Irene left the door between the rooms wide open. John wasn't sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, there was still a part of him that was worried Sherlock was in danger - it was still a possibility (albeit a remote one) that this was an elaborate setup to kidnap, injure, or kill him. Granted, John was the one who had made the call, but some little voice in the back of his brain had learned to shout "DANGER!" whenever Sherlock was doing something impulsive. This definitely counted. Being able to see the whole scene through the open door did help to quiet that little voice a bit.
On the other hand, John wasn't entirely sure he wanted to see that much of his flatmate. The webcam was okay - awkward, obviously, but he could always turn off either the sound or the audio if he had to. And it would only show Sherlock's top half anyway. Actually watching the whole thing, though . . .
John shifted the chair to the side a bit, so he could peek out the door. Irene was rolling on elbow-length black gloves - they gave her an interesting dominatrix-slash-operagoer vibe. She flexed her fingers, smiled at Sherlock, and pointed at the bench.
"You. There. Legs toward me." Her voice came both through the doorway and the laptop speakers.
Sherlock just stood there with that superior smirk. "Aren't you going to demand I call you 'Mistress' or something equally inane?"
"Would that turn you on?"
"Not particularly, no."
"Then I won't. Sit on the bench and take off your shirt." She crossed to one of the tables and picked up a coiled length of rope. "I'm merely the lab assistant today, anyway - I'll run you through your paces, but John's the primary investigator for this experiment. He's the one you'll need to tell your results to."
John was pretty sure his brain stopped working for a second or two at the sound of his own name. And at the sight of Sherlock casually prodding at the tiny buttons of his dress shirt with those long fingers of his. John had seen him shirtless before, of course, but this was an entirely different experience and - quite honestly - a bit terrifying. Mostly because the previous times he had seen Sherlock shirtless, he hadn't been anywhere as primed for filthy thoughts as he was right now. And as Sherlock worked the buttons through their loops and shrugged the shirt off farther and farther, those filthy thoughts only intensified.
John wasn't entirely straight. This was no big secret to anyone except Sherlock. Hell, Mycroft had even alluded to one of John's early army affairs (by name) about a week after John and Sherlock moved in together, with the clear implication of "you fuck with my little brother and I'll kill you." (Entirely unspoken, of course, but perfectly clear anyway.) Not an idle threat from Mycroft, either.
Sherlock didn't know because . . . John wasn't sure why, exactly. It just never came up, and then Sherlock was so damned proud of deducing everything else about everyone, and John rather liked having an ace in the hole. It made bearing Sherlock's insults that much easier - every time Sherlock called him an idiot for not realizing the dent in the doorframe meant the victim had spent time in Australia or somesuch half-cocked deduction like that, John could tune out the words and replace them with taunts about how Sherlock couldn't even deduce this one, fairly basic thing about his own fucking flatmate. And then it got to be a while, and there was the whole Moriarty thing, and John couldn't exactly bring it up in conversation now. "Oh, by the way, I also sleep with men sometimes. Just so you know."
No, better to keep that all separate from this - whatever-it-was - that he had with Sherlock. Until today, that hadn't been hard: Sherlock showed no interest in sex, romance, or relationships, and John kept his extracurriculars strictly restricted to women Sherlock didn't know. But now Sherlock was shirtless and Irene was tying his wrists together in some highly complicated knot and fuck, that shouldn't have made John's cock jump.
"Good?"
Sherlock nodded.
"Out loud and directed at the microphone, so John can hear you. Don't compromise your data."
Sherlock cleared his throat. "She's tying my wrists together with rope - hemp, dyed dark blue. Several loops, to distribute the tension."
Irene tied off the ends of the knot and gave the rope a little jerk, knocking Sherlock off-balance. "Tell him how it feels," she ordered.
"It's fine."
She growled a bit in the back of her throat. "We're going to have to work on your eloquence, I see. On your back, now, face toward the camera."
Sherlock settled his lithe body down onto the leather bench. John's computer now showed from the top of Sherlock's head down to his waist, revealing incredibly pale skin and not nearly enough muscle for Sherlock's height. He could really stand to put on a good ten pounds, John's inner doctor pointed out, before being shushed by the part of John which was mostly concerned with appreciating his flatmate's physique on a much more superficial level. He watched through the doorway as Irene drew Sherlock's hands up over his head and - oh. There were two distinctive clicks, then she drew back and John could see a pair of handcuffs connecting Sherlock's bound wrists to a D-ring at the base of the bench. Sherlock squirmed a bit, testing his range of mobility. He didn't have much.
"Report, Sherlock."
He swallowed. "Right. Good, better than I was expecting. Limited freedom of motion is a positive, and I think the use of actual handcuffs is having a positive effect as well. Mark that down in the third column for -"
"That's enough," Irene interrupted. "John, ignore the columns - just write your notes freehand and Sherlock can interpret them later."
Sherlock's head snapped up. "Quantifiable data is essential! Analysis becomes almost impossible if-"
John's eyes were on the laptop screen, not the doorway, so he missed seeing whatever it was that made Sherlock yelp suddenly and completely lose his train of thought. He peeked out just in time to see Irene swing the wooden paddle back and give Sherlock a solid whack on his other hip. Sherlock's trousers surely cushioned the blow somewhat, but the man had almost no body fat for padding - that would have hurt.
"Report."
"I, ah." He cleared his throat. "Wooden paddle isn't something I particularly feel the need to repeat."
Irene turned to look directly at John through the open doorway and raised one eyebrow. John didn't have to guess to know what she was expecting him to ask -
"Break it down for me, Sherlock," he said into the laptop's microphone. "What parts didn't you like? The pain? The hip? The paddle itself?" Only a tiny tremble in his voice betrayed him. Sherlock's eyes met his through the camera and shit, he can watch me too, can't he? John hesitated a moment, then clicked the button to turn off the outgoing video feed. He was perfectly happy to watch Sherlock - so far, anyway - but letting Sherlock watch him, deduce him, felt like a bit too much.
But Sherlock didn't seem to think there was anything uncomfortable about John's position at all, and he barely blinked when the picture disappeared from his screen. He actually looked like he was considering John's question carefully. "I'm fairly sure I didn't like it on my hip," he said after several seconds. "Impact and sensation play in other forms are probably fine, but I lack the data to hypothesize about the paddle in comparison to other instruments."
Irene nodded. "Fair enough. John, I assume you can hear me okay?"
"I'm twenty feet away and the door is open. Yes, I can hear you just fine."
"What would you like me to focus on next? Working through more impact play, or bondage? Or is there a particular area of Sherlock's body you want me to concentrate on?"
Why the fuck are you asking me? He didn't say it out loud - mostly because he wasn't sure if he'd like the answer. But a good number of those toys would presumably involve her taking Sherlock's trousers and pants off, and John definitely wasn't ready for that yet. "Chest," he finally said. "Whatever you've got."
She barely had to glance down at her table of supplies. "Nipple clamps, ice, wax, although that will take a few minutes to heat up. Suction pump for nipple enlargement, if you'd like to see him really writhe."
Yeah, he would have had to have been blind not to notice the way Sherlock's eyes dilated a bit at that. "That last one," John said. "Maybe work up to the others?"
Irene didn't reply, just rifled through the objects on the table and came up with two black bulbous shapes John hadn't recognized at closer range. She lined them up over Sherlock's nipples without preamble and squeezed both bulbs. Sherlock's eyes went wide and he sucked in a deep breath.
"Talk to me," John prompted through the computer. It was a bit less intimidating to be here, doing this, when Sherlock was making that shocked expression - a clear signifier he wasn't entirely in control of what was going on, either, and he knew it. That makes two of us.
Sherlock's eyebrows drew together, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out.
It was - to be honest - amazingly hot. Sherlock was so rarely without words, and seeing it in this context was so far beyond anything John might have ever imagined . . . Not that I've been imagining this, he reminded himself. But it was hard not to imagine now. John had to reach down and adjust himself through his trousers.
He decided to start slow. "Hurts?"
Sherlock nodded once.
"Good hurt or bad hurt?"
"Ah . . . good hurt?" He panted out another breath. "Excruciatingly sensitive, and will get more so the longer the suction is applied. It . . ." He licked his lips. "Christ."
So those went in the "yes" column. John wrote a few words to remind himself - not likely he was going to forget a single second of this, but still - and bent back toward the microphone. "Might as well get the wax heating, then."
Sherlock's breathing got faster. Interesting.
"Is that okay?" John asked.
Sherlock swallowed and nodded again.
John suddenly realized - "Is there anything you know for sure is not okay? Something you want to tell us before we go any further?"
"I . . . don't know." He squirmed, shifting his shoulders over the leather of the bench. "I lack the experience to know precisely what the expected boundaries for this sort of thing are."
Ah. Trust Sherlock to try to analyze his reactions in the context of wider statistics while in the middle of a scene . . . "Don't worry about what's expected," John said. "This is about your body, no one else's. And like I told you back at the flat - there's no reason to be ashamed of how you're wired. It's just how it is."
"What about you?" Sherlock was looking directly at the camera, even though John knew the video feed was only one-way at this point. "How much of this are you wired for?"
Christ. John ran a hand through his hair. "Not really that simple, Sherlock."
"Why not?"
"Because every partner is different." John released the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "If the person I'm with particularly loves something, I usually can find myself getting turned on by watching them enjoy it. Even if it's something I wouldn't want done to myself. And if there's something they really don't like, I don't find it sexy to push them into it. It's just . . . complicated."
Sherlock bit his lower lip and froze for a long moment. "Was - was your lack of gendered pronouns deliberate?"
Shit. Well this was as good a time as any to come clean, right? "I wondered when you'd reach that conclusion," he admitted. "Yeah, it's not just been women."
The shocked look on Sherlock's face was priceless. The idea of John being bisexual seemed to have put him offline for several seconds, until Irene's hands appeared in the frame of the video, pinching and removing the suction bulbs. Sherlock moaned softly as they came off. His nipples stood out vividly against his pale chest - they were dark red, nearly purple with engorged blood, and they looked painfully huge. John couldn't resist reaching out and stroking the screen, running his fingertip over the image. Fuck being an impartial observer - Sherlock looked incredible. John let his other hand drift down to his crotch and just rest there, a warm weight over his erection.
"Wax is ready." Irene held the jar candle low over Sherlock's abdomen - so John could watch, presumably - and tilted it. The red wax spilled out in a thin stream, pooling in the hollow of Sherlock's sternum.
"Bloody -" Sherlock closed his eyes and panted as Irene let more wax drip on his ribcage, then on his pectoral - not on his nipple, not quite, but close enough that John could feel a sympathetic tingling in his own body. When Sherlock opened his eyes again, they were wide and wild.
"Tell me," John commanded.
"I - fuck."
"The experiment, Sherlock. I need consistent data. Real words."
Sherlock licked his lips. "Yes. This is - this is a yes. Fuck."
John grinned and made a note. The camera only went down to Sherlock's navel, but he'd bet a good sum of money Sherlock's pants were feeling uncomfortably tight by now. Just like his own. He squeezed his cock gently through the fabric, then massaged himself without taking his eyes off the scene in front of him. Thinking would be too much - thinking about this would make him realize how fucked up it was to be stroking himself off while watching his flatmate completely lose it. As long as he didn't think, though, it was okay, was fucking amazing to see . . .
"Do it," John said aloud, and Irene shifted the candle that last inch to dribble a large drop directly on Sherlock's sensitized nipple.
Sherlock screamed. There was no other word for it. The muscles in his shoulders bunched and shifted as he pulled at his restraints, but they held fast - all he could do was squirm and swear and roll his head back and forth against the padded bench. It was quite literally the sexiest thing John had ever seen, and that was saying a lot. John felt his own breath catch in his throat and his cock give a predictable lurch. Irene brought the candle to Sherlock's other nipple and repeated the process, with similar results.
"Tell him how it feels, Sherlock," Irene prompted. "Tell him what you want him to do."
Sherlock groaned and broke into a string of profanity in what John was pretty sure was French, based on the few words he recognized. "So bloody hard now, John," he slurred, his normally-precise diction gone. "I want - I want -"
"You want your trousers unbuttoned?" she said. "Relieve some of the pressure?"
"God, yes."
"You heard him, John. I promised I'm not touching today - it's up to you."
John's mouth fell open. "Sherlock -"
"Tell him." Irene's hand came back, this time with a stainless steel implement John vaguely associated with medical school history books - scalpel-sized stick with a wheel at the end, rimmed with little spikes. Wartenberg wheel, his subconscious provided. Not used to test reflexes anymore, but still popular in the BDSM community. Right, so that would be why it stuck with him -
Irene zipped the wheel quickly up Sherlock's abdomen, from navel to breastbone, avoiding the now-cooling wax. The tiny pinpricks weren't enough to draw blood, but they must have hurt like the devil. Sherlock arched up off the bench again.
"Tell him what you want him to do to your cock," Irene repeated, running the wheel more slowly in looping circles over Sherlock's pectorals. He writhed underneath her.
"I want -"
John held his breath.
Sherlock swallowed hard when Irene pressed the wheel down a bit more firmly, goading him. "I want you to come unzip my trousers and take out my cock, John. I think I want to see what it feels like to ejaculate. To come."
Irene's hands faltered - he had surprised her, then. John let go of his cock and gripped the arms of his chair tightly. "Sherlock -"
"Please, John. Have mercy on me."
Recent words rang in John's brain. "I would have you right here until you begged for mercy. Twice." "I've never begged for mercy in my life." "Twice." God, Sherlock begging -
He was moving before he even realized it. Fuck, I've never been able to tell him no before, no reason to expect I could start doing so now . . .
Sherlock's head snapped upright when John stepped into the room, but his eyes were still wild and unfocused. "Please," he whispered.
And that was all there was to it. John took a deep breath and went to stand on the other side of the bench, across from where Irene was still trailing that needle-studded toy slowly over Sherlock's chest and abdomen. Sherlock's eyes followed as John reached down with trembling hands and slipped the button on Sherlock's trousers free of its mooring, then dragged the zipper downward. Even though the trousers, he could feel the pressure of Sherlock's erection pushing against the fabric. With the trousers loosened, Sherlock's cock tented obscenely inside his pants.
"You want them all the way off?" John asked quietly.
Sherlock nodded immediately, biting his lower lip so hard it drew a bright bead of blood. "Everything off," he whispered. "Need to feel . . ."
John slid off Sherlock's shoes and socks first, then dragged his trousers down and left them crumpled in a heap on the floor. The pants followed soon afterward. And then Sherlock was completely nude, cock thick and flushed and gorgeous and fuck he looked so incredible. John's palms literally itched with the need to touch him.
But Irene caught his eye, and John refrained. She reached down under the bench, did something, and came away with a rectangular section of black leather in her hand.
"Roll over, flat on your stomach," she commanded. "John can help you if you need it."
Between the two of them, John was able to get Sherlock flipped over without pulling too much on his arms. In the process, he saw what Irene had done - the bench now had a strategically-placed hole cut in the center, allowing Sherlock's cock and bollocks to dangle through without being crushed by his body weight. And allowing easy access, if anyone were inclined to do so. John looked back up at Irene, but she had her back to him, selecting something off the table. Something long and -
Ah. The riding crop. By the sudden quickening of Sherlock's breathing, John could tell Sherlock had seen it too.
"Face John."
Sherlock turned his head to the side, eyes locked on John, looking absolutely wrecked and desperate. John hesitated only a moment, then sank down to sit on his heels so his face was just inches from Sherlock's. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was new, was blundering even further over the "just flatmates" line, but Sherlock needed him right now and fuck if he could ever say no. Not like that. John's fingers rose of their own accord to comb through Sherlock's thick curls, and it felt glorious.
The first blow, when it fell, made them both jump. The crack of leather against skin hung in the air a long moment before disappearing. Irene followed it up with a second swat, on Sherlock's other cheek, then a long caress down the length of Sherlock's spine.
"That's it - just watch your boyfriend. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel." Crack.
Sherlock shivered. "John . . ."
Oh God, the sound of his name on Sherlock's lips . . . John had to close his eyes and hold his breath to keep from just dropping his own trousers and shoving his cock into that gorgeous mouth. This wasn't about him, it was about Sherlock, and what Sherlock needed right now was a connection. John carded his fingers through Sherlock's hair again, and Sherlock shivered - this time with pleasure.
"She's right," John said quietly. "You wanted data - tell me how this is making you feel."
"So good," Sherlock mumbled. Crack crack - on the backs of his thighs, in quick succession. "A bit floaty - it hurts, but I can't be arsed to care."
"That would be the endorphins flooding through you. A natural high."
Sherlock moaned. "If I had -" - crack - "- known about this, I might not have needed cocaine."
John smiled a bit at that. "You've really never had an orgasm before?"
"Mmmm. Not while awake. I want -"
Crack crack crack.
"Yes?"
"Want you." He shivered as Irene trailed the crop down his leg, over the soles of his bare feet, and back up his other side. "Want it to be with you."
"You want the first time you come to be with me?"
"Mmmmm." He closed his eyes, drifting under the alternating series of caresses and blows.
They sat in silence for a full minute, the only sounds being the occasional crack of the riding crop and the resulting noises torn from Sherlock's throat. Irene was being careful, John noticed - well, not surprising, since she must have had a lot of practice. But the doctor in him approved of how each blow was carefully placed so there was no chance of actual tissue damage. Bruises, yes, but nothing permanent. She met his eyes and her lips twitched upward into a tiny smile.
"Sherlock," she said quietly.
Sherlock opened his eyes.
"Look at John. Look at what seeing you like this does to him."
John's throat constricted, but he held perfectly still as he felt Sherlock study him. And eventually regained enough brain function to really look. Sherlock licked his lips - probably still tasting the blood from where he had bitten clean through his bottom lip - and the sight made John's cock jump. Sherlock noticed.
"Look at how aroused he is - gorgeous blush in those cheeks, eyes wide. So turned on. He wants to let this be all about you, but it's not, is it? You'd like to see him come."
Sherlock nodded, his eyes flicking back up to John's.
"Beg him. Convince him to pull himself out of those cumbersome trousers and work himself through the rest of the way."
John's mouth dropped open. No, his brain immediately said. Too much, too -
"I want to see you," Sherlock whispered, and John's brain went silent. Sherlock shifted his hips a fraction, thrusting against the bench even though John knew he wasn't getting any friction where he wanted it. "Please, John."
"I -"
"Please." Sherlock's eyes were haunted, now. Desperate. "I want you to touch yourself. Touch me. Use my mouth to bring yourself off. Come on my face, in my hair. I want your scent in my nose and your taste on my tongue. God, John, I need you."
They could have suddenly been in front of a million people, in front of Harry and Mycroft and Lestrade and the queen herself, and it wouldn't have been enough to stop John from quietly reaching down and unbuttoning his trousers. Drawing down the zipper and his boring gray Y-fronts and pulling himself out. He was already so hard, so gloriously hard -
Sherlock's eyes widened at the sight, which of course only made John harder. He suddenly wondered whether Sherlock had ever tried to imagine him like this, had ever spared any space in that great mind palace of his for what John might look like without his pants. He sensed Sherlock was surprised, so maybe the answer was no - but then again, it's possible Sherlock's reaction was just because this was so terrifyingly real.
Sherlock's tongue darted out to trace over his bottom lip, and suddenly John's resistance was gone. He wrapped his palm around himself, sliding a few strokes dry, just adjusting to the feeling of Sherlock watching him so intently. It felt electric. Sherlock's lips parted, as if he was imagining the taste -
John extended his hand, palm-out, close enough he could feel Sherlock's breath on his skin. "Lick," he commanded. "Get me nice and wet."
Sherlock did. His tongue traced a few lines on John's palm, then darted out again to lave a rough line up the center. John sucked in a breath and tried not to shudder. Sherlock noticed, of course, and redoubled his efforts to make John squirm. By the time he drew his head back, John's palm was dripping with Sherlock's saliva and John was harder than he'd ever been in his life.
And the touch of his wet palm on his warm cock was absolute heaven. John closed his eyes and groaned, only belatedly realizing Sherlock was groaning right alongside him. He pumped slowly, glorying in the sensation. When he opened his eyes, Sherlock's intense gaze was focused entirely on his cock and his mouth was hanging open.
"Please," Sherlock whispered. "Let me -"
John worked his way to standing, on wobbly legs, and tilted himself forward so his pelvis was just barely resting on the edge of the bench. Sherlock didn't have a lot of room to maneuver, but he managed to work his mouth over the tip of John's cock and slide about half of it inside.
"Fuck," John breathed. Sherlock moaned throatily around him, the vibrations nearly bringing him over the edge already. But John didn't want that yet, didn't want to come in Sherlock's mouth -
He barely pulled out in time. Sherlock's tongue caught him by surprise, the tightening in his balls sweeping over him so fast he literally had to shove himself away from the bench to get his cock out of Sherlock's mouth as he came. John watched, as if from a distance, while the white spurts splattered across Sherlock's lips, his cheekbone, in his hair. He may have yelled something when he came, but he didn't know for sure. The look on Sherlock's face, though . . . he looked thoroughly debauched, absolutely wrecked, and painfully desperate. John took a shaky step back and collapsed back onto the floor.
Irene jerked her head to catch his eye, then nodded toward the cutout in the bench. Right. There was no longer a question about it - John was going to jerk Sherlock off, and Sherlock was going to have his first orgasm, and this would be simultaneously the most surreal and the most fantastic day of John's life.
Sherlock nearly shouted the moment John's fingers found him. John couldn't see what he was doing, but he used Sherlock's reactions to guide him - the way Sherlock jerked when he encircled his girth, the way he groaned when John twisted the foreskin away from the glans just so and pulled -
Irene caught his gaze again and positioned herself at Sherlock's feet. John watched out of the corner of his eye as she drew back the riding crop, let it swing -
He tugged at the same moment the crop landed across Sherlock's arches. Sherlock screamed and came. His whole body shuddered for several seconds, John felt a warm stickiness coat his fingers, then Sherlock went boneless and Irene was discreetly headed for the door to the hallway.
I'll give you two a moment, she mouthed, and then she was gone.
John swallowed thickly. That just happened. That really just happened. He was still feeling a bit floaty himself, and he could only imagine how Sherlock felt . . . John quickly untied the slipknot holding Irene's complex rope creation over Sherlock's wrists, and the navy loops fell away. He reached up and tugged at Sherlock's hips. It took some force, but he managed to pull Sherlock sideways off the bench to lie curled in his lap on the floor.
Sherlock looked up at him and blinked. "That was . . ."
"I know," John whispered against his ear. "I know."
"Are orgasms like that every time?"
John hid his smile. Not successfully enough, judging by Sherlock's expression. "Only the good ones," he said. "It may take repeated experimental trials to acquire all the data."
Sherlock murmured and buried his face in John's good shoulder. "You'd be willing to - with me?"
Always. "Maybe not here, but yeah." John rubbed small, soothing circles against Sherlock's shoulderblades. "I think we can work out where to go from here ourselves, don't you?"
"I can't believe I -" He wriggled a bit and looked up so he could see John's face. "I can't believe I didn't know about this. I'm sure I wouldn't have deleted it if I had known how . . ." He broke off and frowned.
"How it felt to be loved?"
Sherlock nodded, a serious expression on his face. "And to be in love with someone. Is that - is that okay?"
John inclined his head to press a soft kiss onto a clean section of Sherlock's forehead. "That sounds good."
"Good."
And they sat there together, entwined on the floor, until it became clear Irene wasn't coming back.
She did, however, leave the riding crop in a fancy gift box just inside the front door, with a note: "Thank you for the lovely time. Enjoy."
They did.