Mattress Actress by Annika Cleeve
Prologue
The Mattress Actress
When I started out selling sex in Queensland at the tender age of fifteen, I wanted to be an actress. I’d done a twelve-month acting course and belonged to a talent agency but I had no idea what a mattress actress was or how to be one. I was talented at being young, blonde and attractive, plus I had big boobs. I didn’t know you had to work for your money. I didn’t know about tricks or anything about the business of acting to please men in bed.
But I was a fast learner and pretty soon knew everything needed to make every client happy.
I eventually became more than a prostitute; I became a professional sex worker. I moved to the high-end parlours and agencies; I ran my own business and travelled the world selling my craft to politicians, businessmen, rock stars, professional sportsmen and rulers of small countries.
What does selling sex mean? In reality, a sex worker is someone who doesn’t just sell sex, it’s someone who sells fantasy. My job was to work out what this client was doing in my house and on my bed. Only about forty per cent of the men I saw were just there for the sex. The other sixty per cent needed ego stroking—they needed a compliment, affection and someone to talk to. My job was to figure out what it was they were craving so they’d return every other week with another wad of cash.
I constantly had to keep my wits about me to protect myself. You want them to fall in love with the fantasy but not in love with you. That can be dangerous. When I was young, I used to think how great it was that these men were in love with me. With the wisdom that comes with experience, I realised they were in love with the fantasy.
One heart-breaking incident taught me a lot. I fell madly in love with a guy who was smitten with me; he took me out to dinner and away on holidays. Later I found out he knew nothing about the real me, nor was he interested in my dreams and aspirations. He was in love with the nympho who gave him sex on demand; who always pandered to his ego with compliments; who always gave him what he wanted; who was always clean and healthy. The real me with a runny nose or a period—no, no, no—he wasn’t interested in that.
I learnt the lesson that clients are never going to be in love with the real you; it’s the Madonna–Whore complex: every guy wants to marry a saint but they want to fuck a nympho. They will never take you seriously because you sell sex. They love the idea of being with you, but to get to know you—forget it.
A woman who sells sex must understand that even though a client may think he’s in love, she knows it’s his fantasy; that way she never has to give away her real self because he won’t take it seriously and he is never going to remember whatever she tells him about herself out of the context of her work. He doesn’t want to know that—all he wants to know is that she’s available on Tuesday at two o’clock.
A professional knows that the best business is repeat business. And the best way to get that business is to know what to say and what not to say—even if it kills you! If he tells me he’s an engineer, I tell him that’s really fascinating and ask him to tell me all about it. Maybe he’s looking for a bit of a laugh. If they’re fat you tell them they’ve got lovely eyes. If they go to the trouble of waxing their chest, you compliment them on their great physique. You never tell a man he has bad breath or ask him to use a deodorant even though every fibre of your being is suffering under his armpit. A girlfriend or wife might tell them they stink or are crap lovers but a professional is not paid to be honest. That’s why clients come back.
Put a condom on a man with quite a large dick and after three minutes he says he can’t feel a thing and you’re not making him come. The usual response when you tell him that the condom is too tight will be that you’re just blowing smoke up his arse because he’s got a big dick. You say, ‘Mate, I’ve already got your money, I don’t need to lie to you; the condom is acting like a tourniquet. So let’s just do it between the boobs with no condom.’
Someone less professional—a hooker, as I’d call them—would tell him if he can’t come, that’s his problem: ‘Time’s up, now fuck off.’