MY SECRET LIFE
done much that I did makes me now laugh, I must have been very green, and Camille very cunning; but I was also rich, and generous, which accounts for much. I see now how largely I was humbugged, but cannot explain or reason about it. I am telling facts as they occurred, as far as I recollect them, it is all I can do. Certainly I had a splendid full-grown virgin for my money, the toughest virginity I yet have taken, a regular cock-bender, and had an uninterrupted honey-moon. Camille was a most superior harlot, genteel, clever, and voluptuous, such as are not usually found; with her and her findings I had a year's enjoyment, leaving me lav, blaze, and a half-cured clap. What with women, horses, carriages, cards, dinners, and other items, I was a few thousands poorer than at the beginning of my acquaintance with Camille.
It's my fate to have sisters,—how curious!—and thrice to have had the clap, and yet not three-and-twenty,—how hard! I was very much used up, and needed rest for body and mind; never had I been so much so before. Up to the time of getting my fortune want of money curbed my lascivious tastes, and although I had servant after servant in my mother's house, the difficulties of getting them, gave me frequent rests, and prevented me generally from exhausting myself; perhaps I got just enough fucking to keep me in health. The year's rioting with Camille and her troupe, would have tried a strong man; I never counted them, but think, that in that year I must have poked something like sixty, or seventy different women, I poked everyone of Camille's acquaintances, I am sure,—so it was time I had a rest.
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