Sparks Fly

One

Stella Renee Johnson was going to lose her virginity in a sex club.

Maybe.

Currently, she was standing in line outside a sex club, but still. If you would've told her past self (meaning the person she was twenty-four hours ago) that she'd be in the skimpiest black dress she owned with a black-and-gold feathered mask that covered half her face, waiting to get into New York City's most elite sex club for its annual Valentine's Day masquerade party, she would've laughed in your face. The only believable part of this whole thing was that it was her best friend Chelsea's idea, and naturally Chelsea was running late.

Chelsea was supposed to meet Stella at their shared apartment after work, but when Stella got home Chelsea was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a note telling Stella to go on ahead and Chelsea would meet her in line. Now Stella was getting incredibly close to the entrance and Chelsea was still MIA. Every time the line moved forward an inch, Stella considered stepping out of it, but then she felt that the minute she finally did give up, Chelsea would come and they'd have to get on the back of the line.

So she stayed.

Now, though, there were only four or five couples ahead of her and she could see the large bouncer flipping through the guest list. Stella could feel a bead of sweat rolling down her back, and she began shifting from foot to foot and tapping her hands across her thighs as if she was doing an impromptu step routine. It was a nervous habit that always drove her mother crazy. Stella couldn't help it, though. When she got anxious, she got fidgety.

Deciding to give her hands something else to do, Stella pulled out her phone to call Chelsea for the hundredth time, and it started vibrating in her hand.

"Where are you?" Stella hissed by way of greeting.

"Okay, please don't hate me."

Stella heaved out a sigh, already knowing where this was going. Chelsea was Stella's best friend and she loved her, truly, but Chelsea was quite possibly the flakiest person she'd ever known.

"You remember that hot tattoo artist I've been kind of seeing," Chelsea started. She didn't wait for Stella to respond before continuing. "Okay, well she hit me up because she has an extra ticket to see Ari Lennox tonight. ARI! LENNOX! Anyway, we're here now and I thought I'd be able to see her and run over to the club after, but she's late and hasn't gone on yet so I'm not going to make it."

The line moved forward again, and at this point, Stella could make out the creases in the bouncer's forehead. It was time to get out of line, but after having been here for half an hour with nothing to show for it, Stella wasn't ready to give up yet.

"Chelsea, I swear to God, just leave the concert and come here now," Stella said. She knew she was whining, but she was frustrated and nervous. She had no business going into a sex club tonight, much less on her own.

When Chelsea had barged into Stella's room last night, talking about how she got two free tickets to a party at Red as Sin, her favorite sex club, Stella was confused about what that had to do with her. Then Chelsea insisted Stella should go with her and "get the whole losing-your-virginity thing over with." As if Stella had been holding herself back from having sex this whole time and not actively trying to find "the one" for what felt like her whole life.

It wasn't that Stella felt she had to wait to be married to have sex or anything like that. She'd gotten past that part of her religious upbringing when she realized she was suspiciously born three months after her parents' wedding. No, it was more that Stella wanted to love, or at the very least like, the person she was going to sleep with. A random casual hookup had never appealed to Stella.

This wasn't the case for Chelsea, however. Both the idea of needing to love someone before having sex with them and not being able to find a quick hookup with just a few swipes on Tinder. Every so often, usually when Stella was ovulating, she'd dare to consider just getting it over with and meeting up with the hottest person who showed a speck of interest. Unfortunately, while Chelsea got ten matches a day, Stella was lucky if she got ten matches a month. Or rather, ten good matches. If Stella wanted to hook up with a guy who started their conversation with "Nice tits!" she'd have plenty more options.

But anyway.

In truth, this whole debacle was really Stella's fault. At the start of the year she'd made the mistake of telling Chelsea that she was officially giving up on love. That the next time she had the opportunity to have sex, even if it was with a rando who was only interested in her "nice tits," she would just go for it. That way, even if she couldn't have love, she could at least find out if sex was really worth all the hype.

While Stella would tell Chelsea and anyone who listened that having or not having sex shouldn't define a person because virginity was a concept created by the patriarchy, at twenty-seven years old, Stella was tired of feeling like she was missing out on this big thing everyone else had experienced. Sure, she had her toys and porn and romance novels, but she wanted to actually know what it was like to get horizontal (or vertical) with an actual real-life person.

Moreover, she wanted to know what it felt like to be the object of someone's desires, if only for a night. She wanted to know what it was to be attracted to someone and have them be so attracted to her, too, that they could barely keep their hands off each other.

In other words, as her therapist had put it, Stella was craving intimacy, and she was tired of trying to find the perfect person to give it to her, because quite frankly she was beginning to believe that person didn't exist.

Much less inside a sex club.

Still, if there was one place she should be able to, without a doubt, get laid, it would be Red as Sin and so she stayed in line.

"I can't just ditch Tattoo Artist!" Chelsea said, pulling Stella back to their conversation.

Stella almost pointed out that by not ditching the tattoo artist, Chelsea was ditching Stella, but Chelsea pushed forward before Stella could get a word out.

"Look, I've been there before and it's totally chill," Chelsea said. "Just go in and try to have fun. Meet somebody! Or multiple somebodies! And you can drink whatever you want, on me. They made me put my card info down when I RSVP'd.

"Just tell them your name is Cherry, and everything will be taken care of. Trust me!"

Chelsea had yet to provide Stella with a reason to trust her tonight, but Stella really didn't want to spend another night alone in their apartment until Chelsea came home with a new stranger and did ungodly things with them until the wee hours of the morning. Just thinking about it made Stella feel lonely and bitter, and she abhorred those feelings.

"Name?"

At some point, Stella had reached the front of the line, and now the bouncer, who hovered over her despite the fact that she was wearing five-inch heels, was waiting impatiently for Stella to say something. It was time to make a decision.

"Cherry." The word shot out of Stella's mouth, and the bouncer quirked an eyebrow, still waiting. "I'm Cherry. My name is Cherry. Like the fruit. C-H-E-R-R-Y. I should be on the list."

Stella knew she was rambling, but it was difficult to stop.

"You got a last name?" the bouncer asked.

"It's Cherry Cherry," Chelsea said. Stella had forgotten she was still on the phone. "Like my username."

Stella had gone the traditional route of college, then grad school, then a nine-to-five job, but Chelsea opted to drop out of their undergrad classes when her sex-positive Instagram began bringing in more money than the measly tips they made working in the student-run coffee shop. Over the years, Chelsea had amassed a following of almost half a million people across Instagram and now TikTok, which was how she ended up getting invited to things like this masquerade party.

"Cherry Cherry," Stella repeated to the bouncer. "Same first and last name."

The bouncer had a look of annoyance mixed with disbelief on his face but checked the list again until he found it.

"This says two guests."

He looked around Stella as if a plus-one would suddenly appear.

"Sorry, it's just the one," Stella said, holding up her free hand in a little wave that made her feel like she was a child and not a woman almost in her thirties.

"Don't apologize!" Chelsea hissed.

Right, it was time to hang up. "Have fun at your concert, bye!"

Stella didn't wait for a response before ending the call, her fury at Chelsea making its way back up to the surface. She should've known Chelsea would bail and yet here she was being stood up. Again.

"Your phone must remain off while inside the venue," the bouncer said.

"Sorry," Stella said. "I mean, I'm not sorry. I am sorry, but I didn't know that. I don't know the rules."

"The rules are simple," the bouncer said. "Only touch people who want to be touched. Red as Sin does not tolerate any form of harassment. If you get out of line, you will be thrown out. No photos or videos are allowed unless you are in a private room with a partner who agrees. Party goes until three; after that, everyone must promptly exit, no matter what activity you may be in the middle of. Now please turn off your cell phone. We gotta keep the line moving."

"Of course, sor-"

Stella bit her lip to keep the sorry inside her mouth and then turned off her phone, showing the bouncer the dark screen.

"You're good to go."

He pulled open the large metal door, which revealed stone stairs leading down to another unmarked door. Stella gulped. She had no idea what she was about to walk into, but she also felt like there was no turning back now. Besides, she was more than a little curious to see what exactly a sex club entailed. Well, other than the sex, obviously.

"In or out?" the bouncer asked. "We ain't got all day."

"In," Stella said with a confidence she didn't really feel. "I'm in."

Then, before she could give it any more thought, she put one foot in front of the other and went down the stairs.

Two

At first glance, Red as Sin looked like any other club. Not that Stella had been to many, but still.

The door at the bottom of the stairs pushed open, and she had to blink a few times for her eyes to adjust to the dark space. It was bigger than she expected, and loud. A mix of pop and alternative rock was spilling out of speakers somewhere, and there was a circular bar set in the middle of the room, with people filling out the space all around it, trying to get a drink or just trying to pass through. The bartenders were all wearing black halter bralettes and skirts that barely covered anything or tight black shorts that left nothing to the imagination.

On Stella's left, there was a little window for a coat check, and Stella quickly shrugged out of her coat and handed it over, along with her purse. In exchange, she received a blue numbered ticket.

Stella securely tucked it away in her strapless bra, then proceeded to walk farther into the club, making her way around the place. She saw couples canoodling on pleather couches in various corners of the room, but most people were on the dance floor, grinding and pawing at each other. She accidentally made eye contact with a few people, but she quickly kept moving, unsure if she was ready to be propositioned just yet.

Eventually she found her way to a corridor that had a smidge more lighting than everywhere else. It looked like people were crowding around something, and at first Stella thought it was a line to the bathroom, but no one was moving. Curious, she stepped closer until she could see over one woman's shoulder and then she gasped.

Multiple people turned to look at her, and she thanked God her dark skin protected her from flushing red.

"Someone stepped on my foot," she explained to no one because they'd already forgotten about her. Their focus was back on the scene that was playing out in front of them. Through a plexiglass window, she could see that two women were currently using a double-sided dildo. Stella leaned forward, tilting her head to the side as the women shifted positions. She couldn't understand how they could possibly be comfortable like that, but by the way one was throwing her head back in ecstasy, Stella imagined she was enjoying it, although over the music (and maybe the walls of the room were soundproof?), she couldn't actually hear anything, which was weird. Did people like to just watch with no sound? It was like watching porn on mute, and that was something Stella could do at home.

She broke away from the crowd, turning on her heel too quickly to stop her body from colliding directly with the tall and broad-shouldered man who was standing right behind her. Stella also couldn't prevent her boobs, which often had a mind of their own, from pressing directly into the glass in his hand, tipping it over, and spilling his drink down the front of his white pressed shirt.

"Fuck me," Stella muttered.

The man, who'd been staring down at the stain now spreading on his shirt, looked up at her then and his lips twitched.

"If that's what you wanted, all you had to do was ask."

Three

Maximo "Max" Martinez Williams did not want to be out tonight.

For starters, it was Valentine's Day. Max wasn't anti-V Day like some other single people, but that didn't mean he wanted to spend his evening-a work night, no less-dodging happy couples fawning all over each other on the streets of New York. And he certainly did not want to spend the night in a sex club.

Unfortunately, as was the case his entire life, he could not figure out how to say no to his younger brother, Miles.