"Scully," he said finally. He reached out and took her hand. "I'm not a kid any more."

He felt silly, saying it out loud. In fact there was something silly about this whole situation, about the way she was sitting beside him fully clothed while he was wearing nothing but slightly threadbare cotton boxers.

She regarded him gravely. "Neither am I, Mulder."

"No, Scully. I mean I'm getting old -- really old. Gray hair, bad knees, the whole bit."

"Is that so?" She lifted a critical eyebrow. "You look spry enough."

He shook his head, rejecting her teasing tone. "Scully...have I ever told you how old I was when I finally had sex for the first time?"

She thought for a moment. "No, I don't think you have."

"I'd just turned nineteen," he said, hoping it explained everything. "Nineteen."

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then asked in apparent puzzlement, "Is there something significant about that number?"

He looked sadly up at her. "I was in my prime then, Scully -- nineteen. And now I'm as old as TWO nineteen-year-olds put together. Older. I've lived a whole lifetime's worth of being sexually active."

"Nineteen is a whole lifetime?" she asked in dubious-Scully fashion.

He waved his free hand. "Whatever. You know what I mean."

"No," she said, her forehead furrowing. "I don't."

He sighed. He could remember how he'd felt when he'd lost his virginity. On that long-ago Saturday night, as he'd eagerly begun the main event in his cramped little room at Oxford, he'd thought himself pretty damned old to be having sex for the first time. But no matter how old he'd thought he was then, it was nothing to how old he was now.

"When I was nineteen," he explained, "nothing was gray, and nothing creaked. At nineteen, I had my whole life ahead of me. I had it going on."

She gave a snort.

So much for Scully's lending him a sympathetic ear, he thought. "You find that funny?"

"Mulder, I can believe you had it going on," she said, leaning back on one arm and giving him a challenging stare. "The question is, did you know what to do with it?"

His brows lowered in a frown. "You can laugh if you want to, but it's not funny to me."

"Mulder, one gray hair does not make you Rip van Winkle. Lots of women color their hair every month to cover up a little gray -- not that I'm confessing anything."

"What about that crack about how you wished you'd known me in my prime?"

"I didn't mean that literally. In fact it was supposed to be a compliment, as in, 'If you're this good now, what must you have been like then?'"

He saw nothing but visions of walkers and Viagra bottles. That would be him one day, he thought, wearing checked polyester pants and driving a car with the Northstar System. "So you admit I'm going downhill."

Scully looked like she wanted to roll her eyes. "I never said that."

"But when we were having sex before -- " he began vehemently, brows drawn together. He caught himself before finishing the thought.

She gave him a sharp look. "What?"

"Never mind."

"No, you were saying something. What about when we were having sex before?"

He looked away, and sighed. How pitiful was this conversation? "You just seemed like your mind wasn't even on it."

She blinked in astonishment. "I did?"

"Yes," he said, nodding sadly. "You did. Like you weren't really enjoying yourself."

"Really?" Her voice had risen an octave in surprise. "Because I was enjoying myself. Very much. I mean, I thought it was obvious when I..." She made a flustered gesture.

"Well, yeah, that part was obvious," he acknowledged. "But otherwise..." He sighed again.

That was another thing old people did, Mulder thought unhappily. They sat around sighing all the time. For God's sake, he ought to just go out and buy himself a subscription to Modern Maturity right now.

"Mulder," Scully said gently beside him. She squeezed his fingers, and waited for him to look at her. "I think we've been operating at cross-purposes. You know, at first I thought maybe you'd decided to take this case because of autumn in New England. I thought the romance was built-in."

He looked at her in confusion. "Scully, I wouldn't choose a case just for that."

"I realize that now, Mulder. We both take this work seriously, and we're on the government's nickel. But it was flattering, at least at first, to think that's what you had in mind. In fact, I was pretty unhappy with you when I realized you were building a case during what was supposed to be a romantic weekend."

"Oh," he said. "So that's what that was about."

"I didn't know you were feeling under-appreciated. And it certainly never occurred to me while we were having sex that you were looking for some proof, some big SIGN, that you're still attractive to me."

Sheesh, what a schlemiel I am, Mulder thought morosely. I'm sitting here in my underwear next to a beautiful woman, whining about how I'm losing my sex appeal. He stared at the wall opposite them, pretending to be fascinated by the rose pattern on the wallpaper.

She set her hand on his bare thigh. "And I do find you attractive, Mulder," she said huskily. "Look, maybe you're not nineteen any more. But do you really think I'd be interested in a nineteen-year-old? He'd be a boy, Mulder. You're a man. And every year that passes just makes you more attractive to me."

He grunted doubtfully.

"Mulder, have I ever lied to you?"

Silence fell -- the perfect silence of a quiet country bed and breakfast without so much as a television to disturb the stillness. Vaguely he realized her hand was on his leg, just inches from more interesting territory. When he was nineteen that hand would have been the only thing on his mind, and here it had taken long minutes for the realization even to dawn on him.

Neither of them spoke.

"I just hate this, Scully," he said finally. "I hate that the best part of my life was already over before I even met you." His mouth twisted, and he stared down at her hand.

She leaned her head closer and smiled up at him. "'Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.'"

Mulder laughed hollowly. "You forgot, the rest of that line is 'the last of life.'"

"'The last of life, for which the first was made,'" she corrected. "Nope, I don't think I agree that the best is already behind you, Mulder. Age isn't going to wipe away your intelligence, or your personality. Besides, there's a lot to be said for experience. I'm afraid you and your gray hair and your bad knees are stuck with me."

He did not look up, but his frown faded just the same. Ah, Scully; he should have known he could count on her. Maybe the future wasn't going to be so bad after all. And her hand was on still on his thigh...

"Of course, if you've just lost interest in sex," she said lightly, "I guess we'll have to think of something else to do together from now on. We could take up cooking, maybe."

"I hate cooking," he said, with a note of spirit creeping back into his tone. "Wouldn't you rather just eat take-out?"

"Maybe we could play canasta."

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at cards."

"Square dancing?"

He smiled at her. "With my bad knees?"

"Well, then," said Scully matter-of-factly, and began to unbutton her blouse. "I guess we're just going to have to fuck."

****

Mr. Kopeck stood frozen to the spot, his blood running cold, every hair standing on end.

The demon's thin lips drew back, revealing razor-sharp teeth. It mouthed something at him: "Praepara mori" -- prepare to die.

Mr. Kopeck felt as if he were caught in some unspeakable nightmare. He opened his mouth to yell, but he couldn't make any sound come out. He could only watch helplessly as the demon slunk toward him, its belly low to the ground, creeping closer in all its hideousness.

Mr. Kopeck screwed his eyes shut, afraid to look. So this was how it ended. Bracing himself for the blow, he mentally counted down the seconds he had left.

Three...

Two...

He heard the hum of the Mustang's engine, a thud, a crunch, and the squeal of brakes.

"Oh my God!" Rachel Thornton cried. "Did I hit something?"

Slowly, afraid of what he might see, Mr. Kopeck opened his eyes. Rachel was looking at him anxiously, her hand on the gearshift, uncertainty written all over her lovely face.

He glanced from Rachel to the demon, and back to Rachel again.

He gulped. "Um...I think you did."

She threw her car door open and leapt out. "Oh my God!" she cried, looking behind the tire and raising one hand to her mouth in horror. "I completely squished it!"

"Yep," said Mr. Kopeck, impressed. "You sure did."

"What was it?" she asked, glancing to him with a look of confusion. "Please tell me it wasn't somebody's pet. I'll die if I just killed somebody's cat."

"No," he said. "I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and I think it was a...a woodchuck or something."

"A woodchuck," she repeated. "That's not so bad. Oh, my God, did that ever scare the daylights out of me." She sighed, and held out her hands to him. "Feel me, I'm shaking all over."

"Feel you?" Mr. Kopeck said in a hushed tone. He did not have to be asked twice.

****

"Oh my God," said Scully. And then, a little more breathlessly, "Oh, Mulder..."

He lifted his face from between her thighs, a smile spreading slowly across his features. "Learned that trick when I was twenty," he said smugly.

She didn't answer, just lifted her hips a little. He recognized nonverbal communication when he saw it, and went enthusiastically back to work.

Enthusiastically -- and passionately. He licked, he sucked, he dove in happily with his whole face like a man going for the blue ribbon in a pie-eating contest. He used two long fingers to do that little trick with her G-spot, the one that always drove her wild.

Scully moaned. Mulder lifted his head again for little self-congratulation. "Picked that one up when I was twenty-two," he said.

"Mulder -- " Scully urged, squirming impatiently against him. He wasn't sure whether the choked sound of her voice was a sign of frustrated lust, or just the result of the 69 position in which they'd arranged themselves.

He set back to work.

One thing about pushing forty, he thought: sometimes slowing down a little could be a good thing. He wasn't sure he could have managed this kind of concentration a few years ago, under the circumstances. Her mouth was hot on him, making him feel like his brain was made of helium.

He rolled his tongue into a U, and slid it slowly up and down the shaft of her clitoris.

"Oh my God!" Scully gasped, her fingers spasmodically clutching at his hips.

"Twenty-three," he tried to say. This time he didn't dare stop, and so he sounded rather like a patient in the dentist's chair -- an unusually happy patient.

"Ohhhh..." Scully moaned, pressing harder against him. "Oh, oh, oh -- "

Mulder smiled to himself.

The night was still young, and he still had a good sixteen years' worth of experience left with which to dazzle her.

****

For once, Kandee thought as she and her date made their way from the stadium, Brittany was right: Phil really was cute. A little shy, maybe, but he was tall, brown haired, inarguably athletic, and he looked positively lunchable in the jeans and Henley he'd changed into after the game. Best of all, as far as Kandee could tell, he'd already fallen under her spell. How else could you explain that glazed but adorable expression? He was either hers or he was a zombie, and either way, she mused, swinging hers hips just enough to make the captive walking behind her audibly catch his breath, it would be fun.

"...and then we can hit the diner, 'kay, dude? I'm, like, starved," Mike was saying.

"Sounds good to me," Brittany agreed. "Sound okay, Kandee?"

Kandee stopped on the curb at the edge of the parking lot and pouted winsomely. Phil narrowly missed walking into her, and she had to suppress the urge to smile. She felt a sudden surge of power: she definitely had his attention. "I don't know..."

"You got something else on?" Mike asked, surprised. Brittany had probably told him she was a done deal.

Her eyes flitted to Brittany. Poor Brittany. Her friend clearly had no idea how this game was played. How she'd ever landed Mike, Kandee couldn't imagine. Well, she thought, shaking her blonde mane for effect, Brittany was about to get a lesson from the master. Watch and learn, Miss Sweetness-and-light, watch and learn.

"Oh no. It's not that, Mike. I can't think of anything I'd rather do, really. But I'm supposed to work at, like, eight, and I totally need to wash up before I could possibly go, like, anywhere. I mean" -- she turned toward Phil, arms at her sides, cheerleading sweater pulled tight across her chest -- "just look at me. I. Am. A. Mess."

Right on cue, Phil all but whimpered.

"S'okay," Mike said and slung his arm across his girlfriend's shoulder. "Phil can give you lift back to your place, I'll take Britt back to hers, and we can meet up after. That'll still give us a couple hours."

"Oh?" Kandee dipped her chin and looked demurely up at Phil through her lashes. "You didn't come on the team bus, Phil?"

"Huh? What?" He gave a shy smile and shifted the gym bag he was carrying -- hers -- from one hand to the other. "Oh. No. I didn't come on the bus."

"No?" Kandee smiled and twirled the end of her ponytail. "Well, like, how *did* you get here?"

For a minute, he looked confused, utterly baffled. It suited him, she thought. Suited him very well. And unlike the rest of the farm boys she'd met since coming to Vermont, he actually had the good sense to look up from her chest occasionally. He had potential, maybe, and he lived far enough away that he wouldn't be hanging around all the time, getting under foot. And, now that she thought about it, she hadn't had anyone following her around doing the love-sick puppy thing in a while. She'd missed that.

"Oh," he said finally. "I drove. My -- my car." He gestured toward the parking lot.

"So, we have a plan?" Mike asked. "You drop Kandee off and swing back to my place, I'll drop Brittany off and meet you back there, and then we'll meet up in, say, an hour and a half?"

She kept hair twirling, ignoring Mike. "Your own car? How handy." Her dimples deepened. She wondered vaguely which of the dirty pick-up trucks she was going to have to pretend to be thrilled to ride around in. Still, it was something.

"Yeah." He nodded absently and then pulled a set of keys from his team jacket, and hit the remote. Much to Kandee's surprise and delight, the headlights on a sleek black BMW Z3 convertible flashed briefly in the gathering twilight.

"That's your car?" Kandee tried not to sound impressed, but it was difficult. Looked like there was more to this guy than just good looks and excellent taste in women.

"Yeah, I got it for my birthd..."

"Yo, earth to Phil," Mike interrupted, snapping his fingers in his cousin's face. "Plan? Have we got one, dude?"

"Uh huh, we do," Kandee answered. She had a plan, all right. "Come on, Phil." She crooked her finger, turned on her heel and started toward the BMW at a fast enough clip to leave him a good two paces behind. She didn't have to look back to know he was following.

Halfway across the lot, she felt a hand grip her shoulder and spin her around. "Hey!" she yelped, half in surprise, half in indignation. "What the hell do you -- ?"

"Sorry." Phil pulled his hand away as if it had been burned and took a step back. "Sorry," he said again. "I just didn't want you to step in that." He nodded at the gravel before her.

Kandee turned and looked down. It was difficult to see clearly in the dusky half-light, but there in front of her was a lumpy puddle of something disgusting that she would certainly have stepped in if he hadn't stopped her. "Ew! That's gross! Like, what is that, anyway?"

"Don't know," Phil answered. He crouched down for a better look. "Road kill of some kind. Squashed groundhog and radiator fluid, maybe. Can't imagine what else that green stuff would be." He stood again and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry I grabbed you. Really. I just didn't want you to ruin your shoes." He paused. "Um, those are Corrados, right?"

Kandee lifted an eyebrow. How did FarmBoy know about shoes? Women's shoes? "Ah, yeah."

"That's a nice shoe," he stated authoritatively. "You wouldn't want gopher guts all over 'em. Ruin the suede."

"Right. Right." Kandee's brows met in a puzzled frown. Even she had her limits. "Like, what are you? A foot fetish guy ? Or cross-dresser or something? 'Cause, I am so totally not into that. Or, like, that."

Phil shook his head, abashed. "No, sorry." He shrugged and looked away. "Family business." He shrugged again. "We sell shoes."

"Oh? So what, like, you're all shoe salesmen?"

He shrugged again. "Not exactly. My family owns Yorkview Shoes."

"Oh." Kandee recognized the name of a medium-high end chain. Whenever she made it to the mall in Burlington, it was one of the first places she hit. "So, what, like, you guys own the store in the mall?"

"Yeah." Phil nodded, his eyes still averted. "That one, and the other 283 on this side of the Mississippi."

Kandee blinked. 284 stores? She could almost hear the cha-ching of cash registers in the distance. Sure, it was retail, but around here, well, a girl couldn't be too choosy. "Really?"

"Yeah," Phil nodded. "It's not glamorous, but um...well, I can get you a discount. If you want one," he added hastily.

If she wanted one? Oh, this was too good to be true. "That would really, really be nice." She smiled dazzlingly. "Come on." She extended her hand and waited for him to take it. He looked, momentarily, as if it were a poisonous snake. She wiggled her fingers. "Phil, come on. I won't bite. And we don't want to keep your cousin waiting. So tell me...how big a discount?"

Hand in hand, they sidestepped the last earthly remains of the demon.

****

The diner was busy. Apparently, Craftsbury Common's greasy spoon was the hip place to be at eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning.

>From her seat opposite him, Scully eyed Mulder's heaping plate. "I still can't believe you're going to eat all that," she said.

"Have to keep my strength up," he answered, grinning around a mouthful of turkey sandwich. This won him one of her rare smiles, fleeting but wonderfully naughty for the instant that it lasted. Oh, that smile...

He suspected they were both giving off an unmistakable post-coital glow. She was leaning closer than usual, stealing more food off his plate than usual, speaking to him in a more teasing tone than usual. He could feel himself wearing the relaxed, self-satisfied look of a man who'd just made a beautiful woman cry out his name in the heat of passion -- twice.

So what if the case hadn't gone his way, he thought with equanimity. So what if Scully had joked just this morning, between the first and seconds bouts of sex, that maybe now he'd listen the next time she insisted there had to be a commonplace explanation for a death. Well, okay...maybe it bothered him a little to be wrong; but all in all, this trip had been well worthwhile.

The little bell above the entrance to the diner jingled, and he glanced over to see Mr. Kopeck coming in, dressed in weekend attire and accompanied by an attractive blonde. It was the blonde who drew a second look from Mulder. He'd noticed her at the bed and breakfast; it would be hard not to notice those curves and those tousled curls. She was smiling at Mr. Kopeck, and he was smiling back, the sort of goofy smile that made them look like they both wanted to jump on each other and go at it right there in the doorway of the diner.

"Looks like someone's got himself a new friend," Scully said in an undertone.

"Mmm-hmm," Mulder replied affably.

Under the table, he felt something brush his ankle, then slide seductively over his instep. He glanced at the floor in surprise. "Are you playing footsie with me?"

"Maybe," she said with an air of intrigue.

"Agent Scully," he said, shaking his head in amazement. "If this is how you behave when I'm wrong about a case, remind me to be wrong more often."

Hiding a smile, she looked down into her empty coffee cup. "I could use a refill on this. How about you?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine."

She searched the crowded diner for their waitress. "Oh, brother," he heard her mutter.

He followed her gaze. Kandee was leaning over a booth in the corner of the diner, both elbows on the table, ass in the air, talking to Brittany Woodall and two football players. Or perhaps, Mulder thought, it might be more accurate to say she was talking to just one of the football players. Her face was mere inches from that of the taller boy, a shy-looking young man who was gazing at her in doe-eyed infatuation.

"Excuse me," Scully called loudly. "Could I get some more coffee over here?"

Kandee turned her head and shot them a look of pure poison. "Can you, like, possibly keep your shirt on for a minute? I'll be right with you." Then she turned her attention back to her friends.

Scully sighed. "Did I ever tell you that I've never much liked cheerleaders?" she said to Mulder.

"Did I ever tell you about my cheerleader fantasy?"

"Did I ever tell you that if you know what's good for you, that fantasy will be about how you turn down the self-centered pom-pom girl in favor of the brainy but exceptional beauty in the Chess Club?"

Mulder chuckled, and watched as she stole another french fry from his plate. "What time is our flight out of Burlington?"

"Four o'clock."

"That should give us some time to figure out what we're going to put in our report."

"What do you mean 'we,' Tonto?" She dipped her french fry liberally in his ketchup. "I already know what I'm going to write in my report: one accidental overdose, one death by mischance, and one animal attack. Case closed."

"Okay," he said. "But 'Vampire Vixens on Fire' would make for much more interesting reading."

Scully declined to take the bait. Instead she glanced over at Kandee, who was still nose-to-nose with the football player in the corner booth. "I think it would be quicker if I just got my coffee myself," she said with a sigh.

"I'd say that's a safe bet," Mulder agreed.

She slid out of the booth, cup in hand, and went to the lunch counter. Mulder watched her as she crossed the diner, appreciating the rear view as she walked away.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head to find Mr. Kopeck in the otherwise empty booth behind him, one arm leaning on the back of the bench seat.

"Yes?" Mulder asked in mild surprise.

The teacher looked sheepish. "There's something I thought you ought to know," he said, voice low. "It's about your investigation."

"Actually we're closing the file on -- "

"You know that thing you told me?" Mr. Kopeck interrupted. "How I wasn't going to solve my problem until I got over the conflict I was feeling? You know, about...uh..." He fumbled for a way to complete the sentence.

"Sex?" Mulder supplied. This morning, and last night too for that matter, had left him in an expansive mood.

Mr. Kopeck nodded. "Yes. Sex. Well, I think that problem is solved." He glanced over to his own booth, where the attractive blonde was sipping a vanilla milkshake through a straw. "On, um, on both counts."

"I'm happy to hear that," said Mulder. "On both counts."

The teacher broke into a grin, a beatific expression lighting up his features. "Yeah," he said in a voice full of wonder. "It is pretty cool."

The blonde, as if sensing she was being talked about, glanced over to where they were sitting. She blushed, and a slow, cat-that-got-the-canary smile deepened the dimples in her cheeks. Mr. Kopeck wasn't the only one who looked to be in love, Mulder thought.

Mulder stuck out his right hand. "Well, congratulations," he said, shaking hands with the teacher. "I'm glad to see things are looking up for you."

"Thanks." Mr. Kopeck got to his feet. "And thanks for your advice before." With a last bashful look, he set off to rejoin the pretty blonde.

"What was that all about?" asked Scully, returning to the booth with her coffee cup in her hand.

"What? Oh, nothing." Mulder's eyes flickered over her lazily. "He was --I was just telling him how you were right about the deaths here being nothing but accidents."

She eased into the seat opposite him. "That's very big of you, Mulder."

He shrugged. "When you're right, you're right, Scully." He felt her foot teasing its way along his calf again, and had to struggle not to smile. "You about ready to go, as soon as you finish that coffee?"

"Yes, if we can just get the check."

They looked over to their waitress and her knot of friends. Kandee remained oblivious to all the customers in the diner. She was talking a mile a minute, while the poor love-struck football player hung on her every word.

"It might take a while," Mulder observed.

They fell into a thoughtful silence. Scully sipped her coffee. Under the table, her toes caressed his shin.

"You want to meet me in the ladies' room?" Mulder asked after a minute.

She set her coffee cup down with a clink. "I thought you'd never ask."

And, demon or no demon, the two agents set out to enjoy a little deviltry of their own.

****

NOTES

Although we've taken a few liberties with it here, Craftsbury Common is a real village in Vermont; you can see the 1950s version -- not so very different from the 2000 version -- in the Hitchcock film "The Trouble With Harry." We didn't make up the words Mr. Kopeck uses in his attempt to exorcise the demon, either. They're taken directly from the rite of exorcism in the Rituale Romanum.

There are several people who helped make this story possible, and we would like to thank them:

First, Emily Short was generous enough to proofread the Latin. She not only brought an expert knowledge of Latin grammar to the process, but she even recognized a smutty phrase bastardized from Catullus. PD was VERY impressed -- not to mention grateful, since her careful editing caught more than one of his mistakes. He promises he will never again forget that "epulor" is a deponent verb.

Second, two trusted friends looked over the final draft for us, Euphrosyne and Dasha K. Both had a lot on their respective plates, but generously shared their time, talent, and wisdom with us. Their insights were, as always, invaluable.

We'd also like to thank Ebird, for pestering, encouragement, and just cuz.

Last but not least, we would like to thank jerry, our beta reader extraordinaire, who worked on this story with us from beginning to end. She took time out of her busy schedule to go over each section with a fine-toothed comb. She helped us make Mr. Kopeck more sympathetic, and cast the tie-breaking vote in our rare artistic differences. Without her unflagging encouragement, this story would probably never have been written.

Our sincere appreciation to everyone who helped us, and to all of you who've read this far. If you're one of those patient readers, how about dropping us a line so we can thank you, too?