My Secret Life (38 page)

I never had a more voluptuous woman. Naked on that divan, or on the bed when the weather was warm, I had her constantly during that summer. I know nothing more exciting, than the tranquil, slow, measured way in which she laid down, exposing her charms; every attitude being natural yet exciting by its beauty and delicate salacity. She always seemed to me to be what I had heard of Orientals in copulation. She had the slowest yet most stifling embrace. There was no violent energy, no heaving up of rump, as if a pin had just run into her, nor violent sighs, nor loud exclamations; but she clung to you, and sucked your mouth in a way I scarcely ever have found in English women, or in French ones; but the Austrians and Hungarians in the use of tongue with tongue, and lips with lips are unrivalled in voluptuousness.

Beyond a voluptuous grace natural to her, she had not at first the facile ways of a French courtesan, they came later on. I saw the change, and from that and other indications feel sure she had not been in gay life long before I had her. I could tell more of her history, but this a narrative of my life, not of hers.

[I have destroyed some pages of manuscript solely relating to her.]

She soon got a good clientele, picked up English rapidly, dressed richly, but never showily, and began to save money. She made affectionate advances to me which I did not accept. After a time she used to pout at what I gave her, and got greedy. So one day saying, “Ma chère, here is more, but adieu, — I don’t like you to be dissatisfied, but cannot afford to come to see you.” — she slapped the gold heavily down on the table. “Ah! mon Dieu, don’t say so, — come, — come, — I am sorry, — you shall never pay me, — come when you like, — I did not want you to pay me, but you would, — come, — do come, — that lovely prick, — do me again before you go, — don’t go, — my maid shall say I have not come home” (she expected some man), — and she never pouted about my compliment, till many years afterwards.

I suppose that having had this charming fresh French woman, made me wish for another; for spite of my satisfaction and liking for her, I made acquaintance with another French woman, as unlike Camille as possible. Her name was Gabrielle, a bold-looking woman with big eyes and a handsome face, very tall and well-made, but with not too much flesh on her bones, with a large, full-lipped, loud-looking cunt in a bush of hair as black as charcoal. I never told Camille about her, and think it was the great contrast between the two which made me have her. That woman also seemed later on to have taken some sort of fancy to me.

She had all the ready lechery of a well-practised French harlot, I saw it from the way she opened her thighs, and laid down to receive my embraces. About the third visit she brought water, and made me wash my prick, on which the exudation of healthy lust was showing whitish, before she let me poke her. I liked her cleanliness, but to my astonishment no sooner were we on the bed, then she reversed herself laying side by side with me, and began sucking my prick. I had no taste for that pleasure, nor since a woman in the rooms of Camille the first did it to me, had my penis been so treated that I recollect, though I had made ladies take it into their mouths for a second. I objected. “Mais si, — mais si,” — and she went on. My head was near her knee, one leg she lifted up, showing her thighs, which opened and showed her big-lipped cunt in its thicket of black hair. She played with my prick thus till experience told her she could do it no longer with safety, then ceasing her suction, and changing her position, I fucked her in the old-fashioned way.

The amusement seemed not to have shocked me as much as I thought it should have done, and it was repeated as a preliminary on other days, without my ever suggesting it. After I had had my first poke, the delicate titillation of the mouth seemed vastly pleasant, my prick then being temporarily fatigued by exercise in its natural channel; but I felt annoyed with myself for relishing it at all.

I had not overcome prejudices then, though evidently my philosophy was gradually undermining them. Why, if it gives pleasure to the man to have his prick sucked by a woman, who liked operating that way on the male, should they be abused for enjoying themselves in such manner? A woman may rub it up to stiffen it, the man always does so if needful, — that is quite natural and proper. What wrong then in a woman using her mouth for the same purpose, and giving still higher, more delicate and refined pleasure? All animals lick each other’s privates, why not we? In copulation and its consequences, we are mainly animals, but with our intelligence, we should seek all possible forms of pleasure in copulation, and everything else.

 

[I have not looked through and corrected the foregoing manuscript. — The abbreviations may damage the narrative but there is no help for it, if it is to be printed; yet but few incidents having any novelty have been erased, and the conversations with my women are just as I wrote them originally — the excisions excepted. — How delightfully the episodes come back to my memory as I read the manuscript. Incidents fading into forgetfulness come out quite freshly to me, and I almost seem to be living my youthful life over again. Would that I were going to do so, for it was a lovely time with women; and was only cursed by that one lasting, deep, irremediable error.

[I am not sure about ages in one or two instances, nor the exact order of two or three of the more fugitive amours. I could perhaps set these quite right by reference to books now hidden and dusty, but it is not worth the trouble to do so. — None are of any real importance. I write for my pleasure alone, and if I print, shall print for my pleasure alone, so let the manuscript stand as it is paged.

[I notice now in reading it, that some of my raciest adventures, those which being unsought, those which fell to my lot as it were by accident, and which tho brief were among the most voluptuous, occurred whilst I had other and more enduring liaisons on hand. Such was my weakness and fondness for the sex, that I never could keep faithfully to any one woman absolutely, however much I loved her. I have wished and intended to do so, have tried hard, so hard, to avoid infidelity, but surrendered at last to the temptation. The idea of seeing another woman naked, of piercing a fresh cunt, seemed to foreshadow to me voluptuous pleasures never tasted before with any other woman. As my prick entered the cunt it had never touched before, the sensation always seemed to me more exquisite than that I had ever had with others. Yet many a time after such pleasures I have been disgusted with myself for my weakness, and tried to atone for it, without the object ever having been aware of the reason for my ultra kindness.

[The quantity of manuscript still left for revision, alas, is long. Amongst it is an essay on copulation, written I think somewhat earlier than some I have revised, and written with such knowledge of the subject as I then had, as well as with some ignorance which I now see. It has that freedom of expression which I at once adopted in my narrative, and leaves no doubt in my own mind about what I meant then, and at all times. — It pleased me much when I wrote it, yet it must be sacrificed to time, money, and expediency — for it is not an incident, and forms no part of the history of my private life, tho it illustrates well my frame of mind and knowledge of things sexual, at the period of my life when I wrote it.

[This perusal brings prominently before me all my acts, deeds, and thoughts for full twenty years, and I perceive clearly, that altho I had done most things which were sexually possible once, and almost out of curiosity, or else on sudden impulse (up to about this period), yet that my habits with women in my lust were for the most part simple, commonplace, and unintellectual; and that I had not sought for out of the way lascivious postures and varied complex delights in copulation or its preliminaries, which a fervid, voluptuous, poetical imagination has since gradually devised for my gratification. This desire for variety seems to have commenced some time after I became acquainted with the second Camille.

[But by that time I was evidently no longer displeased with that which, in years previously, would have shocked me. My prejudices have now pretty well vanished with the approach of middle age. I have conquered antipathies and reaped the reward, in seeing before me a great variety of frolics, suitable to my maturity, but which I am glad I did not have prematurely in my youth when I did not need them, and should not have appreciated them as I do now. — It is amusing now to notice the gradual change from simply belly to belly exercise, which contented me, to the infinitely varied amusements since indulged in.

[No doubt in this I tread but in the ordinary footsteps and ways of male-kind. What I have done, thousands of others are doing. It is only when lustful impetuosity is weakened that reflexion and experience begin to devise new pleasures to aid it. As we get older we invent them as a stimulus, and women thus become more and more charming, needful, and important to us; and just at a time when our responsibilities towards them become greatest. So by aiding and administering to us in our salacious devices, they reward us. In the end they are more and more needful to us, and we repay them by our generosity, our care of them, and our sacrifices for them. Nor are they behind us in desire to participate in these frolics, for they have lust as well as we. In a quiet, hidden way, they like lasciviousness if taught it gradually. But lust is mainly in we men — women are the ministers to it, it is the law of nature. — No blame attaches to women for liking or for submitting to such frolics, abnormal whims, and fancies, which fools call obscene, but which are natural and proper, and perhaps universally practised, and which concern only those who practise and profit by them. In my experience many women delight equally in them, when their imaginations are once evoked. Nothing can perhaps be justly called unnatural which nature prompts us to do. If others don’t like them, they are not natural to them, and no one should force them to act them.

[The foregoing and similar paragraphs, written long after the manuscript, are to be enclosed in brackets thus [ ] so that I may identify them when I see them (if I do) at a future day in print, and this writing is destroyed.

[The headings of the chapters are now written for the first time. — They will be needful if this be printed. Now I resume my narrative.]

 

Whilst away I arranged it, and directly on my return to England gave up a snug, quiet, illicit establishment elsewhere, and to the satisfaction of both parties. Both agreed to it, and thought it was for the best. We had no quarrel. It cost much money down, and an annuity paid still, but no one was injured, no one wronged. All interested were provided for. I wonder if this will ever meet her eyes, or if so if she will know that it refers to her. It is not probable, for neither names, places, nor initials are given, and no clue afforded; yet nothing is impossible.

 

I had not returned to England a fortnight before a domestic turn-out took place, which caused me much annoyance but led me to unlooked for pleasure.

It has, I think, been said before that I had been for some time in better circumstances, had a larger house, more servants and so on. Among the servants whom I found on my return, was a parlour maid, a lovely girl with a superb pink and white complexion, and a skin which looked like ivory. She had darkish chestnut hair, soft hazel eyes, and a lovely set of teeth, was well grown, plump, and altogether a most desirable creature, and who looked a lady. Her name was Lucy. It passed through my mind that she would be an exquisite sweetheart, but I resisted incipient desire, avoiding by prudence and custom all intrigues with my own household.

Suddenly this girl was dismissed, and I was requested to dismiss my man, who had lived with us before I had left England, indeed had been in my service nearly two years. He was the best man I ever had, and was moreover a fine, handsome fellow, five feet ten high, and pleasant to look upon. He had been caught in loving familiarities with Lucy, who it was said also was with child by him; the poor girl had let this out to the cook or some one else, and the cook split upon her. James was impudent and denied it all, but I think the case was proved. It would not have done to have passed over open fornication. Had I done so, the habit would have spread throughout the household; so I reluctantly gave him notice. The poor girl went off very quietly in tears. I never felt so sorry for a woman, especially as whilst denying that she had let him have her, she said that he had promised her marriage, which James, when I told him, said was a lie. But this statement of hers confirmed me in the belief that he had tailed her. Lucy was however promised a character, and that nothing should be said about her
faux pas,
unless a question leading to it were asked. It was an unusual piece of charity of my old woman.

So nice a looking girl was of course sought after, and in two or three days ladies applied for her character, but none would take her. James had not gone because I could not get suited with another man. I spoke to him again, and accused him of cruelty and wickedness in promising marriage, but he still denied it altogether. “But the cook asserts she has seen you on the sofa in the dining room more than once.” “She’s a liar,” said James, “but I’ve several times had her, and on that sofa too, and because I’d have no more of her, she’s got up this tale.” — James got then insolent.

Now in my dining-room was a sofa, tho not an usual piece of furniture in a dining-room; but I liked to lay there by myself and read after dinner at times, so as to avoid the drawing-room and all that was usually in it. The footman and parlour maid laid the dinner things, waited at table, and cleared away, and as no other servant had any right in that room usually at those times, they had a nice chance and had availed themselves of it, I quite believed.