Peering through the curtains, I watched my wild hunter take off in a pegasi-drawn chariot accompanied by a bespectacled white unicorn I guessed was his handler. The agreement was for one night, and he left promptly with the sunrise. It would be different next time, I promised myself — he would not be getting some nameless mare, but a real date. I yawned deeply and felt my eyelids start to flutter as the long night began to catch up with me: I should really double-check to make sure that the house is clean, but I’m so tired...

I lay back in my recliner after removing the towel and closed my eyes, savoring the memory of the previous night. I never felt so beautiful in all of my life. I saw myself being chased through the Everfree, caught, and rutted again and again and again. After each session, those long fingers running through my mane, him telling me I was worthy prey...

“EEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee!” A familiar shriek cut through the house.

I jolted awake. Lily! I’d only closed my eyes for a second but a glance at the wall clock told me it’d been over an hour. So much for washing her blankets and sheets! I ran upstairs into her bedroom to see her reared on her hind legs, her forehooves pressed against her temples.

“What did you do to my room, Rose!?” Her voice was a mixture of anger and desperation.

I really should have cleaned this up before she came home! The room positively reeked of sex; the neatly made bed was now a tangled mess of stained and sweaty blankets. To my left, the door to Lily’s closet was wide open with burst open boxes from my ill-conceived attempt at camouflage. “I-it’s hard to explain Lily. It was dark and I had a friend over and…”

“You — you have a perfectly good bed in your room!” Lily stammered. “This is a disaster! What in the name of Cerberus’s six eyes were you doing on my bed!?

I weighed my options quickly. On the one hand, Lily looked to be about ready to knock me senseless, and admitting what happened might prevent that. On the other hand, she would know what I did. Oh Celestia, the horror! I settled on the partial truth. “It was a coltfriend of mine, it was dark you see. I came into your room completely by accident. Really, I swear! Pleeease don’t kill me, Lily!” I lowered my ears and prostrated myself before her.

Her anger transformed into a look of disgust which then gave way to panic; she ripped the blankets and sheets off of her bed in one single tug before launching out of the room and down the stairs.

“Lily what are you doing? I’m going to wash those!” I called after her but she had already left out the back door. Had I completely broken her sanity? By the time I’d figured out she’d gone out behind the house, she had stacked up wood in the campfire pit out back, stuck the blankets underneath and set it on fire.

“Lily, don’t you think you might be overreacting? That does wash out you know!” I watched as the blankets were slowly consumed by the flames.

Lily looked at me seriously and shook her head, “No, Rose, fire is the only answer! Only the cleansing flames of Perdition could rid the world of this taint...”

By Cadance, that mare needs to get laid! “Lily, I know you’re sensitive about this sort of thing, but I’m sorry; I just don’t see how setting your things on fire is going to help anypony!”

“Of course you don’t, Rose! It’s only the place where your friend has to sleep every night!” She stomped back up to the house. “If you need me, I’ll be trying to get the smell of Tartarus out of my room!” She slammed the back door closed.

I hung my head in shame, knowing full well I'd messed up royally but thanked the sun and the moon I hadn’t gotten into a fight. I’m not much of a fighter; I much prefer gentle diplomacy, preferably with an attractive stallion.

Still.. it couldn’t be that bad, could it? Curious, I gave an unburned corner of the sheets a whiff and barely resisted the urge to gag. I guess fire really wasthe only answer! I resolved to apologize to Lily again and promised to buy her new blankets.

I went to go back inside but she’d locked me out. I tugged on the door handle futilly as the door refused to yield. “Lily, come on!”

Lily appeared on the uppermost window of the house looking down on me, her expression inscrutable. “Up here, Rose; let me throw you the key.”

“Um, okay.” Couldn’t she just let me inside and be done with it? Why is she carrying around the key to the door?

The response to my question came in the form of a large wash bucket filled with tepid sink water that drenched me from front to back; I spluttered as I got a taste of yesterday’s dirty dishes. “That’s for my room, Rose!” she slammed the window shutters shut.

I stomped my front hooves into the ground hard enough to leave divots in the soil; I’d come in through the wall if she made me any angrier. “Lily, if you don’t open the door this minute, I am going to bust this door down and drink every last drop of your precious milk right in front of you!” I promised, then heard the sound of hysterical laughter coming from somehow above me. I looked up.

“Oh, wait until Twilight hears about this one!” The well known cyan-coated mare with spectral mane and tail poked her head out from behind the cloud she was hiding behind, laughing fit to burst.

“Quiet you! I’ve got a slingshot and water balloons Rainbow Dash, and I know how to use them!” I shook a threatening hoof in her direction. Surely, she wouldn't take into consideration the fact that my slingshot was inside the house and therefore completely useless, right?

Her only response was to laugh again and soar off into the distance, leaving me there to drip-dry. Glowering at the both of them, I trudged my way around the house to check to see if the front door was open when my other roommate Daisy showed up. She had a magenta coat, lime green mane, and emerald eyes. The satisfied look on her face told me things went well for her with Dizzy Twister the night before.

“Either you’ve reached new levels of desperation to find a stallion, or you and Lily are having another disagreement,” she said smugly, looking over my soaked form.

"Just let me already!” I growled, kneeling over and shaking the water off.

“I gotta admit, Rose, the wet look does look very nice on you,” she teased as she unlocked the door.

“Don’t get any bright ideas, Daisy; my stable door doesn’t swing that way!” I glowered before stomping off the bathroom and the nearest towel, wondering what level of Tartarus I would end up bottoming out in before the day was over.

*****

That evening, the mare of the house, Daisy arranged a truce of sorts between Lily and I. Though she did find my excuse acceptable, if completely hilarious, she insisted I pay for the damage and refrain from any retaliation for the drenching incident. I agreed to the first part and took the latter under advisement. She further ruled that if I ever did that to her, I’d be looking for another job, and another house to live in.

“Yes, ma’am.” I bowed my head and ears in deference.

Lily left the house to go spend the night in a motel; given her lack of bedding and the unbearable smell of her room I couldn’t blame her. After she departed, Daisy motioned me over to the couch; the smile on her face gave me the impression that her good mood hadn’t quite worn off. I wasn’t sure whether or not to be scared about that.

She took a seat next to me and fixed me with a look of skepticism, regarding me with her forehooves pressed together. “I take it you had a pretty crazy night. It looks like you scrubbed nearly the entire house clean short of Lily’s room. So what really happened last night anyway?” she gave me a sidewise look and grin that told me she already had a pretty good idea. “Am I to believe you just walked calmly into the wrong room with your stallion lover, rutted, and then, lost in the afterglow, you both cleaned the entire house?”

“What can I say, Daisy, the guy was a real gentleman — ” I cringed at my slip “ — gentlecolt I mean.”

Daisy smirked. “Interesting choice of words, Rose.”

I began to sweat under my interrogation. “‘Gentleman’ is a thing humans say right? I picked it up from some of the humans who buy flowers from us. Nothing weird about that.”

“Perhaps,” she said in a smirking tone that said she didn’t buy it for a second. “But there sure were a lot of rose petals in the trash when I checked. Is there anything weird about that?” Daisy asked rhetorically.

“Ngh!” I burrowed under a pillow, wishing I could bury my head like an ostrich. “I’m not saying any more!”

The pillow didn’t deter my friend; she gently pried the cushion up and looked into my face. “Oh Rose, I didn’t think you had it in you!” She grinned evilly and rubbed the top of my head leaving me embarrassed and sore. “You actually brought a human over here!”

I was determined not to be cornered and forced a straight face even though my cheeks had gone red hot. Abandoning my useless ostrich strategy, I cast the pillow aside and gave her my best poker face. “That’s a bit of a leap don’t you think Daisy? So maybe there was a bit of foreplay before the main event, but you can’t possibly know that!”

“Good point Rose,” my tormentor conceded, the heat on my face not lost on her. “That isn’t why I think you brought a human over, but I appreciate your concession on the starting point of your little tryst.”

When did my mare pal Daisy become a prosecuting attorney? “Just drop it! I had a friend over, things got serious and then we banged!” I facehoofed, “Great, now Cloud Kicker has got me saying it too.”

Daisy laughed at that. “You’re so adorable, Rose! No, I believe it was a human for one simple reason: you were never one to be ashamed about the stallions you sleep with, but in this instance, you had to get both myself and Lily to leave for the night. Need I remind you of your habit of constantly bringing boys home and keeping me and Lily awake with your moaning?”

Oh, that’s just low Daisy! I scowled at her. “I’m not a complete animal you know! I do try to keep it down and not wake the neighbors. I just get a little carried away sometimes. So the one time I decide to be a lady about it, I get accused of being a ‘humie’ is that it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it you know,” Daisy said casually before jabbing an accusing hoof in my direction, her face suddenly serious. “Unless you think there’s some reason to be ashamed of it!”

I swallowed hard, and beads of sweat began to form on my brow. “That’s not it at all! So what if ponies want to rut big, scary monsters from another dimension!”

“I knew it!” Daisy proclaimed, leaping on all fours, not unlike a certain pink party pony in town. “You’re ashamed aren’t you? Staging a romantic encounter at night when nopony is around instead of parading your conquests around is nothing at all like you! I never thought I’d see the day when I’d see my dearest friend in denial about her feelings. Can you no longer trust your best friend, Rose?” her expression went hurt for a moment.

With that, I felt my last reserves of resistance give out. I was running around and keeping secrets instead of talking about my problem with the one mare I could always count on to guard my rear. She was right, I was ashamed… and even worse, I was ashamed for no good reason. I sat upright on the sofa and bowed my head. “I’m sorry Daisy. You’re right. I did have a human over.” With the admission, I felt oddly light-headed and happy, like a great burden that was lifted from my soul.

Daisy sat next to me and put a leg around my shoulders, nuzzling me gently. “Rose, there’s nothing to worry about. I don’t judge you for wanting to try something new. Just trust your friend and please don’t rut anypony — er — anyone else in dear Lily’s bed, okay?”

I looked into her kind eyes and nodded, my own going a bit misty. I am blessed to have such forgiving friends, even if the most I can expect sometimes is to not be punched when I deserve it. “Promise.”

“Good! So now that that epic battle of wills is out of the way... how was it?” Daisy rubbed her forehooves together expectantly.

“Dear Celestia, it was glorious!” I fell over sideways across Daisy’s lap in a state of giddiness.

“Sounds like he really left quite an impression on you. He certainly left an impression on Lily’s bed!” Daisy giggled.

“You know it filly!” We clopped hooves. “I know this sounds silly, Daisy, but I really want to see him again. I want to know what brings him here to our world. And I really want him to grab me by the tail and have his way with me again!” I grinned exuberantly into Daisy’s cringing face.

“That’s... way more than I wanted to know Rose, but I wish you luck,” she replied, trying hard to keep her face straight.

Her reaction didn’t surprise me: Daisy’s heart has always been with other mares, though she insists she likes stallions too. Given her standards, I don’t imagine she’ll ever keep one. “Luck is in my name, Daisy, but if that’s not enough, I’ll have Rarity make me a dress!” My eyes lit up at the sudden inspiration.

“A mare like you needing help to lure in a stallion? It hardly seems fair!” Daisy scolded, though her smile betrayed her true feelings.

I rolled off of the sofa and stood up. “Well you know what Linky says about fighting fair: the Chineighse fought fair against the Maregolians and lost.”

“If you’re going out, say hello to that crazy mare will ya?”

“Will do.” I gave Daisy a mock salute, ran upstairs to get my saddlebag and walked out into the night.

*****

I made my way home from the Carousel Boutique after ordering my new dress, walking down side streets mulling over my earlier conversation with Daisy. My heart sank when it occurred to me that she could have been referring to any non-pony, and that I must have been giving off signals towards the humans since they first came — a decidedly troubling breach of protocol. To snag a stallion, any stallion, you need to maintain control of the situation at all costs. Showing fear or neediness is an absolute disaster and will guarantee your bed remains cold forever.

And yet fear was the only believable emotion I could bring up in those early days when the portal opened…

Humans weren’t the first interdimensional beings to visit Equestria. Our most dangerous enemy, Tirek, was also an ape-like creature who came under the banner of peace. He was one of only two of his kind that had come through the portal, and yet he nearly conquered Equestria by stealing our magic.

Within a little over a year of our alliance, humans were in our cities by the dozens, then by the hundreds and then by the thousands. Some of their stallions had even taken marefriends, but I remained suspicious of them, given their meat-eating habits and violent history. Lyra Heartstrings, a good friend of mine, became famous — some would say ‘infamous’ — for being the first mare to carry on a publicly intimate relationship with one of them. I’ll never forget that day she got me wrangled into this mess...

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

“Thanks again for helping me out with the flowers, Lyra. I trust your human friend won’t be too upset with me taking your time.” I looked around cautiously before opening the door to the greenhouse attached to the side of the house; the sight of dozens of different varieties of brightly-colored plants and the smell of damp earth greeting us.

Lyra giggled, the mint-coated mare tossing her cyan and white striped mane. “You make Sam sound like my boss! Don’t be silly, Rose; he isn’t going to eat anypony, and he certainly can spare me for an hour or two to be with my friend. So where do you want to start?”

I took a deep breath, trying to purge the sudden thoughts and images that were flooding my head. “The petunias need to be sorted by color into new pots. I can do the work of arranging them, but your magic will make the process much faster,” I gestured to twenty brand-new dirt-filled clay pots and a second filled with petunias of different colors; their roots still clung to the dirt from their erstwhile home. Now that the plants had matured, they needed a larger pot to be arranged in so they could be sold. “We’ll go with a three by nine arrangement: three of one color in the center, and nine around the perimeter.”

“Sounds good, Rose,” Lyra said cheerfully. Then again, cheerful was her normal state nowadays, ever since she met...

We were working for a good twenty minutes before Lyra decided to break the ice. I knew she wanted to talk about humans with someone, and that her roommate Bon-Bon expressly forbade it with her. We had filled seven of the twenty pots when she finally struck. “So my boyfriend told me the other day that on his world there are giant versions of us called horses that they ride around on top of their backs.”

I resisted the urge to scream. It’s one thing for her to engage in such — unnatural — behavior on her own time, but why did I have to hear about it? Still, she was the one helping me out, and she was a good friend even if she did test my patience at times. I broke the root balls on three pink petunias with a harder than necessary stomp from my hoof. “That’s... interesting.”

She telekinetically placed the three pink petunias I gave her in the center of the soil-filled pot before packing the dirt in around them. “That’s not even the half of it! He says that his civilization was basically built on the backs of horses. They rode them into battle, worked alongside them on their farms, and even befriended them despite them being just another animal with no intelligence. It’s almost like we’re meant to be together you know?” She shot me a nervous glance.

I sighed and stomped nine yellow petunia root balls to complete the arrangement. Was this what the humans told Celestia and Luna to gain their trust? That humans and ponies were sister races joined by fate to be friends? What foal would think to do that to a wild animal they just happen to encounter? Still, I found myself uncomfortably intrigued by the idea of these humans strapping themselves to our backs and riding us around...

“I’m sorry Rose, I must be weirding you out…” Lyra finally recognized my discomfort, looking away from me and towards the door. “I’ll shut up now…”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Lyra; I was just wondering how these humans would go about strapping themselves to the back of a horse.” I was happy to notice that Lyra had perked up at my apparent interest.

Lyra added the yellow petunias around the edge to complete the arrangement. “Does this look right?”

I nodded.

“Well it all started with humans breeding them to make them larger and larger so they could be used to pull things like plows and carts,” Lyra said with renewed cheerfulness. “Then they decided to design a seat that they could sit on that fastened them to the horse’s back and allowed them to control which way they moved with a strap that attached to their muzzle and teeth…”

The greenhouse had suddenly become a great deal hotter.

Lyra gave me a knowing smile. “It seems I really have gotten your attention, Rose. I had no idea such an independent mare as yourself was curious about being bound!”

My cheeks had turned cherry. Don’t be silly, Lyra! I just find the idea of ape-like creatures tying us up to be…” I licked my lips.

“Incredibly hot?” she cut in with a knowing grin.

“No! I just find it curious.” I looked into my bucket and pretended to be fixated on choosing a new color for the next arrangement, while I battled to regain composure.

“Curiously sexy?” she needled, her knowing grin growing bigger.

“Ugh! Lyra, you will swear by Celestia not to tell anypony about this discussion!” I felt a pair of unseen eyes upon me and whirled around only to find nothing but vibrant, blue orchids standing tall in the five pots lined up on a table in the greenhouse.

“I know what you’re feeling Rose. Just give yourself time and you’ll figure it out.” She gave me an encouraging smile and a pat on the back.

“Thanks, Lyra.” I smiled back, just happy to know that if anypony would be up to covering my flank on a strange fetish, it would be her. “How long did it take those humans to figure out what they were doing anyway?”

“My boyfriend said that humans were working on it for thousands of years. He’s taught me quite a lot about human civilization already in the short time I’ve known him…” she began to explain.

“Tell me everything!” I blurted out, immediately regretting having committed myself down this road into the Everfree from which I may never return. I comforted myself in the knowledge that at least if these humans turned out to be hungry predators, I might be able to use that knowledge to survive.

“I hope you’ve got longer than a couple hours, Rose.” Lyra’s huge, ridiculous grin telling me I was in for a looooong day.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

It was pretty late by the time I made it home. Rarity had been delighted to hear about how well my night had gone, having put me on to the idea, and I happily explained the details — after Sweetie Belle was asleep of course. When I suggested taking him out on a date, she recommended against Ponyville; it was too dangerous for Gentleman at the moment and in any case, she knew of a place to stay called the Amaris Inn in the village of Hollow Shades that was, to put it in her words, ‘simply divine’.

A village surrounded by a dark forest that absorbed sunlight in the company of my favorite monster? I licked my lips.

Remembering the card Stuntman had given me, I decided it was time to give Gentleman For Mares another call. I jumped into bed, grabbed the card on my nightstand and picked up the phone with my teeth.

I was so excited to finally get one of these. When Equestria’s businesses starting hooking up to the newly-formed telephone network, I had a line installed for the flower shop we set up every morning outside that I tapped into after business hours to make outside calls. Grasping a pencil in my teeth, I punched out the number into the large, pony-friendly keypad located on the phone’s base, and waited.

“Hello, you’ve reached Gentleman For Mares, this is Clarissa speaking. How may I help you?” Came the voice on the other end.

It was that nice human woman I’d dealt with before. “Hi, Clarissa, it’s me, Roseluck!”

“Calling us again so soon? I trust everything went well for you last night,” Clarissa replied in a polite, but casual tone.

“Yes, it was wonderful! In fact, I was wondering if I could plan for something a bit more formal with the same gentleman; a nice date so I can get to get to know him better. Stuntman was his name.” There was a brief moment of silence.

“Ah yes! I see here that he left you his card, so he must have enjoyed your company quite a bit too. This next meeting will be half cost. I have to admit, it’s quite unusual for customers to request an all-out night of fun, and then go for the dating.”

Clarissa had a good point, I conceded internally. “Well, where would have been the fun in that, huh?” I placed one foreleg behind my head casually as if she were in the room with me when I realized she was miles away. I felt really dumb.

Clarissa laughed. “Did you have a timeframe in mind? He’s booked up for this week, but we can get you in later next week.”

“Next Friday around eight at night?” I suggested, thankful that I’d get a week to get the money together. So much for my savings. “I’ll meet him at the Amaris Inn in Hollow Shades.”

“Sounds great! That will be one hundred bits. Be sure to have it in by Tuesday by end of business hours. You two have a wonderful time!”

“Thanks, Clarissa! Bye Bye!”

“Goodbye!”

I hung up the phone, laid back in bed, and snaked a hoof between my thighs. “Come and get me, hunter,” I whispered as I revisited the dark forest in my dreams once more.

Author's Note

What? There's no old comment here? There is now! I did some brushing up on the grammar. It's funny how some of my noobish idiosyncrasies, like excessive use of em dashes giving the impression of Roseluck interjecting her own thoughts, became a sort of character trait for Roseluck.

5/22/2018 I put Grammarly to work on this chapter too.