Unicornered

On the way back to the bakery, Pumpkin leaned in close to nuzzle against her father. The gesture was innocent enough to anypony seeing them around town, as well as Carrot, himself.

"You're such a hard worker, Daddy. That's why you're my favorite, too."

"Your mother works plenty hard too. And so does your brother. But he tries to work too fast and makes too many mistakes. That's what your mother meant when she said that you were the better baker."

"Is that why I'm your favorite?" she asked.

"Yes, it's... one of the reasons."

"Was I always your favorite?" she asked, milking the affection. He snorted. "What?"

"Not at first. Pumpkin, raising offspring is hard by any species' measure and foals are no exception. Pegasi foals fly off to pony-knows where as soon as you take your eye off them. And unicorn foals have bouts of uncontrolled magic outbursts. At least pegasi parents could keep up with their little fliers. And unicorn parents were equipped with counter-spells. Trust me, nopony envied us, a pair of earth pony parents with one of each.

"Pound Cake's 'flights of fancy' were managed well enough with a sturdy harness and leash. It was undignified for everypony involved, but it worked. You, on the other hoof, were a bushel and a half of problems. Not that you were more of a problem unicorn than any other. But we simple had no way of dealing with you. You even put the reality-bending abilities, Pinkie Pie to task whenever she foalsat for you. Princess Twilight was able to offer some help. It came in the form of a few custom artifacts. And enchanted crib. A hexed pacifier."

"Why not an arcane inhibition ring?"

"That prevents magic, yes. But it also feeds it back to the caster. I hear it's quite painful for a unicorn. And for an infant with no control over their magical outbursts, it would have been torturing a foal."

"Oh."

"As you got a little older, the outbursts went away. And Pound's body weight outgrew his small wings and you were both a lot easier to deal with. But yeah, up until then, you were quite the challenge."

"What about now? Now that I can use magic again?"

"You're in control of your magic. Especially after your classes at Princess Twilight's School for Gifted Unicorns. You can do things much more precisely than any earth pony in the kitchen. And you can multi task better than your mother and I put together. She didn't mince words when she said you were the better baker." Pumpkin was about to gloat but Carrot held up a hoof to stop her. "But to be fair, you do have a big advantage over your brother, or any earth pony."

"Because I'm a unicorn?" she asked. She could see her father tense slightly at the question, biting his lip a moment before answering. "Dad, I can't believe that you of all ponies would harbor tribalism!"

"It's not a tribal thing," he defended quickly. "You know your mother and I taught you better than that." They got to the bakery. Carrot reached into his apron pocket to get the key to the door. The door lock glowed with magic as Pumpkin unlocked it. "That! That right there is what I'm talking about. You shouldn't be picking locks."

"It doesn't count if it's your own lock, Dad." The door glowed as she opened it for him.

"This is what I mean though. Magic. It's scary to non-unicorns. What could an earth pony or even a pegasus do in the face of magic? What good is strength or speed against telekinesis?" They walked together inside the bakery.

"Are you talking about the 'law of the jungle'? Might makes right?"

"It's a primal fear that all non-unicorns have, deep down."

"Is that why Ponyville still does Winter Wrap Up without magic?" she asked. He nodded as he went around turning the shop's lights on to re-open it.

"Ponyville was founded by earth pony farmers centuries ago. When the unicorns moved in, we accepted them in the name of peace and congeniality. But also because we really didn't have a choice."

"You make it sound like earth ponies are slaves to unicorns."

"Long ago that may very well have been the case. It's only by the good graces of those with power that we aren't."

"Well I don't know about all that," Pumpkin said. She started gathering ingredients in the kitchen to cook. "Princess Twilight explained that the reason the 'law of the jungle' doesn't happen is because when we all follow the rules and work together as equals, it benefits everyone as a society."

"And that's true. As long as everyone follows the rules."

"Dad, the legal system exists for a reason."

"I'm not saying it doesn't." He opened a crate of apples from the local orchard. He took out a few to start making a pie. He came across one that was a bit mushy. "But all it takes is one bad apple to ruin the pie." Pumpkin grabbed the bad apple from him with her magic.

"Bad apples get put away," she said, tossing it into the trash bin. Her eyes followed him as he walked across the kitchen to her.

"You still don't get it," he said. "Have you ever seen a non-unicorn police officer without their unicorn partner?" he asked. He didn't wait for her to answer. "Have you ever heard of a unicorn getting arrested by a non-unicorn? They have to keep each other in check."

"They?"

"Pumpkin, if you were the only unicorn in the world, the only one able to use magic when nopony else could, you would be a goddess among insects." She didn't reply. The notion sank into her as he went back to chopping up the apples by hoof to make the pie filling.

"Dad?" she asked. He looked up from what he was doing. "Are you afraid of me?" she asked.

"No, sweetie, of course not. I love you. I trust you. I trust you the same way I trust Pound with a knife to use it responsibly."

"So you think my magic is like a knife? A weapon?" Carrot held up his cutting utensil in his hoof.

"A knife is a tool, Pumpkin. Just like a hammer. And yes, like magic. The difference between a tool and a weapon depends on how it is used."

Pumpkin Cake just nodded and minded her work of kneading the bread dough. But she thought about what her father had told her. More so, she thought about her father in general. She had always placed him on some kind of pedestal as family. He was her father. That was the beginning and the end of it. But now, taking a step back, she looked at him from a critical, objective standpoint. He was an earth pony. A stallion. Her mind focused particularly on that last bit.

She had been infatuated with her brother's physiology out of convenience. His was a penis that was in the same room as her for a time. It made for easy observation in a purely clinical sense. She hadn't actually considered pursuing him to sate her heat. He was her brother after all. Though it seemed that little taboo hadn't stopped him from knocking up their mother. And now, alone in the kitchen with her father, and her own building sexual frustration, she was rapidly beginning to see her brother's thought process. She put the buns into the oven and continued watching her father work. Speaking of buns in ovens...

"So, new foal on the way," Pumpkin said, breaking the lull in the conversation.

"Exciting isn't it?" he said, smiling as he did.

"Yeah. Exciting," she echoed.

"You don't sound excited."

"Well, with me and Pound are both done with school... at this point I just didn't expect Mom to be expecting. Again. Ever."

"Well, to be honest, I wasn't expecting it either," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Lately we... uh. Uh, actually, no. I shouldn't be telling you about it."

"Oh please, Dad. I'm not a filly. Why were you surprised? I assume you were involved in the 'process'." She made air quotes with her hooves. He blushed at her euphemism.

"Well... look, don't tell your mother I talked to you about this, but it's just that- I haven't been... we, your mother and I haven't been as 'involved' with each other these days," he said. She hadn't expected him to open up to her so quickly. But she could tell that he had been wanting to vent about this for some time to somepony. "It happens when ponies get older. Some ponies. They start to lose that drive."

"I don't think I'll ever lose mine," Pumpkin said. She couldn't imagine her sex drive ever going away now that it was here. The burning ache in her loins felt like a fire that could never be extinguished. Carrot chuckled with an expression of uncomfortable embarrassment at her candid remark.

"You've been taking your Beat The Heat potion that your mother got for you?" he asked. She nodded yes, even though it did occur to her that she hadn't taken it that day. "I imagine it happens to all mares eventually," he said. Pumpkin found it hard to believe in her current state.

"What about stallions?" she asked. He snorted and glanced over at her. He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to have thought better of it. "What?"

"I'll let you know if it ever happens for stallions," he said, cutting up the apples more aggressively. There was an air of obvious frustration to his voice. "She tries," he said after a minute. "Your mother. She had been taking some medicine to help her feel 'into it'. So to answer your mystery, that is how it happened."

No it wasn't, Pumpkin thought. She knew exactly how it happened.

"We- uh... You know about safe sex right?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Right. Well. Normally we would... avoid the chance of pregnancy. But this time she... we didn't."

"Obviously."

"Obviously," he echoed.

"Well it's good to hear that Mom is back to her old self," Pumpkin said.

"Yeah..." he sighed the word out, unable to keep the frown from his face. So it was as Pumpkin suspected. Her mother wasn't pulling double-duty as much as she thought she was. Her father was still being left unsatisfied. Pumpkin wasn't the only one being left out. As she watched him use his cutting tool to chop apples, she was interested in seeing an entirely different 'tool' of his.

At first, she had wanted to have sex with him to get back at her mother for betraying her husband. But her anger, once so focused, faded. It was replaced with something more important. Something that had always been there. Love. Love for her father. He was a good pony. He didn't deserve to have his wife cheat on him. Least of all with his own son. He deserved a mare that truly cared for him. One that would see to his needs. A plan began materializing in her mind.

"Hey Dad, I have an idea," she said. "Since tomorrow is Father's Day, why don't we take a half-day and close up after the lunch rush?"

"Sweetie, I don't know. It's just the two of us until they get back Monday afternoon. And there's a lot of stuff that we need to get ready for Monday morning."

"Okay. But if we can get all that done early, can we close up? Maybe we can have a movie night or something. I just think you deserve a little time off."

"You and me both," he muttered. "Okay, if- IF we can get everything done early, then we can close up a little early."

"Okay Daddy. That's fair enough." The timer on the oven went off. Pumpkin took the fresh bread out with her magic and set them out onto the bakery counter. She flipped the sign on the shop entrance from 'Closed' to 'Open'. Carrot finished assembling the first pie and set it to bake and moved out front to mind the store while Pumpkin kept working in the kitchen. She thought about how she could get more work done in less time, while still leaving time for her to put her plan into motion.

She turned on her hoof to grab something behind her. Her apron strap caught the handle of a drawer and pulled it up backward as she turned, catching her tail in it. The inadvertent flagging of her tail made her catch a sudden breeze on her nethers. Even alone as she was in the kitchen, she quickly righted her tail to cover her modesty on reflex. But inspiration had a curious way of striking when one least expected it.

"Bathroom break," she said, trotting past her father.

"Hurry back."

Pumpkin ran upstairs to her room to grab another hair tie from the bathroom. She already had one in her mane for while she was baking. She put the second one into her tail, pulling it up into a bob-tail bun. She turned and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. The style left nothing to the imagination. She was on full display to even a cursory glance. She blushed with nervous embarrassment. But her desire was overriding her dread of her father seeing her like this.

Customers on the other hoof...

She stopped at the top of the stairs. She could hear her father talking to a customer at present. She wanted to wait to zip through the shop back to the kitchen without anypony else seeing her. She was anxious and excited, and getting increasingly worked up as she waited. Beside her was her parents' bedroom.

She didn't have time to use her mother's 'toy' from the nightstand. But she needed something. She moved over to her father's side of the bed. His nightstand was empty except of a lamp, and a condom that was older than she was. She punched the pillow in frustration and then grabbed it to hug out her aggression. It smelled like him. He would be pressing his face into it tonight. She decided to return the favor.

Pumpkin sat on top of the pillow and rubbed her bare pussy back and forth against it. The naughty aspect of the act made her tingle with excitement. It was making her even wetter, and making clitoris wink against the stimulation. She could get off just from this. She kept going, faster and harder, feeling the knot insider her tummy pulling tighter and tighter until she felt herself going over the edge.

"Pumpkin!" her father called from downstairs.

"I'm CUMMING!" she yelled out. Her pussy had made that side of the pillow quite moist. She realized that she needed to make good on her inadvertent announcement that she was on her way back downstairs. She put the pillow back on the bed. But when she noticed the obvious stain, she flipped it over to conceal it. It would have to do. She trotted back downstairs. Her good timing caught a break in the customers. She made her way back into the kitchen unseen.

Almost.

Her father saw her come back downstairs. Though he was too preoccupied with putting the bits away in the register drawer to notice her new tail style. She was already back at her prep table by the time she heard the cash drawer close. A minute later his head poked through the kitchen doorway with a perplexed expression on his face.

"Pumpkin... what are you cooking?" he asked.

"The apple pies in the oven are almost done. The tarts are going in next. And I'm mixing some cupcake batter right now," she said.

"No... it's not that," he said. She could see his nostrils flaring. He must have been smelling her. How could he not? She could smell herself. Her quick session upstairs gave her no time to clean herself. It hadn't just gotten the pillow wet. Her tail, the fur of her thighs and entire backside was still damp. With her tail up in a bun, her scent easily wafted into the open air. "Are you wearing perfume?"

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"It's nice. But maybe don't use so much next time? I can-" His tongue smacked against his lips. "I can practically taste it."

Oh, you will soon, Daddy.

He went back to the front counter while Pumpkin worked extra hard to get everything done as quickly and efficiently as possible. She needed to do everything she could to get a leg up on tomorrow if she was to have any hope of being able to close the shop early. Her singular focus on her work made it easy to forget about her bigger plan. And to lose track of time.

"Are those pies-"

"Here they are," she said, levitating them to him from the cooling rack.

"And the-"

"Tarts are coming out right now."

"And-"

"Cupcakes just went in."

"Wh-"

"I'm already kneading the dough!"

"... wow."

"I've got this, Dad," she said, zipping across the kitchen.

"What's that?" he asked. She stopped and looked at him. She followed his eyes to her rump. Out from behind her counter top, he finally noticed her tail bun.

"Oh, this? I just noticed that I'd had a few stray hairs fall out, so I did it up in a hair tie like my mane. About time, really. This is a bakery after all." She turned to get something from the shelf behind her. The bottom shelf. And darn if it didn't take her a long time to find what she was looking for while she was bent over like that. She grabbed an spatula that she didn't need and inspected it. Really, she was just looking at him in the metal's reflection. His jaw was slightly ajar and his eyes were the size of dinner plates as he involuntarily licked his lips. She stood back up quickly and turned to face him. He instantly looked away to make it seem like he hadn't been staring at her exposed backside the entire time like she knew he was.

"W-well make sure you don't g-go out with your t-tail like that!" he stammered.

"Why?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

"B-because I don't think the b-bob tail style is in right now, and I d-don't want you to get emb-b-barrassed."

"Oh. Okay. Thank's Daddy." She wasn't sure if he had just said 'bare-assed', or if she just thought he said that. But given how red his face was, he was embarrassed enough for both of them when he turned to go back out to the storefront. Before long with was getting darker outside. The cash register dinged one last time as it closed and Carrot went to go lock the front door. But Pumpkin hadn't slowed down one bit.

"Pumpkin, we're closed for the night," he said.

"I know. I'm just trying to get a leg up on tomorrow." The young mare was going over the orders for the following day.

"You can't bake that stuff tonight. It'll go stale by tomorrow. Ponies want their stuff fresh."

"I know." She was filling pre-measured ingredient bowls in advance and covering them. She went back and forth between the orders and a spreadsheet she was making, organizing everything by cooking temperature to be able to cook as much as possible with the finite number of ovens they had. "Hottest first," she said to herself as she arranged everything on the paper. "Only have to pre-heat once..." she trailed off.

"Don't stay up too late. Tomorrow is another early day."

"I know," she said a third time.

"Ugh, I wish I was a teenager again. Back when I still knew everything. Goodnight dear."

"Night, Dad." She heard him walk upstairs to get ready for bed. She worked faster. It was hard enough to get up on time when she went to bed early. It was already getting late and she wanted to get up extra early. That aside, she hadn't actually used her bathroom break as a bathroom break and she had a new urgency. She finished the last of her work as she began to hear water running upstairs. He was taking a shower.

She turned off the lights in the kitchen and went upstairs. She had held it this long, but the sound of the shower was making it extra difficult. She walked over to the bathroom door. Inside she could hear him scrubbing. The rhythm splashing of the water. A bit too rhythmic. She was only briefly shocked. How could he not be dealing with himself after being around the scent of a mare in heat all day. He must have been in dire need of relief. To interrupt him now would have been downright cruel. But she didn't have a choice. She knocked on the door.

"Daddy?" she said, opening the door a crack. The rhythmic noise ceased instantly.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to be long?"

"Um, yeah. I just got in the shower."

"Oh. I just, I really need to tinkle!" she said.

"Oh. Um. Okay then. I'll uh, just stay on this side of the shower curtain then," he said.

"Okay." She stepped inside the bathroom and walked over to the toilet, facing the shower and took a seat. The translucent shower curtain only managed to blur the silhouette of the pony on the other side. Pumpkin could plainly see the outline of her father's erection under him. The running shower did little to hide the echoing noise of her relieving herself. There was no way he couldn't hear her. She could see his blurry erection bobbing, making wet slaps as it smacked against his belly.

She had heard of a spell that one of her classmates had found in their parents' bedroom. it was a magical construct spell that kept a colt from prematurely ejaculating. Effectively, it placed a magical construct in their prostate preventing them from cumming. She hadn't considered that she would ever have a need for such a spell. But now that she had gone through all the trouble of getting him all worked up, she didn't want her father to just go and relieve himself like this in the shower. She used her magic to grab a bit of toilet paper, and at the same time, subtly cast the spell on the stallion in the shower. She got up to leave.

"Hey Daddy, did you want me to flush? I know it messes with the shower." It was true. Due to a quirk with the house plumbing, if the toilet was flushed, the cold water stopped flowing to the shower and it became scalding hot for a moment.

"Uh, no. I'll get it when i get out," he said.

Pumpkin smirked and left. The porcelain bowl was full of Pumpkin Cake soup, wafting 'Eau De Mare' into the confined space of the bathroom even after she had left. It would only serve to frustrate him further toward an orgasm he couldn't have until the spell on him was removed.

Her own frustration was a matter of itself. She needed to sleep well and get up early. It would do her her no good to be up all night in such a state. She made a detour from the bathroom and headed to her parents' room. Surely her mother had the tools suited to help her. She opened the drawer of her mother's nightstand.

It wasn't the bastion of dildos she had hoped for. Just a prescription bottle, a pair of reading glasses, and one of those romance novels that older mares read as a post-menopausal masturbatory aid. She glanced at the prescription bottle and picked it up in her magic.

"Zesper? What the heck is that?" She read the description. For help with arousal.

Well no wonder Cup Cake had no sex drive for Carrot, she thought. She had been shutting it down with this! And when she went on that train trip last month, she forgot the bottle and took advantage of Pound Cake being there.

She stood their with aching loins, imagining that Pound must be balls deep in his mother by now. A little something to take the edge off her lust would do her good. She opened the bottle and took out one tablet. Just one should do, she thought. The recommended dosage was two per day. She grabbed a second one and swallowed them both. She put the bottle back and went back to her bedroom.

Now she could get a good night's sleep and wake up with a clear head.