A DOGGED MEMORY
by elfin

Part One - Henry Baskerville


There are, for reasons that will become obvious, two accounts of the
strange and terrible events at Baskerville Hall and on the surrounding
moor.

There is the one that has been under such public scrutiny for a great
many months.

And then there is this one.

This is the unknown story, the background to the events that
transpired as well as detailing certain truths.  Ironically, it is
these unknowns that fully explain the reasons for the seemingly absurd
risks that a casual observer might have spotted in Holmes' actions
during this time.  Also explained is my apparently hostile behaviour
towards my friend at one or two points in the story.

But despite that, the public that so adores reading about every aspect
of his cases will never set eyes on these words.

For it is only now, and only for a handful of readers, that I am
writing up my private notes on this, the most instructive of all the
cases I have chronicled for my dearest friend, Sherlock Holmes.  And
it is only because, in the dim light of the candle's flame as it
dances over our deliciously naked forms, he asks me to.

~~~

Dr John Mortimer came to us one week before Christmas.  Up until that
morning, we had planned to spend the holiday together in Baker Street,
as we had once before.

The events of the case itself are well documented and even better
known, and I will not recount them again.  Suffice it to say that
during a late breakfast at the Northumberland Hotel, with Mortimer and
his new ward, Sir Henry Baskerville, Holmes swore me to his client's
side for an unknown period.

So many see Holmes as incapable of emotion, of being cold in his
heart.  It is true that many of the sympathies he displays for those
unfortunate souls who engage him are an act, the necessities of his
chosen profession.  He has an analytical mind so delicately tuned,
that the merest imbalance can lead to a total collapse of his reason.
  But he is far from emotionless.

He just hides his feelings behind a mask so perfectly constructed that
very few even realise that it is there.

I know, because I have seen it slip, just slightly, on several
occasions.  Most of these have been while he has lain in the grip of
the narcotic he relies on so heavily to alleviate... what?  I had, at
the time, no idea.  Although I know now.

I had no reason to dispute his decision to send me away with Sir
Henry.  Indeed, I had taken to the Canadian's company almost upon
sight and had no issues with spending a couple of days with him,
protecting him from whatever horrors waited on the moor.

But as Holmes bade goodbye to us outside Baker Street, as he again
warned Sir Henry to take the greatest of care, I noticed something odd
in his countenance.  And when he glanced at me I saw a darkness in his
grey eyes the like of which I had never seen there before.

I pondered on it for the first part of our journey.  But Sir Henry's
company, concerns about the deteriorating weather and the unknown
peril towards which we were heading, all served to wipe such a
seemingly trivial thing from my mind.

Only much later did I think back, and realise that the thing I'd seen
there was fear.  I couldn't have known that when we'd been foolishly
chasing that cab along Baker Street, he'd seen more of our enemy than
I had.  Neither could I have known that he'd recognised the man,
despite his disguise.

~~~

Baskerville Hall, as the public knows well, is a foreboding place at
night.

As we approached, it loomed out of the thick moor fog like a rising
fortress, injecting a chill into our hearts.  It was a chill that did
not dissipate as we sat in the cold of the dining room and ate a fine
dinner under the disapproving gazes of the Baskerville ancestry.

But I'm ahead of myself.  For I have missed a most important exchange.


When we arrived at the Hall, Barrymore - the butler - showed us to our
rooms.  Mine was the guest suite across the landing from Sir Henry's.
  It was comfortable and later, once a fire had been lit, it was warm.

After unpacking my clothes and writing implements, I dressed for
dinner and went to knock on Sir Henry's door.

He is a familiar man, one who innately invites small intimacies.
Indeed, I didn't hesitate when he suggested, in an ironic tone, that I
should try his bed.  It was as hard as a rock, as if the sheets were
laid over a great stone slab.

"How are you ever meant to sleep on that, I wonder?" I mused, without
even a fleeting thought as to what possibilities the question might
entertain.

He glanced around at me, and smiled such a smile that I might have
blushed.  But it was so quick and he returned his attention to the
mirror and his bow tie so easily, that I imagined I had misinterpreted
his expression.

I berated myself, for my wandering fantasies regarding my closest
friend were beginning to seep into my every day thoughts.

He was obviously having problems with the specifics required to tie
the bow around his neck, and eventually I could watch him no more.
Crossing to him, I took the ends of the fine silk strip in my fingers
and performed the hardly complex manoeuvre.  When I was satisfied that
he looked all the respectable Lord of the Manor that he was set to be,
I smiled up at him.

"There."

The word faded.

I had meant to step away, but the sheer hold of his eyes upon me froze
me in place.  He didn't speak, but raised his hand and caressed the
smooth tips of his fingers across the light stubble of my cheek.

"Do I have a chance with your heart, John?" he asked quietly,
unexpectedly, his voice a little rougher, but still as gentle as I'd
been hearing it all day, "or does another lay claim to it?"

How he knew what I'd kept from even Sherlock Holmes for so long was
beyond me.  But so certain was he with his question that I saw no
point in insulting him by lying about my nature.

"No man lays claim to it," I told him truthfully, refusing to be a
coward by turning from his eyes, even as they seemed to bore into my
very soul.

"So you say.  But I cannot help wondering if you desire one to."  For
a moment, he held me in the barest of trances.  And then he stepped
back and smiled at me with an expression of deep affection, despite
having known me for no more than a matter of hours.  "Come," he
exclaimed in a jovial manner his demeanour had only hinted at before,
"Let us not keep the good servants waiting."


Calling it simply 'an important exchange' seems to distract from its
significance.  After that, I knew Sir Henry's interest in me was not
completely innocent, nor legal, for the reason I have kept my secret
for all of my life was the brutal nature of the law when it came to
physical love between two men.

I had thought on it for many an hour over the lingering years.  I
could find nothing immoral in an attraction for a member of the same
sex.  As long as both parties consented and no one was hurt, only the
transparent and ill-founded fears of an ignorant society were in any
danger.

Living with Holmes, then, had been a blessing.  He thought nothing of
love.  His only ventures into the deconstruction of passion and desire
were in line with a couple of his investigations.  Indeed, I heard him
once described as 'sexless', although I know that not to be true.

He is, in fact, well sexed, as frequent visits with him to the baths,
and indeed living under the same roof, had transpired to inform me.

(He reads that last over my shoulder and as he reaches for his
cigarettes he laughs joyously.  What he says, I will not repeat as a
part of this account.  Although I might later be persuaded by its few
readers to disclose the lurid and quite arousing comment.

He has successfully derailed my train of thought.)

~~~

Over dinner, Sir Henry spoke nothing of what had occurred between us
in his bedroom.

The portraits in the dining room are now famous and very well known
for being such an important clue in the solution to the mystery.  But
that night, sitting under them as the flames of the lamps flickered on
the rough canvases and their eyes seemed to scrutinise us as we ate,
we were both uncomfortable in their company.

We sat at either ends of the long table, as the places had been
prepared, and we said little to one another.

Though the dinner was superb, and the wine expensive, we were both in
melancholy spirits by the end of the meal, and he retired early to bed
without a hint of an invitation for me to join him.

I surprised myself, I think, for being just faintly disappointed.  He
was an attractive fellow.

In my time with Holmes I have done a few things that are illegal.
Deception, Breaking and Entering; small felonies that always advanced
our cause and were overlooked by the police on each occasion, when
they should come to know about them.

But to be caught nude with another man, to be engaged in sexual
practices, was, until so very recently, a hanging offence.  Prison was
the norm now, an irony that never failed to send a shudder down my
spine.  For as much as I desired to feel a man's hands upon my skin, a
man's hard body pressed to mine, I had absolutely no desire to be
raped daily by caged criminals who had no other means of relief.

I sat at the table long after the servants had gone to bed.  I sipped
the wine, looked around at the accusing stares of Sir Henry's dead
relatives, and made a decision that might have been borne from the
madness of family that surrounded me, or from the desperate,
unfulfilled needs within me.

Taking a candle, I climbed the stairs to our rooms.  Mine was on the
right, but upon reaching the landing, I turned left and crossed the
narrow hall to stand outside Sir Henry's closed door.

For a few long moments, I contemplated.  He had made an advance on me,
and although nothing had immediately come from it, neither had any
tension been created by it.  Surely if my own advance were to be
rebutted, we could still be friends?

With a trembling hand, I knocked quietly on the heavy wooden door.

He would be sleeping, I told myself.  If he didn't wake, I wouldn't
knock louder.  I would go to my own bed and forget these fanciful,
deviant notions.

But the door opened upon just my second knock.

He seemed simply relieved to see me standing there.

"John!"  He swung the door wide and gestured to the ruffled sheets of
the bed.  "That mattress is impossible!"  Tilting his head, the
candle's flame catching in his brown eyes, he smiled a wicked smile.
"I couldn't sleep on yours, could I?"


Closing and locking my bedroom door, I set the candle down on the
nightstand and regarded my new friend steadily.

"My heart may well be reserved for another," I told him, my voice
quiet and low, rough with arousal, "but my body is not.  If that is
enough...."

He grinned, and came to stand before me.  "It is more than enough.  I
don't look to steal you from the one you are bound to, rather I crave
the pleasures of your company."

Again, his fingers touched my cheek.  But instead of kissing me, which
I'd imagined he would, he backed off and shed his nightgown.  I
divested myself slowly of all my clothes, remaining under his warm
regard as I did so.

Only when I bent to remove my underwear did I allow myself to glance
at his groin.  His manhood was standing thick and proud.  It bobbed as
he noted my curiosity and laughed quietly.  As if to show himself off,
his slipped his hand down and palmed his phallus, holding himself out
to me.

My own reaction was equally as prominent, and he beckoned for me to go
to him.  I was powerless to do anything but.

When he pulled me into his embrace, his lips at last finding mine, I
felt the erotic shiver of the most exquisite of pleasures.  His
sculptured chest against my own, the hard nubs of his nipples pressed
to my own chilled skin, the silky steel of his erection duelling with
mine; all these were sensations I desired greatly.

His tongue had its fill of tasting me before he led me to the bed and
we climbed in.  He rolled us so that I lay over him, and claimed first
my mouth, and then the rest of me.

~~~

fin part one