Clock WatcherThe Clock-Watcher 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. ***** end part 1/2 The Clock Watcher 2/2 Summary and disclaimer in part 1. ***** "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