Ben Reese, a kind-of nobody.

There comes a moment in everybody's life where they smother their face in a pillow and scream and get spittle everywhere.

Ben Reese was having one such moment. It was a Tuesday night. Messy-haired young man from a well off family of five, average and painstakingly unspectacular, besides one too many joints in one finger, and who had officially lost his job earlier that noon before heading to a red-light district to pay for sex with the first hooker he saw later that night in a drunken haze.

It had been about five minutes. His ass was pinned and beaten by some thug who had emerged from the closet door mid-blowjob, taking his wallet, and the skank with him. Clearly, he was baited. Baited like fish.

"Oh, Ben," as his aunt would head-shake, "what have you got yourself into this time?"

Jobless, money-less, and worst of all, sex-less, the man found himself staring at a cockroach crawling down a TV wire, thinking of going back to college. It wasn't too late. He was only 21. He had dropped out within a few months at eighteen. Not enough orgy parties, as he put it. Sarcastically.

Fuck sarcasm.

And you know what? Fuck college.

Instead, he decided to open up his journal, tripping towards the book laid open on his desk, and plopped down on the chair, oblivious to the thickness of the spine, the odd dustiness coloring its wrinkly pages. A burp escaped his throat. Hard to tell if he was sober or even more intoxicated from the crappiness of tonight. Didn't matter. He pulled up his pen. He didn't even bother to date and time it.

He just... wrote.

I AM BEN FUCKING REESE, I DO NOT PAY WOMEN FOR SEX--THEY, PAY, ME!

I AM BEN REESE. I DON'T GET PAID TO 'WORK'--I, GET PAID, TO BE WORKED ON!!

I AM BEN REESE, AND ME BEING ALIVE, FOR FREE?? ITS A FUCKING CHARITY!

After nearly punching a hole through the page with that final exclamation point, the pen fell out of his fingers, slipping behind the desk before he could add a fourth line. Stumbling off the chair, Ben took another swig of beer, spending the rest of the night alternating between throwing up in the toilet, rolling over on his mattress, and jerking off -- to little avail.

Seemed like days had passed before, finally, a tremulous snore trailed through the clutter-filled apartment, and day quietly broke.

Jingle-jangle.

Ben grumbled.

Yesterday was real. And now came the ramifications.

Shame. He was hoping that it was all just some nightmare.

"First thing's first," he sighed, rubbing his eyes. He blinked them open, closing and locking his door. "Replacing my debit card."

Another jangle grabbed his attention, and he looked to his right to see a hot bob-haired brunette in jeans shorts and a nice fitting, brown tanktop just exiting her apartment as well.

It was then that their eyes incidentally crossed paths. Right after his left the subtle curve of her tight bottom.

Shit.

Attempting a smile, Ben managed a creepy grin.

Double shit. But you know what? Who cared. Who cared? Even were he to have pearly white, perfectly lined teeth, a sleek mane, and a got-damned motor toothbrush, he'd still be as miles away from that pussy as he was that moment; and that moment, it was in the double digits.

Owner of said pussy lived together with her fiancee two units down from his own. She was one of many, many hotties that occupied this complex. It was [more than] a little infuriating, admittedly, and a bit cocked up, to be so close to, yet so far from, such irrevocably groin-tightening, skin-baring, soft, delicious-looking stimuli on an insistently unwavering, day-to-day basis. Just passing by a trio of co-eds bouncing away from the pool, or a thick thighed black chick on her bike moving those legs up and down and up and around, to that one Asian MILF with a hell of a booty on her bending forward to gather up her groceries -- all of these sights, sounds, and smells, every waking outdoors moment, it all made his break up with Patricia four months ago even more impossible to get over. Things had went so swimmingly the first few months. Oh how did she turn into such a bitch? Why, tit gods, why?

It was crud. It was unfair. It was...

...it was that chick from before, coming up to him with an angle on her brow.

He tore his gaze from her bare, slightly muscular thighs as she stopped a few feet from him. She set a hand on her hip. Looked him up and down. Then, opened her mouth.

"How much you charge?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe--" She pushed on a cheek with her tongue, in thought, scanning Ben up and down once again. "Shit, there's no way you're that cheap."

"Cheap?" Ben pittered out a confused chuckle. "Depends on if I'm looking at watches or ribeye."

Ding.

Down the hallway, a pair of girls and an older man stepped out of the elevator. The latter went straight to the nearest door, opened it, and strode in. The two young women, however, continued down the hallway, towards them.

"I..."

The rosy voice of the young woman before him broke the post-ding languor, and Ben watched as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, taking this moment to drink in the sight of her tight, light-bouncing thigh. It was impressive how fittingly it ran down her pair of shorts, lining up with the contour of her pants with minimal negative space. Thank you gym culture.

"I want," after a thought, the woman lifted a finger straight up. "I want to suck on your dick for... seventy-five? Is that alright?"

Was he just punched? It sounded, for some reason, like he just heard her offer to give him a blowjob. Her. Hottie. Giving him. Ugly. A blowjob.

An awkward silence sat between them. Her pretty facial features dropped.

She snapped her fingers, and pulled out her wallet from her back pocket. Then, to Ben's amazement, he watched her pull out a one-hundred dollar bill and wave it. "How 'bout this?"

"WHAT?" spluttered Ben as he stood there staring at his hot neighbor, the same one he'd been living beside for a few months now, looking back up at him with a completely serious look vested in both her eyes. "Are... are you giving me one hundred dollars to--"

"--get some quick sex," she finished for him flatly. "Fuck, I can't believe you live next to me. Fuck." She cleared her throat, blushing, as a shiver took to her legs. And were those bullish points on her tanktop what they looked like they were? "You're a pretty thing."

O-hokay.

Ho-kay.

Hold on.

What was going on here?

Did he really wake up? Or was he currently in one of those dream-in-a-dream sequences?

Before he could finish the thought, a gasp slapped him to a halt.

"OH MY GAWD!" One of the girls from before elbowed her friend. She was also in shorts, a lighter shade of blue, while her friend was wearing leggings. On top, the first one had on a high-cut, sleeveless cardigan over a white t-shirt, while her friend was in a form fitting button up V-neck. "Jenna, come on, let's get laid! The both of us!"

"What are you yapping about Izzy?"

'Izzy' rolled her eyes, and lofted a finger at Ben Reese. "He's wearing the green wristband! He's on the clock!" As Jenna stopped and leaned her head forward, looking at Ben's wrist, Izzy grinned. "See?"

"Oh, shit!" Jenna's eyes widened, and, kid you not, her nipples visibly poked through her own V-neck fabric like tips of a finger. "He IS on the clock!"

"Come on come on come on. I want some of that slippin' in me before we get to Rachel's."

"You?" laughed Jenna. "Aren't you broke?"

Meanwhile, as the two bickered, Ben instantly looked to his wrist, baffled to see a green wristband indeed around it.

What? When did he ever put this on? He wasn't a wristband guy. He wasn't even a watch guy. Hence the watch-and-ribeye analogue.

While Jenna and Izzy joined his neighbor in ogling his unremarkable self, the two of them wiping the drool from the corners of their lips as they sidled up to him, Izzy even rubbing her nether regions against his thigh, in turn sandwiching his leg between her own firm pair, he twisted his wrist to see the other side of the wristband.

Across its surface read, 'WORKING'.