Eight Pieces on Prostitution

By Dorothy Johnston

The stories in Eight Pieces on Prostitution span the whole of Dorothy Johnston's writing life and includes her first published story, The Man Who Liked to Come with the News, which Frank Moorhouse chose for his 1983 anthology, The State of the Art.

Dorothy Johnston's first novel, T

• Language: English
• Publisher: For Pity Sake Publishing Pty Ltd
• Release date: Jun 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780987548801

Dorothy Johnston

Dorothy Johnston was born in Geelong, Victoria, and lived in Canberra for thirty years before returning to Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula where her 'sea-change mystery' series is set, commencing with 'Through a Camel's Eye' and followed by 'The Swan Island Connection'. 'Gerard Hardy's Misfortune' is the latest in twelve novels, includineen a quartet of mysteries set in Canberra. The first of these, The Trojan Dog, was joint winner ACT Book of the Year and runner-up in the inaugural Davitt Award. The Age gave it their 'Best of 2000' in the crime section. Two of Johnston's literary novels, One for the Master and Ruth, have been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award. She has published many short stories in journals and anthologies, along with essays in Australia's major newspapers. For more information about the author, please visit her website: http://dorothyjohntson.com.au.

Book preview

Eight Pieces on Prostitution

by Dorothy Johnston

By the same author

Tunnel Vision

Ruth

Maralinga My Love

One For the Master

The House at Number 10

The Sandra Mahoney Quartet

The Trojan Dog

The White Tower

Eden

The Fourth Season

About the Author

The stories in Eight Pieces on Prostitution span the whole of my writing life and include my first published story, ‘The Man Who Liked to Come with the News’. My first novel, Tunnel Vision, is set in a Melbourne massage parlour, and I have continued to return to the theme of prostitution in my novels and short stories, notably in The House at Number 10 and in this collection. ‘Where the Ladders Start’ is a long story, almost a novella, based around a suspicious death. Many of the stories are set in Canberra, Australia’s national capital, where I lived for thirty years before returning to Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula.

The first of my Sandra Mahoney mystery quartet, The Trojan Dog, was joint winner ACT Book of the Year. It was published in Australia by Wakefield Press and in the United States by St Martin’s Press. The second, The White Tower, was also published in Australia and North America. All four books feature the cyber-sleuth Sandra Mahoney and her partner, Ivan Semyonov, along with Detective Sergeant Brook, of the ACT police. Each is set during a particular season, hence the title of autumn: The Fourth Season.

Two of my literary novels, One for the Master and Ruth, have been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award. I’ve had numerous short stories published in magazines and anthologies, and I regularly review fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald. I’m a founding member of the influential ‘7 Writers’ group, which began meeting in Canberra in the early 1980s, and continued as a writers’ workshop and discussion group for almost twenty years.

I’m currently working on a sea-change mystery series, set at the home of ‘Sea-change’ the TV series, on the south coast of Victoria. The first of these is called Through a Camel’s Eye.

You can find out more about me and my books on my website

http://dorothyjohnston.com.au/

Contents

The Studio

The Man Who Liked To Come With The News

Mrs B

The Cod-piece and the Diary Entry

The Birthday Party

Commuting

Names

Where The Ladders Start

Acknowledgements

The Studio

Eve shares the studio with a colleague her own age, and it’s a good arrangement. The room is small, but because it’s upstairs with windows all along one side, it feels spacious enough. These windows look down across a shopping centre to a park, where mothers stop to let small children play, and groups of high school students gather after three o’clock to smoke and gossip.

The windows have venetian blinds and dark blue curtains, which, when Eve is on her own, she always pulls right back. She likes to sit near the windows and look down; she likes seeing the same people every day, and tells herself stories about them to pass the time.

There is no separate bath or dressing room, only a wash basin in a corner behind a printed Japanese screen. Both Eve and her partner are sensible, practical and discreet. Though the studio is advertised in the Civic cinemas and local community newspaper, there is no advertising on the premises itself. Clients and would-be clients climb plain concrete stairs between a hairdresser’s on one side and a Laundromat on the other.

When they first rented the studio, Eve, arriving for work, nodded and smiled at the hairdressers in their salon, who soon caught on as to the nature of her upstairs business. They did not snub her, or circulate a petition to get rid of her, and now she goes down there to get her hair cut and blow-waved; she gossips and drinks cups of tea between her clients.

Eve is neither ambitious nor greedy; she prefers slow days to busy ones. She and her partner work three days each, and the studio is closed on Sundays. Her partner is supporting herself through a psychology course at the ANU, but Eve doesn’t like studying. She was a poor student at her hometown high school, and left it as soon as she could. Now, though she rings her parents regularly, and sends them brightly tinted postcards of Parliament House, she’s glad she is a long way from home. On her days off she likes to go wind-surfing.

Eve’s partner calls herself Rose. Rose brings her books and assignments to work and studies between clients. Both agree that someone needs to be there during the day to answer the phone and make appointments, or, if they dislike the voice on the other end, say no.

They open at eleven-thirty and close when the last client leaves. Though they often work late, it’s worth being open by midday, since this is the time a lot of their regular clients prefer; a quick lunchtime fuck suits them best.

Not even Rose knows Eve’s real name; no one in Canberra does. She lives by herself in a small flat. She chose the national capital because she imagined it to be a city where she could fade into the background, where she could hide. She has never made friends easily, but now she is beginning to think of the youngest of the hairdressers as a friend. They go to discos together and Eve has offered to teach her to wind-surf.

A funny thing happens one day when Eve is at the bank. She signs herself ‘Eve’ on the withdrawal slip.

It’s a useful pseudonym because of the way clients react to it. Some make a crude reference to apples or to snakes. Others say, ‘Come now. You can’t call yourself that.’ When she laughs and says, ‘I can. I do,’ they become embarrassed. Then Eve thinks: this one will become a regular. It’s a kind of test.

Eve and Rose are careful. Condoms are a must. Washing is a must. ‘You don’t want me giving you a wasting disease,’ Eve says to clients who show signs of reluctance. The only thing wrong with the studio is that it doesn’t have a shower. Eve makes her clients wash in the basin, and watches to make sure they do it properly. Sometimes they make a game of it. She has never had any trouble.

Rose tells her stories. Rose seems to hear more on the grape-vine than Eve does. There are stories of rape and knife attacks. Rose says they need someone to call on if there’s trouble. Eve replies, ‘But we’ve been here for nearly a year and there’s never any trouble.’ They try to think of someone suitable. Neither wants a manager who would interfere with their running of the business. Rose makes a face and says, ‘It’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong.’

Rose comments on current events and discovers that Eve knows nothing about politics. She cannot name the Leader of the Opposition, and would have trouble locating Australia’s capital cities on a map. Rose tells Eve that she is woefully ignorant and should at least be able to recognise Famous Men. ‘What if one turns up and you don’t know who he is?’

Eve tells Rose that the clients don’t want them to know who they are.

‘So you can say no! Just think of the trouble there’d be if – ‘

And Rose launches off on one of her stories about murdered police commissioners and drug criminals and secrets told in bed. ‘Don’t say yes to any public figure,’ she concludes, and Eve says demurely, ‘Okay Rose, I won’t.’

A new client arrives shortly after five on a winter Monday. Eve is sitting by the window, watching the last of the high school students leave the park. She is day-dreaming, floating out somewhere over their heads and the tops of the trees, and the mountains in the distance that she cannot see, but whose presence she always feels at this time of day.

The buzzer startles her. She walks to the door and peers through the eyepiece.

A man in a suit stands on the other side. He is looking down at his nails and Eve cannot see his face.

She much prefers clients who make appointments beforehand. Those who just turn up she associates with late-night drunks, who either come within seconds, or are so far gone they don’t know whether they’ve come or not.

Eve takes a step back. The buzzer sounds again in her ear.

‘Just a minute,’ she says. ‘I’ll be right with you.’

She pulls the cord that drops the venetian blind, closes the curtains and unlocks the door.

The man steps inside. ‘Is this Studio 101?’

‘That’s right.’

The man looks Eve up and down, and she does the same to him. For five seconds, neither moves nor speaks.

Then he glances round the room. ‘No receptionist, no ensuite – ‘he begins.

‘No sauna, no champagne, no line-up of lovelies.’

‘I see.’ The man smiles and asks about the prices.

Eve tells him and gives him the spiel about the condoms and the wash basin.

He shifts from foot to foot, not uneasily, and looks at his hands again. He asks Eve her name and she tells him. Without comment, he says, ‘You can call me Vincent.’

Vincent pulls notes out of his wallet. Eve counts them and puts them in her bag.

He undresses behind the Japanese screen, testing its flimsy uprights before deciding they can bear the weight of his suit coat, trousers with black leather belt, pale shirt almost white.

Eve watches as the clothes appear neatly folded over the top of the screen. She makes no move to undress. When a pair of chartreuse underpants takes its place alongside some black socks, she raises her eyebrows and smiles a small private smile.

Vincent doesn’t complain about the size of the wash basin and has brought his own condoms. Eve watches him hunch smelly five o’clock balls over the basin’s narrow lip. He grimaces, but completes the task as thoroughly as she could wish. She hands him a white towel, thinking, as she walks across to the bed and pulls down the covers, that it’s humiliating for men to stand with their pricks in wash basins and that’s why she makes them do it. Here’s one who doesn’t fuss, she thinks, and perhaps takes many occasions in his stride.

Vincent’s body is hard and unexciting, sort of square-shaped. Somewhere between forty and fifty, he has brittle grey hairs on his chest, mixed with dark ones. Eve looks into his face. This moment is important. She decides whether she will let him kiss her.

‘Eve,’ says Vincent, reaching for the top button of her blouse.

His