Essence

"You can call them 'smells', but I call them Essence!" the mare behind the kiosk counter in Sire's Hollow explained.

"Essence of what?" Sunburst asked.

"You tell me!" she said.

Stellar Flare watched her son get sprayed in the face. His reaction was all she needed to see. "I'll take your entire stock!"

~

"Compliance continues to be an issue," the town council pony said from behind her medical face mask. "If we are to stop this spread of Blue Flu, we need ponies to wear their masks. Mares and fillies seem to have no problem with it now that Miss Rarity has made them fashionable. But how do we get the defiant males to cooperate?"

Stellar Flare stood up from her seat and presented the perfume bottle. "I have just the thing!"

~

Less than a month later, the spread of Blue Flu had ended.

But it gave rise to a new plague...

E S S E N C E

"Come on, come on..." Button Mash cursed as he dug through the park trash cans. "Ah ha!" He grabbed that last couple of cans he needed and added them to the others in his bag. He brought them to the redemption center for the deposit. He added together the bits he had earned with the wages from his part-time job at the corner store. "Just barely enough!"

Button trotted quickly to the large building at the edge of Ponyville. It's size was second only to Twilight's castle, and it appeared almost as suddenly, bumping Town Hall down to third place. On paper, the company's name was Sweet Scents. Emblazoned in massive signage above the door its retail outlet was §. Scents. But everypony pronounced Essence.

Inside the shop, the mare behind the counter recognized Button Mash. "Welcome back, sir." She pulled the cantilever behind the counter and the shelves inside the glass counter lowered down and a different set rose up from behind them. Button Mash looked at all the different bottles. The cheapest one started at one hundred bits and it only went up from there. "The usual, sir?" she asked. He nodded sheepishly and gave her his accumulated pile of small denominations. She counted it quickly and placed a bottle into a bag with the iconic Sweet Scents double S logo on it.

§

Button Mash hurried home with his purchase and scurried up to his room. His mother wouldn't be home for at least another hour. He tied a silk handkerchief over his nose and mouth and lifted the perfume bottle out of the bag. He spritzed the face mask and inhaled. In moments, his head was swimming. He leaned back in his gaming chair and put something to watch on his computer screen. He was going to enjoy this.

"You're firing me!?" Cream Heart asked.

"No, no! It's not like that," Rose said as she and her sisters closed down their flower shop for the last time. "We have to let you go. Business has been down ever since Essence opened."

"Ponies just aren't buying arrangements anymore. Because why buy real flowers when you can get fake flower essence in a bottle!?" Daisy angrily sarcassed.

"My sisters and I cut our own pay to the point that we are more or less volunteering to be here. And even without paying your wages, we still wouldn't be able to stay afloat. So we're closing down as soon as we sell off the last of our inventory... or more likely, when it wilts," Lilly said with a frown.

"But then what are you going to do?" Cream Heart asked with genuine concern.

Rose shrugged. "Probably go to the only place that's hiring right now." She pointed at their giant competitor on the other side of town. "I suggest you do the same."

Cream Heart frowned. It just felt wrong. But Rose was right. Sweet Scents was the only business in town that was actively hiring. And she had a family she needed to support. She decided that she would sleep on it and try to find some other work in the morning. But first, she needed to go home and tell her son the bad news.

~

Cream Heart opened the door to her home. "Button?" she called into the house to silence. She was sure that he'd be home from his corner store job by now. Perhaps he was putting in some overtime, she reasoned as she walked upstairs. He could use the extra pay. He seemed to always be strapped for cash for some reason.

Upstairs, his bedroom door was closed. She knocked. "Button?" she called out to silence once again. Well, if he was going to be out of the house, he could at least leave the door open and let the room air out. It always smelled like funk in there. She pushed open the door.

The back of Button's chair was to her and his computer had been left on. Hardcore porn silently played on the computer screen, an older mare straddled a young stallion's face while she clopped him off with her hoof. Cream Heart huffed in disgust and quickly walked forward to shut it off. She realized at the last second that his chair was occupied catching a glimpse of his elbow moving in a very specific, rhythmic pattern. She froze and was about to back away when he started to flare and stopped suddenly to reach back to grab his trash can to cum in, bumping his hoof into her.

He spun around in frightened surprise. The hoof that wasn't clopping him off was holding the handkerchief over his mouth. He instantly yanked it away and yelped, "MOM!?" Dizzy and past the point of no return, he lost his balance and fell backwards out of his chair as he started to ejaculate. In falling, he pulled his headphones out of the computer and as he came all over himself the lewd porn audio came blasting out of the speakers: "YES! CUM FOR MOMMY!"

"F-FUCK!" he screamed.

"Oh my goodness!" Cream Heart shrieked and staggered backwards, unable to tear her eyes away from his veiny shaft throbbing and pulsing thick ropes of cum into his fur. He scrambled to his hooves as the mare on the screen started squirting all over the stallion's face. Button yanked to plug out of the wall, killing the power to his rig.

"MOM! GET OUT!" he yelled at her.

"S-Sorry!" she apologized and quickly ran out of the room, closing the door closed behind her inadvertently harder than she meant to. "I didn't mean to slam that," she said through the door.

"KNOCK, MOM! WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS!"

"I did! But you had headphones on."

"I thought you would still be at work!" Button yelled less loudly.

"Well, that's actually what I came to talk to you about..." she started to say, "You really shouldn't be watching those sort of things..."

"I'm allowed to watch porn, Mom! I'm not a little foal!"

"What would Sweetie Belle think?"

"Can you just GO AWAY!?" he yelled. "I don't want to talk right now!"

"Right. Right, sorry." Cream Heart walked back to her room to likewise compose herself. She should have just closed his door as soon as she saw the porn on the screen. Of course he was in there watching it. Even he wouldn't just leave that playing when he went out. The image of him on the floor flashed through her memory. The size of it. She had no idea when he had inherited that from. Certainly not his father. And his taste in porn was concerning. Though as she understood it, that genre was prevalent to the point of almost being cliché.

She heard his bedroom door open. "Button, I-"

"I need a shower," he snapped as quickly as he walked towards the bathroom. He was right about that. His fur was stained and his mane was matted down in patches. He zipped into the bathroom and closed the door. There was the sound of water running and the shower door.

Cream Heart walked up to the bathroom door and tapped it with her hoof. "You know, I could give you a few pointers for getting... that stuff out of your mane."

Button yelled from inside the shower, "Mom, I really don't want to hear about that piece of shit nutting in your mane!"

Cream frowned. Button was of course referring to his absent father. He had a variety of ways of referring to him. If not 'that piece of shit', then it was 'the sperm donor' or at best, it was just 'him.' But never by his actual name, and certainly never calling him 'dad'. "It wasn't him," Cream said.

"I definitely don't want to hear about some other stallion blasting ropes in my mother's mane either!" he yelled.

Cream rolled her eyes. It wasn't like that either. It wasn't even all that long ago. She was cleaning Button's room and crawled under his desk to pick up all the tissues he had left from a 'very persistent cold'. Something dripped on her from the underside of his desk. At first she thought it was a booger, but on closer inspection it was unmistakable. That was when she realized that he had 'discovered' himself. And also when she learned what a nightmare it was to wash out.

Speaking of room cleaning...

She walked down the hall to his room and peered inside. The heavy musk was something she was all too familiar with by now. On the desk was the handkerchief he was holding from before. It was hanging from the edge of the paper bag with the Sweet Scents logo on it. She lifted the bottle out of the bag. The bottle was labeled Sunshine. Was this what he was huffing? She picked up the handkerchief and smelled it.

She gagged and grimaced, tossing it away. It reeked like the funk of her high school locker room in the height of summer. She saw the receipt in the bottom of the bag. She picked it up an read it. Her jaw nearly hit the floor at the amount he had spent on it. She caught a glance of the empty one in his trash. No wonder he was always broke. The shower water stopped and she put everything back just as she had found it and left long before he exited the bathroom.

~

Dinner was awkward.

Button ate slowly, mostly just pushing his food around his plate, unwilling to meet her eyes.

"I'm sorry, again."

"It's nothing. Just... knock."

"I did."

"Louder then!"

"... Right."

"..."

"How has been saving for an apartment going?" she asked.

Button shrugged. "It's going. I dunno. The economy. Ya know?"

"That's not a number."

"It's... going."

"We need to be saving our money, Button. We can't be wasting it on frivolous... stuff."

Button looked at her for the first time since he sat down. "We?"

"... I lost my job at the flower shop today," Cream said. "I'm going to start looking around for a new job tomorrow but in the meantime I- we need to curb our spending."

After stopping to apply at several other establishments, Cream Heart walked into the familiar general store on the corner of her block. The clerk behind the counter saw the door open and tucked his handkerchief into his saddlebag.

"Good morning Ms. Heart," he greeted. "Is there something in particular I can help you find?"

"Oh, I'm just passing though," Cream said. "Unless you're hiring? I just lost my job yesterday."

"I wish I was," he said. "Things have been slow since the Blue Flu. And now most ponies are either working at Essence or huffing. Speaking of, if you're looking for him, Button if probably in the back."

Cream Heart pursed her lips. "He's on commission. He should be out front trying to make sales!" she said to him. The indifferent expression on his face told her it was already plainly obvious to him. Cream Heart walked past the counter to go into the back room. The clerk took his handkerchief out of his bag and held it over his nose again.

Cream Heart looked around in the small inventory space of the back room before she spotted the janitor's closet. She pushed the door open and found Button with his face in his handkerchief and his other hoof clopping himself silly.

"BUTTON!"

"MOM!?" He quickly shoved her away and slammed the door closed.

"At your job!?" Cream scolded through the door. "You should be doing your work! Or else you're not going to get paid!"

"There's nopony to even sell shit to!"

"Language!"

"Why are you even here? I thought you were job hunting!"

"I am! Don't try to turn this around on me!"

"..."

"Well?"

"Can you just go away? I'd really like to finish!"

"Is this really how you would want Sweetie Belle to find you?"

"Go away!" Button yelled.

Cream Heart shook her head and walked out into the store.

The clerk behind the counter saw the door open and tucked his handkerchief into his saddlebag. "Huffing, I take it?" he asked.

"Huffing?" she asked in confusion. She heard the janitor closet open and a quick shuffling to the employee restroom. She doubled back to check the closet. Sure enough there was the handkerchief and an Essence bottle. The restroom door opened and Button finished toweling dry his washed hooves.

He saw her and sprinted over, snarling at her, "Don't touch that, that's mine!" He snatched the tiny bottle away from her with wild, feral eyes.

She had seen this before in other ponies in the past. This look, this behavior. The thing they clung to and shunned all others away for went by different names. But for the pony it affected, it made no difference. He was an addict. She wanted so much to intervene at once, to just fix him right then and there. But this was neither the time nor the place.

"I'm sorry," she said. "We can talk about this tonight."

"Yeah, fine, whatever."

Cream Heart turned and left. She hadn't minced words. She did want to talk with him that evening. But there was somepony else she wanted much more to talk to first. She stormed back out into the store. The clerk behind the counter saw the door open and tucked his handkerchief into his saddlebag. This time Cream noticed it, but she said nothing and the quickly walked passed him and out of the store.

Walking through town, now that she realized it, she saw it everywhere. Stallions holding handkerchiefs over their noses whenever they thought nopony was looking. She made a bee line to the S. Scents building.

Inside the small retail shop in the front of the building, the mare behind the counter welcomed her and just smiled politely as Cream Heart scanned over all the fragrance names. There were even sample bottles on the counter with little paper chips. Benign scents like Vanilla, Mint, or Citrus.

"I'm looking for one called Sunshine," Cream Heart said.

"I'm afraid we don't carry anything by that name, ma'am," the clerk said.

Cream Heart furrowed her eyebrows. "No, I know you do! I caught my son huffing it!" she said.

The mare behind the counter pursed her lips. "If you have any questions, comments or concerns, I could direct you to our customer support department..." She reached under the counter and slid a clipboard towards Cream with a form on it. "Unless of course you are interested in a position of employment here."

"What's this?" Cream asked.

"A job application. And it's a standard non-disclosure contract. The same one that I had to sign, you understand?" she said with an implying tone.

"I have to sign a contract just to apply or even ask questions!?" Cream asked. "What kind of a business is this?"

"Fully accredited by the Equestrian department of Food And Potions!" the clerk said, motioning to the certificates adorning the wall. "I can freely tell you that there is nothing being done or made here that isn't one hundred percent legal and safe for consumers. However, if you have any questions beyond that pertaining to the proprietary company process, then..." she tapped the clipboard with a wink.

Cream Heart skimmed over the form. "Blah blah blah, unauthorized disclosure... financially liable... jail time!?"

The clerk nodded. "If you sell or give away company secrets, they will sue you. So, you know... don't."

Cream Heart chewed her lip. She did want answers, and she did need a job...

An impatient stallion leaned inside the store entrance, "Lady, you're holding up the line!"

"Right, sorry!" Cream Heart said with a fluster. She picked up the pen and signed the form.

The clerk smiled and she opened the store's back door. "This way please. I need to mind the store front," the clerk said as she passed Cream Heart off to two of her coworkers, a pink mare with a blue mane and a blue mare with a pink mane. "Miss Aloe and Lotus will see to your orientation."

Aloe took the clipboard from the other mare and doublechecked the form. "There is no need to be nervous Miss... Heart," Aloe assured her. "Now that you've signed the form, we can answer all of your questions! As long as you understand that the answers can not leave this building."

"Right," Cream Heart said.

"So, what bring you here today?" Lotus asked.

"Well, I caught my son using the product from this place. Sunshine."

"Your son is a... foal?" Aloe asked with genuine concern. "Sunshine is regulated the same as cider."

"No, he is an adult," Cream Heart said.

"Ah, no problem then," Aloe said.

"No, it IS a problem, because he's abusing it. Huffing it!"

Lotus tilted her head. "And?"

"What do you mean, and?"

"That is its intended use," Aloe explained.

"Okay, but what even is it?" Cream asked.

Lotus told her.

"That's what it is!?" Cream Heart asked incredulously.

Aloe nodded. "Yes. That's all. Completely natural."

"All those stallions... and my son! That's what they're huffing!?"Cream asked. Lotus nodded. "But I saw what he spent! If its just that... why is it so expensive!?"

"It's our most popular product line. We can barely keep up with demand!" Aloe explained. "Which is why we've been actively hiring more ponies to join our staff." She held out the job application to Cream Heart. "I can assure you, you would be very well compensated for your work."

Cream Heart raised her eyebrow. "What exactly is involved with this kind of... work?"