Some of the typical stories that I generally got told were the old classics and almost sociologically understandable lies: I’m single. Or: I’m wealthy. My job was to sound ever so impressed at the client's business prowess and almost beg to be his girlfriend. There’s an old joke: How do you impress a prostitute? Pay her. My point being that clients didn’t need to impress me, I’d fuck them no matter what their story, but for some clients, the habit of bullshitting to get sex died hard.
Perth was such a small place that it was very easy to come unravelled in your own dream world. The funniest client I recall coming unstuck was a young lad who was always running late, and as a result couldn’t stay the full hour. Once in my room he would tell the tallest tales about how back in Sri Lanka, he was practically royalty. That due to his class he was constantly pursued by available young ladies desperate to date him and, ultimately, marry him. He apparently lived in a penthouse in one of the more affluent suburbs of Perth that was given to him by his late father. He derived his income from a string of nightclubs that he owned both in Australia and overseas.
And so it was that on one sunny August I was returning from the airport when I happened to pull into a service station for a quick top up. My hair was tied up in a quick ponytail, my sunglasses concealed an unmade-up face. When I paid I recognised that distinct Sri Lankan accent. Staring back at me were eyes just about bulging out of their sockets, and cheeks as red as his shirt. I handed him a $50 note and told him that he could keep the change.
He still came in to see me once, simply to explain how he was filling in for a cousin who owned the Caltex while he was away getting married in Sri Lanka.
I tried not to lie to clients, I just chose not to tell them anything. I thought this air of mystery added to my allure anyway. If questions became too personal, I always retorted with a quick, ‘Are you a tax man?’ Or ‘Are you writing a book?’ But more often than not I simply turned the conversation back to them.
The most common questions that clients would ask was: ‘What do you do for work?’
I would always answer the same way: ‘I’m a hooker!’ What did they expect me to say?
The other question they seemed intent on having answered was my real name. I usually responded with: ‘Seeing as though we are sharing personal information, what’s your VISA card number?’ The questions usually stopped at that point.
I was not entirely immune to lying, and the more the internet grew the less work there was out there in the sex industry, so some truths had to be stretched. In early 2000 there was an array of websites designed to match people who just wanted hook-ups. People were now giving away anonymous sex—how could I compete with that? My other major competition was the growing number of Asian girls advertising $100 per hour, $60 for half an hour and $40 for ten minutes. These girls made up sixty-five per cent of all advertisements. If you considered that approximately thirty per cent of advertisements are bullshit, or ads for women that don’t exist, this was a genuine problem.
I was advertising, ‘Stunning, 22-year-old, busty green-eyed beauty, 5’7, DD, model looks,’ and my prices were approximately $300 per hour. Yet if some smart madam on the other side of town put an ad in the paper reading: ‘Stunning, 21-year-old, busty blue-eyed beauty, 5’7, DD, model looks’, and charged $180 an hour, clients were obviously going to gravitate to her. The fact that she didn’t really exist was another matter.
My website was no longer unique; most agencies had websites but they were a joke. I had a fantastically witty Irish client named Sean tell me that he had visited one agency six times and had never met one of the girls who were pictured. So he decided to print them all out and take them in with him one night for a laugh. Of all twelve images, none of those girls were available, however in their place were twelve other girls. Sean asked the available ladies where their images were on the website, only to be told that they were in the process of being uploaded. The madam then offered Sean a discount on one of the other girls for the inconvenience. Sean then said, ‘Sure I’ll take twenty per cent off her, thirty per cent off the brunette, and for Christ’s sake put twenty per cent on that poor lass’s chest.’ The madam showed him out.
So to combat all of this, I decided to change my advertising approach. I put, ‘Stunning, 22-year-old, busty green-eyed beauty, 5’7, DD, model looks, prices from $100.’ My thinking was if you can’t beat the bullshit, you’d better join it. My rates were $300 per hour, $200 per half-hour, so I decided to add a new time frame: $100 for ten minutes, no French, or $150 with French. Surely no one would go for that, but it might get them in the door.
Well, I was completely wrong! I might as well have been advertising tomorrow’s lotto numbers. I had two work lines running into the house; if one line was busy the second line switched over. That phone did not stop ringing for two weeks straight. The first day the ad came out I made $2400 and my phone girl demanded a pay rise. Not one of my clients that day paid $100, all decided to stay the minimum $200. So it appears that a bit of bullshit paid off.
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Cigarette Clients