Theresa packed a duffel bag with the stuff she needed for the show and the two girls went on their way. She’d called the studio manager to check if it was okay to bring “a new girl that wants to sign up with the studio” and the manager was more than accomodating. More girls meant more profit for them.
“She’ll go crazy when she learns I’m bringing in a Celeb,” Theresa snorted.
The studio was hidden among other houses in a suburb west of the Strip. It was within walking distance to Theresa’s apartment but they took an Uber anyway, paying the default minimum fare. Theresa later explained that it was for safety reasons as, in her words, “a girl can never be too safe and it’s harder to stalk a car.”
The tall walls hid the nice studio building. They stopped in front of the door and moments later the metal door opened on its own and they entered. “Security monitors the cameras all the time. It’s ladies only from here on. No sausages allowed, they won’t even open the gate if they see a man loitering around,” Theresa explained. “And if a man is loitering around when one of the girls is trying to enter, they call the cops.”
Cat picked up her furry companion and asked as she waved one of his paws, "Is it okay to bring in Mr. Mouser? He's a boy."
Theresa giggled, "I think we can make a special exception for him and it would be illegal to block him from entering with you. Come inside already!"
It had an angular modern architecture and looked like a kid built it with colorful geometric shapes. It was pleasant to the eye and very calming. The garden was well-tended even now at the beginning of winter. Mr. Mouser ran around and explored the garden, probably searching for rats or mice. Upon a single whistle from Cat, the cat dashed to stand next to her with perfect discipline.
They entered the studio and an elegant woman in her late thirties came to greet them. She wore round glasses, a pencil skirt with a beige blouse, and had a serious businesswoman air around her but still seemed friendly and receptive. “Terry! You come in earlier. Is she the new girl you wished to introduce to us? Welcome to PixCamStudios, I’m Dione Harrys, CEO.”
“Hi, Dione,” Cat waved back. “Thank you for letting me visit your studio, I’m Catherine Wallenstein. And this is Mr. Mouser, my service animal.”
Dione froze. Theresa whistled like a bomb was dropping, then “Boom! Surprise. How’s that, Dione? I brought you the real Catherine Wallenstein!”
“No shit,” The studio owner spoke slowly, “And you want to be a camgirl?”
“That’s the plan, ma’am. If you’d have me, I would love to be a model working here at your studio. I must say, I loved the decoration here. It is so harmonious and relaxing. The garden must be gorgeous in the Spring.”
Theresa nudged Dione with her elbow, “You better hire her before I go see if the guys at Studio69 will give me a bigger referral bonus.”
“No way, she stays. Come to my office, you two. Let’s get this over before the other girls arrive.”
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At the office, Dione gave her the “new girl presentation” with an infodump about what it really means to be a camgirl.
“Yes, Dione. I know all that. I’ve been Terry’s number one client for a whole month. But all my assets were locked down, I lost my trader certification, even my social media accounts were banned. I was evicted from the family house I lived in for no apparent reason. The house is currently on judicial lockdown. My lawyers are fighting a massive war on the courts but there’s no hope of fixing it anytime soon. But a girl’s gotta eat.”
“I see. As you are a publicly known person, people will soon associate your camgirl nickname with your real name. We usually tell girls to block IP addresses from their state of origin but in your case it is useless. It’s something to be aware of it.”
“I’ve decided before boarding the plane that I’m not going to hide my real name,” Cat replied with confidence. “To do so, I’d have to hide my face too. As you said, I’m a public person. Now, I owe Terry here a lot, and I read about your studio as well as the competing ones. I’m willing to sign with you.”
Aside from the common benefits of working with a studio, like a webcam rig, a nice place with proper lighting to stream from, gigabit connections, tech support, and trademark protection for the streamed content, to stop users from uploading the footage to porn sites, PixCamStudios offered one of the biggest payouts to the models and had no non-compete clauses in their contract. Dione had lost a few high-earning girls that were lured by predatory studios but those weren’t ones she wanted to keep anyway and they eventually regretted once these same predatory studios tried to milk every single dollar they could from their acquisition.
Cat would have to stream at least three times per week, for three hours minimum each session. Starting from her second month, she also had a weekly token quota but Dione said that she would probably break all records because a lot of people would come to see how far the heiress had “fallen”.
“So, Dione, I’m thinking of doing something different in my shows. Are there any stipulations regarding what I can or can’t do?”
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“Absolutely not! You can do whatever you want!” Dione said. “Feel free to experiment, to find your own thing. The users will vote with their tokens whether they like your content or not.”
“Good. So, whatever I do while streaming, it’s considered camgirl business, right?” She asked, already eager to enact her plan. “And a camgirl is a sex worker, correct?”
The wording of her questions might seem odd, but she desperately needed an affirmative answer on both.
Dione “drank the Cool-Aid” in one single go, and raved on, “Right! That’s the spirit. You go wild. While a model is streaming, whatever happens in the room is her domain! The chatroom is yours, you can be cute, you can be domineering, slutty, fun, bubbly, and you only do what you want to. No user can demand things that make you uncomfortable. Once you sign up with us, we’ll register you with the state of Nevada. While camgirls are sex workers, we do not recommend you do outside jobs, like escorting or prostitution. You should keep your own safety as the top priority, but I read an article about your story. I know you won’t take this risk.
“No way, you can be assured of that. I’ll only stream from the studio.”
“Great. Then, there’s some paperwork. We need to keep a copy of your ID on file for 2275 compliance. As a service, we will also trademark, on your behalf, and not the studio’s, the screen name you pick and any unique identifiers you wish to use. We have a law firm that files DMCA requests regarding stolen content and even sues the perpetrators. Most porn sites automatically scan the footage for our watermark, and reject the submission on the spot.”
Cat pumped her fist, “Great! How long does it take?”
“We usually receive applications through our website, then we work with the models before they arrive here in Las Vegas. We have a partnership with some local landlords, who offer a discounted rental to our models. We ask you to not cause trouble for these landlords and take good care of your apartment, as these discounts are given because the landlords know they won’t have much work to do before the unit is ready to be rented again. They also demand only a reduced security deposit, but the studio usually makes the deposit for the model, then takes repayment with a portion of the model’s earnings. That’s on top of our commission.”
“That’s great. Can we sign the contract?”
“Sure. Why don’t you go with Terry to the makeup room, see how things work, then you can come back here after her show and I’ll have the paperwork ready to be signed.”
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The makeup room remembered her of a theater’s dressing room but without the dresses. Some studios supply clothes and accessories to their models but not PixCamStudios as Dione believed that swapping clothes between the models caused more problems than it solved. Instead, models without their own apparel could apply for a small credit line with the local credit union to buy a few basic items. The studio backed these loans most of the time, resulting in low-interest rates.
Each model had their own locker to keep personal items. A sign over the lockers read in cursive, “Wash your damn dildos, bitches!”, probably because some absent-minded bitch didn’t do that and left a smelly locker offending her coworkers. Theresa opened her locker, where several costumes were neatly separated in drawstring gym bags. She didn’t keep her sex toys in the locker. Those she took home every day.
“I think I’m going to wear the cowgirl set today,” Theresa mused and asked for Cat’s opinion on the matter at the same time.
“I like your cowgirl routine. Not the whipping part. That might hurt.”
“A bit of pain is life’s spice,” Theresa teased as she rummaged through her locker.
Cat poked her tongue out, “I’ve had enough for several lifetimes in the last year. Thanks.”
“Oh, sorry about that! Found it!” She produced a beautiful natural red hair wig from the bottom of the locker.
“Look, the other girls will arrive in a few minutes. Put this wig on, I don’t want to ruin the big reveal because some bitch decided to snap a picture and post it to social media for a dozen likes. What do you say we do each other’s makeup?”
Cat nodded. They sat along the long counter and worked on one another. Theresa helped Cat hide her hair under the wig and pin it in place. She looked at her own reflection in the mirror and liked it very much.
“Maybe I’ll dye my hair red,” she mused.
“If you liked it so much, you can keep it for yourself,” Theresa said. “It’s been months since I’ve used it, and honestly it didn’t match my complexion. Your skin is so light you actually look like a natural redhead.”
They finished their makeup, and Cat noticed Theresa did a pretty neat job of disguising her. She could barely recognize Catherine’s face. Theresa stood up and called her.
“I’m going to the room. Follow me, I’ll show you how everything works.”
The three went to one of the rooms. A small billboard next to each door held the schedule for a particular room. She noticed Terry occupied this one six days of the week. She left Tuesdays as a rest day. It was one day most of her fans didn’t log in anyway and became a self-fulfilling circle as her new fans knew she didn’t log in on Tuesdays.
“Torrid Terry” (as Theresa was now in character) explained to Cat how the room worked. Two reflectors gave the perfect lighting for the powerful webcam, while a trolley held the computer and allowed her to move the whole streaming rig to change the angles. The webcam, mouse, and keyboard were all wireless, which allowed her to take them to the bed for whatever reasons she had.
Mr. Mouser jumped on the bed and started to sniff the pillows and sheets.
“Now, you might not know this, but I actually stream to six different sites at once. There’s a service we use that splits our stream and redirects it to the sites. This way, I can earn tokens from multiple sources, but it requires juggling six chat rooms. Things may get chaotic sometimes.”
“Oh, that’s why you sometimes seem to respond to someone that isn’t on the chat.”
“Well, you know how I organize the room as you’ve seen things from the other side,” she said as she took her sex toys from the duffel bag. Mr. Mouser became extremely curious about these items but Cat picked him up before he could ruin one of Theresa’s toys. Fortunately, the model wouldn’t use the cat-tail butt plug today.
Theresa sent a few messages to her VIP customers, telling them she would come online in a few minutes. Then she started the process of opening the chatrooms and leaving them ready to stream. She tested the camera and the connection to the stream split service.
“All ready. You can watch my stream in from the lounge on one of the monitors. They are organized like cable channels through the CCTV. Unfortunately, I can’t let you watch from inside the room, or I might be tempted to drag you on the bed and ruin your debut,” Theresa teased. “And you’ll get to meet the other girls. I doubt they’ll see through your disguise and nobody would believe you’d be here anyway. I really want to see these bitches’ socks being knocked off when we tell them.”
Cat chuckled, “ have a good show, Terry. I’ll be waiting outside so we can go back home together.”