Sally Donovan can't quite believe what she's hearing. Sherlock is offering to demonstrate that he can give her a touchless orgasm. In a locked room. Where no one will ever know if she says yes. She's not sure whether to curse her luck or send it a gift basket. "You're kidding, right?"

Sherlock cocks his head. "Do you want me to be kidding?"

She can't decide how she wants to answer that. After the silence stretches to ridiculous lengths, he breaks it on her behalf. "If you don't believe I can do it, then you can prove once and for all that I'm a deluded egotistical prat. That would be its own satisfaction, I'm sure you'd agree."

How does he do that, where he makes it seem like it's the best thing for her if she lets him get his way? It would be lovely to at long last prove him wrong. It would be equally lovely to prove him right. Her thought process is a tad fuzzy at the moment, but it seems this is a no-lose proposition. "All right, do your worst. I just honestly don't see how something like that is possible. Seriously."

"Look at it this way: what's the most important sex organ?"

"My vagina?"

"No."

"I don't know, I think my vagina's pretty important."

"Yes, I'm sure it is, but your brain is even more important."

"Oooh, right. Of course."

"And I can touch your mind any time I wish. I can ravish your mind. All the things that frighten and arouse and enrage you are jumbled up in a tight knot in your head. To me they're all the same, the pressure points of your id."

"Sherlock, at this rate you're going to make me sleep, not come," she says, and starts giggling all over again, because this is probably the funniest thing she's ever said. She belatedly worries that this might hurt his feelings.

But it's all good, because he thinks she's funny, too. He's definitely laughing as he gets off the bed and goes to the closet, then takes his stupid prissy scarf off the hanger and wraps it around his fists to test it for give.

"What are you doing?" she asks him curiously.

"You really hate this scarf, don't you? I can see it in your face every time I put in on or take it off. It represents everything you detest about me, my arrogance and callousness and so forth."

This makes her sound so petty that Sally can't admit he's right. "It's a very nice scarf," she says with a self-absolving shrug.

"Mm, yes. But the scarf isn't going to be so nice tonight."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I need you to sit up on your knees now, that's a good girl. Now give me your hands."

He ties the scarf around her wrists then loops the rest of it through the wrought-iron accent piece on the top of the headboard. He pulls the other end of the scarf tight and holds it there. "Lie back," he tells her. She obeys, and he lowers her down until her bound hands are touching the headboard and her feet are tucked securely under her bum. Which of course serves up everything between her legs to him like it's on a platter. She breaks out into a fine sweat; nobody makes her sweat like Sherlock Holmes.

"There!" He sits back, hands on his knees. "How does that make you feel?"

She swallows. "Embarrassed. Excited."

"Exactly." He bounds to the bathroom and returns with a pair of fingernail scissors. He leans over her and begins to painstakingly snip her knickers off her. She holds her breath and perhaps arches her back, but he's careful not to touch her skin. "I could've just had you take them off, but I'm cutting them to ribbons instead. Ruining them. How does that make you feel?"

"Angry. Excited."

He smiles as though this is exactly the answer he expected and tosses what's left of her underwear onto the floor beside the bed. Then he brings his full attention back to her, sitting cross-legged in front of her open legs. She's naked from the waist down, tied up, her feet tucked under her, helpless. Now she's just excited, no other emotion. Excited and excited. She can't even breathe.

She waits in an agony of anticipation to find out what he's going to do next. What can he possibly say to bring her over the edge of her self-control? What insights into her soul is he going to expose? Suddenly she doesn't want to know. She shouldn't have said yes to this. She squirms, but the scarf is tied in some elaborate knot that won't budge. It's much too late, and much too early, for the full spectrum of regret building in the pit of her stomach.

Sherlock taps his index finger against his lips, pondering. "I wonder what Lestrade is doing right now," he says to no one in particular.

She doesn't respond to this and, in fact, makes her face go completely neutral even as her muscles bunch. She has a feeling this is a rhetorical question.

Her expressionless expression somehow doesn't fool him. "I wonder what he'd think of all this if he could see us right now. What he'd think of you, tied up, with your knickers long gone."

She's never told anyone about her crush on her immediate supervisor, never indicated in any way that her feelings for him veer crazily toward inappropriate. It's a secret she's locked carefully away, and Sherlock has pulled it from her like a plastic toy from a Crackerjack box. "Don't," she whispers, staring straight up at the ceiling.

He ignores her. "Do you think he'd untie the scarf and rescue you? Or would you prefer that he lock the door and take a turn with you instead? I wonder what exactly he'd do to you if he knew he could get away with it."

"Please don't." She knows she's begging him, not for the first time today, and that it won't do a bit of good, and he's going to keep talking, and she feels the insides of her thighs turn wet and sticky. This doesn't escape his attention, much to her everlasting mortification.

He continues, his tone impersonal. "Would you oblige him, Sergeant Donovan, when he asks you to open your mouth just a bit wider? When he bends you over? When he gets a little rougher than you'd like?"

She's panting now, tears in her eyes. She doesn't say anything this time, because she's afraid she'll say yes, yes, yes.

"Or perhaps he'd like to join me. There's enough of you to go around, isn't there, Sally? One of us on each end? Oh, the fun we'd have. Not that we'd need your permission. He and I could take turns holding you down, couldn't we?"

She's dizzy with need now, this verbalization of every dirty fantasy she's ever nursed – and some she hasn't even thought of – wracking her body like the precise lashes of a whip. She closes her eyes and rides his voice as he describes in graphic details all the things Sherlock Holmes and DI Lestrade might do to her if they set their minds to it. This is worse than the cab. Much worse. She strains against the air, tortured by the absence of physical release. Now she understands why he tied her hands – so she can't touch herself.

She's weak and shaking, throbbing with unmet desire, when she interrupts his soliloquy on the benefits of the two of them servicing her, front and back, in the hotel shower. "Wait. Stop. What exactly is supposed to happen to me here? What are you aiming for? Because I really, really need to know."

He blinks. "Well, your body is finally going to get so aroused that even the slightest pressure on your genitals, an exhaled breath, your nightgown brushing against you, even the rhythmic clenching of your thighs, will finally set you off."

She moans. "And how long do you think that's going to take?"

"I dunno. A couple of hours maybe."

"A couple of hours?" Sally squawks. "A couple of hours? I can't take this for that long. I can't take this another second . You've got to do something. Prove something else to me, you idiot!"

He doesn't even have to think about it. "Sure! How about we change it to how many seconds it takes you to have an orgasm during sex with me? I guarantee under thirty. How does that sound?"

She lets out a ragged sob of relief, she can't help it. "Yes. Yes, please."

He pulls his pajama bottoms off with a flourish and dashes them to the floor beside her knickers. He joins her on the bed, extremely and undeniably ready to perform to his utmost capacity. "Do you want me to untie the scarf or...?"

"Leave it!" she barks at him. "Get on! Get on!"

He pulls her legs out from under her and hooks her feet over each of his shoulders. The implication of this is almost too much for Sally to bear. His skin is cool against her overwhelming heat. They make eye contact and both of them freeze. "Don't fall in love with me, Sally," he tells her in all seriousness.

He's unbelievable to the very end. "Shut up and fuck me, Sherlock. I mean now."

"Very well. I'll keep count of how long it takes you. Ready?" She is so very beyond ready, and her body jerks when he thrusts into her as hard as she could ever hope for. "One thousand one," he says, and that's as far as he gets before she completely falls apart. He's methodical and merciless, and he finally has to cover her mouth so the neighbours don't call the front desk again because of the noise she makes. He attempts to add up the number of times she comes, but decides it's too difficult to determine when one ends and the next one begins. Unsurprisingly, he's well in control of his own body and Sally is battered and barely conscious by the time he finishes with her.

They collapse on the bed, arms and legs and scarf tangled together. They slowly grin at each other. He reaches up and frees her hands. "That was amazing," she tells him.

"Told you so," he replies.

"I'm seriously dying of thirst. Is there any pop left?"

There is, and they both gulp the remainder of that, then fill the bottles with water from the tap and chug that down, too. They sprawl out on their backs on the bed, fingertips touching, catching their breath. It's the nicest moment she's ever had with him.

They lie in silence for a while, when Sally's attention is slowly drawn to the little red light on the smoke detector by the door. It's beautiful, really, like a miniature supernova. She's mildly interested when it starts to expand, spilling over until it fills her vision. Her body is heavy, so heavy that even the thought of moving is impossible to contemplate. Her arms are mountains, her legs, continents. Her eyes flutter shut, although the red remains.

She doesn't care in the least when she hears a key slip into the lock of their door and the deadbolt slides out of the way.

/

Sally thinks she might be on her way to heaven. Everything is white and she's floating along inside what is possibly clouds. The journey is unreasonably bumpy, and rather smelly for the afterlife. At one point her stomach lurches, and heaven's angels ding a bell three times. This is extraordinarily baffling, but it doesn't matter in the end because even though Sally tries her hardest to fight it, her mind fades to black like an old Hollywood movie.

She has no idea how much time has passed when she finally awakens. She's most definitely not in heaven and is in, in fact, a laundry room. There's an industrial-sized washer and dryer across the room, a chute aimed above a mountain of crumpled white sheets and towels, and a row of detergents and such neatly lined up on a shelf. There's also a wheeled maid's cart for transporting soiled linens and, she suspects, herself. Good; she is almost certainly still in the hotel.

That's where the good news ends. She's lying on a metal table probably used for folding towels, her hands and feet bound with thin plastic ties that cruelly bite into her skin. She tries to wriggle into a sitting position, but she's so dizzy she can't even make it to her knees. She is well and truly screwed. She struggles to pull the plastic ties apart with all her strength, but it's obvious she isn't going anywhere. She's wet with sweat, her heart racing. What does he have planned for her in this room? And what the hell is she going to do now? When the only door in the room suddenly opens, she flinches as hard as the plastic ties will allow.

It's Mrs. Guyford. Sally's never been so glad to see someone in her life. "Mrs. Guyford, hurry! You have to get me out of here before your husband comes back." Her voice is slurred, like she's gotten freezing at the dentist's.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Holmes," Mrs. Guyford says soothingly. "He's on the sofa, sleeping off all that whiskey he drank after tea."

"Fantastic. Cut these off me and I'll call the police."

"We don't need the police, my love. We can take of this all by ourselves."

At first Sally thinks this means Mrs. Guyford is going to rescue her and possibly spirit her away, but then she belatedly becomes aware of the roll of duct tape that Mrs. Guyford is carrying. Sally's stomach twists as the truth sinks in: Guy Guyford is not the one Sally should be afraid of. "What did you do to me?" she demands.

"I've just given you something to make you a wee bit more manageable."

Sally know from her entire career as a cop what this means for her fate. "You don't have to do this, Mrs. Guyford. It's not too late – you can still let me go. I won't tell anyone." How many times has she heard these words in victim statements? She knows full well that you can't bargain with the devil.

"Let you go? After all the work it took to get you down here? Not likely."

Sally lets her head fall onto the steel table. It's cold against her skin. "Why are you doing this?" Sally asks her softly. "Why?"

Mrs. Guyford pats her cheek. "My dear, this is for your own good. When you married him I know you thought you could fix him, but you can't. He's just going to get worse and worse. The slaps will turn into punches, and the punches will turn into kicks. He's going to make your life hell. Trust me, this is better."

Sally can't believe her ears. "What are you saying? You're going to kill me because my husband might abuse me?" She doesn't say that's fucking crazy, but she thinks it.

Mrs. Guyford tears a piece of duct tape off the roll with her teeth. "I'm not killing you, Mrs. Holmes. I'm saving you."

"I'll leave him. Let me go and I'll leave him right now, tonight."

"That's what you say. But even if you leave him, you'll just come crawling back. You always do."

"Look," Sally says. "There's something I have to tell you. I'm a police officer."

"You are, are you?"

"Yes. We know about the other women, and my partner and I were here to find out what happened to them."

"You were, were you?"

"Stop saying that! Yes, we were."

"And that would be the same partner I found naked in bed with you? That's not what the police usually do on a stakeout, is it?"

Sally cringes. "You're right, I slept with him. But it was because of whatever drug you gave us." It really was! It all makes sense now.

"That's enough nonsense," Mrs. Guyford tells her firmly. "We're wasting time."

"Why don't you just kill the husbands?" Sally asks with despair.

"They can't help it, love. They promise and promise they'll change, but they just can't. It's the way they're made." She holds out the piece of duct tape by both ends.

The words stumble over each other in their rush to get out. "They'll catch you. They'll track where I went and they'll catch you."

"No they won't." Mrs. Guyford places the duct tape securely over Sally's mouth. "You're number five and they haven't caught me yet."

Number five! Two other victims they didn't know about. Sally begins to construct elaborate escape plans as quickly as her addled brain can come up with them. She doesn't hold out much hope, as she belatedly realizes she didn't even think to scream until now.

"The trick is to get rid of any blood and skin and whatnot that might be left behind," Mrs. Guyford explains. "The first girl was pure dumb luck. Her new husband burned her bosoms with cigarettes on her wedding night. Tsk. Anyway, I strangled her and then I panicked a bit and tried to think of a place to hide her until I could move her with nobody seeing. It just came to me – the washing machine. It was plenty big, and all I had to do was add a jug of bleach and run it, and all the, you know, the evi-dence was washed away. Then it's just out in a garbage bag with the rest of the trash."

Sally looks at the front-loading washing machine behind Mrs. Guyford. It's large enough to hold two of Sally. She tries with all her might not to be sick, because with the duct tape over her mouth she's afraid of aspirating it – and this is the least of her worries.

Mrs. Guyford continues her stroll down memory lane. "After that first one, I had a stroke of brilliance. Why not save myself some work, and put the girls in the washing machine while they're still alive? Less chance of something going wrong, and they'll also have some time to think about how stupid and weak they are. A bit of a just reward, I think. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what kills them, if it were the tossing around or breathing in the bleach or what. I just know it takes them quite a while to stop fussing in there." She shrugs. "Well, let's see how long you last, Mrs. Holmes."

Mrs. Guyford tucks her hands under Sally's neck and knees and starts to lift her off the table. "Don't you worry," Mrs. Guyford tells her, "I'll bury you in the woods at my sister's farm out in the country. Very pretty and peaceful."

Even though the world pitchesunpleasantly to and fro, Sally prepares to attack Mrs. Guyford, to headbutt her then knee her in the stomach and crawl away. She refuses to contemplate what will happen to her if she fails.

Suddenly there's a commotion at the laundry chute, clattering and banging, and much to Sally's shock Sherlock tumbles into the pile of dirty sheets and towels at the bottom of the chute. He's wearing both the top and bottom portions of his pajamas now. He sits unsteadily up on his knees and points at Mrs. Guyford, who is equally shocked. "Unhand her, madam!" Sherlock commands, then topples, tree-like, onto his back.

Mrs. Guyford drops Sally back on the table. "Mr. Holmes! You're supposed to be asleep in bed. My stars, this throws a wrench in things."

"It was the cookies," he mutters. "You salted the cookies so we'd be thirsty and drink the pop that you drugged. You're a very sly woman, Mrs. Guyford."

"And you're a very stupid man, poking your nose where it shouldn't be. It's going to be a right pain in the arse to get rid of two bodies, I'll have you know." She gives an impatient sigh as she stomps over to him. She chooses a towel from the pile beneath him and folds it in half and half again. "Did you phone anyone for help?" she asks him.

He opens his eyes a slit and looks at her. "I don't need anyone's help."

"Thank goodness for small mercies," she says to herself, and forces the towel over Sherlock's mouth and nose. He attempts to pull her hands away, but in his condition he doesn't stand a chance; forty years of domestic labour has rendered Mrs. Guyford strong as a bricklayer. Sally silently begs him to punch her in the kidney, or put a thumb in her eye, but instead after a few seconds he goes completely still. Sally screams against the duct tape.

Just as terror and grief start to overwhelm her, Sherlock comes back to life, his hands rather purposefully patting up and down Mrs. Guyford's torso as if they're looking for something. Sally can't imagine what, until his fingers find the pocket of her apron, which she's had on since they met her. Mrs. Guyford tries to retreat away from his touch, but she doesn't dare let go of the towel covering his face; she's hoping he'll pass out before he can do anything else. This turns out to be a grave tactical error, because he pulls out the bottle opener that she used to open their bottles of pop. He flips it over in his hand and, using his other hand to guide him, stabs Mrs. Guyford on the inside of her leg.

She shrieks and lets go of him, pulling up her skirt as a spray of blood covers her thigh and the floor. "You dirty beggar!" she shouts at him as she uses the towel she was going to kill him with to staunch the flow. The blood is very red against the white terrycloth. She slaps the bottle opener out of his hand. "Do yer really think a little poke like that is going to stop me? I've had worse before breakfast many a day."

Sherlock is barely out of breath, like he practices being suffocated with a towel every night before bed. "It's not the stab wound that's going to to stop you," he says. "It's where I stabbed you."

"What, near my privates? You're a pig, Mr. Holmes, just like the rest of them." The towel she's using has become saturated with blood, and she grabs a different towel from the pile. She tosses the bloody one aside and replaces it with the new one.

"Not quite," he replies with a tight smile. "I've punctured your femoral artery."

"My wha?" she asks, frowning at the speed in which the new towel is blossoming scarlet.

"It's a very large artery that supplies the blood to your lower half. You're not going to be able to stop that blood loss by yourself no matter how many towels you use."

"What have you done?" she asks him, dismayed.

"What have I done?" he repeats as if he's working it out for himself as well. His smile widens. "I've won the game, Mrs. Guyford."

She collapses onto the concrete floor, her hands splashing into the puddle of blood growing under her. He doesn't wait around to watch Mrs. Guyford lose consciousness; he crawls to the cupboard drawers and begins to clumsily paw through them. When he pulls himself to his feet and hobbles over to Sally, he's got a pair of sewing scissors in his hand. "Hold still," he says, like she can do anything but, and cuts the plastic ties from her wrists and ankles.

She slides off the steel table and hugs him. "Why did you throw yourself down the laundry chute?" she whispers into his shoulder.

"The stairs would have taken too long," he whispers back. "Also, I think I broke my ankle." His hug is turning into a heavy lean; she staggers under it. "The ground is so far away," he says with consternation, and lets go of her so he can climb up on the steel table and curl into a ball.

She's not sure if he goes to sleep or passes out. "Sherlock? Sherlock!" she shouts, but even a sharp smack to his face doesn't bring him around. "Hold on," she pleads, and rushes as quickly as her unseaworthy legs will take her up the four flights of stairs to their room. Even Drugged Sherlock is two steps ahead of her – he's propped the neck of the wine bottle in the door so she can get into the room without a key. She finds her phone on the floor beside the bed and speed dials 999. In the three minutes it takes help to arrive, she puts on one of the bathrobes plus the spare knickers she brought in her suitcase, disturbing the crime scene be damned.

Once the police cars and ambulances come to a screaming halt outside the hotel, chaos ensues. They put Sally on a stretcher and hook her up to an IV, but after the paramedics check her out they declare her well enough to make a statement before they take her the hospital. Lestrade and John Watson stand next to the stretcher and fuss over her. Lestrade holds her hand, sick with worry and more than a little guilt, but before he can ask her anything there's bedlam at the hotel entrance.

Mrs. Guyford is brought out on a stretcher and they rush her to a second ambulance. Sally witnesses the extraordinary sight of Guy Guyford trailing along behind her, sobbing his heart out and shouting, "You be careful with my sweetheart, you hear me?"

"Is she dead?" Sally asks the paramedic carrying the back end of the stretcher, strangely devoid of any preference to the answer.

"No – but ten more minutes and it might have been a different story."

With their encouragement, Sally tells Lestrade and John about the fake argument, and how it lured Guy to their room. She tells them about Mrs. Guyford and the cookies and pop, and the subsequent disorientation they experienced. She does not tell them about the multiple orgasms. Or the spanking. She skips right to the laundry room, and the other victims, and Mrs. Guyford's sister's farm. Lestrade and Watson are suitably impressed. "You're going to get a commendation for this, officer," Lestrade assures her.

They're about to load Sally into the ambulance when they bring Sherlock out on his own stretcher. He's awake again, and belligerent. Sherlock has obviously been given a much higher dosage of drugs than her. An icy shiver runs through her – Mrs. Guyford wanted Sally awake so she'd be aware of what was happening to her when she died. "How is he?" Lestrade asks one of paramedics.

"He's fine," Sherlock answers, high as a kite. "He wants to go home."

"You can't go home, Mr. Holmes," the paramedic tells him. "We have to take you to the hospital and pump your stomach."

"I don't approve. Write that down: I don't approve of that."

The paramedic ignores him and says to Lestrade, "He'll be okay, but according to the bottles of prescription drugs we found open in her bathroom, he should be out cold. I have no idea how he's withstanding such potent opiates."

Lestrade, Watson, and Sally look at the ground. "I don't know either," says Watson.

"Can you remember what happened, Sherlock?" Lestrade asks him. "In the hotel room?"

Sally prepares to have an incredibly loud and distracting medical setback, but Sherlock says, "Sally showed me a video of a singing parrot. He sings heavy metal. And then I fell asleep and when I woke up I jumped down the laundry chute to save Sally. And that's about it. It's a good thing I was there, Sally, or you'd be going through the spin cycle right now!"

Sally can almost feel the rush of wind as the runaway train of unforeseen consequences misses her by inches. She's had remarkable, filthy sex with Sherlock Holmes, and she's the only one who remembers it. She's gotten off scott-free – literally. Now Sherlock will never use the information like a sledgehammer to bludgeon her with sarcasm or superiority. Excellent.

They load Sherlock into an ambulance. "How did you know I was in the laundry room?" she calls out after him.

"The unforced entry? The wheel marks in the carpet in the hall? Where else could you be?" He waves to them as the paramedics shut the ambulance door. "Bye! See you at the hospital!"

Sherlock is much more likeable when he's stoned.

They eventually take her to the hospital too, where she sleeps fitfully, with crazy, unsettling dreams. When she finally awakens the next morning the ligature marks on her wrists are bandaged and she's starving. She learns from the nurse that Sherlock is just down the hall, but she doesn't attempt to see him.

The attending doctor shines a light in her eyes, they both sign a couple of papers, and she's released. She doesn't ask anyone to come pick her up; the last thing she wants to do is talk about what happened to her. She calls a cab instead, and it's waiting for her in the pick-up zone at the front of the hospital whens she comes outside. She gets in and when the cabbie asks her where she wants to go, she doesn't know what to say. She stares at the hospital, trying to think of some place she wants to be. Not her apartment. Not her mother's – she couldn't handle her mum's Catholic sensibilities right now. How many Hail Marys would it take to absolve her of everything she did yesterday? She's not sure she can count that high.

She's still mulling it over when Sherlock and John come out of the hospital doors; he must have been released the same time as her. That's just great. His ankle is neatly bandaged. John is carrying the same suitcase Sherlock had in the hotel, and Sherlock is wearing the same coat as the day before, so John must have gone to the hotel to get Sherlock's stuff for him. It must be nice to have someone care enough to do that for you.

John notices her in the cab and smiles and waves to her, but she pretends she doesn't see him and hurriedly slides down so she's less visible. It doesn't work, because Sherlock says something to John and limps to her cab using the crutch they've given him. He stands outside looking in at her until she reluctantly rolls down the window. She has nothing to say; she's inexplicably angry with him, like he's cheated her out of something that she didn't know was important until he took it. "What do you want?"

He squints up at the grey London sky. "It's cold out today," he says instead of how are you holding up? like a normal person.

"Yes, it is." She waits, eyebrows raised.

"So I thought you might want this." He takes his scarf off and pushes it through the window into her hands.

She's gobsmacked, and can barely manage to nod. "Thank you," she says weakly. She searches his eyes, wondering how much he really remembers and how much he wants to forget.

He looks away, at the people in wheelchairs getting some fresh air. "Don't make too much out of it. I have three more just like it at home."

That breaks the spell, and she says, "It's not really my tastes, but I guess I'll use it until I can find something better."

"Fair enough."

His distinct lack of sarcasm makes her add contritely, "It's a very nice scarf."

Sherlock's smile is so slight she might be imagining it. "That's what I hear."

Did he just say that? What did that mean? Did that mean something? She shuts the car window between them as quickly as humanly possible. He stands there and watches her go as the cab driver pulls away from the curb. She doesn't look back as they turn out of the parking lot, but she's sure if she did he'd be smirking away at how bloody brilliant he is. What a jerk.

When she's positive he can't see her anymore she slips the scarf around her neck. It's warm and comforting and a just a little bit itchy.

THE END