It’s difficult to make out much – after the bright daylight the place looks absolutely pitch-black. All I see is a small group of girls sitting silently on the curved sofa; two men accompanied by sexily dressed girls at the bar, a few steps away from each other; and one sleepy barman. The cigarette smoke and slow, quiet music make them look like a bunch of zombies.
My sisters come back with the keys, and news that there is only one room available with two beds; the others are half-occupied.
It’s a real sweat to push the luggage up the narrow, steep stairs, all the way to the fourth floor. The second contains the private rooms, and the third and fourth are the girls’ accommodation. As we reach the top, a door on the left flies open. A woman stands at the threshold with a glass of wine in her hand.
‘Oh, look who’s here! Natalia and her daydreaming sister! Welcome back,’ she exclaims in a hoarse and bumbling voice. Then she points at me, discourteously: ‘And what is it that you have dragged in with you this time?’
Natalia haplessly sighs, and then greets the woman without even looking at her. ‘Hey, Masha.’
She is in her thirties, almost two meters tall, with a strong but beautiful face. Despite the time of the day, Masha is already quite intoxicated. She’s wearing a knee-length, pink, slightly wrinkled kimono-like robe, which exposes her athletic legs.
Something tells me Masha used to play basketball… a lot.
Natalia turns to Lena and says quietly, ‘You and Jul stay in this room; I will have to share with this one,’ and nods towards Masha.
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ The ball hawk struggles to pronounce the words. ‘I don’t want you in my room!’ She punches the air with the glass of wine and spills some on the decayed linoleum. ‘You are crazy with your early jogging! You will wake me up every goddamn morning! I would rather stay with the puny one!’ She punches again, this time towards me, and spills more wine.
‘What the fuck!’ Lena sweeps in. ‘She is drunk, Natalia, there’s going to be a row.’
I peek into the room, behind Masha’s back, who props one side of the doorway up with her shoulder and the other one with her hand. I spot the line of blow on the coffee table, as well as a small plastic bag of grass and an open bottle of wine. ‘Why not?’ goes through my head, and I say, ‘Don’t worry, girls, I can stay here. Besides, I do like sleeping late and will be only across the hall from you.’ I squeeze in, without even stooping, under Masha’s arm. God, she is a big woman! I smile to myself, but say only, ‘By the way, my name is Julia’.
Masha closes the door, lurches towards the table, drops herself on the couch, temptingly sniffs the line and fills me in: ‘My name is Masha, and by the way, I am transsexual.’
8
It has been three weeks since we arrived in Luxembourg and two days since my unforgettable helmet story.
I definitely feel less and less nervous as time goes by, but I am still dealing with some issues – like my childish fear of approaching and talking to strangers; the rejection phobia that is, I think, a common drawback for salespeople of any kind; and taking clients upstairs. After the incident with Lena’s Serega I think I will always expect the worst and feel more vulnerable than most. The easiest of the things I had to get used to was taking my clothes off on the stage in front of people.
Who would have thought? Ha!
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to handle my new life without the help of alcohol and drugs.
Even though Natalia annoys me by skinning me alive for my regular and heavy consumption, I can never say no to my giant roommate.
Masha has turned out to be a fun girl, as long as she doesn’t drink or dope. The booze changes her pretty eyes to mad and inflamed, her muscular but graceful body to rugged and impulsive. As soon as she hits it up, she starts to hate all the girls around her. Yes, she changed her sex, but still doesn’t feel complete: unlike the women, she will never be able to reproduce. I guess because my body looks more like it belongs to a ten-year-old boy, jumbo never really disliked me. On the contrary, I am her best buddy now; she shares generously with me.
Masha’s hostility is just for appearances. She is mostly harmless. Nevertheless, the girls and many customers try to stay away from her. Once I even witnessed how she staggered, drunk, to a lonely guest who was standing by the bar. The guy was short, with an obedient look; he was sipping an appletini and shuffling on his feet from time to time while wiping the sweat off his bald head. She leaned over him, her dark shadow covering the counter. When he raised his eyes and met with her bull stare, Masha moved closer and slowly whispered ‘Heeellooo’ in her low voice. The misfit got such a fright that, standing right there, he peed in his pants and ran out of the club, embarrassed…
Shame…!
It is a slow night in the middle of the working week. There is a pair of drunk Portuguese men at the bar. While they are having a drink, another two girls leave with nothing, as the next two draw near to try their luck and convince the men to spend some money on champagne. Natalia and I had our turn earlier and all we could get from them was that in Lisbon they could shag all night for only €50.
You can’t beat that, with a minimum here of €250 for an hour.
There are also a few regulars in the club. One goes upstairs straight away with his favourite girl. Another one comes once a week to see Lena. He buys only demi-bouteilles, and always tells her that she is a special girl, that he respects her as a woman and will never treat her like a whore by taking her upstairs. In the meantime, the restless hands of this stingy fucker knead and squeeze every spot of her body, while his tongue is constantly deep in her throat, so she can rarely even take a sip from her glass.
The night is quiet and boring, until Natalia’s legendary customer, Peter, arrives. As soon as he steps into the club, the barmen and all the girls light up. The next minute, even the boss and manager are on the floor, dancing the welcome-to-the-best-client-in-the-world dance around him.
It’s simple. Peter spends so much money in one night that at his request the boss closes the club for the whole night and all girls entertain only him. The champagne flows without limits. In exchange, he asks for no intimacy of any kind, only participation in his weird fantasy.
Usually, it is a picnic date with Natalia in an imaginary park. Tonight, he wants it to be a rainy summer day. She is his perfect girlfriend and the rest of the girls act like bees, squirrels, flowers or trees. We wear absolutely nothing but some accessories: feelers on springs, plastic animal dominoes, fake flowering twigs.
Even Natalia doesn’t know if this is Peter’s rolling caprice, or if the guy is totally demented. Who cares, if it’s a quick buck and great fun?
When the crazy night is over, at about five in the morning we all end up upstairs in the communal kitchen. We’re completely wasted and jolly. The kitchen is fairly clean but well-worn and cluttered, with mostly plastic or aluminum utensils and dishware. We make tea and sandwiches and interrupt one another’s yakety-yak, going through the highlights of the night and the other incredible stories and myths about our work.
‘I can’t believe how much I had to work to make this kind of money back home. I’m telling you, girls, at least three months for tonight’s earnings,’ one of the girls exclaims. We all nod with agreement, each one of us thinking about our own story.
‘Of course, these kinds of nights happen pretty seldom, and usually our activities are more disgusting and energy-consuming,’ Natalia jumps in. ‘Nevertheless, since I started doing this, I’ve actually stopped feeling as cheap and insecure as I did while I was doing a “proper” job…’