It didn’t take me long to decide – he was offering me what I was earning for a week’s work in the travel agent’s. So I agreed, and he paid me $200. I do remember being a little apprehensive that I was going to a hotel with a stranger and no one knew where I was, but I trusted my instinct that he was a nice guy. Besides, curiosity got the better of me.
I was at his hotel for about 15 minutes. Not bad, I thought, for 15 minutes of my time. I didn’t even touch or kiss him. The $200 went towards my hotel bill. It seemed so easy! I have always been very open about sex, and to me I couldn’t see anything wrong with what I had done.
After that I left the States and never saw David again, thank God! Shortly after we got back, Anna and I booked our flights to Belgium. I’d told my family I was going abroad to be a dancer
– I think I said I’d be doing ‘erotic dancing’. They weren’t happy about it, because they just wanted me to get a proper job, but there wasn’t a lot they could do.
Arriving at the little club in the red-light district of Antwerp, I was extremely nervous, but excited at the same time. I remember it was dimly lit, and there was a bar in the front, with a DJ behind. It looked very seedy. To attract customers, photos of the ladies adorned both the entrance and also a screen by the bar. Various porn magazines and videos were for sale, as well as a large selection of sex toys. A few gentlemen sat perched at the bar, chatting to the barmaid. Then there were all the doors in a circle, with their little windows, and money slots. A man was cleaning the floor with a mop and I realised after my first day at work that he was actually the spunk cleaner. Yuck!
We were taken into the back and introduced to the girls, who came from many different European countries. There was also a couple, who did a sex show on the hour, every hour. We then met the boss, Marc, who was originally from Amsterdam. Slightly chubby, he sported a huge cheeky grin and had short, bleached hair. There was something very sexy about him – when he smiled, his whole face lit up. My friend and I shared an adjoining room with two other ladies. The rooms and facilities were basic, but the accommodation was free so it was to be expected. There were no locks on our rooms, however, and nowhere to keep private or valuable things.
There were about six ladies at work at any one time, along with a couple; also various shifts, starting from 11a.m., with the club closing at 6a.m. for a few hours. Everyone sat in the ladies’ room, which was quite large, with comfy chairs, a bathroom and kitchen. Each lady was given a number and took turns to go on stage and perform. The rules were that you had to remove all your clothes and dance; the stage was a large, revolving, round bed with space around the side to walk around. You could touch yourself in an erotic manner, but you couldn’t touch the glass windows with the clients behind, and fingering yourself was also considered inappropriate. Each lady danced for three minutes at a time, on average every 15–20 minutes. The shifts were 12 hours long, with 1 hour for lunch. For this, the pay worked out at about £70 a day.
In between dances, ladies could nip out of the club. It wasn’t advisable, though, as they could miss out on getting to do a private show. If a client took a particular shine to a lady, he could request a private dance and this is where you could really make money. No extra cash was made from working the main stage, so it was in the ladies’ interests to put on a good show, and hopefully then get to do a private show to top up their income.
Private shows, I was informed, consisted of the lady sitting in a small room with a Perspex screen, which had a small gap in the middle. For most ladies, the private shows on offer were a striptease, pussy show, masturbation show or vibrator show. Prices for these averaged between £15 and £40. My friend was once asked to pee in a cup and put a straw in it, so her customer could drink it! For this, as it was more extreme, the girls advised her to charge £50, which he willingly paid. The prices were for three minutes – if the guy wanted you to stay for longer, he had to put more coins in, or the light would go out and his show would end.
There was a large roll of tissue on the ladies’ side, which was slid through the small gap for the gentlemen to clean up any mess.
It was time to begin work, and Anna and I decided to drink a few large vodkas to give us some Dutch courage. I wanted to see what the ladies did on the large, round revolving bed, so when they were called, one by one, I went down the steps to have a look so that I could see what was expected of me.
Generally, it looked quite easy, just sexy dancing and writhing to music. However, I found this quite difficult at first as the music was hard dance! Much to my amusement, my debut was to ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, I Want You in My Room’ by the Vengaboys! It’s hardly a song to dance to in a sensual manner.
It’s strange to hear all the coins in the slots in the booths surrounding the bed and to see the screens coming up, revealing the little faces behind them. There were about 20 booths around the bed in a circle and a guy would go into a booth to watch the show. When he put coins in, the screen would lift up and he’d be able to see the performance through the window. After a couple of minutes, the screen would go down – unless he put more money in, of course.
At first, I felt a bit self-conscious, but I soon became accustomed to it and enjoyed the attention. Some men just looked, others masturbated. I really hated to see them masturbate; at first I thought it was disgusting, but later on, when others didn’t, I’d start to wonder why they weren’t. Was I not sexy enough? Being involved in the sex trade – day in, day out – made me extremely horny, most of the time. I especially loved the weekends when the club was busy and often full of groups of young lads. It was always a bonus if they were young and good-looking. My confidence grew with the dancing and I was no longer insecure about how I looked.
Often we would get propositioned for sex, but I was earning good money so I didn’t feel the need to accept. I could make just as much money simply taking my clothes off and dancing. In a way, I thought doing the peepshow was better than lap dancing because it wasn’t so intimate; there was always a barrier between the men and us. Besides, I found it very erotic to have all those voyeurs.
We were in the red-light area, so the guys only had to go next door for a quickie for £40, and it never interested me to take things any further.
After I’d finished at the club, at about 2 or 3a.m., I loved to go to the strip clubs. In my favourite club, the girls would come out onto the bar to hard dance music, strip off their kit and dance round a pole. I was mesmerised and would, and still can, watch them for hours. Then the guys at the bar would lift up the ladies’ tops and squirt their breasts with cream. People would pay to lick it off, and I did this many a time!
Once, Anna and I met some English guys there, and because we were dressed in next to nothing (I had on knee-high platforms, tiny denim shorts and a tight pink top), we looked as if we should have been dancing ourselves. The men started paying to lick cream off my boobs, in the same way that they were doing to the ladies who worked there. I got quite a lot of tips! We were also allowed to go on the bar and dance round the pole. Eventually we were thrown out after complaints from the ladies that we were stealing their business, which was understandable, but it was great fun while it lasted.
In the end I guess I wasn’t really cut out for peepshow or dance work, because aside from being open-minded, I am also down-to-earth and friendly. In this business there are a lot of jealous ladies, and many have drug and alcohol problems. They saw me as competition – any attractive girl who started working there would be a target for their bitchiness.
It didn’t help that the boss took a shine to me, and we started going out discreetly. He was the only guy I slept with during my time in Belgium, as my promiscuity stopped when I was 20 and met James. I was now 23. When he was in the girls’ room, I would keep my distance. He wanted me to take days off, and long lunches to spend time with him, but I didn’t want to do that, so he’d take other girls out to lunch. Already, I was getting enough bitchiness from the girls. Anna and I drifted apart, and she wouldn
’t speak to me. She became bitchy, like some of the other girls, while I stayed the same old me.
I was sad to lose her friendship. To this day, I don’t really understand what happened. I was upset when she wouldn’t speak to me, but she never explained why, even when I questioned her. I wondered if she was jealous of my relationship with Marc, but I always had time for her and wanted to go out with her. We’d had some exciting adventures together and I really missed her friendship.
Sometimes Marc and I would stay away from the club, and he would take me to posh hotels and restaurants. We’d drink champagne, occasionally take cocaine, and visit nightclubs and strip clubs. He was such a funny guy. Every time we checked into a hotel, he would say ‘I am Marc,’ and as his surname was Schiffer, he would say, ‘…and this is my wife, Claudia.’ With his cheeky face, this always got a laugh and then he would say that he wanted the best room because we had just got married. He would look at me and say, ‘Only the best for my darling, eh?’ while giving me a beaming smile.
I have one memorable vision of him in a hotel room one evening. Naked, he was jumping up and down on the bed, squashing mosquitoes with a flip-flop. He looked at me with a really serious face, and said, ‘See what I do for you, darling? I kill for you!’ I couldn’t stop laughing – I don’t think he realised how funny he was.
I had various problems with my knees, which I knew was inevitable given my history of arthritis. Every couple of weeks, I was paying for a doctor to come out and inject me with steroids so I could go on dancing a bit longer. I had started to get pain in my other joints, and I knew my time as a dancer was coming to an end. Even though the girls could see how bad my knees were, they thought I was skiving off to spend more time with Marc. This was not the case, as I was there to earn money. I was growing tired of some of the bitchiness and competitiveness that went alongside the dance/peep show/glamour culture.
I spent a total of three months in Belgium before having to return home, much to the disappointment of my parents. I was unable to walk properly as the arthritis had spread rapidly to most of my other joints, and I spent most of the time lying on the couch because my knees were too painful and swollen to walk. Anna stayed out in Belgium, and as far as I know, she carried on with her dancing career and travelled the world.
I was miserable, and quickly became clinically depressed. This was my worst nightmare, as I was not able to have a social life; it was awful. To make matters worse, I had no support from my parents or siblings. They all thought I was exaggerating, and that I was bumming around and didn’t want to get a job. Since leaving college, I had never been out of work and the condition I was in, along with not having a job, became unbearable. I felt as though my whole family had deserted me when I needed them most. Even though there were five of us in the house, I have never been so lonely in my life. My sister, who I had been really close to (I had spent many hours advising her about boys and teaching her about sex) decided she wasn’t going to speak to me at all for a whole year, and to this day she has never been able to offer me an explanation as to why.
I threatened to report my specialist if he didn’t do something quickly. No one likes to be told at 24 ‘There’s nothing else I can do for you’, when they can’t walk, go out or get a job. I was promptly put on medication I had previously been discouraged from taking, and a date was booked in for me to have an arthroscopy, to see if there was any damage inside my knees. The medication worked, and within a few months I was raring to go. I also needed to decide on my next great plan to make myself rich – I had a bit of catching up to do!
Dancing was no longer an option, so when I saw an ad for escorts in the lads’ magazine Loaded, I decided to give it a go
– I had nothing to lose. It was the perfect time to try because I had no other commitments. I was very blasé and just thought I’d get an ad of my own set up and wait to see who called. As I was going to be working for myself, I knew I didn’t have to do anything unless I wanted to. There are not many businesses that you can set up and run yourself, where you don’t have to fork out a lot of money initially with no training or qualifications, and where there is such high earning potential. This convinced me that I should give it a go.
It was something I’d already considered when I was looking into the dancing, but as I said, like most people I previously thought it was just like prostitution. When I thought more about it, though, I realised that having been promiscuous I didn’t have an issue with having sex with people, and I was single so I didn’t have to consider anyone else’s feelings. I discussed the idea with friends and they weren’t shocked; no one asked me not to do it. Because my friends knew me well, it didn’t surprise them – they knew I had the balls to do it, and I think perhaps they were curious, too.
I promptly contacted a company called UK Escorts and was sent an information pack. I decided to go for it and used one of my old glamour photos for my ad, which was online within a few days. It was not an agency as such, because the guys paid the company to view escorts’ details, and they then provided them with personal numbers. I had to pay something like £8 a month to be listed, but any money I made would be mine.
By this point my parents were used to my antics. I am so ashamed now of some of the things I said to try and shock them in my teen years – it was very childish behaviour. Of course I didn’t think that at the time. In retrospect, I think I just wanted to know how far I could push them, and would they still love me unconditionally?
So when I decided to become an escort, I wasn’t about to hide it from my parents. I wasn’t nervous about telling them, as I’d told them far worse things in the past. When I told my Mum, she simply shook her head in disappointment and asked me to move out, which was fair enough, and what I had expected. I don’t think she was shocked, because for her it seemed a natural progression from the dancing. By this point, I think she despaired of me and my crazy behaviour – I think she really had no hope for me and finally accepted that, much to her sorrow, I was never going to be ‘normal’, like her three other children.
‘Bea wow X’ is the name I’m under in Harry’s phone. It’s quite sweet, really. I’ve named him ‘Harry’ as he bears a resemblance to Harry Potter, albeit a bald one, as he shaves his head. He wears glasses and has a young, boyish face. He’s single, and in his forties. I suppose he has a geeky look about him, but in a cute way. Often he wears really high -waisted smart cargo pants, with a shirt tucked in . He weighttrains, so in contrast to his cute, boyish face, he has a very manly, muscular, but not OTT body.
The first time I met him was in Rome for a two-night date. Considering he hadn’t seen an escort before (so many men lie about this, but he was definitely telling the truth… he really didn’t have a clue, and it read all over his face), I thought it very brave of him to book two nights. I have to say it’s a bit of a gamble, and I’m not sure that if I was a guy I’d take the risk of going away with an escort for a first date, just in case it turned into a total disaster. On top of that, the cost of the trip and my good self would have set him back a cool £4,000!
I have to confess I’m not the easiest of people to go away with, and for work I’m high maintenance. I can do low maintenance, honest, when it’s not for work – as I did when I went travelling to New Zealand and Australia for three months. I didn’t even take, or use, a hair dryer or make -up when I was away. However, I was funny about where I slept. Work or no work, I’m fussy about that, but it’s because I’m a ridiculously light sleeper. I’m not one of those people who can sleep anywhere, and I hate being woken up or disturbed, especially after a late or heavy night.
But for work everything has to be just so because, mentally, it’s the only way I can deal with my job. For work, if I am stopping overnight, only way I can deal with my job. For work, if I am stopping overnight, star. When I stay in a hotel, I like the room to be more comfortable than my bedroom at home otherwise I find it difficult to settle. I like a spacious room, and a massive, comfy bed (I’m too used to my 7-foot
er at home!), preferably with a large duvet and pillows. There’s nothing worse than having a tug o’ war during the night with a small, flimsy duvet. I like the room to be comfortable, not too cold or too warm, quiet and with working air con . Yes, I guess I have become rather fussy, but I just don’t want the guys I see for work to get a bad impression of me. I’m ratty and horrible if I haven’t had enough sleep, so the more comfortable I am, the better night’s sleep I’ll have, and they’ll get the best of me in the morning, too. Knowing this, there have been a number of occasions when I’ve avoided overnight dates, cutting them short to dinner dates and losing myself £200.
Well, the first time I met Harry in Rome I already knew the hotel was going to be a dive as I’d looked it up on the Internet, and to my dismay it was a humble 3-star. I wouldn’t refuse to go just because we weren’t going to stay in a 4-star hotel, so I thought I’d make the best of it. Harry reckoned there was a Jacuzzi in the room. It transpired there was a miniscule bathroom off our cramped bedroom, with its uncomfortable, hard bed; and in that bathroom (smaller than you’d get in any budget hotel) was a baby bath, seriously no more than a metre long, with a plastic badge saying ‘Jacuzzi’. There were no jets, and the only option was a low pressure shower which hung over it.
Despite the hotel, we had a wonderful couple of nights. He was great company and we saw a few of the tourist attractions, including the Spanish Steps and the Coliseum. We even went to the opera one night. It was fabulous!
Anyhow, back to the arrangements for our date last night… Since his choice of hotel was somewhat shocking in Rome, when Harry suggested a family-run , pub-style 3-star for our trip to Stratford upon Avon , I remembered a friend saying they’d stayed at Ettington Park Hotel and suggested we went there instead. It looked very luxurious, a few miles out of the town in rolling countryside. Fortunately he liked the idea and booked us a suite there for our stay. We also had tickets for The Merchant of Venice.
The Girlfriend Experience Page 5