not really my type. And in a public place too.

“Come on now, it’s not gonna zap you!”

She suddenly reminded me of Tavi, who had also urged me to do questionable things to her for her own amusement, not caring they’d leave me being the bad guy afterwards. But of course I couldn’t start explaining that, or even object, without looking silly. Just like with Tavi, I had no bucking choice. I picked up the ring with my forehooves and placed it gently on her horn.

“Atta boy.” She grinned. “How do I look?”

“Like the most indifferent sub ever.” Of course that was only because I knew what it was. Somepony not in the know would just see a not very stylish fashion accessory.

“Truly you know how to flatter a mare. Now, the way it is with this ring, if I try to lift up something –” her horn glowed, and one of the beer floats on our table rose up and began tumbling over and over in the air “– it doesn’t do anything!”

“Is it defective?”

“No, it’s in perfect order. That’s safety feature number one: The rings it’s legal to own must be activated by the wearer before they do anything. Like this.” She let the beer float drop to the table, and her horn began to glow again, but immediately the glow turned inward on itself and seemed to seep into the ring. “There, now it’s on. They can be made so they start blocking as soon as you put them on, but if you’re found with one of those and you’re not the Guard, then it’s an assault weapon and you’re in deep trouble. I mean, serious-jail-time trouble.”

“I see.” I tried to keep my expression neutral even as my stomach twisted into a knot at the mention of jail time.

“So now if I attempt to pick up som– YOW!” The ring gave a sizzling sound and discharged a small shower of sparks into Bellchaser’s face. She jerked back and then curled up in her chair, hooves clutching her temples. “Fuckfuckfuck . . .”

“What happened? Are you alright?” Stupid question, Finey.

She cautiously unfolded herself. “Shit . . . yes, I think I am, just a splitting headache . . . must be one of the high-end ones that punish you for even trying . . .”

She grabbed her icebrand with her forehooves and downed what was left, making a face. “Ugh. I need something softer than this. Be right back.” She stood up and went off towards the bar.

I looked after her and tried to remember what the rescue handbook says about removing suppressor rings. Nothing came to mind – I’ve rescued plenty of unicorns wearing the things, but they always seemed happy enough to deal with it themselves once their limbs were free. With the exception of Mrs. Get-it-off-me earlier today, that is.

Still, I had gotten the thing onto Bellchaser, and I’d be responsible for getting it off her again. But how? Should we go to a hospital? Or to the Guard, or possibly to Hissy Fit? Neither option felt appealing. Or could we just ask one of the other unicorns in the bar to magick it loose? Would they even know what it was?

Why did this kind of thing always happen to me? I finished my drink, hoping against hope there’d be calm at the bottom of it. There wasn’t.

Bellchaser came back, carrying two mugs of beer with her foreleg. She set them down on the table, the light one for herself, a darker kind for me.

“Now watch this,” she said, sitting down. She raised both forehooves to her horn, and lifted the ring clean off, just like that! She set it down on the table and levitated her beer up towards me. “Cheers!”

“Um, cheers.” I clinked my mug against hers and drank. Not bad, if a little stronger than I’d have ordered myself. “How did you do that?”

“There’s nothing to it – it comes right off. That’s why it has these little slits near the base, for strapping it to a bridle.”

“Our client back there wore it loose, didn’t she?”

“She did.” Some of the anger from before returned to Bellchaser’s eyes. “Her only problem was that she’s too stupid, or too proud, to use her bucking hooves. And that’s not even all. The second safety feature – by law it’s not allowed for the ring to keep working more than 12 hours after you power it up.”

“So it wasn’t even on when we arrived?” I began to understand her exasperation.

“Can’t possibly have been,” she agreed. “So I don’t know about you, but I’m wishing her husband all the luck in the world with his frumpy little tart.”

Bellchaser finished her second beer and banged her mug down on the table determinedly.

“And now, Affine Scheme, you’re going to tell me what the buck is wrong with you.”

“Wrong?” I put on my best grin. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Like hell there isn’t. You’re being jumpy and officious and sigh and moan and act like you’re afraid of the clients half of the time. That’s not you. And it’s not just recovering from the flu either. There’s something weighing you down, and you need to talk to somepony about it, and I’m appointing myself to be that somepony. So spit it out!”

She was beginning to get on my nerves. “Look, there’s nothing wrong with me! Never felt better! Just keep your muzzle to yourself, alright?”

That came out louder than I had intended it to. A few ponies at the neighboring tables turned to look at us. I glared right back at them, and they went back to minding their own business. Bellchaser had shied a bit back from me and started saying something, but she caught herself and sat there with her eyes closed, breathing deeply.

It occurred to me that I ought to feel bad about lashing out at her. But it was her own fault for being nosy, wasn’t it? And she had probably figured most of it out by herself anyway. The other day, when she’d stayed behind to fraternize with a customer after a rescue, it had been clear she knew something. ‘Say hi to Fizzy from me,’ she had hissed, implying that if I tattled on her, she had some dirt on me to retaliate with. I hadn’t meant to tattle, just to warn her about how wrong those things can go. It wasn’t fair; it was herself who tricked me into going to the rescue alone so she could use it against me later –

Suddenly I found myself blurting out: “It’s all your fault!”

That surprised her. “It’s all my fault? What’s all my fault?”

“That time last week when you had to foalsit someone and made me do a rescue alone –”

“Oh dear, was that so taxing? You should have said something.”

“– the client was angry that there was only one of me and she wanted to complain, –”

Bellchaser frowned slightly. “I don’t think I’ve heard anything from Fizzy about a complaint . . .”

“– but she said she wouldn’t, if only I, um, did something to her first.” I looked away from her, fiddling with my hooves while I tried frantically to think of a way to backpedal from here. It was finally getting through to me that I was telling what I couldn’t tell anypony – but how to stop telling it once I had started?

“So, when you say you ‘did something’ with the client, was that of an, hmm, intimate nature?”

“. . . Yes.”

“And she was so hideous that the experience has haunted you ever since?”

“No, she was hot! I mean, really. You wouldn’t understand. But she was also, uhm, kinda still tied up at the time . . .”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really, Finey, I didn’t think you were into that kind of thing. I mean, you wouldn’t be the first to have a bit of a romp with a client, even though we’re not supposed to” – she paused for a moment, lost in some internal thought – “but couldn’t you at least have finished the rescue first? You know, it can backfire –”

“She wouldn’t tell me where the keys were until I did it!” I half-shouted, blinking back tears. “And then she said she couldn’t remember it was her who asked me to and I was in trouble, and she made me do even more and then that was wrong too, and I did everything she said but it was never enough, and – and –”

Now blinking back was not enough; I actually bawled like a foal. In a random bar-cafe somewhere, in front of Bellchaser, but it was just too much. I hid my face in my hooves, trying to collect myself.

I felt a hoof around my withers. It was Bellchaser, who had stood up and was hugging me awkwardly. “Oh, Finey, Finey,” she said. “That’s some serious shit you’ve gotten into.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to do.” There was a knot in my throat still.

She took a deep breath. “Right now we’re getting out of here. You live fairly close by, don’t you? I’ll walk you.”

I managed to stand up. “Yes, just downslope from here, by Fairweather Road.” It made me a bit calmer to concentrate on here-and-now details. “Sorry for making a scene.”

“Don’t be; you’re allowed to. Come on, let’s get you home.”

On the way down to Fairweather, Bellchaser pried the story out of me in a more orderly fashion. Most of it, anyway – I didn’t go into much detail about after Vinyl arrived. The cool air helped me straighten up, and it did feel kind of good to be telling somepony, now that the damage was done.

“The way I see it,” she eventually said, “you have to go to Hissy Fit and tell her all this.”

“What? No, she’d flay me!”

“Come on, I have it on good authority that she doesn’t actually flay anypony. Look, I know she sometimes has to send just a single pony on a rescue when the rosters don’t work out. She’ll have to know what to do if the client starts making that kind of accusations.”

“Perhaps,” I admitted. Actually I’d convinced myself of exactly that several times already. Two or three times I had even been on my way to her office, only to chicken out on the way up the stairs. Because she might also not be understanding. I didn’t even care about being fired anymore, but she might take Tavi’s side. She might turn me in to the Guard herself. And so all I managed was to declare myself to be recovered and get back to work.

Bellchaser didn’t reply as we turned left along Fairweather. “But it isn’t just an accusation, is it?” I pressed on. “I mean, I actually did – or I let her –”

“Finey, no matter what this client pressured you into, if it was her who wanted to, she can’t just turn around afterwards and say it was you abusing her. That’s not how it works!”

“Difficult to prove, though.”

“It’s not that bad. If you really did assault her, you could just as well deny everything; no need to come up with a silly story about doing it because she told you to. So the fact that you are telling that story points to it being true.”

We reached the entrance to my apartment block. I stopped outside, shaking my head. “That doesn’t make sense. If telling a silly story were proof I’m innocent, what’s to stop guilty ponies from doing the same?”

She sighed. “Your problem, Finey, is you expect everypony to be as logical as you are. That’s why you need to go to Fizzy; she doesn’t let that kind of thing stop her.”

“Easy for you to say.” I turned away from her and pushed open the door. “You’re not the one who screwed up.”

She followed me inside. “Neither did you. Okay, how about I go with you and start by admitting it was me who made you do the job alone in the first place?”

“You’d do that . . . for me?”

She shrugged. “As you said, it is all my fault, at least in some way. And, Finey, I can’t let you go on like this. When did you last sleep an entire night?”

“I – I don’t remember.” I looked up the stairwell, trying to figure out how I’d ever get up to the third floor. I recalled dimly I used to do that without even thinking – but –

“I thought that. Now come on, it’s not far.” She nudged me towards the stairs, and I began climbing them.

She refrained from commenting on the state my room was in, and if she rolled her eyes at it, it was when I wasn’t looking. She did tell me to lie down on the bed, though, when I stood in the middle of the room and wondered what we both were doing there. I did so, and she tucked the blanket around me with her magic.

“Now, suppose I stay with you for the night, and in the morning we go up and talk to Hissy Fit together, does that sound good?”

It sounded uncomfortably like how I got into trouble in the first place. “Um, Belch, it’s nothing personal, but –”

“Not your type, I know. But still your friend, hopefully. I’m gonna commandeer your couch, and if anypony bucks the door in while you sleep, they’ll have to go through me before they can get to you.”

“That’s . . . awful nice of you . . .”

She may have answered that, but I didn’t hear it.

Author's Note

What? Nobody said all the chapters would have clop in them, and we need to move the story forward a bit . . .
Edited by Taialin.