VOLUME 3 CHAPTER 7

Brighton Bessie. • Change irresistible. • Bessie in quod. • Lewd effects. • Spooning. • Her home. • Her cabman. • Reflexions. • Two years after. • Five years later on. • The mouse’s promenade. • Bessie disappears.

I met in the Strand one night Bessie, who put her arms round me. I repulsed her, she saw her mistake, and followed me to a baudy house. Inside she began kissing me excitedly, and said she was so glad to see me back, that she did not know what she was about. It was not our usual house, I was in a hurry, so after I had fucked her was going away. “What one fuck only!—you have not had me for a year nearly, — I’m damned if you go till you have given me another, — that dear old prick, I’ve thought of it fifty times when I have been poked.” So I fucked her again, and after-wards resumed seeing her, for she was much to my taste sexually. I had many voluptuous amusements with her which she liked and invited, although I have no recollection of playing any of those curious erotic tricks which gratified me later on in life, nice attitudes being then for the most part enough for me. My balls were running over with sperm in those days, and if I could control myself for a few minutes when my prick was stiff, it was as much as I could do. Bessie was full-blooded, and loved to take her fucking with me. kissing me furiously as her pleasure came on. We used again to pass hours at the house in B. w Street, reading, drinking, talking, and copulating at intervals.

Yet I went after other women for all that, for fresh cunt was irresistible. Once when I had been away I missed her for a few days, then I saw her coming out of a public-house. “Oh! I’m so glad, — I’ve been locked up, — it’s a damned shame”, she cried out, “I was marched off without having said a word by a policeman, — blast him !—and all because I would not let the bugger fuck me one night up in Street, — I’d never let a policeman touch me, — damn them all.” She spoke loud to a man and two or three sympathising women, a mob began to gather round her, so noisy was she.

I turned as quickly as I could up a side-street, she following me. “Oh ! come my dear, come, — how glad I am to see you, — I did nothing but think of you whilst I was locked up, — oh ! God I’m dying for a fuck, — a whole fortnight I’ve not had it, and I did nothing but think of you when I frigged myself.” There was a roar of laughter from half-a-dozen women who had followed her. “Shut up”, said some one. “Ain’t she a letting out!” said another. “Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?” said a third. “It’s one of her men”, said another. “She is a nice woman”, said some one else. “It was a damned shame”, said another. “I know him”, said a voice, “he wants every woman in the Strand, and if he don’t get them he walks them off.” “Yes the bugger.” “She is just out.” “Yes, and he quoded Mary Summers last night.” “And he is a married man with a large family”, — and so on. I felt overwhelmed, and inclined to run away. She turned into the first house which had a door open, and I was glad when the friendly red-curtained door closed be-hind me, she galloping upstairs in front of me, showing her fat calves. I followed Bessie into a bed-room.

“Five shillings”, said the woman to me. “It’s all right, you go, — he’s an old friend of mine, — don’t bother”, said Bessie pushing the servant out of the room, and slamming the door, then throwing her bon-net on a chair she caught hold of me, gluing her lips to mine, feeling at my trousers front she cried out, “Let’s fuck, — come and fuck me, — I’m dying for you, —a fuck from you, — oh! put your prick up.” She had got it out, threw herself on the bed opening her thighs wide, and showing her cuntal beauties, calling on me to fuck her. I mounted her immediately, it was impossible to withstand her randy impetuosity; contagious lewdness coursed through my veins.

“Oh! my God”, said she as my prick drove home, “I’m coming, — oh ! my God, — fuck, — fuck, — oh ! I’m spending, — oh l my darling, — fuck, — spend, — oh !—oooh !” I never had a woman in a higher state of randiness, she would not let me go till I had fully eased her passions, she lavished expressions of love and tenderness on me. “Don’t pull it out, — there dear, there, — lay still on me, I’ll keep it up, it will be stiff again, — there it’s stiff now.” I stopped with her some hours. A policeman on the beat she said, had taken a fancy to her, had asked her to let him do it to her up against the dark wall at the back of E. . . .r H. .l. She would not, he threatened, still she refused, so he took her to the station one night on the plea of her annoying gentlemen, and the magistrate gave her a fortnight in prison. She had come out that very day, and was rather tight. In a few weeks Bessie got more and more friendly. I was the first to leave, and she to ask what was my hurry. When I thought I had been detaining her too long for my moderate compliment, she would say, “Oh! never mind, I’ll make ten shillings do, — I’m not in debt, — before the theatres are over I dare say I’ll get engaged.” It was impossible to avoid seeing she was getting affectionate. She would sit or lay talking, feeling, or kissing me for hours, whilst her expressions of pleasure when I was stirring up her vitals equalled those of any woman who has ever loved me or enjoyed my embraces.

One night I was charged twice for the room, for stopping long, and said something about not being able to afford it. That brought forth a proposition, one of the most curious I ever had in my life.

Said she, “It’s a lot of money to spend on the rooms, — come to my rooms; they would be too humble for you, but they are clean and nice, — drop me a line, and I will always be at home, — and you would be more comfortable than at these houses, and have no-thing to pay.” Then after hesitation, and as if reflecting, she said she lived in the New North road where she had either a small house or rooms in one, I don’t quite recollect which. “It’s paid for by a friend of mine, he gives me ten shillings a week. Now don’t think little of me because I tell you this, — he is only a cabman, he sleeps with me nearly always, he’s a nice clean, steady man, and behaves well to me; but I don’t like him since I’ve known you. You can come when you like, and sleep with me when you like, — I’ll give him up, he shall never come near me again, and I’ll always be there for you, — you will see what a large comfortable bed I’ve got, — but you must pay for the rooms, I must feel sure of a roof over me, — I don’t care about anything else, — then you can see me when you like, give me what you like, — nothing if you have not got it, — I don’t want your money, I’ll get that as I now do.”

She said all this in a humble way looking at me, tears half filled her eyes, her tone was sad; it was in its way a clear but simple declaration of affection for me. I saw it, felt it, but shunned it; for a strange dislike to a gay woman loving me came over me, some sort of undefined idea that I should be a species of fancy-man, a man whom I always thought at that time was a baudy house bully; and the offer of Bessie op-pressed me.

I told her she was very kind, that I appreciated it, but it was a long way off, — I would not think of it, — I did not wish her to give up a friend for me, — that there were obstacles to my accepting which I could not tell her of, and so on. I scarcely knew what to say in refusing without wounding her feelings.

“I am sorry I told you, for you won’t think as much of me as you did, it’s the simple truth, — you don’t believe me? — only come up and see me.” But I could not then think of displacing a cabman, I d d not even like to think of my prick having taken its pleasure in the cunt which had wriggled the prick of a cabman. My experience in life might have told me, had I thought about it, that the possibility was that my prick might have rubbed up the same channel that a burglar’s had. I only saw that I was asked to displace a common man in the affection of a street-doxy, I appreciated the affection which prompted the offer of exchange, felt gratified and sorry at the same time, especially when I saw tears in the poor woman’s eyes.

I again said I would if it were not such a long way off, but perhaps I would, and so on. I never did go to her house, but saw her from time to tame, until I fell madly in love with a lady of pleasure and would have given almost my life for her to have loved me. So Bessie was avenged, for I had fallen in love with a doxy after all.

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 favourite 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 relief 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.