Ben's Day Ch. 03

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 blinked a few times, then nodded to himself. That was one question answered. For the third time now, he was sitting in Vic's car, Tammy, at three fifty AM on Saturday morning. It was cold outside, and Vic was about to turn the key in the ignition, which would make the AC vents start blowing cold air because Vic had forgotten to turn the fan off the last time she had driven.

"Yeah," Ben said, reaching over to turn the nob that would turn down the fan before Vic started the engine, "but..."

Ben turned to look at Vic. There she was, gorgeous as ever, her hair in a misshapen storm cloud of black curls, her big, deep blue eyes watching him from underneath long-lashed, drowsy lids. She was perfect. She was also cheating on him, and if things were going how they seemed to be going, he was going to keep seeing her, here, now, again, no matter how he tried to stay away. He had broken up with her yesterday, and here she was again, his accusations, their argument, erased, back to living a lie she thought he didn't know.

"You okay babe? You look like you're about to cry!" Vic said, her brows wrinkling with concern as she reached over to brush his cheek with her hand; Ben recoiled.

"I...I..." Ben stuttered, "I don't think I can do this today."

He grabbed his bag and flung the car door open, looking away from Vic as he walked around the car and back towards their apartment. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't breakup with her again, not so soon, it was too much; but he couldn't just pretend everything was fine either. He didn't want to do anything—and, given the fact that it didn't seem like it mattered what he was doing anyway, he decided that he was going to spend this time around doing nothing at all.

"Babe? Babe! What's going on?" Vic yelled after him, concern in her voice as she got out of the car too, sprinting to catch up to him as he made it to their apartment door.

"I just...it's too much," Ben said, resisting the urge to shrink away from her touch as she put a hand on her shoulder; he didn't want to fight, he just wanted to sleep.

"What is?"

Ben looked at Vic again. Whatever she had done, however many times she had betrayed him or would betray him, some part of her really cared, he could see it in her eyes. Despite the fact that she was cheating, he couldn't help but feel a strange pang as he realized that he had fucked Sam, and now Vic didn't even remember him breaking it off. It was almost like he had cheated too, although he quickly told himself that that didn't make any sense.

"I...I just can't," Ben said, closing his eyes, repressing the sudden urge to start sobbing.

What was coming over him? Fear? Guilt? Exhaustion? He turned away from Vic before opening his eyes again and unlocking the door to the apartment, stepping in quickly, letting Vic shut the door behind her. The apartment was dark. It occurred briefly to Ben that, for him, it had been nearly two whole days since he had been home, rather than the five minutes that Vic must have just witnessed. Nonetheless, Ben knew his apartment well enough to feel his way towards the bedroom in the dark.

After only a couple of steps, Vic's phone chimed out loud and clear—the snap from Juliet's boyfriend Harry. The sound reminded Ben of everything all over again, and he realized that if he just crawled back into his own bed, Vic would crawl in next to him—and he didn't want that. Ben turned around, deciding to head to the couch, and almost ran in to Vic behind him, who had stopped briefly to check the snap. The light of her phone lit up her face as her eyes widened for a brief moment before she tapped the screen once and slid her phone back into her purse.

"That was—" she started trying to explain without provocation, a hint of guilt in her tone.

Ben grunted, pushing past her into the living room, "I'm going to sleep on the couch."

Vic stepped out of his way, watching him lumber over to the couch and crumple onto it. As soon as he was down, he realized how cold it was in the apartment, and how, unlike the bed, the couch didn't have any blankets or comforters or anything—but he was far too miserable to get up—however, after only a few moments of lying there, face tucked into the corner between armrest and back cushion, hiding from the world, he felt Vic spread their down comforter over him before bending down to kiss his cheek.

"Feel better, babe. I'll be in bed, but if you need anything, just let me know, ok?"

Ben didn't answer, pretending to be asleep until Vic walked away.

Once he heard the bedroom door close, Ben pulled out his phone. Sure enough the same folder was there that he had found the last time around. He opened it, and saw not one, but two more folders inside, one labelled L0001 and one Labelled L0002. He opened the second, and as he suspected, all of the texts from his second time through the day were there—everything between Sam, Tomm, Juliet, and himself, as well as a couple of dozen texts and snaps and voicemails from Vic which he had never read, but were nonetheless still saved on his phone.

Whatever was going on, it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. Ben decided that if he was going to be forced to live through this day again and again, he should try and figure out why, and how. He checked the news, but nothing caught his attention—locally there were winter storm warnings and a new amber alert, nationally there was the constant deluge of idiocy from the fascist-in-chief and a story about the most recent school shooting, and internationally there were economic problems in Europe and violence in the Middle East—nothing out of the ordinary, as depressing as that was. No clues there.

Starting to feel warm under the comforter, and still wearing all of his winter clothes Ben took a break from his musing to strip down to his boxer-briefs under the covers before pulling out his phone once again.

He briefly toyed with the idea of exploring his particular circumstances by booking last-minute flights to visit far off countries, but he didn't have the money for that if this looping suddenly stopped for some reason—and besides, by the time he got to some other country he would probably only have a couple of hours before the loop reset anyway. Domestically, he fantasized about doing something drastic like assassinating the president or robbing a bank, but he wasn't a violent person, and besides, he didn't know all the rules of the loop; what if he died and it never reset?

He realized, as he thought about this, that he was thinking about his life like a video game. It made sense—he had played enough of them, and it was hard to think of a time loop without thinking of science fiction out of some game or show or movie, and since he wasn't some genius physicist he didn't usually think about the finer points of time travel in a strictly scientific sense—but games had rules, as whatever was happening to him must, and along with those rules came boundaries that could be pressed, exploits, glitches, and...loading screens? Maybe the analogy wasn't perfect, but it seemed to him like there must be something interesting he could do.

Money was the first obvious step, it would make everything easier. Assuming he was going to be living this day over and over, making some quick money off of his ability to remember the future seemed both plausible, and unlikely to hurt him even if the loop suddenly stopped. The only problem was, Ben had never really gambled much, and hadn't ever put anything into stocks. He did some cursory research on sports gambling, but since it was technically illegal to do it online it looked like at the very least there was a lag time getting the money in the bank after you won anything—and any significant lag time made the money virtually useless since he only had one day to spend it in.

Cash in hand would be ideal—but also hard to actually get. He would need to find a place where he could bet on something in person, and collect his winnings fast enough that he could make use of them for the rest of the day, but where could he make large cash bets that paid out quickly on a frigid Saturday morning in January?

Stumped, and beginning to feel the weight of his own eyelids dragging down, Ben put his phone away, closed his eyes, and fell asleep on the couch.

Ben felt fingers tracing along his arm and up his shoulder; gentle caresses that just hinted at tickling him. He smiled and let out a sleepy, pleased sound, still only partially conscious, and rolled over on his back, eyes still closed, opening up more of his body to the wandering fingers, which first traced up his neck and around his ears before they began mussing his hair, massaging his scalp. They wandered south again, tracing over his lips—pulling them apart for just a moment—and down his neck to his chest.

His mind still groggy, his eyes still closed, he felt his cock—hard already with morning wood—pulse eagerly. The fingers continued to explore his body, caressing through the curls of his chest hair, circling and teasing his nipples, and occasionally drifting down over his abdomen to trace just above the elastic of his boxer-briefs before coasting back up to his chest, sending ripples of pleasure across his skin.

As the tickling caresses continued, Ben began to react more and more to their wandering: his abs tightening as they traced across them, his erection pulsing against his boxer briefs each time the fingers teased closer to his groin. He let out another pleased moan, smiling, as the tickling fingers swooped down and started caressing his cock through the soft, thin material of his boxer briefs. Instinctively his buttocks tightened, lifting his cock into the teasing hands as they explored every inch of it, fluttering across the head, sliding down the shaft, and tickling at his balls.

"Good morning, babe," Vic's voice whispered into Ben's ear, "I hope you're feeling better?"

Hearing her voice, the haze of sleep started to lift off of him. He fluttered his eyes open to see Vic, kneeling on the floor next to the couch, leaning over him. She had peeled the comforter back off of him so that she could get at his body, and her big blue eyes were looking in to his, practically oozing concern and arousal at the same time. She was wearing an old white t-shirt of his, which she had cut up into a flimsy pajama top that hung off of one shoulder; it was nearly see-through, and he could tell from the heavy shapes of her breasts and the prominent dark bumps of her nipples pressing against the shirt that she wasn't wearing a bra.

"Mmmm," Ben answered noncommittally—he remembered everything, her lies, her cheating—but she was also very good with her hands...and her mouth...and everything else.

"I don't know what made you stay out here on the couch, but I'm glad I'm going to have you here all weekend," she said seductively, slipping a hand up the leg of his underwear to finally touch his pulsing cock directly with her dexterous fingers, "I started some coffee for you, and make some breakfast, but I then I saw you lying here and well...couldn't resist."

Ben gasped as she pried down his underwear with her free hand, sliding the other out of the leg and then reaching down to wrap around his girth, pulling his cock into the open and starting to pump in earnest, lubricated by the generous pre come she had coaxed out of him up to this point.

"I thought I'd start out slow...but I was thinking...maybe this weekend we could check a few items off of our little list?"

Ben didn't have the presence of mind to respond to that—but he did have a sudden urge to push her face into his crotch. Normally he would have resisted such an urge, but he wasn't feeling any compassion for her anymore, just pure animal lust. He reached out and grabbed the back of her head by the hair, and pushed her face into his dick. She resisted for a second before she figured out what he was doing and giggled and let him press her face up against his length, still pumping him with one hand. His cock bounced off of her lips, cheek, and nose, leaving a little trail of sticky pre come on her face as she continued to jack his throbbing cock.

"Feeling a little impatient today, babe?"

Ben grunted an affirmative, and she shrugged and gulped him down in one quick motion, still pumping at the base of his cock with her hand. Once her mouth had enveloped him, Ben thrust into her, and hand still on the back of her head, started pushing her down on him as he thrust, feeling the tightening flesh of her throat as she gagged loudly, but didn't resist, instead matching the rhythm of his thrusts and reaching her free hand down to tickle his balls.

With his hand on her head, he pushed her down faster and faster, barley giving her time to gasp for air as he felt himself getting closer and closer to the edge. Her breasts were bouncing around wildly under her shirt with the frantic motion, slapping against his thigh as she gargled and bobbed on his cock over and over again.

After several minutes, she let out a loud cough and wrenched herself off of him, and he relented the pressure on the back of her head reluctantly. Pre come and saliva were dripping from her mouth as she gasped for breath, still pumping his cock with her right hand as she recovered, grinning lustily.

"I like this new Ben," she voiced wickedly, "so assertive."

She started to lean towards his cock again, stuck out her tongue and licked the tip as she continued to pump her hand up and down his length. Ben reached out with his hand, this time grabbing the loose neck of her makeshift shirt, and pulled it down to reveal her left breast—pulling so hard that she shirt tore open wider. She grinned as she licked the tip of his cock, and he pulled again, tearing the shirt into rags, revealing both of her pendulous tits as they wiggled with the rhythm of her arm.

"You miss these?" she said between licks, thrusting her chest out proudly.

Ben grunted in affirmative, grabbing the closest breast roughly, squeezing the firm flesh hungrily. She took a break from licking his cock to angle it into her other breast, sliding its head around her tit as her hand kept working his length. The lubrication of his pre come and her saliva made his cock slip and slide around the surface of her breast, bumping against her nipple or sliding into her cleavage with every pump while she just looked at him with a grin.

"You don't need to worry about me, babe. After last night, I owe you," she said, waggling her eyebrows; Ben dimly realized that for her, it had only been a single night since he had spent an hour with his face between her legs, but since it had been before this loop had started, it was days past for him.

Her rhythm had slowed down, as she smiled at him, sliding his cock around her breast as he squeezed the other, and Ben realized that he was getting impatient. he started thrusting his hips into her hand and breast, and she responded by pulling on his cock faster again—but that wasn't enough, so he released her breast to again grab the back of her head and press it towards his raging, slippery cock.

Vic took the hint, eagerly gargling his cock deep into her throat again, gagging as he thrust deeper and deeper, faster and faster. Her naked breasts were bouncing and flapping wildly now as she attacked his cock, putting her whole body into the frantic bobbing that he was driving with his hand on the back of her head. He started to moan unconsciously, feeling the swelling pleasure build more and more with each thrust into her throat.

Finally, his bucking became a spasming shudder as he started spraying load after load into her mouth, losing the strength in his hand to keep forcing her down on him, but she kept up the pace nonetheless, letting his come splatter out of her mouth, all over the two of them as she bobbed on his cock again and again until his last load has plastered the back of her throat and splattered out of her mouth. After finishing him off, Vic cheerfully lapped up every spot of cum that had splattered onto Ben's thighs and stomach before bouncing off to take a shower.

Ben spent the rest of the morning being quietly pampered by Vic. He didn't talk to her much, stewing on everything that he knew, but he didn't say no to her attention either. She tried to get him to say why he had stayed home—and why he had slept on the couch—several times, but he deflected her, not having the energy to breakup with her again, and not having any other explanation that made any sense.

It was a difficult situation—he had gone through the breakup, he had stormed away from her car and spent the rest of the day ignoring her calls, texts, and any other attempt at contacting him—but then he had woken up right back next to her, and she had no memory of any of it. If this was going to keep up, Ben knew he was going to have to find some way to get through the morning without rehashing an argument or just ignoring what he knew—but until he figured that out, he wasn't going to put himself through a breakup every day. He just couldn't do it.

Ben's original intent had been to try and just give her the cold shoulder—interact with her as little as possible as he tried to figure out more about this whole day that he was being forced to relive—but that plan had gone to hell pretty quickly when she had starting stroking his cock before he was even fully conscious, and now he felt weak and stupid and wronged and guilty all at the same time. He could breakup with her again at any time—but then again, he had already let her suck him off, make him breakfast and coffee, why stop now? He had already botched the whole "cold shoulder" thing, might as well ride it out?

Ben shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the emotional turmoil that was preying on his thoughts. It didn't matter. It shouldn't matter. He needed to rise above these petty issues and address the real problem: he was in some sort of Groundhog-Day-style time loop, and he needed to figure out how, and why, and what he needed to do to get out of it. It was just past noon, and Vic was in the other room now, watching some youtube video about archery—one of her more eclectic interests—while folding her laundry, and Ben was sitting at his desk, laptop in front of him, wondering what he could possibly type into the search bar to get some useful insight.

The straightforward attempt—'how to end time loop' or 'best way to make money Groundhog Day'—didn't give him much that was useful. Though he was experiencing something that felt an awful lot like the plot of a movie, he had pretty big doubts that the power of true love was going to fix space-time, and other than that it seemed that he was down to doing something involving Star Trek technology or letting the aliens from that Tom Cruise movie bleed him out, and since he had access to neither dilithium crystals nor alien blood, those both seemed just as unhelpful as becoming a better man and seducing Andie MacDowell.

"Babe?"

Ben looked up from his computer to see Vic standing in the doorway, dressed in a pair of his red plaid pajama bottoms and one of her black sports bras. She really did look good in just about everything.

"Huh?"

"How are you feeling?" she asked with what appeared to be genuine concern, "I can tell there's something you don't want to talk about but—"

"I'm ok," Ben lied, closing his laptop, "I'm just having a weird day. Don't worry about me."