A Picture Of Molly Hooper

Irene Adler returned to her seat, a fire blazing in her head. Sherlock Holmes hadn’t lied when he had said that Molly Hooper was something unexpected. The girl was sublime. Irene could not help but relive the way her eyelids had fluttered closed, as though overcome, when Irene had allowed her lips to graze the poor girl’s ear.

And now, perched at the edge of a rickety wooden stool, her dark hair falling in wavy tendrils to pool around her pale throat, Molly looked the part of some sort of classical Greek goddess. Those lips gently parted, her deep, warm brown eyes thrust wide open to catch the sunlight. Irene did not want to tear her eyes away. She was conscious of how her blood seemed to circulate, pulsing in her temples, and thrumming to her heart, pumping the ecstasy that was Molly Hooper through her extremities, her desire just under the skin.

She watched the girl intently for a few long minutes, and she felt vaguely that perhaps she would not mind observing the girl for an eternity. She was oddly conscious of how Molly kept trying to steal glances at her when she thought Irene was not aware. The girl’s interest, as naïve and platonic as it probably was, made it hard for Irene to think coherently, and so she allowed the silence to drag on.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was working feverishly, a look of immense concentration etched upon his face. His hands seemed to dance upon the canvas, and his eyes were ablaze with something all consuming.

Unable to bear the purgatory that had opened up between the three of them, Irene rose from her chair again, taking care to infuse her movements with extra grace, and just a hint of seduction in case Molly was watching. She moved to look at the portrait over Sherlock’s shoulder.

Irene knew a bit about art—nothing that would particularly distinguish her as a critic of any kind, but she knew at first glance that this picture was a masterpiece. Sherlock had somehow captured all of the golden fire that seemed to flash in Molly’s lovely brown eyes, and he had managed to replicate those lips which were parted only slightly—her mouth was entirely too suggestive.

But there was something else in the wet oils that seemed to strike her like a blade to the chest: perhaps it was something about her skin, painted milky and smooth, or something in the tilt of her chin slightly upwards, that seemed to scream of innocence and a pale kind of purity that Irene had not even noticed before Sherlock had painted it.

As she gazed upon the painted face of Molly Hooper, Irene felt as though she suddenly knew the girl in a way she could not of from simply looking at the real her. Cautiously, she allowed her eyes to rake over Molly’s slender form, still leaning limply against her stool. How had she missed the innocence, the purity, the absolute naturalness of this creature before?

She could not explain it, but for some reason, the portrait filled her with a sense of dread. Something about the painted Molly made her speak without really thinking.

“I think you are right, Miss Hooper, about people being too afraid to really know themselves”, she began in her low, melodic voice, “Imagine if every person was unafraid of their true nature—if they could be perfectly themselves, voice every thought, express every feeling, the world would be an entirely different place”.

Molly was looking at her again, and Irene was struck by how her eyes seemed at once in and out of focus. They seemed only to be full of Irene.

“I don’t quite understand where you’re going with this”, Molly laughed lightly, her gaze still locked on Irene’s.

“I was reminded, as I was looking at this picture of you, that people, and often women in particular, are punished for their refusals. Every impulse that we try to suppress because it isn’t proper or correct--- every stifled desire roots itself in the mind and poisons us. Perhaps the only way to rid oneself entirely of temptation is to yield to it”. Irene felt herself speaking out of passion, was vaguely aware that her hands were moving about feverishly as she tried to explain what about Molly’s portrait had so affected her.

Molly stared at her, eyes thrust open, a look of gradual awareness coming over her features.

Irene rushed to finish her thought, “And you, Miss Hooper, you yourself, with all of your pale purity and tamed speech, have surely had passions that have made you afraid, dreams that have been branded into your memory, fantasies that are never to be voiced---“

All at once Molly seemed to find her voice, and as she spoke Irene registered with some surprise the panic that seemed to cloud her entire visage, from the frantic eyes to the chalky, white cheeks, “Miss Adler I must ask that you stop with this at once. You have confused me, I’m not sure how to respond”.

The girl looked suddenly very small, and almost on the verge of tears. She lifted one trembling hand to cover her eyes, and her shoulders curled in on themselves.

Irene dared not say a word. The girl had responded perfectly.

The two of them sat like that for a bit, and Irene was strangely conscious of the fact that Molly was trying hard not to succumb to sobs.

At last, Molly withdrew her hand and said, voice shaking and high-pitched like a child’s, “Sherlock, it’s simply suffocating in here. I’m craving a breath of fresh air; I think I’ll go take a turn about the garden. You don’t mind do you?”, and she had leaped off her stool and out the glass French doors that opened out into the back garden. Sherlock did not seem to hear her question, and in any case she did not wait for a response.

For a long minute, Irene sat perfectly still, running over the exchange of words that had shifted the relationship between the two women in such a short span of time. Her whole speech had been a kind of bluff, designed to draw Molly out, to see if she was as respectable, and upright as she appeared on canvas, or as wild as she seemed to Irene in reality. Apparently, the girl had something to hide where her desires were concerned, something she was perhaps hiding from herself.

Sherlock’s voice jilted her from her thoughts and hazy wonderings, “Adler, where did she disappear off to?” He sounded irritated, but also strangely removed, as though half of his conscious mind was still rooted in the painting he was nearly finished with.

“Didn’t you hear her, darling? She needed some air. Went out to the garden. I shall go and retrieve her if you like?”

Sherlock’s eyes did not move from the canvas as he nodded his head distractedly, “Yes, please do that”.
* * *

Irene found Molly bent over a rose bush, her nose thrust deeply into one particularly sumptuous bloom. She looked almost peaceful, save for the way her fingers shook at the flower’s stalk, and traced the piercing thorns. Molly inhaled the light floral aroma as though it were some kind of drug.

Irene put a tentative hand upon the younger girl’s shoulder, “You’re smart to do that. Nothing remedies wounds to the psyche like the senses.” She tried to make her voice sound warm, and nonthreatening, but the girl jerked away from her touch, her eyes rimmed in a delicate pink that only accentuated her natural loveliness.

“I’m sorry if what I said in their touched you dreadfully”, apologies did not come naturally to Irene, but something about the girl’s expression made her penitent. Irene realized with a thrill of horror, that it wasn’t just a kind of desire she felt for the girl, but also something protective. How queer, indeed.

She watched, unable to tear her gaze away as Molly looked at the neighboring lilac blooms as though they were the most interesting and tragic things she had ever seen. She was not expecting Molly to speak, and so when she did, Irene felt a surge of surprise.

“You have the strangest effect on me”, she spoke without meeting Irene’s gaze, in a cool monotone, so quietly, that Irene had to move slightly closer to hear what came next, “It frightens me. I can’t explain—I’ve been spending a great deal of time with Sherlock over the past few weeks, but our friendship, if I can call it that, has never changed me. I’ve spent only an hour or so with you, and I feel like the definition of what I was is slipping, like I can’t hold on to what I am supposed to be. It’s so strange”.

She grew quiet again, but Irene did not speak. The Woman knew that silence could act as a vacuum, drawing out more than one intended to say. Sure enough, Molly’s lovely pink lips opened again, and she spoke.

“Your voice reminds me of music. Certain kinds of music make me feel like I’m going mad, because I can’t think my way out of them rationally. It’s like that when I’m talking to you. There were things I never let myself acknowledge in my girlhood, that I can see so suddenly now. Things about--- desires I suppose, but also other things. I can’t explain it all now. I can’t believe a perfect stranger had to show me myself”. She trailed off, her eyelids fluttering in the receding light, and Irene wondered at the marvelous creature that stood before her.

She placed a hand upon her own lips, as though to unconsciously silence herself.

The gesture triggered something in Irene that moved her to speak as well, “Miss Hooper, I am sure you understand more than you think you do.”

Molly moved in closer to the older woman so that they were separated by only a few inches. Irene felt her breath catch as they stood like that together against the deepening twilight. For the most fleeting of moments, Irene wondered what it would be like to press her lips against Molly Hooper’s.

And then very suddenly, Molly shuddered, as though waking from a nightmare, and tore herself away from Irene. She put a few steps between them, her whole body trembling, “I should be getting back to Sherlock. He gets so absurd when anyone delays his creative process”. Irene watched as Molly plastered on a terribly false smile, and slipped inside.

Alone in the back garden, Irene ran a hand through her own dark hair. At least the rain had stopped, and the garden smelled fresh and alive. She decided that before the night was out, she would ask Molly to accompany her to the theatre the following evening. She knew without even having to think, that she needed to know the girl. There was something vital in their shared glances, in the way the girl spoke out truth like it was nothing.