Herald of Steel

Alexander's number about the time constraint was not actually correct.

This was because he assumed a working period of twelve hours a day.

But in this type of profession, it was quite hard to work for so long and with so many men as one tended to become sore down there after a while.

So, actual estimates of how many men a girl could serve varied wildly.

This depended on a whole host of factors such as a woman's stamina, her demand and popularity, and even on how one counted the act, and the result came at ranging from one to three guys a night, to upwards of twenty.

Though it had to be noted that the higher numbers such as twenty and above were usually achieved by also counting easy acts such as fellatio and handjobs.

While the girls serving one to three men would go all the way.

So when Ophenia said an average of ten to fifteen guys, she meant all kinds of acts.

And this was certainly possible for a skilled worker.

But why did Alexander make such a mistake?

This was because Alexander had never visited a brothel before, neither in this life nor the previous.

And so he envisioned those buying the girls in the brothel doing things similar to how he did it with his girls.

So he subconsciously assumed they would be like him, ejaculating 4 to 6 times and staying in the bed for an hour to two.

This time period was not too uncommon as the average duration of the entire act of intercourse, from the beginning of taking one's clothes off, to foreplay, to the actual act, to finally a bit of cuddling would take around 45 minutes.

But brothels did not work like that.

Here the men were under a time constraint.

This could either be a hard time limit like 30 minutes, in which case the men would usually pounch on the girls immediately and try to do everything that came to his mind as soon as possible to maximize his pleasure.

Or it could be a limit on the number of releases, usually one or two.

And for a skilled worker of the trade, the second method usually did not take long.

Usually ten to fifteen minutes, not counting the premature ejaculators which would take seconds, and the occasional hunks with might take half an hour to very rarely even an entire one.

In this way, though the number reported by Ophenia was certainly high, it was not really absurd, as evidenced by how nonchalant Mikaya appeared hearing this, whose record was almost triple that.

But Alexander did not know these, and so calming down after the initial shock, he reasoned, 'Well, that temple is crazy.'

And then got down to making some calculations using Ophenia's number.

'Hmmm, going by fifteen men a day, the seven girls will be able to serve 105 men a day.' Alexander estimated the maximum capacity for his brothel.

And then calculated his demand, 'But conservatively assuming a new batch of 50 men enters the building every hour from afternoon to late night, or for 8 hours, that's 400 men."

He thus found his 'supply' was nowhere enough.

But whereas one would increase the number of girls to meet this supply, Alexander decided to actually to do the opposite and decreased it.

"Each girl will serve a maximum of five guys a night," Alexander declared, slashing Ophenia's number by three.

Alexander did this so that his girls would not be overworked like he assumed those in the temple were, while also reasoning that serving only a few customers will not draw too much attention to the business.

Thus he deliberately stunted his growth.

Ophenia heart's slightly bled hearing this as she felt that she could have really made this place into something special, a place to train superb girls who could pleasure her master.

But not only was her supply of girls severely restricted, but even the girls' services were also restrained.

'Sigh' She internally let out an air of dejection.

But what could she do?

It was an order from her master.

And so she complied, "As you order master."

"Good." Alexander slightly nodded, and then finished by saying, "And I will leave their rates up to you."

Girls could go from half a ropal to hundreds of ropals per night depending on their looks, experience, and skills.

And as the range was so vast, Alexander regelated these details to Ophenia who knew the girls much more intimately.

As this conversation came to an end, one person who was surprised by how it went was Mikaya.

She had always assumed that Alexander had made Ophenia the one in charge of this business as a political head or even a showpiece while appointing real, competent people below her who actually did all the work.

But it seemed that that was not the case.

'Hmmm, what's her story?' Mikaya poignantly wondered, particularly finding how Ophenia was able to give that number of how many men a woman could serve intriguing.

That was not something a regular woman would ever know.

'Does she have a history like me?' Mikaya thus could not help but think, though a while later she concluded that the likelihood of such was unlikely given Alexander's preference for in her eyes clean women.

But still, since she could not know for certain, this curiosity made her decide to keep her eyes and ears out for gossip about Ophenia.

These thoughts were unknown to both Ophenia and Alexander, who decided to move on to the next part of the tour, with Ophenia saying, "Well that is all for the first floor. The other things on this floor are the staff kitchen, servant quarters, and the storeroom. Not very interesting." and then suggested, "So let us move to the second."

Thus the group left the spacious first-floor hall and made their way to the second floor, a floor they were on some time ago.

"Mater's already been this way. It's the way to my study and Kalopi's office. There is also the accounts and treasury room and some conference rooms, " Ophenia introduced by flipping her palms to the right.

It seemed this wing of the building was the administrative part, housing all the official documents and most importantly the money.

And then Ophenia rotated to the left, and detailed, "And over there is where the girls work," suggesting, "Would master like to inspect the rooms?"

As Alexander had already seen the right wing, he felt he should see the left too, and see how his clients would be served.

And thus nodded, "Sure."

"Then please follow me," Ophenia happily gestured and then proceeded to open several doors of the wing to let Alexander inspect the interior furnishings.

Being a marquis's room, Alexander naturally found them to be more than adequate, lavishly decorated with thick carpets, beautiful mosaics, large, soft, velvety bedding, luxurious couches, and tables adorned with fruits and wine, topped of with floral decorations in exquisite vases that made each room smell like a perfumed garden.

"Because we know master would come to visit, we decorated these rooms like they would be if they were being used," Ophenia explained why there was also food in the rooms even though the brothel was yet to open.

"I'm impressed." Alexander praised this thoughtful act, before asking, "I presume these were all previously bedrooms."

"Yes," Ophenia answered affirmatively.

This was all that was there to the left wing of the second floor, just rows and rows of empty rooms ready to fulfill lustful men.

"Then let us head up. That's the most interesting floor," Ophenia had a strange twinkle in her eyes as she suggested this, causing Alexander to murmur, 'I hope she has not done anything crazy.'

As the group ascended, Ophenia described their route, "There were three staircases up each floor, one main stair in the center which the clients will use, and two secondary ones, one on the left and right which will be used by us."

The group reached the third wing via its left-wing stair, whereupon Ophenia the dedicated tour guide, then introduced the floor, "This part is mainly the girls' private quarters. They eat, sleep, and dress here."

"Where do they bathe?" Alexander suddenly interjected, noticing that word was missing.

He dreaded to think what the girls would smell like after a day's 'hard work'.

"Ahh, I forgot to mention. There is a hot bathing shed downstairs. I will take master there once we are done here." Ophenia's quick reply relieved Alexander.

The reason why it was situated downstairs was self-evident.

Because without a machine to pump water up, getting bath water three stories up would have been a herculean effort.

"That's good. And make sure the girls take a bath every time they sleep with a customer," Alexander gave the reasonable instruction.

An instruction that Mikaya had much disdain for as she silently made a face.

For her, few things beat smelling like sperm and having a thin crust of it on her skin.

'Heh, cherry boy,' She sneered at Alexander for being disgusted by such a 'normal' thing, feeling he had seen nothing of how depraved some of the nobility of Adhnaia were.

"I will do as you ask," Ophenia accepted and then continued with her explanation while leading the group, saying, "This floor is primarily used for living."

"The girls live on the left, while I and Kalopi have our own personal quarters on the right. Lady Mikaya and her attendants also have their private room in that wing and most importantly of all, master's room is situated there."