"Alright, let's see what we can do with this." I sat down at the computer next to the latex printer and turned them both on. The printer's presence and capabilities had been bugging me all week, along with some memories of pictures and people from Earth, but since Saturday was done, I had all the time in the world.

"Actually. . . It's not connected to anything that would provide latex, so how about we stop before we get disappointed?" Searing nervously asked, her voice just a little faster than normal.

"Oh. Well, that's kind of sad." I booted the computer up anyways. "You said it has a 3D modelling part?"

She looked to the side. "Well. . . I guess you can have fun with that."

As soon as the booting process was done, I found the Latex Printer program and clicked on it. Immediately, and without an internet connection, it started updating. I read the message out loud. "Downloading Latex Printer update to version D15.C0RD."

Searing drew a sharp breath. "Excuse me for a moment." She left the room and started shouting for Discord.

As the sounds of a chaos spirit getting beat up filled the air, the update finished and I read the changelog. "Thank you for updating to version D15.C0RD of the Latex Printer program. The following tools have been added: 3D projection with touch enabled editing, easy enchantment application, vocal directives, live editing modification, and cleaning. Printing and editing can now be done directly onto someone standing in the printer. Tutorials are available. Also included is a Bravo Sierra Magic supply system, so you'll always have material. Materials include latex, spandex, swimsuit stuff, plastic, metal, and foam, all able to be custom colored and textured in the program. More materials can be scanned in as needed. The software has also been updated to save after every edit so that you lose little to nothing in the unlikely event of a crash." I reread it a few times to comprehend the stuff. "Well, let's give it a try."

Before I could do anything, Discord flew through the monitor and the wall like a ghost before a loud crashing sound came from outside. "He'd better learn after that," Searing firmly said, back in her unicorn form.

I turned to my girlfriend. "So, do you want me to not mess with this?"

"That's. . . Complicated." She read the changelog and sighed. "May as well if you want."

"How about you tell me about that part of your trip while I take it for a spin? Maybe you'll feel a bit better?" I started watching the tutorial video.

"Well, the first thing that happened was me getting wrapped up in a cocoon thing. . ."

Even with Searing's clearly watered down descriptions of her experiences in the latex world, I found it difficult to focus on the thigh high heeled boots I was working on. My mind was filling in the blanks that she was definitely leaving out. The sleek design of the piece I was working on and the extremely high resolution didn't help either.

After the story was done, I pulled Searing into a hug. She needed it, I had some weird feeling in me that I couldn't really ignore, and the hug seemed to resolve it a bit. In the emotional smoothie I was feeling, confusion was the main flavor.

"Have you ever worn latex before, Yang?" Searing asked.

"Only gloves for handling chemical covered things," I said. "And that was never for more than an hour at a time at most. That being said, I had some friends that did occasionally wear the stuff and let me tell you, it was hard to look away from them when they were wearing it. And I also saw stuff on the internet. The internet is full of that kind of stuff."

"Of course. It's the internet."

I looked the design on the screen over again. "Do you think a flattened hexagonal pattern would look good on this?"

Searing broke the hug and looked at the screen. "Well. . . Yes, but. . ."

"Concerned about something?" When I got no response, I egged her on. "Come on, out with it. Be honest."

She took a breath before forcing an answer out. "I think they would look great, and I think you would like them, but I don't know if that's me being honest or just me wanting to look at you with them on."

I considered her answer for a moment. "Huh. I have a question about that."

"Yes?"

"Why can't it be both?" The gears in Searing's mind seemed to click and grind at the same time at the question. Then her eyelid started twitching. "Searing?"

She giggled. "Why didn't I think of that? Why choose when you can have both! The chains never existed! Hahahahahahahaha! I was worried for nothing!" A flick to the horn tip stopped her for a moment. "Ah! What was that for?"

"Are you okay?"

"Okay? I don't think I could be better! All this time, I was afraid you would push me away because of this, but I don't have to worry anymore." The dam broke and she started crying.

I used my degree in Need-a-hug-ology and pulled her back into my embrace. The weird feeling was gone, replaced with concern. It wasn't long before she wore herself out and fell asleep on me. The mane stroking I gave her probably helped.

The project on the screen held none of my interest as I picked the sleeping unicorn up and took her to bed. Even as I changed to my fuzzy bodysuit, set another one aside for Searing, and made a note to get more made, thoughts of and concern for my girlfriend took a vast priority over the sleek thigh high heels, though the thought of making them out of the swimsuit material instead of latex did cross my mind.

Luna was watching over the dreamscape, as usual. She tended to many dreams, took a passing interest in some, grabbed a few good ideas here and there, and may or may not have snagged a donut or two from her sister's dream of pastry heaven. Dream calories, unlike vacation calories, truly did not count.

Two dreams in particular drew her attention, and not just because of a personal interest in the dreamers. The raw emotions of a recent event radiated from them, and so she watched. Concern and worry were heavily present in both, along with the smell of rubber.

She delved into one and found a mess of a mare laying on her back, laughing and crying, relief and sorrow on her face. All around her were all manner of clothes, almost all of them for a human body, though there were a few equine pieces here and there. There was a constant electric hum and crackle that filled the air, and a new piece would occasionally fall from above. Luna approached and lay down next to her. "Searing?"

Searing took a few shaky breaths before she noticed Luna. "Princess?"

"Is there something troubling you?"

"Well. . . Yes, but no?" Unbidden by Searing, the memory of the moment Yang suggested the possibility of her enjoying something and letting Searing enjoy the sight came up in full clarity. "Can I just get an answer to that?"

Luna carefully reinspected the memory. "It's like a forbidden fruit, except that you forbade yourself from it quite some time ago, or mayhaps repressed it. You had Yang's interests at heart, but did not know that she would so quickly take to this machine. You're having trouble relieving yourself of this grip that you've held for so long, and Yang assuring you that everything is fine is causing a conflict now that the fruit is no longer forbidden."

"Luna, there was more than just latex clothes there. There were lots of. . . Intrusive things as well, sometimes attached to the clothes. How do I tell her about that?"

"Did you tell her of this world you visited?"

"Yes."

"Is there no reason she could not have drawn that kind of conclusion herself?"

Searing paused as she considered the presented idea, then broke down again. "I'm a fool, aren't I?"

"Everypony is a fool in some way. Even myself and my sister. On the matter of these more intrusive matters, should you wish to present the idea of them to Yang for whatever reason, that is something you will have to figure out yourself." Luna stood up. "I hope this talk has been helpful, Searing."

"It was."

"I must leave now. Sleep well." Luna blessed Searing with a restful sleep before heading to the next dream. "Hello, Yang."

"Hi, Luna," Yang said from her comfortable office chair floating in cyberspace. All around her were pictures of latex clad women. Some were memories of actual people, others were memories of pictures she'd seen, both photo shots and art. Plenty of them seemed like the kind of material that would get a pony in trouble at work, though none of it appeared to be explicit. "I'm worried."

Luna conjured a chair and sat with Yang, taking in the myriad of sights. "Would it happen to be related to this?"

"Yes. I'm no stranger to the idea of latex clothes, but now that the printer is here and is working, these memories are coming back. The temptation to wear the stuff is very strong, but I'm also feeling a bit conflicted on actually wearing it. It's. . . Heh, it's almost like my thing with dresses when I came here. I didn't want to wear them at first, but after I had no choice, I stopped worrying."

"And you went to the other end of the scale."

"Yeah, and I'm kind of still on that end," Yang sheepishly admitted. "Confusion, tolerance, acceptance, and now embracing. That's me with this body."

"What about Searing?"

Yang tensed ever so slightly at the question. "I'm worried about her, Luna. She didn't want the printer to be used, then she let me at it, Discord updated it, and when she was with me, she seemed really nervous. Tense. Like she was reluctantly letting me experiment with it."

"Did she say anything?"

"She was worried about how I would see it, I think. As something I actually like or something she likes because I could make stuff that she could look at on me or something. I asked her why it couldn't be both and that was when she broke down. I did my best to comfort her and she cried herself to sleep before I could really do anything else."

"You did what you could. What about you, though? What were you feeling while you were experimenting?"

A grayscale model of the thigh high heels appeared in front of Yang. "Well. . . It was odd. It was something I just. . . It felt weird, but not in the bad way? A low key excitement or something? I was mostly focused on the project." Memories of the sensation flowed through the dreamscape.

Luna recognized it immediately. "That's a bit of arousal."

The sensation suddenly vanished, the pictures all shattered, and the cyberspace turned into void. Even the chairs disappeared, leaving Yang and Luna sitting on nothing. "Arousal? Why?"

"Call it an educated guess, but it may be that you now have access to a machine that can make any kind of clothing you want, and you know it. The idea of wearing latex clothes appeals to you, and you know you're going to wear whatever latex thing you make first because you're very curious. And you like your clothes. Not to mention how they would look on Searing."

Yang took a measured breath. "I can't argue any of that."

"Would you be so kind as to explain why latex allures you so?"

"It's tight, shiny, shows off the figure really well, and is. . ." Yang had to stop as the arousal came back. "Well, it's kind of like a second skin. So I've heard. It's just so. . . Alluring."

"I see. Sleep well, Yang." Luna left to tend to other dreams.

I woke up with my unicorn in my arms, right where I'd left her the night before. She had neither a peaceful nor troubled look on her face, and was still asleep. She didn't react when I carefully extracted myself from bed and left the room to make breakfast.

As I was making the meal, I thought about my conversation with Luna and the topics she'd brought up. Every point of hers was good, and I couldn't really deny them, but my main concern was Searing. I wanted to make sure she was in a good place before I had fun printing my own clothes.

Eventually, Searing came down. Even though she had just woken up, she looked dead tired. "Hey," she said with no energy to speak of.

"Hey," I said as I brought our breakfast out. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I'm doing better." We sat down across from each other. "Yang, I know I didn't react well last night to all the stuff about the printer. Luna talked to me and helped me deal with it. I was being an idiot over it all."

"Luna visited me too. My side of this is. . . A bit more complicated. Differently complicated. I promise I'll tell you about it at some point." Searing's stomach loudly growled right on cue. "Well, let's have some breakfast and go back to the printer. Maybe we can both get something out of it today."

"Maybe." We calmly started on our breakfast and started planning a few things out.

"I don't think I thought this through," I said. I'd printed out the thigh high heels and a casual knee length dress, all in latex, and it looked great, but there was a problem.

"Well. . . It's not the way you look."

"No, it isn't." Any argument there would be futile.

"Does it feel, well, not good?"

"It's the chill in the air. I forgot about my weakness to the cold. The latex seems to be conducting the cold, too."

"Oh." Searing looked around a bit before making a suggestion. "Do you want to go back to your warmer clothes and I can wear this for you?"

I gave the idea some thought. "Living vicariously through you. Hm. Well, I don't want you to have to do or wear anything you don't like, but you are offering. . . I am of mixed opinions on this."

"You go change back to something warm. Don't make me levitate you out."

"Alright, alright." I left and went to the bathroom. After changing back as quickly as I could, I returned to the room and saw Searing in her human form wearing exact copies of the pieces I'd just taken off. "Okay, that does look pretty good on you."

Searing smiled at the compliment. "Thank you."

I put a hand to my chin as I thought a bit. "But. . . What if we take the hexagons on the thigh highs and make them the same red as your skin?"

She looked at the sleek leg coverings for a moment. "Are you talking about the shape or the outlines?"

"Well. . . Either one would look good. It really just depends on what look you want." I claimed the computer chair and messed around with the colors, bringing both variants up. "They both look good."

"Do you want me to switch to one of them?"

I considered the offer. "Ehhh. . . If I'm going to have you do that, I'd rather do a full ensemble change. Are you feeling chilly?"

"Just a bit."

I got up and pulled her into a sideways hug. "Better?"

"A bit." For a few moments, we just stayed there with each other.

An idea came to me. "How about we stick to the designing part?"

"Just let me put my fur coat on." Searing broke the hug to go change. She returned a couple minutes later in her unicorn form with the clothes she was wearing in her levitation.

I smiled at her. "Fur coat. Ha!"

For a few hours, we just sat at the computer designing stuff together.

Author's Note

I'm not dead! I just hit a long streak of Not-Motivated for I Burn, but thanks to a friend's help, I'm back! For now. We'll see what happens.