by Nick Molloy
I had concluded at this stage that I would probably have to return to the rat race at some point soon. I had taken a huge hit on the motor racing project and the cash being produced from stripping wasn’t preventing the haemorrhage. In fact, it was only slightly reducing the swelling. I was already in discussions with a company about a contract in Dubai. I began to treat this as I would any interview situation and started asking Wacko the questions I wanted to know. Basically, I was asking what he could do for me. He clearly wasn’t used to this and didn’t take too kindly to it.
Firstly, I began my enquiring whether it was possible to be a Bell End and have a day job. Wacko looked like he just swallowed a wasp. ‘In order to be a Bell End you must have total commitment. When I give you a date you must drop everything and move things in your diary to accommodate this, including other stripping bookings’. ‘Obviously’ I countered, ‘the remuneration would reflect that?’ With astounding verisimilitude Wacko stated that Bell Ends were amongst the wealthiest strippers because they were so busy.
I pressed him on the detail. How many shows could I expect to receive from him and at what rates. ‘The diary is full between now and Christmas with Theatre shows’ he said. ‘How full is full ?’ Finally, he crumbled and said that there were 12 shows booked between now and Christmas. As we were at the end of August, the ratio of bookings was well under one a week ! Wacko had been at pains to add that the Bell Ends only perform theatre shows these days, did not do tacky hen night type performances and heaven forbid, definitely no gay shows. It certainly seemed to limit his options. Furthermore, his theatre shows were hardly local and would involve meeting at midday to board a mini-bus to go to the other end of the country, typically returning at some horrific hour the next morning. All this for £120! It gets better. I wouldn’t be paid until he got paid. If he didn’t get paid, neither did I.
I pointed out the glaring inconsistency in his offer. How could I be committed solely to his cause, yet, live off about £80 week which may or may not get paid to me. ‘I can’t live off fresh air and sleeping rough may diminish my sex appeal’ I said. Wacko blathered something about it’s up to me and we parted company.
About a week later Wacko telephoned me at home and told me that one of his prime Bell Ends had made him aware that I had appeared as the centrefold in a gay magazine. This wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to be associated with. ‘I hope you got well paid for it’ he sniped. ‘The hourly rate was about ten times your offer’ I replied. It was tempting to utter something about my conscience also being free of homophobia, but I thought better of it.
Wacko was to contact me again a couple of times over the coming years. On both occasions it was an e-mail he sent asking me to contact him stating something along the lines of how he liked my look. He had clearly not made the connection with my new websites and our previous meeting. I wrote a polite e-mail back stating that all contact details were on www.malestripper.org, including telephone numbers and he was welcome to contact me to discuss any potential proposals. As I suspected, prima donnas such as him would be offended at the suggestion that he should call me. He never called.
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My next brush with the Bell Ends occurred at a place in Brixton called the Fridge. On a given Saturday about once a month, they held an event called Lovemuscle. I was booked to do it for the first time about the same time I met Wacco. Lovemuscle had become something of an institution over the previous decade. The format was simple. A drag queen who went under the name of Janice would parade onto stage and bring out ‘her scantily clad boys’ one by one. Once there they would ‘dance’ around for a couple of minutes whilst Janice would remove their garments and fling them into the crowd. The strippers were on stage for no more than about five minutes or so. The Fridge was a huge venue and probably held well over a thousand people.
When I arrived at The Fridge for the first time, I was ‘lucky’ enough to bump into Evander. He was also one of the evening’s performers. He guided me through a labyrinth of passages and corridors to a room at the other end of the building. The strippers’ changing area was basic and not especially large. Imagine somebody’s bedroom with a few chairs. Evander and I were the first ones to arrive. There was apparently going to be six of us. Evander was a little less brash and slightly more subdued than at our first meeting.
Mr Multiface soon appeared in a blaze of theatre with a booming voice to match. He was like a headless chicken, constantly turning on his heels and strutting to the next person to utter a completely over the top greeting. Another soon arrived, a largish, good looking guy, with a decent physique. I could instantly tell he was using mass steroids. His physique was developed but not especially ‘cut’. His musculature was smoothed over by the water retention. Nevertheless, the masses would not be able to tell the difference.
Evander embraced the new entrant whom I recognized as Black Rod. I knew their connection as Bell Ends and knew his reputation for moodiness, no doubt not helped by the obvious steroid usage. I attempted to introduce myself to Black Rod, he was the only one so far who I hadn’t met personally. My attempts at a handshake were met with a rebuffal (he just walked away). Looking over his shoulder he said ‘you must be Marvelous, people have been asking me what I think about you’. No doubt he was referring to Wacko, as they were apparently in league together. I couldn’t be bothered to engage him much further. I have never been one for games unless they are on a level playing field such as a computer screen, chess board, etc.
We were two strippers short and the organizer was getting anxious. Multiface confided in Evander than Aimless (one of those missing) was not going to be here. He had been present in his company not more than two hours before and Aimless was drugged out of his head. The other one also failed to show for whatever reason.
I was finding it difficult to bond with my fellow performers. After the exchange of pleasantries with Multiface there was nothing more to be said. Evander and Black Rod were in a league of self obsession to the detriment of all others. I sat quietly, kept my own company and simply observed the organized chaos that unfolded before me. Soon it was time for the group wank. There was nowhere to hide in the small room. Multiface disappeared to the toilet, whereas Evander and Black Rod faced into separate corners. I stayed in the middle of the room.
Evander was most insistent that I didn’t dance too much (if only I knew how). If I danced too much then the rest would have to follow and that would be creating extra and unnecessary work for everyone.
The show went smoothly enough. It was definitely easier than a regular gig. We weren’t on stage half as long and that is easier on the dick. Lining up to go out there was a definite feeling of celebrity status. The crowd in the Fridge was huge and there was quite a din. The stage was large, high and elevated well above the audience. I felt like a rock star with the masses below reaching out to their heroes. The show was so short and we had to do so little that I actually felt like were short changing the audience. Personally, I couldn’t understand the appeal of Lovemuscle or the apparent installation of the Drag Queen as something of an institution.
I collected £80 for this feat of willy wiggling. I immediately handed the £12 commission to the agent who was present and thanked him for the job. Evander took a different approach. He bluntly told the agent that he couldn’t have his commission yet as he needed it and that he would pay the arrears at some later date. Evander later confided that he never paid any agent’s commission. Judging from the look on the agent’s face he knew he would never receive the monies. Why then did he keep booking the guy, or alternatively why didn’t he just deduct the money at source ? This was a phenomenon I was to come across time and time again in stripping and to this day I still don’t fully understand it. There is a definite element whereby certain bookers get a sexual kickback from the stripper, usually in the form of the booker performing a blow job on the said stripper. However, in this particular instance (with Evander), I don’t think that was the case at all. Yet, Evand
er was continually booked by this agent time and time again. The said agent and his ilk would continually whinge about the behaviour of the said stripper/s, but they continued to book them. If anybody can explain this gross act of obvious stupidity please get in contact I’d love to know the answer.
I performed at the Fridge on a couple of more occasions. The most notable was the night of Lovemuscle’s 10th anniversary. Nine of the finest strippers on the circuit were to be wheeled out and little old me. As I remember there was only one omission, which as far as male strippers are concerned is a full house ! Multiface arrived with a blond bimbo twice as tall as he was (some strippers were calling him the Hobbit because of his height) Evander was there, repeated meetings had softened his attitude. The rumour mill stated that he had fallen out with Black Rod, perhaps withdrawing some of his animosity.
Again I arrived very early and rumours were circulating that a rare appearance was to be put in by Smack Attack (a stripping legend who rarely frequented the gay scene). Paul Grunt, a short black guy with a brummie accent was there. Paul seemed very nice, had an excellent physique and I wouldn’t have believed he was in his early 40s. I assumed he was about 30. It wasn’t until a couple of years later when I began touring the North of England that everybody in the know kept insisting he was actually in his mid 40s. Too many people were saying it and when I finally met him again in 2006 he confided that he was actually 46! He looks excellent and not just for his age. The grey hair is creeping in, but he keeps it short to hide it.
Private 96 was there. He was another legend on the gay scene and his name apparently represented the number of years he had been performing. He seemed really nice as well, but hadn’t aged as well as Paul Grunt. I met the legendary Chips for the first and only time. Chips was another legend on the gay scene. He was famous for sticking a bottle of beer up his arse as a finale to his act (I won’t tell you about the time he pulled it out covered in shit !) which made him strangely popular. Chip was very stocky and to be honest I would best describe his as barrel shaped. Tragically he died in 2006 in the USA. His body was found in a shallow grave. It was widely known that he worked as an escort and was also into breath play as a sexual game. Speculation was rife over whether he was murdered or whether a sex game had simply gone wrong. Several friends that I subsequently made, spoke very highly of him.
Finally, the legendary Smack Attack arrived. I was expecting some sort of bronzed Adonis with film star looks. My expectations were obviously a little outlandish. Smack was a fairly normal looking, probably in his late 30s, long dark curly hair (90s stripper stereotype). His body was OK, but lacked tone, shape and abs. I was guessing he probably looked really good 10 years ago and age was simply taking its toll on him.
All in all, I was in legendary company and a few of them were looking like old men. They had undoubtedly seen better years, yet their reputations from yesteryear were elongating their careers.
Finally, Aimless arrived. I had spoken with Aimless on the phone. He was an arch enemy of Wacko as he ran a rival group of Bell Ends. There had been a dispute between them. Aimless used to be Wacko’s Bell End, but split away and officially registered the Bell End name to himself. There existed this ridiculous scenario whereby Aimless called his group the Official Bell Ends and Wacko called his group the Original Bell Ends. Threats of lawsuits had been puffed about on either side, but nothing much occurred. I guess they settled on shared Bell End status.
I had been conversing with Aimless because he wanted more recruits. Perhaps he was interested because Wacko had been interested and he wanted to spite him. It sounded like the sort of thing he would do. In a close repeat of the Black Rod incident, I went and introduced myself to Aimless. With what I was beginning to perceive as typical stripper one-up-manship he told me that he didn’t consider me suitable at the moment. I was apparently too small. ‘It can all be changed with diet’ he said smugly. For the record, Aimless was quite stocky, classically good looking, but lacked any sort of definition in his physique. He was carrying a little belly and I would be very confident that if we stepped onto a bodybuilding stage at that precise moment I would easily have carried the judges.
Aimless wittered on a little more, stating ‘facts’ with unbelievable arrogance. As a consolation he offered me the chance to come and rehearse with him and his co-leader, Kent. I tried to take him up on the offer and phoned several times only to be fobbed off and messed about. I concluded that Aimless was a total Bell End and not just on stage. He was full of contradictions and so self obsessed that he would be a perfect candidate for today’s reality TV programmes. I wasn’t sure who was more obnoxious, Aimless or Wacko. They deserved each other.
The 10th anniversary fridge show went fine. All the straight ones went to wank in their respective corners. The gays ones were less conscious. I noticed Chips staring at me intensely as I was wanking. Paul Grunt produced this huge penis pump out of his bag when the time came. He explained that it was quicker than wanking and it made it a little bigger as well (not that he needed that).
As I drove back home through Streatham I pondered over the evening’s events. It had probably been the most enlightening single evening to date. There were certainly no friends in the business. Nobody was going to give me a leg up. However, nearly all the legends were old relics waiting to die. From that point of view, there had to be a vacancy for some new, young blood. The bookings were building up slowly and I was starting to enjoy myself more and more.
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I was approached by Smack Attack about performing at a regular event he was organizing at a club in Streatham. I don’t know whether our very brief meeting at Lovemuscle had anything to do with the approach or whether that was pure coincidence.
Smack explained that the whole concept was one of reverse lap dancing. There was no fee as such, but we would have to parade around in an effort to secure lap dances. We would receive tokens that we could cash in at the end of the evening. The fee would be £5 for a dance to a g-string or £10 for a full strip. I was new and needed to learn. Also, I was free on the evening in question, so I had nothing to lose and accepted the offer. I played the lap dancing game twice before I learnt my lesson.
I arrived nice and early as always. A friendly Black guy the size of K2 greeted me on the door and gave me directions as to where I needed to be. The reception from the other strippers was typically lukewarm as I should have expected by now. Only a guy called Glynn was friendly and talkative. I didn’t know any of them and few of them actually played the regular circuit. Those that were busy and working wouldn’t have entertained it, as I later discovered.
The lap dancing event was the first time that I met Chico, who later became famous because of the hit show X Factor. This was three years before his appearance on the ITV show and he was trying to distance himself from stripping and begin a career as a singer. He was compering the entire evening whilst throwing a few songs into the mix. He couldn’t sing back then either, but he was extremely charismatic and did an excellent job on the microphone. Furthermore, I found him to be quite personable and affable and he did give me a few pointers as to what I could do in my show.
After all the strippers were gathered together, K2 emerged into the dressing room (the men’s toilets) and began reading the riot act. Apparently, the week before one of the strippers was caught shagging a girl in the toilets and was now banned. Also, this girl had cried rape bringing further disrepute on all those involved. Anyone caught shagging the clientele on the premises would be forcibly removed and quickly. A concerned look spread around all those present, which brought a smile to my face. I should have realized at that point that those present weren’t there to earn the cash. By banning shagging in the toilets, K2 had just unleashed an almighty storm on their forest fire. K2 also mumbled something about adhering to the no touching rules.
One of the strippers went under the name Nathan. I am yet to this day to meet a more arrogant, but equally talented man. Nathan was so able, that he could d
isappear up his own arse so as to be completely invisible ! Amongst his various endeavours he could claim to have worked for every stripping troupe since the year dot (and have been the best member of the troupe in question), he traded oil for millions and was generally vastly superior in his very being to anybody on planet earth. I did enquire whether I might be able to tap into his vast experience of stripping. ‘Only if you’re invited, mate’ came back the reply. I have never heard of the guy before or since and can’t verify or rubbish any of his claims. Needless to say, he had an average physique and an aging look. Maybe he was good…….back in the 1980s.
The lap dancing in Streatham was also the first time I met the legendary Canadian Shagpile. He did attempt to play the regular circuit and I knew off him because of such. He was another example of the aging relic from the good old days. He had managed to keep a reasonable physique from using steroids but was showing all the symptoms of aromatised estrogens. Indeed, he even injected himself in the changing room ! Canadian Shagpile was so good he had to tell everybody about it. He used to be in the Californian Bell Ends, had travelled the world stripping, was known throughout the industry, etc, etc – you get the picture.
