Desiree’s heart pounded like a drum. She never knew the campus could get so dark. Under normal circumstances, she made sure to return to her room at least an hour before curfew so she never stayed out late like some kind of miscreant, but these weren’t exactly “normal circumstances.”

One of the boys she found hiding in the bush was beside her, beet red and sweaty. Every fiber of his being commanded him to run away like the coward he was, but he couldn’t defy the object of his affections, so he led her to an unassuming club building looming ominously in a far corner of the campus. He couldn’t even bring himself to deceive her by leading her to the wrong building, for doing so would betray his loyalty to her.

“Is this it?” she asked when they reached the entrance.

The fanboy nodded, completely incapable of looking her in the eye, glancing in her direction, or even speaking to her. Desiree tried opening the door, but it was locked, which was odd because the campus didn’t close for another half hour.

“I thought you said this was the place?” Desiree asked the fanboy.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to work up the courage to answer because the door cracked open as far as the chain lock allowed and someone peered at them through the gap, looking each of them up and down before harshly asking, “What do you want?”

Desiree cleared her throat and stepped forward. “I would like to come in, please.”

“Yeah?” the doorman boorishly replied.

She waited, but nothing happened. “So, let me in,” she said expectantly.

“It don’t work like that.”

“This club building is open to the public!” she insisted. “I have just as much a right to enter as you do!”

“Go tell it to the janitors,” he replied before shutting the door.

Desiree felt some of that uncharacteristic standoffishness seething into her personality again, but this time she maintained her composure with a huff and turned to her escort, impatiently urging him with a “Well?”

The fanboy swallowed hard. He was hunched over as if her expectation exerted literal weight on him. Something she was becoming increasingly conscious of. He knocked on the door.

“What?” the doorman peevishly demanded.

“Rouge the red rides roughshod,” he shamefully recited.

The doorman’s gaze narrowed. “High or low?”

“Wherever the wind may go.”

The door shut, there was a latch of the chain lock coming undone, and then the door opened up for them.

The doorman was the only soul on the first floor. Dimly lit, slightly altered in a sort of haunting sense normally busy buildings take on in the absence of people. As they went deeper through the halls, it became apparent a thumping Desiree initially took to be her quickening heartbeat was actually bass heavy music blaring somewhere in the building. It became audible when they opened the door to the stairwell.

The second floor was far livelier, which was odd, since clubs should be letting out this late. Dozens of students were clumped together throughout the hall, laughing and gossiping. Desiree couldn’t tell where the music was coming from, but decided there must be multiple sources since the sound seemed to envelop them as they went. A wandering eye led her to blush and focus on the ground in front of her when she perceived the passionate embrace many couples in the hall brazenly displayed.

A beautiful girl with a ton of makeup, a fine dress, and an equally accessorized guy with spiked hair passed them on their way to one of the clubrooms. When the football player-looking guy in front of the door opened it for them, the music got louder and multicolored strobe lights and smoke spilled out. In the brief moment she glimpsed inside, Desiree saw girls in bunny suits and guys in speedos and leopard print banana hammocks dancing promiscuously on each other. The panel on the door labeled it as the escort club.

Any other day, for any other reason, she would have turned around right there and filed a report to the disciplinary committee. But doing so now would stop her getting the answers she needed; so she forced herself deeper, though averting her gaze whenever she saw anyone doing something best done in private.

Another door remained open, receiving more foot traffic than any other on that floor, with a line snaking up the hall. Desiree stopped in front of it, oblivious to impatient guys waiting to get in and asked the bouncer, “What’s in there?”

The bouncer started to answer, but caught his tongue when he realized who she was. He looked around anxiously, unsure if it was safe to address her directly.

The fanboy trailing behind her quietly said, “It’s okay since she initiated contact.”

Unsurely, the bouncer replied, “The underground photography club showroom.”

“Like the kiosks where they sell photos after events?” she innocently asked.

“These aren’t the kind of pictures you hang in the hallway.”

Desiree couldn’t conceive of what he could possibly mean, so she went inside, the bouncer shirking out of her way out fear of touching her, upsetting the guys waiting their turn. The fanboy was going to stop her, but even though it was his responsibility as a member of her fan club to shelter her from the kinds of vulgarity flaunted in that room, telling her “no” was unthinkable.

The showroom was set up like a science fair, with tables dividing the floor up into a maze of posterboards and displays, and the paths were packed as tightly with students as any convention. At a glance it all looked perfectly innocent to Desiree, just a marketplace where students could buy pictures like the stands the photography club set up to sell pictures after sports and UIL events. She didn’t see any reason to truss it up as an “underground” event… until she took a closer look at one of the displays.

The realization crept in like frost on a window. So much skin was on display, in some cases more than what she saw in the escort club room, and often by upstanding and respected students and teachers. Rotary displays were scattered around with personal affects like hair brushes, socks, and even panties, and pictures of their unwitting owners adorning the displays. In Desiree’s mind it was inconceivable for anyone to consent to having these pictures taken, but that could only mean they were taken without their knowledge, which was immeasurably worse.

The boys around her browsed either with wanton abandon or razor focus. There was the occasional girl, but fewer were there to buy or browse than to pay the fee to have their pictures taken out of circulation. Overhearing a tall, mature student begrudgingly talking down a vendor for her pictures subjected Desiree to the probability pictures of her might exist somewhere in this throng.

Desiree found someone taking money and the people waiting to do business with him dispersed as she approached. “You, are there any pictures of me here?”

His eyes widened when he saw who addressed him. “Uh… I mean, nope!”

Her silence over his suspicious answer prompted more heartfelt assurances until she was inclined to believe him, but her hesitant relief was offset by a hint of indignation since not having any pictures of her implied no one wanted pictures of her, which was oddly infuriating. “Why not?”

The guy backed against the wall, flustered by Desiree pressing for an answer. He frantically scanned the crowd as if he was expecting demons to emerge from the walls. “Uh… we just… don’t. Can’t. Not supposed to. Sorry!” He pushed past her and vanished into the anonymity of the crowd.

Desiree tried following, but the ebb of people swallowed him up immediately and reformed like a smelly wall. It was then she realized how dense the people were in this repurposed clubroom. In this room where customers and sellers packed in like sardines, she had a good arm’s reach to herself. The people at the edge of the circle frequently cast anxious glances in her direction and scooted away when she drew near.

She left the room with a vacant stare, unsure if she was disturbed more by what she saw or the impossibility of imagining the people around her avoiding her. She quietly followed her unwilling adherent to the back of the building, to a hallway devoid of socialites and all but one couple with an eye for privacy.

The fanboy stopped in front of a door.

“Is this the room?” she nervously asked, half hoping he would say ‘no.’ The fanboy said nothing. She swallowed, though her mouth was dry. “Are we… going in?”

The fanboy reached for the door, but his hand never reached the handle. In a fit of spontaneous impatience, Desiree let herself in.