Lanyon and Henry Ch. 04

Here's the last chapter--sorry for the delay!

If you haven't read the first three chapters, this probably won't make a lot of sense. Here's the first chapter, here's the second, and here's the third. Please let me know your thoughts!

Trigger warnings: Domination/reluctance, infidelity, anal sex, completely fabricated science and cluttered, Victorian-style prose.

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The Strange Case of Lanyon and Henry, Chapter Four: The Succubus Awakens

Copyright 2023 by B. Watson

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Excerpts from the memoirs of Hastie Lanyon Jekyll

By the time the Summer of 1893 turned to Autumn, my relationship with my dearest Henry--which once had been marked by an almost preternatural closeness--lay in shambles. The fault, I fear, was my own. As my secret experiments evolved into a secret life, I found it impossible to maintain the intimacy, intellectual and otherwise, that had always been a hallmark of our marriage.

To all outside appearances, we hadn't changed. We continued to share meals, conversation and a bed, but the meals were fewer, the bed colder, and the conversation more strained. By the standards of society, our union seemed proper--even exceptional--but we had never been an especially proper couple, and what might appear acceptable to others was, to us, a time of coldness and alienation.

I cannot say how Henry perceived this growing distance. He was never a voluble or outgoing man--to my knowledge, I was perhaps his only confidant--and my reserve had seemingly caught him flatfooted. Certainly, he made an effort to discern the cause of our estrangement, but his intellect, so estimable in the laboratory, was ill equipped for skullduggery, and I easily put him off. Eventually, he ceased his efforts to span the expanse between us, choosing instead to exile himself to his laboratory and anaesthetize himself with increased imbibing.

As for me, I found it increasingly difficult to balance my fascination with Edward Hyde and my deep regard for my husband. What had begun as a scientific investigation had mutated into a stark infidelity, and I was unable to separate the one from the other. Further, as my investigation was far from complete, I was unsure how to halt or slow its process, even as it eroded my once-vibrant relationship with Henry. I could only pray that my experiments--and my growing fascination with my subject--would reach their conclusion before they destroyed my marriage.

And so there we were in early October: A wife unable to tell the truth to her husband and a husband ill-equipped to bridge the distance that had cropped up between them. A wife unable to meet her husband's eye and a husband unable to decipher the dire portents that were gathering around him. Yet on we went, continuing to maintain the appearance of a proper husband and wife, even as our marriage rotted from within. I wondered who we were performing this pantomime for. Poole and Mrs. Willoughby? My parents? Bedford College? Ourselves?

*

October 6, 1893 was a Friday. My husband and I shared breakfast, then went our separate ways--he to Bedford, where he was conducting a seminar, and me to my conservatory, where I was processing samples in order to better understand the diffusion and absorption of certain catalysts in human blood cells. Before he left for the day, he asked me with a pointed look if I was going to dine with him that evening. I felt myself blush--I had missed far too many meals of late. Giving him a stiff smile, I promised that I would, indeed, join him for dinner.

I am not sure what Henry did when he left the College--perhaps he visited his Gentlemen's club or puttered around in his own laboratory in the basement of our home. By this time, our relations had deteriorated to the point that we rarely saw each other. As for myself, I spent the morning and afternoon lingering over my samples. When they were analyzed, I knew, I would need to gather more--a process that filled me with a queer mixture of self-loathing and guilty excitement. Currently, self-loathing was leading the charge, so I dawdled over them. Soon enough, however, it was time for me to prepare for dinner--and for another evening in which I attempted to ignore the hurt and confusion in my husband's eyes.

Dinner was excruciating. The food, as usual, was superb--Mrs. Willoughby had spent much of her life in the kitchen of my family's estate in West Hereford, and she set a fine table. Unfortunately, the art and craft of her dishes were lost on me: My discomfort in my husband's presence, paired with my apprehension and anticipation regarding my next evening with Mr. Hyde left little room for epicurean appreciation. The food tasted strange, foreign--a condition that most likely had little to do with Mrs. Willoughby's efforts and much to do with my own emotional maelstrom.

I hazarded a glance at my husband and his eyes speared me. There was something different in them--their usual arctic blue seemed diffused by an emotion I didn't recognize. I feared it might be disdain.

I quickly shifted my gaze to my dinner plate.

*

Although I never intended to enter into a partnership with Edward Hyde, I cannot claim that the man didn't hold some fascination for me. From our first meeting at 17 Cavendish Square, I had found him singularly arresting. The tumult of our second encounter had prejudiced me somewhat against him, particularly given his propensity to usurp and abuse my body. Further, of course, I also shared my husband's distrust of the man who had attempted to seize control of him so many years before.

All the same, I sometimes remembered the intensity of his tan eyes and the ferocity of his attentions. I must admit that these recollections always left me flushed and flustered.

My inexplicable preoccupation notwithstanding, I was relieved when Henry, Poole and I exorcised Hyde's presence from our home. In fact, were it not for my father's worsening condition, I might never have again sought the man's company.

In 1880, my father's war injuries had set me on my path to study the sciences. In the ensuing years, he had greatly healed, although he favored his left arm, and the strength and vitality that I remembered from my youth had never fully returned.

As for his psyche, his spirits also rallied, and he displayed much of the energy and humor for which he was widely revered. Yet, despite his attempts to conceal the wounds to his spirit, I would often find him gazing at the fire, his mind thousands of leagues from us.

A decade after his return from the war, my father began to suffer a rather precipitous physical decline. As my mother explained, his joints and muscles had begun to severely stiffen, and it had become exceedingly painful for him to ascend stairs or walk any significant distance. As for riding across the countryside--a pastime that continued to delight him, and which had featured prominently in the recovery of his spirit when he returned from the wars--it was, effectively, impossible. Absent his favorite recreation and often confined to his chair in front of the fireplace, my father's spirits quickly dimmed.

During my Christmas visit to Elysianum in 1891, I was shocked at his condition--my ebullient father had, somehow, transformed into an old man.

While Dr. Whitestone rather churlishly refused to share his diagnosis with me--on some level, I believe he still resented my move to London--but it was apparent that my father was suffering from rheumatic gout. This was borne out by Dr. Whitestone's treatments, which largely consisted of laudanum, salicylic acid, and warm baths. These reduced his pain, but did little to improve his mobility, vitality and quality of life.

Frustrated at my father's decline, I wondered if there might be some other method for inspiring the body to repair itself. In the course of my studies in our little village, and later at Bedford College, I had delved deeply into the nature of metamorphosis--more specifically, into organisms that seemed capable of completely transforming themselves. Some, like amphibians and certain species of insects, seemed to transmogrify from one type of animal into another. I wondered what natural force enabled them to refashion themselves so completely.

Humans also transform, albeit not so dramatically. After all, what else is the transition from baby to child to adult? We fuse bones, shed skins, lose teeth and grow new ones. We change hair color, grow muscles and breasts and hips and beards.

The mechanics of human growth are well-known: The human body--more specifically, the brain--releases compounds into the bloodstream, which then spur the aforementioned evolutions. Most of these transformations occur in the period between birth and the eighteenth year, during which time the organism is in a near-constant state of flux, and shows an impressive facility for healing. And then, for some reason, the flow of these compounds reduces, the time required for healing increases, and the changes to the body slow as it moves from growth to stasis to entropy and decay.

I wondered if one might somehow take control of this process of growth and healing. Could it be spurred to resume in an older organism--such as, for example, my father? Was there some mechanism or potion by which I might inspire his body to increase its production of the compounds necessary for repair and growth? Was there some way I could compel his body to fix its ills?

That was my quest, and it was what drew my attentions to the strange relationship between my husband and Mr. Hyde. Somehow, Henry--alone among the earth's inhabitants--had gained the ability to remould his body and psyche. Granted, the process was far from completely controlled; despite his best efforts, his control over his transformations into Edward Hyde was tenuous, at best. Still, there was no mistaking the effects of his transmogrification: Somehow, the quiet, shy Jekyll had found a way to call forth his own more effusive alter-ego. More than that, he had found a way to construct a differing self from his own body.

The changes were subtle, but very real and measurable: While Henry had blue eyes, Hyde's were tan. While Henry moved with a sort of stately grace, Hyde's movements were more frenetic. As I recalled, their bodies were subtly different, as well: Hyde seemed to have faster reflexes and greater muscle mass. Their features, although almost identical, seemed to somehow be lit by a different animating force. On the surface, it appeared that my husband was moved by virtue and Hyde by vice, but the differences ran deeper than that. Henry often seemed aloof, divorced from the common ebb and flow of humanity, while Hyde was inclined to propel himself into the world, consume every experience, feel every delight.

While Henry had been upset by the unwelcome appearance of his alter-ego, I now found myself excited by Hyde's existence, and began to regret the struggle that had forced us to permanently banish him. Somehow, my dear Henry had found a way to do the very thing I was now questing after: He had mastered the evolution of his own body. Unfortunately, the two men could not coexist, as Henry's failed suicide attempt had demonstrated. Nonetheless, his tragic success in his experiments spurred me to redouble my own efforts.

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"Isn't the food to your liking, my dear?"

Henry's words shook me out of my reminiscences. In truth, I was unable to savor Mrs. Willoughby's creations. Her vermicelli soup, one of my favorite of her dishes, seemed almost flavorless to my palate, and for all the attention I paid to it, her lamb with Yorkshire pudding might as well have been sawdust and ashes.

"Yes, darling. It's delicious," I lied. I glanced at my husband's eyes again, but they remained shrouded and dark, full of secrets that I lacked the courage to explore for long, lest he see the secrets in my own eyes. I quickly moved my gaze to the table and took a sip of my wine to hide my distraction. Even the rich Bordeaux failed to arouse my palate.

"Outstanding," Henry said.

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When Henry lost control of his transformations into Hyde, I studied his laboratory journals. His technique for effecting a transformation was blunt and unsophisticated: He had employed psychoactive compounds to fracture his own personality, followed by a crude system of rewards and punishments to encourage his body to lash itself to various portions of his psyche. In this context, Edward Hyde was nothing more than a highly pragmatic and animalistic portion of Henry Jekyll's personality that had been made flesh.

Many of the compounds that I'd explored with Mary Drappit--the midwife in my parents' village--were also psychoactive, but their modus operandi was more subtle and gentle than the cocaine and mercury that Henry had employed. Together, he and I used Mrs. Drappit's compounds to concoct an elixir that forwent the brute force of Henry's potions, and instead gently nudged his psyche to repair itself. By slowly reintegrating parts of the Hyde persona back into Jekyll, we eventually convinced Henry's body that it no longer needed to transform to serve the needs of an alternate master.

I rejoiced at Henry's healing, but it seemed that something was lost in the banishment of Hyde. Henry's personal sentiments and upbringing had long driven his passions toward the cerebral, not the physical. In Hyde, the urges that Henry had shunted aside had gained control of him, and in the aftermath of the alter-ego's destruction, Henry seemed to develop a loathing not only for the beast that had controlled him, but also for all the passions that beast had seemed to unleash. Henry's behavior had always been chillingly proper, but now it was almost arctic.

All the same, as we worked side by side, I felt the bond that had once connected us so intimately reestablishing itself. Although the staid, furiously-controlled Henry never inspired the heady, reckless excitement that I experienced around Hyde, I nonetheless grew to understand how deeply--ardently--I was connected to the good doctor. And, in time, he made it clear that my feelings were reciprocated. A year after the specter of Hyde was laid to rest, we were joined as man and wife.

I will not pretend that my memories of Hyde's improper attentions did not occasionally resurface, nor that I did not sometimes feel a quickening of my pulse when I remembered the feel of his hands on my skin, his teeth on my neck. For the most part, however, those memories were tinged with a yearning that was intellectual, not physical yearning; a burning curiosity at the miracle my husband had wrought.

As my dear father's decline began to hasten, I decided to try my hand at replicating Henry's experiments. I soon found, however, that I faced several severe impediments. The first was that I needed to find a less destructive method for transformation than my husband's--Henry's experiments, which had involved repeatedly poisoning himself and thus generating a great deal of pain, did not fit into my goal of healing my father and reducing his suffering.

The second impediment was that I lacked Henry's resources: I was unwilling to test my compounds on myself, and was unable to secure test subjects desperate enough to submit to any dangerous experimentation. Most of Henry's test subjects at Cambridge were hopeless figures, culled from the lowest classes, and more than willing to sell their souls and bodies for a few cups of cheap gin. While he was easily able to recruit his patients in public houses and back alleys, it was neither safe nor acceptable for me to do the same.

This is not to say that I was completely without resources: Through my contacts at Bedford, I had gathered a small group of test subjects, culled from some of the lower-paid staff members and a few of the women who were there on scholarship. With their help, I was able to test many of my psychoactive compounds in controlled environments. However, given their status and gender, the more dangerous experiments that Henry had undertaken were clearly off the table.

While I was able to fashion a variety of psychoactive elixirs, I could not replicate my dear Henry's success at inspiring metamorphosis in the human body. Part of this, I suspect, was because my compounds were more subtle than his. Datura, liberty cap mushrooms, and the other naturally-occurring psychoactives I employed were able to induce altered states in my subjects' psyches, but they never caused the violent break that had led to the emergence of Hyde. More often, they resulted in extended periods of crying, delirium, and recovered memories. While many of my patients were energized by the treatment, none were physically transformed.

I found myself at a dead end, unable to induce a physical transmogrification, and thus unable to identify the actual blood-borne compounds that led to the aforementioned transformation. Eventually, of course, I reached the logical conclusion: I had at my disposal the only human who--to my knowledge--had ever transfigured into another person. If I could induce Henry's evolution to Hyde, I would have the first part of my problem solved; all I would then need to do is discover and isolate the bloodborne compounds that caused the change. If I could do that, I would have mastered the body's process of evolution. I could--theoretically, at least--then manipulate that process to inspire a body to heal, or grow, or mimic any of the other myriad mutations that are part and parcel of the normal growth and aging process. I could, in theory, find the tools necessary to heal my father's bones, knit his muscles, and (perhaps) even salve his spirit. It was a series of difficult tasks, but I knew they were all possible. And, I decided, I would accomplish them all, if only to find a way to alleviate my father's suffering.

And therein lay the first step in my ultimate betrayal of my husband.

*

When it came to Hyde, Henry had developed an aversion that bordered on obsession. To him, Hyde represented the ultimate loss of control, the ceding of his very self to a foreign intellect. After the events of 1886, he was single-minded in his desire to maintain a tight rein on his emotions, a preoccupation that touched on every aspect of his life, from the laboratory to the classroom to the bedchamber. While I believe that some part of him craved the freedoms that Hyde represented, those desires were vastly overshadowed by the terror he faced at the loss of himself.

If I wished to force my husband's reconfiguration into Hyde, I would have to conceal my efforts from him. I would need to create a new elixir that would inspire Henry's metamorphosis, but could be administered surreptitiously, ideally in food or beverages--and which would inspire a transformation after he retired to his bedchamber. Finally, the compound had to dissipate on its own, as I was unsure of my ability to force Hyde to consume an antidote.

So that was my goal: A flavorless elixir that would work in my husband's sleep to temporarily transform him, would leave no lasting effects, and would be indetectable. No small order, that!

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I began with my usual psychoactive compounds, all of which had been part of my therapy for banishing Hyde. However, since my focus was now on inducing transformation rather than reintegration, I greatly increased the dosages, based on the assumption that a large quantity of psychoactives might inspire a sense of mania and delirium that could--in turn--induce the body to protect itself. In other words, I hoped to use the tools that had once healed Henry to create a sort of psychic discomfort that might take the place of the strychnine that had once tortured his body into transforming. Testing on some of my usual subjects suggested that this was a promising route.