At His Mercy (Masters Club 1)

Jess’s thoughts instantly turned to Cameron Lord, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Talk about a conflict of interest! It was one thing for him to refer her to his club, but it was quite another to get directly involved in her training.

Putting those thoughts aside, she asked instead, “How many members are there here at the New York club? How many Doms? How many subs?”

“At the moment we have forty Dom members in the New York club, and five service subs—they’re the ones who really run the place, along with some hired staff. And, let’s see”—she squinted at the ceiling while doing some mental calculations—“twenty-two unattached pleasure subs. You would make twenty-three. The numbers fluctuate a fair amount because people keep falling in love, getting collared and dropping out of play circulation. This is supposed to be an intensive BDSM play club, but sometimes it feels more like a dating site,” she added with a laugh.

“How do you keep track of sub hours? Do they clock in and out or something?”

“Not exactly. We have this really cool app. You’ll get access to it if you join. It’s got profiles of every member, Dom and sub. There’s a place on the app where you check in when you come to the club. That way, others can know at a glance who’s here. And for the pleasure sub, it’s also a way of keeping track so you can get credit for your hours. We go on the honor system. I’m tasked with keeping track, and I tally the hours periodically to make sure everyone’s making their hours.

“The app does a lot more than that, though. It’s got everyone’s picture and a short D/s profile listing likes, dislikes, hard limits, physical limitations, stuff like that. Because our clubs are international, the app is a handy way when members are visiting from another location to get up to speed.”

“That sounds cool,” Jess replied, instantly curious to check out Cameron Lord’s D/s profile. “High tech.”

“Yeah. Super handy, if you have your cell phone on you. Unfortunately,” she added, looking down at her own naked body, “we don’t always have a place to stash a phone.”

Jess laughed. “Guess we subs have to do our homework in advance.”

“Yeah. As a live-in slave, I get advance notice of visiting Doms from out of town. I make sure to check out their profile before they arrive, so I can serve them properly.”

“The whole setup is like something out of a novel. Hard to believe this place is for real.”

Cleo beamed. “I know, right?” Sobering, she added earnestly, “I hope you’ll be offered a spot. It’s an amazing opportunity. No more hit-and-miss with wannabe Doms who don’t have a clue. These guys know what they’re doing. And we have locations in London, Paris, Dubai, Tel Aviv, San Francisco and even Sydney, Australia.”

“How are the clubs financed?”

Cleo shrugged. “I don’t know all the nitty-gritty details, but I do know there are managers at each club, who are also part owners. It’s like a co-op, and the Head Masters all own a piece.”

Not unlike the equity partners at Jess’s firm. It figured Mr. Lord owned a piece of the action here, too.

“Membership dues are pretty steep for the Doms,” Cleo continued, “and that covers most of the costs. There are also some big-time bazillionaires who make periodic donations to keep things state-of-the-art. Service subs receive an hourly wage for work in the kitchen or garden or whatever, but their primary perk is the carte blanche membership to any Masters Club in the world, and, of course, the satisfaction of serving. Pleasure subs don’t get paid, but they get to scene as often as they want with hardcore, serious Doms, which is pretty awesome in itself. Plus, they get unlimited membership privileges. Staff slaves get an actual salary, since we’re on call 24/7.”

“A slave gets paid?” Jess interjected, curious at the arrangement. “Almost sounds counter-intuitive.”

Cleo shrugged, smiling. “We use the term slave, but it’s fully consensual, of course. I got my start at the London location, but I…” A brief spasm of pain flashed in Cleo’s eyes, so quickly Jess barely processed it before her face smoothed to a placid smile. “I needed a change. So I put in a request for transfer to the New York club.”

Jess got the strong feeling Cleo had censored herself mid-sentence, stopping whatever she’d been about to say. She would have liked to inquire further, but sensed the topic was too personal to probe.

Her eyes clear once more, Cleo hugged herself, her expression suffusing with dreamy pleasure. “I love what I do. I’m deeply fulfilled to the very core of my being. And not only that, I get paid very well to serve, plus free room and board, which is pretty sweet. If and when I ever decide I’ve had enough of being a staff slave, I’ll have a nice fat bank account to fall back on.”