Just What He Needs

Ben wanders the inn's 5th floor. There were 10 of the floors in all and 4 outbuildings, some connected with small corridors. There were no elevators, so he was certainly getting his steps in. Luckily, it seemed like everybody's rooms were in the first 3 floors, so he didn't need to worry about somebody like Ashley with her heels having to climb 9 sets of stairs.

He was truly wandering. The first day, he had secluded himself in his room, trying to will himself away from this place. After a lunch where he once again ate in the kitchenette from mysteriously placed food, he had had enough of the same walls. So he began to wander. First on his own floor, the second, but soon he had heard Emma and Maricela in a nearby hallway and he had turned up the stairs instead of continuing down the hallway. He remembered that sour look Emma had given him. He didn't want to confront those who looked at him like some kind of kidnapper. But those eyes were at least something he could get used to, that deep down he could understand, even if they were wrong. The people who really scared him were Wendy and Callie. Their eyes full of worship, their minds twisted to his playthings.

So instead, he explored places too secluded to stumble upon anyone, moving to the unoccupied floors. The fourth floor had been boring, the rooms empty. The facility on that level had been some kind of historical collection, housing armors, tapestries, jewelries and various other items. He'd stepped inside, but soon left, not much caring to absorb whatever history the pieces could give him. Another floor, more empty rooms. He starts to turn toward the next staircase to explore the 6th floor, when he hears a sound. A sound at complete odds with the otherwise staid quaint background. The sound like a laser gun.

He turns, walking toward the back where most of the facilities were in this building. He sees the words Game Room on a wooden plaque on the door frame of the room. He opens the door, only to find something truly bizarre.

It is not some old room with shogi and go sets like he had imagined, but a full modern arcade. The room is also much bigger on the inside, almost to the point of straining credibility. This location belongs on some major street, not some antiquated inn that more resembles a castle than a business. The only thing that makes some type of sense is how crowded it is. Dozens of machines lay idle, not a soul in sight.

Ben looks at the machines, walking up, seeing there is no coin slot. A distraction for the guests no doubt, one more thing to list on the brochure. He starts to turn, when he hears the sound like a laser gun again. Chocking it up to a loud machine going through an idle animation, he turns, only to hear a few more shots, too haphazard and sporadic to be a mere showcase.

So, he gives up on his wanderings, walking to try to find the source of the noise. It is amazing just how a set of arcade machines form a wall that you can't really see through. Walking toward the sound almost feels like walking the passages in a labyrinth, as he turns a few times before finally he sees the machine making the noise.

It is one of those old shooters, where aliens pop up as your character naturally moves forward, a shoot em up. And there, standing with her back to him, is Monica. Her focus on the game, she doesn't hear as Ben steps forward.

"How is it?" Monica nearly jumps a foot in the air as she is spooked by him. She had come up here to avoid the others as well. While Ben had wanted to avoid the cruel eyes, Monica wanted to avoid something else, their cruel minds, though they don't know they are cruel. Every one bearing some fantasy, some possible permutation of Monica. To be her, to really know that she was not being influenced, she had to be alone.

"Oh, uh, it's alright I guess." She places the fake gun on the machine, turning to leave, wanting to get away. Ben was the last person she wanted to be around after all, a man who was probably full of fantasies to mold his new toy. Ben stands there. "Mind playing a game with me? I see there is a player two." Her movement halted. Why was she running? Ben was safe. He was familiar, the type of guy that she hung out with on the weekends, though not him specifically. She could afford to stay. Ben was... comfortable. She barely knew him, but she felt in his voice that it was like she'd met countless people just like him.

"...Alright. I guess one game can't hurt." She turns back picking up the gun. Ben comes up, taking hold of the other gun. "Hey, so I'm a bit of a rookie on this." Ben says, only for Monica to giggle. "God, are you 60? Use a word like noob or something, you sound like you just wandered in from the library after getting lost for 50 years." All the tension had left her body, as Ben muttered something about not really being into games.

"Well, try to take out aliens on your side of the screen. I'll help if you need it, but I'll be focusing on my side and the middle." She says this as the game starts, as Ben fires and misses an alien a few times before he lands a hit, blowing him away. In that time, Monica took out 4 aliens, including one that was clearly meant for Ben.

The characters move forward, before scanning, the aliens jumping from various cover. On and on, the level goes, Ben barely contributing, but both getting lost in the game. Both fully devoting their attention to the game, able to escape their lonely mindsets, together.

The game finally ends as the aliens grow too thick, the player's ineptitude too great or the designers deciding another quarter would be in order for the normal version of the game. Ben put down the fake gun. "Well that was fun. I might need to try that when I get back to our world."

Monica looks at him. God, he just absolutely reminded her of one of her exes, though she couldn't place which one. He was definitely more handsome than any of them. She tended to go for taller guys, but something about the way Ben is over her, but not towering over her makes her wonder if that was a mistake. His lips are so close after all, she could quickly peck them...

"I should get going." Ben turns. Only for Monica to feel her hand catch his. "Aw, come on, that last game was fun. Have you ever tried playing DDR? There was a machine toward the front." Without waiting, she begins to walk forward, holding Ben by the wrist. Ben does not resist, if anything happy to find a companion, a normal companion, neither prisoner nor ****.

Ben is better at Dance Dance Revolution, though he doesn't quite understand what the bar behind him is for, or why some of these combos feel too complex. He even manages to beat Monica, though as the first song finishes, he sees her take off her sweater, throwing it onto the ground behind her, appearing to look a bit more serious, ready to play the game.

She turns back and they begin the next game. Monica wins that one, but mostly because Ben watches as her breasts sway in her shirt. "Are you not wearing a bra?" Ben asks this as they both continue to hit the buttons with their feet. Monica doesn't miss a beat. "Nope." She didn't feel like she needed it. Ben was a real bro after all. So what if he caught a nipple through the fabric of her shirt, it was natural. She'd caught herself looking earlier anyways at his crotch, and fairs fair.

Ben for his part puts it off, and after losing, he leans back on the rail. "These games are really fun." Monica smiles at him, wiping some sweat from her neck. "Yeah, you can sort of get lost in them. Forget your problems." She leans closer to Ben. "That's what you want, right?"

Ben sighs, happy to finally have somebody to talk to. "Yeah. It's hard, being here. I feel like Wendy wasn't always... like that. Like that's not how our breakup went. It's like reaching your arm under a bed, trying to reach something, your fingertips rubbing against an item just out of reach. I know deep down that's not how it went. I remember being shocked when Callie was changed like that. How she just accepted it. Maybe that's why I can sort of resist it, because that memory tells me that I should. Still, it feels like something I've thought up, not a memory but a deduction. I can't remember how it used to be before the change, I just know that because Callie didn't have her original memories, I must not either."

Monica looks at Ben with pity. "I can tell you that you're right, but I'm not sure just how much help that is. You said it was amicable. You said you just agreed to separate. But I mean, how does that help?" She leans in, her fingers rubbing along the top of Ben's hand as she held it. "You can't help what your memories are now, can't reconstruct the old ones from a few sentences you offhandedly mentioned. If you question the moment of your breakup, you could question every part of that relationship, every part of your life since. Yes, it's probably true that countless things are different, but does it make you happier? Or are you just hurting yourself for no reason? Are you trying to fill in dirt into a black hole, paying your own sanity to try to find what is real, when nothing is real until we get back, until this whole game is over?"

Monica is insistent. "You need to let go. You need to find some peace, relax, if only just in this moment, if only just with me." Ben sighs, his eyes locking with Monica's. "I know that. I know it deep down. I just..." "Here, let me help you forget."

She leans forward, her lips meeting Ben's. Ben for his part doesn't resist. She isn't too forceful, but she takes the lead, her tongue dancing with his as her arm wraps around his neck. The kiss breaks, but Monica still holds Ben's back, her hips against his. "That's what we both want. To forget." She rubs her breasts against his chest as she places a kiss at his neck.

As her lips move down to kiss his collarbone, moving down his chest, Ben snaps to attention. "Is this really what you want though? You were going to run away from me just a few minutes ago..." That's when he realizes what he has done. She hadn't had it in her heart to refuse him when he asked her to do something because of her second change. She was comfortable around him after all, why would she run from something mundane like him? Which left her like a fly caught in a spider's web. To become his fantasy.

He didn't want a **** or a prisoner, a willing or unwilling participant in the game. He wanted an escape. A woman who could love him just like he was used to being loved. A familiar type of experience, one that he had been on countless times, countless dates. He wanted a normal date. And Monica, through her 1st transformation, was bound by that unerring transformation to give it to him. As he looks, he sees that though she is still Monica, her skin is smoother, her smile just the right amount, gentle, calm, but warm, insistent. Insistent enough to break through the walls he had built around himself, gentle enough to not spook him when she did. When had she put her hair up in a ponytail? When she had gotten serious? Ben liked women with ponytails, it was so normal, like a warm meal at home. He dated a couple women who liked to keep their hair up in ponytails, it was probably one of his favorite ways a woman could put her hair up. In that moment, like chicken soup during a cold, it was perfect.

She might not be the end all be all fantasy to him, but nobody could be with his varied fetishes. No, she was perfectly his fantasy of what he wanted Monica to be in this exact moment. Herself, but with the artifice that any person has when thinking of somebody else. No hidden depths that could ruin the moment on their reveal, no awkward thoughts that could ruin the flow. Like a heat seeking missile toward his heart.

It's at this point that Ben struggles from her embrace, gently but firm. He didn't want to hurt her, she was not at fault here. Monica looks at him, confused. Though part of Ben swears that her eyes are clouded slightly. "What's wrong? Was I moving too fast? Was this not what you wanted?" She walks toward him. "I don't need to go that fast if you don't want it. I can go as slow as you need, give you just as much space as you want." She walks toward him, her hard nipples show just the slightest hint of arousal through her shirt which is just a bit sweaty from their dancing. A subtle show, neither arousal chilling nor too in Ben's face. An invitation not given, but an offer should he choose to take it.

She looks perfect. Too perfect. Ben backs up. "Uh, actually I need to go. I was going to go take a shower before Callie came to my room." It was an excuse. But of course she accepted it, as he ran from the room. She was perfect like that after all.