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Utterson had never seen the appeal in romantic relationships. They seemed overly complicated, littered with nuance and social graces that one could not be taught, but simply had to know. He enjoyed a woman’s company, but only to speak with her and engage with her on an intellectual level. His eyes never lingered on a woman’s bodice, nor on her flushed cheeks. When other men spoke of women in his company, it was in ways he could not relate to, nor ever replicate, and so he remained silent.
Utterson had been content instead throughout his life with platonic friendships, taking the time to enrich and deepen those instead of seeking marriage with the fairer sex. Strangely, this practice only seemed to endear women to him more. They sought out his company, pleased with how he was content to converse with them with no ulterior motives.
This had made many a man jealous over the years, causing some to even confront him and demand to know what methods he was employing for the feminine to flock to him. Such situations were embarrassing, more so when it became apparent that he had no such advice to offer to these men.
Of course, there was only one other man whom Utterson knew to possess these same qualities. Despite his status, his wealth, his looks and appealing disposition, Dr Henry Jekyll had never married. When they had been younger, this had been a subject of great contention within upper class social circles. His family had supplied many potential candidates, but he had not forged a connection with a single one.
As the years passed, the wild rumours began to die down, and the public came to see him as a man so dedicated to his work and study that he had no time for romantic dalliances. This suited him just fine, and it did away with the pressure upon him to continue his lineage.
“Of course, my parents are disappointed.” He had once confided to Utterson.
“I suppose it’s a shame to let the ancient bloodline die with me, but we are in an age where the old is becoming new. I predict that as time goes on, families such as mine will seem less and less impressive.”
Utterson had no such lineage to concern himself with. Having originated from the working class, he was more than happy to let that past die with him.
“You must do whatever will bring you satisfaction of your life when you look back on it in your old age.”
Jekyll had given him a wry grin.
“I’m already in my old age.”
A laugh had threatened to spill from Utterson’s lips, but he held it back. Jekyll had the unique ability to threaten all of Utterson’s carefully constructed social graces. His dry wit and enthusiasm for life made him a joy to be around, and his scientific ideas, although transcendental and futuristic in nature, continued to fascinate Utterson throughout their decades of friendship.
He had never imagined Jekyll to be troubled by much, with his rich life and circle of esteemed friendships.
He had been quite wrong.
It had been Lanyon who had come to him, his brow drawn with worry. He stated that during his last meeting with Jekyll, the doctor had been speaking of subjects that had deeply disturbed him. Subjects such as the human soul, its fallacies and its faults. Jekyll’s voice had been bitter and he had seemed unstable. Lanyon’s mind had been disquieted by the experience and his inability to console his friend. He had sat with it for a few days, then decided to come to Utterson with his concerns.
“He will not listen to me as a fellow of his industry, but he may listen to you, as his friend.”
This admission stirred up a great fear within Utterson for his close friend. He went to Jekyll’s residence and firmly asked to be received. He was taken through the house and down the garden to Jekyll’s laboratory. This in itself was a strange divergence from the normal and only served to reaffirm to Utterson that his concerns were just.
For the first time in many years, Jekyll was not pleased with Utterson visiting him. He was surrounded by a sea of chemicals unknown to the lawyer, in the process of distilling them.
“This is most irregular, Utterson. I made it clear to my staff that I did not wish to be disturbed.”
“Lanyon came to me this morning. He is deeply concerned about you, and upon hearing his story and seeing you now, I can understand why.”
Jekyll narrowed his eyes.
“Whatever do you mean by that? I’d hoped you’d have a better reason for barging into my house out of hours.”
“Is it not reason enough that your two oldest friends are worried for your health, nay, your sanity?”
Jekyll sat back in his seat, crossing his arms.
“Whatever that old pedant has told you, I assure you that I am of perfect health and still sound of mind.”
Utterson scowled.
“You should not speak of Lanyon in such a way, when he cares so deeply for you. He told me that you were speaking as if planning to experiment on the very fabric of your soul.”
“And what if I am?”
Utterson drew back, shocked.
“Jekyll, surely not! To toy with such an embedded and delicate piece of yourself would surely only spell doom! Did you not think there was a reason no such experimentation had been committed?”
Jekyll’s eyes darkened.
“Scientific progress can only be furthered by crossing into places hitherto unexplored. If I were to succeed, a crippling burden would be lifted from humanity.”
Utterson was aware of a cold horror creeping through him. This was a side of Jekyll he had never seen before, and he did not care for it.
“You are speaking of potentially destroying the very fabric of your being as if it is a medical formulae yet to be compounded. I am astounded that you do not see the depths of the dangers you are plunging into.”
“You speak as if I will succeed.” Jekyll replied, airily.
Utterson fixed his eyes upon Jekyll’s.
“You are Henry Jekyll. You always succeed.”
His statement hung in the air like a dark cloud. Something akin to alarm flashed in Jekyll’s eyes. Utterson moved closer in the silence, resting his hands on the edge of Jekyll’s desk.
“Why would you want to tamper with your being in such a way in the first place?”
His voice was soft, his eyes refusing to leave Jekyll’s, despite the immense discomfort it caused him.
The doctor’s face twitched. He made to speak, but could not find the words.
“I…”
Jekyll rearranged his features with difficulty, staring back at Utterson with a defiant gaze, jaw clenched.
“I see no advantage to maintaining it in its current state.”
“ What? ”
The incredibility of such a statement had made Utterson’s propriety escape him. He gawked at Jekyll, unable to process the doctor’s blase attitude.
Jekyll raised an eyebrow and looked back down at the notes he had been making before Utterson’s appearance.
“It is marred, and it is my duty to fix it.”
“You cannot fix a soul! It is who you are, your spirit, your very existence!”
“Well, what if I do not want to be who I am?!” Jekyll spat.
Utterson fell silent, knitting his brows in concern.
“I do not understand.”
Jekyll got to his feet, standing a head taller than Utterson, glaring down at him.
“It has been a subject of torment to me all my life, that each day I am forced to be someone I am not. I am tired of leading a double life! It has left an indelible mark on me, one that I must scrub out before it causes me to go mad!”
Utterson felt rankled by Jekyll’s tone. Did he truly think he was the only one who had struggled throughout his life? Utterson had grown up in poverty, seen how it crippled and killed people. He’d had to forge a whole new identity for himself, learn every affectation of the richer classes, every social grace, until he could replicate the illusion so well it had deceived even his closest friends.
“Pray tell, Dr Jekyll,” He sneered. “What part of your privileged life has caused you so much grief? Do you not see what you have? What you have always had? What right do you have, what is so ruinous in your life, that you feel it necessary to jeopardise and destroy every inch of it by playing God in your laboratory?”
Jekyll’s face turned white with rage. He opened his mouth, and it was then that he spilled his greatest secret.
“Ruinous?! How about sodomy, degeneracy, a curse that has hounded me my whole entire life?! Something which could destroy my entire life and marr the reputations of all around me if it were to become known?!”
That shocked Utterson into silence.
Jekyll was breathing heavily with anger. As the seconds passed, Utterson watched his face change as the cold realisation of what he had just said began to set in. Jekyll’s eyes filled with fear.
“Oh God… Utterson, do not tell anyone, please, I beg of you, do not tell.”
“I will not tell. I will not breathe a word.”
Jekyll sat back down with a distraught wail, his head falling into his hands.
“Now you know, you know why I must fix myself. This is a disease which has written itself across my mind and body - it must have originated in my soul. My soul, which is black and twisted and rotting, to have generated such sin.”
Utterson was overwhelmed with sympathy for his distraught friend.
“Oh, Jekyll…”
The doctor raised his head, blue eyes burning with an alarming intensity.
“But, you see, I can still fix it. I have the chemicals and knowledge at my disposal. Some agents must possess the power to shake and pluck back the lines between the soul, to separate the good from the evil.”
Utterson gave his old friend a long, gentle look.
“Jekyll, you are not evil.”
“I must be,” came the rasping, whispered reply.
“For it is written in the Bible, that I shall go to hell and burn in eternal fire, with the murderers and abusers, with the evil of the world.”
Utterson gazed at Jekyll.
“I see no evil in you. Only a good man, who is plagued by many troubles.”
Jekyll met Utterson’s eyes. His lips trembled, his eyes wide with fear.
“I see no good in me.”
Utterson had little control over what his body did next. He moved away from the desk and walked around it, approaching Jekyll. The doctor looked round at him, tensing up, as if afraid Utterson would cast a blow down upon him.
The lawyer raised his hands and cupped Jekyll’s face in them, holding it gently.
“Whatever you see of yourself, is distorted through the lens of your own mind. I do not see you through that, I see you through my own eyes, and I care very much for what I see.”
Jekyll could not meet Utterson’s eyes. Utterson leaned closer, until he would smell the bergamot scent on the doctor’s hair.
“Please, do away with this business of tampering with your soul. I fear greatly that it would not end well for you…”
Jekyll sighed and Utterson could feel him trembling through his hands.
“I’m sorry. I feel I have tainted you. Though you have not left me yet, I am sure you will upon hearing that not all the affections I harbour for you are acceptable.”
Some part of Utterson knew that to hear such an admission from his friend should have left him shaken, perhaps even disgusted. But, if anything, he felt a strange lightening of his heart. The air he breathed tasted somehow sweeter, and a weight he had not been aware of slowly left his shoulders.
“But, I am still here, Jekyll.”
Jekyll looked up at Utterson, his eyes desperate, voice strained.
“Why?”
“I…”
Utterson’s entire world seemed to have reduced down to the azure blue of Jekyll’s eyes, the warmth of his skin under his hands, the smell of lavender and caustic soap.
“Because I feel I need you in my life.”
Jekyll’s eyes softened. The two of them remained in place for several minutes, Utterson entirely preoccupied with the feeling of Jekyll’s skin beneath his palms and the sound of his gentle breathing.
Jekyll inhaled slowly, closing his eyes.
“Thank you, Utterson.”
“Whatever for?”
“I feel that you saved me from something, today.”
Utterson withdrew his hands and his fingers were left tingling.
“Perhaps I did. Will you leave this experimentation be?”
Jekyll cast a glance at the papers and vials scattered across his desk beside him.
“I shall try.”
-
Utterson kept to his word, keeping Jekyll’s secret. In the coming days and weeks Utterson found there to be a lightness in his step and a sensation in his chest that had not been there previously. He realised it was the knowledge that he was loved by someone.
Slowly, he began to understand why lovers doted on one another, why the threat of being split apart was so terrifying. Staring into Jekyll’s eyes as he spoke of destroying himself with such nonchalance had struck a chord deep within the lawyer, igniting him with a fear that he had not felt before. It had become apparent to him that he could not lose Henry Jekyll.
Utterson had also noticed a marked change in Jekyll since his confession. He seemed generally more at ease; he joked more and even walked a little taller. For many years, he had borne a weight upon his shoulders to rival that of Atlas’, but with a little less of it upon him than before, the improvement in his temperament and overall composure was quite visible.
Some of his friends enquired about it, asking if he had found a good health tonic. Lanyon was especially reassured by the change in Jekyll and gifted Utterson an expensive vintage in thanks.
It was this such wine that Utterson brought out when Jekyll came to visit him one evening. They sat by the fire and drank and talked. Utterson noted that there had been no more mention of soul experimentation from the doctor.
“I fear I will spoil the mood by asking this, but I must know…”
Jekyll turned to look at the lawyer, his face open and his attention wholly upon Utterson.
“Have you desisted on the experiments we discussed a month ago? I ask, as it has been playing on my mind.”
Jekyll smiled, gently. Utterson felt his heart begin to race and put it down to the strength of the alcohol.
“I have preoccupied myself with other matters of research. I feel your advice was most sound, and I decided to stop pursuing the subject. I couldn’t bear the shame of disappointing you if I had continued.”
Utterson gazed into his glass of wine, admiring how the deep crimson hues rippled in the firelight.
“You could not disappoint me, my friend.”
Jekyll looked away and back at the fire, a shy smile playing on his lips.
“O’ Utterson, so renowned in being the last good man in the lives of going down men. God truly placed the highest degree of tolerance into your soul.”
Utterson raised an eyebrow, a half smile on his face.
“What am I tolerating, exactly?”
Jekyll leant his chin upon his fist, still staring into the fire. Utterson found himself rather distracted by how the reflection of the flames danced in his eyes.
“Me. My exploits, my beliefs. It must grate upon you sometimes, with how I give you such cause to worry about me.”
Utterson exhaled softly and leant back into his armchair.
“I only worry about you because I care about your wellbeing. You do not show the same care to yourself, so I feel one of us must.”
Jekyll’s eyes flicked over to glance at Utterson, his lips drawing into a small smile.
“Where would I be without you?”
Utterson took a sip of his wine, his reply dry.
“I dread to think.”
Jekyll laughed and leant his forearms onto his knees. There was a warmth to the atmosphere, and a comforting, rich silence fell upon the two friends, one that was so familiar to them after so many years of conversation and each other’s company.
Utterson gazed upon Jekyll’s face, and there came about a tightness in his chest, a difficulty breathing.
“Jekyll…how did you know that you loved me?”
A sadness passed over his friend’s face.
“Utterson-”
“Please, I wish to know.”
Jekyll’s cheeks were flushed, whether from the wine, fire or Utterson’s question, it was not clear.
“Well…I have always been fond of you. From the time we met in university, and throughout the years since. I greatly admire you, how good and patient you are with people, your desire to never judge harshly, but instead to listen and learn. Your kindness and sincerity…you refused to be moved even when I snapped at you, or when you heard of my…unseemly side.”
“Your secret has not affected the way I see you, Jekyll.”
Was that a lie, though? Utterson was aware that he had begun noticing certain aspects of Jekyll more since his admission - his eyes were often settling upon the doctor’s face, his eyes, his hands, his strong shoulders. Now that he thought about it, Utterson had begun to notice Jekyll much in the way other men viewed women…
“I am truly grateful for that, Utterson. More than I can say with words alone.”
Utterson felt a sudden, heady recklessness come over him.
“So, say it in more than words.”
Jekyll was looking at Utterson with a strange look upon his face, as if attempting to decipher what the man had meant.
“What?”
Utterson placed his wine down on the table beside him, leaning forward towards Jekyll.
“Your words have always fascinated me, Jekyll, whether they were speaking of subjects I understood or not. However, I feel I must ask you to abandon them now. You cannot put some feelings into words, despite how the romantic writers of our age have tried.”
Jekyll was frozen, eyes wide.
“Utterson…”
Utterson raised a hand to trace his finger along Jekyll’s stubbled jaw.
“Gabriel.” He corrected the doctor.
Jekyll inhaled sharply, trying to snatch a breath from the air that had grown suddenly so heavy between them. The blush on his cheeks was evident now, and Utterson found it greatly endearing. He was locked in the doctor’s frantic gaze, Jekyll searching him and his eyes for something Utterson could not tell.
“Please.” Utterson whispered.
Jekyll let out a raspy breath, then leant forward and closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to Utterson’s.
In a moment, everything that was Jekyll surrounded him. His smell, his warmth, his breath. He could feel the slight scratch of his stubble against his chin, the gentle brush of his nose against his cheek. Utterson closed his eyes and fell deep into the kiss.
Jekyll placed his hand on his thigh and Utterson grasped it with his own. He placed his other on the back of the doctor's neck, pulling him closer, acting upon some buried instinct within him that he had not been aware of until now. Jekyll hummed in his throat and Utterson felt it through his lips; it sent a great shiver through his body.
Their lips parted for a brief moment. Jekyll nuzzled his nose against Utterson's, a smile creeping onto his face. Utterson opened his eyes slightly. Jekyll still had his closed, his expression one of quiet bliss.
"I never expected that I would get to kiss you...Gabriel."
Utterson brushed his lips against Jekyll's, already missing the feeling of them against his.
"I am full of surprises, Jekyll."
Jekyll chuckled, pressing another chaste kiss to the lawyer's lips.
"Henry." He whispered.
Utterson smiled and wound his arms around Jekyll’s neck, pulling him back into a deep kiss. He could feel Jekyll’s fingers threading through his hair, trailing gently over the pulse in his neck, brushing against his jaw. Bergamot and lavender filled the air. Jekyll’s lips tasted like red wine and Utterson had never savoured the taste more. His heart sung and soared with every breath Jekyll exhaled against his skin. It pounded in his ears and his skin was hot, flushing his face and burning his ears. He wanted to remain like this, in Jekyll’s arms, forever.
Utterson had never seen the appeal in romantic relationships, until then.