Apex

Rated NC-17

Disclaimer: don't own them, not profiting

By syn_tax6@yahoo.com


The first time he kisses her, he feels sixteen again with 
weak knees and sweaty palms, standing on her parents' porch 
instead of a hospital waiting room on New Year's Eve.  He can 
hardly believe he's doing this out in the open where anyone 
might see, where ER security cameras are no doubt capturing 
the moment for all eternity.

He imagines if anyone bothers to check the tape they will see 
him bending awkwardly, his head stretching like a turtle from 
his scarred neck until his lips find her face.  His eyes are 
closed so he can't see her reaction, can only feel her 
posture softening and smell the antiseptic on her skin.  He 
clenches his hands against his jeans and remembers not to 
grab her.

When he pulls away her eyes are dark, pupils dilated from 
fatigue, pain medication and some emotion he can't quite 
read.  He smiles, thinking she might mirror him, but she is 
slow to answer. 

Later he will think back on her tinge of sadness and realize 
its significance, but for now, he is glad just to have Made 
The First Move.

He has not planned past this moment because he'd never 
thought it would actually arrive.  January first has brought 
them a wealth of new possibilities, and he has three hundred 
and sixty-four left on the tab.

"Happy new year," she says.

He has just the one good arm left, but as always, the best of 
him belongs to her.  He rests his uninjured arm across her 
shoulders as they leave together, both of them testing the 
weight.

* * * *

His mother has a china vase that is square at the bottom and 
round at the top, white with delicate blue flowers on it.  He 
and his sister broke it playing tag in the house many years 
ago, but he can still bring back the terrible sound of it 
hitting the floor and cracking.  Part of the base chipped 
clean off, leaving a gaping hole.  His father had a basement 
workshop where he'd glued the vase together again, and you 
couldn't even see the cracks if you looked at it just from 
the front.  

But it never again held water.  Only fake silk flowers that 
didn't change once in twenty-five years.

He thinks of this vase as she sits with him in shadowed 
apartment with nothing to distract them.  The TV and radio 
are silent and there are no case files fanned across the 
table.

She is telling him about her cracks, the ones he couldn't 
see, not even when she stood right in front of him.  Her eyes 
are downcast and her hands are small and white in her lap as 
she confesses this thing that she never wanted to tell him.

She can't have sex.

Maybe.

She hasn't tried in a long time now, but she's afraid it's 
still a problem, that in fact it is her fear that is the 
problem.
 
She doesn't know how it happened.  She doesn't understand 
herself why seven years of serial killers and gunshot wounds 
and missing time have translated into an inability to relax 
enough for sex.  All she knows is that her body takes sexual 
energy and channels it as fight or flight.

Her voice is hoarse, tired.  Clearly she has been fighting 
this battle inside for a long time and he never knew it.  

She can't even look at him.

"I know it's all in the past, these things that have happened 
to me," she says.  "I can't seem to leave them behind.  Every 
time I think I've put them by the side of the road, I just 
find myself carrying them again."

He holds her against him and she doesn't fight it.  She sags 
in his arms, exhausted from the weight of her terrible 
secret.

He wonders about the men she's tested herself with before 
him, if they had taken care or if they hadn't recognized her 
fear.

In his arms she is stiff as a board and light as a feather.  
He tries not to snap her in two.

* * * *

They are kissing for real on his sofa, his tongue in her 
mouth and his hand on her breast.  Her nipple buds against 
his thumb as he eases her deeper into the cushions.  Her 
nails are caught like claws in his shirtfront but she isn't 
pushing him away.  He has an arm behind her neck and he can 
feel her pulse humming under the taut surface her skin.

Just as he stars to sink into her, just as he starts to feel 
rather than monitor every second of the encounter, she pulls 
free with a gasp.  She sits up, gripping the sofa edge as 
though it's keeping her from falling.  Her eyes are wild and 
her skin is flushed. He worries she might throw up.

"I'm sorry," she says.  "I wish I wasn't like this."

He doesn't like that she feels she has to apologize for 
herself, but right then, with his dick bulging against his 
zipper, he wishes the same thing.  It's not easy to be 
patient, especially when he doesn't have any good idea of how 
to help her.

It's just me, he wants to say to her until she gets it.  
Sometimes he can't understand.  She has held his heart in her 
hands, this woman; she can't possibly be afraid of him.

She is shaking when she tells him maybe they have made a 
mistake, that perhaps he should try to find someone less 
damaged than her.

The word damaged snaps him back to the present because it is 
a word he knows well. He has heard it whispered behind his 
back a time or two, and occasionally inside his own head when 
the night's shadows overtook him.

Damaged he knows.  This is what he wants to make her see.  
They are both nicked up a bit but the gouges are perfectly 
aligned.

Her hair has fallen over her face and she peers over at him 
with one watery blue eye, seeming resigned to his rejection.

He brings her hand into his lap and holds it, telling her 
they can try again whenever she wants.  He has waited many 
years for her, and he will keep waiting.

* * * *

They make love for the first time at her place, which he 
believes might help her feel more at ease.  He has an 
advanced degree in psychology; he has studied post-traumatic 
stress reactions.  He's just never taken them to bed.

She is stiff but eager, meeting his kisses and helping him 
slide out of his clothes.  The lamps are off at her request 
but a wide beam from outside cuts through the parted drapes, 
bathing them in white light.

She reminds him of the nude marble statues he's seen in 
museums and he wants to put his hands all over her.  He talks 
to her as he touches, keeping his chatter light and familiar.  
It's just me, he thinks, hoping she hears him and not the 
demons in her head.

When he reaches between her legs, she stares at the ceiling 
and freezes under his exploration.  He bits his tongue 
against the need to ask her if it's okay.  He doesn't want to 
make her feel any more like a test subject than she already 
does, so he keeps his investigation silent.

Only her low, ragged breathing fills the air as he strokes 
her quivering flesh.  She is wet and he glories in it.

You really want me, he thinks, enormously relieved.  Part of 
him, his damaged secret place, had worried that she might 
feel affection for him but not desire, and had manufactured a 
psychiatric ailment to avoid having to say, "Mulder, I'm just 
not into you."

But she is into him, and he's into her. He has one finger 
partway inside and she's hot and tight and he has to force 
himself to go slowly because it's been so very long since 
he's touched anyone this way.  He probes around gently, 
testing her boundaries, and he finds a place that makes her 
catch her breath.

He looks up quickly, trying to see her face to know whether 
this is a good or a bad thing, but her eyes are screwed shut 
and her fingers are scratching at the sheets.

"Please," she says, "just do it."

He'd wanted to wait, wanted to maybe give her an orgasm first 
because he's not making any promises over how long he might 
last.  It took her weeks to get to this point, and he wants 
to at least make it good.

He nudges his penis to her opening, sucking in his own breath 
at the contact but going no further for the moment.  Her leg 
jerks up and she hits his hip with the inside of her knee.  
She apologizes and he can feel her willing the leg back down, 
forcing it into submission again.

He leans down to kiss her, hoping to distract her as he begin 
to ease his way into her body.  Her lips are soft but her jaw 
is tense.  He caresses her face with one hand until she is 
kissing him back, her tongue sliding out to play with his. 
Below, her body joins him in an age-old dance.

She takes him in with short, quick spasms.  It is not an easy 
slide, and he is forced to wait between agonizing 
contractions, working his way past each defensive barrier.  
She has him in a fierce hug and she has pressed her hot 
forehead into curve of his neck.  He is trying like hell not 
to ram it all in.

Once he is all the way inside her, he can't believe how good 
it feels, how he could ever have forgotten this or believed 
anything in the world was more important.  He explodes 
gloriously, his whole body shaking with the power of it, his 
mouth open in a silent scream against her shoulder.  His 
teeth scrape her tender, salty skin, and he licks away the 
tiny indentations before rising back to look at her.

Her eyelashes are fanned across her cheek, her face turned 
slightly away from him.  He brushes back a sticky lock of her 
hair, and she twists, trying to get free from him.

His heart sinks all the way to his belly as he obliges her, 
shifting until they become two people again.  Apparently this 
was not the breakthrough he was hoping for.

He asks if she's all right as she rolls to the edge of the 
mattress and curls into a ball.  She hangs onto the ledge as 
if for dear life as she says, "I'm okay.  I'm okay."  

He is not sure if she is talking to him or to herself.

* * * *

He thinks of her fear almost like a third person, a chaperone 
that is with them always.  He tries to sneak off with Scully 
when the chaperone isn't looking.  It's exhausting, frankly, 
and there are many nights he is just not up to the task.

He has a degree in psychology.  He understands that it's not 
about him, not really, but he can't help but feel wounded 
sometimes that she conflates him with the Donnie Pfasters of 
the world.

But then he remembers that she's been chopped, slapped, 
pierced, kidnapped, shot, nearly killed and come alive again.  
It's a wonder she's out walking around like a human and not 
locked inside a padded cell.  When he considers all of this, 
her secret fear doesn't seem so large, but he is forced to 
admit the weight of it is larger than he'd expected.

They can't go back, even if he called it off now -- not that 
he wants to, of course -- but he will always be able to see 
the cracks in her now, just like the vase.  He wonders how 
much of her confidence is for show, finds himself watching 
her out of the corner of his eye when they question killers 
or go in for the kill themselves. 

Sometimes he wishes he didn't know what he knows, but then he 
wouldn't know the soft skin at the backs of her knees or the 
way she sighs into his kiss when she's happy.

Eventually she gets a prescription for an anxiolytic 
medication and things improve somewhat, although it is 
unnerving to have one's lover need drugs to be able to be 
able to go through with the act.

Instead of little blue pills to arouse her body she has 
delicate white ones to quiet her mind, which she swallows 
twenty-odd minutes before they expect to Do It.  She will get 
naked at his house now, which is progress, and he gets a 
secret thrill from the sight of her lacy clothes on his 
floor.

The first time she comes, it takes him by surprise because it 
hasn't happened before and because it's in his bed.  He has 
one arm crooked under her head and the other between her legs 
as she hitches one knee over his hip to give him access.

They are kissing and rocking slowly together and he is 
stroking her hair in the same rhythm his hand pleasures her 
below.  He is not thinking about anything except the feel of 
her mouth and the warmth between her thighs.  He thinks it 
surprises her too as her eyes go wide and she clutches him 
suddenly as the orgasm begins.

He wants to shout with joy but is afraid of ruining the 
moment, so he stays with her as best he can and buries his 
nose in her sweet-smelling hair.  Her nails prick his back 
and he feels a dampness spreading across his shoulder.

He asks he if she's all right. He can feel her heart 
hammering over his.  Even as he asks, he half expects her to 
turn away.

But she hugs him, curling closer, and nods into his neck.  
His erection is a bone of contention, pressing hotly against 
both their bellies, but he ignores its insistent throbbing 
for the moment.  He is tight, filled to bursting, but it's 
his heart that aches the most.

"I wish you could have known me before," she whispers, and 
then he is crying too.

* * * *

They are getting naughty on a red-eye back from California.  
For reasons known only to God and Skinner, they seem to have 
a ridiculous number of cases on the West Coast these days, 
racking up frequent flier miles like coins from a slot 
machine that hit the jackpot.  

There were cherries ringing up in Mulder's eyes as Scully 
groped him under the blanket.  He could hardly believe she 
was the one who started this, leaning over to nibble his neck 
sometime after the lights went dim.  If he didn't know 
better, he'd have thought she was turned on by the flight 
attendants' frank chatter a few rows up in front of them.

The brunette with the curly hair and large breasts was 
confessing to fellatio in the airport's long-term parking 
lot, and her confidant wants every detail.

Mulder and Scully are seated at the absolute back of this 
mammoth, nearly empty plane, behind the food and beverage 
area, behind even the bathrooms.  Any further back and they 
would be riding the tailpipe.

Scully actually is riding his tailpipe, as it were, half in 
his lap as her tongue traced a wet trail down his neck.  He 
has his hands under her shirt and her bra undone, pleased he 
still recalls how these maneuvers went, considering it has 
been decades since he's felt up a woman in a semi-public 
place.  Scully breasts nearly spring into his hands, nipples 
already swollen to the size of gumdrops.

He is dizzy with lust, his dick hard enough to bang nails.  
The blanket slips to the floor and he doesn't even care.  She 
is giving him the hand job of his life through his pants 
pocket, but when he reaches for the buttons on her slacks, 
she pulls away.

"We can't do everything," she says, her eyes dark and her 
mouth shining.  As she draws his head down to hers again, he 
understands at last.

Here, with rules and boundaries, where intercourse is 
impossible, she is freed.  The chaperone is passed out drunk 
or maybe just dead asleep because it's after three in the 
morning.

What the hell, he thinks, and presses Scully into the side of 
the plane, low in their seats away from any curious eyes.  
She rubs her hot little body against him, her tongue poking 
in and out of his mouth.  His ears burn and his pants are on 
way too tight.

The sound of his zipper going down seems overloud and he 
almost jerks away.

"Shh," she says, her hand slipping in again as his penis 
rises up to greet her.  She has strong, nimble fingers and he 
is reduced to wheezing, his face mashed against an airline 
seat cushion while she brings him off in her hand.

After, she cleans him up and kisses him once on the tip of 
the nose.  Then she dozes in the circle of his arms while he 
raises the window shade and watches the twinkling lights from 
the passing cities below.

* * * *

On a Sunday morning he wakes to bright sunshine and the white 
sheets of her bed tangled around his waist.  She is not 
there, so he goes in search and finds her on the sofa, 
wearing a fluffy robe and bunny slippers.  She has the Times 
crossword puzzle in her lap and the end of a pen in her mouth 
as she works out the clues.

He asks how it's going as he slides in next to her, peering 
over her shoulder at the black-and-white print.  He is better 
at these mind teasers than she is because his mind can go 
backwards and forwards at the same time.  Crossword clues, 
especially the hard ones, often requiring seeing two things 
simultaneously, and as beautiful as Scully's eyes are, she 
can only see one thing at once.

Sometimes this is a blessing, but not when you're trying to 
ferret out the Sunday Times.  He doesn't offer help unless 
she asks, but she leans her head back against him and takes 
the pen from her lips.

"This one is impossible," she says.  "The clue is, 'it's a 
topping to kiss a monkey.'  Four letters."

Just the word 'kiss' makes him press his lips to her head; he 
is worse than Pavlov's dogs in this regard.

But even as he loops his arms around her waist, his brain is 
sifting through the many possible meanings, rejecting each 
one until it arrives at what has to be the answer.

He grins.  It is such a satisfying result that he gives her a 
squeeze.  

"What?" she asks, turning in his embrace to frown at him.

He tells her the answer: a topping to kiss a monkey -- apex.

She laughs as she writes it in, pleased with the clue and 
pleased with him.  He loves that he can still turn her on 
with his huge brain.  

And she is turned on.

She crawls up in his lap, facing him, and takes his head 
between her hands.  She holds him at just the right angle to 
ravish his mouth totally.

He tugs open the sash on her robe even as she gives him his 
own private lap dance.  To his delight, she is naked beneath, 
and he runs his palms over every part of her.  The robe forms 
a curtain on either side, making their love-play feel more 
intimate.

He gives her soft kisses and slow kisses.  He finds the warm, 
fragrant spot between her legs and slips two fingers in her.  
She rides his hand in a languid rhythm, her eyes falling shut 
and her teeth just catching on her lip.

When she comes she gives a startled cry before falling 
forward in his arms.  She trusts that he is there to catch 
her.

He wiggles out of his boxers and she moves again so that they 
can find the right angle.  Her forehead rests against his and 
her arms wrap around his neck.

He forced his eyes open to watch, and for a few moments, he 
is captivated by the sight of his penis sliding in and out of 
her.  But then he feels the huff of her breath on his cheek, 
and he raises his gaze until he meets those amazing eyes.

They watch each other and finally, amazingly, she smiles, and 
that smile is his undoing, at last.

* * * *

End