Craved (Twisted Book 2) (15 page)

‘So, we are strippers, or dancers, but that’s not all. Our main goal is to sell the dance. We are salespeople. The dance is a product we sell. You can be the best stripper in the world, know how to do all sorts of tricks and moves on the pole, but how is that helpful if you suck when it comes to convincing the client to go into a private room with you?’

‘Hmm. Interesting. I hadn’t thought about it that way.’

‘The good news, Jul, is that we are the fortunate kind of salespeople!’ She smiles, excited. I smile back with less enthusiasm.

Fortunate is the last thing I’ve felt these last few months.

‘Let’s imagine someone who stands at an intersection and tries to sell trash bags to people who are stuck in the morning traffic on the way to work. Their minds are preoccupied with what their day will bring: will the boss be a dick, will the suppliers fuck up the order, or the kids, or the husbands, or, or, or... All sorts of things!’ Natalia dramatically lowers her voice. ‘The last thing on their minds is the trash bags. You see?’ She waves her fork at me. I shake my head, honestly indicating that I have no idea what she is talking about.

‘Jul, that salesman struggles because he’s chosen the wrong place and/or time to sell those trash bags. He can’t even get into the minds of those people, because trash bags are the last thing they need at that moment.’

She pauses to chew. I wait.

‘Now... unlike the people in the morning traffic, our buyers have a common understanding of the product, and the possibility of a transaction the moment they enter the club. It’s almost like signing a pre-agreement, because they may even consider buying or not buying our product while they are heading to the club, or while inviting a friend to join.’ She looks at me, making sure I am listening. ‘Of course, you could argue that the client may be there just because of his friends, or that he just came to have a drink and has no desire to buy anything but his pathetic beer. They often come up with some stupid excuse when they reject us. Well... that may be true. Yet instead of choosing a pub or a restaurant to enjoy a beer with his friends, he comes to a strip club. He comes to a place, knowing that it has other aggressively marketed products on the menu, besides the beer. He comes with his mind set on the idea that whether he goes through with the purchase or not, he will be highly exposed to the product,’ Natalia says, like she is reading out the criminal’s sentence. ‘Half of our work is already done! Get it? Instead of trash bags at the intersection, we sell umbrellas on a rainy day.’

No wonder she is good at what she’s doing!

‘Now, Jul, we established that our main goal at work is to sell, and that we sell dances.’ She adds more salad to her plate and continues. ‘What if you sell a product that is not good? How many chances do you have to sell a product you think is faulty or second-rate?’

I shrug.

‘Let’s say you have faulty tires you want to sell to a guy who is about to take a long trip, with his wife and kids, to his holiday house. Do you think you will succeed?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Exactly! You will feel sorry for the man, his wife and especially their kids. What’s more, you may think that by selling him the tires you’re putting their lives in danger. It’s obvious that for as long as you’re worrying about the consequences of selling the damaged tires, you won’t be able to create a proper strategy and find the right words to convince the man that he needs your tires. You will hesitate and be very unlikely to sell them.’

I nod again, trying to understand the connection between tires and lap dances.

‘Now let’s look at another situation. A sick man is about to take the long drive to his holiday house with his family. He’s caught the flu or a cold. Instead of tires, you have a magic medication to sell. It’s made of natural components, it soothes the symptoms and really helps the immune system to fight the flu fast without side effects. A miracle medication! You know this because you’ve tried it yourself many times. You know that if you were in this man’s position you’d use this medication without hesitating. How do you think this sale will go?

I narrow my eyes, thinking I’m finally starting to get Natalia’s point.

‘In the marketing world, the key is to believe in your product. In our case, to believe that the lap dance is the miracle medication, and not the faulty tires! Tell me a few things about a lap dance that are positive or that describe why it’s a necessary purchase.’ She looks at me like a teacher waiting for her student to give her an answer about what she’s just learned.

‘I don’t know… it’s entertaining?’

‘Good. What else?’

‘Hmm…’ I pretend I think about the answer, at the same time fighting my growing irritation at being treated like a second-grader. I have a suspicion that this is one of the reasons I choose to fuck for money, instead of asking for Natalia’s help with the business of stripping. I knew she would turn into a know-it-all ass and make me feel like I’m brain-dead. She is a master of making people around her feel like idiots!

I wonder how Tom puts up with her?

‘We give a man a well-deserved break from the daily routine. Right? A man who goes to work every day, facing stress and pressure, bearing the heavy burden of providing for his family or succeeding to finally prove to his parents or friends that he isn’t a loser. We give a miracle medication to a man who, when he gets back home from work, faces his ignorant and selfish kids who don’t acknowledge him unless they need money, or whose wife is constantly unhappy, no matter how hard he thinks he tries.’ Natalia air-quotes ‘how hard’ while holding her fork, and a piece of salad falls onto the table, but she doesn’t notice. ‘Or a man who turns on the TV after a stressful day at work and who, after half an hour of the news, feels like the world is ending and is ready to slice his own wrists.’ She gets up, picks up our empty plates and puts them into the sink. I stand up too, get a cloth and wipe the table while she washes the dishes.

‘For him you have to become that “finally I deserve a reward despite the fact that her services cost half of what I planned to spend on this year’s family holiday”. To become that escape, that happy place, where he at last feels appreciated. That woman who, no matter what size his dick is, or how round his beer belly is, makes him feel like a man again. Makes him feel, even for a short while, like the world belongs to him again.’

We finish in the kitchen and move to our room. We break off while showering, and Natalia resumes as soon as we’re sitting on our beds with our hand mirrors and our heavy make-up bags opened, their contents spread all over the blankets, busy with our warpaint.

‘To turn the lap dance into a miracle medication, we have to address a few issues. One of them is to believe it is a miracle medication. To give it the right value, to find those components that heal.’ She looks at me over her mirror. ‘I believe that my lap dance is truly what a man needs to find that balance in his unsatisfying or stressful life. I believe that my lap dance is the reward a man deserves after all he has to go through in his day. You need to believe in it too. It’s possible, if you change your attitude towards it, your mindset. Of course, your reasons for believing that a lap dance is a great product to buy could be different from mine. Anything will work, as long as you make yourself believe in it.’ She stops for a while, seems tired of talking.

I put my mirror on the pillow. ‘Wow… how did you come to all of this? Don’t tell me you’ve got an esoteric book under your pillow, called
69 Easy Steps to Becoming a Successful Stripper
.’

Natalia laughs, very pleased. In addition to knowing that she is smarter than other girls who’ve worked in the club for years without having a clue of what they are doing there, she is proud of herself, as if she is a scientist or something.

‘
You know I never had a chance to study business or commerce, but I still had to learn a lot during the five years I spent in Istanbul. Besides the office work, I got myself into selling fat-burning pills and other beauty products to make some extra money. You know, those companies that work on the pyramid system. As always, I took it too seriously. While wasting hours in the traffic on the way to work and back, I killed a lot of books on marketing and business relations, as well as NLP. Well... I didn’t become a pyramid queen, as I’d naively hoped, but I’ve definitely got some basic marketing knowledge, which now helps me in the club. The product you sell can change but the general rules stay the same. Unfortunately, there are no books on how to be a successful stripper. I already checked.’ She giggles. ‘Maybe I should write one?’ She gets back to her eyelashes.

‘All you need, Jul, is to convince yourself that a lap dance is a necessary product that the buyer will benefit from. That our product is entertaining, can be an amazing way of spending time with friends, is a great opportunity to forget about everyday worries and stress, or helps to find that manly confidence that often gets destroyed by ignorant and selfish girlfriends or wives. When you believe that, you’ll feel a big difference in the club.’

She looks at her watch and gets up.

‘Time to go. I think that’s enough for one day.’

28

‘I don’t know...’ I look at myself in the mirror and straighten my hair. ‘How the hell must I do it if the bastard doesn't even want to communicate?’

This time I’ve caught my sister on the toilet. I saw her walking to the changing room and through to the bathroom. I hopped inside before she could close the door. She pulled her panties down, flopped onto the toilet, sighed at me and started peeing loudly.

The last few weeks have been hard. My head swings with do’s and don’ts from Natalia’s lectures. Some of the things I manage to make use of straight away, others not. I look for Natalia right after a difficult client and we discuss what went wrong and how I could work through the problem. It’s a great approach because I go straight back to the same client and try my sister’s new strategy.

‘One of the first things you have to review is your appearance.’ The day after our first lecture, she’d started as soon as we woke up. ‘Our looks are as important for the sale as packaging, boxing or wrapping is in selling any product. Try selling the newest cellphone wrapped in wrinkled newspaper. You see what I’m saying? It’s something that requires a little consideration, time and money, but can instantly improve your business.’

‘We sell the concept, the vision. Is it a warm and comforting woman or a kinky, dangerous one?’ Natalia kept explaining, as we browsed through a few lingerie and sex shops, picking new outfits. ‘There are plenty of variations, the types you could pick, to make it easier for them to know what to expect. What are they buying: the woman in red, the schoolgirl or the dirty whore? These bastards usually don’t have the time or desire to figure it out themselves. We have to help them, to make sure they know what they are dealing with from the first moment they see you.’ She is checking out a lacy, baby-pink bra. ‘Your look is young and funky. It’s cool. But I think, with your petite body and young face, you remind them more of their out-of-hand teenage daughters. Who wants to think of their daughters while having a naked girl bounce on top of them? Right? I think the colors of your make-up and outfits should be softer. No more smoky eyes, which scares them away. Young and flirty, but a look that will show that you are a grown-up woman. What do you think?’

I wasn’t thinking. I was ready to eat my own crap to make it work! To change a few outfits, I guess, is not the hardest thing I have done.

Then I tried her approach for dealing with rejections. Natalia’s ‘don’t let it get personal’ now jingles in my head every time I get a ‘no’ from a client.

‘So what, if he likes brunettes over blondes? What’s it to you? You start to worry – your confidence is destroyed. Instead of getting offended, call the girl he wants for him. Be cooperative and helpful and maybe next time he will bring a friend for you.’ Natalia definitely enjoys finally having someone to share her brilliance with. ‘Never take it personally. So what if his fat ass comes in and he is in a bad mood? So what if his thoughtless ass can’t find anything better to do but turn you into a scapegoat? How does his bad day or shitty personality have anything to do with you? We have to be like nurses in a hospital. Every day, they deal with patients who can be restless or even rude because of their pain or discomfort. But instead of getting offended and upset, they feel sorry for the patients and try to find ways to help to soothe their pain. We are nurses, Jul. And those arrogant motherfuckers are our patients. Get it?’

‘We have our bad and good moods. We are humans. I get it.’ Natalia once caught me with my I-am-defeated-no-one-wants-me-and-I-hate-all-the-bastards cup of tea in the corner of the club. ‘One thing that will always be in your way is your own attitude. If you don’t like this job, it isn’t going to like you. Even if you are in a bad mood, learn to find the positive in everything. Your aura stays clean and likeable. They sense it every single time. While in the club, remove all the thoughts that do not concern the client you’re approaching. Nothing should occupy your mind but him and how you can turn his leisure time in the club into an unforgettable experience. You have to get excited for him even before he does.’

Most of the things she explained to me are strikingly obvious. They are simple but brilliant. I wonder why I’ve never thought about them myself. I’ve just never put real effort into this job, thinking that being physically present in the club and willing to get naked is enough. It’s not surprising. I sucked at being a stripper while Natalia explored the job with curiosity, knowledge and her I’ll-find-the-way-to-nail-you-anyway attitude.

Even last Saturday night when, after some rugby game, the club was packed with Afrikaans men, her schooling quickly put me on track and turned a night that started out miserable into one of my most successful. After a few failures I rolled into the changing room where Natalia was fixing her make-up.