Soul Destruction Diary

Going Down – 25 December 2000 – 3.45PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

Entering the kitchen, I see a woman old enough to be my mother. She looks like she might even be a grandmother with those rollers in her greying, blonde hair.

“We’re having dinner in an hour. Can I do you up a snack?” She puts an apron over her pastel pink dress.

“I’m not hungry, thanks.” I can’t eat. I feel ill not knowing who had sex with me last night. I hope it wasn’t her. I can hear men talking in another room. Perhaps it was one of them. I don’t even know whose house this is, or where it is.

“Can I do you a tea or coffee, love?”

“Coffee please,” I reply. Heroin please, I think. I’m hoping there’s a smackhead in this house. I need a hit. I really need a hit.

“Come sit in the lounge with the others and I’ll bring it through in a minute.” The lady opens a door in the back of the kitchen.

Inside the room, there’s a strong smell of dope. Three men are sitting on a red leather sofa. One man sits on an armchair. Stix is one of the men on the sofa. Mickey is the man on the armchair. I don’t know the other two.

Who fucked me last night? I want to ask. I’m dying to ask. I have to know. But a girl can’t ask a question like that. A normal girl can’t and that’s what I want them to think of me. I’m a normal girl.

“Did you sleep well?” Stix hands me a joint.

I stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Kinda,” I reply. I take a pull on the joint. That’s not what I need. I need heroin. I’m clucking. My skin feels damp. My bones are aching. At least there’s a chance of having a hit now. Stix is on smack.

“So you’re the English girl Stix stole from the party. I thought it would be you.” Mickey smiles at me.

I don’t melt this time. Mickey is the man in the room that I want. The only man I’ve wanted in I don’t know how long. I can’t have him because I can’t be with a man in a normal way like other women can. Even still, I don’t want him to think I’m a slut. But now he probably knows I’ve slept with one of his friends. I don’t know which one but I know it was at least one of them. Or maybe it was him.

“Take a seat,” says one of the unknown men. He is really unattractive. I hope it wasn’t him. His greasy, brown hair falls on his shoulders. His teeth are yellow. His lips are crusty. He shuffles along the sofa, making a space between himself and Stix.

As I sit down, I have a memory from last night at the party in Dee Why. In my drunken state, I told Stix I was a hooker. That means every man in the room is likely to know this about me – every man including Mickey. Waves of shame wash over me. It’s just a job, I tell myself. It’s just a job and it’s none of their business.

“Mum’s doing Christmas dinner in a bit,” Stix says. “She’s making enough for you. I didn’t know if you wanted to stay or if you’ve other plans?”

So, this is Stix’s house. That means I’m in Elanora Heights, wherever that is. It might have been his room I stayed in. Maybe he fucked me. I look at him closely. He’s thin, gaunt, goateed and stubbly. He looks like a spider. I’m a spider-fucker. I could be.

“I don’t have plans,” I say to Stix.

I do have one plan, though – to get Stix alone. I’m craving heroin. I don’t want to say anything in front of the other men, especially Mickey. He said last night that he was three days off the gear. He’s only going to try to get me off it. I know what people like him are like. I used to be one of them.

Stix’s mum walks through the door, carrying a tray. She places a plate of biscuits on the battered coffee table. She hands out the mugs then leaves the room.

I take a sip of my coffee. “Can we have a private chat?” I whisper in Stix’s ear.

Waking in a Stranger’s Bed – 25 December 2000 – 2.30PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

I open my eyes. I’m in a blue bedroom, ocean colour blue. Pink Floyd posters line the wall opposite me. I’m lying in a double bed. I lift up the duvet, peering underneath. I’m completely naked – no knickers, nothing.

Whose bedroom is this? Did I sleep here alone? I slide my fingers between my legs. I rub myself. Bringing my hand up under my nose, I sniff my fingers. I smell of sex. I feel sick in my stomach. I feel sick in my throat. I’m going to throw up.

Rolling out the bed, I look on the carpet for my clothes. They’re not there. I run out the bedroom, naked. This landing is not the landing I saw last night at the party. The bathroom door is open. I throw myself on the white floor tiles. On my knees, head over the toilet, I vomit.

I wipe my eyes with toilet paper. I blow my nose. I rinse my mouth with water from the sink. I run the shower. I need to feel clean. I’ve had sex and I don’t know who’s fucked me. Did they use a condom? I might have caught a disease. I’m sure they’ll find something when I get checked at the clinic, if not from using Lorna’s syringe the other night then from this.

I doubt I’ve been paid, but maybe I was. While I’m waiting for the shower to run hot, I return to the bedroom. My hobo bag is on a wooden chair. I check my purse. There’s four hundred and twenty dollars inside. I’m sure that’s what I had in there yesterday. I haven’t been paid. I’ve had sex with a man for free. Perhaps it wasn’t a man. It could’ve been a woman. That won’t be so bad but it isn’t as likely. Most women wouldn’t have sex with someone as drunk as I was last night.

Back on the landing, I can hear voices coming from downstairs. I’m going to have to go down at some point. I can’t stay up here forever. I tiptoe into the bathroom. I step into the bath and get under the shower. I turn up the heat. The water has to be as hot as I can take it. It’s the only way.

There’s a sponge on the side of the bath. It doesn’t look clean. How can I scrub myself? Tears are making their way into my eyes. I need to scrub my body. I have to scrub it. Ten or so times, I wash the sponge with shower gel under the scorching water. It’s not as clean as I want it to be but it’ll have to do.

I wash my hair three times then finish with conditioner. While the conditioner’s working, I scrub my body thoroughly and rinse. I rinse my hair. Then I scrub my body again. I rinse. I do it again, and rinse. I do it again, and again, and again, until my skin feels raw and I can’t bear the heat and the rawness any longer. I don’t even know who I’ve been washing off me. I don’t feel clean. I need to know who it was and what happened. That should help. Knowing should help. I hope it does.

I sniff the towels that are lying over the bathroom radiator. The black one doesn’t smell of anyone. It smells of fabric conditioner. Wrapped in the towel, I sneak out of the bathroom onto the landing and back inside the blue bedroom. With the door shut, I look around for my clothes. There’s a pile of clothes in the corner by the window. I rummage around and find my underwear and my black skirt and purple top in amongst them.

Before stepping into my knickers, I sniff them. I don’t want to wear them if they smell of sex. Thankfully, they smell clean. Fully dressed, I rub my hair with the towel. I slip on my six-inch heels then return to the bathroom. I replace the towel over the radiator.

Standing in front of the mirror, I open my handbag. I have mascara with me because last night Lorna wouldn’t wait for me to finish my make up before we left my hotel. I apply my mascara then dig in my bag for a lip gloss. I sweep the pale pink shimmer across my lips. I don’t look too bad, though concealer to cover the trademark smackhead spots on my face would have been ideal if I had it in my possession.

With my hobo bag over my shoulder, I wait on the landing. I hear the voices again. There’s at least one woman and two men. I can’t make out exactly what they’re saying. It’s too distant. Do they even know I’m up here? The person who had sex with me might not even be here now.

I will not be ashamed. These things happen. Holding my head high, I walk down the stairs.

Picking Up Stix – 25 December 2000 – 5.10AM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

“What’s it like being on the game?” a man asks. He’s sitting next to me on the carpet. I turn to face him. His hair is short, dark blond, and looks a little greasy. He has stubbly cheeks and a goatee.

“Where did you come from?”

“You keep asking me that and the answers still the same – Elanora Heights.”

That isn’t what I meant, but I don’t want to appear rude. We’ve obviously been involved in conversation – a conversation I’m too drunk to remember. I’m furious with myself for telling a stranger what I do for work. I only do that when I plan to charge them. He doesn’t look like he can afford me. Another out-of-work, surfer type as far as I can tell.

“So what’s it like?” he says again.

I unscrew the cap on the bottle of Smirnoff in my hand. I gulp some down. It burns inside my chest. I look around the lounge. It’s spinning. We’re the only people awake. Others are curled up on the sofas, and dotted around the floor, asleep. “What’s your name?” I ask him.

“Stix.”

“Can you get any smack, Stix?”

“I knew you were on the gear.” He grins and his cheekbones become even more prominent. “People like us, we can tell.”

“We can. Can you get some then?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, standing up.

I already gave Lorna money earlier in the evening to buy smack. If she’s still here then I don’t need Stix, but it’s good to have a back up plan. I walk around the dimly lit room, looking for a body wearing my black, Moschino dress. There isn’t one. I go through to the hall and then the kitchen. There’s no one around. It would seem that the party’s over.

I’m too drunk to walk up the stairs in my heels. So I slip them off first. On the upstairs landing, all four doors are closed. The first door I open is the bathroom. There’s a woman on her knees, bent over the toilet. She’s snoring. I close the door quietly. In first bedroom, there’s four naked people entwined and asleep on the bed. None have Lorna’s long, blonde hair.

Slowly, I open the door of another bedroom. My black, Moschino dress is on the carpet by the side of the bed. Lorna is asleep under a duvet. There’s a man in the bed next to her. I can only see the back of his head. He has short, brown hair. I hope it’s not Mickey.

“Lorna,” I whisper, crouching by the side of the bed.

She doesn’t stir. I shake her shoulders gently. “Where’s my gear?”

“I’ve done it all,” she murmurs.

“But I gave you half the money.”

“You shouldn’t have had a hit without me then. You had one without me, so I had one without you. That’s how it goes big nose.” She turns in the bed, facing away from me.

Before I leave the room, I have to know if the man in bed with her is Mickey. I didn’t want to sleep with him before. Well, I did, but I couldn’t. But I don’t want her to.

I creep around to the other side of the bed. The room is dark. It’s hard to see. I take my lighter from my handbag. I hold the flame in front of the man’s face.

“What the fuck are you doing? Pyro-fucking-maniac!” Lorna shouts.

The guy, who isn’t Mickey, opens his eyes. Immediately, he sits upright. “Don’t do it, man.”

“I’m not… never mind.” Looking down at the carpet, I walk towards the door. “See you around, Lorna.”

Holding the banister, I carefully navigate my way down the stairs. I pick up my Louboutins when I reach the bottom. I’m not going to bother putting them on, not while everything’s spinning. I return to the lounge to find Stix. The goatee-surfer-man isn’t where I left him. I take my place on the floor again, sitting cross-legged, and wait.

My eyes are closing. I don’t know how long I’ve been waiting here for. I’m not wearing a watch. I never wear one. Time goes too slowly when I do. It feels like I’ve been sitting here for at least an hour. I’m in a stranger’s house where everyone else is asleep. I’ve nowhere else to go, not until Lorna wakes up. I don’t know how to get back to the Radisson from here. Lorna drove us. I don’t even know where I am. Some place called Dee Why. It doesn’t even sound like a real place.

It’s Christmas Day and I couldn’t feel any more lonely. I wish I was with my sisters and my brother back home in London. I don’t want to stay in Sydney anymore. I don’t want to be heroin addict. I don’t want to be a hooker. I don’t want to be anything.