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Janine is sprawled out on the center of the bed again as if she owned the place. As if she didn't sniff in disdain every time she walked out past the kitchen in the morning--she's been staying all night, leaving a mobile phone charger, a toothbrush, a spare pack of birth control pills (12% failure rate, Sherlock shudders at the imprecision of the whole thing). She’s as proud to be marking her territory as any yard dog. Moreover, she snores. The snoring is softer than John had done, but somehow more shrill. It had been 15 weeks since he'd fallen asleep listening to John's snores from down the hall, and a month since he'd even laid eyes on his friend. God, he missed John.
He has one arm pinned underneath her, though he's managed to reach and wiggle into his pants. She teases him for wanting to be covered all the time--"As modest as a maid,” she'd called him. He considers waking her and throwing her out, though she'd be in a strop and it would set his plans back by at least 18 days. Sleeping on the couch was right out. (He only used the couch for sleeping in order to annoy John at the same time, and there was no John to annoy this evening.) He could go chat up Billy again, spend another night observing the smackheads who were hard at work poisoning themselves, build a few more contacts for his network. He still missed it. He missed John. But he couldn't afford to distract himself this month and it seemed there were no longer any months he could afford to lose. Just a few hours out in the den, then. He'd be able to get some privacy, read the filth of the junkies, and replay his mental file of former highs. Yes, that would be just the thing.
She is a beautiful creature when she's unconscious, though. She bleeds heat onto his skin, even stark naked and uncovered. Dark fall of hair over the pillow, silky and light across his arm. She’s got one leg thrown over his body, a heavy moist weight on his leg, femoral pulse barely palpable. He's finally convinced her to stop wearing perfume; he needs access to her pheromones, all of them, to maintain his interest. Last week, she’d pulled him into the shower with her, which was halfway pleasant. The bright lights and tile put him faintly in mind of Molly’s lab at the St. Bart’s morgue, and hers became just another body to examine, albeit warm and more fragile than most. The sun exposure, the faint stretch marks, the dusting of freckles above her breasts, the line between smooth cream skin and pink. Janine seemed to be in perfect health; such an irony that he finally had a body to examine at his leisure, undecayed and almost constantly available, yet it has nothing interesting to tell him beyond what he’s already gleaned for his case.
Sometimes when he undresses Janine, he can hear Irene's voice barking instructions in his memory. She was far more instructive, and she approached sexual touch with the same level of clinical disinterest as he does. Irene had been far more pleasing aesthetically; she'd calculated him, down to several places, and didn't mind when he did the same. Janine isn't any more genuine, but there's nothing behind her artifice, no hint of particular intelligence or ulterior motive. When Sherlock had first removed her clothes and asked her what she liked, she simply smiled and said "y'know." (He’d done his research. The amount of information online was simply appalling, but it's good to have applied data to plug it into.) It’s a relief to know that she doesn’t seem any more invested in the relationship than he is. But she plays the part, gladly; she's like a free library of typical female responses. Her mediocrity doesn't inspire greatness, as John's would. It doesn't inspire scorn, like Anderson's does. She's just... boring.
There’s still that dreadful moment from time to time when he's not paying attention and his body acts of its own volition, pressing in towards her hands and her soft warmth. The physical contact dulls his brain, creates a whole new category of noise and useless data. It's happening more and more often. Perhaps he should consider getting high tonight, just this once, just to get him back into his head. It would be for his own good, really. He slides his arm out from underneath Janine, grabs a set of clothes and an anorak from the closet.
She stirs lazily on the bed. “You leavin’, Sherl?”
He smiles and leans back down with a little sigh. “Only temporarily.”