The first shift in charge.

Everyone was gathered together at the tavern side while I explained the game plan. At first, everyone was disappointed to know that Ivy had to leave, especially Evangeline, until I revealed that I would be taking command instead. The only one who didn’t seem to be very enthused about this idea was Dekkan, who only grunted in response to the announcement. I also announced that I had some different ideas about how to do certain things, and I wanted to use tonight as an experiment to see if it would go over well. The first thing on the agenda was Eruka.

“Halek,” I turned to the bartender.

“Aye?”

“Be completely honest with me, just how necessary is it that you have a barmaid on this side of the Tail?”

The tall blonde folded his arms and sighed, “It’s mighty necessary, I will not lie to you, but given that Ivy typically needs Eruka on the other side at some point every night, I’ve more or less gotten used to running this side on my own. I’ve been thinking about bringing it up to her, honestly. This side needs an extra pair of hands that stays over here.”

I nodded, I knew something like this had to be the case, “I understand completely. But I also see it Ivy’s way as well, there are moments when we can use the extra hands on our side as well. I agree with you, but I think if we want to convince Ivy we need to show her just how much we need someone over here full-time.”

“I agree that would be the best method, but I am growing concerned about what you might be planning.”

Instead of addressing his concern, I turned to Eruka, “How would you feel about being the brothel’s official hostess?”

She blinked her single golden eye, “What’s that mean?”

“It means your job will be to greet the customers as they come in, chat with them until you can correctly gauge their interests, and then guide them to the worker who you think they will get along with the best. One of the most superfluous things I think we do here is have the whores greet the guests. Sometimes we get lucky and they’re the customer’s preferred type, but more often than not this isn’t the case, and it just feels like we’re wasting time and energy.”

“I actually like this idea,” Evangeline said.

“Me too, I’m not very good at the greetings,” Vixilica added.

“That sounds great!” Eruka exclaimed, “I’d love to do that.”

I turned to Halek, “Are you willing, just for this shift, to work the tavern by yourself?”

“It’s a tall order,” Halek replied.

I nodded, “I know, and that is kind of the point. If we can show Ivy just how exhausting it is for you to be working by yourself, she might consider actually hiring someone new to either be the barmaid or help on the brothel side. Otherwise she will get stuck thinking what she’s doing now is good enough and we both know it isn’t.

The omen man rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully.

“All right, how about this. I’ll give you a cut of what I make tonight, consider it a tip for your hard work. And on top of that, I expect that with a few other key operation changes today, I will be a lot less busy than Ivy would be. So, if things get ****, come to me and I will do whatever you need me to.”

“Just today, right?” Halek asked. He seemed much less tense, and if I had to guess it was because he was impressed by the idea that I didn’t mind doing grunt work if I needed to.

“Just today. I promise that I won’t pull this stunt again until we’ve hired someone else. Even if Ivy likes this new setup and wants to try it more, I will fight her on it until we have the staff to support it.”

He nodded, “I’ll do it. Just promise me you know what you’re doing.”

“I promise,” I said and truly hoped I wasn’t lying.

I spent the rest of this little staff meeting going over the other minor changes I wanted to make to the way we did things. They were mostly things that would preemptively eliminate the need for a hands-on approach in favor of a deal-with-potential-problems-before-they-happen approach, as I frankly wasn’t nearly as good at the former as Ivy was. Mostly everyone present seemed to agree that this was a good idea, and they even seemed to like the idea of having more structure to their jobs.

I specifically avoided changing Dekkan’s duties, however, as his were more or less just keeping an eye on the place and tossing out anyone that caused trouble. I would have considered having him be the one to help Halek with the tavern, since out of anyone he was the one with the least to actually do during the night, but I genuinely doubted he would obey the order.

After that, it was showtime, and we began the shift fairly smoothly. It was slow to start, as it usually was, and already the added element of Eruka as the hostess was making things run so much more smoothly. She was in her element, and it was easy to tell. She was almost just as forward as many of the customers, not just accepting their advances on her but actively encouraging them. I was even starting to get the impression that she was using their preferred advances to determine the interests of the patrons and who to route them to.

For instance, if the patron spent a lot of time fondling her chest, it seemed she knew to bring that person to Evangeline. If the person was speaking at length with her and seemed more interested in the physical attention she was giving them, she would direct them to Melandra. If one of the whores wasn’t available, she would keep them occupied, and none of the customers she dealt with seemed like they were bored or impatient as they waited for their ideal worker. She also seemed to have a good sense of humor, as I heard her crack a few jokes to roaring laughter in the meantime. She was quite simply perfect for this job.

The whores seemed to appreciate her presence, and it seemed as though they had to spend less time mingling with the guests, which meant they got more opportunities to seal the deal with a potential customer. The original problem of having no workers on the floor was also alleviated by how entertaining a hostess Eruka was being. Even customers who had to wait for an hour or longer, they never seemed to mind the wait as long as the hostess was there to interact with them.

There were very few times that my attention was needed. I spent most of the shift seated at my spot, keeping one ear open for Halek’s call, in case he needed me. At one point he did, but it was only to help clean off tables between guests as he had gotten swamped and could not manage it himself. He seemed to be handling everything relatively well, but he was definitely sweating more than I was used to seeing him do so, and his appearance turned considerably more rugged. The few glances he threw my way were not upset ones, however, he seemed fully committed to make this work, and I was glad for that.

Inevitably, there was a wrinkle in the otherwise perfectly smooth fabric of the shift’s progression, however. A patron arrived at the brothel side completely drunk. This wasn’t something totally unusual, it was always a bit of a pain, but usually such an individual could be convinced to either leave or spend time with one of the whores. Unfortunately, this person seemed to do neither. He was an ifran man with a large beard and a muscular, heavily scarred body, and he took an immediate liking to Melandra. He stayed for more than an hour without committing to go to the back rooms, instead just molesting Melandra and Eruka, preventing the former from taking on actual paying clients and the latter from doing her duties.

He was being a nuisance, a problem that would normally be solved by our resident bouncer. However, therein lay the problem with the whole situation. Dekkan was right there with him, not drunk, thankfully, but joking and laughing with the man. Evidently, they were friends. Once it had become clear that the man was not going to pay for services, wasn’t going to leave on his own, and Dekkan wasn't going to throw him out, I stepped down from my platform approached the group.

“Dekkan,” I said, standing in front of the sofa they were seated at, “I can see that this man is your friend, but he is being disruptive, and it is clear he does not intend to request services. Please escort him outside.”

Dekkan’s response was pretty much what I had in mind. He was in good spirits, and clearly didn’t want me to get in the way of that. He grinned and said, “Jeryl? Oh, come now, he isn’t causing that much trouble, he’s just a little drunk.”

“Are you the madam? I must say, your whores are gorgeous,” Jeryl said, slurring his words heavily, “I have half a mind to take them home with me.” He then laughed and even Dekkan managed a chuckle. Eruka and Melandra were looking at me with eyes that screamed for a savior, pointedly not laughing.

“Dekkan, did I ask you a question just now?” I asked, calmly.

He looked puzzled for a moment, blinked, and replied, “Uh, no.”

“Then why in the Abyss did you answer my order with your opinion? Escort him off the premises.” I folded my arms and stood stalwart.

Dekkan responded by leaning back on the sofa and getting comfortable, “I don’t take orders from the whores.”

“Dekkan!” a vaguely familiar voice boomed from somewhere behind me. I turned to see a face I hadn’t expected to see again stomping toward us. It was Veshra, the short-haired, single-horned ifran woman who had been escorting Artor’s carriage.

“Vesh?” Dekkan’s eyes were wide with shock.

“Veshy!” the drunken ifran bellowed happily, “Now if only Ivy were here, it’d be just like old times.”

“If Ivy were here your ass would be on the street and probably on fire, Jeryl,” she spat and then turned her attention to Dekkan, “What the fuck is wrong with you? You have a job to do, and your superior just ordered you to do it.”

“She’s not my superior. The one who pays me is Ivy.”

“And Ivy is paying her to give you orders. And paying you to take her orders. You know how much I hate Ivy, Dekkan, if you make me take her side on this, you’re going to fucking regret it. Do your fucking job.”

Dekkan’s gaze shifted between Veshra and me for a few seconds before he let out an annoyed sigh, “Come on Jeryl, time to go.” He then stood up.

“Aw but I was just starting to have fun,” the drunk lamented.

Dekkan only responded by grabbing the other man’s arm and lifting him up onto his feet and finally doing what was asked of him. Melandra and Eruka gave us both quiet thanks and went about their own duties.

“Thank you,” I said, turning to Veshra.

She let out a sigh of exasperation, “Don’t mention it.”

“I’m surprised to see you here,” I said, “especially now that it’s clear you don’t seem to care much for Ivy.”

“Well, I actually came by to see you, specifically to apologize for the way I treated you when we first met. It’s been bugging me.”

While it had been true that our initial meeting had been very rough in retrospect, at the time I had been far too confused about what was going on to actually feel slighted by her attitude. I shook my head, “No need, but if it helps you can consider us even now. I don’t know if I would have been able to convince Dekkan to get rid of that drunken oaf if you hadn’t shown up.”

She sighed again, “Yeah, he’s a pain, that one. He doesn’t like listening to people who aren’t stronger than him. The only reason he listened to me, and why he listens to Ivy, is because he knows we could kick his ass.”

“It sounds like you all have history.”

She looked off to the side, “We do. Ivy, Dekkan, Jeryl, and I used to be in a mercenary band together. I’m the only one who does mercenary work anymore. Anyway, that’s all I came here for.”

“Why don’t you stick around? Surely even you need to relax once in a while.”

Veshra was quiet for a moment, and looked as though she was going to decline, but then said, “All right fine, I suppose I may as well. Sounds like I’d be a better bouncer than Dekkan anyway.”

The two of us then sat down on the now vacant sofa and chatted for a while. While my first impression of Veshra had been that she was kind of stuck up, I was glad to see it wasn’t really like that. She was blunt and aggressive, but it was mainly because she took her jobs seriously. I didn’t really get to figure out why she disliked Ivy so much, but it didn’t really seem appropriate to bring up. I wanted her to relax and enjoy herself, after all.

Eventually, Eruka returned to chat with us, and I discovered that the two shared a very vulgar and forward sense of humor. At a certain point I left them alone and watched from a distance as the one-eyed omen even managed to convince her to spend some time with one of our whores. Veshra seemed to take a liking to Izlani, and the two ended up retiring to the imp’s room. I was glad to see she wasn’t as prudish as my first impression of her seemed to indicate. It was more likely that she believed there was a time and place for that sort of thing, and a brothel was the place for it.

Thankfully, the rest of the shift continued without incident, though it was worth noting that there were no additional moments where Dekkan’s role as a bouncer had to be taken advantage of. If there were, I was not confident I would have been able to motivate him to do what he needed to. In truth, it was not common at all for Dekkan to be needed even in normal circumstances, so this instance was an outlier in many ways.

The workday was over in a flash, and at the very least the obstinate ifran did his duty to close the doors, signifying the closing of the brothel side of the Scarlet Tail. After some much-needed rest, I was excited but also anxious about reporting the today’s outcome to Ivy.