Confessions of a Lapdancer

‘You will be pleased to hear that we have progressed since those dark days. Now we have much more upmarket clubs that are professionally run, you will be called a pole dancer or a lap dancer and you will pay the club rent for the privilege of wiggling your ass. But the customers will be businessmen, guys on stag nights and, if you’re lucky, celebrities, who will hopefully give you generous tips.

‘If any of you survive this first session, I’ll go into more detail about the various club rules. You’d better leave now if you have a problem about taking off all your clothes in public. If you’re squeamish about men seeing your clit, then this is not the job for you.’

The sound of nervous laughter echoed around the room, and I felt my heart beat a bit faster as I realised what I was getting into, but I – like everyone else – stayed put.

‘Good, that’s the spirit, ladies,’ said Jackie, smiling for the first time. ‘Now, before we start moving, I’d like you all to introduce yourself to the group – your name, where you’re from, and why you want to work at the Pearl.’

‘You with the long dark hair, please start,’ she said, pointing at the olive-skinned girl opposite me.

‘Um, hello everybody, my name is Gabi and I’m from Brazil,’ she said in a lilting accent. ‘Back home I loved to dance the samba so I have good rhythm. I want to work at Pearl to earn money to pay for my study. I learn English and study law.’

‘OK, thanks, Gabi – I’ll be tapping you up for free legal advice,’ laughed Jackie. ‘Next, please.’

‘Good afternoon. My name is Irena and I am from Poland.’

‘Speak up,’ said Jackie. ‘There’s no room for shyness in this business. Be loud and proud.’

‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Irena, notching the volume up. ‘Sorry, Poland. I want work at Pearl to pay my bills and also send money home to my parents. I also love to dance.’

‘Thank you, Irena, no need to apologise,’ said Jackie. ‘But you need to toughen up. OK, next please.’

A long-limbed black girl with a great-looking Afro stepped up to the plate. ‘Hi everybody, my name is Makani. My family is originally from Ghana but I was born in London. I want to dance at the Pearl in the evenings so that I can spend my days painting.’

‘Thanks, Makani, good luck. Let’s move on … OK, you with the spiky black hair,’ said Jackie, pointing at me. ‘What’s your story?’

I had to think on my feet; there was no way I could tell the truth.

‘Hi guys, I’m Geri,’ I said. ‘I’m from Surrey. I work as a temp secretary in the City but the pay’s not great. I want to work at the Pearl so I can buy some Jimmy Choos!’

That broke the ice a little and everyone laughed, except Jackie.

‘Well, Geri, I hope you’re not the kind of girl who’s a slave to her credit card. What makes you want to be a lap dancer?’

‘I’m reasonably fit and I’ve been told I’m a sexy mover,’ I answered. ‘So I thought I’d try my hand at lap dancing because it beats working behind a bar.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Jackie, but I could see my joke hadn’t gone down well with her.

The other girls said their piece and Jackie moved to the CD player and put on some relaxing music.

‘OK ladies, listen up. Welcome to Jackie’s Boot Camp. You don’t do the talking here, you do the listening. If you screw around I won’t ask you to drop and give me twenty, I’ll just get some friends of mine to very politely escort you from the building. When I’m here, you take your orders from me. If I say “any questions” then you can ask questions, otherwise shut up and listen. If you need to pee do it in your own time.

‘Now before we begin, everyone is always curious to know how we get into a business like this. Well, you’ve told me a little of your stories so I’ll tell you a little of mine.’

Chapter Six

JACKIE’S STORY

I’ve always wanted to dance. When I was a girl I dreamed of being a ballerina. And yeah, yeah I’m sure you all dreamed that. But I was good. I auditioned at 15 and won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet. Surprised? Well don’t be. There’s more. My mother didn’t want me to be a ballet dancer, she didn’t think there was money in it. She wanted me to be a hairdresser. So I ran away from home when I was 16.

I studied at Barons Court for a year or so. The course was tough, but I could handle it. The reasons I left … well. Let’s just say it involved a well-hung ballet teacher called Guy, a bottle of gin and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Guy and I woke up naked on a mat on the floor of studio two surrounded by twelve teenage ballerinas and a furious Madame. The teacher was fired and I was asked to not come back after the summer break.

I was gutted of course. But I had more immediate concerns than losing the love of my life. I had nowhere to live for a start. I couldn’t go home. Mum wouldn’t return my calls. I had no idea where my brothers were. My father was long gone and all my grandparents were either dead or senile. I was 17 and faced with a life of poverty and despair. Then I remembered my Aunty Linda. The only woman in our family who wouldn’t judge me. She was a black sheep herself, you see. Aunty Linda ran a lapdancing club in Whitechapel.

Suffice to say my Aunty Linda made a better mum than my real one ever did. I came out the other end still alive but it could have been a lot worse. Plenty of homeless girls end up on the streets as hookers, thieves or both. I was still determined to make it as a dancer. I knew I had the talent, and I was young. I just needed a place to put down some roots while I sorted out my life.

When I was reasonably straight in the head Linda put me to work behind the bar, mixing drinks, keeping an eye on things. I took tips from the punters but wasn’t allowed to dance. Aunty Linda wouldn’t let me. I was desperate to do it though. I wanted to keep in practice for a start. Dancing takes a lot of strength and the best way to keep your muscles trim is to dance. It’s not a coincidence that pole dancing has been taken over by the fitness clubs these days, though back then respectable women wouldn’t be seen dead near a pole.

I’ve never been respectable and don’t want to start. I didn’t mind taking my clothes off. In Auntie Linda’s the girls stripped down to nothing on stage and in the private rooms – Lord knows what else they got up to in there, but officially they weren’t supposed to fuck the punters. I was proud of my body. There’s not that much between a sheer pair of tights and a snatch open to the elements. I’d watch the other girls dance. Twisting, spinning, sliding up and down. Wrapping their beautiful bodies around the golden poles. I saw the boozy lads, or the quiet single men tucking notes into the g-strings or between a couple of pressed-together tits. I wanted it all.

I liked it there. I lived in a little flat above the club with one of the girls, a shy type called Melinda, or Marinda – I could never remember – and she was hardly ever there to talk to. I would sleep late, then make myself a coffee and look out the windows across the sea of chimney-pots and TV aerials that made up the East End skyline. I liked it behind the bar too. It felt safe. I was cut off from the action, the fights and the slaps when the punters got too fresh. I was immune from the drunken brawls that occasionally broke out. I watched it all, soaked it up, took it all in. I felt at home.

Linda didn’t own the place, that was some shady guy called Col who we hardly ever saw. He had ‘interests’ all over London so left the day-to-day running to Linda.

The clients we had were a mixed bunch. This was the East End and there were office blocks nearby but we weren’t close enough to the City to attract the really high rollers, though that was just as well for me. We all know how lairy they can get around bonus time. We got a lot of stag-dos, market vendors and even a few students from the college up the road. But the group I saw the most was Fat Desmond’s crew, a gang of middling-violent gangsters. They were apparently ‘associates’ of Col’s, which is why they were basically allowed free run of the place. They paid up, usually, but refused to tip, and often tried to cheat the girls. Linda had had to pay them out of her own pocket from time to time when they were left short by some crooked-nosed gangster.

Fat Desmond took a shine to me soon after I started working there and he was forever pestering Linda to let me dance for him. For once I was grateful for her refusals. I didn’t want to dance for that fat slug. ‘Her mother’d never forgive me,’ she’d say. I shrugged at Desmond’s raised eyebrows.

Now Desmond wasn’t the only one of these gangsters who tried to make eye contact with me. There was another guy, Tony. He was good-looking, though a real rough diamond. He was the sort who’d terrify you half to death just by asking for a drink, then he’d smile, walk off and you’d find he’d left you wetter than the Little Mermaid.

Fat Desmond was in charge of this crew, but I could see Tony was hungry for power, and maybe for me too. I found him intriguing and exciting. I began to look forward to the gangsters’ visits and found myself hoping Tony would make his move soon.

My friends were the dancers, I learnt a lot from observing and talking to them. I learnt about pole dancing and lap dancing of course, but more importantly I learnt about people, and how to make money from them. How to spot the difference between a mark, who you could fleece, and a customer that you should look after so he’d come back. My best friend was named Jen, though her stage name was Alicia. She was a beautiful African girl, with a lovely round bottom and a heavy lower lip that men never failed to try and kiss, only to have her turn her head away as they lunged.

I watched her, entranced, as she languidly swayed around the pole. Jen hardly seemed to do anything, but every angle, every pose, showed her assets off to their best advantage. Though undoubtedly attractive, she was far from the best-looking girl in the club, but she regularly pulled in more money than the others, however blonde and thin they were. She did it by picking her punters carefully and working them until they gave everything they were prepared to give, then leaving them wanting more, so they’d ask the bouncer on the way out when Alicia would be dancing again. Sometimes when watching her, I’d yearn to be up there, with her. I wanted to be her.

One night she showed me part of the magic that enabled her to extract so much money from the punters. She’d been entangled with a group of noisy suits all night. They’d been trying to get her to let them touch her and she’d been trying to get them individually into the back room where the real money was made. They were upping the stakes. ‘I’ll go into the room if you kiss my mate’s knob in front of everyone. I’ll pay you £25 if you let me touch your pussy.’ They were determined not to go back there, aiming to keep it all public, probably to cash in on some bet.

I was keeping half an eye on this as I stacked the dishwasher and eventually saw Jen look over at me and say something I couldn’t hear. The boys looked over at me, interested, and I wondered with trepidation what she was suggesting. Then she walked over to me. She leaned across the bar and whispered, ‘They think you’re my girlfriend. Would you mind playing along? I’ll give you a quarter of the tip I get.’

I nodded dumbly, thinking I should probably have asked for more, but too keen to see what she had in mind. Then she leaned further over the bar, grabbed hold of my top and pulled me over to her. Then we were kissing. That soft, inviting lower lip mashed into mine and I felt her tongue slip softly into my open mouth. The boys erupted into cheers and I felt Jen, no Alicia’s, hand inside my top, fondling my right breast.

Then she pulled away, but kept her huge brown eyes locked on mine for a few moments, a look of hunger on her face. She licked her teeth and walked back to the boys. She made a lot of tips that night and duly gave me a quarter of what she’d got from the suits.

What I’m saying, ladies, is in this business, you’ve got to roll with what comes your way. There’s no room for prudishness here.

I found out more about the gang as time went on, including the fact that Fat Desmond was under suspicion of murder. Apparently his brother Mike had been found floating face-down in a canal. ‘This ain’t EastEnders,’ Linda had said, ‘and Mike’s not ever coming back to Walford Square.’

‘Why do the police think Desmond killed him?’ I asked.

‘Because he’s as good as admitted it. They had a row over some bird and Des swore he’d kill him. Heard by a dozen punters in The Fox two weeks ago. Plenty of grasses around all too happy to put Fat Desmond away,’ Linda replied. ‘Too cocky for his own good, that Desmond, won’t be long before someone knocks him off his perch. He won’t go to jail though I reckon, he’ll end up in the canal next to his brother.’

As she said this, I was watching Tony across the room. He was looking back at me. He smiled and winked, sending a thrill, or possibly a chill, down my spine.

One night it came to a head. The gangsters showed up late, just as we were about to close. It had been a long night and we’d had some trouble with a group of businessmen. One of the bouncers had a split lip from the fight that followed and was in a foul mood. The other one had already gone home. Desmond’s crew came barging in, four of them, loud, half-drunk and triumphant. There had been some job go down that day and by the looks of it, they’d come away with whatever it was they were after and were in the mood to celebrate.

The bouncer tried to stop them and ended up on the floor, curled up and gasping for breath. He’d had a rotten night, I thought. As the gang made their way to their favourite table, Linda shrugged and asked a few of the girls to stay on, telling them they could waive their club fees for that night if they did.

I made my way over to the bouncer. Everyone called him Dublin, on account of his accent. God knows what his story was, he never told us anything about his background, but he’d certainly learned to fight somewhere, and the scars on his face showed it. He was a lovely bloke though, if you ignored the vicious beatings he gave to out-of-order punters from time to time. He loved the girls like an uncle and would do anything for them. I brought him a stiff drink and helped him back on to his feet. It always paid to keep the bouncer sweet.