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Glass Geishas by Susanna Quinn; My Review

Glass Geishas - what a fantastic title.
Geisha are of course the traditional Japanese entertainers, all thick black laquered hair, ivory skin and brightly coloured kimono's, that are a symbol of Japan - and Japanese beauty. But the Glass Geisha in the title are not the precise and careful beauties with many years of training pouring cups of tea.  The Glass Geisha are the wild and crazy hostesses who pour the whisky and keep the salarymen 'genki' (happy) whilst downing glasses full of spirits and mixers that they earn £3.50 comms each on.
How do I know?
Because I was a Roppongi girl once.
I went on dohans, got kickbacks from champagne bars, survived on a diet of booze, strong charcoal cigarettes, sushi and drugs supplied by the club's shadiest customers for a few months in Roppongi, Tokyo's infamous entertainment district.  Like so many other Western girls, we bought a one way ticket and worked through our tourist visa, six days a week, living in cramped accommodation that the locals dubbed 'Pussy Plaza'.
It was awful yet fantastic, but I wouldn't do it again, so I pushed the experience to the back of my mind, not wanting to relive memories which are at times painful and leave me disgusted by the life my naive young self fell into.
Forgotten - until Glass Geishas came along.

I loved reading this book.  The pages flowed like the drinks in the book - page after page just turning through my fingers.  I got it from the book launch, where I was lucky enough to meet the lovely author Susanna Quinn herself, and that was on a Thursday before I went to work at my club nearby.  I started Glass Geishas on my journey home at 5am, and was still reading it in bed as the sun came up.  The images of rain soaked narrow streets and neon lights were too much for me, so I poured myself a gin. And then another. And I laughed and cried and drank more gin until I passed out.
(I'm not recommending that you attempt to read it in this fashion, but it is fun.  Especially if you drink every time they say 'champagne', 'knocked back', 'little glasses of vodka tonic' etc.)
Now for the average reader - girls, you are going to love this book.  It's got a cracking storyline and fantastically detailed description of the strange happenings and secretive world of Tokyo.  Everyone is half-crazy, the industry has turned them into complete alcoholics, and no-one tells the whole story, if they get past lying through their teeth in the first place.
It's written from three points of view - a new girl called Stephanie who is desperate for what she has been told is 'quick and easy' money by her old schoolfriends who are living it up there already - but Julia is distant and weird whilst the other, Annabel, has plum disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only a diary behind.
The second narrative is based on a cranky Japanese House Mum 'Mama San' who is telling her life story to a Western journo.  She comes out with some real filth on Japanese perversions (actually, the book opens with a shady Rophynol scene, and that's tame compared to what happen's later.)
The third is a string of emails from a hostess who has been there for some time.  I must admit I didn't get this - I thought it clunky and unnecessary, as it was mainly some girl being insecure and moaning about how it was all going downhill.  I suppose that it was included to serve as a reminder of how the hostess industry could really mess with some girls psyches, but then I was half a bottle of gin down at the time and certainly didn't need any reminder of how within a few months I was a shaking alcoholic letting myself get felt up for fifty bucks a song.
Cleverly, this book is not a memoir.  It's a novel.  It has a proper story , with an intriguing beginning, an exciting middle, and a slightly rushed and very neat ending where everything falls into place - hurrah!  In short, the perfect summertime read.  Out of all the books on the entertainment and sex industries that I have read and reviewed, this is one of the freshest and original, and I hope it marks a turn in the tide of the neverending stream of memoirs and now-I've-left-the-industry biographies which is the normal publishing format.
Go buy it.  Glass Geishas ; 356 pages with a gin chaser.  Lovely.

Worst Lapdance of the Week; The Swiss One

He looked kindly and sweet when I saw him at the bar.  A little man in a suit, with a round face and fluffy balding hair - a cuddly Donald Trump.  He offered to buy me a gin and tonic, and as I sat on the bar stool he pulled his closer, so that our knees were touching.  

"I'm Swiss," he replied in answer to my question, grabbing my hand in his own chubby fingers.  

"We should go drink these somewhere else... somewhere more private."

He nodded like a keen St. Bernard doggie, and hurried with a waddling gait to the booth. With his fluffy hair and careful placing of fat paws on the ground, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had been an Alpine rescue dog with a barrel of whisky round his neck.  My hustling heart soared - after a bad night this man was definitely going to book me in for a VIP - there was only just over an hour left and my money wrap lay limp and thin even after six hours hustling.

with thanks to the State Library of New South Wales at Flickr

We sat down and discussed spending the rest of the night together - stripclub terminology for 'pay me till the club closes, then it's Sayonara sweetheart'.  But as his fingers crept up my thigh like fat caterpillars he insisted that he just wanted a dance to start.  

"Fine, let's do that then," I agreed grudgingly, figuring that I could at least get the horny little bugger for a multiple hit of £60, £100, even if a full hour was out of the question. 

I manoeuvred around him carefully, being careful of his hands.  They were slipping and sliding everywhere - stroking the edge of my thigh, trying to crawl towards my knickers, quivering inches from my bottom as I shook and span it around.

"No touching - naughty." I giggled playfully.  Not my rules, it's the law - and they are strictly enforcing it in London at the moment what with a vice and regulations round-up in advance of the Olympics.

"No touching!" Once again, more insistent this time, and I backed away to the opposite end of the booth so that he would get the idea.

"Yes, sorry, so sorry." He looked at me pleadingly, his eyes large in the folds of his puffy face. He place his hands back at his sides. 

I moved closer.

And closer.

Looking straight at him, watching where his fingers were about to move.  But he didn't move an iota, they barely twitched.

Feeling confident now, I asked winkingly if he wanted another.

He nodded. Of course.

I moved closer, almost on top of him now, my hips snaking from side to side, my hands rubbing my neck, hair tossed to the beat of the sultry house music.  I closed my eyes - I could almost be on a beach in Ibiza, on a sunlit terrace, dancing in my own little world, totally alone.

Till a long soggy feeling erupted over my bottom.

Opening my eyes, and spinning around quicksharp, I almost hurled.

My little Swiss man was licking my bottom, with a pink outstretched tongue like an overexcited Spaniel's penis.  Raspberry pink, wet, throbbing and refusing to go back inside where it belongs.  Leaving trails of slobber all over my beautiful, toned, tanned, moisturised and perfumed derrière.

He looked up sheepishly like a little kid who has been caught licking the icing off a chocolate gateaux, and I couldn't find it in my heart to berate the sleazebag.  Even if it did mean I would have to disinfect the area later.  

Who realised that a country famed for it's neutrality could hold such perverts?

Partying through the Jubilee weekend

London erupted in a flurry of street parties this weekend and I danced in every single one of them.

I wore a red and white outfit with matching red and white underwear and a glittery tiara on top.
I gobbled down BBQ sticky chicken and licked my fingers clean afterwards.
I took huge bites from fancy cupcakes, icing sticking to my chin.
I danced in the streets as ghettoblasters pumped out tunes - funky house, soulful reggae, singalong favourites.
I flashed smiles and talked to men and introduced myself by my real name to everyone of them.

It felt great, and whilst I'm nursing bruises and a battered bank balance, I'm sat at this computer with a dopey grin on my face, patting myself on the back for ensuring that I had this weekend off.  When I stared at my calender last week, and realised that I was rota'd to spin around a pole and flash my privates to tourists and stag parties on what was the biggest weekend my fair city had hosted in my living memory, I blanched.
I felt scared and worried - I'd been in that position before, when I worked shifts and didn't know any of the girls, felt the pull of celebrations happening elsewhere, and had to make friends for the night with the friendliest looking faces in the club - if there were any that is.
So I bit my lip, took a deep breath, and walked into the manager's office to discuss my schedule.
And promptly got out of it - by hook and by crook.

When I first started dancing, I used to pick the world's worst schedules.

I'd work a tuesday and wednesday night, get really drunk, wake up with a hangover and then drink red wine in front of the telly for a few days.

Then I'd panic as I realised it was the weekend already and I had no money and I'd be forced to work the Saturday night.  I'd stare longingly at my phone as it beeped away with text messages full of the great times my friends were having, as I pounded round the club like an animal in a cage, servicing stag party after stag party with their grabby hands and reeking beer breath.

Every Sunday I would swear to myself that I would work weekdays only and not let my little moments of laziness ruin my weekend.  What's the point in having friends if you can never get to see them?

But my problem was that I had too many friends, and there were always invites to this club night, a birthday house party, drinks after work... I really used to beat myself up over it - was I a perpetual student? How could I ruin my chance at saving the pennies and building a decent future if I couldn't even go earn the pounds?

I can't say that's changed much, but at least now I put myself first.
Most of the time...