More Than You Think You Are Part 12

I missed him the minute he walked out the door. I managed to load the dishwasher and pick up dirty clothes and then found myself staring longingly at the phone. 

I shook it off and went for the next best thing, saying a silent prayer of thanks that Skinner had cable.

A cooking show taught me that tiramisu was tasty but too much work. Twenty minutes of Star Trek reminded me that I loved the show but had seen that episode before. CNN spouted gloom and doom for the Middle East—depressing, but hardly a shocker—and then I sang along badly to some song about crabs in a bucket on MTV. And when the phone rang I leaped on it like a dingo on a baby.

Then told the telemarketer on the other end that I was not the least bit interested in having the carpets cleaned.

Leaving the music channel on, I moved restlessly around the room. Skinner’s bookshelf was soon in alphabetical order, except for the law manuals, which I sorted chronologically.

I found orange juice and drank it straight from the carton as I fooled around with the stereo settings and tested just how much volume was needed before Robert Johnson’s excellent guitar work could blow the amp.

The phone could barely be heard past the television and the stereo, and by the time I noticed and lowered the volume, the machine had already picked up.

“Fox? Are you there? It’s Walter.”

I was not going to leap on the phone again. I wasn’t about to act like some lovesick loser. I waited for the full two seconds it took him to say “Mulder?” before snatching up the handset.

“Hey; I’m here.”

“Fox? Good. You had me worried for a minute there.” He did sound concerned, but also glad that I answered.

“Sorry; I didn’t hear the phone.” If he couldn’t hear the matching relief in my voice, then he was the only one I was fooling.

“That’s all right. I was just checking in. thought I’d see how your day was going.” He didn’t have to say, ‘without me’; I was thinking it.

“Fine,” I replied quickly. Then, quieter, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Uh, boring.”

“Well, I miss you, and I think I’d rather be bored.” Apparently he didn’t get embarrassed. “Are you feeling—uh—okay?”

I knew what he was asking. And sure, there was a bit of an ache there, but I suspected that it was going to be gone even before he got home. 

“All good here,” I assured him. “I might go for a run, later. Get to know the neighborhood.”

“That sounds good.” His enthusiasm sounded forced when he added, “Don’t get lost.”

And I forced it right back. “I won’t.”

“I’ll be leaving early today. Maybe bring some stuff home—work on it there tonight.”

Relief again, and I took a moment to wonder if this was new, or if I’d always been this needy. And then another moment to decide I didn’t really like it.

“You don’t have to do that on my account,” I said. “I’m a big boy, you know; I can probably keep myself amused.”

“Now there’s a visual,” he said and I could hear the smile in his voice; it made me blush, and I decided that was going to have to stop, too. “Besides,” he added, “I’m doing it on *my* account.”

That pleased me, and I let myself have that one with no second-guessing.

“Well, I’d best get back at it,” he said. “I’ll see you in a while, hon.”

Hon? I was his hon? I smiled. I was somebody’s hon.

His phone call satisfied me in no small way, but the restlessness remained, and I decided the run I’d mentioned half-truthfully should become a reality, and it didn’t take long to don running pants and shoes, find the spare key (now mine, I supposed) at the front door, and feel something like a pleasant memory surface as I did a few warm up stretches on the front steps, then set off down the street. I started slowly, but as my body warmed to the task, my steps quickened. 

I stayed close to the house at first, content to jog around the block a few times, feeling a good burn start up in my chest and legs. Once I’d established street names and locations, I doubled the distance, and then tripled it. I could feel the ache in my legs growing, and knew it was from so much time spent on my back. Grinning at my own bad double entendre, I put on a final burst of speed as I ran the last three blocks back to the house, and I decided this had to be something I’d enjoyed before. It felt very good and very familiar, from the gulping of oxygen to the sweat making my t-shirt cling to my body. This was definitely going to become a habit. It also hadn’t escaped me that the man currently sharing my life had one hell of a body, and I didn’t plan on being the slacker in the family. 

Back inside the house, I found cold water in the kitchen and paced a few times around the room, letting my muscles cool down, knowing they’d cramp after such exertion if I didn’t. I took a moment to enjoy even a painful memory of that, and then took down the list of doctors names that I’d received from the hospital—Skinner had put it on the refrigerator, held in place by a plain black magnet. I read through the list as I set aside my empty glass and pulled my wet shirt off. 

A shower delayed my having to decide on a doctor just yet, and it felt good to both wash away the sweat from the run, and lightly massage my still tingling muscles with the hot water. 

Foregoing dressing for the moment, I just slipped on boxer shorts and wandered back to the kitchen. I replaced the list of doctors and took a beer from the refrigerator, then headed back out to the living room. I had shut everything off when I left the house, but easily resumed mindless channel surfing as I flopped down on the couch and rubbed the last of the water out of my hair with a dark blue towel. One sip of beer, and then much to my delight, I found a cheesy zombie movie on the sci-fi channel. I thought briefly about snacks and leaned back into the overstuffed couch instead. I didn’t feel the remote drop from my hand, and my last coherent thought was ‘that Gary Shandling is one heck of an actor…

I woke up in a cell, naked and shivering. It hurt to open my eyes, but I did it anyway, and they immediately started watering as I squinted into bright light and thought ‘I am a guilty man.’

“No sleeping!” someone yelled, but I couldn’t see who was speaking. Suddenly strong hands grabbed my arms and I was dragged over rough concrete, out of the light and into the dark. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but at the diminishing of that burning brightness I felt panic suddenly flood adrenaline into my system, and I struggled and thrashed in earnest, all to no avail. “No! Stop! No-o-o!” My voice sounded cracked and scared and echoed in my ears, growing louder and less coherent as two more hands joined the party on my body and my legs were pulled apart. I couldn’t see my balls actually trying to climb up into my throat, but I could feel them, just like I couldn’t see the batons—clubs, whatever they called them, but I could hear them connecting with the floor and the walls with a solid meaty thumping that was almost rhythmic.

“No, please, no, I am—I am a guilty man, no, no, no…” I chanted and begged in time with that relentless wooden beat.

Until I felt something wide and hard and pushing insistently at my asshole. I gasped and it turned into a groan and then a wordless scream. My legs were yanked higher, opening me wider and I shrieked when I felt something tear, and my stomach rolled when I realized that the easing of the friction inside me was due to blood. In and out and in and out and I couldn’t break the iron grip on my arms or legs, couldn’t block out the sounds…

It went on and on…

I had settled for a nasty groaning sound that became an occasional yelp when the club was ripped right out of me only to be plunged in even harder and I tried to imagine someone coming to save me. Someone, anyone, Scully, Skinner…hell, even John Doggett was looking good at this point and that thought made me cry even harder.

I found I still had a shred of self-preservation left in my when a hand wrapped itself around my cock and started jerking roughly. Renewed struggling just worked the club deeper inside me, however, stretching and tearing, and I tried to leave my body; to be still and trust that I would get out of this alive somehow—

To my horror, I started getting hard. The man working the club had discovered my prostate, and a gleeful chuckle came out of the darkness as my poor ass was battered even more savagely. The man fisting my cock was being none to gentle either, but despite the pain, or even, God help me, because of it, I was hard and feeling the ache of impending orgasm.

Not a chance. 

The club tore out of my body a final time and crashed down on my balls.

My arms and legs were released at the same time and immediately I curled up in a ball, my hands going to my throbbing groin as I cried and gagged, gasping raggedly for air. I could hear footsteps as several men? women? aliens? whatever stepped over and around me, and more pain flared as one of them kicked my leg hard as he passed. My thigh muscles quivered and then went numb.

I laid there a long time, my face wet with tears I couldn’t stop, and blood trickled from my ass to form a sticky warm patch under my body; I couldn’t stop that either.

Eventually I decided I had to try and move, but the best I could achieve was a sort of broken sidestroke. Every time I tried to push with my legs, fresh agony erupted in my ass and my balls felt swollen as big as grapefruits. But even my tiny, crab-like movements were enough to spark whatever hope was left in me. If I couldn’t get away, I could at least hide, I thought, find a place where they couldn’t—

--a hand fell on my shoulder and I screamed.