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When Rey opens the window, it tells him what she wants more plainly than when she climbs into his lap and glances at the console table behind his couch.It’s after a movie when she does all of it, the credits tailing after some John Hughes cheese flick she chose. The eighties were nothing he was acquainted with personally, born at the tail end of them. She has no grasp of that decade either, her scant knowledge collected from pieces of media.All he knows about the eighties is that the political bedrock of the era would fuck with his life today with the introduction of the Reagan Administration and the Controlled Substances Act of 1971. Both factors subsequently fed the War on Drugs which set a stigma against any drug usage or addiction recovery.The concern lies with marijuana and he believes that it remains an unfair judgment on a drug that has saved his life on more than one occasion; when the tremors became too much and psychiatric medication became too tempting to overdose on rather than take to find a regulation. PTSD had become increasingly akin to a hydraulic press on his spine as he grew up, twisting his head into something unrecognizable and monstrous. Having a trauma disorder left him prone to damaging himself and damaging others in the same blow.The final straw for his family had been another hospitalization; his mother had pushed a quarter of marijuana at him across the car’s console after just picking him up from the clinical facility that somehow let him sign himself out. She was treating it like a shady drug deal and her reasoning backed it up, “ Your father used it for his back while you were growing up. Maybe it’ll work for you.” After getting past the harsh but clear truth that his dad was a stoner while Ben grew up, he rolled a poor joint once people left him alone at the house and lit it. The smoke had drifted deep into his lungs and caused a coughing fit that was soothed after drinking almost an entire half gallon of water. His life was transformed when his brain petered out and the burn in his throat went away.Marijuana doesn’t cure a person, but the flowering plant can lessen the singe of an overactive nervous system. His foray into using marijuana was better described as a free-fall; Ben is good at over-researching everything and he took the same approach. Growing up in the nineties and attending elementary school had hammered in a mistruth like weed made a person lazy, stupid, unproductive, etc. How could it be beneficial for the treatment of mental illness?Yet he felt better after smoking in the morning, sat on his balcony with the New York Times on the patio table and a joint ashed in an empty mug. Lazy mornings like that began to fill his cup and things would smooth out. THC kept company with his antipsychotic despite his psychiatrist’s warnings, and the discussion of trauma evolved to be less frustrating while group therapy became suddenly bearable.Ben began to interact with people in his life again, comfortable in utilizing an excuse of “ Let’s smoke a bowl and play XBOX for 8 hours .” Poe, his downstairs neighbor and conveniently also his childhood friend, was happy to oblige. Social interaction healed him additionally; he might never be on the scale that most humans are at with the want of social moments, but it's better than induced agoraphobia.While Poe drives him up the wall (Ben constantly questions how he can hear him downstairs ), Rey had wandered into his life because of him. They had met at a small party for Ben’s 30th birthday and Finn came and brought the bottled sunlight with him as a plus one.Rey and Ben had never spoken before, their first conversation over rolling mango Swisher.
“That looks too tight.”
He glances up to see the girl who he’s just stopped tracking around the party. All tan skin and honeyed green eyes, her teeth rake over her plush bottom lip between her teeth.
He doesn’t bother double-checking the blunt as he holds it up to his mouth to lick along the wrap. He ponders if she knows she’s standing in his house and insulting his roll. “Is it tight?”
She nods briskly, “Obviously, I could be wrong but I’m Rey.” She holds out her hand to shake and he glances at the blunt to set it on the table and shake her hand.
“Ben. Do you want to smoke it with me to see if it’s too tight?”
Rey would worm into his life until she became harmonious with it; their early days had been modest, in his apartment kissing more than actually watching the movie playing on the TV. Lust came before love but the latter barrelled after the former with a cloaked demeanor. Plenty happened on the couch they now sit on: the first time he left her trembling wet between her thighs and a hoarse voice is one of the better recollections. Sometimes, if he squints, he can still see the stain he tried hard to scrub out of the upholstery.Rey and Ben are hooked to one another, claws in respective backs with no future of letting go. If Ben believed in marriage, she would be the be-all and end-all that would flip his cynicism on its head.“Can we…” Her request trailing off brings him back to the now, Rey leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. The microwave glows nine thirty behind her head while his Frieza-printed T-shirt hangs off her shoulders. The hem covers black panties he will yank off later.Rey looks delectably good, though she always looks too beautiful for this undeserving universe.His body rises from the couch with a small pop in his shoulders as he flexes the lethargy out. It’s time to smoke again, nonetheless; the bong sitting on the dining room table where it typically resided during the day. His grip is firm on the neck; the glass is chilled from the ice melt in the pinch.Stepping past Rey to open the fridge, he dumps old water to swap for newly filtered. His practiced fill isn’t disrupted by her arms wrapping around his waist. Her face is nuzzling just between his shoulder blades. Ben has gotten used to being regularly touched, modest hand-holding morphing into the constant tuck into his side when they have a solitary moment. Touch is now as easy as breathing after a life full of gasping. The air of safety can be scarce when trauma colors every nook and cranny of his body; the inability to distinguish past from present and danger from normalcy could be hidden in someone affected. The ice cubes he drops down the tube halt at a pinch to stack and cool the glass further. Rey rubs the palm of her hand along his stomach beneath his shirt, “You’re a snob, you know that?” He explains, “This is medicine so why not make it enjoyable?” Scorched throats are no fun; neither is hacking up half a lung when the smoke creeps too far down his throat. Her finger hooks in his belt loop as she shrugs, “So annoying.”Ben humors her unclear quip, “What’s so annoying?”He turns around so she unwraps from him. The bong is held by him between their bodies, tightly so the scientific glass assumes little risk. Crying over broken bongs is not on the agenda, given her teeth on her lip screeches of other plans.“Pants. You wearing pants, specifically.” He snorts to lean off the counter as she smiles and leans closer. Ben’s hand moves the glass off to the side while her fingers trace along his ribs while lifting onto her tiptoes.Rey’s lips press against him, the kiss beginning sweet to edge on steamy when her tongue swipes across his bottom lip. Her puppy dog eyes nearly break his heart to pull away and joke, “Buy me dinner first, why don’t you.” His attempt at humor works as her nose crinkles up. “I suppose it’s fair since you always buy me dinner.” She has her most cross voice on, the one so adorable that he wishes he could coo at her.Instead, he opts for a less patronizing hum while his free hand settles along the curve of her hip, “Let’s get high, then I can see what I can do for you.”Ben strives to be a gentleman in a world of boys and her appreciative smile feeds that desire. They break apart after a kiss to her forehead and her offer, “I can load a bowl while you change into sweats.” Rey correctly assumed that he’d desire to shuck off his tighter-by-the-minute denim.“Good plan.”He steps past her to walk down the hall to his bedroom, calling behind him as a playful threat to stoke the fires, “You better be done by the time I get back.” His current room is smaller than the accommodations he grew up in, but he’s thankful that the space can fit a king bed when so many other places he looked at couldn’t sustain a large piece of furniture. The length of his body doesn’t enjoy a smaller mattress, while Rey is usually swallowed up on her side of his bed. He pulls his dresser drawer open and rifle through folded sweatpants in shades of black and charcoal. He eventually grabs a heathered pair and tugs his belt off to set it aside and roll his jeans off. Each article lands in the laundry basket, taking off his boxers to a half-hard cock that’s uninterested in further confinement.He puts on his sweats and swipes on more deodorant to humble himself. Then he examines himself in the half mirror above his bathroom sink. He sheds his shirt to risk ash burns on the principle that Rey will admire his labor-intensive physique. His body is her favorite thing to gaze at or comment on, and Ben has always been a people pleaser.He walks back to the living room to see Rey tucked herself into the couch with the bong set on the coffee table in front of her. The grinder sits closed beside it and he kisses the crown of her head before sitting next to her. Rey squirms to get cozy against him as he grasps the bong; needy Rey is a treat he rarely receives. He wonders what’s on her mind, the bowl staying unlit as she waits for him to go first. Ben flips the designated coffee table lighter upside down to resist burning his skin with flame drift. The flame kisses the green to ignite and Ben breathes in to draw smoke into the empty vessel. He pulls the bowl from the downstem before his fast inhale clears it. The smoke shoots to sit at the back of his throat, a moment passing before it unhurriedly drifts from his lips. He completes the exhale primarily through his nose; his tolerance is a tank, and one hit is not close to getting him buzzed. Pure Indica strains physically felt like melting ice cream on a blazing summer day, aiding his sleep and wound up anxiety well. “Nice.” Rey sits back up to take the glass from him. Ben is happy to share, given only a few hits on this piece typically do her in.Her lips position carefully while the bowl stays lit, then she drags. He can sense her minute struggle on the exhale but she completes like a champ with only one slight cough punctuating the end. Ben is higher on her warmth and proximity to Rey's body than the hits he takes. Haze hangs in the air, and they haven’t spoken aloud in a while, “Hit for your thoughts?” After a long exhale, smoke blowing a thin column, she sets the piece back on the coffee table to answer him after a lengthy pause, “My psychiatrist wants to put me on an antidepressant.”Rey’s head is hung as she mumbles; he wishes she wouldn’t so he could look her in the eyes. Instead, he opts to stare at her cheek with occasional gazing over the curve of her jaw. “How do you feel about that?”Initial thoughts from her are much more important to come first, given that informs his advice. Resentment could brew like hurricanes if he spoke without listening to her. Rey’s perceptions could sometimes be unexpected and he would never dream of immediate knowledge. She looks up at him to seemingly muster up the courage to say, “I feel like there could be other options first.”She gestures to the bong on the table and remarks, “Like that.” His eyes don’t drift from hers and he sits up more to resist the natural melt into the couch. His explanation comes, “There are other options like medical marijuana. You’re not wrong. How much do you typically use outside of this?” His fingers card through his hair. Is Rey really at the point of a recommendation regarding antidepressants? Or is it the pharmaceutical-heavy culture they operated in? There’s a necessity for medications, sometimes life-saving requirements, but over-prescription is still a dangerous issue. Ben’s worries need to be crushed like a trunk lid so he can conjure confidence in her mental health team and do the right thing. Rey explains, “I don’t really do this much outside of you. I notice I go to sleep much better, and I don’t get freaked out when you touch me.”Then she adds, “I feel evener.”Ben is shocked that Rey didn’t get high outside of him, rubbing his hand along the curve of her shoulder. He says, “That’s good you feel safe in these current conditions. I can mostly empathize with your situation, Rey.” The precedence of sensitivity and caution is essential in talking through her emotions since she gives the same conditions back to him tenfold. Finally, sage-tinged eyes analyze him to raise a question, “What does it mean to use medically?”Medical use is a bottomless subject that varies from person to person; personal tolerances, consumption methods, and what type of ailment you were trying to lessen the side effects are all factors of usage. Different moods need different strains. Sativa-hybrids boost the quality of his freelance journalism or the paintings he composes in his free time since synapses fire just the right way with his brain on creative rocket fuel. Indicas bring around a heavy sensation better than the heaviest weighted blanket. His eyes can ache to close and crave the slip off into unconsciousness. He can’t condense all of this down in a reguritatable way so he opts for simple, “You use it when you need it. There are a lot of different methods, I’ve tried all of them and you can ask about any of them. However-”She stares at him with big, round eyes as he continues, “Everyone’s physiology is different. What might work for me may not work for you.”He’s on one of his famous long-winded teaching moments as he unwinds from her and Rey never seems to mind when his talks get lengthy.Ben walks to the console against the wall while Rey twists to look at him. Her eyes bore into him while he leans down and opens a drawer.His meticulously organized stash looks back at him. Strain types are grouped together, sorted into separate containers beyond that. His fingers rifle through the containers of eighths, “It’s all about experimentation.” They find purchase on two strains he keeps on a backstock due to how much he enjoys them. “Jawa and Northern Lights are two strains I like.” He sets the containers in front of her. She looks at both of the containers before reaching to curiously grab one and open it while he explains, “Northern Lights is an Indica, sometimes Indica-Hybrid. My brain flatlines but in a nice way.” An empty brain feels better than he ever expected. Her nose is inside the container to smell the robust pine. She’s surprised as she sets the container down , ”Smells great.” Rey opens the other to smell as he says, “That's Jawa. Super heavy indica, really resiny. Touch it.” Her tentative fingers pick the bud out of the container; her wonder warms the cockles of his typically icy heart. She observes, ”Feels sticky.” He sits next to her again and places an easy hold on her thigh while she drops the nugget back in and twists on the lid. She then hesitates to say, ”I can't possibly take these.” Ben has enough weed in his house to survive twice over. What's two-eighths besides something to be barely craved?”They're yours. Consider it a nice weather present .” Rey seems to always find the excuse of gifts more palatable than plain unadulterated kindness. He grasps the bong, lips puckering for a hit before he lights the bowl. ”So what should I smoke it out of?” Smoke floats out of his mouth as he thinks of a response. ”What do you want to smoke it out of?” There was glass he could part with and he gets up. Rey rises also to hover over him as he kneels down to rifle through the cabinet of the console. Glass clinks as his hand finds exactly what he’s looking for.Ben considers himself a glass collector, given he's amassed over ten pieces. He constantly pursues something better or something further utilitarian; traditionally he prefers scientific seeming pieces over aesthetic ones.He assumes she’ll be the opposite and picks a small, starter bong for him. There were multiple diffusion points for such a compact piece, and it’s something he could let go of now that he uses better.She holds her hands up in protest when he stands upright to offer it to her, “No, I can’t take that from you.” He’s putting on his best puppy dog eyes, “I want you to. Please?”Tentatively grabbing it from him, she sets it on the coffee table without glancing. “What do I say to my psychiatrist?”Another excellent question, an issue that gave Ben pause for the longest time. “You don’t receive the recommendation from her, but you should keep her updated for the sake of your care. Better to be completely transparent because you might not ever need medication, but it also could be a possibility.” Her brow furrows and he hopes he hasn’t discouraged her.His nervous energy has him picking up the living room to preoccupy himself before she asks, “Will you help me set up an appointment to get a medical card?” He looks up from where he was leaning for a tossed throw pillow as she shuffles over to his side to grab the pillow off the hardwood. Ben tosses it on the couch as he agrees, “Anything I can do for you, I’ll do.”The smile that stretches across her face makes his lips curve upwards before she lifts onto her tiptoes to kiss him.The kiss begins delicately to transition to being needy; he can’t help the course his hands crawl beneath the back of her t-shirt. His palms land over her panties before he gives a testing squeeze, their lips parting for breath and a giggle passes between both of them. Hands hold across his ribs with her thumbs circling the bare skin. They smooth over scars long healed down his sides, remnants of evidence detailing a time when a blade was much more bearable than feeling something. Ben thought cutting himself was a weakness; Rey had said otherwise in the dark of the night and didn’t seem to mind the scars. She has a few of her own that she still didn’t enjoy talking about. Ben got it, given his life was a series of feelings and suppression when they became too crushing. Ben can bottle like the best of them but Rey is patient and gently prods, whereas others snap.“Are you high?” The query derails his thoughts; he wants his girl satisfied. Her hand drifts down each muscle of his abdomen as he says, “I could get more high but we can also expedite while I do.” With a life previously viewed through a smoke screen, one thing had become crystal clear to him with the tedium contained in this moment of happiness: Ben wanted to spend the rest of his existence with Rey, and nothing could stop that.