Mattress Actress (22 page)

Sex workers sell a fantasy, but we do not have the patent on bullshit, as clients are key players in this pas de deux. Oh, if I had a dollar for every lie I’ve heard, I’d be a wealthy woman. One of the most commonly told lies was: If you do it naturally I promise that I won’t cum in your mouth. Or the classic: The bloody ATM wasn’t working and I didn’t want to be late, can I stay now and fix you up after? And last but not least: I love you. Which was interchangeable with: I respect you.

Some of the typical stories that I generally got told were the old classics and almost sociologically understandable lies: I’m single. Or: I’m wealthy. My job was to sound ever so impressed at the client's business prowess and almost beg to be his girlfriend. There’s an old joke: How do you impress a prostitute? Pay her. My point being that clients didn’t need to impress me, I’d fuck them no matter what their story, but for some clients, the habit of bullshitting to get sex died hard.

Perth was such a small place that it was very easy to come unravelled in your own dream world. The funniest client I recall coming unstuck was a young lad who was always running late, and as a result couldn’t stay the full hour. Once in my room he would tell the tallest tales about how back in Sri Lanka, he was practically royalty. That due to his class he was constantly pursued by available young ladies desperate to date him and, ultimately, marry him. He apparently lived in a penthouse in one of the more affluent suburbs of Perth that was given to him by his late father. He derived his income from a string of nightclubs that he owned both in Australia and overseas.

And so it was that on one sunny August I was returning from the airport when I happened to pull into a service station for a quick top up. My hair was tied up in a quick ponytail, my sunglasses concealed an unmade-up face. When I paid I recognised that distinct Sri Lankan accent. Staring back at me were eyes just about bulging out of their sockets, and cheeks as red as his shirt. I handed him a $50 note and told him that he could keep the change.

He still came in to see me once, simply to explain how he was filling in for a cousin who owned the Caltex while he was away getting married in Sri Lanka.

I tried not to lie to clients, I just chose not to tell them anything. I thought this air of mystery added to my allure anyway. If questions became too personal, I always retorted with a quick, ‘Are you a tax man?’ Or ‘Are you writing a book?’ But more often than not I simply turned the conversation back to them.

The most common questions that clients would ask was: ‘What do you do for work?’

I would always answer the same way: ‘I’m a hooker!’ What did they expect me to say?

The other question they seemed intent on having answered was my real name. I usually responded with: ‘Seeing as though we are sharing personal information, what’s your VISA card number?’ The questions usually stopped at that point.

I was not entirely immune to lying, and the more the internet grew the less work there was out there in the sex industry, so some truths had to be stretched. In early 2000 there was an array of websites designed to match people who just wanted hook-ups. People were now giving away anonymous sex—how could I compete with that? My other major competition was the growing number of Asian girls advertising $100 per hour, $60 for half an hour and $40 for ten minutes. These girls made up sixty-five per cent of all advertisements. If you considered that approximately thirty per cent of advertisements are bullshit, or ads for women that don’t exist, this was a genuine problem.

I was advertising, ‘Stunning, 22-year-old, busty green-eyed beauty, 5’7, DD, model looks,’ and my prices were approximately $300 per hour. Yet if some smart madam on the other side of town put an ad in the paper reading: ‘Stunning, 21-year-old, busty blue-eyed beauty, 5’7, DD, model looks’, and charged $180 an hour, clients were obviously going to gravitate to her. The fact that she didn’t really exist was another matter.

My website was no longer unique; most agencies had websites but they were a joke. I had a fantastically witty Irish client named Sean tell me that he had visited one agency six times and had never met one of the girls who were pictured. So he decided to print them all out and take them in with him one night for a laugh. Of all twelve images, none of those girls were available, however in their place were twelve other girls. Sean asked the available ladies where their images were on the website, only to be told that they were in the process of being uploaded. The madam then offered Sean a discount on one of the other girls for the inconvenience. Sean then said, ‘Sure I’ll take twenty per cent off her, thirty per cent off the brunette, and for Christ’s sake put twenty per cent on that poor lass’s chest.’ The madam showed him out.

So to combat all of this, I decided to change my advertising approach. I put, ‘Stunning, 22-year-old, busty green-eyed beauty, 5’7, DD, model looks, prices from $100.’ My thinking was if you can’t beat the bullshit, you’d better join it. My rates were $300 per hour, $200 per half-hour, so I decided to add a new time frame: $100 for ten minutes, no French, or $150 with French. Surely no one would go for that, but it might get them in the door.

Well, I was completely wrong! I might as well have been advertising tomorrow’s lotto numbers. I had two work lines running into the house; if one line was busy the second line switched over. That phone did not stop ringing for two weeks straight. The first day the ad came out I made $2400 and my phone girl demanded a pay rise. Not one of my clients that day paid $100, all decided to stay the minimum $200. So it appears that a bit of bullshit paid off.

Not all clients with loads of money were gentlemen, and often wealthy clients believed that they were renting more than your body—they also expected your tolerance for their abrasiveness, which, in my case, they never got. Ordinarily I would never do an all-nighter with a client, but often financial pressure or golden opportunities dictated that I bend the rules. I recall on one occasion it was a bit of both. I had seen this client a number of times when he visited Perth on business; he was always polite and generous but a bit of a nag. Personally, if I ask for a favour and am denied multiple times, I eventually get the hint and stop asking for a favour. Well this was not the case with Patrick.

‘Come on Cleo, let me kiss you?’ No.

‘Please, I don’t have a cold?’ No.

‘Come on, I brushed my teeth.’

‘Mate, do you have a hearing impairment? The answer is no, simple no, not today, not maybe later, not if you promise to give me a tip, just plain and simple no!’

So as you can see, not a perfect client but manageable. With clients you had to accept the good with the bad, after all, even a golden goose shits on your lawn on occasion.

I was childless on the weekend that Patrick asked me to accompany him to Margaret River for a shindig at a winery. This was to be followed by a nice dinner for eight hosted by him at a flash restaurant. We agreed on $3000 for Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and Sunday day. I took $1500 upfront and requested the balance to be paid on Sunday when he dropped me home. So with $1500 safely deposited in my account I made my way down the coast for a four-hour drive with very little radio reception. In its place, Patrick gave me his life story. Not just his life story, but that of his entire family, going back four ear-bending generations.

Halfway to Margaret River I wanted to jab a chopstick in my ear for some relief. I did attempt to change the topic on a number of occasions, I tried to interject my own relatable stories to the mix, but they were an entirely unwelcome interruption to his family history.

Upon arrival, I couldn’t drink fast enough, and thankfully we were in wine country, where even the school bubblers released chardonnay. Patrick made a big song and dance about buying two bottles of expensive wine: one was $750 and the other over $1000. I’d never had such an expensive drink, but could not imagine that it was going to get a chance to linger on my palate if he kept talking at me at every given opportunity.

After a few drinks I felt an insatiable need for a cigarette, so I made my exit to the outside smoking section. When I returned he told me not to smoke for the rest of the evening, and I was taken aback. I was not doing anything illegal, I was not blowing carcinogenic fumes into his face—it didn’t affect him. So I neither acknowledged his request nor rejected it, I just gave him my very best raised eyebrow stare.

I did attempt to be a good girl for the remainder of the evening, but when one of his female dinner guests invited me to join her for a cigarette, I couldn’t refuse.

Right then, in front of all his guests he yelled at me: ‘Sit down! You are not to leave this table, I gave you strict instructions that you are not to smoke this evening, so don’t try my patience!’

Like all the other guests, I was in shock, but more than anything I was embarrassed for him. As far as anyone was concerned I was a girlfriend not a ring-in, so he had no right to speak to me like that. All the faces around the table studied their linen napkins, while Patrick’s female guest and I took our seats. It’s no surprise that few of us ordered desserts and cheese or coffee. My nicotine sister even came down with an immediate headache and left very shortly thereafter. With no one keen to join him for a nightcap, we headed back to our hotel. And things got really unpleasant.

As he was driving he had only had two drinks, one glass of each overpriced wine he’d purchased earlier. Back in the room, much to my disappointment, he was still functioning from the waist down. He attempted to lean in and kiss me on the lips, and I turned away—I didn’t allow lip kissing.

This infuriated him. ‘For the price I’m paying, I want to be able to kiss you.’

‘Oh god, not this broken record again? Which part of “I don’t kiss” am I not being clear about?’

We argued back and forth for a while until he tired of arguing with me, so by way of punishing me for my disobedience and insolence he decided not to shag me at all. I pulled out my book and read over Patrick’s snoring and the sound of semi-trailers passing just outside the bedroom door.

When I woke up he was already dressed in casual clothes and heading out, and I was worried that he was going to leave without paying me, so I quickly asked him what time he was anticipating we’d be back in Perth that afternoon. I could tell he was still pissed off about the previous evening so I thought I would turn on the charm and try to win him over one last time, for the sake of $1500. He took the bait, and started to remove his jacket, but the moment I turned my cheek to avoid the kiss, he was back to his hostile self again. Grabbing his jacket, he stormed out the door.

After three hours I got a bit nosey, and decided to investigate his overnight bag. There was nothing in it except the clothes he’d had on from the previous evening. Out of sheer boredom, I wandered about the hotel room tidying up, making beds and hanging towels, which is when I found his gold Rolex beside the shower under a towel. I quickly put his watch in his overnight bag and turned on the TV.

At ten thirty the maid came to clean the room. She was most startled to find me there—Patrick had already checked out and returned to the city.

I was livid! I had not brought any money with me to purchase a ticket home and the bus drivers only accepted cash. My Visa did not allow for cash withdrawals and being Sunday, the bus office was closed. So it was with great confidence that I grabbed my new Rolex and my handbag and hitchhiked my way home.

Patrick eventually turned up to retrieve his Rolex, to which I feigned ignorance. I did, however, insist that he owed me $1500 and bus fare. In the end, $2000 sparked my memory. Not bad for a $10,000 watch.

Competing with the junkies and tourist visa Asian and Russian sex workers was a nightmare. They charged so little they made our rates seem over the top. I recall one particular working girl who charged $40 for ‘short time sex’—approximately ten minutes. I became aware of her via one of my receptionists, who had contacted me desperate for a job, or rather, desperate to escape the employ of Mona.

Mona was a fascinating character: she was stunning—beyond stunning, she was supermodel material. She had an engineering degree with honours, and was halfway through her medical degree when she decided to drop out for a bit. Her father held a very esteemed position in the community with a long and rich Western Australian history. But Mona was apparently bored with the easy life and craved something else. So she pursued a career in the sex industry, to support her taste for heroin. She boldly advertised her model appearance, French and Greek but finished her ad with: ‘Full service $40.’ Which was shocking, considering that even the street girls charged $80. What she didn’t advertise, due to legal reasons, was that she also provided natural services.

I could not believe that clients would be so stupid as to frequent someone who took such blatant risks, but I was wrong. Mona did not take appointments, but rather gave out her address to every caller, then it was first in, best dressed. There were no sessions over thirty minutes, if you were still going after twenty minutes, you were kicked out. Starting rate was $40, French was an extra $50, Greek was an extra $50, and natural service was an extra $50. By ten am there would be fifteen men either in her lounge room, in the kitchen or on the front porch, waiting.

According to my receptionist, only half the clients chose to wear condoms for the service. Mona was so rushed that she didn’t even bother getting dressed, she would just ask for the next guy be sent in while she showered. Needles were sprinkled all over the home in plain sight. By the end of each day she had pocketed over $2000, much of which went straight on her habit.

The worst story I heard about Mona was of the day her partner died of a suspected overdose. Apparently, Mona dragged him into another room so she could continue to work until she had enough cash to buy her drugs for the day, then she called the ambulance and took the rest of the day off.

My concern was not for the profiteering Mona but for all the clients who seemed prepared to go swimming in shark-infested waters with five dead tunas strapped to their body. Especially knowing that over fifty per cent of our clients were married or in a committed relationship. There seemed no end to the clients’ selfishness.