This is suburbia, the land of red brick, where a clad covered extension symbolises enviable wealth. Sedans in various states of undress rest diagonally across unmown lawns or swerved onto nature strips. A man with skin like oil, dark and shiny, slides out of the car yard shadows to ask why I’m taking photographs of the wrecks. I shrug noncommittally, admiring his handsome face. Shrugs seem to be plausible currency here and he drifts away with a sideways smile, gone by the time I turn to look back at him.

No one really walks here; the only other visible occupants of this long street are an odd-sized couple who shoulder roughly past me. Her tattooed breasts jiggle with each step of her mountainous form and she seems to snarl at the obviousness of my stare. He follows a step behind, goofy. They wear matching glasses; the ones that mirror your image back to you. I catch a glimpse of how they see me and note that in this land, I’m the anomaly.

The houses march on though, relentless; with their sprinklers, concrete kangaroos and birdbaths. A dog musters a half-hearted bark in my direction, a beat too late. Even he doesn’t remember the protocol for the step of passing strangers.

Birds sing their spring songs, which mix with the rumble of passing trucks. Industry mingles with domestic life, spilling over the border of the train tracks, stealing empty paddocks from grubby-faced kids who I imagine once played games in the grass until their mothers would open back doors to spill light over their dusky playground and summon them to dinner. Machines and smokestacks have stolen their turf, mobile phones and computer games, their attention. Streets empty except for me, wandering, wondering if they know the woman next door has sex with men in St Kilda to pay her bills. Do they know the woman next door at all?

A kid’s head pops up over the fence.

‘Hello,’ she says.

I jump, startled at the unexpected intrusion, but laugh quickly and smile. She smiles back. Her disembodied head floats for a while, watching me. I turn back to kicking my feet along the dusty path, sun on my face. It’s hot, dry and peacefully monotonous. Sex work seems incongruous here amongst the straggly hedges and occasional manicured trellises of tomatoes. I daydream my way past Dani’s house and she runs after me, calling my name.

I’ve come to interview this suburban mum, who drives down to work the streets a couple of times each week. She has her own seven-month-old daughter and several step kids. She has beautiful roses in her front yard and a cat. Her partner, a rough-hewn truck driver, knows she works and tells me he doesn’t like it. But he tolerates it, as long as she doesn’t touch any drugs. She doesn’t. I ask her how she works straight and she shrugs:

‘I don’t know, I just do’.

The job seems to be mostly motivated by the need to pay off the sixty thousand dollars worth of speeding fines she has accumulated. I’m shocked by the amount and ask her why she doesn’t slow down. Another shrug. They’re catching.

Every time I think I have this job pegged, I’m wrong. I thought everyone who worked the street had some sort of addiction. I thought I would judge every man harshly who knows his woman works and sits idly by, letting her hock her box for him. But I like her partner, with his open face and simple manner and opinions. I thought sex work would probably make you hate yourself somehow. Although Dani says sometimes she comes home and scrubs herself clean, she tells me she likes herself just fine and feels alright about what she does. And I believe her.

Before I walk back to the train station, I ask her if she is going to tell her daughter what she does for a living. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘Maybe when she’s old enough to understand…’ I’m not sure I’m old enough yet to understand all the subtle nuances of this world. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be.