aftercare

[riding_crop]

She texts him at half past noon, so that he's had time to sleep in if he needs it, but will probably be awake.

What channel are we watching, Sherlock?

Because he'd laughed, so she considers it a promise.

Comments

[seesobserves]

A nod. 'Processing' is his language, after all.

Given the way this conversation has gone so far, Sherlock thinks it's best if he takes time to do a bit of processing right now. He stays silent for the next minute, eating and drinking, lingering in the calmer wake of his last outburst. The irritated skin under the nicotine patch still stings.

[riding_crop]

"One thing I would like to do today is go over a few basic safety concerns."

She says, at length, once she's half done her own food. The coffee is lukewarm so she sets it aside.

"If you do go forwards with this, I'd like you to have the tools to self-advocate."

[seesobserves]

While the rest of his face stays neutral, Sherlock's eyebrows do an amused jump.

"More to it than traffic lights, then?"

[riding_crop]

"Astonishingly, yes. You have a good enough sense of human biology to know that someone beating your ass with a billy club is rather different than taking the same blow to the kidneys."

Smiling delicately.

"But if a top makes that mistake, it generally means they're out of control, and you should exit a scene before you're too far gone to safeword."

[seesobserves]

"Know the difference between recreational torture and the real variety," he says in other words. He fancies, however, that he'd be able to spot that scenario coming from miles away.

"I can tell when a person is more likely to lose control."

[riding_crop]

"Yes. And, a slightly more different variation to spot... The most genuine, soft-hearted, protective of tops can sometimes try to play slightly out of their own range of fluency. They'll listen to you safeword in a heart beat but don't know that rope cutting across the upper arm in a suspension can lead to nerve damage if you're not careful."

Much more difficult to recognize on sight. And many of them are probably a great deal more emotionally safe than Irene herself, but she's scornful of them nonetheless.

"Like trying water torture with someone who doesn't know CPR, for example. No one ever actually intends to drown their submissive, but the experts are prepared for the eventuality of one ill-timed inhale."

[seesobserves]

Alright: point. However:

"I don't go for soft-hearted." And - though he's not prepared to say this out loud - there are few others he would put himself at the mercy of apart than her. The process involves too much exposure. Better to keep that circle small.

[riding_crop]

"There are so many kinds of pain, Sherlock."

Smiling, settling back in her chair.

"And so many delightful, imaginative little intricacies. The last real one you ought to watch out for is fluid safety. When someone breaks your skin, how do they react? Who else has bled on their toys, and how careful are they about it? You can't boil a pinwheel with a plastic handle."

[seesobserves]

"You keep your space clean as a surgery. I would've expected nothing less." Not when she's so very careful and calculated in other aspects.

[riding_crop]

"Thank you."

She smiles, setting aside the empty paper bag.

"Now, was there anything you were curious about?"

[seesobserves]

He sets aside the remnants of his food and drink as well. The cocoa got lukewarm a while back. He's still finished it.

He sits back, legs crossed, fingers threaded together over his lap.

There's plenty he's curious about. There often is. The thoughts keep tripping over each other, or slipping away. Silence, then, for a moment - after which something starts to happen Sherlock is quite unfamiliar with. The phrase 'awkward silence' has never held much meaning for him apart from in the abstract, yet that appears to be what's happening to him now: he's becoming uncomfortable with the absence of conversation in the presence of another person.

He lives with it for another few seconds, waiting to see if it will go away. It doesn't.

"The sub drop. The emotional hangover. How long will it take to fade?"

[riding_crop]

"That varies, depending on the person, the intensity of the scene, the steps you take to ward it off. The food should start to help soon, but it might resurface a little afterward. You're still feeling it very intensely?"

Concerned, shifting to the edge of her chair.

"The longest I've ever had a client experience was a young woman who felt it two days after the scene, but then, she generally wouldn't begin to experience it until the second morning, so she'd only really be in it about as long as you have."

The physical contact was a little trickier. If he doesn't get better soon, she'll try touching him some, but in the mean time;

"Shall I tell you comedic stories of all my mishaps over the years? You may never trust my authority again, but I guarantee you'll crack a smile."

[seesobserves]

He gives off one of his not-quite-an-expression facial twitches at the first question. Not so bad at the moment, but this discomfort - what else could it be?

The only other outward sign that anything is amiss beneath the surface: a bit of fidgeting. His right hand moves to the sleeve of his left forearm, curling over the spot where the patch lies underneath.

"Bondage bloopers?" He doesn't smile, but he makes a disbelieving sound that could almost be called amused. "You were never the type to boil your plastic."

[riding_crop]

"No, but accidents happen. I've been to the doctors once, and to emergency once myself, and sent one poor boy there, though that was almost entirely unforeseeable. I've had to talk down the concerned public twice in the same night, and concerned police officers at my door another two separate occasions."

She admits, animatedly, hinting at the stories behind each of them.

"The most ridiculous was almost certainly my own trip to the emergency room. That was... oh, three years ago or so... I had slipped in to something in latex for a particularly lovely client, and was hurrying to meet him at the door. The best way to get into latex is to smear it with a little silicone based lubricant, which is murderous for getting out of you happen to spill any. Wouldn't you know, I put my socked foot in some, and as he arrived on my landing he had to turn right back around again to drive me in with a broken arm."

[seesobserves]

He can just picture it: perfectly poised Irene Adler slipping and flailing and crunch.

He smirks. A little.

"No practical sense in changing out of the latex for the hospital trip," he surmises.

[riding_crop]

"The poor nurses. The girl who had to cut me out of it was so apologetic."

You can't exactly wear underthings with a full catsuit. She's tittering at the memory.

"I thought she'd melt into the floor in mortification. Funnily enough, she turned out to be the reason I had to go to the doctor, though that wasn't for another few months."

[seesobserves]

Another man might have been eager to hear that story, if only for the woman-on-woman action. Sherlock is far more intrigued by something she'd mentioned earlier.

"And the concerned public?"

[riding_crop]

"An abduction scene."

She admits.

"Entirely recreational, consensual, negotiated, back during my college days. A person I knew was abducting her lover. We took her down on a public sidewalk, threw a bag over her head, zap strapped her hands and frogmarched her towards the back of a van... only to spot a concerned man peering out of the window. The woman I was with, she was six and a half feet tall, muscular, butch as you've ever seen, looked like she belonged in a meat packing business, the perfect caricature of a thug. We both sort of waved-"

A pantomimish gesture, and a bright, overly enthusiastic smile and a thumbs up.

"-and raced past him and into the van before he had time to think."

[seesobserves]

That gets an actual smile, and a short chuckle.

"And he didn't call the police?" Seeking clarification, and a little bit surprised. If this wasn't one of the times she'd had to talk down the police, and if she'd needed to talk to the public twice... "What, were you followed?"

[riding_crop]

"Not as far as I'm aware! A little disheartening, isn't it? How easy it is to abduct someone in this city. If the police were called on us at all we never heard from them."

Not that either of them have a particularly high opinion of law enforcement or the general public at the best of times, but that incident certainly hadn't added to Irene's good impression of them.

"We also ran into a next door neighbour, while we were piling her out of the van and up the steps to our flat, but that was a little easier. We were on relatively good terms, and I went over to ask her about her begonias and explain that it was a practical joke for a hen night. Offer people a remotely plausible alternative to a truth that makes them uncomfortable, and I've found they'll leap upon it. My abduction planning skills have much improved in the interim, I'll have you know."

[seesobserves]

"Oh, I should hope so." He's going for cool and conversational, but after a short pause, he breaks into another smile. It isn't so much the stories themselves as it is the situation, but she wasn't wrong.

He looks up from the floor to her, and even though the smile has to close itself while he's meeting her eyes, it's still there.

"Location and timing would be vital. The take-down on a public sidewalk was perhaps a bit too obvious."

[riding_crop]

"Oh, but I've done it since, and perfectly successfully. The key is an accomplice with a professional enough looking camera."

She promises, with a wry smile.

"Film anything and you can get away with it. People apologize outright for stepping into the shot."

[seesobserves]

Ah-ha. Well, that would work.

"Charge extra for copies of the footage?"

[riding_crop]

"Paid for my first flat off one of those films."

She admits, with a smug little stretch. Because there had been more to cut her teeth on than kink alone.

[seesobserves]

"Enterprising business, sex work."

Not that he ever had much doubt in that.