Chai, Autumn 2017
I ran into Chai in a club as it was closing up at 6am, we had met at a house party in Sydney the year before. He'd since moved to Melbourne and was living temporarily in Fitzroy in a cheap room found on Gumtree, which turned out to be a room in a Thai massage parlour that also happened to be an unlicensed brothel. One of the walls in Chai's room was floor to ceiling glass that was only partially blacked out in the middle, so you could see the customers' shoes as they walked down the hallway past his room. There was a single mattress on the floor which meant that if anyone crouched down past the blacked-out section of the glass, they could also see him lying in bed. The shop was opened every day at 10am but wasn't as busy as it used to be, which was why they were also leasing out unused rooms to a random assortment of people who needed cheap accommodation. The few workers on shift were shy and didn't question our impromptu photoshoot in their workplace. It was a quiet day for them and my back was hurting so I ended up paying for a one-hour Thai massage (without the happy ending).
