You Can Pick Your Friends
Mister Coffee

It's a typical Thursday in Ponyville, and you're at the market. This isn't that unusual; there are no grocery stores in Ponyville, so you've got to do all your shopping at the market. It's open all year, and the pegasi make sure the keep the weather clear on market days.

You've almost gotten used to it.

Well, there is Barnyard Bargains as an alternative, but they've got a really limited selection of food. The pony equivalent of junk food, mostly. And it's pricier than the market, especially because the cashiers there don't let you haggle.

You're at Honey Globe's booth, examining her melons, when you get a sudden itch in your butt.

It's rude to scratch your ass out in public, so you ignore the feeling at first, but it persists. The longer you ignore it, the more persistent it seems to be, and you finally realize that you're going to have to do something about it. You can't haggle properly when your ass itches.

So you regrettably let go of Honey Globe's firm melons and tell her that you'll be back in a minute but you've got to consider her offer, and then you dart into a nearby alleyway.

If the itch had just been on a cheek, you would have taken care of it in the marketplace, but this one's pretty far in the crack. Fact is, you're pretty much going to be taking yourself to fourth base scratching this itch.

This is almost a hands-down-your-pants itch, the kind that makes you wonder if you're developing hemorrhoids.

The good thing about Ponyville is that it isn't lacking for alleyways. There always seems to be one nearby when you need it, so you duck between a pair of buildings.

You've really got to dig in—denim is pretty thick fabric—but you're no stranger to scratching your ass, and your index finger homes right in on the correct spot, giving you sweet, blessed relief.

You spare a moment to wonder exactly how itching works. What is there about it that makes your nerves happy, anyway? Too bad Equestria doesn't have internet, or else you'd look it up next time you were sitting in an outhouse with nothing else to do except keep an eye out for wasps.

When you return to reality, you make the terrible discovery that you're not alone. Somepony else has made her way into the alleyway and is watching you.

It's easy to imagine the offended look on her face, although the truth is that you can't be sure. Her shades completely cover her eyes. But her ears are forward, and you know that that means that she's focused on you.

“What?” you say, a bit more aggressively than you meant to.

“Dude.” Vinyl lifts up a hoof and tugs her rose-colored shades down your muzzle. “What—“

“My butt itched, okay?” You glare at her. “You got a problem with that?”

She shakes her head. “When you've got an itch, you've got to scratch it.”

“Exactly.”

“I wonder.” She's focused completely on your hands. “What does it feel like, anyway?”

“Huh?” This conversation has suddenly taken a slightly bizarre turn.

“Your fingers. I bet they feel different than a hoof.”

“Well, yeah. I would expect so.”

Vinyl glances back towards the mouth of the alleyway. “Okay, this is gonna sound a little bit weird—“

“You want me to scratch your butt, don't you?” Of course she does. You've never met a quadruped that didn't like the occasional scratches.

“Well. . . .”

“You're a unicorn,” you point out, rather unnecessarily. “Can't you just, I don't know, scratch yourself with magic? Or your horn?”

“Dude, nopony's that flexible. Well, except Blossomforth.”

“I was thinking more with magic.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, it wouldn't be the same.”

“You could buy a back-scratcher.”

“Still not the same. Come on, you know you want to.” She turns slightly, giving you a view of her backside.

“As long as Octavia isn't going to be mad at me.”

“Nah, she won't mind,” Vinyl assures you.

“Alright.” There are lots of rumps you'd like to get your hands on, and Vinyl's is one of them. You'd be a fool to turn this down.

You move closer to her, and put your hand on her lower back. Her backer back? Pony anatomy is weird, and it's not something that you'd ever really studied. Anyways, it's the spot right above her hind legs, just forward of her tail. Sort of atop the vertical part of her music note cutie mark . . . you'd never paid that much attention in your piano lessons, either, although you're sure that that vertical part does have a name.

As soon as your fingers start moving, she lets out a pleasured moan. “Oh, yeah, that feels great.”

“Thanks.” You put a little more effort into it, trying to dig your fingertips into her skin while not messing up her coat too much.

“Only, could you move a little bit lower down?”

“Like this?” You move your hand down towards her flank.

“Back,” she says.

“Gotcha.” You follow along her spine, right to the top part of her tail. Not that you've got a lot of experience with women, but based on your own anatomy, you can feel muscles in Vinyl that you haven't got.

“Now lower.”

You're not sure if equines have butt cheeks or if they're properly called something else; whatever the case, you're not scratching her left cheek.

“Oh, yeah.”

You risk a glance in her direction. She's got her head turned a little bit back towards you, and her eyes are lidded in pleasure. Under your fingers, her tail muscles move, and her tail lifts up slightly, giving you a momentary view of her dark marehood.

“More towards the center.”

More towards the center? Your hand moves over to her dock, and you scratch just under her tail hairs, hoping that you don't tangle them.

“Now lower.”

You stop for just a moment. You can't quite remember it, but this almost feels like the punchline to a joke. What's your line supposed to be? 'I can't go any lower?'

“Well?”

Ah, fuck it. You slide your hand under her tail, and a moment later your finger finds the tight pucker of her asshole. Not normally somewhere you'd want to be going, but then you've still got the memory of the blessed relief you felt scratching your own—what could be more friendly than scratching Vinyl's ass?

“Right there.” You move your finger back just a bit, and really dig in, performing whatever miracle it is that make itching feel so good.

“Oh, stars, that's amazing!” She shivers and then flicks her tail, which feels especially odd since your hand is under it.

Here I am with my hand under a mare's tail, in broad daylight, barely beyond the market, you think. If anypony saw this, they'd think—

“Hey, Nonnie, whatcha doing?”

Both you and Vinyl spin around to see Pinkie Pie standing there in the mouth of the alleyway.