Play that Funky Music, Ms. Scratch

It was a long ride up the elevator of her apartment building as we stood up with our backs to the wall as it carried us to the top. That comfortable silence that was with us dissipated and was replaced with an aura of second thoughts as we avoided eye contact out of sheer embarrassment. To say that I was scared would have been the understatement of the century, and I was not dumb. There was no secret what this invitation meant.

That bravado she showed, which had been the fuel for my courage, was drained out of her as she hung her head, her aqua mane hiding her expression from me. I had no idea what she could be thinking, but I could tell that she was nervous, but I was ignorant as to why. The more I looked at her in her pathetic state, the more I realized that there was so much about her that I had not known yet. That was when I began to not want to extend this night any further, but as soon as the elevator rang that we had arrived at the top, we both stepped off at the same time like we were puppets being controlled by an outside force.

I followed her down the carpeted hallway where the walls were painted gold and the lights hung from the wall as they illuminate the entire length. She pulled out her keys from her pocket and fumbled them in her hands. She almost dropped them once as we made it to her door. She took her time to push her room key into the knob and she hadn’t looked or said anything to me. She looked as if she was being forced at gunpoint to open her door and it was making me feel guilty about the whole thing and that she may not want to do this as well. I wanted to say something, but my mouth was sealed shut, wondering if I was reading her body right.

She managed to get the keys in and unlocked the door and walked inside, and I faithfully followed her in.

She turned on the lights and I saw that we were standing in the kitchen area. The linoleum floor shone white from the ultraviolet light that flashed down from the ceiling. The cabinets warped around the room, with a refrigerator standing up against the wall away from us. A black, square table with a vase holding fake flowers occupying in the middle stood in the center of the kitchen, with four black chairs, all looked like they were made out of wood. Opposite from me, a dark green counter bar spread out, giving an open view of her living room which continued to be shrouded in darkness.

“You can put your jacket over there,” Vinyl pointed to the chair as she walked down the small steps into her living room.

I followed her suggestion and draped my jacket over one of the chairs as I admired her home. It looked very nice but also expensive that I found it unbelievable that she could afford a place like this just by being a DJ at a club, no matter how popular it was.

She turned on a lamp in the living room and I could see that it was rather spacious. A large, scarlet curtain hung on the far side of the room, covering up the window which I was sure was just as large. Some green plants occupied the corners of the room, and the carpet was blue as the ocean. A black, leather sofa pressed up against the wall adjacent to the window and on the other side, and a huge stereo system took over the entire wall, with two large speakers towering the equipment in between.

“This is pretty incredible,” I awed at her apartment.

“Yeah,” Vinyl said as she looked through her records with her magic as they three or four records floated around her head, quizzing at each one. “My parents helped me out when I first moved her last year. It was very hard for me, having to leave Los Pegasus after living there all my life and away from my parents, but I needed to get away.”

“‘Needed’?” I said, interested by her choice of word.

She looked at me and gave me a sad smile, like she contemplating on whether she should tell me about it. “It’s just…forget it. It’s nothing.” She picked the one that she liked, replacing the others back into her collection and set her choice onto her record player.

“You don’t use CDs?” I asked curiously.

“I do, just not for the old classics,” she bashfully smiled as she set the needle down. “I’m bit of old school, I guess. You don’t mind, right? Me playing some music? I like have it on when I’m home. Helps me think.”

When she said “Helps me think,” I felt what she really meant was that it helps her be calm because I could tell that her voice was a bit shaky, and that her fingers were pulling at each other. But, I never thought more of it. I, too, wanted something to fill in the void of this dangerous silence that seemed to be crushing that little flame on the candle that was between us, and I wanted to keep it lit up.

“You don’t have to ask me,” I said. “It’s your home.” As I said that, the music was beginning and I immediately recognized it from something back when I was in high school.

“Ahhhh, Love to Love You, Baby/Ahhhh, Love to Love Ya, Baby.”

“Interesting…choice,” I said.

“You know the singer?” Vinyl asked, a little impressed by me recognizing the song.

“I’ve heard the song before.”

She smile again, but was unable to speak. “Umm, if you excuse me, I need to use the…uh…I need to go.”

“O-Okay.”

“G-Go ahead, make yourself at home,” she offered. “I’ve some drinks in the fridge if you want some.” She pointed at the couch and the refrigerator before she quickly disappeared into the room, shutting the door. I slowly stepped down from the kitchen and entered the living room. The room was filled with the sound the singer’s orgasmic moans as her lover loves her and, instead of feeling me of vigor and excitement, I felt pitiful and tired.

Standing there in the middle of the room, with the music filling up the apartment as if to take all of the breathable air from me, with my host hiding herself in her room, the full situation was starting to dawn on me slowly, and it was making me feel very uncomfortable. My mind raced with images and thoughts as I wondered where this night was taking me and if I was going for the ride or I had lost control of it.

I even wondered if I was just imagining the whole thing, that this was just a dream. There was no way I was this lucky, I thought to myself. Surely, I had to have met this mare since I’d read that you only dreamed of ponies that you had met. Maybe I drank too much and passed out at the club, sleeping away through the night there and just imagining the best case scenario. If that was the case, would I be acting as nervous as I was with my heart and lungs aching as they worked harder to keep me conscious? As unlikely of a scenario that I was having, I would have dreamed up something that was more fantastical. As that was not the case, the realism around me was turning my legs into water. I immediately dropped down into the couch and I sank a little as I fell back to let the cool leather enveloped me to cool my hot body, but that only lasted for a fleeting moment.

I let my body rest but my legs tingled from its weakness. I was not sure about the whole thing. The longer I waited, the more I wondered if it was about to happened. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted it to. Not that I did not mind. I guess what I meant was that I was not so sure about myself if I could perform perfectly, if that was going to happened. Would she be disappointed? All I said that I wanted to show her my Cutie Mark in a private setting. I never thought that she would take me to her apartment, with a scenario that I had always imagined since my high school days was unfolding in front of me.

“Hey!”

I looked up and I found Vinyl peeking out from behind her door, looking at me as if she feared me. I think that have felt more scared of her than she was of me.

She opened the door wider and stood within the frame, that thin, black tube top hiding her most private areas, her torso curving inward into her stomach and her black pants outlining her legs perfectly, looking at me almost like she wasn’t sure what sort of role she wanted to play. She finally stepped into the living room, walking over toward the couch, eyes avoided me. She sat down just a couple of inches from me, her hand sitting next to mine. We both avoided looking at each other and I felt my face burning hot as my heart pumped my blood faster.

“So?” she said, looking at me inquisitively.

“Yeah?” I said, looking at her with confusion.

“Are you going to show it to me?”

I looked at her, my mind wondering as to her meaning. “Show you what?”

While she was smiling, I could tell by the little snare that almost showed itself on her lips that she was getting irritated with me. “Your Cutie Mark?”

“Oh, right,” I said sheepishly.

I was about to get up, but my body was frozen to the couch. I was unable to move, wondering what I was supposed to do next as she looked me, her eyes telling that she was starting to lose her patience.

Then, all of the sudden, I did not want to be there anymore.

But I felt like I’m trapped because I didn’t want to disappoint her. For the first time, here was a mare who was paying attention to me, and I’m falling apart in front of her. And, the music was not helping me. It was as if Vinyl was broadcasting her expectations of me, and I do not feel that I was anywhere close to reaching it.

“Would you mind…turning off the music?”

“Oh, okay?” With her magic, she shut the music off, silencing the room, which seemed to be filling up with renewed uneasiness.

“Thank you.” I said, but the moans of the singer were still reverberating in my head, reminding me on what I needed to do to impress her. For a second, I thought about jumping out of the window if it meant getting away from this growing misery.

I was scared, and I was not hiding it. I had full acknowledgement of my fear, like the whole night was bearing down on me and it would crush me if I did not give my best, which I felt that I did not process.

“Look,” she finally said, looking away from me as if disgusted, “if you don’t want to do it, just go. I’m not going to force you, okay?” I could tell that she was trying to be understanding of me, but, at the same time, I could tell that she was very disappointed.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” I pathetically said, but not getting up from the couch.

“Whatever,” she said, still not looking at me, her tone get colder than the air outside. Which made my nervousness turn into anger and it was getting hotter.

“What the hell do you want from me?” I spoke harshly, losing my control of my temper. “You want me to fuck your brains out? Is that what you want?”

“Gee, I don’t know, but that sure would be nice.” She looked at me, her expression changed that of annoyance. “I mean, you seemed eager enough not ten minutes, and now you’re getting cold hooves? I don’t know who I brought home with me, a stallion or a little colt with daddy issues.”

“Well, I’m sorry that I don’t have the perfect life that you have!” I yelled at her, getting just as annoyed by her changing attitude. “A cool job, nice fancy apartment, a family who’s willing to help out.”

“Oh, you think I didn’t work hard enough to get to where the fuck I am right now?” she screamed, her eyes glaring daggers at me. “I put my whole being into what I do, heart, body, and soul! And, you think you’re better than me because of that ‘Earth Ponies work the hardest’ bullshit? Well, you seemed to be the perfect example, a college student who has no idea what he wanted to do with his life, and he’s pissed off because his daddy doesn’t love him enough! My God, why don’t you just grow a pair?”

“Oh, just because I gave you my life history in one night makes you a scholar on how my mind fucking works?” my voice reverberated off the wall as I stared at her as if casting death. “Have you ever been told that you can’t do something that you wanted to do? Have you ever had somepony said that you do something besides something that you love? Have you ever had them say you can’t do it because it would blow up in your face?”

“Of course I have, and you know what, I actually have those ponies to thank because I wanted to show them that I have what it takes, and I fucking succeed!”

“Well, have you actually had the living shit beat out of you by somebody that should love you?”

“No, but I was almost killed by one who should have loved me!”

We both looked at each other, breathing hard through our mouths as our frustration left us and our anger cooled down as we took in the words that we had just said to each other. We stayed silent as the fire in our eyes flickered out and our tempers cooled. It was there that I finally acknowledge that she was just as nervous about this whole thing as I was.

“Sorry,” we both said quietly, slumping back into our seats, still looking at each other.

“I didn’t mean to demean you like that,” she said, her voice soft.

“No, you’re right about it. I guess I am just a little colt,” I said. I felt like I wanted to cry to get rid of this shame that had of myself, but I did not want to do it in front of her if it meant degrading my character further. “I shouldn’t have made any assumptions about you like that.”

She accepted my apology with a little nod of her head and she got up from her seat, walking up the steps to her kitchen. Her words were ringing in my head and I wondered what she had meant by it. I could have just asked her about it, but I didn’t want the night to proceed downward as much as it already had.

“You can stay here for the night, if you want,” she graciously offered as she filled a cup with water. “I don’t want to kick you out this late at night, and on such a cold one, at that.” She forced a laugh, but it did not change anything.

“Thanks,” I said, figuring that it was getting rather late as fatigue start to rule over my body. That outburst we had took much out of me.

We did not say anything to each other as she grabbed pillows and a blanket from her room, telling me that I could sleep on the couch. I was fine with the arrangement and our last words before she retreated to her bedroom were “Good Night.”

It was only for about five minutes or so when the entire apartment was blanketed in darkness, but I could not get myself to sleep because of two things. One, there was a light that was shining from underneath her closed bedroom door, and two, I could hear sounds of crying coming from the other side. It sounded serious as I could hear her sobs muffled as if she was trying not to disturbed me as she let herself let go of whatever pain she was holding in from me. My heart ached for her, and I could not help but feel that I had something to do with it.

What the hell’s wrong with me, I berated myself as I could hear the sniffles from the other side. Was I the coward that my father always said I was? I looked at her closed door and her cries continued and it made me wanted to go in there and hold her, to make her sorrows go away.

Then, I wondered, not only what sort of night I want it to be, but what sort of night she was looking for. I mean, there had to be a reason why she brought me here. I can’t be because of me helping her out, was it? There has to be something more about it than what I’m seeing.

I got up from my makeshift bed and started walking quietly over to her door. I pressed my ear up to it and I could still hear her crying, but it was softening. She was gaining control over her emotions and seemed to about to ready herself for bed. I felt this this would be my last chance to salvage this night and end it on a better conclusion. However, I never thought that it would begin a new chapter.

For the both of us.

I tapped the door lightly, but it was loud enough where she gave an audible gasp and then silence.

“Y-Yes?” she called out.

“Vinyl?” I answered back. “M-May I come in?”

She was silent and I wondered if she would even want me to intrude on her, or that whatever that was between us, as little there was, had already sunk into the abyss. I could not tell which one I even wanted, but when she gave her answer, I gladly accepted it.

“Sure.”