I put on some makeup and left.

The $4.99 prime rib (or whatever) at my hotel restaurant isn't my thing, so I ventured onto the strip. I choked down some sub-par maki and swigged an overpriced bourbon on the rocks at Harrah's, played a few penny slots, then left feeling robbed and alone.

I wandered off the strip and back to my hotel, which -- as one of the poker dealers at Harrah's told me – is in "the fuckin' ghetto."

"Yeah, but it's like three blocks away," I protested.

"Don’t matter,” he replied. I rolled my eyes.

In the parking lot, I grabbed a couple handfuls of the quarters I'd won at a gas station slot machine earlier in the day and tossed them into my handbag. After being hassled by a much older man who said he was from Chicago and that I was "gorgeous," I stalked up to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. ($1. Maybe Reno wasn’t so bad after all.)

I bought a pack of cigarettes, and I don’t even smoke. Somehow I just had to have the same dry cough and clichéd beverage and nasty snarl of my casino compatriots. Unfortunately, I'm not pregnant so my effort to blend in was rendered more difficult.

Men leered at me as I walked through the casino, their gaze indicating both carnal attraction and sheer befuddlement at my presence. It was so "whassa-girl-like-you-doin'-inna-place-like-this?" I wanted to barf.

I played a few more penny slots and won a bit of money. Even though the machines were coated with ash and littered with butts, I used the ashtrays, sipping my drink gingerly. I started playing blackjack, and I love playing blackjack. And I think that I'm good at playing blackjack, a notion that is utterly false. I lost all the money I had won, which was about $10.

“

I envisioned snorting fat lines of coke off of my pimp friend's dick. Then I saw my body lying in a blood-filled bathtub, organs harvested from within my torso and sold on the black market.

”

It was only about 11 pm, but I decided to head back up to my room for a good night's sleep. I had the final jaunt of my drive the next day.

"Got a light?” I heard next to me as I was headed toward the elevator.

"Yeah, sure," I said, rummaging through my purse for the box of matches I'd pocketed in Fort Collins, Colo.

"Thanks," said the man. He was young -- 23 -- and cute. Not fuckable, and a little bit intimidating, but cute.

"Mind if I have one with you?" I asked, lowering onto the stool next to him. It had been 48 hours since I'd had any human engagement, excluding the bartender at Harrah's.

“I’d love it,” he said.

He pulled out a pack of Newports and I lit one for him, a signature move of my younger days. I was lonely, my hair was frazzled, and I wanted validation.

He asked me what I was doing in Reno, and I decided to fuck with him a little bit. I told him I was on a cross-country road trip (true) after graduating college (true), trying to escape two torrid love affairs gone array (oh shit, also true). When I elaborated about the TLA’s, he told me that I was -- quote -- "making his dick hard."

"So what about you?" I asked. "What are you doing in Reno?"

"Networking," he replied dryly. I assumed he was a drug dealer; he was young, tough, and dressed in expensive clothes (think Coogi expensive, not Banana Republic expensive).

"Networking, huh? Networking what?"

"My girls…"

A moment of silence.

"Oh!" I replied. "So you’re a pimp!"

"Nah…” he shook his head, squinting. "I like to think of myself as more of a manager."

And just like that, he snapped into business mode, pulling two pieces of lined paper with writing on them. "This one," he explained, "is a list of all the websites I network on."

"Oh, Craiglist, right…" I said, combing the page.

"Girl, Craigslist is just the beginning. And this page, this is all of the pricing information." I swiped that page from him and began reading. Nothing was cheaper than $50 (for, like, a HJ), and the prices went up into the 4-digits.

"What’s Greek?" I asked.

"I thought you said you write a sex column, girl!"

"I do, I just don't know what that means," I answered, feeling dumb.

"Anal."

"Ahh, so you should have just said that," I teased. "And you get this much for doing it? Damn!"

"Well, that one's an hourly rate," he told me.

"That’s bullshit. No one can do anal for an hour."

"Oh, GFE," I continued. "The girlfriend experience." I paused. "Did you see that movie with Sasha Grey?"

"Got it at home," he said.

"I liked it. But it was kind of boring. So I just looked at her the whole time."

"Her ASS," he sighed before regaining composure. “Yeah, so GFE is an extra $200 to whatever else she doing."

Just then, a group of men walked by and stared, all their flubby chins craning as they sauntered past.

"Stop looking at me," I said, annoyed. One of them laughed. "Suck my cock motherfuckers!" I said a bit louder. Their expressions shifted to one of disgust and my pimp friend and I laughed.

"You crazy," he smiled. "But you know, they just do it cuz you pretty."

"Yeah, thanks," I said, immediately glued back to the list of prices.

"So, it’s $75 for a blow job, but and extra $50 if you deep-throat?

"All these prices though," he said, taking the paper from me and reading, "wouldn't apply to you."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You a pretty white girl. You'd make WAY more than this."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Seriously. White girls make way more than black girls. But my girl I got right now is half Mexican and then black and white. She make good money cuz she look exotic."

"Yeah, I fucked a guy with those same racial proportions once," I joked.

"White girls make the most," he continued. "Then Asians, then Mexican, Hispanic, whatever, then black girls."

"God…I guess I didn’t realize it was like that."

He took a drag from his cigarette.

"You’d make a LOT of money,” he said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, well, I don't oppose it." I told him about Belle de Jour putting herself through medical school with the money she made turning tricks in London. "I just don't know if it's for me. I mean, I've already graduated from college.” I wanted to resist his recruitment efforts without appearing judgmental. He didn't seem to care.

"I mean, my girl I got now has a client that pays her $500 to just come over and wear 8-inch heels and kick him in the face." I lit another Newport for him, and a Parliament for myself. "Just imagine how much YOU could make."

"Of course," he added, “you'd definitely have to wear tighter clothes." I looked down at my flowy top and skinny jeans that, after being worn for about five consecutive days, weren't too skinny anymore. He was studying me. "And way more makeup."

"So if she makes so much money, why does she need you?" I asked suspiciously. "You'd beat her up?”

"Hell no! We friends!"

"Oh, so you're fucking her too?" I sipped my drink and did the coy look-up-at-him-through-my-eyelashes thing. He nodded, smirking. "I see. So, what does she get out of it, then? I mean, financially."

"I told you," he stated. "Networking."

"But so if she has the kind of client who pays her $500 to wear heels and stomp on his face, why doesn't she leave you behind?"

"Most pimps take all the money," he explained. "They give their girls allowances -- however much they think they need to pay for food and living expenses and shit -- and it's usually not enough. My girl don't give me all her money. We share it. She got her own debit card. We good."

I noticed three young women about my age walk through the casino. I got his attention and nodded in their direction. "Damn, look at that girl, those leggings and heels!" I thought she looked like a fucking hooker.

"That’s my girl," he said. Naturally.

She and her friends approached us. She gave me a once-over and asked him for a cigarette. I told her I had non-menthols and she shrugged me off.

"Hi" one of her friends said, super-smiley, and asked my name. I told her, and asked hers. "I’m Unique," she said.

"Oh, that's cool!" I said, trying to pretend that it wasn't the most – err – unique name I'd heard in awhile.

We made small-talk about what we were drinking and where we were from, and she invited me to come hang out in their room later. My imagination revved into high gear. Video cameras fixed on Unique and me performing nonconsensual BDSM on each other. I envisioned snorting fat lines of coke off of my pimp friend's dick. Then I saw my body lying in a blood-filled bathtub, organs harvested from within my torso and sold on the black market.

"Sure, yeah, maybe…what's your room number?"

"1000," she said. "You want me to write it down?"

"No, that's okay," I said. "That's pretty easy to remember."

My new friend gave me his number, told me to call him, and I went up to my room, deadbolted the door, vibed, and fell asleep. I left Reno the next morning feeling horrified, amused, and educated in the ways of the oldest profession. And, contrary to the infamous Big Daddy Kane lyrics, pimping seemed pretty easy to me.

(The prices noted were written purely from memory. Actual prices may vary.)

What's your pleasure? Got a problem? Write to Avoine at AvoineSauvage@CrabbyGolightly.com