My Secret Life (13 page)

Of course I wanted Charlotte again, she seemed in no way to help me, and used to cry, still there was a wonderful difference between then and before the happy consummation: she tried to prevent my hands going up her petticoats, but, once up, objection ceased, and my hands would rove about on the outside and inside of all, we stood and kissed at every opportunity. “When shall we do it again?” She replied, “Never!” for she was sure it would bring punishment on us both.

I neglected my studies absolutely; all I thought about was her, and how to get at her, it must have been a week or more before I did. Ready for any risk, that day my mother was out, I came home, had the early dinner; the cook after that always went up to dress, or, as she said, clean herself, and there she always was an hour. Waiting till I heard her go up, I went into the garden parlour, where as usual Charlotte was with my little brother. Going at her directly, I was refused, but now how different, once she would not rest until my hand was altogether away from her. Now I begged and besought her, with my hand up her clothes, my fingers on her quim. No — if we had not been found out, we were fortunate, but never, never, would she do it again; was I mad, did I wish to ruin her, was not the cook upstairs, might she not come down, whilst we did it? How light the room was, the sun was coming in. I dropped the blinds, her resistance grew less, as her cunt felt my twiddling. “No — now no — oh, what a plague you are; hush! it is the cook.” I open the door, listen, there is no one stirring. “What will she think if she finds you here?” “What does it matter? Now do — let me, — I’ll bolt the door, if she comes I will get under the sofa, you say you don’t know how it got bolted.” Such was my innocent device, but it sufficed, for both were hot in lust. I bolted it. My prick is out, I pull her reluctant hand on to it, my hands are groping now, but too impatient for dallying, I push her down on the sofa — that dear cunt. “Don’t hurt me so much again, oh, don’t push so hard.” Oh! what delight! in a minute we are spending, together this time.

I unlock the door, go back to the dining-room, she strolls out into the garden, cook speaks to her out of the window. “Where is master Wattie?” “In the dining-room, I suppose.” Soon out I stroll into the garden, play with Tommy of course, she can scarcely look me in the face, she is blushing like a rose. “Was it not lovely, Charlotte, is not your thing wet?” In she rushes with Tom, soon I follow, cook is still upstairs. “Come, be quick.” Again the bolt, again we fuck, she walks off into the garden with Tommy, her cunt full, and cook and she chat from the window. How we laughed about it afterwards.

Modesty retired after this, we gave way to our inclinations, she refusing but always letting me if we got a chance! We were still green and timid, at the end of three weeks we had only had done it a dozen times or so, always with the cook in the house, always with fear. I was longing for complete enjoyment of all my senses, had never yet seen her cunt, except for a minute at a time, was mad for “the naked limb entwined with limb,” and all I had read of in amatory poetry. I had gained years in boldness and manhood, and, although nervous, began to practice what I had heard.

I heard of accommodation houses, where people could have bed-rooms and no questions were asked; and found one not far from my aunt’s, although she lived in the best quarter of London. Just before Charlotte’s day out, I went to my aunt, complained of my mother’s meanness, and she gave me a sovereign. On my way home, I loitered a full hour in the street with the baudy house, marked it so as to know it in the day, and saw couples go in, as my knowing friend who had told said I should. The next day, instead of going to college and risking discovery, I waited till Charlotte joined me, took a hackney coach to the street, and, telling Charlotte it was a tavern, walked to the door with her; to my astonishment it was closed. Disconcerted, I nearly turned back, but rang the bell. Charlotte said she would not go in. The door opened, a woman said, “Why did you not push the door?” Oh! the shame I felt as I went into that baudy house with Charlotte; the woman seemed to hesitate, or so I fancied, before she gave us a room.

It was a gentleman’s house, although the room cost but five shillings: red curtains, looking-glasses, wax lights, clean linen, a huge chair, a large bed, and a cheval-glass, large enough for the biggest couple to be reflected in, were all there. I examined all with the greatest curiosity, but my curiosity was greater for other things; of all the delicious, voluptuous recollections, that day stands among the brightest; for the first time in my life I saw all a woman’s charms, and exposed my own manhood to one; both of us knew but little of the opposite sex. With difficulty I got her to undress to her chemise, then with but my shirt on, how I revelled in her nakedness, feeling from her neck to her ankles, lingering with my fingers in every crack and cranny of her body; from armpits to cunt, all was new to me. With what fierce eyes, after modest struggles, and objections to prevent, and I had forced open her reluctant thighs, did I gloat on her cunt; wondering at its hairy outer covering and lips, its red inner flaps, at the hole.so closed up, and so much lower down and hidden than I thought it to be; soon, at its look and feel, impatience got the better of me; hurriedly I covered it with my body and shed my sperm in it. Then with what curiosity I paddled my fingers in it afterwards, again to stiffen, thrust, wriggle, and spend. All this I recollect as if it occurred but yesterday, I shall recollect it to the last day of my life, for it was a honey-moon of novelty; years afterwards I often thought of it when fucking other women.

We fell asleep, and must have been in the room some hours, when we awakened about three o’clock. We had eaten nothing that day, and both were hungry, she objected to wash before me, or to piddle; how charming it was to overcome that needless modesty, what a treat to me to see that simple operation. We dressed and left, went to a quietish public-house, and had some simple food and beer, which set me up, I was ready to do all over again, and so was she. We went back to the house and again to bed; the woman smiled when she saw us; the feeling, looking, titillating, baudy inciting, and kissing recommenced. With what pleasure she felt and handled my prick, nor did she make objection to my investigations into her privates, though saying she would not let me. Her thighs opened, showing the red-lipped, hairy slit; I kissed it, she kissed my cock, nature taught us both what to do. Again we fucked, I found it a longish operation, and when I tried later again, was surprised to find that it would not stiffen for more than a minute, and an insertion failed. I found out that day that there were limits to my powers. Both tired out, our day’s pleasure over, we rose and took a hackney coach towards home. I went in first, she a quarter of an hour afterwards, and everything passed off as I could have wished.

From that day, lust seized us both; we laid our plans to have each other frequently, but it was difficult: my mother was mostly at home, the cook nearly always at home if mother was out; but quite twice a week we managed to copulate, and sometimes oftener. We arranged signals. If, when she opened the door, she gave a shake of her head, I knew mother was in; if she smiled and pointed down with her finger, mother was out, but cook downstairs; if it pointed up, cook was upstairs; in the latter case, to go into the garden parlour and fuck was done off hand. If cook was known to be going out, Charlotte told me beforehand, and if mother was to be out, I got home, letting college and tutors go to the devil. Then there was lip kissing, cunt kissing, feeling and looking, tickling and rubbing each other’s articles, all the preliminary delights of copulation, and but one danger in the way: my little brother could talk in a broken way; we used to give him some favorite toy and put him on the floor, whilst we indulged voluptuously. On the sofa one day, I had just spent in her when I felt a little hand tickling between our bellies, and Tommy, who had tottered up to us, said, “Don’t hurt Lotty, der’s a good Wattie.” We settled that Tom was too young to notice or recollect what he saw, but I now think differently.

Winter was coming on, she used to be sent to a circulating library to fetch books, the shop was some distance off; a few houses, long garden-walls, and hedges were on the road. I used to keep out, or go out just before she went, and we fucked up against the walls. I took to going to church in the evening also, to the intense delight of my mother, but it was to fuck on the road home. One day, hot in lust, we fucked standing on the lobby near my bed-room, my mother being in the room below, the cook in the kitchen. We got bold, reckless, and whenever we met alone, if only for an instant, we felt each other’s genitals.

At last we found the servant’s privy one of the best places. I have described its situation near to a flight of steps, at the end of a covered passage which could be seen from one point only in the garden; down there, anyone standing was out of sight. If all was clear, I used to ring the parlour bell, ask for something, and make a sign; when she thought it safe, there she would go, I into the garden, to where I could see into the passage by the side of the garden stairs. If I saw her, or heard “ahem,” down I went into the privy and was up her cunt in a second, standing against the wall and shoving to get our spend over, as if my life depended on it; this was uncomfortable, but it had its charm. We left off doing it in the privy, being nearly caught one day there.

We thought cook was upstairs, mother was out, I was fucking her, when the cook knocked saying, “Make haste, Charlotte, I want to come.” We had just spent, she was so frightened I thought she was fainting, but she managed to say “I cannot.” “Do,” said cook, “I am ill.” “So am I,” said Charlotte. Said cook, “I can sit on the little seat.” “Go to misses’ closet, she’s out.” Off cook went, out we came, and never fucked in that place again; one day I did her on the kitchen table, and several times on the dining-room table.

We in fact did it everywhere else, and often enough for my health, for I was young, weak, and growing, and it was the same with her. The risks we ran were awful, but we loved each other with all our souls. Both young, both new at the work, both liking it, it was rarely we got more than just time to get our fucking over and clothes arranged before we had to separate, for her to get to her duties. Many times I have seen her about the house, cunt full and with the heightened colour and brilliant eyes of a woman who had just been satisfied. I used to feel pleasure in knowing she was bringing in the dinner, or tea, with my spunk in her cunt; not having had the opportunity to wash or piddle it out.

When she had another holiday, we went to the baudy house, and stayed so long in it that we had a scare; just asleep, we heard a knocking at the door. My first idea was that my mother had found me out, and, although I ruled her in one way, I was in great subjection to her, from not having any money. She thought her father was after her. What a relief it was to hear a voice say: “Shall you be long, sir, we want the room?” I was having too much accommodation for my money. That night we walked home, for I had no money for a coach, and barely enough to get us a glass of beer and a biscuit; we were famished and fucked out; my mother had refused to give me money, and another aunt whom I had asked said I was asking too often, and refused also.

Although we went to this baudy house, I always felt as if I was going to be hanged when I did, and it was with difficulty I could make her go: she called it a bad house, and it cost money. Something then occurred which helped me, penniless as I was.

At the extreme end of our village were a few little houses; one stood with its side entrance up a road only partially formed, and without thoroughfare; its owner was a pew-opener, her daughter a dressmaker, who worked for servants and such like; they cut out things for servants, who in those days largely made their own dresses. Charlotte had things made there. At a fair held every year near us, of which I shall have to tell more, my fast friend, who had put me up to so much and who, I forgot to say, tried to get hold of Charlotte, I saw with the dressmaker’s daughter. Said he, talking to me next day, “She is jolly ugly, but she’s good enough for a feel. I felt her cunt last night and think she has been fucked (he thought that of every girl); her mother’s a rum old gal too, she will let you meet a girl at her cottage, not whores, you know, but if they are respectable.” “Is it a baudy house?” I asked. “Oh, no, it’s quite respectable, but if you walk in with a lady, she leaves you in the room together, and, when you come out, if you just give her half a crown, she drops a curtsy, just as she does when she opens the pew-doors and anyone gives her six pence, but she is quite respectable — the clergyman goes to see her sometimes.”

Charlotte asked to go out to a dressmaker, I met her as if by chance at the door, the old pew-opener asked if I would like to walk in and wait. I did. Charlotte came in after she had arranged about her dress. There was a sofa in the room, and she was soon on it; we left together, I gave two or three shillings (money went much further then), and the pew-opener said, “You can always wait here when your young lady comes to see my daughter.”

When we went a second time, she asked me if I went to St. Mary’s Chapel (her chapel). We went to her house in the day that time. When we were going away, she said, “Perhaps you won’t mind always going out first, for neighbours are so ill-natured.” The old woman was really a pew-opener, her daughter really a dressmaker, but she was glad to earn a few shillings by letting her house be used for assignations of a quiet sort; she would not have let gay women in, from what I heard. She had lived for years in the parish and was thought respectable. She had not much use of her house in that way, wealthy people going to town for their frolics, — town only being an hour’s journey — and no gay women being in the village that I knew of.

At this house, I spent Charlotte’s third holiday with her, in a comfortable bed-room. We stopped from eleven in the morning, till nine at night, having mutton chops and ale, and being as jolly as we could be. We did nothing the whole day long but look at each other’s privates, kiss, fuck, and sleep outside the bed. It was there she expressed curiosity about male emissions. I told her how the sperm spurted out, then discussing women’s, she told me of the pleasure I had given her when fingering her in the manner described already; we completed our explanations by my frigging myself to show her, and then my doing the same to her with my finger. I bungled at that, and think I hear her now saying, “No, just where you were is nicest.” “Does it give you pleasure?” “Oh, yes, but I don’t like it that way, oh! — oh! — I am doing it — oh!” I had no money that day, Charlotte had her wages, and paid for everything, giving me her money to do so.