B. Lindsay Belan, Author at HeartBrokenStilettos

Dollar? No dollar? Scheiße egal!

(I would translate it as f***it, doesn’t matter.)

I like the system when the club has its own house dollars for tipping the dancers. It’s like Monopoly money, fun and can give a solid income on a busy night. In Germany most of the clubs have them. When I finish my 2 songs stage performance, I go topless to each customers asking for dollars and they put it in my string. End of the night each dollar count €0.5 to my budget, which is not a lot but if the night was busy it’s easy to collect 50-100 dollars, sometimes even more. We share the tips with the club, so the club keeps the other €0.5. It’s fair enough, in some clubs I’m not allowed to keep the tips at all. I like when the club makes the customers buy the dollars. Let’s say the entrance fee is €10 but they get 10 dollars. Like it was in Luxembourg. In that case, even if they don’t pay anything to the girls, each customer give tips at least. And they rarely take it home keeping it as a souvenir.

My job is to go to everybody. If they don’t have dollars, try to sell them.
“Sorry, I don’t have dollars.”

“No problem, I can take euros, pounds, sterling silver or credit card!” and I press my boobs showing there is a possibility to swipe the card. Usually, it makes them smile and they buy some dollars.

I remember a long time ago I worked in Salzburg where the club had 2 floors. The stage was downstairs and a small bar upstairs. The rules were very strict, I had to go each time to the bar to see if anybody there and ask for dollars before I enter the changing room. It was exhausting, up and down on the stairs all night. Sometimes it was funny when there were no people, we made jokes with the barmen waving some salviette they wanted to put in my panties. Other night when I worked in Nice, I had a customer who showered the stage during my dance with 100 dollars, papers were everywhere and I had to be careful where to step because it can be slippery. In Brussels, the club didn’t have the dollars, but after the stage show, I still had to go to customers asking for tips. The smallest note is €5 and I could keep all the tips so it was also good. Once a guy was so drunk and he tossed a €50 note in my string. That’s really an easy money to make in a few seconds just to go there and ask if he’d like to tip. Some places I don’t make this tour after the dance, but collecting the dollars is part of the stage show. For example in Antwerp, I hated it, because there is a huge gap between the stage and the customers and every time someone wanted to give me a dollar I had to climb over this gap. It can be dangerous if you’ve had a few drinks! Some guys love to put the dollar in their mouth and ask the girls to take it with her tits. Or mouth to mouth. I always wonder if they are aware of where these dollars were before.. maybe in another guy’s mouth or even worse, in his pants touching his sweaty body. It’s fun but I really don’t like to take it with my lips. Not to mention that you can get some serious bacterial infection.

But the truth is, you come to the club, you have a few beers and 10-20 dollars, even you don’t buy drinks or private dances and you don’t spend a fortune but you still have good points and the girls don’t look at you like you are an idiot saying between themselves “at least he has dollars!” But not everyone’s giving it easily. Here in Osnabrück, I’ve been asked: “Was machst du?” (what do you do?) and the guy showed me a dollar with a huge grin on his face as he has the victory flag in his hand or at least he’s holding a €200 note… Hm, let me think… your dollar means €0.5 to me. What should I do for it? Or the other one who asked me straight away to sit in his lap for a dollar. “The lapdance is over there in the private. Here is no touching.” And he was a bit upset. One dollar won’t make me rich, keep it if you wish! There are others that want to give me with no conditions! But the rudest situation when I went to the table and the guy without even looking at me he tossed a €2 coin to me. “And what should I do with that? Buy some dollars!” and I turned and left. When I make my round, I’m not begging for money. It’s part of the entertaining, part of the fun. Giving coins is rude and humiliating although I know some girls would take it without thinking.

And just an idea at the end: if you really want to tip your favourite dancer with real money, fold it in a little piece (it doesn’t require origami skills) and put it in the front of her string. Not even the most honest dancer would give it to the club and share it after counting the dollars alone in the changing room.

Stripper’s burn out

Yesterday one of the customers told his friend as he passed by:

“You can say anything, I think it’s a fucking hard job.” I really wanted to stop him and talk about it, but he was already about to leave. He is right. We’re constantly interacting with people using our private zone. Not like a waitress who takes the order, serves the customer and leaves the table. We let any drunk, ignorant, drugged person enter our comfort zone, so easy to collect all the negative energies, emotional rubbish from them. We have to deal with rejection, more than one time a night, and we have to participate in mind games. Easily lead into burn out, alcohol or/and drug abuse.

If you don’t make money, men are your enemies because they don’t pay. If you make money, your colleagues are your enemies because of jealousy. And the management also can give you hard time. Usually, when the club is not so busy – like here now–, they drive the girls crazy to sending them to customers. “You have to go to every client! You came here to work, not just to sit!” Which is true, but let me decide who I want to work with. I often don’t see the point to go over the table if I already know the guy won’t pay. But still, they want me to go the guy in the corner who almost sleeping because he’s so drunk or the one who didn’t buy a single dollar to give out to the girls. Pointless.

I tried to find out why I was so stressed and not so successful at work lately, but mainly I blamed others. (Of course, it’s always the easiest way!) Doesn’t matter how hard I tried, the end was always disappointment and failure. If something didn’t happen as I wished, I called the guy an idiot and left him. But lately I took the time to stop, I investigate my emotions, get rid of the old, useless things and habits and go ahead with a lighter heart. Now I just smile when a girl shut the door in the changing room with anger saying “These are fucking idiots!”

You know everything is okay when you sit and smile, then go on stage, shake your booty a bit and men start queueing to have a chance to talk to you or take you to the private. I know I’m okay and balanced when guys come to me at work. I don’t need to lift up my pretty bum from the chair, they come to me asking if I want a drink or a dance. (Hm, let me think about it.) They come to me because I’m smiley and easy to approach. I like when work is that smooth and I enjoy myself. I don’t need to pretend I like people, I really do and I enjoy talking to them. I’m radiant. But it took almost 3 months emotional cleansing. When nothing happened on the surface but a lot inside. You know the feeling when you just want to hide from people. Low energy. Lost motivations. Like stepping in the mud. The more steps you make, the deeper you get. In the mud, I was searching for helping hands but forget about my own. Some could help and lift me up a few inches and hold me there temporary, some just pushed me even deeper.

Enough! Let’s see what is under the water! I let myself to swirl into the deep emotions and I went through all the stages of anger, blame, despair, self-pity. But as a result, I came out as a stronger person. And now I enjoy the fruits of my work on myself as others can do. Last week I went shopping and realised men stop and staring at me. One guy literally stopped and turned as I passed by. No, he didn’t check up my behind, he looked my face. I was wearing the same radiant smile as at work. With these feedbacks, I know I’m okay. But maybe this time it took so long. Maybe this is a sign that I better stop doing this job, I have nothing left to learn from it. I must grow. Life is much more than wake up in the morning, go to work and pay the bills (maybe because of this way of thinking I never had lots of money although all my bills are paid.)

In this sensitive period, I had someone who pointed out my negative side, someone who pushed me down in the final. I believe everything happens for a reason and every person who enters our life has a message for us. This person disappeared from my life without knowing that he gave me an amazing gift. He held a mirror for me that I had to look into and face with my own self-destruction. But his job is done. Message delivered. The rest is up to me what I’m going to do with it. There is still much work, but the first step is to realise which part of your life you need to work on. At least I stopped destroying the things around me. Now I’m more centred and can focus on building up.

Photoblog – thank you, Lawrence!

I’m really pleased that I found this great photographer in Stratford upon Avon in England. I always have so much fun to cooperate with him

Thank you, Lawrence! 🙂

And happy Valentine’s day to all! Let’s the love spread! 😉

The German Experience – Osnabrück

Here I am. Germany. Again. I chose it because it’s time to refresh my German a bit, I haven’t used it for maybe 14 years. Right now I’m in a small town in Northwest Germany, called Osnabruck. I arrived on Friday and started to work. I made a joke that I came from the airport straight to the stage but actually, it’s true. When I told the manager I’d like to take a shower before work she just looked at me like I am an alien. Shower? What for? But I convinced her so she let me take a quick shower and I made a 5 mins make-up and let’s the show start!

The system here is I get €40 fix salary per day, after 10 mins private dance I get €20, coctail €5, piccolo €10 (that’s a small bottle of prosecco) and the dancers make an american tour after each dance on stage to collect the house dollars which is €0.5. And then the bottles from €100 to €400, the dancer get 20% commission. Pretty much the same system in Germany almost everywhere. Friday was not so busy as I thought. I had some drinks and dances but some girls made zero. On a Friday night! Saturday didn’t seem to be promising either. We open at 9pm (until 5am) and the people started to come only after midnight. That’s the most boring couple of hours waiting! You don’t have anybody to talk to, the other girls still look at you like stranger, no customer to entertain, and you are not allowed to use your phone for passing the time (which I never understand, what’s the point of it when there is no customers?!) But luckily after midnight the club got busy and everyone made some money. I had 5 private dances with the same group of guys. They were quite funny and entertaining. One of them paid a private dance but he made a topless show for me in the cabin. I was full laughing and giggling, if someone heard me from outside I’m sure he questioned what the hell’s going on in there. But I didn’t care, I had fun. It was not the “I got naked and he tries to touch me everywhere” kind of dance. Sometimes it’s good to play stupid, it can be very refreshing.

But then we had some weirdos. A guy who constantly were using the ladies toilet until a girl find out he was jerking there and he left every bits of his sperm on the toilet seat. Such a nice gesture! Well, there are intelligent and not so intelligent people here in Germany too…

But the funniest thing: I met a girl here again that I worked with in another club. Let’s say we didn’t become friends there. Here I didn’t recognised her (which is strange from me because usually, I’m the one who saying first “I know you, we were working together here and here.” But with this girl, we even introduced ourselves in the changing room and none of us recognised the other! Then later she came to me:

“Have you worked in Luxembourg?”

Shit, it came to my mind immediately and I remember all! She was a proper bitch to me! Once we were sitting at the same table with customers and a bottle of champagne and she told the guy I poured the champagne on the carpet. It was obvious that she told him because he sat showing his back to me, he couldn’t see it unless he has eyes on the back too. And then he told the manager “Why I should pay another bottle if she just wasting it?” (I see his point but we are talking about 4 or 5 bottles divide between 2 girls because they didn’t drink champagne, so it’s 2 or 2.5 bottle each just at that table, you really can’t think we can drink that much! But I always make sure nobody sees when I get rid of some.) So I left the table and they paid another bottle to another girl. I was very pissed and pissed off.

For some reason, she didn’t like me, even when she came to the club on her day off with one of her friends and they bought dollars to the girls, they gave to everyone except me. Another story I remember about her is one girl had some alcohol in her bag in the changing room and she was 100% sure that this girl told the manager about it. That girl almost got fired. I don’t like this kind of mentality, we are in the same boat, we should help each other not making the work more difficult for the others.

But now we work together again! Not to mention we share the same room (2 girls per room)! I try to treat it like we just met first time here and it seems she also. On the first days, I’m so depend on the other girls and it wouldn’t be a good idea to start a new job fighting with someone. We won’t be friends for sure, but I don’t want to continue when we left in Luxembourg. And we found a mutual habit! We went to the store together to buy food and she just told me she’s going to buy some wine. Lately, it became my habit too to keep some in my fridge and drink when I feel to so I got bright sparks in my eyes at work. A drink buddy! Specially when I saw the prices here. I can’t understand why is so cheap here. I like the Pinot Grigio which is in England around £6, here only €3 (£2.5) So we bought not one but 2 bottles. I’m not a typical dancer who needs a little boost before work but I can’t say no to a good wine. And maybe the saying is right as a bottle of wine makes good friendship (or at least makes a bad one normal) We drank one bottle at home and as a good alcoholic dancer would do, we put the other one in a plastic bottle and we took it to work. But after the boring start, I had no mood to carry on drinking, and after I had no time to do so. Here is stage show all night, that means I have to dance maybe 7-8 times on stage. After 2 days I don’t feel my feet. Lately, I worked in clubs where I didn’t dance, I even made a joke that I’m an exotic talker instead of an exotic dancer. But I have a feeling this would be the place where I need to purchase a new pair of dancer shoes, refering to the name of the blog.

But my new friend finished the wine plus she had drinks with customers and after work, she tried to convince me to go with her to a bar for some beer when my only wishes are a shower, a foot massage and my bed. And of course after that amount of alcohol she showed the side of her that I had that much problems with in Luxembourg but this time she wasn’t complaining about me and called me a bitch but she was complaining about other girls to me. Oh well…

Working with agencies

Some people are still wondering how I get the jobs in all those amazing countries. And when I say I work with different agencies, they scratch their heads. Yes, there are agencies for strippers! So here is a little explanation.

If I know the agency, I go to the website and check all the clubs they offer, I pick one or two and email them if there is free space in that particular club or if I can fit in the frame. Usually, they answer relatively quickly. I don’t pay a commission to the agencies, but usually, they get money after me from the club. For example, in some clubs, if I go with an agency, I get let’s say €10 less daily salary than the girls who don’t work with an agency. But at the same time, I save energy to apply to each clubs separately and asking about details of work. As I mentioned in December going to interviews was a nightmare and it was lots of time wasters. With an agency that all, I can avoid. Also, I have to be careful about which agency I can trust. Here are some I worked recently and I’ve got what they offered on the site.

http://www.thebestdancers.com/

http://www.diamonddolls-agency.com/

http://www.mavmodels.com/home

http://show-agency.eu/en/1/1/show_agency.html

It’s not happening always. Like in Pescara the agency told me there is a private dance in the club and it was not, also in Paris the agency offered me fix daily salary and when I was there I figured out there is no fixed salary at all. If I knew it before I wouldn’t have applied because that time I didn’t want to take a risk trying a new club on a commission base only (simply I just couldn’t afford it) and I even told the agency yet they still sent me there. It was not nice at all. It was some misunderstanding between the club and the agency and even in the contract they were talking about two different clubs with two different systems, but still, the agency has to be clear with the contract and the conditions before sending anybody there. But my worst experience was in Luxembourg. The agency told me to call them when I arrive at the airport and they will let me know if I need to take the bus to the city or someone comes to pick me up. I tried to call but nobody picked up the phone or answered my messages. I was there maybe an hour and I decided to get to the city. I had no contact number of anyone from the club, the agency didn’t give me any details except the address. I found the club and I tried to make a phone call again at the front door. Again silence, no answer. I was waiting with luggage half an hour in the rain outside of a strip club – people gave me funny look on the street – when luckily one girl came back from her shopping and asked me if I’m the new girl so she let me into the apartment. But I was very upset with the agency!

They can be also quite funny with age limits. When I applied to Macau, I kept getting NO’s because the club wants younger girls. I tried with a different agency later and they accepted my application. So now if I really want to go to a place (like now I’m keen on trying Norway as I’ve heard lots of good about it) I will try different agencies. Conditions can be varied depending on the contract between the club and the agency. So it’s worth to try.

Now I’m trying to find a place in Germany, so I spend time emailing the agencies and asking for more specific details of the clubs there. Once I have the answer, I can buy my tickets as proof of a serious booking and I can focus on other things. So I’m not resting between two contracts and I also do the photoshoots as I always need new photos to my portfolio and for the applications. A good photo is a half success to get hired.

Also, I have lots of info about clubs and agencies from the girls I worked with, we share our experiences with each other. I often got messages from girls if I would recommend a club to them or not, questions like how was there with work, money, management, other girls etc. when I worked there. It’s always difficult to tell because it so depends on the personality and the work style. Even clubs have ups and downs, maybe I worked there in a not so busy period and the girl went there in a good time. It happened before and later I got the feedback that I was lying to her because I didn’t want her to make good money. Obviously, she didn’t know me well and all I did was telling her my honest experience with that club. (By the way, she didn’t even say thank you.) But since then I’m more careful with girls I don’t know that much both way taking or giving advice. That’s why it’s also good to double check with an agency.