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They wrestle and grapple with each other on the bed, lean sinewy ex-soldier’s strength against the power of a former amateur boxing champion; sharp animal cunning versus that calculating intellect. Both strong in their own way, both powerful men, both killers. It is Moran who triumphs now however. He pins Moriarty underneath him, panting, grinning, and grips him roughly by the hair as he claims a lingering kiss.
It is a fight he can, will, must never win, not really, for Moriarty is his master, his world, and should Moran one day really conquer him then truly this will be no victory; he will simply have lost all. But they can play, as they play their other games. Sometimes (only sometimes) the great dominating, controlling Moriarty relishes the brief opportunity to let that control slip; to hand the reins over to his second in command; to be under his power and at his mercy, secure in the knowledge that as he would never harm Moran, neither will Moran ever harm him. There is little of their far more prolonged, elaborate and complex games of dominance and submission and of hurt and humiliation in which they indulge when the professor is in control – neither of them desires that here. Moriarty will however let himself be held down, Moran’s hands gripping his wrists hard enough to hurt, and be taken like some harlot until he is nought but a moaning, writhing mess beneath the colonel, and he will thrill at this; at his loss of control; at the brief pangs of exquisite pain amidst the pleasure; even at the shiver of fear that runs down his spine when he grasps his own temporary powerlessness.
There is another element in play here though, albeit one that Moriarty may be less willing to acknowledge to himself. He relishes too the chance to witness Moran’s devotion to him from an entirely different perspective. It excites the professor to have Moran submitting to him and when he does so then Moriarty frequently experiences an odd sensation of warmth, not physical but more abstract. Some might even call it love. It is certainly some form of deep affection, for to see Moran so helpless, so vulnerable, so willing to do or to accept almost anything to please his master and in that position of his own choice, this touches the professor. Moran loves him, he knows this now, and during their other games Moran looks at him with so much reverence that even the professor cannot pretend that he is unmoved by this.
When the situation is reversed and Moran is in control though, Moriarty sees another side to the colonel’s devotion to him – his care and his concern for him, no matter how much they may fight at first; no matter how much Moriarty may provoke Moran’s temper and goad him into the initial scrap. He hears it in Moran’s voice too, in the way he calls him James, different to the way he uses the name when Moriarty takes the dominant role. This is richer, even thicker with emotion. Moran was always used to taking the lead role in his numerous sexual conquests. He is extremely experienced then, yet his deep love for Moriarty and his innate protectiveness towards him renders him somewhat more hesitant in taking the lead with the professor, even though he knows full well that Moriarty is no fragile doll that will shatter easily.
There is so much barely contained violence within Moran and though he is so very cold when he kills he has a hot temper and may well lash out from time to time in his fury. Yet always at his core is his love for Moriarty. The other side of the heat of his temper is the passionate strength of his feeling for the professor. The tenet he lives by is the desire to please and protect him and even now, stirred into taking action to overpower and dominate his master, nothing, not his brief hot fury, not his searing lust, can eclipse that. Always he is seeking permission to proceed, rarely in words but in the way he looks at Moriarty and reads his reactions. To an outsider such signals may be barely perceptible but they are there, signs written in that subtlest of languages that exist between two men perfectly in tune with each other.
When Moran is inside Moriarty, as he is now, it is the strangest of sensations for the professor, not merely on a physical level but on an intellectual one also. The feelings can certainly be immensely pleasurable (proof of this being in the groans and curses that Moran draws out of Moriarty as he takes him), but how foolish, how illogical it is to allow oneself to be penetrated, for this is no action isolated from all other meaning. A human habit - a human failing, one might say, but paradoxically also a human strength - is that of imbuing everything with so many layers of meaning. A sculpture is no mere lump of carved marble, a painting is not just the smears and daubs of paint on canvas, music is not simply the vibrations produced by the strings of instruments. Emotions, hopes, dreams, fears, desires, memories… so much may be conveyed through even the simplest means. Nothing is ever only what it seems to be on the surface and sex… well, sex tends to become about far more than just the sating of some basic biological urge. Perhaps Moriarty, lacking in many of the desires that most men appear to experience, once thought of it so, but even he came to change his mind as his regard for Moran developed.
This then says much about his nature and about Moran’s too, and about the feelings that exist between them, and to some it might certainly be read wrongly. It is a risk – a calculated one, but still a risk – to allow this to happen. Another partner might easily misread the situation and think that proceeding this way has forever shifted the balance of power between them, but not Moran. Moran knows and - more importantly - wants his place to be at Moriarty’s side for eternity, but also always slightly beneath him. Not (contrary to appearances sometimes) as a slave, not as a servant, nor as some browbeaten creature incapable of thinking or acting for himself with his every thought and action dictated to him, but still always ultimately under Moriarty’s command. He understands that these shifts in power are only ever temporary and he would have it no other way. He savours each occasion while it lasts; perhaps sometimes he even wishes that they were more frequent occurrences, but he would not wish it to become a permanent state of affairs.
Moran fucks fiercely but not brutally, rough but always on the right side of the pleasure/pain balance. He knows precisely how to enter Moriarty without damaging him and how to thrust inside him to give them both pleasure. He also seeks, and is granted, far more kisses than he is usually permitted, his lips and tongue meeting the professor’s time and time again, seemingly as intensely aroused by the kissing as he is by the penetration. When at last he comes he buries his face in the hollow beneath Moriarty’s jaw, his final cry of, “James!” uttered against Moriarty’s warm skin whilst he spills inside him. The professor, close to his own release but not quite there, tenses at the sensation briefly. Moran though, still acutely aware of Moriarty’s needs and desires even in the moments after his own orgasm, takes him in hand and strokes him until Moriarty arches against him, fingers digging painfully into Moran’s back, and comes himself with a cry that is almost soundless, yet which might well have been, “Sebastian!”
When he comes to himself a few moments later he is on his side, Moran cradling him in his arms and gently stroking his back.
“Shhh, shhh, Professor, it’s all right,” Moran says. “It’s all right, sir.”
And there it is – the switch in the balance once more. Although still intensely vulnerable at these times, Moriarty is once again in full control. When Moran stills and moves to pull away from him, now it is Moriarty’s decision (much as Moran yearns for it) to gently draw Moran back and to allow him to lie snuggled against him for some minutes. Only when the need to take care of the messier aspects of their coupling becomes too strong to be ignored does Moriarty press Moran aside.
“We must take a bath,” he says.
“Yes Professor.” Moran obediently begins to move off the bed to go and prepare the bath. However he cannot quite help himself, and he leans over Moriarty once more, cheekily daring to request a final kiss.
Moriarty rolls his eyes in mock consternation but gives Moran his wish at once, placing a kiss upon Moran’s closed lips - a rather more chaste gesture than the kisses of earlier, yet perhaps even more affectionate.
Moran looks at him for a moment after, gazing deep into Moriarty’s eyes, and the professor has the strong suspicion that Moran is on the verge of saying something – something to which Moriarty will not know how to respond. Even so he finds himself unable to look away and he only breaks this brief, odd (yet not entirely unwelcome) tension by clearing his throat and saying firmly, “Moran, the bath?”
“Of course, sir.” Moran does now remove himself entirely from the bed and he saunters off, stark naked and humming something to himself, watched with some amusement by the professor. Moriarty cannot be entirely sure but he thinks that the tune is a portion of the overture to Don Giovanni.
He lies back on the bed to await the bath, feeling sated and also rather sore, but agreeably so. Though he has no yearning to increase their frequency, these acts are a pleasant deviation from the norm, aiding him in unwinding and relaxing after a particularly stressful period. Invariably he begins to feel soon afterwards that his equilibrium has been restored, allowing him to become far more focused and productive. He is sure too that giving Moran the opportunity to indulge his more domineering side from time to time is of benefit to him too, and to their relationship, further strengthening the bonds of love and loyalty between them and guaranteeing that Moran will always remain with him. Moran is predictable in many of his habits and in his wants, his needs, but far from making him seem dull to Moriarty, this pleases and even stimulates the professor. It is wonderful - truly wonderful - to have someone upon whom he can so completely rely, in their working life and in their private time alike and no matter what roles they may take, and this enables him to give a free rein to even his most arcane of desires.
At length Moran returns to the bedroom to inform Moriarty that the bath is ready, still humming, still nude. Moriarty glances over at him as he stands there leaning against the door frame, entirely shameless in his nakedness and with a faintly wicked glint in his eye as he meets Moriarty’s gaze.
‘Yes,’ the professor thinks, regarding the colonel with a smile, ‘that’s my boy.’