SOAP GETS IN YOUR CLAWS
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the characters I have created, but I'm still not making any money from this. Oh well. Can't buy me love, right?
Chapter 1: Smash Your Head Against the Wall
New York Thruway- En-route to, Xavier Institute, Westchester New York 1974
I: Jean
Jean Grey was driving her 1971 red Super Beetle at about ten miles over the speed limit, heading back to the X-Mansion with Logan in the passenger seat, his stained, dirty old cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, asleep and snoring like an alcoholic beaver with a sinus condition attempting to chew down a petrified forest.
There was a half-drunk bottle of Molson's Canadian in his hand, and a few empties rolling around by his feet.
Jean could see the bottle slipping out of his hand as his grip weakened in sleep, and she took it from him and, for lack of anything else to do with it, wedged it between the seats.
She looked over at him, for a minute, and then looked away.
She had a problem.
A big problem.
And Logan was part of it.
They had become a good friends, over the years, despite getting off to a shaky start, and Jean knew that Logan was one clever little man. People who didn't know him well, even some of his students and fellow masks saw him as a drunken, uneducated, shirt-chasing oaf, because he carefully cultivated that image to cover over the fact he was an intelligent, well-read, master of several disciplines of martial-arts with about a hundred years of shrewdly looking after number one under his belt.
Jean respected Logan and she liked him, and that was why it bothered her, knowing the way he felt about her.
Because she just didn't find him attractive.
Logan had black hair, and lots of it, which she never liked in a man, and there was something about blue eyes that she found unsettling.
Especially Logan's.
Philosophers said that the eyes were the window to the soul, and, as a telepath, Jean knew that to be true.
But, all metaphysics aside, Logan was altogether too hairy, too burly, and too short. He was a Sherman tank of a man, comprised mostly of hair and stink and powered by beer and the worst kind of junk food.
Nor her type at all.
Scott, on the other hand, he could have been made for her. He was tall, smooth-skinned, brown-haired and brown-eyed, a thoughtful, educated, conventionally handsome man who was very self-possessed, rational, and even-tempered.
You could set your watch by Scott Summers, he never had a day of mercurial temperament in his life.
And, as he observed, all that hot stuff, it was for crazy nymphos and teenagers.
She and Scott had a beautiful, adult, committed relationship and a mature kind of tender physical love that was far more satisfying than any torrid series of dirty, raunchy cheap fucks.
The problem?
It was harder and harder for Jean to convince herself of that, especially with Scott becoming more remote with every passing day.
He hadn't touched her for months.
As for Logan, he may not have been Sean Connery, but she had it on good authority that if you were looking for all that hot stuff, for a torrid series of dirty, raunchy cheap fucks, he was definitely the guy to go to.
She knew he was the type who would keep his mouth shut, too.
But, it was no good, she thought, looking over at him.
There was just nothing about him that she found attractive.
Well, he did have a pretty good chest.
Nice arms, too.
And he was short, way too short, but he had good legs.
Especially his thighs, they appeared to be thick and muscular.
Good hands too, big for such a small guy, strong and sinewy.
And you know what they say about men with big hands.
And it wasn't as if he didn't advertise in his ancient, faded, painted-on Levis.
Then again, it wasn't as if Logan was an ugly man.
Not "Ma had to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him" kind of ugly. He wasn't pretty, but who said men had to be pretty? He had a strong jaw, and his nose was kind of big, but not in an offensive way, and he really wasn't bad-looking.
He looked like a man, didn't he?
She could live with blue eyes.
And men were supposed to be hairy, right?
Okay, so, despite being short, crude, hairy, and foul-mouthed, Logan was, in some ways, a reasonably attractive man.
Not to mention he had once burned for her with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns in supernova; that there was a time when it seemed to her that she was the only thing he wanted in the world.
There had to be something of that left, even after six or seven years of close association.
But, if she was going to have to go and seek fulfilment elsewhere, wasn't it a really bad idea to do it so close to home?
But, then again, what was she supposed to do? Go to the city and hang around in bars? Place a personal ad? Find a dating service for mutant superheroes?
Jean's mind was not on her driving and she crashed through a pothole.
"Shit!" she yelled.
Snikt!
Logan awoke with a snort.
"Sorry, Logan. Goddamn potholes."
He flipped up his hat, located his beer, finished it , looked over at her sleepily, and smiled.
"Lookit me, Jeannie, I'm wakin' up next to you. I like the idea of that." He said.
"I'm sure you do. Why don't you reach into your pants for something useful and get the toll money ready." Jean replied, curtly.
Sometimes she wished that she could be as cheerfully amoral as her good friend Liv Napier, the Harlequin, otherwise known as Napalm. Relative sobriety, the calmer waters of her mid-twenties, and the influence of her partner had smoothed out the more jagged of the kinks and chinks in the Harlequin's superhero armor, but she would never be the girl a nice guy wrote home to mother about.
When she had met Liv in 1966, when the powers that be at NYU made them room-mates, Napalm, though a certified genius, admitted she was pretty much a shanty Irish Brooklyn thug.
She had been cheerily and wildly degenerate; her free time when he wasn't in c;assor on the street doing her mask work was occupied by drinking, screwing, fighting, tinkering with cars and jacking off to superhero fuckbooks and comix while she listened to blues, rockabilly and the Who.
She got kicked out of the NYU dorms in 1967 for having a Mad Hatter's sex party with two fortyish beatnik gents, a brick of grass, a few hits of acid, a little legally-prescribed pharmaceutical heroin, some Chuck Berry records and an autographed copy of Naked Lunch with a very personal inscription to Napalm from Uncle Bill, himself.
Liv was still cheerily and wildly degenerate, something her equally cheerily and wildly degenerate partner, the muscularly lustful Comedian appreciated greatly. Surely, it was some Trickster god who had conspired to release them into their own private wildly degenerate heaven of fighting other people, fucking each other, and laughing at the world that burned around their ears as they toasted each other with stout and Irish whiskey.
Liv Napier would never be respectable.
A goody-goody.
Like Jean was.
Napalm was around quite a bit, though. She had her regular Wednesdays with Logan starting four years before and in '72 she began teaching Evolutionary Biology two times a week.
He came up to the school to pick her up, sometimes, her partner.
The Comedian was a beast of a man, six feet, four inches and well over two hundred muscular pounds of mad, bad and dangerous to know.
He had been the red, white and blue pinup heart-throb for three generations of drooling American teenyboppers, who liked theirs tall, dark and homicidal. Indeed, at the ripe old age of 50 he had just done a centrefold for Cosmo wearing his trademark mask, his trademark smile, and his trademark guns.
And nothing else.
Nice, big guns, hard, heavy shiny nickel plated guns with long, thick barrels.
His fans may or may not have known that the Watchman was a laughingly amoral sociopath who did almost every dirty job in America with a certain hard-eyed élan. But what did they care? Between his crooked smile and his black leather and steel and stars and stripes uniform and his devilish Black Irish good looks, he was the kind of bad man a good woman knew well enough to leave alone.
Hence him and Napalm getting on like a house afire.
Although, being a Cosmo subscriber, despite the fact that she disapproved of his methods as a mask and considered Eddie Blake to be a woeful excuse for a human being, the sight of him naked, armed, and surrounded by American flags did give a girl a big Red, White and Blue lump in her throat.
Not that Jean got Cosmo for the nude centrefolds, or anything.
Not that she was disappointed when Cosmo approached Scott and he told them to go to Hell.
Not that she didn't keep Logan's layout taped to the bottom of the top drawer of her desk.
His cowboy hat, his claws, and a grin.
Is there a doctor in the house? No? How about a fireman?
Still, Napalm and Eddie Blake looked at each other with fierce intemperate lust, great loyalty and a wild, desperate kind of love.
Jean was jealous.
Napalm had it all.
Yeah, she had it all. She had managed to go out and find the one insane unhinged maniac who was more of a mad dog killer with a hair trigger temper capable of just about anything who was more of an insane unhinged maniac than she was.
The two of them would probably kill each other, someday.
But, fuck it, who wants to live forever, drinking tea and worrying about everything.
Oh, right.
Scott.
"And you had better take all those beer bottles with you when you leave my car. It's not a trash can, you know. You are such a slob!" Jean continued.
She wasn't sure why she was being so mean to him.
"Don't talk to me like I'm one of the kids! What's got into you?" Logan insisted.
It's what hasn't got into me that's the problem.
"I'm just tired. That's all."
Tired.
Jean was tired, alright.
Tired of Scott being so mired in a combination of work, worry, and an endless cycle of guilt and recriminations about being an X-Man, being a mutant, and the state of the world in general that he was hardly aware he was alive, let alone her.
It was the little things that were beginning to sting.
Spring had just sprung, and as she and Logan drove onto the grounds, they passed some of the students, paired off two by two, holding hands and looking deeply into each other's eyes.
Jean knew it was corny as hell, but it made her think of when she and Scott were teenagers.
He was young and strong and horny as a mountain goat, in those days, when he looked at her body with worshipful awe, and never let a day go by without making love to her.
Don't get too excited, Jean.
It's not fair to Logan.
He can smell you, you know.
Oh, that's done it.
Jean looked over at him; he was looking out the window.
She took a tiny peek into his thoughts.
….there she goes thinkin' about fuckin' again Jesus I wish she wouldn't think about fuckin' so much now settle down old hoss think about somethin' else…
And when they stopped, there she was, in one of her Little Miss Hippie Chick floaty flowery mini-dresses, with her black leather jacket with the Hell's Angels colors on over it, sitting under a big leafy tree and she waved at him, all long blonde hair and big smiles.
Jean stood in front of the steps of the mansion, and watched Femme Fatale run up to Logan and give him a big hug and a kiss.
What reason do I have to hate Mel Reinhardt? She came here with nothing, she's worked hard and she's made something of herself.
My God, am I jealous?
Scott knew she was coming home, today, where the hell was he?
Jean was about to go into the school when Logan came back over to the car to collect his beer bottles.
Sometimes, it was the little things that hurt the most.
Faculty Dining Room, X-Mansion
II: Jean
If she was going to tell anyone about her problems, it had to be someone she knew she could trust, someone who wasn't close to the situation.
Someone who might know how to charge a man's batteries when they ran down.
Someone like Napalm.
Which was a bit of a joke, considering Napalm was one of the least feminine women Jean ever met; she didn't even own a dress or a skirt and she wore men's military issue underwear.
Nonetheless, she knew her way around a mattress; if there was anybody who could give Jean tips on how to get down and dirty and blast for what was left of Scott's mojo, it was Napalm.
Besides, her very funny and yet very dirty stories in the faculty lounge at lunchtime were always entertaining.
Lately, Napalm's funny dirty stories were the closest thing she had to a sex life.
"You're not gonna believe this one."
"What did you do now? Give your partner a blow job on home plate at Yankee Stadium during the 7th Inning Stretch?"
"Close. Did I ever tell you about Tony's Avengers Round Table fantasy?"
The first time Liv had told Jean about Iron's Man's fantasy of having wild raunchy porno movie sex with a woman as cheerfully depraved as himself on the table where the Avengers gathered for their meetings in the super-secure room in the sub-basement of the Avengers Mansion, she laughed until her sides hurt.
"Oh Christ, Napalm! You didn't! That's not why they gave you a priority-one security clearance! How could you! How could you put your naked ass on the table where Captain America and Thor rest their shield and hammer!" Jean exclaimed.
"Relax, Jean. We washed the table, later."
"I can't believe you. You are such a degenerate."
"Hey, it wasn't my idea. I'll tellya what, I never thought the sunnuvabitch would actually do it. He's been talkin' about it since 1971, after all. But, I get this fuckin' phone call, right and it's Tony and he's all serious. I have to come to the Avengers Mansion and I need my security card and the crazy bastard actually has me worried. Worried until he seals off the doors and gets this cushion out from under his chair where he sits at meetings an' puts it over the big brass "A" in the middle of the table, an' tells me he wouldn't want me to end up with a big scarlet letter on my ass."
"Un-fucking-believable."
"That's what I thought. And Tony's gettin' naked an' I says, to him, yunno, fuck, Tony, have some decorum, man. I mean this is the Avengers Round table. I mean I wouldn't sneak into the Hall of Justice with Eddie and sit in Clark's chair at the head of the table and have him go down on me, yunno? I mean, have some fuckin' respect, right? But, hell, I'm not an Avenger and Tony is Iron Man, so I mean, if he wants to get pussy all over his sanctum sanctorum then, who am I to puncture his dreams? Boy, I'll tellya, he was pretty fuckin' hot about it, too. I mean, generally, you gotta wear knee pads and a helmet to get it on with Tony, but Jesus Christ! I mean I hadda go home and look up some of this shit in my copy of the Kama Sutra we hadda get for this one class in college. You remember that class? I mean I've tried some of that shit before, but I had no idea I could twist my limbs up like that. I gotta say, though, it's a good thing that room is soundproofed, because I was makin' a whole lotta noise. And you coulda written the script for about ten porno movies. If they gave medals for talkin' dirty, Tony would be the Gold Medal World fuckin' Olympic Champion. I mean, that man doesn't even have to touch you, he can talk you into poppin' your hood. You wanna hear the best part?"
"Was that a rhetorical question?"
"I want to hear the best part! That Tony Stark is one dead sexy motherfucker!"
"Ororo!"
Storm was sitting at the next table.
"What? Show me one woman in the world who isn't a lesbian or dead who wouldn't be interested?"
She moved over and the three women leaned over and Liv lowered her voice.
"So me an Tony, we already went at it a coupla times, and then Tony gets up on the cushion, yunno, sitting back with his ass on his heels and his knees open, and, man, is that a sight. And I can't believe it, he's hard again, because he just blew a coupla loads all at once over me and the table like fifteen minutes ago. He's all sweatin' an' pantin', an he's got this crazy fuckin' look in his eye, an' his chest is heavin' and he's breathin' real heavy, an I just got right in there and stretched myself out in front of him and I started, yunno, givin' him head. And he's goin nuts. I mean he's got one hand on my head and I guess I don't hafts tellya where he's got the other hand, and I'm goin' nuts, too, I mean, this is fuckin' shit hot, I mean, I can't believe I ate the whole thing, yunno? And I can tell he's gettin' close, real close, and me, I'm goin' off like a Roman Candle for like, the millionth time, and Tony's whole body just seizes up like he got an electric shock, and just as I pop his cork, he throws his arms open and at the top of his lungs, he yells 'I AM IRON MAN!' No bullshit, man. I'm serious."
Jean was absolutely speechless.
Ororo and Liv laughed like hyenas.
"Napalm, you oughtta write this shit down and publish it. You'd make a mint."
"I know."
Storm went back to her table and Jean and Napalm ate in silence for awhile, then Jean gently broached the subject.
"Napalm, do you do these things with other guys because you're partner's getting to that age where he's slowing down?"
"Who, Eddie? Fuck no! Don't get the wrong idea about Eddie. There's no flies on him. Me an' Eddie have a, wuddycallit, an open ended wuddyacallit because neither of us has the temperament for monogamy. Eddie? Slow down? Don't make me laugh. I mean I see Logan every Wednesday, but Eddie could wear out a hotel for nymphos. Tony likes to say he's the God of Fuck, but Eddie is. He really goddamn is. I mean, the first minute I laid eyes on that big, mean, two-tone sunnuvabitch of a bad motherfucker, I looked at him and I though, shit, that's it baby. I gotta have that. Even if I we both gotta die for it. And I was right, too. Now, me, I always liked tough guys, outlaw loners, guys older than me, dirty old men an' horny old goats an' God save Eddie, he's all of the above. I mean I can't sit here and tellya too many stories about Eddie, I'd melt off the chair. And so would you. Lemme tell you something, Jean, you lie down with Eddie Blake, you wake up in the morning, smiling. And you keep smilin' all day. You got an itch, you want it scratched and scratched good, Eddie your man. Best I ever had, and you know I've had the best at what he does. Why?"
"Well, I figured, he's about fifty and…oh, never mind."
"You mean Cyke's running out of gas, already? What is he, thirty?"
"Well, Scott was never the horniest man in the world. And he has so many responsibilities and you can only expect so much from a man."
"What? Bullshit! Unbelievable fuckin' bullshit! If he's gonna put the ball and chain on you and make you forsake all others, then balling you is one of his fuckin' responsibilities! If you live with a man and he doesn't fuck you, you might as well move in with a woman. She'll leave the seat down, and you can borrow tampons from her when you need them, and you can go out and get laid and laugh with her about it, later."
Jean didn't say anything.
"Well, maybe he's just lost interest. He's a real after church on Sunday do it in the dark with his shorts on kinda guy, huh?" Napalm suggested.
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"Yeah. He's so boring, he's probably bored with himself." Liv opined.
"So, do you think there's something I can do about that?"
Napalm gave her a funny look, and then she realised that she was being asked for advice.
She chuckled.
"Are you as straitlaced as he is?"
"No. I mean, I wouldn't screw on the Avengers meeting table, but it would be great if Scott could be like he was in the old days. I mean, he's really turned into an old puritan. He leaves the lights off. He keeps his shorts on. Forget head, giving it or getting it. I mean he was never Tony Stark, but we used to make love almost every day, and he used to like it. So did I. And just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. He hasn't touched me for months."
"Well, ya gotta take charge. Loosen him up a little. Ya can't be afraid to make the first move. Put the light on. Rip his shorts off an say dirty things in his ears. An if you just dive under the covers an start givin' him a blowjob, he ain't gonna tell you to stop. Play dirty. Just climb on his cock in the morning when he's still asleep an' go ta town. He won't push you off, either. Ya tried sexy underwear, and all that shit?"
"Yes. But, honestly, Naplam, I don't know if I can be that…aggressive."
"Aggressive? Aggressive! Shit, when Eddie and I first started workin' together, he wasn't too sure if ballin' me on a regular basis was the best of ideas, an' after he picked some stupid fight with me, I got tired of his bullshit an' I sat on his cock and held a gun to his head. He explained to me that ya gotta ask nice, but he got the message. And we lived happily ever after, yunno? Sometimes ya gotta make the first move. And ask nice afterwards."
Jean only wished it was that easy.
It wasn't as if she hadn't tried.
Xavier Institute, Quarters of Scott Summers and Jean Grey
A few nights passed with Jean pondering Liv's advice, but she just couldn't bring herself to be insistent.
For one thing, if Scott rejected her, it would be awful, so awaful she might really lose her temper, and it wasn't good for a telepath with Jean's powers to lost her temper, completely.
"Scott? Don't fall asleep, yet. We have to talk."
Jean felt his whole body stiffen beside her.
All except the part she was hoping to get stiff on him.
"Please, Jean. I'm so tired."
"That's just it, Scott. You're always so tired. And don't tell me all that stuff's for teenagers. Is it me? Is it you? What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm just working too hard. Maybe at the end of the month, we'll go away together. See if we can reconnect. There's just been too much going on lately. I can't think about romance right now. You should be able to understand that?"
Jean usually didn't speak before she thought, but this time, she was mad at him giving her the brush off.
"I'm not talking about romance. I'm talking about sex. You don't have to think about sex, you just do it. Except we don't. Ever. At all. You don't even kiss me, anymore."
"Jean, please! It's not important! I'm the battle leader of the X-Men, and someday, I'll be in charge of this Institute! It's a dangerous world out there, for mutants and normal humans, alike. And it keeps getting crazier and more dangerous every day. I'm a man now, with a man's responsibilities. How am I supposed to think about something like…like that with everything else on my plate? You expect too much of me."
Now she was really mad.
"I don't know, Scott. But if Iron Man can lay cock to every girl between here and eternity and Wolverine finds time in his busy schedule of wandering the world trying to figure out who he is, being an X-Man and trying to keep the Hulk in line to entertain the Harlequin once a week and Femme Fatale most of the other days and the Comedian can see to every groupie in New York with his picture on the wall and put Napalm to bed every night with s smile on her face she's still wearing in the morning, you should be able to fit me into your busy schedule of guilt and recriminations, for a quick fuck, somewhere!" Jean snapped.
Scott turned on the light.
"That's not fair, Jean!"
"No? Well, it's not fair that you haven't touched me in a month, at least! I've been asked to Avengers meetings. Maybe I should stay late in a short skirt and bend over the table and try to get a mercy screw from Tony Stark! I might as well be your sister, Scott! I tried shorty nighties and naughty underwear, and now I don't wear anything to bed at all, and for all the interest you have in me, you might as well be sharing a bed with Kurt or Henry. Can't you see, I love you, Scott? I want you. Even looking at you now, with your chest bare and the covers around your waist, it makes me want to make love to you. Don't you feel anything for me, anymore?"
She went to touch him and he pulled away.
"I do. Really. I love you, Jean, I'm just not…I can't. I just can't. I've got too much on my mind, too many responsibilities. I'm just worn out. Jean, honey, I promise. At the end of the month, we'll go on a trip together. Just you and me. I'll be able to relax and…you understand, don't you?"
"Of course I do, Scott. I love you, too. But if you're so overworked and worn out, let me help you. If you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, you can always shift some of it onto me. "
"That's alright, Jean. I'm alright."
He kissed her very briefly, shut out the light, turned over on his side and moved as far away from her as he could.
He was shutting her out completely.
Again.
As usual.
Jean waited until he was asleep, and then she got up and left the bedroom.
She wasn't sleepy.
At all.