Mary Hobden stared at the strange box on the three polished wooden legs. It stood in the middle of the Reverend's study and was as tall as her, standing like some strange and unholy creature. "But what is it, sir?" The woman asked, taking a small step backwards.

"This is called a camera," said the Reverend Michael Lundy, with a note of pride. "It makes images of people. Likenesses of them."

"Like-sees? Images?" These were words the young maid wasn't accustomed to.

"Imagine them like a painting," said the man with the large, bushy moustache, "but it's quicker than that. A few minutes, not a whole day to capture a portrait!"

The servant shook her head. It was enough to have to clean the Vicarage from top to bottom without being stopped to look at this thing that she didn't understand. This thing with the funny glass eye at the front and the big black cloth at the back. "I never had me painting done," said the maid.

"No, of course not." The Reverend glanced at the wall of his study and the large painting he had of himself of his wife, Eleanor. His wife had been dead these past seven years and had he a camera then, he would have taken photographs of her rather than pay all that money some snotty painter from London who as it happened hadn't quite got the shape of the Reverend's nose right. "But paintings are over now."

"That mean I don't have to dust them all any more?"

"No, Mary. We still have to have the Vicarage cleaned and the paintings will stay. What I am saying is that photographs -- that's what we call the likenesses from the camera -- will be everywhere. Mark my words."

"Photy-graphs." The young woman turned the word over. "Never heard of them," she said.

Reverend Lundy stifled a groan. It really was difficult dealing with servants at times. He was tempted to say to the woman 'Go and get on with the dusting and scrubbing' but she had something he wanted.

Ten year old Louisa, her niece. He would have to humour this silly woman until he had what the child he wanted. "Mary, I understand you may not grasp how important this camera and the art of photography will be in the years to come, but this is new and exciting."

The look on Mary's face didn't look like she was excited at all. "Do I have to clean that cam... That thing, sir?"

"What?" The vicar of St Barnolph's took a deep breath. "No, Mary, you do not touch it all. The lens -- that's the thing at the front -- is very delicate and very expensive. It cost me two guineas and ten shillings. From London, no less."

Two guineas and ten shillings! He could see the look on Mary's face as she tried to work out how long that would take her to pay that back if she broke it. She wouldn't touch it now, he was certain. However this was a good time to talk money. "Tell me, Mary, how would you like to earn an extra two shillings?"

A variety of emotions went across the young woman's face, from a pleasant shock to disbelief to suspicion. "I don't want to have to go and polish the Major's silver," she said, doubtfully.

"No! Major Harley doesn't want you polishing the regimental silver." Or indeed polish his cock for that matter, as the old army man liked when a young woman came by. "In fact, you don't do this anywhere but here at the Vicarage. I may also say that all you have to do is bring someone to me, to help me with my photography."

Mary the maid was confused. "An' I get two shillings for... just fetching someone here? From the inn in the village?" It was a lot more money than she had ever earned, but it was also payment for something else that needed to be impressed on the woman.

A payment for her silence.

"We live in momentous times," said the Vicar, stroking his moustache as he did when he was ready to give a sermon. "Big changes, my dear. This camera will usher in a new world..." he stopped. People like Mary weren't used to the old world, so news of a new world was completely beyond her.

"Fetch them from the Traveller's arms in the village?" she repeated.

"No, Mary. Not from the village. At home you have a niece, lovely little girl by the name of..." He paused, as if searching for her name.

"Louisa, my sister's kid," said Mary.

"Ah yes, that's it. Louisa. Charming young child."

"Yes sir, thank you sir." The woman gave one of those silly little bobbing curtseys she did when praised. As if the child was her doing.

"The thing about photography, Mary, is that the subject -- that's the person in the picture -- should be pretty. No one wants a picture of..." He groped for an example. "Mr Hogg's wife from the butcher's down the road. "It was a good choice; Mary had fallen out with old man Hogg over some sausages and she certainly wasn't on speaking terms with Mrs Hogg. "We need young people to pose."

"Pose," repeated Mary, dully.

"When the model, the subject, sits in front of the camera. We call that a pose. I then take her photograph, her likeness, and develop it."

The words were meaningless to Mary. "So I jus' bring Louisa to you sir for me two shillings?"

"Yes, Mary. But because my camera is secret you do not tell anyone about it or my photographs. If you do breathe a word of it I will take back my two shillings and send you over to clean the Major's silver." He almost added, 'with your tongue,' but the woman looked scared enough already.

"Trust me, sir, my lips is sealed," she said. "Shall I go and get Louisa now sir, or make lunch?"

"Lunch first, if you please, then you may bring your lovely niece over."

"An' I don't have to go to see the Major?"

"Not if you keep quiet, no."

The maid smiled thankfully, bobbed and hurried off to the kitchen.

---

The girl was ten years old and extremely pretty for a child of her social class. Clean too, which the Reverend was grateful for. She was dressed in a simple brown smock dress (in which she would, the man thought, be naked underneath) and stood holding her aunt Mary's hand in wide-eyed wonder at being allowed to come to the Vicarage. The old grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the hour and the girl swivelled her curly blonde head in wonderment.

"Now my dear child," said the Reverend as he separated the little girl from the maid. "Mary, your aunt, is going to make me a cup of tea and perhaps get you a drink too. A little lemonade, perhaps?"

Louisa nodded enthusiastically. "Please, yes sir," said the girl, remembering her manners. She wasn't sure about holding the old man's hand but he was the Reverend Lundy so it would be alright, wouldn't it? He had such a big house too; not like the cottage where her mum and her and her sister Victoria lived. Little six year old Victoria who cried if she didn't get her own way.

Mary brought tea and a glass of lemonade which looked like soapy water but, the child knew, was delicious. Her aunt smiled at the girl and set the drink in front of where the child was sitting. "Now, young Louisa, you do what the good Reverend wants an' no spilling or you'll have me to answer to. An' no mistake." With that, the maid did a little bobbed curtsey and left, putting her hand in her apron pocket to make sure she hadn't dropped her shillings.

"Do you know why you're here, Louisa," said the man sat facing the girl.

"Yes," said the girl. "Because there's no one at the Traveller's for me aunt Mary to fetch."

Delightful, thought the Reverend; this child may well exhibit the same stupidity as her aunt. Well, it was a good enough reason, and no mention had been made of photography and likenesses, which pleased the old man.

"Can I have me drink now?" Asked the girl, eyeing the glass of lemonade in front of her.

"Of course." The old man gave a gracious wave of permission and the child set to as if she hadn't had a drink in days. A little noisily, but not without its charm. However the Reverend and Mrs Lundy, rest her soul, had never been able to have children so he was a little unfamiliar with their ways. He watched the girl drink and then had to smile when she asked him if he wasn't going to drink his tea. "The art of life is not to be rushed," he said, knowing the child wouldn't understand. But to please her, he sipped from the china cup.

"I like your house, 'cept for that thing," said the girl. She was looking at a stuffed otter on the sideboard, with its small teeth showing as if surprised at being discovered.

"An otter," said the Reverend. "You can see them down in the stream if you look carefully."

The child nodded as if she might have seen one sometime. Probably when she went with her aunt to scrub their clothes, along with the other washerwomen. And of course, washerwomen talked. He didn't want this girl telling her mother and her telling others what the girl had done. It had been easy to buy Mary's silence, but would be harder with this child. As he knew from his Sunday services, children were talkative to the point of distraction. Lundy leaned forward. "Louisa... You know what damnation is, don't you?"

The little girl blinked at him nervously. "It's when you been bad and don't go to Heaven," she said, sounding alarmed.

"That's right! My, I heard you were a clever little girl! But do you know why most souls don't go to Heaven?"

She hadn't a clue, but she said something about Highwaymen being bad. There had been recently, the Reverend remembered, a story of some footpad on the road to London and he had been given a certain status as a Highwayman when he was, in fact, nothing of the sort. He had been caught and shipped off to a jail.

"Yes, a bad man," said the man. "But he won't be damned in hellfire for that crime of stealing, bad though he was."

"He won't?"

The Reverend Lundy shook his head. "Alas, it was his words that condemned him. You see, he spoke badly of his friends. Had he remained silent about them, and didn't cause the constable to arrest them too, he could have looked forward to being welcomed in Heaven." The Reverend lifted his eyes towards the ceiling, as if Heaven was upstairs.

The girl followed his gaze. Then she asked: "Sir, what did he go and say to the constable?"

"To the judge, but yes... to the constable as well. Ah, you see, the Highwayman said that his friends had done something too, something they shouldn't have, and so blamed them." It was all nonsense about his friends in that two other men had been arrested with him but they were far from his friends by all accounts. Just drinking partners at best. Still, the child wasn't to know that even if she had heard the constable had been busy.

"But they had gone and done it bad, hadn't they? Gone and got what they deserved. Justice, ain't it?"

Too much the clever child, thought the Reverend. Normally he would lecture the girl on always telling the truth, but now he was going to have to pretend that there were times the truth is bad. On the other hand, there was a way forward here. "It's a matter of secrets, you see. A secret that you give on the Bible mustn't be revealed," at this he nodded towards the leather bound volume he kept in his study but only opened when he needed a quote for his sermon. "A promise before the good Lord is a special promise, a secret that can never be revealed."

"So the bad man went and done a promise on a Bible and then broke it?" The ten year-old girl nodded slowly, as if understanding how wrong he was.

"Exactly! That's why if you give a promise on the Bible you can never tell anyone."

"Yes," said the girl. "But did they read the Bible, bein' bad like they was?"

That cleverness of hers is making this difficult, he thought grimly. But his friends in London were looking forward to seeing the photographs he had promised them - purely a financial arrangement, naturally though one overlaid with artistic merit - and he didn't want to disappoint them. "Louisa," the Reverend sighed. "Because they weren't bad at first, before they became Highwaymen, they made a promise on the Bible, so it was a binding in goodness. Now, you aren't a bad girl are you?"

"No!" The little blonde girl looked alarmed.

"Then you have nothing to worry about. What I want you to do is two things. First I want you to promise, on the good book here, that you will not tell anyone about today, and then I want you to do what I tell you. I am going, you see, to make you famous."

"I've not been any famous before," said the girl. "Do I have to swear on the Bible to be famous and good?"

"Absolutely!" The man brushed his moustache. This was now going better than he hoped. "I am going to make your face famous because it is so pretty."

The child must have been told she was pretty by someone else because she smiled a little. Almost a blush. Good, though Lundy. A little vanity never went amiss. "Do I say an oath on the Bible now?"

"Yes, at once. No time to lose," said the man. He picked the Bible up and placed it in front of her. "Put your right hand on it, Louisa... no, that's your left... Good, that's it, now you repeat after me." He cleared his throat. "I Louisa, promise to never tell anyone what happens in this room, not ever, or I will go to Hell and burn in the fires of damnation and not see Heaven if I say a word. This is my secret and I swear to do whatever the Reverend says as the Lord's representative on earth." The last part was rather overdone, Lundy thought, and though she said the first bit well enough he had to get the girl to repeat the last sentence several times (especially the word 'representative' which confused her) to make it sound right.

"There, all done," Lundy said when he was satisfied.

The girl nodded. "So I won't go to damnation now?"

"Not if you remember to never say a word about what we will do."

The girl nodded and then looked around. "What will we do?" She asked, hoping it wasn't anything to do with the stuffed otter. Then her eyes lit on the camera on the tripod and the chair in front of it. "Is that it?" She asked.

"It? Ah, the camera, yes." The man stood up. "Louisa, I am going to make you famous by taking your photograph. That's like a very quick painting. You will sit on the chair there and I will make an image of you -- no don't look worried, it won't hurt -- and then I will have a nice picture of you."

"A painting?" She looked at the one on the wall of Mr and Mrs Lundy.

"Yes, in a way, but not one you will see." He paused and wondered how he could explain chemicals to her. "The picture takes time to appear, and when it is done I will send it to some people in London."

The girl didn't look impressed by the name 'London' as her world was the village and the fields round it. "Why can't I see my picture when you done it?"

"Because it takes time. We call it developing."

Louisa turned the word over in her head but wasn't getting anywhere with it. "But can I come back and look at me picture another time?"

Lundy hadn't thought of that. He had intended this to be a one-off session, though the idea had its appeal. "Well, if you can remember your promise not to say anything, perhaps..."

"I promise! The little girl had stood up too. "I will not tell anyone 'bout it. Cross me heart," she added, making a cross sign over her heart.

"Very well. First of all, as this is a very special picture of you we call art, you must take off your clothes. Artistic images are very, ah, well-received by all good people."

This had been, the man thought, going to be the place where he would encounter a problem. But to his delight the girl merely nodded. "I ain't got any knickers on," she said as she peeled off her dress. "Me mum don't make them for me." Indeed, she hadn't anything on underneath; as the ten year old emerged from the smock dress she was entirely naked. She even pointed at her own chest and said: "Me mum's got them things here for helpin' feed babies but I ain't yet. She says I will have titties soon 'cos I'm gonna be a woman."

"Yes," said Lundy, his voice faint. The child was even more lovely than he could hope, and he could clearly see her small, hairless slit at the top of her legs. "Well now, Louisa, I need you to hop up on the chair there and open your legs for me."

"Yes sir," said the girl and climbed on the chair. Dutifully she opened her legs nice and wide. Her small cunnie was visible and the Reverend felt a tremor of lust in him. But the picture had to be taken before anything else, and she needed to be tied to the chair.

"The exposure -- the time it takes to get your photograph -- means you have to sit very still for a few minutes," he said as he picked up the thin hemp rope from near the otter. "I will have to tie you to the chair so you don't move."

Louisa didn't object and put her arms down by her side. "Was Mrs Reverend tied up when you had the paintin' of her an' you done?"

"Goodness me, no. Not Mrs Lundy," said the man, but he couldn't help wondering why not? It would have been delightful to keep the woman secured while the portrait of them was done.

"Me mum ties me up," said the girl, out of the blue as the man began to loop rope round the girl's naked body.

"What? How so?" Asked Lundy, feeling his member surge to stiffness in his trousers.

"'Cos she says I am a wrigglety-bum," the girl sniggered. "She ties me and me sister up and makes us lie in bed next to her while she has men over from the village."

"I see. So you and your sister are bound while she, ah, entertains men." Lundy felt dizzy with the idea. The idea of two little girls naked and bound made him want to see them both like that.

"En'tain? Nah, she fucks them. That's what she says it is. She lets them put their willie things in her. They give her some money." The girl was watching the Reverend and the looks on his face. "You look all shocked an' things," grinned the girl.

"No, I'm fine. So, Louisa... You don't mind being tied up?"

The girl shrugged. "No. Me mum says it's good for me an' Victoria to be tied. I don't mind 'cos the men do it sometimes to mum too when they do her. They tie her when they do her up the bum hole."

"Do her, of course." Lundy gulped and resumed tying the girl's arms. Anal intercourse had always been his ambition, even if it was supposedly forbidden. He was supposed to preach the missionary position but secretly thought women should be screwed in the back passage. "Tell me, do these men ever, as you say. do you?"

"There's one man who comes over and he likes me and Victoria to use our mouths on his willie. His name's Thomas."

Lundy tried to keep a level voice. "And this man Thomas, does he tie you up for that?"

"Don't be silly, oh... beggin' your pardon, sir." The girl blushed. "I mean, mum does the tying up afore he gets to the cottage."

How the Reverend didn't express there and then in his trousers at the thought of the two girls bound with a penis in their mouths, he had no idea. He was shaking as he finished tying Louisa's legs to make sure they stayed apart. Finally he picked up a scarf. "Louisa, I have to tie your neck to the chair so you keep your head still. The slightest movement will make the photograph blurred." He wasn't sure the child understood but so what? He would do it anyway. She didn't object when he wound the scarf round her slim neck and secured it to the chair back.

"Feels funny," said the girl, but she wasn't struggling as the scarf was knotted behind the chair back.

"It's only for a few minutes," the man said as he stood back to admire the sight of a blonde girl sat naked and tied with legs apart and her little slit on show. Artistic merit, he thought.

Then the girl surprised him again. "You gonna put your willie in me mouth?" She asked.

"I. Um... Later," the man swallowed and hurried to the camera. He told her he would disappear under the big black cloth but she must look straight at the lens -- the glass eye -- and not move. She said she wouldn't. Promise.

The Reverend Michael Lundy took the picture and then took several more as Louisa was so perfect and so still and very cooperative, and then he hurried to her, hastily unbuttoned his trousers and put his thick, hard penis in the girl's mouth.

He didn't take it out until he had finished and she had made sure he was very clean. It even felt like heaven as he squirted his semen into her mouth and she was looking up at him like he was a god.

---

My dear Mr Bennett,

As promised I have enclosed a new photograph of the Misses Louisa and Victoria. They have become such regular visitors to the Vicarage that I can scarce recall what life was like before they arrived. As usual, the two little dears are perfectly bound and behaved impeccably during the session as they appreciate the need to be quite still and helpful. I have, as you can see, taken your advice and secured them face to face to face for this image, and it took no time to persuade them to kiss. It seems that they do this all by themselves while their mother is busy so it was no onerous task for them. Naturally, they are bound to posts so they did not move and thus spoil the clarity of the photograph. I think you will agree that Victoria is just as fetching as her older sister and I must say is equally enthusiastic.

I have been in touch with the others in our little group and Lord H-- has promised to send a man over to take the photograph of me buggering the little girls. I cannot be the man behind the camera and in front of it; would that progress might invent some way of automatically clicking the shutter! Also I cannot pretend I am an oil painting at my age but I believe my member will make an impressive sight as it enters the rear of either the eldest or the youngest. Of the two I quite prefer buggering Louisa (the eldest) as she is beginning to grow breasts (a pleasing feature you have commented on in your prompt replies) because sweet little Victoria, as she is so young, takes my length in her private front hole as there is far less risk of pregnancy with her. It would not do for the good Reverend of the parish being named as the father of a baby out of wedlock. One must have standards!

I have had a meeting with the mother of these two delightful whores and told the woman her soul is in great danger from having sexual relations with random men, and I will be inviting here to the Vicarage to help oversee the household. Mary, my maid, has by all accounts been this woman's female lover at times and has welcomed the impending arrival of her sister; I can see why now my maid was so reluctant to attend to the Major's penis as she much prefers the taste of a woman. No matter; I will enjoy the sight of their lovemaking and plan to take photographs of them in what they call a sixty-nine, a coarse expression that indicates that they place their mouths to each other's slits. A novel idea I had not encountered before! I will, of course, keep the children bound and another of our group, Mr K-- has offered to send me a device he acquired in India which is, he tells me, an artificial phallus that will penetrate the child's sex and still be used as a gagging device. Apparently in the east it is not uncommon for a girl to be secured, her lower regions invaded by the phallus and then gagged with the device so she may quietly contemplate her role as an entertainer of men and women, who equally derive pleasure from seeing a child so used.

It is indeed a strange world, but encouragingly so that as the Empire grows we discover more and more of these delightful native habits so they may be brought to our eager attention.

I have one more item of news and a prospect that may make an appealing photograph. My maid informs me that she believes a homeless female child she has seen living in the hedgerows nearby would welcome a home. She said the child could be brought to the Vicarage, persuaded to stay by being given a meal and then locked in my cellar where she may be used for whipping purposes. No one, Mary has said, will miss the ruffian. I am not sure that I can photograph such an event in any clarity but I believe that it is possible to bring the punished child out of the cellar and her whip marks photographed. I quite profess that my study is fast becoming a torture chamber in its own right with posts and ropes to secure the little girls, as well as the ubiquitous chair! Thank goodness Mary is adept at cleaning up any mess left behind.

Please let me know if such a photograph of a freshly whipped but quite naked girl would be of interest to you. I would certainly enjoy marking the child's body even if no one wants to see her picture!

In closing, may I thank you most sincerely for the gold sovereign you sent towards my expenses. It was a very generous gift indeed and makes me wonder if one day people like myself will be able to make a good living from photographing the bound form of small girls. Let us hope so.

I remain, as always, your loyal servant

Rvd M Lundy, in the Parish of St Barnolph's

The end