Both Papa Dimitri and Alexei noticed. Papa because he wanted her for himself. Alexei wanted her to teach the other girls, promising them they could keep a percentage of what they made instead of giving it all to the house as they had been doing previously under his father to ostensibly pay for their “room, board, and visas” in addition to a non-stop pipeline of drugs that kept them as little more than drones.
Alexei headed out after Natasha but Nicholas hung around a few minutes to chat with Bo. “Any movement from Tereshchenko?”
“Not that I can see,” Bo said, clicking through several screens. “No suspicious activity on his accounts and I’m watching what I can of his communications. He’s not making any moves yet. It’s just business as usual. His old gambling den closest to Vasiliev territory is still shut down.”
Nicholas nodded. “You think old man Tereshchenko will take what happened to his son lying down and just back off, then?”
Bo held up his hands from the keyboard. “I just watch the feeds, man. I tell you what I see and I’ll let you know the second something changes.”
Nicholas nodded, about to head out to the main club when Bo asked, “How’s everything going with the wife? She warming up to you yet?”
Nicholas paused, hand on the doorknob, before shrugging. “It’s a different sort of life,” he said. “She’ll get used to it. Eventually.”
Bo’s eyebrows lifted and then he turned back to his computer. Irritated, Nicholas shoved out the door and took up a position at the back of the room.
Being security meant a lot of standing around, but Nicholas never minded the quiet space. He wasn’t the kind who always needed to be looking at a phone or talking to someone.
He relished quiet and being left to himself. He knew this was a good life. He thought people who experienced the luxury of being bored had probably never lived hard or known hunger. Give a man one good winter of starvation, the long hours with nothing in his belly, and any day for the rest of his life where he was fed, sheltered, and clothed was a good one.
Besides, it wasn’t like there was nothing to do. Nicholas had a job, and it was to keep watch. Threats could come from any direction and he was good at his job because he always read a room.
He flicked his eyes towards the stage where Natasha spoke to the women.
“Let’s go over it again. Yelena, what is the first rule?”
A skinny woman with badly bleached blonde hair stepped forward from the group. “Command the situation. Make them know who’s boss right away.”
Natasha sighed. “Yes, okay, but what’s the single most important thing you have to establish, first?”
Another girl stepped forward. “Trust.”
“Yes, exactly,” Natasha said. “Establish trust. That’s the first rule. And how do we establish trust?”
“What does it matter if they trust us? They want to be whipped, we whip them, they pay us, end of story,” said another girl from the back.
Natasha shook her head. “Sure, if you don’t want repeat customers or good tips. You make, what, thirty bucks an hour in tips now? With a good client list, you could be making two hundred dollars an hour. And I don’t mean going into a back room to fuck them. You never even have to take off your clothes.”
That had the women perking up.
“No way,” said the woman who’d spoken up previously. “Who would pay that much money to not fuck?”
“Men looking for something else. And there’s plenty of men in this city hard up for it. So pay attention this time and learn, or else be left in the dust when men keep requesting your sisters instead of you.”
Nicholas was impressed by the way Natasha handled them. If a man talked back like that to Papa, he’d be met with violence. Natasha used reason but didn’t give up her ground or authority.
“So, establish trust,” Natasha continued. “The number one way to do this is to come into a scene calm and confident. I will be teaching you all the techniques you need to know—spanking, flogging, caning, orgasm denial, cock and ball torture—”
Nicholas squirmed where he stood at the mention of that one.
“—but none of that will matter if you don’t learn to listen to your sub and establish chemistry with them. At it’s most basic, a scene is an exchange of power, yes, but it’s also an exchange of energy flow. So make sure you have your shit together before you ever step into that room with your sub. Mindset is everything when you are a domme. You are the one controlling the flow of energy.”
Natasha looked from the faces of the women, one to the next, as if trying to ascertain if they were understanding her meaning. “Like when a man requests a private dance—you’re all doing this already. You get a feel for what he wants. I’m just talking about taking that intuition you’ve all developed several steps further. A practiced mistress can run a session with nothing but her facial expressions. That’s the level of mastery we’re talking about developing. Now, onto safety before we learn specific techniques. Irina, come here.”