Because it was a slow night, I had a chance to meet all the women as they turned up for their shifts. Jodie arrived and I found her interesting. She was very pretty with long brown hair. She claimed to be nineteen and from some small town, where her parents still lived happily. After Jodie finished Year Twelve, she turned up at the brothel looking for work. I could immediately tell that she was a very placid and giving person.
Then two younger girls arrived, introducing themselves as Pepper and Toby. They both looked about fifteen years old and it was only their second night. The older women sent us three young girls on a cigarette run; this meant going to the shop to get whatever the older women needed or wanted. While walking to the shop, the girls asked me how old I was. I was surprised by the suddenness of the question. Was my youth that transparent?
‘Seventeen.’
‘I’m sixteen next month and she’s fifteen,’ said Toby.
Although they were my age in calendar years, as they chatted away I thought that they were too young and a bit silly; they hadn’t suffered enough to make this occupation the last straw. They’d both run away from home because they weren’t allowed to stay out late at night.
‘Is it hard?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s dead easy and great money too,’ Toby informed me.
Later that evening I heard the real story about her first night and discovered Toby was full of shit. Her first client had returned her to the front desk a blubbering mess although she did manage to finish the evening with no further emotional outbursts. They say that if you can handle the first night you can handle any night.
When we returned from the cigarette run there was another woman called Tia—named after Tia Maria, of which she drank copious quantities—sitting comfortably on the sofa. What struck me about Tia was how very average she was. She was about thirty-five years old, divorced from a philandering ex-husband and she had three children. She seemed particularly close to Samantha, who also had children and a deadbeat baby daddy, so they mostly spent the night drinking and exchanging anecdotes about the shortcomings of the entire male population.
Soon the owners, a lesbian couple called Ellen and Peg, arrived to give me the official once over. To say I was intimidated would be an understatement. I’d never knowingly met a homosexual person before, let alone a lesbian couple. Peg was a large, lovely woman—the sort of person who could keep you fascinated for hours; she spoke eloquently and dressed impeccably. This was in complete contrast to Ellen, who resembled an ugly Maori man with tits and tats and had a good vocabulary of coarse language.
Peg and Ellen truly believed the sex industry was a legitimate business, and that women should be paid for their ‘affections’. They also strongly believed in each other and were a demonstrably loving couple.
What hooked me into the industry that night was sitting talking to the girls. They were so open and talked about men like they were scum; not only scum, but useless scum. Everyone was swapping stories and there was no judgement—only acceptance. It was like a family. Although the way they talked about the job was light-hearted and funny, I couldn’t help thinking that men had seriously wronged these women in the past; they seemed, sadly, to have lost all hope of romance and of being sincere.
‘You should have seen my Oscar-winning performance the other night; he really thought I was coming.’
‘You should have seen the dick on the one I had last night—the condom fell off, it was so small.’
I’d been brought up to believe that women should please men, not ridicule them. I also thought women shouldn’t talk about sex; yet here were these women talking quite openly about it. They joked about how men fell for their mattress-acting performances.
I felt at home with these girls. They taught me that sex didn’t have to be bad or forceful. They explained how I could make sex better and how I could actually enjoy it; what not to let a man get away with and what I should get in return. They told me it was all right to doubt men and it was okay to be distrustful; in fact, it was better to be that way—their way.
I knew then that even if I hated the sex part of the job, I would want to come back the next night because I felt so at home. I could be myself and not what everyone expected me to be. I knew that if I told them I didn’t enjoy sex that would be OK. I knew if I told them I had my period they wouldn’t call me dirty. If I told them I was ashamed of my figure they would tell me that I was gorgeous. These women gave me confidence, support and the chance to be like a family. Best of all, in their eyes, it wasn’t a bad thing to sleep with men for money or any other sort of gain. In fact, you were a fool if you gave it away. I felt completely empowered in one evening.