Ruthless Vows

Chapter One
Asha

The small, chiming ring of the bell that lets me know that someone is waiting downstairs cuts through the low moan of the man strapped to the leather bench, momentarily distracting me.

“Asha—fuck—” he moans again as I deliver one more stroke from the leather flogger in my hand, his hips jerking rhythmically against the padded leather beneath him, as I watch dispassionately. Just in time, I think, glancing at the clock. He had five minutes left before our hour was done, and if he hadn’t come, he’d have had to get dressed and leave while still hard and frustrated. 

Not that there was much to stuff back into his boxers. He’d had the smallest cock I’d seen in a long time, and I see a few every night that I work. It made my job—humiliating him while I delivered the punishment he’d paid for—easy. 

I give him those last four minutes to relax against the bench while I set the flogger aside—someone else will come in and clean up and sanitize everything before the next client—I undo the leather cuffs holding his wrists and ankles to sides. He shifts, letting out a satisfied, languorous sound as he slowly starts to peel himself away from it, and I turn away, giving him a little privacy. Three more minutes, and I can go and see what it is that I’m needed for downstairs.

“Thank you, Miss Asha,” the man says as he reaches for the robe on the hook near the door, slipping it on. “I’ll see you next week.”

I give him a small, tight smile and a brief nod. He hesitates briefly, as if to say something else, but thankfully, he slips out without another word, closing the door behind him with two minutes to spare. He’ll be headed to the hot tub or sauna next, or maybe just to the showers to clean up and dress before going downstairs to leave a generous tip and book his next session. I’ve never seen him here before, but he was clearly pleased enough to return, which will make Nikolai happy.

The Ashen Rose, the club where I work, is one of the Vasilev family’s handful of sex clubs. That handful includes everything from run-of-the-mill strip clubs to higher-end versions of the same thing, but with girls that offer extras. Then, the Rose itself, which is one of the most luxurious sex dungeons I’ve ever worked in—I went through a few places of employment before being hired here. I’ve stayed ever since, mostly because this place allows me to be employed as a dominatrix, which I far prefer to working with a client as a submissive.

Here, unless someone very high-paying requests me to play that role, I generally refuse, and Nikolai has never said a word about it. Even when his father was the pakhan of the family, there were no issues, primarily since Nikolai has always been more hands-on with the businesses.

A good thing, since that meant when Egor passed, there was no real change in the day-to-day of the employees here.

With the session finished, I slip out of the room and down the hall to my dressing room, closing the door behind me and letting out a long breath, leaning against it for a moment as I close my eyes briefly. A domme session at least means I don’t have to pander to the client—they’re there to be degraded and talked down to—I don’t have to allow myself to be touched in any way, but it’s still exhausting. And I haven’t really taken pleasure in it in years. 

There’s a message on my phone from Nikolai, letting me know what that notification from the bell was—he needs me to come down and meet him in the office when I’m finished. At least it’s not a surprise client, I think to myself as I unlace the latex bustier I’d worn for the session, rolling my shoulders and letting out a soft sigh as I feel the compression from the corset release. I have one more scheduled tonight, but occasionally, if someone important shows up unexpectedly, I’ll be asked if I mind taking them as an extra client for the evening. I’ve been here the longest now of all the girls, and Nikolai trusts and relies on me more than anyone else here. There’s an element of personal closeness in that, too, or at least…there was.

Don’t think about that. I set the corset aside, slipping out of the matching pencil skirt and heels, and slipping on a long silk robe. My last client of the night is one I’ve seen before, one who has specific requests, but I have time to dress and get ready before he shows up. I loosen the tight French braid I’d had my hair in, running my fingers through it and letting out another sigh as I massage my fingers over my scalp. I’d give just about anything to go home right now—it’s been a long week, and it’s felt longer than usual. I’m running out of steam faster than I usually do.

The job is starting to take a toll. There was a time when I couldn’t see myself doing anything else, but now, more and more often, I find myself thinking about what might be next. What else I might do, if I managed to save enough to start over.

But I won’t be starting a new life tonight, and Nikolai is waiting for me.

He’s in the office when I knock and push the door open, going through a small stack of what are likely new-client applications. The Ashen Rose is member-only, and membership is prohibitively expensive. Occasionally, it’s possible to get a guest pass to the club, but only with a background check and a contract signed, making the guests liable for the behavior of anyone else they bring with them. Membership here is a status symbol as much as anything else.

“Asha.” Nikolai smiles at me, using my stage name. He knows my real name, of course, but I can’t remember the last time I heard him use it. It’s as much a means of keeping some professional distance between us as anything else, especially now. 

He’s as handsome as always, in his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and the first two buttons of his shirt undone, his jacket and tie draped over a nearby chair, his hair slightly mussed from running his fingers through it. He has a habit of doing that, I think inadvertently, and I feel a slight pang in my chest at the reminder that it’s only one of the handful of intimate things that I know about him. The kind of thing that someone can’t help but pick up when they’ve become closer than just employer and employee with someone—even more than client and submissive, a role I was happy to play for him. 

There were nights we spent together outside of the walls of this club, nights where we enjoyed each other without any of the power dynamics or kink—nights where I had, once upon a time, hoped that there might be something more to our relationship for brief moments when I forgot the difference in who we were.

But it was, of course, never going to happen. 

Nikolai was always the heir to the Vasilev Bratva, and I was never going to be a pakhan’s wife. My lack of innocence and inferior pedigree aside, I wasn’t made for the life of a mob boss’s wife. For one thing, that sort of woman needs to be malleable, and that’s never been a word that could be applied to me.

“You called?” I flash him a smile, settling into one of the chairs across from the desk and tucking the heavy silk robe around my legs. 

“I did.” Nikolai glances up at me, and I feel a familiar flutter in my chest at those grey-blue eyes catching mine. I’ve seen plenty of expressions in those eyes—everything from stormy to soft—though I came to terms with the fact that our days together were over after he told me about his sudden engagement, I can’t help that he still makes my heart race a little.

It’s hard to get over someone you once cared for. I knew that better than most, even before Nikolai. And it’s harder still to stop wanting someone. It doesn’t help that so little arouses any kind of desire in me these days. Working in a place like this has a way of dulling the senses when it comes to sex, and it takes something special to make me want. Nikolai and I had that chemistry.

“Another client?” I glance at the stack of applications. “Someone specific you want me to take on?”

“Always perceptive.” Nikolai chuckles, nudging the paperwork aside. “There’s a new organization in town.” He taps the fingers of one hand against the desk, looking pensive. “I’m concerned about it—I’m hearing things about them that make me think they’re upstarts, looking to get a foothold in a city that has very little room for new blood. And I’m not fond of the rumors I’m hearing about the leader.”

“What’s his name?” I try to summon some genuine curiosity, but I can’t. He’ll likely be the same as any other man who walks in these doors with either a power fantasy or the opposite—a need to shrug off the burden of power and be at someone else’s mercy for an hour or two. I can’t imagine there will be anything markedly different about him, anything to arouse either my interest or my desire.

“Matvei Kotov.” Nikolai opens a drawer and pulls out a file. “I approved his application, since I don’t want to make an enemy of him immediately. But—” he pauses, letting out a breath. “You need to be careful, Asha.”

“Me?” I raise an eyebrow. Nikolai leads differently than his father had—Egor wouldn’t have been concerned with making enemies, but he also wouldn’t have worried as much as Nikolai does about the handling of the girls who work for him. No one was ever allowed to be really harmed, of course, but Egor would have allowed the boundaries to be pushed if there was a benefit in it for him. 

“I’d like you to be the one who takes him on when he comes in.” Nikolai pushes the file towards me. “You’re the most capable of making sure he doesn’t get out of hand while still pleasing him, and you might even learn something helpful for me.” He gives me another small smile. “If you’re willing, of course.”

I glance at him, flipping open the file. It’s not that I think Nikolai is playing on my feelings for him, exactly—I don’t even know that he knows the extent of the feelings I once had—but I can tell that he’s hoping I’ll do him a favor and handle this. “He’s paying well, I assume?” I ask wryly. The membership is the same for everyone, of course, but different girls have different pricing structures, and Nikolai likely would have led with mine. 

“He is,” Nikolai confirms, as I look over Matvei’s description and photo.

He’s not an unattractive man, not that it really matters to me. I can’t remember having been sexually excited by a client in years, not outside of Nikolai, and I don’t think he really counts. Matvei looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with short, close-cropped blond hair and dark blue eyes, leanly built. He is certainly more attractive than the last client I saw tonight, but nothing stirs in me when I look at him. 

I’m honestly starting to wonder what it would take to make me really want someone again. 

I let my gaze drift down the form he filled out, scanning along the lines, and I wince when I see that he’s requesting a submissive only. “You know I don’t really like this.” I tap the form. “Especially for a man you already have reservations about. I don’t want to get on my knees for him while he calls me a good girl.”

Nikolai chuckles. “I know.” He takes the file back from me as I hand it over, letting out a breath. “I was hoping you might make an exception for me, though.”

I did make an exception for you, for a long time. I know that’s not what he means, though. He wasn’t referring to the nights we spent in the room upstairs, me lashed to a St. Andrew’s cross or cuffed to a spanking bench while he took out his frustrations on my flesh until we were both desperate. Every session ending with him fucking me until we were also both thoroughly satisfied. He’s asking me to make a work exception, not a personal one. I shove away memories of his fingers hooking into a ring on a collar around my neck, dragging my mouth to his hard cock as he told me to open my mouth for him.

I miss those nights more than I should, especially when there’s no chance of them ever happening again. I shouldn’t feel that he was my last shot at actually being with someone who arouses me—I’m only twenty-six, for fuck’s sake, not exactly an old lady—but lately, it’s felt as if I’m never going to experience that kind of desire again. I don’t even see anyone out in public anymore who stirs me. For a while, I even wondered if years of this work had caused my desires to shift towards women—it’s rare for women to apply for access to the Ashen Rose—but a few dates proved that wasn’t the problem. 

It feels like something has gone to sleep inside of me and just won’t wake up. 

“I have two exceptions already,” I remind him. “They each show up here once a month, and I put on the pretty lingerie and pretend that I like being told what to do, because they pay you a lot of money and they tip me well. I really don’t want to add a third, Nikolai. Especially one you seem to think is going to be difficult to keep from getting out of hand. I like the ones who pay me to keep them in line, not the ones who are trying to push my boundaries from the moment they step into the room.

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” he says quietly, slipping the file back into the drawer. “That’s not my style, you know that—”

Except in the bedroom. I keep that thought to myself. It isn’t going to help either one of us in this conversation. 

“—and I’ve learned my lesson recently in involving others in my business when I’m not sure of the outcome.” His lips press together against some thought that I can tell he’s not going to share. I’m not sure what it is he’s referring to, but whatever it is, it’s a memory he doesn’t like to think about. “It will be worth your while, financially, to do this. And I would greatly appreciate it. I’m not sure which of our usual submissives will be able to handle a man like this.”

“Like what?” I frown. “I know you better than to think you’d allow someone in here that you truly thought would hurt us—”

“According to rumor—” Nikolai shrugs. “Like me, but more reckless, more careless. A man who enjoys bloodshed, but, unlike me, doesn’t think about the consequences. I think the rules of the club will be needed to keep him in line. And you know how difficult it is, sometimes, for our submissives to remember that the rules are there for their protection.”

I know what he’s saying—that as a natural domme, I don’t have that issue. I’ll stop a session in its tracks, no question, if a client steps out of line. I don’t care about their disappointment or their pleasure. They agreed to the rules when they walked in the door, and they’re expected to abide by them.

Not every girl here has that kind of backbone.

I let out a long, slow breath. Wasn’t I just thinking earlier, that if I could bring in more income, I could set myself up for a different life? More money means more independence, more choices, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted for myself. My life has never been easy, and for all of it, I’ve sought ways to make certain that I didn’t need to depend on anyone other than myself. That was part of the reason why, even if Nikolai had ever asked, I wouldn’t have married him. My life wouldn’t have been my own any longer, if we’d really been together. My choices wouldn’t have been my own. And I could no longer have been wholly myself.

That has always mattered to me more than anything. 

If I have to put up with whatever bullshit Matvei Kotov wants from me for an hour or two a couple of times a month or so, isn’t it worth what I’ll get from it? I don’t want to do this forever. If I please him, there’s no telling how much profit I might be able to squeeze from him before he gets bored.

“Fine.” I narrow my eyes at Nikolai. “But if he takes one step out of line—”

“Absolutely,” Nikolai assures me. I don’t even have to finish my sentence for him to know what I mean. “I approved his application to try and start off on the right foot, but I’ll be quick to terminate that relationship if he causes problems. He needs to prove himself to me, not the other way around.”

I nod, letting out a slow breath. “Does he have a session booked yet?”

“He’s already bought in to the poker game this weekend,” Nikolai says. “I intended to set you up as the prize this time. If he wins, that will be his first night with you. If he doesn’t, you being there will whet his appetite enough that he’ll be eager to book one. If it goes well, perhaps there’s a business relationship to be negotiated between his organization and mine. If not—”

This time, it’s Nikolai who doesn’t need to finish his sentence for me to know where he’s going with it. 

“Alright.” I shrug. “I suppose we’ll see how the game goes, then.”

“We’ll see.” Nikolai gives me another small smile. “That’s all. Go enjoy your break before the next client shows up.”

Back in my dressing room, I sink into the chair across from my vanity, leaning my head back and briefly closing my eyes. I know what game Nikolai was referring to—there’s a high-stakes poker game run every few months at the club. The prize is always a session with one of the girls, a different one chosen for each game, until we’ve all done a rotation. It’s been some time since it’s been me. It’ll be just another night at work, except I’ll be expected to put on a show for the men as they play, a distraction to throw them off and make the game more difficult. A throwback to the days when I danced on stage, except far more lewd.

And at the end of the night, I might be spending time with Matvei. If I’m lucky, he’ll step a little out of line but not too much, and Nikolai will rescind his membership. I feel guilty for thinking it—Nikolai will benefit more from a good working relationship with this man—it’s just another sign, as far as I’m concerned, that I need to start thinking about what my life looks like with a different career path. This one is wearing on me more than I should.

My phone goes off, the alarm reminding me that it’s time to start getting ready for my last session of the night, and I get up reluctantly, shedding the robe. Two more hours, and you can clock out, Asha.

Just like any other night at work.