[Cross Fox] Can Foxes Pet Wolves?

Yoka was coming out of the back room when she heard her new prospective employee's voice. While Yoka often wore revealing outfits when the club was actually open, right now, Yoka was dressed in a surprisingly conservative button-up blouse in a deep orange and a black pencil skirt. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, although a few slender strands already managed to fall out to frame her face. She'd been up quite a while now.

"You must be Miss Jessabelle Fontaine de La Roch?" Yoka said, remembering the girls name from the application. She had the French accent down, her tongue rolling the syllables easily.

"My name is Yoka Sake," she said, extending her hand to the young woman. "And I can assure you that I am not in the business of employing helpless women. I take my position as owner and operator of this establishment very seriously. My goal is to empower the individuals who give their time to making this establishment the premier in entertainment that it is."

The fact that this club was based on eroticism did not mean that Yoka didn't place value on what her employees did.

She waved to a booth near the bar.

"Shall we sit and talk?" she asked Jelly. "And do you have any questions for me before we begin?"

Yoka was surprisingly pleased that Jelly walked in here so confidently. Many of the folks who came here seeking employment were apprehensive.

"Jelly," Yoka repeated, affirming her name. "Is that the name you would use on stage, or just the one you would prefer to be called now?"

She slid onto one end of the booth and nodded when Jelly asked her questions. Yoka considered this and then said, "Nipple tape is not required, no. We generally do full nudity in the club. However, that doesn't mean it has to be your own personal nudity. We do have several skilled illusionists on staff."

When she asked Yoka about demonstrating moves, Yoka's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You have experience on the pole already?" she asked. That would be a definite plus. It did not take much to make moving on a pole look impressive, but Yoka did prefer to train the new girls for at least two weeks before they took the stage, and there were regular required sessions to practice and hone skills each week.

"Not yet," Yoka said. "While exotic dance and seduction are part of the trade, the majority of tips come from customers who feel that they have a connection with the dancer, that it's personal rather than a paid service."

Like any good entertainment.

Yoka was quite partial to Game of Thrones right now. She was feeling quite connected to many of the characters, forgetting for several hours in a binge-watching series that they were paid actors. It was a beautiful illusion.

"Tell me, what is the best way to make blueberry pancakes?" Yoka asked.

Yoka was trying to decide if it was too early for pick-up lines.

On one hand, she was tired, but that was her own damn fault. Yoka did not keep a normal schedule. She was keeping an even more erratic schedule since she'd spent the last several days holed up in her apartment having crazy amounts of sex. But she still had a business to run, so Yoka had showered and worked the floor the night, then showered again this morning to get the glitter off of her, and here she was.

On the other hand....

Jelly was giving her exactly what she wanted in an employee. Banter. The ability to engage in a conversation.

And she could dance.

Yoka was having a hard time seeing a downside to this.

Jelly's answer derailed every single thought in Yoka's head.

She was too well-composed to let anything slip. Her face was still the same neutral expression, but her heart took a beat faster.

Did she know? How could anyone know? That apartment had the best spell work Yoka could buy. Yoka's mind was frantic. If she knew, was that why she wanted to meet with Yoka? Murphy was most certainly alone right now, and though Yoka was optimistic that he could handle himself, Yoka also had some very powerful enemies and she wasn't certain he really knew the depths of hell that things would crawl out of to seek vengeance on her for what she'd done and--

She was overreacting.

But...just to be safe...

"What's your rational for that?" Yoka said, arching an eyebrow and smiling at her, not betraying an ounce of the anxiety she was trying to push out of her brain.

Yoka considered her answer.

“Hmm,” she said, and she smiled. “That pleases me, but I’m not satisfied yet, Jelly.”

Only it didn’t. Not really. Yoka didn’t exactly have an exhibition kink per se, though she’d been accused of it in the past. While Yoka enjoyed having somethings that were only shared between herself and her lover du jour, she also worked in a position where her naked body was on display for others to see for literally hundreds of years. It made things like getting caught topless in a pumpkin while doing something inappropriate to her partner with a gourd not as shameful as they should be.

But she hadn’t done anything like that with Murphy. But it had been a post-sex lunch intended to impress. Yoka did not cook many things, but blueberry pancakes were hard to go wrong, and sex made them taste so much better. Either she and Jelly had a very similar way of going about things, or Jelly was onto her.

That made Yoka want to keep her someplace she could keep an eye on her. Best case scenario and Yoka was just paranoid and landed herself a great dancer. Worst case scenario and Yoka had someone with incriminating information in a place where Yoka could watch her.

Yoka stood up and pulled a chair out from a nearby table. She sat on it, leaving her clipboard on the table.

“You have experience with the pole,” Yoka said. “But what about floorwork? Have you ever given a lapdance?”

Yoka motioned to her own body, the message clear: show me.

Yoka was impressed with a few things here.

The first was that this Jelly calmed herself quickly, finding some kind of tune that only she could hear.

The second thing was this: Jelly made Yoka hear the music, too. Her body moved around her, her movements sensual and lithe, and Yoka was impressed that she managed this all in a leather corset. While her own face remained passive, not giving much away, her lips did twitch into a smile.

The third thing that impressed Yoka was this: for a brief moment, Yoka stopped worrying.


Yoka was a worrier. It's what she did. She told herself it kept her alive, but at times, Yoka liked worrying. It was one of her dirty secrets, right up there with her accidental crashing of that centaur party in '89 not being so accidental.

"Okay," Yoka said, and she clapped her hands once when Jelly was finished. She crossed her legs.


"Are you looking for full time or part time?" Yoka asked.

She still wasn't certain that Jelly wasn't hiding something. The thought came back as soon as the dance was over. But Yoka wasn't going to pass this up.