brussels Archives - HeartBrokenStilettos

Working on Special Events

There are some social events out there that bring more strippers in the town. Like the golf season in Portugal or the Sailing Week in Sylt, Germany. As a dancer you have to apply to book your place otherwise it will be too late. Like me now, in early March I applied to Monaco for the Grand Prix and it was already no free space. They said if someone makes the cancellation, I can go but who would cancel such a money maker event? Never mind, I’ve worked already in Nice during the Monaco Grand Prix and during the Macau Grand Prix. They were a few good days moneywise. In Macau we had to wear a racer girl costume, it was quite funny. Previous year girls even made a promotion on the racing fields. Yeah, when I write or say I do promotion for clubs (when I don’t want to give out details about my job) actually it’s not a lie as I often do that, it’s kind of part of my job.

Giving out flyers also (I must say I hate that!) In Osnabruck they send us to give flyers on the carnival day. It’s a special day in Germany, everyone wears funny costumes on the streets (better than Halloween in England!) and by 6 pm everyone’s drunk. We went to the crowd but rarely gave the flyers as we didn’t want all the wasted guys from the streets to come to the club. We took a few rounds, and we looked at each other with the other girl.

“Do you think the same?”

“Sure. Let’s go home! I will put the flyers in the bin..”

Most of the guys just invited for a drink straight away, there was no point to talk to them.

Also, I worked in Nice when the Filmfestival was running in Cannes and they sent us there to give flyers. Seriously? All those people have access to high-class prostitutes, why would they come to a small and expensive strip club? But we went there, tried to give the flyers and when we saw no point, just went for a nice coffee and we enjoyed our afternoon in Cannes.

Some events can be extremely good for making money. I remember I hesitated to stay in Cape Town until the big mining conference in February (probably the biggest in the world) and I was lucky that I stayed. In those days I made quite good money there. I was not that lucky during the London Olympics. Everybody was excited about it, but in the centre it was nothing. I remember on a Friday night I took the bus to work and I was the only person on the bus! Usually, it’s busy but this time not a single person got on from Finchley Road to Piccadilly. Around the Piccadilly Circus, even cafes and restaurants were empty which is unusual on a Friday. I don’t know how the clubs were close to the games but the centre was empty. As my manager told me, he expected exactly the same as the Olympics is a family event, daddy doesn’t leave mommy just like “Ok, honey, I go to a strip club, won’t be along!” A cricket or football event can bring more guys to clubs and I totally agree.

My last special event was in Brussels: Seafood Expo. If I knew it ahead, I would have changed the dates. Again, we had to go to give flyers. 5 girls and the security guy. But at least he was cool, there were not so many people on the streets so we went to one of his friend’s bar and everybody was invited for a shot. Perfect start for work because we knew later it will be stressful. The club was open on Sunday for this special occasion, they brought extra chairs and paravanes for the private area. They even bought some green plants in metal holders that we can pour the champagne there when nobody sees us. Poor little trees! We made a joke that they will produce grapes after so much champagne! But the truth is those few days were not so productive as they expected. On that Sunday there were only two (2!) customers. And of course, when it’s not so busy, they stress out the girls more, like everything is the girls’ fault because we don’t work well. But we had a full house but not quality customers. They can fill up the whole club with Spanish, Brazilian, Italian customers, through my experience they never pay and just hassle the girls why we don’t have sex with them. If they are alone they might spend, but if it’s a group, no chance. It seems they just prefer other male company. And as I was talking to one of the French guys, he told me this seafood industry is not doing so well this year so probably that’s the reason why people don’t spend much. But one day I was lucky to meet an intelligent guy who paid me some dances and I enjoyed our conversation so I stayed with him pretending to work, but I saw from the corner of my eyes that my manager looked at me with evil eyes why I spend much time with him, why I don’t go to the next customer. Seriously that half an hour talking to him was my mental recovery of the night!

Now I’m really trying to stay away from these kinds of events. They can be maybe a tiny bit better than an average night but it doesn’t worth the stress that the management can give.

Workplace hazards in the stripping industry

I don’t want to mention again the alcohol-human stupidity combination here, I wrote enough about this one. But there are other hazards there, some you might not think about that can cause an issue. For example the ability of smoking inside the club. Yes, there are clubs in Europe where people can smoke. Smoker dancers are very happy about it. But what about the non-smokers? It happened not only once when the club was busy and the stage is higher than the tables, but I was also in tears during my performance because of the too much smoke inside. I mean the smoke of the cigarette, not complaining about the smoke machine! I remember after the Dorsia in Antwerp I got home, opened my suitcase and it smelled like an ashtray! All my clothes took the smell of cigarettes. There the Fridays-Saturdays were killer. The club worked with a full house on the weekends, once I even lost my voice because of the smoke. Too loud music also has good benefits for health.

I also like the high heels-unsafe stairs/stage combo. In Brussels, it was nothing around the stage that you can grab if you lose your balance. We girls gave a helping hand to each other to go on stage. The girl who finished the performance stayed on the stage until the next girl arrived and she helped her to come down. When her feet touched the floor, she gave her hand to help the other to go up. There were only 3 stairs but could be dangerous wearing the high platform dancer shoes. I don’t know who designs the interior of strip clubs, but he must pay extra attention to girls who walk on those stairs with 8-inch stilettos.

But my top favourite is the air conditioning. We often fight with a member of the management to switch it off when there are no customers. If you only sit in one place all night wearing lingerie or a sexy nightie and you don’t dance, you could feel extremely cold and it goes to the bones. After all the muscles are cold, it can be dangerous just go on stage and jump on the pole without warming up. I understand the necessity of the air conditioner when it’s busy. I don’t want to work in a sauna either. But when we have only 2 customers? And the management doesn’t want to understand that (of course, they wear proper clothes!) Again in Brussels, I had to take a girl to the hospital with some serious kidney infection because we were sitting under the cold air. I don’t feel good about myself. But it was so useless to tell them we were cold. In some clubs, the manager doesn’t even pick up the phone because I don’t have a local sim card. In Norway, I just wanted to ask for a day off but nobody answered my messages. I had to call my agent who called them and finally they give it to me. But what if it is an emergency? I get lost in the morning on my way back home or worst, I have an accident? Who is there to call?? He didn’t pick up or answer my message because I sent him a text from my English number. (They work with international girls, they knew I live in England and I wrote my name in the text so it doesn’t really make sense to me. I was wondering how many Lindsay does work in their club?) And sometimes even the apartment is cold. Like in Luxembourg, I was lucky that one girl left me an electronic heater because the windows were not properly closed at wintertime.

And I also have to mention one thing: why a dancer carries a small towel or a scarf with herself. Like me, I have sensitive skin and I don’t want to sit anywhere. They don’t clean the seats properly and sometimes better not to think about what was on it previously. In other places, like it was in Canada, the club gave us a small scarf to put on the customer’s lap before we start to dance. First I didn’t understand but on my first night when I saw some guys coming from a construction site to a strip club, I immediately started to use. And it’s good protection for infections. Seriously that club was disgusting, sometimes I took a customer to the private and first I had to look around not to sit him on used condoms. (I will tell in another post what was all about.) But there it would be very easy to catch something.

Well, yes, our life is not only full of glitters and shines.

When I’m ashamed being Hungarian

I said enough bad things about women with other nationality, it’s time to write about my own nation’s girls. Just because I got fired from the Brussels club because of them. I’m fully aware it can not be a stereotype because in every nation you can find horrible or extremely nice girls, but this club in Brussels have the selection of the most vulgar, terrible (Hungarian) dancers I’ve ever worked with! If I said anything bad about Romanians or Russians in this blog, they were innocent angels compare to them. Literally, I got shocked by the way they behaved. For sure there are certain situations when I’m not proud to be Hungarian.

But let’s start at the beginning. When I arrived, it was OK, the girls were nice, the apartment was not crowded. But those girls already complained that when they arrived it was such a mess and they had to clean everything. One of them even told me she can’t imagine what kind of girls were there before them, who left the apartment so dirty. They collected maybe 6 or 7 bags of rubbish from a 3 bedroom flat. I saw it with my own eyes. One week later I was lucky(?) enough to find out.

The 3 girls arrived. The typical dancers that you see on the street and you know exactly what is their job. The common Hungarian swear “bazd meg” is a lullaby from their mouth. The “gecis fasz” was their every second word. (If you’d like to know what does it mean, use Google, I won’t translate it here.) And there was a huge difference in the work style as well if we can call it to work what they do. They had just a big party, no rules, no responsibilities. They got drunk, made a lesbian show on stage, all for free. That’s still OK. But one of them was drinking the pure vodka from the bottle in the changing room, then a customer bought her one (only one!) bottle of champagne, and she got so drunk and fell from the stage. Customers could do anything with her, she was even kissing with anybody on the floor. She was so drunk that fell asleep on a customer’s shoulder. Another night she went to the toilet and the customer followed her. I don’t want to know what she’s offering in private but it must be a good reason why she was popular amongst the customers. I heard myself when she told her friend “You will hate me now but I did more in the private.” And that was a rumour that one friend of the boss had sex with her upstairs. I won’t be surprised if it’s not only a rumour.. (or not only one friend)

The other one was even drunker. When they got home she was vomiting under the kitchen table and the top of that she peed herself. Such a classy woman! She just told us the previous day that she’s a princess of the club! And the next day at 11am she was drinking again. Not to mention the drugs they take, I swear some of the Hungarian girls could have a job in any pharmacy because they exactly know what to take to feel better. And the boss prefers these girls over the “normal ones”, he fired 3 of us on the same week. Because we don’t work well. I have nothing to be sad about, if it’s a required behaviour in this club, I don’t want to work there either. And if it’s good for him getting angry every morning because there is a fight between the girls or they are so loud and he can’t concentrate on the payments, he deserves it. I don’t feel sorry for him. But I have a feeling that his girlfriend (the manager) stands behind all who can’t stand the girls who have some class. Obviously, those vulgar girls never will be a competition for her and she wants to keep her status quo in the club by getting rid of the well-behaved ones. But this is only my opinion. I just find it strange that they said I don’t work well when I made pretty much the same amount of money with clean work than those crazy ones. And I never made any trouble to them.

But for me, the most shocking was when the boss hired 3 cleaners to clean the apartment. He brought them and he couldn’t even look into my eyes when I opened the door for them. (I was already fired but could stay in the apartment 2 more days, whatever.) Later one of the cleaners said something to the girls about why they can’t clean up after themselves and one of them wanted to beat her with some wooden stick she found in the living room. She was complaining to me when she came to my room to clean. The poor woman has to clean up all the disgusting mess of what they made and she almost was beaten! Seriously, where the hell did the agency find those girls???

Greetings from Belgium!

Although the whole trip didn’t start in a smooth way (just as none of them lately) now I find everything fine here. I’ve worked in Belgium before, both Antwerp and Brussels so I’m a bit familiar with the country, I don’t feel a total stranger here.

Why did I say it was not a smooth start then? I work the first time with this agency. He’s Hungarian. I don’t like to work with Hungarians as they seem to overcomplicate everything. This one drove me crazy asking my Hungarian tax number and he just stuck to his point, he didn’t want to understand I have no longer tax number or official address in Hungary. But finally, after a short battle, he accepted my English tax number pff…! But it was not all. One day before my flight I still didn’t know where I’m going. He didn’t send me the address. I like to organise everything before the trip, so these last-minute actions really can make me insecure. I almost had to beg him to give me the address just to know where to go from the airport. He’s not an easy peasy case. In his last message, he wrote to me to call him when I’ve arrived at the address. Phone number or something??! Nopp. I asked him to send me his number in a text message (he knows my number) because I’m not sure if I have access to the Internet. You’re right, he sent it to me on Facebook and of course, as I told him, I didn’t have Internet. I was sitting outside a pub, I didn’t know his phone number, not a number of any girls in the apartment to call “Please open the door for me!” I didn’t know the correct address (there are a few apartments under the same address) not even what’s on the doorbell. I can not ask any women on the street that “Don’t you dance in the City Club by any chance?” They would be easily offended. Some agency just really don’t deserve the money they got after the girls because they don’t care. More than 2 hours waiting outside (at least it was not raining and Belgium has good beers) he called one of the girls to check if I’m there and let me in. Seriously??

The apartment is OK, not the cleanest but it’s quite new, and the other girls are nice. And it’s only 4 of us in the apartment. That’s heaven on earth after the experience in Oslo!

The club is also good. Although on my second night there were only 5 customers (and 2 of them were women) and the friend of the DJ and we had to dance all night from 11 pm to 6 am. Don’t ask me what for when nobody paid anything, not even attention to us. After that night I didn’t feel my legs, I had pain everywhere in my body. Please don’t ask me if I go to the gym.. that was enough training for one day! But the system is fair. I have €35 fix salary per day, but every night the club offers €70 guarantee if I make less. It means I have the minimum the €70 per day. But in a week it happened only once (luckily) I always make more than that. I get €8 from a glass of champagne, €44 from a bottle and €25 from a private dance. (I really don’t like to talk about how much I made the previous night and I especially hate it when other dancers asking me. It’s only my business. Here I just want to let you know to have some idea.) Oh and about the tips: how nice, the agency said it’s all for us, at work I find out I only can keep the 60%. Whatever…

The funny thing here that the whole place is a discotheque indeed. Big, empty, dark room with a small stage in the middle. No atmosphere, no decoration, no intimacy – only a few candles around. On the weekend when the discotheque is open, we work on the 2nd floor in the club’s VIP area, which is much nicer. From there you can see all those drunk, hardcore party people on the dancefloor. We look at them, they look at us. It felt we are in some kind of ZOO! But after customers started to come up and we worked all night. Saturday was a perfect night, not much customers, mainly the friends of the boss. We, 5 girls, were sitting at our table and the bottles of champagne are started to arrive at us. That was more of a big party than literally work. We were sitting, chatting, drinking (I mean pouring the champagne back to the ice bucket very eagerly) and laughing all night. That’s really the easy part of my job! No bulls**** from customers, no hard deals, no pushing. Just fun and the money still comes to us. No hangover, no headache next day, Sunday is off. Perfect!