The Progress of Sherlock Holmes

Call it What it is

Small (cheap) dining chair; loose spindles in the back pinch and prod. Fidget. Shift weight from side to side, shake left leg in staccato. Chair legs (ends raw, uncovered by bits of felt) scrape beneath, drawing vertical lines (raw wood directed by never-ceasing motion) on the dining room floor. Leaving evidence of this awkward dinner party. Take the furniture out and you could still read this scene as clearly; the loving couple (John at the head of the table, Mary to his right) leaning toward each other, beaming, happy, radiant, and their anxious guest (uncomfortable, ready to leap up at a moment's notice, full of unresolved tension) on the right. You could read the story in the floor: two people with no regrets; one made of them.

"I opened it, and there was a condom in there. With a paperclip inside it. A paperclip!" Mary, telling droll library stories. Mary has good comic timing, a dramatic flare. Typical skills of a pathological liar. (To be fair: also typical skills of those generally considered socially successful and charming.) "He came back the next day, asking for his bookmark."

John laughs. Touches her arm.

(His hair is slightly mussed; hers, recently re-styled (fresh hairspray, cheap). Freshly-applied lipstick (very cheap), with a smudge inching too high on her upper lip. A bit of that same lipstick rubbed into John's jaw. Their bed (behind a closed door, as if they are trying to hide the presence of the marital bed from me, as if it were somewhat unseemly for me to see it) was swiftly and recently re-made. Smells of sweat, lubricant (cheap), and semen. They had sex before I arrived. Can almost see the oxytocin drifting through John's veins. The heaviness around his eyes, the quiet weight of satisfaction. Trust. Affection. (Love. Call it what it is.)

His face doesn't clench up with frustration (anger, hurt?) when he's with her (like it does so often when he's with me). She smooths out his face (his shoulders, the long muscles in his back, the small ones in his hands, the complications of his post-war life). She speaks; he laughs. Full, unrestrained, confident, unafraid.

(The lack of fear: his body doesn't like it. His body feels tension where his mind believes there is none, invents injury in the face of its deliberate and steady absence. The war broke John. The thing he wants (happiness, stability, comfort, love), this thing that he has is what cripples him.)

My valued contribution to this blissful arrangement: jeopardy and fear. Uncertainty. Danger. (Bitterness. Regret.)

A twinge.

(Valid evaluation. Accurate. I seek out danger as a matter of course. Problems and crimes, evidence and careful thinking, observation and deduction: they keep me sane. Am I largely incapable of providing the kind of comfortable, unwound, unsullied pleasure I can read on John’s face as he drapes his (right) arm around Mary? The body weighed down with complete trust and oxytocin? Is this what John thought I would hate? The dullness of shared bedclothes and mussed hair, a familiar body under my fingers, reacting in predicable ways? (My own unpainted lips against his jaw?) Would I hate it? Was he wrong? I don't know. I think he was. I think I was. Regret. Rewind: start over.)

“More potatoes?” Mary has the spoon in her hand (enamel on the handle is chipped; she will cut herself on it if she shifts her hand a little to the left). She smiles at me. Perfectly pleasant.

A surprise: Mary hides her tells. She is nearly impossible for me to read (on this point, at least, this one point). Her whole body is neutral: her behaviour seems natural, but it’s the opposite. The lesson: it is possible for Mary to have sex (with John, with anyone) without me being able to conclusively deduce that she has done so. Her eyes are clear and friendly, her gaze direct. She looks like someone enjoying the moment, full of confidence, all else shuttered behind her eyes, her mouth, the deliberate expression on her face. I can look at John and know what happened within minutes of my arrival here, but her eyes (face, body) tell me absolutely nothing. Disturbing.