JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (25/25)
by Wind (Windsinger@aol.com)  

Disclaimer: See chapter 1 
 
Chapter 25
                                
     Two days later, Jake was making like a lizard and dozing in
the sun in the sun-heated sand. He was nearly asleep when he was
hailed by a familiar voice raised over the soft murmur of the sea
breaking gently on the shore. Mulder approached from across the
grass from the pool. His strides were purposeful but easy, and
there was a genuine smile on his face.

     "There you are. Elliot said you had some free time. I didn't
think thralls had free time."

     Jake grimaced. "We do have a bit. Enough to catch our breath."
Jake stretched, hoping the carelessly languid movement did not look
as faked as it felt. In truth he was all-too-acutely aware of his
nakedness. Mulder had completely covered his body in European cut
slacks and a loose, collarless, long-sleeved shirt. 

     "So your bags are packed and you're ready to go?"

     "I didn't exactly have anything to pack but, yes, the flight
crew is assembling. I do have a few minutes." His movements supple,
Mulder lowered himself to sit down on the dry sand beside Jake.
That he could move so well, like a dancer, didn't surprise Jake;
Mulder had certainly had enough exercise lately. 

     "Those clothes look familiar," Jake noted, with a curving lip.

     "They should; they're yours. Elliot took the liberty of
borrowing them from the clothes you have here in storage. I'll mail
them back."

     "No keep them, I have enough to get home on. Besides, they
look good on you. Give Scully a thrill. There is more to life then
FBI power suits."

     "Such as this place?" The question didn't seem to require a
response and Jake didn't give one. Mulder squinted into the sun.
"When you arrive, they really do lock away your possessions?"

     "We've dumped down here naked as they day we're born. Nothing
to remind us of our old life. What you see is what we are -
indentured servants for the length of our contract, bound to do the
bidding of our masters. Nothing more."  

     Mulder shivered visibly but made no comment.

     Jake was immediately aware of the other's reaction. "I'll
always regret that I roped you into all that. I took advantage when
your defenses were _way_ down. I should have said the hell with the
Club's anonymity and let you call Scully that first day."

     "You weren't yourself either."

     Jake's eyebrows raised. "You think Alex -?"

     Mulder's lips pursed together in a thin line. "Alex. Remember
I had her in me more than once and I don't mean only when she took
total control. I think that after you found me that she began
influencing my actions as well as yours. She didn't want me to
leave any more than she wanted you to."

     "Nice of you to be willing to let me off the hook. So now with
Alex cavorting on the other side trying everything Lisa taught her
on saints and archangels, and you're on your way home to track down
bad guys with the lovely Scully, you're probably wondering why I'm
still here."

     "The thought did cross my mind." 

     Jake leaned back on his hands and crossed his legs enticingly
at the ankle. Mulder blushed slightly and shifted uncomfortably.
"Sorry, habit," Jake apologized. "I wanted to see if I could still
get a rise out of you."

     "Unlike what Scully may have thought the first five years of
our partnership, I'm not made of stone. I took enough cold showers
to float the Queen Elizabeth II. Being here, being with you, has
shown me the another side of myself. Not the dominant side, but
still a part of what I am which I have to learn to respect."

     Jake wished that Mulder had been looking at him at that moment
so he could remember and treasure the expression in the other's
eyes, but the agent was gazing off into the sun again. It seemed to
be his way of dealing with difficult subjects. 

     "Alex was with me in my watery grave. Did you know that?"
Mulder asked without moving.

     "I suspected as much."

     "You don't mind?"

     "Mind? That you weren't alone? Why should I mind?"

     Mulder's eyes unfocused a bit. "It was like when you're in the
hospital and you're about to go under the knife. You are in total
panic because you don't know whether the doctors are going to be
able to bring you out of it or not and all the while the drugs are
stealing your mind. You don't really feel the panic and yet you
know its there." His broad shoulders visibly relaxed. "And then,
completely out of the blue, there's this hand holding yours."

     "I'm sorry. I only wish I could have arranged for Dana to be
there to hold your hand."

     Without changing his expression, which was more thoughtful
than anything, Mulder turned his head enough to observe his
'cousin'. "Certain you weren't the one who you wanted to be doing
the handholding?"  

     Jake looked flustered at the words and then - blushed. Mulder
didn't think that was possible.

     "Do you want to know the truth?" Mulder asked. "I wouldn't
have minded. Really. I would actually have preferred that to
Scully. What you and Skinner did here - keeping us apart during the
worst - that was the right thing to do."

     "Dana didn't think so at the time."
     
     "No, she didn't. I think she contemplated putting ground glass
in your soup but she came around."

     Mulder picked up small seashell, a little curving couch shell.
An edge had chipped on the open lip but you still couldn't see
inside. With an effort he threw it far down the beach where perhaps
a passing couple would find it and maybe it would remind them that
inside each of us there is so much that we don't know and that we
are, none of us, perfect. 

     "So why are you still here?" Mulder asked. "Seems a waste."

     The affected pose Jake had assumed smoothed away. Suddenly he
was not Jacob, sex slave to the rich and the famous. He was just 
a man - true, a naked man - but just this guy. He reached for a
pair of damp swimming trunks and slipped them on. 

     "Is this better?" Jake asked when he was 'dressed'. "Don't
look so shocked. No, I do not swim naked. There are minnows and
jelly fish and worse down there and there are places I'd like to
protect, thank you very much."

     Mulder laughed, genuinely more comfortable with Jake than
Jacob. "No more evasions. What will you do now?"     

     "I'm not evading. I'm just having trouble finding my balance
right now." Jake sighed from somewhere deep inside. "Since Alex
left me and our little rescue broke up, I've felt at loose ends."

     "Just a little trouble?"

     Those FBI eyes bored in Jake's. Jake turned away, squinting
into the sun. "What do you want me to say? That this place doesn't
work for me anymore? With Elliot, with Lisa... with you... " he
added after some hesitation, "I still could and would do anything.
But with strangers -" 

     Mulder could see that the conversation was painful but that it
was also critical to see it through. "'With strangers' what?'" For
the longest time Mulder's gaze continued, focused and unblinking. 

     Jake's insides felt as if a nest of crawling things had taken
up housekeeping. "Shit, Mulder, do you do that to all your
suspects? You must extract confessions left, right and center. What
do you want from me? To see the tears? Do you want me to show you
how I can sob into a pillow so silently that my client never knows?
It's worse than things being a little uncomfortable. After Alex's
inner-city appetite, the Club was such a relief. Paradise. I
enjoyed being picked out of the crowd, being wanted and desired. Or
I thought I did. Now I hate it. I hate being handed over to be some
stranger's dish for the night. I hate their hands touching me."

     "But you do it. There's a word for that, you know."

     As if shot, Jake launched himself to his feet scattering the
sand. "And I know what it is. I didn't use to care."

     "Now you care. So stop. Leave."

     "I have a bloody contract," Jake hissed, "and I wasn't kidding
about what I said they do here to the rebellious types.
Unfortunately, they believe that a thrall rebels because they
desire to be punished, to get that kind of masochistic attention.
Well, I don't want that kind of attention. I never did." Jake
wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered. 

     Like any good clinical psychologist Mulder continued to sit
quietly - observant and dispassionate. Inside, however, he felt
deeply for Jake. The man wasn't just reluctant to take on the
Club's punishment. He was terrified. For months, blindfolded, he
had been driven relentlessly to the top of a very high and scary
place. Now the blindfold was off and he was teetering on the edge.
 
     Mulder's eyes softened. "As afraid as you are to stay, you're
also afraid to go back, aren't you? It's been a lonely couple of
years since Alex's death. Now you don't even have her ghost with
you." 

     Jake had turned his face away. Mulder rose and found himself
placing an arm casually around those bowed shoulders. Funny, he
couldn't have done that before this time on the island with Jake.
Now this simple comforting contact man-to-man felt right and not at
all threatening. 

     "Before Scully, I knew what loneliness was. None better. Why
do you think I've gone so slowly with her? I don't dare mess this
up. It may be my only chance. From what little I know, I'd say Alex
was a wreck to start with. I had a woman like that once. It was
good for her but not for me. So I'd say you haven't found your one
and only yet. You need to keep looking." Mulder glanced around the
perfectly beautiful, perfectly artificial resort. "But I doubt that
you'll find her - or him - here." 
 
     Jake let his weight rest comfortably against Mulder for a few
moments more, then gently stepped away. "Her or him? See what a
mess I am? I'm not even sure of what my sexual orientation is any
more." He squared his shoulders. "But I won't find those kind of
answers here either, will I? What's the truth? On one hand I want
out of Paradise. I want to go home and work, to be creative again.
I want to run in the park and play Frisbee with Stella, my dog. I
want to be free and be no man's plaything and no woman's either,
living or dead. On the other hand," Jake continued as he paced
faster and faster back and forth, his feet sinking into the soft,
white sand, "I like Elliot and Lisa, both of them. Well, Elliot I
thought once I could love but there's no future there. Let's just
say that I don't want to lose them as friends. I have so few left."

     Mulder certainly knew where the man was coming form there.

     "I'll never be the person I was before Alex," Jake continued,
"and I don't want to be the person I've been for the nearly three
years since, but is there anything of the old Jake left? I know I'm
not going to find him here."

     "So why don't you leave?"

     "Because I've still got three more damn weeks left on my
contract!" Miserable, Jake threw his head back and stared at the
endless, imprisoning gray sea. "And I have to keep playing the game
because if I don't I'll be punished and punishment - terrible as it
is - doesn't even count towards your contract time."

     Mulder sat back down on the sand. If he could, he'd get Jake
to do that, too. Anchor himself somehow. "Go to Elliot and Lisa,"
he suggested to Jake's bowed back. "Tell them the truth."

     "And they're going to believe that a ghost made me do it?"
Jake replied, his voice bitterly sarcastic. 

     A voice came from the direction of a stand of ornamental
bamboo. "How do you know what we'd believe, if we're never given
the chance?"

     Elliot and Lisa in 'normal' clothes - normal at least for the
island - emerged from behind the bamboo. Jake stared at them then
shot Mulder a searing glance. "You set this up."

     Mulder smiled in all innocence. "It's the sort of thing that
is frowned upon in my line of work, but I always wanted to do it."

     "I'm glad he told us," Elliot declared, "and Sister Serena
confirmed the 'wild tale' though I would have believed you if you
had just asked me to. I have come to trust you, Jake. Certainly you
know that."

     'Jake', not 'Jacob'.

     Lisa draped herself on a decorative rock. "I'm not so certain
that I believe it all, but Elliot has convinced me that he saw
stranger things when he was in El Salvador and Cambodia." Her eyes
rested fondly on her mate. "And I trust Elliot and so there's no
more that need be said about that."

     "Except," Elliot said, crossing the last few feet of grass to
stop close to Jake in the sand, "that it has been a tremendous blow
to my ego to think that you were only attracted to me because you
were possessed."

     "Elliot, I didn't mean..." Jake raised his head, his eyes
swirling. Clearly he didn't know what he meant.

     If he hadn't been so agitated, Jake might have noticed the
genuine regret that passed over Elliot's strong, handsome face, but
Mulder saw it, as did Lisa.  

     Elliot raised his hand to reach for a tanned, leanly muscular
shoulder but left the hand hanging. "May I still touch you?"

     Jake didn't move away but his spine stiffened. "You are the
Thrall Master; I belong to you. You can do anything you want."

     Anger blazed in Elliot's eyes. This Jake saw and it only
confused him all the more because he hadn't seen the pain before. 

     Lisa rose from her rock and stalked over to the two of them
the ever-present strap swinging from its loop around her wrist.
"Males!" she swore. Without hesitation she flicked them both across
the front of their thighs, husband and slave both.
     
     Startled, Elliot's irritation dissolved as suddenly as it had
come. He raised an eyebrow in Jake's direction. "Don't you just
love her when she's angry."

     Conspicuously ignoring her mate, Lisa declared, "Jacob, raise
your left hand."

     Steeling himself for another blow, Jake did as he was
commanded. 

     "That's the last whipping the Jacob will ever receive from any
staff on this island. What Jake might desire, however, either
Elliot or I or both would be happy to dispense." With that she took
out a little key like a tiny golden Allen wrench and removed the
red bracelet from his wrist. She dropped it into his started, open
palm. "I hope you keep it as a souvenir of your time with us and
don't think of us too harshly." 

     When he continued to stare at her dumbfounded, she explained.
"Do you think we would really keep people here against their will?
Granted, understanding what each person's 'will' is, is sometimes
hard to fathom, but that's why each novice is assigned a trainer
who gets to know that slave inside and out. That's so we know what
we're dealing with. We've come to know you Jake and so over the
last two days we listened to the reports about you and we worried.
We knew you were unhappy, that something was wrong, but we thought
it was just taking you time to get over everything that happened.
We assumed that you trusted us and would come to us if you needed
help."

     Jake was still staring at his bare wrist. "You're going to get
into trouble over this. You already let Elliot off years ago."

     "And others since," Elliot broke in. "We just don't publicize.
People come here to be pushed to their limits, but not to destroy
their souls. There's nothing worse than bad sex, Jake. That's not
what this place is about. As for 'trouble'? This incident with
'Isaac' was nearly disastrous. It's forcing us to rethink the
entire concept of the Caverns."

     Jake was distracted from Elliot's recounting of his business
problems by the intense way Lisa was studying him. She clearly
wasn't listening either. Was she regretting the rash act of his
emancipation.

     "Jake," she said in her old tone. "Come over her and kiss me."

     His eyebrows rose, his eyes flashed, and he didn't move.

     Lisa rolled her eyes in Elliot's direction. "Give them an
inch... Very well." Before Jake's eyes, Lisa transformed. Her
clothes didn't change, neither her hair nor her height nor her eye
color, but suddenly everything was different. She was just this
tall, dark-haired, beautiful woman and not the terrifying
'Perfectionist'.

     "Jake Simmons, would you _Please_ come over her and kiss me."

     He did, as much to see if he could and to see how it felt,
then because she had asked him. 

     As kisses went at The Club it was chaste, but then he was
testing. She smelled of vanilla of all things, and lavender. Her
lips were soft as was her body in his arms. He found he liked the
way she touched him in those few seconds. Something stirred within
him, something sweet and clear. So he wasn't all dead inside.

     He came up for air to find Elliot waiting expectantly, almost
shyly.

     Very well, Jake thought. Why not?

     Elliot was hard and alive, strong and protective. A safe home.
Something definitely stirred within Jake, but he came away just as
confused as he had been before.

     "Well?" Elliot asked? "Better or worse?"
     
     Jake had to take a little time before answering. "Different?"

     Elliot smiled with relief. "Yes, I've always felt that way,
too."

     Lisa meanwhile was rolling the remnants of their kiss around
in her mouth like a fine wine. "Not bad but you weren't so virtuous
the other night when we were working the sex maniac there," she
nodded in Mulder's direction.

     Jake had wondered about that himself. "I was running on
adrenaline," he explained, "or you could say 'on fumes'. Alex's
fumes."

     Still musing over the kiss, she said, "Well, it's a start,"
and made a move to turn back towards Elliot but not without first
skipping her finger tips down Jake's naked chest. 

     "Some of Jacob must still be in there. He'd better be; it
would be a pity to lose all that potential. Come back to the
villa," she whispered in that sultry alto of hers, "and we'll have
brunch and talk about what you can do to work off the rest of your
contract."

     Alarmed, Jake switched his attention back to Elliot to find
the older man's eyes alight with laughter. 

     "Lisa's just trying to scare you. She's good at that. What I
was going to say before we were all so delightfully distracted by
Lisa's little experiment was that we thought you might be willing
to help us with some paperwork for a couple of weeks if you don't
mind. Strain your brain for once. The other members of the Board
are going to require that we investigate all the contracts of all
the private clients and their resident companions in depth. You
know the lingo and the residents. We thought you could help with
that."

     "And maybe," Lisa said most casually, "we can play a hand or
two or three of strip poker after dinner?"

     Jake's eyebrows twitched and with an amused expression on his
face looked down at his lack of attire. "I feel I'm at a distinct
disadvantage there, especially at the moment."

     With a laugh, Elliot took a bundle from under his arm. "Shorts
and a muscle shirt. I wouldn't want to hide _all_ that beauty. Come
along when you're ready. We'll have your things brought up from
storage and you can stay with us at the villa for the next few
weeks - in the guest room if you prefer." With a wink to Jake and
a nod to the FBI agent sitting relaxed with legs outstretched in
the sand, Elliott took Lisa's arm and they started back towards the
resort together.

     Jake made a move to put the clothes on but before he could
Mulder rose from his hollow in the warm sand to help him brush the
sand off his legs and back. Rather more aggressively than he needed
to, Jake helped brush the sand from Mulder's butt through his
clothes. For a moment it looked like there was going to be a
wrestling match right across the beach and into the surf. Instead,
they both broke off, laughing. Straightening, they found themselves
staring into each other's eyes. There was no embarrassment; it was
just an acknowledgement that neither had forgotten what had
happened between them. 

     Jake dressed quickly, pulling the shorts on over his skimpy
dry suit. Clothes again. To Mulder's eyes his smile was blissful as
if a hundred burdens had dropped from his shoulders.

     Without comment they began following the path Elliot and Lisa
had made across the perfect lawn. "They lay a good table," Jake
said to Mulder.

     "You're actually going?" Mulder asked, unbelieving.

     Jake gave a knowing smile. "Do you think I was a prude before
Alex?"
     
     "So I take it you agree with how things have worked out."

     "About as well as they can. No personal service is required
and I'll be able to fulfill my contact. That's important to me.
They used to have a word for that - honor. It might even be - fun."
He winked impishly at Mulder. "Certain you don't want to come
along, have brunch, lose a hand or two or three? I'm certain Lisa
cheats."

     A voice drifted to them both over the tropical air. From the
direction of the airfield, Scully was waving at them from the top
of the gentle rise.

     "What a selfish, ungrateful wretch I am. You spent the last
half hour psychoanalyzing me and I haven't even asked how you're
holding together."

     A shadow passed over Mulder's bright eyes. "Together - with
duct tape and spit but together. I'll manage. I always do." 

     "Dana looks wonderful," Jake commented, inclining his head.
"Glowing. Have you two been getting sufficient rest and relaxation
these last couple of days?"

     It was Mulder's turn to blush. "That and exercise. I didn't
think I could. I didn't think I'd want to."

     Jake's smile broadened. "Then I'd say it's not about sex any
longer."

     "Do you mean... it's about...?" Dramatically, Mulder made it
appear as if the word was caught in his throat.

     "The 'L' word?" Jake asked, grinning.

     Mulder sobered. "Oh, it's been about that for a long time."
     
     They had reached the edge of the sapphire pool. The white
shell walk to the right would take Jake towards the villa. Scully
was waving from their left urging Mulder to hurry. It was time that
the two men go their separate ways. 

     "Don't be a stranger," Mulder said. "I want to know how you're
doing. I really do, but if that's too hard considering how you
feel..."

     Jake put his hands in his pockets. Blessed pockets! "I was
afraid it would be you who would rather not hear from me again. I
can take the rejection if you can forget the unpleasant parts." 
     
     "'Unpleasant' is your word not mine. Did I ever complain?
Actually, Scully has said in the past that I'm pretty reserved -"

     "Repressed," Jake corrected. "At least that's what she told me
back in Washington."

     "Did she? I don't think she'd say that now. On the subject of
prudishness, I haven't told you everything about my wild youth
either. Seriously, I don't have that many friends - or family
either - that I can afford to lose any, any more than you can.
Besides our friendship could prove useful. I've never had a twin I
could pull all those fun twin tricks with."

     "If you want to try it with Dana, I'm game."

     "In your dreams."

     They were still standing where the path diverged. "What will
you do after you leave here?" Mulder asked,

     "Work... architect-type work if the firm will have me back,"
Jake clarified. "And I'm going to seriously keep an eye out for a
life companion. This being responsibility free just doesn't make it
any more. And no more lurking in on other people's lives. Maybe
I'll come back here for vacation. It's a really nice place," he
defended to Mulder's amazement, "though they may not let me come if
I become too fat and successful to be appealing any longer. There
are standards even for clients."

     "If you find the right person who loves you for yourself, they
won't see what the years do, then you never have to worry about
being unappealing."

     They both heard Scully call again, a light song on the wind.

     Now that the moment of parting had come, both found it
difficult and yet unavoidable. Life went on. Mulder made the first
move again. He had to because Jake wouldn't, afraid that anything
from him would be misconstrued. He pulled Jake into a brief, rough
embrace. 

     Alone, Jake went a little way up the shell path towards the
villa, marveling on how _clean_ he felt. Pausing, he looked back
and saw that Mulder's stride had lengthened. He was nearly running.
Dana Scully was standing at the top of the walk, tapping her foot
as she waited. Her arms were crossed, but her smile was radiant. 

     Jake turned away rather than witness their meeting.

     Alex had never loved him that way. She had loved only Alex,
had seen only the world by how it touched her. Elliot, however, did
love him, Elliot who was a color blind to sex as anyone Jake had
ever known. Love was love. Just that. 

     What had Elliot told him once? Everyone had many sides. Alex
and now Lisa appealed to Jake's male side, Elliot to his female
side.  Some day, some muscle-bound surfer might appeal to another.
Who knew, maybe even an ex-nun in time. Mulder and Scully loved
him, too, but in a different way. Somewhere there must be someone
who could - if not love all the sides of him - at least understand
them all. One special person; one who would stay.       

     Out there on that priceless night before the races when they
had sat on the sand and just talked, Mulder had hinted that he was
on some mysterious quest and from day to day didn't always know
where it would take him, where he was going. Maybe not, but at
least he had his Scully, his light, to make his path a little
easier to follow. 

     Someday, Jake knew, he would find his light and he would shout
the news to Elliot and Lisa and Mulder and Scully and they would be
happy for him. For now that would have to do.
     
The End (Now I can finally get back to REVELATIONS 3: The
vacation.)