Mattress Actress (7 page)

During this period of homelessness, I didn’t contact my brothers or Ben—I knew they would only worry about me. I saw that as my job but I was petrified, worrying every night about where I would sleep, if there a way out of this sleepless cycle and when I’d once again have my own home, a safe haven.

I decided to take a client up on his most generous offer of accommodation at the motel he owned in return for occasional sex and light duties. I didn’t generally like seeing clients outside of work—first rule of the industry, keep work and home separate—but I didn’t see too many other options. Of course Tracy came along for the ride. She assured me she would help with the light duties, which included pool cleaning, room service delivery, helping out at the reception desk and cleaning the cocktail bar after it had shut.

John, the motel owner, only invited me to his room once during my entire stay. He was a true gentleman. Some evenings we would just sit talking in the bar until the sun came up. Like everyone else, he grew to hate Tracy, but he was too polite to make me ask her to leave.

I hadn’t been to Kings Cross as yet, so Tracy and I ventured in one evening. Music, restaurants, bright lights and exotic smells filled all my senses.

We were taking in the sights when a doorman invited us to come in and see a show. I had no interest in seeing the show, why would I want to stare at naked women? One couldn’t help getting the feeling that to tell him so would prove futile. Tracy on the other hand was very keen to see inside this sleazy little establishment. While trying to barter down the entry fee with one of the doormen, a more senior-looking gentleman interrupted, shouting something in Greek, and within seconds the doorman spun on his heels and was gone.

‘Are you girls models? If not, you should be.’

Like I was going to fall for that tired old line. But the man wasn’t going to be dissuaded. Tracy seemed mesmerised by him. She had a thing for second-hand-car salesman types so I hung around as well, purely in a big sister kind of way. After three hours of free food, drink and entertainment with the man, Spiro, Tracy had agreed to work in his club. Against my better judgement I agreed to become their new door girl primarily so that I could stay close to Tracy. But I can’t pretend that the Cross didn’t possess some appeal.

Tracy lasted all of two nights and I can’t blame her for leaving so quickly. Her job was completely belittling. Her uniform consisted of a tacky G-string, bra and four-inch heels. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had to walk around the audience as they ogled the strippers and ask them if they were looking for a good time. One out of every ten propositions would pay off. The payment was on a sliding scale, or basically up to the girl’s discretion; for example, if he was clearly a tourist or was well-dressed, prices started at $200. Of course the money conversations took place in a private room and if the potential client thought the fee was too high, the girls were always more than happy to compromise. If the client looked like a deadbeat, it was just a straight-up $40 fee. For all their effort the girls took home fifty per cent. Once the girls had hit the nightly target of $1000, anything they made after that was one hundred per cent theirs. Mind you, I never saw that happen.

My job was to collect all the girls’ money, write down what they made and buzz them when their time was up. It was also my responsibility to keep track of the strippers and the doorman. Basically, I was the banker. There were four doormen, eleven sex workers and twelve strippers, which was a lot to keep track of for me. Not to mention all the senior freeloaders, who were basically relatives or friends of the owners, DJs or managers.

The doorman would stand at the bottom of the stairs touting for customers. Once inside, the doorman would try to sell them a three-club pass for $25—of course the actual entry price for each club was only $8. And most regulars knew this. The whole thing was a scam. Patrons would take their seats, watch six dancers, then move on to the second club only to see the same six dancers do the same routine at the next club. Women were also encouraged to come in, and they were promised six of the hottest male strippers in Sydney. If that didn’t convince them to come in, they were told there’d be a live sex show in half an hour. For some reason they couldn’t grab their purses fast enough. An hour later they would present themselves at my desk, asking, ‘When are the men coming on? I didn’t pay ten bucks to look at women.’

My usual response was to pass the buck: ‘You’ll need to speak to the DJ about that.’ Or ‘I think you just missed him, he was dancing at Spellbound fifteen minutes ago.’ Either way, it got them out of my face. Sometimes the doormen would manage to sell a twelve-month pass for $150. In reality, if you ever tried to use it, you would be told management had changed and those passes were no longer valid. For that, the doormen would receive $100.

The average age for the strippers and pros was sixteen, but we had girls as young as eleven and as old as late twenties. I felt so sorry for them. For a fifteen-minute strip, the girls got $10 and on average they did eight shows an evening. Before they even finished their last show, most of the money was already spent on two sticks of dope at $25 each. The rest would generally go on food, drink, cigarettes and a taxi home. I couldn’t understand why they bothered. Eventually all the girls progressed to working the crowd to supplement their income. By now they really hated themselves, so the drugs got harder, and more costly. It was a vicious cycle that was beyond their understanding.

The clients were bottom shelf guys, predominantly drunk tourists or buck's nights, but there was always a solid flow of regulars. Or as I preferred to call them, paedophiles. I don’t say that lightly, but they would consistently ask me if the youngest girls were on before parting with their hard-earned $8. I quickly noticed that there was a solid fan club for the twelve- to fifteen-year-old age group. If my paedo-instinct wasn’t enough proof, these guys then selected the youngest working girls, who wore schoolgirl-esque costumes, handed over their $40 and asked for the schoolgirl fantasy to continue into the bedroom—the girls charged extra for that.

I was still doing three day shifts at Tony’s brothel as well as five shifts a week at the club, for which I received $50 for eleven hours. Being the stupid sixteen-year-old that I was, most of my money went towards updating my wardrobe, taxis to and from work, make-up and hair care. Supporting Tracy was also weighing heavily on my budget. She told me she was doing three shifts—I chose not to share a shift with her any longer. I was too embarrassed by her attitude to everyone she spoke to—a distinctly unjustified air of superiority dripped from every pore of her body and preceded every word.

Tracy rarely had anything to show for her hard work. I, however, managed to put aside a small amount each day towards my own flat. I didn’t give up on Tracy because I felt sorry for her. I thought her destructive behaviour was a direct result of her having to give up her son. Doing something like that must create immense guilt in a mother. I thought, given time, she would grow out of her negative phase, leaving the nice Tracy a chance to grow again.

Having shared an emotionally draining evening a few days later, Tracy broke down and confessed something that had been weighing heavy on her conscience: she was a witness in the Fitzgerald Inquiry. She hadn’t told me because she thought I would see her as a narc. I was shocked; not that she was an informer but that the police would choose someone who was such an alcoholic loose cannon. Here was a woman totally incapable of running her own life yet they expected her to help bring down the Labor Party and the police force. Tracy had only one incentive to do exactly as the DPP instructed and that was to get a bit of a reprieve for her baby’s daddy in prison. As she put it: ‘I just say what they tell me to.’ That made sense to me. Tracy would never do the honourable thing, Tracy was doing what the police told her to because there was something in it for her.

The next morning I woke up and Tracy wasn’t there. I went looking for her and couldn’t find her. There were no clothes in the wardrobe. The drawers were empty, no undies, no suitcase, no toiletries not even a toothbrush. She had taken off. I was panic stricken as she had taken everything I owned except the nightie I was wearing. I couldn’t believe she went so low as to take my hairbrush and toothbrush. I quickly leapt over to the bedside table, opened the drawer and ripped out the bible. Turning to Psalms, I found nothing but poetry. She had taken all my savings too.

I felt totally betrayed. I had valued the friendship to the point where I had stopped begrudging her not bringing in as much as I did or participating equally in the day-to-day bills. After all, I had been the one fucking the landlord. In hindsight I realised she had provided nothing but grief and a bad reputation.

I later found out the police had picked her up and taken her back to Queensland to testify before the Fitzgerald Inquiry. I never found out when they first made contact—there had been no phone calls during the night, so I was left to assume she planned the whole thing. She must have known she was going, and that was why she decided to disclose her secret.

I listened intently to the coverage of the inquiry. Tracy was embellishing every answer she gave, which was typical for her: never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I didn’t want to work in the brothel any more. There wasn’t a lot of money due to the fact that the other girls were haggard and brought the look of the place down. Tony being the kind, generous soul he was didn’t have the heart to sack any of them. After Tracy left, I did one last shift dressed in one of Tony’s white shirts, tied at the waist with one of his neckties. I had no undies or shoes and I borrowed some make-up from the receptionist. Amazingly the whole ensemble was very sexy and made me a lot of money that day.

I left La Belle Femme and John’s motel and rented a one-room place in Kings Cross for $120 per week. It was more like a hostel; I had my own room but shared a bathroom. It wasn’t much, but it was all mine. I needed a change of scenery to rid my mind of Tracy.

Even though Spiro was paying me a pittance at the club, I still enjoyed the work. Everything about the job was interesting. The scams, the girls and the strippers were especially interesting; watching them was like going to the circus. One girl in particular comes to mind. Her name was Laura but we called her Loopy. In fact, that’s how I was introduced to her by Charlie the DJ: ‘Annika meet Loopy.’

‘My name’s really Laura, but you can call me Loopy if you want.’ Loopy was a punk. On any given day she could be found with at least three different colours through her spiked hair. Tattoos covered nearly every inch of her body. Extreme body piercing topped all this off. Chains weaved through her ears, nose, nipples, belly button, the three studs in her clit and finally down to her anklets. When she hopped on stage men jumped—not only was she frightening to look at, but she was the most graphic dancer of them all. Loopy would get naked, then run around with a leather strap looking for victims. She would place it behind the head of one of the patrons then pull his head onto her puss. Most patrons simply rode with the entertainment and performed oral sex on her. She usually found two or three victims during a fifteen-minute show. At first I was disgusted by this woman’s performance, but after a while it became entertaining.

Her routine and appearance was in direct contrast to her personality. Loopy was the most softly spoken woman I had ever met. She would often talk about how her chrysanthemums were in full bloom and looked divine. Other times she would share stories about the recital that she went to on her night off.

Lola was another classic character. Her show usually followed Loopy’s, which in itself was an irony. Lola had danced with Les Girls for many years, then she was sacked after having a sex change. She was more woman than I was. She stood at six feet, was a natural blonde and had a body to die for. If she didn’t open her mouth to talk, you would never guess she had ever been a man. Lola saw herself as the great diva of the Cross, and I tended to agree with her. Her show was something straight out of a Paris cabaret, her costumes were the envy of every other girl and occasionally the brunt of jokes as well. When she wasn’t dancing, Lola could be found smoking her cigarettes from her five-inch filter. She was highly critical of all the other girls, saying, ‘This isn’t seductive, anyone can take their clothes off, oh, why do they even bother?’

My boss Spiro was married. He drank a lot and was a heavy drug user. The Cross was full of forty-year-old men who didn’t seem to do anything. They all drove expensive cars, had ostentatious jewellery and plenty of cash.

There were three clubs in total owned by Joe and Jim. Like everyone else in high positions in the Cross, they were Greek. The clubs were leased to Nico and Spiro, and Joe kept control of the largest club. There were two other clubs on the strip also owned by Greeks, which were always perceived as the competition. In fact, if you ever went to work for the Pink Pussycat no one would ever speak to you again.

The bouncers all had police records, and most of the managers were family of the owners. Joe and Jim both liked me. Jim was always in Greece and Joe was the one who looked after the clubs. He was the one everyone feared, yet at the same time aspired to be like. He looked every bit the cliché of a pimp. He carried a gold-encrusted walking stick. God knows, he needed something to keep up his large frame that was draped in gold chains, bracelets and rings. He was always surrounded by at least four henchmen. Joe would sit and talk to me and I learnt he had respect for me because I didn’t take drugs and, as far as he knew, wasn’t renting myself out.

Spiro was always coming on to me, after all, I was the only girl in the Cross who didn’t come with a price tag. To bite my cherry would have been a definite feather in his cap. I couldn’t tell anyone that he was chasing after me because no one would believe me. One particular night, I truly believed that he was going to rape me because of my continued rejections of him, so I finally told Joe. Joe stormed over to Spiro and threatened him with death if he touched me again.

Within a week I was informed that they were moving me out of Spiro’s club and over to Nico’s. They told me to consider it a promotion. I was still to be the door girl, but I was no longer in charge of buzzing the pros or paying the strippers. Instead I was to man the door—and still keep track of the doormen’s earnings—from the kiosk, which I now owned the lease on. I had to keep it stocked with chips, soft drink, pies and sausage rolls, and confectionery. In return I could keep all the profit I made.

Nico was nothing like the rest of the Greeks in the Cross and was genuinely a nice guy. He was about thirty years old, unmarried with no children, but engaged to one of the sex workers at Joe’s club. He didn’t gamble, he didn’t abuse the girls, he always showed compassion. He defiantly didn’t fit in but he was a welcome reprieve from all the bravado and gangster types.