Arrival

Isobel Vane arrived early.

She always did. It wasn’t nerves, nor enthusiasm—it was control. Arriving early let her survey a space in its stillness, before the masks came on. Before the scent of sweat and ego thickened the air.

The door had been unmarked, the corridor long, the final descent into the dining room lit only by narrow, low-slung sconces that spilled gold across stone walls. The space itself was a cathedral of appetite: vaulted brick arches, a long blackwood table aglow with beeswax candles, and a scent that curled around her ribs like a whisper. Not just food. Something warmer. Feral.

She counted seven place settings.

Lucien Roche hadn’t shown his face. Of course he hadn’t. The man had a flair for theatrics—his name invoked like a spell in certain culinary circles, always whispered and rarely confirmed. Underground dinners. Sensual tasting menus. No photos. No phones. One guest claimed she’d left his table in tears; another said she’d climaxed over the soup course. Isobel assumed both were exaggerating.

Still, she’d come.

A chair stood at the head of the table, draped in dark velvet—Lucien’s throne, presumably. She took the seat nearest the kitchen instead, far end, back to the wall. It gave her the full view. She set her notebook beside her, uncapped her fountain pen. She liked the feel of it—controlled, clean, obedient. Not like her body, which had always written in hunger. The paper already smelled faintly of bergamot and ink. Safe things.

The first guest arrived two minutes later.

He was tall, raw-boned, wearing a velvet jacket and the face of a banker who now wrote about wine to justify drinking it before noon. The silver-blonde woman with smudged eyeliner on his arm had the kind of sculpted elegance money could purchase but grief could not conceal. Their matching tension was palpable. Old resentment in fresh perfume.

They didn’t notice her at first.

“Eliot,” the man muttered, pulling out a chair. “And Margaux.”

Isobel offered a curt nod. She knew the type. The performance of taste. The dissection of caviar in a voice that had never known hunger. Margaux’s fingers, however, trembled slightly as she lifted her wine glass. Interesting.

Next came a soft thump on the stair and a hesitant clearing of the throat.

“Julian Reiss,” he said, eyes not quite meeting hers. He was flushed, curls wild, shirt too stiff. He looked like a professor dragged into a brothel against his will, and perhaps against his secret wishes. His gaze darted across the table—he chose the far corner, away from Margaux, away from Isobel. She almost smiled.

The fourth guest entered with a silky laugh that slid through the room.

Androgynous. Bare feet. An open robe of wine-colored silk, and a tattoo of vines curling up one arm. They moved with the confidence of someone who’d already seen everyone naked and judged no one harshly.

“Sable,” they said, sliding into the chair beside Margaux. Not waiting for an invitation.

“Charmed,” Margaux murmured, lips barely moving.

Sable smiled like they knew the game was already beginning.

The last guest made an entrance.

Her heels hit the stone floor like punctuation. Platinum hair in a high ponytail, lips lacquered blood-red. A dress so sheer it dared the candlelight to look away. She swept to the table as if she owned it and plucked a seat between the professor and Sable, looping one arm over the chair.

“Tamsin Volterra,” she said. “No relation to decency.”

Isobel arched a brow. Tamsin caught it and winked.

The room settled. Six guests. Six place cards, each scrawled in gold ink with their first names only. Still no sign of Lucien. No waitstaff. No sound, save the slow drip of wax and the hush of breath.

Then the doors to the kitchen opened.

He didn’t speak right away.

Lucien Roche was used to being watched and moved like it—neither performing nor shrinking, but fully, unselfconsciously present. He wore black: open collar, sleeves rolled, barefoot. His hair was tied loosely at the nape of his neck, a single strand curling against his jaw. His eyes swept the room not to see who had come, but how the arrangement felt. Satisfied, he stepped to the head of the table and rested one palm against the dark velvet chair.

He let the silence bloom.

Then he raised his glass.

“Welcome,” he said. His voice was low, accented—not French exactly, not Moroccan either. A blend. A question.

“You are here because something in you said yes. Not to an address. Not to a name. To a hunger.”

He paused—not for effect, but as if the word caught somewhere behind his teeth. Like he’d once answered that same call and never fully walked back from where it took him.

He moved slowly, fingers brushing the edge of a candlestick, eyes lingering not on the faces, but on the shapes of their postures—the angle of a wrist, the tremble of a breath.

“This meal is not meant to satisfy. It is not a checklist of flavors or courses. It is a process of undoing. A stripping away. First taste, then tension, then heat, then surrender.”

Isobel’s pen hovered over the page.

“The ingredients you will taste tonight have been chosen for more than their chemistry. They are myth. Memory. Muscle. You are not here to eat. You are here to remember what your mouth is for.”

He paused again. The candles flickered. A shadow passed behind his eyes and was gone.

“Some of you will resist. That’s fine. That, too, is part of the ritual. Appetite is not always polite.”

Lucien turned then, slowly, lifting his glass higher.

“Tonight, you will not be fed.”

He smiled—not kindly. Not cruelly. Just enough to feel like being seen naked.

“You will be devoured.”

He drank. And then he was gone—vanishing into the dark beyond the kitchen’s threshold, leaving only the echo of heat behind him.

Isobel exhaled. Her hand moved again, recording a single word: dangerous.

First Course: Oysters and Pomegranate Foam

The plates arrived in silence.

Hands appeared—bare, anonymous—sliding slate-black dishes onto the table one by one. A single oyster nestled in its shell, haloed by a bloom of pomegranate foam. The plate was cold. The scent was briny, sharp, with a high sweetness just beneath.

Isobel stared at it for a moment, pen still in hand. The oyster was perfect. Plump. Glossed in sea brine. The foam shimmered slightly, pale pink with crimson pearls suspended like seeds in a myth. A whisper of Persephone—seeds swallowed, hunger awakened. Her stomach clenched, unexpectedly.

Around her, the guests murmured. Not words, exactly—just the shifting of breath, the click of cutlery, the pause before a ritual begins.

Tamsin reached for hers immediately. No hesitation. She tilted the shell toward her lips and slurped, letting it slide down her throat with a wet, deliberate sound. Her tongue darted once around the rim, catching foam.

“Fuck,” she whispered, loud enough for Reiss to jump. “That’s indecent.”

Sable chuckled, low and feline, and followed suit—though slower. They tilted their head back as they swallowed, throat fluttering. Margaux, seated beside them, hadn’t touched her plate yet. She was watching.

Eliot cleared his throat. “Oysters,” he said, “contain more zinc than any other food. Heightens testosterone. Increases circulation.” His voice was strained, performative.

“Thank you, Dr. Obvious,” Margaux murmured, and finally lifted her shell.

Isobel held hers without moving. She didn’t want to follow the others. Didn’t want to mimic desire. She wanted to observe it. Dissect it.

But the scent—brine and fruit and something vaguely floral—was intoxicating. Her fingers curled tighter around the edge of the shell.

Reiss was struggling. He’d lifted the oyster, then hesitated, blinking down at it like it might speak to him. Tamsin reached across with two fingers and tipped the shell, guiding it to Reiss’s mouth. Her touch lingered, her eyes locked on his. The oyster slid in. He choked slightly, flushed, his gaze darting to her lips before he looked away, nodding as though he’d passed a test. Isobel’s pen paused. Something had shifted—not just in Reiss, but in the air between them.

Isobel brought the shell to her lips.

The oyster was cool, slick, resisting and yielding at once. The foam was tart and sweet, effervescent like champagne. As she swallowed, a warmth bloomed behind her ribs—fast, chemical. Her eyes fluttered closed before she realized she’d let them.

When she opened them again, Lucien was watching her.

He stood just beyond the kitchen doors, arms folded, half in shadow. He wasn’t smiling. But he met her gaze like it was part of the course.

She looked away first.

“Mm,” Sable said. “It’s like being kissed by the ocean and then bitten by a fruit.”

“You sound like a menu,” Eliot muttered.

“I sound like someone tasting,” they replied. “Try it sometime.”

Isobel shifted in her seat.

The candle nearest her was melting unevenly, wax pooling toward the center of the table in a slow, glistening spill. It reminded her of thighs pressed together, of the moment before a mouth opens.

She reached for her pen but didn’t write.

The first course was always meant to awaken. Prime the tongue, stimulate the glands. But this wasn’t just salivation. Her nipples had hardened beneath her blouse. The air felt warmer. Or maybe her skin did.

Margaux dabbed her lips with a napkin, though there was nothing to clean. “Why do I feel like I’ve just been flirted with by a mollusk?”

“You have,” Sable said. “They’re very persuasive lovers.”

Reiss giggled and then tried to stop himself, staring down at the bone china like it might scold him.

Tamsin stretched in her chair, the motion elongating her spine, her chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Of course she wasn’t.

Isobel found herself watching the curve of her clavicle.

No one was speaking above a hush, but the energy had shifted. The formality of arrival had cracked. Now they were tasting each other—glances, laughs, the subtle shift of bodies closer together. A table of strangers, beginning to smell familiar.

Sable leaned toward Margaux and said something too soft for Isobel to hear. Margaux’s lips parted, then closed again. Her eyes flicked to Eliot. He didn’t seem to notice.

Isobel reached for her wine. The glass was already half-empty. She hadn’t realized.

Lucien was gone.

The kitchen door had closed again, and yet she still felt his eyes on her—some phantom weight at the back of her neck. She pressed her thighs together beneath the table, suddenly aware of her own heartbeat. It was there between her legs now, thudding softly. Stupid. It was just food. Just suggestion.

She finally picked up her pen and wrote a single line:

The foam is laced with tension. The table is beginning to breathe.

Second Course: Fig Carpaccio with Rose Petal Honey

The second course arrived like a suggestion of nakedness.

Thin slices of fresh fig, fanned open on chilled porcelain—velvet flesh ringed with dusky skin. Threads of honey glistened across the fruit, scattered with soft-edged rose petals. It was almost obscene. And utterly beautiful.

Isobel stared at her plate and thought of thighs parting.

She didn’t mean to.

Around her, the room had quieted into a different kind of silence—no longer watchful, but expectant—the space between a question and the first moan.

Margaux was the first to touch hers. She lifted a fig slice delicately, tilting her wrist as though revealing something secret, and bit down. Her lashes fluttered once. Then, almost absentmindedly, she dipped her finger into a smear of honey pooled on the edge of her plate and drew a small spiral on her palm.

Tamsin leaned back, licking honey from her lips. “These figs,” she said, voice low, “they taste like secrets. What’s yours, Sable?”

Sable’s eyes glinted. “I don’t hide mine. But I’d wager Margaux’s got one she’s not telling.”

Margaux’s smile was tight, but her gaze held Sable’s. “Careful. You might not like what you find.”

“Oh, I always like what I find,” Sable murmured, their voice a caress.

Sable reached for Margaux’s hand, pausing just above it, as if asking permission. Margaux’s breath caught, her fingers twitching slightly. Then she turned her palm up, offering it. Sable pressed their thumb into the honey, tracing a slow circle. Margaux’s eyes fluttered, but she didn’t pull away.

“I feel like I should be looking away,” Reiss mumbled.

Tamsin grinned. “You absolutely shouldn’t.”

She sliced a fig with the edge of her fork and slid it between her lips. “Mmm. Almost better than sex. Sweeter than some lovers I’ve had.”

“That’s a low bar,” Eliot muttered.

“Maybe,” Tamsin said. “Or maybe your standard is just ... underwhelming.”

Eliot stiffened. Margaux didn’t come to his defense. She was still watching Sable’s thumb trace lazy circles on her palm.

Isobel let her fork hover above her plate. The scent of the rose was stronger now—heady, almost narcotic. She wasn’t usually one for edible flowers. Too precious. But here, they didn’t feel like garnish. They felt like provocation.

She speared a slice and lifted it to her mouth.

It tasted like sex. Not the act, but the anticipation of it. Soft and yielding, rich with promise. It reminded her of lips parted in trust, of fig skins bruising beneath a thumb. Sacred softness, easily marred. The honey clung to her lips. She resisted the urge to lick them clean too quickly. It wasn’t modesty. Not really. Just a strange self-consciousness blooming in her chest—like she was being watched not by others, but by something inside herself.

A part of her that had been quiet for years was stirring. Not envy. Not yet. But the first tug of wanting—a heat that bloomed low in her belly, unbidden. She pressed her thighs together, willing it to fade, but the fig’s sweetness lingered on her tongue, coaxing her to imagine lips, hands, surrender. She glanced at Sable and Margaux, their hands entwined, and felt a pang—not judgment, but recognition.

Across the table, Tamsin’s hand had found Reiss’s knee.

He startled, then exhaled. She didn’t look at him as she slid her palm slowly up his thigh, fingers spidering beneath the tablecloth. He went pink. Then red.

Isobel could practically hear his pulse from here.

Sable, still playing with Margaux’s hand, brought it to their mouth and pressed a kiss just above the wrist. Margaux’s eyes fluttered closed. She said nothing.

Eliot reached for his wine, hand shaking slightly. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

“It’s only food,” Isobel said aloud, her voice more pointed than she meant.

Tamsin laughed. “You don’t believe that. Not anymore.”

Isobel looked at her. The woman’s pupils were wide, her smile slow.

Tamsin leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Tell me, critic—what do you taste?”

Isobel blinked.

She could have said it was cloying. She could have dissected the fig’s ripeness, the floral balance of the honey, the overuse of metaphor in plating. But none of that fit in her mouth. None of it matched the heat that now curled beneath her sternum.

“I taste ... surrender,” she said finally.

Tamsin’s smile sharpened.

Sable raised their glass. “To that.”

The clink of crystal echoed down the stone walls like a promise.

Isobel took another bite. The fig collapsed on her tongue. She thought of mouths. She thought of softness and wanting and wet. She thought of a man’s voice saying appetite is not always polite, and felt something shift low in her belly.

Lucien still hadn’t returned. His absence was more pronounced than his presence had been.

But she felt him. In the arrangement of bodies. In the way desire now threaded between the guests like silk. His hands weren’t on her, and yet she felt touched.

A drop of honey landed on her thumb.

She watched it glisten, hesitated—then raised it to her lips and sucked it clean.

Margaux saw. Just for a moment. And smiled.

Isobel’s pen remained untouched.

Third Course: Saffron Lobster Bisque

The bowls were shallow, wide-lipped, and warm to the touch.

A golden bisque shimmered inside, thick with saffron and a glisten of oil. Slivers of lobster curled in the center like something just coaxed from the shell. The steam rose gently, aromatic and marine, threaded with something floral and faintly sweet—was it fennel? Or orange blossom?

Isobel inhaled.

The scent went straight to her chest. Not just hunger. Memory.

A warm kitchen. A single summer. Fingers slick with butter. A man licking her wrist and laughing.

She hadn’t thought of him in years.

Sable was the first to taste, lifting their spoon slowly, reverently, then raising it not to their own mouth—but to Margaux’s.

Margaux didn’t flinch.

She leaned in and parted her lips.

The room held its breath as the bisque kissed her tongue. She swallowed with her eyes closed, and when she opened them, her hand rested on Sable’s thigh.

Lucien still hadn’t returned.

And yet it was as if his hand had cupped the nape of every neck in the room.

Eliot watched the exchange with the brittle expression of someone who’d forgotten what intimacy looked like. Reiss, on the other hand, was vibrating with discomfort—or was it excitement? He gripped his spoon like a talisman.

Tamsin leaned toward Reiss, her spoon still in hand. “You’re awfully quiet, professor,” she said, her voice teasing. “Does the bisque scare you?”

Reiss blinked, his grip tightening on his spoon. “It’s ... intense.”

She smiled, slow and sharp. “Good. Lean into it.” Her foot brushed his under the table—not accidental, but light, a question. He froze, then exhaled, his ankle shifting closer.

Across the table, Isobel caught the movement, her own pulse quickening.

She tasted the bisque.

It was exquisite.

Velvety, rich, just the edge of heat—saffron and cayenne whispering at the back of her throat. The lobster was tender, not rubbery, melting against her tongue like silk. But more than that: the flavor spread across her body like an invitation. The saffron lingered—sunset gold, the color of queens and bloodlines and buried fire. It pulled her open. Her shoulders dropped. Her pulse stuttered. She exhaled slowly and felt her inner thighs grow warm.