By Rachel Howard
snowrider5@aol.com
 

Date: 02 Sep 1999
Edited by Dawson Rambo and Scott Carr
Classification: VA, MSR
Rating: PG-13
Summary: No.
Spoilers: None.
Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral OK,
all others please ask.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never
will be, not making any money off this.
 

For Dawson, although I'm know this
isn't what he had in mind. And for Scott,
 who is patient with my dashes and hyphens.

# # # # # # # # # #

I'm lucky, I'm the first one out of here -
professional courtesy, I guess. I trail
after her, watching her bootheels click
steadily against the linoleum. She sounded
alert when she picked up the phone, but it
was after three -- I must have woken her up.
She's wearing a leather jacket and a silk
scarf, tucked in against the November chill,
and faded jeans that do nothing to conceal
the slim lines of her legs.

She still hasn't said anything to me. She
watched me collect my wallet, the few other
items in the plastic pouch held by the sargeant.

No keys. Trailing after her into the parking
lot, I rack my brain, trying to remember
where they could be, without much luck.
Probably lost them.

She unlocks her side first, and I hear the
autolock thunk, letting me in.  I buckle my
seatbelt and watch the glare of sodium lights
on the metal. She gets in, signals left before
pulling out of the parking lot, even though
there isn't any traffic at this hour.

I wait for her to say something. Anything.
I wet my lips, getting ready, although I
don't know how I'm going to answer her.

But she's silent, through three stoplights,
onto the Beltway, past a couple of exits that
aren't mine, ones I've never taken.

The absence of questions is worse -- it makes
her silence resigned.

Finally, I blurt out, "Scully, I need to explain."

I'm watching her profile when I speak. Her
brows draw together, her lips narrow. I can
read her face like it's my own.

Disappointment. Resignation.

Hurt.

I stare at the few crimson taillights ahead
of us through the windshield, thinking. God,
what I wouldn't give to...

Inhaling, I try again. "Scully, please."

"Fourteen, Mulder. That girl, she was--"

In a humiliating rush, I gasp, "I swear
to you, Scully, I didn't know. I didn't
know when I went in there, I just saw the
marquee, I paid and I didn't know, the guy
at the door asked if I was there for the
'special show' and I...I guess I said I was."

God, I wish I was still drunk. Or that I
had had more to drink -- then I would have
just ended up puking my sorry guts out in
a dark alley somewhere. I taste sour bile
at the back of my throat and for one awful
moment I'm sure that I'm about to throw up
in Scully's pristine car. Then the sick
passes but I still feel wretched beyond belief.

When the cops got there, I hadn't even
taken off my jacket -- I was just standing
at the back of the crowd, staring numbly at
the girl in the middle of the smoky little room.

She was wearing a g-string, and spiky
thigh-high boots sagging loosely around
the knees. She stood, wobbling a little,
her lower lip hanging slightly. Her breasts
weren't very big, and it looked like
someone had put lipstick or maybe rouge
on her nipples, but they hadn't done a
very good job. There was a smear of
something dark on her belly.

Looking at her, I knew I had fucked up,
that there was a reason the marquee outside
this dark, dank hole didn't say "Live Women"
instead of the truth: "Live Girls." And I
didn't want to know how the 'special show'
was supposed to end.

But it did end, right after I got there,
with the police providing the closing act,
waving silver cuffs like castanets.

Scully pulls up across the street from my
building, but she keeps the engine running.
I don't chance another look at her. "I lost
my keys."

She fingers the keys in the ignition. Instead
of taking mine off the ring and handing it
to me, she parks, cuts the engine and gets
out of the car. I follow her again, this
time up to my apartment. We share a silent
elevator ride, anger and disappointment
rolling off Scully in waves.

She bends slightly to slide the key into
the lock and I watch her open the door
for me, bright hair sweeping down over the
whiteness of her nape. She takes one or
two steps into my dark apartment -- not
much, but enough to help me find my tongue.

"Scully? I really, I don't..." I pause.
"Thank you. For coming to bail me out
tonight. Thanks."

"Welcome," she says, and in the dim light
from the hallway, I can see her eyes directed
somewhere across the room.

"Scully?" I know I sound desperate.

I am desperate.

I shut the door behind us. Finally, she
meets my eyes, and I work hard at not
dropping my gaze.

"Why did you go... there?"

I owe her an honest explanation. "I thought
it was a strip club. A legit one."

Her fingers flex softly, like she's trying
to grasp the truth. "I didn't know that
you went to strip clubs," she says evenly.

"I don't, usually."

I hear her take a deep breath. "Then why
tonight?"

"Because..." I close my eyes for a second.
She's giving me a chance, and I need to do
this right.

I walk over to the lamp on my desk, turn
it on so that we aren't standing in semidarkness.
I shrug my coat off, gesturing an invitation
for her to do the same. Scully doesn't take
her jacket off, but she doesn't leave. I sit
down on the edge of the couch, and look up at her.

"I went to Casey's, for a drink. Just to
get out of the house. And I had a few.
Four, I think."

Her hair is slightly mussed, as though she
was rushing and didn't take time to comb
it. No earrings, no wristwatch. She did
take time to put on some lipstick and cover
the little mole above her upper lip before
she left, though. No, probably not -- she
must have done the makeup at stoplights
on her way to the station.

"I didn't even want to watch a strip show,
actually."

That earns me a raised eyebrow.

"I mean it. But it's a pretty fair bet that
you'll find a naked woman or two at a strip
club. And that's all I wanted."

There are no traffic noises from outside.
It's a cold night for November. Lonely men
are the only ones who stay out late on nights
like this one, looking for company under
neon lights, comfort at cheap motels. I
can see the glow of the marquee inside my
eyelids again, a burnt-in afterimage.

"You wanted to see a naked woman, so you
went to see a stripper, but you didn't want
to see a strip show?"

I rub my eyes until I see spots. "I was sitting
at the bar, by myself. At Casey's. This
woman started hitting on me, and I kind of
ignored her, and eventually she left. And
there were normal people all around me, having
fun, having normal lives. And I thought,
Mulder, you sorry fuck, when was the last
time you saw a naked woman, in the flesh?"

I can't look up at her now, so I stare at
my coffee table while I keep talking. "So
I thought about it, and it had been about
five years. Five =years=. And when was the
last time someone shot at us, maybe four
or five =days= ago? So."

I wait, examining the grain of the wood,
but Scully doesn't make a sound.

"So that's it. I wasn't thinking about
sex, even. I just -- it had been five years.
That's all. And I'm sorry that you had to
come pick me up, Scully. Really sorry."

There is definitely a water stain on this
coffee table, down towards the left-hand
corner. I feel humiliated but lighter. I
wonder if Scully feels this way after she
goes to confession.

I hear her clear her throat, so I look up.

"I'll call Detective Arbelo tomorrow."

I must look puzzled.  Scully says, "From
the Cupp murder case?  I think his name is
Cesar.  That's his precinct. I'll ask him
to make sure your name doesn't go into the
report about the bust. He'll do that for us."

I nod, feeling tentative relief. Not about
the report, but that Scully said 'us'. That
she's using the same tone of voice she gets
when she's trying to solve a difficult problem.
That she isn't angry any more.

I watch her thinking. Her brow twitches a
couple of times.

When she moves, it's to reach for the zipper
on her jacket.

Regarding me seriously, she tugs the zipper
down, shrugs the brown leather off her shoulders,
lays it over the back of the chair. She has a
simple black sweater on underneath, with a
row of buttons down the front.

She loosens the single knot in her little
blue-and-white patterned scarf and pulls
it free. It drifts down to the floor. I
look at the fine white skin at the base
of her throat.

She undoes the button at her neck, then
the next button.

I look into her blue, blue eyes and try to
understand what I'm seeing. I can't. She
looks back at me calmly as the buttons on
her sweater keep coming undone, one at a time,
until it hangs open and I can see the bow
at the center of her lacy bra. It's dark
brown, but the cups of the bra are cream
colored, with delicate looking
chocolate-colored lace over the satin. It
looks like a confection.

She reaches for the button on the front of
her jeans, and I hear the zzzzzk! of the
zipper coming down. She starts to pull them
off, then stops, and flushes.

She hesitates, and then awkwardly toes off
her boots and socks while holding her jeans
up. Then she stops again, looking at the floor.

"Please," I say, softly, and she pushes
the jeans off her hips, down her legs.

Her underwear matches her bra -- thin,
cream-colored satin, brown lace, with a
little bit of lace at each hip, high-cut.
Through the sheer lace, her skin glows paler
than the satin. She picks up her jeans and
folds them in half, sets them down on the desk.

The lamplight spills over her curves like a
kiss. She raises her eyes to my face, and
whatever she sees there convinces her to
slip off her sweater, then reach around and
unsnap her bra. She puts both down on top
of her jeans and slips her thumbs under the
delicate fabric at her hips.

And then she's there, in front of me,
exquisite beyond belief.

Five years, and I think I remember why now.
If it wasn't her, it wasn't worth it.

She bites her lip, the way she does when
she's worried. "Do you want me to turn around?
Or sideways?"

I shake my head no, drinking her in. She
stops nibbling at her lip, watches me
watching her.

"Mulder?"

I look up at her beautiful face.

"You didn't ask me how long it had been
for me."

How long it had been for...oh. Oh.

"Six years."

She's radiant, resplendent, but I can't take
my eyes off her face. She smiles, a naughty,
secret smile that sets me on fire.

"Your turn, Mulder."
 

END

Snowrider5@aol.com