Brothel (12 page)

Although he was professionally successful and obviously intelligent, Zachary’s father was clearly in denial about his son’s condition. Given Zachary’s age and symptoms, it seemed likely that he had schizophrenia, an illness that certainly couldn’t be cured simply by losing one’s virginity. I felt for Zachary’s father, who was so desperate to fix his son’s problems that he was grasping at straws, flying his son out to a legal brothel in Nevada despite moral reservations. But I felt much more for Zachary, and wondered what his mother thought about this solution. In focusing on the issue of sex, Zachary’s father assigned epic proportions to his son’s virginity.

Keri told me later that she’d picked up on this pressure immediately. Zachary hadn’t told her about his breakdown but instead simply said that he was being mocked for being a
virgin and this was his chance to prove his manhood. Unfortunately, he did not lose his virginity that day. Despite Keri’s concerted efforts and even a generous extension of time—she kept him in her room for sixty minutes rather than the usual thirty to forty—Zachary couldn’t do it. “I tried and tried and tried,” she told me. “He couldn’t get hard. He was just so nervous. His legs were all tensed up.”

Keri told Zachary that virgins frequently had trouble their first time because of nerves, and that many who came to Mustang were still virgins when they walked out the door. Still, no matter how she tried to comfort him, she knew he had left feeling inadequate. “He asked me not to tell his dad.” She wondered whether Zachary might be worse off now, given the pressure imposed by his father. I, too, wondered how damaging this experience would be for the boy.

Keri was one of the few prostitutes who actually liked virgins. Most of the other women viewed them as stingy and labor-intensive. “Even though they’re more work, I feel like I can provide an important service. I believe a man’s first sexual experience shapes the way he treats women in the future. You can show him how a woman expects to be treated or touched. It’s setting a standard for the rest of their life. I think it’s going to help some woman down the line who deserves to be treated well by her man.”

Hoping I wouldn’t offend, I admitted to Keri that the idea of a young man losing his virginity to a stranger struck me as sad. I wished for him to share his first sexual experience with someone he cared about. But that wasn’t about to happen for
Zachary, Keri reminded me. His peers were teasing him mercilessly. Anyway, she said, look how many boys hurry to lose their virginity with anyone willing, any available one-night stand. She had a point, of course. Perhaps there was something to be said from learning to become an excellent lover from an expert.

When I told Keri about Zachary’s recent psychiatric history, her face fell. She already felt bad enough. While she had attributed his problem to performance anxiety, Keri said she also couldn’t help but feel guilty. “When this happens with customers, I almost feel like there’s something wrong with me. That
I’m
not good enough.” Keri’s sensitivity caught me off guard. I hadn’t imagined that prostitutes would see a client’s inability to climax as a personal failure. But Keri wasn’t the only one to express this sentiment to me.

In fact, most of the women took their work very seriously, and many expressly considered it a form of social service on par with others. Savannah told me she’d started prostituting at Mustang as a social science experiment, to generate material for her undergraduate thesis, and had recognized almost immediately just how meaningful prostitution could be. “I believe what I do is a healing job. I didn’t see it as healing at first, but I kept getting clients who just needed to be nurtured and to weep in my arms. Sex is just the tool to access these emotions. So I just hold these men and contemplate the psychological needs that drive them into my charge. The humanity of my clients is what I care about.” Considering herself a professional therapist, Savannah fashioned specialty sessions
for impotent men, emphasizing sensate focus (a term used by sex therapists to describe the use of touch to convey sensory and eventually erotic pleasure) to gradually sensitize them to touch.

It came as no surprise, then, that when asked what other careers they would want to pursue, Savannah and most of Mustang’s other prostitutes mentioned social work, nursing, teaching, day care: helping professions. In light of the fact that the majority of women prostituted for financial reasons, it was notable that they didn’t aspire to big-money careers but were interested in work notorious for its low earning potential. One prostitute told me she was a nurse moonlighting at Mustang Ranch since her primary job failed to pay all her bills.

Perspectives like this kept women from fully internalizing disparaging remarks about prostitution. The women of Mustang Ranch were strikingly apolitical: untroubled and unreflective about whether prostitution dehumanized, demeaned, or objectified them, or about the larger social ramifications of selling their bodies to men. Initially, I assumed this was merely denial and avoidance on their part, but as I began inquiring further it became clear that the women had found a genuine sense of purpose and meaning in their work.

With this sense of purpose came real pride. The night I confessed to Baby about spying on my bathmate, she spoke with dignity about her job: “Prostitution doesn’t need to be demeaning, done without self-respect. It’s a very intimate, service-oriented, people-oriented profession. I feel what I do, I do good. Of all the customers I’ve had in my room, I would say at least ninety-seven point three percent of them have
gotten off. I guess I feel, Be the best you can be at whatever you do. This is my career, and I have decided to excel at it. Granted, not everyone dreams of becoming a prostitute, but it has served me well.” I was impressed by her sense of honest vocation, but I held on to my core skepticism.

Sensing that, Baby made me an extraordinary offer. Did I want to watch one of her sessions with a customer? She could show me what sex with a client was really all about. To watch a session between a working girl and a customer was the only way to truly understand and appreciate the work of a prostitute, she said.

I sat speechless. How would that be possible? Were there one-way mirrors somewhere in the brothel? Did she plan to hide me in her closet or the bathroom? What if I got caught? Would management throw me out? The brothel’s priority was to satisfy the customer; my spying, a violation of the men’s privacy, could certainly tick some of them off. I couldn’t ask George to authorize this request. Did I even
want
to watch? Would I feel uncomfortable? Embarrassed? Sickened? I tried to tell myself it couldn’t be much different from watching a porn movie.

I’m still not entirely sure what motivated Baby to let me watch. She knew I was interested in the workings of the industry and she had made it clear that she wanted to help educate me. More than that, though, she was
excited
about the idea of me watching her—as if she wanted the validation of my seeing how skilled she was at satisfying her customers. While women sometimes did “doubles” (parties with a customer and two prostitutes, or ménages à trois) and could watch each other
work, Baby had never had the opportunity to impress a curious outsider. She was eager to show off her talents as a prostitute and to be respected as a professional. Her excitement was moving, and I felt I had little choice but to say yes.

For the rest of the week, I felt a surge of nervous energy each time a customer chose Baby out of lineup. Because the women debriefed each other in the parlor about their sessions with customers, I had some sense of what a typical party entailed. The most frequently requested party, fellatio plus intercourse, they called a half and half. The second most popular, simply fellatio, they called a total French. And one of the most expensive parties women sold, a “kitty licker” session, was one in which they let men perform oral sex on them.
^*

One night, Baby and I were chatting together in the parlor when Farrah, a working girl who looked eerily like Farrah Fawcett, crept up and whispered something into Baby’s ear. Baby nodded and Farrah melted away as quickly as she had appeared. Baby turned to me and said, “Farrah has a guy who wants a dominance party. She doesn’t know how to do the party so she’s pulled me in.” In brothel-speak, to be pulled into a party is to be included in a date with another woman’s customer. It wasn’t uncommon for less experienced women to try to pull in more experienced prostitutes like Baby, especially for specialty sessions like dominance.

Baby hesitated for a moment. “So, I was thinking, maybe I can pull you in, too.” As she said the words, I felt a rush of exhilaration and terror that almost nauseated me. Who knew when I’d have another chance to watch paid sex between a brothel prostitute and a customer? And this was no standard party. Dominance was one of the kinkiest activities sold. I nodded my assent. I’d come this far. Baby stood up and pulled down her tight spandex dress. She told me to stay in the parlor until she had arranged everything. Under no circumstances should I mention the plan to anyone, particularly Shelley the floor maid, who happened to be on duty and might fire Baby if she got wind of this.

Shelley was the ex-sadist who had bullied me my first day at Mustang #1. Although I’d made several visits to the brothel, I had yet to win her over. By now I had gotten used to her icy, suspicious stares. She had pulled Baby aside one day and told her to “be careful” around me; she accused Baby of divulging too many “industry secrets.” The other women speculated that Shelley had a crush on Baby and was simply jealous of all the time I was spending with her. And in fact, when I finally confronted Shelley and asked her what she thought about me, she snarled, “I just think you’re in love with Baby.”

It was remarkable how often relationships became sexualized in the brothels. It was therefore no coincidence that both Shelley and I had been accused of lusting after Baby. While most of the relationships between women did have an unusual air of sexualized energy, very few of the prostitutes identified themselves as bisexual or lesbian. Although some women did have sex with other women in the brothel, almost all of them
thought of themselves as heterosexuals who had merely been experimenting. “We are so isolated and lonely,” said one woman. “I think we start looking for comfort and affection anywhere we can find it.” Frankly, I was surprised that liaisons between women didn’t occur more frequently, especially given the intense, concentrated time they spent pent up together. Anyway, whatever Shelley’s true motives, I had no intention of telling
anyone
that I might get to be a voyeur.

While Baby was gone, I sat on the couch, my mind racing. Maybe this party would take place in Mustang’s dungeon, a windowless, closet-sized room at the back of the brothel equipped with metal D-rings where women could attach various restraints like harnesses, chains, and cuffs. Would the man go all-out for whipping and beating? I had heard the women talk about a customer who wanted to be shocked with a cattle prod and another who asked to be locked in a doghouse for over twenty-four hours. One day while sitting in the parlor, I had seen a man brought out naked, leashed, and on all fours, like a dog. As I mulled over the stories I had heard about dominance parties, it suddenly struck me that Baby had used the expression “pull you in” rather vaguely. I hoped she didn’t intend that I participate. But Baby had also said they would probably blindfold the man, I tried to reassure myself, in which case he probably wouldn’t even know I was in the room.

Baby reappeared about fifteen minutes later and told me to follow her discreetly down to Farrah’s room. As she led me down the hallway, she said Farrah hadn’t quite gotten it right. Rather than whips and chains, this man wanted, in his own
words, “to be taken anally” with a dildo. He had had this fantasy for some time but was too ashamed to ask any of his girlfriends to do it. Baby said it would be their responsibility to make him feel normal and acceptable in having this fantasy. As I tried to absorb this, she dropped a bombshell. “The customer is all right with you watching,” she said as we reached the door to Farrah’s room, “but he won’t be wearing a blindfold. He wants to watch you watching him.” With that, she threw open the door to Farrah’s room.

Before me lay a boyish-looking man in his mid-thirties, stark naked on top of the bed. (Most of the women prohibited customers from getting underneath their sheets and comforters and had them lie on a top sheet, changed with each client.) When the customer saw me, he broke into a wide self-conscious grin that made his entire face squish up like an apple-face doll. “This is the girl I was telling you about,” said Baby. “She’s in training here. She’s just going to watch. Farrah and I are going to get naked, not her.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Baby told me to take a seat on a nearby chair while she went to strap on the dildo. Meanwhile, Farrah sat at the head of the bed, massaging the client’s back with her bare breasts. The man kept his eyes glued on Baby’s image in a mirror hanging low on the wall as she buckled the thick leather dildo harness around her slender waist. When she began to roll the condom onto the dildo, the blond boy-man looked apprehensive for the first time.

His name was Jack, he told me later, and he was an
architect from southern California who was in town for a convention and had mustered up the courage to venture out to Mustang Ranch after a few cocktails in the casinos. He’d never expected to stay, but when he overheard some of the women in the brothel bar trading stories about some of the kinky as well as conventional kinds of sex they sold, he decided to take the plunge. Since his teens, Jack had suppressed his fantasy for fear of ridicule.

He had picked Farrah from lineup because she reminded him of one of the cheerleaders he had fantasized about in high school. Scared to put his desire into words, Jack became even more nervous after he had done so, when Farrah announced that she would have to check whether she could provide the service he wanted. Left alone in her bedroom, he considered getting dressed and scurrying out of the brothel to avoid the humiliation of being denied. But then Baby came in, having already assumed the persona of a dominatrix, and put him immediately at ease. Of course she knew what he wanted, she told him. He would just need to be a very good boy, or Miss Baby wouldn’t give him what he deserved. She remained professional throughout the interaction, and in the process gave this man every indication that his sexual fantasy was normal and commonly requested. Her commanding but nonjudgmental demeanor permitted him to begin feeling aroused.