Chapter 1

Prostitution is a calling with many hazards, sadness and tragedy, but it accepts Equine nature. It knows what some ponies need, and perhaps that is why every society has found a way to accommodate it.

-Floor Stomper, Cinematograph Critic (56 Years Post-NR)

Silky Smooth eyed the new machine warily.

It was one of those new automatic sewing machines, needing only to be wound once in the morning before it would run the entire work-day. It was imported from Saddle Arabia, probably at the request of Mr. Needlepoint himself, and it was not alone. All around this level of the Textile Mill, various work-stations had been replaced with these machines, and that was what was most disturbing about this one’s presence:

It was next to her own station, where Cheesecloth had been sitting just the day before.

On the other side of her station, Creased Seam had already clocked in, and was hard at work turning a bolt of purple cotton into bathroom towels. Silky’s own station already had a pile of scraps sitting atop it, waiting to be turned into ties. She’d clocked in on her way up, and spun up her own manual sewing machine, dropping her saddle-bags by her desk.She began working, and when everypony’s else’s eyes had turned back to their work a moment later, she leaned over to Creased Seam.

“Psst. Crease. What happened? Where’s Cheesecloth?” She already knew the answer, but she had to make sure.

“Shh!” The middle-aged mare hissed at her. “Mr. Needlepoint fired her after her shift yesterday. He said she wasn’t being productive enough, so for sun’s sake, keep working!”

Silky shrunk back, letting her hooves settle into the rhythm of sewing the scraps together into ‘patterned’ ties as she mulled it over. Cheesecloth hadn’t been much more than a coworker, but they had been friendly, at least. Somewhere between the older mare sitting next to Silky, and Silky’s own mousey appearance, Cheesecloth at least had her looks and experience on a dairy farm to help her find some other work. But this meant, as well, that Mr. Needlepoint made no exceptions for beauty in his textile workers.

She shook her head. Nothing to be done for it but to work, as always. Adjusting her sage green mane one last time to keep it and the morning sun playing through the window out of her eyes, Silky focused fully on the machine, and the time began to pass like the cloth under her magenta hooves.

The needle stabbed in, slid out. Stabbed in, slid out. Stabbed in, slid out. Grab another scrap to attach to it. Rinse and repeat. Ties were finished, more scraps took their place, and a few hours later of mind-numbing work, the box of scraps had been exhausted.

Silky stood, stretching, and picked up the wooden bin of completed ties, starting towards the stairs at the back of the building leading up to the folding-floor. She paused at the foot of the stairs, pushing her wide-rimmed glasses up her muzzle as far as she could.

She hated stairs. Hated them with a passion, especially when she was carrying other things she had to watch. With her astigmatism, she had next to no peripheral vision outside the rim of the spectacles, and this meant she was constantly looking down, watching where she put her hooves to make sure she didn’t trip. The problem was only magnified (ha ha) when she needed to traverse stairs.

Thankfully, she didn’t trip on the way up. Instead, she ran into another problem.

The name of the problem was Mr. Needlepoint.

Her box jerked in her grip as she heard a yelp from in front of her, and it suddenly bounced back, smacking into her muzzle and knocking her glasses off. The world became a blur as she tilted, off-balance, and flopped down the stairs with a scream of her own, showered with ties that had escaped their wooden prison. Whether by some miracle, or just sheer luck, the worst injury she got from the fall was a cricked neck, and a few bruises as she smacked back onto the sewing-floor, dazed.

Her eyes spun in her head, and she watched the colours of the other workers spin lazily in her vision, their blurs all she could see without her glasses. Until a bone-white hoof stepped so close to her face that even she could see it clearly.

“Ms. Smooth, is it? You have no idea how close you just came to legal action. Count yourself lucky I was not more injured. Get up, and get back to work.”

Silky struggled to her hooves, her vision focusing on Mr. Needlepoint. In happier times, before the machines had begun coming in and replacing seam-ponies, they had often joked about their boss. A popular one had been about how, if his hooves were any thinner, he could have easily used them as sewing needles by themselves. He was borderline anemic, barely much more than bones, fur, and spite. Glaring at her from underneath his ratty stovepipe hat, his lip curled. “Well? Clean this mess up, Ms. Smooth.”

Jumping, Silky started trying to grab at the scattered ties with her magic, but all she could see was scattered splashes of colour, and her magic grabbed at them as if greased. “My- My glasses, I need my glasses-”

Mr. Needlepoint didn’t even bother to help her look, instead opting simply to scowl at her. “If they are so vital, why are they not strapped securely around your head? Better yet, why haven’t you had your eyes corrected entirely?”

Crawling along the carpet, Silky whimpered, “I can’t afford it… And my Grandmother thinks I look cute…”

“Is looking ‘cute’ worth your job, Ms. Smooth?” He barked.

“No!” She yelped, frantically searching as fast as she could for that brief gleam of glass, where was it, where was it… “Please, I can find them!”

“See that you do, Ms. Smooth. Time is money, and I gain little from you scrabbling across the floor like a rat.” He turned, making his way back to his office on the sewing-floor, but his first step was interrupted by a crack underneath his hoof.

All noise on the sewing-floor stopped. The seam-ponies paused, and with them, their machines. Even the automatic ones seemed to have been silenced.

Slowly, Mr. Needlepoint lifted his hoof, and a sadistic grin spread split his muzzle as his horn lit, holding the only thing in the world that could have made that noise. He held them up to his own muzzle to examine them. “Perhaps we should not leave such valuable things on the floor, Ms. Smooth.” He tossed them at her, so casually she nearly missed them, but she managed to form a magical bowl to catch her glasses.

Her cracked glasses.

With shaky magic, she held them up to her eyes, inspecting them herself. She’d had these wide-rimmed spectacles since she was fifteen, after outgrowing her last pair. Her grandmother had put them on Silky herself, and she’d only taken them off to sleep or clean them ever since.

The left lense had cracked into three parts, but stayed in the metal frame. Putting them back on, the images in that eye were just slightly off-centre from each other, splitting Mr. Needlepoint’s smirk into three images. His visage only got blurrier as she started to cry, just a little bit.

“I trust this won’t be a problem, Ms. Smooth?” Buck him! He was fishing for excuses, any sorry justification to fire her, replace her with one of those damn machines! He probably already had one set up, and was waiting to tell her to leave so he could sell her station, and put the machine there.

She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Choking back the tears, she managed, “No, Sir. It won’t be a pr-problem.”

His eyes narrowed, and his grin fell, mirrored by his ears. “See that it isn’t.” He turned back around, resuming his trip to his office, and only paused to look over the rest of the floor, and all of the seam-ponies watching them both. “What are you all staring at? Get back to work!”

Sound returned as they looked back down as one, and the machines spun back to life. Silky wiped her eyes, still sniffling, and began to pick up the ties in earnest. Once they had been returned to the bin, she trotted upstairs—nopony bumped into her this time, thankfully—and made her way to Gift Wrap.

“Hey… Hey, Gift.”

The glossy red-and-green stallion looked up, and his face immediately became one of concern. “Woah, Silky? Are you alright? What happen- Oh, hang on, were you the one Mr. Needlepoint was shouting at?”

Silky nodded, and dropped the bin next to Gift. “He… Stepped on my glasses…” She whispered, looking at the dull carpet between her hooves.

“Oh, you poor dear… Come here. Hug." She eagerly accepted the gesture, and her vision disappeared into his green shoulder. Gift Wrap was a very good friend. If he hadn't been gay, they very definitely would have been more than that.

"I just... I don't know if I can keep this up... We're working so hard for a pony with a hair trigger..."

"I know, Silky. I know. We've seen it up here too." He rubbed her head, and pointed across the room. Following his hoof, Silky saw a black-furred mare sobbing quietly at her station. "He just fired her 'cause she mixed up her bins."

With another sob, Silky reburied her head in Gift's shoulder, and he patted her head again. "Shh. Look, it's Friday. We're almost done for the week. You know what you should do, to relax a little? You should visit the Golden Cat."

Silky pulled her head back, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "The Golden- Gift, I don't wanna just rent a stud! If I'm going to be by a stallion I trust, a stallion I love!"

"And you," he replied, booping her nose with a hoof, "are one of the most high-strung mares I know. It'll be good for you, trust me. Should blow off some steam."

He reached down, pulling his own bit-pouch from a satchel by his station. "Look, I've got some bits saved up here, I'll pay for you. Two hundred bits in here, that's enough for the new Changeling they hired. She—or he, dunno which—can be anypony you like, even the Princess herself."

"Gift Wrap, I'm telling you-" Heavy hoofsteps on the stairs behind her silenced Silky, and Gift Wrap hissed at her, "That's Brick Wall! Look busy, Boss-pony's right behind him!"

Where Mr. Needlepoint had the stature of a stick insect, Brick Wall was the complete opposite. An Earth Pony with muscles atop muscles, rumours abounded that he had Minotaur blood—not because he'd one in his family, but because he had eaten one and taken his strength. His dusty, clay grey fur gave him his name, while his mane had been neatly shaved off. Nopony knew why he worked for Mr. Needlepoint, but everypony knew who he was: Mr. Needlepoint's security.

The goliath of a stallion rumbled right past Silky and Gift, who both looked as busy as they could, avoiding eye contact. Behind him, Mr. Needlepoint trailed in his wake, like a leaf being sucked along by a train. He saw Silky as he passed, glaring at her as she spontaneously found something utterly fascinating at the bottom of the bin of ties.

As the mountain of stallion rumbled to a stop at the other side of the room, Silky could've sworn she felt the floor shake. "Mizzus Weave," he said, with a voice like rolling thunder. "Boss tells me ya need some... Incentivizin', ta leave."

The eponymous Mrs. Weave jumped, babbling in fear, "No, no, please, I was just on my way out, I swear!"

That smug snake, Mr. Needlepoint, grinned at her. "Then it would be Mr. Wall's greatest pleasure to help you find your way to the door." He turned and left as Brick hauled her onto his back, shrieking and caterwauling. As they both passed by Silky and Gift again, he paused. "Are you two... Socialising, on company time?"

They shook their heads vigorously.

"Good. Ms. Smooth, there is a bolt of cloth in the storeroom, very nearly the same colour as your cutie mark. I expect it to be curtains or scrap by the end of the workday."

Silky nodded. "Yes, sir." She ducked downstairs before he could say anything else, skittering into the relative safety of the dark basement.

She found the cloth quickly enough, but decided to wait, and allow that horrid pony to return to his office so she hopefully wouldn't encounter him again. She realized, finding it still on her person, that she had never returned Gift's bit-bag. She opened it up, and began counting the coin inside.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ten, eleven..."

It took a few minutes, but Gift was right; he'd given her two hundred coin just to hire a stud. For the first time, Silky found herself actually contemplating the idea. Would she want to? Was she that desperate?

With a sigh, she swept the bits back into the bag. No. No, she wasn't, and she'd promised her Grandmother. She'd just have to give the bag back when she passed the new load of curtains to Gift. She picked up the blue bolt of cloth, and began lugging it upstairs, with some difficulty.

She set up the cloth in her machine, and began cutting it to size, but found herself spacing out, looking out the window at the Golden Cat, across the street.

The building had always struck her as strange. Why would Somepony build a brothel on one of Canterlot's industrial platforms? And yet, they had been doing something right; it had been here Silky's entire life, even before her Grandmother had moved to Canterlot. It had been changing hooves the whole time, from noble to noble, always some new madam running the place, until she'd heard a few years ago that a Gryphon had moved in and taken over, after a raid from the royal guards had taken it from the previous madam.

She'd heard even more rumours since. A Minotaur, a Seapony, the Gryphon herself, now a Changeling... Even a Zebra! She’d heard they only spoke in rhyme… She'd never even seen a Zebra before. Well, she'd never seen any of those before, but...

She shook her head, pulling her gaze away from the window. Damn Gift Wrap for making her so focused on that place! She tried to focus on the cloth, which had all been cut to size, and now needed to be rounded out.

And yet her gaze shifted back outside. A neon-yellow stallion hung, upside-down, from a harness suspended from the Golden Cat's roof. He was utterly engrossed with wiping all of the windows down, and Silky found herself wondering if he was a stud there as well as the janitor. She couldn't quite make out the size of his sheathe from here...

Silky yelped as she lost track of the sewing machine, the needle coming down on the side of her hoof and taking a tiny bite from the wall. With a ping, the needle snapped off, bouncing across the floor away from her station. Silky clutched her hoof to her breast, cursing under her breath as Crease looked at her with concern in her eyes.

"Silky? Dear? Are you alright?"

The mousey mare looked at her hoof. It stung, and there was a nick in it, but that was the worst of the damage. She nodded. "I'm... I'm alright."

Crease glanced behind them, at Mr. Needlepoint's office in the back of the room, where the closed shutters had not been disturbed. "I don't think the old bastard noticed. Are you finished with your load?"

Silky flipped through the rest of the cloth. "Not yet. Six more, then I'll take 'em up to Gift Wrap."

"All right, then I'll take my load up myself. Be right back." Crease hauled her bin onto her back, and trotted upstairs. Silky turned back around, looking over the rest, and sighed. A quick search of the carpet, now that she had her glasses, turned up the broken needle, and she simply began using her magic to sew manually as Celestia's sunlight turned red at sunset outside.

This job was soul-sucking. She was a natural-born seampony, but assembly-line work felt like it was boring her to death. Outside, the sun was playing through the branches of the Cherry Blossoms in the front yard of the Golden Cat. They were in bloom, and Silky loved when they were. They looked so pretty, scattering their petals across the industrial platform, sending splashes of colour down the street all the way to the canal...

"Something interesting outside, Ms. Smooth?"

"Gah!" Silky yelped as she spun around—he'd been right behind her! For how long? Had he seen-

She tried to hide the broken needle under a fold in the cloth she was sewing, but it didn't fool Mr. Needlepoint for a second. He simply pulled it back out, holding it close for inspection. "Hm. How did this happen, Ms. Smooth?"

"I- my hoof slipped under the machine, it was an accident-"

"Was it, now? I see. Why don't you come with me, into my office."

Silky's blood ran cold. This was it: she was going to be fired. At least it was the end of the workday, so she'd get this week's pay. She stood up, following her boss (or what was likely going to be ex-boss) into his office, where he shut the door behind her with a slam.

Mr. Needlepoint's office was perpetually dark. He invariably kept his shutters closed tight, his door locked out of paranoia, which never let in any natural light. He was too cheap to pay the electricity for the lights anywhere in the building, including this room, and the only source of light was a candle sitting on his desk, atop an old wooden box marked with the insignia of the Equestrian Aerial Navy.

Silky suddenly felt immensely claustrophobic.

"Sit." Commanded the reprehensible stallion, and she followed his order, sitting in an uncomfortable metal folding chair, while he sat in his own well-worn metal bucket chair, which seemed salvaged from a scrapyard. "Remind me, Silky Smooth, what your day has been like. In exquisite detail."

"I..." She gulped. Her throat was dry, but she knew she wouldn't get a drop to drink. “I, er, had an accident while going upstairs-”

“‘You very much did. Continue.”

“-to drop off my load of ties, and then you told me to turn a bolt of cloth into curtains, and I did-”

“And?”

“...And had another accident, sir.”

“Mm-hm.” He was still holding the sewing needle, and it floated lazily across his desk, like an airship crossing a mountain range. “It seems to me that you have quite a lot of accidents, Ms. Smooth.”

Silky cringed, shutting her eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry, sir, I just… It hasn’t been a good day for me, I promise it won’t be a problem next week-”

“Oh, I can assure you of that. I assume you’ve seen the new machines out on the sewing floor?”

Silky gulped, her eyes still closed. “I… I did, yes.”

“Would you like to know something fantastic about machines, Ms. Smooth?” She opened her eyes to find the broken needle drifting lazily across the top of her muzzle, dangerously close to them. “Machines don’t have ‘bad days’. At their worst, machines break…”

The needle suddenly took a sharp dive downward, into a pile of papers on his desk with a whispery thup noise. “...And they are replaced.”

Silky’s eyes were locked on that needle, watching as it was slowly drawn back out of the papers. “I’m being fired, aren’t I?”

“You tell me, Ms. Smooth. If you were in my position, what would you do?”

It was almost like she couldn’t control her own tongue. “I’m not in your position, sir. I’m not sure I ever want to be in your position. I just want to know whether I’m fired or not.”

The needle twitched in midair as Mr. Needlepoint tilted his head at her. If one looked at it closely, they could see two auras of the same colour bending the ends of the needle. “You are.”

“Can I at least get my pay for this week, before I go?”

The needle snapped. One end pinged off the desk; the other off the wall.

“No.”

Silky’s gut twisted. “But-”

“I will not pay for a full week’s work, Ms. Smooth, when you are several minutes short.”

“You- You called me in here!” Silky sat up, leaning towards the contemptible stallion, only to have him slam his own hoof down on the desk before him.

"I have already signed the appropriate papers, Ms. Smooth! You are fired! Now, you have two minutes to collect your belongings, or I shall fetch Mr. Wall once more today. Is that understood?”

“I… I…” Silky’s vision started to blur, as tears dripped onto her spectacles, traced the cracks in the left lense, and moved down her muzzle. “Y-yes…”

“Excellent.” He checked a pocket-watch sitting on his desk. “Two minutes, Ms. Smooth. And starting thirty seconds ago.”

The next minute-thirty was a blur for Silky. Events happened in front of her she just didn’t remember, all through a blurry filter. She could vaguely recall the sewing-room, her purse, a brief flash of Crease’s concerned face, and stairs. So many damned stairs. Then only the loading-dock, and she was sitting outside on the street, crying into her forehooves.

She couldn’t even get this week’s pay, this week’s rent, this week’s food. She still had so many bills to pay, so many of her old father’s gambling debts to finish paying off… She’d never be able to find a job that paid well enough in a short enough time.

What would her Grandmother think?

And then Gift Wrap was there, hugging her on the street. “Silky! Celestia’s Sun, I didn’t realize… Are you alright? He didn’t touch you, did he? He didn’t get Brick Wall to haul you out, right?”

“F-fired…” Silky sobbed, and she didn’t really need to say anything else. Gift Wrap nodded. “I know. I wish I could do something about it… Hang on, you’ve still got my bit-bag, haven’t you?”

With shaky hooves, Silky reached into her purse, pulling out the bag. When had she put that in there?

“Well… Keep it. I was just gonna use it myself, anyway, and I can go a week. You probably need it more than I do.” Silky nodded, still holding the bag in her hooves, and Gift patted her on the shoulder. “Look, everything’ll be alright. You and me, we’ll figure out something this weekend. Don’t do anything drastic until then, alright?”

Silky nodded again, and Gift Wrap gently pulled away. “You take as long as you need. I’ve gotta pick up my little brother from primary, but I promise, first thing tomorrow, I’ll meet you at your apartment. We’ll figure something out, I promise.”

And then he was gone.

Silky didn’t even see him leave. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she was left sitting there, holding the bit-bag between her hooves, and her own tears soaking her fur. Celestia’s sun didn’t move too much in the interim, but all of the other employees, even the monstrous Brick Wall, had walked past her a while ago.

A pink blossom fluttered into her vision, and Silky focused on it. It was such a beautiful thing, so delicate, yet discarded. Just like her. She watched it flutter away again, down the street, and felt her gaze drawn to the building across the street once more. She focused on the Golden Cat.

A moment later, she looked back down at the bit-bag in her hooves, and she contemplated her decision. Two hundred bits… That was actually a little more than what Mr…. That old bastard, had been paying her. She could live long enough to find another job with this much. It wouldn’t pay off any of those debts, but it would satisfy the collectors for another week.

Or…

Or she could do it.

The Golden Cat looked very pretty, with the light from Celestia’s setting sun playing across the marble masonry of the front. The verdigris on the metal furnishings only added to it’s appearance, and the wood of the Gazebo in the front yard, under the floating storm of pink petals, seemed to glow a comforting dark… woody, brown.

She wouldn’t have any money left, if she did do it. Probably even if she got the cheapest stud in there. Prostitutes were expensive, no matter how she thought about it.

But… Gift Wrap had said she needed it.

Gift Wrap wasn’t usually wrong.

The bag dropped back into her purse, and Silky struggled to her hooves, trotting drunkenly to the short stairway leading up into the yard, feeling tiny petals crush under her hooves, staggering to the front door. The double-doors were solid oak, with hearts carved in them. Pink paint had once outlined them, but this had worn off a very long time ago.

She could still turn back. Nopony could ever know how close she came.

Or she could be happy.

Silky Smooth pushed the doors open with a creak, making her decision.

The inside, the front lobby, was closer to a lounge than anything. Couches lined several walls, and a table in the centre of the room held a plate with an apple, crackers, and several different types of slices of cheese on top of it. A gem next to the plate kept it fresh without drawing attention. In the back of the room, a large semi-circular desk sat in front of a massive spiral staircase, leading upwards to the rest of the brothel. At the desk sat that same neon-yellow Unicorn she’d seen earlier cleaning the windows, who straightened up as she entered.

“Oh! Customer! Hello, Customer! What’s your name, ‘cause I don’t wanna keep calling you that.”

Silky haltingly approached the desk, as nervous as a filly… Well, entering a brothel. “Sil...Silky…”

The neon-yellow Unicorn leaned over the desk towards her, and she leaned back in response. She took note of the stallion’s cutie mark: A mop, surrounded by stars. “Hello Silky, I’m Squeegee! Is this your first time here?”

Silky nodded, and the stallion grinned before ducking back behind the desk. “Well! Then I’d better get out the list, give me a second-”

“How much-” A lump caught in Silky’s throat, and she swallowed before continuing. “How much for a stud?”

Squeegee’s head poked back over the top of the desk, frowning. “We prefer ‘Companion’ or ‘Partner’, if you don’t mind. And we all have different amounts.”

That was one question answered, then. The other was meant to be when he dropped a large pleather-bound book onto the desk between them, flipping to the more recent pages. “Well, I’m one of the least expensive, actually. Just forty bits to rent my services for an hour, and-”

Silky interrupted him again as a daguerreotype caught her eye on the page opposite, and she slapped her hoof down on the page. “How much for the Zebra?”

“Amani? Two hundred forty an hour, but he might be asleep. I’ll check.” He turned to a series of pigeon-holes under the stairs, and scribbled something on a nearby sheet of paper before sliding it into one of them, which then erupted into a gout of green flame, which disappeared upstairs. He turned back around to find Silky had placed Gift’s bit-bag on the desk, supplemented by forty bits from her own. He was mid-way through counting it all out when a response returned, forming into the same note he’d written.

Reading the back, he nodded. “Well, woke him up, but he doesn’t mind. He’s getting set up now.” With a smile, he pointed upstairs. “Just up there, follow the signs to the smoking room. If you get lost, try to find one of us; I think Snowy’s up there, reading.”

“Smoking room?”

“You’ll see why. Freaks Mamma out every once in a while, whenever she forgets.”

Silky nodded, and started up the stairs. As she ascended, she looked at the wall on her left, which was covered in what must have been hundreds of daguerreotypes, etchings, and small portraits of all of the Golden Cat’s previous Madams and… Companions, she mentally amended. There were quite a lot of them. All of them had notes beside them labeling who was in them, and from when to when they worked there, in roughly chronological order.

It was probably to be expected that quite a few gaps were present in the timeline.

She reached the top, finding herself in another lounge, and continued to follow the signs. It was a good thing she did: the place was practically a maze, and it was only through them that she passed through several other large lounges, up another flight of stairs, and to a door labeled, “The Smoking Room.” The lanterns on the sides of the double doors were lit, so Silky gently rapped on the door three times with her hoof.

A moment later, the door creaked open, and a cloud of pale smoke washed outward. A Zebra was framed in the doorway by the slowly-dispersing cloud that had filled the room behind him, and the light of the sunset dancing through it. The smell hit her next, somewhere between the heady odor of opium and burning grass, and all of it made her head spin, and numbing her mind slightly.

The Zebra dipped his head to eye level with her. “You are my client, miss? It is rare I have one so beautiful.” He was well-built, but it was more sinew than sheer muscle, more athletic than anything else. He wasn’t particularly tall, compared to a normal pony, but that was still taller than her by a head. His mane stood up in a horizontally-striped mohawk, perfectly flush with his silky fur, only patted down on the right side of his muzzle, which he had presumably been lying on. His cutie mark blended with his stripes, warping into the image of a flowing river, or perhaps a smoke trail, before swirling back into the pattern.

Silky blushed. “Thank you… And yes. I’m Silky Smooth.”

“And I Amani. Please, step inside: The vapours are escaping.”

She nodded as he stepped back, and she followed him inside, looking around the room as the smoke faded. The circular apartment was dominated by a round bed in the centre, with satin sheets coloured a royal green. More sheets, seemingly extraneous, had been pinned up against the windows as makeshift curtains, preventing light from entering anywhere but at the very top, where some of the smoke was allowed to escape. This allowed the room to be lit as Amani pleased by candles and incense scattered across the room, atop tables, dressers, a couple of chairs, and some shelving. The ceiling was domed, and a large cloud of smoke still hung above, fueled by the smoke of the incense. On the side of the bed opposite the entry-way, a closed glass door led out to a balcony, built of built of marble, shining in the sunset. Another table sat there, with a Neighponese tea set sat, unused for the moment.

Amani had retreated to the bed, having pulled a large, ornate hookah pipe up alongside him, carefully checking something inside and relighting a gas burner on top. Clicking a lid on top of the pipe shut, he puffed into the hose, and thin wisps of smoke trailed out of a release valve on the side. Apparently satisfied, he set the hookah down onto the floor beside the bed, which he patted with his other hoof. “The shisha shall need a moment or two before it is ready. My friend has yet to counteract the soporific effects of the Opium in the mix, and I tend to drift off without extinguishing it.”

Silky nodded, though the explanation went right over her head. Rubbing her right foreleg with her left, she awkwardly asked, "So... Um... How are we going to....?"

"That is entirely up to you, Silky. Would you simply prefer to talk, we can do that. I have been told I am an excellent cuddler." He smirked at her. "Or, we could make love. It is your preference, as the hour is yours."

Silky blinked. "I don't... It's not just... You know, the last one?" She looked at the carpet between her hooves. She didn't have to go all the way?

Of course, she had already paid Squeegee. And the price would be the same either way. So... Shouldn't she at least get her full moneys' worth out of the hour? Silky looked back up to see Amani puff into the Hookah again, and more smoke than before exit the valve. "Yes. I'm... I'm sure. I'd like to... Er..."

"Make love?" Amani finished for her, smiling.

"...Yes." She paused, before hastily adding: "But this is my first time, so... Please be gentle."

Amani passed the stem of the hookah to her. "Here, then. The shisha is mixed with opium and moonflower, to dull pain and as an aphrodisiac. It will do you well, today."

She took it in her magic, and moved it to her mouth, wrapping her lips around the tip. She gave it an experimental suck, and suddenly her lungs were flooded with smoke, sending her into a coughing fit. "Careful," said Amani, clapping a hoof on her back. "It's alright. Try again, slowly. As if you were sipping water from a straw."

Amani took a draw from it himself, as an example. Following his lead, Silky replaced the tip between her lips, and drew in the smoke slowly. It flowed over her tongue, tasting faintly of strawberries, and she drew it into her lungs more carefully.

The effects were immediate, perhaps because she had been in a room filled with with the same smoke for a few minutes now. A calm serenity washed over her, not unlike the laudanum she'd been given a while back for a sprained ankle. Around her, all the lights from the candles seemed to flare a little brighter, and the pipe slid out of her mouth with a languid ‘pop’.

Amani chuckled. “My friend is very good at her craft, no?” He patted her back, motioning to the bed. “Please, allow me to get you… Warmed up, as it were.”

She nodded, and hopped onto the edge, only to land off-balance. “Woah!” Amani caught her in an instant, helping her safely atop as she giggled a little. “Heh, sorry… Your bed is really, really soft…”

“A cloud-bed,” he returned. “With the aide of Snow Bank. You like?”

She nodded as Amani joined her atop the sheets, and sat in front of her.

“Good. If you could lay back?” He gently reached around her, and ended up between Silky’s legs as he helped her slowly lie down. Lethargically, Silky lifted her head back up, and Amani moved a pillow underneath it so she could look down her body at what he was doing.

He started slowly, simply massaging both her flanks with his hooves. Even just this little contact helped her relax immensely, and made her cutie marks tingle. A moment later, he moved up to her sides, tracing the shape of her body to her barrel. She jumped a little as he gently ran his hooves over her teats, shivering as he gave them a lick, then an experimental suck.

“Ah!” Amani’s eyes flicked upward as his lips popped off the teat.

“Like that?”

Silky tried to rub her hinds together as her… her place started feeling warm, and tingly, but Amani was in the way. “Yes… That felt really nice…”

He smiled. “Good. Ready?”

“Ready? For wha- Ah!” Amani’s tongue had just touched her for a moment there, but it felt as if it had lit on fire for a single, glorious second. He’d licked her… her… crotch, and it felt absolutely wonderful, and-

And then he did it again.

Silky bit her lip as she tensed up again. “M- more…”

He started licking in rhythm now, slowly starting to go faster and faster, until he was just swirling his tongue up and down her slit. She felt herself wink, and Amani practically leapt on it, suckling on her clit. With a squeak, she clenched her legs together anyway around his head, holding him against herself as his tongue starting pushing inside. She started leaking juices down the inside of her flanks and onto the sheets, and Amani began licking those up as well, as if he were addicted to the stuff.

Inside of five minutes since she’d laid down on the bed, Silky felt the heat between her legs getting warmer and warmer, building up to something… And with an ascending series of squeaks, it released. Her legs fully clamped around Amani’s muzzle as she started outright squirting against it, and he kept licking the whole time as fire flew through her-

And then it was gone, and Silky was panting. She suddenly felt very tired, and her legs slumped, landing gently onto Amani’s shoulders as her head fell back onto the pillow. Her crotch was still tingling, almost over-sensitive, and she yelped when Amani gave it an experimental lick. “Eep! Ah, one… one second…”

Amani nodded, gingerly sliding her legs off him and sliding up the bed beside her. “I understand. How was it?”

Silky gulped, and tilted her head towards him with a smile. “That… That was good. Better than good… That was the best thing I’ve felt… ever, I think.”

“The first is always the best, until one feels the rest.” Silky nodded, still shaky. A moment later, a question formed itself through the haze her mind was in.

“Why… Why don’t you rhyme?”

If anything, the question seemed to catch Amani off-guard. “Pardon?”

Silky gulped again. “I… I always heard Zebras rhymed all the time, but that’s the first time you’ve done so…”

“Ah, I see.” Amani motioned slightly with his hoof as he explained. “It’s a trick the Equestrian Embassy in Zebrica teaches immigrants when learning your language. When we are so comfortable speaking it that we can freely do so in rhyme, we are linguistically prepared.” He chuckled. “I never became very good at it, but well enough to emigrate from home.”

Silky nodded, snuggling closer to Amani. “What does Zebrican sound like? Can you say something?”

Amani smiled. “Chochote kwa ajili ya mwanamke nzuri.” His equestrian before hadn’t been as fast as hers, as if he had been considering every word, but in his native tongue, the words flowed like milk, smooth and unblemished, quick with confidence. To her ears, it was like beautiful, exotic music.

“Wow…” Silky smiled at him. “That was… wow…”

“Would you like to know your name in Zebrican, Silky?”

Silky’s eyes widened. “Yes, please.”

“Laini.” It was a simple pair of syllables, but Silky tried it herself, repeating the name.

Amani rubbed her head, and ran a hoof through her mane. “My own translates to Equestrian as ‘Peace’. Beautiful in both languages, are our names not?”

She nodded, reaching out a hoof to him, before pausing. “Do you… Do you mind if we.. cuddle?”

With a chuckle, he answered, “I enjoy cuddling. You never again need to ask, Silky.” He wrapped a hoof around her, pulling her in close, and she snuggled into him. He was larger than her, but so soft, like a giant stuffed animal… Save something poking against her leg.

She was only confused for a moment, before she glanced between them and blushed. “Uh… Wow.”

Amani tilted his head.

Silky looked back at him, eyes wide. “I’ve never seen… Is it really that big? Are they all?”

Confusion blinked across his face, before he chuckled again. He chuckled a lot. She liked that. “Perhaps. I care not to compare against others, particularly when they are clients, unless they ask me to.”

Silky looked at it again. It was a dark grey, splotched with lighter grey, like a pinto. For some reason, she expected it to be striped as well. And it looked hard as stone. “Can we… you know?”

“You are ready?” Asked Amani. Silky nodded, and he pulled away, retrieving the Hookah from the floor. “Best to take another draw of the Shisha then, in case.”

Silky took the pipe, sucking at the end like before, hiccupping a small cloud of smoke as she finished. Amani returned it to the floor, and asked, “Do you have any position you would prefer?”

“P...Position?” Amani looked a little hazy. “I don’t… I’m not sure…”

“In that case, stay as you are; You are beautiful, and we should look at each other we we make love.” He moved back to where he had been before, between her legs, but this time he lifted them up, and slid into his own position. From there, his shaft was on full display, towering above her. From here, it looked as thick as her foreleg, even though she knew that was impossible. And she knew, in an instant, she wanted it anyway. “Ready?” he asked, one final time.

She nodded, and grit her teeth as he pulled back, pressing the flat tip into her still-sticky slit. It felt almost too large… Almost. With a nearly-inaudible squish, it slid in, and was accompanied by another squeak from Silky. Amani pushed in no further, letting her get used to it, and listening to her squeak and pant. Instead, he leaned forward, and kissed her, allowing her to wrap her forehooves around him, holding him close.

He moved his muzzle to her ear, and whispered, “I will not move forward unless you’re ready… But I could easily stay right here for the rest of the hour. This is my favorite part.”

Silky panted, her hinds twitching again. The feeling of his shaft inside her… It filled her so utterly, she boggled at how she could have ever wanted to wait for this. It was warm and solid, and she could feel herself winking and clenching around it, leaking into a puddle slowly but steadily growing underneath her flanks. “Ah… Okay… You can.... Please, deeper…”

He pushed forward, slowly and gradually, sliding deeper and absolutely blowing Silky’s mind with pleasure. When he had pushed about half his length inside, he paused. “I fear going any further, or else it will injure you.”

Silky looked between them, at their barrels only centimetres away from each other, and nodded. “Okay, that’s… That’s okay.” She squeaked again as Amani slid himself almost all the way out, and back in, setting the pace like before. Each time he slid in to the limit he’d set, more of her juices, both the new and what she’d squirted before, sprayed out onto his sheets, leaking down her flanks.

His voice filtered through the haze that had begun to creep over her, whispering into her ears again: “Silky? Are you in heat?”

She shook her head, looking into his eyes. “Last cycle… was a couple… months ago, I- mmm… I think…”

He smiled. His voice was still steady and bassy and perfect, even as he fucked her, saying, “Good. Then Silky, would you like me to finish inside?”

Silky was bright red under her fur now, blushing harder than she ever had in her life, as she was getting close just from the thought. “Y- yes! Please! Do it in me!”

Amani started speeding up, thrusting inside, faster and faster, and in a single second, it felt like he was filling her with lava, all the way to the brim. Silky came only a second later, squealing and squeaking as she was filled with his warm cum. which leaked out with her own juices as well, as she pulled their muzzles together, kissing as they both were engulfed by the bliss, and stayed like that as it started falling away. Visibly exhausted, Amani slumped, and used a hoof around her back to turn her so he could lie beside her without pulling out.

Silky just laid there, happy as she looked at him, hugging him close. Amani kept his hoof around her, doing the same, and they laid there in the cloud-bed, savouring the afterglow, and feeling his cum dripping off her flanks. Shaky again, Silky felt her eyes growing heavy. “Ah- Amani… I’m tired… Gonna… hah… Gonna sleep now, alright? Just… Just wake me up, when… when…”

He smiled, and let her snuggle against his barrel. “I will. Sleep, Silky. You will have made good use of the hour.” Silky nodded, her eyes already closed, and the world faded from around her.

Author's Note

First chapter of my published clop, though not the first I've ever written. That one was pretty bad, so let's never speak of it again. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more at some point in the future!

Also, feel free to ask questions about the story, as I've spent the past four years or so building this universe, and I'd love to answer them!

Edit on Feb. 24th: Minor typos corrected. Damn you, letter I!