My Secret Life

It is difficult to narrate more without divulging my outer life. I would fain keep that hidden, but it is impossible, I shall however tell as little as may be and obscure it, but without falsifying or distortitng any facts relating to my amorous pranks, some of which were not sought by me. I fain would have led a steadier life, and wished a home with a woman I could love; but I had an unquiet home, and a woman there whom I hated in bed and at board. I tried at times to over-come my antipathy, abstained from women for weeks at a time, so that sexual want might generate a sort of love, but it was useless, without reward, and a life of misery was before me. I broke out under it, wonder I did not break down, and should have done so, had it not been for whores. Cunt came to my rescue, and alone gave me forgetfulness, a relief far better than gambling or drinking, the only other alternatives I could have had recourse to.

And now I pass over a short period, in which I did much the same as I have just written of, until a lucky sympathy brought me a happier change in my amours.

Chapter XIX

My home life. • Heart-broken.-In the parlour. • Maid Mary's sympathy. • Don't cry master. • On the sofa.-Both in lust. • Impotent.

I was still poor, but had got into an employment, and was living in a small eight-roomed house. I kept one servant only, but was pinched to keep up appearances. None of the outside world could have known how much I was pinched. I went home regularly, sat for hours by myself reading, brooding, fretting, and even crying bitter tears, at the time I take up my narrative.

Our servant was named Mary. A tall woman about twenty-one years of age, splendidly built, stout of form, and with big breasts and haunches. Her face was lovely, her eyes almost the most beautiful hazel I ever saw, its expression dove-like, her complexion as clear and bright as a rose. She looked as if she ate three meals a day, shit regularly, slept eight hours, and was fucked nightly, and was in brief a most lovely creature, and the picture of health. She had a mouth filled with lovely teeth, one of which was missing, and showed its absence when she laughed, it was the only defect visible about her. Another handsome woman whom I have had since, had also lost two front-teeth, which showed in a similar manner, but that lady always smiled, and rarely laughed, so as to avoid showing the defect. False teeth were a rarity in those days, and quite beyond the means of poor people.

She had been with us about three months. There was mystery about her, like a former servant of my mother's, she scarcely ever wanted to go out. At times we heard her singing, at others sobbing, and it used to be remarked that she was moping. I thought my wife knew more about her than she said, but to her I spoke as little as possible about anything. Mary was an in-different but willing servant, was said to have come from the country, to have been living with an aunt a short time in London, and that ours was her first place. She was with us pretty well worked and scolded, but not by me.

I had been struck by her beauty and her ways, which were winning, friendly, and unlike a servant's, yet with-out being presuming, and I was as kind to her, both in manner and word as I dared to be; but I had been annoyed and suspected for speaking kindly to servants, and to avoid strife was cold, even harsh to them in manner. Mary was witness of the sullen domestic misery in which I lived. I had seen a pained, sympathetic glance at me at times when she heard our wrangles, and was confident that she pitied me.

Nevertheless I had no sensual intentions towards her, holding it as fitting carefully to respect my home, whatever I did out of it. I might have thought about her hidden charms and probably had had that tingling in my prick which a pretty woman often gives a man however virtuous he may be. But it went no further.

My last clap may have made me abstinent, or want of money had, or perhaps other motives which beset a man who wished a different order of things in his home affected me, for I know that for weeks I had barely had an emission, excepting by nocturnal dreams; and though dying for a genial fuck, yet avoided it, and worked at my occupation to get money and forget my troubles. This woman changed all my resolves, and launched me again into sexual pleasures. I may remark also, curious as it may seem, that instead of fattening, and getting strong by abstinence, I got just the reverse. Every time I spent involuntarily on my night-shirt, I awaked fatigued, agitated, nervous. I lost appetite, got thinner and thinner, and more and more miserable the less I had women.