Absolute Mayhem (5 page)

Afterwards, I had to see a psychologist because I was
having bad nightmares and serious bouts of depression.
The image of him hitting me kept replaying itself in
my head. The psychologist tried out this hypnotherapy
technique on me called 'rapid eye movement desensitisation'.
He had me close my eyes and call up the image
in my head of being hit that night. When I opened my
eyes, I would follow his finger as he moved it from side
to side. We kept doing this over many treatments, until
finally I could no longer bring up the image. It was like
he had pushed it to the back of my mind so all those
feelings disappeared. I can't believe that it actually
worked.

I realised I had been going down a very dangerous
path, partying too much, taking too many drugs and
putting myself in dodgy situations. One of my good
friends, who was the head of the FX (foreign exchange)
trading desk at ABN AMRO, offered me a room in his
awesome house in Drummoyne – free of charge! All
I had to do was help clean. He loved to cook, so he
would make the tastiest dinners for us. This guy used to
crack me up every time I walked into the dealing room
at work, and he always stuck up for me like an older
brother (or perhaps a father figure). If any guys made
rude comments about me, he would yell at them.

Living with him, I finally got off the drugs, took up
kick-boxing again and saved a lot of money. He was like
my best friend, and I would look forward to coming
home after work and having great conversations with
him. But several years later, he found out about my porn
career and didn't really talk to me after that. Clearly, he
was not happy to know that at all. The last I knew of
his whereabouts he was living in Byron Bay and had
married a hippie chick. I learned he has a daughter and
is trading from home, which was always his dream.
I'm happy for him, but it would be nice if we could still
be friends.

After a year and a half at the newly merged ABN
AMRO/Lloyds Bank, I was fed up with the strictures of
the new office climate, so I went for an interview at CBA
Futures, for a position in futures clearing, and they hired
me. Futures clearing is basically when all the financial
transactions, usually from the futures-broking department
or trading-floor deals, get thoroughly checked
and approved before being processed or settled.

I stayed at CBA for three and a half years, working
my way up to become an assistant financial controller
in futures broking and clearing. When I wasn't out
partying with my work colleagues, I was kick-boxing
five nights a week (which added-up to ten hours a week!)
at Thunderlegs gym in Granville. I also did a couple of
gigs as a ring-card girl at some fights, which is where I
met a new boyfriend, who was a fighter. I was with him
for about six months. I had quit partying by that stage,
because, obviously, kick-boxing and doing drugs just
don't mix.

All the time I was working in the financial markets,
I was always studying other things, pursuing my other
dreams. I took a class on modelling for commercials and
they got me a big hair show on a huge stage in front of a
massive audience. I enjoyed being up on that stage, and
it confirmed to me that I loved showing myself off in
front of people. The only downside was that my hair got
thrashed – they had coloured it with so many different
dyes that when they tried to straighten it they couldn't.
It was totally fried. Three hair stylists from a top salon
couldn't even tame it, so they did an updo on me.

I think I was quite clueless about modelling, and I
didn't pick the best agencies to work with. I was rejected
from some of the top places, since at five foot five I was
too short: the minimum height for modelling was five
foot eight.

Feeling dejected about my modelling career, I decided
at the ripe old age of 18 to get my Higher School Certificate
via correspondence. I worked on that for a couple
of years and did really well with my grades. I finished
year 11 and started to work on year 12, but I was
already working full-time, with longer hours and bigger
responsibilities, so I decided I couldn't handle the correspondence
courses any more and, perhaps regrettably,
I stopped.

I took other classes, in an effort to sustain my sense
of purpose. These included a whole variety of things,
such as voice lessons, singing, acting and modelling,
but I always got distracted with working or partying. I
took a course in Swedish massage and almost completed
that, but the idiot who taught it was a pervert who kept
trying to get us all to go topless so he could teach us
how to massage the chest, with no towel covering or
anything. I knew what he was up to and, strange as it
might seem now, given what I do for a living, I refused
to take my top off .

And I was the
only
one who refused. He claimed it
was a requirement to get my certificate, so I said, 'Fuck
you!' and walked out. I've since practised my massage
techniques on many guys and have nothing but good
reports, so I hope he's reading this now!

About a year later, I joined Nutrimetics, a cosmetics
company that was kind of like Avon, and that led
to a course in beauty and make-up. I learned all about
facials, pedicures and make-up application, and I ended
up selling cosmetics on the side, and doing really well
out of it. I hosted quite a few parties where I would either
do facials or make-up and it was fun for a while, but
bugging people and suffering their frequent rejection in
the search for a sale was not for me, so I eventually gave
that up.

I took courses in small-business management and
Italian, and graduated from both with flying colours.
I spoke very good Italian, too. ('
Buongiorno. Che bella
gionarta. Come stai?
') I learned to write a business plan
and found an investor to start my own clothing store,
but that plan fell by the wayside for reasons coming up
in the next chapter.

While at CBA Futures, I also did a course in futures
broking and trading. I can't believe I actually learned
about bond formulas, since I'd been kicked out of maths
class every day in high school for being a smartass!
I discovered that I was really good at foreign-exchange
and futures calculations, from just learning on the job.

But my Pisces nature always got in the way of my
advancement. I was always ready for a good time,
instead of slogging away at a job or anything else. One
of the absolute highlights of my time in Sydney was
when the United States Navy came to town. My girlfriends
and I had a blast for six days straight, hooking
up with the sailors with their sexy white uniforms and
those accents, and they were so sweet, too. I even got to
go on the USS
Independence
, and for a little while afterwards
one of the sailors and I stayed in touch.

In my corporate-finance years, I did have three sexual
encounters with co-workers (though only three in six
years makes me fairly innocent, if I may so humbly
declare) – and one of them took place right on top of my
desk at the Lloyds Bank offices in the Governor Phillip
Tower, after hours.

It sounds like the kind of thing that people read in
the pages of
Penthouse Forum
, but it actually happened
to me. I was out on the town, having drinks with my
co-workers at one of the many inter-office functions
we attended. We were all very drunk, and I ended up
dancing pretty hot and heavy with this one guy I worked
with, who sat at a desk very close to mine. We both
had after-hours access to the office on the 47th floor,
so after the party ended we went up to the office and
ended up fucking on my desk. Sex
above
the city – it
was so hot!

The next day when he came into work, he looked over
and winked at me. We started seeing each other after
that, but he decided to get back with his ex-girlfriend
(I always seem to get the guys who are still stuck on their
exes), which made things weird between us for a while.
We didn't speak to each other, and then the separation
became permanent when Lloyds Bank got taken over
by ABN AMRO – a blessing in disguise as far as that
relationship was concerned.

Prior to that, when I was 16 and working in the
dealing room at Westpac, I'd hooked up with one of
the traders there. I'd noticed him always looking at me.
Well, all the guys looked, but I
knew
he was interested,
because every time I was alone or at the copy machine
he would find an excuse to come over and talk to me. He
eventually asked me out and I said yes.

Alcohol, as usual, played a part. On a drunken night
out, we found ourselves making out on the dance floor
in some bar and then went back to his place to fuck.
I dated him for a while but he wasn't really my type,
so I broke it off . It turned out that he really cared for
me, and I guess I broke his heart, which made it kind of
awkward to go to work.

The other time was with one of my close coworkers
at CBA Futures. We worked on the same desk,
and he was about to leave to go to college in Canada
so we had a farewell dinner and drinks for him. We
ended up drinking a lot and getting intimate at the
table, followed by some dirty dancing and a trip back to
his place. I swear, this guy had the biggest cock I'd ever
seen – even bigger than most male porn stars I've been
with. (Yes, even bigger than Billy Glide!) I remember
that well: I was very sore the next day, because we'd
fucked all night. We remained friends after that but
haven't spoken for years.

The odd thing, now that I think about it, is that almost
all the guys I fucked had really big cocks. Maybe I was
destined to be a porn star after all!

For my 21st birthday, my dad and stepmum gave
me the amazing present of a return ticket to
anywhere in the world I wanted to go. This was perfect
for me because the travel bug had really hit me, and it
forced me to save up the spending money and make
it happen.

When I'd moved from Brisbane, all I'd wanted to
do was see my dad, pick up the shattered pieces of my
fractured family bonds and try to get a job so I could
support myself and start a new life. I'd achieved all that
now, and I'd had a great time in Sydney – mostly because
of all the good friends I'd made – but it was time for
a change.

I was so excited about the opportunity to leave
Australia, and I saved up for a whole year to be able
to afford a full European tour. I was always looking up
the different trips I could take on the Contiki website.
There were so many options. In the end, I chose one of
those big Contiki bus tours that went to 12 countries in
37 days, starting and ending in London.

Arriving in London sure brought me back down to
earth fast. When I got off the train from Heathrow, it
was pouring with rain. I was carrying a huge backpack
and had no idea where I was going. I remember that
everyone was so rude. One guy was walking fast and got
mad at me for walking slowly with my luggage. I was
completely jet-lagged too, because I couldn't sleep at all
on my 24-hour flight from Sydney.

It didn't take me too long to bounce back, though, and
I set off for my European adventures in the esteemed
company of 50 fellow Aussies, four Kiwis and two South
Africans.

I cut down on my drinking during the tour, mostly
because I really wanted to see Europe rather than merely
partying my way through it. I didn't make many friends
in that time as a result, but I saw a lot and actually
remembered it all. I pretty much sampled every kind of
food and alcoholic beverage there was (well, my newfound
sobriety permitting) and kept an account of the
trip in my journals. I wish I'd taken more photos. I shot
mostly video and my camera died halfway through the
trip, so most of what happened stayed firmly lodged in
my own memories.

At first, I was treating these travels as no more than a
great vacation, but somewhere on the trip I thought to
myself, 'Well, what if I just work in London for a couple
of years while I'm there? I could save some money and
see where it takes me.' My Welsh roots made it an option,
and the exchange rate at the time was about three to
one, so any money I earned would be worth triple the
amount in Australia. I guess, too, I was looking for some
sort of escape. I was always trying to run away from
something, which inevitably turned out to be myself.

When the tour ended and I got back to London, then,
I moved in with my grandmother in Eltham. She was
my mum's mum, and she was dying from breast cancer.
Granddad had passed away years ago, and I'd only
met them both twice, when they'd come to visit us in
Australia. Now, I would have the chance to get to know
my grandmother a bit better.

Being based in the UK meant I would also be able to
visit my great-aunt and uncle and a bunch of cousins in
Wales, whom I'd never met before. Despite my feelings
about my mother, I have always identified very strongly
with my Welsh heritage. Some of my relations were in
the south, in Cardiff , and others way up north in Blaenau
Fastening, Gwent (that's Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd,
to the locals), where there's pretty much nothing
around for miles but the slate mountains of Snowdonia.
I couldn't wait to see them and to see a bit of the country,
so I headed over there after about a week in Eltham.

Sadly, it turned out to be very awkward meeting these
relatives, because they were from my mother's side of
the family and I got the feeling that they didn't really
talk to her or know much about her. It was more that
they were close to my grandmother.

When I was there, everyone spoke Welsh in front of
me, knowing full well that I couldn't understand it, and
it seemed that my cousins didn't care to get to know me.
(After all, they were living up there compared with me
growing up in Australia, so I suspect they were rather
resentful of me!)

Being in northern Wales was a cool experience,
though, because it seemed as if time had stood still.
Today, Blaenau has a population of just under 5000
and is very dependent on tourism (thanks to the nearby
Snowdonia National Park), since the slate-mining
industry has been in decline for years.

I also travelled to Norwich in England, to see my
aunt, my uncle and my cousins, who were all really
cool people. My aunt, who is my mum's sister, was so
nice and caring and polite, very sincere. It was amazing
to see how she turned out, considering how my
mother was.

Back in Eltham, I did my bit around the house by
taking care of my grandmother, cleaning up and doing
all the shopping and cooking. I sprayed ice on her sore
muscles and helped her to get up and down the stairs.
At the same time, I was very busy looking for work,
visiting employment agencies and checking online and
in the papers. I spent my free time making calls, attending
interviews and going to internet cafes.

But it turned out that the things my mum had told
me about my grandmother were true, and she was even
crueller than my mother. It made me realise what a
terrible time of it my mum must have had growing up
with her. She would talk on the phone to her friends and
relatives in Welsh, and I could tell from her tone that
she was slagging me off . Every now and then she would
break into English and I would overhear her saying that
I was always on the phone and on the internet and that I
wasn't working. (Well, I was trying to find a fucking
job, that's why!) I couldn't believe she could do that,
after all I did for her. Before even a month was up, she
had kicked me out on the street.

In desperation, I got a job as a bartender in Hammersmith,
but I lasted for only a week. I couldn't stand the
12-hour shift s with barely any breaks and I had to share
a crappy little room with another girl. But then I was
offered a job in International Petroleum Exchange (IPE)
Broking at Salomon Smith Barney, and I told the bar
manager I was giving him notice. He reacted by kicking
me out too.

What the fuck was going on? It was a recurring pattern
in my life – everyone seemed to leave me stranded!

Luckily, I had a friend from Australia, Mulvey,
whom I used to work with at CBA. He was living in
Putney, so he let me stay at his place for three months
until I found somewhere of my own. He didn't charge
me rent and even gave up his bedroom for me! (We're
still friends today.)

My new job involved making sure that everything
relating to the trades from the IPE were put through the
system correctly and that all the transactions balanced
out at the end of the day. Underneath the glamour of all
that fast money being moved around, I honestly didn't
have a good time at all at Salomon Smith Barney. The
main reason was that the lady who was training me was
a complete nightmare, and she couldn't explain anything
properly. She was always very stressed out, usually over
nothing, and would take twenty cigarette breaks a day.
I hated working there. I'm sure a plum job at Salomon
Smith Barney sounds great to most people, but I didn't last
six months.

Some of the guys were cool, but several of them
were sleazy. They talked among themselves, within my
hearing, about how they could see my G-string. One
of them even asked to buy my sweaty gym clothes,
which really stunned me because he wasn't kidding.
(I never sold them to him, in case you're wondering.)
He was always making some kind of sexually suggestive
remark about me and would talk to the other boys about
what I was wearing that day. There were also times when
he would get drunk and hit on me. I couldn't believe
these guys! Back in Australia, it would have been the
grounds for a sexual-harassment suit, but I didn't really
know what the protocol was in the UK. I doubt I would
have gone through with it anyhow, as I always prefer to
sort my problems out myself.

There were so many things that I just didn't care for
about London. Firstly, as everyone knows, there was the
freezing-cold weather and the rain. I felt as if I could
never get warm outside, and everywhere I went it was
boiling hot inside, which was so ridiculous to an Aussie
girl like me.

Secondly, there were the crowds – I couldn't move
without someone bumping into me. This seemed to suit
some people just fine, though, because I actually got felt
up on the Tube by some guy in a business suit. It was
rush hour, on the way to work, and the train was jam-packed.
I was standing, holding on to a strap with one
hand and my purse and umbrella with the other. I was
dying of heat in my big coat, and the guy standing next
to me – conveniently crushed in like the rest of us –
said, 'It's like a pack of sardines, eh?'

I said, 'Yep.' And the next thing I knew, I felt his hand
try to get around my umbrella and my purse. He wasn't
interested in stealing my money; he was trying to get his
hand under my coat!

I thought, well, it
is
kind of crowded and maybe I'm
imagining things, so I moved a little to try to brush him
off. But he kept doing it. I elbowed him really hard but
it didn't stop him and I didn't know what to do. He still
kept on and I kept trying to move away but there was
nowhere to go. Finally, the train stopped and I pushed
my way through the crowd. I got off at whatever station
it was – I didn't care! I was totally freaked out. I couldn't
believe what had just happened. Ever since then, I get
panic attacks when I'm in crowds. We all drive in Los
Angeles, so I can't even imagine catching a crowded
train these days.

Then, thirdly, the food in London was just not to
my liking. They heaped mayonnaise and cheese on
every sandwich. I ate a lot of crap, except for the soups,
which I loved, and the pub roasts, which were great.
You can get a good meal if you have a lot of money to
spend in a fancy restaurant, but there was little that was
cheap and good. I did eat a lot of Indian food, which
I thought was the best food in London. It was relatively
affordable, too, and to this day I still absolutely love
Indian food, although those creamy sauces are very
fattening.

And that leads me to my fourth and final problem –
the sheer cost of living in London, which was (and still
is) absolutely outrageous. I don't know how anyone with
a regular job can survive there. Everything, from rent
to food, is so expensive! Why would anyone pay eight
pounds for a plate of fish and chips or sludgy pasta that
you can make yourself at home?

It was London that made me realise I was already
so over the financial industry, and it was wearing me
down and burning me out. It just wasn't what I wanted
to do in the long run. I had always known it deep down,
even when I was enjoying it more in Australia, but
I never did anything about it because I was so comfortable
with having all that money and all those benefits.
When I was offered a higher position at Salomon Smith
Barney, I found myself saying, 'You know what? I don't
think I can handle it right now. This is not what I
want to do.'

I had really found the space during those last months
at Salomon Smith Barney to 'find myself ' and decided
that I still wanted to get involved somehow in the entertainment
industry. So I quit.

I had already found myself a 'modelling' agent
through the newspaper prior to this, when I was looking
around to see what other kinds of work I could
do. Being too short for a regular model, I'd gone for the
other option: soft core. The agent had found me some
paid work doing soft core photo shoots, and I'd taken
him up on it. I also did a soft core-porn-film shoot that
he'd booked me on for the Adult Channel with three
other girls. It was a bit weird because I'd never been
with a girl before, but we really didn't do much other
than simulated pussy-eating. Getting naked wasn't
too hard at that point either, after the photo shoots
I'd done.

A lot of girls in adult entertainment get their start
this way, getting half-naked for the cameraman before
taking it all off for a live audience, and I wanted to see
what that was like. I might've been insecure about many
things but my body wasn't one of them.

Sure enough, I went from doing still- and video-camera
poses to dancing nude on the chrome-pole stage.
To this day, I can't remember the name of the club where
I began stripping, but I didn't stay there long – it was just
too far from where I was living. I don't even remember
where it was located. I started there because it was the
nicest club that I could find, and also because they
took me in with no previous experience.

I became friends with another girl who stripped
there – she was a very shy girl. When we heard that
the Spearmint Rhino club was opening up in central
London, we couldn't resist. I remember the first time
I walked into the Spearmint Rhino, on Tottenham
Court Road. It was so beautiful that I knew I wanted to
work there.

I got the job by going in for an 'audition' – meaning I
danced around the pole and got naked for them, so they
could assess my competence. The Rhino was a 'longgown'
club, just like where I'd started. This meant we
had to wear long, see-through gowns when we were
walking the floor, rather than skimpy little outfits,
because it looked more classy. It didn't take too long for
the long gown to become no gown, of course, because
the Rhino, also like my first club, was fully nude. Other
things the two places had in common were that we
didn't get to choose our own songs, and I always had to
get a bit drunk before I could get up on stage. I wasn't
ashamed of my body, but I still got nervous. Sometimes,
I would also do a little blow.