In My Skin (29 page)

Time slowed. The growling came and went; occasionally Chris would wriggle on me and push me down harder. I had no idea what he wanted. His weight on me was getting hard to bear: he wasn’t large, but he was crushing me. I wriggled a little, as if into his ‘embrace’.

Chris jerked his mouth back. ‘Don’t,’ he hissed. I grabbed my opportunity.

‘It’s just, we don’t have much time left and I thought, wouldn’t you like me to suck you? You’ve got to come, and I don’t want you to miss out.’ My voice was a whisper, because he was lying on my rib cage. My scalp stung where his hand fisted the hair so fiercely.

He looked at me. ‘I don’t care about that.’

‘Didn’t you hear the buzzer? That means we only have five more minutes. Come on, baby, let me fuck you.’

‘I don’t care,’ he said, but he abruptly rolled off me. I sat up, feeling all my bones spring back into place. How calm I was; my only thought was to keep control. He flopped onto his back; he wasn’t even hard. I got out a condom, put it on his limp penis, sucked at the air-filled latex for a minute or two. I glanced up once: he was staring at the ceiling. Then the buzzer really did go.

‘Oh, see? What a shame. And I’ve got another booking now.’

Chris got up and turned on the shower. ‘You’re right. Maybe I’ll come back later and book you again.’

‘That would be gorgeous,’ I said, turning away. ‘Just a tick, sweetie. I’ll let the receptionist know we’re coming out.’

I yanked on a dressing-gown from the back of the door and raced out. ‘Maude, don’t let this guy book me again. And get him out as quietly as you can.’

Back into the room, and Chris smiled at me. His face was wolfish under the mass of curly hair. ‘Yeah, I think I’ll be back later.’

I gathered the dirty towels. And when he was ready to go I saw him to the door of the room and then quickly strode off into the safety of the lounge. Maude came in a moment later.

I told her what had happened. As I explained I began to shake. ‘He
growled
—’

‘I told him you were booked up all night,’ she said. ‘What if he comes back another night? I can write a description of him in the message book, but to be honest, another receptionist—’

I took half an hour off, to have a coffee and a smoke and collect myself. Maude came up to the powder room.

‘He came back, and wanted to know when you’d be free for a quick booking. He
was
weird, Lucy. He had the strangest look on his face. I told him he’d upset you, and he shouldn’t come back.’

I wished she hadn’t told him I’d been scared. Now he’d got what he wanted.

I thought I was fine, afterwards; but later that night I found myself gripping a man’s cock harder and harder. ‘Ow!’ he said. ‘Go easy!’ I apologised. I hadn’t even realised I was hurting him, but when I did, I understood how good it felt.

Sometimes solidarity was our strength. One weekday night our only visitors were group after group of young men sitting with spread knees and insolent glances who inevitably looked and left. Yet another gaggle came in.

‘Come on girls, we’ll go out together,’ said Shelley. She was older than most of us, tanned to leather and intolerant of bullshit. When I wasn’t Bernadette’s favourite, it was Shelley who received the confidences; I could never quite tell what she herself thought of me. I didn’t care much for her blonde hair/tanned skin/pale pink lipstick look, but I liked her humour.

Through the door of the ladies’ lounge we could hear the young blokes egging each other on. We took turns in front of the big mirror and readied ourselves. ‘Let’s go,’ said Shelley, and strode out.

‘Hi, I’m Shelley,’ she sang as we all trooped into the room. There were five young men in tracksuits, flicking through the soft-porn magazines Helen supplied. They blinked up at us. Usually we’d meet a group like this one at a time—all five men sitting around the standing lady, throwing questions simultaneously, so we would have to keep turning our head, keeping up, keeping polite while they eyed our figures and muttered comments to each other. Now, with us all in a line, towering over them in our heels, we looked like a battalion of amazons in velvet.

‘I’m Lucy—Jessie—Milla—Coral—Charlene—Jasmine,’ we said in turn, happily. ‘We each do the full service. Any questions?’

Our hips cocked out in disdain. The boys blushed and looked at the carpet. It was very quiet after all their rowdiness a moment before. ‘No,’ said one, with the roundest face. ‘You’re all very tall,’ he observed. There was always one nicer boy in a gang like this. I smiled at him.

‘We take our shoes off,’ I offered. He looked at me, puzzled, then grinned.

How powerful we felt, standing there arrayed in our glory.

‘Okay, nice to meet you,’ said Jessie, and we all sashayed back into our room. We burst into giggles.

‘That was fantastic,’ said Milla. ‘I want to do it like that every time.’

Bernadette came in. ‘I don’t believe it. One of them’s going to stay. I told his mates they have to wait outside. He’s yours, Shelley.’

Shelley grinned. ‘Treat ’em mean…’ she said, flicked her hair into place and went out to get him.

All but the very most exclusive brothels would take any girl, however plain she was without cosmetics. What was important was presentation and grooming. We were all gleaming with make-up, hair products and expensive fabrics. It took a lot of maintenance. In between bookings we were constantly refreshing our make-up, brushing our hair, moisturising our skin, painting our nails. We sat on the couch, in our range of pastels and primary colours, like a bunch of debutantes. Only the conversation gave us away.

I wasn’t the only brunette, but the house was stacked with gorgeous blondes. Most of us were white. Occasionally an Asian girl would start work, but, as Helen remarked, they just didn’t get booked. There were plenty of Asian-run brothels in town; we supposed that clients who especially liked Asian women went there. No matter how gorgeous or professional, the women who tried with us did badly. Desiree was the only black woman on night shift; briefly there was a sumptuous Indian girl who stormed the place with her thin limbs and astounding boob job, sweeping up everyone’s regulars in a daze of worship, only to overstep herself with Helen and vanish again. Desiree appealed with her American style and magnificent physique, and her bawdy humour.

You would often hear Desiree’s loud voice, even through the kitchen wall. ‘I swear, he was fucking me so hard, she was complaining one night, ‘I thought my boobs were going to just
fall
off
—’

‘Desiree!’ said Helen, manifesting through the door from the reception area.

‘Sorry, Helen,’ said Desiree. She appeared holding a bowl of steamed vegetables.

Helen gave her a severe look.

‘That fucking cow,’ Desiree said to me in the privacy of the powder room, ‘has no fucking clue.’

‘There’s a lot she doesn’t know,’ I agreed. ‘We’re on the coalface, we know what’s going on, what the men like, how we all talk. But she’s a smart lady, Helen.’

‘Smart enough to make a shit-load of money,’ said Desiree.

When, to my surprise and delight, Valentina turned up at Il Fiore one night I told her the same thing.

‘What’s it like here?’ she whispered. I’d just come into the ladies’ lounge and realised, with a little start of pleasure, who the new girl was. The other girls were sitting away from her; I made sure they saw my hug.

‘Good. Strict. Much fucking better than old Indigo,’ I said. ‘But watch out for Helen. She doesn’t miss a trick.’ I didn’t think Valentina would have any problems; she was one of the most professional prostitutes I’d ever met. Valentina looked around the room, at the expensively upholstered furniture, the cable television, the brass light fittings. ‘Nice,’ she said. I beamed proudly. For once I’d led the change, instead of following. Valentina would see my success here, the ways I’d matured in my work and my clientele. She saw how I jumped into conversations with the other ladies, how comfortable I was.

‘It’s really bad over there now,’ Valentina said to me. ‘That agency thing—and Bea—’ she shook her elegant head.

A couple of weeks later Helen came up to me as I was getting ready.

‘That Valentina, you know her from—’ Helen rarely said the name. ‘What do you think of her? I don’t care for her attitude.’

Valentina was finding some of Helen’s rules abrasive to her sense of professional integrity. She took her career seriously, as her own; as she pointed out, we were independent contractors who were merely hosted by a brothel. The brothel rented the rooms to the client; that’s what their half of the fee went to. We were, in a sense, service providers who simply used the house as a specialised hotel. Valentina was adamant in asserting her right to do things her own way; nothing big, but she’d clearly affronted Helen, the control queen.

‘Valentina’s great, she’s a really good working lady,’ I said. ‘Why?’

Helen looked at me. ‘Never you mind, Lucy.’

A few days later Valentina didn’t come to her Tuesday night shift. ‘Personality difference,’ said Bernadette. I was sad; I’d enjoyed having her around again. But there was nothing I could do. I had no phone number for her; I didn’t even know her real name. For all 237 that we shared years of work and friendship, once we walked out the front door we were all strangers.

I sometimes felt closer to my regular clients. I had some lovely ones on my roster, some of them quite well heeled—an international security guard, a professional gambler, a tiresome stockbroker who was always hassling me to follow his latest tip, and a stonemason with rough hands and Armani jackets. Often men who visited Melbourne for business would pop in every month or so; one of my favourites was Samuel.

Helen took me aside one night. ‘I’ve got a gentleman for you to meet, Lucy,’ she whispered. ‘He used to see Natasha—though I don’t know what he saw in her. Anyway, he’s lovely, and if he likes you you’ll have a good time. He’s in the lounge.’

Samuel was a spry middle-aged man with dark hair and a ruddy smile. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said. I sat next to him. Without a general intro, there was time for some chat. He asked me what I liked in a booking; I answered truthfully, to make sure my client had a good time and didn’t give me a hard one.

‘Is that all?’

‘I like touching men,’ I said. ‘And talking. You let me start talking, you’ll never shut me up.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll take an hour with you, Lucy, and we’ll see how we go. I’m looking forward to it.’ He stayed three, and became one of my greatest joys. Always gentle, he had a sexual manner that roused me to pleasure; with him I would touch myself, and come. Afterwards, with his lovely gentle hands, he’d give me a proper massage—no clumsy kneading at my vertebrae, but deft strokes that restored me, while we talked drowsily. From time to time a package would come in the post for me: chocolates, a set of expensive lingerie—of the right size—an enormous bunch of perfect white roses.

‘I saw your tattoo,’ he said the next time. ‘I wanted something to be just special for you. You’re the sweetest girl,’ he said. ‘You do me good.’

He did me good, too.

In the closeness of a brothel bedroom emotions were different, faces drew close without trepidation. There were men with whom I thought I might fall in love; men who gave me effortless sexual pleasure; who looked at me with such a gaze as to allow me the luxury of confession. I told many of my clients parts of my life, wanting to impress upon them that a working girl was more than a body and an act. I gave my story away—not the drugs, not the hardship—but the incidentals; and I told some—artlessly or pointedly—that I had a boyfriend, and that I had a loving mother and father. The longer I saw a man, if I genuinely liked him, the more foolish it seemed to keep up pretences. I saw no point in constructing a wholly false background, as some girls did. I was Lucy, but Lucy was not me; she had my stories, but she bragged when I would not have bragged, she felt satisfactions that I would not have. Lucy was braver than I, more open, behind her mask.

My art was to reveal myself, but only as much as I wished.

And I had reached a philosophy about working. Not for me the pretence that this job wasn’t really my life; that it meant nothing to me beyond money. This was something that was changing me, empowering me, teaching me. I had never felt so competent, so adored. After several months, I was someone the newer girls looked to; I was asked to counsel the absolute beginners; I held influence. It was intoxicating.

Most of the other women, understandably, pretended to the world that they had other jobs. I didn’t bother. Instead, I positively boasted about my work. It seemed as if it conferred a kind of comradeship with the taxi drivers, the early-morning waiters, the convenience-store staff whom I encountered. We were all servicing the night. And there was the affirmation of refusing shame.

‘I’m a sex worker,’ I’d say, and there’d be a pause. I’d keep my smile steady. My gaze on the face.

‘Right. Cool.’

The more I braved out the shock of this admission, the less it came to feel like anything shocking.

I rarely considered anymore the oddness of giving sex for money. It was a job like any other physical task; it involved my hands, just as a sandwich-maker’s did; it involved my mind, as a teacher’s did. It took physical strength, as a labourer’s did. Performing with my vagina was only an extension of manual work. I assessed the number of skills I possessed, engaging my mind and my body, and to me prostitution seemed like a complex, challenging profession that had enhanced me more than it had reduced me.