NOT WHAT I IMAGINED
BY XANIA WOODMAN
“I wonder what sex goes for these days.” I look to my partners in crime for a monetary amount, but the big question rises and falls in the air like the bats flitting around the lights outside the Resort at Sheri’s Ranch, happy customers enjoying the insect buffet. There’s no question we’re far from home, an hour outside of Vegas, in Pahrump. Past Terrible’s Lakeside RV Park and the Chicken Ranch (“Where the West is still wild”), we bump along in Aaron’s car, arriving at Sheri’s around 9:30 p.m. on a Saturday night. “Ladies Welcome!” shouts a kitschy painted sign. “You don’t say,” I mutter, ducking down, praying not to attract the attention of any curious bats.
The complex is lit up like a carnival tent, blinking brightly just beyond the gravel lot, which is stocked with big, expensive trucks. From somewhere deep inside we can just make out the strains of the Frankie Moreno band, peppered appropriately with ladies’ squeals. It’s a party—a sixth anniversary, to be exact. But as we follow the happy noises up the front steps into the parlor, I’m keenly aware that this is not exactly the image of a brothel I’ve held in my mind.
While Sheri’s is sprawling, clean, and bright, I had always pictured something more humble both in size and stature. An inconspicuous double-wide in the desert, if you please, egg-shell or robin’s egg paint with a redwood fence, pinwheels, stiff polyester curtains and cats and tumbleweed duking it out for control of a dust-bowl yard. Inside, I imagined, must be the bored women with big hair, flicking at Virginia Slims cigarettes with frightening acrylic nails. Maybe an outspoken modern-day Belle Watling from Gone with the Wind, only maybe without the hoop skirt. But while a few of the ladies inside, winding through the crowd, do seem a little bored, most appear very eager to get to know tonight’s visitors.
Assistant Manager Gaina Faulkner gives us a tour. Every week, she explains, ladies as young as 21—but some into their 50s—check into the resort for a minimum of two weeks and a maximum of three (there are 15-25 ladies on the premises at any given time). As independent contractors, each has a business license and must undergo a doctor’s examination and tests at the start of each visit, as well as obtain a fresh sheriff’s card. The ladies each have their own room, which they can modify slightly to their taste with throws, sashes and colorful light bulbs. The beds, in case you were wondering, are queen-sized.
They work in 12-hour shifts, but during the busy Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons the women may be required to be on call 24 hours a day. The holidays can wreak havoc on the hearts and minds of the lonely, prompting the surge; surprisingly, New Year’s Eve is not celebrated in any special way.
When not working, the ladies have the run of the house, which includes a computer room, TV room, volleyball court, outdoor pool and hot tub. And most putter around the house in flip-flops, smoking, until a lineup is called by the madam. When that
moment comes, they scurry to the shoe cubby and retrieve towering platform and clear plastic heels, most of which look a little worse for wear.
I later get a rare glimpse of this fabled lineup, when the curtains to the bar are closed and one of the many mustached security guards strikes a militant pose in front of the black wool panels. I take a cue from my surroundings and flirt shamelessly for the right to stay, peeking through the curtain. There, on the first broad couch sits a middle-aged man in a crisp pink shirt and khaki slacks. He sips steadily on a cocktail and waits as the women assemble. From what the guard tells me, each lady will step forward and introduce herself. Through the crack I can just see him nod in turn to each woman. A decision is made within 10 minutes, and the remaining ladies re-enter the bar to join the crowd of increasingly drunken men and women.
Where the new couple disappears to, I can only imagine. Faulkner had shown us first the tiny, romantic dining room, where a gentleman and his new lady friend can enjoy a dinner of steak and lobster before “dessert”—a blowjob under the table. They might then retire to one of the two Jacuzzi rooms, though this gentleman did not look like the type to request the Budweiser-themed and -sponsored Jacuzzi room. Besides, there’s no sex allowed in those rooms. The Bubble Suite, however, is just a huge bathtub with bubbles raining down, and sex is definitely allowed in there since the tub can be drained and cleaned by one of Sheri’s 45 or so staff members after each use.
Perhaps after one of the six drinks she’s allowed in a 24-hour period, she lured him to the S&M room, where, in addition to the stripper pole and disco ball, one finds a rigid wooden cha
ir with cuffs, faux stone walls, couches, a low cage and all manner of restraints. Depending on his means, he might go to her room, where sexual acts can range from 200 to
many thousands of dollars, or to one of the five themed bungalows (King Arthur, ’60s, safari, Roman and Arabian) where the tab starts at a sexy $3,000. At $75 to $125 per night, the res
ort’s hotel is often booked by couples who want to be in this atmosphere of sexual freedom, though no “parties” with the ladies can go on there.
Back in the bar, parties are happening all around us, none of which involve one of Sheri’s ladies. As I’m in line for the ladies room, a couple emerges all giggly and touchy. A friend of mine even loans his suite to one randy couple for a few minutes with the stern warning to “do it anywhere but the bed.” Still, with their rooms at $44 per day, it is the ladies who are getting the best deal. “Why don’t you make me a sandwich?” says a tall, impossibly slender girl with a chestnut bob hairdo as she slides down in between two large men on the couch, one in tie-dye, both more than happy to make room.
A woman may spend upwards of 10 to 15 years in this line of work, says Faulkner, “up north, where they can start at 18 [years old], especially.” I swallow my shock and envy when she tells us a prostitute here stands to make $
2,000 to $30,000 a week. “They’re ladies,” says Faulkner. “This is a professional business for them.” Finally, I have the answer to my question, but as I mull over my student loan situation, I’m not sure I really want to know anymore. If, like me, you’ve been wondering what sex goes for these days, I encourage you to go to the source. If not for the services, then for the cocktails—those are cheaper.
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WORKING GIRL
BY LIZ ARMSTRONG
On the way out to Pahrump there wasn’t much life save for scorpions and tweakers. It was a two-lane highway at best, and the most light came from the other side of the mountains—that was Vegas, a memory glowing in the distance. It was getting darker. Rocky black formations hulked ever nearer. The moon was a scant sliver carved out of the sky, Venus its bright white birthmark. We passed a sign threatening fines for feeding wild burros. My ears popped; the bars on my celly dwindled.
Once into town, you’ll eventually arrive at Sheri’s Ranch. It’s a brothel where everyone literally sparkles—if they’re not sporting cleavage coated in glitter, it has rubbed off on a lapel or a cheek.
Gaina Faulkner, an assistant manager full of delightful euphemisms (“This is where the girls conduct their parties,” she said more than once) and with eyebrows dramatically drawn on to such a pitch they could put drag queens out of business, led us down a corridor full of classy black-and-white nude photography. We popped our heads into several rooms: a basket of silk calla lilies, a crystal chandelier, a floofy velveteen king’s crown inside a glass case. These details have earned Sheri’s a reputation as the most top-notch brothel in the state.
As soon as our tour ended, a tan, delicately chiseled man introduced himself to me as the Dolphin. Aaron Thompson took off to find trouble. Xania raised an eyebrow and did the same.
Why “the Dolphin”? “Oh, use your imagination,” he demurred. I didn’t get it. He elaborated. While on location for a documentary in Costa Rica a while back, he saved a trapped dolphin, and his life hasn’t been the same since. The cetacean spoke to him, he told me. We’re divine intelligence, it said. You will start seeing us in all things: rocks, trees, water.
The Dolphin (the man) looked around, gesturing grandly to loop after loop of white, swag-top drapery. “This whole place is full of goddesses,” he said. “Men pay for this to return home to the sacred place. In honoring the goddess, it is sending man home. He will heal everything within.”
This type of language is nothing new to me—one of my uncles leads seminars on love and goddess worship—but it was strange to hear it here, and I told him so. “I know!” the Dolphin concurred, his eyes widening. “Isn’t it ridiculous to find a dolphin here with all this hot pussy? I’ve never paid for it in my life. Give me a picnic blanket and a bottle of wine and it’s over.”
A few beats later he made me an offer: “Whaddya say we go over to Shoshone and get away from all this? Do you like chardonnay or merlot?” The Dolphin was out of luck; I’m a pinot noir kind of gal.
I headed outside into the crisp night air. Brazen bats swooped just overhead. With all the white plastic chairs and tables, booze stations couched in tiny white tents, wrist corsages and the band playing toned-down Green Day and Hootie, it felt like a backyard wedding, minus children dancing or snapping inappropriate photos. In their place women in spandex evening gowns in various shades of revealing cocked their hips, cast sideways glances, laughed throatily, wagged their tails.
About four steps down the cement walkway snaking around the turf, I accidentally looked at a patron for too long. His smile faded into a leer. “Hiya,” he drawled, taking his time giving me the ol’ up and down. I averted my eyes and quickened my pace. Four steps later a similar situation unfolded.
I flashed back to the text message conversation Xania started earlier that afternoon:
2:31:47 p.m.
What u wearing tonight?
2:33:55 p.m.
Ha! I was going to ask you the same thing! I guess I’m going to err on the side of sexy. A short dress or skirt ... Or would that make it seem like I’m trying to compete with the working women?
2:35:22 p.m.
I don’t think so at all. I agree w dress or skirt. That’s all I wear anyway! ;)
2:37:14 p.m.
Revealing ok, you think? Don’t forget I’m from the Midwest. I have no sense of direction when it comes to this kind of thing.
2:40:12 p.m.
It’s a brothel. If I am to believe what I saw on the reality show cathouse then a lot of the girls there will like to see you reveal as much as u like!
2:42:08 p.m.
Ha ha ha! Ok then, it’s on.
Just to make sure, I called a friend of mine who’s lived in Vegas all of her adult life. “Dress like an art slut,” she told me with confidence.
I settled on a violet spandex number with the back cut down to there and a scandalous hemline, plus some flashy gold accessories. I looked like a cross between a C + C Music Factory video reject and Sharon Stone’s character in Casino, and I felt fierce. That is, until I realized that everyone thought I was on duty, and not as a reporter.
Holding my notepad way out in front of my face, pen poised as if ready to jot down anything of import, glasses perched near the tip of my nose for maximum effect, I tried to exude the essence of journalist. I wrapped my scarf around my shoulders and hunched forward to hide as much of my body as possible. Why did it feel so shameful to have accidentally attracted the kind of attention that keeps this place in business? I spotted Xania sipping a cocktail, chatting it up with a mutual friend, and I ran.
“Save meeee!” I cried, heels spiking into the soft earth as I dashed across the lawn. Xania laughed and told me I looked like a yenta in the shawl.
Who at some point in his or her life has not felt like a prostitute? Certainly we’ve all doggishly compromised our sense of integrity at some time or another just to get by. When whoring is accidental, or some sort of compromise, we feel degraded, deflated or humiliated. When it’s intentional, it’s empowering. So perhaps these ladies of the night—a group I looked like I belonged in—really weren’t whores. Perhaps what they were doing was something else.
I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to see what it was like to walk in their clear plastic stilettos; I threw off the scarf, hiked up my skirt and began to strut.
Back inside, some husky men were draped in women. One patted an empty cushion next to him and invited me to join him on the sofa. His name was Doorknocker—or at least that was his handle on the sherisranch.com message board—and he was a meat broker, a “dealer of death,” as he put it. (He later informed me that Albertson’s will soon be carrying meat loaf in the deli.)
It didn’t seem to matter to him that I was a reporter. He kept squeezing my knee, looking at me with romance in his eyes. Brazil, a luscious-lipped brunette in the sapphire dress sitting to his right, got up silently and left.
Doorknocker couldn’t get enough of my glasses. Every time I took them off he begged me to put them back on again. I noticed that one chair away from me, a gorgeous, almost truly black-skinned woman in a little turquoise tutu-esque thing had her spectacles on too. I called her over, hoping to deflect attention.
“Oh no,” she said, kneeling in front of me, lightly running her square-shaped acrylic claws over my exposed thighs. She suggestively wagged her tongue at me and made eyes over her shoulder at a man in a tie-dyed shirt. “That’s dirty hustling.”
Apparently it’s a rule of the house that you don’t creep in on another girl’s prey. At first I was impressed; Sheri’s sure had their shit together! Then I was mortified—I realized that Brazil took off because of me. Was I a dirty hustler?
I quickly assured her that I wasn’t working in the house, that any money this man might want to shell out for sex was all hers. She got up off the floor, took a seat next to me and explained how she got to Sheri’s.
Skyy, as she’s called, speaks six languages. She’s French, from West Africa, and belongs to the Pearl tribe. “I’m a Cancer,” she said, which I understood to mean she’s sensitive. “The wind blows, I cry.”
Before she came to Sheri’s she worked as a hospice nurse. “The doctor calls at 10 in
the morning and says a patient’s going to die at 2.” She’d talk to the patient, perhaps read passages from the Bible if he was religious, and wait for him to pass. “It made me feel important,” she said. “I used to think this is what God wanted me to do—to give love.”
But then she said she started getting attached to the ones who didn’t die so quickly. She saw their faces in her dreams, which tormented her waking life. In fact, it caused her such anguish she developed bleeding ulcers in her stomach, and she had to quit her job to save her life. Sheri’s was quick and easy, she said, though after this little stint she wasn’t sure what she was going to do.
It was a story I wanted to believe. It was full of the kind of tragic beauty for which we reporters cream our pants. I purposely didn’t ask too many questions. The women at Sheri’s exist to fulfill rich fantasies. And Skyy had just tapped into mine.
I eased into my dress, leaned into Doorknocker a little, asked him to get me a drink. I smiled at Skyy. She smiled back. There are definitely worse things in life than acting like a whore.
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Overheard at the whorehouse party
“I’m trying to go to the bathroom here, I might as well try to sell it.” –Brothel girl, after announcing out loud that she has to pee
“Hey son, guess where I am!” –Old man talking about calling his kid from the brothel
“I think it’s their kitchen.” –Woman waiting in line for the bathroom talking about the locked room next to it
“I like to hike, and I like to do it in my tiny little skirt.” –Brothel girl talking about her time off
“I’ll pee, you watch.” –Random guy speaking to a girl at the party while entering the bathroom, leaving the door ajar
“My mom knows, but my grandma thinks I’m a stripper.” –Working girl
“You’re not dead, but you did have fun, babe!” –Working girl speaking to an old man she had just serviced
“You’re going to die! Go somewhere else.” –Random drunk yelling outside of the brothel.
–Compiled by
Aaron Thompson