Brothel Daze by Barbarella Karpinski

We were open 24/7, except on Sundays and Mondays when we closed at 3 a.m. It was our home, and they were our visitors. Clients waited in the entrance hall, watching porn and nibbling peanuts. This is where we would ‘meet and greet’ them and invite them back to the themed rooms (Old Hollywood or Baywatch Escape). In these seraglios, we loved them from day into night. In those days, the industry still had mystique. Once their time was up, clients left furtively via the unlit back door into the lane, with one last paranoid backwards-glance in the mirror. They hoped their wives would not sniff their pleasure, so we went easy on the perfume and the lipstick, as both lingered. 

Jamie was a regular and never bothered to scrutinise his smelly singlet for the Britney-brand perfume that was all the rage in the oughties among brothel workers. I first met Jamie at 671, formerly known as The Sailor’s House, and Dream Babes for a brief period. All the brothels in the area were known by their street number and had former owners and former names. Coming from Eastern European origins, though born in Sydney, I grasped the concept easily from listening to family talk. My father’s bookcase was full of Solzhenitsyn and other Russian literature, so I knew that a place changed name according to the invading people, as borders were renegotiated in the wake of power struggles, money and war. I also knew that some people would end up as outsiders on a train to the icy wastelands to be forgotten, except in the memory of those left behind. In brothels, these were the lost whores—marginalised by brothel owners, left to work at dodgier establishments with bad reputations, and one day disappearing without a trace or an investigation. 

The new house managers and owners came and went as the locals stayed. Though I have never been there, I am descended from the Russians via Vilnius, Lithuania, which for a brief time was part of Poland. 99 per cent of the Jewish settlers were vanished by the Nazis, but I still feel a connection. It was the same with brothels. Sometimes you had a long time with an owner who was kind and generous, like Eva, the old-school hard-as-nails-with-a-heart-of-gold madam at The Sailor’s House, and other times you had fly-by-night bosses who wanted you to use one towel all day. Eva is one of the lost whores, as madams like her are now missing in representation, replaced by social media advertising and indie porn. I miss her tough love.  

I once did a trial run at a brothel formerly known as ‘fuck knows’ by its residents, as the new managers rebranded so frequently. Our boss, Jacqueline James, would park her maroon Mercedes outside the building. Jacqueline was wider than she was tall and wore tap dance shoes in colours ranging from silver shimmer to vivid vermillion to poop brown, depending on her mood. She spoke with a whispered nouveau-posh twang, except when her anger-management issues came up, and then it was an unposh shout. She was stingy on the biscuits, all no-frills, like the Dream Babes phase where white bread was frozen and doled out in slices for $1. During my trial run the washing machine was broken, so the girls used to leave their towels drying on chairs or take them home to wash—if they had a home, that is. Many girls stayed in-house in the rooms. Those kinds of managers were abstemious—because the trial contract said ‘pay own costs’, it was a fix-it free zone. So, I called The Sailor’s House my home brothel instead, with its Iced VoVos and old-school Eva. When the wannabe mobsters who knew a few bikies took over and only opened after midnight, it was no longer available to me, as I was a day-shift girl. 

It was during the Mistress Eva phase that I met Jamie. Jamie lived in the outback, rode a motorbike and carried his helmet and leather jacket up the stairs of the brothel. No helmets inside. No exception. No smoking. He took no notice of the signs as he puffed his cigarette and buzzed, waiting at the barred gates. 

We were quick and dirty straight after the obligatory health check and could-have-been-longer shower. After the job, Jamie was in the confession zone. He told me he got pissed and punched his best mate out a few years ago. As his mate spent the night in hospital, Jamie spent the night in jail. I could set up a whole police unit with the number of post-sex confessions I collected, not that anyone was interested. The police did not care, and many were customers.  

When I left 671 after a tiff with management, Jamie and I lost touch. I stopped working for a while and found obscure places to explore in far-off industrial zones. But if I went back to 333 or 968, he’d find me. When I went private, he was able to find me too. Once I did a peep show and he knew it was me. It was like a scene of lost love from Paris, Texas, where I was discovered in an orange-hazed tin-shed desert establishment. He was always talking to the brothel babes, keeping up on the gossip about jail stints, reappearances and disappearances. Years passed, but his dedication to meeting me again was unwavering. Stalker or loyal client? I gave up caring, though I doubted myself as friends smiled and said ‘make good choices’. The need for human connection was mutual. We became friends, of sorts.  

One year, Jamie and I spent Christmas together. At midday, we went to the local charity’s Christmas dinner for orphans, only to find the food had run out at 11 a.m., except for watery ice cream. I did not trust the dribbling ice cream served by the Christian charity organisers. They said the generator that ran the freezer caught on fire, leaving no food but cones and ‘soft serve’. Jamie and I drove to a 7-Eleven in some backwater instead. 

We parked his old car, which was something like a Mad Max prop—no windows, no upholstery. We sat by the river and ate the last dried-out cheese sandwich we could find on the shelves, and watched the water move slowly down to the bridge where it flooded the next year. I didn’t initiate sex, and he never asked. He just sat on a rock and I took a photo while he buried his head under his hat. I thought it was a semi-romantic blink-and-it’s-gone moment. At least I had the picture to remember him by, as my prescience knew he would one day just disappear. It showed him in a beat-up cowboy Akubra, his half-handsome face covered by his hand. The hat had corks strung from its brim, though it was missing a few. He would never have made it onto Farmer Wants a Wife as a real cowboy. James had quick reflexes, a few enemies he didn’t like to talk about, and said he was camera-shy. That one photo is my only memento, and it is blurred.