Some might find the profession of a consulting detective uniquely dishonest. Yet despite Holmes' penchant for theatrical disguise, he is the most truthful man it has ever been my honor to know. It did not always make him easy to live with.

He was honest when he said he would run hot and cold depending on his cases. I would further say he took occassional cases with but the barest interest when it suited him to stay distant. Then his solutions criminal and emotional would be found and he would resume our mutual explorations.

I also had been honest when I had replied that I had had to kiss him back. Holmes is so far outside the common mortal run, it would have been unthinkable to deny myself his attention. It is true I could never expect tender words. That Holmes could love was too far outside what I had seen in our friendship. His wonder and need were intoxication enough.

Initially Holmes was remarkably shy, not with touching me, but in letting me see him. When it was warm, he would place the lamp between the bed and the window, tracing my skin with his fingertips. This sweet torture he conducted in his shirt sleeves. Those hands, those instrumental, delicate, powerful hands learned me from my scalp to my waistband.

"Holmes." I sealed my hand over his reaching for my trouser buttons. "Your shirt." He started one handed, and I released the other. I smiled gently, so as not to discourage him. Too often he would trim the wick before undressing and pushing us under the covers. "Holmes." I reached out for that narrow waist, grasping bare flesh.

I rose slowly, moving like a snake charmer. I slipped the shirt from his shoulders and kissed his neck. At length I had him upon the mattress. He could only want to, as I could never compete with his strength. And yet, his fingers gouged into the sheets.

I smoothed one hand over him as I half balanced on the other. My eyes I kept on his grey, storm-filled own. Gradually he calmed, and it was only then that I realized I had started tracing out his ligaments as if for dissection. Horrified, I could only continue. Trust Holmes to find comfort in what should have been ghoulish.

Holmes was not classically handsome, being much too lean and long. His fine skin was stretched over the muscles that barely clothed the armature of his skeleton. "Exquisite." I slipped one hand over his fingers catching the sheets, while my other cupped his cheek. I kissed him in the hollow of his collarbone, the depression in either shoulder and down his sternum. Surprised at the liberty, I moved on to the major muscle groups.

I found my head clamped to his chest with a firmness unmatched on any rugby field. Slowly the clutch loosened, my skull still gripped. "A-gain." I was at a loss until my mustache brushed over a vestigal sport. "Thhat." Amazed I repeated the motion. Finding that was what so impassioned Holmes, I did it to the other one. I must have become carried away, as I did not notice how we got under the covers.

Holmes kisses as if the world could end. Truly I think it might and I would not notice. Now he kissed as if creating the world, straddling me, our sex pressed together. Slowly that press of lips and melding of tongues flowed down to our soles and only then to our loins.

By this time Holmes no longer scuttled away after conclusion. I settled along his back, lips brushing against his long neck. I'd have to go to my own bed, discovery unthinkable.

Once, still muzzy, I'd asked why we used his room, with its window so much clearer to the street. "It is by ill-planned secrecy that most things are discovered. My habits are known to be extreme, while yours are quite regular. Your frequent presence in my room would be ordinary enough, doctor priviledge, but the obverse would be peculiar. That yours is the more obscured window would cinch the matter. There is also the matter of the laundry."

I fear I became complacent, pleased as I was by the developing routine if I could use that word. Holmes' practice became busier as success brought other matters to him. I had returned to a more rigorious schedule of medicine, my health as fully recovered as it would. Granted, ours was a distinct sort of partnership, but I would and still say that it was at least as happy as many more conventional.

Holmes blew into our rooms, fresh with a completed case and fell upon me in a passion. As the matter had been solved elsewhere, there were no inconvenient clients, constables or criminals to clear and just our own precautions to observe. It was a mood I particularly enjoyed as Holmes forgot to hide himself in his haste to strip us both. This he had accomplished when I felt the most singular sensation. When I could finally make my muscles obey, I looked down to a sight beyond description, Holmes between my legs. He shifted me between mouth and fingers, leaving me powerless to either protest or plead. Not a single nerve nor corpuscle was ignored. I cannot imagine a more exhaustive study, seemingly endless in its infinite variety.

Tucked into the bed, I had the vague impression of Holmes preparing his pipe. He was still smoking when I opened my eyes. Anything I might have said faded at his utterly satisfied, insouciant and patriachal visage. Inscrutable and incongruous, I could only make love to him, pressing my mute words into his skin with every kiss and caress.

Holmes is abstemious during his problems, living mainly upon water and tobacco. It is as if his mental appetites are so great, he can not be bothered by those of the body. Even Holmes however has his breaking point, which I found during one string of matters hard upon another. He had brought several to their conclusion but at least one was being recalcitrant. When he came to my room, my first thought was he needed my revolver. The play of his fingers, hand clamped over my exclamation, said otherwise. He pulled me from my bed to his room, pressing me to him in the dark, guiding my fingers to undress him. I did not need encouragement. It is incredible how smooth his skin is, how unyielding the flesh underneath. Pliant and responsive, yearning, Holmes did not hurry me.

Not in the usual way. He arched, dragging my hands when I was not possessive enough, sliding against me. How I made the bed I do not know and Holmes was past caring. I regained some measure of control, shocked perhaps by his acquiescence. Regardless, it gave me the advantage, allowing me full reign for every tender inpulse.

Contrary in a willful way, Holmes balked at what a suitor might be granted and gave what a whore would not. I reeled in his hand and kissed it, fingers, wrist, admittedly with daring impropriety for any drawing room. I suited my other fancies and satisfied Holmes' hunger. I was but mildly interested when he slipped from underneath me.

I think I should have been concerned had I not years learning his habits, did he disappear so completely. Only to reappear in the sitting room eating heartily at an hour suggesting he had just returned. "Watson, you've broke the case. I'll wish to consult again with you later." I flushed despite the innocence of the words and their delivery, preternaturally aware of their true meaning.

Holmes is at turns a most moral and unconventional fellow. I think the very hypocrisy of most society enjoins him to stir them up, regardless of his own propriety. There are those, high placed, that would be scandalized at the impeccable manners he has saved for those more deserving of them.

It was with honoring this perfectly contrary man that I thought to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, dismissive as he was of his natal day. Laughter was not what I expected. He struggled to control himself, ejaculating my name several times before he was successful, his hand dropped over mine. "Hold onto it then. Or would you not wager that I'll make it to thirty?"

"Take it a year early." I was not pleased at him making light of a reasonable fear. He smiled in a most infuriating way. "Share what is amusing you so."

"Just the difference between waiting five or four years for a gift." His long fingers quickly had it open, though I was barely aware. "Watson?"

The End?