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From Paris With Love

Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. It’s a beautiful city although I have to confess it’s not my favourite. Or maybe just because I always arrived at the Gare du Nord – if I come from London by Eurostar – and it doesn’t give the best first impression of Paris. That area is just so dirty and dodgy, especially at night. But the dancers’ apartment is in the centre, just 10 minutes walk from the Arc de Triomphe and the building is quite quiet. Luckily.

The work is okay. I already know that my perfect place where I’d like to stay longer doesn’t exist. Here the club is renewed, beautiful and shiny. All well designed. One of the prettiest interior of clubs I’ve ever worked. The staff is nice. The girls are nice too. No pressure on girls at work, everyone works in her own tempo. The apartment is okay. Quiet, not so crowded and the cleanness is all right. I have only problems with customers. So unfriendly, so cold! And they don’t want to spend money. I’m a bit surprised because by my experience French guys like me. But here they even feel offended if I ask for a dance. For f*** sake, relax, I’m just doing my job!

Like yesterday: we had 6 guys at the table. They bought a bottle of drink for themselves but they drunk very slowly. All of them was on their mobile phone. I even made a joke that we should open an Internet cafe rather than a strip club. They didn’t even watch the stage show, just took a few photos (which is prohibited) and posted on their Facebook, WhatsApp etc. I saw because I was sitting behind them. And they even felt offended when a girl went over trying to sell a dance. They were quite rude actually. But guys, can you explain to me something? If I want to buy a new pair of shoes, I go to the shoe shop. You come to a strip club because you’re interested in girls. So don’t make faces when a pretty lady tries to communicate with you. Or go home to watch TV instead! I never understand this behaviour. Here I make money only after the dances. No drink commission. (Oh, my liver is very happy!) Some beautiful, experienced girls sit with a guy and make jokes and smile for hours to get a table dance. That means €11 for the dancer. (!) Tips are very rare. So show a little respect! Because this is not what some guys think when they say “You have an easy job. Easy money. You just have to be beautiful.” Really? And definitely, don’t complain that the girls look so unhappy if you behave like a douchebag with them.

But some happy moments happened to me since I’m here. The first night I arrived, I posted a photo of the Arc de Triomphe on my Instagram. And a guy that I know from Guadeloupe sent me a message. He is a professional photographer there but we never met in person as he broke his arm when we had the photo shooting arranged. And guess what? He is in Paris too! So yesterday we met for a coffee. That’s what I like about travelling. I’m from London, he’s from Guadeloupe and we meet in Paris! The same happened to me when I was in Macau. I know a guy from Hong Kong and we met in South Africa when I was working there. And after 2 years we met again just like good friends that they saw each other last just a few days before. I like the feeling that in any country I go on this planet I know someone there. That’s amazing!

Also, I know a Spanish girl from Guadeloupe (it seems Guadeloupe is the centre of my world right now) We were not close friends there but we keep in touch via Facebook time by time. And I sent her a message that there is one girl here looks exactly like her, same face, same hairstyle and that girl reminds me of her so much. And she wrote me back: “That’s my sister!” And she’s coming here too in 10 days, so we will work together again for a short term. So funny! I think our planet is really such a small one. Now her sister and I are waiting for her in Paris.

And I have the feeling that this place has even more surprising for me! Maybe not every road leads to Rome but to Paris!

I was working in Skegness on the weekend

I’m still keeping my words that I don’t really want to work in London, and I thought this time I give a chance to the British countryside instead of the busy capital. Now to be honest I feel a little bit tired to travel again so far. So I had a little conversation with myself to stay in England and try out some new clubs here. One of the British girls in Iceland recommended this club to me, then I contacted the owner, he was nice and extremely helpful so I thought I have nothing to lose. I’ve taken a bigger risk in my life to travel to other continents for work and I didn’t have any personal contact with any of the staff members from that club, only the agency. Agencies take percentage after you from the club, they, of course, want you to go there and they only tell you the nice things. To travel circa 200 km from London to try a club is really nothing to me. Plus I thought Skegness as a holiday place can be busy for the long weekend.

Afterall I’m not surprised that things are not going to be smooth. The club is open only 3 days on the weekends, in theory, it sounds perfect to me to work there and weekdays I’m back in London and I have plenty of time on my hands to finish other stuff I have to. But this bank holiday weekend was extremely boring and slow in Skegness! When I worked in the hostess club in London, the bank holiday weekends were always quiet because people travel to the countryside.. but in the countryside didn’t seem to be crowded either! Does anybody know where are the people then???

They provide accommodation but the place is not 5 stars. In my room, there is no window and it cost me £10 per day. Bloody hell! When I write here I feel like a poor French realist writing in a dark mansard room with candlelight and his only companions are the pigeons on the roof. Luckily there is a door to the rooftop and when it’s sunny I can leave that door open. I don’t think I will spend much time there though. Although when I worked in Canada, the accommodation was similar. Above the club, there were big double rooms originally, but they divided them into 2 single rooms, obviously, the windows were attached to one of them. In the inside rooms were no windows too and I stayed in one of them (for 3 months!) Can you imagine how much time I spent indoors?

And about the people in Skegness: they are – let’s say – simple. (Not in a bad way.) If they don’t want to pay you, they tell you straight. Sometimes it’s a much more appreciated way than playing a game or promising “I’ll have a dance with you later.” Do you know how many times I’ve heard that sentence? And of course in this term “later” means “never”. Actually, I’m happy not to play those mind games with them. And these guys are a little bit naïve too. They have difficulties to understand why I don’t want to work in London. They immediately start to laugh when I say I came all the way from London to Skegness to work in a strip club. “Oh, there is much more money in London!” I’m a bit of tired to explain it again and again why not.

But after all these actually, I’m considering to work in London. At least one day to try. I said so many times that I don’t want to work in London clubs because too much competition and bitchiness between the girls, but never experienced myself. It’s like how can I write about something I don’t have personal experience about? But I need to get my guts up before I go to the cage of the lions.

Until I will be chillin’ in Skegness in my windowless room.

Oh Mr. Alcohol..

I must confess that I don’t like drinking that much. In my private life, I rarely drink. OK, a bottle of wine for a nice dinner or a good conversation with friends always welcome. But I don’t like the feeling when I lose the control over myself. Definitely not the big headache next day.

But I can say I only drink when I work. Not many people can say the same I guess. At work, I know my limits. And champagne and I are good friends! Not every kind because I hate the Bollinger and Moet, and I’m not a big fan of DP either. These are more acidic for me. If anybody wants to please me, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart and Perrier-Jouet are the best choices. Girls like pink so I also prefer the rose. If you buy me champagne, I’m perfectly fine until 2 bottles. I mean I drink 2 bottles by myself and I can walk home with a clear head. I know it by experience. The problems start if we open the third bottle because I will immediately look for the solution how can I get rid of it. Especially if I have to take the responsibility myself to go home. When I worked in the London hostess club, we couldn’t drink at all. I remember once we had a meeting and before the manager finished, he turned to me saying “And you, you are not allowed to drink here any more!” Because, of course, it was easier to work when I was a little tipsy and I just started this kind of job, but I understood him lately. The club didn’t want to take responsibility for how the girls get home in the morning after work. And you can be more focused on selling and teamwork if your head is clear. So we had to change the champagne to ginger ale (with a little bit of cranberry juice if we had the rose) and everything was well organised. That was funny but we had all the small bottles of ginger ale under the sink in the ladies toilet and the dressing room. And how easy was to find a stupid reason to leave the table! I have to fix my make-up, I need my lip gloss, I have to check my phone because I wait for a message.. or just simply Sorry, I’ll be back soon. And then put a tiny little ginger ale into the glass and drink it immediately when you go back to the table. Ups, my glass is empty! Or when I couldn’t change the champagne, I just called another girl to the table. We shared the commission but we could help each other more and none of us got drunk. That was the main reason why I preferred to work as a hostess than as a dancer because with those girls we really worked in a team. Lots of dancers don’t understand what does it mean to help each other and they can go really greedy if it comes to money.

When I started this job I was new to London and didn’t understand the city. And lots of time I was in a stupid situation because of a big amount of alcohol. I remember when a guy stopped me on the Picadilly around 3 am that he will take me home. He was an unregistered taxi driver. I told him the address and I fell asleep in the car. Probably he didn’t understand what I was saying and when I woke up we were in another part of London. I realised the situation and started to scream at him. I got sober in a second! I realised how dangerous it can be. Or when I got robbed. I had to change the bus, but it took 20 minutes for the next one. So I decided to walk home saying it’s only 10 minutes away. But I was drunk and I walked literally from wall to wall in high heels. It was around 5 am but still dark. The guy ran after me, suddenly took my bag and ran away with it. Another guy saw what happened and he called the police. We went a few circles with the police car in the area but didn’t see anything after all. And we went to the police station for the papers and the other guy in the office told me:

“You were quite lucky.”

“Lucky???”

“Yes, because last week the same happened with a Russian girl, but she had a fight with the guy so she got stabbed in her back. She wasn’t.. drunk.”

I immediately understood that London can be dangerous if I don’t use my brain.

After that, I started to keep the club policy and change the champagne to ginger ale.

I was still drunk a few times but never that much. Macau was the other place where I drunk a lot, mixing the champagne with cocktails and shots. That was something! I still don’t understand how I was lucky with all the taxi drivers there and got home safely every time. In Macau, the major problem that the taxi drivers don’t speak English and they are quite rude. They can stop anywhere and just leave you on the street if you start to argue with them! But with me, they were always fine and never took me for a sightseeing tour in the morning. Or my Chinese pronunciation was good enough to understand where I want to go.. So they took me home and never wanted to overcharge me or anything. But I got lost in the building once! I was fully drunk and when I came out of the elevator, I turned in the wrong direction. I didn’t realise, I just saw the door, put the key in the hole, turned it, open the door… and in the middle of the apartment I realised it’s not mine! My first thought was that they redesign the place and brought more furniture while we were working and just after understood that I’m in the wrong place. I have no idea still how I could open the door with my key! But when I wanted to leave, I couldn’t pull out the key from the keyhole so I needed to call somebody to fix it. The little Chinese guy came with sleepy eyes (it was 4 am) and he thought I’m totally crazy! Took me a while to explain to him it’s not my apartment! I still laugh when I think of this story.

So yes. Even I work at nights, I don’t like drinking that much. And you have no idea that some girls working in clubs, they hate alcohol too!

Would you live with a stripper?

The thought of living with a bombshell who can turn you on 7/24 is exciting, right? But let me tell you something. The following information is not general but unfortunately, I’ve seen it many times as I lived more than 30 apartments in different countries. Strippers hate to clean. Of course, you always can find an exception just like me 🙂 but seriously after I arrive at a new place, my first things on the shopping list are toilet rolls, cleaning wipes, sponge and washing up liquid.

Usually, clubs provide accommodation for the girl who travels. Very often is above the club but can be a very nice apartment booked in the nearest hotel just like I had it in Geneva. I found it funny when a customer asked me if we are sleeping on mattresses.. 🙂 But since I dance my best place to stay was in Cape Town, South Africa, where the club has the whole building next door (opposite the police station so it’s absolutely safe!) to accommodate around 100 girls. 3 floors, big rooms for 2 or 3 girls, big kitchens, clean bathrooms, a rooftop with a small swimming pool, a sunbathing area and a cleaner every day! What a bless!

In Europe, girls don’t stay long in one place. They go to work for 2-3 weeks and then home to their country and back again. In that case, most of them unfortunately never feel the apartment as it’s their home, even for a short time. They never feel that they have a responsibility to clean after themselves when they move out, saying the new girl will do it anyway. Same with the dirty dishes. I personally don’t cook in those places. I rather eat somewhere or buy just a ready-made microwave food, because often I don’t want to touch anything in the kitchen. Jesus, I’ve seen a girl doing the dirty dishes with a soap bar! Not even liquid soap! Can you imagine? But at least this girl tried to do something. Most of the time girls finish work drunk, they cook and eat in the morning, but simply forget to clean after themselves. Next day they don’t remember but they are standing angrily in the middle of the kitchen and arguing with everybody because they can’t find a clean spoon! And sadly the dirty dishes stay in the sink for days until someone has enough and clean up all the mess.

Or even in Cape Town, we had a serious meeting because someone was using the toilet not in a ‘normal’ way. The cleaner was complaining because 2 or 3 times she found the thing on the floor, just right next to the toilet.. covered with toilet paper. WTF? I found it extremely funny, but still, I can’t imagine myself so drunk that I can’t find a toilet seat…

But my favourite is when the club charges the dancers for a cleaner, but we have never seen anybody cleaning the apartment. “Yes, because she comes when you, girls, are sleeping!” And apparently, she also forgets to clean, because everything it’s in the same place where we left. Including the mess.

So yes, it’s fun to live with 10-15 other girls in a small apartment. We’re used to seeing each other naked at work or in the changing room, nakedness doesn’t bother us at home either. It would be a dream of a man to live in the same place. But when it comes to cleaning, the poor guy should not expect anything extraordinary. Except he likes to be a slave. Otherwise, after 2 weeks, he would run home to his wife/mum/girlfriend to a clean, cosy home with delicious food made in a clean kitchen.