by Anubis
AnubisLM@aol.com

Disclaimer: I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Judge.
Summary: Not enough plot to summarize. But fear not, no stumps were
sucked during the making of this work of fiction.
Rating: NC-17/MSR.
Spoilers: Three of a Kind, Arcadia, & Milagro.
Archving:  Ask and ye shall receive.  Gossamer is fine and dandy.
Email: AnubisLM@aol.com
 

The two FBI agents argued as they walked, or perhaps it would have been
more accurate to say that they walked as they argued.

"Our witness said that the figure just walked up to the slot machine
and pulled the lever and money cascaded out. She said that it was
definitely a small, gray form with almond-shaped eyes and an oversized
head."

"She also said that she's the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette,
Mulder." Scully hurried to keep up with her partner. Their combined
strides made a strange rhythm on the cement, a bit like a bongo drummer
with one hand playing two-four time and the other three-four time. One
went faster than the other, but they still covered the same amount of
ground. Scully would have said that it was like two distinct sine
waves, with the same amplitude but different frequencies, but then of
course she would have gone on to kill the metaphor by noting that the
waves would not retain their original amplitude but would occasionally
cancel one another out and occasionally magnify one another. Which, if
you thought about it, was not an inaccurate description of their
partnership. Except for the part where their initial amplitude was the
same.

Meanwhile, during the narrative aside, the two made their subdued way
to their rental car, barely distinguishable from the other rental cars
in the motel parking lot. Mrs. Edith Franklin (widowed) could not
afford to stay in one of the casino hotels, but her senior citizens'
group got a good discount at the Friendly Sombrero, which offered free
parking and a shuttle to the main strip. Mulder put the keys in the
lock and realized that the car he'd rented was actually on his *other*
side (which explained why Scully had followed him to the door, and here
he'd uncharitably thought that she was going to demand to drive).

Carefully avoiding Scully's eyes, he unlocked the passenger door for
her and then scooted around the front of the correct car and opened the
door. "So she's a little old lady, Scully, she's sharp enough to make
three hundred dollars yesterday."

Scully buckled herself in with exactly the same satisfaction she showed
at making a really even Y incision. "Did you ask her how much she's
lost over the past year?"

"No," he admitted, realization dawning that Scully *had* asked.

"Twenty thousand dollars, Mulder. That sharp little old lady is a
gambling addict." Unfortunately, the sound of the engine starting up
did nothing to disguise the satisfaction in her voice.

"It doesn't mean she's an invalid witness," he rallied.

"Mulder. She said that she saw an alien win a jackpot, that Burl Ives
often plays next to her, and that the paintings in the motel room
occasionally give her advice about which casinos are 'hot' today."

"It could be true, about Burl Ives I mean." He tried to remember which
way their hotel was. Despite Scully's dirty looks when she saw the
Sphinx and the wandering employees dressed as Cleopatra and Pharoah, he
hadn't picked it. They were required to stay in the Luxor so that they
could carry out the surveillance on the suspect they were supposedly
there to track.

Mulder was aware that the first rule of any job was 'never volunteer,'
but it would have been criminal to ask him to pass up a free trip to
Las Vegas. Scully had her fun with DefCon, and he was determined to see
the side of her that the Gunmen had seen. Of course, then she was under
the influence of drugs, but Frohike insisted that the symptoms combined
drunkenness and hypnotized sensitivity -- Scully unbound, not Scully
transformed. He had to put up with Scully on a regular basis and,
dammit, he deserved to see her cut loose.

Unfortunately, Scully was still acting tighter than Lycra shorts; Las
Vegas had yet to work its magic on her. She wouldn't let the issue of
Mrs. Franklin's reliability go. She was like a cat with a mouse that
way -- she'd let the topic think that it had escaped to safety, then
reach out at the last moment and pull it back with one delicately
deadly paw. Sure enough, she was talking again. "In layman's terms, her
elevator doesn't go to the top floor. She's a few lights short of a
marquee. She's -- she's got two cherries and an orange."

Or maybe Las Vegas was having too great an influence on her. "Check the
map, willya, Scully -- should I go right or left at the light?"

****

Scully loathed gambling. Flying into the Las Vegas airport, where there
were slot machines as soon as you walked off of the airplane, had made
her skin crawl. She was having a mental allergic reaction to the entire
*concept* of Las Vegas. If there ever was a time in her life for a
psychosomatic illness, it was now, but her body was as stubborn as her
psyche and no nausea or swelling was forthcoming.

And Scully did not understand the concept of dressing up to go
gambling. On the one hand, it was perfectly understandable that one
would not want to go around in a floral shirt and plaid slacks like
some of the people in the casinos. On the other, if a person were to be
so foolish as to gamble, could she really disguise that fact by
dressing up as if it were the opera? There's no such thing as the
Phantom of the Blackjack Tables. Evening dress implied that people
actually looked at each other rather than at the cards or chips or
other betting things -- Scully was fairly vague on that part of the
gambling experience -- on which they were gambling away their hard-
earned money.

But Charles "Chip" Morelli was a high roller and she and Mulder were
supposed to follow him around in the fancy part of the casinos, and
that -- according to Mulder -- meant expensive clothes. He'd been very
specific when he called her and told her, gleefully, to pack for the
trip. That was all very well for Mulder who could just wear one of his
suits, but she'd be damned if she was going to shop for and buy an
outfit with sequins on it -- blue sequins, thank you very much -- and
then pay for it herself.  Accounting could suck it up. In fact, looking
forward to the dispute with Agnes Whatserface in Accounting gave her
the only enjoyment she'd had in the whole matter, other than puncturing
Mulder's little "Aliens are taking all the money that losers lose in
casinos" theory with Mrs. Franklin this morning.

Sadly, it was the hope of meeting Mrs. Franklin that had led Mulder to
offer her (and himself) on the sacrificial altar of undercover work,
like two chickens who normally worked in the basement but had wandered
up into the daylight, blinking, only to find that they were part of a
big complicated spell that involved chanting Miranda warnings and
sticking pins in representations of the suspect until he confessed.

Something like that, anyway.

Organized Crime had jumped at the chance to have fresh faces doing the
surveillance, and Mulder had jumped at the chance for a weekend in Las
Vegas, and they met in the middle and smacked together and came down
right on Scully.

Ever since she'd been lured to Vegas, Mulder had been itching to go
together. Unfortunately, all the time she'd spent apart from the Gunmen
was rather hazy in her mind and she hadn't resisted with as much vigor
as she should have. Now that she considered it, Mrs. Franklin was a
pretty pitiful excuse even for him. Mulder no doubt had some sort of
dark and nefarious bet with the Gunmen involving what *he* could get
her to do in Vegas.

Regardless of his true motive, he'd signed them up to do surveillance
on Chip Morelli in a hotel in the ridiculous and superstitious shape of
a giant pyramid. A black glass pyramid with neon coursing down the
edges in case any alien spaceships needed landing lights. Mulder was in
love with it.

Their suite was right next to Morelli's, up near the pointy top of the
place. Ideally, they'd socialize with him and ingratiate themselves
enough to get invited to his room for a drink. Once there, they could
plant listening devices. The usual procedure in this situation was to
get hotel cooperation, but this was Vegas, and Las Vegas hotels didn't
have a healthy relationship with the Bureau. Thus they were forced to
resort to subterfuge, and snappy dressing.

Scully looked over her shoulder once more, meeting the resigned eyes of
her reflection in the mirror, and realized yet again, as if for the
first time, that there was no way she could wear a bra in the dress. It
wasn't clear that there would be room even if it were structurally
feasible. She sighed and pulled the heavy material up so that the
collar -- er, halter top -- fastened around her neck.

The good thing about the dress was that the fabric was thick enough
that the edges of the sequins didn't poke her in uncomfortable places.
The bad thing was that it was therefore thick enough to qualify as
blast shielding. As soon as she zipped the back up, all the parts of
her that were covered began to sweat like a teen-age boy within sight
of a Penthouse magazine. Fortunately (sort of), not too much was
covered up. Clearly, it had been designed by someone under the
impression that there was a horrible sequin shortage facing America.
The dress stopped just above her knees and, in back, started just below
her tattoo.

It wasn't entirely her fault. She'd only had one day to shop after
Mulder broke the news, she didn't know much about high casino fashion
anyway and had to guess based on her viewing of "Casino" and last
year's Golden Globes, and the tattoo-baring style had seemed sexy and a
little dangerous in the dressing room.

There was no way to wear hose with the damn thing, either. Scully
scowled and unzipped the back long enough to ditch her underwear on the
tile floor. She was going to be as damp as a rainforest all night in
any event; at least she could hope for some cool breezes. The skirt was
so tight that she could barely move her legs, and she was unlikely to
pull a Sharon Stone on anyone.

Looking sexy and feeling sexy are two very different things, she
realized as Mulder knocked on the bathroom door. "Time's a'wastin',
Scully." She slid into the three-inch blue heels -- matching in color,
but, thank God, without sequins -- and opened the door.

Mulder gave the obligatory wolf whistle, which was okay by Scully
because it gave her a moment to run her eyes over him. In theory, she
would rather have used her tongue than her eyes, but in practice her
eyes were safer, and less likely to dry out in the process. Mulder had
decided to roll out the black Armani with the band-collar white shirt.
Tieless was good. Shirtless and pantless might have been better, but
they had a job to do.

****

Scully looked around as Mulder charged some chips on the Bureau credit
card. She really hoped that no one ever made a Freedom of Information
Act request about their expenses; the scandal would surely see them
fired if not prosecuted for ripping off Uncle Sam. The noise of the
casino roared through her head like a hangover headache.

Chip was over at the craps table, and Mulder steered Scully through the
crowd. "Ever played craps?" he asked, leaning over her like Little Red
Riding Hood's cape. Maybe more like the Big Bad Wolf.

"Does 'craps' sound like the kind of game I would play?" Scully was
annoyed, and not afraid to admit it. Mulder had lied to her about the
necessity of dressing up. There were a few couples who were nattily
dressed, but even among the high rollers shorts and polo shirts
reigned. The sequins made her look like a miniature showgirl. Already
someone had tried to ask her for a drink. She was going to have to
think of something particularly creative to get her revenge, something
befitting an irate forensic pathologist. 'Disgusting' and 'gooey' were
useful concepts when dealing with a man as fastidious about his
personal grooming as Mulder.

They were nearly to the edge of the table now, past the observers and
among the people who were actually betting. "You know, craps players
have a superstition, Scully," he murmured. "A woman who's a craps
virgin is destined to have a hot roll her first time." Typical male
fantasy about female inexperience, she thought and shifted further away
from him, pushing herself into the solid cherry of the craps table.

Mulder insinuated himself next to their target and put some chips on
the table.

Scully soon discovered that she didn't understand craps at all, which
annoyed the hell out of her. As far as she could tell, the game
involved lots of dice and yelling. Some numbers were good and some were
bad, but only depending on what the other people at the table were
doing, and, maybe, the latitude and longitude of the craps table.

It was annoying, but only to be expected, that Mulder knew exactly how
to play craps. Chip was rolling the dice, but Mulder was betting, and
apparently winning more than Chip, which she didn't understand.
Finally, amidst shouts of "come!" and "don't come!" that reminded her
of the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, something happened that
required Chip to pass the dice along to Mulder.

"The lady's going to roll," he told the stickman, who smiled politely
at her and pushed the dice towards her.

Mulder wrapped himself around her, his hands gripping the craps table
on either side of her, and breathed "Just relax," into her neck in a
tone that suggested she should do anything but. If he kept it up she
was going to have to do something to him that didn't naturally occur in
the animal kingdom. "Make sure the dice hit the opposite wall and
bounce off."

The dice were red, and warm from repeated handling. She wondered if she
should do something showy like blow on them, but that would have been
even more awkward, so she gauged the distance between her hands and the
far side of the table, then closed her eyes and threw.

She didn't even see the dice, just the chips being pushed towards her
and Mulder, who kept some and put others on the table as if he were
scattering breadcrumbs.

"Hard six," he said, looking at the dealer, speaking loud enough to
hear but sending the words right past her ear as if they described a
proposed sexual position. The dice were in her hand again, and she
briefly imagined that they were his testicles, but that line of thought
was going nowhere and anyway the dice were too angular for effective
fantasy crushing. His breath assaulted the side of her face like the
blast from an exhaust fan. If her hands shook a little, it was just a
matter of aiming the dice. The onlookers exclaimed and Mulder collected
more money.

Their drink orders were taken, and she sipped at the rum-laced thing
Mulder had ordered for her with some resentment. She would have ordered
a nice gin and tonic, but no one had asked her. She felt like the craps
version of Vanna White, except that she wasn't required to smile. Again
and again she rolled, and people were betting on her winning streak,
and it all made her nauseous. Taking risks with perfectly good money,
knowing the odds were against you, wasn't entertainment. It was
stupidity. When she finished her drink, she turned to Mulder. "I don't
want to do this anymore."

"You can't stop now, in the middle. When you make this point, you can
give the dice to me."

Chip leaned over; he'd been listening to their conversation. "You
shouldn't stop. Next time you won't be a virgin any more. Your luck
won't be as good."

He wasn't bad-looking -- ruffled short brown hair, blue eyes with wry
smile wrinkles, and a good strong chin. The well-tailored suit helped.
Only gorillas were completely unattractive in formal wear. She smiled
at him, aided by her FBI mission and the alcohol. "It seems to me that
things get easier after you lose your virginity."

He grinned back. "Not at craps, baby."

She licked her lips and considered a reply. Mulder's hand clenched on
her back and she started, then forced herself to relax as his hand
swept up to her nape, over skin made sweaty by the crowd of onlookers.
"Keep going -- baby," he ordered, and she felt her lips peel back from
her teeth, thinking of the sleek Egyptian cats decorating the walls of
the casino.

There was a collective groan when she finally surrendered the dice, but
Mulder took over and kept going, only faster now as he didn't have to
wait for her to roll. Mulder was always focused, like a ray of sun
through a magnifying glass. Whatever target he found would soon burst
into flames. She was surprised the craps table wasn't smoking.

And still he won. The man didn't just make his own luck, he
manufactured it. He was the Henry Ford of luck, the Thomas Edison of
happenstance, the Bill Gates of coincidence. If only preserving
evidence were as easy as craps, she thought. How easy was craps,
anyway?

Chip the mafia donlet was in awe, trying to chat Mulder up for advice,
following his every move. Mulder was working him, telling off-color
stories about other gambling adventures. Meanwhile the casino swirled
around them like a circus of hyperactive chihuahuas on speed.

The whole thing made her head hurt. Or maybe that was just the noise
and the light and the free alcohol. Even though she was no longer
betting, being with Mulder evidently entitled her to keep drinking and
the servers took the empty glasses from her hand before she knew they
were empty. As she watched and drank, craps seemed to make a little
more sense. The better I get the drunker you look, Mulder, she thought
and then smiled, because he wasn't looking.

Oh, he was fine tonight. Even in a room of flash and dazzle, Mulder
shone. He was a searchlight amidst candleflames. A thin sheen of sweat
glistened at the sides of his face, making his hair spiky, making her
mouth water for some tequila and a lime. His eyes took in all the
frenetic activity that surrounded him and processed it, shining like
ancient amber as he surfed the sea of chance. He would chew his lower
lip a little while the others bet, not nervous but impatient, and he
shuffled from foot to foot like a sulky model searching for the best
pose.

She could have told him, they were all pretty good as far as she was
concerned. Work that runway, baby. He'd taken off the jacket several
thousand dollars ago, and a miniskirted waitress wearing far too much
makeup had taken it somewhere for safekeeping. Mulder had barely
noticed as he pushed chips to and fro, pausing only to give her a few
hundreds' worth.

The tailored pants showcased his ass as he leaned over the table, and
with his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms, flexing as he
rolled the dice and followed through, he was a teenage fanclub fantasy,
rock star and poet all in one.

Scully took a deep breath and considered. She was just fixating on him
because she couldn't stand all the noise and crowding. She had a very
orderly mind and the disorder of the casino was causing her to focus on
the one item of familiarity, to wit Mulder, who was therefore taking on
more importance than --

If that bitch in the little black dress "accidentally" jostled her
breast against Mulder's arm one more time, she was going to find out if
silicon implants couldn't be removed on the floor of a casino.

This is no good, she thought despairingly. No good whatsoever.

Chip's girlfriend, who couldn't afford to show interest in Mulder and,
sensibly enough, expressed no real interest in craps, wandered over to
the blackjack tables. Scully thought she'd make herself useful and
follow the girlfriend, whose name clearly ended in "I."

"You with him?" the girlfriend asked, not looking up from her cards,
when Scully sidled up next to her. "Hit me."

"Yes," she said. "I'm Dana." Feeling queasy, she pushed a twenty-
dollar chip forward and was dealt two cards. An ace and a ten, a
natural twenty-one -- maybe she was still caught in the aura of
Mulder's luck.

"Hit me," the girlfriend repeated. She seemed to be a true blonde up
close. "Damn. I'm Stevie." The dealer took Stevie's money and increased
Scully's. Scully snatched away the extra chips, leaving only the
original twenty.

"You're with Chip? The guy next to M -- to my friend?"

"Yep. He didn't want me to play, though. He has that thing about craps
virgins, y'know, and once you've done it once you're useless. Sort of
like life that way."

"It seems to me that's just one more rule invented by men."

Stevie won a hand and smiled triumphantly. "Yeah, well, I'm no good
with rules."

Scully decided she just wouldn't pay attention to the betting. What she
didn't acknowledge couldn't hurt her. Well, it might kill her, but it
couldn't disrupt her settled expectations about life, which was really
what mattered. "Have you been with Chip long?"

Stevie shrugged, causing her breasts to jounce impressively enough to
sway the attention of the dealer. "Couple of months. I don't think he's
looking for anything serious, but he's got the money to party. You and
your friend, you like to party?" Suddenly her speculative eyes were
quite threatening.

Scully's mouth opened and closed like automatic doors on overload.
"That depends on how much M -- Joe wins," she managed finally. They
were, after all, assigned to get close to this couple.

Stevie nodded with recognition. "Yeah, Chip's like that too. When he's
winning, he's like a goddamn jack-in-the-box, when he's losing I get
more satisfaction from my lipstick. Looks like he's betting with your
friend. I won't be able to sit down for a week."

Scully swallowed another gulp of her drink. She could brave this out,
no problem. After Arcadia, masquerade was a way of life for her.

End of Part One
 

Sore Luck at the Luxor (2/3)

The one great thing about ISU was that it rarely got involved with
organized crime, and so Mulder had never, except for that awful
wiretapping experience some years back, had to deal with mobsters on an
extended basis. He was surprised they didn't all kill themselves out of
horror at living the cliches of their existence. Chip Morelli seemed
oblivious, though, and he was happily explaining how he'd run this deal
involving trading furs for cars with some foreign country, without
paying any of the associated excise taxes. Mulder feigned interest as
they wandered the casino, looking for their "girls." Mulder had
carefully steered Chip away from the blackjack tables so as to gain
more time to chat with Chip. That was his job, and, despite what most
people thought, he wanted to do it right.

Finally, Chip suggested that they have a drink together when the
"ladies" were found, and Mulder agreed with relief and turned Chip
toward the table where Scully and Stevie were playing. As a compass
knows true north, he knew where Scully was; the magnetism required no
conscious thought.

Scully had held her own with the chips she'd taken from him, neither
winning nor losing much. Conservative, predictable Scully, only tonight
she was exposing a radical and unpredicted amount of skin. He was
actually glad she didn't seem to be betting heavily; that would
complete her transformation into a stranger.

"Hey," he put his hand on her bare, sweat-slick back and she jumped off
of her stool as she turned in shock. He stabilized her as she tottered
on her spike heels. "Wanna call it a night?" Next to them, Chip and his
doxy were kissing hello, as if by playing the part of lovers they could
elevate their essentially commercial transaction into something more
meaningful.

"Sure," Scully said, looking at his face for reassurance. He nodded and
moved his hand to her hip. Even blinking in the harsh casino light, her
eyes were as light as a perfect spring sky. They walked out of the
noise and heat of the casino floor, into the hotel area where the air
conditioning had not been overwhelmed by the crush of human bodies. The
cool silence brushed against his face like cotton wool as they moved
towards the elevators.

"Why don't I get some champagne sent up to celebrate our good fortune?"
Mulder suggested, gesturing toward the concierge.

"Sounds great!" Stevie chirped.

Chip looked Scully over from head to toe -- it didn't take that long --
and smiled. "That's a pretty dress you're wearing. It sets off your
eyes."

Scully's lips curved upwards as she cast her eyes to the floor. If
she'd been any other woman Mulder would have thought it simpering. But
he deeply hoped that she was faking pleasantness.

Mulder moved to the concierge's stand, leaving Scully wobbling behind
him like one of those little plastic toys. Scully wobbles but she
doesn't fall down. Maybe he'd had a bit too much to drink in the
casino; it was hard to remember.

He could hear behind his back that Chip was saying something else to
Scully, whose forced laugh probably sounded perfectly natural to him;
as a mobster he must be used to people who had no choice but to laugh
at his jokes. "Could you have four bottles of your best champagne sent
up to Mr. Morelli's room. And some fruit." He thought about keeping
Scully involved in the charade. "And chocolate. Truffles if you have
them, Godiva if you don't. Put it on my tab. And let us sleep in
tomorrow, all right?" He pushed a hundred-dollar bill across the
counter to show his good will.

When he returned to the three people waiting for him, Chip was
examining Scully's palm as if it held the secrets of the universe.
Chip's date was appraising him, suggesting just by the tilt of her hip
that she wouldn't be averse to partner-swapping. Mulder made the panic
face at Scully, who didn't look up from Chip's stubby fingers against
her skin.

He grabbed Scully's upper arm and it was instantly as if his hand had
been sunburnt by the unforgiving Nevada sun.

The elevator wasn't an actual elevator, but a novelty device they
called an "inclinator," which no way was he going to try to pronounce
in his current state of near-intoxication. It went diagonally up the
inside of the pyramid, so that the familiar pull of gravity was
distorted by the sideways motion. He closed his eyes and tried very
hard to pretend he was on solid land. Seasick was one thing, but Scully
would never forgive him if he puked on her sparkly blue dress because
of an elevator with verticality issues. When the thing stopped moving,
he stayed inside and held the door open long enough for the world to
stop jittering around him like an overcaffeinated butterfly.

Chip babbled interestingly for a while, but then he simply curled up at
the corner of the overstuffed couch and watched, increasingly glassy-
eyed, as Stevie discussed with Scully the best variety shows in town.
Stevie was partial to the pirate extravaganza, while Scully held out
for Sigfried and Roy. Mulder dearly hoped that this was her idea of
playing an undercover role.

No one paid much attention to Mulder as he wandered around, placing the
bugs in inconspicuous locations. Three glasses of champagne and six
listening devices later, the job was finally complete. When he was
finished, he sat down on the couch, where he observed with a trained
investigator's eye that Scully had saved the world from the terrible
burden of six chocolate truffles. He reached for one of the survivors,
but backed off under Scully's laser glare.

Chip took the opportunity to let out a mighty snore. Stevie rolled her
eyes. "Look, he's no use. You guys wanna ... go somewhere? Like your
room?" She deposited her hand on Mulder's thigh as if it were a gift
from Santa Claus.

Mulder carefully lifted her hand and moved it to a safer place. "Sorry,
Stevie. I think we're too tired for that. We're just going to turn in.
Maybe we'll see you tomorrow?"

Stevie sighed. "Yah, sure. Guess it's a good thing this place has a
decent shower."

Mulder puzzled over that one for a little bit, until he realized that
Scully was slightly pinker than usual and flashed on one of his films,
where the redhead was all alone in the shower with that snakelike
shower fixture ... Oh.

****

Despite the fact that the hallway was overdecorated in a category that
Scully had never imagined existed -- Egyptian kitsch -- it was cool and
quiet and they were at long last alone, finished with their Bureau
duties. The hallway was perfect as long as their job was done.

"Well, Scully, will it be fun and games in our room or fun and games
downstairs?"

She pressed her back against the cool mirror that ran between the two
luxury suites and shivered as it touched her bare skin. Mulder was
watching her from underneath lowered lashes, hoping for a reaction. For
such a highly educated man, Mulder could be a damn fool at times. That
was what she wanted: for him to be convinced of her complete detachment
and distinterest in him. But paradoxically, and naturally, she wanted
him to see through her, which was exactly why she'd decided that it
would never work.  Not to mention that he was less stable than the
transuranic elements.

If only he could look a little more froglike, and less like a GQ model,
it would be much easier. Idly, she wondered if she could arrange for a
slight disfigurement. Mulder would blame it on the Consortium, of
course -- but it would probably make it harder for him to interview
suspects, so it was a bad idea all around.

The ping of the "inclinator" doors surprised her from her reverie, and
an older couple trotted out into the hallway, giggling like teenagers.
Mulder insinuated his hand between her and the wall to guide her back
to their room. The contrast between the glass and his fleshy heat
almost made her jump, but in the dress and the heels she would have
fallen like a mummy decanted from its tomb so she controlled herself.

Did he always wiggle his fingers like that? Maybe she couldn't tell
when their skin sandwiched her clothing. The trick is to keep walking,
Dana. The woman of the couple, a tall, elegant lady with white hair and
a purple dress with matching trailing scarf, winked at her as they
passed and Scully felt embarrassed, though she didn't know why.

The "Egyptian carvings" on the imitation-stone walls looked too much
like math symbols for her comfort. "The decorations are entirely
inauthentic," she complained. "People come here to gamble, Mulder, why
does the management feel it necessary to create a pallid exoticism, an
imitation of something that never really existed?"

"But, Scully, it's *fun*," he said, which in her opinion did not count
as an answer. She would have pressed the point, but they'd arrived at
the room.

Mulder, gentleman that he was not, nonetheless opened the door for her
with a flourish. He knew she didn't have room in that dress for a key.

"What are you going to do with your winnings?" she asked, searching for
a neutral topic of conversation. Carefully, wobbling only as much as
physics and biology required given her shoes, she walked to the
kitchenette and poured herself a glass of water. She felt smoky and
alcohol-bloated and she knew she wouldn't respect herself in the
morning.

"The Bureau will probably make me turn it over as part of the
investigation," he said mournfully.

The water was blessedly clean, stolen from some mountain redoubt to
fuel this phantasmagoric city in the desert. She drank and then poured
another glass, determined to fight the onrushing hangover as best she
could. Then she poured Mulder a glass for himself and tottered over to
him. No doubt he hadn't the faintest idea how difficult that was for
her. The things she did for him --

"Thanks," he said, proof enough if she needed it that he'd been
drinking, and smiled at her. "You know, I bet they couldn't make me
give it back if we went ahead and spent it. They have twenty- four-hour
everything here, Scully -- we could buy you some more spiffy dresses
like that," he gestured, as if she possibly could have forgotten that
she looked like the Little Mermaid with less hair and more legs. The
Little Mermaid was about the only person she was ahead of in the legs
department, she thought despondently. And Ariel didn't even exist.

A round or two with Mulder would make her feel better. Verbally. A
verbal round. "Mulder, I'm sure we could get married by an Elvis
impersonator if we wanted to in this town, but the exact same question
arises --"

Mulder appeared to choke on the water, but recovered before she could
make it back to his side. "Who looks better in white satin?"

"Why would we want to?"

Predictably, Mulder's face fell. She would have felt sorry for him if
she hadn't been fully aware of how the game was played. It was like
having a dog, only you could generally reuse a dog toy and Mulder had
to be offered new opportunities for bon mots every day. "If we were
going to get married, it seems to me that we ought to at least go to
Area 51. It's not that far and it would make a superior honeymoon
spot."

He grinned at her, and the width of the smile made his nose look much
more size-proportional. "Scully, you little devil. If I'd known what
you were like with a few drinks in you --"

"You might have tried to get more in?" and she had the satisfaction of
making him swallow, twice, as he figured out what to say next. Well,
Mulder might be a natural gambler, but Scully had a wit and she wasn't
afraid to use it.

Mulder shook his head, bemused, and then focused on her. She could feel
the weight of his stare, like quartz, heavy and crystalline. "You
know," he said, moving towards her, "we are sharing a room tonight."

Scully refrained from rolling her eyes. After six years, they'd shared
a room or two, even before that idiotic interlude in Arcadia. As
innuendo, it lacked a certain freshness.

"Which might make it a good time to ask something that's been on my
mind."

Scully looked at him carefully. Obviously there was a devastating joke
heading her way. She could try to raise her shields against known forms
of attack, but Mulder was a past master at developing new forms of
weaponry. The problem was that he often made them a little too powerful
at first, so that they hurt her despite his good intentions.

"Scully, when ... when Padgett said that you were in love ... was that
accurate?"

God, this dress was uncomfortable. It had to have gained two pounds in
sweat (hers) and cigarette smoke (not hers) during the trip to the
casino. And her feet -- she was suddenly aware how very much she wanted
to take off her high heels, but there was no way that she could do so
until this conversational shoal had been navigated.

"Scully?" his voice was soft, waiting for the blow, trembling in
anticipation of it. She'd stepped closer to him, or he to her, and they
were standing in the middle of the room so that the Steadicam could
swirl around them, only there was no Steadicam, just Mulder and the
sandstorm rising in his eyes, threatening to scour her flesh from her
bones.

It was too much and she turned away. That was all the answer Mulder
needed, and she heard him choke off a breath or a word. Mulder's gift,
a curse in equal measure, was that he never got a mental "Do Not Pass
Go" sign; with him it was always "Take Another Turn," or sometimes
chutes and ladders were involved because Mulder was never one to play
by the standard rules. So Mulder felt that he'd lost his stake because
he'd rolled the dice one too many times, but he hadn't even bothered to
check the numbers that had come up.

Folding her arms across her chest, Scully tried to formulate an answer
that they could both live with. Outside, the city gleamed like a
starship in a cheap sci-fi movie.

"I've ... considered it often. He was accurate in describing some
outward attributes of my life. But by his own confession he was badly
mistaken in evaluating my inner life. The question ... is more
difficult because I'm far from certain what the word 'love' means. We
have cultural rituals and routines for it ... but how much of that is
from genuine feeling and how much from a sense of what is appropriate,
what should be felt in a particular situation? Love is risk and I have
never willingly chosen risk. At times I've waited until the risk has
forced itself upon me and then I have tried to maintain the courage to
embrace it. I consider my partnership with you to be the most extreme
risk I've ever taken, Mulder."

There was a quasi-syllogism in there somewhere, she was certain. She
wasn't sure what he'd make of it; Mulder wasn't big on the
contrapositive at the best of times.

"So my job," he said, his voice hesitant as if he were practicing the
lines for a better time, "is to bring risk into your life?"

Scully turned, the wet and heavy dress weighing her down. She wasn't
surprised to see that Mulder was shaking. Or maybe that was her doing
the shaking. "I have never been that good at predicting what's best for
myself," she told him. "I didn't want to learn to swim when I was a
child. I didn't like the multiplication tables. I have never liked
change -- until it happens."

"If I were really a gambling man," he said hoarsely, his eyes whirling
like the roulette wheels, shining with the same electric fire as the
twinkling lights on all the signs on the street below, "I might do
something ... risky."

"Yeah?" Her voice had followed his down into the depths of the earth,
looking for something mysterious no doubt. She'd follow him into Hell,
and why wouldn't her voice do the same? She swallowed, licked her lips,
and turned away again, pressing her hands against the cool glass of the
window. The suite was at the top of the Luxor pyramid, and so the
window sloped out, creating a useless triangle of space. Glitzy and
wasteful, like so much of this city. But a little magical, too,
especially when the space was filled with the sound of their breathing,
in thick, harsh pants. Mulder's outline was reflected in the glass in
front of her, a ghost against the bouquet of neon that decorated the
night outside. When she spoke again, she was pleased that her voice
stayed even. "I think that gambling for money is a waste of good risk."

She had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but Mulder seemed to
like it, because he moved up behind her until his shadow-image in the
window merged with hers and his breath ruffled her hair, or would have
ruffled it if not for the hairspray.

"So you like your risks ... more intimate?" he rumbled, and his hand
was at her neck, fumbling with the intricate catch that kept the dress
in the same plane as its wearer.

"Mulder..." It was more of an indrawn breath than an actual name, but
he got the idea anyway.

"Shh..." and the dress fell forward a few inches until it hit the
window. She was still decent, nothing irrevocable had happened, and it
wasn't as if he hadn't seen the full floor show in Antarctica. But her
hands knew the truth of the matter, and without her conscious volition
they slid up the slick glass, up beyond her peripheral vision and
behind her head, following the angle of the window, as she leaned
forward and pressed her cheek to the glass and waited for him, one eye
seeing night and neon and the other seeing the buttery yellow light of
this room, this remarkable room where It was finally going to happen.
All she could see was the fake-Egyptian lamp on the bedside table and,
underneath it, a sign that said something about being glad to attend to
your housekeeping needs, but the view was breathtaking nevertheless.

Mulder's fingertips traced her shoulders, as light as if she were a
soap bubble he feared to pop. She felt traceries of light and heat
where he mapped his way across her back, down the sides of her ribcage
where her breasts felt only the disturbance in the air as he skimmed by
them, down the violin curve of her waist to where the dress still had
her in its grip.

Suddenly his mouth was at the nape of her neck, hovering millimeters
away from the scar that gave her life. The heat of him made her shiver,
made her want to melt into the glass and escape. She could feel his
fingers on the zipper pull at the small of her back. If she vibrated at
any higher frequency the window was going to shatter. "Mulder," she
murmured again, this time with certainty and ease. The avalanche had
started -- some would say it started six years ago and this was no time
to argue chaos theory -- "you've never been afraid to press your luck."

The sweep of his tongue on her skin made her arch into the window, her
nails dragging uselessly against the glass. Glass is a liquid, not a
solid, she thought senselessly as he turned a lick into a full-fledged
suck and began exploring the curves of her neck and shoulder. It just
pours very, very slowly. Like us.

Mulder was making little surprised sounds, "oh oh oh" as she thrust her
hands behind her to caress whatever part of him she could reach. He was
obviously having some trouble adjusting to the fact that there was a
high probability that he'd be in close proximity to a naked woman soon
and that, according to Bayes' theorem, it was almost certain that the
woman would be Scully. His shirt was soft as it slipped through her
fingers, but it wasn't what she wanted.

"Mulder," she tried again, achieving with the third repetition of his
name a cross between a groan and a squeak that would have embarrassed
her terribly if she'd had any neurons free for self- analysis. "I think
I can promise you that luck is a lady tonight."

Finally, at long last, he pulled the zipper down like a man pulling the
lever on a one-armed bandit, and then he gasped like that very same man
when he actually wins the jackpot as he realized that she wasn't
wearing any underwear.

And before the dress hit the floor he'd spun her around, crushing her
between his heavy body and the window. "You should stop stealing my
lines," he said quite distinctly before his mouth took hers like
Sherman marching through Georgia.

End of Part Two

*****************************
Sore Luck at the Luxor by Anubis (3/3) *NC-17*

Mulder had never seriously expected any of his teasing to work. He
had, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that Scully had simply decided
not to know how he felt, the same way she'd decided not to know about
colonization. When she began to babble about risk he was unable to
translate it into normal English, but he thought he picked up on the
meta-level of her meaning, and when she offered him her naked back for
the second time it was both too much and too little, a single meal
presented to take away the aching emptiness of famine. His brain,
dazzled by the images arriving via his optic nerves, was thinking half-
thoughts that fizzled on the ends like Fourth of July sparklers and
left him incapable of coherence.

This was no time for analysis, he reminded himself, as the whirlpool in
her eyes drew him down to where the secrets of her mouth were made
known to him. She kissed him for an aching eternity. Her lips were
chapped and her skin was desert-hot but her mouth was an oasis. He
drank with an aching gratitude that made him as nervous as he was
ecstatic. Predators live by water in the desert because that is where
the prey has to go.

She danced away from him, stepping out of her lethal shoes like
Cinderella deciding the hell with the Prince. He shook off the shock of
desire and followed her, closer to the bed, which was a good thing
because he realized, in a hazy sort of way, that Scully had been
mooning Las Vegas. "Scully --" her name caught in his throat like hard
candy and he shook, as confused as if he'd just taken a blow to the
head, and maybe he had.

Her eyes sparked challenge at him. Scully didn't like to be the one to
start a conflict, but she was always game to finish one. She was
winning the staredown with her 'refute my scientific evidence if you
dare' expression. "Questions, Mulder? Is this a close encounter whose
existence you acknowledge or is it just swamp --"

He was on her again, covering her like shellac. Words tended to fail
him in personal matters and he kept his mouth busy with other things so
that she couldn't fault him for being inarticulate. No doubt she would
fault him for something, but it wouldn't be for mangling sweet
nothings. He had his right hand at the small of her back, pressing her
to himself as if he could compress her into a paper doll against his
belly. His left stroked her shoulder and her hot smooth neck, feeling
the thick heavy ends of her hair brush against his fingers like the
pelt of some jungle-stalking beast.

Eventually she came down from her tiptoes and tore away from him even
as he tried to double over like Victor Hugo's hunchback to follow her.

The bed could have doubled as an orbital platform for space shuttle
repair; you'd need sled dogs to get to the center of it. Mulder landed
on her, his arms braced around her to avoid angering her with his
weight, as they fell onto the outer perimeter. Her eyes were hotter
than tracer rounds as she pushed her chest against him. Her hands were
tugging at him, giving him the kind of examination lady doctors always
went in for in his movies, and he was going to ruin his pants if he
didn't get control quickly. Her breasts ought to be on Schedule One for
restricted substances, he thought as he took hold of her wrists and
wrenched them up behind her, over her head.

Scully threw her head back against the bed like a spooked horse,
exposing her throat so that he could bite at it. They were thrusting
against each other like teenagers in the living room, hoping that Mom
wouldn't come downstairs to see what was going on. She was stretching
herself out like a movable feast, and none of the delights of Paris
could compete with the availability of her body. She moaned when his
hands closed over her breasts, and moaned again when he squeezed.
"Harder," she demanded and he complied, hoping not to bruise her at the
same time as he wanted to mark her as his.

The noises she made roared in his ears like flame. The room was on fire
with her and he was going to go up like a thousand-year-old forest.
Scully's body was an instrument worthy of Stradivarius. The hungry
sounds she made when he sucked at her skin were better for his ego than
the praises of a hundred Oxford dons. He wanted to consume her, to
disappear inside her and she in him like the worm tattoo that marked
the parchment of her back.

When his mouth closed on her nipple she shook underneath him like a
storm. He freed a hand to skim down the elliptical curves of her waist
and hip to where her legs were clamped together like a mermaid's tail.
Through the thick wildness of her pubic hair he found her clitoris but
she wouldn't allow him any further. She wanted him to fight for her as
they'd fought for six long years, and this was one battle she might let
him win. When he ran the edges of his teeth around her breast, she
sighed and relaxed her legs fractionally.

He slipped one finger inside her, curving his thumb around to tease her
clit, as he scalloped the edge of her breast with love bites. She was
hot as a smithy's forge; she was going to melt him down and transform
him into nobler metal. He pulled his hand away before it melted off and
lowered his head to her thighs, which she immediately clamped shut
again with killing force. When he looked up, she was smirking at him,
daring him to once again challenge her boundaries. That was their game:
he proposed, she disposed. He pushed, she shoved back.

This time, when he put his hands on her thighs to pry her legs apart,
he pushed her legs up so that he had perfect access. The muscles in the
backs of her thighs jumped against his hands as he bathed his face in
her.

She tasted like the salt on a margarita, the foam on root beer. She
tasted as good as coffee and vanilla always smelled. He tried to get
her on every part of his tongue so that all of the separate tastebuds
could sample her. Scully's cries rose and then cut off as she thrashed
against him with her orgasm, then tried to pull away from the
overstimulation. He moved up to lay his head on her stomach and she
sighed, a long exhalation that he felt vibrate against his cheek.

"See, that mouth is good for something," she told him lazily, like a
cat watching a bird with a broken wing. She was smiling, too, as if
he'd brought home a report card covered with gold stars and was allowed
to pick a special treat to celebrate. He had some thoughts about what
his reward should be and crawled up her body, hanging on to her like a
rock climber clings to a cliff face.

Scully pulled away and began to work at his pants. She did no more than
push the pants and boxers over his hips, marginally out of the way.
Someday the shirt would come off and that would be a good day too, but
now was not the time for subtlety. Now was the time for fucking.

Her breasts were jouncing with her panting breaths and he put his hands
on them to stop the distraction. He plunged his tongue into her mouth
so that she could taste herself on him, then pulled back when she began
to worry his tongue with her teeth. Somehow she'd gotten her legs
closed again and he wrenched them open like a kid going at the packages
under the Christmas tree. If he could have he would have cracked her
like a walnut and swallowed her whole. He couldn't bear to separate his
hands from her breasts to guide his cock into her, so he rubbed against
her like the horny beast he was. In a flash of luck almost enough to
make him reconsider religion, he entered her in one sudden thrust that
made her shudder around him like a dynamited building.

The feeling of being buried back in her was more shattering than seeing
a UFO, more exhilarating than witchcraft. He was going to fuck her into
next Sunday. She would never want anyone but him again.

He lifted himself off of her with his hands on her chest so that he
could look down and see her flushed body against the bed, her navel
winking obscenely at him and her perfect-handful breasts spilling out
around his fingers with the pressure of his weight. She stretched her
legs and suddenly they were over his shoulders; she was doubled up
beneath him which made her about a third of his size, and her feet were
locked around his neck, pulling him into the heat of her mouth. He
moved his hands to her hips so that he could get enough leverage to
thrust in and out as she imitated him with her tongue, yin and yang on
the vast acres of bed.

As he sped up, her head dropped back and she moved with his near-
rhythm, grinding herself against his pubic bone. Her eyes were squeezed
closed and she was panting, her hair sticking to the side of her face
with perspiration. Oh and when he came it was going to last forever if
only he could wait just one moment longer just to make sure that she
was coming too --

And she cried out like an animal caught in a trap and Mulder pounded
into her, wanting to cover her with his signature and his kisses so
that she would know as well as the rest of the world did that she was
for him alone, but God it was intense and he'd have to wait awhile,
just awhile, and he slumped over her, saturated with pleasure.

****

"Scully?"

She frowned, not entirely pleased that he could be so coherent so
quickly. "Mmm?"

"Maybe I should, uh, get undressed?"

She nodded and felt him pull away from her. If sex made Mulder hesitant
instead of bossy, she'd just have to whip herself for avoiding it for
so long. Orgasms could be achieved solo, but obedience was a pearl
without price. She propped her head up on one elbow so that she could
watch as he stood, wavering, and finished taking off his clothes.
Socks, then pants and boxers, and then the cufflinks, which he put on
the nightstand. Then he got tired with neatness, unbuttoned a few
buttons, and pulled his crisp white shirt off along with his undershirt
and threw them on the floor. He'd been doing ab exercises again. What a
nice, considerate man.

"I'm not sure that striptease was extended enough to deserve a tip,"
she said, smiling to show that she was not trying to fight.

"I don't have anywhere to tuck a dollar bill anyway," he pointed out,
and she nodded her understanding. He sat down on the bed with his back
to her, self-conscious now, and paused. It was a fine back, but Mulder
vertical was Mulder thinking and, at this juncture, that was bad news.
"Scully?" His voice dropped to a whisper.

No, it's Lara Flynn Boyle, Scully thought. We traded places when you
turned your back and now I get to star in a David Kelley show and she
gets your ass. Don't ask who won the coin flip.

"Yes?" she said, quelling her nasty thoughts.

"Aside from the striptease, that was -- good, right?"

*That's* why I stayed away from this so long, she remembered. With the
naked male comes the naked male ego. "It was fine."

His shoulders slumped.

Okay, she'd obviously had either too much or too little to drink for
this conversation. In a clever tactical move that surprised even her,
she put her hand on Mulder's waist, feeling the moist heat of him. He
sighed and straightened a little. "It was very good. It's just possible
that it's going to take a few dozen more times before I can give you a
reliable evaluation. Right now the sample size is so limited, and as a
scientist I just can't generalize even if I very much want to do so."

He chuckled, and finally laid down, curling into her arms with a quick
motion that spoke poignantly about his desperate need for touch. She
draped her arm over him and they spooned. "So, the scientific method,
eh? Does that mean trying different positions will skew the experiment?
I'd hate to mess up --"

She ran her hand down his belly, feeling the sparse coarse hair crinkle
under her friendly fingers. "I was thinking there might be a need for
some -- blind -- samples."

"Ooh, Scully," he crooned and then ruined it by yawning.

She kissed the back of his neck. "Rest now," she said. "You'll need
your strength."

****

She woke again sometime after four. When she realized she was naked her
limbic system dumped so much adrenaline into her bloodstream that she
sat straight up and began searching for her gun. She stopped looking
for the gun only when Mulder groaned and threw an arm across her naked
lap. The night outside was still a parallel, electrified day, which fit
in very well with the topsy- turvy world in which she'd actually had
sex with Mulder.

Okay, Dana, think this one through.

Point one: You did it, and since the military hasn't seen fit to share
its memory-tampering expertise, from now on you will always be two
people who have had sex with each other.

Point two: But I was drunk! Tipsy at least.

Point three: Oh, shit.

Point four: Point one obviates all other points. It's either never
again or harder-yes-harder from now on. And I did all the work the
first time.

It was good to realize that logical reasoning could, once again, point
a path through the morass of possibility and confusion that so often
surrounded her. Fortified with her rational conclusions, she squirmed
free of Mulder's arm. Somehow he'd gotten his lower half under the
covers and she pushed them away so that she could more carefully
examine the specimen now in her custody.

Nothing happens in contradiction to nature. (Except for plastic
surgery, but he hadn't had any.) Consistent with the demands of time
and gravity on a man of nearly forty, his body was spreading and
settling a bit, but he was a lifelong athlete and he was mature and
powerful. Touchable. Lickable, if she had to specify.

He grunted when her tongue left a cool wet trail down his pectoral and
abdominal muscles, searching for the most sensitive parts. His hips
were perfect for her hands, solid bone underneath the reassuring layers
of skin, fat and muscle, flexible at her touch but perfectly anchored
in him. The skin of his flanks was smooth, punctuated by a few moles;
she darted from one to another as if she could connect the dots and
solve the puzzle that was Mulder. Slowly, his cock was shuddering to
life, still a few minutes ahead of its master. He smelled like sex, and
when she took him in her mouth she could taste the sweet and salt left
from their earlier encounter.

A scientist should remember, she thought as Mulder gurgled towards
consciousness, that averages are simply that. And Mulder was always at
the far end of any distribution.

"Oh my god," he gulped, and surged upwards, nearly choking her before
she recovered. "Oh -- god." She tuned out his words, which were suspect
enough from an atheist even if she didn't consider the circumstances.
It was enough that his hands drifted to her shoulders, his fingers
tightening and releasing as if he feared she'd evaporate if he let go
for too long. Her nose brushed against his pubic hair; she'd forgotten
how good a man could smell, woodsy and raw, with notes of Mulder's
unique leather-and-salt. She rubbed her hands up and down his thighs
until he thrust one last time with a loud war cry and spurted into her
mouth.

Scully rolled over, swallowing hastily as Mulder twitched happily
beside her.

"Wow," he said to no one in particular. Then he reached for her,
dragging her close so that he could kiss her. They made out for endless
minutes, while the room got hotter and his hands roved further. Finally
he pulled away from her mouth and began to canvas all the areas of her
body he'd neglected before, including the ones he'd only ever seen
covered in green goo before a few hours ago.

He licked his way around her like a surveyor, mapping the territory for
more in-depth exploration at a later date. She tried to hold him in
place when he found a good spot, but he was determined and she let him
continue. She was horrified when he worked his way to her feet, and
then ecstatic when his tongue slithered down her instep and right to
the base of her toes. No one had ever investigated her feet as an
erotic zone, but under Mulder's tongue it was as if every nerve ending
in her body had migrated there. She'd read that every spot on the foot
corresponded to a spot on the body, but she hadn't been aware that sex
organs were included. I hope this doesn't make me a foot fetishist, she
thought as she jerked and squealed.

Mulder relented and began to work his way back up her body, letting her
calm somewhat from the overstimulation. She could feel that he was hard
again, ready to make a withdrawal from the First National Bank of
Mulder. Scully was aware that she was smiling idiotically up at the
ceiling, and, worse than that, she didn't give a damn. In fact -- "Oh,
please," she groaned, thoughtlessly, helplessly, losing fragments of
pride like ticker tape at a parade in celebration of her sexual
satisfaction.

Mulder, who was either sensitive to her need to preserve her dignity or
so aroused that he couldn't think himself, saved scraps of her self-
respect by spreading her legs and entering her in one smooth-sticky
thrust, his mouth covering hers as if he could merge them into one
seamless entity, a sexual Klein bottle that went on forever. He held
onto her hips and rolled them over so that she could ride him like the
jockey on a racehorse; she liked the image, as she was small enough to
be a jockey and he was -- well, he *was*.

Mulder's hips were rising and falling in an uneven rhythm, his head
thrown back into the covers so that the tendons in his neck stood out
like an anatomical model. Their breathing was as syncopated as their
gaits, she thought, getting the same place by the same path, just at a
different pace. It was good, but she needed more this time, not just
the train-into-tunnel of standard intercourse, and she tried to wriggle
a hand in between their sweat-sodden bellies. Mulder divined her
intention and, like the enlightened male that he occasionally was, took
it as his signal to contribute more to the encounter.

His fingers assaulted her with the vigor he usually reserved for the
paranormal. At first she thought that he just couldn't find her clit,
and she was beginning to rethink the entire concept of sleeping with a
man whose main sexual activity for the past few years had been jerking
off into a towel, but his touch was insistent and her entire body
arched off of the bed before she even realized that she was feeling
something new.

God, his fingers were digging into her, as if he was going to excavate
her, finding the root of her clitoris where it was anchored deep
inside, manipulating her like a puppet. She'd never felt anything like
it, as if his fingers were going to plunge into her until they met up
with his cock. The sensation ripped through her, like a plane jolting
at takeoff, like the vibration of a speaker at a stadium reaching
thousands with its roar. Turbulence, she thought, I'm experiencing
turbulence.

The world went black with light, the orgasm shaking her like a leaf in
a typhoon, and she thought she understood what an epileptic seizure was
like now. The pleasure fractured her mind in a thousand places so that
Mulder's madness shone through, and it was beautiful.

She sagged forward as Mulder, more frantic than when he was chasing
clones or little gray men, redoubled his efforts, wrapping his arms
around her back so that he wouldn't buck her off, which was otherwise a
real possibility. She could feel her sweat in the valley of her breasts
merging with the sweat that was evaporating off of him as he arched up
into her. Shakily, she assessed the situation. He was going to rupture
something if he didn't come soon, and that was very much contrary to
her plans. She could still feel her own contractions around him as she
lowered her head to his and breathed into his ear, darting the tip of
her tongue out to notch the top curve of cartilage.

He yowled like a cat and came with three hard, shuddering thrusts.
Scully smiled and laid her head on his chest. A man who liked to lean
that close to talk had to have an ear fetish. It simply stood to
reason. He was panting so hard that she was almost bouncing on top of
him. She would have laughed if her own heartbeat hadn't been thrumming
through her like the rumble of a supersonic plane.

"Where did you learn that?" she wondered, still feeling twitches run
through her like lightning at the edges of a summer sky.

Mulder made a noise oddly reminiscent of a purr. "I'm glad you liked
it. I was afraid you'd think it was ... irritatingly indirect." There
was some sort of value judgment lurking in there, she thought, and
decided that it wasn't worth puzzling out, not while she was draped
over him like the priciest of fur coats. Times like this, too much air
conditioning was perfect; it gave her an excuse to cuddle.

****

Because Scully had set the alarm on her side of the bed even before
they went down to the casino, they were up in time for their mandatory
exit interview with the Vegas Bureau office. Agent Blankenship, the
nice young man who'd briefed them on the assignment, was also in charge
of ensuring that they left the state without inflicting the usual X-
Files damage. He spent most of the interview asking Mulder for tips on
how to play craps.

Y2K creaked ever closer as he yammered on, pursuing irrelevant details
of the previous night's conversations and asking inane questions about
the Washington Bureau. Finally, he leaned back in his chair, a good
sign that the interview was coming to an end. "Well, you guys have a
good flight home. I hope they didn't disturb you last night."

"What do you mean?" Mulder had the unpleasant sensation that his
stomach had departed and was now searching for the aliens who lived at
the center of the earth.

"Well, you do remember that we also installed a few listening devices
against the wall you shared with Morelli's suite, in case you couldn't
get into the room? Their bed must be right up against that wall,
because we got some *incredible* audio of him and his girl. The man's a
machine, I tell you. Once last night and twice this morning, and then a
few hours later he's doing a deal with the biggest guys in Vegas,
eating strawberries and drinking champagne. It's enough to make you
envious of the mob."

Over Agent Blankenship's head, Scully's expression unmistakably
indicated that he was to keep silent if he valued his life and his
balls, not necessarily in that order.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, throwing caution to the wind. "I think I'm
lucky to be on our side."

Scully stalked off as if he'd just tried to sell her a pyramid to
sharpen her razor blades, and he hurried after her, giving the confused
Agent Blankenship a long-suffering look as he exited.

"Hey," he cajoled, putting his hand on the small of her back, or at
least on the clothes covering the small of her back -- but now was no
time for a happy memory. "Scully?"

They were out of the building now, and gaining speed fast. Had she
replaced those little legs of hers with wheels? She hurried over to the
rental car, where she stood by the driver's seat as if she had some
expectation that she would drive. Unh-unh. No way, no day. He'd seen
her drive, and by 'drive' he meant that there was some relationship
between her foot, the gas pedal, and the road, but he wouldn't go
further than that. Calm, Agent Scully was merely a threat to tolerance
and to brake linings. Pissed, she'd be capable of totaling a bumper
car.

"C'mon, Scully, he has no idea." He wasn't letting the keys out of his
pocket until he had gauged her mental state.

"No, Mulder, that would be you." Her arms were folded over her chest --
such a chest! -- and her face was a cold front sufficient to refute
fears of global warming.

"*Scully,*" he whined. Her glare communicated the idea that she did not
consider her name to be a plausible argument. "Okay, look. There's just
no way you can expect any human being -- more to the point, any man --
more to the point, me -- not to be proud and happy about last night.
I'm not going to advertise in Times Square but I'm not going to pretend
like it didn't happen. If that's what you want then Agent Blank in
there is the least of our worries."

She looked at the ground. He could sense her deciding to forgive.
Scully had a hard exterior, but inside, in the part of her that she
saved only for him, she was as soft and inviting as a chocolate-
covered cherry. Mmm, Scully and chocolate-covered cherries...

"I said, Mulder, all right, but let's get going," she said patiently,
and he moved his eyes back up to her face.

He nodded happily. "You know, I heard that you can actually get married
by an Elvis impersonator at the airport these days..."

"*I* heard," she said, relenting and heading for the passenger side of
the car, "that certain federal agents can be convinced to have sexual
relations in airplane bathrooms if their whims are sufficiently well-
catered to."

Oh yeah, life was good.

END

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*****************************

Anubis

AnubisLM@aol.com