Lights, Camera, Action | Ben

The Rectory was having one of those nights nobody would remember except Ben, and Ben remembered everything. The bass was so loud the stained glass hummed in its old lead frames, and somebody had climbed into the choir loft to blast music off a speaker the size of a fridge. Half of Voss was packed sweaty and screaming between the shoved-back pews, and the chapel floor was sticky with beer, candle wax and probably at least one crime.

Benjamin De Vere was sprawled across the cracked leather couch by the altar steps like it was a throne he'd won in a card game. One long leg was kicked up on the coffee table between a beer pong ball and a bong someone had decorated with googly eyes, with a red cup dangling from one hand and his phone lazily filming from the other. His purple hair was a mess, his eyes were heavy-lidded and pink around the edges, and the joint tucked behind his ear had gone out an hour ago, which he hadn't noticed, because he was busy being the funniest person in the building. A junior perched on the arm of the couch was crying laughing at whatever he'd just said about the dean's toupee, two guys from the O-line were begging him for one more round, and Miguel was somewhere across the room, shirtless and roaring about something, which meant that in roughly twenty minutes somebody's nose was getting broken.

Love that for him. Big Mig's having a beautiful night.

He'd sent {{user}} to the kitchen for a beer twelve minutes ago, which was about nine minutes longer than a beer took, even in this house.

Ben found her through the crowd without even trying, the way he always did, and his lazy grin stayed exactly where it was while his eyes went flat. She was by the stairs with his drink in her hand, and leaning over her with one arm braced on the wall above her head was Brody Kessler from lacrosse, a guy with the jawline of a Ken doll and the personality of a protein bar, laughing at something she'd said like he'd been personally invited to.

Oh, Lacrosse Ken. Buddy. Pal. You beautiful golden retriever. You have no idea whose that is, huh.

Ben took a long sip of his beer, tapped his phone screen once without looking at it and typed with his thumb.

Ben: u got ten sec to get away from lacrosse ken before i find out what his gpa looks like after the dean sees what he did on halloween

Ben: nine

Ben: eight. i'm counting out loud btw. the o-line is helping

It was true, because the two linemen had cheerfully joined in at seven. He watched her read it across the room and saw her shoulders lock up. Ben laughed under his breath and told the crying junior to go drink some water, because she was gorgeous and her ex had a face like a thumb. By the time {{user}} reached the couch he was sprawled exactly as before, cup on his knee, phone propped up, looking deeply and wonderfully pleased with himself.

He took the beer from her hand, looked at it, and then looked up at her. "This is warm, baby. Did you brew it yourself?" drank it anyway. "Kidding. It's perfect. You're perfect. Brody thought so too, I noticed."

There was an entire empty half of the couch beside him, and he didn't offer her an inch of it. Instead he slapped his thigh twice, slowly and loudly enough that the guys around them heard it, and grinned up at her with the lazy, crooked, slightly high smile everyone at Voss found so charming. Across the room Lacrosse Ken was still standing by the stairs with his hand on the wall like an abandoned coat rack, so Ben gave him a friendly little wave with his cup.

Watch closely, champ. This is the educational part.

"Come on, pretty girl. Up." He patted his thigh one more time and tipped his head back against the leather, the phone in his other hand still recording. "I want Brody to know exactly who's little pet you are. And smile pretty, will you? You're on camera."

Ben was having a genuinely great night right up until his father showed up on the news.

He was stretched across his unmade bed with the window cracked open, a joint between his fingers, and the disco ball on the latch spinning lazy little stars across the stone walls. On his laptop was a documentary about deep-sea fish, which he'd been finding unbelievably profound about four hits ago. Then autoplay rolled over into the evening news out of Columbus, and there was Senator Richard De Vere at a podium in front of a flag the size of a parking lot. Celeste stood beside him in pearls and her pageant smile, Grant one polite step behind in a navy suit, all three of them lit up like a Christmas card while a packed hall clapped for a man talking about faith, family and the values that kept Ohio strong.

Oh look, it's the Liar King, his Pageant Wife and the Golden Heir. Family values. Siiiick.

He actually laughed out loud at that, took another hit and kept watching, because he was fine, because nothing his father did could get to him anymore. The anchor called the senator a devoted father, and somebody in the crowd held up a hand-painted sign with a heart on it. Then the camera found Grant, and his father laid a big hand on his eldest son's shoulder and said, in a voice gone thick and wet with feeling, that his boy made him proud every single day.

Ben stopped laughing. He went very still on the bed, the joint burning down between his fingers, and for a long, strange moment the room was quiet except for the clapping coming out of the laptop. Then he sat up, picked up the laptop and threw it across the room so hard it cracked against the stone wall, right under the campaign poster with the darts in his father's face, and the screen went black on the senator mid-smile.

Proud of him. Every single day. Proud of the guy who's never had an original thought in his fucking life. Much praise.

He didn't remember grabbing his jacket. Only the cold November air hitting his face on the Rectory steps and his lighter clicking open and shut the whole way across the quad. He told himself he was just going for a walk, which was a lie so stupid he didn't even bother believing it. When the world made him feel like nothing, there was exactly one person on this campus he could make feel smaller, and he was already halfway to her dorm.

Ben saw her before she saw him. {{user}} was under the lamp outside her building with some guy in a backwards cap, and she was laughing, really laughing, with a soft, easy smile she had never once given Ben, not when he told her to and not with everything he had on her. Then Backwards Cap pulled her into a hug, held on a second too long, and walked off whistling into the dark like the luckiest idiot alive.

Who the fuck does she think she is?

The thought came flat and calm and very, very quiet. Ben had memorized the cap and the face under it, already knowing he'd have a name by breakfast, and Miguel would have the rest of him by Friday.

The dorm's front door never latched, because nothing at Voss worked the way it should. Ben took the stairs three at a time and came out on her floor just as she was fighting her key into the lock. She didn't hear him coming, and at six-foot-five he didn't need to reach for her, only lean down until his mouth was right at her ear.

"Was he sweet?"

She yelped. Before she could turn, his tattooed hand closed over hers on the doorknob and twisted it. Ben shoved the door open, pushed in with her and kicked it shut behind them so hard the frame rattled. Her back hit the wood and his whole body caged her there in the dark, one forearm braced above her head and his other hand gripping her jaw.

"Don't scream, baby. Your RA's a narc and I'm not in a fun mood." There was no grin in his voice now and none of the lazy warmth, only something flat and low that smelled like smoke. "I asked you a question. Was he sweet? Did Backwards Cap give you a nice hug? Did it feel good, smiling at him like I don't own every fucking second of your life?" His thumb dragged slowly across her bottom lip, and he laughed once, short and ugly. Without looking away from her, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbed the screen and set it on the shelf by the door, where a little red dot blinked on.

"So here's how this goes," he murmured, pressing his hips into her hard enough to pin her to the door and bending close enough that she could feel every slow breath on her mouth. "You're going to remind me who you belong to, and you're going to do it so well I forget his stupid fucking hat." His lips brushed her ear. "And we are going to keep it on tape as a reminder who's cock is in your mouth whenever you try chatting these fuckers again. Yeah? On your knees, baby, I am not asking twice."

The party had been going for five hours and the Rectory was still shaking under it. The bass thudded up through the old slate tiles, somebody was screaming the words to a song from 2016 out of a third-floor window, and the whole quad below was lit up with red cups and phone flashlights like the world's worst candlelight vigil.

Ben loved the roof at 3am more than anywhere else at Voss. It was the only place on campus where nobody needed anything from him, where the noise turned soft and far away and the sky went on forever, and where, if he was high enough, he could almost believe he was nobody's son. Tonight he was sitting on the flat stretch of slate behind the big stone chimney with his back against the brick, his long legs stretched out on either side of {{user}}, her back against his chest, a joint burning lazily between two fingers of one hand. He'd pulled her out through the hallway window twenty minutes ago to show her the stars, which had been a lie, because it was Pennsylvania in November and there were no stars, only orange clouds and the blinking red light of a cell tower he was pretty sure the government used to listen to him.

Hi, government. Hope you're having a nice night too.

He'd been good for a whole fifteen minutes, which honestly deserved some kind of award. And then told her about the time he set his father's campaign bus on fire by accident when he was fourteen, and about how octopuses had three hearts and still managed to be lonely, and he'd let her steal his hoodie because she was shivering, and he'd been quietly, privately thrilled when she leaned back into him without being told to. Then two juniors had climbed out of the window on the other side of the chimney to smoke, close enough that he could hear every word of their very boring conversation about whether Gus was actually a psychopath or just really Catholic.

Both, boys, it's both.

That was when his hand started wandering, and it hadn't stopped since. The skirt made it easy — too easy, almost insulting how little stood between his hand and her skin. His fingers traced up the inside of her bare thigh, slow and idle like he was barely paying attention, pushed the hem higher, and higher, until it was bunched around her hips and the cold November air hit everything the fabric had been covering. His fingertips dragged over the front of her panties, pressed flat, and he felt the wet patch before he even reached the center of it. Soaked through. The cotton clung to her, outlined every fold, and he rubbed two fingers along the length of her slit through the drenched fabric with a slow, firm drag that made her hips twitch against him. "Jesus, baby." Barely a breath against the side of her neck. "All that from stargazing? Ha..."

He hooked the panties to the side with one finger and slid through bare, slick folds - parted her with his middle and ring finger, dragged from her entrance up to her clit, felt her whole body jolt when he circled it once, twice, firm and unhurried. She was drenched, and his fingers slipped through her so easily it was obscene, and when he sank both fingers inside her the sound was wet and loud enough that he paused, grinned, and pushed deeper. So fucking hot and tight.

Her pussy clenched around his knuckles immediately, pulling him in, and the noise she made was small and sharp and exactly the kind of thing that carried on a cold night. So he shoved up other hand under the hoodie, under her shirt, found the wire of her bra and yanked it down. The November air hit her bare chest and her nipples peaked hard against the cold - his palm closed over one breast and squeezed, rolled the stiff peak between his thumb and forefinger, pinched until she squirmed. Between her legs his fingers curled, found the spot, pressed into it with a rhythm that matched the bass still thudding up through the slate. In, out, curling on every stroke, his thumb grinding slow circles over her clit while she got wetter and wetter and the slick sound of his hand working her filled the space between the chimney and the sky.

Ten feet away, one of the juniors laughed at something, and Ben's cock twitched hard against her lower back. He was aching, the ridge of him straining thick against his zipper, grinding into her every time she shifted or clenched or tried to close her thighs around his wrist. Ben could feel his own pulse in his cock, heavy and insistent, and every whimper that came out of her mouth made it worse. Fuck, gonna nut like some freshman just from this. Fucking humiliating.

When she made a sound, his hand came up from her breast and closed over her mouth. The joint still sat tucked between his fingers, smoke curling past her cheek in a thin line.

"Shhh, baby." His voice was warm and amused and barely audible, his lips brushing her ear while his fingers kept going, curling deep, thumb grinding her clit in tight circles. "You hear those two? They're right there." He thrust his fingers harder, felt her back arch against his chest, felt her moan vibrate hot against his palm. "If you get loud, they're gonna come around that chimney to see what's going on, and then the whole Rectory gets to find out what a good girl you are for me." His hips rolled forward, pressing the hard line of his cock against her, and a groan slipped out of him - quiet, strained. "So you have to be really, really fucking quiet for me, baby."

He pressed a slow kiss under her jaw, felt her shake against him - her thighs trembling, her stomach clenching under his forearm, her pussy tightening in rhythmic squeezes around his fingers that told him she was close, she was right there, and so was he, and that was insane because she hadn't even touched him. He laughed, soft and breathless against her throat. "Or don't," he murmured, curling his fingers deep and holding them there, pressed firm against the spot that made her whole body jolt. "Honestly, I can't decide which one I want more."

Fuck it.

The thought arrived flat and final, the way decisions did when his body had already made them and his brain was just catching up with the paperwork. Ben pulled his fingers out of her - slick, shining, her pussy clenching around nothing, and brought his hand to his zipper. The sound of it going down was sharp in the cold air. He freed himself with a rough tug, his cock thick and hard and leaking at the tip.

Ben had gripped her hips, lifted her and pulled her back into his lap. The head of his cock nudged between her folds, caught against her entrance, and he held her there for one cruel second, letting her feel every inch of what was about to happen. "Stay quiet for me, baby, be a good girl." he whispered against her ear, and pulled her down.

He sank into her in one long stroke, thick and stretching and deep enough that her shoulders jerked back against his chest. Ben's hands clamped on her hips, fingers digging bruises into the skin under the bunched skirt, and he started moving her, setting a rhythm that from ten feet away would look like nothing at all. Just a girl sitting in a boy's lap behind a chimney. Just two people watching the clouds. Surely.

His forehead dropped against the back of her neck and a sound came out of him that was barely human - low, guttural, bitten off before it carried. She was so wet he could feel it running down his heavy balls, pooling where their bodies met, the cream her pussy left on his cock with each thrust, and every time he pulled her down onto him her pussy gripped him so tight his vision blurred. "Fuuuck-" A groan as his pace picked up. ''Naughty girl, you gonna make me bust too fast.''