An uninviting corridor to endless rooms? Too many Hollywood movies…. When I ring the bell on the video intercom a woman's voice answers and the door clicks open to let me in. Immediately my senses kick up a notch as I leave the greyness of the inner-city street behind me.
Aromatic oils and smooth cafe-style tunes waft quietly through the air. A woman in her mids with wild, curly black hair and dark eyes framed by glasses Madame Mary welcomes me to The Fun House. The establishment we walk into has five rooms, each named after classic cars, and rivals any five-star boutique hotel. She laughs, but isn't surprised — she gets this a lot.
In the bedside tables, condoms and lubes replace the Holy Bible and free pens. Here women sell sex and mostly men come to buy it. The dark wooden walls are adorned almost floor to ceiling with anything a sadist or masochist might desire. Mary takes a seat in the middle of an old hospital bed in front of a wall with a pair of handcuffs fastened to it.
She starts from the beginning. Growing up in a strict Catholic home she didn't see what was so wrong with Mary Magdalene.
She openly talks about her sometimes-turbulent past, working in brothels in New Zealand and overseas and owning a business with her late husband that was burnt to the ground. Over the years she has come and gone from it, but something always pulled her back, she says.
