Chapter 4 - A Well Managed Studio

A young waitress signs up for nude modeling at a Russian camming website where she partners with a shrewd and literary bilingual assistant who will show her the ropes.

It was at a very early hour in the morning when Kira Orlov traveled to a town in the south for a job interview at a managed camming studio. Alexey Glazkov's secretary had provided her with an address and time for that appointment. The small warehouse was made of bricks and in an old rundown part of town. Kira rang a bell by the entrance, and a man soon opened a large green metal door. Though he was extremely muscular and covered with tattoos, he spoke very politely.

"Can I help you?"

"Uh-huh, I'm Kira Orlov and I'm here to meet with Alexey about a job."

"Sure Kira, please come in and I'll take you to Alexey's office."

They climbed a handful of stairs to the main floor. The warehouse had been hastily divided with unfinished plywood walls and partitions to create its various rooms. While walking down a hallway, they passed a few doors before they came to Alexey’s office. After seeing Kira in his doorway, Alexey quickly got up out of his chair, walked around his desk, and extended his hand to her. Alexey was handsome in a boyish kind of way; he was tall, and though gangly it gave him a warm demeanor. His clean-shaven face frequently held a broad smile of approval.

Kira said hello and out came her toothy smile. Alexey was stunned and slow to speak.

 

"Damn... you really do look like a cover-girl model! I thought Stepan was only exaggerating."

  

Kira shrugged. "Look, I know I'm cute. Come on, let's talk about the job."

"Here, please have a seat. Now... I'm gonna guess this is a little early for you?"

"Really. It's 4 a.m. and the whole building is busy. Why so early?"

"The majority of our high paying customers are from North America --United States and Canada -- and we need to focus on the time slots when those viewers like to watch us. It's now 9 p.m. in New York, and it's 6 p.m. in California. Sit down and let me speak a little before I give you a short tour of the building. As I told you before, there's a difference in the way that I do camming, and the way others usually direct their camgirls. My coworker Viktor likes to use the old ways. However, the owner of this studio, Dmitry, has given me a special room to try something new. But first, let me tell you a little about Viktor's room and his old-fashioned way of doing camming."

Kira leaned forward with interest. "Okay... go on."

 

"Along one wall of Viktor's room is a long padded seat with a backrest where all the girls sit -- kind of like the benches by a wall you might see in a cheap pub. There might be ten or so girls sitting on that long bench, and they're only seven feet from each other. In front of each girl is a video camera that'll photograph her. Viktor doesn't have the girls do very much except slowly change poses and look sexy so they can get guys to sign up for private shows. And further behind the cameras are computers where the camgirls' assistants sit so they can help the girls with their performances. An assistant does the typing to a girl's chat-window and tells the camgirl when she should flash her breasts, spank her a*s, or do some other performance feature that's been picked from her menu. In Viktor's room, a single assistant might have to handle up to five camgirls at once."

"Five at once?" exclaimed Kira as her eyes widened. "That sounds crazy! How can an assistant deal with the chat-windows of five girls at the same time and not get mixed up? I thought I'd get individual help with my English from a single assistant."

Alexey gently held up his hand. "Kira, you will get individual help -- I'm only talking about the way that Viktor runs his cam shows. Kira, you'll have your very own assistant and your own room where you'll work with her. Since the owner likes to experiment with new ideas, I get to do things the way I want. You see, even though Viktor has many girls, he doesn't really make that much money from each one. You saw on WorldsGreatCams how the English-speaking girls do their thing -- they earn large amounts of tips during the public-chat part of a show and rarely need to do private shows. That's what I'm shooting for. I want to tap into that public-chat money instead of just going private."

Just then there was a knock on the door. Alexey said to come in, and the door was slowly opened by a young woman with a large and crooked nose. Kira thought her body was sexy, her face was nice, and her dark red hair beautiful, but that nose ruined everything. Why didn't she just get that thing fixed? She sensed it was a delicate issue and decided to not even glance at it again.

Alexey became excited and got up out of his seat. "Stefania, you picked a terrific time to come by. This is the new girl I told you about; her name is Kira Orlov. Do you have time to talk right now?"

Stefania looked at Kira and smiled warmly. "Kira, it's great to meet you. You really are a beauty. You shouldn't have any trouble with this job at all. Yes Alexey, I'm free. Olga didn't show up again for work, and I don't have anything to do until the next shift."

"Kira, this is Stefania Toporov," said Alexey. "She's the camming assistant who'll help you with your cam shows."

The two young women shook hands. Then Stefania pulled a chair close to Kira and sat down.

 

"I was just telling Kira about how the studio works," said Alexey, "and the difference between Viktor's room and our room."

 

Stefania groaned. "Viktor and his little assembly line. McDonald's hamburger shops might have more finesse than the way he runs his cam shows. Do we even want Kira to look at his room? It's not at all the way we do things."

Alexey mustered a weak smile. "Maybe today isn't the best day to show Kira the whole building. But after we finish here, we should take her to your camming room and demonstrate how we do a live broadcast. Kira, you're getting something very special with Stefania -- she has a powerful instinct about human nature. And not only is she fluent in English, but she's also got a graduate degree in English literature."

Kira's head lurched. "English Lit! How'd you get involved with that?"

"I can quickly pick up foreign languages and love the great novels of all cultures. I thought if I was studying English in a graduate program, I might be able to get a visa for America and get out of Russia. But I was denied that visa, so now I use my education in English to help camgirls find their way."

 

Kira gave a small laugh. "I haven't even read that many novels in Russian. My mother always said I was a dummy, and I'd better look for a nice rich man to marry."

Stefania's face briefly hardened with a look of concern. "Don't worry about academics; what we do here is very basic. We'll be in our own room where I can hold up cardboard signs of what you should say or do. And you'll also have your own computer so you can see yourself during the broadcast, see the camfans' English comments in a text window, and also see another text window where I can type secret messages to you in Russian. You only need to know a small amount of English to do this job, and your beauty will do the rest. And I can sense you're very creative when in front of a camera."

"Yeah, posing for a photograph is something I could always do." She snickered. "Just don't ever try to have me talk to a professor about English literature!" They chuckled, and Alexey decided it was time to visit the room where Kira and Stefania would later create their live video broadcasts.

 

Alexey, Stefania, and Kira walked down the corridor and went into a small room. As soon as they entered, Stefania turned on the lights. One side of the room was elaborately decorated: it had a small futon sofa, a colorful rug, a bookshelf with framed prints, some plants, and an attractive cloth wall-hanging. Also on that side of the room were strands of tiny white lights, the kind you might see on a Christmas tree. However, the other half of the room only had unfinished plywood for its walls and wasn't even painted. Near the rear of the room was a folding table with a computer and a small stack of cardboard signs. In the center of the room was a little cart with wheels, which had a microphone and video camera mounted on top. And upon the floor was a small floodlight that could illuminate a camgirl for the camera.

 

It's peculiar, thought Kira, how one side of the room can be so beautiful and yet the other section is so crude and unfinished. As she slowly moved towards the camera, she continued to glance at the opposing sides of the room with curiosity.

 

"So this is where it all happens," said Kira. "The room is much smaller than I thought, but I can see you guys really know what you're doing."

"We wish we had more space," said Alexey, "but this is just a new experiment that the owner has recently allowed. Stefania has been very strategic in setting up the room so the four most important camgirl camera shots are possible. Putting the video camera on a small cart was another clever idea of Stefania's because it can easily be rolled around to create different camera angles."

 

Stefania continued. "When the camgirl starts her show, she's sitting on the edge of the futon sofa and seems to be typing at the computer on the coffee table. Because we don't want to show the camgirl's hands doing the actual typing, we trim out the bottom portion of the camera scene so we'll just see the camgirl reaching downward towards an unseen keyboard. In reality it's the camgirls assistant who'll actually be typing out her responses to the chat-window. Although, with time you'll learn how to do some typing to the chat-window on your own, but that'll come later."

 

"Right now," said Alexey, "it's best if Stefania and I demonstrate how a broadcast is done to the Internet. I'll do Stefania's job as an assistant, and of course Stefania will perform as a camgirl."

Kira's eyes widened. "Stefania, didn't know you also worked as a camgirl?" Kira wondered how that nose might affect a cam show.

 

"Yeah, I figured if I'm to direct camgirls, then I also need to know what it's like to be a camgirl. My cam-name is SteffyPanache, but no one in my private life ever calls me Steffy. Camming is actually fun for me. I get to show off my cute little body, and it's always an interesting challenge to control the flow of conversation in a chatroom. Let me change my clothes, and we can start."

 

Stefania passed through the doorway and walked down the hallway to the wardrobe room.

Alexey leaned close to Kira and spoke softly. "By the way, never ever say anything to Stefania about her nose. It's a very touchy subject. Don't even get caught looking at it. Once she beat the crap out of a guy in a bar, just for staring in its general direction."

 

"Wow, didn't know Stefania was a tough girl -- she seems so sweet."

 

"She is sweet, but remember, never ask about the nose."

 

Then Alexey sat down behind the control computer at the rear of the room and gestured with his hand towards the futon sofa.

 

"Say, Kira... while we're waiting, why don’t you sit down on the sofa, look at the camera, and pretend like you're doing a broadcast? But nothing will actually go out to the Internet, this is just a test."

 

Kira immediately sat down on the sofa, gave her head a little shake, and within an instant her personality appeared to change. She partially lowered her eyelids to deliver a sexy gaze and quickly transformed from the girl-next-door into a sexy enchantress. After a brief snicker, she began to speak in broken English.

"Hi guyz. Im Sexy-Kira, and I vant get naughty! You vant to see me nekid, dont yu?"

Alexey was impressed. He didn't think Kira would so quickly step up to the task of performance.

 

"Very good, Kira. I can see you've got the right instincts for the job. Now look down at the computer on the coffee table and watch yourself on the display screen."

The video camera was now capturing her every move, and she could watch a live video feed of herself inside a window on the computer.

"Hmm... kind of cute", said Kira as she snickered.

    

"Cute... maybe Kira-Cutie?" muttered Alexey to himself.

Kira thought it was a little like looking in the mirror but still very different -- more like the first time you heard your voice on a recording. Liking what she saw, she continued to experiment by turning her head to different angles and delivering various facial expressions. Sometimes a smirk, sometimes a pout, and sometimes playfully touching her upper teeth with the tip of her tongue. And just to see what an extreme close-up might look like, she leaned forward and moved her face very close to the lens of the camera.

 

Alexey was amazed. Kira was instinctively doing all the favorite poses that experienced camgirls liked to use. He thought it best to just let her keep going and become familiar with manipulating her face while in front of a video camera.

 

In a few minutes the door opened, and Stefania entered the room. Kira was stunned by the transformation. Gone were the clumsy leather boots and the baggy sweater. Stefania had put on some sexy black lingerie that included a stylish bra, small panties, and black stockings that attached to a garter belt which surrounded her waist. Though slender, Stefania's body was voluptuous, and her skin held a creamy tone. Her dark red hair was held loosely with a scrunchy and fell seductively over one shoulder. And in one of her hands was a small mask, the kind that people sometimes wore at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Stefania smirked, shifted her hips to one side, held out her arms with an actor's flourish, and mimicked the fanfare of an orchestra when she chanted: ta-da! Then she put on the mask, and it covered her crooked nose along with part of her face. Now that her nose was no longer visible, Stefania looked very attractive.

"Okay ladies, change places. SteffyPanache, sit on the sofa and get into character. Kira, pull up a chair by me and watch how a camgirls assistant does their job. And remember Kira, don't speak loudly. During the broadcast it should seem like Stefania's the only person in the room. SteffyPanache, are you ready?"

Stefania nodded, and Kira watched as Alexey mouse-clicked on the interface button that said Broadcast. Stefania did not speak but acted as if she was typing at the computer that was in front of her.

 

Alexey spoke very softly to Kira. "It's all right if we whisper but keep it low. See how Stefania appears like she's answering her email and private messages, but it's just an act to start her camming show." Alexey pointed to his computer's display screen. "Here, look at the number next to the text that says Room Count. That tells us how many people are in her chatroom and watching her show right now. That number is currently zero because no camfans have come into her chatroom yet. But it will change very quickly."

In an instant, the computer screen showed that three viewers had just entered her chatroom, and it also listed their usernames. And after a few more seconds the number in the Room Count field changed from 3 to 9 as six more camfans' usernames were added to the on-screen list.

 

Kira was puzzled. "How did the guys know how to find her so fast?"

"It's part of the WorldsGreatCams interface. When camfans meet a girl they like, they put the girl's cam-name on their Friends List -- it's similar to the way you might bookmark a website with your web browser. Then whenever a viewer is watching, he'll instantly get a notification when one of the girls on his Friends List has just come on to do a cam show. And in a separate window, camfans can also see the avatars of all the girls on their Friends List who are currently broadcasting."

 

"That's clever. I guess it makes it much easier to keep track of their favorites, and not get confused by all the other girls. There sure are lots of them on this site," said Kira.

 

"Exactly. And after a girl's been working for a while, she develops a group of regular followers who'll want to see most of her shows. Though Stefania doesn't exactly put on your average cam show, she still draws many fans. Despite the mask, her personality is charismatic enough that many guys come here just to hang out and talk."

"Definitely. She sure seems like she knows what she's doing."

"I still have to set up her menu through the interface. It'll appear on the top of Stefania's broadcast window. And just like a menu in a restaurant, it will list the different kinds of items that can be bought by customers."

He typed into the command text-box:   /menu   Spank a*s - 35 tokens,   Show bo*bs - 55 tokens,    Show p***y - 75 tokens,   Sexy dance - 120 tokens,    Striptease - 200 tokens

Kira knew enough English to recognize some of the words. "I see... so if a guy wants SteffyPanache to show her breasts, he just sends in a tip for 55 tokens. And by that unique number of 55, Stefania knows what she must perform for his tip, which is really more like a purchase."

"Exactly," said Alexey. "Someone will order off her menu very soon."

 

All of a sudden a guy named LuckyStiff typed the first comment to Stefania's chat-window.

   

LuckyStiff:  Hello beautiful, where you been so long?

Stefania responded into the microphone. "Hi Lucky, just been taking some time off to have a little fun. How're things with you?"

Alexey whispered to Kira. "Did you see how she got the word 'Lucky' from his username? Stefania always tries to say the first word in a guy's username -- like it’s a nickname and they're old friends. Seems trivial, but that has an enormous effect in establishing a personal touch with a camfan."

LuckyStiff talked about his job for a while, but then another viewer named CrusinDan wrote a comment that rendered into the chat-window.

 

CrusinDan:  Hi Steffy, I'm new here. I really like your tagline.

 

Stefania's tagline was at the top of her camgirl profile and read:  Though I may have low morals, there's always high self-esteem.

Stefania chuckled. "Yep, that's me. Though I may lose my panties, I'll never lose my self-respect."

 

Alexey smiled and gave a shrug. "She's good... eh? She could be a very successful camgirl, but she likes the job of being a camgirls assistant a little too much."

Kira was impressed with the confidence and sense of humor Stefania could bring to her cam show. And with time, Kira would also realize that the guys who put Stefania on their Friends List could appreciate her intelligence as well.

All of a sudden the computer produced the sound of a bell, and in a bright-yellow text, a new comment was displayed onto the chat-window.

  

WonderDog has tipped SteffyPanache 35 tokens

The bell and yellow text was a notification that a viewer had just donated 35 tokens, which meant by her menu that Stefania should respond by spanking her butt. Into the mic she spoke.

 

"Thanks Wonder, I can see that you're an a*s-man. We'll just have to see what we can do for that."

Stefania slowly got up from the sofa, turned her body to the side, and put her foot on the coffee table so her forward thigh would be seductively parallel with the floor. She then pulled the bottom of her panties back to expose her buttock and began to gently fondle it with her hand. Then suddenly, and with a fast and aggressive motion, Stefania brought her hand downward and slapped it. And then she gave two more hard spanks.

  

Alexey leaned towards Kira. "See how resourceful Stefania is, even for a tip this small. Instead of just turning her back and quickly spanking three times, she creates a little drama by brazenly putting her foot on the coffee table and also made an effort to first do the delicate fondling, which was contrasted by her hard spanks. While studying English Lit at college, Stefania also performed in a few of their theatrical productions. You can still see her knack for acting when she does a camming show. You couldn’t have asked for a better teacher."

"Absolutely. That was hot the way she put her foot up on the furniture and got her thigh out there. Funny how it worked... kind of rude, but definitely sexy in a wild way."

"Okay, now we're going to change things up, and Stefania will pretend to be a new camgirl, just like you. She'll only say what's on the cardboard cue cards that I hold up in my hands. Here, look at this one."

Upon the cue card were three lines of text. The top line was in Russian and said, "спасибо, малыш," while its translation in English was below it and said, "thanks baby." And on the third line were the sound-components' symbols that could show a camgirl how to pronounce the phrase "thanks baby," even if she didn't know what the words meant.

 

"I see," said Kira, "so the assistant will tell the camgirl exactly what to say after a camfan types something, even when the camgirl doesn't understand what the guy said. Very clever, but how can you have enough cue cards for all the possibilities?"

"Because the guys are so distracted by the beauty of a camgirl, they aren’t really paying a whole lot of attention. Plus these types of conversations aren't that complicated. A camgirl really only needs to agree with the camfans' words and act interested in what they say. It may sound unbelievable, but a qualified assistant can give a good cam show with only ten cue cards. Okay, now I'll send a secret text message to Stefania's computer, that she should only say what I hold up on the cue cards. Sit back, I think you'll enjoy this."

  

Alexey typed and sent the secret message to Stefania, and she nodded her head. Then she announced to the camfans she needed to get something in her kitchen and would be away for fifteen minutes. Alexey put the small pile of cardboard cue cards on his lap and started to rearrange them. After some time had gone by, Stefania was once again in front of the video camera, but appeared to be a different person; she seemed demure and even a little shy.

 

Alexey gave a little snicker. "Always the actor when the opportunity comes along.  Stefania will now become a different person for our little demonstration of the cue cards. It'll seem like she's a new camgirl and might not know very much English."

"But won't the camfans notice the change in her personality? And maybe question her about that change?"

"It's never simple on WorldsGreatCams.com. With her break to the kitchen, she lost many viewers, some of the viewers don't know her at all, and her more experienced followers won't confront her. They know SteffyPanache is a complex performer, and they must be ready for anything. Watch, it'll be like we've switched to a different chatroom." After a while a camfan typed a new comment to the chat-window.

 

WildGuy:  damn baby, that is some sexy lingerie!

Alexey quickly grabbed the cue card that said "thanks" and held it up for Stefania to see. As expected she pronounced "thanks" from the cue card and smiled. All of a sudden WildGuy typed another statement.

WildGuy:  and you have a really hot body!

"See," said Alexey, "how quickly and enthusiastically WildGuy responded to her simple read of one cue card. That’s all you really have to do in the beginning. Now if you could have recognized the first word in that camfan's name, you could've said 'thanks Wild' and he would have been flattered that you vocalized his name. Can you read some words in English?"

"Uh-huh, I can recognize some English words in print, though I can't understand English when I hear it in the movies. But I can see that the word wild is the first thing in his username, and I could have put it together with thanks. Maybe this won't be so hard after all."

"Good. Don't worry if your pronunciation is wrong -- your Russian accent will always sound cute to the Americans. For some reason, they've always found Russian women to be sexy, maybe from having watched too many James Bond movies."

Suddenly a new viewer posted a comment, and it was a crude attempt at humor.

 

FastMusic:  If I had a girl as hot as you, I'd never go to work. I'd bang you all day!

Alexey quickly held up another cue card, and Stefania responded by saying: "that's funny, Fast." And at the same time Alexey pushed a couple of keys on the computer keyboard, and onto the chat-window appeared an animated GIF graphic of a man who was laughing and rolling around on the floor.

SteffyPanache:  [  :laughingRollingOnFloor  ]

Kira didn't miss a thing and whispered to Alexey. "Ah… so this is another way the assistant can also pose as the camgirl -- by typing things and posting graphics to the chat-window."

"That's right. The assistant can also fill in gaps in conversation with the use of the keyboard. The only problem is the camgirl should really pretend to be typing before the users see the message appear in the chat-window. We do that with a hand signal. Watch..."

Alexey raised his hand straight up and rotated it in a circle. Stefania recognized the hand signal, put her hands forward toward an unseen keyboard, and acted like she was typing. Though her hands were out of sight, the viewers could still hear the sounds of a keyboard. And while Stefania pretended to type, it was Alexey who typed the actual text that the users would see.

SteffyPanache:  Now remember guys, we save the dirty talk for private messages and tip notes. Be sure to read the Room Rules on my Profile Page.

FastMusic:  OK, I got it. Its just that I think you're real sexy.

Alexey then quickly grabbed another cue card, and this one said: "that's cool." Stefania pronounced its words while making a friendly gesture of approval. Kira was stunned by how much could be communicated with just a couple of cue cards and turned toward Alexey with a look of surprise.

 

"Did you see everything that just happened?" asked Alexey. "A volatile user comment was dealt with, and the camgirl only had to speak from two cue cards and pretend to be typing. All the successful camgirls have room rules on their Profile Pages. You see, though the conversation in the chat-window is friendly right now, it can quickly become angry in an instant -- occasionally two camfans will start fighting with each other. And sometimes a fight will even draw more viewers into the argument; they call that a room brawl. If everyone in the chatroom is fighting, then you can't make any money. And fights can become an even bigger problem when they cause guys to permanently take you off their Bookmark List because they think your cam show lets rude jerks mess up the conversation."

"Okay. But how is a little dirty talk, like 'bang you all day,' going to create a fight?"

"It seems a little crazy, but some camfans become very concerned for their favorite girls, and feel like they're supposed to protect them if the comments tend to be crude or insulting. Psychologists have a term for that type of neurosis, and they call it the White Knight Syndrome. We can talk about that later. But the important thing to remember here is that the room rules on a camgirl's Profile Page are designed to play it safe and always encourage polite conversation. And of course, talking about politics or religion is always a mistake."

Kira slowly nodded her head, and her gaze became distant as she wondered what might occur in this strange new world she was about to enter.