‘In the early days, you’d be doing 20 jobs in a night – bang, bang, bang’
After 20 years, Pentagon Grand is Queensland’s longest-running licensed brothel and its staff have seen – and done – it all
“I told her to think of it like a workbench. She couldn’t stop laughing
FOR 20 years, this legendary Gold Coast brothel has kept its customers, well, coming.
While the rooms inside the Pentagon Grand have witnessed more eyebrow-raising scenes than most could dare imagine, it’s the numbers that really paint a picture.
In its two decades of adult business, the Molendinar bordello – the longest-running licensed brothel in Queensland – has employed more than 400,000 condoms, 25,000 litres of lube, 40 mattresses across five rooms and 1380 girls – with the top performer booking 4219 jobs in just a few years.
“She is the myth, the legend,” says Nicole, the licensed manager of Pentagon Grand, which first opened in April 2002.
“She hasn’t been here for a while but she’s still the top by a long shot. There are a few girls sitting in the 2000s right now, though.
“Not that I’d ever tell them, that messes with your mind.”
Nicole is the perfect madam. Honest and funny, warm and compassionate, but – above all – discreet. As the mother of children enrolled at a private school, she knows just how judgmental society can be.
That’s why her family know what her job is, but the school does not.
Besides, after six years at Pentagon Grand, Nicole knows that being critical is simply none of her business.
While Nicole is nothing but serious when it comes to the health and safety of her employees and clients – both physically and otherwise – she says sometimes you just can’t help but laugh at what goes on, and off, in her “office”.
There’s the client who requests having a pie smashed in his face, the client who likes to eat lollies from in between toes … and all sorts in between.
“I always wonder, how did they figure out that
this was their turn-on? There are some pretty specific requests and you just wonder … when and how did you realise this is what you want?
“There’s no judgment, but I do try to help them out.
“I get guys who have never used sex toys and then they decide they want to try something so I’m trying to point them to the smaller size but they want the extra large … and I try to tell them, you really don’t want that.
“But you never know what someone’s story is, it’s always their choice.”
While she’s adept at looking after the books and bookings, sorting the rosters and taking care of office admin, Nicole also helps clients choose the best service and the right server.
And she’s well practiced at playing confidante and counsellor to her employees, their clients … and their wives.
“Part of my job is handling the calls from wives when they find out their husbands have been here,” says Nicole.
“Sometimes they’re hysterical, sometimes they’re angry, sometimes they’re both … but I always manage to calm them down.
“I can give them my personal perspective since I’m here and I know what it’s like, and I tell them I would rather my husband come here and do something like this than meet someone online or at work and have a relationship.
“This is business here, it’s just money to these girls. Plus, a lot of times men have fantasies they want to act on that they won’t do with their wives, a lot of times out of respect for them.
“They might wonder if they’re gay and want to try something different, but they don’t want to ask their wives to do that.”
Nicole says she’s so used to working in a brothel that she forgets how strange it seems to some.
“We had the mattress representative in here the other day and they were trying to delicately ask what our needs were – whether we wanted our beds hard or soft.
“I told her to think of it like a workbench. She couldn’t stop laughing. But it’s the truth!”
Nicole says she started working at Pentagon Grand after meeting an employee through her former job as an office administrator.
Fascinated with the stories she heard, she decided to accept an offer to work there when a position opened. Her plan was to work there for just a few months – and dine out on the stories for a lifetime – but Nicole says once she started, she never wanted to leave.
However, she says it’s a different story for the working girls themselves.
“Some of the girls hold really good positions in the workforce, they have degrees, they’re nurses at the hospital, they’re teachers, childcare workers, hairdressers.
“A lot of them have husbands and kids. Some of them have financial problems, some of them just want to make a lot of money and a lot have trauma in their past, and some just really love sex – they’re giving it away for free on Tinder so why not get paid for it?
“You can tell when things are happening in the economy too. We have a lot of girls on the books and working right now – they have to pay rent or save for a deposit and that’s harder than ever in this property market.
“But no one lasts forever, and nor should they.
“I warn the girls when they first start making good money not to get dazzled. There is no longevity in this because it does weigh you down over time.
“Some of the girls walk away and they’ve bought themselves houses and even multiple properties … but others just walk away with so much s--- in their lips, fake boobs, fake nails and they haven’t saved a cent. That gets me down.”
Nicole says despite the glamorous lifestyle the job can buy, the work itself can be pretty tough.
However, she says the job was far more demanding when Pentagon Grand opened in 2002.
She says the last decade has seen the sex economy contract, with Tinder and online dating becoming a substitute for sex workers.
“During the day shift, you usually just get sober businessmen and tradies. It’s purely transactional, clean and tidy. The graveyard shifts on Friday and Saturday night are when clients can get a bit messy – but it’s also when they flash the most cash.
“... It’s frustrating when you have a girl who does three jobs and then says she’s too sore. There’s plenty of others who wanted this shift, you need to work all eight hours.
“Some of the managers who have been here from the start can’t believe the whingeing. Back in the early days, you’d be doing 20 jobs in a night – bang, bang, bang. I don’t know how the girls handled it. Even now, when you have a client walk in who stinks, who has dirt all under his fingernails, who is drunk or high … those girls earn every penny.”
Nicole says as varied as the clients are, there are a few cliches that ring true.
And, regrettably, there have been a few who cross the boundaries of acceptability.
“Most guys are middle-aged and they usually pick the girl that looks the youngest. They want big boobs, bums and blondes,” she says.
“I get asked all the time ‘ who is the youngest?’ And I say they can be any age you want them to be. I had a regular client who was 82 and he always chose the girl who was 22 but looked 16. Was he reliving his youth or did he have certain … tendencies? I don’t ask. It always surprises me how guys are so not self-aware. As women, we know our bodies – we know what our strengths are and the bits we try to hide.
“The guys just don’t care, they’ll have a gut so large you can’t even find their penis, but they’re not worried. One of them told one of our girls ‘if you got a boob job, you’d do so much better’. And I’m thinking: mate, you’re paying for it … you can’t even get it in the real world.
“But the worst was when a guy was in the intro room, that’s where you meet all the available girls and choose which one you want. Well, as he looked around he recognised one of the girls as a friend of his daughter’s. And he chose her.”
Nicole says even though this isn’t the job she imagined for herself, she believes this is where she is meant to be. In fact, she was nominated by her staff for manager of the year in the adult industry awards.
She says brothels, as controversial as they may be, not only provide a service but are a service to the community.
“I look at all of the illegal massage sex shops – and everyone knows where they are – and I wonder who would go there and who would work there?
“We are every bit as discreet but a hell of a lot safer. All of our girls and all of our clients are tested, the government audits us, the police check on us … you can’t be safer than coming to a brothel.
“The other thing I think we do so well is educating people. We teach them how to be more adventurous but still safe, and – especially these days – the girls will bust a lot of myths that porn has created. That makes those guys a lot safer when they meet someone in a club or in ‘real life’. They’re not believing that porn is real anymore.
“I’ve made lifelong friends with so many of the girls and clients alike. Years after they stopped coming here, we still catch up – we celebrate weddings, babies, birthdays.
“This industry has paid me back tenfold in the people I’ve met. I get phone calls from the parents of some of our clients with disabilities thanking me for what we do and how well we do it.
“I never thought this would be my job, but as my husband and I say: God puts you where you need to be.”
It’s a sentiment that is every bit as surprising and, well, touching as the brothel business itself.