I’d eventually made it to a place where I’d stopped going deeper into debt and was starting to chip away at it, but it still felt like it was going to take me 30 years and twice as much money as I’d borrowed to ever be out from under the weight of it. And that was before even thinking about something like buying a house or starting a business. This contract with Alex Chase would wipe all that debt away with one magical stroke, which was why I was sitting there giving away the clients I’d fought so hard to acquire.
Ophelia was to serve as the central source of information to make sure whoever was filling in with each client knew everything they needed to and could direct questions to her. I didn’t need a dozen different dommes calling me at all hours. She would also take over some of my mentoring and classes, which was mildly terrifying.
“Have you already talked to the new sub, Styx, I was supposed to start mentoring?”
“Yep. Under control. She starts next week.”
Ophelia was an excellent dominatrix, but tended to do whatever the hell she wanted. I would need to check in with my mentees occasionally. She was busy with her day job most of the time, so I suspected she would end up adding them to her menagerie of subs who flitted in and out of her house. It wouldn’t do them any harm for a month. I hoped.
“We aren’t going to get through all of this today.” Victoria sighed dramatically, as though she hadn’t instigated part of this plan and I was inconveniencing her for no reason. She was sending emails as much as possible, but many clients only communicated via phone or through assistants.
“I can’t come back to the dungeon for a month after today, but you can always call or text me if you need something.”
“It’ll be fine,” Ophelia insisted for at least the fourth time in an hour. “If this is what your schedule looks like all the time, then you need a vacation, girl. This is fuckin’ bonkers.” She held up a notecard from one of my client files. “Is this the raincoat guy?”
I squinted to see what she was holding. “No. That’s the one who reenacts classic cinema, but kinky.”
“The one who brings all the costumes?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s him. I need to double check, but I think this month isCasablancathemed.” I glanced at my notes. “My bad, it’sMary Poppins. Bummer, I’ve been training my whole life to be Mary Poppins but with cock and ball torture.”
Ophelia cackled. “A spoonful of sugar indeed…”
“Here, I’m forwarding you the scripts and all the notes I have. Whoever takes it will have to be off book, so make sure it’s someone who’s going to prep.”
We flipped through the remaining stack trying to see if there was anything else that really needed my input to hand it off.
“This one’s just foot worship. This one is fantasy wrestling as opposed to this guy who wants real wrestling. You’ll probably need to take him, Ophelia. He doesn’t mess around. Here’s the raincoat guy. He’s mostly into forced femme, but sometimes wants corporal. He’s a total sweetheart, so you could work through that in an interview.”
“Is this whole stack mostly bondage?”
“Yeah, here, let me mark what’s actual Shibari and what could be fudged with cuffs by someone newer if need be.”
I had a sudden moment of panic. I’d spent years learning all of my clients’ tastes, building my list of regulars. Was I going to blow all the work I’d put in for an opportunity that could very well backfire horribly?
Being debt free was one thing, but this contract wouldn’t pay my bills forever, so I still wanted the career I loved to come back to. Would my clients still want to see me if I was all over the tabloids or would it feel like I was publicly cheating on them? Being splashed on the news for one brief video of me in character was one thing and I wasn’t even sure what the fallout from that was going to be yet.
What if I lost control of the situation with Alex and made a fool of myself? I didn’t want to become a joke. I was spiraling to the point of calling the whole thing off when Ophelia held up a card. “Who’s Mickey Mouse? I don’t know this code name.”
Victoria looked up sharply from her computer, glaring daggers at me. “He’sthis month?”
“Shit, shit,shit. I forgot he moved it earlier this year.”
“What am I missing?” Ophelia asked, glancing between the two of us.
We didn’t answer her. Crown Prince Erik of Luxenmark had been a client for many years and was one of the dungeon’s most closely held secrets. He came precisely once a year for a full 24-hour session that was never spoken of except between the dungeon owner and the Domina he was seeing, which had been me for the last two years since Victoria had retired. I wasn’t sure how long he’d seen her for or who her predecessors were since it was all top secret.
He was in his forties now, but was a silver fox, complete and utter charmer. To cancel on him would be deeply offensive, but we couldn’t just reassign him to someone new because his people required extensive background checks and vetting. It felt like a sign from the gods that I should pull out of the contract with Alex Chase.
“I’ll take him,” Victoria said definitively. She looked back down at her computer as though the issue was closed.
“You’llwhat?” Ophelia’s jaw was hanging open.
“He was mine before I retired. I can make this one exception. I’m already cleared, so we don’t even need to notify his people.”
She hadn’t made a single exception in the years she’d been retired despite the begging, bribing, demanding, and, in one case, attempted blackmailing of some of the most powerful men and women in the world. Why would she make an exception for this one? She certainly wasn’t doing it as a favor to me.
I studied her for a moment. If I didn’t know better, I would have said that underneath Victoria’s icy composure, she was flustered. How fascinating.
