unfinished story: La baise de l'hiver et le rentier

“P-Please, Mister Gerald, one more wee-”

The greying old man licks his fingertips, and swipes one bill out of his other hand. “One hundred…”

“J-Just one more wee-”

“Two hundred… C’mon Rarity, you told me you used to manage three boutiques. Surely you can help the elderly count some bills, right?”

“I…”

He swipes another bill out of his hand and puts it on top of the other, in silence.

“That’s just…”

“Hmm?”

Rarity, shaking, sniffles and tries her best to wear a smiling mask.

“That is just three hundred, Mister Gerald.”

He swipes another bill.

“Four hundred.”

He swipes another.

“Five hundred."

He swipes.

"Six hundred…”

Swipes

“Seven… eight, nine, ten, eleven.”

Now having emptied his hand, he grabs another pile of bills, before licking his fingers once more, then, he swipes them.

Knowing the outcome already, she valiantly keeps her facade. ”1120, 1140, 1160, 1180, 1190, 1200, 1210…”

Her voice cracks.

“1220, 1225, 1230…*hic* J-Just another-”

Seeing him raise his brows was more than enough for her to understand the futility of her plea.

“N-Never mind…”

“So, Miss Rarity, where were we at again?”

“One thousand *hic* two hundred and *hic* thirty…”

“And I have 35 bucks left in my hand, if we add everything up, how much money is it?”

“One thous-”

“Not. Enough. That’s what it is Rarity.” Cuts the annuitant, firmly putting down the creased bills on the pile, with his palm.

“I-I’m so sorry, J-Just let me have another week, I beg of you, I-I swear I’ll have the rest next week!”

"So you think it's all about the money, hun?"

"H-Hun?"

Gerald folds his arms and leans back on his chair. "Rarity, you are one of the most responsible person I know. So I understand that it is not because you don't take your job, or me, seriously, that you can’t pay up on time..."

He pushes his glasses up his nose and frowns. "What you don't take seriously is reality."

"W-what?"

He sneers. “Do you know what the average rent price in Vancouver was last year? It was fucking 3525 dollars. Luckily for you, tenants, the price dropped by nearly half since then! But the average includes the overpriced luxurious apartments, and shit holes. You have a room that’s so small it’s a wonder you can even live with your sister AND still try to make dresses, so I'll let you guess which extremes you are closest to.

“Not only are you struggling less than the previous tenants, but you're also doing something that hardly lucrative! AND you're still holding on to that dream of becoming a great designer once more!”

“But!”

“YOU are the only one responsible for not being able to pay the rent, Rarity.”

He was right. What else could she do but powerlessly cry, with her eyes closed, standing in his office, which was at the highest floor of the apartment.

Meanwhile, he turned his gaze to the window, while clenching his fists under the desk.

 

“Rarity, face the reality. No matter how beautiful or fancy, or cheap your dresses are, none of whom would consider buying from a no-name dressmaker, even less a pony, and even less a mare, can afford them.”

“Those who do, already buy from them. And forget about being hired by one. Even if you were able to transform into a human, you'd need months of socialisation to act like a human and weeks to be able to use our limbs correctly, without it creating suspicion. Worse, if you do that, my head will roll, and I ain't even sure if it's merely figuratively, or not.”

He takes out a handkerchief, blows his nose, throws the dirty tissue in the trash, then, rubs his hands together to warm them.

“Be honest with me, Rarity, how many outfits have you made and sold that were dresses?

She lowers her gaze...

“How many outfits for the sex industry, then?”

“…”

“That’s right... Nowadays, if you want to make quick cash, you have to sell sex. Now I know you’re desperately trying, by all means, to never put hoof into prostitution ever again, but look at yourself, Rarity, and face reality. You don’t even have the skin to be called a bag of bones, and your sister is barely in a better shape.

Not only can you no longer avoid prostitution, but you can't go back either now that you’re so unattractive, even the blinds won’t look at you!”

“Oh, please! I know humans aren’t used to seeing Ponies, but let me tell you something,” retorts Rarity, lifting her head, outraged. “Your round and plump horses that you call *ponies* are actually obèse! And although I concede that I have lost quite a bit of weight, it is not nearly enough for me to become undesirable! I still have my charisma!”

"..."

"Woat?"

“I can smell you from here…”

Rarity gasps, shocked, right hoof raised in the air. Then, with a stomp, she bursts into anger.

“Well, if only you hadn’t raised the cost of running water so much, maybe I wouldn’t be-”

The renter frowns deeply.

“Wait. What!?”

Shrinking, Rarity’s ears fold backward and she takes a few steps back...

Gerald was known for his grumpy grumbling and his cantankerousness, but whenever he would frown, you knew someone had stepped on a landmine.

In less than 5 minutes, he had frowned at her not only once, but twice.

“I-I mean, the cost of water has-”

“Not changed ever since I bought this building.”

“But… the pipe that froze and broke…?”

“Wasn’t connected to this building in any way. Ever since the temperature started to drop drastically, I sold all the apartments that were connected to major pipes I had, at a discount, and bought as many apartments that weren’t as I could EXACTLY to avoid that,” Says the man, poking the desk with his right finger on *exactly*.

“In any case, even without using water, you don’t have enough money to pay the rent.” Dismissively waves the man, opening his accounting book and looking through it, having a hunch of why she thought the pipe might affect the rent. By doing so, he didn’t notice Rarity pinching her lips.

She had to think of something, and quick!

“Y-You know, there are other ways in which I could-”

Cutting her once again, the old man writes himself a few notes in his book. “Seventh.”

“What?”

He closes his book and looks at her, deadpan. “You’re the seventh Pony that has asked me favors in exchange of sex, and the fifth mare to boot, the third one who had any experience in prostitution and… yeah, the fourth one that wasn’t drunk, in heat, mindbroken or abusing drogues. You don’t even want to know how many humans offered me that. No, but seriously, if I’m asking money, it is not because I’m greedy, it’s because I TOO have things to pay.”

He throws his arms up in the air. “No but seriously. If everyone were to put genitals of the one higher up in hierarchy in their mouth, and paid nothing, the entire society would crumble for crying out loud!”

Titterring, he scratches his beard, looking away. “Although there’d be a bunch that’d be happy about that.”

“...”

“In any case, the only reason I would accept this from you, would be because that you’d so thin and poor to the point that I’ll think you should seriously consider semen as a source of nutrients.”

“…”

Rarity’s eyes remains wide open for a few moments, too shocked to answer.

Eventually, she looks down to her left and titters. Other than getting money from it, that was the second reason she was thinking of going back to prostitution. She's been starving for weeks prior. The price of food was just so high... No, it is merely because ponies have to eat much more food than humans that food is extremely problematic.

Nevertheless, having her second reason rubbed in her face as such was quite unpleasant, to say the least. “You truly are a despicable man Gerald…”

“Should I have crushed your last hope with more compassion? Sorry girl, but generosity is nice and all, however, you need to have something to give first! And the only thing I have in abundance is cold. Harsh. Reality, and you're in dire need of it.”

“Is… Is it that…”

Rarity doesn’t finish her sentence, However, he is pretty sure the word ‘nutrition’ was involved. He also takes a good look at the Pony in front of him. Gaunt with sunken eyelids, yet it seemed as if her eyes were bulging. Her hair was also dry and curly, and it wasn’t due to her usual curly style.

In the light of such premises, he reaches a conclusion, whispering to himself and pulling his very long beard. “Underfed and malnourished…”

Yeah, if he wants to help her, there was but one thing he could do.

 

 

He changes his tone to a friendlier one, pushes himself away from his desk and waves her to approach. “Rarity, come here for a second.”

Slowly lifting her head, she nods and begins to cry again. She slogs toward him, resigned to what's to come. She goes around his desk, stops in front of and looks at him to confirm whether or not he was willing to…

He pulls a drawer and takes out some fruit peels, mostly oranges, but also lemons. Confused, she looks at him and blinks twice.

“Alright, Rarity. If you’re desperate enough to actually suck an old man’s dick to feed yourself, then it’s time for you to learn how the poor get by. You’d be surprised at how much food humans waste because we think it’s inedible.”

To emphasize his point, he throws a small piece of orange peel in his mouth and chews it.

“B-B-B-But where did you found oranges and lemons and…”

Smiling, the old renter rubs her mane affectionately and swallows.

“I might not suck my boss’s dick, but I sure do pilfer his garbage. The art of foraging for urban food is called freeganism.”

“I…”

“Look Rarity, you owe me money, and I’m going to get it, that, you can be sure of it. I’m not going to accept even one dollar less, however, I am willing to help you however I can to make sure I do get the cash. The price of food keeps rising and eats most of our budget, that and the terrible winter we’re having increasing the price of heating. There’re only 3 ways, I think, you will be able to pay me before I kick you out, which is pretty much next month by the way. You do freeganism, you start to sell winter clothes or you whore yourself. You could do all of them and get a whole lot of money, but you’d have to swallow your pride and change, and that’s probably not what’s going to happen. So here, take the orange and lemon peel, I’ll keep the rest.”

“That’s… Why I can’t thank you enough Gerald!”

Smiling, the old man gets glomped by a Pony, even though it is making him uncomfortable. He’s not used to deal with emotions, especially when there’s a girl crying and overflowing with joy in his arms, thanking him over and over again; relieved of not being evicted, tremendously happy at seeing hope for the future, but mostly delighted at the idea of having something to share and eat with her sister.

Such is the fate of indentured slaves, neither truly free, neither truly enslaved; simply poor and miserable.

“N-Now, don’t get ahead of you, you still owe me money. Buuuut, if you’re really starving, well, let’s just say I’m very nutritious.”

Surprised, she alternates between titters and pauses. “Fourth.”

“Hun?”

“You are the fourth human to tell me to swallow. And you don’t even want to think how many ponies asked me…”

“Let me guess, I’m the first one you said no to?”

Smirking, she gets off him; lift the peels with her horn and saunters toward the door. Leaving him unsure if she was doing it suggestively or not. He's pretty sure pony hips usually don't swing that much.

“Oh, I never said that now, did I?”

Smirking, the old man chuckles, but…

“Rarity…”

“Hmm?” Said the unicorn, looking back at him just to see his deadpan face.

“Sorry to sour the mood like that but, freeganism is originally how I get by. Don’t be generous about this info, okay? I don’t want… more competition than I can handle. I… really want to avoid being truly despicable.”

Taken aback by the gravity of the threat, she opens her mouth, before closing it and nodding. “Y-Yeah, and, thank you for everything, I really appreciate it.”

Nodding, the old man waits for her to disappear in the corridor before replacing his boner in his jeans. The man inside of him regrets having missed, yet again, an opportunity to have a blowjob, especially a pony’s. Many are praising their tongues… but he knows he did the right thing. Unfortunately, the hard part had yet to come.

Inside his book, he wrote something. A reminder to buy: a pair of pincers, cotton balls and how Twilight Sparkle is too verbose about accounting.

******************************************************************************************************************************************

"Rainbow Dash, open up!"

"Go to Tartarus!"

"It's me, Gerald."

"..."

"..."

"T-The rent is due for Thursday and... And today is not Thursday!"

"Can you tell the clock?"

"Y-Yeah... Today is not Thursday, clock!"

the old man grumbles in his beard. "It's not even 7:00 and she's drunk. Or maybe she didn't even go to bed last night..."

"Hey, you still here?"

"Yeah...?"

"Then go away already!"

"I got some mail for you."

"Don't want it..."

"It's from Equestria."

"Wonderbolts?"

"Hun, no. Bow Hothoof, Windy Whistles and-"

"Don't want it."

"And Scootaloo. Now I don't know what's-"

"I SAID-oh feath-bleur-gh"

She retches and he distinctively hears it falling on the wooden floor. "Marvelous..."

"Aw man, my uniform..."

"By the way, your boss called me yesterday, he told me you weren't just late, you were drunk!"

"Yeah, and?"

"T-That's UNACCEPTABLE!"

"Bite me!"

Addled, the old man crosses his arms, smirks and shakes his head, "Ah, youth..." however he couldn't just let a slave run its mouth like that, especially not an indentured slave. He had to put her back in place, and he knows just how.

He takes his keyring, unlocks the door and takes out his phone. As soon as the door opens, he takes several pictures of her sorry condition.

"Look at yourself Rainbow Dash, sitting at the foot of your bed with puke around the mouth, beer or cider or whatever bottles scattered in the room. You're pathetic."

"Erase the pics..." She says, hiding her face from the corridor's light with her wings.

He puts his keys in his pockets. "And I know you're the one dropping syringes and bottles of pills in the trash bin outside."

"Erase. The. Pics!"

He puts his phone between his belt and his shirt, recording her. "Let me guess, the rent's money went in your blood, right?"

"SHUT UP!" Shouts Rainbow Dash, cupping the bottom of a bottle of beer in her right hoof before launching it at him. Expecting it, he grabs it, looks at it, and identifies it as apple cider.

"Do you know what you just did, Rainbow Dash?"

"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE HAY UP YOU FEATHERING SLAVER!"

He drops the bottle of alcohol on the floor, tilts his head back, eyes wide open and spits two short and harsh words, "Oh really!?" he walks toward her at a rapid pace, putting his phone back into his pockets, glaring at her. "I'm going to tell you what you just did."

He clenches his fists and screams at the top of his lungs. "YOU ATTACKED YOUR MASTER!"

"I... No..."

He crouches above her legs and shouts at her. "YOU SHOUTED AT HIM, AND YOU EVEN TOLD HIM TO SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Folding her ears behind, leaning back as much as she could, she can clearly see his face up close. Showing his teeth, crinkling his nose, Eyes wide open and brows raised. He's stark raving mad! She didn't know if it was the booze or the lack of sleep, but for the first time since she became a slave, she feared a man. She did dread the idea of them taking her wings, raping her or worse, glue factories, breeding farms or drugging her until she broke, like any other slaves, but she knew that they wouldn't dare to hurt too much Rainbow Dash the Wonderbolt, the heroine of Equestria, the element of loyalty.

That man, however, couldn't care less about her status. He only wanted mutual respect and the rent.

And now, she had neither.

"IS THAT THE GAME YOU WANT TO PLAY RAINBOW DASH, THE MARTYR SLAVE AND THE TYRANNICAL MASTER?! HUN!?"

His voice amplified her headache and the sight of his face scared her. Unable to deal with both, she looks away."N-NO!"

"OH REALLY NOW? THEN WHAT'S THIS?" He yells, putting two fingers under her collar, tugging on it, "AND THIS?!" he shoves the bottle of cider in her face, "AND WHAT'S THAT?!" he points the several bottles of pills on her nightstand, along with syringes and unidentified powders in plastic bags.

Unable to think, too terrified to think, she clutches on the only thing she managed to think of.

"I-I'M SORRY OKAY? I'M SO-O-O-RYYYY!"

He grabs her chin and forces her to face him. Glaring at her eyes, in silence, breathing by the nose, he willingly lets her stew in her anxiety.

"No Rainbow Dash," He whispers to her, slowly. "you're not sorry. You're sorry when you walk on someone's foot, or hoof if your case. You're sorry when you bump into someone. You're sorry when you make a mistake unwillingly. When you make mistakes that you knew you shouldn't do, but you did them anyway, you regret, and even then, no, Rainbow Dash, what you're feeling right now isn't regret, it's apprehension. It's fear." He gently taps her right cheek twice, smiling. "And it's good because that's how you play the martyred slave... But it's not fair if you're the only one having fun, isn't it?"

He gets up and unbuckles his belt and smacks it into his palm, looking for a suitable location to punish her. She is most likely going to puke again, so somewhere she could lean on and puke in the garbage can would be most appropriate.

He ends up shoving everything off the nightstand before pointing it to her. "Here, bend over on it."

"P-Please, Ger-"

He cuts her with a low pitch, "HEY!"

Sobbing, she doesn't move. She only shakes and looks at him.

"Your punishment begins once you're on the nightstand, but nothing prevents me from flogging you before then. So you can either accept the fact you're going to be punished, cooperate and receive the smallest punishment you can get, or you can be the uncooperative bitch that really gets it."

He looks around the room and finds the garbage can. Inside there are several unopened letters similar the one he had received by mistake.

He grabs them, furious Rainbow Dash would say, saddened would say anyone sobber.

"Oh, now Rainbow Dash... You have ten seconds to move your haunches and get on the nightstand, or else I'm going to really enjoy your punishment, as a tyrannical master, of course."

"..."

"ONE!"

Shocked by the realization of how much in danger she is, she tries to get up, helping herself on the bed.

"Two."

She can't lift herself unless she turns around!

"Three."

She clumsily rotates her trunk and pushes herself up with her right foreleg.

"Four."

She puts one hindleg down and gags.

"Five."

Realizing she wouldn't make it, she flaps her wings.

"Six."

She has all her legs on the floor and she stabilizes herself with her wings.

"Seven."

She clumsily zigzags toward the nightstand.

"Height."

She slips and nearly falls, but her wings save her.

"Nine."

The sudden movement to get her balance back wasn't appreciated by her stomach. He kicks the bucket in front of her and she retches a brownish bubbly liquid in it.

"Ten."

Biting his lips, he raises the belt and smacks her back. She tries to yowl but a second wave of puke makes its way out of her stomach, producing a disgusting guttural sound of retching and screaming.

The belt hits her back again. She nearly falls on the ground. Deaf to her pleas to stop, blind to her face which had tears going down her cheeks and puke coming out of her nose and mouth, he strikes her right flank. She gasps in pain and breaths in some of her vomit, making her choke.

Slowing down his assault, he strikes the right side of her barrel. She bends sideways, more out of pain than out of the impact. He allows her to lean against his right leg. After taking the garbage can and putting it on the other side of the nightstand, he crosses his arms.

"C'mon bitch, your punishment hasn't even started yet."

The glare she sends him is very troublesome. It might have been caused by booze, but it only takes the self-restraints away. That glare was all the hatred she had toward slavery mixed with a lack of fear. And it was that lack that was troublesome. She isn't afraid of him even when he *blows a fuse*, so how could he have some kind of insurance, some kind of lever against her in case of emergencies?

He couldn't. That is why, in response to the glare, he swats her face with the belt. She falls down, screaming in pain, closing her eyes. He winces and closes his own, before re-opening them again, filled with determination. It's a role he's playing right now. He has to show her how far he is ready to go. That Gerald isn't the kind of guy to disrespect.

That in this moment, Gerald is half god and half devil, and that she was the only one to blame for having to deal with a devil.

"WHAT WAS THAT LOOK? YOU ARE GLARING AT ME, YOUR MASTER? I'LL TEACH YOU, UNGRATEFUL BRAT, HOW TO RESPECT YOUR MASTER!"

He raises his arm and strikes her head, she screams in pain. He raises his arm and strikes her flank, she yowls her suffering. He raises his arm and strikes her barrel, she insults him.

He raises his arm and beats her mercilessly for several minutes, filling the apartment with yowls, insults and the sound of a belt hitting a slave. When she, finally, stopped insulting him and started to beg for him to stop, when he had finally broken through her defense, he only switched the belt in the other hand. A slave should be aware of how harsh a punishment his or her master can inflict, and fear it, but a slave should never ask for her punishment to stop. It shall stop when the master has decided as such.

Every tenant that was currently in their room heard the whole scene. Granny Smith kept knitting in silence, relieved, deeply, that her granddaughter wasn't here to hear it, pump herself and confront him. Rarity tried her best to sew straight lines, to cover up the sound as much as she could, holding her sister tight. Fluttershy actually left the building and hid somewhere, until one of the apartment's rat told her that it was done. Pinky Pie cried in silence, her face buried in her pillow, holding other pillows against her ears. Twilight, however, couldn't bear it and teleported herself in the room.

"Ahh... Ahh... Ahh..."

It smelled of blood, puke, alcohol, and sweat, in order of priority.

"Don't you think it is enough, Gerald?" She snarks.

He grits his teeth. This wasn't a bad cop good cop scenario. If her friend comes to her help, she won't associate the end of her punishment with her master's whim. However, if he keeps going to prove that point, she might hate her friend, or her master more.

He turns toward her, bloodied, water running down his face, unbeknownst to him, but that which Twilight alone could see, was the fact that the water was composed of tears and sweat. She was ready to face an indifferent, crazed or even sexuality excited predators.

But not a weeping man.

Her shock gave him enough time to think of something to say.

"It's not about wether it is enough or not..." He bends down and lift her ear to whisper in it. "It's about wether or not it's worth playing the martyred slave and tyrannical master game."

Spasms goes through her body and mutates into a long and painful whail, only to end into ragged weeping, or nickering, he wasn't so sure... But then she breathes, and repeats the same sounds.

"Oh my Celestia, what have you done to her!?"

"Twilight, get out, you're not supposed to be here."

"LIKE HAY I WILL!"

He didn't thought it would happen like that. He was only supposed to take pictures of her, blackmail her with them so she would get her shit togheter, treathening to send them to her family, to whoever that Scootaloo was, and to her friends. But it all went to shit because of that glare. Fuck man! Fuck!

She lights her horn but he's quicker; he turns around and swats it with the tip of his belt, making her wince in pain.

"HEY! You're not getting away with what you did to her!"

Fuck man, there was only two things he could do right now to salvage things up.

And not get blast by a furious Alicorn.

"You can't kill me, Twilight. If I die, they'll split you all up again, and who knows what will happen then."

"I KNOW that already! Why would you even brought that up?" she spits through her teeth.

Because he's panicking and he's probably going to be killed if he doesn't choose his words carefully.

"Because it goes beyond that. You need me. You can't get rid of me, you can't mind-control me, but more importantly, you can't survive in the human world without me."

"Yeah right, we managed to save a world just like your own two times already! We don't need a human to survive in it!"

"Oh really, that's new. So, can you define, we?"

"It was me, my friends and Sunset Shi-"

Twilight stopped talking as soon as she realized the problem. It wasn't *her* pony friends that helped her, it was her *human* friends.

"Thaaaaat's right. We're not talking about the same world here now, are we?"

She squints her eyes, accusingly. "How did you know about that?"

"How the fuck did Rarity thought the pipe that froze might raise the rent!?"

Her pricked ears swivels behind and she lifts her foreleg in the air. "W-What?"

"I never spoke to anyone about it, and you certainly aren't stupid ponies, but you lack human common sense and logic. You could never have extrapolated that on your owns."

He walks up to her, squats to her level and looks at her, dripping blood from his beard.

"You are only supposed to perform double-entry bookkeeping. You aren't supposed to FUCKING PUT YOUR NUZZLE WHERE IT DOESN'T BELONG!"

She takes a few steps back, surprised at the sudden burst of anger.

"I trusted you Twilight... And yet you betrayed me."

"Well, Gerald, let *me* be generous with my cold. Harsh. Reality. You don't have friends, you have slaves. If you thought we wouldn't try our darnest to stab you in the back, it's your own fault!"

Insulted, betrayed, furious, the old man stays silent, only clenching his teeth and shaking his arms. He was so tense he could feel a pressure in his arms, in his chest, in his jaws.

"SWEETIE BELLE GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!"

Surprised at hearing Rarity, Twilight, turns around, missing the old man wincing in pain and holding his chest. Instead, she could see Sweety Belle galloping toward them.

"Sweetie Belle, what are you-"

"GERALD, NO!" She screams, tears in her eyes.

Expecting her master to retaliate, she rolls forward, turns around and sees him falling face first on the floor. Even though he had put his arms forward. They barely slowed down his fall.

"W-What...?"

She is shoved by Sweetie Bell who slides besides him.

"No, Gerald, NO! What have you done Twilight!?"

"I-I didn't do anything, he just-"

"HELP! SOMEPONY HEEEEEELP! GERALD JUST HAD AN HEART ATTACK!"

Slowly but surely, Twilight realizes what was happening. She might have killed her master! But more importantly, the sight of Sweetie Belle, struggling to turn him around, rearing and falling down on his chest on his chest astonished her. She never thought the filly cared so much for him.

"I... I'm sorry Sweetie Belle, I didn't-"

"GO AWAY!" she screams, her eyes flashing blue and her breath turning into mist in front of her.

"Wait, what?"

She frowns and grimaces in anger, her magic gathering and swirling around her horn, a deep blue instead of her usual light green.

"I SAID, GO. AWAY!" She shouts, sending a magical shockwave toward the princess, lifting her in the air and throwing her to the other side of the corridor, where she barely manages to slow herself with her wings.

"Woah, what in Equestria was that?"

Rarity walks toward Gerald, but stops to look at Twilight with contempt, with teary eyes.

"W-Why are you looking at me like that?"

Offended, she snorts. "*We* wouldn't try our darndest to stab him in the back? GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE ALREADY!"

"W-what!?"