SEX WITH AN OLIGARCH
Would you slut-drop for Grandpops?
Ishield my eyes as I try to flag down a cab. There are none to be found. Instead, the streets are jammed with Rolls-Royces, Jaguars and acid-bright Aston Martins, their drivers all men of a certain age with expensive-looking skin and Rolex watches that flash in the afternoon sunlight.
It’s 2pm, late September and the Monaco Yacht Show is in full swing. For the next three days, the tax-haven principality – home to the highest number of millionaires and billionaires in the world – doubles in population, as the streets swell with those in the market for their very own super-yacht. There are 121 on display this year, collectively worth $3.5 billion. There’s the 290ft Illusion Plus, which comes with its own helipad and could be yours for $145 million. Or how about Kismet? Owned by billionaire Shahid Khan (who also owns Fulham Football Club), you can charter this 312ft yacht for $1.29 million, joining the likes of Beyoncé and Jay Z, who had their summer holiday on board last year.
Yet amid the oil tycoons, trust-fund kids and property magnates who gravitate here every year, the Monaco Yacht Show also attracts a different sort of clientele: freshly graduated twentysomethings looking to expand their CV with something a bit more glamorous than pulling pints in the local Wetherspoons. Back home, in between working as a freelance journalist, I earn £100 a day as a temporary receptionist. Here, I can rake in double that in just a few hours – while also drinking champagne in the sun. Because for every millionaire that flocks here, there’s an army of staff needed to tend to them. I could apply for promotional work (handing out flyers or serving drinks at events) or, if I was in the market for something more permanent, get stewardess work. This would see me spending the next few months as a sort of waitress on board one of these yachts, where I’d incidentally get to live while travelling the world. And it’s well-paid, too: the average stewardess can earn up to €10,000 in just four months, without paying any living costs or tax.
It’s a pretty cushty gig, and tough to come by. But being here is one of the best ways to get noticed. “Dock walking” is how you get work, and is basically the art of wandering up and down the docks, CVs in hand, until somebody invites you onto their yacht.
I don’t have much time, so I’ve managed to secure myself some promotional work, on the last day of the show, through an agency I called before I flew out. They didn’t ask for any references, instead I just needed to let them know a little bit about my hobbies, along with my Instagram handle and my dress size (the options on the form, I note, only range from 6-12). An agency is a fairly straightforward way to find work but, as I am soon to discover, there are many other jobs available for pretty young women here. It’s just that not all of them are advertised…
While I wait for my promo job to start, I go to browse the show – daily passes cost €300 and get you access to the port, viewings of the yachts and exhibitors displaying everything from interactive water features for your shower to diamond rings the size of walnuts. I’m here on my own, but everyone is so friendly. As I walk through the streets, men stop to compliment me on what I’m wearing, while others say they like the colour of my hair or eyes. Within half an hour, business cards begin to line the bottom of my bag. The girls here are friendly, too. At one of the show’s more covetable attractions, the sports-car exhibition tent, I get chatting to two 20-year-old students, Celine and Anastasia,* who both fund their studies at a local university by working as hostesses. This week, they’re working for a
“The guys can be a bit boring, but it’s worth it”
sports-car brand. The job is pretty easy, they tell me. All they have to do is wear bandage dresses and high heels, then simply stand in front of the car, serving champagne and laughing at the jokes of potential buyers. Celine, who is studying fashion and wants to be a stylist, tells me that as well as jobs like this, her agency will send her along in the back of chauffeured cars to give wealthy visitors a tour of Monaco. Really? That’s it? But when I press her for more, she clams up. (She does, however, tell me later, “They want to talk to you… until they learn you have a boyfriend.”) Anastasia, meanwhile, is more giggly, with a wide smile that reveals teeth clad in braces.“The parties are the best…” she whispers conspiratorially. “It’s crazy some of the people you meet – celebrities, sports stars. Sometimes the guys are a bit boring, but it’s worth it,” she tells me, before running off and returning with a VIP wristband for a party that the car brand is hosting later. Because that’s the other perk to promotional work: access to the parties. Parties that take place on these super-yachts, far from prying eyes.
MY FIRST YACHT PARTY
A private speedboat arrives at 6pm to ferry us all to this evening’s event. Celine and Anastasia are asked to sit at the front, while the guests (a mixture of clients and investors, men and women, all about 20 years older than me) are seated behind. Everyone assumes I’m part of the promotional team, so I sit up front as we jet across the harbour. A young guy with a handheld video camera instructs us to glance coyly over our shoulders, which I dutifully do. Twenty minutes later, and we’re clambering on board the yacht, where we’re asked to remove our shoes, which are then put away to pick up later. It’s 150ft long, spread across three floors, with a Jacuzzi on the top deck. The events team try to persuade us to jump in. I look down at my white dress. I point out that it will go see-through. They don’t seem to view this as a problem. We make our way to the bar. Anastasia – who has been sipping free champagne all day – is now stumbling and slurring her words, but still grabs a glass before immersing herself in the crowds. Both she and Celine have been instructed that they’re here to work and must socialise with the guests, leaving me alone. Usually, I’d have no qualms about going over and chatting to someone, but here I’m told it’s a social faux pas, and I must wait for a man to talk to me. It doesn’t take very long. Soon, an expensive-looking Italian man who introduces himself as Lorenzo* sidles over. His interest in me is flattering: he’s here representing his boss, a couture designer, and he offers – within five minutes of us chatting – to fly me out to Rome, to meet him. Throughout the next few hours, he’s constantly behind me – a persistent shadow, glowering over my shoulder. When I chat to other men, he slides his arm
around my back. When I try to escape him and excuse myself to go to the bathroom, he insists on accompanying me, waiting outside the door the entire time.
But he’s not my biggest problem. Celine and I can’t find Anastasia. She was last seen on one of the many lower decks, sobbing and struggling to stand up. I go over to a group of men and ask if they’ve seen her.“She’s around 20, has long dark hair and is wearing a red dress,” I explain.
“She sounds great,” one of them says, while his friends laugh.“When you find her, bring her over.”
I’d heard them chatting to her earlier, trying to guess her age. One of them had guessed 16 – on account of her braces. They’re all at least 50.
Eventually we find her, enthusiastically snogging her manager. It’s just in time: the party is drawing to a close and the speedboat is about to arrive to take us back to dry land.
I’m grateful when I finally see it pull up. I’m barefoot, my shoes somewhere within the cavity of this boat, and I have no phone reception. I’m also aware that I am surrounded by a group of powerful, wealthy men, almost all of whom are complete strangers.
Once off the boat, Lorenzo offers to drive me back to my apartment – and argues with me, gripping my elbow tight, when I refuse. Eventually I shake him off, racing towards a taxi.
GIRLS FOR SAIL
An odd thing happens in Monaco: men think nothing of inviting women like me to be a part of their business deals. One of the men I met at the party – a marketing honcho for a luxury car brand – invited me to brunch, to sit beside him while he woos an important client. And within eight hours of landing in Monaco, I met Roberto,* who stopped me as I was walking around a super-yacht on display at the show. After some back-and-forth chit-chat (in which he name-dropped both Kate Moss and Prince Philip), he invited me to meet him at the Private Members’ Yacht Club for lunch.
Here the air is scented with leather, while men with grey hair and red faces swirl whisky in their glasses. The staff are wary of me: I’m stopped three times as they quiz me about who I’m meeting. Thankfully Roberto – who, with his salt-and-pepper hair, reminds me of an old Italian grandfather – collects me, guiding me through, his hand resting gently on my lower back. He breezily introduces me to an international diplomat, before we take our seats – where Roberto, a yacht broker,
“Girls would be kicked off and replaced”
shows me off to his clients. They are an understated but friendly couple who Roberto informs me are multi-millionaires, without telling me what they actually do for a living. We make polite small talk over a three-course lunch, but I’m still confused as to why I’m here. When Roberto invited me, he framed it as a quick introduction: “We’ll just stop by and see my friends quickly,” was how he put it. But it is quite clear this is actually some sort of business transaction – my role in which is hazy.
Once we’ve finished, we make our way out onto the pier – where a dazzling four-tiered yacht awaits us. Clutching my waist, Roberto whispers in my ear,“Help me sell this boat.” I bluff my way through as Roberto offers to snap some pictures of me lounging on the top deck. I oblige – the muscle in my jaw flinching as I try to smile normally. As we step back onto
the pier, I realise it really didn’t matter what I said – I was simply window-dressing for the boat.
I think back to earlier, as Roberto and I weaved our way through the corridors. He’s 50 years older than me, and, as staff and patrons side-eyed us, I could make a pretty good guess at what they were thinking. Prostitution has always been legal in Monaco, and at events like this, sex workers flood in from adjoining cities. A friend of mine had already warned me not to go to certain bars, wear certain clothes (flashy short dresses, Chanel handbags) or even be seen on my own, as all could signal my availability for sex work.
Becky,* a curvy brunette stewardess and a size 12, explains to me how last summer she’d spent a month dockwalking for work.“It’s so important how you look: a certain height, a certain weight. A lot of boats only take blondes.” Despite previous experience, Becky couldn’t find any work – and eventually took a job on a yacht that she’d been told, in whispers, had a “bad reputation”. But she was desperate and running out of options. Within a week, the boat had welcomed two Russian men in their fifties, who arrived with eight prostitutes. It was Becky’s job to serve them drinks and watch as the girls (“the youngest was 18”) danced naked on the tables and the men pointed at them, picking which they’d take up to their rooms for the night. “One night an enormous argument erupted between the men and one of the girls – it was in Russian and she stormed out,” recalls Becky. “When she came back, crying her eyes out, he grabbed her and backhanded her around the face.” Becky and the other stewardesses went to talk to the captain. Miles away from land, they didn’t feel safe. “One of [the girls] was 18 and the guests wouldn’t leave her alone,” she says. But the captain didn’t care. The girls continued to work on the yacht in the weeks that followed. “We would stop off in different places, some girls would be kicked off, others would replace them.” It occurs to me that no matter what role you have as a woman in Monaco, generally speaking, you’re still viewed the same way. You are a commodity – whether you are one of the sex workers who line the benches in clubs every night, or a promotional girl whose job it is to say “yes” to every guest and smile and laugh, no matter how offended or scared you may feel.
The female economy is the undercurrent in Monaco. In the several days I’ve been here, I’ve drunk countless glasses of champagne for free, and been offered work that would see me flown all over the world and even first-class flights to Rome. But I’ve also, at times, felt more for sale than the yachts and the cars.
A few weeks later, I’m sent a link: I’ve appeared in some footage on a German news site about the yacht show. As I watch the video, I am sitting on a London bus, steadily chipping my manicure off. It’s like looking at another person, someone I could become. My reality away from Monaco is a lot less glamorous – I work long hours and worry about paying the bills. I could give up all of this struggle and instead spend my days seeing the world. But to say there would be no cost to that is to be naive to the fact that every choice comes with its own sacrifice. Because what my life in London gives me is control over my own actions. Were I to go back to Monaco, I’m not so sure I could say the same thing…