Murder on the Dance Floor
Created | Updated Mar 31, 2005
Pole-dancing For Beginners
Splendid
I've had a long-standing desire to visit a strip club. But that's not really the sort of place that a well-brought up young lady like what I am can go to unaccompanied. So I twisted Reddyfreddy's arm1 to agree to take me along to one. And being the thorough researchers we are, we did a full recce in advance, spending an afternoon strolling around Luxembourg's red-light district, sussing out where the clubs are, and gleaning what information we could from the outside.
So that evening we headed off for a night's entertainment. I was a little nervous entering the first club, but it didn't look too seedy, no burly doorman said 'Oi! No women!', and after a G'n'T I started to relax. However, something was wrong with this picture: no-one was dancing on stage. No girls came and asked us if we'd like a dance. No other punters were there. OK, so it was 11 pm on a Thursday night, but still...
We decided to move onto a different club, and maybe come back later when things hotted up a bit. At least there was no door charge, so we weren't that much out of pocket.
Beverly Hill's
So onto the 2nd club we went. Again, not too seedy an atmosphere, and there were indeed girls on the stage. Fully clothed, mind, but at least we were not staring at empty poles. But then they disappeared. And after 10 minutes, so did we.
We stuck our heads around the door of club number 3, but on spotting yet another empty stage, we decided to press on in our search for dancing ladies.
So onto club number 4. And lo! A girl was dancing around a pole! Sort of. And took her clothes off. A bit. She was swiftly followed by another doing some of the same. And then, there we were, looking at empty poles again. Hmmmmm. Time for some serious action. RF persuaded 2 of the girls to join us and explain the Luxemburgish system (since he's only familiar with how things work in London. Allegedly.) So they offered to sit and talk to us if we bought a bottle of champagne for 250 euros. Well, talking we're good at on our own! We don't really need assistance on that score. So we decided to give up, told ourselves we'd laugh about this later, and headed home for some German telly and left-handed web-sites.
Loch
The next day we headed off to Warsaw for the weekend. Now we'd joked about pole dancers coming from Poland2, but it hadn't really been our intention to continue our pursuit (in fact, we were all set on being cultured and artistic), but when we discovered a nightclub quite literally across the street from our apartment, and the guidebook recommended it as Warsaw's classiest... well it seemed churlish to turn down the opportunity. And so, on Saturday night, we found ourselves sitting in an exposed-brick underground cavern, again staring at an empty pole, and wondering how things worked in this country. There were about 6 girls dotted about the room, most sipping champagne with customers, but we were left unhassled. We wondered if maybe it was unusual for a female punter to be in a place like this3, and perhaps they were the ones who were trying to work out what was going on.
And then, the volume of the music increased, the lights on the stage grew in intensity, and one of the girls left her table and appeared on stage. And danced around the pole. And took nearly all her clothes off. Aha! we thought! That's a bit more like it. We moved closer to the stage and, as the evening wore on, each of the girls took her turn on stage, each one giving a progressively more raunchy performance.
I was particularly impressed at the technical prowess being displayed on the pole - how DO they do that gripping the pole thing with only their legs??? And then drop 3 feet and come to a stop??? In 7 inch heels???
Time for bed
We were enjoying ourselves mightily, and probably would have stayed longer, had it not been for the arrival of a bunch of rowdy English chaps, drunk, noisy, rude4, and who were the first thing to make me feel really uncomfortable all night.
So, having achieved one of my many 'things to do before you die', we went home pretty satisfied. I will send RF off to explore London's clubs, though, in order to show me round on my next visit to him...
Murder on the Dance Floor Archive
