Chapter Text
The thing went on in similar terms until the fourth night of the fourth day. I was still tossing and turning a bit at night, but I wasn’t about to concede that point to Jeeves, who I rose to meet each morning determined to look as dewy as a fresh flower and as well rested as a, well, as a well-rested thing.
On the fourth night, something changed.
‘I say,’ I said, not even aware I was about to I-say something at all.
‘Sir?’ Jeeves prompted, folding the shirtfront gently into the wardrobe.
‘Don’t you think we might try this embracing thing lying down? I mean, to get all the right vari-whatsits covered.’
Jeeves froze in his folding. ‘Variables, sir?’
‘Yes, that’s the one.’
‘And no, sir.’
‘No, what, Jeeves?’
He turned to regard me like a master regarding his dog after it’s had a long bath in the mud and now wishes to re-enter the domicile. ‘No, I do not think we should introduce that particular variable, sir.’
‘Why not? Only I get a bit fidgety standing for so long. I suspect it would be much more comfortable were we horizontal.’
Jeeves’s eyebrow went up like a victory flag planted on the battlefield. ‘Did I not predict as much, sir? Forgive me, but I did suggest it would be a very uncomfortable endeavour.’
‘And I’m saying, in order to be perfectly fair, we ought to try all the options! I think it would be the most comfortable thing in the world were we lying down. I very nearly fell asleep that first time on the sofa.’
Jeeves had seen his clear victory begin to slip, and his face became wild. ‘No, sir. That is out of the question, sir.’
‘But why, dash it, Jeeves?’ A corking idea suddenly popped into the old noggin, and I let loose a grin. ‘I’ll have to accuse you of unfairly rigging the experiment, and all your findings will be null and void. And then you shall have to embrace me for thirty minutes every day for the rest of your life, in order to confer the undeniable health benefits such activity brings.’
I think had he seen a spectre walk right through the walls at that moment, Jeeves could not have looked more horrified. Which is to say, about as horrified as the average person upon seeing they’ve improperly balanced the chequebook. These things had to be calibrated differently for Jeeves.
‘Sir,’ he whispered, as though all the steam had gone out of him. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’
‘I know perfectly well what I’m asking. You tuck me into bed and wrap yourself right round the young master for a solid thirty minutes, and we’ll call it a night.’
‘In my uniform, sir?’
‘Well I suppose you’ll remove all the necessary bits. Just like when you’re polishing the silver, what?’
‘Sir, allow me to confirm in detail exactly what you’re asking.’
I could see his plan. He intended to scare me off it, what. I was not about to let him gain steam.
‘No, Jeeves. Doff the outer layers and climb in. I won’t hear anymore about it.’
Somewhere deep down I knew I was scandalising the poor man right down to the core of his being, and he might never recover fully from it. But if it meant he’d consent to cuddling Bertram as I drifted off to sleep, I felt I could take the risk. After all, his Viking constitution would see him through.
I slid between the sheets, a triumphant smile plastered on the phiz, and closed my eyes, figuring I’d give Jeeves a few moments of privacy before he slid in next to me.
There was a long pause, a rustling of garments, and then- ‘Sir?’
I cracked a lid and gazed up at him. ‘Jeeves?’
‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘Never been surer. Hop in.’
The poor cove looked like he was headed to the guillotine, and I tried not to be offended, but in short order he summoned his courage, flung back the bedsheets, and rolled in beside me.
My body gave one of those electric buzzes, a jolly strong one this time, and I rolled over to meet him, my arms finding their way round his neck as his slithered like two suspicious snakes round my midsection. Then we were coiled together, and it felt like the absolute tops! I mean to say, it was the balliest bee’s knees that ever kneed. There wasn’t really a way to rest the old noggin on his shoulder, one being obscured by the pillow and the other up in the air, so I consented to merely resting my forehead against his chin. It somehow wasn’t enough, though, so I slung a leg over his hip for good measure.
He felt more like a block of ice than ever. Not to say that he was cold, for it was the opposite, but he was about as immovable as one of those marble chappies one finds in museums.
‘Jeeves,’ I said softly, trying not to spook him.
He made a noise in the back of his throat, but was incapable of reply.
‘I say,’ I I-sayed. ‘If you could just relax a bit more, this would be a dashed sight more comfortable.’
‘I… I don’t think I can, sir.’
‘You can’t?’
‘No, sir. I am experiencing exactly the discomfort I spoke of at the outset of this very unfortunate experiment.’
‘Ah. A self-fulfilling prophecy, what?’
‘Sir?’ he said into my hairline.
‘I mean to say, you intended that you would feel this way, and so you do. You’ve only to change your expectations, and the whole experience will shift. I mean, look at me. I went into the thing expecting nothing but sweetness and light. And here I am having the time of my life. Take a page from my book, Jeeves. Intend to have a good time, and you shall!’
I heard a small noise, like a sheep sighing on a distant hillside, which usually indicated an expression of Jeevesian disapproval, but no words came.
Content to let the thing rest there, I closed my eyes, snuggled just a bit closer, and let the bliss wash over me. I must have dozed off at some point, for when I woke, Jeeves body was limp, his breathing washed steadily over my forehead, and I had to conclude that - by some miracle, mind you - my man had fallen asleep!
Here it was, at last! Proof that I was right. If Jeeves could fall into a relaxed slumber while still clothed in his base layers and tucked into the master’s bed, why, this embracing had to be a real soporific stunner. If you could somehow bottle the thing up and sell it in stores as a sleeping draught, you’d be rich in no time!
I pulled the dial back just a tinge to witness this miracle of the sleeping Jeeves. I felt like one of those chappies who biffs off to the forest to catch a glimpse of a napping bear. And I felt a similar trepidation, because who was to say Jeeves wouldn't bite my face off the moment he woke?
A stunning transformation had come over his map, though, and it quickly distracted me from this Jeeves-as-a-bear reverie. The battlegrounds where emotion clashed were completely empty, the terrain was slack, and the mouth was just ever so slightly askew, letting in and out a gentle breeze. It smelled dashed nice, I must say, and I leaned in just a bit for a closer enjoyment. I must have miscalculated, however, because I came in for a just a sniff and ended up brushing lips with my man. A dashed rummy sensation washed over me, much like the electric experience of before, but with the dial turned up to ten. Maybe even eleven. I pulled back with a gasp, and it was this gasp which woke Jeeves.
‘Sir,’ he said, cracking open an eye. ‘Did you kiss me, sir?’
There was a very rummy whatsit in his one-eyed gaze, and I took the opportunity to put a few inches between us on the mattress.
‘Merely an accident, my good man. I was merely coming in to catch a whiff of your air.’
Jeeves looked put out beyond all measure and his head raised up off the pillow. ‘Does it smell bad, sir?’
‘Oh no. No, not at all. Quite the contrary, old fruit. It smells quite spiffing. Almost like something a man would want to bottle up and carry about on his person when he needed a bit of jazzing up.’
Jeeves looked at me as though I suddenly started speaking in Latin curses. ‘Sir, I believe we need to end this experiment immediately.’
‘What?’ I cried, shooting up off the pillow. You have to understand, that baffling lip bump, accidental or no, was the stuff dreams are made of. Specifically, the stuff my dreams had been made of lately. I had only just put two and two together. This, it seemed, was exactly what the corpus was crying out for, and here Jeeves was trying to put the kibosh on it just as soon as it had reached the good part. ‘How we will reach a conclusion, Jeeves!’ I added. ‘I’m only just now making very important discoveries!’
‘About my breath, sir?’ he asked pretty rummily, trying to disentangle himself from the bedsheets.
‘No, Jeeves. Well, I mean, yes, dash it, that, too! But more importantly, the next step in this cuddling- er, embracing journey!’
Jeeves froze, one leg dangling off the edge of the bed with the trouser cuff ridden halfway up his leg. ‘Next step, sir?’ he asked, very breezily.
‘Yes, dash it! I didn’t mean to bring the lips into the thing! But I’m not sorry I did. It was splendid, and I’d like to do it again. I hadn’t thought of extending the embrace all the way to the mouth.’
‘You want to kiss me again, sir.’ There was only the faintest whiff of a question in it.
‘I say, yes!’
They say when glaciers melt, you can hear the most stupendous cracking noises from miles away, like the very earth is coming apart at the seams. Although I could not actually hear Jeeves make any cracking noises, it was a similar transformation.
With the grace of a gazelle leaping o’er wheat in the field - if it’s wheat they leap, that is - Jeeves threw the counterpane back over the both of us, leapt into my arms, and launched into a lip embrace so fruity I thought I might just have died and gone to heaven. I mean to say, if there’s no room in heaven for doing the old tongue tango with Jeeves, I’m not sure I want to go.
And that, in a nutshell, is how I convinced Jeeves that this cuddle therapy stuff was truly topping, indeed. And to make a merry story even merrier, I got the added bonus of many more than the agreed-upon hours of embracing with my man, and just how many of those hours featured lip-locking, well, it wouldn’t be preux to say.