the soft hairy place my hand had touched, impressed me with wonder, I kept thinking there was no cock there, and felt a sort of
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delight at what I had done.
I heard them then talking, and laughing loudly, thru the partition.
"They are talking about me, oh if they tell mamma, oh! what did I do it for?" Trembling with fear, I jumped out of bed, opened my door, and went to theirs listening; theirs was ajar,--heard: "right up between my thighs, felt it! he must have felt it; ah! ah! ah! would you ever
have thought the little beast would have done such a thing." They both laughed heartily. "Did you see his little thing?" said one. "Shut the
door, it's not shut;"--breathless I got back to my room, and into bed, and laying there, heard them through the partition roaring with laughter again.
That is the first time in my life, I recollect passing an all but
sleepless night. The dread of being told about, and dread at what I
had done, kept me awake. I heard the two women talking for a long time. Mixed with my dread was a wonder at the hair, and the soft, moist feel,
I had had for an instant, on some part of my hand. I knew I had felt the hidden part of a female, where the piddle came from, and that is all
I did think about it, that I know of, I have no recollection of a lewd sensation, but of a curious sort of delight only.
It must have been from this time, that my curiosity about the female form strengthened, but there was nothing sensual in it. I was fond of kissing, for my mother remarked it; when a female cousin, or any female kissed me, I would throw my arms round them, and keep on kissing. My aunts used to laugh, my mother corrected me, and told me it was rude. I used to say to the servants, kiss me. One day I heard my godfather say:
"Walter knows a pretty girl from an ugly one doesn't he?"
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I had a dread of meeting the governess, at breakfast, watched her, and saw her laugh at her sister, I watched my mother for some days after,
and at length said to the governess, who had punished me for something.
"Don't tell mamma." "I have nothing to tell about, Walter," she
replied, "and don't know what you mean." I began to tell her what was on my mind. "What's the child talking about, you are dreaming, some stupid boy has been putting things into your head, your papa will thrash
you, if you talk like that." "Why you came and tickled me," said I. "I
tickled you a little when I put your light out," said she, "be quiet."
I felt stupified, and suppose the affair must have passed away from
my mind for a time, but I told my cousin Fred about it afterwards. He thought I must have been dreaming, and I began to wonder if it really had occurred, I never thought much about it until I began to recall my childhood for this history.
I must have been twelve years old, when I went to an uncle's in Surrey, and became a close friend of my cousin Fred, a very devil from his
cradle, and of whom much more will be told: before then I had only seen him at intervals. We were then allowed, and it seems to me not before
that time, to go out by ourselves. We talked boyish baudiness. "Ain't you green," said he, "a girl's hole isn't called a cock, it's a cunt,
they fuck with it," and then he told me all he knew. I don't think I had
heard that before, but can't be sure.
From that time a new train of ideas came into my head. I had a vague idea, though not a belief, that a cock and cunt, were not made for pissing only. Fred treated me as a simpleton in these matters, and was
always calling me an ass; I have quite a painful recollection of my
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inferiority to him, in such things, and of begging him to instruct me. "They make children that way," said Fred. "You come up and we will ask the old nurse, where children come from, and she'll say 'out of the parsley-bed,' but it's all a lie." We went and asked her in a casual
sort of way. She replied, "the parsley-bed," and laughed. The nurse at
my house told me the same, when I asked afterwards about my mother's
last baby. "Ain't they liars?" Fred remarked to me, "it comes out of their cunts, and it's made by fucking."
We both desired to see women piddling, though both must have before seen them at it often enough. Walking near the market-town with him just at
the outskirts, and looking up a side-road, we saw a pedler woman squat down and piss. We stopped short and looked at her: she was a short-petticoated, thick-legged, middle-aged woman; the piss ran off in a copious stream, and there we stood grinning. "Be off, be off, what are you standing grinning at, yer dam'd young fools," cried the woman, "be off, or I'll heave a stone at yer," and she pissed on. We moved a few steps back, but keeping our face towards her, Fred stooped, and put his head down. "I can see it coming," said he jeeringly. He was rude from his infancy, bold in baudiness to the utmost, had the impudence of the devil. The stream ceased, the woman rose up swearing, took up a big flint and threw it at us. "I'll tell on yer," she cried. "I know yer,
wait till I see yer again." She had a large basket of crockery for sale,
it was put down in the main-road at the angle; she had just turned round into the side lane to piss. We ran off, and when well away, turned
round and shouted at her, "I saw your cunt," Fred bawled out;--she flung another stone. Fred took up one, threw it, and it crashed into the crockery, the woman began to chase us, off we bolted across the fields
home. She could not follow us that way; it was an eventful day for us.
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I recollect feeling full of envy at Fred's having seen her cunt.
Though writing now, and having in my mind's eye, exactly how the woman squatted, and the way her petticoats hung, I am sure he never did see
it; it was brag when he said he had, but we were always talking about girls' cunts, the desire to see one was great, and I then believed that he had seen the pedlar woman's.
Then one of Fred's companions showed us a bawdy picture, it was coloured. I wondered at the cunt being a long sort of gash, I had an idea that it was round, like an arsehole. Fred told his friend I was
an ass, but I could not get the idea of a cunt, not being a round hole quite out of my head, until I had fucked a woman. We were all anxious to get the picture, and tossed up for it, but neither I nor Fred got it, some other boy did.
Soon after that, Fred came to stop with us and our talk was always about women's privates, our curiosity became intense. I had a little sister
about nine months old, who was in the nursery. Fred incited me to look at her cunt, if I could manage it. The two nurses came down in turns, to the servants dinner. I was often in the nursery, and soon after Fred's suggestion, was there one day, when the oldest nurse said: "Stop here, master Walter, while I go downstairs, for a couple of minutes, Mary (the other nurse) will be up directly, and don't make a noise." My little
sister was lying on the bed asleep. "Yes, I'll wait." Down went nurse, leaving the door open; quick as lightning, I threw up the infant's clothes, saw her little slit, and put my finger quite gently on it, she
was laying on her back most conveniently. I pulled one leg away to see better, the child awakened and began crying, I heard footsteps and had
barely time to pull down her clothes, when the under nursemaid came in.
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I only had a momentary glimpse, of the outside of the little quim, for
I was not a minute in the room with the child by myself altogether, and was fearful of being caught all the time I was looking.
There must have been something in my face, for the nursemaid said: "What it the matter, what have you been doing