BY SEPTEMBER I’D HAVE been a year and a half at Il Fiore. Already it was long enough to consider its rooms my home, its people my community. I knew the moods of the place; I could gauge the climate and the fortunes; I was respected and trusted, I believed. Girls came and went, but there was a solid core of us who remained throughout. The receptionists were like family; Helen had good moods and bad, but maintained her control. The clients washed in and out the door and many of them were familiar faces.

I’d earned myself a nice stable of regulars, and their arrivals jollied me through each shift. I could count on two or three regs per night, usually; there were those who turned up predictably every week, and others who blew in on a whim.

I had a silent, rotund Indian man who could come three times in half an hour. I went through the same routine of coy encouragement every session, and he left with the same smile every time.

John was a builder with a burly physique, a Mills and Boon jaw and the bashfulness of a nineteen-year-old. ‘Gee, you look better every time I see you,’ he’d say, and I’d cuff him around the cheek. His sweetness undid me; he said he simply couldn’t pick up girls.

‘But you’re gorgeous,’ I said. ‘Are they mad?’

He blushed. ‘I don’t mind. I get to see you.’ He was shy in bed, too, holding me as if I’d bruise.

‘You can’t hurt me,’ I said, smiling down at his hesitant face. ‘I like to feel you. You can try anything with me. This is your time.’

The next occasion I dimmed the lights right down. The room was pitch black—there were no windows, of course. In the dark I took his hand. ‘We’re going to just feel it,’ I whispered, leading him to the bed by touch. I knew the room without having to see. ‘Anything you want.’ His hands clasped my hips; we moved slowly, with the care of the blind. His body grew taut and his breathing louder. I moved against him. It didn’t matter if I screwed up my face or if I thrust against him aggressively, and he surged back with unfamiliar passion.

‘Oh, God,’ he said and kissed me hard.

When we’d finished I left the lights down while we held each other, and at the end of the booking when I put them up again, it was slowly, with the consciousness of a blessing.

One of the house regulars was Yanni, a young man with an inheritance. He was loaded with money and a group of cousins and friends to party with us. They’d arrive with whoops and jokes and make Bernadette giggle, and then book the largest room, which had a king-size bed and a spa, and plenty of floor-space. Often we’d have three or four men and a few of us all together in there, with towels spread on the floor for extra room, one couple in the spa and two or three on the bed. My knees would knock against those of the next girl as we each straddled a fat belly and pumped and giggled and crooned. A hand crept up, not attached to the man beneath me, to fondle my breasts. The men were drunk and happy to stay for hours on Yanni’s credit card. It was a good time, but physically arduous. We had to do all the crouching and thrusting, and Yanni liked nothing better than a 69. An hour or two holding myself up on my trembling arms and keeping my crotch raised above his face while I laved his wet cock was tiring enough, but he liked licking both clitoris and anus, scraping his bristled chin across my tender skin with every stroke. One booking with Yanni made me a lot of money, but it cost me in pain and the effort not to complain. With a customer like that you couldn’t be too honest about their shortcomings. Luckily he usually stayed till the end of the shift; I walked away gingerly when he left.

Regs came and went. I’d see one of mine at the desk one night as I strolled by and when I greeted him he’d look behind me, to where Coral or Jessie was walking out beaming. I knew by then that the girl a man liked on a Tuesday wasn’t always the same person as on a Saturday. It had happened to me so often I’d lost all the feeling in that part of my pride. Or perhaps I had so much pride I could afford to let a little atrophy.

One regular I knew wouldn’t defect was Philip. He was a silent man with a bony, handsome face and a superb body, as clean and pale as a Greek statue. Sheepish down in the lounge, where Bernadette would escort him in to wait for me, in the rooms he would unleash an intense sexuality that genuinely aroused me. It was athletic sex. Pulled into every position possible in half an hour, I became pliable, swooning. The harder his grip, the softer I became. He adored me, and I cherished him. He was the type of regular who found a girl they liked—on Helen’s suggestion—and stayed with her until she left. I liked him so much I’d allow the booking to run on while he finished, and Bernadette wouldn’t say anything.

Mick was my other favourite. He’d arrive last thing on a Sunday night, usually when I was already in a booking, and I’d come downstairs to find him curled up on the couch, asleep. He worked in clubs and was always drunk, but he held it well. I found his stocky body addictive and I lavished my caresses on it while he lay flat on his back and joked with me. There were times when I thought I was a little bit too fond of Mick.

‘Can I please suck your cock?’ I’d ask, sliding up his body.

‘Hell, yeah,’ he’d mumble.

It was the men who recognised who I was who earned my sincere affection. They could ask how my night had been, and not flinch when I told them how many bookings I’d had already; they didn’t baulk when I requested money for fantasies. To them I was a lovely girl who was content to work. They got my respect for not pretending otherwise.

One young man reminded me that I was a working girl when I was in danger of forgetting. His name was Gabriel and he was a melancholy boy in his early twenties. He booked for an hour, and then two; he told me that he was depressed. He’d smoked too much pot and become isolated and a little lost. His honesty touched me. I admitted to him that I knew what drug addiction could do. I showed him my arms.

‘That’s no good, mate,’ he said. I kissed him on the cheek. He kissed me back.

He was good looking, with a fine young body and a handsome olive-skinned face and thick, long black hair; something in him drew me. When he came back less than a week later I was pleased.

‘I can talk to you,’ he said into my embrace. ‘I don’t care about the sex.’

I did. I stroked and teased him until he capitulated. My libido was coming back. It was strange, almost shaming, to find myself the one seeking sex and having to cajole it from a client. ‘That’s so fucking good,’ I said, hot-faced. He just looked down at me almost sadly, and went on thrusting. I liked to see him come, the way his face eased, the sense of satisfaction I gained.

He began visiting me several times a week, for an hour or two each time. I was gratified but concerned.

‘What about the money, you can’t earn this much,’ I said.

‘Fuck the money, I don’t care.’ He was miserable that night. I dimmed the lights and stroked his hair. ‘I just can’t—feel anything, you know? I just want it all to go away.’ My heart ached for him. There was something in Gabriel that I knew in myself.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘This is my email address. You can write to me if things get too hard, if you—you know—’

He took it. ‘Okay.’

The next time he brought me chocolate. ‘I know you like it,’ he said, smiling. Then it was a teddy bear with the saddest face I’d ever seen. Holding it was like holding a baby.

‘You should have kept him for yourself,’ I teased. ‘Don’t be so nice to me.’

We were getting very close. If he didn’t show up every few nights I was a little forlorn. He emailed me; I replied. I’d told him a lot about me. It felt so good to be open with someone, to share doubt and sadness. I knew something was happening beyond the strictures of work.

Then he came in and told me he wouldn’t be coming back. ‘I’m getting to like you too much,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t seem like a good idea. I won’t be using that email address anymore, so please don’t write. And, by the way, you should be more careful giving yours out.’

I looked at him and touched his face. ‘Are you sure?’ I didn’t want him to disappear. He was a friend. But I wanted him to be happy, not troubled over a working girl.

‘I brought you chocolate,’ he said. ‘Don’t eat it all at once,’ and he hugged me, and walked out.

The women I’d known on the street had, mostly, begun in brothels and then fallen from grace. I’d gone the opposite way. I’d worked my way in, and up.

When I passed through St Kilda on my way home, I looked out at the black streets, the occasional pale figure standing under a light, and shivered with pity. For them and for myself. It seemed a cruel exile, out there in the dark. Yet I still had a pride that I’d been there, that I’d had that apprenticeship. It gave me a sense of being equipped, of having perspective. From darkness to the glowing lamps of the brothel, it had been a long slow dawning out of shadow.

From the quiet beginning at Il Fiore I’d risen to being one of their most prized ladies. Even on nights when the drift of clients was slow, I would be booked. I’d stagger into the lounge from one booking, rushing off to the next, bemoaning my fatigue, while a couch-load of less-fortunate women watched me sourly.

Vanity was my fault. Giddy with the adoration of the men, the glow of success and popularity, I thought I could do no wrong. Now that I wasn’t using heroin, my mind sharpened; I talked non-stop, glittering and brittle. When Bernadette said, ‘I think you eat dictionaries, just to aggravate us with the big words,’ I thought it was a compliment. When Coral said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Lucy, just shut up a minute,’ I thought she was joking. When Helen said, ‘Lucy, if you’re late one more time I’m going to kill you,’ I imagined she was bluffing.

Things were going well for me. I was adhering to my methadone program and reducing the dose steadily; there were a few sticky hours every day before my dose, but I managed them and, by the time I’d been to work for an hour, I’d be fine. There was usually a booking waiting for me when I arrived—I’d have to dash to get ready, but I enjoyed the sense of diving into work. My gowns were dirty; there was no time to get them washed.

At home, life with my parents had settled. I scarcely saw them, with the hours I kept, but we had normal conversations when we passed in the kitchen. I drank coffee for breakfast, they were eating dinner. They seemed to have accepted the path I’d taken. ‘It’s not what we think you’d be best at,’ my mother said. ‘You have other talents. But if you’re happy, then that’s okay.’ I knew they told their friends what I did; they had resisted shame. That nearly made me cry, my parents’ bravery, their faith in me. Sometimes they even dropped me off at work.

‘Have a good night,’ said my father. He chuckled awkwardly. ‘Well, you know what I mean.’

Robbie had found himself lodgings, above a shop in Brunswick Street. The place was dingy but it was right above the major café strip and I sometimes stayed there. It was much nearer work than my place, and saved me a large taxi fare. We were still together; we hung out, we shopped, we spent hours musing over magazines and television and his new obsession, computers. The floor of his little room was always strewn with broken circuit-boards. We went to the chemist together every afternoon, wandered through the shops, and had a coffee in the same café; it became a second living room for us. I still gave him money. It wasn’t worth fighting about.

I had booked my ticket to Europe: straight to Rome, where I’d been before. I’d bash around Italy for a month, and then I’d set off to Paris and wherever else I liked. It was nearly ten years since I’d backpacked, and my world had been so narrow for so long. I was a little terrified of breaking out of it. I’d be so alone. Perhaps I would spend the first month crying. Hiding under a bed. How strong had I become? Strong enough to voyage even further from all who still loved me? But I was going. Leaving would solve all my troubles. It was a glowing portal on the horizon ahead of me. I scarcely believed it would ever actually be reached.

Helen looked bewildered when I said I would be leaving in September for a holiday. It did occasionally happen. Shelley had taken two months off, and returned. I said I didn’t know how long I’d be.

‘But you’ll be coming back?’ she insisted.

‘Sure,’ I said. I had nothing against working, but I was intending to go for as long as my money held out.

It seemed the more respectable my life got, the more obligations I had. When I was a junkie on the streets I’d had no bills, no dentist appointments, no visits to the post office. Apart from the terrible burden of using, life had been almost simple. Now my book of lists was full of chores that all necessitated getting up after only a few hours’ sleep and trekking into the city. I had to organise travellers’ cheques; there was a phone bill to pay, a haircut to get. There was no use in explaining to receptionists that, to me, a ten o’clock appointment was like two in the morning to them. In my skewed schedule lunch-time was midnight. I simply had to stagger out of bed, dress and lurch out to take care of life before I started my twelve-hour shift. More and more I relied on speed to get me through, and the more I took, the more hectically I reeled through the day.

It was fraying my nerves and health. I began to lose weight; people commented on my gaunt face. While I was using heroin, I’d always looked fairly healthy; now I knew there were mutters behind my back. She’s on something.

There were reserved bookings end-to-end and I started every shift late. The receptionists had to make excuses for me; I chattered on, glib in my confidence that I was a star girl and everyone would wait. It was winter, and the world was closing in with darkness. I thought, I’ll be crawling onto that plane.

As my methadone dose dropped, I felt the effects more and more. Only weeks before I was to leave, I reached the lowest levels of dosing; I was clammy and exhausted almost all the time. It seemed more than I could manage just to lie in bed and keep breathing; but I had things to do. And the end was in sight. For the first time in more than five years, I’d be free of chemicals. Anything I felt would be my own.

Something hard and purified came up inside me. I was driven by routine and responsibility. I had to get to work; I had to visit the doctor; I had to pay the bills on time. Ahead of me the thought of Europe was like north on a compass, drawing me closer. I lay on beds under grunting men and dreamed of peace.

Even after my very last dose, there was the backlash of the drug as it wrenched one last time at my shredded system. The next month, the month before I left, was the hardest. Every afternoon when I woke I felt I could have slept on for ever; lying there, willing strength into my muscles, I wondered how I could do it. Once up I was better, as long as I kept moving. But I was increasingly disorganised at work, or took nights off altogether. Helen called me into a bedroom at the start of my shift one evening.

‘What’s going on, Lucy?’ She wasn’t fierce, but she sat there with her hands folded in her lap and looked at me. ‘You’re late all the time, even worse than usual! And you look dreadful.’

Now was the time. I was sick of dissembling—after all these years, I was too tired to lie. My head pounded and my eyes were sticky with fever-heat. I had never known if she suspected I used drugs; she was a canny lady, but then again, she liked ‘types’, and I wasn’t the using ‘type’. ‘Helen, I’m having a hard time,’ I began. ‘I used to—I used to use heroin.’

She stared at me. She had a great poker-face, Helen.

‘I’ve been on methadone for two years now,’ I extended history to spare her the thought of me using while I worked for her. ‘I’ve just finished the program, I’ve done really well—been clean all this time. But it’s really hard, the finishing—it makes me tired and vague, it fucks up my head a bit—’

There was a pause. I stared at my knuckles.

Helen smiled, a sympathetic smile, concerned. ‘What do you need?’ she said. ‘I’ve got some valium, you can have that—I mean, if you’re a bit stressed, it’s marvellous for that. You do look awful.’

‘I was thinking—if I’m late, that’s why. If you can just be a bit patient with me…’

‘Well. It’s not fair on the other girls, to let you be late when they’re all ready at seven. But if you feel sick and you have to leave early, you just tell Bernadette or Maude, and they’ll make a note in the book.’ She stood up. ‘I’m glad you’re okay now, Lucy.’

She gave me a little hug. ‘Now, you’d better get ready. I think Gary is coming in for you in ten minutes.’

‘Okay.’ I went upstairs to put eyeshadow on my hollow eyes and powder to cover the sweat.

Business as usual, with man after man and happy conversations in the ladies’ lounge. I raved on and everyone grew used to my hyper-active rush and weirdly jolly moods. I wasn’t aware of how lax I was becoming, how carried away with the impression that I was perfectly charming until one young man said, ‘Do you think we could just concentrate a moment here?’ I hastened to put the condom on, forgotten in my hand as I made a point about the nature of capitalism.

In my high heels I could run up the stairs now. My lace panties grew frayed with the tugging on and off my hips. I knew sometimes I struck the wrong note, that I was too loud, or too brash. It felt good to be brash, to lead a room in jokes and walk into a conversation that opened up to let me in. I loved these women, so brave and so witty. In their company I felt loved.

‘I’ll be sad when you leave,’ Milla said. ‘I wish I could go overseas.’ She was fresh out of a stint in rehab, and quiet.

‘I’ll be back,’ I said, and nudged her.

Coral grinned at me. ‘You’ll go to Italy and fall in love with a gorgeous Italian hunk. That’s your type, isn’t it, Lucy?’

Bernadette put in, ‘Lucy likes the weird ones. She was all over that skinny little runt before—did you see him? Eyes like a bloody bug.’

‘I have lots of types,’ I said. ‘God knows, I’ve seen a few.’

*

I wondered how I would feel if I fell in love again. I wondered if I’d need to. At times it seemed that I already had enough of men. I could be besotted with them for an hour, cuddle and ravish them, and then watch them leave, before I welcomed another. I had my fill of adoration; now, when some man offered me a compliment, I turned it aside.

‘You’re too good to be here,’ said an adoring, round-bellied young Greek.

‘I don’t even know what that means,’ I said.

What more did I need? I had flesh, flattery and company. I had intimacy, if I allowed it; I had cock. Men waited hours for me. I thought it would have to be a pretty good offer for me to bestow my body on someone new for free.

And Robbie waited for me; when I got to his place I would slip into bed next to him and put my arms around him and he’d mumble something and pull me in tighter. When we walked down the street he held my hand. He listened to my grumbles and shared his own. Sometimes I was even still in love with him.

The thought of a new man, the right man, almost frightened me. How would I ever meet him, and how could I explain myself? I had been a drug addict, I was a prostitute. These things didn’t shame me, but I had no illusions that they wouldn’t alarm a man from outside.

‘Outside’ was how it felt. This world was cosy, cloistered, and it was all I’d known for such a long time; I’d been subterranean. The dazzle of the world, in daylight, would blind me.