A Slip Twixt Cup and Lip by Kathryn Ramage

Not long after lunch, Frodo lay face-down on the bed, bound by a single soft cord that was tied at each end to the lower part of the bedpost and looped around his wrists; the length of the cord between lay lightly along his arms and across his shoulder blades. They'd been playing such games for some weeks now, and he'd resigned himself to the fact that Sam would never tie a tight knot. The loops around his wrists were loose enough that he could easily slip a hand free if he wished to. While this was convenient for scratching his nose or pushing the hair out his eyes, Frodo preferred to grip the cord in his hands to increase the illusion of captivity. His feet were unbound, but slightly apart.

Sam sat beside and behind him at the edge of the bed, gently stroking the small of his back and backside. When his fingers brushed a ticklish point on the back of his thigh, it sent a thrill through him and made him wriggle impatiently. He was ready. With quickened breath, Frodo shut his eyes and gripped the cord tightly, waiting. But Sam only continued to pet him. It wasn't like Sam to tease. Whatever was taking him so long?

He opened his eyes just enough to peek through his lashes. Sam was watching him with an odd, thoughtful expression. "What's the trouble?" he asked.

"I was just thinking," answered Sam. "Is that why you like this sort o' thing?"

"Why-?"

"You said you don't want to be hurt, but it's punishment just the same. You want to be punished for the things you think you've done wrong. You let `em weigh on you too much."

Astonished at this remarkable statement, Frodo lifted his head from the pillow and twisted to look over his shoulder. "Sam! No, that isn't it at all. I must say, you've picked the oddest time to bring this up! I've come to terms with my failure. I wasn't responsible for what I did in Mordor. I know that now." Writing about those terrible days, especially the worst moment when his will had faltered at the Crack of Doom, had helped to settle some of the doubts in his own mind. By finishing his book with their return to the Shire, he felt now as if his quest was truly ended and the worst of his adventures all in the past. He could forget them.

"That's not what I meant," Sam answered. "It's you wanting to do this right now, with her ladyship cold just down the hall. To my mind, that's more disturbing than Nel coming into bed with us! But not you. It's set you off. It's the murderers you let get away you want punishment for, like Lady Iris, and that lot in Gamwich."

Frodo sighed and rested his chin thoughtfully in the hollow of his shoulder. "There's nothing we could've done about 'that lot.' We brought the crime we suspected to the attention of the Nobottle High Shirriff and the local magistrate, and they seemed to believe there was no point in pursuing the matter. We could give them no proof beyond what Mr. Woodbine would confess to, and they were in sympathy with him and his reasons."

"Now what about these two?"

"I suppose I am sorry I let them leave Long Cleeve," Frodo admitted. "Especially Florisel."

"You didn't used to think Mr. Pumble-Took was in on poisoning the old Thain."

"I still don't. But when he flew with her, I might've guessed that something like this would happen sooner or later." Frodo tried to explain. "It isn't a single murder alone, or the attempt of it, that troubles me so much, Sam. I realize that sometimes a person can have a good reason for wishing another dead, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to do it! One murder might be justified, but I'm afraid that a murderer doesn't always stop at that one. Murder changes who you are, and you can't go back to being the sort of person you were before. Once you've killed and gotten away with it, what's to stop you the next time? It's easier to do it again."

Though he had no proof of it, Frodo suspected that Lady Iris had murdered her first husband in order to marry Thain Brabantius, and she had certainly tried to speed the elderly Thain to his death. Now she was dead too, by a poisoned cup of tea. He also saw now that, while his finding them here at the Three Badgers had been a coincidence, the death of Lady Iris occurring while he was here was not. He did feel somewhat responsible for that.

"It's especially easy for a poisoner." He recalled what Gandalf had said about the poisoner who had terrorized Minas Tirith, and it seemed just as true in the present case. "It gives them a sense of power over life and death that no mortal should command. Once they begin to kill, they can't stop. They see murder as the solution to every obstacle and inconvenience."

"Then you think she did it herself," said Sam. "Not deliberate, but accidental-like?"

Frodo could see his friend still didn't understand. "Something like that."

"Then why'd he run off?"

"Isn't it obvious? You've looked at everything I have, Sam. The tea-cups. That vial of poison. Surely you can come to the same conclusions- Ow!"

Sam had slapped his bottom, not hard, but with a surprisingly sharp sting that left a warm, arousing tingle.

"Enough! You always do this when you know something I don't," Sam told him. "I don't want to be playing guessing games!"

"You started it," Frodo retorted. Since that swat, he'd begun to feel as if he were pressed uncomfortably against the mattress, and he shifted slightly. "I was quite happy to be bound up and buggered before you decided to go probing into my conscience instead. Very well--I'll explain everything to you, if you'll just do that again. A little harder this time, please?"
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