She's his lovely little doll, so convenient to have on his arm at book signings and lecture tours; it gives him an air of mysterious charm, and students are always in awe to see their stodgy old professor attended by a beautiful young woman.

He takes her to the opera. La Traviata, Luchia de Lammermoor; anything in which the heroine dies in an unpleasant way. It never hurts to make an impression.

"You will touch me until the end of this piece," he whispers into her diamond-adorned ear. Her lips tighten into a small smile of barely held-in rage; nevertheless, she kneels before him, silk skirts rustling, and sets her dexterous fingers to the commanded task.

More than once, she has woken up to Moriarty whispering into her ear: "You wouldn't want anything to happen to that detective of yours, would you? A stray bullet, an unfortunate carriage accident… startled horses can be quite unpredictable.

And the doctor. Have you ever seen the mortality rates for medical professionals during an epidemic? No? Well, some diseases are quite contagious, even if they aren't widespread…"

(and here his cold fingers crawl up her thigh, teasing at her undergarments; she shudders a silenced gasp and squeezes her eyes shut, telling herself that she has no choice, and her third husband was much more bothersome in bed anyway)

"…and Mary, fragile, delicate Mary. Wouldn't it be tragic if her wedding gown were to spontaneously combust?"

One icy fingertip brushes her most sensitive spot, and she nearly bites through her tongue to keep from crying out.

Moriarty chuckles.

Subsequent scenarios grow more elaborate, detailing methods of torture, the precise mechanisms of a hypothetical bomb containing tasteless, odorless, poisonous gas. He recounts the most horrifying subtleties of her near-escape from pig-corpse dismemberment just as he takes her over the edge.

Afterwards, she watches him, determined not to succumb to sleep until he departs; nevertheless, her body fails her, just as he'd predicted, and she collapses into nightmare-filled unconsciousness.

Dear Irene. She is Moran's reward for his patience, his own reward for his unfailing commitment to profit, to numbers, to everything as divorced as possible from soft and yielding flesh, and Moriarty can think of few things more entertaining than her barely held-back tears.