Not Your Ordinary Housewife

6





It was a glorious spring day in 1984—eight months since we’d been back in Australia—when we moved into our new house on Kangaroo Ground Road. The paucity of furniture necessitated sitting on the floor, but we were content—I was six months pregnant with a loving husband and we had our own home.

Paul bought an airbrush and together we created a range of T-shirts to sell at markets. Diligently, we worked on our designs as I continued to teach stained glass. I’d given up on the idea of Paul getting a job in the current year, but we talked of him studying in the near future.

Paul finally received a letter from Saskia. While not overjoyed with being a grandmother at 39, she was apparently ready to accept me as her daughter-in-law.

A visit to the gynaecologist triggered ponderings about my adoption. He’d asked about my family history and I told him my mother died in childbirth. I was concerned this could be problematic—after all, I had narrow hips. He reassured me all would be well and the birth would be induced. After producing his diary, he announced it would be on a Thursday as Friday was his golf day.

Paul stayed with me throughout the labour which, as predicted, went smoothly. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl we called Shoshanna. Paul cried as he cut the umbilical cord. Surprisingly, she was blonde although her features were mine. This was the first time I’d seen anyone related to me by blood and I spent hours studying her tiny face.

Dory, despite her initial reaction to my pregnancy, was as proud as any grandmother could be. She came to see me daily, along with the many other visitors I received. I had asked her to process a roll of film, and she brought the sealed package to me just before I was due to be discharged.

I opened the wallet and flicked through the photos. To my horror, most were of Paul—in my clothes with his new sandals. He had borrowed my bright-red lipstick and nail polish, and tucked his genitals between his legs. The poses were of him blowing kisses—pouted lips and come-hither looks, all taken with the aid of a large mirror.

I confronted him when next he visited. ‘You were supposed to be getting the house ready for the baby and now I see what you’ve been doing.’ I banged the photos down on the hospital trolley.

He glanced at them and immediately I could see his embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,’ he assured me; but, somehow, the words seemed empty—devoid of sincerity.

‘Jesus, if you want to dress up, just do it . . . But do you have to take photos? And use my clothes?’ I begged him to help me understand his behaviour—it was too bizarre for me. ‘I’ve just had a baby to what I thought was a normal man—but this is unfathomable weirdness.’

Paul was contrite. He told me he couldn’t explain it, but he’d decided he was finished with ‘all that’.

Confronting Paul’s transvestitism was something I had avoided. There had been that first time in Amsterdam, when he’d wanted to know how he looked as a girl; and then there was the sandal episode. I sensed something significant was behind it all; I’d stupidly been making excuses to myself.

My experience of transvestitism was limited. I recalled seeing Polanski’s The Tenant, with its sinister overtones and cross-dressing theme. I had two friends who occasionally ‘dressed up’ in public: one as an artistic expression, the other in defiance of male stereotypes. By contrast, Paul’s transvestitism seemed clandestine and somehow sordid.

After a week in hospital, it was time to leave. My joy in coming home was destroyed when I discovered that Paul had failed to perform the tasks he’d promised to do. The baby’s bassinet was still filthy and her room was a pigsty. The whole house was in chaos, but I was in no fit state to do housework.

‘You were supposed to have some food in the house and have it moderately clean. This isn’t fair—what the hell have you been doing?’ I demanded.

I noticed evidence of recent dope-smoking and could guess the answer to my rhetorical question. Paul admitted he’d gone round to Dirk’s for some grass. ‘It was an early twenty-first present. I guess I smoked a little too much of it. I’ve just been incredibly stressed.’

‘Well, you’d better get a job. We haven’t paid Dory any rent yet and I’ve had to give up my teaching.’

Paul’s 21st birthday fell just days after the birth. He wanted a big party, and seemed bitter at having to settle for a few friends visiting. He made me feel guilty for not celebrating in style.

I informed him I didn’t have a 21st party and he should just get over it. ‘You wanted to be a father and you’ve made choices accordingly . . . So stop sulking.’

‘It’s just that I’ve always had shitty birthdays,’ he said. He related how, when he was fourteen, his mother had promised him a party. He’d come home from school to find her lying comatose on the couch—drunk. He asked about the party; but she screamed hysterically that there wasn’t going to be a party, because she was going to kill herself. He spent the eve of his birthday trying to stop her throwing herself off the fifth-floor balcony. The next day, he’d gone to school with scratch marks all down his face where her fingernails gouged his skin. ‘I told everyone the dog did it.’

It was such tragic episodes, which Paul recounted with incredibly expressive emotion, that always reminded me why I loved him. I could not stay cross with someone who’d suffered as he had. He may have been exaggerating, but my sympathy for his deprived childhood made me feel guilty for criticising him.


I had often thought that perhaps a part of my love for him was bound up with my compassion for his circumstances. Maybe there was even an element of me needing to mother him by giving him what Saskia had withheld—and I suspected that he in turn took succour from my maternal offerings.



To my surprise, I loved motherhood. I was now emotionally fulfilled. I totally devoted myself to my daughter and Paul became a doting father. Immersing himself in Shoshanna’s care, he tackled baby baths, nappies and 2 a.m. feeds—with kindness and love. I was touched by his tenderness and felt vindicated in my decision not to abort. As if making amends for our shaky start to parenthood, Paul got himself a job as a salesman for a firm selling cassette language courses. Another year had passed and it seemed he was no closer to studying.

With Paul’s job came stress and hostility towards me. It was his second summer in Australia and I sensed he resented me, perhaps blaming me for stealing his youth—even though he was the architect of his own predicament. Not unsurprisingly, our sex life waned: Shoshanna was sleeping with me and Paul moved into the spare room. Tensions between us increased.

I was feeling incredibly burdened by guilt, which he played on mercilessly: I had married a young man and now, with the arrival of our child, I was denying him sex. Yet I needed to be true to myself. This was a loving marriage—or so I thought—and I needed the love and tenderness in our daily lives to translate into the bedroom.

Something emotional was definitely shifting in me, changing gears—downwards. Paul rarely respected my needs or wishes, and I was getting little from him emotionally. Despite his consistent devotion to his child, our relationship had become compromised by his selfishness and what I could only describe as his craziness. His obsessions were spiralling out of control and I found them sickening because I’d always been well balanced and rational. As I struggled with this new phase of my life, I reluctantly had to admit that some of Dory’s misgivings had been well founded.

Paul constantly made barbed comments about my lack of interest in sex, and took to masturbating with a vengeance. I would find the accoutrements—the baby oil, the magazines, the greasy tissues—in the morning. He never seemed able to dispose of his waste and I wondered whether, beyond his innate messiness, this was a way of sending me a subtle message.

Paul’s stress levels rose in inverse proportion to his sales success, until finally he was let go. What had started as a promising career resulted in a financial deficit due to the purchase of a second car for his job.

He began to talk obsessively about Francine. We learned that she’d organised a sham marriage to stay in Australia and he wanted to notify the Immigration Department. ‘You know she’s just after Dory’s money,’ he warned me. ‘That crazy old woman hates you—you’re fecund and she’s barren.’ He was convinced Dory was going to leave everything to Francine, because she was the daughter she wished she had. ‘Unfortunately adoption is like a lucky dip . . . and she got you.’

I thought he was being ridiculous—Francine was just a friend of Dory’s.

‘Well, if she doesn’t leave her money to Francine, it’ll be to the cat home or some gay dancer’s fund,’ he forecast darkly. ‘You know that she’s a fag hag. Mark my words: it’ll be anybody but you, just to spite you.’

It was true that Dory liked cats and she had a number of gay dancer friends from the Australian Ballet, but Paul’s lunatic talk was making me furious. ‘You’re crazy. Completely meshuggeneh,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be talking about this—it’s tacky. I’ve never discussed money or inheritance with Dory, and I don’t intend to start now.’

But Paul persisted, spending hours trying to calculate Dory’s net worth. He used as a starting point her comment that she had enough savings to fund a nurse for ten years. ‘So that means, if you work on a thirty-five-hour week and an annual salary of, say, $30,000 and three nurses, and a compound interest rate of . . .’

I had always thought Paul and I had similar attitudes to money, but now I was finding out that he was unbelievably greedy. He was 21, living in a renowned architect-designed house and not paying a cent in rent—all thanks to Dory’s generosity. Repeatedly I demanded he stop with his comments.

I was also starting to worry about his mental stability. His obsessions with Dory and Francine were verging on paranoia. Even though I had studied four years of psychology, this was way beyond my ken. I’d done mainly ‘rats and stats’, but this seemed like a serious behavioural problem. I told him I thought he should seek professional help.

‘The only professional I should see is a lawyer—to see if Dory can legally leave you out of her will,’ he snapped. But he refused to get help. He was spending our paltry income on buying dope and speed, and he had started growing marijuana with seeds he’d smuggled in from Holland. He became fixated on creating mutant polyploid plants using colchicine, and his quest to create a super dope plant bordered on maniacal. He applied an uncharacteristic anal compulsiveness to his experiments, documenting them with an almost-scientific rigour.

His Dory obsession, however, also continued to dominate his waking hours. He would sit around drawing; but, instead of doing cartoons, he became preoccupied with designing extravagant extensions to the house—planning what he would do with Dory’s money.

Distressing as it was, I learnt to ignore his rambling diatribes, which he seemed unable to control. I was beginning to realise he was definitely not the person I’d thought he was, although his consistent affection for Shoshanna was reassuring.

His paranoia took a final turn when he started talking of putting a contract out on Dory. ‘It would be easy to arrange for a trip-wire . . . or a hit-and-run going up Narrak Road. Dirk has some friends . . .’

I was incredulous. ‘You’re making me sick,’ I screamed. ‘You’re out of your mind.’ I had totally lost my composure. Paul, however, continued callously detailing Dory’s proposed ‘accident’, ignoring my distress. I had never encountered anyone speaking with murderous intent and hoped it was merely some bizarre attention-seeking device.

‘Anyway, you’d be a prime suspect,’ I said, smugly. ‘And I don’t believe you’re serious about Dory. If I did, I’d kick you out.’

This seemed to work and, for a while, his insane behaviour abated.

I was visiting Dory each week with Shoshanna, but Paul was persona non grata there. He saw my absences as an opportunity to masturbate and smoke dope—usually simultaneously. The household chores were piling up and the garden was becoming overgrown.

Dory had been right: we were having trouble maintaining the property. Our financial situation was dire, because my glass-art income had now reduced to a trickle. Still, I was determined to be a stay-at-home mother even though Shoshanna had recently turned one and could have been left in child care.



Unexpectedly, Paul announced that he’d seen an ad in the paper for nude models and he intended to apply. Naively, I thought he was referring to an artist’s model, with which I was familiar through life-drawing classes.

He returned from the photo session in high spirits. ‘Well, that was the easiest $100 I ever earned. All I had to do was get my gear off and pose.’ And he mentioned to me how the photographer had a woman there, too.


‘What do you mean—you posed with her?’

‘Yeah. Don’t worry—nothing happened.’ He assured me that she wasn’t very attractive and I was much better looking. The photographer had told Paul he thought he could make some money working as an extra for TV, but he would need some headshots. He had recommended a photographer—a man called Ken, who coincidentally also lived on Kangaroo Ground Road, although we had never met him.

So Paul arranged a session and, when I saw the resultant folio, I was actually impressed. He was immensely photogenic and was soon getting work as an extra on local shows such as Neighbours.

Soon after, when Shoshanna and I returned from visiting Dory one day, Paul seemed excited. Ken had rung to say he knew a psychologist couple doing a sex therapy video; they were looking for actors. ‘He asked me what my wife was like, and I told him she’s gorgeous.’ Ken had kindly offered to do a screen test with the two of us—at no charge—to show them and the producer.

‘There’s no way I wanna do that,’ I said. ‘It’s so tacky.’

But Paul’s tenacity was unsurpassed. He worked on me constantly but I kept saying no. A week later, the phone rang. It was the producer. Paul got off the phone, smiling.

‘That was a guy called Greg Lynch—he’s really keen for us to do this video.’ Ken had described how photogenic Paul was and how he thought he’d be perfect for the role. Paul had already accepted the part, but Greg was trying to arrange another female because I’d refused to do it.

‘What—you’re gonna f*ck some woman on camera and you expect me to be pleased about it?’ I was upset that Paul couldn’t empathise with my point of view.

‘Hang on—we’re not gonna f*ck. It’s only R-rated. It’ll only be simulated stuff—you won’t actually see anything.’

‘But still, you’re gonna be naked with some woman . . . simulating sex?’

‘Well, maybe not naked—she might be wearing lingerie. Anyway, it’s an educational movie, not smut—contrary to what you might think.’ Paul’s tone softened. ‘I’d much prefer to do it with you—God knows we could use the money—but you said you weren’t interested. Think about it, though—all we have to do is f*ck.’

‘I thought you said there was no sex!’

‘Well, there would be if it was with you.’

I knew Paul was manipulating me, but I desperately wanted to make him happy. Somehow, I couldn’t say no to him. It bothered me that this was the case; I didn’t know why I was so under his spell. There were the tangible things, like the way he looked at me with soulful eyes, or the picture he painted of how the movie would solve all our problems; but it was much more than that too, as if I needed to please him at all costs. I contemplated only briefly what would happen if I simply refused to comply. I needed to acquiesce, as if to prove my loyalty and love; I was standing by him whereas others, like Saskia, had done him wrong. Why was I so unsure of myself and unable to stand up to him? I knew that most people would be appalled at my apparent spinelessness, but I suspected that my adoption was at the heart of it.

I accused Paul of being Machiavellian and manipulative— constantly talking me into things against my better judgement. I wrestled with my conscience. Was this tantamount to prostitution? Was this moral turpitude? Or was it justifiable as a practical solution to our financial woes?

Finally I relented—I’d do the movie because he didn’t seem to be capable of holding down a job and we needed the money. We’d been subsisting on one hundred dollars a week, so the prospect of being paid one thousand dollars each for our roles was a windfall beyond our wildest dreams. ‘But I’m not happy about this,’ I said. ‘And I’m definitely not doing anything X-rated.’

When I agreed to do the video, I knew then that I had crossed the line—that imaginary barrier that stops most people from undertaking sex work.



We met with the psychologist couple and the producer, Greg: it all seemed above board. He showed us the contracts, explaining that it would be R-rated—meaning that erections and penetrations were concealed. If we were agreeable, he also wanted to ‘shoot for X’, as he put it, so that we had the option of re-editing it later.

Again I protested, but Paul countered every argument I raised. He began berating me, repeatedly screaming that I was selfishly denying our family further financial opportunities. I guessed he was right and eventually backed down on my no-sex stance. Although I’d already agreed to the movie, Paul thought we should still take up Ken’s offer to photograph us: it would prepare me for what was expected in the video.

A shoot with Ken was arranged. I decided to wear my black torsolette with fishnets and high heels. I was very nervous, but immediately Ken put me at ease. He seemed to be more of an English gentleman, with his British racing-green Jaguar, than the sleazy pervert I had envisaged.

Ken’s bedroom, dominated by a big brass bed, had been set up as a makeshift studio. He explained that we’d start with me alone—that is, masturbating—and then bring Paul into the action. His directions were clear and concise: Relax. Don’t look at the camera. Shut your eyes. Don’t smile. Head back. Arch your back! interspersed with praise—Fantastic! Looking very sexy. Fabulous! These’ll be brilliant! As I followed his instructions, I had no time to hesitate. I wanted these to be professional shots and, when Paul joined me on the bed, I could tell that he was enjoying himself—his erection was instant and hard.

Before I knew it, Paul and I were sucking and f*cking for the camera. Ken gently guided us—never in a lascivious manner— suggesting positions and poses. He was purely concerned with making the photos as professional as possible. Still, I couldn’t wait for the session to be over. While Paul was obviously very turned on, I hadn’t allowed myself to become aroused: it would have felt too personal. I was, underneath it all, modest and, despite the fact that I’d just exposed myself to a total stranger, revealing my wanton side would have felt very inappropriate.

Afterwards, Paul was positively joyous, saying he couldn’t believe we’d just done a porn shoot. He saw it as a lark—something to boast about. I hoped that, if nothing else, it would bring a new closeness in our relationship—and that he’d stop pestering me for sex for a few days.

‘You’re a natural,’ Paul complimented me. ‘The photos will be amazing.’ I was unsure, although I sensed from the framed prints on his wall that Ken was an excellent photographer. ‘I told you it would be fun,’ Paul said.

I would hardly have described it as fun: it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but I was still feeling somewhat tacky. It had felt weird having someone present while doing something so private. ‘I’ve never had anyone watch me have sex—other than Chaimie—and rats don’t count!’