In My Skin (20 page)

There were strange men among the Mood Indigo regs. Dirk was a short, stout, leathery man who always wore dirty shorts and desert boots; he’d come in, plonk himself on the couch and wheeze for intros. His face was whiskery and he reeked of alcohol. A session with him was a chore, but he’d book one girl, then another, then another, for an hour each, and he’d do this a few times a week. Where he got his money from, we never knew. He looked and behaved like a bum. But a working girl knows when to look after a good thing. We humoured his coarse manners with coyness, and learned how to deflect his rough kisses.

Another hapless man we saw was Simon, a milkbar owner. It seemed he didn’t have anything to do after hours but patronise brothels. Nora had known him for years. He’d sit in the lounge in a lugubrious silence, even after his bookings, just watching us walk past with his long sad greyhound face. He liked to have his anus rubbed; he’d lie, face down, at the start of a booking for the massage; then, slowly, in a tectonic looming, his buttocks would rise until I was face to face with his arsehole. He wouldn’t see my sneer of amusement and distaste, the bored yawns as I rubbed and poked. There was no sexiness in him, no joy. It was all about his arse. This was what he did to relax. It was what I did for money.

And Sam, like a house mascot, always appeared early on a Sunday morning, when we were easing towards the end of a hectic shift, and he’d peek at the receptionist’s bookings sheet and choose an hour with whichever girl hadn’t had a good night. One underdog to another. He was an awkward-looking man, sturdy and ungainly with a plain face and glasses and repetitive conversation; he loved the haven of brothels. A booking with him at the end of a shift was a gift, for the easy money; he very rarely wanted sex of any kind, and insisted instead on giving the lady a long massage. The price we paid was in the soporific effect of his talk and the discomfort of his clumsy idea of a massage. But he could at least be counted on for a pity booking and, with each one of us occasionally needing that, we tried to keep our mockery sotto voce.

Everyone had bad nights. No matter how gorgeous, or popular, or fine you were, there was a perverse cycle of failure. It almost seemed guaranteed that, the more you needed money that night, the worse you’d do: as if the men could sniff the need in you. Maybe they could. All we knew is that the more desperately you tried to get booked, the less likely it was to succeed. The only thing was to be philosophical about it and stop trying; but this was nearly impossible, with the spectacle of failure before the other girls, the humiliation of clients watching when you were refused. Some women needed at least to make their taxi fare home; leaving without a single booking seemed inconceivable, but it happened.

For me, this sense of pressure was incessant; I
had
to make enough for Robbie and me to score. Perhaps a different dress would work; re-do your hair; more make-up. Change your spiel, promise special extras, lower your price on fantasies, look extra deep into a man’s eyes in the intro lounge. As the night went on and it would become apparent to all that you were having a bad one, people would make less conversation with you—not, perhaps, from disdain but from pity, and that was almost worse.

It seemed that these moments were the essence of degradation, but I found courage in myself, a resilience. It took strength to persevere with the intros, sitting there with the other girls, and still joke about it, keep the desperation down. Sometimes I was driven to tears, but I held them back; tears would only make me ugly. You learned to go into a room with someone who had just bought your arse for a pittance and vow not to be ashamed, not to let him get to you, to see him off with a bright smile, and walk into the girls’ lounge with a blank face.

Then, maybe, a regular might come in and save you; he’d get extra special attention, the temptation of a fantasy (‘Have you ever wanted to try Greek? Lots of men like that’), a lingering goodbye at the door. I soon understood that regulars were not only good for company; they were bread and butter.

Other nights you could do no wrong. Perhaps it was the monthly cycle of hormones and pheromones; perhaps it was the strut you got coming off three bookings in a row; sometimes I strode out there and knew I couldn’t lose. Everyone wanted me; they queued up and waited. Serendipity would bring in several regs within hours. My hair would get messier and my make-up more smudged as I rushed from one booking to the next, a kind of glory in me. And all the time, totting up the money. Nights like that were rare and blessed.

Some house regulars would ask the receptionist to recommend a girl they might attach themselves to for a while. This was a tricky business; the receptionists weren’t meant to play favourites. But they knew which girls were good, and for what. You would be asked to do a particular intro and, if the client liked you, then you would be set. Some men would come in every week, and stay an hour, or several. I must have been doing something right, because whether I realised it or not, I was steered to the company of several regulars who picked me up.

There was sometimes a price to pay for this devotion. A very small, fervent man called John discovered me on Nora’s recommendation. Once I was in the room he’d step straight from the shower and press himself up against my clothed body. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day,’ he’d murmur, soaking my dress with his skin and his penis. He’d kiss me, clumsily, his moustache wet against my lips. Then he’d drag me to the bed, tear off my dress—I heard the stitches straining—and penetrate me, barely giving me time to scrabble for a condom. Once finished his frantic thrusting, he wouldn’t withdraw but, still lying over me, his face a few inches from mine, he’d declare his passionate love for me.

I would demur, recognising that some kind of reality check was required. His eyes, so close, wouldn’t quite meet mine. There was a fine line between encouraging the paid fantasy that we were lovers, and abetting a delusion. It took months, but finally my patience broke. ‘We’re not really in love,’ I said to his utterings about being bound by our souls. ‘I’m a working girl, John. You’re
paying
me.’

A blink. ‘You’re so afraid to love,’ he crooned. ‘Don’t be so afraid.’

The receptionist told me she’d known him for years. ‘He does this all the time. You must be about the twentieth girl he’s fallen for. He does this till each one ends up telling him to fuck off.’

‘Poor man,’ I said, and I meant it, but I refused to see him anymore. A week later I overheard him saying a seductive goodbye to Nicole. And despite all my complaining, I felt a little hurt.

Of course, most of the clients were there to enjoy themselves. They knew the score, they didn’t pretend I wasn’t being paid. One of my favourite regulars was a short, jaunty man called Stu, who always came in loudly joking with a friend. The two of them would flirt with the receptionist, call out to us in our lounge down the hall and, when I was summoned, greet me with shouts of appreciation. Stu was rich, funny, and charming; he was always promising to take me to posh events to meet celebrities and planning what kind of gown he’d buy me; I’d smile, and tell him he was full of shit. He’d grin, and go back to rhapsodising about my beauty. There was lots of fun to be had with guys like Stu.

When I got home every night, Robbie would be waiting up for me; if Plum couldn’t pick me up from work Robbie and I would go out to sit in the freezing pre-dawn air and wait for him to arrive at the boarding house. Across the road a huge park was silent in spectral streetlights. Once Plum had arrived and departed in his dirty Corolla the two of us would fix up, and sit around talking.

It was awkward, adjusting from the cheerfulness of work to the silence of our little bleak room. I would sometimes relate stories from work, but Robbie would either be silent in response, or outraged at how I’d been treated by some client. He obviously didn’t like to hear about my experiences with other men. But there wasn’t much else to talk about, except gossip about the girls. And that made him feel lonely. While I was at work, he had long, empty nights with no money to go out, no friends. He’d read, or write; walk around the streets; wait for me. Sometimes we were hungry, and we’d walk to an all-night café to buy breakfast, and return home in the thin dawn light.

We didn’t often make love. He didn’t want to press me, after a night of sex with other men. But when we did, it was still making love. It was almost completely different. My learned tricks fell away; we looked in each other’s faces; I forgot I was a prostitute. It was as if I could turn all that away.

But I’d have to sleep through the day, and when I woke up in the afternoons there was only time to score and get ready to go. Robbie complained that I was always too tired to spend time with him. And I began noticing that money would go missing from where I hid it in the room. I asked him where it had gone; he denied knowing it was there. Or claimed that he’d scored twice, didn’t I remember? And he had no money of his own.

‘Can’t you get a job?’ I asked, exasperated.

‘No one will employ me because of my bad teeth—I’m going to do a trade course—I applied for a job in a factory but I didn’t get it—I have to take care of things, you’re always at work—It’s not easy for me—I love you.’

He did get work from time to time, odd jobs, but sooner or later it would peter out. I let it go. I was making enough money for both of us, most of the time. He ran errands, he scored for us while I was asleep, he had plans to prepare. He was thin and listless and I knew he felt bad that I was doing all the work; I knew he had no confidence. I was finding enough for both of us.

I rang my family every couple of weeks, to say hello. I’d told them I had moved across town, and given them the address and number, but I deflected them from visiting my dingy den. Relations between us had eased, as time went on and I was evidently surviving. Now that I was settled in a proper job, I told my mother.

‘I just wanted to let you know, I’m working in a—’ I stopped. It was a hard word to say. ‘I’m working somewhere safe now. Somewhere inside.’

I heard my mother pause as she took this on. ‘You’re working there?’

‘Every night. It’s much better.’
Than the street
. ‘There are lovely girls here.’ I listened to her soft breathing. ‘I don’t want you to worry, okay?’

‘I’m glad,’ she said. I could hear her smile. ‘That’s good news, darling.’

‘Lucy, why do you work so much?’ Nora said to me. ‘You’d do better if you weren’t here every night.’

The thought of dropping a shift was tempting but scary. It would be a gamble; what if the clients didn’t follow me one night to the next, what if I couldn’t make enough to keep Robbie and me from being sick? But I’d been working seven nights a week for so long; I was dazed with the routine of it, and desperate for a moment to myself. So after I’d been there three months I dropped, first to thirteen nights a fortnight, and then, after a while, to six nights a week. It worked: my regulars adjusted and others, who’d taken my steady presence for granted, noticed my absence and seemed more keen. I made the same money by making myself less available. I was moving closer to the organised hauteur of the true professional.

I was, to my surprise, almost happy. It was as if I’d found a kind of life. Almost all of it was spent in artificial light.

IT WAS A SMALL, SNUG world at Mood Indigo. Within the green walls, sealed off from the outside, we walked in our gowns as easily as if they were streetwear. Raised three inches in our heels, we adjusted to the elevation without noticing.

It was not strange to call someone by a made-up name. It wasn’t strange to find condom packets scattered over a table in between takeaway containers and gossip magazines, or a girl absentmindedly chewing a condom like gum. It wasn’t strange to have sex with seven or eight men in one night. It wasn’t strange to walk back into the lounge clutching your groin and wearing a man’s sweat on your face. It wasn’t strange, anymore, to walk out into the absolute quiet of 4 a.m. with a cheery ‘Bye!’ and a pocketful of money.

The women who worked at Mood Indigo were professional prostitutes, and this was a job. It was an extraordinary job; every night we transformed ourselves into princesses and wore out the soles of our shoes in an endless dance between the lounge and the bedrooms. It wasn’t, of course, only our soles that grew worn. But we glimmered in the light, proud in our gowns and our flimsy scraps of lace, tall in our heels, and took men by their damp hands to lead them down the hall. Even when we stripped off our clothes and were naked, open to the touch of unfamiliar hands and mouths, we were still princesses. Of a kind.

Then we’d go home, in the last hours of darkness or the stillness of dawn, and sleep all day, as ones enchanted.

Time went by, night after night, month after month. I barely noticed. Every day the familiar: I worked, I worried, I succeeded— or didn’t—in making enough money. My manner relaxed; I was liked, I was asked for, I was greeted with smiles from the women when I walked in the door at 7 p.m. The shift, of eight, or nine, or twelve hours, would go by in its blocks of time: an hour, or two, in a room; another hour, or two, of waiting and meeting men and flipping magazine pages. Back into the rooms. At the end of the night I’d be left with stiffened skin and a wad of money, a numb or burning vagina and the din of a night’s conversations in my head.

Asleep all day, I missed family celebrations, parties with my friends. Life out there seemed the dream, not this.

People came and went. Women arrived, stayed a few nights, a few weeks, months. Some I got to know; others I glimpsed only at the change of shift when the day girls left to go home to dinner and the night ladies arrived: a bustle at the lockers, people calling out farewells and greetings; the receptionist, harried, doing the paperwork at her desk; women yanking dresses over their heads with their faces turned to the wall.