TITLE: Objects, subjects – chapter 3 of 4
AUTHOR: KateKane
FANDOM: The X-files, House (crossover)
PAIRING: Dana Scully/Allison Cameron (femslash)
DISCLAIMER: I'm a poor student and neither own Scully nor Cameron, although, by God, I wish I did...
RATING: NC17.
SPOILERS: None. (And for the record, I am pretending the disastrous seasons 6-9 of The X-files and subsequent movies never took place. The same thing goes for the ridiculous romantic storyline revolving around Cameron and what's-his-name British colleague.)
***
Hours, minutes, seconds... The rattling sound of plastic against steel bar, as the curtain around my bed are drawn. Allison is back, and the room around us has suddenly shrunk to a few square metres and feels so intimate that I automatically lower my voice.
"Sorry, I guess I dosed off for a second..."
"No need to apologise. I was delayed on my way here anyway." She rolls her eyes, as she pulls my blanket back.
"Bothersome superior?" I suggest.
"Ex-superior. But the 'ex' part does not seem to make much of an impression on hum."
I want to say more, but she is busy unbuttoning my hospital shirt – starting from below, and the cloth tickles against my naked skin beneath it in a way that forces my train of thoughts of track. Sudden and most inappropriate associations to other hands, in other rooms who undid my shirts over the years with an entirely different purpose... Memories apparently stored physically in my body, because I feel it quivering ever so slightly, like a faint echo, as she reaches the buttons over my breasts. I ought to talk these thoughts away, but I have to keep to quiet – she is so closely bent over me that it would violate all etiquette rules regarding distance between people who don't know each other. Only lovers talk to each other this up close and by speaking I would break her personal boundaries.
Luckily she soon straightens up, and I let out breath that I apparently held back. She tries to put a lose strand of hair behind her ear, but it keeps falling into her eye and eventually she retrieves an elastic from her pocket and pulls her long, platinum blond hair back in a ponytail. The washbowl and soap are ready, and she now pulls on a pair of white latex gloves.
Oh, not the gloves... I loathe them and the feeling they give rise to within me – of being someone you don't want to touch. Not just an asexual object, but actually abject.
And then again... As she pulls my hospital shirt open, leaving me completely exposed, surrounded by white, I am actually a bit fond of the plastic membrane between us. It seems to offer just a bit of protection, rendering my body a little less accessible after all.
"Where would you like me to begin," she earnestly asks, and for a moment, I am puzzled by the question, which could, under other circumstances, be interpreted as suggestive... But I decide not to push it and suggest my back. It still itches like crazy, and it is such a relief when she carefully helps me roll over to the side, so the sheet and shirt let go of my sticky skin. I feel cool air brush against my shoulder blades, soon followed by a washcloth.
"Nice tattoo," she remarks as she wets my entire back with long, efficient strokes. "A snake biting its own tail, right? Any particular meaning?"
I shrug using the one shoulder I am not currently resting on. "It is supposed to remind me that life should not bite its own tail... that occasionally one must leave a chapter behind and begin on a new."
"True," she says while carefully removing any traces of sweat from my neck. It's been a long time since anyone massaged it. "And hard."
She continues further down, works on my buttocks with soft circular strokes leaving the skin warm and wanting. She is not caressing me, I have to keep reminding myself of that; this is a careful, practical, helping hand.
But where exactly do you draw the line? How gentle can a helping hand be, how long can it linger, before it turns into something else? Latex gloves, I tell myself, caressing does not require latex gloves, and I even manage to kill an image from one of Mulder's adult videos combining, if I remember correctly, black latex gloves and rather intense caressing. Instead I force myself to focus on the metal bed guard right in front of my eyes; its welded grating and every crack in the white paint...
"There," she exclaims, "now you are as good as new on the back. Why don't I find a fresh sheet for you, while I'm at it," she suggests, and I hear the sound of latex gloves being pulled off, before she disappears behind the curtains surrounding my bed. She returns moments later – removes the old sheet from under me and replaces it with a new one, before she helps me roll onto my back.
Somehow I feel so much more exposed like this – full frontal nudity, I think to myself, any movie starring me would be x rated.
Next to me Allison is trying to put on latex gloves – the box is empty, so she tries to put the old ones back on, but apparently their quality isn't overwhelming. One of the gloves split down the middle. "Damn budget cuts," she mumbles, as she frees her hands from the pieces of glove.
Her own hands. The thought makes my heart skip a beat, and I quickly assure her: "I am not cold at all, I can wait while you get a new box."
But she doesn't even consider my proposition for a second, she just squeezes the latex pieces into a small ball and throws it into a waste bin. "Never mind. I can wash my hands later." She smiles, and my attempt at smiling back becomes a bit strained. I am busy trying to silence the voice in my head saying that Allison was almost a little eager to let the gloves go. Shut it, you're going into Mulder delirium.
As she wets a new wash cloth and her own, unprotected hands in the wash bowl I can't help wondering what she sees in front of her. Aside from my head, no part of my body has been anywhere near a shaver for several days, so there must be hair stubs on my legs and in my armpits. I haven't exercised for the same amount of time, but I was in a better shape than most people before the assault, and some of it must stick. No stretch marks or breasts affected by motherhood – I have never had any children – but my body is way past its twenties and that must show. I gaze at her hands, wringing the cloth – they're more slender than mine, the veins are less visible, the skin smoother. What would Allison look like, if we traded places and I were the one with the cloth? Her doctor's coat envelopes her loosely and partially hides the contours of her body, but her long neck and distinct collar bones are exposed, and I sense that the rest of her is equally petite. But soft, I am sure of that – she has this girly softness about her, in her movements and her gaze, and it seems like a defining characteristic that must apply to all of her. My assumption is confirmed when she takes a hold of my hand. It serves a practical purpose: To lift my arm, so that she can clean it. But her grasp is light, and three of her fingers slip in between mine, and I notice that my body is slowly beginning to react to all the attention. It has simply been so long since anyone touched me in a way that felt this nice and was intended to satisfy me. I am fully aware that this is a bit of a stretch – but in a way that is her intention: to help me get cleaned up, so I will be satisfied...
Aw, stop, train of thoughts!I have no idea where to look. At her? At the ceiling? The latter seems ridiculous. I'm a grown woman and usually able to control myself. The cloth and her hands reach my collarbones, and now there is no point in scolding myself. My arousal is a physical fact must be very visible as well – my nipples feel stone hard, and she has reached them now. I can't help but feel a little ashamed, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her bent-over position enables me to stare directly into her cleavage, but I gather all my will power and meet her eyes instead and say: "The cloth is a bit cold against my skin."
There. A perfectly plausible and proper explanation. Everyone knows nipples react to cold.
"Mmmyes," she simply says, and I think I catch a cheeky glimpse in her eye. But it is mostly likely something invented by my boredom and twisted imagination.
She works her way across my body in the worst possible pace and order, that's for sure. I try not to think about what her hands must look like against my flushed skin, as she takes her time in getting further south.
Chest, waist, stomach, navel, lower stomach... I bite my lip hoping the metallic taste of blood might distract me from what's about to come – but in that moment the cloth is taken away, and her hands reach for the washbowl.
Timeout, during which I try to force my breath back under control. But when she gets back to me – this time starting with the feet, working her way upwards – there's a knot in my between my legs, like a fist clenched so tight it hurts. I thank God for not making me a man: at least my swelling can be concealed. Or can it? As she it gently touching every square inch of my calves, knees, thighs, it hits that I have never actually scrutinised my own arousal up-close. Not as up-close as she will be in a moment.
Minutes, hours, seconds... And the hands are finally there. Thorough going on explorative, but I suppose hygiene demands that every fold is pulled aside, no hollow overlooked. My oversensitive skin can easily make out each of her fingers, the palm of her hand, through the wet cloth. And suddenly, for an instance, without any cloth at all – her naked fingertip brushes against my clit, where all my blood seems to have travelled to. It is understandable that I might briefly suspect she did it on purpose – after all, there is no blood left over for my brain. And when shortly after, for a somewhat longer instance, her finger touches my clit again, my suspicion no longer means anything compared to what's about to happen. Right here, in the middle of this white, clinical room, so unbelievably out of place, and there is nothing I can do about it. I am already heading directly for the edge, and I grab the sheet beneath me to try to prevent myself from falling completely.
And in that moment, as if offering me a choice, Allison withdraws her hands. She keeps them completely still, but I still sense their warmth against the heat between my legs, and the distance of only a few millimetres is unbearable. I cannot help myself, I am too close, and my racing pulse drowns out all warning voices in my head, so I choose the fall. Using hands and feet I push myself up from the bed, just a little but enough to regain contact. A tiny bit of friction will do at this point, and now I make it happen, even if it means I will never know whether she touched me on purpose. Rubbing back, forth, applying minimal pressure...
And I am there.
The cloth lands on my thigh just as my eyes go out of focus, and the blurry line between helping and caressing hand is definitively violated, when I feel Allison's fingers slide into me. They reply to and enhance my rhythm for minutes, hours, seconds – in this timeless room I have no idea, just like I cannot say for sure whether I scream, when I let her give me an orgasm that radiates out into all my limbs and even my fingertips.
