A Survey of Scars: Part II
We did not discuss that evening. When I had awakened the following morning, he had been gone and only a shallow indention in the pillow and a stray hair, far too pale to be my own, indicated that he had been there. Our lives carried on in their familiar pattern. There were dinners and concerts and cases. There were evenings that I lulled him to sleep with Mendelssohn and late nights when I woke him with my own distracted scrapings.
To the trained eye, however, there were subtle differences to be detected. When Watson passed the salt cellar or a glass or a teapot, his fingers inevitably grazed mine. When I paced the room in thought, I found myself occasionally slowing to pass my hand over his shoulders as I went by him. Having been given permission to touch him once, I longed to touch him again.
One night we had spent a few hours crouched and cramped while hiding in wait for a particular blackguard. I had noted the careful, pained way he held himself as we walked home afterwards, and I had insisted on supper and perhaps a little too much wine in an effort to make it up to him. When I took up sawing the violin in a rather unsteady impression of Bach, he had finally begged off and headed up to his room. I do not recall what drew me up the stairs that night. Perhaps there was some detail of the case that I was not certain he had fully realized. Perhaps I was planning on drawing him back down to listen to a prelude I believed I had improved upon. Whatever it was, it left my head completely when I opened his door and found him half undressed.
He was standing stripped to the waist, and was attempting to rub some kind of balm onto his shoulder. This left him stretched around awkwardly, trying to reach his own shoulder blade. I hesitated, but there was nothing to do but offer to help him. I stepped towards him. “My dear Watson, let me.”
I dropped my cuffs on his dressing table and rolled up my sleeves. He handed me a little glass jar. The salve smelled strongly, and I found that the scent was familiar. I’d noticed it on Watson before, but had never been quite certain what it was. I’d mistakenly assumed it was some kind of soap. Just under the heady spice of cloves there was the fresh, clean scent of mint. I found it a pleasant smell, and did not mind as it grew stronger with the combined heat of our skin.
When he struggled to brace himself against the pressure of my kneading, I gestured towards the bed. “Why don’t you lie down?” He arranged himself face down, and I knelt beside him. His shoulder, not unlike tilled earth to the touch, was familiar to me now, but as I massaged the tense muscles around the scar I found myself tempted to explore skin which I had not yet felt.
When I first dug into the crevice below his scapula, he sighed. When my fingers found their way into the small of his back, he gave a soft grunt that turned into a quiet moan as I worked my way up his spine. I was intrigued. It was a new world of discovery. There were so many variables to consider: touch and place and pressure. Yes, this was field of inquiry which it would take me some time to exhaust. I marked each vertebra then dipped down to explore the hollows above his hipbones. He arched into my touch, and my breath hitched.
I was captivated by the quiet sounds he made and the movement of his muscles as he shifted under my hands. Soon I caught myself no longer massaging him and instead simply touching him. The skin on his sides was surprisingly soft, but when my fingers brushed him there he jerked and made a noise that I first took for a cough. He caught my hand and rolled onto his back to face me.
He was laughing. The corners of his eyes were creased. His smile was luminous. I do not know what my face must have looked like in that moment. I was lost in him. Watson is never more himself than when he is smiling. Even in my darkest moods, Watson’s mere presence is like a candle in the window to light my way home. But when he is laughing, he is as radiant as a beam of sunlight through dark clouds. It is an abysmally romantic thing to say, but it is also abysmally true. I should have devoted my life to making that smile appear. If I had been a different kind of man, I might have. It seems, however, that I have far more often given him cause for anger or frustration.
I drew in a breath and was surprised to notice not only that it had been a moment since I’d done so but that it was rather shaky. He squeezed my hand. His eyebrows drew together slightly but his smile simply took on a gentle quality rather than fading. “What is it, my dear fellow?”
I did not know how to respond, and so I did not. I am not sure that he expected me to. He lifted his other hand and placed it on my neck in such a way that his forefinger and thumb cupped my jaw. His third and fourth fingers pressed over my carotid artery. “Your heart is beating rather quickly.”
“Yes.”
“As a medical man, I can think of several explanations.”
“You are a very good doctor. I would expect no less of you.”
He moved his hand to my arm and pushed up my sleeve. His eyes raked carefully over the crook of my elbow then returned to my gaze. “I’m glad to see we can rule that out.”
“What else do you think might be causing my condition?”
“Well, we haven’t ruled out nerves. If, for example, you were a man given to certain inclinations, you might find our close contact…stimulating. Of course, we have been in close contact before, and I have always observed you to be a man who held his physical reactions tightly reigned. So there would have to be some more recent development. If you had discovered some new data though, something that led you to believe that I was a man who shared those inclinations, then that could explain your current state. Of course, you would still not have enough data to be certain, and considering the myriad of possible results should you be wrong, you would naturally be not only effected by our current proximity but by your own uncertainty.”
I laughed, but what came out was deeper and more breathy than I meant for it to be. “Quite well-deduced.” I put my hand over his heart. “I’m afraid your heartbeat is elevated as well. Will you diagnose yourself?”
“Oh, that is quite easy. I am terrified.”
“Terrified?”
“Yes. Because I am about to do this.” He grasped my face, pulled me down, and kissed me. Did I think earlier that I was lost in his smile? No, I had merely been distracted. His kiss was consuming. My arms trembled as I tried to support myself above him. There was a shuffle and a brief tangle as we rearranged ourselves so that we lay side by side on his narrow bed. We parted and lay together, our hands casually running along each other’s arms.
He looked down at our chests and thumbed my buttons. “I’m afraid you’re a little overdressed for this venue, old man.”
I leaned in to taste his lips once again before leaving the bed. It had been some time since I had been unclothed before anyone. As I unbuttoned my waistcoat, I self-consciously turned from him. I have no illusions about my figure. I was a thin and gangly child, and I am thin and gangly man. I like to think that I have managed a rather more dignified and graceful air than I had as a child, but I would be a fool to think that I am particularly attractive. There are many men who are much better specimens of masculine beauty, and my Watson is one of them. How I ever wound up in the bed of a handsome, strapping, former army surgeon is quite beyond my grasp.
Fortunately for me, Watson does not seem to see the discrepancy between us. He perched on the edge of the bed and caught my elbow. “Turn around. Let me see you.” I did so, and he put his hands on my hips, drawing me towards him as I unbuttoned my shirt. He slipped his hands inside my shirt, slid them up and over my shoulders, and pushed my shirt down. I shivered, though whether it was from his touch or the cool air on my torso, I could not tell.
As my shirt and waistcoat fell to the floor, his lips grazed my stomach. I took his face in my hands and kissed him again. His lips parted under mine, and I opened to allow his tongue to caress my own. I was bent awkwardly over him while he strained to reach me. He solved this by hooking two fingers in the band of my trousers, which caused me to gasp, and then pulling me with him as he leaned back onto the bed. We tumbled onto the bedclothes in a flurry of lips and hands. There was so much to touch and taste. Under my tongue, his scar took on new definition. Each little crevice and pucker was magnified. The balm made my mouth tingle slightly, and I could taste the clove and mint on his skin.
My body came to life under his skilled hands. I do not doubt that John Watson is more experienced in such matters than I am. There was no fumbling on his part; there were no tentative touches. He moved with a certainty and economy as befit a surgeon and a soldier, neither of which detracted from his warmth and tenderness as a lover. He insisted on arranging us so that he could see my face as I shuddered and bucked in his arms. Afterwards he kissed my forehead before fetching a dampened cloth from the washstand.
When he had cleaned us, he crawled back into bed next to me and drew me into his arms. “Of course, you would be welcome to stay here, since you are already occupying my bed.” His voice was deep with drowsiness and his eyes were closed, but there was a small, satisfied grin playing at the corner of his mouth that let me know he was quite pleased with himself at finding the opportunity to return my own words.
I rolled over and shuffled back against him as tightly as possible in an effort not to hang off the edge of the bed. He peppered my neck and shoulder with a few soft, pecking kisses. “One of us, my dear Holmes, is going to need a bigger bed.” I could feel his silent laugh against my back. I pressed the hand that had tightened around my waist and chose not to tell him that, currently, I thought this one’s charms far outweighed its inconveniences.