a nearly dark room, about the most difficult poke I ever had, it was a ridiculous posture. But our meeting was full of tears, despondency, and dread of being with child. She told me I had ruined her, even fucking did not cheer her. A week or so afterwards, having no money, I walked all the way to try to see her, and failed. Afterwards in her letters, she begged me never to tell 101 anyone about what had passed between us. Her father sent her away to his brother's, where she was to help as a servant; for somehow it had got wind that she had met some one at the school-house. There she fell ill and was sent home again. Then she wrote that she should marry, or have no peace, wished I was older, and then she could marry me; she did not write much common sense, although it did not strike me so then. She was coming to London to buy things, would say she would call on my mother on the road, but would meet me instead. How she humbugged the young woman who came to town with her, I don't know, but we met at the baudy house, cried nearly the whole time, but fucked for all that till my cock would stand no longer; then vowing to see each other after she was married, we parted. She married soon, my mother told me of it; she lived twelve miles from us, and did not write to me. I went there one day, but although I lingered long near their shop, I never saw her. I did that a second time, she saw me looking in, and staggered into a back room. I dared not go in for fear of injuring her. Afterwards came a letter not signed, breathing love, but praying me not to injure her, as might be if I was seen near her house. Money, distance, time was all against me; I felt all was over, took to frigging, which, added to my vexation, made me ill. What the doctor thought I don't know, he said I was suffering from nervous exhaustion, asked my mother if I was steady, and kept good hours. My mother said I was the quietest, and best of sons, as innocent as a child, and that I was suffering from severe study--she had long thought I should; the fact being that for four months I had scarcely looked at a book, excepting when she was near me, and had when not thinking of Charlotte, spent my time in writing baudy words, and sketching cunts and pricks with pen and ink. 102 Thus I lost my virginity, and took one, thus ended my first love or lust; which will you call it? I call it love, for I was fond of the girl, and she of me. Some might call it a seduction, but thinking of it after this lapse of years, I do not. It was only the natural result of two people being thrown together, both young, full of hot blood, and eager to gratify their sexual curiosity; there was no blame to either, we were made to do it, and did but illustrate the truth of the old song, "Cock and cunt will come together, check them as you may," and point to the wisdom, of never leaving a young male and female alone together, if they were not wanted to copulate. In all respects we were as much like man and wife as circumstances would let us be. We poked and poked, whenever we got a chance; we divided our money, if I had none, she spent her wages; when I had it, I paid for her boots and clothes--a present in the usually sense of the term I never gave her; our sexual pleasures were of the simplest, the old fashioned way was what we followed, and altogether it was a natural, virtuous, wholesome, connection, but the world will not agree with me on that point. One thing strikes me as remarkable now: the audacity with which I went to a baudy house; all the rest seems to have began, and followed as naturally as possible. What a lovely recollection it is! nothing in my career since is so lovely as our life then was; scarce a trace of what may be called lasciviousness was in it, had the priest blest it by the bands of matrimony, it would have been called the chaste pleasure of love and affection--as the priest had nothing to do with it, it will be called I suppose beastly immorality. I have often wondered if her 103
husband found out that she was not a virgin, and if not whether it was owing to some skill of hers, or to his ignorance; I heard afterwards
that they lived happily.
CHAPTER VI.
Mary the cook.--A bloody nose and broken pisspot.--An involuntary spend.--A feel and a poke.--A new sensation.--At a baudy house.--Mary's history.--She leaves.
As the certainty that all was finished between us came to me, I
got better, my grief moderated, my prick expected occupation, I was
horrified at having frigged myself, and ceased doing it. Then naturally
I looked at the servants. The new housemaid was ugly as sin, so I turned to Mary the cook. I was then about seventeen years old.
She was now I think twenty-six or eight years old, big, stout, but as it seemed to me then, symmetrical; she had exquisite teeth, blue eyes, and a fine complexion--so fine that my mother remarked it. She was quiet in
a remarkable degree, and treated me as a boy. Nine months before this
I should as soon have dared to think of fucking my aunt, but experience had altered me. I thought of the light hair on her cunt, and of all I
could not see, which Charlotte had innocently described to me; and the conclusions we had arrived at, that she frigged herself. Then I thought that after all, old as she was, and young as I was, she might like
Charlotte, let me do her. I had once kissed her when Charlotte was with
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us, and she had taken it as if she was letting a child kiss her; I now tried it again, and got a quiet kiss in return; it was done with the air
and manner of "There, there, you troublesome boy," which mortified me
much.
I had now special tutors at home, and was at home when I liked, yet
my chances with the cook were fewer than they had been with Charlotte, owing to her occupations. I was studying elementary chemistry, and when making some experiments in the garden parlour, burnt a table cover. My mother angry, said I had better experiment in the back kitchen again, so under that pretence, I managed to be downstairs frequently.
I used to watch Mary, slipping out into the outside passage leading to the servant's privy, and take pleasure in the idea of her piddling there. One day, I watched her coming back, she gave her clothes a tuck between her legs, and I knew it was to dry her cunt; opened the door just as she did it, she knew that I saw the action by my grin, and her face turned scarlet. I kissed her that day, asked her timidly if she had
dried it properly that morning. "Dried what?" said she innocently. "What
I saw you drying when you came from the closet." She turned away without
saying a word.
A day or two after as she went upstairs to the parlour, I stopped, saw her legs, and told her she had jolly fat legs. She wished I would go upstairs, for I was in the way with my chemicals, and after that ceased talking to me. But it was difficult to avoid me, I got rude, would tuck
my coat between my legs, laugh and make believe to stoop down to see her ankles, but she took no notice. Begging her to kiss me one day; she gave
me two or three at once saying, "There now, go on with your chemicals,"
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in such a motherly way, that it mortified me excessively; making me feel
the difference in our ages, as a barrier to my hopes.
But if discouraged one day, I got courage the next; impelled by a
cockstand, and my mother being out, I said, "Should I not like to see your legs." For a wonder she answered, "Look at your own." "Oh!" I replied, "they are not the same, you have got a slit between them, I have got something hanging, and ready to put into the slit." "I wish you would go upstairs," said she, "you are always down here now." Then she
told mother I was in her way,--I promised only to go to the back kitchen when it suited the cook, but did not keep my word.
She was alone one evening, I went home and downstairs, kissed and fondled, and would not be repulsed. At some time every woman is more yielding than at others, they always are if randy. Getting my courage up
I said I wished she would let me feel her thing, then said, "Let me do you," in a whisper. It was quite dusk down there when I said it. She
was speechless for a full minute, whilst I kept repeating my demand. At length she replied, "How dare a boy like you, speak like that to a woman like me." "I--am not a boy," said I in anger; "I have had many women, I know all about a woman's pleasure, I know where your thing is; I know why you tuck your hand outside your clothes after