The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (18 page)

I said, “Really? Great, honey. What is it?”

“I don’t think Suzette is good for you,” she said.

I said, “What makes you say that?”

And she said, “I don’t like the way she looks at you. I think she’s in love with you and it makes me uncomfortable.”

“That’s what you think?”

“Yes. I’m going to give you a week to terminate her. And if you don’t, I’m going to leave you.” I looked at her, at this little twenty-one-year-old girl — a girl I had obviously misjudged — and I was fucking steamed. For one thing, I adored Suzette. I am closer to Suzette than I am to anyone in my life. For another, Krystyn’s words
reminded me of what my father had told me many years ago, how he had listened to my mother and gone off to become a mailman and how that wrongheaded decision had effectively put an end to his hopes and dreams. That story had a huge effect on me. From that story, I learned that it was fine to listen to people, because maybe you’ll learn something or see a situation from a different point of view, but that at the end of the day, a man had to make his own decisions. I never told this to my father, but my mother didn’t ruin his life. He ruined his own life by letting her tell him what to do.

“You know what, honey?” I told Krystyn. “I’m going to save you a week. This relationship is over right fucking now.”

“I’m not leaving,” she said.

So I left. I drove into Carson City, checked into a room at the Gold Dust, and had two of my girls come over to take care of me. Did a great job, too. They always do.

I wasn’t going to worry about Krystyn. Worrying is counterproductive. Worst-case scenario? I’d have to buy myself another house.

Ron Jeremy

Dennis Hof is probably my very best friend, but it took many years for him to let me see his cock. We had countless opportunities for threesomes and group sex, but Dennis always found a reason not to get naked in my presence.
I’m hungry. I have a headache. I’m doing a radio interview in a few minutes.
I would shout at him, “You’re a pimp, for God’s sake! Show some pride!” But he was a complete prude and wouldn’t remove his pants in my company. I don’t know what it was exactly. Some guys just don’t want other guys to see their dicks. Maybe they’re worried about being judged. “Well, it’s not very long, but it has some nice girth. Maybe that’s enough to make a girl happy, but not if she’s a Size Queen.”

Anyway, one night Dennis and I were in Las Vegas and I had a married friend there who’s a swinger. So for three nights running we were out with him and his wife. We hit the best restaurants, went to all the hot clubs, and stayed out till the wee hours. On the fourth night Dennis said, “I can’t do
this anymore. I’m exhausted. I’m staying in tonight.” He went back to our room and actually called the front desk and told them not to put any calls through — even if it was an emergency — and then he put a handwritten note on the door,
Ron, don’t fucking knock.

About an hour late, my swinger friend, his wife, and I went up to Dennis’s floor. My friend and I hung back in a little alcove just out of sight, and his wife knocked on the door. A few moments later, Dennis stuck his head out. You could see he’d been sleeping and that he was seriously irritated, but he made an effort to be polite. “What’s happening? Where’s Ron and your husband?”

She said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m all alone and I’m horny.”

Without missing a beat, Dennis took her by the wrist and led her into the room. I leapt from my hiding place and stuck my foot in the door to keep it from closing. Me and my friend crawled into the room — it was a suite — and very quietly, still on our hands and knees, made our way into the darkened bedroom. We had front-row seats at the foot of the bed, but we stayed low, out of sight.

Dennis was wide awake by now and he was putting some serious time and effort into the foreplay. I was impressed — such an attentive lover! — but I was starting to get impatient. I was hungry and I wanted them to fuck already and get it over with so we could go down to the twenty-four-hour buffet. Finally, they started fucking. It went on for a while and I felt like maybe I should start commenting on Dennis’s performance, like a sport’s announcer. “He’s flipping her over! He’s got her on her knees now! She’s groaning — she’s loving it! He’s spanking that fine ass!” etc., but I didn’t
want to ruin the surprise.

Every once in a while, Dennis would make an impressive move — for an amateur, anyway — and me and the husband would exchange an admiring look or a thumbs-up.

Finally it was over and we leapt to our feet, clapping. I showered Dennis with praise. “Nice job! Good eye! Excellent finish!”

He spun around, totally shocked. “Jesus Christ! How long have you guys been there?!”

And I told him. “We’ve been here for the whole show, including that endless round of foreplay.”

“You son of a bitch. I can’t believe you did that to me. I feel violated.”

He was scooting up on the bed, trying to cover himself with the sheets, and I said, “Dennis, I’ve seen your cock. You don’t have to hide anymore.” And after that night he never had a problem doing threesomes with me.

• • •

Dennis and I have made some wonderful contributions to society. I introduced him to lots of porn stars, for example, and he had sex with most of them. More importantly, however, he decided he was going to try to get a few of them to go to work for him at the BunnyRanch. I didn’t think that would ever happen and I tried to explain why. A working girl will say, “Excuse me, I’m an escort, so I can go to PTA meetings with my kids and no one will know who I am, but you’re a porn star and that’s going to follow you around for the rest of your life.”

And the porn star will say: “Yes, I do porn. I also direct porn and one day I will produce and distribute porn because that’s the kind of clout I have in the business,
and long after I’ve retired you’ll still be on your back, with a paying customer between your legs.”

Dennis didn’t want to hear that. Maybe porn and escorting were entirely separate worlds, but he genuinely believed he could bridge the gap. “Think of what a thrill it will be for the guy,” he said. “He’s watching a hot girl do porn and then he realizes he can fly to the BunnyRanch and fuck that very same girl!” And I said, “Dennis, if you ever get a porn star to work for you at the BunnyRanch, I will suck your cock.”

Of course, one day, Dennis being Dennis, I got the dreaded call: “Are you ready to suck my cock?”

And I said, “Dennis, please don’t make me suck your cock. I don’t know how to suck cock. I promise I’ll find a pair of lips to take my place.”

• • •

Our friendship isn’t just about sex, though. Adolescent humor is a big part of it. Whenever Dennis is in a public rest-room, parked in front of a urinal, I sneak in and grab him by the hips and turn him one way and another, making him piss all over the walls. I like to pants him, too. Every chance I get I come up behind him and pull his pants down to his ankles. One time I did it on a busy New York sidewalk and three old ladies stopped dead in their tracks. One of them was clearly very impressed. “Not bad!” she said appraisingly. “Not bad at all.”

On other occasions, when we’re at a big party, say, or in a casino, or in a public venue, and Dennis is walking hand in hand with one of his girls, I’ll sneak up behind them and replace her hand with mine. I always stay back half a pace so he doesn’t notice, and he only catches on when people
start pointing us out and laughing. Then he turns and sees me and recoils in horror and takes his hand back, scowling like Moe, from the Three Stooges: “Why I oughta!”

• • •

Dennis and I have had many, many conversations about the women in his life. The public Dennis likes to pretend he’s bulletproof, but privately he’s as sensitive as the next guy. Maybe more so. I know he’s going to hate me for saying this, but on many occasions I have held his hand while he cried over a broken heart. Okay, I’m lying. I never held his hand. But I’ve seen him near tears more than once. “What did I do wrong? Is it me? I thought she was happy!”

I don’t care who you are, if you love someone and the relationship ends, it hurts. Dennis can always find someone else to fuck, like three minutes after the girl walks out, but that’s not the point. He wants what all of us want — a relationship that lasts — and he doesn’t understand why it eludes him. I have a theory, though. Dennis’s problem is that he appears invulnerable and woman don’t like that. A woman — and a man, too, for that matter — needs to know that she can hurt her partner. That sounds crazy, yes, but think it through. If you’re in a relationship and you believe it won’t mean anything to your partner if you leave, it makes you feel unloved and powerless. And no matter how hard Dennis tries to convince his girlfriends that he loves them, that they can count on him, that he’s there for them, they can’t seem to get their heads around it. He has access to too many women — a dozen hot babes are waiting in the wings to replace them every day — and his girlfriends can’t handle it. He’s a pimp, for God’s sake!

I know Dennis, I have known Dennis for more than
twenty years, and I can tell you this: There is never room in his heart for more than one woman at a time. Dennis is a pussycat. He loves being in love. And when he loves someone and she leaves him, all the hot women in the world aren’t going to do much for his pain and loneliness.

• • •

Lately I’ve noticed that Dennis and I are starting to act more and more like an old married couple. A few months ago Dennis called me from a fancy restaurant. He was with a bunch of his girls and he took a picture of his tortellini and texted it to me.

I was sitting in my apartment in Los Angeles in front of my TV with the sound muted, looking at a picture of tortellini and feeling like an old Jew. “Very nice!” I said, sounding depressingly like my mother. “Is it kosher?”

Dennis then proceeded to pass the phone to the girl next to him and I heard him saying, “It’s Ron. Tell him what you’re having.”

She tells me, “Shrimp marinara.”

Dennis urges her to pass the phone to the next girl and the girl after that, and they go around the table: “Filet mignon with truffle sauce.”

“Crab legs.”

“Branzino. It came packed in salt!” I got the whole menu, which was a little upsetting. I’d been trying to lose weight and suddenly I was starving.

Finally Dennis got back on the phone. “I can’t wait to bring you to this wonderful restaurant,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. You’re going to love it.”

And I said, “Dennis, are you listening to yourself? We used to text each other pictures of hot girls we were about
to fuck or of their shaved pussies. Now you’re sending me pictures of tortellini!”

He took a moment to think it through. “You’re right,” he said finally, sounding crushed. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “We’re getting old.”

• • •

Recently, we’ve begun talk about buying adjacent condos in a full-service building in Miami. What can I say? It’s a love story.