Chapter 9 Liv
Chapter 9
Liv
I nudge Brandon in the ribs with just enough elbow force to make him roll on to his side and stop snoring. His deviated septum, a hangover from a rugby injury, makes it difficult for him to breathe through his nose when he’s lying on his back.
I’m struggling to tune him out tonight. Though I can’t solely blame his impression of a steam train pulling into a station for keeping me awake. There’s too much whirring around in my head for me to switch off completely. I think the shift in our lives over the last six weeks is catching up with me, alongside our plans for the studio.
I admit defeat and quietly leave the bedroom. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I turn on the under-cabinet lights then make myself a hot chocolate. I glance at the space that surrounds me and compare it to our London flat. We could never have bought this place unless I’d thrown away just about every principle I ever had.
I think back, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted better for myself. For three years running, the north-west England town where I was born and raised won the undesirable title Most Deprived Town in Great Britain. Government neglect and soaring unemployment had crippled Sandlehope – or Abandon-All-Hope, as locals nicknamed it. As a child I was often moved about from one squalid bedsit to another, until something more permanent appeared. I vowed to do better for my own children.
The gold-paved streets of London felt like somewhere I ought to be, but for years I was treading water in dead-end cashier and cleaning jobs, and during a particularly low point, hosing down the bloodied floors of an abattoir. Eventually I scraped enough money together to put myself through secretarial college.
‘Why bother?’ the friends I’d grown up with asked. ‘Find a bloke, settle down, get married and let him worry about work.’
That attitude was ingrained in them. It was what our mothers had done and their mothers before them. But I deserved more than a life that was dependent on, determined and financed by men.
So I made a plan to escape. I listened to hours of lessons on the Get Rid of Your Accent app and followed Instagram pages offering tutorials on the right clothes to wear for the right situations. I completed more than a hundred and fifty online application forms and attended a dozen interviews before an employer took a chance on me. Harrison, Murray & Kline, a private London-based bank, offered me a junior role in a secretarial pool at their Mayfair Place offices. I accepted before they’d even revealed the wage.
The only accommodation I could afford was a box room in a flat-share south of the river with three other young women. I lived hand to mouth for the first year, my wages swallowed up by rent, food and commuting. I could go out at night maybe once or twice a fortnight, and I shopped in supermarkets after 6 p.m., when the unsold fresh food was price-reduced.
It was Kelly, a medical student who’d just moved into the bedroom next to mine, who offered me a way to live in the city, rather than simply existing in it.
‘I make specialist videos to sell to my website subscribers’ was how she put it to me after treating me to a yoga class one evening. ‘It’s given me a life beyond the hospital.’
‘What do you mean by “specialist”?’ I replied with a raised eyebrow.
‘Not what you’re thinking.’ She laughed. ‘Fetish stuff. I have nice feet apparently. I never show my face, just my legs and feet, wiggle them around for the camera, maybe play with them a little bit, paint or trim my nails, slip on a few pairs of shoes, whatever the client wants.’
‘And that’s it? Nothing sexual?’
‘No. Some ask, even beg, for more. But I’m not risking my career over a side hustle.’
‘Does it pay well?’
She nudged me in the ribs. ‘Why, are you interested?’
‘Just curious.’
‘Between about ￡50 and ￡75 for each private video, and there can be five or six of those a week. I earn more in a month from subscribers alone than I do on my junior doctor’s wage. By the time I’m qualified, I’ll have paid off most of my student loans.’
‘Wow,’ I replied, a little lost for words.
‘You know one thing I get a lot of requests for? Verbally abusive behaviour. Me telling men they’re worthless and useless, criticising their appearances.’
‘So, Twitter, basically.’
‘I’ve tried it a couple of times, but it doesn’t work for me,’ she continued. ‘But you could give it a go. Create a persona for yourself, wear a mask so no one will ever recognise you, and just hurl abuse at paying customers.’
I wasn’t sure what it was about me that gave off a ‘you’d be a natural at intimidating men’ vibe. However, I couldn’t deny its appeal.
‘But one of the reasons I moved away from home was to build a life for myself that didn’t involve being reliant on men,’ I argued. ‘If I’m taking their money to do things that turn them on, how am I being an independent woman?’
‘Because, Beyoncé, they’ll be playing by the rules you set. This is your game, not theirs.’
What did I have to lose? Kelly attached a link on her website to a separate page she’d built for me. Then we made a handful of videos where I lay seductively on my bed, dressed head to toe in a latex outfit and mask I’d bought second-hand from eBay, and told viewers how worthless they were. There were instantly takers, believe me. It felt ridiculous until I separated myself from the character I was playing.
As the weeks progressed, my follower numbers and requests continued to increase. And soon, I was no longer turning down invitations for nights out because I couldn’t afford it. My long-delayed London social life had begun.
It was through work colleagues that I ended up spending much of my time on the Kensington and Chelsea scene. Most of those I rubbed shoulders with were born into money, and when asked, I was vague about my underprivileged background. And I admit to losing myself by trying to be someone I wasn’t. I dated men based on their net worth instead of their worth as human beings. I became accustomed to being bought clothes and jewellery, taken to fancy restaurants or away for weekends, without ever having to put a manicured hand in my pocket. By the time Brandon and my worlds collided, I barely recognised myself.
He was someone’s plus-one when he sat next to me at a Knightsbridge restaurant at the leaving dinner of a mutual work friend. And aside from the fact he was so bloody good-looking, I noticed he was the only one around the table clocking the exorbitant menu prices before giving the waiter his order. I felt for him because I’d been him. No, I was still him, just in designer heels paid for by someone else. I surprised myself with a sudden urge to show him who I really was.
‘They’re not exactly Nando’s prices, are they?’ I whispered in his ear.
At first he was unsure if I was mocking him. When he realised I wasn’t, he smiled.
‘Is tap water an acceptable starter?’ he asked.
I said nothing about my extra-curricular money-making ventures, but there was something refreshingly honest about him. I learned that like me, he wanted to better himself, and had relocated to London following a failed business venture with a friend. Now he was a personal trainer in an upmarket gym. He also sold subscriptions to personal-training videos on the website OnlyFans. In a short space of time, the site had become a one-stop shop for musicians, chefs, authors, artists and adult entertainers to release original work to paying subscribers.
I waited all that night for a red flag or a hint of toxic masculinity, but there was none. So we made arrangements to meet the following week for dinner, at the much more credit-card-friendly noodle restaurant Wagamama. And after that second night, we barely left each other’s side.
The weeks progressed as quickly as our growing closeness. But it gnawed at my conscience that this man I was falling for was oblivious as to how I was funding my life. He deserved transparency. So I slid my iPad towards him one evening and played a video I’d made for a client who’d wanted me to be critical of naked images of his genitals. Five minutes of work had earned me ￡120. Then, as I fixed my attention on Brandon’s expression, I braced myself.
He closed the screen and turned his head towards me.
‘To be fair, you’re right.’ He smiled. ‘That guy really does have an ugly cock.’
With that, I knew Brandon and I were going to be just fine. In the years that followed, we bought our first place together. It didn’t bother me that I’d put down most of the deposit. In fact I preferred it that way. We were happy.
And then a spanner hit the works. More accurately, two twelve-week-old spanners, the size of plums and with heartbeats, which were growing inside me.
And here we are now.
This morning, I finish my hot chocolate, leave the cup in the sink and check the time. The kids will be up in an hour, so there’s little point in going back to bed. Through the window, the interior light of a car catches my eye. It illuminates Anna’s husband Drew. I briefly wonder what my new neighbours really think of me. Do they see me as the woman I’m trying to project myself as? And will their opinions change if they ever discover how I actually found investment in my new studio?
Because it took a lot more than just making a few sexy videos.