paris Archives - HeartBrokenStilettos

Dealing with rejection

In our job, every stripper knows (indeed every sales person knows) that NO doesn’t mean to reject you, only the product or the service you offer. But in practice it’s difficult to deal with. 1 NO is okay, 2 NO is okay, 3-4 and you start to feel down, 5-6 or more and you end up sitting in the corner questioning yourself “What’s wrong with me?” or worst, crying in the toilette or in the changing room. Here in Paris, I’ve seen it a lot. Beautiful girls wondering “What’s wrong tonight? Nobody wants me..” I don’t want to repeat myself but French customers (or even foreigners) here can give a really hard time for the girls being ridiculously rude and ignorant.

It happened last night that I found one of the prettiest girl, who has a 100 carats smile on stage when she’s dancing, in a changing room crying. Because she felt useless in the club. Because she didn’t make money. (But it never about only the money.) I just went to her and gave her a hug. We are all far from our family, from our friends, the customers are assholes, the girls are bitches, all we need sometimes some emotional support that we are not alone. Fuck all the practical advice that “you have to leave your emotions at the front door when you come to work, you have to be like a robot etc.” We all know that. (Although I don’t want to be a robot, I would rather cry in the changing room but still happy that I have feelings.) She didn’t need to hear that again and again, her brain already knows that. She just needed a hug. (I hope, dear men you listen very well!!!) I hugged her. Because I know the feeling, I have been in the same situation not only once and I got a hug from another girl. I would just encourage the other dancers if they see a colleague crying, give her a few encouraging words and a big hug (and some tissues) It can make a huge difference! This girl after was smiling again and she could make her money. And she was telling me “Oh you are so nice!” Not because I’m nice. Because I do CARE!

This job is purely about luck. Sometimes I feel good, I feel sexy, smiling and still can’t make money. That’s it. It’s not my day. I had Friday nights in a full club where everyone made money, I was sitting on the sofa all night. Every single guy I tried to talk to, said NO to me. Some days like that. A few idiots came to me saying “you are the hottest girl in the room, why are you sitting here alone?”Because I want to be alone right now, when everyone else is drunk and I’m the only sober person in the whole club, you want me to entertain you? Why didn’t come to me at the beginning of the night when I was in the mood for drinking??? Now I need lots of alcohol in a short time to get to your level and we’re closing soon, so no, thank you. I’d rather sit here alone and watch how you guys get wasted and hilariously stupid. I swear, it’s better than a cinema!

It’s strange but I also noticed that in a few days before and during my period I don’t work well. I don’t know why. One idiot gave me the most logical answer: “maybe your pussy smells!” Hahaha. I thought I’d just gonna slap him. In the XXI. century with all those intim hygienical tissues, creams and shower gels it’s not a case. It’s more likely to be linked to my emotional level and my body gives out the signals. At this time I can’t take any rejection seriously. I’m prepared for that.

Another day I’m just lucky. It happened before that 2 am everyone was drunk and having fun and I didn’t make a penny. I already gave up on that night. I was sitting at the edge of the bar waiting to go home. Suddenly a guy arrived and he came straight to me. “Hello, I’m Pierre. Would you like some champagne?” Oh yes, please! Bring it to me! Without asking me he ordered an expensive bottle. He was absolutely nice, easy-going, chilled out guy and we had a great time. I had maybe 4 dances with him. Then he saw a girl that he knew for before so I invited that girl to our table. We had 1 or 2 more bottles of champagne and we ended up having 18 dances each! That was a good night for me although it didn’t seem to happen at the beginning.

And I have a book recommendation at the end: FUCK IT: The Ultimate Spiritual Way by John. C. Parkin. It’s a very good book about how to deal with situations in our life simply just say fuck it to the problems and let them go. It’s a must-read!

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!

When airports give you extra excitement

Yesterday I arrived in Paris. I passed the passport control, just needed to get my suitcase and let’s go to work. Bags are coming. You know the strange feeling when there are less and fewer bags on the conveyor belt but you’re still waiting for yours. Waiting… and waiting. Meanwhile, I had lots of thing in my head. I think you realise you travel a lot when you have more problems at the airports with missing bags, delayed or cancelled flights. Well, this year I had enough.

Some of it was my mistake. Just like when I went to Iceland. I planned everything just like the first time I travelled there, called a taxi, Gatwick Express etc.. I was perfectly on time at Gatwick but I didn’t see my flight be shown on the board. I was still not aware of the situation. I even went to complain to the desk and the lady told me “Don’t worry, the check-in will be open soon.” OK, I thought I check my emails until so I wanted to connect to the airport Wifi. I don’t remember so well, but I think it asked my flight number for the Internet or something that again I didn’t find on the list. that’s strange! And in a minute I realised that s***, I’m in perfect time but at the wrong airport!!! My flight is from Heathrow! That’s happening when you do everything from routine. First time I had the flight from Gatwick indeed and now I didn’t even think or check everything properly. I was laughing at myself badly! I don’t know how I could manage to get to Heathrow but I was there before the flight took off. (If you know the distance between the 2 airports and the traffic in London you know, if not, trust me, that was a miracle.) And if I wouldn’t have had the suitcase that needs to be checked in, they could just let me go through the gates. The security guy apologised a hundred times, but I couldn’t be angry because it was my stupidity. I just smiled at him and booked a new ticket for the next day.

I was not so lucky leaving Japan either. I changed the date of my return flight once online, they charged me extra for that, and then I quit from the club so I needed to change it again. I called the BA, the lady was very helpful and explained to me that they would charge me again for the changing plus I have to pay the difference between the price of the flights. OK, this is the price of the service. But then I checked the tickets, and the one-way return ticket from Tokyo to London cost 1000£ more than I paid for the original ticket! No way, I chose to buy a new ticket with another airline and cancelled this booking. I wrote an email to claim for the refund. I got an answer weeks later: BA was lovely to give me a refund of 40 pence! For a second I thought it’s a kinda joke but they were serious and send it to my bank account. I think the whole bank transaction cost more than that 40pence… Again, I was just laughing at them.

Some other situation was not so funny. Once I flew back to London from Geneva and we had to land in Paris for a technical reason. We were waiting on the plane while technicians came and checked the doors and the vacuum in the aircraft. Hours later the pilot was apologising that we couldn’t take off, but they couldn’t fix the problem and didn’t want to take a risk as “We flew with a half-broken flight to Paris..” But they give us food and hotel rooms for a night. Lots of people got angry because they missed the flight connection but I felt quite happy that they didn’t want to take this kind of risk.

But the most unforgettable story was in Belgium. My friend and I finished the work on the 23rd of December and we wanted to get home for Christmas. On the way to the airport started snowing. We thought it’s gonna be OK as flights take off in the snow, so no problem. But it became heavy snow and the road was slippery, the driver couldn’t go fast. The timing was already very bad and we were sitting in the car intense, none of us wanted to miss that flight. I think we arrived at the airport at the very last minute. We were running to the check-in but what a surprise! It was still a huge queue before us. The airline company couldn’t decide if the plane takes off or not but they let us checking-in and wait on the plane. We were waiting there for hours still hoping that we go home on that day. Suddenly my friend poked my shoulder “Look!” We saw from the window that people were getting off from the plane next to us. That was not a good sign! Shortly after the pilot told us the get off too. There was no plane from that airport that night, all flight were cancelled. (If you remember that was a few years back when the same happened in Paris and lots of flight were cancelled and airports were closed because of heavy snow in Europe.) We stuck at the airport. It was cold, no food, and we didn’t sleep all night. They actually closed the whole airport for the night, only one pub decided to stay open and serve the people at least with alcohol to keep us warm and later the Red Cross came to give us hot tea and coffees. That was not the night I cry for in my life. But sure I will never forget. Since then if someone sings the White Christmas, this is the first thing that comes to my mind.

There were just so many people and there were not enough replacement buses or places in hotels nearby. We put on all our warm clothes and waiting for the snow to stop. That was almost in the morning when we got a crazy taxi driver who drove us in the snowfall through Bruxelles. We decided to try the International airport. Charleroi is a smaller airport, we thought if there are flights in the morning they must be from the International airport as they start to clean the bigger airports first. We were right and at least they had the Starbuck’s open! But we needed to book new tickets and the queue was already huge in front of the ticket office before opening. When we finally got to the desk, we didn’t think when the lady told us the price. We just paid. This story has a happy ending as we both were at the Christmas dinner with our family in that year. Luckily.

Just as my story today. My luggage finally arrived. They said it was some mistakes, they couldn’t find them (as I was not the only one with missing bags). So a bit later, but arrived. Now I’m sitting in the apartment with all my stuff with me. (I don’t know what to do if they say by mistake my luggage with all the stripper costumes landed let’s say somewhere in Chicago.) But now I’m relaxed. In the end, everything goes well.

So if you are about to travel anywhere in the World: I wish you a safe trip!