A Full Ounce of Shag
The reader will remember that I began the wee hours of Christmas 1889 by pinning my former flatmate to the sofa. When I had finished kissing him by the light of the Argand lamp, I noticed that the love letter I had been brandishing in triumph was gone from my grasp.
"Thank you, Watson," murmured Holmes, patting the pocket of his purple dressing gown with some satisfaction. "It's a beautiful present. "
I grabbed for the pocket, but Holmes pinned it between his lightly muscled thigh and the settee. I sat up so that his view of my frown might be unobstructed.
"Holmes, you are a pickpocket."
"It has been remarked. Come, John. All I ask is that you permit me to read the entire letter once. That will be enough for me to commit it to memory. Afterwards, you may do what you like with it. Since you are not getting it back until then, why not turn the situation to your advantage?"
I regret to say that I reacted with a most ungentlemanly snort. Holmes's notion of what a situation turned to my advantage would look like is often foggy.
"And how do you propose I do that?"
"It's not fitting that the man who has given me this cherished possession should receive naught but Haggis Jim's brandy in return. Tell me what you would like for Christmas, and I will do my best to provide it." To my great astonishment, he blushed a little at this. It was clear that more than liquor and firelight were in the offering.
The news that Holmes considered me, quite mutually, the love of his life had amazed and delighted me. Now, however, a wave of concern swept over me. I had never known him to engage in a romantic relationship, with all the trappings of body, mind, and heart. Why should he want to do so now? The idea that I might, despite his best intentions, become a temporary amusement for my easily bored friend was haunting.
"Very well," I said, crossing my arms. "What I want for Christmas is answers. I will ask you three questions, all pertaining to your behavior over the last six months. If you answer completely, I will cede you the letter."
And probably more besides, I thought to myself, for Holmes was becoming more and more difficult to resist.
Holmes groaned. "Three answers? Watson, that's unreasonable! From the first line, you designate it as my letter!" He fetched it out of his pocket and began poking at it with a long thin finger. "'To my darling Holmes! Light of my existence, fire of my …' Good God, you've really gone to town on this, haven't you?"
"Quite," I said. I could feel my face turning the colour of the fresh poinsettia that graced Mrs. Hudson's entrance hall.
"I'll give you one answer," said Holmes, hastily returning the letter to his pocket. "Any jury in the land would agree, given the salutation, that the letter is already mine."
"And any jury in the land would agree, given the body of the thing, that we should both spend the next two years picking oakum at Pentonville."
"But we haven't done anything! Apart from ..." Here, I was moved by the sight of Holmes rubbing the fingers of his left hand over his lips, as if pressing the memory of the kiss into his skin.
"The letter speaks of everything I would like to do to you," I said, "not everything we have done. That is enough. We both know that the Blackmailer's Charter thrives on insinuation and circumstance."
Holmes scrambled out from under me and rose to his feet. "Watson, you are a scoundrel."
"It has been remarked. Where are you going?"
"To gather a few things to tidy you up with."
"I don't need tidying!" I called.
"You do," said Holmes, returning with a pan of warm, soapy water and a flannel. He sat down on the low-lying table in front of the settee. "Lie down."
During the years we lived together, Holmes had, through trial and error, discovered a way of barking orders that I found almost impossible to disobey. Without ever meeting my first commanding officer, Holmes had somehow devised an imitation of the man's intonations, accent, and vocal timbre that was unparalleled as a form of vocal control. Fortunately, Holmes seemed to understand that this was cheating, and unlike my former officer, he only used The Voice when he felt it was for my own good. Before I could stop myself, I lay back on the settee.
"Very well, but I will not be deterred from asking questions," I said, gathering up my dignity as Holmes applied the wet end of the flannel to my bloody nose. "What were you doing at the Bar of Gold tonight?"
"I was collecting a friend who had decided to celebrate Christmas Eve by brawling with ruffians down at the docks." Holmes sighed and lifted the flannel, taking stock of his work. "Fellow ruffians."
"That's not why you went. You were surprised to find me there. I submit that you were looking for …"
I could not bring myself to say "Old Robbie," firstly, because the lad was at most twenty, and secondly, because I was afraid Holmes would say yes. I decided to conclude with "masculine company."
"Of a sort," said Holmes.
"That is not a complete answer." My comment was somewhat stifled by Holmes's ministrations, for my nose had started bleeding again, and he immediately set about swaddling it in the dry, clean end of his flannel.
"Then allow me to elaborate. Imagine you are me. It is Christmas. You are alone. Your companion of eight years has left you — no, don't interrupt — for a wife. You are contemplating the cocaine bottle when a vision of your friend's kind, disappointed face appears to you. It occurs to you that it is a twenty-minute walk to the man's house. What do you do?"
"I set out in search of my friend."
Holmes gave a wistful smile. "Even if it is quite late?" he teased, as though members of Her Majesty's Army were inevitably home by six. "Even if cabs are hard to come by and it is pitch black and snowing?"
"Yes," I said, somewhat nasally. "Because that is exactly what I did. I came here, spoke with Mrs. Hudson, looked for you, and drank your frankly execrable brandy. When the clock struck ten and you were still not here, I set out for the docks."
"Then you just missed me," said Holmes, removing the flannel from my face. "I arrived at your house at ten. When I got there, I supposed that you and Mary had gone somewhere together for the holidays." Here he winced like a man who has just jammed a splinter under his thumbnail.
"And so you headed towards the opium den."
"Yes. But you had a head start, as I was further west. Allow me to deduce what you were doing at the Bar of Gold."
Holmes began dabbing rather hard at my superficial throat wound, a memento of the anonymous brigand who had nearly cut short my life at the doorstep of that unwholesome establishment. I grabbed my companion by the wrist in order to facilitate more deduction and less dabbing.
"Be my guest," I said.
"Mary had discovered your unsent letter and disappeared with it. You were certain that she would use the letter to bring scandal and imprisonment down upon us. You wished to warn me, but Mrs. Hudson mistakenly told you I had gone to France. The knowledge that you were to be my undoing was torture, and yet, for the time being, you could do nothing about it."
Holmes cast off my grasp as lightly and easily as if it were a pair of handcuffs, dabbed at me a few more times, then sat back, pleased with his work.
"It was torture," I admitted. "I felt as though I had a head full of wasps. Like you, I went to the docks to forget."
Holmes gave me a strange look. "That was your motivation, Watson, not mine. I went to remember."
I believed Holmes, for he is variously strange and wonderful, and he requires no assistance when erasing things from his mind. And yet the idea of visiting an opium parlor in order to restore one's memories was a peculiar one. I was about to use one of my precious questions in order to get to the truth of the matter when Holmes burst in upon my thoughts.
"Honestly, Watson, what part of this perplexes you? Do you recall the night you came to the Bar of Gold, looking for Isa Whitney?"
"Of course I do." This occasion had been forever enshrined in my memory as The Dread Occasion When I Discovered Holmes Languorously Entwined with a Sailor.
"Then you will understand what I wished to remember."
"Indeed," I announced grimly. "Your nautical paramour."
"No!" cried Holmes with great impatience. "Will you scrub him from your mind? I wished to remember you."
"Holmes, I begin to fear that while dismounting from a carriage, you have recently fallen upon your head. You already remember me."
"Do you have any idea how you looked at me that night? The whole picture was clear to me at once. You were not merely shocked to find me with a man; you were grief-stricken to find me with a man who wasn't you. It was the first time that it occurred to me — for I am sometimes an idiot — that you were perhaps in love with me. I stayed up all night, smoking myself blue and trying to determine what to do next."
I recalled the image of a pensive Holmes the following morning, seated on a throne of stolen pillows and wreathed in a halo of tobacco smoke.
"I thought you stayed up all night working on the problem of the Man with the Twisted Lip!"
Holmes lifted his eyes to the heavens, perhaps seeking solace there for being eternally confronted with the bafflement of others. "Surely you don't believe that problem merited the use of a full ounce of shag. I solved it the moment I walked into Mrs. St. Clair's dining room."
"Holmes, this is too much. Tell me you did not find a ball of orange hair, fresh from Neville St. Clair's wig, lying in wait in the family butter dish."
"Mercifully, no. Do you not recollect the portraits of the man's ancestors? Have you ever seen so many prominent eyes, fine noses, small lips, lobeless ears? I've seen these traits before, for they are common in the sideshow. You know of James Morris, the Elastic-Skin Man? An astounding performer. The man can pull the skin of his neck up over his nose. The condition appears to be hereditary and rare, and there is no way that a shock of orange hair and a rubber scar can conceal it. When I saw that Neville St. Clair was likely to have these features, I felt sure he was also Hugh Boone, and that he was therefore falsely accused of murdering himself."
"Then you already knew Boone by sight?"
"Everyone who travels regularly to the City knows Boone. He is one of our most celebrated beggars. Or was, until I applied my sponge to him. No, Watson, I did not lose one moment of sleep over that man. I was far more preoccupied with you. I had finally determined that you might love me in return, but it was too late. You were married, and we would never be together. Not unless I forced my hand, and that I was not willing to do. Not when Mary afforded you the better chance at happiness."
At this, I gave a bark of laughter. It is a laugh I learned from Holmes.
"How on earth would Mary afford me the better chance at happiness? Good heavens, man, you know what I am like. I must be roused from my bed at all hours in pursuit of deviltry, or else I am not happy."
"Yes, but Mary could give you children. There are no laws against you kissing Mary in a public park. Your union with Mary came with social approbation that you will never find with me."
"The Baker Street Irregulars are a fit repository for any paternal feelings I may have, I don't give a flying toss about social approbation, and I am not the kind of man to go kissing anyone in a public park." I considered this further. "Well. Not during daylight."
Holmes smiled at me. "Watson, you leave me in a state of perpetual wonder."
"Next question," I said. "If you craved masculine company, why seek it in an opium den in Whitechapel? Surely there were safer environments." I grimaced as soon as I had asked, for the answer was immediately plain.
"There, now, you know the answer already. There is danger, Watson, and then there is danger. Should I have made a dazzling entrance at the brothel in Cleveland Street? There I would have seen the well-to-do who form the bulk of our paying clients. Furthermore, I would have been a mile from our former home, and my compass needle would have inevitably pointed towards you. Better to turn my back on Baker Street and visit the docks."
"I see that now," I replied. "And the raid on Cleveland Street has vindicated your approach. Surrounded by the aristocracy, you would have felt the need to show off until you were the center of attention. In Upper Swandam Lane, your competitive instincts remained submerged. There, you were the Purloined Letter. Nobody expected to see you there, so nobody did."
"'The Purloined Letter'? Is that Poe? Honestly, John, your reading habits are beyond repair."
"Yes, it's Poe, and I know perfectly well you read him when I'm not around. The whole time I lived here, someone kept moving my bookmark."
"Next question," said Holmes, unwilling to entertain this line of inquiry further.
"How long has your relationship with Old Robbie been going on, and what does it mean to you?"
"Watson, that's two questions. This brings you to a total of four."
"No it doesn't, because I already knew the answer to the previous one. You said so yourself."
"That didn't prevent you from asking it. Very well. I became a regular client of the Bar of Gold two weeks after you got married. For the first two weeks, I limited my activities to smoking opium. Afterwards, Robbie pursued me, and I let him. Sometimes one body uses another in a reciprocal arrangement. There's nothing more to it than that."
"I met Robbie outside the Bar of Gold earlier tonight."
"Did you?" said Holmes. He must have been genuinely surprised, for he raised both eyebrows instead of his usual one.
"He persuaded the cutthroat who was after your watch to let me go." I turned my head towards the windowpanes and contemplated the dark, wild world beyond Baker Street. "I'm quite certain that he's in love with you."
"Then he has deplorable taste in men, and I am to be blamed for allowing him to persist in his error. John, you moved out. You left me for Mary. What was I to think?''
Ruefully, I rubbed my addled head. "Indeed, what were any of us to think? I thought I loved Mary, and she thought she loved me. It turned out rather early on that while I cared for her, trying to unravel the significance of several deaths and a treasure map at the very start of our association made my emotions seem more powerful than they otherwise would have been. As for Mary, she loved the person I am when I'm with you. She thinks it the best version of me."
"And what do you think?"
"I'm forced to agree with her. It is my best, my truest self."
"As for me, Watson, I think we can agree that I am useless without you. Mrs. Hudson will add her assent to that of the general throng. Discovering that you might have affections for me after you were already married was the greatest tragedy of my life."
"I cannot say that I am at all displeased by this turn of events," I replied. "And yet, you will forgive me for noticing that your willingness to pursue me seems to have erupted out of nowhere. You have always presented yourself as immune to romantic feelings of any kind."
"I have presented myself as nothing!" cried Holmes. "It is you who tell the world that I am bloodless! Because I lack romantic interest in women, you think me a wandering comet hewn from stone and ice. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you never see me gravitate towards anyone else is that I gravitate towards you?"
"But you are indifferent, Holmes," I said, stunned by his vehemence. "You have proclaimed this a thousand times. You love a good puzzle, but when the puzzle is done, you are indifferent to everyone on earth."
At this point, Holmes threw his arms around me and kissed me. When he had finished, he got down on his knees and pressed my hand to his heart.
"Watson," he said. "I am indifferent to roughly 1.5 billion people, which is to say, those miscreants who have the audacity not to be you. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of sentiment; it means I'm capable of focus. I know I did not tell you before, but that was when I felt sure that such a disclosure would destroy at least two lives and possibly three. I love you, John. I have loved you since I met you. Will you have me?"
"I will," I said, for it was impossible to answer any other way. "I love you too, Holmes. You are mad and marvelous, and you have spoiled me for everyone else." Fondly, I pushed a bit of hair back from his forehead. "If I were a forward man, I would ask you to take me to bed."
"Thank you," said Holmes, with a mixture of humility and exuberance. "Thank you. I will do better than that. I will bring the bed to you." And here he scurried off in the direction of his bedroom.
"Holmes, what are you doing? You needn't …"
A great crash was my answer, as though somebody had just made a sweeping motion with his arm and knocked an assortment of objects, breakable and otherwise, onto the floor. I went to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a very small glass of brandy. This time, I went for the Archbishop of York's cognac.
"Here we are," said Holmes, hauling his featherbed and wearing a soft, woolen blanket as an opera cape. He lay these down by the fireplace, tossed a few extra logs on the fire, and secured the hearth with a firescreen. "It's quite chilly in my room, and you are an invalid."
"I am not an invalid," I said. "I have been heartily dabbed into a complete restoration of health."
"Nevertheless, watch that rib," said Holmes. "I failed to dab it."
He lay down on his side on top of the blanket and looked up at me. His dark hair shone in the firelight, and his long legs were bare and luminous. During his struggles with the featherbed, his dressing gown had fallen off one shoulder. And his skin! Many plastered themselves with mercury in order to affect the milky white complexion that comes to Holmes naturally. He was dazzling. I put my brandy down by the bed and tumbled down next to him.
"Holmes, you are entrancing."
Holmes favored me with one of his rare, real smiles. "I am a brain on legs, Watson. My looks have always been irrelevant to me, but if they have helped in any way to bring you closer, I am grateful."
He seized me by the chin and kissed me long and slow. I wrapped an arm around his waist and drew him closer. It was both ecstasy and torment to feel his bare limbs entangling with mine.
I was discovering that I very much liked Holmes in dishabille, for never had I been more aware of him as a man. I liked his strength, his size, his roughness of manner, his apparent want. He must have felt similarly, for he rubbed his face against my neck, clearly enjoying my stubble and my scent. I took the opportunity to press my nose into his hair, breathing deeply.
"Such unruliness!" I said, as a wayward curl tickled my nose. He had had a long day, and whatever he normally put in his hair to keep it in line had given up the ghost. "I have long marveled that such an orderly mind should be paired with such illogical hair."
"Perhaps you should concentrate less on my orderly mind and more on my bohemian spirit. Then the hair makes sense."
"Perhaps."
I ran a lazy finger down one of his collarbones, across the hollow of his throat, then up the other side. When Holmes drew almost imperceptibly nearer, I pulled at his dressing gown, exposing his chest. Then I kissed it.
"I always felt certain your sternum would be excellent," I said.
Holmes began to shake with the silent laughter that is peculiar to him. "John, I can say without qualification that I have never in my life encountered such a compliment. I hope my breastbone meets expectations?"
I shook my head. He gave me a crestfallen look.
"It surpasses them," I said. I picked up my glass of brandy and, with all the gravity I could muster, flicked a few droplets at him.
"Fiend," said Holmes. He stuck one of his slender fingers in my glass and flicked a few droplets back at me. One or two landed on my lip. He sucked them off.
He was still taking great care with my bruised rib, so it was but a moment's work to throw a leg over him and press him bodily to the bed.
"Argh," said Holmes, refusing to engage in any kind of countermeasures that might bring me harm. "When that rib heals, you're in serious trouble."
"It's the sort of rib that heals very slowly," I said, despite the fact that it would probably be well within the week. "It could take a year."
I dipped my finger in the brandy and circled his right nipple with it. Then I pressed my mouth to it, savoring its rise.
"Oh my God" was the indistinct reply. They say that the male nipple is an organ with no real purpose, but Holmes looked unconvinced.
At this point, conversation became sporadic. I rejoice to note that Holmes is a very responsive lover. I poured a stripe of brandy from the hollow of his throat downward and licked it off while he gasped. Some of the brandy got into his navel, and I helped myself to it while he bucked and moaned. I pushed his dressing gown up a bit, dipped my finger in brandy, and striped his inner thighs with it. When my tongue followed the trails my finger had made, Holmes cried out. I raised my head to look at him.
"I begin to mistake myself for a Montmartre showgirl," he said. "You uncover me bit by bit. It's lovely, John, but if you do not strip me and have me, I will lose my mind."
I took pity on him and ceased my teasing. "You will forgive me, I hope? It is not my nature to open my Christmas presents all at once."
Holmes bit his lip. "I was the kind of child who deduced where his presents were as soon as they were bought and peaked at them before they were wrapped."
I laughed. "I never doubted it for an instant. Holmes, tell me what you would like. Are there any supplies that would ease …"
"Lamp," said Holmes.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You wish to be gentle with me. I respect your wishes. Go and get some oil out of the lamp."
I drained my ounce of brandy, then got up and went to the Argand lamp. A French invention, it had come down to Holmes through his mother's side of the family. While some lamps are animal in nature and others are mineral, this lamp is vegetable. It runs on colza oil and smells, at least to me, of French fields and sunshine. I dipped my glass in the reservoir and carried out Holmes's request. Then I returned to the bed.
I finished undressing Holmes, and Holmes finished undressing me. Tactilely, there was little difference between stroking him through the dressing gown and stroking him in its absence. His skin is so fine-grained that it's difficult to believe he is not made of sun-warmed silk.
Under Holmes's tutelage, I learned how to prepare and relax him. I trembled as I entered him with my fingers. He spread his long legs and pulled me on top of him. Then he guided me into him, and all was tightness and light.
Holmes's legs! If I have mentioned them frequently, it is because they are, on him, what wings are on an angel: glory made flesh. He wrapped them around me and spurred me on. After a few minutes, I paused.
"Let me touch you," I begged.
Panting, he nodded assent. His pupils were blown, and his chest was rosy with the stain that one sometimes sees on the very pale during the act of love. I wrapped the slick fingers of one hand around his sex and bent to kiss him. He murmured words of desire into my mouth. I began to thrust again, timing the movement of my hips with the movement of my hand.
"Oh God, John. Fuck me, my love. Oh!"
And at this, he threw his head back and climaxed into my hand. As he bore down around me, my body answered him. Waves of pleasure overcame me, and I spent deep inside him, crying out his name.
And so, Holmes — for you are in this instance my only reader — this concludes The Tale of the Full Ounce of Shag. I present it to you on this, our anniversary. I hope it will help you to see yourself as I do. Merry Christmas.
P.S. I note that we have not yet attempted item seventeen on my list of things to do to you, nor have we completed item six on yours. Perhaps some New Year's resolutions are in order? If you are interested, you will find me ever
Your eager companion,
John
A/N: It's Christmas week, and I would like to thank some people who have worked hard on my behalf this year. Ariane DeVere has been a wonderful beta and kind friend. AxeMeAboutAxinomancy has been working on something marvelous. Esbe responded to my plea for more Victorian fic. Lilocked included me in a fan video which was then shut down. (Things happen.) LockedInJohnlock delighted me with her podfic of Control Alt Delete. And Mr. Mirith has generously served as an extra pair of eyes when, as now, I have been too impatient to wait more than a few minutes before pushing the "send" button. I'm very grateful. Thanks also to everyone who has commented, left kudos, or just quietly read this on the train. Happy New Year!