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It’s quiet when she gets in. Dark, even if she is back earlier than she planned, but finding their shared flat empty isn’t exactly unexpected. Ben said he had plans tonight too. One of the guys he’s hooked up with before, she’s pretty sure. The one who can (and will) ‘toss me around like a ragdoll if I want.’ (He’d laughed when she smacked his shoulder and scolded him for bragging).
Unless that was last night. He was out really late last night, too.
Either way, good for him. At least one of them is getting a proper shag. Rey slips out of her shoes and tucks them just inside her bedroom door, padding silently down the darkened hallway. She needs to wash her face.
Some small sound must catch her attention, because she pauses at Ben’s bedroom door. “Oh, you’re home,” she says, not considering he might be asleep in her surprise. She changes course immediately, slipping into the room.
Except for his shoes he’s still dressed, his charcoal slacks and some dark colored shirt muted pools of shadow in the dim room. He’s stretched on his back, arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling. His watch glints in the low light through the window as he turns his head in time with her approach. Rey climbs onto the bed and crawls forward until she can straddle his thighs. Her dress rolls up, but it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. “Plans change?”
He shrugs, moves his arms and reaches for her, hands sliding up her thighs to settle on her hips. “Nah, I mean, yeah, but…”
“Did he ghost you?” she demands, offended on Ben’s behalf.
He chuckles. “No, Sweetheart, he didn’t ghost me. I just decided not to stay over.”
Rey frowns. There’s something in his tone she can’t quite identify, but it’s like there’s a sinking weight in her gut. She shakes her head. It’s just that her night was a bust, too. That’s all. “Ah, I see. Sub-par blowjob, then?”
She wiggles a little, enjoying the sensation of him getting hard beneath her.
“No, that part was probably the best I’ve ever had.”
She pouts. “Unfair anatomical advantage.”
Ben shifts his hips, rocks side to side, just enough she notices and kind of sways where she’s perched on top of him. “You still give the best blowjobs of any non-penis-haver I know,” he assures her, and she can’t help but laugh.
“Plans for tomorrow?” she asks, half-hoping he’ll say—
“No.” He shakes his head.
Oh, good, they can—
“I think I’m done with meaningless sex.”
Not. That.
“Oh.” She tenses, because clearly he’s saying he doesn’t want the whatever-they’ve-been-doing anymore.
“It was a good run,” he continues. “Lots of fun. But I think I want more. A real connection with someone.”
And what is she supposed to do with that information when it feels like someone’s pouring ice water down her spine from the inside? “I…thank you for telling me? I’ll…”
His hands press in, grip her hips and waist more firmly. “Ben,” she huffs.
“Rey.”
She can’t…there’s something in the way he looks at her, some weight in his eyes, and that sinking feeling is back in her gut, her fight-or-flight response kicking into overdrive.
“What, um…what do you mean?” she manages.
“It’s been a good run, but I think my slut era is at an end. I’m too old to keep on like this, mostly.”
“You’re not old,” she begins. “I mean, yeah, you kind of are, but—”
He takes a deep breath, lets it out fast, so that she sort of bounces back on his thighs and she tries (she really tries) to ignore the way he’s still pressed and twitching against her. “I just think, I’ve learned a lot, accomplished what I set out to do, and what’s the point anymore, you know? I’ve already found my person.”
That hurts, the words a sharp, painful stab, and the ache radiates out like a poison burn. “Oh.”
“Nothing has to change, Rey.”
She shakes her head. This is not a conversation she can have in his bed, but he won’t let her up. “Everything has to change, Ben.”
“It really doesn’t.”
She won’t cry. She won’t. She’s just not going to let it happen, even though she can feel it coming. Her eyes are hot, nose burning, and already his face is a little blurry.
“It doesn’t change anything between you and me, Rey,” he tries again, reaching up like he’s going to do that thing—the one where he swipes his thumb across her cheek to catch her tears, brush them away. The thing where he does that and cups her face.
Stares into her eyes.
Tilts her chin and kisses her.
That thing.
Rey shakes her head and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, sucks in air through her nose before it starts to run. She rubs, willing the tears away, angry now.
At herself.
At him.
At this mysterious Person Ben has magically found who’s going to come in and ruin everything.
“Is it Jessika?” she asks, sniffling and tilting her head back. If sheer force of will can’t keep her from crying maybe physics will.
“Pretty sure you hooked up with her more than I did.”
She huffs. It’s not fair. How dare he make her laugh? It’s not like he’s wrong, though. She looks at him again, lets her hands rest on his chest, draws little patterns connecting scattered moles she doesn’t need to see, all committed to memory long ago. His hands are moving too, rubbing up and down her thighs, gliding over her arms, up to shoulders and then down her back. It’s like he’s petting her, and she hates that she loves it. “She said you eat pussy like a lesbian.”
“I’ll take that compliment, even though I doubt the accuracy,” he says with a laugh, and she knows she’s surprised him. She’s going to let herself believe it’s just the thing Jessika said, and not all the carefully packed away emotions she’s not ever going to take out and examine.
At this point she’s a pro at the emotional baggage. Unpleasant memory stirring up feelings? Tuck that sucker into a vacuum compression bag, suck all the air out, and she can hide it away with everything else. A couple of minutes and she’s good to go.
Ben frowns, and she can’t let him say anything, can’t let him pick at her feelings. He’s got a knack for breaking the seal so that everything just explodes out at once. “Hm, so not Jessika, and clearly not Perfect-blowjob guy…Bazine’s got more partners than she can manage already…Tai?”
Ben sighs, moves so that she’s once again settled more forward on his hips than his thighs, and his fingers trace little circles on her back. It’s all she can do not to shiver…or grind. “I think in another life where we never lost touch, or even just reconnected earlier, they could have been the one, but we didn’t, and they’re ridiculously happy with their new partner.”
Rey relaxes minutely, having apparently been more worried about that than even she had realized. Tai is…well, they’re amazing actually. Gorgeous and funny and kind. She almost wishes Ben’s person was Tai.
She keeps going through the list of people Ben has been with more than once or twice, the ones he has some kind of emotional bond with. Ushar is, sadly, completely straight so they really are just friends (although he’s apparently an excellent wingman). Vic isn’t the deeper connection type. Nor is Kaydel. “Please tell me it’s not Poe.”
“Gross.” She giggles as his nostrils flair in disgust. “One, he’s basically family, B, he’s disgustingly happy with Finn and Rose.”
“Don’t forget Hux.”
“How can I when you don’t let me try? Anyway, as I said, disgustingly happy. And Roman numeral three—”
Rey shrieks as he rolls to the side, dumping her into a giggling pile of limbs on the other side of his bed. He hovers over her, smiling as his hair falls down like a curtain, so she can’t see much of his expression beyond the glint of teeth. There’s still something off about it, the tightness in his jaw, the way he’s hiding his eyes. She reaches up, threading her fingers through silken strands of dark hair, pushing it away, holding it back from his face.
“You can tell me,” she whispers, and she’s not sure why her throat is so tight. “You said nothing changes. You can tell me who they are.”
“Rey…”
He doesn’t sigh, or frown, or shake his head, just looks at her, the weight in his eyes like that one settled in her gut.
It’s like he’s sad. Or disappointed.
Her pulse rabbits, the thump-thump-thump all she can feel or hear. This is it. This is…this is the end? “Tell me,” she says. Demands. “Just TELL ME, Ben!”
“Rey…”
She knows. She does. She knows and it’s too much.
“No.” She pushes at his shoulders, makes a fist and just kind of taps it on his chest. “Don’t do this, Ben.”
“Sweetheart.”
“You don’t get to do this!”
“Nothing has to change. I’m not asking for you to change.”
She shakes her head, flings it back and forth in denial, wraps her arms and legs around him as if he’s not the one caging her in.
“You great…stupid…bloody…MAN!” It’s the worst insult she can think of, in the moment.
“I know.” He catches her left hand, kisses her wrist.
“You’re ruining everything.”
“I am,” he confirms, kissing his way further along her arm, lips trailing across her skin.
“You’re terrible,” she says weakly, then gasps as he licks the crook of her elbow, bites lightly just above. He has the audacity to chuckle as she shudders, squirming on his bed, hips rocking in search of friction.
“I’m a monster.” He kisses her bicep, licks the round of her shoulder.
“You are,” she whispers. She lets him suck a mark on the side of her neck. “I love you, you oaf!”
He licks her throat, nips her chin. Laughs. “You’re my person, Rey, whatever that means. Whatever you want it to mean.”
“You’re my person, too,” she admits (finally). Because she can, now. She can let that one little truth free. The one she’s had to fight hardest against.
Ben nudges her nose with his. “I’d like to kiss my person, please.”
She smiles, because how could she not? “I suppose I’ll allow it, since you said please.” She even kisses him back. When they break apart…sometime later, her lips are swollen. Tingly.
Ben smiles down at her, and it’s that good smile, the one that’s always been for her. “Want to celebrate the end of an era with me?” He thrusts his hips against her, slowly, clothed cock all heavy and hot exactly where she needs and she gasps. Whines. It’s wholly unflattering. Ben lowers his head again, until his hair tickles her nose and cheeks, lips almost brushing hers as his breath ghosts across her skin. “Send my slut era out with a bang?”
She laughs so hard she snorts. It’s possible that she may have—accidentally—spit in his face. Just a little.
“That was bad,” he admits with a crooked grin.
“Terrible.” She traces smile lines with her thumbs. “I suppose mine needs a proper send-off as well,” she says with a sigh.
“Not if you aren’t ready. I was serious when I said this doesn’t change things, except for the whole random hook up thing.” His eyes widen, panic plain on his face as he hurries to add, “For ME, I mean! Not you. Unless you want it to, but that’s all up to you and—” She kisses him again, just a quick press, then takes his lower lip between her teeth, pressing down just shy of an actual bite, and he grunts and rocks against her.
“Shut up, Solo, before I change my mind.” Because that’s the whole thing with an era, right? Slut or otherwise. It has to come to an end, in order to usher in a bright new age, whatever that looks like.
A new era. With her Person. Maybe that’s okay, if her person is Ben?