The minute Sherlock Holmes realized that his university had nothing useful left to teach him, he left almost immediately for London.  He was able to secure a flat on Montague Street and set about installing himself as a private consulting detective.  Brother Mycroft had shaken his head and chuckled slightly when Holmes had told of his chosen—invented!—profession.  It was, of course, so like Sherlock, who had drive and energy that his older brother never would.  Mycroft promised to support his brother until his business took off, as he had no doubt it would.  And indeed, it was only three months before Mycroft’s monthly rent cheque was returned with the word VOID scribbled across it in red ink.

            London quickly ensnared Holmes with both her extensive crime and myriad amusements, and it was not long at all until Holmes had mentally mapped every speck of dirt on every street, in every neighbourhood and borough in the city.  He knew where each MP (and their mistresses) lived, where every bank and barber and surgery was located, and the same of every opium den, brothel, and molly house.  He studied those establishments in the first two categories quite cavalierly, befriending the proprietors and several employees, studying the customers, and in the case of the opium dens, sampling the product.

             The latter category, on the other hand, gave him pause.  He knew that he should leave no stone unturned if he were to become the expert on London he needed to be as a detective, but still he hesitated to enter the houses and clubs that catered to those of a peculiar disposition.  He ignored the mystery of his wavering for a personally embarrassingly long time before he forced himself to deduce the reason.  It came quite easily: he could not enter one of those establishments as a detective; if he did, he would at long last be forced to acknowledge fully that he, like the men inside, was a criminal.  And though his crime nowadays was reduced entirely to mere thought, and his actions had begun and ended with Victor Trevor, it made very little difference in his mind.

             Eventually, after reviewing all the facts, he came to a very simple conclusion: he could not bring himself to enter these establishments as a detective, so he would have to enter them as a patron.  This approach turned out to be marvellously successful.  He soon became better acquainted with all of the proprietors, staff, and customers of virtually every molly house and special club in London.  And if any of them found him a little strange, they never said anything, though they had every right to think so.  He had developed a bit of a reputation: he never went home with anyone from the clubs, and at the molly houses, he claimed he was just there for the company (a statement which always resulted in any number of off-colour jokes).  This is not to say that he completely abstained; in fact, he would frequently seclude himself in a corner with a new companion, or enjoy whatever attentions the renters were willing to give away for free, which included a surprising variety of acts (later, one of the renters would confess to him that they had had a bet on which one of them would break him).  However, despite his intention to act purely as a patron, in fact his visits were equal parts business and pleasure.

 One evening, several months into his survey, Holmes was ensconced in a pub that had become a particular favourite of his.  He had just concluded a very successful case, involving a baroness and her missing pearls (as Holmes had suspected, they had been taken by her unscrupulous paramour, whose existence she had not very skilfully tried to conceal from him).  It was his first purely social outing, and he was toying with the idea of taking someone home this night.  He had found, in the moments more devoted to pleasure than business, that he had a ‘type’, and from his corner booth, he scanned the lively crowd for the perfect specimen.

 It was funny, Holmes thought, what his type turned out to be.  He found himself drawn to broad-shouldered, middle-sized, stately sorts, preferably with moustaches like Victor had.  In short, he was attracted to the perfectly conventional ideal of male attractiveness.  He spotted a number of likely-looking men around the pub, though the most handsome of them were thoroughly engaged in their own corners, or else surrounded by a throng of admirers.  As Holmes cast his glance around the pub, he suddenly caught the eye of a round-faced man, who then slowly began to make his way over to Holmes.

 He was a man of about thirty, no moustache, and with the beginnings of a paunch.  His face was not particularly handsome, at once merry and cold.  Gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, and he carried an air of intelligence about him.  All things considered, however, Holmes decided that should his conversation not be tedious, the man would make a suitable companion for the night.

 The man reached his table and held out his hand.  “Milverton. Charles Milverton.”

 Holmes shook Milverton’s hand. “Holmes.  James Holmes.”

 Milverton grinned wickedly.  “Tut, tut.  I gave you my real name, yet you give me a pseudonym.  Come now, if we are to be friends, let there be no secrets between us.”

 Holmes was taken slightly aback, but pleased to find that his companion was clever, he chuckled and replied, “I am Sherlock Holmes.  Please have a seat.”

 “That’s more like it,” Milverton replied with a wry grin and slid himself on to the bench next to Holmes, pressing his thigh right up against Holmes’s.  A jolt of warmth shot through his leg.

 “Would you like a glass of wine?” Holmes offered.

 “Mmm, yes, some Pinot Noir would be delightful,” Milverton said.  Normally Holmes would have considered such a fine wine an extravagance, but tonight he boldly ordered a whole bottle of Burgundy, an act that seemed to thrill Milverton. 

 After the wine arrived and they had both filled their glasses, Holmes draped his arm around Milverton’s shoulder and said, “To new friends.”

 “Indeed,” Milverton responded, and they clinked their glasses. As they took a sip, they regarded each other.  It was an odd feeling for Holmes, because Milverton seemed to be observing him, and it was quite strange to be on the receiving end of such treatment.  At last, Milverton spoke, “I have seen you around here before, have I not?”

 “Perhaps,” Holmes replied.  “I come here quite often.  Also, if you are familiar with The Cup-Bearer or The Duke of Buckingham, I frequent those establishments as well.”

 “Ah, yes,” Milverton declared.  “I seem to recall…” he trailed off.  Then he cleared his throat and spoke again.  “Well then, let us get to know each other, shall we?  Tell me, how do you make your living?”

 Holmes considered his answer carefully.  He was certain that no-one here would like to hear they had a detective in their midst, no matter how unofficial.  After all, he himself hardly liked to acknowledge it here.  And so he replied, “By my wits.”

 Milverton regarded him with an air of incredulity and seemed about to challenge Holmes, but when he spoke, he said slowly, “How interesting!  I live off the generosity of strangers.”  And he refilled Holmes’s half-empty glass.

 Later that evening, when the bottle was empty, a slightly tipsy Holmes murmured into Milverton’s ear, “Come home with me?  I live alone, and you are an attractive man.”  He squeezed Milverton’s hand.

 “Yes, I think so,” Milverton answered, and soon they were out the door and on their way to Montague Street.  Once they reached the door, as Holmes fumbled for his keys, Milverton studied the house number and looked up and down the street.  When Holmes finally opened the door, he gestured to Milverton to be silent and tread quietly up the stairs to Holmes’s second-floor flat.

 After they were safely inside, Holmes helped Milverton out of his coat and said in an amused tone, “My landlady has made her policy on bring home women quite clear, but I did not want to test her reaction to men.”

 Milverton gave a distracted chuckle and wandered forth into the flat, taking in his surroundings.  His eyes flitted from the Persian slipper on the mantelpiece to a mess of newspapers in front of the divan to a small statue of Apollo that Milverton was sure was real marble.  “Very bohemian,” Milverton opined as Holmes joined him at his elbow.

 “Yes, I think so,” Holmes said with a smile.  He then brushed his hand down the small of Milverton’s back.  Much to Holmes’s consternation, Milverton bent away from his touch and turned to face him. Holmes mouth twitched at the corners and he reached out to embrace his companion, only to find Milverton’s open palm stretched between them.  Holmes gaped at the hand.

 “Oh.  I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…I mean, you hardly look like the others, but—” He groped around for his wallet and pulled out a pound note.  A generous sum, Holmes thought, but clearly Milverton was a specialist, catering to a crowd that was not so drawn in by wild, untamed youth, as Holmes wasn’t.  He placed the note into Milverton’s palm and moved in to embrace him again.

 But his hand remained outstretched.  “Your brother is a government employee, I believe you told me,” Milverton purred.

 Ice flooded Holmes’s veins.  “Did I?  I suppose I did…”  He dropped his arms to his sides.

 “It wouldn’t look very good to his colleagues in Whitehall if his brother was exposed as a sodomite,” he continued.  “And whatever it is you do—well it hardly matters, does it?  You’d quickly move to breaking rocks.”

 Holmes gathered his bearings and pointed out, “You have no real evidence on the matter.”

 Milverton grinned.  “No, I don’t.  But I’m fairly certain that if I were to, say, knock you out and search your flat, I could find some quite easily.”

 Holmes drew himself up to full height and clenched his fists.  “I’d like to see you try.”

 Milverton chuckled, reached into his inside pocket, and pulled out a bottle of ether.  “I assure you, Mr. Holmes, I’ve taken down more powerful men than you.”

Holmes sighed and pulled out his wallet.  He removed two more pounds and handed them to Milverton.  He turned away, strode over to the mantelpiece, and began to fill his pipe.  “You will let yourself out,” he said angrily.  Then, he flinched; Milverton’s hands were snaking around his chest and abdomen from behind. The nerve of him!  But Holmes soon realised that Milverton was aiming for his breast pocket.  He stood there stoically as Milverton removed another two pounds from his wallet, the last of his windfall from the baroness’s case. 

Milverton tossed the empty wallet onto the mantelpiece and said, “Farewell, Mr. Holmes.  Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime.”

“Get out,” Holmes growled.

Milverton simply chuckled, but obliged.  On his way, however, he called back, “I think I’ll take this fine statue, too, if you don’t mind.”  He laughed cruelly, and Holmes heard the scrape of the marble Apollo being lifted from his table, followed by his flat door opening and closing.  He listened to Milverton descend the stairs and exit the front door.  Holmes finally moved to the front window to watch as Milverton hailed a cab and ordered “Hampstead” to the driver.  He looked up and saw Holmes watching him, and waved with an evil grin as the cab drove away.

Holmes turned from the window in a rage, smoking furiously.  After a few puffs, he began to realize the gravity of the situation, and determined the steps that had to be taken.  No more clubs unless on a relevant case.  An indeterminate period of celibacy.  But the first step he had to take was the hardest.

He went to his desk, removed all of the letters Victor Trevor had ever written him, and consigned them to the fire.

~          ~          ~

             “And that, Watson,” Sherlock Holmes concluded, “Was how I first made the acquaintance of Charles Augustus Milverton.”

             They were in the sitting room in Baker Street, Holmes reclining on the divan, smoking, Watson sitting on the bearskin rug in front of the fire.  They had just witnessed the murder of that notorious blackmailer.

             “Good God, Holmes!” Watson ejaculated.  “All this time I’ve been raising your profile, making you even more of a target.  You should have said something sooner.”

             Holmes chuckled.  “Peace, dear Watson.  My risk level was as low as ever when you were writing my cases.  As a matter of fact, he had already attempted to turn me into the police once before we two even met.”

             Watson gaped at Holmes.  “But, how…?”

             “He had apparently hit a dry spell near the end of ’80 and was scraping the bottom of his barrel of victims—the ones he had no solid proof on, you see.  He approached me, I refused to give him a penny, and he went to the Yard with his story.  He had the good fortune of reporting me to one Inspector Lestrade, who informed him that I was well-known to him as a private detective, and that even if he chose to believe Milverton’s story, that I had been at such a club, he was confident that I had been there as part of an investigation, ‘possibly against blackmailers.’”

             Watson laughed heartily.  “Good old Lestrade!”

             “Indeed,” Holmes agreed.  “Incidentally, after Milverton left Scotland Yard, Lestrade came straight to me and suggested that it might be prudent to obtain a new address, and to, I quote, ‘be more discreet in the future, damn it!’”

             “And that’s how we met!”  Watson exclaimed.

             “That’s how we met, my dear,” Holmes murmured.  “And to be honest, your writings put you at risk more than any other.  As long as I was useful to the police, Milverton couldn’t touch me.  But you—I have reason to believe that he thought you my lover, and knowing me too clever to leave evidence around, he was probably keeping tabs on you.”

             Watson snorted.  “Lovers!   How disappointed he would have been to learn that you’ve been a perfect gentleman the whole of our acquaintance.  Why, when you at last confessed to me your disposition, I was more shocked at the revelation that you had desires and passions at all!”

             Holmes looked down at his pipe.  “Yes, and if he had merely observed, as I had, your devotion to the fairer sex.”

             “Be fair, Holmes,” Watson said playfully, “I have shown you equal devotion, if not more.”

             “Ah, yes,” Holmes murmured, closing his eyes, “that could confuse a man.”

             A silence fell over the room.  Watson stared at Holmes.  Finally he spoke: “Holmes…”

             “I meant nothing by that statement, my good man,” Holmes stated curtly.

             Watson took a deep breath, “But is that meaning there?”

             Holmes took a deep drag from his pipe, and when he exhaled, along with the smoke came the almost imperceptible reply: “Yes.”

             Watson stood up and walked towards the bravest, most intelligent, most just, kindest, greatest man he had ever known and kissed him.