S&D Fanfic 3: "A woman's love."

EDITOR'S NOTE: We continue to interrupt our regular blogging for a brief interlude of fan fiction from the world of Asylum "Sherlock Holmes," a.k.a. "Sherlock Holmes and Dinosaurs." How long can this go on? We shall see. 

"You Really Are An Automaton!"

A memoir of Anesidora Ivory

Chapter Three: "A woman's love."

"Do you know what I love about John?" Susan Mary Morstan-Watson asked me one night during a visit to the home she and Dr. Watson had made for themselves. "That little part of his belly that sticks out of the gap between his vest and his pants. It's such a cute and cuddly little pinch-paunch!"

I smiled appropriately. "Pinch-paunch?"

"My pet name for it. What's your favorite thing about Sherlock?"

Nobody else in London was as interested in my relationship with Sherlock Holmes as Mary was. As Sherlock Holmes was a man who remained outside the world of social functions and meddlesome family members, his landlady Mrs. Hudson was really the only person in is life who might question our domestic arrangement, and her own past left her not as judgmental as most of her neighbors.

"My favorite thing about Sherlock . . . ? The 31.4 inches," I told her, with a pause calculated to evoke her very human laugh, "between his shoulder and the tip of his forefinger."

"You know the exact measurement of his arm?" she asked with a grin left over from her laugh. "You are a match for him! Why is that your favorite part of him?"

"It is ten times pi. The circumference of a circle with a ten inch diameter. The measurement of the narrowest part of my waist, which was once a perfect circle, early in my construction. If Sherlock's arm had no bones, he could wrap it around me like a tentacle."

Mary laughed all the more. "You're kraken me up, Nessie!"

"Nessie" was Mary Watson's preferred alteration of my full name. It amused her. Many things amused Mary Watson. Especially the confidences I had shared with her about my past with Thorpe Holmes.

"Once you get kraken, you'll want to go back in!" Her laughter had built to the point where she had to stamp a rat-tat-tat on the floorboards with her feet just to release some of the energy. While her husband was never entirely comfortable around me ever since our battle to the death in front of Buckingham Palace, Mary was never anything but comfortable, even when friends brought her the most troubling problems. And I, to the mind of her husband, was nothing but a problem.

"So what have you two been up to?" Mary finally asked when she got her breath back. I continued with my needlework, as I had consistently despite my friend's self-inflicted hilarity.

"He calls it his 'touring test.' He has us driven around London in a closed growler and we analyze non-visual location cues."

"It sounds . . . romantic."

"He challenges my capabilities. I point out the gaps in his perception. We improve each other."

Mary smiled. The sort of smile that did not come from an impending laugh.

"That actually does sound . . . sweet. And romantic. You never cease to surprise me, Nessie."

"And I do not know why I surprise you, Mary," I replied with my usual frankness. "I simply report what is."

"Yes, you do. And there are surprises enough in what is."

"I'm done," I announced, and handed her the needlework I had just completed. Mary clapped her hands in delight.

"You are so marvelous, Nessie!" she said, after giving me a hug, she spread my work out across her bed. "It's a perfect reproduction of George Seurat's 'Sunday Afternoon' as a bed-cover. It's a pity that no one besides John will ever be in the bedroom to see it!"

"I can bring Sherlock up," I replied. "And we can all enjoy the bed together."

At which Mary began to laugh once more, thinking me much more innocent and much less skilled in my use of language than I truly am.