JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (1/25)
by Windsinger@aol.com (Wind)
Completed 5/31/99

Rating: NC/17 (at least), M/M (with extenuating circumstances),
MSR, Muldertorture, Scullyangst. X-over with Jake of Red Shoes
Diaries and my earlier novel 'Jake's Luck'.

Synopsis: Jake Simmons has joined a secluded, erotic sex club,
though you could very definitely say that 'His demon made him do
it.' While trying to deal with all this he runs into an old
friend who needs his help very badly. Time to return a favor,
Jake. Takes place between FTF and the sixth season.

Disclaimer: No, none of the 'good guys' portrayed here belong to
me. Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and Walter Skinner belong to Chris
Carter and 1014 Productions. Jake belongs to Zalman King and Red
Shoes Diaries and Lisa and Elliot Slater belong to Anne Rice.

Author's Notes: At last I found sequel material for my novella,
Jake's Luck (Jake of Red Shoes Diaries). This is also a cross
over with the Anne Rice's erotic book, Exit to Eden, and is thus
very NC/17 but not X-rated. As for whether I would call it
'slash' I would not say that it was about gays any more than it
is about straights. Let's just say that these people are very
ecumenical about their preferences. It is also about as much a
'buddy' story as a rescue story, as a Jake redemption story, as
it is a sexual fantasy. Scully fans beware, she doesn't appear
here much until the end though she is missed terribly. Also, if
you can't stand the thought of Mulder being willing to get it on
with anyone else but Scully, even when he's not quite himself,
then pass this by.

Background Material:
"Welcome to the Club." For those of you who have read Anne
Renald's, (AKA Anne Rice's) erotic sado-masochistic fantasy EXIT
TO EDEN, you'll recognize the phrase and know what the Club is.
Amazingly enough, I found the book in the public library.
Elsewhere I had seen a reference that Anne Rice wrote soft porn
under that pseudonym. As I was gazing through the electronic card
catalog looking for a sequel to the Servant of the Bones (Now
there's an X-File), I saw that, impossibly, pre-X-File co-star
Gillian Anderson was co-reader on a recorded book of Exit to
Eden. Impossibly still, my branch had a copy and it was in!
(Abridged, but what the heck!)

     This is not Gillian Anderson as you have ever heard her.
THIS is bad girl Gillian. Leather and cigarette and lace and a
throaty voice like fine liqueur. Since anywhere out of a big city
you are unlikely to find either the book, Exit to Eden, or the
tape (our system had one copy of the book which has much more S&M
details than the recording), I'll give a synopsis here. As a
review, let me say first that the book promises a lot at the
beginning but doesn't deliver as much as it promises. It is,
however, fine, fine fuel for those of us with depraved
imaginations. I think many will say that my story also promises
more than it delivers. Certainly in terms of blatant descriptions
of sexual acts it falls in that respect - I just can't write that
stuff - but I believe it will be more than sufficient to ignite
your own imagination and I'll let you all take it from there.

     Exit to Eden: Summary. (Anne Rice, forgive me.)
     The handsome, young war photographer, Elliot Slater, just
can't find satisfaction. His father raises him to enjoy the taste
of exotic prostitutes, both male and female. A daredevil in his
work, he finds his sexual niche within an S&M house. Unable to
get enough, he indentures himself for two years of abject
servitude to the Club, an exclusive tropical resort island where
S&M rules. As a slave he owns nothing and has no rights. His
personal trainer is Lisa, the Perfectionist, who is going through
a crisis of her own. Unlimited casual sex, no matter how erotic,
is just lacking that certain something. She and Elliot find what
each is lacking in each other and eventually marry. Oddly enough,
they don't leave the Club. Content, Lisa continues as head
trainer and Elliot sheds his slave status for the joys of
management and all the perks that come with it. This arrangement
is just fine with everyone.

     Jake's Luck by Windsinger@aol.com (Wind): Summary (XFF X-
over with Red Shoes Diaries)
     Brilliant young architect Jake Simmons' fianc‚e, Alex,
committed suicide 2 years before this story opens. He has been
suffering from severe depression ever since. To try to understand
her betrayal of their relationship and her suicide, he has
requested that people share their broken love stories with him by
sending them to a post box under the name 'Red Shoes'. This is
the plot of Red Shoes Diaries (what plot there is). When 'Jake's
Luck' opens he has recovered enough to come to Washington to an
architectural convention. He is mistaken for Mulder by some of
his enemies and kidnapped. The kidnappers send their victim's
picture to the FBI where, after some confusion, it becomes
obvious that the kidnap victim is not Mulder. Though forced off
the case for his own safety and for that of the victim, Mulder
tracks the kidnapper to where Jake is being held. He switches
places, thus sending a much-damaged Jake off into the seedier
side of D.C. to find Scully to come rescue him. While being held
captive in the gutted ruins of an old furnace, Mulder is visited
by the ghost of Alex who has been silently haunting Jake since
her death. Alex has a pretty strange and healthy sexual appetite
for a dead person. To make it short, Jake delivers the message,
Alex holds off the bad guys until the FBI can charge in with the
cavalry and Jake returns to the West Coast. There is a new twist,
however. Alex's ghost, now that she has wetted her sexual
appetite with Mulder, is not as quiet as she was before.

JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (1/25)
By Wind (Windsinger@aol.com) (alias Sue Esty)

Chapter 1

     Rudi, supervising attendant for the second shift, looked up
from his packing as the outer door signal chimed its distinctive
three-note motif. Five individuals were ushered in by one of the
airstrip's welcoming staff. Four of the five, three men and one
woman, looked very much like any other group of business people
Rudi greeted and served during his day. All four wore power
suits. All had that stiff air of wealth and authority.

     On any other day, Rudi would have zeroed in on the blond man
that walked side by side with the woman. The man had that
unmistakable look of one of Rudi's ilk. The blond man, however,
had all the mannerisms of the hard, control type. Not Rudi's
fruit of choice.

     It was to the fifth member that Rudi directed his attention.
The man was the youngest of the group though not all that young -
clearly somewhere in his thirties. He was dressed in tailored
slacks and wore a stylish silk shirt. Both were wrinkled as
though he'd slept quite some time in them. His dark hair was
tousled. There was no sense of power about this one. He simply
looked tired. There were dark patches about his drooping, half-
closed eyes. Stumbling over the rough 'stone' floor, he was
steadied by the largest of the suited men. Momentarily distracted
from the younger man by this hulking companion, Rudi took note of
the thick neck and small eyes.

     'Bodyguard,' came immediately to Rudi's mind and didn't give
the hulk another thought. This Neanderthal was not his type
either. The man was probably not anyone's type. Besides, nearly
all of the Cavern's patrons had at least one bodyguard in tow.
These were money people, after all. Big money.

     Rudi's eyes would have returned to the lean and tired
younger man but the woman in the group began speaking. She didn't
look half-bad herself. Out of habit, Rudi peeled her tailored
business suit away in his mind. What he found was more than
acceptable for a woman her age.

     "I'm Natasha Haley and we're Johnson Forsyth's party," she
announced pleasantly.

     Rudi nodded, his surfer mop of sun-bleached hair, bobbing in
time. "Yes, we've been expecting you, though we had your arrival
scheduled for eleven a.m." He looked down at his computer console
and began hunting about with mouse and keys for the record he
wanted.

     "We were delayed by weather coming out of the Philippines,"
the woman replied casually. As Rudi worked, she nodded towards
the half-full cardboard box sitting next to his computer and
asked conversationally, "Going somewhere?"

     "My last day," Rudi answered, absently, still hunting.

     "You didn't like it here?"

     "On the contrary, I love it here. I came in with the
standard two-year contract and they let me extend it month to
month while I looked for a job Stateside. I've been here almost
an additional year. I wasn't even looking very hard when my old
gym in San Francisco called unexpectedly and offered me a good
position on their staff, a _very_ good position." Though his eyes
were still on the computer, Rudi exhibited his very expensive and
practiced smile. "Here it is. I see that Sherman has already sent
in the necessary paperwork - vital statistics, references,
medical history, experience, special needs, talents," Rudi's eye
brows rose in appreciation at this last item.

     "About his 'special needs,'" Natasha Haley began, "Mr.
Forsyth was assured that they would not be a problem."

     Rudi raised his smoothly tanned hands in a gesture of peace.
The movement made every perfect muscle in his torso ripple. "Most
of the Cavern guests have special requirements or they wouldn't
be here. They'd be," he inclined his head towards the door, "out
on the main grounds, mingling with our regular clientele and
being worked by our regular staff."

     Her lavender eyes twinkled. "But Cavern residents retain
their privacy, which is why their patrons pay such exorbitant
prices for your services."

     Rudi acknowledged with a nod. "True." Typing expertly, Rudi
asked, "Has Mr. Forsyth provided you with any schedule of when he
plans to visit? A general idea will do, just so the staff can
prepare."

     "Mr. Forsyth and a party of from three to five plan to come
in every Friday and leave sometime on Sunday. Your people will be
responsible for Isaac's care the rest of the week. Is that
acceptable?"

     "Mr. Forsyth's agreement with management is for unlimited
use of the facilities and food and lodging for the equivalent of
ten visitors a week - in addition to Isaac's contact, of course."
Rudi's eyes had found an excuse to return to the new member of
the Cavern's household, odd sort of household as it may be.
Noting that the woman followed his gaze, Rudi returned to his
original train of thought. "Mr. Forsyth may use his ten days any
way he wishes: ten persons on one day, five persons for two days.
More than that and the fee is five hundred per person per day. We
only ask for some notice for the kitchens and housekeeping."

     "Not a problem." The woman followed Rudi's gaze. Her next
words were tinged with something like sympathy but with a false
ring to it. "We've been assured that Isaac won't be bothered
during the week. He's been through some significant psychological
trauma. He and Mr. Forsyth have mutually decided that peace and
quiet is what he needs."

     Rudi glanced over at 'Isaac' again. The younger man had
folded into a chair that was designed to look like a rock and was
just about as comfortable. People who came to the Caverns didn't
spend their time sitting around lobbies. He was leaning over,
head in hands. Rudi assessed the shoulders, the long back and
narrow waist and very much liked what he saw. Remembering the
face, he liked that, too, a unique, sensitive face and as pretty
as a man can be and still be completely masculine. The exquisite
features had been gray with fatigue, however. No, Rudi thought.
Mr. Forsyth's 'companion' was more out-of-it than tired.

     "We would like to get settled as soon as possible," Natasha
hinted, gently breaking into Rudi's leisurely evaluation.

     "Oh, sorry. As I said, we have Sherman's excellent
references - and his is the very best House in the Bay Area - but
we do require that each new guest take part in a short interview
and exam upon arrival. How our residents want to spend their time
once they're here, as long as they allow the Club to fulfill its
end of the agreement with their patrons, is entirely their own
affair. For the Club's own protection, however, we are required
to make absolutely certain that all are placing themselves under
contract by their own volition." Isaac was still leaning wearily
over his knees. "Are you certain he's well?" Rudi asked. "Is he
up to this now?"

     Haley raised her chin and turned in a smooth, fluid motion
towards the men of her group. "Up to it? Well, no, maybe not that
at the moment. It was, after all, a very long and boring plane
ride and with the delays..." Rudi noticed that the men all looked
a little smug at that and the same satisfied arc could be seen on
the woman's lips as she turned back to Rudi. "So, yes, he is
understandably tired at the moment. Perhaps if you could show us
Mr. Forsyth's suite and allow Isaac to lie down for a few
minutes? He'll be better able to answer your question after a
short rest."

     Disappointed at missing a chance to get to know the Cavern's
newest piece of ass, Rudi frowned a little, an unusual expression
on his strong, handsome face. "It's not standard procedure, but I
think we can accommodate such a reasonable request. Come, I'll
show you the way. My shift ends in twenty minutes, but Ingrid,
the third shift attendant, can perform the interview just as
easily as I could when she arrives."

     Like the employee of any good hotel, Rudi came around the
desk to lead the way with an outstretched arm. Most hotel
employees, however, lacked Rudi's compact, muscular physique that
was in full view for the first time. Except for a narrow strip of
flesh-toned Speedo, Rudi was indeed in full view, from the edge
of his light sandals to the top of his sun-bleached head. Natasha
dropped in beside him, leaving the men of her party to follow
behind. It was the oldest member of the group, a gaunt, gray-
haired man, who raised Isaac to his feet. The bodyguard trailed
at the end of the line. Rudi's body language indicated that he
would have preferred to walk with Isaac himself. Before he could
change his position in line, however, a middle-aged man with a
family resemblance to the woman took up the space at Rudi's left
side.

     "My brother and Mr. Forsyth's private secretary, Keith
Haley," the woman introduced as they began walking.

     The Cavern's foyer was huge, rising ten to twelve stories.
Its designer had intended for it to look like it had blasted from
the inside of a mountain, all rough stone and indirect, recessed
lighting. Las Vegas or a perverted Disney 'Imagineer' could not
have done better. A ramp curved up and around the inside of the
cavern. Recesses spaced along the rising ramp marked the
entrances to the suites.

     "So this is your last day?" the man, Keith, asked, his
directed friendliness, distracting Rudi's continued interest in
Isaac. "Are you unhappy about leaving? Most would consider this
place the ultimate fantasy. To actually work here... Leaving must
be hard."

     Rudi's smile was genuine. "It is the ultimate fantasy island
and my time here has been an experience I'll always remember, but
after a while it becomes just a job. Hard to believe, but true.
When it ceases being a fantasy and starts being routine, that's
when it's time to leave. Still..." As they arrived at one of the
recesses, Rudi's eyes drifted back towards the new arrival. The
attendant's tender expression indicated that he would be more
than willing to relieve the weariness in that tired body with its
bowed shoulders and not find the task at all routine.

     Pale light began to glow as they entered the recess. Before
the visitors there seemed to be only another stone wall, though
one smoother than most of the others. Rudi waved his hand over a
section of the stone. The section began glowing faintly red. As
if by magic, a panel slid open exposing the keypad for an
electronic lock. "Here is your temporary combination," Rudi said,
smoothly keying in a series of numbers. "Our facilities people
will come by in a little while and show you how the in-house
computer works. The computer controls just about everything. You
can change the combination as you wish, though as our contract
with Mr. Forsyth clearly states that the establishment has the
right to override at need."

     "Understood," Natasha said, then her cool expression opened
to one of wonder as the 'solid' back wall of the recess opened
along an invisible seam. After passing a short hall with
branching corridors leading off to other parts of the apartment,
the entryway opened onto the apartment's huge main room.

     Heavy drapes the same stone-gray color as the walls were
pulled back to reveal a panorama that rivaled few others. Every
eye was caught by that view except for Isaac's which were still
directed at the floor.

     "Naturally, I read Forsyth's brochures but this is amazing!"
the habitually restrained Keith exclaimed excitedly.

     Rudi's expression was all smug pride. "It's one of our best
views. Mr. Forsyth spared no expense. Isaac will be very
comfortable here, as will Mr. Forsyth and his guests when they
come to visit." Almost eagerly, Rudi turned to where the older
man was assisting Isaac to sit on the edge of the room's low
central dais which with its thick padding and strewn as it was
with pillows was nothing more or less than a huge bed.

     "Isaac, if there is anything I can do..." Rudi offered,
striding forward. The vulnerable, bowed head did not lift.
Intercepting the attendant with what once must have been
exceptional litheness, Keith spoke, "You know, Rudi, I'd like to
finish getting settled. Why don't you walk with me back down to
the foyer and point me towards the plane. I'll go out and direct
our luggage."

     "Sir, I will take care of that," Rudi interposed.

     "'Sir,'" Keith repeated with a frown, draping his arm around
the attendant's muscular shoulders, "makes me feel old. I'm not
as old as all that. It's a beautiful day and I want to wander a
bit. Besides, this being your last day you must have a million
more important things to do than coordinate the delivery of our
luggage."

     Rudi hesitated. "I do, as a matter of fact. Still..." He
made an attempt to move towards the drooping form of Isaac who
had been told to take off his shoes and who was fumbling with the
task. Before Rudi could complete one step, however, Keith had the
attendant by the arm in a firm but friendly grip and was
propelling him towards the door. "Don't worry. Dr. Stein is Mr.
Forsyth's personal physician. He'll see that Isaac's taken care
of. He just needs a little rest so he'll be ready for Ingrid. You
did say that it would be Ingrid who would be interviewing him, is
that right?"

     "Hmmm? Oh, yes." To Isaac, he said over his shoulder as
Keith led him out, "I hope you enjoy your time here..."

     Rudi never got a truly close look at the new resident's face
so he never saw the lost soul that sought vainly to stare out of
the nearly lifeless eyes.


     Talking easily and having mentioned that she wanted to look
at the activity calendar she'd seen displayed near the desk in
the lobby, Natasha accompanied Keith and Rudi. The three talked
amiably as they moved down the ramp. Before they made it back to
the desk, however, there sounded the familiar trill of a cellular
phone. Rudi's. With an apologetic glance at the brother and
sister, the attendant deftly removed the tiny instrument from the
abbreviated leather holster he wore - which was just about all he
wore besides the Speedo and matching sandals - and took the call.

     He was frowning slightly as he returned the instrument to
its pouch. "One of the other residents has a question about their
financial status with the island. Must be a computer error." He
shrugged. "I'll have to go deal with it."

     "No problem," Keith said, smoothly. "Besides, I think I can
find the airstrip from here. It's a very big plane." With a
slight bow, Rudi trotted back up the ramp, his muscles flowing
easily under his skin as Keith and Natasha watched.

     "Yes, they certainly do have some fine views around here,"
Natasha noted appreciatively, and clearly Keith thought the same
though he didn't allow himself to be distracted for only long.
With swift, silent steps he moved towards Rudi's desk, an intense
expression on his face. By the time he had seated himself before
the computer there was a compact disk in his hand which he
smoothly fitted in the CD drive on Rudi's PC. A few clicks from
the mouse as it crossed the screen and the program Keith had
brought loaded soundlessly. A few more clicks and a sly smile
brightened Keith's features. "Whatever you paid for this, it was
worth it," he whispered towards where Natasha stood and kept
watch. "It's just what we wanted. Rudi's report of his interview
with 'Isaac' is now right where it should be. A simple
description of an extremely shy and slightly depressed male of
thirty-five all stored under Rudi's password and in Rudi's style.
It even includes some of Rudi's most common misspellings. No one
would guess he didn't type it himself as one of his last official
duties."

     Natasha made a circling motion in the air with one hand,
indicating a need for haste. "All right already," came her soft
voice. "You've successfully managed to separate 'Isaac' and
Forsyth, just as you planned. Put the screen back where it was
and get out of there. Rudi may be back any minute."

     But it was the attendant Ingrid who strolled into the foyer
less than a minute later. Her blond hair nearly covered her high,
firm breasts whose fullness were supported by the skimpiest of
halters. The little ballet skirt barely brushed the bottom of her
buttocks. An outfit that concealed less than it revealed. Keith
found himself surprisingly flustered for a man with his appetite.

     Natasha did the talking.

     Ten minutes later she breezed into Forsyth's assigned
'Cave', her eyes glittering.

     "Perfect, everyone, perfect!" The bodyguard, Sam, appeared
from an alcove. Keith paused in his search for more cubbyholes
hidden cleanly away behind the 'stone' walls. Stein looked up
from where he was examining the Welcome Basket that had been left
in the room. Only 'Isaac' made no move that he had heard - if he
had heard. He remained curled defensively on his side on the
dais.

     "Dr. Stein," Natasha said to the tall, thin physician, "your
call came right on time. When Rudi got back from his wild goose
chase with scant minutes left to catch his plane, Ingrid
generously informed him that I had introduced myself and filled
her in on Isaac and everything relating to his care. Of course,
Rudi thinks that Ingrid will be handling Isaac's interview and
Ingrid believes that Rudi is a prince and left her with no loose
ends to tidy up."

     "There is one," Stein said, pulling an empty plastic vial
from the Welcome Basket. "As part of the interview, Rudi would
have gotten a urine sample from the new resident. They don't care
what legal or illegal mind-blowing junk their guests use once
they're here, but the Club's management is strict about their
guests being relatively clean and sober for their interview." He
inclined his head towards the dark-haired man curled on the bed.
"In his present state, anything from that one would light up
their mass spectrometer like a Christmas tree."

     Natasha snatched up the cup. "But Rudi did get the urine
sample. In his rush to answer his page, he just forgot to take it
with him. Keith, you can forge his handwriting by now, can't you?
The label needs to be authenticated by a Club employee. Now..."
She looked around at the three men. "Stein," she purred, "want to
volunteer?"

     The older man shrugged helplessly. "I just went."

     With a slight frown, Natasha turned to her brother. "You on
your regular poison, darling?" she asked with a curled lip. An
unapologetic nod confirmed her suspicions. Her frown deepened to
a menacing grimace as she turned to the last man in the group.
"Sam? You'd better be pristine or it's your job." The bodyguard
looked up blankly. "You on anything?" she repeated. "Even cough
medicine?"

     The bodyguard grunted and reluctantly took the little vial
in his huge paw before trudging off into one of the shadowed
alcoves to find a bathroom.

     "Throw it in the kitchen freezer for a minute or two before
you take it downstairs," Stein called out. "Can't have it warm,"
he explained to the others.

     Natasha was smiling again. "Anything else? Then there's
nothing left for us to do now is there and we still have twenty-
four hours before Forsyth expects us back." She had strolled over
towards the dais, allowing her hand to drift over Isaac's unkempt
hair. His only response was to shudder at her touch and burrow
deeper into the cushions.

     Stein held up a gleaming bracelet that he'd also pulled from
the Welcome Basket. "Might as well get this over with," he said,
dropping it into Natasha's palm. "Left wrist."

     With some effort the two of them pulled Isaac's left arm
free from where he had curled it protectively close to his body.
His entire form trembled as Natasha fastened the green and gold
chain around his wrist. On the bracelet's nameplate, the single
word, 'Isaac', was etched as well as a barcode. On the reverse
was inscribed the name of his patron, 'Forsyth'. The metal
glittered in the recessed lighting.

     At that moment Keith uttered a long, low whistle of
amazement. "You still looking for something to do to pass the
time?" Keith asked. "I know what I'd like to do." He had found
another of the almost imperceptible protrusions on the rough,
'rock' wall and pressed it. A section of the wall had opened to
reveal a long, tall cupboard. He was standing and staring at the
contents.

     "Now Mama didn't birth no fool, but take a look at this and
tell me I'm not dreaming!" Eagerly, Natasha joined him and she
wasn't disappointed. "Talk about your adult toy stores!" Keith
exclaimed.

     Natasha reached into the cabinet that greeted her with that
sweet, unmistakable scent of leather. There were also other
scents, some flowery, other s thick and musky. From the enticing
selection of objects, she pulled out a set of padded cuffs joined
with a chain and let them swing seductively from his slender
hand.

     "Hmmm, there are certainly possibilities here."

     "Wouldn't you say that we've done well, Nate? The old man
wouldn't begrudge his hardworking employees a little reward,
would he?"

     Clearly aware of where this conversation was leading, Dr.
Stein reached for his black bag and pulled out a syringe and a
bottle of fluid that gleamed so bright in the dim light that it
might as well have been liquid gold.

     "How much?" he asked, indifferently.

     "Oh, a full dose this time, I think," Natasha replied,
pulling out of the cabinet cuffs and chains, a gag, an
incomprehensible leather harness and a slender whip. "Let's see
what government men are really capable of. After all, he'll have
all week to recover here in his pretty and oh-so-expensive cage
before Forsyth drops in for his first visit. And we really should
invite Ingrid up to join the games once they're well underway. It
wouldn't hurt for her to see 'Isaac' here displaying his
considerable talents just in case we slipped up somewhere and she
finds that the admitting procedure were not handled perfectly."

     "Besides," Keith remarked, with a smirk in Natasha's
direction as he threw his suit coat over a chair, "I'll bet the
lovely Natasha can show you a thing or two."

     Shrugging her elegant shoulder, Natasha slid out of her own
jacket and let it fall on the floor. Even Sam, who had returned
from his errand, began loosening his tie. "Order some food from
the kitchen, before we get too involved, won't you, Keith? You
have such good taste. A feast. Strenuous activity always makes me
hungry. It's all on Forsyth's tab anyway."

     Stein was already kneeling on the dais, syringe primed. He
had rolled the Club's brand new resident onto his back and was
attempting to unbutton the sweaty and expensive silk shirt. Once
again Isaac was holding his arms close to his body in a vain
attempt to protect himself. His feeble efforts to prevent the
doctor from having success with the buttons was thwarted by
Natasha who easily pinned one arm while Stein restrained the
other.  The shirt soon disappeared. The syringe was in Isaac's
field of vision now and for the first time since the group had
arrived on the island, the eyes focused. Body bucking now, back
arching, clawed fingers raking the bed's acre of black spread, it
took the addition of Sam's massive hands to hold down the
terrified, thrashing man.

     For all its fury, the battle was brief. There was, after
all, no hope of his winning.

     "Now, now, my stubborn one," Natasha cooed, voice of silk
wrapped steel. "What's all the fuss? It's just a little stick and
you know how much you enjoy what follows. Besides, you are so
good at it. At this point it would be almost a shame if you did
talk."

     As she and Stein worked to get the needle into the much-
abused vein on the leanly muscular arm, neither looked at their
victim's face. Sweat had broken out on the pale skin, and the
hollows in which his eyes sat appeared even more darkly bruised
than before. As for the hazel eyes themselves, they were no
longer empty. When not obscured by tears, sorrow and a soul-deep
despair burned out of their infinite depths.

End of Chapter 1
JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (2/25)
by Wind (Windsinger@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See chapter 1
           &nb sp;           & nbsp; ;
Chapter 2

     Voices. There were times when he felt his universe was
little more than voices. Murmuring, biting, rumbling, shouting,
cursing, scornfully laughing voices, but very few recognizable
words. Either he was too drugged to make out the words, too
stubborn to listen or too close to unconsciousness to care. Most
of the weeks - or had it been months? - he had spent as their
prisoner had been filled with such voices.

     Mostly the voices floated up as if from under water. Once
reaching him, however, they hung around like fat black crows,
endlessly circling above his prone body. Because he was prone
almost all the time, it was a wonder he didn't have bed sores.
Maybe he did but just didn't know it.

     There were times when the world wasn't so muddy. They'd
inject potion Number Two into his arm and catapult him up out of
Potion Number One's gray stupor and into a blaze of unnatural
light and sound. At those times everything was too harsh, too
bright. Then the words came at him clear and sharp as knives.
Then he couldn't keep the voices out of his head. They tumbled
over each other, intertwining like mating snakes. The topic was
always information and if the information they wanted was
something a madman might possess, then they may just get it in
the end. While the faceless, nameless voices behind the lights
yelled and cajoled, he was busy ignoring them, quietly and
effectively dissociating into a few dozen itty-bitty pieces.

     He was slowly losing his mind and there was nothing he could
do. Months before when his innate obstinacy had first broken
down, he had talked but they hadn't seemed the least bit
interested in what he had to say. Maybe that was because he
really didn't possess the kind of secrets anyone wanted to listen
to.

     The only events that stood out from this period were the few
instances when they were late with his medication. Then he had
actually been able to feel the poisons sweating out of his pours,
leeching out of his system. He actually saw his tiny cell then:
six white surfaces broken only by a commode in the corner and a
tiny sink. This was his universe - these and the white iron cot
complete with the manacle for his ankle and its chain. During
those few minutes he had at least been able to put enough
thoughts together to at least contemplate escape. There had never
been very much time for that, however. Try as he might to act as
if his brain were still just a ball of fuzz in the hope that
they'd forget, some staff person always remembered. A little man
in a white steward's coat like on a cruise ship would come
scurrying in at the last minute with his blunt little needle and
down Mulder would go in a cloud of Haldol or whatever it was they
used to drag him under.

     Such times, however, were the exception. Most of the time
nothing mattered. Around and around, up and down, no time in the
rational center, nothing of the man he had been remained. There
was just existence from one swell to the next. The interrogations
had become almost routine for both sides and no one forgot his
medication any more or if they did, he didn't notice. Once when
Stein was lazily snapping on the rubber tourniquet one more time,
a coherent thought managed to writhe its way out of the fog:
Would they someday let him go just from sheer boredom? No, but
out of that boredom his chief tormentor decided to try a new kind
of physical torture and found to his black-hearted delight that
he liked the way Fox Mulder could be made to squirm. Mulder took
pain in stride as his due in life, but Forsyth's idea of fun bit
deep.

     Over time, the interrogations continued as frequently as
before, but they lessened in length and intensity. It was as if
what always came after - like dessert - had taken on the greater
significance. Certainly Forsyth's choice of dessert lengthened
and diversified even though all he could touch at that point was
flesh, a shell without much of a mind.

     Then had come Potion Number Three, an experiment suggested
by Dr. Stein who kept a professional eye on the development of
such creative chemistry, and everything had changed.

     The gods help him if they ever worked themselves up to
Potion Number Nine.

     So it had gone. Even with the arrival of Stein's molten
gold, most of Mulder's days were still spent in communion with
drug Number One and its hours of vacuumed nothingness. At those
times sight and hearing and the connections to his body were
blurry and out of focus, his thoughts barely bumping into each
other. Then came Potion Two that spiraled him up into the mind-
burning and body-bruising brightness of the interrogations. These
sessions always concluded now with Dr. Stein's golden cocktail,
the explosion of his own private volcano and oblivion, only to
rise out of the ooze hours or days later back at stage one - as
insubstantial and helpless as a petal blown about on the wind.

     Around and around and around. World without beginning or
end.

     Finally, blessedly, a change in routine. Barely able to
walk, two men and helped him outside, into the air and onto... a
plane. Still in la-la land, the disjointed images of metal and
cloth and stair had been slow to congeal and make any sense to
his drug-soaked brain. His body, however, had registered the feel
and the vibration of the engines and the exhilarating surge of
the take off through the seat they had strapped him in. Soon
after take off, he had been taken to a hard, narrow bunk in the
rear of the private jet and held down while Stein did something
to his leg that burned like fire. All in all, the operation had
come and gone quickly enough and hadn't taken up much of the long
flight time. What had been left was more boredom for the group
and so they had reached for, as usual, their favorite victim and
a little of Poison Number Two to bring him up and little of
Number Three to send him flying. At least they hadn't used much
of Number Three, they didn't have that much time and the hard,
closed confines of the plane didn't make an extended session
practical.

     What this meant was that when they landed, he had some of
the stimulant still in his system. This only happened rarely now
and only in that narrow window between the interrogations and Dr.
Stein's arrival with his special recipe. During these times,
Mulder could almost hear things and see things normally. Those
few moments of clarity were almost worth the pain that came
before and the hell that came after.

     They had to lift him from the plane because his coordination
still wasn't up to handling stairs but, once they had reached the
ground they had allowed him to walk some distance across tarmac
and walkway and grass on his own. The bodyguard's big fist had
been wrapped around his arm but other than that, he was without
manacles for longer than he could remember! Too battered and
dazed to question, he had given himself up to just absorbing the
warm sun and balmy tropical breeze on his pale skin. You can't
disguise sun like that and air like that even from a man who has
been drugged to the gills for who knew how many weeks. He didn't
fight or try to escape. He'd learned with bruises and imaginable
pain how futile that was.

     He became aware of their voice again only after he was led
inside someplace dark and cool. Just that short walk and so
tired. He found something hard and uncomfortable to sit on and
nobody stopped him. He sat and tried to concentrate. He should be
able to, but nothing came. Not one clear thought. Someone took
his arm and led him up a path that curved up and on and on. The
floor was not completely smooth either. When he stumbled, he was
pulled upright. At least whoever his attendant was this time, he
was more thoughtful then most. He didn't just let his charge
fall. Finally, they entered some dark, enclosed space, enclosed
but still enormous compared to the four low walls of his tiny,
white cell.

     Someone pushed him down onto a soft surface then ordered him
with tones close to his ear to remove his shoes. He did try,
though bending over that far made him dizzy. If he at least
tried, however, they usually left him alone. Somehow he managed,
though the activity exhausted him further. He then curled up on
the bed hoping to sleep but wasn't allowed to for long. First
they pulled at his arm and put something cold around his wrist
that was surprisingly lighter than the heavy metal of a handcuff
ring. A few minutes later they began to unbutton his shirt. That
was when a little surge of panic managed to make its way through
the fog. No... not again. They easily batted his protesting hands
away. Now the shirt was gone. They pushed him down flat against
the mattress. His insides began to writhe. He wondered if it
showed, if it pleased them? Titillating? He wished he could stop
the fear or at least his reaction to it though it was good to
feel something again, even fear.

     There was another voice now and it was close. The words
slammed into him like blows. Someone on his left side, forced his
bent arm straight to get to the vein. All the strength and will
under his control, which wasn't much, went into fighting what
they would do next. There was always more than one of them,
however. How they laughed at this point, amazed that he meekly
accepted the stimulant that was given before interrogations but
fought this.

     He didn't fight from choice; he fought because the invasion
struck at the core of his concept of Self. He loathed the madness
this particular potion brought.

     But was that true? Didn't he hate most the small part of
himself that enjoyed what he would do now? It did release the
raging, desperate animal that had been kept far too long in its
tiny cage. That was a good thing, wasn't it? Like the fear, at
least under the bright drug's fire he could feel and fight and
hate in some way even if it were the way an animal fights and
hates. Better than no feeling at all. Better than being always
dead and alone inside.

           &nbs p;  * * * * * * * *

The Club
Twelve Weeks Later

     The tall, beautiful woman snapped the leather strap back
onto her belt. Slowly, like a wilted plant coming to life again,
Jake let his breath trickle out. It was over then, the scourge of
leather against his skin. Not hard, not at first, but again and
again and again. It stimulated the nerve endings, brought all the
blood to the surface, gave him wings. Something soft etched his
right cheek - the one below his waist not the one above - and it
could have been a feather or a knife or a burning brand. It all
felt the same in his current hypersensitized state. He swayed,
letting his wrists wrapped in their soft padded cuffs take more
of his weight.

     The touch became a slap, a hard one that woke him fully.

     "Ah, no, Jacob. By now you should know better than that.
Stand straight, stand tall and take it. You can take it, can't
you precious?"

     He smiled. Though not perfectly symmetrical, it was an
angelic smile and a little mischievous.

     "You're incorrigible, do you know that?" she asked in that
husky, throaty siren voice of hers.

     "As you say, Lisa."

     "I say."  She began running her fingertips over his skin.
The blood rushed back and forth, back and forth like the surf
when the sea is running high. The electricity began at the soles
of his feet and the crown of his head and met in that very
special place in between like a star poised just on the brink of
going nova. But Jake must control, he couldn't allow the nearly
bursting star to explode. Not until she told you that you could.
It was sheer bliss, it was sheer torture, today more than ever.

     Lisa had 'worked' his body for more than two hours and given
him no release. Incredible. When he'd arrived ten weeks before,
thinking himself so worldly and experienced, he had not been able
to last five minutes with Lisa without embarrassing himself. That
would never do, Lisa had told him that second day while she
pushed something unmentionable up into his body and told what to
do with it.

     Lisa, 'The Perfectionist', was a pro and she owed it to him
and to the members of the Club - to his future 'clients' - to see
that both sides got their money's worth. And Lisa knew her job.
She was, after all, the best trainer the Club had. She could whip
an initiate into shape in no time flat.

     No pun intended.

     You learned patience with Lisa. You learned to love and fear
how she could make your body feel. You learned to desire how she
could make skin and bone and muscle and hair turn to fire and
jelly at the same time. And you learned that you would do
anything she asked you to do... anything... if only she could
make you feel that way just one more time.

     The tension was so incredible this time that there was a
puddle of his sweat where his feet barely touched the floor. He
was light headed from the loss of that sweat and the heat and the
blood that had run down from his arms and down from his head to
make its own pool center stage.

     Like a sensuous alleycat, Lisa began to lick at his sweat.
She was not only tall; she was what people called 'statuesque'.
Even hung by his wrists as he was, she could lick his shoulders
with no problem. She did that now, her breasts framed in their
leather and lace brushing his flaming skin. The tip of a tongue
touched one nipple. Jake gasped, clutched his teeth harder than
he thought possible and forced down the mad animal in his groin
that raged against the bars of its prison. Tears began to roll
uncontrolled down his face as his body began slowly to convulse.

     She touched one tear with the tip of a perfect finger and
licked it, then she put her arms around him. At first she only
rested her head against his chest listening to the frantic
drumming of his heart. Finally, she reached up and unclasped the
cuffs around his wrists and stepped back. Like soft butter, his
body sank boneless into a quivering mass on the floor, one with
his pool of sweat. The returning surge of blood into his brain
brought bright, dark sparkles dancing before his eyes. For a long
moment all was darkness. When the dazzling island sunlight of the
room returned, Jake found Lisa missing. Where?

     "Congratulations, Jacob," came that rich, crooning voice.
From a hand she dangled a red and gold metal bracelet. The Prize.
"Yes, very impressive. Elliot has taught you well."

     She was up on the bed, all that black shiny leather and
white lace backlit by the clouds of white comforters. She made no
motion, granted no boon. He stayed nailed on the floor unable to
stand. He began to shake again with too much adrenaline and
nothing to burn it on but muscle and sinew and nerves. He allowed
his eyes to touch hers just for a second before he cast them down
again. He hoped she had seen what she had wanted to see in his
eyes.

     Clearly she had. The summons came, a barely audible purr
from deep in her chest. He crawled to the bed like a spider on
hands and feet, his legs awkward and too long. Muscles quivering
so that they could barely hold his weight, he finally made it to
the begging place. Now he could kneel. Subservient as he was
taught always to be before trainers and clients, he lowered his
head and exposed his bare mottled back to her. He waited a long,
long time, or so it seemed. Only her breathing in the room and
his and the rustle of the palm fronds outside her window made any
sound. He dare not speak. Only when spoken to. Those were the
rules.

     A slave followed rules.... always... or a slave was
punished. Maybe he cleaned bathrooms on his hands and knees, bare
butt in the air, a target for all. Maybe he'd be assigned to only
new clients for a week, the awkward ones, the rough ones, the
ones who hadn't learned that the exquisite pleasure in their
relationship with any slave in this place was that the giving and
the taking had to go both ways. Worst of all, maybe he'd be given
to the new handlers as their training toy, forced to feign
resistance over and over again and again so that the transgressee
could be brutally 'restrained' just as many times. At the end of
the day more fun; the handlers had a lot of pent up energy to
expend and their practice slaves were ripe for the picking.

     Jake knew he should get into the habit of thinking 'Thrall'
and not 'Slave'. The Island had gone Politically Correct. 'Slave'
was not acceptable by some though the terms were used
interchangeably by most. 'Slave' was certainly the more demeaning
term and always used when a thrall showed any resistance to a
command. That was really the difference, the acceptance of the
thrall's chain was voluntary; when you were forced, that was
slavery. On the island, when you worked for the Club they assumed
that you wanted to be forced and so the difference between the
two became blurred to the point that there was no difference at
all.

     Elliot Slater, Lisa's 'mate' -their relationship was too
weird to be called a marriage - had pushed the term 'thrall' and
had it accepted. 'Thrall' was a medieval, barbaric term, the root
of 'enthrall'.

     "What could be more appropriate?" Elliot had asked. After
all the point of the Club was for slaves to enthrall their
clients and for clients to become enthralled by their slaves.
That was the game. A thrall did whatever was asked of him by any
paying member of the Club - anything - but a thrall was also a
precious thing, treated as if they were a cross between a super
model and a champion greyhound. Exquisite food, baths and saunas
and massages were their due. Their bodies were oiled and
exercised to bring out their beauty. Then there were those, like
Lisa, who trained them and studied them. What turned each of them
on? That was the easy part. But what humiliation turned them
wild, helped them transcend the simple animal pleasure of the
masses to something glorious? _That_ was what the trainers
watched for and honed to a fine rare edge. For the thralls who
signed their lives away for three months to two years were
clients themselves as much as were the paying customers who flew
down to the five-star resort in their Lear jets for a weekend of
Club golf and sunset colored drinks. Oh, yes, and with the
exorbitant price of their rooms came the personal attention that
only the Club's rainbow of beautiful, naked slaves could provide.

     As his body cooled, Jake's bent back began to ache. He could
feel every welt stinking as the air touched them. Cramps crawled
along his leg muscles and all the while the supernova was still
eating him up from the inside. A finger raised his chin. Lisa's
heart-breakingly beautiful face was turned towards him, its
expression languid and slightly disdainful. She seemed as casual
as always, but her eyes this time were over-bright.

     "You may speak, Jacob. Tell me what you want?"

     She could barely make out his words they were so soft, so
penitent. "Whatever Lisa desires."

     She could have strung him along, worse than the hours spent
hung by the hook in the ceiling. She could have made him clean
her room while she watched, requested that he reach high to dust
the non-existent cobwebs from the corners so she could watch his
muscles ripple and gaze upon that one straining muscle, her eyes
on it as cruel as any maddening caress. Instead, incredibly, she
moved back into the center of the bed and patted the space
between her spread knees with her beautiful hand, a hand capable
of bringing so much pleasure and so much pain - usually at the
same time.

     Having lowered his eyes after his request, he kept them
lowered as he crawled, belly down, up onto the bed. She reached
out and patted his dark head as he lay between her legs like a
large, damp pet.

     "You are a pleasure, Jacob. Unfortunately, Elliot and I
can't legitimately keep you with us any longer. You've graduated,
earned your Red Band. Out into the world full time for you."

     His head raised and he stared at the red and gold bracelet
that swung before his eyes. He'd nearly forgotten. The color
meant he was no longer a postulant. He raised his left hand for
her to remove the plain copper bracelet and replace it with the
red-gold one. It was cold on his overheated skin but nevertheless
threatened to burn. The Red Band meant that his partners would no
longer be picked for him in order to be assured that he
experienced the total range of available techniques and
sensations. He would be given a job around the Club where he
could be seen and admired and desired and some wealthy matron or
jet-setting businessman could pick him out and wand in his
number, thus requesting his services. He could be asked to serve
drinks, to play a set of tennis ('au naturale', of course), or to
wash their back. Maybe they just wanted a servant to paw at will
as they ate their caviar and drank their Mimosas around a pool.
Probably his services would be requested for the night, maybe
two.

     Exciting this unknown? Most definitely. Dangerous? Not any
worse than driving the streets around any large city. Elsewhere,
yes. Deadly. But not at the Club. You don't mistreat your
expensive, pampered pets and the thralls are clean and well
trained and all yours. The clients, too, were clean, as clean as
any medical test yet devised by Man could make them, and they
followed the Club's own set of rules for their behavior or they
were shown the door. Everyone also conveniently forgot what they
saw and did at the Club. That would cause too much publicity, the
wrong kind of attention. It would close the place down and no one
wanted that - not the owners, not the trainers, not the clients
and certainly not the thralls.

     Lisa groaned. Occupied as he was, Jacob smiled. He'd been
busy during his musings once the bracelet had been fastened
irrevocably about his wrist, and he'd surprised her. He had a few
tricks up his sleeve Miss Perfection didn't know about, or he
would have had some if he were wearing any - sleeves, that is. So
he was years older than any of the other postulants. There were
advantages to advanced years that the beautiful Lisa was now
going to learn.

End of Chapter 2
JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (3/25)
by Wind (Windsinger@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

Chapter 3

Five days later

     "How are you feeling today, Jake?" The voice, a soft
baritone, was genuinely concerned.

     Jake's brain swam out of the fog left over from the
painkillers. His skin rasped painfully against the soft sheets
but he didn't cry out as he had the day before. His joints and
muscles complained but would work if he asked them to. Jake
didn't ask them to, choosing to remain on his stomach.

     "Better, Elliot," Jake answered truthfully, turning his head
so his cheek rather than his chin was against the mattress.

     Elliot pulled up a chair. He had already raised the hospital
bed to a comfortable level so that the patient didn't have to
move his head very far to see him. The Club kept a well-supplied
and staffed medical center. Keeping your slaves healthy was
serious business. They _were_ the Club's most important resources
after all. Other resorts had golf courses with 'greens' tended to
a billiard table smoothness. Other resorts had sea and sun and
crystal pools and gourmet meals. Only at the Club could the guest
enjoy in the open air, in the light of day, what other resorts
could only provide under the table, after hours, in darkened
rooms or at small private parties.

     "I know I said this the night you were brought in," Elliot
repeated, "but I'll say it again. Lisa and I, the entire
management team, are really sorry that this happened. It's
unforgivable. You are supposed to be protected here from this
sort of thing. And its not like you didn't give the signal to
stop. I've reviewed the tapes."

     Acutely awake now, Jake raised startled eyes. "You tape what
goes on here? You watch? If the guests knew..."

     "Don't be obtuse. Of course, we do. In the main resort
anyway. Our private patrons wouldn't stand for such invasive
tactics but we do here. The tapes help the trainers to see other
sides to their novices. Mostly though, it's for security. You
don't think we need to watch that sort of thing for fun, do you?
Besides, we're discrete - we have to be - but we do have a
reputation to uphold. This is supposed to be a fantasy. A safe,
wild fantasy. No one gets hurt: that's the number one rule. You
have our word, that creep won't get in here again or into any
other reputable establishment despite his millions. You may have
been gagged - nothing unusual about that - but we have six
different signals for 'Stop' and you gave - or attempted to give
if you hadn't been restrained - every one. That - " Elliot used a
word for 'creep' in a language Jake didn't know but the meaning
was clear enough - "blatantly ignored every one."

     Jake let his head fall back onto the clean, white sheets and
closed his eyes, a little lingering nausea twisting his stomach.
If Elliot asked at that moment, he'd have to say that he
remembered very little of that night, that afternoon even.
Everything was a blank since the time he'd been taken by one of
the handlers to the big blond executive's room in blindfold and
gag and leather collar and chains as the guest had requested. It
was the client's prerogative.

     All part of the game.

     As with all the other times, Jake had felt a little sick, a
lot expectant, very aroused. It was like stage fright except for
the arousal part. His demon, however, had been particularly alive
that day and, as always, he'd been eager to give her her fix so
she would leave him in peace. What had she done this time? Gone
too far? But he had given the 'Stop' signals. All of them.
Elliot had a tape. Jake hadn't known until now that she had
access to the level of his brain where he stored such knowledge.
At least she'd tried to keep him from harm. That was some
consolation.

     "You know that this incident nullifies you're contract,
don't you?" Elliot was saying. "You can check out right now and
go home. I truly wanted to see how you were but I'm also here to
bring you the paperwork - if that's what you want to do." Elliot,
just on the near side of fifty and in perfect shape. In body type
he was a cross between Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson only better
looking. Now he gestured towards an expensive leather brief case
sitting on the floor. In his white linen collarless shirt and
cool linen slacks, Elliot had looked odd carrying the dark thing
into this white, sun-filled room.

     "Jake -"

     Jake noted that the older man used Jake's real name and not
his official Club name.

     "- Lisa and I, we really hope you decide not to go. You've
been here what - ten weeks? You know we were hesitant to accept
your application because of your age - a decade beyond most of
our staff - but once she'd met you, Lisa insisted." A hand came
up and with great tenderness Elliot smoothed the spiky, sleep-
damp hair on Jake's brow. "I'm so glad I went with her instincts
on that. You've done magnificently."

     Almost with reluctance Elliot leaned back in his chair to
open a pocket computer. Across the sensor, he scanned the barcode
on the back of the nearly new red-banded ID bracelet that
encircled Jake's wrist, the one with 'Jacob' embossed in scarlet
letters. "Did you know that you've only been red-banded for only
five days and your dance card is filled practically to the last
day of your contact? You've gotten quite a reputation is a very
short time."

     Jake felt the intensity of the man's deep blue eyes. Not an
inch of Jake's skin escaped Elliot's notice. Not the curve of a
cheek or curl of an eye lash. Lisa and Elliot were two of the
most overtly sensual people Jake had ever met and you didn't have
to be in physical contact with either one for your body to
respond to their 'touch' as Jake's was responding most pleasantly
to now.

     "This female persona you take on sometimes when you're
'working' ...," Elliot mused. "I think that that's a big part of
your appeal. I don't know where it comes from, there was nothing
in your application or psychological evaluation to indicate
that."

     Jake felt whatever was in his upset stomach congeal in the
sudden cold. "Is that... objectionable?"

     "Not at all. It's hard to find anything objectionable here
except for what that -" there was that word again "- did to you.
The affect is enchanting actually. Funny, Lisa's never seen it. I
think she's jealous." Elliot was leaning over, breathing the next
words softly into Jake's ear. "I have though, lots of time."
Elliot's hand had returned to Jake's body and he was tracing the
sensitive purple strips from the hard end of the heavy whip that
covered Jake's back. These were not the little red welts Lisa
bestowed that faded in hours. These were truly painful, but
Elliot knew how to be gentle. What had begun as a familiar, warm
glow was fanning quickly into a considerable blaze under Elliot's
expert fingers.

     'Don't start this unless you intend to finish it,' Jake
mused but a slave doesn't voice those sorts of thoughts to anyone
on the island, especially not to a trainer. Jake, however, needed
to know some things. He'd begun to panic in his private way and
that and his infirmity had made him short-tempered. Elliot had
told him that Jacob would have to wait another forty-eight hours
before he could be seen, before he could 'work' again. Forty-
eight hours without that pure, overwhelming distraction? In this
place, after what he had been doing or thinking about all day,
every day, for more than two months - eight months longer if you
counted the time before his arrival here - sounded like a prison
sentence.

     Jake rolled with some difficulty onto his bruised back.
Elliot's expert hands never lost contact but shifted to trace
similar welts cris-crossing Jake's shoulders and encircling his
ribs. Jake knew the older man could feel him shiver.

     "Do you like it when I... change?" Jake asked. He'd never
spoken so freely of 'Her' before to anyone.

     "It's not you," Elliot responded, retreating from his
seduction for a moment to consider his response. "It's like
another person, another being. Very hungry. Starving. Almost out
of control. Almost aggressive, not like a thrall is supposed to
be."

     "Almost."

     "Yes, and, therefore, not over the line... not yet. I'm just
warning you to be careful." Thinking back, Elliot frowned then, a
real frown, which was unusual on the incredibly handsome face of
this gracious, intelligent man.

     Elliot Slater had come here as a slave himself back when
they were really called slaves. He came having signed a two-year
contract. Long, long before the two years were up, however, Lisa
had broken all the rules with him and then married him. It was
unheard of for one of the trainers - especially one of the elite
- to lose their objectivity that way.

     It was difficult thinking of Elliot on his knees, a
supplicant. But then there were times... when they were alone,
truly alone.... The things Elliot asked Jake to do; the things
that they did to each other, in the dark, in the light. Then Jake
could believe anything.

     Elliot still had that far-way look in his eyes as he
considered Jake's question. Did he like the affect of 'Her'?

     "Sometimes I lose myself in you, Jake. It's like being with
no one else, not even Lisa. I don't even remember what has
happened sometimes. It's like being in a storm of weird,
disjointed sensation. It's almost as if the hungry lioness were
not you, but had instead become part of me. Stalking and
attacking while I can only watch and feel and let it all happen.
Weird. Maybe that's what some of the others feel, maybe that's
where your reputation is coming from. Undiscovered country even
for us here."

     Elliot shook himself from his reverie. Jake continued to
stare intently at this older man who was, even more than Lisa,
his mentor.

     "But enough of that for now," Elliot said. The first
question of the day is, do you want out or are you going to stay
with us?"

     Jake answered without hesitation. "I honor my contacts. I'm
not going anywhere."

     With my burden? Where would I go?

     Those blue, piecing eyes again. "But do you want to stay?"

     If he could trust his limbs to move with any grace, Jake
knew what he would do. They had trained the responses deep in his
bones over these incredible weeks and in the S&M houses in LA he
had frequented before then. He would kneel before Elliot, head
bowed, and beg most humbly. Now he could only lie there, his only
tools his voice and his own eyes. He tried to make his voice
light but there was no amusement in his eyes. "Unless I know
longer please, I want to stay."

     Elliot smiled slowly, beautifully, the warmth in his eyes
adding fuel to the small blaze in Jake. He was, even at his age,
still an incredibly handsome man. What he must have been like
thirty years before nearly took Jake's breath away.

     "Oh, you please. Lisa even wants me to start putting the
pressure on you to extend your contact, to offer you a fifty
percent bonus, which is as much as we ever offer anyone, but I
told her this was not the best time." Elliot's hand again,
running down Jake's naked thigh. Jake didn't move, only shivered
welcomingly. "So that's settled for the time being. Good. Next is
what do we do with you for the next two or three days. We can't
have you wandering about with your back and your arms and your
legs looking like someone's done a very poor job of tattooing a
rainbow on your skin. That's bad advertising. Dangerous, too, in
that it might start giving the more extreme clients ideas."

     "Can I at least be up and about?" There was a twinge of
pleading in Jake's voice that he wished wasn't there, but he
dreaded being left in this white room all alone for three days.
Certain 'demons' would get very angry, very restless.

     "Of course you can," Elliot said, approaching the bed again
with those eyes of his alight. "We just have to discuss how."

           &nbs p;

     Their discussion lasted hours. It was a leisurely and
incredibly satisfying exchange for both and largely, though not
always, silent. Even Jake's she-demon seemed to recognize that
the vessel which was Jake was not up to her normal appetite and,
though far from absent, laid back to let him catch his breath
which at times was hard to do.

     Most arousing was when Elliot, skin gleaming with sweat, had
gone down on one knee. Taking the heavy, gold bracelet from his
own wrist, he'd locked it around Jake's right one, opposite
Jake's own red-band. Jake felt a trembling of movement in his
groin like a warm, wild, furtive animal. The nameplate on the new
bracelet bore no name but was instead deeply etched with the
Club's logo and with, of course, the ever-present bar code.
Everything was scanned here - to gain admittance to various
buildings or locations on the grounds - to pay for your room,
your drinks, your tee time - to reserve your thrall or thralls
for the day. With the pure gold bracelet, Elliot had, in essence,
bestowed upon Jake the keys to the kingdom. Until he was
physically fit to assume his former duties, Jake could go
anywhere on the island, could do anything.

     "Before you let this go to your head and start in on the
four-hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine, I'm giving you this so that
everyone will know that you are acting in my stead. I have some
administrative duties I just haven't had a chance to get to. You
don't think I can run this place flat on _my_ back do you?"

     With one finger Jake traced the stubbled cheek of the hard,
damp body squeezed in beside him on his wide hospital bed.
"Considering that's where you are now..."

     With surprising speed Elliot let a pillow fall, though not
with any force. "Behave. I need to outline your first job and
then I've got to get back to the office. I've dallied long enough
with you, you fox."

     As always since his nearly disastrous adventure in
Washington D.C. nearly a year before, Jake smiled at the
reference to that sly and graceful animal, though Elliot would
never know why.

     "All right, I'm listening. What do you wish of me, Master?"

     With a grin and a final pat to Jake's flat stomach, Elliot
rolled off the bed in one smooth motion and headed for the room's
small bathroom only feet away. "There's an area of the island
called the Caverns."

     "I've seen it. It's looks like a volcano from here?"

     "In a theme park sort of way, yes." The shower started and
Elliot raised his voice above it as he washed. "That's a private
enclave. A few years ago some extremely wealthy clients came to
us and asked if the Club would be willing to provide and maintain
some exclusive, luxury suites - at a price. The price would
include the housing and care of special 'companions' who would
live here full time even though their patrons would come and go.
Most of these clients - both men and women, I'll have you know -
are jet-setting business types who practically live on their
personal planes so coming here for the weekend or on an
occasional layover is not an inconvenience. Some are very public
figures and for personal reasons wanted to keep their special
bedwarmers out of the media's eye. We agreed - for a price. There
is a clause in all the contracts, however. If the Club finds
itself in need of some extra 'resources', we have the right to
enlist the services of these pampered pets."

     "You have a need now?"

     Elliot emerged from the bathroom, drying his amazingly fit
body with a thick champagne-colored towel. "Yes. The powers that
be - not me - have booked a very large convention for the end of
the month. I fear it will strain our current resources. I've
invited some former staff to return for that week but I need to
know what others I can call in at need. I want you to take a look
at what we have over there."

     Jake mused. "I sense you haven't made use of this clause
much in the past. May I ask why?"

     With a few quick strokes, Elliot dried his still thick, fair
hair. "A business decision. We're a conservative lot, as you
know. We recruit, select and train our staff with great care. We
have physical and psychological standards to maintain. For these
private companions, the host clients don't have to be so picky.
Also, their tastes - " Elliot paused in his dressing. "Let's just
say they can be bizarre. Feel free to pass by anything too weird
without a second thought. I'm giving you this job, Jake, because
I trust you and because you're a mature, intelligent individual.
You have nothing to prove here. You're a professional in the
outside world and so you appreciate the needs of business. If you
don't find anything that would be suitable, nothing you feel that
Lisa and I would allow out roaming on the main grounds, then so
be it. We'll manage without."

     "Gee thanks, Elliot," Jake said without enthusiasm, as if he
didn't have enough kinkiness in his life. "Sounds like so much
fun."

     "Oh, it can be fun. Probably will stretch even your
horizons. Take your time. Sample the goods. Don't laugh, I'm
serious. I want a _thorough_ inspection and I expect you to have
first hand experience with each resource you recommend. As I
said, this is business."

     At that, damp but dressed, Elliot planted a light kiss over
a particularly bad bruise on Jake's bare left shoulder and
breezed out of the room.

     Interesting work if you can get it, Jake thought, amused as
he crawled slowly and painfully out of the bed, heading for the
shower himself. The next time, however, that his tax form asked
for his occupation, he wondered if he could still write in
'architect' with good conscience.

     The she-demon preened and shivered in anticipation within
that good-sized chunk of his soul that he had staked out as her
own.

End of Chapter 3
JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (4/25)
by Wind (Windsinger@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

Chapter 4

     Clumsily settling his robes around his lean frame, Jake
stumbled out of Cavern Suite Nine, grateful to hear the slight
hiss as the automatic doors breathed closed behind him. A sex
maniac that one. There had to be a psychological term for that
creature but his brain wasn't functioning clearly enough for him
to bring it to mind. And he thought _his_ demon was insatiable
and demanding.

     Limbs and insides still in near spasms with that odd mixture
of disgust and delight, Jake flopped down on one of the benches
that were spaced intermittently along the ramp that wound up and
around the inside of the Cavern's volcano-like atrium. Not for
the first time he was grateful for the loose Bedouin robes that
flowed gracefully around his body. The faux stone benches could
be cold!  The robes also hid those bruises that Elliot had been
worried about. It was a good disguise for other reasons. Arabs in
native dress were not an uncommon sight on the island. Made of
light-colored, lightweight fabric, the loose, ankle-length pants
and long-sleeved robe were practical for the sunny, often hot
climate. They were also romantically enticing, concealing only to
reveal, requiring only a stronger than normal breeze to disrupt
the folds. The exotic Arab headcovering and sunglasses added to
Jake's new persona - agent of the management, man of mystery,
possessor of the keys to the kingdom that Jake wore in the form
of Elliot's bracelet that dangled from his right wrist.

     Flipping open the obviously expensive notebook computer
Elliot had sent him, Jake checked to see that no one was around
before removing his dark glasses. He had a hard enough time
seeing in the Cavern's subdued lighting without them. Then Jake
began to record his observations of the resident 'pet' in Suite
Nine. He surprised even himself when he found his fingers typing
the formal, concise phrasing he had used when writing contracts
or responding to proposals back in the real world.

     The real world. How far away that seemed. He had been a good
architect. Very good. Brilliant and driven. Until, that is, his
life had splintered into a thousand pieces of chaos and ashes.
Eighteen months later he had finally pulled himself out of it and
was doing some good work again. Then he had attended that ill-
fated conference in Washington. The unforeseen consequences of
that had never left him. Oh, he was still driven, only the
obsession had changed, and that obsession had driven him here.

     With a shudder, Jake turned his mind back to his current
task and found himself automatically reviewing the fifteen
residents he had visited so far over the last two days. No wonder
Elliot procrastinated coming here. Oh, there was beauty enough to
behold. Most of the residents were as lovely as gods and
goddesses but there was always something a little twisted in mind
or body. No, not twisted, 'lacking' was a better word, that or
'incomplete'. There had to be or most would be modeling swimwear
or acting in soap operas.

     The Cavern's residents fell into three categories.

     The majority were socially inept in some way, usually
horribly shy or panicked in crowds, or had some irritating habit
such as the black-haired goddess who talked incessantly. When
performing her required function for her patron she was gagged
most of the time or so Jake deduced from the numerous gags and
muzzles hanging from various hooks all about the suite.

     The second group was made up of those who were physically -
exceptional. One twenty-nine year old woman could have passed
anywhere for twelve. Some hormonal defect. The state
representative who owned her contract had a thing for little
girls but his conscience wouldn't allow him to admit that fact
even to himself and certainly not to his constituency. The
compromise he had come up with was preferable to actually 'doing
it' with the forbidden ones but not much. And that was only one
example. Behind these identical doors there could be found giants
and giantesses, one sad-eyed troll and two fragile, angel-like
midgets. So far Jake had seen only two castratee, two eternally
beautiful boys. He had somehow expected more. All were well
trained to provide the personal attention their patrons and their
patron's guests liked best.

     The last category was comprised of surprisingly normal
people, at least normal by Club definition. These thralls were
not so much different from those that roamed the cafes and tennis
courts, beaches and bedrooms around the main resort. One handsome
ex-football player was recovering from double knee surgery by
writing a book. He was fortunate that his 'sugar Mommy' had the
money to send her boy toy to a really nice place to recuperate.
She flew in weekly with his physical therapist to check up on his
progress - among other things. One TV evangelist hid his
beautiful ex-altar boy here just to keep him as far away from
muck-racking journalists as possible. Most were just 'kept' boys
and girls sent here on extended vacations as if to a health spa
in an attempt to keep in shape and stave off the years, a
necessity in their profession.

     The services the Club promised to provide had to be top
quality, five star and beyond. For that reason when Jake wrote
his final report, the thralls in this last group - minus the
football hero with the bad knees - would be the only ones he
planned to recommend to Elliot as being able to mingle with the
clientele at the main resort.

     Jake rubbed his temples and wondered what time it was. It
must be late afternoon. There were few clocks on the island and
no sun to be seen here in the cave-like lobby. He was tired,
physically and mentally. Most of the residents Jake had visited
had been more than willing to demonstrate their skills for this
mysterious Arab, and more often than not, Jake had accepted. All
of this explained why it had taken him two full days to see only
fifteen of the residents. At this rate he would need another full
day to finish and only then if his energy and certain parts of
his anatomy held out.

     What troubled Jake more and more was that he no longer
understood why he responded so readily to such advances. He had
come to the Club to satisfy his demon's appetite and thus to find
a few moments of peace once she was satiated. In the disastrous
beginning weeks of his strange new life, Jake had told himself
that he would be the one choosing whose arms and whose bed he
would visit because then he retained at least some control. That
plan had failed so often that he had signed on at the Club. At
least when things went wrong here he was less likely to end up
dead. He didn't even consider giving it up entirely.

     Not only was forbidden fruit addictive but _she_ could get
rough, really rough.

     Saving the file and shutting the notebook, Jake rose and
stretched. He was ready to call it a day. It was a leisurely
thirty minute stroll back down the beach to his little room in
the thrall's dormitory and the weather was, as ever on the
island, perfect. He didn't mind that the room was small, almost a
closet. It didn't need to be large or fancy. Thralls owned hardly
any clothes and few other possessions. Besides, after his second
week he had seldom needed its hard, narrow bed. Too weirded out
by the residents of the Cavern, he had slept in it the night
before, however, which had also been the first night the doctors
had allowed him out of the clinic. How surprisingly empty that
night had seemed.

     As if looking for an excuse not to return to that lonely
place, Jake decided that he could use a massage. The nearly seven
foot tall Amazon in Suite Ten had felt the need to stretch some
muscles and in the process had stretched Jake's. Muscles he
hadn't known he had. He could go to the gym that the Club had
placed at the disposal of its staff, however, the new supplicants
always jabbered on so. In the years since Alex's death, Jake had
learned to appreciate solitude and even here craved it when he
could. For this reason he had always gotten along better with
trainers and handlers than his fellow slaves. Neither they nor
the clients liked thralls who talked too much.

     Flipping open the notebook computer once more, Jake scanned
the profile belonging to the next resident on his list. Number
Eight was a German, blond and blue-eyed, who tended to dwell a
bit too heavily on the glories of the old Nazi days. Jake decided
that it was too late in the day for that level of excitement
considering his own ethnic background. All right then, who was
next.

     Number Seven just might do. A male in his mid-thirties.
Mature, then, and experienced and yet lacking the raging hormones
of youth. Very withdrawn, the profile said. Good, he wouldn't
want to talk very much either. If the man was a body servant of
any quality, he should be able to provide a halfway decent
message. That was all Jake was interested in at the moment.

     As always before entering one of the private suites, Jake
checked in with the concierge. The attendant on duty at this hour
was a tall, buxom blond. 'Ingrid' flashed from the nameplate on
her blue-banded bracelet. Blue, and, therefore, a trainer in
training. She looked so bright, so healthy, no _normal_ after all
that Jake had seen over the past two days that he smiled broadly
despite the fact that such a smile did not go with the dark
glasses and the Arab headdress. It probably made him look all the
more like a genuine used camel salesman.

     "Finished for the day, Mr. Simmons?"

     Simmons... his last name. It sounded so odd after more than
ten weeks of 'Jacob' or 'Jake' or 'honey'. Ten weeks in a world
so different from the outside that it might as well have been ten
months or ten years. Being addressed as 'Mr. Simmons' came from
acting on behalf of Elliot and Lisa. Supplicants didn't have last
names.

     "One more, I think. Suite Seven. Is he alone now?"

     "Him? Always. The others drift back and forth between rooms
when their patrons aren't visiting - chess tournaments, dinner
parties, other kinds of parties. I haven't seen that pretty one
out of his room except when one of us drags him out and hulls his
ass to the gym or the spa."

     Jake frowned. "I don't understand."

     Ingrid took a deep breath. It make her full beasts strain
against their nearly invisible halter top. "I'm sorry, that
wasn't very kind. Life styles are private here and if his patron
allows him to live stoned three days out of seven, to fly higher
than the moon on weekends and then lie comatose for the first two
days of the week, that's his business. It's hard on us here,
however. Monday we play damage control from the weekend. They
trash the place. At least _he's_ completely out of it and out of
our way. Tuesdays he's much the same. The rest of the week we
just have to see that he drinks and eats something, stays clean
and gets some exercise. Otherwise he just lies about from Sunday
night to Friday afternoon." Her blue eyes weren't anywhere near
as biting as her words. She was entirely serious when he added,
"A pity, a real pity."

     "He doesn't sound like anyone Lisa and Elliot would be
interested in but just so my report will be complete I have to
look in on him. I guess that might as well be now."

     "As you wish," said Ingrid. "Let me know if you need any
help."

     Jake felt a shudder run through him as he walked back up the
ramp he had just come down. Ingrid's reports had spiked his
interest. Drugs. Drugs weren't used at the Club nearly as much as
people might think considering that nothing was forbidden here.
Frowned upon, yes. Illegal? No. There was no need when everyone
on the island, from the wealthiest client to the greenest
supplicant, had everything they could possibly want. Jake noted
that it was Tuesday. If the pattern held, Number Seven would
probably not be interested in extra-curricular activities, but
then Jake wasn't interested in putting out that much effort
either. He had considered going the drug route once to escape
from his demon. Didn't work. At the worst this visit would allow
him to scratch one more inspection off his list for the next day.

     A set of chimes toned gently to announce him as he entered.
The pattern of the chimes indicated the status the caller held in
the island's hierarchy, not that it mattered greatly since the
room's only inhabitant was a slave. Thralls had no right of
refusal, not in access to their rooms, any more than in access to
their bodies. Jake stood in the entryway letting his eyes adjust
to the dim light just as the doors to Suite Seven slid closed
behind him. The light in the foyer was pleasantly dim but
compared to this was more like full day. The decor of all the
suites followed through with the barbaric Cavern theme but Suite
Seven was the gloomiest Jake had visited so far.

     The heavy drapes were closed tight, blocking out all but the
merest crack of the glorious island sunshine. Only one of the
electric sconces that lined the room's walls at regular intervals
was lit. Jake had to remove his sunglasses to even make out the
vague outlines of the furniture. Though he knew there were more
rooms beyond - bedrooms and baths, a kitchen - this was the
suite's center. It was a huge, stark room appearing barren
because of its size, the height of its ceiling and the scantiness
of its furnishings. Not a living room, but what they called in
the business a 'great room'. As his eyes adjusted to the low
light, Jake made out the huge central platform bed that most of
the main rooms in the Cavern suites were equipped with. There was
a conversation pit in one corner by the window which consisted of
a couch, a few good, deep chairs and couple of low tables. On the
other side was a formal dining room table that could seat eight
easily. In testified to the size of the room that there was
enough furniture here to fill a good size living room, dining
room and master bedroom and yet this room felt empty.

     Hesitantly, Jake took a few steps inside. He would have
called the occupant's name but he didn't remember it from the
profile.

     "Excuse me?" He called. Silence. "Hello, but I've come from
the management. May I have a few minutes of your time?" That
certainly sounded inane, like Jake had come to read the gas
meter. Tele-marketers had better opening lines. Not that it
mattered. Still no answer. That was when Jake noticed the figure
curled in a ball in the center of the huge bed, its long limbs
entangled in black satin sheets. His eyes rapidly adjusting, Jake
stepped to the bedside. The man was out of it - either deeply
asleep or stoned. One slender, long-fingered hand lay stretched
out on the mattress, fingers curled uncomfortably like talons. He
shifted ever so slightly. Jerky, spastic motions.

     His dreams were not pleasant ones.

     Deciding he would try back the next day, Jake turned to go
then changed his mind. Instead he returned to lean over the
sleeping form. Unable to read the name on the simple gold and
green nameplate, Jake activated another of the torch-like
sconces.

     In this additional pale light the name was clearer. Isaac.
The name hit Jake like a blow to the chest.

     Isaac and Jacob.

     Just a coincidence, had to be, but his brain reeled out the
details automatically. The story went that God asked Jacob to
bind his son, place him on an altar, and sacrifice him. Luckily,
the hand of that same God in the form of an angel stayed the
knife. Just a little test of loyalty, however, the binding and
the Isaac's submission - that was too much like the games played
in this place.

     Jake more than shivered; he felt as if someone had just
opened the door to the world's largest deep freeze. On the whole
Jake didn't believe in premonitions but if he did, he'd have
sworn that something really, really big had just slithered over
his grave.

     Now seemed like a very good time to retreat only Jake
couldn't take his eyes from the tangle of limbs. Long, lean
limbs. A muscular shoulder. Firm stomach. A hint of a strong male
jaw from under the arm that otherwise hid his face. A flaw marred
the smooth skin by the shoulder. A scar. A round neat scar.

     The blood in his veins turning to ice water, Jake touched
one knee. The figure didn't move. With more pressure Jake was
able to move the left leg to see the inner thigh. Another scar.
Much larger and puckered. With trembling hands Jake moved the arm
which hid Isaac's features.

     He didn't know how his weakening legs managed to keep him
upright, but they did. He knew this sad face. His strength
failing him completely, Jake dropped down to sit on the side of
the bed. Better than falling on the floor. He knew this face but
not because he saw it in the mirror every day. It was other
people who said they looked alike, like brothers, like twins,
identical twins. Eight months before two men had tortured and
planned to kill Jake for that likeness. During the brief,
explosively intense time Jake had known this man, they had never
seemed so alike to Jake.

     Maybe it was because most people carry this self-image in
their heads which has nothing to do with what they see in the
mirror. Or maybe you see in the mirror what you expect to see,
the countenance you saw when you were twelve and fifteen and
twenty-five. He saw something entirely unique when he looked at
this man. He saw maturity and stubbornness; male beauty,
determination and honor; professionalism... and pain.

     A woman had once searched Jake's broken body, her
physician's hands searching for that round shoulder scar and that
long one on the thigh. Only when she hadn't found them had she
believed the truth. The Jake was not the one.

     This figure had those things and, therefore, this was
without a doubt Fox Mulder. In his shock and consternation,
Jake's skin pebbled with gooseflesh under its thin Arab robes.

     "Mulder? What in hell are you doing here?" Deaf in his deep
slumber, the figure kept on dreaming his unhappy dreams.

     Undercover was Jake's first thought. He had first met the
man when the agent had crawled into the blackened hole of a
ancient gutted furnace where Jake was being held prisoner. Mulder
had been dressed as a one-eyed vet in street-weary fatigues. He
had come to trade places with the man who had been mistaken for
him. He came to force Jake to assume his disguise and let Jake go
free to bring back help.

     Jake had only barely managed that. They would have come too
late if Fox had not had the aid of a certain female ghost.

     Undercover this time, too? No, not in this place which was,
in essence, a harem. Only rich men's very special, very secret
companions lived at the Caverns, hiding their beauty or their
specialness or their loneliness from a scary world. Why would
Mulder want to hide?

     One thought came immediately to mind. By some terrible
tragedy had a certain red-haired dynamo been taken from him?

     "Is it Scully, Mulder? Is Scully dead? Is that why you're
here?"

     No, Mulder would have used a bullet or a bottle to escape
from that kind of tragedy. This was too far, too complicated of a
hiding hole for that.

     What other reason? Mulder had enemies - many, nasty enemies.
A couple of those Jake had come to know _very_ well. Could he be
hiding from some of them? Certainly no one would think to look
for the grim, FBI agent in such a place.

     And certainty not acting the way Ingrid reported that the
resident of Suite Seven did.

     Fear escalating, Jake reversed his earlier premise.
Companions did not come here to hide. Most could not afford it.
Companions were _hidden_ here. Placed by others.

     "Mulder..." Jake said again, his voice louder this time. He
shook the unresponsive shoulder. "Mulder! Wake up! Wake up damn
you!"

     Nothing. Mulder was on his back now, naked limbs
outstretched, his breathing barely changed. He could be moved as
easily as a very large rag doll. Jake shook the broad shoulders,
shouted in his ear, slapped at the bare skin of chest and
shoulder and cheek. A little grunt of air was the only response.

     Sprinting for one of the bathroom, Jake came back with a
dripping bath towel. The cold water did the trick. The sleeping
man moaned and tried to push the heavy wetness away. Mulder was
drugged. No one woke with this much difficulty. Jake hadn't even
needed to see the tracks on the man's arms to be certain of that.
The Fox Mulder Jake knew would not live such a dull, purposeless,
loveless existence without being drugged to the gills.

     Finally, the eyes opened. They may just as well have stayed
closed. They were that flat and lifeless.

End of Chapter 4
JAKE AND FOX JOIN THE CLUB (5/25)
By Wind (Windsinger@aol.com)

For Disclaimer see chapter 1.

Chapter 5

     Panicking, Jake fled the bed where this nearly mindless
thing lay unmoving and ran for the door, stumbling on the
threshold. His mind reeled as he descended the ramp towards the
concierge's desk. Could that still be Ingrid's blond-haired head
down there? In the last few minutes, Jake had felt his fantasy
life ripped apart and scattered before the cold doors of hell.
Though neither of them came from at normal world of nuclear
family, little league games, a house in the suburbs and shopping
malls, Mulder's life was nothing like Jake's. Mulder came from a
world of violence. Mulder had been put here, locked away. A
velvet prison. This Jake knew in his bones.

     As Jake drew nearer, Ingrid's smiling countenance began to
droop in apprehension. What did his own face reveal? Agitation,
yes, but anything else? Quite a bit actually. For the first time
he wasn't wearing his glasses before any of the Cavern's
attendants. She must know the resident in Suite Seven. Would she
see the resemblance? How could she now? Should he try to explain
that? He'd never understood it himself. What should he say? As
little as possible until he had this figured out. Did Mulder have
enemies here? Jake couldn't believe that Lisa and Elliot could be
involved. Elliot had sent him here, had trusted him to do a
simple job for him. He had to have been unaware of what Jake
would find in this place. And yet inadvertently, just by making a
call to this Forsyth, who was 'Isaac's' patron, any one of the
well-meaning people at the Club could cause serious harm.

     Rouse Mulder, Jake decided. Mulder would know what needed to
be done, who to trust.

     Hurriedly, Jake replaced his sunglasses, hoping that Ingrid
hadn't gotten a good look at his face and adjusted his fallen
headdress and disheveled robes. Slowing his pace and his
breathing was hardest of all.

     Ingrid was still alarmed. "Is something wrong, sir?"

     He would have to have some explanation for the temporary
loss of his cool demeanor. "Sorry, I was just startled. The man
in Suite Seven -" Jake grappled in his swirling brain for the
name he'd read on the green bracelet "- Isaac. Looking at him, I
suddenly realized that I knew him years ago on the outside. It
was just a shock to see him here the way he is. The man I knew
didn't take drugs. I hope you don't mind my asking but does the
staff have instructions to give him any regular medication?
Something special, his patron may have prescribed for him?"

     "Absolutely not, sir!" Ingrid replied, emphatically. "Many
of our residents do take regular medication - insulin, anti-
depressants, one with a history for epilepsy takes anti-
convulsants, it's in their medical history - but they're required
to administer anything they need themselves. It's a firm rule. If
we did, it might be misconstrued..." Ingrid didn't go any further
but the rational for the rule was clear enough. The management of
the Club was many things but not stupid.

     You could hold someone here against their will that way.

     Ingrid must still be reading his face and imagined he was
not completely satisfied with her response. "The medical center
will fill their prescriptions and supply any... recreational
drugs they may desire - that's just one of our services - but we
won't administer anything."

     Cold... Jake was so cold. It was as if the desolate wind
Jake had felt up in that room was blowing against the back of his
neck. When he began speaking again his voice was not steady.

     "May I ask what you've supplied Suite Seven with since his
arrival?" Ingrid went to her computer without hesitation. By
contract, the Cavern residents were not much different than any
other Club staff and so like any other thrall were afforded no
privacy as far as their records were concerned, certainly not to
someone wearing Elliot Slater's gold bracelet.

     "No, sir, nothing. Mr. Forsyth must bring Isaac's supply
with him on the weekends. That's allowed. Sir, could you please
tell me what's wrong? Is there anything I can do? We have done
our best. Is there any indication that Isaac has not been well
taken care of?"

     'Oh, he's been well taken care of, all right,' Jake thought.
'His body is a thing of beauty; it's only his brain that's gone.'
It was all Jake could do to keep standing there when what he
wanted to be was upstairs, but he needed to know everything he
could first.

     "I didn't mean to question the care provided by you and the
other attendants. It's just... he's so changed. As I remember,
you require that all residents pass an examination before they're
admitted."

     Ingrid relaxed. This was something she could handle.
Finger's flying she accessed the computer, swinging the screen
around for Jake to see. "Here's his health history. Anti-
depressants but, as I said, he must administer those himself."

     "I think he needs to have the levels adjusted. He's in a
stupor."

     Reluctantly, Ingrid agreed. "That's what we've reported,
too, but his patron assures us that this is normal for Isaac. As
I said before, a pity."

     To this strong and healthy young woman it must seem a pity
to look like Isaac did and dream your life away.

     Then Jake remembered something from his own entrance exam.
"When he first came here, what were the results of his
urinalysis?"

     She scrolled through the record a little farther. "Clean."

     "But shouldn't the anti-depressants have showed up?"

     She shrugged. "Maybe he hadn't been taking them regularly.
Maybe if he has this kind of reaction to his medication normally,
he laid off them before he got here so he could be clear headed
for the interview."

     Or maybe the urine wasn't his. Easy to do, especially in
this trusting place.

     Still trying to be helpful, Ingrid added, "The interview
results are also normal for his type."

     And what is his type? Kidnapped FBI agent. Honey, you have
no idea what you have up there. The records were tampered with.
Jake was certain of that now.

     "This says Johnson Forsyth is his patron. Do you know
anything about him?"

     A shrug of slender, bare shoulders. "Older man. Nearly
sixty. Comes every Friday afternoon with his bodyguard, his
niece, his secretary, or a couple of friends. Has lots of money."

     "They _all_ have lots of money," Jake thought, grimly, "or
they couldn't afford to keep their secrets here." Quickly, Jake
scanned the entry interview.  The report said 'Isaac' was quiet
but aware. No one could describe that figure lying nearly
senseless on the bed in Suite Seven as aware of anything. "What
about this Rudi, the attendant who interviewed him on his
arrival. I'd like to speak to him."

     "Sorry, Rudi's not here. Took a job on the mainland at just
about that time."

     Of course. Very neatly done.

     "Is something wrong, sir?" Ingrid asked again into Jake's
sudden silence.

     No alarms, Jake decided. Keep this quiet until he knew more.
There may be informants about. Forsyth would want to keep an eye
on his prize. Probably his contact had no idea of the danger they
could do.

     "Oh, no, probably just what it says here. A bout of
depression and maybe his medication is a little strong. I would
like you to do a couple of things for me, though, if you would.
Please have some food and hot coffee sent up from the kitchens.
Strong coffee and lots of it and the food should be easily
digestible and healthy but full of calories. Also, please contact
Mistress Lisa and Master Elliot and tell them that I'll be
spending the night and to please come by in the morning.

     At the mention of the names of the Thrall Master and
Mistress, Lisa's eyes went very wide but not frightened. "Yes,
sir. No problem."

     On legs not sure they could bear his weight, Jake returned
to Suite Seven.

     Except for the fact that the eyes had closed again, the form
in the bed hadn't moved. No one limp muscle.

     First, Jake decided, get rid of the drug in Mulder's system.
But where was Mulder getting it if the staff didn't administer
it? Jake searched the suite top to bottom. The task didn't take
long. The computer terminal told him where all the hidden
cabinets were and his security code gave him access to all of
them, even the safe and the one storage compartment that Forsyth
had coded for his own.

     It was in the coded compartment in the great room that Jake
found Isaac's 'works'- a stash of needles and syringes and some
other medical items in a battered old doctor's black bag.

     "Yes," Ingrid confirmed when Jake phoned down. The
housekeeping staff found a fair number of used syringes and
empty, unmarked vials in the trash on weekends but only on the
weekends. No, they didn't have any of them left from the previous
weekend. Everything would have been incinerated by now.

     Lips pursed, Jake slumped for a moment in defeat then dived
into the bag of medical supplies again. This time he found one
vial that must have slipped unnoticed down to the bottom. It was
only partially filled but Jake didn't need a lab to identify the
contents even in the darkened room. It was like holding liquid
gold in his hands. It actually glowed.

     Aswan Gold. It was as if a hand clutched at Jake's heart, as
if a booted foot slammed into his stomach. Jake had been places
before the Club. Bad places. Aswan Gold was new stuff. A very,
very special aphrodisiac. It would have to be to transform
passive 'Isaac' into the insatiable creature that screamed and
played in Suite Seven non-stop with Johnson Forsyth and his
friends for an entire weekend, only to lie comatose for the rest
of the week.

     For Mulder's sake, Jake felt a wave of nausea. As he
rearranged the sheets to cover his friend's naked body, tears
came to his eyes. During their early weeks at the Club, novices
surrendered any pretense of hiding their emotions. That wasn't
what the clients wanted to see. They wanted to know when they
hurt you. Jake hurt, like nothing that had happened to him here
had ever hurt. And so in his anger and helplessness he cried and
then he screamed. He screamed until his throat ached. A little
screaming would be overlooked in a place like this. Even a lot of
screaming would be overlooked. No one would report a disturbance
even if they could hear through the sound-proofed walls. Pain and
pleasure were first cousins after all.

     When he rage left him, Jake was sitting on the floor beside
the dais, his head in his hands. Mulder, of course, had heard not
a bit of Jake's tantrum. He still lay like something dead whose
heart just happened to be still turning over. With his hand Jake
wiped the tears from his eyes and then reached down deep inside
himself - something he never, _ever_, did any more.

     "Well, help me, damn you!" he swore. "You've got all this
goddamn power so tell me how I can help him? So they shoot him up
with Gold on the weekend? What is he on now and how do they get
it into him?"

     But was it drugs? What if they had damaged Mulder's mind.
Something permanent. Maybe this was all he was now. Could Jake be
wrong? Had Mulder been sent here out of pity? Better than a
nursing home where he would vegetate. Here he was cared for,
pampered like a treasured pet...

     Violently, Jake shook his head. No... he refused to believe
that. Not yet anyway. That would be the last thing he would
believe because hope was dead that way.

     While that horrible scenario had been considered and
rejected, Jake realized that his body had begun to move on its
own. Though colored with the distaste Jake always felt when _she_
took control, what Jake felt most acutely was relief. So she had
acquiesced and would lend a hand after all. With effort, Jake
suppressed what was always his initial impulse - to resist. Let
it happened this time. Let her show him, if she could. His/her
hand passed over Mulder's body. The motions seemed aimless at
first. Desperately, Jake tried to float his mind above it all.
How many dozens of times had he escaped that way at the beginning
when the knowledge of what she was doing with his body had been
unbearable.

     One learns to bear even the unbearable. Damn her and damn
himself. One even learns to lie back and enjoy it.

     The wavering hand steadied, its course becoming more sure.
Jake saw rather than felt it pause near Mulder's groin then lift
the black satin sheet. It was all he could do to keep from
screaming at her for her selfish, insane games, but the hand did
not fondle what Jake had assumed it would. Instead it drifted
lower to hover above the upper left thigh. There it settled to
tenderly touch that scarred flesh, that sign that so completely
marked Mulder as Mulder and not Jake.

     Even as the cool numbness flowed gently away from his limbs
restoring sensation and control, Jake had to ask, "Here?" He
stared at that field of intersecting scars, one long crooked one
and several smaller ones, and the small white points where the
surgeons had put in the sutures. Jake studied. He changed
position so that the inadequate light came first from one
direction then from the other. He turned on all the lights.
Finally he saw it, a slit, the tiniest bit of a cut that was a
fresher wound than the others. Under the scar tissue at that
point, imbedded in the muscle, his fingertips sensed an object
that was harder than the thickened skin. Something about an inch
long and unnatural. Maybe more than one.

     Jake pounced on the doctor's bag of needles and bright
instruments and that one glittering bottle of liquid sex and
found, ironically, just what he needed - a little professional
scalpel with tiny, razor-sharp disposable blades and even a pair
of long, slender forceps.

     Doing what the movies always told you to do, Jake scrubbed
his hands and placed the instruments in water he'd boiled on the
kitchen stove. Lastly, he dipped them in vodka from the well-
stocked liquor cabinet.

     Working quickly in order to keep from thinking about what he
was about to do, Jake held his breath, bit his lip, steadied the
scalpel and made the shallowest of cuts over the newest scab. It
was just a little cut, but the blood that welled up made Jake's
stomach flop over and shrink into a tiny, hard lump. By feel
rather than sight, Jake pulled one and then a second thin ampule
out from under the flap of skin. Ignoring an acute wave of
dizziness, Jake wiped off the worse of the blood and stared at
the first of them. Some women had things like this implanted.
They released a constant level of contraceptive slowly over a
considerable time. They certainly could be designed to deliver a
far different kind of drug. Whatever that was, Jake was certain
that it was this that had kept Mulder mindless and passive for at
least three months. Even on the weekends when the genie from the
golden bottle ruled, that which was Mulder would have remained
trapped and senseless in his drugged never-never-land. Did
Forsyth have a way to counteract the sedative or hallucinogen or
whatever it was? For there to be torture, Mulder would have to
know what was happening to him, so Forsyth probably did.
Unfortunately, Jake couldn't find any in the suite.

     Clean water, a dash of vodka and a bandage and the little
incision Jake had made was taken care of. The operation had not
awakened the Mulder of old, however, like an enchanted prince
with his lover's kiss. Jake really hadn't expected him too. The
drug was still in his system and it would take hours at the very
least for the levels to go down. Mulder remained as he was, limp
on his back. His eyes had opened again at some point during the
operation, probably when the scalpel made contact. That had
lightened Jake's heart but only briefly. He soon realized that
what was behind those eyes was still so devoid of life that they
might as well have still been closed.

     The room suddenly spinning again, Jake drug his exhausted
body towards the door to suite's balcony. The ocean breeze on his
damp skin was like a cooling salve. The view was also fabulous;
the sun was just setting in a salmon sky above an azure sea. The
incongruity between this glorious beauty and the drugged prison
of his mind that Mulder had been living in for who knew how long
before he was even brought to the island was not lost on Jake. He
realized his hands were shaking. How he longed for a cigarette.
Though he had quit ten years before he still felt the urge swell
up in him every once in a while when extremely bored or stressed.

     Bored and stressed did not being to describe the emotions
ripping at Jake's insides. Still, a stimulant would probably be
beneficial for them both. Food and coffee to start.

     As Ingrid had promised, a healthy repast for two had been
sent up the dumb waiter from the Cavern's main kitchen. The
delicious smells from the Club's excellent cooks, made Jake's
remember how long it had been since his own last meal and he'd
had a busy day.

     Shocked into a travesty of wakefulness with another
administration of the cold, wet bathtowel, Mulder actually drank
the coffee Jake forced upon him but without either protest or
enthusiasm. He ate the soft food though automatically. Like a
robot on an assembly line, he was silent and passive, but place a
task that he knew before him and he would do the work, mindlessly
and without joy.

     "Where are you, Fox? What plane of existence? Hell, what
planet?"

     Jake didn't receive a reply. Not even a blink. By the time
they had both finished eating, the cups and cups of black coffee
had been able to achieve something. Mulder now sat up against a
pile of the bed's huge pillows and eyed his visitor warily like
some severely injured wild animal that would like to run but
knows he can't. For his part Jake talked. He repeated Mulder's
name again and again, spoke of the lovely, loyal Scully and about
how the three had met. Mulder didn't appear to hear or, if he
heard, the words didn't make sense.

     Past midnight. Exhausted, mouth dry, Jake extinguished most
of the lighted sconces. Mulder had slumped onto his side, not
even a glimmer shining out from under his closed lids. Jake
covered him with the satin sheet and a blanket, then taking
another blanket, huddled down on the huge bed at a distance from
Mulder but still within arm's reach if he was needed.

     Jake meant to stay awake but considering what all he had
been through that day knew that would never happen. Better to get
a few hours sleep in order to be better prepared for whatever
would come. What Jake feared was that pulling out the drug or
drugs all at once had not been the brightest thing he could have
done. What if the drugs were addictive? Certainly they must be.
Too late now. Putting the ampules back would only be begging for
a good systemic infection.

     As his brain spun slowly down into sleep, Jake considered
calling up one of the Club's doctors. Maybe the one who had
competently tended his own injuries. His instincts, however, told
him to tell as few people as possible about this. There was still
danger here - for Mulder, for himself, and for certain people at
the Club whom, Jake realized with surprise, he had come to care
for very much.

           &nbs p;  * * * * * * * *

     It was a lovely dream. Hands on his body. Strong, sensitive,
expert hands. The only question was - Whose? Teeth nipped
sensitive skin, lips kissed. Warm lips. A man's. A man's scent,
too. Jake sighed relaxed into the mattress. Man or woman, it
didn't matter to Jake, not any more. Not that they were the same.
Men could just be as different from one another as men and women
were different. The sex itself was what mattered. The game, the
fantasy. A hand went between his legs just as teeth bit a nipple
a little more sharply than before. With a squirm and a yelp,
Jake's eyes flew open to see the top of a brown head. The head
lifted.

     "Shit!!!"

     Jake leaped from the bed or would have if Mulder's strength
hadn't held him down, a strength not surprisingly equal to Jake's
own. There was an inhuman heat radiating from the body that lay
over him as well as from the glazed hazel eyes that threatened to
mesmerize him like a bug with their golden sheen. Jake had missed
that glitter before when there had been more light. In the dark
it was unmistakable. Jake couldn't blame Mulder's sudden appetite
on his she-demon, not this time. This heat came from a bottle.
The drug that had stolen Mulder's will wasn't the only chemical
still circulating in those veins. Lowering the level of the one
had just allowed what was left of the other to surface.

     "Mulder, no."

     This couldn't happen. If Mulder kept any memories and if
this went where the drug was obviously leading, then Mulder may
never be able to look Jake in the eye again. That was the last
thing Jake wanted. Mulder was a friend and Jake had few enough of
those anymore. True, an odd sort of friend and also someone whom
chance and genetics had made much more than a friend. Most
important of all, someone who, until recently, had been removed
from Jake's strange new life and the Club.

     Shame flooded Jake with the blood that rushed to his face.
Here was a degree of mortification such that Jake had not felt in
months. He was all too aware at that moment of what the world
outside thought of this place, those few who knew it existed and
weren't already members. Disgusting, obscene, vulgar, sinful.
Jake did not want Mulder to associate him with that.

     Lips came down to touch his lips. Jake raised his hands to
push those shoulders away. His hands didn't move and it was not
because Mulder had him pinned now. Jake realized with dread that
the "Mulder, no," he had also been repeating over and over had
been going on only in his head. Since the moment when he had
realized who was doing such an excellent job of seduction, the
beautiful sensations themselves had numbed and faded. Jake's
limbs felt cold. At least to Jake they had. Someone else was
enjoying what was being done to his body.

     Or rather - something was.

     'Damn you! You bitch! Hasn't he suffered enough? Let me stop
this!'

     His demon didn't reply in words. It didn't work that way.
She either obeyed, which was seldom, or did what she damned well
pleased, which was most of the time. If he fought her too hard,
she would just send him away, leaving him with nothing but a
dreamless sleep - and the bruises and aches when he woke up. She
did that now. He felt as if he were being removed farther and
farther from the action as if smothered under a half dozen thick
down comforters. She had not relented. She had not been amused by
his outburst.

     "Wait, please. I'll calm down, I'll go along..." But she was
impatient and maybe unwilling to share this time. In his mind it
was as if he were staring into a mirror only the harder he looked
the more he became aware that the two male bodies that had begun
to slide and writhe around each other on the bed weren't the
reflection.

     It was too late. Jake's body, Mulder, and the bed were
moving away now, moving beyond the mirror's view. Much farther
and the reflection would cease to exist. And who was that
reflection?

     Jake was the reflection.

     Stop... please, stop...

     Like the other times when he had resisted her, she had
stolen his body and it would obey her. She had, after all, taught
it well and now she and poor, confused, spaced-out Mulder would
have a quite glorious time while Jake.... Jake would just be
nowhere for a time, just a blank space in an empty mirror that
could do nothing at all.

End of Chapter 5
FOX AND JAKE JOIN THE CLUB (6/25)
By Wind (Windsinger@aol.com)

For disclaimer see chapter 1.

Chapter 6

     Mulder was sick; he could not remember the last time he had
ever been so sick. Of course his thoughts were about as clear as
mush so that didn't count for much, but ill he most certainly
was. He had that shivery, dizzy, body aching, just-kill-me-now
quality about it that said 'flu'. He didn't want to be awake, he
wanted to be seriously unconscious until the acute phase had
passed but his rolling, gurgling intestines and his flip-flopping
stomach had other ideas - unfortunately they were in different
directions. He may be on death's door but he had to find a toilet
and quickly. Unfortunately, his limping mind was plagued with too
many questions. Basic, important questions but irritating
questions nevertheless. Questions like "Where in the hell am I?"
and "Where is the nearest f'in' bathroom?" and which end should
he stick in the toilet first. Maybe if he were lucky he could sit
down and still stick his head in the sink.

     He rolled off the bed onto his knees. Fortunately, the bed
was low so there wasn't far to fall - and it was such an
amazingly large bed. Standing took almost more gut control than
he had at the moment. An incredibly long distance away he found a
wall and clung to it with clawed fingers until the worst of the
nausea and dizziness passed. Only slowly did he realize how very
rough the surface was, more like stone, but try as he might, he
couldn't see it clearly. The room was quite dark and his eyes
were not focusing well in what light there was.

     Blinking, his sight cleared a little and so did his brain. A
shiver ran up his body but it had nothing to do with the room's
temperature and only partially to do with the fact that he was
naked. The room may be cool but with his current fever he'd never
know it. No, the shiver and the series of convulsive shudders
that followed came from pure fear. Most frightening of all was
that he couldn't remember what he should be afraid of.

     Almost his last coherent thought was that he'd been taken
from his little cube of a room and brought here by plane by that
weasel Keith, his ice cube of a sister, Dr. Mengela, and
Forsyth's man of action and few brains, Sam. At least Forsyth and
his smug smile hadn't been along. He'd come after, however, on
numerous occasions, but those semi-memories had been merely
moments, just sound bites, rain drops in an ocean of gray
interrupted at regular intervals by hurricane force storms.
Mulder had no picture of the whole.

     Wait. Stand still. Naked back and ass against the stone
wall, he forced his eyes to strain into the dim light and his
brain to concentrate. His own breathing and the occasional
gurgling in his gut were the only sounds. Only one thing was for
certain: he had lived in this room for a very long time. He had
raved and wept and screamed in this room where there had been no
friend to hear. He hadn't even been able to hear his own tortured
voice except somewhere deep in his mind. He had been trapped in
an eternal hell but he had not been alone. There had been the
hands of enemies, sometimes far too many, and then long stretches
where he was been so alone he had felt like weeping. At times a
feeding tube had been forced down his throat. Then there were the
needles and the burning in his veins as they pumped in the
poison. More often than not the needle released the beast, savage
and feral. The beast turned him inside out, not just once but
over and over for - weeks? Months? All he knew was that he had
been helpless to stop it.

     The monster in control of his body had done - things.
Loathsome, impulsive, bestial acts. Now certain aches deep in his
body sense.

     Mulder knew that he had only to shut his eyes and blank his
mind and his feet would take him unerringly to the bathroom he
needed so badly. He had lived here that long. He had been _kept_
here.

     A wave of pure revulsion worked as well as a blank mind and
his body quickly found the commode in a tiny powder room near the
kitchen. The fact that he didn't quite make it in time didn't
bother him in the least. Inside he felt so filthy that it didn't
matter what was going on on the outside at all.

           &nbs p;

     Jake's own groan woke him. It wasn't fair, it really wasn't.
She had had all the fun while he'd been left to suffer the
consequences and the consequences were not insignificant. The
psychedelic from the ampules Jake had pulled from Mulder's leg
may still have had a hold over Mulder's conscious mind but it had
metabolized sufficiently for his subconscious to finally burst
out in justifiable rage. Add that to a brain still seeped in the
remnants of the aphrodisiac, and Mulder's body had lashed out in
the granddaddy of all sexual firestorms and Jake's body had been
the target. He'd been worked over but good and Jake's recent
experience in these areas was not inconsiderable. Unfortunately,
Jake himself had not been a participant. As he cautiously
stretched stiff back muscles, he realized with a self-deprecating
smile that he was profoundly jealous.


     Turning over, he winced and felt muscles pull as he flailing
arm searched the acre of black-sheeted mattress beside him. No
Mulder. Initially frantic, Jake found him out on the balcony of
all places, dawn just coming up brilliant and glorious on this
side of the island. Mulder, however, looked anything but golden
and glorious. White hands clutched spasmodically at the plush,
white bath sheets that he'd wrapped around his shivering body.
Sweat and tears streaked his pale face. By the smell he'd been
sick, too, and in more ways than one. He had collapsed into the
chair nearest the door as if he had gotten so far and no farther.

     Mulder was so sick that it took considerable time for his
red-rimmed eyes to even notice that he had a visitor and a
considerable time later before the significance of his visitor's
appearance made any inroads into his benumbed brain. Jake would
have done just about anything to save Mulder the shock that
followed. The man was traumatized enough already. At least Jake
had slipped on a robe before beginning his search but that was
equivalent to a single tear in this ocean. When the image coming
into Mulder's exhausted eyes finally made it to his brain, the
only sound the sick man was able to make was something like a
whimper.

     "No, Fox, you're not going crazy. It's Jake. Jake Simmons,
remember? Under normal circumstances it's unlikely that you could
forget if you tried... but then things haven't been very normal
for you for a long time, have they?"

     Even the first and easiest part of Jake's speech seemed to
take a very long time to sink into that despairing mind. As the
eternal seconds ticked by, Jake's apprehension rose. Did Mulder
have any hold on reality at all? Coming down off of either drug
would be bad, but both? Jake had been stupid to leave the door to
the balcony unlocked after he had gone out for air the evening
before. The edge was too close and it was a long way down to a
flagstone portico. An easy way to peaceful silence for a soul in
the kind of turmoil Mulder's must be going through.

     "It's going to be all right. You're feeling like you've just
won an all-expenses-paid vacation to hell right now, but that's
going to pass," Jake said, soothingly.

     From his few discrete inquiries to the medical center staff,
Jake knew Mulder should start feeling physically better in a few
hours. Mental improvement may take longer, however; a lot longer.

     As if approaching a wary animal, Jake crouched and reached
out his hand as if in friendship though he didn't attempt to make
actual contact. Mulder made no attempt whatsoever to return the
gesture. His eyes with their few remaining gold flecks traveled
back and forth between the proffered hand and Jake's face, but
other than that not a single frozen muscle moved. Finally the
mouth did, though his jaw was so rigid that the words came out in
pieces and were hard to understand.

     "You mean... I haven't gone over into the really deep end
this time?"

     "No, you haven't. It is me; it is I. You can touch me if you
want to just to see that I'm real."

     Mulder's lip trembled and his eyes gleamed with that liquid
sort of luster which men don't see often in other men's eyes. The
voice that limped out, however, was without a trace of emotion.
"I have this hazy sort of memory that I already have. Should I
ask what I did? Should I ask what we did?"

     "Probably not." Jake rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he
felt a headache coming on. "I was afraid you'd remember
something. That's a long, complicated story. I was hoping you'd
ask the simpler and obvious questions first: - Where am I? How
did I get here? How did you find me?"

     "I'll get around to those," Mulder remarked with achingly
slow syllables. "One earth shattering revelation at a time."

     The weak voice was quavering with sickness but there was
feeling now, too. Most of all, Jake was relieved that at least
some of Mulder's old humor was back. He was going to need time to
feel better physically - as sick as he was, absorbing all this
was going to be pretty brutal - but there was no use putting it
off. Mulder obviously remembered enough.

     "The last question first: How I found you. 'When' is easier.
I found you here only yesterday and it was entirely by accident.
It was a shock for me, too. You have no idea." Jake reached out
to touch Mulder's right arm as if he still wasn't quite certain
himself that the phantom was real.

     Mulder clutched the towel again as he pulled away. "Careful,
I wouldn't want you to catch anything."

     Ignoring the other man's concern, Jake extended his hand and
succeeded this time.  The limb trembled as he touched the too-
warm flesh. There was no resistance when he turned it over to
show the angry tracks.

     "I'm not surprised you're sick, but it's not something I can
catch. You're going through withdrawal from at least one of the
nasty concoctions they were giving you if not more." Jake reached
into his pocket and pulled out the plastic bag with the two
ampules. "I found these imbedded in the inner muscle of your
thigh. You may feel like shit now but you were in zombie-ville
before I took these out. None of this was your choice."

     Mulder fingers closed stiffly over the small packet. He
squinted as if he were having trouble seeing its contents
clearly. When he lifted his eyes they were glazed over in pain.
"It's like a nightmare, but I remember being a pretty active
participant."

     Firmly but still gentle, Jake turned Mulder's arm over
again. "You were, but not willingly. Another aphrodisiac called
'Aswan Gold' has recently appeared on the streets. Heard of it?"

     The look of horror in Mulder's eyes as he stared at the
bruised red tracks indicated that he had. Calling Aswan Gold an
aphrodisiac is like comparing a full therapeutic dose of Demerol
to an aspirin.

     Jake was suddenly curious about where Mulder had heard about
the Gold. "I don't suppose that you'd be willing to tell me
whether you gained that knowledge through professional or private
channels? The stuff is very new."

     Mulder's jaw was set. In fact it was the only part of his
body not actively shivering. "No, I don't think so."

     "Okaaaay," Jake said slowly, "though I think that tells me a
lot about interests you may have - I'm talking about those of a
highly personal nature. If they run to the exotic the way I think
they do, then have you heard of the Club?"

     There was a delay, after all Mulder's brain wasn't
processing information with its normal efficiency, but the name
eventually brought him half-rising out of his chair to stare over
the balcony rail at the picture postcard scene of sun-drenched
dawn on grass and sand and ocean.

     So he had heard of the place and knew what Aswan Gold could
do. Jake realized that that was going to make explaining a lot
easier. It also meant that if Mulder had come upon that knowledge
as part of certain hobbies or extra-curricular activities then he
may not be so against having to continue with the charade. The
thought made Jake sick at his stomach but was the only way Jake
could think of at the moment to keep Mulder safe until they could
call for help.

     "Before we continue," Jake said, "I think we could both use
some coffee and some food. Stay here and take about a hundred
deep breaths, I'll be right back." He was about to head back into
the apartment then hesitated. "I hope you're not considering
doing something stupid. Things are not nearly so bleak as you're
thinking right now. Give it time." Only after receiving a vague
nod of numb acquiescence from the figure again huddled in the
chair, did Jake walk swiftly into the kitchen.

     He had just poured the coffee when Mulder shuffled in. His
hair was like the unruly mane of wild animal. It had grown
considerably since Jake had last seen him. He had wrapped one of
his towels around his waist and still clutched the other around
his shoulders. He moved slowly, holding onto the walls or
countertops to help his balance. His expression hadn't changed
much. He was sick, wary, closed, frightened.

     "Do you remember anything of how you got mixed up with these
people and how you got here?" Jake asked. "The Club keeps records
but there are a lot of holes. I can only guess."

     Mulder thought so hard then that his brow furrowed into
canyon rifts. His forehead broke out with new beads of sweat
before his shoulders sagged in defeat.

     "I can't remember, not clearly. Nothing except that they
wanted information. They wanted it very badly. They would
question me, they would beat me, I would drift for a while then
they'd beat me, then they'd question me. It just all blurs after
a while. That went on for... weeks." Mulder shrugged, the action
causing a shadow of pain to cross his lined face "Then I was told
that it was about time that I starting earning my keep." The
challenge in the blood-shot eyes told Jake he'd better not ask
for any particulars, but Jake could guess. "That went on for -" a
weary shrug - "too long. Then one day they gave me the first dose
of... it must have been the Gold. I didn't know what it was at
the time, but I knew how it made me feel." A breath came out long
and slow. "What it made me do."

     Jake had personal experience with what the stuff felt like
burning in your veins and your brain, but everyone reacted
differently. For himself he'd been mostly sick, and way out of it
like on LSD. Mulder? A rutting stag from the attendant's reports.
Mulder's eyes still glowed slightly golden in the dim kitchen
light from the few flakes that lingered.

     "That _was_ you the last time, wasn't it?"

     Jake suddenly found slicing a bagel took all his attention.

     Mulder's voice was hollow and shook. "It's better I know. It
was scarier than the other times. I was more aware but
couldn't... s-stop. I thought I'd totally lost it."

     "You were coming down off the hypnotic or whatever the stuff
they put in your leg was. You just came down off that faster than
the Gold. What could I do? Leave you here alone?"

     A long pause. Mulder reached shakily for a glass of water
Jake put in front of him but his mouth was still dry when he
asked, "Did I...?" The apology in those red eyes filled in the
rest.

     Jake threw up his head, almost laughing. "Force me? Hell,
no, but that's a long story, too.

     There was no reading Mulder's expression but he seemed
willing to accept all he was being told, at least for now.

     "Things have changed since we met last," Jake explained.

     Mulder raised a hand towards the head of the palm tree
outside the kitchen window and then to their mutual lack of
attire. "Just a little."

     Not having anything immediate to say to that, Jake set a
plate of bagels and cream cheese between where they stood staring
at each other from opposite sides of the suite's kitchen counter.
Mulder's eyes shifted first. He was looking for something. A
phone as it turned out.

     "I have to call Scully," Mulder said suddenly and not
unexpectedly.

     Jake was surprised that he'd waited this long to ask. "She's
okay as far as you know then? I'm glad you hear it. I had no way
of knowing the circumstances of your kidnapping."

     Another vague look. "Running very early in the morning, I
think. Couldn't sleep. This out-of-state limo just drove slow and
then stopped as if the driver had a question. All the visitors to
D.C. ask for directions. What's the date?"

     "October 15."

     The sweaty pale face, paled further. "Oh, Scully... Oh,
Dana... More than four months. She must think I'm dead."

     "We'll get her a message as soon as we can," Jake assured
him, "but as far as the call goes, that's not easy. Considering
your status here, you don't have access to any of the phones."

     Mulder's eyes lowered, nearly extinguishing the light that
had kindled at the thought of Scully. "My status? Which is what?
Prisoner? How does that work with the Club? Isn't this place just
some sort of ultra-exclusive S & M resort?"

     Briefly, Jake explained about the public areas that Mulder
had heard of where each thrall was meat for The Club's wealthy
clientele, available to be bought by the hour or the day. Then he
explained about the Caverns, the very closed enclave for the
private patrons and their even more private companions. Mulder
stared about him. Even the kitchen equipped with every modern
appliance had a barbaric look to it.

     "Most of the Cavern's permanent residents are those who
can't manage in the real world, who can't even manage in the
public areas of The Club. I have no idea how you got here. I was
performing an - ah - inventory as a favor for the management.
Some of them are friends of mine. That's how I happened to find
you."

     Mulder's body had found a little life but it was in the form
of barely suppressed rage. "Who? Who put me here? Who claims to
_own_ me?" he snapped.

     "Someone named Forsyth, though that may not be the name you
know him under and it's not 'owning'. That's illegal even here.
No, it's much more complicated than that. You're under contract.
More like the indentured servants in medieval times. The thralls
here enslave themselves. It's completely voluntarily - except
clearly in your case. That's what puts the 'M' in S & M. A legal
fiction but still slavery of a sort for the length of the
contract."

     Eyes blazing with indignation even though his pallor had
shifted even more towards the green side than before, Mulder
collapsed into a kitchen chair and crossed his arms. Distracted,
he forgot about the towel around his shoulders that slipped
unnoticed to the floor. "Which is?"

     "One year," Jake replied. He saw Mulder swallow. "It's the
standard length for most of the Cavern residents."

     The coffee began to drip out of the machine into the pot.
Both men focused on it. Such an unexpectedly normal sound.

     Mulder's anger seemed to be dying as if it and the weird
turn his life had taken had eaten most of his remaining strength.
There was, after all, only one all encompassing, overpowering
need. " None of this makes sense and none of this matters either.
What matters is that I get word to Scully. She has to know."

     "Believe me, Mulder, I understand. We'll find a way, but
even I don't have access to lines that go off island. These
people like to protect their privacy. Even the clients who come
here want to be unavailable. More importantly, you really should
think about this before you take action of any kind. You could be
putting her in danger. You could be putting yourself in even
worse jeopardy than you are already."

     Mulder slumped a little lower in his chair, his lower lip
out in a sulky pout. Jake profoundly wished that the man wouldn't
do that. It was distracting.

     "What if Forsyth shows up before Scully can get here? I'm
for screaming that I'd been kidnapped."

     "I wouldn't suggest it. The staff here are very efficient at
their job and part of their job is to see that Cavern resident
'Isaac', property of Mr. Money Bags Forsyth, remains healthy and
secure despite his fantasies. This may not be a prison but it's
still yours."

     Mulder's mouth twisted in a sneer. "Don't you mean a..."

     Jake knew the word. "Harem? A harem of one? Yes, Mr.
Forsyth's dirty little secret."

     Mulder shivered and hunted on the floor for the towel that
had fallen. He looked like he was going to be sick again. "If
this place is as legit as I've heard - and ethical if only to its
own internal logic and anything goes between consenting adults -
then how did I come to be here? I didn't consent to anything."

     "It's true. The Club checks into the backgrounds of all the
private clients and they have a system to make certain that their
personal slaves are here only by their own free will. In your
case that system broke down - or, to put the blame where it lies
- Forsyth's people broke it. I will say they were clever about
it. All the paper work is in order and there are no witnesses.
The summary of your arrival interview states that you were clear-
headed and drug-free the day you arrived and that you did
consent."

     "I never -"

     "I know that. The records must have been doctored."

     Mulder stared at the four walls as if even a kitchen can
look sinister if the lighting is wrong.

     "You're really out of the way here and drugged as you were
Forsyth didn't even need to hire a guard or a nurse, it's all
part of the package. The records show that he visited only on
weekends, Friday evening to Sunday, regular as clockwork. And
when he didn't come he sent representatives. During the week you
were someone else's problem. The attendants are paid to feed and
wash you, if feed and wash you is what is required. Your care is
what he's paid for and the Club knows how to keep its stable in
topnotch condition. Somehow they managed in spite of the drugs.
They exercised you, gave you massages, set you up for sessions in
the tanning booth. They must have because for all you've been
through, you're in great shape, my friend."

     Oh, yes....

     "And what do you suggest we do?" Mulder asked, eyes narrowed
against a rising headache.

     "I'm scared of Forsyth. You should be too. For all its veneer
of sophistication, this place has a current of barbarism that
runs through it that you don't want to come up against. Today is
Wednesday. You're safe until the weekend but only if you keep it
quiet and don't rock any boats, which means you have to obey the
rules, take care of yourself, and conduct yourself like a proper
little thrall. If you do, there will be no reason for management
to inform Forsyth that your status has changed. Until we know
whom we can trust and who we can't, I'd say your story should be
that you just got tired of being stoned all the time. The staff
here already assumes that was your choice. Happens all the time.
My being here over night may have triggered suspicion already but
I don't think so."

     Mulder's grin was sickly. "The people here don't creep
around telling tales?"

     "About that sort of thing? Lord, no. No one tells any tales
here. If they did what's to stop someone from telling on them.
It's an honorable sort of pact that way but you must not - under
any circumstances - alarm them enough for them to start thinking
about calling Forsyth. That would cause real trouble."

     "And what if Forsyth shows up before Scully can get here?
I'm still for screaming I've been kidnapped."

     "And held prisoner for three months drugged to the teeth? Do
you have any what a common fantasy that is? Get this though your
head - As far as these people are concerned you're just another
piece of ass that has willingly entered into a contract to play
the game. And what kind of game do these people play? S & M, my
friend. They're first assumption will be that you were getting a
little bored and are setting up a scene. Laying off your chosen
poison would be an expected first step. Now you want a little
punishment, a lot of punishment, and they like dishing it out as
much as they believe you want it. And fresh meat that you are,
you won't believe how inventive these handlers can be.
'Rebellious slave' is one of the top five most popular categories
of entertainment around here."

     For the first time Mulder looked scared. "I have rights."

     "You signed away your rights."

     "Under the terms of this contract -which I supposedly
signed - I have no rights? You can't sign away your rights."

     "In the United States you can't, but this isn't the United
States. It's its own country. Oh, you're a U.S. citizen but
there's no consulate as far as I know. This is an apolitical
jurisdiction. You could take the matter to court and easily prove
that you were kidnapped. The records were falsified but first you
have to convince someone that you're serious and even with my
help that would take time and raise a lot of questions which
Forsyth would certainly be consulted about.

     "Mulder, your brains are still scrambled. Think about it.
Forsyth is due back Friday evening, less than three days from
now. Worse, remember that the staff here knows you. You've been
nothing but a dead weight for them over the week and a tiger for
Forsyth on the weekends. You're being awake and aware is going to
be shock enough. You start exhibiting non-thrall like behavior
and you can bet someone will call your patron."

     Jake learned forward, desperate to draw some sign from that
pale, stony face that Mulder understood.

     "Do you want to risk their getting here before Scully even
if we do manage to contact her? Forsyth has an 'in' with these
people in the form of a seven digit yearly rent on this place and
your upkeep all of which is paid in full for six months, by the
way. Scully will have to work through some pretty unusual
channels to make it through this place's security and this place
has security the Pentagon can only dream about. Let the FBI in
willingly? Not a chance. Much more likely is that you'll be found
acting too weird and Forsyth will order you sedated and put away
someplace quiet where even I can't get to you until he arrives to
wisk you away."

     The last sentence did it. Forsyth take him back? Mulder
began to shake and fresh sweat broke out on his body.

      "I see you're beginning to get the picture now of how
vulnerable your position is? Who are these people most likely to
believe - a wealthy patron or a disenchanted, chronically
depressed thrall who has spent the last three months lying in a
stupor of his own making?"

     Mulder picked up the fallen towel and huddled under it for
warmth even though feverish was what he was. The picture was
becoming all too clear. "What about the employee who supposedly
interviewed me? It shouldn't take that long to get to the truth."

     "Rudi was conveniently offered a job on the mainland. He
left immediately after logging your 'interview', at least that's
how your records read. If you're lucky he may even be still alive
which will help your case when and if you ever get anyone to
raise the question. Excuse me, though, if I'm a bit dubious that
Rudi is living a well and happy life. Remember, I'm well
acquainted by how ruthless your enemies can be."

     Mulder laid his head down in his arms as if it ached, which
it probably did. "Enough, I just can't think right now. I just
want to call Scully. There must be a way to do so quietly."
Mulder turned his red-rimmed eyes hopefully on Jake. Jake did not
look hopeful. "So I can't call," Mulder begrudgingly admitted.
"But you must be able to. Maybe all we need to do is go to these
management friends of yours, lay out the facts and appeal to
reason." Mulder smiled bleakly at the words he had just spoken.
"I really must be sick. I can't believe I just said that."

     Jake frowned to hide the real emotion that was surging
within. Mulder assumed he was just another client, out for some
kinky sex and Jake just realized how ashamed he was to admit his
own status - that the conditions Mulder was imprisoned under,
Jake had embraced voluntarily.

     Jake brought the untouched plate of bagels over to the
kitchen table. "I'll think about how we can manage the message.
Meanwhile, you eat something before you fall down. Then you're
going to take a bath. It won't help your case if you try meeting
the management smelling like a sewer."

End of Chapter 6