From: "Amber Botts" Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 13:55:49 PST Subject: MSR "The Hunter's Moon" 2/4 Title: "The Hunter's Moon: Part II: 'The Anatomically Correct Ken doll' " (2/4) Author: Amber Rating: PG Classification: UST Keywords: MSR Spoilers: "Pusher," "Small Potatoes," "Detour," "Quagmire," "Bad Blood." Summary: Mulder reacts to some provocative pictures of Scully. Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and the Gunmen belong to Chris Carter, 1013, James Wong, Glen Morgan, and Fox. Ronnie and the "Ken doll" are mine. Part II: Federal Bureau of Investigations Washington, D.C. Friday September 12 4:30 pm Throughout the week, Scully found herself drifting off, fantasizing about "The Stake Out," wondering about and nearly lusting after the author. Granted, this week's case, an open-and-shut operation that involved a missing mummy, wasn't particularly mesmerizing. To Mulder's Boris Karloff-induced disappointment, she and he had proven that the crime was a scam for insurance money, despite the museum curator's claim that the mummy came to life and was seeking revenge on all the descendants of those who disturbed his tomb. The missing mummy was a hoax, and the deaths were murders; the only weird element was that the mummy wasn't found where the man had claimed to have left it before he committed suicide by throwing himself out of a fourth story window. Since it was more straightforward than their usual investigations, the case had given her too much real stake out time to think, and she found herself curious enough about the mystery writer's next possible story to agree to another Girls' Night Out with Ronnie, in spite of the reluctance engendered by the cryptic note, which said, "This week you have to come, Dana. We are going to see something that I promise will strip away your inhibitions." Monday September 15 8:50 am The plain, white, letter-sized envelope arrived in the inter-office mail. As Mulder picked it up and noticed 'Dana' scrawled across the front, 4 x 6 inch pictures fell out. He was about to return them absently to the envelope when he noticed that they featured his Scully and, he blinked twice, a man who looked like a g-string-wearing, surgically-enhanced version of himself...slightly smaller, straighter nose, firmer, squarer chin, and a poutier, fuller top lip, a better partner, damn it, for the bottom one. It was as if God had decided to correct every one of the irregular features that he occasionally felt insecure about. Scruples wavering, then gone, Mulder opened the envelope and found a note. . . from Ronnie. He couldn't trust the blasted woman after all. He'd thought that since he'd checked out the first Girls' Night Out, any others would be harmless enough. Apparently, she was just lulling him into a false sense of security, and the Gunmen and their insane girls' night out theory were right. Every detail of that lurid expose` flashed through his mind, a cavalcade of horrors, one night stands, bizarre sex acts, kissing. His sweet Scully had sampled her first evening of iniquity, and he had photographic as well as written proof. The note read: "I'm glad you joined us. I told you that you'd be surprised. I thought you'd appreciate a little memento of the evening's highlight. By the way, you left too soon; his name is Eric, and he wanted to slip you his number, and probably something else--I'm only partially teasing. He said if you want to get together, give him a call." --The number followed then a couple of blank lines down.-- "You have to be the luckiest woman alive; you work with one, smart, gorgeous, all-business version and could be dating the other more manageable, flexible version. Just kidding. But seriously, I've been to this place over twenty times and I've never even heard of one of the dancers giving a woman his number. I'd always thought that it was against policy, fraternizing with the customers, or something. Anyway, I hope you can join us again this Friday." Mulder was tempted to tear up the note, or at the very least to "edit" it. By the time he'd finish with it, it would look like some of the leftover files from the '50s. At the very least, he could "accidentally" spill coffee on the stripper's phone number, blurring it beyond recognition. Instead, he flipped through the pictures and examined them carefully. He frowned; they appeared to give a photographic history of the highlight of the evening's "entertainment." One had a woman holding a dollar over his lovely Scully's head; her expression was oblivious and detached, maybe even a bit bored. Next, his look-alike was ripping off a policeman's uniform. Mulder paused; was that what she found attractive? a uniform? His brow furrowed. He didn't have a uniform. The FBI "uniform" was a suit and tie, and even on preplanned busts, the agents didn't have much in the way of uniforms, just black jackets with FBI in large yellow block, over bullet-proof vests. He paused again and tapped the picture thoughtfully against his mouth...although, that one time with the "Pusher," hmmm; Scully had seemed to respond to him more deeply than before. Was it, could it have been the bullet-proof vest and the headset? He wondered how he could orchestrate an opportunity to show up at her place in a uniform. He certainly couldn't just rent a cop costume and pop up at her door, handcuffs dangling from one finger as he lounged against the door frame, could he? That's probably what the Keanu Reeves/ "Point Break" partner would do, damn him. He set the photo down. Maybe he could throw a costume party, but he didn't have the number of friends to make that workable. He didn't trust anyone but Scully, and that made even casual friendships difficult. Besides, if he had her in his apartment, turned on by his rented uniform, he'd want to be alone with her, so she could divest him of it, hopefully in a way that would involve tearing materials and popping buttons. He grinned at his fantasy image of Scully, her usual icy-reserve melted with the strength of uniform-induced flaming desire. He shook himself as the clock clicked loudly as it hit 9:00. At best, he probably only had a few more minutes before Scully arrived. He flipped through the rest of the pictures--one of the impostor walking toward a surprised Scully, then a close-up of her with an embarrassed expression--at least she didn't appear to be enjoying herself. The next shot froze his blood. The impostor was moving in to kiss her. It uncomfortably reminded him of Eddie Blundht, and the way that he and Scully had never discussed her willingness to kiss him. Damn. . . and now she was doing it again, kissing a man who looked like him and yet wasn't. The final shot caused his stomach to clench. Scully's face was hidden, as the dancer appeared to be giving her a body hug. Her forehead rested against the side of his neck; her chest was pressed hard to the rock-like musculature of his. However, what was most striking was the dancer's face. His doppleganger had an odd expression of longing shadowed with a hint of vulnerability. He knew that look; it was one that he frequently saw in the mirror. That stripper wanted his Scully for real, damn his perfect-toothed smile. Mulder scowled blackly. He'd bet that his doppleganger was born with that perfect grin rather than having to suffer two and a half years of orthodontic hell. Mulder tossed the picture onto the stack. He could feel his hands turning into fists. A red haze seemed to form around the pictures. He'd been spending his free time pouring out his longing and desire into his computer screen, and she'd went out and replaced him with some obviously anatomically correct Ken doll. His brows raised as he heard the click of her heels coming down the hall. He hastily crammed the pictures and the note back into the envelope and set it on her desk---right in the middle with her other mail. He would just see how cool she could be when faced with her nefarious evening activities. --Some small rational part of his mind reminded him that he didn't have a claim on her or on how she spent her time, but the rest of his brain was screaming that his woman had betrayed him. Scully gave him one of her trademark "hello" smiles, and he thought how innocent she looked. . . unbesmirched by her nocturnal goings-on. "Has the mail arrived?" "Waiting for something--special?" He handed her the stack of envelopes. 'The' envelope was second from the top. Her eyebrows raised for a second. Then she opened the top envelope, glanced at the contents then tossed it away. Moments later, she opened the plain white envelope, gasped and quickly shoved the pictures back inside. Time to play. Mulder faked concern. "What? What is it? Crime scene photos?" Crime scene, indeed! "Um, no." Scully started to slide the envelope into a drawer when he snatched it away. Mulder opened it and feigned surprise. "Oh, Scully. I'm shocked." He considered tsk-ing, but was afraid that would push it too far. "Aren't you the same woman who said that men who patroned strippers were lowlifes, too weak to form attachments to real women, so they objectified them in order to project their lust without ever having to deal with mature emotions?" He fought down a surely smug grin at her expression. Sometimes a photographic memory was a true blessing. "A-hem." Her voice took on the teacher/scientist lecturer tone that made him want to rip her clothes off. "Actually, I believe the strip, I mean, exotic dancer experience is very different for men and women." She studied the pattern of pencils on her desk. "Men have a tangible physical reaction to watching women take their clothes off. It is very sexual. In contrast," she cleared her throat, "women, from what I observed that night, experience primarily embarrassment. That emotional, rather than physical, response somehow helps with female bonding, probably due to the fact that women seek shared emotional experiences in order to cement their friendships." That was his Scully, he thought fondly, always the scientist. He allowed the grin to bloom; she'd delivered her theory to her stapler. He walked slowly around his desk into her sight line, stood next to her, and half sat on her desk, facing her. Mulder badly wanted to tip her face up, to force her to look at him, to really look at him and to see his jealousy. In his mind he could hear Frohike's voice taunting him, 'Those strip clubs are hot beds for one night stands. The clubs don't allow men in until after the strippers have worked the women into a slobbering frenzy.' His eyes slid quickly over her face. "Are you saying you didn't enjoy salivating over beefcake all evening?" Scully hoped Mulder hadn't noticed the distinct resemblance that the "beefcake" bore to him. Her pale eyes finally met his, honest and straightforward. "I enjoyed the female companionship. I liked having other women to talk to and to laugh with." I enjoyed the partner poll, even though Lorna won this week by one vote, she added silently. "But actually watching the strippers dance was the single least erotic incident of my life." The most erotic point in the evening was reading the latest effort by the mystery writer, a lovely ode to the fantasies a man has while watching his partner practice at the gun range. Mulder badly wanted to ask what was the most erotic incident of her life, and if by any chance it involved him. Was it a night spent in a Florida forest singing "Joy to the World" and wishing vehemently for a sleeping bag? A tense moment in which life and death were only separated by how much control he had over his own mind? A literary/philosophical discussion of "Moby Dick" on an island at midnight? The day she watched him eat a peach? Or, and more likely, did the most erotic time in her life not even involve him? He settled for, "Can you honestly say that you don't find him attractive?" Mulder wasn't sure what response he wanted from her, but he nearly cursed aloud when he realized that he'd unwittingly chosen the most flattering shot of the stripper to wave in front of her face. The man's genuine hunger for Scully was visible from the tensed ridges of his washboard abs to the hollowed, chiseled cheeks, to his piercing. . . damn him anyway. Why couldn't the man at least have big buck teeth? Scully smiled the Mona Lisa smile that drove him nuts, and not for the first time, he wished that he had ESP and could read her mind. "I didn't say that I don't find him attractive, just that stripping wasn't a big," her eyebrows rose, "or even a small turn-on. I don't know; it may be a leftover primal instinct. Men find the stripping sexy because of the times when only primitive Alpha males could mate with the Alpha females, and stripping gives them access to women who would otherwise be out of reach. On the other hand, primitive women wanted to own a man in order to secure her and her children's survival, so for women, watching an Alpha Male share himself with a room full of women isn't appealing. It's just threatening." She seemed to be warming to her theory. "I think a private one-on-one strip tease would be erotic, whereas watching as part of a crowd just wasn't." Surreptitiously, Mulder slipped the note out of the envelope, palmed it, and stuffed it into his pocket. The Ken doll would do some private dancing for Scully over his dead body. He dropped the pictures back into the envelope and returned it to her. He wanted badly to spread his legs, pull her between his thighs, and offer to give her what she wanted, a private dance. He'd strip for her, slowly, but with great enthusiasm. Instead, with a silent nod, he slipped away from her side of the desk, taking with him an idea for his next story. End Part II (2/4)