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“I’m done for the day. I need to take a bath after that last one.” Daphne sniffed as she left her working room.
“Well, at least you didn’t tell the john that.” I sighed.
“I did… he told me to keep insulting him.” Daphne shrugged.
It seemed like changing someone’s nature was more difficult than I thought. A week had passed since the lieutenant stopped by and I had started putting Daphne to work making money with the other two women. I picked good-natured demons that weren’t likely to grow angry and kill her if she acted out of line. That meant I picked the submissive demons who liked being demeaned. Despite Daphne being quite the sub when either I or Alleya were in control of things, she was otherwise a bit of a sadist toward the demons.
Thankfully, demons were very tough, and even things that might injure a normal man are shrugged off by the demons. I also found that the best way to punish her was by ignoring her. Denial play was ultimately her greatest weakness. I left her hanging in her room, unable to even touch herself, and she’d be screaming after a day or two and begging for release. After working that out, putting her to work became easy. She still acted out a bit, but the threat of isolation seemed to tempt her where any other punishment failed.
With Alleya, I found it was fairly easy to bribe her. When it came to Elizabeth, she preened under positive treatment. I found her punishment with Diana, although I had never asked what it was, had caused her to wilt like a dying flower. It took three days of reinforcing her mind before she finally recovered enough to work. She had been so deflated that I feared she might kill herself without me prospering her up and reaffirming her self-worth. Since Diana had cost wage time while her mother was out, I naturally had to punish her for over-punishing her mother. How did I punish Diana? Well, that was a trade secret.
Stretching, I glanced at the clock I had ordered and nodded. “Yeah, it’s about time that we called it a day.”
No one else had come into the shop, and Elizabeth and Alleya were just lazing around casually. Despite Daphne having framed her desires as a demand, I gave her the go-ahead to return to take a shower first. As I watched her leave, I considered her future. If she ever reached level 2 as a minion, I wasn’t certain what I would give her. I didn’t want to give her any strength, as she was already difficult to handle when she was relatively weak. I had considered improving her morals. Perhaps, she’d be more obedient like Alleya with that skill. Then again, maybe not.
After sending the last demon on his way and letting Charak have his one a day, I started going through our profits. I was deciding whether I should increase the size of the store again. I still had all the money the lieutenant gave me, plus a few dresses and added amenities. For the first time, we had no shortage of dragons to spend. Money was starting to flow in regularly, and we were just about ready to take on a fourth girl.
I decided with the fourth girl, I would start offering vaginal sex. She’d be my test. I didn’t want to use the current girls to take that plunge. The question came, how did I want to go about hiring this 4th girl. Just as I was thinking about such work-related things, there was a light tap on my door.
“We’re closed!’ I shouted the usual line.
“I’m here to talk to you.”
The voice was one I recognized, but it wasn’t someone I had expected to run into again so soon. I immediately got up and let the ikemen in. As I opened the door, Elizabeth eagerly looked at the eye candy walk into the room. Even Alleya, who at the moment had taken off her shoes and was massaging her foot in an unladylike way gasped and blushed when she saw the beautiful demon enter the store.
I had the urge for not the first time to blindfold the girls. They could suck other demons off all day, but that didn’t mean they could look! Well, that was just a dark voice inside of me. Usually, I kept it down.
“What do you want, Lieutenant Dire?” I asked in a flat voice, trying not to let any anger touch my face. “Daphne is in the shower right now.”
“I didn’t come to see Daphne.” Dire waved his hand. “I meant it when I said I came to talk to you.”
“What do we have to talk about?” I showed no delicateness or mercy talking to him.
He wouldn’t take offense. Although he was polite and soft-spoken, he was a demon soldier in the end. Even normal demons were usually crass and loud. Working with soldier demons all day had to get him used to being treated that way. Demons were nothing if not curt and direct, offering little room for pandering.
“As to that, you’ve started to become someone in the city who holds a bit of sway.”
“I have?” I blinked.
Up until now, I had mostly just stayed in my shop and made money. While it was true, a few hundred demons wandered through my doors every week, I didn’t think I was doing anything particularly special. However, Dire was nodding as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
“You’ve managed to work with and form a line of communication with not one, but three of the humans, even working across species. Even those that haven’t visited this shop have become inspired by your actions.”
“I did hear about a few copycat brothels,” I muttered, not sure how else to respond.
“It isn’t just the brothels, but demons have been considering how else to use the humans. For the last decade since the war, the Demon King has offered us no guidance on how to proceed with them. In the end, we grew tired of killing and decided to ignore them. Yet, years have passed, and many have started asking once again what should be done with humans. Your presence in the city has only brought that conversation to the forefront.”
They called all humanoid creatures, whether they were elves, beastkin, dwarves, or anything else other than themselves as humans. To them, there was no particular difference. Demons could be any color, size, or horn-shaped, and so it made sense to them the humans with long ears or humans with cat tails weren’t all that different.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” I asked cautiously.
Lieutenant Dire nodded and stood up straighter. “At the end of the month, there will be a meeting. The city holds one every year. In it, demons discuss the future of the city and its people. That will include humans. My faction… we would like to invite you to be present. You may be able to offer insight into things.”
“I’ll pass.”
“That’s good, then I will schedule… wait, what?”
“I’m not interested in getting involved in politics. I have my own goals, but you all are just going to have to work things out on your own. Plus, this speaks of factions, it worries me that I’d be taking sides.”
Dire gave a helpless look. “Our faction is pro-human. We believe in creating a future by working with those that were once our enemies. I thought that it would be right up your ally to support us.”
“Well, you’re wrong.” I shrugged. “I’m not going to risk my head to fight for human rights or something. I’m not some civil rights advocate or something. Those guys tend to get assassinated.”
The goddess never asked me to make humans the equal of demons or anything like that. As long as babies were being produced, I had no desire to fight for human rights. They’d have to fight for rights on their own. There was absolutely nothing he could say that would drag me out to this event and get myself involved.
“I’ll pay you to come.” The lieutenant finally spoke up.
“… how much?”