Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  We pick our way between a few grey straggly bushes. No flowers, no silver palms. Dogs are barking, angry dogs. I’ve got so used to the silence of the road, the noise sounds still more frightening than it is. I can’t see the dogs – or anyone. There’s not a soul around. I read the notice on the fence: “WARNING! These premises are protected by electronic and radio security. Unauthorised visitors will be liable to arrest and prosecution.” I’m half expecting sirens to scream out as Angelique presses the buzzer, speaks into the intercom.

  The first gate opens, but there’s still another gate and two more doors, all locked. It’s worse than Norah’s stories about Belstead. I follow Angelique through the last wired door, and suddenly we’re standing in a normal cheerful room. The jail, the shack, the mental home, has turned into a hotel lounge in Eastbourne, or a schoolfriend’s parents’ best front room. There’s a sofa and two easy chairs, a nice thick cosy carpet, a few fringed lamps, a coffee table with a pile of magazines. (House Beautiful, not Playboy.) Absolutely nothing to suggest a knocking-shop.

  I’d imagined naked statues, leopard skins draped across red velvet, the heavy scent of musk. Or maybe something sordid. Dim lights and poky rooms, discarded Durex. Everything is squeaky clean and smells like a commercial – pine polish, lemon Flash. There are spring flowers on the sideboard, roses on the cushions, more flowers in the prints around the walls. Two girls burst in, give Angelique a hug. It’s like first day back at school. They even look like schoolgirls – straight hair, no make-up, casual clothes. One’s wearing dungarees, the other just a simple skirt and blouse. They can’t be prostitutes. Perhaps they’re Carl’s nieces, or the maids or …

  “Meet Kathy and Desirée,” says Angelique, offering round her pack of cigarettes.

  I take one in a daze. Desirée. The one whose father roughed her up. She looks about my age. Not glamorous. Not anything. Sort of girl-next-door-ish. Mousy hair, nice smile. Kathy’s a bit older, in her twenties. Fairish. Nothing special. I’m astonished. Pictures of the girls in those escort magazines have been floating through my mind since Angelique first told me where she worked. Bleached and blowsy blondes with satin skirts split halfway to their navels, lashes like iron railings, cascades of hair. Kathy’s skirt is denim, her eyelashes so pale they’re barely visible, hair cropped short.

  “Kathy plays the fiddle. She used to be a professional violinist before she came to work here. If you don’t behave, she’ll make you listen to Bartok’s Violin Concerto. We all run away.”

  Everybody laughs. Bartok? I was prepared for nurses, social workers, but not for culture. I suppose classical musicians are pretty poorly paid, though; must earn more whipping judges.

  “Come on,” says Angelique. “I’ll show you round.”

  I follow, dumbly, as she walks through into the kitchen, a sunny yellow room with Sugar Puffs and Frosties on the shelves, a row of Snoopy mugs hanging on the scrubbed pine dresser. A middle-aged woman in a nylon overall is rolling out pastry at the table.

  “Hi, Peg,” says Angelique. “This is Carole.”

  Peg gestures with her rolling-pin. “New girl?”

  Angelique says “yes” for me. I say nothing. I want to stay a visitor.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not a scraggy one. I like to see an appetite. D’ you want a cup of coffee and a cookie?”

  “Thanks, Peg.” Angelique helps herself to apple slices from the peeled and glistening pile. “I’ll continue with the guided tour while you make the coffee.”

  “Yeah, sure, sugarplum, but leave me some apple for my pie, okay?”

  It’s all so … cosy. The little jokes, the banter, the home-made apple pie. I keep being reminded of commercials: puppies selling toilet-paper to distract you from the fact you wipe your bum on it; prepubescent girls who never bleed drifting through cornfields wearing super-plus tampons; old-fashioned wholesome brothels without a man in sight. I can’t see one, anyway; neither Carl nor any client, nothing to remind me where I am. Do guys pay all that cash for cookies in the kitchen, violin recitals? Another ample lady is hoovering the passage. More introductions and a kiss for Angelique. It’s all one big happy family.

  Angelique leads me out the back. “That’s the airstrip. A lot of guys fly in by plane. There’s a special package deal – two hours here, flights both ways, and a film show of the brothel on the way, introducing all the girls and services. That saves time for new clients in a hurry who may not know who or what they want. The soundtrack’s dubbed in seven different languages, including Japanese. We get a lot of Japs. Their own brothels are horrendously expensive and most Japanese businessmen have unquestioned expense accounts, so they can use their credit cards. We take Mastercharge and Visa here.”

  How convenient. Do the wives back home ever see the slips, wonder where their busy tycoon husbands bought a Beaver Platter, or why they spent a fortune on a Back Door Screw? If I’d married Reuben, is that what he’d have done? Betrayed me on Mastercharge?

  The runway is deserted. Angelique shades her eyes against the glare. “Bob’s just left, apparently. He’s our pilot, seen it all. The men with James Bond hang-ups do it on the plane.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not. It costs them, though – what with Bob’s time and the gas and the loss of the aircraft for half an hour or so. You’ll like Bob, he’s a sport. I’ll introduce you later. He’s gone to fetch a load of guys from Vegas. In fact, I’m wanted soon. I’ll have to go and change. I’ll leave you with Desirée. She’s got the morning off.”

  We turn back to the house. Angelique points out the swimming pool. “That’s for our use only, not the clients’. They’ve got three jacuzzis, including a huge group one. By the way, be careful if you plan to swim. The temperatures can really plunge, even on a sunny day like this. I’ve seen icicles some mornings on that roof there.”

  I’m shivering, though not with cold. Sex in a plane, sex in a jacuzzi …

  We return inside. Two more females greet us in the passage. One is Asiatic – Malaysian maybe, with long black hair and one of those coy and tinkly giggles which never seem to work on English girls. The other is much older, almost forty, judging by her skin. She reminds me of my mother, the same determination to be young, contradicted by the lines, the sag. Angelique mentioned job security, but what happens after forty? I’m introduced. Sudchit and Joanne. Sudchit is one of seven daughters and grew up in Bangkok. Joanne is an ex-investment counsellor. There’s the answer to my question. She’ll retire from the brothel back to the world of high finance.

  The house is much larger than it looks from the outside, sprawls in all directions. We continue down the passage to what they call the “cat-room”, the girls’ own lounge where they relax and watch TV. It’s more untidy than the public lounge, a pair of dirty sneakers gaping in a corner, torn pop-posters on the walls, half a stale cheese sandwich doubling as an ashtray. Three girls are watching Popeye.

  “Hey, Desirée,” Angelique calls. “I’m working from eleven. Can you look after Carole?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Peg promised coffee. Why don’t you go get it, take it back to your room, and answer any questions Carole’s got?”

  She waves at both of us, strides off down the passage, disappears. Working. That means fucking. Being fucked. Letting all those workaholic Japanese fit in her body between a conference and a sales briefing. Tying up the managing directors, torturing the top executives. I still can’t quite believe it. Someone’s slipped a plastic cover over me, as if I were a car-seat or a book, so nothing touches me directly. The same thing happened the day my father died. The doctors and the nurses and that dreadful empty bed all stayed outside my tough protective coating – though only for the first few hours.

  Peg doles out the coffee, tops it with cream and a little joke apiece. I tag along behind Desirée, carrying my mug, set it on the table in her room.

  “Sit down,” she smiles. “Make yourself at home.” She throws me a cushion, squats beside me on
the rug. It looks like Jan’s room back in Portishead – the same flower-sprigged walls and pretty white lace bedspread, the same knick-knacks on the dressing-table – china figures, photo frames. I’m really choked, terrified I’ll cry. Cry for Jan and me. Both little kids, both innocent; bossing our poor dolls about, planning for a future full of no school and free sweets. I hadn’t realised how much I’ve missed her room – not the child’s one, the tatty Vauxhall bedsit. Okay, it’s pretty basic, but it’s full of bits of her: the photos of her sisters, her collection of glass animals, the toy giraffe she’s had since she was three. It seems ages since I’ve slept with things like that around me, opened my eyes to something real and human. The Gold Rush was all cold impersonal luxury; my Beechgrove cell just a sixteenth of a ward, curtained off and bare.

  I force my stupid tears back as I stare down at the bedspread and a furry face. Yes, Desirée’s got her toys as well – a gigantic teddy bear hogging half the bed. Does Teddy watch his mistress, or is he turfed out when she’s got another bed-mate? Do men come here at all, or are they taken to some other fancy room?

  “If you’ve any questions, shoot.” Desirée bites into her cookie, spraying crumbs.

  Any questions. I’ve so many she’d need a week to answer them. And I don’t know how to phrase them. It sounds so crude to say “Do you do it here?” or ask her advice on what I do if a man can’t get it up or hasn’t got his legs or …

  “I … I like your room,” I say.

  “Yeah, cute, isn’t it? I’ve never had a room that’s all my own before. Back home I had to share with three kid sisters. The youngest was just five, so it was hell. How old are you?”

  I have to think quite quickly. I’ve been twenty-one this whole last week, and now I’ve lost my passport, I suppose I can be any age I choose, since there’s nothing either to prove it or deny it; no official Carole left at all. What’s the point of lying, though, when it’s quite legal to be a hooker at eighteen? Crazy. You can sell your body, but you still can’t buy a beer. That’s Nevada.

  “Eighteen,” I say. Odd to shed two and a half years so fast. I feel rather insubstantial altogether, as if I’m losing not just years, but vital cells and organs.

  “I’m nineteen and a quarter, so that makes you the youngest now. Great! I was getting kinda sick of being babied.”

  “Babied?”

  “Yeah. Peg’s always trying to mother me and Carl treats me like I’m just a seventh-grader.”

  And how do the clients treat you? Another question I can’t ask.

  She passes me a biscuit. “Is Carole your real name?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “We mostly change our names. I’m Deirdre really.”

  “Do I call you Deirdre, then?”

  “Oh, no. Deirdre’s dead and buried. She wasn’t happy and her father didn’t like her. I chose Desirée not just because it’s French and glamorous, but … well – I wanted to be wanted. Right? De-sire-ed.” She makes the word three syllables. “It was a new start when I came here, a completely different life – new friends, new home, new …”

  I stare at her. New start. The phrase I used myself, just five days ago and which seems to mock me now. The same spiel as Angelique’s. Are these girls simply programmed? Is it part of their job to sell the service, plug the whole ideal, recruit anyone they can, like Moonies or evangelists?

  “So are you going to stick to Carole?”

  I don’t answer for a moment. My mother chose Carole, not my father. It hasn’t got me far. But then neither did Jan nor Atalanta.

  “What d’you think?”

  “Oh, change. It’s fun – like being a new person. And it helps you in the work. You can leave all your old prejudices behind – you know, that you should earn your living as a secretary or hairdresser rather than a hooker. Deirdres don’t, Desirées do. And Desirée’s prettier than Deirdre ever was. Her skin’s zit-free and she’s a whole inch bigger on the top.”

  I laugh. “I can’t afford to put on inches anywhere. I seem to be the fattest here, as well as just the youngest. All the girls I’ve met so far are Twiggys.”

  “Wait till you see Clare.”

  “Who’s Clare?”

  “Our heavyweight. The guys go wild for her. Tons of fun, they call her. She’s busy now with a big blond Swede. I really dig that guy. You can see the clients through a one-way mirror when they first come in, and that one – wow! Yes, please.”

  “You mean, you actually like … ? You want … ?” The words give out. I’d somehow assumed the whole thing was a penance, or a duty, that you serviced all the men through gritted teeth, or only survived the whole ordeal by lying back and thinking of your pay cheque.

  “Sure I do. Why do a job you hate? Okay, some of it’s real boring, and sometimes you’re just bushed or stuck with guys who bug you. But that’s the same as any other job. Like, I mean, I used to work in a store and you got all kinds coming in. The bullies and the bores, and the ones you warmed to right away and would get out half the shop for, or the little guys who had no confidence and needed your advice, or the loudmouths who went pfft if you big-talked back.”

  My father said the same about his shop. My father. If he saw me here it would break his heart.

  Desirée drains her coffee. “So what about your name?”

  “I’ll change it. Definitely.” Be someone else. A girl without a father. Without a surname, or a past.

  “What grabs you? Something French like mine?”

  “Okay.” I return to school, ransack my French text-books. Phèdre, Andromaque? No. I don’t want to be a chilly righteous heroine. I want to be loved, adored. I want a Reuben in my life, one who’s normal, one who’ll stay, a father who won’t die. “I know,” I say. “Adorée.”

  “It’s too like mine.”

  “No, it’s not.” Any tart can be desired. Adored is different, special.

  “Anyway, it’s kinda goofy, isn’t it? We don’t want guys to rib us.”

  “Goofy?” I don’t like this girl. If anything is goofy, it’s Desirée, when it belongs to that straight hair, those childish freckles.

  “Hey, don’t get sore. You’re English, so I guess you’ll get away with it.”

  “What d’ you mean?”

  Desirée shrugs. “Forget it. Right, now dress. We provide our own clothes here, even special costumes – you know, stuff like nurse’s uniform, school kid, SS guard. Maybe rubber, if you like. It’s up to you. The guys soon find out who’s best at what.”

  She’s ripped my plastic cover off. I feel sick again and scared. I might just manage something simple like hot oil massage, or even Crème de Menthe French, but not SS guard – not ever, not on principle. It’s sadistic, horrible. I long to be back home, even back at Beechgrove. Our Las Vegas trip is really almost over. Norah and I should be packing in our hotel room, or buying our last souvenirs. I’m missing Norah, badly. She’s my only link with England, with the real safe simple me.

  Desirée is rifling through her wardrobe, tossing outfits on the bed, negligées and party gear, a full-length evening dress in slinky black.

  “That’ll probably fit you. At least we’re the same height. Go on – try it on. Carl likes us to wear evening gowns after six or so. He’s all for class, really bawls us out if he finds us with our nails or hair just anyhow. We can take the plane to the local beauty parlour, if Bob’s got room and time. They give us special rates. And there’s a great new place for sculptured nails, just opened. Here – let me see your hands.”

  I hold them out, reluctantly. I’ve never bitten my nails, not consciously. Let’s say they just break off.

  “Jeez! Carl won’t pass those. You’d better come with me tomorrow and they’ll fix you up with false ones. It’ll take an hour or two and set you back fifty bucks at least. You earn a lot in this job, but you have to spend a lot, as well, just looking good. Know how much this dress cost?”

  “No.”

  “Four hundred.”

  I turn away. My wedding
dress cost that. Torn now, stained with booze and sweat, bundled in an old brown paper bag.

  “What’s wrong? You homesick, Carole?”

  “No.” I can hardly be homesick when I haven’t got a home.

  “I was. Real dumb, wasn’t it? My Mom was always nagging and my Dad was real mean, yet I still missed them when I came here. I cried the first few days. It takes a while to settle down. Don’t worry. I’ll look after you. You stick around with me. Okay?”

  “Okay.” School again. Best friends.

  “What size shoes d’you take? Hell, the sizes aren’t the same in England, are they? Try this pair, anyway. They match the dress.”

  The shoes slip at the heel and the dress is straining everywhere. I don’t look bad, though – really rather ritzy. I rarely wear all black. It makes me look much older, more sophisticated. The neckline is cut low. Desirée adds a sparkly diamond choker, stands back to check the effect.

  “Yeah, that’s great. I just love clothes and stuff, don’t you?”

  I nod. I daren’t say “yes” out loud. It’s as if Reuben’s listening still, trying to wean me off such trivialities.

  “Here, try this red one.” She slings me a crimson sheath-dress, slit right up both sides, starts stripping off herself. “I’ll dress up as well, show you my new catsuit.”

  We are at school – best friends – dressing up, showing off, trying out new make-up, giggling, fiddling with each other’s hair. I was wrong about Desirée. Okay, she’s a bit naive, but she’s also very generous.

  “Go on, Carole, keep it. Yeah, for real. I’ve got loads of bracelets and I never wear that one. Oh, and have this blouse. It looks real cute on you.”