A New York Haunting: Pt. 01

Author's note:

Thank you for considering this story. Because it is a novel, here is some information that may affect the decision whether to invest time in it:

It is completely written/posted and has been divided into 12 parts, each part 4-7 Literotica pages in length. A list of the chapters in each part is available at the end of Part 12.

It is essentially a mystery/suspense novel that includes graphic erotic scenes. The sex scenes comprise no more than 20% of the text. For those more in the mood for a quick onset and high volume of sexual content, this is unlikely to be a rewarding read.

The erotic content is male/female and includes some scenes that would fall under "erotic couplings" and other scenes involving a slow burn romance --- not a flowers and candlelight romance, but an explicit, dark romance.

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Chapter 1. A DINNER AT DELMONICO'S

Manhattan, October 8, 1900

"Here's to your final year of medical school," Dr. Mullenix said, smiling and raising his crystal wine goblet. "Three done and one to go."

Seated across the table, the young man acknowledged the toast with a brief inclination of his head.

"To Dr. Anders Røkke!" Dr. Mullenix winked away his dining companion's sudden protest and took a deep draught of wine.

Anders conceded with a rueful headshake. "Thank you, sir. But too many people already call me 'Dr. Røkke', no matter how often I explain I'm only a student."

"Outside the hospital --- outside the medical profession, truth be told --- few people understand the distinction between a physician and a medical student." Dr. Mullenix patted his mustache with a fine linen napkin.

"I wonder if I shall feel the difference once I've truly earned the title."

"Come next year, when you're woken in the middle of the night to make a life-or-death decision regarding a patient, you'll feel the difference --- I promise you."

A wan grin lifted Anders' lips.

"I'll also wager the acquisition of a stipend --- even that of an intern --- after years of paying tuition will be a difference you'll appreciate as well." Mullenix raised a sage eyebrow.

Anders nodded slowly. "It will certainly be a novelty."

Two black-suited waiters appeared, and Anders leaned back in his chair as they silently whisked away the empty soup plates. Within minutes the pair returned, one setting a large silver tray upon a folding stand alongside the table. Dishes were transferred with murmured introductions. "Canvas back duck ... spring lamb ... fresh mushrooms on toast ... terrine de foie gras ... escarole ... asparagus tips." A waiter's white-gloved hand rotated the gilt-edged dinner plates before them to the mysterious final position that perfected the gastronomical journey.

The other waiter deftly opened a new wine bottle and presented the crimson-stained cork, then a sample glass to Dr. Mullenix. Having no knowledge of wine, Anders was happy to defer to his mentor's expertise when they dined together. Fresh goblets were produced, and red wine was poured. The crystal flower vase on the table was adjusted aside to accommodate a silver filagree cradle for the bottle, then the waiters departed.

Anders cleared his throat. "Thank you again for inviting me to dine, sir. You honor me."

"Say no more. It's a pleasure as always to have some sensible company. I could scarcely countenance joining my wife at her sister's dinner party ... and to dine alone at home or at the club with the same old bores was a thought too ghastly to contemplate."

With a discreet nod, Dr. Mullenix confirmed the younger man's selection of fork and knife from among the array of silver next to the plate. "So Anders, what is your impression of this new Delmonico's? Does it surpass the downtown restaurant?"

The young man undertook a deliberate survey of the elegant room. In the past year, he had had the honor of dining with Dr. Mullenix on six previous occasions when the man's wife and family had been otherwise engaged --- either visiting one or another of her "intolerable" relations, summering in Newport, or away in Paris for the spring. All the previous dinners had been at Delmonico's other site by Madison Square Park.

Between the restaurant's two locations, Anders detected no notable difference --- both equally catered to the opulent tastes of their millionaire clientele. As at the older location, the present dining room shimmered in luxurious appointments: intricately patterned Persian rugs, fluted and gilt-encrusted mahogany columns and wall panels, paintings in sculpted gold frames, and cut-glass chandeliers. Richly dressed patrons sat at the surrounding linen-draped tables --- men in tailcoats or tuxedos and women in elaborate gowns. A string quartet played a restrained sonata in the far corner.

He shrugged by way of response.

Mullenix nodded. "Apart from the electrical lighting, I likewise appreciate no remarkable innovations. And one could dispute whether electricity is indeed an improvement. To a young fellow, I dare say the humble candle or gaslight is more conducive to a romantic dinner with a young lady, eh?" He winked.

Again, Anders eyed the chandeliers. With the state of his wallet, the only dining establishments to which he could afford to take a young lady would likely offer only sputtering gaslights. He glanced across the table at Mullenix. At thirty-four, the man was still young himself --- but with a wife and two small children, he was undoubtedly qualified to tease a younger man about courting.

Inwardly sighing, Anders cut into the lamb chop. Courting! There was a discouraging subject. The rigors of the medical school curriculum paradoxically both stimulated his amorous urges and left him with scant time to pursue romance. Of course, there were means by which to procure immediate physical relief --- in his daily life, he had marked the "soiled doves" traipsing about the sidewalks of New York. Furthermore, if one believed the proclamations made in the newspapers by Mr. Anthony Comstock --- the bible-thumping commissioner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice --- prostitution was even more rampant than casual observation suggested.

As distractingly tempting as some of the ladies' offerings were, he had no inclination to satiate his yearnings by that route. What he longed for was a female companion who provoked his heart and mind as much as his privates. When he would have time for that fantasy, he could not foresee. Once graduated from medical school, he hoped to land an internship and residency with specialization in surgery. By all accounts, these years would be even more arduous than medical school.

Perhaps when his formal education was finished, he might have time to cast his eyes about for love --- but by that point, he reminded himself, he should be more concerned with finding a suitable wife than with indulging in frivolous flights of the heart.

Thus it was that Anders relied upon the unflagging loyalty of his left hand to alleviate the pressure of frustrated urges. For the past three years of medical school, he had spent the majority of his after-school hours in his boardinghouse room with a textbook on his desk and his hand in his drawers, idly tugging on his cock as he memorized facts of anatomy, chemistry, histology, physiology, bacteriology, as well as the signs and symptoms of innumerable diseases. When he had mastered the allotted material for the night, he rewarded himself by bringing out the bottle of cottonseed oil and his collection of French postcards ... frigging himself to a shuddering release and the sweet oblivion of sleep.

"Next time we dine," Dr. Mullenix was saying, "We'll go to Sherry's across the street. In this infamous restaurant rivalry, I doubt Mr. White's triumph can be overshadowed."

"Mr. White, sir?" Anders gave him a questioning look.

"Stanford White, the architect who designed Sherry's. He's been the undisputed architectural genius in the city --- no, the state --- for several years." Dr. Mullenix shook his head with a chuckle. "Anders, I applaud your devotion to your studies, but you truly need to take your nose out of your books every once in a while to appreciate the world around you. Have you never heard of Stanford White?"

Anders accepted the joshing with a comical roll of his eyes. Christ, his mind was already bursting with the knowledge necessary for his chosen profession! If someday he should be so financially fortunate as to engage an architect, then he would trouble himself about learning the names at that point, but until --- oh, wait. He frowned slightly, remembering. "He designed the new Columbia campus uptown."

Mullenix snapped his fingers and pointed at him. "There it is."

The new Morningside campus had opened in 1897, the same year Anders had started medical school at Columbia. Although the university's medical school had remained in its historical location at 59^th and Amsterdam, he had beheld the beautiful new main campus at the opening ceremony.

"--- not to mention Madison Square Garden," Dr. Mullenix continued. "So you see, the Columbia campus is only one in an enviable portfolio of the man's master-works." He motioned with the bottle. "Another glass?"

"I shall have to beg off, sir. I must report to the clinic in the morning."

"Ah, very proper. For me, tomorrow holds only lectures --- no surgery --- so I shall indulge in one more glass of this excellent burgundy." Dr. Mullenix refilled his own goblet. "Speaking of reporting to the clinic, do tell me about this special clerkship you've managed to conjure up. You must appease my curiosity --- what are you learning from the alienists?"

"That they prefer to be called psychoanalysts," Anders rejoined with a smile. His final year of medical school had begun last week with his 4^th year course work in Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System. By virtue of his outstanding marks in the first half of the course the prior year, the professor, Dr. Starr, had granted his request to fulfill the Practical Clinical Instruction portion of the class by shadowing for four weeks a physician in private practice. Dr. Starr had even introduced him to an acquaintance who practiced the emerging, controversial discipline of psychoanalysis.

"It's unlike any clinic I've seen before," Anders mused. "It's in the doctor's home on Park Avenue. The front parlour is a waiting room, and the library is his consulting room."

Using his knife, Dr. Mullenix applied a slice of foie gras to a small square of toast. "Outside the university setting, it is not uncommon for doctors to see patients in their homes. Who is your preceptor, then?"

"Dr. Alfred Schuller."

Mullenix nodded. "Schuller ... yes. I've not met the man myself, but by all reports he is a sound diagnostician. Trained as a neurologist in Vienna, I understand. And has done very well for himself since establishing a practice here a couple years ago. I wasn't aware he specialized in psychoanalysis."

"He considers himself a disciple of Sigmund Freud; he studied under him at Vienna University." Anders sipped his wine. "In fact, Dr. Schuller wears a signet ring given to him by the master himself --- an honor he apparently bestowed upon a few, favored students."

"I recall hearing gossip that Schuller holds some title of nobility in Austria --- is it true?"

"He's never mentioned it."

A waiter paused at their table to inquire if they needed anything and withdrew with their negative replies. Dr. Mullenix turned back to Anders. "So, what transpires during a patient's visit to a psychoanalyst?" He gave the word a humorous emphasis. "Does Dr. Schuller have them recline upon a chaise lounge while he swings his pocket watch before their eyes?"

The twinkle in Mullenix's eyes prompted an embarrassed chuckle from Anders. "As to the former --- yes. As to the latter --- no. Hypnosis has fallen out of favor according to Dr. Schuller. Now the preferred technique is free association."

"Free association? Is that some anarchist skullduggery?" Mullenix teased.

Summarizing the past week's instruction from Dr. Schuller, he responded, "The patient is encouraged to speak any random thoughts that come to mind. The goal is to uncover hidden or forgotten memories from the unconscious."

"The unconscious? By God, does he put them under with chloroform as well?"

Anders shook his head, searching for words to explain the intangible concepts which he himself was struggling to grasp. "No, no. The unconscious is a realm of the psyche that is ... that is, for lack of a better word, 'under' our conscious thoughts. It's where distressing thoughts and memories are hidden from our conscious mind --- repressed because they are felt to be incompatible with what our conscious mind deems proper or acceptable."

Dr. Mullenix raised an eyebrow, to which Anders nodded, continuing, "Repression appears to be a key concept of the discipline. Uncovering the repressed material is accomplished by free association and by analysis of dreams."

The dubious expression on Mullenix's face heightened. "Dreams even! Perhaps Dr. Schuller should be consulting from a Coney Island tent with a crystal ball!"

Anders shrugged. "Dr. Schuller ... Dr. Freud ... maintain that dreams are important because they express the repressed, forbidden desires in our unconscious."

"And what do these psychoanalysts hope to achieve by uncovering these forbidden desires? Have they considered that perhaps some thoughts are better kept repressed?" A pointed arching of an eyebrow accompanied Mullenix's query.

"Well ... what I make of it is that they believe the strain of repressing thoughts manifests in bodily symptoms such as hypochondria, hysteria, and anxiety neurosis. By uncovering them, they hope to relieve the patient's physical complaints." Furtively glancing around at the patrons seated at nearby tables, Anders leaned forward and continued in a low voice, "For example, it is proposed that the symptoms of hysteria in females are caused by repressed sexual desires."

Dr. Mullenix burst into laughter, almost spitting out his mouthful of wine. He pressed a napkin to his lips until he regained his composure --- eventually wiping his mouth and brushing up the tips of his mustache. "Forgive my amusement. To hear old Comstock rail about it, the problem with this city is that sexual desires --- male and female --- are not repressed enough."

They both grinned.

"Yes, it seems Mr. Comstock will not be content until the entire population is beset with hysteria," Anders joked.

Lifting their glasses in a mock toast, they both drank. Comstock's relentless moral crusade was a recurring subject of frustrated humor between them ever since discovering the similar trials and tribulations they had endured --- ten years apart --- in obtaining anatomy texts, courtesy of "Comstockery."

Anthony Comstock, not satisfied with his reach as the commissioner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, had also secured a position as a U.S. Postal Inspector, and in accordance with the federal prohibition against distributing obscene material through the postal service, had made it illegal for medical students to receive anatomy textbooks through the mail.

His mentor now regarded him shrewdly. "Well, Anders, have these remarkable experiences turned your head? Will you abandon your ambition to heal with steel in favor of listening to wealthy ladies recount their dreams?"

Meditating upon the question, Anders chewed slowly and turned his knife over and over in his fingers. The immediacy of the exquisite food and heavy silver contrasted with the vaporous abstractness of this new field of psychoanalysis. At length he swallowed and shook his head. "Much of it sounds absurd, I agree. But I am fascinated by any attempt to objectively understand the one aspect of the human body that has remained impenetrable to science. I do believe they are trying to be scientific, but I am frustrated by the inability to prove these theories."

"Amen to that," Mullenix said. "I could not abide with the inexactitude of the science --- or perhaps 'art' is a better term. There's nothing like resecting an inflamed gallbladder and knowing you have cured the patient's disease." In communion with the sentiment, a swift stroke of his knife cleaved the remaining portion of duck breast cleanly in two.

"Absolutely!" Anders agreed.

"But if you do gain any insight into the workings of the female mind, by all means share it with me." At this juncture, Dr. Mullenix's merriment abruptly faded, his eyes fastening on a point over Anders' shoulder. "Ah, damn! My wife's cousins have just come in. I suppose I must pay my respects or else suffer Ellen's bitter reproof." With a flick of the wrist, he downed the remainder of his wine. "Will you excuse me momentarily?"

"Of course, sir." A moment later, he observed Dr. Mullenix greeting a group of elegantly garbed people who were being seated at a table by the window.

In his mentor's absence, Anders continued to eat --- methodically cutting his meat, chewing, and sipping his wine, trying to focus on the airy music instead of on the low hum of conversation about him. A twinge of self-consciousness manifested itself. Glancing around the dining room, he observed the distinguished looking gentlemen in their black dinner jackets and starched white shirts, and their regal female companions resplendent in frilled and flounced gowns. His appreciative eye noted the ladies' bare necks and shoulders revealed here and there by an intricately upswept coiffure and a cunningly crafted bodice.

Covertly, he tugged the front edges of his own tuxedo straight. Was everyone looking at him, wondering how this penniless imposter had breached their bastion of wealth and privilege?

Searching for reassurance, he persuaded himself that no one would be looking at him because he was nobody. Since arriving in New York City three years ago, he had come to understand that, to the ruling class, who you were --- to which family you belonged, was paramount. Names were so important that they even made lists among themselves of who mattered in "Society" --- lists with such titles as The 400 or The 150 that were trumpeted in newspapers.

Dr. Mullenix was from a respectable family --- quite wealthy by Anders' standards, but not rich enough to be on one of these lists. His wife, however, was a scion of a 400 family: her grandfather had made a fortune in sugar refining.

Through his own reserved habits and his quick observational skills, Anders knew his comportment in this vaunted dining room was above reproach. But he feared that, on closer inspection, the modest quality of his suit and shirt, the meager gauge of his father's gold watch fob, and his cheap cufflinks advertised too plainly his humble origins. Such things seemed to matter not at all to his mentor, much to Anders' gratitude, but he doubted the millionaires around him would be similarly compassionate.

Indeed, Mullenix had accorded him respect from their first meeting in 1898...

*****

It was the summer of 1898 --- the summer between his first and second years of medical school. Ever needing to be frugal with his limited funds, Anders was relieved to find employment that was rewarding both financially and intellectually --- working as an assistant diener in the City Morgue at Bellevue Hospital.

In this fortunate position he was beholden to his professor of anatomy, Dr. Huntington, who had taken note of his meticulous dissections during the first-year cadaver laboratory course. At the end of the spring semester, he had approached the professor regarding possible employment in the anatomy lab over the summer. None being then available, Dr. Huntington kindly referred him to the City Coroner's Office.