Arabella lay stretched across her tufted velvet chaise longue, a silk robe clinging loosely to her skin, hair pinned in glossy waves, and a glass of vintage Chardonnay balanced delicately in hand. Her phone buzzed for the third time in two minutes.
She knew who it was before she looked.
Group Chat: The Real Heiresses
đź’¬ Ava: We're outside Tease and it's PACKED. They've got live dancers dripping in body glitter.
đź’¬ Dorothy: I just saw two guys doing a slow choreographed striptease in matching leather harnesses. And a girl in a corset hanging from a swing above the bar. What even is this?
đź’¬ Emily: They gave us champagne before we even got through the door. Bella. Come.
Arabella smiled in spite of herself. She'd already turned them down earlier, claiming exhaustion and work obligations, but the truth was simpler.
Guilt.
Going to Ashton club felt like a betrayal, even if she and Preston hadn't seen each other in days. Even if he barely texted. Even if his mother treated her like a well-dressed inconvenience and his jealousy over Ashton bordered on obsessive.
She had tried to explain it to Emily earlier on the phone.
"It's not that I don't want to go," she had said. "It's just Preston would twist it. He'd think I went to spite him."
Emily had sighed. "Maybe he needs a little spiting. But fine. Stay home. Be noble. We'll party enough for four."
Now, lounging in her silk robe while her friends were likely sipping champagne under chandeliers and pulsing lights, Arabella felt ridiculous. She wasn't the type to sit out. She wasn't the girl left behind.
Her phone rang. A video call.
She swiped to answer, and was greeted with the blurry, chaotic, glittering interior of Tease. Ava was front and center, sparkles dusting her collarbone, music pulsing in the background.
"Arabellaaaaa!" Ava shouted. "Why aren't you here?!"
Emily grabbed the phone, her face flushed from laughter and excitement. "You're missing the performance. Bella an actual sensual cabaret. Half-naked aerialists in glitter and mesh, men and women grinding on mirrored poles, couples doing things that would make a bishop sweat."
Arabella rolled her eyes, but her breath caught as Ava tilted the phone up to capture the room.
Tease was a fever dream: velvet walls drenched in black and oxblood, obsidian floors that reflected the lights like water, and pulsing neon signs that read "Sin tastes better in velvet." The scent of spiced amber, rosewood, and something darkly intoxicating curled through the air, visible almost, like smoke.
Performers of every gender danced in slow, choreographed synchronicity—oiled skin glowing under gold-tinted strobes, bodies tangled in silk ribbons above the crowd, women in thigh-high boots twirling with men in open vests and nothing underneath. Some couples danced on mirrored platforms, eyes locked, hips rolling with abandon. It was lavish. Shameless. Hot.
"This place is a heartbeat away from an orgy," Dorothy yelled over the music.
Arabella laughed, despite herself, as her phone buzzed again. Instagram.
@TeaseNYC tagged you in a story.
She opened it.
A sleek montage: a dominatrix cracking a whip in time to the beat; a champagne fountain where shirtless dancers poured glasses for gasping patrons; a woman in a pearl corset being lifted by a man in nothing but tailored dress pants; flashes of crowd members in everything from designer suits to nothing but harnesses and heels.
Then a quick shot of a familiar figure Hudson, laughing with a woman in red latex. Parker stumbling through a pole-dancing lesson. Grant, raising a glass in toast… with Ashton Kingsley, backlit by deep golden light, dressed in black-on-black, eyes sharp like he saw everything and said nothing.
Arabella's jaw tightened.
Her brothers had gone. Her friends were there. The whole city, it seemed, was worshipping at the altar of lust and luxury—and she was wrapped in silk, loyal to a man who barely remembered what day it was.
"What even is this place?" she whispered.
Ava called again. This time, all three of her girls crowded the frame in a velvet booth bathed in wine-colored light. Behind them, performers circled patrons like living art—blowing kisses, brushing fingers over shoulders, whispering into ears.
Even from the grainy camera, Tease shimmered like another planet.
"Bella," Emily purred, "you would own this room."
"I can't," Arabella said, setting her glass down. "It's complicated."
"No," Ava replied, eyes fierce. "What's complicated is you putting your happiness on hold for someone who doesn't put you first."
Dorothy chimed in, soft but cutting, "You're punishing yourself to protect his feelings. While he's out somewhere not thinking twice about yours."
Arabella exhaled.
They weren't wrong.
She turned to the skyline Manhattan glittering like it knew secrets. Somewhere in that city, Ashton's club was burning bright with heat and freedom, while she sat in the dark, clinging to loyalty that looked more like self-betrayal.
Her screen flashed again. A new story from @TeaseNYC:
"Welcome to Tease. Undress your ego at the door."
Arabella stared at the glowing text, her reflection faint in the screen.
Maybe not tonight.