The life and times of Lafayette Ryder

So you may be wondering ‘Just what the fuck is wrong with this guy?’ well I’ll tell you just what’s wrong with me.

I left Dash’s house just a few minutes ago and am now walking to town. Dash had the decency to try helping me down from the clouds, even if she did drop me twenty feet. After that I just started to meander my way in the general direction of Ponyville.

I walk slowly now, taking in the sights and sounds around me. Spring is coming soon and Equestria is beautiful. Cider season starts next week so I’ll have a few days of hard work but after that I’ll be back to doing nothing much.

Upon finding a nice sunny field I lie down and take a nap, oh Lordy, the last time I had a nap in a park was with Lizzie back before my last deployment.

Lizzie.

She was half the reason for my insanity, the other half was all me.

I met her in high school, she was beautiful and shy as can be. Seriously, she would have made Fluttershy look like an extrovert on her worst days. I had a girlfriend freshman and sophomore years but it wasn’t going anywhere, she wouldn’t even kiss me on the cheek, so I ended it. The summer before junior year I began working for Lizzie’s dad at his restaurant. I proved myself polite, respectful, and hardworking. When I asked him if I could date his daughter he was thrilled, no one had ever dated her before and he thought I was a perfect first boyfriend for her.

I was terrified but I did it, I asked her out to dinner. She refused.

It hurt, it really did but I never gave up. I worked as hard as I could and her father started telling his family about how great I was. Evidently my work ethic and polite attitude were not traits held by any of his other employees. Every night he would complement me and every morning he would pass along what his wife and children had to say about me at their dinner table the night before. It was always good things, but they were never from Lizzie.

A butterfly flaps its wings and lands on my arm, tickling me enough to rouse me from a peaceful slumber. ‘A snowstorm in Chicago’ I think. I rest my head against my other arm and drift back to sleep.

My luck didn’t change until junior prom; Lizzie was the only girl I wanted to take and coincidentally the only girl without a date. Thank God for peer pressure, between her friend (Singular, not plural mind you.), her sisters, and her mother she was convinced to accept me as a partner. I remember how radiant she looked when I picked her up, I could never forget that. I don’t remember the color of her dress or where we ate at, the stupid jokes I told, or the complements I gave her. I do remember her smile, maybe because I kept getting her to show it, by random acts of both kindness and stupidity, or because I’d never seen her smile before, but probably just because she was so gorgeous when she showed her pearly whites.

When I call Lizzie beautiful, radiant, or gorgeous I say it because there are no words to define what I truly saw in her. Yes she was physically attractive, in my eyes at least; short, slender frame, small breasts, and shoulder length hair, but that wasn’t nearly as important as what else I saw. I knew of her love for books, it was akin to my own but stronger; she could read a five hundred page novel in a week and remember it for a lifetime, she would read anything she could get her hands on; science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, non-fiction, histories, you name it she would read it. She was smart, maybe not book smart but she was intelligent all the same, she had common sense and a grasp on logic like no one else I knew, and she could use it to. I had only heard her speak a few times before that night, once was an argument with a teacher over her grade. She got the teacher to give her an A instead of a C with her words alone.

The reason I had really noticed her in the first place was the librarian; one day I checked out a book and he made an offhand comment about how Lizzie had checked out several books right after I had read them. I got him to let me see the log book and I saw something incredible. In addition to her normal reading, Lizzie had gotten every book I had read immediately after I returned it. After that I left a note in a book, hoping that she would read it. She had.

That night, prom night, we danced and we laughed, we joked and we talked. After the event was over I walked her home and when we got there I asked her about the books and about the note.

“I read those books,” She said. “Because I know that if you’ve read them they must be good.”

I ask again about the note. Instead of using her voice to answer she uses her lips. I will remember that kiss until the day I die. As her lips withdrew from mine a single word was uttered. “Yes.” She turned and went into her house; I stayed on her front porch, a tear in my eye. It was at that moment that I knew I would marry that girl, that moment when she said yes.

I hear squeals of laughter and look up, to my far left recess has just been called at Ponyville elementary school. Miss Cheerilee sits at a picnic table grading papers and watching the foals. I see Tiara and Spoon looking at me. I wave and smile wide, they run off. I laugh and rest my head again, the butterfly is gone. What a perfect metaphor for my life; beauty comes to me and latches on, only to leave me when I need it most. At least a butterfly I won’t miss too terribly, and maybe I think to myself, it will find its way back to me and stay with me once more. I rest again. I think again. I dream again.

I know I haven’t gotten to the oddity part of my tale yet, don’t rush me, I’m getting there. Slowly but surely.

For the rest of junior year and all of our senior year we courted. At school we were together for every moment we could spare, at home we were inseparable. I pulled Lizzie from her shell, helped her gain friends and fit in, and she mellowed me, I was no longer full of angst or depression, no longer restless. I had her, she had me, and we were content and happy. For two years after high school we lived together in a house my grandmother owned and rented cheaply to us. We both went to community college; we even had a few classes together. Lizzie wanted to be an artist and I knew she could do it, her drawings were superb, her paintings breathtaking. I wanted to be a writer and an English professor. Read, write, think. That was what I was good at. When I met Lizzie I added one more to the list: love.

We parted ways when it came time for us to go to four year schools. I wanted to keep up a long distance relationship but Lizzie had other, kinkier, ideas. Unbeknownst to all but me, Lizzie had a hidden side to her. One full of suppressed sexual energy and wild fetishes. When I first learned of these I was surprised, who knew that a girl as shy as Lizzie knew so much and wanted to do so much. Who knew that I would be the lucky guy that she picked to do it with.

Clubs, toys, threesomes and role-playing. More than that but I couldn’t go into further detail for the sake of civilized minds like yours. Lizzie loved it and soon I grew to appreciate such antics as well. It’s a strange feeling to walk in on the woman you love in bed with a man or another woman and feel, not fury, but excitement.

When I went to a collage in Missouri and her to one in Chicago we decided to try an open relationship. Every weekend we spent together and every week day we spent with others. I started seeing men more often and Lizzie did the same with women. When we would meet up it was amazing, though we slept with others we only loved each other. The fellows and ladies that joined us, the toys, devices, whips, chains, and various other erotic implements were all overshadowed by our love.

After our graduations, I received a doctorate in languages and she received a degree in art, we were married. Now in both a civil and religious union we were happier than ever, but the wild fun didn’t stop. No, no if anything it escalated. Six nights a week we would party and have fun, the seventh we would lie in bed together and consummate our love, just me and her.

A war began and I was recruited to the Marines, I left my job professing at a university, my relatives back home, and a pregnant wife to go serve my country.

I became a Marine, a killer following every order given, but I remained the mellow and adventurous man that Lizzie loved. We resumed our open relationship status and I got a reputation. I was 300 pounds of muscle, six foot six, bisexual, very horny, and slightly unstable. At one point I was nearly discharged from the service for killing several insurgents with my bear hands… and wearing their flesh as a cape. I will admit that I over did it that day, I should have stopped after breaking every joint in their bodies and skinning them alive.

During my time on leave I would return to Lizzie and we would focus every available minute of every day on being with each other. I was there for my daughter’s birth, but not for her first birthday.

I wake myself and end my train of thought there. If I follow it any further I won’t be able to live here another day.

I get up and head for Twilight’s house. In a way Twilight reminds me of Lizzie. I wonder just how alike they are.

Previous thoughts vanish from my mind but one pesky vision holds tight as I make my way into Ponyville.

A slip of paper placed in a book by one lover of literature to be found by another. Lost and long forgotten I’m sure, it had but four words written shakily on its surface.

Do you like me?