My Secret Life

About this time, I had had a fever, had not been to school for a long time, and used to lie on the sofa reading novels all day. Miss Granger had come to stop with my mother. One day I put my hand up her clothes, nearly to her knees; that offended her, and she left off kissing me. One of my little sisters slept with her, in a room adjoining my mother's room; I slept now on the servants' floor, at the top of the house. Again I recollect my cock standing when near “Miss Granger, but recollect nothing else.

I was then ordered by my mother to cease speaking to the servants, excepting when I wanted anything, though I am sure my mother never suspected my kissing one. I obeyed her hypocritically, and was even at times reprimanded for speaking to them in too imperious a tone. She told me to speak to servants respectfully. For all that, I was after them, my curiosity was unsatiable, I knew the time each went up to dress, or for other purposes, and if at home, would get into the lobby, or near the staircase, to see their legs, as they went upstairs. I would listen at their door, trying to hear them piss, and began for the first time to peep through keyholes at them.

Chapter III

A big servant • Two sisters • Armpits • A quiet feel • Baudy reveries • Felt by a woman • Erections • My prepuce • Seeing and feeling • Aunt and cousin • A servant's thighs • Not man enough.

A big servant, of whom I shall say much, had most of my attention; she went to her room usually when my mother was taking a nap in the afternoon; or when out with my sisters and brother. When I was ill in bed, this big woman usually brought me beef-tea; I used to make her kiss me, and felt so fond of her, would throw my arms round her, and hold her to me, keeping my lips to hers and saying how I should like to see her breasts; to all which she replied in the softest voice, as if I were a baby. I wonder now if my homage gave the big woman pleasure, or my amatory pressures made her ever feel randy. She was engaged to be married, but I only heard that at a later day, when my mother talked about her; her sister was also with us, as already said.

The sister was handsome, according to my notions then (I now begin to remember faces clearly); both had bright, clear complexions. I kissed both, each used to say, “Don't tell my sister,” and ask, “Have you kissed my sister?” I was naturally cunning about women, and always said I had done nothing of the sort. The two were always quarrelling, and my mother said she must get rid of one of them.

The youngest was often dancing my little sister round in the room, then swinging herself round, and making cheeses with her petticoats. As I got better, I would lay on the rug with a pillow, and my back to the light reading, and say it rested me better to be on the floor, but in hope of seeing her legs as she made cheeses. I often did, and have no doubt now that she meant me to do so, for she would swing round, quite close to my head so that I could see to her knees, and make her petticoat's edge, as she squatted, just cover my head, immediately snatching her petticoats back and saying: “Oh! you!, see more than is good for you. It used to excite me. One day as she did it, and squatted, I put out my hand and pulled her clothes, she rolled on to her back, threw up her legs quite high, and for a second I saw her thighs; she re covered herself, laughing. “I saw your thighs,” said I. “That you didn't.” One day she let me put my hand into her bosom; I sniffed. “What's there to smell?” said she. I have some idea that she used to watch me closely when I was with her sister, as she was always looking after her, and before she kissed me would open the door suddenly or go out of the room and then return. I've seen the other sister just outside the door of the room, when suddenly opened.

The big sister must have been five feet nine high, and large in proportion; the impression on my mind is that she was two and twenty: that age dwells in my recollection, and that my mother remarked it. She had brown hair and eyes, I recollect well the features of the woman. Her lower lip was like a cherry, having a distinct cut down the middle, caused she said by the bite of a parrot, which nearly severed her lip when a girl. This feature I recollect more clearly than anything else. My mother remarked that, though so big, she was lighter in tread than anyone in the house, her voice was so soft; it was like a whisper or a flute, her name was I think Betsy.