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1
Some of you may be wondering how on earth I came to meet Rockmetteller “Rocky” Todd, the eccentric American poet of Long Island. Bertram Wooster being a notorious city dweller and socialite, and dear old Rocky being an all-American, country hermit kind of cove doesn’t help clear the mystery much either… He and I are complete opposites, like black and white, day and night, Marmite and marmalade. Yet both of us being writers with two big, awful looming secrets made our sympathies align and the love light come into Rocky Todd’s eyes.
You see, I could never tell Jeeves such a thing — and he is my friend, confidant, and dare I say it… soul mate — but Rocky and I met during the summer at a fairy club in New York, where all the other closeted inverts meet, drink, and dance.
At that point in my life the last of the Woosters was feeling particularly lonely, away from all the dashing Drones and blasted beazels that Blighty held; I even missed my aunts, believe it or not. I was a long way from London and life was particularly grey and gloomy. All was not right with the world, if you get my meaning.
The Pumpkin club was a hoot of course, but never quite on par with the fun and frivolity of the Drones — no bread rolls were thrown, no tender goddesses cropped up in conversation, and nobody ordered me drinks for cheering them up — it seemed that in the States everybody was all hot and bothered over some bally depression, and their moods were equally as miserable. Even the most oofy of the lot had to keep a close eye and clenched fist on their green stuff, and that sort of atmosphere was nowhere near my level of ooja-cum-spiff.
Jeeves was particularly frosty over a pair of silver spats that I had picked up in Manhattan to brighten my day, and it seemed that inside this heart of mine there was a bally great, gaping hole where love and companionship was concerned. The dear old fruit just didn’t seem to want to occupy the gap in my heart, so both mind and soul were left downtrodden. For once I had met somebody that didn’t leap at the chance of getting engaged to me, and although usually that would be the greatest relief, it had broken my bally heart.
I’d always left signs about me to indicate that a kiss and a cuddle from my faithful manservant would not be unwelcome, and he overlooked each and every one — even the one time he bent over me to hand over the b. and s. and I grabbed him by the tie around his neck, stroking the black silk suggestively, and pulling him gently to my lips as I had seen in the talking pictures; he had simply disentangled himself from my grip and took away my drink, suggesting I had had one too many martinis. The dashed nerve!
It would be untruthful to say that I hadn’t been rather pipped by that experience, and had started wanting more than a warm glance once in a while, and a half-smile from my stuffed frog of a valet. So off to the underground clubs I went, discovering the world wasn’t as bright and sunshiny as I anticipated.
Sex oozed from every corner, and there was darkness — incredible darkness — from each alleyway leading to the Pink Gentleman’s League. Drunkards and the homeless tittered as I passed by to be allowed entrance to the club, perhaps knowing the club’s secret inverts-only code and watching me with loathing. It was nothing like the Drones, nothing like the Pumpkin Club, and nothing like I had ever seen before, except perhaps during my younger days at Eton, where everybody liked to experiment once in a while.
At the Pink Gentleman’s League I felt perhaps lonelier than ever, my sunny disposish vanquished. Until I met Rocky Todd, writer and closet invert, like myself…
His smile was the biggest and brightest of the whole club, and standing in the corner with hunched shoulders and shy demeanour — as though he wanted to dance, he wanted to join in on the jokes and fun, but wasn’t quite sure if the invitation was extended to him — I found my heart going out to him. There he was, hunched in a corner and not enjoying himself, yet still watching the silly antics of those love birds with interest, and here was I, not exactly having a whale of a time and watching him with interest. It was rather silly, really, but I didn’t know how to approach him. Would a “good evening” be too formal and give him the wrong impression that I was a waiter in my white mess jacket? Or does an amiable “what-ho” make me appear like an uncouth British toff?
I extended a hand upwards in a pathetic excuse of a wave, and the cove’s smile widened.
Striding towards him, I tripped over a rather amorous pair of coves and took a dive in his direction; you couldn’t throw a brick in this particular club without hitting two love birds in a horizontal position, if you catch my drift.
Unsavoury acts always seemed to go unpunished, and nobody batted an eyelid at two birds getting familiar with one another’s tongues right in public view, nor was a cove dancing the tango in full women’s dress frowned upon — instead, they were applauded and smirked at, as though it was everyday that homosexuals wore their hearts on their sleeves for all to see.
‘What-ho!,’ I chirruped, rather embarrassedly.
‘Hey there, friend,’ came his chummy reply as he extended a big, warm hand for me to shake. It was incredibly soft, unlike Jeeves’s.
‘Bertie Wooster,’ I offered, hardly wanting to let go of his hand.
We carried on shaking for another whole minute, but in the meantime he told me his name was Rocky Todd.
‘Charmed to meet you, Rocky. If you don’t mind me asking so, what are you doing here?’
His evening wear was rather scruffy and musty, as though he hadn’t donned the soup and fish for a goodish long time. In fact, now that I mention it, the pink carnation that he was wearing in his buttonhole (the discreet signal to be let in to the club, don’t you know) was dead and wilted. It was a wonder he was let in.
He looked at me although I were a raving loony, or perhaps hopelessly lost. It wasn’t the first time I had seen that look. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘Know what?’ I asked, confused.
‘This club is for homosexuals, like myself.’ Suddenly he looked doubtful and a little ill. ‘You are one of us, aren’t you?’
‘Me? Of course, old fruit!’ I laughed a gay, debonair laugh — or at least I hoped it sounded gay and debonair. ‘You simply looked like you were standing on the outside, afraid to come in.’
‘I was people watching and collecting materials for my new poem anthology — private, of course. Can’t publish that kind of stuff, can we? And you look as tight as an owl,’ he laughed. It was true that I had drank more than my daily allowance of cocktails.
I joined in, hooting again with laughter. ‘Oh, rather! You have to stay sozzled to stay sane here.’ I eyed the exclusive couples with guarded hurt. ‘You say you’re writing poems. I’m a writer too, you see. Maybe you’ve seen my books in the shops?’
‘Bertie Wooster…’ he rolled my name on his tongue like it was a particularly delicious morsel, and I shivered slightly with excitement and butterflies. ‘Nope, I don’t think I have. I live at Long Island and don’t exactly get out much, especially not to the big city, unless it’s to see my publisher. The last newspaper I bought was from April 1924.’
It was now 1929 and I gaped at him in amazement. ‘Five years?’ I said incredulously.
‘I prefer the comforts of the countryside that I call home,’ he said confidently, and I had to admire him; after all, living in the countryside must have more than its fair share of aunts! ‘You must come and visit sometime.’
These words set my heart a flutter… Jeeves is my world, no doubt, but there was something about this friendly American chap that thrilled me. I wondered if falling suddenly in love was as easy as beetling down to the Pumpkin Club or gulping down a few martinis; and apparently it was. Like a naive young girl I was smitten.
‘Not until you come down and see our apartment, Rocky,’ I grinned, feeling rather tipsy.
‘”Our apartment”?’ he asked, looking rather perplexed.
I hope he didn’t think I was one of those coves that take a girl as his wife as a shield to protect him from being accused of deviancy.
‘Oh, I mean my man, Jeeves, and I. He’s my valet, you see,’ I informed him, heart warming at the thought of Jeeves.
After three Moet champagnes, two cocktails, and two martinis, things started to get very conflicted inside my ribcage; due to the poison I wasn’t sure whether I was in love with Jeeves, in lust with this handsome stranger, or completely head over spats for both of them. All I knew was that all of a sudden the world seemed much sunnier, the birds were singing, and the cherubs had started blowing their little trumpets. Perhaps I had finally met my specific dream rabbit?
The thought of Madeleine Basset and her fluffy bunnies made me shudder.
‘Oh, are you cold, Bertie? Here, take my jacket. It is rather chilly in here.’
Rocky gave me the top half of his soup and fish, which I wrapped around my shoulders. Either because of my drunkard ways or mental negligence, as Jeeves would say, my white mess jacket had vanished somewhere in the surrounding environment. I thanked him and blushed a dashed humiliating shade of vermilion, which no doubt would have matched a tie I had back in the apartment — a bally shame my current neck-ware was a rather debonair but clashing peony.
‘No problem,’ he replied in that dashed amiable accent of his. It was as if we had been friends since our golden ringlets and sailor suit days. I felt full of joie de vivre once again.
We stood in comfortable silence, watching love birds doing the tango for a while, and then he reintroduced the valet motif.
‘Your man Jeeves, does he know about you?’
I felt my heart stir a little. Or perhaps it was my stomach. ‘No,’ I sighed. ‘I’ve dropped hints about the place like bally breadcrumbs, and he refuses to acknowledge me. Usually he’s dashed competent, but when it comes to me loving him it seems he’s blind, deaf and dumb.’
‘Sounds like he’s not interested,’ he said bluntly, in that typical straight-forward American manner of his. From what I’ve experienced, New Yorkers don’t beat about the bush.
‘Well, who would be interested in this Wooster,’ I pointed out, laughing at myself quite liberally.
I was cut to the quick at this bluntness of Rocky’s; it had never crossed my mind that Jeeves wouldn’t be interested, as before I have always thought of him as, well, a gentleman’s personal gentleman.
‘Oh, I know a whole bunch of people that would be interested,’ he grinned widely. ‘Me, for example.’
‘I say!’ I I say-ed. ‘Is that true?’
‘Sure is, pal. Why don’t I give you my address? It’s out of the way, sure, but if you need a little break from the big city my door is always open.’
What an evening! I left the Pink Gentleman’s League with Rocky Todd’s Long Island address, a fluttering heart, a hangover the size of Manhattan, and somehow, two pink carnations rather than one.
2
‘Pack the bags, Jeeves, I’m going away for a short sojourn to Long Island,’ I announced, grandly, a fortnight later. Naturally Jeeves had heard all about Rocky Todd, emitting, of course, the details of how and where we met.
‘Of course, sir. Will I be accompanying you, sir?’ the paragon asked.
I was rather torn. ‘I was thinking of going alone this time, Jeeves,’ I said, feeling particularly wicked.
‘Very good, sir,’ came his frosted reply.
It wasn’t a nice and dandy feeling that I exited with, leaving him alone in the apartment with nary a young master to look after. For all I cared, those silver spats could burn; let Jeeves do what he wishes with them, I thought, as long as at the end of the day I can still call him my man.
3
‘Bertie!’ Rocky exclaimed upon sighting me. ‘Stay a week, stay a month! Welcome!’
‘Good to see you, Rocky old fruit,’ I chirruped. Just seeing him had lifted my spirits.
Although the countryside isn’t exactly my domain — especially the American countryside (I was constantly worried about bears and moose and other four-legged beasts) — I rather enjoyed pottering about the cottage as though I owned it, all due to Rocky’s hospitality. When he wasn’t composing poems, he was either fixing me the stiffest drinks I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking (reminding me gloomily of Jeeves back in the city), or regaling me with earnest, man-to-man conversation. Indeed, I stayed a week, and it was nearing a month when something out-of-the-ordinary happened: he kissed me.
Nothing remotely French, yet it was still a gentle touch of lips to lips, and I loved every second of it — seven in all.
‘Golly,’ I breathed as we parted.
We were cosied up on his rather thread-bare sofa and the atmosphere was perfect for smooches. One could say that Rocky had set the whole thing up, candles burning bright on the inside, protecting from the dark and elements outside, and a warm knitted blanket spread over our laps. He had been reading out the private poem anthology that he’d been telling me of at the Pink Gentleman’s League, and as he soliloquised we had crept together into intimate closeness.
‘Bertie,’ he said in that endearing way of his (pronouncing my name “Birdy” rather than “Bertie”), ‘I think I love you.’
Many people would say that I fall into passions with a childlike nature; my loves are always hot, quick, and short-lived, especially when it came to marital issues with the fairer sex. Yet again, I found myself falling head over spats in love. This time, for good.
As a way of answer, I planted another kiss on his lips with incredible force. He responded by stroking my jawline tenderly with the back of his hand and fiddling with the ends of my blonde curls — a positive reaction, no doubt. We stayed fixed in the labial press for another three quarters of an hour, coming up for air sporadically, before he explained to me an entirely different way of showing love, namely carnal.
The next hour or two was ambrosial, spent rolling in ecstasy under the bed clothes with nary a stitch on. Somewhat it reminded me of the good old days at Eton and Oxford (at the time, Ginger Winship had been a particular paramour of mine, and the mischief we got up to makes me blush to the roots of my hair to this day). Though this evening I let him take me completely, something I had never let anybody do before, and I must say that I’ve never been more vocal in my life! I was seeing stars, moons and planets, the intimacy between us was so heavenly.
Smoking a gasper each and basking in the afterglow with our bodies pressed flush together, we began to speak poetry. Eloquent, Rocky is, and once you get him started he never stops; his passion is boundless, as he demonstrated just minutes before.
His verses wax poetic and oozed romance in a big way, making a fellow feel although his heart were a furnace. Of course, only if that fellow happened to be one Bertram Wooster — can’t have every chap under the sun being slowly wooed and melted by the poet, can we?
I noticed that each poem he composed for the past three and a half weeks was dedicated to me, marking the day in late August that we met. To all the world, I was a happy, sated, exhausted puddle of a man. So with that in mind, I fell asleep in his arms as he recited poetry, soothing me to the land of Nod.
4
‘Damn!’ came a disembodied voice from outside.
Grimacing — it had been quite a night — I wrenched my eyes open to be flooded by bright daylight, and sitting up in bed, I peeled back the curtains to see Rocky Todd howling in his garden. However odd it may seem to you, this was a daily occurrence in the Todd household; the sluggard of a man liked to live the life of an eccentric, rather ardent mollusk, and that’s putting it lightly. Whenever he’s not sleeping or watching the life cycle of a worm for hours at a time — perched on a fence although it were the most exciting scene he’s ever seen in his life, mind you — he’s eating or making love, the very latter of which I have no qualms about at all.
I hadn’t yet had the necessary morning Darjeeling, so instead of heading outside to see what had turned him into a dyspeptic bear, I rolled over in bed and attempted to fall back in to the dreamless. Another short, sharp yell sent me running from the bed and out in to the yard, all hopes of sleep given up on.
‘What’s wrong, dear boy?’ I hollered.
‘Blast!’ was his answer.
‘Rocky, old fruit?’
‘Oh, hallo Bertie,’ he said dismally. ‘Pleasant morning, isn’t it.’
‘By no means, my love. By no means! What was all that yelling for?’
‘My darned Aunt Isobel is certain that she’s an invalid, and yet it’s always been her dream to visit the Big Apple ,’ he wailed.
‘That’s a dashed shame,’ I said. It was all I could think of to say.
‘Indeed, it is! Therefore she’s ordering me to go to the city for her, so she can live vicariously through my experiences!’
He then explained to me, rather passionately and with lots of details, why it was such a dashed atrocity to go to New York. A load of rot, if you ask me! Apparently the city is his worst nightmare, and this is the big catch, where we differ. As I said, we are like Marmite and marmalade, and yet we complete each other despite being completely at odds; he fills Jeeves’s shoes, as much as it pains me to admit it.
Every morning, with the exception of today, he would wake me up with a cup of steaming tea and a chaste kiss, and it rather bucks me up for the whole day, if you know the feeling. He mixes the best bally cocktails I’ve ever had the pleasure of partaking of, and his fry up dinners are the best America has to offer. Rocky was like a watered down version of Jeeves, too lazy to do the dishes or comb his hair, but very adept at looking after his lover, just as I imagined Jeeves to be.
I suggested that we get back to New York soonish, as the looming idea of an irate aunt was much more than I could face this side of the Atlantic. With a huge body of water separating Aunt Agatha from myself, I had quite forgotten how to face up to the wrath of an aunt. Reluctantly, he managed to be talked into seeing sense and following my worldly advice on how to avoid murderous female relatives: simply obey.
5
‘Jeeves,’ I called to the seemingly-empty flat. ‘Jeeves, we’re home.’
Like magic, he slowly glided into view although he were as light and weightless as a mirage.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘If I may say so, it’s good to have you back.’
Rocky and I had done what we could to be back by nightfall, for the dreaded aunt was to appear at nine ack emma the following day. If we could, it would be rather nice to spend the night together before impending doom.
‘I rather fancy it’s nice to see you too, Jeeves,’ I beamed. ‘Rocky’s here too. He’ll be staying with us for… well, a long time to come.’ And with that, I filled him in on the details concerning Rocky’s aunt Isobel.
‘I see, sir. Shall I prepare the guest bedroom?’
‘Ah, no need, Jeeves,’ I blushed. ‘Our guest shall be staying with me for the time being.’
At this, Jeeves became infuriatingly inscrutable and as impossible to read as Egyptian hieroglyphics. I would typically wonder what was going through the paragon’s mind, but I had noticed that Rocky Todd was heading towards my bedroom with an interest.
‘Good night, Jeeves,’ I said hastily, and made my way to bed.
That night Rocky made love to me so tenderly and slowly that I thought I might explode with sheer joy. If I imagined I was seeing stars, moons and planets on that first night, then tonight I was positively soaring through galaxies, and if I was whimpering audibly and writhing so much that the bedsprings squeaked like gigantic mice, so be it. Jeeves was very nearly forgotten.
6
The following morning Rocky’s Aunt Isobel arrived when my lover was out of the apartment obeying her strictest orders to the letter, and whilst I thought the old girl’s method of punishing was rather soft on the dear boy — usually I have to risk life and limb stealing something for my Aunt Dahlia to make her happy — Rocky took it as a blow to his finer feelings. “Rather you than me, you blighter” was the air I got from him as he glared at me in loathing when I refused to give him my sympathy.
I suppose I could have looked upon her as an aunt-in-law, but the very thought of it send shivers down my spine. Aunt Isobel was the sort of woman that looked upon Englishmen as silly, foppish layabouts of the dying aristocrat breed, and that is putting it lightly. Needless to say, she loathed me like the silly, foppish Englishman I am, and the thought of an additional aunt added to the Wooster brood cut through me like a knife. This was no affable guest, and certainly not one to count as family.
She treated me like one who was freeloading on her nephew’s kindness, like a tramp from across the globe, and dragging his good name through the mud just by being associated with me. Somehow she was under the misconception that my apartment belonged to Rocky, which made me look very awkwardly out of place in their little world. Therefore, I turned heel and fled to a nearby hotel.
A Rocky-less and Jeeves-less life was a miserable existence, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t entertained the thought of ending it all there and then at least once… My world seemed dull and grey, the heavens were raining incessantly, and the sun refused to shine; even the apparent ‘best food in New York’ that my hotel served became cardboard inside my mouth. Worst of all, it seemed there was no end to the pain, not unless Ms Rockmetteller either got tired of the big city or kicked the bucket.
I missed Rocky’s sweet kisses and poetry, but most of all I missed Jeeves and his “Indeed, sir”s and “Very good, sir”s — oh for the touch of a vanished hand, or so they say. Both men were held very dear to me, and I’ll be dashed if I didn’t have some rather muddled feelings about the chaps. I loved Rocky; I shared his bed and his heart, but at the same time, I still regarded Jeeves with more than a little chumminess.
Jeeves is my world, and that near month I spent without him in Rocky’s lair felt unreal now, like a flickering spark rather than the blazing inferno I felt for Jeeves. For years I had been his secret admirer, wishing that that dashed teasing hand tying my tie would creep a little higher to cup my face, and that those stony lips of his would meet my own. Back in England it was all I could think of; as Bingo would witter on about the tender goddess of the week, my thoughts would be of my manservant; when Aunt Dahlia told me of an argument between dear Angela and the chump Tuppy, I would be reminded of the spats Jeeves and I sometimes have, and smile, knowing that despite all that he is mine; when the bloke kisses the beazel in a talking picture and the end credits roll, I would remain in the cinema suite with tears streaming down my face, picturing Jeeves and I in their place, wishing wishes that would never come true…
Faced with the facts, it seemed that I was in love with Jeeves — more of the Greek pragma kind of love rather than the fleeting eros I felt for Rocky. My love for Jeeves was longstanding, and although we’ve been together for the longest time and he showed no interest in an understanding between us, it felt as though it would never fade. What on earth was I to do?
7
‘Jeeves!’ I cried upon sighting the paragon in fish-eye view through my door. I nearly let out a manly sob as I unlocked the door and watched him shimmer inside the cold hotel room, lighting up my life once again; somehow it gave the room that breath of home that made my exile feel all the more tormenting. ‘What are you doing here, my man?’
‘Good evening, sir. I took the liberty of—’
He paused mid-sentence as I pulled him in to a crushing hug, quite possibly cutting off his supply of air — if paragons need air, that is. You can never be certain if Jeeves is quite human.
‘Sir?’
‘It’s so good to see you, Jeeves,’ I breathed, emotional. ‘Forgive me for taking advantage of the sitch, but I thought a man-to-man hug would buck me up, what? I rather missed you, you see.’
‘Indeed, sir,’ he said, stiffly, if that is the right word. ‘I trust that you have missed Mr Todd in your absence also, sir?’
‘Oh, yes, Jeeves. Like brothers, Rocky and I, or, rather, Damian and Pythias.’
‘Then, sir, you shan’t mind that I took the liberty of recommending Ms Rockmetteller the Waldorf Astoria hotel, so that she may mix with the stars the reside within, all based on the psychology of the individual. Henceforth, I deposited Mr Todd inside your hotel, for a night together before Ms Rockmetteller returns to our apartment should be sufficient, I believe?’
‘Jeeves!’ I flushed to the roots of my hair. All I could do was let out a garbled death rattle from the back of my throat. ‘Jeeves!’
Jeeves himself seemed to gain a little colour in his cheeks. ‘Am I correct in assuming that the nature of your relationship with Mr Todd remains warmer than what is typically accepted between two members of the same sex, sir? Please forgive me for taking—’
‘No, no, Jeeves. Don’t apologise,’ I replied, still beetroot in hue. ‘You’re completely right about us… But you won’t tell anyone will you? No need to alert the authorities, is there? I mean to say…’
‘Sir, it is my opinion that the law is too severe on members of your persuasion, and I would not dream of handing you over to the police for such indiscretions.’
‘So you shan’t be handing in your resignation either?’ I asked hesitantly. Life without Jeeves would be sheer hell.
‘Of course not, sir. It is my desire to stay with you for as long as you wish, and your relations with Mr Todd do not change a thing, sir.’
My cheeks warmed alongside my heart with love. ‘Jeeves, I’m on top of the world with a rainbow round my shoulders!’
‘I am pleased to hear it, sir. Now… Mr Todd shall be arriving directly in five minutes, so I shall take my leave.’
Here he let out one of those tiny quirks of the mouth that he occasionally treats me to — this, I knew, was his interpretation of a devilish smile, for in his own little way he must have been imagining that the American love bird was itching to see me.
‘You’re a genius, Jeeves,’ I sighed, amazed. ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t run for president or something, rather that be content to press my trousers and make my morning tea for the rest of your days?’
‘I see the possibility unlikely, sir, as to run for president you must be of American nationality.’
‘Ah, I see.’ I said, slightly disappointed.
‘Goodbye, sir.’
‘Goodbye, Jeeves.’
Rocky arrived not five minutes later, but thirty minutes later, a bottle of champagne and a bouquet of red roses in tow. His sheepish smile told me that he had been sleeping rather than making his way over to my hotel, but I couldn’t find it in me to be irate with the fellow, not when said fellow was currently feeding me chocolate truffles.
‘This is rather cosy, what,’ I murmured as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close.
‘Indeed,’ he replied huskily, and if I imagined the word “sir” after it, what of it?