Even with my inexperience, I knew she was different from Charlotte
at the first poke. I used in my mind to compare the differences.
Charlotte's curiosity, the manifest novelty of fucking to her, even for
a couple of months after her splitting and bleeding; was so different
from the steady, quiet, well satisfied way with which Mary copulated.
Pondering over this, I wondered if she had been done before, how often,
and by how many, or had I been the first? The idea of asking her was
always floating through my brain. That day I said to her as her face was
towards mine on the pillow, and I was toying with her bubbies, "I wonder
who had you before me." She sat up, looked me steadily in the face, and
replied, "You have no right to ask me, you are not my husband." "But
tell me." "I shall not, it is an impertinence; how can a youth like you
know anything about first or second." I blurted out, "Because when first
I did it to Char--" the name was almost out of my mouth, but I stopped
in time, "when I first had a young woman (correcting myself), I could
not easily get into her, it tore my prick, and she bled." "Who was it?"
said she. "Oh! a young woman." "But who was it?" I did not reply. "Was
it Charlotte?" and she looked me hard and full in the face. "No," said
"Now was it? Tell me," said she bending over, kissing and coaxing me.
"No, it was not." "I believe it was, you once said she was young, and
had dark brown hair--it was she." In vain I denied it. "I felt sure it
was, and with a youth like you! Is it possible you can have harmed that
nice girl! What a wretched, wicked lot you all are, you will be as bad
as the others." Then she suddenly said, "Mind, you have sworn solemnly
never to mention to any living soul about me; oh! once forget yourself,
and it's all up with a woman." Then she laid down, again her manner
became quiet and voluptuous--another fuck followed. I again tried the
question. She settled me by saying, "If ever you ask me that question
again, I will not let you have me afterwards," and I never did ask her
that I can recollect until just before she felt us.
But she for some time after asked ME questions about my first woman,
"was she tall? were her teeth as good as hers?" and so on. How far she
satisfied herself that it was Charlotte, she never said; for I
don't recollect that she mentioned her name again, and I gave wrong
descriptions; but may have got more information than I meant her to
have, as she asked me at odd times when I was off my guard.
A third time, to the still greater surprise of my mother, she took a
holiday. We spent it at the house, and she exhausted me and herself. For
a day or two afterwards she gave me every chance at home, and we fucked
furiously. She took to calling me a dear fellow, when her tongue was
not against mine, but which was always the case when our mouths got
together; and I imagine now, must have been a greater luxury to her than
it was then to me. Soon after she received several letters which I said
were from her lover. "I wish they were," said she. Then she took ill,
and when better, refused me altogether. I had opportunities, but she
would not. I said I wished I had never seen her; she said she wished so
too, for she was fond of me, although it was ridiculous at her age
and mine. Afterwards when mother was one evening at the bottom of the
garden, Eliza gone out to the library. I seized Mary as she closed the
shutters; kissing and begging her. She opened her thighs, my fingers
were on her clitoris; she kissing me at intervals said: "Oh! no, oh! I
can't, dear--I dare not--Walter, Walter, you must not; I am a married
woman, and am going home to my husband most likely."
Soon afterwards she told me her history. Married seven years previously,
her husband became dissipated and unfaithful; and from being a
well-to-do tradesman, brought himself to the condition of a labourer.
She forgave him until he gave her a disease, then she left him as she
had threatened to do. Nothing he could say would induce her to have
anything more to do with him. "Is there anything about me that a man
could not be satisfied with for years?" she asked, as if I were a judge.
She went home to her mother. He appears to have been fond of her. Love
of women was his great fault; but the disease so set her against him,
that all his entreaties were useless. Nevertheless she was his wife, and
getting into the mother's house one day, when she was alone (Mary), he
fucked her with violence--and violent it must have been, for she was as
strong as a horse. Directly afterwards she left and went to service in
London, confiding only her address to her mother, taking a false name,
and writing him, that if ever he found her out and annoyed her, she
would go abroad. Her husband made the mother a sort of promise to keep
steady for three months, but failed in doing so, went to America, had
never ceased to write affectionate letters which came to her through
her mother, and had recently written to say he had made a large sum of
money, and was coming home. He had sent money home to the mother with
instructions to settle it on Mary how she liked, provided she would
come back to him. Afterwards she showed me his letters; they were well
written, and in a style above a man of his position in life.
She had lived in service ever since; with us she had then been a year
and a half, and had had but two other places. One she left because
a grown up son began to pay her too much attention. At the other the
master--a married man--made love to her, and one day tried to force her.
I know the last place, it was about three miles from us.
This news came like a cold bath on me. It suited my taste to have a
woman in the house. The idea of losing her was terrible. She refused
me my pleasures. I doubted her truth at times, but whenever I did, she
would fetch a letter as proof saying, "Now will you believe me?" She
refused to say where her home had been, and what her real name was. I
used to try to make out the postmark on her letters, but could not. They
were negligent in those days in such matters, and postage was dear.
And now I again asked if she had had any other but her husband and me;
by all that was holy she declared she had not. "How came you to let me?"
"God in heaven knows!" said she, "months ago if anyone had said such a
thing was possible, I should have said it was ridiculous; I only thought
of you as a tall boy, but that day I felt that my life was passing away
without the pleasures of a woman; what you did kneeling down in the
kitchen upset me, then I let you; though I thought I should ruin myself
by doing so."
She cared but little for her husband, for he had caused her to lead the
life of a widow for years. "Suppose I had done anything wrong," said
she, "and he had found it out, he would have cast me away; but you men
can do what you like, and we poor women have to submit." "But why go
back?" "Four months ago I would not have done so, but you have made me
find out I am a woman after all; you will understand that better as you
grow older. Not many would have kept chaste as I have done until that
night. Now I mistrust myself. I am getting fond of you, but what could
come of it? And if anything came to the ears of my mother and friends,
who are respectable, I should drown myself. I have got plenty of will of
my own, although I am quiet."
****
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