The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases

bite mark where Holmes had sealed his mouth to my skin to muffle his noise when he thrust deep into me and came, triggering my own orgasm over the long, pale fingers wrapped tightly around me. The mark was faint and entirely concealed by my shirt collar, but even so it seemed to burn into my skin like a brand and when Holmes suggested, "Shall we set off, then?" I agreed without any clear idea of where exactly we were setting off to .
    Half an hour later, walking along to Coombe Tracey, Holmes glanced at me wryly and said, "Watson, I realise that I have said this before but it does bear repeating–"
    "I know," I muttered in embarrassment. "I have a very expressive face. You needn't tell me my flaws; I am making an effort to rectify them."
    He laughed, tucking an arm through mine as we walked. "I don't know that I would call it a flaw, for I happen to find it rather endearing. When you are not thinking about our personal lives, that is. Besides, I flatter myself that I am the only person of your current acquaintance who can inspire you to look like that."
    His voice was confident enough, but his face still held a trace of query. A trace that I was eager to dispel.
    "My dear man, you are correct, though you do not go far enough." I smiled warmly at him and resisted the urge to kiss him, here on the public highway in front of God and the world. "There is no-one else to whom I would entrust so much of myself as I have to you."
    * * * *
    The rest of the story was dramatic and gripping, to be sure, but for me the most important moment was on the hillside, outside that stone hut. Helping to save the life of an innocent man is something to be proud of for the rest of one's days, but I hope I will not be thought callous if I say that I received a gift during that case that I treasured still more.
    Holmes was still silent and uncommunicative for days at a time during the dull periods, or preoccupied to the point of obsession by a case, but such was his nature and so it had been since I first met him. The important thing was that he never again deceived me as he had during the affair with the poison box and he made more of an effort to include me in his plans. Though he never did lose his love of surprising me; he never told me the full story until after the exciting climax.
    Upon our return to Baker Street we were immediately plunged into two new cases – the card scandal of the Nonpareil Club and the supposed murder of Mlle. Carère – and I was forced to delay my desire to hear Holmes's deductions for the Baskerville case. He would never permit cases to overlap, and his clear and logical mind would not be drawn from its present work to dwell upon memories of the past.
    So all-consuming were the two new cases that it was only after Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville had paid us a visit – on their way to that long voyage that had been recommended for Sir Henry – that my patience was rewarded.
    After he had finished, and I was left marvelling yet again at his abilities, he stretched and fixed me with a hopeful look.
    "And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for "Les Huguenots." Have you heard the De Reszkes? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini's for a little dinner on the way?"
    I smiled my assent at him. Clearly he was aware that he had been ignoring me for the past week in favour of card scandals and murder charges and now was eager to make it up to me, and it would have been heartless of me to refuse him when he looked at me like that.
    In my life, I have found that other men can and do take offence at such a pattern in their most intimate relationship. Yet I will admit that I find it easy enough to bear thanks to the knowledge that, underneath it all, Sherlock Holmes is quite as devoted to me as I am to him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Kate Lear is a London-based writer, born 200 years too late, who divides her time between her notebook and the city's more salacious areas. Sometimes there is no division. She has published The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes: Or, Baker St. Nights with Renaissance E-Books. Come and say hello at http://kate-lear.livejournal.com. And bring coffee.

INDICIA

    " The Adventure of the Thing from Whitechapel", Originally published in Elementary Erotica under the title "Research" , Circlet Press, Cambridge, MA, 2011 .