by Geena Leigh
After a year, I put together an application for university. I knew that my University Preparation Program results weren’t going to get me there on their own. They didn’t show great grades, but they did show commitment. So, I included a bunch of certificates from all the short film courses I’d done, plus references from my volunteer work and a compelling letter outlining my determination and desire to go to university and become a film director. I had a passion for movies, perhaps because they were such a great way to distract myself from real life. I enjoyed being immersed in the visual feast and forgetting about life for a few hours.
The day my letter of acceptance to the University of New South Wales arrived in the mail was one of my happiest. I began a Bachelor of Arts (Media & Communications) degree. This was my chance. Every time I walked through the main gates, I marvelled at the buildings, feeling incredibly privileged to be there. Walking around campus filled me with pride every single time. Even when I was sick of studying and didn’t want to be there, I still felt amazingly lucky to have this chance.
In the meantime, Matt bought a four-bedroom, two-storey terrace house in Enmore and we moved in a month later. Living with Matt became pretty ordinary, boring in fact. All we ever did was get drunk every weekend. I stayed slender, but he soon grew a round belly; he became very self-conscious about it, and he gradually became less appealing to me—we became more or less flatmates.
When my birthday came around, Matt didn’t give me a gift, nor did he take me out anywhere to celebrate. So, I bought myself some red roses sprinkled with white baby’s breath and arranged them fairly incompetently in the empty pasta sauce bottle on the table.
‘I didn’t think you liked flowers,’ was all he said, reaching for the newspaper.
That night Matt and I had dinner at home and then walked to the local for a few beers. We joined a group of friends who had pulled three tables together, and the chatter grew louder as more beer was consumed. After coming back from the bathroom, I sat down and accidentally knocked over my glass of beer. The amber liquid flooded into an open pouch of Champion Ruby tobacco. I was just about to apologise and offer to buy the guy a new pouch when he lurched across the table and positioned his face directly in front of mine. He drenched me with fetid breath as he snarled: ‘Stupid bitch! What the fuck is wrong with you?’
Matt took a sip of his beer and looked away. I glanced around the table for some kind of support, but everyone seemed absorbed in their various drunken conversations.
I felt so embarrassed, and shocked that Matt just sat there, showing no interest in protecting me. Arsehole! I lost my love for him in that instant. If my boyfriend wasn’t going to look after me, then what was the point of having one? I stepped away from the angry man and hurried out the door with tears falling down my cheeks. When Matt came home a few hours later, I pretended to be asleep.
After that, I went back to work at The Club on day shifts while Matt was at work.
The Club insisted that we each provide a medical certificate every three months to verify our health. They wouldn’t let us work without it. The certificate would give us the all-clear for blood, swabs and a pelvic examination. I loathed going to the free clinic for it. The waiting room would be full of male and female sex workers. Even with an appointment, I’d still have to wait for ages. There would always be one or two drugged-out or really sick-looking people wandering the halls. I feared sitting on the vinyl chairs and using the bathroom there.
The reality is that sex workers practise safe sex all the time. They are much more knowledgeable about how not to get an STD and are much more paranoid about their health and blood status than regular people who go out drinking and hook up with random strangers. Feeling unsettled about the hygiene in the clinic was essentially insulting myself, so I would do my best to relax. My discomfort wasn’t just about being germaphobic; going to the clinic was basically outing yourself as a hooker. Regular people would go to their GP for check-ups. Sex workers would go to the anonymous free clinic. Instead of my real name, the doctor would write Sasha, Barbie or Tiffany on the certificate.
At this time I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the clinic, so I went to a regular GP. She was surprised when I asked for a certificate, and I told her that my new boyfriend and I were both getting checked up before we had unprotected sex together. The following week I went back to get the results and, for the first time ever, they weren’t perfect.
‘You’ve got some lesions on your cervix. They look like CN4,’ the doctor told me.
‘What does CN4 mean?’ I asked.
‘After CN4, it’s cancer,’ she said.
I was freaking out inside. ‘Do people get lesions from having a lot of sex?’ I asked.
‘Do you have a lot of sex?’ she asked me.
‘Not too much,’ I answered. It was true—I’d had a terribly slow week.
‘The more partners, the risk goes up,’ she explained.
I felt like she could see right through me and she knew I worked as a hooker. I felt like one too—I felt dirty and diseased. She booked me into the next available appointment, to get the lesions lasered off.
I wanted a female doctor to do the procedure, but there wasn’t one available for weeks. Because time wasn’t on my side, I reluctantly let a man laser them off. He was professional, and the procedure was quick and painless.
‘When can I have sex again?’ I asked him.
‘Just leave it for about a week,’ he told me. I was almost broke, but it was nice to have an excuse not to work.
•
Matt and I continued to live together and a few more months went by. He worked at his engineering job during the day, and I went to uni or worked at The Club. One evening I got home just a few moments before him. He kissed me and pulled a few blonde strands of (faux) hair off my shoulders. ‘Blonde?’ he said.
‘Oh, they must be from hugging Michelle!’ (My imaginary friend from uni.) I jumped in the shower to wash the other men off me.
After noticing my stock of tampons was not depleting, I went to the doctor.
‘You’re a bit pregnant,’ he said as he lowered his head and pretended to fill out some important paperwork. How could I be a bit pregnant?! I momentarily panicked and thought that it could have been a client’s baby, but then I dismissed the thought. Sex at work had been one hundred per cent safe. It must have been Matt’s. Afterwards, instead of running across the street and darting in between the traffic as usual, I walked to the lights and crossed the street safely, touching my belly. At home I lay in a warm bath and let the water soothe my swirling mind as I stared at my belly, feeling so special for what was inside me.
Matt came home from work and I shared the wonderful news. Except he didn’t think it was so wonderful. Actually, he freaked out. ‘How are you going to look after it? You’re a part-time bartender!’ he yelled at me. There was eight dollars in my bank account. How would I look after it? He left and went for a walk (aka went to the pub).
I pulled out from the top of the wardrobe a bag of children’s toys and books that I had been compiling since my teens. There was a mobile, from which a lion, giraffe, zebra and impala hung; I spun it around. Flicking through the picture books made me weep.
In my mind I agonised over my predicament. I felt so lucky and special to be pregnant, but some of Matt’s harsh words rang true. How was I going to help a child with geography or maths homework when I could hardly add one plus one? I couldn’t work in prostitution if I was pregnant. How was I going to take care of a baby with eight dollars? What about university?
I packed up the items and later dropped them at a local charity shop. I had to accept that I couldn’t raise a child—maybe later, but now seemed hopeless. So, I decided to have a termination.
•
‘There could be some protestors outside the clinic when you come in,’ the receptionist warned me over the telephone.
‘A female doctor will perform the termination?’ I asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ s
he reassured me.
I reiterated that point at least three times—I didn’t want a man looking at my female parts. Even though a doctor is a doctor, he’s still a man—I couldn’t stand any man touching me outside of work.
Matt sat next to me in the waiting room, reading his motorbike magazine. I initially thought he was there to support me, but he only came along to make sure I went through with it. A really young girl and a couple of other women about my age sat in different alcoves in the waiting room. The blinds were all drawn and the wallpaper was pale blue. I’ve heard that clinics often use blue to keep their patients calm, and it seemed to be working on the other ladies, but I couldn’t stop myself from crying.
Each patient had an appointment with the psychologist just before the termination was carried out. In between sobs, I told her that I had eight dollars in my bank account and I didn’t even know what the capital of China was. She nodded empathetically, pointed to the ‘X’ on the document for me to sign and then told me to wait in the smaller room.
The doctor introduced himself. When I asked where the female doctor was he looked confused and told me he was the only doctor on duty. I was so emotional, it all just tumbled out: ‘I was raped by my flatmate. It wasn’t just one—I think it was three of them, and I don’t want any man touching me down there.’
He left to discuss the matter with the other staff.
I was utterly distressed. It was the last day before the Queen’s Birthday weekend; the last day I could have an abortion before the baby would be too developed. I just sat holding my head in my lap, in the aeroplane emergency-crash position, crying uncontrollably. This position was innately appropriate—I was about to crash. I was going to lose it. Eventually the nurse came in and said, ‘It’s not my day to do the procedures, but I’ll do it for you.’
‘Thank you so much,’ I said.
She escorted me to the stainless-steel table and I stopped blubbering. Oddly, while I sat on the cold hard table calmly, tears continued to pour down my cheeks. As I eased my rigid body back, my chest began to tighten. My fingers pressed into the edges of the stainless steel. A plastic mask was placed over my mouth and nose, filling my lungs almost instantly with gas, which subdued the tension. A needle pierced my skin. The nurse twisted a knob, allowing liquid to pervade my body. Everything became dark.
The vrroomm of a machine grew louder. I felt like my insides were being vacuumed out of me. My eyes partially opened. As I began to sit up, I saw the male doctor between my legs. The nurse’s lawn-green eyes enlarged. She lunged onto the knob and everything went black once more.
The next time my eyes opened, I was sitting in a wheelchair wrapped in a lightweight robe, feeling groggy. There were so many other women in wheelchairs spread around the room, we could have formed our own murderball team. I felt so stupid for believing that the female nurse had been going to perform the termination. I felt so miserable and violated. But the drugs allowed me to make only a few groaning noises. If I could have talked, I would have told them to all go fuck themselves.
I lay on our bed for days and days crying. Matt looked after me and brought me food for a few days. Then he grew impatient. ‘It can’t be that bad!’
‘What would you know? Have you ever had an abortion?’ I asked him.
He looked sheepish.
‘Do you know a woman who has had an abortion?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Was it a previous girlfriend?’ I asked.
‘Yes, four of them,’ he confessed.
‘You put four other women through this?’
He remained silent. My stomach ached. Even though I always used condoms at work, Matt and I had never even discussed contraception. I don’t know why we had never used anything. Matt didn’t seem that interested in sex and therefore I didn’t think that he’d ever cheat on me. I think I secretly wanted a baby, so I’d never mentioned to him that I wasn’t using any contraception.
Because I found a few spots of blood on my underwear that concerned me, Matt took me to the emergency ward at the hospital. They told me to hop up on a bed and a group of young doctors surrounded me. One young doctor violently stuck his finger right inside me, grinning. A more senior doctor pushed him away. I was stunned. I had been scared that I had picked up a post-abortion infection, and now I had another pervert to deal with. The senior doctor said that no more blood was coming out; he told me to go home, and then he accompanied the others out of the room. As I dressed I felt even more miserable, wondering why every man who came near me treated me so terribly.
After a few weeks in bed, listlessly watching TV, one afternoon I poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen and glanced into the lounge room. Matt sat in his favourite armchair reading the paper, as he did every Saturday and Sunday. My life was a complete mess and yet he was going about things as usual, indifferent to my pain. He was so selfish; I hated him. Not once had he even given me the option of having the baby. He didn’t ask me what I wanted; he didn’t offer to support me. He didn’t want the baby, so I didn’t have it.
He had never considered what I wanted. When I’d told Matt that there was a crèche at uni, where other students left their babies when they were at class, he’d laughed and reminded me about my eight dollars.
He’d almost paid off his duplex. Why didn’t I ask him for money? We had been dating for over two years—he would have been legally compelled to support me. It wasn’t even the money, though; it would have been nice if he or anyone had given me some emotional support. When I had rung my mum to tell her about the pregnancy and impending termination she was kind, but she didn’t want to tell me what I should do.
Looking at Matt happy, I was filled with revulsion. I couldn’t stand the thought of ever sleeping with him again, feeling his fat belly suffocating me and his fat squishy cock inside me. I walked over to his stack of artwork, which was leaning against a wall, and I began to flip through it. He had a number of painted canvases, framed sketches and some delicate designs painted on glass and mirrors. I pulled out his most precious piece. It was a self-portrait—an abstract painting on a large sheet of glass that had some mirrored panels juxtaposed with plain black panels for contrast. It was much like a memoir, the panels representing significant chapters throughout his life. He’d told me more than once the laborious story of how he had envisaged and executed this project back in his university days. It was his pride and joy.
He watched me hold it between my fingertips, swinging it back and forth, his eyes pleading with me. Then I released my fingers and it fell to the floor, smashing into myriad shards. As the glass splinters splattered all around the lounge room, he slumped to the ground like an old man. I stood tall, unyielding.
I felt some fragments of glass beneath my socks as I walked back into the bedroom and slammed the door behind me. I had killed his baby.
He didn’t come into the bedroom that night. The next day he broke up with me. My body had healed from the termination, so I went back to work at The Club the following week. The first client after a break was always a little awkward. With the second, and thereafter, I usually re-assumed my normal indifference. It was easy to slide into my usual routine, and it was easy to work when I was angry.
16
Tony Robbins, age 27 to 40
My sister posted me two cassette tapes (this was before CDs existed) of an American success coach, Tony Robbins, in 1999, when I was twenty-seven years old, and those two tapes changed the trajectory of my life. Tony talks about ‘the six human needs’ and how ‘people violate their values to meet their needs’. I learned about choosing smart or poor vehicles to meet my needs. The tapes resonated with me instantly, so I ordered the entire ‘Personal Power’ CD set from the home shopping channel. Through these I learned to understand myself and the reasons I made decisions, and also what drives other people. I hadn’t had any role models growing up, and I didn’t have much support from friends. In fact, I really didn’t have many friends. It was me just figuring o
ut life by trial and error—and I was making a lot of errors. I welcomed the advice and coaching.
One month later I saw a poster advertising ‘Tony Robbins coming to Sydney!’, and I immediately booked a ticket. The afternoon of the event I was early and raced up the stairs to find a seat. Tony says that people often find him when they are experiencing moments of ‘inspiration or desperation’ and I was definitely in the latter category. The three-day event involved lots of dancing, jumping around and a firewalk across hot coals (which is a metaphor for doing something that you thought you couldn’t do before).
We learned how to identify our beliefs and, if those beliefs weren’t serving us, how to change them. I learned about physiology, and ways to make it easier to feel happy and harder to feel sad. I learned that everyone runs their own patterns to meet their needs, which gave me a resolve to forgive people in my life who had hurt me. One NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) process I particularly loved was when we sat with our eyes shut and flew in an imaginary helicopter and pushed a ‘release’ button; all the unpleasant memories of our childhood were dumped in a bin and new golden, wonderful memories replaced them.
At the end of the event I felt elated and empowered. I believed in myself and felt confident that I had other options in life. I quit working at The Club, got a part-time job in a call centre and threw myself into my studies. It didn’t last long, though. After a few months I found myself back in The Club, drinking and taking drugs again; but I still persisted with university.
The next year was 2000 and tourists flooded into Sydney for a couple of weeks for the Olympic Games. Everyone at The Club expected to earn a lot of money from all the additional tourists in town, but on most days there was a decline in business. We figured that the men who usually walked in couldn’t do so without passing a throng of tourists. They couldn’t sneak in through the doors unnoticed, as they usually did, because the footpaths were full of people.