From: DashaK@aol.com
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:45:25 EDT
Subject: Submission- The Professional
Source: direct

On Wednesday Scully did what she often did when she needed
guidance and strength; she went to church.

There was something appealing to her about St. John's
church when it was empty of parishioners.  Tonight it was
lit only with a few of the overhead fixtures and felt cool
without the body heat of families crowded in for Sunday
mass.  The large worship space was quiet, except for the
rumble of the furnace and the occasional strain of singing
from a choir practice in the basement.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee . . ."

So comforting to sit in the pew, bow her head and repeat
the prayers that were as familiar to her as her own name,
her onyx and silver rosary beads clutched between her
fingers.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . ."

Even though she rarely did it anymore, she would never
forget the order of the Holy Rosary.

"Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit . . ."

After she'd said the entire rosary, Scully's prayers turned
more personal and free form:

Lord, give me the strength to get through this time, and
the wisdom to make the right choices.  I love him so.  I
love him in a way that is elemental.  It is almost as if
I've never had a choice in the matter-- I just love him and
I know now that I always have, since the very beginning.

We've been so happy until this.  I never thought my life
could contain such joy in learning to love another and
learning to be loved.

But now I wonder if we were living a lie.

I have to ask you a question, Lord.  Why does it always
have to be so difficult?  I know that you choose some to
walk a difficult and dangerous path and I accept that, but
is it so wrong for me to want a small piece of contentment
and security?  Must I always be tested so?

Please help me to forgive.

She blinked away tears and bit her lip, coming out of the
depth of prayer to the reality of the vacant and dusty
church.  The light touch of a hand on her shoulder made her
start and she turned her head to see Father McCue.

The priest was out of clerical garb and it was strange for
her to see him casually dressed in a pair of khakis and a
Loyola University sweatshirt.  "Dana," he said with a
smile.  "Please forgive me for interrupting you in a
private moment."

"It's okay," she said.  "I was just leaving."

"You look as if you could use some company.  I was just
about to have a cup of coffee.  Would you like to join me?"

Scully shook her head.  "I should go," she said, gathering
up her coat and purse.

The elderly priest tilted his head.  "Sometimes it helps to
talk to someone."

She considered his words.  Truth be told, she had few
friends with whom she felt comfortable sharing her dilemma.  
She might have told Ellen, but she and her husband were on
vacation in England.  And her mother, who already harbored
enough reservations about Mulder, was out of the question.

Scully rose from the pew.  "A cup of coffee
sounds wonderful."

They went to the Rectory kitchen, a pleasant room with pale
yellow walls and a large wood table.  Father McCue fussed
around making coffee and putting chocolate-chip cookies on
a plate, all the while giving her little tidbits of parish
news.

The coffee made, the priest sat down with her and handed
her a steaming mug and a cookie.  "It was nice to see you
at last Sunday's mass, Dana."

"I'm sorry I don't get out here very often," she said,
enjoying the warmth of the mug between her hands.  "I'm
often out of town on a case on the weekends, and sometimes
I attend mass at the church around the corner from me."

"I wasn't trying to give you a dose of Catholic guilt,"
Father McCue chuckled.

Scully smiled in chagrin at her defensiveness.

"You seem to be troubled, Dana," he said.  "I'd like to
think that I've known you long enough to be able to tell."

She nodded, staring down at her hands on the table.  "I am
troubled," she whispered.  "I'm angry and sad and confused
all at once and I don't know what to do."

"Why don't you start by telling me about it?"

Where to begin, she thought.  How do I explain this to a
priest?

She stalled by taking a long swallow of the strong coffee.  
"I'm struggling with forgiveness," she said.

"Forgiving yourself or another?" the priest said.

"Both," she said.  "But mostly another person.  Someone I
love very much did something in the past that I find to be
morally wrong and I'm having a difficult time forgiving
him.  And I'm so angry with him that I've been behaving
horribly, which has been making me feel guilty."

"Forgiveness is never easy, my child," Father McCue said.

That was the understatement of the year, she thought,
stifling a bitter laugh.  "I want to forgive him, though,"
Scully said.

"What will happen if you aren't able to forgive?"

She shut her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine her
life without Mulder.  The images just wouldn't come.  She
shook her head.  "I don't know.  I guess everything ends."

"Have you stopped to consider that you are human and it may
take some time?  That the anger is natural and a step to be
gotten through on the road to understanding and
forgiveness?"

"I just want this to be over; I want things to go back to
the way they were before."  She knew it was a childish
wish, but Scully wished it all the same.

Father McCue's blue eyes were full of compassion.  "That's
not possible, Dana.  I think the fact that you're upset
about your difficulty in letting go of the negative
emotions speaks of your willingness to try to forgive."

She nodded.

"Let me ask you this," he said.  "Do you truly love this
man?"

"Yes, I do."

"Is he remorseful about his past actions?"

"He is," she said in a half-sigh.

"Has he asked for your forgiveness?"

"He has."  In fact, he'd begged her again and again to
forgive him.  Scully could still hear the anguish in
Mulder's voice.

"Dana, do you think that what he did in the past is
something he would do again?"

She shook her head.  

The priest's voice was gentle, far different than the voice
he used to give his stirring Sunday homilies.  "Dana, I
can't tell you what to do.  All I can do is help you sort
out your feelings and your priorities."

"What if I'm never able to forgive?" she said, feeling her
lower lip begin to quiver like a child's.

"I know you, Dana, and I know you have a generous heart.
What you have to decide is whether or not you want to move
on from this moment and work with this man to salvage what
you have together that's good."

"I do," she said, nodding.  "I want the rage and the
recrimination to stop.  I want to be able to stop punishing
him for what he's done."

Oh, I want laughter, and breakfasts, and bad movies, and
sharing our fears and walking together on the Cozumel beach
again, she thought.  I want to understand why he felt he
had to be with the prostitute, and then I want be able to
kiss him and not think of the two of them together.  

"Never would I tell anyone to stay in a relationship if it
causes unbearable pain and suffering."  He gave her a wry
little grin.  "Don't tell the Pope I said that.  When I do
marriage counseling, I always strive to have the end result
be the couple together in a happy, healthy relationship,
but there are undeniable reasons for two people to part."  
He paused for a sip of coffee.  "I haven't asked you what
he's done, because I want to respect your privacy, but you
need to ask yourself, is it so bad that I would advise you to
leave him?"

She shook her head.  "No."

He patted her hand.  "Dana, you are a strong woman and I
have faith that you can find the strength to forgive him.  
Just remember that true forgiveness is the greatest gift
one person can give another."

"I'm going to try," she said, and felt a sudden rush of
optimism that she could do it.  "I love him enough to try
with everything I have."

"We are all imperfect beings," Father McCue added.  "Don't
ever forget that.  He isn't perfect and he made a mistake.  
You aren't a saint and you're feeling angry and having
trouble forgiving.  But you are both God's creatures and no
matter what happens, He will love you."

"That's comforting to hear," she said, smiling for the
first time in days.

The priest leaned closer.  "Would you like me to pray with
you for guidance?"

She remembered lying in her hospital bed, wasted with her
illness, praying the rosary with Father McCue. She'd come
so precariously close to losing her faith then, and he'd
helped pull her back to the shore of belief.  In a way,
she'd witnessed several miracles during those dark days--
the resurrection of her health, her faith and Mulder.

Who was to say there couldn't be another, smaller miracle?

"Yes, I'd like to pray," she said.

They bowed their heads and began.

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

With an odd new feeling of lightness, Scully left the
rectory.

She paused to light a candle at the side of the nave.  Two
months ago, on a freezing cold morning, still in pain from
her gunshot wound, she'd lit a candle for Mulder and
herself.  That same morning they'd kissed for the first
time in her kitchen.

As she gazed at the strong flame burning in the little
glass holder, she remembered the lovely sweetness of that
first kiss and the awareness that had shot into her as his
lips touched hers and her mouth opened to him.  I love him,
she'd thought, finally sure of her feelings.  I love him.

And I still do, she mused, toying with the taper in her
fingers.  Nothing has changed.

Scully took a deep breath and looked at the candle one last
time.

For here on in, I'm going to try to let go, she told
herself.  Let go of the anger, let go of the sorrow,
release it and try to love the things about Mulder that are
good and strong.

I love him, she silently said to the candle.  

She walked out into the chilly, starry night and took a
deep breath of the fresh air.

An hour later she was home, after a quick stop at Barnes
and Noble to treat herself with the new Margaret Atwood
novel and several thick and glossy fashion magazines.  She
planned to fill up the tub and read until sleep took her
over.

Mulder was sitting on her front steps when she pulled up at
her building.  He was bundled in his wool winter coat and
looked like a lost waif abandoned at her stoop.

"Hi," he said, lifting mournful eyes to her.

"Hi yourself," she said, taking care to smile for his
benefit.

He stood up.  "I wanted to see you, but maybe it wasn't
such a smart idea."  Mulder ducked his head slightly, as if
avoiding a blow.  "I'd better go home."

Scully reached out her arm to him and grasped him at the
elbow.  "No, don't go home.  Come inside."

A shy smile spread on his face.

Once inside, Mulder sat stiffly on her couch, as if he'd
never been over before, as if he hadn't spent countless
evenings with her on that couch in the past few months.  
She sat next to him.

"Mulder," she said, her voice wavering, "I need to
apologize to you."

He pointed to himself.  "To me?  You're not the one who
needs to make apologies."

"No, I am, Mulder.  I've been trying to punish you the past
few days because I've been so angry.  I told you last
Sunday that I was willing to try to work it out, and then I
turned my back on you and shut you out.  It wasn't fair of
me."

"You were just doing the best you could, Scully."  He
sighed.

Scully leaned into him a little and he put his arm around
her.  She was surprised at how good it did feel to be
touched by him again.  "This has been hard for the both of
us, Mulder, but I'm determined to truly make the effort."

"I just feel bad that it's you that has to make the effort
when I was the one who fucked up."

She nodded and touched the rough grain of his evening
stubble.  "It's not fair, but nothing ever is."

He suddenly stood and she wondered what she'd said or done
to make him react like that.  "What are you doing?" she
asked.

"I brought you something," he said, and reached into his
coat pocket, drawing out a flat object wrapped in dark
green paper and tied with silver cord.

She felt her eyebrow rise.  "A present?"

He sat back down and handed her the surprisingly heavy
object.  "I'm not naive enough to think that I give you a
present and boom, everything is all right again.  I just
saw this and thought of you."

Her lips curled in a smile and she began to carefully untie
the cord and remove the paper.

The breath left her lungs as she saw a photograph in an
antique silver frame.

It was Mulder and her on the beach in Cozumel.  She was
wearing one of the bikinis he'd bought for her, the navy
blue one, and he was in black trunks.  They were sharing a
single chaise lounge, their legs entwined, the both of them
holding margarita glasses and smiling the carefree, drunken
grins of mid-vacation.  They looked like they'd just had
sex, they looked like they smelled of salt and sand and
coconut oil.  God, they looked happy.

"I took this one out of my pictures when they came back
from the store," Mulder said, tracing their images with his
index finger.  "I took it to be enlarged and then I went
searching for a frame.  I wanted to surprise you."

"You did," she said, sniffing away sudden tears.  "It's
beautiful."

He leaned closer to her and she could smell his warm,
masculine scent.  "It's us," he whispered.

"It is," she said, nodding and she reached for his hand,
their fingers lacing together.

He turned to her.  "I'm so afraid of losing you over this,
Scully.  Whatever I can do to make it right again, I'll do
it.  I'll do anything."

I know you will, she thought, and again fought to keep the
tears in check.  She leaned over and softly kissed him on
the cheek.  "I'm feeling a different emotion every hour,"
she said in a quiet voice.  "All I ask is that you allow me
to have those feelings."

He kissed her lightly on the lips and stood.  "Well, I
should shove off.  I just wanted to give you the picture."

Scully rose and touched his shoulder, taking a steadying
breath.  "Mulder, stay with me tonight."

A genuine smile, unguarded and surprised, spread across his
face.  "Are you sure?  Maybe you need some time alone."

"I think too much time alone is what often gets us into
trouble."

"I just don't want us to rush things."

She laughed a little.  "I'm not promising you a night of
hot passion, but I'd like to sleep with you tonight."

While brushing her teeth and changing into her pajamas, she
thought about the time when she had been missing.  She and
Mulder had never really discussed what those months had
been like for him.  She wasn't admitting that his
experiences with Amy were right, but she acknowledged that
she was at least trying to put it all into proper context.

Mulder was already in bed, stripped to boxers and a Rolling
Stones concert t-shirt he kept in his designated drawer.  
He took off his glasses and turned back the comforter in
invitation.  "Mmmm, flannel PJs, Scully.  I never would
have found that look sexy before you."

For better or for worse, she thought and climbed in beside
him.

He switched off the lamp and rolled onto his side.  "I'm
glad you asked me to stay," he whispered.

It took her a moment to find her words.  "We've come so far
in the last months, Mulder.  As much as I've entertained
the idea, I can't just walk away."

"You're a far more forgiving person than I am.  If the
situation were reversed . . ."

The face of a dark-haired man, sitting next to her in the
booth of a bar, appeared behind her closed eyelids.  "Well,
there was Ed Jerse--"

A look of hurt crossed his face, but he said,  "That was
very different.  You didn't pay him, for one thing."

"No, but I used him for sex, all the same."  She sighed.

"Loneliness will do some pretty powerful things to a
person."

Scully moved in closer, so their bodies were touching.  She
could feel his body heat through the thin cotton of his
nightclothes.  "Mulder, I want you to tell me what it was
like when I was gone."

She heard the breath catch in his throat.  "I can't-- I
can't put it into words," he stammered.  "It was dark, like
being sucked into a whirlpool of unending guilt and
remorse.  I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.  And when I did
sleep, I had constant nightmares about you: about the pain
and torture you were experiencing, about finding you dead,
about never finding you at all."

A single tear began to trickle down her cheek.

He continued, "Being with Amy wasn't just about the sex and
the release.  It was a twisted way to pretend, for a few
minutes, that I hadn't fucked up and lost you.  She looked
so much like you, Scully; she even smelled like you."

She raised her head off the pillow a little.  "She smelled
like me?"

There was silence for a long moment.  "I don't want to tell
you this, Scully, because you're not going to like it.  But
I also know that you want me to be honest with you."

Her stomach lurched.  "Tell me," Scully whispered, and
braced herself for more ugly revelations.

"After I saw Amy the first time, I found myself at the
perfume counter at Nordstrom's, sampling all the perfumes
until I found the one that smelled like you.  It was like I
was sleepwalking, watching myself buying the bottle of
Paris and then going to the jewelry department, where--"
she heard him inhale, "--where I found a gold cross and
chain that was almost exactly like yours.  And from then
on, I had Amy wear the perfume and cross whenever I saw
her."

Scully fought the oncoming sobs building in her chest, but
it was a futile effort.  It came out in ragged waves, her
wet face pressed against his t-shirt.

He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her like a little
girl needing comfort after a skinned knee as she gave
herself into her sorrow.  She wasn't sure, but she thought
she heard him crying, too.

Finally, the storm subsided and she pulled away, sniffling
and wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her pajamas.  Mulder
climbed out of bed and returned with some tissues from the
bathroom and a glass of water.  She wiped her face, blew
her nose and gulped down most of the cold water.

Mulder reached for her hand.  "I'm sorry, Scully, that was
unforgivable."

"No," she said, shaking her head.  "I'm not crying because
I'm angry with you.  I'm crying because it's so damn sad."

It was terribly sad, the thought of Mulder so desperate to
have her back he'd tried to re-create her in another woman.  
It ripped at her heart and made her realize how selfish
she'd been not to fully consider how her abduction had
affected him.

He lay back down and gathered her in his arms again.  "I
wish I could go back in time and do it differently this
time."

"You can't," Scully whispered.  "The only thing we can
really do is to choose how we deal with it from now on."

She brought her hand to the back of his neck and kissed
him, taking time to explore the contours of his lips and
mouth with her tongue.

It was possible she might never fully understand Mulder, or
comprehend his need to pay a woman for sex, but she was
beginning to remember that, yes, he was a good man who had
never intended to hurt her.

Mulder groaned and began to clumsily unbutton her pajama
top as they continued to kiss as if afraid ever to part.  
She felt him hardening against her and she reached down to
tug off her panties and bottoms.

He moved down the bed a bit to take a nipple between his
lips and suck.  With her hands she got him to lift off the
bed and she pulled his boxers off.

She felt him smile against her breast and she nearly
whimpered with her need to be connected with him as his
hand moved down between her legs, where she was rapidly
becoming slick with her arousal.

Throwing her head back, she heard herself plead, "Please,
Mulder . . ."

Oh God, were they really going to do this?

Was she ready?

She was, she was.

He lifted her leg over his hip and with one fluid thrust he
was inside her, huge and hard.  They began to rock together
as if in a slow-motion sequence of an erotic video.  Her
hand reached over to grab his behind and bring him deeper
into her.  He couldn't go deep enough to satisfy her, she
hazily thought as she ground her pelvis and clit into his
body.

"Oh," he breathed.  "I don't want this to end."

She nodded and clamped her eyes shut as she began to go off
in a series of agonizingly slow, gentle waves of pleasure
with each languid stroke of his cock into her.

As she came back to reality, he rolled her over and brought
her legs high up on his back and the lazy pace ended for
good as he rode her hard, gasping with each thrust.

Mulder buried his head in her shoulder and gave a harsh cry
as he drove into her for the final, shuddering time and
collapsed on her.  Once he stopped panting, he kissed her
with tender reverence and brushed the damp hair off her
forehead.

She couldn't help but smile, and in the faint light she
could see him smiling, too.  They lay wrapped together in
contented silence for a few minutes and then he stumbled
off to the bathroom and returned with a damp washcloth for
her clean herself up.

Finally they moved together under the covers to meet like
two sticky spoons in the dishwasher.  Sleep began to pull
at Scully as the pleasure slowly faded from her body.

"Hey," he whispered, trailing his hand against her cheek.  
"I love you, you know."

She smiled and nodded.  "I love you, too."

And for the moment, all was right with the world.  Perhaps
it was simply a momentary thing, but she was going to have
to take those brief moments and savor them.

For the first time in days, they slept.

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

Amy stepped off the plane warily, scanning the crowd at the
gate, wondering if her stalker was walking unseen, watching
her.  Her intense expression changed to a broad smile,
however, when she heard a rich southern voice practically
yodel, "Damn, if it isn't little Amy Callahan!"

If there was anyone guaranteed to lift her spirits, it was
Lisa.  Six feet tall, with a mane of bright blonde hair
only girls from Texas were able to grow, Lisa stood out in
direct opposition to Amy, who tried her best to blend into
the crowd.  While she had to attempt to look conservative
for hotel work, when she was on her own time, Lisa was
flamboyant in the extreme.  Amy appraised Lisa's latest
fashion concept-- violently sharp Manolo stilettos and a
clinging white slip dress that showed off her artificial
tan.  A golden-red fox fur coat was flung over her
shoulders, a look that seemed to be capturing the undivided
attention of several pilots standing at the check-in desk.

Amy threw her arms around Lisa.  "You look like a whore,"
she said as she hugged Lisa.

"Listen, bitch, if it walks like a duck," Lisa snorted.  
"You look like a banker, Miss Uptight."  With cool blue
eyes, she appraised Amy's dark green shift dress and
matching cardigan sweater. "Let's get out of here."

On the way to the party, careening down the highway in
Lisa's BMW convertible, they blasted the stereo as loud as
it would go, the two of them singing along with Madonna.

"Living in a material world, `cause I am a material girl .
. ."

"Story of my life," Lisa said and they laughed.

The party was in a private room at an Italian restaurant
called Fortissimo, a place so hip Amy herself couldn't get
reservations.  Sixteen of the Tiger Lilies girls showed up,
mostly the long-term employees.  Girls came and went from
the agency.  Some couldn't take the regulations and left
for less-restrictive agencies.  Quite a few were college
girls with big loans or debts who quit as soon as they were
more financially stable.

We're the professional professionals, Amy thought, as she
drank a vodka martini and made small talk with her
colleagues.  She made a point of having friends from all
walks of life, but there was something reassuring about
spending an evening in the company of her fellow working
women.  The conversation was more stimulating when she was
with Michael's friends, who were artists, writers and other
creative types, but these women truly understood the
contradictions of her life.

She was midway through her second glass of Valpollicella
and the roast lamb when something occurred to her.  She
interrupted Lucy and Lisa, who were debating the merits of
Michael Kors versus Todd Oldham.  "Hey guys, where's
Vanessa? "

Lucy shrugged her thin shoulders.  "She said she was coming
tonight, but you know Vanessa . . ."

Unfortunately, Amy did know Vanessa.  Vanessa had been the
one who'd provided her introduction to the agency in the
first place and remained her oldest call girl friend.  
Twice that year Vanessa had been suspended from the agency
for flunking random drug tests.  She'd spent some time
cleaning up in the prairies of Minnesota at Hazelden, and
seemed to be doing better.  Now, as she finished her last
bite, Amy devoutly hoped her friend hadn't relapsed.

Joanne stood and tapped her wineglass.  "I want to propose
a toast to Deborah.  She's off to LA for a whole new world.  
Who would think that professional life would be the
ultimate springboard to writing for the new Adam Sandler
sitcom?"

The assembled women laughed and toasted Deborah, who
serenely grinned and sipped her wine.

Around 3 am, Amy and Lisa wound up at Lisa's apartment,
stumbling on their heels and laughing at how disheveled the
convertible had made their hair.  

"It's good to see you havin' some fun," Lisa said, removing
her shoes.  "You're always so serious."

"That's how I am, Lisa," she said.  "I've always been a
serious, directed kind of person."  She giggled at how hard
it was to get the words out when she was drunk on good
wine.

"Well, don't you worry about any stalker.  Security is good
in this building and I got a big-ass gun and I'm not afraid
to use it.  I was the Holton County Fair Girl's Shooting
Champion when I was eleven."

Amy flopped onto the purple velvet couch and laughed until
her stomach hurt and the mascara ran down her cheeks.  She
realized it had been months since she'd felt so free and
relaxed.

The next morning, the two women cured their hangovers with
orange juice and strong coffee and headed off to Amy's
apartment, so she could pick up her laptop computer and
some more clothes for her stay in New York.

As they headed up the stairs, Amy's heart started rapidly
beating.  She stopped at the landing, suddenly overcome by
a wave of dizziness.

"You okay, honey?" Lisa asked, resting her hand on Amy's
arm.

Amy nodded and gulped.  There was a tingling in her hands,
a sensation she only got when something terrible was about
to happen.  "I have a bad feeling," she whispered.

"You've been going through some rough stuff," Lisa said.  
"Of course you're going to have a bad feeling about going
home."

In her purse, Amy looked for her gun and realized it was
still in her apartment, since she'd flown to New York and
back, and couldn't bring it along.  It wasn't a reassuring
thought.

She unlocked the door and they both warily stepped inside.  
The living room was untouched from the day Jess was killed;
the cup of tea she'd been drinking was still resting on the
coffee table.  Amy breathed a sigh of relief and headed off
to the bedroom, shaking her head at how over-dramatic she
was being.

"Hey Lisa," she called out, "Can you go in the hall closet
and --"

Her words abruptly stopped as she stepped over the
threshold of the bedroom.

She couldn't make another sound as she stood, paralyzed, in
the doorway.  In her bed was Vanessa, nude, with her arms
splayed out at each side of her body.  Her head was tipped
back to display the long slash that ran from ear to ear.

Vanessa's blue eyes were large and open, appearing to stare
right at her.

No, she couldn't possibly make another sound.

Neither could Vanessa.

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

Scully shivered as she ran from where she'd parked her car
up the block to Mulder's apartment.  In her arms was a
paper bag full of the ingredients for making lasagna, and
several bottles of wine.  They'd parted company an hour
before at the office and she'd decided, on the way home, to
surprise him.

These days, the pretense of knocking was over.  She fished
out her key and unlocked the door, expecting to see him on
the couch, watching the news as he normally did after work.  
Instead, the living room was empty.  Curious.

She dropped the bags on the kitchen table and headed for
the bedroom.  The door was shut, but she pushed it open.

The breath caught in her throat.  Mulder was in bed, but he
wasn't taking an early-evening nap.  He was lying on his
back, his face a contorted mask of ecstasy as a woman
crouched between his spread legs, her head bobbing up and
down.

The woman had red hair.

She wanted to scream, to turn on her heel and march out of
the bedroom, but she was paralyzed, watching Mulder as he
shut his eyes and groaned as he came into the mouth of the
redhead.

Mulder looked up and noticed her standing there.  Instead
of looking alarmed or ashamed, he merely started laughing,
as if her presence were the most amusing thing he'd ever
seen.

The woman lifted her head and brushed her hair out of her
blue eyes, licking a droplet of come off her lower lip with
her tongue.  She, too, started laughing.

And then Scully knew she was dreaming, because the woman in
bed with Mulder was herself.

She sat up and found herself in her own bedroom, alone.  

Oh wonderful, she thought, now this whole Amy situation is
invading my dream life, too.

Stretching, she glanced at the clock and realized it was
about time to get up and start getting ready for work.  It
was drizzling a little outside and she just wished she
could spend the day languishing in bed, drinking tea and
reading a good, cozy novel.

The ringing of the phone made her jump a little.

"Hello?" she mumbled into the receiver.

It was Mulder's scratchy voice that greeted her.  "Morning,
sunshine, up and at `em."

"Since when do I get wake up calls?" she grumbled.

"Well, usually I just get to nudge you . . ."  He had spent
the night at his apartment, at her request.  While she was
certainly coming to accept the Amy situation, she'd needed
to spend the evening in her own company.

"I had the oddest dream," she said.

"Oh yeah?  Was I in it and if so, was I naked?"

Scully decided to let that comment pass without further
comment.  "Is there something going on?" she asked.

His voice immediately turned professional.  "Yeah, get
dressed and meet me at Amy's apartment.  She came home this
morning to find a body in her bed."

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

The drizzle had turned to a full-scale downpour by the time
he reached Amy's building.  Scully's car was pulling up
just as he parked.  The many police cars and the waiting
ambulance were a testament to the gravity of the situation
inside the small brownstone building.

He fumbled for his umbrella and caught up with Scully just
as she was about to head inside.

"Do you know who the body is?" she asked without preamble.

Trying to be a gentleman, he opened the door for her.  "Amy
was pretty incoherent on the phone, but it sounds like it's
a friend of hers."

"Oh God," she said as they began to climb the staircase.  
"He's escalating."

Exactly, Mulder thought.  The phone calls and the following
weren't enough anymore to satisfy this man's impulses, nor
was killing Amy's pet.  He needed to kill real live women
now, and Amy was most likely next.

At the top of the stairs was a uniformed police officer.  
"You can't go in there, folks, it's a crime scene."

Mulder flashed his badge.  "We're with the FBI."

The cop nodded his head.  "Doesn't matter, the forensic
team and the photographer are working in there."

Scully spoke up.  "Who is the detective in charge?"

"Watters is on this case.  He's next door, questioning the
woman who found the body."  The officer jerked his thumb
towards the second door on the landing.

They walked through the door and found a few uniformed
officers talking in low voices, and Amy sitting on the
couch, hunched over as if in great pain.  Even from the
doorway Mulder could see how white her face was, and how
haunted her eyes looked.

There were two men with Amy.  The one sitting in the green
chair opposite the couch was obviously the homicide
detective, given the wash and wear suit which made him an
unlikely candidate to occupy such expensive real estate.  
The other man sat next to Amy on the couch, his arm around
her.  He was in his fifties, a well-built man in khakis and
pink button-down shirt, with thick silver hair.

One of the officers walked up to them.  "Can we help you
with something?"

This time, Scully flashed her badge.  It was funny how
they'd developed an unspoken rhythm over the years about
that sort of thing.  "Agents Scully and Mulder, FBI," she
said.

"Who called the feds in on this?"

"We're actually friends of Ms. Callahan," Mulder said.  
"Can we talk to Detective Watters?"

Amy looked up at the sound of Mulder's voice, but the drawn
expression on her face didn't alter.

The detective rose, tugging at his trousers as he stood.  
"You need something, folks?"

Mulder flashed his badge, beginning to be sick of the
exercise.  "What's going on here?"

"It seems Miss Callahan came home this morning to find her
friend, Vanessa Maitland, dead in her bed.  Throat slit and
she appears to have been sexually assaulted, although we'll
have to hear more on that one from the M.E.," the detective
said in a voice that betrayed his southern origins.

"Any idea on time of death?" Scully asked.

"Nope.  I'd say, just by eyeballing it, sometime last
night, but again, we'll need to get that from the autopsy.  
Is this part of an active case for you guys?"

"No," Mulder shook his head.  "Ms. Callahan is a friend of
ours, and asked for some help when she began to get
disturbing phone calls."

"Yeah, that's what she said.  And that he killed her dog.  
Sounds like we got ourselves a possible serial fella," said
the detective, giving his pants another hitch over his
belly.

"Can we talk to her?" Scully asked in a soft voice.

"We're about done with her for now, but I want her to come
down this afternoon for a more comprehensive interview.  
She had a friend with her," Detective Watters looked down
at his notepad, "named Lisa Horton.  We already sent her
home."

"We'd just like to ask Ms. Callahan a few questions."

Watters indicated with a tilt of his head that they were
welcome to have a crack at interviewing Amy.

They walked over to the sofa where Amy and the silver-
haired man were sitting.  Mulder dropped down into a squat,
to look Amy in the eye.

"Amy?" he said softly.

The older man's arm tightened around Amy's shoulders.  "I'm
Ms. Callahan's lawyer," he said.  "How much longer are you
people going to question her?"

She glanced over her at him, and smiled faintly.  "It's
okay, Richard.  He's a friend of mine."

"I'm not another police detective," Mulder explained.  "I'm
with the FBI, here unofficially because Amy asked for my
help.  My name is Mulder, and this is my partner, Agent
Scully."

The man's wary posture relaxed.  "Richard Haskell," he
said, reaching out to shake Mulder's hand without getting
up.  "I'm Amy's next door neighbor."

"I told you about Richard, remember?" said Amy, looking up
at Mulder.  "He and his wife keep my extra key for me."  
She turned and smiled fleetingly at the older man.  "You
don't have to tell everyone you're my lawyer, Richard.  
That's very sweet of you."

Haskell actually blushed.  Interesting, Mulder thought.  
He'd never seen a lawyer blush before.  For an older,
married man whom Amy trusted completely, Richard Haskell
seemed awfully susceptible to Amy's smiles.  

"You live here next door, Mr. Haskell?" Mulder asked,
straightening.  "Did you see or hear anything unusual?"

Haskell shook his head.  "The police cars were the first
indication I had that anything was wrong.  As soon as I saw
them I thought of Amy, and checked to make sure she was
safe."

"Did your wife hear anything?" Scully asked.

"No, she's been in Seattle for the past week, visiting her
sister," said Haskell.

Beside him, fresh tears slid down Amy's face.  "I can't
believe how horrible this is.  I keep thinking it's a
nightmare, and I'm going to wake up, but I don't."

"I thought you were in New York, Amy," Mulder said.  "You
told us you were going to stay with your boyfriend for a
while."

"I know," she said, wiping at her tears, "but I came back
for a friend's retirement party."

"You should have let us know," Mulder said.  "We could have
put a tail on Marchand.  If we'd had him under surveillance
this might never have happened."

"This isn't my fault!" Amy said, shifting her head so she
was looking at her shoes.  "I never knew he would hurt
someone else.  I'm the one he's been sending the pictures
to.  I'm the one he's been calling.  Vanessa was my friend.  
Do you think I wanted this to happen?"

"You can't blame her for this," said Haskell, with more
than a hint of anger.

"Of course not.  I didn't mean that," said Mulder quickly.  
"I just meant that it's dangerous here, and we could have
taken precautions -- "

"I took precautions!" Amy cried.  "I stayed with a friend
last night, and I haven't been alone for a second since I
got back into town.  How was I supposed to know he would go
after Vanessa?"

"Would Marchand have known that Vanessa was a friend of
yours?" Scully asked behind Mulder.

Amy shook her head.  "I don't know.  Maybe.  I only met him
the one time, but if he's been stalking me . . .and she did
work for Tiger Lilies."  She swept tears from her eyes.  
"Vanessa is the person who introduced me to the agency, in
fact."

"Did Vanessa have any reason to visit your apartment last
night?" Mulder asked.

Again Amy shook her head.  "No.  She didn't have a key
anyway.  She couldn't have gotten in on her own."

"Okay, Amy," Mulder said, his voice low and sympathetic.  
"Scully and I are going to have a look around for a little
while.  If you think of anything else that seems important,
let us know."

He walked out toward the landing, Scully falling into step
beside him.  "We have a problem, Scully," he said to her
once they were out of Amy's hearing.  "If Vanessa didn't go
to Amy's apartment on her own, the killer must have brought
her here.  He could have picked a more opportunistic target
-- a neighbor, a passer-by.  Instead he targeted Vanessa."

Scully nodded.  "Another prostitute."

"Exactly.  And that changes the profile drastically.  This
isn't just some sociopath who is getting a thrill from
trying to scare Amy.  Instead he sees himself as a
missionary, a crusader.  He wants to eliminate 'immoral'
elements in his world.  In his eyes, that includes women
like Amy and Vanessa."

"What about the phone calls?  Those didn't sound angry to
you?"

Mulder frowned.  "They don't really fit, do they?" he
admitted.  "But that was before he escalated to killing
Amy's dog, and now to taking a human life.  Maybe it was an
effort to get our attention somehow, to publicize his
crusade."  He shook his head.  Even he was not entirely
satisfied with his explanation.

"What did you think of Haskell?" Scully asked.  "Did he
seem especially friendly to you?"

Mulder glanced at her.  "You noticed that too, huh?  And in
some respects he fits the rest of the profile.  This is
someone who appears normal on the outside, who doesn't
exhibit any obvious psychosis, but who is inwardly driven
by a hunger for justice.  He'll be Caucasian, and have
above average intelligence.  Only the age doesn't fit.  He
should be someone younger, twenty-five to forty I would
say."

"That doesn't fit Marchand, either."

Mulder shrugged.  "Profiles are rarely perfect.  I'm good,
but even I would never make that claim."

"You're modest, too," said Scully, deadpan.

The door to Amy's unit opened, and a forensic photographer
came out, slinging his camera over his shoulder.  "How long
until the rest of the investigative team can view the
scene?" Scully asked him.

"We're just finishing up," the photographer said.  "If you
move fast, you should be able to have a look before the
coroner takes the body."

They signed the crime scene log, and went into Amy's
apartment.  Nothing appeared grossly disturbed, Mulder
noted as they moved carefully toward Amy's bedroom.  From
the sleek modern furniture to the bright paintings on the
walls, everything looked not only normal, but also
inviting.

That was, until they walked into the bedroom.  Then there
was no way of avoiding the cold, vacant stare of Vanessa
Maitland's dead eyes, or the purposely lewd way in which
her blood-spattered body had been posed.  Mulder felt his
stomach tighten.  He'd seen victims hundreds of times, and
yet the first glimpse of a dead body was always disturbing.

He shut those feelings off, and clicked resolutely into
profiling mode.  He noted the way the body was positioned -
- nude, centered on the bed, arms and legs spread wide, the
murder wound prominently displayed.  Whoever had killed
Vanessa Maitland, he thought, had obviously intended the
discovery of her body to make the maximum possible impact.

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

Scully stood on the other side of the bed from Mulder and
looked at the body of Vanessa Maitland.  It seemed such an
obscene and humiliating way to die, spread nude and bloody
in front of a room full of strangers, people who knew
nothing about what kind of person Vanessa had been: what
she'd wanted to be when she grew up, what she'd dreamed of
when she closed her eyes, what she had been thinking as the
killer began to cut her throat.

She shivered.  She was fairly inured to death, given her
profession, but there were times when it could get to even
her.

She bent more closely and examined the slash on Vanessa's
neck. The wound was clean, not jagged, which indicated to
her that the same kind of blade which had been used on
Amy's dog had also killed Vanessa.

Her eyes flicked over to Mulder and she saw he was deep
inside his head, trying to put the pieces together into
some kind of coherent pattern.  It was always fascinating
to watch Mulder in profiling mode, the way his breathing
became more even, as if he were sleeping, and his eyes
slowly tracked back and forth over the still body of
Vanessa.

With a sigh, she stepped out of the bedroom and back into
the living room.  There wasn't much she could tell from the
condition of the body without an autopsy.

A masculine voice made her lift her head.  "Dana Scully, as
I live and breathe."

She smiled to see John McMillan, the coroner who was
obviously handling the Vanessa Maitland case.  She'd been
part of a panel discussion with him at a forensics
conference a year or so before, and had since run into him
a time or two at various crime scenes around the city.  He
was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with sandy brown hair and
a perpetually bemused expression behind wire-rimmed
glasses.

"Hello John," she said.  She made to offer her hand for a
shake but realized he was still wearing gloves.

"So why are you guys interested in this one?"

"My partner and I are here unofficially.  Amy Callahan
asked for some help with a stalker a week or so ago."

John made a thoughtful noise.  "Any thoughts you want to
share with me?"

She shrugged.  "Not much from my end, I'm afraid.  Her dog
was killed last weekend.  I examined the body and it
appeared to have been done with a straight razor."

"That's what Maitland's wound looks like.  She has a few
defensive wounds, too.  A few of her fingernails are
broken.  I can't help but think that somewhere out there,
there's a guy with a few scratches on him."

"There's a pleasant thought," Scully said.  "When are you
doing the autopsy?"

"This afternoon.  Why, you want in, Dana?"  He leaned
closer to her, so close she caught a faint whiff of his
cologne.  Oh God, was John trying to pick her up at a crime
scene?  Strangely enough, the idea didn't bother her all
that much.  He was good-looking, smart and they certainly
had things in common.  In fact, he was the kind of man her
mother made novenas to various saints for.

"I don't think it's necessary.  It's a city case, not
federal.  And I trust your skills.  But how about giving me
a call when you're done, with the interesting details?"

A smile spread on his face.  "I can do that.  Just one
little thing . . ."

"What's that?" she asked, feeling her heart rate pick up a
little.  He *was* going to ask her out.  

"If you'll meet me for a drink, it's a done deal."  His
smile got wider.

Okay, let the poor man down easy, she thought.  As
attractive as he was, she really wasn't torn for more than
half a second.  

"That's a sweet thought," Scully said, forcing herself to
smile.  "but I don't think it's possible."

He stepped back.  "Oh, I see.  Is that a nice, roundabout
way of saying you're taken?"

She nodded.  "Yes, I suppose it is."

"I can deal with that, as long as it's not my personality
or my breath.  And I'm such a nice guy, I'll call you
anyhow."

Thanking him, Scully handed him one of her cards and walked
out of the apartment.  She never liked having to reject
someone, especially a man as nice as John.  A few years
before, she might have taken him up on his offer, but
everything was different now.  There was Mulder.

Inside the Haskell's apartment, Detective Watters was
yammering away on his cell phone, while Amy remained
huddled on the couch.  Richard Haskell was nowhere in
sight.

Scully sat next to Amy and forced her voice to be gentle.  
"You okay?"

Amy shook her head.

"Did you tell the detective about the phone calls and
Marchand?"

Another nod from the other woman.

"Good, that's good."

"I had to tell him . . . what I do . . ." Amy said in a
near-whisper.

"He's not going to arrest you for that."

"I know."  Amy sighed a little and Scully wondered what it
would be like to be ashamed to tell people what she did for
a living.  

Amy looked up and her eyes were large and swollen from
crying.  "I have to go to the police precinct and be
interviewed again.  I can't do it.  All I want to do is go
back to New York and be with Michael."

Scully nodded.  "I know that's what you want to do, but you
need to talk to the police if you want this monster to be
caught."

Mulder walked in the room and motioned for her to come
over.

"What's up?" she asked.

"We have to do something about Amy," he said.

She tilted her head.  "Isn't that what we're doing right
now?"

He shook his head.  "No, what I mean is that she can't go
to New York.  I don't think she's safe anywhere right now.  
We have to protect her."

"And what does that entail?"  Her back instinctively
stiffened.

"I was thinking we should get a hotel room, under an
assumed name, and one of us should stay with her until the
case breaks."

Scully inhaled sharply.  "And which one of us is that going
to be?"  

It wouldn't be him, of course, which meant she'd have to go
to ground with Amy.  Impossible.

"I guess it would have to be you."  Mulder's face took on
an apologetic expression.

"You can't be serious, Mulder.  First of all, what happens
on Monday, when I'm supposed to be at work?  And to be
perfectly honest with you, I don't want to do it."

"As far as work goes, we'll figure something out, some
excuse for Skinner.  And the other thing, well, I don't see
any way around it."

For the eight millionth time, she deeply regretted that
Mulder had answered the phone that night.

She looked right at him.  "You are going to owe me for
this," she muttered.

He nodded and his brow creased in guilt and anxiety.  
Scully knew him too well to not be able to read the signs.  
"I hate having to do this to you, but you know it's the
right thing to do."

Damn him, he was right.  She hated it when that happened.

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

Mulder had reserved a room at the Sheraton near National
Airport, under the name of Tara McCauley.  It was her
sister-in-law's maiden name and she didn't dare ask where
he'd gotten a Visa card in her name.  Scully shrugged as
she signed the receipt at the front desk.  No doubt the
card was the work of the Lone Gunmen.  It made sense,
though, to check into the hotel with an assumed name.  
There was no guessing how much the killer knew about Amy.

The room was large, but certainly no suite.  Scully walked
in, with Amy trailing behind her, and prayed they would
have to lie low in the room for no more than a day or two.  
Spending all day, every day, in a mauve and cream hotel
room with the prostitute her lover had slept with wasn't
exactly her idea of a good time.  No, it definitely ranked
behind identifying stomach and rectal contents on a hot
summer afternoon in an autopsy bay with no air
conditioning.

Amy tossed her black Prada overnight bag on one of the beds
and opened the heavy flowered draperies, staring at the
dull view of Airport Hotel Gulch.

"Well, here we are," Scully said, for lack of something
better.

Absently, the other woman nodded without turning around.  

Scully sat on the bed, tugged off her shoes and checked her
watch.  It was almost 5 p.m.; the day was still young and
the hours until it was time to go to bed seemed endless.

Amy stepped away from the window and announced, "I'm going
to take a shower."  Scully noticed how white her face was
and felt a pang of sympathy.  After all, Amy had lost a
friend and worse yet, she'd been the one who'd found her
body.

Amy grabbed a toiletry case and some clothes from her bag
and walked off to the bathroom.  After a few minutes the
shower started up, but it didn't quite muffle the sound of
Amy's sobbing.

Scully felt like the worst kind of voyeur, sitting in the
next room and listening to the wails over the spray of the
shower.  Truthfully, she wasn't much good at dealing with
the grief and pain of others.  It was one thing when
Mulder's mother had died a few months before.  Mulder was
her lover by then and she'd been his partner for six years.  
She'd known how to handle his sorrow after all that time
together.  Amy Callahan was an entirely different story.

There was a reason why she'd become a pathologist, aside
from the gratification she received from solving difficult
cases with her science.  She just didn't have a good
bedside manner.

Still, no matter how she felt about her, Amy was a woman in
pain.  Scully would just have to make the effort.

Amy came out twenty minutes later, dressed in an old pair
of jeans and a plain white t-shirt, her eyes swollen and
red-rimmed.  Not for the first time, it struck Scully how
much the call girl looked like her.  Amy's face was a bit
rounder and her nose was more snub-shaped than Scully's own
high-bridged nose, but the effect was still uncanny.

"Are you okay?" Scully asked, putting down the book she'd
been pretending to read.

Sitting down on the opposite bed, Amy shook her head.  "I
feel like shit," she flatly said.

"It's rough at first, to lose someone.  Especially when you
feel like it's your fault.  Believe me, I know," Scully
said, drawing her legs up under her and leaning against the
headboard of the bed.

"What would you know about something like this?"  Amy
flopped onto her back and covered her eyes with her arm.

"A whole lot," she replied, remembering her sister lying in
a hospital bed, still covered with tubes and bandages, the
monitors gone flat and quiet.  "My sister was murdered
three years ago.  She was shot in my apartment and the
bullets were meant for me."

The arm lifted off Amy's face and she sat up.  "Are you
serious?  Oh God, I'm so sorry."

Scully nodded.  "I blamed myself for a long time, let the
guilt eat at me every day.  But the thing is, I didn't ask
for someone to break into my apartment and wait to ambush
me, I didn't ask to be murdered, so how could it possibly
be my fault?  Melissa was in the wrong place at the wrong
time.  It was a horrible tragedy that she was killed, but
it was *not* my fault.  The man who pulled the trigger
bears full blame."

Amy sighed.  "Wow, your sister.  If someone killed one of
my sisters, I don't know if there would be a great enough
form of revenge."

It was funny-- Scully had never stopped to consider that
Amy had a family.  "How many sisters do you have?"

"Two-- one older and one younger. Patti and Erica.  And two
younger brothers, named Tom and Chris.  My parents are good
Catholics."  A wry smile spread on Amy's face.

"Does your family know what you do for a living?" Scully
hoped it wasn't an inappropriate question.

"No."  Amy vehemently shook her head.  "They wouldn't
understand.  They think I'm a very successful art dealer.  
I hate lying to my family, but I want to spare them the
pain the truth would cause them.  And it's not entirely a
lie, since I do some of that work on the side, from time to
time."

Scully realized she could understand that feeling as well.  
While she never lied outright to her mother, there were the
small sins of omission.  Her mother had little concrete
idea of how dangerous her life often was.  The poor woman
worried enough.

"You don't mind me asking questions, do you?" Scully asked.  
She hated having her own life pried into, and didn't want
to offend Amy.

Amy shrugged.  "No, I don't really mind.  I'm not ashamed
to be a professional woman.  I make a lot of money and have
the free time I need to pursue my interests-to travel, take
classes, collect art.  Frankly, I think a lot of the shame
I'm supposed to feel comes from society.  It's my body, why
can't I use it to have a nice lifestyle?"

"That's a hard concept for me to grasp."

"Why is that?"

Fair was fair.  If she were going to ask Amy questions,
she'd have to answer some of her own.  "All my life I've
struggled to get past being viewed as a weak woman or an
object of sexual desire.  I've always wanted to be
recognized for my intelligence and skills.  When I was in
medical school I thought the attitude I caught from some of
my male classmates was obnoxious, but it was nothing
compared to going through FBI Academy.  I can't imagine
willingly being treated as a sex object."  She looked down
at her hands and realized they'd balled into fists.

Amy nodded and Scully noticed that without makeup, the
younger woman had a fine sprinkling of freckles across her
nose and cheekbones.  "I can appreciate how hard that must
have been.  But I've turned the concept around.  If men
want to look at me as a piece of meat, fine, go ahead.  I
just laugh and head off to the bank to deposit my money."  
She spread her hands wide.  "I know I'm more than that.  I
know what I'm worth as a person."

Scully briefly wondered about the tough center that
appeared to be beneath the surface of this outwardly
amiable young woman.  God, to offer her body to any man who
waved money at her.  The thought made her vaguely
nauseated.

This woman sitting across from her had touched Mulder, made
him come.

Judge not, lest you be judged, she reminded herself.

But she couldn't help asking just one more question.  Her
voice was soft.  "Don't you find it degrading?"

Amy bit her lip.  "Sometimes, not all the time, though.  
You have to understand that I do nice, clean, expensive
hotel work.  I'm not on the streets hustling for a pimp.  
Mostly I think it's the men I'm with who are truly degraded
by the experience.  There's something pathetic when a man
can't find the satisfaction he needs from a real
relationship, and has to hire a woman by the hour to give
him what he wants.  It seems so lonely and sad to have to
pay for sex, doesn't it?"

Bowing her head a little, Scully thought of Mulder,
knocking on the door of a hotel like the one where they
were now, waiting for Amy to open it.

A soft hand touched her shoulder.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't
mean that as an insult to Mulder.  I wasn't talking about
specific men I've seen, just my clients as a whole."

"It's okay.  I'm still trying to get used to this," she
said, shaking her head a little.

"I know," came the soft reply from the other bed.  "I
honestly never wanted to mess things up with you and Mulder
when I asked him for help.  I was so desperate and he was
the only one I could think of to turn to."

Scully looked up and forced a smile.  "We'll survive.  We
always do."

With a deep breath, Scully stood up and found the Room
Service menu on the desk.  "Maybe we'll both feel better if
we eat."

She knew she was changing the subject.

Amy nodded.  "I think a bottle of wine would improve things
immeasurably."

Scully picked up the phone and dialed Room Service, hoping
that bottle of wine would arrive quickly.

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

Marchand was giving a party.  As the maid admitted him,
Mulder could hear the distant sound of voices raised in
convivial conversation, of laughter and the clink of
crystal.  He had to work to keep his fury from overtaking
him, that Marchand could be hosting a dinner party when
Vanessa Maitland lay in the morgue with her throat cut,
blood dappling her cold body.

"I'd like to speak to Monsieur Marchand," he'd told the
maid when she'd answered the door.

"He's entertaining right now."  She'd tried to shut the
door in his face, but Mulder had stopped her with a hand on
the paneled wood.

"It's an emergency."

Now he stood in the entry hall, looking around at the
tasteful Directoire splendor of Marchand's townhouse.  The
high-ceilinged rooms held striped silk sofas, gleaming
mahogany tables, lush drapery, and crystal chandeliers.  
Apparently diplomats did quite well for themselves, Mulder
thought acidly.

Marchand approached, dressed elegantly, a look of
irritation on his scarred face.  "Yes?  You have some other
questions to bother me with?  I am giving a party."

"Perhaps we ought to step outside for just a moment.  It
won't take long, and I would hate to disturb your guests."  
Mulder's voice held an unspoken threat:  he could create a
scene for Marchand's friends if he so chose.

Marchand frowned, but followed him outside.  They rounded
the brick face of the building, and stopped in the dark
little alley that ran alongside it.

"Now what is this all about?" asked Marchand impatiently.  
"I've already told you, Mr. Mulder, I'm not interested in
your questions."

"You're going to answer them, just the same."

"I've already talked to the police.  I don't have to talk
to you."

"I'm not leaving until you do."

Marchand swore, and threw a punch at Mulder.  Mulder was on
his guard, however.  He caught Marchand's fist in his hand.

"Let me go," said Marchand angrily, his normally sallow
face turning purple with rage.  "Let me remind you, I have
diplomatic im -- "

The last word had not even left his mouth completely before
he hit the ground.  He blinked in a stupor up at the
twilight sky, too dazed by Mulder's punch to react with
anything more than a choked gasp.

Mulder leaned over him.  "Don't try to pull that fucking
'diplomatic immunity' crap on me.  I don't give a fuck
about your immunity," he hissed.  He grabbed Marchand by
the front of his shirt, and hauled him roughly to his feet.

"Get your hands off me -- "

Mulder's fist collided with his body.

Marchand doubled over, wheezing and clutching his middle.

"Shut the fuck up!  I don't care what kind of immunity you
think you have.  You think you can do whatever you want,
because you're above the law and Amy is supposedly beneath
it?"

Marchand shook his head, as if he wanted to deny the charge
but lacked the oxygen to answer.

Mulder loomed menacingly over him, his hands clenched into
fists.  "You killed a woman," he said through his teeth.  
"I'm going to see to it that you don't get away with it."

Marchand's head snapped up, his eyes wild with alarm.  "No!  
I have killed no one!"

"That's a lie.  I know you've been harassing Amy Callahan,
I know you killed her dog.  And this morning she found the
body of her friend Vanessa Maitland in her apartment -- her
throat slit with a razor."

The color had drained from Marchand's sallow face.  "But it
was not me!  Mon dieu, I swear it was not!"

"And I suppose it wasn't you harassing her either."

Marchand grabbed the front of Mulder's jacket.  "I called
her -- I admit I called her.  But I wanted only to frighten
her, to pay her back a little for what she did to my face.  
I was angry, yes, and I admit it, but I am not a killer!"

Mulder paused.  He did not trust Marchand but there was
something in the diplomat's babbling terror that made him
think perhaps the man was telling the truth.  "You broke
into her apartment.  You killed her dog."

"No!" cried Marchand desperately.  "Even that I did not do!  
The threats, yes, I made the threats.  But I am not some
cold-blooded assassin!  I have a temper, I do not like Miss
Callahan, but I wanted only to scare her."

"I know about your juvenile record.  You were convicted of
attempted murder."

Marchand stared at him in alarm.  "How do you know this?"

"Never mind how I know it.  It's true, isn't it?"

Marchand stroked his reddened jaw, looking resentfully at
Mulder.  "It is true.  But it was not what you think.  Not
something -- how does one say? -- premeditated."

"Oh, so you accidentally attempted to commit murder."

"I was in love, and she was cheating on me.  We argued --
violently.  I hit her, and she grabbed a knife.  I grabbed
it away from her.  She tried to call the police, and when I
would have stopped her, she hit me in the face with the
telephone.  The knife was in my hand, and without even
thinking, I stabbed her."

The throb in Marchand's voice and the flash in his eyes
told Mulder he was telling the truth.  He was a man with an
ugly temper, a coward who abused women, but he lacked the
patience, the coolness, and the dissociative personality of
the serial killer.  Mulder swallowed down his anger.  "What
about the girl in Lisbon -- the fourteen-year-old?"

Marchand's eyes glittered.  "You do your homework, don't
you, Mr. Mulder?"  Now that Mulder had stopped throwing
punches, a little of his bravado was creeping back.  "Yes,
the girl was underage, but it was not rape.  She was in
love with me.  I did not force her to do anything she did
not want to do.  When her mother found out, however, she
brought charges -- perhaps to save face, perhaps to see if
I would pay her off."

"But you admit you made the threatening calls to Amy
Callahan."

"Yes, I admit it," Marchand said, almost defiantly.  "I
wanted to punish her for what she did to me.  I had a voice
disguiser and I called her whenever the mood took me --
usually when I'd had too much to drink."

"And the photographs, you sent her those too."

Marchand looked confused.  "Photographs?  I don't know what
you mean.  I never sent that woman anything."

"You never followed her, and sent her pictures of her you
had taken?"

Marchand shook his head.  "No, certainly not."

Mulder hit him again, hard.  

Marchand staggered.  "Monsieur, please!" he cried, one hand
to his jaw.

"I want the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth!  I don't know anything about
any photographs!"  Shaking, Marchand turned and spat a
mouthful of blood onto the asphalt.

Mulder was satisfied.  "How did you get her real name, and
her phone number?"

Marchand spoke around the swelling in his cheek.  "The
friend who sent me to Tiger Lilies spotted her one Saturday
in a department store, and looked over her shoulder as she
paid for something with a credit card.  After I knew her
name, it was not hard to find her phone number.  I know
someone who is good with computers."

"My friends' kung fu can beat your friend's kung fu."

"What?" said Marchand in confusion.

"Never mind," said Mulder, and shoved him toward the front
of the townhouse.  "Go back to your party."

With a last backward look over his shoulder, Marchand slunk
quickly away.

"And never try to contact Amy Callahan again," Mulder
called after his retreating back.

Marchand was innocent, Mulder thought.  He was a bully and
a coward, but he was not a murderer.  He was not above
striking a woman or trying to frighten her with anonymous
threats, but he would not risk his own hide to commit a
crime as calculated as Vanessa's murder.  So who did that
leave?

They were back to square one, Mulder thought, rubbing his
skinned knuckles.  Someone was stalking Amy, someone
growing more deadly by the day, and he and Scully didn't
have the first idea who.  The phone calls had been nothing
but a dead end.  At least this time he didn't need to worry
that Marchand would go to Skinner, not when the diplomat
knew they were aware of his attempted murder conviction.

Now the only problem was how to tell Scully all this
without revealing the method he'd used to get the
information.

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

Amy poured the last of the bottle of Cabernet into Scully's
glass and leaned against the pillows piled up on the bed.  
Their dinners had been finished and the plates had already
been removed to the hallway.  "Desperately Seeking Susan"
was playing on the television, and Amy watched the antics
of Madonna and Rosanna Arquette through heavy-lidded eyes.  
She was exhausted, but afraid to really try and sleep.  God
only knew what kind of dreams were waiting for her after
finding Vanessa's body.

If she closed her eyes, she could only see the blank look
in Vanessa's blue eyes, and the deep gash in her neck.

She could see only her friend, helplessly lying on her bed.

No, the last thing she wanted to do at that point was
sleep.

The other woman meditatively rolled the wineglass between
her fingers and sighed.

"Are you okay?" Amy asked.  This was so uncomfortable,
sharing a room with Agent Scully like this.  She was sure
that Scully was a perfectly kind person under normal
circumstances, and the agent was trying her best to be
civil, but the tension was definitely still in the room.

Scully nodded.  "Yeah, I'm just thinking."

"Care to share with the rest of the class?"

After a swallow of wine, Scully set the glass down on the
bedside table.  "I'm just thinking about Mulder, and you,
and me.  Such a strange situation we're in here."

Amy nodded.  "Tell me about it.  I just don't want things
to be awkward between you and me here.  I've said it
before, but I never wanted to ruin things with you and
Mulder."

There was another sigh.  "I know that, Amy."

She smiled.  This was the first time Scully had called her
by her first name, and not Ms. Callahan.  "Are things going
to be okay with you and Mulder?"

Scully turned to her, and Amy noticed how serious and sad
her face was.  She slowly nodded.  "I think so.  I'm trying
to get more insight into why he felt he had to do what he
had to do."

"He was lonely," Amy said.  She still could picture his
large, haunted eyes and how much he seemed to crave being
touched.  "He wasn't one of my pathetic loser clients,
though.  To tell you the truth, I couldn't really
understand why he needed to see me.  Mulder is the kind of
guy who could just stand at a bar and women would be
flinging their phone numbers at him."

A tight smile crossed Scully's face.  

Amy knew she was pushing it, but she had to ask.  "How come
you two weren't together then?"

"I don't know," Scully said, shrugging.

"Come on, you can do better than that."  Now she really was
pushing, but she wanted to know.  Amy had had two years to
ponder the mystery of her handsome client, and now she
could finally have some answers.

"I'm not good with personal stuff, Amy."  Her head bowed a
little and her smile became self-conscious.  "Especially
talking about Mulder."

"That's cool," Amy said.

Scully sat up straighter and ran her hand through her short
waves.  "Can I ask you a question?"

"Fire away."

Amy noticed how the other woman's pale skin rapidly turned
a deep rose.  "I have to ask you this, because it's been on
my mind.  It's like--" her hands fumbled, "--some kind of
morbid fascination with me."

"You want to know what it was like with Mulder," Amy cut
in.  She tried to give Scully a reassuring smile.

The fumbling hands clasped in Scully's lap.  "Yes, I want
to know," she whispered.

Amy tried to keep her tone as light as possible.  "If
you're thinking we did anything exotic or kinky, you'll be
disappointed.  It was pretty routine."

The agent's head lifted and one red-brown eyebrow rose.  "I
suppose that depends on your definition of routine . . ."

"Routine as in my parents probably have done everything
Mulder and I did."  Amy was reassured to hear a small
snicker from Scully.  "Most of the time he just wanted oral
sex.  A few times we had straight sex.  Like I said,
routine."

The whisper became fainter.  "What was he like?"

Amy still could picture his nervous, yet excited face the
first time he walked into the hotel room, how she could
already see the erection bulging his suit pants.  "He was
polite, sweet, a good tipper.  Very passive, let me do all
the leading and rarely made any demands of me."

"Passive, Mulder?"  Amy was surprised to see an amused grin
on Scully's face.  How much wine had the woman had to
drink, anyhow?

"Yes, passive," she replied.  "Very gentle, as if afraid to
break me."

"Wow," Scully said and headed for the mini-bar.  "Can I get
you something?"

"A Diet Coke would be fine," Amy said.  Scully returned
with two cans of soda.  "What do you mean by wow, Agent
Scully?"

"It's okay," she said, "You can call me Scully.  The only
people who really call me Dana are my family and old
friends from school. And if we're sharing a room, Agent
Scully is going to get old pretty quickly."

"What do you mean by wow, Scully?" she repeated.

"Let's just say that Mulder is the farthest thing in the
world from passive . . ."

Amy smiled.  Now things were getting good.  Damn, she
should have suggested another drink instead of a soda.  
Then Scully would have *really* opened up.  "Now you just
have to share . . ."

Scully rolled her blue-gray eyes.  "I don't do that kind of
talk, Amy."

"Bullshit.  All women do that kind of talk.  Even my sister
Erica, who goes to mass every day, does that kind of talk."

Popping open her can of Diet Coke, Scully got a mischievous
expression on her normally stern face.  "Mulder is, well,"
she stammered, "a tremendous lover.  He's creative, he's
fun in bed, he's very *appreciative*, but the last thing I
would say about him is that he's passive.  He can do gentle
very nicely, but he's never passive, unless I ask him to be
that way."

Oooh, now she was sharing.  Amy leaned forward, delighted
to finally get the goods.  So sue me, she thought, I love
gossip and boyfriend chat.  "Well, a man is usually
different when he's with a professional," she said.  "Some
men who are wimps in real life can be as bossy as they want
to be and some men who would be the most wild and crazy
lovers with a woman they really care about are passive and
shy with a call girl.  That's how Mulder was.  Not a
perfect gentleman, of course, but we weren't hanging off
chandeliers or anything."

It pleased her to see a look of relief pass over Scully.  
"Ever since I found out, I've been worried that maybe he
enjoyed the sex more with you, because it was exotic or
forbidden."

Amy snorted.  "Please.  I make no great claims on being the
world's greatest lover, although Michael might disagree."

"Is it hard for you to go to bed with Michael after what
you do in your professional life?"

She smiled, picturing the last time she'd made love with
Michael, how she'd lost herself in wave after wave of
intense pleasure and love.  "No, not at all.  When I'm
working my body is doing the job, but my mind and my
emotions aren't involved at all.  I get no physical
pleasure from my job, ever.  There's business sex and
there's Michael sex."

"And Michael doesn't mind--"

As usual, Amy interrupted.  "No, Michael is a breed apart.  
He's an unusual guy in that respect.  He's the most unusual
guy I've ever known-- intelligent and completely focused on
his work and his goals.  Michael would probably be too
intense for a lot of women, but I find it exciting."  Just
thinking about Michael was enough to make her crave the
touch of his callused hands on her skin.  "We don't talk
about my work a lot, but he accepts it.  I know he'd be
happier if I stopped working, and has been asking me to
quit and move in with him a lot in the last few years, but
I need to make enough money to open my own gallery."

"It sounds like you're a lucky woman," Scully said.

Amy thought of Michael and all their years together, all
they had been through together.  How he had been the one to
rush her to the hospital when an ovarian cyst ruptured, how
she'd wake up and find him intently sketching her, how he
secretly wrote poetry about her that he was afraid to show
her.

She smiled at Scully.  "I am a lucky woman," she said.

Scully smiled back at Amy, as if thinking of Mulder and the
fact that she was a lucky woman, too.

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

Mulder lay on his couch.  The television was playing The
Daily Show, but he wasn't watching it.  Instead he was
visualizing Vanessa Maitland's body and trying to figure
out what it was about the crime scene that nagged at him.  
A beautiful woman, minimal signs of struggle, a razor
applied with surgical skill...  

He sighed, and rolled over restlessly.  The killer's crimes
were obviously escalating -- he'd already gone from
stalking, to killing Amy's dog, and now to taking a human
life.  It was only a matter of time before he struck again.  
The problem was, now that Marchand had been eliminated as a
suspect, the killer could be almost anyone.  Amy's work had
brought her into contact with so many men.

Contact.  He flinched a little at his own euphemism.  He'd
been one of the men with whom Amy had had contact; he knew
exactly what that kind of "contact" entailed.  

He wondered now why he'd ever felt so compelled to keep
seeing her.  There had been momentary pleasure, of course -
- determinedly he pushed from his mind the memory of Amy,
whispering encouragement as he panted above her -- but
there had always been the guilt afterward too.  He'd felt
lonelier than ever, walking away from a woman he'd just
paid to have sex with him.  He'd felt dirty, knowing that
the real Scully was somewhere, blissfully unaware he'd just
spent an hour getting his money's worth from a prostitute
he'd been pretending was her.

He wondered how Scully and Amy were getting along now, in
the hotel by the airport.  He wished he could be a fly on
the wall.  It was a little difficult for him to picture
Scully, so reserved and so unwaveringly true to her
principles, spending the night with the prostitute he'd
patronized.  He couldn't help wondering if they were
talking about him.

A knock on his door interrupted his reflections.  He
checked his watch.  11:30.  He went to the door and opened
it just far enough to see who would be paying him a visit
at such an hour.

It was a man, about his own height, with short black hair,
handsome features, and a lean build.  Except for the
sapphire stud in his nose, he looked clean-cut and
conservative enough to be a banker or a lawyer.

Mulder's eyes narrowed.  It was a little late for someone
to come by peddling The Watchtower.  "Yeah?  Can I help
you?"

"I'm looking for Amy Callahan."

"Just a minute."  Mulder closed the door and retrieved his
gun, tucking it behind him in the waistband of his jeans.  
He went back to the door and opened it all the way.  "Who
are you?"

The man regarded him somberly.  "My name is Michael Corey.  
I'm Amy's boyfriend."

"Come in."

Michael stepped inside, looking around as if expected to
see Amy.  "I hope you don't mind my coming here like this.  
Amy told me earlier this week that you were helping her.  I
found your address in the phone book -- "

"Is something wrong?  Why do you need to contact her?"

Michael stared at Mulder.  "I'm worried about her.  I came
down to surprise her, because I knew she was upset about
her dog.  When I got to her brownstone, it was cordoned off
and there were policemen everywhere.  No one would tell me
anything at the scene, not even if Amy was okay or not.  I
spent a nightmarish couple of hours today thinking she was
the reason for all the police cars, until I heard about her
friend Vanessa on the radio.  And then I got a brief
message from her on my answering machine, telling me she
wouldn't be able to get in contact with me for a while."  

Mulder examined him.  He wondered what it was like to be in
love with Amy, knowing what she did for a living.  He liked
to think of himself as a fairly open-minded person, but he
wasn't sure he could be as open-minded as that.  

"Amy's in a safe place," he told Michael.  "Until my
partner and I can find out more about who killed Vanessa
Maitland, I don't think anyone else should know where she
is."

Michael's eyes widened.  "But she's my girlfriend.  I'm
worried about her."

"Then you'll understand why I want to make sure no one --
not even you -- knows where to find her right now."

"I only want to make sure she's safe," said Michael.

"She's safe," said Mulder.  "I'll get your message to Amy,
that you're worried about her."

"You mean you're really not going to tell me where she is?"  
He stared incredulously at Mulder.

"I'm afraid I can't."

"But this is wrong," said Michael.  "I mean, how do I know
you're not the very person who's stalking her?  How do I
know she's safe, just because you say she is?"  He looked
around the apartment again, apparently hoping to spot some
clue to Amy's whereabouts.

Mulder ignored the questions.  He was intrigued by the nose
piercing, so unexpected on a man who otherwise looked
conservative enough to pass for one of the young
Republicans who hustled up and down the steps of the
Capitol every day.  "You're an artist?"

"What?" said Michael absently, dragging his attention back
to Mulder.  "Oh, yeah, I paint contemporary figures.  I
have a show coming up next month, in fact."

"How did you meet Amy?"  Mulder couldn't help wondering
about their relationship.  Here he was, suffering under a
mountain of guilt because of what he'd done with Amy, while
Michael lived with her career every day.

Michael sighed, but answered calmly, "Not professionally,
if that's what you're thinking.  I don't go in for that.  I
met her through a mutual friend, at a show.  Amy's very
into the art world, but I guess you knew that."

He hadn't known it, but he nodded anyway.  "And you've
known her how long?"

"Almost five years now."

Which meant, Mulder thought with a feeling of unpleasant
realization, that the two of them had been seeing Amy at
the same time.

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

Mulder stood at the hotel room door, wondering for the
fifth or sixth time whether this was such a great idea.  It
was late, nearly 1 a.m., and both women were most likely
asleep.  He shut his eyes and took a big inhale for
strength, smelling the universal hotel hallway smell of
room deodorizer and carpeting that had been trod upon by
too many pairs of shoes.

No, he thought, shaking his head.  He needed to see her; he
craved her like a heroin addict craved his next hit of
smack.  Things were better with Scully, in fact he could
say that things were going remarkably well, but he felt
that achy need to connect with her, to be sure that it was
going to be all right. And he had to tell her about the
confrontation with Marchand.  An excellent excuse, indeed.

I'm a whipped boy, he mused and smiled at the no longer
very painful thought of his pathetic drunken state the
other night as he had begged her to love him again.  I
can't help myself.

He raised his hand and tapped lightly on the door.

Who would answer?  It was all too similar to nights
standing outside the door at the Marriott, feeling shame
and anticipation rushing through his body as he waited for
Amy to answer.

There was no response for a minute and he was just about to
turn on his heels and head down the hallway with his pride
still intact when he heard a feminine voice through the
wood.  "Who is it?"  He couldn't tell which woman it was.

"It's Mulder," he called out.

The door opened a crack and he was rewarded with a sliver
view of a few strands of red hair and a suspicious blue
eye.  There was no mistaking whose suspicious blue eye that
was glaring at him.  The eye appraised him and apparently
he passed muster, for the door opened wider.

Scully was standing in her cream bathrobe, her hair still
damp from a shower, holding her gun.

"Is that a gun in your hand or are you just happy to see
me?" he said.

"Shhh," she admonished.  "Amy's asleep."  She pulled him by
the arm and into the long, narrow bathroom, tiled in white
and pink.  

Her face was alarmed.  "Is there something going on?  Did
you learn anything new?"

Mulder nodded his head, simply struck dumb by her
proximity.

"Ever hear of calling ahead?"  She tilted her head and her
eyes narrowed.  "You scared me."

"Sorry," he said, reaching to run a strand of her hair
between his fingers.  "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Okay, let's talk."  Scully put her hands on her hips and
waited for his next words.

The trouble was, he wasn't entirely sure what to say.  
They'd reached a resolution the other night at her apartment,
but he still felt the tension pulsing between them, the unspoken
agreement that it wasn't quite right yet between them.  
Mulder threw up his hands in defeat.  "I don't know what to
say."  The whole Marchand scene had fled his brain now that
he was near her.

A full smile blossomed on her face.  "That's so cute,
Mulder."

"What's so cute?"

"You came by here for what the kids would say was a 'bootie
call' . . . "

Mulder snorted a laugh.  "A bootie call?  Who did you pick
that one up from, your new roommate?"

She flashed him an indignant look.  "I have MTV, Mulder.  
Despite evidence to the contrary, I do know about things
other than pathology and the latest in conspiracy
theories."

"I know you do," he said, running his finger in the
delicate hollow between her clavicles.  Mulder stepped
closer and breathed in her baby powder and shampoo smell.  
"I'd say you know about a lot of things . . . like how to
please a man."

"Hmmm . . .I have picked up a thing or two over the years,
but I wouldn't quite say I'm a professional."  She bit her
lip and looked at him through her eyelashes.  He might have
found that comment insulting if he wasn't getting turned on
so rapidly.

He laughed as her hand trailed up and under his turtleneck.  
"Well, you know, the dictionary defines an amateur as `a
person attached to a particular pursuit, especially one who
cultivates any study or art, from taste or attachment,
without pursuing it professionally.'"

"Is there anything you don't know?"

He tapped his temple.  "It's all up here, Scully.  
Everything."

Scully rolled her eyes.  Her hands reached up and pulled
his face to hers and he could smell the Colgate on her
breath.  "I think it's time for you to shut up, Mulder."  
Her soft lips pressed against his and he opened his mouth
to her, letting their tongues twine together.

Scully pulled away and licked her lower lip.  Her voice was
quiet, but even.  "Did she kiss you like that?"

He didn't need to ask whom she meant.  Mulder shook his
head.  "We never kissed.  You don't usually kiss working
girls."

"Did you learn that from watching `Pretty Woman?'"

Mulder felt his face growing warm.  "Uh, yeah, actually I
did."

It had never occurred to him to kiss Amy.  A kiss was
something personal.  It was one thing to go to her and have
her suck his cock, or to mindlessly pound into her, but to
share a kiss with her, that would have been unbearably
intimate.

Kissing Amy would have been blurring the lines between her
and Scully even farther than he already had been.

Scully's hand slipped between their bodies and her fingers
nimbly traced the outline of his hardening cock.  "Did she
touch you like this?"  Her voice was a whiskey-warm hiss.

He shook his head.  "Don't--"

"Don't what?"

Words were difficult to find when she was keeping up that
maddening little motion with her fingertips, somehow
managing to find, even through his jeans, all his favorite
spots.  "Don't bring her into this," he managed to gasp
through the fog of his arousal.

She leaned closer and kissed him again, long and slow, with
serpentine movements of her warm tongue.  "She'll always be
there," she said, pulling away.

Now his mind was completely shattered, especially since
she'd begun unbuttoning the fly of his jeans.  "But not--
right now."

The last button was undone and she began to push his jeans
down.  "I just want to know how I compare, Mulder."  Her
look wasn't insecure, but playful.

Fine, I'll play along, Scully.  "I think I'll have to do a
comparison test," he said in a businesslike voice.  "You
know, to be able to make a fair assessment."

She scrabbled to remove his turtleneck and flung it
somewhere in the general direction of the toilet.  Mulder
shivered in the chilly bathroom air and turned off the
overhead light and turned on the heat lamp, so the room was
bathed in an obscene red glow.

He started to undo the knot on her bathrobe sash and she
pulled away.  "No," she said, with one of her familiar
stern looks.  "I'm in charge this time."  Her hands ran
over his chest and her tongue began nipping and tasting,
stopping to greedily suck at his nipples.  His hands flew
back to grasp the bathroom vanity, since his leg muscles
had abruptly decided to not hold his body weight any
longer.

Scully slid onto her knees and he felt her hot breath on
his belly, which made the little hairs there stand up.  She
looked up at him, large eyes glowing in the strange light
of the heat lamp.  "Is this what she'd do, Mulder?  Did she
kneel in front of you like this?"

Usually he'd sat on the bed, while Amy kneeled in front of
him on one of the pillows from the bed.

Her fingers hooked around the waistband of his plaid
boxers.  "Did she undress you or did you do it for
yourself?"  The boxers were removed and he felt just the
merest whisper of her fingers along the length of his
erection.

He tried to act nonchalant, but it was difficult when she
grasped him at the root and squeezed, the other hand
cupping and stroking his balls.  "Both," he gasped and she
gave a close-lipped smile.

"Did it feel like this, Mulder?" she purred and then he
felt the velvet heat of her mouth around his cock.

It had never felt like that with Amy.

Only Scully could make him feel like this.

Only Scully had that delicate, yet firm way of teasing the
head of his cock with her wet tongue, swirling it around
like he was the whipped cream on top of her morning mocha.  
Only she made those happy humming sounds from time to time
as she flicked her tongue against the ridge of his head.   
And she was the only one who could make him stifle a howl
as she allowed most of him in her mouth and throat, taking
him in as far as he could go, applying precise pressure
with that glorious mouth of hers.

But she still had a few tricks up her sleeve, he found out.  
He had never underestimated Scully's abilities, but he
hadn't fully considered their depth and breadth.

She allowed him to slip out of her mouth and he sucked in
air, wanting only for her to return.  With a tiny grin, she
brought her fingers to her mouth and licked them, which
made him grasp the countertop still harder, the breaths
coming out of him with increasing rapidity.  Scully
returned to him, tenderly cupping his testicles in her
hand, and resumed her talented sucking.  And then he felt
her hand slip further still and press against his perineum.  
"Oh my--" he wheezed.  She wasn't done with him, though.  
Her finger moved an inch and then pressed up and into his
asshole.

Mulder jerked back against the counter, a groan escaping
his throat.  Her finger moved deeper inside and the red air
around him began to be speckled with the black of his pain
and pleasure.  His cock went deeper into her mouth and she
began to slowly fuck him with her finger.

Jesus Christ, he'd never felt anything like that.  Never.  
He was feeling nerve endings he'd had no idea even existed
before now.  Mulder looked down and saw her hair,
phosphorescent in the warm light and felt the surge
building.  

He couldn't help it, he bellowed as his orgasm struck him
and he pumped endlessly into her mouth.

He was still gasping and whimpering a bit as she removed
her finger and pulled away from his cock.  One sculpted red
eyebrow raised.  "Trying to wake up our friend?"

Burying his head in his hands, he shook his head.  "You are
evil," he hissed.

She kissed him just above the navel.  "Didn't you like it?"

"I'm not entirely sure there's a superlative that's
appropriate in this case, Scully."

"I'm just giving you payback, " she said, settling on the
ground and pulling her bathrobe around her.  "Remember that
night in my shower?"

His legs finally gave up the ghost and he slid down to join
her on the tile floor.

"Come here," he said and kissed her, tasting the bleachy
tang of his come in her mouth.

"I'm glad you came," she said.

He bit back a stupid pun and kissed her again.  After a
minute he pulled away.  "I forgot, Scully, but I have
Marchand news."

"Yeah?  Do share, now that we have the pressing business
out of the way . . ."

Mulder sat up a little and ran a hand through his hair.  "I
confronted him tonight.  Marchand made the phone calls, but
he didn't kill the dog or Vanessa Maitland."

"You confronted him?"  She lifted his hand and examined his
bruised knuckles.  "Oh, Mulder," she said, shaking her
head.  "You didn't."

He nodded guiltily.  "It was the only way.  But I'm sure
now that while he's a creep, he's not a sociopath."

He watched raptly as Scully's face hardened and transformed
into professional mode.  "Are you sure?  He seemed like a
guilty man."

"I talked at great length with the man tonight, and I can
give you my professional opinion, as a profiler, that
Olivier Marchand did not kill anyone in this case.  These
murders were done by someone calculating and composed.  
After spending more time with him, I can tell you that he
doesn't even appear intelligent and cunning enough to
commit escalating serial crime."

Scully made an unreadable noise.  "Why did he make the
phone calls then?"

Mulder touched his face.  "He's angry about the scars; he
wants revenge."

"Well, this is not good news.  It means our only lead has
gone down the tubes and the murderer is an entirely unknown
quantity to us."

In unison, they both sighed.  

Despite the heat lamp, a shiver ran through Mulder.

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

Amy woke up suddenly from an uneasy sleep, and felt
momentarily confused.  Looking around at what she
immediately recognized as a hotel room, she was not sure
why she was there.  Had she fallen asleep with a client?  
She never did that.

Then she heard voices, low but unmistakable, from the other
side of the bathroom door, and it all came flooding back to
her: Vanessa was dead, and someone was almost certainly
trying to kill her, too.  She was staying at the airport
Sheraton, sharing a room with Agent Scully.  

A few hot tears sprang to her eyes and she kicked her legs
under the sheets, wondering when her life had become so
surreal.  She was Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.

She sat up, listening to the voices coming from behind the
door.  Mulder had apparently arrived while she was
sleeping.  She cocked her head, trying to tell if he had
any important news.  She couldn't make out any words, just
low murmuring.  

Then she heard something that surprised her: a moan.

Hmmm, she thought, and couldn't help smiling.  So, they
weren't just talking.

She tried her best not to listen after that.  She didn't
have a prudish bone in her body, but she wanted to respect
their privacy.  Still, the room was small enough and the
wall between the bedroom and the bathroom was thin enough
that it was impossible not to hear.  First came a moan from
Mulder, and a muffled humming from Scully that hinted her
mouth was otherwise occupied.  Then Amy heard a breathless
"Oh my -- " from Mulder, followed by a groan and the sound
of panting.  "Oh, oh, oh -- " Mulder gasped.

Amy rolled over and hugged one of the extra pillows.  This
wasn't fair, she thought wistfully.  As if she hadn't felt
lost and alone enough already, now she could hear two
lovers ecstatically getting it on in the very next room.  
Not even the next hotel room -- the bathroom not ten feet
from where she was lying.  

It was making her miss Michael even more.  When this
nightmare was all over with and she could be with him
again, she promised herself, she was absolutely going to
fuck his brains out.  No, not fuck, she reminded herself.  
She was going to make love to him, long and slow, riding
him until they were both exhausted and dripping with sweat.

If she could just be with Michael, everything would be all
right again.

Suddenly there was a loud shout from Mulder, which echoed
from the tiled space of the hotel bathroom.  Bingo, Amy
thought wryly.  Nice work, Scully.

She heard some rather pitiful whimpering from Mulder after
that, followed eventually by the soft murmur of more
conversation.  This time she did catch something about the
case, the names "Vanessa" and "Marchand."  She strained to
hear, but the agents' voices were too low.

Finally the door swung open, spilling the red glow of the
bathroom heat lamp into the rest of the room.  Mulder and
Scully came creeping out, moving as quietly as possible.

"Any news?" Amy asked them and snapped on the bedside lamp.

They both wheeled around, wearing the sheepish but slightly
goofy expressions of two people who had been caught having
sex in a bathroom.  Scully even blushed.

Mulder recovered first.  He cleared his throat.  "No big
breakthroughs."

"We were just, uh, talking in the bathroom so we wouldn't
wake you," Scully added.

Amy tried not to grin.  "That was very considerate of you."

Scully tightened the belt on her bathrobe self-consciously.  
"Mulder was telling me that he doesn't think Marchand is
responsible after all."

"He made the phone calls," Mulder clarified.  "But not the
rest."

The news wiped all thought of everything but her stalker
from Amy's mind.  Her brows drew together in an anxious
frown.  "So you're telling me the investigation has taken a
step backwards?"

"We'll find whoever did this, Amy," Scully said.  "It's
just a matter of time."

"But how much time?  No offense, Scully, but hiding in a
hotel with you for an indefinite period is not my idea of
La Dolce Vita.  I miss my life.  I miss Michael."

"He came by, looking for you tonight," Mulder said.

Amy sat back in surprise.  "Michael was here?"

"No, he came by my apartment," Mulder said.  "He wanted me
to tell you that he's worried about you."

Michael must be worried sick, Amy thought.  He must have
gotten her phone message and frantically caught the first
shuttle down.  Frustration and helplessness washed over
her.  

It didn't cheer her any to have to pretend that she
couldn't hear Mulder and Scully when they whispered their
good-byes, an odd blend of professional content and
flirtatious, post-coital delivery.  Sleeping in the same
room with Scully was not especially comforting, either, not
when she thought about how she'd rather be sleeping with
Michael.  She felt alone and confined, like a prisoner
denied conjugal visits.

She rolled over and turned off the light and heard Scully
climb into bed.  For a long time she lay in the dark,
listening as the other woman's breathing became slow and
even.

Think of something nice, she told herself.  Sleep will come
if you remember a good time.  Amy shut her eyes and
pictured the time she and Michael went to Maine, walking on
the shore of the Atlantic, laughing at the seagulls and
eating lobster rolls.  

Eventually everything went dark for her, too.

But she woke an hour or so later and realized she'd never
get back to sleep.  She was wired and jittery, her heart
beating a mile a minute.

She glanced at the phone.  Remembering that awful moment
when they'd found Vanessa's body, she wondered how Lisa was
doing.  Impulsively, she found her cell phone in her bag
and crept to the bathroom with it in hand.

Lisa was a night creature.  Despite the late hour, if she
was home, she'd be awake.

"Hello, and this better not be the damned police," Lisa
answered.

Amy laughed.  "It's me -- Amy."

"Oh, thank the Lord," Lisa said, her Texas drawl bringing a
smile to Amy's face.  "I talked to so many cops this
morning, I felt like I was trapped in a bad episode of
Homicide: Life on the Streets.  The worst part is, there
wasn't a cute Bayliss in the bunch.  How you doin'?"

"I'm okay . . ." said Amy, but she said it with a sigh.

Lisa laughed.  "Yeah, right -- and I never do it on the
first date. You thinkin' about Vanessa?"

"Aren't you?"

Lisa sighed.  "Yeah, I am.  That was a terrible thing, what
happened to her.  I cried and cried until I was sick, and I
cancelled all my dates for tonight.  I'm gonna sleep with
my gun under my pillow from now on, for sure.  You
somewhere safe?"

"Yes," Amy said, playing with the phone cord.  "I'm with an
FBI agent."

"Is that right?" Lisa said with interest.  "Is he good
lookin'?"

"It's a she," Amy said, smiling despite herself.  "A woman
named Scully."

"Awww, that takes all the fun out of it.  I had a nice time
for about ten seconds there, picturin' you bein' guarded by
some nice big strappin' Elliot Ness type."

Lisa sounded so good -- so friendly and fun and easy to
talk to -- that Amy felt tears spring to her eyes.  "I miss
Michael," she said in a sudden swell of emotion.  "I'm
scared and I know he's worried about me and I miss him."

Lisa made a soothing sound.  "'Course you do, honey.  How
long are you goin' to be there with that FBI agent?"

"I don't know.  Until it's safe, I guess."  Amy sniffled.  
"Until they catch whoever's been stalking me."

"You couldn't just maybe see Michael for a little while?"
Lisa said in a coaxing voice.  "What would be the harm in
that?  A gal's gotta have a little fun."

"The FBI agents don't think it would be a good idea."

"There you are again, being Miss Serious."  Lisa sighed.  
"All I can say is, I'm glad it's you and not me.  I mean
that in the nicest way, of course, but I'd go stir crazy
for sure if I was in your shoes."

Amy nodded glumly.  She knew exactly what Lisa meant.

Stir crazy was her new middle name.

"Hey babe," Lisa said.  "My doorbell just rang.  Greg said
he'd come over after he closed the club down."  Greg was
Lisa's boyfriend, the owner of a dance club in Alexandria.

"Okay, Lisa, you have fun tonight."

"Be safe," Lisa said and hung up.

She stared at the phone and fought the overwhelming urge to
call Michael.

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

Scully slapped down some more cards for Solitaire and
stifled a sigh.  The day had dragged mercilessly.  She
supposed that deep down she should appreciate some time to
relax and unwind, but the Sheraton wasn't the place to do
it.  If she'd been at home, that would have been one thing.  
She could have curled up on the couch with a blanket, a
good book and a girlie movie like "Little Women," but the
sterile hotel environment reminded her of too many dull
road trips in the past with Mulder.

And if she had to be stuck in a hotel room, why couldn't it
be with Mulder?  They could make good use of the firm
mattresses and extra pillows, not to mention that heat lamp
in the bathroom.

A fine flush spread across her face as she remembered her
boldness of the night before.  She'd have to remember that
all it took for her to turn into a hellcat was three
glasses of red wine and a tiny bit of jealous insecurity.  
It had all been worth it to hear Mulder make those
delicious noises.

She glanced over at Amy, sitting at the table and intently
making notes on a legal pad, with a book propped on her
lap.

"What exactly are you doing?" Scully asked.

Amy looked up and smiled.  "I'm doing some research for my
thesis."

"Your thesis?"  

"Yes.  I'm getting my master's degree from Georgetown.  Art
History.  I've finished my coursework, but I've been
dragging my heels on the thesis, and my advisor is starting
to make some impatient noises.  As long as I'm stuck here,
I might as well actually get some work done, right?"

Scully took a moment to puzzle out the conundrum of a
hooker/graduate student. Sometimes the world had a way of
reminding her that when she saw it in black and white, she
failed to catch all the gray shades in between

An odd look must have passed on her face, for Amy said,
"Not all professional girls are brain-dead.  I know one gal
in law school and my internist is actually an alumna of
Tiger Lilies.  It's a great way to make money and avoid
those pesky student loans."

"What is your thesis about?"

Amy grinned.  "It's tentatively titled `Myth and Modality
in the Representation of Prostitution in Nineteenth Century
Art.'"

Scully couldn't help cracking, "Write what you know, huh?"

"Something like that," Amy chuckled.  She set her book down
and stood up.  "Time for a fun-filled trip to the
bathroom."

Scully smiled and slapped down some more cards.

A minute later, Amy poked her head out the bathroom door.  
"Hey, Scully, may I ask a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Do you have any tampons?"  Amy looked faintly embarrassed,
which amused Scully a little.  A prostitute sheepish about
asking for a tampon, indeed.

"Sorry," Scully said.  "It's not the right time for me.  I
didn't pack any."

"Oh crap.  I guess I'll have to go down to that little shop
in the lobby . . ."

Scully rose.  "I'll go.  It's safer if you stay in the
room."  She grabbed her purse and the key card off the
bureau.

"Thanks so much.  I hate to make you do my errands for me."

"It's fine.  Just don't open the door for anyone, not even
Mulder.  No one goes in or out that door, okay?"

Amy nodded.  "Of course.  I'll be a little angel. And I
brought my gun."

Ten minutes later Scully returned with the box of Tampax,
four chocolate bars and the trashiest magazines she could
find in the store.  She keyed herself in the room.

The room was empty.  So was the bathroom.

Amy's books, clothes and overnight bag were gone.  There
was no sign anyone but Scully herself had ever occupied the
room.

She stopped, two paces inside the room, and bit down on the
curse that was on her lips.

And then she spotted the note on the bed.


Scully,

I'm so sorry to just take off like this.  You and Mulder
have been so good to me in this difficult time, but I can't
spend the rest of my life hiding out in a hotel, and
neither can you.  I've got to just try to live my life, and
hope that the police find that man.

I am aware that I've caused some difficulties for you and
Mulder, and I regret it.  I wish you both the best of love
and happiness together in the future.

Here's some money to cover the hotel bill.  

Again, I apologize, and thank you for all you've done.

Amy


Underneath the note were two $100 bills.

Scully shook her head in wonder and outrage.  

Picking up her cell phone, she dialed Mulder.  "The chicken
has flown the coop," she said, foregoing a greeting.

"What?" he said.

"Amy took off.  She got me out of the room under the
pretext of an errand and left the hotel.  Apparently she
was tired of my company."  She tapped her forehead in a
gesture of annoyance.

"She got you out of the room?  How did she do that?"

She grimaced.  "You don't want to know.  I can't believe I
was hoodwinked like that."

Mulder sharply exhaled.  "Well, she wasn't our prisoner.  
If she doesn't want our protection, there's not a whole lot
we can do."

"I know," she said, "but I worry about her safety."

"She's an adult, Scully, and an intelligent one at that.  
We'll just have to forget about her."

It was hard for her to believe Mulder could be so cavalier
about Amy.  And it was even harder for her to believe that
she was so worried about the call girl.  Life was getting
curiouser and curiouser all the time.

"What do we do now, Mulder?"

The line was silent for a moment and then he spoke.  "You
check out of the hotel and then I pick you up."

"Why, do we have a lead?"

He laughed.  "No, Scully, this case, or whatever it was, is
over for us.  We're going out for dinner."

She sat down on the bed and let out all her breath.  

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Nope," she sighed.  "Only Italian food will cure what ails
me right now."

Scully punched the End button on her phone and collapsed in
a heap on the bed.  She was feeling every unpleasant
emotion she could name: guilt, anger, chagrin and
embarrassment.  It was still difficult to believe she'd
been so easily taken in by Amy's story.  

Finally, she got off the bed and began to pack her
overnight bag, all the while muttering about ingrates.

The shrill ring of her cell phone startled her and she
dropped the bottle of shampoo she was holding, right on her
toe.  She stifled an ugly word and grabbed the phone.  
"Yeah," she said sharply.

"Dana, did I call at a bad time?"

Oh God, it was John McMillan.  She softened her voice
considerably. "Hi, John.  No, everything's fine, I just
bumped into something when the phone rang."

He chuckled.  "Sorry I didn't call last night, but it was
crazy down here.  There were two drive-bys, a park
stabbing, a lover's quarrel gone sour and a body fished out
of the Potomac.  In other words, another weekend here in
the city."

"That's okay.  Did you find out anything useful or
interesting from Maitland's autopsy?"

John's sigh into the phone gave her the answer before he
even spoke.  "Nope, nothing terribly useful.  Despite the
defensive wounds, there was no skin or hair under her
nails, and no fibers on her skin.  The cut to the neck
caused the massive blood loss that led to death."

Scully gave a twin sigh to McMillan's.  "Any sexual
trauma?"

"Yeah, that's the only place where we have any useful
evidence.  We found semen in her rectum, and enough tearing
and bleeding to indicate it wasn't consensual.  The semen
is Type O, and he's a secretor."

"So are the majority of men in Washington D.C."

"Too true, Dr. Scully, but at least we have a sample now,
in case a suspect is found.   DNA testing is a beautiful
thing."  

His tone sounded as flirtatious as it had the day before,
and she wondered if he was extraordinarily persistent, or
if that was how he always dealt with women.  The funny part
was that it was starting to cheer her up.

"I can't even remember what life was like before we used it
in forensic medicine."  She smiled.

"Ah, the good old days," John said, still chuckling.  But
his voice turned businesslike again.  "One more thing for
you-- Maitland's tox screen came back positive for cocaine
and heroin."

"Speedballs?  Oh, that's nice," she murmured.

"You know what they say-- `Live fast, die young and leave a
good-looking corpse.'"

"That's a terrible joke," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You know pathology humor."

Ah yes, she could remember the disgusting practical jokes
she and her colleagues had played on each other during her
residency.  Vividly, she could still recall the middle
finger she'd found on her pillow in the on-call room.  

"Too true, John."  Scully sat up and checked her watch.  
Mulder would be at the hotel in ten minutes and she still
had to check out.  "Hey, I don't mean to be rude, but I
have to run."

There was a long silence and she suddenly feared he'd try
to ask her out again.  Instead, he merely said, "That's
cool.  I know that girls like you have big plans on
Saturday nights."

She felt the heat rising in her face. "Thanks so much for
the information.  That was very generous of you."

After a few more pleasantries, she hung up, relieved he
hadn't made any kind of move again.  Relieved and somehow
disappointed at the same time.  The sad thing was that John
McMillan was her ideal man, the kind of guy she'd dreamed
about five or six years ago.  

But sometimes the person you're meant to be with isn't your
ideal, she thought.

As she gathered up the rest of her things, she said, to no
one in particular, "Mulder, you'd better be worth it."

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

Amy lifted her suitcase into the car, and then slammed the
trunk closed.  She ran around to the passenger side, and
swung open the car door.

"Oh my god, thanks," she said with a grin, as she settled
quickly in the passenger seat.  "You wouldn't believe how
stir crazy I was going in this place.  I knew I could count
on you."

"No problem," said the man behind the wheel, starting the
engine.  "You have good timing.  I didn't even have to wait
long."