Chapter One
———–

“So what are the risks of… you know. Of dying?” Kathryn asked.

“We take every precaution,” the Japanese man across from her guaranteed. He was in his late forties – gaunt, stoic, the stereotypical Asian businessman in a sharp suit and thin glasses. He regarded her scrutinizingly, like a material resource perhaps, but not moreso than he would look as such upon any other clerk that worked for his organisation. “The Palace contracts the very best doctors in the country and we have the resources to have specialists flown from as far as the US within twenty-four hours,” he continued with only a faint hint of an accent.

“But…” the redheaded girl on the other side of the desk prompted him.

The man shrugged, “Accidents happen. Very rarely. The customers are heavily penalised, naturally. It is not in our interest to lose any girls at all,” he remarked, “it simply makes no sense fiscally. We have extended our range of services,” he opens his arms, “as far as we can. With the standards we maintain it is a struggle to keep our current portfolio at what it is. If our workers were afraid for their lives, there would simply not be enough women in the world to meet our criteria,” he smiles. “We would be out of wares to trade.”

Kathryn nodded a little, feeling the heat rising up under her skin as she contemplated the implications. She knew them by heart, of course. She’d fantasised for years. Yet the reality of a man behind a desk telling you what you must be prepared to do felt different. “So, ah… the limitations…” she looked across toward the businessman.

“Yes. This is how the Kink Palace distinguishes itself,” the businessman acknowledged. “In all other establishments, the client is presented with a selection… and he is forced to choose, not by the personality or the appearance of the girls available to him, but by their ‘speciality’. They are forced to play by the whims of the hostesses, rather than the other way around. One might be repulsed by bestiality, for example, another might insist that her clients be circumcised and… other such whimsical fancies,” he chuckled. “Many girls are afraid of knives, so if a client would like to indulge in some, ‘bloodplay’ as it is called in English, then he might well only have one or two options available even if the establishment boasts a selection of dozens, yes?

“Here, our guarantee is that, not only do we cater to the widest possible selection of kinks, but also that every hostess in our employ, every single one, is open to every single kink…” the Japanese man continued speaking with a slow, carefully paced tone, pausing to lift a finger. “No,” he corrected himself, “not open. Eager,” he emphasised, “each one is eager and willing no matter her client’s requests.”

The Irish girl crossed her legs, glancing out of the window across the night-lit Tokyo skyline. “So these limits are, uhh…” she swallowed a tiny lump in the back of her throat as her attention drifted to the contracts laid out on the table in front of her.

“That as a result of your treatment you are not likely to suffer any permanent impairment of your abilities, lasting discomfort or any class of disability,” the businessman explained calmly, looking at her straight in the eye. “So in truth, every fetish is permitted at a reasonable price,” he opened his hands, “the limitations primarily concern… physical damage. An expensive but, nonetheless, very popular indulgence among our clients, you must be aware,” the man leans forward. “You most certainly can be hurt, Miss… Kincordie, I cannot stress how important it is for you to be aware of that. And you very much can be hurt in ways that are… permanent. Merely so long as they are not classed as debilitating.”

Processing the words, the girl nodded, “It says I might receive brands and… tattoos, right?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper. “And…”

“Yes. Many clients enjoy marking their favourite girls. Some more than others. In that list you will see the limited list of… mutilations that we allow and consider them to be non-debilitating. For instance, it is permissible for a client to ask for a ring finger but not a thumb. An ear, but not an eye.” His face became graver, “These are all very expensive operations and few girls must ever undergo such tasks,” the businessman insisted, “but every woman who works here must be prepared to face such a request not merely with acceptance, but with a smile. Do you understand that Kathryn? Do you believe you could?”

“Yeah…” Kathryn’s voice came out barely audible and she took a moment to recollect herself. “Yeah, I could,” she nodded, more confidently this time. “I… I think it would be hot,” she admits with a quiet shudder.

“Excellent. You have performed very well on the physiological and psychological evaluations. If you would simply sign here, here and here, then we can consider your employment contract with the Kink Palace official.”

Interlude
———

In 2020, the world faced the third decade of the new millennium. The world marched steadily onward, the same but different, change coming – as it always does – not in leaps, not in silver spacesuits and jetpacks, but in small details. Connectedness, cellphones, iPads. VHS tapes ushered a new age of pornography in the 20th century, but no technological advance was as revolutionary and widespread as the internet to every aspect of human existence. Societal norms were swept up and dissolved in a truly global community that had not existed since the fall of the Tower of Babel. And expose of humanity, from the core to the fringes.

What does it mean to be a freak? Even as television once brought information to the masses, disseminated across five terrestrial channels to the entirety of the United States, the norm was established with it. The mainstream. The Honeymooners. The Brady Bunch. It united people under an unwavering monolith of normalcy. Without choice, people could simply commune over their common interests – interests that had to be common. Those who diverged immediately became outcasts, the comic book nerds, the IT guys, the rednecks.

With the digital age information dissemination altered unimaginably. The five channels became five hundred. Films turned to video games, where no single experience is quite like another. The internet replaced the unifying monolith with a gaping chasm of diversity. In turn every interest became fringe and every fringe became mainstream. When Spiderman hit the theatres, how many comic book ‘nerds’ did it create? How many young souls sat quivering in a film theatre frightened but aroused the first time they watched a SAW film? How many gagged in front of their friends as they laughed watching 2 Girls 1 Cup only to Google the clip and watch it again and again at night in the comfort of their own rooms, retching at every frame as they masturbated?

A new culture was born – at first termed ‘hipsters’, which glorified this diversity. The fringe literally did become mainstream and the commune was no longer of people coming together over common interests, but sharing their most uncommon ones.

In a society where the fringe, the deviant and the bizarre found themselves on equal footing with the mundane, such distinctions begun to lose meaning. What can rightly be called shocking and obscene when the majority of the population will have watched it on YouTube and laughed? Oh, them comic book nerds. Oh them America’s Got Talent Nerds. Oh, them furries. Oh, them guro fans. Oh them football fans. Aren’t they funny? Aren’t they weird? Who isn’t?

—

In 2021, the Kink Palace opened in the heart of Tokyo. Despite the fears of stricter censorship after the RapeLay crisis, a decade later the global shift in attitude resulted in a political apathy once words such as ‘obscene’ and ‘perverse’ were banded about. The few who still droned on about the state of public moral health were ignored up until the point when an ailing economy saw the relaxation of prostitution laws and, eventually, the drafting of new regulations to promote healthy and diverse sex tourism across the island nation.

The Palace was founded by a coalition of wealthy businessmen with the capital to invest into the fledgeling industry and capture the imagination of the world: a place that catered for every fantasy. The most elaborate facilities with the most beautiful girls, each and every one of them ready and willing at a moment’s notice, with a smile on their lips. Just as long as you had the bank account for it.

Chapter Two
———–

“Come on Kathy, you’re being ridiculous,” Ruth wrinkled her nose, giving her friend a queer look. “You wouldn’t last a day. What if… I dunno, you could be asked to do anything. ANYTHING. Like, dress up like a bunny rabbit and lick some guy’s dog’s balls,” she snickered.

“Yeah, but…” Kathryn’s blush spread across her freckled cheeks. “It’s kinda romantic in its own way, isn’t it? I mean those girls they’re at the top of their class. Two hundred of the kinkiest, most beautiful women in the WORLD and getting paid like it,” she gesticulated like she always did when she got tipsy.

Around them the lights of the Dublin nightclub flashed, swirling hologrammatic decor projected into the ceiling – galaxies and dizzyingly huge nebulae, as if the entire dance hall was being propelled at warp speed through a celestial vortex. The three of them sat around a small table, having turned its sound isolation up until the music was muted enough for them to speak without shouting. The throbbing bass of the dance music continued to reverberate through their bodies however, irrespective of the electronic dampening, even while the audible component was rendered inaudible.

Ruth had transferred to school in Dublin when she was fourteen and now, two years later, she had become Kathryn’s best friend, or thereabouts. The blonde Glaswegian was pretty – with flowing hair, an ample, perky D-cup bust and a partying streak a mile wide. She was the most outgoing of their bunch and had no shortage of boyfriends. That night she’d brought Darren along, a lanky teen with curly hair from the year above.

As she sat in her lap, nursing an empty cocktail glass, the seventeen-year-old cuddled her and leant down to kiss the Scottish girl, making her squirm against him, a hand quietly reaching down into his skinny jeans.

While Ruth was pretty, Kathryn was gorgeous – or so everyone told her. She watched the couple from the other side of the table, still sipping at her white Russian. The redhead was pure Irish and a bit on the short side, but her pink, freckled cheeks, plump ruby lips and wide, iridescent green eyes were to die for. Or so she was told. To top it off, her hair grew in long, luscious and silky locks, coloured a stunningly bright and very natural red. She was a passing athlete to top it off – in good shape, with a perky pair of C-cups that commanded their own respect and attention.

As fortune would have it, she was also the heavily bookish type. Going out on the blitz never held that much interest for her. Sure, there was the sex and the strippers and the booze, but frankly – there was little she couldn’t enjoy in the peace and quiet of her own home. Without the blaring music, the flashing lights, the drunk freshers from the universities making passes at barely-legal fifteen year-olds. She was not a fan of crowds. The mediated turn-by-turn dialogue of a chatroom, certainly, but not this thing… so many people, all talking to each other, where you have to grab at every little pause in conversation and squeak and hope people pause talking and listen to you, followed by the awkwardness when you start speaking and someone else does half a second later and you pause and hope that they’ll respectfully let you continue what you started first, but then they just keep on talking like you never even said anything…

That is not to say that Kathryn Kincordie did not have a social life, far from it. But she met most of her friends online, while her school hours were focused on work, either curled up alone in the library with a tablet, chatting to someone online or down in the design workshops, polishing trinkets for extra credit in her metalwork classes until one of her friends like Ruth would decide to drop by for a chat. Of course she had boyfriends – few guys could resist the quiet, shy redheaded cutie and many would seek her out. A fair few would even elicit a blush and a smile and a few blissful weeks would be spent in sweaty embraces under the bedsheets every afternoon after school. But while she’d chat for hours about the socio-political studies, or the implications of Godel’s incompleteness theorem on the nature of truth, the consensus was established that she was a dull girlfriend as she was never one to go out, go to parties, or really do anything couply at all. Other than fuck.

The ones that did not grow bored of her, she grew bored of herself – her own sexual interests deviated from most of her classmates and once the newness of a stranger’s cock pressing against her skin during a languorous Saturday afternoon wore off, she found she had no real use for them. When she celebrated her fifteenth, she unwrapped her first vibrating dildo courtesy of her mother, while her dad gifted her a pre-paid all-site pass for Kink.com. Having themselves first met online in World of Warcraft and courted by means of months of orgiastic all-night erotic roleplay, Sienna and Brien Kincordie where hardly the paragons of conservatism.

Kathryn’s gaze wandered across to the stage, some fifteen feet from where they sat. Lit up gorgeously from below, nude figures twisted ecstatically, glistening with sweat amidst swirls of luminescent smoke – spinning for the entertainment and arousal of club goers. Closest to them were a couple, both intimately wrapped around a pole and each other. The woman looked like she was a college student, blonde and buxom. The breasts looked natural, but Kathy thought she could see traces or fresh scars from an operation. The man was some twenty-five years older, well-built, with jagged hair and a proud erection.

The intimacy and eroticism of their dance was practically palpable, her vice-like grip on his cock as they kissed, broke apart, mounted the pole, then reunited. With effortless grace, she inverted herself, spiderman-kissing her partner from above. As the teen watched, she wondered if they were an actual couple. Mixed, male and female, strippers became all the rage since before she’d even set foot in a club, catering to both the girls and the guys on the dancefloor, rousing their tempers to the beat of the music. But the missing ingredient was discovered when some club owner realised that rather than having a pole each, the result was so, so much more fascinating when they shared the poles, to at a time. You can only watch the rippling muscles of a perfect Adonis for so long: the interplay of two beings in romantic, intimate union, however, was something else entirely.

Naturally, it was another show entirely when a real spark existed between the two dancers, something that could silence half a room as they would themselves become embodied, enraptured and entranced within the lovers’ art. Show business was show business however, and while skilful couples could earn a respectable living performing for the masses, many more learned to fake it when it meant keeping their jobs.

“Hi, how are you beautiful guys and girls doing, would you like any more drinks, top-ups?” Kathy was torn from her reverie as the table was attended to by a young lad with a shaved head and a Scottish accent. The cheerful sort, likely just out of school, working part-time to save up for university. He stood shirtless, wearing leather chaps, his bare cock swaying between his bared thighs at an impressive length, getting a little giggle out of Ruth.

“I’m good,” Kathryn blushed, shaking her head as she hid her smile behind her white russian, while watching the attendant with a degree of amusement. This club was definitely posher than Ruth’s usual haunts.

“What about you two?” the boy turned to Ruth and her boyfriend, distracting them from their canoodling. “Can I refill your glass for you sweetie?”

The blonde Glaswegian looked up with a little smile, “Sure… ahh…” Ruth’s eyes searched around and hit upon Kathy’s drink. “What’s that you’re drinking, Kitty-Kat?”

“White russian,” the redhead shrugged quietly.

“Ooh, okay. I’ll have one of those then,” Ruth nodded, handing the handsome attendant her empty glass. “Aaaand…” she added before he had a chance to depart, lips curling into a teasing smile, “a layer of your thick, creamy spunk on top, if you will, er…. what’s your name cutie?”

“Michael Fiennes,” the young man laughed warmly, “I’ll get right on that,” he nodded back with a little wink, tapping up the price on his tablet. Ruth waved her debit card and a moment later he was off, with a little wave.

Darren shook his head with a mock sigh, “You’re such a teasing little slut,” he muttered, nibbling on his girlfriend’s ear.

“Oh, why – did you want some too? We can share…”

Kathy finally finished off her drink once Ruth’s new friend zipped off to get a white russian, flashing her friend a little smile at her antics. “So what do you want to do once you graduate?” she wondered idly, avoiding setting her glass down on the table, lest the device flagged it as empty and sent another nude waiter their way for expensive refills.

“Not my ken,” the blonde shrugged it off, “maybe work at a place like this for a while, meet some cute boys, maybe an older gent of some handsome description and wealthy persuasion,” she winked. “Maybe one with a healthy appetite for young boys’ asses…” she leant back, planting a gnawing kiss on her boyfriend’s cheek, evoking a retaliatory bite from Darren in turn, plunging the two of them into giggles and more squirming.

“But you don’t think I should go to Japan?” Kathryn sighed. “I mean, I can learn some Japanese by then, I’m cute, I’m kinky…” she shook her head, “why don’t you think?”

Ruth pushed Darren away for a moment as she leant forward, “Kitty-Kat, you know it’s not like that. I know you’re into freaky shit and I’m sure you might enjoy some of the stuff they do at the Kink Palace, but I dunno, doing that stuff for work just isn’t the same, don’t you think you’d just spoil it for yourself, having to do this kinda thing day in, day out?” she sighed. “And it’s not like it’s a career for you, you wanna do… what was it you said?”

“Umm, I want to start a company making jewellery and sex toys,” the redhead blushed a bit. “But I mean it’s not like I’d be there long, most girls only have to work for a year or two until they have like ten million in the bank account and they’re basically set, right?” she countered. “I could really use capital like that, I could start up something serious with that money, not like some homemade online shop, but a real business.”

“Mm-hm, or maybe one of your clients gets a bit too eager, strangles you a little bit too much and they send your parents a compensation check of some, say, fifty million to make up for the ‘Tragic Loss’. You don’t know what kinda psychos would be using you over there. It’s NOT going to be fun, Kitty-Kat.” Ruth squeaked as Darren pinched her nipple through the sheer, black top she was wearing. “Oi! Stop it, horny perv,” she slapped his hand away, pouting playfully as she popped off his lap and walked over to Kathy, leaving the teen having to cross his legs to hide the erection he was sporting.

“Right,” Ruth continued, “where was I… so yeah. And then there’s the chance they’ll do something really nasty to you and you’ll end up with their ‘golden parachute’ retirement package because they can’t use you anymore. Sure, great if you like the money, but that would only be because they Really Fucked You Up. Right? You don’t want that,” she stroked Kathy’s chin softly. “And you know, likeliest outcome is you’ll get there and they’ll say, ‘Eh, you’re okay, but not our kinda girl’. And you’ll waste like a whole year bumming around Japan, barely getting by on strip clubs and hostess cafes.”

Kathy stayed silent through the monologue, watching Ruth’s chin move as the Scot spoke. Once the hand comes up, she took the girl’s fingers and pulled them away, shoulders slumping. A part of her wanted to yell at the blonde. It was the same thing everyone else had told her. Her parents tried to scare her with stories of Japanese cannibals who liked to eat the skin off teenage girls who squirmed around while still alive. Her teachers kept telling her how good her grades were and encouraging her to go into engineering. The one person whose support she’d always hoped to count on was now here with the same tired old platitudes, making the Irish girl want to shout and tell her to fuck off for once because for once she knew what she bloody well wanted. Or at least she felt like she did.

“Eeyy, one white russian with cum on top for the lovely blonde, yes?” the attendant veered back around the table with a drinks tray and an erection. “Would you care to watch, or care to perform the honours,” he chuckled, distracting Ruth away from her best friend.

“Oh!” the Glaswegian brightened up then glanced at her boyfriend – now left by himself across the table – with an evil look. “Mm, I think I’ll do the honours. Is it okay if I use my mouth?”

“Be my guest lass, but if you spill any you’re nae getting seconds unless you pay for another shot.”

Chapter Three
————-

“Katareena-chan?”

Kathy had dozed off. She squirmed in the large chair at the sound of her name, broken down and reassembled out of foreign syllables, her limbs tightening up in response to the startlement that brought her out of her reverie.

“I am very sorry for the wait,” the Japanese woman smiled bashfully. The girl recollected that she’d introduced herself as Yuna, speaking the language fluently as if Kathy had been a native speaker, making it a little hard to follow her at times. “You are looking very lovely indeed today,” her gaze ran down the redhead’s pale skin.

After a week of basic training, Kathryn found herself shivering as she had now entered the Kink Palace as an outsider for the last time. Yuna had greeted her, stripped the girl naked, and bid her to wait in the make-up chair while she fetched her records. In spite of her nudity, she felt warm and comfortable in the upholstered white leather, every part of the room clean and smooth like the Apple stores she used to visit as a child. Before her was a tall mirror, showing a buxom Irish beauty with a pointed nose-tip, cascading rivers of fire down her shoulders and peppered freckles that adorned her chest until it curved out into pert, somewhat puffy, pink nipples. At some point, the comfort of the seat made her doze off.

“It’s okay,” Kathy replied, carefully forming the Japanese words on her lips as she smiled up at the hostess. Yuna wore the classical uniform of the Kink Palace – a white, button-up shirt that was carefully tailored to fit snugly around the woman’s curves, thin three-quarter length white hose, designed to accent the buttocks, and a pair of featureless white slippers. All in all, the impression was sterile and almost medical, easily something a nurse might wear as well as being, perhaps, almost surprisingly conservative.

Yuna herself was thin and rather tall compared to most of the Japanese girls Kathy had gotten to know during her stay in Tokyo. She also had the appearance of a model, as well as the countenance of one – perfect posture, graceful, elegant movements and that alluring, enigmatic gaze that felt as if her eyes had been trained by rote to always look just a little bit past the camera, at something mysterious out there beyond the shot. She wore her hair long and straight, brushed into a glossy black sheen.

Her uniform bore no insignia, no gaudy advertisement of the Kink Palace like one might have seen on a Hooters’ Girl or a Playmate in the US a decade past. It was impressed on Kathryn from early on that the Palace Hostess’ role is one of subtlety, until she was called upon to be otherwise. Only one identifier was required, yet it alone spoke volumes: a thin, black band stretched around Yuna’s neck, intricately ornate. Though easily mistakable for a fashionable choker, up close there was no doubt it was in fact a masterful tattoo, inked all the way around her throat. The Kink Palace logo, in roman and katakana characters, formed the centre of the ornament, very permanently emblazoned into her skin and that of every other hostess – a mark of pride and shame, submission and prevalence.

“You were born in 2009, yes?” the Japanese woman dexterously tapped her fingers across the tablet in her hands, standing between Kathy and the mirror. “Twenty years old, born Katareena Keen-Koru-Dee,” she asked rhetorically.

“Yes and… yes,” Kathy nodded. “I was twenty last winter.”

Yuna’s fingernails, Kathryn noticed, were a bright, glittering pink, clacking on the glass of the tablet every time she pressed something. “Very good health condition, normal psychological profile, psychosexual data is still to be gathered… yes, everything is very much in order.” She lowered the pad, “So your shift will begin in three hours, I hope you are prepared for the experience of a lifetime,” the brunette smiled politely with an odd spark in her eye. “I am here to help you get ready and get you set up.”

“Okay.”

Yuna’s fingertips brushed across the girl’s skin, making the redhead shiver as they slowly travelled over her leg and followed the curve of her toned stomach. “I see you were thoroughly waxed during your training. That is very lovely. Your skin is perfect and it will save us some time. We will begin with your makeup and then apply your tattoos. After that, you’ll be ready to have your digital avatar captured, first nude, then with your uniform. At nine, you should be ready to meet your client.”

While the older woman spoke, she opened up several silver cases of cosmetics, first brushing Kathy’s hair back, before starting on her face. She went easy on the foundation so as to preserve the natural freckles and soft transparency of the girl’s rosy skin, yet the Japanese beauty was an artist with her brush, touching up her complexion in all the right places to give a very natural-seeming radiance. “My client?” the redhead wondered, biting her lip a little at the thought. “I thought…”

“Yes, we have a few gentlemen who are regular customers who very much enjoy being the first clients of our new girls. It is a harmless privelege that comes with an elevated price – once a new hostess signs her contract, her preliminary details are published online, allowing for her to be bid upon,” Yuna stated, switching tools a few times. Within minutes the fine retouching was finished and she started on the eye makeup, “very careful, stay still, Katareena-chan,” she whispered quietly, gesturing for the redhead to close one eye.

“I just never really expected that,” Kathy took a deep breath, “it sounds so… serious. Baptism by fire?”

“Nothing too hard for your first day, I am sure. Doing anything… um, drastic to a girl on her first day is very expensive. I am sure no one paid quite that much this time.”

“I guess, but still – I suppose I expected something more, I don’t know, mundane. Serving drinks maybe, working the bar and things like that…” Kathryn smiled a little.

Yuna only offered an enigmatic smile as she walked around to work on her other eye, “You will soon find that, here, the mundane is the exceptional. The unusual and unexpected… that is the norm.”

“And that’s why I came here, I suppose. So do you know who will be taking me in, um, two and a half hours?”

“That would spoil the surprise, would it not? Most customers do not announce their choices and preferences until they pick you out from the menu,” Yuna shakes her finger at the new girl. “You always face the unexpected. Every moment – a lottery. You must always look forward to it – otherwise it will drive you insane,” she giggles.

“No, I do! I do… I’m just nervous.”

“Well, don’t be – you look gorgeous and I am sure you will enjoy yourself,” Yuna gave her charge a confident smile, lifting the girl’s chin up. “Now let’s see about your nails – are there any colours you prefer to wear?” she mused, inspecting Kathy’s hands briefly before opening another case to reveal a rainbow spectrum of nail-polish.

Kathy was somewhat surprised, “I get a choice? No, I hadn’t thought about that,” she blushed, sitting forward.

“It’s one of the few ways you get to express yourself before a customer. Your hairstyle, which is gorgeous as it is, is the other – so I’d recommend something that brings you out, gives you a little spice.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever worn any…” the redhead paused, noting again her hostess’s neon pink nails, “…especially expressive colours of polish.”

“Then allow me to suggest,” Yuna carefully tugged a bright green bottle from her kit, “I know it’s a little… mm, stereotypical,” she held it up against Kathy’s hand, “seeing as you’re, well, Irish, but I also think it would work great with your hair and complexion. If you’ll let me?”

“Whatever you think works best,” the girl flushed, nodding.

The hostess smiled and got set up, sitting down beside Kathryn as she got to work on the polish. “You’ll look beautiful.” Yuna’s brush-strokes lay quickly and accurately across the redheaded girl’s nails, the lacquer shiny enough to seem like it glows. “I’ve meant to ask however… as a new initiate you were given a choice. You could have just one week of basic training, or a month of advanced before you started work. You chose to start as soon as possible?”

“Of course.”

“That is very brave of you. What if you won’t be able to handle everything that’s thrown at you? I mean, how much pain have you ever experienced? What if you throw up the first time someone inserts their member into your throat?” the woman blushed a little while she talked, still concentrating on the other’s nails. “There are many things you may not be prepared for – the smell of a horse, your first taste of urine, these are all things you could have been properly exposed to and trained to tolerate otherwise…”

“Well, I suppose. But, I think there’s something exciting in finding these things out for myself, trying things out for the first time with people who really want me to do them.”

“Oh yes,” Yuna laughed, “many clients feel the same way – and hostesses who join with minimal training are labelled with a lotus flower on the menu to signify their relative ‘innocence’,” she mused. “You will very likely earn more money as such, but… well, many clients are very eager to introduce their ‘lotuses’ to the receiving side of their darker pleasures,” the woman knelt as she lifted Kathy’s feet, painting her toes in the same manner – the lacquer dried quickly.

“Well, I’ve… tried some of those at least, I mean, in my personal life. I don’t mind the anticipation, excitement of trying something new, something I don’t know if I can bear. And, when I say I don’t mind it, I mean I kind of like it.”

“You’re going to be an interesting one to work alongside. I think we’re done here,” Yuna smiled and stepped back, admiring her work with a little squint. She checked something on her tablet and nodded, “Alright then. The tattoo artist should be waiting for you, it’s just down the hall,” the woman offered a hand, helping Kathy up.

The girl glanced back at the street clothes she had worn when she came in, carefully folded on a shelf at the back of the dressing room. “Nude? What about my…”

“Katareena-chan, this is the Palace! Don’t be silly. Come on,” Yuna tugged her hand and soon they stepped out into the corridor – soft diffuse lights, wooden panelling and sinfully soft carpeting for Kathryn’s toes to sink blissfully into. The tattoo studio was just a few doors down and the hostess made her step in first, the redhead’s breasts jumping in surprise as she hopped over the threshold.

The studio was made out to look more like a doctor’s office – white and surgical, with a reclining chair in the centre, easily re-fashionable into a bed. The artist, an elderly and slightly plump Japanese man nodded politely to greet the Irish arrival. “Take a seat,” he spoke in accented, but clear English, careful not to touch the girl until she got comfortable. Yuna, on the other hand, was addressed in quick strings of his native language that Kathy barely caught. She only realised the intent once the woman had lifted her red locks up and carefully secured them within a rubber cap, leaving her long neck exposed.

“Will it hurt?” she switched to the much more comfortable English language. It felt as if ants were marching down her neck, especially her spine, while she watched the man put on latex gloves and prepare a tray of his tools by the cabinets. As always, the anticipation and arousal made her nipples harden and she looked to Yuna for support, but the woman was speaking to the artist – something along the lines of being informed when the process finished – before she turned around and wandered back out the door.

“Have you had tattoos before?” the man wondered, setting up the tray beside his patient. Although a quick glance over the Irish girl’s soft, rosy body, he laughed, “No, no of course you haven’t. Yes, it will hurt. Not as much as other things you’ll be doing, I’m sure,” he grinned at her, “but much more than… piercing your ears, or new tattoo would.” Cold cotton swabs circled her neck several times around, spreading only more goosebumps across the rest of the nude foreigner’s skin. “The Palace has these expensive devices and high-technology and advanced inks!” he chuckled, inserting a cartridge of opaque black ink into the electric tattoo gun. “They go in deep, they do not fade and they much faster than streetcorner tattooist. But they also – how do you say it – they sting like a beetch. And they cannot be removed, not ever. Only skin transplant. The boys like girls tattooed for ever. And ever!” he laughed in that high-pitched ‘old man’ kind of voice.

If the artist expected Kathryn to reply, he did little to give her the chance as, a moment later, she felt his firm, vice-like grip on the back of her head, holding her steady, and the whirr of the needle. Two moments later, the needle was burrowing under her skin, or so it felt. The burning tip felt as if it were scorching her nerve endings directly while it curled across her tender skin in a swirling, intricate dance.

Her mind span dizzily as the pain failed to subside, but the tip of the artist’s pen only continued onward, curling from the back of her neck to the throat, where she felt with frightening permanence the symbol of the Palace being branded into her, letter by letter.

Kathryn wasn’t entirely sure how long had passed, but at some point the burning tip subsided to merely a dull, throbbing ache encircling her entire neck and she opened her eyes, bleary from the tears, to see the older Japanese man holding up a digital mirror – in which her neck, angrily red and just a little swollen, now shared the same unmistakeable design that Yuna wore.

“That looks really beautiful,” the redhead smiled, trying to blink the tears away that had begun to gather. Her fingertips, trembling anxiously, rose up to trace the insignia. The touch burned, but she pressed against the swollen skin regardless, gasping at the fact she could feel the sharp corners of the ‘K’ rising up from her own flesh. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Wear it proudly, Katareena, the Palace is forever a part of you now,” the artist placed a hand on her shoulder. “I hope you are ready to understand what that means. Now go find Yuna,” he smiled.

Chapter Four
————

The redhead’s body sprawled luxuriantly across the large, soft bedspread. She lay on her stomach, taking in sharp, quick breaths, her hands still gripping the fabric like tiny vices. Her own red hair, spread in a fiery explosion all around, dominated her vision, but beyond it the night-time lights of Copenhagen flickered while out of focus: a scintillating background of bokeh.

Much less peripheral to her senses, the young woman’s anus was throbbing with a tight, burning pain – sharp, but not entirely unpleasant in her state of arousal. The cock within it, was describing a slow pistoning movement through her rectum, slowly coming to a stop – cumming, even. Though she could not feel the semen spurting deeper into her colon, Kathy could definitely feel the rhythmic quivering of the spurting member. With her bowels impregnated, the sodomite that was lying on top of her firmly squeezed her breasts and sighed.

The youth’s lips ran up along her shoulder, alternating between kisses and gentle bites, even the softest ones leaving little red marks on her pale skin. “My little Irish slut sounded like she enjoyed that,” he whispered, biting down on her earlobe a little too hard – enough to make her whimper and squirm under his sweaty body. “Are you still sure you want to do this next part?”

Kathryn closed her eyes, silently wishing he hadn’t asked her that. Instinctively, her hands pulled at the restraints – warm leather cuffs around both her wrists and ankles that spread-eagled her for the young man’s entertainment. In one sense, she was entirely helpless as the straps lacked any give. Were he to abandon her, her situation was nigh-on inescapable: she might rather sensibly starve to death of thirst and hunger before working herself free from his bondage. Yet in another sense, she remained very much in control. A single word, a single shriek of discomfort too loud for his conscience would end the illusion. As such, her submission irrevocably remained merely that: a fantasy.

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes remaining closed until she felt the cock slowly pull out of her ass, still half-firm, the man rising up from her body along with it. The bed swayed and buckled, rocking her back and forth as she felt him climb off and, finally, bounced up sharply as her pretend ‘captor’ stood up from it.

When her eyes opened again, his hand was brushing the red locks out of her face, tenderly stroking the girl’s cheek until she could see clearly the uncut penis, glistening with smeared cum and lube, being held in front of her, inclined downward at a receding angle as its erection faded. The youth slid his fingers down, curling them under her jaw and lifting her head to meet the moist tip of his member.

The smell of cum and sweat was musky and pleasant, though with the exotic tangyness of her own ass. Without hesitance, the redhead pulled herself up and carefully swallowed the foreskin, sucking it in between her lips, her tongue tasting the saltiness and bitterness of her captor’s cum. She kept her eyes closed, slowly allowing more of the prick to rest against her tongue, filling up her mouth until her nose buried itself in his bristly pubic hair.

Another hand, pulling her red locks tight, kept her face there, slowly breathing through the musky, sweaty pubes, while she heard the man groan pleasantly far above her. At the same time, her ass remained sore, now feeling oddly exposed to the elements as it gaped by its lonesome.

“Look up at me,” the calm command sounded from above. Her face was slowly pulled back along the shrinking length until she could just see the dark-haired youth looking down at her. Kathy knew what was coming and her heart beat faster. She blinked a few times while she strained to maintain eye-contact and gently suckled on the soft prick, pushing that foreskin back with her tongue and finding more sticky semen underneath.

Then it came – the penis perked up, tightened and slowly released a hot trickle of piss into her mouth. The rancid, salty fluid felt almost scorching at first, not through its heat but by the strength of its taste, the redhead’s mouth filling with the frothy liquid and its heady vapours. It took her a few seconds until she could overcome the retching in the back of her throat and build up the courage to swallow, by which point it was almost too late to stop it from spilling out on the bed. With a mammoth effort, Kathryn began to gulp mouthful after mouthful of urine, feeling the warmth run down her throat, grimacing as the taste and smell became overwhelming – and yet, to stop would have let the dark, yellow liquid overflow and stain the bedsheets as an even more vivid testament to her submission.

It seemed like hours until the man’s bladder was exhausted, though she felt sure no more than a few seconds had passed. She realised she’d closed her eyes, still grimacing, her mouth tasting like a toilet even with the source of the repulsive flavour gone.

Just like that, the cock pulled free from her lips and she breathed in deep, ventilating her tongue while her restraints were loosened one by one. In the end, Kathryn’s captivity was no more and the young woman sat up, relaxing into the arms of the Danish brunet.

“Was it how you expected it?” he murmured into her ear, kissing it and caressing her stomach from behind – large, warm hands scouring her sensitive skin, so much of it still covered in goosebumps.

“No, but it was amazing,” Kathryn smiled blissfully, licking her lips while she turned to nuzzle her lover’s cheek.

—

Troels had been the latest in Kathy’s online conquests – or perhaps she in his. Once she turned seventeen, though still in school, she was in a position to work part-time and soon found herself serving tables in the nude at the same high-end club Ruth had taken her out to in the past. The money, in turn, helped pay for Japanese language lessons and the occasional bit of recreation she would not otherwise have been able to afford: such as visiting the friends she made overseas.

The handsome brunet was a Danish dom, only some two years older than Kathryn herself. He had just left school and enrolled at university in Copenhagen. His parents had been considerably more conservative than Kathy’s and he was curious to try a more sexually exuberant lifestyle than he managed at home. She met him on a lifestyle forum – it was an online community that had started out as an advice board for young people seeking to get into the sex industry, where the younger generations could interact with more experienced industry workers. Over the years it expanded to become a far more general aggregate for discussions of sex, industry practices, ethics and all matters related.

She first found herself curious as Troels appeared to go against the grain of the majority of users: while originating from one of the more permissive European countries, he seemed to consider most sex work unethical, even while advocating a sex-positive outlook on inter-personal relationships as long as the interactions were constrained to the bedroom (or similarly appropriate other part of the house).

“I’m a utilitarian,” Troels explained, stepping out of the shower and towelling off his hair. Kathy had showered first – rinsing out her mouth and then carefully salving her bruised anus after she damage had been soothed somewhat by the warm running water. By the time her Danish crush was done with the bathroom as well, she was once more lying nude on the bed where she had been sodomised, albeit this time snuggled up amidst the sheets with a Kindle and a mug containing a frothy half-pint of Leffe.

“And this kind of trend just isn’t socially-speaking healthy,” the Dane continued, pouring some of the beer in his own mug too. “It’s a question of gender equality and it’s long been documented that public, constant sexual objectification of women does no favours toward male prejudice of your sex. The more women there are that dedicate themselves to the sex industry the poorer the rest are regarded.”

Kathy sat up, sipping her Leffe and putting the mug aside as Troels sat back down on the bed. She pressed up against his back, enjoying the athletic man’s warmth, her arms wrapping pleasantly over his abdomen, her breasts flattened against the musculature of his shoulders. “Sexuality is just a part of you like any other – men are strong and they’re allowed to work as heavy lifters. Women are prejudiced against men because they reckon every guy is stronger and we make you do all the hard work,” she snickered, “obviously, that’s why we’ve been treating you like heavy lifting machinery for the past few centuries,” her lips nipped at his earlobe.

“Look, no matter how fine and great you say it is in theory, there’s no arguing that the stats are fucked up. Look at income, okay? Now compare the gap between the average incomes of men and women – going down right? But suppose we took only those women who do not work in the sex industry and compared their pay to men’s pay? Big surprise, their pay has actually gone down in the past ten years or so. All the figures are there.”

“By what, a Euro? These things go up and down all the time, Troels. You can select whatever statistics you want and look at them any way you like. It’s different from country to country, city to city. I mean, what makes you think you’re allowed to separate out sex workers and all the others like that? That’s the idea, they’re both just as legitimate as each other, that’s the whole point.”

“But they’re not. Are they, Kathy? Fifty percent of women still baulk at the idea of…”

“You mean the fifty percent that are over the age of fifty?”

“I’m serious! Look, you… you can’t just tell women to either become prostitutes or just suck it up and earn less pay than men who are otherwise just as good as them at their jobs in every respect. And think about it, this kind of bullshit is just spreading further and further into society. I mean, you serve tables nude at your club – I bet ten years ago anyone trying to employ a nude seventeen year-old attendant would have have broken so many laws they wouldn’t have seen the light of day ever again. What’ll happen in another ten years or twenty? Maybe every law firm in Europe will demand that their secretaries perform their duties in the nude, too. Maybe every female nurse will be contractually obligated to give the patients blowjobs to speed up their recovery.”

“Troels…”

“Oh, what’s that? You want to go into medicine, but you’re a weird freak who doesn’t like having nasty sex with strangers? I’m sorry, we don’t have any openings! Try another hospi…”

Kathy bit the boy’s neck, making him hiss quietly instead of continuing. “You’re being silly. Look, all that your job distribution stats say is that there’s more girls choosing to work in sex – there’s no evidence at all to say that women’s opportunities are being impeded. If anything, they’re better than ever: girls who couldn’t afford education before, or who couldn’t afford their own businesses now have an extra option of making a lot of money quite fast by doing sex work. It’s empowering, it’s relatively safe and it can be enjoyable for a lot of the ones doing it. After a few years they can do whatever the fuck they like…”

“Except then they realise that nothing else pays quite as well as sex, so they’ve got a choice of being metaphorically fucked up the ass by The Man and being stuck in a shitty low-paid job while their male colleagues take home checks that are twice as big… or being wealthy, but being quite literally fucked up the ass by The Man.”

“Well it’s their choice and they deserve to choose whether they want to make something of their academics or if they want to do sex work – there’s nothing ethical about denying them choice,” the redhead moaned, pulling Troels down with her, the two of them splayed out nude on the bed together. The brunet struggled not to spill his beer while she continued, sitting up over him, “I keep saying, it’s about opportunities – it’s not closing off opportunities at all, it’s only offering new ones. Like, look at the percentage of female CEOs. Back in 2010 it was like three percent. Now it’s eight.”

Troels craned his neck up to sip at his mug while Kathy held him down and moved over to straddle his chest, her wet, smoothly waxed pussy smearing its honey across his skin while she did so. “But it is an ethical issue,” he objected, letting her take the top for now. “It’s like, why is there such a huge ethical difference between making a girl eat a cucumber and making a girl give a blowjob when she doesn’t want to? Rape is rape because coercing a woman into a sex act is a very special kind of evil, babe. And this, this is mass coercion. Today it’s girls having the ‘option’ of selling their bodies to pay for education, tomorrow it’s politicians arguing that women don’t need student grants or child benefits because they can always go and make a quick buck on the streets…”

“God, you and your slippery slopes,” Kathryn smirked, pinning the youth’s hands down as she leaned in and planted a warm kiss across his lips – it lasted only for a few moments, but ended with a firm bite on his lower lip, making the Dane arch his spine and buck against her aroused vagina. “You’re so much more fun when you’re just fucking me in the ass and calling me a slut,” she whispered.

“That’s different,” the boy objected, lowering his voice as he realised she’d just put an end to any more philosophising he had lined up. “You know, when you work at the Kink Palace, you won’t get a choice whom you fuck,” he smirked, “maybe you should practice putting up with my…”

“Yeah, because ardent feminists are just going to be lining up to flog my tits at the Kink Palace,” Kathryn interjected with a deviant smile. She sat up and pulled herself up off the young man’s chest, strands of sticky wetness connecting her to him. “I think it’s time for you to service my pussy, mister feminist,” the girl mused, sliding her fingers through the brunet’s curly, luscious hair.

“Ja, ma’am.”

Chapter Five
————

By the time Yuna brought Kathryn to the dressing room, the ache in her neck had begun to subside. For the first time, she witnessed a communal area – she found herself in a circular chamber, well-lit and furnished with baroque leather sofas, antique dressing tables and old-fashioned garderobes. While about half of the women appeared asian, the other half were a multitude of ethnicities.

Amid quietly murmured conversations, overall there was little in terms of loud chatter. Stages of dress and undress were many: some had just come in to work, changing out of work clothes and headed into the steam showers. Others were already slipping their own uniforms on, others still were changing out of uniforms into costumes of their clients’ choosing. One girl stepped out in a cowgirl outfit, flashing her bare ass under an authentic pair of leather chaps – except it wasn’t entirely bare, one of the cheeks sporting a large, circular mark branded into her flesh.

First Kathy was taken into a sideroom for a final stage of preparation: cameras were lined up in a circle around a small pedestal, where she was to pose for the rotating display that would later appear on clients’ menus. Two versions were needed: one clothed and one nude, with the ominous reminder that both would be updated to reflect ‘changes’, which Yuna blushingly characterised as hairstyle and bodyweight updates.

“If you receive marks or… injuries, however,” the Japanese woman remarked quietly, “they will of course need to be photographed as well. Not just after you receive them, but every day as well as they heal,” she explained, producing a rotating display of Kathryn in the nude.

Once satisfied with the product, the Irish girl found herself taken to the dressing lounge yet again – this time another girl stopping to spray a selection of lightly-scented perfumes.

“Sonja,” the petite and remarkably flat-chested blonde replied when Kathryn asked for her name. She was wearing the same white uniform that most of the girls wore, kneeling down with a polite smile as she fished out another small bottle from her bag and applied the ointment to the redhead’s toes. “First client?” she wondered, speaking with a light Scandinavian accent.

“Yes, a little nervous,” Kathy admitted, “you have a lot of different perfumes – do I get to choose which ones to use later, or is there some unique Kink Palace fragrance?”

“Yes and no. These aren’t strictly-speaking perfumes, you can add a fragrance of your own choosing on top, later.”

“What do you mean?”

Sonja moved a little closer, tapping the redhead’s knees with a little blush. Another tiny vial came out and as Kathy revealed her warm sex, the smaller woman leant in, carefully applying yet another oil across the lips of her pussy. “They’re… well, they’re a little complicated. But mostly they aim to give your body a smell that feels natural, but pleasant. There’s a whole bunch of science behind it – when you first signed up, during your physical, they would have taken your sweat samples, your saliva, your cooch and all that,” the blonde smiled sweetly.

Another bottle came out, “Sorry, you’ll get used to me doing this I’m afraid,” Sonja warned coyly, moistening her fingers with the new oil – this one, Kathy soon found out, was applied by inserting those digits inside her, down to the knuckle. As the nude redhead squirmed, the perfumier continued, “So I’ve a list here of all the formulas to use on you. The idea is that they work with your natural musks and make the smell nicer in some places, or cancel out your odour in others. So you can use your own perfume if you like! But a lot of the clients don’t like there being too much artifice, you know, they like the ‘real deal’ and such.”

Kathryn leant forward as her armpits and breasts were treated in the same manner. Finally, Sonja gave her a tablet to dissolve in her mouth, one that she explained was for the girl’s breath and saliva.

“Can I ask you something before you go?” she touched Sonja’s arm once the blonde had turned to move off.

“Sure. Shoot, I guess.”

“I’m just wondering, there’s a lot of girls here like, um, you – who don’t really look like they serve clients. I mean, will I have to do perfuming between clients, or makeup and all those things as well? It looks kind of like you specialise, but you have the tattoo and everything…”

Sonja’s cheeks blushed quite darkly, “Ah, yes,” she bit her lip a little. “It’s just that some of us who have been here for a while, the clients become less interested, especially if you’ve had a lot of things done to you… it’s like, a few battle-scars are fine, but too much and you’re a veteran, you know?”

“But can’t you just take the retirement package? That’s a lot of money and you get care and all that…”

“Well, yes, of course you can. It’s just that…” Sonja sighed a little, “I don’t know, it’s a bit hard to explain, but it’s just that when you give so much of yourself,” she winced a little, “literally, even, it can become quite hard to leave this place. And make no mistake, I just mean like emotionally, it’s not that anyone stops you or discourages you,” the blonde giggled nervously. “But a lot of girls do want to keep working even if they get hurt or even disfigured and they still get clients, just much less than before.

“Maybe they just want to keep going, or well, some of us just maybe have a regular client or two who keep coming back…” she smiled coyly, “but maybe we’re a little scared to just leave the palace and move in with them after all this time. But anyway, if you don’t get too many clients you can just opt to do some internal work between appointments for really good pay, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Kathy stood up, running her nosetip along the skin of her own arm, surprised by the gentle fragrance. “This does smell so good,” she smiled down at Sonja. “Thanks. And, I didn’t know that. Um, it’s probably rather impolite to ask, but what is it that’s er…” she gestured a little at the blonde, “I mean, you look fine and really quite pretty…”

“Oh,” the Scandinavian shifted her weight a bit, looking away, “well, careful asking things like that,” she lowered her voice a bit. “I mean, some girls really wear their marks and scars and such as badges of honour and love to show them off, but… there’s quite a few who can be really quite sensitive, too.”

“They’re ashamed of them?”

“No… no, I don’t think so. I mean, don’t think there’s anyone here who really regrets their decision, I can tell you that much. I think the psych examiners are actually really pretty good at weeding out the women who’d really freak out if a client did something really horrid to them,” Sonja shrugged. “But, I think it’s just a fairly intimate thing for many here. I mean, you get the perfumier coming around and fingering your pussy before every client,” she giggled, “so there’s not much you get to keep all that intimate and private.”

Kathryn nodded, “I can see where they’d be coming from,” she acknowledged, smiling somewhat bashfully, “I’m sorry I asked.”

“No-no, it’s okay, I’m not really like that. It’s just that some new girls can get rather antsy when I tell them, I didn’t want to scare you… even though, well, I know that since you’re here you’re okay by the psych tests and all that and…” Sonja shook her head. “I get like that, sorry. To answer your question, well, it’s that I used to be a D-cup and now, well…” she glanced down apprehensively at her flat chest.

“Fuck…” Kathy felt breathless, cheeks blushing. “I-I didn’t realise,” she gave the woman a sheepish look, “how did it… I mean, what happened, did a client just…?” she paled a little.

“Now that’s priveleged information,” the blonde teased, “but no, it was a long time in coming. It was a client that… well, I built up a lot of trust with over a long period of time. And, well, if I’m being honest, it’s really him, mostly, that I’m still working here for,” she explained quietly.

“Crazy,” the nude Irish woman whispered, “I mean, not you… just…”

“Mhm. Don’t forget, be ready for anything,” Sonja reached out, gently stroking Kathy’s neck, “you never know when you might meet a guy with the money and the inclination. Could even be your very first. He might just want you to dance naked for him, or he might want to fuck your ass just as much as he might want to watch you fuck an ass, or he could brand you, or cut off your little finger for his collection,” she whispered, “or he might do… well, this.”

“I know,” Kathryn nodded softly. “And there’s a throng of butterflies in my stomach right now.”

“And the best part of this is… they’ll never go away. Not as long as you work here.” Her cheeks entirely red now, the Scandinavian blonde stepped back at last. “Anyway, I think there’s a few more waiting for me now, so I’ll go. But good luck!”

—

“Do you do extra work here too, like Sonja?” Kathryn wondered, nodding toward the perfumier attending to another girl.

Yuna tapped at the leopard, quiet for a few moments. Once more in the photography room but now dressed in the same clinical, white uniform as all the other palace girls, Kathryn had her second scan taken. “Just pose naturally and don’t talk now,” the Japanese woman replied. “But no, I don’t. Newcomers are assigned active hostesses with at least a year of experience to mentor them for the first week or two.”

Cameras clicked all around the redhead for a minute or two until the green light blinked back on and she stepped off the podium once more, leaning over Yuna’s shoulder to look at her newest spinning image on the computer – this one clothed and looking like a real Kink Palace hostess.

“Wow,” Kathryn blinked a few times, “I really am a hostess now,” she whispered. “It’s incredible, I used to see photos of women dressed like this when I was still a kid…” she mused.

“Hostesses aren’t generally late to meet their clients, so let’s get going,” Yuna chuckled and motioned for the Irish girl to head out instead of staring at her digital image. From the dressing lounge, a large double door opened out into the client areas. The Japanese woman stepped back to look over her new hostess with an approving smile.

“Moment of truth, mm? How do I look?” Kathy bit her lip, spinning around for her mentor.

“Good. I’m sure your client will love you. Last thing,” Yuna slipped a digital tablet from the wall and handed it to her. “You’ve been shown how to use these, right? Keep it on you at all times. It’ll tell you everything you need and…”

Kathryn nodded quietly, “Yes, I remember these from basic training. Has price lists, directions through the palace, client profiles…” she smiled, holding the display up. Logging in was simple – just a thumbprint, and she saw the price menu for her own self pop up on screen. Four shiny buttons, each representing a category of its own beside her smiling, animated photo and her name. Seeing the tattoo on her neck in the photo made her reach up to stroke her fingers along the slightly inflamed skin again, shivering.

“I know it’s all a lot to take in, but you can daze while with your client, dear,” Yuna reminded her, taking the panel out of Kathryn’s hands and clipping it onto her belt instead, the screen automatically going black. “Go straight down the corridor here and you’ll be in the Courtyard. He’s already waiting for you by now, table 3B,” the asian woman gave her a brief hug, “take care, Katareena-chan.”

—

Artificial sunlight streamed down from the ceiling to cover a large and luscious garden in the centre. The Courtyard was a circular hall, curving concrete supports disappearing up into the ceiling, where a large opening gave the impression of opening up to daylight, even though it was past 10pm in Tokyo. Terraces circled elegantly around that central garden, many with their own bars and small cafes while wooden ramps and steps joined them up to each other.

The Courtyard was as much, if not moreso a social hub as it was a place for clients to meet their hostesses. Nonetheless, every bartender, every barista and every waitress proudly wore the tattooed collar on her neck, signalling without words that they, too, could be bought at a moment’s notice and taken to someplace private to be ravished in any way desired. Or even to be taken right there and then.

“Kathryn Kincordie! You look every bit as lovely as your auction photo did,” the gentleman grinned, inviting his paid-for hostess over to the table. He was a short, stocky fellow with glasses – surely not even in his thirties yet. From his attire: a businessman. Striped tie, blue shirt, sharp suit and his hair buzzed short, hiding an early-developing bald patch.

Kathryn flashed the man a coy smile, bowing her head slightly, before brushing a few red locks of hair out of the way and slipping into the seat across. “Thank you. And whose pleasure am I…” she chewed on her lip briefly, “well, whose pleasure /am/ I?” the redhead’s cheeks flushed just a little as she perused her client. His accent was East-coast American, as far as she could tell. He didn’t seem the type to be a high-flying CEO, either, so she put him down as most likely a successful investment banker of some description.

“Casper Bates,” the man replied with a flourish of his martini glass.

“I don’t get it.”

“What’s there to get?”

Kathryn squinted a little, “Well, the name. I mean, as a pseudonym I don’t really get what you’re getting at. ‘Mister Bates’, maybe? I mean, ‘Hugh Dixon’ or something I’d understand. But… Casper?”

The man, whose name indeed was Casper laughed at the comment, looking down into his drink for a moment, “No, no… that really is my name. Pseudonyms – well, folks use pseudonyms here, sure, but it can get kinda inconvenient and there’s no real reason to. Kink Palace girls aren’t gonna be blackmailing anyone,” he shrugs.

“You don’t think it would be more prudent? Like, with business rivals and all that?”

“Kathryn, don’t trouble yourself too much over this kind of stuff. And suppose I gave you some fake name like… Eddie Balls, or whatever, what if I then decided I liked you so much I wanted to sign off on your butt with ink, hm?” the banker leans forward. “Or maybe give you a brand with my initials. All that fun stuff, would really be kinda counterproductive, don’t you think?”

The hostess smiled faintly, “You give out a lot of those?” she mused.

“Only to the girls I really like. And I usually spare the first timers, don’t you worry that pretty little brow of yours.”

The redhead playfully furrowed her brow a few more times in reply before leaning a little forward, “Well then, what kind of fate awaits me on my first outing… Casper?” she inquired, reaching over for the man’s martini glass. He released it with a surprised smile, letting the girl taste the vodka cocktail.

“Probably nothing especially expensive,” he laughs quietly, “unless you really manage to convince me – and something tells me you’re not gonna be begging to get ruined on your first date. I’m what they call an ‘early adopter’. I like fresh goods. I like being first. For now I’m pretty happy just being your first client. Watching a girl take a john for the first time is a pretty special experience – there’s lots ways to make sure she remembers you. Not just… defiling, the poor thing.”

“Well,” Kathryn bit her lip, “you’re not really my first john, exactly,” the girl admitted, taking a slow sip from from the glass.

“You’re shitting me? You worked before this place?”

“Well yeah. I needed the moneys to come to Tokyo in the first place. I did a few odd jobs – working in clubs, dancing and all that. I did kind of want to save myself for the Palace, but… well, then I figured I could use the money and I’d enjoy it anyway, so might as well give it a try. I worked for a few months as an escort in Paris.” Kathryn shook the hair out of her eyes, before giving her client an innocent little look, “Is that so unusual?”

“It’s not common I don’t think. It really isn’t common funnily enough. No matter, no matter,” the man smiled again. “I’m happy to chat for now anyway. That’s the nice thing about the Japanese, they know that the magic’s in a good conversation. You don’t give a shit about a girl you can’t talk to, no offence, but… it’s true, right? I don’t know if it started with Geishas or what, but what makes this place special for most of us, I reckon, is that you get to know all these lovely girls.”

“And then do lovely things to them,” Kathryn laughed quietly.

“You laugh, you laugh but it’s true. And we, we guys spend more on a girl we know and we like and we’re less likely to do the really nasty to shit to them. It works great for all involved.” He held out his hand for the martini glass and Kathryn surrendered it with a shrug. “So tell me something about yourself. I know you’re from Dublin – my family’s from out of there. When I saw you, well, gorgeous little Irish redhead, I knew I had to have you,” he smiled. “But what brings you out to Tokyo?”

The girl canted her head, surprised, “Well, the Palace of course. I’ve wanted to work here since I was little. Probably since I was way too young to be considering doing this kind of stuff. I don’t really know why, but it became a bit of an ambition. You know, not that it’s my only ambition or anything, but I’ve spent a while working up toward it,” she smiled wickedly.

“A one-track mind, eh? Yes, now that you do share with a lot of the girls here. Given the way you have to put yourself on the line here, it had better be a thing for you. Not for everyone, mind. You do get a fair few who I’m pretty sure just manage to grin and bear it, poor souls.”

“I don’t think there’s many who would genuinely enjoy finding out what it feels to have a knife slice into you. But it’s the anticipation, the tension and vulnerability that does you in,” Kat lowers her voice as she leans in. “I don’t know. Maybe it’ll wear off, but for the past few weeks, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t on the biggest high I’ve had in my life. I love that feeling, even more than I thought I would. The extreme helplessness. The fact that I’m agreeing to be so completely out of control.”

“And that’s the mark of a real masochist. You’ll do great here kid,” the man grins brightly.

“So what’s your story?”

The banker ran a hand through his cropped hair, “I just like breaking in pretty young things,” he laughed quietly.

“Married?” Kathryn pried with a nosy smile, her eyes skirting to the man’s ring finger.

“Not on my life, no. Ah, my story’s boring as shit. I was a pretty lonely loser in college, but I made good money out of it. Suddenly got popular with the ladies.”

“So you decided to become a womanising nouveau-rich asshole with a taste for prostitutes?” Kat teased, evoking only a frown from her partner. “I kid. Hey, I like assholes.

“That’s rich, yeah. Given a rimjob before?” her client sighed, his jaw clenching a little – but he soon relaxed, especially as he got around to finishing his drink.

“Mhm. How else would I know that I like assholes?” the redhead straightened her back proudly.

“Yeah. Well, see, like I said, I like firsts. Can’t be your first client, pretty damned sure I won’t be your first anal fuck, won’t be your first asshole either,” the man shifted in his seat. “You’re a pretty experienced slut by all accounts it seems and you’re gonna make me spend more money than I want to at this rate. You ever drank a guy’s piss before?”

“I’m afraid so,” she blushed.

“Well fuck. The hell am I supposed to do with you? I’m not gonna tattoo you, but it’s a fucking waste of auction money to just fuck you and leave you be, too,” the banker clenched his teeth.

Her freckled cheeks still flushing, Kathryn slid out her tablet. “Well, er, the menu’s pretty extensive. There’s a whole lot of stuff I’ve never done before,” she considered as she opened a few of the categories, expanding long menus of kinks and fetishes. “You could buy me a piercing, er, there’s a whole bunch of torture options…”

“No-no, the hell do I look like? I don’t get off on you all sobbing and screaming all over the place. What else,” the client pulled the tablet over, holding it up. His fingers swiped back and forth. “Ah, this is a pretty good deal. Ever done it with a critter?”

“Critter?”

“Animal. You know, donkey. Ever blown a donkey?”

The proposition alone created a lump in Kathryn’s throat. She nearly choked, an even deepr flush spilling across her freckles. “Er… no. Not at all. I…”

“Good. That’s good, so let’s do this,” the banker laughed, tapping a few confirmation buttons on the menu. His tone of voice gained a darker streak, one that Kat found gave her shivers, despite her initial reservations as she first met him. “I’m gonna watch you blow a donkey. I’ve never seen that, so I guess that’s a first for the two of us, right? You’re gonna get in there and guzzle donkey-cum like a filthy little whore. Then I’ll fuck you senseless. Or maybe while you’re doing it. Come on, pick a room and do that stuff you do,” he pushed the tablet back to the girl. “Time you got to work.”

Her fingers were still shaking as Kathryn tapped her own PIN into the device, confirming the booking and the room. “It’ll be a pleasure,” she looked up with a nervous little smile and carefully pulled herself up to her feet. “Right, um, this way…”

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