Having just been in Alice Springs has brought back a whole lot of memories from when I lived there briefly at 17–18 years old. My schooling in Adelaide had been unsettled, to say the least. I had been to six schools by the time I reached 17. My parents changed me around a lot in the younger years, and then as I got older, I was used to moving, so I chose to move schools a few times.
It was strange—I had this very real longing to go to the outback. My parents were both very busy, and I didn’t have a lot to do with them, so I proposed to them that I wanted to move to Alice Springs to finish my schooling. At first, they weren’t keen on the idea, but they eventually warmed to it.
Mum arranged for me to move into student accommodation called Gillen House, which was a two-story building with student rooms on each floor and shared bathroom facilities. When I arrived at Gillen House, it reminded me of American college dorm rooms.
The primary purpose of Gillen House was to accommodate apprentices when they came to Alice Springs from around the Territory for blocks of trade school. I had just been picked up from the airport by a representative from Centralian College, where I was going to be studying, and she took me to Gillen House.
As we walked up the stairs, I could hear Shania Twain playing through a CD player, and when we reached the top, there were five men who looked to be between 19 and 25, all staring at me. These young men were five apprentice butchers, and I could instantly pick out which one of them was their leader. He was tall, with an average-looking build and brown hair. Thinking back about him now, he really looked like he had the devil in him—and he really did.
As I settled into my new home, I quickly came to know the butchers, and they made me feel welcome. There was also another cast of characters that lived at Gillen House: a Malaysian dentist, a morbidly obese young man who became my dear friend and was my fellow student, a uni student from Adelaide who was doing some sort of placement at the Desert Park, and different people who would pass through.
Luke, the leader of the butchers, and I quickly developed a love-hate banter, and we fought constantly. But that was just a cover for what became a strong attraction to each other. I was really out of my depth with Luke. I was 17 years old, I had only had one boyfriend, and I was still a virgin. I kept thinking, If something happens between us, I don’t know how I would tell him I’ve never had sex before.
I started school, and I really loved the school itself. I remember walking through the main corridor, and there was a display with a heap of red dirt. It was the sort of outback scene I had been craving when I decided to go there in the first place.
I would arrive home from school, and the butchers would sometimes be around wearing their uniforms with shower caps and boots. In many ways, they actually looked like serial killers. It was coming up to my 18th birthday, and I let it slip to the butchers. They took me to the casino the night before my birthday and counted down until 12:00am with me, and we went crazy.
It was funny with the butchers—I had this intense chemistry with Luke, who was from Katherine, but his best friend, Ben, and I also became very good friends, and I think he liked me too. Ben was a big build—not fat, but big. I would actually say cuddly. He was very good-looking and an absolute sweetie, from Katherine like Luke. He gave up some nights with the boys just to hang out with me, which they all said meant he was head over heels.
There was a TV room at Gillen House, which had a VCR of all things, and I remember one afternoon they were watching pornography. I was in my bedroom doing something, and a few of them knocked on my door and told me to come out and watch it with them. I said, "Not a chance."
We went out for my birthday, and we went out a number of other times, but it was soon coming to the time when they had to go home. Luke and I had this banter, but he really was an arsehole. One night, though, he wasn’t an arsehole. We got locked out the back in the lawn area, and while we were waiting for someone to let us in, he said to me, "You’ll make something good of yourself. We’ve just got to get you to finish school."
I had a habit of talking to the boys from the doorway of their rooms at night before they went to sleep. On their last night, I came down to say goodbye to Luke and Ben, who were sharing a room. We talked a lot of rubbish, and then Ben told me I would be okay at Gillen House without them because Luke wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I told them I was going to bed, and Luke asked if he could walk me back to my room.
They were on the ground floor, and I was up a level, so we started walking slowly to the stairs. We had that typical goodbye conversation, which went a little bit like:
"Why did you hate me so much?"
"I didn’t hate you at all."
"Are you serious? Maybe something could have happened between us."
"It still can."
I’m actually not sure how old he was—probably 19 or so—but it was very late-teensy, loved-up talk. We walked up the first set of stairs, and in the middle, before the second set to my level, he pushed me up against the wall, and we kissed. He then lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. Back then, I thought it was so hot.
We quickly walked up to my room and took things to the bed. But as things got hot and heavy, I couldn’t shake the thought that I was a virgin, and he wouldn’t want me if he knew that. We kept kissing and getting undressed, but then I asked him to stop.
He asked if I was okay, and I said I was fine, but then I told him I had my period and didn’t want to have sex. He asked me a series of dirty questions, which I won’t write about in this blog because it’s not that kind of blog, but then he asked me when the last time I had sex was. I lied. I told him it was just before I came to Alice Springs.
He seemed deflated, and looking back now, I don’t think, as an 18-year-old woman, I fully appreciated how frustrating it would have been to get him all revved up to no avail. We talked for a while, but then he said he needed to get some sleep, and he left.
The next morning, all the butchers told me Luke had said we slept together. I denied it because it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t believe he had betrayed me like that. I cared about him a great deal at this point, and he had blatantly lied about me. I was still sad when he left—when they all left—but not two weeks later, more butchers arrived.
There was a very good-looking butcher, Mark, from Tennant Creek, and we struck up a bit of a friendship. He had just broken up with his girlfriend, and I was very sad about Luke leaving, so we kind of formed a lonely hearts club of sorts. Nothing happened between Mark and me, but we hung out a lot. He was very shy, and the other butchers told me that he liked me. Even that young, I knew I didn’t want to get a reputation for getting with all the butchers who came through Gillen House.
As well as butchers, there were a fair few chefs who stayed there. I got to know a whole range of apprentice tradies. One young woman, Bianca, came to stay, and she was an apprentice chef. We got along really well. She actually got into a relationship with another chef, but she always made time for me.
I don’t know if anyone has ever asked you the question of what was the best day of your life, but for me, it was a day I spent with Bianca. We caught a taxi from Gillen House to the Alice Springs cemetery and spent the afternoon looking at all the tombstones. It was the only day that I think I’ve ever just felt free and loved—free to be myself, unmasked, and loved by a true friend who I have unfortunately lost contact with.
The butchers, the chefs, and the hairdressers all inspired me and taught me a lot about hard work and craftsmanship. As a vegetarian, looking back now, it’s hard to believe that at such a young age I developed strong, misguided feelings for a butcher who hacks away at dead animals like their lives meant nothing at all.
I actually looked Luke up on Facebook a few years ago, and he really did look like a serial killer. I still replay in my mind that night in my bedroom with him. I honestly believe that if I had just told him I was a virgin, my relationship with sex would be a lot better today. I would have also felt free to experiment with other men and make mistakes, but I took a very different approach. I wish I could have had a sense of humour about it.
But being eighteen and a virgin is not funny—it is totally normal. I just read a story about a 55-year-old Adelaide woman who lost her virginity to a male prostitute, and there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Oh, to be young, and free, and unmasked. Maybe not living in a house full of young butchers, though.
