Story 120: "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" by Jane Mortimer

[wendelah1]

I thought it might be fun to read more "first-time" stories. During last week's discussion of "On a Star-Spangled Night," the subject of Mulder's behavior towards Scully came up. One person even called his actions "predatory." Another member commented that she'd rather read depressing sex stories than fluff. I think "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" fits the bill nicely. This is not my favorite first-time story, but it comes close. It is very hot and very dark, and since Mortimer is such a great writer, for me at least, it was surprisingly convincing.

Warnings: if you think you might need one, pm me, please.

You can read "A Bitter Taste on the Tongue" at Fugues Fiction Archive.

You can also read it via the Wayback Machine here.

Please us know what you think, and leave your suggestions at the nomination post.

Comments

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

...hot, and gorgeous, and complex, and ambiguous, and disturbing, and hot, and...

i love this fic. and i love that i can chase myself around in circles, pondering whether i'm okay with the fact that i love this fic. because it certainly does some skirting of sexual abuse - even once having Scully herself use the word 'abuse' to describe Mulder's treatment of her. it's also one of the few fics that broaches at least five of the six things that BDSM stands for, incorporates them without naming them, in a complex way, and deliberately doesn't use a safety word. it's a high wire act of sexual and interpersonal ethics, and Jane makes it look both precarious for the characters and easy to write.

basically, this fic seems to carve away what many people hold most sacred in the XF universe. Scully's virtue (in every sense) and Mulder's love for her, which comprises a large amount of his integrity, have both been toppled.

but A Bitter Taste doesn't so much strip away all that is 'soft and gentle, clean and honest' about TXF. it seems to, but really it turns all of that virtue and integrity inside out. which i think is a much more complex and ambitious way to explore the possibilities of Mulder and Scully's characters. at first Mulder doesn't just want to hurt Scully, he wants to degrade her, which is what's most frightening (it's the same basic impulse that is behind a great deal of full-fledged, indefensible sexual abuse). Mulder wants to make her outwardly the enemy he thinks she is inwardly, and to have her because he's been had. but through some combination of choice and reflex, his intentions snap back on him like a rubber band, and he finds he would sooner love her and degrade himself by it, than degrade her. this turns the entire force of Mulder's love for Scully inside out, but doesn't diminish it.

He told himself that she was a traitor. That what he was holding in his arms was false, an illusion. Some illusions are worth any price you pay for them

meanwhile, the traits of 'goodness' and 'rightness' we identify with Scully, the traits Mulder's POV has suggested to us have been false all along, are proven all the more quintessential to her character in the course of the fic.

How could she hold on? Where was that strength coming from, and how could she give it ... How could she look at him as though he was the one she held on for, as though she trusted him, even now, no matter how much hurt he caused --

one other thing i find incredibly important about the way this fic handles itself, is that Mortimer demonstrates distinctly, several times, that Mulder might want to hurt Scully, he might even think he wants to degrade her, but he will not be doing anything if she says no. if he's going to hurt her, he's going to do it by getting into her head and manipulating her into saying yes. under the circumstances (her having gotten into his head dishonestly), his doing this is tit for tat.

so many fics don't recognize the ways that mental coercion and physical coercion function. Jane makes sure to coordinate both so that Scully is always in a position where she has reason to believe that if she does say 'no', she will be listened to. when Mulder is being physically coercive (handcuffing Scully), he is also asking her if she wants him to take the cuffs off. when he begins to walk her towards the bedroom and she breaks away, he doesn't go after her. he's being predatory, no doubt about it, and she picks up on that:

For a second there she felt the way she felt brushing by a murder suspect; somebody you had to be ready to defend yourself against.

but she's picking up on how he's feeling and thinking. his actions towards her are not aggressive. even during one of the most dodgy scenes, when she tells him several times to take his hand off her breast, physically he isn't being aggressive. he is holding still, he isn't advancing; it's a mind fuck, not a physical one.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

the one main problem i have towards this fic is actually the way Scully is written in the final scene. i get that it's important for the reader to know that, despite the painful intensity of the experience and the confusion she felt, sex with Mulder was excellent. but Jane also wrote this exchange:

"This is... this isn't fun anymore."

"You noticed that too," he said thickly.

and this:

She had never seen him look that way at anything that wasn't destroying him.

"I'm sorry," she heard herself say again, no longer clear on what she meant.

And saw him flinch.

i feel it isn't being true to how the fic is written that far, for Scully to suddenly be perfectly okay when she wakes up in the morning. whatever was going on between she and Mulder, it was clearly fucked up, regardless of whether it was the most mind-blowing sex of her life. her not realizing that just doesn't seem to connect with the scully from the rest of the fic, or my idea of scully either. it's as if Mortimer wanted scully to be oblivious so as to heighten the impact of mulder's renewed repudiation. but i really think it would have had plenty of impact anyway.

[sixpences.livejournal.com]

I can't really make a better comment on this fic than what amyhit has already said, so yeah, that^. It is both gorgeously written and thoroughly disturbing.

I did find, however, that my suspension of disbelief wavered a bit around Mulder being so thoroughly convinced that Scully was actually his enemy. It was a very wise decision on the author's part to leave this part mostly up to our imaginations, but I do struggle to think of anything that would make him completely lose his trust in her the way he has here- something that would make him doubt her, okay, but this scenario is just so extreme that it was a little hard to swallow.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I share the confusions of the previous posters, but my major confusion is: what has happened to Scully? Confronted with the intense, mysterious anger of the man she loves and trusts--that she is *supposed* to trust, if not love--she immediately and willingly becomes a sexual object of seduction. His lips on her neck, his hand on her breast, and she's gone.

Don't get me wrong. This is very sexy, and I'm convinced that Mulder and Scully would enjoy a b&d scenario and, moreover, that Mulder would not actually force Scully. But enjoyment is hardly the issue here. From the moment the hand is on the breast, Mulder is embarked on a test to destruction, an attempt to break and humiliate the partner he thinks (why?) has betrayed him. It reverses itself, as amyhit says, and Scully overpowers his angry lust with the authenticity of her love. And that's touching. But it's also weird. Because I think Scully, authentic Scully, would slap this guy upside the head and demand a clear explanation of his behavior.

The heavy breathing, the foreplay and handcuffs and pre-orgasmic torment is the stuff of smut biscuit. But ABTOTT is not a smut biscuit; it packs some serious psychology. And I simply do not believe that Special Agent Scully, whatever her private longings, would in this situation play sex slave, wake up later and believe that all's right with the world. She would immediately question Mulder's motives. Because the guy is doing a good job of hating on her, and hate sex would not be her first choice of a First Time.

Then maybe, if he explained himself and she told him what an asshole he was, they could mess around.

This is wonderfully written, of course. Hey, Jane Mortimer. But I can't help but think that, in employing the apparatus of porn to reveal a character epiphany, she hasn't quite succeeded at either.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Referring back to my mantra ("it's only out of character when you don't like it") I admit that I don't like this Scully. Rather, I can't believe in her instant acquiescence to the drug of sex. She'd accept Mulder's sinister sexual promise about as fast as she'd accept a line of cocaine.

My choice of the word "play" was careless; this is not a b&d game. It is actual bondage and domination, and very earnest. Though, like amyhit, I think sincere pushback would have put an end to it. It's just that Mulder is confident in his own power to dominate.

W, your reminder of vulnerable, second-season Scully made me think. I imagine you could work up a floatable theory that M & S are recreating Scully's state of utter helplessness at the hands of her abductors. That she survives her bondage and is rewarded with an orgasm should be therapeutic. Mulder being a psychological social worker: not hardly. He's caught up in his own hostile craziness, and there's no intimation that he cares how she feels, except to wonder at her acting skills. Even if Scully is unconsciously returning to the scene of the crimes against her, it's at the hands of someone who, if only temporarily, hates her.

This is personal, of course, but I find it far more likely that Scully pulls herself out of that apartment and keeps going. Mulder is scary. And at some point she's going to demand he explain himself. Otherwise the partnership is over.

It really would have been nice to know why. It's as though Mortimer is saying "Work with me here. I'm trying an experiment." *That's* the game.