Title: "The Clock Watcher" (1/2)
Author: Plausible Deniability
Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com
Category: SRA - MSR
Rating: *NC-17* (sexual situations, mature language)
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the television program "The X
Files" are the creations and property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting,
and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: After a less-than-confidence-building sexual encounter with
Scully, Mulder determines to do better.

Although this story is a sequel to "The Carrot and the Stick," it can stand
on its own for those who have not read the first story.

THANKS to my Beta reading volunteers, especially Hindy and Laurie. And
special thanks to Nick Pedicini. I've stolen from him shamelessly.

----------

So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night.
-- John Donne, "Love's Alchemy"

*****

Scully isn't looking, so I sneak another glance at my watch. It is 6:08.
Exactly two minutes have passed since the last time I checked, and exactly
five minutes since the time before that. This is turning out to be the
longest day of my working life. But then, I suppose any day would seem
endless, sandwiched between last night and the promise of the night which
lies ahead.

Okay, so maybe I got a little out of control last night; maybe I didn't
exactly come across as Casanova my first time in bed with Scully. In fact,
maybe I shouldn't even use the words 'come' and 'in bed with Scully'
together in the same sentence, for fear of resurrecting a performance I 
would just as soon forget. It wasn't my finest hour. Let's face it -- it 
wasn't even my finest fifteen seconds.

But I can do better. I *know* I can do better. Tonight I am determined to
redeem myself.

It's amazing how totally this determination to get it right has consumed my
thoughts. I went for more than five years without so much as making it to
first base with Scully, and was still able to function more or less
normally. But now, just one night after the only sex I've had in ages, all 
I can think about is getting Scully back in bed and showing her what I can do. 
Give my libido an inch, and it takes a mile.

Which is unfortunate, given that the sole condition Scully imposed since
beginning all this -- and by the way, God, if you're really up there, I've
been meaning to thank you -- is that we not let our personal relationship
interfere with our working one. Well, that, and that I don't lapse into
another post- coital coma...I've had seven cups of coffee so far today.

But at any rate, this entire day has turned into one long, miserable
struggle not to let my preoccupation show. The case we're investigating
isn't particularly absorbing in the first place; what I had hoped would
turn out to be a pattern of succubus-related disappearances is looking more 
and more like a string of ordinary domestic abandonments. Rubbing shoulders
with Scully through three interviews, a foot pursuit, a search of bank records,
and the accompanying car rides has been the ultimate test of my ability to
maintain a poker face. 'No, I'm not happy to see you, Scully, that's just a
gun in my pocket.'

I feel her slip up behind me. "What have you got there?" she asks, craning
her neck to look over my shoulder.

We have been working our way through the evidence room of the local police
station, examining the flotsam and jetsam associated with each of the
disappearances.

"Uh...this?" I lift the plastic bag I am holding higher for her
inspection. "It looks to me like there's a green haze on the right lens of
these glasses. See it, Scully? Ghostly manifestations are often
characterized by the appearance of ectoplasm."

She peers at the bag for a second, then frowns. "Mulder, that's
toothpaste."

I open the bag and sniff. She's right. It's minty fresh.

"Too bad," she says, noting my crestfallen expression. "After all those
hours of poring over bank records, I was almost pulling for ectoplasm
myself."

I look down, and realize her hand is resting on my arm. That's all -- just
her hand, and just my arm. There is no reason at all for me to break into a
sudden sweat.

Damn it, I think, iced coffee had better have the same effect as a cold
shower...

*****

The first thing I do when I finally get to the bathroom in my hotel room --
and keep in mind, I am a man who has been chugging coffee all day -- is
unknot my tie. I am that resolved not to repeat last night's fiasco, in
which I passed my first night in bed with Scully ludicrously clad in an
Oxford shirt and a striped tie. Yes, while millions of men around the world
enjoy casual sex, I do it in office attire.

At least tonight I am not going to be caught -- if you will pardon the
phrase -- with my pants down. This time I can brush my teeth and shave. And
how long has it been since I shaved in expectation of getting laid, anyway?

The thought leaves me jittery with anticipation.

Though I have to admit that there is a certain amount of apprehension mixed
in with the anticipation. Or, to be completely honest, a great deal of
apprehension. I mean, Scully initiated this. She must expect *something*.
And I have never been very good at guessing exactly what Scully wants.

Or maybe I do know what she wants; maybe that's what's worrying me. I
don't suppose she would have gone right for my zipper last night if she'd
only been craving a little quiet conversation, would she? If I'm not just
some sexual charity case -- and I may be fooling myself, but I really got
the feeling last night that there was a little more going on than that -- then
she must assuredly have an itch she is counting on me to scratch.

Jesus, suddenly I'm having an acute attack of nerves. I feel like Doris
Day in one of those old virgin movies. Come to think of it though, Doris
probably didn't need to worry too much about excessive expectations from
Rock Hudson, did she? So I suppose I must be in even worse straits. Or 
maybe it is just the coffee talking. Maybe eight cups can do that to a person.

The problem is, I don't exactly have an outstanding track record with
women. My one high school experience was so brief and so hormone-charged
that I was never really able to look the poor girl in the face again. The
sociology major I pursued for most of my freshman year at Oxford dumped me
the weekend after we first slept together. Then there was Phoebe Green, who
was not shy about telling me all the ways in which I failed to measure up.
And Diana Fowley...

Okay, I'm scaring myself.

What I need is a plan. I need to decide, here in the bright unblinking
light of this hotel bathroom, what I am going to do, and then I need to
stick to it. No guesswork; no stupid testosterone-laden impulses. I need to
determine a course of action and then follow through.

All right, then: twenty minutes. I will just make sure that, this time, I
devote at least twenty minutes to good old-fashioned fucking. That sounds
about right, doesn't it? Not too ambitious, but not too hasty either. If I
pace myself -- think of baseball and multiplication tables and maybe even
the Three Stooges -- I ought to be able to last that long. At least, I think I
should. Twenty minutes is not exactly Guinness Book of World Records
material, right?

Good. I feel a little better now that I have a definite number in mind.

I take a deep breath. Twenty minutes. I can do this.

*****

"Oh, yeah," I groan into Scully's mouth.

So much for iron control. She has merely unzipped my pants to stroke me
through the cotton of my boxers, and already I am moaning like a dying man.

My cock strains against her palm. She returns the pressure -- returns it
so well, in fact, that I interrupt my fumbling attempts at unbuttoning her
blouse to pull her hand away.

She looks questioningly at me. "Let me get out of my clothes first, will
you, Scully?" I say with a shakey laugh, to cover up my discomposure.
"You're not paying me by the hour."

I step back and shuck off my pants and my boxers, feeling slightly silly as
I do so. I am even tempted to fold them, just to slow things down a little,
but I quickly reject the idea as too desperately dweeby to escape Scully's
notice. Instead I just toss my balled-up clothing toward the foot of the
bed. As I turn back to her, stark naked, I am acutely conscious that I am
sporting an erection the size of Philadelphia.

Maybe she likes what she sees, or maybe the air conditioning is just on too
high; with her bra unclasped, I can see that her nipples are hard. I move
to her, and slip my hand into her partially-unbuttoned blouse. I cup her
breast. She rests her head on my shoulder and in an unaccustomed burst of
savoir-faire, I actually manage to finish unfastening her buttons with my
left hand.

I lean down and take her nipple in my mouth, sucking gently. Just as she
did last night, she curls her fingers in my hair. I circle the taut peak
with my tongue. She moans.

Dear God, but she is sexy. Suddenly, sickeningly, twenty minutes seems
like an impossibly long time.

I sink down onto my knees, trailing kisses as I go: on her ribs, her
waist, the soft flesh of her abdomen. I unzip her skirt and let it fall to
the floor. When I start to peel her hose and panties away she comes to my
aid, wriggling out of them herself.

I sit back on my heels and watch her. Oh, Scully, Scully, Scully...! How
will I ever do you justice?

I move closer, breathing in the scent of her, cataloguing it for solitary
enjoyment at some future date. "You smell good," I whisper, and press my
forehead against the soft flesh of her belly.

She starts, then breaks into a throaty chuckle. "Mulder, your nose is
cold."

Great. The next think you know, she will be complaining that I'm humping
her leg. But, undaunted, I bury my face in the auburn curls before me,
adding my mouth to the investigation. I push my tongue deliberately over
her clitoris, sliding it slowly forward and back. Her desire tastes of salt 
and honey.

Her hands move from my hair to my shoulders. "If we don't lie down soon,
Mulder," she says, "I think I'm going to fall down."

My heart is hammering as I join her on the bed. But then, a man's pulse is
supposed to race when he gets into bed with a beautiful woman, isn't it?
It's only natural. The adrenaline is supposed to be pumping. And that knot
in my throat, and that funny taste in my mouth, and that high keen buzzing
in my head, that's probably natural too...

Oh, God. Oh, help me, Jesus. I am scared out of my wits.

But even so I realize vaguely that I should pick up where we left off. I
kiss my way down her side, over her flank, and settle in with my head
between her thighs. I discover once again that I don't have a suave bone in my
body: the entire bottom half of my naked body ends up hanging over the foot of
the bed, so that I find myself kneeling on my underwear.

But perhaps I am doing something right, I hope as my mouth covers her sex.
Certainly Scully's hands clutch with abandonment at my hair. Certainly my
fingers slip easily inside her, joining my tongue in happy exploration. And
if the warm sweet wetness seeping out onto my hand is any proof of her
desire, then certainly Scully isn't especially demanding.

And yet demand she does -- I am just beginning to hit my stride, orally
speaking, when I feel her hands on either side of my head, gently coaxing
me higher. "Mulder," she says simply, "get up here."

And so I move atop her. We kiss deeply. Propped up on my elbows, I nuzzle
her neck, and kiss the place where her pulse beats in her throat. She sighs
and, heart thudding, I push slowly inside her, advancing inch by inch into
indescribable heat and wetness.

Oh, my God -- hard to believe that in a mere twenty-four hours I have lost
the memory of just how unbearably pleasurable this is. No wonder the human
race has not yet died out, when repopulation has so ingeniously hitched its
wagon to this sensation.

I start to move, and slip my hand down between us to gently tease her clit.

It is not the easiest position in the world to maintain, propped up on just
one elbow, but I'm damned if I'm going to neglect anything that might
possibly help my cause. And besides, the heavens could rain hot coals on me
right now, and I doubt that I would even notice.

I gaze down at Scully's flushed face. Her head is tilted back, her eyes
half closed, her lips parted. She is purring like a kitten under me. I am
suddenly gripped by the terrible certainty that I am again going to
humiliate myself, and this time without the excuse of long abstinence on my 
side. I will never last for twenty minutes.

"Mmmm....that's nice..." she murmurs.

Nice? Nice is what you say when your aunt gives you socks for your
birthday. This is so good it's torture. She is so tight and so sweetly hot
that every stroke in and out sends a thrill racing through me, an
adrenaline rush from my cock straight to the nerve center of my brain. My 
instinct is to speed things up, to abandon slow and languorous, to grit my 
teeth and go at it hammer and tongs --

No...! I can't do that. Jesus, I've still got eighteen minutes to go.

Fine, then: twelve times twelve is one hundred and forty-four; twelve
times eleven is one hundred and thirty two; twelve times ten is one hundred
twenty; twelve times nine is -- is -- Oh, fuck, Scully, don't *do* that...!

It's not fair when I'd forgotten that a woman's body even worked that way.

Really, I think, it must be a heady thing to be female -- to inhabit a form
that can turn men's brains to mush, to have the power of "yes" and "no"
wholly at your command, to lead an existence in which there is no such
thing as coming too soon...

She tilts her hips up a little more, and before I know it strong instinct
is beginning to vanquish weak will, and I am starting to move a bit more
vigorously. Okay, then, I think grimly. Ten minutes. Even if I go a little
faster, surely I can last that long. Ten minutes is still respectable.

"Mmmm, yeah..." she groans.

Her nipples graze my chest. I lean down and kiss her. Her mouth opens
hungrily. I can hear the wet sounds her body makes as I slide in and out.

Oh, God! This is too good. I am never going to last for ten whole
minutes. I clench my free hand into a fist and fight off the urge to thrust
mindlessly toward release.

Could she be anywhere close? In a porn movie, the woman is always obliging
enough to scream "I'm coming! I'M COMING!" at the critical moment. Then
again, in a porn movie, the woman also always seems to love it when the man
pulls out and comes all over her torso. Shamefully easy as it would be for
me to oblige, something tells me this would not be Scully's cup of tea.

My right hand is tiring, and so I move it from her clit to her breast,
cupping the soft flesh in my palm. I run my thumb lightly in circles around
her nipple. She moans and arches up slightly, pressing herself into my
hand. My cock gives a little leap of approval.

Jesus, where are the damned multiplication tables when I need them? I
can't think of anything right now except what I am doing to Scully and what
she is doing to me.

"You feel -- good --" I pant, the words hardly adequate to the firestorm of
pleasure that is searing my body.

"You too," she breathes. "Harder, Mulder."

My eyes roll back in my head. Harder? Fine, then, I think; forget ten
minutes. I'll be lucky to last five. But at least they will be the most
satisfying five minutes of my life.

And so I square my weight on both elbows and put my back into it, slamming
our bodies together, giving it to her so hard that the mattress squeaks in
protest. She rocks her hips up to meet each thrust. The breath is bumping
out of me in grunts.

Oh, Jesus! Come on, I tell myself, just a little longer. A little longer
--! Though I know a little longer is all I am going to be able to manage.

And suddenly something tells me that she is almost there -- a tenseness in
her muscles, and a look of such straining concentration on her flushed face
that I am afraid to breathe. My mental urging changes: Come on, Scully, I
beg, silently pleading in time to my thrusts. Come on, come on, come on. I
feel a trickle of sweat inch down my temple.

Her eyes fly open. "Ohhh --!" she cries in a voice of breathless wonder.
"Oh -- Mulder! Don't stop!"

Stop? Is she kidding? I could not stop if the world suddenly crashed to a
screeching halt, if the sky fell, if the sun exploded. With a grimace I bow
my head and pound into her. I am sprinting now, gasping, my marathon
reduced to a wild dash to the finish.

And then she draws her breath in sharply and throws back her head, and her
fingers dig into my back. And, God, it actually hurts, she is gripping my
shoulders so tightly, but maybe that is just nature's way of containing the
fever that has overtaken me, because my head is pounding and my cock is
swelling and my body is quaking like a leaf in a hurricane. For one brief
moment I seem to be suspended in time and space. Then she moans and I feel
the force of her climax, her sex gripping mine in waves, and with a roaring
in my ears I explode, my orgasm mingling with hers, my desperation and my
ardor pulsing into her in hot jets.

...ahhhhhhh....

Swimming. My head is swimming.

Oh, Scully, I think dazedly. What a rookie I am compared to you, what an
amateur, what a pathetic schoolboy...

I lift my face slowly from her silken hair. Beneath me she sighs
luxuriously, and extends her hands over her head in a languid stretch. A
little half-smile plays about her lips, a fascinating blend of dreaminess
and sybaritic satisfaction. She opens her eyes and looks up at me, catching 
me staring at her. Her half-smile widens to a grin.

And then, to my horror, I begin to cry.

It comes without warning. One minute I am simply looking at her, and the
next her face blurs as hot tears burn my eyes. I try to dash them away but
before I know it my shoulders are shaking and I am wracked with noisy,
gulping sobs. In one inexplicable swing I have gone from tingling satiety to
weeping confusion.

And Scully does not even seem surprised. She puts her arms around me and
holds me against her. "Shhhh," she croons to me. "Shhh, Mulder, it's okay."

I nod dumbly, unable to answer. I don't even know why I am crying. I am
just so damned wrung out, and Scully feels so good, and I wanted to make it
last, really I did, and damn it but this has been an endless day.

"It's okay," she tells me again, rubbing my back as if I am some fretful
child.

"No." I shake my head miserably back and forth. What is wrong with me?
This wasn't what was supposed to happen at all. I had a *plan*.

"Shhh, of course it is. Shhhh."

"Oh, Scully --" I cry brokenly into her neck. "Scully, I can't help it."

"I know. I know, Mulder."

"It's just too much," I sob, not even knowing myself exactly what it is
that I mean. "I don't think I can stand it."

She smoothes the damp hair back from my forehead. "I know, Mulder, and
it's okay." She is whispering softly into my ear, her voice infinitely
understanding.

"It's just --" I can't finish the sentence; what is it I am trying to say?
"It's just --"

"Shhh, I know. It has a funny way of hitting people sometimes, doesn't it,
Mulder?" She kisses my temple. "Happiness, I mean..."

The breath shudders out of me. Happiness? Is that what this shattering
feeling is?

She strokes my hair. "It's okay, Mulder," she repeats, as I shake
helplessly in her arms. "It was good for me, too."

******

"Scully?" I whisper into the darkness. "Scully? Are you awake?"

There is a stirring beside me, and then a tousled head lifts slowly to
check the digital clock beside the bed. It is three A.M.

"Scully?" I whisper again.

"Yes, Mulder," she mumbles. "I'm awake."

"That's good," I say, and roll up onto one elbow. "Because I would hate
for you to sleep through the great sex we're about to have."

I half expect to be treated to the famous disgruntled partner evil eye, but
instead she gives a heartening snort of laughter.

"Yep, Scully" -- my right hand moves casually to her breast -- "that coffee
was a goooooood idea...."

This time, even I recognize heaven when it hits me.

----

END