Safe

Flitter’s mother had named her well. The pegasus in question couldn’t keep her eyes on any one product behind Lotus’ head for long, be it hoof polish or bath salts. By the time she started gazing at horn sealants, Lotus knew she had to intervene.

“We’ve expanded our selection since you were here last, so I’d be happy to give you a couple of recommendations.” She pulled down a bottle and gave the pegasus a smile as comforting as a fire on Hearth’s Warming Eve. “This conditioner, for instance, will keep your mane smooth and supple when you head out to the Neighpalese mountains. You don’t have to rinse it out, saving you water.”

Flitter nodded as the bottle was placed on the counter before her, but the word out of her mouth was “Maybe.” Her eyes flickered back to the shelves after a moment’s examination.

“Are you all right on preening oil, too?” Lotus retrieved a squat red jar from the top shelf. Flitter was usually a Zingfeather mare, but the brand didn’t keep well in cold climates. “Wickwings makes one that will keep your feathers nice and toasty while you’re out photographing those snow leopards.”

“That might be good, too.” Flitter peeked into her purse, but the scowl on her face when she came back up wasn’t reassuring. Lotus kept her composure. Waffling customers came bit and bridle with running the Ponyville Day Spa, and they could be nudged into a decision.

“What else are you thinking about?”

Flitter cringed. “Not much, really. I’m just... kind of looking by now.”

“I understand,” said Lotus, nodding. “May I bag these up for you, then?”

“Uhh...” Flitter backed away from the counter, caught herself mid-stride, and blushed. “On second thought, don’t bother. I’m sorry.”

“They’re only twenty bits after tax.”

“Oh!” Flitter whickered as if she’d just learned the products before her were not explosive. “On second thought, then—okay.”

Lotus placed her purchases into a decorative paper bag, pulled up her total on the register, and swept the coins that clattered across the counter into the drawer. That part went smoothly. Lotus was not as prepared, however, for the downcast look that appeared on Flitter’s face when she gave her purchases a second look. “Is something the matter?”

Flitter’s wings rose halfway. “N-no, of course not,” she stammered. “I mean, yes, I guess, but I don’t think there’s much you can help me with.”

So she was still on that, then. “I’m afraid romance is beyond my expertise,” said Lotus, as gently as she could. “Perhaps you could visit Miss Blossomforth for tea? Talking with a friend is more than I could ever do for you.”

“You are my friend, Lotus,” Flitter insisted.

“You’re much too kind. Much as I wish you well, friendship isn’t something you pay money for.”

The pegasus opened her mouth, thought better of it, and sighed as her wings folded back against her sides. “Good point. Do you have an opening on the third of next month?”

Lotus retrieved the spa’s appointment book and laid it open on the counter. “How about three o’ clock?”

“That sounds perfect.” A rueful smile crossed Flitter’s face. Finding love could take a mare through such strange valleys, and Lotus had dared not give her the slightest hope that Thunderlane would defect from her sister’s side. A good spa visit could at least reduce the pain, and a few strokes of Lotus’ pen confirmed her next session. “Be well, Flitter.”

“You, too.” She gave the earth mare a wobbly smile as she turned to go. “And thank Aloe for me too, will you?”

Lotus smiled back. “Of course.”

The front door bell chimed once with Flitter’s departure. With the last day’s client gone, Lotus left her headband and choker on the counter. She’d worn them long enough over her career to forget they were even there on most days, but the air never failed to soothe her coat when they came off.

The waiting room didn’t take long to clean. She watered the ferns, straightened the couches, fanned the magazines on the coffee table, and dusted the vases around the walls.On the days she felt like challenging herself, she closed her eyes while vacuuming the carpet. Today wasn’t one of those days, though, not with the other thoughts percolating in her brain. She knew her clients’ lives were their own concerns, and things were better for business keeping them that way.

She’d thought as much, once.

The nicest part about running the Ponyville Day Spa was that she didn’t run it alone. Taking up her accessories, she set out a jar of reeds in lemon oil to diffuse overnight, flicked off the lights, and stepped into the spa’s main parlor.

The rest of the spa’s staff had left an hour earlier, leaving a pink-coated earth mare with an electric blue mane as the spa’s only other occupant.  With her accessories draped over the big teakwood bath she was halfway through polishing, Aloe was every bit of Lotus’ mirror image if one ignored their reversed colors. She heard her so-called “twin” enter from the waiting room and slung her polishing rag over her withers.

“Everything go all right with Flitter?” she asked with a dry smirk.

“It’s hard to say.” Lotus picked up a spare rag and joined Aloe by the tub. “I could tell she didn’t really want to leave us. You know how clients sometimes fall asleep during their massages?”

“Did she ask you for another one?”

“‘Down there.’”

“Oh, my.” Aloe was a mare given to laughter, and she would make no exception of herself here. “I think that’s the most direct a client has been with us, lately.”

Lotus paused to buff out a small soap trail near the top edge of the tub. “I don’t know. Miss Feathermay threw off her towel with some force the other day.”

“‘Some force,’ you say? I caught that towel in the face.” Aloe snickered. “‘Some force,’ indeed.”

“Are we doing something wrong? This is the fifth time in as many days that a client’s become that... excited.” Lotus bit her lip. “I could even smell Miss Flitter over the candles today.”

A small fissure in the wood drew Aloe’s attention. “Remember what Miss Tenderhoof taught us would happen?” she asked, rubbing a knob of beeswax into the fault. “I think we’re doing fine. At least the ponies here are gentle. What if we’d gone with our original plan, and tried to slug it out in Baltimare or Fillydelphia?”

Aloe had a point. Ponyville was just small enough to escape the notice of most ponies looking to open a day spa, yet large enough to cultivate a healthy client base. In spite of its disaster-prone reputation, the townsponies acted agreeably toward each other, and the overall feeling of safety arising from their cooperative spirit had factored into opening the spa here, too.

“So, what do you think? Think there’s anything that can help mares like Miss Flitter get back on their hooves?”

The question called Lotus back from her musings. In her absence, she’d polished one spot on the wood until her face looked out at her. “I don’t know,” she told her reflection. “If I did, I’d do it without hesitation. Our clients keep us alive.”

Instead of answering, Aloe only grinned into her rag.

“What?”

“If I told you I had an... unconventional idea,” she began.

Aloe’s strange inflection gave Lotus no pause. “We may need an unconventional idea.”

“Oh, excellent. I had no idea you liked Neighponese body slides.”

Several seconds passed when not a single impulse fired in Lotus’ brain. “I’m sorry,” she said when she recovered. “I like what?”

With the bath polished, Aloe signalled Lotus over to a pile of clean towels on one of the massage tables circling the parlor. “Remember when we stayed at that Neighponese hot spring for that week-long conference?”

“Oh. Hapone?” Lotus rolled her first towel into a perfect log and set it on a nearby table.

“The very same,” said Aloe, doing likewise. “We must’ve been in business for, what? Three years?” She shrugged. “I think we set a record or something. Ponies I spoke to wondered why our clients were so ‘restrained.’”

A small blush crossed Lotus’ features. “I don’t remember anypony telling me that.”

Aloe laughed. “Of course they didn’t say anything during the day. You had to come out with us at night. Hapone was nice. Tokyoke was amazing. Bars and nightclubs only the locals knew about, and that pinku supa we visited that one night—”

“I’m sorry?”

“Pinku supa.” One could almost hear the shrug in Aloe’s voice. “The Neighponese would have you believe they’re refined and dignified. Truth be told, they’re some of the most unashamed and unfettered ponies I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Ah. I... see?” Aloe was always the one to venture out during these conferences; Lotus preferred staying behind to read. Not that their clients knew how they differed in that regard. Even the regulars sometimes confused them for each other, so good was their act during the day.

“The Neighponese are pragmatic with their relationships,” Aloe continued. “Mares and stallions aren’t always perfect fits for each other, so if they wake up to find one side of the bed empty, they don’t get worked up about it so long as it’s filled the next morning. Don’t get me wrong. Most of them stay faithful to their spouses their whole lives. On the whole, though, they’re the only ponies I’ve met who don’t compare marriage to suffocation.”

Learning about different cultures was all well and good, but Aloe was bringing this up for a reason. “And so this idea of yours...”

“Has a rich and nuanced explanation.” Aloe looked at the towel into her hooves and smiled. “If you want, I’ll show you after we’re done here.”

Lotus didn’t see how that could turn out badly.

With the last of the towels rolled and stacked for the next day’s use, the two mares retreated to their upstairs studio. The substantial income from their regulars and the occasional celebrity—including Princess Celestia, who somehow knew to ask for “the usual” during her only visit—could have secured them a nice house nearby. But what did mares really need to live well? A kitchen, a living room, a bed, and a bath, for starters, and the spa’s second story provided for those needs well enough.

Aloe motioned Lotus over to the living area of the studio, a low table surrounded on three sides with cushions and a bookcase on the fourth. Most of them belonged to Lotus—a few were on loan from the town library, replacing others she’d loaned to the young, intelligent mare living there. What Aloe pulled down from the shelves, however, was not part of Lotus’ collection. It made a thump as it landed on the table, and the bold, black characters brushed onto its crimson cover prompted a gasp from Lotus..

“Looks like you remember this,” said Aloe.

“The ponies in Hapone gave this to us when we left.” Lotus took a cushion next to Aloe as the latter began flipping through the pages. The paper had been treated to look old, and the mouth-brushed Neighponese writing and woodblock illustrations lent the book an authentic air. Chapters on the principles of shiatsu, the seaweed wrap, collagen therapy, and hot stone massage passed beneath Aloe’s hooves, and Lotus recalled enjoying herself the last time she had read them. She had even thought to finish the rest of the book after reading up on meridian theory in unicorns.

That had all ended when she’d noticed a mare pleasuring a stallion at the top of the next page.

The book had only become more explicit from there. At the speed Aloe was going through the chapters, she was on pace to overshoot the point of no return. “Ah, Aloe? What are you looking for, exactly?” Lotus asked.

“What are we looking for?” Aloe corrected her. “Hold on a moment. It’s coming.”

Lotus was not an easily offended mare. She did find it more difficult, however, to stay put as the book crossed over into its less foal-friendly territory. By way of example, the hot stones from earlier made an appearance—she caught a glimpse of an ink-brushed stallion pressing one into a certain spot beneath his partner’s upraised tail.

“Ah! Found it!” Disregarding the start her outburst caused the mare next to her, Aloe pointed her hoof at a line of large, angular characters at the top of the page. Despite years of disuse, the sounds they represented all but rolled off of her tongue.

“Badi suraido.”

“A massage for their entire body,” Aloe explained, “using all of yours.”

“I suppose that doesn’t look... too bad?” Every illustration Lotus could see had one pony gliding over their partner. One mare in particular looked to be enjoying it a little much as she slid her rump into the back of her partner’s head. “When you say ‘entire body,’ how entire is ‘entire?’”

“You shock me, Lotus.” Aloe’s tone was flatter than ironed hair. “I didn’t know they still debated the meaning of that word.”

“It’s not that,” Lotus sputtered. “I’m just wondering how that even works.” She knew she was denying the truth—she could imagine the weight of a pony’s loins advancing over her belly, her limbs entwining with theirs. She imagined a puff of hot breath on her navel... and lower. Her heartbeat quickened as she faced away, hearing the book thump closed behind her. She swallowed. “That’s your ‘unconventional idea’?”

“You said we needed unconventional ideas.”

Lotus turned around. “We also run a day spa. We’re here to pamper our clients, soothe their aches and pains, and draw out their innate beauty. We’re not here to be...” She waved her hooves in the air, looking for the word. “...companions.”

Wrinkles gathered under Aloe’s eyes. She knew how to laugh in ways that didn’t involve her mouth. “It’s doesn’t have to be sex. It’s just a massage with a little more involvement.”

“It could go there.”

“Sure. Why does that matter?”

“Because—” Lotus blinked. “Well, it’s obvious.” So obvious, in fact, that she had never bothered putting into words why having sex with customers was a bad idea. She dropped her gaze into her hooves. Where to even begin?

“I could say a few things first,” said Aloe.

Knowing she was closer to coughing up an actual fish than fishing a complete sentence from her thoughts, Lotus waved her on.

“Have you ever thought about why ponies come to visit us?” Aloe got up to pour herself some water in the kitchen. “Or why ponies come to spas, for that matter. I know you have. You just gave me three reasons, all of them very good.”

“I’m sure there are more than that.” Of course there were. Flitter would certainly agree with her.

“There’s less.” Aloe wound up filling two glasses, giving one to Lotus as she resumed her seat. “I’d say there’s only one, to be exact.”

Lotus drained half her glass with her first draught. Running a spa was physical, thirsty work, moreso than ponies thought it was, and she often forgot to keep herself hydrated throughout the day. “Their main reason for coming?”

“Yeah. Here.” Aloe spread her forelegs wide. Without even thinking, Lotus reached out and hugged the other mare, nosing her lilac-scented mane.

“So... they want hugs?” she asked.

Aloe chuckled. “Wouldn’t that be nice. What a better place the world would be if we could fix all its problems with cuddles. Sadly, that isn’t it.” She slid a hoof along Lotus’ crest. “You hugged me pretty fast.”

“Hm? Of course I did.” Maybe their activities diverged when they traveled to conferences, but they shared the same work and same meals otherwise. They even slept in the same bed. “I trust you.”

“There.” Aloe punctuated her reply with a light clap on Lotus’ shoulder and let her go. “Think about what ponies trust us to do every day. Those who come here with injured muscles and tendons? They trust us to ease their pain and speed their recovery.”

“Most of our clients don’t come here with injuries,” Lotus pointed out. “Many of them just come to pass the time, or to be with friends.”

Aloe only chuckled. “Think about all the different places they could do that. They could just as easily go to Sugarcube Corner, the park, the cinema... so on and so forth. And they wouldn’t spend a quarter as much of what they would here. Yet we still have our regulars.”

“Because...?” Lotus swirled the water in her glass.

“They trust us to provide a calm and private atmosphere. Have you ever wondered why business gets better after some monster levels half the town?”

“I imagine ponies want to forget their troubles while their homes are rebuilt.”

“Exactly. Now say a pony like Flitter comes in. What is it we do for her?”

Lotus fell silent. She remembered taking the pegasus back to a private room at the first whiff of her arousal. Her need had screamed out with everything short of words, it seemed. Lotus could still see her lavender eyes boring into her, pleading for respite.

“I don’t know.” Lotus’ answer was much too late for Flitter.

“Sure you do,” said Aloe, poking her. “It’s nothing. We don’t do anything for mares like her. And you’re uncomfortable because I’m suggesting an uncomfortable answer to that problem. What gets you more is that you know it’s a problem, and you’re reluctant to solve it.”

“Problems can have more than one solution.” Lotus snorted into her glass and watched the water ripple off the sides. She could have indulged Flitter. All she’d needed was a clever hoof and cleverer words. But she knew that was just asking for more trouble down the road. Mulling over Aloe’s solution in her mind, she realized she had a question to ask.

“The pink spa. That’s where you learned about the body slide, wasn’t it? What made you ask for one?”

Aloe nodded. “Not lost love, for sure. I overheard some of the other girls talking about it. Those of them who offered it at their spas had universally happy clients. Call me selfish, I won’t argue with you. I asked them to tell me more, thinking it might be useful to know in Ponyville, and one night, they set it up for me.”

Lotus finished her water and studied a droplet that had fallen on the table. “Do you really hope that will help ponies like Miss Flitter?”

“Ah! That’s actually the best part. I don’t have to hope.” Aloe pressed her hoof into Lotus’ chest with a smile. “Not as long as I. Have. You.”

One of Lotus’ brows arched at the offending hoof. “Why do you need me?” she asked.

“You know that as well as I do.” Aloe’s voice adopted the calm tone parents used while waiting for wayward foals to fall in line. “We have to know what we’re doing before we introduce anything new, yes? I might be the one who brings new things to the spa, but you make them perfect.”

Lotus sputtered at the praise. “You shouldn’t overrate me like that.”

“I’m not!” Aloe laughed, taking her hoof back. “I truly believe you’ll make the body slide an experience ponies the kingdom over will talk about. Look. You didn’t have to spend all those hours reading up on wings and pegasus preening. But you did. Now we have clients flying in from Cloudsdale, and you know how good the spa scene is there.”

“That only happens once a month.” She left off the client’s identity for the sake of argument, but Lieutenant Captain Soarin’ of the Wonderbolts wasn’t a bad name to have in the books.

“Canterlot guards trust your knowledge of astral meridians to strengthen their spellcasting,” said Aloe, pressing on.

“Only two of them, and only because they were passing through Ponyville at the time.”

“Please. You’re the only pony outside the capital who figured out how to brush Princess Celestia’s mane. Look.” Aloe steepled her hooves on the table. “I know this is more than some new hooficure I’m running by you. I know what can happen if I get this wrong. But I think we can get this to work.”

“Aloe.” Lotus realized her hooves had begun shaking. Pressing them into the table seemed to steady them a little. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

She heard Aloe exhale slowly through her nostrils, followed by the shuffle of a heavy book being tucked back into its place on the shelf. The silence stretched from there.

“I understand,” Aloe said. “Intervening in our clients’ lives isn’t something I want to treat lightly. But, before we put this to rest forever, I want you to listen to three little things that will tell you everything you need to know. If after those three things you are still unconvinced, I’ll speak no more of it, and we’ll carry on as usual.”

Lotus wondered why Aloe was bothering. There was an alternative to what Aloe was proposing: sending such clients to a licensed therapist. Ponyville had hired two after the Nightmare Moon debacle alone.

Of course, Aloe meant the best for her clients. Personal gratification aside, this was an extraordinary measure she was suggesting and she knew it. How she planned on proceeding intrigued Lotus as much as it horrified her. The deal was palatable: a minute’s worth of attention would win her a lifetime of peace the moment she said no. “I suppose I could hear you out.”

Aloe patted the cushion next to her, inviting Lotus to scoot closer. When she did, Aloe began. “First,” she said, pointing the tip of her right hoof into the base of the other, “the client holds the reins at all times. The body slide proceeds at her pace and goes only as far as she wishes it to. If she calls for a stop, it stops. No questions asked.”

Lotus nodded, even though Aloe wasn’t pointing out anything new. Clients always had the right to halt any service at any time.

“Second,” Aloe turned her right hoof on its edge. “We’ll make sure our clients know the limits. The body slide is not an act of love, and we’ll only offer it to ponies who will understand that and can keep it out of the public eye.

Lotus frowned. Aloe’s point was far from a guarantee. No authority could predict the moves of a mare suffering from unrequited love—especially if somepony told her no. “What if they don’t listen?”

“Then they are beyond our help. We send them to therapy and hope for the best.”

“You’d gamble the reputation of our spa on it?”

Aloe tapped her temple with a smirk. “Our clients trust us with many things. How many secrets have they asked us to keep over the years? Perhaps we should trust them with one of our own.”

“Ah.” That was a fair point for a business on a first-name basis with all of its clients. Lotus’ reservations were far from gone, but she would keep listening. “What’s the third thing?”

Aloe turned her hoof again, this time laying it on its back side over her other. “Third—well.” A smile stretched toward the sides of her face, and her angular azure eyes soften by degrees. “I just told you a minute ago. You’d know what it takes to make this work.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’ve always cared for our clients more, so even though we call this place the Ponyville Day Spa, Ponyville calls it yours. You’re always with the clients in the sauna, you can file a horn in seven passes, and you can mask a face in three. Ponies love being with you. All you do every day is work to make them happy.”

Lotus smothered a blush with her mane. She knew better than to take that kind of credit—Aloe’s name was next to hers on the lease for a reason. “Plenty of ponies ask for you by name when they come here, too,” she protested. “Your talents are just as important to our success as mine are.”

“No examples? I’m scandalized.” Aloe leaned on the table with a good-natured chuckle. “So there. I don’t know if I gave you the best reasons to play along. I hope I gave you enough to at least give it a try. What do you say?”

Aloe was fighting a losing battle. Her first two points were hardly airtight. Flattery had replaced the third. Any thoughtful mare knew how to answer her question as much as they knew the sum of two and two. Lotus’ thoughts had therefore chosen the worst moment to wander. She looked outside the window.

What did she hope to find? In the shadows thrown by the setting sun, merchants shuttered their stalls and pulled down banners. Other ponies hauled carts of food and lumber through the streets. Still others condensed on restaurant patios with their friends, laughing at jokes Lotus couldn’t hear.

None of them paid any attention to the mare looking out at them from the loft of the Ponyville Day Spa. Why should they? They didn’t need to answer Aloe’s question. They had their own lives to lead.

She could still say “no.” Flitter and the others would be no worse off than before. Maybe the body slide didn’t always end in climax as Aloe put it, but taking a mare that far without loving her was… Even if that mare asked for release herself, even if she knew not to look for love in the act, was that right? Maybe Aloe was happy leaving Tokyoke without a lover, but would her clients feel the same way leaving the spa?

Even if they didn’t—banish it. Lotus was curious. Her brain ran hot with myriad protests, but something cold had infiltrated the chambers of her heart. Instead of freezing it solid and shattering its strings, it awakened the rest of her—it built a pounding in her head as her breath grew shallow.

What if the body slide could help? When she and Aloe had first emigrated to Equestria, a cyclone had almost capsized their ocean liner within sight of the coast. Only luck had brought the vessel careering into the harbor of a small fishing village. Lotus had heard a sailor talk of “any port in a storm” to one of his deckmates, and the phrase stuck with her ever since.

The Ponyville Day Spa played harbor to many ponies against the catastrophes of their lives, minor or major. To close its doors to those drowning in the depths of romantic despair? Aloe had a strange life ring to throw them, but if it worked…

Lotus studied Aloe’s eyes. What was she doing? If she saw eagerness, would she refuse? If she saw doubt, would she accept? She wanted a sign, but Aloe refused to give her one. While Lotus’ heart thrashed inside her chest, there was only the patient smile on the other mare’s face.

“If you want to,” Lotus ventured.

Aloe shook her head. “Ah, ah. That won’t do. I cannot decide for you. We can talk about this later, if you want. There’s no rush.”

“Let’s…” The words died on Lotus’ tongue. Her lips curled into a smile of their own, wobbly as it was. Flitter had given her a similar smile just earlier that day. “You know, Miss Flitter wanted me to thank you,” she recalled. Already the memory had receded in her mind, as if she peered at it from the top of a very deep well.

Aloe nodded. “She’s a very kind mare, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” Her mouth clamped shut before she could say anything else, as if her next words had gotten lost on the way down from her brain. Lotus came to understand how Flitter had felt on the other side of the counter. She faced a wall of answers for every question except the one she needed answered most. To be honest, Flitter was a beautiful mare even without those beauty products—what she’d needed was the mare who gave them to her to listen, empathize, and comfort her. And though romance was beyond Lotus’ abilities, she felt she could have said more.

It didn’t take long after that for Lotus to realize Aloe had her answer already. She stood up.