Raspberry Fizzes

Chapter 1

"Payment has come through. Come down and meet me, boss needs you back at the club." He grunted into the phone. Sounding like his usual curt and rude self.

"Alright."

Once I'd heard the beep, signalling that the phone call had died I shimmied back into my golden slip dress, picking it up carefully from the floor. It was made of rayon fabric with a slit in the side of the right leg, reaching up my thigh. It hung a little lower around my breasts, the material gathering and bunching there and then scooping to sit at the ends of my shoulders. It was perfect to wear with my hair up in some kind of a stylish bun but most of the time I was instructed to keep my fine hair down.

It was the most valuable thing I had ever owned and I only ever wore it when I knew I was going to be meeting with a man of expensive tastes. 

I rushed around the standard sized, double-bedded suite, ensuring the hardly used room was perfect and just as I had found it. Nothing left behind and nothing to show I'd been in the room.

As I was reaching to exit the room, I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror that was stuck to the back of the door.

My light-brown hair was messier in its waves than it had been at the start of the night and my eye and lip make-up could use a touch-up. I let my eyes drift down my body, doing as I usually did. Pretending my eyes were the eyes of a predatory man, assessing the goods that were his for the taking if he so chooses. 

I choose to skip past the slight hollow I had been noticing in my cheeks over the past few weeks and do the same when my eyes land on my collarbones that seemed to jut out more and more with each passing day.

It left me feeling nauseous for each time I looked in a mirror, it felt as if I were witnessing myself decaying before my own eyes.

Luckily my breasts still swelled and held up the hem of the dress nicely, especially with my push-up bra forcing them to collide closer and bunch up higher, making the tops of my breasts supple and look to be overflowing from the hem of the perfect, shimmering dress.

Further down it clung to my body without shrinking in on it, spilling over my hips. It was as though the seams and the cut were customised just for me.

Turning, I checked how the dress looked over my bum and frowned as I noticed it had lost a little of its volume. And I realised I was starting to be able to see my rib cage as the fat reserves beneath my skin shrunk from my usage of it. 

Shaking my head from the thoughts seeing my body conjured up, I made my way over to my clutch and reached underneath the seat for my silver strappy stilettos, I always paired with this dress. Giving me another four inches of height. With these on I could stand at around 5'9". Again, something us girls had to mindful of, I could only wear these in circumstances I knew I would be meeting with a man 6ft or taller. 

Emasculating a man could be at best, a turn on for him. At worst, something they might murder you for. 

Moving to make my way out I did one last check of the room and frowned once more at the sight of me before opening the heavy-set door and leaving.

Chase was waiting in the underground parking lot of the multi-story hotel. He had left the car idling and stood in between his open door and the body of the car. 

He had his mobile pressed against his ear. Muscled arms darkened by tattoos flexed as he seemed to be frustrated with whoever was unlucky enough to be on the other line. These men were always on the phone, always organising lifts and strategies and places to take their girls to and from.

Once he had caught site of me carefully making my way over in my stilettos, he waved me over and hurried to finish his phone call. "Get in." Getting into the black Lexus himself.

I hurriedly opened the passenger door and noticed the back seat full of girls I had seen around the bar before. All in cheap dresses and dangerously thin heels. All wearing weak smiles and lifeless eyes.

I offered them a small smile of my own but was forced to quickly strap myself in and close my door after hearing Chase grunt in frustration beside me.

From New South Wales originally, I move interstate fairly regularly depending on where my boss needs me to be. While it tends to be mostly Melbourne, he sometimes sends me to the Sunshine Coast. I ran away from my family, feeling like a liability and resentful for the lack of love I received. I moved in with a friend, Nelly, who had run away from her family years back and was making ends meet in a Granny flat she rented behind her landlord's home. With a double bed and a portable camper stove-top sitting on a foldable table we had scored from off the street, we made do. The bathroom, a small room sectioned off from the otherwise open living space, held all the necessary amenities after recent renovations. For what we were paying, we were really lucky. 

But I had only come to know it once I had met what would become my co-workers and heard their stories. We were lucky to have a roof over our heads at all.

Moving in with Nelly and embracing her bustling life of pills and powders, late nights and high heels, I was introduced to the world of sex work and the like.

Nelly soon moved on, had a man she stripped for like her so much he offered her a job at his hotel. She says he doesn't ask for anything extra from her but I know what it means to look away and mumble a bunch of words you wish were true. 

Now, her days of dancing 'round the pole were over and I still lived in that tiny Granny flat behind George.

My name is Claudia and I am a sex worker.

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