My Secret Life

When this infatuation occurred I ceased seeing Bessie. Then in my trouble a year or two afterwards I sought her again, and told her my trouble. “Ah! you would not love me when I was fond of you, but you love her, and she plays on it, — don't you let her fool you”, said Bessie, “she has got a man, — all you give her he will get, I know it from what you tell me.” Bessie was right, but Sarah after a time as I shall tell, did not deceive me about the matter.

Then I missed Bessie for a year or two, then found her again in the Strand, she was much altered. “I don't think I ever liked a man to fuck me as I do you”, said she one night as she enjoyed me, “if you had but come up to my little home you would have saved me a lot of trouble.” But I could not get out of her what she meant by that.

Full five years afterwards, when roaming about not far from the Haymarket one night I met her, and scarcely knew her. She stopped short, “You Bessie!” “Ah ! yes it's Brighton Bessie, but I'm sadly altered, sure enough.” “And you knew me?” “Know you !—I should know you by your eyes, if I saw nothing more of your face but your eyes, — I should know you to the last day of your life”, said she. She was always talking about my eyes. She had seen me several times, but had not dared to accost me she said. I told her she always might.

I took her to what had become my favorite baudy house. It was a hot night, and we fucked on the sofa. She had become flabby, and said she had ill health, but I could glean nothing from her about her career, excepting that for some years she had not been gay. We stripped naked, and had just finished fucking her on the sofa when I felt something running over my legs, bum and back over my shoulder, on to hers. It was instantaneous. Then I saw a mouse which had run over us, and went fast up the wall into some red curtains where it was lost, — it made her shudder, and me too. That is one of the odd events by which I shall always recollect the last time I had Brighton Bessie. “You won't see me again I dare say”, said she in a plaintive tone, and a tear in her eye as we parted. I said I dare say I should. “No you won't, — good bye dear.” With a sigh the poor woman left me, and I never saw her again.

It was whilst I was frequenting Bessie, and occasion-ally other doxies that the following adventure occurred.

I was frequently now at my mother's house, my brother was away, and both my sisters married. I used to stop with her for days together, finding that a re-lief from home misery, and also agreeable company to her, who was now so much alone. I also at times stopped with one of my sisters whose husband I liked; the other lived some distance from London.

Chapter VIII

Washerwomen. • Matilda and Esther. • A peep over a wall. • Eaves dropping. • A girl's wants. • Shaking a tooleywag. • A promenade by a barrow. • Disclosures. • A snatch and a scuffle. • An assignation.

I went to see my mother one day in Summer, and after luncheon walked to the end of the garden often mentioned. At one side of it was a road which gave access to a gentleman's house, and on the other to my mother's. There the carriage-road stopped, and a foot-path began. At the junction was a mews wide enough for a cart, which ran at the end of our garden and those adjoining. Our entrance to it had been disused, we having one in the side-wall opening on to the road, and the neighbours rarely used their back-entrances. The mews was grass-grown. On the opposite side to our garden-walls was the wall of very large grounds. A gate not locked, formed of open bar was at the end of the mews next to the road.

The footpath mentioned passed between walls of large gardens, and the between fields, until it joined a road on the other side of which was the village church-yard, through which the footway passage continued till again a high-road intervened. This continuous footway formed a short cut to a distant part of the parish. It was not much used excepting on Sundays, and by lovers who walked there on summer nights. I had found out years before that the mews at the back of our house was an occasional pissing-place, it being round the corner, and out of sight. I used to peep over the wall in hopes of seeing a female at that operation, mounting to do so by the gardener's ladder. When I saw a woman piddle it was great delight to me, but I more frequently saw men whose cocks had no attraction for me. On Sunday nights after church, the splash and rustle of petticoats could be heard, but not seen; the sight was however rare at any time, for few people had the boldness to push open the gate, and enter the mews.