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It was a slow night—the kind of night when two men with a bottle of single malt and a fireplace can devolve into silence if they’re not careful. Lestrade, ever the more social of the two, was determined to use the lazy, semi-sedated mood to encourage Mycroft to say all the things Mycroft never said. Given Mycroft was good at silences, that covered a lot of ground.
“Most erotic experience,” Lestrade asked, topping Mycroft’s glass before he could object, and then adding to his own glass to be companionable. “The one single most mind-bending erotic moment of your life.”
Mycroft gave him am amused, cynical smile, eyes sliding over to evaluate Lestrade carefully. “I’m a diplomat, my dear. Among other things. I know quite well the mandatory responses. First time I kissed you, first time I fucked you. First time we showered together. All were indeed superb. Pick one—you’re likely to be correct.”
“Bollocks,” Lestrade sniggered. “Most erotic moment of your life doesn’t happen until you’re over forty-five? No. Gotta be a lie. First kiss ever, yeah. First time someone slipped their hand over your pecker, yeah. First time you got naked with intent? Yeah. I’ll accept the idea that I rate high, but I don’t expect to outdo the really big first-time stuff. The landmarks.”
“Kissing you was a landmark, my dear,” Mycroft said, still amused, but also quite authoritative. “You’ve no need to be modest. It changed my life.”
“Mmmmm. I still think you’re lying,” Lestrade said. “Come on. One big, unexpected, blew-your-brains event.”
Mycroft swirled the scotch in his glass and pondered, staring into the fire. “There…hrrrmph. There was one…” He stopped.
The light was dim and ruddy, so Lestrade couldn’t be sure if he was blushing or not—but his instinct told him Mycroft was. “Oooooh, tell!”
“It wasn’t like that,” Mycroft growled, suddenly grouchy. “Nothing even happened, and wouldn’t have. All quite proper, given the circumstances.”
“No, no, no. Not letting you get away with it. Come on, Mycroft, tell.” Lestrade leaned on the arm of his chair nearest Mycroft, elbows digging into the thick upholstery, hands cradling the cut-glass tumbler. “Words, word-man. You don’t spend ‘em often, but I love it when you do. Tell me?” The last wasn’t teasing, but honestly pleading. He found he wanted to know. With Mycroft so much was held in, held back, kept private. He wasn’t always sure he knew enough about the man to have a hope of keeping him satisfied—not in the hokey, sweeping gesture, hot-and-horny-sex sense, but in the sense of knowing deeply what mattered most to his lover: the kiss or the embrace, the spooning at night or the smile over breakfast. This might be a key. Given Mycroft’s reluctance, it seemed…possible, if not likely. “Please?”
Mycroft sighed, sipped his drink, and glanced over at his partner, pulling an embarrassed face before returning his gaze to the flickering flames. He stared resolutely into the fire, holding his drink with both hands, resting the base on his belly as he eased back into the chair. “Very well. If you insist,” he said. He was silent, then resumed, voice uneasy, but determined.
“It was fairly early in my career, though not the very beginning, by any means. One of my first times as lead of a diplomatic delegation, though. I’d been sent to—well. It really wouldn’t do to say, even after this much time. A nation with strong Asian ties. Technically a rather new nation, too, cobbled together of fragments of older, more traditional political units. Our hosts had rather florid ideas of what constituted hospitality to Europeans. Worse, they were convinced that Europeans had utterly florid ideas of what to expect of hospitality from the East. And they were naïve enough not to differentiate between the English and other European cultures. We might as well have been Swedish, or Italian…or, French. I mean, it was quite disconcerting to be bussed on both cheeks at every meeting and parting.”
Lestrade laughed, finding it easy to imagine poor Mycroft gloomily trying to play along while still finding some way to telegraph his profound distaste for all the diplomatic osculation underway. “So far it doesn’t sound all that erotic, though, love,” he said, “unless one of the other diplomats turned out to have a wicked way with a cheek-kiss.”
“Hardly.” Mycroft snorted. “Virtually impossible. Though…” he sighed, and said, more gingerly, “though I must admit, what did happen was almost as unlikely, to my mind.”
“Mmmm?”
“Erm. Yes. Well. As I said, they had rather overwrought ideas of how to treat their guests. What the common courtesies and expected perks should be. I was able to turn down the trip to the red-light district—that’s a disaster waiting to happen no matter what you do or where you do it…or with whom. The meals were actually quite intriguing—a bizarre but enjoyable blend of regional festival cooking and their interpretation of English standards. I must say, pork sausage seasoned with garlic and ginger and scrambled eggs doused in fish sauce is better than you might think. The kedgeree, though, was another matter. Somewhere on the route from India to England to my hosting nation, it took a wrong turn, combining the very worst of rice congee and smoked kippers, with a hearty dash of cheap curry powder and a dollop of sweet-and-sour sauce from a packet. Repulsive.”
Lestrade cooperated with the narrative, adding an appropriate level of revolted sound effects before sipping more of his scotch.
“Exactly,” Mycroft concurred. “Utterly repulsive. It wasn’t until the second day, though, after a long schedule that had included quite a lot of hiking around hilltop temple compounds, that I discovered they believed it proper to soothe their guests' aches by dragging them off to a nice, steamy bathhouse, followed by a proper full-body massage.”
“Ooooooh,” Lestrade chortled. “Sounds lovely.”
“It was nothing of the sort,” Mycroft snapped. “There was a presupposition of communal bathing, the water was far too hot, and the massage was provided by two giggling girls young enough to be my daughters even then. And it wasn’t at all unclear what they were giggling about.”
“So a rotten time was had by all?” Lestrade asked, a bit confused.
Mycroft didn’t answer. He took another sip of his scotch, long nose dipping down into the heavy crystal tumbler, eyes refusing to meet Lestrade’s.
“Oh, my-my-my, Mycroft,” Lestrade chuckled. “So, do tell. What happened?”
“Well, I did manage to convince them such virtue as the poor things still retained was safe with me,” he grumbled.
“And?” He laughed to see Mycroft actually pout. “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad.”
Mycroft’s eyes closed, and he said, very quietly, “No. Not that bad. Indeed, it was…really very lovely.” And he sighed.
Lestrade blinked, watching his lover’s face. “Hmmm. I think you’re holding back.”
“They…were actually skilled masseuses. Trained professionally.” Mycroft hunched closer. “It took them awhile to find the right work level for me—their first attempt was like being pummeled by an angry washerwoman facing a barrel full of stained sheets. The second time was a bit too light. But when they found my range…” He sighed again, this time with a shivering wistfulness Lestrade had never heard from him before—not ever.
He stopped. Lestrade waited for him to continue, but he was silent, staring into the fire.
Lestrade considered a prod to get him going again, and didn’t have the heart. Mycroft’s expression was almost blank—almost. A faint trace of uncertainty seasoned with longing lingered, refusing to abandon him to complete calm. Trying to get through that seemed unkind. Instead, Lestrade leaned back and sipped at his drink, eyes shut, imagining his lover naked and tended by nubile young things. As fantasies went, it was not bad. Not at all bad.
It was almost half an hour before Mycroft said, quietly, “I don’t think I’d ever been touched everywhere, before. I mean…maybe when I was a baby. During bath-time. I don’t mean…I actually wouldn’t let them there. But they touched everything else. Toes. Ankles. I remember them massaging my hands, and my wrists. There was one spot, above my bum, but not really the small of my back. The elder of the two attacked it like it was an enemy encampment, and I was about to scream when something just—let go. I’ve never felt so eased by anything in my life. They were so gentle, but not…delicate. Or dainty. They massaged my scalp; behind my ears. My face.”
Lestrade kept silent, listening to Mycroft talk, drinking in the awe and yearning in his voice. It was what he’d hoped for, but not actually expected—a Mycroft his Mycroft had never shared with him before. A hidden Mycroft.
“They had hot tea,” Mycroft said. “Ginger tea, not camellia. Ginger and honey. Every so often they’d stop and we’d all drink a little cup of hot ginger tea. It burned going down, it was so strong, and the scent was wonderful. The room was all steamy, and smelled of ginger and water and wet bamboo. They rolled me on my back, and the younger one sat cross-legged with my head on her lap, and rubbed my temples, while the elder worked her way up my legs. When she got too close to my cock, I opened my eyes to tell her not to—but she was already wringing out a hot, wet towel. She snapped it in the air to cool a little, then covered me over, and said it was all right, she’d leave that for me. Then she just kept on, working the knots out of everything.” He ducked his head. “I got hard anyway. Not from…they were young girls, not my thing at all. Just…” He swallowed. “It wasn’t like anything I’d ever done before. Done since, either.”
“Why not?” Lestrade asked, softly. “I suspect you could get similar service, similar quality, even here. Hell, it’s London. Not all masseuses are hookers.”
“Well, one doesn’t, does one?” Mycroft said, attempting his usual tart delivery, and failing.
Lestrade thought about his lover again, lying on a masseuses’ table in some little out of the way Asian fiefdom, coming apart emotionally in response to something as simple as human touch. Mycroft hadn’t said, but Lestrade was suddenly willing to bet he’d cried—not sobbing, wracking cries, but slow tears seeping from the corners of his eyes down onto the calves of the younger masseuse as she rubbed his temples, as the warm cloth lay over the erection tactfully ignored by the older masseuse as she worked her way up his body—flanks, belly, chest, shoulders, neck.
“When they were done, we all drank another cup of tea,” Mycroft said. “Then they helped me into a robe—soft cotton. I kissed them each on both cheeks. When I left I asked the major domo to make sure they got the most ridiculously huge tip. Quite outrageous for the place and time and services rendered. But…” He didn’t say more, instead looking at his empty glass, rolling the very last drop around the edge of the bottom, around and around. After a moment he said, in a false, brisk voice, “And that was the most erotic event of my life. Pitiful, I daresay. But there it is.”
“It sounds amazing,” Lestrade said. “And I don’t care ‘what’s done.’ We’re going to find some good—really good—professional masseuse service and we’re going to repeat that little slice of heaven. Alone. Together. However you like. But in the meantime…” He stood, and reached out one hand for Mycroft’s, giving his partner a heave up, until both were standing. “We’re going to go take a shower. And I’m going to touch every inch. Even there. And then, love, we’re going to go to sleep, and on the way to dreamland, I’m going to hold you. If you don’t mind.”
Mycroft met his eyes, and gave a shaky chuckle. “I think I’m likely to enjoy that, love.”
“Good,” Lestrade said, and he added the entire evening to his collection of memories of Mycroft—the night he first learned to really touch his lover.