For some of us, there is no afterglow.
The trouble is brain chemistry, of course. Wildly erratic levels of dopamine seem to be a common trait in my family line, and I myself am no different. Yes, I have had my hormone levels tested.
Sometimes my brain chemistry functions normally enough to initiate feelings of lust. Sometimes I even indulge. Subsequently, however, there come no endorphins, no surge of oxytocin, and too much or too little prolactin. In short, none of that contented, happy feeling I am led to understand ought to follow sex.
So I lie here beside my lover, and I feel nothing, save for the following: tired, in need of a shower, and completely hollow. The lack of the so-called afterglow echoes within me, and I withdraw. I never felt right about faking it.
Not that I usually bother about what is standardly termed right or wrong. My scruples I abandoned years ago, and if I ever had a soul, I'm certain it went for cheap on eBay.
In the dark pre-dawn, a hand reaches toward me. "Too much social?"
I mentally flinch at the sound of my breath catching. The question had come near enough to the truth that I mumble assent. Better this way, better that I am deeply antisocial, rather than to confess that in the aftermath I feel nothing beyond a vague sense of tragedy that the event occurred at all.
Soothing words are lost on me, but I tolerate them for a moment before I raise myself up out of bed. My head turns toward the door, but my lover's voice calls me back.
"You'll be leaving directly, won't you?"
I feel a twinge. Not regret. Not happiness, either. The instinct pulling me back down to waiting lips is something far more primal, the ancient howl of some long-forgotten cave-Holmes who beat the air with his fists and declared to every living creature that this is mine.
So I've decided I want to keep this lover, at least for a while. The information raced across my brain, leaving a trail of carnage. How novel. How would I manage? Would I manage at all? I am quite certain that I have never been capable of love, not in anything resembling the conventional sense. Sustaining a romantic relationship had never become a possibility. If I am not pretending, I don't know how to proceed.
Perhaps my brother has the right of it. Perhaps it is better to abjure the touch of another human, if human indeed we are. Perhaps any breech of the habitual Holmes solitude is an invitation to disaster.
"Mycroft."
I allow myself to be drawn down for another kiss. Warm lips savor mine, and a thrill of lust grips me, leaving me feeling eager and adolescent. I tremble, and I know my lover feels it. Strangely enough, I don't really mind. I break away from the kiss before I let myself sink into bed again.
"Will you return? Tomorrow night?" Hopeful, but wary.
Of course I will. "Perhaps." I press my lips together, because I cannot think of anything else to say. Gathering my clothes, I head for the shower. I check my phone on the way. No messages.
[Author's note: I hope Mycroft's vocabulary is not too off-putting. I sincerely believe he would use words such as abjure and assent, if only in his own head. For those of you who do not know and did not dash off to google it, dopamine is sort of the chemical id, a substance in the brain that controls wanting. (Forgive the oversimplification.) Too much or too little dopamine has been linked to the types of behaviors that very nearly define Sherlock's entire personality.]