[Reader Discretion Advised]

Chapter Three (Sea Breezes)

By the third day, Ari didn’t speak to her.

Not in the kitchen. Not in class. Not in the hallway when their shoulders brushed a little too closely.

It wasn’t coldness. It was worse—it was absence. Like Ari had pulled something out of the air between them and left a void in its place. Like she was waiting to see if Lena would trip into it.

Lena kept her head down in lectures, stared through windows during meals. She noticed things more now—the way Wren’s eyes paused when he passed her row, the bruises just under Ari’s collarbone that hadn’t been there yesterday, the fact that Cal never made two lines the same length in his sketches.

She didn’t speak much either.

And then—when she returned to her room, just past dusk—there it was.

A square white envelope. Tucked neatly under the door like a message in a hotel. Her name was written in ink, slanted and low, like it had been whispered instead of penned.

She picked it up with careful fingers.

Inside: a single card, creamy and thick.

Reading Group

Tonight – 9pm

Basement, 24 Ashwick Lane

Wear something soft.

No signature.

No sender.

No explanation.

Lena turned the card over. Blank. But the words hung in the air like breath on cold glass.

Wear something soft.

She read it again. And again. As if it might change.

Her chest tightened—not with panic, not exactly. With something harder to name.

Ari hadn’t looked at her once today.

But this felt like looking. This felt like being seen.

She set the card down, slowly. Then walked to her wardrobe and opened it.

She didn’t have much. Mostly jeans, plain shirts. But tucked in the back was a pale pink slip dress she’d never worn outside the house. A gift from a friend she’d never quite forgiven for giving it to her. It was too thin, too clingy. Too much.

She reached for it anyway.

Her fingers brushed the fabric like it might burn her.

She hadn’t said yes.

She hadn’t said anything.

But she was already changing.

Ashwick Lane was barely a street.

More of a crooked path winding through old rowhouses that leaned into each other like gossiping widows. Number 24 had no sign, no visible number. Only a rusted lantern above the door and ivy that clawed at the brick like it was trying to pull the building down.

Lena stood outside it for too long.

The slip dress clung to her thighs beneath her coat. She’d worn her thickest boots—unsure if the dress was enough or far too much. Her breath fogged in the cold, but her hands were sweating inside her pockets.

She pressed the buzzer.

No answer.

But the door clicked open anyway.

Inside, the air was warmer. Heavy with incense. Sandalwood, maybe. And something sharper—metallic and sweet, like old perfume on skin. The hall was narrow, the wallpaper peeling at the corners. Faint music hummed from below.

She followed it.

Down a staircase that creaked with every step. The walls curved inward, unfinished stone. At the bottom, a thick velvet curtain. Red. Worn at the seams. Her fingers hesitated at the edge.

Then: voices.

Low, murmuring. Laughter. Footsteps padding on carpet.

She stepped through.

The basement had no sharp corners. Just a wide open space with low ceilings and thick beams. The lighting came from clusters of candles and a few red-tinted bulbs tucked behind draped fabric. It cast everyone in rust and shadow. Warm, but not comforting. Like the inside of a mouth.

Cushions were scattered across the floor—velvet, silk, fur. Students lounged in small groups, talking in soft tones. Some wore robes, some only skin. Masks were common: simple half-masks, some glittering, some bone-white. Lena recognized two people from class. One looked at her. Didn’t nod. Didn’t smile.

She walked slowly around the edge of the room, coat still closed. No one approached her.

That’s when she saw Wren.

He stood near the center of the room, unmoving. Dressed in black, sleeves rolled. No mask. His hands were clasped behind his back. He said nothing. Just watched.

Lena’s stomach twisted—not in fear, not in guilt. Something else. Something worse.

He expected her.

Before she could speak—or decide if she wanted to—there was a small shift in the air. A door opened at the far end of the room.

And Ari entered.

Barefoot.

Wearing sheer black lace, not quite a dress, not quite lingerie. Her hair loose. Her lips red. Her eyes caught the candlelight and bent it.

She didn’t look around.

She walked straight to the center of the room and sat on the floor, folding her legs beneath her like a doll placed there with care.

Then—finally—she looked at Lena.

Not like a greeting.

Like a dare.

The room shifted when Wren moved.

He hadn’t spoken, not really. Just drifted toward the center—circling like an orbit forming around gravity. His footsteps were soundless, even over the soft rugs. The air itself seemed to lean in, anticipating the sound of his voice.

Lena stayed near the back, coat still clutched around her. She hadn’t sat yet. The cushions were too inviting, too deliberate. She wasn’t ready to lower herself into anything. Not here. Not yet.

Wren paused beside a cluster of students. One had her head on another’s lap, eyes half-lidded, fingers grazing bare skin. Another read silently from a leather-bound book, lips moving but no sound escaping. A boy kissed the back of her neck without looking at her face.

Then Wren spoke.

No welcome. No context.

Just words:

“A threshold,” he said, “is not a line. It’s a moment.”

The sentence dropped like a stone into still water. Ripples passed across the room. Heads lifted. Eyes focused.

“It is not about entry. Not truly. It’s about whether you believe you’ve crossed.”

He began to walk again.

“Control doesn’t need to be seized. It only needs to be accepted.”

He passed by Lena without glancing. She inhaled so sharply it hurt.

“Tonight, we read from memory,” he said. “The kind you keep in the folds of your clothes. Between your teeth. In your breath, before it escapes.”

He turned to the group seated nearest the center.

“Who remembers?”

Silence.

Then, without prompting, a girl near the center stood.

She was short, slight, her hair pulled back in a tight knot. No mask. Her face was expressionless—not confident, not afraid. Just open.

Wren stepped back.

The girl unbuttoned her blouse, slowly, from the top down.

Lena couldn’t look away.

There was no music. No instructions. No performance in her movement. Just a methodical, practiced sequence. Like a ritual she had repeated many times.

The blouse slid off her shoulders.

She unzipped her skirt and let it pool at her ankles.

She didn’t sway. Didn’t flirt. She simply stood there, wearing only skin and silence.

Then—facing no one, but letting everyone see—she placed one hand on her own chest, just over her heart.

And began to touch herself.

Not hurried.

Not shy.

Not performative.

As if following an invisible choreography, the girl’s body moved with breath and rhythm, her fingers tracing patterns from collarbone to navel, dipping lower only when the room itself had stilled enough to allow it.

Wren didn’t speak.

No one did.

And yet the air was thick with it. Hunger. Power. Surrender.

Ari watched from her place on the floor, unmoving. Her eyes locked on the girl—not in desire, but in recognition.

Like she had once been the one remembering.

Lena’s fingers dug into her coat. Her knees wanted to bend.

She hadn’t said yes to this.

But she hadn’t walked away.

The girl moved like her body was remembering something her mind had already forgotten.

Her eyes stayed closed. Her breath came in slow waves. She wasn’t showing herself off. She was letting herself be seen. There was a difference, Lena realized—a quiet defiance in the way her thighs opened, in the way she arched into her own hand as though responding to someone only she could hear.

No one in the room moved.

Except Ari.

She shifted slightly, just enough to draw attention—one leg unfolding, the hem of her lace garment slipping higher on her thigh. Her arms draped loosely around her knees. Her face was perfectly still, except for the way her lips parted, just a fraction.

She didn’t look at the girl.

She looked at Lena.

Lena’s breath caught.

She didn’t know what expression she wore—but whatever it was, it made Ari smirk.

Then—without looking away—Ari tilted her head toward the center, as if silently urging Lena to watch closer. Like she was saying: See how easy it is? How soft it feels?

Lena did watch.

The girl’s hand moved lower now, between her thighs, unhurried and precise. Her other hand pressed flat against her own sternum, anchoring herself. Her fingers disappeared for a moment, then reappeared glistening in candlelight. Her hips lifted slightly. Her face remained calm, almost serene.

Not a performance.

An invocation.

Someone near Lena exhaled, quiet and strained.

Lena’s mouth had gone dry again.

She clutched the edge of her coat tighter, her skin burning beneath the layers she couldn’t shed.

She didn’t feel like a voyeur.

She felt like a student.

Like she was being taught something wordless—something sacred.

The girl reached her climax with a shudder that was barely visible, barely audible, just a breath—then stillness. She opened her eyes only after it was over.

And smiled faintly.

As if she had finally remembered what she was supposed to feel.

A slow ripple of breath passed through the room. Not applause. Not release. Just recognition.

Wren stepped forward and placed his hand gently on her shoulder. She nodded once and sat back down among the cushions, still naked, still silent.

He turned to the room.

His gaze scanned the faces.

It passed over Ari.

And stopped on Lena.

He didn’t speak.

But the message was clear.

He saw her.

All of her.

Even what she hadn’t done yet.

The silence after the girl sat down was thick enough to press against Lena’s chest. No one spoke. No one moved toward her. It wasn’t the kind of silence that needed filling—it was the kind that meant something.

Then, without ceremony, Wren stepped forward.

He didn’t look at anyone else.

Just her.

His voice, when it came, was low—barely louder than the candle crackle around them.

“You stayed,” he said. “That’s enough—for now.”

Lena didn’t nod. She wasn’t sure she could.

He turned and walked away as though the moment hadn’t existed, leaving behind only the weight of it.

Around her, students began to rise, gather coats, brush candlewax off knees. Quiet murmurs resumed, a soft tide of motion and half-whispers. But no one commented on what they had seen. As if it were sacred. Or dangerous to name.

Lena remained where she was. Still standing. Still bundled in her coat. Still burning inside.

She felt Ari approach before she saw her.

Soft footsteps. A slower rhythm than the others. The faint rustle of lace.

Then Ari’s fingers—cool and certain—brushed the inside of Lena’s wrist. A barely-there contact. Like tasting a glass before pouring the wine.

Lena turned.

Ari stood close. Closer than she needed to. Her lips were curved—not in a smirk, not in a smile. In something quieter. Hungrier.

“Don’t rush,” she said, voice low and velvet-rich. “It ruins the taste.”

Then she turned and walked away, her bare feet silent against the stone floor.

Lena didn’t move for several long seconds.

Then she followed.

Not after Ari.

Just… up the stairs.

Out of the basement.

Back into the cool night air, where the scent of incense still clung to her collar, and the heat between her legs didn’t fade with the wind.

She didn’t speak on the walk back.

Didn’t look at her phone, didn’t check the time.

The streets of Dunwythe were deserted, all the windows dark. No wind. No sound but her own boots echoing on the wet pavement. Even the sea seemed quieter, as if it had paused to hear her breathing.

Kett House loomed like a mausoleum waiting to be re-entered.

Inside, the lights were off. The hall was empty. Her room was cold, untouched. No sign that anyone else had returned. The dresser still blocked the peephole. Her bed looked smaller somehow.

She dropped her coat to the floor.

The slip dress clung to her like heat. She didn’t take it off.

She lay down on the bed—still dressed, still tense—and stared up at the ceiling fan, motionless now. Her limbs wouldn’t settle. Her body buzzed with something that wasn’t desire exactly, but lived next door to it. A kind of echo. A saturation. Like her skin had absorbed more than it could hold.

She closed her eyes.

Saw the girl’s body again.

The slow curve of her breath, the way her hand moved, the way she knew she was being watched.

Ari’s whisper slid back into her ear:

“Don’t rush. It ruins the taste.”

Lena’s legs shifted beneath the covers.

She didn’t touch herself.

But her thighs pressed together, tight and slow, and her breath stuttered in her throat.

She stayed like that—tense, still, eyes closed but not dreaming—for what felt like hours.

When sleep finally came, it came without images.

Just a feeling.

Like hands. Like heat.

Like being watched, even with her eyes closed