I was very excited to see that we are moving up (albeit at a glacier-like speed) in the most-trusted-professions stakes! As a colleague noted, we have been bumped up above mechanics and taxi drivers this year. Given that it's from a poll of Digest readers that makes it even more extraodinary LOL. The link to the article is below, and here's the list reproduced. Very glad to see we are above pollies and am disappointed to see police come in 12th. Don't these Digest readers know any police? I'd have moved them well down the list if I'd had a vote... As for religious ministers WTF?
1. Paramedics
2. Firefighters
3. Pilots
4. Rescue volunteers
5. Nurses
6. Pharmacists
7. Farmers
8. Medical specialists
9. GPs
10. Veterinarians
11. Armed forces
12. Police
13. Childcare workers
14. Teachers
15. Scientists
16. Dentists
17. Bus/train/tram drivers
18. Hairdressers
19. Psychologists/counsellors
20. Chefs
21. Judges
22. Accountants
23. Cleaners
24. Plumbers
25. Waiters
26. Weather forecasters
27. Mechanics
28. Builders and labourers
29. Shop assistants
30. Religious ministers
31. Charity collectors
32. Financial planners
33. Lawyers
34. Bankers
35. Council workers
36. Tow truck drivers
37. CEOs
38. Celebrities
39. Sex workers
40. Journalists
41. Taxi drivers
42. Real estate agents
43. Car salesmen
44. Politicians
45. Tele-marketers
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/australias-most-trusted-sex-workers-trump-pollies-in-public-confidence-stakes-20110622-1ge82.html#ixzz1PzrqyQwbhttp://www.theage.com.au/national/australias-most-trusted-sex-workers-trump-pollies-in-public-confidence-stakes-20110622-1ge82.html
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
You can have an epiphany in the strangest of situations...
One day I had an epiphany. I was standing over a client who had a shoe fetish. I felt very powerful. And beautiful. I was in my designer knickers, push-up bra and six inch CFMs. My foot was on his chest. I glanced at the mirror. Hmm… Barbarella-Barbie-Meets-The-1930s-Rhino-Hunter. Pretty cool, even if I say so myself.
The client wanted a dominant fantasy. He was cute and clean-cut in a Country Road, late 30s ex-surfy kind of way. He fantasised about being ‘executed’ by ladies in very high CFMs. He wanted me to beat him and then ‘execute’ him. It was a bit of a dilemma as I was working from a hotel room and was a bit worried about the noise. Also I didn’t have any B & D experience at all, and no gear either.
So I shut him inside the wardrobe – naked – and marched around the bathroom in my heels for about five minutes. I had to force myself not to laugh when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I let my footsteps get slower and slower as if I were walking closer and closer to him. Then I flung open the wardrobe door and dragged him out. He looked absolutely terrified; he was in a foetal position with his hands crossed in front of his dick.
‘Please don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me,’ he whimpered.
I had NO IDEA what I was doing, So I pushed him onto the ground and kicked him for not calling me ‘Mistress’.
‘Yes, Mistress. Yes, Mistress.’
I kicked him again for speaking without permission. I can tell you, there is nothing like kicking a man when he’s down.
He begged me not to hurt him anymore, so I didn’t. (Mainly because it was too much like hard work). I made him do it to himself. I shouted, ‘Drag that butt up and down the carpet until I can see some carpet-burn.’ Actually, when I think about it in hindsight, it was a lot of carpet-burn.
Then he started saying, ‘Yes, beautiful assassin. Yes, beautiful assassin. No, beautiful assassin.’ I struggled to keep a straight face.
I told him that as punishment for annoying me, he had to go back in the wardrobe for a while. Then I sat down for a little rest. Okay, it was more of a medium-sized rest.
I dragged him out of the cupboard again and pushed him onto the ground. Then I straddled him and slapped him around with the travel iron that reception had thoughtfully provided.
Although I’m not a B & D kinda gal, my experience with this man also helped change the way I felt about myself. I realised that I could enjoy the power I had over men. It was no longer just about the money, the dressing up and the escape into another role.
I learned that there’s nothing like the power of the pussy.
* Disclaimer: I don't pretend to know anything about B & D and yes, it can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about trying it, go to a professional!
The client wanted a dominant fantasy. He was cute and clean-cut in a Country Road, late 30s ex-surfy kind of way. He fantasised about being ‘executed’ by ladies in very high CFMs. He wanted me to beat him and then ‘execute’ him. It was a bit of a dilemma as I was working from a hotel room and was a bit worried about the noise. Also I didn’t have any B & D experience at all, and no gear either.
So I shut him inside the wardrobe – naked – and marched around the bathroom in my heels for about five minutes. I had to force myself not to laugh when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I let my footsteps get slower and slower as if I were walking closer and closer to him. Then I flung open the wardrobe door and dragged him out. He looked absolutely terrified; he was in a foetal position with his hands crossed in front of his dick.
‘Please don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me,’ he whimpered.
I had NO IDEA what I was doing, So I pushed him onto the ground and kicked him for not calling me ‘Mistress’.
‘Yes, Mistress. Yes, Mistress.’
I kicked him again for speaking without permission. I can tell you, there is nothing like kicking a man when he’s down.
He begged me not to hurt him anymore, so I didn’t. (Mainly because it was too much like hard work). I made him do it to himself. I shouted, ‘Drag that butt up and down the carpet until I can see some carpet-burn.’ Actually, when I think about it in hindsight, it was a lot of carpet-burn.
Then he started saying, ‘Yes, beautiful assassin. Yes, beautiful assassin. No, beautiful assassin.’ I struggled to keep a straight face.
I told him that as punishment for annoying me, he had to go back in the wardrobe for a while. Then I sat down for a little rest. Okay, it was more of a medium-sized rest.
I dragged him out of the cupboard again and pushed him onto the ground. Then I straddled him and slapped him around with the travel iron that reception had thoughtfully provided.
Although I’m not a B & D kinda gal, my experience with this man also helped change the way I felt about myself. I realised that I could enjoy the power I had over men. It was no longer just about the money, the dressing up and the escape into another role.
I learned that there’s nothing like the power of the pussy.
* Disclaimer: I don't pretend to know anything about B & D and yes, it can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. If you're thinking about trying it, go to a professional!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Reality and hypocrisy
Getting back into welfare and the real world was the answer for me. It made it easier to handle all the hootenanny that goes with the sex industry. I was more than aware that the industry is just a fantasy world where people play roles. But it is still easy to get sucked into it. Once I went back to day work I reminded myself of this, and then it was easier to maintain separate identities. Over the next few years my friends divided into two groups: those who knew I worked and those who didn’t. I stopped seeing people who didn’t know that I worked and rarely saw those who did know but failed to support me.
I was happy with my ‘double life’. I am what I am. And Scarlett is a part of who I am. The friends who disapproved of my choice of work were hypocritical in my view. They had cared for me before, and I was still the same person. It was their perception that had changed, not me.
The ironic thing was that when I started hooking, a lot of my friends went out every weekend, met guys and bonked them. I found it difficult to understand why they gave it away for free to dickheads who used them and then put them down behind their backs. Worse, a couple of my friends-in-the-know expected me to listen to them bang on about their demeaning situations and then changed the subject if I wanted to talk about hooking. They would say – get this – they didn’t want to discuss it because it was too “degrading”!
I didn’t find hooking in the slightest bit degrading. In fact, my self-esteem skyrocketed. Generally speaking, guys aren’t nearly as fussy about women as we think they are. Those few that are tend to be unhappy and unsuccessful in their private lives, which is not surprising. I found sex work to be skilled, complex, financially, and even personally, rewarding – if the client was exceptionally nice, good looking or fun in the sack.
Hooking was a revelation. I discovered many things about myself, about men, and about making money too.
I consider myself to be cute. My mother on the other hand was a stunning woman even into her early 60s. She looked very much like the singer Wendy Matthews – all cheek bones and long, long wavy hair. She was also sexually competitive and used her sexuality to get what she wanted in life. When I was young, she used to tell me that I’d never be pretty and that I would always be fat (I was a size ten mind you). She suggested I develop ‘presence’ to compensate for my plainness.
Sometimes I wonder if I subconsciously decided to become a hooker to prove that I was just as good, if not better, than my mother. Knowing that men would pay for my looks, my company and my body did make me feel smug, even though I kept the feeling secret.
I was happy with my ‘double life’. I am what I am. And Scarlett is a part of who I am. The friends who disapproved of my choice of work were hypocritical in my view. They had cared for me before, and I was still the same person. It was their perception that had changed, not me.
The ironic thing was that when I started hooking, a lot of my friends went out every weekend, met guys and bonked them. I found it difficult to understand why they gave it away for free to dickheads who used them and then put them down behind their backs. Worse, a couple of my friends-in-the-know expected me to listen to them bang on about their demeaning situations and then changed the subject if I wanted to talk about hooking. They would say – get this – they didn’t want to discuss it because it was too “degrading”!
I didn’t find hooking in the slightest bit degrading. In fact, my self-esteem skyrocketed. Generally speaking, guys aren’t nearly as fussy about women as we think they are. Those few that are tend to be unhappy and unsuccessful in their private lives, which is not surprising. I found sex work to be skilled, complex, financially, and even personally, rewarding – if the client was exceptionally nice, good looking or fun in the sack.
Hooking was a revelation. I discovered many things about myself, about men, and about making money too.
I consider myself to be cute. My mother on the other hand was a stunning woman even into her early 60s. She looked very much like the singer Wendy Matthews – all cheek bones and long, long wavy hair. She was also sexually competitive and used her sexuality to get what she wanted in life. When I was young, she used to tell me that I’d never be pretty and that I would always be fat (I was a size ten mind you). She suggested I develop ‘presence’ to compensate for my plainness.
Sometimes I wonder if I subconsciously decided to become a hooker to prove that I was just as good, if not better, than my mother. Knowing that men would pay for my looks, my company and my body did make me feel smug, even though I kept the feeling secret.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
I wanna be 'straight'...
After a few months I decided to leave Scarlet’s and join an escort agency. I didn’t like hanging around upstairs; I never knew who was going to come up. And that was a worry because I had started looking for day work.
I rang an agency listed in the paper. They told me they were legal even though they weren’t. When I found out its real status, I confronted the receptionist. She told not to worry, “Agencies in Queensland never get busted” she said. It’s true; they didn’t, and they still don’t.
The agency set-up was pretty easy. I nominated the times I was available (if I wanted good shifts like Friday and Saturday nights they’d make me do a crap shift like Tuesday night as well), then they paged me with details of each booking. I rang them on the client’s landline once I arrived, and they would ring me back at the end of the booking to check I was okay, and to see if the client wanted to extend.
I kept up my contacts at Hollywood’s and World By Night. After a while I started moonlighting at the agency set up by the two guys from the south side who had approached me at Hollywood’s. They were really great – they often drove us to bookings themselves if the client hadn’t used them before. And they gave me the hours I wanted because they didn’t have a lot of girls. I worked with them for about six months until my list of regulars from the other agency got too big to manage.
By this stage I had returned to part-time welfare work during the day. I was working with families of people with disabilities. I wanted to avoid jobs where I might end up face-to-face with working girls I knew.
Once I settled into my new, albeit compartmentalised, routine I felt that I had the upper hand in my dealings with men and the world. I cruised along in part-time-sex-worker-land for another seven years. I took breaks now and again from the agencies. And they took me back because they knew I wasn’t nicking their clients or ripping them off.
I also started escorting down at the Tweed on weekends, which was a lot of fun. I’d drive down on Friday afternoons and work through until Sunday afternoons. I got a weekend sitter. She was a uni student who still lived at home, so she and her boyfriend played happy families with Tuxxy. They looked after Tuxxy too well. He became very full-figured that year. In an effort to reduce his resemblance to a beached orca I bought him a really cool leopard skin collar and harness so I could take him for walks. Then I found a padded leopard skin cat coat as well. But Tuxxy would not cooperate. He lay down on his tummy and tucked all his feet in like a fat leopard-skinned turtle and refused to move. I dragged him around outside a few times, but it was no use. The only thing I got out of it was a set of cute photographs. I went back to portion control and left Tuxxy’s meals in Tupperware containers with strict instructions.
When mobile phones became readily available I left the agencies. I took out an ad under a new name for night time appointments and went out on my own. Easy peasy. About a year later, Vanessa and Sabine moved to Sydney. Things got a lot harder for a while post-Fitzgerald, and quite a few ladies left town. They asked me if I’d go with them, but I didn’t want the industry to take over my life.
I cruised along, managing both my lives with minimal impact. Initially however, I encountered some minor problems that I hadn’t anticipated. When I first started working, I kept my secrets to myself. But after a while I found it more stressful than actually working. I found myself lying, directly or by omission, to people I cared about. One day it all got a bit too confronting. I missed two calls; one at 12.25 and one at 12.47 while my mother was visiting. She asked me why I hadn’t answered the phone and I mumbled some excuse about not seeing her often enough and not wanting our time together to be interrupted. I couldn’t very well say, “Sorry Mum, but I have to go and fuck someone for money. You understand, don’t you?”
I rang an agency listed in the paper. They told me they were legal even though they weren’t. When I found out its real status, I confronted the receptionist. She told not to worry, “Agencies in Queensland never get busted” she said. It’s true; they didn’t, and they still don’t.
The agency set-up was pretty easy. I nominated the times I was available (if I wanted good shifts like Friday and Saturday nights they’d make me do a crap shift like Tuesday night as well), then they paged me with details of each booking. I rang them on the client’s landline once I arrived, and they would ring me back at the end of the booking to check I was okay, and to see if the client wanted to extend.
I kept up my contacts at Hollywood’s and World By Night. After a while I started moonlighting at the agency set up by the two guys from the south side who had approached me at Hollywood’s. They were really great – they often drove us to bookings themselves if the client hadn’t used them before. And they gave me the hours I wanted because they didn’t have a lot of girls. I worked with them for about six months until my list of regulars from the other agency got too big to manage.
By this stage I had returned to part-time welfare work during the day. I was working with families of people with disabilities. I wanted to avoid jobs where I might end up face-to-face with working girls I knew.
Once I settled into my new, albeit compartmentalised, routine I felt that I had the upper hand in my dealings with men and the world. I cruised along in part-time-sex-worker-land for another seven years. I took breaks now and again from the agencies. And they took me back because they knew I wasn’t nicking their clients or ripping them off.
I also started escorting down at the Tweed on weekends, which was a lot of fun. I’d drive down on Friday afternoons and work through until Sunday afternoons. I got a weekend sitter. She was a uni student who still lived at home, so she and her boyfriend played happy families with Tuxxy. They looked after Tuxxy too well. He became very full-figured that year. In an effort to reduce his resemblance to a beached orca I bought him a really cool leopard skin collar and harness so I could take him for walks. Then I found a padded leopard skin cat coat as well. But Tuxxy would not cooperate. He lay down on his tummy and tucked all his feet in like a fat leopard-skinned turtle and refused to move. I dragged him around outside a few times, but it was no use. The only thing I got out of it was a set of cute photographs. I went back to portion control and left Tuxxy’s meals in Tupperware containers with strict instructions.
When mobile phones became readily available I left the agencies. I took out an ad under a new name for night time appointments and went out on my own. Easy peasy. About a year later, Vanessa and Sabine moved to Sydney. Things got a lot harder for a while post-Fitzgerald, and quite a few ladies left town. They asked me if I’d go with them, but I didn’t want the industry to take over my life.
I cruised along, managing both my lives with minimal impact. Initially however, I encountered some minor problems that I hadn’t anticipated. When I first started working, I kept my secrets to myself. But after a while I found it more stressful than actually working. I found myself lying, directly or by omission, to people I cared about. One day it all got a bit too confronting. I missed two calls; one at 12.25 and one at 12.47 while my mother was visiting. She asked me why I hadn’t answered the phone and I mumbled some excuse about not seeing her often enough and not wanting our time together to be interrupted. I couldn’t very well say, “Sorry Mum, but I have to go and fuck someone for money. You understand, don’t you?”
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
A respectable face in the world: The two faces of Lucinda
I figured that if I went back to a respectable day job and maintained that face in the world, I could hook part-time and put the money towards getting real control of my life. Hooking was ideal; I could work minimum hours for maximum dollars, and it wouldn’t interfere with my ‘normal’ life.
My friend Imogen had similar ideas. She left the club shortly before me and within weeks was working with an escort agency. She’s one of the sanest people I know. She’s a very intelligent woman with a post-grad degree. She escorted part-time and made shitloads of money. She bought her first apartment in a funky, inner city suburb when she was in her early twenties and a successful small business within a year after that. Imogen left the industry as soon as she achieved her goals. Like Imogen, I decided to make my own luck. From then on, I didn’t look back.
I had a job topless waitressing a couple of nights a week at a strip club called World By Night by then. It gave my body a chance to rest from the gruelling workouts I endured at the club. World By Night was a well-known strip club with an illegal brothel upstairs called ‘Scarlet’s’. One night a couple of ladies didn’t show up and they asked me if I wanted to work ‘upstairs’. I spent about a minute thinking about it before agreeing. I’d seen how much money the girls made.
The first time wasn’t so bad. I’ve known ladies who were terrified, desperate, or even turned on, by their first experience. I just felt relieved that it went smoothly. The client was in his late twenties and not bad looking. He’d had a few drinks but was easy enough to handle, especially compared with the drunken yobs I came across in the clubs. Once I’d figured out he was harmless, I kind of left my corporeal self. I simply zoned out into my own headspace until it was over. I found it quite easy to focus on a single client, and it was gratifying to be paid for it. Dancing is quite different – you have to suck up to guys for inordinately long periods of time and pretend to like them and be having a great time so that they tip or book you for private dances. Hooking is much easier: the guy pays, you have sex with him, and then he goes. No one else gets a free look in, and you don’t waste time schmoozing up to guys who just want your time for free.
It was easy to pull the guys, especially once they got pissed. They had to go past us to get to the toilet, so we picked them off as they approached. Once again, I learned the ropes pretty fast. While we used condoms for penetrative sex, we didn’t use them for oral. So I refused to provide oral. It did cost me some clients, but not many. Some men told me that giving oral sex was very important to them and they loved it. I love it too, but not from a stranger. You didn’t know where their mouths had been, and if their breath was anything to go by, you didn’t want to know. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Successful long-term hooking involves careful management of boundaries. We don’t get as much enjoyment out of the experience as some clients like to believe. Most of them thought it important that I orgasmed too, so they spent time making sure I got off (or pretended to get off) before they did.
My friend Imogen had similar ideas. She left the club shortly before me and within weeks was working with an escort agency. She’s one of the sanest people I know. She’s a very intelligent woman with a post-grad degree. She escorted part-time and made shitloads of money. She bought her first apartment in a funky, inner city suburb when she was in her early twenties and a successful small business within a year after that. Imogen left the industry as soon as she achieved her goals. Like Imogen, I decided to make my own luck. From then on, I didn’t look back.
I had a job topless waitressing a couple of nights a week at a strip club called World By Night by then. It gave my body a chance to rest from the gruelling workouts I endured at the club. World By Night was a well-known strip club with an illegal brothel upstairs called ‘Scarlet’s’. One night a couple of ladies didn’t show up and they asked me if I wanted to work ‘upstairs’. I spent about a minute thinking about it before agreeing. I’d seen how much money the girls made.
The first time wasn’t so bad. I’ve known ladies who were terrified, desperate, or even turned on, by their first experience. I just felt relieved that it went smoothly. The client was in his late twenties and not bad looking. He’d had a few drinks but was easy enough to handle, especially compared with the drunken yobs I came across in the clubs. Once I’d figured out he was harmless, I kind of left my corporeal self. I simply zoned out into my own headspace until it was over. I found it quite easy to focus on a single client, and it was gratifying to be paid for it. Dancing is quite different – you have to suck up to guys for inordinately long periods of time and pretend to like them and be having a great time so that they tip or book you for private dances. Hooking is much easier: the guy pays, you have sex with him, and then he goes. No one else gets a free look in, and you don’t waste time schmoozing up to guys who just want your time for free.
It was easy to pull the guys, especially once they got pissed. They had to go past us to get to the toilet, so we picked them off as they approached. Once again, I learned the ropes pretty fast. While we used condoms for penetrative sex, we didn’t use them for oral. So I refused to provide oral. It did cost me some clients, but not many. Some men told me that giving oral sex was very important to them and they loved it. I love it too, but not from a stranger. You didn’t know where their mouths had been, and if their breath was anything to go by, you didn’t want to know. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Successful long-term hooking involves careful management of boundaries. We don’t get as much enjoyment out of the experience as some clients like to believe. Most of them thought it important that I orgasmed too, so they spent time making sure I got off (or pretended to get off) before they did.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Dancing or sex work?
When I was the real me, I occasionally worried about the longer-term consequences of what I was doing. But when I was Scarlett, I was carefree. I focused on becoming her and enjoyed the respite from my responsibilities. I felt like I was on holidays most of the time. It was great. I knew I would only be able to play the young-and-foolish card for a short time, so I decided to make the most of it. At this stage I had absolutely no idea that the industry would become such an important part of my life.
My fitness levels increased from all the dancing and massage, and I developed some killer calf muscles from prancing about in my CFMs. But it was very hard and tiring work.
We got less than half the takings and in between bookings we had to stand around in high heels and talk to potential customers. Some of them had no intention of putting their hands into their pockets, but every intention of putting them in ours if they could. We had to look immaculate. And we only got paid if we were picked. We were like the Barbie dolls I once wanted to be, only about five times more expensive than the inanimate varieties.
After a few months, the work conditions frustrated me, so I left to work in another club that provided contact lap dancing, although it wasn’t called that in those days. This club was less restrictive, but it had its own hazards.
At the new club, I learned even more about clients. The first lesson was to never turn your back on a man during private dances. Clients lost their inhibitions at the drop of a hat. If you did turn around they just dropped their dicks out. They’ve got no shame at all. I can’t tell you how many times I saw a client cum in his pants and leave the club with a conspicuous stain on the front of his trousers. We should have offered a dry-cleaning service as well — we would have made a fortune.
Some of the strippers, working ladies and dancers used to meet up late at night at Hollywood’s, a bar in Elizabeth Street. It was the only place open after three o’clock in the morning. Vanessa and I hung out there a lot. It was an illegal dump run by a couple of Brisbane’s pre-Fitzgerald vice kings who got to know us well. (This was a bonus for Vanessa because she had developed an aversion to entry stamps after reading The Diary of Anne Frank. She developed the notion that she must have been Jewish in a previous life, so she couldn’t stand to be branded).
I met two guys there who were interested in setting up a small escort operation on Brisbane’s Southside. They cleared their plans with vice king Hector Hapeta, who had a big slice of the industry, and had an agreement as to the areas they could work. They were both black-belts-plus in Zen Do Kai karate and took the safety of the girls seriously. They asked if I’d be interested in working for them. I was tempted, I must admit. I was starting to realise that dancing and hooking had a lot in common.
Some girls don’t feel the same way. They feel unable to cross that boundary, and what’s more, they enjoy dancing because they see themselves as performers. A friend of mine, Emma, told me once, ‘When you’re stripping, every angle of your body is on display to someone, so it has to be in tip-top condition’. Her body was in incredible shape. ‘But taking that final step is something I just wouldn’t do’, she said. ‘Selling my body is just too personal.’
I could see her point of view, but I found the male pack mentality of the club more than degrading. It was the main reason I left dancing and took up hooking. Dealing with clients one-on-one is much easier than dealing with hoards of drooling men. You’re the one in control. And even if it is not a conscious thing, the client very quickly learns the rules.
It seemed like a natural progression to move into escorting after a few months of experiencing the club scene. So I decided to graduate to fully-fledged hooker status, but one with a difference.
My fitness levels increased from all the dancing and massage, and I developed some killer calf muscles from prancing about in my CFMs. But it was very hard and tiring work.
We got less than half the takings and in between bookings we had to stand around in high heels and talk to potential customers. Some of them had no intention of putting their hands into their pockets, but every intention of putting them in ours if they could. We had to look immaculate. And we only got paid if we were picked. We were like the Barbie dolls I once wanted to be, only about five times more expensive than the inanimate varieties.
After a few months, the work conditions frustrated me, so I left to work in another club that provided contact lap dancing, although it wasn’t called that in those days. This club was less restrictive, but it had its own hazards.
At the new club, I learned even more about clients. The first lesson was to never turn your back on a man during private dances. Clients lost their inhibitions at the drop of a hat. If you did turn around they just dropped their dicks out. They’ve got no shame at all. I can’t tell you how many times I saw a client cum in his pants and leave the club with a conspicuous stain on the front of his trousers. We should have offered a dry-cleaning service as well — we would have made a fortune.
Some of the strippers, working ladies and dancers used to meet up late at night at Hollywood’s, a bar in Elizabeth Street. It was the only place open after three o’clock in the morning. Vanessa and I hung out there a lot. It was an illegal dump run by a couple of Brisbane’s pre-Fitzgerald vice kings who got to know us well. (This was a bonus for Vanessa because she had developed an aversion to entry stamps after reading The Diary of Anne Frank. She developed the notion that she must have been Jewish in a previous life, so she couldn’t stand to be branded).
I met two guys there who were interested in setting up a small escort operation on Brisbane’s Southside. They cleared their plans with vice king Hector Hapeta, who had a big slice of the industry, and had an agreement as to the areas they could work. They were both black-belts-plus in Zen Do Kai karate and took the safety of the girls seriously. They asked if I’d be interested in working for them. I was tempted, I must admit. I was starting to realise that dancing and hooking had a lot in common.
Some girls don’t feel the same way. They feel unable to cross that boundary, and what’s more, they enjoy dancing because they see themselves as performers. A friend of mine, Emma, told me once, ‘When you’re stripping, every angle of your body is on display to someone, so it has to be in tip-top condition’. Her body was in incredible shape. ‘But taking that final step is something I just wouldn’t do’, she said. ‘Selling my body is just too personal.’
I could see her point of view, but I found the male pack mentality of the club more than degrading. It was the main reason I left dancing and took up hooking. Dealing with clients one-on-one is much easier than dealing with hoards of drooling men. You’re the one in control. And even if it is not a conscious thing, the client very quickly learns the rules.
It seemed like a natural progression to move into escorting after a few months of experiencing the club scene. So I decided to graduate to fully-fledged hooker status, but one with a difference.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
More on my working history
The club offered clients nude dances up against a one-way mirror, and ‘extras’ at our discretion were actively encouraged. We’d go into a separate room and dance against the one-way mirror. The client remained in the cubicle on the other side. The client’s room was pretty basic, so it was easy to clean up. Now that was a horrible thing, especially when they came onto the mirror. I’ve never looked at Mr Sheen the same way since. It was beyond me why they didn’t wipe it off themselves. You’d think they’d be embarrassed to leave it up there but they weren’t.
They had no idea that we could see them, but we could. When their profiles overlapped with ours on the mirror we could see a lot. Too much actually. It was quite revolting seeing their dribbling mouths open and tongues hanging out as they wanked themselves off. I’d be moving around, rubbing myself up and down the glass, and they would do it too. They’d follow me as I moved, like a kitten in a pet shop window – but a lot less farking cute. As I got used to the work, I found one of the hardest things about the job was trying not to laugh as I wiggled about in nothing but my CFMs.
The first night passed in a blur. I tried to pace myself and limit the number of alcoholic drinks I accepted. I had enough trouble walking around in my shoes as it was. At the end of the night, Tony told me he’d had good feedback from clients. He rolled his eyes and said he was relieved I’d gotten some nice lingerie. (When I got to know him better he told me that he had never met a girl before who wore undies as nasty as the ones I’d worn for the interview).
At three am I stepped out of the club and back into the real world. My senses were heightened. The air felt cold and smelled clean after the warm smoky fug of the club. I’ll never forget how elated I was; I felt so free, like I had been re-born. I felt that my life was full of infinite possibilities and limited only by my courage and determination.
I hailed a cab. The driver made a big deal of sizing me up. I just didn’t care. It was hard to believe that less than 24 hours ago I’d run into Vanessa and gotten her help. I came out of my reverie close to home and got the driver to drop me off around the corner so he didn’t find out where I lived. I made a mental note of the cab number just in case.
I’d made over $300 dollars that night, which was the equivalent of a week’s wages for a check out operator or bar attendant in those days.
My cat Tuxxy was frantic when I opened the door, because he’d been alone all night. He wouldn’t leave me alone. “Now you know how I feel, when you’re out all night you dirty stop out,” I muttered. I checked his water then crashed on the bed, fully dressed. He lay next to me, purring maniacally. Occasionally, he leaned over and bumped his nose against mine. We slept together until lunchtime. It was the first proper sleep I’d had for days.
When I woke up, my body ached all over and I was dehydrated from the work and a mild hangover. I still had the Valium, because I was too scared to lose control in a place like the club. I took a long bath and scrubbed all the makeup off my face before taking a long look at myself in the mirror. I felt a bit disassociated from myself in some ways but looked just the same on the outside.
I settled into the club pretty quickly. After three months I was an old timer; the place had an astonishingly high turnover. I soon found out why: lots of the girls provided full service on the side. Tony used to send his friends in undercover to ‘test’ the girls, so there would be big staff sweep outs every couple of months. Someone told me he wasn’t concerned about the sex; he was pissed off that he didn’t get a cut.
Vanessa and I became good friends over the next few months. We got together for breakfast a couple of times a week and often went shopping for work gear. She enjoyed introducing me to her world and actively sought my approval. When I got to know her better, she told me that she had always felt that I didn’t like her. I had to admit that her life was quite different from how I had imagined it. And the work was more empowering than I could ever have guessed. She started pestering me to give up dancing and start ‘working’. She nagged me endlessly to try the escort agency she worked for. But I resisted.
I didn’t want to break that final taboo. I was afraid of losing myself in the maelstrom that was the heady age of the early 1980s before the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Drugs were openly bought, sold, and consumed at that time. Organised prostitution was rife. Everyone except the police and politicians knew where the illegal brothels and casinos were. I kept my mouth shut and my head down. The police socialised with ladies like me at clubs. They would tip us off about places that were about to be raided. We’d be arrested and give false names. The owners would simply fork out the fines and that was that. We didn;t even have to appear. There were hardly any problems because everyone knew the rules, and for the most part they stuck to them.
My life became unconventional, and exciting. Glamorous even. I was working all night and dressing in a more conspicuous way. And yet I felt strangely invisible. People looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and contempt if I went out for breakfast in last night’s clothes. But they didn’t see me. I was relieved, relieved to be making money and relieved to be overlooked. There was me and there was my alter ego, Scarlett.
They had no idea that we could see them, but we could. When their profiles overlapped with ours on the mirror we could see a lot. Too much actually. It was quite revolting seeing their dribbling mouths open and tongues hanging out as they wanked themselves off. I’d be moving around, rubbing myself up and down the glass, and they would do it too. They’d follow me as I moved, like a kitten in a pet shop window – but a lot less farking cute. As I got used to the work, I found one of the hardest things about the job was trying not to laugh as I wiggled about in nothing but my CFMs.
The first night passed in a blur. I tried to pace myself and limit the number of alcoholic drinks I accepted. I had enough trouble walking around in my shoes as it was. At the end of the night, Tony told me he’d had good feedback from clients. He rolled his eyes and said he was relieved I’d gotten some nice lingerie. (When I got to know him better he told me that he had never met a girl before who wore undies as nasty as the ones I’d worn for the interview).
At three am I stepped out of the club and back into the real world. My senses were heightened. The air felt cold and smelled clean after the warm smoky fug of the club. I’ll never forget how elated I was; I felt so free, like I had been re-born. I felt that my life was full of infinite possibilities and limited only by my courage and determination.
I hailed a cab. The driver made a big deal of sizing me up. I just didn’t care. It was hard to believe that less than 24 hours ago I’d run into Vanessa and gotten her help. I came out of my reverie close to home and got the driver to drop me off around the corner so he didn’t find out where I lived. I made a mental note of the cab number just in case.
I’d made over $300 dollars that night, which was the equivalent of a week’s wages for a check out operator or bar attendant in those days.
My cat Tuxxy was frantic when I opened the door, because he’d been alone all night. He wouldn’t leave me alone. “Now you know how I feel, when you’re out all night you dirty stop out,” I muttered. I checked his water then crashed on the bed, fully dressed. He lay next to me, purring maniacally. Occasionally, he leaned over and bumped his nose against mine. We slept together until lunchtime. It was the first proper sleep I’d had for days.
When I woke up, my body ached all over and I was dehydrated from the work and a mild hangover. I still had the Valium, because I was too scared to lose control in a place like the club. I took a long bath and scrubbed all the makeup off my face before taking a long look at myself in the mirror. I felt a bit disassociated from myself in some ways but looked just the same on the outside.
I settled into the club pretty quickly. After three months I was an old timer; the place had an astonishingly high turnover. I soon found out why: lots of the girls provided full service on the side. Tony used to send his friends in undercover to ‘test’ the girls, so there would be big staff sweep outs every couple of months. Someone told me he wasn’t concerned about the sex; he was pissed off that he didn’t get a cut.
Vanessa and I became good friends over the next few months. We got together for breakfast a couple of times a week and often went shopping for work gear. She enjoyed introducing me to her world and actively sought my approval. When I got to know her better, she told me that she had always felt that I didn’t like her. I had to admit that her life was quite different from how I had imagined it. And the work was more empowering than I could ever have guessed. She started pestering me to give up dancing and start ‘working’. She nagged me endlessly to try the escort agency she worked for. But I resisted.
I didn’t want to break that final taboo. I was afraid of losing myself in the maelstrom that was the heady age of the early 1980s before the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Drugs were openly bought, sold, and consumed at that time. Organised prostitution was rife. Everyone except the police and politicians knew where the illegal brothels and casinos were. I kept my mouth shut and my head down. The police socialised with ladies like me at clubs. They would tip us off about places that were about to be raided. We’d be arrested and give false names. The owners would simply fork out the fines and that was that. We didn;t even have to appear. There were hardly any problems because everyone knew the rules, and for the most part they stuck to them.
My life became unconventional, and exciting. Glamorous even. I was working all night and dressing in a more conspicuous way. And yet I felt strangely invisible. People looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and contempt if I went out for breakfast in last night’s clothes. But they didn’t see me. I was relieved, relieved to be making money and relieved to be overlooked. There was me and there was my alter ego, Scarlett.
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