Then I saw Sarah again well-dressed, and getting money, but heart-broken. The man had her children, and refused to give them up to her. He had knocked her down. She had threatened a magistrate. He had said that he would tell the magistrate that the reason why he refused them was that she was a whore and a drunkard. She had the misery of seeing her man, her two children, and her sister walking out together, and of her own children telling her she was a whore, and that they would be whipped if they spoke to her. She told me this — Hannah said it was true.

Then she left the quarter, and went to live with her mother somewhere in the extreme north of London, and drank very hard, Hannah said.

I met her a few years afterward in the Euston Road. How she had aged! “You, Sarah!” “My God, you!” She wanted me to go with her. “One kiss for old acquaintance sake, for I loved you more than you thought.” “No you did not.” “Yes, but my children.” I would not go with her, gave some money, and though I yearned toward her, left. (Hannah had left J***s Street, and the new keeper knew not my Sarah). Again after a time I saw her. I stopped her, and gave her money unsolicited, and never saw her again. She told me she was living with a man. She looked poor and broken.

A few years afterward the trunk of a young woman was found floating in the Thames, there was a peculiar scar below the bosom. I have often wondered if that was the end of Sarah.

I must mention here that after their Casino failed, they acted in poses plastiques at a tavern in the City Road. I took a friend who will presently be named to see them act. Sarah was then much fagged and dilapidated.

Chapter II

Louisa reappears. • Crabs. • My despair. • A friend's advice. • Promiscuous harlotting. • Fucked out. • My friend's little woman. • Lizzie Stanley. • The hole by the back-bone. • The little woman's sister. • Many naked ladies. • Operations in a four-wheeler. • A she on the top. • The cunts in two houses. • Slandered. • A sodomitic offer. • Nonacceptance.

After calling many times, and not seeing Sarah, Louisa appeared again. We met and poked. She was as lascivious and willing as before, but hurried. She was now kept, and was superbly clothed. Tired of knocking about, I wanted to settle to one woman, and told her so. Said she, “If Sarah Mavis was to come any day, you would throw me over for her, — I would once have lived with you on a pound a week, but you would not have it.” That was true. I told her I was going abroad. We met once a week, but I could not reckon on her, and she objected to go to J***s Street; so I used to wait for her with a carpetbag, and go to a hotel, take rooms as if for the night, dine, fuck, and leave. To have this was amusing once or twice, but it did not satisfy me.

She liked me I know, and arranged to stop with me all night at an hotel, which was in Gt. P***l**d Street, but when she came it was impossible, she said, to stay all night. I was excessively angry, and would not fuck her. After dinner she coaxed me, and of course I did, but was sulky. “Don't be angry, — I would like to sleep with you quite as much as you would, but I dare not tonight, — let us do it again.” She was laying on the sofa, I would not. How well I recollect her puffing her whole clothes up to her navel, and laying with her big thighs open. “Do it again, there's a darling.” I threw myself on to her afterwards. “Is not my cunt wet? — you always do make me so wet, — I always seem to spend twice as much with you as I do with my friend.” She kept my prick in her for a quarter of an hour afterward, kissing me all the time. Then she was obliged to go. She was fond of laying on the bed after I had had her, remarking how wet she was, and then shutting her eyes seemed to be thinking voluptuously of the condition of her cunt.

She went away hurriedly, stooping and kissing my naked prick before she departed. She was going out of town, we were to meet again, but we did not and I never saw her after that night. — Hannah did not either.

(This I note here because it seems to indicate to my-self my erotic phase at this period. I never licked the cunt of Sarah or Louisa, nor, to save recurring to the subject, the cunt of Jenny whose doings with me I have already told.)

One day I had Sarah in the morning, had to meet a man at luncheon, and went off hurriedly without washing. I went back in the afternoon, and found Louisa in the parlour. We talked with my hand on her thighs, Hannah said, “You had better go upstairs,” just then the door-bell sounded. Hannah looked out, we heard her say, “Go up sir, she will be here directly I'm sure.” Coming in she laughed. “It was Louisa's friend.” “Hang him,” said Louisa, “let's have a poke.” “Go on to my bed,” said Hannah, and left the room. On the side of the bed I tailed her in no time. She went up-stairs, and where she washed I don't know. There was a bed hidden by curtains but no washing materials in the parlour. Hannah performed her ablutions in the back room when it was not occupied. I dined at my Club, and going home, called on Jenny. She was in fear about her sister coming, but I fucked her on the sofa, and left instantly, went to bed tired and without washing, and by daybreak was off on a fishing excursion. In fact I did not wash my prick for about three days, except the tip which I never failed to wash. Then I found I had the crabs. How did I get them?

I had given up Sarah, but still loved her, though I felt I was a madman to encourage it, and that nothing but trouble and misery to me could come of my taking to her again. I had confided my trouble to an old friend, who chaffed me and cheered me. “You fool, to keep to a woman who is only playing with you, — and a fat flabby woman like that.” He had gone with me to see her in the poses. “Have them younger and fresher, — you'll get plenty to like you, — but directly you find you are taking too closely to any woman in future, cut her, go out of town, go abroad, try fresh women every night, do all you can to forget her, — change of scene, and plenty of change of cunt, is sure to make you forget any woman.”

He was a cold-blooded man, and would have turned off a woman who was in his way with but little ceremony. When he knew of my love-matters he disclosed some of his. I had not the least suspicion before of how much he amused himself with women. His idea of them was that they were only made for amusement, not for affection.

I acted on his advice, and swore I would never have a woman twice. When a woman said after I had stroked her, “Shall I see you again?” “No,” I replied, “never.” What a lot have stared, and asked me why. Then I told them. “All women are not like her,” they mostly replied, but I determined to think they were, and went on changing night after night. Black cunts, brown cunts, little bums, big arses, fat and lean, little and big, I took after each other, just as lust seized me; but however much I enjoyed a woman, go again with her I would not. So I guess nearly a hundred women had my doodle up them, yet I went scaithless, for no ailment overtook me.

This did not satisfy me. I longed to settle at least for a time to a woman, to be a friend to her, to have some one in whom I had some sort of confidence, whom I should always find at home, who would not say she was engaged when I called, would treat me as a friend, and desire again to see me. To feel that I must not have this comfort was doing violence to my best instincts, and I gradually gave up my promiscuous and stern yet lascivious habits. Moreover the variety of cunts had so stimulated my passions that I fucked myself out, and going to a doctor was warned that unlimited indulgence would lead to impotence, and perhaps worse, young even as I was, and not drinking, or doing any-thing else in excess.

My friend disclosed to me that he had a nice little woman, a gay woman whom he visited, and spoke of her as a beautiful little creature. “Come and see her, — I'm going there,” said he when we were dining to-gether one night. We went to Upper N***n Street, then inhabited almost entirely by gay ladies. I found her a poor, thin, insignificant-faced little thing, but with a fine head of hair, and a very sprightly manner. Though I did not like her I commended his choice. “You won't make any attempt to have her whilst I have her?” “Of course not,” I replied, and indeed I had no desire for it.