YOU DON'T KNOW ME
Title: "You Don't Know Me" (1/1)
Author: Plausible Deniability
Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com
Category: S R A
Rating: R (sexual situations; mature language, including some ugly
homophobic epithets)
Spoilers: Concerns events hinted at in Talitha Cumi (3.24) and, to a minor
extent, Paper Clip (3.2); Deep Throat's real name comes from Musings of a
Cigarette Smoking Man (4.7).
Keywords: Pre-XF, young CSM/Mrs. Mulder
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the television program "The X
Files" are the creations and property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting,
and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. The
song "You Don't Know Me" was written by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold and
recorded by Ray Charles (among others, including Elvis Presley on
"Clambake"). No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Bill Mulder becomes a mean drunk, and young CSM learns something
distressing about Teena.
This is part of the "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" series, but if you haven't
read the first two stories, you should still be able to follow this one.
Just keep in mind that it's the early 1960s, the characters here are still
young, and CSM is involved in a clandestine affair with Teena Mulder, the
wife of his best friend. If you are interested in reading the preceding
stories, you can find them on my website at
http://www.Geocities.com/Area51/Dreamworld/2528.
Also, things get a little ugly in this one. Please keep in mind the
situation, and the mood of the characters. No offense is intended to any
reader, gay or straight.
THANKS to Dasha, Hindy, and especially Becky, for their patient guidance.
FOR CiCi Lean, who asked about Bill's drinking.
----
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).
--Theodore Roethke, "I knew a woman"
****
QUONOCHONTAUG, RHODE ISLAND
August, 1962
I flop onto my back, puffing like a bellows.
"My God," Teena says weakly at my side, "I'm amazed I survived that."
I give a breathless chuckle.
She rolls over slowly to face me, smiling. "No, I mean it. They're going to
find me dead one day, maybe here in the boathouse, and everyone is going to
wonder how it happened. Then they'll take my body to the morgue, and the
coroner will do all sorts of tests and experiments to determine what
finished me off. And where it says 'Cause of Death' on the paperwork, he'll
have no choice. He'll have to write 'fucked to death.'"
I can't help laughing. After almost two years, I still find it a source of
endless wonder that this bright, breathtaking woman desires me.
"I wouldn't be so cavalier about it if I were you," she chides. "If you
kill me, you'll be breaking three commandments at once. I suppose that
could be some kind of record."
I turn my head and grin at her. "Four commandments, if I time it right and
it's the Sabbath."
Now it is her turn to laugh. "You are a bad, bad man."
And she is a beautiful, beautiful woman -- the only woman I have ever
loved; the only woman I will ever love. The wife of my oldest friend.
"Teena," I sigh, "you don't know the half of it."
****
"How do you want your steak?" Bill asks. "Medium-rare okay?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
"I want mine still mooing, Bill," Teena calls from across the lawn. "Make
sure it's red in the middle."
She is over by the transistor radio, playing with their little son. She is
holding him in her arms, and she is waltzing him to the slow strains of Ray
Charles's "You Don't Know Me":
"You give your hand to me
And then you say hello
And I can hardly speak
My heart is beating so..."
"You know, I haven't seen you with a cigarette all weekend," Bill remarks.
"I'm trying to quit again."
Bill snorts. "Good luck."
We have a peculiar friendship, Bill and I, though Bill is not even aware of
its complications. Not three hours ago I was blithely betraying him with
Teena, making love to his wife in a burst of eager passion. In rare moments
of clarity -- usually when I have not seen Teena for some weeks or months
-- I sometimes experience an uncomfortable twinge of guilt for this
betrayal. The feeling never lasts for very long, though. I have only to
imagine Teena again, and the guilt evaporates.
Her little boy gives a gurgle of laughter as she spins with him through a
turn. The yearning song from the radio floats across the summer air:
"Oh I am just a friend,
That's all I've ever been,
Cause you don't know me..."
Bill takes Teena's steak off the fire. "Teena, go get me another beer,
would you?" he calls over to her.
She sets her little boy down, and disappears dutifully into the house.
I wait until the door has closed behind her. "How are things going now with
Klemper?" I ask Bill in an undertone.
"He's coming around. Whatever you said to him, it seems to have done the
trick."
"I just helped him to see how much wiser it is to do things our way."
The baby -- Fox, his name is -- crawls over to us. He puts a hand on my
shin, and gazes up at me expectantly. "You want to be picked up, don't
you?" I ask, looking down into the little face.
I bend over and lift him up.
"You don't have to do that," Bill says. "Teena should be back in a minute."
"Nah, I don't mind."
And I don't. He is Teena's baby, after all; part of her. I feel a
connection to this inquisitive little boy, even if Teena has assured me
that there is no real reason I should. He has a tuft of wavy dark hair and
an expressive mouth with two tiny little teeth coming in on the bottom. He
gazes at me, and makes a grab for my face.
"Could you do me a favor?" Bill asks.
I deflect little Fox's reach, and look up at him in surprise. "Sure."
"You see Ronald a lot more than I do, especially since I started working so
much with Strughold's people. Could you...could you talk to him for me?"
"Ronald? About what?"
Bill frowns, though perhaps he is just concentrating on the food that he
has been pushing around on the grill. "Every time I invite him up here, he
turns me down. I think there's more to it than he's letting on."
"You think he's angry with you or something?"
Bill glances up uneasily. "Not so much me. To tell the truth, I think it's
Teena."
I'm not sure why, but I feel a stir of apprehension. "Teena? Why would he
be angry with Teena?"
Bill shrugs. "I don't know. It's just a feeling I have. The last time he
came to visit us in Chilmark, they were alone for an hour or so while I ran
to Oak Bluffs on an errand. I came home and he was already packing his
suitcase, tight-lipped as hell. He just said he had to go, that an
emergency had come up. I asked Teena about it later, and she said she had
no idea what could have been bothering him."
"Well, maybe an emergency did come up."
He shakes his head. "Not the way he was acting then, or the way he's acted
since. He never visited once last summer. I think they had some kind of
quarrel."
"A quarrel? Why would Ronald quarrel with your wife?"
Bill shrugs again. "I don't know. It doesn't make much sense to me either.
But there's got to be some reason he won't come up here any more, and,
frankly, I'm getting tired of wondering about it. His missing our party
this weekend was the last straw."
Little Fox makes another grab for my face. I catch his small fist in my
hand. "Well, it's probably nothing," I say, bouncing the baby on my arm.
"But I'll see what I can find out."
****
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEADQUARTERS
C. Street NW, Washington, D.C.
I poke my head into Ronald's office. "You have a minute?"
He looks up from the papers on his desk. "Of course. What can I do for
you?"
I stroll in, and lean with one shoulder propped against the wall. "Think of
me as an ambassador. I'm here on a diplomatic mission."
He raises an eyebrow. "A diplomatic mission?"
"Bill sent me."
"Oh." He pushes the papers aside, and gives me his undivided attention.
"And what is it that Bill requires?"
He waits expectantly, hands folded, dapper and composed behind his orderly
desk. I cannot imagine Ronald having a quarrel with Teena. It is hard to
imagine Ronald, so unruffled and urbane, having a quarrel with anyone.
"He says you never accept his invitations any more."
"You know, that's odd," Ronald answers in his calm way. "Because I've been
noticing for some time now that you seem to visit the Mulder place often
enough for both of us."
Is that innuendo, or am I reading too much into his statement? The safest
course, I know, is to ignore it. "He's wondering whether you have some sort
of grudge against him."
Ronald leans back in his chair. "Is Bill aware of the irony of sending you
to ask that particular question?"
I reach into my breast pocket for my Morleys, and draw one from its
package. I am careful to maintain my casual pose, lounging with one
shoulder against the wall. Is he guessing, I wonder as I light my
cigarette, or does he really know? "I'm afraid I have no idea what you
mean."
Ronald smiles. "I didn't suppose you would admit to it even if you did."
His amicable expression robs his words of any sting. "Is Bill expecting you
to bring him some sort of answer?"
"He would like me to."
"Then tell Bill I would be willing to discuss it with him. Privately."
"Privately?"
"Don't look so anxious, my friend," Ronald says, reaching for the papers he
had been reading until I interrupted him. "I don't see any reason why your
name should come up in our conversation, do you?"
I take a long drag on my cigarette, and exhale the smoke slowly. "Of course
not."
"Well, then," he assures me, his eyes on the typewritten document in front
of him, "you clearly have nothing to worry about."
****
The light is on in Bill's office. I am used to keeping late hours, but he
rarely works past six o'clock.
I stop at his doorway, and rap lightly on his open door. "Bill?" I say.
"Everything okay?"
He looks up, and levels his gaze at me owlishly. "Come in," he says. "Join
me in a drink."
I can tell, even before I take the chair across from him, that he is
already very drunk. He is slurring his words, and his eyes have the bleary,
unfocused look of the seriously intoxicated.
"What are we drinking?" I ask.
"Whiskey," Bill answers, reaching behind him and picking up a bottle of Jim
Beam, which he sets on his desk beside an empty glass. "Only the best for
my friends."
"And what's the occasion?"
"The occasion?" He laughs harshly. "The occasion is a little talk I had
with Ronald this afternoon."
"I see." He pours me a drink, and I lean forward and take it. I watch his
face cautiously as I do so, trying to gauge just how I might figure in all
this. "And what did Ronald have to say, if you don't mind my asking?"
"He said," slurs Bill, picking up his glass and lifting it high, swirling
the whiskey in the light, "that my lovely wife made a pass at him."
A thousand thoughts cross my mind at once -- shock, hurt, disbelief -- but
at the moment the overriding consideration is the need to play this scene
appropriately. I settle on cool neutrality. "Ronald said that, did he?"
"Oh, yes..."
"That seems like a very serious accusation to make."
"It's a lie," Bill says. "He made it up, the perverted cocksucker."
"Do you think maybe he meant -- "
"It doesn't matter what he meant," Bill answers. "He's a fucking liar. A
treacherous, vicious, cocksucking little faggot."
The cold loathing in his voice startles me. "For God's sake, Bill, watch
what you're saying."
He lifts the bottle, his bloodshot eyes locked on mine. "Oh, you didn't
know that, did you -- that Ronald is a queer. Comes as something of a
shock, does it?"
But Bill has misinterpreted my stunned face. I am not a fool. I have had my
suspicions about Ronald for some time. Yet those very same suspicions have
just made the news of Teena's disloyalty all the more difficult to
comprehend.
"Oh yes, ol' Ronald is as queer as a three-dollar bill," Bill mumbles. "I
didn't believe it myself, until Strughold told me he had him followed.
Apparently our Ronald went into the bathroom at the Chesterfield with
another man, and let's just say he wasn't seeing the man about a horse." He
fills his glass again, the whiskey slopping over the rim onto the desktop.
"Bill, I think you've had enough," I say, standing and trying to pry the
whiskey bottle from his hand.
He pulls the bottle away, holding it out of my reach. "So how does it feel,
knowing you've been working side by side all this time with someone who
likes to take it up the ass?"
"Ronald is our friend."
"He's not my fucking friend. I can overlook some things, but not this." He
picks up his glass, and tosses back an impressive slug of whiskey.
"This is -- " I swallow, and start again. "This is probably all just a
misunderstanding. Teena probably just made a joke and Ronald took it the
wrong way, or said something he completely misinterpreted. He's probably
convinced that something really happened, when the truth is nothing really
did..."
"Oh, yeah." Bill laughs crudely. "I'm sure it's very easy to misinterpret
things when a woman grabs you by the dick."
I feel as if I am about to be sick. If Bill is shocked, then I am equally
so. "It's all a misunderstanding," I repeat.
Bill leans forward in his chair, and buries his face in his hands. "I keep
telling myself that," he mutters. "I just keep telling myself that."
"Teena's the perfect wife, and a devoted mother," I remind him. "She's not
the sort who would just indiscriminately throw herself at another man."
I am aware, as I speak the words, of just how ironic they are. Ironic, too,
that I of all people should be the one to argue them to Bill. But I need
them to be true just as badly as he does. This is Teena we're talking about
-- Teena. She may be his wife, but she is my whole existence.
"Well, if it's true, she certainly picked the wrong target in Ronald," Bill
drawls drunkenly. "A limp-wristed fucking Nancy-boy..."
"It can't be true. I've spent more time with your wife than Ronald ever
did," I insist, the shock making me reckless. "I mean, I would think I'd
know it if she were the type to do that sort of thing."
"No offense," Bill says cuttingly, "but that doesn't really prove anything.
The truth is, you're not her type."
I choke down the denial that my ego clamors for me to make. "And Ronald
is?" Bitterness gives my voice an angry edge. "What type is that? The
cocksucking type?"
"The trust fund type. The Ivy League type. Cultivated."
I sit silently, shock and resentment warring in my breast. Suddenly I hate
all of them: smooth, secretive, privileged Ronald, Bill with his goddamned
superior attitude, even Teena with her beautiful face and her lying smiles.
I hate them all.
Except I don't really hate Teena. I will never have that kind of strength.
"She did this to hurt me," Bill mumbles. "She did this on purpose, because
I put my work ahead of her."
I fumble in my coat pocket for the reassurance of a cigarette. "You don't
know that."
"Yes I do." He leans over his desk, and puts his head down on his folded
arms. "I wish I'd never heard of this goddamned Project."
I don't answer.
His shoulders begin to shake. "I wish I'd never heard of this goddamned
Project," he repeats, his voice cracking on a sob, his hand curling blindly
around the nearly-empty whiskey bottle. "It poisons everything I touch."
There's a dull ache in my chest. I light my Morley, drawing a small measure
of solace from watching Bill -- prep school Bill, superior Bill, Bill with
the stunning wife and the beautiful son -- with his head bowed in his arms,
weeping brokenly.
I have no comfort to offer him, no comfort to spare. All I can think of is
Teena, and how I was not her first choice. Not even her second choice,
really, if I count the man sobbing in drunken disillusionment before me.
I get up, and slip out into the deserted hallway.
I am careful to close the door behind me as I go.
****
It is eleven-thirty at night. I am sitting up in bed, still dressed, the
ashtray in my lap. I have smoked my way through an entire pack of
cigarettes, and have just opened another. Finally I give in to the impulse
I have been fighting for three hours, and reach resignedly for the phone.
She answers on the fourth ring, her voice a little husky, as if she has
been sleeping. "Hello?"
Just that one word lightens my heart. "Teena, it's me."
"Bill's not home," she says, a little confused.
"I know. I -- I called to talk to you."
Her tone grows suddenly sharper. "Is something wrong? Is he -- is Bill all
right?"
"Bill's fine."
"Oh. Oh, you scared me."
"I just called to...I wanted to hear your voice."
The edge comes creeping back into her tone. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking of you."
"You shouldn't call me here," she says. "Even if he isn't home, he could
find out somehow. It's dangerous."
"I know."
There is silence on her end of the line. Then she asks, "There's something
wrong, isn't there?"
"Yes," I whisper.
"What is it? Did something happen? Tell me."
I play with my cigarette, my hand trembling slightly. "I don't think I'll
be able to come up and see you any more. At least not for a while."
Go on, I plead in my head, argue me out of it. Start to cry. Tell me you
need me.
Instead she asks, "Why not?"
I close my eyes. Because it hurts too much, I think. Because I'm lying to
myself about what we have together. Because I need to get on with my life.
"I saw Ronald yesterday. He suspects something."
She reflects for a moment. "Ronald."
"Yes."
"Ronald doesn't like me."
An opening. "And why is that?" I ask. I hold my breath.
But she only says, in a voice that suggests a shrug, "We never hit it off,
that's all."
We lapse into silence. I want her to explain Ronald. I want her to turn it
into something harmless, a wicked little anecdote, a shared joke on Bill. I
want to be the only secret in her life. I wait and wait.
Finally I get tired of waiting. "Teena, why did you choose me?"
She laughs, a throaty, amused sound. "I thought you chose me."
"Did I?"
"Of course," she answers. "Don't you remember?"
I stare at the cigarette in my hand. "I remember a lot of things."
Another silence stretches out between us. This time, it is Teena who breaks
it. "Won't it seem odd to Bill if you just stop coming here when he asks
you?"
"I suppose it might."
"Then do you really think it's wise not to come?"
"I'm not really sure what's wise any more."
Teena sighs, impatient with my reticence. "Well, I think it might be better
if we just go on as we have been, don't you?"
"Is that what you want?"
"Would I say it if it weren't?"
I take a long, unhappy drag on my cigarette. She gives away so little.
"I'll have to see," I say at last. I am weak, a coward. I never think of
myself that way, except when it comes to Teena. "I'll have to see how it
goes between Bill and me. Maybe I'll come next month, but only if it
doesn't seem too risky."
"I'll see you next month, then."
"I said maybe."
"I know what you said."
I give a frustrated sigh. "Teena, this isn't some game I can just -- "
She hangs up the phone.
I stare at the dead receiver in my hand. I stub out my cigarette, then
reach wearily across the bed, setting the receiver back in its cradle.
I lie back and gaze up at the ceiling, following a crack in the plaster
with my eyes. I wonder what Bill is doing now, if he is even conscious.
Teena still doesn't know what Ronald told him. She doesn't know that Bill
spent tonight drinking himself determinedly into cold oblivion. She doesn't
know that poor Ronald has just made himself two enemies through no fault of
his own, that neither Bill nor I will soon forgive him for the humiliation
he has dealt us. Safe in her gracious home with her beautiful child, she
probably doesn't even know that I will lie here smoking in silence until
the sun comes up.
I sigh. The worst part is, she's probably right.
She'll see me again next month.
----
END
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