Author's Note

Guest chapter written and presented by Grimm

A huge thanks to Grimm for taking time out of his schedule to pen the second ever RSD Guest Episode! We both hope you enjoy it!

Episode 14 - Dive (Cheerilee) [Guest Author: Grimm]

Dear Red Shoes,

I have a secret. That’s probably not surprising; all the ponies who write to you do. I think everypony has at least one real secret – even if they never send them to you, their deepest and darkest truths all neatly wrapped up in an envelope. Something they want and need to keep hidden, something they couldn’t bear anyone else finding out.

It’s the guilt, I think. A guilty little secret, one that gnaws at them, that they know they shouldn’t indulge in but they always do anyway, because when push comes to shove they just can’t help themselves. They could never help themselves. And all it costs is a little bit of guilt, and what is that in the grand scheme of things?

For me, though?

The guilt is just part of the fun.

The bar is mostly empty. These kinds of places always are, seeming to exist in a near-permanent state of ‘mostly empty’. It’s got that smell to it, too. You know the one. The smell of long spilled drinks and ancient cigarette smoke, air that has never managed to escape the bar’s dirty walls, air that’s always been trapped beneath these dim, hazy lights; ever recycled, never changing. And something beneath that, too. Some reek of sleaze and desperation and loneliness, sweat and tears and blood. Faint, but always there, lingering underneath the rest. These bars are all the same, and they all have that smell, and they all have the same kind of clientele.

It’s what I’m counting on.

I look out of place. I know this. This is not the kind of place one should find a prim and proper mare like myself – a school teacher, an upstanding member of the community – but I’m here all the same. I draw some looks as I saunter over to the bar, not necessarily unwelcoming but certainly not friendly. That’s okay. I want them to look.

The bartender doesn’t judge, at least. They never do. He takes my order without a word, slides a glass across the counter and fills it with a hearty measure of something dark and fiery. It’s the only drink I’ll let myself have, so it better be a good one. The only one I’ll buy for myself, anyway. There’ll be a second one later, and that’s the one I’m really waiting for. That’s the one I’m here for.

But I can’t let myself get too out of control, so one drink. Enough to calm the nerves and relax and unwind and make things smoother, easier. But not so much that I start to lose focus, that I’m not myself. I want to be myself for this. I need to be. I need to be in control.

A dark-furred stallion steps up beside me. “Same again, Whiskey,” he says to the bartender, his voice gruff and ragged around the edges, just like the rest of him. I realise Whiskey is the bartender’s name, not the drink, and I imagine that must get confusing.

The stallion turns to me as Whiskey makes his drink, eyeing me with a slightly glazed look, and it’s as if he can’t quite tell if I’m real or if his addled mind is just playing tricks on him. Eventually he comes to some conclusion, and I think I can actually hear the gears in his head clunk into place. “Can I get you a drink, darlin’?” he asks, and I can’t help but wrinkle my muzzle. I could probably light his breath on fire.

But I push that revulsion to one side, and I smile and answer in my best attempt at a sheepish tone. “No, thank you.” I wiggle my glass, and the ice rattles. “I’ve already got one.”

I can do far better for my second drink.

The stallion shrugs, throws a hoofful of bits onto the countertop, and then slinks away to nurse his refilled glass in a dark corner of the bar. These places seem to be entirely dark corners, and there’s never any shortage of ponies to sit in them.

I take a sip, careful to pace myself as it burns its way down my throat. One drink, never drunk; that’s important. Losing control is part of the thrill, but there’s a knack, a balance. Just far enough to feel like you’re losing it, but never actually stepping over that line. There’s something almost primal in wanting that, I think. A feeling we’ve nearly forgotten in the time since we stopped running from manticores and dragons and settled down to hide away behind stone walls, and everything became so easy. But we still need that thrill, that excitement, and everyone has their own way of getting it.

This is mine.

My glass drains. The bar remains mostly empty. The smell lingers, settling into my fur.

A few stallions approach over the course of the evening. They sneak glances when they think I’m not looking, their eyes gleaming in the dim light. I ignore them. Some of them talk to me anyway, but I quickly dismiss them and they shuffle off to soothe their bruised egos. None of them are what I’m looking for. None of them are good enough to be my second drink.

And then I’m down to the dregs in my glass and the ice has almost melted and I’m about to give up on tonight as a failed attempt when another stallion drops down onto the stool beside me.

His fur is tan, and he’s a big stallion, bigger than most. A large maple leaf adorns his flank, and when he speaks the room almost seems to rumble. “Bourbon,” he says, but Whiskey is already pouring him one. The big stallion gives me a cursory glance, and then his gaze flicks down to my almost empty glass. “And one for the mare,” he adds.

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” I say. “Thank you, though.”

His eyes find mine. They say everything he needs to. “One for the mare,” he repeats, simply, and a little shiver darts down my back.

I’ve found my second drink.

***

We don’t make it to the bed. We almost do, we’re so close, but then our lust finally gets the better of us and we tumble to the carpet together in a sprawl of limbs. His hooves are so strong, and he effortlessly holds me beneath him, and as he pins me down and his lips find mine and he takes as much as he wants I can’t help but appreciate him, my own hooves tracing over the toned muscle of his chest.

He’s one of the better second drinks I’ve had, and he understands this arrangement perfectly. He knows why I was at the bar, he knows why I chose him, and he knew from the moment he bought me a drink that I’d be going home with him tonight. He knows it so well that we never even shared our names (although mine would have been fake, and his probably would have been too). He’s just a stallion, any stallion, and I’m just a mare, and tonight I need him to rut me until I can’t think straight.

And with his kiss he promises that. It’s demanding and heated and raw, barely giving anything but taking as much as he wants. I can tell that he always knows exactly what he wants, who he wants, and most times I’m sure he gets it. A lot of stallions don’t; it’s why they call it ‘getting lucky’. Lucky the mare said yes, lucky they were in the right bar at the right time, lucky the mare they were eyeing up was in heat and horny and desperate.

I prefer stallions who don’t believe in luck.

I do wonder if he knows what this is to me, though. It probably doesn’t matter to him – it usually doesn’t. But I wonder if he knows this is my escape, my freedom, my thrill. I wonder if he knows the mare gasping beneath him and kissing him back so needily is the last pony anyone would expect to be here. He could tell I was out of place, surely, just like everyone else could, but maybe by now he’s realised I’ve done this before. Many times. Maybe by now he’s realised that looking out of place was intentional, and in reality I could call that bar or any one like it my home just as much as he can.

Maybe.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. No, I know it doesn’t matter, and just like our names don’t matter neither do our circumstances. He won’t ask. He won’t care. And I won’t, either.

I won’t ask why this house is too big for a lone stallion. I won’t ask about the picture I spotted on the wall with him smiling brightly next to a gorgeous mare, the small filly between them bearing a striking resemblance to the pair. I won’t comment that the picture is old, but unlike the rest of the house has been kept meticulously clean.

Divorced? Maybe. Dead? Perhaps. Gone? Almost certainly. It doesn’t matter. I won’t ask. I never ask.

And so as he gets irritated with the floor and he lifts me in those big hooves of his and I feel so tiny in his grip, I just giggle and kiss his neck until he drops me onto the bed and I bounce against its creaking mattress. He wastes no time in mounting on top of me again, holding me down as if I’d wriggle free if he didn’t. We both know there’s no risk of that. We both know I want him to hold me down like that anyway.

His cock is hard, and I can feel it press into my fur, feel it throb with his heartbeat, desperate to plunge into me and rut me as hard as he can. And I want it too, I want him to do just that so badly. I’ve been wanting him to do it since he bought me that drink, since we walked back to his place together, the knowledge of what would happen when we got there permeating through every moment. And now we’re here, now he’s ready, now I’m ready, and all he has to do is spread my legs and this stallion I’ve never met before and never will again can fuck me however he likes.

But he doesn’t, and I can feel the corners of his mouth curl upwards when I whine in horny frustration.

“Easy,” he mutters in that rumbling voice of his that only makes me want him even more. “Ain’t no rush.”

But there is, there should be. I don’t want foreplay, I didn’t come to him to be wound up and teased and put on edge. That’s not what this is. The bar was my foreplay, the second drink his. This isn’t supposed to be slow, or gentle, or caring. It’s supposed to be hard and rough, wild and dangerous.

For a moment I wonder if I was wrong about him. If I picked badly. It wouldn’t be the first time a second drink couldn’t deliver all he promised.

And then he climbs up onto the bed, standing over me, and his thick length takes up all my vision and his musk swims through my head, and any doubts I had are quickly put to rest.

“You want it so bad?” he asks, although we know he doesn’t need my answer. “You can taste it.”

And I do. Without hesitation.

I lean forward and take him deeply into my mouth, no licking, no teasing. And not just because I don’t care for foreplay on nights like this, but because I need it. His taste, his heat, his thick stiffness making me open so wide my jaw almost aches. And so I wrap my lips around him and my tongue plays against his sensitive head and I can feel him twitch, hear him grunt, watch his tail flick impatiently as his hips buck forward a little, trying to push further into my mouth.

It’s hard, though. There’s so much of him, and it’s already difficult to take more. But I still try. And even when I can’t get him further I make sure to lavish his length with attention, to please him and worship him. Two hours ago we’d never even met, and now I’m on his bed, his cock between my lips, pleasuring him like the slutty little mare I always am on these nights. The slutty mare that lives for this.

Not Cheerilee, anymore, not really. Or, perhaps, more myself than I ever am. Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? We partake in these flights of fancy, in these secrets and guilty pleasures, because this is who we are. We pretend they’re moments of losing control, moments where we’re not really ourselves, but that’s just to make us feel better about them after they’re over. The truth is that I’ve never felt more alive than in these moments – than when I can forget Cheerilee the school teacher, Cheerilee the respectable and nice pony, the wouldn’t-put-a-hoof-out-of-line pony, and instead I give myself to him and he grunts as I take him ever deeper and I love every second of it.

“Fuck,” he murmurs under his breath, but I know he still wants me to hear it. “Been so long since I’ve had a mare as eager as you.”

I can’t reply except to hum happily around him, and he shudders at the sensation. There’s no chance I believe what he says though, as nice as it would be. I’ve fucked stallions like him before.

I don’t go for second drinks who can’t get any mare they want. I don’t go for second drinks who have been out of the game. Yes, there’s a picture of his (probably) ex on the wall, yes, he says it’s been so long, but I can say without a doubt that I’m not the first mare he’s brought back to rut on this bed. I’m not the first one to be underneath him, pleasuring him like he needs, like his twitching length demands. And it won’t have been long since the last time, and any mare he’s ever brought back would be just as eager for him as I am.

So it’s for my benefit alone, and even though I know this I can still feel the dampness beneath me, that little twinge deep inside that signals how desperate I am, and I can feel my cunt winking for him even though there’s no chance of him seeing it from this position. My own scent is starting to fill the air now, too – I can smell it even through the thick musk as I take him ever deeper, relaxing my throat to let him in.

He can smell it too, he must do, as he starts to shift impatiently even with my lips wrapped around him and my tongue playing against the hot stiffness as I try and swallow as much as I can. But still he’s impatient, because it’s not the same as bending me over and rutting me, because he has to hold back and let me set the pace, because he’s not quite comfortable with choking me on it.

But that’s his fault – he’s the one who said there was no rush.

And so I don’t rush, even though I want to. I don’t pull back and raise my hips and tell him to rut me already, even though that’s what I’d usually do. And when his hoof rests on the back of my head and his hips thrust forward a little – wordlessly ordering me to go further, harder, take him a little more into my throat – I resist the urge to obey him. I resist, and I go at my own pace, and I make sure it’s slower than he would like even as he grunts and his cock twitches and he’s coated in my spit.

He’s still almost fucking my mouth, though, just the last shred of his restraint holding him back, and I struggle to keep him in, although my splutters only seem to make him harder, make his hoof press even more firmly against the back of my head, a tight grip on my mane. But I’m at my limit, and even though I’m fairly confident in my capabilities there’s still so much of him that I can’t take, can’t touch and adore with my tongue no matter how rough he is, no matter that he tries to thrust instinctively with a frustrated growl. I can’t take all of him, and that’s disappointing to both of us. Mostly to him.

Finally he admits defeat and pulls me off his cock, and I’m left gasping for air that’s thick with his scent. I can taste the excitement he left on my tongue, and despite myself I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to make him cum so I could taste everything he has. That wouldn’t be enough for me, though, and I didn’t go to all this trouble to leave here unsatisfied. Otherwise I wouldn’t be so particular about my choice.

“Okay,” he breathes, and it’s heavy – my ministrations have clearly gotten to him. “Hold still.”

As if I wouldn’t, and when he slides down the bed again until he can align himself with me, that deep and needful ache inside me grows ever more gnawing. I thought I wanted him before, but now every inch of me is begging for him, and he can tell because his eyes burn when they meet mine, and they say Don’t worry, I’m going to give you everything you need, everything you’ve been waiting for, everything I promised. And his hoof goes between my legs and pulls them apart, and that lustful fire in his eyes burns brighter as he sees me, all of me.

And it’s that fire that’s dangerous, wild. It’s that fire that comes from a place before we had walls and were safe from the dragons. It’s the same that burns behind my own, as well. And so when he carefully positions himself and starts to push into me with another growl, another possessive kiss against my neck, I sigh and throw my head back and gasp as he starts to fill me up.

He doesn’t stop, not until he’s all the way in and I throw my hooves around his neck to hold him tightly. I kiss him again, and it’s full of those flames – passionate but not loving, not caring. Not gentle.

He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t wait to let me get used to him spreading me open. And why would he? He’s gotten a taste, now, and I picked a stallion who takes what he wants. So he does just that as he begins to fuck me, letting out a growl that resounds deep in my chest, and my heart flutters with a burst of excitement, and I tighten around him instinctively and it does absolutely nothing to slow him down as he pulls back before thrusting all the way back into me hard enough that it almost hurts when his hips slam against mine.

I wonder if he thought of this moment when he sat down next to me at the bar, if he picked me out across the room and decided that tonight he would have me beneath him and begging for him to fuck me harder, faster, deeper. I wonder if he’s been as impatient as I have, if despite his earlier reassurance that we didn’t need to rush it was as hard for him to hold back as it has been for me.

I hope so.

But there’s no waiting anymore, and it’s exactly what I needed, exactly what I wanted, and with every thrust I moan loudly and hooves clutch at his chest and I let him know exactly how much I need it, need him.

There’s no love here, no affection. Not even the barest glimmer in our kisses. Nothing but pure, primal lust, the most base of needs. It’s perfect. I’ve done caring before. I’ve done loving. And it’s nice, I would never suggest otherwise. It’s special.

But it’s not dangerous.

And that thrill is the reason I’m here. Not how good it feels to have him rut me, not how much my body craves his touch and my moans urge him onwards and his teeth grit with effort. All of that is secondary. I’m here because deep down I know I shouldn’t be, that this is no place for a good mare like me, and so it’s exactly the place I want to be.

And I let myself get swept up and lost in the moment, the one moment that matters. I let him rut me, and my hips rise to meet every thrust, my body begging to take him deeper and rougher. His grip on my waist so tight, his kisses filled with the frustrations that he’s trying to forget, just like I am.

Because they’re all the same, my one night stands. We’re all the same. We’re all trying to escape, all trying to seize back some of that freedom we’ve forgotten, any kind of excitement. And so we find a pony as lonely and bored as we are and we fuck until we’re both exhausted and oh so satisfied and we fall asleep together and we can forget that we’re not supposed to, that it’s not how everything is supposed to work anymore. We forget that we’re supposed to date, meet for coffee, have awkward conversations that go in circles before trailing off into empty silence. Later have uncomfortable sex where neither really knows what the other wants and our teeth clack awkwardly together as we kiss because they kiss differently from the last pony we were in love with, and then when it doesn’t really fulfil either of us we just shrug it off and say we enjoyed it even to ourselves, and maybe there’s another date or three and always sex after, but then we stop and fall out of contact and it’s on to the next one, all over again. Rinse and repeat.

Until it gets too much, and we find a second drink instead.

Or maybe that’s just me. I don’t think so, though, because I’m sure that every time this stallion bucks his hips he’s trying to forget the exact same things. He’s trying to live in the excitement too, chasing it, just like I am. Running from the picture that’s hanging on his wall. I don’t have a picture, so it’s different, but instead I’m running from the lack of one. Because I probably should have a picture like that by now, shouldn’t I? My home should be adorned with family pictures and I should be picking the foals up from the daycare after school to bring them back and wait for the stallion I should be married to by now. But instead none of those things. Instead an empty house and bare walls.

And instead I go out and find a second drink.

He snaps me back to the bedroom with a grunt, his thrusts growing ever more wild, ever more rough. Sweat rolling down his forehead, my mane plastered to mine. He kisses me again, and I taste the alcohol and the lust, and he must do too. I lose myself in him.

“Yes,” I gasp, and it’s as much for my own benefit as his. I don’t like the silence, I like the grunts and the moans and the murmured exultations and then the much louder ones too. Silence can be dangerous; the wrong kind of danger. Silence gets me tangled up in my thoughts like I just was. “Oh fuck, just like that.”

Each thrust so deep, so perfect – bestial, instinctive. Each rumbling growl making me shudder and moan in answer, and not just to keep the silence out.

He’s close, now, I can feel it. His length twitches, his flare presses against me, his thrusts get faster, more erratic. His hot breath against me, his kisses filled with ever more fervour, ever more want.

He lifts my hips a little so that he can get as deep as possible, drawing out another shudder, another moan. A gasp, tightening around him as I pull myself up and press my forehead to his. I don’t always do that – sometimes it can feel too intimate – but tonight I do. And he doesn’t seem to mind, if anything he seems to enjoy it too, giving another twitch inside me.

I’m close, too, but not close enough, and so I trail a hoof down between us to reach for my clit, sending a little shockwave of pleasure darting through me when I find it. Sometimes the stallions don’t like me doing this. Sometimes they take it as a personal affront, like I’m saying they’re not good enough. Usually the younger ones. Tonight, though, my stallion doesn’t seem to mind. It’s been a while since the last time one got upset; I must have gotten better at choosing them.

And so together we rush towards our climax, and all the things we’re running from fade into the background, into obscurity, into irrelevance. All the things we’re chasing are brought into perfect focus, and it’s wild and almost angry, and dirty and frustrated and perfect.

He’s about to cum. I can always tell just before they do. His breathing quickens – sharp inhales, quieter exhales. The build up. The final charge to his orgasm. His thrusts slam into me, only drawing back just enough to be able to bury it back into me again, all the way to the hilt every time, and it flares inside me and he lets out one last growl. A tight grip on my waist, a final thrust, plunging forward in an explosive release, twitching and burying himself as deep as he can, his instincts demanding he do all he can to breed me even though we both know that’s not going to happen.

And I redouble my efforts, pushing myself quickly towards my own peak before his climax is finished and he loses interest. I’m close enough that as his satisfied grunts start to taper off, as he starts to regain his senses and leans in to kiss me one final time, I crest over the top.

Jolting pleasure darts across my skin as I moan into his kiss, shivering and shuddering and sighing in long-overdue satisfaction. Heat, warmth, lust, desire, fucking. Everything washing over me at once in a swarm of sensation, all the night’s tension and frustration and perilous silence draining away in the instant of release. No more pictures, no more running. Just sex. Just pleasure. Just him, and me, and the bed creaking beneath us. Just this moment.

Just dragons and manticores.

And then it’s over, and I break the kiss and collapse back down onto the bed sheets. He takes a moment, gazing down at the well-fucked mare beneath him, his cock still buried inside me, and I wonder if he’s trying to savour the sight, if it’s something he’ll try and remember later, if it’s something he doesn’t want to forget.

Personally, I always forget. Forgetting is part of the appeal.

Whatever he was looking for, he either finds it or gives up as he pulls out of me and flops down beside me. Not touching, making sure to leave some space between us. We lie like that for a while, in silence, staring up at the ceiling. My eyes trace the cracks and stains.

“Where’s your bathroom?” I ask, eventually.

“Down the hall, second door on your left,” comes the answer.

He doesn’t watch me as I cross the room. I didn’t expect him to, and he’d be disappointed if he was hoping for a good view, anyway – all the sway has gone out of my step now that it’s no longer needed. And I always feel too dishevelled after to try and be sexy. Sometimes my second drink wants another round in the morning, and while I’m never against the idea, I’m always too conscious of my mane being a mess and my morning breath to truly enjoy it. That’s because I’m becoming grounded, again, of course. It’s the echoes of awkward dates where those things actually matter.

It takes a few minutes to decipher his shower, and a few more to clean up. I always like the showers after. When I ache in all the right ways and the water pouring over me washes away all the sweat and everything else besides and just leaves the good bits – the memories and the slight, somehow satisfying stiffness, the kind you might have after a long run, the kind that still hurts a bit but you don’t feel bad about it. I’m always a bit sensitive afterwards, because the stallions I pick are never gentle. They should never be gentle.

By the time I get back to the bedroom, the stallion has blown out the lanterns and rolled onto his side, and in the gloom I can still make out him staring at his bedside table, the framed picture atop it lying face down against the wood. I don’t need to see it; I already know who it is.

And then I climb into bed with him and we make sure that space stays between us. We’ve gotten what we needed, and the space is important for both of us. We can’t have the other thinking there was anything more to this than sex. There wasn’t. There never will be.

And so instead I lie in the dark and let sleep start to pull me away, and in the morning I’ll wake up beside him but still keep that space in the middle of the bed and then it’ll be back to my empty house, back to my job and my life and my everything. Back to reality, back to hiding behind stone walls.

I sigh and try to focus on the aches.

It doesn’t really help.

And that’s my secret. It’s not as grand as others, not as depraved perhaps, but it’s mine, and it still makes me guilty. It has to. If it didn’t there wouldn’t be any point. If there’s no risk of the dragons, you’re still just behind the walls.

And as much as I enjoy my second drinks, they’re always so short lived, such a temporary respite, such brief excitement. And then it’s over, and I’m just in some strange stallion’s bed where my thoughts can’t help but drift to why I keep ending up there, why I can’t just find someone proper and right for me and settle down and stop skulking around dive bars looking for one night stands, for sex that doesn’t mean anything with stallions whose names I never ask for.

And the answer, Red Shoes, is that every time it’s over I’m already looking forward to my next one. I’m already planning my next escape.

Maybe one day the dragons will get me after all.