My Secret Life

Until I was about twelve years old I never went to school, there was a governess in the house who instructed me and the other children, my father was nearly always at home. I was carefully kept from the grooms and other men-servants; once I recollect getting to the stable yard and seeing a stallion mount a mare, his prick go right out of sight in what appeared to me to be the mare’s bottom, of father appearing and calling out, “What does that boy do there?” and my being hustled away. I had scarcely a boy acquaintance, excepting among my cousins, and therefore did not learn as much about sexual matters as boys early do at schools. I did not know what the stallion was doing, I could have had no notion of it then, nor did I think about it.

The next thing I clearly recollect, was one of my male cousins stopping with us, we walked out, and when piddling together against a hedge, his saying, “Shew me your cock, Walter, and I will shew you mine.” We stood and examined each other’s cocks, and for the first time I became conscious that I could not get my foreskin easily back like other boys. I pulled his backwards and forwards. He hurt me, laughed and sneered at me, another boy came and I think another, we all compared cocks, and mine was the only one which would not unskin, they jeered me, I burst into tears, and went away thinking there was some thing wrong with me, and was ashamed to shew my cock again, tho I set to work earnestly to try to pull the foreskin back, but always desisted, fearing the pain, for I was very sensitive.

My cousin then told me that girls had no cock, but only a hole they piddled out of, we were always talking about them, but I don’t recollect the word cunt, nor that I attached any lewed idea to a girl’s piddling-hole, or to their cocks being flat, an expression heard I think at the same period. It remained only in my mind that my cock and the girl’s hole were to piddle out of, and nothing more, I cannot be certain about my age at this time.

Afterwards I went to that uncle’s house often, my cousin Fred was to be put to school, and we talked a great deal more about girls’ cocks, which began to interest me much. He had never seen one, he said, but he knew that they had two holes, one for bogging and the other to piddle from. They sit down to piddle said he, they don’t piddle against a wall as we do, but that I must have known already, afterwards I felt very curious about the matter.

One day, one of his sisters left the room where we were sitting. “She is going to piddle,” he said to me. We sneaked into a bed-room of one of them one day and gravely looked into the pot to see what piddle was in it. Whether we expected to find any thing different from what there was in our own chamber pot I do not know. When talking about these things my cousin would twiddle his cock. We wondered how the piddle came out, if they wetted their legs and if the hole was near the bum-hole, or where; one day Fred and I pissed against each other’s cocks, and thought it excellent fun.

I recollect being very curious indeed about the way girls piddled after this, and seeing them piddle became a taste I have kept all my life. I would listen at the bed-room doors, if I could get near them unobserved, when my mother, sister, the governess, or a servant went in, hoping to hear the rattle and often succeeded. It was accompanied by no sexual desire or idea, as far as I can recollect; I had no cock-stand, and am sure that I then did not know that the woman had a hole called a cunt and used it for fucking. I can recall no idea of the sort, it was simple curiosity to know something about those whom I instinctively felt were made different from myself. What sort of a hole could it be, I wondered? Was it large? Was it round? Why did they squat instead of stand up like men? My curiosity became intense.

How long after this the following took place I can’t say, but my cock was bigger. I have that impression very distinctly.

One day, there were people in one of the sitting-rooms; where my mother and father were I don’t know; they were not in the room, and were most likely out. There were one or two of my cousins, some youths, my big sister and one brother, besides others, our governess, and her sister, who was stopping with us, and sleeping in the same room with her. I recollect both going into the bed-room together, it was next to mine. It was evening, we had sweet wine, cake, and snap-dragon, and played at something at which all sat in a circle on the floor. I was very ticklish, it nearly sent me into fits, we tickled each other on the floor. There was much fun, and noise, the governess tickled me, and I tickled her. She said as I was taken to bed, or rather went, as I then did by myself, “I’ll go and tickle you.” Now at that time, when I was in bed, a servant, or my mother, or the governess took away the light and closed the door; for I was still frightened to get into bed in the dark, and used to call out, “Mamma. I’m going to get into bed.” Then they fetched the light, they wished to stop this timidity, often scolded me about it, and made me undress myself, by myself, to cure me of it.

I expect the other children had been put to bed. My mother keeping all the younger ones in the room near her. The nursery was also upstairs; my room, as said, was next to the governess.

When in bed, I called out for some one to put out the light, up came the governess and her sister. She began to tickle me, so did her sister, I laughed, screeched, and tried to tickle them. One of them closed the door and then came back to tickle me. I kicked all the clothes off and was nearly naked, I begged them to desist, felt their hands on my naked flesh, and am quite sure that one of them touched my prick more than once, though it might have been done accidentally. At last I wriggled off bed, my night-gown up to my armpits, and dropped with my naked bum on to the floor, whilst they tickled me still, and laughed at my wriggling about and yelling.

Then what induced me heaven alone knows; it may have been what I had heard about the piddling-hole of a woman, or curiosity, or instinct, I don’t know; but I caught hold of the governess’ leg as she was trying to get me up on to the bed again, saying, “That will do, my dear boy, get into bed, and let me take away the light.” I would not; the other lady helped to lift me, I pushed my hands up the petticoats of the governess, felt the hair of her cunt, and that there was something warm, and moist, between her thighs. She let me drop on to the floor, and jumped away from me. I must have been clinging to her thigh, with both hands up her petticoats, and one between her thighs, she cried out loudly – “Oh!”

Then slap-slap-slap, in quick succession, came her hand against my head. “You…rude…bad…boy,” said she, slapping me at each word. “I’ve a good mind to tell your mamma, get into bed this instant,” and into bed I got without a word. She blew out the light and left the room with her sister, leaving me in a dreadful funk. I scarcely knew that I had done wrong, yet had some vague notion that feeling about her thighs was punishable. The soft hairy place my hand had touched, impressed me with wonder, I kept thinking there was no cock there, and felt a sort of delight at what I had done.

I heard them then talking and laughing loudly thro the partition. “They are talking about me; oh, if they tell mamma, oh! what did I do it for?” Trembling with fear, I jumped out of bed, opened my door, and went to theirs, listening; theirs was ajar; I heard: “Right up between my thighs. I felt it! He must have felt it; ah! ah! ha! would you ever have thought the little beast would have done such a thing!” They both laughed heartily. “Did you see his little thing?” said one. “Shut the door, it’s not shut”; – breathless I got back to my room and into bed, and laying there heard them through the partition roaring with laughter again.

That is the first time in my life I recollect passing an all but sleepless night. The dread of being told about, and dread at what I had done, kept me awake. I heard the two women talking for a long time. Mixed with my dread was a wonder at the hair, and the soft, moist feel I had had for an instant on some part of my hand. I knew I had felt the hidden part of a female, where the piddle came from, and that is all I did think about it, that I know of, I have no recollection of a lewed sensation, but of a curious sort of delight only.

It must have been from this time, that my curiosity about the female form strengthened, but there was nothing sensual in it. I was fond of kissing, for my mother remarked it; when a female cousin, or any female, kissed me, I would throw my arms round her and keep on kissing. My aunts used to laugh, my mother corrected me and told me it was rude. I used to say to the servants, “Kiss me.” One day I heard my godfather say: “Walter knows a pretty girl from an ugly one doesn’t he?”

I had a dread of meeting the governess at breakfast, watched her and saw her laugh at her sister, I watched my mother for some days after, and at length said to the governess, who had punished me for something, “Don’t tell mamma.” “I have nothing to tell about, Walter,” she replied, “and don’t know what you mean.” I began to tell her what was on my mind. “What’s the child talking about? You are dreaming, some stupid boy has been putting things into your head, your papa will thrash you, if you talk like that.” “Why, you came and tickled me,” said I. “I tickled you a little when I put your light out,” said she, “be quiet.” I felt stupefied, and suppose the affair must have passed away from my mind for a time, but I told my cousin Fred about it afterwards. He thought I must have been dreaming, and I began to wonder if it really had occurred, I never thought much about it until I began to recall my childhood for this history.

I must have been twelve years old when I went to an uncle’s in Surrey and became a close friend of my cousin Fred, a very devil from his cradle, and of whom much more will be told: before then I had only seen him at intervals. We were then allowed, and it seems to me not before that time, to go out by ourselves. We talked boyish baudiness. “Ain’t you green,” said he, “a girl’s hole isn’t called a cock, it’s a cunt, they fuck with it,” and then he told me all he knew. I don’t think I had heard that before, but can’t be sure.

From that time a new train of ideas came into my head. I had a vague idea, though not a belief, that a cock and cunt were not made for pissing only. Fred treated me as a simpleton in these matters and was always calling me an ass; I have quite a painful recollection of my inferiority to him in such things, and of begging him to instruct me. “They make children that way,” said Fred. “You come up and we will ask the old nurse where children come from, and she’ll say ‘out of the parsley-bed,’ but it’s all a lie.” We went and asked her in a casual sort of way. She replied, “The parsley-bed,” and laughed. The nurse at my house told me the same when I asked her afterwards about my mother’s last baby. “Ain’t they liars?” Fred remarked to me. “It comes out of their cunts, and it’s made by fucking.”

We both desired to see women piddling, though both must have before seen them at it often enough. Walking near the market-town with him, just at the outskirts, and looking up a side-road, we saw a pedlar woman squat down and piss. We stopped short and looked at her: she was a short-petticoated, thick-legged, middle-aged woman; the piss ran off in a copious stream, and there we stood, grinning. “Be off, be off, what are you standing grinning at, yer damned young fools,” cried the woman. “Be off, or I’ll heave a stone at yer,” and she pissed on. We moved a few steps back, but, keeping our faces toward her, Fred stooped and put his head down. “I can see it coming,” said he jeeringly. He was rude from his infancy, bold in baudiness to the utmost, had the impudence of the Devil. The stream ceased, the woman rose up swearing, took up a big flint and threw it at us. “I’ll tell on yer,” she cried. “I knows yer, wait till I see yer again.” She had a large basket of crockery for sale, it was put down in the main-road at the angle; she had just turned round into the side lane to piss. We ran off, and, when well away, turned round and shouted at her. “I saw your cunt,” Fred bawled out; – she flung another stone. Fred took up one, threw it, and it crashed into the crockery, the woman began to chase us, off we bolted across the fields home. She could not follow us that way; it was an eventful day for us. I recollect feeling full of envy at Fred’s having seen her cunt. Though writing now, and having in my mind’s eye exactly how the woman squatted, and the way her petticoats hung, I am sure he never did see it; it was brag when he said he had, but we were always talking about girls’ cunts, the desire to see one was great, and I then believed that he had seen the pedlar woman’s.

Then one of Fred’s companions shewed us a baudy picture, it was coloured. I wondered at the cunt being a long sort of gash. I had an idea that it was round, like an arse-hole. Fred told his friend I was an ass, but I could not get the idea of a cunt not being a round hole quite out of my head, until I had fucked a woman. We were all anxious to get the picture, and tossed up for it, but neither I nor Fred got it, some other boy did.

Soon after that, Fred came to stop with us and our talk was always about women’s privates, our curiosity became intense. I had a little sister about nine months old, who was in the nursery. Fred incited me to look at her cunt, if I could manage it. The two nurses came down in turns, to the servants’ dinner, I was often in the nursery, and, soon after Fred’s suggestion, was there one day when the oldest nurse said: “Stop here, master Walter, while I go downstairs for a couple of minutes. Mary (the other nurse) will be up directly, and don’t make a noise.” My little sister was lying on the bed asleep. “Yes, I’ll wait.” Down went nurse, leaving the door open; quick as lightning, I threw up the infant’s clothes, saw her little slit, and put my finger quite gently on it, she was laying on her back most conveniently. I pulled one leg away to see better, the child awakened and began crying, I heard footsteps and had barely time to pull down her clothes, when the under nursemaid came in. I only had had a momentary glimpse of the outside of the little quim, for I was not a minute in the room with the child by myself altogether and was fearful of being caught all the time I was looking.

There must have been something in my face, for the nursemaid said, “What is the matter, what have you been doing to the baby?” “Nothing.” “Yes, you are colouring up, now tell me.” “Nothing, I have done nothing.” “You wakened your sister.” “No, I have not.” The girl laid hold of me and gave me a little shake. “I’ll tell your mamma if you don’t tell me, what is it now?” “No, I have done nothing, I was looking out of the window when she began to cry.” “You’re telling a story, I see you are,” said the nursemaid; and off I went, after being impudent to her.

I told Fred, and he tried the same dodge, but don’t recollect whether he succeeded or not. His sisters were some of them older, and we began to scheme how to see their cunts, when I was on a visit to his mother’s (my aunt), which was to come off in the holidays. The look of the little child’s cunt, as I described it, convinced him that the picture was correct, and that a cunt was a long slit and not a round hole. That cast doubt on males putting their pricks into them, and we clung somehow to the idea of the round hole, and we quarrelled about it.

It must have been about this time that I was walking with my father and read something that was written in chalk on the walls. I asked him what it meant. He said he did not know, that none but low people, and blackguards wrote on walls; and it was not worth while noticing such things. I was conscious that I had done wrong somehow, but did not know exactly what. When I went out, which I was now allowed to do for short distances by myself, I copied what was on the walls, to tell Fred, it was foul, baudy language of some sort, but the only thing we understood at all, was the word cunt.

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 Two

My godfather. – At Hampton-Court. – My aunt’s backside. – Public baths. – My cousins’ cunts. – Haymaking frolics. – Family difficulties. – School amusements. – A masturbating relative. – 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 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 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, 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 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.