Poses plastiques.—Sarah departs.—My despair.—Hannah's
comfort.—Foolscap and masturbation.—Cheap cunt.—A
Mulatto.—The baudy house accounts.—Concerning Sarah.—The
parlour.—The gay ladies there.—My virtue.—Louisa Fisher.—
A show of legs.—The consequence on me.—Effect on Mrs. X..i.
I dined with Sarah repeatedly until her departure, she was now often in low spirits, and drank very freely of champagne; then would fuck with a passion and energy which did not seem natural to her, for by look and general manner one would have sworn she was even tempered, and without much passion,—had I not found that out by experience? One night soon after she had brought her children to me, she seemed wild with lust. What was the matter with me I don't know, but I had no desire for her, and could scarcely stiffen for the embrace; yet she was in ecstacies with me as I fucked her. "Do it again," said she. "I can't." "You must do it,—I've not washed." "I can't." "Yes,—yes.—I'm mad for you," said she,—and we kept on fucking till early the next morning. "I am in the family way again I think," said she as she left, "and if so will jump over Westminster Bridge." But she was not, and after that night she persuaded me not to spend in her, but to withdraw just as my emission took place. "It will spoil all my plans if I am in the family way," said she, "all I have done will be of no use if I cannot act." "Act?" "Yes, I am an actress." "Does not your husband spend in you?" "No one has spent in me but you, since my miscarriage,—I won't let him, and he doesn't want me in the family way."
"You an actress!" "Yes,—have you never seen me?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes." "Did you ever see the Poses plastiques and Madame W...t.n?" "Yes, two or three years ago." "Well I was one of her troupe." "Good God!—and what do you do now?" "Nothing,—but we have a troupe going on the Continent,—I am the principal—I am Madame W...t.n now."
Then she told me she had in her youth been a model for artists, had sat to Etty and Frost, hers was the form which had been painted in many of their pictures,—and then she would say no more.
I grew sadder and sadder as the time came for her departure; so did she. She said I worried and unsettled her; she wondered sometimes if she were doing the best thing for herself and children or not. She was so frightened lest she should get in the family way, that as already said she made me withdraw before the critical moment, spending my sperm on her thighs or on the crisp hair of her motte. I got an idea into my head (a stupid one enough), that if she were to get in the family way by me she would stay in London; and one night after we had dined, and she had had pleasure in my groping, and as usual had said, "Now don't do it in me," I plunged my prick up, and spent a full stream in her cunt. "I hope to God that sperm's all up your womb," said I. Her own pleasure had so overcome her, that she could not move for a minute; then jumping up she washed herself with a sponge,—she recently had used one. I never had a spend in her again for months afterwards.
Then for hours I used to look her over and over from head to foot, as if I wished to recollect every part of her person for ever afterwards: the roots of her hair, the ears, the way the hair grew on the nape of her neck; the way it grew on her cunt, and in her arm-pits, and every other part I used to look over as if searching for something; the only part of her which escaped my investigations was the bum-furrow, which was to me an uncomfortable part in all women, and in my wildest sexual ecstacies and aberrations I neither felt it nor saw it, and don't know whether the hole was round or square; red or brown.
After she had told me she had sat as a model, she brought me a small oil-painting of herself made by an artist of some rank. She was proud of it, and so was her husband. I offered such a price for it, that placed as she was she could not resist, and I bought it. She gave me one day a photograph of herself; both had the characteristic opening of the lips well shown. It is only recently that I have destroyed these mementos of a dead affection.
When I saw that nothing would keep her in England I did my best to help her enterprise, gave her money freely, paid for dresses, boots, travelling cloaks, children's dresses, and in brief for everything. During the nine months I had known her she in fact ran me dry, and in debt. I spent upon her more than I could have lived on for four years at the rate I lived at just before I met her. But I was now in better circumstances than I had been for years, and the money was my own.
As the time approached, I could neither sleep nor eat, and used to be at J... s Street hours before I knew she could come; would wait any time for her, treating Hannah and the ladies, and doing nothing but talk about Sarah. Sometimes I used to think about following her abroad. When she came to the house, I used to spend my time in crying, and she after telling me not to be foolish, would cry too. Then, "Oh! let me see you naked." "There then." Then came kisses all over her body. "Oh! now for God's sake don't spend in me." Then came a delicious fuck; then crying and moaning recommenced. She left a week at least before she had said she should, and did so to prevent me the pain of parting with her,—I must give her that credit. Hannah told me so.
I had arranged to see her one morning, and was as usual there before my time. Hannah stepped out from the parlour. "Has Sarah come?" She beckoned me into the parlour. "Why they all sailed this morning,—my sister went to see them off,—did you not know?" I staggered to the sofa dizzy, speechless, then senseless. When I came to myself Hannah was standing besides me with brandy and water and a spoon with which she was putting it into my mouth.
"Don't take on so," said she, "don't think any more about Sarah,—she is a fine woman, but there are lots as good,—I know a dozen, and any one would be glad to know a man like you,—have some brandy and water,"—and she took a great gulp herself. "There now," said she bending over me. "would you like to see Mrs.———, she who met you the other night in here with Sarah,—she has taken quite a fancy to you,—don't cry. Sarah will come back, and if she don't you'll get another woman whom you will like as well. There is Mrs.———, a splendid shaped woman who only sees one gentleman here,—she took quite a fancy to you, though she only saw you once." But I was desperate, and rushed out of the house. Where I went to, I don't even recollect, but went home at last very drunk,—an extraordinary occurence for me.
For some days I was prostrate in mind, and almost in body, but at length recovered sufficiently to attend a little to my affairs which had gone altogether to the bad for a month, and had been going bad for many months. I resolutely set myself against going to J... s Street, and would not have women; indeed scarcely knew where to lay my hand on a shilling, so necessity had perhaps as much to do with my virtue as anything else; but I was generally in a weak, low state of health, and really believe, though it seems to me almost incredible now, that it was well nigh three weeks before I touched or saw a cunt after Sarah left.
Then one Sunday I had erections all day long. After dinner lust drove me nearly mad; so I went to my room, took a clean sheet of white paper, and frigged myself over it. My prick only slightly subsided, I frigged again, and then as the paper lay before me covered with sperm-pools I cried, because it was not up my dear Sarah's vagina, laid my head on the table where the paper lay, and sobbed with despair, jealousy, and regrets, for I thought some one would fuck her if I did not, that it would be her hateful husband whom she had helped to keep with my money.
I may say here that on several occasions of my life I have frigged myself over a clean sheet of foolscap paper; it was mostly done for curiosity, to see what my sperm was like, whether it was as thin, or as thick, or as large in quantity as at the last time I previously had masturbated.
I could not after that Sunday keep away from J...s Street, and went there the next day. "I don't expect she'll write to you," said Hannah, "even if she said she would,—what will be the use?—it will only make you miserable." But I felt sure she would, and kept away from women still for some time after that,—I was stumped for money among other reasons. Then I began to spend involuntarily in the night, which to me was more hateful than frigging myself; so one night I went out for a bit of cheap quim. Whether I saw Brighton Bessie or not I can't say, but I think I did, and did later on.
I went first into the streets near a large well-known tavern at a spot where several big thoroughfares meet, and where there is a large traffic, and picked up my cheap women there. But the women, their chemises and petticoats, and their rooms shocked me more than they used, and kept me chaster than I otherwise might have been.
One night I went home with a tall straight woman who would not take my fee. "No," said she, "I've got two nice little rooms of my own." If you get a woman for five shillings you have to pay for the room besides, and ten shillings is only a small sum; so I went with her for ten shillings, and saw her at intervals for a few months.
She was about five feet nine high, was not stout, was as straight as a lath, yet not thin, had very firm but quite small breasts, and a biggish bum. She had Mulatto blood in her veins she told me, and was brown-skinned, had a large mouth and very thick lips, the Negro blood showed there plainly; her hair was dark, and so were her eyes; her cunt was a pouter: it was small, but the lips pouted out more thickly I think than those of any woman I ever yet saw, yet they were not flabby, but protruded largely like two halves of a sausage; the hair was black, short, and intensely crisp and curly; it felt like curled horse-hair. I used to think her a plain woman, one of the plainest, but she was a glorious fuckster; her cunt was tight inside, and yet so elastic as not to hurt or pinch (and I was at that time when just at spunking point as often said before tender-pricked). The hair of her head was coarse yet straight, her large mouth was filled with teeth of a splendid whiteness, and when she smiled she showed the whole set. It was seeing her large white teeth that first attracted me before I could distinguish any other feature of her face; you could see them at night right across a road, they were dazzling, and almost made one forget the great thick-lipped orifice which opened to expose them. I have before told of women who attracted me by their teeth, and particularly of a Creole.
This Mulatto as I called her, amused me with her letcherous postures; she was as lithe as a willow branch, and was willing to please. I was fond of making her kneel on the bed with bum towards me, and her legs nearly close together, and then the backward pout of her cunt was charming to me, so much so that I took to poking her dog-fashion.
One night when I was full of sperm I made her remain in the exact posture until all my spunk had run out of her cunt, and sat holding a candle towards her rump till I was satisfied with the sight; and more than once I kept her in that position, looking at the gruelly lips until I fucked her a second time.
She had such a very remarkable steady walk that she scarcely seemed to move, she glided; her feet were so nicely carried forward, and her body so evenly balanced from her hips. In this respect she resembled a tall dark woman named Fletcher, whom I knew quite recently. There must have been something in the arrangement of their thighs and hips which caused this. Women who are accustomed to carry heavy loads on their heads always walk straight, and never roll from side to side as most people more or less do; but I don't know that either of the women named had carried baskets on their heads,—I knew the walk of that class of women, having been born in the neighbourhood where they worked.
She I imagine had a liking for my doing it naked with her, for she was always suggesting that we should strip; but she could not bear my fucking her dog-fashion. When I stripped and got into her on her belly, she would twist her legs right into mine in quite a snaky fashion, and sometimes lift her legs up till her heels were almost up to my blade-bones. She also like a few others I have poked seemed to have the power of holding my prick in her cunt quite tightly after I had spent,—perhaps because she had not spent herself, for about her pleasures in the copulation I am not sure, though she always impressed me as being a hot-cunted one.
After I had once been to J... s Street again I went more and more frequently. Hannah was always nearly screwed,—champagne or brandy pleased her best.
When she was so, she would at times gradually let out much that she knew,—and this is what she let out one day.
"Bah! her husband indeed!—she is not married,—he's got a wife besides, and Sarah knows it,—he's blackened his wife's eyes more than once when she has been annoying them; but that don't pay, for she is his lawful wife; so he allows her something, and it keeps her quiet, and she won't last long, for she is drunk from daybreak till night. Sarah's a real good one to keep the lazy beggar,—she keeps them all poor thing, ever since he could not get any engagement; there's she, and their children, and her sister, who lives with them, and then there is her old mother who she keeps, and his wife as well,—she has enough to do poor thing." This came out one day after Hannah had dined; I had brought her a bottle of specially fine brandy, and we were sitting in the parlour drinking it together mixed with water.
I had long been getting into Hannah's good graces. I stood wine and brandy, was always respectful to her and the gay ladies I met in her parlour, and never used coarse, rude language to them, nor in speaking of them or of ladies of their class. Hannah told me I was a great favorite with several of them, as indeed I found to be the case. I may say that all my life I never spoke disrespectfully to, or of gay ladies, so long as they behaved themselves; they have been mostly throughout my life, kind and true to me after their fashion, they gave me pleasure, and I treated them as if I was grateful for it.
But I was moreover serviceable to Hannah. Once or twice as told she had brought me some figures to cast up, and when Sarah had left, she brought me others on various little scraps of paper. She asked me never to mention my having done so to her sister, and I did not. I became curious at finding the items were all in five shillings, seven and sixpence, ten and twenty shillings; at last it struck me what it was, and taxing her with it found it was the takings of the baudy house, she told me so with a laugh. She could not write herself.
The takings were put on slips of paper by the servants, and by some process of her own which she could not explain, she got a rough sort of check on the servants to prevent them robbing her. She had to account to the real owner of the house,—and how she did it she alone knows. This is certain (she once admitted it), that from the takings she put a pound a day into her own pocket. Whether she robbed the owner to that extent, or whether it was her admitted share I never knew. She was well dressed, had excellent food, allowed her Guardsman money, her sister's husband money, and others too I rather think. But after she'd taken her three or four hundred pounds a year, there was a splendid income handed over to some one. This house had but eight rooms, and two more closets to let out for fucking; they often took twenty pounds a day, and sometimes much more.
I did this arithmetic pretty regularly, and she became my fast friend. She told me all about Sarah that she knew (what Sarah at a future day told me agreed with it), and much about the habits of other loose ladies which will be partially narrated in due time, and a good deal about baudy house management.
And now more about Sarah's antecedents. A new species of entertainment had sprung into existence a few years before this time, called "Poses plastiques," in which men and women covered with silk fitting tightly to their naked limbs and made quite white, placed themselves on stages in classical groups to the sound of music. Women and men of great physical beauty formed these groups, they were in fact actors of that class. Madame W...t.n known as a splendid model first got them up; her husband was a splendid man, Sarah was her niece, and also had a beautiful form which ran in the family; she was poor, and Madame W...t.n took her to live with them, and at seventeen years of age she appeared as Venus.
At nineteen she had a child by Madame W...t.n's husband, at twenty a second. Madame found out the father, and kicked Sarah out. Mr. W...t.n then kicked Madame out, and went to live with Sarah, rows ensued, other companies of "Poses plastiques" came into competition, the thing got overdone, he could not get his living; he knew a trade, but was I expect too lazy to work at it; so Sarah took to letting herself out as model, and that being poor pay, to letting out her cunt to get their bread; she had just began it when I first met her. They seem during a year or more to have parted with all their goods, before she took to showing her belly-parting for money.
So beautiful a form of course succeeded, and for a time I became the principal milk-cow. Then a proposition was made to form a troupe to go to the Continent; there seemed to be a grand opening, and with Sarah's money (most of it got from me), the apparatus, costumes, properties, and troupe were got together.
Off they had gone. She and her husband were the exhibition-managers, speculators, and chief actors.
Hannah made a mouth when I asked what sort of a man Mavis was. She did not think much of him,—why did he not work—he had a trade?—no, because he was no longer able to get on as an actor, he preferred to let Sarah get the living for the whole of them. "Ah! you'll see her back, mark my words,—they won't succeed,—and then what will take place? —you'll see,—is she poor thing to work and do everything, that he may lay a bed, dress as a gentleman, and do nothing but take her out for a walk on a Sunday; she is as proud of his taking her out for a walk on a Sunday as if he kept her a carriage." After much reflexion I came to the conclusion that Sarah had only just turned harlot about the time I had first met her that she did it to keep her man and her family, and he got accustomed to his woman getting his living for him.
I kept on calling at J... s Street, always expecting to hear of Sarah. Hannah was glad to see me, for now I cast up her accounts weekly. I got acquainted with two or three ladies there who came at intervals to meet their friends. They were very nice women, none were ever to be seen in the streets, they had either their own acquaintances whom they met at J... s Street, or Hannah had introduced them to gentlemen there. They were not a bit like whores in dress, appearance or manner, and my acquaintance with them opened my mind to the fact, that there is a large amount of occult fucking going on with needy, middle-class women, whose mode of living and dressing, is a mystery to their friends, and who mingle with their own class of society without its being suspected; that their cunts are ever wetted by sperm which lawfully may not be put there.
I began to stand wine when I met them, and was introduced as a friend of Miss Mavis who had gone abroad. I was I found well known by name and a character for kindness, and I expect also for being a fool. All the women were shy at first, Hannah's sister (the servant) I overheard telling Hannah that the ladies did not like my being in the parlour. Hannah at times would ask me to leave, as a lady wanted to come into the parlour and wait there, and so on. But gradually Hannah would say, "Who is it?—oh! she knows him,"—or "Oh! she won't mind,—let her come in." So by degrees I became intimate with these privately gay ladies, and several of them on more than one occasion joined their sweet bodies to mine in the game of under and over.
I had never had a woman in the house since Sarah had gone; firstly because I did not then pay more for the girls than I did for the room alone at J... s Street, and because, I feared if Sarah came back Hannah would tell her,—as if it would have mattered to Sarah in any way excepting that another woman would get the money she might have had. Still I had that stupid idea about the matter, and although I had longed for one or two of the other ladies, and although they had looked languishingly at me, I never had then proposed a private interview upstairs.
One day Hannah said she had heard from Sarah who had asked after me. "They are (Sarah and the troupe) getting on well," said Hannah, "if she says so I suppose they are,—but we shall see." Suddenly, "Have you had another woman since she left?" The question startled me. "No." "Oh! I don't believe it,—if you haven't you're a nasty man." Then I confessed, and told her what I had done. "Why don't you have Mrs. Fisher?" said she. "I'm poor, and can't,—I'm not going to do what I did with Sarah." "Lord she won't mind,—she'd like you I know,—but don't say I said so,—she's got a lovely leg,—she's a fine woman,—nearly as fine made as Sarah Mavis, and she is taller,—she never gets it done at home." Hannah was unusually muddled with liquor that day, and let out; her sister was not there to check her with, "Now then Hannah you'd better shut up,"—and Hannah described Mrs. Fisher's hidden charms till my cock stood.
I would pass hours sketching from recollection Sarah Mavis' limbs and form, her bum and cunt being the most favorite subjects; then so randy that I did not know what to do with myself, I would rush out into the streets to prevent my frigging myself,—and erotic night-dreams were frequent.
"Why don't you see Mrs. X.. i," said Hannah to me, "she likes you, and would come up any day if I wrote to her (I had supped two or three times with that lady),—I would not fret about Sarah, although she is a fine woman,—you let her see you have another woman, and she will come round if she comes back." But I did not for a time.
One afternoon however being in the parlour, Mrs. X.. i was there, a splendid woman about twenty-six years old. Also there was a young woman who had two children by a man with whom she was about to go abroad, and she was a lovely woman. The two ladies had just had a two o'clock dinner with Hannah, I had just come from my Club after luncheon, and sent for champagne. All our talk got frisky,—all knew Sarah, my love. If I could get any one to talk with me about her, I was delighted, and began at it. Said the Mistress, "Well she is a splendid-formed woman certainly,—splendid, but there are lots of others,—I've got a good leg to my knee, so has Mrs. X.. i, and Mrs.———," (meaning the other whose name I forget).
"Show us your leg," said one. "There," said Hannah pulling up her clothes, "now show yours." They all showed their limbs, one after another. "You might fancy you had Sarah's legs round your thighs, if you had Mrs. X...i's there," said Hannah. I was nigh bursting for a fuck. Mrs. X...i pulled her clothes up higher, and stood up to show the leg better; the other ladies did the same. I felt my pleasure coming, and objecting to wet my shirt, began to unbutton. "Oh I can't bear it," I cried, "oh! my God I'm coming,"—and the instant my prick was free from my trousers I spent copiously, the three women their petticoats still up nearly to their cunts, looking and laughing. I had not frigged, it was fullness, and the voluptuous delight at seeing the limbs of the three fine women which fetched me. "There is lots of stuff in him," said one. Ashamed of myself I begged their pardons, and sent for more wine. "He had better have given one of you ladies that good spunk," said the Mistress. I overcame my bash fulness, they laughed about what Sarah Mavis had missed, one professed to feel annoyed at my behaviour. "Oh! you are damned modest," said Hannah.
Mrs. X...i soon afterwards went upstairs into the bed-room to a gentleman she had come to meet. The Mistress said she should lay down,—she always did after her dinner, and slept for two hours,—she was fuddled, and indeed always was. The mother of the two children and I were alone; from the instant I had spent she had never taken her eyes off me,—never. I recollect the look of her dark eyes and their expression quite well. Hannah snored almost directly. "Let us have a kiss," said the lady to me, "I know you are fond of a well-formed woman,"—and she pulled up her clothes a little. She was sitting on the sofa, my prick rose, I bolted the door, and we fucked whilst the Mistress kept snoring.
Mrs. X... i came down. "What you here still?—what have you been doing?" The mother replied, "He has been smoking, and talking about his dear Sarah." The woman was actually sitting at that very moment with a flood of my sperm up her cunt, for she had neither wiped, nor washed, nor pissed since I had fucked her. Then they talked about X... i's friend who was a clergyman. X... i was the wife of a man who lived with her, but never had her (so she said); she hated him, he had clapped her once.
The mother went out of the room, and came back, Hannah awoke, we had tea, I paid, it was my rule then to pay for everything for the ladies whenever I was in the baudy house parlour. I rose to go, shaking hands with the two ladies. The one whom I had embraced put a bit of paper privately into my hand. Outside the house I read it. "Wait outside," it said. I had been delighted with her pleasure, and did so. She came out, we walked quickly off. "You go to the top of the next street," said she, "and I'll meet you,"—and she went another way, and met me at the top. "I did that in case X... i came out," said she, "let us go and have dinner together." "I have not enough money," said I. "Never mind, I have." We went to the Café de P..v...e, and dined; I fucked her again and again on a sofa. She was a charming woman. As we sat on a little sofa dallying after dinner, she said she had not had it for a month, her friend had gone to Germany, where they were going to live, to make arrangements, he would return in a few days; then he, she, and the children were going to Germany with him. "I liked you," said she, "but when I saw what you did before us this afternoon, I could scarcely stop myself, I wanted it so badly,—I dare say I'm in the family way,—oh! don't look,—it's full,—it's dirty,—you shan't." The next instant I was up her again; afterwards she washed, and I saw her cunt. I paid for the dinner partly, she the rest,—I had not a sixpence left. "I'm sorry," I said to her, "that I have no more money." "I did not come here for money," said she. "Let me leave you half a dozen pair of gloves at No. 11." "No, I've lots of gloves." "Then give me a kiss." She stood putting her tongue in my mouth for a minute, then giving me a hearty kiss off she went. I never saw her, nor had her again. Hannah told me she was in Germany, and very happy there.