Sherlock fic: The Problem with Personal Blogs, Part 15
Title: The Problem with Personal Blogs, Part 15/21
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, the BBC gang (Molly, Sarah, Donovan, Anderson)
Rating: PG to Strong Adult - this part NC-17
Warnings: Excessive estrogen, dubcon
Summary: Sherlock finds himself the recipient of unwanted attention, thanks to the Internet.
Notes: Thank you winterstorrm for the beta and Britpick.
For a complete list of chapters, see: The Problem with Personal Blogs, chapter list.
15. Phase 2
Sherlock arrived at Bart's carrying
a big bouquet of daisies and a hefty dose of misgivings. John had insisted upon
the flowers. While Sherlock put more stock in John's romantic sensibilities
than his own, he couldn't help but think that bringing Molly flowers was sending
her a mixed message. He had settled on daisies, as they must be considered less
romantic than roses. Also, there was something appropriate about delivering
daisies to a mortuary that further reinforced his choice.
He drew his share of curious and
interested looks as he carried his floral burden through the halls.
Fortunately, Sherlock knew the building well enough to avoid the main
corridors. Arriving at the morgue, he rapped twice on the heavy wooden door to
alert those within. No reply. He peered through the window and angled his neck.
No one. The big storage/examination
room appeared empty.
He continued down the corridor to
the tiny office that the lab techs shared when they weren't doing benchwork.
Although the door was shut, he could hear voices within. As he vastly preferred
meeting Molly again in the presence of witnesses, he rapped on the door without
hesitation and pushed it open.
Molly was seated behind the desk at
the far end of the narrow room, engaged in intense but hushed conversation with
three other women who were huddled round her. The subject of their discussion
seemed to involve a good deal of squealing and muted exclamations. Considering that
Molly was the focus of the group, Sherlock could surmise only too well what the
topic might be.
His conjecture was immediately
confirmed by the way the four smirking faces froze in shock upon recognizing
him. Four pairs of eyes grew wide; four huddled bodies went still. Their guilty
countenances might have been amusing, were Sherlock not preoccupied with his
own uncomfortable errand. It didn't help that Molly, upon mastering her shock, favored
him with a beaming smile.
The oldest woman, a nurse, recovered
first. She gave Sherlock a smug once-over, then whapped Molly on the arm.
"See you later, love. Come on, girls. We've things to do."
The three visitors drew away from
the desk, trying their best to hide their reawakened smirks. The youngest one,
another lab tech, looked Molly's way and mimed holding a phone to her ear. Call
me, she mouthed. Sherlock waited patiently until all their blatant feminine
signals had been exchanged, and he and Molly were alone in the room. The nurse
shut it firmly-but he could hear giggles break out beyond the door.
Molly came round the desk to greet
him. She must have had even less sleep than Sherlock had, but she didn't look
it. Instead, she looked-well, radiant, to borrow John's word. Her lips were
still slightly swollen from their nocturnal kisses, and a faint flush enlivened
her cheeks. Her smile was warm and full and more than slightly possessive. More
than ever, Sherlock regretted bringing the flowers.
Nothing for it but to carry on. He
advanced, holding out his gift.
She reached languidly take them.
"For me? How lovely!" She inhaled deeply and peered at him
mischievously over the top of the bouquet. "It worked."
Sherlock, who had been mentally
rehearsing his "just friends" speech, was taken aback. "Worked."
"Our plan. The girlfriend
plan?" She smiled slyly. "It worked!"
Sherlock sincerely hoped he hadn't
correctly concluded what she was implying. "And you're now... my
girlfriend?"
Molly smacked him playfully with the
flowers. "No, silly! That was acting. I know that. I meant;
have you looked at the Web site this morning? No new entry." She
beamed at him. "It worked!"
Sherlock hesitated. This
conversation wasn't going at all the way he had envisioned it. "Yes, I've
seen the Web site. There's nothing new there, save for the expected addition of
a few dozen vulgar replies."
"It's the girlfriend angle-always
works. Put up your 'Already Let' sign, and the rest are forced to back
off."
"Sort of an 'honor among
thieves' type of thing?"
"I wouldn't put it that way!
But, if you insist... Oh, these really are nice," she added, petting the
petals. "They will brighten up the place." She laid the
bouquet on the desk, then looked at him expectantly. "So, what do you have
in mind for Phase 2?"
Sherlock was taken aback. "Phase
2?"
Molly looked at him as if he were
thick. "There must be a Phase 2. You can't leave a perfectly
working plan at Phase 1."
"But it's not a
perfectly working plan. The intent was to draw my stalker out of the woodwork.
In that regard, it failed."
"Au contraire, mon ami.
Guess who I noticed following me around hospital this morning?"
Sherlock felt a rush of excitement.
"Someone from the restaurant?" Molly smirked teasingly, forcing
Sherlock to carry on. "One of the girls near the door, perhaps? I had
initially eliminated them based on their social media pages. Supposedly, both
had alibis for the night I questioned Miss Doyle. However, those entries could
have been faked-"
"It wasn't anyone from the
restaurant. She was young-well, younger than me. Dark hair..." Molly
looked up quickly. "You know, she might have been the lurker I saw in the
street!"
Sherlock's rising excitement wilted.
He'd done more than a little online work this morning before visiting Molly,
and had his facts in hand. In his driest voice, he said, "Ah, yes, the
famous street lurker." His gaze locked on Molly's challengingly. "Do
thank Miss Singh for her vigilance, and tell her that, regardless of the role
she played last night, I must admit that she's a first-rate beautician."
Molly looked wary. "Her role?"
"Yes. The one where you asked
her to lurk in the doorway in the block of flats opposite yours, to give the
appearance that we were being watched. She must be a very good friend. She not
only does your hair and nails, but she stands outside in the bitter cold just
waiting for you to come home."
Molly dropped her pretense of not
understanding. "Well, she didn't wait long, as a matter of fact. I rang
her from the women's loo just before we left the restaurant, and told her to
expect us."
"So she could trick me into
thinking we were being watched."
"So she could watch the street!
We couldn't do it; we were busy acting like boyfriend and girlfriend. We
needed someone else to keep watch, to see if any of the passersby were
interested in us."
This was a level of strategy Sherlock
had not expected from Molly. "If you're trying to convince me that you
didn't use Miss Singh to deliberately create the impression that we were being
watched-"
"We were!"
"I saw one prostitute, and one person
hovering in a doorway: your friend, Miss Singh."
Molly relaxed. "Oh, now
I understand. Yes, you saw Rachna, but she wasn't the lurker. You'd got
the wrong doorway. The real lurker was the next building over."
Sherlock was unmoved. "I saw no
one in that doorway."
"She'd stepped back by the time
you looked." Molly smiled. "I was keeping you rather
busy."
Sherlock reconsidered. Unless Molly
was a truly outstanding actress (a talent he very much doubted), it seemed that
she really believed that there was an additional lurking person. The
possibility could not be discounted. Based on his research this morning,
Sherlock had been unable to find any link to his stalker by tracing the patrons
at the restaurant. Everyone he had a name for appeared to have an alibi for the
night he'd questioned Miss Doyle. Yet both John and Molly had assured him that
the stalker would be unable to stay away. He therefore decided to take Molly at
her word. "The person in the doorway-did Miss Singh describe her?"
"Er, not very well. It was
dark. But it was definitely a woman. She was well-wrapped, but Rachna said she
looked rather young-the part of her face that peeped out, that is."
"That's it? Just 'young'?"
Molly frowned in recollection. "Also
rather short. And bulky, but Rachna said that might have been her coat."
Sherlock pondered. "Short and
bulky" might describe half the women in London, particularly if they were
bundled up against a cold evening.
"She was definitely watching
us," Molly continued. "I could see her head tilted toward us quite
clearly."
"Which is why you were in such
a hurry to pull me inside-to sustain the illusion of our fictional affair?"
"Of course! Also, it was cold."
She fidgeted. "I should have known you'd find out about Rachna. What gave
us away?"
"When the person who I thought
might be a lurker disappeared so quickly and quietly into the building, I was
certain that she not only had a key, but was obviously well-acquainted with the
entrance. In other words, a resident. When I left your flat this morning, I
walked across the street to research the names listed outside. When I discovered
that one of the occupants was a beautician, and recalled that you had claimed a
beautician as your flatmate, when you obviously have no flatmate, it
wasn't difficult to piece together."
Molly tried to look contrite, but
her smugness ruined the attempt. "Yes, well, sorry about that. We were
flatmates at one time, until I saved enough to afford the studio on my
own."
"You might have told me that
you'd recruited Miss Singh to help."
"I was afraid you might think
it... odd."
"Unexpectedly resourceful, I
would say. By involving me in the plan, you might have spared me some
confusion."
"But there was a lurker,
even though you didn't see her."
"The bulky woman."
"To deceive her, I had
to ask you in."
"You didn't have to..."
Sherlock waved a hand.
Molly looked impatient. "Of course
I did! I couldn't have sent you out five minutes later looking pristine. She'd
have seen through that in an instant!"
"I could have ruffled my
hair-"
"Not remotely good enough. Besides,
people can always tell when other people are having sex."
Her confidence was staggering. "I'm...
not certain that's true."
"Of course it is! Haven't you
seen the studies?"
"What studies?"
"The studies about people
having sex!" Molly made an obvious effort to slow down and explain herself;
truly this case had led to a cockeyed state of affairs, if Molly was explaining
things to him. "They've done these studies about sex and
attractiveness. It turns out that people can tell, subconsciously somehow,
whether or not a person has been having sex recently."
"If I recall the study you're
referring to," Sherlock interrupted, somewhat nettled over his assumed
ignorance, "it found that people who had had sex recently were more
frequently selected by a random audience as being more attractive."
Molly snapped her fingers, looking
pleased. "You read it, too."
"In which case, if this
theory is correct, I will now be more attractive to my stalker." He
eyed her. "That was not my intention."
Molly waved airily. "Don't
worry about that. The girlfriend thing trumps everything."
"You could have explained your
reasoning last night. Better still, you could have just made me coffee, as
you'd promised."
Molly pouted. "John gets to run
all over town with you, chasing down smugglers and serial killers. I try to
help you for one night in a special operation, and you complain about
it."
Sherlock gave up. "So tell me
about the woman you saw here at Bart's."
"She was outside Radiology. She
didn't have an appointment because Denise works in that department, and said she
was sitting there paging through the magazines, and when Denise asked if she
could help her, she said no. But when I came by, she followed me."
"To the morgue?"
"Right outside here."
Molly pointed through the door.
"When was this?"
"A couple of hours ago. I don't
think she's still here, because Janice-you know, Janice, the nurse?-Well,
Janice asked her what she was doing here, and she made some excuse and left, but
then I saw Denise at coffee, and she told me what she'd seen, and then I
put it together." Molly's eyes gleamed. "I think she wanted to see
what I looked like, close-up."
"How did she know where to find
you?"
"From my blog, I expect. After
that first story came out, and all those nasty comments, John suggested I take my
blog down for a time, and I did. But people who saw my comment that first day
could have easily traced me back to my blog before then, and found out where I
worked."
"How was the young lady
dressed?"
"I didn't get a very good look
at her-she must have been deliberately trying to avoid my notice. One thing I
couldn't miss: she was wearing a purple coat."
"Would you recognize her again
if you saw her?"
"Possibly..."
Sherlock got on his mobile. "I
downloaded some pictures from the university Web site, in case they might be
useful..."
He started flicking through them.
Molly sidled up beside him, actually leaning against his arm as she peered into
the tiny screen. Her body was warm against the coolness of the lab. And soft. He
dismissed the observation as irrelevant.
First, he brought up a picture of
Lisa Doyle. It never hurt to eliminate the obvious. "Was it her?"
Molly shook her head, her long hair
brushing his lapels. Sherlock paged through the profiles of some of Lisa's
friends, Molly murmuring a denial now and then. As they proceeded through the
entries, her hand traveled up his back to caress him between the shoulder
blades. He declined to react, considering such a gesture beneath his notice.
Determining that the photos were a
dead end, Sherlock re-pocketed his mobile. "You realize," he told
Molly haughtily, as she tickled his back, "there's no one in the room you
have to convince at the moment."
Her fingers crept up to fondle his
hair. "Convince?"
"That we are boyfriend and
girlfriend. We're alone."
"We don't have to pretend here,
true. But there is something I forgot to do last night."
Sherlock mentally replayed their six
separate sexual positions, and their transitions there-to. "I don't think
so."
"This girl who's following
me." Molly stepped in front of him, caressing the lapels of his unbuttoned
coat. "She can only be interested in me as a way of getting to you."
"Obviously. So?"
"So she might have seen you
come into Bart's. She might be lurking somewhere even now, hoping to catch us
together." She smiled. "You did create quite a stir with the
flowers."
"That was John's idea."
Sherlock hadn't meant to blurt it out to her quite like that, but Molly's hands
were becoming increasingly familiar, plucking free the scarf that he had left
draped around his neck and setting it on the desk behind her. His throat felt
cool from the sudden exposure.
"That was John's
idea," she said calmly, slipping her hands over his shoulders. "And this
is mine." Before Sherlock realized what was happening, she tickled a long stroke
up his neck with her tongue.
Sherlock jumped back, bounced off
the unexpectedly close wall behind him, and ended up sprawled rather comically against
the front of the desk. Before he could regain his composure, Molly was on him
like a vampire bat, scrambling on top of him to regain her hold on his neck.
Sherlock tried to insert a hand
between. "Molly, this is hardly appropriate."
"No, I need to-" Her lips found
the junction of his neck and shoulder, but this time she closed her jaws and
sucked. Impulses skittered keenly along his nerves, making him twitch. "Molly,
what are you doing?"
"Love bite," Molly
muttered, before closing her mouth and sucking harder.
"I don't need a-" He jerked.
"Love bite."
"Mm, you do." Molly
hitched a leg over his hip, bracing her knee against the desk to lever herself
over his lap. Her words were muffled against his skin. "If anyone's neck
needs a love bite, it's yours."
"I fail to see-" Reaching
to push her away, his hands brushed aside her lab coat and met-bare flesh. He
froze in shock.
Molly climbed fully onto him, still
chewing at his throat. Her legs spread across him and he could feel her heat.
Astonished by her sudden change in attire, he asked, in a voice gone
unexpectedly husky, "When did you..?"
"My trousers were on a
drawstring," she murmured between kisses, as her fingertips skated over
the front of his shirt.
Concentrating on speech was
difficult. "And you just... stepped out?"
"Mm-hmm."
Her fingernails brushed his nipples,
and he bucked. "And you happened to not be wearing knickers."
"I wanted to be prepared."
Suddenly she pulled his shirt tight
against his chest and scraped her fingernails across his erect nipples. He
jumped mightily. That was fighting foul; surely Molly had learned, in their
numerous interludes last night, that for whatever ludicrous reason, Sherlock's
nipples were hardwired to his groin. Despite his earlier vigorous exercise, her
maneuver produced the customary effect. He engaged in a most ridiculous dance, trying
to keep her from noticing his rising flagpole, all the while gasping and hitching
as her nails skated lightly across his taut nubs.
"Molly, if someone should come
in..."
"Janice is watching the door.
Besides, this is more important."
"What is?" Conversation
was becoming hard to follow. Oh, dear, she was doing the hip thing again.
Sherlock really hadn't learnt how to deal with the hip thing. Or at least, he
hadn't learned how to deal with the hip thing when a woman was simultaneously
chewing on his neck and skittering her fingertips across his highly sensitized nipples.
"I have to mark you," she
whispered against his skin. "Mark you as my own." And she bit down on
the big muscle in his neck.
Sherlock groaned. Did he groan? It
was getting hard to think. However, he still had some precious remnant of his
wits left to draw upon. "Molly, I'll be wearing a scarf most of the
time."
"You'll have to, after
this."
Uh, oh. That was a zipping sound.
She'd done it again- distracted him biologically, and now she was-
Rubbing him. He shuddered, torn
between oversensitivity and reawakened need. How did this keep happening? How
could he be having a perfectly ordinary conversation about a stalker one
moment, and the next moment find himself being fondled by a moaning woman who
was licking his neck and teasing his nipples and stroking his naked cock in
such a way that all she had to do to slide down upon it was-
She did. He groaned as the slippery
heat enveloped him. Molly trembled as she lowered herself onto him, gasping
when he slid home. Sherlock found himself holding her-actually helping
her. Surely he should have a little more say in how and where his body was used.
But there seemed to be a little disconnect going on between his mind and body
at present, with the unfortunate result that his body's baser impulses were
overriding the mental directives.
Any further rumination flew out the
window as Molly earnestly began to ride him. With one part of his brain, he
noted the pattern of her breath, the pattern of his breath, the pressure
of her legs around his hips as she braced off the desk for her upward pull, the
suck of her body as it tugged his skin all the way up, then clenching him on
the downward stride. It had all become very consuming somehow, noting these
details. Curious, how the body controlled the brain.
From this whirl of sensations, the
memory of his original mission suddenly returned to him. His self-control in
tatters, he immediately blurted out, albeit breathily, "There's something
I must tell you, Molly."
Molly made some peculiar grunt in reply;
she was busy.
"We're not lovers."
Molly carried on as before.
"Just friends."
"Good friends,"
Molly sighed, and commenced jiggling against the front of his body. "Oh.
Oh... Sherlock... You're so-oh."
"Am I?"
"Mmm, yes!"
His eyes had closed at some point;
he couldn't recall precisely when. Made stupid by circumstances, he held her as
she rocked against him. "Is this," Sherlock wondered aloud,
"what they call a 'quickie'?"
"It's-I'm... Yes, I'm..."
She suddenly seized his lapels, sinking her teeth into his coat collar to
stifle her screams.
Her contractions rippled over him. Sherlock
succumbed to the inevitable, and followed after her with a sigh.
Continued in Part 16
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, the BBC gang (Molly, Sarah, Donovan, Anderson)
Rating: PG to Strong Adult - this part NC-17
Warnings: Excessive estrogen, dubcon
Summary: Sherlock finds himself the recipient of unwanted attention, thanks to the Internet.
Notes: Thank you winterstorrm for the beta and Britpick.
For a complete list of chapters, see: The Problem with Personal Blogs, chapter list.
15. Phase 2
Sherlock arrived at Bart's carrying
a big bouquet of daisies and a hefty dose of misgivings. John had insisted upon
the flowers. While Sherlock put more stock in John's romantic sensibilities
than his own, he couldn't help but think that bringing Molly flowers was sending
her a mixed message. He had settled on daisies, as they must be considered less
romantic than roses. Also, there was something appropriate about delivering
daisies to a mortuary that further reinforced his choice.
He drew his share of curious and
interested looks as he carried his floral burden through the halls.
Fortunately, Sherlock knew the building well enough to avoid the main
corridors. Arriving at the morgue, he rapped twice on the heavy wooden door to
alert those within. No reply. He peered through the window and angled his neck.
No one. The big storage/examination
room appeared empty.
He continued down the corridor to
the tiny office that the lab techs shared when they weren't doing benchwork.
Although the door was shut, he could hear voices within. As he vastly preferred
meeting Molly again in the presence of witnesses, he rapped on the door without
hesitation and pushed it open.
Molly was seated behind the desk at
the far end of the narrow room, engaged in intense but hushed conversation with
three other women who were huddled round her. The subject of their discussion
seemed to involve a good deal of squealing and muted exclamations. Considering that
Molly was the focus of the group, Sherlock could surmise only too well what the
topic might be.
His conjecture was immediately
confirmed by the way the four smirking faces froze in shock upon recognizing
him. Four pairs of eyes grew wide; four huddled bodies went still. Their guilty
countenances might have been amusing, were Sherlock not preoccupied with his
own uncomfortable errand. It didn't help that Molly, upon mastering her shock, favored
him with a beaming smile.
The oldest woman, a nurse, recovered
first. She gave Sherlock a smug once-over, then whapped Molly on the arm.
"See you later, love. Come on, girls. We've things to do."
The three visitors drew away from
the desk, trying their best to hide their reawakened smirks. The youngest one,
another lab tech, looked Molly's way and mimed holding a phone to her ear. Call
me, she mouthed. Sherlock waited patiently until all their blatant feminine
signals had been exchanged, and he and Molly were alone in the room. The nurse
shut it firmly-but he could hear giggles break out beyond the door.
Molly came round the desk to greet
him. She must have had even less sleep than Sherlock had, but she didn't look
it. Instead, she looked-well, radiant, to borrow John's word. Her lips were
still slightly swollen from their nocturnal kisses, and a faint flush enlivened
her cheeks. Her smile was warm and full and more than slightly possessive. More
than ever, Sherlock regretted bringing the flowers.
Nothing for it but to carry on. He
advanced, holding out his gift.
She reached languidly take them.
"For me? How lovely!" She inhaled deeply and peered at him
mischievously over the top of the bouquet. "It worked."
Sherlock, who had been mentally
rehearsing his "just friends" speech, was taken aback. "Worked."
"Our plan. The girlfriend
plan?" She smiled slyly. "It worked!"
Sherlock sincerely hoped he hadn't
correctly concluded what she was implying. "And you're now... my
girlfriend?"
Molly smacked him playfully with the
flowers. "No, silly! That was acting. I know that. I meant;
have you looked at the Web site this morning? No new entry." She
beamed at him. "It worked!"
Sherlock hesitated. This
conversation wasn't going at all the way he had envisioned it. "Yes, I've
seen the Web site. There's nothing new there, save for the expected addition of
a few dozen vulgar replies."
"It's the girlfriend angle-always
works. Put up your 'Already Let' sign, and the rest are forced to back
off."
"Sort of an 'honor among
thieves' type of thing?"
"I wouldn't put it that way!
But, if you insist... Oh, these really are nice," she added, petting the
petals. "They will brighten up the place." She laid the
bouquet on the desk, then looked at him expectantly. "So, what do you have
in mind for Phase 2?"
Sherlock was taken aback. "Phase
2?"
Molly looked at him as if he were
thick. "There must be a Phase 2. You can't leave a perfectly
working plan at Phase 1."
"But it's not a
perfectly working plan. The intent was to draw my stalker out of the woodwork.
In that regard, it failed."
"Au contraire, mon ami.
Guess who I noticed following me around hospital this morning?"
Sherlock felt a rush of excitement.
"Someone from the restaurant?" Molly smirked teasingly, forcing
Sherlock to carry on. "One of the girls near the door, perhaps? I had
initially eliminated them based on their social media pages. Supposedly, both
had alibis for the night I questioned Miss Doyle. However, those entries could
have been faked-"
"It wasn't anyone from the
restaurant. She was young-well, younger than me. Dark hair..." Molly
looked up quickly. "You know, she might have been the lurker I saw in the
street!"
Sherlock's rising excitement wilted.
He'd done more than a little online work this morning before visiting Molly,
and had his facts in hand. In his driest voice, he said, "Ah, yes, the
famous street lurker." His gaze locked on Molly's challengingly. "Do
thank Miss Singh for her vigilance, and tell her that, regardless of the role
she played last night, I must admit that she's a first-rate beautician."
Molly looked wary. "Her role?"
"Yes. The one where you asked
her to lurk in the doorway in the block of flats opposite yours, to give the
appearance that we were being watched. She must be a very good friend. She not
only does your hair and nails, but she stands outside in the bitter cold just
waiting for you to come home."
Molly dropped her pretense of not
understanding. "Well, she didn't wait long, as a matter of fact. I rang
her from the women's loo just before we left the restaurant, and told her to
expect us."
"So she could trick me into
thinking we were being watched."
"So she could watch the street!
We couldn't do it; we were busy acting like boyfriend and girlfriend. We
needed someone else to keep watch, to see if any of the passersby were
interested in us."
This was a level of strategy Sherlock
had not expected from Molly. "If you're trying to convince me that you
didn't use Miss Singh to deliberately create the impression that we were being
watched-"
"We were!"
"I saw one prostitute, and one person
hovering in a doorway: your friend, Miss Singh."
Molly relaxed. "Oh, now
I understand. Yes, you saw Rachna, but she wasn't the lurker. You'd got
the wrong doorway. The real lurker was the next building over."
Sherlock was unmoved. "I saw no
one in that doorway."
"She'd stepped back by the time
you looked." Molly smiled. "I was keeping you rather
busy."
Sherlock reconsidered. Unless Molly
was a truly outstanding actress (a talent he very much doubted), it seemed that
she really believed that there was an additional lurking person. The
possibility could not be discounted. Based on his research this morning,
Sherlock had been unable to find any link to his stalker by tracing the patrons
at the restaurant. Everyone he had a name for appeared to have an alibi for the
night he'd questioned Miss Doyle. Yet both John and Molly had assured him that
the stalker would be unable to stay away. He therefore decided to take Molly at
her word. "The person in the doorway-did Miss Singh describe her?"
"Er, not very well. It was
dark. But it was definitely a woman. She was well-wrapped, but Rachna said she
looked rather young-the part of her face that peeped out, that is."
"That's it? Just 'young'?"
Molly frowned in recollection. "Also
rather short. And bulky, but Rachna said that might have been her coat."
Sherlock pondered. "Short and
bulky" might describe half the women in London, particularly if they were
bundled up against a cold evening.
"She was definitely watching
us," Molly continued. "I could see her head tilted toward us quite
clearly."
"Which is why you were in such
a hurry to pull me inside-to sustain the illusion of our fictional affair?"
"Of course! Also, it was cold."
She fidgeted. "I should have known you'd find out about Rachna. What gave
us away?"
"When the person who I thought
might be a lurker disappeared so quickly and quietly into the building, I was
certain that she not only had a key, but was obviously well-acquainted with the
entrance. In other words, a resident. When I left your flat this morning, I
walked across the street to research the names listed outside. When I discovered
that one of the occupants was a beautician, and recalled that you had claimed a
beautician as your flatmate, when you obviously have no flatmate, it
wasn't difficult to piece together."
Molly tried to look contrite, but
her smugness ruined the attempt. "Yes, well, sorry about that. We were
flatmates at one time, until I saved enough to afford the studio on my
own."
"You might have told me that
you'd recruited Miss Singh to help."
"I was afraid you might think
it... odd."
"Unexpectedly resourceful, I
would say. By involving me in the plan, you might have spared me some
confusion."
"But there was a lurker,
even though you didn't see her."
"The bulky woman."
"To deceive her, I had
to ask you in."
"You didn't have to..."
Sherlock waved a hand.
Molly looked impatient. "Of course
I did! I couldn't have sent you out five minutes later looking pristine. She'd
have seen through that in an instant!"
"I could have ruffled my
hair-"
"Not remotely good enough. Besides,
people can always tell when other people are having sex."
Her confidence was staggering. "I'm...
not certain that's true."
"Of course it is! Haven't you
seen the studies?"
"What studies?"
"The studies about people
having sex!" Molly made an obvious effort to slow down and explain herself;
truly this case had led to a cockeyed state of affairs, if Molly was explaining
things to him. "They've done these studies about sex and
attractiveness. It turns out that people can tell, subconsciously somehow,
whether or not a person has been having sex recently."
"If I recall the study you're
referring to," Sherlock interrupted, somewhat nettled over his assumed
ignorance, "it found that people who had had sex recently were more
frequently selected by a random audience as being more attractive."
Molly snapped her fingers, looking
pleased. "You read it, too."
"In which case, if this
theory is correct, I will now be more attractive to my stalker." He
eyed her. "That was not my intention."
Molly waved airily. "Don't
worry about that. The girlfriend thing trumps everything."
"You could have explained your
reasoning last night. Better still, you could have just made me coffee, as
you'd promised."
Molly pouted. "John gets to run
all over town with you, chasing down smugglers and serial killers. I try to
help you for one night in a special operation, and you complain about
it."
Sherlock gave up. "So tell me
about the woman you saw here at Bart's."
"She was outside Radiology. She
didn't have an appointment because Denise works in that department, and said she
was sitting there paging through the magazines, and when Denise asked if she
could help her, she said no. But when I came by, she followed me."
"To the morgue?"
"Right outside here."
Molly pointed through the door.
"When was this?"
"A couple of hours ago. I don't
think she's still here, because Janice-you know, Janice, the nurse?-Well,
Janice asked her what she was doing here, and she made some excuse and left, but
then I saw Denise at coffee, and she told me what she'd seen, and then I
put it together." Molly's eyes gleamed. "I think she wanted to see
what I looked like, close-up."
"How did she know where to find
you?"
"From my blog, I expect. After
that first story came out, and all those nasty comments, John suggested I take my
blog down for a time, and I did. But people who saw my comment that first day
could have easily traced me back to my blog before then, and found out where I
worked."
"How was the young lady
dressed?"
"I didn't get a very good look
at her-she must have been deliberately trying to avoid my notice. One thing I
couldn't miss: she was wearing a purple coat."
"Would you recognize her again
if you saw her?"
"Possibly..."
Sherlock got on his mobile. "I
downloaded some pictures from the university Web site, in case they might be
useful..."
He started flicking through them.
Molly sidled up beside him, actually leaning against his arm as she peered into
the tiny screen. Her body was warm against the coolness of the lab. And soft. He
dismissed the observation as irrelevant.
First, he brought up a picture of
Lisa Doyle. It never hurt to eliminate the obvious. "Was it her?"
Molly shook her head, her long hair
brushing his lapels. Sherlock paged through the profiles of some of Lisa's
friends, Molly murmuring a denial now and then. As they proceeded through the
entries, her hand traveled up his back to caress him between the shoulder
blades. He declined to react, considering such a gesture beneath his notice.
Determining that the photos were a
dead end, Sherlock re-pocketed his mobile. "You realize," he told
Molly haughtily, as she tickled his back, "there's no one in the room you
have to convince at the moment."
Her fingers crept up to fondle his
hair. "Convince?"
"That we are boyfriend and
girlfriend. We're alone."
"We don't have to pretend here,
true. But there is something I forgot to do last night."
Sherlock mentally replayed their six
separate sexual positions, and their transitions there-to. "I don't think
so."
"This girl who's following
me." Molly stepped in front of him, caressing the lapels of his unbuttoned
coat. "She can only be interested in me as a way of getting to you."
"Obviously. So?"
"So she might have seen you
come into Bart's. She might be lurking somewhere even now, hoping to catch us
together." She smiled. "You did create quite a stir with the
flowers."
"That was John's idea."
Sherlock hadn't meant to blurt it out to her quite like that, but Molly's hands
were becoming increasingly familiar, plucking free the scarf that he had left
draped around his neck and setting it on the desk behind her. His throat felt
cool from the sudden exposure.
"That was John's
idea," she said calmly, slipping her hands over his shoulders. "And this
is mine." Before Sherlock realized what was happening, she tickled a long stroke
up his neck with her tongue.
Sherlock jumped back, bounced off
the unexpectedly close wall behind him, and ended up sprawled rather comically against
the front of the desk. Before he could regain his composure, Molly was on him
like a vampire bat, scrambling on top of him to regain her hold on his neck.
Sherlock tried to insert a hand
between. "Molly, this is hardly appropriate."
"No, I need to-" Her lips found
the junction of his neck and shoulder, but this time she closed her jaws and
sucked. Impulses skittered keenly along his nerves, making him twitch. "Molly,
what are you doing?"
"Love bite," Molly
muttered, before closing her mouth and sucking harder.
"I don't need a-" He jerked.
"Love bite."
"Mm, you do." Molly
hitched a leg over his hip, bracing her knee against the desk to lever herself
over his lap. Her words were muffled against his skin. "If anyone's neck
needs a love bite, it's yours."
"I fail to see-" Reaching
to push her away, his hands brushed aside her lab coat and met-bare flesh. He
froze in shock.
Molly climbed fully onto him, still
chewing at his throat. Her legs spread across him and he could feel her heat.
Astonished by her sudden change in attire, he asked, in a voice gone
unexpectedly husky, "When did you..?"
"My trousers were on a
drawstring," she murmured between kisses, as her fingertips skated over
the front of his shirt.
Concentrating on speech was
difficult. "And you just... stepped out?"
"Mm-hmm."
Her fingernails brushed his nipples,
and he bucked. "And you happened to not be wearing knickers."
"I wanted to be prepared."
Suddenly she pulled his shirt tight
against his chest and scraped her fingernails across his erect nipples. He
jumped mightily. That was fighting foul; surely Molly had learned, in their
numerous interludes last night, that for whatever ludicrous reason, Sherlock's
nipples were hardwired to his groin. Despite his earlier vigorous exercise, her
maneuver produced the customary effect. He engaged in a most ridiculous dance, trying
to keep her from noticing his rising flagpole, all the while gasping and hitching
as her nails skated lightly across his taut nubs.
"Molly, if someone should come
in..."
"Janice is watching the door.
Besides, this is more important."
"What is?" Conversation
was becoming hard to follow. Oh, dear, she was doing the hip thing again.
Sherlock really hadn't learnt how to deal with the hip thing. Or at least, he
hadn't learned how to deal with the hip thing when a woman was simultaneously
chewing on his neck and skittering her fingertips across his highly sensitized nipples.
"I have to mark you," she
whispered against his skin. "Mark you as my own." And she bit down on
the big muscle in his neck.
Sherlock groaned. Did he groan? It
was getting hard to think. However, he still had some precious remnant of his
wits left to draw upon. "Molly, I'll be wearing a scarf most of the
time."
"You'll have to, after
this."
Uh, oh. That was a zipping sound.
She'd done it again- distracted him biologically, and now she was-
Rubbing him. He shuddered, torn
between oversensitivity and reawakened need. How did this keep happening? How
could he be having a perfectly ordinary conversation about a stalker one
moment, and the next moment find himself being fondled by a moaning woman who
was licking his neck and teasing his nipples and stroking his naked cock in
such a way that all she had to do to slide down upon it was-
She did. He groaned as the slippery
heat enveloped him. Molly trembled as she lowered herself onto him, gasping
when he slid home. Sherlock found himself holding her-actually helping
her. Surely he should have a little more say in how and where his body was used.
But there seemed to be a little disconnect going on between his mind and body
at present, with the unfortunate result that his body's baser impulses were
overriding the mental directives.
Any further rumination flew out the
window as Molly earnestly began to ride him. With one part of his brain, he
noted the pattern of her breath, the pattern of his breath, the pressure
of her legs around his hips as she braced off the desk for her upward pull, the
suck of her body as it tugged his skin all the way up, then clenching him on
the downward stride. It had all become very consuming somehow, noting these
details. Curious, how the body controlled the brain.
From this whirl of sensations, the
memory of his original mission suddenly returned to him. His self-control in
tatters, he immediately blurted out, albeit breathily, "There's something
I must tell you, Molly."
Molly made some peculiar grunt in reply;
she was busy.
"We're not lovers."
Molly carried on as before.
"Just friends."
"Good friends,"
Molly sighed, and commenced jiggling against the front of his body. "Oh.
Oh... Sherlock... You're so-oh."
"Am I?"
"Mmm, yes!"
His eyes had closed at some point;
he couldn't recall precisely when. Made stupid by circumstances, he held her as
she rocked against him. "Is this," Sherlock wondered aloud,
"what they call a 'quickie'?"
"It's-I'm... Yes, I'm..."
She suddenly seized his lapels, sinking her teeth into his coat collar to
stifle her screams.
Her contractions rippled over him. Sherlock
succumbed to the inevitable, and followed after her with a sigh.
Continued in Part 16