She knows what I like.
It's true. She can play my body like a concert piano – scales of pleasure that build and build, and finish with a bright glissando that lingers quavering in the air. She knows the little caresses that make my knees give way. Economy of effort: a look that makes my breath catch, an unexpected touch that gives me gooseflesh, a silhouette she knows will send my mind to dark, intimate places. Which nights to make me beg, and which nights I wouldn't ask but want it. It's Irene Adler's brand of intimacy.
She doesn't do it for me. I know that. She tells herself she does, though. Tells herself that pleasuring me is the same as loving me. I tell myself that, too, some days. Others, I am brave enough to look reality in the face and admit that I love a woman far too damaged and clever to ever truly love someone else. She keeps me because I amuse her. Maybe even intrigue her, just a little. Because I'm ordinary. A nobody. The kind of person The Woman never bothers with professionally, and therefore never bothers with at all.
But she knows what I like. And I think it scares her – deep in the center of her chest where bravado is born.
I like to be waiting with a glass of wine and a fire crackling when she comes home at 4 in the morning.
I like to take the myriad of pins out of her hair and comb through it with my fingers, feeling her relax against me while I do.
I like listening to her talk – about her clients, about her latest clever schemes, and when I'm truly lucky, about whatever flits through her brain as she drifts off to sleep.
I like the ratty purple dressing gown she puts on when there are no clients to expect, the one that lumps and bulges in a way that makes even Irene's impossibly sleek figure seem dumpy.
I like the Irene that is present when she thinks she's quite alone. The one who is old beyond comprehending, cracked and slivered beneath the varnish. The one who takes out her fear on the fourth bouquet of black roses from a dissatisfied customer, hurling the vase against the wall and crushing the petals in her hands. The one who is petulant when she's too tired to be clever. The one who is seen far too seldom.
And yes, I like the Irene that half of London is mad for. I like her devil-may-care smile, her smoldering eyes, and the absolute control she summons from between the cracks. Control, and a hint of puckish pleasure I'd have to be blind not to react to. She's irresistible when she chooses to be.
She likes it when I tell her so. But only in moderation. Too much, and she gets tired of it. Too much adoration is exhausting, I suppose. Suffocating. She snaps, pushes me away, is cold and cruel and professional for days. Her words are her sharpest weapons, the things best calculated to keep the world at bay.
But I stay. I'm contrite. I'm patient. Because I know after enough time has passed, she'll feel sorry, or she'll get bored, or she'll forget that she's punishing me. She'll give me that calculating, vixen's smile and beckon. Her expertise is her apology. I let her think it's the one I want. I won't beg.
She knows what I like.