God's Callgirl

by Carla Van Raay

  Ray watched helplessly as I ran to the basin and gagged and retched as the semen came into my mouth. He was so upset, but it had nothing to do with him. My body had remembered something my mind had long forgotten. It was a forceful reminder, and still I couldn’t put the pieces together.

  I TRIED TO change my career. For instance, I started up an introduction magazine—long before the local newspapers caught on to the idea. I worked hard, planning all the practical steps I knew were necessary for success. But although it seemed to others that I knew what I was doing, deep inside myself I was unable to truly envisage its success. There was something in me, like an authority with the power of veto, which made sure that nothing I planned would succeed. I sensed it, but had no idea how to address it. Eventually I called it by its name: self-sabotage; but daring to defy it proved absolutely useless.

  Tentatively, I went for counselling sessions in what is known as voice dialogue. Each and every time, the child-voice talking to the therapist started to panic and choke, unable to breathe. Neither the therapist nor I could work out what this meant. We never moved beyond that point and I gave up the sessions. The same thing happened when I took up rebirthing again. Even a session in a warm bath, to simulate the warmth of the womb, came to a full stop with that stressful, choking breathing.

  Inner child work was big at that time. The alternative magazines were full of it, and of phone numbers of practitioners. I decided to look one up. Alas, the woman blatantly tried to ‘mother’ me. In perfectly good faith, because she didn’t know any better, she tried to make me identify myself as a child that was totally dependent on her. At the time, I couldn’t verbalise the feelings that made me mistrust her approach, but they became clear to me one day when I was at her home and she answered the phone to a woman client, who, she later explained to me with pride, never did anything without first consulting her. The question arose: was this therapist just fulfilling her own needs?

  I went on the learning trail again, attending lectures every time somebody came to town who seemed to be wise and had something new to offer. I signed on for seminars in motivation, changing beliefs, all that. Maybe the reasons for my troubles were somehow stuck in my muscles and the cells of my body, I thought. So I allowed a bully of a masseur to rolf my body until it was covered in bruises.

  In order to overcome my fear, once and for ever, I walked on fire, on the longest strip of hot coals. Twice.

  I needed a rest from all this. For some time, I had felt an urge to go south, away from the city. I had never equated this urge with anything spiritual, so had allowed the busyness of my life to override it. It was the summer of 1984. I was living in East Fremantle with my daughter Victoria and had just bought a roomy car. I’d never been further south than Pinjarra, which wasn’t that far, but the call to get away was by now undeniable. I took Victoria over to Hal’s and gave myself a week to find whatever was waiting for me. I packed the car so I could sleep in it along the way.

  On that mysterious journey, which finally brought me to the little town where I would live for several years, I literally didn’t move until I felt clearly guided where to go next. I did not want to risk ending up in the wrong place by following my normal senses. I found myself in Bridgetown, sitting in a teashop, peering at a map and facing several possible directions, until it was clear to me that I should head towards Mount Barker. That afternoon, I climbed Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Ranges, creeping on my belly to the sheer edge, feeling weirdly afraid of plunging into the void below to join the wheeling and swooping birds.

  I slept in my car at the base of the mountain, not leaving until it felt right, then drove to Albany, where I swam at Frenchmans Bay. The next evening I found myself parked on a ledge, overlooking the ocean. The moon was bright, but I slept well. It was getting hot towards noon the next day, but I was willing to stay put until it became clear that it was time to venture on.

  Later that day, as I crossed the road after parking by the Denmark River, I was recognised by Mark, a man I had met in Perth. I was wearing very short French shorts and had a broad-brimmed hat pulled over my face as I headed to the deli for an ice-cream. As he passed me in his car, Mark couldn’t see my face but recognised the legs he had admired recently at Swanbourne’s nudist beach. His car stopped, reversed.

  That evening, at his invitation, I attended an outdoor gathering under the full moon. I met a group of people sitting on straw bales around a campfire, dancing to the beat of drums, and felt immediately at home—as if they were friends I had known many lives ago. I decided to return to Denmark for a weekend once a month.

  Six months later I moved there with my ten-year-old daughter Victoria, to a cottage a few kilometres out of town. It was a radical change, and would not be a bed of roses.

  THE SMALL TOWN of Denmark—still without traffic lights—lies among lush green hills and is surrounded by waterways: the river, Wilson Inlet and the great Southern Ocean. The coastline is spectacular beyond belief with white sandy beaches and quiet, lucid pools where granite boulders break the huge ocean waves. The majestic karri trees, unique to this part of the world, filled the beautiful valley I lived in. The joy and light of that special place easily made up for the old and draughty wooden cottage Victoria and I lived in.

  It was here that I met George, a man in whom I would finally find some of the characteristics of my father which I had managed to avoid in my previous relationships with James and Hal.

  George was a soft-treading, softly spoken, broad-chested man who carried slightly too much weight for the size of his frame. He was only just taller than me, but carried himself very differently: where I walked upright and straight, he ambled in the most disarming way. George had an abundance of black curly hair, some of which grew into a neatly kept beard. He had a compulsion for cleanliness, although at times he showed an appalling sense of dress. He had been brought up by his part-Indian grandfather in the beautiful mountainous region of British Columbia. George was forty-four and I was forty-seven when he moved on to the farm I rented. He put his caravan in the shed not far from the house and used it as his bedroom.

  My new sub-tenant had a habit of talking an awful lot and I found him tiresome until he became useful. I badly needed a man around the house, which dated back to 1945. George, it seemed, had the tools and the skills for any job. So far, so good.

  One day, as I was washing the dishes after lunch, he casually remarked that if I ever needed a sexual partner, he was willing to be a surrogate lover if I wanted. A surrogate lover! I sniggered. I didn’t see George as lover material—I knew of his predilection for dark beauties, preferably Asian ones, and his dislike of blondes. I was also three years older than him. In fact, I felt so sure of George’s lack of interest in me that I felt free to walk around half naked in the heat, as if he were asexual. ‘Surrogate lover’ were not words to turn me on either; they suggested a cold, sordid compromise.

  But George was one of those people who must never be underestimated. He had the patience of an American Indian. This had saved his life in Vietnam, when he had outmanoeuvred a VietCong guerilla in dense forest, knowing that whoever moved first was the dead man. George was disarmingly sweet when he wanted to be, and canny as any fox. His extremely lively and intelligent mind picked up and retained every bit of interesting and useful knowledge it could about the physical and psychological worlds of humans and animals. Knowledge, he knew, was power. I’ve seen him talk wild birds out of trees, coaxing them to sit on his shoulder or arm. He got on well with Victoria, who called him ‘adopto-pop’.

  George was a natural psychologist and his counselling skills have helped many confused souls. No one, however, could counsel George, whose sorrows and passions were too dark to be exposed and too difficult to handle. He had HD Thoreau’s disdain for the ‘good man’ and carried with him an air of amoral superiority. He believed that most people were stupid, that he could tell them anything and they’d believe him. And it was true that he had a very convincing manner.

 
The people who became his friends in Denmark were not born yesterday and had a keen ear for bullshit. Eventually George became a more humble soul—but long after the time I was with him.

  When George and I became lovers, I got to know him in an entirely different way. I quickly became enthralled by a magnetism I felt I had known before, perhaps in another life when the rascally Russian monk Rasputin was alive. The curious mix of cunning and innocence, the balming yet electrifying touch of the healer, the charisma of endless sexual energy was familiar to me. We were a perfect match in bed and I experienced lovemaking like never before. I opened up to George like a flower to the sun on a cold day.

  I wasn’t used to sleeping close to my partner, ever. George gradually taught me to stay in physical contact with him all night, snuggled up back to back. He used all the words of love, often in a charmingly child-like way, writing ingenuous messages on scraps of paper, accompanied by a carefully picked flower or two. And he said he only kissed people he loved. It was that one very special thing that made me believe he loved me, because I knew what he meant: kissing to me was private, personal and felt like more of a commitment than just having sex. I had rarely allowed my clients to kiss me. George’s lips were full, soft and ever so willing, and his breath was sweet. I was never more seduced.

  With George, I felt transported by a feeling of universal oneness, an ineffable completeness. I became lost in him. Before I knew it, I couldn’t do without him.

  After a year or so of this extraordinary liaison, George began to reject the attachment I had formed for him. He didn’t have it in him to be direct, so he started making negative remarks about our lovemaking—or mine, to be precise. ‘Why don’t you ever come at the same time as I do?’ he blustered. I was speechless, because I always did— couldn’t he feel it? But his carping remark impressed itself so deeply upon me that I was no longer able to have a cervical orgasm with him. I didn’t realise what he was up to; I believed that he was edging away from me because I was a poor lover.

  He continued to alienate me in other ways. He wouldn’t speak to me for weeks on end, keeping almost entirely to his caravan without an explanation, completely withdrawn into his shell. This sent me spinning into a frenzy of confusion and desire, which he simply ignored. Then he had sex with a visitor to our farm, a disciple of Rajneesh who later admitted that she had come with the specific intention of seducing George. She was dark-haired and sinuous and didn’t have much trouble achieving her goal. George didn’t ask my leave and he didn’t explain; instead, he told me that he and I were not having a relationship and we were not ‘an item’.

  I was beside myself with incredulity and jealousy and suffered for months. I had no idea how to break the impasse, especially when he’d suddenly relent, throwing himself once more into energetic sexual embraces with me.

  SUDDENLY, THE FARM was sold. This was heartbreaking for both of us; we had put so much energy and so much of my money into improving the place. We had six weeks to move out.

  It was the ideal opportunity to break up our dysfunctional relationship, but George had heard of a nearby farmer who needed a couple to caretake his property, so we went for an interview. The place was idyllic and with the job came a newly built house. The trouble was that apart from the main bedroom with an en suite bathroom, promptly claimed by George, there was only a small spare bedroom.

  ‘Would you live in this bedroom?’ was George’s direct question to me. I stood in the room; there was only space for a single bed. It had a lovely view, with the light coming in brightly through the window, but its very size suggested the subordination and submission that the power-hungry George would undoubtedly expect. ‘No, of course not,’ I replied, but my answer had been anticipated. The owner had been persuaded by George to provide me with a caravan and a few other extras to accommodate my needs. A soft light began to pervade my senses as the talking rolled on. I asked for a private interview with the farmer.

  I could have ruined George’s chances by simply telling the man that it wouldn’t work out, but I didn’t want to cheat George out of a job and his opportunity to be the lord of the manor. I simply persuaded the owner that George was an extremely capable man, who could easily manage my part of the job, as well as mend fences and deliver calves.

  When the farmer consulted his wife, who had been hovering with cups of tea and biscuits, they agreed. I asked to break the news to George myself, as it was going to mean the break-up of our relationship.

  George was piqued to have been left out of this conversation with the farmer, and curious and apprehensive as to its content. I made him wait till we were back at the farm and inside the house, before I told him about the favour I believed I had done him.

  Nothing could have prepared me for his reaction. George flew into a rage such as I never expect to see again in any human. I can’t remember his words, only his actions. He began to throw whatever was near him across the long rectangular living room. He started with ornaments—vases, bits of quartz rock, and pieces of wood gathered for their beautiful shapes—then the firewood, throwing with all the strength he could muster. The firewood went all over the lounge area, bouncing off the seats and walls, then he grabbed the dining chairs, dashing them against the floor before hurling them away. His fury was so immense that he finally ripped the door off its hinges, throwing it after everything else.

  I sat at the far end of the room, my elbows propped on the oval jarrah table, my fists under my chin, watching this tornado in awed fascination, my heart pounding with adrenaline, and, it must be said, with growing satisfaction. It wasn’t simply that I was finally having an effect on George the Quiet. It was an acknowledgement, deep inside me, that my decision had been right. This was a George I most definitely did not want to live with, under any circumstances!

  For George—who says he can’t even remember this occasion—his rage came from the bitter realisation that he had finally lost his power over me. The new job would have presented so many opportunities for him to control and humiliate me. Now they’d been taken away and, on top of that, he’d have to work harder! It never occurred to him to thank me for being considerate and not undermining his prospects.

  As it turned out, George stayed in that job for four years. He decorated the house till it resembled an Indian cave, and contributed to protecting the environment by shooting kookaburras (intruders in Western Australia and predators of native birds) and luring feral cats to their death. Eventually, his desire to rule soured the relationship with his boss. I thank grace for the good fortune and common sense that was granted me the day I said goodbye to George. But his larger-than-life character had inevitably left its mark on me, as I was to discover.

  I RETURNED TO Perth, where I met Persephone Arbour and joined her women’s group. For the first time in my life, I learned to open up to women. I had never confided in my mother, who was there physically but never available to me emotionally; she even competed with me. Unconsciously, I had related to all women as I had related to my mother: I had never confided in any of them.

  Persephone led the group skilfully, encouraging us to tell our stories and learn from our experiences. She injected a marvellous spirit of humour into those memorable evenings held at her home. I told the group about George, and learned about the concepts of co-dependency and self-esteem. I also told the women about my exploits as God’s Callgirl. I was prepared for them to be appalled, but instead we all laughed a lot and together began the healing of the dreadful wounds of the recent past.

  The laughter of my companions also helped me gain a new perspective on my previous sensual massage work. In this light, it seemed ordinarily OK again. What we did not touch on was the possibility that I had developed a certain disdain for men, based on the insidious belief that all they wanted was sex and that most were afraid of intimacy. This was a belief that had crept into my system without me even noticing it.

  Although my contact with Persephone eventually grew more sporadic, she has stayed in my life and been an int
erested, compassionate witness to everything I was willing to share with her.

  I HAD KEPT fond memories of my friends Don and Ruth, and one of the first things I did when I settled down in Perth again, and was teaching, was to invite them over for dinner. But they couldn’t make it, not then nor the next week. Finally Don said he would come over to talk to me.

  I hugged him cordially when he stepped onto my patio, but wondered at the stiffness of his body and his smile. ‘A lemonade, Don?’ He refused with an instant no and wave of his hand, but agreed to sit down in the pleasant shade of that hot afternoon. He got straight to the point, apparently deciding there was no time to waste on pleasantries.

  ‘Carla,’ he began, with head held high, ‘Ruth and I will not be coming over for dinner, ever.’ There was a pause while he eyed me sideways, perhaps to let this poisoned arrow sink in before his next shot. ‘You are an evil person, Carla,’ he said in even tones, as if he were a bishop or a judge. ‘We pray for you, but we have decided to have nothing to do with you. You have an evil influence over people. This is the last time I will see you; neither of us will ever talk to you again.’

  I was so shell-shocked that no thoughts would come, let alone the right words. I just couldn’t believe what he was saying. Don didn’t wait around for me to become coherent. ‘Wait!’ I yelled as he got to the gate, but still nothing had formulated in my brain that made any sense. One dreadful thought eventually became clear: Don had betrayed me—not only by telling his wife that we had had sex, but by blaming me instead of himself. I realised that judgment had been passed on me three whole years ago. They had said nothing to me then, and were not about to give me a chance to say anything in self-defence now. Even as I tried to speak, to convey my love to them, I felt the hopelessness of the situation. It had all happened so long ago. ‘Give my love to Ruth!’ I yelled, as Don let himself out and shut the gate.