Last Call at The Big Reveal

And it had been. So very, very much harder than she’d thought. Anypony she’d spoken to who knew Silvy personally seemed to know about their history, at least the broad strokes. And worse, they knew who she was; she couldn’t just give a different name and avoid their suspicion. So she’d had to check out the clubs in Canterlot, looking for the one where Silver Spoon was performing.

That was what brought her to The Big Reveal, and that was why she was standing in the rain, pretending to smoke a cigarette that she hadn’t bothered to light. A week she’d been coming here, trying to work up the nerve to stay through Silver Spoon’s show. To try to talk to her.

And each night, she ended up outside while the love of her life performed for dozens of ponies who weren’t her. Tonight, she’d ended up outside, and soaked.

All because staying would mean she had to admit… everything. That Silvy was happier without her. That she’d been holding her back. That she’d shackled the pony that meant the most to her in the world to a life that had finally become intolerable. That she’d been a monster.

And that maybe she hadn’t changed as much as she’d thought when she first hired Marelow to find Silver Spoon.

”Celestia, I’m pathetic,” she thought to herself. She returned her unlit cigarette to her coat pocket, and turned to go back inside. ”I know what I was. Let’s see what I am.”

As she made her way back to the door, showing the tag she’d been given when she paid the cover earlier, the doorpony held a hoof out to stop her.

“Go on back in,” the middle-aged, stocky grey earth pony told her, “but don’t make me come in after you.”

“I won’t,” Diamond promised, walking through the door when he opened it up for her.

Inside, she was surprised to hear a waltz playing… the end of Beethoofen’s Fur Elise? Diamond had time to get to the bar and pick up a fresh martini, occasionally looking over to see Silver, fully dressed on the stage, dancing a waltz alone, forehooves up to hold a partner who wasn’t there. As Diamond got back to her table, the song drew to a close… and Silver looked out, directly at her as the music began to pick up again.

This wasn’t Beethoofen’s classic though; More accurately, it was, but the tempo was faster, and the music had been remixed with staccato drums and electronic distortion, like Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Philharmonic performing back home.

Silver took her hat and whipped it out into the audience, and the real show began. While Silver moved through the steps of the waltz, she shed layers of sheer, filmy skirts, exposing her long, exquisitely muscled legs before she hooked one around the pole and pulled herself up onto it. She slowly rolled silk stockings down first one hindleg, then the other, exposing more and more of herself as she met the eyes of everypony in the club.

As the stockings came off, the audience cheered, and Diamond felt her temperature rise.

She’d never really frequented clubs like this before. What was the point, after all? Most ponies went around naked half the time anyway. The last week had been another crash-course in just how wrong a pony could be. Finally seeing Silver Spoon dance was her final exam.

She was intimately familiar with the body that Silver was showing off; probably more than any other pony here. She was still seeing her former lover in an entirely new way, as a seductress, a courtesan, all allure and temptation and the promise of intrigue.

“Hey Sweetie,” one of the dancers said as he approached her table. “Looks a little lonely here, all on your own. Want some company?”

Diamond glanced over at the blue pegasus, recognizing him from the last act, and shook her head slightly.

“Wrong tackle,”she said, nearly shouting to be heard over the music. He pouted playfully, then sauntered off to try his luck at another table.

The tempo slowed down, and the lights changed from their usual dim yellow to a light show of purples, red, and blues that swirled throughout the floor as Silver finished stripping down to her garter belt and no more.

She struck her waltzing pose again, this time with her hand lower on her “partner’s” back and a smoldering look clear in her eyes as she began to dance up to, and right off of, the edge of the stage, stepping onto the tables that Diamond now realized were positioned very carefully so that a dancer could make their way from one end of the stage to the other, looping through the main floor. It made sense now; the pegasi who had been on earlier in the evening all opted for aerial displays, but they’d followed the same route that Silver was traipsing along.

As she went, Silver would flash her tail slightly, revealing a glimpse of her treasures. Some stallions pitched bits up onto the stage, while others offered up slips of Canterlot scrip. That was particularly popular with the earth ponies in the audience, who took the excuse to tug at Silver’s garter with their teeth so they could slip the paper into the elastic band.

Diamond bit down on the inside of her cheek until she started to taste blood. She could feel the eyes of security on her. It didn’t make any sense; if the ponies here disliked her so much, then why did they keep letting her come back?

”Because you’re a customer,” she couldn’t help but think. ”They have product you want, you have bits, so they’ll put on a smile until you stop spending them.”

She pulled a bit out of her pouch for when Silvy reached her table. She wanted to do more, stake her claim and signal for the rest of the audience to back off.

”Silver isn’t yours,” she reminded herself, watching the young mare gliding closer and closer.

Silver wasn’t looking at her, not yet, focused on the audience at her table and the ones on either side of it. A pegasus stallion flapped his wings to get a better view, but she smoothly raised a hind hoof and gently pushed him back into his chair with it. Winking playfully at him, she moved on to the next table. Just two more before she was at Diamond’s.

Here, as a mixed group of stallions cheered, she stomped the table to pop up a shot glass with a bit at the bottom of it. Flexing her hips in ways that hurt for Diamond to even imagine, Silver caught the shot between her pert teats and dropped to her knees in front of a blushing palomino pegasus who was barely more than a colt. At the urging of his friends, and a wink from Silver, he leaned forward to take the shot between his teeth, tugging it free and tipping it back. He managed to keep from coughing as he extended the bit from the bottom of the glass in his teeth, and Silvy graced him with a brush of her braided tail as she snatched it from him and moved on, blowing a kiss back his way.

One more table before hers.

Fancy Pants and Fleur dis Lee were at this one, along with a few other members of the Canterlot hoi polloi. Silver knelt down low, snaking her tail around Fleur’s neck and giving the slender mare a prolonged opportunity to admire Silver’s ass and hips. Silky hair played over Fleur’s shoulders like the arms of a lover before tapping her playfully on the nose, and Silver moved on to her next victim, licking a hoof and tapping a unicorn stallion on the horn to extinguish the faint glow of his magic. With that, she was off with a delicate leap between the tables, landing at the next table with a ‘clop’ of hooves on wood.

Directly in front of Diamond Tiara.

Diamond looked up, offering Silver her tip with an expression she hoped didn’t betray her nerves. Silver looked down at her… and then shook her head almost imperceptively, pushing Diamond’s hoof back. Instead, she stomped on the table again, bouncing Diamond’s martini up and catching it in her pastern. She tipped it back, catching the toothpick with olive and onion impaled on the end between her lips, and then bent down, offering them to Diamond Tiara as the audience that could see what was happening cheered. Diamond leaned forward, trembling as she took the short end of the toothpick between her own teeth, not sure where Silver was drawing the line. As she started to pull back, a smile curled the corners of Silver’s lips, and she leaned forward just far enough to brush their lips together before leaving Diamond with her skewer.

Diamond Tiara blinked as Silver Spoon continued her rounds, leaving her tip behind.

”What… just… happened?” She asked herself through her dazed state.

“This one’s on the house, Miss!” One of the waitresses, a pretty young unicorn, floated a fresh martini over to Diamond’s table.

“Thanks,” Diamond murmured, taking the drink and sipping it, trying to figure out what to do next.

Doing that took the rest of Silvy’s act, the lights on the stage going dim and the lights on the main floor coming back up to show the audience and the dancers who were walking the floor, looking for ponies who were interested in more personal attention.

Diamond got the attention of one of them, the same pegasus stallion who’d come by early during the act, and motioned for him to come over.

“How would I set up a private show?” She blurted out before he could say anything.

“Just have to work out an agreement with whoever you want it with,” he smiled easily. “We all know what we aren’t allowed to do. But I’m guessing you aren’t asking for me,” he added, still putting on the air of an amiable conversation.

“I have to talk to her. Just talk, I swear.”

“I’ll let her know. She should be coming out for her floor time soon either way.”

“Thank you… what’s your name?”

“Call me Dewdrop, Miss Rich.” He sauntered off, brushing his tail against her lightly as he did.

Meanwhile, backstage, Silver Spoon was pulling on a pair of sheer black stockings and hooking them to her garter belt, quickly skimming through the scrip notes she’d been given. Most of them looked legit, though there were a couple with hotel room numbers, love notes, or exhorbitant offers for private shows that would definitely involve more than just dancing and talk if she took them up.

The usual, when they had a rich crowd in. She did have to chuckle when she noticed a note drawn on the Ponyville Bank. Pity she hadn’t recognized anypony but Di, it could have been a good chance to pick up a private show.

“Hey, Sil!” Dewdrop called in as he opened up the door to the dressing room. “You-know-who wants to talk. Says that’s all she wants. I actually believe her, much as I hate to admit it.”

”Huh… guess she actually does have the guts to talk to me,” Silver Spoon thought to herself. Maybe she’d played a little too much at her table.

”Or maybe I played just enough.”

“Book her for the Triple S room, okay? An hour, with the frills.”

“If I book her into the system, I’m the one who’ll get paid,” Dewdrop pointed out.

“That’s the idea. I don’t want her bits; I want us talking on the same level.”

“Well, I’ll owe you a nice dinner, in that case,” he chuckled.

Silver Spoon stood up and checked her appearance. Deciding she was suitable, she have Dewdrop a gentle nuzzle.

“How about you start making it when you get home? I… *might* need you to make it for three.”

“Think it might go that well?” He raised an eyebrow dubiously.

“I think we’ll reach the point where we can’t talk about it here any more. And I’ll be a *lot* more comfortable if you’re there while we talk out the rest of it.”

“I’ll make sure Brick knows what’s going on, he’ll have somepony outside the whole time,” Dewdrop promised her. “Just remember, stay smart.”

“I always do,” Silver chuckled ruefully. “Always do.”