A/N: This is for , a writer who released the challenge titled "A highly personal challenge" please god give it a shot, it's a fab thing to do. So here is how I think Sherlock would take a look at me.
"A bookstore how predictable." I look up to see a chest and crane my head up further from the cover I had been absorbing.
"Excuse me?" I ask, strangers do not normally talk to one another in Waterstones.
"How long do you spend in this store? You've walked past the best sellers so you're not that kind of reader. You pick and choose by the covers, you really do judge a cover by its book. Does that apply to the way you operate in life?" This stranger carries on talking as I glare at him. Tall with dark cropped hair I allow my eyes to travel over the lean form before his words kick back into my consciousness. "That would be an affirmative. You are working over my physique as I speak now, trying to calculate my height and what I look like naked."
I stop, hands on hips refusing to be bothered by this man.
"Anything else?" I ask crisply and I'm surprised to see a smirk stretch his face.
"Why yes." He cocks his head and gazes at me. "You're insecure about your height hence the boots with a little heel on them even though the snow dictates they are a mistake. That must mean you haven't got far to walk, so I'm going to say there's a car in a car park waiting for you. No those boots aren't driving boots and you're not walking which means public transport. A bus from the back of this shop likely, hence why you're in here sheltering from the cold."
I say nothing and watch the thought processes unfurl in his mind.
"The coat slung over your bag suggests you've been in here a while, that and it's still dry, while in fact it's sleeting outside. The size of your bag tells me you're a woman who has a lot to carry. Judging by the lack of interest in the bag it's not carrying normal woman essentials and the fact you keep putting it down tells me it's heavy. I'm wagering it's a bag filled with academic paraphernalia, am I correct?"
"I study at a university." I say through pursed lips.
"It's close to here then but not the one in town as the walking distance would mean you would have been caught in the rain, that means it's one nearby. So I see the rail pass in your pocket, you commute for university meaning it's either a London one or Colchester as they are the nearest destinations." He hums again and I sigh.
"A literature student judging by how immersed you are in books." I raise my eyebrows but the stranger continues. "You've varied the books you have picked up, anything from chick lit, which you skimmed somewhat quickly to academic, also skimmed quickly. The historic fiction took your eyes for quite some time and you even glanced at the erotica." I blush but the man doesn't seem to notice. "You've settled on crime and you're looking at the 12th book in a series, Carola Dunn, definitely not degree reading so for pleasure, something to take away the bite of studying all the time?"
"Finished?" I sigh, putting the book back on the shelf and leaning precariously on it.
"Not quite, the man behind the counter is glaring at me, in fact two men behind the counter are unhappy you and I have been talking for so long, I would wager one is your boyfriend, the other your father. How awkward is that knowing your boyfriend and father work in the same building. Your boyfriend and yourself have had an argument as you barely acknowledged him when you walked in but he hasn't taken his eyes off you so he wants to apologise for something but doesn't know how. I wonder what it is that he did?" He stares a little harder at me and I shift on the spot.
"Your father, closet homosexual, sorry to announce that you should probably tell your mother. Very lovely chap, gave me the eye as I walked in, politely declined his request for dinner, but said nothing to you of it when you walked in and said hello. Father slightly obvious as he shouted hello daughter across the shop floor. Also ruffled your hair and took the mickey out of the scarf you're wearing, definitely family."
"Want to try another area of my life?" I ask drily and the stranger stops and stares as if he's finally seeing me and not the list of facts he so clearly sees annotating me.
"You don't care that I've just dissected your life."
"You're right I don't I'll tell you where you're wrong and right as well." I smile politely.
"Can you remember what I told you?" He sneers and I smile properly.
"Why don't you jog my memory?" My voice is sweet and he knows I remember.
"I do judge by covers, I am incredibly shallow and that also continues into life as well. I decided you'd be a good fuck until you opened your mouth, then I tried to figure if you would talk all the way through sex and how incredibly scientific you would be in bed. Not simply Oh God for you it'd be something along the lines of your labia taste simply exquisite. Decided to pass on the opportunity of pulling you." I smile and unwind my scarf from where I've tied it to my bag.
"Again, ditto with the height, 5 foot 3 and half."
"You're just 5 3" He interrupts and I glare at him.
"My height." I say icily. "Does bother me on occasions but I bear it. These boots were a luxury spend and my suitable pair are in the menders for being worn through use, did you not see that these hurt my feet?" I smile and he takes a closer look at the boots.
"New suede, should have seen that." His tone is annoyed.
"You're right on the university front as well, though it's not a London uni and I do commute, I cannot afford a car though I would love to if it meant avoiding icy platforms and irritable commuters at 7 in the morning. You're correct with literature as well but that these are reading for pleasure. The two men behind the counter are neither my father or my boyfriend. I had a fling with one of them and the other has been a close friend since I was 14. I knew he was gay and he whispered how gorgeous you were but he was unsure on the whole gaydar where you fell. Told me you were a conundrum." By now I've dropped my bag and pulled on my coat.
"Not your father?"
"Nope, looked after me when I did work experience here, hasn't settled down or adopted so I'm the closest he has to a daughter which we both enjoy since my own father did not stick around enough to be a father."
"Oh."
"One thing you failed to deduce…" He perks up and stares again.
"My name." I sigh and before he asks I tug on my hat and leave the shop. "Thank you Mr Holmes, you are most enlightening." I smile and wave before hopping onto the bus that thankfully stops him chasing me.