Aloe nosed a basket of shampoo and brushes up to the edge of the tub. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, raising her head. “Go on in.”
Lotus hesitated. Entering one of the private baths off the main parlor as a patron and not an employee was an odd feeling. Smiling bashfully, she lowered herself into the citron-scented water and let the steam seep into her head. The heat was wonderful, leaking into the thousands of tiny, forgotten aches accumulated just beneath her coat.
“Just like old times, hm?” said Aloe, sliding into the tub behind her. “We were fillies the last time we did this.”
“Something like that.” Lotus fanned her tail out in the water, unable to recall the last time she’d taken a bath in lieu of a short shower.
“At least we’re making up for lost time, now.”
Lotus heard the pop of a shampoo bottle separating from its cork, and its lilac-scented contents drizzled onto her back a moment later. Moistened brushes descended on her coat and began scrubbing. The bristles continued what the water started, breaking the aches beneath her coat into even smaller pieces for the heat to dissolve, and her body rocked back and forth with the rhythm of Aloe’s strokes. She closed her eyes.
“Hmm. This isn’t so bad, right?” Aloe murmured.
It wasn’t. Lotus was grateful that, aside from that little question, the brushes running over her coat and the slow slosh of water were the only things she had to listen to. Her sides were the next area to receive Aloe’s attention, and her brushwork was so deft that Lotus forgot she was ticklish along her flanks. She didn’t even realize Aloe had rested her barrel over her haunches until her shoulders were halfway scrubbed.
“I’ll take care of your mane next,” said Aloe. “Then I’ll have you turn around and sit against the edge of the tub, okay?”
Lotus nodded. More shampoo dribbled over her head, filling the air with the scent of lilacs. Setting aside her brushes, Aloe came up next to her and leaned in while massaging the lather into her scalp. The quiet blow of Aloe’s breathing pooled in her left ear, and the pink mare took pains to wipe away any suds that ventured toward Lotus’ eyes.
A bucket of water washed over her head all too soon. She let her mane remain plastered against her face until she turned and rested her back against the side of the tub. When she drew her mane back, there was Aloe no more than a foot away from her face, her eyes intent on hers.
Lotus didn’t know if her countenance betrayed anything, but her heart kicked like a mule over hot coals. Aloe must have realized what happened. She retreated to a safe distance with a concerned frown on her face.
“You okay?” she asked.
Lotus spent a few moments blinking before she caught up with everything. “I—yes,” she said. Of course Aloe needed to be that near to wash the rest of her; they’d just had no need for eye contact while they’d faced the same way. “Ha. That… that was close. That’s it.”
Aloe nodded, asking only for Lotus to tilt her chin up a bit. Common sense dictated that the coat around the base of a pony’s neck required a light touch, and Lotus had helped bathe countless clients over the years. Still, there was something to be said for the way Aloe could read bodies even in their line of work. She knew when she could ask tense muscles to endure a little more and when to leave them to rest, and her expertise left the area on the edge between spotless and raw.
“Let’s move on to your belly,” said Aloe, finishing up with Lotus’ forelegs. “We’ll do your legs and tail afterward.” A hoof slid beneath her back, and her stomach lifted from the water into the air’s cool caress. Aloe had a brush just beneath the points of her ribcage before she could shiver, working with a lighter touch as the brush moved its way down.
A part of Aloe’s mane suddenly flopped onto Lotus’ navel. While Lotus looked down, Aloe swept it back over her head, and their eyes met once again. Lotus let out a noise halfway between a snort and a strangle.
“For crying out loud!” Aloe’s laughter bounced off the walls. “If you keep this up, we’ll be at this all night.”
Lotus found it difficult to talk while her face adopted a blush the size of the sun, even as she found herself laughing along with Aloe. “Ha, I know! It’s—I really want to go through with this for Miss Flitter’s sake, but—”
Aloe held up her hoof. “Hey,” she crooned. “Hey. You’re doing great. Maybe Flitter is the reason we’re trying this out, but you need to enjoy yourself, first. Concentrate on now.” She tilted Lotus’ chin upward so they were looking eye to eye once more. “Just relax, yes? You’re getting me nervous. We’re not even close to the good part yet.”
Picking up where she left off, Aloe ran her brushes down the outside of Lotus’ hind leg, then returned the top of her haunch and encircled the white blossom that gave Lotus her name. She shivered—a couple of those circles passed within an inch of her dock. She kept herself going by keeping her eyes on Aloe as much as she could.
Aloe, for her part, contented herself with humming a small five-note ditty. Her brushes switched over to Lotus’ other leg. She flicked her eyes upward, and a smattering of bristles kissed Lotus’ dock.
She didn’t flinch—she even managed to adopt a wobbly smile.
“Much better!” Aloe tried to bite back a cackle and didn’t quite get there. “See? Maybe I’ll be able to enjoy this after all.”
Lotus had to fight back a laugh of her own, though not for the same reason as Aloe’s. With Aloe’s attention turned toward her inner legs, Lotus recognized a telltale pressure mounting down there, coupled with the quickening of her heart. She was certainly enjoying herself. The sigh that left her lips was perhaps a touch too loud, but she was in the moment.
Aloe didn’t miss a beat as she removed her brushes from Lotus’ hoof. “I had no idea your hooves were that sensitive. I’ll have to play with them more. But in the meantime—” She held out her hoof. “May I have your tail, mademoiselle?”
“Sure, just a moment—oh!” In her haste to comply, Lotus splashed some water out of the tub. She draped her hooves over the edge and peered at the puddle spreading across the tiles. Oddly, the part of her used to whisking off for a mop told her the puddle would do no harm staying there for a few more minutes.
Aloe spoke up behind her. “Worry about that later,” she confirmed. “Things don’t look too bad from here.”
“I suppose. It’s only a little water.”
“Hm? Water?”
Whatever Lotus had expected to hear from Aloe, that wasn’t it. “Yes, the water I just got everywhere?” she said, turning around. The rest of her reply died on her tongue where realization had stabbed it. Her tailbase hovered a few inches above the water—and Aloe was busy looking.
“What?” asked the most shameless pony in all of Equestria. “I meant what I said.” She wrapped the end of Lotus’ tail in her hoof and tugged. Three points along her spine popped like firecrackers, spilling tiny embers into her cheeks and loins. She gasped, almost as an afterthought.
“You’ll want me cleaning up down there to, yes?”
The pressure building in her told her to say “please.” She closed her eyes as Aloe brushed a stripe of shampoo into her tail, sighing as more sparks trickled out of her spine with every tug and push.
Finishing her tail, Aloe dunked it under the water and mussed out the suds. “This will be easy,” she reassured her client. “Raise your tail nice and high for me now, spread out—and for the love of Celestia, don’t kick. I’ll be gentle.”
Lotus followed Aloe’s first two instructions, bracing herself against the edge of the tub, even as her mind scrambled to catch up with her. She’d never opened herself up to a pony like this before—much less another mare, much less the mare she’d grown up with as a filly. A slender fern in the corner of the room became her anchor—she focused on it as if it would disappear the moment she blinked, leaving her defenseless against the questions spinning in her head when the sponge pressed against her nethers. Three swift strokes there, three more against her exit, and then Aloe’s hoof was smoothing down her dock.
“That was it?” Lotus returned to reality, and for some reason found it wanting.
Aloe chuckled as she helped Lotus out of the tub. “Of course, you silly mare. This is only the cleaning. The good part comes later.”
As it turned out, the “good part” took place in the same room Princess Celestia had once taken up for her visit—it had the only massage table large enough to accommodate her royal frame. It would fit two earth ponies just fine. The room’s décor followed a Neighponese theme—the paper doors they used for partitioning their apartments lined the walls, genuine tatami mats comprised the floor, and a small water fountain trickled in a corner opposite a pot of leafy bamboo shoots. A jar of light purple oil infused the air with the scent of chrysanthemums.
Lotus had decorated the room herself. How would she have reacted then, knowing what was about to transpire this evening? Confusion seemed likely. Horror, too, the more she thought about it. So it was best to put those kinds of thoughts aside. She climbed onto the table and waited for Aloe while she went off for a quick shower.
When she arrived, she had a dark brown bottle balanced on her back. From the lack of swishing within, Lotus wondered if she’d brought an empty bottle by mistake.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
“Not our normal oil, for sure.” Aloe pulled out the cork and upended the bottle. Instead of raining a clean-up tragedy on the floor, a clear, gel-like substance dropped in clumps on her hoof. It kept its shape for a second or two before body heat melted it into a chamomile-scented sheen.
Lotus had never seen anything like it before. “Where did we keep that?”
“A friend dropped it off the other week.” Aloe climbed onto the table. “It’s not expensive, but for now, Los Pegasus is the closest place they have it in stock, so we’ll have to think about that if you think this is right for our clients.”
“I know you. You wouldn’t propose anything to hurt them.”
“I also like having a second opinion sometimes. Do you want to keep going?”
Lotus nodded. She’d see this through to the end.
“As you wish.”
The table creaked once as Aloe seated herself astride Lotus’ back, sinking her pelvis into the padding like a hulled ship—an appropriate enough image for the situation, she supposed. Several globs of gel dribbled onto her withers, where two hooves pressed against her coat with gentle pressure. Lotus couldn’t see Aloe like this, and with Aloe’s hindlegs running down her flanks, she was completely, utterly pinned.
“Stop the ride,” she giggled. Giggled? She couldn’t help herself, but that stopped the moment Aloe took her hooves off of her back. “What?”
“We’re stopping,” Aloe told her.
“No—!” Lotus looked back over her shoulder. “I mean, I was joking. Everything’s fine.”
Aloe frowned. “Lotus.” The sound of her name gripped her heart in a press. “Please don’t joke. This is serious.”
“I know this is supposed to be serious.” When she looked into Aloe’s face, Lotus wondered how she could have ever lapsed like that. “I’m sorry. It just slipped out. Please.” She looked forward and laid her chin on the table. “Continue.”
Moments passed like hours, but Aloe didn’t budge. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
When Aloe replaced her hooves on Lotus’ back, Lotus didn’t think “reluctantly” was the right word to describe it. Nevertheless, she had to be more careful. If she couldn’t keep herself composed as a client, how could she do the same for hers?
Not that she wanted to enter the body slide into the spa’s list of services just yet, of course…
“It’s different, isn’t it?” Aloe’s question gave Lotus a beautiful out from her thoughts as she worked the gel into her coat. “Having your masseuse on top of you?”
Lotus fiddled with her hooves. “It is a little intimidating,” she admitted.
“Mm hmm. You were flying high as a flag just a few minutes ago.”
The table refused Lotus’ muzzle before she bored a hole through it. She had to settle for a groan instead, drawing a chuckle from the mare above her.
“That’ll do. We’ll start slowly, like this.” Aloe hooked her hooves over Lotus’ shoulders and touched her sternum to her croup. Like a carpenter planing a board, she pressed into Lotus’ back as she pulled herself forward. A warm glow collected in her wake along the sides of Lotus’ spine, and it ran all the way up to where Aloe sat atop her withers.
“This isn’t so bad, is it?”
“I suppose,” Lotus murmured. Hooves worked well for targeting deep tissues, while forelegs covered more area per stroke. Aloe’s hindquarters combined the benefits of both, rubbing all the way back down and up Lotus’ back again and again. This went on for a minute or so, and the only sound in the room was the gentle squeak of the padding giving beneath their combined weight.
Lotus sighed. “All right. I can see why this is the good part,” she said.
“It’s a good part,” Aloe told her while mounting her withers once more.
“Then what is the good part?”
“Well…”
Lotus had a single instant to realize she’d dug herself a hole so deep that her only hope for escape lay with future civilizations. For Aloe answered her then, not with words, but with a clench, taking her withers into the cleft of her rump.
She discovered there was a word for the short-circuiting of a pony’s entire nervous system, and it was “Oh.”
Aloe chuckled. “I’ll admit this got me the first time, too. How are you doing?”
“I...” Lotus swore her tongue was pooling on the bottom of her mouth. She was blushing, and the glow in her back seeped down toward her hind legs. “Oh, Celestia. It was... it was like...”
“Like a kiss?” Aloe cut in, ruffling Lotus’ mane. “I know you haven’t had anypony for a long time, but—”
Lotus’ tongue snapped back into shape from the strange suggestion. “Wait, what? A kiss? I still remember what those are,” she huffed. “That was a vise.”
Aloe’s hoof froze on the crown of her head, her hindlegs went rigid, and for the first time that evening, she stuttered. “That kiss thing wasn’t my idea, you know,” she protested, pivoting on her rump.
So Equestria’s most shameless pony could feel shame after all. Lotus settled into the padding a little more for knowing that. More gel dribbled up her hind legs and rear, followed by the press of hooves into her haunches.
“Just wait ‘til you see what comes next,” said Aloe.
“I’m waiting.” Lotus’ earlier triumph infused her reply with unexpected ease. What could Aloe do to her now?
As it turned out—the answer was “a lot.” Aloe made good on her word by digging into Lotus’ cutie marks, churning pent-up aches out of the muscles beneath. At the same time, her rump rushed up Lotus’ spine, all the way to the base of her head. This time, Lotus could feel something pucker against the roots of her crest—something like a kiss, wet and slippery, even!—before it squeezed against her skin.
She couldn’t help but scream.
“All of the body, I said.” Aloe released her hold, only to reapply it two inches lower.
“I—” The hooves drilling into her rump cut Lotus off mid-sentence. Her heart kicked in her chest, and its pace only fed the heat growing between her loins. What could she even say? Every rational fiber of her being reviled Aloe’s audacity. None of them were calling for her to stop. She was just so firm and warm pressed against her coat.
“You’re doing very well,” Aloe assured her. She slid down to Lotus’ midsection and laced a hoof beneath her dock—just before tugging it toward the ceiling. It was all Lotus could do to bite back another cry. Aloe’s other hoof rubbed over her exposed underside while she sent her rump climbing her neck once again. Banks of fog as tall as thunderheads crashed through what remained of Lotus’ thoughts, and filled her ears with the thunder of her blood.
“Whoa,” she sputtered.
Aloe’s grip on her head and tail slackened. “Hm?”
“Whoa.” Lotus tapped on the table. Her pelvis glowed with a peculiar fire, and she could feel a trickle of something slick down there that she wasn’t sure was the gel. “Could we slow down a little?”
Aloe snickered. “Of course. No use in wearing you out too quickly.” As she resumed a steady back-and-forth over Lotus’ back, a deep breath through her nostrils prompted the mare beneath her to do the same. Traces of musk joined the chamomile in the air—if Aloe noticed anything, she spared Lotus her commentary.
Now that Lotus had time to regroup, questions began to wander back into her head. Had it been like this in Tokyoke, she wondered? Had Aloe’s host teased her like this, breathing hot, wordless air under her tail? Did she leave a scent in her mane to remember her by? Aloe said love had nothing to do with the body slide, but her drive to please was ferocious in its intensity, and Lotus couldn’t tell where it could come from.
“Aloe?”
“Yeah?” The old Aloe was speaking again, patient as ever.
“How did they treat you in Tokyoke?” Suddenly far from revulsion, Lotus wanted to know. Aloe had been in her position once.
Aloe’s hooves paused on Lotus’ flanks. “You’re talking about the spa, yes?” Several seconds passed in silence as she gathered her answer, though Lotus knew she didn’t do so out of reluctance. “If you’re ready to move on,” Aloe said.
Lotus nodded before she remembered Aloe couldn’t see her. “I think so.”
Aloe rolled off to the side. Though she’d never felt in danger of suffocating, Lotus appreciated the extra room. Her lungs filled with air, and her pulse resumed a pace that wouldn’t send doctors galloping for chest paddles. Her head swirled pleasantly as she turned onto her back.
The table creaked as Aloe straddled Lotus’ hips. “Comfortable?” Receiving a nod, she leaned forward until her muzzle floated just before Lotus’. “All right,” she cooed. “This—this here’s the good part.”
Like last time, Aloe’s strokes concentrated on spreading around the gel she dropped onto Lotus’ front side. They were just deep enough to push out the aches she’d acquired while lying on her chest, working the gel into her coat until it gleamed in the light like a robin’s egg.
She hardly noticed any of that. This was the first time she’d been able to look into Aloe’s eyes since the body slide began, and they gazed at her, big and blue, from beneath half-lowered eyelids. Lotus wished she had a tenth of her courage. She didn’t feel the need to look away and break their connection, but she wondered if she could peer into her clients’ eyes the same way.
“Okay,” said Aloe, laying her belly over Lotus’. Her breath was neither floral nor foul to her nose—it was only warm as she began her slow slide up and down Lotus’ front. “That was her word, the mare who taught me all of this. ‘Okay.’ She worked in the basement of a duplex where the closest metro station had more wires than light bulbs.
“That’s how it is when you get out of the central wards. Very few ponies speak Equestrian in the outskirts. They don’t pay for neon signs and colorful displays in the windows—they didn’t even have windows, that spa. When the girls and I went downstairs, the bath barely held all four of us at the same time. And their massage parlor... it was one table squeezed into a closet with a radiator.”
Because Aloe had taken up her forelegs by then, Lotus couldn’t reach out to her sides. If she could have, she would have had a whole foot in either direction before she could drape her hooves off the edges of Princess Celestia’s table. The false doors on the walls stood farther off still. And the tatami mats on the floor—were they any more authentic to Neighpon than the drip-splattered tile of a basement salon? “They must think we waste so much space,” she mused.
“If they did, they never told me.” Aloe almost managed to sound offended as she rubbed Lotus’ cannons. “I do feel sorry for them. With only one light in the room, she couldn’t see me the way I see you now.”
Lotus flushed.
“She started slowly.” Aloe pulled herself back, tracing a line over Lotus’ belly with her navel. “Much slower than this, I’ll admit. I’ve skipped ahead some with you tonight. But when she finally got going...”
A long silence collected between the two mares, long enough for Lotus to tilt her chin down to look. Aloe’s eyes were on the ceiling, as if she’d recorded her memories there. “What happened next?”
The question snapped Aloe out of her trance. A few blinks followed a stiff snort, and a smirk appeared on her face. “Imagine you’re on a roller coaster,” she said, backing her rump down toward Lotus’ pelvis. “You’re approaching the top of the first hill. Your limbs are shaking. Your heart is bouncing.”
Lotus nodded, breathing in Aloe’s breath as their muzzles aligned.
“At the very top of the hill,” Aloe continued, “you feel your body tip forward. Then the pony next to you jams cotton in your ears and a blindfold over your eyes.”
Aloe clamped her hindlegs to Lotus’ flanks. Then Lotus’ world spun around, ceiling and floor convolving in a mad dance before they stopped opposite of where they began. Everything happened so quickly that Lotus didn’t even have time to gasp. Suddenly, she was the one on top with her belly on top of Aloe’s.
She was on a roller coaster. “Aloe, I—” Her protest soon dissolved into a scream. Aloe hurled her forward so quickly that she knew she was going to shoot out and crash onto the floor. But Aloe’s grip remained firm, jerking her to a stop with her muzzle poised an inch from her nethers. She was yanked back just as quickly, and then Aloe’s hindlegs locked themselves around her rump.
“I’d underestimated her strength,” Aloe called out. She crushed her legs against Lotus’ body before shuttling her forward again. “She pulled me this way and that, dropped me, caught me. The things she did with my neck alone—”
Two forelegs seized the base of Lotus’ skull as the rest of her body kept going, and the pop of her neck traveled through her teeth.
Aloe’s smile was hard to make out with when it was so blurry. “—phenomenal.”
Lotus agreed—the release had sent a wave of warmth sweeping through her mind.
“From there, she focused only on banking a fire in my belly, and keeping it exactly where she wanted it.” Aloe slid Lotus’ head just below her hips and parked her there while her hooves reached just behind her ears. While her scalp began receiving deep, circular strokes all over, her cheeks pressed into the soft curves of Aloe’s nipples. If she reached out with her tongue—
Lotus shut her eyes. As if that meant she could also shut out the urge building within her —she felt herself open a little... back there. “Aloe?” Talking was hard with her muzzle pressed against Aloe’s belly.
“Say something if this is too fast. Let it go otherwise.”
On the contrary, this was just about the right speed. Lotus only sunk further into Aloe as her temples received a few turns. All too soon, Aloe pulled her back up again, bringing their muzzles close until they could wander in each others’ eyes.
No—wandering wasn’t the right word, Lotus thought. With wandering, there was a chance you could get lost, and she always knew where she was with Aloe. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “This is just so wonderful, and I’d had no idea...”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Aloe said. “I’m just happy you decided to try this.” She inched her muzzle forward and planted a tiny kiss between Lotus’ nostrils.
A torrent of heat flushed Lotus’ cheeks and belly, melting away the last of her reservations. Aloe was right. This felt good—more than good. Every pony had a right to feel the way she did now.
As Aloe turned her over to face the ceiling, a small giggle left her lips. “Ha.” She had no idea where it came from. Maybe it was the way the room spun as Aloe rotated her around. “Ha ha. Hahaha!” And then she couldn’t help herself—her laughter gushed from her like a river breaching its dam. This was absurd! She knew this whole evening was one absurdity after the next.
And she couldn’t care less. Aloe didn’t need to ask her permission anymore. She was free to curl her hooves over the inner curves of Lotus’ thighs, and she shored up her spine with her hindlegs. Gravity pulled both of Lotus’ ends down in a wonderful, back-cracking bow until she felt Aloe’s breath curling an inch away from her cleft.
Was she whispering to it? Whatever she was doing, it was working. Lotus bloomed, filling the air with the ripe scent of her need.
Only Aloe didn’t bite. She pressed her muzzle into the skin between her vulva and exit, setting her lower half ablaze. Lotus had to fight back the urge to squirm, though she couldn’t fight back a cry at the same time.
“We’re not quite there yet,” Aloe informed her. Her forelegs sent Lotus away while keeping her spread like a butterfly’s wings. Lotus groaned. That one foot of space felt more like a mile than anything.
Aloe wouldn’t let her wait. She dug her hooves into Lotus’ rump and pulled her back to begin the cycle anew.
All these years, whether the annual conference took place in Neighpon or Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus or Mareseilles, when Aloe went out with other ponies? To be fair, most of those nights never went beyond the drinks and dancing. But the nights that did—mares, stallions, even a griffon once, though Lotus still wasn’t sure whether she believed that—until now, Aloe had never spoken of them. And until now, Lotus had appreciated her discretion.
There’d always been that tiny part of her that had wanted to ask, though. And just as one pair of Aloe’s lips approached another on Lotus’, that part of her would get its due at long last.
“Do it,” she gasped on the fourth time around. The sixth? The ninth? While Aloe’s tongue explored the underside of her dock, Lotus had lost count in the throes of heady bliss. Smooth hooves circled her nipples and cleft with terrible patience, stoking the blaze in her loins. It was like a sauna, hot and damp with Celestia-knew-what, when Aloe pushed her away.
“You know, I don’t think Trigger Point was even this fast.”
“He was good to me!” Lotus yelled between her legs.
Aloe paused. She craned her head above Lotus’ heaving belly with a brow so arched that it could have guided the sun.
“He...” Lotus’ irritation had been nothing but a flash, and she struggled to pick her next words from the soup of her thoughts. “He was good while we lasted.”
Aloe said nothing for the longest time, her face as impassive as a coronary clot. She was quiet just long enough for the fire in Lotus’ nethers to ebb—had she said something wrong? “Aloe?”
“Well, then.” Aloe lowered her head out of view.
Lotus let hers fall too, suddenly exhausted. She shouldn’t have said anything.
“I guess it’s good you have me, then.” Aloe’s hooves clamped onto her belly and yanked her back. Lotus caught a glimpse of Aloe opening wide before she disappeared—only to impale her on her muzzle a moment later. Something quick darted up into her and began massaging her inner walls.
If Aloe hadn’t braced her forelegs against Lotus’ thighs, she would have come away with a slimmer skull. But that danger hardly discouraged her. She gasped once for air as she retreated from Lotus’ entrance, only to thrust forward again. Gales of ecstasy ripped through Lotus with every lick, seeking whatever outlets she could spare—she hit the table as hard as her awkward position would allow, her hips bucked and trembled. She couldn’t stop screaming.
Would it ever be this good, going forward? Could she be this good to her clients?
Would she ever see the mare hollowing her out from within the same way again?
When Aloe pulled back again, panting like a bellows, Lotus could see her own arousal dripping from her muzzle. Her chest heaved beneath her back like waves, or roller coaster hills. They exchanged the smallest of glances and the largest of smiles. Snorting, Aloe pushed Lotus away, and for one terrible moment, the only thing to touch her there was the cool room air.
The pull began with her haunches, dragging her spine in their wake. Her forelegs followed after, and then her head. She glided on fur polished to a mirror finish, and the air whipped in her ears.
Aloe clamped down at the peak of her cleft, right on top of her clit. The first lick crystallized Lotus’ veins.
The second lick circled around her nub and beneath its hood, earning Lotus’ loudest shriek yet.
The third came only after a pause, and it came as a falling feather. It broke the last walls holding Lotus’ fire in check, and finally—finally—all of her pent-up need surged through the breach.
Her pelvis bucked like a great, second heart withdrawing into her body, and its peaks and troughs kept her squirming for a very, very long time. Somewhere below her, Aloe had caught the brunt of her climax across her collar. A part of Lotus’ mind wondered if the scent would ever wash off the both of them, or if the room would betray their venture to the next client to use it.
It probably would. The rest of her just didn’t care. Her vision wavered as she wrapped wobbling forelegs around the mare who’d made it all possible that night, and the sudden warmth streaming down her cheeks didn’t surprise her at all. She sniffled.
“So.” Aloe’s lips brushed against her ear. “How was it?”
“I...” Try as she might, Lotus could not pull the words from her head. She settled for a hacking kind of chuckle and reached up to stroke Aloe’s mane. Her afterglow could speak for her. Another bath was certainly in order after everything that had happened, but lying down for a couple more minutes couldn’t be all bad.
Aloe pressed her head in to give Lotus more leverage. “Yeah. That wasn’t so bad. Say we gave this a couple weeks. A month. Develop our technique some more. There’s no rush in getting this out to Flitter and the rest, right?”
“We can make this perfect,” Lotus agreed.
“You can,” said Aloe, nuzzling Lotus’ cheek.
Lotus closed her eyes. “We can.” A minute later, she opened them again after a thought occurred to her. “Aloe?”
“Yeah?”
“Good thing we’re not sisters.”
Aloe’s laughter shook the table. “Yeah. As if we wouldn’t have had enough to explain as it was.”
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.
