smell their flesh, look up their petticoats, watch to see them going to piddle; and the wonder to me now is, that I did not frig myself incessantly; and can only account for it on the grounds, that though my imagination was very ripe, my body was not. The fact of hair under
the arms of women had a secret charm for me about that time. I don't recollect thinking much about it before, though it had astonished me when I first saw it; and why it came to my imagination so much now, do not know, but it did. I have told of the woman under whose arms I first saw hair.
One afternoon after my father's death, and that of my godfather, Fred was with me, we went to the house of a friend, and were to return home about nine o'clock. It was dark, we saw a woman standing by a wall. "She is a whore," said Fred, "and will let us feel her if we pay her." "You
go and ask her." "No, you." "I don't like to." "How much money have you got?" We ascertained what we had, and after a little hesitation, walked
on, passed her, then turned round and stopped. "What are you staring at, kiddy," said the woman. I was timid, and walked away, Fred stopped with her. "Wattie, come here," said he in a half whisper. I walked back. "How much have you got?" the woman said. We both gave her money. "You'll let us both feel?" said Fred. "Why of course, have you felt a woman before?" Both of us said we had, feeling bolder. "Was it a woman about here?"
"No." "Did you both feel the same woman?" "No." "Give me another shilling then, you shall both feel my cunt well, I've such a lot of hair on it."
We gave what he had, and then she walked off without letting us. "I'll
tell your mothers, if you come after me," she cried out.
66
We were sold; I was once sold again in a similar manner afterwards, when by myself.
These are the principal baudy incidents of my early youth, which I recollect, and have not told to friends; many other amusing incidents told them, are omitted here, for the authorship would be disclosed, if
I did. One or two were peculiar and most amusing, yet I dare not narrate them; but all show how soon sexual desires developed in me, and what pleasure early in life even these gave me and others.
I now had arrived at the age of puberty, when male nature asserts itself in the most timid, and finds means of getting its legitimate pleasure with women. I did, and then my recollection of things became more
perfect, not only as to the consummations, but of what led to them; yet nothing seems to me so remarkable as the way I recollect matters which occurred when I was almost an infant.
CHAPTER V.
Our house.--Charlotte and brother Tom.--Kissing and groping.--Both in rut.--My first fuck.--A virginity taken.-- At a baudy house.--In a privy.--Tribulations.--Charlotte leaves.--My despair.
After father's death, our circumstances were further reduced, at the
67
time I am going to speak of, we had come to a small house nearer London;
one sister went to boarding-school, an aunt (I had many) took another, I went to a neighboring great school or college, as it was termed, my
little brother Tom was at home; but reference henceforth to members of my family will be but slight, for they had but little to do with the incidents of this private life, and unless they were part actors in it,
none will be mentioned.
Our house had on the ground-floor a dining-room, a drawing-room, and a small room called the garden parlor, with steps leading into a large garden. On the first floor my mother's bedroom and two others; above were the servants' room, mine, and another much used as a lumber-room; the kitchens were in the basement, beside them a long covered way led
to a servants' privy, and close to it a flight of stairs leading up into
the garden; at the top of the stairs was a garden-door leading into
the forecourt, on to which opened the street-door of the house. This description of plan is needful to understand what follows.
I was about sixteen years old, tall, with slight whiskers and moustache, altogether manly and looking seventeen or eighteen, yet my mother thought me a mere child, and most innocent; she told our friends so.
I had developed without her having noticed it, love of women, and the intensest desire to understand the secrets of their nature had taken possession of me; the incessant talk of fucking with which the youths I knew beguiled their leisure, the stories they told of having seen their servants, or other girls half, or quite naked, the tricks by which they managed this, the dodges they were up to, inflamed me, sharpened
my instinctive acuteness in such matters, and set me seeking every
opportunity to know women naked, and sexually. Frigging was now hateful
68
to me; I had never done so more than the times related, that is as far as I now can recollect, frightened as said, by my godfather telling
me, that it sent men mad, and made them hateful to women. So although boiling with sensuality, I was still all but a virgin, and actually so
in fucking.
A housemaid arrived just as I came home from college, the cook stood at the door, she was a lovely woman about twenty-five or six years old, fresh as a daisy, her name was Mary. The housemaid was in a cart, driven by her father, a small market gardener living a few miles from us. I saw
a fresh, comely girl about seventeen years old in the forecourt, turned round to look, she was getting down, the horse moved, she hesitated. "Get down," said her father angrily. Down she stepped, her clothes caught on the edge of the cart, or step, or somehow; and I saw rapidly appear white stockings, garters, thighs, and a patch of dark hair between them by her belly; it was instantaneous, and down the clothes came, hiding all. I stood fascinated, knowing I had seen her cunt hair. She, without any idea of having been exposed, helped down with her box, I went into the parlor ashamed of having as I thought, been seen looking.
I could thing of nothing else, and when she brought in tea, could not take my eyes off her, it was the same at supper (we lead a simple life, dining early and having supper). In the evening my mother remarked, "that girl will do," I recollect feeling glad at heart.
I went to bed, thinking of what I had seen, and stared whenever I saw her the next day, until by a sort of fascination, she used to stare at
me; in a day or two I fancied myself desperately in love with her, and
69
indeed was. I recollect now her features, as if I had only seen her yesterday, and after the scores and scores of women I have fucked since, recollect every circumstance attending my having her, as distinctly, as
if it only occurred last week; yet very many years have passed away.
She was a little over seventeen years, had ruddy lips, beautiful teeth, darkish hair, hazel eyes, and a slightly turn-up nose, large shoulders
and breast, was plump, generally of fair height, and looked eighteen or nineteen, her name was Charlotte.
I soon spoke to her kindly, by degrees became free in manner, at length chucked her under her chin, pincher her arm, and used the familiarities which nature teaches a man to use towards a woman. It was her business to open the door, and help me off with my coat and boots if needful; one day as she did so, her bum projecting upset me so, that as she rose from stooping I caught and pinched her. All this was done with risk, for
my mother was then nearly always at home, and the house being small, a noise was easily heard.
I was soon kissing her constantly. In a few days got a kiss in return, that drove me wild, her cunt came constantly into my mind, all sorts of wants, notions, and vague possibilities came across me; girls do let fellows feel them I said to myself, I had already succeeded in that. What if I tell that I have seen it outside? Will she tell my mother?
Will she let me feel her? What madness! Yet girls do let men, girls like it so all my