At the age of seventeen, when I was preparing myself for the final
exams, my parents rented a room for me in town so as to prepare me for
my life as a university student which I was to lead In London.
Suddenly left to my own devices in that large and strange city, I
overflowed with excitement at the thought that now I would be able to
see whom I pleased and when I pleased. But most of all, now I would be
able to fulfill my dream for an amorous adventure: a dream which had
preoccupied all my waking hours and had tormented* my flesh.
However this desire was to be frustrated by a habit which had grown
to be stronger than my will power to overcome it. Masturbation proved
to be more than just a passing phase, and it soon became evident that
due to unfortunate circumstances it had become a vice which I could not
get rid of.
And yet the opportunities of making love in a normal accepted way
with a woman were not wanting; far from it.
As I was quite good looking, and my pockets full of generously
supplied pocket money, I had all that is necessary for the seduction of
those creatures of the weaker sex. However an obsessional force,
stronger than my conscious desires, kept me from experiencing that
complete fulfillment in their fleshy arms.
I slept with some women and even succeeded in taking them, but never
in achieving an orgasm within or with them. Just when I reached the
height of excitation; on the edge of the pit of satisfaction something
would click inside of me and I would be forced to pull myself out and
away from my partner. Then, once alone again in the solitude of my own
room I would reach that final orgasm by masturbation.
I was able to experience all the jobs of love-making except its
natural culmination.
With both prostitutes and young girls, who had just lost their
virginity, I had the same misadventure, as with a certain maid whose
image is still fresh in my memory.
I had seen her in the courtyard of the building in which I lived. She
was tall and brunet, with healthy round cheeks, and stocky
work-hardened legs.
One day as I passed her in that same courtyard she looked me straight
in the eyes and smiled, before continuing on her way to the cellar
where the people she worked for kept a pile of junk, coal and wood for
the winter. She did something to me and I charged my direction to
follow her.
I caught up with her in the cellar filled with propitious shadows.
She was bending down just in front of me, revealing the slip beneath
her skirt With two trembling hands I grabbed her about the waist, and
as she straightened up I squeezed her buttocks.