Fic for rabidsamfan: Tea in the Sahara (Part 2)

[holmesticemods]

Title: Tea in the Sahara (Part 2)
Recipient: rabidsamfan
Author: fleetwood_mouse, with thanks to eyeofmazikeen for feedback and help.
Characters/Pairings: Mary Morstan/John Watson, Mary Morstan/John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Warnings: Mary Morstan sees more than she is given credit for, and she has been watching for a long time. This is the story of how she gets John Watson to stop waiting and take what he wants: Sherlock Holmes.
Word count: 13,500
Note: Meant to be Ritchie but may read closer to ACD.



The two of us switched places, Holmes kneeling on the cushion before John’s outstretched legs, and I making straight for the sideboard to down my portion of the brandy in one gulp while their attention was occupied. I refilled the glass with shaking hands.

If you want something done right, I resolved, setting the full glass down again, you ought to do it yourself.
The old schoolmarm aphorism was so out of place here that I struggled not to laugh. I was so giddy with the lie that had sprung to my lips and at how easily it had been received. While there can be no doubt that Holmes’ boxing and his violin left him with stronger hands than most men, I must ask you: how much stronger could they have been compared to the fingers so accustomed to scrubbing mud and blood and God knew what else from tweed?

I hid my smile with another sip of brandy, and, thus fortified, circled my way back towards the sofa, where John was insisting that he really was all right, that it was quite enough already, thank you – and Holmes, after his way, was paying these protests no mind whatsoever. I refilled John’s glass, which he too had drained, and bid him to sit up for a moment. When he had, I sat in his place and lay his blonde head in my lap. It was an intimate gesture for such company, but Holmes, bless him, did not look up from his task. When John made to question me, I silenced him by means of my fingers in his hair, nails scratching against his scalp.

“Relax,” I told him in my most soothing voice, “rest,” and obediently he closed his eyes. We continued like this for some time, Holmes and I both massaging in tandem. John’s breathing grew slower and deeper just as my own heart raced with the thought of how I might proceed. I steadied myself and with a deep breath, I took my eyes from the fixed point in space that I had been studying in order to observe Holmes instead.

So absorbed was he that I believe I must have caught him quite unaware. There was nothing untoward or suspect about the movement or placement of his hands, but on his face, I saw the most incredible expression of sorry affection, of unguarded need and longing and my breath caught in my throat. It shocked me to think that this depth of emotion and need lay within his breast, and that I had caught him with the proof plain and naked upon his face. And John, with his head resting in my lap, need only have opened his eyes and he would have seen written plain as day that which he surely already expected, which he must have felt himself and longed for in return.

I moved my fingers from John’s hair to the delicate skin of his temples, beginning a gentle rhythm that drew a soft sigh of contentment from his lips. I knew well where he was the most sensitive, what touches would distract him from what was about to take place between Holmes and me.

I cleared my throat as subtly and quietly as I could manage, and although John did not stir in my lap, the sound seemed to blast through Holmes’ reverie like a gunshot. He jerked his head upright, cheeks flushing involuntarily, features shifting like quicksilver in search of the right arrangement, the mask that would exonerate him. But we had been here before, he and I, and so I had anticipated this. When Holmes searched my face for the best course of action, he found only a smile. A knowing smile, affectionate and permissive, nearly inviting.

This, I think, was the last thing he expected to see – his features ceased their shifting and for a long instant, he simply gaped at me, a pink blush rising in his ears to match the one on his cheeks. I had never before seen him so stupefied – in all his fantastic cases and his years of traveling abroad, of all the strange things he must have seen, what shocked him the most was my permission, freely given, to love who he loved, to do what he desired – what he must have desired for so long.

The seconds stretched endless between us, and I parted my lips to speak but found that all I could do was nod my head, eyes fixed clearly and soberly on his. Holmes did not act on my signal immediately –only continued to study me, as if to be absolutely sure that he was not mistaken. His eyes flickered in that familiar way, fading to some faraway space – possibly back for that day where I had interrupted them, reconstructing the moment, searching for the telltale signs of dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, an elevated pulse, perhaps. Finally, his dark eyes focused again, with a near-audible click, and he gave me a nod of his own.

He kept his eyes fixed intently on mine as he slowly, slowly, almost imperceptibly allowed his hands to move up John’s thighs. His fingers began to knead wider, slower circles, showing me beyond a shadow of a doubt how the purpose of his touch had changed, making explicitly sure that I understood and giving me time to correct his course. I became aware that my mouth was very dry, and I could feel my heartbeat against my ribs and in my ears. I tried to give Holmes a reassuring smile as I had a moment before, but found that I could not – my lips gave an obliging little twitch but my nerves were tuned too high for me to approximate any display of emotion. But I felt a change as I attempted the act, felt it settle calmly behind my eyes with a crystal weight and clarity, and Holmes must have seen it in my face. He dropped his head, eyes scanning the lines of John’s body, and continued his work.

He moved so gradually, taking every inch as though it were a hard-won battle, and watching him, I thought that it would never progress. But surely enough, his hands soon climbed high enough not to be ignored, and I felt John notice. The muscles of his neck twitched, tensing; his eyelids fluttered, but, before he could stir, before he could sit up and demand to know what was going on, I bent my head and touched my lips to his, pressed close and breathed in his breath, winding my fingers in his fine hair.

“Mary,” John breathed, and I kissed him harder, deeper, striving to steal his speech. “Mary, what—?”
I shushed him – as much with my lips as with my voice – and cradled his face in my hands. He was still tense beneath my touch, alert and suspicious – not the reaction that I had hoped to elicit, but I did not have the words to explain to him what it was I was planning. I wondered if Holmes was having more luck. My eyes were closed but I could picture him there, his dark curls and the firm line that his shoulders formed against John’s legs as his hands roamed.

John shifted, and he did not show any signs of discomfort. I trailed my fingertips down, tracing the fine straight lines of his collarbone, and he stirred. His hands reached up for me and I felt the tug of his fingers in my hair, against my neck, pulling me closer, and of course I obliged him, closing my eyes.
There was the rustle of cloth and the next instant, John bit off a gasp, tearing his mouth from mine. His eyes opened wide, burst of brilliant blue, and he blinked, licking his lips and scanning the scene as if he were not sure whether he had just awakened from a dream. His breathing was quick and shallow.

“Mary,” he said, voice rough. “Holmes. I –”

“Good work.” Holmes wiped his mouth. “You’ve managed to identify each of the parties involved. Now sit back and let us get on with this.”

John’s frustrated sigh was familiar. “Insufferable.” Coming from him, it sounded at once a curse and an endearment. “Impossible. You absurd man, you absolutely un–”and then he was reaching for Holmes who, for all his contrariness, made no move to deny him anything in that moment.

John clutched at his shoulders, rising from my lap to wind his arms the tighter, and I saw Holmes’ fingers digging into the cloth of John’s shirt so hard that it must have hurt. John, however, did not make a sound but for the small choked cry I heard when Holmes crushed their lips together. Years before, I had seen John adrift and lost, I had touched the blackness of his despair when he believe his friend gone, and this was familiar, but it was something else entirely to witness the sudden onset of desperation in Holmes, to see him cling to John like a drowning man. His barbed remarks, his carefully studied façade served as a hide, guarded away this – his gasping breaths and seeking hands and the slits of his eyes, for once shunning all other stimulus, blinding himself to the world for the sake of this.

It was as if everything but the two of them disappeared, as if they were entirely alone – and maybe they should have been, for this; maybe these two men who breathed for each other, communicated volumes with cleared throats and the twitch of an eye, who slipped seamless through crowded streets but never left the other’s sight – maybe they should have been alone for such an intimate act. But John was my husband, a constant source of support, my other half, and Holmes was his as well as my dear friend, and it was as if it had always been the three of us. It might have been more proper for me to have made my exit (or, as many would argue, made for the police station and have them arrested for a variety of indecencies) but I could no more have risen from the couch as I could have grown wings and flown away. I was fascinated by this intimacy, this surge of the passion that I had so long suspected. And more than fascinated, I was unbearably aroused, completely lost in the ardour of the moment. I felt as if I had disappeared entirely, except for the sound of my own breathing and the slow trickle of heat to the pulse between my thighs.

John’s mouth dropped to kiss Holmes’ jaw, to suck and bite where it met his neck, and Holmes gave a whine, eyes suddenly open, wide and fluttering. The look on his face was so plainly overcome that I wondered whether he might never have done this before, whether the education of the world’s only consulting detective had allowed for this particular sort of sport. And then his hands were flying, fine and white and precise, and he fell to the buttons of John’s shirtwaist with considerable grace, tugging all the while at the fabric to get at John’s neck, the line of his throat, to wet the sensitive skin with the broad red smear of his mouth. Buttons undone, his hands dropped lower, reaching – and John caught them with quick reflexes, tucking them against his ribs, leaning forward until their foreheads touched.

Both men were panting as if after a hard run, chests heaving, held and trembling on the cusp of movement. Holmes drew in a shuddering breath and reached again – again, John stopped him.

“Mary,” he said, his tone summoning, and we both understood him.

“Yes,” hissed Holmes, and his eyes grew dark and he lunged for John’s mouth again, pushing him onto his back, sprawled half across my lap.

I disentangled myself from them, standing, and made to do away with my undergarments as quickly as I could – as task that would be much easier now, given the remarkable liberations in women’s fashion we have seen in only a few short years. It’s also considerably simpler to achieve when not distracted by such a sight as the one before me: Holmes tearing at John’s clothes and nipping red marks at his throat, blood rising to the surface of his tanned skin where it began to lighten; John arching up beneath him, strong hands scrabbling futilely across his back and shoulders.

My dress fell finally to the floor with a gratifying swish. Holmes worked a leg between John’s thighs and John writhed up against him, cursing, movements restricted by the arms of his open shirt. I stepped out of my underskirt and petticoat, shaking off their restrictive weight. John’s fingers found Holmes’ hair as he moved downwards, kissing, biting, testing the reaction of every inch of skin, marking his bare chest and stomach. I shucked my drawers and stood strangely bashful in my low-necked chemise as Holmes took John by the hips, tugging his trousers down, and John’s breath hitched. His eyes fell closed when Holmes drew him out of his smallclothes, red and straining, and I was suddenly aware of the stickiness between my legs in the cool air. Holmes palmed over the tip and John struggled to steady his breathing, stay the movement of his hips.

“Mary,” he rasped, reaching for me, and I stepped forward obligingly, climbing up onto the couch. He began to rearrange me with a hand on my leg, but then his fingers clenched around the muscle of my calf and he let out a strangled cry. I hardly dared to look but somehow found the courage; Holmes’ dark curls were bobbing, mouth pink and tight around John’s staff. John’s head had rolled back and his eyes were closed, lips moving as if in silent prayer, breath coming in short hitches.

I shifted into a crouch, carefully seeking my balance, and John groaned as Holmes added his hand, twisting up and down in tandem with his mouth. Though I had understood what John wanted me to do, now that I found myself here, swaying precariously on the balls of my feet, I could not quite find the courage to take the last, bold step. I reached to touch his hair again and his fingers wrapped around my wrist, tugging, insisting. I took a deep breath and slowly, carefully eased downward until I had one leg on either side of John’s head, sitting upon his face.

It shocked me – even in that indelicate moment – that I might be capable of something so brazen and my eyes were squeezed shut in embarrassment, but John made a hungry, gratified noise and tilted his chin upward, pressing his mouth to the heat between my legs. I drew in a sharp breath as his lips, his tongue pressed where I felt it most strongly, sending a rush of dizziness to my head. It wouldn’t do to fall, so I reached back to support myself with one trembling hand, and John squeezed the other reassuringly.

The new position was too unfamiliar and John too distracted for us to manage much. At first, he was only able to lap at me like a dog, gentle swipes of the tongue that made me shiver and gasp and ache for more. He too was hungry, spurred on by Holmes’ clever hands and cleverer tongue, and soon he was holding me by the hips, moving me to what he judged to be a better angle. Then, I opened to his fingers just as easily as I could have hoped. He pressed his fingers back between my lips and I felt his surprise to find me so wet, so ripe for him. Groaning, he reared up to bury his face between my legs, clasping my hips and my bottom, and my thighs trembled, the tensing of the muscles bursting sparks inside me until I could not help but moan his name. Between the sounds of our passion, there was a rattling noise that I could not quite place but forgot immediately when John crooked his fingers and beckoned, pressing against my walls and making me cry out.

My head fell forward and my hair, coming loose from its pins, stuck to the sweat on my brow. I could feel that my mouth was open, taste the panting breaths that passed my lips but I could not summon any words. John had been right about this position; it left me so open and exposed, gave his hands freedom they had never before enjoyed. It was almost unfair to be so utterly at his mercy – with his physician’s knowledge of human anatomy in general and mine in particular, the assault was constant and merciless, spurring me to further and further heights only to pull away each time I felt myself trembling on the edge.

Until, quite suddenly, it all stopped. With a hissing inhale, John ceased moving entirely and made a low, shocked sound that I had never heard before. I felt his breathing stutter and hitch, small bursts of air on the hot skin of my thighs, and heard him let out a shaky sigh as if willing himself to relax. When I opened my eyes, I saw that his face was screwed up as if in great concentration, wet lips trembling, throat working. Holmes’ expression was equally intent, and one of his hands had disappeared from my view. On the floor beside him lay John’s black bag, hastily unclasped, and the tools of his trade scattered haphazardly around it – the noise I had heard.

Holmes gave his wrist a tentative twist and John drew in one ragged breath and then another in quick succession, as if the air did his lungs little good. Lip between his teeth, Holmes reached his other hand up and lay it on John’s bare chest, a stabilizing, calming presence. Before I would not have been able to imagine him offering such comfort, but John grasped for it and clutched it like a rosary, eyelids fluttering.

“Holmes.” His voice was a choked whisper. He took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out slowly. I reached down to brush the hair from his face, pressing my palm against the lines on his forehead to feel them disappear as his features shifted. Holmes made a small movement and John’s mouth fell open in a gasp.

I rested my weight against the arm of the sofa and leaned back to watch. My left hand still lay on John’s brow; my right slipped beneath the ruffle of my chemise to rest between my thighs. The two of them made such a pretty picture, an illicit tableau I could not have imagined – all flushed cheeks and winding limbs and heaving chests, the wanton rolling of hips. And this, this was something I never would have thought I would see – even in all of my planning, I had not imagined it. Even the ha’penny novels, with their frantic descriptions of spit-slicked digits and trembling muscles, had not prepared me for the intimacy of it, the immediacy, the incredible truth of what it was we were about.

Holmes worked as slowly as he could, and gently, dark brows furrowed as he studied John, his reactions and movements, the pitch and speed of his breathing. His fingers moved as cautiously as they might on the neck of his violin, easing John, stretching him and testing his boundaries. Head swimming with the sight, I mirrored the movements of his fingers between my own legs, marveling at the slickness I felt, greedy for more. All the while, I watched constantly for the change in John, anticipating the moment when discomfort would turn to pleasure.

Holmes, with his sharp eyes, must have seen it before I did but in any case, we were rewarded before long – a red flush spread across John’s chest and his flagging cockstand began to twitch and harden again. He squirmed and he gasped and writhed (and I skewered myself on two of my fingers, panting); his breathing quickened until it was coming in short, shallow gasps and words poured half-formed from his lips. Holmes twisted his wrist sharply and John cried out, rocking upward. He did it again, and the sound John made was closer to a sob than anything else, and I thanked God for the isolation of this cottage, affording us a level of privacy we never would have had in London.

“John.”

Holmes low voice rasped with urgency. His dark eyes were flashing and he was evidently fighting to keep his breathing even.

“Yes,” breathed John. “Yes, yes, just…” He reached for me and I squeezed his hand.

He disentangled himself from Holmes’ embrace and stood, frowning over the form of the sofa. This was a difficult problem and I was glad its solution could be left to the hands of a doctor. And he was magnificent like this – he would have laughed to see himself in an open shirt and nothing more, but my mouth went dry at the sight of him, all compact muscle and golden hair, lips kissed red and wanton, strong legs holding him with no regard for the twisted scar as he stood and pondered the problem of what to do with this excess of love, with these two hopeless supplicants.

Holmes reached for me then, his eyes kind. “My lady,” he said. “I am sorry to have neglected you.” Placing one rough palm against the cool skin of my shoulder, warming me, he set to undoing the buttons of my chemise. His fingers moved with the utmost delicacy, as if he feared a harder touch might send them flying, or crumble me to dust beneath his hands. It was so vastly different from the way he touched John. Whatever experience he might have had, there was no doubt where the bulk of it lay.

“I believe this is how it is done.” He smiled at me wryly, no doubt guessing my thoughts, and I raised my chin to invite his kiss. His fingers stopped, leaving the last few buttons closed, and when he bent his head to mine, his lips were no less gentle, the barest inkling of a kiss. But I could taste John on him – despite the gentle chasteness, I could taste on him my husband’s most intimate parts, and my heart raced with the knowledge, the reminder of what we were about to do, and I pressed my body wantonly to his. My brazenness shocked him, galled him to kiss me harder, and I tingled all over with the delight of it.

“Stop acting so shy, Holmes – surely you’ve worn enough dresses yourself to manage this one.” John stood beside us, smile wide and open, holding in hand the tub of Vaseline from his doctor’s kit (whose contents, I noted, had been carefully returned to their proper places).

“There’s more to consider when it’s another’s clothes,” Holmes told him, hands about my waist. John undid his flies for him and began to rub his slick hand over Holmes’ prick. Holmes gasped, arching into his touch. “One must be more – ah – careful.”

“And yet you don’t extend this same courtesy when stealing my clothes.” John pressed his lips to Holmes’ neck.

“We have – mm –” Holmes’ let his head fall against John’s, panting.

“A barter system, yes, I’m aware.” Releasing his grip, John kissed him thoroughly and reached for me. “Mary, darling, let me take care of this.” Though Holmes, who was now shimming out of his trousers most ungracefully, surely could have used the help more, John had reached for me and I basked in his touch. He slid my chemise down over my shoulders, pausing to cup my breasts and kiss me, lips full and hot. I could feel where he pressed insistently against my thigh and it made me shiver.

When he at last pulled the chemise down over my hips, I stepped out of it and into his embrace. He dropped his head to kiss me behind the ear, to nuzzle and bite my neck with his lips until I moaned and opened my eyes to see Holmes watching us, eyes dark and hungry. He traced his hands down the muscles of John’s back, lower.
“Mary,” said John into the crook of my neck. His breath tickled and his voice was not as steady as it had been a moment before. “Turn around, love.”

I obliged and allowed him to position me on the sofa, knees spread on the cushions, hands gripping the
backrest for balance. His hands were warm on my hips and I held my breath at the feeling of his thighs press against my bottom, lining our bodies up.

“Like that?” I heard Holmes’ voice from behind me. “Are you sure your leg will take it?”

“Bugger my leg,” answered John, and Holmes laughed, murmuring some retort I couldn’t quite hear but could very well guess at.

Impatient, I pressed back against John, wiggling.

“Mary, love, I’m sorry,” he said, dropping a kiss between my shoulders. “Holmes, stop that – just for a moment leave off, will you?” He braced himself against the arm of the sofa and pressed – finally, blessedly – into me. All of the breath went out of him in a rush. I felt all my muscles tense as one and I groaned. Normally in this position I might need time to adjust, to acclimate to the size of him but now I felt ready enough to come off just at the thought of him moving. I thrust my hips back to encourage him, burying him deeper inside me, and he groaned aloud.

“Is this what you want?” he huffed, and began to move his hips in earnest. It was – my head hung on the end of my boneless neck and I could not move for myself, only shake with the intensity of it as his thrusts moved me back and forth.

I opened my eyes and through our twin limbs I saw flashes of a strange sight: Holmes kneeling behind John. I could not see all of what he was doing, but I had the idea that his hands were forcing John’s stance wider, and then I saw him tilt his face upward, pressing his lips to the inside of John’s thigh, and then John moved inside me with a trembling jolt, shocking my eyes closed.

“Oh.” His voice, practically a whisper, was that of a saint on the verge of an epiphany. His hips shuddered arrhythmically, and I tensed. His fingers dug into my hip and stayed there. I could feel his body shake as he tried to control his breathing.

“N-now,” he choked out. “Please, dear God, now.”

“You can’t talk like that, darling,” I said, sliding back along the length of him. “You’ll only encourage him. It’s the last thing he needs.”

“I’ll show you what I need,” quipped Holmes, and I felt John’s hips jerk and then go very, very still. The sound of our breathing was very loud in the still room, the three of us pushed to the limits of our excitement, and unable to stand it, I writhed on the end of his cock. He gasped, shallow and harsh, and his hand on my hip wound itself around to touch me.

“I’m sorry.” John’s voice was more breath than words. “Just a moment, I –”

“Not at all.” Holmes’ voice was wrecked and watery deep. He was almost panting. I heard a wet sound – his lips on John’s shoulder – and then John’s hips moved forward very slightly and they both gasped in unison.
My appetite had been whet and I was not sure I could continue to be patient, and now John’s fingers on me, moving between my legs, making me shudder deliciously. Luckily, I did not have to wait long. Holmes soon began to move and with him, so did John, with little huffs of breath, overwhelmed and incoherent half-words.

I do not know how to describe the feeling. It was so very familiar and yet utterly new. The unpredictability of John’s movements, the sudden jerks and stutters and stops made my breath catch in my throat, lit up my nerves incandescent. The rush of pleasure as Holmes’ thrusts moved John inside me – I felt as if this was not my body, as if this was something too big to be contained within me. John’s breath was ragged in my ears, Holmes’ voice low and ruined, and I imagined what John was feeling, the unbearable intimacy of that first time, that looming, ethereal closeness. I shuddered to think of him like that, so open and vulnerable, given over entirely to his passion, drowning in both of our bodies.

With his fingers dancing upon me, I was so close to the edge – surely all I needed was one more burning press, one shuddering thrust, one more murmured name. I wanted it, needed it with mounting desperation, could not stand one more second of this torture, and I pushed back against him, nearly losing my balance on the sofa. John’s hands steadied me and he picked up Holmes’ rhythm again, quick and sharp, and I heard him groan aloud.

I knew the tone, its desperate harshness and I knew he was as close as I was. My head dropped forward and I drew in a deep breath, concentrated on clenching my muscles, feeling him huge and hot inside me and then it was upon me in a rush, I was shuddering and quaking with such a profound, epiphanic relief, crying out in a voice I hardly believe was my own. I could hear Holmes and John following close behind, voices sweetly mingled; feel John spurting and twitching inside me as I shivered hotly with the last throes of pleasure.

When he withdrew from me, I groaned and fell forward limply onto the sofa, my limbs curling in on my body. I felt a hot weight settle beside me – Holmes was there too, lying his dark head down to tickle my thighs with his curls and his slowing breaths. John stood before the sofa, looking down at us, covered in the sweat of our exertions. I had no idea how he was managing to stand of his own power when such a feat was so far beyond me.

“Doesn’t this make a pretty picture,” he said, grinning, the very picture of satisfied exhaustion. “But have you left any room for me?”

“No need, my dear boy.” Holmes stretched unashamedly, basking under John’s gaze. “Your leg seems to have held up admirably. I’d like to see what else it can do.”

John snorted with laughter and poured himself a brandy. The late afternoon light flashed amber through the cut glass and I sighed. He sat down in the little space left on the sofa, squirming until he was situated snugly between us.

“Although…” Holmes’ fingers traced hesitantly up the back of my calf, my knee. “As Mary says, there is no harm in being too careful. As I wouldn’t want to risk a stress injury in a repeat performance,” – here I noticed that he was not meeting eyes with either of us, still so coy and uncertain – “it might be prudent to invest in a larger bed.”

John’s lips twitched in a smile.

“If you’d be amenable, that is,” Holmes added.

John laughed. “After all of that, Holmes, can you really have any doubt that I–?”

“It is not you that I’m wondering about.” Holmes’ dark eyes rested on me, thoughtful and heavy. “But then… no.
I suspect that there is less wondering about our dear Mary than I might previously have imagined.”

Normally, I would have fought to keep the surprise and guilt from showing on my face, but I was so happy and sated that I could not be bothered to do much of anything. Two sets of eyes were curious upon me, but I simply yawned and wormed my way closer to the heat of skin and muscle.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told them. “But I do have a carpenter friend who owes me a great favour.

Comments

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I'll be in my bunk then, shall I?

Oh, this is so going into that collection of printouts I keep in case the internet ceases to cooperate. Thank you, anon! It was exactly what I was hoping for, and I love your take on Mary! I could just see them, all three! Wow!

[fleetwood-mouse.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your kind comment! I felt a bit out of my depth on this and was very glad to hear you'd enjoyed it nonetheless <3

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

It was perfect. This was exactly how I can see the bold Mary of the movies setting out to get what she wants.

[swissmarg]

So nice to have a willing accomplice!

This is such a great line and sums it all up so well: “Good work.” Holmes wiped his mouth. “You’ve managed to identify each of the parties involved. Now sit back and let us get on with this.”

Hot and fun and eminently satisfying.

[fleetwood-mouse.livejournal.com]

Holmes is a snarky little brat, isn't he? Very glad you liked it. Thank you for saying so!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Astute and loving is Mary! No wonder John loves her and after this Holmes's regard may well reach similar heights.

The first person narrative makes the story especially compelling. The thin pamphlets are a great touch. And what a stroke of luck that Mary has a carpenter friend who owes her a favour. ;-) Brava!

[fleetwood-mouse.livejournal.com]

I wonder if pamphlets like that existed... I certainly hope so! Thank you for your kind comment, saki!

[holyfant.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, wonderful! I love Mary's voice, and her insistence and nerve and the acceptance she has both for John's desires and ultimately her own. Hot and emotionally satisfying! :)

[fleetwood-mouse.livejournal.com]

So very glad you enjoyed it, holyfant! Thank you for your feedback!

[billiethepoet.livejournal.com]

Oh man! This is great. Mary scheming herself a threesome and ongoing poly relationship is my new favorite thing.

[fleetwood-mouse.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for commenting, gertymac!