My confidence always flailed during the quiet time of the year. I desperately started to question my beauty: ‘Maybe I am not busy because I am not good-looking enough. Maybe, if I was thinner, I could make more money.’ Ads in the paper are reflective of what men want, and it seemed to me that I was in constant competition with size-six girls with doubleD boobs. When clients rang up they were often asking for a porn star look, which was not me. I saw myself as attractive, but definitely not a porn star.
One of the most common questions I was asked over the phone by prospective clients was, ‘Are you busty?’ To this I always answered, ‘Ten D’. Some gentlemen would just hang up but there were the polite ones who said, ‘Oh, I was looking for a slim girl with at least a 38DD bust. Thanks for your time anyway.’ At first I would laugh at their request—didn’t they realise that a thirty-eight inch girl was bound to have hips to match? Didn’t they realise that being a thirty-eight made them a size twelve or more? Never in my history of working has any man ever asked me if I am pretty, they only ever ask, ‘What’s your body like? Are you shaven? How busty are you?’ They are looking for Barbie.
Even as a young teen I’d had a penchant for diet pills. The brand I used was eventually taken off the counter so I sought an alternative and found a medication for the morbidly obese. This required a doctor’s prescription, but that was no great hurdle. Here I was, five foot six and sixty kilos and doctors were stepping over themselves to write me prescriptions. I would take one diet pill in the morning and one sleeping pill at night to ward off the effects of the diet pill. With the help of this little pill I was able to limit myself to one meal per day and still have the energy to go to the gym or the tennis club.
I certainly had some body dysmorphia issues. No matter how many clients a day complimented me on my beauty and physique, I was convinced that I was a disaster from the waist down. When Poppy was away at camp or visiting my brothers for extended periods, I would go without eating altogether, except for miso soup. I was so proud of my self-discipline and jutting ribs. In a drastic attempt to lose weight I locked myself in an apartment located in the snow fields. It had a gym but did not have staff that serviced the dwelling, so there was no possibility of room service. I refused to pack a jumper so that I couldn’t weaken and leave the room to seek nourishment. Upon my return, friends were amazed at my transformation, which reinforced my belief in my methods. One of the girls who worked for me had a cousin who was a plastic surgeon, so I made an appointment. I was only in his office five minutes but in that time he had managed to take a few notes a few photos of my bum and book me a date to have a boob job. He instantly recognised I’d had a child and lost a certain amount of fullness to my breasts. I was nervous as hell, but I saw it as an investment in my income.
I recall after the surgery visiting my bank manager in his office.
‘Rob you are going to be so proud of me, I have finally invested my money.’
‘That’s great, Annika, what did you buy?’
I pulled up my jumper and exposed my new, fuller breasts.
‘Annika, they are very nice but that is not an investment.’
‘Well, Rob, I disagree, my income has doubled since having had them done.’ We both laughed. What I had said was true. The week I went back to work I changed my ads in The West Australian to read ‘Busty Beauty’. As a result, my phone rang twice as often as before. It was an investment, an example of my insecurity and a luxury of a girl who earns too much money.
Poppy was my biggest expenditure, and I could deny her nothing: piano lessons, gymnastics classes, Mandarin-speaking nannies, and ultimately private school, which was costing me $15,000 per year.
35
Morals Clause
While I was recuperating from my investment surgery, I received a phone call that my house had been broken into. I was furious, as you can imagine, but I was semi-confident because I had purchased home contents insurance. Thus within ten days I had all my possessions replaced and back sitting in their rightful position. Sure a bit of cash had gone and objects like autographed CDs couldn’t be replaced, nor could all the data saved on my laptop, but all in all it was not a big loss.
About four weeks later I arrived at work on Monday morning to find that yet again my home had been invaded and fleeced. Now I knew it had to be an inside job, and we had a prime suspect through stories that had trickled back to me.
The insurance people were exceedingly nice to me on the phone, relaying that it was not uncommon to have electronics replaced only for them to be stolen some weeks later; apparently criminals anticipate this and bank on it. But weeks went by and I could not get the insurance representatives to return my calls.