A Game of Flats

“Good game, girls.” Aloha pushed open the door and let her teammates into the locker room.

“I would have liked winning better,” Lola grumbled.

“It’s a learning curve.” Aloha reached out with her aura and grabbed a towel out of her cubicle as she rounded the corner. “Both in what you can and can’t do, and in working as a team.

“Like, I saw a couple times you could have thrown the ball—”

“Didn’t have a clear shot.”

“Didn’t need a clear shot, I can move the basket, remember?”

“Oh yeah.”

“At least they’re not keeping track of the score in exhibition games, so I stay a winning pony.” Cloud Kicker stuck out her tongue. “Catch you in the shower.” She peeled off her vest, tossed in the general direction of her pigeon-hole, shook out her coat and wings, and flew off to the showers.

A clatter of hooves sounded behind them as their competitors came into the locker room.

Lola pulled her jersey over her head as the three newcomers rounded the corner. One of the weird things about the ponies was how the two teams shared a locker room. In her experience, teams would compete both before and after the game, and putting them together anywhere but on the field could lead to disaster.

Ponies got their tempers up, too, but so far it hadn’t amounted to anything more than trash-talk and posturing.

“How the hay do you jump so high?” Yuma Spur sat on her rump and started pulling her jersey over her head.

Lola grinned. “It’s a bunny secret.” She’d dunked on Yuma a couple times, and had intercepted a few throws from their pegasus guard. Neither of those ponies had figured out a good defense for that, and Lola could have capitalized on it. She’d caught on later in the game, but by then they were too many points down to recover.

“We’ll get you next time,” Aloha said. She lit her horn and pulled a bottle of Mane-N-Tail shampoo off the shelf in her cube.

“I’d rather get somebody in my bed.” Yuma looked over at Lola, who’d just slid down her shorts. “You interested?”

“I’ve got a boyfriend.”

Yuma snorted. “It’s not cheating if it’s with a mare.” She flicked her tail and trotted off to the showers.

“It isn’t.” Sweet Biscuit, Aloha’s roommate, had stayed to chat. “Hey, how come you wear so many clothes?”

“Is that another bunny secret?”

“No, it’s just modesty.” She motioned up and down her body. “And I have to keep the girls in check.”

“Seems like you’d get all sweaty.” Aloha, in particular, was covered in lather, especially where her vest had covered.

“Just doesn’t make any sense.”

“They all do it.”

Lola sighed and slid down her panties. “And it’s weird for us that you go around with your junk hanging out, okay? Some of the boys are rather distracted by all the . . .”

“Mares on display?” Aloha flagged her tail, giving Lola an eyeful.

Lola’s cheeks burned red, and she gave the unicorn the finger in response.

“Just look at a stallion if it makes you feel better. Orion’s got a great dick. I think he came off the field before we did, he might still be in the showers.”

“He always likes the one in the far left,” Sweet Biscuit added.

“So long as none of the boys are in there. I don’t know why, it’s not so weird for the locker room to be coed as long as it’s just me and you ponies.” She’d seen Daffy’s dick before and that was a memory she’d rather not have.

•••

By the time she’d gotten her sports bra off, Cloud Kicker had finished her shower. She was in the company of a white stallion whose dick was swinging between his legs; Lola tried not to stare at it and failed.

Aloha bumped her with her muzzle, getting her moving. None of them spoke until they were in the showers.

None of the Tune Squad was in there, to her relief. Not for the first time, she weighed the advantages of picking a shower over in the darkest corner where nobody else was, or staying with her two friends. As usual, she opted for the latter.

“Told you Orion had a nice cock,” Biscuit said as her aura twined around the shower knob.

“I wasn’t looking.”

“You totally were,” Aloha said. “Even I looked.”

Lola turned on the water to her shower, keeping it cool. She needed something to distract her from how this conversation had turned. “So how fast can you unicorns move the basket and still catch a ball?”

“Um.” Aloha stuck her head in the shower spray, letting the water wash into her mane and over her back. “Like, if I’m coordinated with the kicker, if we’ve got signals worked out, I can pick it off around about a quarter of the outer radius. If we don’t, or if it’s a lousy shot, maybe half that, depending on how quick I react or how sloppy the shot is.”

“You throw slower than a kicker kicks,” Sweet Biscuit said. “So there’s more time to line up. Aloha was starting to get good by the time the game ended.”

Lola nodded. “It took me too long to remember that as long as I threw close, she might be able to move the basket so my shot would go in.”

“And we know that for next time. We can practice, too—but usually if you’re past the midfield mark, we should be able to score.”

“Unless they modify the rules again for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that’s put me at a disadvantage for basketball.” Lola stretched and arched her back—the cold water hadn’t done much to loosen up her muscles but at least it had driven back the horniness.

Or it had, right up until she thought about it again.

“You ponies just can’t dribble.” Rules on ball handling had been changed several times already, to avoid giving anybody a big advantage or disadvantage. Only the pegasi were bipedal enough to have a halfway controlled dribble.

The pegasi could also catch the ball and just fly it to the hoop, necessitating one of the fastest rules changes. They argued that it didn’t count as traveling if their hooves never touched the court, and that was technically true. It did make for a very one-sided game.

Still, she thought that they could work it out. Buckball was balanced for all three types of ponies, taking advantage of their unique skills, and yet it could be played by only one tribe if they chose to: one of the demo teams had been all unicorns, one with a suppressor on her horn, and another with magic gossamer wings.

•••

Aloha perked her ears at the quiet knock on her door. When it came again, she lit her horn and a dejected lagomorph entered. “Lola?”

“I . . . this isn’t a bad time, is it?”

“It’s fine.” Aloha got out of bed and smoothed the covers behind her. “What’s going on?”

“Me and Bugs had a fight.” Lola dropped onto the bed and pulled her legs up. “It was stupid, but I need some time away, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” The ponies’ progressive opinions on housing partners together did have a downside: she didn’t have a dorm room she could retreat to.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Aloha hopped up on the bed she’d recently vacated and nuzzled the bunny. “You can stay here.”

Lola sniffled and wiped her face. “Thanks.”

“I don’t need to go and buck him in the face, do I?”

“No.”

“Use my horn to weld his door lock shut?”

“You can do that?”

Aloha shrugged. “Probably, I’ve never tried. What about spiders? I could put spiders in his room. Does he hate spiders?”

“I don’t know.” Lola giggled. “Would they leave after we make up?”

“Depends on the spider, I guess. I never really thought too much about what a spider wants or where it’s comfortable. Usually they like high corners.” She motioned with a hoof at the corners of her room, where there were indeed some small spider webs. “I think it works out for both of us; we stay out of each other’s way and they eat bugs that might get into the room.”

“It’s probably just me,” Lola said. “Stressful being on a different world.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“With different expectations.” She drummed her fingers on the bed and then leaned up against the wall. “Like, this is going to sound so stupid, and I know I’d regret it if I did it, but my first thought was that I ought to just storm off to some stallion’s room and—

“Sucks being horny and angry.”

Aloha didn’t say anything; she just nuzzled up against Lola’s thigh. After a minute, the rabbit rested her hand on the mare’s back.

“I shouldn’t be bothering you with this.”

“We’re friends and teammates,” the unicorn replied. “Just stay here until you feel better.”

“Thanks.” Lola looked around the room. “Say, where’s Sweet Biscuit?”

“She’s working on a project.”

•••

Lola woke up in a tangle of covers and with a unicorn draped across her chest, and when she realized she tried to disentangle herself without awakening Aloha but it was already too late.

“You feel better?”

“Sorta.” Lola yawned and ran her fingers through Aloha’s mane. “I slept good at least.”

“No you didn’t, you were tossing and turning the whole night, at least until I snuggled up with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Aloha yawned, too, then shifted around to face the rabbit. “It’s okay, sometimes Sweet Biscuit has problems with her stallionfriend and needs a snuggle.”

“How about you?”

The unicorn shrugged. “Not having a stallionfriend means I don’t ever have problems with them.”

“Like, not ever?”

“Nope.”

Lola frowned. “I’m sorry, but you’re really pretty, seems like some stallion would be interested.”

“Oh, plenty of them are, I’m just not interested in them.”

“What do you mean?”

Aloha rolled her eyes. “I mean that stallions are dumb and smelly and I’m not interested in them at all—

“Surely there—”

“—since I’m a lesbian.”

“—are plenty of stal—what?”

“Lesbian? Fillyfooler? If you want to be crude, I’d prefer fucking mares.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, it’s just the way I am.”

“Well, I’d rather. . .” Lola’s cheeks started burning, especially as she considered where the mare’s head was resting. She was no Minerva Mink, but she had a decent rack, and now that she thought about it, her fingers were intertwined in the unicorn’s mane. Mixed signals much?

“Trust me, when you’ve discovered what a skilled tongue can do. Any stallion, you’ve got to give them directions or fake it.”

“How would you know?” Lola said defensively.

“You think Biscuit ever shuts up about her relationships? I’ve heard plenty.”

“Bugs isn’t—” Lola pulled her paw back, reached for the covers, reconsidered. Was she still wearing shorts?

Not that Aloha hadn’t seen her in the showers and the locker room already. Memories were flashing through her mind, different in light of the new information she now knew. The situation had gone from sisterly bonding to awkward real fast.

“I’m not—you aren’t coming on to me are you?”

“Not unless you want me to.” Aloha finally lifted her head and shifted around until she was on her belly. “If you want to fuck, I’m down for it, but if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

“I’d never really considered it.”

•••

Lola was still wearing pants, a fact she verified before pushing the covers back.

Was it the fight with Bugs or the fact that she’d just spent the night with a gay pony that made the morning seem so weird? She felt like she was overanalyzing everything; did the beaded scrunchie that Aloha wore around her dock mean anything? None of the other mares had one. Was it weird that she seemed more naked without it?

Did it mean anything as she picked it up with her magic and lifted her tail, giving Lola a view of her nethers—intentionally or unintentionally?

Did it mean anything that in the moment before she turned away, she felt a familiar heat in her loins?