~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Washington D.C., 12:02 A.M.
When I return from Vermont, it's cold
for a late D.C. spring,
cherry blossoms aside. The streets are wet and slick in the dark
night.
Black like a raven's glossy wing.
There's a parking space in front of
my building. A glance up to my
apartment window shows a dark slate of glass, as empty and black
as Ellen Adderly's eyes.
~~ The depressing activity of settling
a patient into an
institution had been made all the more difficult by my own nearly
overwhelming flight instinct. The memory of too many days spent
bound by long cotton sleeves had put my nerves on edge, causing
my
toes to quiver in my shoes, aching to run.
My patient was uncooperative, her husband
uncomprehending. The
coward in me wanted to flee. My temples hurt like a spike was
slowly being driven through them. I should've just walked out
the door like a heartless government employee.
Dull Phil, beetle brow furrowed, was
still working too hard as I
tried to suggest some possible explanation for his wife's
inequitable behavior. "Like Jekyll and Hyde?" he slowly
asked.
Ellen had crawled into the corner while
I wasn't watching. I
didn't blame her. When I had been in one of those gray rooms,
I
liked the corner too. ~~
The cold air bites at me, brittle on
my skin as I hurry up the
stairs of my apartment building, my suitcase and grocery
bags hanging off my fingers.
My words had been as frigid and empty
as the puffs of my white-
frosted breath. "She wanted so much from her life with you.
A
perfect life." I shake my head at my stupidity.
I can't even get my mail in peace.
"Mr. Mulder!" Mr. Souza, the
perennial old man neighbor.
Since I've lived in this building,
Walt Souza is the third such
man to wheeze greetings, breaking my stride as I skulk through
the halls. This one is particularly annoying. He lives right
across from the mailboxes.
He glances down the dark hall as I
try to open my box without
putting down the shapeless plastic bags and spilling my groceries.
"Where's that pretty little girl
who follows you around?"
I don't even turn to look at him. "You
mean Special Agent Dana
Scully, my partner at the FBI?"
He's shameless. "Yeah," he
leers.
Causing my tendons to scream in pain,
I turn my wrist to look at
my watch. "I assume she's in bed at this hour. She enjoys
her
sleep."
"Too bad."
I brush past his huge belly to get
to the elevator. His door is
wide open and the Discovery Channel is featuring the crocodile
guy writhing in the mud with some large reptile.
I can't stop myself from meeting his
eyes and to my horror, he
winks and smiles. In this brief moment, I know he doesn't use
deodorant, have proper dental hygiene, or wash his hands after
jacking off.
I hurry on, mumbling my good-byes.
Nonplussed, he yells after me, "Say
hello to your little girl
from me!"
My little girl. I bite down on a dry
chuckle.
~~ Ellen and Phil's baby was warm.
A soft, drooling nuclear
reactor. I thought I was on top of the situation, balancing her
on my thighs. Then, a core meltdown apparently happened in her
diaper. The siren sounded, her tiny red tongue flapped, 'Danger,
Danger!' as her cries drilled into my ear. I forced a smile.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Ellen reached
for the baby. I gave her over
gratefully. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, my
attempt to be a proper guest. But the small limbed creature
turned out to be more complex than I'd anticipated. She required
jostling, lifting, flipping onto my shoulder.
I'm much lower maintenance.
Scully wouldn't agree.
But *she* had been the one whining
on the stakeout. "You're such a
baby!" Lower lip protruding, damp and plump from pouting.
"I won the last cookie fair and
square. Live with it." My eye
went back to the telescope eyepiece. Ladies of the night, all
bright plumage, pranced and dipped their feathered breasts at
passing cocks.
I wished I were some odd lizard so
I could keep one eye on the
women and one eye on Scully.
Arms crossed, pulling her coat tight.
Chin rested on her
breastbone, eyes flaming.
Flicked my eye back. Adjusted the focus
to the shining red lips,
reflecting the torrid neon, smirking, twisting grimaces
attempting to pass as smiles.
Flicked away.
Scully rarely smiles. She doesn't believe
in faking it. Two coral
lips, top and bottom pursed together in a tight fist. Bad boy.
Bad, bad, boy.
It turned me on. Got me hard. My black
swathed dominatrix watched
me humiliate myself, staring impotently at women I couldn't have.
I felt her gaze on my white knuckles, clutching at the fabric
of
my pants, willing my hands to stay in place. A loose smile played
on her lips, her gaze warmed...I had to look.
I turned. She glanced up from the open
files in front of her--
eyes bland, an eyebrow raised. "Mulder?"
"Nothing." I shoved a bite
of the last cookie into my mouth
for emphasis and those lips twisted. ~~
The rooms of my apartment are cold
and clammy as a corpse.
Thumping my grocery bags down in the kitchen, I shed my coat,
tossing it on the chair as I head for my desk. My tie follows,
hurled in the direction of the coffee table. It misses, curling
on
the carpet like a snake.
The light on my message machine is
a steady red. Streetlights cut
through the blinds, bracing my chest with bars of light. In his
movie set of a living room, Phil had looked like a swarthy fly
caught in the web of his wife's lace curtains.
That fucker didn't have any idea how
good he had it. Whether I
meant Ellen or the other two women, I'm not sure.
~~ The red lace bra worn by the slattern
woman on the side, Jenny,
had been an offense. What looks sexy on a live body seems perverse
on a dead one.
Scully has caused me to develop a bra
fixation, if I didn't have
one before. Those glimpses of black bra as her blue shirt shifted
around her body. She stretched, she paced, she twisted kinks
from
her torso and the whole time, that shirt writhed on its own.
It
seemed to exist on another plane and one day I expect it to wander
off, leaving her exposed. I want to be there when it happens.
Caught again. The tide rose in her
eyes. Naughty boy. Forced my
eyes on her necklace. Gold cross. Purity. Virtue...flash of the
bra...wandered down to where the buttons ended but her slacks
didn't start. A dark dip of her navel...I wanted to crawl in.
Be a good boy! Eyes back up! Her sharp
gaze nailed me to the
cross. I spend a lot of time in her presence thinking about the
Madonna/whore complex.
Flicked back to the telescope. My lips
started moving, saying all
the wrong things. "You should be checking these ladies out.
You
could pick up some fashion tips."
Poke, poke, poke with my pointy stick.
Pushing her further away.
Her voice was close, near my ear. "Have
some gum. It'll give your
mouth something to do."
I hate when she can read my mind. It's
never something useful,
like 'Tell Skinner we were following up a lead for the past 4
hours.' ~~
Put away the groceries. Wouldn't want
the food to spoil. I'm not
used to buying things that spoil. There's plenty of room in my
refrigerator. Pushing aside the single container of yogurt, I
arrange the orange juice and milk, carefully lining them up on
the rack.
Ellen's refrigerator had been a thing
of beauty. Packed full and
yet perfectly organized. Nothing out of date. Everything in an
appropriate container. I admire organization, probably because
I
lack it.
Her words: "Don't miss out on
home and family. With all the
terrible things you see, it could be a refuge for you."
Turning from the fridge, I glance around
my dim apartment. I
guess this dark hole and its contents are my refuge.
~~ Phil was a class 'A' fucker. The
criminal part of the case,
with the sheriff's bulging masculinity and obvious attempts to
cover and obscure evidence, had made it depressingly easy to
solve. Reminded me why I got out of Violent Crimes. I don't want
to see what normal people do to other normal people.
Now I was glad Scully hadn't come.
With Ed Jerse's cold, dark
face, and Hartwell's crisp uniform and deferring manner, ol'
Phil
might have caused some problems for us. There might have been
a
spat or two. Or three.
"Any idea who the father might
be?" Fury. Pure fury with a man
who dribbled his sperm around like I drop my clothes on the
floor, walking away from a golden little girl and another on
the
way. ~~
I unbutton the shirt Ellen had ironed
for me. Home-done ironing is
different from professional work. It doesn't have sharp corners
or the lingering odor of chemicals. Lifting a sleeve to my nose,
I swear it still smells of baking muffins.
Rubbing my chin, I realize I have to
shave before going to bed.
The stubble is a result of another one of those 'seemed like
a
good idea at the time' things. Free of Scully's critical gaze
for
a few days, I'd decided to try out a beard. Maybe I would've
settled for a goatee. I'd forgotten why I never got past this
stage growing a beard. I can't stand the itching.
Stripping off my clothes, leaving them
in a heap in the corner of
the bathroom, I lather my chilled face with shaving cream.
~~ My heart had betrayed me, of course.
It had actually leapt when
her phone call purred in my pocket. My voice, wavering like the
final note in a violin solo. "I could use your help."
Hers, drifting up from the well that
is her boredom with my
lesser quests and me. "I'll talk to you later." A click.
~~
The razor makes clean paths in the white cream.
~~ My black-robed judge had called
down from the bench, "'Round
the clock exposure to the seamy underbelly." Her focus was
so
intently on her hands, obviously not on the whores and that
squalid room, I could actually hear her clean fingers ticking
along the edges of the boxes in my video collection.
When she finally glanced up, I kept
the rhythm of my inner chant
with my champing gum. I will not look ashamed, I will not look
ashamed, I will not look ashamed-- ~~
I look tired. Splashing water on my
face to take away the last
traces of shaving lotion doesn't wipe away the bags and wrinkles.
Bed, I need my bed. It's been a long
couple of days. Truth be
told, I found it hard to sleep with Ellen's stuffed bunny
collection glaring at me through glass eyes all night long.
My sheet crinkles like an old paper
bag as I pull it back.
Ellen's whispered.
I seek the heat of her small, but radiant
body, pulling her
smooth ball form close. She rolls over and pushes the hair from
her eyes, blinking them rapidly like a plastic baby doll.
Rubbing my hands up and down her bare
back, I ask, "Warm yet?"
She gives off her finely shaved curl
of a laugh. "Yes, you
bastard."
My brow furrows. "Why don't you
turn up the heat in here? It's
freezing."
Her gaze flicks away. "It's your
place. I assume you like it this
cold."
"You're my guest." That has
to be one of the most fucked things
I've ever said.
She comes here when she wants to, appearing
in the shadows. When
I asked why we don't go to her place, she said, "I like
the dark.
I sleep better here." I assumed there's some obscure hidden
Zen
meaning in her words, but I chose not to think that hard to find
it.
Rolling onto my back, I pull her on
top of me. She doesn't make
an effective blanket, but I enjoy the feeling of her strong
thighs gripping my hips.
She hasn't said anything. "Scully?"
I tip her chin up off my
chest. I want to see her face. Then I'm sorry. She looks scared.
My fingers loosen their grip, and she buries her head in the
crook of my neck. I shouldn't put her on the spot like that.
Move on, Mulder. "I'm going to
make you breakfast. I bought
groceries."
"Breakfast?" Trepidation.
"Pancakes."
"I was going to leave early. Franklin
has a victim of the Marburg
virus I can examine, but he has to release to the family at 9
A.M."
"Okay. Just be careful,"
I fret, earning me a raised eyebrow.
Sighing with only a slightly martyred
air and adding, "Get some
sleep then," I roll us over on our sides and her head settles
on
the pillow.
"Pancakes? You know how to cook?"
she asks.
"It's a box. I can follow directions,"
I explain patiently.
"Oh."
Over her blanket-covered shoulder,
I watch the digital clock
blink, blink, blink, change to 12:31.
"I got raspberries too. They were
on the picture on the box and
looked good. Big, red ones."
"Oh." Her voice has a bit
of a perk to it. "Raspberries?"
"Yep. I ate one in the car. They're
juicy." The image of eating
one off her nipple suddenly pops up.
This time, she actually reads my mind
at the correct moment.
"Well...we both earned some overtime on these cases."
Her arm
snakes out from under the covers to switch off the alarm. "I
guess we could be late to work this once."
Satisfied, I lick her firm, vanilla
ice-cream cone shoulder.
She isn't. "Are you sure you have
everything? I don't want to get
my hopes up here." She tries to put some humor in her words
with
a shaky smile.
I decide to be bold. I meet her gaze
and say with as much
confidence as I can muster, "I think I have everything I
need."
Although she doesn't add anything,
only nodding, at least this
time she doesn't look scared.
~~ Ellen's cool fingers had traced
across my hand. "I couldn't
help but notice--no wedding band. Do you have a significant
other?"
"Not in the widely understood
definition of that term."
Her small smile belied her denial of
pity. "The right woman will
come along and change all that." ~~
***The End***
FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTES: Shawne
accused me of being Mary Sue Mulder
and all I can say is-- :P
Obviously, I enjoyed this
episode more than many people. My only
nit was the plot device of making ravens the bad guys. Their
legends and relationships with cultures are much more complex
than
the script suggested. For example, in the Pacific Northwest Native
American Nations, Raven is at the top of the deities, not feared
as Mulder said. Just a little defense there.
Feedback
is welcome
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