Chapter 1: Blocked Exit at Sappho's Den
The music from Sappho’s Den hit Ellie first, a low, throbbing bassline that vibrated up through the soles of her boots before she even touched the door. A sultry saxophone wove through it, a sound that felt indecently intimate on the cold street. She paused, her hand hovering over the black-painted handle. This was a mistake. A colossal, professional mistake dressed up as a weak moment. Her client, that nervous, brilliant architect Zara, had insisted Ellie meet her here to finalize the contract for her new studio, claiming she was too swamped to meet anywhere else. ‘Sappho’s Den’ was scrawled in curling neon script above the door, a pink glow that left no room for ambiguity.
“Get in, sign, get out,” Ellie muttered to herself, pushing the door open.
The wall of sound and scent was immediate and total. Perfume—jasmine, sandalwood, vanilla—mixed with the tang of spilled gin and the musk of bodies packed into a dim space. It was warm, oppressively so. Neon signs behind the bar flickered through a spectrum of deep purples and blood reds, casting a stained-glass glow on everything. The polished wooden floor was a mosaic of shifting shadows and the sleek lines of women’s legs.
Her eyes, sharp and trained for detail, scanned for Zara. She wasn’t at the bar. Ellie’s gaze swept across the booths along the far wall, and her breath hitched, lodging somewhere behind her sternum.
They were everywhere. Tangled in the semi-darkness of the curved leather seats. In the booth directly to her left, a woman with silver hair had her hand curled possessively around the back of her companion’s neck, their foreheads touching as they shared a private laugh, their lips an inch apart. Further down, another couple was frankly, openly kissing. Not a chaste peck, but a deep, languid exploration. One woman’s fingers were splayed against the other’s cheek, her thumb stroking her jawline. The receiving woman’s eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, a soft sigh just audible beneath the music.
Ellie’s face grew hot. A peculiar, uncomfortable heat spread from her chest to her throat. She’d seen gay men before, at a distance, in parades on the news.This was different. This was close. This was visceral. The casual intimacy of it, the unashamed contact, felt like a physical push. Her conservative upbringing, the quiet, strict rules of her childhood home, rose in her throat like bile.Wrong. The word echoed, unspoken but deafening, in the clatter of her own thoughts.
This was Zara’s world. Not hers. Her job was done here. The contract could wait for a civilized email.
She turned on her heel, pulse thrumming in her ears, and made for the door, the exit a beacon of cold, normal air. She’d taken two steps when a smooth, smoky voice cut through the jazz and the hum of conversation.
“Leaving so soon, sweetheart? The fun hasn’t even started.”
Ellie froze. Leaning against the doorframe she’d just passed, as if materialized from the shadows themselves, was a woman. She was taller than Ellie, willowy, with dark hair that fell in a straight, sleek curtain around her shoulders. She wore a simple black sleeveless top and jeans, but the way she wore them was anything but simple. She was all effortless, coiled grace. Her eyes, a startling shade of emerald green, held Ellie’s with an amused, knowing gleam.
“I’m just in the wrong place,” Ellie said, her own voice coming out tighter than she intended.
The woman—Maya, as Ellie would later learn—pushed off the doorframe with a languid shift of her hips. She moved into Ellie’s space, not aggressively, but with a natural confidence that made the air between them feel charged. Ellie caught a hint of her scent: linseed oil, turpentine, and something earthier, like rain on dry soil.
“There are no wrong places,” Maya said, her voice a low purr. “Just unexpected ones. You look like you could use a drink. The terror in your eyes is genuinely adorable.”
“I’m not terrified,” Ellie snapped, the heat in her face burning hotter. “I’m practical. I have a business meeting that’s clearly not happening.”
“Zara’s in the back room, probably arguing about the merits of brutalist design with some poor poet,” Maya said, a small smile playing on her lips. “She does that. She’ll be awhile. Abandoning your client in her natural habitat seems… impractical.”
Ellie’s mind raced. She was practical. And Zara was a client. A valuable one.Running looked weak. Unprofessional. She squared her shoulders, meeting Maya’s gaze with a forced, steely calm. “One drink. While I wait.”
“That’s the spirit,” Maya said, her smile widening. She didn’t touch Ellie, but gestured with a subtle tilt of her head toward the bar. “Follow me. I’ll protect you from the scandal.”
Ellie followed, hyper-aware of the sway of Maya’s hips, the way the neon light caught the elegant line of her spine. Maya found two recently vacated stools at the end of the bar and slid onto one, patting the leather seat of the other for Ellie. The bartender, a muscular woman with a shaved head and a sleeve of intricate tattoos, nodded at Maya.
“The usual, Maya?”
“And for my friend here…” Maya turned those piercing green eyes on Ellie. “What’s your poison when you’re trying to pretend you’re not entirely out of your depth?”
“A vodka martini. Dry. Very dry,” Ellie said, her tone brittle.
“Courage in a glass,” Maya mused. “Two.” She turned fully on her stool to face Ellie, one elbow resting on the polished wood. Her gaze was unnervingly direct. “So. You’re Zara’s uptight lawyer. She’s mentioned you. Said you were a bulldog in a pencil skirt. I don’t see the skirt, but the energy is… palpable.”
“I’m her contractor. And I’m focused. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” Maya took her drink from the bartender, a dark amber liquid in a rocks glass. She took a slow sip, her eyes never leaving Ellie’s face. “You seemed very focused on the exit.”
“I was looking for my client.”
“You were looking at Sarah and Jeannie in the third booth. Sarah’s the one with the hand on the jaw. She’s a sculptor. Very good with her hands, from what I hear.”
Ellie’s drink arrived. She took a too-large gulp, the vodka burning a clean, harsh path down her throat. “I wasn’t… I don’t care what they’re doing. It’s just not my scene.”
“What is your scene, Ellie Davies?” Maya asked, her voice dropping, the music seeming to swell around them. “Tightly-controlled business lunches?Sterile offices? Neat, predictable lines?”
“Order. Respectability,” Ellie shot back, rattled. “People keeping their private lives private.”
Maya leaned in slightly. The scent of her, artist and earth, wrapped around Ellie. “How very sad for you,” she said, not unkindly. “All those lines. Must be exhausting to color inside them all the time.”
“It’s called being an adult.”
“It’s called being afraid,” Maya corrected softly. She reached out then, not for Ellie, but for her drink. Her fingers, long and slim, with faint stains of blue and yellow pigment under the nails, brushed Ellie’s as she took the martini glass from her hand. It was a shock of contact, a tiny bolt of static. Ellie flinched.
“Your hands are shaking,” Maya observed. She didn’t give the glass back. Instead, she raised it to her own lips and took a sip from the precise spot where Ellie’s lips had been. Her eyes locked on Ellie’s over the rim. She swallowed, her throat working in a slow, deliberate motion. “Too dry for me. All sharp edges. No softness.”
Ellie couldn’t speak. She could only watch, hypnotized, as Maya set the glass down on the bar between them. The lipstick smear—Ellie’s own—was now mingled with the imprint of Maya’s mouth. It was an intimacy so casual, so brazen, it stole the air from Ellie’s lungs.
“Relax, sweetheart,” Maya murmured, leaning in so close her breath whispered against Ellie’s ear. The saxophone wailed a long, aching note. “It’s just one drink.”