This chapter contains sexually explicit material.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE:

Mulder Manor
Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
February 23, 1986
Sunday

He had to point out one thing he noticed in their very new relationship: it felt so comfortable, so homely… so inexplicably right. It was as if the gods were only waiting for the right moment that they'd be smart enough to step it up, as if they had been predestined to be lovers from the very beginning. When they finally had their heads and hearts screwed on right, the gods began to shower them with bounty to celebrate their conclusive I told you so.

Work was something his system craved for, but he's glad for the three-day break the studio had given all the cast and crew before postproduction began. It was all the time they needed to revel in their relationship - and may the gods help him, but he didn't want just three days … he wanted an eternity for this.

Scully giggled her girly laugh as Mulder tickled her ribs, her hands frantically waving over her head and almost toppling down the bottle of red wine onto his imported carpet - and for the first time ever, he realized that he didn't care. The fucking liquid could drown that $4,000 vintage carpet and he wouldn't care. Not when Scully's squirming and all red-faced underneath him like this.

"What did you call me again?" he demanded with a stern crescendo to somehow illustrate his straightforward sternness, but the humor in his hazel eyes betrayed him. Scully shook her head desperately against the carpet, her feet climbing up his stomach and flattening themselves on his flesh to push him off her body.

"Oh no you don't!" Mulder transferred his hands to her ankles, and shoved them forward, bending her knees, spreading her legs apart. He gingerly rested her lower limbs on her shoulders. Scully wasn't a dancer for nothing. She's very, very limber.

Now she was folded up under him, still giggling, and did he mention that she was very naked?

Oh, he didn't?

Well, he's mentioning it now.

The sight of her glistening sex so wide open and close to his-also-very-naked-and-very-aroused-groin made his brain short-circuit, and Mulder had to trail his eyes over to her face to control himself. A week ago, wine and Scully would've been out of the question. But right at that moment, two bottles of wine and a naked Scully was all he ever wanted, all he ever needed.

That was how intense the last three days had been for both of them; so intense that there was no real point anymore in putting on clothes. Either the garments would lay as scattered heaps across the dining table after meals, thrown all over the bathroom's vanity table during impromptu showers together, or all across his bedroom during the nights. On Sunday, he made a silly ordinance: no clothes on for the whole day. That statement made Scully snap and she laughed from morning to evening, until the very moment they found themselves as tangled limbs in the living room and drinking expensive wine as if it was tap water.

"What-did-you-call-me-Scully?" he shouted at the top of his lungs, her name punctuated with a semi-chuckle. She closed her eyes in fake agony, stretching her arm beside her to grab a flute of wine and slowly gentling the liquid down her esophagus, making sure that Mulder saw her humble seduction quite clearly.

Oh yeah, he sure did. And Mulder Jr. was living proof.

"Yn dda donio Americanwr," she finally answered, her blue eyes threading along mischievous waters. Mulder spotted a drop of red running at the corners of his lips and he bent down, licking the remaining traces of wine from her porcelain skin. He couldn't help it, as his tongue probed for entrance in her mouth, something that was now willingly given to him.

Remembering her words, he pulled away, removing a sticky strand of hair from her face. "What does THAT mean?"

Scully's lustful gaze turned into mirth. "Well-endowed American."

A groan escaped his wet lips. "That's so cliché, Scully!"

"What do you want?" she aired, tracing a fingertip over his lips, leaving sticky trails of wine behind. "Hung like a horse? I can say that too in Welsh – ceffyl …"

"Enough!" he protested, grabbing her finger away from his lips and pressing his forehead to her own. If it was possible, her folded legs bent even more, creating a flatness that would've been very painful to other people, but not for Scully. Very limber, indeed.

"I'm not THAT big, Scully. You're exaggerating," he murmured against her lips, "and you refuse to be called beautiful!"

"But it's true!" his Spunk whined, and to show him, a hand dipped down and grasped his cock by the tip, painfully trailing her touch downwards until it reached the bottom of his shaft. Mulder's eyes shut immediately, hot breath spurting out of his lungs and transferring to Scully's flushed cheek.

She began to stroke him, up and down, never failing to skim her talented fingers so that each sensation could be felt well. "See? You're very big. Mawr, that's what you are."

"Scu- lly …" Mulder bit the insides of his cheek to keep himself in check. He felt a large dollop of pre-cum gentling their way out of his penis. Scully sensed this, pressing her thumb firmly on the tip of his dick and collecting the moisture there.

Darn it, someday he'd award her with the best hand job ever.

"Scully," he insisted, oxygen suddenly thinning and head feeling as if it's skull was about to crack. "What are you doing?"

"Flip over," she demanded, voice deep and rough. Mulder shook his head in protest, getting a clear idea of what she wanted to do to him.

"No, don't -"

"I said FLIP over, Superman."

If she asked for a leash and a whip, he'd gladly put that on his credit card.

Mulder followed her command by plopping his suddenly heavy and boiling hot body down on the carpet opposite her. His back laid flat, his already rock hard erection so upright that it could hoist a flag up to the sky.

Scully skimmed her bare ass adjacent his body so that she was kneeling right in front of his organ, a hand settling on his stomach and another over his tightening balls. She licked her chops hungrily at the sight of Mulder Jr., and before he could contemplate even more, she descended her mouth onto his throbbing member.

The feel of her hot cavern around him almost did Mulder in, and he had to grip the rug hard to keep himself from reflexively thrusting into her throat. Scully waited patiently until he could settle down, her breath brushing heated air against his pubic hair. When he had a semblance of ease, she began to take him in once again, until the tip of his dick was straining halfway down her throat. And still, she hadn't completely enveloped his length in her mouth.

Well- endowed American. Fine, thank you.

"Y- you … might … aaah, shit … choke…"

She moaned at this, the vibration of her vocal chords massaging his shaft. Her throat relaxed and she bobbed her head up and down rhythmically, judging from his reactions when she should take it slow or quick.

Mulder's grip on the rug tensed, while he kept his eyes firmly shut. If he opened them, he'd see Scully going down on him and he'd absolutely come in no time. If he released his grip on the rug, he would surely thrust into her throat.

He'll have to award her with the best blow job ever, too.

The hand that was innocently holding his balls now strained to cup him, and this was suddenly too much for his control. Without any warning, his hips surged forward, jolting her head up together with his thrust.

Damn fuck shit damn fucking shit.

He had to open his eyes this time, needing to see if she was okay.

A tsunami of relief enveloped his heart when he saw that Scully was smiling, still intent on finishing what she had started - her lips swollen from his previous kisses and from this new experience, her hair spreading like heavenly fire on her shoulders, perfect buttocks up in the air.

That was EXACTLY what he was afraid of.

Mulder bit his lip so hard he began to taste fresh blood. "Scuh- leee… you gott… a… stop… this… is…t- tooo … mu- much…"

Her answer was her tongue drifting across his cock.

"Oh, fu…." Then, he was gone. There was a painful moment when he shut his eyes so tight white starlight fluttered at the corners of the darkness and his body became so tense his bones felt like rocks, but after that was pure pleasure. His orgasm crept up from the tips of his toes and the ends of his hair to meet halfway in the middle of his groin, where Scully was still helping him ride out his climax. He heard himself shout her name out and a few curses in between, and she murmured her agreement through his cock.
When he was done, he gradually felt his body plopping back to the carpet and made a weak move to let Scully know it was her turn …

Ring. Ring.

Mulder lifted his head from the carpet, darting his eyes around the solemn living room as if trying to discern if the phone ringing was really from the den.

Ring. Ring.

This time, Scully finally dislodged her mouth from his penis, and with wide blue eyes she caught his stare, an eyebrow raising as the phone began to ask for more attention.

"Shit," Mulder breathed out, knowing that he had to answer that damn thing. No one else had the guts to call him at 9 PM in the evening other than his best party animal friend, John, because the reasons someone called him beyond supposed sleeping hours was deemed important.

Scully sat up on her heels - her naked body suddenly feeling the rush of the faltering Winter's aftermath - her hands coming up to hug herself. "Answer that, Mulder," she said softly, as if it wasn't the most obvious option presented.

This was the first interruption they've ever had during sex. Actually, that was the first interruption they had since they've embarked on this relationship. The phone lines had been quiet the past three days, no one dared to visit the Manor (Jenny was given days off), and the house didn't ask for any cleaning. The new lovers enjoyed their time together freely; without any real disruptions. Until this.

It was like a dagger into their make-believe fairytale; a slash against a clear, untouched wrist. It was the first thread of reality into the world they created wherein no one else existed except them. And the expression on Scully's face told him that she wasn't quite prepared to snap out of it.

Mulder nodded - just to show that he acknowledged her statement – and sat up from his position. He went on all his fours to reach her lips, to give her a small kiss, before standing up and wading towards the den. Wading, since his thighs still hadn't recovered from the extensive love making they had the past few days.

He heaved his bare ass on the den's study table. Picking up the phone, he tucked the receiver on one shoulder and grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds from the long-forgotten pile he scattered on the unused turtle-shaped ashtray a week ago.

"Hello?"

"Mulder, John here." As if his best friend needed anymore entourages for this phone call.

"This better be good, John," Mulder muttered, cracking a sunflower seed in between his teeth and immediately spitting it out when the staleness penetrated his taste buds.

"Sorry about this, but what I'm about to tell you isn't good," John sighed, as if Atlas decided to give up his day job and tossed the Earth to a certain Doggett. "Is Dana still there? I've heard some news that she hasn't moved out yet."

Yet.

Sons-of-bitches. When did they find out about this? He shouldn't have expected that asshole apartment owner to keep his mouth zipped shut.

"No," the Director amended, tossing the sunflower seeds into the trash can. "She hasn't moved out. She … she's not moving out."

"Oh," John replied, the way he usually did whenever Mulder would announce something he had done that had by-passed man's rationality. The next shift in his friend's tone wasn't at all surprising, even if it reeked of uncertainty and a warning. "What are you talking about, Mulder?"

Nothing really. He's just officially announcing that he and Scully were sleeping together - REALLY sleeping together - and they had been official lovers since Thursday.

The next words that came out his mind was incoherent, a sculpture authored by his ricocheting imagination: "It's her latest career move … we both decided that I should be like her manager - a sort of manager -"

"A sort of manager?"

"A sort-of-manager," he defended, "someone who'll guide her around Hollywood, never imposing anything, never making her decisions for her. A sort-of-manager." He suspiciously sounded like a seven-year-old defining a word for his mother.

"We'll have to talk about that," his friend said, another sigh shooting up his throat, "but there are other things that are most important right now. How fast can you make it to Lone Glitter?"

"Are you there already?"

"Yes, I'm outside, in a payphone. How fast?"

John's talking on pricks and needles. Mulder dropped the ashtray heavily on the desk, ignoring the slight chunks of glass that littered on the smooth, wooden planes. "Give me 30 minutes."

"Okay. Hurry up. Walter and I are already here."

He opened his mouth to say something else to end the conversation, but his friend finished the phone call, leaving Mulder staring at his receiver as if it had suddenly transformed into a monster. Then, he dropped the phone back to the cradle.

Returning to the living room, he found Scully looking as if she hadn't gotten over the initial shock of being electrocuted back to the physical realm, a wooly quilt covering most of her ailing-first-grader-pose. Only her toes peeked out of the blanket, rubbing at one another to generate some sort of heat.

Her head ticked to one side upon hearing his footsteps, her lips forcing a shaky smile upon his arrival. "What's that all about?" she asked.

Mulder ignored the screaming practicality that was jarring him to tell her quickly that he had to leave and he'd be back in an hour or so.

He slid down beside her, coming to wrap his strong arms around her shoulders, nuzzling the hair underneath her ear, wishing that she would somehow disentangle herself from her position and appear as strong as he wanted her to be.

"I'm leaving in a few minutes. There's something important that John wants to tell me." Mulder trailed his lips on her neck, before pulling reluctantly away. "They've asked about this - our - arrangement."

Her muscles clearly stiffened under his grasp. "What did you say?"

"That I'm your sort-of-manager. Do you want me to define that for you?"

"No," Scully answered, hugging herself closer, masquerading her tense insides. "That's good enough."

"Are you sure that's the explanation you want?"

"Good enough," she repeated. Mulder's lips parted to ask what kind of explanation she wanted, but was cut off when Scully began to speak again.

"Are you leaving now?"

He closed his lips tight, contemplating, and then answered yes.

Scully bent her head, resting it on his shoulder, and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips. "Come back as soon as you can."

The tinge of her unique yearning and anticipation dug at Mulder's heart.

"Okay," he promised, caressing her cheek and watching her eyes react to the warmth his touch offered her.

The wristwatch that Scully gave him for Christmas read a late 10 PM, prompting Mulder to run on his heels as he came across the small front door of Lone Glitter, blowing away frost from his breath and dropping his blue trench coat on the floor upon entering the club.

He was surprised to find the usually misbehaving club quiet and serene. The only light present throughout the whole rectangular room was a dim green bulb that illuminated the faces of his two colleagues by the bar, chatting casually with Frohike (who was all lit up with a flashy disco green jacket and matching cowboy hat).

Mulder removed his knitted cap and kicked it back together with his jacket, immediately jogging to his friends' direction.

"What's going on?" he toned as he approached them, clapping a hand over John's shoulder blade as a greeting.

Walter and John smiled weakly at him. His Producer removed the small welcoming from his face first, replacing it with a stern eyebrow stare.

"You're ten minutes late." Skinner tapped at his silver watch, shaking his bald head impatiently. Only the Skinman could take note of things like this; the man had a talent for Quality Control.

John, on the other hand, appeared as if he would rather sit through a whole episode of Murder She Wrote than be there at that exact moment.

Mulder waved at Frohike as a warm greeting in return and sat on a stool opposite his Producer, grabbing one glass from the bar and sniffing at it. "Yeah, I'm rather late for your party. This is strong scotch - rocks. You guys don't drink scotch unless it's absolutely drastic. Is this yours, Skinman?" The aforementioned shook his head steadily. Mulder turned to the other culprit, his best party animal friend. "You? John? Wow." The one-shot glass found itself back on the counter, slowly being slid towards its supposed owner. "This had got to be something. I'm sure it is."

"It is something, Mulder." John completed a hundred-eighty-degree turn to face him. Skinner kept in his place, whispering to Frohike something about the bar's 'wonderful' facilities and how he'd love to come back next week to waste some of his life away.

John hushed their other two companion's conversation. At once, Skinner returned to the matter at hand, excusing them from Frohike. The DOM gave them a silly bow before he exited, singing Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy," slightly off-key.

"Take a seat, Mulder," Skinner gestured on the stool directly behind the Director. He did as he was asked, cautiously lifting one leg up to another chair just parallel him.

"Okay, shoot."

Skinner cleared his throat uneasily, "There's problem with our production." He glanced at John, as if wanting the Assistant Director to continue his starting statement, but their pouting friend just kept his mouth shut, leaving the preliminaries to the Producer. "We've discovered through our inside MGM source that Alex Kryceck had also just been given his directorial debut project … five months ago."

"And so?" Mulder scratched at the slight stubble of his chin.

"And so, we've discovered too that this project of his involves a script- lots of dancing, lots of romance … in short, Danced Yesterday part two."

His hand on his chin stilled, and Mulder alternated his gaze from one man to another. Both were reeling, expecting a big outbreak from the Director. A real BIG one.

Instead, Mulder clenched his teeth together, listening to the squeaky sound inside of his head, and poised another question: "How sure are you about this?"

His party animal took the initiative this time. "As sure as Lucy's ten months old. This is serious stuff, Mulder. Within two months, Alex Kryceck is going to wrap up his Directorial debut DANCE movie. The plot's too similar with Danced Yesterday … and even the production numbers are too familiar." A frustrated sough paused John's sentence. "Tell me what us want to do about this."

Mulder wasn't able to reply at once. He was too busy striking a flat fist on the bar.

The two men watched aimlessly, knowing him well enough to give him enough space and time to release some steam.

After a minute of just wishing pure hell to his nemesis, Mulder straightened himself up, massaging his reddened knuckles. "The damn thing's copyrighted! How could, how could they do that?"

"Altering a few bits and pieces of Danced Yesterday doesn't alert the law, Mulder. At least, I think it doesn't. I'm no lawyer. But we can do something about it still - we could work our backs off for the next two or three months, to break the deadline for releasing it." Skinner removed his glasses and pricked the skin in between his eyes. "WB already agreed that if we finish postproduction a month earlier, they'll also release the movie as soon as June or July. What do you think?"

"You're the producer. You know best about these things," Mulder replied, resisting the unfathomable urge to hit the bar until his fucking hand bleeds. The movie's important - about $22.4 Million important to WB, and its currently topping his priority list. He'd do anything for it. He'd risk anything for it.

He ran his brain through a mental list of the things they ought to do, and suddenly he backtracked on the decision. "The second unit shots … Is that possible? To finish postproduction within a month? What about the soundtrack? The Bee Gees are still going to meet Scully this Monday for the main theme song's chords."

John gave a tentative nod. "Possible if we make it possible. We'll multi-task, work our assess off in this. It's worth it. This movie's a gem," he ran a hand through his brown, spiky hair, "Kersh could go through the second unit shots, while we could do the editing. Walter could assist the Music Department and Leyla Harrison."

Doggett didn't sound as confident as he wanted him to be. His sturdy friend was more assured when he announced that he caught a horde of rats in the makeshift trap he made back in college for their dorm.

"We," Mulder emphasized, just feeling the after-sting of his anger's release. He rubbed on the sore spot more thoroughly, frustrated. "Where's the we in here? How do we know whose the traitor and who's the good guy?" He wanted it to sound something out of Humphrey Bogart's dialogues, but instead, it sounded way too cliché - something fit for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He shook his head slightly, scratching his chin against his shoulder. How could he think of those things at this moment? This was crucial, too crucial for Western movies.

"I've sent an undercover investigator in our movie set. I'm the only one who knows his identity. He'll be giving me a report tomorrow." Walter smoothened the collar of his shirt. "As for us … well, I think we better start fixing our schedules for the whole year. What do you say, Mulder?"

He remembered Scully and her appeal for him to come home early. He remembered that he had other priorities, that this world was not only about him - he had a woman now, a woman that he wanted to treat like a lone lily underneath the sun.

It had been years ever since he had embarked on a real relationship that this suddenly felt too new, as if he had to relearn everything again.

"I - I can't stay long," Mulder said, halting his continuous kneading on his hand. "Scully's all alone in the house … you know how dangerous it is -"

"We'll be done by twelve tonight. I promise." Walter held up a hand and crossed his heart, obviously condescending. Maybe it was the way he sounded as if he'd be whipped to death when he would come home late. The fact that Mulder was partly controlled by Scully in superficial terms did not escape his friends - but the fact that he really was NOW committed to the Spunk should escape them for the meantime.

Mulder consciously glanced at his watch, counting the hours. An hour and a half. If he phoned Scully, the guys would surely think he was becoming paranoid.

Shit.

"Sure," he replied before his heart told his mind to stop lingering on the poolside and start jumping in the warm, tempting waters.

There were many memories in his house that weren't just conceivable every day - these memories were random, casual but often striking, and sometimes creating their own chaos whenever he didn't need them to.

That was what Mulder exactly felt when he stepped up in the Manor, listened to the trudging of his clopped boots against the soft newly-mowed lawn, his shrill breathing in the early morning silence, and the intrepid beating of his heart that seemed to resonate to the tips of his brain cells.

There were flashes of him coming home this late after a hard-core party - and he accidentally tripped on the lawn hose that the gardener left from the morning; the path walk towards the front door reminded him of the time Emily broke her leg and he had to carry her from the stairs and down the car - almost breaking his leg, too, in the process; and the small hole on one of the front windows reminded him of those early-morning fights he used to have with Diana, upon knowing her extra-marital affairs and telling her that if they wanted to put up a good front for their daughter, they should at least appear devoted to each other. Mulder placed all these old notions aside, jogging up to the inside of the house, anxious to meet his new life.

He hoped his new life wasn't at all that mad.

Upon entering the house, a whiff of cool air salivated on his skin and he noticed the dark surroundings; the empty outline of the living room before him. The bottles of wine were cleared, the blankets and pillows they moved out of his room gone and Scully was nowhere.

A tick of panic pinched at his heart and he had to take deep breaths to calm himself. He needed to think rationally, but then again, this was Scully he was talking about: she defied rationality.

First he searched for her in the guest's bedroom, or her bedroom, since they've decided that most of her things would still be kept there, but now that they were literally sleeping together, she'd have the master's bedroom as her REAL sleeping area.

He clicked on the lights, white prisms flooding the pastel-painted room and sending his eyes reeling from the sudden exposure.

She wasn't in there.

Another prick in his heart … this time of warmth. She actually slept in the master's bedroom, their room, now.

A smile tugged on his lips as he climbed up the stairs, and without thinking twice, opened the slightly ajar door to their room, finding Scully curled up on the king-sized bed. She was clad in her usual silky pajamas (pink, this time, to his surprise), her face half-buried in one of his pillows. Her long, auburn hair splayed on the opposite pillow, one leg peeking from underneath the covers.

She was so beautiful. A goddess of British deviation.

He'd take a shower, wear his underwear, and shave himself before climbing on the bed with her … but Scully was too tempting to resist. From his distance on the door, he could already smell her - cucumber, baby powder, and all. He wanted to join her on the bed naked, to feel her realness against his lean body; to feel her heat, to feel her breaths. He wanted to rub against her until they become a single molecule.

So that's what he did.

By the time he had tucked himself in beside her, Scully had woken up. He tried to be as gentle with his movements, but the springs of the bed were particularly jumpy (it had enough workout from their previous activities), and he had no control over that. He did have control over the woman that was beside him, currently blinking away from her cloudy blue eyes traces of Zion.

"Mulder?" she wondered aloud, and he snaked an arm around her small waist, fingers flinging to find soft, unyielding flesh.

"I'm here," he assured her, slipping her head underneath his chin. "I came home as soon as I can."

"What time is it?" She groggily tapped on his knuckles, the ones that were stroking the dip of her bellybutton. Mulder shrugged nonchalantly, one of his bare legs draping over her own.

"One … in the morning."

"That's already soon enough for you?" she joked, though he got the distinct impression that she wanted him to read the subtext. Scully pulled his hand away from her stomach and pressed it to her lips, returning it back to where it previously was afterwards. "You're naked. You should put something on. The heater's not working right."

"I'm all right, you're here."

Even in his previous relationships - no matter how small and unmentionable they were - he had never reached this point of love struck. He hadn't converted himself to a sweet-nothing/Shakespeare/Valentino type of guy. Until Scully came along, that was.

"I cannot solve the heater's problem, Mulder, I'm saying that you might catch something."

He wanted to say, "already did," but judging from the sound of her voice - all business-like and 'don't-fuck-with-me,' he'd better say something else. "I'm fine. Go to sleep."

The other thing that Scully continued to defy, other than rationality, was him.

She turned completely around in his embrace, her soft breath settling on his collarbone, lips landing on his skin, a kiss that's enough to be pleasurable, but not enough to arouse. The way she could read him - heart, mind, soul - was one of the many uncountable reasons why he loved her.

"What happened? Is it something important?"

He could launch into the story and tell her all the finer details about how the next month would virtually be. He could gasp out the details, he could tell her that the movie's in big danger - that his supposed life's current achievement could only be a figment of his imagination, but he didn't. Instead, he tilted her head so that he could reach her lips and kissed her thoroughly, feeling out the curves and planes of her mouth, tasting the sweetness of sleep and the trepidation of worry.

Scully was made up of a million flavors. Out of that million, he had only tasted and named about twenty-two. He was going to set himself to try and brand at least half of that million.

"Don't worry, I'll tell you tomorrow," he promised and then with a tender grin playing on his lips, he skimmed his fingers in her hair, kissing her forehead. "Happy Birthday, Scully."

She let out a tired chuckle, releasing every single bit of tension that was present in her system. "Thanks."

Mulder breathed out contentedly, waiting until Scully's intakes of air slowed down, and only until then did he allow himself to forget about all his worries and be lulled to sleep.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTY ONE