If there is anything democratic about image making, it is technical acumen mattering little next to being present and ready at the most perfect moment.

The soft focus and sloppy composition amplify immediacy here—the boy with his belted jeans unfastened but as yet unshed, the young woman’s spine and pale skin spilling out of the zipper-opened dress back, the way her braced toes arch her heel, giving her body a sense of forward momentum. I love it all.

But what gets me most is the young woman blocked from view by her lovers’—the boy’s mouth surrounds her clitoris as if it were a nipple; her pulling the other young woman toward her with her right hand into an implied mess of lips, bone-hard teeth and searching tongue tips.

I would give almost anything in the world to trade places with this unseen girl—to know such rabidly dangerous wanting, to feel its reflection turned against me.