The Case of the Cuddle Chapter 16

Hello, my lovelies, thank you for all your wonderful reviews. I've been having a really tough time lately, and you guys are keeping me going through it all. I'm so glad you liked Mystrade - it was a bit of a risk to digress like that, but I think it worked. So anyway, here we are, back with our lovely boys, and about to face a social outing. Please review...

Sherlock had only agreed because John had used the puppy look on him. He knew his love couldn't resist it when he did that thing with his eyes, making them all wide and dewy like that.

'You've got me wrapped around your little finger,' he grumbled.

He wasn't sure quite why John laughed so bitterly at that.

It was Sarah's idea. She was seeing somebody new, a man called Andrew, a maxillofacial surgeon. John was not quite sure why she would want an ex present, let alone having him there with the man who had broken them up, but he was sure there must be a reason.

'Either she wants to rub your nose in it, or she wants your approval,' Sherlock said tartly in the taxi on the way there.

'Sherlock, just – just be nice, okay?'

'I'm always nice,' Sherlock said, raising an irritated eyebrow.

'Behave!'

Mike Stanford and his wife were also guests, as were another couple, called Peter and Meredith. Meredith was American. John groaned internally when they were introduced. He found himself praying desperately to a God he didn't believe in: 'Just let us get out of this alive, please?'

The dinner party was being held in Andrew's bright Victorian villa in Hackney. It had high ceilings and ornate ceiling roses, and walls painted white. There were lots of expensive-looking abstract paintings, and a chandelier hung over the antique mahogany dinner table. The curtains were made of gold slubbed taffeta. Elegant wasn't the word. John found himself quaking at what he had let them in for. The thought of Sherlock cooped up in a place like this, with three other couples over boeuf bourgignon, was enough to make Afghanistan look like Marbella.

He was amazed that they made it through the first two courses without the whole thing blowing up in his face. But of course, he had relaxed too soon.

'So,' said Meredith, leaning forward and clasping her hands against her cheek in that way that means an intimate question is about to be asked. She was sitting opposite Sherlock and John, her arms bare and gleaming in the delicate refracted light from the Austrian crystal above. 'How long have you two been together?'

Sherlock pushed a lonely lump of meat around his plate with a fork. At least he'd made an effort to eat the food, John thought, but that was probably because John had threatened to break both his legs if he didn't.

'That would depend on your definition of together,' he said.

'Well, you know, lovers,' she smiled in a twee way, as if she was trying to coax a secret from a teddy bear. John put his hand over his eyes for a moment, and steeled himself.

'We've known each other about two years,' he butted in.

Sherlock fixed Meredith with an icy stare. John's stomach turned over.

'We're not lovers,' he said coldly.

'Oh,' Mike Stanford's homely wife Carol said. 'But I thought-'

'John is straight and I have erectile dysfunction,' Sherlock announced to her. 'Ergo, we have as little sex and you and Mike do.'

'Sherlock!' John almost shouted as Carol went red and her eyes filled.

'Well, that's what you're here to find out, isn't it? You want to hear all about my nasty little secret,' Sherlock burst out.

John gripped his hand tightly. 'Love, I think you are being a bit paranoid.'

Sherlock looked at him, and must have seen the pain in his eyes because he seemed to deflate a little.

'Cheese!' Sarah piped, her voice suddenly high and strangled with tension. She jumped up. 'I'll just clear the plates and bring it in.'

'I'll help,' Sherlock said, gathering up crockery as fast as she was.

John watched them both retreat from the room.

'I'm sorry,' he said, turning to the remaining guests. 'He's had a bit of a rough time lately. And he's not very good at people.'

Sherlock followed Sarah into the kitchen and set his pile of plates on the draining board next to hers.

'I have ruined your dinner party,' he said. 'You shouldn't have invited me.'

'Sherlock, when was the last time you went to a dinner party?'

'I've never been to one. No one would be mad enough to invite me.'

'Well, let me tell you, they are usually dreary affairs where all everybody talks about is their last trip to Tuscany, and which school they are sending their little darlings to next year. Ghastly, and boring as hell. Call me a madwoman, but I like to live a little dangerously. So you didn't ruin it, you just made it a bit more exciting, that's all.'

As she spoke, she gathered up the cutlery and dropped the whole lot in one go into the sink, with a clatter. She ran the hot tap on top and squirted in some Fairy liquid. It smelt lemony. Then she turned round and gave him an extremely candid look.

'I think I may be drunk,' she said. 'Are you and John really not having any sex?'

'I'm hardly capable, am I?' he muttered bitterly. 'Besides, he'll barely let me near him. We kiss and cuddle, and then he vaults off to the bathroom to sort himself out. I think he thinks he's protecting me, but all its doing is making me more and more frustrated and lonely. And I have no idea why I just told you that, because I never tell people things like that.'

Sarah started to fill the dishwasher. 'Well, I'm touched that you feel able to confide in me.'

'It's probably just the wine,' Sherlock said.

'Have you told him this?'

Sherlock grunted.

'Well, have you thought that maybe you aren't the only one with a problem about it? Perhaps it's not just that he doesn't want to frighten you or spark off a flashback. Perhaps he has his own issues. After all, he's never had a relationship with a man before.'

Sherlock said nothing, just studied her as she bent over, sliding the plates into the racks. It struck him then that she was actually a very attractive woman. John had made a serious mistake in exchanging her for himself. But it was too late to worry about that. He knew that nothing could change John's feelings for him; that much he could rely on, no matter how lovely Sarah was.

'What do you think I should do?'

She stood up. 'Sherlock Holmes, did you just ask me for advice?'

'Er, yes?'

She grinned. 'Bless you,' she said, and crossed the kitchen to give him a peck on the cheek. 'John really is good for you, isn't he?'

'You've been to bed with him,' Sherlock said, looking down into the delicate blue of her eyes. 'You know what he likes.'

'You need to talk to him about this.'

'He won't talk. I've tried.'

She leant against the counter, arms folded, and thought about it for a minute.

'Well, look, I don't know how you'd feel about this, but he's really into oral sex. Giving and receiving.'

'Yes.,' Sherlock said, giving the word the upward inflection that suggested he wanted more.

'Well, you could start with a massage. On the pretext of easing the pain in his shoulder, if you like. That would allow you in gently too, let you see how much you could cope with. He's very tactile. He likes to touch and be touched. And if that goes well, you could give him a hand job. Work up to a blow job later. See how that works.'

'A hand job?'

'Yes, you know what that is, right?'

'Of course. Manual stimulation.'

'Don't rush into the fellatio, though. I know you'll want to do everything perfectly the first time, but half the fun is learning one another's bodies.'

'Right. Yes.'

'Does that help?'

'Enormously. Thank you.'

Actually, he wanted to ask her half a dozen intimately technical questions about where to put his tongue or fingers to provoke the maximum amount of effect, but he sensed she would not want to go into such detail. It was a bit odd, now he considered it, imagining her doing that to his John, let alone asking her discuss it. He looked at her mouth. It was plump and sensuous, slightly stained with red wine. Just the sort of lips John would like, he was sure. He found the idea surprisingly distasteful. It made something inside him prickle, and he was not sure why. Probably best not to think about it. He deleted the image immediately.

'Pleasure,' she went on, oblivious. She finished packing the dishes and started putting out the cheese on a block of polished olive wood.

'Look, can I ask your advice now?' She asked after a moment.

Sherlock, startled though he was, nodded.

'What do you think of Andrew?'

'Well, I, er-'

'I want your candid advice, Sherlock, not pretty words. If I'd wanted pretty words, I'd have asked John. Besides, you can read people, you know what they're really like. So I want you to tell me. What do you think?'

'And if I tell you I dislike him it'll look like sour grapes against my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend.'

'Hardly. Please? I really want to know.'

He took a deep breath.

'Well, he's a hopeless liar, that much is abundantly obvious from his pretence at being happy to see John. Really, you put him an impossible position-'

'Sherlock, please?'

'Oh, very well. He can't lie to save his life, which means he will not be able to be unfaithful to you, since he knows he will be unable to conceal his deceit. Not that he'd want to. From the way he looks at you, and the fact that he can barely keep his hands off you, I would deduce that he is besotted with you. I anticipate he will propose soon, probably in the next couple of days, and I would advise you to accept, since at your age he is the last chance you are likely to get to have the family you so obviously want. Really, your desperation is quite off-putting, Sarah. He'll make a very attentive father, and wants plenty of children – wants them rather too much, enough to make me wonder if he is not too needy, but you'd probably find that attractive. You might want to watch him on the discipline side as I am sure he is quite capable of letting his loved ones get away with murder. But since he is such a walk-over, I imagine he will suit your dominant personality. He knows his wine extremely well, too, which is another point in his favour.'

'You think he's going to propose?' she stuttered.

'Imminently. Are you okay, you seem to have something in your eye?'

She turned away from him and rubbed her face awkwardly. At which point Andrew came breezing in, carrying the empty vegetable serving plates. 'Everything okay down here?' he said, brightly, eyeing his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's boyfriend.

'Perfectly fine,' Sherlock answered, patting him on the shoulder. 'Two boys and a girl, I should say. What do you think, Sarah?' She glowered daggers at him and he trotted back off up the stairs.

John was hugely relieved to see Sherlock slip back in through the dining room door, at least until he saw the mischievous grin on his face. Everyone was too absorbed in discussing the latest Steven Soderbergh film to take any notice of Sherlock's return, so John had the chance to whisper to him out of the corner of his mouth.

'What have you done, Sherlock?'

Sherlock beamed. 'Made the world a happier place.'

'Oh, God.' He clapped his hands over his eyes.

'John, what do you think?' Meredith asked him. He had no idea what she meant.

A few minutes later, Andrew led a very pink-faced Sarah back into the room.

'Okay, everybody, we've got an announcement to make!'

The room stilled around them. Under the table, Sherlock's fingertips brushed John's leg.

'Sarah has just agreed to marry me!'

The room erupted into applause and cheers. Everyone but the Baker Street boys stood up to clap.

John looked at Sherlock. Sherlock looked at John. Under the table their hands locked together, palm to palm. John's eyes brimmed. And he leant over and kissed his love softly on the cheek. No one else noticed. No one but Sarah. And she was not sure whether it was her own happiness, or John and Sherlock's that made her glow.

Tomorrow, Sherlock begins to consider a solution to his problem...