The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (30 page)

I was so impressed with the way Sarah handled the nun that I took her home with me and fucked her. I was between girls at the time.

Then I got a call from Sunset. “I took your advice. I left the bastard. Thank you for setting me straight. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

I FOUND A PLACE FOR
sunset and her kids in Carson City and she settled in, but within a month she got weak and went back to her husband. I said, “Fine. I’ll be your side-fuck once in a while.
Works for me.” But it wasn’t true. I had really come to care about her. I even enjoyed hanging out with the kids. I was beginning to think that maybe Sunset was the one.

A month later, her husband ran off with the kids, taking them to Florida. He also packed anything of value into a U-Haul. For the next year, she was dealing with cops, the FBI, money-hungry lawyers, and judges, but she was finally free of him, and she came back to Carson City, with the kids, to be with me.

I flew her mother out from Texas to help take care of the kids and even put her on salary. Sunset worked her regular shifts at the ranch, spent time with her mother and the children, and we generally crashed at my forty-acre spread in Washoe County. She loved my dog, Domino, she loved horseback riding, and she loved the ATVs. The lifestyle really suited her. She was also very grateful to me for having saved her from that terrible relationship, so everything was lovey-dovey. She even had her name changed to Sunset
Hof
. Is that commitment or what?

Sunset became one of my top earners and before long she also got back into porn in a big way, and our life together seemed balanced and happy. She was doing well, she had her mother and children nearby, and she had me. But before long, that wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted
commitment
. Most of all she wanted me to stop fucking other girls, and I actually tried. As a reward, however, I expected her to bring one of the bunnies back to the house from time to time, because I have always enjoyed threesomes. She wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but occasionally complied. Still, she’d come home with a brunette or a girl that she knew wasn’t my type, and I got tired of her little games. Before long, all we did was argue. She hated the BunnyRanch, she hated the girls, she hated Suzette, and she hated me most of all for not loving her enough.

It ended badly. She hooked up with a guy who had once done a little PR work for me, and he introduced her to the management at the Kit Kat, a competing brothel a half mile from the BunnyRanch. She went to work for them. The guy had pulled the same stunt once before, with Caressa Kisses, one of my better earners, and I was pretty pissed off, but these girls were in charge of their own lives and I didn’t interfere.

But I was hurt. I won’t lie. And the most hurtful part was the way Sunset went around badmouthing me to everyone who would listen. What had I done? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I hadn’t done: I hadn’t proposed to Sunset. And that, clearly, was an unforgivable crime.

“CELEBRITIES DON’T PAY”

THE ONLY TIME
one of my girls allegedly got roughed up on the premises took place more than ten years ago, and the irony is that it involved one of my good friends: Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil. Vince had just finished a show in Reno, and he had come to the BunnyRanch to kick back. He was sitting at the bar, enjoying his Grey Goose vodka and one of the girls — a big Mötley Crüe fan — kept asking him to party. Finally, Vince relented and followed her back to her room, but a short time later he changed his mind and returned to the bar. He ordered another Grey Goose, drank it down, and then took off. I guess he wasn’t in a party mood.

Ten minutes later, the girl showed up in the parlor. She looked like she’d
been roughed up. She had black-and-blue marks on her neck and she was seriously angry. She said she had tried to stop Vince from leaving her room and that he had grabbed her by the throat and slammed her head into the wall. I found the story confusing. Why hadn’t she pushed the panic button? How come nobody heard any raised voices? And where had she been for the last hour when the incident supposedly took place? Instead of answering our questions, she picked up the phone and called the cops.

Amazingly enough, the highway patrol found Vince on the freeway, about ten miles from Carson City. They took him in and the girl subsequently drove herself to the precinct to file charges. She repeated the allegations and said the whole thing stemmed from a dispute over payment. Suddenly, the story made even less sense and here’s why: At the BunnyRanch, we have certain rules regarding our many celebrity guests, and the first rule is celebrities don’t pay. They party on the house — on me — but I still take care of the girls. The reason I do this is because I don’t want any of the girls to say, “Dennis forced me to fuck that guy.” In other words, if George Clooney walks in here, he’s going to be taken care of gratis and the girl is going to be remunerated for her time.

So, yeah, it’s possible things got a little out of hand behind closed doors — I don’t know, I wasn’t there — but the rest was bullshit.

Vince ended up pleading no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge. He was sentenced to thirty days in jail, a $1,000 fine, and was ordered to take an anger management course. The jail sentence was suspended.

The girl wasn’t happy and eventually left. Still, it pissed me off. I pride myself in taking care of my girls. The BunnyRanch is not only the most fun brothel in the state of Nevada but also the safest. And I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

SUNNY LANE

A THOUSAND-DOLLAR GIRL

F
OLLOWING MY BREAKUP WITH SUNSET,
I got a call from the people at
Night Moves
magazine. They were inviting me to Florida for their annual party and, not having a steady woman in my life, I called my bitch, Ron Jeremy, and arranged to meet him in Los Angeles for the trip.

Ron knew about me and Sunset, and as soon as the plane started barreling down the runway, he reached over and took my hand. I pulled it away and gave him a dirty look. “What?” I asked. “Suddenly you’re afraid of flying?”

“No,” he said. “I know you’re hurting over Sunset. I was trying to comfort you.”

“I’m not hurting over Sunset,” I said.

“Dennis,” he said. “This is
me
, Ron. Stop acting like you’re bulletproof. Women don’t like that. That’s why your relationships fall apart. Because you always have to be Mr. Tough Guy. Well, you’re not that tough. In fact, you’re the biggest pussy I know.”

Ron was exaggerating, but on at least one level he was right. I did have to play Mr. Tough Guy. Half the men in America thought I had life figured out and I had an image to uphold. “Do you ever feel like a fake?” I asked Ron.

“How do you mean?”

“Like you can’t be yourself. Like you’re always on.”

“I thought it was like that for everyone,” Ron said. “I don’t even know who the fuck I am.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“Well, I know who you are,” he said. “You’re a big, sensitive pussy. But don’t worry. I like that in a man. I’ll never leave you.”

Ron could only handle so much emotion. At a certain point, he would become uncomfortable and turn the conversation into a joke. But I didn’t mind. “You know what I like about you?” I said.

“What?”

“That when it comes to women, you’re even more fucked up than I am. That makes me feel good about myself.”

SHORTLY AFTER WE ARRIVED IN
Florida, we were hanging out at a bar by the pool and ran into Sunny Lane, a cute little Georgia peach who worked as a stripper at Déjà Vu. She actually began life as a skater and was in fact an Olympic hopeful, but she was sidelined by an injury and began to strip to pay the bills. We went to see her show that night and I immediately understood why she’d been named Déjà Vu’s Showgirl of the Year. Unfortunately, we never connected and I wrote it off as a missed opportunity.

A month later, I was on the red carpet at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas with five of my bunnies, when I heard somebody call my name. It was Sunny Lane. She had won a trip to the awards show through a Florida radio station and I asked her join
my little group. We spent the night bouncing from one party to the next, and we kept getting approached by music people — Joe Jackson, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Bono, etc. — all of whom turned out to be huge
Cathouse
fans. I guess Sunny was impressed because she came back to my hotel and let me ride that perfect little Georgia ass.

In the morning we exchanged numbers and parted ways, and for the next month I kept telling myself that I needed to call her. We’d spent only that one night together, but that little firecracker had somehow gotten under my skin. Then one evening I walked into the parlor at the BunnyRanch and there she was, standing with the other girls, getting ready for her first day of work. It really took me by surprise. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Working,” she said. “Suzette hired me.”

“Why didn’t you let me know?” I asked.

“You never called,” she said, sweet as can be. “I figured you weren’t interested.”

That night I took her back to my place, and the following morning I told her I wanted to see more of her. She didn’t object. For the next few days, as she got used to life as a new girl at the ranch, we saw a lot of each other. A couple of weeks later, when Larry Flynt called and asked me to please come to the opening of his club in New Orleans, I decided to take Sunny with me.

Sunny had been doing well at the BunnyRanch, but nowhere near as well as she should have been, so on the way to the airport I turned to her and said, “Look, we have six and a half hours together before we get to New Orleans, and I want to take advantage of that time to teach you how to make money. If you’re going to date me, and I hope you are, I want you to have money of your own — 
big
money. I’m happy to take care of things, but I’d feel better if you had your own money. That way you’re independent, and you’re
not with me just because I buy you pretty things. I’ll still buy you pretty things, but having your own money will empower you, and I know you’re going to enjoy the feeling.”