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 closed his eyes and shook his head to himself, taking a long breath. Had he just died? He wasn't sure, but if not he had certainly come close—and yet here he was, back in the passenger seat with an oblivious Vic for the fifth time.

"You ok babe?" Vic asked, brushing the back of her hand against his cheek; it took every ounce of his self control to not recoil from her touch.

"I'm fine," he stated, shutting off the car's fan absentmindedly, "we need to make a quick stop before the bus station. I just checked my phone and it's running late. Go to 132 Troy Lane."

"What? Why?"

Ben looked over to her.

"Just trust me, ok? It's only a few blocks away."

Vic shrugged, "Ok. Don't know why you have to be weird about it, but I'll allow it. After what you did with your tongue last night, I'm inclined to be accommodating."

Vic smirked as she started Tammy. Ben tried to ignore that last comment, he barely remembered going down on her at this point, but she was still basking in the afterglow of however many orgasms he had coaxed out of her before the loop had started, which was starting to get on his nerves.

Vic's phone chimed loudly—the snap of Harry's dick arriving. Ben ignored it, and at the first stop sign Vic checked it silently before continuing on. Ben didn't spare any of his attention to her though—he was busy searching through his phone for the reward info for the lost cat. He got the phone number, and called it immediately.

"Who are you calling?"

Ben held up his hand to silence her. The phone rang four times, and then went to voicemail.

"Hi, you've reached Salma Malik, Real Estate Agent. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can."

Ben raised his eyebrows—he had known Salma in high school. Not well, but still, he had not expected the cat's owner to be someone he knew. He hung up after the beep, just as Vic was pulling up to the relevant house.

"So...why are we here?" Vic asked curiously.

Ben ignored her and got out of the car, back into the frigid night air. His gaze lingered briefly on the patch of icy sidewalk he had slipped on the last time around before he crouched down and peered under the front porch of the house where he had seen the cat before. Sure enough, two big green eyes glinted at him in the darkness. He moved closer, slowly and carefully, as he heard Vic get out of the car behind him. He took his phone out again, turned on the flash on the camera, knelt down about ten feet away from the cat, and took a picture. The cat stood stock still, staring at him the whole time.

Once the picture was taken, he texted it to Salma's number, and tried again. After two rings, she picked up.

"Hello?" her half-awake, breathlessly worried voice responded, "Who is this? You have my cat?"

"Hi Salma, this is Ben," he answered calmly, "We went to high school together. I just spotted what I think is your cat under a porch here at 132 Troy Lane. Unfortunately, I have a bus to catch in about ten minutes, so I don't have time to bring him to you, but if you tell me how to get him to come out, I can wait for your here and get him warmed up in the car."

"Oh, Ben! Thank God!" she responded, clearly still reeling from everything, "I'll be there as soon as I can! His name is Jafar—he might come if you call him. I'll bring some treats in case he doesn't! What was the address again?"

"132 Troy Lane. Sorry to rush you, but I really need to catch this bus."

"I'll be right there," she said, and hung up.

Ben tried calling to the cat a few times to no avail. Vic came out of the car to stand next to him, shivering, and asked him what was going on.

"Lost cat. There's a big reward," he responded flatly, "You can wait in the car. Keep it running, I don't want to miss the bus."

If Vic was put off by his strange behavior, it wasn't enough to make her complain, and she gladly hurried back to the car while he tried to get the cat to come out from under the porch with no success.

Three minutes later, and, true to her word, Salma pulled onto the street in her BMW. Someone else was in the car—Ben guessed it was her husband or someone tagging along to make sure she didn't get murdered—but she was the only one who got out of the car.

"Ben!" she called out as she jogged over to him, "did you get him to come out?"

Ben looked back and shook his head. Salma and he had never been very close, but they had shared a lot of classes in high school and had been friendly acquaintances and occasional lab partners. He had had a crush on her for a year or two back then, but nothing had come from it. She looked about the same as she had back then, or at least seemed to beneath the thick layers of winter clothes she was wearing.

"He's still down there," Ben said, pointing under the porch.

Salma immediately knelt down, fishing a little bag of treats from one of her pockets and opening it.

"Jafar! Come here! Come here my beautiful boy! Come on!" she called, trying to sound warm and welcoming rather than stressed and desperate.

The cat poked his head out from the porch and then started to approach nervously—he really was not a normal cat: he was about twice the size of any house cat Ben had ever seen, and had leopard spots all over his coat. He let out a loud, strangled meow when he got to about five feet away, and then loped over to her, his tail frozen straight and his body clearly stiff from the cold. He started gobbling the treats out of her hand, and Salma let out a yelp of joy, scooping the cat into her arms and then jogging him back to her car, opening the door to the back and tossing him inside the heated interior before coming back out.

"Thank you so much, Ben!" she squealed, "now, I brought my checkbook. I posted a reward for him, can I make it out to Ban Lannon?"

Ben froze for a second—for some reason he had expected a pile of cash. Still, he could probably cash a check at a bank in the city?

"Uh, yeah. Ben Lannon," he said, realizing how awkward it would be to ask her about her banks' cashing policies, "the reward you listed was a

lot

of money..."

"I know...but I'm sticking to my word. Besides, he's an Asherah—he's a hybrid with an African Serval and a leopard cat—it cost us twice that much to get him. We were worried that if we didn't offer more someone would just sell him to someone else," she explained hurriedly, scribbling out a check in the light of her car's headlights, "here. It's worth it. We have the money."

She handed him a check. He looked down at it, and sure enough, she had just handed him a check for twenty thousand dollars. Ben wasn't certain, but he suspected that he might have trouble cashing such a big check.

"Hey...do you think you could actually spit it up?" he asked as she started back to her car, "I know this is awkward—I mean, I can't really say no to this much money with my college loans and everything—in fact I kinda need cash quickly to pay rent, and if I try to deposit this it's gonna take a while, but if it was in smaller bits I could...maybe...like cash them one at a time and the bank would let me?"

Salma tuned around, shivering, then nodded. He handed the check back to her, and she tore it in half, stuffed it in a pocket, and as quickly as she could wrote him four checks for five thousand dollars each.

"Thanks!" he said, feeling the cold dig into his own bones as he took the checkS from her, "have a good weekend!"

Back in the car, Ben explained what had happened with as little detail as he could manage to Vic—he really did not want to spend more energy interacting with her than he absolutely had to—as they headed for the bus station. She was confused, and curious, but he managed to make a few vague, cryptic excuses that at least shut her up for the short drive. The last people were lining up to get on, so Ben thankfully had an excuse for a hurried goodbye to Vic as he leapt out of the car and got in line, showing his ticket to the bus driver and hurrying to the seat just in front of Sam and Juliet, where he had sat the first time around.

Shortly after he had gotten on, the lights went out. Ben did a few quick searches on his phone to find out about maximum amounts at various stores and banks in the city, and found several that were open that would at least be able to give him $5,000. He saved the addresses of the few that were in the same area as the bus stop, and then bunched up his jacket against the window and went to sleep, thinking of what he might do with all of that money.

"Yeah, Ben's still with Vic—that's actually why Vic hasn't spoken to me in the last month."

Ben's eyes fluttered open as he heard Juliet talking in the seat behind him. It was a few hours later, and the grey, pre-dawn light was filtering into the bus. He shook his head and decided to pop his head over the seat.

"Hi Juliet. Hi Sam."

Both of them froze for a second, their eyes wide, as he seemingly had appeared at the mention of his name.

"I'm...s-sorry I—" Juliet started, but Ben just smiled.

"Look. It's fine. I know all about it. I just thought it would be letter to let you know I'm here now rather than make things awkward later," he explained casually, "and Vic and I aren't really together anymore. She's been cheating on me for years—in fact she's planning on fucking some guy named Harry tonight."

Juliet gasped and put her hand to her mouth, but sam just shook her head knowingly, her eyes filled with pity.

"You don't need to worry about me," Ben said a little unconvincingly, "I'm...I'm working through it. I just thought I should let you know I'm here. I'm gonna try to go back to sleep."

Ben flashed the two of them a weak smile, and sat back down, popping his earbuds in and playing those rain sounds that always calmed him down as he tried to get comfortable again and get some sleep. He had dropped a hint about Harry to Juliet—maybe this way she'd figure it out for herself—though even if she did, she'd forget by morning.

Suddenly the weight of his predicament hit him in a new way—loneliness. No matter what happened, each day he started again with no one else the wiser, and as each day passed, the people around him started to feel further and further away as he realized that his actions could only have a limited impact on any of them, that no matter what he remembered, what he felt, none of them would share in it for more than a few hours: Sam and he had had a connection, and she was back to thinking of him a some acquaintance, while he and Juliet could fall in love and the next day be back to square one. Even Vic could be brought to tears apologizing for her wrongs, promising to never do them again, and in a day's time she would be back to fucking Harry to get back at Juliet, thinking Ben was none the wiser.

The reality was a miserable one, but that didn't change the fact that every day, at this time, Ben was still exhausted. Eventually his eyes closed and his thoughts faded away until the sounds of rain in his earbuds lulled him to back to sleep.

Strangely, Ben dreamt a familiar dream. He was back in college—somehow in the dorm room with Vic as she bounced on Darren's cock, her heavy breasts rippling with the motion as she rode him, grinning an evil grin, holding her eyes locked with Sam's. Ben looked around himself in the dream.

I've been here before. This is a dream about what Sam was saying the first day. I remember it.

Vic rode the faceless man beneath her as he reached up, clutching her bouncing breasts, and Ben was at once the man beneath her, and Sam, watching as she fucked Darren. Then someone started kissing him, and suddenly Juliet was there too, as naked as Vic, climbing on top of his chest with an eager smile on her lips, crawling up his body, dragging her nipples up his chest as she started to kiss his mouth.

I wasn't even thinking about any of this this time. Why am I having the same dream?

As Juliet started to kiss him, Ben shook his head.

Stop

he thought, and suddenly the dream was frozen. Juliet was on top of him, her face close to his, but she was as still as a mannequin. Ben looked around him, and found to his surprise that, beyond where he had been looking, the scene around him just seemed to...fade. He pushed Juliet up, but she was as stiff as a board, and rather than slumping off of him like he expected, her petite body

clattered

onto the floor, still stuck in the same position, not even the soft tissue of her breasts or any of her muscles jiggling as her body rocked back and forth on the fulcrum of one of her butt cheeks before settling slightly on her side. It was as if she was made of hard plastic or metal or something.

Pulling himself out of the bed, Ben looked around. His cock was still hard as a rock, but he didn't feel aroused in the least, and other than him, Juliet, and the bed, the 'room' for lack of a better word, was empty. A rough oval of dorm room floor, a doorway and two walls gave way to nothingness. There wasn't even a color—not darkness or light—just...nothing.

What the hell?

Ben took a few steps closer to the edge of things, bending down, he looked at where the floor faded to nothing. He squinted, and saw that up close, the dorm room floor seemed to go from a solid, real surface to a sparser and sparser cloud of little, perfect squares. Pixels.

Ben woke with a start as the bus driver's voice came on over the loudspeaker, announcing that they were making a rest stop and taking on a few more passengers. He blinked his eyes, the details of the strange dream he had just had giving way the the dull ache in his head and his parched throat. He pulled out his earbuds and closed the app on his phone that was playing the stormy sounds.

Juliet and Sam walked passed his seat as Ben rummaged around in his bag for his water and ibuprofen—Juliet looked pretty miserable as she passed by, but flashed Ben a weak smile and a subtle wave. He waved back before looking back down to count out the maximum recommended dose.

Ben stared out the window Idly as his mind reoriented itself, and he remembered the checks in his wallet from Salma. What was he going to do with all that money? When he had first hatched a plan to get it, he had been imagining all sorts of grand, no-stakes adventures in his head, but all of them seemed stupid and childish in light of the loneliness that was weighing on him. He just wanted someone to talk to, someone who would remember what he said, someone who would believe him.

As that thought crossed his mind, he looked back into the aisle and briefly spotted the heavily-bundled form of Ashling climbing into the bus. He looked away, not wanting to be caught staring. Of course, he had known that she was coming all along—he had sat in the same seat on purpose—but it was at that moment that he decided that she was going to be one that he tried to tell about his crazy time loop nonsense. He couldn't really put his finger on why, but despite the fact that the two of them had only really exchanged a few words, he had felt a strange connection to her. Maybe it was the fact that he still had her name in his phone from the first time around, or maybe it was just as simple as a crush. It didn't really matter.

"Pardon me, is this seat taken, like?" she asked in her muffled Irish lilt as she rested her hand gently on his shoulder.

Ben turned to shake his head and smile.

"Nope, go ahead."

The woman stowed her bag above the seat and then bent down to rest her hands on her knees to breathe for a second.

"Sit down and let us through, lady."

Ben looked at the impatient man behind her.

"Just give her a second, sir," Ben commanded as politely as he could manage, but the man ignored him, shouldering past Ashling as he had the first time around, sending her tumbling into Ben.

Ben braced himself better this time, and managed to stand up a little and break her fall against his chest rather than his forehead, catching her and helping her find her balance.

"What the hell, you gobshite!" she yelled at the man, but, as before, he ignored her, and she turned her attention back to Ben "Are you alright sir? I'm so sorry that I fell on you—thanks for catching me, like!"

"No problem," Ben responded, "that guy's an asshole."

Ashling nodded, still covered in her winter gear. She waited for the rest of the passengers to walk past before she stood back up again.

"It's cold as hell out there, and hotter'n hell in here. I'll just be a sec."

Ben nodded to himself—if his memory served, things seemed to be going about the same as they had the first time around. She peeled off her layers as she had before, tossing them up into the storage area above the seat. Ben's eyes couldn't help but dart across her body, from her large breasts to her flat stomach, her tight black tank top leaving little to the imagination. He managed to wrench his eyes up to hers just as she smiled down at him.

"My name's Ashling, by the way."

Ben smiled back, meeting her eyes confidently, remembering how forward she had been the first time around.

"Nice to meet you Ashling. I'm Ben."

Ashling's smile broadened, and she blushed a bit under his obviously undivided attention.

"Cute

and

bold," she said waggling her eyebrows at him, "I like it."

She bent down to pull off her snow pants—treating Ben to a view down her considerable cleavage as she did so—before finally flopping into the seat next to him, adjusting the straps on her tank top and bra almost absent-mindedly.

"So...where are you coming from?" She said as the bus lurched into motion again, "I'm sure my accent's a dead giveaway."

"Kingsburgh—a little town about five hours North."

"Oh Jesus!" she said, putting a friendly hand on his arm, "my condolences, brave soldier. Sometimes I forget how big this country is! That means you woke up at what, three in the morning, like?"

"Pretty Much," Ben replied, feeling the deja vu hitting hard suddenly.

This was probably the first time he had tried to have the same conversation with the same person twice. He didn't remember exactly how it had went last time, but her words—even her hand on his arm—were all so familiar, and it made him feel like he was back in some high school play or something, hearing the same words from the same person and knowing that he wasn't quite getting his lines right.

"Are you alright there? You look as if you've just seen a ghost, like."

"Oh, uh, yeah, sorry," Ben muttered awkwardly, "I'm still a bit groggy from that."

"Of course! If you want to go back to sleep, or—"

"No, it's ok. Thanks, I should really shake it off," he said, literally shaking his head, "besides, I like talking to you."

Ashling blushed, her mouth curling into a pleased grin.

For the next two hours, they talked. Ben was being more forward with his flirting than he ever had been in his life—after all, if he made a fool of himself, she wouldn't remember it anyway—and Ashling seemed to be enjoying the attention, laughing her lilting, intoxicating laugh at his jokes, letting her hand innocently rest for a few seconds on his arm or his leg from time to time. She told him she was just in the city until her flight left at eleven thirty—which he remembered from the first time around, and he offered to spend the day with her, not even mentioning the MORE conference, which he had already attended twice. Ben learned that Ashling was a fitness instructor back home in Cork, that she had four dogs, an English ex-boyfriend who she did not want to talk about, and a passion for playing the cello, though according to her she wasn't very good. Ben refrained from telling her anything about Vic, only mentioning that he was planning on visiting his friend Tomm.