We can socialise again now. Can even go to a cafe or a sauna. Brothels are still closed, though, with no clear open date in sight, even though you can be touched by a masseuse if you want, or if you’re a gay guy you can be touched by a stranger in a bathhouse – a loophole, because the government obviously hasn’t realised that sex occurs in gay bathhouses. I’m fretting at the closures. Who decides what are the most high-risk activities? I want to get back to work, I need the money, wish someone would design a professional glory hole I could work with, a corona-friendly sheet of perspex with a gash in it for clients to stick their cock through, and I could back my own gash up against it so they could enter me, my cheeks spreading against the barrier with each slam, you can look but you can’t touch.
That would’ve been genius. Instead, for the last three months I’ve been sneaking around in a grey area of the law, going to clients’ houses, unsure if I’m risking a fine. If I can go to a friend’s house to hang, and I can go to a friend’s house to fuck, can I not go to a random man’s house to be paid to fuck? No one really knows. The laws are mostly arbitrary and ill-defined and at the discretion of individual cops, and we all know what cops are like. The first time I left my home for a client I dressed in sportswear to seem like I was exercising and hid my condoms beneath a skipping rope, so I could claim I was just in the city to purchase it. The surveillance on the streets added to the intense scrutiny I already feel as a sex worker as I crept up the stairwell of the barristers’ chambers, and he fucked me on the boardroom table with the curtains open, overlooking empty office after empty office with all those people gone, working from home. An illicit fuck made even more illicit; I was right, though, that sex work will survive anything, even a city made vacant and still.
Wish I felt vacant and still. Still got that girl on my mind. What a fool I was to get caught up in a flirtation with someone overseas in a time like this! She’s playing you, my friends say, but I know I’ve really played myself, went into it knowing I was susceptible and it was doomed. I’ve had to dig the crush from myself, tucked away behind my final rib, deeper than the emotion I felt. Have had to slide my fingers through pulp and innards to pluck it out, (have been) gutted. I want to exhume it from my soul, too, but that’s proving harder. How do I wring an intangible thing? I can’t even find my soul with my hands, let alone rinse it and hang it out to dry. I want to see the crush drip drip to the ground, just as the water drips from my hair to the pavement now on the walk back to my car, toes purpled with cold.
I think I’m going to be frustrated till I can make you come, she said; it was simply sext talk, though, and she won’t be. But I’m going to be frustrated till I can get her out of my mind. If only I could shut her out as I’m shutting out that brisk breeze with a slam of my door. There’s not much traffic about; maybe I should swing by the Habit and drop those lemons off. Two dozen that I could never get through but will be demolished in a day in that queer share house. Always nice to drop in and see who’s there anyway; could be an iso aerobics class going, or a Fijian-style cook-up. It’s a scrap of community left standing with all the clubs closed, the building sagging and splitting at the seams, exploding with queer bodies, black and brown and white. Where we all ended up after the huge Black Lives Matter protest, around a fire pit while cops kettled protesters into Central Station and sprayed them with capsicum spray. Strange that it took media attention on black deaths in the United States for the average white person to speak about them here – as if we haven’t had blak people killed here for hundreds of years too. Is it because we consume more of the culture of black Americans than bla(c)k Australians? Do we only begin to care about marginalised people when they create art that we value, when they talk and move in ways that we deem cool?
The streets of Newtown are crowded, you could almost forget there was a pandemic if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re all trapped here, can’t leave the state or the country, and that does something to your psyche even if you weren’t planning on leaving. Knowing you can’t makes the borders shrink around you, like jeans in a bath, till you feel yourself tight up against the confines, constricted. The homeless man on my street who I give weed to is back begging in the daytime, though now he has somewhere else to sleep at night, he tells me: the government has placed him in housing because of corona. Great, but what a copout; it proves we could’ve been housing those sleeping rough all along. It’s masks-on in Melbourne though not really here; there’s a complacency with the low cases and the individualistic culture. The average Australian wouldn’t wear a mask to protect themselves during the bushfires; why would they wear one to protect others? Besides, 32 million HIV-related deaths couldn’t convince civilians to wear condoms . . .
Man, those bloody bushfires. When I last went home I pulled over halfway to see the regeneration, psychedelic green sprouting from trunks and earth. It seemed fresher somehow after the fires, reinvigorated. The paint was still melted off all the road signs, though, and when I went to the neighbours’ for a bonfire the horses they had rescued began to scream in terror; I’d never heard a horse scream like that before. Can’t help thinking the regrowth is just ready to be demolished in the next round, that it’s all in vain because the planet can’t recuperate faster than our intent to destroy.
Why even bother with it all? The world is dying and my friends could be dead before I can see them again, anyone can die at any moment and there’s nothing we can do about it – and what if I’m losing my last moments with them? Kept apart from those I love as the sand speeds through the hourglass, and who knows which days in particular are numbered? If I could delete myself from life and people’s memories I would; I’ve seen what grief can do to people, though, and I never want to inflict that on anyone, that’s the thread which holds me here some days: not wanting to hurt my friends. So I still plan for the future, because I know I’ll push through even if I don’t want to, because I have to. And at some point I’ll feel good again, even if for now I’m just going through the motions, parking my car, walking down the alley, opening the side gate and –
‘Heyoooo, who’s around? I brought you guys some lemons.’
And there’s a bunch of people sitting in a semicircle in the sun, with pyjama pants rolled up to catch the rays and fingers clutching ciggies.
‘Perfect timing, we were just about to smoke a joint – you want some?’ a trans girl says, and I gesture to her to stay seated as she gets up to greet me with a kiss.
‘Love that you’re single-handedly bringing back cold-calling,’ another girl quips, shaking her dykey do so it falls around her face like Leonardo DiCaprio in the 90s.
‘Yeah, I’ll have some, nothing else to do today. May as well be stoned in the arvo.’
‘Here, babes.’ A boy who doesn’t live there but drifts through hands me the joint. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘Really nothing, just smoking and masturbating and getting emotionally involved with a girl on the other side of the world and being devo about it – corona things.’
‘That’s so lesbian: long distance and yearning,’ the other lesbian drawls through a drag.
‘It is, but don’t you reckon iso culture is, like, lesbian culture? You know, baking sourdough and tending plants and taking up crafts and stuff?’
‘Not me, babes, I’ve been having lockdown orgies.’
‘Yeah, but you’re gay and a good-time gal. I’m not talking about you; I’m talking about straight people discovering what lesbians have been doing since forever.’
‘If we get corona from anyone it’ll be you, you’re basically a walking hot spot,’ the trans girl remarks to the boy as she gets up to go inside.
‘Yeah, coz I’m hot and a spot people want to go to!’
‘Byeee, Felicia.’ She waves as she steps over the threshold without even a glance back at us.
We all sit in silence, soaking up the sun, as the plants do beside us, their little leaves opened up wide in thankfulness for the day. It is a beautiful day; there are be
autiful moments in all of this. I have to remind myself of that, instead of wallowing in my heartache. I must begin to learn from my experiences and not just self-flagellate with them. In the past, I’ve bent over backwards in a sacrificial arc and torn the offal from my torso all to prove (I loved you) and to please. I must learn and unlearn: to give of myself without losing myself; to assert myself without fear; not to hinge my love upon the seesaw sway of a power imbalance but to step into the relationship as an equal rather than as a combatant already cowed and apologetic. Surely I can love truly, passionately, sincerely, respectfully without throwing myself in as the greatest offering. Twenty-fucking-seven years old and I can say this sub rosa, whispered into the ear of a lover, but can I actually carry it out with them?
‘Honestly, romance is a trap. I think I’m done with it forever. Like, I never want to date or get involved with someone again. It just makes me unhappy.’
‘You’re only in your twenties, all my relationships in my twenties were bad – wait till your thirties. I think having a break from it all and being single for a few years till you break whatever pattern you’re in is a good idea, though.’ Wisdom in her words and her fingers as she stubs out the joint.
The huge eucalyptus overhanging us begins to creak and we all leap up fast, the boy exclaiming, ‘Babes, I’m getting out of here before that widow maker drops something on my head!’ and she adds, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna go have a nap.’
Guess that’s the end to the conversation then, and I’ll head home. I’m feeling pretty slug; better to be feeling that than anxious. And, actually, a little bit horny; press my hand against my crotch as I sit in the driver’s seat to test how much. Definitely enough that I could be bothered straining my RSI wrist, can spread-eagle on my couch and luxuriate in a slow wank, heightened by the weed. Have to make sure I don’t think of her, though; it’ll just solidify the feelings I’m trying to move on from.
Meander slowly home, cutting through the grounds of Sydney Uni to avoid the traffic – that’s my right as an alumna, isn’t it? Who can I think of that’s not dangerous territory? Porn doesn’t work for me; my mind inevitably shifts to someone from my life. I can only get off to people who I know are or have been sexually interested in me, get off on their attraction as much as my own, imagine myself through their eyes touching me, a true bottom. I’m driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other lazily bumping against my pussy, conjuring up memories and shifting through them, rejecting exes as unhealthy. Maybe work memories are the safest. I’ve had lots of fun fucks with male clients, but none that I savour afterwards, want to taste on my tongue again. Men slather me in compliments and sometimes make me come and it’s all dust to me, doesn’t touch the real of my real, the part of me that’s wanted to woo women and be wooed by them, has wanted to pour the contents of my heart into a vase and present it, a pretty rose-coloured trinket, to the obscure object, has wanted to roll them up into a neat little ball and press it flat with my eager palms on her school desk, so she could read it and know how much I pledged, has wanted to string them up in neon lights so she could look out at night and see not the stars but my devotion.
Here I am in my lounge room, naked from the waist down because it’s too cold to be totally naked, licking the salt off my arm as I slowly stroke my clit, and I’m thinking of the middle-aged couple who book me, the man rich and the woman hot, with 80s curls and a rock climber’s taut rig that she keeps beneath mum jeans, because she is a mum. I think of how he pays me to fuck her while he watches, and how sometimes he helps but sometimes he can’t overcome his whisky dick, or sometimes he’s watching over FaceTime while on a plane, travelling for business. I think of her abs, slick with coconut oil, and her tribbing my thigh and the quick little sounds she makes as my tongue is against her and she gets closer to orgasm. I think of that time when I made her come with a combination of Hitachi and fingers and he asked me to stay for another hour for $600, and I broke the code of whore’s tact and said, ‘To be honest, I’m actually really excited to go home and fuck my girlfriend so I can’t, but this has been great foreplay,’ and how he was taken aback but she was touched. And then I went home and my girlfriend ripped my stockings open and fisted me from behind till I let out a primal howl like I usually only do in anal, when my body is so overstimulated that my throat lets go … not that memory!
Then what about that woman client who came in to the massage parlour when I’d just broken up with my other girlfriend and was crying over her in the girls’ room. Bottle blonde, tight black leather pants and ankle boots, a red sweater, gorgeous face. The other girls all gushed, ‘Why isn’t she on this side of the counter?’ I didn’t think she’d pick me; she was high femme and hot, and what did I have to offer her? I’m not attractive to women! I was so nervous in the room that my hands were shaking, hesitant to touch her. Did she want, like, asexual body sliding? Or did she want to orgasm? Or, like, was she not even okay with this and oh my god I shouldn’t even be touching her because maybe she doesn’t want this even though she’s paid for this?! ‘Ummm, so, do you want me to touch you? Coz I’m happy to – I mean I would like to – but I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.’ We ended up fucking and it was wonderful and that’s a special memory to me, because it came at one of my lowest points and was like the universe telling me, You will be all right, you will connect with people again, you will come back into yourself after feeling like only a husk of a human after an abusive relationship.
I’ve stopped fiddling with myself as I think of that, though. It takes me to too many other painful memories. Such as having an unpaid threesome with my ex a few days after I had broken up with her for hitting me, because while we were still together we had brokered a deal with an unethical lawyer for him to represent her for her DUI charge in exchange for three hours of our time, a deal that neither of them would release me from and is the only time I have felt really coerced into sex, with no way out and no cash consolation. Quid pro quo more like quid pro no.
Come on, reel your mind back in. What else is in the vault? How about that woman who grew up in the USSR, the one with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen and Soviet-style tatts down her back? The one who fucked me with the strap-on I brought to the booking and was soft to kiss and I wanted her to stay longer but felt pathetic asking a client, when I’ve always looked down on people who could fall for a client, to hang with me afterwards. I want to kiss her again, I want to be topped by her again, I want to befriend her like I do every cool and interesting girl. Fuck, it’d be hot if she booked me again – my quim quivers around my index. And what about that girl who was like my teen dream come to life, all curves and red pubic hair, and I ate her pussy while her partner fucked me from behind, knew his place like all good stunt dicks, and I could smell her on me in the elevator as I left.
There’s also that seven months’ pregnant woman who had never slept with a girl before but whose pregnancy hormones made her want to try it and whose husband left the house to accommodate us. I had never been up close to a pregnant woman and I’d certainly never fucked one. Her breasts were firmer than silicone implants, blue veins showing through the pale. I held her belly in awe. She felt no different inside from any other woman; I expected it to be different somehow. The way my pussy clenches now, though, feels just as hers did then. I felt a reflected glow from her, imagined myself pregnant through my partner’s eyes, finding splendour in the same things I was finding splendour in. God that was hot. More than hot, though, it was transcendental. I may not have a partner anymore but I can’t wait to be pregnant. I’d offer myself up to a select few, profit off the pregnancy financially, sure, but that’s just work and meaningless – what I really want is to give those I like the experience that was given to me, passing my fecund body into their hands with trust and desire. Will she want to fuck me when I’m like that? Not supposed to be thinking of her now but I’m a glutton, can’t help myself, and I’m so close to orgasm, think of her fingers teasing my labia beneath a
restaurant table, think of her looking into my eyes and asking if I want more, think of her pushing me up against the wall of a laneway, pulling up my skirt and fucking me fast because we’re too impatient to make it back to her apartment and privacy. I think I’m going to be frustrated till I can make you come, she said. You’re making me come now, though; I’m wet down to my wrist and there’s going to be dried cum along with the dried salt on my skin.
Damn. That was so good. But maybe I shouldn’t have done it. It was kind of a step backwards and, besides, what are the ethics of masturbating over someone who probably isn’t into you? Oh well. Maybe it’s only inappropriate if you tell them you did. This is between my pussy and me. And my mind – that organ which lusts after emotional connection more than anything else. How do I reconcile the romantic part of me with the pragmatic? What did that boozy tarot reader slur at me over a pack of cards and a glass of white in Enmore the other day? I need to bring the two sides of me that are at war together. But how do I do that? Do I clip one to fit the other?
I want to nurture someone, and the something between us, yet I don’t trust my taste in people, or myself in relationships. I bristle and burr with boundaries to protect my heart and as soon as I feel I am getting into someone I panic, which then fulfils my own prophecy that romance is bad for me. I want and I’m scared and I feel weak for wanting. I’ve tried romance a number of times, and Einstein says stupidity is trying the same thing again and again and expecting different results – so who’s the idiot here? Better just to stick to friends and casual sex than risk the complete and utter destruction which comes with that kind of vulnerability and sacrifice. Fuuuuuck that.
Nothing But My Body Page 13
