Authors: Carla Van Raay
Philippe stopped speaking mid-sentence. I watched his horrified eyes, as he elbowed himself off me, shouting with sudden abhorrence, ‘You’ve become ugly! U-u-gly!!’
His mouth convulsed with repulsion. His reaction was so unexpected that I felt very calm, even amused, in spite of the insult. I was exhausted, and after so much alcohol I couldn’t possibly hide it. I felt like Cinderella in the coach that turned into a pumpkin on the stroke of midnight. The thought made me laugh, but Philippe was deadly serious. He got into his clothes, ran for the fridge to retrieve the rest of the chartreuse, and left without saying goodbye.
No manners from
this
French beau! Midnight might have turned him into a rat, but the whole thing was so funny, and the evening had been so exhausting, that I was glad to reach for the light switch and go to sleep without even bothering to brush my teeth.
MY THEATRICAL SIDE
came out to play. I took to wearing a shiny top hat with anything that seemed to go with it—knee-high boots, sometimes a dinner jacket, lace gloves—and I smoked small port cigars, although I was never a smoker before and I didn’t know how to inhale. I wore this marvellous gear at home for some of my guests, and to parties with my friends.
I posed as a lesbian at my friend Victor’s party. Victor was my masseur at the clinic I frequented; he was from South Africa, an easy talker, young and muscular, exuding sexual charm as if he was the originator of it. On that cold evening, I greeted young women as they entered the door, offering to warm their hands or fetch them a hot cocktail, leading them to the fireplace, making complimentary remarks about their make-up or their hair, and asking them to sit on my knee. It was funny to watch their surprise—at first pleasant, if a little overwhelmed—then see it change to suspicion, and eventually, without exception, to wordless rejection.
I expected the shake-off. I would have been embarrassed if anyone had taken me seriously! In mock disappointment I joined a group of gay guys, imitating their stance and manners and enjoying their wit. However, I had to admit to myself how nice it was to feel female hands; something women don’t often experience. I realised that there was a real lesbian inside of me, who could come out to express herself, if she chose to.
The occasion presented itself one lovely magical day.
‘Julie is my girlfriend,’ said Andy, when he rang and asked me to join them in their hotel room. Andy was one of my less attractive customers; a lecherous streak in him made me hesitate. On this afternoon, he wanted to see what a threesome would do for him.
As it happened, Julie and I gave him a first-class demonstration of how two women can enjoy each other. We clicked immediately, and seemed to understand without saying that although the plan was to please Andy, we were going to ignore him altogether. I felt such pleasure and pure abandon at throwing myself into Julie’s arms, and feeling hers around me in a welcoming feminine embrace.
We rolled on the bed, indulging our every whim to touch, nudge, caress, lick, suck and delight every part of our bodies. Julie’s hair was long and fragrant and her pubic area was clean and oh! so new and delightful. We both knew instinctively where we liked to be touched. The sensation of her naked body against mine told me what it might be like for a man to feel soft breasts against his chest. It was wondrous to suck her nipples and know exactly how she was affected by what I did. She found mine: they were large and prominent from having breastfed my baby for a year, and ecstatic to be caressed by her gentle mouth.
We were shameless in our desire for one another and didn’t let Andy in until we were both satisfied and had gently rolled down into a soft blissfulness. Andy couldn’t have asked for a better performance, but of course he was peeved. I vaguely remembered hearing his calls for attention, but we couldn’t have cared less. He had his revenge later when I asked to see Julie again and he refused to let me have her phone number. I suspect that she wasn’t his girlfriend at all, but another pro like me. I gave Andy the flick after that, and I hope Julie did too.
After that wonderful experience, I hung out at a gay pub in Perth for a while, the Red Lion, and watched the dynamics between the lesbian clientele. Would I meet another woman like Julie? I saw women who had rejected men dressing like men and imitating their behaviour. I also witnessed jealousy and outrageous cattiness. I was turned off and decided that was enough to know that I was bisexual, but definitely leaning towards heterosexuality. I would not go looking for lesbian sex. In honour of Julie and everything I had experienced with her, I would keep one perfect memory.
NEAR THE END
of this first year of my new career, my lovely blonde pubic hair became home for a despicable brood of insects. I’d vaguely heard of crabs, but hadn’t considered them a real possibility in my world. It got prickly down there, but not exactly inside my fanny, so I didn’t think it was anything serious. I ignored the itch, scratching absentmindedly now and then.
A client who’d hired a waterbed at a hotel by the Swan River surprised me with, ‘What you got down there, sweetie? You sure didn’t get them from me!’
He pointed and I had to look close to discover the rude creepy-crawlies in my hair, sucking red blood from my body. I was so shocked that I jumped out of bed screaming and ran towards the door stark naked, as if I could run away from them. George said good-humouredly, ‘It’s not so bad, you know, Carla. Calm down!’
I stopped screaming. Nobody out there appeared to have heard a thing, or if they had, had taken no notice whatsoever. I had screamed blue murder and no one had come running. That was sobering in itself. ‘Get yourself some DDT cream,’ was George’s sensible advice, and I did that very same day.
When I confided in one of my gay friends, he took pity on me and did the kindest thing ever: he carefully shaved off every bit of pubic hair around my infected vulva to remove the vermin, eggs and all. Now I had the French look, he told me, but the initial eroticism soon wore off with the regrowth of short scratchy hair. No way was I going to keep up the shaving routine—my hair being blonde, I didn’t even use a shaver on my legs! I kept the DDT cream for years, just in case, but never had to use it again.
JAMES RETURNED TO
Perth to live. He had regained his usual placidity and often came around after work to play with Caroline, and sometimes stayed for dinner. It was good to be friends with him. We didn’t speak about the past, or about my new lifestyle. James was without criticism. He seemed to have come to terms completely with our separation, so he scared me one evening by predicting that eventually I would come back to him, just like the woman in the movie
Ryan’s Daughter
. He was so sweet and undemanding that my heart started to soften towards him. Should I go back to him?
It was during one of those evening visits that Fate made a dramatic entrance: James brought with him his best mate from work, Hal.
I was sitting at one end of the oval dining table, doing some sewing, when I looked up and was stunned by a sudden sense of inexplicable familiarity. I saw a Japanese kamikaze pilot in the shape of the tall Caucasian man standing at the other end of the table, being introduced to me. What gave him away was not his leather jacket, but the way he lounged with one arm on the edge of a chair and the other on his hip. I recognised this stance, however silly that may sound, and his easy grin was also familiar. From
that moment, I couldn’t get Hal out of my head—even while I was thinking about going back to James. He was like a puzzle, a magnet.
Some part of me wanted to be ordinary, and a full-time mother. Life with James would certainly give me that. I had been on the game for a year; perhaps it would be best to leave while I was still enjoying it. In a move designed to end my licentious lifestyle for ever, I sold all my furniture in one weekend, pulled out the phone and disappeared without notice to any of my clients—a lack of courtesy I have always regretted, but it seemed necessary at the time. In a single day I reverted from a prostitute with a busy clientele to a dutiful housewife. Caroline and I said a sad goodbye to Kelly and Jimmy, but Caroline was overjoyed to have her daddy so close by. That is what pleased me most of all, to see her so happy.
James must have thought that he had finally conquered his wayward wife, but alas, poor man, it wasn’t so. It was strange between us after that year of separation. After my year’s experience with other men, I needed someone stronger than me, in every sense. I respected James for his strength of purpose in getting me to come back to him, but my reasons were based on wanting to be a good woman and a good mother, not because I loved him deeply.
HAL WAS A
tall, rather well-set, soft-bodied man, quiet but humorous, who delighted his friends with a unique gentle quirkiness. His large round head was covered with a thin layer of blond hair parted on one side, and he had a careful intelligence. His was a sensitive soul, open to deeper things. He had once been drawn into Scientology, only to end up feeling badly used and disillusioned.
Hal drove his car as if flying a plane. Going for a drive with him was like taking a ride in Luna Park—he used such precise, hair-splitting judgment in his manoeuvres that he often caused terrible consternation among other drivers. He lived alone with his mother, having emigrated from Estonia to Perth in the same year that my family had settled in Melbourne. When we met, he was still a virgin.
Hal made no advances towards me—out of respect for his friend, James—and so it seemed
I
seduced
him
. It was I who went to visit him, and found we could discuss deep things like metaphysics. I was in awe of Hal’s intellect; I loved his keen book radar (sci-fi and metaphysics) and his penchant for gentle, soothing music. What did he see in me? An ardour that was too flattering for a shy virgin to resist?
In hindsight, I think we fell in love because there were dynamics from previous lifetimes to be worked out, issues to be resolved. Several experiences over the years had opened my eyes to the possibility of reincarnation and how it can sometimes give insight into why people’s lives become intertwined.
Within weeks I had fallen helplessly in love with Hal. I confessed this to James as we lay in bed one morning.‘I have to leave you. I need to be with Hal.’ James, with characteristic leniency, did not berate me. He couldn’t look at me, though, and I saw him swallow hard.
James’s heart was broken once again. But for the sake of Caroline, the four of us lived together as a household for two years. Both James and Hal were soft-hearted, generous types and we always managed to remain amicable with one another. I discovered later, however, that Hal found it very difficult to cope and was close to leaving until I made the decision to be his sole partner.
JAMES, HAL, CAROLINE
and I were joined by baby Victoria in 1975, born to Hal and me when Caroline was three. On the morning of her birth, I woke early to get ready. I collected my clothes and cosmetics, then woke Hal. This time I wanted to do everything right for my baby. I had arranged that Hal would be present at the birth and that my baby would stay with me beside my bed.
They were both promises the matron had no intention of keeping, but my loud protests made her change her mind. All the same, she made sure Victoria was taken away while I slept—why, I am not sure, since she was the only baby born that week in Warwick Hospital.
I was anxious and angry, but helpless. ‘Did she cry in the night?’ I asked each morning. ‘No,’ they told me, again and again. Were they lying? I couldn’t tell. Meanwhile, my milk was in oversupply, hurting my breasts. One of the nurses was a kind sort. She told me to massage my breasts and came over to demonstrate how to do it. It was such a relief to feel her kind hands taking away the pressing pain. We were both shocked by the matron’s stern, shrieking voice: ‘Sister, get back to your work and leave her alone!’The confused nurse scurried away.
I left that hospital as soon as I could. Back home, I knew the bliss of motherhood once more. I was good with tiny babies; I would not be so patient and attentive when they became older and more demanding.
In 1976, James, Hal and I founded a rural community in Queensland, which still exists today as a community farm. James built a cabin house there for Caroline and himself, and Hal, Victoria and I lived in a pole house proudly built by Hal.
Our dream of a utopian farming cooperative soured and we left the rural community feeling broken-hearted. Hal,
Victoria and I moved to Brisbane, where we shared a house with a family who had a little girl of Victoria’s age. James, on the other hand, had been offered work in Melbourne. Caroline was asked who she preferred to live with—her father or me—and she chose to be with James. It was a pivotal moment, but even though she was so young, I had the distinct feeling that Caroline knew what she truly wanted when she chose to move south with her father. And it was the best thing, we all agreed, since the two girls did not get on together at all. So Caroline had to do without her mother throughout her growing years. It is hard to think of how much she must have missed me. I even missed out on seeing her for her birthday when she turned six. Now that I’m a grandmother, it is almost inconceivable that I could bear to be parted from such a sweet, vulnerable and beautiful girl.
HAL AND I HAD
moved to a rented house in Ashfield, Brisbane, when he decided to take a break to visit his mother in Perth, his only relative, and also spend some time with an old friend there. I folded myself into his big chest as we said a fond goodbye. Hal was such a good match for my height; people who saw us together always said there was something about us that looked just right. Hal’s eyes gazed deeply into mine. I wouldn’t see him for two whole weeks. Then, to my great surprise, he foraged in his trouser pocket and gave me a condom.
I looked at him with wide eyes: what did this mean? I had never been unfaithful to Hal. ‘Do you expect me to go rampant just because you’re going away for a while?’ I was incredulous.