Ben's Day

Ben had the strangest sensation, like waking up from a dream about waking up from a dream--but he had woke up ten minutes ago. He felt a strange tingling pain at the back of his skull, but after a few moments it subsided.

"Are you sure you packed everything?" Vic asked before yawning mightily, closing the driver's side door with a heavy enough slam to shake the snow off the window, "Your laptop? Your wallet? Your toothbrush"

Ben stared at her. He remembered this.

"...Yeah," he said slowly, furrowing his brow.

"Something wrong, babe?"

Ben looked around suspiciously. He was sitting in Tammy, Vic's old beater of a car, parked in the snow-covered driveway of their apartment. He checked the time on his phone, and saw that it was three fifty in the morning—Saturday morning. He had already done Saturday morning. He remembered Vic driving him to the bus station. He remembered Vic sucking his cock while waiting for the bus because it had been late. He remembered getting on the bus...he remembered the whole day. The end was a little fuzzy—he had had several beers with Tomm, but he remembered enough of the important details: Vic had been cheating on him—both in college, and in the present. Or...or in the future? Later today?

"...I don't know?" he finally answered, looking at his phone again; he checked the app to track the bus, and sure enough, it was running behind schedule by about fifteen minutes.

"Well, we better get going so you don't miss your bus," Vic said, turning the key in the ignition.

Tammy's old engine roared to life, and cold air started blasting out of the AC vents. Ben threw up his arms to shield himself as Vic scrambled to turn off the fan.

"Sorry babe," Vic said as the air turned off, "I must have forgot to turn the fan off yesterday. It always takes so long for the Tammy here to heat up."

"Yeah," Ben responded, "hardly a point in turning it on at all, it's such a short ride to the bus station."

"Wow," Vic said, giving him a funny look before cracking into a smile, "I was just about to say those exact words. Are you reading my mind?"

"Something like that," Ben said with a weak smile, "can I see your phone for a sec?"

"What? Why?" She asked, a hint—just a hint—of suspicion in her voice; Ben might not have caught it if he hadn't been waiting for it.

"No reason—I just wanted to check something online. I'm on the last leg of my data plan and I need to be able to use that when I'm in the city. You'll be home and can use the wifi all weekend."

Vic shrugged, fishing her phone out of her purse, unlocking it, and handing it to him before squinting at the rear view and grabbing it to readjust it, taking a moment to look at her own reflection in the process.

"Ugh I look like an ogre," she said, her hand patting the misshapen mass of her curly black hair, "I guess you'll have to settle with a goodbye kiss from an ogre."

"You're fine," Ben answered noncommittally, turning the phone's ringer down to vibrate; he was pretending to search for something on her phone, but all he really wanted to do was see if a message came through in a few minutes...and if so, who it was from, and what it said.

Vic fixed the side view mirrors, put the car in reverse, and backed out of the driveway and into the wintry streets of their small town.

Sure enough, as they slowly crunched their way toward the next intersection, Vic's phone buzzed in Ben's hand—but it wasn't a text message, it was a Snap from someone who was listed in the phone just as 'H.'

Ben opened it without thinking, and saw a dick. There was a man attached to it, leaning back and smiling into the camera from behind his erection, but his face was blurry so far back from the clear focus of the picture. Underneath the dick was a caption:

Juliet's out of town until tomorrow. Awake now thinking of you. Let me know when you want me to bring this toy over to play with ;-P

"What was that?" Vic asked as Tammy rolled to a stop at a stop sign, "I get a text or something?"

"No," he stated, barely containing his emotions; he turned the phone so she could see.

Tammy stayed idling at the stop sign for several seconds as Vic processed the image on her phone. Her face showed surprise, then worry, then a very good imitation of innocent confusion.

"Who the fuck is that?" she asked, snatching the phone out of his hand and looking back and forth between him and the snap before it vanished from her screen.

Vic started driving again.

"I think I should be asking you that question. He's on your phone. I think his name starts with 'H,' or at least that's what you put his name in here as."

"Babe I swear I have no idea who that is!" Vic said, the hint of a sob in her voice as she slowly drove towards the bus station.

Ben stared at his hands for a few seconds, trying to collect his thoughts.

"He wrote Juliet's name in that Snap—he's probably her new boyfriend," Ben said, raising his voice, "Are you fucking Juliet's boyfriend, Vic?"

"No!" she practically screamed; Ben noticed that she was picking up a little more speed than was comfortable on such snowy roads, "I have no idea who that is! Maybe it is Jules's new guy, but I'm not

fucking

him okay? Some little shit just sent me an unwanted dick pic and you're convinced I'm fucking cheating on you?

"You've done it before!" Ben yelled, "You think I don't know? When we were first going out, you used to spend every Friday night fucking Tomm and his roommate, all the while telling me you had some bullshit club to go to."

Vic's eyes went wide—and at that moment Ben knew that this wasn't deja vu, he knew things he shouldn't know, he remembered things that hadn't happened yet. Vic shut up for the rest of the drive. She slowed down to a more reasonable pace, her eyes glued to the road, and came into the bus station parking lot, parking, then taking her hands off the wheel and taking a few breaths.

"I didn't think you knew about that. It was a thing that Tomm and Sanjay used to do with a few girls—including me. It was just casual sex, and I stopped doing it as soon as you and I starting getting serious," she admitted, unable to look him in the eye, "when we started dating, it was just dates—I thought you might be dating other girls too. When I realized what we had, when we really became a couple, I stopped. I didn't tell you because I realized later that you had never thought we weren't exclusive. If I had known that..."

"Shut the fuck up, Vic.," Ben said, his voice quavering, "You were cheating on me then, and you're cheating on me now. I...I know you were going to fuck this 'H' guy tonight. Just stop. We're through."

Ben got out of the car, grabbing his bag, and slammed the door shut. Vic screamed something at him from inside the car, but he couldn't hear it, and he didn't care. The bus wasn't here yet, and the coat he was wearing was hardly enough to keep him warm in the frigid pre-dawn air, but at this point he would rather have frozen then spend another minute in the car with Vic, watching her lie to his face. Ben walked over towards the station as Vic pulled Tammy around to exit the parking lot, stopping near him for a few seconds. Ben didn't give her the satisfaction of looking her way, and after a few seconds she drove off. Ben shivered, hugging his arms close to him in the frigid air.

As Ben walked past another idling car on his way to the small building that was the bus station, he heard the low buzz of a window being rolled down a few inches, accompanied by the crunch of frost being broken in the process.

"Ben, is that you?"

Ben looked up to see the backseat window of the nearest car cracked open, and inside he saw Juliet.

"Juliet? Yeah it's me."

"You waiting for the bus to the city?"

"Yeah."

The door popped open.

"Come inside! No point in freezing out there!"

Ben shrugged and slid in to the well-heated interior of the backseat. Juliet was sliding over to give him room. As he got in, he saw that Sam was sitting in the front seat, and next to her, a man in his early fifties who bore a striking resemblance to her. They were both looking back at Juliet and Ben.

"Mr. Strahovski, this is Ben. Ben, this is Mr. Strahovski, Sam's dad. You remember Sam, right?"

Ben nodded and waved to them both, doing his best to look cheerful and friendly so soon after his conversation with Vic.

"Yeah, hi Sam! Nice to meet you Mr. Strahovski. Thanks for letting me wait in here."

"Good to meet you too, Ben. It's not problem at all."

"So..." Juliet said after a few seconds of awkward silence, "Why are you out in the cold? Why couldn't Vic drive you?"

Ben shook his head.

"I uh...Vic did give me a ride here, but then I got out. She's...we're not together anymore—as of like two minutes ago."

"Oh I'm so sorry! What happened?" Juliet asked, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder; Sam was paying rapt attention, but her father had turned away to look resolutely out the front of he car while clearing his throat.

"Look I—I don't want to talk about it right now," Ben said, feeling a little strange about airing out his problems in front of Sam's dad, "but I just left her after...after learning some things."

Ben saw Sam nod knowingly—and he was pretty sure he understood why.

"Ok, we don't have to talk about it," Juliet said, her hand still on his shoulder, "so why are you going to the city? We're going to a Red Marionettes concert tonight."

"I'm going to a pretty boring work conference," Ben said, then after a second added, "I'm pretty sure I know like exactly everything they are going to say already. After that I don't really have any plans...I'm staying with Tomm."

"Tommy Fisker?" Sam said, a look of excitement on her face.

Ben nodded.

"Yeah. You and he go way back, don't you?"

"Yeah, Tommy's like, my BFF. Oh my god! I can't believe I didn't tell him I was coming in to town!" Sam said, pulling out her phone to text him.

"Won't he be asleep?" Juliet asked.

"He won't mind if it's me. I hope we can meet up with him!"

"I'm pretty sure he's free all day today—and tonight. I was just going to grab dinner with him after the conference, then sleep on his couch," Ben said as he remembered doing those exact things what felt like yesterday, "I'm sure he'll be happy to see you too."

Soon enough, the bus pulled up next to the station, and passengers started to emerge from the scattered idling cars with their bags. The three of them—Ben, Sam, and Juliet—all made their way out into the cold. Unlike some of the other passengers, none of the three of them had more than a small backpack or purse with them, so with nothing to stow underneath, they were able to board pretty quickly to get out of the cold. Juliet was on the bus first, and she moved back to the exact same seat she had sat in before, sliding over to the window. Sam sat next to her, just as she had the last time this had happened, but Ben sat across the aisle from her instead of in front of them. The rest of the passengers filtered on to the bus after a few more minutes, and then the doors closed, the lights went down, and the bus's engine started to rumble to life.

"So," Sam whispered from her seat across the aisle, "now that you're not in the car with my dad, you want to talk about it?"

Ben could just barely see in the darkness that Sam and Juliet were both leaning towards him in their seats.

"Actually..." Ben said, taking a deep breath, "This isn't just about Vic and I. Apparently Vic used to cheat on me in college—with Tomm, actually; he didn't know she was dating me at the time—and this morning, Vic got a snap from..."

Ben hesitated, looking at the silhouette of Juliet in the darkness, hesitating before saying what he was going to say.

"Well...It was a dick pic from some guy named 'H' on her phone. It had a caption that said something about Juliet going to a concert so he was free for Vic."

"What?" Juliet asked, unbelieving.

"Look I—"

"Why would you say something like that?" Juliet said, her voice cracking with emotion.

"Look—I know that Vic stopped talking to you after something you said to her," Ben said, trying to be as vague as he could, "I think it made her more...jealous than you thought it did. She's apparently done something like this before."

Ben saw Sam nod slightly.

"But I wasn't even dating Harry when that happened!" Juliet protested, "I...I don't know why you're saying this, Ben, but I don't want to hear about it any more."

Ben put his hands up in defeat; all he was trying to do was help her. He knew that later that night, she would find out somehow—or at least she had the first time he had experienced this—but this clearly wasn't the right way to prove it to her. He stood up, his own voice a little shaky.

"Ok—look I'll go sit away from you, I'm not trying to start any trouble, I just didn't want to keep Vic's secrets for her."

Ben moved back towards the rear of the bus. There were fewer passengers seated back there, at least as far as he could see, and he slumped down in some empty seats far away from everyone else, took a sip from his water bottle, and leaned against the window, trying to sleep.

Ben had barely drifted off when he felt someone sit down quietly next to him. He turned his head just enough to see that it was Sam. Some dim moonlight coming in through the bus window illuminated the soft curve of her jawline, glinting off of her eyes. As she leaned forward, her long wavy hair hung like curtains on either side of her face.

"Ben, are you awake?" she whispered.

"Yeah," he responded, deciding not to point out that he wouldn't be if she hadn't come over to ask.

"Sorry I just...I know Juliet's taking this badly—she just started dating Harry and she really thought he was a good guy—but I want you to know that you did the right thing telling her."

"But...she doesn't believe me, now she's angry at me. I just wanted—"

"—I know, Ben. It might take some time, but she'll figure it out now that you've said something, and I know you're telling the truth. Victoria is—I know you probably don't want to talk about her, but I've known that she's trouble for a long time. Since freshman year when—well, long story short, she thought I was a threat, that her guy at the time liked me, so she got my first boyfriend ever to cheat on me with her, and she made sure that I saw it. I just want you to know that I believe you—I know the kinds of things Victoria has done."

Ben nodded. He had heard this story before—but having Sam tell it to him, trying to comfort him, meant something.

"Thanks. It's...It's weird. I feel like I've known her so well for so long, and everything was great, but then I learned about this and..."

"I can imagine. But you found out, and you told Juliet—she's my friend, and even if you hurt her now, I'd rather have her find out now than spend months or even years dating that prick and then find out on her own. Thank you for that, Ben," Sam said, leaning forward a bit more and kissing Ben on the cheek before flashing him a sympathetic smile.

As Sam smiled at him, Ben's phone rang out in the sleeping bus. He reached into his pocket to silence it quickly, pulling it out as it vibrated in his hand. Vic was calling. Ben felt a knot in his gut just thinking about her—about what was he was going to do with his life now, about how she had lied to him for so long. Sam clearly saw the look on his face, and she put a hand over his screen.

"Don't answer it. Just ignore her, Ben."

Ben nodded, and she moved her hand. He tapped the red button on the screen to ignore the call, silenced his phone, and slid it back into his pocket.

"Thanks, Sam," Ben said, trying to keep his voice steady.

He looked at her. Sam was being so nice to him, so kind to him, and they barely knew each other. He was beginning to understand why Tomm and she had been such close friends for so long—and beginning to wonder why the two of them weren't more than just friends. She gave him an encouraging smile, two dimples showing in her cheeks as she did so. Ben realized after a moment that she was watching him admire her face, still smiling.

"No problem, Ben. You're a good guy," she said, her smile widening,"and you're pretty cute too."

Before Ben could respond, Sam had slunk out of the the seat and into the dark aisle of the bus, moving back toward her seat with Juliet. Ben sighed, realizing in that moment that he was sad to see her go—though he wasn't sure why she would have stayed. He sat back, trying to relax again, but he couldn't stop thinking about whatever was happening to him. He hadn't had much time to think about it with a clear head, but he knew that he had lived through this day before; not everything was happening exactly the same, but a lot of things were, and he knew things—remembered things—that he shouldn't have been able to if it had all been a dream.

It was like something out of some old science fiction short story or something. He was sure there had been a Star Trek episode like this at some point—living the same day twice—or maybe it was like that movie with Bill Murray? Groundhog's Day? though in those stories they had always been stuck in a loop, going through the same day over and over and over. Was that what was happening to him? It didn't seem like a very realistic possibility, but then again, he wasn't sure there was one. So far he had only repeated the day one time, at least as far as he could remember.

As Ben was trying to piece everything together, Sam suddenly slid back into the seat next to him.

"Hi again!" she whispered, "Juliet is asleep across both our seats. You mind if I bunk with you?"

Ben shrugged, internally wondering why she wouldn't want another pair of seats all to herself, but not saying anything. Sam smiled her dimpled smile, taking his shrug as an invitation, and nestled into the seat next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder, the apricot smell of her hair filling his nostrils. Ben realized that after two and a half years of being in a relationship he had almost forgotten what this felt like—the anxious thrill of an attractive woman cuddling up next to him while he sat, unsure of what, if anything, he should infer from it. Was Sam just a friendly, snuggly girl? Or was she coming on to him? As he asked himself that, Ben realized that he was hoping for the latter.

"You know," Sam whispered after a few minutes of leaning against him, "right after Darren cheated on me with Victoria back in college, I was kind of a mess. I had just lost my virginity to a guy who promptly cheated on me within a week, and I was angry and sad...but I also felt like...lonely. Like I thought I had had someone I could trust and then that was just gone."

Sam adjusted her position, leaning more heavily against Ben's shoulder. The soft swell of her breasts pressing into his arm as she did so.

"Yeah, I think I know what you mean," Ben responded; he wasn't sure where she was going with all this, and the wounds were still a little fresh for him, but he could tell that she was trying to comfort him—and was getting pretty comfortable herself.

"But it wasn't just that," Sam said, "I mean, I had friends—at least, I had Tommy—but what I didn't have was someone who

wanted

me. I mean, I had been waiting for years to see what sex was like, and then I had had it—just once—and suddenly I was alone and feeling unwanted. I didn't have the willpower to try and find someone new, but I still had

needs,

if you know what I mean

."

Ben grunted his assent, suddenly feeling his heart quicken. He knew exactly what she was talking about. Hell, he had just broke up with Vic, and he was already secluding himself in the back of the bus, unsure of himself to the point where he didn't even know how to deal with his attraction to the women around him—and the desires it was arousing in him. Even now he was keenly aware of Sam's body leaning against his.