TITLE: Make Much of Time AUTHOR: Ambress EMAIL: ambress27@mindspring.com CATEGORY: Anything I told you here would be a deception. Okay, fine then: MSR, UST, S/O, M/O, M/S. Happy now? RATING: NC-17 SPOILERS: None that I can think of. Oh wait, a slight reference to The Ghosts that Stole Christmas, another to Trevor, Lazarus, and one to, um, E.B.E., I believe, but they don't have anything to do with the . . .ahem. . .plot. SUMMARY: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. THANKS: to bugs, alelou, Ropobop, Darla (whose beta- virginity it was a pleasure to take ;)), Vehemently and Meghan, for beta and discussion and encouragement. Thanks also to those on the scullyfic list who answered my question. It's nobody's fault but my own if it still doesn't work. FEEDBACK: I love it. DISCLAIMER: Everybody has their own Mulder and Scully doll; this is what I did with mine. Oh, but the characters themselves all belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen, and Fox. SECONDARY DISCLAIMER: I'm not advocating anything. ARCHIVE: Gossamer okay, Ephemeral okay, Xemplary okay, Spookies 2000 okay, anywhere else, please ask. Make Much of Time Scully had dropped out of sight, again. This time, right before his eyes. Her words had gently mocked him, "Another haunted house, Mulder?" as she picked her way through the debris in the attic: boxes of various shapes and sizes, stacks of magazines, chafing dishes, an old dollhouse, baskets without handles, and other assorted effluvia. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this." "Me neither," Mulder replied, pointing his flashlight at an old-fashioned dressmaker's dummy with suspicion. "So, the family still owns the house and property?" Scully felt the layers of dust infiltrating her nostrils. She tried to wipe her face with a Kleenex, but only succeeded in moving the dirt around. "Yes, they've had some offers from developers, but they want to keep it and retire back to the Ol' Homestead some day. When they can afford to renovate it, of course." The attic smelled like a complicated history: dust, leather, and ancient piles of newspaper, topped off with eau de bat droppings. The dim light made it seem like they were appearing in a black and white movie. "I hope they're in lucrative professions," commented Scully as she peered up at the bird's nest in the rafters. "So," she went on, "the house is supposedly haunted by the owner's great-great-great aunt?" "Yes. Great-great-great aunt Lillian, who died a tragic death at the age of seventeen. Apparently, she had had a love affair with a local boy that no one in her family knew about. When he ran off to sea, she was so distraught that she hanged herself in the attic." "Ahh, young love," said Scully sardonically, glancing up at the rafters again. "She left a note explaining that as she was ruined and could bring nothing but disgrace upon her family, she wanted to end her misery." "Ruined? What a delightfully old-fashioned term," Scully commented, with still more bite in her voice. "It's not clear," Mulder went on, "whether she actually thought she was pregnant, or not. Since her death, various members of the family have reported hearing her drag that trunk," he pointed at a large steamer trunk with brass fittings in the corner, "across the floor of the attic, and then the creaking of the rafters as the rope sways." Scully shook off what in a lesser woman might be called a case of 'the creeps.' "Most likely what they've heard is the house settling." She shone her flashlight at the trunk. "That doesn't look like an easy piece of furniture to kick out from under you." "I think she jumped off it." Mulder responded absently. "Her descendants have also reported hearing her crying downstairs, from the hallway outside the bedroom that was hers, but when they enter the bedroom, no one is there." He wiggled the fingers of his free hand at her in a gesture meant to express spookiness. "Hmmph," said Scully. "Probably the windows don't fit in their frames correctly in a old house like this. The wind blows, and makes. . .moaning sounds through the cracks." Mulder took it in stride. "And several of the women in the family have reported actually seeing the apparition of her corpse hanging in the attic." "Yuck." "According to these young women, they saw the apparition during their teenage years or twenties, at a time when each was contemplating having sexual intercourse for the first time." "Oh, there's a convincing argument for waiting until you're married: Don't even think about having sex or you'll see the ghost of Great Aunt Lillian creaking in the wind." Mulder grinned at her. "What a waste of a life, Mulder," Scully burst out. "Thank goodness we don't still place such an overemphasis on female virginity, huh?" he mused. "Virginity is still a vastly overrated concept if you ask me, Mulder." "Are you trying to tell me something Scully?" He was smiling slightly as he inspected an enormous old birdcage. "Your priest would be horrified." "Don't be ridiculous. I just think that most girls have such a high expectation of their first-time that they are doomed to disappointment." "Well," he huffed. "Don't get all defensive about your prowess, Mulder. The simple fact of the matter is that most women go on to have much better sex than they do when they lose their virginity, and I just don't see why we make such a production about that one little first, either by making it such an intimidating production that it looms ahead of a young woman as something to be feared, or by romanticizing it as an earth-shattering event out of misguided notions of love eternal." "What a little cynic you are, Scully." The floor creaked and groaned warningly as they traversed it. "I just think--" she started, but then there was an enormous cracking sound, and she disappeared. Where she had been there was a jagged gaping hole in the floor. A slow moving cloud of dust arose from it. "Scully!" cried Mulder, in terror and amazement. "Mulder . . . " came a low voice out of the hole in the floor. Mulder dropped to his knees, and then onto his belly, and slithered his way over to the edge of the hole. He looked down and saw his partner hanging onto the infrastructure of the attic floor with a desperate look on her face. She was dangling into the room below, her feet swaying as she struggled to hold onto the crossbeam. "Hang on," he said, and anchoring his body to the floor on his left side with his weight, he reached his other arm down and grabbed hold of her upper arm. He grunted as he pulled her back up into the attic, and falling back, he pulled her on top of him. "I've got you. I've got you." He didn't know if he was talking to her, or to himself. She groaned heavily. "You okay?" he asked, puffing with exertion and post- fright adrenaline. He wanted to run his hands over her frantically, checking for breakage, but he stopped himself. "I'm fine," she said. She was silent for a moment, aside from the sound of her overtaxed breath, then admitted: "Actually, I think I need to go to the hospital. I think I cracked a rib." "Okay," he said. "Okay. Let's crawl out of here." He paused. "So what were you saying?" Norton Hospital Route Nineteen Forty-five minutes later. Actually, she had fractured two ribs. They were in an examining room of the small local hospital's emergency room. Mulder was sitting in a chair to the side, and Scully was up on the examining table. She held her arm protectively in front of her as she sat. The little white room smelled of disinfectant, and the fake leather of the chair Mulder was sitting in made obscene noises when he fidgeted. Scully looked down at him loftily. "I've been thinking about what you said, Scully." "That's a change of pace," she shot back. He grinned. "Maybe," Mulder's voice was speculative, "the problem is not that we place too much importance on the loss of virginity, but that we place too little. It's just about inevitable that adolescents have sex. They've been doing it since the dawn of time. Trying to stop young people whose bodies are telling them to copulate, with the same instinctive force that those bodies are telling them when it's time to eat, is futile, in my opinion." She gave him a kind of diagonal nod to indicate that she was listening, even if she didn't entirely agree, and then hissed in her breath as even that small movement jarred her ribs. He waited for a moment, asking her if she was okay without speaking, but she gestured to him to go on. "But young men and women are left to their own devices in these matters, without any direction, or validation. Their parents simply say, 'don't do it,' instead of acknowledging that they *will* do it, and preparing them to make good decisions. The loss of virginity is an important personal landmark in anyone's life, but it's an event we undergo essentially alone." Scully gave him an eyebrow look. He tilted his head in acknowledgment of her silent correction. "Okay, well, not alone, but without any community support, or outside acknowledgment." "So what are you suggesting?" She grimaced as she shifted on the table. "A kind of virginity bar mitzvah?" "That's not a bad idea--" The doctor came in then, with a nurse right behind him. "Agents Scully, Mulder." He nodded at each of them. "I'm Dr. Bollier. What seems to be the problem?" He looked like an addled Ralph Fiennes, as though a giant had picked him up and played accordion with him, and then slapped him back down. Tall and rickety, he looked down at Scully. Scully explained, briefly. She did not mention their ghost hunting, merely referring to a "case." He looked as though he knew anyway, but was too polite to say. The nurse helped her off with her jacket, while Dr. Bollier examined her chart. Mulder realized too late that he should have left already. Maybe he shouldn't even have come in the examining room with Scully at all, but he knew how boring it was to sit around waiting for a doctor to show up, and they were having an interesting discussion. The doctor must have assumed that Scully wanted him to be there, and so had not asked him to leave. The nurse helped Scully take off her blouse as well, leaving her only in her white satin bra. She didn't look at Mulder at all, and he politely looked at the CPR chart on the wall--mostly. She answered the doctor's questions, and flinched when he touched her rib cage. He taped up Scully's ribs, and told her that he wanted to keep her in the hospital overnight. Scully objected. "Why do you need to go back tonight, Scully?" Mulder was curious. "Hot date?" "Shut up, Mulder." She said it matter-of-factly, without hostility. "I'm meeting a college friend of mine for breakfast in the morning. She's only in town tomorrow, and I haven't seen her in three years." "But Dr. Scully, a four hour drive would be very uncomfortable for you." Doctors never use the word pain, thought Mulder, they only talk about discomfort and being uncomfortable. "Just give me a prescription for Lorcet and I'll be fine." Dr. Bollier looked like he thought that 'discomfort' was the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. Obviously Dr. Scully needed to be medicated for more than her broken ribs. "Maybe you should stay overnight, Scully." Mulder thought that Scully often pushed herself too hard. "This is your fault, Mulder." Scully fixed him with a glare that had the same effect on Mulder as headlights did on a deer. "You better get me back to D. C. tonight, or you'll regret it." Mulder turned to the doctor, sticking his lower lip out, turning the corners of his mouth down, and pulling his eyebrows up in face of mock fear. "She's right, Doctor. She's fine. Painkiller prescription?" Dr. Bollier agreed, with some token objection. Unlike Mulder, he seemed genuinely intimidated by Agent Scully. They filled the prescription at the hospital pharmacy. Mulder borrowed some pillows from the hospital. Scully suspected that he had sweet-talked a nurse in order to do so. "I'm fine, Mulder," she insisted. "Yeah-Yeah. I just don't want to listen to your moaning and groaning. It interferes with my singing along with the radio. Here, take the Lorcet." He held the pill out to her in one hand, and after she popped it in her mouth he handed her the Snapple peach iced tea he was holding in the other. "You want to wait and make sure it takes effect?" he asked her. "No. Let's get going." He helped Scully back into the car. He put her feet up on one pillow folded over, put the car seat back, and put another pillow under the small of her back. "Okay?" "Yeah." She adjusted the pillow behind her back a little. "Thanks." Mulder took his jacket off and laid it over the back of the seat. Mulder headed the car back towards D.C. "So you think that sex is overrated?" he asked her once they were on their way. "I didn't say that." She shook her head at him, and pursed her lips to indicate how ridiculous he was. "I said that virginity was overrated, which, in case you unaware of the fact, Mulder, is not the same thing as saying that sex is overrated." "Oh, okay. It just sounded a little like you had some issues." He was grinning, aware that he was riding the ragged edge of disaster. "I do. I have issues with the mythology that surrounds the loss of a woman's virginity, with the idea that it must be a frightening and sexually unfulfilling experience, and yet one that is expected to be the summit of all her tenderest dreams, and somehow magical proof of love. Why should we assume that entrance into adulthood for girls is always marked by pain, and surrender? "In reality, Mulder, we are biological organisms that are driven to reproduce, and sexual intercourse is the means by which we most frequently do so. Sex is natural. It should be neither terrifying, nor glamorous." "Glamorous? My, my." Mulder mocked her gently. "I mean in the old fashioned sense of the word, to mean characterized by illusion. You disagree?" "No, not entirely. You're right that sex alternately horrifies and enchants us. I think the loss of virginity is given an aura of mystery, but I don't think that's entirely a bad thing. Shouldn't it be a little magical, a little enchanted?" She made an ambiguous grunt in answer. After about half an hour he looked over at her. The light had faded into early evening. He was hoping that she was asleep, but her eyes were wide open. "Does it hurt?" he asked her. "Yeah." Her voice was soft and a little dreamy. He guessed that the Lorcet was taking effect. "But I don't care." She huffed a little laugh. Since she couldn't have even managed a chuckle an hour ago without crying out, Mulder was more certain than ever that the drug was taking effect. There was a long silence in the car. Mulder had the window open, and they were driving in the cooling evening air through the blue-green mountains of Virginia. The air smelled sweet, and Mulder could see the sparkle of fireflies up on the hills that rose around them. He wondered why they congregated higher up. "Tell me about your first time, Mulder." Mulder was startled, to say the least. "My first time?" he repeated, not sure that he'd heard what he'd heard. He could feel a prickly heat moving up from his chest, to the back of his neck, to his face. "Yeah." "Well, let's see--uh, hmm, I was, um, twenty, and uh, well--" "Twenty?" She sounded amazed. "You got a problem with that?" He put on his best haughty voice. "No, no, go on." She was smiling. Let her smile. It happened infrequently enough that he was willing to give up his image as a Don Juan in order to see it. In a few, halting sentences he told her about the girl- -the woman--he'd met in London the summer before he started at Oxford. He was living there, just enjoying himself, and one evening he'd gotten off the Tube at South Kensington Station and started walking to the flat he'd let in Chelsea. Halfway down the block, the sky had opened up. It was pouring cold London rain. He looked up, started laughing, and this young woman, walking the same way, laughed with him, and offered to share her umbrella with him. He took her up on the offer, then in return, asked her to go to the pub near his flat, The King's Head and Eight Bells, and let him buy her a pint. They drank several together. Then . . . "Then?" prompted Scully, her eyes now closed and her voice a lullaby. Well, then--they had gone back to his flat. . .They'd talked. . .and he'd spent the rest of his summer in London with her, until he'd gone to Oxford and met Phoebe. "What was her name?" asked Scully. Her name. Jane. "You Tarzan, Mulder?" She had a goofy sly smile on her face when he glanced over at her, amused. "Was it good the first time?" Was it good? A rush of memory, piercing and sweet, came over Mulder. "Yeah," he said, a little huskily. "What was she like, with you?" The image of Jane, holding his hands in hers, and moving them over her body, showing him how she wanted him to touch her, made him feel a small lump in his throat. "Tender," he said briefly, barely able to get the word out around it. "Kind--sweet--generous." "Umm. That's good. I'm glad." He could tell that she was completely sincere, and it warmed and reassured him that she didn't begrudge him that. "What did she look like?" He hesitated. "She was, let's see, she was very pretty. She had brown eyes, and she was medium height, and she had freckles across her nose. She was older than me. About twenty-five." "Brunette." Scully's voice was matter of fact. No, actually she was a redhead. Mulder wasn't sure why he didn't want to tell Scully that. To change the subject, he asked banteringly, not expecting her to even answer, "So Scully, tell me about your first time." "I can't tell you that," she said in a sleepy voice. "It's a secret." Mulder's stomach dropped. He felt a sudden chill sweep over his entire body. What did that mean? Had Scully been sexually abused? Before he let the rage that was still a little flame in his belly ignite into a brush fire he asked her: "Why is it a secret?" "Ummm," she said. "Bill would be mad." Bill? That bastard. He knew there was a reason he didn't like him, other than the fact that Bill hated him. "You can tell me." If something bad had happened to her she needed to be able to tell someone. She needed to get it off her chest. "You can't tell anyone, Mulder. Nobody knows." Who am I going to tell? he thought. "I won't, Scully. Cross my heart." He made the obligatory third-grade gesture. "Hmmph," she said. "Okay, I'll tell you. "Marcus and I were going to do it the night of the prom, remember I told you? But the fire got out of control--" Was that some kind of euphemism? "--and we had to ride home on the pumper truck." Evidently not. "No, Scully," he said. "I don't remember you telling me that." "Oh that's right, I was telling it to *Eddie Van Blundht*, who looked like you at the time." Her voice had become outraged for the last part of that sentence. When she resumed her story, however, she let go of it. There was a sound like bones being put through a wood chipper as Mulder ground his teeth at the mention of Eddie Van Blundht. What had she told him that she hadn't told Mulder? Oddly, Scully didn't seem to notice the sound. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .She and Marcus, her high school boyfriend, had done just about everything else. Well, she supposed not *everything* else, but still, she wasn't a total innocent. Well, anyway. . .they hadn't had sex that night, and then they didn't get another chance. Between school and end of the year social events, they had no time alone. Her family, his family, their friends, everyone wanted their attention. Marcus would have been willing to snatch any stray fifteen minutes, but Scully didn't want to rush it. She wanted the first time to be private, at least, and preferably in a bed. . .Then at the end of the year, she went away to spend the weekend at the University. When she came back, Marcus, the bastard, got drunk, came over to her house late one night, and after luring her down into the yard with pebbles against her window, (a cliche which she had once found endearing, but now repellent), confessed in a maudlin self pitying fashion that he'd screwed Meg Tyson at a party while she was away. . .She was so hurt, so angry, so humiliated, to discover that he wasn't the person she'd thought he was all this time. If he couldn't wait for her, if it was more important to have sex than it was that she was the one . . .She broke up with him. She couldn't even look at him, much less continue to be his girlfriend. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mulder knew he should stop her. She was not herself. The pain and shock of her fall, and the influence of the painkiller, was causing her to talk in a way that she would find extremely embarrassing even to hear someone else speak, much less talk herself, if she were in her normal state of mind. He couldn't bear to, though. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear what she was going to say, but then again--he did, he wanted to know, no matter how awful, he wanted to know the truth. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .So, she went to the University the next fall, and she had a lot of fun her freshman year. She enjoyed her classes. Feeling her intellect stimulated and having her assumptions challenged was exciting. She made new friends. She discovered that her professors liked and respected her for herself, not just as Bill and Melissa's smart and straight arrow little sister. She wanted to get rid of her virginity, really she did. It was like a winter coat that had grown too small for her, but she didn't just want to toss it out. Something that has fit you for a long time is hard to discard. She wanted to show it some respect, not just toss it away. She did some dating, but she didn't meet anybody that she wanted to make love to. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mulder practically jumped out of his skin when she said "make love." He didn't think he'd ever heard Scully use that phrase before. Usually he thought it sounded ridiculous, but now it ricocheted around his head: "wanted to make love to--wanted to make love to--wanted to make love to." Scully didn't find anyone that she wanted to make love to. Good God almighty. Astounding thought. Not that she didn't find anyone-- for who could have deserved her? But to think of Scully wanting to make love to anyone at all sent a little frisson up Mulder's spine. He was gripping the steering wheel tightly now. The back of his neck still felt anxious and hot, but excitement was also beginning to tease him. Scully was telling him a new truth, and it made his blood thump in his veins. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .She went home to her parents' house in Annapolis after the year was over. It was good to be home. . .Marcus still wanted to get back together, but she didn't think she could ever trust him again. It had been a good year. She felt good. She had done well in her classes. She had made new friends. Her professors liked her, and other men had shown decided interest in her. Actually, one of her professors had also expressed a more than professional interest in her after the semester ended. Although she found it flattering, she didn't find him appealing. She didn't feel like she needed Marcus back, or even wanted him back. . .Maybe there was a little tickle of wanting to punish him for his unfaithfulness, but mostly she just wasn't interested in walking back into a relationship that had become so painful for her. She couldn't feel good about herself if she did, and she needed to feel good about herself. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * She paused for a moment that seemed interminable to Mulder. She wouldn't stop there, would she? She wouldn't realize that this was too personal, too intimate, too much information? He held his breath with the suspense of her silence. When she finally opened her mouth again to speak, he released it in a long puff of relief. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . . There was this guy. . .He'd been a friend of Bill's when they'd lived in San Diego. His name was Nick. She'd had a crush on him when she was younger. She had been very shy around him back then, awkward, which was unusual for her, tongue-tied. He had been sweet to her, but she was Bill's little sister. Cute, and sweet, but definitely not interesting from a romantic point of view. She had done things that her older self would now find laughable, and touchingly naive. She would make a point of being around whenever he came over. She would dress, oh so consciously, to attract his attention. She didn't think he knew how she felt, but then--There were these pictures her mother had taken, at a cookout they'd had before they moved back east, and there she was at one end of the picnic table. . .looking at Nick as he sat laughing with her father, like he was an oasis in the desert. She realized, with a sense of humiliation and horror, that she must have looked like that around him all the time. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * She laughed, a little self-deprecating chuckle. "I had to steal that picture out of the stack and hide it before my brothers could see it, or I would never have heard the end of it. I still have it somewhere." Mulder was tantalized. Not only a Scully with a crush, but a Scully willing to steal in order to cover it up. Oh, the hidden depths! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .He had graduated from school in California, but the summer after her freshman year in college, he was living in Maryland. Training for the Peace Corps, he would go to Sierra Leone in the fall. They were giving him intensive language instruction, for one thing. They didn't pay him anything, of course, so he came over to eat her mother's cooking with the Scullys a lot, even when Bill wasn't around. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mulder no longer suspected that she was going to tell him a horrific story of rape and abuse. She was too relaxed. Her voice was gentle, and she was a soft mass that he could barely see when he flicked his eyes over at her in the growing dark. When a car or truck passed them on the other side of the two lane highway its headlights would illuminate her face, serene and sharpened by blue shadows. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .She had thought that she was over him. She had been crazy about Marcus, after all. She'd been so sure that he was the one. She'd thought she was in love with Marcus. But when Nicholas showed up on the Scully doorstep in Annapolis, all those old feelings bubbled to the surface. . .She felt like she was in a permanent state of flush whenever he was around, as though every little capillary under the surface of her skin was swollen with desire. Sometimes she thought nobody ever really gets over another person that she's cared about, she just assimilates them into her being. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "What do you think, Mulder?" He was momentarily surprised that she had addressed him directly. "I think you could be right, Scully." She was quiet for a long moment. He glanced over at her, trying to read her expression in the gloom. After a minute, she resumed her story. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .He wasn't even gorgeous, or anything. There was just something about him. When they'd lived in California, he'd had this dark brown cloud of curly hair on his head. It *was* the seventies. By the time he came to Washington, he'd cut it shorter, but it was still a crop of wayward, boyish curls. . .His eyes were blue, like that cloudy dusty color on blueberries in the center, with the darker blue they have underneath outlining the circles of his irises. She was really crazy about his hands, though. They were knobby. You could see every joint and tendon in them, but they were very nimble. . .She loved to watch him take things apart with a few deft gestures. He fixed her mother's sewing machine once, while Bill watched and made smart remarks. He was lean, not muscular, but she liked the way his muscles were stretched over his bones so sparely. He was a little bowlegged. Just a little, but you knew it was going to get worse as he got older. She thought, now, in retrospect, that it was his passion that appealed to her. She'd always been a sucker for a man who could be passionate about something he believed in. Jack. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * She let the last part of her sentence trail away. Mulder thought about that for a moment. He remembered something she had said to him over her kitchen table and a doctored photograph long ago: "I've never known anyone to be as passionate about a belief as you. It's so intense, sometimes, it's blinding." He didn't know what to do with that memory, but there it was. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .It was on a Saturday at the end of the summer. Her parents were out playing tennis with their friends, Melissa was at work, and Bill and Charlie were both gone on a camping trip. She took a book out in the backyard and stretched out on a beach towel to read it. It was Mary Stewart's *Touch Not the Cat*. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mulder had never heard of it. "You'd like it," Scully told him, smiling to herself again. "Do you think it's possibly to be in love for twenty- four hours, Mulder?" He had to think about that for a minute. Was there a right answer? Was it a trick question? Would she think he was shallow and unable to make a commitment if he said yes? Harsh and judgmental if he said no? "I think so, Scully. I think that's what love is: a series of twenty four hour affairs of the heart." She seemed content with that answer. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .It was hot, though. So she went back inside and put on her bathing suit . . .She loved that suit. It was turquoise, and it was two-piece. It had a kind of jacquard triangle pattern on it. She hadn't worn a two piece bathing suit since she was about four. She'd been as sleek as a seal puppy until she'd broken up with Marcus and gone away from her mother's cooking, but unlike most freshman, she'd lost fifteen pounds instead of gaining them. The only decent food in the cafeteria was the salad bar. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Her eyes were still closed, and her intonation was what a purring cat would sound like if it suddenly slipped into speech. Mulder could feel it zinging along his bones. Her soft voice could take chips out of him. Every neuron in his body was on alert. He could sense the impending revelation, and he wavered between jealous horror, and what he had to acknowledge to himself was prurient excitement. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .She didn't tan. She burned. That kid in the commercial-- remember it?--who says 'Mommy, I feel like a French Fry?' That was Scully throughout her childhood. But sometimes she would lie out just to enjoy the sunshine. She slathered herself with sun screen first, though. Even though her brown-haired, brown-eyed friends in the early eighties all doused themselves in olive oil before they lay out, her childhood had already taught her that severe sunburn wasn't pleasant, and it didn't look particularly attractive either. She lay on her stomach to read the book, but after awhile she undid the top of her suit and took it off. Then, she guessed, she fell asleep. The next thing she knew was a thump as a large mass landed on the towel next to her, and heard it saying, 'Hey Missy.' She was startled, and sat up suddenly, forgetting that she'd undone her top. It was Nick, and he stared at her in shock. She wasn't quite with it, bumped abruptly out of her doze like that, but she realized that it wasn't just the fact that she wasn't Melissa when the warm summer air brushed across her bare breasts. They just stared at each other for she didn't know how long. She could feel her nipples tighten until they seemed like they were pointing at him. She could see his Adam's apple bob as he gulped, and the sheen of sweat on his throat. . .She wanted to cover her chest with her hands, or her top, but she was paralyzed. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mulder wondered if she was even conscious of his presence anymore, or if she had plunged into the past as surely as she had plunged through the floorboards in the attic earlier in the day. He was undoubtedly a terrible pervert. He'd known it for awhile, but this brought it home to him. He shouldn't be turned on by Scully telling him about herself and another man. Scully's eighteen-year-old breasts exposed to the air in her backyard. He couldn't help calling them to his imagination. White and smooth as fresh cream, translucent, with a lacy network of delicate blue veins visible. Her heart pounding with adrenaline, so that he could almost see it throbbing beneath her chest. Her nipples, like two pieces of watermelon candy, like those Jolly Ranchers that hit your salivary glands with the force of a hammer. . .Christ. In his imagination he pushed the frozen Nick out of the way, and knelt before her to slide his tongue underneath her nipple and suck it into his mouth. He saw himself in a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and suit pants, with his tie loosened, kneeling in front of her in reverence. He could smell her skin, coconut from the sunscreen, and sweat from the sun. He could almost feel the slick warm curve cupped in his hand. If this callow youth didn't know what to do when serendipitously blessed with a vision of Scully's breasts, then he didn't deserve to see them. In the light of the headlights of a truck passing them he could see Scully slide her tongue slowly across her top lip before she resumed her story: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .'Sorry Dana,' he said finally. He picked up her top, and held it out to her. 'I didn't mean to scare you.' He tried to look at her face, and not at her breasts, but he couldn't stop the quick flickering glances down. 'Thanks.' She squeaked. She wanted to jump up and run in the house in humiliation, but she couldn't move. Getting up would mean exposing more nakedness to his gaze. He said, 'I thought you were Melissa.' She guessed he didn't notice that Melissa was a good four inches taller than she. 'Melissa's at work,' she told him. 'There's nobody here but me.' Then she thought about how that sounded, and turned brighter red than even a sunburn could make her. 'Oh,' he said, still looking determinedly at her face. She turned around and re-secured her top, fumbling with the neck fastening. She expected him to flee, but he stayed, making conversation, telling her about his work, and asking her about what she was going to take in the fall. He was leaving for Sierra Leone in three days. He kept watching her face, and she realized that he was almost as embarrassed as she was, but didn't want her to feel any worse than she did already. He would stare at her, though, with this strange, intent look on his face. She couldn't quite read it, but then it came to her that he was finally seeing her the way she had always wanted him to see her, as desirable, as someone he wanted. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * She chuckled. "And all it took was flashing my tits at him." Mulder jumped again. That was more shocking, if not as profoundly erotic as, "make love." "Oh well, if I'd tried it when I was twelve I don't think it would have made the same impression. They were pretty nonexistent then." She smiled to herself again. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .He had this look on his face that was so struck, so befuddled, that the embarrassment she felt was quickly replaced by a little smoke signal of excitement. Finally, he asked her, 'So, are you going to get back together with the ex-boyfriend?' She smiled at him, and was happy to be able to tell him decisively: 'No way.' 'Good,' he said. Emphatically. She thought he realized a half a second after he said it how it sounded, because he flushed a little. He didn't take it back though. In fact, he went on, 'He doesn't deserve you.' Of course, Nick knew what had happened. Everybody in her family had known--it was hard to miss her hard set face at the dinner table the preceding spring--and of course Bill had explained to Nick. She could just imagine what he had said. She felt the embarrassment start to return, but she squelched it. 'No, he doesn't.' He grinned at her then. His smile was a cool blue splash on that hot day. She watched his eyes crinkle up at the corners, mesmerized. Someday he would have real laugh lines around his eyes, but for now there was just the promise of them. After a moment of shared amusement, they lapsed into silence. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "You know how it is when you know that a man wants to kiss you?" Mulder had a brief flashback to a very awkward moment during his second year at Oxford. He suppressed it, and made a noncommittal sound. Scully wasn't listening for his response though. She was continuing on. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .The air between them was electrified and yet Scully felt the heaviness of a down comforter weighing upon her. She knew--she could just feel it--that all she had to do was look at him, be open to it, arch her back a little, and tilt her chin, and he wouldn't be able to stop himself. He would move closer, and his face would come close to hers. She focused on his mouth as he moved toward her--the shape of his lips, the color, the tension of his desire in the small muscles around it. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "When he leaned over and kissed me--Oh Mulder, do you know what it's like to get just what you've wanted, so badly, for so long?" "No." He sounded as though he was strangling on the night air. He didn't know yet, but he would soon. He hoped. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .It was the shocking thrill of triumph that went through her as much as anything else in his kiss. Not that it wasn't sweet and passionate. It was. She felt something falling open in her, like a book to her favorite scene. His face was a little stubbly. The smell of him, slightly sweaty, and laundry detergent, and Ivory soap, went straight to the pleasure center in her brain. It was too good, and when he pressed her mouth open with his lips, and slipped his tongue in to find hers, she thought her heart would pound so hard that it would fly out of her chest, like a bird released from a cage. She let her own tongue slide against his, and savored the low groan he made. They must have sat out there in her yard, necking, for a long time. She didn't know how long. She was kissing his neck, massaging the muscles of his throat with her tongue, making him groan. 'Salty,' she said, humming it against his neck. 'You thirsty?' she continued. 'Thirsty?' He sounded completely bewildered. 'Want a glass of lemonade?' 'Lemonade?' he repeated. He was normally very articulate. He and Bill would argue about politics for hours. It was thrilling to be able to turn him into a parrot this way. 'Come in the house, Nick.' 'I probably shouldn't.' 'Don't you want to?' 'You know I do.' 'Well, come on, then.' She stood up and held her hand out to him. He took it and pretended he was letting her pull him to his feet. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * In his rapidly overheating imagination, Mulder snatched her up off the lawn and dragged her away from Nick. He fantasized that he pushed Scully behind him, and shutting the door quickly, locked Nick out in the yard. Looking at him from the inside of the sliding glass door, he bared his teeth at him. He pulled Scully by the hand upstairs to her bedroom. Here it was. He could see the picture of Marie Curie on the wall above the one of Roger Daltrey, the big stuffed bear in the corner, the copies of *Anne of Green Gables* and Frances Hodgson Burnett's *A Little Princess* on the shelf side by side with her freshman biology textbook. There was a picture of her family on her bureau, apparently at the Grand Canyon. So that was what Charlie looked like. Everything was neat and tidy and in its place. No canopy over the bed, thank god, but a flowered bedspread, with big blue and white roses. He would lay her down across it and then himself down beside her. He would run his fingertips lightly over her arm, and then her belly. He would lean over to kiss her beautiful mouth. He would kiss her and kiss her, searching her mouth with his for the answers, until she moaned underneath him and said, "Oh, Mulder." He was so hard that he could have used his cock as a baton to beat time on the steering wheel. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .Their house slanted away down a hill in the back, and the downstairs was cool, shaded by the trees. The Scullys couldn't see any of the neighbors from that direction. She and Nick went in through the sliding glass door, and she went to get him a glass of lemonade, her brain ticking away with excitement. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * They were still downstairs in the family room? God, this kid didn't have the sense God gave a biscuit. What was wrong with him? If it had been Mulder, he would have that cute little turquoise bathing suit bottom off her lickety split. He would hook his fingers in the edge of her suit bottom above the curve of her ass, and pull it down her lovely lovely lovely legs. He'd push her back gently so that she landed on the couch. He would fall to his knees, and pull her legs over his shoulders. He'd kneel before her, holding her to his mouth, as he ate her like a ripe, juicy, sweet pear, meltingly soft and delectable. She would be gripping the arms of the couch tightly, as tightly as she did in Dr. Werber's office. He would see the tension in the muscles of her arm out of the corner of his eye. She would be holding onto the arm of the sofa for dear life as he licked her, and tasted her, and stroked her with his tongue, plunging himself into the heady smell, the taste, the gorgeous feel of her. He would be listening to her saying "oh god, oh god, oh GOD," above him. She would be praying to the ceiling, the slope of her throat taut, so that every muscle in it was clearly defined, the roll and ripple of white sand dunes. Mulder was abruptly bumped out of his fantasy by Scully's voice: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .He sat down on the couch, and she handed him the lemonade. He took a long swallow, looking like he needed the action to give him time to think. She couldn't have that. If he stopped to think he might stop entirely. So when he put the glass down on the end table, she moved closer, and throwing her leg over him, she sat down astride his lap. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "He looked as though--well, he looked like you did when I said spontaneous human combustion during that case in Louisiana. You remember?" Mulder did indeed, though he didn't have any idea what his face had looked like. He suspected he could imagine the expression on whatshisname's face was, though. He must have looked like he'd just gotten the Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, and wasn't sure that he deserved it. Of course, he didn't, the sanctimonious little prick. Mulder liked to consider himself above such petty emotions as jealousy, but there were limits to his self righteousness, after all. The thought of Scully straddling the lap of some youth barely out of his teens himself was stretching his generosity pretty far. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .'Do you want to see them again?' She looked him solemnly in the eye. He looked confused, in an adorable sort of way, for a moment, and then comprehension spread over his face, his blue eyes clearing away the clouds and shining with an intense, hot light. 'Yes or No?' She wanted a clear answer. 'N--Yes.' She knew part of him wanted to say no, to be the good boy, the respectful friend, but she could feel his hard cock pressing against her, and it was saying, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. She reached up to the back of her neck with both hands, and leisurely untied the knot. She let it slide through her fingers and thumb, so slowly, and let the halter drop down against her belly. He was swallowing hard, over and over, watching her hands. She reached back behind her, her elbows turning out and her breasts thrusting forward towards his face as she did. She moved deliberately, drawing out the moment. She could hear him release a little 'ah' sound as they bounced nearer to him, but he made no attempt to touch them. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dumbass, thought Mulder. He had just realized that he had always wanted to fuck Scully on his couch. Not her couch. That was Eddie Van Blundht's fantasy, apparently. No, he wanted to fuck her on his couch, to hear the creak of the leather as he thrust into her, and the small gasps that would be flung out of her soft, relaxed mouth as she balanced herself on his lap by pressing her hands into the wall behind his head. That's what he'd wanted to happen before that bee had stung her. He'd wanted to kiss her, and stroke her tears away with his thumbs. Then they would have kissed again, and it would have been hot and passionate, and he'd have said, "come back inside" in a low voice, and she would have let him guide her back into his apartment, and they would have kissed on the couch until they couldn't stand it anymore, and then he would-- He would have fucked her on his couch, and she would have left, and gone to Salt Lake City in the morning, or wherever she'd wanted to go, anywhere to get away from him. He knew her. She was tough. It would take more than getting inside her to get inside her. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .She unhooked the back of her swimsuit top, and let it fall forward, catching it in her hands, and pulling it out of her lap to drop it to the side. She looked at his face to watch his reaction. He was staring at her breasts now, in the way he hadn't allowed himself to do earlier. The look on his face was ravenous, an oddly erotic contrast to his normal friendly countenance. 'Nicholas,' she said softly. He looked back up at her face. 'Do you want to touch them?' He gulped . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "I don't know what possessed me. I was much less cautious then, when I was younger, but still, he was older than I was, and I was acting like I knew exactly what I was doing, like I had no doubts about anything, particularly not about how sexy I was." How could she ever doubt that, wondered Mulder. That was like doubting that the stars were made of fire. Mulder was excruciatingly envious of this kid, who had seen Scully the Siren. He'd swum in her sexual river before she dammed it up in favor of reasonable behavior. Just the thought of all the raw power that must have accumulated behind the barrier she'd erected made his ears ring. If it were to come down now, would he be swept away by the roar? Oh god, let him please be knocked down by it. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .It was wonderful. It was thrilling. It was the whoosh of breath from your lungs when the fast Tilt-a- Whirl ride at the carnival starts. 'Do you want to suck them?' she asked him. 'Yes,' he said, and leaned forward. But instead of zeroing in on her nipples, he kissed the slope where chest just begins to turn to breast, three inches below her clavicle. It felt good. It was good. Marcus had always gone right for the bull's-eye, no wasting time with any unnecessary sidelines, however erotic she might find them. She loved this. His mouth felt so good on those muscles and skin, so wet and hot and alive, moving downwards toward her breast. By the time his mouth reached her nipple it was agony. She pulled his head closer to her as his stubble scraped across her skin, and touched his soft curls--soft, not coarse--wonderingly. She could feel the soft wet texture of his tongue against her nipple as he sucked hard and slowly. She couldn't repress a gasp. 'Dana, you know,' he said breathlessly, as he turned his face up to her, letting her wet nipple slide out his mouth, 'if he catches us, it's me your father is gonna kill.' 'I'll protect you,' she promised, kissing his neck some more, and nipping at his chin. 'Just distract him while I make a break for it, okay?' 'Don't worry. They're playing in a tournament. There's a dinner, afterwards. They won't be back til late.' 'Bill and Charlie?' 'Shenandoah. Camping. No chance.' 'What time is Melissa getting off work?' 'Not until seven. Then she's meeting some friends for margaritas.' 'Jesus, Dana. Bill would kill me.' 'I'm not gonna tell him. Are you gonna tell him? It's none of his business.' She reached for his belt buckle, and started to undo it. 'Oh, Christ,' he said, but he didn't stop her. . .Even that simple movement, working the leather of his belt through the buckle, gave her a intoxicating feeling of power, of accomplishment. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If it were Mulder who had Scully straddling his lap, he would already be searching for her clitoris with his fingers. It would be like trying to catch an iridescent minnow in hot mud. Soon he would feel her vagina clenching tightly about his fingers. He would groan with the sensation, which would send sharp signals of pleasure up his arm, and banging into the tops of his ears before shooting back down to his cock. He stifled an actual groan. He fervently hoped that she didn't hear him. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .She had to rise up off his lap to work his shorts off. He raised himself off the couch to let her. 'I don't have a condom with me.' 'It's okay. I'm on the pill.' She had gone on it when she had thought that she and Marcus would do it, and never saw a reason to go off of it. It made her periods more bearable. She shucked her bathing suit bottom as well, watching his eyes flash as she did it. She'd handled a penis before, of course. She wasn't totally inexperienced. She was maliciously pleased to note that Nick's was thicker than Marcus's. Still, she had never handled one before in this particular context, and trying to guide him into her was awkward and fumbling. 'I can't. . .I can't' she said finally, unable to determine the proper angle to accomplish what she wanted to do. 'It's okay,' He reassured her. 'You're just not ready.' 'I am ready!' She was defiant. He chuckled a little. 'I just meant your body's not ready. Relax, just let it happen.' 'I hate it when a guy tells me to relax.' They shifted, and his thick cock nudged mercilessly at her tight little opening. She was hovering above him, holding onto his shoulders. She could feel how close they were, and she knew that she had to make it happen quickly. She pulled her feet up flat onto the couch. Her pelvic floor was relaxed and open in this position, with her knees spread wide open on either side of his thighs. She was afraid that it must have looked ridiculous, but it felt good, so good. His hands, those knobby hands she loved, were on the soft skin of her inner thighs. She linked her arms around his neck, and pressing her torso to his, lowered herself down over his cock, as steadily and forcefully as she could bear to. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Oh god. He was inside of her. Here she was, giving him something she had never given anyone else. She was telling him a story she had never told anyone before. He knew her. He was learning to know her. He would penetrate her to her innermost part. It was agony, but it was so, so, sweet. He let out a thought he didn't know he'd been thinking: "Tell me how it felt, Scully." "Strange. Oh, it felt strange. It didn't hurt like I'd expected. It just felt like pressure inside me. Different than anything else, ever--" * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . . .Like when she closed her thumb within her fist. It was all her. Fingers and thumb inside one another, where flesh is against flesh. It was like being turned inside out, existing on two planes at once, so half her awareness was turned inward, and yet she existed outside of it. It felt shocking, real. When he pushed into her, it was like the plunger of a hypodermic, pushing a high pitched moan out through her. A look of realization flooded his face. 'Jesus, Dana,' he said, horrified. 'Why didn't you tell me?' 'Then you would have stopped,' she gasped. 'Don't stop now, Nick.' She was alternating between clutching the back of the couch and his shoulders. His hands were on her hips, gripping her so tightly that a little tighter would have been pain. She could feel his thumbs on her hip bones, which in later years she would discover were an incredible erogenous zone for her. He was bringing her down over his cock, and then letting her rise back up, running his hands up and down her back, and pulling her down again. It wasn't the easiest position they could have chosen, but Scully quickly discovered she like being on top, oh she liked it, it was good, good, good, good. There was a picture window behind the couch. She could see the trees beyond his head as she fucked him and he fucked her. Each individual leaf of oak, and maple, and even the tulip tree in their backyard was outlined with a surreal clarity. She closed her eyes, and opened them, and closed them, and looked up at the sky. She looked down at his face, the stubble of his beard, into his eyes, hazel-green like the leaves. She could feel her heart--hear it--pounding in her ears, filling her brain, as though that trapped bird were going to beat its way out, its wings beating hard and frantically, pinions tensed, and then, and then, she just. . .oh. . .flew. . .away. . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A strange sharp moan emerged from her throat, and when Mulder glanced over at her, his own heart pounding too, even in the dark he could see the tremor that rippled through her. Had she come? He couldn't be sure, which didn't really surprise him. It wasn't the first time he'd been unsure whether or not a woman had come in his presence. He suspected that it wouldn't be the last. At least, he hoped not. Dammit, he wasn't sure what he should hope for. It wasn't exactly the pinnacle of his fantasies for Scully to have an orgasm in the car seat next to him, as she remembered a sexual encounter with another man, while on painkillers. Still, it was much closer than he sometimes had thought he would ever get. Wait, something sounded wrong. What was it? When he realized, he was stunned. She had definitely described this Nick character before as having blue eyes. Blue, like the color of blueberries, she'd said. But just before she, uh, did whatever she had done, she'd said-- "Scully. Scully?" She seemed to rouse herself. "I went to his wedding last year. I almost didn't go. . .I didn't want to see what time had done to him. I thought about just sending a place setting, and a nice card, but I couldn't resist. He looked just the same--only older of course. It hurt only the tiniest little bit. I still loved him, but it was. . .cumulative. You just pile more love on top." She sighed a little, and her shoulders slumped, as she drifted a little further away from him, into sleep. What happened? What had happened with her and Nick after that? Did her parents come home? Had he just left for the Peace Corps, and never looked back? Did they date after that? If they had, then Bill surely would have known about it, and it wouldn't be a secret. He wondered if he would ever have the nerve to ask her. She was still asleep when he pulled up in front of her building. He started to wake her, and then thought better of it. Holding his keys, with her apartment key between his thumb and forefinger, he went around to her side of the car, he slipped his arm under her knees, and very gently, so as not to hurt her ribs, he slipped his other arm under her back across her shoulder blades. Maneuvering her out of the car, he carried her up to her apartment. She was sleeping the sleep of the drugged; otherwise she would surely have woken up when he awkwardly balanced the weight of her body on his knee as he put her key in the lock and opened her door. He carried her to her bedroom, stopping several times to maintain his stability. Her head fell against his shoulder. Her hair was soft and tickled his neck. He carefully laid her down on the bed and slipped off her shoes. Standing a moment in her bedroom, he couldn't resist the opportunity to look his fill at her. He wrote her a note, and finding some Scotch tape in the catch-all drawer in her kitchen, taped it to the bathroom mirror, so that she would see it when she woke up in the morning. It said: Your secret's safe with me. --M The End. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And, while ye may, go marry; For, having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry. Robert Herrick "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time" Feedback: ambress27@mindspring.com -- Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat. --Robert Frost