“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!