Author's Note

No clop in this chapter, just set-up. Skip if you like.

The Problem

Fluttershy and Adagio Dazzle were dating. It was hard to say who was most surprised and bewildered by this.

Fluttershy's friends tried to be supportive, but couldn't help but be a little guarded, since it wasn't clear if The Dazzlings were actually “reformed”, or just happened to be taking a break from attempted world conquest. They understood that Fluttershy was a kind spirit who would give anyone a second chance, but they just couldn't understand what she saw in Adagio. Sure, the Siren was sexy, smart, and confident, but also scheming, vindictive, arrogant… She just didn't seem like Fluttershy's “type”.

But they were Fluttershy's friends, and Adagio was clearly making her happy, almost deliriously so, and so the other girls had wordlessly agreed to be nothing but happy for her and supportive, at least until the slightest sign that Adagio was taking advantage of her.

The other Sirens, meanwhile, would have understood if Adagio had merely been using Fluttershy. The timid girl was pretty, not Adagio's usual type but certainly someone Aria wouldn't mind tying up and spanking.

But Adagio hadn't laughed at that suggestion; In fact she'd been pretty angry. Actually, she'd been really angry, just not in her usual slow and calculating way. She'd almost punched Aria. This only left the other Sirens doubly confused — from the sounds of it, Fluttershy wasn't even putting out, and this wasn't part of one of Adagio's schemes to seduce a helpless innocent into being her pawn. If anything, it almost sounded as if…

As if Adagio was the one who had been seduced. In fact, she seemed utterly smitten. The two of them would hold hands. Adagio had been humming, and worse, some of the songs she picked were cheesy sappy L-word songs. The other Sirens had been appalled at first, but Adagio was still their leader, and it wasn't as if they were up to anything villainous these days. Maybe… maybe this was just how things worked now?

At least one thing, everyone agreed on: they made a very cute couple. Opinions were divided on whether this was a good thing.

Perhaps the most confused, though, was Adagio herself. She thought she knew just about everything about dating, if “dating” meant “wrapping someone around your little finger, getting whatever you wanted from them, then finding other things to take from them just because you can.”

She knew nothing about what to do when your girlfriend's smile made you feel dizzy, and terrified, and ecstatic and ashamed all at once. She was only starting to realise how awful and wonderful it could be to care for someone else more than yourself.

And the worst part was, they had A Problem.

The other girls weren't really aware of it, or else had chosen to keep quiet, perhaps not noticing how serious it was. Neither Adagio nor Fluttershy had really been able to talk about it, because “not being able to talk about it” was part of The Problem.

Adagio tried to avoid it. So did Fluttershy. Every so often, though, it would rear its ugly head. Adagio would say something without thinking, or make a joke just out of habit. Fluttershy would try to push the matter only to have things go horribly wrong. Sometimes they both managed to avoid it, but one of their friends would accidentally drag it back to the surface.

Adagio had spent days on end unable to talk to Fluttershy, wondering if this was The End, cursing herself for being such a bad girlfriend. Not “bad”, as in sexy naughty fun. “Bad,” as in worthless, pathetic, scum. Fluttershy spent just as much time trying to bridge the gap between them, trying to reassure Adagio, and blaming herself for making her girlfriend feel this way. It was hellish, for both of them.

The Problem, to put it bluntly, was sex.

Actually, not being able to put it bluntly was part of the problem. Adagio was used to lewd jokes, crude language, and conversations in which no perversion, however debauched, was beyond unashamed ribaldry.

Fluttershy couldn't say “boobies” without turning bright pink and burying her face in her hands for an hour. Even when talking about birds.

But they both wanted it. At least, Adagio was pretty sure they did. It was a little hard to tell, when even trying to talk to Fluttershy about it required the use of a whole dictionary's worth of euphemisms, combined with gestures, tone, and suggestive looks. But not too suggestive, that would scare her off. Fluttershy played “The Pronoun Game: Master's Edition”. She simply could not wrap her tongue around words like “vagina”. It took all of Adagio's willpower not to make a joke about what Fluttershy could wrap her tongue around.

There was the disastrous incident of Adagio's birthday, when Fluttershy had entered Adagio's room wearing some very naughty, lacey underthings — at least she claimed so. They'd been hidden under the (admittedly very attractive) nightgown. She'd stammered out a joke about “unwrapping your present”, forced herself to within arm's reach of Adagio, then run away practically screaming and locked herself in the bathroom for three hours when Adagio touched her waist.

Adagio had tried to assure Fluttershy that it was OK. They didn't need to do anything. Fluttershy could just be “not interested”.

Fluttershy had insisted that it wasn't OK, that she was “interested”, that she wanted so badly to be able to… y'know. That.

Then she'd hidden inside a closet for ten minutes.

They were making progress. It had been almost 6 months without a serious “incident”. They'd progressed past hand-holding, to open-mouth-to-open-mouth kissing. Hugging, was OK. Touching any part of her from the neck up, shoulders out, knees down, waist, or back, was OK. Adagio was learning the rules, and Fluttershy was learning how to relax them.

And Adagio was becoming increasingly convinced that there was a dam waiting to burst, a whole Fluttershy's worth of repressed sexual energy, if only she could find a way to guide it around the wall between them, without setting off any of the triggers. Her metaphors used to be a lot less mixed. The point was, she needed a way to guide Fluttershy out of her comfort zone, without making her uncomfortable. Which sounded a lot better as metaphor-soup, honestly.

But she had a plan.

It may have been genius, it may have been perfect. Or it may have been the worst plan she'd ever come up with and yeah, there had been some doozies. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Today, she was putting her plan into action.