May prompts, 15 and 16: Nightmare, Experiment
Iām no angel, I never claimed to be. Iām a dominatrix. I like to be in charge; I know how to get there, and I donāt mind what I have to do along the way.
That said. Iām no devil, either. Being a dominatrix doesnāt mean hurting someone for my own pleasure; if anything, itās hurting someone for their own. Though actually thereās no more pain or chastisement or humiliation involved, or even domination, than the client explicitly chooses.
A good dominatrix has distance on her client, and moderate benevolence; she keeps their secrets, or she doesnāt succeed in this line of work. Her own emotions donāt come into it.
And mostly, mine donāt. Sherlock Holmes wasāan exception. I donāt meet that many geniuses, and absolutely none who come packaged in that magnetic combination of beauty, class, and indifference.
Well. It stings to admit it, but the indifference was specific to me. It took 12.5 seconds to recognise that he was far from indifferent to his partner, John Watson. Who himself seemed far from indifferent to women, and bizarrely possessive of Sherlock.
I thought that unfair. I thought Sherlock deserved better. And I thought it would be amusing to become John Watsonās worst nightmare: a body he would desire (of course) but could not have, and a brain worthy of Sherlockās own, one capable of seducing him.
They didnāt know, yet, that Iād been placed in their path as bait by a man so mad he made me shudder, and comply. My only task was to distract Sherlock and his less luminous partner, by pretending to blackmail a client so illustrious as to bring down the monarchy altogether. It wanted but a little, after all.
Not even for the madmanās astronomical payout would I have ever accepted even to feign such a thing: it certainly meant the end of a career I quite enjoyed, after all. But the madmanās offers were always accompanied by threats that everyone knew were deadly serious. It was a pity, but Sherlock Holmes had to be made to dance.
Since my own assignment was rather light in all this, I had time to take on another role: reluctant admirer of John Watsonās partner. And it wasnāt a pity to make John Watson dance. Watching him was quite entertaining.
His clumsy attempts to interrupt the patent chemistry between myself and his bemused friend.
His uncomprehending suffering, so like a little animal, at the intensity of the current running between us and excluding him. Oh, it wasnāt a sexual current, but Watson isnāt the most luminous of people, and I donāt think he could parse what exactly it wasānot in Sherlock, and not in me.
In a brilliant stroke of sheer cruelty I programmed an orgasmic sigh into Sherlockās text message alerts from me. Impossible to remove, too. Iām quite clever that way.
Experimenting on John Watson wasnāt an exercise in sadism, though. I didnāt make him suffer for the fun of it. I grew fond of Sherlock: his openness (though he was apprehensive about sex); his hidden devotion; his secret kindness. John Watson did care about himāI always know what people likeābut something was blocking him.
So far as I was concerned, John had two choices: either get unblocked quickly and treat Sherlock better, or lose him to me. Until I tired of him, at least.
Ah, well. The best-laid plans, and all that. Soon enough I had to retreat, leave them to themselves, to keep myself alive.
But I knew Iād be back, sooner or later, to finish my experiment.
@calaisreno, thank you for the May prompt series. š¤ Writers, I'd love to be tagged on ALL your May prompt fics š
(I'm tagging in the comments as tumblr has become truculent. Let me know if you'd like to be tagged or if you hate to be tagged.)
@calaisreno @keirgreeneyes @peanitbear @lisbeth-kk @jolieblack
