Girls and boys on camera

The second set of pictures was worse. Far worse. The first was a close-up, the frame filled with the curve of a bare breast, a mouth—Rachel’s mouth, with that distinct little mole above her lip—placed against the nipple. The second photo in the set was a wider shot. It was Rachel, topless, tangled in the sheets of a bed that was not her tidy dorm room bed, her head thrown back in laughter, another girl’s head resting just below her waist. Miranda’s hand began to tremble. The photos fluttered in her grip. Her eyes, wide and uncomprehending, scanned the desk again. They landed on the one she had missed before, partially hidden under a textbook. It was the one that took the last little bit of breath away from her. There was Rachel, on her knees. Her face was tilted up, looking directly at the camera. Just a sliver of a boy's torso and hips were visible in the frame as he stood over her. And there was his... his *thing*. It would be bad enough if it were just in the same frame as her beautiful daughter, but no. The universe wasn't that kind. That same pair of lips with the little mole just above them were wrapped around his dick. Despite ... *everything,* she seemed like she was smiling.

“Oh, my God,” Miranda whispered, the words a choked exhale. The pictures fell from her numb fingers, scattering on the carpet like poisonous leaves.

“Mom, please,” Rachel begged, her voice cracking. She rushed forward, scrambling to gather the incriminating evidence. “It’s a project! A… a reorientation of the--! Look, my friend Stacia, she’s in the art school, she--"

“Don’t,” Miranda cut her off, her voice low. She recoiled from her own daughter. None of this made any sense. Her gaze swept over the room again, the bed, the mess, the discarded lace. It all looked different now. Sordid. Corrupted. Like an opium den. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Rachel, or I'll know! This can't be what you've spent the last two months doing!" What were these words coming out of her mouth? She was yelling. When she had last yelled at her daughter, she hadn't the slightest idea.

“I’ve been living my life!” Rachel shot back, defiance replacing the panic. Coping mechanism, and nothing more. She ripped the second set out of her mother's hands, too, and threw them in the garbage bin by the door.

“This isn’t living, this is… this is insane!" Miranda’s voice rose. “I sent my responsible, serious girl to college and I find… this? Half-naked with… with girls? And… and that?” She pointed a shaking finger at the spot where the most graphic photo had fallen. "Who is that boy? Do you even know his name?"

“Of course I know his name! His name is Leo, and he’s my friend!” Rachel cried, tears finally spilling over. “It’s none of your business! You can’t just show up and- and- ambush me!”

“None of my business?” Miranda let out a short, hysterical laugh. “I’m your mother! I thought I knew you! What if something like this got out? God, I thought you knew a little bit more about the world! I thought you were… you were…” She couldn’t finish. The image of her beautiful girl sucking a stranger's *dick*, was seared onto the back of her eyelids. It was mud thrown on everything she thought she knew about her daughter, and about the whole world as a result. What the hell were they teaching them at Wilson these days? "I can't be here," she said. Her lungs were no longer working. Or, if they were, her body was simply unable to process what was coming in as the oxygen it needed. The walls were closing in.