"Come on, come on!" Blossomforth huffed. "Sweet Celestia, Thunderlane, you're so slow sometimes!"

I snorted at her and continued on at my leisurely pace. The mare rolled her eyes, hovering in a mid-air backstroke several body lengths in front of me. "You know, you still haven't told me where we're going," I replied.

"Yes I did, we're going to play poker."

I couldn't help but notice the way she put just a bit of added emphasis on the word "poker". "Yeah," I said, "but that doesn't tell me anything. You play poker all the time in Cloudsdale, so what makes this worth the trip to Ponyville just to play cards? And why invite me?"

Blossomforth shied back, her bright blue eyes wide and innocent. "Who said anything about Ponyville?"

"Not you, that's for sure," I muttered under my breath. I sighed and pointed down to where Ponyville was clearly visible beneath us.

"Oh, right."

"And unless we're flying all the way to the Badlands, this seems like our stop."

"Yeah, you're right," Blossomforth admitted with a grin.

I sighed again, but I couldn't resist a smile at her irrepressible good cheer. Any other mare might have blushed at being called out, but never Blossom. If the last two years together at Clousdale Community College hadn't taught me that, then I hadn't learned anything in my time there.

Come to think of it, I probably would have learned a lot more in my time at CCC without Blossomforth around to constantly distract me and try to drag me into schemes and weird, unsanctioned activities. Overall, though, I'd call it a net positive. I hadn't gotten kicked out of the school yet for setting anything on fire, and for all of her hyper quirkiness, Blossomforth was one of the best friends I'd ever had.

Ahead of me, she turned back around, diving slightly and scanning the ground for her secret destination. I dropped altitude myself to follow, trailing behind in the wake of her vibrant pink and green mane, as I had been doing for the last hour or so.

"Seriously," I called out to her, "what's so special about this game? Is it a regular group or something?"

Blossom ignored me, infuriatingly enough, choosing instead to simply lead me towards a small house outside of Ponyville's proper city limits. We touched down, coming to a smooth halt in front of the door.

As she went for the door's handle, I reached out and stopped her hoof. "Blossom? Come on, tell me something before we go in there."

She looked up at me and gave me a little smile. It was pretty hard to tell in the evening gloom, but I could have sworn that she was blushing slightly as well. "Look," she said oddly quietly, "just let yourself have a good time for a change, okay? You need to loosen up a bit."

With no other explanation, she turned the handle and pushed the door open, not even bothering to knock. I shook my head and entered as well, knowing from long experience with her that no matter how uncomfortable or awkward I felt about something, I was still going to follow her into whatever she was doing. I can't explain it. It's like just being around her makes me into a different stallion. I end up doing things I would never do otherwise. When she wanted to water-balloon the entire dorm across from hers, I knew something was going to go wrong, but it just wasn't enough to make me quit. It always seemed like my conscience just had to sit down and be quiet whenever Blossom was around.

I offered a silent prayer to anything that cared to listen that tonight wouldn't be yet another of those circumstances. I wasn't putting my bits on it, though.

As we walked into the house's large common room, we were instantly met with a chorus of greetings.

"Hey, Blossom! What's up, girl?"

"Good to see ya! Who's the new guy?"

Blossomforth walked into the room slowly, uncharacteristically hesitant for her. "Hey guys. Everypony, this is Thunderlane. He's a buddy of mine from school."

I stepped up, nodding my acknowledgement of the introduction as the four ponies already in the room stepped up to introduce themselves.

"Uh huh, a friend. I'll bet so, if you brought him here..." the first mare teased Blossomforth cryptically. She walked up to me and stuck out an off-white hoof. "How's it going, Thunderlane? I'm Redheart." I bumped my own hoof against hers, nodding and trying to commit her name to memory.

No sooner had my hoof left hers than a yellow-furred stallion practically filled my vision. "Howdy, partner!" he called in a way that left my ears down against my head. I could barely make out the fact that he was dressed in a cowpony's hat and stylish vest as he shook my hoof with such vigor that it rattled parts of my brain together. "Name's Braeburn, and I'm mighty glad to meetcha! Came in all the way from Appleloosa to be here!"

The stallion was picked up in a blue haze and drifted aside, still grinning self-consciously. "Harmony, Brae, you're gonna scare the poor guy away before he even sits at the table," the owner of the magic said as he walked over. The large, white stallion stepped up and offered his hoof, tossing his well-trimmed blue mane to the side of his face. "I'm Shining Armor," he said in introduction, offering me a firm hoofbump, "First Lieutenant in the Canterlot Home Guard."

Cloudsdale, Canterlot, Appleloosa, I thought, my mind starting to spin slightly. Why is everypony here just for a game of cards? Much less—

My mind shut down as I noticed the last member of the group. The mare sauntered over, her unmistakable mane sticking out from her head at unruly angles that matched her confident swagger. She stuck out her hoof with a grin. "As if you didn't know," she smirked.

I stammered, my mouth hanging open. "I—you—DJ Pon-3?" I asked, incredulous.

"Dude, I'm off-stage. You can just call me 'Vinyl Scratch'," she insisted, bumping my hoof with hers.

The group began to drift back apart, some ponies already having claimed seats around the large, round card table in the center of the room. Blossomforth headed over towards a side table loaded up with snacks and drinks, made up in large part by what seemed to be bottles of liquor. At the other end, Braeburn and Shining were chatting, the latter using his hooves to apparently describe some sort of combat scenario. I looked around. The card table Redheart was seated at was clearly the focal point of the room, as the rest of the furniture seemed to have been pushed aside to make room for it. A sofa was still accessible, but most of the small room's other furnishings had been pushed against the walls. Maybe it was the presence of the alcohol, but something about this whole setup was starting to bug me, and I couldn't put my hoof on it.

I almost jumped when Vinyl nudged me in the side with an elbow, offering me a glass of something dark. "Hey, Thunderlane, right? What's up, colt? You nervous?"

"I—uh, nervous?" I said awkwardly, taking a slight sip, "why would I be nervous about playing cards?" I suppose it was liquor I was drinking. I'd only tried drinking once before, so I wasn't exactly an expert, but it certainly burned in a familiar way as it went down.

Vinyl's muzzle lowered so she could stare at me over the top of her large, iconic shades in disbelief. "Blossom seriously didn't tell you what this is about?"

That lingering sense of dread was growing. "Um... no?"

Vinyl facehoofed. "Nightmare Moon take that mare..." she muttered, turning to look for Blossomforth. "Hey, Blossom," she yelled, "you didn't tell him? What the hoof?"

For the first time I'd ever seen, Blossomforth turned several shades of red and looked down, muttering under her breath. I took another drink, coughing lightly as I almost choked on the mouthful. "I—she blushed," I said flatly as I recovered from my surprise.

"Yeah, she does that," Vinyl replied.

"No. No, she really doesn't. Like, ever."

"Yeah, well... Look, come here," the world-famous DJ said, putting a hoof around my shoulders and guiding me towards a corner where we could at least have the illusion of privacy.

I could feel that something big was coming. I looked down at the cup in my hoof and took another sip, not really sure of what else to do.

"Look, here's the thing, Thunderlane," Vinyl began. "Blossom really should have told you about this little meeting we have ahead of time, because this is just awkward as all get out. What did she tell you?”

I shook my head, belatedly noticing the way that it almost felt like my sense of the motion was lagging slightly behind the actual action. "She didn't tell me anything. All she said was 'hey, let's go play some cards' and away we went. I didn't even know we were going to Ponyville until we were here."

The DJ cringed. "She does this sort of thing to you regularly, then, I guess?"

I nodded. "You could say that."

"It's a wonder you still hang around her," Vinyl chuckled. "Okay, here's the deal: we've been getting together as a group for about a year now to play poker. The group changes almost every time based on who can show up, but Blossomforth has been coming pretty regularly for a few months now."

"I had wondered where she kept disappearing to on the weekends," I mused.

Vinyl nodded. "It's not what you'd call normal poker, though."

I frowned. "What, like, high stakes? Cause Blossomforth only told me to bring twenty bits..."

"Yeah, kind of like that. Twenty bits are just what you need to play. The stakes are something else entirely."

"Such as?"

"Well..." she said, scratching her foreleg with a hoof as she shifted uncomfortably. "You are the stakes."

I stared at Vinyl's shades for a moment, my mental gears grinding and coming up empty. "I don't understand."

"Maybe I should just go over the rules," she decided, pushing her shades up onto her head with her magic. "We're playing low-limit hold 'em. The thing that's different is that everypony starts with just twenty bits, but you also have three green tokens. We call them 'forfeit tokens'. If you want to re-raise, or if you want to bet at a pot that you don't have the bits to cover, you bet with a token. If you lose, the pony who took it off of you gets to name your forfeit, and you gotta do it."

I nodded, only half-aware of my actions. I was far too busy trying to process this information. "Forfeit? Like what?"

"Well, the first one is something small, normally intended to loosen things up. Like a drinking challenge or something."

I kept nodding. "Okay, I'm with you so far."

"After that, well, it depends on what the winner wants. But usually, yeah..." Vinyl blushed slightly. "It's generally sex."

I stopped nodding, freezing in place. My eyes snapped over to Vinyl. "You did just say 'sex', right?"

"Yup. So, knowing that, are you still in?" Her face was almost hopeful as she watched for my response. "If it helps, we're all really nice, and we won't make you do anything you really don't want to."

I stared at my half-full cup. "So..." I said slowly, "when you said that you'd seen Blossomforth blush before, you meant..."

"Yup."

I'm not sure, but I think I might have heard something snap in my head. "I—I don't—she—"

Vinyl grinned. "She makes the cutest little noises when she gets off."

I had to sit down on the carpet. My mind was completely lacking the ability to make sense of it all, and I needed a moment. It was a long moment, if the apprehensive way Vinyl was watching me was any indication.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why?"

"Why are you all here?" I turned to look at her, meeting her bright purple eyes with my own.

"Everypony's got their own reasons," she replied, nodding back towards the group. "Take Redheart, for instance. She's in med school, hoping to be a nurse. Her class and pre-residency schedules pretty much leave her a smoking wreck by the end of the week, so she's just looking to blow off as much steam as possible in the shortest amount of time." She indicated the two other stallions in the room, talking together near the snack table. "Braeburn there lives in Appleloosa. He doesn't get the chance to get away very often, but when he does, he comes here. He won't say it, but I think the fact that he likes stallions doesn't go over too well where he's at. I guess this is his chance to live his fantasy, you know? Shining Armor, on the other hoof, he's almost complicated by our standards." I stared at the soldierly pony as Vinyl spoke. "He's apparently going to be engaged. I dunno when. We keep telling him to just be a stallion and put a ring on her hoof already, whoever she is. Anyway, he's stressed out from working his job at the palace, and without his special somepony around, well..."

Vinyl hesitated, her muzzle screwed up in concentration. "I'm trying to think of a good way to put this. When he gets too pent up, he goes a little... crazy. There was an incident once, he got together with a mare in the Guard who didn't know he was seeing somepony. She had to call off several shifts because she couldn't walk for a few days afterwards, and his commander absolutely lit him up over it."

I winced, not really able to imagine what sort of sex could cause a mare to not be able to walk for days at a time.

"Yeah, no kidding," Vinyl agreed, reading my flinch. "Anyway, he and his mare apparently have an agreement. She lets him come here because we're safe, and discreet, and he won't blow his top anymore until they're able to be together on a more permanent basis."

"That doesn't strike anypony else as a bit weird?" I asked.

Vinyl shrugged. "We're not really in the business of asking questions, you know?"

"And you?"

"What can I say? I like this kind of party. Also, the press doesn't follow me out this far, so this won't ever end up in the magazines." She turned back to me. "Look, we're not trying to pretend we're something we're not. What this is is a group of friends who like to party, like sex, and just want to have a good time for a while with no strings and no attachments. Is that something you think you can deal with?"

I stared back at my drink. "I—I don't know. I've only been with a mare once before. This... This is a lot."

The DJ nodded. "Yeah, I get that. If it helps at all, I was nervous like you wouldn't believe my first time here."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, my reputation notwithstanding," she said with a grin. "If you have any fantasies, we can help with that. If you like something you don't normally feel like you can ask a mate for, we can probably do that, too. There's no pressure and no obligation. Like I said, we're all just here to have some fun."

I wasn't really sure what to do. This whole idea was so far outside of my comfort zone that I could barely even comprehend what Vinyl was talking about. Before I even knew that I'd made a decision, I tossed back a large swig of booze and coughed a few times, feeling the warmth of the liquid melting some of my reticence.

"Let's play some cards," I said.

I dropped into my chair at the table, setting down my drink and glancing over my stack of bits in front of me. Directly across the table from me, Vinyl grinned widely, obviously getting into the spirit of the game. Blossomforth was on my left, and Shining Armor at my right. On the other side of Shining, Redheart shuffled the deck easily between her hooves, obviously well-accustomed to cards.

"All right," Redheart said loudly, commanding everypony's attention. "I know we generally know how this is done, but we have a new player tonight, so I'll cover the rules before we start."

I nodded thankfully, paying close attention.

"Standard poker hoof orders. Only the top number counts, so as long as the top card or pair is the same, the hoof is a draw. Everypony antes one bit per hoof, no blinds. Max bet is two bits. To raise, you have to call the bet and throw in a token. A token must be called with another token. Winner takes the token or tokens, or shares it if it's a draw against a third player." The dirty-white mare turned to glance at me. "Any questions?"

I shook my head, running my hoof over my bits, split into two stacks of ten. "I think I get the gist."

"Right, then. High card for dealer."

Redheart began casually peeling cards off the top of the deck, sliding them almost thoughtlessly across the felt to stop directly in front of every player in turn. Everypony grabbed theirs and flipped it over. I showed my card, knowing instinctively that Redheart was a pony to watch closely. If there was such a thing as a shark at this table, it had to be her.

I glanced over the circle around me in sequence. Queen, ten, four, seven, Princess, and... my eight. I shrugged, passing my card over to Blossomforth along with the rest of the deck. She gathered everything back up and shuffled quickly a few times, sweeping her grinning face around the table at all the others, finally stopping on me. Her right eye narrowed challengingly.

I took another large swig of my drink to cover my nervousness.

"Alright, mares and stallions," she said coolly.

"Ante up."

Author's Note

What the actual hell is a Jack, anyway? The Knave or Jack was a servant, not royalty. Why is he in the deck? Princess is just a better name, even if it does take two syllables to say.

Author's Playlist:
BT - These Hopeful Machines
Marcus Shultz - Global DJ Broadcast