VOLUME 4 CHAPTER 5

The boudoir next day. • On the sofa. • A dull dinner. • Assignations. • The linen draper’s shop with two fronts. • The house in T***f***d Street with two entrances. • Consummation. • A chaste-minded adultress. • The consequences.

I passed a restless night wondering at all that had occurred so unpremeditated, so successful, and yet half a failure at the last moment; for my spend was scarcely finished in her. The next day I called. She was unwell, and could see no one. Had she taken cold? Yes, the servant thought so, she had been ill all night, and could see no one. It was a maid that opened the door who said this, and not a footman. Was Mr. Y***s***e at home? No. I did not desire to disturb her, but I had a pressing message from my wife, and should much like to give it instead of my wife writing it, if she would but see me for a minute only, — it was a matter of some importance. “Mistress has seen no one sir, she has been so ill, — she has not been long up, — but I will ask.”

I waited in a small morning-room. Half an hour passed, the maid at length appeared, and showed me into the drawing-room. My heart was beating. Mrs. Y***s***e was seated in an easy-chair, the fire was burning with a red heat, dusk was coming on. I offered my hand, she put hers out coldly. “I am ill — what is the message you have for me?” “None, you know I have none — it was only to see you, to beg your pardon, to say I could not control myself.” “That will do — not another word about what you have done, I have permitted enough to be done, to let you think you can do what you like here.” I did not know at this cold treatment what to do, what to say to her, and was silent.

“I’m distressing you,” at length I said, “so I had better go.” “You came to distress me, for you knew you would,” she replied. “I never was cruel to a woman in my life,” I said. “Indeed, — your wife gives a different version.” “Does she? — most likely, — it’s to her interest to blacken me, — it saves her own reputation.” “All you men are the same, — you might have a happier home if you were truer to your wife.” “It’s false, she is not fit for a wife, nor could she make any one happy — I might as well say it’s your fault that Mr. Y***s***e is what he is.” “He! — if I were to tell you all I suffer, it would make your hair stand on end.” “And I, if I told you all about my home, you would pity me. Listen.”

It was rarely that I told my griefs, but hid them as much as I could. I had told them only to a little gay woman, to one of my servants, and to an old friend’s parlour-maid, and had fucked all three women. I was now piqued, was in love with this lady, fancied she had had as much to do with my erotic darings in the carriage as I had, and could not bear to be thought a liar and traitor at home, and to have behaved ill to any woman. “Listen,” I said. “Oh! I don’t want to hear.” “But you must, — you shall, in justice to me, — listen.”

Then I told her in a few minutes a history in itself. “Good Heavens, you are jesting.” “By the Eternal God it’s the truth,” — and I burst out crying. How long we sat I don’t know, but I heard her saying, “I’m truly sorry for you, — it’s almost incredible.” I went on my knees before her. “Kiss me.” “Get up for God’s sake, — the servant will come in.” “Kiss — kiss me.” “There, — there, — get up,” said she kissing me, “now leave me, pray.” “Why I have not been here a quarter of an hour.” “You must have been here an hour, — it’s dark. — I must ring for lights.”

“You are the first woman for years who has kissed me who has not been a harlot,” I said, forgetting the servants, the married women, and others I had had, and a lady about whom I shall print nothing. It was an odd thing to say, was quite useless and untrue, but it burst from my lips suddenly, — Heaven knows why.

The story I had old her had stirred her sympathies, for she was a woman in the fullness of her blood, in the hey-day of her lusts. She was a pure woman; but those who have tasted the pleasures of coition with a man, — and she had spent with me, — cannot resist the desire for them again. Hers however was a want which urges many a woman to sexual complaisance without knowing the cause, although she knew well what she wanted, and was willing to forget herself, to bring about a result to satisfy the want. It was not fucking, but the consequences which most women dread, and try to avoid, when the fucking is illicit. Yes — she yearned for maternity. All her utterances to me, involuntary, irrepressible as they were, all pointed to it.

The deed of the previous night, and my present disclosures, had broken all barriers. She had tried at the beginning to fence herself with coldness — useless. Oh! the mysteries of the cock and the cunt when once the male and female disclose them to each other. No fence, no walls, no bolts, no bars, will keep them asunder. What can a woman refuse a man whose spunk has filled her cunt, from the portals of her womb to her clitoris, as mine had hers. All on a sudden I closed on her, kissed her, and put my hand up her petticoats.

“Now leave off, — if you attempt to repeat last night, I will leave the room, and deny myself in future when you call.” “Nonsense Mary, — let me call you Mary, — dear Mary, — you know what you told me only yesterday night as we danced, — things have not changed since then, — let me, — let me be the father.”

“Never, — a moment’s weakness, — yes I should like a child, — in my loneliness and misery, with all our wealth, it might comfort me, — but not one of disgrace, — I forgot myself, and now you punish me, — forget all about it. As a gentleman, as I know you to be, — you will forget it, and never disclose my weakness, I am sure.”

“Nonsense, we love each other, — let me.” “Now don’t, — leave off, — not now, — oh! don’t make that noise, — be quiet then, — the footman will be in.” “He is out, or was when I was downstairs.” She rose up. “Let me feel where I did last night.” “No, I forgot myself once, but never again, — go.” “I won’t by God, — I will have you, — I feel mad when I think my prick has been in your dear cunt, but never spent in it properly, — that my sperm has covered it, but was half wasted outside it.”

Out of the large double drawing-rooms was her boudoir, a sofa in it. I laid hold of her hands, and pulled her. “Come here.” “Oh! don’t make that noise, — the footman may come here.” “Well, here.” Gently, and kissing her as I went, I pulled that lady into her boudoir and laid her on the sofa. Sighs, kisses, murmurs of my love, and we were spending together on the sofa a minute or two afterward. The doors were unlocked, any one coming in must have caught us; both must have been delirious with love-passion, to have run such risks. Rising quickly after I had spent, she rang for lights. Then was another ring audible.

“It’s his ring, — it’s my husband, — he’s come home, — perhaps not drunk for once, — sit down there, — no, not so near, — there, — oh! my God what has brought him home!” (He rang a minute after she had rung the drawing-room bell.)

“How are you old fellow?” said her husband, quite sober, entering the room, and shaking hands with me, — “why I thought (to his wife) you would see no one.” “I felt better when I was up, and Mr.*** has come to say he has a box for Drury Lane for next Friday, and very much wants us to go with him and Mrs. ***, — I told him to wait a little on chance of your coming home.” “Will you join us?” said I. “Yes,” replied he, “you stop to dinner with us.” I hesitated. “Do.” “I’d rather not.” “We are all alone, — why don’t you ask him, Molly?” No reply. “Why the damned fool has fainted, — it’s the second time she has done it today, — what the hell’s the matter with her?” said he.

[It’s singular what a lot of fainting women I had in my youth, — those in after years did not faint during our intrigues.]

To ring, get sal volatile, spirits, was the work of a minute. She had recovered before they came. Mr Y***- s***e poured himself out three quarters of a tumbler of brandy, and putting a little water to it, swallowed it. “Don’t drink all that,” said she. “Mind your own business,” said he. I rose to go. “I want him to stay to dinner, Molly.” “Won’t you stay?” “I’d rather not.” “Stay, — nonsense,” said he, — “She’ll be as dull as stale beer tonight, — if you don’t stay, come to my club, and we’ll dine there.” “Pray stay,” said she. My seed was up her, that was an attraction, and though kindness would have said go, — I stayed. She left the room. Mr. Y***s***e drank more brandy and water; at dinner he was three sheets in the wind, no one was there but us three. “Who knows if chance may not give her to me again tonight!”

It was the most extraordinary evening in point of strained sensation I ever spent. Shown into a bed-room to wash before dinner, I would not wash the hand which had fingered her cunt; out of a superstition that if I kept it unwashed I should have her again that night. I had never been at a family-dinner with them before. My sense of delicacy as a gentleman ought to have made me refuse her husband’s invitation, seeing that she was distressed, and had not willingly joined with him in asking me. At table he was boisterous and jolly at first, then heavy and stupid as the wine told on him; she dull and distressed, though trying hard to hide her being so. “You are as dull as ditch-water, — you are as cheerful as small beer drawn yesterday,” he kept saying at intervals to her. I had been trying to engage her in conversation all the evening, but it flagged, al- though she drank wine freely. Gradually all the talking fell to him, and as he was listened to, he seemed contented. I felt more inclined to think, than to talk; at all events to him, for my mind dwelt on the changes twenty-four hours had made in our relations to each other. The night before I had seen her come in to the ball-room upright, radiant, fresh- coloured, sparkling, proud in step, composed in demeanour; and I had not a vestige of a thought of having her. I had even thought her cold, and should have said without any sensuality. There she sat now. My hands had wandered over her soft flesh, from her knees to her navel, I had titillated her clitoris, spent in her. She was pale in face, dark rings were round her eyes, she seemed half lifeless, it was painful to see her. Whenever I turned my eyes toward her, I found her fixed on me with a strained expression in them, as if she were hearing some frightful tale. (I shall never forget the expression in them.) Her voice quivered, she answered slowly. I kept thinking of my fuck on the sofa, and all the occurrences. The more I thought, the more impossible it seemed to me that all could so have come about, — it seemed a dream.

When she left us, her husband took brandy and water and cigars and got more fuddled. “Tea is in the drawing-room sir,” said the flunkey. I rose to go. “Wait another quarter of an hour,” said Mr. Y***s***e. I waited. “Let us go, Mrs. Y***s***e will think me rude.” “She be damned, — you go, — I’ll stop, and have another glass, and another cigar.”

In the drawing-room she poured out my tea with perfect grace. “Is not my husband coming?” “Soon,” I said. Time ran on, she rang the bell. “Tell your master the tea will be cold.” Footman came back. “He has gone to bed Ma’am.” “To bed?” “Yes.” “Excuse me,” she said, and left the room. In a few minutes she came back. “Is he unwell?” said I in all ignorance. She looked at me, to see if I was humbugging her by my question. “No, drunk, — that is my life,” — and she buried her face in her hands.

I went close to her, my lust got the better of me, and I attempted to feel her leg. She rose from her chair. “Are you a brute also? — then I am deceived indeed, — no don’t touch me, be content, — would you break my heart quite? — it is well nigh broken, — if you touch me, I will never see you again.” I was awed. She moved her chair away from me, and I did not approach nearer to her.

We talked a short time. “You will meet me, won’t you? — our friendship has only begun, — both unfortunate, — why deny ourselves the pleasure our society gives us?” She made no reply for a long time, seemed to be struggling with herself, and buried her face in her hands.

“Where — how?” she said at last. “Meet me somewhere where we can talk undisturbed.” “Where? — how? — so that I may not be known?” The brain of a man works wiles to get a woman, and I thought of a move new to me, perhaps old enough to others; with me it was an instantaneous thought. There were and now are three large linen drapers in London, with corner-buildings, and two frontages. “Call at So and-So,” I said, “stop at the *** street-side — make a purchase, — send your carriage away, — go right through the shop to the other street, there I will await you tomorrow.” “No.” “When” “The next day at three.” “You won’t deceive me?” “I have begun, and I’ll go through it,” said she with a hard look. “One kiss.” “Hish! the servants are all about.” I kissed her, and left.

The day came. A bitterly cold and rather foggy day, an admirable one for our assignation. I had called at a house in T***f***d Street, well known in those days to swells. I had never been at it before, but had asked a middle-aged friend if he knew a good house, for I did not like taking her to J***s Street. He was a married man with a great liking for intrigue. “You are going to have a married woman,” said he (it was an odd shot, but a true one.) “No.” He winked. “The quietest house in London is So- and-So — there is a back and a front entrance, one in one street, one in another street.” I went there, hired the nicest room, ordered a fire, and clean sheets and paid part in advance.

I waited at the corner looking out for the carriage. No carriage came. A lady got out of a cab, paid and it drove off. “Is it she?” She stood still, looked at me through a thick veil, then went into the shop. I had recognised her, and went round the corner; my cab of course was there. A quarter of an hour which seemed an age elapsed. “Is she never coming?” Then she appeared with a paper parcel in her hand. In a minute she was in the cab; in five minutes at T***f***d Street, and in a large, comfortable, but somewhat dull bed-room.

She took off her bonnet and veil, she was trembling. “Is this an hotel?” “No my darling.” “Is it a brothel?” “It’s a house where they are not particular.” “It is a brothel.” I did not know what to say, so held my tongue.

She buried her face in her hand, and sat so for a minute. “You have not kissed me darling.” She kissed me, got up, and looked at me fixedly. “Take off your things, — let me help you.” She hurried, was quite silent, and soon was in her chemise, but with boots and stockings on. She undressed mechanic-ally, as if she were thinking of something else. “Oh! let me look at you — let me lift your chemise.” She resisted. “No, for Heaven’s sake, leave me alone.” I complied. “Let me draw off your boots and stockings.” The next minute we were in bed, and I was up her; getting into the bed with a bound, and mounting her with fury. She had not laid down before I was pressing her. She laid down on her side with her face toward me, but my body met hers, and turned her on to her back. “Wait a minute, — let us talk,” she began. “Oho!” she sobbed as with a fierce plunge my prick drove her. The next minute her cunt was deluged.

I was not man enough, or she not appetising to me enough to make me continue without withdrawing (as I often did with a fresh piece). I uncunted, and began the delights of feeling her all over. That exquisite variety of sensations were mine, which run through a man as he feels a woman in all her nakedness. For the first time, can kiss her mouth, suck her bubbies, rove from her neck to her knees, smooth his lips over her breasts, plunge his fingers up her cunt till they can grope no further. Soon I was in full vigour again, and up her, and then Mary Y***s***e met me with ardour and in that very fuck was impregnated. She had never spoken from the time she had got into bed, till her pleasure came on. Then she sobbed out, “Oh! my love!” — and she was quiet again. She often repeated the words when spending afterwards. That came naturally from her, as my prick stiffened to its utmost in her cunt, and she drew my sperm out of me. She never said any other words when fucking.

In less than an hour I fucked her again. I could scarcely get her to talk. After each poke she wanted to know the time, and when satisfied lay nestling close to me. “You’re with child,” I remarked jokingly. “I hope so.” I could not realise that she really meant it. “Don’t you wash?” “No, I’ll do nothing to destroy the chance.” “Chance of what?” “Of having a child.” “Do you really mean it?” “What do you think I have come here for, if I don’t mean it? — do you think I run this risk for lust? — to have degraded myself in your eyes for mere lust! — you are in error of you imagine that.” “My darling I am thinking of nothing but the delight I have in meeting you, in finding a friend and lover in you.” “I am not your lover, and never shall be, though I have been dreaming of such an after- noon with you for two years past.” “Of me?” “Yes, thinking I should like a child by you.” “Why me?” “I don’t know, — who can tell why one likes and dislikes,” — and then she explained.

“When grief was upon me I longed to be a mother, and thought of you. Gradually I came to desire that you should be the father, and for that I have degraded myself, — yet I swear that this has come about as if by magic, for I never contemplated having a child by you, much as I desired it. But from the moment you took my hand under the table-cloth at the supper, I lost all control of myself. In the carriage I was helpless as a child, was in a sort of swoon, though I knew quite well what you were about, and that it was wrong, I tried to resist you in my mind, but could not stir a limb. It was the same the day before yesterday. I knew you had sent up a falsehood, but felt I must see you, and from the moment you pulled me toward my boudoir, had the same enervation.” This was said nearly as I write it, not as an apology, but as a narrative told in the most natural way possible, and in a sorrowful tone.

“Did you spend with me in the boudoir?” “Yes. I felt agitated, alarmed, and almost fainting.” “Did you wash yourself, — do tell me, — do?” I anticipated coyness and evasion, but I did not know the woman yet, her frankness and determination. “No I did not, — I thought of doing so, but from a feeling I can’t de-scribe I would not, and I came down to dinner just as you left me.”

“Do you not love me? — you could not have thought so of me without it.” I asked her this for I was staggered, and thought spite of all, that she might be only a frisky one, to whom a fuck on the sly was a treat. I was too inexperienced to know the varieties of the female mind, the vagaries that an unsatisfied womb might cause, the overwhelming passion that a womb hungering for impregnation might beget.

“I do not love you, — I shall never be a mistress to you, and from the time I am sure that I shall have a child, you will see no more of me in the way you see me now, and perhaps not at all.” “I believe you are with child at this moment,” I said joking. “I firmly believe that I became so an hour ago. — I must leave, — how can I enter my door with the feeling I have hitherto done? — ah! mine has been a bitter married life!” “And mine my darling also.” “But you men get relief, get even fresh loves, and people overlook it, — women they crush for less.”

She dressed. “You have not washed yourself,” I said laughing, for I had turned away out of delicacy when I saw her put the basin down. She would not wash at all, not wishing to destroy the good I had done her. Was it for good or harm? — time was to show. I saw her to a cab, and we parted. Yes she would meet me again — tomorrow at the theatre we should meet. She had never smiled, nor seemed pleased, nor been voluptuous, she only laid quiet, and let me fuck her as much as I could.

We met at Drury Lane, for I had of course to get the box. That night Mrs. Y***s***e began to show great attention to my wife, who in return began to hate her, yet I carefully avoided showing Mrs. Y***s***e special attention. Mr. Y. went out regularly between each act to drink. I had opportunity to speak to his wife. “Same time and place tomorrow.” The next afternoon we were in the same bed together again.

And again we met. She came in her carriage, left it at one door, and passed through the shop to me. We had only time for one hurried poke. Again the next day, but she had not come in her carriage to the linen- draper’s because the coachman was ill. She had a fit of compassion, would not hear of his coming out in the cold, nor of a groom driving. She was frightened. He was not a good whip, so she had a cab. It was a piece of luck, I said. “Well it really is,” she replied. “I hope he will be confined for weeks.” “Poor man, he has a sick wife,” said she. How clever are both man and woman in availing themselves of every chance for getting amorous delights, —the old song of my boyhood is right, “cock and cunt will come together, check them as you may.”

It was an afternoon of hard fucking. She had a tight cunt, — I told her so. “You ought to know what is tight and what is not, according to all accounts,” she said. I had heard similar hints from others within the year before that, and wondered how it came about.

Another and another meeting. She was always quiet, reserved, dignified, even when she pissed, but now was yielding, and taking more her share in dalliance. “Why don’t you put your hand down, and feel my prick?” Her hand went gently down, and then it became like mine, inquisitive, and moved under my balls and all about, much more so than the hands of the women did whom I had recently been accustomed to. Satisfying her curiosity stirred her blood, and there was more passion in embrace. Still I felt that I more served a purpose she was determined on carrying out, than that she had pleasure in meeting me for copulation. My vanity was excessive on her declaration that she wished a child by me, but was chilled when she said that so soon as she got one, she would not care about me; and that my embraces were nothing to her, unless they fecundated her egg; that her joy in my arms was only physical, and that when the sperm was laying up against her womb-mouth, she cared nothing for the man from whose prick it had issued. Many as were the cunts I had spermatised, I was too young to have studied their owners philosophically or psychologically, as I since have done.

Gradually she became more free. She had refused my inspection of her, and on any liberty she did not like she mentioned her degradation. “I suppose you think me little better than a prostitute,” said she to me one day,” “and I deserve it.” She was so sensitive about her own sin, as she called it, that when she referred to it I was settled at once, and relinquished my wishes. I had never seen her quite naked even after several meetings, and got wild. “Let me see.” “I don’t like it.” “Well my darling you shan’t be annoyed but I have never kissed it, — I will.” I ducked down in the bed kissing her breasts, then her belly, and at last lodged my head between her thighs. The smell of her cunt was delicious to me, I opened the lips, I kissed the moist parts. “I’ll lay here all the time,” I said, but I never licked her, for I had no taste for gamahuching her. “You will be smothered unless you come up.” “I don’t care, — let me see.” I just caught the darkness of the split, and was glad to rise up, and rub my ballocks against it. She would show me no more, but it stirred her up, “Oh my love,” came with more emphasis than ever. I pulled my prick out of her, and stopped her crisis. “What are you doing?” “I won’t go on unless you let me look at your cunt,” — and then I did. After-ward I became master, and she no longer refused me.

The coachman was better. Instead of two or three hours she could only manage an hour, — half an hour, — it came to a fuck at the bedside, and a precipitate rush out of the house. We were much vexed. How I hated to see her step out of that big carriage! — how I longed to see her come muffled up out of a cab!

One day she sighed, but smiled. “I am with child,” she said. “Are you glad!” “Yes, but I feel sad, and I don’t know why.” This must have been about a month after I had had her. “Are you sure?” “Yes, — and if in another three weeks my poorliness does not come on, it is absolutely certain, — not but I was certain I should be from the moment we met here, and even before I had you, that you would be the father of a child.” I wanted to see her quite naked. “No.” “Not to the father of your child? — ridiculous.” She reflected. “It is ridiculous, but I cannot bear to be treated like a prostitute.” “Nonsense, — does not every man see his wife naked, and have his pleasure with her in every way?” “Do what you like with me, you have the right now, — every right over me, — more right than any one else, — I believe it to be so in the eyes of God.”