by Geena Leigh
‘He’s got the whole floor,’ his manager said as we got out of the lift.
‘Wow, that’s pretty cool,’ I replied.
I imagined running around the entire floor, messing up each room just for the fun of it. I often daydreamed about living in a hotel where I could take luxurious baths where my feet wouldn’t stick out the end and someone would bring me gourmet meals. They’d also do my laundry and make the bed every day. What a great life that would be.
It was a lavish suite. There were about seven women sitting around when we walked in. The mini-bar had already been cleaned out. We chatted a little about the concert and then someone placed a large bag of cocaine in the middle of the glass table. At last, I thought. Now we can get the party started.
We’d already consumed much of the cocaine by the time the rockstar came in and said Hi to everyone, scanning the room. He looked like he’d just showered, and he wore just a white shirt and boxers. I smiled as he walked over and crouched down on the floor beside me, placing his hand on my thigh. I got a little nervous and felt kind of special, and I could also sense the glares from the other women. He pulled me to my feet and we danced a little. It was a slow song, which was awkward to dance to when my body was so revved up from all the coke.
Then he left the room and went to the bathroom, and all the conversation stopped. Initially I thought he might have had his own coke stash but actually I think he just needed to go to the bathroom. When he came back, the conversation picked up again. If there had been music on at that time, even the music would have paused in his absence. Celebrities must be used to being stared at—everyone wanted him to look at them and to make some kind of personal connection.
He walked back over to me. The women all sat around drinking and watching me as I undressed. I was used to being naked and having sex in front of others, so it didn’t bother me. I slowly slid out of my jeans and flung my top across the room to reveal my vibrant magenta silky G-string and matching bra. I undid the buttons of his shirt one by one and playfully tapped my fingers over his fairly prominent abs, like I was playing a xylophone. I had enough experience with the male form to know that he was in great shape for a guy his age. I placed my lips on his chest and pressed my body up against his. He smiled as he stepped out of his boxers, then sat up on the counter next to the TV. I reached for the condom that was strategically tucked into my bra (I never wanted to be in the position to not have one) and tore the top of the packet off, and threw my bra on the carpet. He made a little sneer as I peeled it over his hard cock, which made me think he didn’t like the condom; but, it didn’t matter who he was, it had to be safe.
A mosaic of coloured lights from the surrounding buildings and the Harbour Bridge shone in the room. Maybe I was getting a little paranoid—I could almost hear the spinning blades of a helicopter as I imagined it hovering outside taking photos. The heading on the front cover of Who Weekly would surely read something like, ‘Rockstar’s Sex Rampage with Ten Hookers!’ There would be a photo on the front page of him naked, me on my knees wearing only a G-string, and all the other scantily clad hookers seen partying in the background. It was then that I decided I should do something and I pulled the room’s thick beige curtains together.
‘Thanks—he’s got a lot more to lose than you do,’ his manager remarked to me as he led Stacey into one of the bedrooms.
I kneeled in front of the rockstar and began to go down on him. He groaned and tilted his head back. But, after a few minutes, from the corner of my eye, I saw the mound of cocaine beckoning to me. I stopped what I was doing midway, danced over to the table and rolled up the $100 note that lay beside it. When I glanced back, I saw that he was pissed off that I’d left his hard cock swinging in the air all alone. The other women eagerly pounced on him and took him to the sofa. I didn’t care; I was focused on the coke.
He lay on his back, his head propped up against an embroidered cushion. The women all leaned over him, shaking their breasts in his face. I noticed the condom lay on the carpet beside the sofa. One girl had her hand on his penis. His eyes were wide, like full moons, soaking it all in. He had forgotten about me. I felt a little left out, but I didn’t mind—it was just me and the coke now, so we became very well acquainted.
I had read that this guy was into tantric sex, which meant that he never climaxed. But that wasn’t the case. I felt a bit naive for believing what the trashy magazines had written. I watched the woman tug on his cock in a frenzied manner as his eyes darted around the circle ogling at the abundance of jiggling breasts. I hadn’t even noticed the other women undress. He writhed from side to side and then stretched his legs straight out and groaned intensely as he came. I saw one of the women smile to herself as she wiped some of his unyielding cum from the side of her cheek.
After he’d finished, he put on a white fluffy robe and some slippers and said, ‘God bless!’ He waved to us as he walked out the door to go to a different suite. Usually clients would say, ‘Thanks,’ ‘Can I have your number?’ or ‘Great fuck!’ ‘God bless’ sounded pretty weird. The things that had been going on were very ungodlike.
When the manager ushered Stacey out of the bedroom, we got ready to leave. He placed three $100 notes onto my palm. I looked at him, unimpressed, so he added two more notes and put his wallet away. ‘It was an international celebrity!’ he tried to justify as he led us to the elevator (to make sure that we actually left the floor, not to be a gentleman).
Other girls had previously told me that celebrities were the biggest tight-arses. They were right. I added celebrities to my (mental) list of ‘Cheap Clients to Avoid’. Others already on the list included ‘Accountants’ and ‘New Zealanders’. Five hundred dollars for entertaining a client for four hours on a private job was a pathetic amount of money. Even though I didn’t actually have sex, it wasn’t the point—I’d forgone a busy Friday night at work to be there, so this was a loss.
I was too high to go in to work, so I resolved to cut my losses. I grabbed a taxi home, slid into bed and drank a bottle or two of Tyrrell’s Old Winery Semillon Sauvignon, before passing out with the television and light on.
•
There weren’t many unattractive girls at The Club. The boss would give a chance to almost any girl who came in, but the calibre of the girls was so high that the less pretty ones would soon go and find a club where they didn’t feel so inadequate, and where they’d make more money. It was easy to see the ones who wouldn’t fit in or last long. The girls with short fuses and who couldn’t deal with difficult clients would end up getting into arguments, and the client would leave angry and swear at the receptionist as he left.
Occasionally a guy would complain and ask for a refund. This was highly scorned and is very insulting to a sex worker, because sex is not something that you purchase and can take back to the store with a receipt within fourteen days if you’re not happy. If a girl left the room early and the client complained, the girl might have to go back in for the remaining time or they refunded fifteen minutes’ worth, just to get rid of him if he was causing a major scene. If the bouncer was on duty, there were rarely complaints; if someone did complain, the bouncer would show the guy out with no discussion. This didn’t happen to me, though. Even if the client was an arsehole and I wanted to drown him in the spa, I would make some kind of silly joke and we’d be seen laughing together; we’d kiss each other goodbye as I held the door open for him to leave. If a girl didn’t know how to work it, she’d be working somewhere else soon enough.
Saturday nights had a distinct flavour at The Club; young Lebanese men from the western suburbs would flock to the city in their weekly pilgrimage. I wouldn’t waste any time chatting to those guys. I would confidently walk over to them, do a twirl and ask ‘Do you want to have sex with me?’ one by one, until someone said yes. If no-one accepted, I would sit at the bar and read the latest Madison magazine that another girl had abandoned until a new customer arrived. Other Saturday-night regulars would include a few lonely tourists
, jet-lagged businessmen and the odd buck’s party group.
The Club would look packed and yet we could all be standing around, broke. The Lebanese boys would sit around for hours before making a decision. The lonely tourists weren’t in a hurry—they would treat the situation as an opportunity to discuss the best tourist hot spots in Australia to visit, talking incessantly. The buck’s party groups would sit around soaking up all the attention for hours, and then they would all finally put in $20 each for their mate to have half an hour with a woman. They would never tip and they never purchased any extra services.
Our wage was very disappointing without any extras. Basically anything a client asked for was considered an extra. They wanted it, so that meant they’d be willing to pay to get it. It was just a basic supply-and-demand of business. We weren’t officially supposed to ask them for extra money to strip or kiss them, yet the men were usually happy to pay. They liked to make us happy so we would give them a great time.
One Saturday at 1 a.m. I took one of the bucks into a room. He took a shower and then dressed straightaway, and sat on the edge of the bed. He didn’t want to cheat on his fiancée, but he felt pressured by his mates to be there. I was surprised that there were actually some loyal men in existence. So, we just sat on the bed and smoked. He asked me to tell the others what a big cock he had, so I pretended to be sore and very satisfied when we walked back out to his mates. They all laughed and patted him on the back as they left.
As much as I hated to leave the premises on out-calls (ever since that psycho threw a lamp at my head), the best tactic on a Saturday night was to attach myself to a jet-lagged businessman. They always wanted to take a girl back to their hotel. It would be a little bit harder work, because their body clock would be askew; but they’d generally be good-natured and quite agreeable to offloading their excess euros, pounds or US dollars. The guys would often say, ‘You’re too good to work here,’ or ‘You should be a senator’s wife, you shouldn’t be here!’ They would say that to all the girls. They had their lines and we had ours. We all knew the truth: no-one should have been there. What woman in her right mind would ever want to suck five or ten different dicks a night?
The experience with the Arabian prince was a little awkward. His entourage had requested a group of seven women to meet them at the pier, where we were bundled into a mini-van. A man wearing a long white robe and a white shora draped over his head, tightened by an egal (a woven thick rope), greeted us. He pointed to three of us, bluntly dismissing the others, and gestured for us to get on board the yacht. The rejected women looked a little insulted as they got back in the mini-van.
We cruised around Sydney Harbour drinking champagne, while a group of ten men sat around talking business—well, I think it was business; they could have been talking about gardening for all I knew, as it was all in Arabic.
The assistant led me to a cabin to meet the prince. He was a little kinky, and mainly wanted to squeeze my nipples and slap my arse. (I have no idea why men think that slapping a woman’s arse is a turn on—I find it really annoying. It always reminds me of the kid at primary school who would pull your hair or push you, to show that he liked you.) We finished in about five seconds. He then started to read a business document and made me wait in his cabin for forty-five minutes, to pretend to the others that he had the stamina of an elite athlete. His assistant came in and they talked for a few moments before the prince went back upstairs.
After that, the assistant sat next to me on the bed. ‘He is very, very rich. He likes you. You can come with us and he will take care of you. You can have the finest silk clothes.’ He glanced at my gold rings dismissively. ‘You can have all the gold jewellery you want.’
I’d always heard about ‘kept’ women, but this was the first time I’d ever been propositioned.
‘Would I be the only woman?’ I asked.
‘There would be many other women, that is our custom. The only thing is that you cannot leave the grounds,’ he said.
I stared at him. ‘I could never leave the grounds?’ I asked.
He shook his head and said, ‘Everything that you could ever want is in the palace.’
I told him that I would love to have lots of beautiful clothes and gold jewellery, and it was a generous offer, but it was not for me. It sounded to me more like sex slavery. I preferred my current situation, where I had the freedom to work when I pleased. I guess that at that moment I realised that actually not knowing what was going to happen on each job or during each night at The Club made the work exciting for me.
The assistant escorted me back to the deck and I took my seat among the fluffy cushions with the other women, and a waiter poured me another glass of Dom Perignon. After a time we were taken back to the pier and the van from The Club was there to greet us.
12
Working it, age 22
Moments of happiness in my life were fleeting. But I kept in contact with Mum and Aiden, calling them every few weeks. Aiden was at high school, and Mum thought I was working as a waitress in order to pay the rent on my apartment in Queens Park. Mum was still nursing and was dating a guy half her age. He had a motorcycle and I think he showed her how much fun a relationship could really be.
I worked at The Club throughout my entire twenties. I came and went as I pleased and had a few regular clients, but the place was so busy that I didn’t need regulars. I didn’t even really like regulars. I enjoyed the chase to get someone new and I didn’t like the possibility of being emotionally intimate with a client, by getting to know him for more than an hour or so.
My wig would wear out every six months. The straps of my hooker heels would snap every few months, quickly wearing out from constantly being taken off and on many times a night. I had a series of short, tight dresses that I wore on rotation, usually saving the sexiest red dress for Friday nights. One of us girls could usually be seen stitching up our outfits in the dressing room.
Every now and then we would each have a ‘hooker meltdown’, which involved many tears, feelings of worthlessness and generally hating ourselves and our lives. Uncomfortable feelings would slowly build up and then we’d get one arsehole who would tip us over the edge. For example, I had one tough night, when I endured three rough clients in a row and then the next guy happened to climax too quick (for him)—in two thrusts (about three seconds). He was angry and, as he was getting dressed, he said to me, ‘It wasn’t worth it.’ And I replied, ‘I totally agree.’ When I was rude to a client, I knew I needed to take a break.
During hooker meltdowns we couldn’t stomach the thought of sex, so we took time off work. But after a few weeks or months away from the place, we forgot how bad it really was. Having spent all our savings on regular day-to-day expenses, we would go back, have a few drinks and go in for another round of punishment.
During my hooker meltdowns, I would desperately want a straight job and to feel normal again. Sometimes I found straight work and did bartending, waitressing or receptionist work. But without any references, and only a totally falsified resume to offer, it wasn’t easy. I sometimes had to flirt my way through an interview to get the job, and I soon learned that getting a job and keeping a job were two very different things.
It wasn’t easy to adjust to a lower wage after what I had earned for a few nights’ work a week. At times it was more humiliating to carry dirty plates and napkins back to the kitchen than it was to carry the used condoms and tissues to the yellow biohazard wheelie bin that would be close to overflowing each Friday night at The Club. The skill of carrying three plates at a time as a waitress eluded me.
I once got a job in real-estate sales. It wasn’t easy getting up to start work at 9 a.m. five days a week. I was used to sleeping in until noon and having lots of free time to myself, and working when I felt like it. Maybe they could tell that my heart just wasn’t in it, because in the end the boss told me to give him my work mobile and not to come back. I started to repeat a pattern in which I’d be working in a straight job and
starting to date someone, and then after three to six months it would all unravel and I’d find myself back at The Club.
Working just one week in The Club, I earned the equivalent of working one month in a straight job. It was a habit, an addiction. Even though a lot of the time I hated it, sometimes it could be fun. There was always upbeat music; we got dressed up; we drank, chatted and laughed a lot. There was a level of camaraderie with the other women that made me feel I belonged. We respected each other for putting up with everything, and we felt sorry for each other for putting up with everything.
Men paid extra money for me to orgasm. There were a few guys, however, who couldn’t have cared less—those clients made me feel like I was irrelevant throughout the entire transaction. They were often rough; they flung me around the bed and took me in whatever position they wanted. I was an object to be used for their pleasure. Those guys didn’t care about my name or if they were hurting me—they had paid for me and therefore assumed that I was at their disposal. It read ‘Gentleman’s Club’ on the sign and it was printed on the bar coasters, yet we rarely experienced ‘gentlemen’. I felt so used and depleted after one of those jobs.
Most of the clients, however, wanted me to climax. They wanted either to watch a show with me touching myself or using a vibrator, or they wanted to participate by using the vibrator on me or going down on me. When they used the vibrator on me, I needed to give them a lot of coaching, otherwise they rammed that thing into me like they were trying to unblock a toilet with a plunger. I purchased vibrators that were modest in size for two reasons—to avoid getting hurt, and so the guy wouldn’t get dildo envy and feel that he needed to prove himself in some way. I liked doing vibrator shows the most when the client was purely there as an observer, because it gave my body a break from them groping me, and I also liked the way they watched me. They couldn’t take their eyes off me; they were mesmerised and I liked having them under my spell.