Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/261

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
Year 1905—Open Career Ends.
231

thirty—strong, but controllable. For about a year, however, I did not relinquish the open career of a fairie because circumstances had placed me in a remarkably seductive environment. I was also influenced by the desire to make the most of my youth—for at thirty-one I was told that I looked to be twenty-one. A quasi-public fairie career must end before youthfulness passes. I had in advance reconciled myself to semi-chastity, as monandry, after I should pass the age of thirty. As already stated, the saving of my physical and mental vigor was a powerful motive in my weaning. Most of all, my being nearly murdered by soldiers contributed to enabling me to break away from my intimate association with them at the forts. In previous years I had rejected excellent positions because they would take me out of New York and thus put a stop to my visits to the forts. Now in 1905, a few weeks after my disaster at the hands of men of Ft. Z, I was for the first time able to leave New York permanently. ******* One morning at the close of my association with the men of Ft. Z, I discovered a chancre on the under surface of my tongue. '" At last a chancre!" I exclaimed with a slight laugh. It lasted six weeks. Simultaneously at two points the gum of the upper jaw became as hard as bone. Beginning two months later, I would every few minutes during the day for about a month feel a pleasurable thrill in different parts of the body, now in the arm, now in the leg, etc. [Four months after the appearance of the primary sore, a second chancre appeared on the under surface of the tongue, only slightly painful, and lasting three weeks. During this time I felt rather ill.