Give Satisfaction

It was my idea, which probably explains why it came off so strangely. Jeeves is such a deep well, and all — I never think I could know all of him. The closer we've become, the more there seems to be to see. But it shocked me bally numb when I opened up the paper upon which he had scribed his unspoken fantasy and in his fastidious handwriting it read:

I have a fantasy in which you kill me in some intimate way. I have no actual wish to die, but occasionally I enjoy imagining giving my life to you, or for you.
J.

"You're upset," he said — a guess, or observation, I couldn't tell which. Was I upset? I suppose I was. I couldn't think about his death head-on. It was like trying to stare down the sun.

I bit my lip and looked up at him at last. "I was angling for something I could actually do for you. Although Lord knows I fell short of practicality in my own." I nodded at the paper he held, my just as illegal and impossible fantasy about spongebags and marriage toasts and changing my name and announcing us in the papers. I had also thrown a little thing in there about skinny dipping together, although I noted I would cheerfully settle for sex in the bath.

He quirked the corner of his mouth at me, and the warmth of being smiled upon by Jeeves washed over me. "Between us, we dream of tragedy and comedy. How very fitting."

"You refer to that wheeze about plays ending in a wedding, or, or... not?"

"Yes, sir." He didn't have to call me that, but sometimes the sound of it was reassuringly familiar.

"Old thing," I said, "let's just go to bed."



I am hardly a brooding sort of chap, and not particularly reflective either outside of scribing down our adventures, but I did think I owed his fantasy some proper thought. The next day was Thursday, bridge night at the Junior Ganymede, and my man took himself off as was his custom with something cold put away in the pantry for my dinner. I tried to contemplate the paper and eat my sandwich at the same time, but it didn't work well, so I brought it (and a post-prandial snifter) with me to the piano to try to work out what he meant by it. I let my improvisation wander from boogie-woogie to swing by way of the realm of the sea shanty as I put the grey matter to you kill me in some intimate way.

Lord. Good Lord.

Well, first, he didn't want to be killed. This was one of those things that thrives in the imagination, or apparently it did for Jeeves, without needing to be brought about. But he told me about it, which means he wanted me to know. If he didn't want this thing shared, he would have made up some achievable trifle and let it be, and I would never have noticed. So, to what end?

Jeeves was showing me his soul, certainly. The least I could do was to make him feel seen and appreciated.

There was a possibility that he wanted to broach the subject of death (his specifically, or in general) sidelong, but what a way to go about it! I couldn't think that was the angle. It did sting enormously to contemplate the end of my Jeeves. I didn't like to think of what would become of me when he was no longer beside me, not that I couldn't survive him, but... for all my striving to be the preux chevalier, Jeeves was my lionheart. He felt it too, I was certain. That's what this thingummy was about. Devotion.

I brushed up against the thought of his actual death, and recoiled physically. I wasn't equal to the task of contemplating that alone. I refocused on the paper: a fantasy in which you kill me in some intimate way.

Perhaps he thought I could act on it somehow. Like a play — he had mentioned plays! Thunderstruck, I absorbed about half of my whiskey and s., then resumed my idle tune. If we playacted a bit, all of it might be within reach, even the marriage piece.

Fortunately, as an aficionado of the mystery novel, I had a fair grasp on the crime-of-passion methodology already: knives were the runaway favourite.

I wound up to a triumphant chord, then switched to Debussy. I had the beginnings of a plan.



It was Jeeves who taught me to shave properly. My father missed the window by five years, and none of my uncles would have noticed that I needed teaching. I had the general thing of it, of course, and knew my way around a safety razor well enough, but for a traditional shave Jeeves taught me without knowing he was doing any such thing. Not a lack that feels good to let on, that you don't know how to carry out a fundamental of manly maintenance at twenty-five, but I had the knowledge now.

On Sunday morning I laid out the pieces for a traditional shave, stropped the straight razor and gave it a careful rinse. I had put the thing to Jeeves the night before. The idea, not the straight razor. Well, that was the idea— never mind.

"Jeeves, I've been thinking," I'd said, and followed it up with, "about the fantasy," before any jesting or wary looks could occur. Not that my dear man would, but I've found I have to get ahead of these things if I don't want commentary. "And there's something I would like to try. Playacting only."

He had been intrigued, and we had settled one or two little details such as he shouldn't shave himself in the morning, and that no actual harm would be done, no blood drawn and so on. Jeeves seemed hearteningly content to leave the details to me.

That good fellow trickled in as I was lathering the shaving cream, seeming suitably impressed by the spread. He was wearing one of those sleeveless union suits that cuts off like drawers, and looked rather tender and biteable in his rumpled morning dishabille.

"I never used to see you this way," I thought aloud. "And what a pleasure it is." I leant to kiss him, then stepped back, clearing his way to the tall stool.

"What a pleasure to be seen," he said softly. I felt a spike of nervous excitement, and I think he could tell as his eyes lingered on me all the while. Then he tilted his chin up, and I didn't want the lather to go cold, so I got to the business of the moment. I studied the stubble for a moment to be sure I had the directions right, brushed on the foam, and concentrated on giving him a perfect shave.

It was hypnotic work. I was entranced, a bit, watching his eyes close, and by the sensation of his throat moving subtly under my hand as he swallowed. The slow breaths, the steady pulse that calmed me. The quality of the shave may not have been professional, but I was dashed proud that I didn't nick him even once. What's more, I think he was getting the feeling of the whatsit, even though I hadn't done anything outré.

I rinsed the blade, and ran it under cool water, and wiped his face and neck with a hot flannel. Then I laid the blunt back edge of the cold blade against his throat, and he blinked open in surprise.

"I could cut your throat," I said.

His eyes went liquid dark. There was something melting and soft in him, and his breath fluttered. Only I could do this for him.

"You'd just let me do it." I drew the harmless edge over his visible pulse point, careful not to close it on my fingers. "Jeeves. Your life is mine."

"Indeed, sir," he said in a slow, reverent whisper.

I meant to do more, I really did, but I hadn't thought through anything else to say, and also I was getting fogged up like a mirror with the heat coming off my man, flushed and affected as he was. I took the razor away, closed it, and set it aside.

I dove into his arms.