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“I don’t believe this,” Rey said, goggling at the page. She blinked rapidly, hoping that maybe her vision was the issue, rather than the prose, but the words remained the same.
And he came hard in her mouth and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he’d ever had in there, and he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything, and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.
Whoever the fuck Ben Solo was, he had a lot of explaining to do about that war crime of a sex scene. It quite took her breath away, mostly because she was paralyzed by horror.
She switched her attention to the letter that had arrived with an advance copy of Ben Solo’s book.
Dear Ms. Niima,
I hope you don’t mind me reaching out, but I am in a bit of a pickle, and I believe you are the only person capable of helping me.
You see, I, Armitage Hux, am the lead editor at Finalizer Books, the literary fiction division of First Order Publishing. One of my clients, Ben Solo, has drafted a new novel, KILL IT IF YOU HAVE TO, which I initially received eagerly. You may be familiar with Solo’s work from critically-acclaimed masterpieces such as I’M BEING TORN APART and FORGIVE ME, I FEEL IT AGAIN (THE PULL TO THE LIGHT).
Rey made a face. That was a terrible title. As a policy, she avoided so-called “literary fiction” like the plague, since it was usually pretentious and dismal. Apparently “happy endings” weren’t sophisticated enough for the literary elite, which was why they sneered at romance novels like the ones Rey made a living writing.
Well, joke was on them. Rian Johnson Publishing was supportive and generous, her editor Rose Tico was a delight, and Rey made a tidy profit from bringing joy (and horniness) to the lives of fellow romance enthusiasts. Plus, she’d never once written a single thing as horrifying as Ben Solo’s so-called sex scene.
It was all going well at first. Solo’s “maximalist” writing style lends itself well to the important drama of men’s rich internal lives, and I was eagerly blowing through countless, luxurious passages about the struggles of a handsome yet self-loathing white man absolutely drowning in accolades and money but unable to fill a fundamental hollowness inside him.
Rey rolled her eyes.
You will understand, then, why I came to an abrupt, horrified stop on page ninety-seven. Our tortured artist hero, Kylo Ren, had just brought a woman home from the bar to try to find meaning in her supple, nude body. The anonymous sex started out normally—with an unreciprocated blowjob from the nameless woman—before veering into frankly alarming territory.
I cannot adequately explain what occurred on that page. I feel no one will ever be able to explain it. Thus, I have included an Advance Reader Copy with the relevant passage flagged and highlighted.
I understand you have a side business as a freelance editor. First Order Publishing would be delighted to pay you whatever rate you specify to, shall we say, coach Solo in the ins and outs (so to speak) of writing sex scenes. As he is sensitive to criticism, I have merely informed Solo that all of our writers are receiving a second editorial eye on their romance scenes to avoid stirring accidental controversy. (You know how these #MeToo women are - ravenous harpies greedy for the blood of honest men, forever searching for any hint of misdeed!)
“What the fuck?” For the second time in five minutes, Rey stared in outraged horror at something a man had written. She was tempted to burn the letter—and Ben’s book—and pretend her brain had never been sullied by reading either of them, but one phrase gave her pause.
“Whatever rate you specify.”
In lieu of punching Armitage Hux in the nuts, she could hit him somewhere else it hurt: his wallet. And if she could keep that monstrosity of a sex scene from appearing in print, wasn’t it her moral obligation to do so?
There was only one paragraph left in the letter.
If this sounds amenable to you, please email me at [email protected] with your rate and a timeline for when you can meet Ben at our corporate headquarters for coaching sessions. As your website claims you are NYC-based (and that you’ve won Best Sex three years in a row at the Porg Genre Fiction Awards), you are the best option for, shall we say, massaging this scene into something more palatable to the masses.
Help me, Rey Niima, you are my only hope.
Sincerely,
Armitage Hux
Meet Ben Solo in person to workshop his sex scenes? Rey would rather pour bleach in her eyes, but even successful romance novelists needed a side hustle. Was this any worse than her normal freelance editorial projects?
“She grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath”
Okay, yes, this was worse, but she had her eye on a new jacket before winter hit in earnest, and her bank account wouldn’t say no to some padding. She flipped to the back to see what Ben Solo looked like, but his bio was stark and didn’t include a headshot: Ben Solo has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Coruscant. He writes books.
Pretentious, certainly. And, by the quality of that writing, either a confused virginal twelve-year-old or an old man long past his sexual prime and trying to remember what having a boner was like.
Rey liked extra money, but she also felt bad for the intimate partners of his readers, who would bear any consequences of this sexual misinformation. So she pulled up her email and sent a message to Armitage Hux, agreeing to tutor Ben Solo in romance writing for three times her normal rate. He answered within minutes, and just like that, Rey had a new job as a professional sex scene “massager.”
#
Rey tugged at the cuffs of her white blouse nervously, watching the numbers in the elevator tick up. First Order Publishing was on the top floor of a sleek high-rise in Midtown, and everyone she’d encountered so far had looked terrifyingly polished. The other occupant of the elevator was a tall blonde woman in a gunmetal gray power suit who had given Rey’s flirty pink skirt a damning look before proceeding to ignore her altogether.
Rey shifted the strap of her messenger bag, which was heavy with educational materials—namely, romance novels and one anatomy textbook. Just in case more hands-on experience was needed—which she would not be personally facilitating—she’d included Viagra, some lube, and a fleshlight to send him home with. A few times with that, and he ought to realize that dicks didn’t thrash around like unattended firehoses during orgasm.
The door opened, and Rey marched towards the reception desk with more confidence than she felt. “Rey Niima,” she said. “Here to meet Ben Solo.”
The young man’s eyes widened. “Oh, thank God,” he said, jumping to his feet and shaking her hand vigorously. “My name is Dopheld Mitaka, and I’m Mr. Hux’s editorial assistant.” He grimaced. “When I’m not the receptionist, janitor, or office punching bag.”
“Ah. So you’ve read…” Rey trailed off, not wanting to publicly insult her new client.
Dopheld cringed. “The words are now burned into the backs of my eyelids.”
“Well, hopefully we can replace them with something better,” Rey said with a warm smile.
“Let me take you to the conference room. And may I just say, it’s an honor to meet you.” He beamed. “I loved The Scavenger’s Sweetheart.”
“Oh, thanks!” Rey followed Dopheld through the office, delighted that her work had made an impact on even one person in this stuffy building. Now she just had to convince Ben Solo to read her books…
Dopheld gestured at a closed door, which he eyed nervously. “I’ll just leave you here, shall I?” Before Rey could say anything, he scurried off.
Great. In addition to writing horrible sex, Ben Solo was apparently the kind of dick who terrified innocent editorial assistants. Rey took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, preparing herself to beard the lion in his den.
She opened the door and saw a black-haired man seated alone at the conference table, furiously scribbling in a notebook. He was neither a twelve-year-old nor an impotent old man, apparently. Then he looked up, and every thought flew out of Rey’s head.
What the fuck.
He was hot.
Like… really, really hot.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a sinfully deep voice, and wow, he sounded as good as he looked. Probably as good as he tasted, too. Pale skin, full pink lips, eyes that seemed to burn into her… how the fuck was this man bad at writing sex?
Rey realized she was staring. She closed her mouth and struggled to regain some amount of professional composure. “I’m Rey Niima,” she said, “romance consultant. I assume you’re Ben Solo?”
He stood, smoothing back his hair with one massive hand. Jesus. He could juggle basketballs with that hand. He could probably bench press Rey’s entire body with a pinky finger. His shoulders and pecs strained against his black dress shirt, and when they shook, his hand engulfed her own.
“Do you have a side job as a linebacker?” Rey blurted before she could think better of it.
He blinked at her, looking confused. “Pardon?”
“Never mind!” Rey chirped brightly.
They were still shaking hands. Was this weird? It was probably weird. She forced herself to pull her hand back, barely repressing a shudder when his fingertips trailed over her palm. His animal magnetism was just that potent.
Ben cleared his throat and gestured for her to take a seat. “I know the company has started this initiative for all writers including… carnal acts… in their work, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a waste of time for you. The sex scenes feel fully realized as they are, and there’s not much to change."
Sex scenes plural? She’d skimmed the book, but she couldn’t remember seeing any other sex scenes. “Erm, perhaps let’s have a look at them anyway. You never know when a fresh perspective might help.”
“If you say so,” he said, looking at her somewhat pityingly as he sat next to her. “I have won two Vader Awards, though, so I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, I’ve won three Best Sex Awards, so let’s just see how our expertise matches up.”
His eyes widened. “Sex awards? They have those? How do you even score that?”
Realizing his misunderstanding, Rey hurried to clarify. “The awards aren’t for actual sex. They’re for writing sex.”
“Oh.” He looked relieved. “I suppose that makes more sense. Still, I had no idea there were awards for that.”
“There’s a Worst Sex Award, too, although that one’s pretty informal.” An award he would certainly be getting if he let the book go to print like this. “Anyway, can you walk me through your sex scenes? I mean, talk me through them?” She giggled nervously. “I don’t need a demonstration.”
Or did she?
“Right.” Ben’s cheeks were looking a little pink. He gripped his pen tightly as Rey pulled his book out of her bag and turned to page 97.
“There,” Rey said, sliding it towards him. “Can you read that out loud to me?”
“It’s, uh, not exactly appropriate,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I wouldn’t want to offend you.”
Rey tipped her head back and laughed. “Oh, my sweet summer child. I’ve been writing romance for years. I came of age on pre-censorship Tumblr. There is nothing you could say that would offend me.”
She saw him mouth the words ‘sweet summer child.’ Oh, dear. Was he pop culture-illiterate, too?
“Seriously,” she said when he still hesitated. “Lay it on me. Um. Metaphorically, that is. Or audibly, rather.” God, what was wrong with her today? “Yep, you just go ahead and read that sexy stuff out loud and we’ll get rocking and rolling.” She cringed internally at her own awkwardness. It was just… did he have to be that attractive?
Ben cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “Where should I start?”
“How about with, um, ‘And he came hard in her mouth’?”
Ben nodded, then recited the sex scene haltingly, not looking at her as he did so. As he described the dick’s acrobatics, his cheeks grew redder, and he was clutching the book so tightly she thought he might accidentally rip it in half.
“—thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.”
Silence fell after he finished. Rey stared at him, trying to reconcile the hot, brooding giant in front of her with the mind that had come up with such an insane passage. How could someone that virile-looking have messed up so badly?
“Thank you,” she said. “That was a very moving recitation. Um… can we start at the top again?”
His jaw worked like he was chewing on unspoken words. “You… want to hear it again?”
She nodded. “Yes, but this time I’ll stop you when I have a question.”
He sighed and rolled his head, stretching out his neck. “All right. ‘And he came hard in her mouth, and his dick jumped around and rattled—’”
“Let’s stop right there,” Rey interrupted. “Your word choice is very creative, but I’m curious about the rattling. That’s… not a word I’ve ever seen used to describe a dick.”
“Really?” He looked surprised. “It’s accurate, though.”
“Erm.” Rey’s eyes darted from the book to his face as she pondered what to say. “Well, the way you worded it, it kind of sounds like she’s blowing the Tin Man.”
“What?” he exclaimed. “But that’s—it’s—I mean, no, he’s not made of tin, but some shaking during orgasm is normal.”
“Shaking, yes, but rattling?” When Ben just looked perplexed, Rey decided to move on. “Okay, let’s keep going.”
Ben looked back down at the page. “His dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out—”
“Sorry,” Rey said. “Not to immediately interrupt, but I’ve never heard of a man passing out after orgasm.” She chuckled awkwardly. “Well, not during climax, at least. Before making his partner climax, sure.”
He blinked at her. “Not every time, maybe, but passing out is common.”
“That’s… huh.” Rey looked him up and down, considering. He was a very tall, very broad man. Maybe his dick was so prodigious that it sucked all the blood out of his brain whenever he got an erection? Or maybe he had a medical condition, in which case it would be a real dick move (so to speak) to make him feel bad about it. “Okay, never mind. Keep reading, please.”
Ben did, reciting the words as stiffly as a nervous student giving a presentation in class. “—and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye—”
“Hold up,” Rey said. “Sorry, but… he came twice during one blow job? And his dick wrenching out of her hand seems a bit over the top.”
He shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t want to tell you you’re wrong about sex, but it sounds like maybe you don’t have much practical experience.”
Rey’s jaw dropped. “I’m the one who sounds like I don’t have practical experience? I write about sex for a living, Ben.”
“Yes,” he said stubbornly, “but you don’t have male… equipment.” He gestured at her. “You don’t know what it feels like.”
Rey chewed her lip, trying to put herself inside his head. Clearly this sex scene resonated with him in some way. Maybe it wasn’t a literal wrenching, but a metaphorical one. A wrenching of the soul, one might say. The convulsions of climax, just worded weirdly. “That’s a good point,” she said slowly. “And I don’t want to minimize your lived experience. We may just need to reword it to make it more relatable to your audience.” He looked like he was going to argue, so she tipped her chin at the book. “Keep going, please.”
He faltered through a passage about Kylo Ren coming in his own eye. Rey knew from personal experience that while an accidental cum shot to the eye didn’t feel great, it didn’t sting that badly, but she wasn’t about to admit she’d once popped her mouth off a dick to say “huh?” the second her partner mumbled “Gonna come,” so she ignored that bit.
“—as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.”
Ben finished the solemn reading, then placed the book face-down in his lap in a way that made Rey suspicious. He hadn’t actually gotten hard from that nonsense, had he?
An awkward silence ensued. “So,” Rey finally said. “Two questions.”
He groaned. “Do we really have to do this? I get that the company wants to be inclusive and sex-positive, but this is really unnecessary.”
“I’m going to argue it is necessary,” Rey said. “However you’re used to, ah, experiencing sex, it isn’t coming across well on the page. Your readers will be confused.” Confused, alarmed, horrified...
He huffed. “I don’t write to appease the masses. Writing is a personal endeavour, the tangible proof of man’s struggle to seize meaning from an uncaring universe.”
Oh, this pompous, disgustingly hot jackass. “It isn’t about appeasing the masses,” Rey said, starting to lose her temper. “It’s about me, a real human woman who has had real human sex, being baffled by some of your imagery and word choices. Which leads me to question number one: Why is his penis thrashing around like a cat with its head stuck in a shoe?”
His lips parted as he stared at her, and Rey tried not to focus on how plush and delicious-looking they were. Then an adorably crooked grin spread across his face, and he grabbed his pen and started scribbling in his notebook. “That’s a great turn of phrase to describe it,” he said. “Very evocative.”
Alarm shot through her. “Wait, that’s not what I meant—”
“Many works of literature use nature metaphors to describe the carnal act. I can’t believe I didn’t think of including that before. A cat with a shoe...” He chuckled, then beamed at her. “Thanks, Rey. You’re really feeding the muse today.”
Rey wasn’t sure there was a word that could adequately describe her current levels of consternation and alarm. “Forget the cat,” she said. “The thrashing is the part I’m concerned with. And how many times is this man orgasming?”
“Is that the second question?” he asked seriously.
“No! I mean, yes.” Rey pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, that’s question number two. Question number three is why there’s a Zorro mention in this sex scene. Coming on someone’s tits can be hot to read, but you really have to be careful about how you word it.”
He shifted in his seat again, and Rey’s gaze fell to his crotch. The book’s spine was definitely higher than it had been earlier. “The Zorro mention is important imagery,” he said. “It references Kylo Ren’s darkness and the mask he wears to hide himself from the world. The Z is also a mark of violence, so juxtaposing it in a sex scene invites the reader to investigate their own base impulses.” The book lifted even more. “Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin, to put it tritely. Like the id and the ego, they’re dual expressions of the same fundamental self.”
“That’s a very detailed and interesting explanation of the choice,” Rey said slowly, feeling like she was living in an upside-down world where she was the crazy one who didn’t understand art. “Nevertheless, it has a certain effect on the reader.”
His eyes darted down to her chest, then back up to her face. “Good. It’s meant to be provocative. Illicit.” He licked his lips. “Sensual.”
“Not that kind of effect,” Rey rushed to say, though she was feeling a bit tingly after that heated look. “It’s… well, quite frankly, it’s completely baffling.”
He recoiled, looking offended. “Excuse me?”
Well, dancing around the issue hadn’t worked so far, so Rey decided to ovary up and just tell him the truth. “It doesn’t read like actual sex. The dick leaping around, him coming five times—”
“Three times. The three spurts at the end are part of the same orgasm.”
“Three times,” Rey continued doggedly. “Still more times than most dicks are capable of.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you haven’t met men with adequate penises.”
She wasn’t going to argue that one. Rey took a look at the book he was currently levitating in his lap. She’d bet nothing about that dick was inadequate, even if she had some doubts as to his ability to use it with any finesse.
“Ben,” she said gently, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but considering the unusual logistics of that sex scene, I can’t help but wonder…” She took a deep breath. “Are you a virgin?”
His ears turned red, and he looked down at where his hands were fisted on the table. “I fail to see how that’s relevant.”
Yep, a virgin, though Rey didn’t know how it was possible that no one had gobbled up that delicious slab of Grade A beef yet. “It just seems like perhaps you aren’t familiar with the, ah, nuances of sex.”
He scoffed. “It’s art. I create the nuance.”
Rey suppressed a frustrated groan. “Yes, well, in this case you have created a level of nuance that renders the sexual act unidentifiable.”
The blush was spreading to his cheeks now. “All right, fine, I haven’t had sex before. But I know the mechanics.”
Given the way Kylo Ren’s dick was jumping around and blasting his love interest like a firehose, she doubted that. “From porn?”
He looked horrified. “Absolutely not. Porn is exploitative and makes a mockery of the beauty of the carnal act.”
“You don’t watch porn?” Rey asked incredulously. She twitched at the thought of him ever seeing the folder on her computer titled ‘Research.’ She did very frequent, very in-depth research. “What do you get off to, then?”
Rey had never known a person could turn that red. “If you must know,” Ben said with great dignity, “I have a collection of erotic etchings.”
Surely she couldn’t have heard right. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Etchings,” he repeated. “Wood carvings depicting couples and the occasional octopus participating in the act of love.”
Rey shook her head as if that might make the world make sense again. “Did you say… octopus?”
Ben nodded, looking quite serious. “Several maritime cultures have produced art depicting women copulating with sea creatures. I find it a compelling exploration of the nature of humanity and the line between the monstrous and the sublime.”
Rey was still struggling to wrap her mind around this. “And you masturbate to the octopi.”
He made a frustrated noise. “Not the octopodes specifically,” he said. “That’s the correct terminology, you know. ‘Octopus’ is a Latin word derived from the Greek, and the plural "octopi" is grammatically incorrect because it treats octopus as a Latin second declension noun when it’s actually a third declension noun. Thus, octopuses is the standard plural, but I prefer the older terminology of octopodes, which pays homage to its Greek roots.”
What a nerd. Rey was far less interested in etymology than she was in Ben Solo’s masturbation habits. “So you jerk off to tentacle porn.”
He shook his head. “No, no, I told you, porn is exploitative and—”
“Right, right,” Rey said, waving her hand. “Let me rephrase. You jerk off to the tentacle sublime.”
The poor man looked like he wanted to sink into the floor. “Only sometimes.”
As a writer, Rey had a very fertile imagination. It seized the opportunity to produce a vivid image of Ben Solo hunched over an ancient wood carving, frantically jerking off. She cleared her throat, trying to figure out how to phrase this without offending him. “I know you don’t like porn,” she said, “but there’s a lot of ethical, feminist pornography out there you could watch to get a sense of what actual intercourse is like. Or, you know, you could just go to a bar.”
Bizarre habits and pretentiousness aside, Ben Solo was objectively hot. He would have no trouble pulling some pussy. He could lose his virginity to a random woman tonight if he felt like it, for fuck’s sake.
Rey’s imagination ran away with her again, and she had a vision of herself riding Ben’s dick, telling him exactly what was happening and how good it felt. She would be a very enthusiastic teacher, and didn’t she owe it to literature?
Down, girl, she told herself. She was just horny because she hadn’t had sex in years (just because she wrote romance didn’t mean she experienced much of it herself).
Still, the image was in her head and wouldn’t leave. Her cheeks felt hot, and she pressed the backs of her hands to them, willing away the flush.
“What do you masturbate to?” Ben asked curiously.
Oh, Lord, he did not need to know her browser history—nor that she would probably be masturbating to thoughts of a big, burly writer and his big, burly dick tonight. “Why don’t you show me your other sex scenes, and we can discuss how realistic they seem?”
Ben seemed reluctant to move on from the subject of her masturbation habits, but eventually she got him to read a few more scenes to her. None of them were as egregious, though the dick acrobatics remained alarming. However, it was quickly apparent he had never dated a woman.
“Most women don’t wear bras every time they have sex,” she told him after he recited a loving description of a lacy black bra dripping with gobs of cum. “Especially not when relaxing at home.”
“They do in the movies,” he argued.
“To get around the censors. Trust me, it’s way better without one. More sensation.”
His eyes widened at that, then flicked down to her chest again. When her nipples took that unfortunate moment to stiffen, he began writing frantic notes.
Thankfully, there was only one scene left, and he had been open to feedback that didn’t relate to Kylo Ren’s flailing penis. “This one is period sex,” he warned her. “I wanted to really boil the carnal act down to its base, animalistic components. To write a man reveling in filth as a method of elevating the soul.”
Rey winced. “Maybe don’t call period blood filth, for starters.”
“I like filth,” he quickly said. “I wouldn’t mind getting it all over my face.” He bit his lip as he looked at her. “Hypothetically, of course.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rey should aboslutely not be getting turned on by this conversation. But she could envision it so clearly—Ben Solo, having period sex for the first time, waxing rhapsodic about how her blood elevated him to a higher plane. His lips and chin would get all messy with it, but he wouldn’t mind. He’d probably beg for more.
Rey forced her thoughts away from that track. She was here as a consultant for the written word, not a hands-on demonstrator of every dirty thing Ben Solo had never done. “All right, hit me with it. The passage,” she clarified when he sat bolt upright, looking excited.
“Oh.” He settled back down and frowned at the book. “‘He tugged her underwear down her legs and she moaned that he shouldn’t, it was too dirty, and he told her he liked the dirt and he gasped when he saw the pad glued to her sweet lower lips and plugging her up like a bathtub drain and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Rey said. “Hold up. The pad is glued to her vagina?”
“Her labia,” Ben clarified. “To keep the blood in.”
Rey bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from cackling. “Ben, pads are stuck to the underwear, not the genitals.”
His eyes widened. “Wait, really?”
“It’s sticky,” Rey said, voice trembling with barely suppressed mirth. “If you attached it to someone’s crotch, it would get stuck to the hair and probably rip it out.” She cringed at the thought. “No one wants a bikini wax every time they’re on the rag.”
“Excellent point,” he said, writing directly on the page of the book: PAD STUCK TO UNDERWEAR. “I’ll rework that sentence later.” He cleared his throat. “Plugging her up like a bathtub drain and hiding the sight of her pink nest from his hungry gaze, and he came forcibly in his pants, just a few spurts to take the edge off while his dick leapt and capered with glee, and then he peeled the pad away from her and pressed it to his mouth, licking up the blue nectar like—”
“Stop,” Rey nearly shouted. She pressed her hands to her face in horror, watching him through her fingertips. “Did… did you just say her period was… blue?”
He nodded seriously. “Yes, and if you’ll let me finish, it turns into quite a sensual oral sex scene.”
Rey was torn between laughing and screaming. “Ben, why do you think period blood is blue?” she asked with remarkable composure, all things considered.
His brow furrowed. “It’s in all the sanitary pad commercials. It’s amazing they show it in such detail, but those commercials have been very helpful for my art.”
Rey couldn’t help it. She broke out in hysterical giggles, burying her face in her hands as her shoulders shook. “Blue,” she choked out, then laughed even harder.
When she finally managed to stem the flood of cackling, she lifted her hands away from her face to find Ben looking rather hurt. “You don’t need to be so callous about my prose,” he said.
Rey instantly felt remorseful, even as she hiccuped with the remnants of mirth. “Oh, Ben, it’s not the prose,” she said. Okay, it totally was the prose, but she couldn’t say that when he looked like a kicked puppy. “It’s just—periods are red. It’s blood. The commercials use a blue liquid to demonstrate the pad absorbency without getting graphic.”
Understanding crossed his face, followed swiftly by outrage. “Big Period has been lying to the public this whole time?”
“Yes, I’m afraid they have,” Rey said. “So please make the blood red.”
Ben grumbled something and scratched out the word ‘blue’ on the page, writing ‘RED’ beside it. He took a deep breath. “Licking up her red nectar like—”
“Ben, stop.” Rey wasn’t sure how much more of this she could tolerate. “Let’s back up a moment. You wrote him coming in his pants, and his dick was… capering?” She shook her head. “Just write a normal orgasm.”
“I am,” he said defensively.
Rey blew out a frustrated breath. “You’ve been so receptive to my other feedback. Why can’t you acknowledge that wiggly helicopter erections and multiple male orgasms aren’t realistic?”
He shot to his feet, hands fisted at his sides. “You may know more about sex than I do, but I flatter myself I know more about having a penis than you do.” He bristled with righteous indignation. “And if you can’t accept that, then we’re done here.”
“Wait!” Rey cried when Ben started striding towards the door. “Ben, please. I’m sorry I laughed. Just… maybe you can explain it to me?”
His back was still turned to her, but at least he’d stopped his retreat. “Explain what?” he said stiffly.
“How orgasms feel to you.” Rey blushed saying the words. It might be inappropriate to ask, but clearly he had strong thoughts about the male orgasm, and maybe if she understood it better, she’d be able to help him massage the language. And then maybe she could massage another part of him...
He turned to face her, eyes darting worriedly between her own. “You won’t make fun of me?”
Rey’s chest ached at the vulnerability in his expression. “I promise not to make fun of you. Or laugh.” She patted his chair. “So come back and teach this poor romance novelist what the male orgasm feels like.”
He stiffly returned to his seat, staring at the book still pressed open on the table. “Well, first I get aroused and feel the urge to come,” he said. “I imagine that’s the same across genders.”
Rey nodded encouragingly. “What else?”
He slid her a quick glance, and his cheeks flushed. “I look at my etchings for inspiration. Then I…” he gestured at his crotch. “You know. Start handling myself.”
Rey shifted in the chair, liking that image a bit too much. The fabric at his crotch had started to tent again, and without the book in the way, she could confirm his cock was, in fact, substantial. She licked her lips. “And then?”
“Usually I’ll have the first orgasm fairly quickly,” he said, looking bashful. “My penis thrashes around, then settles back into a proper erection. I usually move to the shower at this point, if I haven’t already. It makes cleanup easier considering the, uh, volume of cum.”
Wait, what? Rey stared at him, confused. “You come multiple times?”
He nodded. “Always at least twice. Normally three or four.”
This was the first Rey was hearing about a man having multiple orgasms, but he spoke with conviction, and Rey believed him. Her horny romance novelist brain seized on the idea, imagining all the scenarios in which that would be a blessing. Ben wouldn’t stop and roll off her the moment he had an orgasm. He could keep going, coming over and over while he fucked her, flooding her with his cum…
“So the second one is always more intense,” Ben was saying, shaking her out of her horny reverie. “That’s when it really starts flinging itself around.”
“Flinging?” Rey asked, confused. “What’s flinging itself where?”
“My penis,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Sometimes it moves in circles, but most of the time it’s more like…” He made a face. “A windshield wiper is the only metaphor I can think of.”
Rey blinked at him. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “That’s… what?”
“Sometimes it does it when I’m really aroused, not just when I’m orgasming. Just a sharp jerk to the side when I see something I like.”
Rey understood the English language. She also understood the mechanics of sex. Still, she couldn’t make sense of what he had just said. “So… a little twitch?” She could imagine that. “Or is this a metaphor?”
He blew out a frustrated-sounding breath. “Why do you keep trying to rewrite my lived experience?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Rey said, brain still stuck on ‘windshield wiper.’ “I just—I’ve never been with a man whose penis did anything like that.”
“Never?” Ben asked incredulously. “They didn’t come?”
“No, they came,” Rey said. “But just once, and there was no… flinging. Or circles. Or windshield wipers.”
“Rey,” Ben said solemnly, “I hate to break it to you, but I think they were faking their orgasms.”
A hysterical giggle bubbled from her lips. “No, they definitely weren’t faking it.”
Ben frowned. “Maybe they had an underlying health condition? I don’t know why else they wouldn’t come multiple times. I mean, look at you.”
Rey sat up straight. “What do you mean, look at me?”
Ben was blushing again. He waved a hand in her general direction. “You must know you’re devastatingly attractive.”
Rey’s pulse accelerated. No one had ever called her devastating before. That was the kind of word reserved for forces of nature.
She liked it.
“You think I’m attractive?” she asked Ben.
He rolled his eyes, though the tent in his pants and the way he was clutching the book like he wanted to crush it spoke volumes. “Obviously. Men must tell you that all the time.”
“No, they don’t.” Rey looked at Ben, truly looked, setting aside the issue of his writing. He was so earnest and passionate, so fully committed to his art. He’d been honest about his lack of sexual experiences, rather than indulging the masculine ego. And he was hot as hell.
It wasn’t just the body and face, which were obviously incredible. There was a yearning in his eyes that called to something similar in Rey. A longing. A shared loneliness. Ben Solo wasn’t some chiseled male model: he was flawed and stubborn and artistic, if questionably so, and he wanted to share his dreams with the world.
No one had ever looked at Rey the way Ben was looking at her now. “Then they’re fools,” he said simply.
Rey couldn’t take it anymore. She launched out of her chair and into his lap, kissing him ardently.
It wasn’t an elegant kiss. The chair had wheels, and it careened alarmingly towards the wall before Ben steadied it. Rey’s knees were awkwardly jammed into the armrests, and her teeth clacked against Ben’s when she tried to slip him some tongue. But it was an honest kiss, and it was far better than any other kiss Rey had experienced.
Ben moaned and kissed her back enthusiastically. He was rough and eager—a bit too eager, since he was apparently trying to swallow her face whole—and Rey loved it.
Something twitched beneath her. No, not twitched: jerked. Violently.
She tore her lips away from his and looked down at his crotch. “What was that?”
“I told you,” he said between panting breaths. His lips were red and shiny from her kisses. “It does that when I see something I really like.” He seized another kiss from her. “Or in this case, taste something I really like.”
Rey melted into his chest for a few moments, but then his dick flailed again, and she had to stop. “That’s seriously your penis?” she asked.
Ben’s chest puffed up, and he looked smug. “Want to see it?”
“Absolutely.” And not just because she was horny as hell. If Ben really did have a leaping, capering, thrashing dick, she desperately needed to see it. She clambered off his lap, then squeaked when Ben surged out of the chair, picked her up, and planted her ass on the table.
“I’m going to drink all that sweet nectar,” he said, pressing his palm between Rey’s thighs. “Guzzle your juice, explore your hairy nest, create carnal poetry with my tongue.”
Dirty talk was not his forte, but given his prose, Rey hadn’t expected it to be. She was turned on regardless, drowning in his passionate gaze. “Show me your cock first,” she ordered.
Ben obliged, shucking off his pants and underwear. He fisted his—massive—erection in one fist and pumped. “This is all yours if you want it.”
Rey absolutely wanted it. Her mouth was watering for that thick, ruddy column. She licked her lips… and his dick waggled from side to side.
“Holy shit,” Rey said. “It really does move.”
In response, his cock performed a circle, then slapped up against Ben’s lower abdomen. He grunted.
“I don’t want to interrupt the moment,” Rey said, eyes glued to that hyperactive cock, “but have you considered seeing a doctor?”
“It’s just the way I am,” Ben said. “My dad was the same.” He made a face. “I really wish my mother hadn’t told me about it in so much detail, though.”
Rey’s mind was already leaping ahead, imagining what his cock would feel like. Would it spin in circles? Slam her G-spot over and over? “I need that inside me right fucking now,” she said.
Ben groaned while his cock danced a jig. “Soon,” he said. “Let me taste you first.”
He dropped to his knees and wrenched her thighs apart. Her underwear was disposed of violently and efficiently, and then Ben’s mouth was glued to her pussy in the way a pad never would be. He gave oral like he kissed—directly, enthusiastically, and with a touch too much teeth—but thankfully, Rey enjoyed a little pain with her pleasure. She gasped when his teeth raked over her clit. “More,” she said. “Lick it. Suck it.” Bop it, her stupid brain offered.
Ben bopped the hell out of her clitoris, confronting it with voracious glee. He wasn’t skilled, but he was enthusiastic, and the direct approach worked wonders. He committed an all-out frontal assault on her clit like he was a military general trying to invade Russia, and Rey reveled in every second of it.
When his searching fingers unexpectedly prodded her ass, Rey exploded. She orgasmed with a shout, her pussy squeezing rhythmically as her body thrashed and twisted.
Ben didn’t stop eating her out, and eventually Rey had to push his head away. “I came,” she wheezed.
“You did?” He looked surprised. “How can you tell?”
She half-laughed, half-sobbed. “Trust me, I can tell.” She stroked a hand through his hair. “Now stick your cock in me and let me teach you all about sex.”
Ben shot to his feet. He was still wearing his dress shirt, and Rey wrenched it off, sending buttons flying. Then he was positioning himself near her entrance.
He hesitated.
“Ben?” Rey asked through the haze of lust. “What’s wrong?”
“What if I mess it up?” he blurted. “What if you hate it?”
“I won’t hate it,” she promised. “And you can’t mess it up. I want you, Ben.”
He groaned. “Just… tell me if I’m doing it wrong, okay?”
When Rey nodded, Ben notched himself into her entrance—a process that took a few tries, since he was shaking so badly—and started pushing in. His cock was exquisite, stretching her so wide it was almost uncomfortable. Rey moaned and reached for his buttocks, then tugged so he slid into her all at once.
“Shit!” Ben said. A flood of wetness followed the pronouncement, and his dick wiggled like a frenetic pendulum inside her. “There’s number one,” he choked out.
Ben remained hard, despite the orgasm, and Rey silently thanked whatever perverse goddess had blessed the world with this impossible dick. She flexed her fingers on his ass, encouraging him to thrust. “Take me,” she told him. “Make me yours.”
Ben made an incoherent sound, then started thrusting. Like his oral, his approach was direct and aggressive, but Rey was so turned on, she didn’t need more finesse. No, she just wanted to be rammed by his miracle dick until she cried.
She had her second orgasm when he had his. This time his cock beat a rapid tattoo on her G-spot, and this was it, Rey was never going back to normal dick again. She moaned as cum squelched out of her with each thrust.
“Should have done this in a shower,” Ben gritted out. “Mitaka’s not going to like cleaning this up.”
Rey didn’t give a fuck about Mitaka. Wasn’t even sure who he was, to be honest. “Don’t stop,” she begged, head thrashing on the conference table.
Ben didn’t stop. He kept thrusting militantly, and his dick performed alarming feats on a regular basis. When it started helicoptering in circles inside her, Rey lost it, coming so hard her vision whited out.
Ben shouted as her body squeezed him. A few more thrusts, and he was coming for the final time. As Rey took the brunt of his passion, she had the distant thought that his cock was truly rattling around inside her.
Ben sagged over her, pressing his face against her neck. “Holy shit,” he said faintly.
In response, Rey let out a whimpering moan.
Ben propped himself up on shaking arms and looked down at her. “Are you okay?”
“Never better,” she said vehemently. “You’re incredible.”
He looked bashful once more. “I’m just the scribe writing your pleasure,” he said. “Your pussy is the art.”
It was the weirdest compliment Rey had gotten after sex, but also the most genuine. She peppered his face with kisses, grinning the whole time.
“So,” Rey said after a while. “How was the romance consultation?”
“Perfect,” Ben said. “I will definitely be modifying my sex scenes.”
“Good.” Rey rubbed her nose against his. “Let’s take out the dickrobatics, though.” When Ben looked like he wanted to argue, she pressed a finger to his lips. “I want that part of you all to myself. A special edition, if you will.”
Ben relaxed, then tipped his head back in a laugh. “My special edition is all yours, sweetheart.”
And from then on out, it was.