I have not visited the Ganymede Club in several weeks, but I go there tonight. The regular members seem pleased to see me. I was wont to visit the Club at least twice a week, and my absence has puzzled them. They ask what has kept me away. Have I had a family tragedy? Have I taken a long vacation? Has Mr. Wooster been abroad?

I give an uncharacteristically implausible excuse. My schedule, I say, has been more than usually hectic, and that Mr. Wooster's whims wilder and more time-consuming of late. It takes me a moment to realise that the implausible excuse is not a lie.

I play a long game of chess with Mr. Dawkins. He is valet to Lord Barnsborough. I am black and he is white. The first hour of the game is uneventful and mind-numbing, until I seize the opportunity to Queen him with my Knight and proceed to Checkmate in seven moves. I take no real pleasure from my win. As we play, I drink a glass of '21 Bordeaux slowly, feeling my muscles loosed and my face grow warm.

I think more of Mr. Wooster than I do of Bishops and Pawns. I think in particular about the fact that he has gone through my wardrobe and seen that all my pyjamas are the same. The thought leaves me sweating slightly.

After I have beaten Mr. Dawkins, I take my place at the large table with Mr. Green, Mr. Darlington and the other Senior Members, and listen to the meandering, quietly reflective conversation. I do not participate.

I drink a second glass of Bordeaux, and begin to feel slightly sick.

I find myself missing him terribly. Not just his company, or his conversation, which, if I am honest with myself, is neither articulate nor profound enough to sustain my interest for long. I miss most of all his physical proximity – the peculiar tension that has arisen between us when we are close. The smell of his clothes and his aftershave. I cannot bring myself to label this Lust, though I know it must be something akin to it.

I wonder too what he is doing at this moment. I have never thought particularly about what he does on my evenings off. I imagine he has gone to his club. I cannot picture him occupying himself alone in the flat, without anyone to tend to him or pick up after him.

Have we really become so inseparable, our lives so intertwined, that neither of us can function away from the other? For I am feeling equally unable to relax without his presence, without pouring his drinks. Without knowing he is no further away than the next room, in the bed, or in the bath, or at the baby grand.

A terrible, arrogant part of me thinks that he is unworthy of me. I think deep thoughts and I enjoy intellectual pastimes. He skims across the surface of life like a flat stone over deep waters. He makes great, frothing splashes, but never delves beneath the skin of the water. I sometimes wonder whether he will make it across entirely to the opposite riverbank in this way, or whether he will run out of momentum and sink straight to the bottom.

All around me they are talking of the eccentricities of their masters – their strange habits and amusing idiosyncrasies. Mr Davies reveals that his gentleman has taken to wearing spats. Mr. Green's Master has begun to sing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes in the bath. Mr. Darlington's man has demanded artichokes for dinner three days in a row. I feel a sudden, wild urge to announce,

'My Master, you know, has developed the strangest of eccentricities. He takes my hand and puts it into his trousers. He's wont to come into my room of a night to watch me abuse myself. And, most amusingly of all, he tries to bugger me on the chaise longue.'

Mr. Davies offers me a third glass of wine. I accept, my instincts and common sense blurred at the edges through the rose-coloured tint of the first two.

The club disbands at midnight.

I know that I am unsteady as I descend the steps to the street. My movements are a great, slow effort, and I find myself making them more precise – more definite – to compensate. I fight desperately for some measure of control. I will not breach decorum in public, least of all amongst my friends at the Ganymede.

I bid them farewell with an almost-steady voice – almost perfectly crisp consonants. Then I lick at my numb lips and wonder how on Earth I managed to do so.

I cannot go back to the flat intoxicated. But I do not know where else to go.

As I open the front door to the flat, I have a moment of blinding clarity, when I feel perfectly myself, perfectly alert and sober. By the time I close the door behind me, it has passed, and I feel unsteadier and more out-of-control than ever.

Before I can reach my bedroom door, I am distracted by sounds from behind the closed door of the water closet.

I open the door, and fear I rather fall through it. I am engulfed at once in the humid atmosphere of the bathroom. I can feel the moisture drawn into my lungs with each breath. Mr. Wooster is in the bath, lying back idly, not washing himself.

He sits bolt upright at my entrance. On the edge of my consciousness, I am somewhat astonished that he has drawn his own bath.

'I apologise, Sir,' I say. I steady my feet on the damp, slippery tiles. 'I apologise.'

'Jeeves,' he says, looking at me with some concern in his eyes. 'Are you quite alright?'

'I believe I am, Sir,' I say, 'Though I am not entirely certain.'

'I say, Jeeves,' he says, at once, without judgement in his voice, but with a note of surprise, 'Are you under the surface?'

'I do not know what to say,' I say. And then add, as an afterthought, 'Sir.'

'Good Lord,' he says. 'You are. How on Earth did that happen, Jeeves?'

He knows precisely why I am acting so peculiarly. He has no real right to ask, and I can tell he is thinking this, even as he makes moves to ask me, looking at me with increasing disbelief.

'As I say, Sir,' I say, 'I apologise.' I walk to the toilet with precise steps, close the lid and sit down upon it. 'I fear this may be not entirely hygienic,' I say, my thoughts tumbling from my mouth before I can check them, 'However, I cannot remain standing any longer.'

'Of course,' he says. 'Of course. Sit down, my Man. Do sit down.'

'Do you require help bathing, Sir?' I ask, unable to rein in the instinct to offer him service. There is something I intend behind the question, though, and I hope he hears it.

He plucks his rubber duck from where it bobs between his legs and places it in the soap dish. Then he looks at me earnestly.

'Jeeves,' he says, 'I worry that this might rather be all my fault.' He looks stricken. 'Am I right?'

'No, Sir,' I say. 'No no. Not at all. Do not think it.' I say this without sarcasm or bitterness, though I know it is entirely untrue. Immediately, indeed, I contradict myself by saying, 'I have been thinking of you all night, Sir.'

'Have you?' he asks.

'I have, Sir,' I say.

He shifts slightly in the bath, his skin squeaking against the porcelain with an almost human squeal.

'What...' he moves his legs, straightening them as much as he can within the bath, looking at his feet. '...What have you been thinking?'

'About what you might be doing, Sir,' I say. 'Have you taken your dinner?' I ask, quite urgently, suddenly concerned that he might be hungry.

He ignores the question.

'What have you been thinking?' he asks again.

'About you and I, Sir,' I say, 'And what has happened between us of late.'

He stands up, the water falling away from him like a torn coat, running down his chest and his legs in rivulets, leaving him glistening.

His skin seems to steam slightly.

I stare brazenly at his body. His skin, flushed an angry pink from the hot bath water. His half-erect cock pointing up towards the vanity mirror above the sink, the foreskin retreating.

I never imagined that the sight of another man's privates could stir me so.

'I feel it necessary to tell you, Sir,' I say, 'That I am not an invert either.'

'Well, by Jove, Jeeves,' he says, as though I have said something horribly out of line. 'I mean to say...' Then he says something entirely surprising. 'To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't care if you were secretly part-giraffe.'

I have never laughed at anything he has said before, regardless of how deliberately witty or inadvertently hilarious.

At this, however, I begin to laugh quite hard, and am quite regretful that it is the hard, drunken species of laughter that seems to imply disdain and superiority. I really do not intend it to be.

He looks at me with a worried expression, as though he fears he might have broken me.

'We'll find some way of managing, won't we, Jeeves?' he says. 'I mean, it won't be impossible. I've become rather attached to you, you see. I can't imagine...'

'-Nor can I, Sir,' I reply, before he can finish.

He goes out to his club, and returns at four in the morning, completely sober. I too am now completely sober, but the night remains clear in my mind – a series of sharp-edged, twinkling memories more distinct than any I keep tucked away in my mind.

I help him undress before the full-length mirror in the corner of his bedroom, standing behind him, looking into the reflection of his eyes, he looking back at me. I attend first to the details. The buttons on his waistcoat, his bow tie. He sits on the edge of the bed for me to untie his shoelaces. I remove his shirt and his trousers, and then his underclothes. I dress him in his pyjamas.

'I say, Jeeves,' he says. 'I mean to say... Would you like to come to bed with me?'

I smile at him.

'I believe I will retire to my own bed, Sir,' I say. He nods, not particularly disappointed and perhaps a touch relieved. I walk to the door, and turn back to add, 'But thank you for the offer, Sir.'

'Not a problem,' he says, slipping between the sheets. 'Good night, Old Thing,' he says.

He turns over in the bed, curling up to hug his pillow. When I look at him directly, he looks like a gentleman, carefully attired by his valet in the most expensive of heliotrope pyjamas. When I look at him in the mirror, he looks like a child, vulnerable and small, smothered by the luxurious covers.

I know that I will take perfect care of him for the rest of his life.