MUGS......(part 1.)

Naturally the main focus of Brett's Boys were the clients. Mugs as we used to call them.
They come in every shape and size, from all walks of life, from every culture and from every age.
From 18 to 87, gay, bi or 'straight'.  Some are wonderful, charming fun people, others are horrible bastards.

I've got at least 101 individual stories I could tell you but it's more concise to give you a cast of characters who I or my friends dealt with.  There are hundreds to choose from and others will be mentioned down the track.  

Generalizing extremely you get your regular gays.  Open and easygoing.  The richer the harder to please.  Sleazy gays.  Dirty old men who look revolting, smell revolting and are revolting.  Hey it's a job and you get used to it or turn off.  Nice guys living a straight life in the suburbs, some often married, but who come for gay sex once a week or once a month.   Finally you get your kinks.  They again come from all walks and types.

One of my favourites (there would be many) was one of my earliest regulars.  A young suburban boy in his early 20's. Great body, good looking and great fun.  He would bring a bag of  cocaine and we would snort and cavort for 2 hours every Friday for 3 or 4 months.  We had great sex, fun chat and a good time.

I went on an out-call to a local hotel one night.  The mug was a businessman, 40'ish, fattish and cosnistently during the very boring sex, he kept getting up off the bed and opening the room door and peering, half naked down the hallway.  Afterwards, or rather as I was getting dressed and he was standing naked looking down the corridor he  told me...'I'm sure there must be other men like me in hotels.  You know, married men who just want to have sex with another man?'  Yea, I'm sure there are but I didn't want to dissolution him with what I actually thought.

Colin was a regular at least twice a week.  Probably in his 30's, small and extremely overweight and unfortunately not quite right in the head.  He always chose either myself or another boy called Bobby.  He came dressed in a boy scouts uniform and had many kinks.

His main desire was for humiliation.  We could undress him, make him sit in the corner, sometimes for over 30 minutes, hit him, urinate on him (he was begging for it).....it was really sad and pathetic but he was an easy and regular client.

I once spent two hours with a rich young gay guy in an amazingly (for me) penthouse apartment.  Admittedly naked, but we spent the whole time smoking dope, snorting cocaine and talking about his collection of porcelain antiques.

A Queens Councillor who was also a weekly regular.  Always took a big strong boy.  Always arrived in a taxi, so drunk that I would have to take his wallet out of his pocket and pay the driver, and so drunk that it took 3 boys to get him upstairs.  Regular as clockwork, 6pm every Friday evening.  Must have been a tough day at Court.

There were minor and some major celebrities amongst our clientele.  Again a mixed bunch.  Some regular in their desires others way off the deep end in the kinkiness.  Privacy is something I respect so I would never reveal names or fetishes.

Everyone's favourite was big in the Australian music industry.  Mid 50's, pleasant and jovial.  His apartment was lavish, as was his lifestyle.  He would call at least twice a week and always hire 2 if not 3 drag queens and one or two boys.  The next 3,4,5 hour, and sometimes longer sessions would all involve lots of cocaine.

The drag queens would then parade a number of dresses like models.  Naked underneath and changing on the spot.  They boys would also be naked, watching.  Sometimes the client liked to watch the boys and drags having sex, sometimes not.  Everyone was paid well and had a great time.
One client was one of the original 'organic' store owners in Sydney.  He had a store in Bondi Junction, which was then the main commercial centre for the wealthy and trendy Eastern Suburbs set.  His clientele ranged from hangover hippies to wealthy Jewish matriarchs of many of Australia's wealthiest and famous families.

One of his products was home-cultured natural yoghurt.  It was one of his biggest sellers.  Little did the clients know that at least 3 times a week he had some young, boyish looking male prostitute jerk off and cum into the yoghurt!

One evening I found myself in a cheap hotel room with the most obese man I had ever seen. He honestly took up so much of the bed that I had to lie as best I could on the small strip left with one leg on the floor supporting me.  There wasn't much but fat down there and the sex was easy and quick.  The mug was wheezing and gasping so much at the end I thought he was dying.  Even worse when he finally stopped gasping and started to sit up he had another attack and I thought he was going to fall back on me and the newspaper headlines would read ' anorexic male prostitute crushed to death by 200kg client!'

Another time I was on all fours on a cheap bed in a run down bedsit with a 60+ smelly and not too clean man.  He jerked himself off while he spread my buttocks apart and probed my bottom with his fingers.....'I really wish you had worms', he kept saying over and over.  'I'd love to see a white, wriggly worm coming out of your bottom'.....his fetish ever since childhood when apparently his mother used to kneel him and his two sisters on the kitchen table and check them for worms!

For a fortnight we had a middle aged man and his 'guardian'.  A young boy who had been orphaned at an early age.  This guardian was not related but had been raising him since he was six.  They were on holidays from Canada. The boy had just celebrated his 17th birthday and his 'guardian' was taking him on a world tour.  It was actually a 'gay world tour' as I would find out the itinerary was San Fransisco, Sydney, Amsterdan and London, with a stop at all the gay brothels and bars on the way.

The poor boy was not only shy and akward, but he was not pretty either.  Oily, stringy long blonde hair, glasses, buck teeth and acne.  He was a nice boy and took an instant like to me, choosing me everyday for the hour that they came over a two week period.  He was nervous, but keen to explore.  I gave him a few small puffs of a joint then gently let him relax while I delighted him in a variety of sensitive and pleasurable ways.  

We became friends of a sort and on my day off I invited him to spend the day with me.  I took him down to the harbour.  We walked around The Rocks, Circular Quay and the Opera House then took a ferry ride to Manly, had fish and chips for lunch and then a ferry ride back.  We finished at my,by then, shared terrace house.  He had paid for the entire day and I had spent nothing.  I didn't want to spoil it by charging him for the sex we had on that day.

Their last day and they both arrive at the parlor.  This time the older guardian picks me, much to my surprise, especially as the young boy seemed fine with this.  Of course what pursued was a sad and slightly sickening experience.  We did everything, the whole time he kept telling me how young and soft I was.  Eventually while he was coming inside me (condom on) he kept moaning the young boy's name over and over again........

We had 'straight' young guys, who would all come looking rugged and macho, get you into the room and simply unzip there fly and flop it out while you gave them a blow job.  No touching no reciprocation.  

Mostly, gay, bi or 'straight' the clients were just regular guys from all works of life who just wanted a fun time with a young guy without any hassle - of course that wasn't always the way.  From Graham I learned to never sell a product unless you know it is what the customer wants.  We were constantly getting rejected by out-call clients whenever Graham answered the phone.  They would ask for a particular type, and even if that 'type' was not available, Graham would send anyone telling them to 'act the part'!  When your slim, petite and pretty it's hard to pretend your a pumped up straight boy and vice versa.

I learned also to judge clients by simply looking at them and interpreting their initial greeting.  Whether it's a physical or a subconscious look, you learn quickly to size up a 'mug' by appearance and manner.  I would make a near fatal mistake in the coming months......... 

WHERE THE BOYS ARE.....(part 2).

So many boys came and went during my time at Brett's boys.  Many I have forgotten but to complete the picture there are two other boys who particularly stand out - others I will mention as part of my story in other blogs.

Aaron was perhaps the most unlikely of all the boys I worked with.  Tall, bronzed, good looking and with a muscle toned body.  He only worked on Friday and Saturday nights but due to his 'look' made a fortune every week.  He was studying at university and this was his way of paying for his studies.  He neither took drugs or got involved in our many outings to Oxford St, but got along with everyone and always made sure that things ran smoothly if the occasional client caused trouble with any of the boys.

Peter, or Israel (his working name) was there for the duration.  He was the typical straight looking, muscular boy who would have looked equally at home on a construction site as in a parlor.  He was a lovely, easy going guy who looked after us all and was liked by everyone.  That was unless he was drunk.  Which unfortunately was his downfall.  He was always a 'friendly' drunk but often he would arrive for work so drunk that he would spend his shift asleep or partying out the back.  We often had to hide him when clients arrived as he was loud and boisterous.

Sadly after almost 3 years we parted company and not on a good note.  He arrived one afternoon totally paralytic, still clutching a whiskey bottle and collapsed onto the lounge.  Within minutes he was doubled over and groaning.  Before our eyes we watched his stomach suddenly start to extend, like a scene from the movie Alien. It was Aaron who realised his liver was malfunctioning and got us to remove his belt and trousers and then got me to call an ambulance.

Israel was taken to hospital and from there placed into a detox centre for 2 weeks to dry out.  When he came out he returned looking to kill me as he blamed me for being put into re-hab.  Thankfully our new boss was there and while the other boys got me away she calmed him down.  Things between us were never the same and a few weeks later he failed to show up and we didn't see him again.

Graham also ran a 'Tranny Parlor' called 'Diamond Lil's'.  This was in a building in the street behind us but could be reached from Brett's via a narrow back lane way.  This was the place where we would spend much of our day time shifts as it was quiet and we could get as stoned as we wanted as Graham rarely visited.

Diamond Lil's served two functions.  Firstly this was where the drag queens worked, using the upstairs and downstairs large front bedrooms.  The other 3 rooms upstairs were sold at $5 per half hour to any street workers who would bring their clients there.  This was where most of the money came from with street workers coming and going non stop from 9am till after midnight every day of the week.

Here we had the best of times.  The queens were wonderful.  Not your glamorous show girl types but a variety of cross - dressers, transexuals and sex-changes.  Some were to become my best friends for 3 years.

Donielle (Yeti - we all had pet names) was a drag whom I had first met in Adelaide where she worked in a straight strip club.  With silicon breasts and a good tuck job none of the straight clientele ever tricked that she was a man.  Anytime you walked in Yeti was always ready with a long fingernail full of speed for you to suck on and spend hours having fun with the street girls and their clients as  they passed through.

Linda was the 'girl' I was closest too. Very similar in personality to myself, petite and pretty.  She was taking hormones and although small breasted her angular blonde looks were always a hit with the clients.  Not only that but she was very hospitable when servicing clients so had a long line of regulars.

Then there was Monique.  Monique should have been born a girl.  Even before hormone treatment she passed in the streets as a girl.  She had had a pretty tough upbringing in the rough suburbs of Wellington in New Zealand before escaping to Australia and living her dream of being a woman.  She became one of the first 'girls' to undergo a full sex change operation in Australia.

She was so physically feminine that she was given the operation after only one visit to the psychiatrist.  Usually it was a full year process of analysis with several different psychiatrists before the operation was allowed.  After her operation she was even featured on 'A Current Affair', the most watched news program in Australia at that time.

Claudia was a lovely, friendly but tragic girl.  She had been physically and sexually abused throughout her childhood and this was obvious not only in her subdued personality, but by the fact that she was one of the few girls willing to do 'submissive' work with the clients.  Constantly on one type of pill or another she was happy to get one or two jobs a day and spend the rest of her time with 'the family' - which was of course us, the only people who were kind and loving to her.

Of all the girls (and others I will mention in later stories) the most amazing and successful was Christie.  Christie was over 6 foot tall, with distinctively rugged and angular features.  When she started she looked the least like a girl of many of the queens I was to meet.  Another of the few who didn't touch drugs of any kind except hormones and lived a healthy lifestyle which she rigorously followed out of women's magazines.

3 years later she had transformed into the most beautiful girl you could imagine.  Even with her height she looked and moved like a Brazilian model.  Eventually Christie would go on to be one of Sydney's premier drag artists with her own troop of male and 'female' dancers, even getting to take her revues around Australia and eventually to do a stint in Las Vegas.

So, amongst others, that was my family for three years.  There are many more who will get mentioned later, including my best friend and my boyfriend who would quickly become my worst nightmare.......

WHERE THE BOYS ARE.....(part 1).

Where the boys are, some one waits for me.
A smiling face, a warm embrace
Two arms to hold me tenderly.....

A romantic song I know, but one which perfectly fits our 'family' at Brett's Boys.  Over the 3 or so years I spent there I would meet many boys.  Some would stay a few days or weeks while others were there from the day I started until the day I finished.  But we were a family and as the words say no matter how low we felt, how hard times were, we were there for each other.

Graham, the owner, was nothing like the stand over stereo-type pimp most of us imagine.  He was a gentle guy, friendly and caring and although he didn't spend a lot of time with us, he seemed to know us all personally.  If we were in trouble or needed a reference (to rent a flat) he provided any assistance we needed.  However he was a ruthless businessman and we knew that he had his hands in many other illegal businesses and also knew exactly what went on in all of them.  None of us tried to cheat him as we were all sure of the consequences.

There were 3 Receptionists.

Tony, who was Graham's right hand man.  He ran the business, the bookwork, staff rosters, hiring and occasionally firing and was always on call when needed.  I spent most of my time working on Tony's shifts and got to know him really well.  He was a 'leather queen' and used to delight in telling new boys about his sexual perversions.  He and his partner (who was a pharmacist) were into body piercing during sex.  His stories didn't bother me, it was only one day when he left me his laundry to do and I started putting his bed sheets into the machine that I noticed they were all covered in tiny pin pricks of blood.  That was a bit much for me as the stories suddenly became reality and quite sickened me.

Michael, was a beautiful guy.  In his late 30's and had never quite evolved from the hippy era. Working with him was always fun and we were all constantly stoned on his shifts. He always brought in home baked goods to share with us.  He was the mother figure that none of us had.

Colin was a different kettle of fish altogether.  He was an ex worker and was fat, pretentious and extremely lazy.  He chose his favourites among the boys and regardless of the clients requests he would always try and sell his 'friends' first.  We never really got along and he would be the cause of serious trouble for me twice during my time there.

As for the boys themselves, well they came and went.  They were from all backgrounds, most like me were simply middle class suburban gay boys who wanted to escape their boring environments and live the good life.  Selling yourself was not a good way to get sexual gratification, but it ensured you could live well and life the lifestyle you wanted.

A few came from welfare backgrounds, the type of families my mother would have shunned.  Some were simply poor families, but most came from dysfunctional families where drug and alcohol abuse was common.  One boy had even spent half his life in and out of boys homes - his father was a petty thief and would hide stolen goods in the boys room.  When caught his father would deny all knowledge and as the stolen property was found in the boys room he was the one arrested.

Another boy was a really sad case.  He was angelic looking but had such low self esteem that he was willing to do anything with the clients no matter how base their fantasies were. One day we got stoned together and slept in bed that night.  Just chatting and cuddling each other while he told me that his father had repeatedly raped not only him but also his 3 younger brothers for as long as he could remember.  His father was then currently in jail for this offense, his mother a heroin addict and his only choice was to live on the streets or work in  a brothel.  His brothers, all being under age had been fostered and he had no knowledge of what had happened to them once he left home.

Then there was the gorgeous Peter.  We all knew that he was under-age but Graham had no issue with hiring him (or being caught out as he was paying off the police, proof of which I will detail later).  Anyway he was a lovely boy who still lived at home with his single mother. I felt sorry for him and very often would invite him to my apartment for a home cooked meal and a sleep over after work.  Even though he was keen to have sex, I had certain morals, and as much as I would have liked to have sex with him his age prevented me from taking advantage...you can choose to believe that or not.

Anyhow he was just a kid who needed tender, loving, care.  He was a smart kid in many ways, able to look after himself, cope with the not always enjoyable aspects of the job and hold his own amongst boys much older and world wise than him.

To end this section of my story I will relate an incident which happened one evening.  Most of us rarely talked about our former families, but on this night about 6 or 7 of us were sitting in the back room.  It was a quiet mid-week evening and we were all smoking grass.  One of us would put a 'stick' in the bowl and mull up and the bong would get passed around until the bowl was empty.  Then some one else would do the same and so the evening progressed until the early hours of the morning.

We somehow got onto the topic of families and one of us was talking about their mother.  Peter, innocently said, 'you know when you suck your mothers tit.....?'  There were a lot of puzzled gazes amongst us before some one said, 'you mean when your were a baby?'.. 'No' said Peter, 'like when you sit on your mum's lap and she lets you suck on her tit'.  It suddenly dawned upon as all that he was talking in the present!  His mother was obviously interfering with him sexually and probably had done so for many years.......

PARLOR DAZE.....(part 2).

The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned
I always built alas on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years all ran away.....

Brett's Boys was to become my life for the next three and a half years. In reality it would affect my life for much longer than that.  I would meet friends with whom I would share my life, re-build my self esteem, indulge in my insatiable desire for sex and drugs, meet the boy who would have the most disastrous impact upon my life and face death on more than one occasion.

Initially I had it all planned out.  I would work for as long as it took me to save enough money to return to England and if necessary work in London as a prostitute before finding a real job and living in the city where it was all happening.  England was my mecca, the music, the fashion and the yearning for my 'homeland' were calling me.

It worked well for nearly a month.  I stayed as apart as I could from the other workers, trying not to get too involved in their seemingly aimless lifestyle.  I worked my shifts and returned to my apartment where I would spend my time alone - stoned and happy.

Not only was I a 'new boy', but my look, far from discouraging customers, seemed to have an appeal that many clients wanted.  Not only did I look much younger than I was but my 'new wave' style attracted many clients of all ages.  I was popular, polite, and above all possibly more intelligent than the other boys so I could hold a conversation with the clients when needed.  I was also keen to show that I cared about the business and quickly took a part in helping the receptionist with cleaning and answering phone calls, which didn't go unnoticed by my boss.

The only downside in the early days was that Graham (the owner) was adamant that no drug taking went on at the parlor.  This did not apply to what went on in the rooms with clients, but outside of the rooms we were not allowed to partake in drugs.  Not that we followed this rule.  Graham only came for a few hours each day and again in the evenings.  When he was not there then we would all sit in the back courtyard smoking bongs.  The sound of a key in the front door was an alarm that Graham was back and then it would be a mad rush to hide the drugs and bong amongst the pot plants and for us all to pretend that we were innocently enjoying the sunshine and chatting.

It was ironic actually, because later I would spend a lot of time at Graham's house where I soon learned that he was dealing heavily in cocaine and speed.  But he was a sensible businessman and knew that having drugs on the premises could cause him trouble.  I don't believe that running a brother was strictly legal in 1985, but keeping on the good side of the police (and certainly paying some money into the right hands) was the way to ensure that his business was tolerated.
 
There are a thousand and one stories to tell about my days in Brett's Boys.  To detail them would be an enormous and expansive task.  So in coming blogs I will probably deal with them in themes and chronologically when detailing my life.

But Brett's boys was my new home for over 3 years.  The establishment was a far cry from Belvoir Boys where I had first worked.  Unlike the run-down Victorian working class two up - two down terrace, Brett's was in a beautiful, double-fronted Edwardian Terrace in Paddington.  The downstairs rooms, including the front 'boys room' were all immaculately furnished and looked straight out of the pages of a Laura Ashley catalogue.  

 Upstairs there were 4 bedrooms.  The Zebra room, with it's jungle print wallpaper, zebra striped bedding, leopard skin rug and a selection of wooden African artifacts.  The Blue room, tastefully adorned with saphire blue chintz curtains and matching bedding, and a blue and green persian carpet.  The Red room, with red faux velvet flocked wallpaper, a dark wood four poster bed with red velvet drapes and a chinese style carpet.  The fourth room was smaller and simply decorated and was only used when we were extremely busy.  The bathroom was outrageous - marbled floor and wall tiles, gold swan taps in the bath and sink and a floor to ceiling stained glass window along the back wall.

The house was filled with beautiful paintings and Victorian wooden plant stands with ornate ceramic planters and pot plants. The custom made kitchen at the rear of the house had an adjoining dining area, which looked out through huge bay windows to the landscaped back courtyard.  This was where we would spend most of our time.  I had arrived......

PARLOR DAZE ......(part one)

The road is long
With many a winding turns
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where

But I'm strong

What factors choose us to make decisions that will affect the rest of our lives?  For me it was a combination of things which occurred during the early months of 1985.

My illness had cost me not only my job, but also my self esteem and my shield of invulnerability.  Being told that you have an incurable disease at the age of 22 is not something that is easy to come to terms with.  Luckily I didn't have to but the prolonged illness which lasted over 2 months left me feeling weak and vulnerable.


My relationship with Bill was starting to fall apart.  His main faults were vanity and selfishness. His extreme optimism and self confidence led me to question my own social skills.  Being sick and weak added to these feelings of insecurity.  My biggest problem was feeding my now out of proportion drug habit.  On a reduced income, Bill would often stay out after work, smoking with friends, while I stayed at home feeling wretched and physically having marijuana withdrawals if I didn't get to smoke at least once a day.

Bill also started a new hobby, ceramic arts.  This would be the death knell of our relationship.  The first week he was in the beginners group learning how to throw pots, the second week he had advanced to the 'professional' group, and by the end of one month he was creating ceramic tableware collections for 2 shops in Paddington.  Any chance of re-starting our clothes making stall was well and truly gone.  It had been Bill's flair for design and skill at printing which had really been the success behind our clothing range.  My dressmaking skills and design talent were rudimentary and our clothing sold on Bill's design appeal.  I had realized that early on in our venture, but while it worked and was fun I wasn't upset.

His friends also were not my friends, but rather people I socialized with and who tolerated me because of Bill.  I felt inadequate with my lack of skills and profession.  His friend's were all up and coming designers, wealthy Eastern Suburbs socialites, actors and artists.  My few friends were all outer suburban refugees, desperate to identify with a happening trend but without the skills or abilities to do more than dress up.

 While I was walking once a week 4 km up and down Sydney's hilly terrain to get a box of weekly groceries from a charity organization and then walking back again, Bill would be out with friends getting stoned and I was sure seeing another boy who he occasionally  would have at our apartment when I returned.  Always with other friends but after a few visits I could sense the closeness between them.

My ultimate reason for choosing the path I did was my desperate addiction which was now costing me $20 a day.  I had to be stoned from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed.  My friend from the diet company was returning to Queensland and offered me her two part time positions.  One was at a cake shop just off Darlinghurst Rd in Kings Cross, the other was cleaning jobs for 3 different elderly ladies living in either Kings Cross or Elizabeth Bay, which were all really, combined with Rushcutters Bay, part of the same big suburb.

The cake shop was fun and brought me back to my earlier days of working the streets.  I worked Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 4pm until 9pm, alone, and got paid $20 per shift.  On top of that I managed to always 'under-ring' the cash register by at least $10 each night, plus take home a litre of milk, a loaf of bread and cakes and pies to munch out on when I got home.

The bonus was that between 8 and 9pm the street girls would start their shifts.  Most were young girls already trapped into the world of pimps and heroin.  Many evenings when they started they had no money to buy food.  I was happy for them to pay later, or even better, for them to give me a handful of pills or some grass in payment.  Looking after the girls meant that I kept their pimps happy and whenever there was brewing trouble in the shop, usual in the Cross on a Friday or Saturday night, I wouldn't have to wait more than a few minutes before car doors started opening and the shop filled with big, scary pimps ready to sort out any trouble.  The bosses thought I was wonderful as I had managed to go for 2 months without being robbed.

The cleaning jobs were easy and enjoyable.  4 little rich old ladies who needed company rather than cleaning.  I would spend two hours chatting and doing limited cleaning as the places were spotless anyway.  Only the bathrooms and window cleaning were beyond them so I did that first before pottering around tidying and vacuuming generally propped up by lots of gin & tonic and chatter from the ladies.

With my government subsidy for sickness benefits I was earning about $180 per week.  $70 of which was my half of the rent...it wasn't enough to pay the bills and get stoned daily.  I only got through because of the extra drugs I exchanged for cakes and pies.

My decision to go back into prostitution came easily.  This was the only job I could do stoned.  This was the only job I had any real skill for, and this was the only job which would guarantee my lifestyle.  I didn't want to work the streets again so decided to try a parlour.  

I clearly remember the day I went for the interview.  It was raining and I stood for 30 minutes under a viaduct about 50 metres from the address.  Was I too old?  Would they want my look?  Could I really do this again?

I eventually summoned up the courage to enter and was immediately met by the owner, Graham.  I recognized him instantly.  He had starred in a really bad TV soap opera in the early 70's which I remembered distinctly.  He had played the part of the local butch thug.  The fact that I recognized him and that one of the drag queens recognized me from my Adelaide days got me the job.  He didn't even ask me any really personal questions.  He just advised me to 'tone down' my look for the clients.  'Be more boyish', were his exact words.

I was to start the next afternoon, Sunday, and work from 4pm till midnight.  The next stage of my life was about to spiral out of control, though I didn't see any of it until it was too late.

THE DAZE OF OUR LIVES.....

Those were they days my friend
We'd thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance for ever and a day.....

For most of us our early 20's are possibly the best time of our lives.  Old enough to do whatever we want and young enough to not have to take responsibility for our actions.

The two years I spent with Bill were definitely the best days of my life.  We met at Patch's nightclub, the most popular gay club on Sydney's Oxford St at the time.

Bill was my age, blonde haired, blue eyed and gorgeous.  He was a wonderfully optimistic person who filled the room with laughter wherever he went.  We were the perfect couple.  We had similar backgrounds, worked in the same industry and shared the same tastes for life.

By the time he moved in with me I had my apartment decorated in a totally original Retro 1950's style.  All the furniture was signature piece and mostly bought from an amazing second hand shop on Flinders St in Darlinghurst. Kidney shaped coffee tables, a Dunlop 1959 modular lounge, polka dot lamp stands, teak Scandinavian bookshelves....

Bill brought little furniture as he had been living in shared accommodation but within a few weeks had transformed the apartment with his amazing eye for art and design.  He even made weekly still art displays out of unusual vegetables.

 He worked nights in a restaurant while I worked days.  On his two nights off our apartment would be filled with friends. Both of us were great cooks and enjoyed giving dinner parties.  Everyone getting stoned, listening to the latest music and then eating amazing dinners cooked by Bill or myself.

He finished work around 11pm and didn't get home until midnight.  Most nights I would catch a few hours sleep then wake up to eat dinner with him, get stoned and have great sex.  From day one the sex was amazing and even after we eventually broke up we continued having sex at least once a week for nearly 3 months.

On the weekends we would invite friends over mid morning.  Get stoned as usual and end up in Rushcutter's Bay Park having a late afternoon picnic with lavish pies and cakes made by Bill and myself before he went to work around 4pm.

Saturday nights I would meet him at Patches after spending the first few hours of the evening at The Exchange Hotel with my friends.  The Exchange had taken the place of Stranded and was the in place to be seen.  Being a hotel though it was only allowed to stay open until midnight so Patches was the next venue and straight across the road on Oxford St.  There were a variety of gay bars at that time but they were all very stereo-typed.

The Midnight Shift was for leather queens, Capriccios was for Asians and 'Rice Queens', The Oxford was for dirty old men and drug dealers but Patches was open for all and the best place to be.  Unlike Mark, Bill was as adventurous as I was with drugs and we took as many as we could.  Pills, speed, cocaine, LSD.  Either bought or gifts from friends, we never said no.

I was still doing clients once or twice a week, although Bill never knew.  I had to be careful as so many of our friends lived around the area that it would have been easy for me to be seen.  I would hang out at the Bottom's up Bar or the Bourbon and Beefsteak on Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross and buy a drink.  Generally it didn't take long before some old man would hit up on me and for $30 or $40 I would meet them at their hotel or apartment.  I didn't want to be seen in their company walking by any of our friends.

Bill was very artistic and when he saw my ability at making clothes he got the idea for us to start making and selling clothes at Paddington Markets.  We were both still working our normal jobs but managed to come up with a few simple designs and try them out.  At first I bought the materials for the clothes but then Bill put his abilities in design to work and started creating amazing prints which he would silk screen onto white cotton. 

Our clothes and designs were a big success but came at a high cost.  We put in lots of hours to have our collection ready every Saturday and most Friday nights I would stay up all night sewing to get things finished before heading to the market to set up the stall at 7am. On top of that we were either stoned or speeding most of the time and still going out on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Any money we made went straight back into buying materials and the small profits we made we spent on drugs and partying.  If we had been serious and sensible we could have gone a long way.  Every week we would sell most of our stock.  One of our regular buyers were a Rock Group called Mental As Anything who were a big chart phenomena at the time.  We even had our clothes, with me modelling featured in a Japanese youth culture magazine.

Being seen and mixing with the new wave of designers beginning to make their mark on the Australian fashion scene was a buzz and we were invited out to many parties,fashion shows and celebrity gatherings.

After a year of this I suddenly became unwell.  I wasn't sick but had completely run out of energy.  Within a few weeks I was finding it impossible to even walk the short uphill walk to Kings Cross Station without stopping to rest 3 or 4 times on the way.  My work was suffering and my boss sent me home one day, or rather told me to go to the hospital and have a check up.

This was the early days of the AIDS epidemic and little was known about it but a lot was feared about it.  I went to St Vincent's Hospital where they immediately decided I was a likely candidate for AIDS and took blood tests.  Afterwards they even sent me to a counselor to discuss the realities of being HIV positive.   I was shattered.  23 years old and being told that I had the deadly virus that was sweeping the gay world....before they even had the blood test results back.

After a 10 day nightmare of worry, not working and being stoned constantly to help me cope the results came back.  Apparently they could find nothing wrong with me!  It would be years later when I was correctly diagnosed as being a 'moderate anemic' which was possibly the cause of my sickness.

Or maybe I had contracted the infection and somehow managed to fight it off.  Years later I would go through the reality of living with someone with AIDS and even though we had unprotected sex both before and after he was diagnosed, and I had various exposure to his bodily fluids during his illness I remained uninfected.

My boss had rung me after a month and told me they could no longer keep my position open.  I was receiving sickness benefits from the government and also working a few nights a week in a bakery in Kings Cross for cash in hand.  I wasn't earning much but it was enough to get by on.  The biggest impact was that we could no longer afford to keep ourselves in drugs and I certainly was so hooked by this stage that any day without getting stoned was worse than being sick.

Eventually a mutual friend of ours, an older gay guy took me in hand.  He told me to pack my bags for the weekend and come and stay with him.  He fed me home made chicken soup into which he chopped whole bunches of parsley and which I ate 3 or 4 times a day.  He grew his own dope and allowed me to have 3 joints a day.  After 3 days of this treatment I woke up on Monday morning and felt 100% cured.  Another week and I was back to my normal self....

With our lack of income we had to give up the Market stall, which I hadn't been able to do during the 6 weeks I was ill and had no extra cash to start up again.


Now I had to find a job.  My solution would change my life in ways I never could have imagined.

DEATHLY DAZE.....(part 1).

Baby cried the day the circus came to town
Cause she didn't want parades just passing by her.
She painted on a smile and took up with some clown
and danced without a net upon the wire....

I'm like a cat with nine lives I've come to believe.  I have had so many close brushes with death that I sometimes can't believe it myself.

By now you will have surmised my character.  Risk taker, hedonist, loner, attention seeker and desperately wanting acceptance and recognition.  Conflicting characters all within the person that was me.

I left suburbia to join the parade.  I lived each day at a time with no thought for more than the next weekend.  The smile I painted on was the drugs and partying and the wire was the lifestyle I was living.

Even though I met my new boyfriend only a week after Mark moved out it would be two months of 'real' dating before he moved in with me.  In that time I worked days at the Diet Shop and 3 or 4 evenings a week I would head back to Fitzroy Gardens to prostitute myself.

In the two years since I had first worked the streets inflation had hit.  I could now get $30 or $40 from a client.  True there were cheaper workers around, but they were mostly heroin addicts or the fabulous Rowena...she was a Maori drag queen who used to stand outside of Coles Supermarket on Darlinghurst Rd and operate like a true spruiker, 'Blow job $5. $5 Blow job' was her catch phrase.

Years later I would work with her in a legitimate job and even though I realised that I had met her before it wasn't until I heard her say '$5' that I remembered who she was and where I knew her from.

By now I was what the Americans would call a 'total stoner'.  What had started as an occasional joint in the evening and on weekends had now become a 24 hour habit.  I would wake in the morning and have a session, work through the day half stoned, come home and have another session, work the Gardens and then return home to get stoned again.  It was costing me around $60 a week.

One evening, thankfully after I had just walked out of the Gazebo Hotel after seeing a client, I ran into two of my old flatmates in the street.  Even though we hadn't parted on the best of terms we were all happy to see each other and they invited me out to celebrate my old boyfriends birthday the following evening.

We had a fabulous night.  Starting at their new flat, getting stoned and dropping pills.  Then it was on to a trendy restaurant in East Sydney where we ate, drank and had a totally fabulous evening.  One of our freinds had LSD trips and after dinner we decided to all take one and head home.....

In the middle of Darlinghurst Rd I realised I needed to buy cigarettes and literally jumped out of the taxi while it was still moving, promising to meet back at my friends as soon as possible.  Totally off my face, with the LSD starting to kick in at 1am in the morning I realise that all the shops are closed.
It was a Monday night and even most of the clubs were closed.

I decided to go upstairs to Les Girls and use their cigarette vending machine.   Next door to Les Girls was a Greek coffee shop which was open so I went in to buy cigarettes there.  I was a menthol smoker and they didn't have any menthol.  As I'm walking out one of the owners who was sitting with a group of friends asked me what I was after.   He was all smiles and told me to come with him and he had menthol cigarettes back at his apartment.

Silly me.  I follow and we get to his apartment.  True to his word he had a cupboard with boxes of cigarettes and a big bag of marijuana which he offered to smoke with me.  Happy that I had ciggies and the offer of some free smoke I accepted.

I didn't object when he asked me to give him a blow job, but halfway through the door opened and his 4 friends came stumbling in.  Realising that I was in another situation and likely to get raped by 4 old, fat drunk men, I thought quickly.  I told them I needed to go the toilet and once inside saw my escape route.  A small sliding window.  Before I could even open it they were banging on the door and trying to get in.  I managed to convince them that I was doing number 2's to give me some time.

I squeezed myself through the tiny window and climbed out onto the balcony.  7 floors up and the only escape is through the sliding doors and back into the apartment.  Not where I wanted to be! By now the banging on the door was getting louder and more impatient.  Without hesitation I climbed over the railing and slid down so my hands were now holding onto the concrete floor edge.  Below me was another balcony with a rail, but about half a metre below my dangling feet.  I somehow managed to swing inwards as I took the plunge and just cleared the railing and landed on the below balcony, hitting my head badly against the rail as I landed.

(middle building between the yellow apts and blue apts).

Dazed, tripping and scared as hell my next piece of luck was that the balcony doors on this apartment were not locked.  I slid them open and headed towards the front door.  The elderly owner who I had obviously awoken didn't even have time to say anything as I rushed passed him and out through his front door.....

I didn't go back to my friends, but back home.  I had the cigarettes and grass at home.  I just wanted to isolate and finish my trip in the safety of my self and my home, which for some 'trippy' reason I decided to clean from top to bottom for the next 4 hours.

My second brush with death was to come a year or so later in my own apartment.  I had just been to Adelaide with a friend for 4 days.  We had driven there and back. A 1500 km trip each way and my friend lived on the western edge of the city.  He asked me if I wouldn't mind getting a taxi home from his place as he was too exhausted to drive through the city and back.

No problem, but as my friend had made me leave my marijuana at his house before we left (he was afraid we would get caught at the checking stations where you have to declare and dispose of any fruits or vegetables due to pest control) I smoked a big fat joint before leaving.

Arriving home very tired and very stoned I was surprised when no one answered the buzzer.  10 minutes of trying and still no answer.  I knew my boyfriend was home, so I buzzed a neighbour who let me in the front door.  Once inside it was obvious why no one had answered the buzzer.  My boyfreind was having a party and the music was blasting through the building.

No amount of knocking made them hear me.  So I decided to go around the back and use the wooden fire escape which led directly to our back door.  We had never used the fire escape and had only occasionally sat outside on the wooden landing.  Obviously no one else had used it for a long time either.

As I'm climbing up the last flight of wooden stairs (3 floors above ground level) the steps start to break under my feet.  I managed to grab hold of the railing as the last two steps completely gave way under me and crashed to the ground.  Once again I'm dangling in mid air, clinging on desperately and almost too exhausted to pull myself up onto the landing, but I did it.

I can see  my boyfriend though the kitchen window, I can hear the music, I'm waving my arms and shouting and all to no avail.  Finally I realize the only thing to do is get back down and go to a pay phone and try and call them.  To get down I had to climb down the outside of the fire escape, shimmying down the rough wooden poles, getting splinters in my hands, occasionally slipping just a little too quickly, but eventually managed to get there.

I haven't mentioned before, but ever since my childhood I have had a terrible fear of heights and still do to this day.

A week or so later, my boyfriend and I awoke one morning and realised that the 'boom box' from our bedside table was missing along with the $10 note which for some reason we had also left on the table.  My boyfriend had come home late and drunk the night before and managed to leave not only the downstairs building door open but also our apartment door.....

Nothing else was taken thankfully. The only trace of the robber was a large hole on our fire escape landing where the poor thing had obviously fallen through.  3 floors below on the concrete was a radiating circle of broken radio, one shoe and a large amount of blood.