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MY SECRET LIFE on such subjects to anyone; I don’t think I should have done so even to Fred, but he was then away. Gradually I was learning by instinct the whole art of love. What made me offer money to get Martha I can’t say, I don’t think that I had ever heard of tempting women’s virtue by money, but I never forgot the lesson, and much improved on it as time went on.

I now had had four women. The difficulties in the way of getting at them, were very useful in preventing excesses; and kept me in health. It seems surprising to me now, how little I seemed to have thought of baudy attitudes, and lascivious varieties; for belly-to-belly poking on the bed, was nearly all I did. I had still the modest, demure, demeanour which deceived my mother (coupled with her ignorance of life generally) and relations, and though very proud of my achievements, kept them much to myself, never disclosing the names of my women, and only telling one or two intimate friends of what I had done; who reciprocated by telling me their achievements. Fucking had eased my prepuce. I made a practice of pulling it backward and forward several times a day; in fact whenever I piddled. My prick had grown bigger in the two years, which pleased me much, but about the size of it I had a curious doubt, which will be told of further on.

I was though demure, quite a man in manner and looks, and with women behaved in a way which one or two of my relatives remarked. I used to think to myself when talking to them, “Ah! I know what sort of opening you have at the bottom of your belly.” The cousins whose cunts I had had a partial glimpse of, I used to like to dance with, wondering how much the hair had grown on them. I used also to think about my sister’s —182—