The Good Doctor
It was 5pm. The good news was that I only had one more patient. After that I could slope off to the pub, order a pasty and drink whisky until the landlord told me I’d had enough and packed me unsteadily off to bed. The bad news was that the last patient on my list was Mrs McArdle.
I am a man considerably disappointed in my lot. As a younger practitioner I had imagined that the life of a country doctor would be a comfortable one, that I’d be a man much respected in my community, swooned over by rural maidens and wealthy heiresses, as in the novels and TV shows. Instead it is a constant round of bunions, hemorrhoids, bronchitis and busybodies.
Mrs McArdle is one of those busybodies. Like many of the elder ladies of this godforsaken village, she is a sanctimonious, moralistic prig, much active in the local church. With a sigh, I pressed the buzzer that indicated I was ready for my next patient.
She entered with her husband in tow. Mrs McArdle is a sharp-faced woman, she dresses in grey twinsets and wears a silver crucifix prominently around her neck. Her husband is a thin, silent, sallow man who wears a Rotary Club insignia on the lapel of his blazer. He pulled up a second chair to sit beside her.
“And what seems to be the problem?” I
“It is,” said Mrs McArdle, “a matter of some delicacy.”
“Yes?” I said.
“It is not a matter we would want broadcast around the village,” she went on.
“I am a doctor,” I smiled, as reassuringly as one could to such a crocodile. “You can trust me.”
She back smiled at me. It was not at all a nice smile. “Of course. However, I wouldn’t want it to become the topic of conversation among drunken men in a public house,” she said. “From what I hear you have become a regular fixture in the Slaughtered Lamb since the departure of your wife.”
Bitch. You see? Pure bitch. It is over ten years since my wife left. “I can assure you, Mrs McArdle, everything that is discussed in a doctor’s surgery remains strictly confidential.”
She frowned. “I suppose, if we have your word. Have you heard from your wife, by the way, doctor?”
I scowled at her. “Not a thing. Nor do I expect to.”
The fact that my wife had discovered a new sexual orientation and had run away with my receptionist over a decade earlier was still a source of much tongue-clucking among the village harridans. Nothing so exciting had happened in this village since the Danes had to rape the women.
“Such a shame,” she said, still smiling.
“Not really. And what seems to be the problem?” I asked again, through gritted teeth.
The smile left Mrs McArdle’s face as she remembered what she had come here for. “It’s about my niece, Julia” she said, suddenly much less triumphant in her manner..
“Ah,” I said. Mrs McArdle had become Julia’s guardian around five years ago after poor Julia’s parents were killed in a car accident. Julia was a dumpy, silent girl. I had treated her for shock at the time, feeling deeply sorry for her for having to go and live with this dry, censorious couple. “Well? What is wrong with her?”
Mrs McArdle squirmed in her chair. I had never seen the old gossip look uncomfortable in my life. Eventually she got the words out: “She is playing with herself.”
“What?” Her euphemism was so vague, for a second I genuinely had no idea what she was talking about.
“You know. Playing with herself,” she said again.
“I’m sorry...?” By now the penny had dropped, but I feigned ignorance, loving every moment of her discomfort.
She sighed. “My husband entered her bedroom yesterday and found her lying on her bed. She was listening to popular music on her headphones, so she did not hear him come in, and she had her hand.... “
“Yes?”
“Between her legs,” she whispered this last part.
I tried to look shocked. “And?”
She looked pained. “She was moving her hand about,” she said, “isn’t that right, Desmond?”
Her husband nodded quickly.
“Moving her hand about?” I repeated.
“Mmm.”
“And breathing... heavily?”
“Well... yes.”
“In fact, she was masturbating.” I said.
Mrs McArdle winced at the word, then looked down at her black shoes. “It would appear so.”
I snorted. “Masturbation is a perfectly normal activity for any teenage girl,” I said.
She snorted straight back at me. “Doctor! Normal it may be in this permissive society, but it is a sinful thing to be doing. As St Paul reminds us in his epistles. If this is your attitude to your patients concerns I will need to complain to the Board of Health.”
Give me strength. You see what I have to put up with? This is a primitive backwater. I’m sure St Paul wouldn’t have minded Julia’s act of self-discovery. Still, in this small village it is unwise to make enemies. I She is a poisonously powerful woman in the community.
“Of course,” I said. “You are worried. Any parent – or guardian – would be. And what would you like me to do about it?”
“Hypnosis,” said Mrs McArdle.
“What?”
“You convinced my husband to stop smoking many years ago. I would like you to persuade her to stop... playing with herself.”
It is true. I did practice a little hypnotherapy – with some success. It was a sideline of mine. Back in the days when I was younger and more idealistic, I had started a campaign to reduce smoking in the village. I had found hypnosis to be a surprisingly useful tool. I had taught myself a few traditional techniques, and improvised a few of my own.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to hypnotise her to stop her masturbating?”
“That’s right.”
I prevaricated. “Mmm. Perhaps you could make an appointment for her. We could discuss —”
“She’s waiting outside now,” said Mrs McArdle.
“She is?”
“In your waiting room,” she said.
“I suppose I could see her,” I mulled, feeling that she had somehow bullied me into this. Before I could say anything more she was up on her feet and had scuttled out of the surgery door to fetch the unfortunate niece.
A minute later, I sat there behind my desk, open mouthed.
Gone was the dumpy, moon-faced teen I had last seen a few years ago. In her place was a willowy, dark-haired beauty, dressed in a black skirt, black tights and a dark cotton blouse, behind which a couple of delightful-looking young bosoms pressed with a firmness that was rare in these parts. The girl was staring back at me, half mortified, half defiant.
I did a rough calculation. She must be sixteen... no, seventeen years old, at least.
I cleared my throat. “Right then. I would like to see Julia alone,” I announced.
“But...” said Mrs McArdle.
“Mrs McArdle,” I snapped. “I realise that you like to know everything about other people’s business, but this is a private matter best left between me and your niece.”
The tiniest of smiles passed over Julia’s face at the way I remonstrated with her aunt.
“I see,” said Mrs McArdle, lips pursing. “OK. We shall be outside in the waiting room.” They left, Mr McArdle trotting obediently behind his wife.
Alone with Julia, I bade her sit, then asked, “Did they tell you why they brought you to see me?”
Julia blushed.
“I see,” I said.
“They want you to hypnotise me,” she said, hands picking at her skirt..
“Yes. That’s right. They do.”
“Can you hypnotise me? I mean, if I don’t want you to?”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “Possibly.”
She fidgeted in her chair. Her black hair hung down in front of her eyes. “You can if you want. I don’t really care. I don’t really care about anything.”
If I had to make a spot diagnosis, I would hazard she was depressed. Who wouldn’t be, living with her hideously strict, straight-laced aunt and uncle? It seemed a dreadful shame to take away the one thing she had that she could enjoy by herself, her little act of self-stimulation in this unstimulating place, but, well, her aunt was a formidable woman. That’s what she’d asked me to do.
I reached for the drawer and pulled out my battered old pen torch.
“Is that it?” she said. “That old thing.”
“Yes.” She laughed to herself, as if she just everything I did yet another confirmation that the older generation in this place was ridiculous. It must have seemed pretty stupid, just an old, metal pen with a light at the end.
I switched it on. I had had some minor success hypnotising people before I found this old torch at a church jumble sale. When I had first turned it on, I thought it wasn’t working properly. It seemed to flicker, as if the bulb was about to go. But there was something about the pulse of the light which seemed irresistible to my patients. I didn’t like to admit it, at first, thinking that it was my own technique that had improved, but the moment I started using the small torch, my success rate trying to stop the village smoking rocketed.
“It’s not much I know. It probably won’t even work on you,...” I said, waving it slowly, left and right, over the desk. I saw her eyes drawn to the pulsing light.
“No,” she said.
Crows cawed outside.
“...So you’ve nothing to worry about...”
Her eyes moved left and right.
“Nothing...” she said, quietly. See? The torch worked like a dream, still, even after all these years.
“We’ll just spend a few minutes trying, and that’ll keep your aunt happy.”
“Aren’t happy...”
“So why don’t you just relax for a few minutes...”
“... relax...”
“... until this is all over...”
“... all over...”
“...”
Two days later the sun burst through my curtains and the birds were singing far too loudly. There was also a furious banging on my front door. It was late Sunday morning, out of surgery hours. I reached the front door in my dressing gown, head a little thick from last night’s whisky.
“Yes?”
All three were standing there, Mr and Mrs McArdle, and Julia, reluctantly in tow again. Mrs McArdle, in particular, was looking furious. “What have you done to her?”
“What do you mean, what have I done to her”
“She’s...” words failed Mrs McArdle. She looked round anxiously to see if anyone was listening. “Her condition... is much worse,” she hissed.
“Her condition?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t discuss this on your doorstep.” pleaded Mrs McArdle.
“Well, as you can see, it’s not a very convenient time, right now.”
“Please let us in. It’s important.”
“If you must,” I sighed, standing back and opening the door.
I won’t pretend that my house is as tidy as it used to be when my wife lived with me. The kitchen is, frankly, a bit of a mess. That morning there were plates piled in the butler sink, and a couple of last night’s empty bottles still on the table. I whisked them away and set my pan of coffee to heat.
They stood, all three. I didn’t offer them a chair. “Well?” I asked.
“She’s still doing ‘it’,” said Mrs McArdle. “Only louder.”
I looked at Julia’s face. It still wore that same expression as it had the day I saw her at the surgery; humiliated by her aunt discussing her private sex life in front of me, but also resentful at having her privacy invaded like this..
“And more often,” added Mr McArdle, sounding almost impressed by the achievement..
“I’ll do the talking thank you,” snapped his wife.
“Yes dear,” said the husband.
“We can hear her in her bedroom, doing it.”
“Doing what?” I asked, innocently.
“And in the bathroom too...”
“I’m sorry... what do you hear?”
“Oh don’t pretend you don’t know. Playing with herself. She makes all these moaning and groaning noises.”
I looked at Julia. She was blushing furiously. I tried to imagine her lying on her bed, legs spread, fingers pressed against her clitoris.
“Ah,” I said.
“She does it more often now. And the noise she makes. We don’t like to listen, but we can’t help it. She’s spent an hour in the shower this morning. She used all the hot water. And we could hear her. It’s shameless. Absolutely shameless.”
Julia bit her lip, blushing scarlet.
Of course I hadn’t hypnotised her to stop masturbating at all. The opposite, in fact. Why should I prevent her having the little pleasure she had in her humdrum world? More to the point, why should I miss a fine opportunity to humiliate Mrs McArdle? The session had gone better than I had expected, it out. With my smoking cure I had cut the link between addiction and indulgence. With poor Julia I reversed the technique, building that link, so that each time she frigged herself, the craving for it only increased. What had perhaps been an idle way of passing the time in her bedroom was now becoming a necessity, as vital as food and water, at least she imagined it was. The poor girl was hooked on it. And with any addiction, the more she indulged, the less satisfied with the result she became. She needed to touch herself. She felt she would go mad if she didn’t. She was probably masturbating five or six times a day now, rubbing herself furiously in an effort to climax..
“What did you do to her?” demanded Mrs McArdle stridently.
“Let me explain,” I said.
“Yes. Please do,” she said haughtily.
“One minute,” I excused myself for a minute and returned with the torch. “All I did was a simple bit of hypnosis, like this.” I stood before them again and switched on the device. “After all you asked me to hypnotise her, didn’t you?”
“Yes but—”
I moved the torch slowly backwards and forwards.
“You see, the most important thing in the relationship between a doctor and his patients is trust,” I said.
Already Julia and Mr McArdle were watching the beam, eyes moving from side to side. They were easy. Predictably Mrs McArdle was not. “What has this got to do with my niece?” said Mrs McArdle. “And will you stop waving that blessed thing around?”
I started to worry, wondering if, by sheer cussedness, she were able to resist the beam.
“You asked me what I did to her. I’m just showing you.”
“Yes but—”
“It’s all about trust.” The other two were slack-jawed, hanging on my other word.
“Can you put away that stupid torch?”
“I’m just showing you. What I did to Julia.”
“Tell us. Don’t wave that stupid torch around.”
“Look at it, Mrs McArdle.” I was getting desperate.
“Stop wasting my time.”
“Look at it.”
“Why?” But she was following it now. Finally.
“Trust me.”
“What?” Mrs McArdle said, suddenly foggy.
Now, at last, she seemed to be caving in.
“What’s all this about trust?” she slurred.
“You trust doctors to cure you, don’t you?”
“Well, I suppose...”
Her eyes had started to follow the beam. “You trust God in matters of religion.”
“Yes.”
“And you trust doctors in matters of the body. Isn’t that right?”
“Right,” she said. And I dared to believe then that I had her too.
“Well, I’m a doctor. You can trust me.”
“...Trust you...” three voices replied.
I worked on all three of them for some time. They were all very receptive, now that they were under.
Mr and Mrs McArdle left fifty minutes later, perfectly happy to leave their niece in my capable hands. I had assured them that I would do what I could. Remarkably, they were now absolutely sure that I was doing the right thing. “I’m confident this whole thing will come to a climax soon,” I said.
“Thank you very much, doctor,” said Mrs McArdle, humbly as I’d ever heard her. “We’re very grateful for all you’re doing. I’m sorry I made a fuss,”
“Yes. You did make a terrible fuss.”
“I don’t know why,” she said, looking confused for a second. “ I’ll pray for you at evensong.”
I was their doctor. They trusted me. Closing the door, I began to whistle. I haven’t whistled in years. My wife never liked it.
“Right,” I said to Julia, when we were alone. “Come with me..”
She followed me in to the front room which serves as my surgery. I sat behind my oak desk; she took the patient’s chair. I was still in my dressing gown and unshaven, but she didn’t seem to mind.
I coughed and tried to sound as professional as I could. “So. You’ve been masturbating more?”
“I can’t seem to help it. I don’t know why.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t know. I only ever did it a couple of times. Until the last two days. Now if I haven’t done it for three or four hours this tension starts to build. And all I can think of is.... doing it.”
“And....”
“And next thing I know... my hand is down there.”
“And... “
“And then I sort of lose myself. Until it’s over. And I realise I’ve been practically screaming out loud. But I can’t help it.”
I knew why, of course. “I want you to show me what you do to yourself.”
“What?” she said, horrified.
“I want to see you masturbating.”
She turned scarlet. “I couldn’t. Not in front of you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s... it’s personal,” she protested.
“Not that personal. You don’t mind your whole house hearing you.”
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” she said, eyes watering. “I can’t stop myself.”
“I want to see what you do,” I said as calmly as I could.
“I couldn’t,” she said again.
“It’s important.”
She looked like a doe in the headlights, poor dear.
“I’m your doctor, trust me”
“What?” The phrase seemed to ring in her head.
“I’m you’re doctor, trust me,” I repeated.
“You’re my doctor,” she replied automatically this time, almost without realising what she was saying. “I trust you.”
“Good. So it’s obviously all right to do what I ask.”
“I suppose...”
“Because I’m your doctor.”
“I trust you,” she repeated the triggered phrase.
“I just need to make sure that you’re not doing it in a way that might harm you,” I said. “Trust me.”
“You’re my doctor”she said, probably without even knowing she did.
“Good.”
“Can it harm me?”
“Probably not. But it’s best to check you’re not doing anything... ah... wrong.”
“OK,” she said. Calmed by my reassurance that my interest was purely medical, she slid her hips forward on the chair on which she sat. Shyly, she opened her legs, pulled up her skirt, and pulled her knickers aside.
“Shall I take them off?” she said.
“Just do it... um.... however you would normally,” I said, my voice higher than it would usually be.
She pushed a finger into her snatch and gradually, methodically, slowly massaged herself until she was well lubricated, looking up occasionally to check I had a good enough view—for medical purposes.
“Ah... if you, er, don’t mind, could you push the chair back a little so I can get a better... um, look,” I said. Her chair was too close to the other side of the desk to see clearly what was going on.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” She pushed the chair back so I could see perfectly her fingers diving between her pubic hair. When her fingers were good and wet, she gradually moved them upwards towards her clitoris and starting making small circling motions around her little nub.
Her head went back. She started moaning, quietly at first, then louder. The noise was my idea. I knew it would drive Mrs McArdle crazy.
“Oh... “ she said. “Ungh...”
Now she was rubbing herself hard. A light sweat broke on her forehead. What a sight she made, frigging away to herself, legs splayed, in my surgery. Faster she rubbed, and harder. Her administrations reached a peak of frantic activity before finally, gasping for breath, she almost shouted, “Ohhhhhhhhh!”
When her panting subsided, she gave a worried look at me, and asked, “Was that all right, doctor? Was I doing anything wrong?”
I wiped my brow. “Er... no. No. That was very good indeed.”
She relaxed and gave me a shy smile. “Only I’m worried that I’m not thinking about anything else now, apart from doing it.”
“Well... if you have those feelings, you mustn’t deny them. That would be unhealthy.”
“But it seems to be taking longer to... satisfy myself each time.”
“Yes, well... have you tried, ah.. mammary stimulation? That might help.”
“What’s that?”
“Some women like to rub their own breasts when they, um... “
“They do?” This was clearly a new idea to her.
“Yes. Try it and see if it works for you.”
“Here?”
“I... suppose you could... yes.”
After her second orgasm I asked her to see herself out. With the erection I had, I preferred to remain seated. The moment the door was closed though, I made a dash to the bathroom to relieve myself.
They came to my surgery again the following Tuesday. All looked drained. Presumably for different reasons.
I made them wait in the waiting room until all my other patients had been dealt with.
“It’s still getting even worse, doctor,” complained Mrs McArdle. “And people in the village have been making comments.”
“Comments?”
“They hear her in the street now. Mrs Blessed, from the other side of the green knocked on the door last night to ask if Julia was alright.”
“She’s a woman who, like yourself, takes a great interest in the welfare of others,” I said. Another busybody. “I’m sure you were grateful for her concern.”
Mrs McArdle scowled. “And this morning some lads were standing outside, laughing. They keep coming back. They can hear every noise she made. It’s ruining my standing in the community.”
“Tsk tsk,” I said, turning to Julia. “You’re still having these urges then?”
She bit her lip. “Seven or eight times a day now doctor.”
“Oh I think it’s more than that,” said Mr McArdle, which made me wonder if he’d been keeping notes.
“Even in the car,” said Mrs McArdle. “When we’re driving. It’s very distracting for Mr McArdle.”
“I’ll bet it is,” I said.
“We almost crashed into a milk tanker yesterday.”
“She’s insatiable.”
“Is that right?” I asked Julia.
She looked down at the floor and nodded.
Mrs McArdle begged. “Please. Isn’t there anything else you can do? People are starting to talk.”
And if Mrs McArdle hated, it was people talking about her, rather than her talking about them.
I pressed the tips of my fingers together. “Well, there is one thing that might lessen her urges to stimulate herself.”
“What is it. Please, tell us.”
“I’m not sure you want to hear it though.”
“Please. Anything. We’ll try anything. I can’t stand the humiliation of it any longer,” said Mrs McArdle.
“OK then. I’ll tell you my cure. Stimulation by another.”
“What?” goggled Mrs McArdle.
“Sex.”
She looked more shocked than I’d ever seen her look, if that was possible. “Sex? That’s out of the question. She’s not married. It’s against God.”
“And she’d probably need several sessions at regular intervals in order to calm her urges to self-stimulation”
“No, no, no,” groaned Mrs McArdle. This was against everything she stood for.
“I understand,” I sighed. “Then there’s nothing I can do.” I stood, as if to show them the door.
“No wait. There must be something.”
“I’m afraid not. Of course it would be simply a procedure to try and cure her, rather than anything sordid.”
“Yes. I suppose so,” she said. I could feel her weakening.
“Otherwise this pattern of behaviour may well get worse. You may find that she’s unable to control herself in public. Think what would happen if, say, in church she...”
“Ohh!” the thought was too horrible for Mrs McArdle to bear. “And how would this procedure work exactly?” she asked, eagerly now.
“Well the main thing would be to find the right man for the job.”
Mrs McArdle shuddered. “A man?”
“You would of course have to find a man you could trust.”
Instantly the mood was lightened. All three voices chorused automatically. “You’re a doctor. We trust you.”
Mrs McArdle’s eyebrows raised, as if she’d suddenly been struck by a brilliant idea. “You could do it, doctor. We trust you.”
“Me? Oh I couldn’t possibly.”
“Oh but please. You’re our last hope.”
“Well,” I said. “If I really must.”
I was of course pleased that they put their trust in me for this delicate job. Everything seemed settled. I couldn’t have been more delighted. Until Julia said, “I don’t want to have sex with him. He’s old. And he’s fat..”
It’s true. I am in my late middle age, and I have let myself go a little around the middle, but I was stung nonetheless.
“Julia!” said her aunt. “This isn’t anything to do with shallow appearances, it’s a medical procedure. You will have sex with this man. That’s an order.”
Julia started to cry. Oh my. The poor girl had suffered enough. I got out my torch.
So here I am. Julia is leaning over my desk, bottom towards me, her skirt pulled up over her back, white knickers on the floor around her ankle. And I am looking down at her pale, smooth, pretty bottom, and my penis sliding deliciously in and out of her slick, sweet little cunt. I have never had a more delightful experience in my life.
Every now and again she looks round at me, gratefully, her dark eyes flashing with the lust I have suggested she feels for me.
She likes fat men; she prefers older ones too. She adores them in face. She’s amazed at the shallowness of girls who like those bland, ripple chested boy band types. She loves, above all, the feel of my penis pumping into her. She adores everything about me, and above all, she trusts me.
And while her aunt and uncle wait outside, anxiously waiting the results of my little operation, I continue, as best I can, to effect a cure. I may need to get her to book a follow up appointment tomorrow.