TITLE: A Four-Letter Word for Intercourse AUTHOR: Ambress EMAIL: ambress27@mindspring.com RATING: R, (but you have to have a dirty mind--oh geez-- look who I'm talking to). H (I hope). SPOILERS: I can't imagine. Well, but familiarity with Chinga, Piper Maru, Quagmire and The War of the Cophrophages might help you get the joke. SUMMARY: What really turns Mulder on about Scully. DISCLAIMER: They aren't mine. THANKS: To the entire Smut E-group, who I accidently made my beta readers, and to Laura Shapiro. FEEDBACK: Oh, Yes! Yes! Yes! ARCHIVE: Please ask first. +++++ A Four Letter Word for Intercourse. Scully was getting cosy with a good book and some chamomile tea. Her tub was filling, and she was planning to take a nice, long, relaxing soak. She had dithered a bit trying to decide which bath bubbles to use tonight, finally deciding on the vanilla and hazelnut. It made her smell like a French pastry--but what the heck-- tomorrow was Saturday. If she woke up starving in the middle of the night she could indulge in a refrigerator rummage. Anticipating the luxury of her bath, she was slightly irritated when the phone rang. "Hello?" "Hey Scully, it's me." "Mulder, what's wrong?" "Nothing. I just couldn't sleep. Did I wake you?" "No. This is becoming a habit though, Mulder." She turned her book face-down on the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. "I was just working on the crossword puzzle. What's a four-letter word for 'intercourse,' ending in 'k'?" "Uhhh," said Mulder. "Oh, never mind, I just thought of it. T--A--L--" she spelled, grinning to herself. He was silent for a moment, apparently gathering his forces, and finally spoke. Tonight his opening gambit was, "Do you know a good plumber, Scully?" Oh, a nice easy pitch right over the plate. She could hit this sucker right out of the ballpark. "Doesn't your superintendent take care of the plumbing in your apartment?" "Well yes, normally he would." Mulder sounded sheepish. "But, uh, well, the waterbed incident has created some, uh, discord between me and the powers that be at Hegal Place." "You're afraid to ask him," she translated. "Yeah." "So, what's the problem?" "It's that spray thingy, you know, the one that is next to the regular faucet." "Yes?" "It doesn't work." "Mulder," she began in reasonable, even tones, "did you make sure that the faucet and spray head aerators are clean?" "Oh Yeah." She could hear a faint rustling over the phone, like the fabric of his shirt moving against itself. She imagined it was one of his white dress shirts, nice and starchy, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. "If that's the problem, you can replace them if they're too far gone to clean." "Uhhh? No, no, go on." "Okay, first look beneath the sink to see if the hose is kinked." He was breathing hard. It sounded as though with every exhale he was pushing just a little bit more out of his lungs than their fullest capacity. *Gee,* Scully thought wryly, *He must have just got back from running or something.* She took a tentative sip of her tea, checking to see if it was cool enough to drink. "If you think that there might be a restriction in the hose, turn off the faucet and remove the hose, and replace it with an identical type." "Ohhhhh," he said. "You'll have to loosen the hex nut connection below the faucet, and then you can replace the hose." "Oh Yeeeaaahhh," he said again. He was still breathing in little jagged puffs against the receiver. "If that's not it, you should look at the diverter valve. You can take it out by removing the faucet spout. Then you can lift or screw out the valve parts from above and replace the diverter valve. Are you following me, Mulder?" "Yes, Scully. Yes." "If you have to replace the entire thing you'll have to turn off the water to the fixture." "Mmmmmm," was his only response. "Then you can remove the old faucets, disconnecting them from the supply pipes beneath the sink. Measure the distance between centers of fixture holes they're usually, four, six or eight inches and you'll have to buy a single-lever faucet to match this measurement." She put her feet up on the coffee table and crossed her ankles. "Be sure to tell the guy at Home Depot the type and size of water-supply pipes you'll be connecting to; he'll be able to sell you the proper adaptors if your supply lines don't match the parts that come with the new faucet." "Oh yeeeaaaahhhh." "Okay, then. Slide the new faucet through the fixture holes, arranging parts according to the manufacturers' specs. Don't wing it, Mulder." He sounded startled when he said, "I won't. I swear. Keep going, Scully." "Okay. Stuff some plumber's putty, which you can also get at Home Depot, under the escutcheon so it won't leak, and then clamp the faucet down firmly to the fixture ledge by tightening the jambnuts below." "Uhhh! Uhhh! Uhhhh!" he said. Then "Sc--" She heard a loud thump, then a crash, and after a moment, Mulder came back on the line. "Did you fall off the couch again?" she asked. "Uh? Oh, yeah. Fell off the couch." He was still trying to catch his breath. "Do you think you can sleep now?" she asked tenderly. "Yeah. Yeah. I think so." He sounded a little groggy already. Then his tone changed to disgust, "Just as soon as I clean up this mess." "You mean from your fall off the couch?" "Uh? Yeah. I, uh, knocked a bunch of books and the Scrabble game off the coffee table." "Well, goodnight Mulder. Sleep well. Good luck with that faucet." "Thanks Scully. You too." *Me too?* She almost laughed. *Idiot* she thought affectionately. "I don't have a problem with *my* faucet, Mulder." "You know what I mean. Well, goodnight." "Goodnight," she said again, and hung up the phone. Keeping her finger at her place in her book, Nicholson Baker's *Vox,* she got up to go check on her bath. The End. An orgasm in an intelligent woman is like a volcano in a mountain with a city built on the slope--you feel the alternative opportunity cost of her orgasm, you feel the force of all the other perceptive things she could be thinking at that moment and is not thinking because she is coming, and they enrich it. --Nicholson Baker, *Vox* EMAIL: ambress27@mindspring.com Special thanks to *Reader's Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual.*