My Secret Life (9 page)

My physique could not then have been strong, nor my sexual organs in finished condition, because I am sure that up to that time, I had not had a spend; perhaps my growing fast and the fever may have had something to do with it. My father came home broken-hearted I have heard, and ill. Soon after we only kept two female servants, a man outside the house, and a gardener. Father was ordered to the sea-side, my mother went with him, taking the children and one servant (all went by coach then). One of father’s sisters, my aunt, a widow, came to take charge of our new house, and brought her daughter, a fair, slim girl, about sixteen years old.

I remained at home, so as to go to school; the servant left in the house was a pleasant, plump young woman, dark haired, and was always laughing; she was to do all the work. My godfather, who lived a mile or two away from us and whose maiden sister kept house for him, was to see me frequently, and did so till I was sick of him. Every half-holiday, he made me spend with him in walking, and riding; he insisted on my boating, cricketting, and keeping at athletic games when not at my studies. The old doctor I expect guessed my temperament, and thought, by thoroughly occupying and fatiguing me, to prevent erotic thoughts. He wanted me to stay at his house, but I refused, and it being a longer way from school, it was not persisted in.

My aunt slept in my parents’ bed-room, my cousin in the next room. I was taken down, during my parents’ absence, from the upper floor to sleep on the same floor as my aunt. They had not been in the house a week before I had heard my cousin piddle, and stood listening outside her bed-room door, night after night, in my bed-gown, trying to get a glimpse of her charms through the keyhole, but was not successful.

I made up to the servant, beginning when she was kneeling, by putting myself astride on her back. It made her laugh, she gave her back a buck up, and threw me over; then I kissed her, and she kissed me. She and my aunt quarrelled, my aunt was very poor and proud, and wanted a hot dinner at seven o’clock, I my dinner in the middle of the day. The servant said she could not do it all. The girl said quietly to me, “I’ll cook for you, don’t you go without, let her do without anything hot at night.” She did not like her. My aunt said she was saucy and would write to my mother and complain that she wasted her time with the gardener. Godfather then renewed his offer for me to stay with him, but I would not, for I was getting on very comfortably with the servant in kissing, and things settled themselves somehow. I learnt the ways of my aunt, and tried to get home when she was out, so as to be alone with the servant; but to escape both aunt and godfather was difficult. I did so at times by saying I was going out with the boys somewhere, on my half-holidays, or something of the sort, but was rarely successful.

The servant went to her bed-room, one afternoon; with palpitating heart I followed her, and pushed her on to the bed. She was a cheeky, chaffing, woman, and I guess knew better than I did, what I was about. I recollect her falling back on to the bed, and showing to her knees. “Oh! what legs!” said I, “Nothing to be ashamed of,” said she. Whatever my wishes or intentions might have been, I went no further. My relations were of course out.

Another day we romped, and pelted each other with the pillows from her bed, she stood on the landing, I half way down the stairs, and kept when I could, my head just level with the top of the landing on which she was, so that as she whisked backwards and forwards, picking up the pillows to heave at me, I saw up to her knees. She knew what she was about, though I thought myself very cunning to manage to get such glimpses. On the landing I grappled with her for a pillow, and we rolled on the floor. I got my hand up her clothes, to her thighs, and felt the hair. “That’s your thing,” said I with a burst of courage. “Oh! oh!” she laughed, “what did you say?” “Your thing!” “My thing! what’s that?” “The hole at the bottom of your belly,” said I, ashamed at what uttered. “What do you mean? who told you that? I’ve no hole.” It is strange, but a fact, that I had no courage to say more, but left off playing, and went down stairs.

On occasions afterwards, I played more roughly with her and felt her thighs; but fear prevented me from going further up. She gave me lots of opportunities, which my timidity prevented me from availing myself of. One day she said, “You are not game for much, although you are so big,” and then kissed me long and furiously, but I never saw her wants, nor my chances that I know of, though I see now plainly enough that, boy as I was, she wanted me to mount her.

About that time, — how I got it, I know not, — I had a book describing the diseases caused by sacrificing to Venus. The illustrations in the book, of faces covered with scabs, blotches, and eruptions, took such hold of my mind, that for twenty years afterwards, the fear was not quite eradicated. I showed them to some friends, and we all got scared. I had no definite idea of what syphilis, and gonorrhea were, but that both were something awful we all made up our minds. My godfather also used to hint now to me about ailments men got, by acquaintance with loose, bad, women; perhaps he put the book in my way. Frigging also was treated of, and the terrible accounts of people dying through it, and being put into straight waistcoats, etc., I have no doubt were useful to me. Several of us boys were days in finding out what the book meant by masturbation, onanism, or whatever the language may have been. We used dictionaries and other books to help us, and at last one of the biggest boys explained the meaning to us.

One evening, my aunt being out (it was not I think any plan on my part), I had something to eat and then went into the kitchen, where the servant was sitting at needle-work by candle-light. I talked, kissed, coaxed her, began to pull up her clothes, and it ended in her running round the kitchen, and my chasing her; both laughing, stopping at intervals, to hear if my aunt knocked. “I’ll go and lock the outer gate,” said she, “then your aunt must ring, if she comes up to the door, she will hear us, for you make such a noise.” She locked it and came back again.

The kitchen was on the ground-floor, separated from the body of the house by a short passage. I got her on to my knees, I was now a big fellow, and though but a boy, my voice was changing, she chaffed me about that; then my hand went up her petticoats, and she gave me such a violent pinch on my cock (outside the clothes), that I hollowed. Whenever I was getting the better of her in our amatory struggles, she said, “Oh! hush! there is your aunt knocking,” and frightened me away, but at last she was sitting on my knees, my hand touching her thighs, she feeling my prick, she felt all around it and under. “You have no hair,” she said. That annoyed me, for I had just a little growing. Then how it came about I don’t recollect, but she consented to go into the parlor with me, after we had sat together feeling each other for a time, if mine could be called feeling, when my fingers only touched the top of the notch. I took up the candle. “I won’t go if you bring a light,” said she, so I put down the candle, and, holding her by the arm, we walked through the passage across the little hall to the front parlour; she closed the door, and we were in the dark. And now I only recollect generally what took place, it seems as if it all could but have occupied a minute, or two, though experience tells me it must have been longer.

We sat on a settee or sofa, she had hold of my prick, and I her cunt, for she now sat with thighs quite wide open. It was my first real feel of a woman, and she meant me to feel well. How large and hairy and wet it seemed; its size overwhelmed me with astonishment, I did not find the hole, don’t recollect feeling for that, am sure I never put my finger in it, all seemed cunt below her belly, wet, and warm, and slippery. “Make haste, your aunt will be in soon,” said she softly, but I was engrossed with the cunt, in twiddling it and feeling it in delighted wonder at its size and other qualities. “Your aunt will be in,” and leaving off feeling my cock, she laid half on, half off the settee. “No, no, not so,” I recollect the words, but what I was doing, know not; then I was standing by her side, my cock stiff, and still feeling her cunt in bewilderment. “I can’t ... stop ... get on to the sofa.” I laid half over her, my prick touched something — her cunt of course. Whether it went in or not, God knows, I pushed, it felt smooth to my prick, then suddenly came over me, a fear of some horrible disease, and I ceased whatever I was doing. “Go on, go on,” said she, moving her belly up. I could not, said nothing, but sat down by her side, she rose up, “You’re not man enough,” said she, laying hold of my prick. It was not stiff, I put my hand down, and again the great size — as it seemed to me — of her cunt, made me wonder.

What then she did with me, I know not, she may have frigged it, I think she did, but can’t say, a sense of disgrace had come over me as she said I was not man enough, disgrace mixed with fear of disease. “Let me try,” said I; again she laid back, I have a faint recollection of my finger going in somewhere deep, again of my prick touching her thighs and rubbing in something smooth, but nothing more. “You’re not man enough,” said she again. A ring . . . “Hark! it’s your aunt, go!” and it was.

I went into the adjoining room, where my books were and a lamp, she went to the street-door. My aunt and cousin came in and went up to their bed-rooms, I sat smelling my fingers; the full smell of cunt that I had for the first time. I smelt and smelt almost out of my senses, sat poring over a book, seeming to read, but with my fingers to my nose and thinking of cunt, its wonderful size and smell. Aunt came down. “Have you got a cold, Wattie?” “No, aunt.” “Your eyes look quite inflamed, child.” Soon after again, she said: “You have a cold?” “No, aunt.” “Why are you sniffing so, and holding your hand to your mouth?” Suddenly the fear of the pox came over me, I went up to the bed-room, soaped and washed my prick, and had a terrible fear on me.

I was overwhelmed with a mixed feeling of pride, at having had my prick either touch or go up a cunt, fear that I had caught disease, and shame at not being man enough. Instinct told me I had lost, in the eyes of the woman, and my pride was hurt in a woeful manner. I tried to avoid seeing her, instead of as before getting excitedly into a room where she was likely to be alone for a minute. I did that for three days, then fear of disease vanished, and my hopes of feeling her cunt again, or of poking — I don’t know which — impelled me towards her.

During those three days I washed my prick at every possible opportunity, and thought of nothing else but the incident; all seemed to me hurry, confusion, impossible; I wondered, and wonder still, whether my prick went into her or not; but above all, the largeness of the cunt filled me with wonder; for though I had had rapid glimpses of cunts as told, and had now seen a few pictures of the long slit, I never could realise that that was only the outside of the cunt, until I had had a woman. My fingers had no doubt slipped over the surface of hers, from clitoris to arse-hole; the space my hand covered filled me with astonishment, as well as the smell it left on my fingers, I thought of that more than anything else. This seems to me now laughable, but it was a marvel to me then.

When I sneaked into the kitchen again, I was ashamed to look at her, and left almost directly, but one day I felt her again. Laughing she put her hand outside my trowsers, gave my doodle a gentle pinch and kissed me. “Let’s do it!” I said. “Lor! you ain’t man enough,” and again I slunk away ashamed.

My first frig. — My godfather. — Meditations on copulation. — Male and female aromas.
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Maid and gardener. — My father dies.
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A wet dream.
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Bilked by a whore.

The frequency of my cock-stands up to this time I don’t know. Voluptuous sensation I have no clear recollection of; but no doubt during that half swooning delight, which I had when big Betsy allowed me to lay my head on her lap and feel her limbs, that impulse towards the woman was accompanied by sensuous pleasure, though I don’t recollect the fact, but soon my manhood was to declare itself.

Some time after I had felt this servant’s quim, I noticed a strong smelling, whitish stuff, inside my foreskin, making the underside of the tip of the prick sore. At first I thought it disease, then pulling the foreskin up, I made it into a sort of cup, dropped warm water into it, and working it about, washed all round the nut, and let the randy smelling infusion escape. This marked my need for a woman, I did not know what the exudation was, it made me in a funk at first. One day I had been toying with the girl, had a cock-stand, and felt again my prick sore, and was washing it with warm water, when it swelled up. I rubbed it through my hand, which gave me unusual pleasure, then a voluptuous sensation came over me quickly so thrilling and all pervading that I shall never forget it. I sunk on to a chair, feeling my cock gently, the next instant spunk jetted out in large drops, a full yard in front of me, and a thinner liquid rolled over my knuckles. I had frigged myself, without intending it.

Then came astonishment, mingled with disgust, I examined the viscid, gruelly fluid with the greatest curiosity, smelt it, and I think tasted it. Then came fear of my godfather, and of being found out; for all that, after wiping up my sperm from the floor, I went up to my bed-room and, locking the door, frigged myself until I could do it no more from exhaustion.

I wanted a confidant and told two schoolfellows who were brothers, I could not keep it to myself, and was indeed proud though ashamed to speak of the pleasure. They both had bigger pricks than mine, and never had jeered at me because I could not retract my prepuce easily. Soon after they came to see me, we all went into the garden, each pulled my prepuce back, I theirs, and then we all frigged ourselves in an outhouse.

Then I wrote to Fred, who was at a large public school, about my frigging. He replied that some fellows at his school had been caught at it and flogged; that a big boy just going to Oxford had had a woman and got the pox badly. He begged me to burn his letter, or throw it down the shit-house directly I had read it, adding that he was in such a funk for he had lost mine; and that I was never to write to him such things at the school, because the master opened every day indiscriminately one or two letters of the boys. He knew my mother was away and so did not mind writing to me. When I heard that he had lost my letter I also was in a funk; the letter never was found. Whether the master got it, or sent it to my godfather or not, I can’t say, but it is certain that just after I had one night exhausted myself by masturbation, my godfather came to see me.