Brothel (29 page)

Ironically, Nevada’s brothel opponents have also suffered variously since Mustang’s closure. After his botched attempt to stage his own disappearance, Reese filed for bankruptcy and stopped making restitution payments to the county for the cost of his search party. One day George received a letter from Reese sent from Marathon, Florida, where he’d relocated: “It is the farthest place from Reno … I’m tired of getting laughed at by my friends, the press, and ostracized from every church I try to attend … My enemy was not the brothel association … It was the people I most cherished … The church people in Reno. When they rejected me it was like losing my closest friends on earth.” Reese informed George he was working as a pizza deliveryman and sleeping in his car to save money for flying lessons.

Not long afterwards, Reese became international news
when he stole a Cessna 172 from a Florida Keys flight school and crash-landed more than one hundred miles away on a beach in Cuba. The note left behind in his car stated his intention to kidnap Fidel Castro. After U.S. diplomats negotiated for days with Cuban officials for Reese’s repatriation, a U.S. District Court judge ordered him to serve six months in prison with three years probation and to pay $45,000 in damages. It later came out for the first time that Reese had a history of manic depression and periodic disappearances from home when he stopped taking his medication.

Meanwhile, back in Nevada, Senator William O’Donnell still lurks in the wings, although he’s announced his intention to leave the legislature when his term ends in 2002, allegedly frustrated by his colleagues in the GOP and their ties with lobbyists.

Still, new voices of opposition continue to emerge. A grassroots movement called Citizens Against Prostitution has been formed in Nye County. Led by a youthful Pahrump pastor and several parishioners who were outraged by one owner’s thinly veiled promotion of his brothel on two billboards on the outskirts of town, the group is preparing for the 2002 elections, when they plan to introduce a petition to outlaw prostitution in Nye County. They estimate that the eight thousand new transplants expected by then, with the rapid population expansion going on in and around Las Vegas, will not look kindly upon local brothels.

For the individuals associated with Mustang Ranch, it’s been a mixed bag. Some have managed to quit the business. Others have found new ways to stay in the trade.

Eva is currently studying to become a hospital-based physical therapist. She told me, “I am broke most of the time, but it’s cool. I don’t plan on going back to the floor soon, but if I ever need to, I know it is there and I can go back.”

Old-timers Tanya and Linda moved close by, to the Old Bridge Ranch, Storey County’s only operating brothel, next door to Mustang. Brittany and Mercedes initially joined the Kit Kat, where they knew the acting manager, a former manager from Mustang, but both have since quit the business.

Baby relocated to another brothel outside Carson City. She quickly became one of its top bookers. Her devoted regular, Philip, continues to visit her several times a week, despite the one-hour roundtrip drive he has to make to see her.

Not all of Mustang’s prostitutes are accounted for; Donna, Dinah, and Heather have simply slipped away. Because most of the women kept their real names and hometowns secret, there’s no easy way to locate them.

Bashful and the other CyberWhoreMongers initially tried to keep track of Mustang prostitutes on their website, the Georgia Powers Bordello Connection. Bashful reports that the men miss the Mustang Ranch deeply. The Fifth Annual CyberWhoreMonger Convention in the summer of 2001 had its largest turnout to date: sixty attendees at the banquet, of whom slightly over 50% were women. Perhaps most interesting was that two of the female attendees were wives of customers.

Very unexpectedly seven months later, the man with the handle, Georgia Powers, shut down the community’s website. “It’s with great regret that this website has seen its final day,” Georgia Powers wrote in his one page farewell,
posted at the same URL (www.gppays.com) where the Georgia Powers Bordello Connection used to be. “I’ve considered several options, but in the end the only viable option was to just shut the site down.… As with most things in life there comes a time to move on, and for me and for this site that time has come.”

No one knows what will happen to the CyberWhore Monger community. Several posters believe other new websites may hold the community together, such as www.nvbrothels.com and
www.sex-in-nevada.com
. Others are skeptical. But Bashful says he’s “still interested in Nevada’s brothels and will continue working to contribute to the community.” His latest endeavor is a new pricing survey of legal Nevada prostitutes’ services. Whether Bashful ever decides to work on developing his social life outside the brothel world remains to be seen; he has yet to date a square and, in his own estimation, “still needs to lose weight.”

Gone but not forgotten, Mustang Ranch still generates and perpetuates its mystique with the public. A Mustang Ranch liquor decanter that once cost $25 at the brothel’s pink souvenir booth situated in the parking lot sold on eBay to a bidder in California for $96.59. And George receives weekly telephone calls from community activists nationwide who are interested in legalizing prostitution in their towns—cities such as San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, and West Hollywood. However, calls like these have come in for decades and nothing’s changed—Nevada still remains the only state in America with legalized brothels.

I would like to thank the people who enabled me to write this book:

Robert Hatcher, my mentor, who encouraged me to conduct and offered to sponsor a public health study among Nevada’s licensed prostitutes. Without his unwavering support, I believe my determination to get inside Nevada’s brothel industry would have been shaken long before I gained admittance.

James Trussell, who first brought his expertise to my brothel condom research and then loaned me a laptop to aid me in the writing of this book.

David Lee Warner and Charles Bennett, whose contributions to my brothel condom research were both appreciated and essential.

Malcolm Freeman and Ronald Chez, who urged me from the sidelines to take a break from medical school and write a nonacademic, nonfiction book about my experiences inside Nevada’s brothels.

Harvard Medical School and the University of Washington School of Medicine’s Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, which each supported me in my nonmedical endeavors. I am deeply grateful to a few individuals in particular:
Audrey Bernfield, Dan Goodenough, Daniel Federman, Nancy Oriol, Paul Farmer, Susan Marshall, Richard Shugerman, and Bruder Stapleton.

Cindy Klein Roche and John Taylor Williams, my literary agents, the former who found me, and the latter who watched over me like a nurturing father, teaching me the ropes of publication and never holding back on encouragement and praise.

Scott Moyers, my patient and astute editor, who rigorously challenged me to find my voice—through draft after draft—until my story finally emerged.

Beth Pearson, Sunshine Lucas, Sally Marvin, and Carol Schneider of Random House, who all helped to tidy up loose ends and spiff up this book on the home stretch before sharing it with the world.

My two research assistants: Glynis Hull-Rochelle, who transcribed and e-mailed from Prague hundreds of hours of taped interviews at a whirlwind pace; and Jennifer Nash, who immersed herself in the material and became almost as obsessed as me.

Amy Bach, Laurie Mittenthal, Aimee Crow, Hilary Levine, Rebecca Fletcher, Tanya Krasikov, Kara Dukakis, Hallie Sto-sur, and Roxanne Brame, friends who listened to my excitement and insecurities about this book incessantly for years. I would also like to thank other supportive friends: Cecile Delafield, Susie Hobbins, Amanda Peppercorn, Andrew Shapiro, Jon Rubin, Jody Dushay, Ellen Reid, Heather Hardy, and Etsu Taniguchi.

Ed Reading, Ben Wallace, Steven Sack, Diana Graham,
Larry Rand, and Laika Gelman, who read drafts in various stages and offered invaluable criticism and enthusiasm.

Senator and Mrs. Len Nevin, Senator and Mrs. Raymond Shaffer, Assemblyman Bob Price, Ellen Pillard, George Williams III, Alberta Nelson, Bette Flint, Guy Louis Rocha and Jeff Kintop of the Nevada State Library and Archives, Randall Todd and Bob Nellis of the Bureau of Disease Control and Intervention Services for the Nevada State Health Division, Bob Cowan and Kim Raines of the Washoe County Library–Reno Periodicals Department, and Tisha Johnson of the State of Nevada Uniform Crime Reporting Program, who kindly shared their knowledge and perspectives with me.

Kassie Evashevski, Jonny King, Olivier Sultan, Noah Tratt, Susannah Lang-Hollister, Deborah Yokoe, Hope Denekamp, Milan Ganik, and Amelia Zalcman, who all performed small favors that made a big difference.

Mary Ruby and Rosemary DeCroce, who helped keep me sane and reminded me of what I was capable of both becoming and creating.

Monica Rose-Ziglar, who allowed me to finish this book by caring for my baby daughter with tenderness and affection.

Mike Sack and John Saul, who generously shared their experience and wisdom as professional writers.

Lynn and Burt Sack, my in-laws, who looked out for my husband when I was living in Nevada and continued to love me despite my unconventional pursuits.

Vera Brown, my great-aunt, who has been my guardian angel.

Marvin Albert, my father, who taught me the value of dreaming big and the art of working passionately.

Judy Albert, my mother, who obliged my requests as a child to drive past the streetwalkers who lined the doorways of Seattle’s First Avenue peepshows and porn theaters. Her openness, curiosity, and compassion for others are three of the most important gifts she has given me.

My daughter, Coco, who waited patiently in utero as I tried to finish my last draft.

There are three debts that are unpayable.

I owe the first to George Flint, executive director of the Nevada Brothel Association, without whom this book would never have been written. Thank you for trusting me and for opening the doors to this exotic world.

I owe the second to the many individuals who shared themselves with me and whose stories helped to inform this book. I wish I could acknowledge you all by name. Thank you for letting me into your lives. I hope you feel I have done justice to your experiences. Most especially, I wish to thank the prostitutes of Mustang Ranch, whom I will always remember with the deepest respect, fondness, and awe.

I owe the greatest debt to my husband, Andy Sack. Thank you for respecting my desire and need to write this book. You are my lifeboat, my confidant, my comedian, my lover, and my best friend.

Alexa Albert is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Medical School. She has written and lectured widely on issues of public health and prostitution and was named one of
Mirabella
’s 1,000 Women for the Nineties for her work with Nevada’s legal prostitutes. She currently lives with her husband and daughter in Seattle, where she is completing her pediatric residency.