The rise of farm-to-bedroom, locally sourced, vegan, organic marital aids!
“Ta-da!” Twilight took her hands off Sunset's eyes. “We're here! Welcome to the new Beanis corporate headquarters!”
Sunset worried that her eyes had been covered for so long in what was apparently the bad side of town, the kind of bad where the homeless people sleep under security cameras for their protection. The new site for Beanis was apparently a refurbished warehouse that Twilight had spruced up. In between a scrapyard and a mannequin factory was a remodelled, glass-and-steel, Silicon Valley style office building.
“This is the place you're renting?”
“Nope!” Twilight bounced on her heels and clapped her hands in excitement, “Own. I bought it outright.”
Sunset choked. This might not be a good neighbourhood, but this was an entire warehouse building. You can't just get that with pocket money. “How?”
“The bank was impressed by how fiscally responsible I seemed,” Twilight said, with the proud smile of an obnoxious parent.
“Did you tell them what you're trying to make, here?”
“Of course I did! I even brought free samples! They were just as excited as I am about this business venture. I collected a bunch of pre-orders. The bank manager's wife is allergic to latex, so this is just what she was in the market for.”
“They knew what you were doing and they still gave you seed capital.”
“Well, they are mostly beans so it's more like sprout capital, but yes. They believe in the rise of farm-to-bedroom, locally sourced, vegan, organic marital aids just as much as I do! True believers. I think people might be way too hard on bankers, these days, the ones I talked to had a good heart.”
Two large men in hoodies were pointing at them from across the street. They started crossing the road. “Ah, Twilight, maybe you should start giving me the tour?”
Twilight squealed in excitement, grabbed Sunset's hand and dragged her with legitimately terrifying strength through the glass double-doors of Beanis Headquarters. There was a bunch of expensive couches in the reception area, some paintings from their highschool art class that looked great, a waterfall built into one of the side areas. It looked like a proper office building.
It crushed Sunset's soul that this was easily the nicest place she'd ever worked.
“So this is the reception area. This is where we're going to be meeting investors and speculators, so I wanted it to look nice. This isn't a rinky-dink two-bit operation, after all.”
“There's even a barista machine...”
“The smell of fresh coffee always gets me into an up-and-at-them professional mood, so it was totally worth it. Besides, I'm thinking of expanding into the coffee beanis.”
Sunset winced. “Would it... ejaculate espresso?”
“We're trying to find a cold brew flavour profile that tastes best around body temperature. There's a whole science to coffee, did you know? The temperature changes the chemistry of the active ingredients, which means the taste is completely different even at small increments. Fascinating!”
Trust Twilight to get passionate about the chemistry of coffee cum.
“So, do I get to see my office next?” Sunset laughed.
“I was going to save that for last, but sure, if you want.”
“Wait, I was joking. I have an office?”
“Of course you have an office. You're our accountant, what accountant doesn't have an office? We are professionals here at Beanis Incorporated. I even printed you some business cards, look.”
Twilight handed over a stack of cardstock. Embossed, tasteful gold lettering, a headshot that Sunset did not ever remember taking, let alone giving to Twilight. SUNSET SHIMMER: ACCOUNTANT. BEANIS INC.
Sunset took them and flipped it over, looking at both sides of it. They were spectacular. She wanted to give one to everyone she knew, and also never to another living human being so long as she lived. It was a very confusing conflict of emotions, that.
“I guess we can still save it until last. What's on the rest of the tour. I mean, this place can't be that big, can it?”
“Well, there's the rooftop greenhouse, there's our beangineering department, there's customer support, and there's our R&B department. I tried to call it R&D but Rainbow kept snickering because she thought it stood for-”
“Rainbow and dicks, got it.”
“Yeah. Research and beanis was honestly less awkward.”
“So what's the difference between 'beangineering' and 'R&B'?” Sunset regretted asking, because as soon as she did Twilight's “I get to lecture you now!” face lit up.
“Beangineering is developing the beanstock we use. Applejack is selectively breeding the best beans possible, and experimenting with cooking up different bean blends for a more consistent, desirable Beanis brand product. R&B is more to do with sculpting, developing new products entirely, and modeling. So beangineering is refining existing products while R&B is more speculative, like looking out for our new Clawtoris line of organic, gripping artificial...” Twilight blushed, “you know.”
“Twilight you're the CEO of a marital aid company. How can you still not just say 'pocket pussy'.”
Twilight went bright red and slammed a hand over Sunset's mouth, shushing her. “We do not use that kind of vulgar language in the office space. Okay?”
Sunset nodded, and chalked that up as a workplace hazard. Fortunately Twilight had scrupulously clean hands. If they'd tasted even a little bit of refried beans, she might have walked out... from the first job to give her business cards, no less.
“There's also The Couch, but we can get to that later.”
“Why did you say that like it was a proper noun. Why do you have a couch that has a title?”
“Later. It's part of how I got this office space so cheap. Look, The Couch really doesn't matter-”
“Really? Because you keep saying it that way and it makes me wonder-”
“We don't worry about The Couch. Beangineering first?”
“Sure.” Sunset shrugged, “How do we get there?”
Twilight skipped to the elevators, laughing in a way that could be mistaken for diabolical. “We're going up! Beanis Inc. has layers.”
“Like a bean dip. Yeah, I got it.”
Twilight hesitated as she pressed the 'up' button. “Oh. I guess like that, too, yeah.”
Sunset was going to ask if that's not what she meant, then what did she mean, but the door to the elevator – Twilight had bought a place with working elevators – opened and she was going to push the button first no matter what.
“Top floor?”
Twilight nodded. Sunset pressed the button, and was filled with a childish sense of accomplishment. The elevator went up.
The greenhouse level was already almost full. The glass ceiling that had looked decorative from the ground was actually housing rows and rows of troughs filled with different bean stalks. Black beans, butter beans, kidney beans, and those were just the kinds that Sunset could identify from memory. She'd learned a lot about bean growing these past few weeks.
Applejack was wandering around chewing a bit of beanstalk like it was a sprig of hay. “Morning, ladies. Can I help you with anything?”
“I'm just showing our accountant around the office, so she can see what we're up to.”
“Applejack, she got you into this?”
“Now, I ain't caring so much about the whole 'beanis' aspect of it,” Applejack admitted, “but how many other 'speculative agriculture' jobs am I going to find these days, especially fresh outta high school? It's a solid opportunity, I reckon. Besides, beans are an underappreciated crop.”
Sunset gestured at the nearest Beanis corporate logo. “You're trying to get beans more appreciated by making dicks out of them?”
“Now you're just thinking too small.”
Twilight took immediate defense. “Too small? Excuse me? How is the most fleshlike, functional, vegan marital aid ever devised, a revolution of magical science and engineering, thinking too small?”
“No offense meant, Twilight, it's an impressive thing you've done that'll hopefully end up with Dash spawning fewer kidlets. That's a mighty good deed you've done for the world already. But Sunset, did you know legumes make great green manure, because they're self-nitrating? Part of the work I'm doing here might prevent the next big famine, maybe save millions of lives.”
Twilight grumbled. It seemed to be her way of grudgingly admitting maybe saving millions of lives was a bigger deal than authentic bean dicks.
Sunset pointed at one of the long rows of planters she didn't recognize. “What kind of beans are these, then?”
Twilight brightened up. “Yes, how are the garbonzo beans coming along?”
Applejack grumbled. “I gotta say, Twilight, I ain't so sure about your plans for 'em. The hummus option? Sure, it tastes good and it's nutritional and all that...”
“I'm sure our customers can handle having some chickpea on them in the bedroom, Applejack.”
“Yeah, that's the issue I was having.”
Sunset managed to keep a straight face. “I'm sure our customers can approach that with the maturity needed to, uh, handle a Beanis branded product.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes, see, Sunset gets it!”
Applejack and Sunset shared a look, and a silent conversation. Sunset didn't get it, she was just making it easier for herself. Applejack understood and sympathized. This was just the best job going, stuff this economy. Can you believe she got a loan for this? Bankers.
For real.
Twilight coughed politely. “Well, this was the greenhouse portion of beangineering. Downstairs is where all the labs are, but I'm sure you're not really interested in that.”
Applejack laughed. “Yeah, I'm still figuring out how to work the CRISPR/Cas9, honest to goodness that instruction manual's thicker than my leg.”
“And Applejack has thick legs.” Twilight agreed.
“Glad you notice, put a lot of effort into 'em.”
“I'm sorry,” Sunset stopped them both, “You have a CRISPR/Cas9?”
“We have a CRISPR/Cas9. It's company property.”
“Couldn't you have not bought a CRISPR machine and gotten a place in a nicer neighbourhood.”
“I mean, in theory.” Twilight shrugged, “But then we wouldn't own a CRISPR, so you can understand my predicament there.”
“See what I mean?” Applejack chuckled, chewing on her stalk, “Monsanto wouldn’t have let me touch one of those things for years. I’d have needed at least a Masters in something. But Twilight just gives ‘em to me.”
“Why didn’t you consult with me, your accountant, before going to that expense?”
Twilight smiled, then frowned, then smiled again. “Well, I’m glad you’re taking your role so seriously. You’re right, I should have consulted you beforehand. That was my bad. But now we can do it in the future, and I know to consult you on more things.”
Applejack chewed her beanstalk thoughtfully. “Wonder what you just signed up for, there, Sunset. Gotta think the kind of business expenses Beanis Inc is going to have to get you to sign off on, now.”
Twilight shook with excitement. “Oh, the possibilities!”
Sunset shook too, but it wasn’t with excitement. “Can we continue the tour now, please?”
Applejack laughed. “Oh, sugarcube. If you’re hoping to move on to somewhere less weird, that just ain’t gunna happen. This is as normal as this place gets. You told her about The Couch yet, Twilight?”
“The Couch isn’t important.”
“I dunno, Twi, it seems like it’s something you should be upfront about.”
“Twilight, what aren’t you telling me about a couch?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You keep telling me to not worry about it, and it’s really not--”
“Let’s move on to our customer satisfaction department.” Twilight shouted, moving back to the elevators. Applejack shrugged at Sunset before going back to the garbonzo beans, muttering something about hummus.
There was an honest to goodness phone bank. Cubicles set up, a white board with targets for the phone operators, motivational posters set up around the room.
Fluttershy sat in the cubicle to the corner, having filled hers with cute kitten pictures. She was smiling into a headphone mic, and didn’t hear Sunset and Twilight walk up behind her.
“Hello, this is the Beanis technical support line. My name is Fluttershy, and I will be your representative today. Oh, we get this question very often. Yes, this is real. Yes, really real. Sir, you can keep asking in a more incredulous tone, but my answer is going to stay the same. Why, yes, I am a personal fan of our products. Yes, really. Sir, now that question was just offensive. Well, maybe if you were more secure with your own sexuality, you wouldn’t be asking these questions of a marital aid helpline. That’s what I thought. Yes, we do sell queso cockrings. Yes, you can order one over the phone but we do have a website that takes crypto and PayPadre, if that would be more convenient? Yes, Beanis.com. Have a wonderful day!”
Fluttershy took the headset off and sighed. “Some people are just so rude.”
“You really got Fluttershy...?”
“She’s fantastic. The first true believer in the product, patient, polite as all get out, but still capable of being assertive when it’s... you know, over the phone. We’ve been giving corporate confidence seminars. We don’t want people to be bashful about our products.”
“Like you?”
“Well. The seminars were originally for me, yes, but I got a discount on group rates.”
“Because you still turn bright red when I say you’re modelling a pocket pussy-”
“Sunset!” Twilight shouted, which is how they got Fluttershy’s attention. She pressed the ‘hold’ button and spun around in her ergonomic office chair.
“Hi girls. It’s nice to see you both.”
Sunset tried to think of the least rude to say it, but couldn’t really think of one, so she stuck with; “What the heck, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy brimmed over with happiness. “It’s a wonderful job. I get to talk to so many shy and nervous people, and some rude ones, and they’re usually more shy than I am. It’s nice. Also, the pay’s good, and there’s full insurance. I also have stock options I can trade in if I stay around for three years.”
Twilight was getting all excited again. “You’re getting in on the ground floor, so you can help make those stocks worth a fortune.”
“I’m not really in it for the money though,” Fluttershy admitted, “I just feel like I’m really helping people.”
“By... selling them Beanis products?” Sunset appreciated Fluttershy’s sincerity, she just didn’t understand it.
“It really helped me, personally,” Fluttershy was almost uncomfortably zen about all this, “It’s hard to think about just how pregnant Rainbow Dash would have gotten me by now if it weren’t for Beanis.”
“A public good. Not all of us want to end up like Rarity.”
“Wait,” Sunset had to grab the cubicle for support for a moment, she got dizzy from trying to keep up with all this, “Rainbow Dash got Rarity pregnant?”
“No, no, of course not,” Fluttershy said, “It’s- well, Twilight, you told her about The Couch, right?”
“Don’t worry about The Couch, Sunset.”
“What.”
“Oh dear. Twilight, you really should--”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, that’s why Rarity missed the last few weeks of school before graduation. Don’t worry about it.”
“That really sounds like a thing I should be worried about. Or she should be worried about. But it’s not Rainbow Dash’s?”
“We should tell her. It’s how we found out about the place, after all.”
Sunset felt like she really needed to be sitting down for this. “Rarity getting pregnant is how you found out about this place? How? Why?”
Fluttershy coughed into a fist. “Well, when we talk about The Couch--”
“Hey, Sunset, let’s go see your office now, shall we?”
Fluttershy gave Twilight a disapproving look, but her phone was flashing, because apparently Beanis Inc actually had enough customers for that to happen. “You might need to bring on more phone girls, Twilight. I didn’t expect there’d be so much traffic.”
“Hey, Sunset, how do you feel about being our head of HR as well? Since you’ll be budgeting for staff costs. I’ll get you another set of business cards for it.”
They were nice business cards... “I’ll think about it.”
Fluttershy smiled at the both of them in apology, then went back to taking calls. That seemed like their cue to leave.
Sunset looked at her office. Glass desk, some artwork on the walls that she liked -- Twilight was very proud about knowing her taste, and she’d picked well -- a potted fern that may or may not have been genetically modified, based on the fact that it smelled like apples for no particular reason she could discern... A nicer computer than the one she had at home.
It was nice.
“So? Do you like it?”
“Honestly? It feels almost too good for me.”
“Nonsense! And we’ll have your name stenciled on the door and the plaque for your desk arriving soon.”
“Oh, wow. Okay.”
“Actually, you should tell me if you’re happy with the human resources position now, so I know to update your order.”
“... sure. Why not?”
“That’s the right sort of question to ask, here at Beanis Inc. Should make that our motto: Why not? I like it.”
“I feel like now’s the time I have to ask about The Couch.”
Twilight pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Okay, if you’ve already agreed on staying...”
“This makes me worry more. You keep saying not to worry, but then you say stuff like that and I worry anyway.”
Twilight walked her down the corridor two offices and opened the door. There was a non-descript black leather couch with a table in front of it, and what looked like a handheld DSLR camera with a shotgun microphone on it and oh.
“Twilight?”
“Yes, this is that Couch.”
“Twilight, why do you have The Couch in your business?”
“So, about that. It’s heritage listed.”
“What?!”
“When I bought the place, Pinkie Pie went and had it named “A historical artefact of cultural significance”. Technically, this floor of the building is classified as a museum.”
“Why? Why would she do that?!”
“Apparently she had some really fun memories on that couch, and refused to let it be paved over in the name of progress. Or hygiene.”
“Hygiene? You mean--”
“Not even allowed to clean it. For authenticity.”
“Twilight!”
“It’s locked in this room! It can’t hurt you! Really, don’t worry about it.”
“This place was a porn studio?!”
“How do you think I got this place so cheap?
“And Rarity...?”
“I think she shared some of the same memories as Pinkie, if you catch my drift.”
“That’s... actually, that’s kind of hot.”
“Sunset, Rarity got pregnant on that couch.”
“Wait- Wait, what? Wait, that’s what you mean when you say Rainbow Dash isn’t the father?”
“I’m afraid so. Poor girl...”
“Poor girl? Twilight what are-- why did nobody tell me any of this?!”
“We just thought you knew! Just count your blessings; I found out when they updated the tags on her last video to have ‘impregnation’ on them!”
“You watched it enough times to notice the tags get updated?”
“I don’t see many penises in the wild, Sunset, I need to do research somehow!”
Sunset buried her face in her hands. “This is a lot to take in all at once...”
“Oh, you saw the video too?”
“Huh?”
“That’s not what you meant, okay.”
“You can’t say pocket pussy but you can talk about watching double penetration videos with your friends in it.”
“Well if that’s what they want to do with their lives it’d be wrong of me to judge them!”
“Pinkie got that Couch heritage listed?!”
“It’s very inconvenient! And gross!”
“Twilight!”
“What?!”
“How?”
Twilight rubbed her temples this time. “Apparently it’s been in at least 3,000 “culturally significant works”?”
“That’s- wow, 3,000, really?”
“And I have no idea how often they even wiped it off.”
“Twilight, why don’t we just board this room up and never speak about it again?”
“As long as it’s technically open to the public, I get a tax writeoff for the museum. It’s in your files.”
“So we just kind of have to accept that The Couch is just going to be there, now?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m kind of worrying about it.”
“It’s not going to bite you. It’s just a couch. Just a regular couch.”
“Are you saying that to me, or yourself?”
“My confidence coach told me that externalizing thoughts like that helps you believe them.”
“Ah. Does it?”
“Little bit. Honestly.”
Sunset and Twilight stared at each other. Twilight put on a disposable plastic glove she kept in her pocket and closed the door most of the way. Then she took out a cigarette lighter and burned the glove.
“Twilight, I’m still happy to work here as long as I never have to use this room.”
“Agreed. Just thank Rarity for telling us this place was available. Apparently they didn’t handle the internet very well. It’s why Pinkie switched to camsites.”
“Pinkie’s a camgirl now?”
“Do you think we could get her to sponsor Beanis Inc.? Give her beta products to use on stream?”
“Why do you think I would have an answer to that question. How could I possibly answer this question.”
“I don’t know, Sunset, you seem more ‘worldly’ than I am! I’m just the technical work here!”
“Then ask Rainbow Dash! She’s more ‘worldly’ than any of us!”
Twilight stopped mid-retort. “Actually, we haven’t seen the R&B department yet. She’s probably there.”
“Rainbow Dash works in your R&B department? Doing what?”
“Well, today she’s just modelling for Wallflower. She’s the scientist. She is super enthusiastic about the technology we’re developing here.”
“Right. I actually knew that, unfortunately. I know too much about that.”
Twilight strolled with determination and purpose, and carried Sunset along in her wake. There were a pair of big double doors, with a steel R on one side and a D on the other with a line drawn through the center of it to make it a ‘B’.
Twilight threw them open with determination and purpose. The room was filled with computers and electronic equipment, shelves on wheels and racks of copper wiring. Kneeling in the center of the room, Wallflower was giving Rainbow Dash a blowjob.
“Wallflower! That’s unprofessional behaviour!” Twilight squeaked, jumping back and throwing her sweater up over her head so she couldn’t see. Sunset sighed and waved.
“Did we catch you at a bad time?”
Wallflower let Dash fall out of her mouth with a wet ‘pop’. Dash groaned in disappointment, but waved back all the same. “Twilight, we’re modelling penises for sex toys here. How else did you think I was going to do that?”
“You didn’t have to- I mean-”
“I’m not going to model a flaccid penis, Twilight, that’d ruin it for everyone.”
“Hey, Sunset.”
“Hey, Dash. How are you doing?”
Dash looked down and shrugged. “Can’t complain.”
“We were just going to ask you what you thought of having camgirls sponsor the product.”
Dash blinked. “What’s a camgirl.”
“I- wow, okay, Twilight might actually be worldlier than you on this one. Weird. It’s basically amateur porn stars. It’s short for ‘webcam’.”
“Webcam- Wait, you can find porn online? You don’t need to buy magazines to see that stuff?”
Twilight pulled her sweater down long enough to stare at Dash in disbelief before immediately regretting it and pulling it back up over her head. “Sunset, did Dash not know about...?”
Since this was apparently her life now, Sunset pulled out her phone and Googled a video site, then threw it over to Rainbow, who immediately hit ‘play’ on it. The room was filled with... noises, and Twilight turned and walked back out of the room. She’d left the volume on max by mistake, whoops.
Wallflower seemed to take it as encouragement, but Dash wasn’t paying attention, she was too busy staring at the phone. “They just... you just find this stuff?”
“Yeah. I can’t believe you didn’t know this.”
“Wait...” Dash squinted, “Is this our couch?”
