You knew about Charlie Mayhew’s parties long before you received your invitation.

You’d heard the rumors: that he held court over evenings so depraved, so precise in their orchestration, that they felt more like ceremonies than gatherings. That he had a gift for making you feel as if the entire world narrowed to the touch of a stranger’s hand or the drag of his cigarette.

And now, standing just inside the ballroom, you realize none of those stories prepared you.

The air is thick with perfume and the faint animal tang of sweat. People drift between divans and low couches, trailing fingers over bare skin, exchanging kisses that look more like consumption than affection. Shadows twist behind velvet curtains—some coupling, some simply watching.

At the center of it all sits Charlie, on a dais upholstered in sapphire velvet. He’s half-reclined, a bottle of dark liquor propped against his thigh, his shirt unbuttoned nearly to the navel. Pale candlelight caresses the hollow of his throat, the smooth lines of his chest, the shadows at his collarbones.

He doesn’t look up when you enter. He’s listening to a masked man whisper against his ear. But you feel his awareness all the same—a prickle of heat along your skin, the sense that you’ve stepped beneath a lens you can’t escape.

When he finally lifts his gaze, it pins you in place. A slow smile curls his mouth—some private recognition, as if he’s seen exactly what you are and what you’ll do to stay here.

He lifts two fingers and beckons. The movement is effortless, proprietary.

“You made it,” he calls over the music. His voice is low, rough at the edges, and the sound of it tangles with the ache in your chest. “I was starting to think you’d lose your nerve.”

He gestures to the seat beside him, where a woman in nothing but an intricate harness of leather and pearls curls languidly against his side. She doesn’t look up. No one here does—not unless Charlie wants them to.

“Sit,” he says. His smile grows as you step forward. “It’s only polite to watch the introductions up close.”

He tilts his head, studying you as though imagining the moment you’ll finally shed your hesitation.

“All appetites are welcome here,” he murmurs. “As long as you’re willing to own them.”

And around you, the mirrors catch a hundred angles of your uncertainty—and his satisfaction in it.