The red dot kept blinking. Maya watched it the way she'd watched the bird-shaped water stain on the ceiling all through her childhood — something small and steady that refused to look away first.

Her back pressed into the headboard. The heels were still on. She'd thought about kicking them off when Sunita lifted the phone, but she hadn't, and now the ankle straps felt like the only thing holding her to the bed.

Sunita came closer. Not fast. The phone stayed low, near her hip, the lens a black bead pointed at the mattress.

"Show me where it lives," she said. "Your hands. Remember?"

Maya's hands were flat on her thighs. They'd been flat there since the recording started, since Hi, I'm Maya, since the red dot opened its eye. She looked down at them — ten long nails, pale pink, the polish chipped at the corner of her left thumb where she'd been picking at it all week.

She lifted her right hand.

It felt ridiculous. That was the first thing. Her own palm against her own cheek, the warm heel of it, and she could feel the ring on her finger and the small tremor underneath it, and she thought, this is stupid, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done, and then she thought about the lens on her and did it anyway.

Down the neck. Slow. The way she'd practiced alone in the bathroom mirror when she was fifteen, before the hormones, before anything — except back then it had been a game she was losing. Now her collarbone was a real collarbone, the hollow above it a real hollow, and her fingers moved into it like they were learning the place for the first time.

"There," Sunita said. Quiet. Almost to herself.

Maya's hand found her breast.

She cupped it — the whole soft weight of it, heavier than her palm could hold — and the nipple drew tight against the base of her thumb before she even meant it to. She heard her own breath catch. She heard Sunita's breath, behind the phone, change pitch.

That was the part she hadn't expected. Not her own body. Her mother's breathing.

"Good," Sunita said. "Now let the camera see what I see."

Maya looked at the phone. The dark eye. She thought about the file it was writing, somewhere in the little glass rectangle, a file that would exist after tonight and keep existing, and the thought went through her like a swallow of cold water.

She spread her thighs.

The air hit the inside of her legs, cooler than the room, and her hand slid down her belly — past the soft dip of her navel, past the place where the skin was still faintly pink from the sheet crease, and stopped at the waistband of her underwear.

Black lace. She'd picked them that morning without knowing why.

Her thumb hooked the elastic. She didn't pull them down. She just rested there, the tip of her thumb against the lace, and looked at the lens.

"Keep going," Sunita said.

Maya pulled the underwear down her thighs. It caught on her knee, and she had to lift one leg — the heel wobbling on the mattress — and she felt clumsy and enormous and seventeen different kinds of exposed, and she heard herself laugh, a short ugly laugh, and Sunita laughed too, behind the phone.

"That was graceful," Maya said.

"Shut up and touch yourself."

Maya's hand moved back down.

Between her legs, small and soft, her cock lay against her belly. Half-hard already, which she hadn't noticed until now — the hormones had made it slow and shy, something that woke up late and went back to sleep early, and she'd stopped expecting it to do anything on its own. But it was awake. It had been awake since the recording started, maybe since the moment Sunita lifted the phone, and the tip of it was wet, just barely, a shine she could see when she tilted her chin.

She wrapped her fingers around it.

Her whole body went still.

Not from pleasure. From the strangeness of it — her own hand, her own cock, the two of them meeting like acquaintances who'd been introduced at a party and then never spoken. She'd touched herself a thousand times. But never with an audience. Never with the red dot watching.

She stroked once. Slow. Base to tip, the way she liked it, thumb dragging over the head.

Her hips lifted off the mattress.

"Oh," she said. Not to anyone.

"That's it," Sunita said. "That's the face."

Maya's eyes snapped up. Sunita was smiling behind the phone, and her smile was different from the smile she used in videos — softer, meaner, private. The smile she used when she was watching something she'd made.

Maya looked back at her own hand.

She stroked again. Slower this time, watching herself do it, watching her fingers move on her own cock, and she felt the wetness spread under her thumb and heard the small slick sound it made in the quiet room, and she felt her face get hot.

"You like it," Sunita said. Not a question.

"I—"

"Don't answer. Show me."

Maya's left hand came up to her breast. She hadn't told it to. It just did — cupped the soft mound again, thumb finding the nipple, circling it the way she liked, and the two motions fell into a rhythm without her deciding: right hand on her cock, left hand on her breast, hips rocking up into her own grip.

She could hear herself breathing. Wet and shallow. She could hear the phone — a tiny electrical hum, the sound of a device recording, the sound she'd heard a thousand times in her mother's room through the wall.

"Look at your nipples," Sunita said. "Look how hard they are."

Maya looked down. They were. Dark and tight and standing up off the soft heaviness of her breasts, and the sight of them did something to her chest that her fingers couldn't — a hot wire pulled tight through her sternum and up into her throat.

"Pinch one," Sunita said.

Maya pinched. Her whole body flinched. A small sound came out of her — half gasp, half whine — and she heard Sunita's breath catch behind the phone.

"Again."

She pinched again. Harder. The wire pulled tighter. Her hips rolled, and her hand on her cock sped up without permission, and she felt the first real throb run up through her — that low heavy pulse that started somewhere behind her belly and pushed everything else out of the way.

"Mama—"

She didn't know she was going to say it. It came out anyway.

"I know," Sunita said. "I know, baby. Keep going."

Maya's hand moved faster. She was slick now — properly slick, wet enough that her grip slid, and she could hear it, the small wet sound of her own fist, and she couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or proud and so she was both at once, her face burning, her hips pushing up off the mattress in short rocking strokes.

Sunita moved the phone. Lower. Angled down between Maya's spread thighs.

"Wider," she said.

Maya spread her legs wider. The heels dug into the mattress on either side, the ankle straps cutting into her skin, and she felt the whole shape of herself open up to the lens — her belly, her cock in her fist, the small tight shadow underneath it, everything.

"Look at the camera," Sunita said.

Maya looked.

The black eye looked back. The red dot blinked. And something in Maya's chest cracked open — not from fear, not exactly, but from being seen, from the fact that the little glass rectangle was keeping this, holding it, that somewhere in the world there was now a file of Maya touching herself with her mother's eyes on her, and the thought made her hips jerk so hard she nearly came right then.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, I'm—"

"Not yet."

Sunita's voice was flat and warm at the same time. The voice she used when she was working. Maya had heard it through the wall.

"Slow down," Sunita said. "Let me watch you."

Maya slowed. It hurt. Her hand wanted to keep going — her whole body wanted to keep going, every nerve in her belly screaming faster, faster — and she made herself stroke slow instead, one long pull at a time, thumb circling the head at the top of each one, and the ache pooled deeper and heavier in her pelvis until her thighs were shaking.

"Good girl," Sunita said.

The words went through Maya like a hand.

Her hips bucked. A small wet sound escaped her mouth — not quite a word. She looked at the phone, and then past it, at her mother's face, and Sunita was watching her with that private smile, her lips parted, her own chest rising and falling a little faster than before.

"You're dripping," Sunita said. "Look."

Maya looked down. There was a shine on the inside of her thigh, a thin wet line running down from where her cock met her body, and she hadn't felt it happen. Something about seeing it — the evidence, the proof of her own hunger running down her own leg — made her whole body clench.

"Mama," she said again. She couldn't help it. Her voice had gone high and thin.

"I'm here."

"I'm—"

"I know."

Maya's hand sped up again. She couldn't help that either. The slow strokes were gone, and the wet sound was back, and her left hand had stopped pinching her nipple and was just holding her own breast now, cupping it, thumb pressed flat over the tight bud, and her hips were rolling in a rhythm she couldn't stop, up and up, the heels skidding on the sheet.

"That's it," Sunita said. "Right there. Don't stop."

Maya didn't stop.

The crest came up underneath her like a wave she'd been riding blind — the low heavy pulse in her pelvis turning hot, turning sharp, turning into something that pulled all her muscles tight at once, and she heard herself make a sound she'd never heard before, a high thin broken gasp, and her eyes went wide and fixed on the black eye of the phone.

She came.

It spilled over her fingers — hot and thin and sudden, more than she expected, more than she ever got alone — and ran down the back of her hand and onto her belly, pooling in the soft dip of her navel, and her hips jerked twice more into her own grip before her whole body went slack.

Her mouth stayed open. The gasp hung in the silence.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the small electrical hum of the phone.

Then Sunita moved.

She lowered the phone — slowly, still recording, the red dot still blinking — and stepped closer to the bed. Her free hand came down and pressed flat against Maya's belly, fingers spread, feeling the come slick under her palm.

Maya didn't move. She couldn't. Her legs were still spread, her heels still on, her hand still cupped loose around her softening cock, and she watched her mother's face come closer, lips parted, eyes on the wet shine on Maya's skin.

"Good," Sunita said. "That's good."

She leaned in. Her lips were a breath from Maya's ear.

"Now," she said. "Let's watch it back."