In My Skin (11 page)

Met an old Bulgarian man last night, he was so nice. He took me home to his
place and we did the job, it was all right. Lots of talking. He said he thought I
was beautiful. He seemed to really like me. I told him I’m a user and he gave me
a long talk—the usual stuff, but then he said that one day my face will change,
and my mind will change. That was something I hadn’t thought of. He gave me
his phone number and told me to ring if I ever need help. I was with him for ages
and I really needed to work to make enough money so he gave me extra. He made
me feel good.

I’d close my diary and pay for the coffee. Smile at the waitress. Off on my rounds. Out into the chilly black streets. Out to walk the block. Carlisle Street, Barkly Street, Inkerman Street. Walking against the tide of cars, walking stiff and alert, alone, walking all night, walking to keep going.

It was a job. I never had a night off.

A time of firsts. The first time I had sex with someone whose name I didn’t care to catch. The first time I had sex in a lane, in an office, in a hotel. The first time I had anal sex. The first time I was with a black man, an Asian man, an Arab man. A fat man, an ugly man. Different skins, different accents, different types of penis. Cut, uncut, thin, bent, thick. White pubic hair, black, curly, straight. All the different smells, all the different cars. I was curious, and in a way I was glad of the experiences. It was like an education. I didn’t remember most of the faces.

The work was always the same thing, but every mug was a bit different. Some men took me back to their place; sometimes we just parked by the side of a road and got on with it. Most wanted oral. Some asked me to pull my pants down so they could inspect me before they agreed to take me. It was just perving. I did it resentfully, but I couldn’t really care. Occasionally, in desperation, I would take a small, easy job for only ten, enough for cigarettes, sitting in the car next to a guy jerking off under a jacket over his lap. Maybe I’d pull my shirt up for his inspiration. Bored, looking out the window. I always had to supply the tissues for afterwards. But one proper oral job might make me enough to score one taste. I could head up the weary slope to Jake’s flat and rest in a cosy lounge room, talk tough and relax for an hour, listening to Jake’s tales and trying to coax some words out of Vicki. Then the rest of the night’s work would begin.

One taste wouldn’t satisfy me for long. I needed to make enough cash every night to buy a few more, cover the taxi home—unless I had a job with a driver, and got a lift as part of the price—to buy myself a toasted sandwich and a packet of cigarettes from the all-night café near David’s, and have a couple of bucks left for tomorrow’s tram and twilight coffee. I lived on a frugal budget. No new clothes; rare meals; no entertainment. I bought books, because I needed them still.

I bumped into Cass, my old drummer, on the street. ‘Hey, what’re you up to?’

‘Oh, you know, this and that.’

She observed me thoughtfully as we walked together to her tram stop. I told her briefly what was happening. Everything sounded so tawdry when I mentioned it.

‘Is there anything I can do?’

I thought, all I need is money. But I didn’t think that was what she had in mind.

It wasn’t the work that was most tiring, or even the perpetual toiling around that damn block. It was the fight to be paid, the inevitable haggling and cheating. I was guilty of lowering my prices out of need, which encouraged the mugs to barter shamelessly—but how angry I was that these men could see my desperation and use it to halve my asking price. Usually I settled for half or even a third of the going rate just to avoid having to get out of the car, sometimes a distance from the block—wherever they dumped me—and walk back, to start the whole trawling process again. The night would pass, the busy hours dwindle, and still after hours of walking and arguing I was short. Even on a good night it was hard to get ahead. Exhausted, forlorn, I would simply buy more smack.

I endured the weather. Heroin insulates against sensation; I could stand in a short-sleeved top in the middle of the freezing night and not feel cold. Rainy nights, when my umbrella blew inside out and the mugs wouldn’t stop to let a wet girl in the car, were worst. The rain blinded me and the jobs were few. I walked against the wind, hoping for the warmth of a car, went home soaked and sniffling. Nights like that it was a push to make the money. But I had no choice.

I worked through illness and pain. Somehow—perhaps it was the scouring of the drug in my system—I rarely got sick. But my teeth were getting bad and I had no money or time or energy to get to a dentist, and so I worked with my face swollen from toothache, eyes tight with headache. My feet were sore from the walking; my vagina was chafed. I fell and bruised my chest; the men pressed on it and I bit my lip. I had a semi-permanent urinary tract infection from the rough sex.

Shoulders rigid with tension, I made myself stride on all night.

Running against time. Only ten hours or so until I’d be too sick without heroin to be able to get some. By the time I woke, the drugs would have seeped out of my system until I was watery-eyed, fever-hot, stiff, aching, nauseous; my eyes dry, my skin clammy, exhausted and restless at the same time. I’d have to go out—get the tram across town, set off around the block, trying to disguise my illness with facepowder and a hopeful smile. It didn’t matter how sick I was, how trembly; if I didn’t go, I’d only get worse. I pictured myself sprawled on the floor of my room, undone, helpless for days. I made myself go. To stand sweating and dizzy, waiting for a car to stop, take the meagre payment offered—anything, just enough, please, gagging at the condom nudging the back of my throat—do what I had to do, and somehow force my failing legs up to Jake’s place. Ringing at the phonebox, no answer, waiting, ringing again. Thinking,
I just can’t wait another second, another second, another second.

Sometimes I’d go out before dark, to catch the late-lunch trawl: truckies, tradesmen on their way to a job, business guys heading back to the office after a nice lunch. Parking was harder in the daylight; we might drive for half an hour, inspecting carparks and alleyways. At least the truckies, with their snug cabs, could tug the curtains over the windows as if pulling over for a nap. The other guys yanked down their pants furtively, in bluestone lanes, while I bent over their laps.

Down at the needle exchange on Grey Street—passing the even more bedraggled girls who worked down there—I could get my brown paper bags of clean fits and condoms. I would stuff a few condoms and lubes down the sides of my bra, stash my bag of fits under a bush, and set off. I battled to make my clients use condoms, especially for oral. So many of the girls, they said, didn’t use them; why should they go with me?

‘Do you really want me, if I’ve been with other guys without protection?’ I’d ask.

They’d shrug, then wheedle: ‘I won’t come inside you’; ‘I’ll only put it on the outside—’ Depending on how desperate I was for the job or how little I cared about my health I would agree or refuse. At the very least I tried not to let them ejaculate inside me. Thankfully there were few full-sex jobs and they usually agreed to protection. In my rational mind I knew this was important, that I had to be smart and stand up for myself. But I was almost too tired to care.

I set myself to ignoring the stench of penises that had nestled inside trousers all day, unwashed. I became adept at surreptitiously wiping them clean with my palm before I went down, at spitting mouthfuls of come out the car window. I watched as the men tucked their messy cocks back in their pants without even wiping up. Some men tried to kiss me, forcing their wet tongues against my clenched teeth. I had saliva on my face. My fingers stank of sex. I grew not to notice it.

My legs ached as I pounded around that block. The streetlights were stark, the parking lots and nature strips as I turned onto St Kilda Road were littered with old tissues, condom wrappers, the occasional discarded fit, instantly recognisable to me with its orange cap. I passed girls I knew, stopped to chat a moment—to pass on warnings, relate disasters, speculate on what the cops were up to that night. We all appeared to be heroin users, at least the young ones. There were a couple of old chicks. I was a bit of a curiosity, since most girls stood—not always in the same place, and I never saw the proverbial cat-fights over a spot—while I tramped around and around.

I’d been doing this for months now. The weather began to warm. From time to time the police put on a blitz to keep all the workers on their toes and the residents of St Kilda happy. I’d learned to double-check for undercover vehicles every time I approached a car; I’d learned how to walk quickly past any girl I saw talking to uniformed police.

I learned that I’d made a mistake that first time I was stopped, by admitting what I’d been doing. My friend David, being a lawyer, was able to tell me that the police required an admission before they could charge me. ‘Just say nothing,’ he said. ‘Be polite, and stay calm, and don’t tell them anything. They’ll try everything, you know—they’ll threaten you with this and that bullshit—just keep quiet. Then they can’t do anything.’

I was already in a car with a mug, just another job, when the flashing lights came on and instructed us to pull over. My mug held his head in his hands before we got out of the car. Three detectives in plain clothes.

They tipped my bag over the footpath. Keys, lipstick, hairspray, loose change and my holder for cards, all over the asphalt. ‘We saw you, you were walking down Barkly Street and you got in the car. Don’t give us any fucking shit. You’re busted for loitering.’

‘Loitering? I was walking! Now I’m in a car!’

‘We saw you. Loitering is
being in a place.
’

I suppressed the urge to say that, in that case, existence itself constituted loitering; they’d found my expired student card.

‘A smartarse, huh?’

I said, ‘No comment, officer,’ and raised my cigarette to my mouth. My hand shook violently. The big guy next to me stepped very close, puffed up his chest and folded his arms.

‘We’ve got a list down the station,’ said the little one. Behind him the female detective stared at me. ‘We put girls like you on it when they’re not honest with us. And every fucking time we see you, we’re going to pick you up. You understand?’

I blew smoke. ‘
No comment.
’ They glared at me, but let me go. I was in Albert Park, two suburbs away from St Kilda; the mug and his car had already vanished. It was a long walk back to my rounds.

The cops trawled the block all the time: easy pickings for their arrest quota. I heard they divvied up the score: one night, they’d get the girls. The next, the mugs. The next, the boys who loitered in the park down by the beach. It was all regular, and I gradually came to understand the deal. You had to let them hassle you a bit, break you in, charge you a few times; so you paid your dues. Then they’d be friendly—they’d look out for you, warn you of ‘ugly mugs’ around, stop and chat about business. It could get easier.

I wasn’t prepared to be charged. There’d been that first time, when I’d just started working; but no charge sheet had ever arrived. It had probably just been a warning. I didn’t want a record; I didn’t want to give up hope of getting a job, of having a life that might be, after all, still left unmarked by this experience. So I kept an eye out for the blue and white cars, the sleek unmarked Commodores, for undercovers posing as working girls. I kept my eyes very sharp, and kept walking.

Getting in another car, turning to another man’s face, I concentrated on my relief that I had a job, there’d be money, I was out of the cold and rain. I carried hairspray in my bag to zap attackers, but I’d never had any trouble. We drove into the back streets of Elwood, or down to Albert Park, or up into Balaclava’s lanes. Oral in the front seat; they unzipped and down I went. Roll down the window, spit, wipe, smile. Sex in the back, my legs silhouetted through the window. Or in the driver’s seat, the elbow rests and gear stick digging into my knees as I straddled.

The men were often sweet, middle-aged guys in aged cars with rust around the doorhandles. Or young ones, nervous and awkward. They were all sorts. Union officials, truckdrivers, travel agents; students, plumbers, businessmen. It wasn’t always the cheapness that drew these men down to St Kilda; some of them liked taking their chances. The rest of the time, they were really were just cheap.

And almost always, they paid less than I asked. The anger inside me grew familiar. There was always another girl further down the block that would do it for twenty bucks less.

Slowly, I was becoming that girl.

Turning the same dingy neon-lit corner again and again. Past the slatted windows of an expensive restaurant, past the grass-grown car yard, past the closed mechanic’s. Rubbish on the footpath and scruffy people in tracksuits. The soft lights of living rooms in art deco flats. A takeaway joint, a vintage furniture shop. A family out for a stroll averting their eyes from me. I dressed in tight but not slutty clothes, I carried a backpack, I walked with my head down, my eyes looking up.

And so I walked, on and on all night.

I STILL CALLED MYSELF ‘Lucy’. A nice name, simple and sweet. Easy to remember, easy to forget.

A taxi driver eased confessions out of me one melancholy night as he took me home. I wasn’t sleeping well, and there were few jobs on the street; all I’d had to eat was a chocolate bar. Jake was annoyed with me. The gas crisis was on, there was no heating or hot water to be had in Melbourne, and the freezing rooms at David’s were colder even than the street. Everything seemed dark all the time. Alan talked to me, and listened. ‘You’re like a flower in a hurricane,’ he said. He glanced across at me as we drove. ‘You don’t belong here. Darling, you shouldn’t be here.’ I nearly wept for his kindness, but I couldn’t allow that. If I started, I might never stop.