Just then being out with some boys, we saw two dogs fucking. I have no recollection of seeing dogs doing that before. We closed round them, yelling with delight as they stuck rump to rump, then one boy said that was what men and women did, and I asked, did they stick together so, a boy replied that they did; others denied it, and, all the remainder of the day, some of us discussed this; the impression left on my mind is that it appeared to me very nasty; but it seemed at the same time to confirm me in the belief that men put their pricks up into women’s holes, about which I seem at that time to have had grave doubts.
After this time my recollection of events is clearer, and I can tell not only what took place, but better what I heard, said, and thought.
CHAPTER II
My godfather.
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At Hampton-Court. — My aunt’s backside. — Public baths. — My cousins’ cunts.
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Haymaking frolics.
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Family difficulties.
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School amusements.
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A masturbating relative.
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Romance and sentiment.
My godfather (whose fortune I afterwards inherited) was very fond of me; somewhere about this time he used perpetually to be saying, “When you get to school, don’t you follow any of the tricks yourself that other boys do, or you will die in a mad-house; lots of boys do.” And he told me some horrible tales; it was done in a mysterious way. I felt there was a hidden meaning and, not having knowledge of what it was, asked him. I should know fast enough, said he, but mark his words. He repeated this so often that it sunk deeply into my mind, and made me uneasy, something was to happen to me, if I did something — I did not know what — it was intended as a caution against frigging, and it had good effect on me I am sure in various ways in the after time.
One day talking with Fred, I recollected what I had done to the governess. I had kept it to myself all along for fear. “What a lie,” said he. “I did really.” “Oh! ain’t you a liar,” he reiterated, “I’ll ask Mis Granger.” The same governess was with us then.
At this remark of his, an absolute terror came over me, the dread was something so terrible that the recollection of it is now painful. “Oh don‘t, pray, don’t, Fred,” I said, “oh, if Papa should hear!” He kept on saying he would. I was too young to see the improbability of his doing anything of the sort. “If you do, I’ll tell him what we did when the pedlar woman piddled.” He did not care. “Now, it’s a lie, isn’t it, you did not feel her cunt?” In fear, I confessed it was a lie. “I knew it was,” said Fred. He had kept me in a state of terror about the affair for days, till I told a lie to get quit of the subject.
I was evidently always secret, even then, about anything amorous, excepting with Fred (as will be seen), and have continued so all my life. I rarely bragged or told anyone of my doings; perhaps this little affair with the governess was a lesson to me, and confirmed me in a habit natural to me from my infancy. I have kept to myself everything I did with the opposite sex.
We now frequently examined our pricks, and Fred jeered me so about my prepuce being tight that I resolved no other boy should see it; and though I did not keep strictly to that intention, it left a deep-seated mortification on me. I used to look at my prick with a sense of shame and pull the prepuce up and down, as far as I could, constantly, to loosen it, and would treat other boys’ cocks in the same way, if they would let me, without expecting me to make a return; but the time was approaching when I was to learn much more.
One of my uncles, who lived in London, took a house in the country for the summer near Hampton-Court Palace. Fred and I went to stay there with him. There were several daughters and sons, the sons quite young. People then came down from London in vans, carts, and carriages of all sorts, to see the Palace and grounds (there was no railway), they were principally of the small middle classes, and used to picnic, or else dine, at the taverns when they arrived; then full, and frisky, after their early meal, go into the parks and gardens. They do so still, but times were different then, so few people went there comparatively, fewer park-keepers to look after them, ankles of what is called delicacy amongst visitors of the class named.
Our family party used to go into the grounds daily, and all day long nearly, if we were not on the river banks. Fred winked at me one day, “Let’s lose Bob,” said he, “and we’ll have such a lark.” Bob was one of our little cousins, generally given into our charge. We lost Bob purposely. Said Fred, “If you dodge the gardeners, creep up there, and lay on your belly quietly, some girls will be sure to come and piss, you’ll see them pull their clothes up as they turn round, I saw some before you came to stay with us.” So we went, pushing our way among shrubs and evergreens, till a gardener, who had seen us, called out, “You there, come back, if I catch you going off the walks, you’ll be put outside.” We were in such a funk, Fred cut off one way, I another, but it only stopped us for that day. Fred so excited me about the girls’ arses, as he called them, that we never lost an opportunity of trying for a sight, but were generally baulked. Once or twice only we saw a female squat down, but nothing more, till my mother and Fred’s came to stop with us.
Fred’s mother, mine, the girls, Fred and I went into the park gardens, one day after luncheon. A very hot day, for we kept on the shady walks, one of which led to the place where women hid themselves to piss. My aunt said, “Why don’t you boys go and play, you don’t mind the sun,” so off we went, but when about to leave the walk, turned round and saw the women had turned back. Said Fred, “I’m sure they are going to piss, that’s why they want to get rid of us.” We evaded the gardeners, scrambled through shrubs, on our knees, and at last on our bellies, up a little bank, on the other side of which was the vacant place on which dead leaves and sweepings were shot down. As we got there, pushing aside the leaves, we saw the big backside of a woman, who was half standing, half squatting, a stream of piss falling in front of her, and a big hairy gash, as it seemed, under her arse; but only for a second, she had just finished as we got the peep, let her clothes fall, tucked them between her legs, and half turning round. We saw it was Fred’s mother, my aunt. Off aunt went. “Isn’t it a wopper,” said Fred, “lay still, more of them will come.”
Two or three did; one said, “You watch if anyone is coming,” squatted and piddled, we could not see her cunt, but only part of her legs, and the piddle splashing in front of her. Then came the second, she had her arse towards us, sat so low that we could not even see the tips of her buttocks. Fred thought it a pity they did not stand half up like his mother. On other occasions, we went to the same place, but though I recollect seeing some females’ legs, don’t recollect seeing any more. Nevertheless the sights were very delightful to us, and we used to discuss his mother’s “wopper” and the hair, and the look of the gash, but I thought there must be some mistake, for it was not the idea I had formed of a cunt.
Fred soon after stopped with us in town, we had been forbidden to go out together without permission, but we did, and met a boy bigger than either of us, who was going to bathe. “Come and see them bathing,” he said. My father had refused to take me to the public baths. Disregarding this, Fred and I paid our six pence each, and in we went with our friend; we did not bathe, but amused ourselves with seeing others, and the pricks of the men. None, as far as I can recollect, wore drawers in those days, they used to walk about hiding their pricks generally with their hands, but not always. I was astonished at the size of some of them, and at the dark hair about them and on other parts of their bodies. I wondered also at seeing one or two, with the red tip shewing fully, so different from mine. All this was much talked over by us afterwards, it was to me an insight into the male make and form. Fred told me he had often seen men’s pricks in their fields, and in those days, living in the country as he did, I dare say it was true, but I don’t recollect ever having seen the pricks of full grown men, or a naked man, before in my life.
It must have been in the summer of that same year that I went after this to spend some days at my aunt’s at H
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, Fred’s mother. We slept in the same room and sometimes got up quite at daybreak to go fishing. One morning Fred had left something in one of his sisters’ rooms, and went to fetch it, though forbidden to go into the girls’ bed-rooms. The room in question was opposite to ours. He was only partly dressed, and came back in a second, his face grinning. “Oh! come Wat, come softly. Lucy and Mary are quite naked, you can see their cunts, Lucy has some black hair on hers.” I was only half dressed, and much excited by the idea of seeing my cousins’ nudity. We both took off our slippers and crept along through the door half open, then went on our knees! but why we did so, to this day I don’t understand, and so crept to the foot of the bed, then raising ourselves, we both looked over the footboard.
Lucy, fifteen years old, was laying half on her side, naked from her knees to her waist, the bed-clothes kicked off (I suppose through heat), were dragging across her feet and partly laying on the floor; we saw her split, till lost in the closed thighs, she had a little dark short hair over the top of her cunt, and that is all I can recollect about it.
Mary-Ann by the side of her, a year younger only, laid on her back, naked up to her navel, just above which was her night-gown in a heap and ruck; she had scarcely a sign of hair on her cunt, but a vermillion line lay right through her crack. Projecting more towards the top, where her cunt began, she had what I now know was a strongly developed clitoris; she was a lovely girl and had long chestnut hair.
Whilst we looked she moved one leg up in a restless manner, and we bobbed down, thinking she -was awaking; when we looked again, her limbs were more open, and we saw the cunt till it was pinched up, by the closing of her buttocks. In fear of being caught, we soon crept out, closed the door ajar, and regained our bed-room, so delighted that we danced with joy as we talked about the look of the two cunts; of which after all we had only had a most partial, rapid glimpse.
Lucy was a very plain girl, and was so as a woman. She had, I recollect, a very red bloated looking face as she lay (it was so hot); she it was, who in after-life my mother cautioned about leaving her infant son to a nursemaid.
Mary-Ann was lovely. I used afterwards to look and talk with her, thinking to myself: “Ah! you have but little idea, that I have seen your cunt.” She was unfortunate; married a cavalry officer, went to India with him, was left at a station unavoidably by her husband, who was sent on a campaign, for a whole year; could not bear being deprived a cock, and was caught in the act of fucking with a drummer boy, a mere lad. She was separated from him, came back to England, and drank herself to death. She was a salacious young woman, I think, from what I recollect of her, and am told was afterwards fucked by a lot of men; but it was a sore point with the family, and all about her was kept quiet.
One of Lucy’s sons, in after years, I saw fucking a maid in a summer-house: both standing up against a big table; I was on the roof. Many years before that I fucked a nursemaid, she laying on that table in the very same summer-house, as I shall presently tell.
Fred and I used to discuss the look of his sisters’ and mother’s cunts, as if they had belonged to strangers. The redness of the line in Mary-Ann’s quim astonished us. I do not recollect having even then formed any definite notion of what a girl’s cunt was, though we had seen the splits, but had still, and till much further on, the notion that the hole was round, and close to where the clitoris is, having no idea then of what a clitoris was, though we had got an Aristotle and used to read it greedily; the glimpses of the two cunts were but momentary, and our excitement confused our recollections.
Fred and I then formed a plot to look at another girl’s cunt; who the girl was I don’t know, it may have been another of Fred’s sisters, or a cousin by another of my aunts, but I think not; at all events, she was stopping in aunt’s house, and from her height, which was less than that of Fred and myself, I should think a girl of about eleven or twelve years of age. I scrupulously avoid stating anything positively unless quite certain. Some years afterwards when we were very young men, we did the same thing with a female cousin (but not his sister), as I shall tell.
There was haymaking. We romped with the girl, buried each other in hay, pulled each other out, and so on. I was buried in the hay and dragged out by my legs by Fred and the girl. Then Fred was; then we buried the girl, and as Fred pulled her out he threw up her clothes, I lay over her head, which was covered with hay. Fred saw, winked, and nodded. It came to my turn again to be buried, and then hers; I laid hold of her legs and pulling them from under the hay, saw her thighs, I pushed her knees up, and had a glimpse of the slit, which was quite hairless. My aunt and others were in the very field, but had no idea of the game we were playing, the girl romping with us had no idea that we were looking at her cunt, and an instantaneous peep only it was.
What effect sensuously these glimpses of cunt had on me, I don’t know; but have no recollection of sexual desire, nor of mine nor Fred’s cock being stiff. I expect that what with games and our studies, that, after all, the time we devoted to thinking about women was not long, and curiosity our sole motive in doing what we did. I clearly recollect our talking at that time about fucking, and wondering if it were true or a lie. We could repeat what we had read and heard, but it still seemed improbable to me that a cock should go up a cunt, and the result be a child.
Then a passionate liking for females came over me; I fell in a sort of love with a lady who must have been forty, and had a sad feeling about her, that is all I recollect. Then I began to follow servants about, in the hope of seeing their legs or seeing them piddle, or for some undefined object: but that I was always looking after them I know very well.