Chapter 11
Jacob
Idon’t even realise I’m rubbing my thumb into the inside of my wrist until Tippi catches my hand.
“Hey,” she says softly. “We can still stay home and watch terrible telly. I hear there’s a very promising documentary about otters on later.”
Her eyes are bright and teasing, but there’s no pressure in them.
She’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed, hair piled up in a loose knot, a black camisole slipping off one shoulder.
Nothing about her looks like she’s about to take me to my first orgy at the Pink Sugar Club.
She looks like she always does in my house: like chaos disguised as comfort.
“I thought you said you were treating this as a work event,” I mutter, my voice drier than I intended. “You said you needed fresh material.”
She grins. “It is a work event. A deeply rigorous professional environment. Lots of… networking.”
I snort before I can stop myself. “That’s not what networking means.”
“It is in my industry.” She scoots closer, knees bumping my thigh. “So. Last chance. We can stay. I can make popcorn. You can point out continuity errors in crime dramas - or otter dramas - and I’ll be very turned on.”
I exhale slowly. My home is quiet and warm, and entirely predictable. The club will not be any of those things. I can already feel the anticipation fizzing under my skin like static, every what if flickering through my mind in high definition.
What if it’s too loud.
What if I freeze.
What if I don’t like seeing Tippi with other people.
What if I do…
I look at her. At the little crease between her brows that appears only when she’s genuinely worried. At the way she’s holding herself back from bouncing, keeping still on purpose for my benefit.
“I want to go,” I decide. My heart gives a hard, nervous thump. “I… am also terrified. But I want to go.”
Her face softens, everything bright and golden. “There it is,” she murmurs. “My brave boy.”
Heat slicks under my skin at the words. I clear my throat, shaking it off. “You did say we’d go over… guidelines. Again.”
“Absolutely.” She lets go of my hand only to crawl to the edge of the bed, where she’s laid out clothes like an altar. “But first, wardrobe. Because if I’m taking you to Pink Sugar, you are not going to show up in your usual Arcus funeral chic.”
I glance at the neat rows. She’s clearly raided my wardrobe while I was in the shower.
Dark shirt. Stone slacks. The shirt is one of the softer ones, the cotton smooth under my fingertips when I pick it up. She’s chosen well. Small, irrational relief spreads through me. “You did reconnaissance.”
“Obviously.” She rises and steps into my personal space without hesitation, smoothing the shirt against my chest, testing the fit with competent hands.
“This one makes your shoulders look like a thirst trap and doesn’t have that horrible stabbing tag at the back of the neck.
And the trousers…” She flicks the waistband. “Good butt. Very important.”
“I thought the focus was supposed to be on consent,” I reply, faintly strangled.
“Consent and good butts can coexist,” she says solemnly.
I roll my eyes, but I’m starting to smile. The shirt really is soft. She reaches up and undoes the top two buttons without asking, leaving my throat exposed, then pauses. “OK?”
I swallow, hard. “Yes. That’s… fine.”
She studies my face for a beat, then nods, satisfied. “Right. Guidelines.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “One: you don’t have to do anything. Watching is participating. Holding my hand is participating. If at any point you want to leave, we leave. No questions, no guilt.”
I nod. “You’ve said.”
“I’m saying again.” She taps another finger. “Two: you don’t have to touch anyone you don’t want to touch. Including me. Including if things are already happening and your brain suddenly goes ‘nope.’ You say stop, we stop. No awkwardness, no hard feelings.”
My chest tightens, not with fear this time, but with something like gratitude. “And you?” I ask quietly. “You’ll say no if you want to?”
“You can count on it.” Her gaze doesn’t flinch. “Consent goes all ways. Even with me. Especially with me, because I get excited and I like sexy chaos and you are not a prop in my content, Jacob. You are…” She trails off, eyes going soft. “You’re you.”
The words settle somewhere deep in my heart and stay there.
“Three,” she continues, a little hoarse. “If I’m talking to someone or flirting and something doesn’t feel right, you tell me. You’re allowed to be jealous, or uncomfortable, or confused. None of that makes you a bad fit for me. Got it?”
“Jealousy is not a disqualifying condition,” I say, more to myself than to her. “Understood.”
She beams. “Look at you, absorbing the syllabus.”
I huff a laugh. She’s given me a script, boundaries, and easy escape routes. It doesn’t take the nerves away, but it gives them something to rest against.
“Let’s go, then,” I say, before I can change my mind.
Pink Sugar looks as unassuming as an art gallery. From the street, it’s a narrow building set back from the main run of bars, unmarked door, frosted glass. No neon sign. No red lights. If I didn’t know what it was, I’d walk past without a second look.
Inside, it’s something else entirely.
The first thing I register is the lighting.
Warm, golden pools rather than harsh overhead glare.
My shoulders loosen half a degree. The second thing is the sound: low, layered, more like a hum than a roar.
Voices, laughter, the clink of glass, a bass line thrumming somewhere, but nothing like the piercing shriek of a packed pub.
My lungs expand more fully.
Tippi is a small blaze in the mellow light.
She’s changed into a short, fluttering dress in some metallic shade that shifts between rose gold and copper when she moves, tattoos peeking at her collarbone and thighs.
My brain helpfully supplies that she looks like the embodiment of the word delicious.
At the reception desk, a young woman with dyed silver grey hair and sharp eyeliner looks us over with professional calm. “Evening,” she says. Her voice is warm, nonchalant, like she’s greeting us at a hotel. “Members and guests only.”
Tippi hands over a sleek card. “Member and guest.”
“Wonderful.” The woman scans it, then turns to me. “You’re Jacob?”
“Y… yes.” My hands want to fidget, so I lace them behind my back, feeling the familiar rub of my wrist with my thumb.
“We’ve got you registered as a first time guest, so I just want to double-check that you read through the code of conduct and the consent policy?”
“Yes,” I repeat. I went through them the way I go through security protocols, line by line.
No drugs, no cameras, no anonymous drop-ins.
Consent must be explicit, ongoing, and enthusiastic.
Green, amber, and red safe word signals to be used, and there are wristbands for preferred interaction levels, with dedicated staff on every floor.
“Any questions?” she asks.
A hundred, but none she needs to answer. “No. Thank you.”
She slides two silicone wristbands across the desk. Tippi’s is bright pink with tiny embossed hearts. Mine is a deep, calm blue.
“Blue means you’re open to conversation and maybe some play,” she reminds gently. “If you want to switch to social-only, we can swap it for yellow at any time.”
I nod, the simple, visible system soothing. A clear signal, and a clear out if I need it.
“Enjoy your evening,” she says, and means it without innuendo.
The first floor feels like an extremely comfortable hotel lounge.
Plush sofas and armchairs in jewel tones cluster around low tables.
The bar is stocked with everything from craft beer to herbal tea.
People lounge and talk, some fully dressed, some in silk robes, some in lingerie that looks like art.
A man in harness and trousers is deep in conversation with a woman in a floaty floral dress about, of all things, municipal recycling.
My brain keeps waiting for the sleaze, the edge of danger.
It doesn’t arrive.
I register small details instead, like the framed artwork that looks more like abstract bodies than porn. A cork board with notices about consent workshops and rope classes. A sign by the bar: No touching without explicit verbal consent. Enthusiasm is sexy. Coercion is not.
“This is the soft floor,” Tippi murmurs at my shoulder. “Social, cuddly, low-intensity stuff. If you need to decompress later, we come back here, OK?”
I manage a smile. Her hand finds the small of my back, anchoring me. My nerves are still fizzing, but they’re joined now by something else: curiosity. Intrigue.
“And… upstairs?” I ask.
Her smile turns slowly wicked. “Art gallery,” she says. “Come see.”
The second floor is louder, but in a way that feels curated rather than chaotic.
The first thing I see is colour. The walls are a riot of graffiti-style murals, with streaks of neon, stylised bodies, birds all half dissolving into abstract swirls.
Black leather sofas curve along the edges of the space, and, in the middle, a low stage shines under shifting lights.
A dancer in glittering lingerie moves to Nine Inch Nails, the bass line a dark, steady throb beneath her sinuous control.
Everything is deliberate. Nothing feels like it’s happening to me; it’s happening around me, and I am choosing to step into it.
People drift in clusters, talking, touching, laughing. A woman in a suit with her lace bra peeking through is teaching someone how to tie a decorative knot on a wrist. Another couple are half-reclined, kissing slowly, nothing frantic about it.
Tippi is vibrating beside me like a rung bell. This is her domain. And it shows. “Breathe,” she murmurs into my ear, fingers tracing the edge of my wristband. “How’s the volume?”
“Manageable.” It isn’t quiet, but the sound design is clever; zones of intensity and pockets of relative calm. My brain maps them automatically, and gratefully.