Two or three minutes afterwards he said, “Here Walter”, and both listening heard the voices of women, but very indistinctly. Fred lighted a candle. Said he, “Here is an old door screwed up, it leads into a room. What a lark to get it open, or a hole through it; nothing I so like as to hear what women say, when they think no one hears them.”
I suggested it was unfair, it might be his sisters' room. “It don't matter”, said he, “it's all in the family.” He went to dinner, and then back to his room. He at once got to the closet, undid his gun-case, and taking out the gun-screw, tried to loosen the screws of the door, but could not. Off he went to the village, came back with a screwdriver, and with some labor opened the door. Then we found ourselves in another empty place nearly as big, and at the end of it rough boards nailed across a frame horizontally, and as we supposed covered over on the other side. It evidently had been a passage, and when they separated the house, they had screwed up the door into the room of which we did not yet know the use, leaving the door at the end next Fred's room as it was, and had fixed up some woodwork across the end of the passage, thus making the large closet at one end, and the empty space at the other. We were dusty with our job.
After breakfast next day, aunt, Fred and I went round to see his sister and cousin. We saw their bed-rooms accompanied by them and aunt. We were in fact shown over the house. Fred had previously looked well at the outside, to see how the windows ran. “What is that room which is shut off ?” “Oh !” said his sister, “that is a bath-room; look, such a nice one.” We entered it; it was the room up to which the pass-age at the back of the closet led. Fred winked at me, and when we got back he roared. “Oh I lord, we shall see them naked, — the boards have twisted, there are cracks next the bath-room, — we'll run a knife between one, and through the canvas and paper; then we will see through, — oho ! ho ! we shall see the girls bathing, —there are two or three damned fine girls.”
Had it been servants, I should have been delighted at a peep; but to rip a hole to spy on young ladies, and one of those his sister, revolted me. “Damn it Fred, it's not the thing, one is your own sister.” “Pough! you have seen their cunts.” (It was not the two I had seen.) “Ah ! those were children.” “Well ** and are only larger, and have hair on their cunts, and you need not look.” “But if we are found out, we are disgraced; if it were at an hotel or elsewhere, I would not mind.” “It won't be found out.” “They will see the crack in the paper.” “They won't, they will think it split by the boards warping, if they do; besides there are cracks and some shelves up, I know exactly the place.
Nothing stopped him, and after boring, prodding, and getting a chair to stand on to find the right place, he at length made some cracks a few inches long with a knife, and we saw day light through the bath, towels, clothes-pegs, and a large cane settee or sofa. I would not look at first, but so weak is man's nature concerning a woman, that at length I did, and a thrill of pleasure shot through me as I thought of seeing the naked girls, and strange enough I recollect a feeling of curiosity about the figures my two cousins would cut if they were naked. I thought of the quims of his sisters some years before, and wondered what difference between these and those.
Carefully locking the closet we went out. When we returned Fred peeped at every opportunity, but saw nothing that day. The next morning Fred awakened me. “Get up, they are going to bathe, a servant is fill- ing the baths.” It was a cold dark morning. “I shan't.” “Don't”, and off he went. In a minute or two however I was by his side. We saw two young ladies enter, strip, and take their baths; the candle-light was imperfect, but we saw them rub their bodies dry, and scrub the wet off their cunts; we saw their hair above and below, and all their little secrets. They were, we afterwards knew, sisters.
“I shall burst”, said Fred, “how do you feel Walter?” I was maddened by desire like him at the sight of the fresh, modest, naked girls cleaning themselves so unsuspectingly; all this in whispers.
Another girl or two came in, they hurried through the operation as if they did not like it. “Here is Carry”, said Fred. I peeped and in came my two cousins. “Lord what a lot of hair she has got on her cunt”, said my shameless cousin. “It's a damned ungentlemanly thing Fred.” “Well don't look then”, said he. But I did, — I could not help it; my sense of honor was strong, my lust stronger, and I saw both naked. “Holloa ! here is Mrs. Maria”, it was. She stripped. A fine round, plump, middle-aged woman with a mess of black hair between her thighs, that would have sufficed to stuff a sofa-squab. Fred was smitten. “I'll be damned”, said he, “if I would not sooner have her than all the others.” I could not get his eyes away to let me have a full look, so much was he taken with her. Indeed when she put one leg on the chair, and rub-bed the towel well round her cunt and arse, showing two big, well-set globes, and round arms and thighs, the black hair in her arm-pits, the black hair below, she looked in the feeble light not more than thirty years old, and as fine an arm-full as a man could de- sire. “What a pity she has never been fucked”, said Fred, “I'll swear old * * * can't do it to her,-he can only frig her.”
Only four or five ladies took a morning bath; we saw the same on two or three mornings. We were shooting all day. Fred then went to shoot with a friend some miles off, I stopped with my aunt at the Rev. ***'s house till his return, and walked out with them. Fred went away on a Saturday afternoon, I went to my bed-room, thought I would have a peep into the next house, and went to Fred's room (he had left me the closet key), and saw the bath-room quite bright with a large fire. I asked for a fire to be lighted in Fred's room which was bigger than mine, observing that it was so much better to write in than mine; then making a great display, I sat down to write letters, locked the bed-room door, and stationed myself at the crack in the closet.
Oh I what an evening! It soon became evident that the whole household would wash that night. The young ladies came in mostly one at a time, sometimes in pairs, the mistress came in from time to time. The ladies came in, in loose gowns, a chemise and slippers, all but undressed. Everything was quite decorous, the mistress mostly present. Each girl would deposit her gown and chemise on a chair, turning her rump to the other, and get into the bath. When they left it, they stepped out, and came straight to the spot where I could best see them, their cunts towards me, and began to dry themselves. Servants came in and emptied the baths. Some used only a foot-bath. All was done so quietly and demurely that I could scarcely hear a word they said; no girl was supposed I think to see either the bum or belly of the other.
Once when the mistress left, a pair of girls were together, and threw off reserve. One time they got into the bath together, and smacked each other's bums. The younger girls had come in first in the evening, the elder ones later. The mistress did not come in with the elder ones. This pair talked about my cousin and me. They stood in front of the fire; one tripped across the room, and bolted the door, then each one in succession put a leg on the chair, and they looked at each other's cunts. Able to bear it no longer, I frigged myself, and may as well say at once that having be-gun so, I went on. From half-past eight till about ten o'clock did bathing go on. I looking, and frigging my-self as often as my cock stood. I saw in succession nearly all the ladies, and four female servants.
Most of the girls who took cold baths in the morning did not come in at night, my cousins excepted. Every one had hair on her cunt. I knew and recollected some for years afterwards, and when I saw them walking out, or in the ground from our bed-room window, and when my cousins came in to dine with us at the Reverend's house, bringing two of the other young ladies with them; I recollected the look of their bums and bubbies, the quantity and colour of the hair on their cunts as well as if it had been my own prick. I could not converse, my eyes went from one to the other of the girls as their charms rose up in my mind, my prick throbbing. Aunt noticed my silence, and joking me asked if I was falling in love.