Former burlesque performer Ruth Ivo describes an X-rated cabaret act in this extract from her new memoir

By the time we arrived at the Club the crowds had gathered outside. Gabriel Grosse [the owner of the Club] took us through the main entrance, past the doorman, ignoring those trying to catch his attention.

Inside, the lobby was aglow with orange light and bright with the cooing of the lace-clad hostesses draped around the golden gun. They called out to Gabriel Grosse as we passed and went up the staircase, where faces loomed in the marmalade-coloured dark, towards the thundering noise coming from above.

Lila peeled off to get ready for the show, and I followed Gabriel Grosse to the VIP area. It was still early, the Club not yet full, a cold crowd of seedy-looking men and women hunched over buckets of vodka and ice.

‘How you feeling about Barbie?’ Gabriel Grosse asked. ‘She’s a good performer,’ I replied.

A wobbling circle of spotlight appeared on the curtains and a husky female voice came over the speakers. ‘Okay, my babies, she’s a dirty little doll, iiiiit’s Barbie!’

The track began to play, the curtains opening to reveal Barbie frozen in her box, wearing a shit-eating grin.

Her head snapped to one side as she jerked into life. Stepping from the box, elbows locked at forty-five degrees, she turned her face from left to right. Scanning the audience, I saw one or two of them smile.

Holding her hairbrush aloft, she moved her head towards the bristles in awkward, upward strokes, then tossed it to the floor, tottering back to the box to emerge clutching a Ken doll in a tiny pair of Y-fronts.

The crowd whooped as she lifted him to her face and licked him lasciviously. They were starting to warm up and Barbie, a true performer, was blossoming under their approval.

Brandishing the doll, she moved to the front of the stage where, with moves suddenly stripper-fluid, she began to grind. The audience took their cue, whistling as she tugged at the strings of her pink bikini top, wriggling her perfect behind. She whipped it off with a flourish and a cheer went up at the sight of the foam breasts, protruding like twin missiles from her chest. She hooked her thumbs beneath the fabric of the bikini bottoms and the cheering grew louder. With one movement she snatched them away to reveal… a flesh-coloured thong.

The sense of anticlimax sucked the energy from the room. Through the corner of my vision, I could see Gabriel Grosse’s face twitching with fury.

On stage, Barbie was hamming up the drama as she pulled the Y-fronts down the Ken doll’s legs, eyes widening in horror at the sight of his moulded crotch. With an anguished wail, she jabbed the doll at her own useless parts as the crowd fell about laughing.

Still wailing, she staggered to the box to retrieve the newly sprayed pink gun. Grasping it with both hands, she swung it crazily, aiming first for the audience, then at herself.

‘Do it,’ someone cried. ‘Do it.’

As the final notes played out, Barbie stepped back inside her box. Raising the gun to her head, she screwed her eyes shut – and fired.

The gunshot blasted across the speakers; the box’s window splattered with an arc of dark red blood.

There was scattered applause as Barbie slid limply to the floor, the curtains closing over the gory tableaux.

Gabriel Grosse shrugged. ‘Not bad,’ I heard him say.

This is an extract from Performance (Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99) by Ruth Ivo. Buy a copy from Bookshop.org here.

Or buy a copy from Blackwell’s here.

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