The Confessional

My little boudoir held magical powers at times, it seemed to draw out gentlemen’s innermost secrets. Much like your local hairdresser or bartender, clients feel that they are in a place where they won’t be judged. The only difference here is that all secrets are told post coital and completely naked, thus all vulnerability and bullshit are stripped away. Oh, the things I have been told……. I’m secretly stealing money from the bank in which I work, apart from my wife I keep a boyfriend in a unit up the the road for the last 16 years. Some secrets I almost felt compelled to report; once a sitting judge told me that he had been dabbling with drugs to make the day more interesting. Stealing, cheating on their wives, insider trading, money laundering and drugs were the most common theme from these white collar criminals. A day didn’t go by that I wasn’t offered free drugs “to enhance our time together”. Darling I’m not here to ‘enjoy’ I’m here to pay off my latest mortgage, pay Poppies school fees, just live basically. Those words recited like a mantra in my head, never spoken out loud unless someone became persistent in their request. Why tell me? Because trust me I would rather not know. The thinking was that they would find a kindred spirit in me a simpatico with me, as I was in their minds living on the edge of legal and on the corner of ‘gangsta’. Nothing could be further from the truth, in my entire career I had never touched drugs. I established long ago in my teen years that drugs made me lose control, and life was far too arduous to go through it stoned. I had been violated too many times stone cold sober, if I had to navigate this life alone I would need my wits about me, so drugs were a fog haze that I did not need, and seemed to offer no benefit. Drugs contradicted everything my life represented, my life was about financial independence, drugs seemed to drain it’s victims of their financial means. My life was about raising Poppy to be the best adult she could become. My mum had already threatened to strip her of me once so I was not going to give her one scintilla of reason to have another crack at custody. So for many a good reason I never touched drugs. But that is not to say I didn’t take advantage of these sweetly whispered stock market tips that my naughty clients were telling me about. One year I made over 50K just in stock market investments. Over the years the figure would be close to three hundred thousand. But never once did I ever tell a client that I had taken advantage of his secret whispers, or drunken ranting’s. I will never be beholden to a client. I would be crazy not to take advantage of their illegality. Butchers would bring me forty kilogram boxes of frozen product, jewellers would slip me a couple of piece that they claim weren’t selling anyway, and chemists would bring makeup and perfumes, even dumomine if I asked. The list goes on infinitim. Poppy was always curious “mum why do you need 40 kilos of meat?” “It was a gift darling”. She was and is the most observant person I know, you can’t wear a new pair of knickers without her keen eye observing. She couldn’t understand why a single women got so many gifts from so many different sources with no apparent boyfriend that she ever met. “Oh Darling they are work gifts”. She is the queen of questions, and never bores of boring down on any topic. She has always had a nose for virtue, she can sniff out suspect from a mile away. Here lies the irony of a sex-workers life; we work on the edge of legal, on the border of moral (to some) yet to our children we need to represent paragons of virtue, honesty and morality. Some days you feel like Sybil with her multiple personalities. Naughty, raunchy, sexy, hedonistic, but come five pm you are virtuous, humble, patient, stern at times but above all loving. Because I was soo young when I had Poppy, we were almost growing up together. She viewed me as the coolest mum on the block (I was the youngest mum in her entire school so that obviously played a part in her assessment). “Cool” can mean so many things but it did not mean that I was in anyway disrespectful of the police and the laws in front of Poppy.

While I may not agree with them all I maintained a healthy respect of the police for her sake. So it was when Poppy came home escorted by two officers in full uniform, she was about ten at the time. “We are bring your daughter home to collect her helmet, she cannot ride the streets without one, it is dangerous and against the law”. “Poppy you have a helmet why aren’t you wearing it?” “I’m very sorry officers, please give her the $25 fine, and I will see to it that she pays”. They looked at me blankly, I can’t be bothered with the paperwork seemed to radiate from their foreheads. “Look we are going to knock this up to a first offence and a written warning”. But I needed Poppy to learn early that there are consequences to her actions and that if she was going to wander about publicly protesting her disapproval for the laws, she would have to pay the price. So that Saturday I dropped her at the local police station with a bucket, a sponge and a car cleaning kit. She spent three hours there cleaning all the police cars. But more importantly she never again rode without a helmet.

The police knew who I was, I was allowed to work from my own home privately, I was not allowed to have any children living there. So as long as I worked quietly and didn’t draw to much unnecessary attention to myself I was ignored by the constabulary. It was funny the neighbours were completely at a loss as to what I was up to. Everyone in our private little street worked 9 – 5 so no one noticed the march of penguins to my door every day. The endless car park of Audis and other imported cars lining the street. They just knew the weekend neighbour, the after five Annika, the mother Anniika. No one ever met Cleo, and no one ever would believe it. That’s if you are doing your job right.

http://annikacleeve.com/2013/11/your-bedroom-is-a-confessional/