For our first date, we snuck into a diner, ate in silence, crept through darkened streets, kissed no goodbyes. All the while my wife, still recovering from the pains of foaling, slept in our bed in the farmhouse.

Tonight, she is dark suppleness, she is everything and everywhere, and we move together like stars bursting. Tonight, there is no mystery, no secrets, only us and the night. There may be regrets.

"When do you want to do this again?" she asks through tobacco smoke.

"Not sure." I draw the covers up to myself, as though lying bare were something to be ashamed of. "I ain't never been good at excuses. Gonna start lookin' suspicious right quick, I reckon."

She turns to me and laughs, reminds me why she caught my eye in the first place, all candy-striped mane with a giggle that pumped joy into my aching soul.

I'm a farmer; I'm not supposed to live a life of excitement or intrigue. That's sort of the whole point to farming: live for the land, the sunrise, the changing seasons, the interminable constancy of work and family and tradition. My father and his father before him worked apple orchards around Equestria. My newborn son, when he's big and strong and red like an apple, will work my orchard, or perhaps start another of his own.

And perhaps, like me, he'll find himself hemmed in by the monotony, the loneliness, the isolation from society. He'll feel like a sheep in a pen, only the wooden slats are tradition and work and family. He'll end up doing just what everypony expects him to until one day, when he sees his wife going into labor, his mind will snap. Like a fisherpony who's fallen under the ice, he'll struggle for breath, beating against his cage, until some snazzy unicorn with a light step and a quick eye reaches down and saves him.

She slides over, places a hoof across my chest, looks up at me. "You've never done this before, have you? An affair, I mean."

I can barely look at her now. If the mirror weren't on the opposite side of the hotel room, I'd barely be able to look at myself. Celestia, I didn't even have the decency to leave Ponyville for my liaison.

"Well, there was last week..."

"You know what I mean, silly."

I nod. "I never asked for much. Always thought I had the life I wanted, you know? Turns out I was just doin' what everypony wanted me to do. An' now it's too late to change."

On the floor beside the bed, my leather Stetson rests against her straw boater. The apple I brought her sits near them, browns where I cut a slice off. I held that slice in my mouth to feed it to her, and that was our foreplay, kissing and chewing. She lays her head against my chest; I can feel her heart beating. No doubt my wife could feel the same when Macintosh was still inside of her. My throat closes up.

"I gotta get back," I mumble.

"Go on," she says, with a smile. "Go be a good father. You're the type who can do it, I can tell. You know how to find me, if you ever need anything."

I kiss the tip of her horn softly and she shivers.

"Thanks," I say. As an afterthought, as though I have to remind myself of her name before forcing it through my lips. "Snowie."

She shoves me, but I can still feel the playfulness coming through the motion. "Thanks yourself, Golden. You stay outta trouble now, you hear me?"

"I will."

I won't. I've licked the razor's edge, stood on the cliff above raging waters, tasted the brown slice of apple, and that rotten sweetness can't be substituted by any flavor.

---

"It's been a while, Golden. A whole year, I think. Didn't imagine I'd see you again. What's got your goat?"

She hasn't changed one jot. The boater looks ridiculous with her chiffon dress, and I think she knows it, but I tell her she's beautiful anyway because it's true.

"How d'you know somethin's got my goat?"

Her eyes roll. "Why would we be in Baltimare tonight if something hadn't?"

"Maybe I like the place," I lie. The Baltimare docks offer spirited nightlife. Buttered seafood mounds in abundance. Alcohol-fueled revelry is the norm instead of a weekend special. I imagine, as I sip cider with her under the soft light reflected on the waterfront, that I can taste the apples' origin, that they came from my orchard. It makes me feel like I belong here.

"Havin' another foal," I tell her at last, and she nods, places a hoof on mine.

"It doesn't seem like you want to."

I pull away, look away, down another gulp.

She says, "You don't have to explain yourself to me, you know. I'm not the one judging you."

This gets me to look at her. "Then who is?"

I can't help but think that her smile is sad. "You are."

That explains everything, then.

The night is filled with cider and dancing and sweat and breath and I tell her I love her but I'm not sure it's true. She doesn't seem to care; she only laughs her laugh that makes everything all right. We lie together under a tree in a park, where we think nopony will see us, but secretly hope that they do and say, Dear Celestia, I wish they'd find a room, but that there sure is a young, carefree couple in love! and maybe it will be true.

When we've finished, she looks at me and says, "Would you do something for me?"

"Anything."

Her hoof slides up my chest, ruffles my coat. It tickles. "Get me some cider next season? I bet yours is loads better than what they have here."

My heart swells with pride, or maybe it's my head. "Of course!" I'm far too eager, to full of grins, but I would move the moon for this mare. I wish I could say that about the other mare in my life.

"You're doing it again."

"Doin' what?"

She chuckles and kisses me under the chin. "You're thinking about her, aren't you?"

"Her who?"

"You know what I mean." She stretches, lets out a sigh, levitates her rumpled dress over. "Guess that means it's time to call it a night."

She stands and I sigh. "I wish..."

She hesitates. There's an edge to her voice. "Wish what, Golden?"

My face flushes. I shouldn't have said that. "I wish I could bring you home. Have you help around the house or somethin'. We hire workers all the time, wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. We could spend more time together."

"And have a better chance of being caught." I feel like a schoolcolt being chided by his teacher. "Not to mention one unicorn in your earth pony orchard would stand out just a little extra, hmm?"

She takes my chin in her hoof, turns my head, forces me to look at her. Her eyes are deep pools covered in blue ice. "Listen to me, Golden. I'm just a figment. Or, if you want to continue this, a promise. What I'm not is real. Remember that: I'm not real. This is all just a dream, and in the morning you'll wake up and go back to your farm and your wife and your one and a half foals, and none of this will have mattered. You got that?"

The sting of her words forces tears to my eyes, but she's right. "A dream. I got it."

"Sorry. Sometimes things like that have to be out in the open." She smiles, kisses me once more, gathers her dress and hat, and stands. "Walk me back to the hotel?"

I walk her back to the hotel and feel like a rube. Why would I let myself get attached to this mare, this figment? I'm green as a new apple, yet I'm rotten to the core.

---

"My mother-in-law's movin' in with us."

We're shopping in Manehattan, Saddle's Fifth Avenue. She doesn't have expensive tastes necessarily, just a large appetite for clothing and accessories that I cannot help but indulge.

"That would put anypony on edge," she says brightly, without taking her eyes from the ensemble currently hovering above her head.

"The farmhouse is big enough and all. Applejack'll even have her own room once she's grown. But..."

She turns to me, lifts her sunglasses. I don't know why she doesn't have the hat today, but the lack of it makes her seem unreal. Maybe she's just part of my imagination after all.

"But you're worried about having to share the house with a stranger, whether she's your wife's kin or your own."

I nod and swallow. "Worried she'll see through my excuses. It's why we ain't seen each other for a while again."

She laughs, but the merriment isn't there. "I seem to recall a certain night outside Hoofington not that long ago..."

I blush, say nothing, let another dress flop onto my back and hope the added weight won't cause them all to shift onto the floor. Outside, ponies screech at each other, trying to scream their way through traffic. There are reasons I prefer the country.

"All right," she says, "I think that's good for today. Will you be a dear...?"

"Of course." We go to the counter, to the bored-faced pegasus, who slowly rings each item through, placing it in a bag. I feel like I want to be anywhere else, to run, to soar, to do anything that would make me move as fast as I can. I don't know what I want. Maybe it's just from having spent a whole day waiting.

"Oh." The pegasus looks at me, then at her, then pulls a clipboard out from below the counter. "Your name wouldn't be Snow Job, would it?"

She wrinkles her nose. "Who's askin'?"

The pegasus seems incapable of showing emotion. His words seem incapable of traveling at a reasonable speed.

"It says here I'm not supposed to sell to you until you pay your tab. No more loans."

She clucks her tongue, makes a disgusted noise, looks at me. "Could I ask you to...?"

"Ya don't even gotta ask." It's a hefty bill, far more than I was anticipating spending on her, but nothing I can't handle. My credit is good. We leave, her with a new sunhat and me with an aching back and five bags full of clothing I'll never likely see her in.

"I'm sorry about that," she says once we've exited the store. Her tone is so contrite that I can't imagine having any doubts as to her sincerity. "I promise, I'll make it up to you tonight."

With a soft laugh, she hip-checks me. I nearly lose control of the bags. That's all I needed to hear, though.

Pride prevents me from letting her pay for dinner, even though it takes the last of my bits. I can't bring myself to watch as she pays for our hotel room. Once the bags are off my back, she's on it, kissing my ear, purring at me, dragging me into bed.

My world becomes a rocking boat. I didn't even know mares could do these things. I am tossed on her storm, give myself to the pounding waves, let myself fall beneath the surface and float back up to the ice once the waters have cooled. It's a long time before either of us can speak.

"Did you bring me an apple this time?"

"I did, but... I think I lost it back around Bridleway."

She pouts; it's adorable. We rise again on the surf and break with a crash. I drink her in like a pony lost in the desert. There are no foals here, no orchards, no fences or wives or mothers-in-law. No apples save the one on my flank.

I only know we've finished because I've never seen her so exhausted. I'm not sure that I'm even alive. She's always had that advantage of youth over me, but that is still a poor shield against unbridled passion. It's good to know she's mortal; she might even be real.

"Did I make it up to you?" she gasps, lying on her back, grinning, drunk.

"And how."

She laughs, moans, rolls over, sleeps. I run my hoof through her red and white mane, minding the horn. She is softness and curves, yet she is hard lines and boundaries. My brownness is a unifier somehow. I ponder that until I fall asleep.

---

Granny Smith, as we call her these days, insists on these weekly outings into town. I'd thought living with her would be an imposition, another knot in the noose, but though she's got my wife's fiery temper and spirit, she seems to know how to repair a marriage, and I'm grateful for her meddling. There's a new eatery in town, a café, with reasonably priced food that makes me feel like royalty to be eating. It's here, with Granny, Macintosh, baby Applejack and her mother, under the pastel umbrella and the clear blue sky, that I see her again, for the first time in months.

She's wearing a dark outfit I recognize from our Manehattan trip, sitting on a bench just down the road, a spot I could not help but see her in. The moment our eyes meet, she gets up and trots away.

"Whatcha lookin' at, sonny?" Granny Smith is in my personal space, eyebrow cocked.

"I, uh..." Placed on the spot, words fail me. I'd told them I was going to be at a farmer's convention that weekend. It was true that it had been going on, just outside Manehattan, but I'd only spent an hour or two there, to stretch the truth less. "I think I see somepony I met at the Manehattan convention. If y'all will excuse me a mite."

I leave the table, ignore the calls of my name, don't look back. She's ahead of me, sauntering slightly now. Something about her looks different. It takes all my willpower not to gallop after her, call her name; that would be too suspicious. As if I'm not suspicious enough already. She lets me catch up to her.

"What are you doing here? I'm out with my family..."

She's got the sunhat on, and sunglasses again. She draws them down her nose, looks up at me. Makeup has smeared down her cheeks. The sight of those tracks stills my tongue.

"I'm pregnant," she says in a voice hoarse from crying.

"What? But why would you..."

"They're yours."

How I do not end up on the ground, I can't be sure. Everything is spinning, turning black. My knees are weak. The ice is shattering. All I see is her mascara-streaked face, upturned, vulnerable. All I can think is, I'll be ruined!

"'They'?"

She hiccups. "Twins."

My mouth is dry. "How... How do you know?"

"You're the only one so far this season." She seems almost reluctant to admit it.

I feel tears well. Something inside me is pressing against every surface of my body, straining to escape. "What do we do?"

"You go on with your life." The venom in her voice is more bitter than an unripe crabapple. "And I stop living mine." She lets out a sigh and I feel myself split in two.

"I could..." Do what? I can't think!

She scoffs. "Take them in? Raise them as your own? Then what about me? A nameless farm worker hiding a secret shame?"

"I can't accept them. They can't ever know." It feels wrong to say. I shake my head. "No, I can't. I'm sorry." It would ruin me. "I'll help you, though. I'll send money. To the same address as the cider, right?"

"No. I've moved since then." She produces a card, slips it under the brim of my hat. Her eyes turn to my side, her sunglasses move back into position, and I am aware that my wife is right behind me.

"Ya mind introducin' me to your friend here, Golden Delicious?"

I hope the surprise doesn't show on my face. "Sweetie, this is..."

"Call me Snowie." Her voice holds no hint of emotion. She holds out a hoof and they shake. "Golden and I were just chatting about some unfinished business."

"From the convention," I add.

"Pleasure." She doesn't seem pleased. Applejack, asleep on her back, squirms and coos.

"Ohh, and this must be Applejack! Golden wouldn't stop talking about her that weekend. My, what a cute baby, and she's grown so much!" She looks at me, her smile false. "You must be so proud."

"Heh, that I am!" I put an arm around them both. My wife is smiling now. She's been won over. I don't have to worry now.

"Mama's gettin' tired," she says, inclining her head to me, "not to mention Applejack's late for her nap. We oughta get goin'. It was nice meetin' you though, Miss Snowie!"

"Nice meeting you as well! Golden, you'll think over my proposal, right? I'm sure we can come to an agreement."

I feel sweat bead at the edge of my hat band. "I will. I don't think it'll take much thinkin' on, neither."

"Well, ta then. Good seeing you again." She saunters off. My wife seems none the wiser. I have won.

But all the way back home, I can only think about that 'proposal'. The farm's been in good condition lately. I have money to spare. But in the long run, will that be enough? Fair skies don't guarantee good crops.

Back in the orchard, I sit under a tree, paring the skin off an early fallen apple with a hoof knife. In a circumstance like this, tradition dictates that I be whistling a tune or something, but I'm spent. I can't do what's expected of me anymore, but it's not like I have anything else to do.

I cut slices off, dropping them on the ground. I swear I can hear her laughter on wind. I shiver. This apple is black inside.