Chapter Text
The first trip to Headlights is for research.
It was Ben’s (brilliant) idea for Snoke Global Capital to take over the chain’s parent company. What had sold since the beginning of time? Sex. What did Headlights sell? Sex doused in wing sauce.
Not a sure bet, but close. And of course Hux and the rest of the analysts were game to spend a night seeing who could make the waitress blush. Even if they couldn’t take credit for the idea.
Ben knocks back a few beers and carefully inspects the front of the server’s T-shirt for the outline of her nipples. She notices. Her hand slips as she sets down their pitchers, and some of the beer sloshes onto the table. They’re filled way past the line.
That’s an inefficiency Ben could fix. A detail that shows he’s done his diligence.
He drops it into his proposal. His boss approves.
*
The second trip is for research, too.
On Ben’s recommendations, Snoke Global Capital has made some changes at Headlights. New (tinier) uniforms for waitstaff, new (smaller) serving sizes, new (higher) menu prices. He wants to confirm they’re working.
The server is different. This one grins when she catches Ben studying the gap between her tits while she sets their drinks down.
They’re pretty small. Maybe he should look into the hiring process. People go to chain restaurants to get the same ranch dressing on their wilting lettuce whether they’re in Chicago or Chattanooga. They should be able to get the same boobs, too. A real set of Headlights.
He leans back in his seat and checks out the new uniform as she moves off.
The idea had come to him in the shower—the servers should somehow be naked-er—and he’d tasked Rose, his junior analyst, with figuring out how.
Contemporary media indicates that the “big naturals” trend has been supplanted by “big caboose” memes. Industry-leading sites such as PornHub report that 58% of users searched “big ass” in the past year, whereas only 46% searched for “big tits,” she’d written. Her sigh when Ben thanked her for the report was barely suppressed.
So: shorter shorts. Ben made a note to increase Rose’s bonus, had her put together a presentation, and called a meeting with the Headlights execs.
Now, he notices, the shorts are short. They’re more like fawn-colored briefs than shorts. He’s seen more coverage on the lingerie sites he used to jerk off to. (It’s between him and his browser if he still visits them sometimes with self-loathing in his heart and his stupidly eager dick in his hand.)
He also notices this ass is stupendous.
Stupefying, even. Ben doesn’t realize his mouth has dropped open until Hux claps him on the back and Ben nearly bites his tongue off.
“If it weren’t for this fucker, we wouldn’t be sitting here on Snoke’s dime,” Hux is saying. “A toast to you, Solo, and your one good idea. Next time one of you douchedrips better find a chain of strip clubs for us to buy.”
*
The next twenty trips are for...reasons.
Two reasons. Two utterly perfect reasons that seem to press on Ben’s eyelids every time he blinks and pop into his dreams every night. He slips out of the bar where, every weeknight, Snoke regales Hux and the boys with his tales of doing blow for breakfast and strippers for lunch, and sits by himself in a booth at Headlights.
It feels important. Necessary. Putting in the time is the path it takes to get what he wants, and he always gets it in the end. He had to grind out eighty-hour weeks to go from junior analyst to VP. He’ll grind out a second shift if it gets him from dreaming about the ass to being balls deep in it.
“I want something I can really sink my teeth into,” he says one night, when he pretends to have a question about the burger so the server will slide into the booth and peer at the menu with him. “Something juicy.” He leers to make it obvious he’s talking about her body.
She purses her lips for a second, glancing at the table, then meets his eyes. “The burger’s good, but I think you should order the wings.”
“I’ve already had the wings.”
“But have you ever pretended they’re my ass?” Tugging the menu out of his grasp, she stands up. “Try it this time.”
So she knows. Good for her. He hasn’t exactly been subtle.
*
“What size does your girlfriend normally wear?” The saleswoman’s hand hovers over the pile of thongs.
“I didn’t say she was my girlfriend. It’s just a girl I want to bang.”
Weeks of talking to the server has yielded minimal results.
He got her name, Sunny, from her nametag. He learned that she thinks the ranch is better than blue cheese for dipping wings. He got a smile for his comment comparing both dressings to jizz. But nothing more.
So Ben’s moving to the gift phase. Starting with underwear, to get the message across, but who cares if he has to buy her a camera? A phone? Last year’s bonus would cover a car for each cheek and then some. It’s what Hux says he did to get that influencer to fuck him. No reason the same strategy shouldn’t work on a server.
“All right.” The saleswoman frowns. “What size do you think she wears?”
Ben shrugs and holds up a cupped hand. “Each side is like from here to here,” he says, pointing at the base of his thumb and the tip of his pinkie.
“Okay, well, the thong doesn’t really cover any of that.”
“I know.” Ben grins. “That’s the idea.”
He does know. He’s thought, at length, about how the fabric will slide into Sunny’s ass and snap tight against her holes. Nestle in there all day. Invisible under those tights and those shorts.
The saleswoman’s frown deepens. “Is she a big person? Small?”
He brings a hand under his chin. “She comes up to here on me. Slim. Nothing in front. But the back? Unbelievable.”
He’s being crude on purpose, and he’s rewarded with a little shiver from the saleswoman as she gathers a bouquet of thongs from the display.
Ben loves watching people squirm.
Ideally, Hux, when they’re in a meeting with Snoke and Ben says something to completely demolish Hux’s half-cocked investment idea of the week. Also, his partners, when he pushes the last few inches of his dick in a little too fast and he’s got one of his big hands keeping them still, so they just have to take it.
And why not do it? Ben was only a kid when he first noticed how people’s expressions sort of melted down in disappointment when they took in his too-big body with its radar ears or heard one of his weird jokes. Even his parents make pointed comments about his wonderful personality when he says the wrong thing for the millionth time. He might as well make people squirm on purpose and enjoy himself.
Sunny’s going to squirm, too. Once he’s softened her up with careful application of his credit card. She’s going to writhe around with her shorts and tights stretched around her thighs. Then she’ll struggle to open her legs wider, because Ben’s not a complete monster. He wants to make that ass welcome him inside.
*
“Did you get the present I sent you?” Ben asks in a voice he usually reserves for Are you going to swallow all Daddy’s come like a good girl? The D word gets a squirm ninety percent of the time, but it has to be used sparingly. Too much and it doesn’t elicit that look of surprise, disgust, and desperation that he relishes.
Sunny smiles. “I did. Thank you. It was so sweet of you to think of me.”
It wasn’t sweet at all. It was a veiny, vibrating red dildo to match the plug he sent her the week before, which matched the thongs he finally picked out the week before that and sent to the restaurant.
He’s been imagining her biting her lip with effort as she tries to push it into an asshole that’s too tight. Rolling around on her bed with the dildo only halfway in, maybe whimpering in frustration. “Did you think about me when you used it?”
She’s going to shudder. Squirm. Tell him she would never. Tell him the back door is locked and how dare he insinuate—
Her face falls. Or she makes it fall, which is an interesting thought. “You know, I’ve been so busy with work and school. I just haven’t had any me time lately,” Sunny says.
“Is there anything I can do to free up your schedule? Take care of some bills? Maybe your car isn’t that reliable?”
But she brushes that off, too. “I don’t even need a car, working downtown. Some of the girls at the stores in the suburbs have super long commutes. But I can just ride my bike.” She smiles like she can’t imagine a more blessed existence than waking up in what’s probably a crappy studio and shimmying into her deer outfit and painting on doe eyes and biking down to pull another shift at Headlights.
“So that’s how you keep everything so...tight.”
She’s nodding and plucking the menu from his hand, starting to slide out of the booth, but he grabs her wrist. Through her lashes, she looks at him expectantly. Not shivering, not shuddering, not trying to wriggle away.
“Let me know, okay?” he continues. “If there’s ever anything I can do. To help you.” He looks down her shirt to make it clear he can help with financial problems, sexual problems, or all of the above.
She smiles again, like his gaze is hot shower water instead of something slimy and oozing. “That’s so nice of you to offer, Ben. I really appreciate it.” Her finger taps the back of his hand lightly. “My manager kicks people out if he sees them touching the girls.”
“Right.” He releases her, and she scurries off to get his beer.
She comes back with two. “Thought you could use an extra tonight since you’re so worried about me.”
“Sure.”
“I bet it takes a couple to get you relaxed anyway. Big man like you.”
It’s weird. The words, the way her eyes track down his body—it’s all meant to puff him up.
But it makes Ben feel small.
*
“Solo. Rail tonight?”
“Can’t,” Ben says without thinking. “I have to go to—”
He catches himself in time. But Hux has a point. Why doesn’t Ben just go to the strip club with the rest of the office? It’s a ten-minute cab ride, and he could see a lot more ass. Bare ass. He could actually touch the ass. Get his face right in there and smell the perfume, all heated by the ass until the scent wafts off like steam. Leave with some kind of shiny makeup smeared on his cheeks.
The answer is, he can’t. His dick isn’t interested. That ass, that collective ass, is not like his ass. Sunny’s ass.
“Don’t leave me hanging. You got a date? You been swiping? You working for it? You paying for dinner?” Hux’s eyes are glassy, like he’s already gone over a ski jump or two in the office bathroom.
“Nah, this chick I’ve been—you know. Tearing it up.”
“You’re a shitty liar. You’re not even sniffing that pussy.”
“I’m getting in there twice a night,” Ben protests.
“Oh sweet fuck.” Hux shakes his head. “Benjamin, Benjamin. You haven’t even touched her.”
Someday he’s going to get his hands around Hux’s neck, squeeze, and see if his face will turn as red as his hair. Today, he clenches his fists and slinks off to Headlights.
*
“See how Ben is fighting the hoop? You want to go with it,” Sunny says. To him, “Try one more time.”
Ben spins the hoop again. He understands complex debt instruments and squats twice his body weight. How hard can it be to fucking hula hoop?
It’s the first time he’s been to Headlights on the weekend. Just a quick stop on his walk home from the gym, just to see if Sunny’s around.
She’s there, all right. She’s running the hula-hoop competition for a bunch of families decked out in hats and jerseys, clearly in town for the game this afternoon.
The hoop goes around twice, then clatters to the floor. The kids laugh. The little turds.
Ben wants to throw the hoop through the window and watch them cry. He wants to throw Sunny over his shoulder, take her to the alley behind the restaurant, and work her body until her moans override the memory of the kids shrieking.
Who cares. Let them yuk it up. They’re children, he reminds himself. Maybe they’re his rivals for Sunny’s attention. But he has at least a decade to enjoy her ass before any of them have half a chance with it. Plus, failing to hoop is probably a sign he worked his core to the max.
“Okay. Let’s give Ben a cheer for showing us what not to do and let him go back to his wings.” She whistles and hoots while the families clap.
Back at his plate, the wing sauce has congealed, but he’s too busy watching Sunny to care. She corrals the kids and starts the competition, keeping her own hoop going the whole time.
Her ass is, obviously, always glorious. But in motion like this, it’s mesmerizing. She can move the hoop up and down her waist until it’s low on her hips, practically ricocheting off her curves.
She makes sure the kid with the bare head wins the baseball-cap prize and goes back to their parents with a grin wide enough to split their little face. Then, on her way to bring the hoops back behind the bar, Sunny pauses at Ben’s table.
“Thanks for your help,” she says, smiling as brightly at him as she did at the crowd of miniature assholes and their parents.
“How was that helpful? I couldn’t do it.”
She laughs. “Yeah, your technique needs some work. At least you were a good sport, though. Some guys totally refuse to come up. Even when I ask nicely.”
Her giggle makes his stomach warm, and it’s not just the spicy wing sauce. But his brain reminds him that he still hasn’t seen her squirm, which is his main objective. “I told you, if there’s anything you need, just ask. Anything,” he tells her nipples.
It doesn’t faze her. She just keeps beaming. “You’re so generous, Ben. Thanks.”
Lying atop his Turkish cotton sheets that night, Ben runs through the routine: think about his nose in her asshole, get hard; think about his dick in her asshole, jerk off.
But this time, after the usual squirming and writhing and gasping and clenching and spurting, his imagination adds a few extra steps. He thinks about licking up the come that seeps out of her hole, leading her ass to the shower, soaping each cheek with his hands. Rubbing her dry. It’s impossible to get her all the way dry, in this extended fantasy, because he did such a good job turning her on. Behind his eyelids, she smiles at him like he’s just hooped for twenty minutes straight.
Something is wrong with him.
It shouldn’t be hard to figure out. He understands complex equity instruments, too. But Ben wipes the come off, tugs the sheets up, and wills himself to sleep before he can think too hard about it.
*
“Today I was thinking….” Ben motions her closer. What he’s been thinking is that he might as well get explicit, because being coy isn’t getting a rise out of her.
“What?” Sunny leans forward, elbows on the table, and props her chin in her hands. There are freckles leading into her still-minimal cleavage.
“Those shorts are so tight that if you wore that plug I gave you, I could see the end of it through them. Especially if you bent over like this.”
It’s the first time her smile drops. She straightens, and for an instant he thinks this is it. He’s finally crossed the line, and she’s going to wave her manager over and have Ben kicked out. At least he’ll go down swinging.
“Look, we both know you’re hot,” he says quickly. He’ll lay it all out, and she’ll make a deal with him. That’s how business works. “Let’s be honest with each other. What’s it going to take for me to fuck you? You want me to buy you something designer? Take you out to dinner a couple times?”
She purses her lips, the way she did when he told her he wanted something he could sink his teeth into. Then her hip’s nudging his, making room for herself in the booth.
“Have you seen Bluest Marble? The nature show?”
“I’ve heard of it.” From Rose, who sends him clips of lions tearing into gazelles to psych them both up for big presentations. “Why?”
“I’m rewatching it. You know the episodes with the bird mating dances? Those are so funny. It’s, like, a random branch, and the narrator is all, Here we behold one of the rarest rituals in all of nature, the courtship of the purple-tailed Arctic parrot, and it’s five minutes of the lady bird sitting there looking around and five seconds of the dude bird flapping his wings.”
“Yeah?” Ben has no idea where this conversation is headed. This Sunny is—different from the bubbly one who brings two beers at once and puts smiley faces with heart eyes on all his checks. He doesn’t know what to expect from her.
“The narrator always makes such a big deal out of what happens afterwards. If the female shows her feathers, it means she’s selected this male, and their chicks will hatch the following spring. And I get it. You want chicks, you pick the bird who can flap and hop around for five seconds.” She leans in a little. “But which bird do you pick if you want other things?”
“Other things?”
“Yeah. How does the lady bird find the dude bird who’s going to blow her little bird brain?”
Okay. Okay. Ben can use this. “Give me your number. I’ll show you what I’m working with.” Yes. Smoothly done.
Sunny tries to purse her lips but can’t. She bursts out laughing. “My number? My number.” She takes a deep breath. “You don’t even have my real name.”
It’s right on her nametag, though. “But—”
“Besides,” she goes on, still chuckling to herself, “just because you have it doesn’t mean you know how to use it.”
Ben has never had any complaints. He opens his mouth to tell her so.
“What? You want to buy me a car? Buy me dinner? I can buy whatever I want. Ever since we switched to the new shorts, I’ve been raking it in. What I need isn’t someone to send me a dildo. It’s someone who knows how to make me feel good.”
“I could—”
She gives him that slow up-and-down, the one that’s meant to look like a sunbeam but feels like a laser. “You could what? Fuck me right? You can’t even hula hoop.”