# My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 2

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 Miss 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 pedler 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 know 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 that 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 them. 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, and less 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 gardiners, 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 gardiner, 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 in 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 gardiners, 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 turned 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 prides 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 showing 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...ds...e..., Fred's mother. We slept in the some 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' bedrooms. 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, nacked 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 bedroom, 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 afterlife 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 of 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 nurse-maid, 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 glimpse 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 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, on 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.
Then (I know now) my father got into difficulties, we moved into a smaller house, the governess went away, I was sent to another school, one of my brothers and sisters died; my father went abroad to look after some plantations, and after a year's absence came back and died, leaving my mother, in what compared with our former condition, were poor circumstances, but this in due course will be more fully told.
I think I went to school, though not long before what I am going to tell of happened, but am not certain, if so, I must have seen boys frigging; yet as far as I can arrange in my mind the order of events, I first saw a boy doing that, in my own bed-room at home.
I was somewhere, I suppose, about thirteen years of age, when a distant relative came from the country, to stay with us, until he was put to some great school. He was the son of a clergyman, and must have been fifteen, or perhaps sixteen years old, and was strongly pitted with the small-pox. I had never seen him before, and took a strong dislike to him; the family were poor, this boy was intended for a clergyman. I was excessively annoyed, that he was to sleep with me, but in our small house, there was just then no other place for him.
How many nights he slept in my bed, I don't recollect, it can have been but few; One evening in bed he felt my prick; repulsing him at first, I nevertheless afterwards felt his, and recollect our hands crossing each other and our thighs being close together. Awaking one morning, I felt his belly up against my rump, and his feeling or pushing his prick against my arse, putting my hand back, I pushed him away; then I found it pushing quickly backwards and forwards between my thighs, and his hand, passed over my hips, was grasping my cock. Turning round, I faced him; he asked me to turn round again, and said I might do it to him afterwards, but nothing more was done. An unpleasant feeling about sleeping with him is in my memory, but as said, I disliked him.
The next night undressing, he showed me his prick, stiff, as he sat naked on a chair; it was an exceedingly long, but thin article; he told me about frigging, and said he would frig me, if I would frig him. He commenced moving his hand quickly up and down, on his prick, which got stiffer and stiffer, he jerked up one leg, then the other, shut his eyes and altogether looked so strange, that I thought he was going to have a fit; then out spurted little pasty lumps, whilst he snorted, as some people do in their sleep, and fell back in the chair with his eyes closed; then I saw stuff running thinner over his knuckles. I was strangely fascinated as I looked at him, and at what was on the carpet, but half thought he was ill; he then told me it was great pleasure, and was eloquent about it. Even now, as it did then, the evening seemed to me a nasty unpleasant one, yet I let him get hold of my prick and frig it, but had no sensation of pleasure, he said, "your skin won't come off, what a funny prick;" that annoyed me, and I would not let him do more; we talked till our candle burnt out; he stamped out the sperm on the carpet, saying the servants would think we had been spitting. Then we got into bed.
Afterwards he frigged himself several times before me, and at his request I frigged him, wondering at the result, and amused, yet at the same time much disgusted. When frigging him one day; he said it was lovely to do it in an arse-hole, that he and his brother took it in turns that way: it was lovely, heavenly! would I let him do it to me. In my innocence I told him, it was impossible and that I thought him a liar. He soon left us and went to college. I saw him once or twice after this, in later years, but at a very early age he drowned himself. I told my cousin Fred about this when I saw him; Fred believed in the frigging, but thought him a liar about the arse-hole business, just as I did. This was the first time I ever saw frigging and male semen, and it opened my eyes.
Though now at a public school, I was shy, and reserved, but greedily listened to all the lewed talk, of which I did not believe a great deal. I became one of a group of boys of the same tastes as myself. One day some of them coaxed me into a privy, and there, in spite of me, pulled out my cock, threw me down, held me, and each one spat upon it, and that initiated me into their society. They had what they called cocks-all-round: anyone admitted to the set, was entitled to feel the others' cocks. I felt theirs, but again to my mortification, the tightness of my prepuce caused jeering at me; I was glad to hear that there was another boy at the school in the same predicament, though I never saw his. This confirmed me in avoiding my companions, when they were playing at cocks-all-round; being a day scholar only, I was not forced at all times into their intimacy, as I should have been had I been a boarder.
We had a very large playground; beyond it were fields, orchards and walks of large extent reserved for the use of the two head-masters' families, many of whom were girls. On Saturday half-holidays only, if the fruit was not ripe, we were allowed to range certain fields, and the long bough-covered paths, which surrounded them. Two or three boys of my set told me mysteriously one afternoon, that when the others had gone ahead, we were to meet in the play-ground privy, in which were seats for three boys of a row, and I was to be initiated into a secret without my asking. I was surprised at what took place, there was usually an usher in the play-ground in play-hours, and if boys were too long at the privy, he went there, and made them come out. On the Saturdays, he went out with the boys into the fields: there was no door to the privy, I should add, it was a largish building.
One by one, from different directions, some dodging among trees which bordered one side of the playground, appeared boys. I think there were five or six together in the privy, then it was cocks-all-round, and every boy frigged himself. I would not, at first. Why? I don't know. At length incited, I tried, my cock would not stand, and vexed and mortified, I withdrew, after swearing not to split on them, on pain of being kicked and cut. I don't think I was one of the party again, though I saw each of the same boys frig himself in the privy when alone with me, at some time or another.
After this a boy asked me to come to a privy with him in school time, and he would show me how to do it. Only two boys were allowed to go to those closets at the same time, during school time. There were two wooden legs with keys hung up on the wall by string: a boy if he wanted to ease himself looked to see if a log and key was hanging up, and if there was, stood out in the centre of the room; by that the master understood what he wanted. If he nodded, the boy took the key and went to the bog-house (no water-closets then), and when he returned, he hung up the log in its place. Those privies were close together, and separate, there were but two of them.
"You wait till there are two logs hanging up, and directly I get one, you get up and come after me." Soon we were both in one privy together. "Let's frig," said he; we were only allowed to be away five minutes. Out he pulled his prick, then out I pulled mine; he tried to pull my skin back, and could only half do it, he frigged himself successfully, but I could not. He had a very small prick compared with mine. How I envied him the ease with which he covered and uncovered the red tip. I frigged that boy one day, but finding my cock was becoming a talk among our set, I shrunk from going to their frigging parties, which I have seen even take place in a field, boys sitting at the edge of a ditch, whilst one stood up to watch if anyone approached. When they were frigging in the privy, a boy always stood in the open door on the watch, and his time for frigging came afterwards.
With this set I began to look through the Bible, and study all the carnal passages; no book ever gave us perhaps such prolonged, studious, baudy amusement; we could not understand much, but guessed a good deal.
Before I had seen anyone frig, I had been permitted to read novels, not a moment of my time when not at studies was I without one. My father used to select them for me at first, but soon left me to myself, and now he was dead, I devoured what books I liked, hunting for the love passages, thinking of the beauty of the women, reading over and over again, the description of their charms, and envying their love meetings. I used to stop at print-shop windows and gaze with delight at the portraits of pretty women, and bought some at six pence each, and stuck them into a scrap-book. Although a big fellow for my age, I would sit on the lap of any woman who would let me, and kiss her. My mother in her innocence called me a great girl, but she neverthless forbid it. I was passionately fond of dancing and annoyed when they indicated a girl of my own age, or younger, to dance with.
These feelings got intensified, when I thought of my aunt's backside, and the cunts of my cousins, but when I thought of the heroines, it seemed strange that such beautiful creatures should have any. The cunt which seemed to have affected my imagination, was that of my aunt, which appeared more like a great parting, or division of her body, than a cunt as I then understood it; as if her buttock parting was continued round towards her belly, and as unlike the young cunts I had seen as possible. Those seemed to be but little indents. That the delicate ladies of the novels should have such divisions seemed curious, ugly, and unromantic. My sensuous temperament was developing, I saw females in all their poetry and beauty, but suppose that my physical forces had not kept pace with my brain, for I have no recollection of a cock-stand, when thinking about ladies; and fucking never entered into my mind, either when I read novels, or kissed women, though the pleasure I had when my lips met theirs, or touched their smooth, soft cheeks was great. I recollect the delight it gave me perfectly.
After having seen frigging, it set me reflecting, but it still seemed to me impossible, that delicate, handsome ladies, should allow pricks to be thrust up them, and nasty stuff ejected into them. I read Aristotle, tried to understand it, and thought I did, with the help of much talk with my schoolfellows; yet I only half believed it. Dogs fucking were pointed out to me; then cocks treading hens, and at last a fuller belief came.
I began then, I recollect, to think of their cunts when I kissed women, and then of my aunt's; I could not keep my eyes off of her, for thinking of her large backside and the gap between her thighs; it was the same with my cousins. Then I began to have cock-stands and suppose a pleasurable feeling about the machine, though I do not recollect that. I then found out that servants were fair game, and soon there was not one in the house whom I had not kissed. I had a soft voice and have heard, an insinuating way, was timorous, feared repulse, and above all being found out; yet I succeeded. Some of the servants must have liked it, who called me a foolish boy at first; for they would stop with me on a landing, or in a room, when we were alone, and let me kiss them for a minute together. There was one, I recollect, who rubbed her lips into mine, till I felt them on my teeth, but of what she was like, I have no recollection, and I did not like her doing that to me.
My curiosity became stronger, I got bolder, told servants I meant to see them wash themselves, and used to wait inside by bed-room, till I heard one of them come up to dress. I knew the time each usually went to her bedroom for that purpose, the person most in my way was the nurse: she after a time left, and mother nursed her own children. "Let's see your neck; do, there is a dear," I would say. "Nonsense, what next?" "Do, dear, there is no harm; I only want to see as much as ladies show at balls." I wheedled one to stand at the door in her petticoats and show her neck across the bedroom lobby. The stays were high and queerly made in those days, the chemises pulled over the top of them like flaps. One or two let me kiss their necks, a girl one day said to my entreaties, "Well, only for a minute," and easing up one breast, she showed me the nipple, I threw my arms around her, buried my face in her neck and kissed it. "I like the smell of your breast and flesh," said I. She was a biggish woman, and I dare say I smelt breasts and armpits together; but whatever the compound, it was delicious to me, it seemed to enervate me. The same woman, when I kissed her on the sly afterwards, let me put my nose down her neck to smell her. We were interrupted. "There is someone coming," said she, moving away.
"What makes ladies smell so nice?" said I to my mother one day. My mother put down her work and laughed to herself. "I don't know that they smell nice."
"Yes, they do, and particularly when they have low dresses on." "Ladies," said mother, "use patchouli and other perfumes." I supposed so, but felt convinced from mother's manner, that I had asked a question which embarrassed her.
I used to lean over the backs of the chairs of ladies, get my face as near to their necks as I could, quietly inhale their odours, and talk all the time. Not every woman smelt nice to me, and when they did, it was not patchouli, for I got patchouli, which I liked, and perfumed myself with it. This delicate sense of smell of a woman I have had throughout life, it was ravishing to me afterwards, when I embraced the naked body of a fresh, healthy young woman.
From about this time of my life, I recollect striking events much more clearly, yet the circumstances which led up to them or succeeded them I often cannot. One day, Miss Granger, our former governess, came to see us. I kissed her. Mother said: "Wattie, you must not kiss ladies in that way, you are too big." I sat Miss Granger on my lap in fun (my mother then in the room), and romped with her. Mother left us in the room, and then seating Miss Granger on my lap again, I pulled her closely to me. "Kiss me, she's gone," I said. "Oh! what a boy," and she kissed me, saying, "let me go now—your mamma is coming." It came into my mind that I had had my hand up her clothes, and had felt hair between her legs. My prick stiffening in thinking of a women. I clutched her hard, put one hand on to her and did something I know not what. She said: "You are rude, Wattie." Then I pinched her and said: "Oh! what a big bosom you have." "Hish! hish!" said she. She was a tallish woman with brown hair; I have heard my mother say she was about thirty years of age.
A memorable episode then occured. There were two sisters, with other female servants, in our house. My father was abroad at that time; I was growing so rapidly, that every month they could see a difference in my height, but was very weak. My godfather used to look at me, and severely ask if I was up to tricks with the boys. I guessed then what he meant, but always said I did not know what he meant. "Yes, you do; yes, you do," he would say, staring hard at me, "you take care, or you'll die in a mad-house, if you do, and I shall know by your face, not a farthing more will I give you." He had been a surgeon-major in the Army, and gave me much pocket-money. I could not bear his looking at me so; he would ask me why I turned down my eyes.
About this time, I had had a fever, had not been to school for a long time, and used to lie on the sofa reading novels all day. Miss Granger had come to stop with my mother. One day I put my hand up her clothes, nearly to her knees; that offended her, and she left off kissing me. One of my little sisters slept with her, in a room adjoining my mother's room; I slept now on the servants floor, at the top of the house. Again I recollect my cock standing when near Miss Granger, but recollect nothing else.
I was then ordered by my mother to cease speaking to the servants, excepting when I wanted anything, though I am sure my mother never suspected my kissing one. I obeyed her hypocritically, and was even at times reprimanded for speaking to them, in too imperious a tone. She told me to speak to servants respectfully. For all that I was after them, my curiosity was unsatiable, I know the time each went up to dress, or for other purposes, and if at home, would get into the lobby, or near the staircase, to see their legs, as they went upstairs. I would listen at their door, trying to hear them piss, and began for the first time to peep through keyholes at them.