My Secret Life (14 page)

One day we laughed at having nearly been caught fucking in the privy. “She must have a big bum, must Mary,” said I, “to sit on that little seat at the privy,” Said Charlotte, “She is a big woman, twice as big as me, her bottom would cover the whole seat.” This set us talking about the cook, and as what I then heard affected me much at a future day, I will tell all Charlotte said, as nearly as I can recollect.

“Of course I have seen her naked bit by bit — when two women are together they can’t help it, why should they mind — if you sit down to pee, you show your legs, and if you put on your stockings you show your thighs, then we both wash down to our waists, and if you slip off your chemise or night-gown you show yourself all over. Mary’s beautiful from head to foot; one morning in the summer, we sleeping in the same bed, were very hot. I got out to pee, we had kicked all the clothes off, Mary was laying on her back with night-clothes above her waist fast asleep, I could not help looking at her thighs, which were so large and white — white as snow.” “Had she much hair on her cunt?” said I. “What’s that to you?” said she, laughing, but went on: “Oh! twice as much as I have, and of a light brown.” “I suppose her cunt is bigger than yours?” said I reflectively. “Well, perhaps it is,” said Charlotte, “she is a much bigger woman than me, what do you think?” I inclined to the opinion it must be, but had no experience to guide me; on the whole we agreed that it was likely to be bigger.

“Then,” said she, “I suppose some men have smaller things than yours?” I told her that as far as I knew they varied slightly, but only had knowledge of youthful pricks, and could not be certain whether they varied much when full grown or not. We went on about Mary. “I know I should like to be such a big, fine woman.” “But,” said I, “I don’t like light hair, I like dark hair on a cunt, light hair can’t look well, I should think.” “I like her,” said Charlotte, “she is a nice woman, but often dull, she has no relatives in London, never says anything about them or herself, she used to have letters, and then often cried; she has none now; the other night she took me in her arms, gave me a squeeze and said, ‘Oh! if you were a nice young man now,’ then laughed and said, ‘perhaps we would put our things together and make babies.’ I was frightened to say anything, for fear she should find out I knew too much; I think she has been crossed in love.”

I was twiddling Charlotte’s quim, as I was never tired of doing, something in the sensation I suppose reminded her, for, laughing, she went on: “You know what you did to me the other night?” “What?” said I, not recollecting. “You know, with your finger.” “Oh! frig.” “Yes, well, Mary does that; I was awake one night, and was quite quiet, when I heard Mary breathing hard, and felt her elbow go jog, jog, just touching my side, then she gave a sigh, and all was quiet. I went to sleep, and have only just thought of it.” She had heard or felt this jog from the cook before, so we both concluded that she frigged herself; Charlotte knew what frigging was.

“Do you recollect your mamma’s birthday?” said Charlotte. “She sent us down a bottle of sherry, the gardener was to have some, but did not; so we were both a little fuddled when we went to bed. When Mary was undressed she pulled up her clothes to her hips, and looking at herself said, ‘My legs are twice as big as yours.’ Then we made a bet on it and measured; she lost, but her thigh was half as big again round as mine; then she threw herself on her back and cocked up her legs, opening them for a minute. I said ‘Lord, Mary, what ever are you doing?’ ‘Ah!’ said she, ‘women’s legs were made to open,’ and there it ended. I never heard her before say or do anything improper, she is most particular.” If Charlotte had been older or wiser, she would have not extolled the naked beauties of a fellow servant to her lover, for the description of the big bum, white thighs, and hairy belly bottom, the jog, jog of the elbow, and all the other particulars, sank deep into my mind.

We fucked more than ever, recklessly — it is a wonder we were not found out, for one evening, it being dark, I fucked her in the forecourt, outside our street-door; but troubles were coming.

Her father wrote to know why she had not been home at her holidays, she got an extra holiday to go and pacify him; then we had a fright because her courses stopped, but they came on all right again. One of my sisters came home and diminished our opportunities; still we managed to fuck somehow, most of the time they were uprighters. The next holiday she went home by coach (the only way), I met her on the return, and we fucked up against the garden wall of our house. A month slipped away, again we spent her holiday at the pew-opener’s; no man and woman could have liked each other more, or more enjoyed each other’s bodies, without thinking of the rest of the world. I disguised nothing from her, she told me all she knew of herself, the liking she took for me, her pleasure yet fear and shame when first I felt her cunt, the shock of delight and confusion when, on my twiddling it, she had spent; how she made up her mind to run out of the house when the milkman came, the hysterical faint when I first laid my prick between her slit and spent, the sensation of relief when I had not done, as instinct told her I should, in spending outside, the sort of feeling of “poor fellow, he wants me, he may do as he likes,” which she had; I told my sensations. All these we told each other, over and over again, and never tired of the conversation; we were an innocent, reckless, randy couple.

We had satisfied our lusts in simple variety, but I never put my tongue in her mouth, nor do I know that I had heard of that form of lovemaking — but more of that hereafter. I did her on her belly, and something incited me to do it to her dog fashion, but it was never repeated; we examined as said each other’s appendages, but once satisfied, having seen mine get from flaccid to stiff, the piddle issue, the spunk squirt, she never wanted to see it again, and could not understand my insatiable curiosity about hers. She knew, I think, less than most girls of her age about the males, having never, I recollect, nursed male children, and I don’t think she had brothers.

How is it that scarcely any woman will let you willingly look at her cunt after fucking, till it is washed? Most say it is beastly, gay or quiet; it is the same. Is it more beastly to have it spurted up, to turn and go to sleep with the spunk oozing on to a thigh, or an hour afterwards to let a man paddle in what has not dried? They don’t mind that, but won’t let you look at it after your operations, willingly — why?

A modest girl lays quietly after fucking, and does not wash till you are away. A young girl who has let you see her cunt and take her virginity, won’t wash it at all until you point out the necessity. A gay woman often tries to shove back her bum just as you spend, gets the discharge near the outlet, uncunts you quickly, and at once washes and pisses at the same time. A quiet young girl wipes her cunt on the outside only. A working man’s wife does the same. I have fucked several, and not one washed before me. I incline to the opinion that poor women rarely wash their cunts inside, their piddle does all the washing. “What’s the good of washing it?” said a poor but not a gay girl to me, “it’s always clean and feels just the same an hour afterwards, whether washed or not.” Is the unwashed cunt less healthy than one often soaped and syringed? I doubt it. An old roué said to me he would not give a damn to fuck a cunt at night which has been washed since the morning.

About sexual matters each of us knew about as much as the other, and we had much to learn. A girl, however, in the sphere of life of Charlotte, usually knows more about a man’s sex than a youth of the same age does of a woman’s; they have nursed children and know what a cock is; a girl is never thought too young to nurse a male child, no one would trust a boy after ten years of age to nurse a female child; but she had never nursed. From Charlotte I had my first knowledge of menstruation and of other mysteries of her sex. Ah! that menstruation was a wonder to me, it was marvelous, but all was really a wonder to me then.

After Christmas, my sister went back to school, our chances seemed improving, we spent another holiday at the pew-opener’s. I had got money and we were indiscreet enough to go to see some wax-works. Next day her father came to see her; he ordered her to tell where she had been. She refused, he got angry, and made such a noise that mother rang to know what it was. He asked to see her, apologized, and said his daughter had been out several holidays without his knowing where she had been. My mother said it was very improper, and that he ought. A friend was with us in the room, and I sat there reading and trembling. My mother remarked to the lady, “I hope that girl is not going wrong, she is very good looking.” Mother asked me to go out of the room, then had Charlotte up, and lectured her; afterwards Charlotte told me, for the first time, that her father was annoyed because she would not marry a young man.

A young man had called at our house several times to see her; she saw him once and evaded doing so afterwards. He was the son of a well-to-do baker a few miles from Charlotte’s home, and wished to marry her; his father was not expected to live, and the young man said he would marry her directly the father died. Her mother was mad at her refusing such a chance. Charlotte showed me his letters, which then came, and we arranged together the replies.

She went home, and came back with eyes swollen with crying; some one had written anonymously to say she had been seen at the wax-works with a young man, evidently of position above her, and had been seen walking with a young man. The mother threatened to have a doctor examine her to see if she had been doing anything wrong; no one seemed to have suspected me; her father would have her home, her mother had had suspicion of her for some time, “The sooner you marry young Brown the better, he will have a good business and keeps a horse and chaise, you will never have such a chance again, and it will prevent you going wrong, even if you have not already gone wrong,” said her mother.

It was a rainy night, I had met her on her return, and we both stood an hour under an umbrella, talking and crying, she saying, “I knew I should be ruined; if I marry he will find me out, if I don’t they will lead me such a life; oh! what shall I do!” We fucked twice in the rain against a wall, putting down the umbrella to do it. Afterwards we met at the dressmaker’s, talked over our misery, and cried, and fucked, and cried again. Then it was nothing but worry, she crying at her future, I wondering if I should be found out; still, with all our misery, we never failed to fuck if there was a clear five minutes before us. Then her mother wrote to say that old Brown was dead, and her father meant to take her away directly; she refused, the father came, saw my mother, and settled the affair by taking back Charlotte’s box of clothes. I had not a farthing; at her age a father had absolute control, and nothing short of running away would have been of use. We talked of drowning ourselves, or of her taking work in the fields. I projected things equally absurd for myself. I tended in her agreeing to go home, — she could not help that, — but refusing to marry.

Charlotte wrote me almost directly after her return. My mother had reserved the right of opening my letters, although she had ceased to do so. That morning seeing she had one addressed to me, in fear I snatched it out of her hand. She insisted on having it back, I refused, and we had a row. “How dare you, sir, give it me.” “I won’t, you shan’t open my letter.” “I will, a boy like you!” “I am not a boy, I am a man, if you ever open a letter of mine, I will go for a common soldier, instead of being an officer.” “I will tell your guardian.” “I mean to tell him how shamefully short of money I am; Uncle
^***
says it’s a shame, so does aunt.” My mother sank down in tears; it was my first rebellion; she spoke to my guardian, never touched my letters again, and gave me five times the money I used to have; but, to make sure, I had letters enclosed to a friend, and fetched them.

Charlotte was not allowed to go out alone and was harassed in every way; for all that, I managed to meet her at a local school, one Saturday afternoon when it was empty; some friendly teacher let her in, and she let me in. We fucked on a hard form, in 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 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 he 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.