Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. I.djvu/79

 legs, nestle between his thighs, sniff him like a dog, or pat and paddle him; but, alas! he seldom heeded me.

"My greatest delight in my boyhood was to see men bathing. I could hardly keep myself from rushing up to them; I should have liked to handle and kiss them all over. I was quite beyond myself when I saw one of them naked.

"A phallus acted upon me, as—I suppose—it does upon a very hot woman; my mouth actually watered at its sight, especially if it was a good-sized, full-blooded one, with an unhooded thick and fleshy glans.

"Withal, I never understood that I loved men and not women. What I felt was that convulsion of the brain that kindles the eyes with a fire full of madness, an eager bestial delight, a fierce sensual desire. Love I thought was a quiet chaffy drawing-room flirtation, something soft, maudlin and æsthetic, quite different from that passion full of rage and hatred which was burning within me. In a word, much more of a sedative than an aphrodisiac.'

"Then I suppose you had never had a