"Stains" by Cynthia J

Stains

STORIES ON THIS SITE ARE INTENDED FOR ADULTS ONLY

-DISCLAIMERS

* To be perfectly honest, I had never planned to write a sequel to "Coffee." However, I have received such warm and thoughtful feedback that I can't resist. I'd like to give my most soulful thanks to everyone who has been supportive and enthusiastic. I've gone up a few hat sizes. Most of all, I have to credit Liz with tipping the scale and inspiring not just a sequel but a trilogy. Thank you.

* While I'm being absolutely ingratiating, I'd like to thank Ray Bradbury for his delightful and encouraging words at a recent book signing. It amazes me that someone who has written for so long is still so enthusiastic about and interested in the imaginings of fledgling writers. You're a sweetheart. C'mon, Ray.

* "The X-Files" is the property of Chris Carter and his satellites. I'm stealing the characters for a little while, but they'll come back cleaned and pressed, I promise. Actually, I find it hard to believe it's any great transgression; when you really think about it, "The X-Files" isn't all that original. It's essentially the USA network's "Silk Stalkings" with "Quincy" and "The Outer Limits" stirred in. Perhaps a dash of "The Beverly Hillbillies" as well. I'm only kidding, Chris. I can't help it: I'm a television child.

* I'd like to dedicate this story to the English language. Hug an adverb, won't you? While I'm on a grammar kick, I have to apologize for the conspicuous alliteration throughout this story. It just sort of happened that way. So get your mental tongue ready for a consonant sorbet.

* I'd also like to thank jazz, love and coffee... and the volatile combination of the three, without which these stories might never have been written. Keep an eye out for the conclusion, "Grounds." More stories are on the way, I promise. For those of you who have been waiting and/or enduring my wistful, wishful deadlines, I assure you your patience will be rewarded. Thank you and enjoy!

Stains by Cynthia J
Exclusively for this site

The engines whined to life at last. Scully squirmed in her seat and locked the belt around her waist. Thoughts pelted her like raindrops. With three hours of flight ahead, three hours in tight confines, she was certain to drown.

Her lips itched. As she rubbed them, she stared at the faint, red stain on the back of her hand. The renegade cherry that had painted that scrawl had also left a footprint of its scent, sweet and sticky. Wetting her thumb with the tip of her tongue, Scully tentatively rubbed the mark but to no avail. It had become part of her skin.

The cabin was cramped, every inch choked with bright-red seats. It smelled like a doctor's office. A full crowd murmured in anticipation. Nervously surveying the stacks of seats, Scully imagined a concert hall stuffed into a tube with glued-on wings.

It was bad enough that Mulder did not reciprocate her feelings, but to stir up the whole business with the waitress had been cruel. The low orbit of her lust had developed a significant wobble. The ravenous feeling she kept confined was anxious for any avenue, however taboo or unfamiliar. Curious images rolled around her in dizzying, criss-crossed ellipses. Mulder. Waitress. Mulder. Waitress.

The woman next to her in the aisle seat cracked open a folder and began sifting documents. She wore a red business suit with large, gold buttons. Her short, blonde hair was manicured and occasionally whispered of raspberries. Sensing addled nerves, she smiled at Scully, leaned close and asked, "You don't like to fly?"

Startled out of her reverie, Scully looked to her right and stumbled into sharp, green eyes. Despite her antigenic mood, she could not resist the woman's contagious smile. "I suppose you could say that."

"Don't worry," the woman said, her voice soft, cloying. "You'll be fine. Relax. Let your mind wander. It will be over before you know it." Scully smiled weakly, and the woman waded back into her paperwork.

Mulder watched the runway lights drift past the window. One by one, they swam through the wet darkness as the plane taxied into takeoff position. Lightning arced between faraway clouds, a brief but bright scrawl across the night. Since leaving the cafe, Scully had become quiet and introspective, taking notch after notch out of his optimism. Being tired did not help, either.

Feeling her shift yet again, he turned toward her. Nervousness pinched her face. "You ok, Scully?"

"Sure," she said, trying to sound sincere. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you look like you're waiting for the executioner to throw the switch." He nodded at her hands. They were clamped to the arms of her seat.

She smiled and consciously relaxed her grip. "I'll be fine, Mulder."

The plane jiggled, and the engines wailed, holding a shrill, unending note like a pair of dueling divas. Scully focused on the seat in front of her. She tried to scrub away reminiscences of the cafe with images of a warm bath at home. It didn't work. The little world in a tube charged forward.

As the plane settled into its cruising altitude, the air in the cabin relaxed, and seatbelts clicked open in a metallic chorus. Popping her own belt, Scully took a deep breath and felt a little better. As the businesswoman stood to focus her courtesy light, her skirt climbed her legs. Scully caught Mulder's eyes dipping to steal a glance. Jealousy or no, she wanted to slap him. They are nice legs though, she thought then berated herself.

Jingling and clinking, a cart trundled to a stop in the aisle, and a reprehensibly perky flight attendant smiled into their row. "Would you like something to drink?" she said, her voice a glossy brochure, an advertisement for teeth whiteners and low-calorie sweetener.

"Ice water, please," the businesswoman told her documents. The flight attendant hummed and turned her spotlight smile on the agents.

Too tired to tolerate such cheerfulness, Mulder leaned over Scully and said, "Ok. I'd like a banana daiquiri but with strawberries instead of bananas and shaved--not crushed--ice and tequila instead of rum with a chunk of fruit, anything that isn't green--green fruit gives me hives--and one of those cute, little cocktail parasols in a salt-rimmed Super Bowl mug, preferably one with Dick Butkus on it but I'll take Fran Tarkenton if that's all you have."

The flight attendant blinked, eyes glazed, her smile affixed as though with shellac. Clearly, synapses were being overrun with traffic and shut down, one by one, for drastic repaving. After a few self-satisfied seconds, Mulder decided to remove his hook. "I'm fine, thanks." He smirked dismissively and settled back into his seat.

Drowning in confusion, the attendant clung to her buoyant smile. Her eyes swam to Scully. "Coffee," she said, carefully shaping her curtness into the antithesis of Mulder's cynicism.

His eyebrows tilted like a scale out of balance. "What about sleep? I thought you had a hot date with Morpheus, Scu--" She cut him off, pinning him with her gaze. Her eyes flared as though saying, You are responsible for my condition!

Without turning from him, she rasped, "With cream and sugar, please."

Mulder's eyebrows waggled the semaphore equivalent of what did I do? She removed her skewer and turned to watch the flurry of activity around the cart.

He sighed and lolled his head against the seat, tired after a very long day. Sprinting through the woods after a genetic mutation had not seemed so exhausting when he thought about what he had endured in the cafe. The decline of Scully's mood did not help. And I thought we were getting somewhere, he thought. He shook his head and closed his eyes, eager to let his dreams bear the burden for a while.

The flight attendant delivered the drinks and rolled to the next row. Surfacing only momentarily from her paperwork, the businesswoman pulled down her tray table and sat her squat cup of water in the middle. The shrill voices of the engines took center stage again as passengers surrendered to sleepy boredom.

Scully warmed her hands on the Styrofoam cup and looked for answers in the swirling surface of the coffee. As the heat permeated her fingers, she watched Mulder's head slowly slump toward her, his breathing deep and just a little wheezy. She smiled at him, wishing her thoughts would go to bed as well.

She shook her head at the situation and raised her cup. The first sip burned her tongue. She whisked the cup from her lips and spilled a little in her lap. Her breath hissed through her teeth. The inside of her left thigh burned, a quarter-sized dollop of molten pain. Fortunately, it cooled within moments. Glancing down at the stain between her legs, she sighed in defeat. The coffee wasn't even good.

She peeked self-consciously at Mulder and, seeing his eyes still sleepily shut, wrapped herself in the thin consolation that things could be worse. Glancing to her right, she caught the businesswoman smothering a smile. Her green eyes whispered, You're having a bad day, aren't you?

The woman quickly fished a handkerchief from her purse, dabbed it in her ice water and pressed it against Scully's thigh. Her eyebrows shot up as the cold cloth and the unexpectedly familiar touch panicked her nerves. The woman worked fastidiously, her shiny fingertips carefully pressing and pivoting.

It did feel good on the burn, and the careful fingers made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. The awkwardness soon mutated into nervous appreciation. The circling touch tugged the lap of her trousers almost imperceptibly, but even the most peripheral stroke was enough to send her nerves screaming.

Although she tried to stifle the sensations, word soon spread to the rest of her body. Nerves woke from edgy sleep and blazed to life. Her body reminded her of the last time she had been touched with such familiarity. An epoch or two ago, she thought.

A little ashamed, she knew she could not help it. The woman had moved too quickly for her to put up the proper defenses. This is insane! Just as a swarm of fantasy images descended upon her, the maddening touch vanished.

"There," the businesswoman said proudly. Reading the bold print of Scully's face, she realized how forward she had been. She laughed self-consciously. "I'm sorry, but I thought I'd just save you some grief later. Give stains more than a minute, and they settle in forever." She smiled, folded the kerchief and tucked it back into her purse.

Scully looked down and realized the stain was gone. In its place lay a streak of sizzling nerves, a blotch of teased skin. Although she fought, she still felt the deft hand dancing upon her thigh. Her brow furrowed as she closed her legs and meekly resisted the phantom fingers.

"Thank you," she whispered.

The businesswoman's cranberry lips tilted in the most remarkable smile. She nodded amiably and flipped through the pages in her lap.

Recovering her composure, Scully leaned down to pull the laptop from her briefcase, carefully balancing the warm cup in her left hand. Fumbling a little, she pulled the tray table down from the seat in front of her. With the coffee safely out of mischief on the table, she laid the laptop to the right of the cup and called up the day's case report. She had been over it more than enough but hoped its cold lines would bring the temperature of her thoughts down a bit.

The report succeeded only in boring her. Line upon line of altered nucleotides, genetic aberrations and forest-bound freaks were the usual unusual. However, it was enough to make her desire yawn. She almost hated putting it to sleep.

Mulder snored softly next to her arm. She frowned at his faraway smile, jealous of his gentle dreams. She paged through the report again, tapping loudly.

The businesswoman yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. She closed the folder and, tucking it by her side, nuzzled sleepily against her seat. Scully frowned and read yet again about the pursuit in the woods and the subsequent misplacement of another mutation. She hated submitting science-fiction as a case report.

After a few minutes, she glanced at the sleeping faces on either side of her, took a cautious sip of coffee and called up her erotica file. She slipped into the words like her long-awaited bubble bath, spreading their fragrant images over her skin. By comparison, the case report was as inviting and as passionate as a dictionary. She wriggled in her seat and grinned into her secret world.

Typing out her thoughts, Scully mused upon the whole fiasco with the waitress and Mulder's smug, offhand perception of it all. Does anything faze him? She dwelled upon the waitress, curiosity flourishing. Through words, she felt her way around a new, dark room: an as-yet-unexplored area of desire and imagination.

She pictured herself, soaked from head to toe, wandering back into the cafe to confront the woman. Sarah, she thought. Wasn't that her name? Scully sketched out a duel of eyes, an exchange of threats made by silent lips.

Time is evident only in the drops falling from my hair and from the hem of my coat. Desire is eclipsing everything. That I want to kiss her is not enough.

Two sentences away, lips brushed, caught and grappled. A fireworks display of metaphors illuminated the sensation. Leering at the reflection in her screen, she typed with greater confidence. Two participial phrases later, clothes had vanished and hands had begun to roam. Gerunds, adverbs and appositives dove out of the way of marauding gangs of nouns and verbs. Similes tried furiously to translate sensations she had never felt--but wanted so much to feel.

Sarah lays me out on the table. The neon buzzes above me. Sitting inches from me, Mulder sips his coffee, disinterestedly staring out at the rain. He doesn't notice us. Doesn't notice me, even though I am naked, even though I am lying over his damned crossword puzzle! But that doesn't matter. Let him miss this. Let him drown his eyes out there in the night.

Scully paused and took a sip from her cup. The plane's drowsy silence faltered only for a moment as a little girl a few rows up whined about not getting what she wants. Displeased with her audience, she fell into a pouty hush. Scully smiled wistfully and resumed typing.

Sarah's lips are everywhere, savoring me like the cheesecake. I'm drowning out the neon's relentless hum. Mulder tips the last few drops from his cup and sets it down loudly beside my head. Only then does he notice me, notice what's being done to me. Only then does he kiss me, pressing the taste of coffee into my mouth.

The images gained momentum. She felt as though she was in a cart rolling down a steep hill, unable to stop or to steer. The hill itself was laden with familiar and exotic flora, and every crushing turn of the wheels beneath her churned up a new, intoxicating scent. Layers of repression and composure were tearing away, and her words became increasingly bawdy, more baldly indulgent.

Her need became voracious. Soon Mulder and the waitress were not enough to placate it. A rampaging tornado, her imagination swept up the businesswoman as well, spinning and dizzying her, scattering her precious papers into oblivion.

In the world behind her screen, rules dwindled away. No touch was forbidden. There were not enough lips. Not enough hands. Not enough scents, tastes or textures. It was like some enormous cup of coffee into which she kept swirling more cream and more sugar, concocting something lethally overindulgent.

They lie in an exhausted sprawl around me: Mulder, Sarah and the businesswoman. But I'm still needing, still curious, still unfulfilled.

Scully leaned back, closing and rubbing her eyes. She listened to the hypnotic tides of breath around her and relaxed. Her thoughts, warm and indulgent, swam lazily around her. For a moment, she felt as though she was floating. A quiet tapping tugged her away from her muse. She straightened and opened her eyes. Mulder stared at her screen, avidly reading.

Her breath snapped and climbed away from her, a kite stolen by a sudden, cruel gust. She froze. Mulder's eyes rode her words to the bottom of the screen, and he smirked up at her before tapping to the next page.

She tried to work up the will to shut the computer off, to seal the door to that secret place, but part of her wanted him to read it, needed him to see inside. Scully sat quietly, hopeful for and fearful of his reaction.

When he reached the end, he tapped the winking cursor to the top line and sat back, thoughtful. Uneasy, Scully reached out to close the laptop. A manicured hand stopped her.

The businesswoman hummed interestedly and turned the screen so she could read with greater ease. A chill climbed from Scully's toes and traversed her body, warming as it rose, becoming a burn by the time it touched her cheeks.

Mulder's lips grazed her neck, and her worries rode out on a sigh. Eyes shut, she floated in the drunk sensation only a well-placed, unexpected kiss generates. His fingers tilled her hair as he kissed her again... and again.

Raspberries seeped into her lungs, and a new, eager breath tickled the other side of her neck. Locked in place, she groaned softly as another pair of lips pressed into her skin. The businesswoman's long, elegant fingers lighted on Scully's chin, holding her still.

Plumes of fire spread through her extremities. In perfect tandem, Mulder and the businesswoman kissed her neck, her ears, her jaw, their hands wandering her body. Long fingers retraced their steps, dancing where the stain had been. Kisses burst around her like bubbles. Smoldering in her seat, Scully laughed, a bittersweet, aching sound. The rest of the plane dozed heavily, a sea of sleepy breaths.

Just as hands were peeling away her clothes, the world rocked violently, and the sensations vanished like startled apparitions. Scully had a fleeting vision of a cherry rolling over the back of a hand. She heard herself make a jostled, snoring sound. Mulder suddenly jumped up, his eyes those of a sleepwalker woken by a tack. Cold coffee soaked his lap.

"Sorry everyone," the captain's voice oozed over the intercom, more treacle like the attendant had served. "Just a little wake-up call from Mother Nature. With any luck that should be the last of the turbulence."

Mulder gestured toward his stained crotch and shot the women a plaintive look. Scully popped her computer into her lap, and the businesswoman grabbed her water. Snorting back laughter, they closed their tray tables so that Mulder could scoot past.

As he loped toward the bathroom, a little girl pointed at him and taunted, "He wet his pants! He wet his pants!" He grimaced and walked faster. When the door at the front of the cabin slammed shut, Scully and the businesswoman burst into giggles.

"I would have helped him," the businesswoman laughed, "but I don't think my handkerchief is big enough!" Laughter shook them, bruising their sides and squeezing tears from their eyes.

When the giggles had at last subsided, Scully peeked at her screen and quickly saved her file before turning off the power. Relieved, she sighed and folded the laptop shut. A manicured hand glided over hers.

The businesswoman leaned close. "Feel free to replace businesswoman with Melissa," she said, her voice smoky and secretive. "Fewer syllables and much more friendly." Scully's eyes bulged, and a chill tickled through her body. Melissa smiled, delighted, her eyes curious and unnervingly familiar.

Mulder emerged, carefully carrying his blazer in front of him. Melissa whispered, "Don't worry. I won't tell." Scully squeaked, her thoughts flapping chaotically about like birds from a toppled cage. She tucked her computer into her briefcase and leaned back, staring at the ghostly blemish on her trousers.

As Mulder sheepishly walked down the aisle, the little girl tugged his arm, causing him to drop his jacket. Although the stain was gone, the wet spot on the front of his trousers had nearly doubled. "He wet his pants!" the little girl cackled, her voice shrill and nasal. Nearby passengers laughed raucously. Grumbling, Mulder snatched up his blazer, bowed to the crowd and stalked to his seat.

Sitting roughly, he covered his lap with his jacket and stared out at the night. Scully glanced at the guilty coffee cup by his feet and frowned. She tried to round up her thoughts and dunk them in her bathtub again, but they danced away with catlike stubbornness.

More frazzled than she had been before the flight, Scully ached to be home. She could ignore the turmoil of her mind, but the haggard wanting of her body could not be avoided, could not be distracted by flimsy images.

The remaining minutes of the flight passed as the first had: Mulder frowned out the window, Scully fretted at the seat in front of her and Melissa smiled secretly into her paperwork.

As the plane rolled to a halt, Mulder hopped out of his seat and side-stepped into the bustling aisle. He turned and leaned down. "I'll take that for you," he said, relieving Melissa of her water.

"Thanks," she said with a soft laugh. The two women stood, and Melissa pressed a business card into Scully's hand with a disarming smile. Her eyes flared momentarily. "Please e-mail me a copy."

Mulder frowned, wondering why someone would want to read one of Scully's dreary case reports. The whole weekend had been a debacle anyway, he thought. Why publicize it? Putting the matter out of his mind, he walked up the aisle, humming and swirling the water in the cup. Scully bumped past him, looking lost, and chugged toward the exit. He could not classify her expression. The best he could do was bemused desperation. He shrugged.

Mulder stopped a few rows down and waited patiently. Still belted in her seat, the little girl sneered up at him. Her legs flailed, inspired by some demonic need to kick him. He whistled tunelessly.

When her mother leaned away to fish under her seat, a devilish smirk slashed Mulder's face. He emptied the cup into the little girl's lap. Her eyes became large while the rest of her face puckered like a prune. Holding a hand over a mock gasp, he pointed at her and shook his head. With a victorious smile, he turned and walked away to join Scully in line.

END

Stains

Stains by Cynthia J Exclusively for this site

Stains by Cynthia J
Exclusively for this site