TITLE: World Without End,
Book Three (8/?)
AUTHOR: Rachel Anton
E-MAIL: RAnton1013@aol.com
Well, what can I say? There are bad days and then there are days that just defy description. Days so bad that there are no words. Days when you find out that there is a very real possibility that little gray men are going to invade and burn your home, killing everything you know and care about. Days when you discover that the child you are carrying is not really yours, but rather belongs to the half-alien, she-male who used to be your partner and the half-crazy, sometimes bastard who is supposed to be your husband or your lover or…or something, but right now won't even kiss you without retching. There are some days you shouldn't even bother getting out of bed for.
"Alex, what is wrong?"
He's been staring blankly past me, towards some distant, unknown spot since his outburst, looking as if he might be trying to figure out for himself what brought it on. I'm not patient enough to wait for him to get it sorted out in his head. I don't want his recycled, twisted around version. It's long past too late for manipulations.
"Alex, tell me. Tell me now. Stop thinking about it."
"It…It's nothing. I'm sorry. We should really get back."
"No. We're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on with you. You haven't touched me since we found out I was pregnant. I want you to tell me why."
"It doesn't matter. It's not something you should be worried about right now."
In a sense, he's right. Our first priority should be organizing a meeting to convince our remaining population that they'll be making the right choice staying with us. Second should be figuring out exactly why that is the right choice. Third and soon to become first- the baby. We need to begin preparing for the fact that another human being is going to be depending on us for everything in a matter of months. Sex should not be the most prominent thing on my mind right now.
There is work to be done, plans to be made. But I know all too well that when Alex and I are not functioning- fully functioning as a team- we are destined for failure.
Besides, I'm pregnant. It is a widely known fact that pregnant women need lots and lots of sex.
"You're not going to hurt the baby, you know."
"I know that," he nods. "I've been reading baby books from the library."
"You have?" The thought is oddly touching, though I'm certain Doctor Spock doesn't have much insight into our particular situation.
"Yeah, I know all about pregnant women and sex."
The corners of his mouth turn up a bit and he finally looks at me. Good signs, although his eyes are black as frying pans.
"So what is it then?"
"It's just…it's so stupid, Dana. I don't wanna upset you."
"Too late, baby."
Doesn't he understand by now that nothing upsets me more than his hiding things from me? Are we the two singlemost communicationally deficient people in the universe?
"All right," he sighs. "But don't say I didn't warn you."
I climb off his lap to give him a little space, but keep my hand on his thigh to stay connected.
"I don't want you to think this has anything to do with trust," he starts and I can't suppress a tiny shudder. Can any conversation that starts this way end well?
"Or even about my feelings for you or my attraction to you or…or anything about you really."
A bizarre thought occurs to me, almost a sense of deja vu, as if I've heard this all before somewhere. Perhaps in a movie. Or a book. About…
No, it couldn't be. Could it? He has been under a great deal of stress lately. Somehow asking seems like a bad idea, but maybe it would make it easier for him to tell me.
"Are you, um…are you having…problems…there?" I ask carefully, glancing briefly, but pointedly in the direction of his crotch.
"What are you talking about?"
Damn. Nice work. I've probably just made things a hundred times worse.
"I'm not impotent if that's what you're thinking!"
"Okay, okay. I just…I'm sorry. Just, just finish. I won't interrupt anymore."
He takes a deep breath and begins tracing patterns in the dirt with the same stick I'd used earlier. And then he starts talking.
"I've just…I have been having some difficulties. In my head. I guess it started when you told me about Mulder."
Of course. This was the only other possibility.
"It's not what you think though. It's not about being angry with you or doubting your feelings for me. It's just that since then, whenever I've tried to imagine you in a…a sexual way, I've been having trouble seeing anything else. Even when I jerk off. I start out trying to think about other things, but it always comes back to that."
Oh God, he's right. It's not what I thought. It's even worse. Anger would be a lot easier to deal with. Anger can be overcome and forgotten. How do you wipe images out of someone's head?
"I'm just afraid that if I make love to you, that's all I'll be seeing when I close my eyes and that I'll just get used to that and you'll just become…that."
"Oh, Alex…I…I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault. It's my problem."
"No, it's our problem. And I should have known it would be. I was a fool to think it wouldn't bother you this way. That you'd just be able to forgive and forget instantaneously."
And now, with the baby, how will we ever be able to get beyond this with that constant reminder in our path every single day?
"I have forgiven you, Dana. I told you, it's not about that. In a way, it's actually almost a good thing that you did what you did. If you hadn't, we wouldn't be having a child."
I can't help but laugh through my tears. He's got this way of twisting my negative thoughts around and making them positive. Even when he's in his own personal hell.
"Okay, you've forgiven. But you haven't forgotten, Alex."
I squeeze his leg lightly and he covers my hand with his own.
"I want to."
"I'm sure you do."
"I just, I don't know how, Dana."
I don't know how either. I'm relatively sure that there's nothing I can do, though. It does occur to me that the best way to face this might be head-on, but suggesting that seems like the wrong approach. The last thing he needs to feel is pressured.
Why do I suddenly feel like a horny adolescent boy trying to coax his new girlfriend into necking in the backseat?
Because I am horny, dammit. Goddammit all.
Pathetically enough, the thought of this day not ending in sex is bringing tears of frustration to my eyes.
I feel him clasping at my fingers, saying my name, but it all seems suddenly distant. The sound of his voice is muffled by the roar of the ocean in my ears. His touch is muted by the persistent throbbing between my legs, the need for more.
All I want is a little nookie. Why does even that have to be so hellishly difficult for us?
"Devotchka? Are you all right?"
I nod quickly and wipe my face, try to get back to reality and remember where we were in this conversation. Looking into his eyes for a moment is all I need to find some grounding, to see what is truly important.
"I…I'm fine, Alex. I just…I don't know if it's possible for you to forget. If it is, it's going to take some time. Maybe a very long time…"
I pause, stare at our hands, now intertwined, and realize something very important. Something I haven't given much thought to until this point. And it hits me so hard I'm short of breath for a moment.
A little nookie is, in fact, not all that I want. In fact, it might be at the bottom of the list when push comes to shove, despite what my body is saying. Or screaming.
"But, Alex, you could…you could tell me it would take the rest of our lives, and it wouldn't change a thing. It wouldn't matter. I mean, it would. It would make me very sad, very um…frustrated, but it wouldn't make me want this any less."
"Want what?"
"Us. Together. A family. I…I can live without the sex if it means living with you, raising this child with you. That's all I want, Alex. It's all I need."
"Are you saying you don't care if we never have sex again?"
"No, no, I care. I want to. But I'd rather live without sex than without you. I guess…I guess what I'm saying is that you are already my life, my everything. Sex is just a nice bit of icing on the cake."
He smiles and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulls me up against his chest and hugs me so hard that it's almost painful. When he speaks again, his voice is raw and tear soaked.
"I feel the same way, Dana. But, God, I want to have sex with you."
We both laugh in amusement and dismay.
"I'm so sorry, Alex. I wish I could make this go away for you," I whisper into his shirt. "But I can't. You know?"
"I know. I know you can't. That's why I didn't want to tell you in the first place."
"I'm glad you did. At least now I understand."
We pull apart reluctantly. Now it really is getting dark. And very cold. It's time to go.
"Walk me back, captain?"
I stand up and reach out my hand and he takes it, slowly rising to his feet.
Walking back to the camp together, arm in arm, I feel strangely, inappropriately, but truly at peace.
*************************
Looks can be deceiving I suppose, but I'd have to say that Dana looks more peaceful right now than I've ever seen her. Even in sleep her face is often haunted, creased and furrowed with the remnants of her waking thoughts, her body curled into itself in a defensive posture. Tonight her cheeks are as rosy and soft as a baby's, a small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth and her limbs are sprawled carelessly across the bed.
I'm tempted to leave her uncovered, to spend the rest of the night staring at her radiant naked flesh in rest, but that flesh is developing a rash of tiny white goose bumps. It's starting to get cold at night again.
I pull the blanket up, tucking the both of us tightly underneath, and curl myself around her. She sighs in her sleep and wraps an arm around my neck.
Yes, there is peace here. It's difficult to understand why, given the day we've just lived through, but I like to think it has something to do with my extensive sexual powers. Or something like that.
It took a relatively short amount of time for me to fully grasp the extent of my assholity. It hit me particularly vividly as we were walking home from the forest, arm in arm.
Most of the time life seems to pass me by in a blur of anticipation. I spend almost all of my time two steps ahead of myself, planning, anticipating, always looking ahead. But at some point during that walk, my internal clock seemed to stop. Or at least slow down a bit. Tomorrow and the next day seemed to disappear and so did yesterday and the day before that. For a few blissful moments, Dana and me and the trees were the only things that existed, the only things that mattered.
It occurred to me that despite everything, I'm a very lucky man. Lucky to still be alive. Lucky to be having a child. Lucky that the woman I love has chosen to be with me, through the good and the not so good. Obsessing over the events of a single night suddenly seemed absurd in the face of all that we've experienced together.
I stopped walking, startled into immobility by my newfound clarity of thought, and Dana looked at me with concern.
"What is it, Alex? Coyote?"
"No, no. I just…this is ridiculous, Dana. I want to be with you. I want to make love to you."
She smiled tightly and nodded, not understanding.
"I know. I'm here whenever you're ready, Alex."
"I'm ready now."
Honestly, I wasn't completely sure of that, but waiting for some elusive "right moment" was starting to seem more and more like sheer idiocy. That moment was never going to come unless I made it come and I'd already been waiting for far too long. Hearing her tell me she'd wait forever made me realize that.
Denying us both would be far more torturous than living with the twisted images for the rest of my life.
"Right now?" she asked. I grabbed the back of her head and pulled her to me for a kiss to show her that yes, I wanted her right now.
Her lips parted immediately for me and when my tongue made sweet contact with the back of her throat, her answering moans made me literally weak in the knees. I was hard almost instantaneously.
And strangely enough, the images didn't come. Keeping my eyes open helped.
"I think I've just been going about this all wrong," I whispered into her ear. "I need a new approach."
"Mmm, sounds interesting. What have you got in mind?"
I pulled back and took her chin in my hand, looked into her eyes for a long moment and once again felt the force of our connection.
"I need to stop closing my eyes and imagining you and just…just open my eyes and look at you, here, with me."
"I am here, Alex. Forever."
I wanted more than anything to just push her up against a nearby tree and bury myself inside her, but we were still in the middle of the woods and with darkness rapidly descending and our lack of a flashlight, urgency had to give way to practicality.
"Race you back," she whispered into my mouth giddily. She was already twenty feet ahead of me before I could ask if that was a good idea. She stayed ahead of me the whole time, but I could hear her laughter trailing back to me so I figured it had to be safe.
By the time I made it back to the room, panting and flushed and wondering if I wasn't in as good shape as I liked to think, she was sitting on the bed, completely naked and breathing just fine.
"How'd you do that?" I asked, wiping profuse sweat from my brow and praying I'd have enough energy left to do anything but collapse.
"Must be those hormones," she smirked.
She looked so beautiful. It was the first time I'd really allowed myself to gaze at her like that, naked and pregnant and glowing, and what little breath I had left, she took away.
She rose to her knees and I pulled her soft, hot body against mine. Whether it was hormones or a simple case of overacting for my benefit, I don't know, but her usual responsiveness to my touch was somehow multiplied. Every kiss and caress elicited excessive moans and squeals of delight, which my mind questioned the authenticity of, but my body reveled in. I tried very hard to turn my mind off.
It worked for awhile. When she started tearing at my clothes, her genuine, unbridled enthusiasm broke through my reservations and reached the part of me that responds to her on a purely instinctual level.
We went at it for a bit, touching, tasting, reacquainting ourselves with sensations long forsaken. I kissed my way down her slightly swollen belly and felt something new. The life force inside of her that shouldn't exist, but does. The tiny person we created through this very act.
It was only when I buried my face between her legs, only when, for the first time since we'd started, I allowed myself to close my eyes, that I remembered we weren't the only ones to create that life.
It seems moronic in retrospect, but then most mental problems do. As soon as I wasn't looking at her, the pictures came back. Worse than ever because I could hear her. Moaning. Suddenly it wasn't me making her feel that, it was Mulder. But it was still her and I was still turned on. Exactly what I'd been afraid of.
I tried looking at her again, but by then it was too late. She was sitting up, her back against the headboard, her lips parted and hands on my scalp, digging, pressing me onwards. She was a sight to behold, that's for certain. The problem was, now her eyes were closed, and the small seed of uncertainty grew to ridiculous proportions inside of me. I started wondering if maybe her thoughts were somewhere else as well.
Reluctantly- and I was reluctant because damn it was nice- I stopped what I was doing, causing her to groan in frustration.
"Alex…God, what is it?" she panted.
"Look at me."
"Mmmwha?"
"Open your eyes and look at me."
She did. And I looked back. And it was, to wax pathetically sentimental, absolute magic. Suddenly it wasn't my mind and it wasn't my body. It was only my heart. And my tongue.
We watched each other until she reached the brink of orgasm, at which time she informed me breathlessly, "Need to close eyes now."
As she came, she called my name close to twenty times to make up for it.
By the time she was on top of me, moving in a slow, languid rhythm, it didn't matter that our eyes were open. The last of my insecurity had been vanquished by her sincerity. But I was enjoying watching her watching me. And I think she was enjoying it, too.
It was only a few minutes before she was coming again- an orgasm that shocked us both with its intensity and rapidity.
"Oh, God, pregnant sex is great!" she announced happily when the tremors had passed and then proceeded to ride me harder and faster than I thought humanly possible. I had to agree.
I tried to hold out, but it had been a damn long time since I'd even jerked off and she was too fucking amazing for words. Luckily she got one last explosion in before mine.
When it was over, she rolled off my body and sprawled out beside me, flat on her back.
"That was so…oh, God, Alex, that felt so good."
"Uh-huh," was about all I was capable of as far as a reply.
"My God, it's like everything is just…I just feel everything so…it's just really intense."
"Yeah." Okay, so, I'm not the most eloquent post-coital conversationalist.
"How are you, Alex? Was it…I mean, are you okay?"
"Very. Very okay."
She smiled and kissed me softly and then she fell quickly into a deep and gorgeous sleep. And she sleeps still. I believe that I might be able to join her soon.
The sleep of the damned perhaps, but who are we to complain? We have each other. We have our lives and our love and a child on the way. Everything else is just background noise.
End Chapter Eight
Continued in Chapter Nine
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