CAREER CHOICES.

I made my first career choice at the end of Year 10.  I wanted to do a hairdressing apprenticeship.  Not only because I had been given an offer by a 'friend' who I had met during my beach hitch-hiking, but also because I was now realizing that this was an area where I would be accepted, in fact almost expected, in being gay.

I was desperate to leave school.  The thought of continuing to be abused and humiliated for another two years was too much to contemplate. On top of that, I would now be in a mixed sex school and the idea of being victimized in front of girls was frightening. 

In retrospect it would have been both an ideal and sensible option for me.  I would be mixing with people who accepted my sexuality, learning a trade and earning money, and away from the 'yobbos' who made my daily life hell. 4 years later I would become a  hair model for some of Sydney's top hairdressing salons.

My parents were totally against the idea of me leaving school and wanted me to complete my Higher School Certificate. In their defense, they wanted what they considered best for me. I begged, I pleaded and eventually told them how miserable I was at school and that I was gay.  Mum immediately said 'do you think we didn't know?'  Dad went mental and threatened to drag me to Kings Cross (Sydney's Red Light district) to show me the 'depraved' lifestyle that he believed awaited me.  He wasn't to know but that was to become a proven prophesy.

So I continued my final years at school, not all bad, and not all friendless.  I had no heart for it though and managed to attend only the classes I enjoyed, Art, English and History and miss the rest for most of the two years.  The Brothers didn't care if you attended or not.  In the morning you were marked on the role in your home room and again at the end of the day.  They were stupid enough to put me in a home room with an adjoining fire escape!  So once the role was marked my one true friend, Patricia and I would sneak down the fire escape, and once classes started, run through the fields and get a bus to her house, spending the day listening to music, smoking joints, munching out on her wealthy parents well-stocked kitchen before heading back to school.

As a result my final grades were abysmal and I had very few career options available.  One of which was going to teachers college.  This I chose as a last resort, but could only gain entry into a college situated about 150km away from Sydney.  I would have to live in.

But I need to back track to explain how I ended up working as a prostitute instead of going to teacher's college.

At some stage in Year 11, while at the local library, doing school work I chanced upon a book simply entitled 'Prostitutes'.  It was a series of short stories on the contemporary lives of London sex workers.  I was fascinated.  Not only by the lifestyle, but also by the fact that this was something I not only had done, but without payment, but that I could do it in England where I desperately wanted to be.

During the holidays I hopped a train and went into Kings Cross one morning.  It was just a few weeks after they had opened the new Eastern Suburbs railway line with a station at Kings Cross.  I had never been there before and exiting the station I had no idea which way to turn or where to go to solicit.

I picked the right direction and found myself at the El Alamein Fountain, an iconic landmark set in a park on Darlinghurst Rd.  It didn't take me long to realize that I was in the right place.  It was a beautiful Sydney spring day and the park was the ideal place to sit and take in all the sights and sounds of this bohemian suburb.  I was fascinated by everything and everyone.

Before long, probably less than 15 minutes, I guy in a red sports car pulled up and started chatting to me.  He asked if I was 'working' and when I replied yes he said 'hop in'.  He drove me down to the Boy Charlton swimming pool, which I would realize later was a notorious gay pick up spot and we had sex in the change rooms.  I didn't like the fact that half a dozen men were looking either under or over the door, but I did like it that within 40 minutes I had earned $20 (which was roughly a days pay back then) and the event was no different to my other encounters with previous older men.

He drove me back to the Fountain, and after walking around the Cross for a while and having lunch at McDonald's I returned and met another guy.  Only in his 20's, from Switzerland and very good looking.  He was staying at the Gazebo Hotel and we went to his room.  The sex was fun and he paid me $30.  So in less than half a day I had earned more money than I had ever seen and it hadn't been difficult.

I would continue to do this most Saturdays  for the next year.  Generally only seeing one or two 'mugs' as they were called before returning home with money in my pocket.  On Sunday's I spent the day at the beach as usual.

At the end of High School, I continued doing this on an almost daily basis, lying to my mother and telling her that I was going job-hunting.  I got away with this for about 4 weeks.  Stupidly I had not only been saving money in my room, but had kept a record of my 'earnings' in my diary. Not only that but I had also given my home phone number to one young 'mug' and he had rung one day when mum was home.  She became suspicious and went through my room.  She found the diary but not the money.

Strangely as upset as she was with this she did not tell my father.  However she confined me to the house, ringing from work every hour for the next few days.  Then she told me she had got me a job near where she worked.  I was trapped. The job was in a poultry shop and was not only hard work but disgustingly smelly.  Thankfully they were only hiring me for the busy pre-Christmas period so within a short period I was again jobless.

Now I was more careful.  I went to the local job agency daily and applied for many jobs with no success.  But I did have the application forms and interview times as proof so Mum had to believe that I was going to these interviews, which I generally did, but managed to supplement my income 2 or 3 times a week 'working the fountain'.

I will return to this period again as it was a short but eventful time for me and far to detailed to cover in one blog.

In mid January the college I had been accepted into held it's orientation day.  My parent's proudly drove me the 150km to the college and stuck with me every step of the way.  I wasn't unhappy to give it a try, and knew that although my mother hadn't realized that I would need an income, which she could not provide, to study there, that I had the option of coming back to Sydney each weekend and working to earn my living expenses.

What stopped me was after the orientation when we headed into the nearby town.  From the moment we got out of the car and started wandering the historic streets of this famous gold mining city, I was the target of all the local yobbos, who immediately identified me as a poofter and were enjoying themselves calling me it as loudly and aggressively as possible.  My father didn't say a word.  My mother said 'just ignore them- your better than them'.

I was about to embark on another 3 year nightmare journey of ridicule and abuse - being a small country city I also realized that physical abuse was even more of a likelihood.  I had a month before I started.  My parents were not giving me an option.  Now I had to make the heartbreaking choice of doing as my sister did, devastating my parent's lives again, or putting myself through 3 years of continued mental and physical abuse......