Somewhat groggy and disoriented, Holmes awoke slowly and with a blinking surprise found himself lying upon his own bed, fully dressed. Moreover, there was an uncomfortable, strained feeling in his arms that made him look up and realise that his hands were tied above and behind his head to his own bedpost. This indignity made him struggle immediately within his cloth bindings, despite the aching weakness of his limbs at the moment.

"Careful, Holmes," came Watson's familiar voice from a corner of the room that had been out of his line of sight. Holmes turned and saw Watson cross from the fireplace to the foot of the bed. "There's no need for violence," Watson remarked with a casual smile.

Holmes frowned at Watson with outrage. "What is the meaning of this? Why have you tied me up like some, some--?"

"Prisoner," Watson finished. He pursed his lips smugly, as if relishing the word. "You are my prisoner, Holmes. These past several cases, you have continually ignored my warnings to slow down and take a holiday from your exhausting work." He shook his head and shrugged, "I could not abide by such defiance any longer, so I devised a quite simple plan which you did not foresee at all, as you do not expect deceit or mutiny from me, and I was quite successful.

"As you have no doubt remembered or deduced by now, at the end of this last case, as we were leaving for home, I abruptly chloroformed you in the carriage to put you in my power. Then we rode home together tranquilly enough, and, giving to the driver and Mrs. Hudson the excuse that you had fallen asleep during our ride, I brought you up to your bed where I now keep you prisoner." He asserted quite definitely, "You shall not go on another investigation again until I say you may."

After Holmes's facial expression had progressed through varying states of anger and disbelief during Watson's speech, he finally scoffed. "If you wish to keep me prisoner, Watson," Holmes worked at his bindings again, "you shall need far more effective restraints than these mere knotted handkerchiefs, from which I will soon free myself."

"Of course," Watson acknowledged, stepping closer now and grasping Holmes by his wrists to halt Holmes's wriggling motions to loosen the knots.

Holmes growled and moved to kick at Watson with his free legs.

Watson released Holmes's wrists and quickly blocked the blow. He still held onto Holmes's legs as he pushed Holmes slightly aside and sat down on the bed beside him. Watson remarked quite calmly, "The restraints are only symbolic, Holmes. You are of course capable of freeing yourself from them, as I do not have a limitless number of arms." He gave an odd chuckle at the end that made Holmes eye him closely.

At that point, Holmes glanced toward the far clock and realised how much time he had lost--nearly two hours. Watson had not been as excessive in his dose as some kidnappers Holmes had investigated, but Watson had certainly given himself ample time. --But for what, exactly? Something vaguely sinister nagged at the back of his mind, but Holmes couldn't quite put words to it yet, distracted by pain.

Holmes was freshly determined to escape, however, and he began to loosen his bindings again, still glancing at Watson warily.

The doctor simply released his grip on Holmes's legs and innocuously folded his hands, smiling placidly. Watson was a strange, unnerving captor indeed.

"I do not know what you think you have accomplished," Holmes muttered irritably. "I shall not feel compelled to do a thing that you say, Watson, and I shall be vigilantly watchful now against you arming yourself with chloroform."

Watson merely chuckled again. Nodding toward Holmes's hands, he murmured, "You know, I could help you, if you wished."

He reached gingerly for Holmes's hands, a movement which naturally sparked heightened suspicion in Holmes. He again made ready to kick Watson away, but then found that he had no need to, for Watson quite sincerely untied Holmes's hands.

Holmes lowered his arms in relief, rubbing his sore wrists and grimacing.

"I apologise, Holmes," Watson began.

"You better!" he warned.

Watson smiled and continued, "I apologise for having resorted to such crude means of making my point; more subtle tactics simply were not working. Certainly I would have preferred not to give you such discomfort." He reached over and grasped Holmes by the wrists once more.

Holmes tensed distrustfully and glared.

Watson shook his head reassuringly and merely massaged Holmes's wrists tenderly with his thumbs.

Holmes blinked at him and narrowed his eyes, puzzled. "I never get your limits, Watson," he voiced quietly.

Watson shrugged lightly, as if Holmes's dismay amused him. "When you can trust me," Watson murmured, "I will get my bag and apply a soothing balm to your poor joints. For now..." He continued his slow, rubbing motions in silence.

After a time, Holmes minutely let down his guard. Though alert, he lay back and simply felt the blood returning to his arms and hands. His eyes betrayed a measure of gratitude for Watson's soothing touch, although of course Holmes did not express it verbally, as he preferred to make Watson guiltily view this caress as just the start of a dutiful apology for his barbarous behaviour.

For his part, Watson seemed not nearly as wracked by his conscience as Holmes would have liked.

Holmes made no comment when Watson paused to detach Holmes's shirt cuffs and lay them aside upon the night-stand before resuming his gentle stroking of Holmes's sore wrists. Holmes frowned and began wondering why Watson had even bothered to go through the motions of tying him up in the first place, for Watson now seemed to have entirely shed the demeanour of a stern captor, and had once again become the familiar, gentle doctor he had always been.

"Would you permit me to remove your coat?" Watson spoke at last. "I wish to attend to your strained arms as well as your wrists."

Holmes nodded slowly, cooperating as Watson helped him shed this garment and then laid it aside upon a chair. Watson also detached Holmes's collar from his shirt, that Holmes might lie down and relax more comfortably upon his pillow. He did not relax for long, though.

In a strangely disconcerting and unexpected movement, Watson sat close again and, instead of rolling up Holmes's shirtsleeves out of his way, he simply slid his hands deep within the opened sleeves, massaging gently all the way up to Holmes's elbows. He made no explanation.

"Is that better?" Watson murmured quietly, as though he had done nothing odd. "Has the feeling come back yet?"

Holmes did not answer, blinking agape at Watson as he tried to make rational sense of this action. Meanwhile, the warm fingers and hands snaking inside his sleeves felt strangely intrusive, invasive.

Watson continued nonchalantly, "Do your shoulders not ache as well, Holmes? Shall I rub them too?"

Clearing his throat, Holmes firmly pushed away Watson's touch and spoke sharply, "That will be all."

"All?" Watson voiced innocently and raised his eyes to meet Holmes's.

"Yes," Holmes was stern and definite. "Good-night, Watson. Don't let the door hit you on your way out."

After an unsettling pause, Watson laughed with an uncharacteristic insolence and shook his head. "You cannot dismiss me, Holmes," he said softly, pressing his hands now onto Holmes's shoulders. "I was perfectly serious that you are my prisoner."

"Nonsense," Holmes replied and started pulling the hands off of him. "You are being absurdly melodramatic--"

"I am--" Watson leaned quite near, keeping his hands where he wished them and brushing his thumbs against Holmes's neck, "--the deciding voice in your life now." He spoke it almost as a threat and watched Holmes raise an eyebrow at the apparent hyperbole. A measure of anxiety had returned to those grey eyes nevertheless.

Suddenly releasing Holmes and sitting back from him, Watson shrugged and announced rather casually, "Due to your condition at arrival, Mrs. Hudson has consented to my being entirely in charge of your care for the next few days. No one but I shall see you during your rest, and no one but I shall say what you may or may not do."

Holmes had no reply to this, catching his breath and staring at Watson as if he did not believe Watson capable of saying such things to him. He seemed to be looking upon a wholly foreign species of creature.

Without warning, Watson smiled disarmingly and squeezed Holmes's ankle fondly to relieve the seriousness. He glanced at Holmes's shoes, chuckling. "Mrs. Hudson will scold me for letting you leave shoeprints on the sheets. I told her that I would undress you and put you to bed."

"Just one deception of many," Holmes remarked, but not with his usual ascerbic self-confidence.

Watson merely smiled and turned to untie Holmes's shoelaces.

"I can do so myself." Holmes tried to sit up in bed, but was stopped.

"No need to strain your wrists," Watson admonished firmly. He pushed Holmes down again and then turned back to Holmes's shoes. Holmes stubbornly resisted and tried kicking, but Watson mocked his rather excessive panic. "No, I shall not use shoelaces to replace your former bindings," he chuckled.

Holmes frowned sourly and was not amused. The reference to being bound made him defensively clasp his abused wrists.

Watson simply untied Holmes's left shoe and removed it, placing it on the floor, then did the same for the right shoe; he reached next for the suspenders of H's socks.

Holmes renewed his effort to sit up, but leaned too far upon his sore wrists. He gave a wincing cry of pain and lay down on his side, cursing his clumsiness and rubbing the injury.

"Shh," Watson murmured soothingly as he finished sliding off and discarding Holmes's socks. "There," he grinned, tickling the naked feet with his fingers, "I'm harmless."

Holmes jerked his feet away and knew better than to trust that look on Watson's face, most especially now that Holmes had encountered that look prior to being chloroformed and kidnapped. Crawling a little further away on his elbows, Holmes nursed his wrists again.

Watson turned fully around toward Holmes and sat closer, reaching for those wrists. "Look what you've done," he tsked disapprovingly. With a tender, coaxing look, Watson inspected and massaged Holmes's wrists again. "Shall I get you the balm?"

Holmes swallowed and pursed his lips. "You said that I should trust you first," he answered significantly.

Watson shrugged but said nothing.

After a moment, Holmes ventured carefully, watching Watson's eyes, "What if I don't wish to submit at all to any of your prescriptions?"

Watson blinked and smiled, then looked serious. "Disobedience from a patient I might tolerate, but from a prisoner..." Watson leaned nearer and gripped Holmes firmly by the shoulders again.

"You wouldn't be that stupid," Holmes replied quietly, gripping Watson's hands in return and applying a pressure which suggested that, despite his current weakness, Holmes would not spare Watson nor himself a demonstration of his fighting skills, if provoked.

Watson's eyes actually brightened at this challenge, and he blinked innocently, laughing. "My dear Holmes," he spoke barely above a whisper, "do you think I'd want to injure you any further? Or these hands..." He unexpectedly turned Holmes's hands over in his grasp and kissed the palms tenderly.

Holmes shivered and looked startled.

"These precious, lovely hands," Watson continued. He licked both palms and then sucked lightly at the still red wrists.

Still frozen, Holmes gasped and sharply recalled with new significance the position in which he had awoken on this bed. He blushed hotly and blinked, hardly able to believe his senses.

Watson met Holmes's eyes again. "Did you know," he whispered, nibbling on the tips of Holmes's slender fingers one by one, "that your face is flushed and feverish? Perhaps I should--"

Holmes jerked back from the near kiss and also withdrew his hands from Watson's touch, sharply waking from his dazed condition and feeling apprehensive now of Watson's every movement. He turned away from Watson and tried to crawl off the other side of the bed.

Watson caught hold of Holmes before he could escape and forcefully subdued his resistance, turning him back around. Holmes still fought, but it was not too long a struggle. Despite Holmes's usual combative skill, Watson quickly disarmed him just by kissing and stroking those sensitive hands again.

Holmes caught his breath and fell back to the bed, as inexplicably paralysed by Watson's amorous attention to his hands as he had been before.

Watson gently lay close against Holmes and felt how rapid Holmes's heartbeat had become. "Dear Holmes," he sighed against Holmes's fluttering eyes. Brushing back the open sleeve of Holmes's shirt, Watson licked and chewed down the same path of white flesh that his fingers had travelled before.

Holmes trembled outright and gasped, but seemed unable to speak.

"You like that," Watson said, and knew the accusation to be true from the look on Holmes's face and the soft sigh he emitted. Watson smiled fondly, "See how nice a pleasant evening in bed can be?"

Holmes swallowed. "I never ... never get--"

"Shh." Watson now leaned closer and kissed Holmes's lips lightly. He then hovered there just an inch away, watching Holmes's eyes and the way that Holmes moved slightly forward with a cautious hunger for another kiss. Watson pressed a warmer, more bruisingly hard kiss against those soft lips.

Holmes sighed and wrapped his hands around the back of Watson's neck. This, too, he liked. He closed his eyes.

Meanwhile, Watson's hands busied themselves with unbuttoning Holmes's waistcoat, then the white shirt beneath. He pushed the garments open but did not venture to pull them completely off of Holmes yet.

Blinking, Holmes tensed to feel Watson's fingernail brush his exposed chest. The heat of Watson's clothed body on top of him and the mingled smell of their mutual perspiration was dizzying and unfamiliar. Holmes had never traversed this territory with Watson before, and it was at least as disturbing to him as the thought of Watson autocratically holding him prisoner.

Ending their kiss, Watson partially raised himself back onto his elbows and read the rising uncertainty in Holmes's face. He stroked Holmes's tender wrists and kissed them softly again, looking truly regretful for the pain inflicted.

"I do not want you to be unwilling, Holmes," Watson whispered. "Not ... entirely. You are my prisoner in the sense that you will not take a case again nor even leave this room until I believe that you have had enough rest. Yet," he hesitated, caressing Holmes's face, "whatever else we might do while in this bed together is a matter of your choice, not my compulsion."

Holmes watched Watson's eyes and weighed the meaning of these words. "My choice?" he repeated quietly.

Watson nodded and kissed Holmes's lips once more, quite warmly. Then he confessed, "There is a pair of your handcuffs in my medical bag on the dressing-table now--though I'll let you figure out what I've done with the key. If you are not inclined to ... some pleasurable relaxation, then I shall merely handcuff you to the bed so that you cannot leave even at night, when I'm not here."

Watson exhaled and continued, "If, however, you are amenable to letting me stay at night too, then we might save those instruments for some more lovely activity..." he stroked Holmes's cheek with a finger, then breathed warmly over the same spot on his skin and kissed him. "What do you want?" he whispered.

Holmes swallowed and caught his breath, trembling somewhat at the thought being confined by his own handcuffs in either scenario. What then? Would Watson be a gentle doctor, stern captor, or this ever baffling mixture of the two? Holmes had not previously entertained the idea that Watson thought such things before, let alone that he would outright suggest such liberties to Holmes, and he hardly knew how to respond. Holmes ventured a half-hearted sarcasm in instinctive self-defense, "Do you make that offer to all your patients, Watson?"

Watson gauged Holmes's tone and shrugged carelessly, stroking lightly at the fabric of the shirt still upon Holmes's shoulder. "You have never really acted as my patient," he shook his head. "You have never followed my medical advice. You obtain all your ... self-prescribed drugs from the corner chemist, not me. You submit to only the most irregular and incomplete examinations. And you have certainly never paid me a fee." He stroked his thumb soothingly against Holmes's neck, watching Holmes's eyes carefully. "I think of us as close friends and companions. And perhaps more."

Holmes nodded and breathed with realisation, "Intimate friends." Many times he had casually referred to Watson in the presence of others as his intimate friend, and now Holmes understood another meaning for that term. How long had this night been building between them?

Watson waited. "Do you want me?"

Holmes recalled the effect of Watson's caresses and kisses upon him, and had to admit to it. "I think I do."

"Then let's see," Watson kissed Holmes's wrists sweetly, "what else you like." He smiled, pleased that Holmes sighed and fluttered his eyelashes again.

Drawing Holmes nearer, Watson kissed his mouth appreciatively and meanwhile coaxed Holmes to shrug off his waistcoat. That done, Watson then started to detach the braces which currently stood in the way of his removing Holmes's shirt as well. Their kisses went on and on.

After getting him half undressed, Watson unexpectedly pulled away from Holmes's arms. "Let me get the balm."

Holmes blinked, frowning and holding onto Watson before he could leave the bed. "I don't care about balm."

Watson murmured warmly against Holmes's kisses, "But I do." He smiled, tracing his fingers around Holmes's wrists and breathing softly, "Don't you know how much fun we can have with it?"

Holmes raised an eyebrow in surprise, apparently not aware of that fact.

Watson pulled away and rose from the bed. He started toward Holmes's dressing-table, but Holmes caught hold of him again, half rising. "Watson," he interrupted breathlessly and held on.

Watson paused and looked at him closely.

"No--no handcuffs," Holmes stressed.

Watson's facial expression changed as he took note of Holmes's anxiety. He nodded and smiled reassuringly. "Of course. If you wish."

Watson withdrew from his own coat pocket the very pair of Holmes's handcuffs that he had mentioned. He dangled them before Holmes's widened eyes, then tossed them casually to the floor and kicked them into a far corner. He explained, "I couldn't tell you where they really were and still surprise you quickly enough to trap you to the bed, now could I?"

Holmes blinked, wondering if he trusted Watson more or less for that confession--and if it was perverse to be aroused by a lack of trust.

Watson smiled, kissing Holmes once more. "The restraints are only symbolic," he repeated softly. He turned and crossed to the dressing-table before Holmes could protest again. Watson opened his medical bag and brought out a small pot of the balm. "I'll borrow your basin, if you don't mind. I want to warm it by the fire." First taking off his coat and hanging it on the back of a chair, Watson filled the basin with about two inches of water and then placed the opened pot in the center, taking the entirety over to the hearth, where he set the water bath up to heat.

Watson straightened and then returned to the bed, kicking off his shoes. "A few minutes should do it. It will be perfectly soothing." Embracing Holmes again, Watson cheerfully resumed kissing and disrobing him. Holmes fumblingly returned the gesture by undoing Watson's waistcoat and next tackling the braces and shirt beneath. Watson chuckled and enjoyed this cooperative effort to bare them both. He shrugged off the garments and tossed all into the accumulating pile of clothing on the floor.

Holmes halted and seemed uncertain once he saw Watson's muscled, hairy chest and the line of Watson's war wound cutting across his shoulder. Holmes touched the scar with fascination.

Looking more serious, Watson lay hovering next to Holmes, near enough that his body heat made Holmes tremble and sigh. A tense excitement pervaded the air between them, and Watson watched Holmes's every reaction as he slid his arms around Holmes's back and pulled Holmes up close against his skin.

Holmes swallowed and had to calm himself, his heart beating too fast and his breath coming with difficulty. He did, however, respond quite well when Watson kissed his mouth again. A moan emerged from deep within Holmes's throat, and Holmes dragged Watson down with him to the mattress.

They rolled in each other's arms upon the bed and strained against each other passionately. The weight of Watson's arousal was evident through his trousers, which he started now to unfasten and discard. Holmes relinquished his tight embrace of Watson in order to lie back and watch Watson with something like amazement and desire in his eyes.

Watson kicked off his trousers and undergarments, including the socks and garters that had proved stubborn. Then he remembered the balm. Rising, Watson threw on a dressing-gown and carefully retrieved the hot water bath from the hearth while Holmes was impatient but vaguely curious. How alluring Watson looked wearing Holmes's long, slender gown.

Watson tested the temperature of the pot of balm and was not surprised. Left too long, it had grown unsuitably hot. He gingerly carried it to Holmes's night-stand, where he put it down to cool. Finally, he took off the dressing-gown and returned nude to Holmes's arms, kissing him intimately again.

As he slid a hand between their bodies, Watson smiled and testingly brushed his fingers down Holmes's torso, tracing the muscles down to Holmes's ticklish navel. Holmes shivered and groaned.

Noticing Holmes's last bit of shyness, Watson asked, "Do you need some assistance?" and reached to unbutton the front of Holmes's trousers.

Averting his eyes, Holmes flushed with embarrassment and started to sit up.

Watson let go and gave Holmes the space that he seemed to need.

Sitting there, Holmes efficiently wriggled out of his own garments and tossed them aside as well. Then he turned and moved cautiously back to where Watson sat waiting. "Am I acceptable?" Holmes asked sarcastically.

Watson chuckled brightly, reaching for Holmes. "Acceptable! My dear--"

Holmes interrupted, though, and did not surrender entirely to Watson's embrace. "There's something else," he said more soberly. He sat fairly close to Watson and looked at the each of their bodies, taking time to absorb their being nude together on this bed and about to get much closer still.

Watson pondered whether his making Holmes his prisoner was at the root of this last-minute doubt in Holmes. Not sure if he wished to intervene with gentleness or sternness yet, Watson waited with a grave face.

Facing Watson again, Holmes stared searchingly at him for a time, then glanced aside, whispering, "I have no experience of--with--" He frowned, always hating to admit to ignorance on any subject. "What would I do, with you?"

Watson relaxed, understanding and smiling a little. To relieve Holmes's timidity, Watson decided to lighten the moment. "Holmes," Watson held him near and laughed wickedly, "were you not sent to boarding school as a boy?"

Holmes blinked, looking bewilderedly into Watson's eyes. "No."

"Ah, educated at home?" Watson shook his head and tsked disapprovingly. "What a shame," he murmured, lightly caressing Holmes's cheek. "You might have enjoyed it, Holmes, for there were some lads there who, upon reaching adolescence, developed a discreet keenness for experimentation," Watson glanced suggestively, "in both anatomy and chemistry."

Holmes inhaled tensely as Watson brushed his arm, tracing the outline of Holmes's radial bone with his thumb. "Even then?" Holmes spoke faintly. "You were as young as that?"

Watson nodded and fondly kissed Holmes's neck. "Would you like me to show you my first experiment?" he sighed.

Holmes was still surprised and disconcerted. "I had no idea. You have always looked at women like any--"

"Any red-blooded Englishman?" he chuckled. "I hope so, for the sake of my public reputation. Come and sully that reputation for me..." He drew Holmes against him.

Holmes sighed and shook his head, blinking. "I owe you an apology, Watson. You are a skilful, practised deceiver after all. A far better actor--"

"Shh." Watson was both amused and touched by Holmes's contrition. He smiled, shrugging. "No one suspects an underestimated confidante." He kissed Holmes's lips and looked in his eyes wryly. "If I didn't know how to lie or hide feelings, how could I have known how much that you must, simply must, desire me?"

Holmes groaned when Watson clasped him near and stroked him so very expertly at the very root of his desire. That touch seemed to cure Holmes of shyness, and he pressed Watson back onto the bed again, rolling with him as before in a tangle of arms and legs among the greatly disrupted sheets.

This total meeting of their bare flesh was new, mysterious, and exciting all at once. Holmes did not even mind being landed on, and he growled with disappointment when abruptly Watson pulled out of his arms again with only the excuse, "The balm." Holmes wondered what was so damn important about the balm.

Watson returned with the now-cooled pot and nestled it safely in Holmes's pillow. "Patience," he smiled at Holmes. Coating his finger with the viscous liquid, Watson grasped one of Holmes's wrists again and then applied the warm, sweet-smelling balm to the bruised marks that he had inflicted on Holmes.

It melted right into his skin, and when Watson stroked and massaged the wrist again, Holmes had to admit that it felt very sensual and stimulating indeed. Even the slight sting of pain felt a little bit like pleasure. Kissing and necking with Holmes a while, Watson lovingly attended to both of Holmes's wrists this way, drawing out his soft sighs.

Holmes retrieved his hands from Watson to run his fingers through Watson's hair and then began to testingly explore the rest of Watson's body. Watson certainly did not mind, smiling and taking to opportunity to apply the luscious balm to Holmes's navel. He stroked teasingly around the rim in circles and made Holmes groan longingly for more. Then Watson bent down and licked him right in the center, giving him an even more excruciating bliss.

Holmes uttered something quite incoherent, his legs writhing against Watson's.

Watson then lay down against Holmes once more, biting his neck and whispering coaxingly into his ear, "Do you know all the beautiful places I could touch you with this? The places you could touch me?"

Holmes trembled a little and was overcome by a possessive feeling. His lean fingers squeezed tightly on Watson's firm, sturdy thighs.

Watson's vocal response was almost animal in resonance. His pulse racing, Watson kissed Holmes hungrily and squeezed his flank in return.

Holmes moaned deeply and scratched his fingernails into Watson's back, near the spine.

Desperate to be touched, Watson drew Holmes's hand to his groin and began teaching him how to manually stroke and inflame his phallus. Holmes took great care and watched for Watson's every reaction to guide him. Though he seemed to enjoy Holmes's trials, Watson changed his mind after a time.

Shifting his position, Watson reached for the balm again and now delicately caressed and coated Holmes's own organ toward a full erection. Holmes did not know why Watson no longer permitted him to touch his groin; had he been doing that badly? Holmes paid attention to Watson's motions, lest they be lessons of how to do better. The warm, moist demonstration was certainly near to heavenly; Watson teasingly caressed and tongued Holmes's testes as well. It was enough to forget one's own name, Holmes thought, trying to remain lucid.

Watson sighed softly and intoxicatingly kissed Holmes's mouth with his talented, coated lips. "Holmes?" he asked, pulling Holmes's right hand toward the pot of balm. "Isn't it time you got better acquainted with the balm?" He dipped Holmes's fingers into the pot.

Holmes desirously nodded, glad to be invited to touch Watson again. "Anything you want," he replied.

Watson chuckled and gazed wickedly at Holmes, "That is just the right attitude to have." He kissed him.

Kneeling nearer to Holmes, Watson guided his hand to its destination. "Do you remember, Holmes, how I touched your navel?" He placed Holmes's fingers at the rim of his rearward entrance.

Holmes blinked, uncertain.

"I want you to." He spread his legs further apart to give Holmes complete access, and he coaxed Holmes to caress around in circular motions at his rim. "With your sweet fingers." Watson had Holmes circle him once more, before pressing the slender fingertip into the center.

Holmes caught his breath. "I don't know how to. If I--"

"Shh. It doesn't hurt. I'll be doing most of the work, so you don't have to worry." He kissed Holmes coaxingly again. "Go on."

Holmes finally resumed, stroking and coating Watson with the balm. He could not believe how deep Watson wanted him to venture inside, nor how many fingers to stretch the circumference broader and broader, but Holmes eventually relaxed and looked ardently upon Watson's ecstatic reactions. He recoated his fingers with the balm and explored the full extent of Watson's interior, including his wonderfully responsive prostate. Watson smiled and instructed him thoroughly in all the salient skills.

Then Watson prompted Holmes to withdraw completely; he also checked on the state of Holmes's erection and efficiently made up for the wait, leaving Holmes breathless and perspiring again. Watson kissed Holmes to assure him that he had nothing to be nervous about, then he smiled. "Now we're ready."

Watson thereupon raised himself up and straddled Holmes. He took a breath and sank back down onto Holmes with incredible slowness. Holmes moaned and closed his eyes. Watson took him fully inside, paused and exhaled gradually, then gracefully controlled his rising and falling.

Holmes was near ecstasy with the close, incredible heat of Watson's body. He blinked and watched Watson's face change with every inch.

"Touch me," Watson spoke under his breath.

Holmes took the reminder to heart and began to stroke and draw on Watson's phallus as before.

"Yes, that's it," Watson encouraged in low tone, "In rhythm with me."

Their passion heightened with every moment. They reached and surpassed their previous peaks of pleasure, crossing now into a territory that Holmes believed that only Watson could describe with sufficient elegance and clarity.

"Scream for me, Holmes," Watson demanded as they came closer. "Please scream like I've always wanted, like--"

Holmes did, climaxing with a final maddening stroke. Watson was not long after, his cum spilling through Holmes's hands and his own shout wrenching from his throat.

Spent and exhausted, Holmes groaned breathlessly when Watson lay down wearily against him. They kissed lightly, and then Watson brushed back Holmes's hair, asking hoarsely, "Now don't you wish you had taken a vacation from cases much earlier?"

Holmes pondered for a moment, then answered, "No."

Watson chuckled softly. "You just want me to use the handcuffs to discipline you tomorrow."