The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (44 page)

“What does it all add up to?” I said.

“Oh Jesus,” he said. “You’re going to get all deep on me now?”

I was just sad to see him like that, so weak and frail. Sad for him, sad for myself. It kind of makes you think.
Am I a good person? Have I lived a good life? And what’s the next chapter going to be about?

“Listen to me, you son of a bitch. You’ve got to get well. I put you in my will.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“I didn’t want to be too generous because I was worried you might have me killed, but you’re getting half a million.”

“Half a million?! That’s all?!”

I stayed for three days. On my last afternoon, I decided the fresh air
would do Ron some good, so I asked the nurse to help me get him into a wheelchair. “I don’t want people to see me like this,” Ron said. “I don’t want to be recognized.”

“That’s a first,” I said.

He didn’t actually look recognizable, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by pointing it out, so I put a baseball cap on his disheveled head and another one on my own. We took the elevator downstairs and I wheeled him outside, and before long we were on Sunset Boulevard, moseying along. Nobody recognized us. Nobody even looked. It was pathetic. A sick guy in a wheelchair being pushed along by a broken-down guy who could barely walk.

“I wonder if this is as good as it gets,” Ron said.

ON MY WAY BACK TO
Nevada after my visit, I thought about some of the many conversations I’d had with Ron. I honestly felt I had always done my best with the women in my life. Sure, I fucked other women, but that’s just who I am: a very horny guy. Am I abnormal? Am I insatiable? I don’t know, but I don’t care. I
love
sex.

Every one of my girlfriends has known this about me and they seemed to accept it. But it was clear they had never accepted it. They wanted me for themselves. I guess on some level I should find this flattering, but I don’t. I find it sad because they couldn’t accept me for who I was and who I still am.

In fact, sitting here, writing this, looking back, I really don’t believe I could have done better. I was always fully committed to them. I was always there to protect and defend them. I was forever reminding them that I loved them and that another woman might share a bed with me from time to time, but they owned my heart and soul. It killed me that that wasn’t enough.

It was weird. I was the guy creating the fantasy for every man
who walked through my front doors, but what had become of
my
fantasy, and what the hell was it, anyway? What did I want? I thought back to the lessons I’d learned from my early years in sales, and it occurred to me that I had always stressed the importance of relationships. Whether you were selling a condo or your body, success boiled down to the human connection. It made me sad. I could sell condos and I could sell women, but I couldn’t seem to sell myself to the right woman.

I called Ron a couple of days later to see how he was getting on, and when he finally stopped talking about himself, I talked about me. “I finally figured it out,” I said. “It’s my fault.”

“What’s your fault?”

“It’s not enough to be a good guy, and it’s not enough to buy them shit, and it’s not enough to teach them how to make serious money. You have to give them your heart and soul. If you hold back, even a tiny bit, they know it, and it kills them.”

“For fuck’s sake, Dennis, you sound like a girl!”

Maybe he was right. Maybe I did sound like a girl. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe I’d finally learned something. Trouble is, it had taken me sixty years to get here and what the hell good was it now?

The next day, a gloomy morning, I called my estate attorney and told him to rewrite my will to make sure Domino was taken care of. “You think half a million should cover it?” I asked.

“Dennis, what’s wrong with you?” he said. “You’re not going to die. And you don’t leave half a million dollars to a dog.”

“Domino is not just a dog,” I said. “Maybe you don’t understand that.”

He thought I was a complete wack job.

A couple of months later, he had to have some work done on his
house and he asked me to recommend a good hotel. I told him he didn’t need a hotel, that he could crash with me and Domino. After three days, he turned to me and said, “You were right about Domino. He’s not a dog.”

Now, please understand: This guy is a fucking lawyer and he’s a great guy, but I’m not sure he has a heart. And there he was, his voice cracking with emotion, telling me he’d never met a dog like Domino. “When I look into his eyes, I see something really deep,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s intense.” This from a cold, calculating
lawyer
 — a lawyer who went ahead and changed the will.

By this time I was beginning to wonder how much time I had left. I’d been struggling with diabetes for a while and hadn’t been much good at managing it, and my doctor told me it was getting out of control. I’m a pretty positive guy, but diabetes can really fuck with your moods — all those ups and downs — and I found myself getting very depressed. I called my other lawyer and told him I’d had it. I was sixty-seven years old, my health wasn’t good, I wasn’t sleeping well, and my doctor had me on baby aspirin to protect my heart. I didn’t need the aggravation. I had more money than I could spend in three lifetimes, so what the fuck was the point? “Maybe I should sell everything, buy a nice condo on the beach in Hawaii, and just wait for the end,” I said. It actually hurt, listening to myself say it. What had happened to me? Where had that kid gone — the one you put in a barn full of manure and he’s happy because he knows there’s a pony somewhere?

My lawyer came over to the ranch to see me. “Let me tell you a story about Bill Harrah,” he said. “He owned Harrah’s, the casino empire, and after twenty-five years he decided he’d had enough. He was rich beyond his wildest dreams and he was going to sell. I told him, ‘Bill, you’re a
very wealthy man, and if you sell the business you’re just going to be one more wealthy man living in Palm Springs or Hawaii or wherever the hell it is you decide to move to. But right now, you’re
Bill Harrah
. You’re the king.’ ” My lawyer took a beat, looked me in the eye, and said, “Dennis, do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“I think so,” I said.

“You are the fucking king. King of the Brothels. You’re a fucking celebrity. You walk down any street in any city in this country and people run over for autographs and beg you to pose for pictures. But if you leave this, it leaves you, too. And who are you without your brothels?”

He was right. Who the fuck was I without my brothels? Just another rich guy, waiting for the lights to go out. And why? I’ve always had a great hunger for life, I’ve always snatched at the world with fifty hands. I love what I do. I try to turn every day into an adventure. That attitude had made me successful. I decided I wasn’t going to let a few minor physical ailments and a fleeting bout of depression knock me out of the game.

Plus I had a family to think about. I had Suzette, whom I am closer to than anyone in the world; and I had my BunnyRanch girls, many of whom I love dearly. They needed me. And truth be told, I needed them.

Thinking back, I realize I’ve always been a romantic at heart. But I guess I’ve had the romance beaten out of me. You pick one person, one special person, and you expect them to fulfill all of your expectations. Romantic, intellectual, sexual. Crazy, isn’t it? But that’s what we do. And we keep doing it. And I guess that’s what people mean when they talk about the triumph of hope over experience. Life kicks you to the curb sometimes,
lots
of times, and
you should know better, but you still want to believe. And that’s what keeps us going.

I guess I’m in love with being in love. When I’m in love, I’m happy. When I’m in love, I feel like the best possible version of myself. I always thought it would be nice to grow old with someone who — as Ron once put it — knew me better than I know myself, but I guess that’s not going to happen.

Still, I’ve got to tell you: Last week, a new girl started at the BunnyRanch. She’s blonde, thin, has perfect God-given breasts, a proud little ass, and the most kissable lips I have ever seen. When I first met her, I said, “You look like Marilyn Monroe. Do you get that a lot?”

“All the time,” she said.

And the way she looked at me, Christ. I think she’s the one.

BY
S
HEENAH
H
ANKIN
, P
H
D

IMAGINE ME SITTING ON MY
chair in my office. Dennis Hof is sitting on my couch. I am talking to Dennis and he is very open to my questions and observations. Unknown to him, I am trying to uncover his personality styles so I can explain to him — and you, the reader — why he behaves the way that he does.

All of us have personality traits and I hope as you read Dennis’s evaluation you will get to know Dennis as I did. Maybe you will see yourself in some of my descriptions and have a little more clarity as a result.

DENNIS THE DEPENDENT PERSONALITY

Dennis is an impressive promoter. His conversation with me began with relentless selling of his business (the BunnyRanch), selling his beautiful girls, and selling how he teaches them to sell themselves. He told me that he likes to be “the biggest dick in the room,” and how he is different from other pimps. He is Big Daddy, kind and loving to the damaged, dependent little girls who flock to the pseudo-security of the family he has manufactured. Dennis is selling himself.

He went on to tell me that his insatiable need for sex is far greater than that of regular guys. So he constructed an empire, a candy store where he can sample the goods on demand. (He would
be his best customer, but he doesn’t have to pay.) For him, every day is Halloween.

His employees are emotionally dependent “working girls” who fight for his favors in an attempt to fill the void that unloved and under-nurtured children continuously try to get others to fill. He encourages them to be jealous and yearn for his attention. He laughs at how they bicker, bitch, and fight with each other over him. And yet, he told me that he loves to make women happy: “I never penetrate a woman for the first time without giving her at least eight orgasms.”

I listened wide-eyed and openmouthed. What a caring guy, he wanted me to believe. But I needed to know what lay beneath this well-constructed, well-delivered PR campaign. “Who hurt you, Dennis?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I never cry,” he said, tearing up.

And there he was, this fearful, self-critical, self-pitying child, the son of a mean-spirited, discouraging mother, and of a passive, distant, weak father who had never protected him from her vicious tongue and violent outbursts. His mother was rigid. One of her beliefs was that only civil servants and the rich are safe from starvation. She refused to allow her entrepreneurial-minded husband to start his own business. And as usual, he complied, unwilling to face her talent for intimidation. Resentful and sad, he ended his working life walking the streets as a mailman.

Dennis made four resolutions as a young teenager:

He would never be poor like his parents. (He is famously wealthy.)

He would be universally admired and envied. (He has 500-plus young women who call him Daddy, and men nationwide who envy his sexual opportunities.)

He would never let anyone — especially a woman — tell him what he could not do. (Unlike his father, Dennis never allows anyone to tell him no.)

He would have a “little honey” to love and care for him for the rest of his life. (Dennis the lonely little boy now takes his “working girls” or current partner with him wherever he goes — he will not be alone.) He has still not found the “special one.”

Why has he been so successful in life but not in love? Despite his declared wish for a loving life partner, he has a history of three failed marriages and a long list of relationships that fell apart, leaving him to feel abandoned and rejected. For Dennis is codependent in the true meaning of that word. Just like the majority of his dependent working girls, he is unable to sustain a loving partnership and doesn’t know why he drives them away. Needy and demanding, dependent personalities want to be adored in order to feel safe. No one wants to play parent for long to an emotionally dependent adult.

Heartbreak is far more painful for dependent personalities. It is similar to the intense loss and devastation that homesick children feel. Self-critical and self-pitying, they temporarily believe they have lost the only one who could care for them, and blame themselves.

The answer to his repeated failures in love will become clearer as we continue to understand him psychologically.

DENNIS THE COMPULSIVE PERSONALITY

Dennis is far more like his mother than he knows. They share compulsive traits. Perfectionistic, they have strict rules about how people should act and how their environments should be organized.
Secretly self-critical, they attempt to prevent others from criticizing them by creating a “perfect” world. Dennis, like his mother, has standards that are very hard to live up to. When others break his rules or angrily complain about his controlling demands, he explodes in rage and will simply terminate the relationship. One strike and you’re out. His friend Glenn Heggstad describes him as a “puppet master,” a man who always has to get his way. Glenn finds him hard to be around for extended periods of time.

Imagine how Krissy, his latest reluctant girl friend, was redesigned by Dennis. She was only nineteen when she first contacted him. Four years later and now a University of Michigan graduate, she was a churchgoing, naive “all-American girl.” Pretty, yet conservative, she was seriously in debt, out of work, and had no family to rely on. Dennis liked her and set out to impose his rules — how she should look, act, sexually perform, and negotiate with the men who would be her clients. She had to lose weight, dye her hair platinum blonde, and paint her nails Marilyn Monroe red. In bed, he gave her seminars and demonstrations on how to pleasure men (him, of course), and sent her off to work her shifts at the ranch.