Disclaimer
This story accounts for true events from my perspective, not the perspective of all sex workers. Although grim, I still chose to pursue sex work with more freedom and privileges, I love my job! This is not the only representation of the various experiences of sex workers and their clients. Some names, locations, and identifying information have been changed for anonymity.
Wake Up, Bitch!
It was past 4 a.m., and Tania’s screeching voice shattered the fragile calm of sleep Ebony and I finally found only thirty minutes earlier. “Babes,” she said, her voice carrying that sing-song urgency that always made my stomach turn. "You’ve got a party booking, I need three girls up now."
“Nope. No fucking way,” I shot back without even lifting my head from the pillow. My body ached, every bone heavy with exhaustion. We’d already worked a few nights this week, juggling this life with the so-called "normal" one, where a 6 a.m. alarm dragged us into 8-to-6 drudgery. Tania knew that. She knew not to pull this kind of shit on us—or at least I thought she did.
“Come on, get up, please, Jenna,” she pressed, her voice sharper this time. I rolled over to glance at Ebony, relieved she hadn’t stirred. She was still out cold, her face softened by the kind of rest she rarely got anymore. A pang of guilt twisted in my chest. I hated what I’d done to her, dragging her into this tomb of a house. This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She deserved better than the horrors waiting for her in the night than Tania. Better than me.
It was supposed to be glamorous—discreet bookings, luxury hotels, and cash handed over with a wink. That’s what I signed up for.
But six months in, the fantasy had rotted away, replaced with manipulation that dug its claws in deeper each night. Tania played us like puppets, her commands wrapped in fake concern. “Just one line, Love. You’ll feel better. You’ll work better.” Drugs weren’t a choice anymore; they were part of the job, just like the constant coercion and the clients who saw us as nothing more than bodies for rent.
I didn’t see the trap tightening around me until it was too late. The house wasn’t glamorous. It was a tomb, sucking us in and shutting out the escape. My boundaries blurred; my choices weren’t mine anymore. All that was left was the hollow comfort of hindsight, whispering what I should’ve done—too late.
“We’re not going, Tania,” I said firmly, my voice low but steady. “You knew we wouldn’t do a 4 a.m. tonight. Get someone else.”
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls. “Fucking c*nts,” Tania spat, her voice muffled but venomous. “You’ll never get popular as hoes if you don’t hustle, c*nt.”
And once again, we were in the dark.
A laugh escaped me, bitter and humorless. Hustle. What a word. What a pimp. And then, like a thread pulled too tight and snapping in my brain, it hit me. A cold realization crawled over my skin. Fuck. Was she pimping us?
I sat there frozen, the question an ugly, unwelcome intruder in my mind. The exhaustion folded over me again, though, and the shock didn’t hold. I crashed back into sleep, only to wake up an hour later and stumble through our early-morning routine. Get home, get an hour of real sleep, get ready, and go to work like everything was normal.
But all day, something gnawed at me—this sickening thought that I couldn’t shake.
Are we being pimped?
How? We’d been careful. We’d chosen the right site, the right agency, the worker-owned and -operated one. The "luxury" thing on Sydney’s North Shore. We did everything right. Didn’t we?
I was silent at work, the question unspooling in my mind like poison. Ebony noticed. Of course, she did. “What’s wrong?” she asked gently. I mumbled that we’d talk later, putting her off until I could figure out what to even say.
That night, Tania’s texts blew up our phones, just like they always did. “Three girls can’t make it. I need you in tonight,” she wrote. Short, clipped, all business.
What she didn’t say—the thing no one said—was why.
Three Sydney escorts went out one day. Crossed the Harbour Bridge, but not too far away. Their pimp hooked them on it. Their receptionist was slack. Only two Sydney escorts would be coming back.
- Cocaine.
Bait & Lure - Kings Cross Circa 2007
We were two broke girls crammed into a shoebox flat in Potts Point. Or, Sydney’s Kings Cross—“The Cross” to the locals who couldn’t be bothered dressing it up. A smut haven, Sydney’s sin strip—a chaotic mix of skanky and seductive. Back then, it was alive, humming with energy and debauchery, worlds apart from the sterile, gentrified version you’d find today. And it had a smell.
Picture this: decades of spilled booze ingrained in carpets at seedy strip clubs, back when smoking indoors was standard. Sometimes you’d catch the sickly-sweet tang of Malibu and cola; other times, a knock-you-flat waft of video head cleaner. Towards the far end of the strip, the air thickened with the scent of fake tan, sour urine, and greasy pizza. Equal parts vile and electric. And for 19-year-old me, utterly captivating.