All summer long Millie’d had this recurring dream where she was under surveillance.

That was it, really, that was the whole dream. All she remembered. No place, no circumstance, no plot, just the feeling, like being crushed under a weight of rock. No one seemed to be doing the watching. It just was: total, without motive, unrelenting. There was nothing outside of it and it would never for an instant leave her be. She was scarcely a person in the dream, just something that existed for the sake of being surveilled.

When Miss Sarah led her back, when she was under all those eyes, the dream had come back to her. That sense of envelopment, of suffocation. Half-naked, halted in the middle of the room as if for inspection, unable to move or to want to: like prey frozen in the gaze of a predator. A predator that was nothing but gaze. She found herself kneeling without knowing how or why it happened, at the focus of that compound eye, and she was the thing in her dream, doing was it was fated to.

Millie remembered how when she woke from the dream it always felt like she’d just missed coming.

She was stressed about her BFA was all. For a while she’d been imagining a piece that would live at the intersection of spectatorship and surveillance—that was how she put it to Jez the first time they met, when she’d asked to sit in on his reading group—but it was only a broad, ill-defined ambition. Jez did his best to help her conceptualize, to give her some kind of real theoretical background, but every time he intervened it seemed like Millie ended up just that much more at sea. Tonight, though, she felt she could break through. It was that sense of intellectual energy in the room, like she couldn’t help catching fire from it. Since drink service ended she’d been parked on the floor in front of the couch in her maid outfit, practically nonstop talking it all over with people. The dream, her thesis, surveillance, objectification; how confused she kept getting and how horny it made her.

A whole succession of people, in fact. Millie felt like the hypno-play really had made her the hit of the party. And it was sweet how patient they all were with her, considering the way her thoughts kept refusing to line up. She had this key thing about being naked, how the true nakedness was when you were helpless to stop them watching you: that was her way in, but then she’d hear herself saying things like naked and surveillance and violated and she got—distracted, a little. She'd start getting handsy with herself and she got distracted. After a while the only thing she could hear in her head was, don’t finger your pussy in front of them don’t finger your pussy. Millie even caught herself repeating it out loud once or twice, though she didn't think anyone noticed.

There was that one older couple, the ones she thought looked like married professors? He was the one who told her she’d think better “without the costume encumbering her,” and while Millie was still trying to figure out what that meant there was the woman coming off the couch to give a hand. Right down there on the floor with her! Such thoughtful people. Millie had a wistful image of that being her and Jez someday. Once she was fully unzipped she made out with the lady for a bit, it seemed like the least she could do to thank her. She even let the randy old broad cop a feel, which Millie was charmed by actually and also it got her surprisingly turned on.

Her hubby was wrong though, Millie’s brain didn’t work any better after she was naked than before. If anything she was even less able to hold a thought.

Now Katy and Jez were on the couch. Millie realized she hadn’t seen them for a while and she was so glad they were back. It always felt so nice when she got to gaze up at her boyfriend from her knees. She slouched a bit, just to have a slightly lower angle to look up from. The pair of them must have just sat down together. Jez was checking his pockets for his vape. Katy had reached for a martini glass and was cradling it in one hand, while she draped her other arm along the back of the couch behind Jez. She was gazing down at Millie in that lofty, ironic way of hers, and Millie was sure she’d never met a sexier woman in her whole life.

“I heard the word ‘surveillance’ one or two times over here,” Katy said. She said it at Millie but she was talking to Jez, who snickered. “One or two dozen,” he said. Having found the vape he took a quick pull then gestured it in Katy’s direction. When she waved him off he moved to put the pen away again, then thought better of it. He leaned down instead and put the mouthpiece to Millie’s lips and pressed the button.

He kept the vape there longer than she wanted, long enough that Millie was coughing and stoned by the time it withdrew. Pot still scared her a little, especially the kind of intense, spacy stuff Jez favored. It was meant to help her think—Jez called it brain juice—but Millie didn’t know. She was kind of a lightweight. Though she did very much like not being given a say. She’d been such a brat when they started dating but lately Millie was getting into deference, which was new for her, being The Girl and needing to let The Man decide. Deliberately letting that kind of energy into their relationship. It was so wrong she got damp every time they did it. He kept finding sexy little ways to trick her into giving up some bit of her autonomy, and Millie never felt more intimate with Jez than when she’d forgotten how to tell him no.

He stashed the vape back in his coat. He had kind of a sour look on his face again, and Millie vaguely hoped she hadn’t done something wrong. Her eyes wandered back to Katy, who hadn’t stopped scrutinizing her. Millie felt nakeder than she had all evening. Katy smiled, a smile that was no more than a curling up at the corners of her mouth, and that was all it took for Millie’s nipples to tighten. It was wild how into Katy she was tonight! She licked her lips and smiled back, feeling the pot giving a very flirty vibe. So what if Katy’d think she was a lez? Millie wondered what would happen if Katy were to put that glass down and bend down and take her and just fucking shove her tongue down Millie’s throat.

Jez was going on again about theory. All Millie understood from theory was, she was bad at it. “You can’t just give Discipline and Punish to children and expect any kind of a good return.” She knew that tone. “Art major to boot,” he said, with heavy sarcasm. “Like watching a cat try to teach itself algebra.” How many times had she heard it? Enough anyway to admit he was right. Jez was always right. But she’d tried, she really had, and he never seemed to give her credit for that. Millie felt a tug of hurt and sadness that threatened to swamp the fizzy, sexy mood she’d been in.

Katy shook her head at Jez and tsked him. “Well I think it’s cute,” she said, giving Millie a conspiratorial wink. “I think little dollies should be encouraged to read all sorts of things. Don’t you, Mills?”

Just the fact that Katy was talking to her put Millie at a complete loss for words. Or the pot was doing a number. All she could manage to do was stare. Katy set her glass on the side table and reached out to press her index finger to the bridge of Millie’s nose. “Yes Katy, you’re so right,” she ventriloquized, pushing the girl’s head up and down, “that’s exactly what I think.”

The condescension took Millie’s breath away. She ought to hate Katy right now but it was literally making her melt. Like, the carpet under her was going to be needing cleaned kind of melt. When Katy released her chin and sat back again Millie just kept nodding, like a dummy. She didn’t care. She wasn’t even sure what she was nodding about. Just that it felt so good agreeing.

Katy looked back over her shoulder. Kind of a crowd of partygoers had formed in the couch area, and Millie saw Miss Sarah moving through them. How of all people did I misplace you, Millie thought. Now it was her being led on a leash, and she looked different, imposing somehow. Taller. She was wearing a heavy, cruel-looking dog collar and her pink hair was all slicked back and her face was fierce somehow and also completely empty. Like she wouldn’t have known her own name. She moved like a real version of the robot Millie was just pretending to be when they played drink sluts before.

They brought the senior girl to the edge the sort of cleared-out space in front of the couch—like a stage, almost—where only Millie was. She had on high black spike-heeled boots, skintight over the knee, and under a tightly strapped leather harness was otherwise naked. But the cute shaved twat was out of sight, a shiny, realistic neon-pink cock strapped over it, bigger almost than Sarah was. It bobbed and swung in front of her as she moved and was the only part of the girl that seemed to have an independent will. Millie watched the highlights gleam and shift around its thick molded veins.

It occurred to her that she and Sarah were going to fuck.

“Hey! Drooly.” Katy snapped her fingers. Millie’s mouth was hanging open, and Katy, smirking, pushed up under her chin to close it. “We getting curious? Got a little thought-thought bubbling up in the ole noddle?” She knocked lightly on the top of Millie’s head a couple times.

Katy exchanged a look with Jez, of her seeming to ask, and him to give permission. “Come on then,” she told Millie, gesturing with her hand, “kneel up straight. Shoulders back! Shove those tits out at me.”

There was a tube of lipstick in Katy’s hand. Millie remembered how the lady had messed up her titty-lipstick groping her when they were making out, and her nips got hard again thinking Katy wanted to touch them up. “We’re gonna play a game,” Katy said, leaning in, “a reading game.” She held the lipstick up for Millie to see. Millie couldn’t think what she meant. “Cuz you like to read, remember puss? You were just telling me.”

The fascination of Katy talking to her had taken hold again, and Mills was barely able to remember she had to nod her head. “So what we’re going to do is, I’m going to write a word on your chest. No peeking till I’m done,” Katy said, wagging the tube of lipstick at Millie. “One teensy little word. And if you can read the word—and nobody can help you” she added, pointing the tube admonishingly around at onlookers—“well then you know what? You win! And all those pesky questions you’ve been worrying over all night will all be answered.”

Katy uncapped the lipstick. It was darker than Miss Sarah’s lipstick, and for a moment Millie was concerned about her nipples matching, till she reminded herself that they weren’t doing the nipples. “I’ll even give you a clue,” Katy said brightly. “The clue is, it’s the title of your thesis.”

Millie didn’t know the title of her thesis, but she wasn’t prepared to doubt that somehow Katy might. And then Katy was writing. Millie felt like she was being accelerated. Her body started trembling even before the lipstick touched her, and once it did she struggled to catch up to her breath. She kept her gaze lifted like a good girl and tried to let the scent of Katy’s hair give her calm. But she was an abject mess of lust and painful anticipation.

There were so many people around now, behind the couch, away to the sides, probably even to Millie’s back. Way more it seemed like than when the party started. Someone said “C” in a loud voice after the first letter, and Katy glared hard in their direction and yelled “No kibitzing!” at them. Mills decided to forget it, since it wasn’t in the rules for her to know any letters yet.

“Done,” Katy said, drawing back. Millie looked down at herself. The first thing she saw, despairingly, was that it looked like two words, one up between her boobs and then a longer one underneath them. She had a sharp feeling of no fair, not that she said anything. Plus the letters were all weird. There was an O and an H you could make out, maybe a backwards E? And whatever letter that guy shouted that she’d forgotten. But really it was all just this haze of symbols, and it was so much pressure being on the spot to decipher them in front of everyone! She got a little panicky. She started tracing over the letters with her fingers, thinking that would make her remember them, but they were lipstick and the more Mills tried to force it the smearier and slipperier and more unreadable she got. Like she was making a spectacle of herself literally greasing her tits up with the title of her thesis and she was too wasted and dumb to even be able to stop.

Millie looked up when she realized she was hearing laughter. All the guests seemed to be laughing. Katy was laughing. “You precious dope” she said, showing Millie an open compact, “I was going to give you a mirror!”

Millie felt herself crumple. “I’m sorry Katy,” she wailed, “I’m so dumb, I’m not this dumb, really, I— I was trying so hard to…” and after that the apology dissolved into keening, Katy shooshing her and cupping her cheek. “It’s alright baby,” she cooed, wiping with her thumb under Millie’s eye, “we like you dumb.” She glanced over at Sarah and with a motion of her head ordered the girl and her giant bobbing cock over.

There was some comedy with the thing prodding Millie in the spine and then trying to poke a hole in her ass cheek, but at last there was Miss Sarah kneeling behind her, her breath warm against Millie’s neck, her pink cock tucked neatly under Millie’s thighs. Miss’s hands closed around her tits and it was like suddenly the world was right again. Millie sighed and settled back against her.

Not that she was over her disappointment. “Did I lose the game?” she asked Katy, her face pouty. Katy chuckled. “How about it,” she looked around at the guests, “E for effort? Who thinks we oughtta let the dope win anyway?”

The room broke out in applause. Mills felt like she was glowing. They like me dumb, she thought. Miss Sarah’s fingers pinched both of her nipples hard, as if she were trying to join the applause, and Millie squealed and writhed in her grasp.

With a look Katy shut her up. She reached out to the side of the couch and let someone put another glass in her hand. Katy sipped. She put the glass down ceremonially, leaned fully forward and brushed Millie’s ear with her lips. In a stage whisper she said, “The word is camwhore.”

Millie had been holding her breath and all at once it sighed out of her. CAMWHORE echoed in her ears like an oracle. The word made everything dark around it. She tried to see it in her mind but the letters were weird, and wouldn’t stay still. She wanted to say the word, to know the shape it made on her tongue, but Millie was scared. When she looked for Jez he wasn’t in his seat, and her gut clenched. Had Katy told him what it was? Or was it up to Mills to?

Jez was standing behind the couch talking to people, fiddling with some object he had in his hands. He wasn’t even paying attention. Of course he knows, she thought all at once. Katy had written it on her. He’d seen it, they all had. Millie was the only dummy here who’d forgotten how to read.

One of the people talking to Jez was the professor lady. She had her phone up and was looking at the screen. There were a lot of phones up. Miss Sarah had started teasing the shaft of that big plastic cock of hers all up and down Millie’s slit, and Millie felt how bad she needed to have it. She caught the professor lady’s eye and gave her a smile and a little wave and kind of danced her titties at her, as much as Miss Sarah’s grip on her allowed, to show her how she remembered them making out a while back. Millie closed her eyes and stretched her arms all sexy over her head for the lady, flirting them at the sky like she was Marilyn or Madonna.

A flash went off. A dozen flashes went off, and there was a loud pop that surprised Millie and made her squeak, that was the sound of Jez opening a bottle of champagne. He started pouring drinks for the people he was standing with. Millie’s pussy was super wet for Sarah’s cock now and she felt it was time she said something to Jez about it, about them finding somewhere to do it. Like, it was cool with her and all, she wanted to and all, just, not in front of everybody? Maybe there was somewhere off away from the party Miss Sarah could take her to. Him and Katy could come along, they could do like a private show for them. Just them and their two girls, their two little brainwashed lezzie fucktoys? That sounded hot. Maybe the nice professor couple too, if they didn't mind the MC stuff. All of them though, Millie didn’t know. It seemed kind of weird.

Jez handed a flute to Katy, who saluted him, then raised it aloft. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Society,” she announced, “I give you: CAMWHORE!”

More flashes popped. A few people clapped, and there was a general shout answering, “CAMWHORE!” Someone turned up dance music. She overheard Katy saying “Jeremy darling she’s adorable, you’ve outdone yourself,” and for a moment Mills felt that familiar pride she always had in her clever boyfriend, whose mind was so much above hers. It must be something if even Katy was impressed.

Wherever she looked there were lenses, and every one on camwhore. They made a weightless but palpable netting over the surface of her skin. And she thought, this is the dream. The place inside the dream that it never let her see. She was there. She wondered if what was happening to her was really happening. Miss Sarah grabbed her face from behind and pulled her into an awkward, almost violent kiss that left her stunned. When she let go again camwhore giggled and turned back to her audience, and she understood at last that she’d had it wrong, it was a wonderful dream she was in. A dream of belonging. She opened her arms out into a big showbiz air hug. I love you all, she thought, all the eyes, all the unclosable lenses adoring her, devouring her, taking her soul, never let it stop she thought, let me be naked for you like this forever and ever. She was weeping and didn’t know why. “I’m a STAR” she told them, but in the buzz of music and party and congratulations not even camwhore could make out what she was saying.

She heard Miss Sarah grunt in her ear and a blow landed across the shoulder blades that knocked her forward onto the floor. The girl’s cock was so big going in it felt like the whole party ramrodding her at once. “I’m a STAR” camwhore said when she could breathe again, and then she was repeating it into the carpet, “i’m a STAR i’m a STAR” over and over with each of Sarah’s thrusts till it was nothing but a wordless rhythmic moan.