Not Your Ordinary Housewife

17





Paul hadn’t exaggerated when he said we’d been deluged with responses to our ad. Each day the post-office box was filled to capacity. We were despatching the raunchy four-page freebie letter signed personally by me, freebie photo and all-important order form almost as fast as requests were pouring in. The system of using the R Category 2 warning stickers to seal the hardcore photos was working well and we were regularly ordering reprints from Fletchers. We were also meticulous with our requirement that clients should be over eighteen and would send back any unsigned forms to ensure we were beyond reproach.

The order form itself evolved into a slick soft-sell document: the euphemistically titled ‘Scratch ’n’ Sniff Set’ contained one of my pre-loved black lacy G-strings, complete with a polaroid of me wearing the item in question. Paul’s marketing of the amateur photo sets also showed his usual flair. With the tag-line If they showed more, they’d be X-rays, he described each set: there was Masturbation (After all the sex, I still find time for myself: ten beautiful, dreamy but horny pix); Lesbian (Yours truly having fun with a girlfriend, using fingers, tongues and toys); Schoolgirl (I look very sweet, f*cking and sucking in my old school uniform); Oral/Cum (My favourite oral pix: sucking and sperm-soaked cum shots on my face, ass, p-ssy and breasts) and Anal sex (I love anal sex, and these ten shots are extremely hot hardcore). All were wrapped in a short story and sealed with the sticker warning that the material ‘may cause offence’.

The phone rang off the hook, with clients wishing to purchase the video and photo sets, and Paul quickly designed a phone order form with space on it to note individual requirements. (With one of his humorous touches, he put the heading ‘Pornographic Filth’ at the top of this form.) Some merely wanted to speak with me—usually with the phone in one hand and their dick in the other—repeatedly telling me what a thrill they got from hearing my voice. That they could actually call and speak to a porn star was a novel concept, which they embraced wholeheartedly.

I was becoming hoarse from the hours spent talking and Paul bought a telephonist’s headset so I could multi-task: often I engaged in erotic chit-chat with clients while simultaneously packing videos for the courier’s daily pick-up. Many clients wanted a horny phone call, and I was getting better at talking dirty. Occasionally I charged for these, but mostly I did it for free, especially if I liked them. Although I was not often lost for words, this was still one thing that I found difficult and avoided if possible.

Paul and I were working long hours. Through John’s company, we had access to their IT specialists and custom-made database. Data entry was a constant chore, but our mailing list was growing exponentially.

Paul returned one day from a trip to the CBD, telling me he’d just registered another business name—Fashions by Nikki. He waved the certificate in my face.

‘Jeez, what do we need that for? I asked, telling him that it sounded like a designer clothing label; but that apparently was his point. Admittedly, we could hardly have The Horny Housewife appearing on credit-card statements.

‘What would the wives say?’ he joked. ‘Our company name needs to be something totally innocuous . . . and besides, it ties in with the fantasy that the porn is just a hobby.’

Paul’s rationale was that the clients had to be able to explain their purchases to those wives who went through their statements. If questioned, they could claim they’d bought her a surprise present. He would set up a bank account and organise a credit-card merchant facility. ‘I’ve already designed a draft logo,’ he said, pulling out a piece of paper with a rough sketch. Underneath the business name was the subtext: Fashion Accessories and our contact details. It seemed he had taken care of every last detail.

As the business flourished, we were having difficulty keeping up with orders. We were getting weekly deliveries of videos from one of John’s companies, Capital Duplicators, which would in turn bill the joint venture. John suggested we hire a bookkeeper, and so one of his employees came to work for us—Flora, a middle-aged woman who possessed the required accounting skills.

Paul insisted on employing the accounting firm Deloitte Ross Tohmatsu as our auditors. We visited their city headquarters, and I was overwhelmed by its opulence: the green marble facade and plush offices. After our visit, we argued when I told him he was going overboard again; we didn’t need one of the world’s premier accounting firms doing our tax return.

‘You’re so Jewish—always tight with money,’ he sneered, sickening me with his prejudiced comments. Paul was always anti-Semitic when he was angry with me; when it suited him, he’d tell everyone that he was ‘saving up to be Jewish’ or that he wanted to learn Yiddish.


We’d only been in business a few months. Although we were turning over mountains of money, I didn’t know if things would remain viable long-term—I’d heard something on the news about new anti-porn legislation being mooted. Yet here we were hiring probably the most expensive firm in town.

‘But they’re the best,’ said Paul, completely missing my point. Thereafter, he would often steer conversations to a discussion of accountants, and then with great pride say, ‘Well, we’re with Deloittes’—as if this guaranteed our success. I cringed as I wondered what people thought of his puerile boasting.

It was at times like this that I wanted to totally dissociate myself from Paul and his values. The gulf between us was widening and I was finding it difficult to bridge the chasm that formed after the events surrounding Dory’s death. Nevertheless, our relationship reached a kind of détente. I was determined to take full responsibility for my decision to stay with him; I refused to succumb to a victim mentality—as he so often did.

Having decided to remain with him in Canberra for Shoshanna’s sake, I had to juggle being the best possible mother I could be while throwing myself into the business. Two separate personas began to inhabit my being: the real doting mother to Shoshanna, and the fictitious horny porn star to my clients. Neither my daughter nor my clients could know of this dual existence—my life needed to be perfectly compartmentalised.

The absolute separation of the office space within our home eliminated the possibility of Shoshanna being inadvertently exposed to porn—Paul’s wing was kept locked at all times. I longed to return to Melbourne with her, but she was now settled into school; also, part of me feared Paul suiciding . . . or police raids and another removal. I didn’t think any of us could cope with that.

I was determined to make the business as successful as possible, and I cannot deny that I enjoyed the energy that surrounded it. I suspected that Paul’s mental wellbeing depended on financial success, and our operation certainly provided a much-needed distraction from my grief.

I still hadn’t had time to mourn my mother’s passing; Paul hadn’t allowed that. Any references he made to her were still couched in derogatory terms—dark murmurings about her evil deeds or her anti-son-in-law will. I resolved to ignore such grotesque insults, preferring to focus instead on my relationship with Shoshanna and allowing her relationship with Paul to blossom. I spent my spare time sewing toys and knitting clothes for her, still attempting to assuage my guilt over her removal nearly a year earlier. I was homesick for Melbourne and miserable without friends, but she was my solace.



It didn’t take long before Paul was back to his old habits. He was again drinking—or rather, ‘enemising’—and cross-dressing. He frequently overstepped the mark. One Saturday morning, he emerged from his room clad only in a towelling dressing gown and his super-sized, black-patent-leather stilettos. He had shaved his legs. Shoshanna was in the lounge room watching television; giggling, she pointed at his high heels and asked him innocently what he was wearing. Without hesitation, he responded that they were ‘Daddy’s slippers’.

I was constantly worried that Paul’s aberrant behaviour would impact on our beloved child, and often chastised him for leaving around evidence of his activities that would be almost impossible to explain to a naturally curious five-year-old. Dismissing my pleas as ‘Jewish over-protection’, he ridiculed me, and said I was mollycoddling our daughter.

I tormented myself endlessly: despite taking responsibility for deciding to stay with her father, was it the best decision for Shoshanna? Was any father better than no father? Were our loveless marriage and his unusual sexual proclivities doing her more harm than good? What if he suicided? While I found these questions impossible to answer, I could not ignore the fact that, despite everything, his relationship with Shoshanna was exceptionally loving; it would break both their hearts to be apart. For the present, I was making the best decision that I could, with Shoshanna’s interests of paramount concern.

But things hit their nadir when I found a pair of Dory’s pantyhose in Paul’s den—he had cut a hole in the crotch so he could masturbate. I could barely contain my anger: they were covered in red wine and faecal stains from the enema.

I confronted him. ‘How could you do this to me . . . to Dory? It’s so disrespectful. Have you no shame?’

‘Well, you won’t f*ck me, so what choice do I have?’ he snickered viciously.

I reminded him of our deal. ‘If you don’t like it, you can bugger off back to Holland.’ I was irate. ‘Anyway, how could I f*ck you? I can’t respect someone like you . . . and letting Shoshanna see you with your size-seventeen stilettos and shaven legs.’ He was obviously so hungover he’d forgotten what he was wearing. I implored him to get professional help. ‘Go see Dr Rowland—you have a good rapport with him. He’ll understand,’ I said. ‘Please, I’m begging you—for Shoshanna’s sake, can’t you just be normal?’

But Paul couldn’t be normal and he refused to seek professional help. I just hoped Shoshanna was not permanently scarred by the spectre of her father in his custom-made high heels.



After making repeated requests, the State Trustees eventually contacted me regarding the contents of Dory’s safety deposit box held at her bank. I long suspected it would contain my Order of Adoption and I guessed, correctly, that my trust officer was hesitant to send it in case I was not aware of my adoptee status. Annoyed at this paternalism, I instructed him to mail it post-haste.

When we had been awaiting the court hearing in Melbourne, Dory’s desertion of me had sparked a new determination to find my biological mother. At that time I had placed my name on every contact register in the country and one day I had received a call from a staff member. He’d noticed that I’d put on the form that my mother died in childbirth, and he quizzed me as to how I knew.

‘My adoptive parents told me. I’ve always known . . . just like I’ve always known I was adopted.’

Then he asked me if I was generally healthy and whether I had any children. I replied that I was in perfect health—with one child. ‘Why?’

‘Because then it seems unlikely she’s dead.’

I was absolutely amazed. ‘You mean she could still be alive?’

He told me how he seriously doubted that she was dead. He said he’d heard this story so often, and there just weren’t that many childbirth fatalities in 1956. Apparently, it was the cover story that social workers at that time instructed adoptive parents to tell their new baby.

‘So you think she didn’t die in childbirth, and my adoptive parents would have known this wasn’t true?’

‘Presumably, but they were told it was in your best interests—so you wouldn’t search for a mother who’d already rejected you once.’

He explained that all records were sealed and no-one ever contemplated that the laws might change. He recommended that I apply for my ‘non-identifying information’: I would get my birth mother’s first name and a few broad facts. Her privacy was still protected and I wouldn’t be able to trace her, but these crumbs would be better than nothing. Apparently, the laws in New South Wales were going to change soon, so then I could apply for my original birth certificate, which would identify her by name.


I had been dumbfounded at the time and angry that I’d been deceived, but I’d chosen not to confront Dory with the information I had thus received.

But on the very day that Dory died, and when we were in the middle of organising our flight from Canberra to Melbourne, our phone had rung. Expecting it to be another sympathy call, I was astounded to find myself talking to a counsellor from the Department of Family and Community Services: my birth mother’s non-identifying information had just arrived and he wanted to fax it to me. At any other time, I would have been filled with excitement, but this was a case of unbelievably bad timing. I read the fax: her first name was Gertrude; she was 30 years old and single when she bore me; and she had been born in Queensland. I had stared at the sheet briefly before filing it. I knew that all this would have to wait a while.

So when at last I had in my hands the yellowing document I’d been sent by my trust officer, my fingers trembled. I was now ready to process the information I knew it would contain: my birth mother’s full name. I stared in disbelief as I read the name in capitals: SMITH, GERTRUDE ELLEN. I stared at the seal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Smith? How utterly frustrating. How would I ever be able to find her? In the documentation I was repeatedly referred to as the child, Unnamed Smith, to be henceforth known as Monica Lesley Stern. Apparently my birth mother hadn’t named me and, not unexpectedly, my father’s name was left blank. It dawned on me that, most likely, my birth parents weren’t Jewish after all. In one fell swoop, my childish fantasies of an interesting lineage were seemingly shattered.

Armed with a name, I now immediately applied to Births, Deaths and Marriages for whatever records I could find. All my searches drew a blank. I worried that, even when the adoption laws changed and I had more information and could locate my mother, she might not want to acknowledge me.

In the meantime, I’d have to content myself with monthly visits to the Adoption Triangle support group. This organisation attempted to link the three parties to adoption—adoptee, birth parents and adoptive parents—via a voluntary contact register.

I had joined some five years earlier, but unfortunately no match for my birth date had been found. However, it was at these gatherings that I was able to escape the world of Paul and porn, and be a real housewife. I used my official name, Monica, rather than Nikki, fearing that someone may recognise me. I was becoming well known in porn circles and Canberra was rife with cross-connections.

Through Adoption Triangle, I had been able to speak candidly for the first time about my experience of growing up adopted. Their meetings gave me a first-hand insight into the trauma suffered by relinquishing mothers, and my heart bled for them and their stories of substance abuse and suicide attempts. Most painful was their anger at the social workers who’d lied that the adoption was final, while deliberately omitting mention of the cooling-off period. I wondered about my own mother’s experience. Did she have regrets? Did she know about the six-week period during which she could have revoked consent? Would she have wanted to reclaim me?

I longed to know Gertrude’s circumstances, yet, paradoxically, learning her identity only served to accentuate my acute pangs of grief over Dory’s death.