Seventeen
WHILE I WAS AT SUNETTE’S agency, I had one cool guy, a regular client and a rich one, who had started to book me at his house. He had another girl at the club, Tammy, who did threesomes with me. Until he met me he’d never known there was a black girl at the agency.
Among the girls, we had this thing that we never spoke about our clients if we thought we were falling in love with them. We had to stay neutral. But Tammy would talk about this guy all the time, and how good he was towards her. She kept bragging about him, how he was so nice, taking her for dinner and talking to her for hours.
This irritated me, so I told Tammy that he was also very good in bed! She was shocked – she’d thought she was his only girl. So I carried on. I bragged about him and his sexual antics. When Tammy learnt that he seemed to prefer me, she got jealous, but I competed with her and won his preferences: he kept booking me and not her for three weeks.
This is the kind of thing that would make the girls betray each other. The club didn’t have a policy about the girls harassing each other. So, in this kind of situation, the other girl would try to destroy anything of mine, like my lingerie and even my reputation.
It worked like that. Even the client enjoyed the drama.
By my second year at the club, I was used to many different types of clients, but some are more memorable than others.
A black priest and his wife once booked me in the ‘Queen’ room, which had a rich gold-and-brown colour scheme. I guess the priest wanted royal sex. He even arrived wearing his white collar!
He was very upset with his wife because she had told him that she didn’t want sex. She had two reasons: firstly because she felt pious about their sexual relationship, and secondly because she thought he had been cheating on her. I wondered why they had chosen to deal with these issues at the escort agency. I was already high on drugs when I met them, and they were very sober.
‘What will make my wife want to have sex with me?’ the priest pleaded.
So I tried to make them horny, and started dancing, slowly. He reacted by taking off his collar. I stopped and told them to get comfortable because they would enjoy what was coming. I could see the wife was angry and uncomfortable – she was very stiff. I took her hand and moved it towards her husband, helping her touch him, and she slowly became interested. Soon they started caressing each other and I left them alone to enjoy themselves.
‘Another successful day at the office,’ I said to myself, relieved that there’d been no sex for me.
Those were the kinds of moments when I enjoyed my job.
And then there was ‘Greek’, a very depressed, weird guy.
He’d book me for two hours, and he would bring the coke. We might cuddle a bit, or I’d massage him. And then he would start talking about his wife, how she didn’t do the things he asked, or he’d wonder aloud what she would like, whether or not she would want someone else in the room during sex. Stuff like that. I never understood why he would want us to get high, and then just sit and smoke in the room, talking and talking.
I found that Greek had lots of emotional issues, and he used me as a sounding board. It was good money, but I wasn’t his counsellor and our sessions put me on edge.
I had to take his coke, because if I didn’t, it would look as though I was going to cheat or rob him. And I knew I always had to be sensitive to his needs, otherwise he would complain to the club, and the boss might slap me to get into line. But Greek was so boring. And because I was bored, I would have to add more ecstasy or smoke more weed, just to keep my energy levels up for the night’s next client.
Sometimes he could not have an erection when I massaged him, and this worried me because this is what I did professionally! My job was to satisfy my client. I tried some stunts, like asking him if he’d like to be tied up, or if we could bring in another girl for a threesome.
Anything to be more active, because unless I was physically active, doing my thing with the client, my drugs would cause me great discomfort. I was used to getting high before I met a client – that’s the only way I could pull off a ‘good heist’. So by the time I had taken coke with Greek, I would be sweating – the coke in my head would make me horny and I’d have to find ways of calming down my body.
With Greek, I would sometimes have to take two cold showers during our talking sessions – just to cool down. I would have to tell Greek that I was using the bathroom.
Although we mostly talked, sometimes Greek would come to the club already high. Then he’d be rough with me, slapping me and throwing me against the wall. He’d shout at me, making me act as though I was his wife.
‘Why don’t you want to go on vacation with me? You said you wanted a break!’ he would shout, then slap me.
‘No! No!’ I would fake cry.
That’s how he acted out his anger.
Did I like prostituting myself?
When I was high on drugs, I felt horny myself. By this time I was not only addicted to drugs, but to sex itself. I had become a sex addict. And I wanted to do a good job – I felt satisfied when a client climaxed.
‘I’m not here to drink tea with you,’ I would say.
The lifestyle could be fun, sometimes. I liked it when the agency would send us out to buy new lingerie for a particular strip show. I liked when I was walking through a shopping mall and someone recognised me as a stripper. Sure, I liked this lifestyle.
But there are emotions that come out when you’re in your own space. That’s when the memories come back. When I was alone in my room, and not high, these memories would haunt me. I would fight myself back and forth:
‘I shouldn’t be doing this … but I know why I’m doing it.’
‘I’m not normal. I cannot go out there and be normal.’
‘I can’t go home to my mom.’
‘Ntombi would say I knew what I was getting into …’
Lousy memories.
Eighteen
KERRI WAS ONE OF THE girls who worked in the club, and I struck up a friendship with her. She was a tall white girl with freckles on her face, and she had long, silky brown hair. Her feet and legs were nice and smooth, like a football player’s. We performed a threesome for a client, and I enjoyed having sex with Kerri. I actually became fond and protective of her, even though I didn’t know her very well, and that was a first for me.
People in the club disliked that Kerri and I were getting close and hanging out together. Friendships like that weren’t really encouraged.
I remember saying I would visit her at her house, not knowing she lived right across from our boss, Sunette. I was surprised to find that Kerri still lived with her parents, who charged her rent to stay there. Kerri couldn’t understand why we couldn’t hang out together – she was OK with me visiting.
Kerri accidentally fell pregnant. Sunette said that she should have the baby and Sunette would provide the childcare. I had heard that Sunette could not have children of her own. I just had a strange feeling about this. I didn’t trust the situation.
Kerri worked as a stripper up to her ninth month of pregnancy. I became the protective, emotional girlfriend. We hung out on Saturday afternoons when we weren’t working, and we had a baby shower, which was nice.
She gave birth to a baby boy.
Then Kerri’s heart turned around. When the baby was nine months old, she gave the baby to Sunette to care for. Sunette would bring the baby to the club and brag about him to everyone.
And this upset Kerri. She changed her mind again, and asked Sunette to give the baby back. I don’t know what happened, but Sunette was very upset. Kerri left the club with her baby.
I never heard Sunette speak about the baby again, but I was heartbroken to lose such a special friend.
Then came Elton, a handsome, classy coloured man who enjoyed cricket. We started seeing each other outside of the club, although I knew he had a wife and daughter, and another girlfriend. I knew that I was not allowed to have a client as a boyfriend, but I felt very
comfortable with Elton because he was so kind to me.
He would come to the club and pay R350 for an hour just so that I could rest. We would kiss and fondle sometimes, but mostly he let me sleep. I got to the point where I really thought I was in love with this guy.
He knew Sundays were my off days, and so he would pick me up from my place in his black Jetta, in which he always played his favourite Toni Braxton songs. We would go out for breakfast, followed by walks on the beach. Elton would make Sundays a lot of fun.
Of course we had sex – I felt I owed him that since he paid for my rest time at the club – but not very often. He also didn’t allow me to take drugs in front him, so I would always get high before we met up.
I didn’t have a phone, so I never knew when he would come to fetch me. I just had to wait for him, and I’d get anxious when a week went by and I hadn’t seen or heard from him. Then, he would suddenly arrive on a Friday night, and book me so I could sleep. We agreed that he shouldn’t walk out after a session, but stay at the bar for a while so it looked legitimate.
As time went on and this became the norm, I started getting furious at him for leaving me for so long all week. To get back at him for being so silent during the week, I would try book another client before he booked me. This went on for months. When we were in the room together, we wouldn’t have sex but would end up arguing.
‘You didn’t even come by to see me last Sunday,’ I would tell him.
‘Can I pick you up later tonight?’ he would ask.
‘What? Of course not!’ I’d retort, angrily. ‘Don’t you know I’m a whore? I can’t do that!’
Elton had a steady job working as the general manager at a large food chain store. He also had a club in one of the local townships outside Port Elizabeth. Sometimes, after my work, he would pick me up and take me to his club. This was dangerous because club managers circulate around the clubs to see if their girls are picking up other clients. So I would wear a crazy hair weave so I wouldn’t be spotted. Or I would hide under the DJ tables, where I could give him a blow job as he stood by.
Elton excited me and I fell for him.
He told me a lot about himself, but I never discussed myself.
In the escort agency, all of us girls discussed the fact that some clients really grew to like us. But also, I wondered, if a client really cared, then why didn’t he make me his girlfriend and let me leave this business?
‘Oh, here comes my boyfriend!’ one girl would say.
‘Oh, please. If he’s your boyfriend, then why doesn’t he rescue you from this hellhole?’ another would reply. And it was true. We girls would talk about this among ourselves.
And there came a time when we all started getting fed up with the club. Girls were starting to leave. For me, working at the escort agency was getting boring. I was getting tired of it all, tired in all the busyness. Every week, the cops would raid the club, looking for people selling drugs. We’d get locked up half naked, and have to pay bail from our own funds.
Elton was the main reason I stayed in Port Elizabeth for so long. He was my last client before I discovered I was pregnant. I was twenty-six by then, and I discovered I was pregnant when I was about three of four months along. And I started to enjoy this life inside me.
That’s when I started to thinking things could change. I felt like I could be a woman. I thought, wow, I still have time to do this mothering thing. I still have time to change.
I wanted to keep the baby and I started calling it Summer, but agency management said no – when I told Sunette I was pregnant, she told me coldly that the club could not continue to employ me unless I had an abortion.
Confused, I thought about how they had allowed Kerri to keep her baby and continue working, both during and after her pregnancy.
Sunette said she had a solution for me. Abortion. She didn’t care about my opinion.
She had complete authority over my life. When someone in this business has that kind of authority, they are not thinking about your life. They are not thinking about your heart, about what is best for you. They are only thinking about your body, and they’ll tell you straight out that you are not going to bring issues like this into their business.
So she told me that I had to abort the baby. And I thought to myself, look, you’re obviously going to be killed here.
The abortion was done that same day, and it was done forcibly. I protested, so I was drugged.
That day, seeing Summer’s tiny legs in the sink next to me made me feel like I was murdering someone. Afterwards I bled a lot and I was told to just put a sponge in my private parts to stop the bleeding. That same evening I was told to take a client.
While I was waiting, half naked in my lingerie at the bar, I saw this guy coming towards me. And something in my aching gut just said no.
I just couldn’t do it. And that was the day I said, ‘This is it.’
When you say no to a pimp, that’s when you get killed. But I decided that day to say no to Sunette. When I said it out loud, the club bouncers beat me up so badly that I collapsed. They probably also gave me injections to put me out, because I remember nothing after that.
I don’t even remember when they drove me from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg and dumped me. I was found on Bree Street in Joburg and taken to the hospital. When I woke up several weeks later, both my body and my mind were damaged.
In the hospital, I was visited by a kind nun, who prayed for me while I was there, and then took me to a Catholic rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. I hardly knew this nun, and in my state I hardly ever spoke to her, but I think she saved my life.
At the drug rehab centre I got very sick on their detox programme – I had the shakes, emotional fits and a runny tummy. When I had the shivers, craving for a drug, my mind would think of devilish ways to get coke.
In those first three weeks of rehabilitation, not taking coke or any other drugs and not having sex was not too difficult for me because I had made up my mind to change. I still had my cigarettes and weed, and my heart was aching for change.
But mostly, for about five months after the forced abortion, I was out of it. I don’t remember much except that I was in and out of hospital during this time, and had to take tablets to keep me calm. And I felt like I was in a mad house. I was not myself.
Did I contemplate suicide? Oh my goodness, yes!
I hadn’t been suicidal after I gave birth to Z, and after I’d given him up for adoption. I had hurt very badly, but I was younger and I’d had my drugs afterwards to soothe me. But I was suicidal after I lost Summer. And I was not on drugs this time – this time, during my rehabilitation, the emotional pain was strong. There was nowhere I could hide from my pain; I had to face it.
Mostly, I just wanted to die.
There were times during my hospital stays that I took off the bed sheet and tied it around my neck. I would tie the other end to the bed, hoping to fall off during sleep and be choked. The dreams I had were all about falling into a dark hole. But I never fell off the bed.
And I kept coming back to the same thought: that this abortion had been forced upon me. I’d had no choice. That it was part of this trafficking story.
I had lost my Summer, another baby, to this lifestyle.
I told myself then that I didn’t want to do clubbing and prostitution any more. After my drug rehab, the nun who had cared for me looked for a safe place for me to stay. She placed me in a shelter.
Margaret, the Zulu sister I knew from my first experiences on Hillbrow’s streets eight years earlier, somehow heard my story and came to see me at that shelter. She was the first person from outside the rehab programme that I had seen since arriving back in Joburg. I was very quiet and not responsive – I just stared at her, wondering why she was visiting me. Mostly, at that time, I got irritated by people being in my space. I just wanted to be alone and quiet.
There were a few people in the shelter who slowly started to look familiar, but I didn’t care. We had group se
ssions, but I wouldn’t say anything, just listen to other people’s stories. They were stories about drugs, not prostitution. But I guess those stories encouraged me to push forward at least, to keep breathing.
As I got stronger, I was taken for training in making things, and I was taken to other rehabilitation centres. But in all that time, I had nothing to say to anybody. I remained quiet, my mind switched off.
Isolated.
This went on for over a year.
After a while I felt the need to be on my own and I left the shelter. I took to the parks, sleeping out, looking for a place to live. I had been off drugs for about a year by now, and I had no money. I went to churches for food and ate it in the parks. Doing this I could, at least, get through the day. Sleeping in parks each night, I actually really didn’t care what happened to me.
After living on the street, and wandering around for about a year, I found a new shelter which included a soup kitchen. The shelter was part of a church programme. That’s how I met the Houghton Methodists.
I decided to go to the church, even though I found the people irritating. There was lots of jumping up and down, praying loudly and singing, and loud talking. There was very little peace and silence. At least the nuns were quiet and didn’t say much to me – they seemed more spiritual.
In this new church, people welcomed me but I had always thought of myself as an independent person, a person who didn’t need help or interference, so I found it very hard to make any friends. People picked up on my attitude, and tried to draw me out. But I wasn’t ready to be approached or embraced in such a friendly manner. They thought I was being anti-social.
The ladies at the church irritated me, because I felt they used their ‘charity’ to control others. I got annoyed because even after all that had happened, I still had my pride. I felt they were condescending, with all their talking.
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