Page 2 of Deliah
We were buzzing. Selling shots to pissed-up tourists? Piece of piss. We could do that in our sleep. That night, we celebrated like we’d landed a six-figure salary. We made our way up the strip, drank everything in sight, danced like we were on stage, and eventually collapsed back at the hotel in a heap of tangled hair, fake lashes, and glittery regret.
The next night, we started work. We wore little red crop tops with Baywatch stitched across our tits and skirts that barely qualified as such. Aneeka held the tray of Jägerbombs, and I collected the cash. We flirted, teased, danced, and occasionally challenged lads to drinking competitions—which, weirdly, they always lost.
“You think you can outdrink us?” I’d smirk, downing a shot and winking at the lad’s best mate. “Watch me win and take your money.” And it worked. Every time.
By the end of the night, we were steaming, exhausted, but euphoric. We made over €100 each—cash in hand, no questions asked. We did the same every night. Seven nights a week. Thepay wasn’t amazing, but the free drinks and adrenaline made up for it. We lived on shots and cheesy chips and the pure thrill of being young and untouchable.
We went out to celebrate that night, and it was pure carnage. It started off tame—just us lot and a few workers from another bar, drinking at work before heading down the strip. I’d just got paid and felt invincible, so I was doing rounds like I was bloody Jeff Bezos. Then Aneeka decided to snog some tourist who turned out to have a girlfriend—and the girlfriend saw. Pandemonium. Full-blown screaming match in the middle of the road. Hair pulling, insults flying, glasses thrown. I had to practically drag Aneeka away before fists started swinging. She was swearing blind that the guy said he was single. Classic Aneeka. I half carried her back to the hotel, one heel missing, her eyeliner halfway down her face, laughing and crying all at once.
“Why is it always me?” she slurred.
“Because you’re a fucking nightmare,” I said, trying not to laugh.
We got back to the hotel, I dumped her on the bed, had a fag, kicked off my heels, and crashed.
After a couple of weeks (and several “extra nights” added to our hotel stay), we knew we needed somewhere more permanent to stay. That was when we moved in with Sted Head and Jamie—our new flatmates. Calling it an apartment was generous—it was more like student digs meets lad pad with dodgy plumbing and even dodgier walls. But it was cheap, full of madness, and only two minutes from the strip. Sted Head was massive. Ripped to shreds. One of those gym lads who somehow had more protein powder than personality. Worked at Baywatch. Shirt off 24/7. The girls loved it. Not really my type, too… ‘I know I’m fit,’ but solid eye candy first thing in the morning. Jamie was a legend.Hilarious, cheeky, and always in demand. He had a queue of girls wanting a go, and to be fair, I got it. He was charismatic but too small for me. I liked a man who could pick me up and not dislocate a shoulder doing it. The apartment was madness. There were girls sneaking out every morning in last night’s heels, thongs on the balcony, and shagging noises at 3 a.m. like it was background music. Aneeka was just as bad, but she usually went back to tourist hotels with her conquests.
One night, I came back alone—God knows where Aneeka was—and I sat on the balcony just looking over the bars and drunken tourists. The air was warm, the street still buzzing from the night. I lit up, leaning over the edge just in time to hear a key in the door. Sted Head walked in with a blonde Swedish girl trailing behind him. They didn’t see me—too busy wrapped around each other. I stayed quiet, partly out of politeness, partly out of curiosity… and maybe a bit of something darker. They didn’t even make it to his room. Right there on the sofa, like no one else existed. Clothes off, hands everywhere, her soft moans echoing out into the heat of the night. I watched. I don’t know why. I didn’t feel jealous, just weirdly… fascinated. Maybe it was the rawness. The lack of shame. Maybe I was just sick in the head. But I watched until it was done, stubbed out my cigarette, and slipped off to bed without saying a word. The next morning, Sted Head had no idea I’d seen. Neither did she. Just another night in the island of misfit toys.
When it came to me and sex? I dabbled. I had a thing for DJs—maybe it was the confidence, the headphones, the way they owned a room. Flings happened. Booth corners. Staff stairwells. But for me, it was never about the body count. It was about power. Knowing I could have someone if I wanted to. Sleeping with someone every night? No, thanks. Everyone was shagging everyone. None of it meant anything.
Chapter 2 –
Shag, Shame, and Glitter
The summer blurred in a haze of tequila, cheap vodka, and nights that started with glitter and ended in havoc. We laughed until we cried, proper bellyaching, mascara-smudging, can’t breathe kind of laughter. We were feral. Free. But between the sun and the shots, there were fallouts. Mostly with Aneeka. She was wild. Unhinged in the best and worst ways.
Some nights, she wouldn’t come home until noon the next day, and I’d be pacing the apartment in my pyjamas, checking my phone every five minutes like some overprotective mum. Other nights, I’d get the dreaded 4 a.m. call, her voice slurred and panicked, asking me to come get her from a random tourist’s hotel. I’d turn up and find her curled up on a bed, surrounded by coked-up lads in fake Gucci and bad intentions. She was fireand madness, and I loved her more than anything, but fuck, she made it hard. We were all burning the candle at both ends. Too much work, too many drinks, too little sleep. At some point, I caught the infamous Rushkinoff cough, a rite of passage on the island. Rushkinoff was the dirt-cheap vodka every bar served, the kind that burned like bleach and stuck to your lungs for days. Scratchy throat, wheezy chest, voice like you’d chain-smoked three packs a day. We called it the tax for being a worker girl in paradise.
By month four, I was cracked. Still working, still smiling, still pouring Jägerbombs down tourists’ throats—but I could feel myself coming undone. And then… I had one of those nights. I’d gone full glam—fake tan, lashes you could feel in the wind, skirt so short it should’ve come with a warning. Aneeka had vanished with some lad she’d been screwing, and I didn’t fancy going home alone, so I tagged along with Jamie and Sted Head for a few drinks after work. I was drunk, flirty, and—for once—bored of playing it cool. I needed something. A distraction. A good fuck. A reminder that I still had it. That’s when I decided to go on the hunt. There was this guy, leaning against the bar, nursing a beer like he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Early twenties, tall, scruffy in a “didn’t pack enough clothes for the holiday” sort of way. Rough around the edges. Not my usual type—but I wasn’t fussy that night. I wasn’t looking for fireworks. Just friction.
I swaggered up, hips swaying from the tequila and the heat.
“So,” I said, planting myself beside him, “you gonna buy me a drink or what?”
He raised an eyebrow, half amused. “Bit forward, aren’t you?”
“I’m forward, fun, and wearing six inches of heel pain. You offering or not?”
He chuckled. “What’ll it be, then? Sex on the Beach?”
“I’ll take the drink, and we’ll see about the rest.”
His grin turned cocky. I had him. Wrapped around my little finger in under sixty seconds. Classic.
We had a couple of drinks. I flirted, and he tried to keep up. At one point, he tried to act smooth and said, “Bet you get lads buying you drinks all the time.”
I leaned in, lips at his ear. “Only the brave ones.”
He followed me back to the flat like a puppy on a lead. Inside, we kicked off our shoes, and I dragged him out to the balcony. The night was warm, humming with music and laughter drifting up from the strip below. I lit a cigarette, waiting for him to make the first move. He didn’t. Just stood there, awkward as anything, staring out like we were at a viewing party instead of five minutes from fucking. I rolled my eyes, stubbed the cig, and yanked him by the belt loops towards my room. Clothes hit the floor. Kisses got messy. But when it came down to it—the actual sex—it was an absolute car crash.
He barely touched me. Didn’t read a single signal. No rhythm, no passion, just clumsy thrusts and confused expressions. I lay there beneath him, wondering if I was being punked. Was this really it? Was this what I gave up my whole life for? He was slow. Uncertain. Like he thought I was going to leave him a TripAdvisor review afterwards. I’d had enough. His hands were everywhere and nowhere. My neck, my boob, my arm—as if he was working through a checklist instead of touching me.
“Just—fuck me like a real man,” I snapped, mid-thrust. “Jesus.”
His face changed. He stopped dead, blinked at me, stunned. Then the ego kicked in.
“You’re rude as fuck,” he spat. “Maybe you’re not all that, yeah? Maybe you think you’re hotter than you actually are.”
