At the time, I didn't know what path my future career would take, but it was enough to know that I had options. Little did I realise that, some eight years later, the legal and financial stuff would be completely out the window and, from another city on the other side of the world, I would be doing unimaginably crazy things such as selling my own used underwear from my website!
Chapter Two
MY BRILLIANT
CAREER
After the colossal psychic debris from the fallout with my mother, I knew that finding my father was something I just had to do. I had pretty much lost one parent, after all, so what did I have to lose in trying to find the other? I knew it was not exactly going to be easy, but somehow I needed to reconnect with him. I think I also felt a sense of purpose, because there was so much he didn't know in all the time he'd been gone and I kind of wanted to set the record straight.
Although he left when I was three, I still had memories deep inside me from the time when we were all together as a family. He used to sing me Beatles songs when I was a baby, so I grew up remembering many of the words in the Lennon/McCartney canon. To this day, I still love the Beatles because their music reminds me of my father. I saw him as a good guy who really didn't deserve the cruelty I'd been told my mother had heaped upon him, particularly the way she used to put him down in front of other people.
I hadn't seen him since I was about ten or 12. He had a wife now, whom I'd met in the past and had liked. They'd gone to live and work in Spain, but now, in 1994, they were back in Sydney, and I decided I was going to move there myself.
When I managed to get hold of him on the phone, I told him all about my life and how things had turned out with my mother and everything. He asked me if I wanted to move in with him and my stepmother, so they could help me out with my life. Of course, I jumped at his offer.
Seeing him again was weird, because I felt like a stranger. We had never really got to talk to or see each other much after the break-up. And as hard as he and my stepmum tried to make me feel wanted, I was still a rebellious teenager and a really messed-up kid. I know they were frustrated that they couldn't even give me hugs, since I was always so stand-offish. They gave me a lot of advice, although I hated being told what to do. I found a way to deal with it – it was easier to just say 'I agree' instead of trying to argue with them about everything. This seemed to work like a charm.
It helped that I really liked being in Sydney, which is still the city I plan to live in someday after I'm done with my life in entertainment. Sydney is just so beautiful everywhere you go, and there's something different in every suburb. The city is absolutely amazing, so modern, with skyscrapers and colourful lights. Darling Harbour was a new area then, and I liked what it had to offer, with lots of clubs and restaurants on the water. And, of course, there's Sydney Harbour itself, with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. The beaches are also wonderful, and I even liked the inner-city suburbs with all their different ethnicities and fine-dining opportunities. Everything was just so cool in Sydney. Brisbane was so slow in comparison. No wonder I got up to so much trouble there!
Sydney was a terrific place for me to start what I hoped would be my 'brilliant career'; however, the only problem was that I still did't know exactly what I wanted that career to be.
Dad was encouraging me to sign up with a temp agency, to get a job that would build on the office skills I had picked up in the conveyancing company in Brisbane, but I had always kept in the back of my mind the notion that one day I would somehow work in entertainment. So I took a catwalk and photo-shoot course and got some pictures together for my portfolio. I got a few jobs out of it, and I was even in the Miss New South Wales Beach Girl competition. I did a couple of fashion shows in the Sydney nightclubs, one for Dolce & Gabbana lingerie and the other for a swimsuit company. Meanwhile, I also signed up with the temp agency, and it was through them that my career in the financial markets got started.
I was placed in a position as a secretary's assistant at Westpac bank – an entry-level job doing menial tasks as a way of learning the ropes. My job was mostly about doing administration and running around town, picking up reports and other documents for the senior economist. Then I moved on to doing lots of typing (reports and forecasts that the senior economist had written), making phone calls and photocopying and distributing reports to the dealers. And then I did more running around town, picking up or delivering more reports!
The job was only supposed to be for two weeks, but after that my employers at Westpac were so impressed with me that they offered me a full-time job as an economics assistant. I was still only 16 at the time and they required that I at least have my year-ten certificate – which I didn't, of course, having been expelled from school. I told them I did, though, and they hired me. (Sometimes, you've got to tell white lies to get your foot in the door!)
It was exciting at the time, particularly the rush of the dealing room, but it's also an insane work environment. Westpac was a good start but it was sort of like boot camp for me. I was basically a shit-kicker, doing way more work than my actual job was meant to require, because one of the girls whom I worked for was so lazy that I ended up doing most of her work. I should've had her job, and in fact they did leave me to do it for a whole month at one point, after she resigned.
I handled everything beautifully but they thought I was too young to fill her role permanently, so they got someone else in. Well, hell hath no fury like a rookie scorned. I decided I needed more of a challenge and applied for a job doing foreign-exchange settlements at Lloyds Bank NZA. I went for the interview and, somewhat to my surprise, actually got the job!
To this day, I still think of my job at the pre-ABN AMRO Lloyds Bank as the most memorable of my financial-markets career. We were like one big happy family, up on the 47th floor of the Governor Phillip Tower in Sydney (which appears in a scene in the Keanu Reeves film The Matrix). It had the most beautiful view of Sydney Harbor, and the people there were all so cool. We'd all go out drinking and attend corporate dinners, and I made many good friends out of it.
But shortly after, Lloyds Bank was acquired by ABN AMRO, and I had no choice but to stay with them. We had to move to the ABN AMRO offices, and things suddenly changed. Their whole corporate culture was so alien to us and it became not much fun to work there any more, but we still managed to go out and have a good time.
After living with my dad and step mum for a year, I moved out and was living in Manly. I had a room in a three-person share-house. My two housemates were nice, although we did't hang out as friends. We all kind of did our own thing – went to work and went out separately after work – so I can't say I knew either of them particularly well.
I used to get up at 6 am every day just to go surfing before work. I paid for surfing lessons, that's how I learned, but it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done as a sport and I actually wasn't all that great at it. You need sheer persistence to keep getting out there and trying again every time you get slammed by a huge wave, which is bad enough in itself but might also involve getting hit by your board or being forced underwater and then struggling to resurface.
After surfing, I would catch the JetCat – an express catamaran that used to shuttle back and forth between Manly and Circular Quay – to get to work, which was a really nice way to start the day. Life was good.
In order to meet more people and try something new, I also did a course in bartending and got a part-time job at a pub called The Orient Hotel in The Rocks. I had a great time tossing bottles and glasses, and I practised when it was quiet. That wasn't oft en, though, because the place was usually packed and really rowdy, and there were lots of brawls there. It was so much fun. I did that for about six months, and looking back now I don't know how I ever managed to juggle it with working full-time at Lloyds. I was doing at least a few shift s at the Orient every week – mostly weekends, meaning from Thursday to Sunday. I would go straight from work and get changed at the bar, and then get straight on wit
h the bartending. (Talk about being a workaholic!) It did turn out as a great way for me to make new friends, though.
On nights when I didn't have a shift at the bar straight after work, I would go clubbing with the people from my bartending job, and it was on one of those nights that I took Ecstasy for the first time. That same crazy night, I met my first Lebanese boyfriend and I thought I was in love (when it was the Ecstasy speaking, of course). I spent most of the night dancing on the podium in the club while I was high as a kite, and so I was a serious mess the next day. I was supposed to work at the bar right afterwards, but I actually quit the bar job that very day. I just wanted to go out and have a good time for a change and felt I didn't need the extra money.
After living in Manly for six months, I left to move to the city, because it was taking me too long to get to work and back, especially if I wanted to go out clubbing at night. I got myself a studio apartment on Elizabeth Street, within walking distance to work and the clubs of Oxford Street.
Over the next few months, my life was all about clubbing, especially with my friend Kristie, whom I'd met out partying one night. Kristie lived in Penshurst, south of the city, and she asked me to move in with her. I was getting a bit lonely and was happy to have new friends, so I moved. I didn't care that it was almost as far away as Manly, because now I had more people to go clubbing with, and we would all pile into the car and drive. We had some crazy times together, doing loads of drugs and hanging out with a group of Lebanese men (who generally tended to have nothing to do with the drugs themselves), including that first guy whom I'd met and become smitten with. It was then that a few bad things happened in my Sydney life.
One night, I had organised to meet up with a friend's ex-boyfriend who was a DJ and had all the Ecstasy connections. I'd never met him before but had heard he was a good-looking guy who drove a red Honda Prelude. I went out with another friend and we were dressed up to the nines, as you tend to be when you're clubbing on Oxford Street. I was wearing this white vinyl dress, which, I guess, might have looked a little hookerish. We were standing on a street off Oxford Street waiting for him, and he was running late. Suddenly, this guy pulled up on the other side of the street in a red Honda Prelude. He was not bad looking, but not hot either. He waved for me to come over.
I went across the street while my friend waited. I said his name aloud and he said, 'Yep!'
I got in the car, handed him the money and he took it. Then I asked, 'So, can I have the Es?'
To my surprise, he pulled out his cock and started jerking off . 'How about a blow job?' he growled.
I was shocked. 'I don't think so!' I said. He responded by getting rough with me, grabbing my hair, leading me to wonder what the fuck was going on. I'd given him the money already, so I said, 'No, get the fuck off me!'
I asked his name again, and this time he said, 'No. You were expecting a drug dealer, huh?'
I quickly jumped out of the car and stood behind it, as if I was memorising his licence plate. I think he was still jerking off at that point. I then ran back to his window and said, 'Give me my fucking money back!' He threw it at me and threatened to call the cops on me. And I said I could do the same to him. I was so shocked. I ran in my high-heeled boots and called the DJ and told him what had happened. We ended up having a great night anyway, but I was shaking for quite a while after that.
Another night, I got beaten by one of the Lebanese guys, another of my new friends' ex-boyfriends, simply for taking her out to a club after they had broken up. I ended up taking him to court, and it really was one of the more unfortunate episodes in my life – because it brought back negative feelings from my years of childhood abuse, all the memories that I had repressed.
The Lebanese ex-boyfriend was psychotically obsessed with my friend, and when they broke up she begged me to go out clubbing with her on Oxford Street, which was a fateful move. When he saw us walking out of a club, he came up and punched me straight in the face, right in front of the bouncers. I blacked out and fell to the ground, and the bouncers took him out back and sorted him out. When I came to, I looked awful. My nose was swollen and bleeding, and it hurt like hell.
We drove to the police station and they took some photos. I pressed charges, but that didn't deter him. He found us the next day and from then on he followed us everywhere for a while, even to the police station! He was such a cocky bastard – he would drive by the station and rev his engine, then reverse up and down the street. The cops finally decided to chase him but they never caught him.
When the case came to court, the idiot represented himself. His story changed five times and he tried to act like a lawyer (obviously having watched one too many TV law shows). When he actually questioned me on the stand, he tried to put words in my mouth, but the judge saw right through him. And his ex-girlfriend (who was, by then, no longer my friend) was so scared of this guy that she said she hadn't seen anything. She was looking down the whole time while testifying and the judge commented on her body language and didn't believe her either. Basically, the guy got a slap on the wrist (merely a AU$1000 fine) and a warning that if he came near me again he would end up in jail.
Afterwards, I had to see a psychologist because I was having bad nightmares and serious bouts of depression. The image of him hitting me kept replaying itself in my head. The psychologist tried out this hypnotherapy technique on me called 'rapid eye movement desensitisation'. He had me close my eyes and call up the image in my head of being hit that night. When I opened my eyes, I would follow his finger as he moved it from side to side. We kept doing this over many treatments, until finally I could no longer bring up the image. It was like he had pushed it to the back of my mind so all those feelings disappeared. I can't believe that it actually worked.
I realised I had been going down a very dangerous path, partying too much, taking too many drugs and putting myself in dodgy situations. One of my good friends, who was the head of the FX (foreign exchange) trading desk at ABN AMRO, offered me a room in his awesome house in Drummoyne – free of charge! All I had to do was help clean. He loved to cook, so he would make the tastiest dinners for us. This guy used to crack me up every time I walked into the dealing room at work, and he always stuck up for me like an older brother (or perhaps a father figure). If any guys made rude comments about me, he would yell at them.
Living with him, I finally got off the drugs, took up kick-boxing again and saved a lot of money. He was like my best friend, and I would look forward to coming home after work and having great conversations with him. But several years later, he found out about my porn career and didn't really talk to me after that. Clearly, he was not happy to know that at all. The last I knew of his whereabouts he was living in Byron Bay and had married a hippie chick. I learned he has a daughter and is trading from home, which was always his dream. I'm happy for him, but it would be nice if we could still be friends.
After a year and a half at the newly merged ABN AMRO/Lloyds Bank, I was fed up with the strictures of the new office climate, so I went for an interview at CBA Futures, for a position in futures clearing, and they hired me. Futures clearing is basically when all the financial transactions, usually from the futures-broking department or trading-floor deals, get thoroughly checked and approved before being processed or settled.
I stayed at CBA for three and a half years, working my way up to become an assistant financial controller in futures broking and clearing. When I wasn't out partying with my work colleagues, I was kick-boxing five nights a week (which added-up to ten hours a week!) at Thunderlegs gym in Granville. I also did a couple of gigs as a ring-card girl at some fights, which is where I met a new boyfriend, who was a fighter. I was with him for about six months. I had quit partying by that stage, because, obviously, kick-boxing and doing drugs just don't mix.
All the time I was working in the financial markets, I was always studying other things, pursuing my other dreams. I took a class on modelling for commercials and they got me a big hair show on a huge stage
in front of a massive audience. I enjoyed being up on that stage, and it confirmed to me that I loved showing myself off in front of people. The only downside was that my hair got thrashed – they had coloured it with so many different dyes that when they tried to straighten it they couldn't. It was totally fried. Three hair stylists from a top salon couldn't even tame it, so they did an updo on me.
I think I was quite clueless about modelling, and I didn't pick the best agencies to work with. I was rejected from some of the top places, since at five foot five I was too short: the minimum height for modelling was five foot eight.
Feeling dejected about my modelling career, I decided at the ripe old age of 18 to get my Higher School Certificate via correspondence. I worked on that for a couple of years and did really well with my grades. I finished year 11 and started to work on year 12, but I was already working full-time, with longer hours and bigger responsibilities, so I decided I couldn't handle the correspondence courses any more and, perhaps regrettably, I stopped.
I took other classes, in an effort to sustain my sense of purpose. These included a whole variety of things, such as voice lessons, singing, acting and modelling, but I always got distracted with working or partying. I took a course in Swedish massage and almost completed that, but the idiot who taught it was a pervert who kept trying to get us all to go topless so he could teach us how to massage the chest, with no towel covering or anything. I knew what he was up to and, strange as it might seem now, given what I do for a living, I refused to take my top off .
Absolute Mayhem Page 3
