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saki101Title: Reliquary
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
saki101
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock & John/Sherlock/Maria(Mary)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~10.5K total, posted in two parts as it is a little too long for one.
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
This is a continuation of the situation in Icarus Clipped and needs to be read in conjunction with that story. Icarus Clipped and Reliquary together form a unit, which can stand alone.
They may also be read as part of the Other Experiments series where Reliquary would fit in after Icarus Clipped and before Aberdeen to Euston.
Excerpt: Consciousness formed a rectangle in the middle of his back, hot and hard. His limbs were not interested in moving; they clung to sleep, but the heat was uncomfortable. John bent an arm to lift himself up to look for the cause. A hand landed between his shoulder blades; his face landed back in his pillow. There was a faint whirr, several clicks. His consciousness expanded.
Reliquary
Consciousness formed a rectangle in the middle of his back, hot and hard. His limbs were not interested in moving; they clung to sleep, but the heat was uncomfortable. John bent an arm to lift himself up to look for the cause. A hand landed between his shoulder blades; his face landed back in his pillow. There was a faint whirr, several clicks. His consciousness expanded.
“You’re using me as a table,” John grumbled into the bedding.
“I thought you’d want to make some contribution to the research and since you insisted on remaining inanimate for hours, this seemed the most appropriate use of your talents.”
“It’s too hot,” John said and attempted a backwards swat at the laptop, but his hand was entangled in the sheet. “Find anything useful?”
“We’re going to Rio,” Sherlock said, lifting the computer slightly and pulling the blanket beneath it.
“Today?” John asked.
“Ballet tonight, John. Fish tomorrow. At least I’m assuming you’ll catch some large specimen of aquatic life to impress Maria or Teo or…”
“You, Sherlock?”
“It’s not easy to impress me, John. I doubt a fish would do it,” Sherlock replied.
“Even a deadly, poisonous one?” Sherlock didn’t respond or resume typing. John looked over his shoulder.
“You’ve been dreaming,” Sherlock said. “And it wasn’t about predatory fish or mortar fire.”
John closed his eyes. Soft, moist skin nestled beneath his hand, softer, moister skin nuzzled above it. Heat spread from between his legs to the tips of his fingers. John’s hand stroked the corner of his pillow. A light shiver ran through him. Sherlock took note. “Yeah, I was,” John replied.
“About her?” Sherlock asked.
John took a deep breath, eyes still shut. The sense memory spread. Over it all, he felt Sherlock’s gaze on his skin, like the heat of a blue sun. “When you kissed her,” John answered. His voice dropped lower. “And me.”
Sherlock set the laptop on the floor and lay his head down where it had been. His hand smoothed the covers over John’s buttocks, down to his calves and up again. “There may be an element of danger in this experiment you have initiated, John. Other than the obvious, I mean.” Sherlock pressed the side of his face against John. John could feel Sherlock’s cheekbone against his spine. “Bear in mind that you are mine.”
“In more ways than I could ever have imagined,” John agreed.
“And yet, it was fascinating to observe how she transformed beneath your hands. I kept picturing the permutations…” Sherlock’s hand kneaded along John’s thigh and up to his lower back again. “Last night I maintained a certain distance…”
“You managed to kept your clothes on,” John murmured
“You both kept reaching out for me,” Sherlock continued.
“Mm.”
“I had assumed your focus would shift to one another alone as the evening progressed, but it didn’t happen. You both kept reaching for me.” Sherlock pulled up the covers, baring John’s foot. He stretched, slid his hand beneath John’s shin and bent the leg towards him, thumb slipping into the arch. “It was strangely gratifying.”
John flexed his toes. “I told you she fancied you.” He felt Sherlock nod against his back.
“But she didn’t shift her attention just to me either.” Sherlock lifted his head slightly, pushed the bedclothes away and settled his cheek directly against John’s skin. He took a deep breath, his thumb digging deeper into the ball of John’s foot. “She clung to you and reached out to me. It was not straightforward at all.”
“You found it interesting,” John said. “Clever woman.” He stretched his arms, folded one back under his pillow. “And she may consciously be a part of Moriarty’s network. A black widow in the web.”
Sherlock released John’s foot, tapped his other thigh and John raised that leg. “But what does your instinct tell you, John?”
John pulled his foot away, rolled over, shoved another pillow behind his head and looked down where Sherlock still leaned over the bed. “Not to leave you alone with her.” John huffed and tugged on Sherlock’s arm. “Learned that from Irene.”
Sherlock crawled up onto the bed, settled between John’s legs, propped himself up on his elbows and considered John’s expression. “You disliked Irene instantly,” Sherlock said. “That’s not how you feel about Maria.”
“We had background information on Irene when we met her. Maria is still a question,” John replied.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” Sherlock said, clambering over John’s leg towards the head of the bed. “It’s more than that,” he added, settling on his side, chin in his hand. “We both feel it now, but I can’t pinpoint what it is.”
John turned his head on the pillow, one side of his mouth lifting. “She may just be a talented, but amateur, seductress.”
Sherlock sat up against the headboard, tugged a pillow in front of him and opened his legs. “I imagined holding her like this. I was fully-clothed, but for my jacket and shoes, she was undressed except for jewels at her wrists, a pendant falling between her breasts and several pins holding up her hair. They sparkled, but I couldn’t tell what they were. I’d try to focus on one to identify it and she would move. Against me. Even through my clothes I could feel her warmth. One of my hands was on her stomach, as yours was last night. She covered it with hers. I could feel a ring on her finger. I hadn’t seen it though. That confused me. She stretched up to kiss me under the jaw and whispered, ‘John’s ready.’ She knew your name.” Sherlock clutched the pillow. “You were standing by the bed near our feet, only your shirt still on, open, cuffs undone. The white of it was brilliant, it made your skin look tanned, as your hands were the day we met at Bart’s. Golden. Warm. I felt her sigh. You were looking at me.” Sherlock’s hands ran over the pillow. “She lifted her hand from mine, held it out to you. You glanced at it, looked back at me and moved closer...”
John sat up, twisting closer. “Christ. I thought you were researching.”
“I was,” Sherlock said. “The images kept flashing through my mind whenever there was a lag in the data loading. It kept happening and you kept sleeping.”
“So you came in here to type on my back,” John said, seating himself astride Sherlock’s legs. Sherlock continued looking into the middle distance. John leaned forward. “Is that why we’re not going to Rio right away, then?” he asked. He felt Sherlock pressing back against the other side of the pillow. “Look, I’m awake now and can definitely do something about your…state of mind.”
Sherlock shook his head. “I’m expecting the Biennial to yield information about what we should look for next. Some of the artists here will be displaying in Rio as well and afterwards in Paris. We need to observe what happens to the art, who’s interested in buying it, who does buy it. That’s why we’re staying.”
“The diamonds aren’t the financial source, then?” John asked.
“They are, but the wealth is leaving Brazil in more forms that I thought,” Sherlock replied.
“And Maria’s part of it?”
“Definitely. Don’t know yet how complicit she is though.”
John shifted against the pillow, hand going up into Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock let his head fall back against the headboard. “Dangerous game we’re playing with her, then.”
“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. He took a deep breath and swallowed.
John watched the muscles of Sherlock’s throat move before pressing a kiss to the base of it. “Dangerous game we’re playing with ourselves.”
***
Huysman was speaking with a short, middle-aged man and his willowy companion in the lobby of the theatre when John and Sherlock arrived. The man saw John’s look of admiration and a self-satisfied smile spread across his sun-tanned face. Huysman saw the expression and turned.
“Ah, Mr de Groot and Mr Watson,” Huysman said, his expression brightening as he took in the details of Sherlock’s evening suit and extended his hand first to Sherlock and then to John. “Let me introduce Mr and Mrs Surti. I was just telling them about the meticulous work you do restoring damaged treasures.”
John shook hands with both, but Sherlock held Mrs Surti’s hand to his lips and pronounced himself enchanted. Mrs Surti looked almost pleased by the compliment, before she returned to looking bored. John thought she was a novice at an expression Sherlock had elevated to an art form, but he admired the effort she was putting into it.
“Mr Surti trades in precious metals, platinum primarily,” Mr Huysman said.
“The Victorians often used platinum in costume jewellery,” Sherlock remarked and bestowed one of his tight smiles on Mr Surti.
John saw Huysman trying to hide his pleasure at the dig. No love lost there, then, John thought. “Ah, but modern designers love platinum,” he said, looking towards the stairs, “and here is one of the loveliest.”
John turned and smiled at Maria taking leave of the friends she had encountered as the three of them had entered the theatre. He took a few steps towards her. She paused in her advance to allow John to take her arm for the short distance back to the others. She shook hands with the Surtis and Huysman and extended her gloved hand to Sherlock who lifted it near his lips with an elegant detachment that John thought was something to see, considering what he knew.
A chime sounded through the lobby and they parted from the Surtis for Huysman’s box. “Twenty years ago, he was considering expanding into diamonds,” Huysman said to Sherlock as they walked. “We discouraged that,” he added before a passing couple stopped to exchange greetings and a string of other patrons streamed between Huysman and the rest of the group.
“You are looking beautiful,” John said, trying to keep his eyes from wandering too obviously down the vee of Maria’s décolletage as she unwound the wrap she had worn in the car and draped it over her arm.
“More than I was a few minutes ago?” Maria asked, her look at John very direct.
“She is a puzzle tonight,” Sherlock stated. “Are the pins your designs?” he asked, focussing his attention on the silver knots which appeared to fasten the straps of Maria’s dress together. She nodded and Sherlock’s eyes dropped to her waist where several more pins seemed to hold the scarf-like panels of the dress’s skirt to the bodice. “Let’s see, three doubled over at the waist, two crossed in front and two crossed at the back held together at the shoulders, so seven veils in all.” Sherlock lightly tapped one kid-gloved finger on Maria’s shoulder and murmured, “Do they fall for the one who can solve the puzzle?”
John would have been inclined to apologise for Sherlock’s boldness if it wouldn’t have been unsuited to their assumed identities. Maria dropped her gaze and then looked back up at Sherlock through her lashes. “We shall have to see,” she replied. John drew in a breath and wished they could leave right then. The game was clearly already on.
Huysman rejoined them. A few more minutes found them settling in the box, John holding out a chair for Maria and Huysman waiting for Sherlock to take a seat next to the seat by which he was standing, before he sat himself. From an inside pocket Sherlock slipped out a silver case, tipping it slightly so the etched patterns on the lid caught the light. With a delicate push of his thumb, he nudged the lotus blossom clasp open. When he lifted the unfolded opera glasses to his eyes, both Maria’s and Huysman’s eyes were on him.
“Art nouveau,” Huysman said quietly. Sherlock didn’t reply, just slowly surveyed the room through his elegant lenses. Maria turned to John, but John saw that Huysman’s eyes stayed on Sherlock.
***
“I’ve seen a film of Njinsky dancing the part,” Maria said when the first ballet finished.
“I prefer the older classics,” Huysman said, “but the faun was well-danced.”
Maria glanced at the programme, tapped at the next part of it. “They’re using the original costume and set designs for the next ballet,” she said. “I had a commission a few years ago based on the costume of the Rose.”
Huysman leaned forward. “I tried to persuade her to use red diamonds, but she wouldn’t do it,” he said.
“The patron had been given the prototype of the headdress when she was taken on a backstage tour as a child with her grandfather, a noted philanthropist. She said it had reminded her of Dorothy’s ruby slippers. I had to look up the reference. Once I did, only rubies would do, although I used garnets for contrast. She still had the headdress, so I matched the colours.”
“She wanted a piece of jewellery of the same design?” John asked.
“No, she wanted a music-box ballerina, essentially,” Maria explained, “although not in a box, but on a pedestal under a removable crystal dome. And not only the ballerina.”
“Go on, describe it to us, then,” John said recognising her obvious desire to do so. Sherlock glanced at him.
“The figures were enamel on gold, one the ballet dancer, who remains stationary, except for his arms moving when the ballerina reaches him after pirouetting on a track from the other side of the square pedestal. When she reaches him, his open arms close at her waist and then a rod raises the ballerina figure and his arms rise with her so it looks like he is lifting her. When he puts her down, she pirouettes in place and then glides back across to her starting position.”
“Did you do the clockwork for it?” Sherlock asked. John was surprised by the intensity of his focus.
“No. There is a master watchmaker for whom I sometimes make cases. He provided the mechanical parts. The music I subcontracted from Switzerland because I wanted a much longer excerpt than the usual music box mechanism would play,” Maria explained.
“The one figure would need multiple sections,” Sherlock commented.
“Oh, there was more. You will understand better when you watch the ballet. The skirt of the costume is made to look like petals and they puff out when the ballerina twirls.”
“You did this with metal?” John asked.
“Like a Faberge egg,” Sherlock commented.
“It was beautiful. More like an antique than a modern piece,” Huysman said and smiled. “I admired it even if I couldn’t convince her to use diamonds.”
“I suppose it’s in a private collection,” Sherlock said.
“Yes, but I have photos,” Maria explained.
“It’s not the same. It was lovely to see the movement. Photographs are better than only the memory of it though,” Huysman added.
“It’s what it was though,” Maria said. “This woman had kept a vivid memory of meeting this handsome dancer after a performance and his asking her to pirouette for him and then lifting her in the air. For more than sixty years it had stayed alive in her mind and she asked me to turn it into something tangible for her.”
“Why then? Had the dancer died?” Sherlock asked.
“No, he’s still alive. An éminence grise in the ballet world. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him,” Maria said.
“Modern,” Huysman supplied. Sherlock nodded.
“His later works are more frequently performed, especially The Curator, often the two versions of it as a set,” Maria continued.
John hummed a polite interrogatory.
“It was choreographed so the protagonist could be danced by either a ballerina or a ballet dancer, the other parts altered accordingly.”
“Why would they need to be altered?” Sherlock asked.
“It was the late 50s,” Maria explained. “It caused quite a stir when it made its debut as it was.” She smiled. “I researched the choreographer before beginning the piece; I became quite an admirer.”
John nodded. “Not as much as the patron though.”
Maria shook her head. “No. She named her only child after him.” John raised his eyebrows. The first notes of the overture sounded. “This was his first work. See what you think,” she whispered and leaned back in her seat.
****
Sherlock hooked his fingernail under the tiny snake’s head and pulled the pin from the silver coils of the brooch at Maria’s shoulder. He caught the metal rings as they fell apart.
“They’re much easier to take apart, than they are to put together,” Maria murmured, her eyes still on John as the scarf covering her left breast drifted diagonally to her waist. She settled more of her weight against Sherlock’s chest, as if she might sink through the multiple layers of cloth separating them.
Sherlock dropped the silver rings and the pin into his trouser pocket and turned his attention to the brooch on Maria’s right shoulder. “Some symbolism there?” he asked.
“Undoing is so much easier,” she said. Sherlock glanced at John before he drew out the second pin.
John remained lounging back on the sofa, the black of his evening jacket stark against the white suede cushions. He took a sip of his brandy as the second scarf fell. A slow, sly smile curved his lips. “Easier perhaps, but not easy. Not when well done,” he said.
Sherlock dropped bits of curled leopard into his pocket along with the second pin and smiled.
“Wouldn’t you like to try one, Jay?” Sherlock asked, dropping down to one knee behind Maria and focussing on one of the brooches at her waist. Maria lifted an arm and peered beneath it at Sherlock. All she could see of him was an elbow and part of a long thigh.
“No,” John replied, “I’ll leave the puzzles to you. You leave the undoing to me.”
Maria lowered her arm and looked back at John. “Isn’t that a puzzle, too?” she asked.
Sherlock loosened another pin. The links tinkled as they fell into his palm. The scarf falling to the dark, polished wood of the floor made no sound at all. He shifted to Maria’s side, his head bumping her bare arm. She raised it higher. Her hand curved. John watched her decide not to let it settle in Sherlock’s hair. It remained aloft, in an inadvertent gesture of invitation.
“No, it can be a song of sighs or a dance of wills,” John said as another scarf drifted to the floor, revealing a smooth thigh above a dark, grey stocking. “One listens for the tempo in the blood. Reads the lyrics in the flashing of an eye.”
John moved to the edge of the sofa, leaned forward enough to brush his lips over the warm skin above the stocking, turned his head and rested his cheek there. He looked up at Maria’s face as Sherlock drew out another pin and a fourth scarf floated away. The pin dropped. Sherlock glanced down and caught John’s eyes. John closed them and slid his hand around the bared rounded hip. Maria drew in her breath. Sherlock picked up the pin and stood, stepped behind Maria and undid the remaining pins in three swift moves.
“You’ve solved them all,” Maria murmured.
A scarf settled on John’s shoulder. He slipped his fingertips under the narrow band of dark lace it lay bare. Maria let her hand rest on John’s hair.
There was a faint tinkling of metal. “Their parts are interchangeable,” Sherlock said, clearly pleased that the puzzles weren’t yet solved.
“Only some,” Maria replied and turned her head to try to see, but Sherlock stood with his back to hers. She leaned against it and shivered. John’s hands smoothed up her back and his mouth closed over the soft swell of her stomach.
Sherlock fastened the last loops of metal with the cobra-head pin. “There,” he said.
“Yes, there,” Maria echoed, tilting her hips against John’s mouth. She reached back with one hand and clutched Sherlock’s thigh. “Just there,” she breathed and her other hand caressed John’s head.
Sherlock made a fist over the reassembled silver knots.
Maria’s back arched, her head rolling between Sherlock’s shoulder blades, her nails scratching against the cloth of his trousers. John's hands splayed on her hips. Sherlock reached around Maria, the fingers of one hand slotting between John’s, the fingers of the other closing over Maria’s hand on his thigh. Sherlock felt them both tense at the same time. He held them until they relaxed.
John fell back against the sofa. Steadying Maria with a hand on her arm, Sherlock turned and bent, his arms catching Maria behind the knees, lifting her. “We should tuck you in,” he said and Maria’s arm came up around his shoulder. “Early day tomorrow. Bedroom to the left, I believe,” Sherlock said.
“Mm,” Maria murmured, rubbing her face against his arm and curling her body towards his chest.
John gazed at them, Maria bronze against the white of Sherlock’s shirt, her skin glowing against the linen and silk, her hair loose over Sherlock’s arm. Performance art. “Jay, you might want to turn down the covers,” Sherlock said.
Sherlock lay Maria down. Her arms slipped from around his neck. She stretched against the dove grey sheets, smiling up at him. He set the silver knots on the night table, reached for the covers John had pulled back and drew them over her.
“Stay,” she said.
“Dream about all the different ways the links can be put together,” he replied and stood, taking a step back from the bed.
“I already know,” she said.
“Do you?” Sherlock asked.
“Jay,” she called, but didn’t take her eyes off of Sherlock.
John walked around from the bottom of the bed, tracing his palm over the coverlet from her foot up to her shoulder. He leaned down to kiss her. “Stay,” she murmured when he released her lips.
“How well do you know Mr da Costa’s boat?” John asked.
“Perfectly,” Maria answered, small furrows wrinkling her brow. “Oh,” she said, shaking her head against the pillow, her eyes bright. “All three of us would never be able to sneak away.” She sighed. “It’s a pleasing thought though.” She turned to look at Sherlock from beneath John’s bent figure. “Very well, then. Until tomorrow.” She rolled onto her stomach and tossed her hair away from her face. John’s eyes moved down the curve of her back and rested his hand on the swell of her buttocks. “So, beauty sleep tonight,” she said and smiled as John slowly drew his hand away.
She shifted her gaze to Sherlock. “How well you understand tempo, Johannes. You almost tick,” she said, “like a metronome…or a water clock...or a cooling engine.” Her eyes flickered rapidly over him. “I will think,” she said, “of how to sculpt you…what substances would suit you.” She paused.
John thought that she, too, understood tempo. He saw her observing the hint of interest developing on Sherlock’s face.
“A tangled skein of glass tubes…” she said, her eyes fixed on Sherlock’s, “holding mercury.” Her gaze drifted towards John. “Sensitive to heat… like an old-fashioned thermometer.” She looked up towards the ceiling. “Ideally, spectators could interact by touching. It would be wonderful. They would reach out with their warm hands.” Maria drew in a breath, looked at John. “But the curls and loops require the tubes to be fine. They would be too delicate for so much contact.” She regarded Sherlock again. “The whole construct must be encased in glass, warmed only by the air and the lights that play over it, spanning the spectrum of colours in your eyes.”
Maria closed hers, her breathing very steady. John would have thought her falling asleep, but that she was still up on her elbows.
“For Jay,” she said slowly, “a floor of basalt polygons of different heights, the spaces between them veined with red and yellow gold…a rock face of rectangular basalt extrusions on one side.” She opened her eyes, fixed them on Sherlock again. “Streaked with iron oxide like dried blood,” she finished and turned to John.
John clenched his fist and looked back.
“Something strong for Jay; something fragile for me,” Sherlock said and John wondered if he was offended.
Maria turned her head and looked back up at Sherlock. “I’d make the tubes of diamond, if I could,” she replied and Sherlock almost smiled.
“Yes, I will think on this, on you both. You can see yourselves out, I trust.” She lay her head down on her pillow. “Rest well, gentlemen.”
***
“You’re washing me again,” John commented in the shower. Sherlock turned him around and started scrubbing his back. “Rather like you do your lab equipment.”
Sherlock paused. “You’re not equipment,” he said and resumed lathering.
“No, but I think you are sterilising.”
***
It was such a simple challenge. Not easily met, but simple. John saw the attraction as he leaned back against the line. On the other end, something was struggling for its freedom. Its life. John was tempted to let go, give the creature the slack which might allow it to wriggle free, but that wasn’t who Jay was. He was a harder man. John’s deadly edge given broader range. John leaned back further, increased the pressure on the line.
“You felt it,” Teo said. John didn’t look to the side, but there was no tension in Teo’s voice. His line would still be slack. “I saw you hesitate.” John spared the merest flick of his gaze away from the dark grey water, glimpsed the binoculars Teo held. “Don’t hesitate. I saw the dorsal fin.” John only saw the roiling water beneath which the fish thrashed.
Maria turned her eyes away from John and looked along Sherlock’s reclining form. “You are comfortable on the sea,” she said, resting her hand on Sherlock’s shoulder.
“As are you,” Sherlock replied, without looking up.
“I should be,” she replied. “I grew up coming for weekend trips on Tio’s boat with my father.”
“A courtesy, not an actual relative,” Sherlock said.
“True, but I have no actual uncles and Tio Teo and my father have been friends since they were boys. I used to sing it when I was little and wanted something,” Maria said. “Tio Teo, Tio Teo,” she sang under her breath.
“You were indulged.”
“By Papa and his parents and Tio Teo,” Maria answered, smiling. “Mama had to be the disciplinarian when she was around. It wasn’t an easy role to play when she came home. She travelled a lot.”
Sherlock didn’t ask. He’d found the obituary for Maria Morsten’s mother, a mezzo-soprano of note, killed in an auto accident outside Marrakech, three years before.
“You chose not to use her name.”
“I wanted to make my own,” Maria replied.
“So you use only your father’s,” he stated.
Maria shook her head. The shadow of her hair skimmed over the page of Sherlock's sketchbook. “Not exactly. My father’s mother.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it?” Maria asked.
“You want me to be interested because you want to tell me why,” Sherlock said, laying his pencil on the paper. He stretched, tilting his head back and looking up at her.
Maria avoided his eyes, staring instead at the curve of his throat. “Sinuous,” she whispered, “serpentine.” Sherlock’s lips turned up slightly. “She was brave.” Maria bent lower and spoke even more softly. “With a story of a dead husband, but not a word of Portuguese to tell it in and a little stowaway in her belly, she immigrated alone after the war.”
“Your father.”
Maria nodded. “My grandpapa fell in love with her, baby and all. They were married before Papa was born.”
“He knew?”
“I told you my grandmother was brave.”
“So Morstan is the name of the dead ‘husband’?”
Maria shook her head again. “It was her maiden name, which made the dead husband story even more tenuous. She never divulged his name, but among the many tales she told me as I was growing up, I would sometimes hear a note of fondness about some detail or other and I used to think it was an echo of him.”
“Is this why you like the number three?” Sherlock asked.
Maria straightened, looked out towards the water. “Maybe.”
“Probably why you like mystery,” he said, his voice deeper, a hint of a chuckle in it.
The sound brought Maria back. “Perhaps,” she murmured. “Show me what you’re sketching,” she added in a more conversational tone.
“Yes, show us,” Huysman said, approaching them with the stems of three wine glasses twined between his fingers. “Luncheon will be ready soon.”
Maria turned quickly enough to catch Huysman’s gaze trailing down the slope of Sherlock’s raised leg to his hips. She reached out for a glass. Huysman held his full hands out with a smile and a slight shake of his head. Sherlock held up his sketchpad. “A design of your own?” Maria asked.
“Not this one,” Sherlock said, taking a glass from Huysman. “Restoration can entail more than repair. Some pieces are recreations from photos or paintings, even descriptions in diaries or thank you notes.” Maria raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes just from the client’s recollections.” He took a sip of the wine, held it in his mouth a moment before swallowing and nodding at Huysman. “Lost jewels can haunt a family. The recreation is like an exorcism.” Sherlock took another sip, held it longer. Maria watched Huysman’s eyes move from Sherlock’s mouth to his throat as he swallowed.
“I thought you might like it,” Huysman said.
“’06,” Sherlock remarked. “Did you get it at the auction?”
Huysman smiled. “Just before,” he replied, flaunting his connections.
Sherlock nodded. “Not fish for lunch, then.” He lowered his knee, crossed his legs at the ankles. Maria and Huysman both seemed intrigued by the fine bones in the long, bare feet. Huysman’s smile broadened. “Vegetarian. I brought the spices.” He brought his eyes back to Sherlock’s face, remained caught in the steady gaze he met there. “Exotic,” he added.
Loud thumps reverberated through the boat. They all looked towards the water. John and Teo both had John’s line, were straining back against it. “Fish for dinner, I believe,” Huysman said. He handed his wine glass to Maria. “Would you mind? I think I’ll lend a hand.”
Marie took a drink of her wine. “I should have realised at the ballet,” she murmured, “he’s showing off for you.”
“And Jay’s showing off for you,” Sherlock said, gesturing towards the others with his glass.
Maria laughed. “Only Tio really wants the fish.”
The shark thrashed against the deck. Its jaws held shut by loops of nylon rope, its tail not yet secured in another. Sherlock saw John’s hand start to reach behind his back before he caught himself. He glanced at Sherlock and shrugged.
Teo approached the table, beaming at his guests. “Two metres,” he said, “a hundred kilos. Bull shark. Adult male. A wonderful catch, Jay. If you lived here I could send you the steaks to freeze.” He raised his glass at John. “At least I can send you the photos.”
“A team effort,” John said, looking at Teo and then Huysman, glass in hand.
“It will be a team effort to eat it for dinner,” Teo said, still smiling. “Murilo can do wonders with shark.” Teo took a deep breath. “He has done wonders already today, I can tell. Something new, I think.”
Huysman cleared his throat. “I interfered with the menu, I’m afraid. It’s an old favourite of mine. Murilo was very charming about it.”
“You must have bribed him well. He’s more likely to throw a cleaver at you for suggesting such a thing,” Teo said. “Come, let us eat or he might throw one still if we let his food get cold.”
****
In the helicopter, Maria and John sat side by side, conversing as quietly as the rotors permitted about the theme of the Biennial exhibit, interrupting themselves from time to time to watch the lights of the coastline slip by in the dark. Next to Sherlock, Huysman seemed beset by e-mails and Sherlock appeared to doze. John didn’t need to check more than once to know that was not so.
As they descended from the helipad, Huysman gave his apologies. “I very much regret that I shall not be with you tomorrow evening. I have to leave tonight, I’m afraid.” John thought the sigh that followed the statement sincere.
Huysman held the elevator when they reached the parking garage. “I’ll be back before the exhibit is over though. I’ll see your pieces.”
“There may be a few other artists’ work that you might care to glance at,” she said, laughing.
“None with your talent,” he replied and kissed her hand.
“None with your diamonds,” she countered lightly.
He turned to John and shook his hand. “It’s been a pleasure, Jay,” he said and extended his arm towards Sherlock. John noted the slight hesitation when he took Sherlock’s hand, as though he would rather have lifted it to his lips than grasp it. “The stones should be ready tomorrow afternoon.”
“So soon?” Sherlock said, sounding mildly pleased.
“I…They’ll be delivered to your hotel. Their security is excellent. Other clients have kept diamonds in their safe while here. Contact the office if the gems do not satisfy in every particular. I do hope I can be of service in the future,” he finished, finally letting go of Sherlock’s hand.
Sherlock held Huysman’s eyes for a moment and inclined his head. “I hope so, too,” Sherlock said without a glimmer of irony. John focussed on a point over Huysman’s shoulder and still the flush on the man’s face was obvious. John didn’t think it sat well on someone of his mature years, but age was clearly no defence.
***
The steel mesh gate slid up silently. Sherlock manoeuvred the car around the cement pillars beneath Maria’s apartment building. “Come up,” she said as Sherlock approached the elevator. He drove past it, glided into a parking space. John heard Maria exhale when Sherlock turned off the motor, heard her draw it back in when he opened the car door and strode towards the elevator without another word. John pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the back door for Maria. He concluded that whatever she and Sherlock had been talking about on the boat, hadn’t sated his curiosity. Maria threaded her arm through John’s as they followed. She smelt of cocoa butter and salty air. The elevator doors opened and Sherlock slipped inside. John wondered whether Sherlock would go up without them, crack Maria’s state-of-the-art security system while they caught up.
The elevator seemed empty at first. John heard the impatient tapping of a shoe and looked to the side. Sherlock moved a finger and the doors slid shut, tapped another and they rose. He lounged against the buttons. John leaned against the opposite wall with Maria, regarding Sherlock’s profile and Maria’s reflection in the mirror behind Sherlock. Her eyes were on him. Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. Maria’s eyes tracked the motion.
The elevator stopped. Sherlock didn’t move. John shoved a hand against the open door before it closed again, ushered Maria into the corridor. After a few paces, Sherlock followed.
Maria entered the code incorrectly the first time. The tapping was loud in the empty hallway, Sherlock’s fingernails against the wall this time. When the door swung opened, he pushed past them. Maria threw a bolt across the closed door. Sherlock was disappearing into Maria’s bedroom when they reached the sitting room, shoes left on the hall floor. Maria glanced at John, pulled him closer and along with her. She nudged the half-open door wide.
Sherlock stood by the bed, barefoot with his back towards them, jacket on the floor beside him, from his forearms, his sleeves dangled, open cuffs flapping as he moved. John glanced at Maria; she didn’t look back. Sherlock pulled the tails of his shirt from his trousers, undid something at his waist, turned and flung himself on the bed. He regarded them both silently for a moment and opened his arms.
Weary of the coquettish act or impatient for something more?
Maria disentangled her arm and walked forward slowly. John pushed the door shut behind him, dropped his jacket on a chair, stepped out of his shoes, and followed, unbuckling as he went. He leaned forward to grab her shoes as Maria crawled up onto the bed. Sherlock had lowered his arms. They rested atop the large pillows either side of him. He glanced over Maria’s shoulder at John, tilted his head towards her. John reached up and eased her jacket off her shoulders. She sat up on her knees when she felt him tug on the garment. Once it was gone, she leaned down again, her hands on Sherlock's legs this time, sliding forward as she edged closer on her knees. He lifted an arm again, rested it on her shoulder and guided her until she sat between his legs, settling against his chest. She turned her head to look up at Sherlock. He tapped a finger against the side of her chin and fluttered a few fingers at John. Maria turned to watch as John drew off his belt and let it drop before pulling the navy polo shirt over his head. Her hands smoothed down Sherlock’s thighs and back up, dragging her nails over the cloth. Methodically, Sherlock was undoing the buttons of Maria’s dress. John had always thought dresses with fastenings down to the hem were rather a tease. He smiled as Sherlock’s fingers continued slipping the small white buttons free. John’s hands stilled at his waist, watching. Sherlock scowled. John made short work of the rest of his clothes and started undoing from the bottom the remaining tiny buttons.
***
Maria’s hand closed around Sherlock’s wrist before he reached the edge of the bed. “Stay tonight,” she whispered.
“I’ll be back,” he murmured and slipped out of bed.
He was wrapped in a sheet from her linen cupboard, hair still damp from the shower, when he eased back into bed. Maria’s hand slid around his chest and tugged him closer. He shifted until her cheek nestled between his shoulder blades and her hand had gone lax over his chest.
Maria stopped half-way to the kitchen. “You didn’t go back to sleep, did you?” she asked, squinting into the early morning gloom of the sitting room.
Sherlock looked away from the phone resting on his chest. “No,” he answered, nudging the flash drive by his side under a fold of his sheet.
“Do you want some water?” she asked. The light from the refrigerator brightened the hallway for a moment.
“No,” Sherlock said.
“Will you sleep more?” Maria asked, walking back into the sitting room, water bottle in hand.
“Maybe,” Sherlock replied.
“Come back to bed, if you do. My right side is cold.”
Twenty minutes later, Sherlock tucked the memory stick he had filled with the contents of her laptop into one of his jacket pockets as he bent down to slip back into bed. He touched Maria’s shoulder. It was cold. Sherlock pulled the covers up higher.
****
“Careful, we’re going to push him right off the bed in his sleep,” Maria whispered.
John reached out and grasped Sherlock’s buttock. “Better?” he murmured into Maria’s hair, rocking gently against her and pulling Sherlock tight against her back.
“You two are like lemmings,” Sherlock grumbled.
“Awake,” Maria murmured.
“Rabbits,” John corrected.
“Lemmings are the ones that go over the cliff, Jay,” Sherlock insisted and shoved them all towards the middle of the bed.
John was impressed that even half-asleep Sherlock got the name right. Unless he had already been awake. “Right,” John conceded, finding a gap in Sherlock’s sheet and smoothing his hand over the bare skin he found. Sherlock’s hips thrust forward.
“Ah,” Maria sighed, “I knew staying in bed longer would have a salutary effect.” She circled her hips as much as the pressure from both sides permitted.
“It’s just the morning effect,” Sherlock stated. One of John’s fingers insinuated itself between firm muscles and Sherlock ground against Maria again.
She reached up with one arm and curled her hand behind Sherlock’s neck. “Sure?” she asked, pulling his head down and outlining a figure-eight with her hips.
Sherlock buried his nose in Maria’s hair. “Honey,” he said and took an experimental lick along the top of her ear. Her nails scraped gently over his scalp and Sherlock tried a nip. Head still tipped back, eyes closed, her hips found a rhythm. John thrust harder. Sherlock peered over Maria’s shoulder. John’s body was pressed too firmly against her to see anything beyond the swell of her breasts. Sherlock slid his hand from her hip, between her belly and John’s, searching. They both drew in breath. Maria exhaled with a soft sound, arched her neck further back against Sherlock’s shoulder. The sound John made was lower, his next thrust stronger, the one after, faster.
Sherlock hadn’t found what he was searching for; he tried to pull away before something irreversible occurred. John's arm locked firmly across Sherlock’s back, holding him in place as John thrust upwards. When he reached Sherlock’s fingers, he shouted into the pillow above Maria’s head.
Sherlock's sigh of relief gusted across Maria’s cheek. John loosened his grip, rolled onto his back. Sherlock pulled a corner of his sheet over Maria’s abdomen, his fingers smoothing gently over the moistening cloth.
***
John strolled through the undulating white galleries, stopping more often than he had anticipated he would to consider some of the installations. Perhaps it was the theme of the exhibition that drew him. The mere word. Constellation, had an appeal for him, but he also saw it, how the artwork within the groupings affected one another, creating a different meaning when viewed together than apart. Like the way you and I alter one another’s meanings, Sherlock, John thought.
He had stepped closer to the railing to bypass the cluster of people in the next bay when he heard Maria’s voice. In English, she said, “This piece was originally commissioned for a private collection. Among my terms and conditions is a stipulation that if a piece isn’t collected after two years, I may exhibit it publicly.” John edged into a space by a column near the front of the semi-circle around Maria, who seemed to be repeating herself in Portuguese. “That usually brings the owner round.” Maria smiled and a few people chuckled.
“And if it doesn’t?” one of her audience enquired.
Maria translated the question into Portuguese and answered in both languages. “After four more years, ownership reverts to me.”
“Did you work to the patron’s specifications or is the design yours?” another asked.
Someone leaned towards their companion and John got an unobstructed view of the sculpture. He wondered whether that was the right word for what he saw.
“This was an interesting mixture,” Maria explained, stepping to the side of the platform on which the work sat. “The patron and I would speak by telephone at first and he explained that he wanted essentially an urn for the ashes of two people.”
“So the title, Reliquary, isn’t symbolic,” a young woman with sleek, purple hair said.
“Not really. Of course, a reliquary traditionally held a body part rather than ashes and the relic was usually of a saint, but I had a sense that the other person the urn was for was revered, so it seemed appropriate,” Maria replied.
People were crowding closer and John went with them. “So it was for the patron and someone else?”
“This is what I understood,” Maria replied.
“But you don’t know who?” a tall man asked.
“I only have the initials and even one set of those is not clear. Let me show you,” Maria said and pointed at the front of the reliquary. “As you see, the container is shaped, as many tombs were, like a bed, only without any human figures lying on top.”
“The coverlet is disturbed. Is that amethyst?” a young girl asked. John glanced at her and saw the blush on her cheek.
“No, the stone is called Blue John. This particular kind is only mined in England. It does appear similar to amethyst, but it is a different mineral. Using it was one of the specifications,” Maria said.
“The folds are beautiful, but it looks rather like an unmade bed,” a young man observed.
“Indeed,” Maria replied. “You have spotted another of the patron’s specifications. He wanted the bed to look…” Maria paused, glancing towards the ceiling for an instant, “…slept in.”
From the tenor of the murmurs, John decided most of the listeners had understood the implication, some people craning their necks to get a better view.
“Now the initials, I mentioned,” Maria continued, pointing. “You see here the oval with the letter J and the one with the letter M.” People hummed assent. “Watch,” she said and with the edge of her nail pried the second oval out, like the stem of a watch, rotated it and tapped it back in. “Now it’s a W.
There was a buzz from the audience. John glanced back and saw a few more people had joined the group.
“For a wife who hadn’t taken her husband’s name?” an older man suggested.
Maria raised her hands, palms up. “I don’t know. This was an instruction, but the other initials don’t match either letter, you see.” She pushed a button and the platform slowly turned. “The initials on the back, beneath the headboard, as it were, don’t change.”
The lettering was ornate and John couldn’t see them clearly from where he stood.
“Ess, haitch,” someone read out.
“Exactly,” Maria said.
John felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He pulled out his phone. Second level. East side. Small crowd. You need to see this.
***
Click here for the conclusion of Reliquary.
Author:
saki101Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock & John/Sherlock/Maria(Mary)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~10.5K total, posted in two parts as it is a little too long for one.
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
This is a continuation of the situation in Icarus Clipped and needs to be read in conjunction with that story. Icarus Clipped and Reliquary together form a unit, which can stand alone.
They may also be read as part of the Other Experiments series where Reliquary would fit in after Icarus Clipped and before Aberdeen to Euston.
Excerpt: Consciousness formed a rectangle in the middle of his back, hot and hard. His limbs were not interested in moving; they clung to sleep, but the heat was uncomfortable. John bent an arm to lift himself up to look for the cause. A hand landed between his shoulder blades; his face landed back in his pillow. There was a faint whirr, several clicks. His consciousness expanded.
Consciousness formed a rectangle in the middle of his back, hot and hard. His limbs were not interested in moving; they clung to sleep, but the heat was uncomfortable. John bent an arm to lift himself up to look for the cause. A hand landed between his shoulder blades; his face landed back in his pillow. There was a faint whirr, several clicks. His consciousness expanded.
“You’re using me as a table,” John grumbled into the bedding.
“I thought you’d want to make some contribution to the research and since you insisted on remaining inanimate for hours, this seemed the most appropriate use of your talents.”
“It’s too hot,” John said and attempted a backwards swat at the laptop, but his hand was entangled in the sheet. “Find anything useful?”
“We’re going to Rio,” Sherlock said, lifting the computer slightly and pulling the blanket beneath it.
“Today?” John asked.
“Ballet tonight, John. Fish tomorrow. At least I’m assuming you’ll catch some large specimen of aquatic life to impress Maria or Teo or…”
“You, Sherlock?”
“It’s not easy to impress me, John. I doubt a fish would do it,” Sherlock replied.
“Even a deadly, poisonous one?” Sherlock didn’t respond or resume typing. John looked over his shoulder.
“You’ve been dreaming,” Sherlock said. “And it wasn’t about predatory fish or mortar fire.”
John closed his eyes. Soft, moist skin nestled beneath his hand, softer, moister skin nuzzled above it. Heat spread from between his legs to the tips of his fingers. John’s hand stroked the corner of his pillow. A light shiver ran through him. Sherlock took note. “Yeah, I was,” John replied.
“About her?” Sherlock asked.
John took a deep breath, eyes still shut. The sense memory spread. Over it all, he felt Sherlock’s gaze on his skin, like the heat of a blue sun. “When you kissed her,” John answered. His voice dropped lower. “And me.”
Sherlock set the laptop on the floor and lay his head down where it had been. His hand smoothed the covers over John’s buttocks, down to his calves and up again. “There may be an element of danger in this experiment you have initiated, John. Other than the obvious, I mean.” Sherlock pressed the side of his face against John. John could feel Sherlock’s cheekbone against his spine. “Bear in mind that you are mine.”
“In more ways than I could ever have imagined,” John agreed.
“And yet, it was fascinating to observe how she transformed beneath your hands. I kept picturing the permutations…” Sherlock’s hand kneaded along John’s thigh and up to his lower back again. “Last night I maintained a certain distance…”
“You managed to kept your clothes on,” John murmured
“You both kept reaching out for me,” Sherlock continued.
“Mm.”
“I had assumed your focus would shift to one another alone as the evening progressed, but it didn’t happen. You both kept reaching for me.” Sherlock pulled up the covers, baring John’s foot. He stretched, slid his hand beneath John’s shin and bent the leg towards him, thumb slipping into the arch. “It was strangely gratifying.”
John flexed his toes. “I told you she fancied you.” He felt Sherlock nod against his back.
“But she didn’t shift her attention just to me either.” Sherlock lifted his head slightly, pushed the bedclothes away and settled his cheek directly against John’s skin. He took a deep breath, his thumb digging deeper into the ball of John’s foot. “She clung to you and reached out to me. It was not straightforward at all.”
“You found it interesting,” John said. “Clever woman.” He stretched his arms, folded one back under his pillow. “And she may consciously be a part of Moriarty’s network. A black widow in the web.”
Sherlock released John’s foot, tapped his other thigh and John raised that leg. “But what does your instinct tell you, John?”
John pulled his foot away, rolled over, shoved another pillow behind his head and looked down where Sherlock still leaned over the bed. “Not to leave you alone with her.” John huffed and tugged on Sherlock’s arm. “Learned that from Irene.”
Sherlock crawled up onto the bed, settled between John’s legs, propped himself up on his elbows and considered John’s expression. “You disliked Irene instantly,” Sherlock said. “That’s not how you feel about Maria.”
“We had background information on Irene when we met her. Maria is still a question,” John replied.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” Sherlock said, clambering over John’s leg towards the head of the bed. “It’s more than that,” he added, settling on his side, chin in his hand. “We both feel it now, but I can’t pinpoint what it is.”
John turned his head on the pillow, one side of his mouth lifting. “She may just be a talented, but amateur, seductress.”
Sherlock sat up against the headboard, tugged a pillow in front of him and opened his legs. “I imagined holding her like this. I was fully-clothed, but for my jacket and shoes, she was undressed except for jewels at her wrists, a pendant falling between her breasts and several pins holding up her hair. They sparkled, but I couldn’t tell what they were. I’d try to focus on one to identify it and she would move. Against me. Even through my clothes I could feel her warmth. One of my hands was on her stomach, as yours was last night. She covered it with hers. I could feel a ring on her finger. I hadn’t seen it though. That confused me. She stretched up to kiss me under the jaw and whispered, ‘John’s ready.’ She knew your name.” Sherlock clutched the pillow. “You were standing by the bed near our feet, only your shirt still on, open, cuffs undone. The white of it was brilliant, it made your skin look tanned, as your hands were the day we met at Bart’s. Golden. Warm. I felt her sigh. You were looking at me.” Sherlock’s hands ran over the pillow. “She lifted her hand from mine, held it out to you. You glanced at it, looked back at me and moved closer...”
John sat up, twisting closer. “Christ. I thought you were researching.”
“I was,” Sherlock said. “The images kept flashing through my mind whenever there was a lag in the data loading. It kept happening and you kept sleeping.”
“So you came in here to type on my back,” John said, seating himself astride Sherlock’s legs. Sherlock continued looking into the middle distance. John leaned forward. “Is that why we’re not going to Rio right away, then?” he asked. He felt Sherlock pressing back against the other side of the pillow. “Look, I’m awake now and can definitely do something about your…state of mind.”
Sherlock shook his head. “I’m expecting the Biennial to yield information about what we should look for next. Some of the artists here will be displaying in Rio as well and afterwards in Paris. We need to observe what happens to the art, who’s interested in buying it, who does buy it. That’s why we’re staying.”
“The diamonds aren’t the financial source, then?” John asked.
“They are, but the wealth is leaving Brazil in more forms that I thought,” Sherlock replied.
“And Maria’s part of it?”
“Definitely. Don’t know yet how complicit she is though.”
John shifted against the pillow, hand going up into Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock let his head fall back against the headboard. “Dangerous game we’re playing with her, then.”
“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. He took a deep breath and swallowed.
John watched the muscles of Sherlock’s throat move before pressing a kiss to the base of it. “Dangerous game we’re playing with ourselves.”
***
Huysman was speaking with a short, middle-aged man and his willowy companion in the lobby of the theatre when John and Sherlock arrived. The man saw John’s look of admiration and a self-satisfied smile spread across his sun-tanned face. Huysman saw the expression and turned.
“Ah, Mr de Groot and Mr Watson,” Huysman said, his expression brightening as he took in the details of Sherlock’s evening suit and extended his hand first to Sherlock and then to John. “Let me introduce Mr and Mrs Surti. I was just telling them about the meticulous work you do restoring damaged treasures.”
John shook hands with both, but Sherlock held Mrs Surti’s hand to his lips and pronounced himself enchanted. Mrs Surti looked almost pleased by the compliment, before she returned to looking bored. John thought she was a novice at an expression Sherlock had elevated to an art form, but he admired the effort she was putting into it.
“Mr Surti trades in precious metals, platinum primarily,” Mr Huysman said.
“The Victorians often used platinum in costume jewellery,” Sherlock remarked and bestowed one of his tight smiles on Mr Surti.
John saw Huysman trying to hide his pleasure at the dig. No love lost there, then, John thought. “Ah, but modern designers love platinum,” he said, looking towards the stairs, “and here is one of the loveliest.”
John turned and smiled at Maria taking leave of the friends she had encountered as the three of them had entered the theatre. He took a few steps towards her. She paused in her advance to allow John to take her arm for the short distance back to the others. She shook hands with the Surtis and Huysman and extended her gloved hand to Sherlock who lifted it near his lips with an elegant detachment that John thought was something to see, considering what he knew.
A chime sounded through the lobby and they parted from the Surtis for Huysman’s box. “Twenty years ago, he was considering expanding into diamonds,” Huysman said to Sherlock as they walked. “We discouraged that,” he added before a passing couple stopped to exchange greetings and a string of other patrons streamed between Huysman and the rest of the group.
“You are looking beautiful,” John said, trying to keep his eyes from wandering too obviously down the vee of Maria’s décolletage as she unwound the wrap she had worn in the car and draped it over her arm.
“More than I was a few minutes ago?” Maria asked, her look at John very direct.
“She is a puzzle tonight,” Sherlock stated. “Are the pins your designs?” he asked, focussing his attention on the silver knots which appeared to fasten the straps of Maria’s dress together. She nodded and Sherlock’s eyes dropped to her waist where several more pins seemed to hold the scarf-like panels of the dress’s skirt to the bodice. “Let’s see, three doubled over at the waist, two crossed in front and two crossed at the back held together at the shoulders, so seven veils in all.” Sherlock lightly tapped one kid-gloved finger on Maria’s shoulder and murmured, “Do they fall for the one who can solve the puzzle?”
John would have been inclined to apologise for Sherlock’s boldness if it wouldn’t have been unsuited to their assumed identities. Maria dropped her gaze and then looked back up at Sherlock through her lashes. “We shall have to see,” she replied. John drew in a breath and wished they could leave right then. The game was clearly already on.
Huysman rejoined them. A few more minutes found them settling in the box, John holding out a chair for Maria and Huysman waiting for Sherlock to take a seat next to the seat by which he was standing, before he sat himself. From an inside pocket Sherlock slipped out a silver case, tipping it slightly so the etched patterns on the lid caught the light. With a delicate push of his thumb, he nudged the lotus blossom clasp open. When he lifted the unfolded opera glasses to his eyes, both Maria’s and Huysman’s eyes were on him.
“Art nouveau,” Huysman said quietly. Sherlock didn’t reply, just slowly surveyed the room through his elegant lenses. Maria turned to John, but John saw that Huysman’s eyes stayed on Sherlock.
***
“I’ve seen a film of Njinsky dancing the part,” Maria said when the first ballet finished.
“I prefer the older classics,” Huysman said, “but the faun was well-danced.”
Maria glanced at the programme, tapped at the next part of it. “They’re using the original costume and set designs for the next ballet,” she said. “I had a commission a few years ago based on the costume of the Rose.”
Huysman leaned forward. “I tried to persuade her to use red diamonds, but she wouldn’t do it,” he said.
“The patron had been given the prototype of the headdress when she was taken on a backstage tour as a child with her grandfather, a noted philanthropist. She said it had reminded her of Dorothy’s ruby slippers. I had to look up the reference. Once I did, only rubies would do, although I used garnets for contrast. She still had the headdress, so I matched the colours.”
“She wanted a piece of jewellery of the same design?” John asked.
“No, she wanted a music-box ballerina, essentially,” Maria explained, “although not in a box, but on a pedestal under a removable crystal dome. And not only the ballerina.”
“Go on, describe it to us, then,” John said recognising her obvious desire to do so. Sherlock glanced at him.
“The figures were enamel on gold, one the ballet dancer, who remains stationary, except for his arms moving when the ballerina reaches him after pirouetting on a track from the other side of the square pedestal. When she reaches him, his open arms close at her waist and then a rod raises the ballerina figure and his arms rise with her so it looks like he is lifting her. When he puts her down, she pirouettes in place and then glides back across to her starting position.”
“Did you do the clockwork for it?” Sherlock asked. John was surprised by the intensity of his focus.
“No. There is a master watchmaker for whom I sometimes make cases. He provided the mechanical parts. The music I subcontracted from Switzerland because I wanted a much longer excerpt than the usual music box mechanism would play,” Maria explained.
“The one figure would need multiple sections,” Sherlock commented.
“Oh, there was more. You will understand better when you watch the ballet. The skirt of the costume is made to look like petals and they puff out when the ballerina twirls.”
“You did this with metal?” John asked.
“Like a Faberge egg,” Sherlock commented.
“It was beautiful. More like an antique than a modern piece,” Huysman said and smiled. “I admired it even if I couldn’t convince her to use diamonds.”
“I suppose it’s in a private collection,” Sherlock said.
“Yes, but I have photos,” Maria explained.
“It’s not the same. It was lovely to see the movement. Photographs are better than only the memory of it though,” Huysman added.
“It’s what it was though,” Maria said. “This woman had kept a vivid memory of meeting this handsome dancer after a performance and his asking her to pirouette for him and then lifting her in the air. For more than sixty years it had stayed alive in her mind and she asked me to turn it into something tangible for her.”
“Why then? Had the dancer died?” Sherlock asked.
“No, he’s still alive. An éminence grise in the ballet world. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him,” Maria said.
“Modern,” Huysman supplied. Sherlock nodded.
“His later works are more frequently performed, especially The Curator, often the two versions of it as a set,” Maria continued.
John hummed a polite interrogatory.
“It was choreographed so the protagonist could be danced by either a ballerina or a ballet dancer, the other parts altered accordingly.”
“Why would they need to be altered?” Sherlock asked.
“It was the late 50s,” Maria explained. “It caused quite a stir when it made its debut as it was.” She smiled. “I researched the choreographer before beginning the piece; I became quite an admirer.”
John nodded. “Not as much as the patron though.”
Maria shook her head. “No. She named her only child after him.” John raised his eyebrows. The first notes of the overture sounded. “This was his first work. See what you think,” she whispered and leaned back in her seat.
****
Sherlock hooked his fingernail under the tiny snake’s head and pulled the pin from the silver coils of the brooch at Maria’s shoulder. He caught the metal rings as they fell apart.
“They’re much easier to take apart, than they are to put together,” Maria murmured, her eyes still on John as the scarf covering her left breast drifted diagonally to her waist. She settled more of her weight against Sherlock’s chest, as if she might sink through the multiple layers of cloth separating them.
Sherlock dropped the silver rings and the pin into his trouser pocket and turned his attention to the brooch on Maria’s right shoulder. “Some symbolism there?” he asked.
“Undoing is so much easier,” she said. Sherlock glanced at John before he drew out the second pin.
John remained lounging back on the sofa, the black of his evening jacket stark against the white suede cushions. He took a sip of his brandy as the second scarf fell. A slow, sly smile curved his lips. “Easier perhaps, but not easy. Not when well done,” he said.
Sherlock dropped bits of curled leopard into his pocket along with the second pin and smiled.
“Wouldn’t you like to try one, Jay?” Sherlock asked, dropping down to one knee behind Maria and focussing on one of the brooches at her waist. Maria lifted an arm and peered beneath it at Sherlock. All she could see of him was an elbow and part of a long thigh.
“No,” John replied, “I’ll leave the puzzles to you. You leave the undoing to me.”
Maria lowered her arm and looked back at John. “Isn’t that a puzzle, too?” she asked.
Sherlock loosened another pin. The links tinkled as they fell into his palm. The scarf falling to the dark, polished wood of the floor made no sound at all. He shifted to Maria’s side, his head bumping her bare arm. She raised it higher. Her hand curved. John watched her decide not to let it settle in Sherlock’s hair. It remained aloft, in an inadvertent gesture of invitation.
“No, it can be a song of sighs or a dance of wills,” John said as another scarf drifted to the floor, revealing a smooth thigh above a dark, grey stocking. “One listens for the tempo in the blood. Reads the lyrics in the flashing of an eye.”
John moved to the edge of the sofa, leaned forward enough to brush his lips over the warm skin above the stocking, turned his head and rested his cheek there. He looked up at Maria’s face as Sherlock drew out another pin and a fourth scarf floated away. The pin dropped. Sherlock glanced down and caught John’s eyes. John closed them and slid his hand around the bared rounded hip. Maria drew in her breath. Sherlock picked up the pin and stood, stepped behind Maria and undid the remaining pins in three swift moves.
“You’ve solved them all,” Maria murmured.
A scarf settled on John’s shoulder. He slipped his fingertips under the narrow band of dark lace it lay bare. Maria let her hand rest on John’s hair.
There was a faint tinkling of metal. “Their parts are interchangeable,” Sherlock said, clearly pleased that the puzzles weren’t yet solved.
“Only some,” Maria replied and turned her head to try to see, but Sherlock stood with his back to hers. She leaned against it and shivered. John’s hands smoothed up her back and his mouth closed over the soft swell of her stomach.
Sherlock fastened the last loops of metal with the cobra-head pin. “There,” he said.
“Yes, there,” Maria echoed, tilting her hips against John’s mouth. She reached back with one hand and clutched Sherlock’s thigh. “Just there,” she breathed and her other hand caressed John’s head.
Sherlock made a fist over the reassembled silver knots.
Maria’s back arched, her head rolling between Sherlock’s shoulder blades, her nails scratching against the cloth of his trousers. John's hands splayed on her hips. Sherlock reached around Maria, the fingers of one hand slotting between John’s, the fingers of the other closing over Maria’s hand on his thigh. Sherlock felt them both tense at the same time. He held them until they relaxed.
John fell back against the sofa. Steadying Maria with a hand on her arm, Sherlock turned and bent, his arms catching Maria behind the knees, lifting her. “We should tuck you in,” he said and Maria’s arm came up around his shoulder. “Early day tomorrow. Bedroom to the left, I believe,” Sherlock said.
“Mm,” Maria murmured, rubbing her face against his arm and curling her body towards his chest.
John gazed at them, Maria bronze against the white of Sherlock’s shirt, her skin glowing against the linen and silk, her hair loose over Sherlock’s arm. Performance art. “Jay, you might want to turn down the covers,” Sherlock said.
Sherlock lay Maria down. Her arms slipped from around his neck. She stretched against the dove grey sheets, smiling up at him. He set the silver knots on the night table, reached for the covers John had pulled back and drew them over her.
“Stay,” she said.
“Dream about all the different ways the links can be put together,” he replied and stood, taking a step back from the bed.
“I already know,” she said.
“Do you?” Sherlock asked.
“Jay,” she called, but didn’t take her eyes off of Sherlock.
John walked around from the bottom of the bed, tracing his palm over the coverlet from her foot up to her shoulder. He leaned down to kiss her. “Stay,” she murmured when he released her lips.
“How well do you know Mr da Costa’s boat?” John asked.
“Perfectly,” Maria answered, small furrows wrinkling her brow. “Oh,” she said, shaking her head against the pillow, her eyes bright. “All three of us would never be able to sneak away.” She sighed. “It’s a pleasing thought though.” She turned to look at Sherlock from beneath John’s bent figure. “Very well, then. Until tomorrow.” She rolled onto her stomach and tossed her hair away from her face. John’s eyes moved down the curve of her back and rested his hand on the swell of her buttocks. “So, beauty sleep tonight,” she said and smiled as John slowly drew his hand away.
She shifted her gaze to Sherlock. “How well you understand tempo, Johannes. You almost tick,” she said, “like a metronome…or a water clock...or a cooling engine.” Her eyes flickered rapidly over him. “I will think,” she said, “of how to sculpt you…what substances would suit you.” She paused.
John thought that she, too, understood tempo. He saw her observing the hint of interest developing on Sherlock’s face.
“A tangled skein of glass tubes…” she said, her eyes fixed on Sherlock’s, “holding mercury.” Her gaze drifted towards John. “Sensitive to heat… like an old-fashioned thermometer.” She looked up towards the ceiling. “Ideally, spectators could interact by touching. It would be wonderful. They would reach out with their warm hands.” Maria drew in a breath, looked at John. “But the curls and loops require the tubes to be fine. They would be too delicate for so much contact.” She regarded Sherlock again. “The whole construct must be encased in glass, warmed only by the air and the lights that play over it, spanning the spectrum of colours in your eyes.”
Maria closed hers, her breathing very steady. John would have thought her falling asleep, but that she was still up on her elbows.
“For Jay,” she said slowly, “a floor of basalt polygons of different heights, the spaces between them veined with red and yellow gold…a rock face of rectangular basalt extrusions on one side.” She opened her eyes, fixed them on Sherlock again. “Streaked with iron oxide like dried blood,” she finished and turned to John.
John clenched his fist and looked back.
“Something strong for Jay; something fragile for me,” Sherlock said and John wondered if he was offended.
Maria turned her head and looked back up at Sherlock. “I’d make the tubes of diamond, if I could,” she replied and Sherlock almost smiled.
“Yes, I will think on this, on you both. You can see yourselves out, I trust.” She lay her head down on her pillow. “Rest well, gentlemen.”
***
“You’re washing me again,” John commented in the shower. Sherlock turned him around and started scrubbing his back. “Rather like you do your lab equipment.”
Sherlock paused. “You’re not equipment,” he said and resumed lathering.
“No, but I think you are sterilising.”
***
It was such a simple challenge. Not easily met, but simple. John saw the attraction as he leaned back against the line. On the other end, something was struggling for its freedom. Its life. John was tempted to let go, give the creature the slack which might allow it to wriggle free, but that wasn’t who Jay was. He was a harder man. John’s deadly edge given broader range. John leaned back further, increased the pressure on the line.
“You felt it,” Teo said. John didn’t look to the side, but there was no tension in Teo’s voice. His line would still be slack. “I saw you hesitate.” John spared the merest flick of his gaze away from the dark grey water, glimpsed the binoculars Teo held. “Don’t hesitate. I saw the dorsal fin.” John only saw the roiling water beneath which the fish thrashed.
Maria turned her eyes away from John and looked along Sherlock’s reclining form. “You are comfortable on the sea,” she said, resting her hand on Sherlock’s shoulder.
“As are you,” Sherlock replied, without looking up.
“I should be,” she replied. “I grew up coming for weekend trips on Tio’s boat with my father.”
“A courtesy, not an actual relative,” Sherlock said.
“True, but I have no actual uncles and Tio Teo and my father have been friends since they were boys. I used to sing it when I was little and wanted something,” Maria said. “Tio Teo, Tio Teo,” she sang under her breath.
“You were indulged.”
“By Papa and his parents and Tio Teo,” Maria answered, smiling. “Mama had to be the disciplinarian when she was around. It wasn’t an easy role to play when she came home. She travelled a lot.”
Sherlock didn’t ask. He’d found the obituary for Maria Morsten’s mother, a mezzo-soprano of note, killed in an auto accident outside Marrakech, three years before.
“You chose not to use her name.”
“I wanted to make my own,” Maria replied.
“So you use only your father’s,” he stated.
Maria shook her head. The shadow of her hair skimmed over the page of Sherlock's sketchbook. “Not exactly. My father’s mother.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it?” Maria asked.
“You want me to be interested because you want to tell me why,” Sherlock said, laying his pencil on the paper. He stretched, tilting his head back and looking up at her.
Maria avoided his eyes, staring instead at the curve of his throat. “Sinuous,” she whispered, “serpentine.” Sherlock’s lips turned up slightly. “She was brave.” Maria bent lower and spoke even more softly. “With a story of a dead husband, but not a word of Portuguese to tell it in and a little stowaway in her belly, she immigrated alone after the war.”
“Your father.”
Maria nodded. “My grandpapa fell in love with her, baby and all. They were married before Papa was born.”
“He knew?”
“I told you my grandmother was brave.”
“So Morstan is the name of the dead ‘husband’?”
Maria shook her head again. “It was her maiden name, which made the dead husband story even more tenuous. She never divulged his name, but among the many tales she told me as I was growing up, I would sometimes hear a note of fondness about some detail or other and I used to think it was an echo of him.”
“Is this why you like the number three?” Sherlock asked.
Maria straightened, looked out towards the water. “Maybe.”
“Probably why you like mystery,” he said, his voice deeper, a hint of a chuckle in it.
The sound brought Maria back. “Perhaps,” she murmured. “Show me what you’re sketching,” she added in a more conversational tone.
“Yes, show us,” Huysman said, approaching them with the stems of three wine glasses twined between his fingers. “Luncheon will be ready soon.”
Maria turned quickly enough to catch Huysman’s gaze trailing down the slope of Sherlock’s raised leg to his hips. She reached out for a glass. Huysman held his full hands out with a smile and a slight shake of his head. Sherlock held up his sketchpad. “A design of your own?” Maria asked.
“Not this one,” Sherlock said, taking a glass from Huysman. “Restoration can entail more than repair. Some pieces are recreations from photos or paintings, even descriptions in diaries or thank you notes.” Maria raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes just from the client’s recollections.” He took a sip of the wine, held it in his mouth a moment before swallowing and nodding at Huysman. “Lost jewels can haunt a family. The recreation is like an exorcism.” Sherlock took another sip, held it longer. Maria watched Huysman’s eyes move from Sherlock’s mouth to his throat as he swallowed.
“I thought you might like it,” Huysman said.
“’06,” Sherlock remarked. “Did you get it at the auction?”
Huysman smiled. “Just before,” he replied, flaunting his connections.
Sherlock nodded. “Not fish for lunch, then.” He lowered his knee, crossed his legs at the ankles. Maria and Huysman both seemed intrigued by the fine bones in the long, bare feet. Huysman’s smile broadened. “Vegetarian. I brought the spices.” He brought his eyes back to Sherlock’s face, remained caught in the steady gaze he met there. “Exotic,” he added.
Loud thumps reverberated through the boat. They all looked towards the water. John and Teo both had John’s line, were straining back against it. “Fish for dinner, I believe,” Huysman said. He handed his wine glass to Maria. “Would you mind? I think I’ll lend a hand.”
Marie took a drink of her wine. “I should have realised at the ballet,” she murmured, “he’s showing off for you.”
“And Jay’s showing off for you,” Sherlock said, gesturing towards the others with his glass.
Maria laughed. “Only Tio really wants the fish.”
The shark thrashed against the deck. Its jaws held shut by loops of nylon rope, its tail not yet secured in another. Sherlock saw John’s hand start to reach behind his back before he caught himself. He glanced at Sherlock and shrugged.
Teo approached the table, beaming at his guests. “Two metres,” he said, “a hundred kilos. Bull shark. Adult male. A wonderful catch, Jay. If you lived here I could send you the steaks to freeze.” He raised his glass at John. “At least I can send you the photos.”
“A team effort,” John said, looking at Teo and then Huysman, glass in hand.
“It will be a team effort to eat it for dinner,” Teo said, still smiling. “Murilo can do wonders with shark.” Teo took a deep breath. “He has done wonders already today, I can tell. Something new, I think.”
Huysman cleared his throat. “I interfered with the menu, I’m afraid. It’s an old favourite of mine. Murilo was very charming about it.”
“You must have bribed him well. He’s more likely to throw a cleaver at you for suggesting such a thing,” Teo said. “Come, let us eat or he might throw one still if we let his food get cold.”
****
In the helicopter, Maria and John sat side by side, conversing as quietly as the rotors permitted about the theme of the Biennial exhibit, interrupting themselves from time to time to watch the lights of the coastline slip by in the dark. Next to Sherlock, Huysman seemed beset by e-mails and Sherlock appeared to doze. John didn’t need to check more than once to know that was not so.
As they descended from the helipad, Huysman gave his apologies. “I very much regret that I shall not be with you tomorrow evening. I have to leave tonight, I’m afraid.” John thought the sigh that followed the statement sincere.
Huysman held the elevator when they reached the parking garage. “I’ll be back before the exhibit is over though. I’ll see your pieces.”
“There may be a few other artists’ work that you might care to glance at,” she said, laughing.
“None with your talent,” he replied and kissed her hand.
“None with your diamonds,” she countered lightly.
He turned to John and shook his hand. “It’s been a pleasure, Jay,” he said and extended his arm towards Sherlock. John noted the slight hesitation when he took Sherlock’s hand, as though he would rather have lifted it to his lips than grasp it. “The stones should be ready tomorrow afternoon.”
“So soon?” Sherlock said, sounding mildly pleased.
“I…They’ll be delivered to your hotel. Their security is excellent. Other clients have kept diamonds in their safe while here. Contact the office if the gems do not satisfy in every particular. I do hope I can be of service in the future,” he finished, finally letting go of Sherlock’s hand.
Sherlock held Huysman’s eyes for a moment and inclined his head. “I hope so, too,” Sherlock said without a glimmer of irony. John focussed on a point over Huysman’s shoulder and still the flush on the man’s face was obvious. John didn’t think it sat well on someone of his mature years, but age was clearly no defence.
***
The steel mesh gate slid up silently. Sherlock manoeuvred the car around the cement pillars beneath Maria’s apartment building. “Come up,” she said as Sherlock approached the elevator. He drove past it, glided into a parking space. John heard Maria exhale when Sherlock turned off the motor, heard her draw it back in when he opened the car door and strode towards the elevator without another word. John pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the back door for Maria. He concluded that whatever she and Sherlock had been talking about on the boat, hadn’t sated his curiosity. Maria threaded her arm through John’s as they followed. She smelt of cocoa butter and salty air. The elevator doors opened and Sherlock slipped inside. John wondered whether Sherlock would go up without them, crack Maria’s state-of-the-art security system while they caught up.
The elevator seemed empty at first. John heard the impatient tapping of a shoe and looked to the side. Sherlock moved a finger and the doors slid shut, tapped another and they rose. He lounged against the buttons. John leaned against the opposite wall with Maria, regarding Sherlock’s profile and Maria’s reflection in the mirror behind Sherlock. Her eyes were on him. Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. Maria’s eyes tracked the motion.
The elevator stopped. Sherlock didn’t move. John shoved a hand against the open door before it closed again, ushered Maria into the corridor. After a few paces, Sherlock followed.
Maria entered the code incorrectly the first time. The tapping was loud in the empty hallway, Sherlock’s fingernails against the wall this time. When the door swung opened, he pushed past them. Maria threw a bolt across the closed door. Sherlock was disappearing into Maria’s bedroom when they reached the sitting room, shoes left on the hall floor. Maria glanced at John, pulled him closer and along with her. She nudged the half-open door wide.
Sherlock stood by the bed, barefoot with his back towards them, jacket on the floor beside him, from his forearms, his sleeves dangled, open cuffs flapping as he moved. John glanced at Maria; she didn’t look back. Sherlock pulled the tails of his shirt from his trousers, undid something at his waist, turned and flung himself on the bed. He regarded them both silently for a moment and opened his arms.
Weary of the coquettish act or impatient for something more?
Maria disentangled her arm and walked forward slowly. John pushed the door shut behind him, dropped his jacket on a chair, stepped out of his shoes, and followed, unbuckling as he went. He leaned forward to grab her shoes as Maria crawled up onto the bed. Sherlock had lowered his arms. They rested atop the large pillows either side of him. He glanced over Maria’s shoulder at John, tilted his head towards her. John reached up and eased her jacket off her shoulders. She sat up on her knees when she felt him tug on the garment. Once it was gone, she leaned down again, her hands on Sherlock's legs this time, sliding forward as she edged closer on her knees. He lifted an arm again, rested it on her shoulder and guided her until she sat between his legs, settling against his chest. She turned her head to look up at Sherlock. He tapped a finger against the side of her chin and fluttered a few fingers at John. Maria turned to watch as John drew off his belt and let it drop before pulling the navy polo shirt over his head. Her hands smoothed down Sherlock’s thighs and back up, dragging her nails over the cloth. Methodically, Sherlock was undoing the buttons of Maria’s dress. John had always thought dresses with fastenings down to the hem were rather a tease. He smiled as Sherlock’s fingers continued slipping the small white buttons free. John’s hands stilled at his waist, watching. Sherlock scowled. John made short work of the rest of his clothes and started undoing from the bottom the remaining tiny buttons.
***
Maria’s hand closed around Sherlock’s wrist before he reached the edge of the bed. “Stay tonight,” she whispered.
“I’ll be back,” he murmured and slipped out of bed.
He was wrapped in a sheet from her linen cupboard, hair still damp from the shower, when he eased back into bed. Maria’s hand slid around his chest and tugged him closer. He shifted until her cheek nestled between his shoulder blades and her hand had gone lax over his chest.
Maria stopped half-way to the kitchen. “You didn’t go back to sleep, did you?” she asked, squinting into the early morning gloom of the sitting room.
Sherlock looked away from the phone resting on his chest. “No,” he answered, nudging the flash drive by his side under a fold of his sheet.
“Do you want some water?” she asked. The light from the refrigerator brightened the hallway for a moment.
“No,” Sherlock said.
“Will you sleep more?” Maria asked, walking back into the sitting room, water bottle in hand.
“Maybe,” Sherlock replied.
“Come back to bed, if you do. My right side is cold.”
Twenty minutes later, Sherlock tucked the memory stick he had filled with the contents of her laptop into one of his jacket pockets as he bent down to slip back into bed. He touched Maria’s shoulder. It was cold. Sherlock pulled the covers up higher.
****
“Careful, we’re going to push him right off the bed in his sleep,” Maria whispered.
John reached out and grasped Sherlock’s buttock. “Better?” he murmured into Maria’s hair, rocking gently against her and pulling Sherlock tight against her back.
“You two are like lemmings,” Sherlock grumbled.
“Awake,” Maria murmured.
“Rabbits,” John corrected.
“Lemmings are the ones that go over the cliff, Jay,” Sherlock insisted and shoved them all towards the middle of the bed.
John was impressed that even half-asleep Sherlock got the name right. Unless he had already been awake. “Right,” John conceded, finding a gap in Sherlock’s sheet and smoothing his hand over the bare skin he found. Sherlock’s hips thrust forward.
“Ah,” Maria sighed, “I knew staying in bed longer would have a salutary effect.” She circled her hips as much as the pressure from both sides permitted.
“It’s just the morning effect,” Sherlock stated. One of John’s fingers insinuated itself between firm muscles and Sherlock ground against Maria again.
She reached up with one arm and curled her hand behind Sherlock’s neck. “Sure?” she asked, pulling his head down and outlining a figure-eight with her hips.
Sherlock buried his nose in Maria’s hair. “Honey,” he said and took an experimental lick along the top of her ear. Her nails scraped gently over his scalp and Sherlock tried a nip. Head still tipped back, eyes closed, her hips found a rhythm. John thrust harder. Sherlock peered over Maria’s shoulder. John’s body was pressed too firmly against her to see anything beyond the swell of her breasts. Sherlock slid his hand from her hip, between her belly and John’s, searching. They both drew in breath. Maria exhaled with a soft sound, arched her neck further back against Sherlock’s shoulder. The sound John made was lower, his next thrust stronger, the one after, faster.
Sherlock hadn’t found what he was searching for; he tried to pull away before something irreversible occurred. John's arm locked firmly across Sherlock’s back, holding him in place as John thrust upwards. When he reached Sherlock’s fingers, he shouted into the pillow above Maria’s head.
Sherlock's sigh of relief gusted across Maria’s cheek. John loosened his grip, rolled onto his back. Sherlock pulled a corner of his sheet over Maria’s abdomen, his fingers smoothing gently over the moistening cloth.
***
John strolled through the undulating white galleries, stopping more often than he had anticipated he would to consider some of the installations. Perhaps it was the theme of the exhibition that drew him. The mere word. Constellation, had an appeal for him, but he also saw it, how the artwork within the groupings affected one another, creating a different meaning when viewed together than apart. Like the way you and I alter one another’s meanings, Sherlock, John thought.
He had stepped closer to the railing to bypass the cluster of people in the next bay when he heard Maria’s voice. In English, she said, “This piece was originally commissioned for a private collection. Among my terms and conditions is a stipulation that if a piece isn’t collected after two years, I may exhibit it publicly.” John edged into a space by a column near the front of the semi-circle around Maria, who seemed to be repeating herself in Portuguese. “That usually brings the owner round.” Maria smiled and a few people chuckled.
“And if it doesn’t?” one of her audience enquired.
Maria translated the question into Portuguese and answered in both languages. “After four more years, ownership reverts to me.”
“Did you work to the patron’s specifications or is the design yours?” another asked.
Someone leaned towards their companion and John got an unobstructed view of the sculpture. He wondered whether that was the right word for what he saw.
“This was an interesting mixture,” Maria explained, stepping to the side of the platform on which the work sat. “The patron and I would speak by telephone at first and he explained that he wanted essentially an urn for the ashes of two people.”
“So the title, Reliquary, isn’t symbolic,” a young woman with sleek, purple hair said.
“Not really. Of course, a reliquary traditionally held a body part rather than ashes and the relic was usually of a saint, but I had a sense that the other person the urn was for was revered, so it seemed appropriate,” Maria replied.
People were crowding closer and John went with them. “So it was for the patron and someone else?”
“This is what I understood,” Maria replied.
“But you don’t know who?” a tall man asked.
“I only have the initials and even one set of those is not clear. Let me show you,” Maria said and pointed at the front of the reliquary. “As you see, the container is shaped, as many tombs were, like a bed, only without any human figures lying on top.”
“The coverlet is disturbed. Is that amethyst?” a young girl asked. John glanced at her and saw the blush on her cheek.
“No, the stone is called Blue John. This particular kind is only mined in England. It does appear similar to amethyst, but it is a different mineral. Using it was one of the specifications,” Maria said.
“The folds are beautiful, but it looks rather like an unmade bed,” a young man observed.
“Indeed,” Maria replied. “You have spotted another of the patron’s specifications. He wanted the bed to look…” Maria paused, glancing towards the ceiling for an instant, “…slept in.”
From the tenor of the murmurs, John decided most of the listeners had understood the implication, some people craning their necks to get a better view.
“Now the initials, I mentioned,” Maria continued, pointing. “You see here the oval with the letter J and the one with the letter M.” People hummed assent. “Watch,” she said and with the edge of her nail pried the second oval out, like the stem of a watch, rotated it and tapped it back in. “Now it’s a W.
There was a buzz from the audience. John glanced back and saw a few more people had joined the group.
“For a wife who hadn’t taken her husband’s name?” an older man suggested.
Maria raised her hands, palms up. “I don’t know. This was an instruction, but the other initials don’t match either letter, you see.” She pushed a button and the platform slowly turned. “The initials on the back, beneath the headboard, as it were, don’t change.”
The lettering was ornate and John couldn’t see them clearly from where he stood.
“Ess, haitch,” someone read out.
“Exactly,” Maria said.
John felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He pulled out his phone. Second level. East side. Small crowd. You need to see this.
***
Click here for the conclusion of Reliquary.
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Sunday 10 March 2013
Date: 2013-03-11 12:51 am (UTC)