At one in the morning, I wake to the sound of the piano.

It can be no one else but Mr. Wooster. I am unsurprised that he has not remained long in bed with me – it is a hot night, and for him, still early. Not even quite his bed time. I myself have slept in short bursts since we first fell asleep, beside each other, not quite touching, at just past nine o clock.

It worries me to think that Mr. Wooster has likely remained awake, watching me. Studying the twitching shift of my eyes behind my eyelids, as I dreamt of nothing in particular.

Mr. Wooster is playing a song I do not recognise. It is perhaps something he has composed himself. In my dream, I had been watching him sing it, though there were no words. He stood at the foot of the bed in the dark, though there was just enough light to see his dark mouth opening and closing. Out of it came the sound of the piano.

I sit up quickly, startlingly aware of my nakedness beneath the sheet. It is dark in the room, but a hard shaft of light from the open bedroom door cuts a rectangle of pale orange upon the floor. I place the flats of my hands on the mattress to either side of me and squeeze, convincing myself of my consciousness, stitching together memories of last night with loose, frail thread. I am atop the sheets, and my sweat is drying slightly in the cooler air from the hallway.

As the fog of sleep disperses, I recognise another sound, accompanying the piano in percussion. It is the rain, falling heavily and relentlessly against the bedroom window, thundering like the faraway feet of a thousand running men.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The air in the room is stifling, but heavy with the clean, damp smell of the thunderstorm outside.

I walk into the living room, naked.

Mr. Wooster startles a little when he sees me, but carries on playing.

'Sorry, Old Thing,' he says, 'I didn't mean to wake you.' It is clear, however, that he did. He looks restless – desperate for amusement or distraction. His shoulders twitch, more impatiently than nervously. I can tell, though, that he still fears I might flee.

And his fears are not unfounded.

I had considered it.

In the quiet half-hour between ten and half-past-ten, when Mr. Wooster had fallen into a brief and exhausted sleep, I contemplated taking his car and driving far from here. The details of the plan, up to the moment of my departure, were rendered in intricate detail on the canvas of my mind. I would leave him no note, nor any trace that I ever existed. I would pack my things silently, without rousing him – I am schooled in the art of moving silently, outside of the lazily-drawn circle of Mr. Wooster's awareness.

All this I knew I would do, up to the moment of starting the engine. From then I would be lost. I do not know to where I would drive, or for what purpose. I would, of course, have the car returned to him. I am no thief.

I do not know, either, what made me reject this notion. For some moments it was so clearly formed in my mind that I was almost galvanised into action, and I could feel my muscles twitch in readiness to rise from the bed.

Yet I am still here.

Mr. Wooster's chest is bare, and I look at the smooth, pale skin stretched over it. He is wearing his underpants, but is otherwise entirely bare – his bare feet flex upon the pedals dextrously, his toes spreading out and bunching with the rhythm of the tune.

The melody fits no genre. It is not quite jazz. Certainly not Classical. Though it is too complex and unpredictable to be Modern. I rather like it.

As I stand, at a distance, watching him unnoticed, the music writes a notion across my mind. I walk back into my bedroom, and dress, quickly. My hands tremble as I slip on my shoes and socks and fasten my cufflinks.

I slip from the bedroom, and walk to the door, taking my bowler hat noiselessly from the coat stand as I quickly and quietly unlock it and step out into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

The unbroken melody, muted through the wood of the door, tells me that Mr. Wooster is oblivious to my departure.

I glance left and right down the corridor. It is empty.

I tear at my tie, loosening the knot, and undo the top button of my shirt. I bend down and undo one shoelace. I tilt my bowler hat so that it sits skew-whiff on my head.

Then I rap loudly and un-rhythmically on the door.

The music stops abruptly.

I rattle at the door handle once, twice, and then three times, before I hear the soft pad of Mr. Wooster's footsteps approach. I realise that he may have been waiting for me to rise, dress and answer the door for him. He is unused to answering his own door when I am in the flat.

The moment I see the handle depress with the pressure of his hand on its other side, I slip my key into the lock and fall quite deliberately through the door, stumbling towards him, steadying myself against the wall. I lean back, closing the door behind me with the weight of my body falling against it.

He is astonished – puzzled and wide-eyed. He looks very thin, in the stark light of the living room – he has put on all the lights, large lamps and small, and the effect is as dazzling as daytime. I can see the shadows cast in the hollows of his lean body – under his chin, beneath his ribs and his arms.

The one-o-clock shadow of stubble on his chin and cheeks.

I look at him intently.

'What in the world are you playing at, Jeeves?'

It's a good question. What in the world am I playing at? Why, when I should be driving far from here, battling the rain and the thunder to place myself miles from this dangerous and unfamiliar situation, am I here, playing this game with him?

Hoping desperately that it will arouse him, and persuade him to bugger me again?

'I was at a Ganymede Club function, Sir,' I say, unfocusing my eyes, and speaking with a hint of a slur. I bend my knees and slide my back a little down the door, so that I am looking up at him, slightly, rather than directly in the eye. 'It was Mr. Darlington's birthday.'

'Oh,' he says, at first as though he actually thinks it might be true. Confused, for I can't have been, can I? I was in bed, you see. And then, 'Oh,' as the game finally dawns upon him. As he recalls our conversation from two nights ago. The very first fantasy he shared with me. There is barely-contained revelation and excitement in his voice.

'Yes, Sir,' I say, creasing the right corner of my mouth into a lazy smile. 'I apologise for my... somewhat late return.'

He looks me up and down, perusing my state of semi-dishabille, his eyes aflame.

'Are you quite alright, Jeeves?' he asks, his voice thick. He takes a step towards me.

I push myself forward, as though making an attempt at a step towards him, before falling back heavily against the door.

'I believe so, Sir,' I say. I fix him with a pointedly unfocussed gaze. 'I might, however, have imbibed more than was proper.'

He takes in a deep breath, and I watch his Adam's apple bob, the muscles flex in his throat, as he swallows.

'Good Lord, Jeeves,' he says, and his voice sounds strange – reverberating within his chest, as though it has opened into a hollow stone cavern. He speaks with the forced inflection of an actor, but also something more. A fevered willingness to imagine that this situation is real. 'You're under the surface.'

'I fear so, Sir,' I say, and make another attempted step towards him. This time, I deliberately fall forward into his arms. He catches me clumsily, his right knee impacting mine. 'I may need you to help me to my bed.'

'Of course, Old Thing,' he says, too eagerly to maintain the facade of the role-play. 'Put your arm around me.' I do so, with an expansive, un-coordinated gesture, bringing it down heavily upon his shoulders. I feel the soft warmth of his side, pressed against mine from our armpits to our feet.

'It was an enjoyable function,' I say, idly, in a sing-song voice, leaning my head slightly towards his, pressing my weight against him and guiding our steps slightly off-course. 'Mr. Darlington has just turned fifty, and will soon be retiring...'

'I don't believe I know the cove,' he says, quietly, as we reach the door to my bedroom.

'You have yet to make his acquaintance, Sir,' I say. We reach the edge of my bed. It is still unmade. I have neglected to make it before I left the room to commence this play.

I can scarcely believe this.

I can scarcely bring myself to care.

As he brings his hands up to my shoulders and steadies me, standing me square before the bed, the backs of his knees touching the mattress, I fall against him again.

Trapping him against the mattress. We lean against the bed like this, my front against his, I leaning forward, my weight bending him backwards at an unnatural angle of almost twenty degrees.

'Sir,' I say, breathily, into his face.

'Yes, Jeeves,' he says, licking his lips, his face so close that his tongue almost touches my nose.

'You are hard, Sir.'

'Christ, yes,' he says, and rubs himself against me unambiguously. I press him forward with an ounce more strength, and we topple onto the bed, bouncing quite comically, he tearing at my tie, I taking handfuls of the flesh of his thighs, both of us moving every part of ourselves against each other, chaotically, involuntarily, uninhibitedly.

'Jeeves,' he says, in between heaving breaths, 'you can't really be foxed, can you?'

'No, Sir,' I say. 'I am perfectly sober.'

'Dashed convincing,' he murmurs, his mouth open against my chest. 'The stage beckons.'

I slap a hand down upon his back, pressing him against me, unheeding of whether I hurt him – I feel I must let out some of my energy, my frustration, before I snap – scream, or bite at him so hard that I draw blood.

He hardly seems to notice. We write against each other for this for some time. Eventually, I sit back and remove all of my clothing quickly and unceremoniously, desperate to be naked against him, and descend back upon him. I become lost in the feel and the smell of him.

'Christ, Jeeves,' he says, tearing his teeth away from my tongue, 'I'm scorching.'

He rolls from atop me and propels himself from the bed, tearing back the curtains. I move instinctively to cover my dignity, though I know we are too high for any soul to see into the room. He cracks open the window and throws it wide, letting in the sharp smell of ozone and the reek of wet roads. I watch, entranced, as he thrusts his head and shoulders out of the window and lets out an abandoned 'Whoop!' into the night, pulling himself back into the room and turning towards me, his hair plastered down and his face streaming with rainwater.

I want to do more than kiss him. I want to consume him.

I have heard people say of beautiful babies, or endearing children, 'My goodness. My goodness. Couldn't you just eat him up?' I always found this a bizarre and somewhat repulsive expression of endearment.

Until.

Until this moment, when I know with certainty that if I could, I would eat this human being, whole, and keep him inside me, safe, our bodies fused forever and my hunger for him finally sated. I would be the only way to truly appease my appetite for him.

When he reaches the bed again, I shift to sit on its edge, reaching up to his face with my hands and dragging my fingers down his wet cheeks. He has left the window wide open, and the air in the room is growing wetter, flecks of rain escaping from the outside atmosphere to pepper our hot skin with points of ice-cool. The curtains billow with gusts of warm wind.

I stand to, intending take his mouth in a deep kiss, and he draws me up towards me, turns me around and sits down upon the edge of the bed himself.

'Step back a little, Jeeves,' he says. I do so. 'Whopper of a storm, what?' he goes on.

'Indeed, Sir,' I say.

There is no question – no discussion of the fact – that we shall continue to call each other by the names we are accustomed to employ. We should, perhaps, properly, having attained this level of intimacy, be calling each other by our Christian names, or some other ridiculous terms of endearment. We should, but we are not. He calls me 'Jeeves,' and I call him, 'Sir,' and this is how we think of each other.

The crackle of the rain, louder now that the window is opened, sounds like the white noise of a bad telephone line.

'Jeeves,' he says, in a low, deliberate tone, 'Your phone's ringing, Old Thing.'

'Is it, Sir?' I ask.

'Yes. It's me on the line.'

'Good Evening, Sir,' I say.

'Good Evening, Jeeves. What are you doing?'

'I am in bed, Sir.'

'In bed? Me, too. What are you doing in bed?'

'I am reading, Sir.'

'Reading what?'

'A volume of Spinoza.'

'Are you?'

'Yes, Sir.'

'No you're not.'

'No, Sir?'

'No.'

'No. I believe you're behaving otherwise.'

'You doubt my word, Sir?'

'Rather.'

'What do you believe I am doing, Sir?'

'I believe you're touching yourself.'

The rain pricks my back like acupuncture needles. The sound of it fills my head – clears it of all other thoughts outside this room.

'Yes. Yes, Sir. You're right. I am... I am touching myself.'

I do not move, however. I remain standing, straight-backed, six feet from where he sits on the bed, my feet slightly apart. My cock hardens without physical encouragement, thickening and bobbing upwards to point towards him. 'Can you guess how I am going about it?'

'I can picture it precisely, Old Thing. You're standing.'

It is already unbearably stiff, and leaking.

'Yes. You're standing with your back straight and your cock so hard that it might be a coat hook. You've got one hand wrapped around it, and with the other, you're rubbing slow circles over your belly with the flat of your palm.'

I follow his instructions to the letter.

'Sir-'

'You're working at yourself shamelessly. I can picture it so clearly.'

'Sir-'

'I'm rather fond of it, you know, Jeeves?'

'Fond of what, Sir?'

'Your belly, Jeeves. I think it may be my favourite part of you.'

'Sir, I cannot...'

'I would never have known, Jeeves, had I not seen you bare, that you have the most fascinating little paunch. Just the firmest protruding little tummy. Your clothes entirely hide it, don't you know?'

'I am glad, Sir.'

'Tosh. Now that I know how it stirs you, I think I shall never tire of touching it.'

'No, Sir?'

'No. Right now I'm imagining licking it. With the flat of my tongue, until you shudder.'

At that, my patience snaps, and I move forward, without taking my hand from my prick, until I am directly before Mr. Wooster, close enough to feel his breath upon my skin. He tugs me towards him with his hands upon my waist. I look down at him, my eyes lidded, as he pokes out his tongue and laps at my belly, eagerly and messily, like a dog showing appreciation for its master. I shudder and tremble, my hands convulsing upon the back of his neck.

'Do you...' I say, my voice low and hoarse, 'do you have something of this nature, Sir? Something that sends you quite mad?'

'I don't think so,' he says, playing the tip of his tongue along the curve that marks the divide between my lower belly and groin. 'I quite like having my back tickled.'

I huff out a breath of laughter and bring my hands up to the back of his head. He catches them in his own.

'Don't interfere,' he says, holding my hands out to the sides, moving his head in precisely the way he wants to. He licks in circles, outwards from my navel to the edges of my stomach, the bottom of my ribcage, the top of my pubis. His slithering tongue makes the muscles of my abdomen clench and shiver – the hairs on my arms stand erect, despite the heat, and my hands contract around his fingers, clutching them tight.

This, I think – this is sex. This is what, all my life, I have been sidestepping. What I have been missing. I have been living in a monochrome moving picture. Black ties and white shirts, white socks and black cummerbunds. I have stepped, at last, into the reality of life, frantic, messy and un-staged, and it is awash with colours. The soft beige of Mr. Wooster's flesh. The hot pink of his high cheeks. The blue-yellow of the bruise on his thigh, from a drunken fall five nights ago.

'Hang on,' he says, 'I'll get my pants off.' He pushes me backwards, leaving the spit on my belly to cool, and tugs his underpants awkwardly down to his ankles, lifting his buttocks in the air, allowing his damp, ruddy member to bob free. 'What do you think, Jeeves?' he asks.

I am not entirely sure what he is asking me, but the answer 'yes,' is on the tip of my tongue. It worries me that I wish to do everything with him.

I might as well. We have done enough already that any more can scarcely debouch me further.

'What if I asked you,' he says, spreading his legs a little further, 'to get on your knees for me?'

I do not need any further encouragement. I drop to my knees hard enough to feel the jar up to my hips, and bring my mouth to his member – it bobs away, rudely, and I attempt to catch it with my hands – I feel un-coordinated and clumsy in a way I seldom have before. I grasp it and guide it to my tongue, and lick it from the tip to the base. I wrap my lips around the head of his cock, and taste his pre-ejaculate – it tastes, oddly, of rainwater, though my entire head, my sinuses and my taste buds are awash with the scent of the storm, and I can taste nothing else. I bob my head up and down upon him once, twice, and then pull back to look at his prick, solid and excited, shining with my saliva.

He tugs me up by my armpits.

'Sit down, Jeeves,' he says. 'Sit down on top of me.'

I do. I straddle him, one leg either side of his, our faces so close that we cannot focus properly on each other's features.

Our cocks knock against each other cursorily, and twitch in acknowledgement. He wraps his fist around mine and lifts it, placing his right hand upon my buttock and lifting me, so that he can move his hand underneath, dragging his fingers along my cleft.

'Do you want me to, Jeeves?' he asks, though I can tell it is merely a formality.

I nod, almost imperceptibly. It is perhaps more like an involuntary twitch of the head than a deliberate nod. But he is watching me closely, for any sign, any excuse.

I take his hand, turn it palm-upwards and spit in it, and then move it down to his prick, curling my own around it and urging him to coat himself in the wetness.

'Is this enough?' he asks.

I take his hand back, spit on it again and repeat the procedure.

He pushes himself into me, quite slowly, but somewhat too quickly for my liking. He was in me so briefly last night – and I recall, with something of a shudder, the sharp flash of pain and the few moments of intense discomfort until he spent and withdrew. It was so fast, however, and so fleeting that the memory of the pain made only a tiny blot on my consciousness. They say we cannot truly remember pain, and I believe it is almost true.

Now, I experience again this very specific species of discomfort. It steals my breath for a moment. I refuse, however, to reveal any of it to Mr. Wooster. I bite upon my tongue, and just as the pain in my mouth is beginning to distract me from the pain where he enters me, the sensation changes subtly, an aching eroticism bleeding in at its edges.

He is looking into my eyes, quite fiercely, licking his lips over and over again. Pausing to breathe hot breath into my mouth.

When he begins to move, the sensation alters once more, growing into something uncanny, base and shamefully satisfying. It is as intimate and exposed a feeling as I might feel relieving myself in front of him. At once I feel embarrassed. But he pulls me closer and wraps his hands around the back of my neck, holding me tight.

This motion drives him slightly deeper into me, and the tip of his prick knocks firmly against my prostate – this I have found, previously, with my fingers, but never managed to hit so surely or firmly as his prick does now. At this, my embarrassment dissolves and I begin to move, ever so slightly, back against him.

We pick up pace, by increments, until we are moving rather frantically – until I am, quite unthinkably, bouncing upon him, aided by the eager, sweat-slick grip of his hands, which have moved to the flesh on my hips. He squeezes the soft cushioning of fat there – kneads it like bread dough, and I follow the urging of his hands, breathless in the moments when I rise, waiting for the sharp, sick, shock of pleasure that dances up my spine when I descend.

'Jeeves,' he pants, no voice, all breath. 'What am I...?'

'What are you doing, Sir? Is this... what you mean to ask?'

His head bobs in a desperate nod.

'You are buggering me,' I say, without hesitation. Delighted that we already know the rules of this particular game. He asks me, and I tell him.

'What might a...?'

'...What might a?'

'...What might a...?'

'...a peasant, Sir? A peasant on a street corner? What might they call it?'

'That's it.'

'Fucking, Sir.'

'Yes, Jeeves.'

'Fucking. You are fucking me. Your prick is inside me, and you are-'

I cannot continue – my throat closes in a spasmodic swallow, physical sensation swilling inside of me like a large, rich dinner that's unsettled my stomach. I bring my forehead to rest in the crook of his neck, and find my voice again.

'Where might he be watching us from, Sir?'

'Who's that?'

'The uncouth man? Where would he sit? The crude young man who would say, "Look at those two fellows. A gentleman and his manservant. Fucking."'

'Oh Christ, Jeeves.' He shivers at the idea, squeezing at me harder, pushing into me more rapidly. 'He could have the chair behind you.'

'Is he watching us, Sir?'

'I believe he is. The bounder.'

'Is he scandalised?'

'Undoubtedly.'

'Send him away, then.'

He pounds at me for some minutes more. I look down at my prick, squashed helplessly between his belly and mine.

'Who is in the chair now, Sir?' I ask.

'Oh-'

'Who?' I ask.

'Do you know, I believe...' he looks over my shoulder at the empty chair, conjuring someone there by thought, '...I believe it's Florence Craye.'

'Oh dear, Sir.'

'Good Lord, it is.'

'Is she...' I cannot gain the leverage I want. I push him to sit further back on the bed, and bring my knees up onto the mattress. From here I can descend upon him in full, long strokes, impacting my prostate each and every time my buttocks touch his thighs. '...Is she aroused, Sir?' I ask.

'Do you know, I think she is,' he pants. 'Her cheeks are flushed.'

'Who's there now?' I ask.

'Bingo. Bingo Little,' he says.

'Mr. Little, Sir?'

'Yes,' he says, biting repeatedly at my shoulder. 'I think he wants to join...'

I clutch at his hair. This is unbelievably protracted. Prolonged and torturous beyond the reaches of my imagination. All of my fantasies, all of my dreamings, had painted proceedings as swift, uncontrolled and explosive. I had never imagined that it could be quite like this.

But my patience is infinite. I never want it to end.

'Who is there now, Sir? Who is in the chair?'

He pauses for a second, looking into my eyes, dazed and exhausted. 'Aunt Agatha,' he says.

I fall still for a moment.

'Your Aunt?' I ask, quite shocked. For a second my stomach turns over – I cannot believe that he would find such a thing erotic.

Then I think – perhaps she is the obvious person to place there. He has always wanted to defy her. Through all of his acquiescence, all of his downtrodden obedience, he has always longed to do precisely the opposite of what she wants. To scandalise her.

The thought even begins to arouse me.

And I begin to move again.

'What is she saying, Jeeves?' he asks.

'I would imagine, Sir, that she is saying nothing.' Our frantic pace has now resumed. 'She is not scandalised, for she does not allow herself to understand what she is seeing. To keep herself from fainting, or from shrieking – to keep her sanity – she must tell herself that we are simply dancing. Innocently and charmingly dancing. In some corner of her mind, however – somewhere that still remembers what it was like to have a man inside her – she knows that we are in fact fucking. That this is what this is. Carnal, uncouth, horrifying, illegal – you are sodomising me, Sir, and I am enjoying it. I am riding you...'

'Good Lord. Good Lord. Jeeves – you... You keep talking. Keep talking. You're a marvel.'

'You're a marvel,' I fire back at him, triumphantly, clutching at his still-damp hair.

I become aware again of the rain. I wonder, what would happen, now, if the roof were drawn away, and the wet sky above us emptied itself down onto Mr. Wooster's soft, perfect furnishings, and he and I in the centre of them, rutting away at each other like nothing else existed.

'Could you come off, Jeeves,' he asks, into my mouth, 'at any moment?'

'Yes, Sir.'

'Are you holding back, because it feels so good?'

'Yes, Sir.'

'Shall we spend at the same time? What do you say?'

I nod, and tip my head back.

'What shall we do? Do you want to do it on the count of three?'

I shake my head.

'You decide, then. You decide when we should. Give me a word. Say something, and I'll know.'

'When I stand watching you in the mornings, Sir...'

'Yes, Jeeves?'

'With your tea tray in my hands...'

'Yes?'

'Watching you breathe quietly beneath the covers?'

'Mm? Yes?'

'I have always, from the first time I allowed myself to linger there, wished to crawl beneath them, take you in my mouth and work at you until you sang like a bird.'

At this, he begins to come off – I feel it, distinctly, warm and unusual, spreading into a place deep inside of me. I give a little cry, and begin to spend as well. Small, unimpressive splashes of seed at first, erupting erratically and sporadically from the head of my prick and then, at last, longer ribbons, dripping down messily over the backs of my fingers. He watches it all, rapt, still moving inside me, groaning low in his throat, perhaps at the sensation of his orgasm, perhaps at the spectacle of mine. I watch it, too, with a kind of detached wonder, as though it were not my own appendage, and someone else's pleasure.

We hold each other, unmoving, for minutes afterwards, stuck together with sweat and semen, and frozen with lethargy.

'Sir,' I say, in a voice more reedy and childlike than I had intended.

'Jeeves,' he replies in precisely the same tone.

'This,' I say, more sternly, without removing my head from where it is buried in the crook of his neck, 'is a dangerous game.'

'I know, Old Thing,' he says.

'No, Sir,' I say. 'I don't believe you do. It is far more serious than you realise.'

'I realise it's serious, Jeeves,' he says.

I still do not believe that he does.

We have interfered terribly with the equilibrium of things. This does not feel, to me, like fate. It does not feel, entirely, as though it were meant to happen. We have undoubtedly broken the rules.

We shall have to play very quietly, and very carefully.

'Close the window, Jeeves,' he says, snuffling softly into my shoulder.

I lay him gently on the bed, and do so.