Title: Pater Familias III: Insto Author: OneMillionAndNine http://www.geocities.com/onemillionandnine Rating: Moist, glistening NC-17 Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com Archive: feel free. Disclaimer: I like to surf but it'll take more than that to make me Chris Carter . That aside, I still can't figure out how to turn fan fic into a cash cow. Note: Not A Perfect World was my very first attempt at fan fic and when I posted it initially I thought it was a complete story. A veritable landslide of emails informed me otherwise. Three months and 200K later, here we are. Be careful what you ask for. That said all in all this is a fairly happy shiny story though it has its dark spots. Thanks: All thanks to MaybeAmanda - she asks good questions, capitalizes, punctuates, points out gaping holes I have missed. If it weren't for her, I'd probably never post a thing. And now she's set up a website for me {gets down on one knee before the whole fic world} Mandy, will you leave your husband and be my bitch? :~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: My name is Martin Levine. Martin Lewis Levine, if you want to get picky. Yes, it was funny for about the first two weeks. I live in Delphi, Alabama, one hundred and fifty miles from the Gulf Coast. I am forty- seven years old. I teach high school English and coach the varsity basketball team. I have a wife named Laura, two small children, and an overweight dog named Melvin, who has an unsettling habit of stealing my wife's underwear from the hamper. Said wife works part-time as a mortician at the only funeral home in town. I own a house, a green three bedroom number two blocks from the school where I teach. The house has rose bushes and a cherry tree and was built in the twenties. I also have a lot of nice Danish modern furniture that I would never have bought if I'd known how destructive my kids would be. I am not Fox Mulder. Not anymore. Fox Mulder died for me four years ago, about a year after he died for everybody else, and was buried in North Carolina, right beside Dana Scully. Laura Levine is still Dana Scully in almost all the important ways, though. She's still a math geek, still imminently practical, still has more balls than any ten men. But some things have changed for her, too. She's a brunette now, and two pregnancies in rapid succession have moved her from a B cup to a solid C. She's not sad anymore. She's also stopped covering up that mole on her upper lip. The whole effect is very Marilyn Monroe. Well, Norma Jean at least. Every time I say it, she snorts. Some things change; some things, apparently, do not. Laura Levine is not Catholic. It was probably the biggest shock of my life when she told me she just didn't believe anymore. Not in Jesus and Mary and Joseph, or the need for salvation, despite her continuing belief in a benevolent creator of the universe. Irony of ironies, she has become Jewish and hauls all our asses to a reform synagogue in Birmingham at least twice a month. Danny calls it 'stupid hat day.' That's my boy. That's my boy all over. I wonder what my mother would say. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Five years earlier. They were leaving New York in a U-Haul, tiny baby strapped in the carseat between them. It was weird. Utterly unusual but familiar, as if they both had been turning the possibility over in their minds for years. She had been studying the folder for 58 minutes. The folder, with all the documentation for their new lives: birth certificates, medical histories, work histories, school records, drivers licenses, credit cards, library cards. Complete new identities. Time and time again she returned to the marriage license. Staring. Turning it over. Running her fingers over the embossed seal. "So we're married now?" she asked, trying her best to sound casual. It was all he could do to nod and clear his throat. "You know, you could have asked me." She sounded sad rather than angry, and that, of course, was much worse. If he hadn't been behind the wheel, he would have concentrated on his shoes at that point, but he was driving, so he settled for the road. "Want a divorce, Scully?" "No." She scowled, irritated now. "But a proposal would have been nice." "I've committed eight separate and distinct felonies this week, Scully. Wanna marry me?" "Yeah, yeah I do." She twisted the ring on her finger around and around in a way that looked painful. "But...a wedding. Is that too much to ask?" "There are some things I should tell you first. Things I should have told you before." They both sat for a moment, listening to the blood rush in their ears. "You were married before." He nodded, his lips pursed tight. "It was Diana, wasn't it?" He either hissed or said 'yes' very quietly. "Was there a child?" He shook his head hard. "There were pregnancies." "What happened?" "I told her I'd leave her if she tried to have 'em." Scully smiled a bitter little smile. "I never expected to feel sorry for her." "That's the least of it, actually." "What did she do to you?" "Don't rush in to exonerate me here, Scully. I'm the bad guy in this story." "Okay. What did you do?" She was looking at the baby, not Mulder. "I was...unfaithful. And...I hit her." "More than once?" He shifted nervously. "I was with behavioral when it started. I'd get worked up over a profile and she just wouldn't back off. She was just trying to help me, love me, keep me sane, but I..."The sound of tire on gravel grated her ears as he abruptly pulled onto the shoulder of the road. "Mulder...Mulder, what do you want me to say? I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. It's only too common for abused children to become abusers themselves, especially in high stress situations." "You think my dad. . .?" She looked at him dubiously. "Who are you trying to protect? I've seen your medical records. A normal, healthy child does not break his arm three times in two years. A boy does not spontaneously break his own ribs." All he could do was hang his heavy head against the steering wheel. Eventually, he began to stroke the baby's belly with one finger. "Still want to be married to me?" "Christ Mulder, you think I don't know how fucked up you are?" Somehow, they were both laughing. "You still want me to irritate you?" "I do. You know why I left Jack Willis?" "He hit you or he irritated you." It wasn't exactly a question. "He slapped me - once. You ever raise your hand to me and I dump your sorry ass. Got it?" He nodded soberly. "You screw around and I dump your sorry ass. Okay?" The silence grew steadily louder, until passing cars and self-conscious breathing threatened to become deafening. He willed him self, at last, to speak. "Any regrets?" She thought about it. "I wish I could have called you Fox" "You still could ... can. People would just think it was a, you know, pet name." "You wouldn't mind?" He shook his head. "Fox, it is. Did you sleep with her when she came back?" "She offered. I tried. But..." "Itchy trigger finger, partner?" "Nope. My gun jammed. Not an uncommon occurrence during our marriage. Wanna know somethin' funny?" "What?" "I hadn't hit her in more than a year when she left." Scully blinked at him. "That's funny?" The corner of his lip was twitching in what was definitely NOT a smile. She smiled. "Are you going to tell me about the prostitutes now?" She was rewarded with a rare look of genuine shock on her partner's face. "As your wife, I'd like to know when you last paid for sex." "December 24, 1998. About three hours before we met to look at that haunted house." "How often?" "Usually, once every month or two. Less often if I was feeling okay, more often if...if I wasn't." "Did you use a condom?" "Religiously." "Where did you find them?" "They usually put them near the pharmacy." "Ha ha. Really?" "There's a good corner down by the capitol." "A good corner?" For an odd instant, she looked at him and he was not the goofy, driven partner of eight years, but a John - large, sad, vaguely rumpled, potentially dangerous but at least clean and well-mannered. It was the painful moment when he suddenly became a whole man to her, a first-born son who'd been pinned with privilege and expectations from his first breath, who had been bathed and made cookies by someone who was paid to do just that, who had lost his virginity and had to suffer through dancing lessons. A boy indistinguishable from the vast sea of boys. Other boys lost their sisters, too. Other men ruined marriages and were consumed by guilt. It was as if, for 8 years, she thought she had a singular flower, only to discover what she had was a common rose. Didn't make a difference, really, to how she felt about him. It might not be the only one, but he was still her rose. It did clear her thinking, however. Not many other men were geniuses. And as far as she knew, he didn't have much competition in the savior of the Earth department, either. But all the things he hid from her were so normal. Normal, sad, ordinary, sordid. "Anything else?" she asked, ironically. "Not that I can think of." He raised one eyebrow in imitation of her. What happened next came so quickly that it took her utterly unaware. Mulder had reached over the silent, wide-eyed baby, and taken her face in both his hands, pulling her to within inches of his face. "Why, Scully? Why be with me?" "You make me feel alive." After a few minutes, he let her go, settled back into his seat, turned the key in the ignition, and merged back into traffic. "You know, Mulder, I never really GOT the Wizard of Oz. I mean...why would Dorothy want to go back to Kansas when she could have stayed?" He shrugged, smirking. "I dunno Scully. I'm sure Kansas during the Dustbowl had a certain gritty appeal - dangerous, thankless, uncertain, emotionally strangled. Hmmmmm, sound like anyone you know?" "You're not Kansas, Mulder. You're pure Oz." "I am?" "The day I walked into the basement was like the scene where Dorothy opens the door of the farm house and everything goes from black and white to Technicolor. Mulder, you're punk rock" "You mean the spitting on the audience part?" "How much do you know about punk rock?" "Slightly less than I know about babies" "When I was in tenth grade my friend Sabina brought a tape of her brother's band over to my house and it changed my life. It was like - it was like - it was one of the most liberating moments I've ever had. You ever read any Alice Walker?" "Some" "'Possessing the Secret of Joy'?" He shook his head. She swallowed. "She says the secret of joy is resistance." And all this time he'd thought resistance was futile. "So I'm the human equivalent of the Sex Pistols?" She scowled and made her classic miffed but not too miffed face. "One - to the best of my knowledge they were human, and Two - the Sex Pistols were a prefab band put together to promote a clothing shop. They were the Punk equivalent of the Monkees." "Oh. So I'm. . .?" "You're X." It sounded dreamy the way she said it. "That's a band?" "Only the best. Wait, Langly made me a tape." She started rooting through her diaper bag. "You know I'm not really a musical guy." "Listen to the words. You'll like it, I promise" "So what happened anyway?" "Huh?" "What came between you and a life of blue hair and safety pins in your nose?" "Leaning a little heavily on the stereotypes, don't you think? I kept my grades up, never broke the school dress code. In fact, I used to wear my school uniform out to shows." "You snuck out of the house, didn't you?" She stopped her rooting to look shocked. "How did you know?" "Never underestimate the profiling powers of Monsterboy, Scully. Besides, I can't really see your mother knowingly letting you go see a bad called The Plugz." "What can I say? I got my taste for defying a direct order early. Anyway, one night Ahab discovered that I was not in my bed in the middle of the night. About an hour later, he found me fellating a boy with a green mohawk in the alley behind a club. I now know for a fact it is impossible to die of embarrassment." "So Ahab scooped Dorothy up and took her ass back to Kansas?" "After confiscating all her tapes." "Wow, Scully. I never would have guessed." "Here it is." She pulled the cassette out of the bag. "You've gotta be beat, Scully. Why don't you take a nap while I listen to your tape?" "After I, um. . .express myself." She waved the Ziploc bag holding her manual breast pump vaguely in the air. He nodded. He knew his limitations where Scully was concerned. He knew he could not possibly watch the discreet little show under the edge of her tented t-shirt and maintain control of a motorized vehicle. Eyes on the road, Agent Mulder. Better to delve into the enigmatic little doctor's head than kill the entire family in a fiery crash because of his voyeuristic impulses. Once upon a time, he would have been thrilled to be allowed the insight into her inner workings now he was vaguely afraid. Afraid of seeing something he couldn't live up to, couldn't fulfill. Afraid of knowing for certain he would fail her. And by default, fail the baby, too. He was completely unaware of Scully's scrutiny as he popped the tape into the deck. He was prepared to listen closely, to try to see what Scully saw, what she meant. He was not prepared for some very Elvis-like crooning. The words were shocking to him. A woman built like you Built to fill my needs Carve initials on my back Wrap your arms around me When we love and bleed We know it's good I hurt you so I gotta go I wouldn't blame you a bit For never giving me a chance My soul cries your name Over and over again His hands were suddenly wet on the wheel. He decided maybe he didn't want to listen closely, after all. On a normal day his thought processes were best described as roughly analogous to dropping a pebble in a well and never hearing it hit bottom - today, with the extreme possibility of a normal life staring him in the face, his brain was spinning so fast he could barely keep hold of an idea for more than a few seconds. Words from the tape kept intruding, tripping him like a stick in the spokes of a moving bicycle. You're faithful but I'm hateful And I ruin any kind of fun you're having His jaw was starting to hurt from being clenched so tight. Let's not talk about bombs and the brain impulses of severed limbs Let's not draw the line on the night before the world ends Let's just draw the line some other time It was impossible to get comfortable in the damn seat. We miss each other so when we're apart One flies to the other's side and then the battles start I'll never lose this temper of mine for good I never feel like I do what I think I should So let's make a deal, me and you I'll act real stupid if you will too We can stand in the rain Or fight in the gutter Let's just be mad at each other He was trying to settle into a good domestic day dream when the piece de resistance pistol- whipped him to attention: I'd rather burn up in the basement Than freeze out on the beach How can someone touch you every day And stay beyond your reach Well, she wasn't beyond his reach now. He pressed the eject button, rolled down the glass, and threw the offending tape out into the wilds of New Jersey. "Mulder! Langly made me that tape! That was my tape!" All he could do was look mortified, and keep driving. End 01/02 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX What can I say about the night that changed my life forever? The night I grew up? Grew up. It's funny - Walter Skinner used to say that to me all the time - 'Grow -up, Mulder.' 'Don't you think it's time you grew up?' I didn't get it. I thought it was just an insult, just another attempt to put me in my place. My dad used to talk about putting me in my place a lot, and true to form, I superimposed his face over Skinner's perfectly. It hovered so seamlessly above the shoulders of so many men - not just Patterson, Skinner, Kersh - but at least a score of others before them. It was a rare occasion when I looked at Walter and failed to see either the father I wanted or the father I hated. I wasn't grown up enough to understand what he meant by 'grow up'. The irony is fucking painful in its hilarity. Woo HOO! Somebody needs to alert the media, start a national fucking holiday, have a parade, something. I got a clue, and the man I used to be - one Special Agent Fox Mulder, Ph.D - died, not for the first time, but the for last. I'll take 'Who's an idiot? for $200, Alex.' Hey, I'm easy. I'll even remember to phrase my answer in the form of a question. Who is me? No, wait, that was ungrammatical. Both my wife and my mother would be ashamed. Shit, one complex at a time, Marty. Marty. I'm Marty for real, now. Fox Mulder is dead - long live Martin Levine. Fuck Fox Mulder - he was selfish and myopic and so caught up in his Don Quixote act he didn't even know which end was up, half the time. For all his bluster, he did nothing, got nowhere. Who am I? I should have said 'Who am I', not 'Who is me'. My wife would give me that bored look and say that it's impossible to become a different person, that we are who we are. But we're talking about a woman who can carry on a conversation with a ghost with gaping hole in its head, then promptly deny said ghost's existence, so we won't count her opinion on this one. Fox Mulder died that night and I, Martin Levine, stepped over the body. That first year I was a fool. I was just playing at my life. Not that I didn't mean it, didn't love Scully and the babies, but a large part of me was expecting to hear Oliver Stone yell, "Cut! And print. Okay, strike the small southern town sets." I showed up at work, talked about books for four hours, played ball for two, came home, crawled around on the floor with Danny, ate a home cooked meal, screwed my wife like there was no tomorrow, got up the next day and did it again. I never really expected my life to be there when I woke up. It was hard trying to adjust to being one of only a handful of people in town who wasn't born here, harder still being a respected member of the community. As a kid, I was always the odd man out. At Oxford, I was something of a peculiarity, During my time at behavioral, I was more of a trained seal than valued for my particular skills, and by the time I reached the basement, I assumed I might as well have 'SOCIAL MISFIT' branded on my forehead. But in Delphi... In most small Southern towns, a winning high school coach would have to do something really bad to get ostracized. Really bad. Once, when I was with VICAP, a high school football coach in Texas started making his own kiddie porn and by the time we caught up with him, had escalated into snuff. About a third of the town still stood behind him, cinematic evidence be damned. I remember he had an especially impressive win-loss ratio. And then Sylvie came. Neither of us had any idea Scully was fertile. She is so small and Danny nursed her so much that it didn't seem unusual that she hadn't had a period after he was born One morning, she was snoring, and Danny and I were crawling around on the floor, when it occurred to me to wonder. I still can't explain why - spooky moment, I guess. Anyway, I pulled back the sheet and looked at her stomach, like just looking was going to tell me anything. Sure, there was the gentle swell that had never really gone away after she had Danny, but it had only been seven months. Still, I reached out and laid my hand flat just beneath her navel. Below the silky little layer of fat that embarrassed her so much, I could feel a hard bubble. Oh. That was my first thought - 'Oh.' Followed closely by the realization that, at some point when I'd burrowed into her for dear life, I had done this to her. Me. Not a conspiracy scientist, or even a run-of-the-mill Ob/Gyn, but me. I had done this. I had knocked up Scully. I wanted to paint an 'S' on my chest for 'SPERM MAN' and parade down the center of town. If she'd let me, I would get her pregnant every year until she hit menopause. It was all I could do not to email the Gunmen to wire me money so I could buy a bigger house for the dozen kids I was suddenly planning on. Fox and Marty have that much in common - they're both Neanderthals. Then it occurred to me to wonder how she didn't know. I still haven't quite figured that one out. Five months later, we had Sylvie. It was a heady feeling, being magically transformed into a winner. And, honestly, I think I was still drunk on having access to Scully's body. Even now, her breath on my face and that look of abandon that I went without seeing for seven years go straight to my head, like I've been eating my ice cream too fast. Back then, I was living in a constant state of altered consciousness. I don't do it often, but I can replay that whole night perfectly in my head. Scully had given me a sweet, wet blow job and fallen asleep the minute her head hit the pillow. I was doing a crossword puzzle and was armed with a bottle of Scullymilk for Sylvie's inevitable 2 a.m. scream when I drifted off. The first thing I realized was that I had managed to both roll over face-down into the newspaper and break my glasses straight down the middle. Way to go, Dad. Then came awareness of the Infant Levine letting go her blood-curdling wail. That night wasn't anything notable as far as Sylvie crying goes; I was just a little late in responding. Scully started to rouse from her child-induced coma, but I kissed her soft cheek and I told her to go back to sleep. She didn't argue. By the time I got to the baby, she was just starting to hit her stride. The sound made every hair on my body stand at attention. It was hot and there I was, covered with goose bumps. Even Scully, way down the hall, had been startled by the sound, but when I looked at Danny in his crib, nothing. His crib was six inches away from his sister's, and he hadn't even stirred. I checked his breathing. It was fine. I grabbed the bottle out of the warmer and carried her into the office. Suddenly, my brain was working like it hadn't in a long time, and I barely noticed the baby sucking down her mother's milk frantically in my arms . I made a week's worth of mental leaps in about an hour. I switched on the computer, then set about looking for the evidence I'd need to convince Scully. Not exactly accepted scientific method, I know, but if it ain't broke... Betty Roguebull had me convinced I was the tailor-made, laboratory-manufactured son of CGB Spender. I also knew that either the Ob/Gyn had made a mistake and Danny had indeed been conceived in the doctor's office, or Spender had had him implanted in Scully's uterus during their little excursion. Since old CGB was not known for his altruism, I had spent that last year trying not to wonder what his reasons might be. But my brain was skidding out of control that night. The moment I saw him sleeping through his sister's screams and realized he had never once woken during her one of her nightly bawls, I knew Danny was deaf. Since he was most likely engineered, just like his old man, I had to wonder if the deafness was unintentional. Or had they intended for him to be deaf? Was it like the Samantha clones we'd seen in that field? Why would they do that? Unless. . . Unless he had a more efficient means of communication at his disposal. Had they intended to take him all along? If so, for what purpose? As a perfect liaison to the Grays? Or as something beyond my ability to imagine, much less understand? Without knowing why, I found myself doing a genealogical work-up of an FBI agent who had died in a convenience store a year earlier, an FBI agent named Dana Scully. I was shocked by what I found. Shocked. Startled. Dismayed. Amazed. Stunned. Astonished. Take your pick - they're all applicable. If Bill Mulder was my father, and that was a big 'if', then my wife and I - the mother of my children and I - Scully and I, had a common ancestor. A deaf woman from Kent, apparently, who was locally renowned for her 'cleverness'. But it was 200 years back, so we were no competition for the Peacocks. I began to wonder. It seemed to me that if The Consortium had engineered me, they must have used genetic material from more than one male. Most likely, I either had no father, or several, depending on how you chose to look at it. And Danny? Every test Scully had done indicated he was mine. Sylvie wasn't even a question. But still, it remained - what were they? I woke Danny easily with a hand to his belly, carried one baby in each arm, and tried to recall every bit of infant development I'd ever learned. Two hours later, I was scared, proud, elated, and certain I had lost my mind. At five weeks of age, Sylvie could communicate the answer to a verbal query by touching the appropriate image. She knew the difference between a dog and a cat and a bird in the picture book, and could synthesize her month- of-life experiences to the point where she could accurately guess which was the mother in any number of magazine ads. Danny was a little more complicated, but in about an hour I had taught him a dozen different signs and we were communicating. His first birthday was 3 days away, and we were talking! He was not, however, especially cooperative. He wanted me to wake up the dog, who was already stirring downstairs He wanted me to wake up Mom. He wanted to eat a cookie. Okay, Mom could sleep if I gave in on the cookie issue. He seemed to have an intuitive grasp of numbers. In return for the cookie, he did several simple addition and subtraction problems. It was infinitely more terrifying and fascinating than any number of wolfmen or fat sucking mutants. I had met the aliens, and they were us. We were them? Whatever. It was nearly four a.m., and the point of no return had come. I had to talk to Scully. She had never exactly been what you'd call a morning person. But after the kids, waking her up was, to use the vernacular of the peasantry, a lot like goin' after wild bear. I found myself wishing to hell we were across town from each other and I could just call. I briefly considered driving 5 minutes to the other side of Delphi, just so I could call her from the only pay phone in town. In the end, I girded my loins and woke her up in person. Probably sounds pretty brave, as long as I leave out the part about holding one kid in ether arm and using them as a human shield. I nudged her side with my knee. "Scully." I hadn't called her that since we stepped out of the U-Haul a year earlier. It seemed to get her attention. When she sat up, she looked afraid. "What's wrong?" "I think I know why Danny doesn't cry when you sing." "Go to hell, dear." She threw herself backwards and covered her face with her pillow. After a minute, the corner of her buffer lifted so she could peer up at me. "Martin...Mulder? It's 4 o'clock on a Sunday morning. What are you doing?" "He's deaf, Scully. Just like the Samantha clones I saw in that field." The breath rushed out of her mouth like her lungs had chosen that moment to collapse. "Put on your slippers. Let's go for a ride." She was grouchy and she had sleep breath, but she threw on her robe and slippers and was following me out the door. "Just like old times, huh?" Just like old times, alright, except that this time I knew why she was following me, had followed me all along - not because it was her duty, or because I was right. It was a sweet split-second of thought that almost pissed me off before I got right back on course. She, in her nightgown and robe, me with no shirt, Danny and Sylvie in footie pajamas, sleeping in their car seats, strapped in like twin astronauts - we drove. "So Mulder," she said, about two hours later, "what you're saying is that there is compelling, though inconclusive, evidence that suggests the genetic manipulation of our children. To what end?" "Haven't figured that out yet." She shrugged and rubbed her eyes. "Do you need to?" Serious and earnest, I took her hand in mine, the way I did when it was the most intimate contact we ever had. "They aren't. . .normal." "And this surprises you?" She snatched back her hand and laughed out-loud at me. "Look, I understand what you're saying, but first off, I think we need a second opinion about Danny, and secondly, well, this could just be your imagination. All parents think their children are exceptional." All I could do was look exasperated. "Okay, and even so, I mean, it's to be expected. Ninety per cent of all immediate family members are within ten I.Q. points of one another. That doesn't mean there's anything unnatural at work here." I looked at my trump card only briefly before tossing it at her. "How did you get pregnant with Daniel?" She didn't respond. "He has to have been made for a reason." She cringed. "What do you want to do, Mulder?" "Find the Truth." I could feel that old devil adrenaline coursing through me. I was more than ready to slip back into my old life. I even found myself wishing momentarily for a rented Ford Taurus. "At what cost?" "What are you saying?" "I'm not saying anything. I asked a question. What price are you willing to pay to find the truth? Because, at this point, I've lost everything I'm willing to lose." She had that defeated sound in her voice that both broke my heart and made me want to shoot myself. "You think we should just let them get away with it?" I sounded childish and deflated, and for once, I knew it. "Think about it, Mulder. When have we brought even one member of the conspiracy to justice? We don't know anything for certain. All we can do if we go after them now is lose. Besides, has it occurred to you that by keeping a low profile, we could be protecting the next step in human evolution, or the gene for resistance to the black oil?" As if in a frantic grasp at anything to justify what I wanted, my brain stumbled over a horrifying thought. "What if they used some of the same genetic sources when they designed us?" She just gave me her best unimpressed face. "Maybe they did. If they designed us at all, it's entirely possible that some of the same material was used. But look in the mirror. I doubt there's much crossover. We're second cousins at best, I'd say, and probably not even that." "If I go back, I -" I tried to force all the anger and disappointment from my voice and as usual, failed miserably "-if I go back, I'm on my own, aren't I?" "I didn't say that." "But it's true?" "No." "Whither thou goest, Scully?" It was crazy. We were both crazy. I was willing to risk everything over what? Pride? Vengeance? Curiosity? And she was willing to follow, even though she knew how stupid and risky it was. We were fucking unfit parents, that's what we were. The Department of Human Services should have come and taken our babies away. I shuddered at the idea of state custody, and pulled over onto a sideroad. There were some things more important than my need to play superhero, and they were snoring in the back seat. They could be lost or broken so easily, and I had almost rolled right over them in my search for The Truth, in my desire to be Fox Mulder again. Well, fuck Fox Mulder. In our parked car, on that dirt road, in my pajama bottoms, coated with sweat and road dust, I held onto the steering wheel and cried. After a while, I pressed my face into her belly and started to sob in earnest. Yeah, that stinking, crying, half-dressed guy with the puffy face, the one whose nose just ran all over his wife's pajamas, that was me. As usual, I cut a dashing figure. Sniffling, I unlocked my car door. "Wanna drive home?" "Home to Delphi?" she whispered. I wanted to say something profound, but I couldn't find anything, so I nodded. "That's where we live, isn't it?" It was her turn to nod. I don't know if Walter would be proud or not. It was the right thing to do and I did it. Pin a medal on my chest - I took the shit job and the lifetime of uncertainty instead of excitement and glory. It probably helped that the shit job came with love and more fulfillment than a pathetic loser like me ever could have hoped for. I wasn't wearing my stupid hat, but that day, I became a man. End 01/01 02/02 I'll be the first to admit that I was the one who always longed for the much vaunted 'normal life.' Ironic that I'm the one who gets the occasional wistful urge to chase a monster. He's adapted better than I have: these days, I'm the twitchy one. As a person who has studied human psychology at great length, my husband blames it on the lack of intellectual challenge inherent in spending 25 days a month at home breaking up fights between our own midget wrestlers. They only call me into work if someone dies. Some things never change. I'm making this sound terrible, aren't I? It's not that bad. Really it's not. It's simply that, some days I suffer from euphoric recall and would like to spend twenty four consecutive hours with no responsibility beyond the fate of the world riding on my shoulders. Motherhood is much more grueling. I treasure my children. But some times. . . Okay, for instance, the night before last I was awakened by thick, black, billowing smoke and the sound of my husband screaming for the kids. It took about twenty minutes to get the whole thing sorted out. It seems our dear, dear offspring, ages 4 and 5, decided at 3 a.m. to get up and make cookies. Why at that godforsaken hour, one might ask? And I did ask. "Because if we did it while you were awake you might have tried to stop us." As if that weren't blindingly obvious. At that point, I took up massaging the bridge of my nose and turned the interrogation over to their father, who was, by that time, eating the raw cookie dough with one finger, bucking for salmonella. I suppose that could mean that they had been fairly successful until fire was added to the equation - or maybe not. I've seen him taste unidentified goop at a crime scene - why would he balk at raw dough made by small children? He licked his finger clean before he started signing. "Okay, I get it that you wanted cookies but the book clearly says-" he leaned over and glanced at the book "-'BAKE' on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 350 for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. So, why are you trying to make cookies on the top of the stove?" Sylvie piped up, but Danny stopped her with a hand to her wrist. I was part of identical scenarios in Skinner's office on countless occasions. Danny, as the more rational of the two, took it upon himself to defend what was most likely his sister's idea. "Mom, Dad," he signed, "Thing is, we thought-" actually, I'm almost sure it was what Sylvie thought, from the way he is putting this, "-things that go in the oven take too long. They go faster on top of the stove, so we decided to cook it there." He gestured to the blackened deep-fat fried chocolate chip cookies. "We couldn't decide who got to turn them. I don't really know what happened next." Translation: they fought over the pan and spilled enough grease on the flame to get a good fire started. I breathed out, glad neither of them were hurt. Now I could, I suppose, have strangled them, but I opted to go back to bed. Danny followed me. My former partner and current husband and the Hellspawn I call a daughter stayed up and baked the rest of the cookies in the oven. I was too tired to argue. It would be too simplistic to say that Danny is like me and Sylvie is like Mulder, but there is an element of truth to it. They both look more like Mulder. Except for the red hair and blue eyes, Danny could be a clone - physically, at least. He does not have his father's temperament. He's calm, charming, quick to make friends, slow to anger, and above all, he is a reasonable child. If you can give him a sound, rational explanation of what you want from him, he will be exceptionally obedient. Nothing's easy, though. Everything has to be hashed out. Why you can't blow your nose on your sister. Why you can't cross the street alone. Why you have to get out of bed and get dressed for Temple. Why you can't have chocolate cake and orange soda for breakfast. Why you can't play with matches even if you're VERY careful. He's a good boy, sweet and winning, with above average coordination. He has his faults, though, and he lives to correct his sister. It's not very comforting to see your worst qualities reflected in your children. Sylvie. Her name fits. Not in the ephemeral little wood nymph sort of way, but in the wild little animal sort of way. Mulder hates her name. He says Sylvie Levine sounds like the opening line of million different Jewish Princess jokes. I was thinking of 'Fox' at the time. You know, a fox in the woods. He says when we were getting the fuck out of dodge and he changed Benny's name to Danny, he was thinking Daniel = Dana, not that I had had a serious relationship with a man named Daniel. If I were cruel, I would have named her Phoebe or Diana. But I like Sylvie. And I like the name. It's a nice name, and it's appropriate. Sylvie plays Mulder to Daniel's Scully. If he's the voice of reason, she's the voice of chaos. She's unreasonable. Id to Danny's Super Ego. She's a born thrill-seeker. She's a pain in the ass and a lot of fun. Where her brother delights in rough housing and deconstruction of mechanical and electronic devices, she creates long and complex stories, usually acted out with a combination of hand puppets and Barbies. She calls it 'lying,' as in, "Dad, go bother Danny. I'm busy lying." He tries to tell her it's playing or art, but she gives him an eyebrow and says, "You mean lying." The children do have a shared obsession with the art of the tea party, as well as their father's unnatural interest in clothing. It was a disturbing day, fairly early in our partnership, when I came to the realization that, at my most vain, most appearance- obsessed, I was no match for Mulder's fashion baseline. Now I have three of them. In any event, Sylvie managed to inherit her father's nose and eyes in what is otherwise my face. She has a mop of curly red hair combined with ol' Spooky's skintone. Like me, Danny nearly glows in the dark. Not unlike her father, Sylvie talks compulsively, sleeps little, and would eat a bowl of termites if you let her put catsup on it. She has a seemingly pathological inability to stay clean. She's a sucker for the intense, regardless of where it comes from. In about ten years, we're going to have to brick her in a tower like Rapunzel. She also has a talent for convincing her brother to go along with what ever cockamamie scheme she's come up with, for example, deep- fat fried chocolate chip cookies at 3 a.m. I don't even want to go into what happened last night. That was only Sylvie's fault in the vaguest of ways. She just unlocked the front door. At 1 a.m. Without alerting her parents. Last night, William Boyd Stidham III, known to friends, family, and school officials as Junior, received the less than joyous news that he and Hawaii Walker had two months earlier, in her brother's hay barn, conceived a little more than improved race relations for the town of Delphi, Alabama. The delighted grandmother then proceeded to kick Junior out of the house. Ten miles from the school doors, further excitement was brewing. Hawaii Walker, having discussed the matter in depth with her slightly more forgiving mother, proceeded to drop the bomb on her older brother, Demetrius "Big Country" Walker. I would not have imagined things going the way they did. I would not have imagined the clandestine goings on between Junior and Hawaii for that matter. They are not the sort of thoughtful kids I'd peg for a torrid interracial romance. Hawaii's a big girl, tall and muscular, with grades no better than they should be. She's had a bit of a crush on Good Ol' Coach Levine since her brother was on the basketball team, but she's not the moony type, not one of the girls who burst into a fit of giggles every time they see him in the post office. Her crush manifests itself in long looks when he doesn't seem to be paying attention and a rude remark to the other girls now and again. Hawaii is renowned at the high school for her "smart mouth." During the Coach's second year, Hawaii was one of a few eighth grade girls airing up kickballs for the elementary kids while the basketball team practiced in the gym. According to the widely-circulated story, the ever-skinny, ever- hyper Coach Levine's shorts had ridden dangerously low when Miss Walker turned to her companions and remarked, "crack kills" loud enough for everyone in the gym to hear. I still don't know if his dignity has recovered, but I've had a soft spot for that girl ever since. There's something about Junior that vaguely reminds me of Agent Pendrell, a certain dish water quality. I suppose the best thing I could say about Junior is that he tries hard. Still, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about that boy. It's almost as if he is entirely neutral. I doubt anyone would notice him if he didn't try so damn hard at everything. Well, everyone is going to remember him now. On the other end of this equation is Demetrius Walker, aka Big Country. I like Demetrius, I really do. He was on Marty's team when we first got here five years ago. The following spring his father died and the quiet boy seemed to develop a special attachment to Marty. By his senior year, he had his pick of basketball scholarships, but opted to stay home and work the family farm for his mother and grandmother, take care of his younger siblings. Once I remember him telling me that, "Coach is exotic. You know, like a tiger or somethin'." It was a funny moment, and I didn't know how to respond, but truer words were never spoken. They still have coffee together once or twice a month. Of course, in the midst of the great turmoil both Junior and Big Country would inevitably seek guidance from their Coach. Inevitably, the coach and I were indisposed. Indisposed? Fucking like crazed weasels, more like it. Of course, we would not be interrupted by our children, a former star player, and a current less-than-stellar player during some vanilla missionary sex. No, I had to get caught mid- orgasm, babbling like a chimp, dressed in lace stockings and a corset, looking like I'd jumped out of one of his old videos. Fox was worse off than I was. After I retreated under the covers, like the coward I am, he was still panting and glistening and fully erect. A good ten inches worth of the exotic Coach Levine was staring right at them. Of course, Sylvie said, "What did Mommy do to you?" If I hadn't just had a screaming climax in front of two people who call me 'mom' and another two who call me 'ma'am', the look on his face would have been amusing. Deer. Headlights. Slack Jaw. Did I mention the handcuffs? He was wearing handcuffs. I don't think anyone noticed the vibrator inserted into the rectum of everyone's favorite English teacher. Finally the man who never shuts up was able find his voice. "Five minutes," he croaked. "Give me five minutes!" I'd rather not analyze what it says about my husband that roughly sixty seconds after the crowd exited our room, he ejaculated all over my chest. For my part, I was just trying to get out of the damn corset. You know, I have no idea why I imagined it the way I did. I don't know what led me to imagine the man would be the perfect lover when he is so spectacularly imperfect in every other possible way. Maybe I wanted him for so long with so little hope of actual resolution that I felt no need to temper my fantasies with so much as a spoonful of reality. Maybe I'm just as deluded as he is - I just choose different delusions. But then again, he was proven right, wasn't he? For seven years, I chose to believe the perfect lover was right under my nose, or rather three feet to my right. He wasn't. Not to say that he's inadequate or just plain boring. Neither could be farther from the truth. The trouble with him is he's the exactly same in bed and out of it. He's skillful, intuitive, intense, sensitive, and, as in most other ways that come to mind, nature, via genetic manipulation, has favored him. Excessively. Which is perhaps the ultimate proof that I can get used to anything. He's also petulant, childish, demanding, self-absorbed, and has a singular inability to take 'no' for an answer. I'm certain he doesn't have it in him to actually force me, but he absolutely has it in him to manipulate, whine, or just plain beg to get his way. He also has a tendency to obsess. The Anal Sex Fiasco being a prime example. I said no, absolutely not, I'm too small, you're too big, it's a bad idea. He refused to leave it alone. He tried to make it a challenge. When that tactic failed, he wheedled. Then he tried seduction, followed by shameless begging. I don't remember what he did that finally got to me, but it was probably the realization that he was never going to let go of it. I think he managed to get about a third of the way in before I cried and he stopped dead in his tracks, as it were. I was bleeding profusely and ended up having to go to the emergency room. And yet he managed, somehow, to play the wounded party. It was classic. He continued to sulk for the better part of two weeks. Not that that stopped his usual compulsive sexual behaviors - he was simply both morose and horny. Maybe I over-react. He has to do something with all that energy, right? And after all the years the two of us spent trying not to give into temptation, a little neediness seems reasonable. Performing fellatio on him in the hospital six hours after giving birth was probably excessive, but I think the blame for that particular episode rests firmly on my shoulders. I believe what bothers me most is how desperate he gets sometimes - desperate to get one more erection, desperate to give me one more orgasm before he ejaculates, desperate to wash the past out of both of us with adrenalin and endorphins, with sweat, saliva, and semen. I've gotten used to the way he rubs his penis raw in spots, convinced myself that it's like the many other painful little things he does to himself. Not my fault - I swear he was like this when I got him. In the early days, we had to come to a few compromises. I try not to talk like I'm writing an article for the JAMA review, and he tries not to talk like he's fourteen. Similarly, he agreed never to say "Who's your daddy?" during the sex act again, and I agreed to allow him to have a penis instead of a gaping wound. With two small children, there's no way we can manage sex more than twice a day on any kind of consistent basis, and that's just not enough for him. I wonder if he has any idea of what 'enough' might be, of what 'enough' might even look like. I have a suspicion that enough might look like his entire large body gestating inside me until he can burst from my chest a new creature. Coach Levine, my favorite EBE. Trouble is, I like the way he is. 'Perfect' would be starting to bore me right about now. I want to tell him. I want to say, "Last night you were so haunted that it frightened me. Do it again." I think I might be as bad as he is. Bill was right, he ruined me for normal people. And I am eternally grateful. God. I must be premenstrual. Is it three already? There are people coming over for dinner. Shit! That sounds like a joke doesn't it? Like some joke that would have made the rounds of the bullpen back at the J.Edgar Hoover building. So Mr and Mrs Spooky have friends coming over for dinner - what's the punch line? Today the punchline is, there is no punchline. It's true. There are two couples and one single adult male coming over for dinner. The seven of us share dinner and a video every Friday night at a different house. Tonight, it's our turn. The joke is it's really happening, that it's normal, mostly. We have friends. Like normal people. Kim works with me at the funeral home. We share a not-quite fulltime job between us. She and her husband, Vernon, the sheriff, live next door with their four kids. They also sold us this house, so I guess it's inevitable they would be part of our lives. In DC, I would find this highly suspect, but in a town of 7,000 people, it's inescapable. One of our other dinner guests is Kim's brother-in-law Dre, who happens to teach math and coach baseball and work with my husband. Our bosses are Vern and Dre's brothers older twin brothers, Edgar and David. IF it sounds like their family runs this town, it's probably because they do. If there was any Truth-In- Labeling Law for place names, this would be Collinsville, Collinstown, Collinsburg. Maybe Collinstopia - something like that. The other couple are Joe and Lisa Scarborough. Lisa is the school librarian and Joe teaches history and couldn't coach his way out of a paper sack. At this point, I find that refreshing, though, if Joe brings either "'Shaft', 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' or 'planet of the Apes' again, I will probably beat him to death with the video box. People here love Martin Levine. He's a winning coach and this is a small Southern town so of course they love him. The man could have congress with a pig on the court house steps and people around here would say, "Coach knows what he's doing," and nod. Fortunately, most of the time the strangest thing he wants to do is give their children an education. He has a doctorate from Oxford but he has never had a single education class. Like everything else, he has his own ideas about how to teach English. No one has ever learned how to diagram a sentence from Martin Levine. No, they read, they write, they listen to him talk - at length. Yes, heaven help us, he haas a captive audience of impressionable young minds. He may change this town for generations. For example, the last essay question he assigned his seniors was Do Romeo and Juliet really love each other or are they just horny teenagers who want to piss off their parents? If I dare to question his methods, he just points out that all Endymion Stapp ever does is hand out those purple dittoed work sheets and read spy novels. Besides, now his students can throw around Elizabethan slang with best of them, which gives me no end of comfort when the pickup full of boys in front of me slows down so they can yell "Capitol Pumps!" at a couple of their friends standing in front of the Dairy Queen, or when I hear a cluster of girls whispering in the frozen food aisle "Does she consort with him?" Coach knows what he's doing, indeed. So what was Coach Levine's sage solution for Demetrius and Junior? Marriage. If I had a gun I would have shot him. Hawaii wasn't even there and he brokered a marriage deal between her brother and her boyfriend like something out of the dark ages. Junior would come work for Demetrius on the farm and Hawaii, as the better student, would continue at school as long as her pregnancy permitted. Now that I think about it again, I still might shoot him. Last night I also received the charming information that my dear Marty has prospective spouses selected for our 4 and 5 year old children. Apparently, it occurred to him somewhere in the deep recesses of his dead- and-resurrected, drugged-and-beaten, butchered- and-electroshocked brain that we have the ultimate arranged marriage, and what's good for us MUST be good for everyone else. What the hell is wrong with him? If I had been asked, I would have suggested an abortion. They're seventeen for chrissake, and there are no - I repeat, no - interracial marriages in this town. Like most Southern towns, Delphi is really two separate towns - one black, one white - with very little overlap, and even though it's common knowledge the ruling families of our parallel towns are, in fact, two branches of the same family, it's considered the height of bad taste to mention it. If he wasn't "The Winningest Coach This Town's Ever Seen," our close friendship with Kim and Vernon would be a source of public disapproval, but now it appears he has some deranged plan to integrate Delphi. Heaven help us - he has a plan. I suppose the desire to stir things up is part of his basic nature. He is who he is. Our core selves remain unchanged. I wonder if I could distract him with an offer of some fresh, deep fried cookies? :~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: End of the Pater Familias Saga. Thanks for reading! 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