In My Skin by Kate Holden Page B

won’t come inside you’; ‘I’ll only put it on the outside—’ Depending on how desperate I was for the job or how little I cared about my health I would agree or refuse. At the very least I tried not to let them ejaculate inside me. Thankfully there were few full-sex jobs and they usually agreed to protection. In my rational mind I knew this was important, that I had to be smart and stand up for myself. But I was almost too tired to care.
    I set myself to ignoring the stench of penises that had nestled inside trousers all day, unwashed. I became adept at surreptitiously wiping them clean with my palm before I went down, at spitting mouthfuls of come out the car window. I watched as the men tucked their messy cocks back in their pants without even wiping up. Some men tried to kiss me, forcing their wet tongues against my clenched teeth. I had saliva on my face. My fingers stank of sex. I grew not to notice it.
    My legs ached as I pounded around that block. The streetlights were stark, the parking lots and nature strips as I turned onto St Kilda Road were littered with old tissues, condom wrappers, the occasional discarded fit, instantly recognisable to me with its orange cap. I passed girls I knew, stopped to chat a moment—to pass on warnings, relate disasters, speculate on what the cops were up to that night. We all appeared to be heroin users, at least the young ones. There were a couple of old chicks. I was a bit of a curiosity, since most girls stood—not always in the same place, and I never saw the proverbial cat-fights over a spot—while I tramped around and around.
    I’d been doing this for months now. The weather began to warm. From time to time the police put on a blitz to keep all the workers on their toes and the residents of St Kilda happy. I’d learned to double-check for undercover vehicles every time I approached a car; I’d learned how to walk quickly past any girl I saw talking to uniformed police.
    I learned that I’d made a mistake that first time I was stopped, by admitting what I’d been doing. My friend David, being a lawyer, was able to tell me that the police required an admission before they could charge me. ‘Just say nothing,’ he said. ‘Be polite, and stay calm, and don’t tell them anything. They’ll try everything, you know—they’ll threaten you with this and that bullshit—just keep quiet. Then they can’t do anything.’
    I was already in a car with a mug, just another job, when the flashing lights came on and instructed us to pull over. My mug held his head in his hands before we got out of the car. Three detectives in plain clothes.
    They tipped my bag over the footpath. Keys, lipstick, hairspray, loose change and my holder for cards, all over the asphalt. ‘We saw you, you were walking down Barkly Street and you got in the car. Don’t give us any fucking shit. You’re busted for loitering.’
    ‘Loitering? I was walking! Now I’m in a car!’
    ‘We saw you. Loitering is being in a place. ’
    I suppressed the urge to say that, in that case, existence itself constituted loitering; they’d found my expired student card.
    ‘A smartarse, huh?’
    I said, ‘No comment, officer,’ and raised my cigarette to my mouth. My hand shook violently. The big guy next to me stepped very close, puffed up his chest and folded his arms.
    ‘We’ve got a list down the station,’ said the little one. Behind him the female detective stared at me. ‘We put girls like you on it when they’re not honest with us. And every fucking time we see you, we’re going to pick you up. You understand?’
    I blew smoke. ‘ No comment. ’ They glared at me, but let me go. I was in Albert Park, two suburbs away from St Kilda; the mug and his car had already vanished. It was a long walk back to my rounds.
    The cops trawled the block all the time: easy pickings for their arrest quota. I heard they divvied up the score: one night, they’d get the girls. The next, the mugs. The next, the