The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (33 page)

Brooke Taylor

I come from a normal Midwestern family and had a normal childhood. My parents are still married. I went to Western Illinois University and studied music and music therapy. When I graduated, I worked with adults with developmental disabilities.

I like to watch documentaries and one night I came across
Cathouse
. At the time, I didn’t even know what a brothel was. I was a twenty-four-year-old from Illinois. I had been a virgin until I was nineteen (as a freshman at college my friends were placing bets on when I’d lose my virginity). After watching
Cathouse
, I found myself wanting to know more about the BunnyRanch. They had a message board and I started posting and reading other people’s posts. Then Dennis and I started messaging. And then he began texting and calling. It was a long process. I spent months thinking about the possibility of working there, but I wasn’t about to leave my normal world, my normal job, and my small-but-stable paycheck without considering the ramifications. After many months, I came out to be with Dennis
and to kind of gauge things. I wasn’t working, but I was still thinking about it and I spent a lot of time at the ranch, talking to the girls.

If I was going to become a prostitute, it wasn’t a decision I could make lightly. I’d never stripped, I’d never escorted. To this day — outside of work, of course — I’ve never had a one-night stand. I also knew that once I opened that door there was no walking away from it. It’s not something you can undo.

• • •

But I finally made my decision and went to work one New Year’s Eve. I was in bed with Dennis that morning at his place, and that night I was in my very first lineup at the BunnyRanch. I was going to get paid for sex for the first time in my life. It was almost like losing my virginity again and I was kind of excited. I didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard enough stories to make me think I might like it, but I’d heard horror stories, too, so I was all over the place emotionally. As soon as I was done with my first client, though, which was pretty basic sex, I thought, “Hey, when can I do that again?” And the next day, when I picked up a check, well — that changed everything.

Dennis and I didn’t talk about it. Not that first week and not after. We compartmentalize. You wouldn’t last here if you didn’t. Dennis didn’t want to hear about Brooke the working girl, just as I didn’t want to hear about his various rendezvous with other women. What Dennis did with those girls — and what I did with my clients — was nothing compared to what we had with each other.

• • •

In the first year of our relationship, Dennis and I went to Illinois to meet my parents. I think Dennis was a little apprehensive. He had it in his head that my parents were going to be upset with him because he had turned me into a working girl, but I tried to set him straight. My parents knew that I had turned my own damned self into a working girl. And I never wanted to lie to my family. I am who I am. So I told them what I was doing. My mother accepted it right away, though I’m sure she had some reservations. She knew she either had to live with my decision or lose me. And my father is like any father. He would have preferred to see me shoveling horse manure. But he loves me for who I am and he accepts me.

• • •

Dennis always remembers the guy who came in and asked me to beat him up. He was a professional fighter — a cage fighter. I cuffed him, slapped him around, and kicked him, but it wasn’t enough. He sent me out to his truck to get a two-by-four, but Dennis stopped me. He didn’t want things to get out of hand. Thinking back on it now, I’m not sure I would describe the guy as “strange.” He was a martial artist. He must have needed that adrenaline rush and I sort of understand why it took that kind of violence to get him to a place where he actually felt something.

I had one guy ask me to pretend I was his daughter. He wanted me to act as if he had just caught me smoking and he reprimanded me for it. I played my part — I smoked a cigarette and talked back — so I let him enjoy his fantasy, which didn’t include any sex. I had another client who just asked me to pose for him, fully clothed. Just random poses. Look
out the window. Put your hands on your hips and turn your head to one side. That kind of thing. No sex, either.

And there was the guy who wanted me to play the “nagging wife.” He was about forty years old and had spent his entire adult life in the military, listening to his fellow soldiers complain about their wives, and never having had a wife of his own — never even having had a girlfriend — he wanted to experience it firsthand. He spent an entire week at the ranch. During the day he was with me, the nag, and at night he’d go off with one of the other girls, his “mistresses.”

• • •

When a new girl comes in there’s a lot to learn. It’s like when you become a receptionist at an office. You’re going to be told about the code of conduct. What you can and can’t wear, what to do about your nose ring, whether you need to cover up your tattoos. At the ranch we have this thing called the Bunny Bible, which basically lays out the rules and regulations. If a new girl needs help with a negotiation, though, one of us is glad to sit in and walk her through it. But we’re not going to teach her how to give a blow job. If she doesn’t know how to give a blow job, she’s in the wrong place.

Dennis and I are friends now. It’s never going to be like it used to be, but we’re good to each other. People see one side of him: the fun-loving, brash, controversial, lots-of-loud-talk public persona. But there are different sides to him, as there are to all of us, and he’s a very sweet, attentive guy. I remember when I first came to the ranch — not to work, but to be with Dennis — and told him about a beautiful flute I’d been forced to pawn a month earlier. Dennis listened to my story — attentive, curious — and many months later, after a
long search, he found an identical flute and left it outside my door. But he can also be infuriating. Dennis has a very hard time admitting he’s wrong about anything. Maybe he thinks it’s a sign of weakness.

• • •

I have been at the ranch for almost a decade now and I genuinely enjoy my life. I work a few days a month, make a solid six-figure income, and have the time to do the things I want to do. I often think about the next chapter of my life, but I’m waiting to find my passion. When that day comes, I’ll pack up my belongings, say goodbye to the BunnyRanch, and start anew. When I do that, Brooke Taylor will cease to exist. I am not denying my past. I will always own my truth. I know where I’ve been, and who I am, and I’m very comfortable with myself.

A FEW MONTHS AFTER BROOKE
arrived, I found myself talking to HBO about doing a musical version of
Cathouse
, and they loved the idea. When the musical crew came to Nevada to explore the possibility, they were floored by Brooke’s musical talent. They were addressing all of us as if we were musically challenged, which in fact we were, and Brooke said, “Where’s the sheet music?” When the producers saw what she could do, one of them took me aside and told me, “I think we just found our star.”

Before rehearsals got under way, Brooke told me she wanted me to meet her parents, so we flew to Illinois and booked a table at her favorite restaurant. Her parents were waiting for us out front and I could feel their apprehension — 
This is the guy who turned our daughter into a hooker
 — but everything began to change the
moment we walked through the front door. The maître d’ and most of the staff were fans of
Cathouse
and treated us like royalty, and they asked me to sign menus and pose for pictures. I put my arm around Brooke and introduced her as my girlfriend, and I told everyone that later in the year they should tune in to
Cathouse: The Musical
, because Brooke was in it and she was going to be a big star.

When the maîtré d’ finally sat us down at the best table in the house, the customers started coming over, asking for autographs and having me pose for pictures. I could see the way it affected Brooke’s parents. They relaxed, the apprehension lifted, and we proceeded to have a wonderful evening. That was very important to me. Brooke was new to the game; she was seeing her parents for the first time since she’d become a BunnyRanch girl; I knew this wasn’t easy for her. In the beginning, the girls tend to think,
When I walk into a room, is everyone going to see a big ‘W’ on my forehead
?
Am I just a big whore?
And since I can understand that, I always do my best to put those feelings to rest. I let everyone know that this is the girl I’m with, that we have a life together, and that we are a couple like every other couple, except perhaps for the unusual nature of our business. After that night, I don’t believe Brooke ever again had any misgivings about her chosen profession.

In the weeks that followed, I found myself falling hard for Brooke. I had liked plenty of other girls, but she was special. She had looks, personality, smarts, and she was an animal in bed. I know I’ve said this before, but I really thought she was the one.

She was a good worker, too, and was completely unafraid. One time I got a call from the front office because a mixed martial artist had shown up, pointed at Brooke, then gone to her room to close the deal and to make sure she was willing and able to rough him up. This was not an unusual request, but the office had a feeling about
him, and they wanted me to stay close. I knew it wasn’t Brooke’s thing, but she’s a pro, and we listened in as she played along. She slapped him around, cuffed him, and hung him by the cuffs from a hook on the back of the door. Slapped him around some more. Called him names. “Girly man.” “Pussy.” “Needle dick.”

She took a riding crop to him. Whipped him good. We’d hear the crack of the whip in the office and all of us would flinch. But it wasn’t enough for the guy. He kept telling her to hit him harder, so she began to punch him and it took effort; she was grunting and clearly working up a sweat, and she’d holler every time she landed a punch. Now the guy was getting frustrated and pissed off. “I’m going to teach you how to do this right,” he said. “Go out to the parking lot. There’s a red pickup there that belongs to me. You’ll find a couple of two-by-fours in the cab. When I say I want you to hurt me, I mean I want you to hurt me.”

“Okay, motherfucker,” Brooke said. “You want me to hurt you, I’m going to hurt you.” She slipped into a robe and left the room, and I stopped her as she crossed the parlor on her way to the parking lot.

“Uh-uh, baby. Not going to happen. I draw the line at two-by-fours.”

“Why?” Brooke said. “I’ve already broken skin. The guy is bleeding. Let me give the son of a bitch what he’s asking for.”

“No,” I said. “Go back and kick him in the balls and see how he likes that. But a two-by-four, no — I’m afraid you’ll beat him to death.”

We get all kinds at the BunnyRanch. We had a guy come in once and pay ten thousand dollars to have a food fight with three of our girls. They were throwing Twinkies and Ring Dings at each other, and the guy was giggling like a little girl. I’m not sure I understood
the thrill, and I still don’t, but he was happy — and a month later he was back for more. That’s what the BunnyRanch is all about. We’re in the business of making people happy.

There was another guy who came in one Christmas Day for what turned out to be the longest-running party in BunnyRanch history. The guy was sixty-five but an
old
sixty-five; he looked eighty. He walked in, looked the girls over, and I could see he was nervous. At one point he excused himself to go to the bathroom and I rounded up the girls and said, “Look, I don’t know who the hell this guy is, but it’s Christmas, and I want to make sure this turns out to be the best Christmas of his life. We’re all here on Christmas because we choose to be here, because we are the best family any of us have, and he’s here because he has nowhere else to be. So let’s be his family today.”

He came back from the bathroom and still had a hard time choosing, and I was suddenly reminded of my old friend, Andy Kaufman. Eventually he went off with two of the girls, and three hours later he returned with the biggest grin I have ever seen. He said he wanted to talk to the manager, and Suzette brought him into her office. “I don’t want the party to end,” he said. He asked if it would be possible for the party to continue at his house in Carson City, and Suzette told him that the BunnyRanch was all about the client. Are you ready for this? That party lasted
five months
. At any given time, there had to be at least two girls at his house. He liked wine, he liked good food, and he liked company, and we made sure he had plenty of everything. He even invited me over to the house a few times and I went, happily, and found the girls in the kitchen, in lingerie, cooking up a storm. It wasn’t primarily about sex for him. He wanted sex, obviously, and he got plenty of it, but this was a guy who had worked hard all his life, made a lot of money, and
had finally decided it was time to enjoy the fruits of his labor. By the time the party was over, he had spent upward of two million dollars — yes,
two million
 — and he looked twenty years younger. I’m not sure why the party ended, but it ended abruptly. There was a rumor that his mother showed up — can you imagine how old she must have been?! — and decided to put an end to his foolishness. But I know this much: The BunnyRanch delivered. That was definitely the best Christmas of his life.