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Scully was leaning against the bathroom wall, her legs straight in front of her, applying a second coat of sheer pink polish to her fingernails. The tile was cold and uncomfortable, but she always liked to do them here on the floor, where a spill would be manageable.
Mulder was leaning shirtless against the cabinet opposite her, watching her intently, his feet pressed against the wall next to her, his long legs forming a tent beside her in order to fit. She dabbed the polish onto her third finger and started to laugh.
“What?” he asked grinning foolishly, still apparently under the influence of this afternoon’s dalliance.
“Your feet come up to here on me,” she said. She didn’t have a free hand to show him where she meant, but he could see it for himself. He crept his toes over her body and she pulled carefully away, holding her hand steady.
“Stop, don’t make me mess up,” she said through a smile, not even convincing herself. But he obeyed, resting his heel back on the floor beside her. She could feel the soft fur of his legs against her smooth calves.
She was still in the blue track shorts and horrible old t-shirt, an ensemble which, for some reason, turned Mulder on. Actually, she was not “still” in it. It had, of course, come off earlier in order to accommodate their lovemaking on the wide windowsill while William learned his third major scale. Scully had leaned her ear to his mouth, consuming the sound of his breath to drown out the sound of the pounding piano.
Mulder got downstairs in time to pay Sara while Scully put on a robe over her clothes. They’d made dinner, bathed Will, and watched an hour of TV with him. She was mesmerized by the feel of her son cuddled up against her, something she didn’t get very often, but Mulder, who got plenty of it, leered at her all night, licking his lips, waiting for William to nod off.
“Will you stop it?” she had whispered in false complaint, blushing over Will’s drowsy damp head.
Now, the robe was off and Scully was going to have time to do her nails, just as Mulder had promised. He could make a very good case for taking Tuesday afternoons off. She blew on her fingernails and he put out his hand for the bottle.
“Let me do your toes. Does it have to be this color?”
“What color do you want it to be?”
“I don’t know. Red?”
“They won’t match.”
“Who’s getting to see your hands and feet at the same time besides me?” She shrugged as he reached into the drawer and pulled the red polish out.
“Mulder, you found that pretty fast.”
“I saw it earlier when I was getting the nail scissor.”
“Oh,” she said softly, a bit embarrassed as she recalled the sickening feeling she’d gotten when she saw Sara clipping Will’s nails. “Shake it first.”
He shook the bottle and held her right foot in his hand, thumb pressed firmly along the arch of her foot. Mmmmm. He grinned cockily at her and she realized she had either said it aloud or he could read her very easily.
“Hey, don’t get too comfortable, this is business, not a massage.” But he squeezed it harder, rubbing a circle with his thumb as he applied the thick red lacquer to her first toe. She sank down a little toward the floor, her hair teasing up against the wall.
“Mulderrrr… You can’t do both at the same time.”
“Why not?” He was on the third toe by now, and she had sunk down so low her shorts were riding up. There was red paint all over her toes. The pedicure seemed doomed.
“Mulder, the paint’s supposed to just go on the nail,” she managed to say. She was suddenly sorry she’d started this. They should just be in bed.
“Okay, I’ll try to concentrate,” he said. “I’ll just put your foot here.”
He pressed the sole of her foot against his stomach as he started the fourth toe and she felt him harden a bit beneath his boxer briefs. Her body responded quietly but immediately, lightning to his thunder. Sometimes she counted the seconds between the two to see how close the storm was. She closed her eyes and pressed her legs together.
“Mulder…” she breathed. “Just let me… let’s get this over with.” She reached for the bottle and he handed it to her. She took a piece of tissue and wiped the edges as she folded her knee up to her chest. He sat up too, away from the cabinet, and slid forward.
They were hip to hip now, shoulder to shoulder, or rather her shoulder to his bicep, facing opposite ways. He had been working out every day after he dropped Will at school, and it showed. She struggled to keep her eyes on the nail brush as she thought of running her fingers instead down the rippled arch of his torso.
He rested his chin on her shoulder like a puppy and draped his arm over her knee, pretending to be innocent. But in a moment, his palm traveled down the inside of her thigh. He curved his hand up into that little hollow place at the pelvic joint, his thumb looped over the tendon. She used to laugh and squirm when he did it, but he’d gotten good at it. Practice makes perfect, just like they told William.
“You smell like sex,” he purred, gently kissing her jawline.
“That’s because you told me not to change my shorts. And you keep trying to fuck me in them.” She only had three toes left. Something told her a second coat would be too ambitious tonight.
He teased her a little with his finger, painting in short strokes and patiently waiting for the wetness to reach him, rather than going in to get it. She thought she might finish the tenth toe, but no. She gasped as his finger poked inside her, and her hand slipped, spreading red paint in a stripe across the knuckles of her toes.
“What was that, Scully? The paint’s supposed to go… where?”
“Fuck you,” she breathed happily, putting the bottle down, brush right on the tile, too preoccupied by trying to decide between three different ways they could do this.
“Hang on,” she said, crawling forward to shut the door in case Will woke up.
Up against the door, that was a fourth way.
Mulder slid her shorts down with one hand and crawled up her stomach with the other. She did not bother to try to twist and kiss him, just pressed herself against the thick, heavy wood as he groped and fucked her, forgetting that on the other side of it was a child she loved desperately, a dirty kitchen and a life they didn’t quite know how to fix. When she said she was going to come, he slid a forearm onto the door for her to press her mouth to.
He pulled her shorts back up over her bottom as she rolled back into him, the raunchily cozy sensation of soft cotton soaking them both up. She cracked the window and a breeze made a clean swirl of air amidst the paint fumes and the deep, musky smell of second-time sex. They curled up together on the floor, making the most of the tiny grey bath mat, neither of them ready to open the door and go back out there, back to the quickly approaching Wednesday. She held up her fingernails and frowned. “Smudged.”
He pushed his hand into the ceramic tub and slid down the length of her body, nibbling at her arm. She drew sweet little breaths of crisp night air as he kissed her leg, following along the white stripe. He handed the bottle of pink nail polish up to her without looking at her.
“You better do them over.”