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Body Shell Girl
Rose Hunter
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Body Shell Girl
Rose Hunter
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About This Book
think of my body as a shell that I could vacate, not as metaphor, or symbolbut as a real possibility Body Shell Girl is a memoir in verse about the first two years of a decade that Rose Hunter spent in the sex industry in Canada. When Rose walked into a massage parlour in Toronto in 1997, she was looking for a temporary fix to pay rent and avoid having to go back to her home country of Australia.Awkward, shy and looking for a place to belong, she found herself in a strange world she understood little about, other than here she could make more than rent. She planned to use her earnings to buy herself an education that would secure the career of her dreams.Naively believing she could do only what was required of her, without trauma or side effects and leave the industry on her own terms, she was shattered by what unfolded. This is her story. It is also a searing portrayal of this dehumanising industry in all its destructive power.
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Information
I
Portal, 1997
i
Look, for months I ignored those ads
you know the ones, maybe:
Masseuses wanted!
$$$
cash paid DAILY
no experience necessary
!!!
Classified section of the Toronto Star cast out over
peanut butter brown, hardwood floors
of that share apartment near St Clair and Bathurst
black ink on fingertips, red pen poised:
retail, waitressing, shelf stocking
I got some interviews
I got a job in a photo shop
lasted three weeks before I went to lunch
permanently, seriously
required to sit staring into space
when there was nothing to do
which was often
my āstorybooksā as the manager called them, banned
it wasnāt the first time Iād come across that
and been amazed
the others could do it!
How
I tried and went crazy
so back to the start, I got an interview
a paid internship at a documentary film company
a dream job. Hanging everything on getting that job
which was a sure way for the universe not
to give it to you
not that I believed in that sort of thinking
but really I did, and really I didnāt
yet I was flying high
with imagining it, dizzy with wanting
and wishing and waiting
for my housemateās phone to ring
but then it did
and it was no
the room echoed, the finality snapping
shut
but snap out of it, Iād try again
but for now I needed a job, any job
I got more interviews
but didnāt get those jobs either
demoralising, like my job searches always were
turns out a BA in English didnāt qualify me for much
and crumbling: the dream-wish that somehow
during this yearās working visa in Canada
Iād get that job I never could get in Australia
Iād keep that job I never could keep there
Iād find that home I never could there
and my life would finally start
but instead
rent loomed
and nothing in reserve
to qualify for the visa Iād borrowed money
got a printout of that bank statement
as my āproof of sufficient fundsā
then gave the money back
I considered it a victimless crime
but oh no, what to do now
and so, one day
a neat steady circle
appeared around one of those ads
it was my hand that held the pen
I watched it join the curved edges of the line
then pause
a tiny red moon formed
which I smudged into a red comet
I stared at it. Picked up the phone.
Pressed two spirals of the cord
between my thumb and forefinger
allowed them to ease apart
pressed them together again
put the phone back. Ate a packet of Doritos
calculated this would take me approx.
half an hour to run off
kneeled in front of the toilet bowl
but no no, not now, do not
even let that idea in
God no no
Iād never call if I started on that
I picked up the phone again
my breath like skipping stones
maybe I could get in trouble for even calling?
No experience necessary to be a masseuse?
Well, it didnāt say massage therapist.
Iād heard about what they called āsex workā
in university, and how it was a job like any other
they said. Also a bit radical
and daring and even cool
at least in the groups I tried to fit in with
although none of us actually did it, that I knew of
but I also thought it was mostly illegal
so I didnāt think this could be that
if it was advertised in the main newspaper?
Maybe it was something borderline
like lingerie massaging? Did that exist?
Maybe I could do that? Maybe
you know, if I owned lingerie
and if anyone would pay to see me in it
when they saw me theyād laugh me out of the room
probably it was for models
but who knew who it was for
this was back in the days before I owned a computer
and before people googled everything, and life
in many ways, held more surprises
maybe it would be something I could do
it wouldnāt mean anything serious to me
like it might for normal people.
āHell...