55

I had now passed my twentieth year. The new servants were sisters (how

many times have sisters fallen to me!); the eldest who was cook was

named Sarah; the youngest, Susan. Sarah was about twenty-six, Susan

nineteen or twenty. I carefully arranged the key in the key-hole of

their door the first night, but saw nothing for two or three nights.

Then oh! fortune again. They rose later than my mother liked; she came

up to their room one morning and found them locked in, so she took away

the key. Now I had as far as the key-hole permitted, a fair field, but

then clothes hanging upon pegs on the door were often in my way; yet I

was so persistent in looking when they went to bed, and arose, that I

saw a great deal. How cunning I had got; I had filed and oiled the lock

and hinges of my door and theirs, so that I could close and open them

noiselessly, used to stoop daily with my eye to their key-hole, stepping

from my room with naked feet. I was nearly caught several times, but

never quite. It now seems wonderful that I was not.

I was so demure and quiet in talk about women always, and had kept

myself so circumspectly, that my mother never had the least suspicion of

me,--but in all matters of love and intrigue, mother always seemed to me

as innocent as the babe unborn.

For all that, my mother just then, and to my dismay, seeing that my

little games would be much interfered with, said I better change my

room, and have one on the first floor. Mrs. ------ had remarked, that

being a man now I ought not to sleep on the servants' floor. "As you

please,--it's one flight of stairs less for me, but Mrs. ------ is a

fool," I cried. "And which room?" "Your sister's. Annie will always be

with her aunt adopted, and Jane is only at home in the holidays." But I

would not be pushed into a small room; where was my tub to stand? Where

my books? I must have the spare room. There was much altercation, I made

my mother cry by saying that when of age I would get chambers away from

her, and into the spare room I moved.

It was next to my mother's. Installed there I did nothing but complain

of its inconvenience. I smoked incessantly in it. The smell got into

mother's bedroom, and she could not bear tobacco smoke. I made a noise

when she was in bed,--that annoyed her. I did all in a quiet way to make

her as uncomfortable as possible. An uncle and aunt who stopped with

us when in town, just then came from the country; and not liking my

sister's room, went to an hotel, which wounded mother considerably, so

she said I had better go upstairs again. I refused point blank; being

down there I would remain, and so managed, that she thought I went back

as a favour to her, and much against my will; but was I not glad!--and

got to my spying immediately.

Within a month I had seen them both stark naked, for being sisters they

had not hesitated to strip. I had seen the cook piddle, wash her cunt,

and put on her napkin. Susan's bed was not on the right side for me, but

nevertheless I saw enough of her to compare her with her sister. Sarah

was demure in manner, stout, with a splendid bum, and with little hair

of a lightish brown at the bottom of her belly; she wore black stockings

of which I then had a horror. Susan had a wicked, merry face, and a

splendid bunch of dark hair on her motte which attracted me largely.

It struck me that I should have a better chance with her than with her

sister, and began making approaches; when one Saturday night seeing

Sarah wash herself from head to foot, I got such glimpses of her round

fine haunches, and the split between them, that I fell into a fit of

randy adoration, which settled the direction of my attentions to her

instead of Susan.

I feared to go on with either, because they were sisters, but lust got

the better of my fears. I began kissing cook Sarah; who returned it

saying, she would not have her sister know it on any account. Shortly

after I kissed Susan, who made nearly the same remark; and I found that

each was careful not to tell the other; which was just what had occurred

with two sisters, of whom I have already written. This was very jolly.

Meanwhile I once or twice had a cheap poke on the road, but always with

fear of disease.

I had but little chance of the cook having now no pretext for going into

the kitchen, and the sisters were not much separated; but I looked up my

chances indefatigably, and finding Sunday favorable, to the horror of

my mother, left off going to church in the morning because the cook was

then alone. After our early Sunday dinner, I used to go to my bed-room

nominally to lay down, but really to look through the key-hole at the

cook who on that day only, dressed and washed herself in the middle of

the day, her sister being downstairs. I got on but slowly; in two months

only having taken outside liberties; till meeting Susan coming away from

the privy one day, I saw her press her clothes against her belly to dry

her cunt, and she saw me. Whenever I met her afterwards I used to tuck

my frock-coat between my legs and smile at her. It was an old dodge.

I had then bought a _Fanny Hill_ which I kept in my bed-room locked up.

One morning I forgot to put it by, thought of it and rushed upstairs,

entered the room where the servants had been making the bed, and saw

Sarah intently looking at the book. I had feared that my mother had

entered my room, and seen the book. I stood for an instant motionless,

she turned round, gave a cry, dropped the book, and rushed out of the

room, her face like blood. I locked the book up feeling somewhat uneasy,

but afterwards joked her about it and the smutty pictures, and this took

effect.

There was a fair held not far from us at that time, the girls were to go

there each on separate evenings. Before Sarah went out, I went out, she

had agreed to meet me at the fair; it was dusk, she had a female friend

with her. We went into a dancing booth and had drink, then into the long

room of stalls in which was a dance mob, shouting, crying, pushing each

other, scratching backs, blowing trumpets, and speaking baudily to the

women. As it got later, the men used to feel outside the women's cunts,

and many a so-called modest girl felt a man's prick outside, and passing

in the mob without being found out. Many a grab have I had at my prick

which could only have been done by a woman, who looked quite demure

whilst she did it. I got excited, put Sarah in front of me, and in the

first rush, put my hand round and gave her cunt outside her clothes a

grab. She upbraided me, rushing out of the crowd at the side to escape

me, I after her, into a dark passage, between the backs of the booths,

where men were pissing. They hailed her with laughter, asking her if she

had come to piddle. Back into the crowd she rushed, I with her, and did

the same thing, talking baudily, and kept this up until it was time for

her to go home.