A Moveable Feast by SutureTITLE: A Moveable Feast AUTHOR: Suture RATING: PG-13 EMAIL: holly_springs94706@yahoo.com CATEGORY: S, M/S UST, mild Scullyangst, brief S/O in flashback FEEDBACK: is like doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles. SPOILERS: A tiny one for 鉄mall Potatoes.・Really though, this story could take place during any of the more light-hearted moments in seasons 5-7. SUMMARY: Mulder, Scully, and tropical things on a winter痴 day. DISCLAIMER: I know they池e not mine. I just do this for fun. xxxxxxxxxxxxx The words slip out of me without any authorization from above. 鏑et me cook you dinner, Mulder,・I blurt and wish conversations came equipped with delete buttons. Mulder looks up from a rousing game of Minesweeper. To his infinite credit, he has the good grace not to appear surprised or confused. 典onight?・he asks in a neutral tone. He seems a little distracted, but then again, he is twenty points away from setting a new all-time office record. 添es,・I say just as I remember that my refrigerator basically contains wilting lettuce, half an avocado, two oranges, and pesto sauce. 哲o. Wait. Tomorrow? Eight o・clock?・ 鉄ure,・Mulder says, tilting his chair back so he can prop one long leg on his desk. Now I have his complete attention. 展hat should I bring?・he asks as suddenly-amused eyes gleam at me. I resist the urge to ask him to share the joke with the entire class. I have a dinner to cook and my reputation to uphold. In that order. 釘.Y.O.B.,・I tell him. 徹.K.D.K.,・he intones solemnly. He quirks one corner of his mouth at me in a Morse-code version of a smile and turns back to the grave task of establishing himself as Minesweepers痴 once and future king. xxxxxxxxxxxx Artichoke. Rutabaga. Cilantro. Monkfish. Since my appetite packed its bags and left town like a shiftless boyfriend in one of those paperbacks that aren稚 mine, I wander through supermarkets savoring the taste and texture of words instead. The more distinctive the word the better. Last week I went to the little Asian grocery store around the corner and read the produce off to myself. Bok choy. Yali pears. Choy sum. Shiitake mushrooms. I loved the way those compact syllables sat heavy on my tongue. In the Safeway 兎thnic foods・aisle, I decide I知 going to go Caribbean tonight. Maybe the sharp flavors will jump-start an appetite that痴 been MIA for four weeks now. My appetite has always been a fickle, fickle thing, flitting from yogurt with bee pollen to pepperoni pizza to pungent Thai curries without ever settling down. Other people can rattle off a decisive list of food likes and dislikes at a moment痴 notice. I always end up sounding like a consummate politician trying to please every known constituency. When I was five, Mom gave up on the idea of making my favorite foods. She just told me to put in requests when the spirit moved me. Promiscuous tastes aren稚 the problem this time, however. Just the opposite. Everything turns into sawdust the moment I put it in my mouth. A few nights ago, I spent fifty dollars on take-out in an abortive attempt to woo my appetite back. I violated dietary laws and UN treaty lines with the orders I placed: sushi, Tandoori chicken, enchiladas in a mole sauce, ribs with collard greens, shrimp scampi, bulgogi. The neighbors must have wondered about the parade of deliverymen who showed up at my front door. Nothing tempted me in the slightest. I had one unagi roll, a bite of the enchilada, and a forkful of angel hair pasta. Then I gave the rest to the under-nourished looking grad students next door. These days, my stomach is clenched tight like a fist and eating is a mechanical act I have to will myself to carry out. Eating with Mulder helps. At lunchtime, I can choke down a salad while he deconstructs the gender politics in Men in Black and slips me his fries. As odd as it may seem, I致e eaten some of my best meals on the fly with him. One time, on a case in San Francisco, we ate Hawaiian drive-thru during a stakeout. Spam and eggs never tasted so good. Maybe it痴 true that food is meant to be shared and the company of good friends is the best seasoning of all. Maybe Mulder is the missing all-purpose spice that will restore food to its former flavor. I fill up my shopping basket with goodies from distant lands and head for the checkout lines. Deep-brown plantains. Coconut milk. Yellow-red mangos. A bottle of wine. Lemons, limes, and tangerines. For once my shopping basket doesn稚 scream 展orks-too-many-hours-single-woman.・ I知 broadcasting decadence this gray winter evening. The pretty brown-skinned girl at the checkout counter smiles conspiratorially at me. 的知 missin・the sun today too,・she tells me in an island lilt, bagging my items with a brisk efficiency. 添ou be sure to feed your man those mangoes slowly,・she winks. I count out correct change with hands that suddenly shake. xxxxxxxxxxxx A flash of pale cream, a hiss of oil, and the sugary-sweet smell of plantains mingles with the sharp garlic and heavy coconut already in the air. I知 nineteen again and back in Max痴 small, dark studio apartment trying to read Walter Benjamin while Max fries plantains in the kitchen. He痴 playing bossa nova as he cooks, humming along tunelessly to the melancholy strains. I can稚 concentrate. Less than an hour ago I壇 learned for the first time what lips and tongues can really do. Max is no tentative college boy overjoyed when he 堵ets it right・by accident. He knows women痴 bodies, knows mine almost instinctively. I swear I can still feel a phantom heat, a humming in my blood. The sounds from the kitchen stop and Max is behind me. 滴e who has once begun to open the fan of memory never comes to the end of its segments.・ A gentle hand works itself under my hair and begins to stroke the base of my neck. 哲o image satisfies him, for he has seen that it can be unfolded.・ Erudite Max who can quote every one of the writers we池e reading this semester verbatim has worked his other hand under the hem of my shirt. He smells of smoke and oil. 鄭nd only in its folds does the truth reside.・ A tongue snakes its way into my ear. A carnal memory hits me so hard I can taste it. 典hat image, that taste, that touch for whose sake all this has been unfurled and dissected.・ Benjamin gets lost somewhere in a pile of clothes and unneeded sofa cushions. Much, much later we discover that the plantains have burnt to a crisp. There痴 a trick to plantains Max tells me as we eat ice cream naked in his kitchen instead. Regardless of what the cookbooks say, you can only cook them over a low heat, stirring constantly. When left to their own devices for too long, fried plantains burn to a crisp in their own sugar. That痴 a lesson for all times. Nietschze, Benjamin, Derrida, et al, all the writers Max and I read in Introduction to Modern European Thought, went the way of the dinosaurs in my intellectual evolution, but I will always know how to make the perfect fried plantains. 摘arth to Girl from Ipanema,・Mulder waves a hand in front of my face and banishes Max to theshadows. 的知 getting a little tired of just standing here and looking pretty. Is there anything I can do to help?・ He痴 looking awfully pretty as he lounges against the counter next to me, a potent blend of sexy slouch and schoolboy jitters. He came straight from the office, so I知 treated to the pleasures of after-hours Mulder. No tie. Untucked dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I知 torn between the urge either to throw myself at him or snap at him to stop fidgeting. Ever since he showed up forty-five minutes early, we致e been doing the funny, awkward dance that must be common to those who frequent the borderlands between friendship and Something Else. I told Mulder to use his key and let himself in because the coconut rice had reached a critical stage, but I didn稚 let him hang his coat in the hallway closet by himself. I got him a beer, but I waved off his offer to chop the plantains. 典he shrimp痴 done, the rice is cooking, and the plantains are almost done. I think we池e okay.・ 哲o vegetables Scully?・Mulder tries to juggle his empty beer bottle, but stops himself before I have to say anything. He knows I知 not a big fan of potential glass shards on my kitchen floor. 的 thought you were the vegetable advocate in this outfit.・ 的 figured we壇 live dangerously for once.・ I let him steal a half-cooked plantain. 展ho are you and what have you done to the real Dana Scully?・ He moves off to poke around in the refrigerator. 滴ey Scully. None of your vegetables match,・he informs me from the depths of the vegetable bin. I feel vaguely defensive about my large, mostly empty refrigerator. 典his from the man who owns cans of baked beans dating back to the Bush administration. Hasn稚 anyone warned you about the dangers of botulism?・ When in doubt, fall back on flippancy and the snappy one-liner. Mulder resurfaces with an armful of green, leafy things and starts performing some strange Mulder-ish alchemy on my motley produce. Reason #103 Mulder Keeps Unfolding Like a Flower: the man improvises amazing salads. He takes a sad collection of slightly limp greens, overripe avocados, bruised tomatoes, and a can of artichokes and transforms them into a culinary delight. 添ou致e been holding out on me,・I tell him as he presents me with the fruit of his labors. 滴olding out on you? Never,・he mumbles around a mouthful of stolen plantain. 的壇 always assumed your cooking skills were on par with your navigational skills.・ 添ou wound me to the quick Scully.・ He tries to steal a plump, garlicky shrimp. I rap him on the knuckles with a spatula before he can get to the shrimp. 的f you 壮ample・anymore of the food, you池e going to spend the rest of the evening watching me eat.・ 添ou know I like to watch.・ His words are sly innuendo, but his voice suddenly goes tender, shattering our carefully constructed playfulness. I can稚 meet his eyes, so I busy myself with pouring the coconut rice into a blue bowl. This isn稚 part of our agreement. We池e like two Kabuki actors, Mulder and I. We approach each other with stiff, measured steps and offer 奏il-death-do-us-part loyalty and sacrifice, relying on the elaborate carapace of our costumes and choreography to keep us from touching too much. Mulder turns away from me. 的値l set the table,・he offers and I let him because I can稚 stand to hear the disappointment in his voice. xxxxxxxxxxxx I致e forgotten that, at the right moment, eating good food is like a less-naked version of sex. Sprawled on the floor of my living room with half-full plates propped on our stomachs, we池e caught up in the sheer physicality of a well-cooked meal. Mulder痴 eyes go liquid as he swallows another bite. His cheeks are slightly flushed and his mouth gleams oil-slick. Moist, rumpled, and sensual, he looks like the centerfold for some incredibly highbrow porn magazine for food fetishists. My body is thrumming from a mixture of nutrients and sensory overload. The three glasses of sangria I致e had can稚 be entirely responsible for the way my blood sings. Astrud Gilberto murmurs plaintive, seductive nothings in the background and I want to do nothing more than lie here and play a desultory round of armchair Jeopardy with Mulder. 展ho is Heisenberg?・Mulder says. Ronald the preening actor gets it wrong and Mulder takes another sip of his sangria. We decided to add some new rules to armchair Jeopardy. Everytime either of us gets a question right that the contestants miss we have to take a drink. The three contestants tonight have earned a grand total of $4000 and Mulder has gone through a third of the pitcher on his own. He痴 still surprisingly lucid. 展hat is the Aeneid?・ I jump in before Debbie the lawyer rings in. She guesses, 典he Odyssey.・ I salute Mulder with my wine glass and sip. Onscreen, Alex Trebek looks increasingly morose. 展here壇 you learn to cook like this?・ The sad Jeopardy contestants are gone. Ronald won with $2500. Mulder and I both get Final Jeopardy right. Actors and Actresses. This actor died before Giant wrapped shooting. 展ho is James Dean?・ 典hat痴 a state secret Mulder,・I知 a little alarmed to hear myself slurring my 都痴.・ 徹h, but vee haf vays of making you talk Fraulein,・ Mulder puts his empty plate down, props himself up on one elbow, and pokes me in the shin with his foot. To forestall any further attempts at bad German accents, I relent. 擢rom an old college boyfriend. Max. He liked to read Rilke and cook Caribbean food.・ It痴 funny how easy it is to condense old lovers into a one-sentence long description. 鄭 poet and a cook. He sounds like a keeper.・Mulder watches me with a tipsy version of his intense interrogation stare. Somedays, when he unleashes that still, intent look, I have a hard time focusing on the actual suspect being interrogated. It痴 impossible to look away from those knowing, pinning eyes. Right now, though, I知 not so sure I like being the focus of all of this attention. I shrug and deflect. 摘very nineteen year old should be in a relationship with at least one suave, wordly, slightly older lover.・ 鄭re you trying to seduce me Mrs. Robinson?・Like the dexterous, fleet-footed Fred Astaire of dinner banter that he is, Mulder moves the conversation to safer, more impersonal territory. He痴 still watching and assessing though. Maybe he suspects I知 a female Eddie van Blundht or an Eddie van Blundht who痴 experienced a sexual epiphany. I try to suppress a snicker with minimal success. 鄭re you laughing at me Scully?・His voice is the low, intimate rumble of late-night, nightmare-prompted phone calls. 的知 laughing with you Mul-ler,・I知 definitely losing my ability to enunciate properly. Mercurial as ever, Mulder steers the conversation into still and deep waters. 典his was lovely,・he says, gesturing at the assortment of bowls, plates, and glasses scattered wantonly across the floor. A tsunami of emotion sideswipes me as we finally lock eyes. 鄭nytime,・I tell him. Mulder痴 eyes go soft and wide. There痴 a long stretch of silence before he pulls himself into a sitting position. He痴 wearing his 鏑et痴-go-look-at-crop-circles-in-Idaho・expression. 滴ey Scully, do you have any summer clothes lying around?・ I知 so surprised I can only manage a stunned, 滴uh?・ Mulder gathers plates and bowls and heads towards the kitchen. 典here痴 only one way to end this evening.・ 展ith you playing dress-up in my summer clothes?・ Sometimes it痴 hard for me to be gracious after I think I致e made a fool of myself. 的 figured we壇 save that for another day.・He comes back into the living room to collect more dishes. 展hen I was little, my mom always let us play summertime once every winter. When the weather got too cold and depressing, we壇 turn the thermostat up to eighty for a night, run around in summer clothes, drink lemonade. You know you want to Scully.・ I hope I致e had enough sangria that the sight of Mulder channeling Will Smith and singing 鉄ummer, summer, summer time・in a falsetto will magically erase itself from my mind. 徹nly if you promise to stick to Elvis impressions from here on out.・ 敵o put on some summer clothes Scully. I値l clear the dishes.・ As I head towards the bedroom, Mulder breaks into a truly terrible Billie Holiday impression: 鉄ummer-tahhhm a-a-a--nd the liv-in・is eeaa-sy.・ xxxxxxxxxxxx Now is the winter of my discontent made glorious summer by Mulder family tradition. Sitting in the middle of my living room in grubby shorts and a Naked Coed Alien Lacrosse T-shirt courtesy of the Lone Gunmen, I sip lemonade and eat a grape Popsicle from the box of Popsicles that mysteriously materialized in my freezer. A pile of mango peels and cores lies between Mulder and me. I didn稚 feed him slices of mango like the girl at the checkout counter suggested I should. I知 too wedded to subtext for that. But, I couldn稚 help watching him as he sucked every scrap of mango from the pit. Freud would have had a field day. I知 drowsy and warm and sated. The apartment feels like a sauna. In a gesture of pure extravagance, I cracked open a window so that a little of the sharp, cold air could temper the heavy warmth. Mulder lolls on his back, eyes closed, wearing his unbuttoned dress shirt, undershirt, and a pair of running-shorts that somehow ended up in my dresser. Maybe we should open an X-Files on laundry with a migratory impulse. I can picture a young Mulder, limbs akimbo, finally still and quiet in the simulated heat of a winter night. Samantha would be nearby playing jump rope because it痴 summer and that痴 what little girls do in the summer. Mrs. Mulder sits in a rocking chair and pretends to be an announcer for the Red Sox because summer isn稚 summer without baseball. 滴e痴 rounding third. He痴 headed for home.・ For one night, the three of them inhabit a brief and shimmering cocoon of unconditional love. I stretch my legs out and pretend to bask in the sun. We池e two kids in a primordial sandbox tonight. Some post-modern version of Adam and Eve before the fall預ll glorious, blazing erotic innocence. I curl up on my side inches away from Mulder. I don稚 need fig leaves in this temporary Eden. An arm curls itself around my waist loosely. There痴 no demand in Mulder痴 touch. He痴 issuing a promissory note that I can collect on anytime. He curls himself around me, an elegant quotation mark in search of his mismatched mate. He whispers something and it takes me a moment to make it out. 徹 love, be fed with apples while you may.・ I fall asleep secure in the knowledge that I have. xxxxxxxxxxxx Author痴 Notes: Just a few citation issues that walk the thin line between homage and plagiarism: 1) The lines about the 吐an of memory・come from Berlin Chronicle by Walter Benjamin. 2) The line 徹 love, be fed with apples while you may・is from a poem by Robert Graves by way of A. S. Byatt痴 Possession. 3) The idea of summering in winter comes from Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - sign up for Fantasy Baseball http://sports.yahoo.com To post, mail to xfc-ATXC@yahoogroups.com To subscribe, mail xfc-ATXC-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To unsubscribe, mail xfc-ATXC-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/