Rumi and Shams VI:  Like This
by Merri-Todd Webster
(16 April 1999)


If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
               *Like this*.

***

He is so heartbreakingly beautiful.  At least, he has broken
Mulder's heart often enough.  Mulder's heart is breaking again now
as he watches Alex Krycek sleep in the bed where no one ever sleeps
alone, his gun holster on the dusty rug beside him, his prosthetic
arm on top of it.

Naked Alex, slick and sweaty, smelling of perspiration and semen. 
Snoring as if it weren't his job to get up and kill people.  His
lashes are like brushstrokes in a Chinese painting over his
unmatched cheekbones.  His lower lip has turned out, covering his
upper lip in a childlike pout.

Mulder is dressed for work, and both his guns are in their holsters,
hip and ankle.  Not for the first time, he wonders if it wouldn't be
simpler to shoot Alex, if it wouldn't be right, if perhaps then the
wanting would go away.  It's like drinking water:  No matter how
much you drink one day, you're always thirsty the next.  His whole
body is sore from the repercussions of last night's sex, yet not
even touching his gun and thinking about shooting his unreliable
lover prevents his penis from getting hard.  He'll always want
another drink of water.  He'll always want another night with Alex.

Alex turns over onto his stomach, stretching out both arms.  He
looks so utterly helpless that way, that smooth pale back with a
strong healthy arm on the right, a ruddy scarred stump on the left. 
And most pathetic of all, identical tufts of dark hair under both
arms.  Mulder cannot shoot him.  A predator is still beautiful even
if its last meal was your child, or your heart.  And he knows that
Alex isn't really a predator, more of a scavenger, feeding on
Mulder's dead heart.

Mulder turns and walks out of the apartment while he still can. 
Once he hears the click of the lock, Alex opens his eyes and smiles.
 Mulder didn't shoot him again.  It must have been a good night for
both of them.

***