From: Anna Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 12:58:04 -0400 Subject: *NEW* Tangled Web (1/1) TITLE: Tangled Web I (1/1) AUTHOR: Anna Hutchinson EMAIL: anhutchinson@vassar.edu (me want feeeeeedback!) CATEGORY: V, A, M/S sex (WARNING: this is not mushy flowers-and-candy romantic stuff! Die-hard 'shippers beware!) RATING: somewhere between R and NC-17 for sexual content SPOILERS: All of Season 5, up until End Game SUMMARY: Scully reflects on her current sexual relationship with Mulder ARCHIVING: Please archive at Gossamer. All others, please ask first and tell me where it's going so I can go visit! Author's Note: This is a little heavier than the light-hearted, frothy stuff that I usually do. I decided to give the "angst angle" a try. I'd love to know what you think! ****************************************************************************** "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive..." ****************************************************************************** He wants me again. I can see it in his eyes, the way he moves ever closer as we lean over the most recent file we're working on. I can feel it in the electrical current that is suddenly crackling through the air. I can smell the pheremones exuding off his body. I turn away, pretending not to notice. The next time I look at his face he is smirking. He thinks I am being coy. He thinks he is irresistible. He thinks that I want to consummate this other, secret part of our relationship again as much as he does. But I am tired and weary. My bones ache and there is a little throbbing in my head just behind my eyes. I feel like if I pinch the bridge of my nose it will squeeze the ache out of my brain. But it only makes flashes of colour dance behind my closed eyes. His breath is hot and rank in my ear. "Let's get out of here," he whispers. "Let's go release some tension." He thinks that is clever. He thinks he is being sexy. I look up at him despairingly and he waggles his eyebrows at me. At that moment I loathe him. But I go. And we make love, on his sweaty leather couch. From my unlikely vantage point, I can see kernels of popcorn and other unidentified food substances that have become wedged between the seat cushions. This is all I am worth to him. This sticky, smelly couch. Except when we travel; then I get upgraded to the squeaky, saggy beds in those sad motels by the roadside of the forgotten towns we stay in. Sometimes I imagine I can hear the cockroaches scuttling beneath the floorboards. Oops, he is about to cum now. My mind has wandered away, so I have forgotten to keep up the pretense of sexual pleasure. But it's all right, he hasn't even noticed. He is too far away in his own ecstasy. His eyes roll back and his pouty lips start to quiver. I know that soon he will start moaning my name. I dread the sound. "Scully, Scully, Scully..." It is time for my performance. I squeal a little and thrash my arms, but it is half-hearted. I don't have the energy to keep up the charade tonight. My back is sore from the awkward way it is twisted on the couch, and my inner thighs are sweating from his slick skin sliding over mine. My vagina is sore and chafed. He always likes sex to be so rough; he pounds in and out of me like he's trying to nail me to the damn couch. He doesn't seem to understand the concept of G-spot, or that too much roughness HURTS, dammit. His pubic hair is scraping the underside of my clit, and it is burning. I want to scream. I DO scream, but of course he thinks it is a GOOD scream. He leers at me and pinches one of my nipples. He likes it when I do that to him, so he assumes that I like it too. He has never bothered to ask. Finally it is over. He collapses on top of me; all his weight is pressed against my breasts, crushing them. I feel like I am getting a mammogram. Never mind the fact that I am having trouble breathing with this great big sweaty mass of male lying on my chest. Oh God, now he is nuzzling me. This is the worst part, far worse than the bad sex. He is in his mushy afterglow stage. All I really want to do is get up and have a shower; wash all this sweat and cum off my thighs. I wonder if I will be able to peel myself off this couch. He doesn't seem to understand that sweaty backs and leather couches don't mix. He has never bothered to lay down a sheet for me. Or pillows. Or, God forbid, take me to his bedroom. If he has a bedroom. "God, I love you so much, Scully." Here is comes. This is the part that I hate faking the most. I feel dirty, much more dirty than when I fake the orgasms. He needs me to love him, and so I pretend that I do, and it makes me feel vile. I open my mouth and say the worst lie that I have ever told, a lie that I continue to tell weekly, sometimes daily. "I love you too, Mulder." I stroke his hair, and he smiles, content because he is in the arms of the woman he loves, and all is right with his world. How could I ever destroy that for him? It's not that I don't love him. Of course I love him. He is my partner and my friend, and he has taken more risks for me than anyone. We have been through so much together that I would be made of stone if I didn't love him. But being his *lover* is something entirely different. He is a wonderful friend, dependable and trustworthy. But for me, that's where it ends. I have never liked mixing friendship with sex. In my experience, it has always ended with the destruction of the friendship. But he needed this. That night that he told me he had found his sister, and she didn't want anything to do with him. That night he cried in my arms and I held him and murmured sweet nothings. That was the night he chose to declare his love for me. What was I supposed to do? Everything he'd been searching for had been taken away from him. His fondest childhood memories of his sister had been crushed. How could I have looked that man in the face and told him I didn't return his love, at least not in the way that he needed me to? I couldn't tell him the truth. So I started the lies. It was all I could do for the man that had sat by my bedside day and night while I was wracked with cancer. He had given up so much for me. And I had given up almost everything for him. It had become commonplace for me to make sacrifices for Mulder. So this, this one thing, it didn't seem like such a big deal. It wasn't like I had any other offers. I figured, if I had sex with Mulder, it would keep him happy and sane, which I considered my duty for him. And it might have offered me some sexual release at the same time. I had never counted on it being like this. So dead. I feel so dead inside. When I was a child, I always thought that sex was something you reserved for people you loved. I lost my virginity to someone I loved. But, like most high school boys, that first love broke my heart, and after him, sex could never mean quite the same. Gradually, it came to mean less and less. But this. This is a new low for me. I try not to think about all my innocent childhood sexual ideals. It makes me want to cry, because I have betrayed them all. I have betrayed myself and I have betrayed my best friend, by pretending to love him. I want to vomit. But instead I smile gently, and say, "I should go now, baby. Tomorrow we have a lot of work to do, and we're both very tired." Thankfully, our little encounters have never ended up becoming sleepovers. Frankly, I might prefer that, because it would make this whole arrangement seem a little more legit. But the thought of spending the night on that couch has always been too much for me. I have never invited him back to my apartment. I need to keep my own space, a place where I can have distance from him. "Good night, then," he sighs, and kisses me gently on the neck. He truly is gentle, unselfish, compassionate and kind. As a boyfriend, he is everything that any woman could ever want. But as a lover, he is nothing that I need. And me, the Ice Queen -- I can't bring myself to think of him as anything other than my partner. In my car, I close my eyes for a second. I need to pull myself together. My head is still throbbing, and I feel queasy thinking about what has just happened, and the deception that I have once again participated in. I want out. But it is too late. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave..." I should have been strong in the beginning. But now, if I were to leave him, it would kill him. He is so vulnerable. Now that his files have been torched and his office is a charred wasteland, he has nothing left but me. This is my duty. This is my calling. I only wish that it didn't make me hate myself, and him. Never have sex with your friends, I used to say. It's the quickest way to ruin a friendship. How right I was. I must have been a pretty smart lass back then. What I am now, I don't know. I start the car and begin my long drive home. ****************************************************************************** END. Please let me know what you think! Email me at anhutchinson@vassar.edu