Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2018 16:52:15 +0000 (UTC)
From: Arthur Doyle <sirarthurpornandoyle@yahoo.com>
Subject: A Study in Fornication, Chapter 2

Chapter II: The science of sexual deduction

The next day, just as we had arranged, I arrived at No. 221 Baker Street,
and found apartment B. From the outside, I could see that the space had two
broad windows facing a sitting room, though a white curtain blocked my view
indoors. As I approached the knocker, I heard a great deal of commotion
coming from inside. There was the repeated sound of someone banging on the
floor coupled with snorts and shouts.

Thinking something might be amiss, I quickly opened the unlocked door and
found Holmes entirely nude, thrusting himself into a young companion on the
floor of the living room. This display of naked fornication in broad
daylight was almost more than I could handle, though the two men took
hardly any notice of me as I entered.

I saw Holmes, his tall and well-built frame, his muscles bulging like
Vitruvian Man. His eyes were sharp and piercing, watching the sweat-covered
back of the man beneath him. His hair was wild, in a passionate
disarray. The fur on his body was light but noticeable, curving around his
nipples, pooling on his chest, and trailing down to his sex, where a rough
tangle of hair sprouted at the base of his cock and covered his balls in a
fine down. His companion appeared to be in his early twenties, with inky
hair and icy eyes. He looked up at me with a flirtatious smile, clearly
enjoying the show they were giving me.

But by far the most spectacular thing in the room was Holmes' cock. Large
and throbbing, it was greater than any member I had ever come
across. Holmes continually buried it in the other man's arse, his eyes
rolling to the back of his head as he moaned. He would pull it out,
enormous and glistening, only to thrust its unimaginable dimensions back
inside again. The dark-haired man on the floor appeared to be in heaven as
he took the assault with ease. "Oui, oui," he cried each time Holmes pushed
in.

Finally, Holmes gave a loud shout and came, his body shivering. He reached
around to grab the other man's hard dick, pumping it a few times until the
man shuddered and ejaculated, a white puddle amassing on the floor beneath
him.

Holmes shut his eyes for a moment and then looked up, seeing me for the
first time.

"Is it noon already?" he said indifferently.

He got up, a loud plopping sound emerging at the same time as his colossal
implement. The dark-haired man collapsed to the ground, completely
spent. Holmes stood and wrapped a smoking jacket around his body, though he
neglected to sash it shut. He strode to the kitchen, his front side
resembling the display of a Viennese sausage shop.

I followed Holmes, bewildered. The man on the floor seemed to be resting,
exhausted from the frenetic activity. Holmes reached into a cupboard,
pulled out a bottle, and removed the cork.

"Vin Mariani?" he offered. I told him I thought it was a bit early for
wine. "Nonsense," said Holmes. "A cup of this is more stimulating that
tea."

"Who is that man?" I said, pointing at the bare arse in the living room.

Holmes shrugged. "A French aristocrat's son. Jean-Pierre, I believe. He
asked me to help him find a suitable hotel for a man of his tastes while in
England. We came to a mutually beneficial agreement regarding his price."

"Is this something that will happen frequently if we are to live together?"
I asked, annoyance in the edge of my voice. Though I have enjoyed my fair
share men, above all else I am a Victorian gentleman, and prudence was my
main operational mode. This open display of carnality was beyond anything I
had heretofore experienced.

"If you like, I can keep such things confined to my bedroom," he
said. "Though I take it you had some enjoyment from watching us."

He pointed at my crotch, where the outline of my rock hard equipment was
visible through my trousers. Flummoxed, I did my best to cover it up. I
took a swig from the offered glass. "Listen, Holmes. I am as libertine as
the next man but I was not expecting to find you like this."

Holmes eyed me. "And I was not expecting you for at least five more
minutes," he said. "But I assure you I will keep such things in my trousers
for the time being so as not to upset your sensibilities.

I wondered if perhaps I should try to find more suitable lodgings.

Holmes downed his glass and perked up. "Would you like to tour the place?"
he asked. "Or perhaps you would like to relieve some tension with
Jean-Pierre?" He smiled wickedly. "He is a young rooster and if you give
him a few minutes, I'm sure he would be ready to go again."

I elected for the former. Holmes showed me to my bedroom, which was
comfortable. The kitchen was small but would serve our needs and the living
room was airy and, even with a naked man sprawled out on the floor,
cheerfully furnished. Jean-Pierre stirred as we entered, rising slowly. He
grinned as I attempted to look away from his limp organ and made no attempt
to hide his nakedness. He sprawled out on a plump sofa, the hair at his
crotch as dark as that on his head.

"Zis eez your ozer lover?" he asked Holmes.

Holmes raised an eyebrow at me. "No."

"Zen what eez he?"

"I am hoping he will be my flat-mate," he said, reaching out to shake my
hand.

I looked around at the apartment, which was desirable in almost every
way. The terms that Holmes had given for the rent were quite moderate as
well. And it would be nice to lodge with someone from whom I would have no
need to hide my interest in men. Holmes might be a bit eccentric but there
was also something interesting about him. Perhaps I could learn a few
things. I took his hand and shook it, concluding our bargain on the spot.

That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the
following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and
portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and
laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we gradually
began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.

Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his
ways, and his habits were regular. Unless he was with a companion, it was
rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted
and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes, he spent his days at
the chemical laboratory, sometimes on long walks, which appeared to take
him into the lowest portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy
when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize
him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room,
hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these
occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that
I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic,
though secretly I wondered if the drug that plagued his heart was love.

As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in
life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were
such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height, he
was rather over six feet and lean enough to appear taller. His eyes were
penetrating and ever-watchful, save during those periods of torpor which I
have earlier alluded to; and his hawk-like nose gave his whole expression
and air of alertness and decision.

There were times when I would look at him and be glad for his rules about
not mixing domestic and recreational activities together--Holmes was rather
not the type of man I typically went for. His hands were invariably blotted
with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary
delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to experience when he would
run his fingers over my shoulders to get my attention.

The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, and my protestations of
how little he attracted me physically merely a ruse. I confess that this
man stimulated my curiosity, and often I endeavored to break through the
reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself. Before pronouncing
judgment, however, be it remembered how objectless my life, and how little
there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out
unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends (nor
lovers) who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily
life. Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which
hung around my companion, and spent much time in endeavouring to unravel
it.

He was not studying medicine. He had, himself, in reply to a question,
confirmed Stamford's opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to have
pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science
or other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the
learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies, chiefly men, was
remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so
extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly
astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise
information about male behavior unless he had some definite end in view,
beyond the obvious.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
literature, politics, and philosophy, he appeared to know next to
nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the most
naïve way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached
a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the
Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any
civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that
the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an
extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of
surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."

"To forget it!"

"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like
a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you
choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across,
so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at
best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty
in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful
indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but
the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large
assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think
that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any
extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of
knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest
importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful
ones."

"But the Solar System!" I protested.

"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we
go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth
of difference to me or to my work."

I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in
his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I
pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my
deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did
not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed
was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the
various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally
well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help
smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way--

SHERLOCK HOLMES--his limits.  1. Knowledge of Literature.--Nil.
2. Philosophy.--Nil.  3. Astronomy.--Nil.  4. Politics.--Feeble.
5. Botany.--Variable. Well up in marihuana, opium and other drugs. Knows
nothing of practical gardening.  6. Male sexuality.--Practical, but
limited. Claims to tell at a glance the desires of different gentlemen,
though I sometimes suspect he is inventing things.
7. Chemistry.--Profound.  8. Anatomy.--Highly accurate to the point of
unseemliness.  9. Sensational Literature.--Immense.  He appears to know
every detail of every scandalous encounter committed in the city of London
and beyond.  10. Plays the violin well.  11. Is an expert singlestick
player, boxer, and swordsman.  12. Has a good practical knowledge of
British law.


When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair. "If I
can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these
accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all," I said to
myself, "I may as well give up the attempt at once."

I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These were
very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he
could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request
he has played me some of Mendelssohn's Lieder, and other favourites. When
left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any
recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close
his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his
knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they
were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which
possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the
playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I could
determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it
not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a
whole series of my favourite airs as a slight compensation for the trial
upon my patience.

At first, we rarely had callers, save a dark-eyed man who was introduced to
me as a Mr. Lestrade. I understood that Holmes had no interest in him
sexually, and neither did I. As to what he and Holmes were discussing all
the time, I couldn't say.

Presently, I found that Holmes had other callers, and they were mostly from
different classes of society. The French boy I did not see again. But
Holmes returned once with a blond man, very fashionably dressed, who left
behind a pair of lavender gloves. A seedy young Jew with brown curls stole
a china saucer from the apartment. There was the Irish lad, too, who Holmes
dragged into my room nude in the middle of the night to show me that the
hair at his crotch was the same burnished orange as that on his head.

I would hear Holmes banging into them from the room next to mine. Exactly
how he found so many men in London with such capacious arseholes was beyond
me. I did my best to ignore it, thinking that I should be out finding a
romp of my own. But still I listened, often bringing myself to completion
with the sound of some man softly calling Holmes' name.

It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I
rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes was still
at his breakfast. I sat down to my own, picked up a magazine from the table
and read it while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the
articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and naturally I began to run my
eye through it.

Its somewhat ambitious title was "A Case For Open Love" and it attempted to
show that it should not be illegal for two men to have romantic
relations. I was sure that the populace was scandalized by its case but I
found myself drawn farther and farther in to its points. What bravery this
person had to argue that the type of love I enjoyed with another man was
not a wicked thing but in fact good and natural. Holmes inquired at what
was making me grin so wide and so I began to read:

"A man with the Uranian urge is not shameful, but simply a human being and
therefore has inalienable rights. His sexual orientation is a right
established by nature. Legislators have no right to veto nature; no right
to persecute nature in the course of its work; no right to harm living
creatures who are subject to those drives nature gave them."

"What is it?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

"Why this article," I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon. "I see that
you have read it because you have marked it. It is amazingly well written
but there is no way that it can change anything about our society."

"Why not?" demanded Holmes.

"Because in our delicate era such ideas would not find themselves very
welcome. You and I both know that firsthand. It will be completely
ridiculed and ignored."

"That may be," said Holmes. "But at the very least it will put the idea out
there and then perhaps things can start to change."

I shook my head. "Perhaps. Though the person who wrote it would be best to
keep their mouth shut in public."

"Why Watson, you know that I am the very model of discretion when it comes
to matters like this."

I gaped at his audacity. "This is your article?"

"I used a pseudonym: Mr. Peaslin." His face betrayed how clever he thought
he was. "But I feel it could help people better understand the world that I
and many others live in. It is a part of my work, after all."

"And what precisely is your line of work?" This was a point that had
troubled me until now.

"Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the
world. I'm a sexual consulting detective, if you can understand what that
is. Here in London we have many men who are looking to find other men to
satisfy their proclivities. And since people of our persuasion must be
inconspicuous, hiding what we do in the shadows, there is the penchant for
misdeeds. I have always had a knack for spotting the cravings of other men,
their likes and dislikes in bed. I enjoy applying my abilities toward
interesting cases that might otherwise go unsolved."

And gratifying your own desires in the process, I thought, though I didn't
utter this idea aloud. Instead, I said: "Do you mean to say that you can
deduce the precise sexual desires of any man who you see on the street?"
This was among the points in my list that I considered to fantastical to
believe.

"Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. You appeared to be
surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had slept with
thirteen men in the last two months."

"I assumed you were told by Stamford, though I don't recall telling him
myself."

"Nothing of the sort. From a long train of thoughts that ran so swiftly
through my mind, I arrived at the conclusions without being conscious of
the intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of
reasoning ran:

"Here is a gentleman of the medical type, burly, and with the air of a
well-honed military man. Clearly, you are virile and enjoy taking charge. I
knew that you and Stamford had enjoyed one another. But he was also still
somewhat nervous around you, indicating that the two of you had just met
once again after a long period of absence. You clearly seduced Stamford
quickly and quite successfully. You enjoy sex, work swiftly, and will
easily take your pick of men."

I was impressed. "But you still didn't tell me how you knew it was
thirteen."

"It was obvious to me from the beginning that the two of us are quite
similar in character. That was the same number of men I had taken to bed
during that span."

"It is simple enough as you explain it," I said, smiling. "You remind me of
Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist
outside of stories."

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are
complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my
opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in
on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an
hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical
genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared
to imagine."

I walked over to the window, and stood looking out into the busy
street. "This fellow may be very clever," I said to myself, "but he is
certainly very conceited." Annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation,
I thought it best to change the topic.

"I wonder what that fellow is looking for?" I asked, pointing to a
stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the other
side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a large blue
envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a message.

"You mean the man who enjoys having his toes sucked while being
penetrated?" said Sherlock Holmes.

"Brag and bounce!" thought I to myself. "He knows that I cannot verify his
guess."

The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were
watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across the
roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps
ascending the stair.

"For Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said, stepping into the room and handing my
friend the letter.

The question on the tip of my tongue was too embarrassing to say out
loud. I merely stared at the man, perhaps too leeringly, for he gave me a
perplexed look as he left.

Holmes read the contents and told me it was a note from Lestrade. He asked
us to come to number 3, Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road.

"What does he want you there for?" I asked Holmes.

"Lestrade sometimes consults with me. A man of my talents can come in
handy."

*****

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