Doctor Feelgood

He’s the one they call Doctor Feelgood
He’s the one that makes you feel all right

Mötley Crüe

Bryce was sweating.

Coat on and cravat tied, he sat in the oak office chair behind his medico desk and desperately tried to think of mundane things — boxing at White’s, the upcoming house party at Lord Hutton’s country estate next weekend, the milk-white of his fiancee’s skin (no, not that not that not that) — and forced his fidgety hands to be still.

Today was the day.

Today — after three months of acting as apprentice to Dr Spinner’s medical assistant, Doyle — Bryce was to take on Second Assistant duties in the new, vibratory therapy technique the good doctor provided to women suffering from hysteria.

Which meant he was about to see a patient alone for the first time.

A female patient.

A female patient suffering from hysteria.

And once she was undressed, lying on the surgery table with her ankles strapped to the foot board to keep her legs open, he would be responsible for performing the manual manipulations required to bring the woman — no no no, not woman… patient… women were flesh and breasts and supple undulating smoothness and god oh God oh GOD he mustn’t think of these patients as women — to paroxysm.

He hadn’t been told anything about the patient he was about to see, but he could well imagine: well-heeled, no doubt; corseted to thirteen inches (how he loved to see the whalebone welts against their belly flesh when the women patients were naked fully undressed); unhappy…

They were all unhappy.

And how he longed to make them happy.

To apply the heel of his hand to the fattened flesh above the pubic bone, to coat his fingers with vegetable oil — one… two… three if she was desperately hysterical (and how he dreamt of going to four, of inserting a whole hand, of reaching all the way to their depths, to feel the true inside of a woman’s patient’s womb) — and curl those fingers upward in repeated strokes.

But he also longed to NOT.

Because Bryce enjoyed his job. And, being a proper Victorian gentleman, he knew he was not supposed to enjoy it.

Nor was he supposed to imagine the women patients on his table as anything other than patients. Slabs of flesh, labeled female.

But he did imagine.

He imagined them not as who they were in actuality but instead as his fiancee. He imagined their flesh – in actuality, in various stages of age – instead as his delightful fiancee’s milky pure white unblemished (untouched, even — so proper was she that he’d touched no more than her ungloved hand during their courting) (but how he longed to touch her — all of her — and he would do so with kidd gloves once they were wed) skin. Th hysterical women’s patients’ keening cries during paroxysm all held the note of her sweet voice. The liquid that sometimes dripped from their hysterical cunnys (no no, not cunnys — what was the medical term?) after the treatment made him dream of seeing liquid — his liquid, oozing from his fiancee’s insides after filling her with his seed — at the apex of his beloved’s thighs.

His beloved fiancee.

Miss Amelia Cordet.

She hadn’t quite been herself lately. The normally bright-smiled Amelia had been showing signs of strain. Perhaps it was the upcoming wedding that was trying her nerves. But she was as always, regardless of recently lowered spirits, such a beautiful porcelain-toned soft-skinned…

Amelia, Amelia… He mustn’t think of Amelia.

Bryce was sweating as he tried not to think of Amelia. (Amelia, Amelia… how he longed to utilize these medical techniques on his darling untouched Amelia.) Tried not to think of enjoying his job, not to think of anything at all as he waited for his first-ever solo patient.

A first-ever patient to Dr Spinner’s clinic, apparently.

A first-ever patient who had booked… Did she book for a half hour? He didn’t know.

Checking his appointment book, Bryce noted that “new patient” was penciled in (the secretary, Miss Hazelton — bless her, so efficient) for his entire morning.

“What kind of woman,” Bryce thought, “is so hysterical that she requires three hours worth of honterbonging?” (This was, of course, not the medical term for ‘treating hysteria’. But it was a term that amused him.)

His question was punctuated by a knock on the door, followed by his secretary’s voice.

“Your new patient, master Bryce.”

He looked up to see his secretary standing in the doorway slightly in front of his new patient, blocking his view of her.

Then Miss Hazelton stepped aside, and announced:

“Miss Amelia Cordet.”

Oh yes. Bryce was sweating.

This post is part of the September Song Project. (Click the badge for more info or to join in!) The post title (and general concept of honterbonging Victorian ‘doctor’) was inspired by the chorus of the song, Doctor Feelgood.

And with this rare foray into fiction, I am also participating — for the first time! — in Liz Black X’s meme, Erotic Fiction Deluxe, where the current prompt is hands.

If you’re unfamiliar with the historical context (truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes it’s hard to discern fact from fiction when it comes to history) of this story, take a gander at the below illustration and perhaps click here for a little old-school medical methodology. The history of the treatment of hysteria is slightly hysterical. 😉