Where do I begin? I didn't think that I would have the words to tell you how I feel on my one year anniversary of working in a brothel. Twenty four hours ago I wasn't even thinking about it. Twelve hours ago I was getting drunk, and a year ago at this hour I was sitting in a kitchen in a brothel, that looked so alien to me I couldn't even imagine what was in store for me. I remember how I felt boarding those planes to Nevada, I remember trying to imagine the things that would happen to me, the people I would meet and how it would train me to be a different kind of person.
Let's start twelve hours ago, I was getting drunk, I'm still drunk. I was sitting with the love of my life, at a bar, and we were getting drunk. Sometime between four am and six it all began to get blurry. I remember the conversation revolving around me being more open, about what I want, about making decisions. So I decided we needed another round. In the hindsight of it all maybe I didn't make the responsible choice, because I am convinced that if I was more responsible I wouldn't feel today the way I do. We went home and went to bed after this, and what did I do that I never do, I slept through my alarms, two to be exact. I never do that. I'm always punctual, the theatre made me so, but with the alcohols aid and the fact that when I am in bed lying next to him I feel most happy and peaceful, my subconcious didn't want me to get up.
My day has been off ever since. I can't get it together. I sped to work half drunk and half hung over. I climbed into a shower that I enevitably collapsed in and cried like a baby. I laid in my bed and didn't make line ups because I looked haggard and I wandered around the house aimlessly. Eventually the bartender sensing something was wrong told me I could talk to her if I needed to, and served me a beer and a shot and I sat crying into my liquor.
Today has not been my day.
So how can I reflect on this. A year of my life has been spent in a legal brothel, I've only taken five weeks off the whole year. I work seven days a week, twelve hours a day and plenty more overtime to be able to pay my bills.
I've had good days, bad days and everything in between. Let's just say this year has been a roller coaster. So what have I learned? What basic epiphany can I take away from all of this? HUMAN IS HUMAN. That's as basic as I can get here. Humans are animals, were rude, crude and wonderful. Were just trying to make it work. Survive. Piece all this shit together and live, then die. Sex is a part of life. Most of all I've experienced my most human emotions, connected with anger and jealousy and love and joy.
So what have I learned about myself? I'M ALIVE. I've always felt that no matter how young I am I was always 24 going on 40. So young but inching closer and closer to the conclusion that life had nothing more to offer me than what I already had. Let's just say I've lived a colorful life so far, I'm intelligent and pretty and never stopping, I moved six times in one year for christ sakes and I never thought I would stop, but now I know what I want. Most of all I just want to go home at the end of the night, climb into bed with the person I love most and just have a moment to forget all the crazy things in life. I want to be stable for a moment.
In the past year I've fucked a lot of people, drank way too much, been harassed, cried a lot more than usual, laughed a lot more than usual, lost some friends, gained some friends, I've been loyal and honest, I've done some things that maybe I'm not so proud of, and I've fallen in love.
I think I've experienced enough.
Most of all I'm learning to be completely open, I have the person I love to thank for this, all he asks is for me to be honest and open, and that's something that's never come easy to me. I think all of this happened for a reason, the people I've met, the experiences, it's all for a reason. And most of all that thing about being more open can only make me a better writer and artist in the end.
So I'm inching closer to who I am supposed to be in this life. I can only hope that maybe it all can settle down long enough for me to write that last great american novel.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
The Fine Print
If there's any kind of advice I could give someone wanting to work in this industry it would be to make sure you're observant, that you pay attention to everything. I have a friend that tells me this all the time, he tells me to pay attention to everything. After having thought about it for...well months...it's true, to survive you must pay attention to everything. I could make this broader and extend the advice to life in general but I'm not thinking about taking over the world just yet.
Today it's about paying attention to your job and those around you in the brothel world. This job just isn't about fucking people, its about being observant enough to understand your client, to choose wisely and try to gain the most from those observations. We'll go back to the old saying of...Don't judge a book by its cover.
Those men that some girls find repulsive, those that look poor, are often sometimes the biggest pay offs in the business. Just because a man has Armani taste and a Jaguar in the parking lot doesn't mean he's going to pay you anymore than the minimum if at all. Those men are usually good for a round of drinks, a jukebox donation to keep the wolves at bay and then once his vodka and tonic kicks in he's down the cul-de-sac making the rounds, and as he slips out the door the shallow promise of "I'll be back..." glides into the air and lands on pessimistic ears.
Even just working here for a year it brings out the pessimist in me and all my coworkers of what someones word actually means. Honesty is for saints, not for hookers.
It's those you see in the crowd, the nervous and the nerds, the once a year vacation trick that spends, because they've saved up to do so, and they don't want anyone to hold back. They expect a good time for the amount they pay. They expect their kinky and closeted fantasies to come to life, and when the money is right they get what they want.
It's the observant ones that triumph in these situations. Its not just about the clients though, its about the whole picture, what information you can attain from all the things happening on the floor.
Your business is to know your client better than they do, and to know the girl sitting next to you, to know what role you're playing for the night, are you yourself, or are you the innocent country girl who knows how to screw sweet then dirty? It all depends on what you see in the night, in yourself, what role the others have adopted and its in your best advantage to try and fill in the gaps.
Beyond the floor there is the twisted maze of the house. Not only are you navigating a set of unwritten rules that keep the etiquette copacetic among you and the other girls but the house itself has rules.
Its the girls that blindly walk around waiting to be led by the hand that can't and wont survive this environment. You have to be with it so to speak and on your game if your not all your potential money goes down the drain. Some seem oblivious to repercussions of missed line ups and dirty hustling, but to each his own, you can log these actions but keeping your sanity means keeping to yourself and minding your business before all others, because there's no one who's going to hustle for you.
Today it's about paying attention to your job and those around you in the brothel world. This job just isn't about fucking people, its about being observant enough to understand your client, to choose wisely and try to gain the most from those observations. We'll go back to the old saying of...Don't judge a book by its cover.
Those men that some girls find repulsive, those that look poor, are often sometimes the biggest pay offs in the business. Just because a man has Armani taste and a Jaguar in the parking lot doesn't mean he's going to pay you anymore than the minimum if at all. Those men are usually good for a round of drinks, a jukebox donation to keep the wolves at bay and then once his vodka and tonic kicks in he's down the cul-de-sac making the rounds, and as he slips out the door the shallow promise of "I'll be back..." glides into the air and lands on pessimistic ears.
Even just working here for a year it brings out the pessimist in me and all my coworkers of what someones word actually means. Honesty is for saints, not for hookers.
It's those you see in the crowd, the nervous and the nerds, the once a year vacation trick that spends, because they've saved up to do so, and they don't want anyone to hold back. They expect a good time for the amount they pay. They expect their kinky and closeted fantasies to come to life, and when the money is right they get what they want.
It's the observant ones that triumph in these situations. Its not just about the clients though, its about the whole picture, what information you can attain from all the things happening on the floor.
Your business is to know your client better than they do, and to know the girl sitting next to you, to know what role you're playing for the night, are you yourself, or are you the innocent country girl who knows how to screw sweet then dirty? It all depends on what you see in the night, in yourself, what role the others have adopted and its in your best advantage to try and fill in the gaps.
Beyond the floor there is the twisted maze of the house. Not only are you navigating a set of unwritten rules that keep the etiquette copacetic among you and the other girls but the house itself has rules.
Its the girls that blindly walk around waiting to be led by the hand that can't and wont survive this environment. You have to be with it so to speak and on your game if your not all your potential money goes down the drain. Some seem oblivious to repercussions of missed line ups and dirty hustling, but to each his own, you can log these actions but keeping your sanity means keeping to yourself and minding your business before all others, because there's no one who's going to hustle for you.
The 25 Hour World
I haven't been loyal to you like how I've been loyal to my job or brothel. It's been months since I've posted anything and maybe it's because after a while you lose a little piece of yourself in this world of constant waiting, of 2am clients and early morning bloody marys.
I would like to tell you that the last few months have been nothing but roses and romance but this is reality and there's only one true word to describe the past months and that is...strange. There's no real way to paint a picture for you unless I maybe commissioned Dali's zombified corpse to do so...and that thought is pretty strange within itself.
So I'm going to do something I would rarely ever do and brush past those absent months and let them go because the past is the past. I know it must seem strange (there's the key word again) but it's for the better, and yes there's plenty of things that have happened that would make for witty and amusing anecdotes but maybe you just need to chalk it up as my missing years, like how there's that whole section of Jesus' life missing from the Bible.
So I'm going to cut to the chase, this strange world I'm mixed up in that never closes it's doors is only bound to get even stranger.
In the past month my brothel has to say the least not been doing well. There seems to be a real lack of clients and on top of that girls. Somehow this business that many still see as recession proof is just like all the retail outlets and video rental stores. It pains me to see it this way, I have a genuine love for this house and for the people that work here, but it has become increasingly hard to see the positive in what is seemingly on its last breath.
There is a kind of loneliness in the house these days. Barren rooms and quiet halls seem to stretch for miles as you escort the lucky few who still value a tour to see the VIP suites that are much more affordable than their illustrious titles. Not only is there a loneliness in the house but also for the girls. So many come and go so quickly because business is slow that it makes me wonder if I am just too loyal and foolhardy to see that its time to move on.
So tonight I'm sitting in the back of the parlor by the open window, and I'm looking out at the sunset over the hills of Moundhouse and I'm wondering what kind of life I'm missing, what kind of places and towns I should be driving through on a summer road trip, maybe there's a good bar with a house ale to die for I'm missing out on.
I think about all those things, they've been on my mind since the summer began, and I know that there's a lot more life to live than within the brothel walls...but today it's business as usual. I'm going to sit in front of this window until the moon is visible and wait for another lonely person to walk in the door, because when there's someone else there the quiet halls aren't so bad.
This isn't just about the lack of people hanging around these days. There's a lot more going on in these 24 hour worlds, and the sign outside my window jokingly promotes that we're open for 25, my day just got longer it seems. I stare at the sign as girls names flash in red. Girls that I knew, legends to the house, and among the mix is my own, and I wonder if in the 25 hour world there is any glory or fame to having such promotion. Most people think my name is Jennifer because they've never even heard Juniper, or maybe my annunciation is a little off when I introduce myself. There's always something to work on.
I know there's a lot of questions here, and many for me are rhetorical. I even know the answer to some, but its just not the right time to see the answer in print. I was always told in school that its good to ask questions. That that's how we learn. I think it is the questions that we ask ourselves the ones we can only answer, they are the scariest and most important ones of all.
These days I find it harder to sleep and that the constant rotation of pork and chicken meals at the ranch is killing my sense of taste. What's still good is beer, I look forward to my shifts end, because I know there's a beer waiting for me behind some local bar. That's the beauty of this 25 hour world, your vices never have to sleep either.
I would like to tell you that the last few months have been nothing but roses and romance but this is reality and there's only one true word to describe the past months and that is...strange. There's no real way to paint a picture for you unless I maybe commissioned Dali's zombified corpse to do so...and that thought is pretty strange within itself.
So I'm going to do something I would rarely ever do and brush past those absent months and let them go because the past is the past. I know it must seem strange (there's the key word again) but it's for the better, and yes there's plenty of things that have happened that would make for witty and amusing anecdotes but maybe you just need to chalk it up as my missing years, like how there's that whole section of Jesus' life missing from the Bible.
So I'm going to cut to the chase, this strange world I'm mixed up in that never closes it's doors is only bound to get even stranger.
In the past month my brothel has to say the least not been doing well. There seems to be a real lack of clients and on top of that girls. Somehow this business that many still see as recession proof is just like all the retail outlets and video rental stores. It pains me to see it this way, I have a genuine love for this house and for the people that work here, but it has become increasingly hard to see the positive in what is seemingly on its last breath.
There is a kind of loneliness in the house these days. Barren rooms and quiet halls seem to stretch for miles as you escort the lucky few who still value a tour to see the VIP suites that are much more affordable than their illustrious titles. Not only is there a loneliness in the house but also for the girls. So many come and go so quickly because business is slow that it makes me wonder if I am just too loyal and foolhardy to see that its time to move on.
So tonight I'm sitting in the back of the parlor by the open window, and I'm looking out at the sunset over the hills of Moundhouse and I'm wondering what kind of life I'm missing, what kind of places and towns I should be driving through on a summer road trip, maybe there's a good bar with a house ale to die for I'm missing out on.
I think about all those things, they've been on my mind since the summer began, and I know that there's a lot more life to live than within the brothel walls...but today it's business as usual. I'm going to sit in front of this window until the moon is visible and wait for another lonely person to walk in the door, because when there's someone else there the quiet halls aren't so bad.
This isn't just about the lack of people hanging around these days. There's a lot more going on in these 24 hour worlds, and the sign outside my window jokingly promotes that we're open for 25, my day just got longer it seems. I stare at the sign as girls names flash in red. Girls that I knew, legends to the house, and among the mix is my own, and I wonder if in the 25 hour world there is any glory or fame to having such promotion. Most people think my name is Jennifer because they've never even heard Juniper, or maybe my annunciation is a little off when I introduce myself. There's always something to work on.
I know there's a lot of questions here, and many for me are rhetorical. I even know the answer to some, but its just not the right time to see the answer in print. I was always told in school that its good to ask questions. That that's how we learn. I think it is the questions that we ask ourselves the ones we can only answer, they are the scariest and most important ones of all.
These days I find it harder to sleep and that the constant rotation of pork and chicken meals at the ranch is killing my sense of taste. What's still good is beer, I look forward to my shifts end, because I know there's a beer waiting for me behind some local bar. That's the beauty of this 25 hour world, your vices never have to sleep either.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Shock Treatments
If I gave you all a piece of paper I know everyone could write at least one fear they have down on it. Even those that think they are absent of fear, they say nothing scares them will eventually have a moment of awe when the adrenaline hits them and that sinking feeling rushes in.
There's common fears, and phobias, spiders, clowns...carnival fun houses (don't ask). Yet, if I had to pin point an occupational fear there would be only one...
Christmas morning started off slow. The night before was a parade of drunken men in small to large groups. They came and went, some stopping by, some drinking more, a rowdy group of Chinese cooks lined the bar to toast with a shot of Hennesey, one of the girls shouted to them across the room:
"Who's ready for sex!?!?" All the girls promptly raised their hands. The drunkest of the grouped stuck out his chest.
"I'm ready, it's going to be good too, you're gonna love my skills."
"Then you're ready for an orgy?" I asked.
"I can take you all on, you'll love it too, you'll be paying me for it..."
The girls erupted into laughter.
"I don't know what holiday you think this is, but it ain't April Fools around here." I retorted.
In the early morning the house was quiet. The girls sleeping away a night of drinking, until a bell rang.
A gaggle of Mexican construction workers, still too drunk from whatever corner bar they had spent the night in dragged themselves through the door, ordered a round of Corona and talked loudly amongst themselves.
I locked eyes with a shy one sitting in a corner, he looked away and back, blushing in between glances, until he slide from his perch and joined me by the bar.
He was nervous, spoke broken English but told me that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he gave me five dollars, I put it in the jukebox. A few moments later we're back in the room, negotiating a quick party. I felt in the giving Christmas spirit so I gave him more time than I usually would.
The routine began. He imagined himself a great lover, huffing and puffing, big thrusts, slow thrusts, he tried to brush my hair over my ear, it was all very theatrical...then it ended.
I climbed off the bed in my usual routine grabbing a towel off the shelf to help him clean up, and that's the moment my heart dropped to my feet. I looked down about to pull the condom off with the towel, very standard for me to help them clean up, I paused in my tracks, staring down to see that it had ripped all the way through. That tiny barrier that was in those previous moments a guard to all my fears was now shredded. A million and one thoughts went through my mind then I snapped to, helped him clean up, got him dressed, got my clothes on, cleaned the room and escorted him back to the parlor, all with a smile on my face.
I asked the bartender for a moment, I need to take a shower, I told her. As I walked back to the room I felt a little sick, and I ripped my clothes off, turn the shower all the way to hot. There's nothing you can do at that moment, standing in the shower, scrubbing yourself as much as you can, a million little things run through your mind. I sank to my knees and began to cry, hyperventilate a little...I heard my phone ring.
Tears streaming down, I answered to my best friend, who at that moment was probably having a good afternoon, before becoming very concerned at my current state. We discussed the situation and resolved to a subject change after a few moments.
Once the initial shock had died, and the momentary insanity was gone I began the next step, prevention.
I contacted a friend who could help me plan out a course of action to get the morning after pill, set up a doctors appointment and then offer advice on how to breath until the STD testing could be done. The whole mess started a long drawn out process.
I got dressed again, did my hair, and make up and then put my smile back on and walked back out to the floor.
All the Mexicans were on their fifth or sixth round, a girl was dancing on the pole and dollar bills blanketed the floor, each hand throwing them out in flurries of hoots and whistles.
I wanted a seat where I could watch the action but keep a distance, trying to keep it all together. I sat by the jukebox and picked out the dancing music.
I felt someone watching me and I turned my head to find, the shy man I had just partied with sitting across from me. He sat with his beer and began to talk to me, asking me questions of my likes and dislikes. He rambled for a while searching for words in English that would convey his point. He asked me if I like him.
I have nothing against him so I said yes, I told him he seemed nice, he blushed at this.
"I like you, I like you a lot...you think you come and live with me...I will treat you good."
I explained to him that I couldn't leave my job, I had a different life outside my work and that he was kind but, no.
"I take good care of you, love you, marry you, when you're done with your job I wait for you to be done, if you come live with me."
I told him no again, telling him he should live his life, there's other better fish in the sea I explained.
"You're so beautiful Juniper, you want children?"
I swallowed my heart back into my chest. "No." I said and excused myself back to my room.
I waited until they had left before emerging back out into the parlor.
The rest of the night I spent drinking, each man coming into the house bought all the girls drinks, it's the time of year to do so, be generous that is, and the music kept playing, the laughter filled the room again and I sat at the end of the bar until the night shift bartender showed up, who is also a close friend.
At that point the bartender and I adjourned to a dark corner to give one another moral support as we shared stories of our collective holiday woes.
So, this saga isn't really about all the bad things, the negative thoughts that ensued, but more so about the fact that it's over a week later and I'm still here, pregnancy free, STD free, and working.
It's a part of the business, you do all you can to protect yourself, but it happens, it's an unfortunate accident but nothing to stop your life over in the end. We all have the risk factors in life, and I've survived one more.
I have a feeling 2011 is going to be a better year.
There's common fears, and phobias, spiders, clowns...carnival fun houses (don't ask). Yet, if I had to pin point an occupational fear there would be only one...
Christmas morning started off slow. The night before was a parade of drunken men in small to large groups. They came and went, some stopping by, some drinking more, a rowdy group of Chinese cooks lined the bar to toast with a shot of Hennesey, one of the girls shouted to them across the room:
"Who's ready for sex!?!?" All the girls promptly raised their hands. The drunkest of the grouped stuck out his chest.
"I'm ready, it's going to be good too, you're gonna love my skills."
"Then you're ready for an orgy?" I asked.
"I can take you all on, you'll love it too, you'll be paying me for it..."
The girls erupted into laughter.
"I don't know what holiday you think this is, but it ain't April Fools around here." I retorted.
In the early morning the house was quiet. The girls sleeping away a night of drinking, until a bell rang.
A gaggle of Mexican construction workers, still too drunk from whatever corner bar they had spent the night in dragged themselves through the door, ordered a round of Corona and talked loudly amongst themselves.
I locked eyes with a shy one sitting in a corner, he looked away and back, blushing in between glances, until he slide from his perch and joined me by the bar.
He was nervous, spoke broken English but told me that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he gave me five dollars, I put it in the jukebox. A few moments later we're back in the room, negotiating a quick party. I felt in the giving Christmas spirit so I gave him more time than I usually would.
The routine began. He imagined himself a great lover, huffing and puffing, big thrusts, slow thrusts, he tried to brush my hair over my ear, it was all very theatrical...then it ended.
I climbed off the bed in my usual routine grabbing a towel off the shelf to help him clean up, and that's the moment my heart dropped to my feet. I looked down about to pull the condom off with the towel, very standard for me to help them clean up, I paused in my tracks, staring down to see that it had ripped all the way through. That tiny barrier that was in those previous moments a guard to all my fears was now shredded. A million and one thoughts went through my mind then I snapped to, helped him clean up, got him dressed, got my clothes on, cleaned the room and escorted him back to the parlor, all with a smile on my face.
I asked the bartender for a moment, I need to take a shower, I told her. As I walked back to the room I felt a little sick, and I ripped my clothes off, turn the shower all the way to hot. There's nothing you can do at that moment, standing in the shower, scrubbing yourself as much as you can, a million little things run through your mind. I sank to my knees and began to cry, hyperventilate a little...I heard my phone ring.
Tears streaming down, I answered to my best friend, who at that moment was probably having a good afternoon, before becoming very concerned at my current state. We discussed the situation and resolved to a subject change after a few moments.
Once the initial shock had died, and the momentary insanity was gone I began the next step, prevention.
I contacted a friend who could help me plan out a course of action to get the morning after pill, set up a doctors appointment and then offer advice on how to breath until the STD testing could be done. The whole mess started a long drawn out process.
I got dressed again, did my hair, and make up and then put my smile back on and walked back out to the floor.
All the Mexicans were on their fifth or sixth round, a girl was dancing on the pole and dollar bills blanketed the floor, each hand throwing them out in flurries of hoots and whistles.
I wanted a seat where I could watch the action but keep a distance, trying to keep it all together. I sat by the jukebox and picked out the dancing music.
I felt someone watching me and I turned my head to find, the shy man I had just partied with sitting across from me. He sat with his beer and began to talk to me, asking me questions of my likes and dislikes. He rambled for a while searching for words in English that would convey his point. He asked me if I like him.
I have nothing against him so I said yes, I told him he seemed nice, he blushed at this.
"I like you, I like you a lot...you think you come and live with me...I will treat you good."
I explained to him that I couldn't leave my job, I had a different life outside my work and that he was kind but, no.
"I take good care of you, love you, marry you, when you're done with your job I wait for you to be done, if you come live with me."
I told him no again, telling him he should live his life, there's other better fish in the sea I explained.
"You're so beautiful Juniper, you want children?"
I swallowed my heart back into my chest. "No." I said and excused myself back to my room.
I waited until they had left before emerging back out into the parlor.
The rest of the night I spent drinking, each man coming into the house bought all the girls drinks, it's the time of year to do so, be generous that is, and the music kept playing, the laughter filled the room again and I sat at the end of the bar until the night shift bartender showed up, who is also a close friend.
At that point the bartender and I adjourned to a dark corner to give one another moral support as we shared stories of our collective holiday woes.
So, this saga isn't really about all the bad things, the negative thoughts that ensued, but more so about the fact that it's over a week later and I'm still here, pregnancy free, STD free, and working.
It's a part of the business, you do all you can to protect yourself, but it happens, it's an unfortunate accident but nothing to stop your life over in the end. We all have the risk factors in life, and I've survived one more.
I have a feeling 2011 is going to be a better year.
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