Mattress Actress (28 page)

In any given month there would always be one phone call from a woman who found my number in her loved one’s pocket or phone and decided to investigate. Our standard obligation was always not to betray the client, because he’d be angry and respond with either aggression or punishment, by finding a new girl to hand over his hard-earned cash to. These calls were never pleasant – as a woman, I hated lying to these poor souls but business was business. So when they inquired who they were speaking to I gave them the name Cleo, and simply told them that we were moving interstate, and had about twenty different ads in the
Sunday Times
, selling everything from fishing and diving gear to golf clubs, and every possible household item you can think of. That usually placated them.

Occasionally you’d get a far more industrious lass who had already done her homework and connected the dots to the ads in the paper and knew her partner was on the prowl. My first question then was: ‘If you already know your man is calling sex workers, you have him by the balls, so why bother me?’

Still she’d ask if I knew her partner, telling me his name and what he did for a living. I know I’ve mentioned this more than once, but it really was true that almost every name given to me was John or every now and then I might have got a Sam. Even if the name and occupation did spark instant recognition, my loyalty lay wholly and solely with my bank manager. What did she expect me to tell her? ‘Oh, yeah, he comes in here twice a week, splashing around hundred-dollar bills like it’s raining money. That’s right, he’s the guy who loves me to spank him, and call him a naughty boy,’ or, ‘Oh my god, your boyfriend gives the best head, you are one lucky gal.’ Unlikely.

‘Look I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but most clients give me false names and occupations so I truly can’t recall your partner, what did you want me to tell you?’

Most girls at this point would just hang up, but the occasional persistent soul would continue.

‘I need to know, did he use protection? How long this has been going on? How much of our money he has been spending?’ With each question the emotion behind her words swung from frustration to the point of tears.

I felt for her, but I really couldn’t help her. ‘Let me relieve one of your concerns: I always use a condom and I have regular medical checks so I am one hundred per cent disease and drug free.’

The conversations generally ended with the betrayed girl feeling the need to strike out with a final passing shot at me, like it was somehow my fault: ‘How do you fucking sleep at night?’

Nine times out of ten I let that one slip to the keeper, but every now and then I retorted with: ‘Surrounded by your husband’s money!’

Sometimes it wasn’t the phone bills that were the giveaway but the bank statements. Constant and excessive cash withdrawals were a bit of a red flag. I could count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had to withdraw $400 in cash at an ATM. It’s one thing to smell a rat, it’s finding the rat that is the challenge.

‘Mum, there’s a lady at the door wanting to talk to you.’

Damn those fucking laws that say we have to work from home!

‘Hi how can I help you?’ I said to the rather solidly built and extremely well-groomed middle-aged woman darkening my doorstep.

‘I believe we have a friend in common.’

My heart sank, and my protect mode switched into top gear. ‘Really, who?’

‘Let’s not play games, my husband is Sean O’Donnell.’

I took a deep breath. I usually didn’t know the names of my clients but I knew this one. At this stage I was still unsure if she was aware that I was a sex worker or perhaps she saw me as his mistress.

‘Right, how can I help you?’ I could see Poppy was still sitting within ear shot, so I turned to her and said, ‘Honey go play up in your room for a bit while Mummy talks to this nice lady.’

‘I see she goes to the same school as my daughter. Doing all right for yourself, aren’t you? In fact I have friends who have kids in the same grade. I’m sure they would love to know that there’s a prostitute’s daughter in their class.’

I was in a tight spot. I didn’t want to talk in the front yard where neighbours could hear but I certainly didn’t want to invite this woman into my home. I decided to try to be as nice as possible for everyone’s sake.

‘I can see you are angry and hurt, but I think your emotions are misdirected.’

‘I want you to leave my husband alone.’

‘Look, do you think I wake up every morning, drive my daughter to school, come home, doll myself up, then grab the Yellow Pages and start prowling for customers starting with auto-mechanics and ending the day with zoologists? I place an ad in the paper, and clients call me! If they can afford it they get in their car and drive over. I don’t have to club anyone over the head and drag them back to my boudoir. If I do as you suggest and stop taking calls from your husband, do you honestly believe that will stop all your problems?’

She was speechless. Sean had already told me that he’d previously been caught having an affair with a girl he worked with and had nearly left his wife for. In Sean’s mind, our arrangement was a fair solution to all parties, almost admirable. He believed it was far better to help me financially, rather than become emotionally entangled with anyone other than his wife. Even with his history this woman still loved her husband, but she was hurt and angry, and needed to vent. And it’s much easier to yell at a stranger than at someone you love.

‘Now get back in your Mercedes, go home and yell at the real focus of your anger. You may hate me—and I wouldn’t blame you—but I didn’t resign from my career as a corporate giant to become a prostitute. My choices are limited. I’m a widow, trying to do the best by my child. So please do not ever threaten her happiness and security again, she has been through enough. She’s like you, the innocent in this scenario.’

The woman stared at me for the longest time, then with a distinctly audible huff she turned on her heel.

That night I had a call from Sean. ‘Hey Cleo, I’ve been kicked out so I’ve moved into the Hilton, fancy coming over for a few hours of fun?’

The weird and wonderful things clients requested never ceased to amaze me. Over the years I’ve seen how the weird has become the norm; when I first started, requests for golden showers were few and far between, by the end it had become a three-times-a-day request. Deep throat was the request that always amused me, because I never really understood it. My immediate reaction was that it surely depended on the dick? Four inches wasn’t going to go anywhere near my throat, six inches, maybe. So I would get the client to clarify and to my surprise I discovered they wanted to go so deep I’d be choking. They were hoping to derive sexual pleasure from watching a girl gagging and gasping for air on their penis.

I referred to this as sexcalation. As time went on and porn became far more risqué, requests became predominantly sadomasochistic in their tone: ‘What do you mean you don’t offer double penetration? Why won’t you let me try to fist fuck you?’ Even the language used in the room I never would have heard ten years earlier. I would even say to the clients: ‘You need to lay off the online German porn my friend, you’re getting weird!’

It used to be a case that for every three calls that came through I would nab one client, but times were changing and now it was more like one in ten. Fifty per cent of clients from the late nineties to the early naughties wanted or expected risky services, namely natural French. Now, we all know the most common lies told on the planet are: Of course I will still respect you in the morning; the cheque is in the mail; and I promise not to come in your mouth. There was no way I was going to risk my health for any amount of money.

My refusal was usually followed by ‘What if I give you an extra $20?’ Like somehow that would make everything all right.

Some clients were so bold as to ask for an entirely natural service and I would occasionally try to point out the stupidity of their request by pretending to have recently had a VD break out. I was always dumbfounded by the number of punters who did not detect my sarcasm and still wanted to go ahead and make a booking. So I gave them the address of the family planning clinic—obviously they needed it more than they needed me.

Herpes was rampant. Every week I would have to send a punter away with the bad news that they had a highly contagious disease that warranted medical attention. Only a few took me seriously but the majority dismissed my diagnosis as prejudice of some sort. Most would try to tell me that the abrasions and boil-like blisters were simply caused by a rather sturdy wank with no lube while wearing a ring. Yeah right!

One of the more obscure requests that girls like me would regularly get was the voyeur fantasy. This is where the client wants to slip money under your door, then view you discreetly through a bedroom window as you play with yourself or have sex with someone else. I had no problem with this fantasy initially, but I quickly realised that I was opening myself to trouble. My home at the time was a seventies-style brick and tile, with a little three-foot front fence and welcoming, gateless footpaths leading to the back of the house. My bedroom looked out onto the back garden. It abounded with large fruit trees and raised garden beds everywhere and Poppy had a trampoline and a swing set—in other words, there were plenty of hiding places for a sicko to wait while I unwound before sleep or, god forbid, spent the night with a man of my own choosing.

I clearly recall a young-sounding man phoning with a request to watch from the corner of the room as I masturbated. ‘No problem, bring you and your money over.’ I had done this request a hundred times previously and always the client is in his forties. So I was surprised to answer the door to a very good-looking lad of about twenty-two years old, softly spoken, with a slight build. I took his money with no hesitations and within ten minutes he left a happy young man.

Two weeks later he returned, but this time he wanted to watch me from the back garden rather than the corner of the room. To be precise, he said, ‘Can I hide behind the jasmine bush and watch you through the window?’

My instincts were on instant alert. How the hell did he know that my bedroom window was shrouded in a jasmine bush? He had only ever entered through the front door at night, so my bedroom window was a mirror rather than offering a clear view out to the garden.

‘How do you know there’s a jasmine bush outside my window?’

‘Uh, uh, I can smell it.’

‘Sounds to me like you have already done your reconnaissance.’

I took his money and showed him through the back of the house to the rear exit, past the study where all the phone lines and my computer were. I indulged in his little fantasy once again, which was more of a challenge, because it was now unclear when he was done.

My home was not centrally air-conditioned, instead it had one of those systems that sat perilously in a window frame loudly blowing cool air in at night. Due to its size I could not completely lower my rollerblind to the window sill, so there was always an open view out to my back yard day or night.

Sometime later I had my last phone call from my young voyeur. This time he did not even want to come into the house, he wanted to deposit his cash into my mail box with a note attached telling me the time he wished for the ‘show to begin’. At four pm I went to my mailbox and sure enough there was the cash and a little note requesting I begin my performance at promptly eight. This was starting to get a little weird even for me. I was not comfortable knowing that clients were wandering around my property at their own leisure, unannounced. Ordinarily his number would have been saved in the phone as voyeur1 or some such nickname, but it seemed that every time he called he used a new number. I decided then and there that I would erect a curtain rod the next day to hang a curtain to cover the part of the window the roller blind left clear.

Three months passed before I had a rather bizarre phone call on my work number from a private number. This person claimed to have found my purse at the local video store and wished to return it to me. I was instantly doubtful on multiple levels. Firstly, I never leave the house with my purse. Why would I—I earn so much cash and, thanks to the tax man, I can’t deposit cash in the bank, so I never had to use my eftpos card. Secondly, the video store that he claimed to have found my purse in front of had been closed for over six months, so his story had to be bullshit. Thirdly, if he did indeed find my wallet, why didn’t he call me on my home number rather than my work number, which is not written anywhere in my purse? Finally, I had used my wallet within the last week at my desk to quote my frequent flyer number over the phone, and since then I had not left the house. I was one hundred per cent convinced this caller had broken into my home and stolen it.

Not wanting to antagonise this psycho I simply chose to deal with him like I was oblivious to his little ruse. ‘Oh, aren’t you kind, thanks for your honesty, look you have my address so why don’t you just drop it in my mail box next time you’re passing by? Alternatively give me your address and I would be happy to come by your house and collect it.’

Now he was stumped. ‘Well, you see, I recognised your photo from your driver’s licence and I have seen your website so I know your occupation, I was hoping I would get a little reward for returning your wallet?’

If the pictures on my website resembled the photo on my driver’s licence, I wanted my money back from the photographer. His story was entirely implausible. The bloody cheek of this prick, first he breaks into my house and steals my purse, now he wants me to pay for it to be returned.

‘Oh, I see, you’re not a good Samaritan, you want me to pay for returning my own property? No problem, drop it over and I will give you $50 for your trouble.’

‘How about a free session with you?’

‘Tell you what, just return my purse, and we will come to some sort of arrangement.’

In my head I was planning on having him greeted by the local police and have the prick arrested for theft. He then went on to suggest we meet that night as he was going to be in the area. He made up some excuse that he worked in the mining industry and was going to be away for the next three weeks. Luckily it was a night that Poppy was at a sleepover so I agreed on the time he had suggested and hung up.

I immediately relayed the phone call to my receptionist Tina, and she too saw the holes in his story. She was happy to work a bit of overtime so that I wasn’t alone when he arrived.

Tina and I sat there with trepidation, but he didn’t show. He called an hour later to tell me that something had cropped up and he couldn’t make it. I sent Tina home and prepared for bed. Within five minutes of her pulling out of her usual car park, Stalker, as we called him, was back on the phone. ‘Hey, I managed to get my car going. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

I phoned Tina’s mobile, and begged her to get her arse back ASAP.

But that night he never showed up.

The following week I was made aware that my computer had been infected with a virus, a Trojan horse to be precise. Someone had been going through my emails and selectively deleting personal ones. My father always started his emails with ‘Good Morning Darling’, these ones were removed, as were other emails from clients that conveyed any romantic or sexual undertone. Whoever had done this now had my life laid out for him. All my family’s names, addresses, contact details, and the same with the odd client who contacted me via email. He also had complete access to my calendar; when I was out, when Poppy was home or away, when I worked and which phone girl was on which day. He now even knew my fucking menstrual cycle. It didn’t take me long to join the dots to my mystery caller of the previous week. I had my PC debugged and military-style virus protection added so that this would not happen again. I reported my wallet stolen to the police as well as the computer hacking, but I could tell that nothing was going to be done about it.

Over the next few months, Stalker called me, trying to arrange times to return my purse. He only ever called when Poppy was at school camp, or holiday camp or at my brother’s for the night because I had a late class. It could not be coincidence. The stalker and the hacker and the thief were one and the same person. If he noticed any other car in my driveway, he cancelled, if he saw another person through the window, he cancelled. I had started keeping a diary of the dates of his calls and recording some of them, just to try to get the police’s assistance.

One officer was so kind he volunteered to come over after work on his own time, because I was going to be home alone and was genuinely frightened. I gave him strict instructions to park his car nowhere near my driveway, preferably a street away, and not to be seen entering.

I made the officer a late supper and a coffee as he was going to be sitting up all night waiting for this creep. Every window in my house now had curtains and roller blinds, which were closed every single night. I made sure that the roller blinds didn’t just extend to the window sill but at least thirty centimetres past it. They were lined in such a way that from the outside looking in you couldn’t even see the shadows of people moving about. This was what my life had become.

The officer mainly wanted all the details of this nutjob and my suspicions. I had no option but to tell him the entire story, warts and all. He didn’t bat an eyelid when I mentioned my occupation; it was nice not to be judged for a change. We talked about his profession and how long he had been an officer, where he was from and some of the tragedies he had witnessed.

Then I asked him about the toughest task he’d ever had to perform. To my surprise he recounted a day not long after he had first started when he’d had to go to confirm the identity of a suicide victim with a very young woman with a child. He told me how it had broken his heart and how fragile but strong in character the young lady was.

I was taken aback, I tried to look at him through new eyes, and tried to place his face. I looked at him directly and asked if this young man was Eurasian and if he had drowned himself with body-building weights tied to his ankles?

Now he was looking directly at me as well, but he couldn’t recognise me. Then I was a victim, tonight I was a whore.

‘That was me.’ I told him the story of Ben. I told him that he had not brought me sad tidings: Ben had suffered and now he was at peace. The officer felt better for the exchange.

I, however, was exhausted and went to bed. The stalker didn’t show that night.

The following day, Stalker called to apologise for not making it. I’d had enough by now.

‘Listen here, Johnny Stalker, I know you stole my purse by breaking into my house, I know you hacked my computer, I know you like to look through windows and have a toss. Keep the fucking purse, I have already replaced all my cards, just don’t call me again.’

The following morning my purse was placed outside my bedroom door. How the hell did he get in? The police came by again with a bunch of CSI-style equipment. They extracted finger prints and the entry point but he was not on any record.

I never heard from him again.