Spoonbending With Mr Nude

by Amanda Sichter

Charles Xavier is the nudest nude man I've ever known.

Not that I am a connoisseur of nude men, of course, although I have seen more than my fair share. Communal showers seem to have played a larger part in my life than I had considered would occur. But I have seen Charles Xavier nude on many occasions and I have to say that he isn't just bald on top. He's as smooth as a marble statue and has (despite his current infirmity) the body of a Greek God as well.

I used to love sliding my tongue along the whole length and width of him, trying to find an inch of skin that wasn't perfect - perfectly smooth, perfectly soft, perfectly hard. I never did find such an inch.

This was before, of course. Before I realised that he was only using me for my gelato.

There was a man in the hospital compound in Israel, a little Italian, who sold gelato to patients and staff alike. He hadn't let me pay for a single cone since he had spied the tattoo on my wrist and compared it with his. Not being a particular fan of the icy treat I had kept Charles, who had a surprisingly sweet tooth, in a constant supply. We had become lovers shortly after, drawn together, I thought, by mutual dreams and shared intellectual curiosity. When I found him with Gabrielle Haller, found him inside her body and mind, I realised that what I hoped for was never to be. I thought it was about lust, I hoped it was about love - but *we* had never shared our thoughts. It was obvious it had only ever been about the gelato. I walked out of the compound that day and never looked back.

The next time I saw Charles I was attempting to steal rockets from Cape Canaveral. Or something. It does tend to blur a little these days. Since then our relationship has gone through every permutation possible, though it seems we are destined to be, essentially, enemies. But, when I need to speak to someone, fully and frankly, I find myself drawn back to the man whose mind is among the most admirable I have ever known.

So I found myself in Charles' study, having sneaked into the Mansion without triggering any alarms (and yes, before you scoff, the Master of Magnetism is quite good at sneaking around - I only make declamatory statements declaring my presence when strictly necessary), discussing politics on Genosha and wondering why Charles was making my magnetic sense quiver as it had never done before.

He was in the middle of some insightful point on the necessity of including the mutates in future political forums when I realised what was disturbing me. 'Charles!' I exclaimed, cutting him off in mid-sentence. He raised an eyebrow at me, obviously startled by my vehemence. 'You have - piercings!'

His look slowly metamorphosed into a smile. 'I had wondered whether you would notice. Erik.' He had - still has - a way of saying my name that can make all of the hairs on my neck stand on end.

Three piercings - three nodes in the magnetic field where metal pierced flesh, quivering across my sense of the world in a way that cannot be explained to anyone who is not similarly gifted. 'Why do you have piercings, Charles?' I asked. 'It is not something I would expect of you.'

He shrugged. 'Lilandra is part-bird, you know. She likes - shiny things.'

'Shiny things,' I echoed. 'Metallic things,' and I reached out with my power and tweaked. And then again - closing my eyes, savouring the intricate meshing of metal and magnetism and flesh, twining them within each other until the harsh breathing of Charles broke into my concentration. I opened my mind to find his fists clenched on the desktop, his breathing rapid and shallow, sweat beading his brow.

'Erik,' he said flatly and I looked at him, savouring the look on his face, the merciless slash of his mouth. His students always consider him a kind and gentle man, but you do not hold the X-Men together for so long without a certain lack of mercy. It was a lack that matched my own, that I thought of as my exclusive part of Charles.

Then he leaned over the desk and caught my shirtfront, dragged me to him and kissed me.

I am the Master of Magnetism. It is quite possible that I hold enough power to crack the world in two, to sunder it completely. My will is sufficient to hold a warring nation in check, to drive the United Nations to submit to me. And yet, with Charles - one touch, one velvet stroke of his tongue and I can barely remember my name.

There are spaces in sex where afterwards you cannot remember what happened. So caught in time, in the taste of a mouth, in the quiver of a flank beneath your fingers, in the lust and the now, that all of a sudden you find yourself naked and you can't actually remember how you got into that state.

Some things you remember. The touch of mouths, exploring each other, the clash of teeth and tongue. The short, sharp intake of breath when the tip of a tongue first slides the length of a man's hardness. The taste of sweat, clean and sharp. The arpeggio of delight when you remember just exactly where the favourite erogenous zone is and explore it thoroughly.

A memory like starburst and summer wine - Charles and I on the floor of his study, going at it like Malaysian sun-bears.

I, of course, had the advantage. Charles had piercings - three, to be precise. Two nipple rings and a Prince Albert. I wondered, as I used my power to tickle and thrum the metal, to drive Charles to higher pitches of erotic delight, whether Lilandra really did like shiny things, or whether the piercings had always been intended to tempt me. Tempt me they did, so I used them ruthlessly (I do have a reputation to maintain, you know). Before the end, just before the end, Charles could not keep from begging and I couldn't help the triumphant smirk that touched my mouth and he shuddered beneath me in shattering orgasm.

He saw the smirk and it was my downfall.

He didn't use his power. He used teeth and tongue and hands and mouth and his knowledge of my body and my weaknesses to drive me into paroxysms of delighted lust. He took me to the edge and back again so many times that I wondered whether he was monitoring his mind with my own (well, in the few small moments I was capable of thought, I wondered). When he had played me long enough, when I was curled and whimpering beneath him, he finally took me the edge and let me fall over it. Lust and power and magnetism coiled out of me, a pulse of delight so extreme that I thought it might just be possible to die from it.

When I returned to this particular plane of reality Charles was resting beside me. For a moment we lay quiet beside one another but then, mutually, we slid apart - not shamed, but understanding. We dressed quickly and I was surprised at the grace with which Charles lifted himself back into his golden hoverchair. I was also surprised to realise, as I hadn't before, that in that chair and under that blanket, Charles didn't actually feel the need to wear pants.

Finally, clothed, we faced each other.

'Charles,' I started, but couldn't finish.

'I miss you, Erik,' he said simply. 'Like sleep.'

The pause stretched out, eternal with possibilities, ended by regret.

'And yet,' I said.

'And yet,' he agreed.

He would never reach out to me with his mind during sex, during love, never seek that most intimate of contacts. And if he did, I would never let him in.

Love.

Without trust.

Could not be.

'Are you going to tell your students that I was here?' I asked.

'It's hardly any of their business,' he responded and smiled.

I nodded gravely, raised my hand in salute and left his study. As I made my secret way out of the Mansion, I was not at all surprised to hear the startled cries of Bobby Drake in the kitchen, being confused.

I remembered that pulse, that coil of power released, and regret gave way to curiosity as I wondered how Charles would explain to his students why every single spoon in the Mansion was bent in two.

The End

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