I’m babbling, aren’t I?

To be home at night, relaxing, is a rare pleasure, given the life I lead.  On such occasions, rather than seeking out utter peace and quiet, however, I usually have the television on.  It keeps me company when I’m alone; being alone is not a situation I have ever truly liked.

Mulder and I do not live together.  We work together, and that means so much more than the standard forty-hour week that sometimes I think we’re doing it in reverse.  Sometimes it’s more like being home and officially off-duty and alone is my forty-hour work week, and the 128 remaining hours that I spend with Mulder, ostensibly working, is my life.

One evening last month I found myself watching Real Sex on HBO.

Mulder would have loved it, even though there wasn’t any real sex on Real Sex; there rarely is.  But there are a lot of naked and semi-naked people engaging in titillating conversation and behavior for the cameras and sometimes engaging in some fairly believable foreplay.

One segment that night was about lesbians and I really almost started surfing off; my hand was on the remote.  Then the girl on camera started talking, in very explicit terms, about how what she experienced with her partners is similar to straight sex… and I looked up from my crossword puzzle to see that she meant, and I froze.

A strap-on.

An artificial phallus mounted over the clitoris, held in place with a specially-designed harness.

Oh.  My.  God.

I’m getting hot again just remembering that scene.

Of course, I don’t want to do that with other women; I want to do it with Mulder. After all, he’s done all sorts of interesting and creative things to me, and we’ve both enjoyed every moment of it.  It’s not that he doesn’t let me take the superior position; he does, and we both enjoy it.  We both enjoy a certain amount of creativity, too.

But to be the one penetrating…

This is a concept I never considered before.

Mulder would agree, I think.  Mulder has seen, on film at least, more sexual activity than Kinsey and Masters & Johnson combined, including variations on the theme that only the authors of the Kama Sutra probably imagined.  I’ve never had anal sex; I don’t know if he ever has.  I’ve seen enough of his medical records to know that he’s disease-free, so what he may or may not have done in the past with other people was never, I thought, really my business.  He knows my sexual history, and I know most, if not all, of his.

But this would be anal sex with me, and that’s different.

I think.

Damn it.

Now I’ve got to know.

***

We’re driving from the airport looking for our hotel, and I’m having trouble concentrating on the heavy rush hour traffic.  I don’t know what’s gotten into Scully.  She’s as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair showroom.  Every time I move she flinches; you’d think I beat her regularly.

Finally I can’t stand it any longer.  “Scully, you’re driving me crazy.  What’s bothering you so much?”

At the first syllable of her name, she jumps as if I stabbed her, and then she visibly forces herself to settle down.

“I’m sorry, Mulder.  I just have something on my mind.”

“Care to share?”

We’re at a red light.  I throw a glance at her in time to catch the one she throws at me, and I’m stunned by what I see.

She’s afraid.

Scully?  Dana Scully?  MY Scully?  Afraid?!

The light changes; I pull over to the right and into a convenient lot. I don’t even notice what sort of business it is.   I park but I leave the car running because without the air conditioning, we’ll smother.  I lose my seat belt and turn to face her.

“What?  You’re scared, Scully, and that terrifies me.  Tell me.”

Now she’s blushing furiously.  Curiouser and curiouser…

“Scully…?”

“God, this is embarrassing,” she whispers, studying the way she’s wringing her hands.

I catch them between mine; they’re cold.  So I start rubbing her hands to warm them up.  She watches me, but she doesn’t speak.

“C’mon, Scully.  Say it out loud; it won’t be as scary.”

She doesn’t answer at once, but she is visibly steeling herself.  I don’t move. I’m practically holding my breath, here, expecting the worst…

“Haveyoueverexperiencedanalpenetrationandifsodidyoulikeit?”

She rips that entire sentence out in one breath as fast as she can.  She’s very carefully not looking at me.

It takes me a moment to shift gears.  I was imagining physical danger or something political that was a threat to our work or our partnership.  She was fretting about our sex life.

Okay, that’s fair.  Our relationship has only been sexual for a few months:  it’s so new that I still feel like we’re on an extended honeymoon, sometimes.  But while we both have large stores of intellectual knowledge about human sexuality, we’re just beginning to learn about one another.

I haven’t answered her, and she’s looking up, now, warily, as if expecting me to be upset by the question.  “No, I haven’t, ever,” I say softly, once I can see her eyes again. “Did you want to try something?”

She nods jerkily. “I saw a piece on HBO last month…”

I grin.  I can’t help it.  I suddenly know exactly what she saw and what she wants to do, and when she added that item to the little list she keeps in her nightstand. “Scully!  You want to fuck me with a strap-on dildo?”

She blushes even more furiously than before.  “Dammit, Mulder, do you have to be so crude?”

I unbuckle her seatbelt and pull her into my arms, using my thigh to bridge the gap between the seats.  She’s happy to come, to be so close that I can’t see her face, that she doesn’t have to look me in the eye, and she snuggles in tight, her arms snaking around to hold me.

“I just have this image in my head that I can’t shake,” she murmurs into my chest.

“What image?” I have to ask.

“You, naked, face down on the bed, wrists tied wide to the headboard.  Me mounting you, gentle at first, but getting faster, rougher, pounding into you, until you come, screaming into a pillow.  I keep pounding into you till I explode, and collapse on top of you, and I fall asleep there, feeling you still shuddering beneath me from the aftershocks.”

Dear God.

It takes me a minute to form a coherent sentence.  “Do you want to do that?”

“Do you?” she comes back instantly.  “It’s a little D/s, but it’s not a rape, Mulder. I don’t want to do it if you won’t enjoy it.   That shuddering has to come from ecstasy.”

I shudder, and hug her more tightly.

“Never mind, Mulder.  We don’t have to…”

She’s misunderstood my silence.  “Scully, relax.”  I can hear how hoarse my voice is, suddenly.  “I’m so turned on right now that I can hardly think.  Give me a minute to redirect some of my blood supply north again.”

That startled a chuckle out of her.  “So, you aren’t mortally or morally offended?” she asks cautiously.

I shudder again.  “Absolutely not.  If we weren’t out here in a,” I look around, “supermarket parking lot in broad daylight I’d be ripping your clothes off, right now.”

“Right here?”

“Right here, right now.  You’ve got that toy in your luggage, right?”

She pushes back to stare up at me, stunned.

“C’mon, Scully,” I grin at her.  “I know you.  You would never have brought it up if you weren’t prepared to go for it.”

She nods slowly.  “Yes.  It’s in my luggage.”

“How does it make you feel when you wear it?”

She grins at me, finally relaxing a little.  “How politically correct do you want me?”

“I don’t want you politically correct at all.  I want you hot and horny.”

She shivers and licks her lips.  “It makes me feel powerful,” she says quietly.  “It has to be some kind of conditioned cultural stereotyping, but I feel dominant, bigger and stronger, when I wear it.”

I swallow hard.  Scully’s a beautiful and feminine woman, but her combination of brains, beauty and sheer courage scares the hell out of a lot of people, male and female alike.  I can hardly imagine her with more confidence, more strength.

But do I want to experience it?  Hell, yes!

“How far are we from the hotel?”  She’s the navigator; she’ll know.

“Six miles,” she answers automatically.  Then her eyes get very wide.  “You mean…?!”

“Scully, I’m so hard I can hardly see.  Don’t let me miss any turns, okay?”

It’s her turn to swallow hard and I can see that she’s starting to sweat.

This is going to be good.

***

We’ve been sent out to Cleveland to assist on a serial killer investigation.  FBI policies have been changed a bit, lately; rather than practically forcing us to stay at those abysmal little no-tell motels because the per diem we got was so low, the FBI recently put the Residence Inns by Marriott on retainer.  Now pairs of agents get two-bedroom suites with living rooms for work areas and kitchens to minimize their need to go out for meals. The hotels will even do grocery shopping for us.

It makes keeping tabs on Mulder when he’s on a profiling tear a little easier; I can keep him healthy without settling for pizza and take-out Chinese.  Since I don’t have to interrupt him or chivvy him out of the room to eat in places where no one delivers, we don’t fight about it, and that keeps Mulder more calm and focused; that makes him more efficient, and we get to go home more quickly.

All together, a much better deal.

This time, the suite even has a fireplace.  We won’t be using that; no reason to gratuitously raise Mulder’s tension levels, which open flame would do.  There’s a kitchen with a coffee maker and a stovetop.  I can make grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee; I can heat up canned soup.  This will work.

Tonight we are not on duty.  This killer has no discernible schedule; he may kill tonight, or not again for weeks.  We are to report in tomorrow morning, so tonight we are free, and Mulder is going to indulge me in my fantasy.

Payback will be weird, I’m sure.

We separate to our own bedrooms to unpack and that gets done very quickly; we’ve been doing this for too long for it to be otherwise.

He comes into my bedroom gloriously naked and erect, and finds me pulling a length of seatbelt strap out of my suitcase.  He takes it from me and runs it through his fingers.  It’s very soft to the touch, even on the edges, and has foot-wide loops sewn into each end.

“Very nice, Scully.  Where’d you get it?”

“Same place I bought the appliance.  The loops sewn into the ends are for your wrists.  Then you just loop it over or around something solid.”

He nods thoughtfully.  “Sounds like a plan.”

The tension in the room is going up; we’re both a little uncertain about this.  It doesn’t help his tension that I’m not wearing the appliance, yet.  I can see that he’s looking for it, but it is still hidden in a black velour bag in my suitcase.

“You only see it when I wear it.  It’s supposed to be a part of me. It’s not a toy, really, but a prosthetic.”

He grimaces.  “Not an idea any guy wants to contemplate, Scully.”

I don’t answer, but I notice his erection failing significantly.  He’s being very honest with me.  I hand him the strap.  “Go fasten yourself down.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I snort as he turns to obey.  I really cannot imagine Mulder as a sub.  These bonds are purely symbolic; worn as intended, he can shake them off and be free in a moment.  Neither of us would have it any other way: we have both been imprisoned in reality too often, and suffered too much at the hands of our captors, to find being tied down titillating.  These bonds are just to remind him not to use his hands, to give him something safe to grab.

He slips the center of the strap under the head of the mattress, since the headboard was bolted to the wall.  “This okay?” he asks as he slips a loop over each wrist.

“Fine.”

“Scully…”

I flinch at the warning tone in his voice.  I’m about to fasten his ankles down with another length of the same material, and for a moment I think he’s objecting to the bond.  Then I remember that I promised him, on our first night together, to never use that word like that again.

“I’m sorry, Mulder.  It just slipped out.”  He nods, forgiving me.  I study him for a moment.  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

He shakes the loops off his wrists and stands up again, takes me in his arms and hugs me.  Then he cradles my face in his palms and makes me look him squarely in the eyes.

“I know exactly what you want from me,” he says softly, his voice very intense, “and I’m totally willing to try and give it to you. Do you understand that I may not be able to go through with this? I’ve never done anything like this before, and it may not work.”

I have to close my eyes; he’s stating exactly what I fear. “I haven’t, either, Mulder.”

“…and if this doesn’t work for me,” he interrupts me, “and I have to yell ‘Melvin’ and stop you, I will still love you and I will not hold it against you afterward.”

He kisses me, and it just about melts my bones, but I can’t let myself surrender to him, now.  If this little game is going to work, it will be because I maintain control.

So I end the kiss, and smile up at him to reassure him.  “Thank you.  I was feeling a certain amount of uncertainty.  You have no idea how odd I find it that this was my idea.”

He grins, and slides his hands up my body to ruffle my hair.  Then he turns and lets himself fall onto the bed, face down.  His hands find the loops easily, and he imprisons himself for my pleasure.

A shiver of excitement goes through me.

He’s not really being submissive, and that’s okay.  I didn’t ask for that.  But he’s watching me, and I can’t put on the appliance while he’s watching.

I have to call it an appliance; crude words such as those Mulder used in the car just disturb me too much.

So I move to my suitcase again and find my nightgown. I’ve been wearing it for three nights at home alone, so it has my scent on it.  I can barely make out a trace of my vanilla-scented moisturizer, but I know Mulder can detect my scent where I can’t detect any at all. And he loves the way I smell.

The nightgown is short, with spaghetti straps, and is made of navy blue silk.  I carefully cover Mulder’s face and head with it, blocking his vision.

“Can you breathe all right?” I have to ask.

“Yeah.”

His voice is only barely muffled by such a light fabric.

“Good. I’ll be right back.”

***

God, it smells like her.  From the texture of the fabric, I have to think that this is either a nightgown or a slip.  Probably a nightgown; she wears them for two or three days at a time, but a slip goes into the laundry after one day.

I don’t immediately realize it, but I’m rubbing my face into the fabric, trying to pin it between my chin and the mattress.  The unmistakable smell of Scully inflames me… and I’m only a little surprised to find I’m beginning to hump the mattress.

Something smacks my naked butt sharply, and I flinch, startled, only belatedly realizing that it was her hand that struck the blow.

“None of that,” she scolds.  “You come when I make it happen.”

I shiver.  That’s the command-voice I was anticipating.  I don’t take orders well, and Scully knows it.

“Yes, ma’am!”  I’m not in anything close to a submissive headspace, here, and there’s an audible note of sarcasm in my words.

I’m a little tense: I don’t know how she’s going to react to this.  Scully and I have rarely played games; we’re still learning how to make the more traditional forms of sex work for us.

I was in a D/s relationship once, and I don’t want to go there, again.  It had never originally been done with my consent, but at the time I didn’t know how to escape.  That was a long time ago, but I can feel some part of me, deep inside, starting to whimper, and not with need.  If she tries to make this D/s I’m not going to –

“Sarcasm, Mulder?” she drawls.

I freeze, waiting to see what she’ll do.  I can feel her climbing up onto the bed, and rather than any other touch, she kneels between my legs and lies down on top of me.

She knows I love waking up underneath my Scullyblanket.  I feel myself relaxing.  I might have known that she would find a truly adroit way to reassure me, even if she wasn’t sure why I was tensing up so badly.

Then she lets her weight begin to really come down on me, and I feel it.  There, between my thighs, I’m being prodded by Scully’s toy, the tip of it rubbing against my perineum.

She rubs it against me slowly, using humping motions. It’s weird… but what’s more weird is that I feel myself actually beginning to respond to it.

I really had not expected to react positively.  I didn’t know if I could, or should, try to fake arousal for a while, till Scully could get herself off, at least.  But the rhythm is familiar, and so is her touch, and the quiet purring sounds she’s making.  I let myself relax even farther, and spread my legs a little to make it easier for her.

***

I had adjusted the harness at home, so getting it on took only a minute.  I find myself standing beside the bed, looking down at my blindfolded partner, stroking the silicone penis as if masturbating as a man would do.  The base of the penis is rubbing against my clitoris, and it feels very good.

However, I am stalling, and I am willing to admit it to myself.  I am not at all sure how this is going to work.  Faced with the total responsibility for Mulder’s safety and comfort as well as both his pleasure and my own, I have to admit I am having second thoughts.

I wonder if this is how he feels, when he is the active partner.  I watch him arousing himself lazily with my nightgown.  I know Mulder as a very caring and considerate lover, who has never left me unsatisfied no matter how difficult it might be on any particular occasion.  Typically he fights to stay awake afterward, knowing I like to snuggle and come down gradually.

Mulder forces himself to do that for me, to give me that soft landing, even when he’s crashing.

I shiver, intimidated by the commitment I have made.  In reversing our usual roles, I have assumed the responsibility for his satisfaction, at the sacrifice of my own if necessary.   But I know that if he realizes I’m  doing that, it would spoil the entire experience for him.

Then I realize that he is really getting off on my nightgown.  I can’t have that. Moving without thinking, I smack him on his delectable little ass, and scold him.

He shivers and I’m suddenly afraid.  I don’t want him submissive; Mulder would have to be broken to submit, and that wild mustang spirit in him is part of what makes him the man I love.

When he speaks, I have to relax with a chuckle. Sarcasm SO becomes him.

I climb up onto the bed and kneel between his legs. I walk my hands up his back, stroking him and crooning to him as I lie down on top of him.

He loves this.  No matter what, every time we sleep together, he wants me on top of him.  Beneath me, I can feel him relaxing, moving with me a little when I move against him, now.  I don’t want him to come, now, but I want him excited.   I reach up and pull the silk off his eyes.

He blinks at me over his shoulder, trying to adjust to the brighter light, and he is so beautiful that suddenly I can’t breathe.

***

“Scully?”

She stops.  She’s lying on top of me, and that toy is snug against me, but she isn’t moving at all.  She’s just watching me.  Then she bites her lip and her eyes slide away from mine.  She climbs off the bed and turns away, arms defensively folded against her chest.

The harness she’s wearing is woven nylon, and it’s a pale cream color that blends very nicely with her skin tone.  The dildo is erect and dark red and dramatically visible.

Scully’s so little that the proportions are unrealistic; the thing looks huge!  And she wants to fuck me with that?!  For a moment I’m terrified.  For a moment I’m totally convinced that I’m calling this off.

But then I see her face.

“Stage fright?” the thought coalesces into words.  As the passive partner, tonight, all I have to do is wait and react, and I realize I’ve been doing a lot of waiting.

She stares at me in shock.  “How do you DO that?”

I shrug and smile faintly.  “I’m a profiler, Scully.  I’ve been profiling you for years. I know you better than you do.”

She’s still staring at me.  A motion of her hand diverts my attention and I stare at her right hand squeezing and rubbing and stroking the flexible red dildo.

I should…  I don’t know how I should feel in this context. But what I do feel is a jolt of arousal that leaves me shivering.  I tear my eyes away; that’s what it looks like when she’s stroking me…

***

I see his attention snap from my face to my hand, which has been absently stroking the toy.  I see him shiver and look away.

Is he repulsed?

“Mulder?  We don’t have to do this…”

He shakes his head and manages to smile at me.  “I said I would.  I will.”

“I don’t want to if you’re unhappy or put off by it!”

He shifts, trying to get comfortable.  “I won’t deny,” he says quietly, “that it makes me a little nervous.  But there are those who swear by this kind of thing; it’s certainly worth a try.”

Now I’m intrigued.  He’s talking as if this will qualify, for him, as a homosexual experience, simply because of the equipment used.

“Research says that over half of American males experience some homosexual contact before they turn 25.  Didn’t you?”

He’s trying not to look at the toy, or my hand on it.

“Contact doesn’t necessarily imply penetration,” he says hoarsely, and, despite his attempts to keep this discussion at a clinical level, his voice betrays him on that last word.  He’s very nervous.

I don’t think he’s frightened.  For this experience to frighten him, he would have to fear me, and he doesn’t.

“I met a guy at Oxford who made a pass at me,” he explains with a shrug, feigning nonchalance.  “We played around for a few months. We never went this far.”

I feel some of my tension fade.  He’s not repulsed by the toy and what it is.  He may find it more difficult to accept the appliance because of its artificiality, but not because it mimics a penis.

Then I grin at him.  “So, I’m your first?  I like that.”

He laughs.  “First for this.  Only for everything, Scully; you know that.”

I lean close to kiss him.  “I know.  As you are mine.”

The kiss is shockingly intense.  I meant it for reassurance, but he’s burning.  I break free and step back, panting.

“Believe me now?” he asks, his eyes boring into mine.

***

I knew that if she saw any more of my nervousness, she would back out.  Fantasy is one thing, but actually acting it out is another story entirely.

“So,” I say with studied carelessness, “how do you want to do this?”

She smiles and licks her lips.  I realize only then that throughout all this talking and delay, her hand has been stroking and pumping that dildo.

When she answers me, her voice is confident and clear, and her eyes are sparkling with anticipation.

“Roll over again.  Are your wrists in those loops?”

“Yeah.  I’ve got ‘em.”  The loops are far too large: I have to wrap them around my hands and hold on.  But that’s good; it gives me something to grab, when I’m not going to be able to reach her.

I feel her climb up behind me again.  She repeats the stroking and she lies down on top of me, rubbing the dildo against me.

It makes me shiver with anticipation.  “Scully?”

“Yes, my love?” she croons into my ear as her kisses trail up my spine.

“Please tell me you bought commercial lubricants…?”

There’s a long moment of silence, and I can’t help but try and roll so I can see her.  “Scully…!”

She kisses me hard while her hands stroke and caress me.  Only when she pulls away does she smile.  “Of course I did, silly. Three different flavors, as a matter of fact.”

I’m relieved, and she laughs at me again.

“I would never treat you badly, Mulder, or cut any corners.  Only the best for you.”

I relax a little more.  “I guess.  I’ve got you, don’t I?”

She chuckles again, and then pushes at my shoulder; she wants me to lie flat again.  I straighten out, and she gets off me again.

“Hey!  Come back here!”

“Patience, my love.  Patience.”

I can’t hear her bare feet on the carpet, but I don’t shift position again.  In a moment, I have my answer as the lights all fade down to a dim glow.

“I want to do this by touch.”

Her voice is low, with a barely-audible rasp in it that races right to my groin.

“Yay-rah,” I manage, “I heartily endorse touching…”

***

I smile at his suddenly shaky voice, and begin to gently massage his feet.  He is ticklish, and I have to be careful to keep my touch firm.  He flinches a couple of times until the muscles finally begin to yield.

I move up his legs slowly, working on them alternately. When I reach his butt I massage first, and then bite gently.

He jumps a little, and I feel him start to tense up again.

I continue the massage up his back, taking my time, moving carefully to straddle his body to rub his neck and massage his scalp.

I’ve done this before, and I know that I can usually put him to sleep like this.  This time it isn’t going to work.  There’s too much tension here today.

I continue the body rub until he’s lying very flat, limp on the bed, past even moaning.  I’m straddling his thighs while I’m opening the nearest bottle of lubricant.  I rub the toy against him, but he doesn’t react.  My fingers move to slide into his so-intimate place, and his breath hitches.  My fingers brush gently against his perineum, his scrotum; these are familiar touches, and he relaxes again.

I had read up on this procedure; you can find anything on the internet.  I knew his body had to be prepared to accept penetration. In that, the male is no different than the female.  Only the methodology differs, and that not much.  His reactions to my touch are promising, moving toward my hand rather than away, so I take a  deep breath and the first step.  I gently slide my longest finger, wet with lubricant, inside.

His muscles contract around my finger, but I move gently, in and out, around, encouraging the muscles to relax… and, much to my relief, it works.  I bend the finger a little, hesitantly seeking for that one hypersensitive spot, but I cannot find it.  I try again, but I have to be so careful not to hurt him…

“Scully?”

He’s panting, shuddering from head to foot as my hand moves again.  I look up, and I see his hands fisted tightly against the nylons bands, muscles rippling up his arms and across his shoulders.

“Yes, my love?”

“Talk to me,” he pleads, shuddering as my hand moves again. “I… I… need…” His voice vanishes in a gasp.

“Tell me what you need.”

“I need…  I need to know it’s you.”

I hadn’t realized how my silence might be affecting him: in almost all our sexual play we can see each other.  On the occasions that he takes me from behind, he’s so much taller than me that he can still reach my face, whisper in my ears.  With our positions reversed like this, I can’t do that to him.

I kiss his cheeks, the base of his spine.  “Anyone else touches you like this will be dead meat,” I declare softly, but with intensity that I hope he can hear.  “You’re mine, and I am a possessive bitch who does not play well with others.”

All through this my hands have been working on him.  His appreciative chuckle is interrupted when he gasps in reaction to the insertion of a second finger, gently turning, massaging.

“Oh… god…”

I stop, uncertain, and he whimpers.

“Was that good?” I have to ask.

“Ohhh… yeahhh…” he moans.  “Don’t… stop…”

“Tell me when I hit the spot,” I request, kissing as far up his back as I can reach without withdrawing my hand.

He’s no longer still; he’s moving with my hand, and his hands are flexing in the same rhythm on the straps he holds.

“You’ll know,” he assures me breathlessly.

“You know, your butt was not the first thing I noticed about you,” I purr, laying my cheek against him.  “After all, you were sitting on it. But it’s definitely in the top ten butts of all time.  There should be a hall of fame.”

He chuckles, panting.  “Wh- What was first?”

“Your voice.”  I have two fingers pumping slowly in and out of him while I rub more lubricant on the prosthetic with my other hand, pretending it is my own flesh.  Much to my own astonishment, Mulder’s soft moans and movements against me, with the motions of my hands, really are arousing me.

“M- My voice?”

“You sound like… like honeyed whiskey flowing over gravel… Sometimes when you call me in the middle of the night I can almost come just listening to you talk. Doesn’t matter what you say.”

He moans appreciatively.

I slide a third finger inside, and Mulder shudders, burying his face against his arm.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah…  It’s…  It’s just…”

“Just?”

“…intense…”

I’m very careful, but I’m not going to stop unless he uses the safe word.  This is a slow build, but it is definitely building, and I’m well past the point where I could stop easily.

Finally I take a deep breath and very gently pull my hand away.

He whimpers.

I use both hands to position the tip of the appliance against him, and I lean on it just a little.

“God!”

I stop.  “Did I hurt you?”

He’s trembling from head to foot.  “Yes…no!  No.  It didn’t hurt. But it… it feels huge…”

“It’s not, I promise.”  I should have let him familiarize himself with it before we got to this point.  “It’s not as big as you are when you’re erect.”

I try to distract him, but I can’t quite reach underneath him.  Always willing to accommodate, he shifts, leaving his head on the pillow but moving his knees forward a little to raise the angle of his back.

Now I can, and I stroke him gently with my slickened hands, distracting him from the new sensations with a revisit to the more traditional.

“You feel like this when you enter me,” I croon to him. “You feel like a tree trunk… like a power pole…  like an obelisk… huge and hard…  rocking me… and filling me… and exciting me beyond comprehension… beyond coherence…”

As I speak, I rock my hips very carefully, and after a few tries I can feel the head of the appliance slip past the ring of muscle.  It’s inside.

Mulder flinches and makes a sound I can’t describe or define: it’s part whimper, part moan, part growl…  I stop.

“Tell me if it hurts…  I never want to hurt you.”

“It’s…  It’s… not… pain,” he pants.  “Not… exactly…”

“How does it feel?”

“Feels like… like you’re splitting me in half…  Like a… a ripe peach…  about to break apart.”

I back a bit, add more lubricant, and press a little deeper.  Mulder moans as if I’m pushing the sound out of him, long and low.

“In China,” I say very softly as I back a little, “the peach is the symbol of the female genitalia: the little pointy clitoris at one end, a fuzzy crease leading to the opening that leads inside…”  I move into him again, “… and warm and soft and juicy when you bite past the fuzz…”

He moans again, and I start nibbling on every part of him that I can reach with my teeth.  My hands, slippery with lubricant, slide back between his legs to stroke him as my hips rock against him, pushing deeper and deeper until I am inside as far as I can go.

I drape my body over his, lay my cheek against his back, listen to his heart racing in his chest.  I wrap my arms around him, feel him trembling.

“Ready?”

***

Impaled, suspended between terror and ecstasy, I can only nod.

She doesn’t keep me waiting.

She tightens her arms around me and rocks her pelvis, using her back, rather than pushing with her knees.  She moves slowly, but she doesn’t stop.  As she gets more comfortable, more confident, she starts moving more quickly, using more strength.

I’m moving with her as best as I can with my movements limited by the bondage.

This is amazing…  And she’s panting, now, her breath hot against my ribs and her hands on my belly, on my cock…

Then she shifts, puts her knees down to push against the mattress with them, and as that thrust bottoms out she finally hits that spot she was trying for so diligently earlier.

I’m shocked by the instantaneous jolt of it, and I go up against all the bonds with a scream.

She freezes.  “Mulder?!”

“That’s…  It…!”  I gasp.  I have never felt anything like that!

“Again?”

“Yes!”

I must have unnerved her when I screamed: she’s not moving.

“Are you sure?” she asks, hesitant.

I push back against her.  “I’m sure!  Scully, please…!”

Shaking, she tries, and she hits the spot again.

I scream again; I can’t help it.  Panting, I try to talk. “Scully… please…  Don’t stop…  Don’t stop…!”

I can’t hold still, now, and she obliges me.  She’s moving slowly, but she’s moving… and I’m losing the rags of control that I had.  All I know is that if she stops I’ll die.  I may die if she keeps on moving like that…

…omigod…

…maybe this is heaven…

I never believed it would be like this.  I can hardly breathe because each thrust is pushing right through me and forcing all the air out of my lungs.  Scully is pounding into me, clutching and clawing at me.   Her breath is hot on my back and I’m afraid to move because I might deflect that perfect aim but I can’t hold still.  I hear my voice but I don’t think I’m making any sense.

***

He’s completely out of control, thrashing under me, low-toned screams muffled in the pillow that he’s buried his teeth in.

I’m frustrated because, arousing as it is to see him like this, I’m not getting what I need.

But the solution is at hand, in the form of a switch on the harness.  I hit it.

Mulder explodes beneath me with a scream, convulsing, coming so hard I can only hang on.  It only takes a few more thrusts and that, combined with the powerful vibrator, finally brings me over, too.

We both collapse, and I turn the vibrator off.  I can’t do anything else; I’m limp, lying on top of Mulder, who is breathing, but not much else.  My ear is pressed against his back, and I can hear his heart hammering inside him, and I can tell that he’s calming, as am I.

I find myself falling asleep, and wonder if he’s lying awake, wishing I would cuddle him calm, but I can’t…

***

I wake up slowly, groggy.  I don’t try to move at all.  I don’t know where I am; moving might not be wise.  This isn’t my bed… is it Scully’s bed?

No, it’s not.  Scully uses pure cotton sheets that have a thread-count per square inch around six hundred; they’re like silk.  These are the familiar common sheets used by the hotels and motels that we can afford.

Okay, I’m in a hotel bed.  Where’s Scully?

I still don’t move; I just try to feel more than just what’s under me… and there she is.

Scully is draped over my back like a blanket, sound asleep.  I move one hand, and as it crosses my field of vision I see reddened skin around my wrist, and become aware that both my hands are sore and cramped.

All my memories of last evening come tumbling back, and I remember it all.  I shudder at the memory of such an intense surrender to my body’s capacity and need for ecstacy.

Then the Scullyblanket moves.  “Mulder?”

“Hmm?”  Words seem beyond me; my throat is sore, probably from screaming.  I remember screaming.

“How do you feel?”

She sounds worried; sleepy, but worried.

“I’m not sure, yet,” I admit.  Sure enough, my voice is rough and scratchy.

“Any pain?”  She moves off me to lie beside me, and I’m chilled by the loss of her body heat.

On the other hand, now I can see her.  She looks content, even if she’s worried about me.  I smile, and lean over to kiss her.

“Good morning.”

She kisses me back in a sleepy, desultory fashion. “Hmm…  Good morning to you, too.”

I can tell that she’s still worried, so I stretch carefully, checking myself for strains and pains, and then I reach out to her and pull her close, into my arms.

“I’m fine, my love.  Thank you.”

“You liked it?”  Her tone betrays her; she really isn’t sure.  She’s not just asking for accolades.

“I do not lie to you,” I remind her.  “I don’t think I’ll want to repeat that very often, but it was spectacular.  Thank you very much.”

“You amazed me,” she smiles, only now beginning to relax.  “I’ve never seen you so out of control before.  Very exciting.”

“What did you do that set me off like that?”  I have to ask; I just remember an explosion that I thought had killed me before I realized what it really was.

She grins at me smugly.  “It wasn’t just a… a dildo.”  She stumbles over the word, as I knew she would.  “It’s a vibrator.  I turned it on.  I take it that it worked well?”

“Worked?  I’ve never come so hard in my life!  I thought I was ejaculating brain matter!”

She grins and snuggles closer.  “Well, you’ve got that to spare…”

I kiss her again, and wrap myself around her, prolonging the kiss, refamiliarizing myself with her body.

When we relax and let ourselves fall away from one another, she glances over my shoulder at the bedside table.

“Well, it certainly knocked you cold,” she agrees, returning her attention to me. “It’s morning; we have to report to the SAC in ninety minutes.”

I can only stare at her.  We arrived at the hotel well before seven last evening.

“You’re telling me I slept for something like twelve hours straight?!”  That’s unheard of.  I never sleep like that unless I’m drugged unconscious, and that doesn’t count!

She nods, still obviously amused.  “You were out cold. You never even twitched when I put all the stuff away and cleaned you up.”

My stunned silence must have been eloquent; she leans down and kisses me again.

“C’mon.  Get out of bed.  You shower fast enough and we’ll have time for breakfast.”

“I don’t know if my bones have reconstituted, but I’ll try,” I respond.  “What about you?”

“I showered hours ago.  I’m just going to finish my hair and get dressed.  There’s no food in the room, but I’m sure we can find some between here and the office.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I agree.  When I move to get up I realize that I’m stiff and sore everywhere, and I think I’m moving like an old man.  But the shower is only a few steps away, and long minutes of hot water, a judicious application of soap and shampoo make a new man of me.  After drying off and combing my hair, I go pawing through my Dopp kit for my aspirin stash, and wash down three. Then I brush my teeth.  When I come out, I expect that Scully will have laid out my clothes for me.

She has, and I’m grateful to not have to think about that. I dress slowly, amazed at how sore I am.

“You’re walking funny,” she frets, watching me move to stand in front of the dresser’s mirror to tie my tie.  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

I have to smile at her.  “Scully, relax.  You always walk funny, too, after you’ve been jackhammered into a mattress.  You recover faster because you’re younger. I’m an old man…”

“Beast.  You’re only three years older than I am.  Two and a half, actually.  And forty isn’t old, any more.”

I finished off my tie and straightened my collar, shrugged on my jacket.

“All right, then.  Ready to go out and start kicking some ass and taking some names?”

“Absolutely, Agent Mulder.”

“After you, Agent Scully.”

She turns toward the door, the absolute image of a professional agent, but an order of magnitude more beautiful.   She pauses at the door.

“Anything in particular you’d like the shopper to pick up for us?”

I consider that.  “Godiva ice cream and a bottle of that Magic Shell topping.  You pick the flavors, Scully.”

She shivers in anticipation.  She knows that the Magic Shell isn’t for the ice cream.

As we go out, she walks a half step ahead of me, and my hand slides down her back to rest on the spot over her tattoo.

Killers to catch, SACs to annoy, aliens to foil… and the most beautiful woman in the world to back me up.

Life is perfect.

- end

20020704

“Scully, I need your help.”

His voice rasped in her ear and her hand tightened on the telephone handset.  “What’s wrong?”

“I…  Can you come over here?  I don’t trust myself to drive yet.”

She straightened.  “Mulder, you’re scaring me!  What’s wrong?”

He laughed, but it sounded hollow to her.  “I’m not bleeding.  I’ll live till you get here unless you detour through central DC.”

“I’m on my way.”  She was collecting her SIG Sauer, her ID and her keys.  “If this is a ploy to get me over there to amuse you, defenestration will be the least of your worries.”

“I’ll nail the window shut while I’m waiting,” he assured her.  “Thanks, Scully.”

***

The door to apartment 42 was not locked.  She pushed it open slowly.  “Mulder?”

“Right here.   C’mon in.”

She stepped all the way inside and shut the door behind her.

Mulder was wearing ratty gray sweatpants and a battered FBI Academy sweatshirt.  He was on his couch, bare feet on the floor, his body slouched so that the back of his head rested at the top edge of the back of the couch.  His hands were limp on his thighs and his knees were spread wide.  He looked exhausted.

There was a huge pile of dusty videotapes and DVD boxes on his coffee table.  They were stacked badly; the pile looked unstable.

“You’re on medical leave, Mulder.  You aren’t supposed to be exerting yourself.”

“That doctor told me moderate exercise was appropriate as long as I didn’t push till I was out of breath,” he reminded her without moving or looking at her.  He was staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t think spring cleaning was what he had in mind, Mulder.”

“I’ve been trapped in here for nearly a week,” he snapped irritably, “trying to keep my mind off cigarettes.  I hate cigarettes and I am craving nicotine like a junkie needs smack.  This isn’t fair!”

“So you were watching all these movies, one after the other?”  She moved closer and stopped abruptly when she realized that the nearest cassette was a porn flick: ?Susie Does St Louis.’

“That and sitting at my computer deleting spam.”

“Was it working?”  He had closed his eyes again and she bit her lip.  Something was wrong but she could not tell what it was.

“Not really.”

Scully took a deep breath.  “Why did you call me, Mulder?”

He moved then, straightened a little and looked at her for the first time.  “That’s my porn collection, Scully. Take a look.”

She kept her eyes on him.  “No, thank you.”  She managed to keep her voice even.

“I’m not trying to offend or embarrass you.  I need to take you through the process that got my head where it is, right now.  Look at the covers, see if you detect the same pattern I did.”

She did not like this at all, but he was being civilized and polite.  She stepped closer and started scanning the visible titles.

“You’ve got to look at the cover photos, Scully, not just the spines.”

Gingerly she started taking down a stack of the DVDs, piling them neatly on the floor beside the table.  The names blurred quickly; they were all so similar.  But after a dozen or so boxes the answer nearly slapped her across the face.

All the leading actresses were short redheads.

Shocked speechless, she looked up at her partner, who was watching her intently.

When he saw the realization in her eyes, he nodded grimly.

“I was surprised, too.  I swear I didn’t do it consciously.  I swear it.”

She swallowed hard.  “What do you think it means?” she asked faintly.  “You’re the psychologist.”

“Scully, please.  You know I don’t date.  There hasn’t been room in my life for any woman but you for years.  I just hadn’t realized that you were – in one form or another – fulfilling all the needs I had.”

“All…?”  Suddenly she could not breathe.  “You… you fantasized…?  About… me…?”

“Ohhh, yeahhh…”  He dragged both words out as if savoring the experience again.

She shivered and backed up a step.

“I’m not going to leap up and grab you,” he bit the words off sharply, trying to disguise how much her reaction had hurt.  “I… I was suddenly so ashamed of myself that I had to confess.”

“And you couldn’t do it over the phone?”  She had seen his flinch and recognized that she had, however inadvertently, wounded him.  Now all she wanted was to take the pain away.

He tried a wan grin that almost worked.  “No.  I needed to give you the opportunity to shoot me again if you wanted.”

That made her laugh despite the situation.  “Mulder…”  Still smiling, she went to him, sat beside him on the couch.  “I wouldn’t shoot you for this.  I’ve worked too damned hard to keep you alive to risk losing you now!”

He was careful not to move, though she was easily within his reach.  “So you’re not mortally offended?”

She tipped her head to one side, considering.  “Actually…  No, I’m flattered.  And relieved.”

He blinked.  “Okay, you HAVE to explain that.  Flattered AND relieved?”

“Flattered because obviously you…  Isn’t that obvious?” she blushed, avoiding his eyes.

“Absolutely,” he agreed.  “But why relieved?”

“Because… because… ” her voice trailed off.

“C’mon, Scully.  This is important.”

“I know it is.  I just…  I just never expected to have this conversation.”

“Ad lib something.  As long as it’s from the heart.”

She turned to face him.  “Mulder, I don’t use video, but for years my fantasies have been dominated by a tall guy with a swimmer’s body, dark chocolate hair, roving hazel eyes, a rapier wit and an oral fixation he doesn’t try to hide.  Now I know the competition for him is over and I’ve won.  It leaves me without a plan of action.  I never speculated beyond this point.”

Mulder licked his lips and swallowed hard.  “Oh, my God…”

She studied him for a moment.  “Shall we take the penultimate step?”

He cocked his head at her.  “Define penultimate step.”

“The L-word?”

He grinned suddenly and she was startled at how much his smile brightened the room and her heart.  He sat up and took her hands in his and they turned toward one another.

“That would be superfluous, wouldn’t it?” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss her.

He rubbed his mouth against hers gently as he pulled her body snug against his own.  Her mouth and legs opened, welcoming and warm as she pressed herself against him, relishing the hard flat planes of his body and the heat that met her own and flared.

The kiss became deep and intense; he never wanted it to end.  She fit into his arms perfectly and she tasted of coffee and Scully, with a little spice remaining from her earlier flash of fear.  He had no idea that his eyes were closed.

(*I can die now,*) he decided as she somehow inhaled through the kiss, sucking him further inside, sending a surge of freshened arousal through his body.

He was getting dizzy from lack of oxygen when she ended it with a nibble and a lick on his lower lip and pushed back far enough that they could see one another.

They each stared into dilated eyes; black pools awash with lust.  Scully shivered.

“Now?” he asked hoarsely.

“Are you sure you’re recovered enough?” she countered.  “I’ve been celibate for nearly seven years.  I don’t want to kill you.”

He laughed joyously and hugged her tightly.  “God, I love you, Scully!”

“I love you, too.  I’ve waited this long.  I can wait another week, till you’re back in shape…”

He shifted against her and she gasped.

“If we don’t consummate this relationship right now, the tension alone is going to kill me.”  He stood up, then, taking her by the hands again, to tug her to her feet.  “C’mon…”

Scully hesitated, resisting slightly.  “You’re still convalescing…”

“I’m dying, here, Scully!  Come ON!”  Then he stopped and cocked his head.  “Unless you’d rather do it here on the couch?”

She hesitated , visibly tempted, and then shook her head.  “No.  I’m going to need more room than that.”  She turned and headed for his bedroom door.

Mulder stood, staring after her, watching the way her hips twitched from side to side…  He shed his sweatpants without taking his eyes off her.  He was almost annoyed when she stopped and turned.

“Mulder?”

He shook the daze out of his eyes, pulled his sweatshirt off and tossed it aside.  Naked, he went after her.

***

By the time he made it into the bedroom, she was stripped to her panties and bra.  She looked up at him as she reached behind for the clasp on her bra and he shivered as his blood supply surged south.

“Don’t…” he managed to say.

She stopped.  “Don’t what?”

“Let me…”

She let her hands fall to her sides and smiled as he came to her.  She had seen his unclothed body before, but she had never seen him aroused.  She tried not to stare, suddenly very aware of how out of practice she was.  The simplest parts of the etiquette of sex were blank and she did not know where to look.

Mulder was oblivious to her confusion and uncertainty.  He cradled her face in his hands and bent to kiss her again.  This time it was rough, exciting and when he broke away she protested with a wordless growl.

He slid his hands slowly down her neck to her bared shoulders, caressing her, marveling at how soft her skin was, and watching it turn rosy pink with arousal.  He pushed her bra straps down off her shoulders and watched as the fabric’s tension slackened, freeing her breasts.  He dropped his face to nuzzle between them, breathing in her warm scent while his palms cupped her and his thumbs began to rub the slippery fabric over her nipples.

She let her head fall back with a soft moan.  She was smiling, her eyes were closed as she reached for him, let her fingers trail gently down his biceps, past his elbows to scrape lightly against the soft, tender flesh of his forearms.

He walked her back to the bed, kissing the tops of her breasts, trailing his attention up her throat, across her mouth briefly, back down her throat and back to her partially-exposed breasts.

When she felt the bed with the backs of her calves, she sat down and her hands tightened around his wrists, pulling him down with her.

He crawled slowly up onto the mattress above her as she scooted toward the headboard on her back.  One of his hands moved underneath her and he effortlessly flicked open the bra’s clasp.

“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten that it comes off,” she teased, not trying to hide the trace of breathlessness in her voice.

He kissed her rather than answer her, then dragged his mouth away from hers, down her throat again, retracing the well-dampened path to her breasts.  This time there was no fabric to block his touch, and his tongue caressed her nipples in turn while he listened to her breathing accelerate and felt her hands move up his arms like warm-footed spiders.  Her fingers laced through his hair and then clutched at his head, holding his face against her chest.

He made no attempt to free himself; this was where he wanted to be.  He engulfed her left breast, sucking it into his mouth and then backing, letting his teeth scrape against the rippled flesh of her aureole.  He worried at her nipple with his teeth briefly, carefully, and was rewarded with a gasp and the sinuous movement of her body beneath him.

He rested his weight on his forearms and spread his knees to surround her.  She let go of him and flung her arms akimbo.

Still on all fours over her, he forced himself to abandon her breasts to explore the rest of her small but powerful body.  He kissed his way south, lingering at her navel because she squirmed in the most interesting way when he kissed around that centerpoint.

This was Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, a nationally-respected pathologist, an equally respected federal law enforcement officer.  But right now she was nearly naked, sprawled in utter abandon across the bed beneath him, letting him have his way with her.

He shuddered and she frowned.  “Mulder?”

He grinned at her.  “Yesss…?”

“Don’t stop now; I’ll have to kill you.”

“I don’t think you can reach your weapon from here.”

“I can reach yours.”

She tried and he moved away, putting his hand on her belly to hold her down on the bed.  “Don’t.”

She did not struggle.  She just grinned wickedly and stretched.  Luxuriously.

He could only stare.  “Jesus, Scully…!” he breathed.

“Just providing a little extra positive reinforcement.”

He bent over her, planted the flat of his tongue on her breastbone and licked down her centerline toward her navel.  Her body rose to his touch and her hands grabbed at the sheets.

When Mulder’s teeth took hold of the waistband of her panties and began to tug them down, she squirmed, unable to resist the touch of his skin against her own.  It seemed to take him forever to worry her last garment down past her hips.  Once it was clear of her body it disappeared.

Or at least she lost track of it.  His mouth was on her now, his nose probing into her curls and his tongue caressing that most sensitive part of her.  She lifted her knees and spread her thighs to give him more access.

He went in like a starving man, licking and sucking, nibbling cautiously at her but backing away before her cries meant pain.  She gasped in shock as the ecstasy awoke in her almost at once.  He pushed her right to the edge of heaven, until she was panting and pounding her fists into the mattress, and then he backed off, letting her fall away from the edge unfulfilled.

“Mulder!” she wailed.

He moved up her body on all fours until he could kiss her again.  “I know what I’m doing.  Just go with it…?”

“How many times are you going to frustrate me like that?”

He smiled at the demanding tone of her voice.  “As many times as I can stand.”

“As many as you can get in before I kill you, you mean?”

“My, my.  Aggressive, aren’t you?  That’s the second time you’ve threatened my life, Scully.”

“No predominantly female jury in the country would convict me,” she growled.

“I’m not being a sadist.  It’s worth it; I promise.”

“You’re not hearing me, Mulder,” she growled, though she did not move.  “I haven’t had sex since March, 1992.    If you’re not inside me within the next few minutes, I’m going to lose my mind.  I don’t need any more foreplay and I’m too impatient right now to put up with it.  So quit showing off how enlightened you are and fuck me, goddammit!”

He swallowed.  “I… I never, ever, thought I’d hear you say that to me,” he whispered.  He laid his body down on hers, letting his weight push her into the mattress.  “If I wake up and this has all been a dream, I’m going to kill myself.”

She wrapped her legs around his body and her arms around his neck, pulled herself up off the mattress, shoving hard against his body.

“It’s not a dream, Mulder.  This is real.  This is me.  This is love.  And this is forever.  You’re mine and I’m not ever, ever, letting you go.”

He had to look away, fighting for control, but despite his best efforts his voice broke.  “Scully, I…”

“I know, Mulder.”  Her voice was gentler, now, though her hold on him had not loosened.  “I know.  Now, c’mon.  Let’s do this.  I’ve claimed you; claim me, now.”

Tears streaming down his face, he maneuvered a little and got himself lined up.  She was so wet that he almost wasn’t sure he had actually made contact, but then she tightened her legs and flexed her back just so and he felt himself begin to slide inside.  His pelvis rocked without him consciously willing it, and he sank into her until he could go no farther.

Scully moaned as she felt herself impaled and her back arched in response as her inner muscles tightened, trying to keep that wonderful fullness there.

“Oh, my God, Scully…!”  He was crying now, and she reached up to kiss him, brushing the tears away with her palms.

“I love you.  It’s all right.  Shhh…”  She was crying, too, just out of sympathy.  “C’mon, Mulder.  Just love me.  We’ll be all right.”

He did not try to reply; there were no words for this.  His body began to move and hers rose to meet him, loosening to let him plunge into her depths, tightening as he withdrew as if to make him regret the necessity.  His mouth found hers blindly and his tongue plunged deep into her, mimicking his body’s actions.

Doubly penetrated, surrounded by him, pinned down by his weight, she clung to him as the excitement began to spiral out of control.  His thrusts were coming so fast now that she could no longer keep up, but her body was winding itself up tightly, like a spring, promising a climax the like of which she had rarely experienced.

He was chanting her name breathlessly; he had broken off the kiss so he could breathe and she was glad he had: she had been running short of oxygen, too.  She tightened her hold on him.

“Come with me, Mul…”  His name disappeared as her body locked up in that moment of perfect ecstasy.

He was coming, too, helplessly pounding into her, sobbing her name as her body unlocked and she began to rock  against him to keep it from ending.

He collapsed finally, wrung out, wrung dry, but when he would have withdrawn, she wrapped herself around him again.

“Stay.”

“I’m not too heavy?”  His voice was gone; the words the barest whisper.

“Never!”

He let himself relax slowly, burying his face in her hair as he panted.  His breath, hot and damp against her, was strangely comforting.  She settled back into the mattress, her arms and legs draped loosely over him.

Neither knew how long they lay together that way.  Eventually they could breathe normally and he rolled off her.  She followed him, chilled by his absence, and nestled against him.  He wrapped his arms around her.

“God, Scully…”

“Don’t analyze, Mulder.”  She squirmed up his body to kiss him on the chin and then on the lips.

“I analyze everything, Scully.  You know that.”

“I know.  Don’t.  This time, don’t.  Just appreciate it.”

“Believe me, I appreciate it.”

Something in his tone bothered her.  She braced herself on her elbows and studied his face.  “Don’t get weird on me, Mulder.”

He frowned.  “?Weird’?”

“This was not something I did for you to make you feel better today.  This was something – IS something! – that we have been progressing toward for years.  This is something we did together.  This is our relationship finally culminating in love and its physical expression.”

He hugged her tiredly.  “Can we work on the fine points of terminology later?  I’m going to fall asleep on you.”

She smiled indulgently and stroked back his hair with both hands.  “Sure, Mulder.  Take a nap.  We’ve got the rest of our lives to work out the details.”

He settled against her.  “That would be the general idea.  Don’t hold it against me.”

She disobeyed and flexed her body against his.  “You don’t want me to…?”

His hands found her breasts and he massaged them gently, then kissed them.  “Don’t mess with me when I’m this blissed out, Scully.  Sleep first, decisions and planning later.  Deal?”

She stretched up and kissed him on the end of his nose.  “Deal.”

He was still smiling when he fell asleep.

She was still smiling when he woke up.

)*(

To: BigSistaDayDay@h…
From: BabyBroTuna@h…
Subject: Meade

Dana, guess what?! Meade got accepted by SEVEN great schools, and she picked Georgetown!!! Isn’t that great?! She hasn’t picked a major yet; she can’t make up her mind whether she wants to build spaceships or fly ‘em.

She’s going to be living with her Grandmother Hazel; Hazel signed a four-year lease on a town house about a mile from the school just a couple of days after Meade decided.  I don’t know how she lucks into these things…!

Why isn’t Meade going to be living in the dorms?  I can hear you rhapsodizing about your college experiences, Day…don’t waste the band-width repeating that. She’s still a little nervous about really large crowds. The campus brochure for UCLA gave her the shakes: all that wide open space, and 40,000 students… She just couldn’t do it.

I suppose that’s my fault, raising her in Amazonia. But if we’d all stayed in Brazil… Never mind.

Hazel promises that Lowell’s therapy can be switched to a provider clinic working out of the university’s medical center, so she’ll be happy, and he won’t fall behind.

The twins and I are going to come home for Christmas, Dana.  We’d love to see you.  When I have exact dates and flight times and such, I’ll let you know.

Love, Charlie

= = = = = = = = = = = =
cold blooded but cuddly = ———<
= = = = = = = = = = =

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: BigSistaDayDay@h…
From: BabyBroTuna@h…
Subject: re: Meade

Charlie?! It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you that I thought you’d been listening to Bill and weren’t speaking to me.
XOXOXOX Dana

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: BigSistaDayDay@h…
From: BabyBroTuna@h…
Subject: re: Meade

Dana, I swear I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose!  The boys and I were out doing a project on anacondas near the Venezuelan border when some of those silly pink dolphins started harassing us.  We thought it was cute until we realized that they weren’t paying us any attention at all, actually.  There was a big crocodile following our canoe.   The croc lunged for a particularly suicidal dolphin, his tail hit the canoe and we
almost capsized.  A bunch of our gear went over the side.  *I* almost went over the side.

The crocodile ate my laptop.

I swear to God. I would have tried to recover it, but Orinoco Crocodiles are among the MOST endangered herps in the world, and I couldn’t bring myself to shoot the old mugger. He must have been 20 feet long! He was bigger than our canoe,and it was 18 feet.

And it wouldn’t've been worth much after he crunched it…

So, what did I miss?

Love, Charlie

= = = = = = = = = = = =
cold blooded but cuddly = ———<
= = = = = = = = = = =

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: BigSistaDayDay@h…
From: BabyBroTuna@h…
Subject: re: Meade

>So, what did I miss?

Ummm…well, in order:
I got sick.
Mulder got abducted by aliens.
He was missing for three months.
We recovered his body in Montana.
We buried him in Raleigh NC next to his mom.
Our boss ordered his body exhumed three months later.
He woke up.
He got fired.
We moved in together.
I had a baby. (I wasn’t sick; I was pregnant. Who knew?)
We named him William Fox Mulder.
We bought a house; the Mulders have $$$!
We’re inviting everyone for Christmas to show off Will and the house.
Please come?

XOXOXOX Dana

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: BigSistaDayDay@h…
From: BabyBroTuna@h…
Subject: re: Meade

Okay, now wait a goddamned minute…!

I got sick.

That I can buy; you must’ve been terrified that the cancer was back: that’s what I thought when I read the line!

Mulder got abducted by aliens.

Give me a break, Day!!

He was missing for three months.
We recovered his body in Montana.
We buried him in Raleigh NC next to his mom.

Oh, my God, Day. You must have been a basket case! I’m so sorry I was out of touch…! You were there for me when Edith died…  I would have been there for you!

Our boss ordered his body exhumed three months later.

What would possess the man to do this?

Mulder woke up.

Mulder’s alive? How can he be alive if he was… That’s too gross, Day. Really.

He got fired.

Wait a minute. You expect me to believe that Mulder came back from the dead and just went back to work?!  Why the hell aren’t we building cathedrals?!   This hasn’t happened for 2000 years!  Didn’t anyone NOTICE???

We moved in together.

I’m glad YOU finally came to your senses!!

I had a baby.  (I wasn’t sick; I was pregnant.  Who knew?)  We named him William Fox Mulder.

*This* doesn’t surpriseme. But I *am* surprised that SistaDayDay has been doing the wild thing with her partner!!! After all those assurances
from you that you were just best friends with him?!  Oh, no, honey.  Remember, I was there when you stayed with him in the hospital in NC. Remember?  You’d only been partnered with him for a few months, but he took a bullet and you almost fell apart. I have admired your strength of will… but I wished you’d relax. True love is so hard to find… it seemed almost disrespectful for you two to ignore it.

I’m glad you finally got over it.

We bought a house; the Mulders have $$$!

Sounds like fun.  I figured his family had the bucks stashed somewhere; he talks like money, he wears Armani suits to chase bad guys through
alleys, and, after everything else, he chartered transportation to get to Antarctica to find you. That cost him bucks; I knowbecause I helped him a little. He e-mailed me asking for recommendations; he knew I had to know everyone in Sao Paolo, and he was right. I told him about a couple of honest ship captains who would take him where he wanted to go or refer him on. He needed air transport; there wasn’t time for
boats. Between us, and his AmEx card, he got what we both wanted: you safely the hell out of Antarctica!

We’re inviting everyone for Christmas to show off Will and the house.  Please come?

Like you could keep me away? Butyou’ll have to bribe the twins.  They want to get back to Avebuyana ASAP; the shaman has offered to initiate them into full warrior-membership when they get back, and they want it the worst way.  Getting to see you will score high.  To see the Lazarus you’re shacked up with will be serious points, especially if he’ll talk to them about it; I relayed all the stories you told me about Albert Hosteen and what he did for the two of you. They deeply regret his death; they wanted to pick his brains!

Wait a sec… this is the third time Mulder’s died, isn’t it?  Once in AZ, getting out of that refrigerator car, once when he had to fake the suicide, and this time. That’s a new world record, isn’t it?

Why the HELL aren’t we building cathedrals?!?!?

Of course I’ll be there.

Love, Charlie

= = = = = = = = = = = =
cold blooded but cuddly = ———<
= = = = = = = = = = =

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: BigSistaDayDay@h…
From: Castor&PolluxTakeAmazonia@h…
Subject: Xmas in DC

Aunt Day, we will NOT require any sort of bribery to accompany Dad on his pilgrimage.  We miss you, too!  Really! You’re the only aunt we have!  It’s neat that you have a baby, but, honestly, babies are not high on our list of Things to See and Do in DC. You understand, don’t you?

We REEEEEALLY REEEEEALLYREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY want to talk to Mr Mulder about his experiences, however.   Dad told us about Mr Hosteen, but diluted twice… we think he left stuff out.

We promise not to nag, if you can talk him into setting aside an afternoon for us? Dad says he may not want to talk at all, but you can talk him into anything, Aunt Day-he loves you.  He’s gone to the ends of the earth for you… you can talk him into spending a few hours educating his  eager nephews-to-be, can’t you???

Can’t you??

Should we bring bribes?   Is there anything we can get down here that he’d think is KEWL???

Help us out, here, Aunt Day,pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!!

Love, your nephews, Cas & Pol

)-( The Twins )-(

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: Castor&PolluxTakeAmazonia@h…
From: TrustingOnly1@tlg.org
Subject: Xmas in DC

I read The Rolling Stones when I was 6.  I’m really looking forward to meeting your grandmother Hazel.

So what do you want to talk about?

Fox Mulder

||Killing never solves anything, but it keeps people out of your hair while you decide what to do next.||

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: TrustingOnly1@tlg.org
From: Castor&PolluxTakeAmazonia@h…
Subject: re: Xmas in DC

We’re as smart as the Stone Twins in the book.  We have tested IQs ranging from 177 and 189 depending on which test it was and the breakfast menu that day. But we’re not into physics and math; that’s our big sister Meade’s gig.  Life does not imitate art at a one-to-one rate of correspondence.

Dad’s raised us in Amazonia.  We’re most interested in the development of religions and spirituality from prehistory.  Wehave direct experience with the religious practices of three different tribes here in Amazonia: Dad always found local moms to watch us for him when we were all too little to go with him, and we grew up with the local kids.

We ‘ve read about transcendent states. Dad’s allowed us to receive instruction from local shamans. We’ve done some meditation and magick work.

We want to hear about your NDE in New Mexico, and what you experienced while in the dreamstate. We’re fascinated by this tale of resurrection; Dad was only half-joking when he asked Aunt Day why no one was building cathedrals!

You’re special and we want to bask in the proximal glow.  Is that all right with you?  We understand that human language is often inadequate for expressing some of these concepts, and Dad says that there was, inevitably, some emotional trauma involved and that you may not want to talk about it.

We understand that. Really, we do. You can’t live with subsistence-level hunter-gatherers without understanding death and life in a particularly intimate way.  We have sat vigil while friends died.  We have hunted and we have killed.

We have not yet had occasion to fight other humans, though if Cyclops Oil gets pushy again, that may change. When we get home again, Vimenho, the shaman of our tribe (we wereadopted as toddlers) is going to initiate us as warriors. That’s a long ritual: it takes an entire lunar cycle.

So we respect the concept of the ordeal, and we’ve read enough modern psychology to understand PTSD and the similar difficulties suffered by survivors.

We can listen with proper respect, and we look forward to the opportunity to do so.

Respectfully, Cas & Pol

)-( The Twins )-(

PS. Can we call you Uncle Fox?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

To: Castor&PolluxTakeAmazonia@h…
From: TrustingOnly1@tlg.org
Subject: re: Xmas in DC

If you promise to stop using words like “resurrection” andasking about cathedral construction, we’ll get along fine.  There was nothing supernatural about my survival, this time (I’m not as sure that’s true about the NDE in NM). I’ll explain and I’ll answer questions to the best of my ability.

I’m not married, legally, to your aunt. So I’m not your uncle.

And NO ONE calls me Fox. Ever.

Avuncularly yours, Fox Mulder

If ignorance is Bliss, Washington must be Paradise!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: TrustingOnly1@tlg.org
From: Castor&PolluxTakeAmazonia@h…
Subject: Xmas in DC

Dear Uncle Fox,

Should we bring native art for Xmas gifts? What would Aunt Dana like? We haven’t seen her for a really long time. Plus,we’re male. We’re kinda clueless about what to give her.

Any advice?

Your loving nephews,

Cas & Pol

)-( The Twins )-(

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: Castor&PolluxTakeAmazonia@h…
From: TrustingOnly1@tlg.org
Subject: re: Xmas in DC

Kids,

Dana would like anything you bring, esp if it’s pretty. Just remember she’s a redhead when you pick colors.  Suggestions? Things she can wear, like hair bands, tiebacks,bracelets, whatever. The people down there in Amazonia don’t wear much, I understand, but surely they have decorative arts. Go for it.

If you can find an amethyst geode, esp an elaborate one, that might appeal to her. She’s been on a purple/lavender binge, lately. Or so I’m told. Sometimes I’m glad I’m somewhat protanomalous…

If any bits or parts are potentially toxic, we need to know, so we can keep it away from Wills. Other than that, use your own best judgment.

Love, Uncle Fox

~ If you believe you can tell me what to think,I believe I can tell you where to go. ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: HMS1701@Adel…
From: DKScully@y…
Subject: Christmas

Hazel!

Why didn’t you let me know you were all here in the area? Iwould have invited you over to meet Wills and Mulder long before now.

At any rate. You and Meade and Lowell are invited for Christmas. Charlie and the twins will be here and knowingGeorgetown as I do, unless your heart is set on having six people in a town house the size of a shoe box, I’ll have them stay here. The twins want to pick Mulder’s brain; it will make for a quieter time for you if they, at least, aren’t staying with you. For that matter, if you want, you three are more than welcome to stay here while Charlie and the Identical Monsters are in town. It’s not like we don’t have the room!

Mulder insisted on buying this place and it’s humoungus! (is that spelled right?) (is that even a word?) It’s got six bedrooms and four full bathrooms, plus two half baths downstairs and the toilet and barrier-free shower adjacent to the maid’s room where Lowell can stay. Of course, he can always stay upstairs if you think he’d be more comfortable; there’s an elevator, too!

Mulder said that any extra bedrooms we didn’t need to keep for people we could turn into offices and libraries, and, considering the number of books he had in storage, that’s beginning to sound like a good idea. I filled most of the formal library with my books, so his have to wait till we get the shelving for another room! It looks as if he still has every book he’s ever bought, all the way back to Scholastic Books from elementary school! At last count there were over two hundred boxes in the basement waiting for the rest of the shelving to be delivered, and UPS brings boxes from Amazon.com and Powell.com several times a week…

In the spring he wants up to go up to Martha’s Vineyard and clear his stuff out of his childhood home. He never got the chance and now that we’re settled, he says he wants everything all in one place. Why does this idea scare me?

Did you hear what happened to Charlie’s laptop? Only Charlie could come up with an excuse this lame for not writing!

Email me, or give me a call; I think Meade has my cell number.

Love, Charlie’s sister, Dana (as if you hadn’t guessed by now!)

PS: I’ve attached a couple of pictures of Mulder and Wills.  Wills is the one *without* fingers in his mouth.

PPS: If you’re not a Knicks fan don’t mention how badly they’re doing, please!  This is the first season in three years Mulder’s been able to watch from the beginning of the season, and the team, of course, isn’t cooperating.

DKS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: DKScully@y…
From: HMS1701@adel…
Subject: Christmas

Dana!

It’s so good to hear from you. I didn’t want to impose when I first got here because I heard from Margaret (at length) about your problems and figured you didn’t need any more advice,input or hassles.  Besides, getting Lowell settled and satisfied took quite a bit of time. It took me almost two months to find aphysical therapist that he liked and to get his bedroom and the rest of the place to the point where he could deal with it.

The therapist came highly recommended and actually asked Lowell if he was related to you.  Apparently the names of Scullyand Mulder are well-known (read: infamous!) at the Georgetown University Medical Center. I’m told they have both of your pictures posted in the employees lounge and there’s a sign-up list for time off underneath.   I was also informed that the requests go strictly by seniority no matter who asks first.

Meade is both excited and scared about going to school here.  I really wish that Charlie and Edith had spent more time acclimatizing the kids to city living. It was such a shock to Meade when she had to come to live in the States after the accident.  I’m glad we were able to find good therapists for her and Lowell in the very small town where I lived.  We lucked out and I was prepared for problems when it came time for Meade
to start University, but again, as I said before, we lucked out.  She’s still not comfortable in crowds and she’s choosing her classes this semester very carefully, asking her student advisor about class size.  I can just see her panicking if she gets stuck in a 101 class being held in a lecture hall holding 500 other students.  Fortunately, she’s been able to take Advanced Placement courses at the high school back in Fillmore and so she’s got a number of credits already and she’s going to be tested later in the semester to see what else she can skip. I’m sure she’ll be able to prove that she’s fulfilled her language requirement, if nothing else!  She speaks fluent Brazilian Portuguese as well as several native languages that
I’m sure they won’t be able to test her on…I calculate she’ll probably be done with her Sophomore year by May.

When you have time, give me a call, we’re listed under both my name and Meade’s.  I understand not wanting to give out your number in an e-mail, and Meade can’t find your cell number.

Hazel

PS: Wills is adorable and Mulder is pretty adorable himself.
Nice ass!

PPS: I’ll leave it to Billy to upset Mulder about the Knicks. I’m
crying in my beer myself.

HMS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

20020122/20090621

Fox Mulder walked up the sidewalk from the parking lot.  He had been walking briskly when he started, but, somehow, the closer he got to Dana’s apartment, the slower his steps became.

Is this the silliest idea I’ve had this decade?  I think so…

But he could not bring himself to turn back.  He was intellectually convinced that this was the right choice.  He was, after all, a Doctor of Psychology who profiled people for a living.  He had profiled Dana Scully years ago; he had begun even before he met her, having learned through his private network of informants who was being assigned to debunk his work.  He probably knew her better than her mother.  He certainly understood her better than anyone in her family.

But that’s because you’re so much like her, he told himself.  We’re too much like the wolves to tolerate being treated like sheep, but we love the sheep, so we guard them against the wolves.  We hate those who prey on the weak and defenseless…we prey on other predators.

That’s the only worthy opponent, after all…

Of course, sometimes he hunted real animals; on this last case, he had bagged a fourteen foot American Alligator, far outside its normal range in a lake in central Georgia.

I should have asked for the hide, he mused.  It would have made an interesting wall hanging…a conversation piece, if nothing else.

He snorted in derision.  Fox Mulder, Great White Hunter. That was a silly thought.  He had been absolutely terrified when the thing had charged him, and he was still having nightmares of those jaws clamping down on him, dragging him off to drown him in the lake as it had done to several other people that month.  It had taken an entire clip from his Sig Sauer to stop the prehistoric monster, and it had died with its jaws only inches from his feet.

So, technically, I avenged Queequeg’s murder.  Nice bit of synchronicity, I suppose.

He stopped in front of her door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

Scully opened the door, frowning in puzzlement.  “Mulder?  What’s wrong?”

He spread his hands. “Why does something have to be wrong?  Can’t I just stop by to say hello?”

She grimaced as she stepped backward, tacitly inviting him inside.

“Mulder, we spend eight to eighteen hours a day with one another.  Don’t you want some time alone?”  She closed the door behind him.

“No,” he said bluntly.  “Being alone sucks.  And you shouldn’t have to be alone, either.  Here.”

His left hand came out of his overcoat  pocket, he cupped his right hand over what he held to keep it secure, and then extended both hands to her.

Puzzled, startled – Mulder rarely gave gifts, except for tokens, usually jokes, on the required holidays – Scully reached out with both hands to take whatever it was.

A black puff of fur?  Warm…  It wiggled, opened eyes and mouth, and smiled at her.

It was a puppy.  A black Pomeranian puppy, so small that even her small hands could completely enclose it.

Scully lifted awestruck eyes to her partner, who was waiting to see how she reacted.

“My God, Mulder–she’s so tiny–!  Where did you find her?”

“Silverfrost Kennel outside Hagerstown, Maryland,” he shrugged.  “She’s got a pedigree longer than the Queen of England’s, and her registered name is Silverfrost The Princess of Vix.  Mrs. Baker called her Princess.”

That stopped her dead.  This was not a stray he was bringing to her for care.  This was a considered and purchased intentional gift.

Scully did not realize that she was already cuddling the puppy close against her breast.  She stared at Mulder, shocked speechless.

He shrugged, avoiding her searching gaze, divining at least part of her problem.
“Hell, it was my fault you lost Queequeg,” he said softly.  “And you complained about being the only living thing in your apartment when he was gone.  I didn’t think that was right, but if I camped out on your couch every night, my fish would starve.  So I got you the Princess.”

“It wasn’t your fault about Queequeg,” she whispered.  “I dropped the leash…”

“I dragged you out on a monster hunt on your weekend off,” he shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the floor.

“You avenged him.”

He just shrugged, and then shifted his attention to the puppy, who was  industriously licking her thumb.  “You gonna keep her, or should I dig out the receipts for all the stuff Mrs. Baker said you’d need?”

She blinked.  “Stuff?”

“Crate, playpen, bed, bowls, brushes, combs, food, toys…”  He spread his hands.  “It’s all out in my car…”

Slowly, like dawn over a meadow, a smile brightened her face, the room and his heart.

“Go get it all,” she ordered.

~end~

19990316/20090621