Roseluck sat in a chair in the Ponyville spa lobby while she waited for Lilly and Daisy to finish their appointments. She looked up from reading her magazine when Lyra Heartstrings walked out of Anon's massage suite and into the lobby.

Lyra looked like she was practically glowing. She had a goofy grin plastered across her face and she was walking askew like she'd had too much to drink. Behind her, Anon had just washed his hands and now stood in the doorway of his suite, toweling them dry.

"Are you waiting for me?" Anon asked Roseluck.

"No," Roseluck answered. "I was waiting for my sisters to finish, and then I was going to make an appointment."

Lyra cut in. "Oh you don't have to make an appointment. He's available now."

"Oh, no, I was going to-"

Lyra cut her off. "And he's amazing! You should get a mane massage!" She leaned in closer to Rose. Her voice was practically trembling as she whispered. "Amazing." Lyra looked back at Anon and winked before she left the spa.

Rose watched her leave and then looked at Anon, still unconvinced.

Anon leaned against the door frame and put the towel over his shoulder. "Look, I get it if you don't want a massage from the weird human. But I promise I don't bite." Roseluck pursed her lips. He could tell she was considering it after Lyra's glowing review. But she was still not sold on it. "I'll tell you what, give it a try, and if you don't like it, you don't have to pay a single bit."

Roseluck grumbled and put her magazine back in the waiting room caddy. "Fine. I suppose Princess Twilight wouldn't be letting you walk around town if you were dangerous."

"That's the spirit," Anon said. "I'm Anon, by the way. So what were you interested in doing today Ms...?"

"Roseluck," she introduced herself. "I usually get a hoof massage and a hooficure. But what was Lyra talking about when she said a mane massage?"

Anon looked at Roseluck. She was just an earth pony without a unicorn's horn to make things... weird. "It's exactly what it sounds like. A mane massage." Anon placed his fingers on top of his own head, simulating a massage.

Rose scratched the top of her head with her hoof. She considered giving it a try. "Maybe after. Hoofsies first." She trotted past him inside his suite and climbed up onto the massage table. He had taken a minute to wipe it down, sanitize, and replace with a fresh sheet after Lyra's... enjoyment.

She extended a hind leg back to him, expectantly. He grabbed the bar stool from the corner of his suite and sat beside the table. Aloe and Lotus gave him a crash course on hoof massage. It turned out that aside from a few minor details, a pony's hoof wasn't all that different from a foot, in terms of massaging.

She twitched slightly at his first contact. But his touch was firm yet gentle. He was able to rub the soft 'palm' of her hoof, the frog, without tickling her. He looked at the rose cutie mark on her flank.

"Gardener, I take it?" Anon asked.

"Hmm?" Roseluck asked, looking back at him. Anon nodded at her cutie mark. "Oh, no. I mean, sometimes. But my sister, Daisy is the one with the real green hoof."

"You mean green mane?" Anon asked. "Her hoof looked purple."

Rose rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Anon chuckled. "Yeah, I do. I was just being funny. So what do you do then?"

"I'm in charge of the floral booth in the Ponyville marketplace."

"Ah, I see." He pressed his thumbs into her frog and made small, circular motions, rubbing out all the stress of being of her hooves all day in the marketplace.

"Ooh, Lyra wasn't kidding," Roseluck said as she looked back at him. It was hard for her to see exactly what he was doing, but she could feel it. The fine dexterity of his fingers were able to precisely massage each small part of her hoof far better than even the skilled hooves of the other spa staff.

"I try my best," he said. "So you work with your sisters all day? That must be... nice?"

"Hmmf," Rose sighed.

"Is it not?"

"No, it is. Most of the time," Rose said. "But I see them all day at work, and then we all go home together and I see them all evening at home. And we go everywhere together."

"Like the spa?" he asked.

"And I love them but..."

"Sometimes you just need a break from them?"

"Yeah."

Anon shifted his seat over and started on her other hoof, giving it the same treatment before moving up to her pastern. Anon had learned that the homologous body structure of a hoof was like a human walking around on their tip-toes. The pastern was like the arch of the foot in that position. He gently rubbed the tendon, pressing and stretching it, relieving the tension there.

"It makes it hard to have a special somepony," Roseluck continued.

"To... date?" Anon asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Like how am I supposed to bring somepony back to my house when my sisters are there? And I can't just kick them out. It's their home too."

"Well what about his place?" he asked.

"Well... it's complicated," she said. "Firstly, he doesn't really have a 'place'."

"What, is he a homeless bum?" he asked.

"No no! He's a doctor. But his place moves around."

"What, like a mobile home?" he asked.

"... Kind of?"

"What kind of doctor lives in a mobile home?"

"I... I'm actually not sure," Rose said. "There's a lot about him I still don't know. But that's not the biggest problem."

Anon rolled his eyes. "Oh boy, here we go. This is the part where you tell me he's married."

"No," Rose answered. "Well, not exactly. But he does have another companion. It makes it hard for him to make time for me."

"Mhmm." Anon switched back to the first hoof and moved up to the fetlock, which for a human on their tip-toes, would be the heel of the foot. Above that was the cannon, or calf of the leg, and Achilles tendon. Rose's was tight as a piano wire. It took some doing to help it relax. "Well, if you're not enough of a priority to him, for him to make time for you, then you need to ask yourself if he's really worth the trouble."

"Oh, getting into trouble is something he excels at," she said with a wistful smile.

He finished up on massaging her canon. "You said you wanted a hooficure?"

"Mhmm," she acknowledged, only half paying attention with half-lidded eyes.

"Did you want that now or..." Anon said as he paused his massage, "or did you want me to keep going?" He was at the back of her hock, (kneecap). Any higher would have his hands on the back of her gaskin (thighs), and then after that was...

"You can go ahead and..." Rose had to catch herself and think clearly. "Uh, you can do my hooficure now, is what I mean."

"Alright." Anon slid his seat back and stood up. "Hop off and I'll incline the back of the table so you can sit." He helped Rose down and her legs wobbled like jelly. She stumbled and he caught her.

"Oh my goodness!" Rose gasped.

"I'm sorry! Are you okay?" Anon asked.

"I- I feel amazing!" she said, steadying herself. Anon adjusted the table and he helped her back up to sit upright on it. He pulled open a drawer in the base of the table and took out the hooficure kit. He set it on the tool bench beside him and laid out what he needed. Her hooves were not too bad, so he eschewed the coarse file for the finer grade, bringing her hooves to a smooth edge, and then a mirror shine.

"What color did you want?" he asked, looking at the trays of hoof polish. "Just a clearcoat?"

"Rose," she said. Anon looked hopelessly at the endless shades of red. "Red 17," she added. Anon quickly found the bottle of light red with the number 17 on the cap. Applying hoof polish was more or less the same process as nail polish. Just more of it. He made long, smooth strokes, careful not to make streaks or bubbles. Soon all four of her hooves looked dazzling, the rose red matching that of her mane.

"Alright, make sure you give that several minutes to dry," Anon said.

"Yes, yes. I know," Rose said. For a moment they both just sat there. "So about that mane massage...?"

"Yes? Did you want to try it while you wait for your hooves to dry?" he asked.

"Sure. My hooves feel great, and they look even better. I'm curious to see how you can make my mane feel," she said, giving him a slightly-dubious smile.

Anon stood up and walked around behind her seat. He brushed his fingers through her mane a few times. Each time he pushed deeper into her hair until he reached her scalp and he started to gently rub. He gradually increased the rubbing to a proper massage, varying his pressure and gauging her reactions. He started in the midline, near the natural part in her mane and he worked his way out to either side.

Roseluck failed to stifle her moan when he reached the base of her ears.

"Is this... okay?" Anon asked. Roseluck made short little excited nods of her head. If ponies were anything like cats or dogs, then they must probably enjoy ear scratches, Anon reasoned. He started rubbing again, first behind her ears so as not to startle her again and then he worked his way closer. He started at the base of her ear and kept a close eye on her as he started gentle massaging up along the outer edge.

She was much larger than any cat he had ever met in person. But he could swear she was purring. But it was so deep, he didn't hear it, so much as he felt it. Like her whole body was vibrating at a sub-audible frequency. He ran his fingers up and down along the outer ridge of her ears, gently rolling the thin membrane between his fingers and his thumbs.

She started to squirm in her seat. Her purring didn't get any louder, but more intense. Anon realized that she wasn't purring or even vibrating. It was her leg shaking involuntarily as he rubbed her ears. Rose made some incomprehensible sounds. "B-ah bah gah..." Her brain had gone from that of a sapient horse to... pudding. She bit her lip to try to keep herself from moaning out loud. But she kept squirming in her seat as though her non-existent panties were in a bunch.

She put one hoof up to her face to help quiet herself, while her other hoof went... elsewhere. Her leg was shaking harder and faster to the point that Anon was certain it was about the fly right off of her in a moment.

"Let's check on how Anon is doing," Aloe said, opening the door. She shrieked, and then so did Lotus. Lilly and Daisy fainted behind them.

Anon jumped back from the noise, and Rose leaped off the chair in reflex. That was when Anon saw Roseluck, and why Aloe and Lotus had screamed. Rose looked like a murder victim. Without thinking, she had gotten her red hoof polish on herself and at a glance it looked like blood. And it became quite obvious just exactly where she had been touching herself. Rose caught her reflection in a mirror and screamed, herself. She knew it wasn't blood. But the hoof polish was going to be a nightmare to get out of her fur.

"Anon can, you get my next appointment while I help Rose?" Lotus yelled. She didn't wait for a response as she quickly escorted her to the shower room while Aloe scrambled to get them some hoof polish remover.

"If they'll have me," Anon grumbled. He walked over to the front desk and opened his ledger. Her wrote in Roseluck's name and then put in the amount next to her name. "Zero bits."

The door chimed, and he looked at the pony that had just walked in. Her eyes looked back at him.

Or, at least one of her eyes did.

Author's Note

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