Craved

  My middle sister stops cutting and moves the board with carrots away from Natalia. ‘Seriously, Nata? Is there a point to your story?’

  ‘That one…’ she ignores Lena’s niggle and nods towards the terrace, where Mark and Tom are busy talking over the beer and a flaming grill, ‘is one of the most handsome penises I’ve ever seen! And I promise you, girls,’ Natalia shakes her head and looks up as if dreaming, ‘I never thought I would use the word handsome for someone’s dick.’

  ‘Me neither!’ Lena snaps. ‘Can we change the subject? Not only have you ruined my salad, while comparing the carrots to dicks, but how am I supposed to look at Tom now without thinking about his…’ she pauses, waves the knife in the air, ‘handsome member?’ My sisters look at each other and start laughing.

  As entertaining as the conversation is, my head is steering it towards my own thoughts. I can’t even force a smile. I have to get it over with and simply tell them. ‘Girls, I need to talk to you,’ I exhale.

  ‘What is it?’ Natalia grabs another bottle from the fridge and goes back to her stool.

  ‘I am going back.’ I pull out all of my strength to sound confident and look straight at their faces.

  ‘What do you mean, going back?’ Lena reacts first.

  ‘Meaning I am going back home. This place… this job is no good for me, at least not at this stage of my life. I’m afraid I am going to slip.’ My voice wavers. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through yet. Maybe I will help Mom in the salon… or… I don’t know. But that’s not the point…’

  ‘Yes, it is the point,’ Natalia utters. ‘You tried for a month, it didn’t work and you gave up. I get it. No one likes to be behind the others.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. I feel pressure. I get competitive. I want to make that money no matter what. I am afraid I’ll push it too far. I don’t trust myself.’ I look up at Natalia. ‘I know I will relapse eventually. The whole environment is one huge trigger for me.’

  ‘Do you think being a good stripper is innate? It’s a job that requires skills, like any other. At the previous places you’d worked, the main skill you had to be good at, was to fuck for money. This place is different and you have to learn and adapt. What you choose to do,’ she throws her arms apart, ‘is run away! Instead of taking a challenge, you want to go back to earning a hundred bucks a month, if you’re lucky!’

  ‘Nata, you are not her!’ Lena breaks in. ‘You don’t know and can’t know what she feels or goes through! Just because it’s simple and obvious to you, it doesn’t mean it is for everyone else!’

  ‘Don’t fight girls.’ I look at Lena with gratitude. ‘I’ve made a decision and it’s not up for discussion,’ I say, calmer this time. My body relaxes. ‘I am going home. I couldn’t change my existing return ticket, but I’ve booked a new flight. I just need to make a little more to pay for it.’

  ‘Ok,’ Natalia says, also calm, but rather disappointed. ‘All I want you to know is that I can help you to learn if you change your mind and stay.’

  Lena hugs me. ‘You must do what you feel is right for you.’

  13

  I need to make at least R2 000, then I’m free to go. It’s Monday – so, regardless of my big plan, I ground my expectations for the night.

  Yesterday, after the lunch, Natalia and Tom took me home, silently most of the way. Tom, likely, feared for his life, because Natalia was driving. She was probably buried in thoughts of why the hell her youngest sister can’t be like her. And I, definitely, didn’t give a fuck about what she thinks and simply enjoyed the nirvana my body and mind had gone to since making my decision. For the first time in a couple of months, I could breathe without feeling like I had a gravestone instead of lungs. I’d got home, taken a shower, climbed into bed with a new comedy I’d downloaded on my laptop, and in just fifteen minutes had drifted off into a deep and dreamless slumber. Simply divine!

  As Mondays are, it’s a very quiet night. My goal of making the whole amount in one night recedes as we get to closing time. I am on a thousand so far: not bad at all.

  When the DJ calls the last show of the night at 3 a.m., I decide to surrender and enjoy a cup of rooibos. I walk to the bar, weary, land on a stool and, as I place my order, some skinny I-am-a-nerd-but-I-try-to-look-like-a-hip-hop-star youngster walks in, heads to the bar, and sits right next to me.

  Hmm…

  He orders a beer and mumbles, to no one, ‘I want to have a dance.’

  I look around. Only the barman and I could have heard his request. But since the barman is a big, tattooed, straight guy, I assume it’s me the kid is talking to.

  ‘Hi, my name is Julia.’ I throw my hand out for a shake, still not believing what I’d heard.

  ‘Hi, I am Dean.’ His lips spasm in a smile, and he avoids meeting my eyes. ‘Can you dance for me?’

  The barman sets the steaming cup with a little bowl of honey in front of me. I blink twice at it, understanding that I will never see it again, exclaim, ‘Of course!’ and drag the kid into a private room.

  I begin my routine. Slow. Seductive. He rubs his palms against his oversized shiny black jeans. I slide down onto my knees, leaning on him, and strike his crotch with my stomach. He swallows. His huge Adam’s apple goes up the scrawny neck and then drops down again. I loosen my blouse, assume the rider position on top of him, press my chest into his, and blow, tickling his ear. He closes his eyes, ‘Oh God’.

  ‘Really? Is it that good?’

  He bashfully tosses his long fringe on the side. ‘It’s just… I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.’

  ‘How come?’ I ask, but don’t stop my rubbing routine.

  ‘I’ve dreamed about it since I was a teen. I promised myself I’d come here as soon as I earned my first salary. A month ago I started a small IT business… Oh God!’ I stand with my back to him, no longer wearing my G-string, my legs spread wide. I lean forward, holding onto the mirror, leaving him nothing to look at but my asshole and my slit.

  ‘Oh God!’ he blows out again.

  ‘You were saying about the IT business.’

  ‘Yeah. I was lucky to get this big job. It took me three weeks with almost no sleep, countless cups of coffee and other energy crap to complete it. An hour ago I finished it, called the taxi, and here I am.’ He licks his lips without taking his eyes off my pussy.

  Seriously! Men and women aren’t cast in the same mold. I can’t imagine the average teenage girl dreaming about growing up to stare at someone’s penis. To be kissed by a prince? Yes. To stare at someone’s penis? No!

  We don’t get out of the private room until the DJ’s ‘Good night everyone’.

  ‘It’s R500 please.’ I dress while he counts the money. He hands me five hundreds, counts another five and holds them out.

  ‘Will you kiss me if I’d give you this?’

  I look at the money, then at the camera, trying to remember how much the fine for ‘Kissing a client on the lips’ was, then down at him. I purse my mouth. These pleading eyes, with fairy-tale-like hope in them, are staring at me.

  Okay. Maybe the mold is not that different after all.

  I take the money, drop onto his lap, scatter my hair on top of his head and shoulders and give him a long and passionate French kiss.

  I get up. His eyes are still shut. ‘Thank you so much!’ I grab my purse, stuff the money in it and turn to the door.

  He gets up too. ‘Thank you Julia, it was amazing!’

  I wave him one more time and head towards the changing room.

  It’s freaking karma! This kid is proof that I’m doing the right thing!

  I walk through the half-dressed crowd of girls with a grin wider than the Amazon River. My sisters are already dressed and waiting for me. Lena’s face is red and swollen. She has been crying.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask and look at Natalia.

  ‘Hurry up Jul, we need to talk, it’s urgent.’ She’s trying to sound composed but her eyes are agitated.

  I dre
ss and check my phone. There are at least a dozen missed calls from our mom. My stomach shrivels. I grab my stuff and hurry out of the club.

  ‘What happened?’ I drop into the back seat. ‘What’s with all the calls from Mom?’

  ‘It’s Dad. Mom has been trying to get hold of us the whole night. I saw the missed calls half an hour ago and called her back,’ Natalia replies, and Lena starts crying again. ‘Yesterday he went on his usual bike ride and was hit by a car.’

  ‘No way! How’s he?’

  ‘It’s not that. The speed was very slow, the driver was parking apparently. Dad fell on the ground but didn’t even have a scratch on him. He came back home, complaining about a headache, and went to lie down. A few hours later Mom called the ambulance. He had a stroke. He probably hit his head or something.’ Natalia’s voice quivers as the tears fight their way out.

  ‘Oh shit!’

  ‘He is in hospital. The doctors are trying to stabilize him, and as soon as they do, and if he’s strong enough, they will operate to stop the internal bleeding.’

  I rub my face.

  ‘Lena, please stop crying. The most important thing is that he is alive, right Nata?’ I make an effort to rationalize the scale of the damage and deal with this news, but Lena’s wails make me want to jump out of the window of the moving car. ‘He is going to be all right.’

  Natalia stops at the red light.

  ‘Jul is right. Let’s focus on the things we can do instead of this useless crying. Mom needs ten grand for the surgery. We have to send it to her tomorrow.’

  ‘Ten grand of what? Dollars?’

  ‘Jul, it’s a stroke.’ Natalia pushes the accelerator too hard and the car jumps forward, pressing us into our seats. ‘Shit! His life depends on the quality of treatment he gets. I know it’s a lot of money, but I don’t think a government hospital is the answer. They’ll do nothing and he’ll be a vegetable for the rest of his life.’

  ‘I have three thousand.’ Lena wipes her face.

  ‘Good, I can round up five.’

  I fall silent, taking a deep breath.

  ‘I have one and a half, but I was going to pay for my ticket tomorrow.’ I fall back in my seat, looking into the darkness of the streets. ‘Shit!’

  Natalia looks at me in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Okay, Jul, don’t worry. I’ll ask Tom, maybe he can help us.’

  ‘No, it’s okay… I’ll put my trip off… I want you to send my money too.’

  14

  I stare at the card. It’s pretty standard – white paper with black block letters. Brenda Adams. Interior Decorator. Modern Design. Brenda is married, mid-forties. She’d shoved me her card a few weeks ago, right after I’d danced for her and her husband.

  Jeez… If I can do this, I can climb Mount Everest as well.

  ‘We like to do crazy stuff,’ Brenda went on, explaining to me what had brought them to the club as soon as I joined them. ‘It’s natural for men to desire more than one woman and I get it. I love my husband and want to do everything with him. Even if it is a strip club.’ She shook her hand, twinkling with a good-sized diamond ring. But her words didn’t match the image: she sat apart from her Woody Allen-looking husband, without even glancing at him, as if he was a part of the furniture.

  ‘Would you take us for a dance?’ Yet she sounded genuinely excited.

  Most of the couples are the same. The wife/girlfriend, while ‘supporting’ the idea that couples nowadays do ‘stuff’ to be cool or to avoid the monotony of married life, has a hard time camouflaging her disgust, anger and jealousy. The husband/boyfriend has too much to drink and starts enjoying things a little too much. Wife/girlfriend, who wasn’t prepared for the reality, flips out and the night ends up with her sour ‘Let’s get out of here’ or even a scene right in the club. Unlike most of them, Brenda was into it even more than her husband.

  As soon as I closed the door of the private room, she threw a ‘Make him happy, dedicate this dance to him’, dropped onto the couch, spread her legs, letting her skirt ‘accidentally’ slide up her thighs, and revealed an absence of panties and her preference for the au naturel full-bush look.

  Brenda didn’t mean what she’d said and, disregarding her own request, pushed her hubby off the couch while trying to get me on top of her. I went for broke to avoid her thicket, clinging onto his bony shoulders and ignoring her persistence. Even so she was turned on, constantly moving her pelvis and caressing her thighs and her breasts over her blouse.

  It was an I-can’t-look-or-I’ll-throw-up situation. Seriously disgusting!

  When we’d finished the dance and returned to the table, and her husband had gone to the bathroom, she handed me her business card with, ‘If you’re open-minded, call me. I’ll pay for your time.’

  I took the card only because I hoped they would take me for another dance later that night, but with the clear understanding that there was no way I would ever call this woman.

  Yeah, I know, never say never.

  I stare at the card, let out a sigh, and dial her number.

  ‘My husband is away on a business trip and the kids are at school until four.’ Her cheerful voice repulses me even more than what we are about to do.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to have a glass of wine?’ She is walking to the custom-made wooden bar at the back of the lounge. Her silky dressing gown falls open. She looks younger in daylight. Her body is skinny and her fake tits look amazing. It’s only the slightly flabby skin on her neck, arms and thighs that shows her real age. Oh, and of course, there is a bush.

  I shrug.

  A glass of wine won’t be enough anyway.

  ‘No thanks, a Coke please?’ I’d only woken up an hour ago, and had time for just a quick shower and light make-up before leaving for this job. I craved some caffeine.

  ‘Would you mind paying me upfront?’ I say, while checking out the vast living room with puffy leather couches, a wooden African-style coffee table and a real zebra skin on the floor.

  ‘Of course.’ She opens a can and pours it into a glass with ice. ‘Let’s go to the bedroom, my handbag and wallet is there.’ Brenda grins, picks up her glass and the open bottle and walks me through. Her stride is jumpy – she is so excited.

  I roll my eyes and follow her.

  She throws her dressing gown onto the floor, gets onto the bed and relaxes on her back on the numerous cushions, her legs slightly bent and open. I slowly take off my clothes, walk closer and stop, not knowing where to start.

  What was I thinking? There is no way I can do it…

  She notices my hesitation and pats the bed right next to her. ‘Come here. Kiss me.’

  I lie next to her, put my hand around her waist, and press my lips to hers, letting her tongue browse through my mouth. Her nipples harden, she exhales, and nudges me to go down on her, while spreading her legs further apart.

  I obey and slowly start sliding down, caressing her body with my hands, lips, and tongue. I linger at her nipples, trying to avoid any contact with her bush and losing myself in thoughts of how the hell I am going to put my face into it. She presses my shoulders down and I slide further.

  I can’t. I can’t do it. Shit. Even towards my father’s bills. Unless…

  Ignoring the impatient movements of her hips, I stop when my face is right next to the bush. I freeze. ‘I like it shaved. Would you?’ I lure, hoping it would seem part of the game.

  Her excited face changes to surprised, then annoyed. Her stare is heavy, as if she can’t decide how to react. She grins.

  ‘You are a naughty girl.’ She gets up, picks up her glass of wine and swaggers to the bathroom. ‘Even my husband couldn’t make me do it!’

  Poor man. What can I say?

  Ten minutes later she comes back, smooth as a newborn. She pulls me off the bed, kisses me, biting and sucking my lips. ‘Make me happy, Julia. I gave up my curls for you.’

  I go down on my knees, holding her thighs, and duck between her legs. My disgus
t smears with gratitude that her pussy smells like nothing but soap. While my tongue does its job, I keep my mind distracted with a game where I get to name all the components of its aromas.

  She gets tired standing up and pulls me back onto the bed. At about the time my tongue turns numb, and when I manage to detect at least seven scents, including cucumber and lime, she gives out a few groans and comes.

  I lie down next to her and swallow the rest of my Coke. It helps to wash away the nauseating aftertaste.

  Brenda takes the glass away from me, puts it on the side table.

  ‘It’s your turn to enjoy!’ Ignoring my reassurance that it’s needless, she goes down on me.

  I claw the bed cover. Her lips fret my clit. Her wet tongue makes me want to grab a towel and wipe between my legs. While I do my best to fight the urge to push her head away from me, my clit discovers a separate life. It grows large and hard. My embarrassed mind continues to reason with my out-of-hand pussy, until it loses itself in a whirlwind of high-pitched sensation. I grimace in disbelief and burst into a loud climax.

  Orgasm over aversion. I’ve never had that combination before.

  15

  I get up late in the afternoon. As I check the time on my cell phone, my stare stops at the date. Unbelievable: it’s been a month already. One day merges with another, making time fade away. The three of us work our butts off, under the constant and relentless pressure of the situation in Ukraine. We call Mom for updates on Dad’s health every day. Some days there is better news than others. Each time I sense how hard it is for our mother to pretend she is full of hope and strength, instead of bursting into tears of desperation.

  In an instant our father had gone from being a healthy, energetic man to a vegetable, with hope for a full recovery melting with every new day.

  I wish I hadn’t seen him in the state he is in now. I wish Natalia had never insisted on us having Skype sessions with Mom in the hospital so Dad could feel our presence in some way.

  I wish I could remember him as he’d been the week before we’d left for South Africa. He’d come by to the salon for his regular haircut. Since Natalia had started this business, he hadn’t let anyone but her touch his hair. Even when she was still inexperienced, and Dad had come back home with uneven wisps of hair sticking out behind his ears, he’d been proud to wear it.