“I’m Mistress Olivia, manager of Marquis when it opens, and also the overall instructor for this course. These gentlemen standing behind me are going to be mentoring you throughout the classes. Today we’ll just be getting to know each other, going over hard and soft limits, doing some small demonstrations over your clothing, and giving you a taste of what the class will consist of. For Thursday’s class, you will need to come in, or change into, club appropriate attire and everything is going to become a lot more hands on from there. If you don’t have any and won’t be able to procure some by then, you can come and speak with me. Any questions so far?”

Despite the blunt way she spoke, Olivia’s tone was warm, welcoming, and encouraging. One of the many facets of her personality which so fascinated Luke. He’d thought she’d come in playing hardball, establishing her dominance over the submissives—which she definitely had, but in a very different way than he’d imagined. Rather than pushing, she was almost coaxing.

Samantha raised her hand and Olivia nodded at her, with another encouraging smile.

“How much touching is there going to be during these classes, exactly?” she asked nervously.

Olivia’s smile widened a little, and now a bit of the predatory Domme showed through. “That’s up to you and your partner of the evening. All hard limits will be honored in the club, always, but everything else can be negotiated. In fact, negotiations are one of the things you’re going to be practicing this evening once we get started. But yes, anything not barred by a soft or hard limit will be something you eventually experience in this class. I’m of the opinion that trying things in class so you can define more of your limits will be very helpful to you in the future. Before we started doing these classes, new submissives would go through an Introduction Scene with a dominant she never would have met before. Here, you’ll actually have the opportunity to build up to a full-on scene, so I think this is actually better.”

Pausing, Olivia waited to see if anyone else raised their hands.

“Let me introduce the gentlemen standing behind me, who have graciously volunteered to be the mentor-dominants for the class.”

Graciously. Ha! The wide, predatory grins on all their faces indicated their anticipation of their new duties. Luke already knew their names, even though he hadn’t officially met any of them. Visiting Stronghold several times since he started to get involved with the group of friends, Olivia’s ‘Baby Doms’ had all been pointed out to him. He also knew Olivia had more volun-told them what they’d be doing than actually asked for volunteers, not that any of them had objected. More experience and practice with submissives less experienced than themselves had apparently sounded pretty appealing.