Maria, with her hunched shoulders and awkward manner, certainly doesn’t exude confidence. ‘Men have been horrible to me all my life and the men who come into a place like this are no better. Why should I trust any man after seeing what they do in here?’
Many of the eastern European prostitutes also end up sending much of their earnings back to their poverty-stricken relatives. ‘It’s a vicious circle. I feel really sorry for many of them,’ says Tanya. ‘Me and Den are just here to make as much cash as possible in a short period of time. We call it a quick fix. But most of the girls from eastern Europe are going to be trapped here for years. It’s not nice.’
The surprising thing about this club is that some men visit and simply order a drink, have a look at the talent on display, maybe chat with a girl for a few minutes and then depart. ‘Often the Spanish guys come in here, order a drink, talk to one or two girls and then leave,’ Tanya tells me. ‘There’s not such an air of desperation about them. They actually want to find a woman who suits them in almost the same way you might pick up a straight date in a normal bar. It’s a different attitude. Often these sort of men are actually very nice to talk to. Sometimes a group of three or four of them will come into the club and stay all night chatting to the girls without actually hiring any of them for sex. The problem is that we don’t make any money unless we use the attached hotel, so it’s not exactly good for business.’
Tanya and Denise reckon there is a small number of girls working at the club who are on the lookout for a serious relationship. ‘I know that some of the girls here hope that they can find themselves a rich guy who will set them up in a flat in Marbella, give them a credit card and a €2,000-a-month allowance and only expect the occasional bit of sex in return. Other girls have even married customers they’ve met in here. Me and Denise are definitely not on the lookout for that kind of man.’
At that moment Denise chips in. ‘Look, we were just normal girls out on the pull back in the UK, but inside this place men only represent one thing to us: an instant payday. The decent, marriage types are out there in the real world. You can’t combine business and pleasure. It don’t make no sense.’
Meanwhile, life inside the club goes on. At any one time, more than 50 girls and an equal number of men are crammed into the main bar area. Strangely, the atmosphere is not nearly as repressive as one might imagine. There is a lot of laughing, even dancing and clinking of glasses. To a passing stranger it might even at first seem like a very friendly, ordinary bar until one studies the faces and bodies of the beautiful young women compared to their old and tired-looking male companions.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NATASHA THE LAPDANCER
When there’s no poles to dance around, Natasha uses her head
NATASHA THE LAPDANCER
Natasha is just one of thousands of beautiful women who have turned up on the Costa del Sol to seek fame and fortune. Many end up working in the brothels and ‘clubs’ that provide prostitutes, but Natasha says she would never sell her body for sex. Instead, she’s found a niche at a nightclub where the customers can look at girls, but definitely not touch them.
Natasha is a pole dancer. She’s happy to gyrate and wriggle in front of an audience of men, often golfers who swamp the Marbella area all year round because of the good weather and numerous courses. As one of her bosses explains, ‘Golfers tend to be cautious souls who travel in groups and fear that their friends might tell their wives if they visited a brothel, so many of them prefer clubs like this one where it’s just a bit of good, old-fashioned, harmless fun.’
Natasha is 24 and comes from Latvia, and she agrees with her boss’s explanation. ‘I am not a prostitute and would never have sex with a man or woman for money. I am a professional dancer and I am very proud of my skills. In many ways I am an artist.’
Club customer Jim, from Northamptonshire, doesn’t necessarily consider Natasha to be an artist as such, but at least he respects and appreciates girls like her. ‘I’m here with some mates for a few rounds of golf. Of course, it’s nice to pop into a club like this and look at the girls, but that’s all we do. I’m not interested in hookers and nor are any of my mates. But it’s certainly nice to unwind after a hard day’s golf by having a drink and watching the girls dance.’
The Esta Noche nightclub in Marbella where Natasha and at least a dozen other girls dance each and every night is considered ‘eccentric’ by many local Spaniards. As one explained, ‘In Spain, brothels are openly run. There is even one just a few hundred yards from Esta Noche, so it seems crazy to run a club where the men can only look at the women. What is the point?’
But staff at Esta Noche are convinced that the club has tapped into a previously unknown market. Says one manager, ‘Look, guys coming here on golfing holidays don’t all want to sleep with hookers. We’re offering an alternative. What’s wrong with that?’
Meanwhile, up on the club’s stage, Natasha is wrapping her thighs around a pole and simulating sexual intercourse – in the nicest possible way, of course. She makes a point of looking deep into the audience, hoping to catch the eye of a wealthy punter who might then splash out €100 on a tip, or even buy a bottle of Dom Perignon and offer her a glass or two. But she insists that’s definitely where she draws the line.
Natasha is then joined on stage by Fran from Derbyshire. She’s a buxom blonde who turned up on the Costa del Sol a few months earlier after plying her trade at one of London’s best-known pole-dancing clubs, just off Oxford Street in the West End. ‘It’s much nicer out here,’ she tells me. The people are cooler than they are back home. We don’t have any problems with pig-headed customers who think all the girls are just easy lays.’
Fran lives in the same apartment block in nearby Fuengirola as her friend Natasha. They are small studio flats, but both girls say their standard of living has greatly improved by being on the Costa del Sol. ‘Back in Latvia I lived at home with my mother,’ Natasha tells me, ‘unable to afford to move out because my job in a factory barely paid me enough to afford to even go out more than once a month.’ Now she has an English boyfriend whom she hopes to marry one day, and she believes her career as a pole dancer will provide far more opportunities in the long term. ‘Look, I work relatively short hours. I earn a thousand euros a week and I can send some of that back to my mother. I am very happy here.’
Since starting dancing at Esta Noche in 2002, Natasha has concluded that the kind of men who frequent such clubs are ‘basically good people. They respect us as women and that makes this job a lot easier.’ But does her English boyfriend mind her working at such an establishment? ‘He’s not that happy about it, but he knows I would never go with any of the customers. He wants me to get a nice office job, but accepts that will not happen for a few years yet.’
However, working from 8pm until 4am does play havoc with Natasha’s social life. ‘Obviously I have little time to make new friends. I don’t tend to get up until about twelve midday and I have to leave here for work at seven each evening.’ Natasha uses much of her spare time painting pictures of … nude women! ‘I am fascinated by the human body and, by painting pictures of naked people, I find myself trying to perfect my skills as an artist.’ Friends have told Natasha she has genuine talent as an artist, and she hopes one day to persuade a local gallery to hold an exhibition of her work. But she is very realistic about her artistic future. ‘I know I will probably never make a living from my paintings, but I feel very lucky to be able to dance and paint. It’s a wonderful combination.’
Surprisingly, some of Esta Noche’s customers are female. ‘It might surprise many people, but we get women coming in here too. Some of them are in hen parties passing through, but there are a number of regular female customers who come here at least once a week.’ Natasha believes that some of them are genuinely interested in studying the girls’ dance techniques. But she does admit that ‘Some of the older women are definitely gay or bisexual, and they often try to chat the girls up between dances.’
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Natasha even recalled how one rich businesswoman returned to the club five nights in a row after sharing a bottle of champagne with her. ‘She was a very elegant older woman, probably in her late forties. I accepted a drink with her and sat at her table the first night she came to the club. She obviously had a crush on me and kept touching my leg under the table, but I did not react and eventually she stopped trying to touch me and seemed to accept that I was not gay. But then she came back the following four nights and got very upset when I wouldn’t sit down with her at the table again. She even sent me a note asking me to meet her after the club closed, but I ignored it. Then on the fifth night, as I was leaving the club, she got out of a chauffeur-driven limousine and tried to persuade me to go to her hotel with her. I refused as politely as possible, but she got very angry and started shouting at me and calling me names. Luckily one of the club managers came out at that moment and calmed things down. I’d never realised until then that women can be just as aggressive as men if they want sex.’
Natasha is completely anti-drugs and insists that she drinks only in moderation. ‘I prefer to stay in control so that nothing bad can happen to me. It’s better that way.’ She even keeps a glass bottle, shaped like a stiletto shoe, filled with potent Latvian liqueur, untouched by her bed as a reminder of what alcohol can do. ‘That drink is the key to everyone’s unhappiness where I come from, and keeping that sealed bottle makes sure I never forget the harm it can cause.’ Both Natasha and Fran admit the probability that most nights many of the customers are on drugs. ‘It’s obvious from the way they behave. But in my opinion, they are stupid because drugs make you more vulnerable. I only enjoy this job because I am sober all the time.’
The dancer is full of praise for the British management of the club. ‘They have created a real family atmosphere. I feel I can talk to them about any problems I have without worrying that they will fire me. Also, most importantly, they never put us under any pressure to be extra nice to the customers. Sure, some of the men and women who come here flash a lot of cash at us, but that doesn’t mean we have to like them all, does it?’
Only recently, a famous English Premiership soccer star visited the club with some friends. ‘I didn’t even know who he was until one of the English girls recognised him,’ Natasha admits. But the star, renowned for his nightclubbing antics in London, soon focused all his attention on Natasha. ‘I was dancing my favourite routine to Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock’n’Roll’ when I got this spontaneous burst of applause. I looked down and it was this soccer player and his friends. I smiled at them – but that was it – and just carried on dancing.’ However, Natasha did admit that, ‘To be honest about it, I was flattered by his attention and I made sure my next dance routine was extra sexy, but that’s just having a bit of fun as far as I am concerned.’
However, the soccer star took Natasha’s sexy dance routine a little too literally. ‘As I finished, he gave me this huge round of applause. It was a bit embarrassing. A few minutes later in the changing rooms, one of the waitresses brought me an envelope. I opened it to find it contained a thousand euros and a note asking me to meet him at his hotel later. I sent the letter and money back to him. The waitress said he looked very disappointed when he got the envelope back, but insisted she take me back the money as a tip even though I was refusing to meet him. At least he was a gentleman. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories from girls about other guys.
‘I guess I’ve been lucky compared with so many other girls who’ve come to the Costa del Sol. I’ve got a decent job. No one is trying to exploit me. I have a boyfriend who one day I hope to marry. They aren’t many girls like me out here who can say the same, are there?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TRANNIE VALERIE
Stepping out, Valerie offers the best of both worlds
TRANNIE VALERIE
Down on the Costa del Crime, it’s not just the boys and girls who provide the sexual services that so dominate this sandy coastline. There is a big demand for ladyboys too. These travesti – as they’re called in Spain – walk a bizarre line between the two sexes but retain much fascination for many men and women.
Valerie, 28, is a classic example of this ever-growing trade. In her husky voice she discusses in detail what it is about her that attracts such interest. ‘Most of my clients are men, but very few of them are gay. I find it very fulfilling because I am not interested in girls: I am only attracted to straight men, the more masculine the better.
‘Many married men go to a transsexual prostitute because they believe they are not committing adultery as we are not real women in their eyes,’ she explains. ‘It might seem a strange attitude, but it is true.’
Valerie also claims that the popularity of transvestite hookers in Spain and South America is based on the regions’ history of Catholicism. ‘We can’t get pregnant, can we?’ she says, with a look of genuine seriousness on her face.
Many of the transsexuals and transvestites based on the Costa del Sol hail from South America where it seems there is a huge she-male community. Valerie, on the other hand, comes from the south-east of England, although she has Indian parents. She has been working in Spain for nearly three years and says that she’s been surprised by the respect and gentleness shown towards her by nearly all her clients. ‘As a schoolboy back in Britain, I lived my life struggling to survive despite being very effeminate. I was teased at school and did badly as a result. I was beaten black and blue regularly. Life was, frankly, horrible.
‘When I told my parents at the age of sixteen that I wanted to take hormone shots and start dressing as a girl, they were horrified. They tried to stop me ever leaving the house, and for a while I became a complete hermit, unable to travel anyway because I didn’t have the money to buy any women’s clothes.’
The breakthrough for Valerie – she refuses to reveal her previous identity – came when she went to her GP, who immediately recommended treatment on the National Health Service. ‘It was such a relief to meet someone who understood what I was going through.’ But then she changed her mind about having an operation to remove her penis. ‘I suppose the truth is I was terrified of the operation. I had started to develop breasts thanks to hormone treatment, and the natural next step was to have surgery. But I couldn’t go through with it.’
Eventually, the NHS treatment came to an end and Valerie was left neither a man nor a woman in the eyes of herself or other people. ‘At first I shrank back into my little shell at home, never going out but at least able to continue dressing as a female. I grew my hair and started to wear make-up every day, but then my parents disowned me and threw me out of the house. I had nowhere to go and no friends in the world, so I ended up living in a squat in east London. It was a horrible time for me. I wanted to kill myself and came very close to doing so. I was turning tricks in alleyways but it was a horrible existence. I was lucky I didn’t catch AIDS.’
Valerie says she then met another transsexual named Debbie, who had once been a highly educated university professor called Michael from a rich family. He had also been disowned in similar circumstances. ‘Debbie taught me a lot about self-respect – how I had to fend for myself and stop relying on others. She snapped me out of my depression, self-loathing and self-pitying behaviour. We became the very best of friends.’
After months of living on the dole, both Valerie and Debbie decided to travel to the Costa del Sol. ‘We’d met a few South American transsexuals in London and they kept saying how much more relaxed attitudes were in southern Spain. Since it wasn’t that far away it seemed a good idea to start a new life here.’
But just a few months after arriving in the Estepona area, Debbie died in a road accident. ‘I was devastated, but I kept remembering how Debbie had pulled me out of my problems in London and I decided to keep my life together for her sake more than anything. I was determined to survive.’
Valerie eventually started working at a brothel near Estepona that specialised in transsexual prostitutes. ‘It
wasn’t like working the streets back in London. The clients treated us like real people, not freaks to be kicked and abused. The madam who ran the brothel was a good person who genuinely cared about us. She made sure we had regular health checks, and paid us a decent cut from every customer. She looked after me like a mother.’ Wouldn’t she have liked a safe, secure nine-to-five job in a normal environment? ‘In a perfect world, I suppose so, but I had to be realistic and face the fact that it was not going to happen.’
Valerie worked at the brothel until 2003 when she decided to set up business on her own by advertising in the classified section of a Costa del Sol English-speaking newspaper. ‘I think I probably have fewer problems with clients than straight hookers because the men who come to me know exactly what to expect. I’ve built up a good working relationship with a number of regular clients who visit me most weeks. Many of them are British and they always seem so relieved that I am English. I think it makes them feel more relaxed.’
Valerie believes that more than 50 per cent of her clients are married. ‘But that doesn’t make them gay or bad husbands,’ says Valerie. ‘I think what I offer is something different. A change of scenery, if you like. Where’s the harm in that? It’s a free world, after all.’
But the biggest revelation to Valerie about living on the Costa del Sol is the attitude towards transgendered people such as herself. ‘I often go out dressed up in my favourite skirt, blouse and boots and I feel so much more confident here in Spain because, although some people probably know I am a transsexual, they don’t treat me like some freak. They are warm and friendly towards me.’
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