Bad Influence - Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Something, Ruth sensed, was not quite right. She couldn't put her finger on it, but they just seemed... off.

Maybe it was still the relative oddness of seeing a college girl willingly dressing in her old school uniform, especially after seeing the kind of outfits she'd worn before that. They gave her such a childish air, and from what Ruth remembered from being that age - and saw from Elle - that was the last thing you wanted, usually.

She didn't want to pry, though, to stick her nose in. There could be a good reason for that... Elle's explanation was reasonable, but the longer it kept going, and she didn't see any new pictures of Carly in anything other than the uniforms, the more weird it felt, the more she suspected there had to be more to it.

And then, she noticed it. She wasn't sure what drew her attention to it, yet as soon as she spotted it the first time, it was hard not to keep seeing it. The uniform's skirts just didn't exactly fit. Perhaps it was as simple as Carly having grown since she'd worn them... Except, that hadn't been that long ago, had it? Elle said they were from high school, and it wasn't like the girls had graduated decades earlier.

It was definitely strange, almost like the skirts were sometimes catching on something, bunching up slightly... In one picture, Ruth saw what she had to assume was the waistband of the girl's panties, peeking out from above the skirt where her sweatshirt had ridden up.

But... Were those panties? There was something familiar about them, that was certain, although they didn't look like any panties Ruth owned. She couldn't place what was different about them, why she thought that; it wasn't what she would have expected, however. She'd have presumed that, if anything, Carly's choice in underwear would skew more wild, more skimpy, inasmuch as she thought about it at all... These looked bigger, somehow, more substantial... Thicker...

She couldn't ask about it, of course. How would she go about bringing that up?! 'I was looking at your girlfriend's panties, and I was just curious what kind they were?' There was no way to spin that without it sounding creepy, and obsessive. And maybe it was... Maybe she had no business prying into any of this... It was difficult to quell her inquisitiveness about it once she'd spotted it, though.

'Is everything all right with you and Carly?' Ruth finally settled on messaging, not referencing the other girl's clothes whatsoever, which felt like the safest path. 

'They're great,' Elle replied. 'I've been working on narrowing my focus for my career, and she's been a huge help with that!'

'Oh?' Ruth sent back, intrigued. Elle wanted to become a teacher, but she hadn't been able to decide on which age range, exactly, she wanted to work with, and was running out of time to make a choice at this rate. If Carly could assist in making up her mind, that would, indeed, be a big help. 'That's wonderful, dear. Have you made a decision?'

'Not quite yet,' Elle confessed. 'I can tell I'm getting close, though.'

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It was a relief, in a way, to see pictures of Carly out of what seemed to be her usual uniform. Ruth wondered if that meant things had calmed down a bit for the girl, to give her more time to choose her own clothes again.

She was encouraged, as well, that the girl hadn't gone all the way back to her old fashion. There were still some goth-y undertones, since she was wearing a black dress and heels, but it was nowhere near as revealing as what she'd seen in those first photos, the ones that had gotten her so worried in the first place. The dress was a bit short, yes, and had spaghetti straps; for a young woman in her twenties, however, it was relatively tame, not even showing off any cleavage.

It was, on the other hand, pretty fancy, more than she would expect for a normal day at school. 'Are you all going to a gala or something?' she messaged Elle.

'Mom,' Ruth could practically see the eye roll as she read her daughter's response. 'Are you snooping on Carly's profile again?'

'She looks very pretty,' Ruth said, hoping the compliment would help Elle look past her transgression. 'It seems awfully formal for going to classes.'

'Yes, we are going to an event,' Elle admitted. 'I haven't picked out my dress yet, so I've been waiting to tell you until I can get a nice pic of us together. Carly was looking through her options and liked that one.'

'It's nice,' Ruth reiterated, although that didn't stop her from asking, 'Did she post any of her other choices?' before going back to scrolling through the pictures. She'd only seen the first couple, and there were plenty more.

They all appeared to be of the same dress, Carly walking around her bedroom in it. As the gallery went on, however, Ruth started to realize the photos weren't specifically of the dress... They were showing a young woman struggling to stay on her feet, stumbling, nearly falling over. One even had her catching herself on her bedside table, bent over.

Again, Ruth was unable to resist staring at what appeared to be another glimpse of the girl's underwear. Like the last time she'd seen them, they were white, which was not the color Ruth would have imagined her in, from what she knew of her, especially not while she was in a black dress. And, short as the dress's skirt was, it didn't seem like it ought to be enough to cause her to flash her panties at a slight misstep like that, not unless, for some reason, they were much bulkier than normal silk, or satin, or even cotton, though that felt too childish, too innocent, for her, in or out of her school uniform.

She still couldn't work out what was going on there, and didn't want to ask about it, feeling like even more of a pervert finding herself staring at the girl's panties a second time. Fortunately, it wasn't her main concern anyway.

'Is she drunk in these?' she inquired. It didn't matter, she supposed, not when Elle - and surely Carly as well - was over twenty-one, and could drink all she wanted. It just seemed odd for Carly to put that on behavior on display, to post it all over her profile, especially when it followed directly after so many shots of her in uniform, like a sweet little schoolgirl.

'No, no,' Elle assured her mother. 'I took those to show her how ridiculous she looked trying to learn to walk in those heels, to convince her she needed to wear some different shoes to the gala.'

'Oh, I see,' Ruth replied. 'You're a good girlfriend, looking out for her like that.'

'I do my best,' Elle said. 'I'm just trying to make sure she has all the protection she needs. It's going to be a long night.'

It seemed to work, too. When Elle finally did send the picture of the two of them together, Carly was wearing a pair of black Mary Janes instead of the heels, the same shoes, Ruth suspected, that went with her uniform. Next to Elle, who was wearing heels, she looked positively tiny, and more adorable than the sexy she was probably trying to pull off.

Something still nagged at the back of Ruth's mind when she saw that photo. She'd accepted Elle's explanation initially, yet, now, looking at them together, she couldn't help questioning if there was more to it. 

It came to her as she cooked supper that evening, striking out of the blue, making her dry her hands off so she could grab her phone and go to Carly's profile. She had to scroll back into the past, before Carly's fashion shift, to find the last picture of the two of them together. Sure enough, it was the opposite of this one, with Carly looking taller, if not by nearly as much, thanks to Elle being in sneakers, and Carly wearing heels.

Heels that were, if anything, taller than the ones she'd had on with the black dress. Looking even further back, Ruth got confirmation that she was right, that Carly used to - according to her social media, anyway - seemingly always wear heels. Why would she be having trouble with them now? Why would Elle say that she was 'learning to walk' in them, when she clearly already knew?

Maybe it was different... The heels on the boots she'd worn before were chunkier, more platforms than the thinner stiletto of the newer shoes. If she was in those all the time, though, surely she'd be at least accustomed to them enough to be able to adapt somewhat, to not nearly fall over and flash her panties... It was almost like she'd reverted back to being the clumsy, awkward high schooler her uniform marked her as... Or had Elle lied to her? Was it as simple as Carly being drunk after all? 

She didn't think that was it... After all her initial worries, it seemed obvious by now that the girl wasn't as bad an influence as Ruth had thought. If Elle was falling into any bad habits because of her, she was doing a great job of hiding them... Perhaps as a result of knowing her mother was watching her profile like a hawk.

As the pictures from the gala began to be posted, however, they only proved that Carly wasn't so bad. She appeared so timid, clinging to Elle, staring bashfully down at her feet most of the time. If anything, she looked like a little girl who had begged to go somewhere with her big sister, just to discover, when they'd arrived, that she was in over her head.

That was especially true in a series of pictures of them at their table, Elle chatting with the other girls seated there, while Carly squirmed in her chair. A couple times, it seemed like she was opening her mouth to say something, but in the next shot, it was always closed again, her head usually shyly hung.

There was one final photo Elle posted of Carly, back in her bedroom, face still downturned, though Ruth thought she sensed a hint of pink on her cheeks, her hands reaching behind herself in a weird way, almost appearing to be cupping something back there, under her skirt.

'Someone is up past her bedtime,' Elle had captioned it. 'A long night. I think she's glad she listened to me about what to wear.'

Had the event been the night before? The picture hadn't been posted at what even Ruth would consider bedtime, and certainly not what she'd think any grad student would find late. Or they could have had a lot to do beforehand, so, to them, it was late. Ruth definitely understood the last part, however... The Mary Janes, as childish as they might look, were no doubt far more comfortable than the heels would have been.

A little later than night, Ruth got a message from Elle. 'I'm pretty sure we finally cracked it,' she wrote. 'After practicing with Carly some, I think I'm going to be specializing in early childhood education. Probably around elementary school age.'

'That's wonderful!' Ruth told her, deciding not to point out that it sounded odd to say she'd been 'practicing' with her girlfriend. After all, it had apparently been a long night, so it was likely just a mistype. What else could it possibly mean?