MADAME DAZE.....(part 2).

1987 and I was living the dream.  Betty and I had turned Brett's Boys into a magical place of fun, friends and financial surplus.  Louise was making almost as much from us as she was from her famous Pink Flamingo Parlour in Kings Cross.  So much so that she even had Betty and I covering reception shifts there in order to increase her takings.

I was making a name for myself as 'the best brothel manager' in Sydney.  Clients would ring from London, New York, Tokyo, San Fransisco... to book boys in advance because they knew I would only select the right boy for them. If their type of boy wasn't rostered on the day they were coming I would make sure that their type was available.  To ensure there was no rivalry amongst the workers I charged an extra $10 to the client which went into a kitty which we all shared at the end of the week.  I even liaised with our rival parlours and we shared boys if the need arose.  This was a system which benefited everyone and stopped the constant rivalry between parlours.

I was earning a fortune.  Louise was paying me $500 a week, I would earn at least that selling marijuana, and most weeks would get an extra $100 in tips given to my by grateful clients.  I even had a few regular clients who wanted to see me - again I always put $10 from my earnings into the 'kitty' to keep the workers happy.  Of course it all went as quickly as I earned it.  Taxi fares, dinner out at lavish restaurants, shouting the 'boys' to a night out in Oxford St, clothes, new furnishing for our new rented house, buying speed and cocaine to keep me going through my double and very busy shifts.......

During the short time Matty and I stayed at my parents house while my dad was recovering Betty had found us a beautiful house in a suburb a few kilometres away from Brett's Boys.  This was in Haberfield, which was basically the first suburb outside of the 'inner city' heading west.  Situated at the bottom of a beautiful part of Sydney Harbour (Iron Cove) it was Sydney's first 'planned' housing estate built largely in the late 1890's and comprised ornate 'Federation style' houses all boasting large blocks of land, tree lined streets and 'no back lanes'.  A far cry from the crammed, run-down, narrow and cheap Victorian terrace houses that formed a large part of Inner Sydney at the time.

Our house was gorgeous.  I had the front room which had arched windows and overlooked the covered, ornately tiled verandah.  Matty had the second bedroom and behind that was a large lounge which led to a smaller dining room with a third bedroom on the side finishing up with a kitchen and back covered verandah.  All the rooms were large and had ornately moulded ceiling panels, lead light windows with sash frames and original Edwardian lights complete with hanging cord switches.

Betty and I even hired a landscape gardener to turn our front garden into a lovely English style garden complete with box hedging, topiary rose bushes and an abundance of sweet smelling perennial flowers.  Although we didn't spend much time there, we always enjoyed returning and chilling out.  Like a regular family, cooking, cleaning, gardening and enjoying the wonderful environment that the suburb offered.

Matty bought me a new dog.  Another Cocker Spaniel who I called Toby and who would be with me for the next 15 years.  My first dog 'Nelson' had mysteriously vanished one afternoon from Brett's Boys when I had gone out shopping to buy munchies for the boys and Colin was on reception.  I returned laden with cakes and pies and Colin told me that Nelson had accidentally run out the back gate when one of the boys had left it open. At the time I was naive enough to believe him. Future events would lead me to believe that Colin had planned it all to get at me.  Hours of combing the streets and door knocking brought no luck and after two weeks of posting reward signs around the neighbourhood we realized that he had gone for good.

Matty was working at his customs job, 9- 5 five days a week and on Friday and Saturday nights would earn extra money as our 'second' driver.  Kristy McNichols boyfriend was always our 'first driver' taking the workers on out calls.  When he was engaged then Matty would do the job.  This was much more efficient than using taxis, cheaper for the clients, and ensured that the workers had someone waiting outside in case of any trouble arising.

I was enjoying every moment of the day.  Glowing from the praises of our clients and Louise, swamped with friendship from the workers, permanently out of it on one kind of drug or another and money flowing in and out like I'd never seen before.  Sex was on hand whenever I wanted.  Either from keen, would be employees or the boys themselves, keen to curry my favour.  I didn't use my position to gain these gratitudes.  In fact I made sure that I was fair in every way.  Rotating the boys on slow and busy shifts, but always making sure I had  the right combination of boys available for every shift.

Matty and I had a strange kind of relationship.  We slept apart, but spent every moment we had together, whether at work or at home.  He knew I was having regular sex with boys every day and mostly every night I was at the parlour but didn't seem to mind.  Strangely though, if he ever thought I was getting too close to a particular boy, or tried to bring one home with me he would suddenly become affectionate and loving.  He used to quietly whisper in my ear that he wanted to have sex with me that night and true to his word it would happen.  It was like we had never been apart - until the next morning when he went off to work as if nothing had happened at all.

We had few dramas at our new Parlour.  One boy arrived at the front door accompanied by the police.  Apparently he had stolen a car and managed to crash it into five parked cars whilst driving it.  The police told us that he had given our address as his residential address.  Betty, god bless her, always at my side in a crisis, and without hesitation said ' Never seen him in my life before Officer' before abruptly slamming the door in the policeman's face!

Israel got alcoholic poisoning and his liver erupted before our eyes.  That was when we called the ambulance and he ended up in a re-hab centre, for which he never forgave me, and left our lives shortly after.

One of the boys I was dallying with started seeing a female prostitute and bringing her back to the parlour to get stoned with us.  I didn't mind and was as nice as pie to her.  Until the day she came in 'smacked to the eyeballs' on heroin and I told her she was no longer welcome.  She tried to attack me but I slapped her to the ground and told her to 'piss off slut'.  Little did I know that she then returned to her own parlour and her pimp put a hit call on me.

Luckily Louise got wind of this and (I found out months later) spent hours calming him down and paying him off, but not before we had a drive by shooting which was all a bit of a blur.  One moment we were all bonging and laughing in the back room and the next minute there was a squeal of tyres outside and the sound of a gunshot and breaking glass.  They had fired a bullet straight through the lounge window which lodged into the back wall, amidst screams of the drag queens and boys who were sitting watching videos inside.  Thankfully the windows were well above head height and no injuries occurred....but it was a shock all the same.

One morning we awoke to find that all the boys bags had been ransacked and money and valuables stolen.  This was the first time at Brett's that anything like this had occurred.  We always had an unwritten code that we never stole from each other.  Even though I had my bag full of drugs and nearly $900 in personal cash in the house while I was sleeping, nothing was taken.  It didn't take long for us to see that the 'thief' had also raided the fridge and stolen the eggs and vegetables!!!!  We only had one vegetarian prostitute working for us!  Poor Glenda, he arrived looking as if butter wouldn't melt, and I immediately confronted him with the evidence to which he admitted.  He was such a part of our lives that he was forgiven and some of the boys even gave him money, which he desperately needed to cover his debts......that was the wonderful nature of most of the boys I worked with.

Not long after I would see another, conniving and evil side of some of these boys that would leave me virtually penniless, scared and facing a world of uncertainty.......