indeedsir_backup | Jeeves and the Missing Manuscript

A million cookies of gratitude to erynn999 for being my beta on this chapter and ensuring I didn't completely cock up my first attempt at a scene with teh actual smexin'. And for picking away at the spelling/punctuation/grammar mistakes that often find their way into my writing. Consequently, I have had multiple roommates named Erin/Erinn/Erynn, and they're all lovely people. I think I might name my highly-unlikely-to-ever-exist first born this... just so long as I don't have to deliver on that deal with the Devil I made back in high school when I was wanting to get a 4 on one of my AP tests.

Title: Jeeves and the Missing Manuscript
Chapter: 13/16
Pairing: Jeeves/Bertie
Rating for Chapter: R
Beta: erynn999
Summary: Bertie meets a young Agatha Christie and hits it off with her at a garden party. She even offers to let him read and comment on her latest manuscript, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, before she posts it to her publisher. Of course, mayhem ensues when the manuscript is stolen and Jeeves and Bertie must find and return it to the rightful owner. Mix in a dash of danger, anger, angst, and unrequited feeling, and it's the perfect storm for 'certain whatsits' to come to light.
Disclaimer: Jeeves, Bertie, and all characters associated with their idyllic world belong to P.G. Wodehouse. Mrs. Christie belongs to herself last I checked.

We sat on the floor for several more minutes while I emptied what felt like a bally ocean’s worth of tears onto Jeeves’ shoulder. Finally, the sobs subsided to whimpers, which became sniffles, and finally culminated in me pulling away, sheepishly wiping my nose and dabbing my eyes with my handkerchief. “S-sorry about that, Jeeves,” I mumbled, feeling not a little like a desi-whatsit fish – the thing that means he’s all dried out and lost the glimmer in his scales. “I didn’t mean to...” I motioned to the damp patch on his jacket.

“Please do not concern yourself over the matter, sir,” he replied magnanimously. “It is my own fault for pressing you before you were ready.”

“Before I was... I’m the one who kissed you, Jeeves!” I protested. “If there was any pressing to be done... I’ve been having to restrain myself from the most ludicrous notions flitting through the Wooster lemon lately, and I just snapped. You’re taking it jolly well, what?”

“Sir, while it is true that you initiated our first labial contact, I believe you are under the misapprehension that the culmination of tonight’s proceedings are of your own making.”

I blinked at him, rubbing a few more times at the Wooster orbs. “Well, yes, Jeeves. Being under the impression that Bertram is his own free-thinking person, it stands to reason that having all sorts of strange thoughts regarding his valet is the means by which we arrived at the present situation.”

My man shook his head, sighing, but a tiny quirk of his lips in the upward direction assured me that I was not trying his patience. “I am afraid that I am responsible for instigating a set of circumstances some months ago which came to ultimate fruition this evening.”

“What circs?”

And he explained to me about his suspicions regarding my nature, his frustration at the lack of evidence, and his eventual wheeze to test my reaction to him laying on the Jeevesian hands in an altogether more intimate way.

“You mean you’ve been courting the young master all this time?” I demanded. “Not to be overly critical, my man, but that hardly seems in keeping with the old feudal spirit, what?”

“Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point; on le sait en mille choses,” he replied. Having attended public school and being a preux chevalier, I was well-versed in la langue française, but I have to say that bit went over my head. He noticed my confusion and translated, “‘The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things.’ A quote from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées, sir. While I recognized that certain actions I was taking might be breaching the rules of decorum, I had great difficulty restraining myself. Even great minds fall prey to the faulty logic the heart might provide. ”

“Well you could have at least let the young master in on the wheeze,” I protested, crossing my arms and frowning. “It would have made things more than a touch easier if you’d just told me I was... grossly indecent.” I could not meet his eyes as I said this, the shame of such a label hanging heavy upon my conscience.

“Sir, that is a vile phrase I should never like to hear you sully your lips with again, especially as it regards your own conduct.” There was such fierceness in the directive that I could hardly do more than nod. “The term most gentlemen of our particular preferences use is ‘invert’. As to my failure to inform you of your own nature... I could not risk it, sir,” he reasoned. “I had only a hypothesis based on inconclusive evidence from which to work until recently. When you did confirm my suspicions yesterday, I saw that you were only just beginning to realize the truth of the matter for yourself. If I had pushed farther, I feared you would become confused and agitated as you did tonight, perhaps even dismissing me from your service before I could explain my own feelings. While I could easily procure other employment, even without your references, I could not bear the thought of having to leave you after learning that you returned my regard. Nor, I’m afraid, could I restrain myself for much longer. I sincerely regret any pain that you have experienced as a result of my actions tonight, sir. ”

That all sounded quite reasonable. “That all sounds quite reasonable, Jeeves. And there’s nothing to apologize for... on your side, anyway. I really am sorry for turning into a leaky version of the plumbing, old thing,” I apologized again, offering a half-hearted smile. “I didn’t quite expect things to happen this way.”

“I must admit, sir,” he said, raising one brow a molecule higher as he examine the newly-salted portion of his jacket, “I had been envisioning this scene more as an exchange of fluids than a one-way transaction.”

I blushed to rival a cherry tomato at this pronouncement and the absolutely – there could be no other word – salacious smirk that accompanied it.

“Shall we relocate to the bed, sir?”

“J-Jeeves?”

“Unless you wish to continue our conversation and any accompanying activities on the floor, sir?” His brows tilted just so, and my heart began beating out a quick foxtrot in my chest. “I could not recommend it should we wish to prevent your eveningwear from coming to further harm.” He stood, pulling his jacket down and appearing mysteriously unruffled after this minor adjustment. In fact, the only reminder that Jeeves had been on the floor at all was the dark patch upon his right shoulder, but that was beginning to fade.

He held out his hand, and I grasped it so that he could pull me up onto slightly-wobbly pins. Thankfully, the bed was only three steps away, so we were able to sit more comfortably after a moment.

“If I may take the liberty, sir, I should like to kiss you properly now.”

I managed to jerk the Wooster onion up and down in something approximating a nod. What if I was a bad kisser? I’d pressed lips with the odd filly and offered a cousinly peck here and there, but my most recent attempt to kiss my man had ended rather catastrophically. I’d seen young lovers locking lips in musicals and on side streets before, but they never bothered to tell you if there was a particular flick of the wrist or whatsit to pulling it off well. Not to mention those had always involved one bird and one beazel instead of two of the same.

I started as I felt Jeeves’ hand tracing my jaw line. “Calm down, sir. There is no need to be nervous.”

“I-I say, Jeeves,” I stuttered, “I’ve been wondering now for a while, but are you some sort of psych–Mmph.” Whatever question I’d been about to ask melted in my brain and dribbled out of my ears into a puddle of perfectly-contented Bertram as my man captured my lips and proceeded to teach me just what goes on behind the l.l.’s of young lovers of the inverted variety.

He was gentle, his tongue once more teasing at my lips until I caught on and parted them a bit. Next began a slow, pleasurable, and highly-talented conquest of the Wooster oral faculties. We had to come up for breath once or twice, but by the end of the Jeevesian exploration, I felt as if he had left no molar unexplored, and no tonsil unturned. I’d tried to recipro-whatsit, tangling my tongue with his when I could be bothered to think but, by and large, it was my insides liquefying into a warm helping of something-or-other that really drew my negligible gray matter.

By the time I could spare a thought for my surroundings, I found that I was on my back, tie loosened and Jeeves’ capable fingers making short work of the buttons on my top half. I drew him down for another, briefer, kiss before he pulled back and requested I sit up.

I complied wholeheartedly, springing up and catching him by surprise as I wrapped my arms around his neck and took the opportunity to dishevel his entirely-too-proper appearance by running my fingers up the back of his neck and through his hair. “Oh, sir...”

Never let it be said that we Woosters are slow on the uptake once we’ve been clued in. I pulled him forward, and he allowed me to plumb his own uncharted depths. I snaked my tongue into his mouth and, while the toothsome adventure wasn’t anywhere near as good as he’d done whilst mapping my own oral cavity, the pleased sigh and moderately debauched air about his person as I drew back let me know that it hadn’t been altogether horrible, either. We had flipped positions by that point, me nearly straddling his hips and him leaning back with his elbows propping him up on the bedspread. I made to remove his tie, but he caught my wrist, pressing a small kiss to it, and shaking his head as he let go.

“While I wish to continue these most stimulating activities, sir,” he assured me, “I will be missed if I do not return to my shared room in the servant’s dormitories soon. There is also tomorrow to consider, as well as the fact that country manors are notorious for their ability to carry peculiar noises in the night.”

“What peculiar noises?” I asked, brows drawing down in confusion. “Like creaks and–Aaah!” I gripped his shoulders as one of his hands cupped a portion of the Wooster anatomy that had become quite stimulated by the proceedings.

“And groans, sir,” he finished.

“But... you’re not going to leave me in this...” I trailed off, panting slightly and biting my lip as I looked anywhere but at him. He massaged the interested portion of the Wooster a. again, and it took all of my willpower not to throw caution to the winds and start rubbing up against him like an overfriendly housecat.

“Indeed not, sir. If you would allow me to rise?”

I eased off of him, licking my lips and feeling not a little desperate. He slid off the bed and knelt on the floor, carefully removing my shoes, garters, and socks as he had last night. Next, he had me stand and turn around after unhooking my braces so that he could peel off my shirt, waistcoat and jacket all in one go. He set these aside for a moment and spun me back to face him, lavishing kisses upon my bared neck as he attacked my flies, before having me step out of my trousers. This accomplished and with Bertram standing before him in only his undervest and pants, Jeeves proceeded to collect my clothes and biff himself off to the wardrobe.

“Jeeves!” I cried, suddenly very aware that I was nearly in the altogether, and he was still fully dressed. “Is this really the time to be hanging the young master’s clothes up?”

“Standards must be maintained, sir,” came his prim reply. “If you would see to removing what remains of your garments and sitting on the bed, though, I believe you may find the next activity I have in mind a most gratifying experience.”

“You want me to just sit naked on the bed, Jeeves?” I asked, a warmth once more suffusing the damask cheek.

He turned from his task momentarily to shoot me another of those wicked smirks. “Indeed, sir.”

I gulped, the blood in my face shooting downward toward the Wooster loins. I hurried to comply with the request, shucking my undergarments in record time and crawling across the bed so that I was on the same side as the wardrobe. He paused in rolling my tie up to watch as I settled myself on the edge, and I saw his nostrils flare and his chest begin to rise and fall more rapidly. Well, so long as I wasn’t the only one being affected. Fair’s fair and all that rot, what?

I watched him hang and fold the rest of my togs in a snap before shimmering back toward the bed. Instead of sitting, though, he knelt before me as if he were about to re-sock, garter, and shoe the Wooster corpus.

“Jeeves, what are you doing?”

In reply, he ran his hands from just below my knees – careful to avoid the war wound I’d suffered at Bartholomew’s paws – over my thighs, up my hips, and back down again, kneading the muscles here and there along the way. I shuddered and just about did something very embarrassing there and then, a low sound I didn’t know I was capable of making escaping as he repeated the motion, this time moving his hands closer to the insides of my thighs and gently pulling my legs apart in the process.

“Sir, while I should love nothing more than to hear your voice ring out, you will need to be as quiet as possible. If you would just relax and lean back?” I nodded and did so, bracing myself with one hand and pressing the other across my mouth to muffle the rather insistent noises I couldn’t help myself making.

I’ve always been a bit of a noisy chap. Whether it’s singing, blathering on about whosits and whatsits, or taking care of certain matters a gentleman doesn’t like to discuss in company, Bertram’s always had some trouble buttoning his lips. A hand would have to suffice. And, talking of hands, Jeeves’ were doing bally marvelous things to areas below the Wooster belt, though I was beginning to wish they’d hurry up about taking care of the most prominent piece of the Wooster anatomy located below the belt.

As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Jeeves settled his hands on either one of my thighs, and I tilted my map down from where I’d been casting my silent praise toward the ceiling to look at him. He was staring at my... well, at the portion of my anatomy that might be politely referred to as the little Wooster, with the most singular expression I have ever seen grace my man’s map. I’m not sure if I can really do it justice in the description, but I’ll give it the old college try and hope that it works out better than the college try did with regard to sobbing half the fluid contents of my body out onto Jeeves’ shoulder.

Beneath half-lidded eyes, his pupils were blown wide, the inky blackness swallowing all but a thin ring of dark blue iris. Rouge painted the high cheekbones of his normally-pale face, and his lips were parted, allowing his tongue to dart out at irregular intervals to moisten them. I could feel his breath upon me as he exhaled his desire in short puffs of humid warmth. His ebony brows were drawn down in deep concentration, and his hair remained in delightful disarray from when I’d had my wicked way with it.

My fingers twitched to run through those brilliantined locks again, but I resisted, and a bally good thing, too, because the next thing I knew, I was having to slap my other hand across my maw and bite my lip to stifle a moan Jeeves pulled from me as he put his talented tongue to rather interesting uses.

In the meanwhile, he’d moved his hands to my hips to hold me in place as I’d started to buck a bit despite my most valiant attempts to hold still and let my man work his wonders. It had certainly never felt like this before – the... build up of a certain tension, that is.

Like any healthy chap, my hand knew its way about the little Wooster, but as the heat of Jeeves’ mouth engulfed, sucked, and licked, the little Wooster and I were firmly in agreement that it was a very, very poor substitute and would be relegated to those unbearably long two-week vacations my man took every summer. As he bobbed up and down, I could feel myself wavering at the tipping point, unable to hold back. I tried to communicate this to Jeeves, tempting fate and releasing one of my hands from my mouth briefly so that I could pull his head up.

There was a muffled sound of pleasure as I dug my fingers into his hair and tugged. This turned to disapproval as I became more insistent, and he finally freed the little Wooster from his mouth and glanced up.

He must have liked what he saw on my map, for he quirked his lips and said simply, “Come for me, sir,” before diving back to his work.

How can a gentleman refuse such a request? Jeeves took me wholly into his throat and swallowed, and I was gone. I arched my back, toes curling as brilliant lights exploded in my vision, and I screamed Jeeves’ name into my hands.

I drifted back from that plane that a cove flies to after such an experience by degrees. I was once more sprawled across the linens, and lying beside me, running his hand in lazy swirls across the Wooster tum, was Jeeves. “I trust you found the activity gratifying, sir?”

“Gratifying doesn’t cover the half of it, Jeeves.” I beamed at him in what I fear was a rather Madeline Bassett-ish way, oozing sop from every pore. If he noticed, he had the decency to refrain from commenting, returning my regard with that understated, self-satisfied smile of his. I could see the creases around his eyes, though, and knew that, for Jeeves, it was a positively ear-splitting grin of triumph.

It then occurred to me that, while the little Wooster had calmed considerably, the little Jeeves hadn’t had nearly enough attention in the proceedings. “Jeeves, I’m sorry!” I reached toward the place where I knew the little Jeeves must reside, but frowned when I could find no insistent bulge.

The gentle cough of a sheep upon the morning hillside drew my attention back to my man’s face. He had gone quite red. “Sir, there is no need to... I reached my completion shortly after you.”

“Oh... well, that’s good, then.”

“Yes, sir, I was, thankfully, able to hold back until I had pulled down my lower garments.”

I snorted, and he frowned. “Sorry, Jeeves, it’s just... only you would worry about your clothes getting mussed in a situation like this.”

“Sir, stains from such fluids are quite difficult to remove from most fabrics. I could not advise simply ‘letting go’ while still fully cl–Oof.”

‘Oof’, you ask? When has Jeeves ever ended a sentence with ‘Oof’? Well, one can hardly expect even an articulate chappie like Jeeves to finish a sentence coherently when said a.c. has a pillow slapped across his face.

I pulled the pillow away to reveal a rather shocked valet. His ebony brow had risen a full quarter inch and the stuffed frog was threatening to make an appearance. “Sir, why did you hit me with a pillow?”

I shrugged and offered him Bertram’s most charming smile, this accompanied by Bertram’s most irresistible wink. “Sorry, Jeeves. New to this whole invert whatsit. Just seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Indeed, Jeeves.”

He pursed his lips, then relented with a sigh, leaning over and pressing a chaste kiss to my lips. “I fear I must return to my own quarters now, sir.”

I frowned. “Wish you could stay, old thing.”

“My precise sentiments, sir,” he agreed. “However, we will have to wait until we return to London in order to fully consummate our new understanding... if that meets with your approval.” There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, and I rushed to quash it.

“Oh, quite, Jeeves! That sounds absolutely topping. You’ll have to show me a bit more about the thingummy with your mouth and the... the whatsit.” I motioned downward and then realized that I was still quite naked compared to my man and blushed.

“Oral stimulation was not all that I had in mind, sir, but I should be happy to teach you.” The husky way he said it set my heart to racing again, and I licked my lips, suddenly quite content that we would be departing Twing tomorrow. “In any event, sir,” he continued, voice leveling out at a more neutral timbre, “shall I assist you with your nightwear?”

I glanced at my pajamas as he motioned to them and nodded. “Yes. Please, Jeeves.”

He had me properly suited for bed in under two minutes, the longest bit being me pulling on a fresh set of pants. That done, he smoothed out the wrinkles in his own appearance, tidied away my other undergarments, laid out my dressing gown for the morning, and tucked me into bed.

“Jeeves,” I called, just as he started to turn toward the doorway.

“Yes, sir?” He refocused his attention on me.

“It’s just... do you think me a horrible gentleman for wanting to get back at Stiffy?” I asked. The confusion over my situation with Jeeves sorted, this particular thought came buzzing to the forefront of the Wooster conscience. “She can be a spiteful young filly, but I know she’s really good at heart. Why else would Stinker want to join his lot with hers?”

“Sir, I think you are many things, but horrible has never been among those descriptors.” He brushed a stray wisp of hair from my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. “Ms. Byng has placed her own personal interests above the physical and emotional well-being of not only yourself, but two other people, one of whom is her close friend. Such narcissistic tendencies cannot be allowed to flourish in a young lady for her own good, if not society’s at large.”

“It just doesn’t seem very much in keeping with the nature of the preux chevalier, you know? What would the Woosters who fought at Agincourt think of their descendent visiting retribution upon some headstrong beazel who’s always had a bit more spirit than might be considered entirely healthy?” I stared down at the covers, fiddling with them for lack of something better to do.

He placed his hand below my chin and tilted my head up until I was staring into his serene blue eyes. “I suspect, sir, that they would appreciate what you are doing for Lady Cynthia and Mr. Chilcott. The only harm likely to come about with regard to our plan is to Ms. Byng’s ego. She is a strong young lady and will recover from the blow in little time. Please do not worry yourself unduly.” He leaned down and kissed me once more. “We must save our strength and concern for tomorrow’s events. Good night, sir. I love you.”

Placated for the moment, I snuggled down beneath the covers, rather wishing for a Jeeves to snuggle up to, but appearances must be maintained, just as standards. “Love you, too, Jeeves.”

He glided to the door, unlocked it, flicked off the light and was gone.

(Back to Chapter 12)
(Onward to Chapter 14)