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The Misadventures of Mr Stanley Smith

A Hoofprints Writer's Contest collaborative story

Chapter One

Written by Ta'kom Ironhoof

With a loud metallic clack, followed by the grinding of gears, a barred prison door opened much like any other day. However, today was special for at least one man. Stanley Smith, also better known as "Rusty Knuckle," was ?nally going to leave the four concrete walls that have been holding him over the last 7 years. His crime? They brought him in and arrested him on a technicality; tax fraud. From there, they jailed him for running an illegal brothel underneath the dingy little bar he owned. The headlines, of course, tried to sensationalize with things like, "Local Town Rocked by Sex Dungeon" and "Rusty Knuckle Has Been Fisted." That was seven years ago now. Stanley Smith had done his time. Now that he was a free being, he wanted nothing more than to go back home, run his bar (legally this time), and live a normal life.

Besides, seven years away from doing porn was a long time. He was an old man by most standards in the industry. Though his time in prison had kept his body in tip-top shape, to Stanley, he was certainly on the downhill side of living that kind of life anymore. It wouldn't always be peaceful, but the bar was really the only thing that Stanley had left to his name. Even his home had to be foreclosed on while being locked up. Luckily for Stanley, his cousin Bernard had been monitoring things, writing to him regularly to keep his spirits up. While Bernard wasn't much to speak of, he was at least a good bartender. Bernard, now approaching 30, started working for Stanley while he attempted to go to college. After finding out about his cousin's hobby, he dropped out and was helping with making the 'material'.

"There were so many good times," Stanley thought to himself as he filled out his release paperwork. Those in the 'know' would hang out until closing time and those that knew that evening's codeword got to stay. Everyone else got the boot. From there, Bernard gathered the few who remained, read the rules, and answered questions. Stanley, on the other-hand, prepared. Between setting up the cameras and lighting, there was usually just enough time for Stanley to finish preparations before the 'patrons' entered the downstairs area.

Stanley was snapped back to the present when the Husky clerk cleared his throat loudly. "You ok there, Mr. Smith? Looked like we lost ya for a second."

"No, yeah, I'm good. Just ready to get on with life," replied Stanley, attempting to hide his embarrassment of thinking of times past.

The Husky chuckled a bit. "With your past, there's no telling what was going on in that head of yours. Looks like all the paperwork is in order. Head down the hall just before the exit and you can collect your personal effects." The Husky smiled a toothy grin before replying. "Tell Linda at the desk that Shawn said hi, would ya?" Unable to hide his excitement, the Husky's fluffy tail wagged back and forth several times.

"Sure thing, Shawn," Stanley said before thinking to himself. "Some things never change. Tails rarely ever lie."

Stanley, his own tail swaying from the feelings of relief, continued down the hall, collected his things while passing the message along. He could see what that Husky saw in Linda; a simple beauty. Reserved and... vanilla. "Thanks Linda. Just head out this door and I'm a free man, then?"

The Crow's blue-black feathers reflected the ceiling light in matte fashion as she turned her head up to reply. "Indeed, Mr. Smith. We've also arranged a taxi to take you back home. You're a free man."

Stanley breathed out a sigh, closing his eyes. A shudder pulsed through his body as they reopened, replying. "Then I'll be on my way. Time to live on the straight and narrow!"

"Everyone says that before going through those doors," Linda replied without missing a beat. "Too many can't seem to stick to it and come back to see us."

The thought of returning to jail hadn't occurred to Stanley. Could he live a normal life given his past? How many of his old clientele would come back expecting 'the usual'? Might take a while to get past all of that, but after his time here, he never wanted to come back.

Without another word, Stanley gathered his things and exited to the large parking lot out front.

After only a few minutes, a cab pulled up and Stanley quickly jumped inside. "237 Harmony Street, please." The older Cheetah driver simply tipped his cap while looking back in the rear-view mirror before pulling away. The way he looked at Stanley, it almost felt as if he might know this gentleman. Regardless, Stanley had a lot on his mind. Through the trip, no words were exchanged. Stanley simply stared out the window. The trees, houses, people, and everything else that he'd missed passed him by. Seven years in minimum security might not seem like much, but Stanley had a new appreciation for being on the outside of the prison. Well, locked against his will, that is. He supposed some things will never go away.

To Stanley, the hour-long drive through the city passed like a blur as the Cheetah pulled the cab into the parking lot of Stanley's establishment. The place had certainly seen better days. It was apparent that, while his cousin might have been serving drinks, he certainly wasn't keeping up appearances. The paint had mostly chipped away; the gutters hung from their hinges, one already fallen to the ground, and the sign, the genuine pride of his establishment, swayed from a single rusty chain, clinging beyond hope to keep the handmade wooden sign from smashing into the ground.

"Here we are, sir. Trips been paid for in advance. Need help with your things," the driver questioned?

Stanley had already opened the door, replying, "Nah, I'm good. Just glad to be back." Before the Cheetah could reply, Stanley had already exited and closed the door, cutting off any further conversation as the reality of his freedom fully set in. An emotional swell brought a tear to his eye as he was internally conflicted between his freedom and the sorry state of his pride and joy. Collecting his small bag, Stanley's mind turned to nights where the parking lot was full of cars; memories of raucous parties and drunken fervor. But now? Besides the occasional car passing, silence filled the air as the mid-day sun peaked through a few gray clouds hanging in the sky. He was starting all over again.

As the cab drove away, Stanley continued taking in his surroundings while making his way to the front door. Upon reaching it, his hand was greeted by a dirty knob and windows that had not been washed in a very long time. Letting out a sigh, Stanley turned the knob, pushed open the door, and stepped inside as the bell just inside the frame chimed loudly, announcing his presence to any who might be inside.

Chapter Two

Written by Mitch Horse

The bar was as empty as his finances, though. Run down furniture, most likely smashed by an ever angsty teen, littered the decaying timbers of the floorboard. Stanley trudged his way behind the bar-top to see if there was something strong he could drown his sorrow with. Instead, he found a note flimsily taped where the bottles used to be. Written in red ink, it read:

"Stanley, you lost your house. The only thing I was able to save was this damn bar. The last thing you need right now is a drink. I'll give you the evening to collect yourself. See you here at 8 am tomorrow. SOBER."

-Bernard

Who denies a draft horse his drink?

Normally Stanley would have bemoaned more at his little cousin trying to tell Stanley what's good for him, but seven years' hard time changes a man. Prison can bring perspective.

Were seven years of his life really just gone? No, no, they couldn't be. What could have led him to this point?

Stanley set his sights on the broken furniture. He stomped and threw what little remained until it was properly trashed. If there was one thing that caused his anguish, though, it would be that damned basement. The wooden door leading down to it was still barely on its top hinge, just as it was left during the police raid. Gripping the barely held door with his left hand, Stanley proceeded to punch and punch that worthless door with his right. By the time it hit the ground and kicked up enough dust to make Stanley choke for air, Rusty Knuckle had become a bloody knuckle.

The dripping draft horse traipsed back to the bar, where he climbed up to spend the rest of the evening. He had nowhere else to go. As the sunset and the little outside noise of passing cars grew fainter and more infrequent, Stanley didn't notice the slow stop in the trickling of crimson tears from his right hand. He was too busy bawling his eyes out.

*TING* chimed the bell, marking a new occupant of Stanley's festering abomination of a bar. He hadn't remembered if he slept last night. A familiar silhouette gave welcome respite from the harsh morning sun. A bit taller and lankier than Stanley last remembered, the elongated snout of a snow-white Arabian horse was unmistakable. That lovely, wonderful, thoughtful, immature bastard Bernard.

"Dear Dog, Stanley, the place looks even worse than I left it yesterday. How in the hell did you manage that?"

The aged horse sprung to his hooves and almost tackled Bernard out the front entrance. If their hug was any stronger, Bernard would have lost a rib.

"Thanks for writing to me, you big softie. And yes, I will let you breathe after I'm satisfied."

As Stanley's arms loosened, Bernard fell to one knee, coughing. "That's what she said," he raspily croaked. The younger Arabian clambered back to his feet and chuckled, "Almost as tall as you now, Stanley. Doc said I'm a late bloomer. And not just in bed. Two sex jokes in a row! I'm on a roll, Stanley! Least you can do is give me that big... smile of yours," Bernard quipped with a toothy grin.

Reunited with the only person who wrote to him for the entirety of those seven long, lonely years and Stanley's already being verbally copulated? Is that all he was? Some bulky horse meat to ogle and grope? To ride and fuck?

Stanley's inner monologue was interrupted by a white furred hand shaking in front of his face. "Hellooooooo??? Earth to Stanley? We're losing our connection to you. You've gone too far out in spaaaace".

"Sorry, Bernard, just thinking. Didn't get much sleep. Got a lot of thinking instead."

"I spent all last week fixing up that beautiful basement studio where we... filmed. Got you a whole new pearly white bed with fresh sheets and everything. Too many damn college students were using the 'town's infamous' rose bed to recreate some of your scenes. Don't tell me that half hanging door stopped you, Rusty".

Stanley stumbled backwards. His hands grappled the temples on his head. "No, no, no, no, not Rusty. Stanley ," the Draft's voice sputtered at a pitch much lower.

"Stanley.... Your hand! Are you okay?! Do you need a doctor?"

The Draft regained his composure but didn't say another word. He simply snorted and stared down at Bernard. The Arabian had worked under his cousin long enough to know what that meant.

"... how about we go see where you can live, Stanley? I'm sorry I couldn't save your home too. I'm just glad you still have a place you can call yours, though. And the basement was really the only place you can call home. My apartment certainly isn't big enough for two horses."

Stanley's piercing gaze ?nally gave way. "Fine, Bernard. I..." Stanley paused. Bernard had clearly envisioned this whole reunion going a lot differently. How could Stanley be mad at the only person who kept him company during his hard time? "... Let's see my new home."

The two stallions trundled over the cracked mess and past the blood-stained door down into the basement.

In stark contrast to above, the basement was pristine. The only thing Bernard hadn't been able to clean out of the subterranean abode was the smell, understandably. A tan tone of fresh paint covered the walls in the living room as Stanley descended into the center of his new home.

"I even fixed up the kitchen with new appliances and the bathroom with new furnishings, too. Had to call in a few favors with some friends, but they remembered the good times they had in this very basement and sprang into action with me."

"The sex meant that much to them that they would do all this... for me?" Stanley flopped over onto his new bed. The sheets were eggshell white, with a blue comforter neatly folded on top. A gray frame held the bed above the ground, including a fuzzy headboard that doubled the height of the bed.

Bernard gently sat at the foot of the bed, staring off into the walls. "Yes, Stanley. It meant so much to so so many people. We couldn't let this place just rot... rot more than it already has." The Arabian let out a deep sigh and turned towards his older cousin, his eyes reddened and trembling. "I couldn't let this place rot. It means more than words can express to me. I left my studies for you. For this bar. For Rusty Knuckle. "

Stanley turned his gaze from Bernard's teary eyes to cry his own tears.

"We can be above the board here, Rusty. There's a real opportunity. No risk, no jail time. We do it all again but better." Bernard dropped his hand on Stanley's leg: "Together."

Sobbing, Stanley softly said, "I don't know."

"We can clean up upstairs tomorrow! I'll get all the guys together. We'll have so much fun. And that doesn't even include after the job's done~."

Overwhelmed, Stanley yelled, "NO!" He grabbed Bernard's hand and lifted it off of him, his voice returning to a more normal tone, "Bernard, please. I can't talk to you right now. I don't know who I am. I don't know who I want to be. I was damn good at my job as Rusty and it was more fun than any cubicle anywhere, but look where it got me: A prison cell. I'm more grateful for your letters and this new home and saving the bar in general, but please, I need time. I need... direction. I'll call you tomorrow. Now please, leave me be. And the name's Stanley, for now at least."

Stanley rolled over to cry into the bed. He hadn't even been completely truthful with Bernard. There was so much that happened in prison that Stanley just wasn't ready to talk about.

Bernard, now sniffing, got up and headed for the exit. Stanley heard the stairs creak under Bernard's hooves and only after the distant *ting* of the front door opening did he flip up to lie on his back.

Chapter Three

Written by Nulkurrak

"Fuck them. Fuck all of you with your misplaced generosity."

Stanley took another swig of whiskey from the glass that turned out to be his sole real companion in whatever the hell this shit was. Temporary lodging? A future porn-free venture?

As if. He hadn't come out of his literal basement for the entire day. It was well past noon, according to the time on his phone, and the restoration crew above was still going.

The muffled chatter was maddening. The beating of hammers, the scraping of wood, the vulgar shouts meant to coordinate the renovation activities turned out to be physical and spiritual torture.

He couldn't go out. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't fuck.

Nice life on the outside, where he turned limp five seconds in. And in his own fucking hand, at that. What else had life to offer him if not sex?

"Fuck that." Stanley swirled the contents of his glass dismissively. "Why am I even dwelling on that? It's over. It's done. It's never coming back."

A few of the folks from above tried to invade his privacy, either by knocking on the door leading into his quaint abode or outright cracking it open, the bold cunts. He told them off. Politely at first, and rougher, as more alcohol entered his system. Good thing he had snuck out early in the morning to buy some much-needed numbness, lest he wouldn't make it through the day without telling them all to fuck off whence they came.

Friends... more like leeches, thirsty for cunt juice and semen. The moment he broke through that door, Rusty-filled cheers would assault him, for Rusty was who they saw. As for the payment, they'd take anything from initiative to promises to guarantees that everything would return to normal pronto, now that the prodigal king was back.

Screw those lust-addled drones. He just needed a plan and a chance to enact it. And Bernard was going to help with it.

As expected, his younger cousin stroked that phone's edge all the fucking time as if it was his dick. "Oy. Get somewhere quiet."

Already, the enthusiastic clamor of the crowd raped Stanley's ear. Bernard attempted to reduce the din and play it as a business-related call, but his folks knew what's up. They smelled the truth as sharply as the heat leaking down a mare's cunt.

"This is the best I can do," Bernard said from the relative quiet of the kitchen, where only one or two people worked on cleaning duty. "What's up? What do you need? Tell your delivery boy what your heart craves."

"Just you." Stanley ended the call. He could deal with Bernard's upset. Just not with a vivacious crowd bent on pushing him straight back into temptation's clutches.

They at least had the decency to let Bernard come down without a hitch.

"What the fuck are you wearing?" Stanley had never seen Bernard look so... proper, white shirt and all.

"Psh... why are you not wearing something other than your underwear?" Nonetheless, the white Arabian eyed his bulge long enough to get Stanley's balls stirring.

"And what is that? WHAT IS THAT?"

Stanley put his imposing bulk between Bernard and his bottle, staring him down with the authority of one whose gaze made lesser colts jizz in their pants.

"Oh, man..." Bernard's ears swiveled back and his gaze sank, as expected. "Stupid me for trying to look after you. And well... look at yourself! You're a vegetable! You can barely stand straight!"

Stanley grabbed and shoved his smaller cousin face-first and rump-up into the bed. Before the daze wore off, the draft horse' hands besieged Bernard's waist, fumbling to unlatch his belt and pull his khakis down halfway, just enough to free his rump.

The sound of Stanley spitting in his hand froze whatever struggle spawned within Bernard's limbs. A pillow hugger through and through, the white Arabian clutched fistfuls of sheets, already aware of what was going to happen.

"Vegetable, am I?" Slick fingers shoved between the toned cheeks of the Arabian to smear lubricant over his eagerly twitching pucker. "Let's find out."

"A---aaaaah fff--!"

Bernard's arms attempted to hug the edges of his face shortly before Stanley seized them. A single burly hand was enough to clutch both bony wrists while his right pressed down on the Arabian's back to keep him still, subdued.

Dominated.

It took all of Stanley's effort to suppress a throaty groan as he inched further into the colt's blissfully relaxed anus. Naught but light shudders accompanied his passage down into those depths loosened by the very cock that now pierced him, seven years later.

"Oh, my... fuck, Rusty " came the Arabian's hoarse cry, muffled by the blanket he bit onto, by the

snaking drool wetting the edges of his flared snout.

Stanley stopped three-quarters in, deterred by Bernard's fierce grip as his walls collapsed around him. The struggle added to the hardness of the draft's imposing cock; it squeezed and kneaded at his flare, begging for the draft's thick, pent-up, masculine seed.

He did not give in just yet. A wet, salacious squelch followed Stanley's painfully slow withdrawal meant to let Bernard feel the texture of his flare, the sturdiness of his girth, the stiffness of the fleshy ring marking the midsection of his cock as it plopped out of him.

"Gah!" The colt bucked into the bed in an instinctive humping motion meant to stir further pleasure into his rock-hard member. "I... it's been a while since I aaahhhhh!"

Stanley shut him up by filling him back up. He added half of an inch this time. Then another in the next stroke. The steady pounding rhythm of the colt's outstretched hole stoked Stanley's ascending pleasure. The steely grip of his hand squeezed Bernard tighter just as the Arabian's erratic clenches attempted to weaken Stanley's resolve.

Faster. Harder. Rougher. Towards the end, Stanley had to lean his chest into Bernard's back, letting the undulating motions of his hips do all the work. Pre-cum oozed by a lonely, pent-up cock squished and splattered over the rosy wrinkles of the Arabian's rim before they got blotted out by the immensity of Stanley's girth.

"Nghhhh!" Stanley's neigh washed over Bernard, a riptide of shudder-inducing masculinity.

Strong, sudden jets of pent-up jizz spurted into his depths, nudging his prostate repeatedly until his colt, too, gave in.

No cry. Just cum.

Through bleary, focused, half-closed eyes, Stanley watched the Arabian's pink mottled cock flare up at the tip, squeezing ropes of ivory bliss out of his throbbing manhood. Something about his bottom cumming so hard made Stanley's orgasm all the richer, adding eyelid-twitching bliss to the remainder of his lessening throbs.

"That's how it is," Stanley plopped out of Bernard while still hard, so that his flare retained a measure of rigidity. That created a satisfying pop as excess seed immediately broke loose to trickle down the gray of the Arabian's inner thighs. "Not drunk enough to fuck you into a trance, it seems."

With that white snout shut, Stanley went over to the minibar to resume his drink and to draw a smoke out of a pack.

"Oh, Rusty," Bernard's mellow voice swayed with the hues of post-coital bliss. "You're still the only one who makes me pop hands-free from anal."

"Stanley," the draft corrected him as he popped the cigarette into his mouth. "None of that Rusty crap, you hear me? And this stays between us. No more porn movie shenanigans."

To avoid Bernard's evil eye, he strolled over to the side of the vents meant to fan out the smell of sweat and sex. Good enough for smoke, he reckoned. One puff, and Stanley felt complete. Seed-soaked cock hanging and freshly emptied balls drooping, he was back to the times before prison. Before Rusty. When it was just Stanley and named or unnamed asses, tits and cunts.

"Go wash your cum-filled ass. After that, you go up there and tell those rowdy boys that I need more time to sort out my post-prison depression or whatever excuse flies these days. I'll also need a suit."

"A suit?" Bernard groaned from the mere effort of flexing those muscles around his recently abused rump. "What suit? What are you talking about?"

"Old, new, yours, not yours, it doesn't matter. So long as it looks presentable. Can't go to an interview in jeans and hoodie."

Bad enough that his bandaged knuckles had yet to heal.

"Wait, a... ah... moment," Bernard needed a few moments to push himself onto his fours and then shift onto wobbly legs. "You're... oh man..." he winced at the first step he took, "telling me you're... going... to get a job? An actual job?"

Stanley shrugged his shapely shoulders, pulling another dose of blessed tobacco into his lungs. "Yeah," he croaked a simple reply, along with a drawn-out exhale.

***

"Mr...."

"Stanley," the draft horse shook the flaccid, hesitant grip of the chocolate Labrador interviewing him for the accounting job he spotted in an ad. "Just Stanley is fine."

"Well, just Stanley, you certainly have a firm grip. Have a seat and let's get going!" the dog's tail swung upward in anxious excitement. Whether it was the draft's statuesque body or his too small suit threatening to burst around his developed arms, Stanley couldn't tell. This place, Lafayette's soul food and catering, was said to accept all sorts, including those who had gotten on the wrong side of the law for relatively minor altercations.

The seat felt as cramped to him as Bernard's smaller size felt around his waist and elbows. "So uh..." Stanley coughed to clear the nervousness in his voice, "most of the core achievements are in there. In the CV."

Achievements? What was this, a Steam game? Fuck...

"Grand achievements indeed. Oakley's meant to be for nerds, and you don't strike me as an... you know..." the Labrador's furtive gaze skipped between Stanley and the single sheet of paper he looked over. "Business management too... you certainly are a man of grand surprises, Mr. Stanley."

"Thank you, sir," the stallion fought back the urge to lean forward in excitement. "I'm good with numbers. I've apprenticed under--"

"The Continental. Three months? Most apprentices don't last one given the lack of material incentive," the interviewer's eyebrows raised to regard Stanley with pulse-raising admiration. "I'd say this alone makes you more than qualified to handle the needs of our significantly smaller business."

"Thank you kindly." Stanley favored him with a smile. Not too broad but neither small, enough to exude confidence. "I'm a hard worker. Always have been. I've handled the accounting of a small private business right after I finished college."

The dog's muzzle twitched. "What manner of business? Should definitely have been listed here..." he went over the document to make sure he did not miss something.

"A small enterprise that went under. I thought it best to start honest and start fresh."

"Honest?" The Labrador, whose name Stanley didn't catch, set the paper aside to clasp his hands together. "As in, fair wages for fair work?"

"Exactly so." Stanley's words rushed out of him before his heart lodged up in his throat. "Not that I was dishonest. More like inexperienced. As all youngsters are."

"I see..."

He did see. More than Stanley cared for. His mistake, setting his hands on his knees instead of shielding his bandaged knuckles with his left, just cost him the interview, most likely.

And... there it was. The hardening gaze. The straight posture. The deep breathed sucked in through nostrils struck by unease.

"We don't discriminate here," the dog's whiskers twitched as he searched for the proper way to send Stanley o?. "We understand hardship. My ancestors founded this business with illicit gains as well, but time passed and now nobody gives a damn. The same can go for you."

"I would like nothing more than a chance, sir. I'm great with numbers."

"Oh, sorry, I think there is a misunderstanding. The position we're in desperate need of filling is in the kitchen." Those big golden eyes of his sunk in guilt... or perhaps shame for selling Stanley such a crass lie.

"The kitchen? As in, a cook? I can cook. I'm a fast learner."

The Labrador's wry muzzle contested at that point. "More like... dishes. Scrubbing. And what not."

Stanley's stomach sank. He instantly pushed himself up, shook the dog's limp hand, nodded his gratitude, and left before his stern façade gave way to unbecoming weakness.

***

Fuck meditation. Fuck calm and deep breaths. He had done that shit for the better part of six years in prison. Mistaken for a brawler, was he? Considered naught but ordinary thug scum?

Stanley shoved his way through the two bodyguards flanking the entrance to the prestigious Lark's nightclub, squeezing their gripping fingers so hard they instantly let go of him.

A third, equally tall yet bigger-than-him rhino prepared to fist Stanley's face bloody, only for his knuckles to relax.

"Holy shit. Rusty?"

"Greg. I didn't... here? I guess it makes sense..."

His former bouncer and childhood friend waved off the lion and jaguar who had failed to stop the battering ram that Stanley turned out to be.

"Wish I could say the same for you. Come on. Let's go to Denver's pub. They still have that happy hour deal going."

Stanley brushed off the rhino's arm that attempted to carry him away from the entranced dancers and perverts ogling at tits, ass, camel-toes, and bulges, weaving and waving on top of their tables.

"We can have a drink here," the draft's gruff voice still carried over the din.

"We can't," Greg attempted to slide his arm over Stanley's shoulder a second time. It ended the same. "And I'm not gonna do that a third time, so we either leave as friends or I beat you bloody, per my new contract."

"How about neither? I'm not here for trouble, but to reminisce."

"Reminisce?" Outdated bias laced his friend's incredulous voice. "Here? Where I now work?"

"Look at me, mate," Stanley flicked his tie for emphasis. "I'm a bum in a tight suit borrowed from Bernard. If I wanted to cause trouble, I'd have come as..."

"Not whoever the fuck you're trying to be, that's for damn sure."

***

Greg's demeanor relaxed a bit after getting a better glance at what Stanley attempted to tackle. He, of course, found it impossible to accept that a stud who owned one of the most renowned after-dark bars within these parts of the city, or fuck it, the entire city, could suddenly turn legit.

That made Stanley's desire to succeed even more savory.

"Rosteh? Wot the fo... Rosteh faction' Knockle? At my fockin' counter?!"

"Hey," Greg glowered at the bright-eyed otter acting as one of the two bartenders. "It's Stanley. He's... as you can see..."

It took a few blinks of disbelief for the otter to ?nally catch onto it. "Right. Sorry, mate. It's just... fockin 'ell, in Lark's of all places?"

"Why not?" Stanley grabbed the half-finished drink of the female zebra next to him after her suitor dragged her to dance. He downed that overly sweet thing in one gulp, much to the gasp of the otter bartender and the shaking head of Greg. "Lark's in. I'm out. And I'm not coming back."

The thud of the glass hitting the counter emphasized Stanley's resolute words. "Now gimme a--"

Greg took the lead to order Stanley's favorite, passing a generous tip to Murtagh along with a hushed request. "You covered my punk ass since way back. I got you covered."

"Mhhm..." Stanley grunted. Watching Murtagh prepare the drinks and listening to the silent moans mixed with the current song sent tingles down his groin. Though he prepared to put a lid on this debauched lifestyle, his cock and balls certainly had other plans.

"'ere ya go," Murtagh slid Stanley's drink his way. "Enjoy."

The draft horse nodded his gratitude, then emptied the glass in three hearty gulps. "Hit me again."

"Here," Greg handed him his drink in order to keep the otter scribbling down something on a sheet of paper. "Hits the spot, doesn't it?"

"Booze and ass. " Stanley licked the dryness of the drink off his lips. "You never tire of it?"

The rhino's deep chuckle was akin to rocks tumbling inside a barrel. "Do you?"

"Compliments of the house." Murtagh slipped Rusty a list of several names. Next to them were their kink, specialization, and number. He recognized at least two of the names; regulars who used to be part-time porn shooters and full-time sluts over at his bar. Good for them, to land at Lark's distinctly familiar establishment.

Fucking rip-off piece of zebra excrement. What, just because Lark came gallons meant his pornos outsold his? Fucking amateur bullshitter....

Stanley finished Greg's drink just as the Rhino received another.

"My treat." Those lovely brown eyes blinked in sympathy before they directed at the bit of paper. "A drink, a cunt and a smoke. Isn't that how it used to be? Just pick. I'll be here till morning. I can even watch if you...,"

He stopped at that in fear of going too far. He used to do that, didn't he? Watch him perform and review? Always said the nicest and most creative things about Rusty's scenes.

The draft horse crumpled that paper in his fist and slid his hand over Greg's. "Cunt's a hard to find in prison, but guys like you..."

The rhino's grin spread from ear to ear. "Unexpected, but definitely not unwelcomed. So what do you have in mind?" he said as he got up, his bulge already beginning to take shape. "Got my own room here, along with all the toys you want."

"I prefer the real thing," Stanley's hold strengthened around Greg's hand, mirroring the clenching of his eager tail hole.

Chapter Four

Written by Spruce Moki

Greg slid the door closed behind Stanley as he stepped into the room. It was dimly lit, with red and purple hues splashed against the walls. To Stanley, it seemed that Greg kept his room eternally prepared to receive an audience. And the Rhino wasn't kidding about toys. Alongside the bed was a hutch with various shapes and sizes placed as if they were collectible décor.

A soft touch snapped Stanley out of his inebriated stupor, a digit brushing against his right shoulder flowing across his back to the other as Greg walked around the horse to face him. A gentle smile creased on the rhino's face as he relieved the horse of the suit blazer.

Stanley knew this routine. He missed this routine.

After the jacket falls to the floor, Greg pulls on the loosened tie and embraces the stud in a momentary kiss. A heavy sigh escapes Stanley's lips after they break, almost as if a cork holding all of his stress was just removed. He didn't even realize his pants were being undone until they fell to the floor, along with his underwear. Not a word was spoken. This was the ritual.

Greg backed up towards his ruby dressed bed while unwrapping himself. Frankly, it wasn't entirely graceful, but he left a trail of clothes like a guide for Stanley to follow to his prize, which he did. As Greg crawled backwards onto the bed, Stanley joined, pressing his torso into the rhino's paunchy gut as he engaged in the procreation of lust.

***

"This piece of shit? Really?" bemoaned a much thinner, younger, Greg. The rhino standing outside the car staring at the building in front of him didn't seem at all impressed, looking at the bar for sale. "You know, I hear squatters have been soiling this place for years now, right?"

Stanley stepped out of his old rusty Eldorado. "Yeah, so? Come on! Look past the problems, Greg. Just... hold on." The horse walked behind the rhino and placed his hands in front of his eyes. "Picture this. Refinish the exterior with diagonal cut wooden slats with a burgundy varnish, replace the roof, gutters, fix the doors and windows, and lastly hang a classic wooden sign from chains that says..."

"I don't see it." Greg replied bluntly.

"Oh, come on, Greg! You seriously don't see it?" Stanley grew frustrated.

"No, I don't! Because your hands are in front of my eyes!" A sly smile snaking onto his lips just as Greg receives a glancing shove to his back.

"Oh, shut up, you idiot." The horse was clearly unamused, averting his eyes from his friend in annoyance.

Greg turned around and grabbed Stanley's hands in his own. "I think it's a great idea and you seem to know exactly what you want, like always."

Stanley looked sternly into the rhino's eyes. "You're damn right I do. And I know you'll be a great dish, boy." A little smirk lightened up his mood as he stepped forward, turning Greg with him. "It's been a dream of mine to have a bar. Don't know why though, to be honest. Just. It feels like a calling."

Greg looked over at Stanley, catching the glint of passion in his eyes. It couldn't make the rhino happier to see his partner so jubilant. He nudged the draft's shoulder and replied with a grin, "Hey, I'll just do what I do best and make sure the idiots stay out, hm? Unless that idiot is my boyfriend." He teased, "But seriously, I'll do whatever I can to help you get this place going."

***

Stanley had been thinking about his past relationship with Greg before he'd gone to jail, while his nose was buried in the back of the rhino's neck. The two large males lay on top of the soiled bedding in a quiet embrace. Minutes tick by without a word save for the gentling breathing as they recover from their intense ride.

The draft horse wanted to ask. He wanted to know why. "I was going to write, Stanley." The silence was cut with a sledgehammer, but Stanley kept quiet. A sigh from Greg, "I thought you..." silence.

Greg sits up and looks down at the floor, the cheap patterns dancing before his eyes. "What is this, Stan?" A question not meant for an answer. "What am I, hm? Just a fuck toy?" Another pause, another lack of an answer.

Instead, Stanley sits up cross-legged in place. "Why didn't you write?" He was genuinely curious. He expected letters from Greg since day one in jail, but he got nothing. Not after a week, not after a year. After just 5 months, he didn't expect any letters. Until Bernard sent one the following month and each month thereafter.

Greg was silent.

Stanley moves to get up. "I'll just..."

"I thought you didn't want to talk to me." Stanley stopped at the edge of the bed opposite of Greg. "I... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have listened to Bernard and ju..."

"BERNARD?" The horse had stood up to look at Greg now, his manhood still loose, shirt now matted. "What the hell does Bernard have anything to do with this? What'd the fucker say?"

Greg never stopped gazing at the floor. He repeatedly clenched his fists to distract his growing apprehension. "Heh... It's stupid. I was stupid, Stan."

Losing his patience, Stanley walked around the end of the bed in a growing rage. "What. Did. He. Say?" He said as he approached Greg on his side of the bed. Greg gets up and faces the horse, not intimidated. He stared down at this horse many times before.

"He said you didn't want to talk to me after gettin' busted. Said it was my fault!" Greg didn't avert his gaze or give ground. And that's exactly what Stanley loved about him. He knew he was being honest. Greg only gave ground when he lied. He never could hold a lie.

Stanley, as calmly as his boiling anger would allow, asked, "Well? Was it your fault?" The two stood there for a moment as Greg carefully considered his words.

"I don't know." Greg finally submitted. The large hulking rhino slumping in defeat back onto the bed. "Bernard said... I'm not sure anymore." He sat there for a moment before looking back up towards Stanley. "I don't think so, Stan, at least not intentionally. That's the best I can give you."

Stanley's eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he tackled this new information in his alcohol infused synapses until finally he twisted around and threw on his pants, sans underwear. He did not care. Without another word, the horse left Greg there in the sex pungent room with the door slamming at his departure.

Alone. Greg felt so alone. The rhino finally lets the emotions truly release in a firestorm of anger and tears that only a rhino could exhibit. Getting up, turning and grabbing his mattress with a single large hand, tossing it aside, shattering the ceiling light, quickly followed up with flipping the frame up against the wall, heavy pants the only remaining action in the now still room. Greg stood motionless, like a monument of his own pain.

Chapter Five

Written by Modest the Jack

The next week swam past in a steady stream of liquor. Stanley poured over his troubles on the rocks until the hangover that pounded in his head harmonized with the sounds of construction from the bar above.

The workers had replaced the basement door with a huge, hinged barrier right out of some spy novel, and Stanley had thrown the bolt, locking himself away.

Bernard could pound all he wanted... Greg, too... Stanley couldn't bring himself to face them. At least, not for a while. He had to figure out what he was going to do first.

His cousin had faulted the rhino for getting Stanley locked up, but the big horse couldn't shake the feeling that no matter what his ex-lover had done, it was his own pride that was to blame. Rusty was the one who blazed that trail. The others only followed because he allowed their admiration to go unchecked. He should have known better, done better, for them, and his self, rather than lead them all into danger. Instead, his ego had grown so large, it had been all he could see.

Being back in the world was forcing him to face the role he played in the lives of those around him, and it was not good. Bernard had said it himself, "I left my studies for you. For this bar... " ... so casually confirming the very fear that Rusty had altered the course of his cousin's life irreparably, and for the worse. The councilors he'd seen in prison had told him it would be like this.

His negative influence continued on in Greg, who seemed to have not matured a single day while Stanley had been behind those bars. He'd often wondered how the rhino had moved on with his life, but after seven long years, Stanley had found him working practically the same job, bouncing the same streets. Living in a room above Lark's, of all places... hardly more to his name than a colorful collection of silicone dicks and kinky leather harnesses.

Stanley considered it all, while the afternoon sun sent lambent light across the brown stained glass of the now empty bottle in his hand. Eventually, his attention fell to the table underneath. His drunken mind reminisced about how good he'd had it... before prison. This table was the same one that had always been down there. Bernard had just done a good job of getting rid of any stains...

Stanley turned on his stool to face the rest of the room. He could see that Bernard had decorated it with care, but he could also imagine the old basement, exactly as it had been, and he couldn't deny that he missed those days terribly. They had been so glorious.

From where he sat, he could see himself in the large mirror that sat in the corner. The big Arabian horse stood up and, with some difficulty, placed himself squarely in front of that reflection. For the first time since he'd come home, he took stock of who he had become. Glorious, no more.

Stanley Smith looked pitiful. Shrunken, red eyes, and no plans for the future.

His body was fit, but prostrate. As if the spirit within the big horse had wilted, and no longer possessed the strength to remain upright. There was no gloss to his coat, or spark in his face. Rusty was the one who had all of that. Stanley was the thing that had crawled out of a 9 by 9 cell, and he had nothing... Confronting that change, face to face, was terrifying. He couldn't--he wouldn't--do it. Stanley wiped at his eyes, turned, and stumbled away.

A fresh bottle of booze sounded like the worst idea imaginable, but there was no other idea to take its place, and so he climbed the basement stairs, hand over hoof, on all fours, reaching the top, and freeing himself from that lonely place of memories.

When Stanley ?nally spilled out of the basement, he was shocked at what awaited him. The work on the bar had been completed. He hadn't even noticed that the noise of construction had ceased, and that his pounding head had carried him through his drunken trance. The floors had been sanded, polished, and refinished. Fresh paint coated the walls behind decorations. Everything was in its place.

His eyes tracked sloppily over the new furniture, light fixtures, signage, and... the bar. The bar had never looked better. His gaze followed the brass railings, skimmed the tap pulls, and came to rest at a figure that sat watching him back. Not his reflection, this time, but you could see the resemblance. Bernard's elbows rested on the bar top, and he was smiling.

After a long beat of watching each other, he held out a hand and gestured at the room.

"So..? What do you think?"

Stanley's voice was horse when he tried to answer.

"Bernard th... this is... I... don't know what to say." He shook his head, gently, as his eyes continued to roam.

"Say, thank you." Bernard said it happily. His tone was bright, but there was an edge to it that Stanley could hear through the fading haze of liquor.

"Thank you. Thank... your friends, too."

"Ah-ah... our friends. There's no way they'd have done all this for me, alone. Although, that certainly would have made it easier." Bernard's eyes rolled as he slipped off his stool and behind the counter. He pointed to a seat and gave Stanley the command to "Sit" while he fished out some pills for Stanley's head.

Once his bigger cousin was sat, awkwardly nursing a tall glass of water, Bernard reached back and gathered some papers from a pile that had been spread across the bar top. When he brought them over, he placed his hand over Stanley's, and spoke plainly.

"I love you, cousin, but I'm worried about you, and I need you to see these before you lock yourself away for another week." The look on Bernard's face was genuine, but his voice had the cut of someone about to deliver bad news. The papers were a mix of information, financial figures, and... a copy of the bar's deed.

"Stanley, it's not like I expected your time in prison to be easy... or that there wouldn't be problems we'd need to work through when you got home. I just didn't expect them to hit so fast or so hard. You're fucking me one day, and locking me out the next, and it's pretty frightening." Bernard gave his hand a squeeze, and returned to his own stack of papers, packing the rest of his things into a bag, while he continued.

"I got all those papers drawn up with the help of a lawyer. There's some appraisal information, some comparables... it's not really what I wanted, Stanley, but it's an offer I have to make to protect myself from whatever's happening with you." The small Arabian slung the case over his shoulder and made his way back around to stand beside his bigger cousin again.

"I won't tell you what to do. I'll support you, and love you, no matter what direction you want your new life to go in, but if you don't want this life, anymore," He paused to indicate the building, "... and you're thinking of doing something crazy, like selling this bar... at least sell it to me, ok?"

Stanley's eyes had grown wide, and his gaze flew over the papers... Sell the bar? He'd realized in an instant that it was the one thing he could do to kill Rusty forever. Bernard had just handed him the knife he could use to cut away his old life. Possibilities rushed through his head, while Bernard moved toward the door. When Stanley lifted his attention from the papers, and spoke, he stopped in his tracks.

"Why did you tell Greg not to write me in prison?" It was painful to ask. Such a harsh change of subject, but Stanley needed to know.

Bernard sighed heavily and gently pinched the bridge of his long nose. "Because Greg is the reason things went so wrong back then. If it hadn't been for him, those tax charges would have been reduced to maybe nothing, and maybe you wouldn't hav..."

"What do you mean, it was Greg's fault?" Stanley cut in, harshly. "I was the one cooking the books, I was the one running the brothel... Greg was the bouncer, Bernard, and more than that to me! He had been my partner for years. I just don't understand why you would have told him not to write me." Stanley was having difficulty keeping his emotions from taking control.

"Exactly!" Bernard rounded on Stanley and threw his case onto the bar top. "His one job was to keep out anyone that might cause trouble for us, and instead he gave an undercover cop the password to get into the basement, Stanley. Greg cracked everything wide open. Thank DOG we were all friends down there, and no one came forward against you. Do you understand that had a single person rolled on you... they could have put you away for so much?"

Stanley didn't remember all the details, but what Bernard was saying made sense.

For most of the night, the rhino's duties as bouncer meant being at the bar entrance, or just keeping an eye on the patrons to be sure nothing got out of hand. After-hours, he was the gatekeeper to the basement. The cop that made it down there got past Greg, and this was the first time Stanley had realized the full meaning behind that. Had Greg known what he was doing all those years ago?

The thought made him reel.

"I don't know, Bernard. I need time to think. I just... I wish you hadn't cut him off from me. When I went away, you were the only part of my life that followed me in. Now that I'm out, you want me to sell you the bar and walk away? Money in my pocket... easy as signing on the dotted line?" Stanley was still under the influence of all that whiskey. His emotions took hold of him, and he put too much power behind his next words.

"How can this be what you want? What about school? What about your own life? I just don't understand why, after seven years, you're still chasing my dream." Stanley knew he had said the wrong thing now that Bernard had stopped moving entirely. He braced himself for the explosion he was sure would come from the smaller stallion. Instead, he was met with icy calm.

"I think I'm ?nally starting to understand you... Stanley. Your ego is out of control." Bernard's face was red, even beneath his pale fur. The way he had hissed Stanley's name made his hackles bristle.

"I'm trying not to fuck up our lives all over again with that ego, Bernard." Stanley folded his arms across his chest in defiance, and leaned away from his cousin. He expected yelling, screaming, but the other horse kept his eyes calmly locked with his own. Stanley didn't have to wait long for Bernard to continue, but it was clear that he was reflecting on what he'd say next.

"No." The word was flat and contained more power than Stanley had ever heard in his cousin's voice.

"What you're doing is putting a wall between yourself and anyone that wants to help you. You're isolating yourself out of fear, when you could rely on the trust you worked so hard to build in everyone, back then..."--another gesture to the remodeled bar--"... and the trust you that you should have in me, especially. I left my studies to run this bar, to help you restart the career you dreamt of, because it beats the hell out of some mediocre, bullshit, 9-5 job in a downtown cubicle farm! You can abandon all of this to be just another zombie accountant, if you want, but I get a choice to make too! I get my own dream, Dog damn you, and I choose to live!"

They sat in silence for a moment, then. Bernard's posture cooled, and a pained look came over him as he sank down onto the chair next to Stanley. His anger evaporated, and his next words hit Stanley like a death blow. Straight to the heart.

"Please, don't sell this bar. Not to me, not to anyone. Don't kill yourself off and replace Rusty with... Stanley, the accountant? More like Stanley, the permanent prisoner." The big horse's breath jerked inside him, and his eyes immediately welled up with uncontrollable tears.

"Rusty, you don't realize what you've built here. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but the men that followed you down into that basement discovered something underneath you. You showed them every inch of themselves, on that bed, and in front of that camera. You gave them a place to celebrate their passions and connect with each other on a level they never imagined possible. You weren't making porn, you were making a family. It wasn't just sex. They--we--love you. You don't have to be alone anymore, now. So... now that you're home with us, where you belong... will you stay? Please, Rusty."

His words soothed Rusty's heart from the burn of loneliness it had endured for all of those years. They embraced in tears, arms locked around each other as they spent the rest of their tension, anger, and confusion. Finally reunited as a family after nearly a decade of separation.

Rusty was back. At last, the gears of industry, the fire of his spirit, awake and gathering itself. They had a lot of work ahead, but first they needed a tissue.

When horses cry, their long noses run terribly.

Chapter Six

Written by Whitewer

Waking up the next morning, taking an inventory of what the future was going to hold. There was going to be a lot Rusty had to consider if he was going to return to that phase of his life, and how to avoid making the same mistakes he had made before.

The bar was a good start, having had all the work to bring it back to its glory and being a respectable-looking place to actually get a drink. There had to be a better way to set up with where to have a place for his patrons to let off a bit of steam in the after hours. He couldn't use the basement anymore since that was now his home, and as fun as it sounded, the concept of having to clean up after everyone every night before going to bed wouldn't have that same allure.

Sitting at the bar, drinking water because he wanted to make sure his head was clear, Rusty was debating ideas of how to run things. Word of mouth had caused things to get a bit out of hand prior to him going to jail, and that wasn't a place he wanted to go back to.

"Fuck!" He suddenly had a brilliant idea. Why didn't he think of it before? Make it a special club that required you to be a member, avoid police getting nosy to the influx of people to the bar, or those deciding to hang out after hours.

Having private clubs wasn't an unheard thing, and could help offset some bills for cleaning, lubricant and other stuff for having fun.

Even thinking of kinds of fun that they would be able to get into was influencing him, he could feel that sheath getting heavy between his legs under his jeans. A quick one wouldn't really hurt, would it? No one was due to be in the bar for a few hours to discuss plans for how to proceed. Though Rusty decided it would be his best interest to probably sit on a bench, and not do it on a bar stool. Didn't need to fall off mid orgasm and risk knocking themselves out and have to explain that to people later.

Laying back on the bench, Rusty let his hand slowly stroke down his belly and along the growing bulge in his pants. It didn't take much to elicit a groan from his muzzle, squeezing through the fabric. Feeling his sheath react, twitching even as his cock slid free. A slight bit of moisture was already seeping through the material, fingers undoing his button and tugging down the zipper to avoid ruining his pants by staining them with pre-cum.

Upside of being a horse, once you got started didn't take much to get to full mast, but that was also a downside with the general size of equines. Rusty wrapped his fingers around his shaft, slowly stroking from the base upwards, brushing over the medial ring and stopping just underneath the unflared head at the top of his maleness. Each slow gesture elicited a groan from his parted lips, feeling his breath getting faster. It had been quite some time since he'd been able to pleasure himself or even get a proper rise, prison being a rough time.

The stallion's other hand sliding down to heft his heavy orbs, feeling their weight rolling them gently with his fingers. The pleasure slowly continued to build, more teasing himself than actually trying to get himself off currently.

Rusty's breathing was getting heavier, soft moans filling the air when his fingers brushed over the sensitive parts of his shaft. Pre-cum was now flowing rather freely, oozing down his shaft, and soaking into the thicker fur of his groin and over his balls.

Each stroke of his shaft just reminded him more and more how much he missed this. The pleasure, the excitement of knowing that he hadn't bothered to lock the door to the bar and someone could walk in. Each stroke doing more and more to push that essence of Stanley away, letting Rusty become more and more prominent. The pre-cum flowing freely from the head of his shaft, just swelling and flaring slightly.

Rusty grunted slightly, feeling the pleasure building, spreading his legs a bit more as he lay there on the bench, his cock at full mast. His hand stroking and squeezing his length with each upward motion, using the pre-cum oozing as lubricant. Nostrils flared and could smell the thick musk of his arousal and pre-cum in the air. There was already a slight tightening sensation in his sac, feeling those orbs beginning to pull up.

Flexing his rump, pushing himself up into his stroking hand, Randy wasn't even bothering with trying to slow down anymore, wanting to savor the feeling. He no longer cared if someone walked in on him with how his cock was twitching in his grip. If someone walked in, he'd tell them to get over and help him. Randy's eyes were closed, mouth hanging open as his hand pumped along his shaft, squeezing tighter. Several moments later, crying out as the waves of pleasure washed over him, the orgasm slamming into him as his cock sprayed over him.

If the smell before was strong, the cum jetting from the flared head of his shaft made the entire bar reek like his arousal. Randy hadn't bothered to take his shirt off, the hot seed soaking the fabric. It was warm and thick feeling through his thick dress shirt, part of him cursing internally at the folly. Fingers stroked and milked his shaft, coaxing more of that thick seed out and onto his chest and belly, making a rather colossal mess.

Taking a few moments, chest heaving from the exertion of climax after so long of not pleasuring themself. Randy let his fingers dip into the milky liquid coating his chest, muttering under his breath.

"Dammit, going to have to wash this shirt and myself here." Swirling his finger in one of the larger pools on his chest, bringing the digit to his lips. Sucking the viscous fluid from his finger, Stanley made a slight face. "Hmmm. Need to fix my diet, not the best taste."

Stanley sat up, looking at the mess he had made of his shirt and himself even as his shaft was softening and sliding back into its sheath. A slight shake to his head, standing up and realizing he was going to need a shower, a drink and air out the bar before anyone showed up because he didn't need the place reeking of cum.

It wasn't long before Stanley was back in the bar, with fresh clothes on that didn't reek of his cum from his little escapade. He took a sip of the bottle, feeling the warmth of the beer washing down his throat. A slight breeze blew through the bar with the windows open, barely any scent of his seed in the room now. His ears perked up, hearing the bell at the door with people coming in. Slowly rotating on the bar stool, Stanley's lips parted in a wide smile, greeting those showing up.

"Hello, gentlemen. I have some big plans and I'm going to need all of your help to make it a reality."

Chapter Seven

Written by S. K. Gwinne

He hadn't known what to expect from the meeting, but he wasn't sure the results were looking positive. Most of those who showed up were in different phases of life and had little more to offer than what they had already brought to the table. Half of them had helped refurbish the bar and were tapped or close enough to their limit. Those with means were hesitant to commit, shiny new bar or no, each conversation held the same tone of cautious reservation. It was a risky investment: they'd think about it.

"If I keep it," Stanley mused aloud, "I need more buy-in, and an old-school injection of cash."

"If you keep it?" Bernard repeated, turning from the backbar with a glass of lemon seltzer water, which he set on a coaster near Stanley's hand.

"I'm not selling," Stanley assured with a raised hand, "at least I don't want to, but..." he shook his head a little and fixed the younger stallion with a serious stare, "we have much farther to go with this place if it's ever going to be more than another dive bar in an under-trafficked part of town. We'll be back where we were a couple weeks ago in a few short years if we can't get the investment necessary to do more than put a fresh face on it."

"What's left though?" Bernard asked, crossing his arms.

"This is a fine bar," Stanley motioned around him, "but as an exclusive club, it leaves... well, everything to be desired. If I move out of the basement, at some point to free up space for expansion, I'll still need fresh ideas and way more work done to the place. People will want more than a decent drink and a crusty corner booth to awkwardly fuck in."

"I mean," Bernard muttered with a half-hearted shrug, "I guess."

"When we open those doors," Stanley continued, jabbing a thumb to his right, "and I mean really open them to draw in members, we need this place to be ready."

"I mean, it's really come together a lot already," Bernard observed, uncrossing his arms, and running a damp cloth dutifully over the bar's worn veneer, "don't you think?"

Stanley glanced around at the mix of freshly painted or polished wood surfaces, tarnished but no-less admirable fixtures in new settings, new and old furniture, and other accouterments. He grimaced at having thought through the use of a word he would never actually say out loud. It felt pretentious.

"It had nowhere to go but up, honestly," Stanley answered, returning a calculating gaze to the tall, fine colt behind the bar.

"Who doesn't like a home makeover?" Bernard offered with an innocent shrug.

"I asked you to watch after the place," Stanley grumbled, a gentle but notable rebuke.

"I believe your exact words were don't let the place burn down," Bernard corrected, adopting a poor mockery of Stanley's gruff and unforgiving tone when he replayed the instruction aloud. "And look," he gestured to the generous space the room held, "not a scorch mark in sight."

Stanley's eyes flicked left to rest his gaze upon a dark, blackened mark on the backbar's antique wood backstop. It had a teardrop shape, as if a candle or something else sporting an open flame had gotten too close for too long and nearly set the old wood ablaze. Bernard pursed his lips together and followed the direction of Stanley's stare, then turned again, sporting an uncertain grin.

"That was there before."

Stanley let out a heavy sigh, glancing left and right at their guests, many of whom had already trickled out into the early evening. "This renovation is nothing short of a miracle, but I promise you it won't have all been free. The bills will come in soon enough and we still have more to do."

He watched the unusually contemplative white stallion purse his lips and slowly nod, then survey the room.

"The party-meeting is fading," Bernard observed. "What are you gonna do?"

Not for once, Stanley didn't have an answer. He dunked the lemon slice in his seltzer water with one finger and watched the bubbles agitate. Solving this problem would require all his creativity.

***

She slipped in as the last "patron" slipped out, and immediately succumbed to the impressively revitalized bar. The last time she'd seen this place, it had housed as many spiders as it did ghosts, but there at the bar sat the most familiar ghost of all. Jessica shook her head at the horse, leaning over a clear drink in a whiskey glass.

"They said you were out." It was an observation, not an invitation. He turned to her with a partially open mouth and brows knit together in curiosity, and his eyes sparkled briefly with what she knew to be recognition.

"Jess," he said. Another observation.

"Still," she admitted.

"What are you doing here?" Stanley asked, then quickly narrowed his eyes in playful scrutiny. Or what passed for playful after seven jaded years in the clink, she guessed. "We're not actually hiring right now."

"This isn't exactly a business call," Jessica stated, swishing her dark red tail with each forward step, and tossing the ears that hung expertly at the sides of her chiseled canine facial features. She dropped her large purse on the bar and slid backward onto a stool. "We'll say this is a personal visit."

Stanley's eyebrows rose. "Well, I... I'm touched," he said, then gestured to the backroom. Her eyes settled suspiciously on the bizarrely large door. "We can have this conversation somewhere more private if you'd like?"

"Ugh, no," she scoffed, turning to fish around in her purse. "This isn't a conjugal visit."

"You say that like the idea is, somehow... repugnant," she heard Stanley grumble with insult, though his tone betrayed no actual hurt.

She swore at the dark recesses of the handbag when she couldn't find what she was looking for. "I thought we were pretty good at sex together, honestly."

She plucked a dented pack of cigarettes from underneath a thin scarf, then turned back to face the stallion, glancing briefly at his tall, white sidekick behind the counter. "That was business."

"I've never known anyone to enjoy 'business' like you did," Stanley commented idly, a thoughtful, far-off expression on his long face. She could almost see his thoughts and memories, feel the ghosts of his hands on her waist and the tautness of his youthful muscles sliding against her inner thighs. It was almost enough to awaken her. "You seem so disinterested for someone who came every time we fucked."

"Did I?" she asked dryly, and watched with passive disconnection as his smile faded... just a bit. She then realized she'd forgotten to dig out her lighter in the abyss of that damn bag and fixed the white one with a knowing stare. "Bernie, do you have a light or are you still on fire-probation?"

Bernard's eyes widened notably and Stanley cast an annoyed sideways glance that said, 'We'll talk about this later'. It was Stanley who plunged a hand into his own pocket and withdrew a lime-green plastic lighter, tossing it her way. She withdrew a cigarette and lit it, inhaling dutifully and breathing out through puckered lips.

"Anyway, is smoking still allowed here, or are you catering to the bougie bitches now?"

"Feel free," Stanley answered with a wave of his hand, then added, "we're still catering to whatever brand of bitch you are."

"Fantastic," she muttered, exhaling another puff of smoke.

"We still don't allow purses and other personal items on the bar, though," Bernard stated, an annoyed tone creeping into his voice.

Jessica narrowed her eyes and took a brief look at the long-ruined finish of the wood near her elbow, then glanced briefly at Stanley and back at Tall, Pale and Twinky.

"Are you afraid it might get scratched?" she asked with an undertone of playfulness. "Or that it might get, uh... burned?"

She felt a shock of pleasure when Bernard's eyes got wide again and noted Stanley's damning expression. The white "colt" upended the glass he'd been polishing and quickly dropped his washcloth on the counter.

"I'm gonna check the backroom!" he announced and hurriedly exited the bar area, disappearing behind stainless steel kitchen doors with a flourish of raised and flowing platinum tail hair.

"Can I get a beer?" Jessica asked.

"You just ran off my bartender," Stanley stated pointedly.

"Rusty," Jessica began hotly, waving her cigarette hand and depositing ash in the open air, "just get me something cold to drink, then sit your ass down and tell me what you're planning." She watched the surprise in his features--something she'd never been able to accomplish in the twelve-or-so years she'd known him. He looked somewhere between annoyed and entertained. "Please," she added, this time with some sensitivity.

The large stallion rose to his hooves and moved behind the bar, in no particular hurry, but he also wasn't being pointedly slow. He popped open a brown bottle and set it on a coaster in front of her, then came back around and reclaimed his seat.

She kept her peace while he explained. In typical "Rusty" fashion, it was ambitious... and risky. Given his intent to avoid any overtly illegal practices this time around, it meant significantly less flexibility. Opportunities were there, but hidden behind a wall of needs that only money could answer. But she found herself wrapped up in his charisma again, and she hated herself for it. She wanted his dream as much as he did; such was Rusty's charm. Whether he wanted to build something new or join his flesh with yours, he always had a way of delivering the idea in a way that made you want it, too. She had hoped to come here and find him diminished... and maybe he was different, but... it was still Rusty, and she still loved him for it.

***

He finished laying out his plan, and the difficulties he had already encountered. For a while they drank in silence, then lapsed into reminiscing about the past and talking about other things. He let her digest it. He knew her well enough and knew she would come back to the primary subject after she'd had some time to process it. They passed into a lull. Then she brought them back.

"A private club," she reiterated. "Like a... gay-ish... mid-west-American Moulin Rouge."

"Minus the musical number," Stanley provided patiently, pouring whiskey over his mostly melted remaining ice cube. "Probably a lot less dancing, but you never know."

"Anything goes?" she asked.

"Most things," he corrected.

"How unlike you to have standards," she joked with a wry grin. "Hm. You know, I expected you to hit the ground running when they let you out, but damn." She fixed him with a now- sensitive look and let out a slow sigh. "How are you holding up?"

He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I've spent most of my free time very drunk," he answered, "but I've managed to hook up with some exes and start a couple fights, so I haven't been totally unproductive." She nodded in understanding and crossed one leg over the other. "I trashed the place my first day back."

"I saw it last Spring," Jessica stated, letting out a thin cloud of smoke and then gesturing through it to the surrounding room, "before all this. I have a hard time imagining what was left to trash. You could have pinned a DNR to the door. I thought it was done for."

"It was touch-and-go," he admitted, "more go than touch, I guess." He pointed to her pack of cigarettes, and she casually flicked them a foot or two down the bar and into his hand. The lighter followed suit, and he bummed a smoke, exhaling a well-crafted ring into the air. "I'm leveling out, thanks mostly to Bernard."

"He's good people," she admitted with a tight smile. "You give him a hard time," he noted. She shrugged.

"I always wanted to sample his pretty, pink cock," she defended, then closed her eyes like someone remembering a near-perfect dessert. "So beautiful. But he never obliged me, so I pick on him to soothe my frustration."

"It's just for show anyway," Stanley stated.

"Now that you're back," she clarified. He decided not to pursue that. "Anyway, it's scary. I get that; coming back from the routine of prison to this. I went through some of that right after you went away," she offered, drumming trimmed claws on the bar and gulping down fizzy amber liquid. He watched the smooth, wet opening at the bottle's apex move over her lower lip like the attentive touch of a gentle lover.

"Oh?" he asked, pouring back the last of his whiskey.

"Fifty-seven hours of footage featuring yours truly in compromising sexual situations with a soon-to-be convicted felon found its way into a police evidence collection," Jessica explained, setting her beer on the bar. He gave her a look of disapproval. She rolled her eyes and made an exaggerated effort to move the sweating bottle to the cork coaster provided her. "Anyway, lost my job and my apartment, all your... well, our friends went to ground. I couldn't find much help or many opportunities that wouldn't immediately catapult me back into law enforcement scrutiny. I must have eaten fifty cents' worth of cheap noodles and dollar-store eggs every day for three months."

"Hm," Stanley grunted, mildly sympathetic. "Even prison food wasn't that bad."

"You're welcome, said the taxpayer," Jessica offered with a sloppy bow from her barstool. "A seven-year, all-expense-paid vacation for breaking the law. Living the dream."

"That's exactly what it felt like," Stanley said with loud sarcasm, a glint of furious warning in his eyes.

Jessica met his gaze in emotionless consistency, unwavering. She had driven him to anger intentionally, but not with any malice. It was her way. It had always been her way, and at one time he would have remembered that immediately. He let his expression soften and the corners of his mouth turned up into a small smile.

"There you are, Rusty," she said with fondness in her voice.

"There you are," he replied.

"Do you remember..." she began then, putting out her cigarette on a nearby ashtray, "what you told me? Back when we were still working together?"

He mulled it over. "Spread your legs wider?"

"Not that," she answered flatly with a quiet, unenthusiastic sigh.

"Your breasts aren't the same size?"

"Rusty!" she interrupted hotly.

"Fine!" He surrendered with a shrug and a chuckle.

"You told me," She began, recovering her composure, "that when we invest--whatever we invest--we need to make sure it prepares us for where we want to be in the future... not just now."

"Coincidentally," he said, "the private club is the future, and investment is how to get there."

"You also told me, 'Always be looking forward--if nothing else, so you don't get stuck looking back," she added. "Your old friends really came through, but a lot of them are on different paths. I saw Chuck leaving earlier; he's married now."

"Yeah," Stanley grumbled, "with three kids. Three."

"Take your own advice on this one," Jessica encouraged, and he had to admit her tone was encouraging. "You need to be looking for someone or something new to plug into to make this dream a reality." She paused and added, "I'm not rich, but I'll be one of your first investors. Maybe that'll grease the gears for those on the fence about it."

He blinked, skeptical. "You?" he asked.

"It won't be the half-a-mil you need," she confessed, "but for a promised... long-term return on my investment, charter club membership, you know... it'll get you started."

"Thanks," he offered honestly, "but why half a million?" The estimate seemed gratuitous, even by conservative estimates.

"While you were gone, I took the lessons you taught me and turned them into something," Jessica explained, grabbing her purse from the bar and sliding off the stool. "I'm building my own little empire, and in doing so, I managed to snag that crumbling dress shop that butts up to the bar."

"Wow," he remarked, remembering the long-neglected building separated from his by only a ten-foot alley. "Why though?"

"At the time, it made me feel close to a time in my past I remembered fondly," she admitted, taking a few steps forward and laying a gentle hand on his knee. "Now I think it might have been some kind of destiny. Or like... if destiny actually looks out for sex clubs and such. I don't know."

"Hm."

"If you want to make this dream a reality, you'll need room to expand, and that old shop is the floor-space you'll need," she provided, "so I'll make you a promise: You find the few real investors you need, and I'll give it to you."

Stanley felt his mouth fall partly open. Jessica quickly reached out and cupped his chin in her hand, then leaned forward and kissed his nose. He couldn't think of anything to say and watched her turn, making her way to the front of the bar.

"Wh- Hey, Jessi James," Stanley called out. The tall canine girl with kinky red hair and golden eyes turned at the door and waited. "Are you gonna come back?"

He let the implication hang and watched her turn halfway between him and the exit. She was contemplative and silent, and he wondered at her inner conversation. Finally, she gave him a sympathetic smile, one tinged with the faintest hint of concealed sadness.

"I'll send the check by mail," she answered quietly, opening the door. "Tell Bernie to keep an eye on his phone; people will start calling."

With that, she left. The door swung shut, and not for the first time, Stanley was left alone with his bar to dream of futures and the creative solutions to get them there.

Chapter Eight

Written by Fenrir

Bernard leaned over the bar as his cousin filled him in on the dress shop situation, his face a strange mix of excitement and worry as he thought about everything that still needed to be done.

"Great," mused the smaller horse,"so all we need to do is hope the phone rings with a magical mystery benefactor to solve all our problems. Not to mention a contractor to work on all the renovations and find all the equipment we'll need.

Rusty took a sip from his glass before setting it down and getting up from the bar. "Actually, I may know someone that can help with that. I think it's time I went to see our old friend Thatcher."

"Thatcher!? That creepy junkyard dog? I mean, I know we're a little desperate, but I don't think we're that desperate."

With a chuckle, Rusty headed towards the door,"Awww, I always thought he was sweet on you. I'll make sure to send your love."

"You better not!"

*********

The Scrap Heap was straight out of a horror movie. As Rusty made his way into the junkyard by moonlight, the stacks of cars towering over him seemed to sway ever so slightly, as if only moments from crashing down and crushing him beneath heaps of rubble. The gravel beneath his hooves crunched and echoed in the otherwise silent hellscape as he made his way to the large barn shaped building nearby. The moon cast strange shadows all around as it peaked through the piles of junk and twisted metal scattered between the monoliths of now discarded vehicles.

Occasionally, random creaks and groans of steel would make the horse flinch more than he liked to admit. With each step, Rusty slowly started hearing what sounded like a badly tuned radio station coming from the barn, and it grew louder, like a siren in the night as he continued. All in all, the walk from the front gate to the barn had only taken a few minutes, but it felt much longer, and he was glad to be done with it. Rusty decided he hated this place at night.

Walking up to the main building, the barn itself seemed likely to collapse from a small gust of wind, given the chance. As the Arabian opened the old wooden side door, the static and voices grew louder, while dim lighting could be seen from further in.

"Thatcher! You 'er man?"

The barn instantly opened as Rusty made his way inside. While it was still dim, he could make out chaotically placed stations with vehicles and other harder to place machines scattered about, some attached to what looked like makeshift generators made from car batteries and some very unsafe fire hazards throughout. The horse thought of his cousin and glimpsed the bar engulfed in flames before shaking it off and chuckling to himself.

With little warning, the radio died and a deep slow voice crawled out of the back corner of the barn, sending ice down Rusty's back and through his tail,"Come on in Rusty... been a while."

"Yea, I've been busy," scoffed the horse, making his way through to the back. "And from the looks of it, so have you..."

"A wolf needs his hobbies."

Sparks flew in every direction a short distance in front of the horse, illuminating a massive lanky wolf with goggles and a sadistic grin as he leaned over and ground down on whatever experiment he was working on at the time. After a short time, the wolf let up, setting down his grinder and removing the goggles from his head, revealing a nasty scar across his right eye where no fur grew.

The rest of Thatcher was highly unkempt as he stepped out from behind the worktable and a bit more into the light, exposing his dark, ash-gray coat. The shirt he wore, which was once white, was now any shade of brown and yellow, the holes and tears doing everything in their power to make the fabric finally give up and disintegrate into thread. His jeans were in only slightly better condition, but Rusty was pretty sure they hadn't seen soap in the better part of a year.

While the wolf looked mangy, and half starved, Rusty knew better. Thatcher was big and strong. He'd once seen him single-handedly move an engine from one car to another without so much as a pulley. Surprisingly though, other than the rough exterior, Rusty had always found the wolf pleasant to be around; if not a bit unnerving.

"So what brings you to my little corner of the world? I assume this isn't a social call... or did you miss my charming good looks?" The wolf grinned, revealing a menagerie of death and drool as the canine flopped back on to a nearby couch, dust escaping into the air as he waved for his old friend to sit across from him in a run down recliner.

Rusty shook his head as he sat down. "Always straight to business, huh? You really haven't changed at all, have you? I guess that's a good thing, though. As it turns out, I have a deal for you. I've started up the old bar, and we're doing everything above board this time. The problem is we're looking to convert an old dress shop into a stage and lounge area for members and we're fresh out of a construction crew... and supplies. Not to mention someone smart enough to pull off the rigging and mechanics we need for the space." For a moment, the wolf said nothing.

"So... you show up out of nowhere after years, asking for me to get a crew together to help you jumpstart a dead bar that may or may not succeed. What do we get out of it?" The wolf's expression was impossible to read, but Rusty had expected some pushback.

"For starters, you and the crew would get free Lifetime membership passes for the club. Everyone that helps will also get a cut of the profits for the first 3 months after we're fully operational. Anything after that would be purely from investments you make into the club."

Thatcher arched his brow and slowly scratched under his chin and down his neck, as if he were only slightly interested in the conversation at hand before looking across at the horse, "So you don't have an investor yet?"

But Rusty was ready for that too. "We do! We just need more funding, and already have meetings in the works, but with your help we can use that as leverage for the rest of the money we need."

Again, the wolf was silent for a time, and Rusty was starting to get annoyed. Yes, he needed the help, but if Thatcher thought he was going to beg for it, he was mistaken. They had known each other for a long time, and while they hadn't always gotten along, they had always managed to be civil. But Thatcher was right, it had been a long time.

Without warning, the massive wolf stood up as something behind the horse flashed and sparks flew out across the barn.

"Fuck it, let's do it."

At first, Rusty wasn't sure he had heard right as he stood up, eyes showing a bit of shock before he regained himself.

"Uh, Great! I'll be honest, that was easier than I thought it would be. I can get the official offer ready and send you the numbers in the next few days." Rusty reached out for a shake, which Thatcher returned, along with a chilling grin. The horse figured it was the best the wolf could pass for a smile.

"It'll be good work for my boys, and good to get out of here and work on a project, and I know they'll take full advantage of that membership." the wolf said as he moved back to his worktable and wrote a number on a scrap of paper, passing it to Rusty. "Call that number. They may be able to help with your money problem. Just mention my name and that'll get you in the door. They owe me a favor. After that, it's on you..."

"Thanks Thatcher," the horse nodded as he turned to leave. "I'll stay in touch." "Mmhmm, friends who need money usually do.."

And with that, the wolf replaced his goggles and went back to grinding.

Chapter Nine

Written by Siranor

Stanley thought the chill of the night would get to him once he stepped out of the wolf's hazardous scrap-shop, yet to his dismay, his trained physique endured the mild temperatures of the night far better than his mind did.

He really could've used the distraction.

As his hooves began to once again produce the comforting crunch of gravel with each step he took closer to the bar that put him on this unknown, mysterious, perhaps even dangerous path, he began fidgeting with the piece of paper. The omen, the curse, or perhaps, the veiled blessing carrying the phone number of a potential benefactor between his burly fingers.

He asked himself time and again... why?

Why did everything go so smoothly? Why was Thatcher so amiable to an ex-con's risky request?

Why was he, Stanley the straight-and-narrow, even hurling himself so readily back into a life he promised to leave behind during his time in prison, more than any number of asses he ever had?

It didn't feel right still, to walk in Rusty's old skin... to be called by that name by everyone he knew, or used to know. Was Rusty the provider of tits and cocks all that they saw in him?

Isolated in the complete loneliness of Thatcher's scrapyard, buried under the shadows cast by carcasses of cars stacked higher than two of him stacked together, Stanley could figure out an answer as much as he could figure out himself. All he knew was he never wished to mess up again. To end up... there. The hairs on his arms bristled once a throb of heat lanced its way across his shaft, an old echo answering the call of a most egregious memory that often broke through the bars he tried to put around his life in prison; that of another equine deep inside his ass and the spicy smell of foreign cocks wafting inside his nostrils with every struggling breath he took.

Friends who need money usually do stick around, Thatcher had said.

Indeed, favors had been a dangerous thing to ask for in prison. The more he went over that apparent jest of a line, the further Stanley split apart its many meanings. One stood above all. That nagging, knowing feeling the dog was talking too much from experience.

"Nghhh," Stanley took another quick look at the number scribbled there. He tried so hard to stay away from favors during his time inside. What was he doing now, indebting himself to a wolf who, by all accounts, still wore the scars of a murky past himself?

Rusty quickly crumpled the very source of his anxiety inside his fist. Better walk his own path. Yet... much as his reconstructed fair-man Stanley persona urged him to, he couldn't bear to throw a valuable asset aside without a second opinion though, so he thrust the unnerving piece of information inside his pocket and made his way back to the bar as hastily as he could.

"Bernard?" He asked after he stepped inside the darkness of the bar. The faint smell of smoke, rafted booze, and deafening silence greeted him instead of the white 's voice.

Swallowing the thought that something bad may have taken his cousin away, Stanley walked to pick the note left on the counter, the only dimly lit place in this quiet place. It told him what he expected. Bernard went chasing some leads of his own and he couldn't trust anyone else but Rusty with the keys to the place. The only pair, as the horse himself insisted on the note.

"Careful where I put these, huh?" Stanley chuckled as he pocketed the jangling keys in the closest pocket he found in his pants, next to the messed-up piece of paper. "As if any amateur thief wants to be copped in this place, of all places."

Memories resurfaced from the depths of his mind, filled with nostalgia, past wants, and regrets. Some were wanted. Others less so. Stanley dulled them both with a couple of sips from his favorite liquors. By the time he put the cork on the bottle, his penis throbbed in the same manner as his temples, filled with the lust spilled during the making of Rusty's latest and perhaps greatest production. Greg's gang, a four-part show filled with the very best of Rusty's trademark ideas: how to put the gentlest people in the nastiest situations.

Drunk on the heat of his lusts and alcohol, Stanley unceremoniously shuffled his way down to his bed. With his pants thrust down just enough to let his generous shaft escape into the squeezing grip of his palm, he began to rub himself to the very scenes he directed. Blood surged through his cock, hot as the fantasies pouring through his neglected imagination, until... he heard it again. That cool, honey-laced voice was as smooth as the thrusts that fed the most wondrous brand of heat inside his hungry ass-hole.

"Thaaat's it, hornboy, thaaaat's it. I can... feel how much you want this. Say it to me. Tell me you want to cum."

"Nnnhh..no."

"Really? Not even if... I do this?"

Rusty grimaced in pleasure as his benefactor's slightly smaller worked its flare along his prostate with wicked purpose. He stood tall and strong, while he, Rusty Knuckle, the boss of the bar, the naughty mind behind the hottest porn movies in town, the stallion that never spread his legs for any stranger with a cock smaller than his... huffed for more in sweat-drenched delirium. The vague memories of how he got there suddenly felt unimportant. What mattered now was the entrancing smell of the pre-cum drenched cocks hovering inches away from each of his nostrils, the hungry mouth sucking copiously on the rigid flare of his cock...

And the zebra's hot cum, warming the deepest reaches of his rectum. Rusty wanted it. Craved for it.

It no longer mattered that the zebra who fucked him bought his entrance inside with various threats, or that he had been restrained flat against the frame of his bed by not one but three of his 'assistants'. Much as he struggled to put up the most modicum amount of resistance, much as he yearned to show this silky rapist that Rusty was nobody's bitch, Stanley just wanted to cum.

He just. Wanted to cum.

"Nghhh...Nghhraaaaaahhh!" he squeezed his fist around his flaring head, erupting as hard into his hand in the present as he did back during his third month in lock-up. Milking himself quickly to the hot throbs of his fantasy, Stanley's picturesque mind distorted the reality of the situation. The bear that sucked on the tip of his cock hardly coped with the amount he had to swallow. His two other buddies, a wolf and a tiger, spat their own hot seed over Rusty's strained face.

And he, the boss, the zebra that forced his way inside him, felt wanted. Needed. His cock was too big and nice, his cum too hot and bountiful.

"Ohhhh yessss... that's it, my boy, thaaaaaaat's it, " he sucked in the smell of Rusty's own cum after his own fluids unlocked the chestnut's Arabian innermost passions.

"These delightful contractions... your grunts of submission... mfffff, there's nothing like making your partner cum with you..."

"No... no no no no."

Back in the present, Rusty bemoaned the fantasy that slithered into his thoughts many times when he craved for self-release. Just like the zebra had done back then, this modified, sensationalized perversion of the actual trauma he suffered penetrated his thoughts like a stallion's cock sinking inside a warm, eager ass, turning him into a shade of his former self. A pathetic beta male that climaxed at the tip of the cock of his betters.

That wasn't who he was. Who he wanted to be. Rusty had been a cock for the better part of his career, and Stanley may have been a pliable ass that bowed his head however much he needed to stay alive in prison...

But the free horse that walked out the gates of that wretched cum-hole of a prison could have been both... or neither.

Jumping out of his bed with cold sweat running down his we l toned abs and snakes of cum slithering like snakes down his thighs from his still dribbling cock, Stanley quickly put on whatever he had on hand and left to carve his own path, starting with Thatcher.

*

Twenty minutes later, when the moon still reigned high in the sky, Stanley strode back through the sparks and the acrid smell of the welded iron of Thatcher's scrap-shop.

"You're back soon." Thatcher paused his work, lifted his goggles, and gave his signature grin. "Haven't expected you for another couple of days. I assume a deal had been struck with my associate?"

His crooked smile immediately gave way to panic as a burly hand grabbed him by his mangy throat and thrust him against the very car he struggled to put together.

"Who is on the other end of this line?" the crumpled piece of paper found its way inches from the wolf's twitching nose.

"That... smells like... sehmeee-arrhhh! Just... just-"

The desperate tapping of his blunted claws on the stallion's iron-like arm yielded no results. "Tell me. THE ANSWER!"

"Jeez, Rusty, you can... dispense of the theatrics... Leggo... leg'go an' I swear I- l-"

Once the bare pads of his paws found safe purchase on the ground again, Thatcher rubbed his throat as if that could cure the grinding voice that now matched his mangy looks. "Fhhuk... what a mean grip y'have. We're pals... remember...?"

Pals right. Everyone who called himself such in prison turned out to be anything but. "Talk." Stanley shoved the paper in the wolf's face all over again.

"A-about the number? Or the smells attached to it? You know what semen does to my nose, Rusty. It's hardly fair to squeeze a wolf's throat for answers when his knot tightens in his sheath." Another step from the intimidating stallion immediately wiped the wolf's grin off his face.

"Ok, ok, no more theatrics, got it? Just... lemme grab a drink and I' l tell you."

After he wet his throat with several gulps of cola, Thatcher explained. "Lark. The number is Lark's. He bailed me out from a deal gone wrong with a loan I took to buy my first garage. After the shark burned off my property -and nearly myself with it- Lark... took care of things. He gave me this," he waved around his new property. "And..." his gaze sunk quickly. "He also gave a place of work for my boys. More like a prison of his own design. But choices were limited, and I'm no longer the stud I used to be. Had to pay him off somehow, yanno?"

"Hmpfff... Where's my place in all of your mess?"

"I'm getting to that." The wolf said. "Y'see, after your incarceration, Lark's become almost as proud as you were at the height of your career. He's always been envious of what you had. That's why he turned his nightclub into a pseudo-brothel himself."

"Pathetic."

"Yeah... it is. We only had one Rusty, yanno?" Stanley grunted.

"Anyway, the closer your freedom day approached, the more eager he became to assert his control over this dump of a town. Like a tumor he grew, Rusty, feeding on the demand you left behind. Reaching out to all the regulars you had, he hoped to... replace you completely. Some turned him down instantly, while others..."

"Were not so strong..." Stanley admitted.

Thatcher gulped the knot in his throat. "Few months back, or heck, could be last year for all I know. He started this exotic kinks business, where my boys--my literal BOYS--have been defiled by the weirdest kinks imaginable more times than I can count."

"And you were hoping what? For me to bail them out?"

Thatcher scratched his scruffy head. "Kinda... yeah..."

"Kinda?"

"Through a mutually advantageous agreement that will reinstate you as the owner of the most prestigious bar in town with none of the bad name attached to it. Or the... midnight activities."

"... which will become Lark's enterprise."

"Exactly," Thatcher said. "That big-cocked cunt is so obsessed with becoming the next you. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the street talk I heard is true."

"Hmm? Wha'd you mean?"

"Few days after your arrest, one of my boys swears he made out the same cop that brought it all down... in Lark's backyard."

"Any solid proof to back that up with?"

"Nothin' as solid as your cock has been when you decorated your breeches with those lovely spots..." the wolf pointed out at the uneven splotches marring Stanley's jeans, "but revenge isn't in the cards, here, righ'?"

"If Lark's guilty... then Greg's the unwilling victim."

"If he is, then he must be happy to play the role, seeing that he did nothing to distance himself from the hand that feeds him."

"Perhaps he's a prisoner. Same as your boys."

"Yeah, but violence isn't the way to do this, man. Just... leave the past in the past. Leave the business, the name, the hardships... leave it all behind. Throw Rusty back behind bars. Let Stanley run things for once. That was the plan, right?"

"That WAS the plan." Stanley turned around with a scowl so dark it would've risen all the furs on the wolf's body. Thatcher's advice was solid. There would be a time when he would leave 'all of it' behind.

But not before putting Rusty's name -and legacy- back in order.

Chapter 10

Written by Ta'kom Ironhoof

Though Rusty was filled with rage at the current situation, the seven years he had spent behind bars had taught him one precious skill: patience. Sure, he was a short fuse upon arriving back at his bar for the first little while, but Rusty merely chalked that up to the drastic change in his life, as well as, the emotional toil of being reminded of the life he once had.

Now his mind was laser-focused. He knew exactly what needed to happen and his plan revolved around the very person who had brought him down, inadvertently, to begin with; Greg. The tables had turned and Greg was now in a prime position to bring down Lark down in the same manner that Rusty was brought down. However, he wasn't just going to use Greg without his knowledge. His former lover deserved better. Greg deserved so much better. As soon as Rusty got back to the bar, he went downstairs and made the call that he's been avoiding since his last interaction with Greg.

The phone rang and with each ring; it felt like an eternity of anguish was welling up within. Rusty's mind wondered if the rhino would even pick up after the way things went down the other day. Just when Rusty was about to hang up, the ringing stopped and a silence emitted from the earpiece.

Hesitantly, Rusty spoke, "Greg? You there?"

The gruff tones of the rhino's voice cut through flat. "Yeah. Wasn't expecting to hear from you again."

It was a long conversation, but the two lovebirds patched things up between them, and Rusty convinced Greg of his plan. Greg even knew of a detective that had already been snooping around Lark's place. It would seem the pieces of Rusty's revenge were lining up perfectly.

"Listen Greg, I gotta get going, but we should... meet up sometime. Get some lunch, you know. Something more than sharing our beds with each other."

The rhino chuckled deeply before responding, "You know, for someone who ran a brothel, you've really got a softer side to you..."

"You can't judge a book by it's cover, Greg," the Arabian stallion laughed out.

"Sure Stanley. I'd really like that, but only if we call it a date. An actual date."

The two laughed and said their goodbyes.

After several weeks of preparation, Rusty and a small selection of people were ready to enact their plan. The board was set and the players, at least on Rusty's side, were ready to make their opening move. The group had gathered together for a round of drinks to signify the rebirth of Rusty Knuckle, the greatest brothel operator this town has ever known.

"CHEERS!" the entire crowd shouted as each down a tankard of beer. Bernard, Greg, Jessica, Thatcher, and his crew, all together to celebrate the start of a new chapter of Rusty's life.

"Come on, guys. You all have your missions. Now let's get out there and get this party started."

At his proclamation, Rusty stood up and made his way quickly to the door and threw it open. He confidently stepped through. However, fate had other plans for this confident leader. His hoof caught the lip of the door seal, causing him to lose balance. Time slowed, Rusty brought his arms up to brace his fall, and the world rose to greet the muzzle of the confident man attempting to move forward. And as the two forces, Rusty and the rest of the world, collided, time returned to normal speed, and the light was snuffed out.

With a jolt, Stanley bolted up, a string of drool still running from the edge of his muzzle to the top of the keyboard in front of him. The haze over his eyes blurred the spreadsheet on his computer monitor, now completely wrecked from the Arabian's arms laying on the keyboard for however many hours he had laid on it. Reality flooded into Stanley's ears and periphery, slowly at first, as the hazy of sleep washed away. Through the door of his office, Stanley could just faintly make out the sounds of his coworkers laboring away at whatever tasks they did that day. To his right, through the third-story window of his office, cars passed by and a small flock of pigeons fluttered at the sound of a honking horn. His mind, still in shock, couldn't quite perceive his reality.

Looking at the clock, the digital numbers shifted to 11:39am. He had gotten to the office at 7am this morning and must have fallen asleep at some point. But when? With the dream still fresh in his mind, he began trying to reconcile his wild imaginings with the four walls surrounding him like...

"A prison..." murmured Stanley, quietly, aloud to himself.

Suddenly, his powers of comparative analysis kicked in as his mind began drawing tenuous parallels between his life and this dream existence that he was maddeningly ripped away from.

• The husky and crow: two of his coworkers, one the hyper mail clerk and the other the receptionist, that coldly greeted him every day.

• Jennifer: the lady at the coffee cart across the street that he saw daily, who always had a smoke going when he arrived.

• Thatcher: the wolf mechanic that had overcharged him to fix his car last week and his crew that laughed at him when Stanley tried to make a fuss before Stanley slinked away.

• Greg: the cute yet intimidating security guard down in the lobby.

Then there was Bernard, his actual cousin. They weren't that far apart in age and, now that his faculties had come back to him, he was about to go off to college after taking a few years off after high school. He was about to start down the same road that Stanley was currently on. Bernard wanted to be an accountant, just like his cousin Stanley; a life of abject boredom and tediousness.

The realization slapped Stanley like a baseball through a window, shattering his well structured and boring existence. It dawned on Stanley that the reason Bernard was following in his footsteps was that he looked up to him. It then dawned on Stanley that his life was miserable to the core.

Stanley had always taken the safe route, had always avoided any kind of conflict, and had always kept to himself. In his 27 years alive, he had never once taken a partner to bed. The closest he had gotten was his, to him, shameful collection of pornography, saved and alphabetized by kink and title. Stanley had even encrypted the folder and had it hidden, even though it was vanilla by most standards. That was his one shame, and it wasn't even a good one.

"But, in my dream, I was Rusty Knuckle..." he whispered to himself. In the dream, he was an outgoing, determined, sex machine of a stallion that was admired by everyone around him. And he got busted on, of all things, tax fraud. In his waking reality, that was his job for the government, a data analyst for the Department of Revenue. It was as if this dream version of himself was a mirror image of the stallion he was now. And he had been given a glimpse of what could be, a vision of a life far removed from the endless cycle of wake-up, work, and sleep.

Stanley's mind was frozen by the musings that continued to churn endlessly in his head when the phone broke the icy stranglehold on his perception. The ringing was almost deafening when compared to the relative silence that his office provided, thoroughly shaking Stanley out of his stupor. With a click, Stanley answered his cell phone.

"Hello, this is Stanley speaking."

"Hey! Stanley, it's Bernard! Just wanted to call to see if you were still coming to the party tonight. Already got plenty of booze, so don't worry about bringing anything."

Stanley had to think for a second, then he realized. Bernard's birthday is today, and he promised his cousin he'd celebrate with him. Stanley missed Bernard's high school graduation because he had to work overtime. Bernard was the closest thing he had to a brother, and vice versa.

"Yo! Dude, you still there?" Bernard questioned as Stanley hesitated to reply while deep in thought.

"Yeah, no, of course. I'll be there. I promise," said Stanley.

"Awesome, man! I can't wait to get shitfaced with you. It's going to be lit," Bernard cheered.

Stanley paused for a moment before saying, "Listen, Bernard. We need to have a chat. I've been... thinking of a... business venture..."

"Yeah? What you got in mind? Lay it on me." Bernard replied enthusiastically.

Steeling his nerves, Stanley continued, "Well, I want to be upfront with you. I think it'll up end both of our lives. I'd hate to see you stuck with the boring life that I've now found myself in. I... I need to escape Bernard. If you follow in my footsteps, you'll be just as miserable as I am."

"Boy, you sure know how to bring down the mood. I was all excited for tonight's party, but now..."

Stanley interrupted, "No need to let it bring you down. As a matter of fact, I'm on my way to your place right now so we can talk more about my plans."

Cheering up once again, Bernard replied, "Oh dude, won't you get in trouble for leaving work early?"

"Don't you worry about that. I'll be just fine. Everything will work out just fine here at the office," the older stallion assured his cousin.

"Alright, my dude. See you in a little while."

At that, the conversation was over and Stanely's resolve was as sure as it had ever been at anything before. Before standing up, he collected all of his things and stuffed them into his messenger bag before slinging it over his shoulder. And as he stood up, he was instantly reminded of the load of jizz that had been resting in his trousers. Stanley looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and breathed a sigh. Before the coming embarrassment, he resolved himself to continuing on what he had to do. The glob of stallion splooge continued to run down his leg, slowly making its way to escape it's linen prison as he opened his office door and made his way out.

Nobody said a word or even looked at him as he made his way to the elevators. Nobody questioned him at all until he arrived at the receptionist's desk at the front door. She alone was the only person to stop him.

Linda, the Crow receptionist, had greeted him every day when he arrived and bid him a farewell since he joined the department and being that now the routine was being disturbed, a quizzical expression came over her face.

"Mr. Smith, heading out early?" Linda spoke as the Crow's blue-black feathers reflected the ceiling light in matte fashion.

"No, Linda. I'm leaving... for good. I can't do this anymore."

Her eyes widened and her face became deadpan. "You're serious?! But Mr. Smith, what will you do now?"

Stanley stared at her for a minute before a huge grin spread across his face. He leaned in close and confidently said, "Well, Linda, I think I'm going to become a porn star or open a bar. Hell! Maybe both." He threw his head back in let out a mighty laugh. This sudden confidence that Stanley had formed was such a good feeling, he could feel his pants tightening from the excitement.

Linda stared at Stanely's face as he laugh. When she looked down, she then noticed the wet stain in his trouser's and the now growing girth of the stallions erection. She stammered, "I... you... I don't know what to say, Mr. Smith."

"Nothing, Linda. Don't say anything," he replied as he pulled out his keycard and dropped it in front of her. "Just be on the lookout for Rusty Knuckle if you're into that sort of thing."

Without another word, Mr. Stanley Smith left the prison that had held him. And as he reached the bus stop, he heard a scream from the building.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT TRAIL AND WHITE GLOB?!" an unknown voice shouted.

"IT'S... JIZZ!" Stanley heard Greg scream loudly.

Stanley had already made his mark, and he wasn't about to let anything stop him now. He was determined to stop living a life of obscurity and be the stallion that he knew, deep down, that he could be; Rusty Knuckle, entrepreneur, bar owner, and sex symbol for the masses.

The End