Someone has to do sex work. And that someone was me, because I was good at it. Did this occupation encapsulate me? No fucking way. But why was I the only person who could see that? I am not insinuating that sex workers deserve an OBE for their tireless community service work, but some compassionate understanding would go a long way. Individuals are good or bad, not occupations.
The episode with Mark taught me that there was not now nor was there ever going to be a man on a white steed. If I wanted security I’d need to look within. So I put my head down and tail up and hit the books. I worked all day, three nights a week I went to night school and after Poppy went to bed I did assignments and studied. By the end of the year I had proven to myself that I was more than just a pretty face and a great set of tits, I actually had a brain. I achieved a score that allowed me to pick any subject and any university I wanted.
It’s one thing to go to night school but now I was confronted with the financial dilemma of committing myself to full-time university. How was I going to support Poppy while working part time? Or should I go to university part time and work thirty hours a week? The idea of undertaking a degree part time meant eight more years as a sex worker—no thanks! So I bit the bullet and signed up for a double degree full time. This still gave me two full days of work a week, which kept us afloat financially, providing I eliminated some of my luxuries. Gone were the personal training sessions, the three-week vacation travelling business class, the free-loading friends and relatives. Christmas had a financial cap on it. This was not just a financial culling—it quickly became obvious that it was also a friend culling. When the money dried up, people seemed to drift away.
Poppy had never wanted for anything. If anything, I had totally overcompensated for the lack of a father by showering her with time and affection. She spoke two—almost three languages—thanks to the nannies I employed. She was on the school debate team, netball team, diving team, chess team. After school she went to piano lessons, tennis lessons, academic extension classes, gymnastics and dance classes, basically anything she wanted. Every spare minute was given to her, but now I had to go to school and focus on self-improvement. My time with her had to be condensed down to quality not quantity. School holidays became one week with me and one week at camp, so that I could make some money. Summer holidays she would be sent to Queensland to visit her extended family for three weeks so that I could go to Singapore to earn next year’s school fees of $15,000 per year and then some.
Earning approximately $1000 per day, I calculated that I could maintain a decent life for the two of us providing that I could work two and a half days a week. My lectures and labs were condensed down to the remaining two and a half days. Saturdays would then be spent on quality parenting and Poppy’s sports and Sunday was a study/assignment day for both Poppy and me. Additional study could be done in the evenings.
The only thing that suffered was my savings. I was used to stashing away at least one full day’s earnings every week for rainy days—or holidays.
It was very odd going to university and being ‘the old one with the kid’, but it was more difficult coming up with a plausible cover story. If I was able to maintain such a nice lifestyle working for only two and a half days a week, why was I trying to better myself? Disclosure is a selective process. There are certain people who you can tell instinctively will accept your circumstances. Then there are others who are genuinely lovely people but put any sex on a pedestal—reserved for love and intimacy. Those individuals never understood the capability to disconnect action from emotion, so with them I kept silent.
49
Clients with Cerebral Palsy and Quadriplegia
One of my favourite clients was Samuel. He was a very tall, dark-haired lawyer with the most piercing blue eyes I’d ever seen. He had the sexiest dimples in each cheek. Sam’s only shortcoming was that he was quadriplegic. I had no idea about his disability when I agreed to go and visit him. He convinced me to visit him for a minimum of an hour and a half because he lived two streets over and told me that he was in a wheelchair so couldn’t travel. My sympathy strings were humming and he was quite the smooth talker, so I reluctantly agreed to break my no out calls unless the rate is ridiculous rule.
Upon arrival, I was greeted by a lump in a bed—Sam couldn’t move a muscle. Sam had a C2 injury as a result of a motorbike accident when he was twenty-six. He could breathe unaided and talk the pants off a nun but that was about it. No limb movement whatsoever. He had a wife, a dog and an army of volunteers who came every two hours to turn him, change him and hydrate him. So timing was of the essence.
I had to lift his head and put a cup and straw in his mouth—how the hell was he going to shag me? Turns out, he wasn’t.