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Cinnamon Calling Series by Bidie

Introduction to Cinnamon Calling Series:

Mulder and Scully embark on some very entertaining adventures over the phone, giving new meaning to the phrase “reach out and touch someone”. This was my first series posted to the Web, beginning in May of 1998.

The idea for “Cinnamon Calling” came to me as I was driving from Nashville to Cincinnati, where I currently reside as a graduate student in voice and opera. The song “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith was playing on the radio as I was crossing the Ohio River, and suddenly, as my mind recalled the semi-steamy video of the song, I imagined Mulder getting a call from a seductive phone-sex operator. The rest, as they say, is history.

I had intended “Cinnamon Calling” to be one story, but after posting to ATXC, several people demanded for a sequel. I had been toying with the idea, and decided to write a continuation of the first story, finally settling on a decision to write a trilogy of stories based upon the wonders of erotic telecommunication.

Enjoy the series! – BM, 1999

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Cinnamon Calling

Title: Cinnamon Calling

Author: Bidie M

Category: VR

Rating: NC-17 for strong language and strong sexual situations

Spoilers: Small Potatoes (brief)

Keyword: Mulder/Scully erotica-romance.

Cover created by x-trash using Bidie’s images from angelfire.com/oh/BidieM/cinseris.html

Summary: Mulder receives a free phone call as a “valued customer” from his favorite 900# phone sex service. When the conversation takes a turn toward the erotic, Mulder reveals some intensely intimate feelings about Scully to a perfect stranger, plunging himself into a whirlwind of decadent fantasies about his sexy FBI partner.

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Disclaimer: Again, the characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me.They belong to FOX,the great Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. I am using these characters without permission, but if Mr. Carter knew the capacity in which I were using them, he wouldn’t give me permission anyway! 🙂 Permission is a moot point, however, because I am not making a cent off of this effort. My reward is the feedback I get from readers like you. (Now I sound like a PBS announcer!) So email me at if you like it and I might write a continuation! Enjoy! (And thanks to Jennifer Brady for our goofy goofy attempts at naming this gem of a story!)

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Cinnamon Calling

The phone was ringing. And ringing.

And where were his damn keys?

Mulder fumbled in his pockets, his trenchcoat, in any nook and cranny on his person, attempting to find the keys to his apartment. Silently he cursed a string of expletives to the Deity above as he fidgeted around in the hallway.

<What a dumbass I am,> he thought as he continued to search. <If I can’t find the keys to my car, I damn sure can’t find the keys to my fucking apartment.>

He had turned the office upside down before he’d left work that afternoon, looking for his keys. His ever-brilliant partner had suggested he retrace his steps until he found them. Otherwise, she would be glad to give him a ride home. Mulder had refused. His damn pride had made him refuse. Besides, he’d just had them earlier that day.

Two hours later, however, with no sign of any keys, Mulder had given up and taken a cab home. He began to fully realize the sheer stupidity of that idea when he realized his apartment key was hanging on the same ring as his car keys.

<I’m a fucking FBI agent,> he thought, <and I can’t even get into my own damn apartment.> He stopped for a minute, still engrossed in thought. <Wait a minute. Yes, I can. I can because I’m a fucking FBI agent.>

The doorknob fell to the floor as Mulder kicked the door open. With a grin, he thought about what the landlord would do in reaction to his dilemma. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because the phone was ringing and he needed to rest on the worn leather of his couch.

The phone was still ringing. Thank God. Or thank the Devil, one. He’d soon find out.

“Hello?” Mulder was gasping as he picked up the receiver. “Hello, is anyone still there?”

“Hello, Fox.” The voice was low, soft as a whisper, smooth as satin, and sultry as a humid summer night in Mississippi. “It’s nice to hear your sexy voice.”

Mulder’s eyebrows raised in surprise, his eyes gleaming with a hint of something animal. “And who might this be?” he rumbled into the receiver.

“My name is Cinnamon,” the sexy voice whispered breathlessly.

“Hello, Cinnamon,” Mulder murmured huskily. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?”

The voice on the other end of the phone laughed musically. She could have been a singer, so beautiful was the melody of her response to his question.

Mulder smiled as the voice began to speak. “It’s an honor for me to be calling you, Fox. You’re one of our valued customers.”

“Valued customers?” Mulder’s smile suddenly widened into a lascivious grin. “Shouldn’t you be calling me Marty?”

“Marty?” Suddenly there was silence on the other end of the phone. “I don’t understand…”

“Several of your coworkers know me as Marty.”

“Oh…” Cinnamon said. “You’re right. They just forgot to tell me.”

Mulder’s grin widened. “So how did you get my real name?”

“Well…” Cinnamon answered, “…I’m very resourceful.”

“I see.” Mulder moved closer to the couch.

“Does it matter that I know your real name?” she asked him.

Mulder stood in silence for a minute.

Cinnamon continued. “Honey, when I was told to call you and congratulate you on being our first Gold Customer, I wasn’t even thinking about names. No one told me about the other name, and because your number was listed, I just assumed that you wanted to be known by your first name.”

Mulder chuckled. “It’s a–surprise,” he said, “but now that the jig is up, I guess we can be totally frank.” He paused for a second. “Now what’s this about being a Gold Customer?”

“You’re our first Gold Customer,” Cinnamon said to him. “My supervisor told me to call you and congratulate you on having such an honor. And because of your–dedicated patronage, we’ve decided to give you a free call. On us, at no cost to you, for as long as you like.”

“It must be my lucky day,” Mulder said, his baritone voice tinged with a hint of sexual innuendo.

“It IS your lucky day, Fox.” Cinnamon’s voice had charged the air around the phone with a certain electric tension, seeping into Mulder’s body with each syllable of her sentence. “Are you ready to be lucky?”

Mulder inhaled a deep breath and sat down on the couch. “I’m more than ready, Cinnamon,” he murmured huskily.

Cinnamon moaned into Mulder’s ear. The sensation of hearing such a low female moan sent shivers down his flesh. His every hair seemed to stand on end.

“I’ve had a rough day, Cinnamon,” he said. “I need some… consolation.”

“You did? You poor thing.” Cinnamon’s voice was suddenly very maternal. “Tell Miss Cinnamon all about it. Maybe she can help you find some…release from the events of the day.” Her maternal voice became tinged with more erotic promise as she finished her reply.

“Mmmm…” Mulder closed his eyes. “Well, first off, I was late to work, and then I was reprimanded for an hour by one of my superiors for something I hadn’t handled properly. Which didn’t bother me much. It’s a predictable course of events for my work day.”

“So what was so…‘tough’ about it, Fox?” she murmured.

“Well, when I finally made it to my office, I had to deal with something I hadn’t expected.”

“And what was that?”

Mulder paused before continuing. “I have a partner. We’ve worked together for five years now. Things have been, uh, shall we say, a little–tense between us lately.”

“Tense as in…what way?” Cinnamon asked.

“Well, you know, ah, just–tense.” Mulder shivered as he recalled the vision of Dana Scully that morning, dressed in a suit that came dangerously close to defying Bureau dress code. No one else had noticed but Mulder, because Mulder knew full well that Bureau dress code was something Scully strictly adhered to. The shock of seeing those perfect legs, those shapely calves, the slight swell of her breasts underneath the light summer suit had nearly driven Mulder to insanity. Not to mention the fact that he had to look at those legs and the hint of her breasts every time she handed him a folder or leaned over his desk.

“Oh.” Cinnamon’s response was abbreviated to a simple syllable.

“But–tense in a good way, I guess,” Mulder continued, fighting the images of his tempting partner. “She just– surprised me today.”

“She? Your partner is a she?” Cinnamon laughed. “No wonder why certain…things were so…tense.” She emphasized particular key words.

Mulder laughed. “Yeah, certain things were definitely… strained to their breaking point for the majority of the day.”

“You poor thing,” Cinnamon repeated, this time more huskily. “What caused things to be so…tense today?”

“Oh, God,” Mulder groaned, remembering the events of the day. Scully’s suit. Scully’s legs. Scully’s walk. Scully’s alto voice, with a hint of something more sexual in it than before. What game was she trying to play with him? Had she had a hot date after work? No. Scully hadn’t had a date in years. At least to his knowledge. What if that display was meant for someone else’s perusal later in the day? What if she was displaying more to that someone else right now?

Shit. He couldn’t take much more of those thoughts.

Regardless of Scully’s plans for that evening, she had worn that suit to work and had made good use of its more revealing assets–not to Skinner, not to any other agent who just happened to be in the hallway, but to him. Only him. She had “accidentally” dropped a file and had bent over so that his gaze could linger just long enough to see the luscious curves of her backside, barely covered with nothing but a lace garter belt, to which were attached stockings of the finest gossamer. She’d leaned over a folder he’d been examining, allowing him an ample view of her generous cleavage. She’d caught his gaping stare as well, but she’d never made any sudden attempt to move away or act in puritanical offense. The moves were definitely contrived, and the moves were defnitely for Fox Mulder.

Scully had moves. Damn, did Scully have moves.

Why was it that he had never truly noticed how sexual a being Dana Scully could be until this morning in the office? She had always held his affection, his attention, and even the slightest stirrings of lust, but never to the degree of today.

“Fox…?” Cinnamon asked in a lilting yet sexual tone. “What did cause things to be so tense today?”

He was suddenly shaken out of his delicious reverie. “Wha..?”

Cinnamon repeated the question yet another time, the soothing honey of her voice ebbing into Mulder’s sweaty flesh.

“Oh…” Mulder sighed, his breath quickening. “I guess I just saw her in a different light today. She was wearing this suit that barely covered anything on her body.”

“Mhm…”

“And it wasn’t just the suit, either…she probably could’ve been wearing sackcloth and she still would have affected me…the way she’d walked, talked, acted…” He shook his head violently for a few seconds to clear the image of Scully the sex goddess from his mind.

“What did she do, Fox?”

“She was…doing everything she shouldn’t do. She wouldn’t do. Everything that goes against her standards of professionalism in the workplace. She was acting as if she wanted me to take her in my arms and bang her right there on my desk.”

“She did?” Cinnamon laughed huskily. “Maybe she did want you to bang her right there on your desk.”

Mulder took a deep breath. “I don’t know…it’s just not like her to be that way. But then again…I know next to nothing about her motives, her desires, her personal life. It was hard enough figuring her out professionally all these years. I just don’t know what she was trying to tell me. I got the signals, I got the hints, but I couldn’t catch why she was sending them.”

Cinnamon laughed again. “Fox, honey, I’m here to talk about anything you want, but darling, I don’t think a therapy session is what you need right now. I only specialize in one area of therapy.” Her voice lowered several degrees as she ended her last sentence.

Mulder chuckled. “Just how–specialized are you, Cinnamon?”

“Enough to fulfill any longing you may have tonight, honey.” The endearment was sinful delight to Mulder’s ear. “Why don’t you take me up on it?”

A rough groan made its way from Mulder’s throat into the phone. “I thought you’d never ask,” he rumbled into the receiver.

Mulder heard the lilting sound of a girlish giggle in his ear, replaced suddenly by the sweet inflections of Cinnamon’s voice. “What do you want, Fox? Tell me what you want.”

He began to pant heavily, his breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps. “I want…I want…”

Dammit. Scully again. That damn suit. That damn display, robbing him of any coherent thought. How could she do that to him, when far more beautiful women had done as much and had never driven him to this measure of insanity?

“What is it, Fox?” Cinnamon’s voice was tinged with concern.

Mulder took another deep breath. “I–can’t do this. I just–can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t stop thinking about–her.” Mulder’s last word was more a groan than a word.

“Your partner.”

“Yes.” Mulder kept breathing deeply, hoping to restore some control to his pounding heart, his racing pulse, and the gigantic bulge between his legs. “I can’t explain it–no one’s ever affected me like she has. And dammit, it’s just like me to want someone I can never have.”

There was silence on the phone for a few minutes. “You love her, Fox?”

Ouch. Cinnamon’s question had painfully hit home, in the center of his being. “I–I–do. I love her.” He sighed. “I love her and I want her and I need her…her mind and her soul, and her heart, all of her. Not just her body–although I’d settle for that, if that was all she could give me.”

His confession was met with silence again.

“But she can’t give me that,” he continued, sighing dejectedly. “Any of it. She keeps it all to herself.”

There was a brief pause before Cinnamon replied to him. “Fox, honey, you don’t deserve to be like this. I bet you’re very handsome and very desirable…you could have any woman you wanted.”

“But I want her,” Mulder said painfully, the bulge in his pants growing dangerously large. His throat seemed to be constricted with conflicting tension, pain, and longing all at once.

Silence. “Fox, let me do something for you. Let me take away these frustrations. You’ve had them for so long. Let me do something for you, baby.”

“Do…something?” Mulder’s throat was beginning to close on him. “What did you…have in mind?”

“Well…normally I’m enough for most men, but I sense you need someone else…or the illusion of someone else…to satisfy your desire.” She paused before continuing. “Pretend I’m her.”

“What?” It was an incredulous proposal. A phone-sex girl even aspiring to be Dana Scully for one brief instant in time. It would never work. It just wouldn’t.

“That’s right, baby. Pretend I’m your partner.”

Mulder inhaled a shaky breath. “Can you–do that?”

“Honey, I can do anything I want,” she drawled. “I can be anyone you want me to be. All you have to do is tell me what you want.”

There was another pause as Mulder scrambled to think of words to describe Scully. His goddess.

“Does she have a name, or is she just ‘babe’ or ‘girl’?” Cinnamon asked him.

“Yeah, she’s got a name,” Mulder replied, still thinking of how he could put Dana Scully into mere words.

“You mind telling me?” Cinnamon said, a little more forcefully.

Mulder halted his thought process for a second and choked out the words. “Scully. Dana Scully.”

“Scully, huh?”

“Yeah, we call each other by our last names…something we agreed upon a…a long time ago.”

“You wanna call me Scully, then?” she asked him.

Mulder shook his head in refusal, even though he knew she could not see his gesture. “No. No. I wanna call you Dana.”

Dana. The sweetest sound in the whole world. So simple a name for someone so enigmatic, so complex, so full of mysteries waiting to be unlocked from within, revealed and solved. Part of her soul. Her spirit. Her inner child that crept out from time to time when Mulder caught her in a rare smile or an even rarer laugh. How he longed to know Dana…not just Scully.

“Dana it is, then, Fox.” Cinnamon’s voice seemed much lighter than before. “Where do you want to begin?”

Mulder thought for a moment, adjusting his pants so that the straining bulge underneath was not nearly so uncomfortable. “I’m caressing your hair…you have such beautiful red hair… not too short, but not too long, just how I like it…”

“Go on…” Cinnamon’s voice sounded far away.

“I’m looking into your eyes…God, they’re so blue…as blue as a summer sky, so clear you can almost see straight through them sometimes. You’re looking at me with such love in your eyes…oh Dana…”

“Don’t stop…”

“I reach down to caress your cheek. Your skin is so smooth, smoother than satin…too perfect to be real. My thumb barely grazes your cheek as my hand cups your chin. Then…I lean forward and descend to kiss your lips…softly at first, exploring the softness there. Then harder, as I try to fuse our lips into one white-hot mass.”

Mulder heard a ragged sigh come from Cinnamon’s mouth. “Yes, Fox…don’t stop…”

“You part your lips slightly, just enough for my tongue to enter that warm mouth of yours. You taste so good…like honey and warm milk and chocolate all together. I invade every inch of your mouth and finally your tongue battles with mine.” He moaned. “I let you win and your tongue enters my mouth…it’s so warm, so inviting, so soft, as it caresses every inch of my mouth.”

“You taste like heaven,” Cinnamon said temptingly, driving Mulder even further into his fantasy.

“I kiss you for hours and hours until those full lips are all red and swollen from my attentions. Then I begin to take your suit off…” That suit…damn, that sinful suit. “I unbutton the jacket very slowly, expecting to find something underneath, but nothing…nothing except a black lace bra that frames your breasts so perfectly.”

“Yes…mmm…go on…”

“Then I reach behind to the small of your back and begin unzipping your skirt…what little of it there is…oh, God…” Mulder shivered as he remembered how dangerously high the hemline had been. “No slip, nothing but that garter belt and stockings… which I intend to remove as soon as possible.”

“Take ‘em off, Fox,” she gasped, her breath ragged and heavy.

“I slowly unfasten those stockings and take great care not to run them as I slide them down the softness of your thighs…your legs…your ankles…I touch the curve of your instep as I remove the stockings and caress the balls of your feet. You have such perfect feet. So petite and small, just like you…”

“Now the garter belt, Fox, the garter…” Cinnamon sounded impatient.

“I…remove the garter belt from your waist and then I move to your bra…As pretty as you look in it, I know it has to come off. I have to see your breasts…I have to touch them, to taste them, to bury my head between them.”

“Oh, baby, do it,” Cinnamon whispered.

“I stand there for a second, just looking at you. God you’re beautiful, Dana. Your breasts are so full…so ready for my touch, my kiss…your waist is small…I can nearly wrap my hands around the width of it…Your hips are round and full, but not too much to disturb the beauty of your frame. Your legs…well, I could go on all day about your legs….” He smiled. “But it’s that one place, between them…covered with tiny red curls that interests me the most…I want to see what those curls are guarding, to caress its secrets, to fill the most secret part of you with me….”

Cinnamon made a small choking sound, then gasped for breath. “Oh, Fox…”

Mulder continued. “I pick you up and carry you to the bed. You’re so light and fragile, like a porcelain doll. The finest porcelain doll. I lay you down on the bed and stay away from you long enough to take off my clothes so I can feel what it’s like to touch your flesh with mine. All over.” He began gasping for air as he undid the buckle on his belt and worked on removing his pants.

“Keep going, Fox…don’t stop now…”

“I kiss your lips again…God I could just kiss your lips all day and be satisfied…well, most of the day, at least.” He grinned mischievously as Cinnamon giggled. “Then I move lower, to your neck…what graceful curves you have beneath that angelic face…then lower to your breasts. I take them in my hands, slowly caressing each curve, each part. Then I kiss them softly, flicking my tongue in and out to taste every inch of them…and when my lips and tongue finally find your nipples, you scream in pleasure and beg me to suck them. I suck them like a starving baby and you gladly give them to me.”

“Oh….” Cinnamon was lost for words at Mulder’s erotic description.

“I move lower, to your stomach, your navel…my tongue flicks in and out there too…drawing lazy circles around it. I move lower still, to your inner thighs…God, I can smell your scent already, and it’s driving me insane…I have to kiss you there, between your thighs, everywhere, concentrating on your clit. You gasp and moan and scream and beg me to stop, to continue…you’re not sure which.”

Cinnamon was moaning quite heavily into the phone, her moans directly traveling to Mulder’s penis, sending it aflame with sharp pinlike tingles.

“I stop, only to position myself above you. You gladly part your thighs for me. And then…oh, God…then…”

“Yes?”

“I enter you with one long stroke…oh, God, Dana…”

“Fox…”

Mulder’s free hand, as if by instinct, went to his dick, enclosing around the hard member and moving with slow, languid strokes as he imagined making love to his goddess. “Slowly, slowly,” he panted, “we begin our dance…an age-old dance of love…until you beg me to quicken the pace.”

“Faster, Fox…oh, faster,” Cinnamon pleaded.

“I happily oblige you,” he groaned into the receiver, his other hand moving faster over his dick, matching the quickened pace of his breath, “and myself. Oh God Dana, you feel so good…you’re moaning and groaning and thrashing around…your legs are around my waist and your hands are pulling at my buttocks…begging me to enter deeper, even though we’ve reached the limit. You seem to want me to pierce your womb with my dick.”

“Oh…yes…”

“I can’t hold back any more, Dana…I can’t.” Mulder began jerking his member frantically, his eyelids fluttering wildly with the intensity of his sensations. “I want you so bad…I can’t get close enough to you…I try so hard…And then you scream as the first spasms of your orgasm hit…You cry out my name over and over again, and you enclose around me…and then I’m coming and coming and I can’t stop coming…oh, dear GOD, Dana…”

“Oh God ohgodohgodohgodoh GOD, Fox…!!!”

Mulder barely heard Cinnamon’s words; her cries sent him over the edge in a blaze of white-hot ecstasy. He grunted out a prayer to the Deity and to his goddess before collapsing on the couch, his hand soaked with the seed of his spent desire.

Afterwards, neither spoke for several minutes. Soft moans and contented sighs were heard from each participant.

Finally Cinnamon broke the silence. “Well, Fox, you certainly know how to–please a woman…” She emitted a low chuckle from the deepest regions of her throat. “If that’s what you can do over the phone, I’d love to see what you can do in person…”

Mulder let out a long sigh of release before speaking. “Fortunately for women, it IS one of my greatest talents.”

“You should get a job here,” Cinnamon said to him. “The lady callers would LOVE you.”

Mulder answered her with a guttural laugh. “It does sound tempting, but unfortunately, I can only save those, uh, skills, for one woman only.”

There was a slight pause before Cinnamon spoke. “Then you should go to her and tell her. Tell her, Fox. And don’t spend your life getting up the courage. Just tell her.”

“But then you’ll be out of a job,” Mulder said.

Cinnamon laughed. “Well, you are good for business, Fox, but there are other men who keep us afloat. I’ll be just fine.”

“Then I will.” Mulder nodded to himself as an affirmation of his resolve. “Good night, Dana–er, I mean, Cinnamon.”

“Pleasant dreams, Mulder.”

Mulder scarcely noticed the use of his last name until the phone disconnected. Suddenly he realized that Cinnamon’s last sentence didn’t sound like Cinnamon at all….but rather, someone who had the courage to wear high hemlines to work and tempt the bejeezus out of him. Could it be…?

Nah. Nah. It couldn’t possibly be…It was unfathomable. Inconceivable. He cleaned himself up and curled in front of the TV with a contented smile on his face. At least he had her in his mind tonight. The woman was a damn fine actress and definitely worth the reward for his patronage.

Meanwhile, far away in Annapolis, a petite redhead was sitting on her couch, naked, eyeing the phone with an uncharacteristically giddy expression on her face. She smiled to herself as a slight sniggle erupted from her delicate nostrils.

Cinnamon, indeed.

THE END

–

Mandrake’s Message

From: AgentXDoll <> Date: 12 Jul 1998 21:54:23 GMT Subject: Cinnamon Calling II: “Mandrake’s Message” by Bidie M (NC-17) 1/3

Title: Mandrake’s Message

Author: Bidie M

Category: VR

Rating: NC17 for language and strong sexual situations

Spoilers: None

Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance. Erotica.

Summary: Dana Scully gets an unexpected phone call from a man named Mandrake, in response to a deceptive phone call made by Scully several days before. When Scully finally identifies the caller, she is plunged headfirst into an erotic conversation about her fantasies, her desires, including her most secret wishes about her very sexy FBI partner. Sequel to “Cinnamon Calling”.

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Disclaimer: I’ll say it one more time–the characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. They belong to FOX, Chris Carter, and Ten Thirteen Productions. I am in no way making money off this little endeavor. The only reward I ask is that my fellow Philes please supply me with feedback regarding this story and any of my other stories at . Thanks a lot and enjoy the story!

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Mandrake’s Message

The phone was ringing. And ringing.

And at the most inopportune time of her life.

Dana Scully shivered as she stepped out of the steaming, bubble-filled bathtub which had so warmly welcomed her only minutes before. She had been determined to enjoy this rare ritual, considering her caseload had been particularly light during the week. For several days, Dana had returned to the sanctity of her humble dwelling without falling into her bed with exhaustion, and she had madee plans tonight to enjoy a relaxing bubble bath with no outside distractions.

That is, until now.

“Dammit, I’m coming,” she yelled absently to the phone, forgetting that the phone was an inanimate object, incapable of expression, comprehension, or response. Wrapping an oversized terrycloth towel around her torso, she cursed whoever was giving her the honor of a call at such a late hour.

Normally Dana would welcome a call–from her mother, her family, from anybody. It wasn’t as if her phone needed the rest. In fact, Dana was convinced that her phone received too much rest. She was also convinced that she needed to put it to good use. She needed a social life. Some kind of life, outside the Bureau.

Why hadn’t she placed the phone in the bathroom before her bath, like a responsible, well-prepared woman? Because Dana Scully was far from responsible and well-prepared this evening.

<If it’s a damn telemarketer,> Dana seethed as she stomped into the living room, <I’ll take my weapon and shoot him through the phone line.>

She picked up the phone, taking a deep breath. “Hello,” she growled into the receiver, sounding none too happy.

There was no response. “Hello,” Dana repeated, this time more forcefully, as if a threat.

Again, no response.

“Look,” Dana yelled into the phone, “I don’t know who the hell you are or what the hell you’re doing calling me so late, but you’d better have a damn good reason for calling, or else I’ll have the police on your ass in two seconds, you hear me?”

She could hear a slight breathing sound on the other end of the phone. A slow inhale, then an exhale. Inhale, exhale.

Dammit, another prank caller. And this is what dragged her out of the warmth of her claw-foot bathtub? Somebody was going to pay for this. She’d make sure somebody’s ass was behind bars tonight for interrupting her bath, not to mention the exquisitely erotic fantasy she’d been having.

She shivered again, more from the thought of the fantasy than from the chill of the late evening. Thoughts she shouldn’t be having. Thoughts she’d conditioned herself not to think about during work, during leisure, during rest. Only in dreams did they attempt to reassert themselves in the most temptingly erotic ways.

No. She was not going to think about it. About any of it. It was dangerous, forbidden territory, and conscious fantasy could only harm, not help, the situation.

The caller remained silent, the only sound ragged breathing.

“Who are you?” she yelled. “Answer me, or you’ll only make it worse on yourself!”

She heard a whispered voice say, “Sorry, wrong number,” and then a click, followed by a dial tone. What….?

A guttural sound escaped from Dana’s mouth as she pounded her fists on the couch. Damn prank callers. Probably some oversexed, prepubescent boy who had nothing better to do on a Friday night than to get off on calling single women in the area.

Well, he won’t get away with this, she thought to herself determinedly. She’d make sure that his parents, his neighbors…damn, the whole block would find out when the blue lights of the police would flash in his driveway. One less caller to disturb her peace and quiet.

But she wouldn’t have minded if the caller had been someone else. More particularly, a certain someone else. A certain someone else she had worked with for five years. Someone whose simple greeting of “it’s me” could wreak such emotional turmoil within her icy, reserved exterior. A voice which never failed to cause her heart to stop, to skip a beat, to jump, to race in expectation, anticipation, hope. Hope that maybe, this time, he wasn’t calling her to discuss the latest findings on a case, to get him out of his usual bind, or to be his scientific gofer.

Every time, a disappointment.

Then again, what could one expect from someone such as Fox Mulder?

Dana sighed and sat on the couch, her eyes growing misty from her unfulfilled wishes of having anything more with Mulder. Most likely the man would never consider having anything to do with someone the likes of her. He probably thought of her as a scientist, devoid of feeling, of emotion, of passion. Worse yet, he probably considered her emotional detachment downright prudish and puritanical, the kiss of death for any woman needing the attentions of a particular man of their choosing.

The truth was, she was far from prudish or puritanical. She was far from reserved or emotionless. There was depth to Dana that many would never have the privilege of seeing, only because she had never deemed them worthy to witness the vulnerability and sensitivity of her soul. Mulder had, on occasion, been able to penetrate the surface of her soul, and she, in her weakness, had gladly welcomed him inside. But then some freakish event or unusual happening would tear him away from her, leaving her heart open, exposed, vulnerable to hurt, to rejection, to abandonment.

So she would build the wall again, this time with more attention to the cracks in the façade of her surname. She would vow, each and every time, never to allow Fox Mulder to gain access to her heart, yet time and time again, she would allow Fox Mulder to do just that.

Finally, in a moment of desperation, Dana had gone shopping, to buy a suit that was nothing of Scully, and everything of Dana. Dana the passionate. Dana the tempestuous. Dana the temptress, the seductress. Everything that was in direct defiance of Scully, of the Scully that the Bureau knew, the Scully that her partner knew. She had worn it to work on Monday as an experiment, to witness the reactions of those around her. She’d received several appreciative glances from fellow colleagues, and an amusing look from Skinner, but no reaction from Mulder. She’d even changed her walk, her talk, her gestures, all in an elaborate show for Mulder, just to see if he would react with some form of lustful intent. Nothing.

In fact, if anything, he was less attentive to her, burying his head in countless documents and photos for the remainder of the day. He’d barely even noticed her. When she’d suggested lunch, he’d declined her offer. She’d suggested an early dinner, and he’d declined that offer as well. She’d even offered to pay, and it wasn’t like Mulder at all to turn down a free meal. Yet he’d refused.

And Dana, feeling rejected and vulnerable, had left Headquarters that evening alone, with even more questions and no more answers than when she’d begun.

And so she’d concocted another brilliant plan, a plan to gain some insight into the mind of Mulder. A plan to prey on his most licentious of weaknesses and find the answers to the questions she’d been seeking. It would be her revenge for the hurt he’d caused her by ignoring her obvious change in appearance.

And she had succeeded, not as Scully, not as Dana, but as a sultry phone-sex impersonator named Cinnamon, the name a college boyfriend had affectionately given her. And Mulder had taken the bait.

It had almost been too easy, procuring the information from him. He had told her everything she’d ever wanted to know about his desire for her, his longing for her, his admiration and appreciation of her beauty, all with her assumed name and a very sensual bedroom voice. As Mulder confessed his desires to ‘Cinnamon’, it had become increasingly more difficult for Dana to continue the ruse, particularly when he’d said he loved her. Especially when he had lost control and groaned her name into the phone in the heat of a passionate release from his physical frustrations.

She had been sitting in this exact same spot, only four days ago, when their heated words of passion and desire had inflamed her to no end of sexual promise, and ever since, she had begun to allow herself the luxury of indulging in erotic fantasies with Mulder. She could not hide it any longer. She was sure he had seen the heated looks she’d directed his way in the basement office they’d shared, the day after the passionate conversation.

The most difficult part had been the day after. Although Dana had been in prime position to approach Mulder with motives of a more sexual nature, she’d hesitated to take the final step that would propel her into the arms of the only man she’d ever loved. And although Mulder had expressed words of love and desire to her the night before, suddenly he was again the distant and self- absorbed FBI partner the next morning. Nothing had changed to indicate that he would become the initiator in this age-old courtship, even though her last words to him as ‘Cinnamon’ had been to tell Dana of his feelings.

The coward.

Resentment had begun to build within her, hardening her heart once again in defense of Mulder’s indirect rejection of all she had to offer. She had become Scully again, to her dismay, and had come home the last three nights with tears in her eyes and a vain hope…more hope than ever that the next call she received would be a confession of love from Mulder.

Yet that call had never come.

Sighing, she rose from the couch and began to make her way into the bathroom to finish what was left of her hot bubble bath. Perhaps that would help to take her mind off the events of the past week.

<Yeah,> Dana thought with dismay, <and maybe I’ll actually get laid in the next ten years.>

She had just descended into the water when the phone rang again. Goddammit, not again.

“I’m not answering this time,” she yelled to the phone as she immersed her auburn locks into the warmth of the water. As if the phone could hear her. “You can call some other lonely female. I’m enjoying my bath, you hear me?”

She caught herself and stopped speaking. Oh yes, that was it. It was definite. She was certifiably crazy. Anyone who would talk to their own phone had to be suffering from some sort of psychosis. Anyone who’d fallen in love with Fox Mulder was definitely suffering from a multitude of psychoses.

Grasping a handful of bubbles, she decided to let the answering machine take the call. No one of decent repute would be calling her at this hour anyway.

The sound of her pre-recorded greeting welcomed her ears as she raised her head to hear whatever response would be given by the caller. A foreign voice resounded over the speaker of the machine, a low, husky baritone timbre that traveled from the machine straight to Dana’s erogenous zones.

“Hey, Dana. Just wanted to call and say hello,” the voice slurred softly. “I was hoping you’d be in so we could–talk– for a while.” He chuckled. “A good friend of mine said you might need a little–company tonight and gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind; from what I’ve heard, I think you’re an incredibly sexy woman.”

Suddenly Dana found herself sitting upright in the tub, her senses reeling. Who was this man, anyway? Who had given him her number? And who exactly was this good friend he’d mentioned?

She yelled to the phone again. “Mom, if this is another one of your matchmaking schemes, you can forget about dinner tomorrow night! I’m not a charity case!” She left the comfort of the bathtub and wrapped the now-damp towel around her once more to go to the phone.

The man was still talking. “Dana, if you’re there, please pick up. You won’t regret it. I promise.” His voice lowered to a deep bass with the last two words, sending tingles down Dana’s body into the soft bud of her arousal.

Her breath stopped. Should she take the call? No. What if he was some sick, twisted sex offender who harassed women for kicks? What if he was stalking her? What if…?

Oh, hell, why not? It wasn’t as if she was going to have any excitement tonight, or any night in the near future. If he tried anything funny, she could always trace the call or pull a few Bureau tricks on him.

Slowly she picked up the phone and spoke into the receiver. “Hello,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the phone sooner; I was taking a bath.”

“A bath?” the man said. “Really? Was it a good one? With hot water and bubbles?”

Dana frowned quizzically. “Why, yes it was,” she replied. “How did you know?”

“My friend said that you loved to soak in a hot bath with bubbles.” The man’s voice was excitingly erotic.

“I see,” Dana said in response, her heart pounding. “And how does your ‘friend’ know so much about my likes and dislikes?”

“Because my friend is also your friend, Dana,” he murmured. “A very good friend at that.”

Dana rapidly made a mental list of all her friends and acquaintances that knew such intimate details about her private life. There weren’t many. But then again, it wasn’t difficult to assume that any female would enjoy a relaxing bubble bath. Most women did.

“So what else has your ‘friend’ told me about you?” Dana wanted to know.

The man continued in his sexy voice. “Only that you’re a beautiful woman and that you shouldn’t be alone on a Friday night, if you get my meaning.” His chuckle sent another tingle of pleasure into Dana’s abdomen.

Dana sighed as she felt the dormant sensations of arousal overtake her. She wasn’t sure why she was allowing this man to continue this aural seduction. She wasn’t sure why her body was responding in all the right places to the mere sound of his voice. That had never happened before.

Well, maybe. Once. Okay, twice. All right, more than once, when her infinitely sexy partner had been in one of his rare flirtatious moods. When she would have gladly taken him up on his suggestions if she could have assured herself that he wasn’t joking around with her. Especially when they’d huddled together in the Florida wilderness in an effort to keep warm.

She winced as memories flooded her mind from that night. How Mulder had done everything short of propositioning her for hot and heavy sex in the middle of the forest. How she, in her insecurity and unwillingness to believe that Mulder would want her, had refused him with a witty remark about raining sleeping bags.

She should have just jumped him right there, damn the consequences.

Now she was still alone, months later, her only source of excitement being on the phone with an unknown but very seductive man. <I asked for this,> she thought miserably.

“Dana? Are you still there?” the man asked softly, bringing her out of her reverie.

She stammered into the phone. “Yes. Yes, I’m still here.” <But I’d rather be somewhere else.>

“Good,” he replied. “I was beginning to think you’d hung up on me.”

Dana inhaled a deep breath before answering him. She needed to feel attractive. She needed to feel sexy. It had been so long since she had felt like a woman, like Dana. She needed this, even if it was a virtual seduction.

She spoke softly into the receiver. “Now why would I want to do that?”

A low groan emanated from somewhere on the other end of the line, filling Dana’s ears and flooding her senses with pleasure. Yes. She could do this. She would do this. She had denied herself these feelings for far too long, and if she couldn’t have them with Mulder, she’d settle for what she could get.

“Dana…” the man whispered, “do you have any idea how your voice turns me on?”

Her eyes widened as she felt a dampness between her thighs.

“God, I bet your body is as sexy as your voice,” he sighed into the phone. “I wanna see it.”

Dana’s breath began to come in rapid heaves as she realized the full extent of what was happening to her. She was definitely turned on by his voice as well. She wondered who he was, how he’d found her. But she was glad, for now, that he was here, even if he was a total stranger.

A total stranger.

Dana suddenly remembered what she was doing and gasped.

“What?” the man responded. “What is it, Dana? Am I moving too fast for you?”

“No,” she said. “I just remembered–you know my name, but– but I don’t know yours.” She paused for a second. “I would like to know your name.”

The man chuckled again. “Well, I can’t tell you my real name,” he said, “but I’ll give you something better. Something more sexy than my real name.” There was silence on the other end of the phone for a few seconds as Dana waited patiently for his response.

“Well?” she wanted to know.

The man spoke again. “Mandrake,” he said. “Call me Mandrake.”

“Mandrake, huh?” Dana was smiling. She knew very well the reasons why the man had chosen that particular word, given the circumstances of their present encounter. “Interesting that you should choose the mandrake plant as your alias,” she said to him.

“And why is that?” he asked.

“Well,” she replied, “being a scientist and a doctor by profession, I know all about the uses of various natural herbs.”

“You do, now?” Mandrake wanted to know. “Tell me some of these… uses.”

A slight pause allowed Dana to collect her thoughts. “Well, it’s been known for years that mandrake has a variety of uses. Mandrake contains the alkaloids atropine and scopolomine, which in mild doses acts as a soporific, or a sleep inducer. In large quantities, however, these alkaloids can cause death in a person, therefore direct ingestion of the root is highly toxic.”

“Fascinating.” The low rumble of Mandrake’s voice penetrated Dana to her very core as she continued her speech.

“Mandrake is also useful as a mild anasthetic,” Dana said. “It was known to have been used in ancient times, when criminals were crucified. It also acts as an emetic, which induces vomiting.” Well, so much for appearing attractive to a perfect stranger. Her clinical side had gotten the best of her for only a few seconds and here she was, spouting out unnecessary and quite undesirable information to a man she barely knew. Particularly the vomiting part. What was she thinking?

“But what does that have to do with the choice of my name?” Mandrake wanted to know. “None of these uses have any significance to me.”

Dana smiled again, unsure how to continue the conversation. “Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of the somewhat–erotic properties associated with mandrake.”

“Erotic properties?” Mandrake asked. “Why don’t you refresh my memory on some of them.”

The grin on Dana’s face began to widen as she stumbled through the next sentence. “Um, normally doctors aren’t–interested in pursuing the non-scientific aspects of medicinal herbs,” she replied, feeling a growing heat on her cheeks. “But from time to time we hear of things that others believe to be true.”

“Such as?” Mandrake wanted to know.

Dana could feel the fire in her cheeks as she briefly explained the somewhat off-topic uses for mandrake root. “Well, for centuries it’s been widely held that mandrake was a powerful aphrodisiac,” she said to him. “Couples would partake of the root in small quantities to fuel their, um, sexual desire.”

“Mhm…” Mandrake commented. “And what else?”

“Well,” Dana continued, “others who were interested in attracting a member of the opposite sex would drink a tea made from the mandrake root, or entice their beloved to partake of the root in order to win their desire and eternal love.”

“How interesting,” he answered, his voice humming with sexual promise. “Ye Olde Love Potion Number Nine.”

“Something like that,” Dana said, attempting to rid the incredible flush on her face by fanning herself agitatedly.

Mandrake hummed a response to her statement, then spoke again. “I always knew that mandrake was an aphrodisiac, but I never knew how powerful it was. Did these little love potions succeed in capturing the love of a lifetime?”

“No one knows for certain,” Dana told him. “Clinical results haven’t been substantial enough to prove that story. But there have been several instances in history to prove that there was great love between two people who had ingested the mandrake root as a love potion. Whether they are myth or medicine, we’ll never know.”

Mandrake continued to listen with great interest. “I never knew there were so many uses for mandrake root,” he commented. “You’re a very intelligent woman, Dana.”

Dana found herself blushing, although she was aware that the man could not see her. “Well, thank you very much,” she murmured into the phone. “Although my scientific demeanor tends to be boring and somewhat asexual to the average layman, I appreciate your comment.”

“Boring?” Mandrake said. “You could never be boring. Never.”

Dana laughed softly. “It’s easy to say that to someone you’ve never met.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but something tells me that if we were to meet, I would be far from bored.”

That voice…God, did he know what that voice could do to her? She was finding herself very warm and very wet in certain places, not to mention the exquisite ache between her thighs.

“So…” Mandrake said, his voice becoming huskier, “what do you believe about mandrake’s erotic qualities?”

This time Dana felt the heat of her blush all throughout her body, to the tips of her toes. “Um…what was the question again?” She hoped he would just drop the matter.

“I said, what do you believe about mandrake’s erotic qualities?” There was a lilting yet sexual tone to his voice, making Dana wonder if his question referred to flora or fauna. Deciding to play dumb, she opted for the flora of the subject at hand.

“Well…” Dana said, taking a deep breath, “Being a scientist, I would have to be skeptical about mandrake’s erotic qualities. Particularly since I’ve never sampled its root before.” Damn, that had come out wrong. All wrong. She heard the groan on the other end of the phone and sighed as she felt the electric current between them multiply by infinity.

Mandrake spoke again. “And if you had tried it out, and if it did have this incredible sexual power over you, what would you believe then?”

Dear God, this man named Mandrake knew exactly what to say at exactly the right time. Dana moaned as she felt the insides of her womb begin to tingle with expectation of erotic fulfillment. “Ummm…” she interjected, scrambling to come up with an answer, “…I…would still hold true to my theory that the most potent aphrodisiac in the world is the human mind.”

Damn. Even her skepticism was being turned against her, she realized as Mandrake let out a hearty laugh, obviously reading much more into her statement than there had actually been. How did she get herself into these predicaments?

Mandrake was still laughing moments later. “All right then, Dr. Dana,” he said, chuckling, “let’s see you prove your theory. Right now.”

Dana gasped. What exactly was he asking of her? What did she have to prove, particularly to a total stranger? Surely not….

“Wh-what do you want me to do?” she asked him softly, unsure of how to proceed with this conversation.

Mandrake chuckled again. “I want you to test out your theory like any good scientist would. Tell me your fantasies. Give them to me. Prove to me how excited a person can get from a sexual fantasy.”

“Ohhhh….” Dana’s voice trailed off as she realized just what this man was requesting. Up until now, the conversation had been harmless. Fun. Controllable. Now, however, they were at a crossroads, leading to a destination she feared would involve more than a casual little chat.

With a perfect stranger.

PART 2

Oh, what the hell. She’d already gone too far as it was. What more could it hurt to go even farther?

“Are you there, Dana?” Mandrake asked.

“I’m here,” she replied breathlessly, trying to find some semblance of logical thought.

“Do you still want to do this?” he wanted to know. “Because if you’re uncomfortable at all with this–”

“No,” Dana said, a curt reply to Mandrake’s very concerned query. “No. I’m fine. I was just–thinking of where to begin.”

“Well, for starters,” Mandrake said, “why don’t you start with something that most turns you on? Anything you want.”

Dana sighed heavily. She had never revealed any of her private fantasies to anyone, including the few lovers she’d had in her lifetime. Slowly, softly, she began.

“Well, sometimes I like to imagine that I’m an exotic harem girl,” she told him, “and that I have just been bought by the sultan into his enormous family. He notices me from the moment he looks at me and calls me to his private chambers the very first night in my new home.”

“What does he want with you?” Mandrake asked.

“I believe the question is, what doesn’t he want with me?” Dana said, hearing a low groan on the other end of the phone. “We make love all night long in every position imaginable. He teaches me everything he knows about love, and when it’s over, I am shown back to my room, exhausted.”

“What does he do to you, Dana?” Mandrake asked softly, almost in a whisper.

“Everything,” Dana said breathlessly. “I am helpless to do anything but to enjoy his ministrations. He is a fantastic lover…so sensual, so tender, and yet so forceful all at the same time. Knowing that the same man who is caressing me could kill me just as easily makes it even more exciting.”

Mandrake sighed into Dana’s ear. “What else turns you on, Dana? Is there someone you like to dream about? To fantasize about? Someone who might be the object of your ultimate desires?”

Dana closed her eyes as images of Mulder flashed vividly through her senses. Images of him in those godawful ties. Images of him half-naked from the waist up. Still more heated images of Mulder removing those second-skin blue jeans she loved to see him wear on his off days, to reveal every part of him. “Yes,” she replied, her voice strained from the tension of the moment. “There is…there is someone.”

“Who is he?” Mandrake asked.

Dana sighed again. “Someone I can’t have,” she murmured. “Someone who would never want me.”

“What makes you so sure?” Mandrake wanted to know. “If you’re as beautiful as I think you are, I’m sure you’d have no problem getting his attention.”

Dana frowned. “I just don’t know if he notices me or not,” she told him. “Sometimes he seems to be so absorbed in his own causes that he loses sight of the other things around him.”

“Things like you,” he commented, drawing another smile from Dana.

“Yeah, things like me,” she replied in affirmation.

“Who is he? What does he do?” Mandrake asked.

Dana sighed. She shouldn’t be revealing this information to a stranger. It just did not feel right. Besides, what if this Mandrake guy was a good friend of Mulder’s? What would she do if Mulder found out about her little confession? She would be laughed at for the rest of her Bureau days. Worse yet, she would probably never be able to face Mulder squarely in the eye again. A prospect Dana was not able to even consider. He had such beautiful eyes….

“Dana?” he said, prompting her out of her fantasy.

“Oh, sorry,” she answered, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it of Fox Mulder. But to no avail. “He–ahm, he–works for the Justice Department, as do I. In fact, we’re both federal agents. And partners.”

Her reply was greeted with silence on the other end of the line. “Are you there?” she asked.

Several seconds later, she heard a brief grunt as a confirmation of her query.

“Partners, huh.” Mandrake chuckled. “That makes it awfully convenient.”

“What do you mean?” What was he getting at?

“Well,” Mandrake continued, “If you’re partners, you’re constantly working together all the time. If you wanted to make a move, it would be easy for you to let him know how you felt and see which way the chips would fall.”

“Out of the question,” Dana refused. “He’ll never know how much I need to have him in my life.”

“And why is that?” His voice sounded strained all of a sudden.

“Well, because–because he thinks I don’t need anyone in my personal life. He thinks I get along just fine without anyone. But if he really knew my heart, he would know how much I need him as more than a friend and a partner.”

Again, silence for several moments. “Would that be such a bad thing for him to see how much you need him?”

Dana closed her eyes, her breath caught somewhere in her throat. “Yes,” she whispered, her mind flooding with future images of Mulder teasing her, joking about her, rejecting her. She could brave the forces of the universe with Mulder and lay down her life for him, but she would never let him see her need. Her desire. Her love.

Mandrake suggested an alternative possibility. “Maybe he already knows how you feel and is just waiting for you to tell him. To admit it to him. And to yourself.”

Dana expelled the breath she had held for several seconds. “He’d laugh at me. He’d tell me I was crazy. I’d never be able to work with him again, and I’d rather have a professional relationship with him than risk everything to end up with nothing.”

“How will you know unless you try?” he said to her.

When she didn’t respond, he continued with his advice. “You know, my father always said that life is a gamble. It’s all one big game of chance. You play each hand you’re dealt to the best of your ability and hope that your hand’s good enough to rake in the chips. Sometimes the hands are safe. Easy win. Sometimes they’re not and you have to bluff. You place all your chips on the table and you cross your fingers, say your prayers, and hope that Lady Luck is kind to you.”

Dana slowly nodded in agreement.

“But,” he told her, “if you’re content to play with the crappy hand you’re dealt, and you don’t take that risk, you lose. No chance of getting the big bucks. You lose from the moment you’re handed the cards.” He paused for a minute. “Now which sounds more agreeable to you? Playing it safe and losing anyway, or taking the chance and at least having a possibility of winning the kitty?”

Dana smiled. “Something tells me your father was a damn good poker player.” She heard a slight chuckle on the other end of the phone in response to her comment.

“He was,” Mandrake replied. “He was also damn good at figuring out life at an early age.”

“I guess so.”

“He always had some pearl of wisdom for every situation,” he said to her. “Some little word of advice that totally made sense for any occasion. He was a wise man, one of the last in the world.”

“I’m sorry,” Dana said with deep sympathy. “I lost my father several years ago as well.”

“Then you understand,” he said. “You understand how precious life is. How you shouldn’t waste a day wondering if you should do A, B, or C on your eternal To Do list. Just do it, Dana. Just take the chance. Lay it all out on the line.”

Her heart was racing, her palms sweaty from the moving speech this stranger had given her. He wasn’t some sex offender or some stalker, just a genuine man who had taken an interest in her well- being. Now that she thought of it, it was probably her mother’s doing that this man had called her. Another plan in her mother’s schemes and devices to get Dana married off in this lifetime.

So why hadn’t she hung up?

“Did my mother put you up to this?” she asked Mandrake with intense curiosity, her eyebrows furrowed in a frown.

“Your mother…? What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Mandrake. Did Maggie Scully give you my number?”

“Maggie…?” Mandrake seemed to be confused about the recent turn in the conversation. “I don’t understand.”

Dana sighed in exasperation. “Never mind,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She probably swore you to absolute secrecy anyway.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “It would be just like her to do something like that.”

“Can you blame her?” Mandrake asked her.

“What?”

“Can you blame her for wanting to see you happy and in love?” he continued, his voice a continual caress in Dana’s ear. “Every mother wants their child to know real love. Heart-stopping, knee- knocking, real love. And you’re willfully denying yourself the opportunity because of some selfish, stubborn pride that convinces you that you don’t need that kind of love to be fulfilled in life.”

Dana gasped. “How dare you–”

“Wait a minute; I’m not finished.” The man’s voice was gradually growing higher and higher in tone as a result of his heightened emotions. “What you don’t know is that this kind of love you’ve rejected all your life is the only kind of love that CAN make you happy. The kind of love that most people spend a lifetime searching for. Lady Luck has been kind to just put it in front of you and here you are rejecting the possibility of being eternally happy, all because of pride. Well maybe your mother’s right. Maybe you need someone to talk some sense into your head.”

Dana said nothing for several seconds, deep in thought over what this man, this complete stranger, had said to her. When she finally responded, her voice was nearly a whisper. “How do you know that Lady Luck has put such a kind of love in front of me?” She frowned as she spoke into the receiver. “You know nothing about Mulder. You know nothing about him, his moods, his eccentric little habits, his mannerisms. If anyone were to know if Mulder loved me, believe me, I would. I would’ve seen it by now.”

When her response was met by silence, Dana continued. “A scientist never throws himself whole-heartedly into a hypothesis he hasn’t fully tested first. A scientist never believes a theory that hasn’t had some measure of validity attached to it. Mulder has never said or done anything to indicate he loves me, therefore I cannot assume that he loves me or has any sort of romantic feelings for me.”

There was a long sigh on the other end of the phone. “Well maybe he’s waiting for you to say something so that he can SHOW you how much he feels for you. Maybe he’s just as scared as you are.”

Dana’s heart stopped. Mulder? Scared? Afraid to tell her he loved her? Impossible. But the thought had never occurred to her before. What if…?

“Why don’t you say something to him, Dana, anything. Just be honest with him.” Mandrake’s voice lowered to a low murmur.

Dana attempted to reply, but the words kept losing themselves on her tongue. “I—I wouldn’t know what to say,” she told him. “I don’t think I could say anything.”

“Well, then, plan it beforehand.”

“No, I’m terrible at planning speeches. I usually end up sounding like an idiot.”

“Then plan it now. Right now,” he said. “Practice on me.”

Dana was certain she’d heard him wrong. Surely he wasn’t that concerned to get involved between her and Mulder. She didn’t even know the man, didn’t even know his real name, much less anything about him. But if he was willing to help….

She sighed. “All right, then.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I would start off by telling him that I’d wanted to do this for years, but I–”

“No,” Mandrake said. “That won’t work.”

“What, what I just said?”

“No, not what you just said, but the manner in which you said it.”

“Why not?”

“If you’re going to practice what you’ll say, you might as well pretend you’re talking to him right now. In the room with you.”

“What?”

“I mean, talk to HIM. Talk to Mulder. Don’t talk about him or around him. And speak into the phone while you’re doing it. Don’t worry, if you say something that doesn’t sound right, I’ll let you know. At least this way you’ll be able to take back anything you don’t mean to say to him.”

Dana nodded. “Okay,” she said. What harm could it do? The man already knew her deepest feelings and fears anyway. It was a practical idea to rehearse her confession anyway, and any objective opinion would be a great help.

“Well?” Mandrake said. “I’m ready when you are.”

Dana took in a quick breath, then released it. “I can’t do this,” she said.

“Why not?”

A long sigh from Dana followed Mandrake’s question. “I just can’t,” she said. “It’s very difficult for me to imagine talking to Mulder about…situations of this nature.” She grimaced. “While your idea is a perfectly good solution in theory, I don’t think I can confess my feelings to an imaginary person.”

“Really?” Mandrake said. “Didn’t you have an imaginary friend when you were little?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “but you’ll have to agree that this…is somewhat different.”

Mandrake chuckled in response to her comment.

“So do you have an alternative solution, Dana?” he asked her.

Dana thought for a minute before answering him. “Nothing’s coming to mind,” she said. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

A subtle smile slowly made its way across Dana’s lips. “Unless you would like to pretend along with me.”

“I…” Mandrake’s voice was nearly a whisper. “I…don’t understand…”

“Well, I’ll clarify my request,” she replied, her eyes fixed on the wall. “If you could pretend to be Mulder, it might help me get everything out much easier.”

She heard a swift intake of breath on the other end of the phone. “Dana…”

“Yes?”

“You…you don’t know what you’re asking…”

“What?” She frowned. “Why not? Wasn’t this your idea to begin with?”

“Well…” His voice diminished to practically nothing. “It’s just…I don’t know if I can pretend to be Mulder.”

Dana carefully listened to every word Mandrake had said before responding. “Yes you can. It’s easy. Just sit back and let me do all the work. All you have to do is listen.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Yes, I’m sure. It’s the only way I can get this out before I have to do this in real life,” she reasoned.

Dana heard a long sigh on the other end of the line. “All right, Dana,” Mandrake replied. “I’ll be Mulder.”

Dana nodded in acceptance, in spite of the fact that her gesture could not be seen by the mysterious Mandrake. Her lips curved in the slightest hint of a smile, as she began to ponder the various ways in which she could confess her feelings over the phone…to a complete stranger no less, pretending to be the object of her secret affections.

“Hmmm…” she murmured into the receiver. “If I wanted to reveal my most secret emotions to someone, how would I go about it?”

Mandrake paused before replying. “Why don’t you start off by imagining your surroundings. Imagine a quiet place, somewhere far away from the bustle of everyday life. Some place peaceful, relaxing.”

Dana closed her eyes and began to let her mind wander into a rare moment of fantasy. She sighed and smiled as the familiar images of a family mountain retreat began to flow into her consciousness.

“Where are you, Dana?” Mandrake’s voice seemed to be eternities away.

“I’m…in my family’s old mountain cabin. In Colorado.” She sighed again as the welcoming images began to surface from the depths of her childhood memories. Memories of games played with Bill Junior and Melissa. Memories of heartwarming fireside talks with the family, of the endless times her Ahab read to his Starbuck by the embracing embers of the fire, while the elements of wind and rain waged war with one another outside the cabin. “That’s where we are.”

“We?” Mandrake asked.

“We,” Dana mumbled, lost in her fantasy. “Mulder and myself.”

Suddenly Dana heard her unknown caller begin to speak in a strangely familiar tone of voice. That sexy baritone timbre she was all too familiar with after five years. Was it…could it be…?

<Just enjoy the fantasy, Dana,> she told herself, sinking her languid body onto the length of the couch.

“Why am I here, Dana?” Mandrake asked her, referring to himself as Mulder.

Dana opened her eyes and frowned. Something was not quite right. “No,” she said. “Don’t call me Dana.”

A brief silence greeted her request.

“Scully,” she replied, closing her eyes again, imagining the blazing fire of the warm mountain cabin and a very handsome FBI partner sitting at her side. “I want you to call me Scully.”

“Scully.” The voice was dark, deep, and soft as a whisper. It was Mulder, completely Mulder, even if only in her tempting, tranceful, state of illusion.

Dana sighed contentedly. “That’sss more like it…” she hissed in a half-voice, extending her body to occupy the full length of the couch. “Talk to me, Mulder.”

She barely heard the ragged breath on the other end of the line.

“Scully…” he said. “Why…why am I here with you in your family’s cabin?”

Dana smiled. “I invited you, silly,” she said, in a girlish voice. “To get away for a while. From Washington, from work, from that joke of an existence we call life.”

“I see,” he murmured in response. “What room are we in?”

“The den,” she replied lazily. “We’re sitting on the large couch in front of a huge fireplace. You’ve just built the biggest fire in an effort to prove your manhood to me.”

Mandrake chuckled. “I have to prove my manhood to you?” he asked. “I must really want to impress you with my manly prowess.”

Dana giggled in response, imagining the look Mulder would give her if he had indeed built a blazing fire in her cabin. No doubt he would have considered it a crowning achievement.

“And we’ve just eaten the best dinner, with rich dessert and an exceptional wine. We’ve both stuffed ourselves silly and are about to fall asleep.” She sighed again.

“Oh, we can’t have that, can we?” Mandrake said with a hint of mischief.

“Well, then, you have to keep me awake…somehow.” She smiled impishly.

“I have plenty of ideas,” he rumbled into Dana’s ear.

She gasped as she imagined Mulder’s voice whispering such a sexy comment into her ear. He seemed so real… right in front of her…the warmth of the fireplace melting her inhibitions, the pure pleasure of having him so close to her…so close…

“Why don’t you…tell me some of your ideas?” she suggested, imagining his face only inches from hers.

Mandrake chuckled again in that sexy voice of his. “Not until you tell me why you manipulated me into coming up here,” he said.

“Mmm….” Dana hummed into the phone, her voice suddenly sultry and sexual. “Do you really need an answer to that?”

“Don’t beat around the bush, Scully,” he said, his voice lowering as well. “Tell me.”

Dana inhaled a slow, sustained breath before continuing. “I brought you here to tell you something…something very important to me. To us.”

There was a brief silence before Mandrake answered her. “You’re entering the Iditarod dog race.”

Dana giggled again. To be a stranger, the man, oddly enough, had the mouth of her Mulder.

Her Mulder….

She smiled. “No, I’m not entering the Iditarod dog race.”

“You’re entering me in the Iditarod dog race.” He said it flatly, with no trace of intended humor. Just like Mulder…

Was it just her imagination, or was this stranger’s voice beginning to sound suspiciously familiar? Dana frowned and shook her head vigorously in an attempt to clear her mind of these questions.

<Why can’t you just enjoy it for what it is?> she chided herself. <Why do you always have to analyze everything, every little word, every nuance of gesture, of speech, of behavior? Just enjoy it and dammit, don’t think so much.>

“Scully? Dana? Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” she replied, willing herself out of her private thoughts. As if in obedience to her command, her body relaxed again and again she resumed her fantasy. “Now…where were we?”

Mandrake chuckled softly. “You’ve forgotten already?”

She smiled. “I…just got sidetracked for a minute.”

His chuckle grew louder in response to Dana’s reply. “Dana Scully doesn’t seem to be the type to get sidetracked at all. Must’ve been a substantial distraction.”

When she did not answer, he continued. “Does the thought of Mulder distract you, Dana?”

Her sharp intake of breath was a reply in itself. “It’s… a pleasant distraction. A very…pleasurable distraction,” she told him, her voice humming with sensuality.

“I see,” he said, his voice lowering as well.

“So…where were we again?” she queried, her sky blue eyes veiled dreamily by long auburn lashes.

“The Iditarod,” Mandrake replied with a trace of dry humor in his voice.

“Oh yes. The Iditarod.” A warm smile crept across Dana’s full lips. “I had something I needed to tell you.”

“So tell me already,” he said, with the slightest hint of impatience in his voice.

Dana inhaled a long, slow breath, imagining the cabin, the fire, the satisfaction of a perfect dinner with perfect company. Suddenly it wasn’t so difficult to imagine herself revealing her most intimate fantasies and feelings to Mulder. The stage had been set. The actors were present, at least in her fantasy. The script…well, no script had been written yet, but she would attend to that matter directly.

“Mulder…” she began. “I…I don’t know how to put into words what I want to say…somehow it seems too casual, too cliché, too trite, to merely verbalize.” She imagined his look of puzzlement, of wonder, of curiosity, and concern all at once as she began her confession.

Expecting to hear something in reply, Dana paused briefly. Silence was her only response.

“And as you know,” she continued, “I am far from casual, cliché, or trite.” She exhaled the rest of her pent-up breath in one swift release.

“So get to it already,” she heard him say…she imagined Mulder saying. Just like Mulder…blunt, aggressive, annoyingly and bitingly direct. Cut to the chase. No tolerance for sidestepping or stalling.

Which was what Dana Scully was doing at that exact moment. Trying to form a logical, coherent manner in which her feelings could be revealed, instead of sounding like some gawky adolescent schoolgirl admitting her crush to her object of adoration. Truth be known, she felt like a schoolgirl. Vulnerable. Self-conscious. Afraid. Afraid of rejection. Afraid of unrequited affection.

Just afraid in general.

“Scully…?” he murmured softly.

She envisioned Mulder’s face, full of curiosity, anticipation. That handsome face drawing nearer to hers, encouraging her discomfort, prompting her to reveal what she most wanted–and feared–to reveal. Those velvety hazel eyes, searching and probing her own, for the answers she tenuously held on the borders of her soul.

“Mulder…” she said, choking on her own voice as she fought to contain the sounds, the words, she was about to form. “I…”

“Tell me, Scully,” she heard him say.

“Mulder, I….” Her heart was pounding, her pulse racing. It was as if her fantasy had become reality. As if Mulder was no longer in her mind, but in the room with her. Even in the comfort of her own apartment, in the safety of an anonymous confession, Dana could not bring herself to purge her heart of its burden of a secret affection.

“Scully, tell me. You can trust me.”

“I trust you, Mulder,” she said, “You know I trust you. But this goes beyond trust, beyond anything you or I have ever known or experienced.”

“What could go beyond trust, Scully?” she heard him ask. In her mind, she saw Mulder’s look of concern as he placed a hand on her shoulder. The mere thought of his touch on her set her skin afire, ablaze with wanton desire.

This time, however, Dana knew the fire was too great to suppress, to quench with other thoughts, other emotions, other distractions. This fire had to run its full course, to consume her, to consume everything in its path, in its quest for changing an ember of fear to a flame of love.

“Mulder,” she said, taking a deep breath, “the feelings I have for you transcend trust. These feelings have always transcended my trust in you. I trust you with my life. You know that. I trust you with my soul. You know that as well. But there’s something you don’t know… something you’ve never known that I’ve wanted to entrust in you for years.”

“What is it, Scully?” the voice on the other end was now a mere whisper.

Somehow finding the courage to speak her next words, Scully murmured, “I trust you with my heart, Mulder.”

Suddenly a ragged sigh penetrated the receiver, entering the delicate shell of Dana’s ear, resounding and reverberating throughout the fragile canal.

“Scully…” she heard him sigh again.

She closed her eyes as she imagined Mulder, his eyes closed, his head bowed in deep contemplation of what she had just said to him. What would he be thinking? What would possibly run through Mulder’s mind if she really confessed her feelings to him? How would he respond?

“I love you, Mulder. And it is my hope…my most fervent hope…that you love me in return.” There. She had said it. She had finally confessed her most burning secret to her most cherished friend and partner, even if in fantasy.

But in fantasy, all dreams could be fulfilled, all wishes granted. Happily ever after, as the childhood fairy tales suggested. A real-life confession to Mulder would not be fantasy. She could never place her faith in the outcome of a fantasy. Still….

<I love you, Mulder.> The sound was exquisite. The four most beautiful words in the realm of her vernacular, spoken, expressed. Like the ancients, who believed in the omnipotence of the spoken word, newfound courage filled her vitals as the strength and might of those words began to conquer her fears.

She suddenly heard a response…a soft whisper in the ear of the receiver. “Scully…Dana…that was beautiful.”

“Do you think it…will be acceptable?” she wanted to know, suddenly filled with the power of the cosmos.

“I…I was touched. Moved beyond words. It was… it was perfect.” He released a heavy sigh into the phone.

Dana closed her eyes as she imagined Mulder being moved beyond words. Moved enough to close the distance between them on the couch and claim her lips in ardent, animal passion. And then….

“Dana?”

It took several moments for Dana to realize that her substitute lover was addressing her. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I was…I was lost in thought.”

“Really.” Mandrake chuckled. “What were you thinking about?”

She smiled secretively. “I’m sure you can easily draw your own conclusions, dear sir.”

His laugh sent another wave of chills up and down Dana’s spine. Who was he? What had caused him to take such an interest in her life? And why did his voice sound so excitingly familiar to her?

“Ah, but I don’t want to draw my own conclusions,” he said to her. “I want you to tell me. Tell me what you were thinking. You started the fantasy; complete it.”

“Complete it?” Dana suddenly felt the heat of the blood rushing to her face. “You mean…?”

“You know what I mean, Dana.” Mandrake’s voice was low, dark, and charged with sexual intent. “Mulder is in that room with you, Scully, and he wants to know how much you love him. How much you care for him. I don’t think words will satisfy him at this delicate stage in your confession.”

Dana took several long, slow breaths, fighting to control the signs of her now-obvious arousal. Her body had now begun throbbing in several places she’d nearly forgotten about…it had been so long. Too long.

“Talk to me, Scully,” he rumbled into the phone. “Tell me what you would want from Mulder…what you need from him.”

PART 3

Her eyes began to dance underneath the delicate cover of their lids as she envisioned Mulder’s face nearing her own, his full, pouting lips parted ever so slightly in anticipation of what she most wanted him to do. Then she was aware of her own mirrored movements and licked her lips hungrily.

“Mulder…” she pleaded into the phone. “You’re going to kiss me. I’ve been waiting for this…”

“Yes…” she heard the faint whisper in the receiver.

“Closer and closer we come to one another…then, then finally…our lips touch for the first time.” Dana sighed as she imagined how baby soft Mulder’s lips would be, pressed against her own.

A muffled groan greeted her ears.

“Softly…slowly…ever so slowly…your lips begin to move against mine,” she said, her voice suddenly heavy with desire. “The feeling is incredible. I never knew such pleasure could come from something so deceptively simple.”

Another muffled groan.

As if by magic, the towel which had been so snugly wrapped around Dana’s petite body began to slide away from its owner’s torso. Dana gasped as she watched the towel gently undo itself, from the fullness of her breasts, down to the gentle swell of her hips, yet she did nothing to attempt to cover herself.

As a matter of fact, she enjoyed the feeling of the cool air on her satin flesh. It was a luxury in which she had rarely indulged herself. She remembered times of impetuous youth, exhibiting herself before young, exuberant lovers who had never complained of her wanton display.

Would Mulder complain?

First, he would have to become her lover.

As soon as she began to envision delectable scenarios in which to display herself to Mulder, she was interrupted from her private thoughts. “Dana…Dana, please… please continue.” His statement sounded more like an imperative plea than a suggestion.

Closing her eyes, she continued her fantasy. “Your lips move down to my neck…oh, God, it feels so good…there is such power in your kiss, such strength, yet such gentleness.” Involuntarily her hands trailed upward to her neck, her fingers feathering up and down in a gentle caress, imagining his lips there.

“Suddenly you tire of being gentle. Your lips begin to invade my neck. I feel the pressure as you kiss and suck and nip with your teeth. I feel the bruises beginning to form, but I don’t mind. I love your passion. I want more of it.”

She was keenly aware of him as he uttered her name, in a low, guttural groan that nearly sent her over the edge.

“You move lower, to my breasts. Oh…” Dana’s voice trailed off as she imagined the languorous pleasure of his lips covering her breasts. “Then my nipples… your tongue…your teeth….” Her sentences became garbled phrases as her hand began to caress herself.

“I want all of you, Dana,” he breathed into the phone. “I can’t wait much longer.”

“I can’t either,” she replied, her hands moving frantically over her breasts, over her body. “Oh, God, Mulder, I want you so bad…”

“Dana…oh, Dana,” she heard him croon into the receiver. “Don’t deny me this. Don’t ever deny us this.”

“No, no, never,” she gasped, her hand finally resting upon the satin bud of her arousal. “I want you to make love to me. Now.”

“Then make it happen,” he growled into her ear. “Make it happen, Dana. Do it.”

Dana began to pant heavily as steamy, sexy images of a naked Mulder began to come into focus. A very handsome, naked, and aroused Mulder, on top of her, in her bed. Kissing her all over, murmuring her name, touching her. “We’re in bed,” she gasped breathlessly into the receiver. “You’re on top of me, kissing me, touching me, loving me with every part of you except the one I need the most. I want that part of you so badly, but you tease me. You tease me until I beg you for it.”

“Beg me, Dana,” she heard him groan.

“Take me, Mulder, all of me…Come inside me. Fill me. Complete me in every sense. Now.” Her ‘begging’ suddenly had become a biting command.

Her reply was met with a series of ragged groans and breaths. “Dana….yes….”

And then she cried out in pleasure as her fingers found their destination….inside her most secret place. Her mind was filled with images of Mulder entering her, his face contorted with pleasure as he gently filled her warm, wet softness with his own heated hardness.

“You’re inside me,” she whispered into the phone. “Oh my God, you feel so good….”

“Dana, Dana, Dana…” he sighed, over and over again.

She continued. “I wrap my legs around your hips to guide you in further, more deeply inside of me. I am amazed at how well we fit together. We are perfect…we are one.”

She heard him grunt an unintelligible response.

“And then…we begin to move with each other…partners in every sense….working in tandem with each other to achieve the heights of passion…desire. I moan and groan as you thrust deeply inside of me, as you withdraw and then fill me, over and over. There is nothing in the world that can give me such joy, such pleasure, such happiness.”

“Oh, God…”

She let out a strangled cry as her fingers increased the tempo of their thrusts. “You begin to move inside of me more urgently, more passionately. Our bodies are slick and sweating from the heat we are creating, the energy we’re expending. I turn my head to lick the salt from your skin… my God, you smell wonderful in the heat of our lovemaking.”

“Oh, Dana…please don’t stop,” he chanted, over and over.

She gasped and let out another cry as she felt the first spasms overtake her. “I feel it coming,” she groaned into the receiver. “I can’t hold it back…you feel so wonderful inside of me….oh GOD….”

“Dana…Dana Scully, I love you,” she heard him say.

And then she came with a loud cry, with an orgasm so violent, that she felt her honeyed insides contract against each other, sending her entire body into rapid convulsions. She opened her deep sapphire eyes, darkened by the exquisite rapture of heavenly fulfillment. She cried her beloved’s name, over and over into the receiver, as the spasms slowly subsided.

“Dear God…oh, Mulder…” she murmured, as the bliss of sweet release enveloped her. Cradling the receiver tenderly against her ear, she sighed contentedly into the phone.

Mandrake was the first to speak. “That…that was… that was–”

“Incredible,” Dana finished his sentence, sighing again. “Absolutely incredible.”

And then she remembered. The phone. The pretense, the fantasy. No Mulder. Only a stranger named Mandrake. Suddenly she sat upright on the couch, frantically trying to cover herself, although she knew no one could see her nakedness.

“Dana…damn, you’re beautiful…” the man murmured. “I only wish this Mulder guy could know what he has waiting for him.”

She frowned, suddenly enraged, indignant, and violated. The stranger to whom she had so openly revealed herself, the one who now held the secrets to all her hidden desires and fantasies, was on the phone with her. No Mulder. It had never been Mulder; her mind and this stranger had openly taken advantage of her vulnerability. Again she felt the blood rush to her face, but not from arousal.

“I’m hanging up,” she hissed. “Right now, you psycho.”

“What?” he exclaimed incredulously. “What did I do?”

“What did you do?!?” Dana yelled into the phone. “You’ve had me on a phone for God knows how long getting me to reveal things about myself I won’t even reveal to my own family, and you have the balls to ask what you did?!?” She hit a nearby table in frustration. “I’m calling the police so that they can haul your ass into jail where you belong, you sick fucker.”

“Wait…wait a minute,” he said in rebuttal. “First off, YOU didn’t have to say anything. I never forced you to give me any answers; you did it out of your own free will.” He paused for a second. “And before you call the police on my ass, you should know that they can’t arrest me.”

“Why not?” Dana said mockingly.

“Well, why don’t you go check your caller ID and see for yourself,” the man said, in a voice that was not his own. A voice which was not strange to her. A voice which she had heard over and over again for five years. Dear God, could it be…was it…?

Dana threw the phone on the couch and ran to the small LCD screen that sat on the nightstand in her bedroom. She looked at the all-too-familiar combination of numbers as the confirmation of her worst fears…or hopes…

Dammit.

PART 4

Slowly she walked back into the living room, her breath coming in rapid gasps. Damn him. Damn him, damn him, DAMN HIM.

It couldn’t have been…all that time…and he’d never said a word…he’d just continued with the pretense. That bastard. That cowardly bastard. Too scared to come out and tell her it was him. And she’d been gullible enough to believe him. She’d been too stupid to go into the bedroom and check the number before she’d waltzed off into a dance of fantasy with him. And now she’d confessed everything…EVERYTHING….and he had gladly taken it all in. Even the heights of her orgasm, with his damned-to-Hell name on her lips the whole time. DAMN HIM.

Slowly, tentatively, she picked up the phone, trying to restore some measure of composure to her face, her demeanor, her voice. “Mulder,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

“Speaking,” Fox Mulder replied, in that annoyingly sarcastic tone of voice Dana knew too well.

She scrambled to think of something to say…ANYTHING to say to get her mind off her embarrassment, her anger, her utter humiliation.

Nothing was coming to mind.

“You know, Scully,” Mulder said, again with dripping sarcasm, “It’s bad telephone protocol to keep silent while someone is waiting on the other end.”

“Go to hell, Mulder,” Dana retorted bitterly, violently pacing the length of her living room.

There was silence for several minutes as Dana continued to think of the many ways she could express her complete exasperation and frustration to her damnedly intrusive partner. The emotions were there, but how would one express them without sounding vengeful, resentful?

The bastard was speaking again. Damn him.

“Scully, are you going to say anything, or are you just going to stand there with the phone in your hand and give me the silent treatment for the next hundred years?”

“You deserve more than the silent treatment,” Dana hissed at him. “How DARE you call me at home and disturb my bath, violate my privacy, and procure extremely sensitive information out of me, information you were NEVER supposed to know? And not only that, Mulder, but under an assumed name?” Her rapid, enraged breathing filled the silence between them. “You deserve to be arrested, imprisoned for life…tortured, beaten…hell, even castrated so you won’t do this to me or anyone else in the future.”

Mulder’s swift intake of breath indicated to Dana that her final remark had hit home. She held her head a little higher from her small victory.

“Scully, do you honestly think that I make a regular habit of calling lonely women on Friday nights and asking them to tell me their fantasies?”

“I don’t know WHAT you get off on, Mulder, and frankly, I don’t think I WANT to know,” Dana retorted insultingly. “I’ve seen enough to gather a damn good opinion about what you do in your free time.”

“Dammit, Scully,” Mulder growled into the receiver, “This doesn’t have to get personal.”

“Mulder, this was personal a long time ago.”

“You’re damn right, you hypocrite,” Mulder bitingly agreed.

Dana’s quick gasp was loud enough for Mulder to hear. “I beg your pardon…?!” she hissed into the receiver.

Mulder’s reply was even more bitingly offensive than his previous comment. “I’ve been sitting here for the last five minutes,” he said, “taking your insults, hearing you badmouth my life, my free time, my character. Well, you tell me something, Miss Dana Scully. If I disturbed, violated, and cajoled you into confession tonight, and if your self-righteous, pious little ego can judge my actions, how do you excuse YOUR actions the other night?”

Dana found herself frowning in response to Mulder’s question. What was he talking about? “If you’re going to accuse me of something, Mulder, you better have a damn good reason. Otherwise this conversation is over.”

“I’m not finished,” Mulder yelled into the receiver. “You’d like to think you’re so proper and proprietary, don’t you? You make everyone think you’re this reserved, unemotional, practical, logical woman with no feelings or emotions whatsoever. The Ice Queen, isn’t that what they call you at Headquarters?”

“Dammit, Mulder, get to it, or I’m hanging up right now.” She had a premonition that Mulder’s point was something she definitely did not want to hear.

“And everyone believes your little charade, don’t they? You created Scully to keep your true nature from the rest of the world, from anyone who might actually get too close to find that you’re a real flesh-and-blood woman. Someone has penetrated your defenses, Scully. And you’re scared out of your mind.”

Dana’s eyes widened as Mulder’s words struck her to her very core. For once, she was speechless.

“So how do you defend YOUR actions on Monday night when you called me, Dana Scully?” Mulder growled.

Dana took a deep breath before answering him as calmly as she could. “I didn’t call you Monday night, Mulder,” she said.

“Oh, really.” The edge in Mulder’s voice seemed to slash Dana to the heart. “Perhaps you’d answer to another name, then…Cinnamon.”

Dana was sure she had just gone into cardiac arrest. Her heart ceased to beat for several seconds. Pain in her chest…blood pooling in her hands and feet… labored breath…slow loss of consciousness….

“So tell me, Cinnamon,” Mulder remarked with his biting sarcasm, “was this just a one-time thing, or is this your usual night job when you’re not performing autopsies or drafting reports for your superiors?”

Ohhhh…..How could he be so damn callous? “Damn you to Hell, Mulder. I’m hanging up.”

“Why? Another call from some horny man?”

“Mulder, I won’t take your insults.” She couldn’t take them at all. Her vulnerable state had already made her feel completely exposed to the man she loved. His insults were driving the sword even deeper into her gut.

“Well then, why don’t you explain why you called me on Monday night, not as Scully, not as Dana, but as Cinnamon.” Mulder’s voice was matter-of-fact, businesslike.

Slowly she sat on the couch, trying to think of some intelligent response to his request. Something logical, rational, something he could accept as being a perfect reason for her behavior.

Unfortunately, Dana knew that none of the events from the night in question had any logical or rational motive behind them. But she had to say something, to defend herself, in the hope of possibly redeeming herself in the eyes of her partner, her friend, her beloved. Redemption was imperative for her to be reconciled to him, to have a chance for the relationship she most wanted…most needed above all others….

“Cinnamon?” Mulder interrupted her thoughts. “I’m waiting.”

She sighed. “Please don’t call me that,” she said.

“Why not?” he said. “You were obviously comfortable with it a few nights ago.”

“Mulder, I…” Dana’s voice trailed off as she realized her arguments would do nothing to sway Mulder from his intentions. He wanted the truth. Well, he would have the truth.

She began again. “Mulder, do you remember any of the events on Monday, besides that night?”

Silence on the other end. “Mulder?”

“Yes,” he said suddenly, almost hastily. “Yes, I remember.”

“Do you recall anything different about the events during the day?” she wanted to know. Yes, she’d heard him say it…he’d noticed her change in attire. He’d revealed his desire for her over the phone, but she needed to hear him say it. To her, not Cinnamon.

“Scully, we’ve been through this–”

“Not this way, Mulder. Not as ourselves. Tell me, Mulder. Tell me what you thought about me, and I’ll do the same.”

She heard Mulder mutter something unintelligible into the phone, then she heard him sigh. A very long sigh.

“When you walked into the office that morning,” Mulder began, “wearing that suit…I, uh, I nearly fell out of my chair onto the floor.” She heard his throat constrict as he forced the last few words out of his larynx.

“Why, Mulder? What was so shocking about my attire that day?” She knew…she needed to hear it from him. <Come on, Mulder, come on,> she pleaded silently over the phone.

“Scully…damn, Scully, you looked…well, you…” Mulder was fumbling for a coherent sentence. “I mean, I’d never seen so–so much of you before.”

One auburn eyebrow arched in response.

“No, that didn’t come out right, Scully. I’m sorry. I mean, you were just…you were just…so beautiful… and so damn sexy in that suit…in a way I’d never seen you before…and I’m a man, Scully, I couldn’t help but notice….”

A slight smile curved the corners of Dana’s lips. Yes. He’d noticed, and he’d admitted it to her. They were halfway there.

“I…I mean, I wanted to notice…I wanted to keep anyone else from noticing. I just wanted to notice you… all day.” Mulder’s voice suddenly lowered to a deeper, more sexual timbre.

Mulder’s words sent Dana’s entire body into pleasurable pins and needles.

“I didn’t know why you’d dressed like that,” he said. “I figured you had something after work, or some reasonable excuse, but I was glad you’d dressed that way, regardless of the reason. Damn, you looked so good….” His voice became a husky murmur.

Dana suddenly found her pulse again. Rapidly increasing to clinically dangerous levels. She exhaled a pent-up breath as she heard Mulder’s last few words over and over in her head.

Mulder continued again. “Not only was I treated to a new suit, but a new display of what was underneath. Damn, Scully,” he said as his voice trailed to nothing but a whisper, “when you leaned over my desk, I had to fight the urge to throw you on the desk and take you right there without asking. And it took superhuman strength to keep my hands to myself.”

Dana found herself suddenly breathing heavily…panting like some female animal in heat. She had to hold the phone away from her mouth to keep Mulder from hearing her display of desire.

“Five years of sexual frustration, Scully, and then you do this to me.” He moaned. “A man can only take so much.”

She sighed, closing her eyes. He’d wanted her. He’d wanted her more than she could’ve ever imagined. And he’d finally admitted it to her.

“I guess I was hoping that maybe you’d changed your mind,” he continued, “that maybe you were open to the possibility of… of…”

“Of us?” Dana was barely able to squeak the words out of her mouth.

“Of us,” Mulder repeated in affirmation.

A sigh escaped Dana’s lips. “Mulder…” she murmured into the phone.

“And I had to fight so hard to keep it in, everything that I’d wanted to say to you, everything I’d wanted to do to you, for five fucking years, Dana, all because I was afraid you’d turn me away. So I kept it all in. I don’t know how, but I did.”

Dana sighed again into the phone. “I don’t know how you were able to hide it so well,” she said. “I never even knew you were feeling this way.”

Mulder laughed drily. “Does the FBI give out awards at the annual banquet for Most Emotionally and Sexually Repressed Special Agent?”

Dana could not repress her surfacing giggle.

“You know, I should submit that one,” he said. “I know of at least one candidate, if I can nominate myself.”

Dana giggled again. “You might have some competition,” she said. “I’d feel a moral responsibility to nominate myself as well.”

This time it was Mulder’s turn to laugh. “Tough call,” he said. “It’d be a difficult decision.”

“Yeah.” Dana agreed with him.

Suddenly she had an idea…a fantastic idea. “Well,” she murmured huskily, “we could always settle the matter ourselves.” She crossed her fingers in the hope that Mulder would take the bait.

“I’m game if you’re game,” he replied, his voice humming with animal intent.

Mulder never saw the victory leap Dana made from the couch to the middle of her living room floor.

“I dunno,” she said flirtatiously, sashaying about the room, “I’m not sure if you’re…*up* to my level of playing.”

“I’m a fast learner,” Mulder murmured into the phone, his voice sending another shower of chills down Dana’s spine.

“But first…” he said suddenly, catching her off guard, “you tell me why you called me Monday night as Cinnamon.”

Oh.

Dana froze for a second. She hadn’t told Mulder her reasons for calling. He wouldn’t be in her arms until she told him why. But somehow, after this little flirtation, suddenly Dana wasn’t so scared to tell him after all. He might actually get a kick out of it.

“All right, Mulder,” she said. “I hope you’re prepared.”

“I’m always prepared,” Mulder replied, with a strong hint of innuendo.

Dana grinned impishly. <I just bet you are.>

“Anyway,” she began, “I called you as Cinnamon because of what happened at work, actually. I didn’t have plans for anything after work, and I didn’t dress like that for the hell of it. To be honest, Mulder, I was tired of playing these little games with you and I wanted to be as bold and as brazen as I felt I could be. So I went out, bought that suit, and braved the looks, the stares, and the gossip, to tempt you into finally doing something about that incredible tension between us.”

“You…you dressed like that for me?” Mulder seemed amazed at the prospect.

“Only for you, Mulder. I spent four hundred dollars on a suit for you, to show you how much I wanted you. If you had taken me on your desk without asking, I wouldn’t have minded.” She smiled again.

“Damn….” Mulder’s voice was a whisper. “Can we hit rewind on the calendar?”

Dana giggled again. “I was doing all I could to get you out of that chair and into my arms, Mulder. It was the only way I knew how, without putting my heart on the line.”

Mulder said nothing for several seconds. Apparently he was lost in thought. “And so that’s why you called me that night,” he concluded. “To find out if I really did want you, if I really had reacted to your little plan that day.”

Dana closed her eyes, nodding, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she said. “And…to grant myself the previously, as-of-yet unknown luxury of hearing a very desirable Mr. Fox Mulder in sexual pursuit.”

“Ahhhh….” Mulder’s voice indicated that he was enlightened and educated by her admission. “Well now that you put it that way…”

“What way?” she wanted to know.

“That way,” he said. “Now that I know your reasons, now that I know you weren’t acting out of some cruel joke or desire to humiliate me, I guess we can forgive each other our petty grievances.”

“Well….” she said. “Almost.”

“What do you mean?” he wanted to know.

A wide grin crept across Dana’s classic features. “I want to know why you, Fox Mulder, conspired with licentious intent to telephone a certain Dana Scully tonight, under an assumed name of Mandrake.”

He laughed. “Well, I figured, what’s good for the goose is certainly good for the gander.”

Again, Dana could not prevent the loud giggle from surfacing.

“I give as good as I get,” he stated flatly. “And paybacks are a bitch, aren’t they?”

She nodded. “Most definitely.”

Suddenly she thought of something…something he hadn’t told her. “Mulder, I have another question.”

“Shoot.”

“How…how did you find out I was Cinnamon?” she asked him. “I used a different voice; I even used a different sort of vocabulary. How did you find out?”

Mulder laughed incredibly loud, so loudly that Dana had to hold the phone away from her ear. “Scully, all that training at Quantico, all the years you’ve been in the field, and you can’t even guess?”

“Well…” Dana frowned. “No.”

“Easy,” he said. “I did what any intelligent federal agent would do.”

“And what was that?”

Mulder chuckled again. “I had the Bureau trace your call.”

Dana blushed a vivid red as she fought to contain a very unladylike sniggle.

“So do you think you learned your lesson, little girl?” Mulder said to her.

“Oh, I definitely learned my lesson, sir,” she replied ingenuously.

“Will you do it again?” he wanted to know.

“Oh yes,” she said. “You can count on my being an obsessive repeat offender.”

“Good,” he said hopefully. “I look forward to it.”

Dana’s smile was enormous in response to Mulder’s statement.

“But,” he said, “if I am to grant you pardon for every offense, you must reserve these crimes exclusively for me.”

Dana nodded again. “I wouldn’t dream of it otherwise, sir.”

Mulder chuckled.

“But you have to promise me something,” she said. “No more 900 numbers. Those things can get you into trouble.” She grinned again.

“Damned if I don’t know,” Mulder remarked.

Judging by his comment, Dana supposed he did understand.

“But,” Mulder interjected, “I can still keep my video collection, right?”

“You’re incorrigible, Mulder.”

“I know, but you like that in me.”

“I suppose.” Dana’s eyes were bright with immeasurable happiness. “Mulder, you can keep your videos if you like, but you should know something first.”

“What’s that?”

“Between work and my attentions, you won’t have much time to watch them anyway.”

“I’m counting on it,” he said, his voice again tinged with the promise of sensual delight.

And then silence for seconds. For moments. For what seemed like eternities.

After a few more uncomfortable seconds, Dana attempted to break the ice. “So….”

“So….”

“So what do we do now?”

“Well,” Mulder said, “it’s 10:13 on a Friday night, and everyone in the world is out pursuing their selfish pleasures. Everyone except us, that is.”

“Mhm,” Dana agreed, running a hand through her nearly-dry auburn locks. “And what do you suppose we do about it?”

She could almost see the grin on Mulder’s face as he replied to her question. “I say we stay in and pursue our own selfish pleasures.”

Dana inhaled a sharp breath. “Oh….” she whispered.

“But first…” he said. “But first we play a game.”

“A game?” What was he getting at? He had just made an incredibly overt sexual proposition to her, one she was ready to accept in a second’s notice, and all of a sudden he wanted to play a game? What was wrong with him?

“Yeah,” Mulder grunted in response. “Go to your window and look up at the sky.”

“Why?” she said.

“You’ll find out,” he said. “Just do it.”

“Okay, Mulder,” she sighed resignedly, walking over to the window.

“Nah-ah.” Mulder chided her as if she were a delinquent child. “Spooky didn’t say.”

“What!?” Dana exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “Mulder, what are you trying to pull here?”

“I’m not trying to pull anything, Scully, I just want to play a game.”

“Mulder, we’re not in kindergarten,” she muttered. “And I don’t know about you, but right now I am far from having childish thoughts about you.”

“Same here,” Mulder said, “which is all the more reason to play this game.”

“What game?!?” a frustrated Dana yelled into the phone.

Her question was met with a sinister chuckle. A very sinister chuckle. And then a very sensual reply. “Spooky Says, Dana. Spooky Says.”

–

Spooky Says

Title: Spooky Says

Author: Bidie M

Category: VR

Rating: NC-17 for strong language and sexual situations

Spoilers: None

Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance. Erotica.

Summary: On a hot Friday night, at 10:13 p.m., Mulder suggests to Scully over the phone that they play a game…a very interesting adult version of a childhood favorite. Yet, as they discover much later, the game is merely the beginning of the evening’s events. The finale of a three-part trilogy which includes “Cinnamon Calling” and “Mandrake’s Message”.

~~~~~

Disclaimer: Yes, folks, it’s been fun. It’s been real fun writing this trilogy of stories. I hope you all have enjoyed them as much as I have. So print them out and put them by your bedside for nightly reading!!! I already have!

I’ll say it one more time–the characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. They belong to FOX, Chris Carter, and Ten Thirteen Productions. I am in no way making money off this little endeavor. The only reward I ask is that my fellow Philes please supply me with feedback regarding this story and any of my other stories at . Thanks a lot and enjoy the story!

~~~~~

Spooky Says

“Spooky Says?” A towel-clad Dana Scully paced the floor of her living room, shouting into the receiver of her cordless phone. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a GAME,” Mulder said patronizingly on the other end of the line.

Dana rolled her eyes. “Well, I’ve never heard of it.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Mulder told her. “I made it up.”

“Oh, great,” Dana said sarcastically, throwing her free hand in the air. “That’s just what we need. A game you made up.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“Well, knowing you, Mulder, your aptitude for sudden spontaneity would most certainly prompt you to change whatever rules you’ve concocted in your head at will as you go along, thereby making it much more difficult for anyone to understand the object of the game.”

Dana’s reply was met by silence for a second. She was sure Mulder was laughing at her right now, wherever he was.

“Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten all that out?” she heard him say.

“Very funny, Mulder. Would you just tell me what the game is all about before I change my mind about our agreement?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Mulder replied mockingly.

Dana expelled her breath with a frustrated huff. Apparently this wasn’t going to be an easy way to get what she wanted out of the evening.

She heard Mulder begin to describe the game. “Spooky Says is my version of an old childhood game,” he told her. “So it actually isn’t my own idea, just my sick and twisted interpretation of the original game.”

“Sick and twisted?” Dana’s eyebrows raised in humorous response to his description. “I take it this game isn’t for children, then.”

“You’re damn right it isn’t,” he said, his voice lowering several octaves.

Dana had to grab the nearby chair for support as his voice began to start the cycle of arousal within her all over again. Dear God, she had never known a man that could turn her on so easily, so readily, as Fox Mulder.

Then again, no man she had ever known had ever captured her interest, her arousal, and her emotions, like Fox Mulder. He was in a class by himself.

“Mulder…” she whispered, her legs slightly unsteady from the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. “Why don’t you…enlighten me on the purpose of this…game.”

Mulder chuckled softly, his baritone voice sending another wave of tingling sensations throughout every nerve of her body.

“Scully,” he asked her, “when you were a kid, did you ever play Simon Says?”

“Simon Says?” Dana replied. “Of course. All the time. Melissa always wanted to be Simon and wouldn’t let anyone else have a turn. She would always pout and cry when Mom made her relinquish the position to someone else.” She smiled as happy memories flooded her consciousness.

“Well, just think of this game as a form of Simon Says,” Mulder explained to her. “Except that Spooky gives the orders, and they sure as hell aren’t of the juvenile variety.”

“Ooooo….” Dana moaned into the phone. “I like this game already.”

Mulder chuckled again in response to her comment.

“I do have one question, though,” Dana said inquisitively. “If only one person is playing, how do I win the game?”

“Easy,” Mulder said playfully. “You have to disarm Spooky.”

“And how do you disarm Spooky?”

“Oh, I can think of several ways,” he murmured huskily. “You just have to pick the right one.”

“And how do I go about doing that?” she wanted to know.

“Just play; you’ll get the hang of it.” Mulder’s voice hinted at the promise of an entertaining evening.

Dana made her way over to the couch and sat down. “Fine, I’ll play your little game,” she said in acquiescence. <Anything to get his ass over here and into my bed,> she thought to herself.

“Great!” Mulder’s exclamation was that of boyish delight. “Just hold on one second while Spooky prepares his orders.”

Dana smiled in response to Mulder’s reply. So Spooky had to think of orders to give her. Well, at least they would be creative. Well-planned. Thoughtful. Hopefully some with romantic promise to them. Although Scully never allowed herself to take orders from a romantic partner, when those orders came from Spooky Mulder, she guessed that she could write a few loopholes into her policy. But only for Spooky.

Her breath quickened in anticipation. What would be his first order of the evening? What did he have planned up his sleeve for her? Hopefully it meant a nice drive to his place, or a drive to her place, and hopefully, somewhere in the scenario, there was a nice comfortable bed involved. Hell, it didn’t even have to be a bed. Anything would do. She wanted Mulder. She’d wanted him for too long, and she was not about to be put off. She would NOT be put off, especially after having their deepest feelings and sexual intentions revealed in two thinly-disguised phone calls, and in the masks of two characters named Cinnamon and Mandrake. She knew now, more than ever, that she loved Mulder. Loved everything about him, and wanted to show him just how much she loved him.

She was brought back into the present by the sensual sound of Mulder’s voice. “Spooky’s ready, Scully,” he murmured into the receiver.

“Scully’s ready, Spooky,” Dana responded in a husky alto voice. “Scully’s been ready.”

Mulder chuckled softly. “Let the games begin.”

Dana felt an involuntary shiver travel from the delicate shell of her ear to the extremities of her petite frame.

“Spooky says,” Mulder began, his voice a soft caress, “Spooky says he wants to ask a question.”

“And what does Spooky want to know?” Dana answered.

“Spooky wants to know what Scully is wearing,” he whispered into the phone.

Dana blushed. “Spooky might become aroused beyond measure if Scully were to tell him,” she said flirtatiously.

Mulder’s moan sent another shiver through Dana’s body. “But Spooky says he wants to know. And Scully loses if she doesn’t play right.”

“Then maybe Scully should tell him,” Dana said, her voice almost a whisper.

“Yes, maybe she should.”

Dana closed her eyes. She hoped she could survive this intense mental foreplay. The first question had yet to be answered, and Dana felt as if her insides were about to burst.

“Scully is wearing nothing,” she told him. “Nothing but a thin terrycloth towel around her torso.”

She was sure she heard Mulder expend his breath with a long hiss. Hmmm…what did Spooky have to say about that?

“Has Scully been like that all night?” he asked her.

Dana smiled. “I don’t have to answer that,” she replied.

“And why not?”

“Because Spooky didn’t say.” Ha. That should teach him to ask such loaded questions.

Mulder laughed. “You’re good at this.”

“I know,” Dana remarked with an air of exaggerated confidence. “Oh and just for the record, if we’re strictly adhering to the rules, Spooky only says…he doesn’t ask.”

“And since when did those who weren’t Spooky get to make the rules?” he asked in rebuttal. “And, in case you’ve forgotten, since when has Spooky ever followed the rules?”

Dana felt the slight giggle begin to bubble from the base of her throat and did nothing to contain it.

“Fine,” Mulder agreed. “If you want to be picky, then so be it. But be forewarned that I can be just as specific as you can be.”

Dana repeated an earlier remark he had made to her. “I’m counting on it, Spooky.”

There was a brief pause before Mulder began his next request. “Spooky says, go into the bedroom.”

Dana rose from the couch and did as she was told. “Okay, I’m in the bedroom,” she said. “Now what?”

“Spooky says, go to the dresser.”

Dana obeyed again.

“Now Spooky says, open the dresser drawers and pick out something incredibly sexy to wear for Spooky.”

Dana obeyed once more, opening her drawer of lingerie. “What does Spooky want Scully to wear?” she wanted to know.

“Hmmm….” Mulder thought for a minute. “What are Spooky’s options?”

“You’d better rephrase that question if you want an answer,” Dana reminded him. “Spooky didn’t say.”

Mulder chuckled again. “Well, excuse me, Silver-tongue Scully.” He paused for a second and said, “Spooky says he wants to know what his options are.”

Dana examined the contents of the drawer. “Well, we have several items of interest to Spooky. One of which is a satiny little teddy in ice blue, with the slightest hint of white lace.” She continued to rifle through the small amount of sexy articles she owned. If it weren’t for the few occasions Dana had bought something special for a lover in her ancient past, Spooky would have had to settle for satin pajamas this evening.

“Another item of interest,” Dana said, “is a racy little number in red…a lacy brassiere and panties with nearly transparent lace in all the right places.”

“Mmmm…” Mulder moaned. “Sounds promising. Spooky says he wants Scully to pick some more.”

“Well,” Scully said, searching through the drawer one more time, “there’s an interesting little black chemise which barely covers certain strategic areas, and–” her eyes rested upon something at the bottom of the drawer. “Last but not least, a white satin and lace bustier with a dangerously low neckline, complete with matching panties, a garter belt and silk stockings. Bought for a special occasion, but never worn.” She closed her eyes as she remembered that fateful night of her breakup with Jack Willis….her plans of an erotic evening alone with him ruined yet again by another last-minute case. Her frustration with his dedication to his work, her purchase of the item as a last-ditch effort to mend the relationship. Never worn, stuffed into the bottom of the drawer, hidden from sight, so that Dana could forget and heal her heart with the passage of time.

“Never worn?” Mulder asked. “Then Spooky says he wants Scully to put it on. All of it.” With a slight chuckle and a husky voice, Mulder continued, “Spooky has a slight fondness for sexy redheads in garter belts.”

His last remark sent Dana gasping for air, robbed of oxygen. Everything suddenly became hazy as Dana desperately fought for consciousness. She wasn’t sure if she could maintain this erotic banter for much longer. Things were already getting way out of hand, and the game was just beginning.

“Scully awaits Spooky’s orders,” she managed to whisper into the phone.

There was a period of brief silence on the phone, then Mulder said, “Spooky says, put on the garter belt first.” His voice was barely audible.

Dana did as she was told, donning the belt of lace and nearly invisible white satin. “Okay, it’s on,” she said to him, her voice as soft as his. She wondered what he must be thinking, wondered what he was imagining as she followed his orders.

“The panties,” he breathed. “Spooky says, put on the panties.”

The silken material slid into place with the slightest of whispers.

“Now Spooky says, put on the stockings. Very slowly. So slow I want to feel the fabric moving up to your thighs.”

Dana gingerly took the delicate material in her hands and began the slow process of working it up the satin of her ivory legs. The last step was to attach the filmy material to the belt.

“There,” she said. “It’s done. All that’s left is the bustier.”

“Spooky says, put it on.” Mulder’s breath was becoming heavily labored.

The dutiful Dana walked in front of her full-length mirror to complete this task, slightly curious to see just how the outfit looked on her. Again, without rushing in the slightest, Dana took the lacy bustier and carefully wrapped the bodice around her middle, paying great attention to the improvement of her newly ripened cleavage. She gasped as she observed her reflection in the mirror.

The ivory of her skin against the even whiter lacy garment gave Dana a lovely peaches-and-cream complexion. Her auburn hair was a mass of fire on top of her head, a crown of flames radiating outward in all directions.

She stood somewhere between the worlds of innocence and innuendo, simplicity and sensuality.

And she loved it.

“Dana…” Mulder’s voice murmured into the receiver. “Dana, what do you look like?”

She sighed excitedly. “Mulder, if you could see for yourself, all of this would be off of me as we speak.”

“Scully…” he growled. “Scully, go to the window and look up at the stars.”

“But Spooky didn’t say,” she argued.

“Okay, Spooky says so. Go do it.”

Dana did as directed, and looked upward, into the heavens. “What a beautiful night,” she murmured into the phone.

She heard Mulder’s ragged, heavy breathing and knew he was near his breaking point. Any minute now and she knew he would suggest that they be together, to satisfy their raging desires, to quell the fires within, to consummate this newfound love between them. Although he’d never indicated in the slightest that he would come over tonight, he would have to; he wouldn’t dare tease both her and himself into a fit of unresolved passion. Neither of them could take much more of this.

“The moon’s full,” she observed aloud.

“A moon made for lovers,” Mulder crooned into the phone.

“A moon made for us,” Dana said.

Suddenly Mulder forgot temporarily about the game. “Scully, what do you see when you look at the stars?”

“Are we still playing the game?” she wanted to know.

“It’s halftime,” Mulder replied, with tenderness and humor all at once.

Dana smiled. “I see millions and millions of diamonds laid atop a blanket of soft black velvet.” She smiled and leaned against the windowsill.

“Quite a romantic image, coming from a scientist,” Mulder quipped, emitting a soft laugh from Dana.

“I’m only a scientist during work hours,” she said, contributing to the sensual repartee.

“So what are you in the night hours?” Mulder asked suggestively.

Dana moaned in response, a low hum into the phone which she knew would send Mulder into overdrive. “Mmmm, why don’t you come over here and find out?”

“Scully…Dana…” Mulder breathed.

“Come on, Mulder,” she said, her voice soft, sensual, and alluring, beckoning him to come. “You’ll have the most incredible night of your life if you’ll just get in your car and come over here.” She smiled.

“I…I…”

“Mulder…” Dana murmured into the phone. “I’m not going to be denied this. Not after what you’ve put me through tonight. If I have to come over there, I will. One way or the other, you are going to make wild, passionate love to me until the morning light, and I won’t settle for less. Understood?”

Damn, she would’ve thought he’d have already been knocking on her door by now, after such a proposition. Wasn’t that what he’d always wanted? Always hoped for? Wasn’t that the secret desire of all those comments over the last five years, the veiled remarks, the secret looks of lust she’d observed in his more unguarded moments?

She’d have to try harder.

“Mulder?” she said softly, when he did not respond to her sexual ultimatum. “Mulder, are you still there?”

She heard a pained voice whisper, “Scully…” before trailing off into silence again.

“Mulder, what is it? Why won’t you answer me? Why won’t you do what you’ve wanted to do for so long? My home, my soul, my heart, and my body are all open to you, and you have a chance to have all of them. All you have to do is get in your car and come over here.”

Finally Mulder spoke. “Scully…” he murmured, “…I want…I mean, what I mean to say is…I guess I’m just….”

“Yes?” Dana was quickly growing impatient.

“I guess I’m just…” Mulder repeated, “…I mean, I want this to be…” he expelled a quick breath, “perfect. Not some frantic groping on a bed or on my couch. Not a few sweet nothings whispered into each other’s ears, a little pleasure, and then nothing.” He sighed. “I want more than just that, and that’s all it’ll be tonight, considering how badly I want you right now.”

Dana could tell by the strain of Mulder’s voice that he was exhibiting superhuman strength by keeping his distance. Strength she didn’t think he would be able to sustain in the long run.

“Mulder,” she said endearingly into the phone, “it doesn’t have to be like that. We can take our time. We don’t have to rush. We have all night.”

“Scully…” he whispered, his voice harsh and raspy.

Neither of them spoke for several seconds. The ominous tension of the silence was such that Dana had forgotten to breathe. She caught herself and began to laugh inwardly.

She was nervous, although she’d tried to convince Mulder that she was a confident, seductive woman. And Mulder was nervous. Scared as much as a teenage boy in the throes of his first passion. Hell, they had every right to be. How long had it been for her? For him? Could she even remember how to do it?

Sighing, she spoke into the receiver again. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe we are rushing things. Maybe we should wait.”

Her only reply was the sound of ragged breathing on the other end of the line.

<Dammit, Mulder, why don’t you say something?> she wanted to scream. What was he thinking? Feeling? His silence was more annoying to Dana than his glib tongue or his sarcastic wit.

What could she do to lure him across town into her house, into her arms, into her bed? What hadn’t she tried yet? What sort of verbal persuasion would encourage him to forsake his reservations and fall into her embrace?

At that moment, Dana wished she were the psychologist.

Wait. There was something…something Mulder used all the time to get Dana involved on some bizarre case or researching his latest hairbrained theory. Maybe she didn’t need to be a psychologist after all.

A devilish smile crept across the corners of her full mouth. “Mulder,” she said, fighting to contain the emotion in her voice, “why don’t you just stay home tonight. I mean, if you’re not up to this….”

“What do you mean, Scully?” was his immediate response.

“I mean, it’s obvious to me that you lack the certain… aggressive male traits of the sexual initiator,” she said. “Which, in my medical opinion, would indicate that perhaps you suffer from some sort of performance anxiety–”

Mulder cut her off with a biting question. “Scully, what are you implying here?” His voice was colored with the briefest hint of indignity.

She grinned.

Sucker.

“I’m not implying anything, Mulder,” she responded innocently. “I’m just observing your apparent apprehension in following through on all your promises of the evening. Promises which until now, you led me to believe you would keep.” She paused for a minute, to give her next remark added emphasis. “So are you all talk and no action, Mulder? All promise and no delivery?”

Silence.

“You know, Mulder,” she continued, “if you don’t have the balls to follow through with your previous intentions, I understand. However,” she said, fighting the smug grin which threatened to appear, “I would strongly advise that you seek medical attention regarding this matter.”

The sound of Mulder’s breathing was now replaced with a very faint, but clearly audible, expletive. Dana grinned. The package was delivered. Mission accomplished.

“Scully, that was cold. That was damn cold,” Mulder finally responded in an ominous whisper.

“Cold?” Dana said innocently. “Mulder, I’m merely making a clinical, medical observation regarding your, um… condition.” She suppressed a gleeful giggle in the pit of her stomach.

Mulder responded in full voice for the first time in minutes, his voice clearly agitated. “So you think I can’t…you know…?”

“Mulder, you’ll have to be more clear with your questions,” Dana replied with the slightest hint of mirth. “Are you referring to getting it up or just performing in general? Because while closely related, these are two separate conditions which require specialized treatment.”

Damn, it was flowing from her like honey. Silver- tongue Scully was in full force this evening.

When Mulder didn’t respond, Dana continued. “You know, that may explain why you’ve taken such an interest in materials of a certain…pornographic nature,” she commented, with just a trace of sugary sweetness.

“Scully…” Mulder’s voice was suddenly very low and threatening.

Dana, however, would not be deterred from her ‘scientific’ rationalization. “Yes, I can see it now. Recent surveys have indicated that men who have difficulty with intimacy or matters of individual performance generally tend to gravitate toward pornography as a sexual substitute. Could that explain all those videos you keep in your drawer at the office, Mulder? All those late nights in front of the television?”

“Dammit, Scully…” Mulder growled roughly, his voice a feral bass. “Enough already with the medical opinion. My personal life and sexual ability are none of your goddamn business.”

“Oh?” she said, continuing in her dulcet discourse. “I’m only attempting to gather all the facts and analyze them accordingly.”

She liked his state of agitation. It was a rare moment for Mulder. Usually he had her off-balance, not the other way around. The control and the power she currently held over him was becoming very addictive.

“Okay, Scully,” he rumbled into the phone, his raspy voice sending another wave of chills throughout her body. “If that’s how you want to play it, fine.”

Dana held her breath. Did that mean…? Was he going to…? She waited for his next response.

“Halftime’s over,” he said roughly. “Spooky says it’s time for the tipoff.”

Dana closed her eyes in a state of semi-relief. It wasn’t what she had hoped for, but at least now there was a chance, if she could just push a few more buttons. Besides, she was enjoying this little game, even if it meant giving up the control she had just gained over Fox Mulder.

She heard him speak again, this time with a darker, more animal, intent. “Spooky says, touch your breasts.”

Dana gasped. “Mulder–”

“Do it, Scully. Spooky says so.”

“Mulder, I don’t think–”

“Just do it, Scully, or you lose the game.” Mulder’s voice was barely recognizable. “We know you have too much pride to lose.”

He was right. Dammit, why did he always have to be right? Scully turned her back from the window and began to cup the fullness of her breast with her free hand, moaning as a wave of pleasure traveled from her breast to the ache between her thighs.

“Spooky wants to know if you’re still looking out the window,” Mulder rasped into the receiver.

“No,” Dana replied.

“Did Spooky say to turn away?”

Dana gasped. Mulder was beginning to scare her. “Um… no,” she whispered, her voice trembling with something close to fear.

“Then you’d better do what Spooky says,” he said roughly.

“But, Mulder, there could be people walking by. Strange psychos roaming the streets. Anyone could see me.”

“Don’t argue with Spooky,” he muttered gruffly. “You know the consequences.”

“Ohhh…” she gasped. “Damn you, Mulder.” She turned toward the window, a knot of apprehension beginning to form in the pit of her stomach.

Up until now, the game had been fun. Playful. A casual flirtation in the hope of leading to something more in Dana’s mind. Something leading to a passonate mating with Mulder. But now, there was no trace of fun or play in the game. It was about control. Power. The power she was sure Mulder was attempting to regain, after the recent injuries and insults to his manly prowess.

She hadn’t meant to drive him to this. She only wanted him to accept her little challenge and prove to her what a man he really was. She had never, ever expected this display of tyrannical dictatorship from her partner.

Dammit, why couldn’t this, of all things, be a mutual endeavor? And why did this have to be a game of control? Dana was fast becoming a pawn, a victim, and of all things she abhorred, that was the one thing she could not–would not–allow to happen to her.

“Scully, are you at the window?” Mulder wanted to know.

She gulped, attempting to steady her fluttering pulse. “Yes,” she said.

“Are you facing out like Spooky said?”

“Yes,” she replied, searching outside the window for any signs of passersby, or casual onlookers. Aside from the occasional car parked along the street, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Hopefully it would remain that way, for a while, at least.

“Good,” he said jovially into the phone. “Are you still touching your breasts?”

“Spooky didn’t say,” she retorted indignantly, “therefore I don’t have to answer.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Scully. Did Spooky ever say to stop?”

She gulped, her bright blue eyes as wide as saucers. “No,” she managed to say.

“Then do what Spooky says until Spooky tells you to stop.” Mulder’s voice was ominous, a threatening thundercloud charged with electricity.

Obeying his command, Dana cupped her breasts again with her free hand and began to slowly massage them. Despite her fear and apprehension, the pleasure of her ministrations began to have a soothing yet exciting effect on her. “Mmmm..” she moaned uncontrollably into the phone.

“Spooky says he wants to know if it feels good, Scully.”

Dana let out another involuntary sound, gasping. “Yesss… it feels good…” God, it did feel good. Incredibly good for someone who was nervous about being in another’s control.

“Spooky says he wants to know if you’re using both hands,” Mulder whispered.

“No,” Dana responded breathlessly. “I’m only using one and holding the phone with the other.”

“Use both,” Mulder commanded. “Spooky says, use both hands.”

Afraid to argue, Dana fit the cordless phone between her shoulder and her head and began to massage her full breasts with both hands. Her neck was beginning to tense, but the double pleasure of both hands on her breasts more than compensated for the slight discomfort.

“Ahhh….” Dana sighed as her hands became more insistent. She imagined Mulder caressing them, holding them, kissing them, with no force or threatening control, only gentleness. “Mulder…Mulder….” Forgotten was the vulnerable position where she stood, or the possibility of discovery. She existed for only this moment, this moment of pleasure.

“Now…” Mulder whispered, “Spooky says, run your hands all over your body. Everywhere.”

Dana did as she was told, gasping as her fingers trailed feathery caresses along her neck, her ears, her shoulders. Her arms, her wrists, down to her chest, her abdomen, and finally skirting rapidly around the auburn curls at the juncture of her thighs.

“Ohhh…” she gasped, as her fingers found the sensitive bud there. “Mulder….”

A garbled groan escaped from Mulder’s throat. “Spooky…” he paused, “…Spooky says, touch yourself. Touch yourself…there…”

“I already am,” she whispered, between heavy sighs.

“Oh, Scully….” Mulder’s voice trailed off. A random groan indicated that he was caught up in the midst of his own passion as well.

She felt it building, building, building….Increasing the pressure on her clit, Dana began to whimper, begging for release. She was no longer bound by the chains of a caller named Spooky. She had been liberated. Her own femininity had freed her from his control. She heard his name on her lips over and over again as she felt the mad rush of her blood, the pounding of her heart.

Then, as soon as she felt the slight trembling of her womb, the beginnings of an incredible release, she heard Mulder’s voice again.

“Spooky says stop.”

Ahhh…..Dammit.

The ache was almost too much to bear as Dana forced her fingers away from the center of her pleasure. In fact, Dana had to double over to prevent the torturous agony within from ripping her apart.

“Mulder…” she gasped heavily into the phone. “Have you no heart?”

“Spooky said to stop,” he whispered. “Besides, Spooky doesn’t want Scully to keep all the fun to herself.”

“You’re merciless,” she grunted into the phone, clutching her abdomen, desperately trying to rid herself of the agony of unfulfilled arousal.

Mulder said nothing.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you bring me so close and cut me off? Why are you torturing me like this?” When he did not respond, Dana yelled into the phone. “Dammit, Mulder, I want an answer!”

Mulder softly replied, “Spooky wants you to save it for him.”

Her heart stopped beating for several seconds…did that mean…could it be…?

“Mulder, get your ass over here now and finish what you goddamn started.” Her order was direct, to the point, and forcefully commanding. “Now.”

Mulder chuckled. “Scully is ordering Spooky around?”

“No, dammit, Dana is ordering Fox around. Quit beating around the bush and get your ass over here now, you spooky son of a bitch.”

“You’ll lose the game,” Mulder reminded her melodiously, with a sickeningly sweet timbre to his voice.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore about the game,” Dana shouted into the receiver.

“My, what language.”

“Goddammit, Mulder, I’m tired of this little charade!” She walked away from the window and began pacing the perimeter of her apartment. “If your spooky ass is not over here in twenty minutes, you can forget about this, about everything we’ve said and done tonight, and not only that, but you and Skinner will both find a request for reassignment on your desks Monday morning. Now what does Spooky have to say?”

Suddenly there was a calm quiet on the other end of the phone. Dana frowned. “Mulder? Mulder…!”

Silence.

“Answer me, goddammit!” she yelled.

After several more seconds of silence, Dana cast a violent expletive to the wind and threw the phone on the couch, without even bothering to break the connection.

Damn him. God damn him. She had never in her life felt the rage she was enduring right now. Never had she let someone control her, command her, tease her, and torment her to the heights of passion, only to be denied the gratification of a soul-shattering orgasm. And then he had the nerve to hang up on her.

What in God’s name had caused her to ever fall in love with Spooky Mulder?

She’d threatened reassignment in his face. She knew he couldn’t live without her, couldn’t continue his work without her. It was her last remaining trump card to get him to do something about these feelings they were experiencing, the only thing she had left. And he’d refused that as well.

Something was demented about a man who would hide his desire for a woman behind a game and pursue her exclusively over the phone. Something was clearly demented, insane, deranged, about Mulder’s methods of seduction. But then again, Mulder himself was clearly demented and deranged…and, as exasperating as he was, as much as she hated to admit it, she thrived on his insanity.

Suddenly she heard a faint sound coming from the ear of the cordless phone beside her. A dial tone? No. White noise? No.

Her last name. “Scully….Scully….”

She sighed in relief. He hadn’t hung up on her. He’d been there the whole time….

Quickly she picked up the phone. “Mulder,” she gasped into the phone. “I’m here.”

She heard his sigh of relief. “I thought you’d hung up on me,” was his reply.

“I thought you had,” she countered.

Another uncomfortable silence for several seconds.

“Scully…” Mulder began, “would you…would you really leave if I don’t come through that door tonight?”

Scully frowned. “I’ve…given it considerable thought,” she said. “Face it, Mulder, if we don’t come to some sort of resolution on this matter, we won’t be able to work together at all. Guidelines have to be set, ground rules made, if we are to establish any form of a relationship.” She paused for a second. “We, not you, not I, have to decide what we want to do, and Spooky can’t be the only one giving the orders.”

Mulder thought for a minute before responding. “Maybe we could meet halfway,” he mused aloud.

What? What was he getting at? “Mulder?” she prompted him to continue.

“The game ain’t over yet,” he said. “Spooky has one more order for Scully.”

Dear God, not again. “And what is that?” she said agitatedly.

“Spooky says…” Mulder hesitated for the briefest of moments. “Spooky says, go to the door.”

Dana went to the large wooden door and stopped. “I’m here, Mulder.”

“Now, open the door and go out into the hallway.”

“But Spooky didn’t say,” Dana retorted, her hands shaking as they rested on the doorknob.

Did she hear something?

“Spooky says, open the door and go out into the hallway.” Mulder’s voice seemed much fuller, with richness of tone she hadn’t heard in their entire conversation.

Filled with insatiable curiosity, Dana took a deep breath and released it before turning the knob and pulling the door open.

The phone dropped from Dana’s hand onto the hardwood floor as she stared, appalled, at the man in her doorway, holding a cell phone to his ear and grinning admiringly at the stunning redhead in her state of near nakedness.

A sensual chuckle erupted from Mulder’s throat as he gazed into Dana’s astonished azure eyes. Holding the phone closer to his ear, he spoke into it, all the while staring appreciatively into those baby blues. “Spooky says you win, Dana,” he murmured huskily, his hazel eyes warming her entire body with the heat of his gaze.

~~~~~

“Mulder…” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes from his spellbinding eyes of velvet. God, he was attractive. Incredibly, unbelievably attractive in his black T-shirt and second-skin jeans.

She was trembling all over….how he was able to do it to her, she’d never know.

Dammit, he was too handsome for words.

“How…how long have you…”

“Long enough,” Mulder replied, his eyes growing darker by the second as they roamed over every curve and crevice of Dana’s scantily clothed body.

“Here?” she asked.

“Well, not here,” he said, “but close by. Close enough to watch you through a window.” His eyes continued their sensual journey along her ivory flesh.

Dana blushed as she remembered how insistent Mulder had been that she remain at the window during the game. Ohmigod. “You…you saw…?”

Mulder nodded, his eyes never leaving her body. “I saw…and I liked what I saw. I like…what I’m seeing now.”

Her breath caught in her throat as Mulder stared openly at her barely-covered breasts.

“I really like what I’m seeing,” he added, his eyes caressing every inch of her breasts. “In fact,” he murmured, “I think I’m going to need more than just seeing, if I have to keep looking at you dressed like that.”

Dana suddenly felt herself become light as air, suddenly dizzy from having forgotten to release the breath she’d held within her. <Breathe, Dana,> she reminded herself. <Breathe.>

“Well?” Mulder said softly. “Are you gonna invite me in?”

Dana tore her eyes from Mulder’s male beauty and took a step back, gesturing for him to enter. “Please, come in,” she murmured, admiring the way the muscles of his arms rippled as he turned to close the door.

The click of the lock was the only sound in the apartment as they stood in silence, in stillness, their eyes searching each other, questioning, probing, wanting, bewitching. The distance between them was small, a few feet, yet Dana felt as if a great divide separated her from the man in front of her door. The chasm was great, the stillness uncomfortable, the tension as thick, as weighty, as a rain-soaked thundercloud. Something had to give. Something had to burst, to open, to release the torrent of passion’s tempest within her. Within the sensual man whose eyes were telling her exactly what he intended to do to her, in the deluge of a violent, passionate downpour.

God, if he kept that up, Dana knew she was sure to drown.

Mulder continued his visual seduction, his velvety eyes fixed on her darkening eyes of sapphire. Every fiber in her body screamed for him to take some sort of action, to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her. And yet he remained.

Why was he holding back? Was it true? Was Mulder all promise and no delivery? Was her playful challenge the actual truth?

There was only one way to find out.

Dana steeled her nerve, fueled her courage. <Please, God, don’t let me screw this up,> she prayed as she began closing the distance between her and Mulder, her arms open and inviting.

“Mulder….” she beckoned to him, her voice suddenly heavy with desire.

Mulder stood, frozen, as she approached him, his soulful eyes wide in anticipation, in expectation of the inevitable.

And then she was there, where she’d dreamt of being for ages upon ages, lifetimes upon lifetimes, in the strong, impassioned embrace of her soulmate. She gasped as a fiery tingle penetrated her skin from the contact of Mulder’s arms around her waist. Suddenly a small sigh escaped from Dana’s lips when his head descended to pause mere inches from hers, his lips parted, his breath ragged as it caressed the delicate flesh of her face.

Eternities seemed to pass before her eyes as he lingered just above her mouth, his full lips prepared to extend an infinitesimal fraction of an inch to claim her own. The heated tension of the moment was more than Dana could handle.

This had gone on far too long. She was tired of his hesitation, his reluctance to do what she knew he very much wanted to do to her. With her. She craved to feel the pillowy softness of his lips on hers. She wanted him everywhere, all over her, on top of her, beneath her, inside her.

Dear God, did she want him inside her.

Suddenly Mulder’s eyes closed, his eyebrows furrowing in a pained expression. “Mulder?” she murmured questioningly. “Mulder, what’s wrong?”

He opened his eyes to look at her, his eyes a billowing, churning heather.

“Scully…” he whispered in her ear. “Scully, I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry for what I did to you a while ago. I’m sorry I got a little carried away with the game. I didn’t mean to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable; God I could shoot myself for even making you do something you didn’t want to do. I just…”

“Shhhhhh….” Dana put a dainty finger to his voluminous lips. “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do, Mulder. It was difficult for me to give up control…control of myself, control of the situation…but I enjoyed playing the game with you.” She relished the moment of connection as their eyes met in understanding, in trust, in acceptance.

In love.

“Dana, I don’t deserve you,” he murmured, as a tear began to well up in his eye. “I’ll never be worthy of you. You could have easily told me to go to hell and left my ass on the curb after what I did to you just then.”

“I almost did,” she admitted, as she stared into his velvety eyes. “But I realized that I value you too much to ever leave you alone in this world.” She paused as tears began to well in her sapphire orbs. “I love you, Mulder.”

“Dana…” Mulder sighed raggedly, closing his eyes.

“Besides,” she added, her voice suddenly lighter, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to last a day without me.” She ruffled the stray locks on his forehead.

“Oh yeah? Is that so?” Mulder said in mock offense as he lifted her into his arms. “If you keep this up, I’ll tell you what else ain’t gonna last too long.”

“Enlighten me,” she said, stifling several impetuous giggles as Mulder carried her into the bedroom, dropping her unceremoniously on the bed.

“If you keep tempting me with that damn garter belt,” Mulder replied with a sinful grin, “the gentleman in me won’t last another second.” His lips swooped down to claim her neck in a gentle kiss.

Dana gasped as she felt the heavenly pressure of Mulder’s lips upon her flesh. As his mouth moved along the column of her ivory neck, she remembered that this wasn’t another fantasy. The realm of fantasy was now the reality of her dream, the fairytale come true.

“Well,” Dana replied, “there’s a simple solution to that problem.” She tilted her head upward so that their faces were nearly touching. “You could always remove it.”

“Good idea,” Mulder whispered against her lips.

“In fact,” she murmured huskily, “I can think of several things you could remove.”

“Mmmmm…” Mulder moaned, his lips descending to finally melt with hers in a passionate kiss.

“Mulder…” she mumbled against his lips, savoring the first moment of connection, of union, between them. His mouth began an intimate exploration of hers, his tongue swiftly and expertly probing the hidden recesses of her eager mouth. Her hands traveled upwards to his face, cradling it, caressing the sharp stubble on his chin, moving to his neck, his powerful shoulders, the bulging muscles in his arms.

“I want you, Mulder,” she breathed into him, as his lips began another expedition into the waiting mysteries of her mouth. She felt him kneel at the foot of the bed, so that he could take her into his arms, to fit her more intimately with him. Following his lead, Dana wrapped her legs around his hips and gasped as she felt the heat of his straining manhood against the denim of his jeans.

“Scully…” he whispered into her ear, as his hands began to roam her feminine curves. She moaned as his fingers grazed against the tops of her breasts, tracing the outline of them, his lips kissing them hungrily.

And suddenly the satin and lace of her bustier had melted to the floor before her eyes. Mulder had somehow unfastened the hooks and latches all on his own, without her knowledge.

The man was smooth. Definitely smooth.

“Scully, you’re beautiful…” he murmured, the breath of his words lightly caressing the satiny skin. His mouth descended upon one perfect globe, then the next, his tongue and teeth paying extra attention to the rosy tip of each nipple.

“Mulder, Mulder, Mulder…” Dana chanted over and over again, lost in the exquisite sensations of his lips on her breasts. She felt herself moving backward on the bed, very slowly, as Mulder gently coaxed her into a horizontal position.

“Make love to me, Mulder,” she moaned, as his lips traveled to her stomach, his tongue flicking in and out of her navel. “God, I can’t take much more…”

Mulder’s labored breath indicated that he, too, was on the verge of his control. Slowly his lips moved lower, to her hips, her thighs, his tongue lapping the delicious scent of her sweetness from her skin.

And then, the instant his lips and tongue found her swollen bud of desire, Dana came with an ear-splitting cry of ecstasy. Mulder buried his head into her auburn curls, inhaling her scent as he lapped every ounce of her juices into his greedy mouth.

Dana screamed his name, over and over again, as the violent spasms racked her body. She was afire, ablaze, alive for the first time in her life, and the tremors kept coming, kept coming as Mulder’s mouth hungrily licked and sucked on the most secret parts of her.

Dear God, would they ever subside?

“Mulllderrr….” she begged deliriously, as another wave of blissful spasms overtook her. “Mulder, my God! oh, please…please stop….”

“Mmmmm….” Mulder moaned into her clit, his swollen lips vibrating against the pulsating nub. “I can’t; I’m enjoying this too much.”

“Mulder…” she rasped, clutching his head, “if you don’t stop, so help me God I’m gonna split open.”

Once more, his tongue flicked across her clit and sent Dana into another wave of ecstatic convulsions, screaming a string of blessings and curses on the man who could give her such incredible pleasure.

“I’ve got to catch up,” he whispered, “on five years of fantasies about this. This may take a while.” His breath was hot and heavy on her clit.

“Mulder…!!!” she grunted loudly. “Dammit, Mulder, we’ve got all night to do this!”

“Precisely,” Mulder moaned, enclosing his lips around the sensitive bud and sucking greedily, creating another and yet another flood of celestial contractions within her. He laughed as Dana’s supplications to her deity became curses to her lover. “Let’s see how long you can go like this,” he said impishly.

“No!” Dana exclaimed, pulling his head up. “Mulder, please…please stop,” she begged him desperately.

Mulder grinned, licking her sweet juices from his lips. “What will you give me if I stop?” he asked, his voice rumbling with sexual intent.

Dana paused in her reply, her breath coming and going in dry heaves. “Give me five minutes to recover and I’ll give you as good as I got.”

Mulder sighed raggedly, his lips descending upon hers in fervent passion. “Dana, I want to be inside you,” he murmured against her mouth, applying sweet suction to her parted, pouty lips.

Dana gladly accepted the gift of his mouth, returning his kisses with equal ardor.

Suddenly and without warning, a slight twinge deep within her body began to unfold into a very pleasant discomfort. Dana’s eyes opened wide incredulously. An exquisite ache was beginning again in the farthest recesses of her womb.

That had to be a world record.

Dana laughed silently. With Mulder at the helm of her sexual fulfillment, nothing should surprise her.

After tonight, she suspected nothing would.

“Mulder…” she mumbled against his lips.

“Mmm?” was Mulder’s only response, as he continued his worship of her mouth.

Rolling Mulder on his back, Dana pried her lips away from his and straddled his torso with a mischievous smile. “It doesn’t look like I’ll need that five minutes after all.”

Mulder muttered something under his breath and reached for Dana, pulling her down to his mouth again. Dana moaned under the delicious warmth of his kiss. His hands ran down the length of her, over her back, her hips, the soft, plump flesh of her buttocks. Dana sighed as his hands expertly massaged her backside.

God, this felt good. Too good. She needed more of him, more than just his lips, his mouth. She wanted to taste all of him, to prove that reality was in fact better than mere fantasy.

“Mulder, take off your shirt,” she mumbled into his mouth.

Mulder grinned. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Scully didn’t say.”

Mulder yelped when Dana pinched the sensitive lobe of his ear. “Ow,” he exclaimed.

“No more games, Mulder,” she said. “At least not tonight. We’ll play ‘Scully Says’ some other time. Now take off your shirt.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mulder drawled, pulling the faded cotton up and over his torso.

“Take off your jeans too,” she commanded, moving her hand in slow circles over the massive bulge between his thighs.

“Ahhh, Scully…” Mulder whispered as her hands became more insistent. He remained supine, frozen, unable to complete her request.

“Never mind,” she murmured huskily, her hands working deftly at the buttons of his jeans. When the last button gave way with a loud pop, she smiled. “If you want something done right…”

Mulder nodded, grinning. “You’re doing a damn fine job, too.”

Dana responded with a sly smile.

When she attempted to pull the denim waistband over his hips, however, the material refused to budge. “Mulder,” she said, “help me out here.”

Mulder shook his head. “If you want something done right,” he mocked her in a high falsetto.

“Just do it, Mulder,” she ordered brusquely, her patience wearing thin.

A deep chuckle erupted from Mulder’s throat. “What do I get this time?”

“Oh, I dunno….” Dana’s fingers strayed below the elastic waistband of his silk boxers, enclosing around his hard member. “I think something like this would be sufficient payment.” Her fingers began a series of feather-light caresses along the length of his shaft.

“Dana…” Mulder rasped, unable to breathe. “Oh yeah….” He lifted his hips so that Dana could slide the denim fabric down his muscled legs.

“Now the boxers,” she said, but her effort was intercepted by Mulder.

“Wait a minute,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“What is it now?” she wanted to know.

He grinned again. “You’re wearing more than I am.”

Dana humphed. “Not by much, Mulder.” Her attention was drawn to the garter belt and the stockings still on her legs.

“That’s not fair,” he replied mockingly. “If I have to be naked, you do too.”

Dana leaned over Mulder’s mouth, whispering softly. “I think that’s a fair deal.”

Suddenly she found herself swiftly rolled over on her back by Mulder, desperately attempting to find her breath after the sudden move.

“Now it’s my turn,” Mulder murmured, fingering the soft lace of the garter belt. Slowly, reverently, he began to unfasten the hooks holding the dainty silk stockings in place.

As Mulder began to roll the stockings down her alabaster legs, Dana moaned. His fingers knew just where to caress, to linger, to touch, especially on the sensitive underside of her knee. So proficient were his hands that Dana began to realize the full possibilities of Mulder’s tactile talents.

And if he didn’t get those damn stockings off soon, the torture of those talents would surely render her prized self-control into permanent absentia.

Swiftly, her hands began to complete the work he’d begun, communicating to him what she wanted him to do.

“Don’t rush, Scully,” he whispered against her legs, holding her hands captive. “You might put a run in your pretty hose.” His lips descended to nuzzle the underside of her knee, and Dana inhaled with a swift gasp.

“Mulderrr…” she growled.

“Like honey,” he murmured there, flicking the sensitive area with his tongue.

“Dammit, Mulder,” Dana yelled, between heavy gasps. “Keep going.”

“Keep going?” Mulder chuckled. “You mean you don’t want me to stop?”

“No,” she moaned, then frowned in confusion. “Yes. No, I mean, yes. No, wait…”

“Scully, you need to make up your mind,” he said with an evil grin. “I won’t wait all night.”

Dana sighed. “You know what I mean, Mulder. Take off the damn stockings.”

Mulder grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

When the last thread of the silken material made its way over her feet, Dana released a half-contented sigh. “Now the garter belt,” she whispered between gasps, as Mulders hands slowly caressed the entire length of Dana’s legs.

“You feel so good,” Mulder groaned, his hands resting on the insides of her thighs. “So damn good.”

Moaning, Dana grabbed his hair, pulling him upward. “I can make you feel better, if you’ll take off that garter belt,” she crooned in his ear, reaching between their bodies to caress the bulge between his silk boxers.

Mulder gasped suddenly, his eyes tightly closed. “Dana…” he grunted, grinding his hips against her hand.

Then suddenly the lace of the garter belt was separated from the satin of Dana’s ivory flesh. And, for the first time, Mulder was treated to the image of a very beautiful–and very naked–Dana Scully.

His eyes trailed along the length of her, from her beautiful, angelic face, down to her full breasts, then further still to her navel and the tight auburn curls which guarded Dana Scully’s most well-kept secret– the secret of the woman she really was. The woman she could only be with Fox Mulder.

“Dana…” he murmured, “you have no idea how beautiful you really are.” His eyes continued to appraise and appreciate the curves of her body, as his hands began the same journey his eyes had made.

Dana sighed as Mulder’s caresses became more insistent. When his fingers finally entered her honeyed depths, Dana responded with a loud cry.

“Mulder!” she begged. “I need more…please… Mulder, I can’t wait any longer…!” She began tugging at the hem of his boxers, moving them downward, over his hips.

Mulder was eager to help her, quickly stepping out of the thin material. He moved above her then, pinning her body beneath his, moaning as he felt the wetness of her womanhood greet the hardness of his arousal.

“Now,” she gasped, squirming frantically beneath him. “Now, Mulder!”

“Scully…” Mulder grunted through clenched teeth, desperately fighting for control. “Slowly,” he ordered himself, closing his eyes. “Slowly.”

“Fast, slow, whatever,” Dana yelled, “but just do it!” Her statement was a gruff command. “Do it now, Mulder!”

Mulder closed his eyes and thrust savagely within her, moaning in unison with Dana as she accepted him, accepted all he had to give her. Without a moment’s hesitation, he began to move deeply within her, his movements fueled by the plaintive sighs of Dana’s pleasure.

It was heaven. Sheer rapture. No other union could ever compare to this, Dana mused to herself as the fullness of Mulder penetrated her to the core, over and over, in and out. Wrapping her legs tightly around his hips, Dana moaned and held on for dear life as Mulder increased the tempo of their primal dance.

Hardness and softness, male and female, together, together and complete. So this was the divine intention of her God…one man and one woman, united in love, in love so uncommon, so rare, that only one person could fully experience the paradise of sharing this highest form of love with another. She could almost feel her spirit ascending into the heights of heaven, merging with the loving spirit of the beautiful man above her, inside her, crying out her name in rapid pants and guttural sobs.

“Love…you…Mulder…” she softly sighed, unable to hide her most secret feelings. She was one with him. She felt the same love inside of him, the same love she’d just confessed. She could see into his soul, after five long years of dreaming, hoping, and waiting, she knew the truth. The real truth. He loved her. Fox Mulder loved her.

And then she heard him repeat the same words she’d just said to him, the same words she’d fought so hard to suppress, as they frantically moved together. The words which confirmed her highest hopes and dreams. The same words which sent her abruptly into the center of the cosmos, into the heart of all that was life and love.

She tensed against him, around his engorged member, screaming in ecstasy as she willingly embraced the realm of the highest heaven, the blinding light of the Omnipotent in his glory. All existence was hers, all meaning, all time, she felt as Mulder attained the same enlightenment. He yelled her name over and over with words of love as he collapsed upon her, spent, the warmth of his life-giving seed inside of her.

It was some time before either of them were able to form a coherent thought. Touching Dana’s face lovingly, Mulder was the first to speak. “Jesus, Scully, I never knew…never knew it could be like that.”

“Neither did I,” she rasped, her throat dry from her exclamations of pleasure. “If I’d known, I never would have waited so long.”

Mulder’s goofy grin was nearly enough to ruin the tender moment. “So you’ve been waiting for me, eh?” he jibbed. “Now the truth comes out.”

“Watch it, Mulder,” she warned jovially, pinching his ear, “or it’ll be the first and the last time you ever grace my bed with your body.”

Mulder chuckled, not about to be deterred. “So how long have you been waiting for me, Dana Scully?” he wanted to know.

“About as long as you’ve been working up the courage to tell me how you really feel,” Dana countered. “From the beginning.”

“The beginning?” Mulder threw his head back in hearty laughter. “So, Dr. Scully, if you know so much about my real feelings, tell me when you think I first realized that I wanted to make mind-blowing love to you.”

Dana allowed a rare, full smile to grace her entire mouth. “On the first assignment, the first night away from Headquarters. When you inspected my back for those ‘alien marks’.”

“Really?” Mulder said, grinning. “And what actions of mine led you to such a perceptive conclusion?”

“Well,” Dana replied, “you did nothing to hide the fact that your hands were lingering too long in certain areas.”

“Ah,” Mulder remarked, “I’m busted. Caught red-handed.” He grinned even more widely, raising his hands in mock surrender.

“All these years of trying to hide my desire,” he mused aloud, caressing her hair in languid circles, “and you’ve known all along.” He sighed. “Maybe I didn’t hide it as well as I thought I did.”

Dana shook her head chidingly. “You kept changing your mind,” she replied. “I never knew what to think, if you wanted me, or if you didn’t. Hence–”

“Hence the overt ‘display’ at work,” Mulder mumbled with an ever-expanding grin. “All those years of lying finally brought you over the edge, eh, Scully?”

Mulder held his breath as Dana slightly increased her hold on a very sensitive area.

“Hear this, Fox Mulder,” Dana whispered in his ear, “It takes two to play the games we’ve played for five years.”

“Okay, okay,” Mulder whined in acquiescence. “I’m over the edge too. We both gotta be over the edge to be doing what we’re doing.” He sighed as Dana moved her hand from his groin.

“But at least we know the truth,” she told him. “Not the ‘truth’ we’ve been after; our truth. The truth that we need each other, more than our jobs, more than our families, more than…our very existences. And we’ve finally admitted it to ourselves.” She smiled, caressing her partner’s stubbly jawline. “After all those years of sidestepping the issue, you and I are finally where we belong.” She ruffled his hair. “Even if it did take us five years.”

“Better late than never,” Mulder commented, his lips meeting hers in a tender kiss.

Dana smiled. “So does the amorous Agent Mulder intend to permanently leave the bed of Dr. Dana Scully, now that he’s attained full carnal knowledge of her?”

Mulder shook his head. “What? And give up such a good thing? Hell no.” He waited for Dana to finish laughing before continuing. “Besides, her ‘bedside manner’ is second to none.”

Giggling, Dana kissed Mulder’s stubbly cheek. “The best in the Bureau,” she noted.

“Besides,” Mulder said, “I can’t leave, even if I want to.”

“And why is that?” Dana was very curious of Mulder’s reasons for staying.

“Because,” he said, his grin widening even more fully, “Scully didn’t say.” Embracing the giggly redhead tightly, Mulder inhaled the scent of strawberries and cream and the musk of her spent passion and gave himself over again to the power and the wonder of their newfound love.

THE END

–

156 Words: Cellular Cinnamon

156 Words: Cellular Cinnamon By Bidie M

Category: VR

Archive: Anywhere you want. Dawn and Brandon, have away.

Keywords: MSR

Summary: Mulder makes a phone call to ‘Cinnamon’ on his way to work and discovers that the phone call is only the beginnings of a promising day in the office.

Disclaimer: Don’t own them, though I wish I did. Don’t own much; I’m a grad school kid. Don’t look under the legal lid, I’m poor and broke, and I’m well hid.

Feedback: All comments and responses are welcomed at , but flames will be printed out and given to every literature professor at my university as an example of bad taste. 🙂 🙂 🙂

~~~~~

Author’s Notes: This shortfic was written in response to Dawn Little’s request for a 155-or-so-word story in the Cinnamon universe. Dawn, I’m sorry it took so long, but here it is!

Also, for those of you who haven’t read the “Cinnamon Calling” series, I would suggest that you read my trilogy of stories before continuing with this shortfic. There are major spoilers from the trilogy in the first few lines of the story, and I would hate to ruin the thinly veiled surprise for anyone. 🙂

You can find the trilogy at

http://www.angelfire.com/oh/BidieM/cinseries.html

For those of you waiting for the epilogue to the series, this shortfic should give you a hint of what is to come.

Thanks a lot for all your support and enjoy reading!

~~~~~

156 Words: Cellular Cinnamon

“Morning, Cinnamon.”

“Mulder, where are you?”

“On my way to work.”

“You’re late.”

“Hey, it’s your fault. I’d sleep better if your body wasn’t so damn distracting.”

“Mulder!”

“What?”

“Someone could be listening–”

“Forget the rules. I need a little entertainment while I drive.”

“Ohhh…”

“Talk to me, Cinnamon.”

“Oh…please Mulder, don’t get me hot at work–”

“Then get me hot.”

“Fine. You want a little spice in your commute? You got it, Spooky.”

“Give it to me.”

“Where does Spooky want me to sprinkle it?”

“Everywhere.”

“You like that, don’t you?”

“Scully….”

“Mmmmm….your navel needs a little cinnamon too.”

“I can think of more needy places.”

“Mulder….”

“Sprinkle lower…you know where.”

“No….no, you need something sweeter there.”

“Such as?”

“Some nice, warm, melted sugar from my mouth…all over your cock.”

“Oh….Scully…..ohhhhhhhhh………”

“Cinnamon’s spice makes everything nice, baby.”

“Mmmm…..better than nice.”

“Now get to work, Spooky.”

“Oh? It’s lunchtime, Cinnamon.”

“Then let’s eat in.”

Ex Libris: x-libris.xf-redux.com

This file contains work/s of X-Files FAN FICTION and FAN ART which are not affiliated with Ten-Thirteen or The Fox Network. No income is generated from these works. They are created with love and shared purely for the enjoyment of fans and are not to be sold in any format. The X-Files remain the property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen and Fox, unfortunately.

The original stories and art remain the property of their talented creators. No copyright infringement is intended. Any copyright concerns can be addressed to .

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