Glimpse Into Hell’s Kitchen at Night.
“I ... I,” I stammered, caught unawares, and seeking to invent something in order to hide my true station in life. “I now work in a shoe-store over on 3rd Avenue.”
“I suppose you intend doing the right thing by me tonight. I am in hard luck. I just had three dollars stolen off me.”
After a few minutes’ conversation, we proceeded westward along 26th Street, bound for the dark and at night deserted quarter known as Hell’s Kitchen, along the margin of the Hudson River. It is perhaps the most dangerous part of New York at night, but here we could be absolutely alone. Most of the district is covered with lumber yards, freight terminals, etc., and the very few persons who frequent those streets at night are likely to be ruffians and dockrats of the most vicious character.
Arrived within half a block of the Hudson River, we seated ourselves on the platform of a storehouse, and I began to kiss passionately my companion’s face, hair, and hands, and even covered his clothing with kisses. While thus engaged, only one person passed, a man, apparently intoxicated, staggering along in the direction of the river and on the opposite side of the street. He did not appear to notice us and was soon lost in the darkness toward the river, whereupon my uneasiness in large part passed away. On such occasions as this—on the public street—I always had a mortal fear of being surprised and beaten to death, prejudice against androgynes being so great.
After the “intoxicated” man had passed out of sight, we were undisturbed for five minutes. During this interval,my companion gave a low whistle several times, which made me nervous and suspicious, and I delayed incriminating myself. Always, too, I liked to spoon a long time with my companion as a preliminary. If I had been with any one else, such whistling would have made me take to my heels, but my present companion was not a perfect stranger, and on our previous meetings had done me no harm. As I feared, the young Jew’s whistling turned out to be his means of communication with a confederate, the man who had passed feigning intoxication. When I had met the young Jew in the Square, a confederate was watching a short distance away, and he had followed us into Hell’s Kitchen. As I had been the victim of assault and robbery so many times, usually when walking off to a lonely place with a companion, I took care that we were not followed by any of his pals. But as my present companion seemed like an old acquaintance, I did not take my usual precautions.
Surprised by an Eavesdropper.
As eavesdropper, it was desirable to approach from the west, since a high fence prevented a good view from the east, and an approach from that direction would have immediately aroused my suspicions that he was a confederate. He had therefore adopted the ruse of intoxication in order to get to the west of us. While I was engaged in my adoration, the form of a powerfully built man about twenty-eight years of age silently and suddenly emerged out of the obscurity in the direction of the river. Always alert on such occasions on the public street, I perceived him sooner than he intended. He no doubt intended to surprise me in an incriminating position. At the momentof my discovery, my companion sought by main force to hold me in a humiliating position, but I struggled and prevented it. On seeing that his original plan was frustrated through my alertness, the eavesdropper came forward, passed himself off as the watchman of the storehouse, and sternly demanded of me what business we had there.
Adventure with Robbers.
“Only sitting down and resting,” I replied all in a tremble.
“This is a queer place to sit down and rest in. Tell me what yous two was doin’ here, or I’ll have you locked up.”
“We were only talking together.”
“Only talkin’ together? What did yous walk a mile from Madison Square fur?” On hearing this question, I first realized that the man was a confederate. I replied that we were just out for a walk.
“Do you ginerally take walks to a lonesome place as this where there’s nothin’ to see?” Then he addressed my companion, “How long you known this feller?”
“I met him tonight in Madison Square for the first.”
“People don’t ginerally take walks together to such places as this when they just happen to meet in parks! Out wid it, what was this feller doin’ wid you?”
On my companion accusing me of fellatio, the man feigned surprise and abhorrence, and started to grab me. But I nimbly sprang away, and fairly flew eastward, with them at my heels. After sprinting an eighth of a mile, I felt my speed decreasing. It seemed as if I scarcely moved at all. My legs trembled under me, my breath came and went in sonorous gasps, and my heart beat audibly. I could hear the footfalls of my pursuers, now gaining uponme. As I ran I constantly besought Providence that they might stumble and fall, or give up the chase as hopeless.
A Race for Life.
Arrived within a hundred feet of 10th Avenue, I felt all my powers failing, and at every step expected to fall to the ground, perhaps dead, as I had some valvular disease of the heart. If I fell westward of 10th Avenue, where there would be no possibility of witnesses, I feared the ruffians would beat me to death in their anger at my causing them this hard chase. I hoped to hold out until I could throw myself on the mercy of pedestrians whom I expected to encounter on 10th Avenue, a street lined with a poor class of tenement houses. I reached that avenue and ran north half a block until I overtook a company of four smartly dressed young men. I now stopped running, walked along directly in front of them, and believed my pursuers would withdraw. But the latter seized me violently, and I appealed to the four spectators: “Won’t you please keep these fellows from touching me? They are thieves, and were trying to beat and rob me.”
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
“Wait till I kin git my breath and I’ll tell you.”
“They are thieves and I was running away from them. They are blackmailers, that’s all they are. A few days ago on Broadway they got some money out of me, and now are trying it again.”
“He is a c——. I found him down on 26th Street wid this young feller.”
“I didn’t do anything of the kind to him. They are just trying to blackmail me.”
“All they want is money. Just hand out four or fivedollars and they’ll let you alone. It is worth that to you to get out of this scrape.”
Wishing to Be Arrested.
“But I haven’t done anything why I should pay them money, and I haven’t that much money with me.”
“You’ve admitted they are blackmailing you, so you must have done something pretty bad. We will leave you in their hands to take you to the police station. You ought to be locked up and have this cannibalism of yourn taken out of you.”
“Please do me the favor not to leave me alone with them. They will kill me on the way. Please go along to the police station.”
They all agreed to do so. But the more I saw of the character of the four smartly dressed young men, who were between twenty and twenty-five years of age, the more did I fear them, and I hoped we might encounter a policeman, so that I might voluntarily surrender myself to the toils of the law, as I expected to be killed by this party. But I have learned by experience that a policeman can never be found when needed most. Some civilian pedestrians were met, but I was afraid of the consequences of appealing to them.
Arrived at 29th Street, they stated their purpose of leading me down this particularly dark and deserted thoroughfare, probably in order to assault and rob me, and this prospect made me more anxious than ever to be delivered out of their hands. A chance of deliverance presented itself. There are steam railroad tracks in the middle of 10th Avenue and a long freight train happened to be passing slowly. Two horse-cars, each containingseveral passengers, were waiting at the corner of 29th Street until the train passed. The four drivers and conductors were all outside. As my captors led me within three feet of one of the platforms, I suddenly broke away and attempted to board the car. But they jerked me away, struggling and crying out to the conductor, only an arm’s length distant: “I want to board this car and they won’t let me! Won’t you please make them leave me alone?”
One of the Worst Assaults.
But he did not make a move or say a word, any more than if he had been a statue. The other three drivers and conductors were likewise interested spectators, but made no move to help me. When I saw their inaction, I screamed “Help! Help!” hoping to alarm the passengers. Such a procedure angered my captors to the exploding point, and they all pitched into me, threw me to the ground, pounded me, kicked me, and stamped upon me. The two conductors stood for a moment directly over my prostrate body, but remained neutral. I screamed as I have never screamed on any other occasion, but none of the passengers appeared to hear me.
In about a minute the train had passed and the two horse-cars started on their way. As I saw them disappearing and leaving me alone with my assailants, all hope of life departed. I found myself exceedingly calm and resigned to my fate. My life and consciousness seemed to be flickering, ready to be entirely extinguished. The next thing I knew, I was vomiting violently, and then my senses began to come back. I found myself all alone, and also found that my pockets had been ransacked.
Career of Fille de Joie in Paris Meditated.
For several days my whole body was so sore as to make it painful to move about. Moreover, for several days I experienced a season of mental depression with impulses toward suicide. Few souls ever had such a burden to bear. Yet the world has no sympathy for these unhappiest of mortals, the refined sexual inverts. Thousands of them are driven to suicide out of every generation, and yet the world is unmoved by their sorrows. Every other human creature when in sorrow and trouble receives comfort from his fellows, but mankind heaps sorrow on sorrow upon the head of the already despairing invert. Even his own family turn their backs on him and disown him.
About this time, thoughts came to me of going over to London or Paris, far from my family, where they could never learn of my shame, and passing the remainder of my youth wholly given up to the life of a fille de joie. But I did not take this step, chiefly out of love for my parents, to save them sorrow on my account.
I have now reached a period of my life lasting over two years during which it was my luck to serve as private secretary to a millionaire septuagenarian living in the suburbs of the metropolis. Though surrounded with all the comforts of wealth, and having every opportunity for intellectual growth and enjoyment, the “procreative” instinct allowed me no rest. At times I would wish for a life of poverty in the slums with a mate to living in my refined and elegant surroundings without any opportunity for gratification of this instinct. I found it absolutely necessary to spend one night out of fourteen in the city’sslums. The curative value of a good environment is evident from the fact that I was fully satisfied with that frequency.
The Why of a Double Life.
TheWhyof a double life has already been sufficiently indicated—namely, at least in my own case, mental peculiarity, a constitution different from the normal. Does the reader suppose the author led a double life because hewantedto? Not at all, but simply because Nature and society forced it upon him. Many could remain celibate all their days with no sense of a great void in their life, and with no suffering to themselves; but the author, remaining celibate much beyond a month, would ordinarily rave, as a drug-victim raves when unable to obtain his anodyne. It is a confession that I shrink from making, but I feel that medical science should know it. At this period of my life I had to escape to the slums to find opportunity for fellatio in order to save myself from fellatio cum cani magno. The involuntary desire for fellatio was irresistible and I would have sacrificed everything for it. I trust all my readers are broadminded enough to see that I was irresponsible for this condition, and that it was entirely counter to my own wishes.
Secondly, the author was not at all to be blamed for having recourse to the slums. For me it was the only way then open to satisfy the most exacting demands of Nature. To frequent the forts had not yet been seriously considered. How easy it is, comparatively, for the normal man to gratify the procreative instinct! The man of high moral ideals can in most cases marry, and possess his beloved every day and night, not for only a few hours eachmonth, as was the case with me during nearly all my career. The rake obtains all the companions he wishes with no risk of suffering violence. But an androgyne, if having any regard for his reputation, has often, as already seen, to run the gauntlet of assault, robbery, imprisonment, and even death, when he seeks his counterpart. To no respectable young man of my acquaintance did I dare make known my dreadful secret, which I believed would alienate from me every respectable member of society who should learn it. Because of society’s misunderstanding and prejudging my peculiarity, I was compelled to run the risks of the slums. Mankind would ostracize me for it, but instead they should pity me as one with whom the Almighty has dealt very bitterly.
Some Eminent Men Are Inverts.
Some eminent men in all callings are numbered among the inverts. Their terrible secret is hidden from the world. If it should become known, they are irretrievably lost, and would be ostracized with the greatest possible disgust and repugnance, although these emotions have no basis in reason. These inverts, who were brought up in refinement and hold honorable positions in society, deplore their lot in life. They greatly regret that they have to resort to such shameful and lamentable means as they do. By reason of the universal hatred of mankind for those of the race who are built on a different plan from the vast majority, these inverts, well educated, holding an honorable position in the world, and possessing a good income, are necessarily driven to subterfuges, artifices, and deceptions of which the world, which now holds them in honor, would believe them incapable. But they suffer from a craving whichmustbe satisfied, even at the riskof the loss of property, reputation, life itself. This craving, which medical writers like Krafft-Ebing, who have made a study of the phenomenon, say is, in its intensity, often immeasurably beyond the normal procreative instinct in man, drives these unfortunates to “pick up” a poor young man whom they come across in a part of the city remote from where they are known. But everywhere there are traps set for these unfortunates—truly unfortunates, since their repulsive instincts are no fault of their own, being congenital—and in their search for the mate which is necessary for their contented existence, they sometimes come to grief. Not only does the blackmailer spread his net for these stepchildren of nature. The civil authorities have also their detectives out after them.
Melancholy as Spree Approached.
TheHowof a double life during this period of my career will now be described. On the eve of one of my fortnightly female-impersonation sprees, the reader probably supposes that I would be happy in anticipation. On the contrary, a great weight of sorrow and anxiety always oppressed me. There was of course an attraction which drew me to the city, but it was more than counterbalanced by the realization of the risks of my losing my then enviable position in life, and the dread of the danger I had to put myself in, in order to obtain the satisfaction of my instincts. A peculiar phenomenon was vivid images of violent blows in the face, since I had been the victim of such a number of times. But even apart from the dread of the real dangers, even if there were no such dangers, an overwhelming feeling of sadness and anxiety always came over me as the time to go forth on my peculiar quest approached.On the eve of a female-impersonation spree during this period, I always felt like a soldier on entering a great battle from which he realized he might never come back alive, or like a murderer on the eve of his electrocution. On such occasions I habitually sang to myself:
“Why oh why should we be melancholy, boys,Whose business ’tis to die?”
“Why oh why should we be melancholy, boys,Whose business ’tis to die?”
“Why oh why should we be melancholy, boys,Whose business ’tis to die?”
“Why oh why should we be melancholy, boys,
Whose business ’tis to die?”
Preliminaries to Spree.
Just before leaving my residence, I always knelt and prayed the Heavenly Father to bring me back safe, and on my return likewise my first act was to thank Him for it. Arrived in New York, my melancholy and dread would almost entirely disappear, and in their place a sense of gladness would spring up that in the great metropolis I was lost to all who knew me. I was in the habit of putting up at a third-class hotel in a poor quarter of the city, registering under an assumed name. About eight in the evening, I would retire to my room, remove my outer clothing, conceal my valuables, dress myself in a rather shabby suit, and saunter forth, hurrying past hotel employees so that they would not observe my change of apparel. Reaching the Bowery or some other street among those named in the account of my “low-class fairie” period, I would experience a feeling of exultation at finding myself again on Jennie June’s stamping ground. I had left behind all my masculinity, such as it was. The feminine in me, suppressed for two weeks, now held sway. My first care was to hide a reserve fund in a small black box on a ledge of the old market on the site of the present Police Headquarters on Centre Street.
Encounters with Police.
I occasionally visited the scene of my fairie apprenticeship on Mulberry Street. But a resident adolescent once remarked with much truth: “You come around here looking like a tramp, but we have seen you up on Fifth Avenue with fine clothes on. You look as though you didn’t have a cent, but your shoes are full of money.” For success with this class, it is almost necessary that an invert be looked upon as belonging to the same social stratum.
On one occasion I was turned over to a policeman by a blackmailer, but the former refused to arrest me, although he believed the accusations. On another evening when I had not come to the city for a female-impersonation spree, but nevertheless took a walk on the Bowery, I scraped acquaintance with a high-class adolescent from the country who was stranded in the city. We walked down a side street until we came to a deserted block, and entered the pitch-dark portal of a closed factory. But a huckster on the nearest corner happened to notice us skulk into the portal, and supposing we were thieves, notified the first policeman who passed, who sought another policeman that they might together investigate. The two suddenly confronted us. I was horror-struck, as it was the worst possible time for me to be arrested since I had on me marks of my identity. They searched us and then made a correct guess. One said with reference to me: “This fellow is a ——. We won’t touch him because he can’t help it, but we’ll give this other fellow a good clubbing.” They made us depart in opposite directions, clubbing my companion a little.
Adventures with Thugs.
On another evening I had been robbed of all my money. When we reached the street I demanded back part of it. But my companion shouted “Police! Police!” in order to frighten me away, saying he was going to have me arrested because I was an invert. To a couple of young men he cried out: “This fellow is a ——. Call a cop for me, will you? I want to have him arrested.” But those addressed were too busy to interfere. A horse-car then happened along, on which he jumped. I ran behind for a hundred feet, crying to the conductor on the rear platform: “Put him off! He’s a thief! He has robbed me!” But neither the conductor nor the men passengers on the platform cared to interfere.
I occupied a room with a young ruffian at a third-class hotel other than that where I had left my ordinary clothing and valuables. Before retiring I withdrew to the toilet-room and placed the bulk of my money, a five-dollar bill, in the toe of a sock. As I undressed, I was careful to throw it far under the bed. After half an hour, we closed our eyes. But I intended to remain awake until he had fallen asleep in order to hide the door key lest he leave with my money and clothing while I slept. He intended to remain awake until I slept, and then depart as described. He tried to soothe me to sleep, exactly like a mother her infant, but finally losing all hope, said: “Do you know how much you can get for this? Twenty years in state’s prison!”
He dressed, ransacked my clothing, and then tied it in a bundle to carry away, repeatedly warning me not to interfere under penalty of arrest. I lay in consternation,meditating what steps to take. He finally demands: “Where’s your other sock? I’m on to all the sly ways of you fairies!”
A Steamboat Flirtation.
I now sprang out of bed, and started for the door, but he quickly removed the key. Though expecting to be brained, I cried “Help! Help!” “Stop your racket and you’ll get your things back!” But I kept pounding and shrieking until the hall-boy opened the door. I remained standing just outside until my companion left, watching that he took none of my belongings. He said that he was going after a policeman in order to have me arrested. The hall-boy appeared to be totally indifferent over the accusation of my associate.
A steamboat flirtation: In my extensive globe-trotting, only two or three times did I indulge in coquetry on a public conveyance, for fear of disgrace or even robbery. But on the present occasion I was so smitten that I took the risk. I had occasion to accompany my employer on a trip to Boston. We went by the all-sea route around Cape Cod. During the evening my employer preferred to remain inside, while I was out on deck. I discovered a handsome adolescent seated alone, clad in a golf suit, which always heightened to me a young man’s charms. I seated myself near him, dying with desire to enter into conversation, but for a while unable to surmount my bashfulness. But I soon began a conversation which lasted a large part of the night. I drew from him the whole story of his life. His last adventure had been a bicycle ride from Boston to New York. The more Igazed at him, the more I heard about his life, and the more I read his character from his countenance, his manners, and his adventures, the more did I discover in him lovable qualities. His ravishing beauty, his countenance ever beaming with smiles, his kindly disposition toward me, his hot sensual nature, his fearlessness, dare-deviltry, and thorough recklessness, and his intense masculinity in general, attracted me so strongly that I became ready—as already stated—to run the great risk of disclosing to my employer my perverted nature, and thus losing the excellent position I held. We talked on numerous subjects. After I had ascertained that he was a good-hearted fellow who would not easily take offense, and a Don Juan, I began to prepare to disclose my nature.
Method of Leading Up.
“You have a beautiful golf suit on.”
“I shall never wear the rag again except to go skating in next winter.”
“You must not do that. It sets your form off beautifully. You are the handsomest and the best dressed fellow on the boat.”
“Thank you. I’d give you a quarter for the compliment if I had the change.”
“You appear to think I am flattering you, or making sport of you, but I mean what I say. You have a beautiful build, and know how to dress in good taste.”
“From my hips down I am well enough built, but higher up I am too skinny.”
“Not a bit of it. You are just perfection all over. Your form is as beautiful as that of Apollo.”
After a while, before I had been able to come to the point of distinctly disclosing that I was an invert, he saidhe must go inside on account of the chilliness of the air, and I plead with him not to go.
Year 1898.
“I’ll see you later.”
“Be sure not to forget. I shall be in misery until you are again by my side.”
He laughed, apparently not yet fully understanding my feeling for him, and departed. A moment later I myself went inside, and took a seat beside my employer. My new acquaintance happened to pass, and gave me the sweetest, most loving smile I ever received. I was dying to follow the smiler, but feared my employer would detect my attraction. After several minutes, I followed in the direction in which he had disappeared, and finding him seated alone a little distance off, I whispered: “Come out on deck.”
We seated ourselves close together. It was dark and there were no others sitting very near. I took one of his hands in mine, and asked if I might kiss it. He replied: “You can do anything to me you want to.”
I now opened my heart to him fully. Though I loved him even to frenzy, I found him hardly less drawn to me. He reciprocated my affection as no lover ever before. We sat together for hours. Soon all the other passengers had retired, and I reclined in my lord’s arms. Long after midnight, my lord, desiring to get some sleep, repeatedly requested me to leave him for the night, saying we could meet again in Boston. But I knew that on account of my being in the company of my employer, I could never meet the young man again, and could not yet tear myself away. Several times he good-humoredly wrenchedhimself from my grip, saying he must get some sleep. But each time, advancing toward the taff-rail, I would call out: “I am going to jump into the sea if you leave me alone.” With other intimates, I had used the ruse of suicide if they did not yield to my entreaties, but they had only replied: “If you want to be such a fool as to kill yourself, I won’t stop you.” But this noble fellow ran after me and restrained me, and said he would sit up a little longer.
A Measure of My Affection.
Towards fourA. M., the poor young man was in a predicament as to how to get rid of me, who had lost my reason. He was of such a kindly disposition that he did not wish to hurt or offend me, but my continuous kisses and caresses finally became so annoying that in the hope of bringing an end to them, not at all with malice, he clutched me by the throat as if in anger. But I exclaimed: “Your cruelty only makes me love you the more!” and again started in to cover him with kisses—hair, face, hands, arms, and clothing, even his shoes.
“You must want to get into your mouth all the dust I picked up off the road yesterday.”
“That’s just what I do. Its coming into contact with your dear body has transformed it and etherialized it. Oh, I love you so much! So much! No other girl ever worshipped her lord as I worship you. I know it is wrong to hate, and I pray God to forgive me, but I now feel only hatred toward everybody who stands in the way of our being one, and living out our lives together.”
After some time, as a last resort, pretending to be very angry, he kicked me, and ordered me to go down to theother end of the boat. Such treatment humiliated and saddened me, because I thought it an evidence that I was despised. I immediately became repentant for having so imposed on his good nature, asked his pardon, and departed.
In My Twenty-Fifth Year.
When I left, I expected never to set eyes on him again. The next morning I purposely lay abed very late, in order that he might have taken his departure before I should leave my state-room. I was afraid he might encounter me with my employer, and in some way betray to the latter my sexual peculiarity. But as it happened, he also did not leave the boat until late, and caught sight of me seated at the breakfast table with my employer. On seeing him approach, I was stricken with terror, fearing he might denounce me. As he passed, I hardly dared look at him. He made a sign for me to rise and follow him. For fear my employer might somehow suspect something, and in order to discourage any farther approach, I appeared not to notice his beckoning. Moreover, I did not dare follow him immediately, though I would have given a fortune to have been at full liberty to do so. I realized that I might be losing forever a companion and mate for life whom I slavishly adored.
Five minutes afterward, as soon as I felt I could leave my employer’s side without exciting his suspicion, I followed in the direction the young man had taken, but saw nothing of him. Wringing my hands in desperation, I rushed all over the vessel, peering into every nook and corner. Then I went out on the wharf, and looked everywhere there. I returned on board, and searched the wholeboat from top to bottom three times before giving up in despair. What a pang went through my heart when I found he had gone and I not heard the message he had evidently wished to give me! Never before in my life had I regretted anything as much as not having inquired his name and address. As I was unwilling to give my own, I did not like to ask for his. Furthermore, during our evening together, I did not anticipate we could ever meet again, and so thought it useless to ask. He, probably, as well as I, preferred that his identity remain unknown.
Loss of My Best Chance.
I had rarely felt more disconsolate, or more angry with the world, and I experienced but little pleasure during my week in Boston. All the time, the thought uppermost in my mind was to run across this young man again. I spent as much time as possible in the most frequented localities, peering into the face of every young man who passed to see if he were not the one for whom I was pining. Several nights, after my employer had retired, I stole out of my room, and seated myself on the steps of the most frequented subway station until midnight, in the forlorn hope of meeting by chance one particular individual out of the million in the Boston metropolitan district.
He had informed me that he was an electrician. I spent many hours in calling at shops where such workmen had their headquarters. Under some pretext, I obtained permission to go through the works, and looked over every young man employed there. I wrote letters to a number of his trade whose names I found in the city directory, inquiring whether I had met them on the steamer.On returning to New York, I engaged an electrical apprentice to continue the search, but all my efforts proved fruitless.
Fairie Adventures in Europe.
I now spent five months in Europe with my employer. I was generally free evenings, and during our stay in the large cities, spent two or three a week with beaux that I came across. I had considerable conversational ability in four foreign languages. In Paris I generally spent my evenings with the adolescent porters of the Gare St. Lazare, and in Berlin with soldiers whom I met in the Tiergarten. Because of indiscretions, I came near being arrested in Berlin and in Naples. In only one instance in Europe was an attempt made to extort money from me, and I yielded rather than get into trouble.
My flirtations in Europe were uneventful. I had to be far more cautious there for fear of getting into trouble, and associate with my beaux clad as a prosperous citizen. As they necessarily knew that I was a person of attainments much higher than the average, I was restrained from going far in impersonation of a young woman or a baby. I found that throughout the large cities, fairies were as well known to the ultra-virile adolescents as in New York, and the latter were equally susceptible to the advances of the former.
In my unusually wide travels in America, I have never been accosted by a pervert or an invert. But during my five months’ sojourn in Europe, I was one evening accosted in one of the great capitals by a fairie sixteen years of age, and in another I was accosted in a park byan urning of twenty-six (that is, a man who craved mutual onanism). My impression is that the inhabitants of the large cities of Europe are more sex-mad than those of American cities of similar size. In one of the great capitals (which I do not name out of charity) inversion and perversion were frightful—incomparably more open, at least, than in New York. It was my impression that there is more evanescent homosexuality—due to lack of opportunities with the opposite sex—than in America. Apparently the denser the population, the more widely extended is homosexuality.
Sexual Impressions of Europe.
In 1899 I was attracted by the German and the Dutch soldiers, but incomparably less than by the American soldier. They did not appear to be as powerfully built or as handsome, nor as wild and reckless. Their uniforms impressed me as far less fascinating. I was not at all attracted by the French soldiers, because I did not like their uniform, particularly the red baggy trousers, and because facial hirsute appendages are decidedly abhorrent to me. Likewise the British, Swiss, and Italian uniforms impressed me as detracting from the masculinity of the wearer instead of powerfully contributing to it, as the American uniform. The German, Dutch, and particularly the American soldiers were the only ones that came up to my idea of demigods.
On a sojourn in the Old World in 1911, I found myself admiring the Moroccan, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian soldiers to about the same degree as I have always admired the American. Indeed the Russians impressed me as the most bewitching in the world, because they arethe most gigantic and the most savage-looking. I now came also to find the British and the Italian uniforms rather attractive, but liked the French and Swiss no better than before. In this later lengthy sojourn, I did not once seek a beau, and had only feeble desires to do so, whereas twelve years before I had a fierce, irresistible, obsession to be with them as much as possible. But most of all, I was restrained by the presence of my employer, who left me no good opportunity to seek other company.
First Half of Open Career Ends.
After holding my position as private secretary during my middle twenties for over two years, I was compelled to resign because a tradesman’s driver who frequently delivered goods at the house of my employer chanced to identify me while two ruffians were demanding blackmail on the Bowery. I was denounced to the truck-driver as a ——. Several years afterward I learned that knowledge of the incident probably never reached my employer.
At this point in my life I wrote the present autobiography down to the year arrived at (1899), having previously kept copious diaries.
The scene of the last six years of my open career as a fairie, still to be described, lay in the neighborhood of—and in large part on—the military reservations in the suburbs. Providence granted me the fulfillment of a fond dream of years before—to be a soldiers’ mignon. I now decided to devote exclusively to young Mars the remainder of my youth—for with me the period of youth continued abnormally long, at least until my early thirties.In 1899, at the age of twenty-five, I successfully, as Jennie June, passed for twenty. At the close of my open career, when I was thirty-one, I passed for twenty-four. As already remarked, business associates who have not had the least suspicion of my being an invert—chiefly because they did not know of the existence of such people—have declared even down to my middle forties that I have not ceased to be remarkably childlike both physically and psychically. If I had had the physique and psychical constitution of the ordinary man, the career I am outlining would have been impossible. But Nature has given the fairie a physique and mentalitysui generis.
Year 1899—I Become Deliciæ Militum.
For a passive invert to make captives of ultra-virile adolescents, he must be youthful, with facial hair eradicated or clean-shaven, of somewhat feminine physique, looks, and manners, a good female-impersonator, and an expert coquette. Many inverts lack these qualities that are necessary to insure a successful career as a fairie, and the vast majority have no desires along this line. Some inverts, as well as some females, seem to be predestined by Nature for the profession of fille de joie.
On the other hand, the professional fairie of the lowest class of public house could not have had the long career around the forts that I had because the soldiers would not have tolerated the presence there of such a depraved being. The second half of my open career was possible because while having the coquetry and craze for venery of the depraved fairie, I had also the refinement, outward modesty, and general rectitude which are to be expected in an androgyne brought up as a puritan and graduatedat a university. I repeat that throughout my career as a fairie—apart from the coquetry and venery just named—I lived up to the highest ethical standards, and never knowingly inflicted the least detriment on a single soul.
Paragon of Morality Outside Sexual.
More than once before the opening of this second half of my open career, I had thought that my period of flirtation was at an end. Particularly on account of my age, having now entered my twenty-sixth year, I had thought no more romantic adventures could be mine. But it turned out that these six years, even the last of them, when I was thirty-one, were full of adventures as romantic as I had ever had.
When I dedicated myself to the career of a soldiers’ mignon, I was well aware that these men are particularly subject to venereal disease—and I ultimately contracted anal and buccal venereal warts, syphilis, and gonorrhea from them, whereas during the first half of my career, I had had close to 700 liaisons with civilian adolescents without contracting any disease so far as I knew. But I gladly assumed this greatly increased risk because of the ultra-virility and general terribleness of the class in question. This terribleness is applicable only to the professional common soldier when the nation is at peace.
I asked an unusually attractive artilleryman whom I met on the Bowery if I might visit him at his barracks, and one evening made the journey. I was conducted to his squad-room, but he was not in. I found myself in what was to me a sensual paradise containing about a dozen youthful soldiers busy at different things. I could notthink of departing even though my friend was out. I began to talk effeminately and babyishly. I was immediately hailed as a fairie, and shown to a seat on a bunk, having around me the arms of two soldiers, with several others sitting or lying on the same bunk and caressing me. It was almost the same as if a maiden had suddenly appeared in their midst. I out-womaned woman for their entertainment and because I was fascinated.
Debut at Fort X.
I was so enthusiastically received that I made the decision already described, and for the period of a little more than two years visited this military reservation one evening a week, devoting all the rest of my time to scholarly pursuits.
For some weeks I enjoyed the rare pleasure of association with my idols in a squad-room or in a non-commissioned officer’s private room, and had the run of all the other rooms, since practically everybody looked upon me the same as on an unoffending tabby-cat that might invade their quarters. I was even put to bed in the barracks as tenderly as a mother puts her babe in its cradle.
I have always shrunk with horror from handling the weapons of warfare myself, but they had a wonderful fascination for me when in the hands of soldiers, or when seen stacked in the squad-rooms.
A typical evening in a squad-room: On my entering, the soldiers shout goodnaturedly: “Hello Jennie, old girl!”
“Hello all you big braves!”
The rumor soon spreads to other squad-rooms that “Jennie June” is making a visit, and a score or moresoon gather about me. I always came loaded down with cigarettes and other things that soldiers are fond of, except intoxicants. One youthful soldier after another rolls back his sleeves and displays tattooed figures for me to rave over: “That proves you are completely masculine, and I worship you for having it done.” Others double back their right arms and let me feel of their biceps: “I call you ‘Strength!’ I call you ‘Power!’ I call you a man of iron! Mighty man of war! Mighty man of valor! Mighty man of renown!”
An Evening in a Squad-Room.
Later one who meets me for the first time asks: “Do you call yourself a girl? In all my life I never vidi puellam cum peni!”
“I know I am only part girl. I have a girl’s mind and breasts and my body otherwise is much like a girl’s.”
“If you don’t believe Jennie is a girl, just feel of her breasts.”
Several stick their hands into my bosom. “He’s got a girl’s breasts all right.”
They ask me to sing, listen attentively, and then remark: “That is a high tenor. It has an effect on the voice all right.”
“Are you and I of the same sex?” I ask, taking pleasure in our physical and psychical contrasts.
“No, Jennie, you are a baby, and we are the big, big braves.”
My presence would inspire them to an evening of innocent frolicking, and they would play pranks on me, for example, dancing around the room shrieking like wild Indians, brandishing their swords, and banging them onthe floor. I would respond to their pranks in the manner they were looking for. They thought that I had only the mental capacity of a girl-boy weakling, as I did not compose my own songs until after more than two years of association with them.