Dominant Beats

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1: Vinyl's domain
Chapter 2: Switching up the Beat
Chapter 3: Experimenting
Chapter 4: Low Notes
Club 29 Inspection Report

Prologue

“This is awfully generous of you, Vinyl,” Twilight Velvet commented as she looked through the stack of paperwork, her magic making the otherwise long, tedious process go by much faster. “Your normal contributions are always significant and quite appreciated, but this is something else entirely!”

“Do I look like I’m desperate for the brands?” Vinyl wondered in her signature, devil-may-care tone.

Vinyl leaned back in an elegant, but simple chair in the mare’s office, a finely furnished room, like something from the old movies. Here, Twilight Velvet and her husband would conduct the more financial aspects of the Clocktower Society. “Look, I had a vision for Club 29 back when I opened it, but it became just like every other nightclub, except owned by the famous Vinyl Scratch,” she said, gesturing dismissively, “So I figured that it would work out the way I wanted it to at Clocktower West.”

“You mean a role-reversal of the typical dance club scene?” Velvet asked as she leaned forward and crossed her arms on her desk, after setting the papers down.

“Exactly!” Vinyl replied with a genuine smile, “I mean hey, mares who like their stallions collared need a place to go clubbing, too!”

Velvet pulled out a folder from a drawer on her side of the desk labeled “Clocktower West” and flipped through the pages within.

“Indeed, it seems that the closest things they have to that are clubs catered towards gay stallions, and strip clubs with male performers,” she commented as she looked over the page. After a few moments of looking through, she closed the file, having found nothing of the sort within. “Well, I cannot see any reason why this would not be approved by those in charge at Clocktower West,” Velvet said as her magic brought out a pen and wrote a list on her personalized CTS letterhead. “Your club will need a number of things installed and security ponies hired to ensure things in your club remain as safe, sane, and consensual as possible,” she explained as she slid the list over. “Unfortunately your status as Auxiliary Torch Guard alone will not be enough to satisfy those security requirements. I do have a list of Torch Guards who would be willing to secure your club if you’re interested…”

“I know one,” Vinyl replied casually, “Special Agent Nightfire, of Luna’s Secret Service and Torch Guard for the past five years. She’s a good friend of mine, and a hell of a bartender, too.”

“Ah, yes, I know her quite well,” Velvet commented with a grin, “Night Light… introduced us,” she chuckled.

“Oh yeah, that’s right! She told me you can deepthroat with the best of them,” Vinyl commented with a sly, playful grin. One that caused Twilight Velvet to blush as she thought back to that entire weekend.

“Well, we did much more than just that,” she replied with an equally sly smirk, “Maybe we should have a threesome together sometime?” Velvet suggested with a playful wink, before she went back to the business at hand. “Well, Nightfire will be excellent, but you’ll need two more to have on standby just in case one or both of you are unavailable.”

“All right, that makes sense,” Vinyl agreed, “I’ll check your list and find another couple to keep the place safe. And don’t worry about the security devices, I know a few contractors over in Clocktower West who do just as good a job at remodeling as they do dressing up for the drag shows,” she chuckled. “I’ll let you know when that whole thing’s done.”

“Very well, then, Vinyl,” Velvet declared as she pulled out a stamp and pressed it into the stack of transfer-of-ownership documents on her desk.

“The Clocktower Society hereby grants provisional approval of the donation of Club 29, to be used as a facility under the purview of Clocktower Society West. Their full approval will be dependent upon the club meeting CTS standards of security and safety for their guests. Once you have made said improvements, I will send inspectors to evaluate them,” she stated in a formal, yet friendly manner. Velvet stood up, causing her adamantine collar and silver studs to glint in the light of the office as she reached her hand out to shake Vinyl’s.

Vinyl returned the gesture, standing up and shaking hands with the pretty mare. “Thanks,” she said, “And hey, if you’re up for that threesome, Nightfire and I will be backstage after my show in Canterlot tomorrow,” she added with a grin. “I can set you up with a backstage pass…”

Chapter 1: Vinyl's domain

The new and improved, Clocktower-members-only Club 29 opened on the Lunar Solstice. Preceding its grand opening, a special viewing of the moonrise convened at the highest balcony in Clocktower West, accompanied by a track that Vinyl Scratch mixed up specially for the occasion.

The synthwave track, dubbed “Winter Solstice,” with its multilayered, smooth, up-tempo synths and gently thumping drumbeat effortlessly evoked the majesty of watching the moon rise on the longest night of the year. Just the right kind of beat to make it almost impossible to not dance, even if just a little. The dancing crowd’s movements resembled waves, as mares in masks and stallions in collars held their arms up in a gesture of praise towards the moon. Vinyl couldn’t have choreographed it better herself! Ponies grooved to the beat with their hands in the air, either alone or with a partner, losing themselves in the music. Vinyl wished she could join in, but opted to make the experience better for the crowd as she carefully listened for her cues and manipulated the track to her liking. She had a genuine smile on her face at how well this all came together!

Once the moon fully graced the sky on its special night of the year, Vinyl ended the track with a smooth fadeout before bowing for the applause and led the partying dominant mares and submissive stallions to the newly opened portal to Club 29. The portal, built into a brick wall designed to look like a typical dance club entrance, bore neon lights around it, illuminating the club’s name, and a dark brick wall surrounding the door. It also bore a “Submissives Must Wear Collars” warning sign next to the portal, and just above it was a prominent sign that read “Where the Mares Run the Show!”

Vinyl stood alongside the entrance with one of the higher-ranking officers of Clocktower West, Braeburn, dressed in a black version of his signature cowboy attire for the occasion. He wore a loose-fitting cowboy vest, leather chaps, and a black thong leaving precious little to the imagination. Some freshly cleaned cowboy boots and his red collar with silver studs completed the stallion’s ensemble. Beside him stood Vinyl Scratch, her signature glasses covering her custom-made white mask, painted with purple, gold, and orange flourishes. Her clothing flaunted the little that it covered; a violet top that showed off her ample E-cup breasts, neon pink boyshorts stretching over her package with strings of her black thong riding up her hips, while black knee-high platform boots made the already tall mare tower over Braeburn even more. Three sapphire studs on her right ear, a couple silver rings on the other, a downward-pointing sword tattoo on her right arm with an Old Ponish inscription on the blade, fingerless black gloves, and a small nose stud depicting her cutie mark in blue diamond adorned her body. Her towering frame and barely-clad body made her the clear focal point of the room.

Braeburn began things by raising his hands. “Everypony calm down now,” he said, his voice magically projected with the help of Vinyl Scratch. “Now, y’all, I’d like to take the time to thank our loyal member of five years Vinyl Scratch, for donatin’ this here dance club to us.” A loud applause from the crowd ensued. “I had to promise her I wouldn’t make her do Square Dancin’ Sundays, or Rodeo Wednesdays,” he joked, to the audible amusement of the audience, and Vinyl, “but really, this here’s something special. I’d like y’all to know that Vinyl here went above and beyond makin’ sure her club is just as safe, just as private, and just as fun, as anywhere else in Clocktower,” he explained, causing a round of applause from the audience once more. “Now, Vinyl, are ya ready to cut this ribbon with me?” he asked, holding out the big pair of scissors.

Vinyl nodded and grabbed one loop of the scissors, while Braeburn held the other. After posing for a couple pictures, they cut the ribbon in front of the portal, as the two newly formed halves of the red ribbon fell to the ground. Applause and cheering followed, as Vinyl and Braeburn waved to the crowd. The two could even hear declarations of love directed towards them, nothing new, but always enjoyable to hear. After a few moments, Vinyl, in her characteristic bravado, effortlessly picked up Braeburn with her strong arms, causing him to gasp in surprise as she hoisted him over one shoulder. His head now behind Vinyl’s back his barely clad rear now faced the crowd with her. The DJ gave his thong-clad ass a spank before looking to the audience of new patrons to Club 29.

“Well, I’m gonna get things started. You guys wanna come along?” she asked, to which the crowd responded with a few scattered cheers. “Oh come on, guys, for real now, who’s with me!” Vinyl called out, to which the crowd cheered. Vinyl swiftly twisted her body around to step through the Portal, allowing Braeburn enough time to look up at the crowd from his slung-over position and motion towards himself, signalling for everyone to come follow them! They didn’t need much encouragement; Vinyl was always a popular pony in CTS, where even in its stone corridors and common areas she occasionally signed autographs on her albums and posters. The DJ, to many, was a veritable goddess in terms of her looks, her popularity, her demonstrated strength, and her height. Thus, many ponies in CTS looked up to her as a paragon of female dominance, up there with the princesses themselves!

As Vinyl carried Braeburn through the portal, the whole throng of new club-goers followed and crowded through the portal. Once ponies started stepping inside, they looked around, and many gasped in excitement. Some even cheered as the ambiance of Vinyl’s new dance club flooded their senses. They were greeted by a huge dance floor to their right, a bar to their left, and a neon sign in the back reading “Private Rooms” with an arrow pointing to an arched doorway accented with squiggly pink neon lights. The dance floor lit up, illuminating in squares of white, red, blue, pink, and all the colors of the neon rainbow, all in tune with the music, a staple of Vinyl’s shows. A lighting rack hung not only above the stage in a perfect square, but above the dance floor in a wide rectangle, allowing beams of light and lasers to shine on and mix in with a light fog wafting in from the rafters.

Behind the futuristic, metal, mood-lit bar, a beautiful orange batpony mare with blue hair, dressed similarly to Vinyl with a black and purple color theme, waved excitedly at the new customers as Vinyl led them in. She already set up a few of the most feminine drinks, from strawberry daiquiris to pink martinis, to a set of filled shot glasses lined up in Vinyl’s colors of blue and white, ready for consumption. “Free shots this night only,” read a sign standing on the bar, something that immediately drew a good fifth of the crowd, while the rest headed to the dance floor. The batpony, Nightfire, wore a red mask over her eyes, designed in the style of the Night Guard’s armor, with purple and orange accents all over it. Behind the mask, though, she wore an excited smile, eyes darting from one pony to the other as she eagerly interacted with the crowd, while also explaining the rules of the bar, namely the time system in between drinks.

Back on the dance floor, a well-known track from Vinyl’s set played over the speakers, a throbbing bass line and smooth synth line filling the club with the vibe of a popular, vibrant dance club. The visuals projected onto the screens betrayed its erotic nature; pictures of mares in dominatrix attire, teasingly playing with riding crops, floggers, and paddles contrasted with images of stallions wearing ball gags, blindfolds, chastity cages, and all kinds of submissive wear. Brief shots of a mare’s hoof pressing down on their backs or heads interspersed between the shots, in a carnal slideshow of two-second clips.

Around the dance floor sat cages, illuminated from outside by the lighting, revealing their dancing stallion occupants. As Vinyl walked past them, and she did make sure to walk by each one of them, reactions varied, but all carried the theme of arousal. One of the display-only dancers, a lithe, feminine looking earth pony stallion in striped stockings, a plaid short skirt, no underwear, and a button-down shirt, gripped his cock as he watched the sight of Vinyl strutting by before him while swaying his rear to the beat. A free-use light brown unicorn, dressed in his birthday suit, collar, and a pink chastity cage, pressed his rear against the bars and looked back at her. With a sultry, slightly open mouth, lowered eyelids, and his arms holding onto the bars above his head, Vinyl found the display arousing. Had she not already had a stallion over her shoulder, she might have brought him on stage, but she left him where he was, only for him to be let out of the cage by a pegasus mare moments after Vinyl passed by.

Another cage contained Soarin, a prominent Wonderbolt, wearing a tight-fitting blue chastity cage and a revealing skin-tight, blue and yellow Wonderbolt-branded bikini top, paired with matching rubber elbow gloves. Below them, he wore matching thigh-high rubber stockings that fit his lean muscled body perfectly. A sign near the locked door read, “For Display Only. Please Take Pictures! Tributes and tips accepted. Phaser level: Virginity Loss. By order of Master Thunderlane,” followed by a number through which to send the aforementioned pictures. Soarin, in an attempt to make his master proud, gripped the cage bars, and pressed his front into them, showing off and encouraging passers-by to touch him. A few of the newcomers groped him eagerly, feeling up his taut chest muscles and caged package. Another cage dancer, a peach colored male kirin, wore a skin-tight firefighter outfit, complete with a hat, a black collar, and a sign on the cage indicating his mistress’ signature, contact info, and set rate of three lashes per hour. He blew a kiss to Vinyl. She had to chuckle, enjoying the contrast of a creature known for bursting into flames when angry dressed as someone who extinguishes fires. Finding it just as clever as he was sexy, she slipped him a paper scrap through the cage bars, before Vinyl blew him a kiss in return as she walked up to the stage with the cowboy stallion still slung over her shoulder. ‘See me after the show. Got a brand (or three) with your name on it,’ read the note.

Vinyl carried Braeburn on the stage, strutting around, dominance exuding from the way she carried herself before she set him down, and with her magic, summoned a pair of headsets for them to speak to the club. She casually pulled him in, her hands on each cutie mark of Braeburn’s pert rear, as she ground him against her bulge, licking her lips. “You stay up here, cutie, I’m gonna have fun with you during this set,” she practically growled with lust, “But lemme say a few words to the audience, first,” she said with a smile before she gave his ass another spank and stepped forward. Her presence, her attire, ear piercings, and tattoo on her arm, gave her the air of a sexual rebel, speaking to her deviant followers.

“I wanna take a minute to dedicate this club,” she began, “I wanna dedicate this to all of you, all of you awesome ponies out there who never felt like you fit in! This club is for everyone who ever felt left out when they saw all the others having their vanilla relationships while you wondered ‘Why don’t I like this?’” she proclaimed to the crowd as she began to pace across the stage. “This is for all the stallions who wondered ‘Why do I have to be the one to ask a mare out?’ This is for all the mares who never understood why having more than one partner was a bad thing! This is for the new members in the house, let me know you’re here!” she called out, and about a third of the audience erupted in applause, “Lemme tell you, newbies, whether you’re a dom or a sub, all of whatever it is you want done to you, or want to do to somepony else, or with somepony else, it’s right here! It’s at The Clocktower Society! So get down on the dance floor, chill at the bar, or check out those sexy performers in the cages here, and make a new fuckbuddy tonight! Everyone who’s not new, remember to show those newbies some love, and remember… we were all newbies once, and needed someone to show them the ropes! Now let’s get this party started!”

Cheers erupted from the crowd, and the DJ mare twirled to face her barely-concealed rear to the crowd, and strut behind Braeburn, playfully grabbing him by the hip as she walked the two of them behind the DJ booth. Vinyl ground herself into his rear as she flicked a few switches and dials to begin the set, before feeling up the subby male; possessively fondling his chest, his abs, and firmly between his legs, she truly gave off the air of “I take what I want.” The grinding became more forceful as the music changed gears into a much more intense, dancing beat. Dancers throughout the club threw up their arms and grooved to the beat as Vinyl used her magic to keep manning the DJ booth. All the while she grinded with Braeburn to the sounds of the staccato bass line. The DJ clung onto the cowboy’s chest, and perched her head over his, standing easily a head taller than the male.

“Ever been with a mare like me?” she asked, her heart racing from the faster pace of the music, and the imminence of what they were going to do as her bulge ground against the small of cowboy’s back.

“I ain’t,” Braeburn replied smoothly, “I’m more a stallion’s stallion, but… I’m willin’ ta see if my barn door swings for a mare that’s packin’ as much as you,” he admitted. He stood up on the hooved tips of his feet, bringing him just high enough to grind his pert rear against Vinyl’s impressive arousal. He put his hand on his hat, lowering it in the typical sexy cowboy pose.

“Well don’t you worry…” Vinyl whispered as she spun him around, to press herself against his firm abs, “I may be a mare, but… I’m a stallion where it counts…” She grunted, pressing her bulge into Brae’s exposed abs, feeling the stallion’s growing arousal pressing against her bulge. With a grip on his rear, Vinyl easily hoisted Braeburn up to the edge of the DJ booth. Braeburn gasped as the mare effortlessly manhandled him into a position with his legs resting on her shoulders, laying back on the DJ table. Vinyl’s horn lit up and in an instant, Braeburn’s thong disappeared, and Vinyl’s hands brought down her boyshorts, to reveal her sizeable, blue shaft, dwarfing the stallion’s own by a couple inches. Another flash of magic bound his wrists together above his head, and fitted him with an appropriately apple-shaped ball gag. A final flash lubed up her cock and his smooth, slightly concave entrance, as she pressed the two together. The stallion blushed and smiled as best he could through the gag, nodding to give the big, strong mare the go-ahead she’d waited for this whole night.

With a swift motion, Vinyl thrust into the stallion’s well-prepared and accommodating rear, eliciting a blush and a moan from the stallion that even Vinyl and some of the front row crowd could hear over the music! Cheers erupted as mares wearing masks and glowsticks, along with collared stallions in similar raver attire danced to the thumping beat and the new show they found themselves treated to on stage. Nothing outlandish by CTS standards, but as Vinyl pummeled her sizeable cock deep into the willing male’s rear, she immediately made clear the underlying message of the new and improved Club 29: Mares run the show around here.

The show went on as Vinyl continued to flaunt her dominance over the cowboy stallion. Braeburn wasn’t quite as tight as she was used to, but he had plenty of practice at the stocks every other weekend at Clocktower West. Vinyl didn’t mind; a willing and capable stallion was all she needed to get the most out of a session, and few stallions were as willing as Braeburn, especially as a stallion used to other stallions. Still, Braeburn willingly gave himself to Vinyl for the night, and she took it and ran, slamming her cock into him over and over, filling the DJ booth with the staccato sounds of slapping flesh. In-time with the music, their lust on display, the crowd watched and cheered, dancing more lewdly to the music as the two broke in the club in the way Vinyl always wanted it to happen. The excitement overwhelming her, she finally turned her turntable to an auto-mix so she could focus entirely on fucking Braeburn, not wanting to forget a second of this spectacular moment, months in the making.

She looked into his eyes, as he looked back into hers. Even as the music thumped throughout the club, for a moment it all stilled. Almost forty-five minutes after Vinyl penetrated the most famous and well-respected submissive stallion in all of Clocktower Society, Braeburn finally relented. Unable to hold back, his cock flared up and erupted in cum, spurting much of it onto Vinyl’s face, splattering thick ropes of white onto her mask and signature glasses, and a not insignificant portion shooting into the crowd. With a wicked grin, Vinyl leaned over him, approaching his blushing, sweat-dripping face. His mouth leaked drool around the ballgag, panting from the intense orgasm that wracked his body mere moments ago, his eyes turned to face Vinyl’s cum-splattered face and glasses.

She said nothing, but slapped his ass hard with her right hand as she continued pounding him hard, her pace picking up. Vinyl herself, finally couldn’t hold it back much longer, outlasting Braeburn by a mere couple of minutes. Her seed filled Braeburn’s ass, her flared cock keeping it deep inside as she grunted, and finally let out a roar of pleasure. “RRragghh!” she cried out as her thrusting stopped with one last powerful thrust into Braeburn’s ass. The music reached a crescendo as Vinyl’s cock throbbed, her cum spilling from his rear, out from around her shaft, as the DJ panted in exhaustion

A whole hour into the set, the two ponies basked in the afterglow. Vinyl took the ballgag out of Braeburn’s mouth and gave him a playful kiss on the nose. “Looks like playing with all those stallions really prepped you for me,” she chuckled, “I should get back to actually playing my music, but… feel free to stop by anytime, cowboy.” After a few moments, Vinyl grinned as she leaned in closer, “but first… why don’t you clean up the mess you made on my face?” she commanded in a playful tone, pointing to her cum-splattered face and glasses. Obediently, the submissive male leaned up and, like the showboat he was, slowly dragged his tongue along Vinyl’s face and signature glasses, drawing it out as long as he could on every line his tongue drew, giving sly, sultry looks to both Vinyl and the cameras on stage that projected onto the big screens, collecting any seed along the way. Many in the audience cheered at the sight; ponies danced, swaying their bodies, grinding against each other as they watched male submission in action. It really helped drive home the whole thesis of the club, especially on its first day!

Not long afterwards, once Braeburn licked her face clean, he and Vinyl stepped to the side of the DJ booth, before the cowboy fell to his knees and treated the audience to the sight of him cleaning off Vinyl’s cock. Making it all the better, he hiked up his tail and swished it to the side to show off his gaping, cum-dripping rear to the audience, presenting what Vinyl did to him. Vinyl’s solid blue cock still throbbed with arousal, thanks to Braeburn’s ministrations. The display elicited excitement and a stray cry from a male submissive of “we love you, Vinyl!” that proved just loud enough to be heard over the music, prompting vocal agreement from the rest of the crowd.

Once Braeburn licked her cock clean, Vinyl went back to the turntables, where Braeburn joined her, gently grinding against her crotch as the amazonian DJ reached her arms around him to play the music and sync up the beat for the next song. As Braeburn ground against her, Vinyl smiled. This whole opening of Club 29 went far better than she could have expected. Sexy, fun, and with the mares really letting loose and only having stallions who wanted to serve them, rather than stallions who seemed intent on “convincing them” to make it the other way around. As these thoughts raced into her mind, she knew that it was time to really send the point home on this opening night.

The lights dimmed enough that the glowsticks ponies carried and the mood lights made up all the illumination in the room. Small strobe lights flashed, pointed up from the stage floor. Some ponies hooted and hollered at the display, when a blue light illuminated Vinyl from beneath her DJ booth.

“Now… this is a special lil’ thing for me… that I made just for tonight.” Vinyl began in a low, sultry voice, with a grin easily visible beneath her glasses, “It’s been a long process in making this, but I think you’ll love it. So, ladies… hold your stallion close… show him how you feel about him. And if ya don’t got one, then grab the nearest studded collar. This… this is a little thing I like to call… ‘The Haze Lifts.’”

The whole dance floor went dark once more, and a dark, almost industrial beat started sounding off from the speakers. The screen lit up to display a series of artificial-looking stallions marching in line across a drab, generic looking street. Their faces and much of their exposed bodies appeared manufactured in plastic rather than flesh. The dreary sequence, thankfully, cut off to show Vinyl and Nightfire, in what could best be described as “Tactical Dominatrix attire,” dragging one of the fabricated stallions through a dark hallway, before chaining him up to a post, arms extended above its head. As they set up, the scene shifted to showing other rooms, where mares had similar stallions affixed in various states of bondage. The music shifted slowly to something slower and sensual, as the camera soon focused on two different mares, fully in the nude. One of them clearly a futa, while the other fully female, had a plastic stallion tied to a chair. Even as he struggled slightly, the mares made out with each other, pleasuring each other’s parts.

“All right ladies,” Vinyl whispered in a sultry growl, “get real close with your stallion… it’s time to set him free…” Vinyl whispered sensually into the microphone of her headset, as the two mares on the screen reached their orgasm, with both of them spurting their fluids onto the plastic stallion’s face. But yet… something fantastic happened as the fluids dripped off… the fluids as they leaked and smeared across his face, seemed to wash away the plastic, to reveal a live, fleshy stallion. Ponies in the crowd let out gasps of amazement, as the mares all ground and felt up either each other, or the stallions they had collared, either for the night or for a longer term. The sequence on the screen continued, as other groups of mares managed to remove the plastic from these stallions in other BDSM-inspired ways; one mare spanked a stallion with a hole-filled paddle, causing the plastic to shatter from his body to reveal the live, fleshy stallion making a face of ecstasy, while another slapped him across the face, breaking the plastic in a similar fashion.

The effect in the audience was palpable; as these images coincided with intense, long drum tones that expertly blended epic orchestral music from movie trailers with the rebellious dance club aesthetic that Vinyl lived and breathed on stage -- the ponies in the audience immediately seemed to take the cue. A small dance circle in the audience formed as one of the mares, with a handsome, collared stallion, bedecked in a chastity cage, a muzzle, and a leash, began to enact stylized domination, combined with dance popular dance moves like the Westside Canterlot Shuffle and the Alicorn Ascension Trot. Riding crop blows and leash tugs combined with stylish dances from the two ponies, showing them being intensely in-tune with each other. “Look at these guys, they know what’s up!” Vinyl called out from the stage, as she used her magic to shine a spotlight on the dancers on the floor.

It didn’t take long, though, for the video to finish, showing off the formerly plastic stallions enjoying their domination at the hands of these mares, and finally finishing off with Vinyl Scratch and Nightfire, with the plastic stallion they caught from earlier, cumming on the stallion’s face, to show off that effect of the real stallion revealed by Vinyl and Nightfire’s futa cum. The stallion gasped for air, as if breathing for the first time, and had a look of awe and incredible relief, finally freed of his plastic prison.

Cheering ensued, as did applause. Vinyl bowed from behind the turntable, and with her track finished, she and Braeburn dismounted from the stage. Braeburn parted ways with Vinyl, giving her a kiss on the shoulder, lacking the height to reach anything above it. Vinyl leaned down to give him a kiss on the nose. “Thanks, cutie,” she acknowledged, “feel free to come by anytime… I’d be glad to have you performing up on stage again or in one of the cages,” she suggested. With a wink and a smile, Braeburn nodded. “Sure thing, darlin’,” he replied. “It was a real fun night here, I sure can’t wait to be comin’ back as soon as my schedule frees up,” he said with a genuinely grateful smile and a tight hug. After that, he disappeared into the crowd, while Vinyl decided to head to the bar and kick back. Nightfire stood behind the bar, and the two gave each other a friendly kiss - one that might make many think they were lovers, but Vinyl just liked to kiss those she felt close to, even if she did slip them the tongue. Nightfire, her closest friend for years, kissed back and casually squeezed Vinyl’s tits. In one swift motion, she tore off the boob tube Vinyl had been wearing this whole time, letting those E-cup mounds hang free, eliciting a relieved moan of pleasure from the DJ. The two mares kept it up, until Vinyl finally broke the kiss. “See you tomorrow?” she asked.

“You know it,” Nightfire replied with a grin as she stepped back and slid Vinyl her favorite energy drink, which the music mare took eagerly, sat back, and took a long gulp. Once she set down her drink and could see in front of her, she noticed a few red and white collared stallions eyeing her lustfully, but the male kirin from earlier strut forward, still wearing his firefighter outfit, and licking his lips.

“So I hear you’re interested in hiring me for the night,” the kirin spoke in a sultry, almost feminine voice. Vinyl licked her lips at the sight, pulled out her phaser, and motioned him over with a gentle “come hither” gesture with her right index finger.

The kirin strut towards her like a model on the runway. “I sure am,” she admitted. “Never been with a kirin before… I hear you guys are… durable.” Vinyl handed the phaser to him, so he could adjust the pain/pleasure settings to his liking.

“We’re quite fireproof,” the kirin replied as he tweaked the phaser’s setting gingerly, trying to get it to the right setting, “and have somewhat thicker hides.” He handed the phaser back to the DJ. “I think this should give you an idea of how much thicker.”

Vinyl took the phaser back and looked at the setting, and her eyes widened just a little. The dial was only a few ticks away from the maximum possible pain setting. Her expression of surprise turned to a grin, as she quickly, and without warning pushed the phaser against the kirin’s chest. She held it there for the required five seconds, in order to make the electric-charged mark appear properly, and watched his reaction. It was one of wincing, gritting teeth, and gripping onto Vinyl’s arm as he helped her to hold the phaser right in the middle of his chest. “NNghh… hurts so good!” He panted once Vinyl pulled the phaser off and left behind the horseshoe-shaped currency mark on his chest, enough for an hour and change.

Vinyl patted her lap as the kirin climbed up onto her. She reached around to squeeze his bubble rear as she coaxed him to suckle on one of her neon blue nipples, something he did eagerly.

“Fuuuck,” Vinyl panted, throwing her head back in pleasure. As her head fell back, her eyes, partly open, looked around to see other mares partaking in some of the other stallions, just as she did. Each of the free and for-hire cage dancers were occupied by a mare or three, while the other stallion guests busied themselves with letting the music move them, or pleasuring a mare in whatever kinky manner she desired. Heartened by the display, and excited by both the prospects and the kirin atop her, she spanked her companion for the night hard and just had to speak out her enthusiasm. “This is gonna be one hell of a club!”

Chapter 2: Switching up the Beat

“I didn’t give you permission to talk!” Vinyl bellowed, and a loud clap of wood on skin echoed through the private playroom as the recipient of the spank, a yellow stallion bound to and bent over a chair, let out cries of pain. His handcuffs became taut and his body writhed, while his cock leaked more pre out of his plastic chastity cage. His black blindfold contrasted nicely with his yellow body as Vinyl looked down at him, while his rear became a deeper hue of red. Despite the pain he’d gone through for a good two hours now, the yellow stallion, Slave FS-909, never once rang his bell. Sure, he snorted and sputtered through his nose, feigning resistance like a petulant teenager, but they both loved it like that. The stallion’s ass, getting to be nearly as red from spankings as the collar he wore, gaped lightly from repeated use by Vinyl and other mares like her.

“What makes you think you get to make any demands?” she shouted as she strut around behind him, “I can go to my club and grab any stallion who’s willing to take my cock. And here you are, in the privileged position of being my slave for the night, and you have the balls to think you can just demand that I fuck you?” She sneered as she reached down and grabbed her slave’s mane, pulling his head up and back. “You know, I was gonna give you the pleasure of getting fucked… but since you asked… now I won’t!” she taunted, “But…” she added, leaning in to whisper into his ear, “I want you to beg for it anyway.”

“B-but…” FS-909 stammered, “what’s… what’s the difference?”

“The difference is,” Vinyl said as she let go of his mane and paddled his rear once again, the resultant sound echoing through the room, “You’re begging when I tell you to beg,” she declared.

Moments passed as it processed through the bound male’s mind, but once Vinyl gave his ass the paddle once more, he finally kicked into gear. “Oh stars, please…” he began, “Please, Goddess,” he pleaded, “show me the light! Make me into the mare you know I can be! I wanna be a mare for you!”

Just as he finished speaking, Vinyl’s wristwatch buzzed. The DJ looked at her wrist, lifting up her signature glasses. “FS Duty in 10,” the watch read

“Clockface,” Vinyl said with a smile. Her horn lit up and instantly undid all the bindings on the pegasus stallion, who promptly stood up and stretched all six of his limbs. Vinyl quickly rushed up behind him and scooped him up into a bridal carry, moving him to the bed, and sat down with the stallion in her lap. With another pop of her magic, she procured a bag of ice to gently place on his sore rear with one hand, while stroking his head soothingly with the other.

“Mmm… that was incredible, Vinyl,” the stallion cooed as he looked up at the tall mare. Vinyl smiled warmly at him and just looked at him, petting his mane and shoulder. In some ways, she felt protective of him, even after spanking him hard and often enough to turn his rear apple-red. She felt a surge of pride in herself, and happiness for FS-909, or Flash Sentry, his real name. She loved how good he felt, how she could make him smile like that. It was one thing to please millions of ponies with her music at concerts or in the albums that they listened to at home, but personally witnessing her actions making someone feel that good? Nothing could beat that.

“Glad you had fun,” Vinyl replied, leaning down to kiss him on the head as one would to a pet dog while massaging the base of his wings with her strong hands. “Hope I didn’t hurt you too bad this time,” she added.

“Nah, you were fine,” the stallion assured her with a lazy wave of his hand, “just wish it could have lasted longer, you know?”

“Yeah, I feel ya,” Vinyl sighed, “never quite enough time, but I can just take pride in knowing I can make you squirm,” she teased. Silently, Vinyl stroked the stallion’s back and mane, listening to the sounds of breathing and the shifting of the ice in the bag.

The all-too-short period of afterglow came to a screeching halt as soon as Vinyl’s watch went off again, reminding her that her submissive Crystal Guard stallion only had five minutes to report to duty. With a sigh, Vinyl picked up the bag of ice and helped him up, much to the chagrin of the Torch Guard. “Come on, Flash,” she coaxed, moving him to his feet, “I don’t wanna have to apologize to Cadance for making you late again! I’ll see you next week, ok?”

Warmly, Flash leaned in and up to kiss Vinyl on the cheek. “Count on it, Mistress,” he replied, before gathering his clothes to hurriedly put them on. Within a minute, he had enough clothes on to be presentable and rushed out to the hallway.
Nightfire came strutting along past him. The thestral gave him a spank on the ass as he ran by, and giggled as he yelped. The stallion continued to the portal, quickly adjusted the destination dial, and stepped through. Vinyl smiled and felt a sense of pride that she gave him possibly the best hour of his whole week, and one of the better hours of her own.

Nightfire subsequently stepped through Vinyl’s door, closing and locking it behind her. The thestral mare wore her typical attire of baggy, torn jeans and a tee-shirt from one of Vinyl’s concert tours, something that always made the DJ smile. “Hey Nightfire,” Vinyl greeted as she slid out of her dominatrix attire, preferring to sit and chat with her best friend in the buff.
“Hey Vinyl,” Nightfire replied, sitting back on Vinyl’s couch, right next to her best friend, and put an arm around her back. The DJ smiled and gave the thestral a kiss on the cheek. “You have fun with him?” Nightfire asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, a little noncommittally, “but it’s just getting a little too routine, I guess. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love doing what I do to him, and that smile he gives me when we’re done just makes it so much better,” she explained with a smile on her face. “Well, no, it’s really that… I’m worried it’s going to become routine.”

“Really? Routine, with a Clocktower sub?” Nightfire asked, a little incredulously, “I’ve been with Flash before, and he’s far from routine, lemme tell you,” she assured her. She leaned into Vinyl’s shoulder, giving that tattoo on her right arm a kiss, “What’s gotten you so worked up about this?”

Vinyl sighed as she crossed her leg with Nightfire’s. “My old friend’s birthday is tomorrow,” she replied, “old, old friend from high school. It… brought me down, today.”

“How does a friend’s birthday, of all things, bring you down?” Nightfire asked, shocked, before thinking on it for a moment. “Did it end badly or something?”

“Kinda…” Vinyl said uneasily. “Back where I grew up in Canterlot, I kinda stood out being a tomboy. ‘Specially one as tall as I was, even back then,” she explained, “much as I wanted to be a part of the guys and the gals, I just never fit in with either group. But Shady Branch? He didn’t care. Him and Willowbrook felt the same way about me since they didn’t really fit in with any of the other cliques in school either. So while the rest of the school got freaked out that the class president gave a blowjob to one of the other students, we could just laugh to ourselves since we’d been fooling around as a threesome for months.” She chuckled.

“We could just get our freak on, you know? Don’t think I would’ve even discovered Clocktower if it weren’t for them,” she reminisced, and hugged Nightfire a little tighter to her body. “My parents, teachers, all those ponies were real uptight and ‘prim and proper,’ and always felt that me being the way I am was just a phase or some crap, but those two helped me realize that it’s ok to be weird. But… senior year came, and we were all planning on college, and none of us got into the same school, even though we all tried.

“So on the last day we had before we all moved to different parts of Equestria, we had a threesome where we’d go further than we’d ever gone before. We did things we were too nervous to try earlier, just to get it done, and Shady Branch decided to blow me… and stars above he made me cum so hard, and Willowbrook sucked my tits… drank the first couple drops of milk I ever made,” she explained, in a reminiscing tone, “and then I fucked her,” she chuckled, as her own neon blue cock started to grow out from the memory.

A deep, slightly shuddered breath from the alabaster mare gave away the bittersweet undertone of the memory.
“I never saw either of them again after that night,” she sighed, her cock softening and retreating back into her sheath. “We all went our own separate ways the next day. We wrote to each other, tried to keep in touch, but the letters dried up… Willowbrook, last I heard, got too busy getting into med school, and Shady Branch just didn’t respond after a while. He’d respond to my letters but he never sent one without me sending one first. Felt so… one-sided, you know? Made me wonder if he just forgot about me after he sent those letters,” she managed to say, before she tilted her head down, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. It didn’t stop the tears from flowing down the sides of her nose as she sniveled just loud enough to be heard. Her cheeks turned a light hue of red, and her body curled up slightly.

Nightfire hugged her best friend tightly, letting the moment happen. She didn’t need years of spy training and experience to figure out how Vinyl felt, and what she needed. After a good minute of the otherwise imposing mare quietly sobbing, she finally let out a deep breath, and wiped her eyes.

“Sorry,” Vinyl apologized, “I don’t… this never hit me that hard before…” she admitted.

“Telling someone about it is a lot different than just thinking about it,” Nightfire assured her. “How long have you been keeping this to yourself?”

“Since the last time I heard from either of them. So… about six years,” Vinyl stated as she wiped some more liquid from her eyes. “I just… I was sad, Nightfire,” she confessed, “I thought I had the kinkiest friends in the world… and when I found Clocktower in college, I thought for sure that they’d be members, but I didn’t find either of them! So I just… ah…” she sighed, “when I got my degree, I just decided to move on with my life, make new friends and all that. … But I could never bring myself to delete his birthday notification from my phone.”

Nightfire let the moment pass as she leaned in and gave her friend-with-benefits a gentle kiss on the lips, one that Vinyl returned in kind. After a couple of minutes, they pulled back, as Nightfire brushed the stray strands of hair from her friend’s face. “So this is why you never talked much about growing up,” she commented.

“I just… well, it’s why I never want to be a normal pony,” she said, “or like, not boring, you know? I know Shady Branch wanted to major in some kinda math, and Willowbrook went to medical school. Like, I respect what doctors do, but it just felt like she was only in it because it was a safe bet for a job.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Nightfire asked, “I mean, vanilla is just one facet of the intricately cut diamond that is life, isn’t it?” she wondered, giving her friend a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Sure it’s not everypony’s cup of tea, but… doesn’t mean that vanilla ponies are bad guys. You know, maybe your friends just got caught up with everything… you know they were probably making new friends themselves. Actually, you know…” Nightfire commented as she turned her eyes up in thought, “Shady Branch… I know that guy! He’s a Canterlot accountant; Luna’s Secret Service has him as a C.I. for low-level street crime, since he’s sometimes asked to cook some small-time operation’s books, but nothing more serious than that. I’ve talked to him a couple times, he’s helped me on a few assignments in the past, but it’s been a year or so. Maybe… maybe you should talk to him? And before you tell me ‘no,’…” she said, holding up her hand, “just… hear him out. You know, not everyone who’s vanilla is determined to stamp out kinksters, most of them just want to live and let live!” she assured the DJ, with a hug. “I’m not saying to go have sex with him, just, go talk to him, have lunch or something. Reminisce about the good old days,” she chuckled, “I think it’ll help you out.”

Vinyl, while uncertain about Nightfire’s idea, still trusted the counsel of her best friend of the last few years. With a smile, she nodded.

“All right, then, Nightfire,” she concluded, “I’ll give him a visit tomorrow, wish him a happy birthday… catch up. Yeah, you’re right… what’s the worst that can happen?”

“That’s the spirit,” Nightfire assured her, “Now come on, I know what’ll get you feeling better… some Torch Guard training!”

“Ah for real?” Vinyl rolled her eyes a bit, “We do that every week, and I get spell lessons from Arcane Light every other week… I-“

“Hey c’mon now,” Nightfire coaxed as she stood up and pulled Vinyl to her feet, “That’s not the attitude of someone who wants to protect the good ponies of Equestria, now!”

Vinyl smiled. As usual, Nightfire was right. It reminded her that she made the right choice in letting the thestral take her under her leathery wing.

“Shouldn’t I get dressed?” she asked.

“What are you gonna do if someone starts something while you’re getting worshipped at the bar and none of the others are there to help you? Or if the call goes out while you’re taking a shower? I mean for that last one, don’t you know a decency spell or something?”

“Ah, all right,” Vinyl relented, as she took a few deep breaths, before she took a fighting stance, two fists raised, and bouncing on her hooves. The two friends sparred, practicing the moves she’d learned that earned her the Auxiliary Torch Guard position a year ago. As Nightfire predicted, by the time the two mares finished, tired, sweaty, and bruised, Vinyl felt a sense of euphoria that melted away any doubts and negativity she had before. Nightfire’s suggestion now filled her with confidence. She knew she was ready, now. With a renewed sense of vigor, she committed to herself that she was going to go to Canterlot and see Shady Branch tomorrow, after putting it off for too many years.

***

Vinyl strolled through Canterlot from one of the public use portals, ensuring nopony could tell where she was coming from; a nice little feature for the portal entryway in her club. Thankfully, it was in the middle of a workday, a Wednesday. Vinyl casually looked around at the old-style architecture, wearing her typical shades, while a hoodie kept the winter chill at bay. Born and raised here, the DJ knew these streets inside and out, and though her accountant worked elsewhere, she had passed by this office on occasion. As she looked at the signboard hanging in front of it, she realized why it never drew her attention; Shady Branch’s name didn’t grace it or the building. Just “Spire Accounting, LLC.” “No wonder shady ponies come here to cook their books. Anyone could miss this place…” she mused, before her thoughts were interrupted. Distinct, high pitched, and coming from a low angle, Vinyl instantly recognized the sound of a filly excited to meet her favorite musician. Vinyl turned around, and saw a pale blue unicorn mare across the street, trying to coax her white unicorn filly away. The filly kept pointing to Vinyl Scratch, wordlessly shouting in excitement. Looking around, and finding nopony else nearby, Vinyl jogged across the street.

“Hey, wait up!” she called out. The mother and put a hand to her mouth, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” the mare said, profusely apologetically, “I didn’t want to bother you-“

“DJ Pon3!” the little filly shouted excitedly, “Ohmygosh I have all your albums and I’ve always wanted to go to one of your concerts and, and, can I have your autograph?”

The mother’s face blushed. “Sweetie…” she began, but Vinyl raised a hand to quiet her down.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Vinyl said, “you’re not drawin’ in a crowd this time of day, I can spare an autograph for her.” She smiled to the mom as she crouched down to the filly, whose eyes lit up. She could swear she saw stars in the little white filly’s eyes. “What’s your name?” she asked, as she pulled out a pen from her pocket.

“S-Sunrise Field!” the filly replied, giddily and fidgeting with excitement as Vinyl tore out a piece of paper from her personal notepad in her pocket and wrote a message on it.

“All right, then, Sunrise,” she said, “tell ya what, come by my manager’s office sometime, just tell him your name, and he’ll know to give you one of my mixtapes,” she explained with a smile, and handed the filly the note, which read

“To Sunrise Field,
You do you! Was great to meet you! Remember, do what you like, and do it honestly.
-DJ Pon-3”

The filly reached in and gave Vinyl a hug. Vinyl leaned down and let her get a sidelong hug in return.
The mother shook her hand, relieved. “Thank you, this’ll make her whole year!” she said with a kind smile.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, always glad to make a fan’s day,” she replied. “My next concert’s in a few months, so maybe I’ll see you both there?” she suggested, waving at Sunrise Field and her mother, “Anyway, I gotta go,” she said as her watch buzzed, hitting noon.

“Bye DJ Pon-3!” the filly called out and waved back, clutching the autograph in her hand like it was a delicate paper artifact, as Vinyl jogged back across the street and into the accounting office. As she walked in, she discovered only a small waiting room with a receptionist on the first floor. With not a single other pony in the room, the bespectacled mare at the front desk looked up at Vinyl. Initially disinterested, her eyes looked back up again, but whether surprised at Vinyl’s professional-basketball-player height or the fact that an actual famous musician stepped through the door, it didn’t matter.

“He-hello miss, can I help you?” she asked, hastily and shakily standing up.

“Hey, uh… here to see Shady Branch,” Vinyl stated, as she lifted the glasses off her eyes and rested them atop her horn.

“It’s his lunch break right now,” the mare countered, tilting her head a little, thinking. “You can come back-“

“No no,” the DJ said, holding up her hand, “it’s… it’s a social call,” Vinyl corrected, in an uncharacteristically nervous tone, “he’s an old friend from high school… just let him know that Vinyl Scratch is here.”

“Um, take a seat,” the older unicorn suggested, motioning behind Vinyl.

She turned around towards an upscale, if bland, set of furniture, including a table and a long plush couch that showed signs of wear. The walls depicted paintings of wealthy stallions from what looked to be a hundred years ago.
Damn this place is old, Vinyl thought to herself, before turning around, sitting down and sitting back. She could hear the receptionist talking over the phone from across the room.

“Yes, there’s a… Vinyl Scratch, here to see you,” she said, before a pause. “Wait, what? Um… tall, white, unicorn with a blue mane and magenta eyes? She says you were friends in- … All right, yes… yes of course.” She concluded before hanging up the phone. She looked up at Vinyl from her desk, meeting the DJ’s wandering eyes almost immediately.

“Mr. Shady Branch will see you now,” she said, eyebrows raised in confusion, “Upstairs, last door on the left.”

Vinyl stood up, nodded at the older mare, and ascended the wooden staircase. Every other step creaked underneath her weight, and an old, dirty window emanated light from the top of the staircase. It faced the next building over, but enough light got through to illuminate the area adequately. With a blank wall on her left at the top, she turned to the right and saw a hallway of four office doors, each with their occupant’s name engraved on a brass plate by the doorknob. True to the receptionist’s word, Shady Branch’s door was the last office on the left. Without knocking, Vinyl turned the doorknob and opened the door.

The office reminded her of a set she’d seen in one or more movies she couldn’t quite name… standard-looking desk, green-hued lamp shining down on a mess of paperwork, a clear green visor on the pony’s head. Still, clear as day, Shady Branch sat there, looking up at her in the middle of eating a sandwich. Swallowing what was in his mouth, he put it down and stood up.

“Well, as I live and breathe…” he began as he walked out around the desk and held out a hand, “Vinyl Scratch! It’s been way too long!”

Vinyl reached out to shake his hand, but quickly pulled him in for a hug, putting her long arm around his back and patting him hard… clearly something the accountant didn’t expect, judging by the pause between the hug from Vinyl, and him wrapping his arms around her back in return.

“Ah come on, we’re better friends than just a handshake,” she said, a whole feeling of nostalgia overflowing her mind. It was almost as if she was back in high school again, and hugging him tightly felt like nothing had changed. All too quickly, Shady Branch pulled back from the hug and bade her to sit down on one of the two chairs before the desk, and he sat down in the other.

“Wow,” Shady said as he looked up at her, smiling, “You know, when I heard you became famous, I never thought you’d have time to come visit little old me.”

Vinyl, panged with a little pain, decided not to bring up how he stopped even trying to contact her after a time… hoping to just let it be water under the bridge. “Well,” she said, “you know how it is, being busy with stuff… it happens. A friend of mine told me you worked here, so I just thought I’d stop by while I was in town!” she explained, trying to keep her mood upbeat.

“That’s right, you live in Ponyville,” he commented, his tone sounding slightly distant, but his eyes looking her over like he’d just seen her for the first time, “Well hey, you caught me a little late for lunch but, would you like to go out to dinner sometime?” he suggested, “I don’t have too long before my next appointment comes in, but you know I’d love to talk and… reminisce about growing up,” he commented with a grin, one that Viny initially interpreted as… like that of a stallion trying his luck with a sweet piece of ass.

“Sure,” Vinyl agreed, smiling gently, trying and mostly succeeding at brushing away her uneasiness, assuring herself that he couldn’t be that kind of stallion after all that time they’d spent together. “I get you’re a busy guy… but yeah, it’ll be nice to catch up.”

“Great!” he replied with a smile, letting his hands fall to his knees as he sat back, more relaxed, “there’s a great little place called 'J.Q Whicktrot’s' near the castle… always wanted an excuse to go there, but now I have one! Just remember to wear formal attire. And don’t worry, I know the hostess there, she’ll be glad to make sure we’re sitting out of the way somewhere and don’t draw a crowd,” he said with a wink, “we’ll have each other all to ourselves, it’ll be great!”

“Yeah… definitely,” Vinyl commented, with waning enthusiasm. She was hoping for something more along the lines of a nightclub like Neon Lights’ club RGBeats, as she disliked formal settings. Not to mention Neon always had a private room set aside for her in his club if she didn’t want to draw in any attention and she just needed to call ahead. “How about… 7 tonight?”

Come on, Vinyl, she thought to herself as Shady Branch launched into what felt like a diatribe of pleasantries that she largely tuned out, You haven’t seen him in like seven years! Give the guy a chance!
All the while she tried to pretend to be interested and not break eye contact as whatever Shady Branch was talking about finished.

“…don’t you think?” was all she heard at the end.

“Yeah, yeah,” Vinyl said with a smile, trying to pretend that she understood it, and praying to Celestia that he didn’t try to call her on it.

Thankfully, a knock on the door saved the day for her. “Ah, I’ll see you tonight,” Vinyl assured him, making things quick, “At 7!” she reminded him, with about the fakest thumbs-up gesture she’d ever given anyone. Judging by his facial expression, he didn’t notice, and he returned the gesture with a genuine smile before she brushed past a very confused looking unicorn in a coat and tie.

Vinyl booked a hotel room as soon as she could after she left, where she spent the next seven hours sitting on the bed and gathering her thoughts while eating a nice room service meal for lunch. Alone with her worries, and a big double-stacked burger, she sat back on the bed and stared at the blank TV screen as she contemplated her options. Either ditch him, and burn that bridge entirely, or go through with it, and just try to make it work. For about an hour, ditching him sounded like a great idea; just let him go, just forget all of this, and spare yourself the awkwardness, she thought. At least, until she realized that doing so would make any memories she had of him much more painful, that she would never be able to forget that she gave him an unceremonious cold shoulder when he may have just honestly wanted to reconnect. She could not bring herself to live with such guilt.

So she remained with the alternative, to try to give him the benefit of the doubt throughout this dinner date for as long as possible, and maybe just catch up on some good times, then end it cleanly if things went too poorly. As she sat down in the modernist-looking hotel room and lay back on the plush bed, she took a nap, setting an alarm for 6 so she could get ready. “I hope I don’t regret this,” she muttered as she closed her eyes.

Chapter 3: Experimenting

As 6 o’clock rolled around, Vinyl showered, got dressed, and visited Carousel Boutique Canterlot, where the very kind attendant Sassy Saddles managed to put together a tasteful ensemble for the mare on such short notice. It contrasted her colors beautifully, a simple black dress with a few blue accents, black high-heels, and a tasteful white coat to put on over it, in addition to a few changes to her mane style, rendering her quite presentable by formalwear standards. Thankfully

With her outfit now fully assembled, Vinyl made her way to J.Q. Whicktrot’s, a formal eatery that clearly relied on its upscale clientele. A minimalist sign bearing the restaurant’s name hung over the entryway, where well-dressed ponies stood and waited along the sidewalk for entry into the building. Its long pillars at the front managed to emanate a sense of class and importance, and large cauldrons of flame outside added a bit of mystique to the ambiance. All Vinyl could think of, though, was how much better she could implement such things into her stage performances or a new kind of room at Clocktower.

All her thoughts were soon cut off as the familiar pat on the back turned her attention to Shady Branch. It heartened her, as he often did this during their high school days; it gave her a sense of contentment, that perhaps she made the right decision in going to see him after all. He was her best friend for almost five years, after all. Sure, he might be a different person in some ways, but there had to be something about him that remained, even after all this time, right? She managed to crack a smile with Shady as he led her around the back, where the more discrete entryway was, away from any prying eyes or paparazzi, eager to start the latest rumors of Vinyl’s new beau. Once around the back and through the more utilitarian entrance, the two found their way inside the restaurant, where a grand palatial vibe took center stage, with questionably real vines hanging from fake windows overlooking a painted vineyard. lights reminiscent of those of ancient Pegasopolis hung from the ceiling, but with a dim light that helped the setting feel more intimate, despite being spacious.

The two sat at a table in the back, away from the real windows, where they started off the night with a glass of wine. Not something Vinyl would’ve ordered, but she felt that going with the flow would be the best option here. Admittedly, the red wine didn’t taste all that bad; it had a nice, smooth taste to it. While not sweet like her favorite drinks, it still gave her a little buzz even if she drank it all in a couple gulps.

Everything proceeded surprisingly well, to Vinyl’s perception; talk about the old times, how crazy high school really was now that they thought back on it, how fun it was to just hang out, and the movies and everything that they saw. Nostalgia now firmly on her mind, Vinyl smiled, as Shady Branch brought up one of his favorite memories. He spoke at length about how they had a free period at the end of the school day one week, and the three of them decided to go to a movie theater. The movie turned out to be terrible, and the trio spent the runtime laughing and cracking jokes, given that they were the only ones in the whole screening room at the time. Vinyl couldn’t help but chuckle as she recited a few of the comments she remembered making, although she noticed that Shady Branch left out how Willowbrook knelt down between them halfway through the movie and gave the two of them handjobs. Now that, to her, was quite a memory; that cutie rubbing and taking turns sucking on their dicks and stroking both of them at once as the movie’s bland sex scene played out. Vinyl didn’t mind it much; she figured that it might cause a bit of a stir in this fancy-pants place, not to mention that a lot more happened throughout their teenage years than sex. Plus, she’d forgotten quite a few events that Shady Branch seemed to remember easily! Such as the time when they tried to set up their senior prank near the end of the school year but just got too distracted by sex and forgot about it. Vinyl remembered the sex, but not that they ditched their senior prank for it, funny enough. As the drinks flowed, and appetizers arrived, Vinyl found herself feeling relaxed and less worried about the uptight look of this place.

“Damn, Vinyl,” Shady commented, “you can hold a drink!”

“C’mon, Shady, I’m seven feet tall and I go to the gym all the time, I can hold twice the liquor of an average pony,” she commented as she leaned back and waved over their waiter. “Get me a Colta Libre,” she said, “with your best rum,” she added with a smile, before looking back at him. “You know, I’m glad we got to hang,” she commented, “it’s been too long… I almost forgot how fun it was hanging with you. And it reminds me… you ever hear from Willowbrook?” she asked, “Haven’t heard from her in a long while.”

Shady scrunched his nose a bit before he leaned back, slumping some more as he looked down. “I haven’t heard from her, either,” he admitted, “I tried to find her, and I tracked her down to Manehattan, doing her residency. Saving lives, all that. She… she barely gave me the time of day. I think she was just too busy,” he sighed, “She did have a thing about getting wrapped up in something once she set her mind to it. Remember that project we did on Chancellor Puddinghead back in freshman year?” he asked, looking up at her finally, to which Vinyl nodded, remembering that project being such a chore. Were it not for Willowbrook, they would have failed! “Yeah, she would not stop working on that… she really had a thing for earth pony history, and… well yeah, it saved our hides! I think the same thing happened with medical school; she just got so wrapped up in doing everything she needed to get that doctorate and now that she’s so close. I think she just… moved on,” he said as he put both his hands, clasped together on the table. “I guess that goodbye before college was really goodbye for her,” he suggested.

Vinyl grimaced a little, not really wanting to get into that kinda mindset, and as soon as the drink she ordered arrived, she chugged it. Placing the glass down, she felt the booze hit her almost immediately, but thankfully not too hard. The appetizer arrived almost immediately, a nice salad that the alabaster unicorn dug into, as did her old friend. To her great relief, Shady Branch managed to change the topic by asking Vinyl to talk about her music career, since he only knew what magazines and newspapers said about her. While careful to avoid mentioning anything about CTS, she told her friend how enjoyable it was for her to find stardom, even if the process could be excruciating at times. That, and how hard things were when she decided not to go with a major record label and become independent, how leaning on every single contact she knew meant the difference between continued fame and falling into obscurity. The alcohol flowing through her body at this point helped her not notice that Shady Branch’s eyes seemed to slowly drift ever downward; Vinyl’s tasteful dress revealed some noticeable cleavage, but not to the point of “not classy” for their current situation.

Food arrived, conversation flowed, and so did the drinks. By the end of everything, the two found themselves pretty sloshed; Shady more so than Vinyl, whose greater body mass allowed her to process the alcohol faster. By the time dessert had finished and the bill had been paid, Vinyl made sure that Shady Branch walked out coherent enough through the back entrance, using the taller mare’s body as a sort of crutch to prevent him from looking too drunk. Thankfully, the walk back to Shady Branch’s house helped both of them sober up as the two of them laughed about even the smallest little memories from high school, and silly stories of the time since.

“Celestia above!” Shady Branch shouted as he laughed hysterically, “Like who does that? That’s insane!”

As the two approached Shady’s house, Vinyl laughed along with him, having just told him a funny story from her time under a record label. “Seriously, dude! I wish I had a recording! But oh man seeing him fall on his ass afterwards was the cherry on top!” she laughed, barely able to control her body enough to stand upright. She had to lean against the wall next to Shady Branch’s door with her hand, as she doubled over in laughter. While the walk helped sober them up enough to be more coherent, Shady still needed a little help not fumbling the keys out of his hands, as he unlocked the door and let the two of them in. Once inside, the two’s laughter died down a little, as the bigger mare easily helped the stallion upstairs and to his room. “All right, man, I think I’ll crash on the couch or something,” Vinyl suggested, “You gonna be ok, Shady?”

The stallion smiled and nodded before he finally flopped down onto the bed, chuckling. “Hey, Vinyl,” he said as he looked up at her, through somewhat groggy eyes, “I wanna tell you something…” he spoke as he leaned up a little. “You know, I’m glad we got to hang out… really feels like old times,” he admitted, “but hey, you know… I think there’s one thing missing,” he added, as he reached up and playfully pulled Vinyl down onto the bed with him.

Surprised, but not unwelcoming of the gesture, Vinyl fell atop him on the bed, as their lips met. This truly was like old times, in Vinyl’s mind, at least; a fun night, followed by some fooling around. Their lips pressing together along with their bodies doing the same excited the both of them, as if the alcohol suddenly lost some of its potency. All at once, Vinyl felt confident, and excited that this friendship had the potential for renewal. She felt that maybe she could reignite the experimental stallion she once knew. Shady Branch hardly paid attention to the significant tent Vinyl now pitched in her dress, pressing against his leg. To her delight, neither did he mind when she grabbed his crotch! Hard and throbbing, though not holding a candle to her size. His hands almost immediately latched onto her breasts, squeezing them hard and making the DJ let out a light gasp of pleasure.

As Vinyl let her old friend squeeze her chest in ways she hadn’t felt from anyone but herself in quite some time, she finally adjusted her stance, to finally grind her tented dress against his crotch. In a moment, she hoped that this might lead to something more. Things stopped, and for a brief second, Vinyl held onto the hope that this could turn from something fun, into something… more meaningful. A fantasy flashed through her head; that Shady accepted her advances, that he would allow her to introduce him, slowly but surely, into the big, wide world of fantasies and desires most ponies could only dream of, or kept hidden for fear of being ostracized. That one day he might thank her for opening his eyes.

Reality returned swiftly, as Shady recoiled from the instantly recognizable pressure against his crotch, moving himself away from the bulge that just touched his. Suddenly frozen, the stallion’s eyes averted from Vinyl, looking instead down and to the right. “I... uh,” he stammered, unable to make a coherent sentence, or thought.

“What?” Vinyl asked, incredulously, as she tilted her head and held herself up “you forgot that I’ve got a dick and balls? Dude you sucked it the last time we saw each other!” she replied, eliciting an exasperated, nervous chuckle as she spoke.

“Look that was just one time,” he said dismissively, almost angrily. “You know what, just… just forget it,” he huffed as he lay back on the bed, putting a hand over his face.

“Wait, wait, come on, Shady… I… really liked where this was going,” the DJ admitted, “Just… shit, like, how about you don’t have to bother with it? I’ll keep it out of the way. You can do whatever you want,” she suggested, while internally her mind instantly shot a pang of regret for saying those words. “I just… missed the shit we did in my room all that time, ya know?”

“Well,” Shady admitted as he sat up, leaning his back against the wall, “yeah… I missed some of the stuff we did, too,” he admitted, “just… well… look, how about we just brush this aside… and you can suck me off?” he suggested, rather casually.

Again, the pang of regret hit Vinyl right in the heart. Her hopes for this reunion with a childhood friend to turn kinky fell in tatters before her eyes. She wanted with every fiber of her being to just leave, to get out of there, to just ditch him, run home, and cry over this bad ending to what should have been a friendly dinner. Her body shook slightly, just below perception by Shady, but it might as well have been an earthquake from Vinyl’s perspective. Right as she felt herself about to make an excuse and leave, Nightfire’s words came to mind. “Give him a chance! What’s so bad about vanilla?” Experimentation, after all, was an essential part of her relationship with Shady and Willowbrook. Even if it was something they initially didn’t think they’d like. For a moment, though, she forgot that she had tried vanilla before, back in their early days of experimenting. She just fell in love with kink later on in life to the degree that she never saw herself going back to that. Even going so far as making a personal vow to never go back to that; a vow she decided right then and there, to break, for some smidgeon of a chance at rekindling what the two of them once had..

Thankfully, the darkness and her long hair, which she decided to let loose and dangle over her face, concealed a speck of liquid on her eyes, before she nodded. Spreading Shady’s legs, she quickly undid his pants and pulled them down, revealing his package. It was painfully average in all aspects. She’d locked stallions in chastity cages with bigger cocks than this, and most of them were prettier. Despite all that, she engulfed the shaft into her mouth, easily fitting all of him while only tickling the back of her throat. Shady let out a gasp and a pleasured moan as it happened, leaning back in the bed and tilting his head back. “Oh fuck, Vinyl… nnngh… oh you got a great mouth… nnngh…” he moaned as he reached over and grabbed her horn, using it like a handle to keep her mouth against his crotch. In fairness, Vinyl had sucked him off before, back in their high school days, but the blowjob he gave her at the end of it seemed to imply to her that he was expanding his horizons. It seemed to only make things more upsetting for her.

This continued on for a good half hour or so, despite Vinyl’s subtle eye-rolling concealed by her hair at how painfully bored she felt bobbing her head on his shaft as much as she could manage with his grip on her horn. Sure, she agreed to do all this, she did hope to get him to cum, and on some small level felt pleased that he felt pleased by all this, but did this have to be so boring? Did this guy even watch any porn aside from the cheesy pay-per-view crap on TV? And why was he so rigid about not even contemplating playing with her cock, something he’d already done before? Finally, though, she could feel his cock flaring up in her mouth. It made her gag a little, but she felt surprisingly satisfied… that at least she could still make a stallion cum like this despite being very out-of-practice. Most stallions at Clocktower didn’t come to a dominatrix like her to get a blowjob, after all. After the thirty-five minute mark, Shady finally held down on her head by the horn as he erupted into her, cumming right into her mouth. Vinyl used a spell to ensure none of it went down her throat, and rather just levitated in as small a space as it could fit, so that when he finally pulled out, Vinyl could spit without making a huge show of it, levitating the glob of Shady’s seed into the bathroom where she dropped it in the sink quick enough for his dazed mind to not notice.

Still, at least he seemed finished. His eyes were a little glazed over and he slumped back on the headboard of his bed as he panted heavily. Vinyl rubbed her eyes in frustration, before she heard him speak again.

“Fuck, if only Willowbrook was here…”

“Willowbrook?” Vinyl spoke up immediately, “Really, after all that you’re thinking about her!?”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Shady asked incredulously, seemingly snapped out of his post-blowjob haze.

“How about ‘Thanks Vinyl, that was something special!’ or ‘Wow Vinyl, that was really great, thanks!’ or something?”

“Sorry,” Shady confessed, “I… uh, Willowbrook just came to mind,” he blurted out, before widening his eyes, realizing what he just said. A clear case of talking before thinking.

“Really?” Vinyl asked as she stood up, looking at him with increasingly squinting eyes. It suddenly hit her… memories flooding back to her mind. Memories of how Shady played almost exclusively with Willowbrook, with the occasional exception of him fondling Vinyl’s tits and her sucking him off and taking him in the ass every now and then. She remembered that him giving her a blowjob was such a big deal to her because it was the first time he was willing to play with her cock; that he’d never really been intimate with her in ways he often was intimate with Willowbrook! Now that she thought about it, most of her own sexual experimentation in high school was with Willowbrook, and only some with Shady, to the point that sometimes they had to rock-paper-scissors for who would get to fuck her some nights.

This could only lead her to one conclusion.

“Oh… oh I see,” Vinyl said, eyes widening, and turning a little red, as magic crackled from her horn. “It was Willowbrook you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Wait, what?” Shady responded, his eyes widening.

“Back in high school, you didn’t want me, you wanted Willowbrook. You almost never wanted to touch me unless I acted like her!” she proclaimed, “Was that all I was? Just a key to getting to fuck Willowbrook’s pussy?”

“Vinyl,” Shady said, holding out his hands, “Vinyl you… you’ve got a cock, too, you know how it is to think with your dick instead of your brain! I was just… I thought you understood that!”

“What, did you think I just hung out with her because she was an easy lay?” Vinyl retorted, “We actually worked our way up to having sex from being friends, you know; I didn't start hanging out with her before you came along because I wanted to fuck her, I actually gave a shit about her! I cared what she wanted to do with her life and what she told me those times we had a heart-to-heart! Fuck me, I even cared about what you told me in those times, I was right there with you when you were upset that the Canterlot hoofball team lost the championships, even though I'm not that into hoofball! I cared about helping you study for that college admission test!” she shouted, now breathing a little shuddered. "I gave a shit about you, Shady.”

Shady stood up and walked over to her. “Vinyl, wait-”

With a swift motion, the embittered DJ whirled around and landed an underhanded punch to his gut. The stallion doubled over, wincing and gasping before a hard push on the shoulder toppled him back down onto his bed.

“Hope you enjoyed the BJ, ‘cause I don’t ever wanna see you again, asshole,” she spat, “and I’m not afraid to get the Canterlot Guard involved, either if I do.”

She turned for the door, but stopped just outside of it, grabbing the door to his bedroom. She turned her head, allowing him to see the silhouette of her profile from the light in the hallway.

“And I’m telling Willowbrook. So I wouldn’t expect a warm reception from her, either,” she concluded, before pausing a moment. “Have a nice life.”

Shoes in hand, she briskly descended the stairs and rushed out the front door without another word or another look back, slamming it shut behind her. The slam echoed slightly through the streets, now dark and lit by moonlight and lamplight. They lay empty, leaving Vinyl enough privacy to make a beeline for her hotel. Casting her high heels aside in anger, she ran barefoot the rest of the way as the DJ’s face turned from white to a noticeable red; tears flowed from her face and her mouth contorted while her upper lip slightly quivered. Emotions flooded her brain as she rushed through the hotel’s doors and dashed straight into a thankfully empty elevator. After pressing the button for her floor, the glass-walled elevator closed its doors and ascended, giving Vinyl a good five minutes of nothing to do but wait. For the duration of the ride, the DJ with legions of devoted fans, the idol of many aspiring musicians, and the object of worship for many submissives curled up in the corner sitting with her face resting on her knees as her arms wrapped around her bent legs, sobbing.

Chapter 4: Low Notes

“Damn it,” Vinyl grumbled as she slid her now-empty glass across the bar. Her dark hoodie concealed her stand-out neon colored mane as the beats of a professional friend of hers, Neon Lights, boomed from the stage. Looking around the club, she saw stallions and mares intermingling, wearing street clothes, doing nothing more risquee than grinding against each other, and the occasional fondle when they thought nobody was looking. It seemed that Neon Light’s club “Xenon” did well for itself. She felt happy for him, if only marginally; she hadn’t taken the time to say hi to him yet, and honestly didn’t feel like she had it in her to do a duet performance or a DJ battle with him right now. Or ever.

Thankfully, her incognito demeanor managed to prevent any wandering eyes from recognizing her… until a familiar orange hand slid a glass of water in front of her.

“You should drink this,” spoke the familiar voice of Nightfire. Vinyl blankly looked up at the mare. “I’m serious, Vinyl, I want you to be sober, ‘cause we’re gonna talk.”

“Not now,” Vinyl replied dismissively.

“No, now,” Nightfire retorted as she grabbed Vinyl’s arm and pulled the reluctant mare off her stool. She dropped a small pile of bits for the tab and dragged Vinyl outside.

Manehattan’s late-night air proved welcoming to the grumbling Vinyl, who at least found it refreshing after all that time spent in the heat of a hundred dancing patrons. In moments, Nightfire pulled Vinyl into her car and began driving the dejected DJ around town.

“What do you want?” Vinyl asked, exasperated.

“You’ve been acting morose for way too long, Vinyl,” Nightfire explained, keeping her eyes on the road as she began driving in a direction vaguely familiar to Vinyl.

The DJ tried, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint the destination.

“Just… I miss you,” she finally admitted as she took an exit off the highway towards a more rural area of the countryside. “You haven’t been yourself. You’ve cancelled all your appointments, and you’re a no-show at your own damn club!” she spat out as she slammed her hand on the steering wheel, reaching up to her eyes to wipe them. “It’s been three fucking months, Vinyl. Three!” she exclaimed as she finally pulled up onto a dirt road that led to a secluded house.

It was more of a log cabin; made with what seemed to be tree trunks on their sides, stacked in order to make a cozy two-story place. A stone chimney provided a finishing touch that made the home all the more comfortable to look at, as though it were an out-of-the-way hideaway to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Something she and Vinyl made use of many times. Far away from gawkers and paparazzi, just the way she and Vinyl liked it.

“So we’re not leaving this place until you finally talk to me!” she declared as she abruptly stopped her car in the driveway, rocking the two of them forward with its momentum. “And don’t think you can teleport out, I put a magic barrier over the place. You can still cast spells, just not that one.”

“What is this?” Vinyl asked, sounding frustrated and disinterested at the same time.

“Consider this my kind of intervention. It’ll take all the time you need to finally start talking, all right?”

“However long, huh?”

“Clearly you don’t have any plans for the foreseeable future, so neither do I. Cleared out my schedule for the next two months, so I can wait. Now get inside. And before you ask, no, you can’t have another drink.”

Grumbling like one might expect of a high school student going through a “I’m too cool to be having fun” phase, Vinyl got up and walked into the house. Almost immediately, she got down on the couch, grabbed the hand weaved blanket draped over the back of it, and curled up. Sighing, Nightfire walked upstairs to the bedroom there, performed her nightly rituals of brushing her teeth and showering before she finally lay down in her own bed and reminisced.

She and Vinyl once spent entire weekends up here, sometimes an entire week, and often without clothes, living out their nudist fantasies away from prying eyes. They spent those days experimenting, doing things to each other that they otherwise would never allow to be done to them by anyone else. It all seemed so far away, now.

Vinyl slept on the couch, grumbling as she grabbed a throw blanket and lay down. Increasingly sober, she took a deep breath as she closed her eyes. Nightfire had a point, even if Vinyl did not take kindly to it; she just assumed that Nightfire might know what it was that bothered her this whole time. Deciding to say her peace, the DJ hoped that doing so might help her feel better.

Morning came fast to the two mares, and both woke up to their stomachs growling. Nightfire came downstairs in her bathrobe and saw Vinyl sitting on the couch and gazing at the floor.

“Vinyl?” she asked as she gently walked up to the DJ.

“You wanna know what happened?” Vinyl asked.

“I do,” Nightfire responded, sitting down on the couch next to the unicorn.

“Shady Branch was just using me to get sex from Willowbrook. The little shit’s pretended to be my friend since the moment I knew him. So when I hung out with him, it was all smiles and ‘remember the good ol’ days,’ until we started fucking. I sucked him off ‘cause he didn’t want anything to do with my dick, and you know what the first thing he said was? ‘I wish Willowbrook was here.’”

Nightfire remained silent, but she never broke eye contact with Vinyl. Her green slitted eyes kept looking into Vinyl’s magenta ones, searching for signs of Vinyl wavering. Vinyl, in contrast, could barely keep herself focused on one place, though the hardwood floor became a frequent point of attention.

“And he thought I was just… gonna be OK with it! Like just because I’ve got a dick, I’m supposed to understand why he just used me to get to fuck my best friend! So I punched him in the gut and left! And I cried my fucking eyes out!” she confessed almost angrily, her eyes starting to water. “It’s just my luck, isn’t it? I’m just a tool to be used! That’s all anyone ever wants from me, whether it’s my dick in their ass or to get their dick in someone else!” she cried out as tears streamed from her eyes. Her vision blurred, enough to not notice the strong orange arms that wrapped around her body and squeezed gently. The voice of Nightfire sounded in her ears as she sobbed against the thestral’s strong body.

“Shhh… you know you don’t mean that,” she whispered. “Nobody at Clocktower thinks of you as a tool…”

“Bullshit, why do you think I got paid to get their rocks off?” Vinyl retorted, pushing Nightfire away and standing up. “I might as well just do that on the street! Isn’t that rich, Vinyl Scratch, prolific DJ and prodigious hooker! That should be my new tagline, shouldn’t it?” she shouted as she kicked over the coffee table. Books and a TV remote fell to the floor in disarray before she stormed up the stairs, leaving Nightfire sitting still on the couch, rubbing her eyes gently, feeling that they had gotten quite wet.

Vinyl snatched one of the unoccupied rooms, slammed the door, and fell onto the bed inside. Grumbling and seething with anger, she stayed relatively still, yet tears streamed from her eyes and dampened the bedsheet. With no alcohol to dull her feelings, or loud club music to drown out her deepest thoughts, Vinyl cried harder than she had in years.

An hour later, Nightfire climbed to stairs with two pizza boxes in tow. She set one of the boxes on the floor and lightly knocked on the door. “Hey Vinyl… if you don’t wanna talk to me, that’s fine, but… I’m leaving you some food,” she stated before stepping back. She saw the telltale aura of Vinyl’s magic opening the door and the pizza box levitating in before closing back up. “You’re welcome,” she concluded, as supportively as she could sound, before venturing to her own room. Her face fell as she curled up on her bed to eat from her own pizza box.

The thestral looked over to her right, to the bedside table, upon which sat a framed photograph. It depicted the two mares, hugging each other, smiling at the camera, with Nightfire kissing Vinyl’s cheek while Vinyl winked. Nightfire remembered when Vinyl took this picture; about ten years ago, right as Vinyl became famous. Vinyl used much of her newfound wealth to buy this place for Nightfire. The thinking went that celebrity stalkers wouldn’t know to look for Vinyl at a place under the name of someone they’d never heard of, much less so if they knew it belonged to an agent of Luna’s Secret Service. Right after they finished getting furniture for the place, the pair had posed. They felt so happy that it was finally done that Nightfire snuck a kiss to her best friend right as the camera clicked. The picture sat on this table ever since.

Nightfire sighed, feeling like it had been so long ago; like it was difficult to imagine a time when they had been so happy, given how long Vinyl had been feeling so down.

Meanwhile, Vinyl ate her pizza and drank some water she brought up from the kitchen dejectedly, as she curled up on her bed. Tears dripped down onto the box as she ate, even as she wished she didn’t have to. She felt very much not in the mood to eat, but with her stomach growling, she couldn’t argue. Once about a quarter of the pie was gone, she slid it away on her bed as she leaned back, the food digesting, and her blood sugar rising higher than it had in a long time.

All this time since that date, she rarely ate and it showed; Her weight decreased, and her energy sapped, but with more calories than she’d eaten in a day ever since the ill-fated date, something changed in her. Not to mention the first time in weeks that she didn’t have any alcohol. For the first time in so long, she felt that she could really think clearly. After so many weeks her personal raincloud of sadness and dejection finally parted! With her previous diet of mostly alcohol and small bites of food now and then, having such a drastic change to her food and drink intake made it seem to her as if the lights were brighter, and the colors more saturated!

While the pizza sated her belly, Vinyl thought on how she got so deep into the rabbit hole of sadness, and after a couple hours of thinking, she realized a simple fact. Looking down at the box, it once again occurred to her that this was her favorite place to get pizza, and the toppings of extra-crispy haybacon and the thin crust was just the kind of crunch and flavor that she needed. Nightfire was pulling out all the stops for her friend. Nobody would sacrifice a couple of months of not only their job but also their funds for take-out to help out someone in their home and remember exactly what they liked if they didn’t care about someone for more than what they could get out of the other. It wasn’t about sex or music; Nightfire cared for her even in her rare cases of not feeling up for sex, and not to mention her frequent bouts of musician’s block.

Throughout their friendship the thestral had been there to support her best friend, even if it meant accompanying her on tour for emotional support backstage in the odd hours of the night. Nightfire cared for her, and the past couple of days Vinyl did nothing but throw it in her face. A brief pang caused Vinyl’s head to fall, looking down at her crossed legs, as she closed her eyes. Tears that she kept down for so long finally came to the surface. A couple shuddered breaths later, as tears dripped from her eyes, she fell back onto the pillows, and lost herself to sleep.

The next morning, the DJ walked downstairs to Nightfire, who looked at her, concerned as she ate some cereal. “Hey Vinyl.” she said rather cautiously.

“I’m… I’m sorry about the last couple of months,” the DJ admitted, taking a deep breath, “I just… was so angry at myself. I really believed those things about myself and it was like I needed to punish myself before I could move on. I was a real brat yesterday.”

“Vinyl…” Nightfire whispered as she stood up and walked over to the DJ and gave her a gentle hug, “Shhh… you were hurting… and yesterday was the first time you told anyone how you felt. You kept all that bottled up all that time and it just festered…”

“Just like you told me it would,” Vinyl admitted, “Once again, you were right. I’m… so sorry,” she said as Vinyl hugged her back tightly. “This… wasn’t me. This wasn’t like me. I just…”

“You don’t have to justify anything to me, Vinyl,” she whispered, “Because… I love you,” she said sweetly, as she looked into Vinyl’s eyes.

Naturally, both pairs of eyes became watery and reddened by this point. The two leaned forward and pressed their lips together as tears streamed from their eyes, hugging each other tightly as they tilted their heads gently for each other, and kept up the embrace. Time appeared to stand still for them as their embrace and kiss turned into Nightfire scooping up the DJ in her arms and carrying them to her bedroom. The spy gently placed Vinyl onto the bed, and lay atop her, holding her, protecting her from the world. Time passed, as the lovers held onto each other, as if for survival at this point. Vinyl’s lips remained pressed into Nightfire’s as they remained in this position, Vinyl finally allowing Nightfire into her life once again.

Locked away for so long, the DJ’s heart opened for the thestral, who discovered that the pony inside hurt, and despite her best attempts to soothe herself she instead became all alone. Music, once her lifeblood now throbbed meaninglessly, coldly in the distance; a mere set of sounds to a beat, the bare minimum to be considered ‘music.’ Sex, once a big part of her life, appeared routine and empty. All colors faded from the DJ’s world, leaving her feeling exactly the way everything around her looked, and she wallowed in it.

Nightfire opened the door to her best friend, hoping to bring color, meaning, and above all, life to Vinyl. The light caused her to recoil, to reject the thing she once loved so much, as she cowered away into the corner, behind her bed. But the thestral spy continued to walk towards her best friend, and although she continued to recoil, her reaction turned less and less violent and aggressive, as the light, and the color began to return the Vinyl’s world, melting away the anger, the sadness, the negativity into which she submerged herself for three months. Tearfully, Vinyl stood up from behind the bed, face wet with tears, eyes bloodshot, as she finally climbed over the bed and embraced the warmth offered by her closest friend.

Vinyl awoke, realizing she somehow fell asleep during the makeout session with Nightfire… and had quite the stimulating dream. It honestly caused her to wake up with tears in her eyes; it did not take a psychologist to understand why. Nightfire slept next to Vinyl, not stirring from Vinyl’s rousing from her slumber. Taking a deep breath, the DJ sat up in the bed and gave Nightfire a kiss on the cheek. Involuntarily, Vinyl took a deep, shuddered breath, before she smiled a little, moving herself to get out of bed. Having slept in her clothes for the past two days, she shed them and headed to the shower, taking a deep breath as she re-evaluated her mindset from the past three months. As she stepped into the stream of the warm shower water, Vinyl lathered up her mane, followed by her body. She made sure every square inch of her touched soap in some way, to wash away the grime of the last few months. As dirt and thoughts washed from her body, a smile grew on her face; the first one she’d borne since that fateful day.

“It’s time to move on,” she thought to herself, “I’m not gonna let him control my life… not anymore.”

She remembered a quote about how holding a grudge was like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. While she wasn’t about to forgive him, she chose to let go of him. Everything regarding him that she’d held onto, everything that she’d hoped might be between her and him, fell down the drain, never to be seen again. She even used her magic to bring her cell phone out from her pants pocket. Poking her head around the curtains, she watched as she navigated to the calendar application. There it was, Shady’s birthday notification. The thing that got her to this point. With a couple swiped and taps from her magic, it disappeared. With a smile, Vinyl set the phone down on the sink as she rinsed out her mane and tail.

The days passed at the isolated cabin. A run to the nearest grocery store led the house to be stocked with food to last a couple weeks, while the two mares who resided there had the time of their lives. The two mares stood on their back porch, leaning against the railing and watching the sunset through the trees, naked as the day they were born as they sipped beer together while bumping one of Vinyl’s more chilled-out tracks through the open window behind them. The two mares remained silent, letting the music relax them, gentle smiles adorning their faces in between sips. The occasional chirping of birds, and the buzzing of crickets in the distance provided for the perfect background for everything, seemingly adding depth to the very down-tempo beats. Vinyl put a hand on Nightfire’s back, feeling her folded-up leathery wing, and gently tugging her closer. The batpony scooted closer to the DJ, their hips touching as she returned the gesture, holding her hand on the alabaster unicorn’s back, bumping their cutie marks together as the music track ended. The next track in Vinyl’s “Sunset Mix'' proved to be of a similar vibe, just made by another artist, with its soft melody that resembled the rustling of leaves in the wind. Vinyl’s hand moved up Nightfire’s body, to the orange mare’s face. Her magenta eyes met Nightfire’s green slitted eyes, before they both closed and their lips met just as the melody from the music swelled. The kiss lasted as long as the track did, a good four minutes and change, before they pulled away, a small trail of spittle connecting their lips for a moment as Vinyl looked into Nightfire’s eyes. As if some unspoken conversation occurred, the two smiled at each other in distinctly different ways; Vinyl’s more seductive, while Nightfire came across as more cocky and excited.

The thestral quickly gulped down the rest of her beer, as did Vinyl, whose horn flashed for an unseen spell, before Nightfire moved herself behind Vinyl, and dropped to her knees. Kisses began, adorning Vinyl’s legs from the ankles up. Kisses became long licks of the thestral’s tongue, licking her leg gently. Light moans elicited by the unicorn above her only served to embolden her approach, as she practically slobbered all over those taut muscles, pushing her tongue hard against that calf muscle just to feel how hard it was, all the way up to the thigh, where things became progressively softer. Nightfire’s face began sinking deeper into Vinyl’s skin, before she finally reached that plush rear, that beautiful part of her, worshipped by stallions and mares alike, branded by music notes on either side. With a light breath, she buried her face into Vinyl, making the DJ gasp as the thestral lavished in a pillowy, marshmallow-looking plane of existence, her hands holding onto Vinyl’s legs for support, and placing her lips on that immaculately white, concave entrance. To her great delight… she discovered a slightly oily wetness on it. Her cock, up until now growing progressively more erect, sprung to attention once she recognized this. Vinyl’s did, too, as Nightfire kissed the DJ’s pucker as deeply as she’d kissed Vinyl’s lips on some occasions, before finally pulling out, with an audible “pop!”

Nightfire stood up, as Vinyl looked behind her, moving her tail to the side. She watched as her spy friend put her hands on each of Vinyl’s cutie marks, giving the one on the right a rough spank, making the white unicorn moan lightly.

“You sure you want this?” Nightfire asked, hotdogging her friend’s rear with her erect cock, as long and wide as Vinyl’s, but orange in color, “You know how I get…”

“You kidding me?” Vinyl said, causing a confused reaction from Nightfire. With a raised eyebrow and a concerned expression on her eyes and lips, she began to back away.

“...I need it,” she clarified, “we haven’t done this in so long… and I wanna be yours while we’re here. It’s been so long, and I feel like I deserve a good dicking after how much of an ass I’ve been to you,” she spoke with a smile and a wink, causing Nightfire’s facial expression to return to a relaxed, and aroused state.

“What, do ya need to put a collar on me, first?” she joked, before Nightfire gripped Vinyl’s hips, and crammed herself into her best friend. The thestral grabbed the back of Vinyl’s mane, where it connected to the mare’s neck, and pulled her back, to where her breasts pressed against Vinyl’s back. Her strong arms then reached around to hold Vinyl’s chest from the front, right underneath the DJ’s plush breasts. Their heads in close proximity, they proceeded to elicit pants and moans as Nightfire thrust hard into the DJ, doing what no stallion would ever get to do, while reaching around to Vinyl’s length, squeezing and stroking.

The world melted away as the two mares made love on the backyard deck, leaning over the wooden railing. For Vinyl, after months of not touching herself or giving herself even a semblance of release, it felt like a monumental task to not erupt right then and there, but she wanted her best friend to have as good an experience as she possibly could. With all her might, she at once willed herself to hold back from her orgasm, and clenched herself against Nightfire’s shaft, slamming into her without mercy, with an arm holding her tight, a hand squeezing her cock, and another squeezing her breast. Wordlessly the two mares gave to each other what they needed in the moment, moving as one, crying out in pleasure in what felt like harmony in their minds, and feeling each other as one. Enmeshed in the moment, each knew what the other wanted, and needed; as if each could feel what the other felt, and gave into it.

The remnants of pain still welled up within Vinyl appeared as mere splotches for Nightfire to clear up, to wipe away. Vinyl’s mind perceived Nightfire’s warmth against her as melting away the remaining crystals of ice that poked at her heart. However they perceived it, both could feel the unicorn’s pain disintegrate; it faded into nothingness, nothing more than a memory now, as Nightfire continued to soothe her body. With their pleasured sounds in each others’ ears, the two mares stayed pressed together, feeling the rocking of their bodies as only something they vaguely recognized as happening. A veritable out-of-body experience for the both of them, they yearned to stay in it as long as they possibly could; this place in their minds felt more peaceful than anywhere else.

Unfortunately, as all things must end, so too did this surreal experience. Both Nightfire and Vinyl reached the height of their pleasure. Nightfire’s thrusting became as hard as her strength could allow, and shook Vinyl out of the experience and back to the material world, as she gripped the wooden handrail as she shot her seed onto the railing and the ground, while Nightfire erupted inside of Vinyl. They remained silent as they rode out every last throb of their shafts, with Vinyl panting, dripping sweat and her seed onto the wooden patio beneath her. As Nightfire’s hands slipped away from Vinyl’s body, the unicorn stood up as she leaned back against her lover, and smiled as she allowed the thestral to hug her from behind.

“Have fun down there?” Nightfire asked with a kiss to the DJ’s ear.

“Hell yeah,” Vinyl replied, her eyes open and gazing on the natural beauty around her. The sun appeared to be glowing a lot more than usual for the sunset hour as it neared the horizon between the trees, as it bathed her bare body in the last sunlight of the day.

“Sweet,” Nightfire replied as she let herself slip out, causing a light gasp from the both of them.

Vinyl felt the leakage from herself, and finally turned around to hold the orange thestral tightly to her body. As their soft parts pressed together, they shared one more brief kiss as the sun finally dipped below the horizon completely. “You’re the best, Night,” Vinyl whispered, “I… I’m sorry I forgot that for a while.”

Nightfire smirked and kissed her friend’s nose. “Are you gonna propose to me?” she asked jokingly.

Vinyl only responded with a chuckle and a wink, while playfully sticking out her tongue at the thestral. She used her magic to illuminate the interior lights as the light from the sun just beneath the horizon progressively faded away, and led her best friend inside.

. . .

After a whole month of living in the secluded cabin, de-stressing with sex, games, movies, and being naked at nearly all times, the two mares found themselves living what Vinyl truly felt was their best life. The desire to make music began creeping back into her mind, causing her to fill half a music journal with riffs she’d come up with to potentially use for later. Thankful for delivery services, they only needed to get dressed to go shopping for groceries or occasionally get takeout at a pizza parlor that they just never could get to deliver to the cabin. On the 30th day after the two mares arrived here, they ate one such pizza, made with haybacon on one half, and mushrooms on the other, one side for each mare’s favorite toppings.

As they ate quietly, hugging each other and watching their favorite movies from the Operation: Nonviable franchise, Vinyl watched the end credits of the latest one, overlaying the scene of the movie’s protagonist making out with the love interest that endured throughout all the movies, and she finally felt she needed to speak. “Nightfire,” she began, “I… know I said before that you could ask me when we left why I want to be bottoming for you while we’re here, but I can’t wait that long, I wanna say it now,” she stated as she paused the movie.

“I’ve been thinking about this a long time, and… I wanna make it official. Nightfire… will you…” she began to say, but paused, hesitating, and seemingly nervous.

Nightfire’s jaw dropped. Thankful that she’d just swallowed, she still dropped what was left of her pizza slice in shock.

“Will you move in with me?”

Nightfire couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at her expectations being played with, but she reached over to give her lover a bear hug. “Of course I will, Vinyl,” she whispered as she squeezed her friend a little, before pulling back and smiling, stroking her face.

“Heh, looks like I had you going there for a second,” the DJ said with a smirk.

“Vinyl, I’ve loved you for years,” Nightfire said, “Moving in with you would be the best development of the last couple years for me,” she spoke with a smile and a hug, as she felt their skin rub up and press against each others’ softer parts, “But… Vinyl, if we’re gonna do that… I wanna hold you to some kinda commitment. I’m not saying we should get married,” she clarified, “but I want you to make a few promises to me. Think you can do that?” she asked as she interlocked the fingers of both her hands with those of Vinyl’s.

After thinking for a couple seconds, Vinyl nodded in agreement. “I can promise you… a lot of things,” Vinyl assured her.

Nightfire chuckled in response. “Only a lot of things? Haha. Well, for real though, is one of those things you can promise going to be that you’ll not be afraid to just talk to me when you’re feeling down, or upset, or angry?”

Taking a deep breath, Vinyl nodded. “I can do that,” she agreed, “I… don’t wanna feel the way I did again. So I promise I’ll come talk to you when I’m feeling down.”

“Good, good,” Nightfire said, breathing a sigh of relief, “Secondly… I want to be on at least your next album cover. And thirdly… if you ever see he-who-won’t-be-named again, tell me, and don’t do anything drastic.”

Vinyl bit her lip a little bit at the mention of… that certain stallion she had gotten over. He’d been an occasional background noise in her thoughts over the past month, but with him now at the forefront, she had to remember the breathing exercises Nightfire taught her. After a deep breath, Vinyl nodded. “I promise,” she replied, “Nothing drastic, just telling you.”

The thestral leaned in and kissed Vinyl’s lips sweetly, before pulling back. “And I promise… to be the best live-in girlfriend you’ve ever had,” she concluded, “I love you, Vinyl. I want you to know that I always have, always will.”

Vinyl held her friend to her body tightly, and kissed her back, before they finally broke it away after a good half hour, smiling at her thestral girlfriend. “Well,” she said, “I… think this means we can spend a little while longer together… how much longer did you say you took off to be here?”

“Well I’ve got another three weeks before I’ve gotta report back in,” Nightfire replied, holding her lover tightly, “So… let’s stay another couple weeks,” she suggested, “And… once you’re feeling up to go back to Club 29, I’ll be right there with you.”

Vinyl squeezed Nightfire some more as she took a deep sigh of relief. Giving her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek, she smiled. “Thanks,” she replied, still staying close to her lover, “I dunno when I’ll be ready to go back there… like, don’t get me wrong, I love my subs. I just… well, I just kinda trust you more, right now.”

“That’s just fine,” Nightfire assured her, “But… well this was going to be a surprise, but I wanted to take you somewhere to have a surprise party with them. But it’s ok, I haven’t set it up or anything, no big deal…”

“No wait,” Vinyl interrupted, “I… ok, I appreciate that. But let’s… let’s wait on that until I’m ready to go back to Club 29.”

Nightfire nodded and kissed her lover on the horn. “Sounds like a plan. Just give me a few days notice beforehand, ok?”

“Deal,” Vinyl said with a smile, “Right now I just wanna get as much quality time with you as possible. ‘Specially if you’re gonna be living with me from now on,” she chuckled as she gave her lover a kiss on the forehead.

The two went back to watching their movies and eating pizza, wiling away the day as they quietly enjoyed each others’ presence.

Later that night, the two went outside once again to view the beautiful sunset… only to find a storm cloud heading their way. Chuckling, the two mares retired inside, to Nightfire’s room. Naked as they had been the past month, hardly a minute passed before they touched each other, feeling each others’ breasts as they mashed their lips together. The rain began to fall outside, creating the pitter-patter through the wooden roof, as the two mares kissed deeply, with Nightfire on top of Vinyl.

The bed soon began to rock as Vinyl wrapped her legs around Nightfire’s waist, and the thestral entered her. Although gentler than their previous bouts of lovemaking, Vinyl never got tired of this kind of closeness, the kind she’d never shared with anyone else, and likely never would. Vinyl felt sure that nobody else ever made her feel so safe, so secure, so loved, that she’d allow them inside of her like this. As the night went on, and climax after climax from the two of them sounded off throughout the room, Vinyl knew she’d made the right choice.

Two months after returning home from Nightfire’s cabin, Vinyl made a triumphant return to Club 29. Opening her return to the kinky club with brand-new tracks, she once again embraced her dominance. She granted her most loyal submissive, FS-909, to be part of her comeback performance. Ever grateful that the mistress he served so often and for so long had returned, he agreed without question. A nearly six-month hiatus from being a dominatrix did not blunt Vinyl’s abilities in pushing all of FS-909’s buttons, evidently, as Vinyl expertly incorporated his normal guard armor with bondage gear, applying blindfolds, cuffs, and even a ball gag. For weeks, she and her slave practiced their routine, with FS loving every second of it, even if it left him sore every time. Vinyl’s aftercare, he noticed, improved significantly. Her soothing and kind words after the fact, not to mention the increased duration of such aftercare made Flash feel so rested, loved, and above all, happy. However, with an increased length in aftercare came an additional increase in the intensity of the bondage, humiliation, and pain he and his fellow submissives received at Vinyl’s hands. For Flash, at least, it was perfect.

On the day before her big comeback performance, Flash was in the midst of some loving aftercare, with his ass spanked and gaping, but with nothing but love and affection to his other half, as Vinyl applied ice to his sore rear just like she used to, though now they had far more than five minutes to do all of this. “Hey,” she said, “you’re amazing, you know that? I still feel like crap for making you wait as long as I did, but-”

“Hey,” Flash replied as he looked up at her, “I’m just happy that you’re back, and that you’re happy. Just… let me know next time you want to take a break,” he added as he leaned in and kissed her belly gently, “I missed you so much.”

“And I’m still real sorry for letting ya hang like that,” she said back, “I’m gonna make it up to you tomorrow, at the show. It’s gonna be the best session we’ve ever had, and you’re gonna rock it.”

“Thanks,” he said with a blush and a smile, “You know… we’ve known each other so long… I have been thinking that maybe we could, you know, have a more long-term relationship than just an hour a week?” he suggested rather meekly.

Vinyl, though clearly taken aback by her widened eyes, and her moving of her mouth and eyes into thinking positions, soon turned to a grin as she leaned down. “Oh yeah? You want me to put a black collar around that neck?” she asked, slyly, “well let me tell you what… you’ve been the best slave I’ve had, so I’ll give you the chance to prove yourself. Tomorrow at the concert, if you’ve got the balls to ask me to collar you in front of that entire crowd… I’ll say yes.”

“Wha- really?” Flash asked, incredulously.

“Yep,” Vinyl replied with a wink, “I’ll even collar you right then and there, claim you all to myself. We’ve been doing this for two freaking years now, Flash Sentry, even when you don’t include my little hiatus,” she explained, “So if you’re willing to submit to me in front of everyone, tell all of Clocktower West that you wanna be a one-dominatrix kinda stallion, you can do it on my terms. You know me well enough that big grand displays are how I roll, right?” she chuckled.

Flash smiled and chuckled, as he moved himself up her body, letting the bag of ice slide off his sore rear and sit on her lap. He gave her a kiss on the lips, a kiss that the DJ returned lovingly, making out with the stallion, as she slipped her tongue into his mouth while their lips mashed together. Vinyl’s lips, glossed with blue lipstick left quite a few splotches on his face by the time they separated from each other, and Vinyl reached over and ruffled Flash’s mane sweetly. “Such a romantic,” she said with a smirk.

“Always wanted to put on a show with you, Vinyl,” Flash responded with a loving smile, not bothering to wipe the remnants of Vinyl’s lipstick from his mouth, “I think it just wouldn’t be right to do this kind of thing over a romantic dinner, after all,” he agreed as he hugged her tightly.

She kissed his forehead. “I should tell you, then,” she added, “Nightfire and I… we’re girlfriends. She lives with me, and if this goes further than just a black collar, you will, too. And I’d want you to serve both of us. Is… that gonna be a problem for you?”

Flash chuckled and kissed her cheek. “Did you really think I didn’t know you and Nightfire were doing it? You gals make out with each other so much that some of the others wonder if that’s how she serves you shots of rum!” he laughed.

Vinyl blushed but hugged him tighter. “Well, I’m glad you’re not bothered by that,” she said, “Some guys get all weird about me loving a mare, as if I can’t love them while having a marefriend.”

“Not for me,” he assured the mare as he kissed her neck. “That doesn’t change what I feel.”

“Good,” Vinyl replied, “I’m gonna enjoy having this show with you. It'll be a hell of a comeback!"

Author's Note

After a long while, I finally have the last chapter of Dominant Beats!

I may write an epilogue, but I'm not sure yet. I honestly just wanted to finish this... after a long while of having it be all up in the air.

Thanks for reading this everyone, I hope you enjoy the ending!

Club 29 Inspection Report

Inspection report: “Club 29”

Origin: Formerly a public dance club owned by CTS member Mistress Vinyl Scratch. The facility was donated by said member for CTS usage under the condition that Mistress Vinyl Scratch performs there as she pleases, and that it is advertised and caters primarily to female dominants and male submissives. The club’s name was retained upon her request.

Inspection:

Master Fancy Pants and his slave FDL-9204 arrived at the premises at 1802 with 40 volunteers from CTRL in tow, enough to simulate a full dance club, and confirmed the presence of an adequate, effective, and discrete entryway. Portal activated inside; coordinates provided to all Clocktower portal administrators. Portal coordinates (attached) are henceforth designated as a Clocktower Proprietary Secret, known only to CTS portal administrators and Vinyl Scratch. Dedicated portal set up in Clocktower West grounds. Its physical location is outside the walls of Canterlot; effective sound-cancelling spell in place on the exterior of the building. Exterior appears as an abandoned warehouse. Impossible to gain physical entry from outside. Emergency-deployed portals substitute for emergency exit doors.

Master Fancy Pants verified the strict policy of one alcoholic beverage per one hour and thirty minutes rule. All alcoholic beverages on the menu were poured and mixed by bartender Mistress Nightfire, and subsequently chemically tested by CTRL technicians. These were measured to not be of alcoholic content greater than one shot (1 fl.oz) of 40% alcohol by volume liquor. This meets the limit imposed by the Food and Drink Code. Consent, as long as this limit is strictly adhered to, should not be in question.

Slave FDL-9204 tested responsiveness of staff to the safeword “Towertop” while Master Fancy Pants pretended to ignore the safeword. Security personnel immediately moved in to separate the two and de-escalate the situation, and made clear that such violators would be ejected immediately. It was furthermore verified that the regular bartender, CTS member Mistress Nightfire, is a Torch Guard, while Mistress Vinyl Scratch retains the semi-official designation as Auxiliary Torch Guard. Two additional Torch Guards, Slave FS-909 and Slave B-2145 of the Crystal Guard and Canterlot Guard, respectively, were present for inspection to serve as general security.

Slave FDL-9204 tested the responsiveness again with music playing at full volume. While verbal cries of the safeword were unable to be heard by those not immediately next to her, the safety bell’s activation immediately lowered the music volume to level 1, on a scale of 0-12, enough for it to be heard by all present. A recommendation was given to Vinyl Scratch to employ some system to allow for both verbal and bell safewords to be heard by relevant parties while music plays, but bell-only system remains adequate for the time being. Vinyl Scratch gave assurances that she is working with CTRL on such a system to allow for verbal safewords to have a similar effect to the bell. CTRL records confirm that they indeed have a small team developing such a system.

“Club 29” was also found to include above-board facilities for public and private showers, private playrooms, a quiet, soundproofed block of saferooms, and an infirmary.

Conclusion:

It is wholly evident that Mistress Vinyl Scratch has spared no expense in ensuring that Club 29 meets all Clocktower Society standards.

Following this comprehensive inspection, “Club 29” is officially designated a collars-only area, and officially is incorporated into the greater Clocktower Society – West Chapter. Henceforth, lashes, tallies, and brands are hereby accepted as currency in this establishment. Mistress Vinyl Scratch is officially the head mare of this facility. Clocktower-owned slaves and other slaves, with permission of their masters and with the approval of Mistress Vinyl Scratch, are hereby allowed to perform in the four public cages in this facility. The CTS Maid Services will henceforth take up cleaning duties at the club.

ADDENDUM: Only male submissives will be allowed to perform in the cages at the expressed decree of Mistress Vinyl Scratch.

So hereby declared and certified on this day, the 23rd of November, year 6 of Reunification by:

Mistress Twilight Velvet

Master Fancy Pants

Slave FDL-9204 (Fleur de Lis)

[Signatures on file]