Experienced members are requested to assist with introductions and guidance. In appreciation, participating members will receive complimentary entry for the evening and a reduced bar tab.
Something in my chest tightened as it clicked into place, because this wasn’t some random ad or edgy bar trying too hard, it was for him. Jonas. A member. The kind of member they expected to show up early and guide people through whatever this was, not just stand around with a drink.
I read the line again, slower, like it might change if I gave it a second chance, but it didn’t, and now all I could think was what kind of club calls itself Temptation and writes like that, like everyone reading already knows exactly what they’re getting into. My grip on the postcard tightened as I stepped out of the elevator, trying to picture it and failing, because it didn’t match the man I’d been living with all week, and at the same time it fit a little too well in a way I couldn’t quite explain.
Back in the apartment, I set everything on his desk like he asked, sliding the postcard underneath the rest like I hadn’t been reading it in the elevator, and then I walked away because whatever it was, wasn’t my business.
At all.
Imade it all the way back to my room fully convinced of that fact...for like two minutes. Then I swooped up my phone and started searching.
“Just to see,” I muttered. Another lie. I needed to know what Jonas was into.
A quick search, and the site loaded, and I stopped dead, staring at the screen as I scrolled.
It wasn’t vague. It wasn’t subtle. It just didn’t bother pretending.
Photos of rooms with low lighting and mirrors angled in ways that made it obvious people were meant to watch. A section labeled voyeur rooms with a few glossy shots of couches facing glass, silhouettes on the other side blurred just enough to be suggestive. Another page showed a dungeon setup, real equipment, not costume stuff, racks, restraints, ropes coiledneatly, paddles and whips laid out like tools waiting to be used. Descriptions that talked about scenes, supervision, consent, structure.
My stomach dropped a little as it clicked into place.
This wasn’t a bar. It was a sex club.
I leaned back slowly, phone still in my hand, eyes tracking over the screen again like maybe I’d misread something the first time.
“No way,” I whispered.
Jonas?
That didn’t fit. Not with what I knew about him. He was controlled, structured, strict in a way that made everything else in his life feel intentional, and this was… people watching other people have sex, rooms built for it, rules around it, entire spaces designed for whatever this lifestyle was.
I scrolled again, slower now, trying to force it to make sense anyway. Maybe he just went for drinks. Maybe he stayed out of the rooms. Maybe it was networking, something surface level that didn’t actually involve any of this.
I let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh, because even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it didn’t hold up.
I dropped my phone onto the bed and stared at it like it had started this.
Friday.
The postcard had mentioned Friday, and I told myself, again, that it wasn’t my business, that I had no reason to get involved, that this was one of those things you see and then politely ignore like a normal person. Except I wasn’t ignoring it. I couldn’t. It kept circling back, that word, that night, the idea of him there in a place like that, not just showing up but being expected, wanted, involved.
And then another thought slipped in, one mean enough that I should have probably been embarrassed by it.
What if he was into some truly freaky shit?
What if I went and found out exactly what kind?
I stared at the wall for a second, the idea spreading before I could shut it down. Maybe knowing wouldn’t just make things complicated. Maybe it would make things easier. Maybe if I knew what he got up to in a place called Club Temptation, I could use it. Not even in some huge dramatic way, just enough to loosen his grip on all the stupid rules he’d dropped on me. Maybe the curfew could disappear. Maybe I could stop acting like I was grounded at twenty-one because my dad’s business partner had decided that was how this was going to go.
But no. What Jonas is in to is none of my business.
I pressed my lips together, harder this time, like that would make it stick. I didn’t need to know. Knowing didn’t change anything. It didn’t fix my classes, it didn’t make living here easier, and it definitely didn’t erase the fact that sneaking around in his private life was a shitty thing to do.
But I could already feel myself leaning into it anyway.
I let out a slow breath and stared back down at the bed like I could force myself to care more about being decent than I cared about that stupid postcard.
Yeah. No. I wasn’t going.
