The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (42 page)

“They’re already suspicious,” she said. “This place is like a prison.”

The next day I was waiting for her in the dining room at the Nugget Hotel, in Pahrump. She walked in, cute as a button, with maybe a little baby fat on her. I booked a room, took her upstairs, and we had sex. It was clear she didn’t know what she was doing. Turned out she’d only ever slept with one man before, a preacher’s son in Michigan. They’d been dating for two years and had abstained, but one night he just couldn’t wait anymore and they went at it. He didn’t know what he was doing either, and it took several days before he succeeded in taking her virginity. A few nights later, they were having dinner with his parents and without warning he made an announcement. “Krissy and I did a terrible thing last night,” he said. “We had sex.” His parents were shocked. His preacher father made them bow their heads in prayer, and had them promise not to have sex again, but the damage had been done. Krissy felt horribly betrayed. She found herself being shunned by the entire community. She would walk into the supermarket and people would whisper and point her out. At the local diner, the waitresses wouldn’t even serve her.

She was crying by the time she had finished the story. She said that the first time she called me at the ranch — almost four years earlier — she had called out of desperation. She wanted to get away and the BunnyRanch had seemed like a viable option. But then she changed her mind and decided to finish school, and all she had to show for it was $36,000 in college loans.

Krissy was able to negotiate her way out of that other ranch, but it cost her, and I went back to get her and brought her back with me. She was a smart girl, with degrees in journalism and public relations, and I knew she was going to do well on the celebrity circuit. I had a photographer come in and take some pictures, and she hated the result. She thought she looked too fat, especially when she
compared herself to Sunset and Brooke and Cami. She decided she was going to get into the best shape of her life, and she was absolutely relentless about it. She cut out carbs and sugar. She weighed her portions, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And she worked out twice a day with Greg, my personal trainer.

During this same period, I began to educate her sexually. I went down on her and gave her the very first orgasm of her life. I taught her how to handle a dick. And I made her masturbate in front of me with a dildo to help her get over her inhibitions.

Within six weeks, she was not only great in bed, but had gone from 128 pounds to 104 pounds and looked absolutely phenomenal. The only problem was that her tits had disappeared. I had her start a titty fund, because I believe a woman should pay for those types of enhancements herself, and over the next few months I took her to see three different plastic surgeons. She finally settled on Dr. Garth Fisher, in Los Angeles, who had done a lot of famous girls. She didn’t have enough set aside to cover the operation, but I told her not to worry about it. “You’ve shown me you’re really committed to this, so I’ll pick up the tab.” She started crying so hard it worried me.

“In my whole life,” she said, “nobody has ever treated me as well as you have.” That made me a little sad for her, to be honest, but I felt pretty good about myself.

When it came time to choose her new tits, Krissy got a little greedy. Garth told her, “You can’t put a king-size pillow into a standard case. You’ve only got so much room.”

So I had a suggestion: “Krissy, how about Garth gives you the biggest tits he can but still keep them natural looking?”

I was actually there for the procedure. After the first incision, Garth put a thing in there called a sizer. It’s an implant, basically,
with a tube on it. You can blow it up and deflate it until you get the exact right size you want. If it’s too small, you pump it a bit; too big, you let out a little air. Finally, Garth got them just right. “Those are perfect,” I said.

And they
were
perfect. Krissy was back at work within two weeks, and she worked with newfound confidence and great energy. Within six weeks, she had her student loans paid off. She was putting money away. She was feeling good. And she did great with the press.

I told Suzette, “She’s the one.” Suzette got a look in her eye, having heard this before, but I told her that this time I really meant it. “I’m going to be with her forever.”

Krissy was so smart and educated that I decided to make her part of my management team. Suzette showed her how to handle scheduling and billing, and I taught her everything I knew about public relations. We were happy. One night over dinner she told me she couldn’t believe this was really her life. Krissy had had it rough. She had been one of five girls from a nice, churchgoing family, until her mother found out that her new husband had been molesting one of Krissy’s sisters. He ended up going to jail, and the family’s life went to hell. But Krissy had found a home at the BunnyRanch, and a new family, and the future looked bright and promising.

About six months in, she began to broach the idea of possibly not working. I told her how I felt about that. I said I thought it was important to maintain her independence, and to have her own money, because if she had to rely on me for everything it would create problems. She would feel indebted to me. She might come to resent me. She might feel less like a partner, and more like a dependent.

She understood what I was saying and didn’t disagree with me,
but when she brought it up again, a month later, I told her she could quit if she wanted. I said I’d put her in charge of public relations at a salary of $50,000 a year. And since I’d be paying for everything, she’d probably never even spend it.

She thought about it, but kept working. Given what she was making, $50,000 didn’t sound particularly generous.

At this stage, her biggest problem was her family. Her mother had abandoned her when she was in high school, running off to Alaska for a guy she met on Christianmingle.com, leaving her to fend for herself — all while emptying her daughter’s bank account. She had tracked her down and was badgering her for money. Krissy kept making excuses for her
: She’s had a hard life. She didn’t know about my stepfather. What am I supposed to do?— she’s my mother
.

Then one of her sisters was going to get married, and Krissy was over the moon with excitement. She’d already bought the airline tickets and the dress and everything, when one day a letter arrived at the ranch for Krissy. The short version was, “I don’t want you at my wedding because you’re a whore.” She pretended it didn’t bother her, but I could see it was killing her inside. I was super attentive and loving, and I did my best to take care of her in every possible way, but the pain was still there.

She went into a downward slide. Suddenly she didn’t like the fact that I was fucking other girls. Or maybe she’d never liked it, but was only feeling it now with all of this other heavy shit weighing on her. I told her what I have always told my girls; that seeing other girls was meaningless, that it was just sex, and that she had to learn to deal with it because I loved her and only her. “I’m Big Daddy,” I reminded her. “I’m master of the house. These girls are going to be throwing pussy at me like Frisbees. But you’re different. I want all of you and on every level. Physical, emotional, intellectual.”

I kept pushing Krissy to become more involved with the business. I wanted her to see that I was really committed to our partnership. I’m not the type of guy who worries about dying every day, but I also thought it would be good to be prepared. I thought Krissy was finally beginning to believe what I had been trying to tell her all along: That it was her and me against the world; that we were really together.

Suddenly, her father died — her real father. This was super heavy. She’d been a teenager when her parents divorced, and she had sided with her mother. She was torn about going to the funeral, but we talked about it, and she went. She even sang at the service, and came home stronger than ever, as if she had somehow put that whole terrible chapter behind her. I wanted to make sure she was okay, that she wasn’t just repressing the bad feelings, and I suggested that we take a little vacation. We could go to Hawaii for a week; take a cruise; anything she wanted. But she said she was fine, and I believed her.

I loved this girl. Even
Domino
loved her. I mean, he liked most of the other girls, but Krissy was special. His ears would perk up when he heard her coming. His tail would wag like crazy. If I walked him over to the parlor, he’d make a beeline for her door and sit in the corridor, waiting for her to get done with the client. At night, he’d sometimes lie on her side of the bed. He must have sensed that Krissy was a real dog person. She had a golden retriever she had left behind in Michigan with an old friend, and she had been reluctant to bring him to Nevada, not sure she would be able to care for him with her busy schedule. But now she decided she wanted to go to Michigan and bring him back with her. I was all for it. I love Domino, and I didn’t understand why it had taken her so long to make that decision. “Let’s go get your dog,” I said. “We’ll fly
there, rent a car, and drive back. That’s the one thing missing from your life, the one thing that will make everything perfect.”

She called her friend in Michigan and had her take the dog to the vet, one last checkup before the drive to Nevada, and they found a little growth on his throat. They wanted to operate, so of course Krissy flew back right away. They found out the dog had cancer. He was only five years old, but the party was over. Krissy fell completely apart, which I understood, because I love Domino. I said I would get on the next plane to Detroit, but she said no; she would grieve and come back in a few days.

They put the dog down the following afternoon. Krissy and I were on the phone constantly, but she was crying so hard I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I tried to share a few lessons from Dale Carnegie. This was probably the worst possible thing that could have happened, yes, but she would move on, and would be all the stronger for it. It was a horrible, tragic situation, but she would get through it, and I’d be by her side to do what I could. “I promise it will get better,” I said. “But you need to be strong.”

Only she couldn’t be strong. And I understood that, too. She’d been through a lot. The messed-up family; that preacher’s son; her father dying; her sister disinviting her from the wedding; and now this, the death of her beloved dog.

To compound matters, she began accusing me — still on the phone from Michigan — of being hot for this little girl in Los Angeles, where I’d been on business several times. At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I’m not sure she knew what she was talking about. So I blamed it on the grief. Grief can make people crazy. She then admitted that she had looked at my phone before she left for Michigan, and had seen some pretty racy texts between me and that girl in Los Angeles, along with some pictures. “Krissy, come on,” I said. “That’s
who I am. It was just harmless flirting. She’s thinking about coming to work at the ranch. Nothing happened.”

But she wouldn’t believe me. And what could I do? I was telling her the truth and she either wouldn’t accept it or didn’t want to accept it. So maybe she’d been bullshitting me all along; maybe her life wasn’t perfect; maybe she’d been repressing a lifetime of bad feelings and they were all just now coming to a head. I don’t know. All I know is that it really fucking hurt. I’m in my sixties. Not a young man anymore, and I honestly believed that I was going to spend the rest of my life with Krissy. It brought back all these horrible memories of all the women I’d loved or
tried
to love. Was it me? Was I the problem? What was I doing wrong? Had I not loved them enough? Had I not been good enough to them? Had I held back?

I kept asking myself,
What could I have done differently
?
I thought I had helped Krissy land on her feet, as I’d done with so many other girls. I thought we had The Life. But I guess I was wrong. Krissy never came back. Never. We spoke on the phone a few times, but I couldn’t get beyond the pain and anger and I stopped taking her calls. I felt as if I’d been betrayed. I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life.

The only person I could talk to was Suzette. She knew me better than anyone. She told me I was an incorrigible romantic. Every time a girl stole my heart, I was convinced I was going to be with her forever. I really, truly believed it. The problem, as Suzette saw it, was that the girls had needs of their own. “There’s a line you won’t cross, Dennis, and sometimes a girl needs her man to cross that line. She needs to know that he is really, truly there for her, and many girls can’t accept anything short of marriage.”

“I’ve been married three times,” I said. “Look how that ended. Half of all marriages end in divorce. You walk down the aisle with a person you want to ‘have and to hold’ till death do you part and within a year or two you want to stick a knife in their back. Is that love?”

“I don’t know what love is,” Suzette said.

“I don’t either,” I said. “But right now I know one thing: I need to get laid.”