The Twenty-one Day Plan
Part 7
See part 0 for header information.


"Just in certain circles," he said. "We've been kind of expecting one
or the other of the boys to come poking around some day. Just not 
this soon."

"He's precocious, that's for sure. Far as you know, anything going 
down of interest these days?"

"There's always something of interest going down, but as for anything
that's of interest to you and yours, not so far as I know. Did the
kid find something?"

"Nothing. He didn't get far. But he claims he found proof that
there's some kind of cloning project going on in Virginia. I had
another friend of ours check out the computer he says he found the
info on and there was zilch. You can understand my concern."

"I'll look into it," he promised me. "Meet me for a run again on 
Friday?" 

I grimaced at the thought of another run in the heat at noon, but I
agreed to it readily. We jogged on a while longer, heading north, and
eventually "Jim" broke away from me. I turned around and headed
directly back to the office. Back at work, I toweled myself off as
best I could in the restroom, then grabbed my lunch and headed to the
breakroom to eat quickly before I had to put my nose back to the 
grindstone. Luna, the intern, was eating too, something that smelled
vaguely horrible, with lots of curry in it. I heated up my container
of leftover stew in the microwave. She wrinkled her nose for a minute
but didn't make any comment this time or freak out. Her hair had 
changed from blue or purple or whatever it had been to kind of a
faded pink. She'd acquired a ring in her nose.

After a while of silence, which was the sort of thing I appreciated
from her, she spoke to me. "I don't get you," she said.

"What's to get?"

"Well, you're gay, right?" 

Well, that didn't really cover the flexible reality of my sexual 
expression, but I suppose for practical purposes, it had to be close 
enough. I'd been monogamous with another man for nearly as long as
this  girl had been alive. Despite that, pretty girls caught my eyes
all the  time. Heck, I'd had to force  myself to stop my eyes from
drifting to the bust level of this girl's skimpy little tank top. I'm
married, not blind! I'd be lying if I said I didn't watch
the occasional het porn flick with Fox. Though I noticed as time went
by, that I found myself looking at guys with an approving eye as well,
especially ones with any kind of resemblance to Fox. 

"Yeah, I'm gay," I said, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"You work here, right? And I've heard about some of the actions you've
done. Pretty brave stuff, pretty radical. So, I kind of figured you'd
be a lot cooler than you are." 

I think she meant she wanted to know why I wasn't some damn
vegetarian who voted Democratic and hugged Bambi instead of eating
him. Why I drove what the tree-huggers called a big fucking truck. All
of that. I chose to pretend I interpreted her statement differently. 

I had to laugh at that. "Melissa," I said. I'd found out Melissa was
her real name and I used it at every opportunity. She hated it. "I 
haven't been cool since long before you were born. I think the last
time I was cool, Ronald Reagan was still in office."

"Who?"

Kids these days. Didn't know a damn thing. And God was she making me
feel old. "He was president from 1980 to 1988," I told her, then went
back to eating my lunch.

My workload was such that I had to drive back to work after dropping
Charlie at home. As I headed back into the city, I contemplated again
ditching the tree-huggers and dragging the whole family off to the
South Pacific, Walt included. Hell, even Scully. Sometimes, this job
of mine could suck like a three-hundred dollar call girl.

By the time I managed to drag my sorry ass back home, it was already
ten o'clock. Walt, Fox and Charlie had installed themselves in front
of the TV. They were watching a re-run of the television show based
off the movie based off the book that Fox had written. They were
watching it and making fun of it. I got a wave from all of them and a
blown  kiss from Fox, but nobody got out of their viewing cocoon. I
abandoned  them to their show and headed to the kitchen. I shoveled
some  leftovers, still cold, into my face, then I headed up to bed
without saying goodnight.

Fox was up shortly though. He stripped completely and crawled under
the covers with me. It was actually almost a chilly night, a cold
front having swept through earlier this evening, bringing rain and
cooler temps with it. He kissed me and all I could do was yawn. I'd 
been half asleep when he'd joined me. Then I murmured, "Love you," 
and rolled over onto my side. He poked me gently in the ribs and God
help me, I couldn't do anything about it. Sleep just about had me
fully in its claws and it was too hard to even contemplate opening 
my eyes. He poked me with his erection and I didn't respond. Sleep
was taking me. 

"Take a message," I said, sleepily, starting to misinterpret things.
I was that sleepy.

"But John, I need you," he said. It should have been enough to get
me hard, just that, the sound of his voice begging like that.

"Sorry, tired," I said and pounded my pillow a little, I buried 
my face in it and don't remember anything else until the morning.

Day 10

I'd say Fox got back at me this morning. I woke up before my alarm,
ready to go, with a big old morning woodie. And Fox, for once, was
beside me. I smiled with wicked intentions and reached for him. 
Gentle nuzzles failed to wake him, so did a nibble to his ear, which
was presented so sexily to me. He really is so sweet and innocent
looking when he's sleeping. His hair falls down over his forehead 
and into his eyes when he's sleeping and in the darkened gray of our
room, I couldn't see that his hair was going gray. Sleep relaxed some
of the wrinkles he'd acquired over the years. Yes, for a little while
at least, I was in bed with the much younger man that I'd fallen
in lust with.

That's all it had been at first. So I thought. Just about sex, not 
about love. That had been back when we were both still working on the
x-files together for that brief period. We'd been fighting, butting
heads about something, two alpha males going at it. Then all of a
sudden, he was on his knees in front of me and before I hardly knew
what was happening, he was giving me head. The first time he had 
tried to touch me on that oil rig, I'd brushed him off. The second
time he touched me, I ended up letting him do me. At first I told
myself it was just sex, that all blow jobs are the same with your
eyes closed. I'd figured it was a one shot deal, at least that was
until it happened again. It took maybe four times before I'd admitted
to myself that yes, it was a man, and a man that irritated the hell
out of me sometimes, that was doing it to me and that despite that, I
liked it. The fifth time, I returned the favor and that properly 
started a brief, torrid affair that lasted until his and Scully's kid
was born. I didn't figure out until I was devastated when I went to
his empty apartment and found out he was on the run that somewhere 
along the line, I'd started caring for him, that maybe even I was 
in love. 

Love's great though, isn't it? Just because you love someone like
I love Fox doesn't mean that you can't still be crazy in lust for
them. Like I was this morning. 

Except Fox, damn him, was no more co-operating than I had last night.
Was I a big enough man to beg? Sure. But when I tried, it no affected
Fox than anything else. I tried tickling him. He murmured and swatted
clumsily in my direction. My alarm clock, which I'd forgotten to shut
off, didn't pierce his sleep. The couple of times in the past where
I'd tried to waken him with a blow job, it did not go as planned and
once resulted in him giving me a big old shiner. He was more or less
asleep when that had happened and didn't remember it when he finally
did wake up. In any case, trying to wake him with sex was definitely
out of the question. So I was stuck with a lover that was currently 
giving me his best impression of a fallen log in the forest.
Completely dead to the world. 

I sighed and started the madness of the day. With Fox sleeping and
not around to help me, it took that much longer to pull the boy out
of his bed and start him on the road to wakefulness. Breakfast was
merely poptarts and coffee. Ecto-green berry for the boy, cherry for
me. Coffee was available only because Walt was up and had made it
already. He was cheerily sitting at the table, sipping and reading
the Post. He was dressed in office going gear, jacket to his monkey
suit at the ready but not on, conservative dark tie noosed around
the neck of brilliant white dress shirt. I guess he'd started that
consulting job he nominally came back for. He stayed out of the way,
only saying good morning, as I shepherded the boy through our
abbreviated morning return. As I was about to head us in the
direction of the back door, to hit the garage, the front door rang. 

More wasted time, except I didn't have to bother with the gun safe. 
Whatever company he was consulting for, I guess they didn't mind if
Walt showed up armed, because he had a holster clipped to the back
of his belt and he drew a weapon from that was I checked who it 
was. "It's okay. Friend of mine. Sort of. Co-worker."

I opened the door as Walt holstered his weapon again. I let Jilly in.
She had a bike with her and an messenger bag strapped to her back.
Ma always said that ladies don't sweat, they glow. But then Jilly is
nobody's idea of a lady and she was sweating like a horse. 

"Good, you're still here. My crappy assed excuse for a car isn't 
working again," she said. I'd seen her car. It didn't need to be 
fixed. Taken out and shot and put out of its misery was more like
it. "I was hoping you could give me a ride the rest of the way in.
If not, I understand. I can make the rest of the trip on bike, but
if you could let Trina know I'll be late I'd appreciate that."

All the time she was talking to me, she wasn't looking at me. She 
was looking over my shoulder at Walt. Understandable. He's quite a
sight in those dazzlingly white shirts. Other than his fringe being
a bit smaller than it used to be, and snowy white now, he doesn't
look that much different than he used to. Oh, and that tan. He looks
disgustingly healthy and strong, like a man twenty years younger than
he is, even though he's pushing seventy. He was always a stunning
specimen and is even more so these days. It was enough to make a 
man jealous. 

"Uh, Jilly, this is an old friend and one time boss of mine, Walter
Skinner. Walt, this is Jilly Sherwin, who runs the lab at my current
place of work," I said, then stepped out of the way to let them 
shake hands.

Walt, that old dog, was eating Jilly's attention with a spoon. Most
of the time, Walt's actually kind of shy around the opposite sex, but
when he puts his mind to it he can cut quite the swath through the
ladies. He must have decided to do that now, because he smiled at her
and took her hand, holding it just a little bit too long for formal.
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Sherwin. I think John's truck would be a
little crowded with three. But I'm headed downtown as well. Why don't
you let me give you a lift?"

Jilly was kind of unusual looking, but Walt seemed to like what he
saw for some reason. I don't know Jilly's exact ethnicity, but she had
skin that was coffee with cream colored and dreadlocks, so definitely
there was at least some African-American in her, but her features 
always suggested maybe Latina to me. I'd never asked and the one time
I heard someone else ask, she'd just said, "100% pure mutt." 

She was not pretty, by anyone's stretch of imagination, but certainly
was striking. I'd heard it said that she'd given up a promising
modeling career to join the Marines. Every now and then, she came to
our benefit events all dolled  up and at those times, I could almost
believe that. She'd never lost her shape from her Marine days, and in 
the cycling spandex she was wearing now, that was  very apparent. Most
of the time though, in the baggy clothes she wore around
work, without makeup, she just looked kind of odd, skinny and awkward.
The kind  of girl you aren't surprised when you hear she once sat in a
tree for three years. The kind of girl you don't look twice at,
especially when she wears her glasses, not her contacts.

But right now, in the spandex and without her glasses, you could sort
of see the ghost of the swan that this ugly duckling could become at
will. And Walt seemed to like what he saw. Uh-oh. 

Meanwhile, Charlie was waiting behind us, all but making retching 
noises. Then he whined, "We're going to be late."

So, I had to leave the pair of them behind to lock up the house and
make their own way into the city. The usual crush of work stole the
hours quickly, until I got a phone call. "John Doggett, legal," I 
said, just like usual, then because the line indicated it was an 
outside caller, I added the name of our organization. "What can I
do for you?"

"Hey tough guy, more like what can I do for you?" a very familiar 
voice said. "Did I ever tell you that you've got a sexy phone 
voice?"

"Martin? What's up?" I was confused. Fox just didn't call me at 
work, except a couple times for emergencies. Yet this was obviously 
not an emergency. 

"I was just wondering if you had plans for lunch?"

"You mean besides a sandwich and reading that Sea Monsters of the 
Creepy Lagoon thing for you? Nothing."

"Any chance you can take a long lunch? God knows you were there 
long enough last night."

"I think I could manage that. Did you want me to come home for lunch?
Is that what you're asking?" It was a long drive out to Falls Church
and back just for lunch, but I was almost willing to do it because it 
meant seeing Fox and because he was obviously trying to tempt me into
a nooner. It'd been about forever since we'd had a chance for one.

"Nope. I'm calling from outside your office building," he said.

I was a little disappointed. It was good to see Fox, no matter what,
but I'd already gotten my heart set on a nooner, even if that wasn't
what he had in mind. A lunch date of any kind with Fox was good.

"How soon can you break free from work?" he asked.

I looked at the files I'd been working on. Nothing that would be any
less frustrating or difficult if I did it now instead of later. I 
looked at the clock. Eleven thirty. I'd been planning to take a break
any time soon. "How about right now?" I asked. I was already standing
and rolling down my sleeves. I shrugged on the jacket that I'd
discarded earlier before I finished talking to Fox. 

"Hurry then, I'm double parked," he said. "Love you, guy. See you
soon."

Then he disconnected. I stopped by my assistant's office, right next 
door to mine. She wasn't my usual assistant, who was out on maternity
leave. This was the third temp the agency had sent us and so far she'd
worked out the best but I still missed my usual assistant  Jenny. Even
though Laura was the best of the  temps, she was still playing
solitaire on the computer and didn't even have the  sense to close
that window when I walked in. "Laura, I'm going to lunch with
Martin. I'll be back in an hour and a half or  so. Try and hold down
the fort. You have my cell's number, but only use it if it truly is an
emergency."

"Emergency as defined by what?"

You can see why I found her frustrating. Jenny would have just nodded
and said, "Have a good time." Part of my longer hours these days, I 
knew, was directly attributable to Laura not doing her job properly.
"If somebody is dead I suppose. Ecotastrophe. End of the world. That
kind of thing."

"And if Jilly calls from jail again?"

"I think she was planning a quiet morning in the lab, but if she 
manages to get herself arrested somehow, this time she can cool her
heels until I'm done with lunch."

Then I rushed downstairs. Fox had found himself a regular parking
spot. As I slid myself into the passenger seat of the efficient Honda
sedan that was our second car, I should have guessed something was up.
Fox had really dressed to impress. I forgot about it at times, because
it  had been so long since he'd needed to wear a suit on a regular
basis,  but Fox had been quite the sharp dressed man at one point. And
he was again this morning. Freshly shaved and showered, hair just
slightly damp still, he smelled delicious, spicy, like some 
expensive aftershave. He'd dressed in one of his best suits, a crisp
shirt that  would have put Walt's to shame, and one of the ties that
I'd picked out for him.

Who was this sexy stranger picking me up, looking nothing at all like
the sometimes scruffy, forgetting to shave two, three days in a row,
absentminded, dressed in sweats, writer that I'd left in bed this 
morning. It was almost like meeting with a different man, like it was
an affair or something. 

Just like as if it were an affair, I reached over and kissed him
deeply and thoroughly, even though a car was already behind us,
honking for the parking space. The kiss was good. More than good.
Exciting, went straight to my groin and took my breath away. I pushed
him away before I got too excited. 

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"We may as well walk from here. I don't think we'll get a closer
parking space," he said, turning off the car's engine and taking the
keys. The car behind us honked again in frustration then drove off. I
was curious as he grabbed a small gym bag from the back seat, but I
didn't say anything. He had something planned and nothing in the world
would drag it out of him before he was ready to give. If I knew Fox,
and I did, all would reveal itself shortly.

He led us to the front door of a well-known, landmark hotel. "You're 
taking me  to lunch at the Willard?" I asked, surprised. I shouldn't
have been. I remembered his tendency for the occasional, but always-
grand gesture. Like the  year he forgot my birthday completely, but a
month later, his new book came out  with this dedication printed right
in the front, "To John, always. Without you,  none of this would have
been possible, from the words on these pages to me continuing to
breathe." I only later found out how big a fight he'd gotten into 
with both his agent and publisher about that. Neither of them had
wanted him to  come out to the reading public, which was what that
dedication basically did. One year he got me another one of those darn
Apollo 11 keychains for Christmas.  Like he hadn't done that one
already. But then later, he  heard me complaining about how the
tree-hugging coworkers were complaining  about my big old gas
guzzling truck. A couple of days later, the new truck just appeared in
the driveway, no explanation. Like I said, grand, extravagant gestures
were his style.

"You'll see," he said, with a wry grin. Then he led me, not to the
dining room, but to the bank of elevators. "I'll feed you the best
that room service has to offer," he promised. "When I've had my wicked
way with you."

At last, one of the elevators opened and he pushed me into it. We were
alone in  the lush, mahogany and mirrored box. The doors slid closed
smoothly and he pushed me against the back wall of the elevator. He
kissed me, hands reaching under my jacket, breaking away occasionally
to smile at me. And I was falling in love with him all over again, I
swear it. All I could see for the moment was  how handsome, how
charming, how wonderful he was.

Laura was pissed at me that I came back from lunch late. Very late.
Oh, fucking, well.

Day 11

I was rummaging around the refrigerator, looking at a certain
pristine emptiness it had that I wasn't expecting it to have. "Didn't
we go shopping just on Tuesday?" I asked Fox. He was standing at the
counter, waiting for me to hand him vegetables to chop. Today was
Friday and the four guys of the Doggett/Fox, or rather these days, the
Doggett/Fox/Scully/Skinner household were all gathered. The plan was
to make a couple of pizzas and then spend the rest of the evening
watching the movies I'd rented. 

I think I must have forgotten how much faster we go through groceries
when the garbage disposal that calls itself Fox's son is living here.
This was pretty amazing though. He must be fueling up for a big
growth spurt soon.

"What do you need, John?" Walt asked. "I'll go to the store for you.
I feel bad about not paying my way around here."

Fox peered into the fridge over my shoulder, then gave a cursory
glance through one or two of the cabinets. "Off hand, I'd say just
about  everything," he concluded. "Why don't you take Charlie with
you? He'll know what we need replacing. Afterall, he's the one that
ate it. You don't have to get a lot. Just whatever you feel like
spending."

"Don't let him talk you into anything that's a color not found in 
nature," I added, digging out a green pepper that Charlie had ignored
from the  crisper. Seems like we had onions as well. Did I detect a
pattern here? Seemed like mostly what he had left was vegetables. 
"We'll need cheese for the pizza for sure."

(Continued in part 8)

 
Part 8
See part 0 for header information.


And so Walt was shuffled off to the store, somewhat warily, with the
boy, who was overly eager to the point where it was suspicious.
Charlie had Walt wrapped around his little finger and the both of them
knew it. No doubt they'd be coming home with the damn purple ketchup
and the green poptarts.

The door shut and eventually a car pulled out of the driveway. We
were alone, at least for a short, blessed while. I went back to work,
heading for cutting board with the pepper and onion. Fox followed me.
As I picked up the knife, he put his hand on top of mine and snuggled
up to my back. He ground his hips against my ass and gave me a little
wicked laugh. "They won't be back for at least an hour," he said, his
hands starting to rove. 

"You are insatiable," I told him.

"Look who's talking, Mister twenty-one day plan," he said, starting
to rub my shoulders at that specific spot I liked so well. I tried
to shrug him off.

"Fox, I want to get all this stuff done so that when they come 
back with the cheese, I can just throw this in the oven. At this rate
it'll be ten before we eat."

"You can spare a little time, I think," he said. His voice was husky,
definitely planned that way. To me, it was the sounds of seduction. 
Just like that damn cologne was the smell of it. He knew I loved it,
and if we weren't so rushed, I'd be sniffing him all over, just to
gather in as much as possible all the traces of it. It was hard to
say no to him, but I was always good at keeping on task.

"It always takes longer than you think to cook. Dinner will be late,"
I said.

"Dinner can wait," he told me. Funny how persuasive he could sound  at
times. Fox never really commanded. Sometimes he demanded, mostly he
just persuaded. You found yourself doing what he wanted and almost
believing it was your idea in the first place. Some of that cologne he
was wearing yesterday was lingering  on him, or he'd put more on
today. Between that and the feel of his lips on my neck and ears, I
dropped the knife and pepper. He ground his hips against me
again, so that I was made very aware of my hard on as it brushed
against the cabinets. He eased his hands around to the front of my
waist and quickly undid my belt and then the fly of my pants. He had
my pants and my shorts down around  my ankles before I could protest.
Not that it would have done me much good. He was taking no prisoners
here, already diving for that spot on my shoulder that drove me wild,
licking it and sucking it. I heard a rip like from a little
package and a moment later he tossed an empty single use size package
of lube on the counter. The bastard had planned this, I thought
absently. I was ambushed.

A moment later, his fingers were spreading my ass and I was backing
onto them, wanting more. And boy, did he give it to me. It was rough
and even though I'm more than used to being fucked, I was sure I'd
have a little trouble sitting down tonight. His fucking was demanding.
With every thrust he mashed me up against the counter. He was rock
hard, harder than usual, and his dick brushed against my prostate
again and again. It was all so good it almost hurt. He allowed me to
back off from the counter a little, then reached around and
grabbed my cock. He pumped me hard, demanding my orgasm right then and
there. I  gave it to  him, not caring that I was leaving strings of
milky come all over the  cabinets and even got some on the countertop.
He followed right behind me,  with my name on his lips, coming with a
hoarse shout of, "John!"

I leaned against the counter, letting it Fox lean against me,
supporting his weight. If there was anything better than his weight on
me, his head on my shoulders, both of us nice and glowing, I don't
want to know what it was. I chuckled and said, "I should know better
than to get in your way when you've already made up your mind."

I was sore but it was totally worth it to me. After a moment, he
stood up and we started pulling ourselves together. Cleaning up our
little messes. And Fox was right. We had plenty of time. By the time
Walt and Charlie were back bearing bag after bag of groceries, we were
dressed again, the cabinets wiped down, and the peppers and onions
sliced. They were cooked and on the pizza. Everything was ready to go.
We were just waiting for the cheese.

Walt sent Charlie out to the car for another load as we started
unpacking the first. I was right too. Purple ketchup. Green pop-tarts.
And blue soda. 

"The both of you look like cats that just ate canaries," he said as
the actual cats of the household hopped up on the counter to
investigate. Sophie started chewing on one of the plastic bags,
something she preferred over catnip or treats. I carefully swept her
off the counter and she stalked away with an injured dignity. Dale
crawled into one of the empty bags and curled up. I left
him for the moment.

Mulder grinned bigger in response, but I managed to keep a poker face,
"Never mind," Walt said. "I don't want to know, I think."

The phone rang. As I started to shred cheese, Fox answered it. "For
you, Walt,"  he called out. 

Walt took the phone from him. He listened for a minute then smiled
big. Look who was talking about canaries and cats. He took the phone
into the other room.

"Dana?" I asked Fox.

"No, Jilly," Fox said, looking confused. "I wonder if this has
anything to do with the fact that Jilly's bike is still in our front
hallway."

I wondered about that. I'd just assumed that she'd found someone to
give her a ride home and she'd be by for the bike eventually. Now, I
wondered. No, couldn't be. Charlie crept out to the living room, with
a bag of chips and some  blue soda. I think he was thinking that I
didn't see him, but I did. I was just  letting him get away with it
because it was Friday night. 

Eventually Walt came back into the room with the phone and a little
smile on his face. "Gentlemen, I hate to break our plans, but..."

"Walt, you and Dana..." Fox began, looking almost crestfallen. I guess
he'd always liked the fact that Scully had Walt, if she couldn't have
him. Personally I think it would suck to be the consolation prize, but
Walt never had seemed to mind before.

"She's recently made it quite clear that I'm a free agent," he said.
"No obligation on either side."

"Not Jilly," I said. I had this problem. I always found myself getting
very protective of the females I worked with. The pattern had been
going on for years. Scully. Monica, others up to the present day and
Jilly especially. "She will not be some rebound relationship that
you'll dump as soon as Queen Scully makes up her mind to let you in
again."

"I have nothing of the kind planned, John," he said defensively. 

"If you hurt her, I swear I will personally beat the crap outta you.
Got that? Touch one hair on her head," I threatened. Not that I
thought I could do it. Walt was still in fantastic shape and he'd
always been bigger than me and a better fighter. He still boxed these
days sometimes.

"Walt, Jilly's great, but you might not know what you're getting in
for here," Fox cautioned. "She may seem kind of weird on the surface
and you might think you can deal with that. But trust me, under that
surface she's all kinds of weird. And I should know."

Of course. This was my own little monster boy talking. He should
know.

"I'll trust you on that one. But I'm not proposing marriage to the
girl. She just asked if I would bring her bike over to her."

Sure. I've heard that line before. I decided to trust him anyway.
"Okay," I reached into my pocket and tossed him the truck keys. "Take
the truck. Don't be  out too late."

"Gee, thanks, Dad," he smirked. 

I snorted and got back to making pizza.

Day 12

Fortified by coffee and strong with purpose, I set out to beard the
dragon in its lair, so to speak. I turned the door knob to the boy's
room and prepared myself. I stiffened my resolve and told myself that
nothing I saw in the room mattered, that it was worth the compromise
for the rest of the house being kept  clean. The room was a disaster
area. Just last Saturday, this room had been more or less pristinely
clean. Now, seven mere days later, you couldn't see the 
floor. You know, I would have sworn that the boy didn't own that much
clothing,  much less have been able to wear it in the short period
he'd been living here. Stepping in the low places between the piles I
crossed over to the windows. I opened the shutters, letting the light
of another gorgeous Virginia morning into the room. The little monster
huddled in the bed curled up tighter and pulled a pillow over his
face.

"Time to get up," I told him. Charlie just rolled over again and
burrowed deeper in the blankets. As I dragged the blankets out of his
clutches I said, "I mean it. Your mother is going to be here to pick
you up at eleven and there's a bunch of stuff to get done before
then."

He threw a pillow at me. I caught it and dumped it on the floor out of
his reach. He threw another at me, then finally caught on to the fact
that his bed was denuded of ammunition and that he was awake anyway.
"What kind of stuff?"

We'd been pretty soft on him so far. Other than the dishes and his
homework, we  hadn't demanded anything out of him. "First of all, I
want your dirty clothes in the laundry room before you go. Otherwise,
I'm not doing them. Then you need  to mow the lawn."

Then I left him to get dressed. As I started on the laundry, I didn't
notice Charlie bringing any piles down to me, but eventually I heard
the whirr of the lawn mower. I relaxed and settled down to the
important business of sorting colors from the whites. A separate load
for my shirts, of course. I started a load of towels, something that
we suddenly appeared to be going through at a rate that couldn't
logically be explained by four people living together. Four
people times one per day couldn't make three big loads of them, could
it? Must be the boy's fault. 

I didn't notice the lawnmower stopping, but when I went back upstairs
from the basement, Charlie was slouched bonelessly in front of the
television, watching cartoons, with his feet propped up on the coffee
table, bowl of brightly colored cereal resting on his stomach. "You
aren't done already, are you?"

"Can't do any more. Broken," he explained between big gulps of cereal.

Needless to say, I was furious. At the very least he should have come
told me before setting his ass down in front of the television.
"What?!"

"Did I stutter?" he snapped at me. I wanted to slap him. Only my love
for his father stopped me. "The lawnmower's broken." 

In silent anger, I turned on my heel and went outside to investigate.
The lawnmower itself appeared to be fine. Except that it sat immobile,
rock like and would until I had a chance to rewire it. You see,
Charlie had somehow managed to run the electric mower over its own
cord, severing it neatly. Charlie had unplugged what was left of the
cord from its outlet and coiled it precisely on top of the mower. For
crying out loud in a bucket!

I headed back inside carrying the cord with me. I'm not half sure that
my intention wasn't to strangle the child with it. He laid in blissful
ignorance of the fury that was approaching him, cereal bowl set aside
on the floor now and stretched out full length on the sofa, including
grubby sneakers on the throw cushions. Not that I normally give a damn
about throw cushions, but it was all just too much. 

I stood in front of him, blocking his view of the screen and I slammed
the cord  onto the coffee table. "You idiot!" I yelled. Like I said
before, I yell because I care. And in this case, it wasn't just caring
about the lawn. "You could have killed yourself! Does the word
electrocution mean anything to you?"

No, of course it didn't. He continued to stare at me blankly, as if
in bewilderment. Like I was some kind of alien freak or something. I
took a deep breath. Counted backwards from ten. Counted backwards from
twenty. Got a hold of myself mostly and started again.

"Look, I'm going to assume you ran the cord over accidentally and not
on purpose," I said. Why did this have to be so difficult? It's not a
particularly  large lawn. I was mowing one far, far bigger than it
every week when I was eleven. With one of those old reel push mowers.
He should be able to manage it easily without screwing up. So why was
I starting to feel like it would have been far easier to just do it
myself? "I'm not mad at you about that. But first  of all, unplugging
the cord like that was stupid. That's live current going
through that cord. Something like that happens again, you come tell
me. We turn  off the circuit breaker it's on, then you unplug it. Got
it?"

He didn't have time to answer. The doorbell rang. I checked my watch.
A little early, but it was Scully probably. "This is not over!" I told
him. He was still  staring at me like I was an alien. I went to answer
the door. I checked the peephole. In the distorted picture, I could
sort of make out red hair. I opened  the door. 

Dana seemed surprised to see me. "Your truck is gone. I thought you'd
be gone,"  she said. I let her into the house and closed the door
behind her. We both stared at each other in the hallway.

"Walt borrowed it for an errand," I said. I was a little worried about
that actually. Knowing Jilly and Walt, they didn't spend the night
playing pinochle.  I shouldn't be worried. They're both grownups. But
Walt could have checked in, letting me know when he was going to get
my truck back to me. 

"Do you know if he'll be back soon?" she asked. 

"I don't know. He didn't say," I said. 

"I was thinking maybe he might want to come over today. Spend the day
with us."

"I'll have him call you when he gets in," I told her. I wasn't about
to be either side's messenger boy or get caught up in the middle. She
was trying to play him again, like a fish. Reeling him in, letting him
go seemingly. I started to wonder if maybe he'd slipped off the hook
for good and she didn't realize it yet. I called into the living room,
"Charlie? You packed yet?"

"No!"

"Go do it. Your mom's here."

I expected to hear another protest, but instead heard the clumping of
teenaged feet getting up from the sofa and going upstairs.

"How has he been?" she asked.

"Well, at least he hasn't broken into any federal buildings lately," I
said darkly. I was still holding the coiled orange cord from the
mower. I held it up. "He broke the lawnmower this morning."

She moved her lips, like she was going to say something, but then she
stopped herself. I could guess. We'd had this argument before and
compromised. In her household, he was far too young for hard,
dangerous work like mowing lawns, but  in my household, he was more
than old enough to buckle down and do a few chores. 

At last, Charlie came down and joined us in the hall. He had his
backpack stuffed to the brim. He must have just shoved some clothes on
top of his books.  "Did you say goodbye to your Dad?" I asked him.

"He's in his office. He's writing," he said. He shrugged. "Tie on the
door. I knocked anyway. No answer."

"What, no kiss for your dear old mom?" Scully asked. "I guess you
didn't miss me that much."

He sighed but presented himself to her for a hug. He definitely was
taller than  her, full inch and a half, maybe two. She hugged him
tightly. Whatever her faults that I nitpicked sometimes, you couldn't
doubt that Scully loved her boys fiercely. It definitely brought out
thoughts of mama bears and cubs. 

With Scully and the boy off, I picked up doing Saturday chores again.
I changed  loads of laundry. Then I headed to the yard. I sighed as I
looked at the mower,  then I had what I thought was a brilliant idea.
I put the cord back on the mower and pushed the whole lot to the
garage. I left it back in its corner and got into the Honda. I knew
that they still made those old style reel mowers. Nothing on one of
those that he'd be able to break. Maybe he might be able to
cut his toes off still, but even that was less likely than with the
electric one. I drove off to the home center. 

I was testing out the newly acquired reel mower in the increasingly
white hot June afternoon when Fox poked his head out the back sliding
door. "You're missing the race," he said. He pointed at the mower.
"What is that?"

"Long story," I said. I pushed the mower, which wasn't nearly half as
hard to push as the heavy ass one of my youth had been, over to the
against the garage to wait until I was done with the race. It made a
satisfying snicker snick sound as it clipped the grass.

"Someone named Jim Simpson called while you were out. Said he was
sorry to have  missed you on Friday, but he hopes he can see you on
Monday," Fox said. I groaned. 

I'd gone out jogging for Friday lunch and at the Castle, a woman I'd
never seen  before had matched my pace for a while and said to me,
"Jim's sorry he can't be  here. He says he might be on to something
and needs some more time to check it out. Something to do with
something called the Peshtigo Project."  Then she'd broken away and
gone down another block. What was it with my contacts anyway?
"Jim Simpson" is good, and I know he's a runner, but can't we play
cloak and dagger some other way and let me work out in a nice
air-conditioned gym? It was  almost enough to make one nostalgic for
the halls of the Hoover and all the clandestine stuff that went down
there. Meanwhile I was no more assured than if  I'd never started
poking into this in the first place.

Fox seemed to be waiting for an explanation of who Jim Simpson was, so
I said, "Contact of mine. I have him looking into the boy's little
adventure."

"Are you sure it's wise for you to go digging like this?" Fox asked
and I walked up to the deck. I shook my head. No, I was pretty sure it
wasn't, but what did he expect me to do? Dollars to doughnuts, Fox had
already called on his own string of contacts. 

"I made some lunch," he said. "I assume you saw Charlie safely into
Scully's hands? And any sign of Walt yet?"

"Good, yes, and no."

Fox let me into the kitchen and kissed me just because. Then coped a
feel of my  ass as I walked over to the sink to wash my hands. Somehow
I doubted there would be much actual watching of the race this week.
I've said before that Fox is an indifferent cook and is happy just to
open up a can of soup and call it a  meal. That's basically what he
did. Leftover pizza from last night and warmed-up vegetable soup.
"Hey, how did the pizza manage to escape our own personal plague of
locusts?" I asked. "Did you hide it or something?"

"Nah. If you'll notice, it's the one with vegetables on it," Fox
explained. Of course. The only thing green that willingly went past
the boy's lips was made that way by food color. We ate quickly,
without much talking, then turned on the small TV on the counter.
While Fox cleared the plates, I went to the gun safe. 

It's a little ritual we have, a continuation of one I used to do even
before I met Fox. Watching the race and cleaning my gun seems to go
together like chocolate and peanut butter. Something useful to do
while amusing myself. I grabbed my smith and wesson as well as Fox's
SIG. Walt must have taken his with  him, because it wasn't in the
safe. Then, because I was pretty sure it hadn't been done for a while,
as I stopped in the kitchen, I asked, "You want me to grab your
Walther while we're at it?"

"Sure," he said. I went to go grab most of the rest of our mini
arsenal. Besides the Walther PPK which Fox kept up in his office, in a
locked desk drawer, I found the switchblade icepicks of death. Not
that we've seen any alien bounty hunters for years, sent 'em packing,
but you never know. Best to make sure the action was still good. I
figured I could skip the hunting rifles this time, same for the little
Beretta I sometimes wore in an ankle holster.

Fox had already stripped down the SIG and was at work cleaning, not
actually watching the race. He did all of this just to humor me
honestly. I set the rest  of the arsenal on the table. "We should get
down to the range sometime soon, for target practice," I said. "It's
been a while. We could bring Charlie. It's more than time to get him
started."

"Don't you think he's kind of young?" Fox asked. I'd have guessed that
was his answer. Despite everything, how well we meshed mostly, we did
have some pretty significant differences. The biggest one I think is
that at heart, deep down, I'm a lawman, always have been, always will
be. It had been a big blow to my ego to leave the FBI the way I did
and no coincidence that I took up law again,  just from a different
side, when the struggle was over. For Fox, the FBI and his career in
law enforcement had just been another means to his end of finding 
the truth. He still carried a weapon and kept one in his desk drawer
because he  thought there was a chance of danger still to himself and
his family. But I didn't fool myself that the instant he ever thought
he was completely safe, he'd never touch a gun again. As for me, I
thought a person was a fool not to know how to shoot and that
conspiracies and aliens aside, there was still plenty enough evil in
the world to watch out for.

"If we lived out in the country, I'd have been having him plink tin
cans off the fence with a twenty-two starting years ago," I said.
That's how I started. It's kind of traditional. My father taught me.
His father taught him, and so forth.

"I still don't know," Fox said. As we worked and half watched the
race, we batted the issue back and forth a little, nothing approaching
a real argument, just two old dogs worrying at the same bone. Then
eventually, what Fox said was, "Do you know what the boy needs? A
dog."

(Continued in part 9)

Part 9
See part 0 for header information.


Oh, no. No siree! I've heard that one before. You couldn't trust the
boy to mow  the lawn without nearly killing himself. Who did Fox think
was going to take care of the damn dog?  "No. He's never expressed the
slightest bit of interest," I said. "Now, you tell me that you want a
dog and we'll start negotiations."

"I don't see what you have against dogs," Fox said. 

I didn't have anything against them, really, but didn't see much of a
point to them either. Cats, now cats were fine. Sophie had jumped up
on my lap and settled herself nicely, a warm, comfortable weight.
She'd stay there for as long as I didn't try to pet her. They didn't
expect too much from you, but they  knew what they wanted and they
always managed to find a way to get it. A man had to admire that in a
creature. "And I don't see why everyone thinks I should 
be a dog person, just because of the name."

And so we went round and round for a while. This particular argument
was old, worn and comfortable, like the pair of gym shoes that you use
to mow the lawn. Finally though, the weapons were cleaned and back in
their places. We moved out  to the couch to watch the finish of the
race. The race was on the new track they'd built last year not too far
outside of Indianapolis, just for NASCAR races. Things were getting
down to the wire. My favorite, an upcoming rookie, Jody Dale
Earnhardt, cousin or nephew or cousin of a nephew or something to the
famous Dale, pulled into the pit. I groaned. "Dumbass move there," I
said as I watched the pit crew swoop down on the car and swarm over it
like monkeys, replacing just two tires, not the full four, but he
still couldn't stand to lose the time. With this new track, there'd be
no way he could regain his standing because passing was so difficult.

I never did get a chance to see how he did. Fox, of course, had a plan
to distract me. Right after I'd made my comment, Fox stoppered any
further ones by  covering my lips with his. I let him kiss me for a
while, then pushed him away,  saying, "Hey, buddyboy, some of us are
trying to watch a race here."

My protest was, of course, pro forma and of course Fox didn't buy it
for a minute. 

This was another tradition, one we'd kept for years and years. Necking
on the couch during the race. For all the NASCAR I watch, you think
I'd actually see a  race finish now and then, but no. Almost never. I
didn't mind. Though it'd been  a while since I'd watched a race.
Recently, something always came up to get in the way. It'd been, what,
since last summer I think that I'd had a real chance to do this. I
missed it.

He pushed me back and laid on top of me. His weight was deliciously
crushing, comforting almost. Definitely belonged here on top of me. I
wrapped my arms around him, holding him close as we kissed. Pretty
soon, his hands were wandering here and there, rubbing my nipples
through my t-shirt. His tongue was  demanding entrance to my mouth one
minute, then the next his mouth was roving across my face, down my
jaw. 

Even as I was getting more and more turned on, I also felt a different
kind of closeness, a kind of happiness welling up from deep inside. It
made me squeeze Fox tightly, never wanting to let him go. It was a
confirmation yet again, like  I hadn't felt often enough, that this
was the one. My only one. My Fox. 

I let him go and started tugging his shirt up, suddenly impatient. He
slid down  my body, helping me get his shirt off, then he started
mouthing my hardening cock right through my shorts. It was torturous
and wonderful and teasing and I wished that I could just wish my
shorts away. Not long thereafter, Fox was pulling them down, freeing
me and swallowing me in one quick motion. 

Yes, oh, yes. It was so good. I could forget sometimes just how
talented Fox was, orally speaking. But something was missing. "Hey," I
said, my voice rough with desire. "Get up here."

A little awkwardly, because we were two tall men on a narrow sofa,
Fox positioned himself on top of me, so that I had equal access to his
cock. I teased it, licking the head clean of precum, then let the head
enter my mouth. He gasped some and I could see he was fighting the
urge to thrust deep into my mouth. He let me take it at my own pace
though, thankfully. His weight was all more or less draped over my
body but it was a good kind of crushing. I liked his hardness and
weight on me. I liked being pinned down by him, not being able 
to move. 

Sometimes I still wondered how good I actually was at this, compared
to the other people over the years who Fox has had. This was the only
cock I've ever sucked, the only I ever would. I've gotten better at it
with practice and Fox has never complained, but I'm also sure he has
had better. I've never completely repressed my gag reflex, though
these days I can take him in most of  the way. Never all the way. 

I teased his cock some more, nibbling on ridge, flicking my tongue
against the sensitive underside. He lifted his mouth from my cock to
say, "The penis is not  a toy."

"Oh, yes, it is. The best kind of toy," I said, though when I put my
mouth back  to him, it was in more seriousness, taking him in deeper,
sucking harder. He got to back to work too. With only the task at hand
to distract me, I soon had only his mouth on my mind, trying to get
more of it, to go deeper into its warmth and wetness. 

I probed between his ass cheeks, teasing, exploring with my fingers
what I really couldn't see. I must have hit something exactly right,
because Fox moaned, then tensed, and suddenly he couldn't stop himself
from thrusting, because he was coming and my mouth was flooded with
warm, salty fluid. It'd taken me a while to get used to both the taste
and the sensation of this, but I  liked it now, if only because of the
good memories of it. He slumped for a minute and I wanted to protest,
because I was still ready for more, needed more. And pinned like I
was, I couldn't effectively thrust upwards. I was dependant on him to
pleasure me. 

And he did. A moment later, he started bobbing his head up and down,
taking me in all the way. I could almost feel him smiling around me.
Then I was coming with a loud moan. I collapsed bonelessly against the
couch, unable to move. When Fox rolled off of me, I half wanted to
protest, but the rest of me was glad to be able to breath deeply
again. He wedged himself back onto the couch, right side up.

"Hold on," he said, reaching for a tissue, "You missed a bit."

He wiped my chin clean of a stray bit of come, then kissed me deeply.
I felt the same wellings of feeling as I had earlier and he must have
as well, because  we just hugged each other tightly, trying to occupy
the same place in space and  time, like we were trying to meld our
bodies into one. I felt light, giddy even  and stupidly happy. 

"You know, as hot as it was when we started, sex with you has just
gotten better and better," Fox was saying. "You were such a confused
straight boy at first. It was kind of cute, but I like it better these
days."

I'd once asked Fox why he'd taken the chance with me. Afterall, the
first time he'd tried to touch me, I'd pushed him away. To this day, I
don't know why I let him blow me, rather than punching him, which
would have been a more natural  response for me. And he'd said, "How
did I know? How do I know anything? I just  do, most of the time. I
guess there were such sparks between us from the minute 
we met that I figured there had to be something there. So I took a
chance."

I'm glad beyond words he took that risk. But then Fox had always been
a big risk taker. I felt myself drifting off to sleep. My eyes shut. I
could feel Fox  get off the couch. He tugged my clothing more or less
into place. I sort of helped him, lifting my ass at the appropriate
time, but I couldn't do much more. I felt two kisses, one to my
forehead, one to my chin, then I was alone. I napped, as satisfied as
a cat.

Later, I was sitting on the sofa, watching the news, Fox gone upstairs
to check  his email. No word yet from Walt about my truck, even though
I'd called his cell and left a message. I was starting to get worried,
really worried. Jilly, you could almost count on something like this
from her. It wasn't like Walt to do something like this. He was
reliable. 

Then the newscaster was talking about a refinery fire. In Delaware.
Raging out of control. Yes, the exact same one that Jilly had been
talking about earlier. No word yet on causes. At least it didn't sound
like they had any suspects in custody, so hopefully Jilly and crew had
gotten away with this. If they didn't,  I wouldn't be hearing from
them directly. This was not, by any stretch, an action that had been
sanctioned by the organization we both work for. 

Now, I don't want you to think that this was the kind of action that
our organization plans or approves of. Any damages we cause during one
of our civil  disobedience actions, at least damage to property, is
minor and usually temporary, more or less easily removed. The point is
to focus uncomfortable media attention on the perps, which can be
enough to make them change, or sometimes even force them out of
business. On a personal level, I had my own mixed feelings about this.
This level of destruction was not something I could accept normally.
And I had the feeling that this was actually an action gone
very wrong, that the whole point of the action had been to force the
company to  catch the fire before it reached the main body of the
refinery. You see, if nothing else, wholesale destruction of pollution
sources like this is nearly as  bad for the environment as leaving
them there. 

As for this particular refinery, I don't think any of my
organization's usual antics would have made a damn bit of difference
to them. The petroleum industry  pretty much has the industrialized
world by the balls still, and in particular,  this company was
connected to an old oil family that was also a continuing
political dynasty with way too much power. Our normal actions, they
would have brushed off like flies, with a swipe of their tail. 

So I fretted. I worried. I called Walt's phone again, asking him to
please call  me. I called Jilly's phone, asking her to call. When the
news was over, I switched between the twenty-four news channels until
I found one of the that was reporting on the refinery fire. I watched
it burn again and again, looking for any clues as to Jilly's safety.
The phone rang. I answered before it even finished the first ring. It
wasn't Walt, or Jilly. 

It was my executive director. "John, turn on the news," she said,
after greeting me.

"The refinery fire?"

"Yes, do you know, did Jilly have anything to do with that?"

"I don't know for sure. She was showing me some reports about
chemicals she was  finding in the wetlands nearby there. Have they
come asking questions? Have you  heard anything from Jilly?"

"No and no. But I just want to have my ducks in a row if someone does
ask," she  said.

Jilly knew, it was just understood, that if she got caught out on any
of these extracurricular activities of hers, that we'd have to leave
her hanging in the breeze, that we'd have to cut her loose. She
understood. Unfortunately, that's the way of the world. We're an
organization that depends on people giving us money to do what they
define as good works. 

When the current executive director found out what Jilly did as a
hobby, she demanded that Jilly leave on file an undated but signed
resignation letter. If Jilly got caught, it'd be my duty to haul it
out and date it appropriately, so that she'd no longer be working for
us at the time of the incident. I thought it was kind of a dirty trick
and was just glad that Evie, our exe, didn't know that I sometimes
shared Jilly's little hobby.

"Far as I know, you have no cause to worry. You know she's good at
what she does."

I was off the phone with her a short while later. Then Fox came down.
I explained the situation to him. Then we both worried together.
Eventually, he went out to the driveway, stopping to grab the
basketball. He often worked out worry on the blacktop that way. We had
a basket set up on the garage. I grabbed  the phone and went out to
watch him shoot again and again. It must have been two hours later,
nearly one in the morning, that the phone finally rang. 

It was Walt. "What happened? Where are you? Where's Jilly?" I demanded
before he could get more than a word in edgewise. Fox stopped his ball
playing and listened. You could just about see his own questions
fighting to get out. "Where's my truck?"

"We're on our way back to your house, in your truck. Jilly is right
here beside  me, though she's a little doped up at the moment. We've
just come from the emergency room. I'm sorry, I was so caught up that
I didn't think to check messages."

Emergency room? Jilly was hurt? "What happened to Jilly? Is she
okay?"

"A few nasty grazes, and she broke her wrist in a fall, but nothing
serious," Walt said. "I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I brought her
over there. It's closer than her house. And I think it would be
quieter there for her."

Walt didn't have to say it, but he was thinking of her housemates.
Jilly kept quite the motley crew around to help her pay the mortgage,
and while it was colorful and cheerful there, it was never quiet.
Jilly lived with people who made her look normal. Once Jilly had
gotten really sick with strep and the roommate who was supposed to be
looking out for her threw out the antibiotics and was feeding her
garlic and other herbs instead. Not the place I thought
Jilly should recover.  "You don't have to ask, Walt," I told him.
"Hurry home."

I hung up and turned to Fox. He was holding the ball, standing
directly under the flood light we had focused on the basket, a
gorgeous man if I ever saw one.  The light blessed him with golden
softness, highlighted his hair. "Well?" he asked me.

"Jilly broke her wrist. Walt's bringing her here."

Walt didn't take too much longer to get there. He shepherded a sleepy
Jilly through the living room. She had a bandaged cheek, a cast on her
right hand and  a generally battered look to her. She was also drugged
to the gills and didn't recognize me besides a bleary wave. "We can
make up the couch," I suggested. "Or if you want her upstairs with
you, that's all right I suppose."

I wasn't too surprised to find that Walt wanted her in his bed. Only
after she was tucked away safely did I confront him. 

You see, he was wearing an obviously borrowed, long sleeved black
t-shirt and black pants. They were both tight on him and a little too
short. Under the grimness that an emergency room visit produces, I
could also see a certain glee. He'd gone on the same "hunting trip"
that I'd turned down earlier in the week.

"I didn't think ecoterrorism was your style, Walt," I said. "How did
Jilly talk  you into it? No, never mind. I know Jilly."

"I thought she might need me along, to watch out for her," Walt
explained. We can't help it. Walt, especially, but me as well, still
have a problem being overly protective of the women in our lives, of
thinking of them as ladies, not  as, in Jilly's case, thirty-something
ex-Marines with obvious commando training. I know in his Bureau days,
it had taken all Walt's professionalism to  send women out into the
field, just as if they were men. I think it's a common attitude among
us men of a certain age. But Jilly was no lady and she didn't
need to be looked after. 

"She certainly didn't need me for that," Walt concluded. "She got hurt
rescuing  another one of our party. But I'd say it's fair to conclude
that Jilly can look  out for herself."

"You can tell me all about it in the morning," I said. I was getting
too old for this up all night thing. I left him to take care of Jilly.
I collected Fox and dragged him to bed with me.

Day 13

It was Fox that woke me this time. He opened the shutters, allowing
day light to come streaming into the room, then, as I was sitting up
in the bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, he tossed a bag onto the
bed. "Rise and shine, sweet cheeks," he said. He was gawdawful
cheerful for it being this earlier, but then  he was always a much
better morning person than me. And he was delightfully sweaty, in his
running clothes still, dark patches discoloring the heather gray 
t-shirt. 

I opened the bag, though I could tell from the logo on it what was
inside already. Yeah, Fox was good with the grand gestures, but he
also had a touch for the small ones sometimes too. Krispy Kremes on a
Sunday morning. What could  be better? Attracted by the rustle of the
waxed paper, Dale jumped up on the bed to see if he could get any of
the action. The black and white cat was a real butterball and a
regular crumb hunter. Only cat I've ever known who liked
doughnuts.  Sophie turned her nose up at them and kept her sleek,
girlish, calico fur covered figure. I pushed him off the bed gently,
"Uh-uh," I told him. "Too much more sweets and you won't fit that
handsome tuxedo of yours any more." He jumped up again, undeterred. 

I did my best to ignore the cat and focus on the important matter at
hand. You see, Fox getting doughnuts wasn't entirely altruistic, even
if he wasn't going to eat any himself. There was thing that just drove
him crazy. I discovered it by accident one fine weekend day several
years back. It still drove Fox crazy. In a good way. Remember what I
said about Fox knowing which of my buttons to press. Well, that works
the other way too.  

In the bag were a couple of those chocolate frosted, cream filled
doughnuts that I liked so well. I had a little routine for eating them
these days, which I did today. First, I licked the chocolate icing
off, slowly. It kind of got in  the way of the main event, and I think
Fox also kind of liked to see my tongue in action. I grinned a little
at him as I licked. He stared at me. Then, one careful bite off the
end of the fried dough circle, just at the right spot. I
chewed slowly and carefully, savoring the rich sweetness fully.
"Thanks, lover," I said after I swallowed.

Then I poked my tongue delicately at first, into the cream filling
that was just about dripping out of the doughnut by now, forced out a
little with some pressure from my fingers. I licked a little of it out
of the cavity, purposefully getting some smeared on my lips, so as to
have an excuse for lick them clean with my tongue.

Who knew why this turned Fox on so much? Who could really explain the
origins of any turn on? Like I said, I discovered this all by accident
one day. I think  maybe it had something to do with watching me, a man
not normally known for passionate behavior, abandon myself with such
relish to this sensual pleasure, the contrast of it. But then again,
maybe he just liked the look of it and the obvious, somewhat juvenile
connotations of something being cream filled and me sucking that
filling right out. 

He was watching me dumbly and settled himself at the foot of the bed,
chin propped on his elbow, elbow propped on his knee. As I licked my
lips clean, he worried his running shoes off his feet without once
taking his eyes off of me. The turn on for me wasn't so much the food
itself, but the power of it, knowing  that for a little while at
least, I had his utmost attention, a power trip on my part I suppose,
though a harmless one. It'd been a while since he'd taken
the time to buy me Krispy Kremes on a Sunday morning and I admit I had
been wondering if the display had lost its appeal to him. 

I stuck my tongue deeper into the cavity and made a little moan of
pleasure at the taste of the vanilla cream and the smoothness of it in
my mouth. If he played true to form, I wouldn't have to wait long, and
he did. A moment later, he'd sprawled across the bed and put his hand
on my that was holding the pastry. "Enjoying yourself, are you?" he
asked. He relieved me of the doughnut,  setting it on the nightstand.

"I was," I said, trying to sound petulant. It wasn't long before he'd
tackled me, cleaning off my lips himself. Doughnut forgotten, I let
myself be kissed thoroughly and well. I sort of vaguely noticed Dale
jumping up onto the bed to bat the discarded doughnut onto the floor
but Fox was keeping me too busy to grab it away from the cat. What the
heck. The cat would find some way of getting what he wanted anyway.

Meanwhile, our kissing was getting more intense and Fox was rock hard,
so was I. He'd laid himself on top of me full length and was grinding
his erection into mine, harder and harder. I was still naked from the
night before, he was dressed in his skimpy running shorts. They were
silky. His sweaty smell was something that never failed to turn me on
and I was sniffing at every bit of skin he let me get at, hungry for
more of his scent, more of him. He opened his  legs just slightly and
trapped my cock between his thighs, and then rolled us over so that I
was on top. His erection was trapped between our bellies. "Go
on. Do it fast," he whispered at me roughly, so I started thrusting
hard between his thighs like he wanted. I didn't last long, but
neither did he. We came quickly, like a couple of kids, and I felt as
lighthearted as a kid, laughing a little out of sheer happiness as we
pulled slightly apart from each other. Then laughing some more when I
caught sight of a black and white paw poking out from under the bed,
trying to snag a partially eaten doughnut and drag it into hiding. I
grabbed the doughnut. It was kind of bedraggled, with a
few bites that obviously were from feline jaws. I put it up out of the
cat's way again, then turned back to snuggling.

"Walt or Jilly up yet?" I asked after a brief, but intense cuddle.

"Not that I noticed," Fox said. "So, should we get our big date out of
the way,  or do you want to wait until this evening?"

"Out of the way for sure," I said, thinking of the piles of bills to
pay. We'd skipped last weekend because of Charlie, meaning more work
this weekend and some of them would have to go out by Monday or just
after to get there in time.  Better to get it done while the household
was still quiet. Funny how just a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking
about how big the house was and that maybe Fox and I should consider
moving someplace smaller. Now we had two adult houseguests and Charlie
coming home tonight. The place was beginning to feel like a zoo.

"I don't suppose you made coffee?" I asked. There were still two
doughnuts in the bag, though I intended to eat them considerably more
tamely. Coffee would be necessary though.

"Yeah, coffee's ready," Fox said. 

A short while later, we were set up at the dining room table, bills
spread out before us, coffee at my elbow. I had my check book, Fox had
his. Ours was a complex system, figured out with much fighting and
head butting years ago, battered into a shape that more or less worked
for us. Both of us were too stubborn, and in some ways, too
independent to fully combine finances. I'm not going to go into all
the boring details of who paid what bills and why and how
we balanced the radically disparate levels of income so that
everything was more or less fair. But the system we had preserved
household harmony mostly, though there was a little bickering as each
of wrote the checks for the bills we were responsible for.

(Continued in part 10)

Part 10
See part 0 for header information.


"Damn water and sewer bill has gone up again," I grumbled after I
licked and sealed that particular envelope. Stamps had gone up again
too. Nearly a dollar each these days. We could have had almost every
bill paid by electronic transfer I suppose, but I just didn't trust it
for some reason, and besides, that would have meant some changes to a
system that worked.

"You want me to float you some to cover it?" Fox asked. "Or take it
over?"

"No," I snapped. I'd been paying that bill for longer than I'd known
Fox. I could cover it. Couldn't a man gripe? And so it went. 

As we were nearly finished up, Jilly came down. She was dressed and
trying to sneak past us. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" I
asked. In the morning light, she looked even worse than she had the
night before. Her coffee and cream skin was more like gray and I could
see that in addition to the bandage on her cheek, she had one on her
forehead and another on her non-casted  arm. She had an ace bandage
around her left ankle, even so it looked kind of swollen. Her black
clothes were ripped and had a good bit of dried mud on them.

"I thought I'd call a cab and go home," she said weakly. She had her
cell phone  out as if she was going to call out, but she looked like
if she didn't sit down  soon, she'd fall down. 

"Maybe when you don't look so much like something my cat puked up," I
said. "Siddown."

She did, amazingly. Fox had stood up and pulled out one of the dining
room chairs for her. She plopped her butt right down onto without a
protest. She must have felt worse than she looked. "I just want to go
home and disappear for  a while, John," she said. "You don't want me
here. I screwed up bigtime. Should  have gone down perfect. Not like
that. Never meant to set fire to the whole place."

"We'll talk about that when you aren't messed up on pain pills," I
said.

She shook her head and I took in her general state of being again.
"We'll talk about it when you aren't messed up on not being messed up
on pain pills. Damn, Jilly, you may as well take them. You look like
hell."

She didn't protest too much after that. Between Walt, Fox and myself,
we got her settled on the couch, though Fox and I smiled at each other
once, as if in thought of what had happened on that couch yesterday.
Walt patiently fed her the pills that the emergency room doctor had
prescribed and some of the soup Fox had heated up. When she was
sleeping again, Walt took the easy chair next to the couch, pulled it
closer yet and held her uninjured hand lightly.

"You think the cops traced you at all?" Fox asked Walt. 

"I don't think so. No one saw us. She broke her wrist when she fell
down a ravine in the dark," Walt answered. He stroked her hand a
little with his thumb. It was kind of sweet to see. He obviously liked
her and now was tending solicitously to her. Watching them, I'd say it
was safe to say that Walt had found his way off the Scully hook pretty
much. He wasn't yet caught up into Jilly's snares though. So it
seemed. 

Hours passed. I did more laundry. Fox helped by folding, which perhaps
is the kind of help I could have done without. I could look forward to
wrinkled t-shirts this week, I could tell. It took real reverse talent
to mangle clothes  the way Fox could when his mind wasn't on task,
which it wasn't. I did all the clothes waiting in the laundry room,
noticing that mostly I hadn't done a stitch of Charlie's clothes. I'd
asked him to bring it down. He didn't. Let him  suffer the
consequences of having to learn to do his laundry by himself. Jilly
drifted in and out of wakefulness, sometimes able to focus on the
nature documentary that the television had ended up on somehow, the
compromise show. I  suppose a show that nobody wanted to watch is the
compromise show, right? Jilly  got up to go to the bathroom at one
point and Sophie took off after her. When Jilly came back, she asked,
"Is there any reason your cat is sitting on the edge of the sink,
crying like someone's trying to kill her?"

"Oh, she just wants you to turn the faucet on for her so she can get a
cold drink," I explained, before I got up to go turn on the faucet to
a medium drop for the cat. The things I do for these ungrateful
animals.

Eventually, the door rang. I checked my watch. It was about time. When
I double  checked the door, I was right. It was Scully, bringing
Charlie back. This time she had Billy with her as well. I welcomed
them into the house. "Hey, otherdad," Billy said. He was a soft-spoken
kid and tried most of the time to act normal, as if nothing was weird
or strange about him, his talents or his origins. He was growing up,
his voice had dropped a couple of octaves overnight, so it seemed and
the Mulder nose didn't seem quite so oversized on a  face that mostly
had the fineness of Scully's features. Not quite seventeen,
but he going to college in the fall. I was pleased, honored and
surprised to know that despite several good offers, including from
both his parent's alma maters, he was starting at my alma mater in the
fall. No, not the Marines. Syracuse University. Away from home, but
not all that far. I thought he'd do well there.

"Mom said you wouldn't mind if I hung around for a while," Billy said.
"A couple of weeks. I kind of miss Charlie. He's a twerp, but you
know."

Meanwhile, Fox had gotten his checkbook and was talking to Scully,
"Okay, Scully, name your amount."

"What?" She had hardly gotten into the house and she was obviously
confused.

"I've seen how much this boy eats," he explained. "I obviously haven't
been paying you anywhere near enough child support over the years."

Scully laughed wryly. "You finally figured that out. It's okay, Fox.
It really is."

We drifted as a group into the living room. Uh-oh, I thought, when I
realized it was happening. I'll give Scully this much. She's a big
girl. She knows when she's made her bed and has to lie in it. I
watched her take in Walt, who was now sharing the couch with Jilly,
propping her up as they watched some old science-fiction show
together, a Star Trekish kind of thing. Scully's spine stiffened along
with the rest of her. She tossed her hair, now kind of faded to 
gray. Then she swallowed hard and decided to take her lumps. You could
tell it hurt, but she obviously knew she'd made a decision which could
lead to exactly this. "Hi, Walt," she said, forcing herself to be
lightly casual. "Hi, Jilly, you okay? You look pretty bad."

"You should have seen the other guy," Jilly said wanly. Though better
looking than this morning, she was still in poor shape.

"I'll get going," Scully said. "It's okay with you guys that Billy
stays for a while, isn't it? I know it must be a bit crowded here at
the moment."

"It's his home," Fox said, immediately, without thinking about it. I
would have  said the same given a chance to put a word in edgewise.
"He doesn't need to ask."

For a minute, I thought about how once, long ago, I shared this house
with no one. No spouse. No kids. No pets. Just me rattling around in
it, working too hard and living too little. If I'd been thinking zoo
earlier, it was even more so now, with two kids and two houseguests,
one of them sick. You know, I thought that I liked it much better this
way. Yes, much better.

Day 14 

Fox caught me out, talking to the cat. It was early Monday morning and
he was sound asleep. I'd been lying in bed, enjoying the profound
silence of a household at rest. It was maybe an hour before my usual
alarm was scheduled to go off. I was up, worrying about the coming
week already, borrowing trouble I'm  sure. As if I didn't have enough
of my own. So when Dale hopped up on the bed and nestled his not
inconsiderable bulk on my stomach, I was prepared to enjoy
it. Unlike Sophie, who hated to be petted, Dale could get into moods
where he couldn't get enough of it, mostly, but not always related to
the current state of his food bowl. I stroked his round, velvety body
and listened to his purr with pleasure, remembering how tiny he'd been
as a kitten that Fox had dragged home one day. "Hey, babycat,
sugarface. I'll bet you want Daddy to get out of bed and feed you,
don't you?" I asked Dale fondly. "I'm not going to, so don't
waste your breath, honeycat."

Being caught saying things like this isn't exactly good for your tough
guy image. But cats are like that. First you're like, well maybe it's
not such a bad thing to have them around. Then they worm their way
into your affections, and before you know it, you're letting them jump
up on the counter and calling them sweetie and talking to them like
you're a fool. I put on a good face of stern tolerance for the cats
most of the time when Fox was around, but this time, he caught me.

"Hey," he said sleepily, from the otherside of the bed. "You never
talk that way to me."

"You'd kill me if I did, buddyboy," I told him. I laid it on pretty
thick for Fox's benefit. "Yes, sweetums, pookiepie. Daddy Fox would
grab the Beretta right out of the bedside table and shoot me right
between the eyes if he ever caught me talking like this to him.
Wouldn't he, pumpkinbutt?" 

"Hrrrmph," he said, head still partially buried in the pillows. He was
awfully cute, naked, sheets down to his legs, hair mussed, still
looking debauched from  our bout of lovemaking after we'd gone to bed.
It was almost enough to make me wish that I could get away with
talking to him like that. 

"You know," he said, partially excavating himself. "After all we've
been through, I never expected a little pussy to come between us."

I was feeling every ounce of the eighteen or so pounds of Dale's
feline body on  top of my abs. "You can call this pussy many things,
but little is not one of them."

Dale decided to use this moment to start his little bread kneading
action thing. With unsheathed claws. I wondered who had snuck into my
house overnight and replaced my cat's claws with little stiletto
daggers. I sucked in a breath to stop myself from crying out from the
pain. I very subtlely laid my hands on top of Dale's body.

"Fox, I think you can guess what I need you to get," I told him.

"Well, that's one way of getting rid of him," Fox said, then started
digging in  the drawer of the bedside table on his side of the bed. 
We were good at this by now. At the exact same time Fox dug the
clippers from underneath the box of condoms, I had Dale grasped firmly
in my arms, on his back. He squirmed, but generally took this with
good grace. 

"Hah! Gotcha, foul beast," Fox said as he carefully clipped off the
needle sharp tips of Dale's claws while I held the wriggling animal.
When Fox was done  and I released Dale, he bolted out of the room like
the proverbial bat out of hell. We both snickered at him. I got out of
bed and shut the door after him. He was a smart cat, that Dale. He'd
opened the door on his own this morning, batting at the handle with
his paws until it turned, one of his usual tricks. 

Then I got back into bed. "I'm going to miss you," I told him. I was
leaving right after work today for a trial in Wisconsin. Federal court
in Milwaukee. Jilly and five local activists and I'd say a pretty good
chance all things considered that this might be the time I didn't pull
it off. Not only did I not  want to be away from home, this situation
had the potential to be devastating. Could I still face Walt with him
knowing I'd let his new girlfriend get sent to  the federal pen? Or
face myself. I really wished I could have brought Fox along 
with me. Other times, I might have done it, asked him to come along,
but with Charlie and Billy here, there was just no way. Someone had to
stay home and hold down the fort.

"Hey, I'm going to miss you too, guy," he said, pulling me into his
arms. He kissed me tenderly and starting making love to me. You might
call it just a handjob, but there's not a thing in the world wrong
with one, especially not with Fox at the giving end. His hands are
sure and strong and his kisses were just as passionate as if he were
fucking me. He took me to my orgasm with such strong tenderness that I
wanted to cling to him forever, never let him go. As we cuddled in my
afterglow, he had to reach across me and turn off my alarm. I
reached for him, to return the favor and he shook his head. "You don't
have time. It's okay. That was just for you. Go shower, I'll work on
getting the boy  out of bed."

Jilly shared my truck ride into the city and Charlie for once, went in
with Walt. I needed to talk with Jilly. 

"Are you up to this, Jilly?" I asked between sips of coffee from my
commuter mug. "I can go, ask for a delay because of your injury."

"No, let's get this over with," she said, a decidedly fatalistic note
in her voice. We hadn't talked yet about what went down over the
weekend, but I could tell she was dying over it. And that was more
dangerous than I could say.

"Jilly, no," I said. "If you're not up to this, then we're going to
ask for a continuation.  You go into that courtroom sounding like you
are, they're going to chew you up and spit you out. We're going to
fight this, but we can't do it if you've given up already."

"I haven't," she said, sulkily, sounding like a child. 

"I'm not going to let you walk into that courtroom and lay belly up
and let them rip you to shreds. I'm not going to let you down, but you
have to fight."

"I'm tired, John. You know how long I've been doing this. And just how
little good it seems to have done."

"Tell you what. You fight me the good fight tomorrow in that court,
you can quit. Do whatever it is that you want. Not what the trees tell
you to. what you  want. Find a husband and have babies. Run away to
French Polynesia with your new boyfriend."

She made a face at my first suggestion and a happy, sudden smile at
the second one, but that faded a little later, "I had no idea, John. I
didn't realize I was stepping on Dana's territory. I never would have.
I'm no poacher."

"Dana's been playing Walt for years. I think maybe he's realized he
doesn't have to play her game. Don't worry. She told him to go. 
Doesn't matter if she didn't expect that he wouldn't come back at her
beck and call."

Eventually we got to work. Jilly off to her office, to collect data,
work on the background evidence that would support our claims that the
company we'd targeted was a clear and present danger to public safety.
I was working on finishing up last minute things for the case, adding
to the mountain of paperwork we'd already assembled. Sometimes I think
court is a battle, these days, not so much between the person and the
state, or even between the lawyers, but between the piles of paper
that each side assembled. Lucky. I was good at all of that. I had done
my homework and that just might be our salvation. 

Lunch was another cloak and dagger jogging date that I really didn't
have time in my busy schedule for, but what was I going to do? As I
approached the Castle, the expected slim jogger approached me, looking
entirely too comfortable as far as I was concerned. Didn't he at least
have the decency to sweat?

"Any word?" I asked. "What's this about something called the Peshtigo
project?"

"Place in Wisconsin, up north. Used to be in the heart of the north
woods before they were logged out of existence. Famous mostly because
it was the most  fatal fire in this country's history. Same day as the
Chicago fire. Just a small town in Wisconsin now."

"And..."

"With what appears to be a secure research facility just outside of
town. Rumor  has it that the predecessor to this research program was
based in Virginia. Rumor abounds that it's still in Virginia and we're
still looking into that. Has Fox's son complained of any of the
symptoms of lost time? Any nightmares? Other symptoms of possible
abduction?"

"I don't think so. But he's a teenager. He doesn't tell me anything."

"It's curious. How he avoided being killed. He should have been
shot."

"You think something happened to him?"

"I don't know. But all the signs are pointing in the direction of the
Pestigo project at the moment."

"Have you got anyone inside this facility yet?"

"Not yet. I understand you're headed to Wisconsin soon. Word gets
around."

Word certainly did get around. Though the trial was obviously a matter
of public record, I was kind of surprised that "Jim" had kept tabs on
me like that. "Yeah. So?"

"Interested?" he asked. 

What kind of dumbass question was that? Of course I was interested. It
was only  a matter of when and if I could risk it. Dangerous, not just
because it might get in the way of the trial, and because what kind of
example it would be for the boy. I changed positions back and forth on
myself ten times in thirty seconds. 

Jim took my indecision as 'convince me' and started talking again, "We
could really use an experienced hand on the team. And it seems like if
anything, it's  your place to suss this out. Considering the probable
origins of both the boys."

"The trial..." I began. I owed it to Jilly and the five people she
talked into following her my full support, without any distractions.
And I would have to talk it over with Fox. That much should be
obvious.

"We'll contact you after the verdict," he said. "We're going in
regardless. We think it might be yet another pocket of remnants."

Then "Jim Simpson" veered off across the street and away from me,
picking up his pace considerably. I went back to work right away,
wondering what my decision would be and what I would say to Fox. And
how I would stop him from wanting to go in too.  

I only stopped in the breakroom long enough to take my lunch out of
the fridge.  I was planning on making a working lunch this time, not
sparing any time to really sit down. The pink haired little intern was
in there, wearing a tight, scanty nothing of a top with nothing on
underneath. Back when I was growing up,  they called stuff like that
underwear and girls might get away with wearing it to the beach or to
the clubs, but not to work. Someone ought to talk to the
girl about appropriate office wear. I tried to remember who her
supervisor was as I got my lunchbag out of the fridge. 

"John," she said, "Are you really gay?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I heard Jeanine say that you used to be married. To a woman."

"I was. We're divorced. And yes, I'm really gay." I said curtly and
left the room. I didn't have time to be made uncomfortable by a little
intern with not enough sense. If I didn't know better, I'd have
thought she was coming on to me. I wasn't interested if she was.

Just after lunch, I got a call. "John Doggett, legal," I said, again,
I added the name of our organization because it was an outside call. 

"Mr. Doggett," an unfamiliar voice said. The budget nazis were real
strict in some ways. They'd pay me a decent salary, but wouldn't
spring for the more expensive phone system which would have included
caller ID

"I'm Amy Watson, the nurse at ___ Academy. I have you listed as an
emergency contact for Charles Scully. I'm sorry to bother you but I
can't reach either his father or his mother."

The switch from work self to parent self can be so fast it's stunning.
but concerns about the upcoming trial were immediately forgotten.
"What's wrong with Charlie?" I asked. "Did he get in a fight or
something?"

I wouldn't have put this past him. Or him getting in far worse
trouble. He'd find a way. 

"No, he's been sick, he needs to be taken home."

Sick? This kid had never been ill a day in his life, much to his
consternation.  Never had to be taken home from school before. I mean
we're talking no ear infections, not a cold ever, the kid had never
once before tossed his cookies, except that time at the amusement park
he ate way too much pizza then went on the fastest roller coaster in
the park.  Probably something to do with his miracle baby heritage.
Billy had never been ill either.  "Are you sure he's not 
faking?"

"Quite sure, Mr. Doggett," she said, sounding angry. I suppose she
didn't have the experience with him that I did. I suppose there must
be some parents in the  world who would ask the same thing, not
because their kid never got sick, but because they wanted to get out
of not leaving work.

"Okay, no problem. I'll be right there," I said, already gathering my
files, mentally trying to rearrange my day. Fox was probably off with
Billy, buying out some poor unsuspecting bookstore somewhere. 

I had to conclude, when I got to the school, that Charlie really was
ill. When I retrieved him from the nurse's office, he looked wrung
out, his carrot hair damp and sticking out every which way, like he'd
washed his face. He looked like a sick kid. I put the back of my hand
on his forehead. Something I never had to use on him before, but not
something you forgot. I'd once had a kid of my own, conceived the
normal, human way with no alien intervention. And he got
sick and had ear infections and the like. 

Charlie was noticeably hot. Strange that he'd be sick like this at the
start of  the summer, for no good reason. He seemed surprised as I was
and pretty upset by the whole thing. "Okay, bucko, let's get you home
to bed."

The nurse, some new one that I'd never met before was hovering. "Are
you going to be able to take him straight to his home? And will
someone be with him?"

"Oh, sure," I said, gathering up Charlie's bag. If nothing else, I'd
have to stay with the boy until Fox got home.

(Continued in part 11)

Part 11
See part 0 for header information.


"Do you mind of I ask your relationship to Charlie?"

"I suppose stepfather."

"Odd, I've spoken with Ms. Scully before and I don't recall her
mentioning that  she was married."

"She's not," I said. "You must be new here. I'm not with Ms. Scully.
I'm with Mr. Fox."

She looked confused and perhaps a little shocked, but I didn't have
time or the  inclination to explain myself to her. I gathered up my
child and left.  He definitely was sick. I tried to talk to him in the
car, on the ride home, and he didn't say anything at all. Nodded a few
times in answer to direct questions. I tried to draw him out, talking
about his upcoming vacation. Charlie's school went year round, taking
several breaks that lasted from two to  four weeks through out the
year. One of them was coming up soon, one week on either side of the
fourth of July. But he wasn't interested in any plans. He
didn't even protest when I brought up that I was thinking about taking
us camping then.

At home, Fox was in the kitchen with Billy, putting away some more
groceries. "Hey, what's up?" he said, as Charlie came in the door. I'd
been debating myself whether I should keep Charlie outside for the
vomiting bout that seemed immanent, or whether to rush him along to
the bathroom. He decided to go inside. As he saw Fox, he opened his
mouth to talk and then totally lost it. It  kind of made me ill to
watch. He tossed his cookies all over Fox in a way that
Fox probably hasn't been thrown up on since his wild undergraduate
days. 

"Charlie's sick," I said, kind of weakly. Charlie fled from the room,
headed to  the nearest bathroom. Billy looked kind of like he might
loose some cookies too  and retreated to the living room. Fox looked
briefly queasy but reined it in quickly. His iron control over himself
surprised me sometimes, but then I forget sometimes that this is a guy
who made a career out of tracking down liver fluke men and green slime
spilling aliens. A little throw up wasn't going  to phase him much. 

"You go clean yourself up and call Dana," I told him. "I'll clean up
down here,  then check on Charlie." 

"Shouldn't you be getting back to work?" he asked. "You probably can't
afford this time."

I couldn't but I didn't care if my family needed me. "I'm packed. If I
pick up my bags now then head straight for the airport from work, I
should be fine. There's also something we have to talk about. Where
young ears can't hear."

"Okay, meet me in my office in, say, 15," he said. "Oh, hey, welcome
home."

He leaned over gingerly to kiss me, making sure to keep his ick
covered shirt far away from me. It was just a quick kiss, but as
always, it meant the world to me. Then he turned away, to go change. I
got to work, getting out the bucket  and the mop, carefully cleaning
up the partially used remains of a school lunch. Some bits of it were
still regrettably recognizable. Charlie had had corn for lunch, I
could tell. Ugh. This came with the territory, though, didn't 
it? I knew Fox had kids when I signed on. There were a hell of a lot
of things I had no clue about when Fox came to me after leaving
Scully, but I definitely knew he had a kid. Scully didn't know she was
pregnant again when she'd made Fox leave. 

I got the floor cleaned up and the mop and bucket rinsed out and put
away. I grabbed Charlie's book bag to put it up in his room. Fox had
pulled off his shirt and was sitting next to Charlie in the boys'
room, at the foot of Charlie's bed. There was a little vomit on Fox's
jeans, I noticed, just a little splash of it. He was on the phone with
Scully, listening and looking concerned. He'd dug out an old digital
thermometer from somewhere and had shoved it into Charlie's mouth. 

"Ig gomfa fome uphiggin," Charlie muttered around the thermometer. 

"What?" Fox and I asked at the same time.

"Ig gonfa fome uphiggin," Charlie repeated with more conviction this
time. 

Fox got a wide-eyed look of horror. He plucked the thermometer from
Charlie's mouth and said, "Why didn't you say so? Can you make it to
the bathroom in time?"

Charlie shook his head no and I grabbed the trash basket from the far
side of the room and got it to him just in time. What was wrong with
the kid? Fox rubbed his back while he threw up, while I held the trash
basket. Is it wrong to feel attracted to one's lover while he's
wearing his kid's vomit and talking  to his ex-wife on the phone? If
so, I was definitely one sick puppy here. There  was something
wonderful about seeing him act so tenderly, so sweetly solicitous 
to a kid who just this morning had been a snarly terror. 

Meanwhile, Fox continued to talk to Scully, "Yeah, he's throwing up
again. No, there wasn't time for the thermometer to finish working.
I'd definitely say he has a fever. Very warm to the touch."

I took the waste basket away. When I returned, with a clean waste
basket and then a bucket to set by the kid just in case, Fox had
gotten Charlie settled in  bed, under the covers, no sign of throw-up
anywhere and Fox in clean clothing again. Because so much of the time,
Fox stepped back and let me do a lot of the  day to day parenting
stuff, I forgot sometimes that he was quite capable of it
himself. That he loved these kids of his. He was good at the daddy
gig. He touched Charlie's forehead gently one last time. "Your mom
doesn't think it's anything but a normal flu, but she's on her way
over now. Get some rest, Chuckie."

I almost pulled out my cell phone to call Scully and tell her to hurry
when Charlie didn't protest the childish nickname at all. We left him
behind and shut the door behind us. "Office?" Fox asked.

I followed him in and sat down on the easy chair while he shut and
locked the door behind us. He then wedged himself into the chair
beside me. It was going to be too damn hard to go back to work after
this. It was comfortable being with Fox, even as crowded as the chair
was. "What's up?" he asked.

"I made some inquiries about Charlie's little field trip," I began.

"And?"

"My source thinks that there might be something to this supposed clone
project in Virginia. But that the project is now moved to a place
called Peshtigo. In Wisconsin. There's what they believe is a secure
facility there, possible remnants. They're making plans to go in."

"John, no," Fox said, even before I could finish. He turned in the
seat and grabbed my hands by the wrists. His grip was so tight it hurt
but I didn't move  to get out of it. "You are not doing this."

"What am I supposed to do, Fox? Just sit here? I don't need to tell
you that this could be important. Do you think it's any coincidence
that Charlie got sick for the first time in his life just over a week
after he broke into this project. I don't know about you, but this has
me really worried that something might really be wrong."

"I'm worried too. But it's not worth it. It had to end and it did.
We're out of  the game and we should stay that way. You know how
dangerous this could be. I can't lose you," Fox said, anguish clear in
his voice. Only so very rarely did Fox ever let me see his raw,
unvarnished need like this. 

What could I say truthfully to this? That he was going to lose me
sometime or another? I'm not a young man any more. When he was my age,
my father had been dead of a heart attack three years already. As far
as I was concerned, any time  I had from now on was a gift, a bonus.
Sure, there was a risk going into this facility. But, despite the fact
that I took care of myself, there was also a risk every day that I
might just keel over, felled by my own genetics.

"You're not going to lose me to this," I promised him. "One of us
needs to go, for our son's sake, and I'm the obvious choice."

"This isn't going to be like one of Jilly's little raids. Not that
those aren't  bad enough," he said, still holding my wrists tightly. 

"I remember. I was there. I've done this before. I'm willing to take
the risks." Yeah, and I'm a bull-headed bastard sometimes too. I was
starting to feel doubtful, but I'd made up my mind. Seeing Charlie
sick like a dog had strengthened my decision. There had to be some
kind of connection. 

"How well do you trust your contacts?" Fox asked. 

"You know Jim. Met him before under a different name. He's good
people. I don't  know who his team is, haven't met them yet."

"I'd feel better if I could go with you."

"It can't be both of us."

"No, I wish it were neither of us. I wish there were someone I trusted
you could take with you. Jilly, if she weren't hurt. Walter, maybe?"

"Jim is going to contact me after the trial. I'll see how things look
after that."

"I don't like this. It doesn't have a good feel to it," Fox said. He
was always  the intuitive one. Information and decisions had a feel to
them, to him. Even back at the FBI, he'd been known for being spooky
like that. He could take seemingly disparate scraps of information and
putting together a whole case. He  could toss open the phone book and
have it fall open to just the right page. I listened to him now. I was
going to take this very cautiously, but he wasn't going to keep me
away from it either.

"I don't like it either, but I don't see much other choice," I said.

Fox finally released my wrists. He caressed both sides of my face with
either hand. "It's bad enough you have to go away for this trial, but
for this too. I don't want you to leave."

"I don't want to go," I said. 

His touches were feather light and all up and down my face, like his
fingers were memorizing my face for sometime when it might be gone. He
grabbed me behind the head finally and pulled me in close, kissing my
forehead. I was getting his blessing, of sorts, to go on this mission.
"Go on, you must be running out of time. It'll be fine here. Not like
you've never left me alone with the boys before. Hold on. One thing.
I'll be right back."

Then he hopped out of the chair. He unlocked the door and went out
into the hall. I waited for him, somewhat impatiently. Yeah, I'd left
him with the boys before, but never with a sick boy and me going into
a situation where I might not have the energy to give him the support
he might need. He came back with a tiny scrap of black, silky fabric
in his hand. He tucked it into the inner breast pocket of the suit
jacket I was still wearing. He grinned and said, "I saw that you
forgot to pack your lucky underwear."

I groaned. "Uh, I didn't forget to pack it," I said. "I deliberately
avoided doing so. And I believe that that thing would count more as
your favorite underwear rather than my 'lucky' underwear."

"I dunno. Seems like you get lucky every time I see you wearing them,"
Fox said. He took my hands and I cooperated as he pulled me to my
feet. I was tempted to take the thong out of my jacket pocket and gag
him with it or something. Anything to stop that leering, wicked grin.

"I don't know why you think I'm sexy with that thing on. Nothing's
more ridiculous than a man of my age wearing one of those things. It
looks terrible," I bitched. I hated the way I looked in it, even
though it still turned Fox on. It was just a reminder of an aging body
to me. Even though I worked out hard at the gym, things were changing,
and not for the better. I wasn't hit by the middle age spread like
Fox. Nope, I was getting stringier and  stringier as the years went
by, like the old men on my mom's side of the family  always did.

"It's not how you look, lover," Fox said, hands roving now to my
backside. He patted my ass possessively. "It's the fact that I know
that you'll be thinking about me all day. With that fabric wedged
tight between your ass cheeks and every time you move you feel it and
think of me. And you'll know that if I were  there with you, I'd want
to be right where that fabric is. Deep in your crack."

I sighed. He was looking at me with the eyes of love, which were more
effective  than any beer goggles known to man at disguising the
obvious flaws of one's lover. But when he put it that way, how could I
refuse? "Okay. I'm going to go change then. I don't think I can afford
the distraction at the trial. But I'll wear them today."

He slapped my ass lightly. "Good boy," he said. "No stupid risks. And
you tell your buddy Jim that I want to talk to him first."

"No stupid risks," I promised. Look who was talking, I thought. My
lover was once king of jumping out of the plane first and hoping that
the parachute would  materialize on the way down. Having children had
cured him of some, but not all  of that. I was honestly surprised that
he hadn't jumped on the idea that he should be the one to go, not me.
We hugged tightly and I savored his presence for a few more minutes,
the solidness of him, the slightly sour smell from Charlie's puke that
clung a little to him, the hardness of his muscles, the
silkiness of his hair in my face. I wasn't sure how long I'd be gone
for. The trial could last for days probably, maybe even weeks. I
missed Fox already and when he finally ripped himself out of my arms,
I said, "I'll be home Friday evening, if nothing else. If the trial
isn't over by then. Love you, Fox."

"Love you, John."

Then I went to go change into the damn thong. Sometimes, I'd do
anything if it made Fox happy.

Day 15

I was in a cold, air conditioned courtroom, bland with the same
modern furniture as was in every courtroom I'd ever been in. Flags,
judges bench, jury  box still empty at the moment. We'd start jury
selection in a little while. Jilly was sitting beside me. She was
dressed in the suit she kept for court cases, just about the only time
you ever see the woman in a skirt. Today the jacket was draped over
her shoulders, in deference to the cast on her wrist. She was coolly,
calmly going over some files. The rest of the defendants with
us were nowhere near as calm, most of them fiddling and twitching in
various ways. That didn't  matter. This, in a way, wasn't about them
at all. It was obvious they were going after Jilly. The prosecution
had already floated the other defendants a plea-bargain. Testify
against Jilly and have their charges dropped to misdemeanor trespass.
Against my advice, Jilly had encouraged them to take it and they'd
refused.  

It never got this far most of the time. Usually I was able to talk
the prosecutor out of taking it to trial. Most of the rest of the
time, the grand jury never made the indictment. This time though, we
were going to have to follow it through to the bitter end. I was
nervous, edgy and cranky from having  woken alone in a strange bed.  

The prosecutor walked over to me as I sat going through yet another
deposition one more time. I looked up as he dropped a magazine on the
table. We'd been on opposite sides before. I knew him. Not very well
and I'd never liked what I had  gotten to know. I didn't get a chance
to get a good look at it before he said, flatly, without accusation.
Just as neutral as anything else he might say. "I never knew you were
gay."

What? I got a good look at the magazine. Out and About. Shit. I'd
forgotten about the article. They'd promised me they'd send a copy for
me to review before it was published but they never had. It all
started with Fox's agent. She'd owed a few people some favors, so when
someone heard that she was Fox's agent, and they'd told the people at
this magazine that, she kind of felt she had to do something. She
couldn't promise them Fox, of course, but I was the bone she tossed to
the person instead. No, not as Fox's lover. They were doing
an article on profiles of "the 25 most influential gays and lesbians
today" or some kind of BS like that. Fox's agent said she knew me,
just as someone she was after to write a book, which is true and is
also not going to happen. And that she thought I was at least as
influential as Fox. So, one day I'd gotten a  call from this magazine
editor. I'd told them no, that I didn't have time for such idiocy,
though perhaps in not such nice words and the magazine editor just 
said to give her a call if I changed my mind. Then I made the mistake
of bitching about it to my executive director. It'd be great publicity
for us, she'd said. She really wanted me to do the interview. She
ordered me to do it. So I found myself calling the damn magazine
editor back and arranging the interview, after consulting with Fox,
who also seemed to think it was a great idea. 

I wasn't on the cover photo, but the article as described was
mentioned. Since the prosecutor didn't seem inclined to pick up the
magazine, I gathered it up and put it my briefcase for reading later.
He was testing me, looking for some kind of reaction, seeing if he
could fluster me. It was a real cheap shot and maybe it might have
worked on someone else. "I never said anything before because I
figured you knew. Everyone else does," I said, dryly cheerful. "It's
not exactly a secret. Next time you're in DC, drop by. Meet the
husband and kids."

I'd neatly striped any power that the word gay had over me as far as
this guy was concerned, as well as shown him that I wasn't easily
perturbed. Like I said, he was testing, probing for weaknesses. He
wasn't going to find any. He said, "I just might have to do that
sometime, Counselor. Good luck today."

And eventually the judge came in, the jury was allowed to file in and
we got started. I'm not going to bore you with the play by play of
what went down in that courtroom. Most of what happens in court in
real life, not like in those courtroom dramas on the TV, is dull,
dull, dull. It's nitpicking for little details which rip tiny holes in
the other person's case. It's endless motions and waiting. It's trying
to read strategy through little things like which persons the other
side gets rid of at jury selection. Luckily, that went smoothly. Only
a couple of hours for that. Seems we both had some of the same
ideas for which potential jurors we wanted out, and so I was pleased
to see the  other side get rid of some of the ones I'd been planning
on taking out. Leaving  me open to toss out others I thought I
wouldn't be able to. So far, so good. Opening statements, so forth and
so on. You probably can guess what I said. About free expression as
guaranteed in the Constitution. About the company that 
we'd targeted. All of that. It was a grueling day in the courtroom and
I was working my hardest.

Then finally, it was time to go back to the hotel and start working on
more paperwork. By the time I was hungry enough to think about dinner,
I was too tired to crawl out of my room and go find some. I hate
hotels in a way that only someone who travels as much as I do can. At
least the room was clean but I  couldn't find a decent thing to watch
on the TV because some idiot had programmed out most of the cable
channels and the remote was missing. Luckily, as I watched some
idiotic show about stupid people doing stupid things and
filming themselves with video cameras while they're doing it, trying
to gather enough energy to go out into the world again, there was a
knock on my door. 

I opened it cautiously. Jilly, bearing in her good hand, a big brown
bag with grease stains. She shoved it at me. "The least I could do was
buy us dinner," she said as I let her in.  I opened the bag. Polish
sausages? No, I corrected myself. Bratwurst. Close but not quite the
right thing. The rest of the bag contained deep fried blobs of
something and onion rings. In her own kind of Jilly way, she was
trying to take care of me. It'd be kind of touching if it
weren't for the fact it was so...unhealthy.

"You trying to kill me or something, Jilly?"

"It's Wisconsin!" she said indignantly. "How am I supposed to not get
you deep-fried cheese curds?"

I had indigestion just at the thought. She noticed and said, "If
you're a good boy and eat all your cheese curds, I'll take you out for
frozen custard later. Or there's a place where they sell those cream
puffs like they sell at the State Fair year 'round now."

I remembered. This wasn't my first time in Wisconsin with Jilly. She
was nuts about the place, about the food especially. I personally
don't understand what she saw in this backwater, middle of nowhere,
midwestern, flyover state. I had a sudden vision of her convincing
Walt to run away with her, not to the South Seas, but to a dairy farm
just down the road from a Culvers. Getting fat and happy from too much
frozen custard.

"I think I'd prefer not to top deep-fried dairy products off with a
cup and a half of whipped cream," I said, purely in self-defense. My
arteries were hardening just thinking about this. Modern medicine had
made a lot of strides in defeating heart disease, but I think it would
helpless against the sheer amount of saturated fat in one of those
cream puffs.

"Is that gratitude for you?" she asked. "If you're going to be that
way, I'm not going to go back out to the car for the beer."

"Now you're talking," I said, finally mollified. There was one thing
that I admit that the folks in Wisconsin did right, and that was beer.
If I were a believer, I'd be inclined to agree with Ben Franklin's
quote about how beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be
happy. Pretty soon we were drinking down a nice ale brewed in
someplace called New Glarus and I was munching on the  bratwurst and a
couple of the fried cheese curds, leaving most of them to
Jilly. The curds were crunchy and melted inside, kind of good, but way
too salty and definitely too greasy. It was a wonder she'd kept her
shape, the way she could pack the food in. We talked about anything
but the trial as we ate. I  thought maybe she'd regained her usual
high spirits. Jilly's pretty resilient, all things considered.

"Thanks, Jilly," I said as she finally went for the door. 

"You sure you don't want frozen custard?"

"Utterly."

She sighed in a way that made it clear that she thought I didn't know
what I was missing.  Then she departed, leaving me alone in the hotel
room.

I decided to take a look at the magazine article that had been written
about me. I dug the magazine out of my attache. I noticed the first
time that there was still the little subscription mail tag. The name
it was sent to was that of  the prosecuting attorney. I'd kind of
wondered how he'd run across the mag, especially so soon after it was
just released. So he was gay, probably. A subscription to Out and
About wasn't proof, but it was pretty convincing circumstantial
evidence. So what? He was gay. He was still a big asshole. 

I paged through the glossy rag. It was a pretty upscale gay magazine,
with ads for most of the major car manufacturers and alcohol brands. I
flipped to the back and they didn't even have a single phone sex ad.
We might be able to let the kids see this magazine without much
embarrassment even. I found the article. They'd changed it to the 30
most influential gays and lesbians. I was in the rarified company of a
couple of rock stars, movie stars and even a few politicians. That new
woman Senator from California was profiled. So were a couple of CEOs,
some lobbyists, authors and an Episcopalian priest. I didn't
read any one else's profiles. None of that really mattered to me. I
was just curious what had been written about me. I hardly remembered
what I'd said. It'd  been about five months ago that the interview had
taken place.

(Continued in part 12)

Part 12
See part 0 for header information.


"I wander around the halls of _______, currently the largest, most
influential environmental organizations around," the article began.
"These halls bustle with electric activity, and all the signs of
people working their hardest for something they truly believe in. No
one has paid me the slightest bit of attention since the receptionist
at the front and because she couldn't leave her post, I am left to
find the office of John Doggett, head of the organization's in house
legal team by myself."

Hah! Head of what team? I suppose you could call me and my assistant
Jenny, or alternatively her various temporary replacements, a team. At
least the photo they used of me was fairly decent, not hiding my
wrinkles exactly, but not exaggerating them either. They'd captured me
appearing to work, suit coat off, sleeves rolled up, phone in hand.

"When I knock on his door, he answers it himself. I am greeted by a
surprisingly vital man, too busy talking on the phone at the moment to
do more than find out who I am. He is handsome in a way that proves
satisfactorily that  some men just get better looking as they age. To
call him distinguished, despite his craggy face and hair gone gray,
seems almost demeaning somehow. His  discarded suit jacket is hung on
the back of the chair that he is not sitting in as he talks. Instead,
he paces as he talks, back and forth across the small crowded office.
Though ______ is one of the best funded environmental organizations,
there is no doubt from this office space that it is a non-profit, and
one that funnels far more of its dollars into direct action
than into fancy offices with matched furniture.

"Phone call finally finished, he greets me with a strong handshake.
Then he rolls his sleeves back down and reclaims his suit jacket. I
understand you're not a typical activist, I ask. 'Let's get this
clear,' he says. 'I'm not an activist. I'm just someone who works hard
at an important job that needs to be done.'

Did I say that? I must have. It was true. An activist is someone like
Jilly who  was putting her freedom on the line for what she believed
in. I might be devastated if I lost this case, but she and the five
local people were the ones  who were going to be doing hard time if I
failed.

Before I could finish the article, my cell rang. "John Doggett," I
answered.

"Hey, guy, it's me," Fox said. His voice was sweet music to my ears, a
spot of brightness in this shitty day. I'd talked to him last night
when I got to the hotel, but not since then.  

"Hey, buddyboy! How's the homefront?"

"Charlie is finally managing to keep some liquids down. We thought we
might have to hospitalize him for a while. Did you know that the blue
Gatorade is blue on the way back up too? Scully's still here. With her
and both the boys around, it's almost like old times."

"And?"

"Nothing could remind me better why I left," he said. Of course. For
us, the old times are not necessarily the good times. I prefer more
recent memories myself. "I saw the article today. That's a great
picture of you. And you said some beautiful things there."

"I haven't finished reading it myself. I've pretty much forgotten what
I said."

"It's sweet. Made me get all misty in a way that's not good for my
masculinity to admit. You're nothing but a big softie, John Jay
Doggett," Fox said. 

"Bullshit," I said, gruffly. Truth was, I missed Fox and the boys so
bad I wanted to cry. Big, grown men don't do that though, especially
not when they should be used to it, hardened to the homesickness. Most
of the time, it wasn't  this bad. I think maybe it was bad now because
I'd had two straight weeks where  I'd had the chance to be closer to
Fox than we had for years. Add that to the stress of the trial. I was
on the edge.

"Asshole," Fox said, in that certain way that made it into a term of
endearment, not an insult. "I'm trying to give you a compliment
here."

"Some compliment."

"You oughta take what you can get, pumpkinbutt."

I could see what Fox was doing. He read me like a book. He was good at
reading people to start with and he knew me by now probably better
than he knew anyone.  He was keeping it light on purpose. The mock
insulting banter I could handle. If it got any heavier than that, I
might break down. He was giving me a chance to keep my dignity.
"Pumpkinbutt?"

"The cats miss you," Fox said.

"Nah, they miss my free hand with the food bowl," I said. "Have you
starved them to death yet?"

And so we went back and forth for a couple of minutes, until Fox said,
"Hey, hotstuff, what are you wearing?"

Shit. I didn't think I could handle this. It'd be too close to
admitting how much I missed him. And my need was too raw, too
overwhelming to be handled with  something that amounted to glorified
masturbation. "I'm sorry, Fox. I can't. I just can't."

"It's okay. You get some sleep," Fox said. "I'll just hang out here in
bed, eating sunflower seeds."

"You do that, you'd better change the sheets before I get back," I
growled.

"Goodnight, pookiepie," Fox teased.

I growled. "Goodnight, Fox."

"Sweetums."

I disconnected before he could get in another endearment. I should
have known better than to let him catch me talking that way to the
damn cat. I crawled under the covers and grabbed the magazine to
finish reading the article about me. I skimmed over most of the stuff
that the guy had written about my work and  what a conservative I was,
my take on why I was out. I knew that stuff. I was out mostly because
it was the truth about my life and because I mostly didn't
give a shit about what anyone else thought.

"I notice a couple of pictures on Doggett's desk," the article said.
"After I ask if I can take a closer look, he hands one of them over.
It's one of him in casual clothing, arms wrapped around another man,
also gray haired and strikingly handsome. They're at the beach. 'It's
my spouse,' Doggett says. 'Taken up at Cape Cod. I wish I could say
more. He's an intensely private person. He asked me not to say
anything about him today. I have to honor that but I wish I could tell
you all about him. Nothing in my life would be the same 
without him.' I can tell just from the way he looks at the picture,
with a grin, that this is a happy relationship and that he adores the
other man in the  picture.

"'His love keeps me going through the tough times,' he says. 'He's
everything to me. None of this would mean anything without him. This
work I do, I'm doing it so that his sons will hopefully have a world
that isn't so screwed up to raise their children in.'"

There was more, but I set the magazine aside and turned out the
lights. I couldn't read it just now. Fox is totally right. I am a big
softie, but damned if I was going to let anyone find that out.

Day 16

The trial went on. What do you want me to say about it? Truth was, it
was the same shit, different day. Were you able to guess that the
trials are my least favorite part of this job?

At least I'd kind of adjusted to being away from home. At the end of
the day, I  wasn't utterly exhausted, just mostly. I made a
preemeptive strike against the possibility of more cheese curds for
dinner by taking Jilly out to this Greek place I'd discovered the last
time we were in Milwaukee. Not my favorite thing,  but at least it was
better than what Jilly would have chosen, given a chance.
Nothing deep fried made it onto my plate, though of course Jilly had
the cheese  thing where they come set fire to it at the table. 

Then back at the hotel, I was just tired, with too much work and while
it wasn't home, it had started to feel like a familiar place. Rather
than start in  on my files right away, I dialed Fox's cell phone. He
answered, "Yeah?"

It was good to hear his voice, though it didn't make me ache like it
had the night before. "Hey, buddyboy, how's the homefront keeping?"

"Charlie's still sick. Not keeping anything down but liquids. Scully's
still here."

"You haven't killed each other yet?"

"Almost. And I don't even have Walter as a buffer. He's been at work
all hours and hiding in his room when he's not. You've gotta come
home. It's nuts here."

"Soon as I can, buddyboy," I promised. "Absolutely as soon as I can."

"You know what I was thinking? I just remembered that Thursday is the
anniversary of our engagement."

I'd forgotten about that. It had been just a year and a half after Fox
had come  back to me. We were living together by then. Life was fairly
peaceful, with only a few pockets of alien danger left, but on the
homefront, Fox and I were butting heads at every excuse. I loved him
but I was ready to kill him most of the time back then. It had
happened one day that we were arguing about something really stupid, I
don't remember what. Fox could probably tell you. We  had Charlie, who
was still a baby and Billy with us as well, for the week while 
Scully had gone out to the West coast to do some forensic consulting.
I think part of my gripe had something to do with the fact that Fox
had guilted me into  coming home from work early that day. The house
in those days was also always a  disaster zone every time we had the
boys around and that really bothered me. And I hadn't realized yet
that with his writing, Fox was working every bit as hard as I was. I
do remember that I was in the middle of changing Charlie's
diaper. He was crying because he always hated being changed. Billy was
crying because Fox and I were yelling. I'd snapped and said something
to Fox along the  lines of, "Quit nagging me like you're my goddamn
wife. It's not like we're married or anything." What? Did you think I
was a saint? Things used to get kind of nasty back in those days and I
can be a real prick sometimes.

Fox had gone deathly silent and pale with rage. He'd been tackling a
sinkful of  dirty dishes. Then he threw one of the mugs he'd been
washing, not at me, but across the room. It shattered, causing Billy
to scream even louder. Then Fox yelled, "What the fuck do you think
we're doing here, dickhead? Do you think we're just playing house?
Because I sure the hell ain't."

I stopped in the middle of applying cornstarch powder to Charlie's
bottom, dusted off my hands and just walked away. Walked right out of
the back door and  slammed it behind me. Went straight to my truck and
drove away, leaving him with a hell of a mess in the house, two
screaming kids and dinner not yet started. Part of it was shock, I
think. Up until that point, it didn't really occur to me that my lover
was my family, that at some point when he moved in, he had become a
spouse of sorts. Then to hear him rub it in my face. Part of it 
was resentment that I was working so hard to care for children that
weren't my own. I drove for hours, aimlessly, grumbling to myself,
simmering up a big old pot of anger. Part of me was so furious that if
it hadn't been my house, I'd have walked for good. I really think the
only thing that kept us together at the moment was my realization that
if I wanted out, I'd have had to go back home and throw Fox out. Part
of me was scared shitless that I just might find it in me to do that.
Eventually I came across a wilderness area I knew. I pulled in and got
out my phone. I did what any sensible man does when he finds
himself lost and in trouble. I called Ma. 

She'd been leery of Fox's place in my life at first, but by that
point, she'd more or less accepted the fact that her only son had just
started playing for the other team. So, I poured out my tale of woe
and grief to her, probably talked her ear off for an hour. When I was
done, I demanded, "Well?"

"Well, it's about time you made an honest man of that boyfriend of
yours," she'd said.

"What?" I'd asked, not sure what I'd heard. I'd been expecting her to
start lambasting Fox, that she would tell me I'd been crazy out of my
head for what I'd been doing with him, that I was a fool to stay with
him this long.

"You heard me the first time, John Jay Doggett," she'd said. Then
she'd hung up  on me. Gotta love Ma. Straight to the point and take no
prisoners. 

I'd spent the night by that lake, camping out in the bed of my truck,
wrapped in my emergency blanket for warmth, but not sleeping hardly at
all. I stared at  the stars overhead and tried to make sense of my
life. I'd had one marriage already that I'd succeeded in making a real
hash of. And it's one thing to suck  a man's dick. It can still fit
relatively comfortably within a gloss of heterosexuality. You can say
to yourself, well, it's not like I'm _that_ much different, I just
like sex with him, it's just one of those things, just sex.
It's another level of your self-identity turned on its head entirely
to change his kid's diapers and plan to wash the dishes with him every
night forever and ever, 'til death do you part. 

Nevertheless, by the time I was watching the sun rise over the lake,
I'd made up my mind that I couldn't stand not to wash dishes with Fox
for the rest of forever and that there was no way in hell I'd ever be
able to kick him out of my house, because it was his now as well. I
drove back into town, stopping at a  chain jewelry store, waiting
until they opened the doors.

Hey, I didn't know how things were supposed to work. I had only a
heterosexual framework guiding me as to how this was supposed to go.
My thoughts were, okay,  marriage. Engagement. Engagement ring. Right.
 Diamonds were required. That's the way you did it, I was thinking. I
don't know if I'd have done it differently knowing what I know now.
I'm kind of a traditionalist. Obviously, I  didn't buy the big
solitaire kind of ring. I bought one of those bands with the 
row of small diamonds set in a plain band of gold. I think properly
they're called anniversary bands. I didn't care. It seemed like the
right one to get. The lady at the shop was kind of weirded out when I
told her it wasn't for me, but she didn't really care. She got her
commission just the same. 

Then I went right home. Fox was in the living room with the boys.
Billy was kneeling in front of the television, entranced by some show.
Fox was slouched on the couch, feet up on the coffee table. The baby
was asleep on Fox's chest. Fox's hair was wild, his eyes ringed with
red and he was wearing the same baggy  sweats as he'd been wearing the
day before. He obviously had gotten no more sleep than I had. The
house was even more chaotic than it had been when I'd left but right
then, I hadn't cared. His eyes widened as I walked in, but he
waited for me to talk first. I dropped to my knees in front of him.
"This living in sin thing is just about killing me," I'd said. I
shoved the little velvet box from the jewelers at him. "I don't want
anyone else but you nagging me ever."

He opened the box gingerly, trying not to disturb Charlie. He stared
wonderingly at the ring, turning it here and there to make the
diamonds glint in the light. He put the box into my hands again and
said, "If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I'll shoot you." 

"If I do, I'll open the gun safe for you myself. Marry me, Fox."

"Is this the point where I say some crappy romantic thing like, 'You
had me at hello,'?"

"A simple yes would do." And then he let me put the ring on his
finger. It was too big, so it had ended up on his middle finger. We'd
always meant to get it resized, but it never happened and the ring is
still there on that middle finger.

And so we'd gotten engaged. That'd been, what, thirteen years ago?
Fourteen?

"So how do you think we should celebrate?" I asked Fox over the phone.
I looked  at the matching band of diamonds that Fox had gotten me a
few days after my proposal. I wore mine on my ring finger. "Think we
should have a big fight?"

"Well, since you're in Wisconsin, you can't storm out the door leaving
me alone  all night with two kids and sick with worry, so it just
won't be the same."  He  almost sounded wistful.

"If it would make you feel better, you could call me dickhead again."

"How about pumpkinbutt?"

I growled at him, but he just laughed at me. Then he said, "I love it
when you get all butch on me."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. I do," he said. His voice took on a certain bedroom quality
as he said this. It made my heart beat quicken. "You know I do."

"You alone?" I asked.

"Yeah, up in my office with the door locked. I'm supposed to be
writing. I've got that tie on my door, plus I threatened Scully with
nameless tortures if she  bothers me. So, what are you wearing?"

"Too much. My suit. The gray one. White shirt. One of the ties you
hate because  it's so boring."

"I think you'd better be taking off that suit jacket right now."

I was getting hard already, just from the sound of his voice. It was
low, sultry. As I slipped the jacket off, then went to hang it up, I
asked, "What are you wearing?"

"I was writing. Absolutely nothing. Not a stitch. Take your tie off,
slowly. I want you to be stripping for me, even though I can't see
you."

It was kind of difficult to manage without dislodging the ear bud of
the cell phone, and I finally had to set the cell phone down to do it,
but I slid the tie loose until the knot was undone, then pulled it
from under my collar. "Tie's off," I said as I hung it up.

"Your shirt. One button at a time. Starting from the top."

I'd just undone the first button when there was a knocking at my door.
I was inclined to ignore it, but it quickly became a pounding. Then,
when I still didn't open it up, a familiar voice called out, "John!
Open up! I know you're in there. Please!"

I heard Fox sigh heavily. "I heard that. You'd better answer it. I'll
call back  in an hour."

Then he hung up on me, the bastard. As I opened the door to Jilly, I
said, "This had better be good. I was on the phone with Fox."

Jilly was standing in front of me. She'd already changed into pajamas.
Pink with a print of princesses and frogs on them. Little pink
slippers on her feet.  I never would have figured her for the pink
pajama type.

Her eyes were filled with tears and more had already run down her
cheeks. "I'm sorry, John. I don't know if I can do this anymore. I
just can't," she said, just before she threw herself at me. I had no
choice but to take the ear bud out of my ear and set the cell phone
aside, then wrap my arms around her and let her cry herself out on my
shoulder. 

"I know you can do this, Jilly," I reassured her, as I touched her
gently on her back and shoulders. Comforting Jilly hadn't exactly been
on my agenda for the evening, but what was a man supposed to do?

Day 17

I was surprised to walk into the courtroom in the morning to discover
sitting at the other side, not the erstwhile gay Federal prosecutor
that we'd been dealing with, but a young woman. A rookie, obviously.
So young she couldn't be more than a year or three out of law school.
I'd say it was highly unusual, if not almost unheard of for the
Department of Justice to switch in the middle of a case like this. And
from someone with solid, if obviously lackluster, experience. A proven
record. 

To this girl. She was pretty, sure. Blond, which always caught my eye,
and built. But after one appraising glance, I found myself bored with
her obvious good looks and got my thoughts back to business, trying to
evaluate her for weaknesses even as she introduced herself and shook
my hand. Her skirt was just  a little too short and her jacket and
blouse a little too low cut. Not enough that you could say anything
was unprofessional, but definitely enough to make a  point. She was
obviously experienced in treading the line between sexy and just 
plain confident. And the way she was talking with me, she was
expecting to use her looks to distract and disarm me. She'd said that
she'd been fully briefed on the case by the last guy. Guess he forgot
to brief her on the fact that I've  got a hot number of my own waiting
for me at home and he's been sexy enough to keep me interested for
fifteen years. 

After an hour in the court, I was willing to admit that her looks
weren't the only tool in her arsenal and I'd concluded that her
attitude about her looks wasn't intended personally at all, but she
expected everyone to notice them and  be awed or something. She'd
probably be very good someday, once she'd gotten some experience under
her belt. But for now, she didn't have it, and she didn't 
seem to have the kind of backup that you'd expect the DOJ to put
behind a rookie prosecutor on what had at least seemed to be an
important case. Something had to have come down from higher levels.
There's pursuing a case, then there's pursuing a case, if you know
what I mean. They weren't exactly throwing the case, but I began to
think that they'd toned down their pursuit several notches.
Regardless, I started to relax a little. This was starting to
look better. It looks bad to a jury regardless to switch
representation in the middle of a case. And I was beginning to get a
sense of where I could find holes in their case. I might pull this
off.

As soon as we were dismissed for the night and back at the hotel, I
was on the phone. Not to Fox, though I'd be calling him soon enough.
When I reached Walt, what I said was, "You must have a hell of a lot
of markers to call in from your  pals in the DOJ."

I could almost hear the mental gears grinding as he connected what I'd
said. "I  know where the bodies are buried," he said finally. "And who
put them there."

(Continued in part 13)