Craved (Twisted Book 2) (11 page)

We go back. Dinner is about to start. I find Natalia and we both head to our table. The dining room looks fantastic – the flowers on the tables, the simply cooked but tasty food, the beautifully dressed and happy crowd.

Everything is wonderful, but I can’t bring myself to enjoy the evening. The troubled thoughts seize my mind. Even Natalia, after a few glasses of champagne, forgot her worries about Lena's future, tossed her high heels somewhere under the table and swayed on the dance floor with the other guests.

It’s not that I regret having sex with a man who, it turns out, thinks I am inferior because I am a stripper. Or that I am offended because Warren now pretends that he doesn’t know me. It’s something else. I don’t understand why the hell I didn’t stop him when it was clear I didn’t want sex. He wasn’t good, and I stopped enjoying it at the very beginning. I didn’t owe him anything. It’s not like he was paying me. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. Is it because I’ve developed a habit of opening my legs whenever someone asks me to? Or because I’ve never had the chance to learn how to say no?

‘Let’s go dance!’ I look up. Natalia and Lena are standing in front of me, hands on their hips. They pull me on the dance floor. ‘What’s with the face? Cheer up sister. Let’s shake it.’

19

He avoids eye contact with me. His forehead is wrinkled. It looks like he’s trying to make up his mind. He is an Indian boy. Probably not even twenty years old. He is part of a bachelor party. Eight of his friends and him are like the kids in a candy store, who want it all but can afford only a limited number of sweets.

‘So, what do you say, handsome?’ I fidget on his lap, making sure he feels the right pressure on his crotch. ‘Shall we do it? I bet you’ll ask for more once you’ve tried it!’

‘I hope you’ll make it worthwhile,’ he says with a light accent as he gets up, putting me back onto my feet.

We walk to the private room. The night is about to end; the club is getting quieter.

The dance goes as usual. I use everything I have in my seduction armory. He struggles (
oops! enjoys
) through it, driven by a natural desire that has no right to be fulfilled. It's almost a mockery of men’s needs – to urge them to want sex and then stop them when they act on that desire, often by making them feel ashamed.

‘I want another song,’ he says, breathing heavily.

‘It’s fifty rand more,’ I say, weary, and pretend to smile. He agrees. We continue.

We stay for another two songs. It goes the same. More sweat and color on his face, and more protruding veins on his couch-piercing hands.

He asks for song number five.

‘That’s going to be R350,’ I say, loud and slow, making sure he understands.

I get the point that it’s not difficult math, and my aim is not to treat the client like an idiot. Yet I always explain the damage in detail, making sure we are on the same page and I won’t have any problems when he has to pay later.

We round it up to R400, then leave the private room.

‘I’ll pay by credit card.’

‘No problem.’ I lead him to the counter.

He hands the cashier his card. ‘Two hundred.’

I shake my head. ‘We had four extra songs. The total is four hundred.’ I’m sure the boy has just made a mistake.

He widens his eyes. ‘No speak English. No understand. No pay four hundred.’ His Indian accent is now ridiculously heavy.

I narrow my eyes.

He acts out the innocent face and points at the dance menu on the counter, right at the line: ‘Lap Dance R200’.

I roll my eyes.

Unfuckingbelievable!

‘You think you are smart, hey?’ I hiss at him.

‘No understand. No speak English.’

‘This bastard speaks English better than I do,’ I turn to the cashier. ‘And I explained the price he'd have to pay every time he asked for an extra song.’

I know some girls prefer not to tell the clients about costs of extra songs. Then, if the client complains, saying that he didn't know about the extra charge, the girls pull the 'I didn't know that you didn't know' act, leaving the client no choice. I don’t like that. I like it all clean and square. And yet I get into trouble.

Shit!

‘One minute please.’ The cashier takes the card from the boy but doesn’t put it into the card machine. Instead she calls security: ‘Eric, check private room number’ – she looks at me and I show her three fingers – ‘number three… yes… Julia was there… I need to know how long she stayed in the room.’ She redials without looking at us. ‘Yes... Alan, I need you here, thanks.’

She looks at my candy thief and says loudly and slowly, ‘Sir, this will only take a minute. Please wait,’ then turns to me and adds, ‘Don’t worry, this jerk will pay.’

Alan arrives when the cashier has Eric’s confirmation of the time we’d spent in the private room. He asks me to explain briefly, then turns to my client.

‘Sir, you had a lap dance plus four extra songs. You owe four hundred rand. Are you ready to pay?’

The boy lifts his shoulders, ‘No speak English. One lap dance,’ and pokes the menu again.

The manager smiles and calls the bouncer.

A minute later two huge guys in black suits, just like in gangster movies, arrive.

‘Sir, I don’t have the time for this. Swipe your card for R400 or I take you and your friends to the police station, where you’ll spend the night. If you’re lucky, your parents will free you in the morning.’ Alan’s smile is warm, his voice gentle.

The bouncers take him by his shoulders and push him to the door.

‘Okay, swipe four hundred!’ he shouts, now accent-free again. The bouncers stop and we all give him a long look. The cashier takes his card again, puts the amount in; with a miserable expression, he punches in his PIN.

I get my slip, say thank you, hiss a ‘Bastard, don’t ever waste my time again’ and turn to walk away.

‘Wait a second, Julia.’ Alan waves me over and calls the bouncer back.

‘Sean, take all of his friends and show them to the door. I don't want to see these men in here ever again.’

Nice. This is what I call justice.

Alan walks up to me. With the same impartial face, he says, ‘You are fined, Julia. You could have avoided this situation, if you didn’t drag the clients to the private room against their will.’

‘What do you mean, drag them? I was doing my job!’

‘If you argue with me, I’ll fine you again for being rude and arguing with the manager on the floor,’ his tone doesn’t change.

No matter how unfair it is, I can’t win this battle.

It takes a lot of self-control not to say anything more. I turn away and go to the dressing room, feeling an urge to cry that I won’t be able to control.

‘Jul, what happened?’ Nikita walks in to check her make-up.

I relay the story, adding more tears as I get to the end of it.

Nikita sighs, sits down on the make-up table next to me, and passes me a roll of toilet paper.

‘You know why you are upset?’ She looks at me, waiting for me to answer. I shake my head. ‘You are not upset because of what Alan did or said, but because you didn't expect him to act in that way.’

I blow my nose and frown.

She smiles. ‘When I first arrived here, I thought to myself: “Wow! What a place! These people are always friendly and look after the girls. They’re trying to do a straight business, keeping the place clean and the girls away from prostitution. It’s like heaven compared with the places we had to work at in Europe.” I felt secure and cared about, as if for the first time in my stripping career I was treated as a human. And the more I relaxed, the more hurt I was if something unfair happened to me. Weird, isn’t it? Then I realized that was a mistake. The care and friendliness is just an illusion. In reality this place is just like the ones in Europe. Jul, they are the same pimps as the ones in the European champagne bars! Except that they prefer to stay out of trouble and sell their girls outside the club’s territory. They “generously” leave it up to the girls to decide whether to go out with a client or not. But in reality they don’t give us a choice. They expect us to pay the levy no matter what, even if the club is empty. Yes, there is no daily norm like in champagne bars, but there are fines that are ridiculously high. There are no good guys in this industry. They are all the same. Some of them are just the lesser of two evils. No matter how they try to sugarcoat it, it’s still a badass business: the club is a cattleman that lashes us whenever he feels it’s needed and a ruthless butcher that sells us as freshly carved beef.’

She looks at herself in the mirror, fixing the red lipstick in the corner of her mouth.

‘You see, in Europe we had no doubt that we were meat. We were prepared for the worst, which made us strong and grew us a thick skin that prevented anything from hurting us. If we don’t fall for their friendly smiles and concerned faces, we’ll be just fine.’

She rubs my shoulder and smiles.

‘I bet you’ve been through much worse than some prick with blue balls bullying you just to make himself feel like a big boss.’

I blow my nose again. ‘That’s true.’

20

‘What do you do that’s different from the others?’ The cocky smugness on his face is killing me. I look down at his hand. He is palming my thigh. I shrug away the irritation.

‘Look…’ I force the last attempts to keep my face friendly, but I no longer sound that way. ‘If you’re referring to something “extra”, it’s not going to happen. I am not going to let you stick your finger up my pussy or my ass. There is going to be no “kiss me there” or “jerk me off” scenario.’

I’ve been talking to this fucker for a while. He’s one of those freeloaders who wouldn’t tell you ‘no’ or ‘yes’. He shows his ‘genuine’ interest by asking all kinds of questions. He pretends that he is actually trying to decide whether he wants the dance. In the meantime he’s just deliberately wasting your time while getting a few juicy feels on the house.

I grit my teeth.

‘The lap dances are typical. I take off my clothes and dance for you sexually. I am good at what I do. You’ll enjoy it, guaranteed.’ I say, knowing I am wasting my time.

He picks his beer up off the table, pretending that he’s considering my words. He takes a sip while his other hand slides under my skirt and squeezes my ass. He knows I am about to leave and is trying to get as much of a free feel as he can.

‘Fucker…’ I hiss and storm away.

‘Julia?’ I turn to see who’s calling me. It takes me a moment to identify the man. It’s Brenda’s husband. His lost gaze and screwed-up eyebrows do not promise any good.

Oh crap!

‘Oh hi!’ I play dumb, hoping I’m mistaken and he’s here for some reasons that are not related to me banging his wife.

‘Sorry, Julia, didn’t want to interrupt you,’ he mumbles.

‘It’s okay. Are you here to have some fun?’

‘I need to talk to you.’ He shifts on his feet while clasping his pants on the sides of his thighs. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

I can’t believe it’s happening.

‘Yeah, sure.’ I nod towards a vacant table.

We sit down and order: a Coke for me, a shot of whisky for him. He stares at the table, his hands still on his thighs. He doesn’t say a word until the waitress brings us our drinks.

He knocks the whisky back and breathes out heavily. ‘I know… everything.’

I sigh, trying to hush the wave of pity mixed with irritation. ‘Look, hmm…’
Shit! I don’t know his name.

‘Felix.’ His voice trembles, ‘My name is Felix.’

With that name, no wonder he looks like Woody Allen… And that’s not a compliment.

His hands are shaking. There’s pain and desperation on his face.

‘You are sleeping with my wife but you don’t know my name.’

I lean over the table. ‘Look… Felix.’ I try to sound compassionate yet firm enough to make sure this conversation ends soon. ‘You are talking to the wrong person. I am not the one who vowed to be faithful to you. Brenda did… I am just… I was just doing my job.’

‘She is paying you?’ his voice rises. He shakes his head as if trying to get rid of a new piece of information he can’t accept.

‘Yeah! I am not even a lesbian! Trust me, it’s hard enough for me to do my job because I am straight. Each time is like torture.’

‘It was more than once?’

Damn it! I am talking too much.

‘I can’t believe it’s happening to me… what should I do?’ He leans over the table, holding his head in his hands. ‘What if our kids find out?’

‘Look on the bright side. Some people wouldn’t even consider it cheating. Many men would kill for their wives to like girls. For some it’s better than winning a lottery. Bingo! Why don’t you ask Brenda to share her… hobby with you?’ I say and get up, hoping to slope off before this conversation turns to trivial drama.

He grabs my hand, ‘You know what? You know what I want to do? How much are your services, Julia? I am going to pay her with the same kindness. Get ready – let’s go fuck!’

I roll my eyes, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. Why don’t you rather go home and sort it all out with your wife.’ I drag my hand back and turn to leave.

‘Five grand!’

Well, that’s a good argument.

I stop, and walk back to the table, ‘Would you like to pay by cash or card?’

He hesitates. ‘Card.’

‘Okay, let’s swipe it, then I’ll change and we can leave.’

After all, it’s none of my business what is going on in their family. I have bills to pay.

We hire a cab. Felix tells the driver the address of the hotel he has picked, and we take off. I watch Felix in my side vision. He stares out of the window, quietly whispers something to himself and squeezes his pants on the sides of his thighs.

I wonder who I feel sorrier for: Felix for having such a bitchy wife, or Brenda for having such a sloppy husband?

We walk into the room without saying a word. The hotel is second-rate but the room is fairly clean. Felix walks to the bed, sits down on the side of it and switches the bedside lamp on.