By Parrotfish
tamarw@gateway.net
 

Date--Wed Nov 20 21:30:32 1996
Rating --- NC-17 (sexual situations)
Classification -- S (is for Story), MSR (is for Mulder-Scully
Romance), A (is for Angst)
Summary -- A secret is revealed, threatening to permanently
dissolve the partnership between Scully and Mulder.
Thank you -- To Chris Carter for creating The X-Files; to
David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and the entire cast and
crew for bringing this marvelous series to life; and to Fox for
putting it on the air.
 
 

Caught in the Act (1/2)
by Parrotfish (svdf49e@prodigy.com)
completed 11/20/96

There was nothing for them here -- nothing but a run-of-the-
mill prostitution ring. Brutal, ugly, cruel -- but no X-file.
Young girls were disappearing from the streets of Chicago,
and the cause was very much of this world. Just another
common symptom of the diseased state of the human spirit --
greedy men using children like dishrags, hiring them out to
soak up any scum with the money to pay.

Scully and Mulder had been pretty sure from the moment
they'd seen the case. But the agent in charge, Joe Farragut, had
been one of the few who took their work seriously, and he'd
asked them to come out and take a look. He'd gotten a weird
story from a supposed eyewitness that involved strange lights
and floating objects. Turned out the bum had been drinking
form the wrong bottle.

Farragut's partner, Don D'Amico, had been a lot less
welcoming. He'd made it clear from the start he thought Mr.
and Mrs. Spooky were the kinds of freaks he thought he
should be arresting rather than working alongside. Well, Mr.
Spooky, anyway. He'd also made it pretty obvious that he had
other ideas about what he thought Mulder's pretty partner was
good for.

'Oh, well,' thought Scully as she wearily trudged up the motel
stairs behind Mulder. 'He won't have to put up with us any
longer.'

They'd spent just two days on the case, doing a quick review,
some interviews and some legwork. She and Mulder had just
finished up downtown, putting together the pieces for the
local agents, advising them to hand the case back to the
Chicago PD for some good old-fashioned police work to
track down pushers and pimps. They knew they'd just pissed
off half a dozen agents, tossing out their theories that ranged
from white slaving to serial murder.

Neither of them cared much.

"Hey, Scully." Mulder stopped halfway down the hall to their
rooms. "We're off duty, and there's not a chance in hell we'll
be called back out tonight. How about a drink?"

"Actually, I'd love one, but I don't think I could face Ladies'
Night in that cheesy bar downstairs."

"There's always the minibar in the room."

Scully sighed in exasperation. "Mulder, you know that would
turn up on the hotel bill we have to submit with the expense
report. We have enough problems without Skinner chewing us
out for drinking on an assignment."

"Oh, come on, Scully. Everybody does it."

"Yeah, everybody does a lot of things. It's only okay as long as
you don't get caught." She smiled at him slyly and his heart
rate kicked into overdrive.

"Okay, Scully, you win. How about if I go downstairs and talk
the guy into letting me take something out?"

"Mulder, you know he's not allowed to do that."

"Take my word for it, Scully. When I tell him I've got a
beautiful woman waiting for me upstairs in my room -- he'll
do it. Trust me on this one. It's a guy thing."

"If you say so. I'll be waiting in your room. Wouldn't want to
make a liar out of you."

Scully wasted no time slipping off her jacket, kicking off her
shoes and making herself comfortable on Mulder's bed. She
stretched luxuriously, then settled in with her hands behind
her head and her feet crossed. Closing her eyes, she imagined
she could detect his scent lingering on the covers and thought
of the deep, humid warmth he must have been generating as he
slept there the night before, the heat of his body shedding his
unique smell.

She heard the door open and smiled without opening her eyes.

"Did it work?"

"Yup." She heard the door close again and felt the bed buckle
under him as he sat down.

"What'd ya get?"

"Two double Glenfiddichs and quite a leer."

"And what's for me?"

"One double and the leer."

She opened her eyes and found he was as good as his word.

She sat up against the headboard, and he handed her a plastic
cup. They tapped their cups together and drank.

Neither spoke for several minutes as they enjoyed the liquor's
soothing effect -- muscles relaxing, tension easing.

Scully tipped her head back to capture the last drops of
Scotch. Unable to resist, Mulder reached over, touched her
chin and ran a single finger down the length of her soft, white
throat. stopping just above the V of her blouse.

She lowered her head and looked at him.

"Mulder, what are you doing?"

Instead of answering, he opened his hand and rested the flat of
his palm against her chest, feeling the rapid tapping of heart
against bone and flesh.

"Mulder..."

He put his cup down on the night table,  then took hers and
deposited it beside his. Slowly, without removing his hand
from her chest, he leaned toward her, bringing his face beside
hers so that his warm, Scotch-soaked breath bathed her cheek.
She shivered when the very tip of his tongue flicked out to
tease her earlobe. Not satisfied, he leaned in further and
sucked the fleshy tip of it between his lips, then ran his
tongue across the delightfully sensitive skin just behind it.

"Oh, god, Mulder...."

With small, quiet kisses, he made his way up her jaw and
across the smooth plane of her cheek until he came to the
corner of her mouth. The gentle caress of his lips there made
her shudder again.

"Mulder...we shouldn't...not here...."

She couldn't finish the thought. His lips were now pressed
hard against hers, his tongue reaching through in search of the
soft, wet flesh inside.

She lost the will to stop him. It felt so incredibly good. So
perfectly right. Just the way it always did.

Her lips and teeth parted to admit him, and their tongues
touched. The hand he had rested on her chest slid up to grasp
her chin gently, holding her head still so he could explore her
in the way that never failed to thrill him.

And then it was his turn, and he opened his mouth to her
probing tongue. He reveled in the feeling of her flesh inside
him and wished it could be more, that he could draw all of her
into his body and his heart.

Breathless, they separated -- just an inch, just enough to
breathe and to look.

"Mulder, we shouldn't," Scully repeated.

He smiled at her. "I know. I don't care."

Grinning back at him, she reached up and loosened his tie,
working at the knot until the garish silk slid free. Then she
started on the buttons of his shirt.

"Why, Agent Scully, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking, Agent Mulder, that I would like to taste more of
you."

She was pleased to see his Adam's apple bob at her words.

"I encourage you to make a thorough investigation, Agent
Scully."

"Oh, I will. Wouldn't want to miss any crucial evidence."

"Even an idiot like D'Amico couldn't miss my 'evidence' at
the moment."

"Fortunately for you, he's not here. I am."

"Fortunately for me."

By now his shirt was off and his pants were open. Scully
slipped a hand down inside and he gasped with excitement.
She pushed him down onto the bed and continued stroking as
her mouth wandered across his exposed skin, tasting, licking,
biting.

He was moaning now, his hips thrusting against her hand.
Returning to his lips, she kissed him deeply once more
before moving away to kneel beside him. Slowly, she
unbuttoned her own blouse and slipped it off, then unclasped
her bra and removed it. In another moment, skirt, hose and
panties were gone.

She made quick work of his pants and boxers, and then she
was there, easing her mouth around his blazing erection, and
he was lost in the velvety erotic sensation of her. The
vibration of her moan around his swollen flesh brought him
back to himself just enough to open his eyes and look at her.
Her thick, auburn hair dangled in a curtain of false modesty,
hiding the sight of her mouth on him. But he could tell that
her hand was lower, between her legs, and she was pleasuring
herself as she pleasured him.

Her throat opened wide as her orgasm crashed over her, and
Mulder felt himself sink deeper into the hot,  wet depths. He
was seconds away from giving in, but he didn't want to let go
yet.

"Dana!" he managed in a strangled cry.

She knew what he wanted and moved rapidly to do it, sliding
up to straddle him and sheathe him in her still-twitching
vagina.

The feel of him inside her brought a second orgasm -- or was
it a continuation of the first? -- and the feel of her clenching
around him brought him quickly to a raging climax. They
collapsed together. She sprawled atop him, barely managing
to reach for the corner of the bedspread to wrap around them.

They lay together, still joined, as the long, luscious minutes
passed, two people wrapped wholly one in the other, the
silence around them a comforting blanket of solitude -- that
suddenly shattered into a million jagged shards.

The door burst open. "Hey, Mulder, you forgot...."

At that moment, Mulder's and Scully's world imploded.

_______________________________
 

If it had just been Farragut, Scully thought as she stared
blankly out the plane window, there might have been a chance.
But D'Amico had been right behind him. The sound of the
pig's snort he'd released as he'd stopped short and had himself
a good look would never leave her.

"Well, well, Mulder -- you're not as dumb as you look," he'd
said before Farragut grabbed him by the arm and hustled him
out.

After that, she'd just numbly dressed and returned to her
room. She hadn't seen them again that evening, or this
morning when she and Mulder had checked out and gone to
the airport.

She'd also said next to nothing to him. What was there to say?
She couldn't think of a thing.

It was strange, knowing exactly what was about to happen.
This kind of foresight had nothing to do with the supernatural
premonitions Mulder liked to believe in. This was simple
cause and effect. Everyone would do exactly what was
expected of them -- what they were supposed to do. D'Amico
would report to his superior. Farragut would have no choice
but to confirm the story. The Chicago chief would contact
Skinner. Skinner would call them in. And....

Her mind blanked, refusing to go beyond that. Instead, it
slipped into a troubled mantra: 'You knew this would happen.
You knew this would happen. You knew this would happen.'

But she hadn't known. Or at least, she hadn't allowed herself
to know. 'We won't get caught,' they'd told themselves ever
since they'd started having sex. 'We'll cross that bridge when
we come to it. If we come to it.'

Well, they'd come to it, and it felt like the bridge was out and
the car had no brakes.

"Scully." His voice broke through. "We'll get through this
if...."

"No, Mulder," she stopped him. "It's over."

________________________________
 

Why was it that all the torments the world held in store for
him were dealt out at moments when he was least prepared to
receive them? Was there a sadistic god in heaven? Was fate as
cruel as she was said to be? Was he born under the wrong
star? What?

It had been so incredibly peaceful lying there beneath her,
holding her, feeling her. If someone had asked him at that
moment, he would have actually said he was happy. There had
been precious few such moments in his life.

How could so much be destroyed by so little? An oasis of
peace in a lifetime of pain, shattered by the opening of a door.
By forgetting to lock a door.

At that thought, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. How
could he have forgotten to lock the fucking door? He had the
most refined sense of paranoia of any non-psychotic person
he knew, and he'd forgotten to lock the fucking door. Had that
been his subconscious trying to tell him something? Did he,
on some level, actually _want_ to get caught? Could he have
been so unable to accept happiness in his life that he...

He forced his thoughts to veer away from that question. He
knew he was dangerously self-destructive. But he didn't want
to think he had it in him to drag Scully down that dark, nasty
road.

He had been so happy. And now...

"Scully," he said. "We'll get through this if...."

"No, Mulder," she interrupted. "It's over."

________________________________________
 

"You've heard the accusation. Now what do you have to say?"

The two agents sat staring at him in silence.

"Answer me, goddammit!"

"I have nothing to say, sir," Mulder replied evenly.

"Do you deny D'Amico's claim?"

Silence.

"Agent Scully?"

Silence.

Skinner's palm slammed down on his desktop.

"How could you be so stupid?" he bellowed. Then, more
quietly, "Your partnership has advanced the cause of justice
more than any other I've seen in my time at the Bureau. You
are two of the smartest, most ethical agents I know. How
could you jeopardize all that for some fleeting carnal
pleasure?"

Neither agent gave any outward sign that their superior's
words had made any impression. But the words echoed in
both their minds. 'Fleeting carnal pleasure.'

Is that what it was? It had seemed like so much more to both
of them at the time...every time...

"Agent Mulder." Skinner spit the name out with more venom
than he'd ever shown before. "You have in the past made much
of your dedication to your pursuit of the truth. You have
risked much in that pursuit. You have lost much. I was truly
pleased when I discovered that your partnership with Agent
Scully was not working out at all as They had planned, or for
that matter as you probably had expected it to. Agent Scully's
formidable skills and intelligence brought a level of
credibility to the X-Files that they had not previously
enjoyed. Why did you willingly undermine everything you'd
worked for? And how in god's name could you do this to her?"

Mulder stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with
Skinner. "It was not my intention to undermine anything, sir."

"And you, Agent Scully...Dana...you've seen careers ruined by
less! I am flabbergasted that your common sense failed you
so utterly in this regard. What the hell were you thinking?"

Silence.

"Agent Scully, I understand there might have been alcohol
involved in this incident. Is that it?"

For a brief moment, Scully felt a surge of anger break through
the gray numbness that gripped her.

"No, sir! I resent your inference."

"You 'resent my inference?' You RESENT my inference? How
dare you, Scully? I'm not the one who was caught screwing my
partner!"

The naked truth of his words hung in the air, their stark reality
shocking all three of them.

Scully's eyes dropped to the floor.

"A review board will meet tomorrow on this matter. I will
inform you of their decision. Until then, you are both
suspended from duty. Now get the hell out of my office."

____________________________________

The irony of his situation was not lost on Mulder. Their
enemies were numerous and varied, powerful and frightening,
demented and devious. Through it all, he and Scully had stuck
together, faced everything together. And now, they were
finally to be separated by their own actions. They themselves
had wrought what no monster, no mutant, no Machiavelli
could.

How had everything gone so wrong?

This feeling that overwhelmed him was unmistakable. It was
grief. He mourned her. She wasn't dead. But to him, she might
as well have been. He knew they'd never be allowed to work
together again. Worse still -- she had said it herself: "It's
over."

Much to his own amazement, those words felt like death.
How had she come to mean so much?

Without conscious thought, he left his apartment, got into his
car and drove. When he pulled up in front of her building, he
didn't stop to wonder why he was there. He just got out, went
upstairs and knocked.

"Go away, Mulder."

"Open the door, Scully."

"No."

He took out his key, unlocked the door and entered her dimly
lit apartment.

"Don't do this, Mulder."

"Talk to me, Scully."

"No. Go away. Leave me alone."

"No."

She closed her eyes. "Mulder, this isn't going to help
anything."

"Scully...please...I didn't want to..." He paused, unsure what he
was trying to say. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? What the hell are you sorry for? As I recall, I
was there, too. I wasn't exactly putting up a fight. In fact, if
memory serves me, I was quite willingly going down on you.
So what are you sorry for?"

"I...I'm sorry I didn't lock the door." It sounded pitiful, even to
him.

She laughed, a cold, hollow sound. "You're sorry you didn't
lock the door? You're sorry you didn't lock the door?"

He couldn't find the words to explain. She hadn't expected
him to.

"You think that's what this is about, Mulder? Whether or not
you locked the fucking door? You think everything would
have been okay if you had just remembered to lock the door?"
He heard her fury build.

"If I'd just locked it, they wouldn't have seen."

She glared at him.

"Get out, Mulder."

"Scully..."

"Get out, Mulder, or so help me god, I will call the police and
have you up on harassment charges. GET THE FUCK OUT OF
HERE NOW!"

She slammed the door behind him.

End 1/2

___________________________________
 
 
 
 

From SVDF49E@prodigy.com Wed Nov 20 22:28:20 1996
Caught in the Act (2/2)
by Parrotfish (svdf49e@prodigy.com)
 

The two agents who walked into Skinner's office looked just
like the two he was expecting, but they didn't feel right at all.

Where there should have been unity, there was division.
Where there should have been understanding, there was
bitterness. Where there should have been order, there was
chaos. Where there should have been love....

"Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, please sit down."

They sat.

"I won't beat around the bush. The review board has made its
decision. An official reprimand will be entered in both your
records. Agent Scully, you will be removed from the X-files
division and from all field assignments. You will be
permanently assigned to the pathology lab here. Agent
Mulder, you will continue in your current assignment with a
new partner to be named later. This change is effective
immediately, and you are both to return to active duty as of
now. Under this new arrangement, you are free to pursue any
relationship with each other you choose."

"Except working together," Mulder said quietly.

"That is correct. Any questions?"

Silence.

"You're dismissed."

_______________________________
 

She was alone. Well and truly alone. For a long time she
hadn’t felt so alone, even when there was no one else there.
She'd known that someone cared.

Now, it no longer mattered whether or not he cared.

It was over.

"Oh, come on, Scully. Everybody does it."

"I encourage you to make a thorough investigation, Agent
Scully."

"Well, well, Mulder -- you're not as dumb as you look."

"How could you be so stupid?"

"If I'd just locked it, they wouldn't have seen."

"Agent Scully, you will be removed from the X-files division
and from all field assignments."

Her brain wouldn't stop the endless reruns like scenes from a
bad movie. It was as though she were hearing the dialogue
from a long way off, watching the scenes through a haze of
smoke.

A haze of smoke. She was reminded of the one person who
would likely be most pleased at the recent turn of events.

He had plotted against them, thrown obstacles before them,
hindered them every step of the way. And in the end, he had
contributed nothing whatsoever to their final undoing. He'd
won without even having to play.

It wasn't fair. But since when had anything been fair?

Well, maybe once upon a time. When she was young. When
the people passing judgment were her own mother and father,
people who loved her, who cared. Who never put their own
needs and interests before hers. Things had seemed fair then.
Perhaps love was a prerequisite of fairness. Perhaps fairness
required selflessness, and selflessness required love.

No, it wasn't fair. She had no right to expect a big, impersonal
bureaucracy to be fair.

But what of herself? Had she been fair?

In a sickening rush, she realized she had not. Mulder, fearful
and anxious at their impending separation, had turned to her
for reassurance, and she had slammed the door on him. That
hadn't been fair to him.

And Skinner....Skinner hadn't been fair, either.

"How could you jeopardize all that for some fleeting carnal
pleasure?" That hadn't been fair.

"Why did you willingly undermine everything you'd worked
for? And how in god's name could you do this to her?" Not
fair.

"Agent Scully, I understand there might have been alcohol
involved in this incident. Is that it?"

That had been downright cruel. The implication that Mulder
had gotten her drunk and taken advantage of her infuriated her.

She felt the anger seep deep into her soul, burning away the
shock, the fear, the hurt.

Anger burnt its way clear through to her very core. The place
where her strength was stored.

__________________________________

"Sir, Agent Scully would like a word with you."

Scully didn't wait for Skinner's secretary to get an answer. She
stormed the fortress.

"Agent Scully, I don’t have time right now..."

"Please, sir -- just a few minutes."

Skinner considered for a moment, then dismissed his
secretary with a wave. "Have a seat, Scully."

"No thank you, sir. I've come to ask you to allow me to
address the review board."

"Agent Scully, it's too late for that. If you had something to
say, you should have said it to me when you were asked."

"I know. I'm sorry I was unable to articulate myself at that
time. But I do have something to say now. And I feel I should
say it to the entire panel."

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

"No, sir. I don't believe it is. I believe that, if you requested it,

the panel would hear me. Please. As a favor to me, sir. I
wouldn't ask if it weren't important."

Skinner held her eyes for a long moment, assessing the state
of her mind.

"All right, Scully. I'll convene the board at 9 AM tomorrow."

"Thank you, sir."

_______________________________
 

"I'm sorry, Mulder."

She stood in his doorway, willing him to hear the truth in her
words. He was in sweat pants and a T-shirt, looking like he'd
been asleep when she'd arrived.

"Can I come in?"

He stepped aside to admit her.

"I'm sorry," she said again. No other words would seem to
come.

"No, you're probably right," he said. Neither was sure exactly
what the other was referring to, but it didn't seem to matter
much.

"No, Mulder. I wasn't right. I slammed the door on you. I'm
sorry."

Mulder sighed and sat heavily on the couch. She took her
place next to him.

"I'm so sorry, Scully. I never meant for this to happen. I guess
I just didn't think."

"Mulder, this is not your fault, and it's not mine either. It just
happened. Now we have to deal with it."

"I don't know, Scully. I kept a safe distance for so long, in part
because I knew the possible consequences. And then one day,
for no apparent reason, I threw caution to the wind."

"Just you, Mulder? Do you honestly believe you would have
been keeping a safe distance all those years if I hadn't? And
could you have thrown caution to the wind if I hadn't been
right there throwing it, too?"

"No. But I've always been more aware of the dangers than you
have."

"That's bullshit and you know it. You may have known more
about some of the dangers than I did at the beginning, but not
any more. And besides, I have more reason to know about this
particular danger than you do. I stand to lose more. The
woman always does."

"I know. It's not fair."

"That's right, it's not. That's why I'm going to address the
review board tomorrow. I'd like you to be there."

"But it's too late, Scully. They've made their decision."

"I don't care. I'll try to make them reverse it. I've already
talked to Skinner. He agreed to convene the board at 9 AM."

She reached for his hand, pulled him to her and kissed him
softly. "As long as I'm alive, Mulder, they can't take me away
from you."

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, soaking
up the comfort of her presence.

"Stay with me tonight?" he whispered.

"Yes."

They walked together to the bedroom, undressed quietly and
slid under the covers. Her skin warmed his for the first time
since that terrible night when their privacy, their solitude had
been so carelessly compromised. The warmth flowed now
like a soothing balm to heal the wounds that had been opened
that night.

Rolling over so that she lay beneath him, Mulder kissed her
mouth urgently, seeking reassurance and finding it. As their
tongues gently curled and twined together, his hand roamed
across her front. He cupped a breast and squeezed gently, and
she moaned his name.

Slowly, he brought his hand down to stroke her side, her hip,
her thigh, his mouth kissing hers deeply. When his fingers
stroked the moist heat between her legs, she bucked and
twisted under his caress. He let her passion build with each
stroke, felt her body arch and press against his, and when he
felt her climax begin, he pushed two fingers deep inside.

"I love to feel you come," he whispered as she began to quiet,
his voice setting up a gentle, rhythmic chant. "I love to feel
the way you respond to my touch. I love the heat I can feel
pouring from your skin. I love the sounds you make. I love the
smell you release. If you knew what you do to me....How
much I need you...."

And then he was inside her, his body taking up the rhythm
where his words left off, her body surging in counterpoint,
and they moved together, clung together, climbed together,
strove together, came together.

Slept together.

____________________________
 

The assembled gathering was somber, which amused Mulder
no end. Seven men and one woman, plus Skinner, Scully and
himself, all looking like they were sitting around this highly
polished expanse of dark wood in order to discuss foreign
policy or the economy or the First Amendment. But the affair
they'd actually come to discuss wasn't quite so weighty in
nature. They'd come to discuss his sex life. His and Scully's.

The absurdity of it actually pleased him.

He glanced at Scully and saw her features were composed but
her eyes were fiery. He had asked her that morning what she
intended to say. She'd told him she wasn't sure.

"Agent Scully, I understand you requested this meeting?" said
one of the cookie-cutter men.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you intend to deny the allegations of your sexual
involvement with your partner?"

"No, sir."

"Then I believe you are wasting our time. If you and Agent
Mulder have had sexual relations, then there is nothing to
discuss. Unless, of course, you intend to charge him with
sexual harassment."

"No, sir. Agent Mulder did not harass me in any way. But if
the course of my career is to be changed by this event, I
believe it's only fair that I be allowed to express my view of
it."

"Very well, Agent Scully," the man sighed. "But please be
brief. We are all busy people."

Mulder admired her calm. He himself wanted to slug the
bastard.

Scully remained seated as she started to speak, back straight,
hands crossed on the conference table in front of her.

"I do not deny that Agent Mulder and I have had consenting
sexual relations. When and how often is nobody's business
but our own. Whether we intend to continue doing so is also
nobody's business. In fact, I doubt whether any of this should
be anyone else's business, but I'll come to that later.

"First, allow me to address the decision of this panel as it was
communicated to Agent Mulder and me yesterday by
Assistant Director Skinner." Scully glanced at the A.D. before
continuing. He nodded slightly.

"Regarding Agent Mulder: He is to remain with the X-Files,
but he will be assigned a new partner. This judgment implies
that you believe Agent Mulder and I can no longer be relied
upon to work well together. Perhaps you believe that our
judgment will be compromised, or that we will feel a stronger
allegiance to each other than to the Bureau. I can assure you,
that is patently absurd. Agent Mulder and I have proven
ourselves time and time again as an efficient, effective team.
While our methods have often been questioned, our results
never have. This was true before we slept together, and it
remains true. In fact, we were right on the money with our
assessment of the case that brought us to Chicago, to the
moment when Agents D'Amico and Farragut intruded on our
privacy. I do not think anyone who knows Agent Mulder well
will disagree with me when I say that assigning him a new
partner is not likely to serve him or the Bureau well."

Mulder grinned slightly at this, and he even thought he
detected a twinkle in Skinner's eyes.

"Now, as to my new assignment," she went on. "Not only have
I been removed from the X-files, I have been told that I am
not to be partnered and sent back out into the field. That is
deeply disturbing. It goes beyond a separation of two
supposedly unsuited partners. It is a punishment. It implies
that, somehow, I am the cause. I can't be trusted in the field
because I am a temptress, a seducer. Defenseless male agents
are bound to slip when paired with a woman who cannot
control herself. It implies that boys will be boys, and it's up to
the girls to stop them. If they can’t or won’t, they’re sent off
the field. That attitude is archaic and unfair, and in this case, I
believe I have been victimized by it."

"Even you, sir," she said, turning to Skinner, "implied a lack of
reciprocity when you asked Agent Mulder, 'How could you do
this to her?' Well, I have news for you, sir. Everything he did
to me, I was doing right back. It was not for him to instigate,
nor was it for me to prevent. It takes two to tango."

Her voice began to rise with anger, taking on an edge of
controlled passion.

"And then there is the question I started with: Is this anyone's
business but Agent Mulder's and mine? Believe me, I am not
naive -- I know that sexual relations in the workplace are
often the result of sexual harassment and coercion. Women
and men must have recourse to protect them from such
abuses of power. But I can assure you, that is not the case
here.

"Agent Mulder and I are partners. Many of you here have been
in that role before. You know what it means. Our job isn't a
nine-to-five paper mill. We spend days and days at a time
together, becoming intimately familiar with each other's
habits, attitudes and beliefs. We rely on each other in a way
that no two people outside law enforcement ever do -- we
trust each other with our lives. We share everything equally:
the work, the risks, the responsibilities. If we didn't sincerely
like and respect each other, we could never work effectively
together. The borders between the professional relationship
and the human relationship are by necessity blurred into non-
existence. And human relationships are complex, shifting
things, with many components that come and go.

"Why is it okay for partners to share trust, caring, secrets,
hardship, support, laughter, tears -- every aspect of human
relations except physical intimacy? Four years ago, I would
have agreed with you that there is a line that should never be
crossed. But since then, I've learned otherwise. It is unhealthy
and impossible for a person to compartmentalize him or
herself so completely. That is an inhuman expectation.

"And what if this story were slightly different? What if Agent
Mulder and I were two straight men, and the little bonding
ritual we'd been caught in was, say, sharing a hooker? Would
our partnership have been broken up? No. I know of such
cases, and the agents involved received only mild reprimands
that were later expunged from their records -- yet another
manifestation of that boys-will-be-boys philosophy. Well, if
you ask me, what Agent Mulder and I did was far more ethical.

"So I'm asking you to reconsider -- both our case and the
Bureau's policy on this matter as a whole."

When she suddenly stopped talking, the silence that hung
around the long table was palpable. Finally, Skinner broke it.

"The board will take your statement under consideration,
Agent Scully. You and Agent Mulder will meet with me in my
office in one hour, at which time I will inform you whether
there is to be any change in your status."

The two agents walked out.

__________________________________
 

"Let me guess -- captain of the debating team?" Mulder
quipped as they reached the safe haven of their basement
office.

"Yup." She smiled weakly.

"So if I tell you you're beautiful when you're angry, does that
make me a sexist pig?"

"Right again." Her smile got a little stronger.

"How about if I tell you I was undressing you with my eyes the
whole time?"

She laughed outright and threw a pencil at him. "Yeah, you're a
pig, Mulder. But you're my pig."

______________________________
 

"Let me say first, Agent Scully, that I hope you will accept my
apology," Skinner began. "You were right. I was not fair in my
initial judgment."

Scully nodded her acceptance.

"Further, I had not believed anything you could say would have
altered the board's decision. Obviously, I underestimated your
powers of persuasion."

Scully felt her hopes rise. Her eyes betrayed her and
prompted Skinner to continue quickly.

"There will be no official reprimands. Agent Scully, you will
be permitted to return to the field -- but you will not be
partnered with Agent Mulder, and you will not be assigned to
the X-files."

"Oh, come on!" It was Mulder who exploded. "You heard what
Scully said in there! There's no reason to split us up!"

"Agent Mulder," Skinner said, his voice carrying a warning
tone. "This is the best result you could realistically have
hoped for. This means that you can request Agent Scully's
assistance as needed. She'll be with the VCS, and as such
available for special assignment whenever you require her
unique skills. You won't be partners, but you can continue
your work with her help. Don't push your luck."

As the two rose to leave, Skinner's eyes met Scully's, where
he saw her accustomed stubborn determination.

"This isn't over," she said.

"No, I don't believe it is," he mumbled after she'd gone.

_________________________
 

"You worked a miracle, Scully."

She sat behind her desk, wondering how long it would be
before she had to clear it out and move somewhere else.

"It doesn’t feel like a miracle."

"I know." He paused, hesitating.

"What, Mulder?" She could tell he needed to ask her
something.

"Do you regret what we’ve done?"

She considered a long while before answering. "No. I don’t.
Do you?"

"No. Never."

"Then how come we both feel like we’ve been buried alive?"

"Maybe it was all those stiffs dressed like undertakers." Her
laughter pleased him. "So what do we do next, oh persuasive
one?"

"I don’t know. I’ll think about it tomorrow...at Tara..."

"Right, Scarlet. My place or yours?"

"Mine. I’ve got leftovers in the fridge."
 

END (2/2)

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

No Win Situation  NC-17

by Parrotfish
tamarw@gateway.net
 

completed 1/29/97
Category: S, MSR
Summary: Their affair revealed, Mulder and Scully have been
given new partners. His is bad, and hers is worse. Together, they
must suffer through the power games of their professional lives
while learning a very different lesson about power in their
private lives.
 
Author's note: This is a sequel to "Caught in the Act," available
at an archive near you. I hadn't intended to write one, but when I
finished "Trust 3" (did anyone read "Trust 3?"),
I felt the strong need to write some mind
candy. Since I often like my mind candy to have a point, and
since I left poor Mulder and Scully in such a fix at the end of
"Caught in the Act," I figured I'd scratch my itch (and yours!)
by continuing that story. And now it looks like this won't be the
last we've heard of this storyline, either.
 
This is rated NC-17 for extremely graphic sexual situations,
including mild bondage.
 
__________________________
 
 
Hugh Lester was an idiot.
 
It was bad enough that he was a closed-minded, rule-spouting,
ass-kissing, unimaginative, insensitive, tasteless career-ladder
climber.
 
He was also stupid -- painfully so.
 
Mulder was well aware that few agents came anywhere near his
own intelligence quotient -- the fact that he'd managed to hook
up with someone as bright as Dana Scully was a stroke of
incredible luck. But most people had some mental strengths, and
many were much smarter than he about some things.
 
But not Hugh Lester.
 
The only prize the vapid, well-bred Hugh Lester was likely to
bring home was for Upper Class Twit of the Year.
 
Mulder knew this extraordinarily atrocious partnership was a
punishment visited on him by the Powers That Be. The same
Powers that had separated him from Scully after their affair had
come to light as a result of the unfortunate combination of a
carelessly unlocked hotel room door and a vindictive fellow-
agent who didn't know how to knock. Scully and he had been
swiftly separated and re-partnered -- and it was only after Scully
had brought all her powers of persuasion to bear that she'd even
been allowed back in the field.
 
For the millionth time, Mulder cursed that foul hotel room door
that had not been set to lock automatically. Who ever heard of a
hotel room door that doesn't lock, for Christ's sake? That door,
he was convinced, was possessed by demonic spirits that were
out to get him. That door had gotten him stuck in Livingston,
Montana, with Hugh Lester for a partner.
 
Mulder sighed heavily as he kicked off his shoes and flopped
onto the still-made hotel bed.
 
Okay, so maybe the first case he dragged Lester on shouldn't
have involved the irate ghost of a long-dead Native American
chief who, angry at the construction of a housing development
atop a sacred burial ground, had begun causing miscarriages and
stillbirths among women living there. But it wasn't his fault.
That's just what came up -- so to speak. But Lester was such a
conservative son of a bitch that he wasn't even willing to
consider the admittedly more plausible explanation that had
spawned the investigation in the first place -- the possibility that
a local factory had dumped toxic waste in the area. No, Lester
was so goddamn politically incorrect, so unwilling to consider
any possibilities outside his incredibly narrow world view, that
the best explanation he could come up with was coincidence.
 
Coincidence.
 
At least if Scully were here, she'd be hell-bent on nailing some
living human culprit to the wall. Mulder's biggest hassle would
have been finding enough evidence to get her to consider a less
conventional possibility, though she'd still have her doubts.
 
Scully.
 
Mulder reached over to the night table, picked up the phone and
dialed.
 
"Scully," came the familiar voice through the line.
 
"Hi."
 
"I thought it would be you. How's it going?"
 
"Lester is an idiot."
 
"Why am I not surprised?"
 
"What about your new playmate?"
 
There was a long pause before she replied.
 
"He's okay."
 
Mulder didn't like the sound of that. She changed the subject
before he could ask.
 
"What are you wearing?"
 
He smiled. "Oh, nothing special. Just a little leather g-string I
picked up at the Lurid Livingstonian."
 
"Mulder, there's no such store as the Lurid Livingstonian."
 
"Work with me here, Scully."
 
"Oh, so that's how it is?" Her voice was suddenly breathy and
half an octave deeper. He could tell she knew exactly how it
was.
 
"So what are you doing?" he asked, tense with anticipation.
 
"Me? Not much. Just sitting and thinking."
 
"What about?"
 
"About you."
 
"What about me?"
 
He could hear the smirk in her reply. "I was just thinking about
that thing you do."
 
"What thing I do?" God, she was good at this.
 
"That thing with your mouth."
 
"My mouth?"
 
"Mmm-hmm. On my breast."
 
"Your breast?" Already he was losing the ability to form
coherent, independent thoughts.
 
"Yeah. When your mouth is on my breast, and your lips are
sucking on my nipple, and your teeth graze the tip just a little. I
really like it when you do that."
 
"I really like doing that." He shifted down in the bed, tugging at
the crotch of his suit pants to make room for his erection.
 
"Every once in a while, I can feel the tip of your tongue flick
over the point of my nipple. It makes me shiver and wish you
were inside me."
 
"Me too."
 
Who would have guessed that Dana Scully's formidable talent of
articulation would ever be used to give the world's most exciting
phone sex? It was an aspect of her Mulder had never even had
the creativity to imagine. The first time she'd done it, he'd been
so shocked that he'd come almost instantly at the sound of her
seductive voice. But now that he'd heard it three or four times, he
settled into the rhythm of it, letting the joy of the tease wash over
him in waves. He loved her for knowing how badly he needed
her when they were apart.
 
"Usually, while your mouth is working at my breast, I can feel
the palm of your hand resting against my belly and then start
working down."
 
Mulder's hand was in fact that moment carefully unzipping his
pants.
 
"When you finally get there and your finger slips inside -- that's
my favorite moment. I love your hands, Mulder. They're so ...
expressive."
 
"My hands love you, too, Scully." His voice was ragged. "At the
moment, unfortunately, they're loving you in absentia."
 
The expression of that love was a tight fist that had grabbed hold
of his now-freed erection. He squeezed at the base of his cock,
not rubbing yet, knowing she would bring him there in her own
time.
 
"When you make love to me with your hand, I can feel the tip of
your finger press against the front of my vagina. There's this one
spot there that you always find, like you know exactly where it
is. That spot is wired directly to the pleasure center of my brain.
When you touch me there, and your mouth is on my breast, I feel
like a tuning fork that's just been struck. It's like I'm humming
with perfect pitch, a pure, harmonious note."
 
He could hear her tremble at the memory of his touch. Without
conscious thought, his hand had begun to stroke the length of his
shaft. He groaned.
 
"Yeah. That's the sound you make while you're doing it."
 
"I can't help it, Scully."
 
"I know. Because when that finger pulls out and goes to the tip
of my clitoris, and I feel it massaging me there, I can't seem to
shut up, either. You make me want to scream."
 
Mulder could see it, could feel the hot, damp softness of her in
her voice. God, she was incredible, the way she did this to him.
The raw honesty of the way she talked about it, told him exactly
how he made her feel, leaving out none of the details.
 
There was a time when he would have expected this kind of
thing to embarrass her. He would have thought she would find a
phone conversation like this one slightly disgusting, or at least
juvenile. He was wrong. Part of her ability to speak so
graphically about any and every part of the body, he supposed,
came from her professional background as a pathologist. She
had, after all, cut into every imaginable human body part, and
some not-so-human ones. But this was no clinical discussion of
an autopsy. This was hot, raunchy, wildly erotic. It was exciting.
 
What Mulder had learned, perhaps had always suspected, about
Scully was that she was a passionate, warm, generous woman
who was ashamed of nothing that happened between them -- the
same way she was sure of herself in so many other areas of her
life. She was selective, careful about whom she graced with
glimpses of this very private aspect of her personality. But once
she'd chosen to let him in, to give him this confidence, she went
all the way.
 
And all the way was as far as he needed to go.
 
And he needed this.
 
Mulder's hand broke it's steady rhythm to reach down and cup
his tight balls, rolling them gently with the thought of Scully
squirming restlessly beneath his touch.
 
"I have to touch you then, Mulder," she was saying. "Reach for
your erection and make you feel what I feel. Can you feel it?"
 
"Yes," was all he could manage.
 
"Good. I want you to feel it, to feel me there with you. Feel my
hand stroking you. Long, slow strokes at first. Then harder,
faster ones, until your hips are pumping, pushing you up through
my grasp. That feeling, when you respond to my touch, makes
me downright giddy. I used to try to imagine what that would be
like -- I mean before I'd ever seen it. Before I felt it. I never knew
how beautiful you'd be, how your muscles would tense in time
with my hand. How your hand would take up the rhythm, how
we'd play each other in this erotic pas de deux."
 
She paused, waiting to hear if he'd respond. He was beyond
words. She continued.
 
"You can always tell when I'm close, Mulder. When my senses
have achieved their most finely attuned state, so that every hair,
every pore, every blood vessel is singing with the pleasure of it."
 
Mulder closed his eyes and pursed his lips as the motion of his
hand increased, his hips writhing in a grinding, circular motion.
Her voice was like heat applied directly to the head of his
pumping cock, and his hand was merely a physical manifestation
of her words.
 
"When you bring me to orgasm with your hand, when I slip over
into that wild place, your finger slides back inside, and out, and
in and out again, so fast that the orgasm lasts and lasts until I
think I can't stand it any more. And then it's not your finger
inside. It's your penis, it's all of you inside me, and it's like
laughing and crying and ... and loving."
 
The hypnotic quality of her voice had wrapped him in a trance,
transporting him to another place, another reality. She was there.
It was real. "Your hands at my hips, pulling me closer, pulling
me around you like a blanket on a cold night. It's like the tip of
you cuts right through me to touch my brain, so that we
complete a circuit and the electricity flows, crackles, burns. Can
you feel it, Mulder? Can you?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Can you?"
 
"Yes!"
 
And then he was coming hard, his back arched high off the bed,
phone clutched to his ear, cock in fist, coming in a long burst just
as though she were there with him, until he felt the loneliness of
hot semen spray across the taught muscles of his belly, and he
knew she wasn't.
 
"Oh god, Scully," he groaned. "I wish you were here."
 
"Me too, Mulder. I wish I could have seen it."
 
"You do?" he asked, almost shyly.
 
"Yeah. Would you show me sometime?"
 
"Sure."
 
There was a long, warm silence.
 
"You'd better get some rest," she said at last.
 
"You too. Good night."
 
"Good night, Mulder. Sleep well."
 
He did.
 
If possible, the next night Mulder was even more pissed off at his
new partner. Without so much as consulting him, Lester had
informed the local authorities that there was no suspicious cause
for the unusually high rate of miscarriages and stillbirths in the
area. They'd closed the investigation with no consideration of
Mulder's concerns.
 
"Oh, well," he told himself. "It's not like I ever would have
convinced them to evacuate the development and tear down the
houses. And at least I can go home tomorrow." He had settled
for informing the local tribal leaders of the problem and hoping
they knew some way, short of urban renewal, to appease the
spirit of Chief Brown Hawk.
 
He dialed the phone.
 
"Scully."
 
"Hey. It's me. I'll be home tomorrow."
 
"So soon?"
 
"Why? Am I cramping your style?"
 
"Of course not, Mulder."
 
Odd. The words sounded flat and strained. He'd expected a
cutting comeback, but he didn't get it.
 
"You okay, Scully?"
 
"I'm fine, Mulder."
 
All his mental alarms tripped.
 
"You sure? Did you have a bad day?"
 
"Yeah. Well, sort of."
 
"Everything okay with Ryckman?"
 
"Fine." The terse answer was altogether unconvincing, but he
knew there was no point pressing her for more if she wasn't
offering it.
 
"I can't wait to see you, Scully."
 
"Me too. Try to miss me a lot, okay?"
 
"No problem."
 
"See you tomorrow."
 
"Mmm-hmm. Bye."
 
Click.
 
Mulder didn't sleep as well that night, eager to get home and
reassure himself that he'd imagined a problem where there was
none.
 
It was late the next night when his key hit the lock in Scully's
apartment door. He could see the light was on even before he
opened it, so he wasn't surprised to find her on the couch sipping
a glass of wine.

"Hi."

"Hi."

He dropped his suitcase just inside the door and shed his coat
before crossing to her. He was halfway through the living room
when he noticed the cast on her right hand.

"What happened?' he asked as he sat beside her.

"Broken."

"How?"

"I hit something hard."

"What?"

She hesitated. "A chin."

"What? Whose?"

"Ryckman's."

"YOU HIT RYCKMAN?" Mulder was incredulous. He'd never
seen Scully hit anyone in anger. And she must have been pretty
angry to hit her own partner.

"Yeah, well. He had it coming."

"What did he do?" Mulder was already furious without even
knowing the details.

"Mulder, stay out of this."

"What did he do?"

"Promise me you'll let me handle this."

"Handle what? Scully, if you don't tell me what he did, I'm
gonna break the other hand!"

She sighed and closed her eyes.

"Okay. It seems Agent Ryckman figures that a woman who'll
shag one partner will shag 'em all."

"He propositioned you?" Mulder's eyes were black with anger.

To his surprise, Scully laughed. "Propositioned? That's not a
striking offense."

"You mean it's happened before?"

"Of course it has."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"You never asked."

He hated that answer.

"So what did he do?"

"Let's just call it an illegal body check."

"He made a pass at you?"

"In a big way."

"Jesus! I'll kill him!"

"You will not. Look, Mulder, I already broke his jaw. Believe
me -- this," she said, holding up her plaster-encased right hand,
"is nothing in comparison. He won't be eating solid food for a
month."

Despite himself, Mulder grinned. He knew the only thing worse
to Ryckman than being rejected by a pretty little redhead was
getting his jaw broken by that same pretty little redhead.

"So when's the hearing?"

She sipped her wine and didn't answer.

"Scully? When's the disciplinary hearing?"

"There won't be one."

"WHAT?"

"I said, there won't be one."

"Why the hell not?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No, it is not obvious! That bastard paws at you, and you, you
of all people, are gonna let him get away with it?"

"He's not getting away with it, Mulder. I've already spoken to
Skinner privately. Ryckman will be on wiretap duty for the next
half-century, if Skinner has anything to say about it. And I'll be
getting a new partner."

"Wiretap? The asshole should be drummed out of the Bureau!"

"Don't you get it, Mulder? I can't afford another sexual scandal.
Can't you see how that would look? One partner 'paws' me, as
you so eloquently put it, and I fight like a tiger to defend him.
Another partner 'paws' me and I haul him up on charges. What
would that do to my credibility?"

"But they're completely different situations!"

"Of course they are -- to us. But to our superiors, they're both
just sex between partners. And I'll end up looking capricious and
arbitrary."

"But that's not fair..."

"Welcome to the real world, Mulder."

By now, Mulder was up and pacing, doing his caged animal
routine. Scully knew it well. It was the one he went into every
time he found evidence of a hidden agenda, a covert operation or
a multinational conspiracy, only to have the evidence stolen and
the eyewitnesses discredited -- or killed.

She'd seen him this way many times before. It was how he got
when he saw truth denied, and there wasn't a damn thing he
could do about it.

She didn't resent him for being so stubbornly unrealistic as to
believe that justice should and could be served. In fact, she loved
him for it.

But sometimes it was so damn tiring.

END 1/2

From parrotfish@ibm.net Wed Jan 29 10:09:28 1997
No Win Situation (2/2)
Rated NC-17
by Parrotfish
 

She watched him pace for a while.
 
“This whole thing can’t possibly come as a surprise to you,” she
said finally.
 
“No? Why not? Isn’t this supposed to be the 90’s? The post-
Anita Hill age, when charges of sexual harassment are taken
seriously?”
 
“Oh, come on, Mulder. It’s a lot more complicated than that, and
you know it. Big institutions are notoriously ill-equipped to
handle the subtleties of human behavior. First, they do what
thousands of years of socialization have taught -- men lead,
women follow. Or better yet, stay home. Then one day women
start demanding more. So the big institutions start to adapt.
Women start getting into traditionally male roles. But thousands
of years of culturally dictated gender roles don’t disappear
overnight, and men start using sex as a way to control women in
the workplace. So the institutions adapt again -- by
implementing blanket policies. ‘No sex between co-workers.’
‘No sex between professors and students.’ ‘No sex between
partners.’ They don’t distinguish between the good kind and the
bad kind. Just, “No sex.’ It’s not an X-file. And it’s not going to
change in a hurry.”
 
“It’s certainly not going to change if no one fights it. Scully, I
can’t believe I’m hearing you talk this way. You sound so
resigned -- like you’re willing to just accept this. What the hell is
wrong with you?” He was throwing it in her face now, standing
there defiantly, arms crossed as though he were grilling a
suspect.
 
That pissed her off.
 
“Come off it, Mulder! It’s easy enough for you to preach. You
don’t have to pay the price of martyrdom!”
 
She saw her words hit home, stinging more than she’d intended.
The word “martyrdom” hung in the air between them, ringing
with many meanings.
 
Scully closed her eyes.
 
“I’m sorry, Mulder. That’s not true. You’re always willing to
pay the price. It’s just that you can’t this time. Not on this one.”
 
He let out a long breath and sat down next to her.
 
“I know. I’m sorry.”
 
“No. Please. It’s not your fault.”
 
She reached for his hand with her good one and laced her fingers
in his.
 
“The point, Mulder, is that the price is too high.”
 
“Why? Why is it too high?”
 
“You still don’t get it, do you? If I were to bring Ryckman up on
charges, that would mean giving up on ever working with you
again. If I publicly accuse one partner of sexual harassment, do
you think they’d ever in a million years consider giving me a
partner I was known to be sleeping with?”
 
Mulder was silent.
 
“Please, Mulder. I need you to understand. I have to chose my
battles carefully. In the meantime, at least Skinner knows. He’ll
do what he can.”
 
Mulder reached for her and drew her into his arms.
 
“I hate this, Scully.”
 
“I know.”
 
The amazing thing was how truly and honestly he did hate this.
It shocked and disgusted him. In some ways, Scully thought,
he’s so incredibly naive. It was so far outside his world view to
see sex politically, to use his masculinity as a means of wielding
power, that he was actually appalled when others did it.
 
Oh, he understood the relationship between sex and power. After
all, the man had a Ph.D. in psychology. But he understood it
only on the personal level. In a way, the fragility of his self-
image made him see sex that way. His eagerness to please her in
bed was, she knew, a way of repaying her for love he still felt
deep down he didn’t deserve. In fact, his sexual solicitousness
bordered on submission at times. But he could never carry that
game outside the personal sphere.
 
She looked at him with fond eyes. He wanted so badly to do
something for her ... to make this better somehow.
 
She smiled wickedly. Well, all right then. She’d let him.
 
“There is something you can do for me, Mulder to help me work
through this, I mean. You know -- take out my frustration.”
 
He heard the change in her tone immediately and knew in what
direction her thoughts had strayed. He tightened his arms around
her and brought his lips to her ear.
 
“Anything,” he whispered.
 
That was exactly what she wanted to hear.
 
“Come on,” she said, standing and taking him by the hand. They
walked to the bedroom together.
 
She went to the closet and rummaged around as he watched
curiously. His eyebrows arched questioningly when she emerged
with a long, blue silk scarf.
 
“Do you trust me, Mulder?” she asked.
 
“You know I do.”
 
“Enough to let me do exactly what I want?”
 
He licked his lips as the implications of her question turned into
mental images.
 
“I want you do to exactly what you want,” he replied.
 
She tied the scarf tightly around his eyes, thinking as she did that
this would be for him, entirely for him, though she would let him
think it was for her, if that made it easier.
 
Easier to see that, however things worked outside this room, in
here power was wielded only when it was given willingly. That
it was used only benevolently. That submitting was a kind of
power in and of itself. That in the end, the power was always
shared.
 
When the scarf was secured so he couldn’t see, Scully’s
fingertips drifted gently down his cheek to his neck. She stopped
at the pulse there.
 
“Your heart is racing,” she said. “Why?”
 
He didn’t answer.
 
“Tell me what you’re thinking!” she said, her voice demanding
obedience.
 
“I’m thinking ... that you’re going to make love to me.”
 
The voice that came from her six-foot-two lover and erstwhile
FBI partner stunned her. It was the voice of a child -- hopeful
and slightly fearful. Had the blindfold caused such a change so
quickly?”
 
“Is that what you want?” she asked.
 
“Yes. Please.”
 
Those two words tugged at her heart.
 
“All right, then. I will.”
 
She walked around behind him and slid his jacket off, then
circled in front and undid his tie. When she pulled at his shirt to
release it from his pants, he reached to help.
 
“Don’t move!” she said, gently but firmly.
 
His arms fell to his sides.
 
She undid his buttons one by one, then took each hand in turn to
unbutton the cuffs. The shirt slid off in her hands.
 
“Raise your arms,” she instructed. She lifted his T-shirt over his
head, careful not to disturb the blindfold.
 
The belt buckle was next, then the buttons and zipper on his
trousers. She was careful not to brush against him, undressing
him as efficiently as possible.
 
Bending down, she untied and removed his shoes, then his socks.
The pants and boxers were lowered a moment later.
 
“Step out of them,” she commanded. He did.
 
Mulder stood before her stark naked except for the blindfold.
 
She stepped back to look at him. At first, he was semi-erect, his
penis curving gently away from his belly. As she watched in
silence -- as he felt her watching -- it grew, thickened, hardened
until it stood straight out, pointing boldly at her.
 
Still she watched.
 
“Scully?” he finally ventured.
 
“Don’t speak.”
 
He shifted from foot to foot.
 
“Don’t move!”
 
He stood still. His color heightened, a red tinge starting at his
cheeks and spreading down his neck and chest.
 
He was embarrassed to just stand there and be looked at, she
realized.
 
She undressed quietly and waited several more minutes before
speaking.
 
“You are beautiful, Mulder,” she whispered.
 
“Scully...”
 
“I told you not to speak! Just listen.”
 
She fell silent again long enough for his blush to deepen.
 
“You are beautiful, Mulder,” she began again. “You are not
perfect. Your nose is too big. Your arms are too long. Your eyes
are set too close together. But those individual characteristics
somehow merge into a harmony that is beautiful.”
 
She stopped speaking again, watching to see the effect of her
words.
 
It was immediate and obvious. His hard-on grew redder, thicker.
She smiled.
 
Approaching him silently, she leaned over and licked at one
nipple, wetting it. He stepped backward at the unexpected
contact.
 
“Do not move! Do you understand me?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Don’t speak!”
 
She repeated her action, this time blowing softly across the
nipple after licking it. It stiffened to a small, pink point nestled in
the sparse hair on his chest.
 
“I love to watch your body respond to me,” she said quietly,
laying the palm of her hand against his chest. He swayed
forward into her touch.
 
She jerked her hand away, scratching his hardened nipple as she
went. He flinched.
 
“I mean it, Mulder,” she said with enough menace to let him
know it had not been an accident. “No matter what I do, you will
not move unless I have given you permission to do so.”
 
She circled him again, touched him lightly with one finger at the
base of his neck, then ran it down along his back, into and down
the crack of his ass. When she arrived at the juncture of his legs,
she reached between them to cup his balls.
 
He jumped.
 
She squeezed.
 
Hard.
 
Not hard enough to damage. But hard enough to hurt. She said
nothing. By now, he knew the message.
 
This last action had not been planned. In fact, she was probably
more surprised by it than he. She had never done this kind of
thing before. But there was something about the way he had
placed himself at her command that excited her, made her want
to exercise the authority he had so willingly given.
 
And somehow, she knew that in testing that authority, she was
letting him know how much his trust meant to her. He was
letting her set the limits, no questions asked, as he did in so many
other ways. For a man who had led such a solitary, sovereign
existence, this was a striking change -- but one that had brought
him relief, eased his solitude. This was giving them both
something they desperately needed.
 
They were giving it to each other.
 
Cupping his balls gently again, she rolled them with her fingers,
tested their weight.
 
He stood still.
 
“Good boy,” she cooed, kissing his back.
 
She circled again to stand before him.
 
“What do you want, Mulder?”
 
He said nothing.
 
“Do you want me to touch you?”
 
She saw him tremble slightly and decided not to call him on it.
 
“Think about it, Mulder,” she went on. “Think about how
beautiful you look standing there.” She placed a hand gently on
his inner thigh and squeezed. “Think about how open you are to
me right now. How much I want you.” She knelt before him.
 
She felt the muscles in his leg tense, bracing for her touch in a
more sensitive place.
 
She didn’t disappoint him.
 
Very, very slowly, she leaned forward and licked the underside
of his cock from base to tip.
 
To his credit, he didn’t move.
 
She swirled her tongue around the head once, twice.
 
He still didn’t move.
 
She opened her mouth and slid the head inside.
 
His hips jerked.
 
“Uh-uh,” she breathed, and backed away until she wasn’t
touching him any more.
 
And waited.
 
When she finally leaned in and took him in her mouth again, he
managed to stay still. Slowly, she slid her lips further down
around him, taking in half, and then came back out so the tip
rested lightly between her teeth. He became rigid with tension in
the effort not to move, to obey her.
 
She repeated the motion a few more times, sliding her hands
behind him to hold his buttocks firmly. Then, without warning,
she pushed him forward to take in all of him.
 
His knees bent and he moaned.
 
And she was gone.
 
She waited, watching in fascination as his Adam’s apple bobbed
repeatedly. He was trying to regain control.
 
When he seemed calmer, she came back, sucked his raging
hardness in again and setting up a steady in-and-out rhythm.
 
He was sweating with the sensation of it and the strain of
controlling himself, of standing perfectly still. Eventually, it was
too much and he thrust forward again.
 
And she backed away.
 
And so it went. She played him like this for what must have been
half an hour, until he was able to remain motionless almost until
the moment he was about to come. Each time he gave in,
pumped himself into her mouth, she backed off until he brought
himself back under control.
 
It took all his powers of concentration. There was nothing else in
the universe but this exercise in willpower. He was focused
completely on it -- on the feeling of her mouth on him and the
need not to move. It was as though his body occupied every
square millimeter of a very small, intimate universe, one that
could reward patience with excruciatingly sweet sensation.
 
But it was so hard.
 
He was so hard.
 
Oh, god, there she was again. She was taking him into that
incredibly hot, wet mouth of hers, he was sliding deeper, he was
so hard, so hard, his balls were tightening and oh god he was
going to come, he had to come, he couldn’t not come, he was so
close and don’t move don’t move oh god don’t move...
 
And then he was falling forward, and she was beneath him,
pulling him, they fell onto the bed and the blindfold was off,
she’d ripped it off him and she was pulling him into her, she was
naked and soft and warm and he was inside her, not her mouth
now but her tight, burning cunt, she was around him and inside
him and everywhere and he completely lost control.
 
Scully wrapped her legs around his back and held on tightly as
he pumped wildly at her, all the hard-won control she’d forced
on him snapped, shattered, fled. He was totally overwhelmed
with fucking her, every aspect of his being, mind and body,
poised on the knife edge of absolute sensation. He grunted with
every furious thrust and she heaved her hips up to meet him,
inviting him, demanding him.
 
The sight, the feeling of him, hard and wild and out of control,
slamming into her with such total abandon, brought her to a
sudden, fierce climax. She screamed as the muscles of her vagina
clamped down on him and her back arched and her head
thrashed and the electric thrill of him shocked her to the core.
 
Without thought, without consciousness, he rammed himself
home at the moment she flew over that volcano’s edge, and she
was falling into fire, she became fire, and he fell into her, and she
consumed him.
 
The yell torn from his throat as he came was inarticulate but
more expressive than any words she had ever heard.
 
And then he was limp on top of her, bearing none of his own
weight, and she reached up to stroke his hair.
 
“Mulder?”
 
No answer.
 
“Mulder? You can speak now,” she said with a smile.
 
Still no answer.
 
He had blacked out.
 
She stroked his hair and his back until consciousness returned
and she felt the flutter of his eyelashes on her shoulder.
 
“You all right?”
 
“Oh my god ... Scully ... I ...”
 
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”
 
He hugged her fiercely, his now-limp penis slipping wetly from
inside her as he rolled over to pull her on top of him.
 
They lay together in silence for some time.
 
“It’ll be all right, Mulder,” she whispered at last, raising her
head to look at him. “We’ll be all right.”
 
He smiled. “Well, one thing’s for sure.”
 
“Hmm?”
 
“I pity the poor bastard who messes with you.”
 
She laughed lightly, a merry laugh she wouldn’t have thought
possible an hour earlier. She settled back down against him
happily, pulling the covers around them.
 
“Thanks, Mulder,” she sighed sleepily.
 
“No,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
 
END
 

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

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa

By Parrotfish
tamarw@gateway.net

 
Rating --- NC-17 ( sex, violence, language)
Classification -- X (X file), R (Mulder-Scully romance), A
(Angst)
Summary -- Mulder and Scully go undercover to rescue a
kidnapped child from a white supremacist militia group. Success
could mean the salvation of the duo's partnership -- if it doesn't
destroy them first.
Completed -- 6/1/97
WARNING -- This story is about people with reprehensible
beliefs. Their racist ideology is presented without sympathy but
in great detail. If you can't bear reading about such things, please
turn back now.
 
Author's Note -- When I wrote Caught in the Act, it was meant
as a stand-alone story, part erotica, part musing on society's
double standard when it comes to sex. I got a lot of e-mail asking
for a sequel. Caught in the Act II: No Win Situation was more of
the same. But when I sat down to write the story before you now,
I found that a lot of other interesting questions had come up
along the way. Questions about sexuality and identity; about the
way we see ourselves and our actions as opposed to the way
others see us; about the relationship between our inner lives and
our external lives. Next thing I know, I've got 160k. There's still
some erotica here, but it's coupled with a huge dose of angst and
some very brutal character exploration. I found it fascinating to
write, and I hope you find it interesting to read. While you are
more than welcome to read the first two stories on the archive,
this one can be read on its own.
 
And by the way: I am actually a sad little gnome sitting in a box.
Nothing ever happens in my box, and my life is an endless
misery of isolation. But every so often, through a tiny crack
somewhere just above my head, a little note drops in saying
somebody read my story, and my tragic existence is momentarily
transformed into one of great joy and fulfillment. In the
meantime, I just sit here in this box all alone, waiting...
 
Thank yous: To Chris Carter for creating The X-Files; to David
Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and the entire cast and crew for
bringing this marvelous series to life; and to Fox for putting it on
the air.
 
________________________________
 
 
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 1/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 
 
"Whatever you do, don't look at the painting."
 
"The painting." Hugh Lester looked at his partner with mingled
disbelief and disdain.
 
"That's right. The painting over the mantle in the dining room.
It's a portrait of his grandfather. Don't look at it."
 
"Is it that bad? Maybe we should call the NEA for backup."
 
"I'm not kidding, Hugh!"
 
"All right! All right! Let's just get this over with."
 
"Okay. You take the back door. If I haven't let you in within two
minutes, break it down. Let's go."
 
Fox Mulder got out of the car and approached the front of the
large, Victorian house as his partner circled around back. He
waited a minute to give Lester time to get into position, then
rapped sharply on the door.
 
"Open up! Federal agents!"
 
He was met with dead silence.
 
Mulder tried the doorknob. It turned easily, and the large wood-
and-glass door swung open. He entered and found himself in a
spacious, wood-paneled foyer.
 
"Sheffield? Sheffield! I know you're here!"
 
Silence.
 
Mulder headed toward the back of the house to let his partner in.
He didn't make it.
 
A large man with a startling mass of white hair and a jagged scar
across his forehead stood in Mulder's way. He'd been standing
there all along, Mulder guessed, waiting.
 
"I know it's you, Sheffield. I know how your cousins wound up
dead."
 
A loud crash came from the direction of the kitchen.
 
"We're here to arrest you and take you out of this house,"
Mulder said.
 
For a moment, he saw fear in the big man's eyes. Just for a
moment. He watched as the fear turned into gleeful hatred.
 
"Lester! Get out of there!" Mulder yelled.
 
Too late. He tried to close his eyes, but he had lost control over
them. And then the blue bolts seared them. Like twin lasers, the
fiery beams leaped from Sheffield's eyes into his, and an
agonizing pain overwhelmed him. Another couple of seconds,
and his brain would simply shut down under the assault.
 
"NO!" He could no longer see, but from somewhere behind the
burning pain, Mulder heard a voice scream the single syllable.
 
And then the pain stopped.
 
He sank to his knees, dazed, blinking back the tears that poured
out in the aftermath of the attack. His vision was still blurred
when he looked up, and at first he thought he was hallucinating.
As his eyes cleared, a surge of relief washed over him.
 
Sheffield lay face down on the floor. Scully had her knee in his
back, and she was snapping on the cuffs.
 
 
"What are you doing here?" Mulder croaked with whatever
voice he could find.
 
"When you told me you thought Sheffield's mother was coming
here and that she was in danger, I knew you'd try something like
this," she said. "I thought you could use some help."
 
"Lester -- go check on him. I'll keep an eye on Sheffield."
Mulder got to his feet.
 
"Where is he?"
 
"Dining room. He must have looked at the painting."
 
Scully dashed out. It only took her a minute to find him.
 
"Mulder! Call an ambulance!"
 
____________________________
 
It was just like old times -- sitting side by side in Assistant
Director Skinner's office, prepared for the worst.
 
"Agent Lester is in intensive care," Skinner was saying. "He's in
a coma, and the doctors can't find any cause. No trauma. No
pathology. Nothing. I suspect you have a theory...?" This last
was addressed directly to Mulder.
 
"I know what happened to him. Not that it's going to make any
difference."
 
Scully gripped the arms of her chair tighter. Mulder was
throwing all the bad attitude he had in Skinner's face, flipping
him a mental bird. He'd always been prone to disrespectful
behavior, but ever since he'd lost her as a partner, he'd been so
flippant that Scully feared for his job.
 
"Agent Mulder," Skinner spat through clenched teeth, "I have a
severely injured agent who may not survive the night. I'm in no
mood for your snide comments. Tell me what happened. NOW!"
 
"What happened? Hugh Lester refused to believe me. If he had,
he'd be here talking to you now."
 
"What do you mean?"
 
Mulder sighed, knowing he was about to sound crazy. Again.
 
"Sheffield has the ability to channel one person's psychic energy
and use it against another person. But he can only do it by means
of an intermediate device -- a painting in his house. I told Lester
not to look at the painting. He ignored my warning. Scully found
him collapsed in front of the painting."
 
"You mean to tell me that Agent Lester is in a coma because
Sheffield sapped his psychic energy in order to attach you?"
 
Mulder merely nodded sullenly.
 
"Agent Scully, what were you doing at Sheffield's house last
night?"
 
"I thought Mulder could use some help," she replied cryptically.
 
"Agent Scully has the ability to balance the outrageousness of
my ideas with the empirical evidence of their validity," Mulder
said.
 
"In other words, she believes you?"
 
"Not always. But she trusts me, just as I trust her." Scully
glanced at her former partner, thinking he had gone too far. He
was flaunting the special nature of their relationship, and that
was a dangerous card to play. Their superiors didn't understand
that, together, she and Mulder made a whole that was so much
greater than its parts. She didn't think there was any point trying
to explain it to them.
 
"I know this will come as a shock, Mulder," Skinner said, "but
I'm convinced that this episode provides compelling evidence
that you cannot be effective on your cases with any partner other
than Agent Scully."
 
Well, what do you know. Skinner was quite a surprising man.
Then again, Scully knew he would never have broken them up if
it hadn't been for the scandal. Hell, Skinner would happily have
turned a blind eye if it would have helped. But when that boob,
D'Amico, had walked in on her and Mulder in bed and had filed
an official report, there hadn't been much Skinner could do about
it.
 
Until now.
 
"I'm temporarily assigning you a new partner, Mulder." The six-
foot-two FBI agent slumped down on his chair and hunched his
shoulders like a defiant teen-ager told he'd have to spend time in
detention.
 
"You'll work with Agent Scully until a permanent arrangement
can be made."
 
Mulder sat up in surprise.
 
"But sir, the Internal Affairs Committee said..."
 
"You leave the IAC to me. Last I heard, they preferred our
agents alive -- almost as much as I do."
 
"Sir," Scully began hesitantly, "is there any chance these events
might be presented in such a manner as to alter the committee's
decision and make the arrangement permanent?"
 
Skinner took a long moment before answering.
 
"I don't know," he said.
 
_______________________________
 
The snick of a door latch woke Mulder from a deep, dreamless
sleep. He bolted upright, startled, but a look around calmed his
instinctive reaction. Scully must be home.
 
He'd gone straight to her place after work. She hadn't arrived yet,
and, having slept little the previous night in the wake of events at
the Sheffield house, he'd thrown himself, exhausted, onto
Scully's bed.
 
He stretched languidly and got up. The room was dark. It must
be late. Scully's last-minute autopsy must have been a
complicated affair.
 
He padded barefoot into the hallway and was about to turn to the
living room when he heard the water go on in the bathroom.
Turning that way instead, he saw Scully kicking off her heels as
she reached for the bubble bath.
 
"S..." The barest whisper of her name escaped when he clamped
down on it. She was reaching back for the zipper of her skirt.
 
Mulder stood in the dim hallway and watched through the open
bathroom door as Scully unzipped herself and slid the skirt off,
folding it neatly and laying it on top of the hamper. Then she
pulled her panty hose down and off, bending over to remove
them, her richly rounded, silk-encased bottom turned toward
him.
 
Oh, God.
 
He and Scully had been intimate long enough now so that he
could generally watch her undress without completely losing it.
But standing there in  the dark, unbeknownst to her, watching
her prepare for a bath, was too much.
 
One small part of his mind told him to step forward, to say
something, to announce his presence. The other ninety percent
was taking instructions from somewhere south of his belt.
 
She sat on the closed toilet, her blouse hanging loosely to her
thighs, and bent one leg to take her foot in her hands, massaging
the sole with her thumbs. He took note of the way she began at
the heel and worked up toward the ball, digging hard at the high
point of the arch along the way. He filed it away for future
reference. He would do it for her just that way sometime.
 
He leaned against the wall as she started on the other foot, her
head bent forward so that a sweep of auburn hair veiled her face.
 
With a final wiggle of her toes, she released her foot and sat up,
her hair falling back to reveal her striking profile: the tiny nose,
the high cheeks, the lush lips. She looks so delicate, he thought.
 
Yeah. Delicate enough to take down a 250 pound  man and cuff
him before he knew what hit him, he mused, smiling.
 
Scully stood, turned toward the mirror and began unbuttoning
her blouse. She seemed to be eyeing herself critically, crinkling
her forehead and baring her teeth. Mulder wondered if she was
considering some imagined flaw that no one but she would
notice.
 
She slid the blouse off and stood before him in white silk bra and
panties. He became aware of the pressure growing in his groin.
She reached back and unhooked the bra, throwing it on top of
the hamper with the rest of her clothes. Still watching herself in
the mirror, she raised her hands to her breasts and cupped them,
pushing them up so that the valley between them became an
invitingly tight crease.
 
I should say something now, Mulder thought guiltily. This is too
good.
 
He said nothing.
 
He watched, riveted, as she lowered her hands and smoothed
them across the tight skin of her belly, hooked her fingers at the
waist of her panties and bent to lower them.
 
Mulder was rock hard inside his suit pants at the sight of her,
nude and unaware of him.
 
Lazily, she raised her arms high and stretched, then turned to the
bathtub and leaned over to shut the water off, offering another
beautiful view of her now naked ass.
 
She turned and sat on the edge of the tub, facing him. He was
sure the game was up. She would see him standing there. He
should say something now.
 
But instead of calling to him, she closed her eyes, moved her legs
apart and began stroking lazy circles against a silky thigh. Oh,
sweet Jesus. The hand was creeping higher, heading into the red
flesh nestled inside the curls between her legs.
 
Slowly, enticingly, her middle finger disappeared.
 
Mulder was quite sure he had never been so rigid without first
experiencing any actual physical contact. Not since he was
sixteen, anyway.
 
Scully drew the finger out slowly and then pushed it back in,
bringing the other hand to her breast to pinch the nipple. When
her finger withdrew completely and she touched her clitoris, he
reached for his own zipper, slowly pulling it down, careful to
make no noise as she began her steady stroking, her head falling
back to bare her long, ivory throat.
 
Mulder stripped silently, never removing his eyes from the
spectacle of her self-indulgence. Her head rolled from side to
side as she increased the pace, dipping a finger inside herself
from time to time to capture the moisture she needed.
 
He held back, watching as droplets of sweat beaded her brow in
the steamy bathroom.
 
She took a nipple firmly between thumb and forefinger, rolling
and pulling at it hard enough to make her bite her lip in exquisite
pain.
 
Still, he held back.
 
Her hand reached a rapid machine gun-fire pace across the
swollen flesh of her clitoris, and a low moan escaped her. A
sheen of sweat covered her chest, and every muscle grew taut
with anticipation.
 
He dug his fingernails hard into the palms of his hands and held
back.
 
The low moan became a guttural yell as her hips bucked, and
she plunged two fingers deep inside.
 
He surged forward, reaching her in three long strides. He
grabbed her hand in an iron grip and pulled it away. As he
dropped to his knees between her legs, her eyes sprang open in
shock.
 
Before she could speak, he had rammed himself in to the root,
his hands holding her hips firmly in place so that she wouldn't
slide back away from him. Her already-orgasmic cunt clenched
hard around him, the sensation wrenching a scream from her.
 
He gasped at the feeling of pulling out while her strong muscles
worked to suck him in, then rammed himself home again. Her
climax, which had begun before he'd even entered her, continued
to build. She was twitching and writhing in his arms so that he
could barely hold her still as he slammed into her again and
again in a ball-tightening frenzy of hot, hard flesh inside hot, wet
flesh.
 
His blood seemed to rush straight from his heart to his cock to
his head, pounding in his ears to the rhythm of his hips and the
melody of her keening orgasm, and then his insides surged
through and out, streaming into her fiery depths, pumping a
white-hot stream of desire and need and infinite pleasure.
 
She ground her pelvis against him in a circular motion, milking
the last drop from him as his head fell onto her shoulder.
 
God. Could he possibly want anything more from life?
 
This was perfect.
 
She nuzzled his ear.
 
"Hi, partner," he whispered.
 
___________________________

END 1/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 2/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 

"No, Mulder!"
 
"What do you mean, 'No?'"
 
"It's a pretty simple concept. Which part were you having trouble
with?"
 
"The part where you refuse an assignment."
 
"Assignment? Now you're handing out assignments?"
 
Scully was furious. In the past ten days, Mulder had dragged her
on two of the wildest goose chases of her career. First, they'd
spent three miserable, mosquito-bitten days in the Louisiana
bayous, tracking down rumors of zombies. Zombies! And then
there had been the four straight days slogging through freezing
New Hampshire rain, investigating allegations of human
sacrifices conducted at one of the nation's most bizarre tourist
traps, known to the locals as "America's Stonehenge."
 
Needless to say, both cases had been dead-ends.
 
And now Mulder wanted to re-open a thirty-five-year-old file on
a haunted house.
 
"What the hell is wrong with you, Scully?"
 
"There is nothing wrong with me, Mulder, other than the fact
that you're taking advantage of me."
 
"Excuse me?"
 
"Don't expect me to swallow every crackpot theory of yours just
because I'm not Hugh Lester!"
 
"Crackpot?"
 
Scully was on a tear, and she wasn't about to let him get a word
in edgewise.
 
"I'm going home, Mulder. Alone. I don't want to see you or hear
from you tonight. I need one night of sanity before I can cope
with your skewed world view again. We'll talk about this
tomorrow."
 
With that, she stormed out.
 
"Shit!" Mulder cursed aloud to the empty room.
 
It wasn't supposed to be like this. They'd fought hard for the right
to work together again, but now that they were doing it, it was a
disaster.
 
Okay, maybe he was trying to cram a lot of the more
unconventional cases into a short period of time. But their
partnership was only temporary. Who knew what kind of
starched shirt with a pole up the ass he'd be paired with next
time?
 
Why couldn't Scully understand that?
 
The worst part was that it hadn't just been their professional
relationship that had suffered. They hadn't made love since the
night Skinner had teamed them up. Sure, they'd been on the road
a lot, and they'd stuck by their hands-off-while-on-a-case rule.
And, on the couple of nights they'd had off, they'd both been
bone-tired. But Mulder was afraid there was more to it than that.
 
Shit.
 
He didn't want to admit it, but he was really scared.
 
They'd always said they could pull it off -- balancing their
professional and personal relationships. Had they been wrong?
 
He couldn't afford to think about that. Because that would mean
he'd have to lose Dana Scully, either as a partner or as a lover. If
things got bad enough, maybe even as both.
 
Any way he looked at it, the operative word was, "lose." That
was not a prospect he cared to consider.
 
_________________________
 
When Scully came in the next morning, she wasn't surprised to
find Mulder looking haggard and exhausted. She knew he
wouldn't sleep well after she'd walked out on him. But what
choice did she have? If they'd seen each other after work, they
would only have argued, and the result would have been the
same -- separate beds.
 
Still, the sight of his tired and anxious face tugged at her
heartstrings. She took her coat off.
 
"Mulder ... I'm sorry. It's just that ..."
 
"No, Scully, it's all right. I know you ..."
 
The phone rang, cutting them both off mid-sentence.
 
"Mulder ... Okay. We'll be right up." He hung up. "Skinner
wants us."
 
Scully tensed. So soon? They hadn't even had time to settle into
a rhythm. She was sure they could, given just a little more time.
 
They just needed time.
 
That was the problem, really. Knowing it was temporary.
Feeling rushed. That's why Mulder had chosen the screwiest
cases. He knew he wouldn't be able to pursue them once he got a
new partner who, like Lester, would think he was one fry short
of a Happy Meal.
 
And that was why she had no patience with him. It was hard to
have patience when you were always hearing a clock ticking in
the background.
 
Her eyes softened as she looked at him. "Okay, let's get it over
with."
 
He followed her out of the basement office with his hand resting
lightly on the small of her back. They entered Skinner's office
the same way. He waved them into seats and picked up the
phone.
 
"Hold my calls, Kimberly," he barked.
 
The two agents exchanged glances.
 
"This isn't about reassignment, is it?" Mulder asked.
 
"No." Skinner eyed them before continuing, looking as though
he were running some complicated calculations through his
mind. "It's about a case," he said, seeming to have arrived at an
answer. "A very important case."
 
He paused to collect his thoughts, then continued.
 
"Before I give you the details, I must warn you that when you
walk out of this office, several things will have changed. First,
you will be undercover, with false identities. Second, you will
have information that you will not be permitted to discuss with
anyone but each other and myself, ever. And third, the fate of a
vital piece of American foreign policy that could affect not just
national, but global security will be in your hands."
 
"Our hands?" Mulder repeated incredulously.
 
Skinner ignored him and went on.
 
"As you know, the Chinese Foreign Minister was killed in an
explosion six months ago during a visit to the U.S. The public
story was a gas leak."
 
"A lot of people didn't buy that," Mulder said, remembering a
conversation he'd had at the time with the Lone Gunmen.
 
"A lot of people were right. It was a bomb. The CIA had reason
to believe that the attack was carried out by a right-wing, white-
supremacist militia group called the White Hand, based in
Pennsylvania. But they needed evidence. To get it, they sent a
man undercover to infiltrate the organization. He succeeded in
making contact with a disgruntled member of the group who
agreed with the White Hand's political aims, but not with its
violent tactics. This man agreed to turn state's evidence."
 
"So where do we come in?" Scully asked.
 
"There's been a ... development. The informant's position has
been compromised. His contact with the CIA was discovered by
members of his group."
 
"Did they kill him?"
 
"No, surprisingly. It would seem that the group's leader, a man
by the name of George Flood, has a rather twisted sense of
justice. Instead of silencing the informant the old-fashioned way,
he's chosen a more sadistic but equally effective method.
Skinner's voice tightened. "Flood has kidnapped the informant's
six-year-old son. He's holding the boy as insurance."
 
"But that doesn't make any sense," Scully said. "Once the boy is
either released or killed, the informant would have no reason to
remain silent. Flood would be implicated."
 
"They're not going to release him or kill him, are they?" Mulder
said quietly.
 
"No."
 
"I don't understand," Scully said.
 
"They're going to hold him indefinitely. The boy is a hostage for
life," Mulder explained.
 
"Oh my God."
 
"We've managed to extricate the informant from his situation.
He's safely hidden away. But we can't pursue conventional
avenues to retrieve the boy. Nothing must compromise the
investigation of the bombing. Any premature information leak
that could affect Sino-American relations must be avoided at all
costs. For that reason, we cannot involve local law enforcement.
You two are going to have to find that boy entirely on your
own."
 
"You want us to find the kid," Mulder said.
 
"Yes. And you must retrieve the boy at a moment when all our
suspects' locations are known so that they can be immediately
apprehended. If any of them were to slip through our fingers, and
they knew their insurance was gone, they would disappear and
probably flee the country. We cannot allow that."
 
"You're kidding."
 
"No, Agent Mulder. I'm not."
 
"And they say I'm crazy. This is an impossible assignment."
 
"Not entirely," Skinner said. "You have one major advantage."
 
"Which is?"
 
"The perfect cover. Last week, a black minister, his wife and two
children were murdered, their bodies mutilated with swastikas
carved on the faces. We managed to nab the killers -- a man and
a woman, Robert Gorman and Mary Deene -- with absolutely no
publicity. They're on deep ice. They -- you -- are exactly George
Flood's kind of people. Gain his confidence. Discover where
they're holding the boy."
 
"Yeah, and while we're at it, we'll just use our Spidey powers to
make everyone give themselves up and confess."
 
"That would be acceptable," Skinner deadpanned.
 
There was a long silence.
 
"You said this was a matter of global security," Scully said at
last.
 
"The Chinese know damn well that was no gas explosion that
killed their man. They believe it was a CIA hit. What very few
people know is that before the incident, the U.S. and China were
very close to announcing an agreement on nuclear disarmament.
The Chinese halted those talks immediately after Xia Feng was
killed. The only way to get them back to the table is to nail the
real killers. And that won't happen unless you retrieve the
kidnapped boy. You'll have one contact -- a phone number. You
will not use it unless absolutely necessary."
 
"But why us?" Scully asked.
 
"Let me put it this way," Skinner said, his eyes locking on hers.
"If you pull this off, the most powerful people at the White
House, the CIA, the NSA, the State Department and the FBI will
owe you an enormous debt. They will give you anything you
request to repay it."
 
His meaning was clear.
 
"Here are your instructions," Skinner said. They took the folders
and left.
 
__________________
 
Back in the safety of the basement, the two agents sat staring at
the walls for quite some time.
 
"Have you ever gone undercover?" Scully asked at last.
 
"Once. You?"
 
"Never."
 
"It was terrible. I was terrified I'd slip up and blow my cover.
And this ..."
 
"This is insane."
 
Mulder turned to look at her. Her face, her posture, everything
about her was tense, drawn tight as a violin string.
 
She was right. This was insane.
 
It was incredibly dangerous. Incredibly difficult. Incredibly
unlikely to succeed.
 
It was one step short of suicide.
 
"We don't have to do this, Scully."
 
"We don't?"
 
"No."
 
"It's an assignment. Last I checked, following orders wasn't
voluntary."
 
"Come on, Scully. You know why Skinner gave this to us. It
would take something of this magnitude to get the Bureau to
reinstate our partnership. But..."
 
"But what?"
 
"But the way things have been going these last couple of weeks,
maybe it's just as well if they don't. Partner us, I mean. We could
probably tell Skinner it's not worth it to us, and he'd let us off the
hook."
 
Scully was thunderstruck. What was he saying? Not worth it?
She looked at him in shock. Her mind whirled around the words,
"Not worth it."
 
Not worth it?
 
And then she understood. It was a question. He wasn't telling
her. He was asking her.
 
She rose, crossed the room and knelt before him.
 
"Oh, Mulder. Of course it's worth it."
 
He searched her eyes.
 
"Do you think we can pull this off, Scully?"
 
"We have to, Mulder. Even if there were no disarmament treaty,
no CIA operation, no chance to collect a debt of gratitude." She
paused, placing a hand on his arm. "There's a six-year-old boy
facing life in hell."
 
_________________________
 
For once, Mulder was happy to let Scully drive. It wasn't that he
was tired, or that he needed to review the case. He didn't have a
headache, and there was no need to read the map.
 
It was the miniskirt.
 
Last night, they'd carefully studied their profiles, memorizing the
details and using their imaginations to fill in the rest. Included in
their necessary preparations was the choice of a wardrobe in
which to play the parts. For Mulder, it had been easy -- jeans and
T-shirts. What else would a high school dropout auto mechanic
wear? But when Scully had started to pack, she dug out articles
of clothing he'd never dreamed she owned.
 
Halter tops. Hot pants. Skin-tight jeans. Motorcycle boots.
 
And the tiny scrap of denim she'd told him was a skirt, which she
now barely wore as she drove. It covered her crotch and no
more.
 
Mulder was quite satisfied with his role as passenger-observer.
 
"We're almost there," Scully said, interrupting a particularly
spicy fantasy that would have worked much better in a car with
a stick shift. "Mulder? Did you hear me?"
 
"What? Yeah." Neither spoke again until they passed the sign
that welcomed them to Lemington, Pennsylvania.
 
"We're going to some very seedy dives. Are you sure you want
to be wearing that?"
 
"This is exactly what Mary Deene would wear."
 
"That's not exactly terribly reassuring."
 
"Look, Mulder. Things are going to get a lot uglier than a few
drunken passes in a sleazy bar before we get through this. And
the only way we'll get through this at all is by being as
absolutely credible in these roles as we can be."
 
"I know that," he replied peevishly and lapsed back into silence.
 
A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of a place called
Willy's Bar. Scully turned to Mulder.
 
"This is it. From here on in, you're Bobby and I'm Mary. You
ready?"
 
"I'm ready."
 
"You sure?"
 
He grinned broadly. "As sure as a homicidal grease monkey can
be."
 
She smacked his leg and got out of the car.
 
As they entered the bar, Mulder surprised her by draping an arm
across her shoulders, his hand hanging carelessly over her breast.
 
The transformation had begun.
 
_____________________________
 
The Five Spot was their third bar. Scully was amazed at how
many such places there were in a town the size of Lemington.
One ought to have been more than enough.
 
She and Mulder wove their way to the bar and ordered bourbons,
just as they had at the previous two places. She was just slightly
tipsy, having finished only half of each drink. The trick was to
walk into each place looking like you'd had three at the last one.
 
At Willy's Bar and The Station House, all she and Mulder had
accomplished were a couple of loud, suggestive conversations
that no one seemed to notice. In the car, they'd agreed they'd
have to do better.
 
Fate handed them their chance.
 
A middle-aged black man wearing jeans and a work shirt
perched himself on the stool next to Scully's. She waited several
minutes before starting.
 
"Get your filthy hands off of me!"
 
The man looked at her, startled.
 
"I said, get your filthy hands off of me!" Louder this time.
 
"I didn't touch you," the man replied, surprised.
 
Mulder took up the game. He stood and moved to invade the
man's space.
 
"If you touch her again, I'll kill you, nigger."
 
Scully swallowed a surge of nausea.
 
The man stood and squared off with Mulder. "I suggest you
watch your tongue," he said threateningly.
 
"I don't think so -- nigger." This time, Mulder emphasized the
foul word, throwing it out as a purposeful challenge.
 
"If you don't apologize," the man said with barely restrained
fury, "you will regret it."
 
"Apologize?" Mulder barked out a harsh laugh. "I don't
apologize to niggers. Me and Mary, we know how to teach
niggers like you a lesson. If you won't go back where you
belong, we'll just have to get rid of you. Like we done before."
 
Mulder was braced and ready when the first blow came, but the
man had at least fifty pounds on him. He managed to come back
with a few solid punches to the stomach before the enraged
stranger brought him down and kicked him five or six times for
good measure, then stormed out.
 
Scully could do nothing but watch.
 
"Come on, Bobby," she said, helping him to his feet when it was
all over. "Let's get out of here. This place makes me sick."
 
_________________________
 
She washed the blood off his split lip and checked to make sure
nothing was broken. He'd been lucky.
 
He was lying shirtless on the queen-sized bed in a seedy motel
room she'd found for them while he'd lain groaning in the back
seat of the car. Sitting beside him now, she realized this rat hole
was going to be home for a while.
 
"Jesus, I feel filthy," she said quietly.
 
"Me too."
 
"Do you think it worked?"
 
"Who knows? Depends who happened to be there. We'll have to
go back tomorrow and see if anyone takes the bait."
 
"That poor guy," Scully sighed.
 
"Him? What about me?"
 
"You started it."
 
"Actually, as I recall, you started it. Buy I have to admit, it was
a stroke of genius."
 
"Yeah, just like Hitler was a genius. Maybe tomorrow we can
invade Poland and launch the Final Solution."
 
"Come on, Scully. It wasn't really you."
 
"That man doesn't know that."
 
"We can't help that. Come here." He reached for her and drew
her down on top of him, instantly regretting it when his bruised
ribs complained. She rolled off him and lay on her side, propping
her head on one hand and resting the other gently on his chest.
 
"Thank God you're here," she said. "I don't think I could do this
alone."
 
He grinned, then winced from the pain.
 
"Actually, I quite enjoyed watching you do it alone the other
day."
 
She returned his wicked smile. "Yeah, but it was even better
when you got in on the act."
 
He rolled over and hooked one long leg over hers, pulling her
hips firmly against his.
 
"This time, you don't have to start without me," he said.
 
"You sure you're up to it?"
 
"What do you think?" He thrust his hips forward so she could
feel the hard bulge in his jeans.
 
"Your spirit is willing, but your flesh..."
 
"...is begging you to go for the zipper."
 
"Begging, huh? I like that."
 
Despite his bravado, Scully could tell from his stiff, awkward
movements that he was still in pain. She determined to take his
mind off it.
 
"Lie back," she whispered, pushing gently on his shoulder.
 
With careful fingers, she stroked his bruised torso, running up
his side, across the slight double slope of his chest, down his
stomach and around again.
 
A low vibration that sounded like a cat's purr began deep in his
chest. She leaned in and pressed her lips firmly into the soft flesh
where his neck met his collarbone, then tickled the spot with the
tip of her tongue.
 
The sound grew louder.
 
She licked her way up his neck, savoring his unique blend of salt
and musk, stopping at the corner where his beautiful lower lip
was just starting to swell with its injury, planting a light kiss
there.
 
The quality of the sound changed. At first, she thought she'd hurt
him.
 
The she realized it was a snore. He was sound asleep.
 
She smiled and whispered in his ear, "Sweet dreams, grease
monkey."
 
_________________________
 

END 2/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 3/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 

On the streets of Lemington, working stiffs were wandering out
to lunch counters, McDonalds, Roy Rogers, ATMs, the post
office, wherever they needed to go during their midday break.
 
Two men sat together on a bench in a small park near the
construction site where they'd worked all morning.
 
"I tell you, it was them," the younger man said.
 
"How can you be so sure?" the other man asked suspiciously. He
was older, in his 50s, balding.
 
"What they said. How they acted. You get a feeling about these
things, y'know? And besides, the man said they'd done it before."
 
"Done what? Did he say?"
 
"Not exactly. But the way he was telling off that nigger, it don't
take no Einstein to figure it out."
 
The other man glared at his companion with hard, calculating
eyes. "No, it don't take no Einstein. Which is lucky in your
case."
 
"You leave it to me," the younger man said, untouched by the
point of the barb. "I'll get to the bottom of it." The two men
packed up their trash and headed back to work.
 
_________________________________
 
A lanky man in a nearby motel room whose handsome, sensual
features were distorted by ugly bruises and a swollen lip stirred
for the first time that day. He raised his arms over his head to
stretch, and the motion wrenched a surprised moan from him.
 
He opened his eyes cautiously, as though fearful that even such a
small movement might hurt. It didn't, but  his next action -- the
smile he attempted as twin dots of blue and a splash of rich red
resolved themselves into Scully -- did.
 
She held a glass of water in one hand and reached out to him
with the other. "Ibuprofen," she said.
 
"Thanks," he managed, struggling to sit up.
 
"How bad?" she asked as he downed the pills and took the water
from her.
 
He moved his arms and legs and rotated his torso, first one way
and then the other, testing.
 
"I've had worse."
 
"That's not saying much," she replied, grinning.
 
"You've got a point." He set the glass on the night table beside
him, reached for her hand and pulled her onto the bed next to
him. "I fell asleep on you last night, didn't I?"
 
"Well, next to me."
 
"Sorry." He leaned forward and nuzzled her elegant nose with
his much larger and, he thought, uglier one.
 
"You're forgiven," she whispered just before his teeth nipped at
her lower lip, then worked past her chin and down her neck to
her shoulder. "Shouldn't we hit the streets?" she asked, trying to
back away.
 
"Uh-uh." Mulder pulled her back. "Bobby and Mary drank a lot
last night. They'd stay in bed all day."
 
"Lucky Bobby and Mary," Scully murmured.
 
Mulder reached for the belt of her robe and pulled. The robe fell
open, revealing that she wore nothing underneath. He leaned
forward and wrapped his lips around a hardened, red nipple.
 
Scully pulled back again, this time pushing forcefully against his
shoulders and standing up.
 
"Wait...stop," she said, panting lightly.
 
"What?"
 
"It's just ... well, I woke up thinking, and I thought maybe we
shouldn't. Not while we're here. I mean, we're on a case, and we
have that rule..."
 
"That rule doesn't apply, Scully. We're alone in this. Besides, last
night..."
 
"Last night I wasn't thinking."
 
"This morning you're thinking too much."
 
"Mulder..."
 
"No! Don't you dare, Scully. I won't let you."
 
"What? Let me what?"
 
He reached out to her where she stood by the bed next to him
and wrapped his arms around her, resting his face on her bare
stomach.
 
"I'm not going to let you punish yourself for someone else's sins.
You're not Mary Steene. I know how pretending to be her makes
you feel. But you're not her."
 
Scully stroked his hair, marveling at his ability to leap wildly to
a conclusion. A perfectly correct conclusion.
 
"God, Mulder, this is so hard," she sighed.
 
"I know. And it's going to get worse. But remember, Scully, that
I always know exactly who and what you are, no matter what
you say or do."
 
"Do you?" she asked.
 
He felt rigid tension in the muscles pressed against his face. How
could she doubt it? He forced the thought away, forced himself
to assume a lighter tone. "Now, where was I?" he murmured.
"Oh, yeah. Right here."
 
He turned his head and took her breast in his mouth again. This
time, she arched her back as he pulled at her with his lips and bit
down lightly.
 
"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, remembering his split lip.
 
"Yes," he mumbled into her flesh.
 
She put a hand on either side of his head and gently pulled him
off her nipple.
 
"Then don't do it."
 
"I don't mind."
 
A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "Let's see if we can
find something else you don't mind."
 
She pushed him down onto the bed, then slid the robe off her
shoulders. Nude, she kneeled on the bed beside him. He reached
for her, but she stopped his hand, bringing it to her face and
kissing the tender flesh at the inside of his wrist, then the palm,
then the tip of his middle finger. The kiss became a suck as she
slid her lips down to the knuckle, then back up to the tip. She
repeated the motion, her eyes locked on his. He didn't realize her
hand had been moving until he felt her warm palm brush the tip
of his erection as she pushed his boxers down.
 
"I thought you didn't want to," he said, already losing himself in
the sensation of her touch.
 
"I didn't say that," she replied, removing her mouth from his
finger. "I said maybe we shouldn't. Well, maybe we shouldn't.
But I will anyway."
 
With that, she drew his finger back into her mouth and took
another trip down it, wrapping her hand firmly around his cock
and stroking at the same time. She did it again, hand mimicking
lips, down and then up. And again.
 
Mulder gasped at the twin sensation, the movements of her hands
and lips eroticizing his finger as much as his stiff penis. He
stared into her foggy blue eyes in rapt fascination, giving himself
over to her, telling her with his eyes and his body that he was
hers to do with what she would.
 
That was one of the things he loved about sex with Scully -- the
giving over. Until the day she had first touched him in the heat of
passion, he had never experienced the fullness of his own
sexuality. Oh, he'd had sex. Lots of it. And he was pretty sure no
one had ever left his bed complaining. But he had never totally
given himself over to the experience. Surrendered to it. Because
that would have meant giving himself over to someone. And
until Scully came into his life, that had clearly been impossible.
 
But now ... now, his body, his heart and his mind were hers to do
with as she pleased. And her pleasure was most definitely
pleasing to him.
 
His thoughts floated as she shifted position, releasing his finger
from her mouth. She stripped his underwear off with a vicious
tug and straddled his thighs, lacing her fingers through his,
pinning his hands at his sides. Leaning over until the heavy
softness of her breasts rested on his legs, she kissed, then licked
the head of his cock.
 
He closed his eyes and felt her. Knew her.
 
He understood that euphemism now. To know someone.
Because that's what this was. The woman he knew opened her
mouth and slipped her wet heat around him.
 
The keen intelligence of her brilliant mind slid along the length
of him.
 
The iron band of her courage wrapped itself firmly around his
sensitive, engorged flesh.
 
The gentle tremors of her fear vibrated against his sweat-
dampened skin.
 
The blazing heat of her passion sucked at him.
 
The cool grace of her inner and outer beauty blanketed his
overwhelmed senses.
 
And the magnificent, blinding light of her love carried him over
the edge, swallowing the hot stream of his very essence as
readily as he urgently offered it to her.
 
He knew her. He would always know her. Even when she didn't
know herself.
 
___________________________
 
Standing at the door of The Five Spot, Scully took a deep breath
and let another woman's personality settle over her like a wet,
mildewed blanket, close and heavy.
 
She had convinced Mulder to let her work the place alone for an
hour or so before he showed up. He'd fought like hell at first, but
in the end, he'd known she was right. A lone woman was much
more approachable. If someone wanted to establish contact, he'd
be far less cautious about it if Mulder were absent. And besides,
after yesterday the bartender might not even let Mulder in.
 
The place was pretty empty -- it was barely 5:00 -- and she had
her choice of seats. Deciding a booth would most inviting of
strangers' confidences, she headed across the room, letting the
part she played flow through her and control the sway of her
hips, the way her eyes roved, the sultry set of her mouth.
Wearing this alternate identity, she felt acutely aware of her
body -- the way her thighs tensed with every high-heeled step;
the exact line of skin just a couple of inches below her crotch
where the hem of her skirt lay; the light tickle where the tip of
her pony tail brushed against the back of her neck; the weight of
her breasts resting inside the lacy black bra she knew was quite
visible beneath the sheer fabric of her blouse. It was as though
her mind were trapped inside someone else's body, causing it to
take a constant, detailed inventory of its unfamiliar host.
 
She slid into a corner booth and ordered a bourbon from the
waitress. For half an hour, she found herself nursing the drink in
an odd, state of combined boredom and hyperawareness.
 
She startled when a voice suddenly addressed her from behind.
 
"Hello there, gorgeous."
 
She forced her mouth into a coy smile before turning her head.
 
"Hello yourself."
 
She sized up the man who had spoken, all the while carefully
preserving a vacuous expression on her face. He was thirty or so,
white, squarely built and obviously well-muscled, his body hard
with the effects of years of manual labor.
 
She let her eyes wander over him, knowing what motives he'd
ascribe to her, willing to let him. Her pulse quickened when her
gaze fell on a large tattoo that was partially hidden by the sleeve
of his T-shirt.
 
"Mind if I sit down?" he asked.
 
"No. Go right ahead."
 
He surprised her by sliding in beside her instead of taking a seat
across the table.
 
"Buy you a drink?"
 
"Sure."
 
He signaled the waitress, who returned quickly with another
bourbon and a Southern Comfort.
 
A regular, Scully thought. She knows what he takes.
 
"I just love tattoos," she purred after downing her drink in two
gulps. "Can I see?"
 
The man reached his right hand across to lift his left sleeve to the
shoulder, flexing his biceps just inches from her face. She took a
good look at the green image of a fierce eagle. It had a small
swastika on its breast.
 
Paydirt.
 
"Weren't you in here yesterday?" he asked. She brought her eyes
up to his face as he pulled his sleeve down.
 
"Yeah."
 
"I noticed you didn't much like that guy pawing you. Was it just
him, or are you like that with all the men?"
 
Not very bright, she thought He was testing the waters, and none
too subtly.
 
"No. Only with guys like him."
 
"Like him?"
 
"Yeah. You know. I prefer white meat."
 
The man grinned broadly. "Me too," he said. "So where's your
boyfriend?"
 
Here goes, Scully thought. I'll have to play it out.
 
"I don't know. What, am I supposed to keep him on a leash?"
 
"The real question is, does he keep you on a leash?"
 
"Hell, no!"
 
"Well now, that's what I call a healthy relationship. Umm, what's
you name?"
 
"Mary."
 
"Mary." He raised his tattooed arm and brought it down along
the back of the seat behind her. "I'm Frank."
 
"Well, Frank, you gonna buy me another drink?"
 
"Anything you want." He signaled the waitress again. The drinks
showed up as fast as they had the first time.
 
"So, Mary, you new in town? I would've noticed you if you was
around."
 
"Yeah. Just got here yesterday."
 
"You don't say?"
 
"Seems like a sleepy little dump."
 
"Oh, there's plenty of action, if you know where to look." Frank
put his big, rough hand on her thigh under the table. Scully
willed herself not to flinch.
 
"Oh yeah? That's good to hear. I was afraid nothing around here
would get me very excited."
 
A predatory gleam lit Frank's eyes, and he leaned in closer to
whisper in her ear, his hand sliding up her leg so high that his
fingertips brushed the elastic of her underwear. Scully bit the
inside of her cheek to control her reaction, fighting the reflex to
jerk away and slap the bastard.
 
It was at that moment that Mulder appeared from nowhere,
standing next to the table at a vantage point from which he could
see it all. She offered up a silent prayer that their usual ability to
communicate with their eyes was up to the task at hand.
 
His message, at any rate, was clear.
 
<I'll kill him.>
 
Jesus, she thought, timing doesn't get any worse than this.
 
<You'll ruin everything.>
 
<But...>
 
<I'm fine, Mulder.>
 
Realizing Frank had finished whispering some crude sexual
remark in her ear, Scully forced herself to giggle.
 
"Well, look who's here," she said aloud. Mulder took her cue and
sat down across from them.
 
Frank looked momentarily alarmed, like a boy caught with his
hand in the cookie jar.
 
"This is one pretty lady," he said with feeble bravado.
 
Scully held her breath, afraid that their entire mission could end
right then and there.
 
<Play the game.>
 
He glanced at her, then back at the beefy man beside her. A
wide, toothy grin split his face. "Hell, she's the best damn piece
of tail in the state!" he bellowed.
 
Scully felt Frank relax beside her. Crisis averted.
 
"You don't look so good .... What's your name, anyway?"
 
"Bobby. And you're...?"
 
"Frank. You took a hell of a lickin' yesterday." Mulder just
shrugged. "I saw it all. I saw that nigger kick you when you was
dow