Introduction to a Door Whore

Pru was updating her Facebook status:- “Prudence Chastity Chambers is preparing to perform her new single “Saggy Disco Tits” at The Iron Butterflies tonight. Come on by you old minges – it’s gonna be camp!”
Pru looked up from her I-phone and sighed. She was an absolute wreck.

It was 11 am and she had only just arrived back at her flat at St George Wharf. The sound of her six inch stilettos on the marble floor had awoken the night porter from his furtive sleep and he had eyed her contemptuously as she called the lift to take her to the fifteenth floor – the housing association floor.

She shuddered as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored walls of the lift. The reflection that glared back at her was merciless and she hardly recognised herself as “London’s premier gender bending artist.”

Oh God, how things had changed since she had started on the club scene 14 years ago. How had she come to this?

It was her tiny eyes that struck her first. It was almost as if they had been consumed by her pudgy, oblong face. All that remained were blood-shot slits, poking out from beneath her heavily painted trademark false eye lashes. The lids were encrusted and outlined with a week’s worth of thick mascara and sat below heavily drawn beetle brows. Once her eyes had sparkled with optimism and energy, now they just looked lifeless.

She had to face facts – she was verging on becoming what she had always detested in other drag queens – the Docker in Drag. Worse than that though, was the realisation that she really did not care anymore.
Oh, how different it had been when she had burst on to the scene at just 15. She had been the youngest drag queen in London back then. The Sun had even run a short piece on her where she had talked fearlessly about being different, urging all young queens at school to throw open the closet door and be themselves.

This was the young boy from Basildon who had made the most of his short, podgy frame and androgynous looks. A lot of glitter, determination and an eclectic line in multi-coloured fright wigs had led to him hosting at every major club across London. The bullied school boy with his man boobs and mousy, shoulder length hair had done good.

As the lift doors swung open Pru struggled to remind herself of how far she had come. Who would have thought she would get re-housed from a sink estate in Stockwell to Vauxhall’s premier riverside development? It had thrilled her to think that somewhere just floors above no less than John Major was busy studying cricket scores, while in some other far flung corner of the complex Chelsea Clinton was sinking into a bubbling marble tub.

She had hoped that she may bump into them on the day that she moved in when five Brazilian muscle marys had dragged her furniture through the foyer. Oh, if only the former P.M. knew what really went on down below, she had thought with glee.

But six weeks later reality had set in. She may now have had a fitted Ikea kitchen and flush, mirrored wardrobes, but nothing else had changed. The novelty had quickly worn off and she was left with her usual routine – endless nights in clubs surrounded by the usual hangers on with K dripping from their noses, followed by long days in a damp Camberwell studio thrashing out “Project Pru” – her first solo album which she hoped might take her to the big time.

In her brighter moments she could actually see success looming on the horizon. She envisaged herself glimmering from a TV set with her own talk show. She heard herself delivering cutting remarks on The X- Factor. But after yet another night of performing Lady Gaga and traipsing around the sauna handing out flyers for “Porn Idol”, she had no choice but to face the reality. And the truth was that five months off her 30th birthday the force of nature that was once Prudence Chastity Chambers was tired.

Pru closed the door to her apartment and fell against the wall. She removed the stilettos that clung to her swollen ankles and threw them across the hall. In just ten hours time she would be putting them on again and getting ready to stand in front of a microphone to lipsynch to the usual saucer-eyed punters.

Moving towards her boudoir she began to remove the towering blue wig that had taken half an hour to get in place. Collapsing on her leopard print duvet she took in the silence. She had no energy to start removing her makeup. It had been in place for the last two days anyway. She glanced at her beloved Dalmation Bruno who was snoozing in his usual spot next to her bed. Reaching out to him she ruffled the soft hair around his diamond collar.

“What you dreaming of Bruners? Let mummy join you. Let’s go somewhere nice together, darlin’.”

She removed the five crumpled ten pound notes, her night’s wages, from her garter belt and placed them in their usual place at the bottom of her makeup case and closed her eyes. She was just beginning to drift off to thoughts of her own coke fuelled interview on Tonight With Jonathan Ross when she was brought back into consciousness by a guttural cry from the adjacent bedroom. This was followed by the rhythmic thump of a headboard and the sound of a lamp falling from a bedside table. Bruno woke and started barking.

A Latin voice rung out from the other side of the wall.
“Aii, aiii, aiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…..”

Any hope of a rejuvenating sleep vanished as Pru realised that her oldest friend Kyle was doing his bit for international relations two metres away.