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It was a grey, dreary December Tuesday, and I was admonishing Sarah for her repeated mistreatment of the silver, when Sylvia burst into the room in a flutter. If I have told that girl once, I've told her a hundred times. "Mrs Watson, ma'am, it's a Mister -" she gasped, before a man swept past poor Sylvia in a whirlwind of fashionable velvet and a well-brushed silk hat which he had not even removed from his head.
With a manner as abrupt as his entry, he demanded, "Madam, where is Sherlock Holmes?"
"Sir," I said, summoning all the frigidity of the winter weather into my tone, "I do not believe I have had the pleasure."
Not at all cowed, he looked me up and down with an interest that, quite frankly, I found offensive. He raised an eyebrow. "I do not believe you have," he said. His voice was pleasantly light; he was, I saw now, quite young. Also handsome, if one were inclined toward the dangerous, debauched type. Unfortunately, I am.
"Mary Watson," he said, now, and a smile curled on his lip. "You are the mistress of the house?"
"Something of that kind," I said stiffly, unsure as to whether he was mocking me. I waved Sarah out, and returned to my desk to continue examining the household accounts, trying to convey to my unwelcome guest that if he would not observe the most basic civility, I certainly would not either. I would have left the room, but I did not dare leave him alone with the silver. Thus dismissed from my attention, he did not leave or apologise, but wandered around the room, drawing books from the shelves to examine their spines, and pausing to look at a few engravings and photographs on the wall.
"When will he be back?" he said at last, casually.
"Who?" I said, scribbling CHECK THIS next to a dubious series of entries.
"Holmes," he said.
"You seem to be under the impression that I am aware of his every movement," I snapped. "I assure you that I have no idea where he is or what he is doing there, nor whether he will be coming here when he has finished doing it."
He laughed softly, and advanced on my desk, until his perfectly manicured fingers rested on the edge of my writing desk. I refused to acknowledge him, but continued to draw my pen down the line of entries.
"I think you know exactly where he is," he breathed, "and what he is doing."
"I most certainly do not."
My pen, subjected to increasing pressure in my irritation, suddenly snapped at the nib, and ink flooded over the beleaguered accounts. I forgot myself and cursed, and instantly he had caught my hands over the writing desk and lifted them from the mess, before whipping a handkerchief from his pocket and blotting the worst of the ink from the desk and paper, his other hand still grasping both of my own. His hands were surprisingly small, but his touch was firm and masterful, and my breath caught, despite myself.
"It would be a shame to stain those pretty fingers," he husked, and as I stared into his eyes, suffused with humiliated warmth, he whispered, "You know he is with your husband. And you know what he is doing with him."
I snatched my hand away.
"Leave my house this instant," I hissed, pushing back my chair with such violence that it fell to the carpet. At once he was around the table and close to me, pressing his finger to my lips.
"You misunderstand me," he murmured. He was close to me now, and I could smell his cologne, feel the brush of his breath stir my hair where it had escaped from its clips and ribbons. "Perhaps your husband has spoken of me. My name is Adler."
For a moment I could not place the name, but as I stared at his young, clean-shaven face, his clever eyes and delicate mouth, an incredible notion floated into my mind.
"You!" I gasped, but he - she? could it be so? - grasped my shoulders and pulled me close. My arms went up of their own accord as I nearly lost my balance, and my hands came to rest on a slender waist, a bosom concealed, but not altogether hidden by an artfully cut shirt. In the shock of the moment, I tore his hat from his head; chestnut hair tumbled around her face, transforming her into a slightly older, even more dangerous woman. She shot me a devastatingly reckless smile.
"Why should they have all the fun?"
Then, before I could gather my wits and my breath, she kissed me. I made to draw away, but she caught my wrists and held them hard, her painful grip in strange juxtaposition with the softness of her mouth against my own.
"Oh," she breathed, "You're as gorgeous as he said."
"Who?" I managed, before she kissed me again. I felt my resolve weaken as her tongue inquisitively ran along my lower lip, followed by a gentle, tingling bite that nearly undid me. She laughed, low and warm, and I found, to my embarrassment, that my hands had tightened around her waist and were holding her fast. She pressed soft, barely-there kisses to the corner of my mouth, my jaw, the base of my ear, as I tried desperately to hold onto my restraint and my sanity. Her breath shivered over my ear as she whispered, "John, of course."
"Do you think that you can goad me into -" my tongue stumbled over what, exactly, this encounter might lead to, and she laughed again, stinging me into recovery. "- into Sapphic debauchery by suggesting that -"
She kissed me again, and her mouth was so insistent and intoxicating that when we broke apart, both panting for breath, I found myself pressed against the parlour wallpaper by her slim, feminine body under a gentleman's clothes.
"The maids -" I gasped, "They may come in at any -"
She produced a key from her pocket and dangled it before me. "The door is locked," she murmured, with a wicked smile.
I started. "When could you possibly have -"
"Oh, I see why he likes this," she sighed, and kissed me again. Her hand stole between us to press between my legs. I, embarrassingly, squeaked, but I was rewarded by her laughter against my mouth and a biting kiss that made my knees go weak. Then she completed my undoing by sinking to her knees before me.
"Oh, no," I gasped, as her clever, thieving hands slipped under my dress and made short work of my crinoline and petticoat. With a wicked smile, she raised my skirt with both hands and disappeared beneath it. I gasped again, and bit down on my fist to prevent myself from moaning aloud as I felt the first hot touch of her tongue against my sex, muffled by the silk of my underthings. Then I both heard and felt the silk tear, and her naked tongue lapped at my wetness. Despite my precautions, my whimper sounded loud in the room, as did my subsequent gasps as she nudged my legs as far apart as my skirt would allow and applied herself to me, drawing ever-mounting pleasure from me with her lips, tongue and teeth. I could scarcely see my ordinary living room through the haze of my desire, and I closed my eyes and pressed back against the wall as she slipped a finger inside me.
"Do you wish you could do this to him?" I found myself whispering, barely knowing if I was speaking of John or Holmes, to her or to myself, and she moaned against me and crooked her finger, making me almost collapse on top of her.
She dragged me roughly over the precipice of ecstasy, racking me with shudders again and again before she emerged from under my skirts with an extremely smug expression on her face. I stared, dazed and panting, my legs barely able to support my weight. Her mouth was obscenely shiny, and her teeth very white against her flushed and swollen lips as she grinned up at me.
"I think," I managed at last, "I had better take you to bed."
It was several hours later when my husband let himself in softly to our bedroom where we lay together, her golden skin naked against mine. I heard his exclamation when he saw Irene's shirt draped across his chair, and he choked a little when she rolled lazily off me, but when I raised an eyebrow at him he pressed his lips together in a wry smile.
"So," he said to Irene, "This is how it is, is it?"
"It is," she pronounced. Then she offered a hand to him. "Care to join us?"
"Holmes -" he said, hesitating, and she laughed uproariously, and lunged forward, seizing his hand and dragging him to us. He fell against me, laughing, and already shrugging out of his shirt.
"We can surprise him," she breathed. My husband kissed my breast, and his smile was all for me.