shouted. The music started and from our places in the wings we saw Sharon, Kevin, and Nicky running from the dressing rooms at breakneck speed, a trail of Benson & Hedges left in their wake. Sharon was in costume but still wearing a Marks & Spencer’s bra. She couldn’t get if off in time and so had to dance the first segment in a dirty gray nylon bra. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I spun off the stage into the wings and into the claws of Sharon.
“The girls said you ordered the show to start!” she screeched over the music.
“I’m sorry,” I laughed, “It was just a joke.” She slapped my face so hard I saw stars. I was in such shock that when I heard my cue in the music my feet carried me back onto the stage to finish the rest of the number. I cried throughout the rest of it. But they were tears of anger. I should have wrung her fat little neck. I felt humiliated. This was the first time I’d been slapped in the face. The rest of the show was a blur. I don’t even remember finishing it. Sharon left immediately and was found later drunk in the rooftop bar.
“Nobody likes me,” she cried. God, was that an understatement!
I was fired the next day. Sharon had phoned Guy Etrange and told him I was a disruptive influence in the troupe. I went to watch the show that night, if only to glare at Sharon. But I was spotted by the management and asked to leave. The day I left all the girls cried. They all hated Damascus and said they wished they could get fired too. Karim came to the airport with me and before I climbed on the plane he gave me a gold ring. He told me he would come to London. I wasn’t sure if I wanted that but just smiled and kissed him goodbye. Six of the girls had also come to see me off. They cried and kissed me and gave me little mementos. We had become so close in such a short period of time. This was something I would grow to love about performing . . . community.
I arrived back in London with no job, no prospects and 50,000 francs in my wallet. I felt like the world was my oyster.
I had been back from Damascus for a week and was frittering away my francs on bread and cheese. I needed a job. I was also looking for somewhere to live. I had been renting a room in the apartment of a guy who was a headmaster. Every Friday night he would dress in leather and prowl the sordid leather world of gay London. He would wear a dog collar and skintight leather pants that laced up the sides of his bony legs. I had never lived in such close proximity to a leather guy before. His drawers were full of dildos and butt plugs and leather paddles. I know this because when he was at school I would forage through his things, just out of curiosity—kinky underwear and porno movies, fascinating for a twenty-one-year-old with an overactive libido.
He also had piles of porno magazines. Not the good American kind, but the badly shot British ones. All brick laborers with their trousers around their ankles, showing off their uncut wet looking knobs for the camera. I couldn’t stop jerking off and looking at them. My favorite was called Zipper —lots of meaty guys with the occasional bodybuilder thrown in for good measure. They reminded me of the bouncers at The Palais in Nottingham.
In one of these magazines, I found an ad for strippers in a male-only club in Soho. I tore the ad out and reached for the phone.
“Hello. Is this Boys-a-Go-Go?” I asked.
“It is,” replied a voice that definitely wasn’t boyish . . . more reptilian. I explained I was looking for a job and that I was a trained dancer.
“You gotta get naked,” said Snake Lips.
“I could do that.”
“Come for an audition . . . 2 p.m. sharp. Sixty-five Dean Street. Be clean.” Be clean . . . what the hell did that mean? Did they employ strippers who weren’t clean? I rifled through the drawers in the headmaster’s bedroom and selected a leather jockstrap and biker’s cap, very Village People. I threw them into a bag and ran down
“The girls said you ordered the show to start!” she screeched over the music.
“I’m sorry,” I laughed, “It was just a joke.” She slapped my face so hard I saw stars. I was in such shock that when I heard my cue in the music my feet carried me back onto the stage to finish the rest of the number. I cried throughout the rest of it. But they were tears of anger. I should have wrung her fat little neck. I felt humiliated. This was the first time I’d been slapped in the face. The rest of the show was a blur. I don’t even remember finishing it. Sharon left immediately and was found later drunk in the rooftop bar.
“Nobody likes me,” she cried. God, was that an understatement!
I was fired the next day. Sharon had phoned Guy Etrange and told him I was a disruptive influence in the troupe. I went to watch the show that night, if only to glare at Sharon. But I was spotted by the management and asked to leave. The day I left all the girls cried. They all hated Damascus and said they wished they could get fired too. Karim came to the airport with me and before I climbed on the plane he gave me a gold ring. He told me he would come to London. I wasn’t sure if I wanted that but just smiled and kissed him goodbye. Six of the girls had also come to see me off. They cried and kissed me and gave me little mementos. We had become so close in such a short period of time. This was something I would grow to love about performing . . . community.
I arrived back in London with no job, no prospects and 50,000 francs in my wallet. I felt like the world was my oyster.
I had been back from Damascus for a week and was frittering away my francs on bread and cheese. I needed a job. I was also looking for somewhere to live. I had been renting a room in the apartment of a guy who was a headmaster. Every Friday night he would dress in leather and prowl the sordid leather world of gay London. He would wear a dog collar and skintight leather pants that laced up the sides of his bony legs. I had never lived in such close proximity to a leather guy before. His drawers were full of dildos and butt plugs and leather paddles. I know this because when he was at school I would forage through his things, just out of curiosity—kinky underwear and porno movies, fascinating for a twenty-one-year-old with an overactive libido.
He also had piles of porno magazines. Not the good American kind, but the badly shot British ones. All brick laborers with their trousers around their ankles, showing off their uncut wet looking knobs for the camera. I couldn’t stop jerking off and looking at them. My favorite was called Zipper —lots of meaty guys with the occasional bodybuilder thrown in for good measure. They reminded me of the bouncers at The Palais in Nottingham.
In one of these magazines, I found an ad for strippers in a male-only club in Soho. I tore the ad out and reached for the phone.
“Hello. Is this Boys-a-Go-Go?” I asked.
“It is,” replied a voice that definitely wasn’t boyish . . . more reptilian. I explained I was looking for a job and that I was a trained dancer.
“You gotta get naked,” said Snake Lips.
“I could do that.”
“Come for an audition . . . 2 p.m. sharp. Sixty-five Dean Street. Be clean.” Be clean . . . what the hell did that mean? Did they employ strippers who weren’t clean? I rifled through the drawers in the headmaster’s bedroom and selected a leather jockstrap and biker’s cap, very Village People. I threw them into a bag and ran down
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