In My Skin (27 page)

At the counter a house reg tried to snoop a look at my booking sheet as Sophie fiddled with it. I scowled at him. Sophie pushed it across for me to sign. ‘So I’ve taken out the GST deduction, and the amount you owe for dinner.’ I signed the form silently, walked off through the crowd of girls, went home to eke out one taste between me and Robbie and wait for the sickness to arrive. At least we had the methadone to see us through.

The next night I arrived for work to find Bea standing at the front counter without a smile. Nora, at the desk, threw me a warning grimace.

‘Pack up your locker, Lucy, and come and talk to me in room five,’ Bea said.

I felt myself go pale all over; jerk into dream-logic. Yes, I was at work, yes I was talking to Bea, and she was telling me to clear my locker. Something was wrong. It must be a misunderstanding. As I yanked dresses out of my locker and shoved them into a plastic rubbish bag my shock shivered into tears. The other girls watched. Then Siobhan and Heidi came over to help.

‘I need eight hundred dollars, I have no idea what’s—what’s
happening
, what the fuck is
going on
? Did someone say something— what’s Bea doing, how am I going to pay the rent—’

They shushed me and commiserated. ‘It must be a mistake, you haven’t done anything. You’re one of the best girls here,’ they said.

Lola rolled cigarettes at the table.

Bea was waiting straight-backed in the room. ‘Sophie tells me that last night you refused to pay your GST or dinner money.’

I just stared.

‘And when you got your money you walked away calling her a slut.’

The world jerked again; I opened my mouth. ‘That’s not true, I paid everything, and the other girls were there, they can tell you— I’d
never
call
anyone
a slut—’

‘No arguments, Lucy. I’m very disappointed—
No arguments!
And I can’t have you abusing my receptionists. You’re suspended for a month. Call me after that and I’ll see if there’s room for you to come back.’ Her face was a stranger’s: tight and impassive.

I went on protesting, but she walked out. Nora gave me a look; I couldn’t tell what she thought. And in a daze I walked through the front door, dragging my bag of clothes. I was too humiliated and shocked even to say goodbye.

I got home, less than an hour after I’d left. Robbie saw the expression on my face and leaped up to hug me. I started to cry. ‘That
fucking bitch
—’

Robbie rocked me. ‘What?’ He kissed my hair.

‘We’re completely fucked,’ I said.

There was no chance for reprieve; at one stroke I’d lost my job, my clients—what would they think had happened?—my friends—I’d never see Valentina again, or Nicole, or Melanie, and what would Bea tell them?— my income, my place. I had drugs to buy for the night and rent to pay. We already owed Plum, and two other dealers; they were holding my phone for credit. I had twenty dollars to my name.

LATER THAT NIGHT I GOT out the phone book. There were a couple of brothels close to where I lived; one I’d heard bad rumours about, the other I knew nothing about. I rang that one.

‘You can come in for an interview right now, if you want,’ said the woman on the phone. It was ten o’clock. I put on some tight pants, a nice shirt, some make-up to cover the signs of crying.

The house, called Il Fiore, was yet another renovated Victorian terrace, standing in an industrial area of warehouses and grassy lots. When I was buzzed in I caught glimpses of huge gilt-framed mirrors and overstuffed leather sofas in the lounge. The receptionist’s counter was black marble.

I was still a little dazed from crying, but the woman who interviewed me was matter-of-fact and I answered her questions confidently enough. Yes, I’d worked before. My name was Lucy. I would work five nights a week if I could, yes, I did anal, yes, I had my own clothes; yes, I had a tattoo.

‘It’s just, some gentlemen don’t like them, so we keep a list,’ she said, peering at the rosebud on my shoulder. ‘Of course, some of them don’t know what they friggin’ want,’ she added. Her name was Bernadette and she looked like an aged film star. She wore a thick gold necklace. There was a lot of gold in this place.

‘Start tomorrow?’ she said, ‘Then maybe you can meet Helen, the owner.’ I agreed, and left. It was a hard night and day, with no earnings, but we made it. I rang the infuriated landlady and promised money soon. At least I wasn’t without prospects.

The next night I took in a bag full of make-up and dresses and went to begin the new job. I’d thought I might still go back to Indigo in a month’s time—at least for a couple of nights, to say goodbye— and tell my clients where to find me. But the idea of facing Bea again choked me with anger; I had no way of knowing what else she’d said about me. This place, I could tell, was actually a cut above Indigo, and I was glad of that; fuck them, I was moving on.

Bernadette showed me around. This building was two storeys: lounges and a couple of bedrooms below; a proper kitchen next to the girls’ room, which had cable television and expensive couches; a tiny laundry and then, upstairs, the other four bedrooms. Each had enormous gilt mirrors, canopies draped at the head of each bed, fake-antique dressers and clothes-stands for gentlemen’s jackets, and enormous spas and showers. The towels were new, the bedclothes rich, the carpet soft. Elegant lighting made the place glow in its champagne paint.

‘This is Natasha,’ said Bernadette, pointing at a very pretty blonde girl in a pink cocktail frock. ‘Desiree’—a stunning black girl with long thin dreadlocks. ‘Coral’—a tanned woman with short blonde hair and a pale blue velvet gown; ‘and Milla.’ Milla waved a long elegant arm. The women all smiled coolly at me and went back to their magazines.

‘It’s a quiet one, Lucy,’ said Bernadette, collapsing into her seat by the door to the foyer. ‘Though to be honest, I’m glad of a break—last night they were coming in in
torrents
! Weren’t they, Natasha? And oh, the heads on some of them!’ She grimaced.

‘It was ’orrible,’ agreed Natasha. She had a pretty Russian accent.

‘I don’t care, so long as that bozo doesn’t come back—the one that grabbed my
ass
—’ said Desiree. She was American. This place was a bit more international than Indigo.

I sat there, smiling gormlessly, as a new person will. In the background the stereo played faintly.

These girls seemed pleasant, poised and well-groomed; they perched politely on the upholstery; in their expensive gowns, they seemed almost upholstered themselves. The television was on a cable channel: a Hollywood movie. Bernadette fetched a load of towels from the dryer that rumbled in the kitchen, and started folding them. ‘Come on girls, don’t just sit there. You know Helen said you had to help with the towels.’

I was shown how to fold each one precisely into a neat bundle, stack them with the folded edges all aligned, and stow them in the bedroom dressers. ‘They have to look perfect for when the gentlemen are in here,’ Bernadette announced when she took me to a bedroom to demonstrate. She twitched at an arrangement of folded towels at the end of the bed, adjusting one angle so the origami flower-shape was symmetrical. ‘You spray with room freshener after every booking, there’s disinfectant in the cupboard, you don’t leave a stray hair in the shower. Helen likes the place to be kept nice.’ There was something reverential in her tone.

My first booking, and the man was a familiar face. ‘I didn’t know you worked here as well,’ said Mark, the porn-movie aficionado. ‘I do now,’ I said, and hoped he’d take the word back to Bea. I had to ask Bernadette to turn on the video so Mark could have his movie; this wasn’t the kind of place where porn ran idly all day long. Over the concealed speakers came the ubiquitous Ricky Martin. Mark asked me to turn it off.

It took some doing to make sure the room was left spotless at the end of the booking; I was conscientious. I didn’t think I’d get fired for not making my towel arrangement fancy enough, but I wanted to make a good impression. There was something pleasing in making everything just so.

It was strange to start at the bottom again; to sit docilely in the lounge while girls made jokes about clients I didn’t know, about other girls I hadn’t met, while my silence went unnoticed. As at Indigo, most of these girls had regulars, while I took my chance at the other visitors and racked up a few bookings. At the start of each I was given a tiny docket to record my booking; Bernadette handed me some condoms and noticed that my tumbler of orange juice for the client wasn’t on a saucer.

‘A saucer? For a glass?’

‘Helen likes it like that.’

As usual, the buzzer went five minutes before the end of the booking; when I was a couple of minutes late, Bernadette chastised me.

‘There’s no clock in the room,’ I said. ‘I’m used to a clock.’

‘You’ve got a watch, haven’t you?’

‘But it’s more discreet to just look over at a clock, men don’t like it when you look at your watch—’

‘Just remember, it’s Helen who makes the rules here.’

I felt very new again.

The men that night seemed nice, normal, even though there were the familiar Monday-night gaggles of youths sprawled incongruously in their nylon tracksuits on the splendour of the imitation Chesterfield. Bernadette gave them short shrift. ‘Are you interested in seeing a lady? We have some lovely ladies on tonight. There’s no one you liked? Well, we’ll be seeing you,’ she sang as she closed the door behind them. We could hear her through the door and watch her on the closed-circuit screen above the television.

‘Mary, Mother of God,’ she said, coming back in. ‘Did you ever see such a bunch of sad-sacks? Give me strength.’

At the end of the night, she said, ‘Now Helen will be in tomorrow when I start the shift, and I’ll tell her you’ve done very well. We have a very particular philosophy here, as I’m sure you’ve seen—only quality ladies, and a very good clientele.’ She pronounced ‘ladies’ with studied decorum. ‘She’s strict, but a wonderful owner,’ Bernadette continued. ‘You’ve done well, Lucy, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

I walked home; it was only ten minutes away, and the streets in this bleak warehouse zone were quiet at four in the morning. Robbie was waiting up.

‘It’s good. I think I’ll stay,’ I said. ‘Ring Plum.’

‘Now, Bernadette’s probably told you I run a tight ship, but we’re always glad of a new lady. Where were you working before?’ Helen looked at me intently.

She was a small, middle-aged woman with a careful fine blonde coiffure. She shook my hand when I came into work the next night; she smiled tightly, and looked me straight in the eye. Her clothes were expensively tailored in pale yellow; she had a little jewelled bracelet on one wrist. Her accent was pure country girl.

‘Mood—’ I began.

‘Oh.’ Helen fiddled with her bracelet. ‘Well, you’ve been told the rules, and met some of the girls—’

‘The place is gorgeous.’

She looked at me more warmly. ‘I’m very proud of it. Now, any problems you have, Lucy, you just let me or Bernadette know. We want you to feel at home.’

In the ladies’ lounge there were some new faces. A woman with a cute button face and a mass of curly yellow hair was tugging her generous breasts into a very tight halterneck dress. There seemed to be a lot of blondes here.

‘I’m Jessie!’ she said, and extracted a hand to wave at me.

‘Nina,’ said a dignified brunette on the couch, not waving.

Bernadette blasted though the door. ‘Okay girls, now Lucy you’d better scoot upstairs to the powder room and get yourself fixed up. Don’t be too long, chook. Is anyone going to order dinner? Towels dry?’

Already the place seemed familiar.

One of my first regulars at Il Fiore was Mohammed. He was charming and handsome: with velvety skin the colour of very milky coffee and thick pepper-and-salt hair, he resembled the young Omar Sharif.

‘It’s important to give a girl time to become aroused,’ he said, stroking me gently. His plump mouth kissed my belly again and again; his fingers teased me. I laced my fingers lazily through his hair. As he pleasured me we talked—of his ex-wife, of his life in Australia, of what women liked in bed. His white-teethed smile was easy and his attitude relaxed. ‘If I don’t come, I don’t come,’ he said, curling around me. ‘I visit here for the experience.’ His body was soft as suede.

Wally was shy and almost silent. All he wanted was cuddles; which, when he’d inevitably arrive at 5 a.m. on a weekend night, was a blessedly humble request for a tired girl. He’d lie, full-length on top of me, with his sweet, bashful face pressed into the side of my neck, his weight warm and close upon me; an hour of quiet. That was all. ‘Lucy?’ he asked once, and I realised I’d fallen asleep.

Paul was furry and naughty and threw himself upon me like a beast; I squealed with giggles and threw my arms around him. He was an example of the client who just wanted a good shag and a laugh; with him I enjoyed ferocious thumping sex, a barrel chest warm with fuzz; sometimes a line of cocaine on the dresser when I walked in. I liked him so much—the ease of it, the friendly acknowledgment of who and what I was—that it was a shock when one night he asked me to see him outside of work. Helen, even more than the receptionists at Indigo, impressed upon us the unforgivability of seeing clients outside of work. ‘It always ends in tears,’ she said; but of course she was worried about losing her cut.