Daddy's Little Earner (17 page)

There was nothing I could do against the strength and
weight of two grown men and eventually I gave up even
trying.

‘Relax,’ Dad instructed as always, ‘because it’s going
to happen. You’re not going to get away from it so just
get on with it. The more you relax, the better it will be
for you.’

I turned my head away so I didn’t have to look at their
faces as Peter did what he wanted to do and I stared hard
at the overturned cartons and the spilled Chinese food on
the carpet that had seemed so appetizing just a few
moments earlier. All I could think was that this was all I
was worth, this was what I was reduced to, lying amidst the rubbish, being used up and disposed of like the cheap
spilled food on the floor. This was all my own father
thought of me.

I somehow felt more violated than I ever had when
Dad had done it to me himself because Peter was a virtual
stranger and because he was so disgusting physically.
Dad always told me he was the only one who loved me,
so I could be bloody sure Peter had no feelings towards
me whatsoever. He just wanted some quick relief and a
bit of underage action. Because they didn’t exchange any
words during the whole scene I knew that they must have
planned it before, that Dad had pimped me just as he had
pimped Mum and Kathy and all the others. I knew Peter
must have paid because I was sure Dad would never have
given me to another man for free. He was always jealous
of me even having a boyfriend, but somehow that didn’t
seem to matter when there was money to be earned. I had
become just another dodgy little business transaction to
him, a bit of a cash cow, and Peter was no threat to his
own power or control over me.

‘You shouldn’t be giving it away,’ were the exact
words I’d heard him use to women a hundred times
before, ‘when you could be charging for it.’

I knew that he genuinely had difficulty understanding
why every woman didn’t go on the game. In some
ways I think he believed most of them did, one way or
another. He always said that married women who didn’t work lived off their husbands and provided sexual
favours in return. He didn’t think that was any different
to openly selling your wares to different men on the
street.

Many years later, when I had been moved to another
children’s home, Peter used to send me money from time
to time, even though I never had sex with him again after
that first experience. Maybe he had a conscience after all.
But Dad certainly didn’t because from that night
onwards he saw me as a permanent source of income and
started taking me up the block to work just like Mum,
leading me deep into his own personal world.

The first night I worked on the block I was on the run
from Break. I think Dad had just come out of prison for
something and had encouraged me to come and see him.
We couldn’t go to his flat to stay because that would have
been the first place the authorities would have gone to
look for me, so we went round to Lucy and Twiggy’s
place. Twiggy was Lucy’s on-and-off boyfriend for years
and was a lovely old boy. Even though I was scared about
what Dad had planned for me that night, I felt comfortable
being with them. They made it seem like it was all
just a normal day’s work. I drank an awful lot of vodka
before we went out in order to get my courage up. Most
prostitutes have to be drunk or high in order to deal with
the fear of being out on the street, especially when they’re
starting out. Afterwards they drink more because they want to drown out the memory of what they’ve just done,
which is why there is such a culture of alcohol and drugs
around the business. I didn’t know anything about drugs
in those days and that was one thing Dad always said he
was totally against. He thought he was too good for the
dirty, scruffy hippy scene of the time.

That night Dad told me what to wear and supervised
me painting my face and then he took me out to Ber
Street. I just felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
There was no way out of it, so I might as well get it over
with. I obeyed him automatically, in robot mode.

‘Walk up to the car when it stops,’ he instructed, ‘open
the passenger door and ask, “Do you want business?” If
they say “Yes, how much?” you say “Seven pounds in the
car or ten pounds at the house.”’

He stayed in the shadows behind me, pushing me
towards the cars as they slowed down, whispering
encouragement as I wobbled forward on my high heels,
fuelled up on vodka and lime. It was frightening, but it
wasn’t exactly difficult. If a car containing a single man
was cruising in that area it was certain that he was looking
for the one thing I was selling.

‘Do you want business?’ I asked the first one, terms
were agreed and I got in the car and that was it. I probably
managed to service four or five punters that first
night. I don’t have any clear memories of the men or the
sex, just a sense of total revulsion. Did these men have any idea that I was only thirteen? Would it have mattered to
them if they did? Surely there was no way I could pass for
sixteen, even in the dark? But no one stopped and said,
‘You’re too young, darling,’ because they all wanted a
piece.

Dad had bought a bottle of whisky to take back to the
house after I’d earned my money. Relieved it was all over
and I had survived, I swallowed several glasses in quick
succession and then threw up all over his suit trousers.
The whisky probably didn’t mix too well with the vodka
still swilling around in my stomach from earlier, not to
mention all the adrenaline that must have been coursing
through my body. I thought Dad would kill me for spoiling
his clothes but he didn’t even get angry, just seemed
to think it was funny that I had got myself into such a terrible
state.

He was always good at helping people when they were
drunk or ill or had been beaten up. Whenever one of his
friends like Lucy turned up on the doorstep in a bad state
he would always take them in and do whatever was needed.
Whereas most people might think they had brought
such things on themselves he would think it was perfectly
understandable. Maybe he knew that at vulnerable
moments like that he would be able to turn people into
anything he wanted, make them prostitutes or alcoholics,
make them dependent on him and grateful to him for not
judging them. He liked people to think he would always be there for them, no matter how badly they behaved. If I
was drunk and throwing up I was easier to manipulate
and control.

‘That’s life,’ he said cheerfully as he cleaned my vomit
off his trousers.

We stayed at Lucy and Twiggy’s for a few days that
time but the police must have got wind of where I was
because they came looking for me to take me back to the
children’s home. When they heard the police at the door
Dad and Lucy hid me in the cupboard under the stairs.
As I sat scrunched up in the dark I was hoping the police
would find me and take me with them because I didn’t
want to go on the streets any more. I felt ready to return to
the safety of the home but I wasn’t going to call out and
give myself away because I knew that would upset Dad.
Pleasing him was always the most important thing, so I
stayed silent in the darkness under the stairs, my heart
thumping, watching the passing shadows through the
cracks in the boards, listening as the police checked all
over the house but didn’t even bother to open the door I
was leaning against. I listened to them finishing the
search and leaving the house with mixed feelings.

From then on, I began to work on the block regularly.
While I was working, Dad was completely in control of
everything I did, and he loved it. Every night he would
decide what I should wear and how I should paint up my
face. Once he knew I had got the hang of it he would leave me out on the pavement to wait for business while
he disappeared into one of the nearby pubs where he was
a well-known face, popping out every so often to check
on how I was getting on. He didn’t need to be there much
after the first few times because he had taught me exactly
what to do.

Occasionally I would take men back to Dad’s flat but
mostly I worked in the cars. The routine was almost
always the same and the whole transaction never took
long because the guys had always got themselves so
worked up by the time I got into the car that the actual act
was all over in a few seconds. Most of the turn-on for
them was the risk of coming looking for a prostitute in a
dangerous area, of slowing down the car and talking to
us, the buzz of the unknown. They enjoyed the thought
that they were walking on the wild side of life; the
side where people like me and my dad were lying in wait
for them.

There was a little lane in a nice village just outside the
city ring road, which was where most of the men would
drive us girls once they had picked us up. It was well
known for being a sort of ‘lovers’ lane’ with cars parked
up in all the little nooks and crannies as the business was
done. If there were too many cars there already, or the
police were parked there watching what was happening,
then the punter would have to drive on and find somewhere
else to do the business, like an empty multi-storey car park. They usually seemed to know where they were
going, unless they were from out of town, when they
would need some suggestions and directions. Most of the
customers seemed the same to me. I guess they were businessmen,
always clean, polite and well suited, driving
posh, shiny company cars. If someone rolled up to the kerb
in a battered old van looking a bit rough we would tell
them to piss off and they would have to go to one of the
other streets where the girls could afford to be less choosy.

The drive to the location was usually the most frightening
bit of the operation, wondering if they would stop
or where they would go or whether they would turn
nasty when they were asked for money. Nearly all of
them were fine and acted in exactly the same way but
every time I got into a car with a stranger I knew I was
putting my life on the line because there was always a
chance that this would be the sort of madman or sadist
who got his kicks from battering or strangling or stabbing
girls like me.

Once the punter had found somewhere to park he
would hand over the money. Then there would often be a
row about condoms. Every client always wanted to do it
without but I was never willing to do that. Not only did I
not want to get pregnant, but I had also been living
amongst prostitutes for long enough to know about the
dangers of infections and sexually transmitted diseases;
I’d overheard Lucy and Gail discussing it often enough. Sometimes the guys would offer silly money, like a hundred
pounds, to be allowed to do it without, but I was
never tempted. Some of the more desperate girls who had
drink or drug habits to finance would probably be more
easily persuaded. I guess the punters are a bit more used
to the idea of condoms these days, but in the late 1970s
no one knew anything about Aids so there wasn’t the
same level of caution. I would never do blow jobs either,
having hated it so much when Dad made me do it to him,
so it was nearly always just straight sex that I was selling.

Once the deal was agreed and the money exchanged I
would tilt the passenger seat back as far as it would go and
slide my knickers off. By that time the punters would be
absolutely desperate for it, and often nervous about being
caught at the same time, which added still more to their
fumbling haste and their level of excitement. They would
struggle out of their jackets, undo their trousers and roll
over between my legs. I would then stick my feet up on
the dashboard and it would all be over in a matter of seconds.
A few minutes later I would have wriggled back
into my knickers, pulled the seat up into its normal position
and we would be driving back to the block. Usually I
could be out on the pavement again, re-adjusting myself
and getting ready to approach my next customer, within
quarter of an hour of getting into the previous car.

I was supposed to give every penny that I earned to
Dad, but once he got used to me being up there he became bored and started disappearing into one or other of the
pubs. He would then reappear less and less often and had
less and less idea of what was actually going on. Once I
was more experienced I would do a couple of punters
while he was away and when he came out and asked how
business was I’d tell him there hadn’t been any yet, keeping
the money well hidden. I had also put my basic price
up to a tenner without telling him, so I could keep back
some for myself.

At that time I was the youngest girl working on the block
and the older women didn’t like me being there, stealing
their punters, but they wouldn’t do anything about it
because they knew Dad was around and looking after
me. There were quite often fights amongst the women,
especially if girls from other towns tried to muscle in. I
knew that if I hadn’t had Dad’s protection I would have
been given a hard time, but then again if it hadn’t been for
him I wouldn’t have been there at all.

Dad gave me a little skewer attached to a ring that I
wore on my finger, saying I could use it if I ever needed to
defend myself. The skewer was cradled in the palm of my
hand ready to swivel round onto my knuckles in a dangerous
situation, but I never actually found the courage to use
it. If I’d tried to use a weapon like that I think I would
probably have come off worst in the encounter and I could
even have ended up dead. I became more confident about the way I dealt with punters over time but I never lost that
fear that the next stranger whose car I got into would be
the one who murdered me.

Although I tried to pick my customers carefully it
wasn’t always possible to sum someone up accurately in
the few seconds between opening the car door and getting
in. There was one occasion when the moment I
climbed into the car and closed the door behind me I had
a bad feeling, even though it was still daylight, a time
when everything normally felt safer. The guy at the
wheel looked like one of my normal everyday punters but
once we were driving he told me he didn’t want to go to
the lane where I usually went and drove instead to a new
location in the middle of nowhere. He had taken control
of the situation in a way that made me uneasy. I said nothing,
already sensing that he wasn’t someone to mess about
with and knowing from dealing with Dad when he
behaved like this that it was important not to aggravate
the situation. When he eventually stopped the car and I
asked for the money he brushed it aside.