Anonymous: Caroline

“Yes, yes, I see.”

“Goodbye, my dear.” I embraced her once again, but this time only held her hips, yet let her experience the possessive firmness of my hands, this Caroline observing with approval, for she kissed her, too.

“Did you feel her?” she asked immediately we left the house. It was not the question of a jealous wife, but one of plain enquiry.

“Yes. Her bottom has a noble feel to it. She did not wilt too much. I felt her drawers.”

“Good. That is a beginning, at the least. It may not be necessary for her to participate too closely, but we shall have to see. Adelaide-have you thought of anything?” she asked my sister in the carriage.

“Dearest, I have the most wonderful idea in the world!” my sister answered with no modesty at all, then looked at me across the seats and asked, “Do you know anything about photography at all?”

“A little, yes, but…”

“Oh, Adelaide, get on with it!” said Caroline impatiently.

“No-for I want to think about it just a little more. I rather fancy her, you know.”

“Who?” we both asked as one.

“Why, Jane, of course. I think she will be malleable.”

“Really, my pet, if you are thinking of the same old game-of first seducing her and then putting her to bed with Thomas… really!” Caroline exclaimed.

“Nothing so crude. Wait until we are settled and then we will discuss my plan. It is a little elaborate, but I know it will come off,” said Adelaide with great self-satisfaction, and maddeningly would not utter up another word upon the subject until-and I hate to say it, but it's true-we were indoors and more China tea was served.

I was to purchase a camera and a stand, some dry plates, and such chemicals as were needed. That was the upshot of it all.

“A new direction! We shall shortly have an album of delightfully naughty likenesses,” said Caroline after my sister had unfolded her plan. Caroline would not be too much bettered, though, and so produced a sequel to it which she insisted on describing as “something beautifully concomitant.”

I must agree, though, that it was and prided myself for the thousandth time at having two such angels by my side. Besides, some photographic practise was necessary and- having procured the requisite equipment-and, finding it a devil of a job to keep my lovely models still, I took some rather fetching nude studies of both until they were highly delighted with my efforts, though much bored with my newfound talk of rapid rectilinear lenses and such.

Only when the groundwork thus had been done did we draw both Jane and Ethel into the secret of our plot. At first, it caused them to screw up their eyes (and Ethel even to hide her face), but if it was to be done then fully and properly must it be done, as Adelaide opined.

However, it will not be known to any who come across my words of what I speak, and so I will come to the heart of the matter. Alas that I was not there at every moment and so must have recourse to a third-hand account from time to time.

The essence of the affair lay in the photographs, for seductions of the kind that we had planned are not unusual, though the circumstances were. Jane and Ethel were first to butter-up Esmeralda and to pay her several visits, which they did, and thus became more friendly with the daughter, too, this quite enchanting their Papa who knew nothing of the nets that lay ahead.

Upon their third visit they took wine which Caroline beforehand had prepared. It contained a dose of laudanum-and a little extra. I will say no more than that since more worthy females should not in this wise be subjected to the whims of others when they are comatose. That is not our way at all, by jove. And I must say that, interlaced with this (though not the wine, but the idea) was Caroline's own little addendum to the naughtiness.

After much seemingly bright chatter at the house of Esmeralda, Jane asked whether Mabel might like to spend the night with them, this being assented to with readiness since both she and her Mama sought every avenue to inveigle themselves into the Maudesley household. As an afterthought, then-and just prior to leaving-Jane produced the wine and some little cakes as well, these being received with an apparent rapture that they scarcely merited, and did not in fact merit at all if Esmeralda and her son had known what they contained: to wit a powdered aphrodisiac.

Several hypocritical kisses then being exchanged, the three girls departed, Jane being careful not to actually lock the door while Mabel's attention was otherwise caught.

How long we were then to wait was the trick of it, I do confess. It was the one weakness in the plan.

“A quarter of an hour,” said Adelaide.-“No, half an hour,” said Caroline. I settled for three-quarters, and was right. Jane, having made such excuses to Mabel as were needful ventured out from her own house again and met us on the road, our carriage ready.

“Do you think it will work?” she asked.

“If they are comatose, my pet, it will. I am sure they will have tasted everything by now,” said Adelaide who had a right to speak on it since this part of it was her idea.

I admit to feeling great nervousness when we arrived and had the carriage halt beyond the gate while we approached on foot, and I carrying the heavy camera and the stand.

Adelaide and Caroline first ventured in the house and then returned and beckoned us. Ah, what relief!

“I told you it would work,” said Adelaide.

Esmeralda had slumped sideways on the purple couch. Her breasts were bared, and her gown drawn up to show her garters and her plump, white thighs. Nicholas's trousers gaped, but his cock was slack. The knob peeped out.

“Excellent! Well, at least they had made a start!” said Caroline.

Jane stared at the peeping member, blushed, and said, “It must be very strong-that wine.” We had not let her quite into the secrets of our formulae.

“It is, yes. Help to get his boots and trousers off. We will attend to Esmeralda,” Adelaide instructed.

Oh dear, such demure hesitations came from Jane. “They might wake up,” she said. I nudged her on and set to untying Nicholas's boots and pulled them off.

“Not yet they won't. Undo his trousers-pull them down,” said I while Caroline and Adelaide were stripping the all-yielding Esmeralda of her drawers and opening her gown down to the waist, revealing to our eyes her dark-furred motte, the brazen nipples on the mounds of creamy flesh that swelled out from her loosened corsage.

“She is still moist. In their abandonment he must have fingered her,” said Caroline who had noted as I had done, from crumbs upon a plate, that the cakes were gone.

“How wicked! I cannot imagine such a thing. I mean, between…”

“Shush, Jane, your imagination needs some further stirring now if we are to venture all,” replied Adelaide. Between us, we brought Nicholas to the far end of the couch and then put his mother's bared legs up along the seat. Such an eye for detail then had Caroline that she arranged his trousers on top of Esmeralda's drawers upon the floor.

“She will believe she took her drawers off first, you see. Women notice these things,” Caroline said while Jane was all a-flutter still and knew not where to look.

Even as we spoke, the comatose Nicholas slumped slowly sideways until his head rested on his mother's naked thighs.

“Why, he has posed himself!” laughed Adelaide, I fumbling with my photographic apparatus then and pointing the lens down on the seemingly guilty pair before I focussed under the black cloth-the image upside down, of course, and thus even more bizarre in this fell circumstance.

In that quiet drawing room we all stood still, our voices hushed. The women then moved back beyond the camera's range. I pressed the bulb. I took my photograph.