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Ben Solo stomped into the offices of The Resistance, his mother’s firm where he worked as CFO, late for work. Anally retentive, though he would prefer to be described as ‘a details man’, his whole morning and therefore his whole day had been ruined by the sleek imported sports car that had been his gift to himself.
The last thing he needed on a thirty degree, bleak January day in the first week of the New Year was a fight to get started the elegant silver machine that had so captivated him on the dealership forecourt. Somewhere in the mix of his roiling emotions was a wee small voice reminding him that his dad had advised him against the purchase.
“She looks good, son,” his father’s raspy voice had advised him, “but she has a reputation for unreliability.”
Being Ben, he had gone and bought it anyway, in spite of his dad’s wise words - maybe because of them, but that was a whole new conversation with his therapist.
“Benny, kind of you to show. I hope we didn’t keep you from something more important, buddy!”
Ben’s full lips thinned and his brow darkened further, clutching the strap of his messenger bag in a white knuckle grip as the dulcet tones of his nemesis, Poe Dameron, smote his ears. Great, just great, that’s all he needed, his mother’s right hand man on his case.
He decided to ignore the annoyance, concentrating on regulating his breathing as he stomped to the safety of his office, closing the door behind him with a decisive click.
Of course, Dameron wouldn’t respect his boundaries, breezing in shortly afterwards with an unruffled demeanour that spoke of someone who never doubted his welcome anywhere - and which never failed to grate against Ben’s nerves. He was flashing his bright, broad white-toothed smile, undeterred by Ben’s pointed grumpiness.
“So, Benny-boy, get laid last night? Suffering the side effects of too much pussy?”
This was said with such an arch look, such gleaming mischief in his eyes ... of course grumpy Ben Solo never got the girl, as Dameron well knew; to the everlasting disappointment of his father who always had. As for his mother, his single status was yet another failure to be chalked up against her disappointment of a son.
Fortunately for Dameron, Ben noticed his stapler was not how he’d left it the day before. Setting it to rights settled also his initial seething resentment against Dameron and controlled his desire to punch him out.
“If you must know, not that it’s any of your business, my car wouldn’t start.” Ben took refuge in ritual, unpacking his satchel and placing the items therein in positions on his desk to ensure optimum productivity.
“Still haven’t got that sorted out, huh? Fortunately, my buddy, I can help you out, my boyfriend’s roommate is a mechanic, the best in town. What Ray doesn’t know about cars isn’t worth knowing.”
Ben bit back the remark on the tip of his tongue that he was not, never had been, never would be, Poe Dameron’s buddy. However, he had made repeat visits to the dealership whose diagnostic machine simply said all was in order when, clearly, it wasn’t. It was a point of pride not to ask his dad, and Uncle Chewie lived too far away to take a look at it. In short, he was desperate to get it sorted, so gave Poe more air time than he normally would.
“Here it is,” Poe pulled a battered looking business card out of his wallet. Ben swore he could smell the motor oil on it from here. “You ring Ray and I guarantee all your troubles will be over. No, no, don’t thank me, anything for a friend.”
He breezed out before Ben had a chance to refuse his help or refute the very idea of friendship between them. He stared at the card, haphazardly thrown onto his desk, the edges well crumpled, with dirt inhabiting the creases. So help him, if this was Dameron’s idea of a joke.
His pleasurable contemplation of the revenge he could take on his mother’s de facto favourite son was cut short by his mom entering his office, a concerned look on her face.
“Ben, Poe tells me you’re having trouble with that car again, let me have the paperwork and I’ll get you your money refunded in full. I wish you’d listened to your father. Well, that can’t be helped now. I’ll deal with the whole thing and Han will advise you on the car you should buy.”
Observing her son’s gritted teeth and clenched fists, she bemoaned, “If only Chewie lived nearer, you’re not so stubborn about ignoring good advice when your uncle’s involved. Well, it can’t be helped, and on your head be it, but as your mother I feel honour bound to protect my only child from the charlatan who sold you that car.”
“And a good morning to you, too, mother.” Ben’s whole posture telegraphed indignant resentment.
“Now, Ben,” Leia recognising the signs that her son was going to be difficult, “as your employer I have to tell you that this is the second time since New Years you’ve been late for work because of that car. Just because you’re my son, my only son, doesn’t mean I can excuse late-coming just because you are my son.”
“So fire me,” Ben’s tone was savage, “then your real son can have your undivided attention and won’t need to go telling tales on me.”
The air between them fairly crackled with jealous resentment on one side and long-suffering exasperation on the other.
Leia let out a gusty sigh, “I am your mother, and as such I must protect my only child. However, think about the example it sets for others, how it looks when I show favour to my only son.”
His mother then went for the jugular, “The umbilical cord is never really cut between a mother and her child, you know. Well, obviously you don’t, but one day I hope you will and then you’ll know what it’s like to worry over your child even when he’s in his thirties and unmarried, and to always want the best for him even when he doesn’t want you to want the best for him.”
In the face of this onslaught of self-regarding sentimentality and unsubtle reproach, Ben slumped down into his office chair.
The fact was, his mother did want the best for him, it’s just that their ideas for what was best for him were so irreconcilably different. In fact, in all his thirty odd years, the only time their respective will for him had converged was when she had retrieved him from the clutches of Snoke.
“I’ll leave you now,” he could tell by her tone his mother was confident of her ascendancy, sure of his compliance, “we’ll have lunch together and talk about this further.”
She had advanced as she spoke and deposited a kiss on his cheek, her brand of perfume, unchanged since he was a child, now filling his nostrils. She fondly ruffled his hair, and then she was gone, leaving him prey to his thoughts as he sat for minutes together staring at the layout on top of his desk.
Finally, he let out a great sigh of his own and reached forward and picked up his stapler, which he deposited into his now empty messenger bag. As he rose from his chair and headed for his office door, he swept up the crumpled business card of one R. Niima, AutoCare, in passing.
Sat behind the wheel of his Silencer, parked outside of his apartment, he turned the key in the ignition. She fired first time. With a clunk, he rested his forehead against the steering wheel, hands clutching it at ten to two.
He remained in this position while he got his breathing under control - he tended to hyper-ventilate, and having done so, buckled up and put the Silencer into gear.
R. Niima, AutoCare, was located in a less than salubrious part of town, in a lockup under a railway bridge. A dirty, grimy hole in the wall. Ok, he was going to drive to the office and kill Poe Dameron, inch by self-satisfied inch. He would show no mercy.
As he fulminated, a car emerged from the gloomy depths of the lockup, the unrelenting grey of brick and gloom alleviated by a glossy red classic Ferrari Miura, a half million dollars worth of car on its worst day. Its tick over filled the cavern, a caged beast wanting the freedom of an open road, a couture clad, salon prepped blonde wearing Gucci sunglasses seated beside its driver.
The driver in question put the car into park and opened the driver’s door, exposing a pristine cream leather interior. He stepped out, joined by a slight female figure in coveralls who had emerged from the Stygian gloom of the lockup, and money clearly changed hands.
The man, immaculately dressed in head to toe Italian couture or Ben Solo didn’t know his Dior from his Dolce and Gabbana, reached out and hugged the woman tightly - one might say amorously. A growl started deep in Ben Solo’s chest.
He said something to the woman, arms still wrapped around her, and Ben heard her laugh and say, “Thank you, Anselmo, but no thank you.”
Her tones were crisp, British, and she was clearly being propositioned.
That growl came again, unbidden, from deep within Ben Solo’s chest. He was oblivious to it, all his senses concentrated on the interchange between the two standing beside the scarlet Ferrari, the back of his mind acknowledging Dameron’s joke, Ray was a Rey. He’d settle with him later.
The transaction between them complete, the man shrugging his shoulders in reluctant acceptance of his rejection, the Ferrari driver returned behind the wheel and pulled away with the rackety high pitched whine of the engine filling the cavern, echoes of the sound remaining long after the car was gone. Ben started the purring engine of the Silencer and headed for the open doors of the lockup.
The woman, Rey, the mechanic, was walking slowly to her office, shaking her head as she counted out the bills in her hands as he pulled in.
She must have turned on her heel as he killed the engine, nose scrunched up as she called out, “Sorry, sir, the business is closed, I’m now on vacation.”
For the longest time, since he’d been in diapers, he had been told his eyes were all his mom. Since his mom’s eyes were large and vivid with dark depths, beautiful, he knew it for a compliment. He had learned to make play with them prepuberty, subverting various nannies and housekeepers to his cause. It was a lapsed art, since he’d been sent away aged ten to Uncle Luke’s academy. He revived it now.
Making play with kicked puppy dog eyes, his lips the trembling lips of a sad little clown, he vocalised his misery through the open window of his car.
“Yes, ma’am, and I respect that, but my boss is riding my ass for being repeatedly late and you were recommended as someone who could help me. It’s my car, you see, it keeps letting me down.” He worked his jaw, as if about to be overcome by tears.
It worked. Her nose scrunched again and she looked positively feral, “Asshole!” She so obviously didn’t mean him.
He kept silent, waiting on her benevolence. It quickly came.
“Well, I’ll take a quick look at it. No promises though; I mean it, I’m about to hit the road on vacation.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he put fervency into his tone.
“No need to call me ma’am, I’m Rey, just Rey.”
He was sliding out from the driver’s seat now, unfolding his long limbs, “Nice to make your acquaintance, Rey. I’m Ben.”
He was wearing Tom Ford, all in black except for a white Dior Homme shirt. He was aware it was a look that suited him, its slim fit making the best of his height and broad shoulders, although nothing could make up for the many deficiencies of his looks.
Her eyes ran appreciatively over his outline as he straightened out and fastened the sole button on his jacket. They flickered over his face and he could detect no disappointment as she audited his unique look. He was available for the minutest scrutiny of his person - should she so wish.
In the seconds while she checked him out, he returned the honour.
She was taller than he’d first supposed, the narrowness of her hips and waist deceiving the eye and making her seem tiny, though she most definitely was in relation to him. This close, she emanated an aura of health and wiry strength.
It was hard to take in accurately all the details of her beauty because of the gloomy interior of the lockup, clearly she had been locking it down before he arrived. However, her lips were perfectly shaped and just meant for kissing, her hair, drawn up in three buns, was dark and glossy, and her eyes were dark in the subdued lighting under defined brows.
“Ok, if you pop the hood for me.”
He reached into his car, stretching out to pull the lever that unlocked the hood. As he straightened he gave a précis of the car’s troubles, stressing how pissed off with him his boss was because of his coming late to work.
The mechanic nodded and propped the hood up while leaning in. He clasped both hands behind his back in order not to give in to his base desire to clasp her shapely, rounded butt with them and massage the tight little globes with his thumbs.
She emerged, nodding wisely, “I thought so, it’s a Sith Battery,” she grinned at him, “otherwise known as The Bringers of Darkness.”
She chuckled at her own joke and he felt and heard a corresponding deep rumble from within his own chest. This caused her to grin wider and he felt a corresponding ache in his own cheeks as he grinned right back.
Wow, how long had it been since he laughed and smiled? Maybe not since being despatched aged ten to Uncle Luke’s academy by his mother.
A connection seemed to have formed between them, because she stepped forward into his personal space, looking up at him with a wide eyed look that seemed to be concentrated on his lips. That was a good sign, right? It meant she was attracted to him.
He then discovered she was the perfect height - for him - and would tuck in nicely under his chin. He bent his head to look down at her, a lock of his dark, raven black hair falling fortuitously down over one of his eyes adding to his lost boy look. He saw her left hand twitch as though she wanted to push it back. His mother had also gifted him really nice hair.
“I suspect,” she was speaking softly now, “that water crystals have gotten into the battery. Sith are shit, you know, with a poor reputation in the trade. I think you’ll find the water crystals are freezing overnight and this is why she won’t start first thing. It needs replacing anyway, being seriously underpowered for a car like her.”
“You rate my car?”
“Sure I do. She’s a serious contender in her category. All you need is reliability, the open road, and to let her rip.”
She had shuffled even closer, and he felt his Adam’s apple tighten and bob.
He pushed back the stray lock of hair and watched her eyes wistfully follow the movement of his fingers as he ran them through his curls. At last, at the eleventh hour, the meagre contribution to his gene pool bequeathed by Han Solo kicked in. He was on fire.
“That’s good to hear. I’ve been getting a lot of blowback about her from my boss and my dad.”
She snorted, a delightful sound, “Well what do they know? I tell you that that car, when I fix her up, will give a spanking to most anything else on the road.”
An interesting choice of words. He knew what she meant, of course, but the image of that firm little tush she was possessed of rose clear up in his mind and he decided he would very much like to spank Ms. Niima - with her full consent of course, and ravage her hourly.
She had caught her bottom lip between her teeth subsequent to her last remark and shuffled closer to him, gazing up at him provocatively from under her lashes, her eyes flicking between his eyes and lips. She spoke.
“Ben,” her voice was soft, seductive even.
“Yes, sweetheart?” The endearment came naturally, like they were an old married couple. Her lashes fluttered as he said it.
“Would you like to have lunch with me?”
“I thought you’d never ask. Yes.”
He would have been patient, but when she cut lunch short and took him back to her place he was happy to oblige. The anticipated embarrassment of confessing that at thirty four he was still a virgin was, after all, no embarrassment at all.
“Good to know,” she said, “let’s make this first time all about you, then,” and rode him straddled across his thighs.
The second time was about her, he seeming to have a natural talent for sex, obedient to her instruction to, “Imagine you’re on a rocking horse, Ben.” Nothing to it, really.
Taking a break from his burgeoning career as a sex god, (she said his body and his cock were wasted on accountancy), he repacked her suitcase and made her bed while she showered, and then it was back to his place where he packed a suitcase of his own. It was the right and gentlemanly thing to do as he’d delayed her departure on her scheduled skiing trip to the Hoth Mountains, distracting her with multiple orgasms.
Co-incidentally, she was booked in at his Uncle Chewie’s ski lodge.
Ensconced behind the wheel of her truck, he drove them through the night while she slept beside him, so that she didn’t miss a single day on the slopes. He may know shit about engines, but he drove like a boss.
Okay, maybe he ought not to have muted the notifications on his phone, which was then tossed onto the backseat of Rey’s truck by Rey with the words, “Enough of that emo shit, I want R&B.”
‘Out of sight, out of mind’, seemed to be the watchword because he completely forgot about it. After all, a man with his size fingers had no business trying to operate something which looked the size of a postage stamp when clutched in his fist. Anyway, his girlfriend, (they were now official), had better uses for those.
He therefore missed multiple calls from his mother as a consequence, they growing increasingly frantic as the days passed without hearing from him.
Fortunately, she had checked in with Uncle Chewie before he got to The Lodge, and beyond advising him to not leave it too long, Uncle Chewie let him make his own decisions about contacting her. Uncle Chewie treated him like an adult.
Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have sent her a postcard with, Dear Mom, I quit the rat race. Your fugitive son, Ben Solo. All he meant was that he was running away from his responsibilities and the life he’d been shoehorned into. Maybe he ought to have clarified? Well, hindsight’s a wonderful thing, and he’d left his retrospectoscope back at his apartment and his phone in the back of Rey’s truck.
His days then were spent on the slopes or portering for Uncle Chewie, or reclining on the sun terrace of the main building topping up his tan alongside Rey, drinking hot chocolate fortified with Cointreau and topped off by a mountain of cream and an avalanche of marshmallows. These were consumed by his glowing girlfriend by means of a cheeky grin and a long handled spoon.
The aprés ski was provided by exploration of his girlfriend’s hot bod, and her exploration of his - those years in the gym finally paying off.
After dinner and dancing each evening, they were working their way through the “Joy of Sex,” a well worn sex manual he’d found in Uncle Chewie’s office. Apparently it was required reading back in Uncle Chewie’s day.
In Han Solo’s day too, Uncle Chewie informed him, which nearly overset him as it was illustrated. Fortunately the guy in the illustrations had a beard. Han Solo, to his best knowledge, had always gone clean shaven.
He was as happy as a hog in a mud hole on a hot day. They both were.
Rey’s vacation extended into February; Uncle Chewie put her on the payroll as a ski instructor on the nursery slopes. Ben portered for free, lugging Louis Vuitton luggage for rich women of all ages, who hit on him to provide them with other services too. My, my, his girlfriend had quite the feral streak.
He’d grown his hair out by now, and was growing a beard and moustache. Rey said it made him look hotter, if that were possible, and about this time made a start of calling him daddy in the bedroom. It was just the perfect excuse to spank her.
Into this perfect bubble, mid-February, came his mother. The private detective she’d finally hired, having exhausted all other avenues of law enforcement, took one look at Ben’s postcard and pointed out that the picture looked an awful lot like the Hoth Mountains.
She called Uncle Chewie right away, who fessed up, becoming annoyed with Ben as Leia was crying with relief down the phone at him. Consequently, he allowed Leia to walk in on Ben unannounced, which was unfortunate as Rey was with him at the time and his mother got to see what a big boy he’d growed into.
“Mother, some privacy, please!”
Gah, he sounded like his teenage self, after he’d been returned home in disgrace for attempting to set fire to Uncle Luke’s academy and before he went to college. All the bad memories held at bay these past weeks, forgotten even, came flooding back with his mother’s reappearance in his life.
He shielded Rey best he could, she with her legs wrapped around his waist, the both of them situated before a long cheval mirror about to ease away the tension of a long working day before dinner. Fortunately, Uncle Chewie had followed his mother to their room and was now pulling her away, she seemingly stupefied, standing transfixed, that her son was naked and having sex. Well, about to have sex.
Mortified, as the door closed on them, Ben made a start of apologising to his girlfriend, who lifted her face from where she’d pressed it against his shoulder and showed it to be full of amusement. They both burst into giggles and then full-blown laughter.
He took her to bed then, nothing too creative, just good ‘ol missionary position with a lot of tenderness and exchange of ‘I love you’s’.
Meeting Leia later, connections were made. Poe was found to be Rey’s bestie and roommate’s current, unreliable boyfriend. Rey was therefore not predisposed to like him despite how much his mother gushed. Especially when the gushing was at the expense of her sweet, loving boyfriend.
The die was cast, therefore, at the end of February as the best of the season drew to a close, when they returned to the city with his mother in tow.
Ben’s phone was discovered then, his mother occupying the rear seat of Rey’s truck, it catching under her feet as she made herself comfy. (Rey hadn’t slept the entire time on the outward journey). Ben was sure it was all sanitary back there, surely? Enough time had elapsed for any essences to dry. And his mom was unlikely to find anything incriminating. Was she?
They returned to the city with the intention of quitting it just as soon as they could put their affairs in order, heading for Bespin, Uncle Lando’s resort, full of rich assholes driving high performance cars they had no idea how to drive. And Rey had always wanted to see the ocean.
Rey’s next meeting with Poe went well; Rey going all pee’d off Londoner and stabbing him in the chest with her pointer finger, getting into his face with, “Stop dicking around with my friend’s feelings, or else I’ll do ya!” Also, a little later, “Treat my boyfriend with respect, you toe rag, or you’ll be sucking on a knuckle sandwich.”
Ah, yes, Solo happy family gatherings. Han adored her.
So there they were, two disparate souls who, when put together, proved to be a matched pair, soul-mates if you will.
They did go to Bespin. Rey set up her sign and Ben unpacked his stapler, and they lived happily ever after.