Sin City (60 page)

“D … Dad.” I heard my voice crack. I had to keep on saying it all the time he screwed me: “I love you, Dad,” as he humped and heaved and groaned; “Yeah, I love you, Daddy,” as he came. There was silence after that. He didn't move, just lay wet and hot on top of me. Dead weight. Dead father.

“Dad,” I said. Last time. My voice didn't break. Not then. Not until he'd gone. Then I crept down to the bathroom, meant to have a shower. I never got as far as even turning on the taps. I just lay down on the bathmat and sobbed for a whole hour or more, while my dead Dad's living sperm seeped and dribbled out of me.

Angelique found me in the end, told me off for spoiling my complexion, taking things too personally, too hard. After that, I made sure my plastic cover didn't slip. It envelopes me completely now, clingy like a leotard, prevents anything or anyone from touching me too closely.

I suspect the other girls have their own different versions of my clingfilm. We don't discuss our work much. There's far more talk about what's for dinner or which salesman's calling when, to flog us clothes. I've spent a lot on clothes – classy stuff – evening gowns and negligées, a nightie trimmed with marabou. Why not? There's not much else to do in our free time. It's easier for the others. Most of them have cars. We're stuck out in the desert here, so if I want to see a shop or cinema, or get a haircut or a takeaway, I have to cadge a lift. I'm not that keen on cadging. The girls accept me more now, but there's none I'd call a real pal, and you have to be quite careful. Adrienne made overtures, but it turns out that she's dikey. Angelique just shrugged it off, said a lot of hookers end up gay – searching for the tenderness they never get with men. I can sympathise with that, though I'm not convinced you'd get much more with women – not these women anyway. Some are too neurotic to make any real relationships, some too hard and bitter.

The trouble is, our pasts come with us here. If a father beat us, or a husband left us, or a boss fired us for incompetence, or an undeveloped country stuck us in the paddy fields, all those fathers, spouses, bosses, countries, are still fermenting in our guts, setting off old grudges and resentments, fuelling jealousies. I know that from my own case. I can't stand Suzie – not just because she's tough (or got hair down to her waist), but because she's got a doting (living) Dad. I don't deny that many girls have made good lives here, escaped dead-end jobs or clapped-out marriages, but it's still a ghetto, and the tensions still run high.

In one way, it's like Beechgrove. We're all shut up, labelled odd or tainted; shunned and feared by “normal” people, locked away from them. And we still have rules and timetables; hostesses as strict as Sister Watkins; the chores and cooking done for us, but no real choice or freedom. And whores, like mental patients, have often had bad childhoods, or come from rotten homes, or landed in some mess. Some of the girls here could do with Dr Bates. Samantha's always gloomy, Marlee overeats, Kathy starves. They're all terrified of age, or operations, or anything which might take away their looks. That's why it's crap to call the place a happy family home. Homes keep open doors, families stand by you, whether you're plain or sick or fading. Not here. Any girl not capable of bringing in the men is instantly orphaned and disowned. They all work hard, I'll give them that, but it's forced labour, in a way; a job they wouldn't do if they had some other means to make it rich, or hadn't found themselves in debt or trouble. Oh, I know Carl assured me they all love their work and that he only takes on girls who are what he calls naturally sensual (which sounds like a commercial in itself), but that's just one of the house-lies – like the caption “Nearest brothel to Las Vegas” (there are two nearer, one by twenty miles); or the “Most beautiful girls in the world” thing, or the “Cultured courtesans”. Okay, so Kathy plays the fiddle, and Kristia speaks four languages, but a lot of them are nothings and wouldn't know Bartok from Boursin.

God, listen to me! What a nerve I've got when I've done zilch myself and can't play middle C. Bitchiness is catching, I suppose. And my respect for men hasn't exactly trebled since I've been here. It's exhausting, actually, the constant pretending, the instant charm and switch-on sexiness, the perky smiles even for the sods. They're not all sods or brutes, in fact, whatever Naima says. Nor all moneybags. Some of them are decent guys with quite humble jobs and backgrounds. There was this grocery clerk with a stutter who'd been saving up for months, and a chicken farmer who was really sweet and gentle. I tried my best for those two. And even with the piggish ones, I'm not completely charmless. I don't want to get too bitter or too blasé, land up a Joanne.

Anyway, they're often more pathetic than perverted – losers, sexual failures: men with pricks just one inch long, even when erect; men with money but no friends; passive types who want to play the woman; men who brag and talk big, then come in just two seconds when they've booked an hour or more; religious maniacs dripping shame and guilt; Roman Catholics who see all women as the Blessed Virgin Mary, but can't wait to bugger her.

Most of them like you to respond, if only as a sop to their male pride, proof of their virility. Virility my arse. I've never met such duffers. Their pricks are wasted on them, half the time. Mind you, it's easy just to kid them. A moan or two, a spasm, and they're preening like prize bulls. There was this guy of forty-six, married twice, and who even had a mistress, yet he'd never managed to make a woman come, never actually seen a female orgasm, not once in his whole life. My fake one so excited him, he drove all the way from Vegas three more times that day. He couldn't come himself, not after the first time, but my own panting and grimacing really turned him on. Actually, I was working out my plans for the weekend, making mental lists, panting and grimacing through “wash hair”, “buy talc for Norah”.

“Jeez!” he said. “You're dynamite.” It always pays to please them. Repeat business is important in this game. And he tipped me fifty bucks each come.

I've learnt a lot in just ten days, and I'm loads more confident. The guys all seem to like me, choose me from the line-ups. Joanne was really bitchy – said they'd choose a frump or a baboon, so long as it was in its teens like I am. Okay, so some of them are hung up on their daughters. I'm more hardened to it now – braced for it, expecting it, even ready to say “Dad” again and not feel a single twinge. (I haven't had to, actually. It's more little girl in general – hair in plaits, bobby socks, silly lispy voice. One guy even asked me to wear braces on my teeth, though I drew the line at that.). But they're not all cradle snatchers. Some of them treat me like their mother, need babying themselves. To others, I'm an auntie, handing out advice. I feel quite important sometimes. Other times, I'm just a bloody robot; a slave, a slag, a dustbin.

The slag picks up her pen, has a last check through the catalogue, adds a loo-roll holder with holly-printed toilet paper (a leftover from Christmas). That's a must for Norah when she spends so much time in toilets. I'm missing her quite badly. If anyone had told me just two weeks ago that I'd be counting the hours till I caught a glimpse of Toomey, I'd have laughed right in their face. It's true, though. Only sixteen hours to go. Thank heavens. I've been worrying about her. Angelique's so … so casual, almost callous. In fact, that famous heart of gold is just a thin veneer, I've come to see. Easy to mop up all the credit for looking after your retarded elder brother, then pay a maid to do the donkey work. It was the same in Death Valley; she hardly saw poor George at all, left him to the ranger.

Wasn't I as bad, though? I exchanged a dozen words with Norah that weekend – maybe less. I was so caught up in my own hurt pride and misery, nothing else existed. And even now, I'm only sort of buying her, using presents to say “sorry” and “I need you”. I
do
need her – even more, now I'm working here. She's a strange rare creature like my plastic unicorn, a virgin in a world of whores.

I can't wait until tomorrow. We're driving back to see her, first thing in the morning, me and Angelique. God! I'll really spoil her – food, presents, chocolates, flowers, the lot. I only hope I won't feel quite so lousy. It's that wretched Pill, makes me queasy all the time. My breasts are full and tender and my stomach's swollen up – though that may be Peg's cooking. I'm always hanging round the kitchen, drawn to Peg like all the other girls now; not just her shortcrust or her fudge-cake, but because she's the only one untainted by her work, the wholesome mother figure.

I wasn't all that keen to take the Pill, especially as we take it every day here, right on through the cycle, with no break for the curse. Periods are profit-stealers, make us unavailable. Every month, for six whole years, I've had my period. It's part of me, part of being normal. It will seem very odd to stop, make me feel I'm pregnant. It's a bit like that already – morning sickness, bloated breasts.

That greasy little doctor pulled my boobs around, didn't stop at those. I had another test today – more jabs and smears – and jokes. Carl's fanatic about tests, especially since the AIDS plague. It would be far safer, actually (not to mention cheaper) to make the men wear Durex. Most brothels do, in fact now, but rubbers are like periods – keep the guys away, turn them off, and Carl won't risk losing business. The girls all seem to like them, not just as a protection from disease, but a sort of psychological barrier between the clients and their cunts – no actual contact of skin and skin. Yeah, some of them are squeamish. I mean, Melanie admitted that she'll never mouth-kiss, ever, regards it as too intimate. She'll pee in some guy's mouth, no problem, but if he puts his tongue in hers, God help him.

Saliva's germy, mind you. Everything is germy – sperm, pee, cocks, mouths. It's a pretty risky business altogether. Not just AIDS and other vile diseases, but the constant threat of violence. It's far worse on the streets, of course, and I've heard some hairy stories from girls who've walked a beat, but even here a guy could pull a gun on you before you've had a chance to sound the alarm. Some girls like the risks, say it gives their life a sort of charge which they'd never get in dreary jobs like waitressing. Kathy claims that hookers are like gamblers. Both refuse to earn their living in some boring routine job; both hope to make a killing, then retire; and both accept danger, even court it.

On the whole, I'm far more fagged than frightened, though that's probably just the Pill again. It seems to make me tired as well as queasy. And I've had a lot of backache, which is an occupational hazard here, with so many heavyweights slumped on top of you, or frustrated sportsmen trying out contortions. My cunt itself feels numb. I never call it Abigail, not now. It's far too twee, too personal. It's just a hole – anonymous – which gets on with the job. I was scared it might get sore from over-use. I even half expected some ghastly retribution – inflammation, discharge, genital warts or blisters, swelling, itching, rashes, hives, the lot. None of that has happened. I was a little tender one day, when I'd had some oaf who wore a prick-extension and erection-booster in a rather rigid latex, followed by another guy who used a twelve-inch (gold) vibrator on me because he couldn't get it up himself. I thought that might excite me, but I didn't feel a thing – except intrigued about the gold. Was it real or plated, plastic or just paint? I never touch myself now, since going on the game, never use fingers or vibrators. It's as if my cunt's no longer mine: I've bartered it for cash.

I think I'll have a bath, try and soak the queasiness away. It's a treat to bath alone. A lot of clients book a bubble bath or spa bath as an appetiser, pay extra for the girl to get in too. It may sound daft, but I find sharing a bath somehow more invasive than sharing a bed. Or maybe it's just memories of Reuben. It's hard to have to soap a man, sponge his prick and balls, shampoo his body hair, and keep smiling, cooly prattling, when it's Reuben I'm remembering in the tub. Now I really relish it when I can lock the door, lard my face with cream, close my eyes and shut out every stupid bloody man, Reuben included.

I unpeel my jeans, slip into the old towelling dressing gown which Angelique threw out. I prefer to save my new clothes, keep them nice for work. I set my hair in rollers, disguise them with a plastic cap, slap on cleansing cream. I'm whistling as I walk along the passage. Only one more booking later on this evening, then I'm free, free the whole weekend. Actually, it's quite a special booking – my hundredth man. I've been keeping count of them, totting up my earnings. It sounds a lot, a hundred in ten days. It isn't. They were so busy over Christmas, Angelique said; had so many girls on holiday, that the few girls left worked through a hundred and fifty each in just a week. If I admitted that to anyone back home, they'd be absolutely horrified; see us all as lost – outlawed and depraved. I shrug, keep whistling, louder. Ninety-nine pricks, okay. So what?

Suddenly, I freeze. Suzie and a client are walking straight towards me. Clients never come this way. This plain and poky section of the house is out of bounds to them. I press myself against the wall, stare down at the floor. I'm breaking rules myself. We shouldn't really undress until we reach the safety of the bathroom, should never take the risk of being caught looking sloppy and unkempt. I can hear the couple talking. Maybe they won't notice me, will simply walk on by. Their footsteps slow, seem to hesitate a moment before stopping altogether. A voice says “Jan”, a man's voice, a voice I recognise, though it sounds quite stunned and shaky.

I look up, simply stare. I can't believe it.

His face has drained of colour. He clutches at the wall as if to save himself from falling. “J … Jan”, he says again.