Exposure Therapy

Moondancer stared at the stack of books on the table. "Twilight, you know Miss Binder limited you to ten after the last time..."

"I managed to get them back...!" Twilight protested. "But that's beside the point. You and Starlight know about Spike's phobia, right?" Both girls nodded. "Well, it's come to our attention that there's something extremely fishy about it, and we plan to get to the bottom of things."

"Does it have something to do with the new girl?" Starlight gestured to Ember, who raised an eye at her.

"Oi, I've been here since last October." Ember replied.

Starlight shrugged semi-helplessly. "New to me...! Barely know half the girls here and I've been here two years."

"In a way." Sunset cut in. "She's one of the clues that points to it being not a natural phobia."

"What do you mean?" Starlight asked.

"Remember how I said he wasn't afraid of me even after finding out I was a girl? And he wasn't afraid of Sunset when he first met her?" She looked at Ember. "Twice is strange enough, but three?"

"Maybe it's cause I'm another Dragonblood? I probably register the same as his female family members or something."

"Given how he reacted to those hodonkaroos of yours, I doubt it." Sunset replied.

Spike, sitting on the bet with a thousand yard stare, just made an incomprehensible noise.

Moondancer looked confused. "Her hodor-wha...?"

"My tits." Ember's face reddened slightly. "Had a wardrobe malfunction and fell on him."

"O-oh..."

"Unfortunately, we can't use that to judge, Sunset. Remember how he reacted when your towel fell off?"

"Wha!?" Moondancer and Starlight's eyes widened, and Ember...it was slight, but she looked at the girl like she'd stolen the last of her favorite dessert.

"You mean when your shirt and bra came undone?" Sunset replied, smirking cheekily.

Twilight's face flushed. "That was your fault." She coughed to try and get some order. "Anyway. This proves another issue. This phobia...though I'm starting to think it doesn't deserve the acknowledgement...has severally hindered his...um..."

"He doesn't know what to do with a girl if she hopped into his lap naked." Sunset blurted out. "And I I mean that literally!"

"Well, yes...if you want to put it that way." Twilight admitted, then turned back to the now cherry red faces of Starlight and Moondancer.

"So, does that mean I could sit around with him naked knowing he wouldn't try anything?" Ember asked.

Twilight shot her a glare.

"Again, he wouldn't even know what to do." Sunset said, the glare shifting to her.

"And if anyone's got dibs on teaching him, it's Twilight."

"STARLIGHT!" Twilight squawked, face neon.

Moondancer took this moment to speak up, squirming a little in her chair. "C-Can we get back on topic now? Please?"

"Right...right." Twilight took a deep breath. "Ok, *so*, we need to find out how he got the phobia, and how to address it, as well as figure out how to treat this repression he has because of it." She looked at the notes she'd jotted down.

"Which leaves the question of where we even start." Ember commented.

"Maybe we should handle the repressed drive first." Starlight said. "We give him a situation where he can oogle girls that don't trigger it, so he can get accustomed and comfortable with thinking about girls in that way. Plus that'll give him motivation to try and fight through the fear; he has some pretty good willpower it seems."

"Well, that does make sense." Twilight admitted, looking over at Spike who was starting to come to. "But how do we do that?"

"Saddle Reef Cove!" Moondancer blurted out. "Spring Break is in a few days."

"Saddles...break wha??" Spike asked, looking more coherent.

"Saddle Reef Cove. It's a small resort not far from here." Sunset explained. "It's were most of the school goes for our Spring Break vacation."

"And it'll let you, Twilight and Ember keep close to him." Moondancer added.

Ember seemed to like that idea. "That works. And I can try out that slingkini my girl Smolder sent me for Christmas."

"Me and Twilight got some we can put to use too."

"S-Sunset!?" Twilight's voice squeaked in embarrassment.

"Come on, Twi, You looked cute in it. Besides, don't tell me you aren't picturing the big guy getting a good look as this tush of yours." She gave the girl a teasing swat on the backside.

"YEEP!"

"However, that does put him in the crosshairs of the other girls that'll be there."

Ember smirked. "Yeah, but if there's one thing I'm sure we all learned, it's that nothing makes a girl avoid a guy she doesn't know at the beach - regardless of how hot he is - than seeing he's possessively taken."

"So, as long we make sure they see at least one of us around him, they'll keep away." Twilight rubbed where she'd been spanked. "That leaves one, somewhat major, issue: Spike's old stalker is at this school, Trixie Lulamoon." She winced at the alarmed yelp Spike made as he looked around franticly.

"Lulamoon...you mean the weirdo that keeps talking in third person and dresses like a stripper?" Ember asked.

"She's not a weirdo." Starlight complained, before everyone just looked at her. "Ok, maybe I'm not one to talk...?"

Sunset sighed. "She's also declared herself Twilight's rival...for some asinine reason. " She snapped her fingers. "The others! We can get them to help run interference with her and the more stubborn ones."

Twilight mulled over the idea before nodding slightly. "Ok, but a couple rules. We make sure at least one of us is with him at all times. And find a place for him to hunker down in of the off chance something goes wrong."

"If what goes wrong?" Spike asked. *'Why do I suddenly feel uneasy?'*