Tracy lasted all of two nights and I can’t blame her for leaving so quickly. Her job was completely belittling. Her uniform consisted of a tacky G-string, bra and four-inch heels. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had to walk around the audience as they ogled the strippers and ask them if they were looking for a good time. One out of every ten propositions would pay off. The payment was on a sliding scale, or basically up to the girl’s discretion; for example, if he was clearly a tourist or was well-dressed, prices started at $200. Of course the money conversations took place in a private room and if the potential client thought the fee was too high, the girls were always more than happy to compromise. If the client looked like a deadbeat, it was just a straight-up $40 fee. For all their effort the girls took home fifty per cent. Once the girls had hit the nightly target of $1000, anything they made after that was one hundred per cent theirs. Mind you, I never saw that happen.
My job was to collect all the girls’ money, write down what they made and buzz them when their time was up. It was also my responsibility to keep track of the strippers and the doorman. Basically, I was the banker. There were four doormen, eleven sex workers and twelve strippers, which was a lot to keep track of for me. Not to mention all the senior freeloaders, who were basically relatives or friends of the owners, DJs or managers.
The doorman would stand at the bottom of the stairs touting for customers. Once inside, the doorman would try to sell them a three-club pass for $25—of course the actual entry price for each club was only $8. And most regulars knew this. The whole thing was a scam. Patrons would take their seats, watch six dancers, then move on to the second club only to see the same six dancers do the same routine at the next club. Women were also encouraged to come in, and they were promised six of the hottest male strippers in Sydney. If that didn’t convince them to come in, they were told there’d be a live sex show in half an hour. For some reason they couldn’t grab their purses fast enough. An hour later they would present themselves at my desk, asking, ‘When are the men coming on? I didn’t pay ten bucks to look at women.’
My usual response was to pass the buck: ‘You’ll need to speak to the DJ about that.’ Or ‘I think you just missed him, he was dancing at Spellbound fifteen minutes ago.’ Either way, it got them out of my face. Sometimes the doormen would manage to sell a twelve-month pass for $150. In reality, if you ever tried to use it, you would be told management had changed and those passes were no longer valid. For that, the doormen would receive $100.
The average age for the strippers and pros was sixteen, but we had girls as young as eleven and as old as late twenties. I felt so sorry for them. For a fifteen-minute strip, the girls got $10 and on average they did eight shows an evening. Before they even finished their last show, most of the money was already spent on two sticks of dope at $25 each. The rest would generally go on food, drink, cigarettes and a taxi home. I couldn’t understand why they bothered. Eventually all the girls progressed to working the crowd to supplement their income. By now they really hated themselves, so the drugs got harder, and more costly. It was a vicious cycle that was beyond their understanding.
The clients were bottom shelf guys, predominantly drunk tourists or buck's nights, but there was always a solid flow of regulars. Or as I preferred to call them, paedophiles. I don’t say that lightly, but they would consistently ask me if the youngest girls were on before parting with their hard-earned $8. I quickly noticed that there was a solid fan club for the twelve-to fifteen-year-old age group. If my paedo-instinct wasn’t enough proof, these guys then selected the youngest working girls, who wore schoolgirl-esque costumes, handed over their $40 and asked for the schoolgirl fantasy to continue into the bedroom—the girls charged extra for that.
I was still doing three day shifts at Tony’s brothel as well as five shifts a week at the club, for which I received $50 for eleven hours. Being the stupid sixteen-year-old that I was, most of my money went towards updating my wardrobe, taxis to and from work, make-up and hair care. Supporting Tracy was also weighing heavily on my budget. She told me she was doing three shifts—I chose not to share a shift with her any longer. I was too embarrassed by her attitude to everyone she spoke to—a distinctly unjustified air of superiority dripped from every pore of her body and preceded every word.
Tracy rarely had anything to show for her hard work. I, however, managed to put aside a small amount each day towards my own flat. I didn’t give up on Tracy because I felt sorry for her. I thought her destructive behaviour was a direct result of her having to give up her son. Doing something like that must create immense guilt in a mother. I thought, given time, she would grow out of her negative phase, leaving the nice Tracy a chance to grow again.