Gilbert San Martin
Confessions of an English Maid
CHAPTER ONE
During the course of the years in which I have been more or less closely associated with other prostitutes I have frequently listened to explanations as to just what this one or that owed her degradation; the particular villainy to which she attributed her advent into a life of shame. The usual story is one of seduction by a lover under the inevitable extenuating circumstance of “before I really knew anything,” with the occasional variation, “he put something in my drink, and when I came too…” or, “he was stronger than I was and I couldn't do anything.” In these glib stories, in which none but the inconsequential details vary, the man is always to blame and the girl is never a willing accomplice. She is always, by artifice, force or deception, and subsequent abandonment, the victim of some man's depravity.
I confess that I have listened to these tales and even witnessed a few tears of self-pity, with a certain amount of skepticism. In thinking back over my own life I can find nothing which would serve as a valid excuse to shift upon somebody else the responsibility of my own condition, nor can I in justice accuse any man of having instigated my moral degradation, although the number of those who have taken advantage of my voluntary delinquency is legion. True, were I to hypocritically search for some contributing factor with which to justify myself in my own mind or in the minds of others, I might place some blame upon the environment under which I was raised as a child, yet, a conscientious analysis of my subsequent life leads me to no other conclusion than that had these conditions been entirely normal I would still, just as water seeks its level, have drifted into a life analogous to that in which you find me.
I do not believe that character is made by environment or training. I am something of a fatalist and it is my conviction that the seeds of goodness or badness, kindness or malevolence, virtue or viciousness, are implanted in the soul right from the beginning, and while some slight modifications either for better or for worse may be possible under varying circumstances, the net result will not be greatly changed.
In my childhood days I knew two brothers, sons of affluent parents highly respected in the community. These two boys were raised under the most favorable home and moral environment possible to imagine. The elder, always the personification of honor and circumspection, occupies a position of trust high in the affairs of the nation. The younger child of the same parents, raised under exactly the same conditions and influences, early in life manifested all the characteristics of an irresponsible nature and is today being sought for his participation in a robbery which culminated in murder. I know of other such instances.
I was seduced by no man, but I managed to get rid of my maidenhead before I was twelve years old. By the time I was fourteen I had been fucked by a dozen young fellows and several older men. I wasn't infatuated or deceived or coerced. I let them fuck me because it felt nice, because I liked it, and even the fact that shillings and even larger sums of money could be easily and pleasantly acquired didn't play any very important part in my complacency.
I was eight and Rene, my foster brother, ten when mutual curiosity about each other's little sexual attributes first began to take the form of child efforts to unravel Nature's mysteries. These efforts, which at first did not pass much beyond the observational stage, with an occasional touching and fingering, were inspired more by curiosity than sexual promptings; nevertheless, we sensed more elements of forbidden fruit and exercised considerable caution in hiding ourselves when the impulse was upon us to gratify our curiosity.
Under the roof of our home was an attic which was used as a sort of storeroom for discarded furniture and other odds and ends. Rene and I converted it into a species of playhouse.
Access to this attic was gained by a steep and narrow stairway enclosed between dark walls, and our parents rarely climbed these stairs, and would have given us ample warning by their footsteps had it occurred to them to do so; we felt reasonably secure, and always repaired to this obscure hideaway when the mood to do something naughty was upon us.
Mamma Agnes was not my real mother. My own mother had died when I was four years old. With the practical philosophy of a widower left with a small child on his hands, Papa lost no time in acquiring a new wife, and in less than six months I had a mamma and a stepbrother two years older than myself.
I lay neither censure nor praise at the feet of Mamma Agnes. She was kind to me in an indifferent way and I believe she cared as much for me as she did for her own child, Rene. She was simply not the maternal type, and though she accepted the material obligations which our presence represented uncomplainingly and kept us clean and well fed, there existed an almost complete absence of anything in the nature of moral or spiritual upbringing. We were punished occasionally, but only when our misbehavior constituted an annoyance to others.
For two years Rene and I slept in the same bed. When I was about six I remember hearing Papa tell Mamma Agnes that we were too big to be sleeping together. Mamma Agnes made some protest which I didn't understand, but the next night a bed was arranged for Rene in another room and thereafter we slept apart. I missed feeling Rene's warm little body close to mine in the night and wanted to know why we were not to sleep together anymore. Mamma Agnes made an evasive explanation. “It isn't nice for boys and girls to sleep together,” was the tactless reply which only served to kindle the restless fires of curiosity. During the next year or two some light, still of an obscure nature, was thrown on the subject by other children who were not adverse to sharing their knowledge with us.
I was not supposed to see Rene's dickey, and he likewise was not supposed to see my cunny. This was the sum and substance, apparently, of the incomprehensive order of things which had abruptly terminated our bedfellowship. And immediately we both began to feel the itch to see what we were not supposed to see, and to which we had paid but scant attention when the opportunity had been freely at hand and un-forbidden.
The juvenile soul thirsts for knowledge-of a certain kind. What was the real basis of all this sly mystery about little boys' dickies and little girls' cunnies? “A boy puts his dickey in a girl's cunny,” said one. “That's the way you get babies, only you can't have a baby until you're married.” “When you rub your cunny it gives you a nice feeling,” said another.
In the security of our attic hideaway Rene and I diligently sought the answer to the mystery. The erstwhile playroom was converted into a juvenile brothel. We dragged an ancient mattress from behind an accumulation of wrecked furniture and laid it out on the floor. I straddled out on this mattress with my legs apart while Rene looked and fingered until his curiosity was temporarily satisfied and I was compensated by being permitted to look at and squeeze his little dickey. It was a source of never-ending wonder to watch it go through its erotic evolutions, expanding, swelling, hardening, until it projected stiffly and rigidly forward. I tried to see whether, by holding it tightly in my fist, I could prevent it from getting big, but in my grasp it seemed to grow even faster, easily displacing my clenched fingers and causing me curious, shivery sensations.
Time and time again we tried to effect actual copulation, but there was something amiss, and the failure puzzled us. The playing, looking and fingering were pleasant, but there was something lacking, something sweet, something elusive which we sensed was close at hand but which still eluded us.
Picture to yourself a group of twenty happy, carefree youngsters of both sexes, ages ranging from eight to twelve, their strident little voices ringing out in careless abandon as they pursue their innocent amusements, converting a refuse-strewn lot into an enchanted fairyland. Even the bloated loafers and derelicts of the street who cast a casual glance at the little innocents must not fail to feel a twinge of sentimentality.
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lay-dee.
But, hark! There is more to the song. The shriller masculine voices take the ascendancy, and little girls are heard only in a confusion of laughter and giggling.
