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 mentality sui 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 graduated at 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 not think 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.