“I am told,” I said to the sex hotel desk clerk a couple hours after our run in with the celestial sound board, “that Canterlot has some good dance clubs. Can you recommend anything in easy walking distance?”

The manager who had checked us in, and brought us our snack earlier in the afternoon, was off duty. But, barely nine at night now, we sought a refractory diversion. The night clerk, perhaps less polished than her predecessor, looked much more likely to be able to give good advice about clubs and Twilight and I would find a turn or two around a discreet dance flour somewhere would be a nice activity before our next round.

“Well there’s the Palladium if you don’t mind taking a cab, or— wait.”

She seemed to reach some internal decision.

“No,” she said. “You don’t want a ballroom, you need a juke joint where you can get down. I’d suggest the Underground. They’ll let you in if I—”

She seized a notepad and quill to write out a few words.

“Out the door, left, right at the next street, two blocks. Just past the donut shop, go into Stevie’s Allnite on the corner. Give this to the bouncer, you can’t miss him.”

She passed us the note.

“Thanks!” we said together.

—

I’d heard too much about Donut Joe to walk past without stopping. A quick single shot espresso and one tiny little donut (glazed old-fashioned) wouldn't be a problem. Another donut (a spiraled cruller) and espresso were similarly harmless. A third donut (miniature maple bar) with the same beverage was simple exuberant joy at a new experience. The fourth donut (chocolate frosted with nuts) and espresso combo might have been a bad idea, but Twilight pulled me away before I could devour yet another.

Beyond Joe’s we found a twenty four hour bodega on the corner. Stevie, I assumed, at the register looked like he’d pulled a few too many sequential all night shifts, but he groaned a friendly, if nearly incoherent, greeting.

“Gudd Ev’nah, Maam’n si-ir.”

He shook himself like he had almost nodded off mid-word. It wasn’t even a long word, not some seven syllable scientific name that might warrant a quick refresher half way through.

Joe had given me my fifth order to go, and I set the tiny coffee cup and donut (pink frosted with coconut) on the counter.

“I think you need this more than I do, friend,” I said. “I gotta go talk to a pony.”

I followed Twilight towards the back.

The stallion we presumed was a bouncer stood before a cooler full of dairy products. No low-fat cottage cheese for anypony without the password!

“I got this,” I told Twilight before approaching the big Lugg of a fellow.

“It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide,” I whispered from the side of my mouth.

The presumed bouncer’s brow scrunched as he pondered whether to simply refuse access or call medical assistance for me.

“Don’t mind him,” Twilight laughed and passed over the note.

“Ah, welcome in,” he said after reading. With a shove the cooler slid silently aside.

We found ourselves at the mouth of a dim, plushly carpeted, passage. In the distance, the throb of music.

“Uh, do you wish to be recognized, Princess?” the bouncer asked.

“I’d rather not,” she said.

“Wear this.” He produced a mask that would hide nothing but her eyes. ”Nopony will admit seeing you here.”

“What about me? What about me?” I asked eagerly as she donned the ‘disguise’.

“Nopony knows who you are, Tangent.”

“Woah.”

My mind was blown to be addressed by name.

“How do you know his name?”

It was a good question, and one I might have asked if Twilight hadn’t beat me to the punch.

“S.P. Weekly had an article. He’s suspected of crashing the F4 last fall and there was a stampede.”

“Oh! That was me, it was! But I had help with the stampede.”

“And he had a ticket, I know. I gave it to him.”

“Good to know, mystery lady, ma’am.” Twilight giggled at the ‘effect’ of her disguise. “That makes a big difference to a humble security professional like myself. I’ll let ponies know that he had a ticket.”

As he allowed me to don a similarly ineffective (other than social signaling) disguise, I reflected that it might not be the best time to mention that I didn’t use my ticket. But hopefully merely possessing it was sufficient to regain favor in the eyes of the bouncers’ union.

“Three drink minimum,” he called after us as we ventured into the Underground. “Don’t cause no stampede.”

The club itself took the concept of low-light to an extreme. There wasn’t a single source of illumination above ankle level, and not much below. Enough light not to run into ponies; but hardly enough to identify them.

I was searching for the bar, but Twilight pulled me towards the dance floor.

“Let’s go.”

The music swelled into a hypnotic bass dream and wrapped itself around us as we moved together.

—

It was amazing, I reflected.

Only one day back in Equestria and I knew it would be my forever home. In the space of a short day I’d seen an old friend get a new start on life, met many new ponies, had a genuine (if short) combat adventure, and now was topping it all off with one helluva evening with my Twilight.

I brushed her mane back with a gentle hoof; it had fallen down over her eyes. They were closed, now, as she focused. She looked both satisfied with what had gone before and eager for more, clopping herself while she sucked my dick, the two of us squeezed into a cramped stall in the mares’ room at the Underground club.

“Mmm-mn?” she asked without detaching.

“Ready,” I agreed.

In a tumult of crowded motion we changed positions, shaking the stall partitions. Twilight leaned over the toilet now, and I took her from behind, entering without hesitation. She was hot, and wet, and neither of us were going to last long at all. Seconds at most and our efforts to restrain our voices were surely bound to fail.

“Just like that,” my husband mumbled and she surrounded me with her coming, and she was my world, she was my life, and I filled her with my love.

“Bucking Ayyyy,” intruded a voice from above as we moaned loudly together.

I looked up through orgasmic haze and saw a pony I recognized from an ancient TV show peering over the partition, but she too was wearing a mask; I wouldn't say her name.

“You sure know how to party, teacher,” she said to Twilight. “I would have never guessed.”

Twilight didn’t reply, savoring her plateau before resolution set in, but she reached up and tapped her mask.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the protocol. I won’t blow your cover.”

I popped out, and as I helped Twilight clean up before pulling her panties up and skirt down, the intruder disappeared. A moment later we heard the toilet flush in the next stall and the sound of a door latch rattling open.

“Meet you two at the bar!”

—

“Three drink minimum?” I demanded of the bartender as I took a seat next to Twilight. She sat next to the mare we had met in the can.

He just shook his head, yes.

“That’s outrageous! I have four hooves don’t I?”

He didn’t so much as crack a smile, but Starlight Glimmer chuckled.

“I like your colt-friend already, teacher,” she said. “Or hookup, whatever the case may be.”

“Actually, he’s my lawfully wedded wife, student.”

Twilight had left the restroom a minute before me so we wouldn’t be obviously leaving together. She had ordered already; an empty shot glass sat before her and she held a glass of white wine magically floating. She sipped it contentedly as she watched the reaction her revelation provoked.

Starlight Glimmer set her drink down. With exaggerated reverence she raised her forehooves did obeisance to Twilight.

“I bow before your superior freakiness, O my master, lead me always in your freaky ways.”

Meanwhile I was placing my drink order.

“I’ll take one shot each of four different gins and a small glass of tonic water,” I said.

“How long have you two been together?” Starlight asked as I drank my first shot.

“A few months,” and, “nine years,” Twilight and I collided in our answers.

“Which?”

“Nine years, his time,” and, “a few months on her timeline,” we tried again.

“Whatever you’ve been up to, try to at least get your stories straight. I won’t judge.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Twilight said. “Grabby McButt-hooves.”

“I said I was sorry! I was new to being friends and mistook the signals. He was willing to let me, once the misunderstanding was resolved.”

“Could happen to anypony, I suppose,” I said despite not knowing the specifics, and chased my second shot with tonic.

Starlight hurried to change the subject.

“I heard there was a magic explosion at the castle today. Know anything about that?”

“—” Twilight opened her mouth but I was faster.

“Our daughter, saving Equestria” I said proudly, raising another shot, crying, “to Gloam!” and wishing her a good evening with her grandponies.

Starlight drank to my toast, and Twilight finished her wine as I drained my third shot.

“Your—” Startlight started to ask.

“Drink up.” Twilight nudged me. “We have a dance floor to demolish.”

“Again,” I said, sipping a little tonic before knocking back my fourth shot.

—

When we returned to the bar after another set on the floor, Starlight was chatting with another mare.

“Hey,” Twilight greeted the newcomer, “I though we left you in Sri Lanka…”

“…working the desk, at the sex hotel,” they burst into song together, then broke up laughing.

“An oldies song,” Starlight explained in response to my questioning look. “But I don’t know why they picked that one.”

“I guess ‘cos we met her at the Ceylon romance hotel?”

“The freakening never ends. What do you do for an encore?”

“Stampede?” I suggested.

“I’m game.”

She didn´t blink. I could imagine Starlight being able to handle, or start, a stampede or two.

“No stampede,” Twilight said quickly.

“Did I ever tell you about that time I—”

“Honey, I said, ‘no’.”

“Explosions,” I teased and Starlight chuckled.

“No.”

“Limbs flying every direction!”

The hotel mare was laughing too.

“Teacher,” Starlight said, “I’m dancing with your wife before he gets himself in trouble.”

As Starlight dragged me towards the dance floor I saw Twilight turn to the off-duty desk clerk.

“Well, come on,” she said, “I guess that means you’re dancing with me.”

I had no idea how late it was, but the music was slower and less deafening than when Twilight and I first arrived.

“Where you from?” Starlight asked me.

“A human world, called Terra.”

“Ah. So probably time rate differentials. That must be why you and ‘your husband’ gave different answers.”

“Yeah. Figures a chrono-warrior like you would figure it out quickly. And, we were gender swapped when we got married, so she really is my husband, we’re not just being weird. I bore her foal.”

“That’s plenty weird enough. How’d you get married so fast? I didn’t even know she was seeing anypony.”

“Let me advise you not to use Celestia as an expression when she’s standing right there. Unless you really mean it!”

Starlight laughed as we danced on.

“Leave it to Twilight,” she said at last. “I’m glad I didn’t beat her, back at Our Town. This is so much more interesting! Oh, and she’s watching us, Ceesh, we’re just dancing.”

She was a better dancer than Twilight but I missed the princess’s gawky enthusiasm.

Starlight waved at Twilight we drifted by her. A song ended and I was passed off to the desk clerk as Twilight and Starlight danced to the next one.

“Jezzy,” she said, throwing the carefully rehearsed anonymity protocol to the wind.

“Tangent Sparkle,” I replied. It’s not like she couldn't look me up in the hotel register.

“I don’t normally go dancing with the guests, but I’m glad you two are enjoying my suggestion.”

“We are. I’ll make sure to let your manager know that we appreciate your advice.”

“Thanks. He doesn’t technically approve of me—” she gestured towards a heavily pierced ear “—but he keeps giving me raises because of my quality customer service.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Yeah, that’s my colt-friend DJ-ing the late-n-early show. I hang out until he gets off work.”

“You must see some interesting stuff working where you do.”

“I do. And part of my quality customer service is not talking about what I see. But I can tell you this: Everypony screws.” She shook her head emphatically, causing her metal-laden ears to sway atop her head. “Everypony.”

—

We left Jezzy to wait for her colt-friend’s shift to end; the sun was broaching the horizon by the time we staggered out of the club.

“Oh, wow.”

Twilight squinted into the light, baffled by its presence.

“Praise Celestia, Princess, the sun has risen!” I said. “Let’s go bang!”

“Do you swing?” Starlight asked. “I’m just drunk enough to do something crazy!”

“Maybe,” and, “No!” Twilight and I responded, in that order.

“Which?” Starlight asked again.

“Maybe not,” and “I don’t think so?” were our amended replies.

“Get your stories straight and let me know!” Starlight said. “Good meeting you, Tangent.”

We trotted back toward the Ceylon, through empty streets in the Canterlot morning. The only sign of life was a few tired starlings, hopping around dejectedly under a leafless shrubbery.

The next round took place back in our hotel room, as our buzz faded. Perhaps slower, perhaps less coordinated than previous rounds, but no less satisfactory.

“Ready to get some sleep?” I asked Twilight afterward.

“Get showered up. We need to check out before they charge us for another day. And we really should go pickup Gloam. I hope my parents are okay.”

Author's Note

E/H/T

Also, minor clop warning.