# My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 4

The frequency of my cock-stands, up to this time I don't know. Voluptuous sensation, I have no clear recollection of; but no doubt during that half swooning delight, which I had when big Betsy allowed me to lay my head on her lap and feel her limbs, that impulse towards the woman was accompanied by sensuous pleasure, though I don't recollect the fact, but soon my manhood was to declare itself.
Some time after I had felt this servant's quim, I noticed a strong smelling, whitish stuff inside my foreskin, making the underside of the tip of the prick sore. At first I thought it disease, then pulling the foreskin up, I made it into a sort of cup, dropped warm water into it, and working it about, washed all round the nut, and let the randy smelling infusion escape. This marked my need for a woman, I did not know what the exudation was, it made me in a funk at first. One day I had been toying with the girl, had a cockstand, and felt again my prick sore, and was washing it with warm water, when it swelled up. I rubbed it through my hand, which gave me unusual pleasure, then a voluptuous sensation came over me quickly so thrilling and all pervading that I shall never forget it. I sunk on to a chair, feeling my cock gently, the next instant spunk jotted out in large drops, a full yard in front of me, and a thinner liquid rolled over my knuckles. I had frigged myself, without intending it.
Then came astonishment, mingled with disgust, I examined the viscid gruelly fluid with the greatest curiosity, smelt it, and I think tasted it. Then came fear of my godfather, and of being found out; for all that, after wiping up my sperm from the floor, I went up to my bed-room, and locking the door, frigged myself until I could do it no more from exhaustion.
I wanted a confident and told two schoolfellows who were brothers, I could not keep it to myself, and was indeed proud though ashamed to speak of the pleasure. They both had bigger pricks than mine, and never had jeered at me because I could not retract my prepuce easily. Soon after they came to see me, we all went into the garden, each pulled my prepuce back, I theirs, and then we all frigged ourselves in an out-house.
Then I wrote to Fred, who was at a large public school, about my frigging. He replied that some fellows at his school had been caught at it, and flogged; that a big boy just going to Oxford had had a woman and got the pox badly. He begged me to burn his letter, or throw it down the shit-house directly I had read it, adding that he was in such a funk for he had lost mine; and that I was never to write to him such things at the school, because the master opened every day indiscriminately one or two letters of the boys. He knew my mother was away and so did not mind writing to me. When I heard that he had lost my letter, I also was in a funk; the letter never was found. Whether the master got it, or sent it to my godfather, or not, I can't say, but it is certain that just after I had one night exhausted myself by masturbation, my godfather came to see me.
He stared hard at me. "You look ill." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are, look me full in the face, you've been frigging yourself," said he just in so many words. He had never used an improper word to me before. I denied it. He raved out, "No denial, sir, no lies, you have sir; don't add lying to your bestiality, you've been at that filthy trick, I can see it in your face, you'll die in a mad-house, or of consumption, you shall never have a farthing more pocket-money from me, and I won't buy your commission, nor leave you any money at my death." I kept denying it, brazening it out. "Hold your tongue, you young beast, or I'll write to your mother." That reduced me to a sullen state, only at times perking out: "I haven't!" He put on his hat angrily, and left me in a very uncomfortable state of mind.
I knew that my father was not so well off as he had been, my mother always impressed upon me not to offend my godfather, and now I had done it. I wrote Fred all about it, he said the old beggar was a doctor, and it was very unfortunate; he wondered if he really did see any signs in my face, or whether it was a bounce; that I was not to be a fool, and give in, and still say I hadn't, but had better leave off frigging.
From that time my godfather was always at my heels, he waited for me at the schooldoor, spent my half-holidays with me, sat with me and my aunt of an evening till bed-time, made me ride and drive out with him, stopped giving me pocket-money altogether, and no one else did; so that I was not very happy.
The pleasure of frigging, now I had tasted it (and not before), opened my eyes more fully to the mystery of the sexes, I seemed at once to understand why women and men got together, and yet was full of wonder about it. Spunking seemed a nasty business, the smell of cunt an extraordinary thing in a woman, whose odour generally to me was so sweet and intoxicating. I read novels harder than ever, liked being near females and to look at them more than ever, and whether young or old, common or gentle, was always looking at them and thinking that they had cunts which had a strong odour, and wondering if they had been fucked; I used to stare at aunt and cousins, and wonder the same. It seemed to me scarcely possible, that the sweet, well dressed, smooth-spoken ladies who came to our house, could let men put the spunk up their cunts. Then came the wonder if, and how, women spent; what pleasure they had in fucking, and so on; in all ways was I wondering about copulation, the oddity of the gruelly, close smelling sperm being ejected into the hole between a woman's thighs so astonished me. I often thought the whole business must be a dream of mine; then that there could be no doubt about it. Among other doubts, was whether the servant's quim, which had made by fingers smell, was diseased, or not. Fear of detection perhaps kept me from frigging, but I was weak and growing fast, and have no recollection of much desire, though mad to better understand a cunt. It does not dwell in my mind now that I had a desire to fuck one, but to see it, and above all, to smell it; the recollection of its aroma seems to have had a strange effect on me. I did not like it much, yet yearned to smell it again. Watching my opportunity one day, I managed to feel the servant; it was dusk, she stood with her back up against the wall, and felt my prick whilst I felt her; it was an affair of a second or two, and again we were scared. I went to the sitting-room, and passed the evening in smelling my fingers and looking at my cousin. This occurred once again, and I think now, that the servant must just have been on the point of letting me fuck her, for she had been feeling my prick and in a jeering way saying, "You are not man enough if I let you," I emboldened, blurted out that I had spent, I recollect her saying "oh! you story," and then something put us to flight, I don't now know what. I certainly was not up to my opportunities, that I see now plainly.
I had a taste for chemistry, which served my purpose, as will be seen further on, and used to experimentalize in what was called a washhouse, just outside the kitchen, with my acids and alkalis; that enabled me to slip into the kitchen on the sly, but the plan of the house rendered it easy, for my aunt to come suddenly into the kitchen.
My bed-room window overlooked the kitchen yard, in which was this wash-house, a knife-house and a servant's privy, etc., etc., the whole surrounded by a wall, with a door in it, leading into the garden. Just outside on the garden side, was a gardener's shed; the servant in the morning, used to let the gardener in at the kitchen entrance; and he passed through this kitchen yard into the garden. I was pissing in the pot in my bedroom early one morning, and peeping through the blind, when I saw the servant's head just coming out of the gardener's shed, she passed through the kitchen yard into the kitchen in great haste, looking up at the house, as if to see if anyone was at the windows. Then it occurred to me, that if I got quite early to the kitchen, I could play my little baudy tricks without fear, for my relatives never went down till half-past eight to breakfast, whilst the servant went down at six.
The next morning, I went down early to the kitchen, did not see the wench, and thinking she might be in the privy in the kitchen yard, waited. The shutters were not down, after some minutes delay, in she came; she started. "Hulloh! what are you up for?" I don't think I spoke, but making a dash, got my hand up her clothes and on to her cunt. She pushed me away, then caught hold of the hand with which I had touched her cunt, and squeezed it hard with a rubbing motion, looking at me as I recollected (but long afterwards), in a funny way. "Hish! hish! here is the old woman," said she. "It is not." "I'm sure I heard the wires of her bell," and sure enough there came a ring. Up I went without shoes, like a shot to my bedroom, began to smell my fingers, found they were sticky, and the smell not the same. I recollect thinking it strange that her cunt should be so sticky, I had heard of dirty cunts,—it was a joke among us boys, and thought hers must have been so, which was the cause, that the smell and feel were different.
Two or three days afterwards my mother came to town by herself, there was a row with the servant, I was told to leave the room; the servant and gardener were both turned off that day and hour, a char-woman was had in, a temporary gardener got, and my mother went back to my sick father. Years passed away, and when I had greater experience and thought of all this, concluded that my aunt had found the gardener and the servant amusing themselves too freely, had had them dismissed, and that the morning I found my fingers sticky, the girl had just come in from fucking in the gardener's shed.
With all the opportunities I had, both with big Betsy and with this woman, I was still virgin.
When I saw Fred next, he told me he had felt the cunt of one of their servants. I told him partly what I had done, but kept to myself how I had failed to poke when I had the opportunity, fearing his jeers; and as I was obliged to name some woman, mentioned one of my godfather's servants. He went there to try his chances of groping her as well, but got his head slapped. We talked much about the smell of cunt, and he told me that one day after he had felt their servant, he went into the room where his sisters were, and said, "oh what a funny smell there is on my fingers, what can it be, smell them." Two of his sisters smelt, said they could not tell what it was, but it was not nice. Fred used to say, that he thought they knew it was like the smell of a cunt, because they colored up so.
I had noticed a strong smell on my prick, whenever the curdy exudation had to be washed out. Fred's talk made me imitative, so I saturated my fingers with the masculine essence one evening, and going to my female cousin, "oh what a queer smell there is on my fingers," said I, "smell them." The girl did. "It's nasty, you've got it from your chemicals," said she. "I don't think I have, smell them again, I can't think what it can be, what's it like?" "I don't think it's like anything I ever smelt, but it is not so nasty, if you smell it close, it's like southern wood," she replied. I wonder if that young lady when she married, ever smelt it afterwards, and recognized it. I did this more than once, it gave me great delight to think my slim cousin had smelt my prick, through smelling my fingers; what innate lubricity comes out early in the male.
Misfortunes of all sort came upon us, the family came back to town, another brother died, then my father who had been long ill, died, and was found to be nearly bankrupt; then my godfather died, and left me a fortune, all was trouble and change, but I only mention these family matters briefly.
My physique still could not have been strong, for though more than ever intensely romantic, and passionately fond of female society, I don't recollect being much troubled with cock-standings, and think I should, had I been so. My two intimate school-friends left off frigging, the elder brother, who had a very long red nose, having come to the conclusion with me, that frigging made people mad, and worse, prevented them afterwards from fucking and having a family. Fred, my favorite cousin, arrived at the same conclusion—by what mental process, we all arrived at it, I don't know.
When I was approaching my sixteenth year, I awakened one night with a voluptuous dream, and found my night-shirt saturated with semen, it was my first wet-dream; that set me frigging again for a time, but I either restrained myself, or did not naturally require much spending at that time, for I certainly did not often do so.
But our talk was always about cunt and woman, I was always trying to smell their flesh, look up their petticoats, watch to see them going to piddle; and the wonder to me now is, that I did not frig myself incessantly; and can only account for it on the grounds, that though my imagination was very ripe, my body was not. The fact of hair under the arms of women had a secret charm for me about that time. I don't recollect thinking much about it before, though it had astonished me when I first saw it; and why it came to my imagination so much now, do not know, but it did. I have told of the woman under whose arms I first saw hair.
One afternoon after my father's death, and that of my godfather, Fred was with me, we went to the house of a friend, and were to return home about nine o'clock. It was dark, we saw a woman standing by a wall. "She is a whore," said Fred, "and will let us feel her if we pay her." "You go and ask her." "No, you." "I don't like to." "How much money have you got?" We ascertained what we had, and after a little hesitation, walked on, passed her, then turned round and stopped. "What are you staring at, kiddy," said the woman. I was timid, and walked away, Fred stopped with her. "Wattie, come here," said he in a half whisper. I walked back. "How much have you got?" the woman said. We both gave her money. "You'll let us both feel?" said Fred. "Why of course, have you felt a woman before?" Both of us said we had, feeling bolder. "Was it a woman about here?" "No." "Did you both feel the same woman?" "No." "Give me another shilling then, you shall both feel my cunt well, I've such a lot of hair on it." We gave what he had, and then she walked off without letting us. "I'll tell your mothers, if you come after me," she cried out.
We were sold; I was once sold again in a similar manner afterwards, when by myself.
These are the principal baudy incidents of my early youth, which I recollect, and have not told to friends; many other amusing incidents told them, are omitted here, for the authorship would be disclosed, if I did. One or two were peculiar and most amusing, yet I dare not narrate them; but all show how soon sexual desires developed in me, and what pleasure early in life even these gave me and others.
I now had arrived at the age of puberty, when male nature asserts itself in the most timid, and finds means of getting its legitimate pleasure with women. I did, and then my recollection of things became more perfect, not only as to the consummations, but of what led to them; yet nothing seems to me so remarkable as the way I recollect matters which occurred when I was almost an infant.