When we arrived, Watson asked if I wished to take tea in the hotel dining room, but I preferred our own room instead. I felt exhausted after all the travelling we did today, as well as the shocking conversation with le Villard. Watson sympathized and led me upstairs to our room. He ordered tea and then fussed over me, asking me about my morphine craving.

I told him I only had a headache, and I wished to have a nap after tea. I wearily changed into my dressing-gown and slippers, and he awkwardly looked away from me, before following my example. His illness is so odd and confusing, asserting itself without warning.

Our tea soon arrived, and only when Watson answered the door did I realise that our state of undress would be suggestive to a hotel servant's eyes.

With embarrassment, I turned to my bed and busied myself with folding my coat.

After the maid left, Watson poured tea and called me to the table. "Have some food too," he said, offering me a plate of tiny sandwiches.

I was not hungry, but he insisted. "It will make you feel better." He frowned with guilt. "I am sorry I kept you out all day, when you are still recovering."

"No, no," I said. "You were right, Watson. I needed some fresh air." Accompanying him was certainly better than letting him tour Paris alone, susceptible to deviant temptations. To reassure him, I ate the petite sandwiches.

He was pleased, and drank his tea quietly. After a moment, he asked me, "Holmes, why were you so shocked by le Villard's lover? Did you never have any suspicion before? After all these years?"

"I never met Denis before today, and le Villard avoided speaking of him among his Sûreté colleagues. I did deduce that he had a secret lover in his private life, but mistresses are not uncommon, especially in France. I dislike contemplating or discussing any type of sexual relations, so I avoided investigating his secrets. In fact I tried to emphasise that we should be colleagues rather than friends, so that he would not confide in me. I insisted that we remain preoccupied with solving his cases."

"But yet you spoke of me to him."

I frowned and coughed in bewilderment. "Yes, I-I apparently spent too much time discussing you with him. I was futilely trying to hide your hostility and jealousy, but he detected it nevertheless."

Watson smiled. "He was a better student of your methods than you thought."

"I suppose. However, he came to the wrong conclusion, Watson. He thought you and I were deviants like himself and Denis."

Watson nodded. "Do you understand now why he thought that?"

I shrugged. "Being deviant means that you imagine that other men are the same?"

Watson shook his head. "No. Being in love means you recognise when another couple is in love. Even though you hid your feelings from me, Holmes, you still loved me and missed me. For most people, deviant or not, being in love means you are physically intimate. Or at least, that you wish to be. It is unusual to be in love with someone, but not wish to make love."

I considered that distastefully. "So you think I am abnormal?"

He caressed my arm. "You are unusual. Unique."

I protested, "But I'm not unique. My brother Mycroft does not like sex either."

"But has he ever been in love with someone?"

The question was absurd. "He dislikes any kind of human companionship. He founded the Diogenes Club after all. I believe his office at Whitehall is in a secluded corner, so that he need not see anyone unless absolutely necessary."

"Then he wishes to be entirely alone, unlike you. You love me even though you do not want sex. You are unique, you see."

I considered that, and remembered how I suffered whenever Watson was not near me. Indeed I could never live like Mycroft does. "I cannot live without you."

He looked touched and he kissed my lips softly. "Nor I."

I tried to move closer to him, but he looked sad.

"We are in love, and yet our love is not compatible. I ache to touch you, and yet you do not want the same. Or at least, you only want some touches, some limited intimacy."

"Why is that wrong?" I asked him.

"It's not wrong. It's just different. I can learn to live with it for your sake, but you must know that it will not be easy. All these months with Dr. Klemperer after all did not cure my desire."

I frowned with guilt. "Did I ruin it all because I begged you to come home? Because I kissed you?"

He said, "Even before you came, I still ached for you. I still dreamed of you. I thought being away in Germany would help me, but it doesn't matter. Love knows no distance."

I worried that he meant his illness was hopeless.

"I know you cannot understand the sexual desires I have, but will you at least call it love, for my sake? Don't dismiss it as something separate, something filthy and disgusting. Sodomy may be a crime and a sin, but it is nonetheless part of my love for you."

I noticed that once again he had repeated my words about "a crime and a sin" from the train. The phrase seemed significant to him, and I thought of his words about murder, and how he would kill to protect me. I would certainly kill for him because I love him so, and no law could stop me. I began to see Watson's point, that love includes sinful impulses.

So I met Watson's eyes and took his hand penitently. "I apologise, my dear, if my words offended you. Certainly England treats sodomy as a crime and a sin, but much of Continental Europe tolerates it as a private matter. Le Villard seems to sincerely consider his own feelings to be love. If you feel the same, then I will accept that it is part of your love."

He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. "Good. Do you notice, Holmes, that you did not detect the difference between le Villard having a female lover and a male one? It is because the emotions are the same, regardless of the acts. Just as I loved my wife both spiritually and physically, I love you both spiritually and physically."

"I see." I swallowed uncomfortably. "I am sorry that I-I cannot return your desire."

"I know," he said. "I will try to accept that and to live without such intimacy. I had been celibate since my wife's death, at least until Dr. Klemperer's treatments."

"He was a fool!" I complained, "to keep you from me for so long, and from what you say, his supposed cure didn't even work."

He shrugged. "Perhaps such treatments cannot defeat love. But I think, if I do not try to deny my love for you, if I try only to let go of the carnal desires, then perhaps I can succeed."

"I hope so," I told him. "I do not want you to stop loving me, Watson, to stop calling me your darling. That would be quite terrible."

"It would be like the old days when we were only friends, and I had no idea of your feelings. I should not want you to be that cold to me again."

"I wouldn't, my dear. I will treat you better and not hide my love."

He smiled, but looked pensive. "Holmes, I am still not sure I really understand your love for me. That you wish to have kisses and embraces, but not sex. It is simply not what I am used to calling love, and yet I can see that your feelings are sincere. So I will accept that this is how you love me, and I will try to not pressure you again for more than you can give. I am sorry for making you unhappy before."

"Thank you," I said.

"Just be patient with me. I am not sure I can find a doctor who will agree to treat me. They too might not believe that I should love you and live with you."

"You must not leave me." I couldn't bear to lose him again.

"I won't." He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. "I have missed you so."

"Watson. My darling." I longed to pull him closer, but he let go of me and rose from the table then.

He walked to the window and tried to control his breathing. "I-I am still weak for you."

How it pained me to watch him struggle, to know that I could do nothing.

He gestured at me to finish my tea but I could not. I asked, "What will you do if you can't find a doctor?"

He shrugged. "There must be someone. Do you know that there are advertisements for all sorts of treatments and medical devices to keep men from committing the sin of onanism?" He scoffed. "Not that I ever believed that self-pleasure was a sin, but if there is some way to lessen the desire, to have self-control... then we could still love each other surely?"

"But nothing barbaric," I said. "What Dr. Klemperer mentioned about electric shocks..." The mere thought of such abuse disgusted me.

"Certainly not," he agreed with me. "But there may be more humane ways to cure me of my desires. I will consult the medical journals again."

"Very well." I gestured him to return to the table. "Please let us finish our tea."

He hesitated, but came back and fussed over me again. "Are you craving any morphine?" he asked.

"No." I ate the sandwiches once more as he watched me. The tea had gone cold, though.

Happily, Watson was in no rush to leave me, and he took out his pipe to smoke. Oh how I love the smell of his tobacco. It feels like home to me.

"We shall go back to London soon?" I asked.

"You would rather not stay in Paris?"

"No, please. Let's go home."

"If you wish. But you must understand that you cannot sleep in my room again. I cannot take such temptation."

"All right. I-I will endeavour to have self-control as well." How odd that we must both restrain ourselves in our love for each other.

"Thank you." He stood up. "I can go buy the tickets now. Do you wish to leave tonight?"

"No, tomorrow is fine. I am too tired to travel now." I still wished to have my nap, and to sleep in the same room with him while I still could.

"All right. I'll make the arrangements." He also rang to have our tea taken away, and he told me I should go lie down.

So I went to my bed and began to change into my pyjamas, but I noticed that he busied himself with the tea cart, pointedly not looking at me again. I did not want to make him uncomfortable and tempted, so I moved toward a wardrobe to hide me from his view.

He then pushed the tea cart out of our room and said he would be back soon, closing the door.

I irrationally wanted to follow after him. But I knew my fear was foolish. He would not go far in his dressing-gown and slippers. He would not sneak out to the train station and abandon me without all his luggage. He would not meet some sodomite and indulge his sexual cravings. He loved me. Still I worried and wondered about the possibility that his orderly Murray lived somewhere in Paris and might run into him. It could not be, surely.

And yet I still jumped and looked out when our tea cart was rolled away from the door. I thanked the maid, then went back inside and lay on the bed. What misery love is.

---

When Watson finally returned, I was quite relieved. Seeing that I was awake still, he told me he'd made arrangements for the tickets. "Perhaps after your nap you'll feel up to going out to dinner tonight?"

"Yes, Watson."

"Good, now get some rest." He turned out the lights and closed the curtains on the windows.

"You'll stay with me?" I asked, still anxious. "Aren't you tired from today too?"

"Yes, I'll join you." He winced at his choice of words. "I mean..." He merely shrugged and moved to the other bed to change out of his own clothes. Still he did not look at me, and I thought I heard his breathing change.

Finally he finished folding his clothes and dressing-gown over a chair, and he slid into his bed. "Good night. I mean, you know."

"Yes. Rest well, my dear."

"You too. Wake me if you have a craving."

"I will."

We fell silent for a time, as we each tried to fall asleep. He seemed restless in his bed, but he would not face me. I kept staring at his back in the darkness and wishing that he were in the same bed with me. I still feared that if I slept, I would wake to find him gone. Perhaps he'd dress again and leave the hotel to find Murray? Not intending any harm, but wanting to see if Murray was happy now, just as le Villard and his lover were? I kept telling myself that I could trust Watson not to leave me, and yet I could not stop being irrational.

If Watson were closer to me, I could hold onto him and assure myself that he wouldn't go. But perhaps that would only tempt him with lust for me. It was so difficult to understand his desires.

I pondered what Watson said about his love being both spiritual and physical. I thought of what le Villard said when he defiantly declared his love, and said he would not give it up for God or man. Was it really the same love, as true and real as any other? I would not give up Watson for God or man either, and yet I did not desire sexual relations with him.

I desired his soul, his beautiful heart. I desired his kisses and his caresses. I desired his murmurs of love and tender endearments. I desired his arms around me and his heartbeat near my own. I desired to sleep in his bed and to wake always with him near. Surely he desired all these same things with me. Why did sexual cravings have to get in the way?

At last I wearily fell asleep, but I did not know the meaning of love or sin anymore..