Absolute Mayhem by Monica Mayhem Read Free Book Online Page A

(and still
is) absolutely outrageous. I don't know how anyone with
a regular job can survive there. Everything, from rent
to food, is so expensive! Why would anyone pay eight
pounds for a plate of fish and chips or sludgy pasta that
you can make yourself at home?
    It was London that made me realise I was already
so over the financial industry, and it was wearing me
down and burning me out. It just wasn't what I wanted
to do in the long run. I had always known it deep down,
even when I was enjoying it more in Australia, but
I never did anything about it because I was so comfortable
with having all that money and all those benefits.
When I was offered a higher position at Salomon Smith
Barney, I found myself saying, 'You know what? I don't
think I can handle it right now. This is not what I
want to do.'
    I had really found the space during those last months
at Salomon Smith Barney to 'find myself ' and decided
that I still wanted to get involved somehow in the entertainment
industry. So I quit.
    I had already found myself a 'modelling' agent
through the newspaper prior to this, when I was looking
around to see what other kinds of work I could
do. Being too short for a regular model, I'd gone for the
other option: soft core. The agent had found me some
paid work doing soft core photo shoots, and I'd taken
him up on it. I also did a soft core-porn-film shoot that
he'd booked me on for the Adult Channel with three
other girls. It was a bit weird because I'd never been
with a girl before, but we really didn't do much other
than simulated pussy-eating. Getting naked wasn't
too hard at that point either, after the photo shoots
I'd done.
    A lot of girls in adult entertainment get their start
this way, getting half-naked for the cameraman before
taking it all off for a live audience, and I wanted to see
what that was like. I might've been insecure about many
things but my body wasn't one of them.
    Sure enough, I went from doing still- and video-camera
poses to dancing nude on the chrome-pole stage.
To this day, I can't remember the name of the club where
I began stripping, but I didn't stay there long – it was just
too far from where I was living. I don't even remember
where it was located. I started there because it was the
nicest club that I could find, and also because they
took me in with no previous experience.
    I became friends with another girl who stripped
there – she was a very shy girl. When we heard that
the Spearmint Rhino club was opening up in central
London, we couldn't resist. I remember the first time
I walked into the Spearmint Rhino, on Tottenham
Court Road. It was so beautiful that I knew I wanted to
work there.
    I got the job by going in for an 'audition' – meaning I
danced around the pole and got naked for them, so they
could assess my competence. The Rhino was a 'longgown'
club, just like where I'd started. This meant we
had to wear long, see-through gowns when we were
walking the floor, rather than skimpy little outfits,
because it looked more classy. It didn't take too long for
the long gown to become no gown, of course, because
the Rhino, also like my first club, was fully nude. Other
things the two places had in common were that we
didn't get to choose our own songs, and I always had to
get a bit drunk before I could get up on stage. I wasn't
ashamed of my body, but I still got nervous. Sometimes,
I would also do a little blow.
    When I started stripping, I didn't really know what
I was doing, but I practised my moves when the club
was empty and hung out with some of the other girls
and got tips from them. I did enjoy the social elements
of the job. When I wasn't on stage, I had to sit and chat
and drink with the guys, which came very easily to me
since I love to talk to new people, and I soon got the
hang of it. Dancing naked for a bunch of Londoners:
that does sound so strange after all those years in the
financial markets, but the truth was that, for me, it was
easy getting naked after a few