by Geena Leigh
Whenever I quit the work (each of the many times) and tried to be a part of the real world, it was always a slow assimilation process, an easing back into the normal world. When I was away from The Club for months at a time, I would re-connect with friends who had boyfriends, careers and families. Those were all really nice things. My friends were starting their own businesses or were getting promotions at work; they were dating, getting married and having children. I always liked the idea of having a baby and giving her the headstart in life that I never had. However, I didn’t know how to date. I didn’t understand how to be intimate with a guy—I only knew how to have sex.
Ultimately normal living was either too dull or just too foreign to me, and I would end up going back to The Club. That was like stepping back onto a brightly lit, loud and lively merry-go-round. It would go round and round until I summoned up the courage to step off it again. I longed to feel normal and happy. I didn’t even know what that felt like. I just wanted to be myself. In the end, I didn’t care if I came out of the industry with only one dollar in my pocket; I just had to come out of it.
14
Without my consent, age 26
I moved into a large house with five other residents: three men and two women. We each had our own lives, but we often chatted together over a beer or a glass of wine on the weekend. I told them I worked for a catering company and that I worked late at functions a few nights per week. I would often go to the local bar for a drink and to play pool with two of the guys, Damien and Nick. Damien was a lanky guy who was perpetually pining over his ex-girlfriend, who had recently dumped him. Nick was shorter and stocky. He was often to be seen hitting the punching bag hanging from a roof beam outside the lounge-room window. He always had face stubble, and he had an unusually high-pitched voice for a man.
When I walked in the door after doing some shopping in the city one evening, Nick caught me in the hallway and lightly slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Come for a drink with Damien and me at the White Horse?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ I said.
I took my packages upstairs and came back down with my purse. Damien had said he would catch up with us soon, so Nick and I walked to the pub, where we had a few drinks and played a few games of pool. Nick was a sore loser. He slapped the pool cue aggressively on the table whenever he missed a shot. Damien phoned Nick and told him that he wasn’t coming to the pub; he was drinking at home and asked if we wanted pizza. We walked home and all the other flatmates were in the lounge room watching TV, drinking beers and eating pizza. I slumped onto one of the couches and Nick gave me a beer. I soon felt my head nod. I’d never fallen asleep on the couch before; I had always gone back to my bedroom.
I woke to find myself lying on my back on a bed, naked, with Nick’s weight on top of me and his penis inside me. I pushed him off and realised it was his bedroom. I got out of his bed and saw my clothes meticulously folded into a neat pile on the floor.
‘Sorry,’ I said. I had no idea why I was apologising; I just grabbed my clothes and dizzily staggered up the hallway. As I went, I picked up the landline phone and walked towards my bedroom, fumbling in the dark. It was an old-fashioned phone that was connected by a cord in the wall; it wouldn’t reach all the way to my room. Crouching in the hallway, clutching my clothes and the phone, I dialled directory assistance and asked for the Rape Crisis number. My head was so foggy that I misdialled the number they gave me, calling a Chinese takeout restaurant instead. Before I could try again, I heard footsteps coming up the hall. I dropped the phone, hurried to my room and locked the door, seeking refuge under the bed covers.
In the morning, a banging on my door woke me. It was similar to the banging in my head. I opened it and Nick barged into my room. My head throbbed and I lay down at the edge of the bed.
‘You better not have given me any diseases,’ he said.
‘How did I get to your room last night?’ I asked.
‘I carried you.’
‘You took advantage of me,’ I said.
‘You wanted it.’
‘No. You took advantage of me.’
‘I have to go to work,’ he said and left the room.
I locked the door behind him and then fell asleep for a few more hours. The house was silent. I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor of the shower, letting the warm water glide over me for a long time. I lathered up a soft face washer with pomegranate-scented shower gel and attempted to wash his horrid musty smell off me. I could have sat in there scrubbing myself for days and still would have felt dirty. I got out of the shower feeling tainted and degraded. My head, my vagina and my anus were all sore.
Walking solemnly to my room I suddenly felt scared in the cold, dark house. Pizza boxes and empty beer cans were scattered throughout. There was a distinct odour of stale beer and pepperoni. Nick was due back home in about six hours. Without really planning anything, I quickly dressed and packed all my clothes and possessions into garbage bags and piled them into the back of my car. I didn’t own many things and if anything was left behind it didn’t matter. Without even knowing where to go, I drove around the inner city until I spotted a YHA backpackers’ hostel in Glebe and booked into a female-only room.
It was a modest-sized room with pale-pink-and-white checked curtains that were being softly blown by the wind. There were two sets of bunk beds. It was winter, not holiday season, so I had the entire room to myself. I unpacked the things I needed for the next few days and went to a phone box and called my mother.
‘You shouldn’t have been drunk!’ she told me. But I knew that regardless of whether I was drunk, I didn’t ask to have my clothes taken off me and fucked up the arse while unconscious. She agreed and recommended I go to the police.
I drove to the local police station and walked to the front desk, where I asked to speak to a female officer.
When I was led to a nearby room to make a statement, I told the female officer, ‘Last night, one of my flatmates raped me.’ When she asked where he was, and I replied that he was at work, she then told me that two officers would go to the house and arrest him later that evening.
The police then asked me lots of questions such as, ‘Did you shower before going out with him?’ and ‘What were you wearing?’ I didn’t have a shower, and I didn’t understand why my clothes had anything to do with it. If I took a shower, did that mean that I was looking to have sex? Did they think I asked for this? At work my clothes were teeny, but in my regular life I was most comfortable in jeans and casual tops. I didn’t like being gawked at on the street, and preferred to blend in with the crowd. Even if I had been wearing low-cut clothes, how on earth would that give a man permission to fuck me without my consent?
The police followed me to the hostel and collected my clothes from the night before—a woollen knee-length black skirt, a black knitted top, opaque stockings and boots. They placed them in a plastic bag and then escorted me to the forensics laboratory at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
I lay on the metal bench and the female technician checked my body for visible bruises, marks or cuts. My rape wasn’t one in which a person fights with their attacker—I had been unconscious. He had methodically undressed me and positioned my un-opposing body to suit his will, for hours. Tears fell down my cheeks as the technician remarked on the redness and took swabs from my body.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked me.
‘That I shouldn’t have to go through this.’
‘You shouldn’t have to go through this,’ she replied.
After I dressed she directed me to the counselling department at the hospital. The counsellor told me that I had every right to get drunk and, even if I wanted to walk down the street naked and then pass out, that didn’t give any man the right to have sex with me. The talk with her made me feel much better, but I knew I could never return to that house. So, that meant I was without a home.
•
After a couple of weeks I found a two-bedroom house to rent and placed an advertis
ement for a ‘Female Flatmate Wanted’. A nursing student answered the ad, and the following week she moved in all her belongings—and then didn’t come home for about six weeks. She had a new boyfriend and stayed with him the whole time. I was lucky to get help with the rent and also have the place to myself.
Nick was charged with sexual assault. After the rape, I didn’t go back to work for about five months, as the thought of having sex with any man repulsed me. I made sure I was back inside my house before darkness fell. Some people keep the experience of being raped to themselves and some choose to talk about it. I wanted to warn other women about what Nick was capable of. I told the other flatmates in the house and every person who knew Nick what he had done to me. I wrote an article about the rape and sent it to a local newspaper. I didn’t realise they’d published it until I was standing at North Sydney train station waiting to go into the city and a girl on the platform gasped as she read the story aloud to her friend. I stood on the platform in shock hearing what happened to me. ‘Oh my God, that poor girl!’ her friend responded.
My voice gave me strength. I had done nothing wrong; he did the wrong thing and I was not going to feel ashamed or hide. A few weeks later, when I went to a local hotel for a drink one Sunday afternoon, Nick was there, drinking and laughing with his mates. My face became flushed and my heart raced, but I knew he couldn’t hurt me with all the other people around. I walked straight up to the bouncer and said: ‘There’s a man in here who drugged my beer and raped me. We have a court date set for July. That’s what he does. I don’t think that your female patrons are safe.’
‘Which one?’ he asked in a protective and angry tone.
‘White T-shirt with the red writing on it,’ I said, pointing. The bouncer boldly strode over and whispered something to Nick, who immediately put down his drink and virtually ran out of the bar. I felt utterly validated by the bouncer’s actions.
•
I found myself drinking daily. The rape and upcoming court appearance were always on my mind. That night just kept replaying in my mind, and I rarely felt safe or like I could relax. I just wanted it all to be over with.
Walking home one afternoon, a local pet-store window caught my attention. I stood and watched twelve tiny puppies play in the window, and then I felt drawn inside. The woman opened the cage and the puppies all scurried around my feet. One of them began to jump higher and higher, as if to say: ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ He made me laugh.
It was nice to hear myself laugh. It’d been a long time since I’d heard that sound. I carried his little body in my arms all the way home. He hardly left my side for the next six years. He slept across my neck or snuggled into my face every night. As he got bigger, he still wanted to sleep across my neck. His doggy breath would become overwhelming and he’d leave brown, black and white hairs on my pillow, so I’d push his heavy body down to my feet. Every night, though, he would gradually shimmy his way back up to my pillow. How can you get angry at a puppy who just wants to cuddle you?
One night, after listening to music, drinking and smoking pot at a friend’s house, I went out for snacks. A police car pulled me over after they saw me doing an illegal U-turn.
The officer must have smelled the alcohol on me. ‘What have you been drinking?’ he asked as he reviewed my licence.
‘Jim Beam,’ I said.
‘How many drinks have you had tonight?’ he asked.
‘One,’ I said as I blew .225 into the breathalyser.
‘One drink?’ he asked.
‘One bottle,’ I said and then cracked myself up laughing.
The officers did not laugh; they told me to get into their police car. My car was abandoned on the side of Princes Highway.
The next memory I have was of being photographed at Newtown Police Station, pouting my lips and posing like a model for the mug shot. One of the officers shouted at me to stop it and be sensible; he wrote the address where my car had been left on a piece of paper and then sent me out the door. Barely able to walk, I hailed a taxi home.
My licence was suspended for six months and I was fined $500. It scared me, knowing that I’d been driving so drunk and that I didn’t even remember doing it. It continued to be a blurry seven months of drinking while awaiting the rape trial. I spent all my savings. I kind of missed all the girls, was broke and was sick of wallowing around the house, so I went back to work at The Club. I wanted company, music, money and a distraction from my sadness.
•
The whole court experience was an anti-climax. I arrived in a smart cream suit, beige stockings and pewter mid-height court shoes. The police led me to a cell where I could wait under the courthouse. It was ironic that I was the one in a cell when it was Nick who had committed the crime. The idea of keeping me downstairs didn’t make any sense, because at 10:10 a.m. an officer took me up and told me to sit on a bench directly opposite Nick. His eyes avoided mine. His slimy lawyer gave me a death stare, presumably in an attempt to intimidate me, but his strategy didn’t work—I wanted to expose Nick for what he had done. He was a coward for raping me, especially when I was unconscious. If he had attacked me when I was awake, at least I would have had a chance to fight. It was possible that he had drugged me, because he had handed me the last drink I had. Being drugged would explain my deep level of unconsciousness for hours and my confusion and grogginess afterwards. On plenty of other occasions at that house, I had been drunk, passed out and had blackouts; but I had always been able to make it back to my room. I wondered if the other male flatmates were involved. The bedroom door hadn’t been closed. The other guys could have already had their turn and Nick might have been the last in line. Either one or three men raped me over a four-hour period. I don’t know exactly what he or they did to my body, but the red marks and the pain gave me a good idea.
The courtroom was dark and smelled of stale wood. The benches were full of people watching. I didn’t understand why they were there—was my misery their entertainment? But they didn’t look like they were voyeurs. They knew this was a preliminary rape hearing and they looked uncomfortable, and also empathetic. The Crown Prosecutor’s tie was crooked, his shirt was untucked and he didn’t even wear a suit jacket. His oily hair was combed to one side and he fumbled with his words and papers as he stood and began to speak about me. I think he was supposed to be representing my interests, yet we had never met before. We hadn’t even said one word to each other before this hearing. I had no chance.
The defence lawyer told the court that I had flirted with Nick. He interrogated me, and told me that I had said to Nick, ‘Have you ever fantasised about sleeping with me?’ I have no recollection of ever saying such a thing. I said I never flirted, nor was I attracted to Nick in any way.
I did not enjoy being on the stand. I fumbled my words and then kept silent. The defence lawyer claimed that I wanted to have sex with Nick that evening. I thought to myself: how could an unconscious person give permission? Later on I wished I yelled that at the lawyer. In the end the magistrate ruled that there was reasonable doubt about Nick’s guilt and dismissed the case.
The counsellor told me that less than four per cent of rapists are convicted, so I wasn’t expecting an outcome that was just. But I had a feeling of a personal victory from sitting opposite my attacker, and telling the magistrate and the people in the court of the crime that he had committed. Nick knew his guilt. Being a rapist was now his issue to contend with.
When it was all over, the police handed me a bag containing the clothes I’d worn on the night of the attack, but I shook my head and wouldn’t take them. When I got home I threw my cream suit in the bin. There was no way I’d ever wear it again without thinking of court or the rape; it was saturated in sadness.
15
Feeling loved, age 26
I fell in love for the first time at twenty-six. Matt wasn’t particularly good looking. He’d been working in the same engineering job for ten years and he ran a part-time business of leasing audio equipment. I think one o
f the main reasons I was attracted to him was his aura of stability. He was also creative; he was an artist and had an eye for detail. He painted inner-city scenes, such as a couple laughing together while drinking in a beer garden or a busker on the street with a crowd watching on. Matt was muscular and I liked watching him lift the large speakers in and out of his van. He wasn’t sexually demanding, and I loved it when he wrapped his wide arms around me; I felt safe sleeping on his chest.
We met at a local hotel when we were both ragingly drunk one Wednesday evening. He was looking for a new place to rent and I had just signed a lease on a two-bedroom terrace and needed a flatmate, so I asked him to move in with me. He did the following week.
Matt would come home straight after work and we’d spend every evening and weekend together. We’d cook together and take the dog to the park. We were a team. One Sunday afternoon we lay on the bed fully clothed and holding hands. Sunshine flooded the room and I felt unbelievably content. We just looked at each other and smiled and smiled.
‘I don’t want to say it first,’ he said.
‘Do you think you love me?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ he told me.
‘I love you too,’ I said.
We wept and smiled and kissed, and kept holding each other’s hands until the room became dark.
Matt never found out I worked in prostitution. I couldn’t work at The Club when I was in love, so, instead, I got a part-time job bartending a couple of nights each week and began a one-year University Preparation Program through the University of New South Wales at Randwick TAFE. It was designed to prepare high school dropouts for university. On completing the course, I would be able to start university the following year, in 1997. I also enrolled in a beginner Adult Computer Course at Sydney Community College, and then took the intermediate one after that. I took a few short courses in film and began volunteer work on a number of short films as an extra, a grip and a runner. My biggest break was working on the feature film Oscar and Lucinda as an attachment to the sound editors. Matt was supportive of me attending university and striving to make something of myself.