Turning 18

It was during this time that I turned 18. Unlike other teenagers reaching this milestone of adulthood I did not have a party or go out to party, and I did not drink alcohol. We did go out as a family to an RSL-type club in Harbord, but it was just a small intimate affair. I seemed to do everything in reverse and miss out on those significant moments that others have. With leaving school early I did not have a prom – or a formal as it’s mostly known in Australia. I’d lost my virginity in the strangest way too, unlike most teenage girls who ‘lose it’ to their boyfriends in high school. So too at that stage, when I was finally legally allowed to drink alcohol and go out to nightclubs I’d grown weary of all of it. All I wanted was family. Unlike before, when I was scared to turn 17, I felt fine being 18.

Even before my birthday, both B and I were given a lot of freedom by my parents. Although I wasn’t going out at night at all anymore, we often went into the city during the day to browse the shops that we could no longer really afford to shop at. It was sometime around my 18th birthday – whether before or after I couldn’t say – when I was on Oxford Street in Paddington on a beautiful, warm and sunny day. B and I almost ran into Helena Christensen and Deni Hines coming out of a boutique that we were about to enter. It was during the time when they were in relationships with Michael Hutchence and Kirk Pengilly from INXS. Although I had seen Australian models before, I had never seen an international Supermodel up close and in the flesh. She was not as tall as I had expected, however she was tiny in frame. I couldn’t believe how skinny she looked; how long and fine her limbs were. Her skin colour was a very deep olive-brown; with her pure-white, floaty, above the knee dress creating even more of a contrast with her exposed tanned face, neck, arms and legs. I was mesmerised. I thought that she was beautiful, and I longed to be as thin as she was as I watched her cross the road and sashay in the opposite direction down the street.

It was also sometime around my 18th birthday that I saw Rachel for the final time. I was walking towards my father’s work in Surrey Hills and she was walking in my direction. I hadn’t seen her for well over a year and I felt shocked and nervous to meet her on the street as ‘me’. I had never seen her outside of the walls of Luxure. She stopped to talk to me, but she didn’t want to touch me. She actually said to me that she’d just had a shower. I felt so offended. With the brothel being her entire life, she probably couldn’t imagine someone leaving that world behind to create a new life. I must have looked thin at this time too, so perhaps she thought that I was on drugs, though I wasn’t. I was dressed nicely and was even wearing my favourite perfume at the time, Champagne by Yves Saint Laurent. After our basic pleasantries, we said our goodbyes and walked away from each other forever.