The Gentleman Doctor

Disclaimer: The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and all characters herein are property of their creators and used without permission.

THE GENTLEMAN DOCTOR
By DragonWolf

Chapter III
Wicked Excess

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The wicked stirrings he felt were the great bane of his existence. But the need was in him, and it gave him no peace. His only defense had been repression, forcing those urges back into the depths of his subconscious. They lay dormant there for a long time, but as was the way with things repressed, they grew steadily in their intensity until they could no longer be contained. For the first time, Henry not only lusted, but acted on his lust.

The doctor kept no mistress, nor was he a philanderer engaging in love affairs. He had not the courage to approach a lady of his acquaintance, nor even one who was not— he did not dare entreat an honest woman to join in his depravity. Indeed, he was sure, what honest woman would want anything to do with him, contemptible sinner that he was? The fear of inadequacy, the fear of rejection, ingrained in him since youth, cut into his soul like a blade— the thought of offering himself and being turned down was more than he could endure.

There was only one sort of woman he could go to for this. He needn’t fear rejection, needn't fear exposure to his deeds. As he drove through less savory parts of the city on everyday business, he saw their sort now and again from the widow of the carriage. They stood in the shaft of light cast by the gas-fixtures, their very presence under the lamps advertising their services. He hardly dared to look at them in their immodesty, even as his gaze was irresistibly drawn.

Approaching one for the first time took all the boldness he could conjure up.

He would slink towards the streetlamp, his shoulders hunched and the collar of his greatcoat turned up around his neck. He stood at the edge of gas-fixture’s glow, clinging to the shadows. He was afraid to cross into the light, as much out of embarrassment as for disguise. In unsure, stammering tones, he’d inquired as to her availability. It was an expensive business of which to make a habit, but money was no object to one such as him. He hardly knew what he was getting into, less so what to expect, but soon enough he learned.

He remembered his first time well, no tender and loving act on the night of his wedding as once he intended it to be, but a clumsy, messy deed that was over mortifyingly soon. What he had once hoped would be a sacred act was now forever desecrated in his memory.

The world knew a Henry Jekyll who was of perfectly courtly propriety in his dealings with ladies. He made friends with them, took interest in their minds and in their souls. Never, they thought, would such baseness or crudity appeal to him. But in truth, Jekyll could not stand to be so at odds with himself any longer; the loneliness and lust were more than he could bear. The mild-mannered doctor had no choice but to find release.

These were women who had seen all kinds, and Jekyll’s type they thought they knew right off. There he was more meek and timid than ever, near overwhelmed by nervous embarrassment. In his shame, he hardly dared to meet their eyes. But once they began, they would find such desperation, even ferocity, in him that all but the most jaded of courtesans were left somewhat unsettled. His meekness would become in a flash something that was almost bestial.

In the moment there was nothing but the act, no other desire but the one. He was neither gentle nor skillful, only too desperate. What did it matter then, that the unions were anonymous and without love? What did it matter that the women were nothing more than harlots? He cared only that they were warm and female and did not spurn his touch. Before long, Henry had come to rely on these illicit unions. They acted as placeholders for all the things the doctor missed in life.

For his reputation’s sake, he naturally could never disclose his real name. He would go instead, when a name was needed, by some pseudonym he made up on the spot and forgot as soon as it was given. But before long the anonymity started to wear on him. On rare occasion, when the sick impersonality became too much, he would identify himself simply as Harry, as he was once called by the ladies in his youth. Just to hear them say something like his name gave a semblance of the closeness of which he was in such desperate need.

But these gave him respite from only his basest longings. They were nothing more than rough, fleshly encounters, paid for in coin. But they were the nearest he knew to companionship. It felt pleasant physically, and, briefly, made him feel wanted. They noticed him. They cared for nothing beyond that for which he paid, but they noticed him. For a little while at least, he was no longer alone. But when the act was complete and the fevered need was slaked, he’d all but bolt from her company. And once he was away, alone again, how he’d sob, and loathe himself.

The dishonor of it disgusted him, the disgrace cut into him like a blade. Worst of all, though, was the emptiness— that when all was said and done, he remained as alone as he’d been before. As he usually did, he took out his pocket watch, a handsome, delicate thing his father had given him before he’d gone away to Cambridge. In times of stress he brought it out; its presence soothed him and reminded him of his parents. If his father had known of his ignominy, the shame would have broken his heart. And his mother— his very soul shied at what she would think. He hated himself for indulging his weaknesses, for giving in to what he should have been above. And yet ever he returned to some prostitute’s embrace, crushed with the surety that one such as him, no good woman could ever want.

He left no mark on these places, nothing by which to remember him; just the anonymous, unassuming presence of a pale man whose dark hair had a touch of red in it, and a haunted look in his eyes. He simply swept away and resumed the honorable, virtuous persona of Dr. Henry Jekyll.

Honor and virtue indeed, he thought bitterly. Whatever honor he’d had, he’d drowned in drink and muddled with opium. His virtue he had beaten bloody, lost to a score of London whores.

In all truth and fairness, Jekyll did not do these things often. Most of his life honestly was one of honor and good works, the things he truly was devoted to. If he had the self-control for it, he would never stray from them. The drugs and violence were only rare and momentary lapses. Even the whorehouse, the most common theater of his vice, he manage to keep away from by and large. But still, it was only a matter of time before what little control he’d hold over himself would shatter, and it would be off to the tavern or the brothel, to lose himself in blood and sex and alcohol.

He was not well-affected by these excesses, but he grew adept at hiding their ravages from even the members of his household. The generally retiring nature of his life allowed him to withdraw for whatever time was necessary to recover, without attracting any great attention to it.

It was not always easy, however, to return unnoticed in some states, especially if he could safely not hire a cab. But here, his unassuming presence was a blessing rather than curse. He stumbled home battered and bloody from his violent excursions, often badly hurt. A time or two it was by miracle alone that he was not dead. He treated himself as best he could without giving himself away, concealing the cuts and bruises with jackets and high collars. And on the instances the marks could not be hidden by his clothing, he lied like a battered wife afraid to give away her husband.

His bouts of opium use were far too debilitating to indulge in more than a very few times; it took longer to recuperate from it than he could afford. Even the mere two or three times he resorted to it were almost more than he could stand, leaving him a wretched wreck until it metabolized. For times like these, he locked himself in his laboratory until it finally passed.

As for the brothel, he hated it as deeply as he was drawn to it. He despised himself for having reduced a sacred act to bouts of loveless, bestial rutting. He was dreadfully afraid that he might contract some disease, more for fear that it would expose his doings than because of any concern for his health. Some strange luck, though, must have been with him, for on only a single occasion did he become truly sick from one of his illicit encounters— he knew it right off as syphilis, the sinner’s disease. His stomach had terribly rebelled as his skin grew raw with sores, seething marks that were the badges of his sin. And yet, even as he took pains to hide them, he could not deny the feeling that he was warranted it. Penance, he thought to himself. This was penance, and perhaps less than he deserved.

But marks of body, even those from the disease, all healed. The deep scars, Henry carried on his soul.

He loathed himself with a fire, that he could be capable of such depravity. His actions horrified him as intensely as they drew him. What grave wrongs must live in him, he marveled in revulsion, that he was so driven to these things. He was exhausted by constantly being at odds with himself. His soul felt defiled in a way nothing could ever wash clean.

And, oh, to have felt clean again! He lived in constant terror of being found out and exposed for the beast he was. It tore at him, the hypocritical nature of his existence, that for all the virtue he aspired to, his life was so abjectly dissolute. The wearing of this conflict was harder to hide than any of his other debaucheries, heartsickness no doctor could cure. But at that, keeping things hidden, he was a master.

On the very rare occurrence someone would express worry for his health or condition, he allayed their concerns deftly with deepest assurances that he was fine. Whatever had worried them, the warm earnestness of his demeanor relieved any doubts. He simply gave a heartening smile, thanked them sincerely for their concern, and wept inside with the effort it took to make it look effortless.

He marveled at their innocence, their naïveté. He was the Good Doctor in their minds, and so they accepted what he said with simple, goodhearted faith. He wished desperately that such innocence was still a part of him. So much lately he found himself observing other men his age, turning his pocket watch over in his hands, envying them for what they had found in life. They had come into their places in the world, with wives and families now, leading lives of which they need not be ashamed. It was Henry’s sad fate to stand always on the fringes of some other man’s contentedness. Theirs were lives of the sort Henry had always dreamed of. They were everything he wanted to be. In his heart of hearts, Henry wanted nothing more than to be respected, to be loved, and to be good. Perhaps most torturous of all, Henry truly wanted to be good.

He indulged in those sins to fill the voids in his life, to handle the loneliness, the emptiness, the insidious self-loathing. So often of late he hated being Henry Jekyll, would rather be anyone else. He wondered what it might be like, to live the life of a truly honorable man. To no longer need the escape of numbing chemical oblivion. To be touched by a woman who was not a whore, to know more than mere fleshly affection that had to be bought. To be seen as more than just a pale, vacillating shadow of a man. To live a life that would allow him to finally, after all this time, respect himself.

And make no mistake, Henry tried. Nine-tenths of the time he was simply the good doctor, the respectable London man of honorable reputation and virtuous nature. It was that one-tenth of him that haunted him.

His conflicted nature bemused as well as pained him. He set to examining it, regarding it like a chemical for identification, or an illness to diagnose. He took careful stock of himself, and was confused by what he found. His need to do right, he knew, was just as strong as his need to do wrong. No part of his nature was wholly untrue. A man, then, was not truly himself unto himself, but rather a whole made of two contrasting halves, two elements combined to form one human nature. It was the conflict of these two that so tormented Jekyll. He had to find a way to silence the awful urgings of his darker half.

In all his life, it was only matters of science and learning that he had ever shown true quality. And so to combat the evil inside him, it was science he would turn to.

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To be continued...

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