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I was dressing on the morning of April the 6th when I realised what had happened. My good linen trousers had been airing overnight to get rid of the mothball smell, and as I pulled them on I discovered I couldn't quite button them up. Watson was already in the sitting room drinking his second cup of tea and reading the paper (I could hear it rustling as he turned the pages), and I raised my voice to call for him.
"John!" I shouted, although the cottage was not large, "get in here this instant and explain yourself!"
I heard the creak of his armchair and the paper being set down, and then he was in the doorway of our bedroom, looking concerned. His fair hair has greyed beautifully, and his moustache is as thick as it ever was although it is mostly white now. His blue eyes are even more vibrant, if that is possible, and his skin has not lost its desert tan, no matter how many London and Sussex winters he has seen.
"This is your fault," I said, pointing to the open fly of my trousers.
He frowned, confused. "I beg your pardon?"
I pointed a finger at him then, accusing, and he moved towards me. I looked back in the mirror and flushed. I am a vain man, I always have been, and what I finally saw there made me cringe. "I'm obscene," I said, tugging at the flies, "I must have gained a stone."
"Two or three, I imagine," Watson said, smirking now and stepping in close behind me. He slid his hands around my belly, his fingers digging in softly to the paunch that had developed stealthily over the winters of our retirement. I grimaced but Watson pressed his lips to my neck and kissed his way up behind my ear. "What's the matter with that?"
I bared my teeth at him in the mirror, disgruntled and irritated. "You are being incredibly dense," I said.
He met my eyes and gazed at me for a moment, and then he said, "You think it's unattractive. No, wait." He considered, and kissed my neck again. "You worry that I think it's unattractive."
I blushed and tugged ineffectually at my trousers again. If I were to get them buttoned, I would have to suck in my now apparently ample gut so hard I might as well give up on breathing. Watson caught my hands and twined our fingers together, and as I watched him in the glass he closed his eyes, tucked his nose into the crook of my neck and breathed deeply, and then began to laugh.
It was silent at first, just the barest shaking of his shoulders and chest as he stifled it, but soon it broke free and rumbled out of him, deep and warm in my ear and frustratingly pleasant throughout my body. I wanted to be angry at him, furious at his disregard for my uncomfortably emotional state, but his laughter was catching and I bit my lip hard to keep from smiling.
"My dear Holmes," Watson said, chuckling and giving me a squeeze around the middle, "I cherish you."
"Stop that nonsense this minute," I said.
"I love you like this," he said, ignoring me. "Do you know why?"
I scowled.
"Because it means that you're eating, probably three square meals, although I cannot always be sure about lunch especially if you spend the day in your apiary and I have gone to town. It means you are active, working up an appetite. It means you are not a slave to your solution," and at this his eyes dimmed a little, and I ducked my head, but he went on, "and I know you have not been for some time, and it fills me with such joy." He kissed my cheek this time. "It means you are healthy, my love, and as long as I have known you I have worried about that. You smoke too much, you sleep too little, but now I have absolute faith that you eat just right."
He met my eyes again in the mirror and leered at me, and I felt myself blushing. God damn the man.
"Besides," he said, and gripped me suddenly by the hips, "this just gives me something nice to hang on to when I fuck you into the mattress."
"For Heaven's sake, John," I said, unable to keep myself from leaning into him a little bit. He was half-hard against my arse and he gave a little thrust to punctuate his assertion.
"I have to get a jacket mended," he said, rubbing a circle on my stomach and pressing me back against him. "I'll take your trousers to the tailor tomorrow and have them let out."
"Shut up."
Watson laughed again at my tone. "Come, my love, find something else to wear. That kilt those mad Scots loaned you and you never gave back."
"That was an accident," I said.
"Or suffer your winter trousers one more day, and I'll buy you a new pair of summer ones when we go to town again."
I nudged him away from me and he let go so that I could wiggle my way out of the offending garment. I lay them over the arm of the chair, and turned to confront Watson about his lapse in not notifying me that I was gaining weight as rapidly as a newborn elephant, when the look on his face stopped me. I was wearing only my shirt and my socks, and he looked like a man deprived of his meals now faced with a banquet.
"Or," he said, reaching for me again, "you can get back into bed right now, and I can show you precisely how much I like a little meat on your bones."
I obliged him. He is Watson, after all. I have trouble denying him anything.