PART 27: BILLIE

April 2021, Regional NSW

So I'm sitting in my car at the moment doing this recording because I can't do this recording in my house because my mum recently moved in with me. I've been really lucky to be able to live on my own for a while and to be able to financially and mentally finance that. But my mum was, you know, in a bit of a housing crisis, so she moved in with me for a bit while she was finding her own place. So right now I'm sitting outside of my work in my car. This isn't really a day of work for me at all, really. So today was a really nice day.

Last week, I secretly dropped out of Uni, and I haven't told anyone. So most days I've been pretending to go to Uni. But today I actually took my dogs running and then I went to the gym and cleaned my car. You know, it's a bit of a double life where I tell mom that I'm off to Uni and instead I'm doing lots of things that are actually really good for my mental health when Uni has really been the exact opposite for me lately. I dropped out of Uni because, I was studying to be a paramedic, and it’s just been so fucking hard. Instead of giving me any feelings of reward, or encouragement, it's just been really draining and it's really been adding to my deep sense of depression. So I'm giving Uni a little break.

I think I'm just gonna focus on work and try and save up some money. So this afternoon, I got to work at 4pm. I work in a really fantastic brothel, I'm so honoured to have started out at the best brothel I've ever worked at. And I've worked in quite a few. You know, it's regional in northern New South Wales, so people call it a country brothel. But, you know, it's not like in the sticks. I also work up the coast at some places, but this place is just phenomenal. So I came to work at 4pm and no one came in. This week has been really dead. So I came in for a couple of hours, nothing happened. I was only coming back because there weren't enough girls on tonight, so I was only coming back so that a girl that work with, named Violet, wouldn't be on her own.

I had a pole dancing class tonight. I've decided to start doing pole dancing to basically increase my earning potential. I'm just, you know, fuckin fascinated with it. It's amazing to watch and I'm at one of the brothels that is also a strip club. So I've been really missing out on a whole market there and missing out on another sense of camaraderie there. So I really would like to do some pole dancing, too, for like a myriad of reasons but so I can engage that part of sex work. It was a really great class.

I had experienced a lot of trepidation before starting. I've been wanting to do it for years. For as long as I've been in the industry.  But I have been so hesitant to sign up to classes because I've been so scared about the culture that comes along with pole dancing classes. You know, I was so scared to start and have people in the class say things like, “I'm doing it for fitness, like we're not strippers”. I was just a bit scared that there was going to be some slut shaming and whorephobia. You know, one class in so far, and I haven't experienced any of that. I'm sure next week when we all introduce Pleasers to the mix and they will see that mine have been lived in for some time, I'm sure, there will be some whorephobic comments. But, you know, because I live in a small town, I'm not ready to be out. I'm not ready to spend the rest of the term of my class fending off questions about work. So I'm just going to stay private about it.

I think it is really a small town to work in. And it's a nice feeling like that. The other day when I was working up the coast, I was in quite a long booking with a worker who I have a very strange relationship with. And the client asked us something about if we ever have run into clients outside of work. And her response was, she has one run into one client outside of work in her whole career that spans a decade. I was flabbergasted because, in my town, I run into my clients everywhere and every day.

You know, today I was at the gym. I was sitting down on the floor on a mat with a medicine ball and a resistance band. So I was like, you know, quite bound and I couldn't get up and move. And one of my clients who I've been seeing for two years, came and sat down next to me and started chatting and babbling on to me. I run into my clients everywhere, you know, my clients deliver my mail and are my Uni lecturers. I think it's really nice to coexist in a world with my clients because I feel like it humanises them to me as much as it humanises me to them. It's a nice feeling. But when I explained it to this other worker, she basically called me a freak and was like, “oh my god, it's like your town is a cult”.  And, you know, there is some truth to that.

But that said, I am sitting outside of work because I'm leaving. After pole, I came back, and it's now 10pm and it was still so dead that I thought I'm just gonna go home. You know, my mom knows that I work but we have such a complicated and strained, nuanced relationship that I want to go home so she can see that there is some normality in my life by going to bed at a reasonable hour. Even though we all know I'm going to be laying in my bed awake until like 4am because I'm so used to working night shifts. I want to go home and lie on my bed with my dogs and it's really cold where I live at the moment so I've got my electric blanket on and just have a nice night.