Chapter 17 Love and Money #4
“Follow me home.” I slid into the driver’s seat and he got behind the wheel of his Charger.
We sped through Vegas and I kept pushing on that gas pedal— 80, then 100, then 120 down the freeway.
He kept trying to outpace me, and he must have been thinking there was no way in hell I’d keep pushing the speed.
Wrong. I pressed down on my stiletto and put the pedal to the metal.
We made it back to my house in one piece—thank you, ancestors—but Paulie’s eyes were just about bugged out of his head.
“You’re fucking insane. You know that, right?” he said, but he couldn’t keep his grin off his face.
“Oh, I know,” I said, turning the key.
By the morning, he was mine.
* * *
PAULIE KNEW I WAS IN the lifestyle from the get-go—there was no hiding that I had clients and sugar daddies paying my bills. And he showed up anyway and stuck around. I gave him the keys to my palace—and from that first night, we were inseparable.
I don’t know how many men’s rap careers I’ve tried to get off the ground, and Paulie wasn’t any different.
He really could have been something with the right mix of help, support, and motivation.
I was ready to do all three. I wanted to make him a better person—because honestly, Paulie was the first man I really, truly loved.
We laughed, cried, and argued, but we were best friends through it all.
True love or not, we were still toxic. We drank ourselves silly.
He was on pills. I was on pills, chasing the sweet calm of my Xanax and trying to outrun the panic when they wore off.
And we didn’t fight a ton, but when we did, it was bad.
He’d get in his feelings and wouldn’t come out of them for days—and then things would blow up.
And I was so cold. It was my way or the highway. No meeting in the middle for me.
To this day, Paulie will tell you that whatever he wanted in this life, I would have made it happen.
I was always pushing him to be better and to get out of his comfort zone—because the only way that man’s dreams were going to come true was if he fucking grew up.
I would have done anything to make him realize his worth.
But in a way, maybe that’s my downfall, because I’d never really realized mine.
So that’s my gift to people: try to show them what no one ever did for me.
The way I saw it then, I did anything to try not to have another failed relationship.
I truly just wanted a teammate to build with.
I was tired of partying. The late nights.
The drugs, even if I wasn’t yet clean. Even if I was so far from being healed enough to shake off the coldness, the need to control everything.
At one point, Paulie got it together enough to get trained and certified to be a bail enforcement agent.
It’s a dangerous job, and he’d have to get suited up in a bulletproof vest before he went out on calls.
But I knew if I wanted him to stick with it, I’d have to encourage him and engage with the job as much as I could to keep him going.
So we came up with the idea to use me as bait when he was after someone who did something particularly horrible, especially to women or little girls.
Once, Paulie was trying to track down a dude who’d jumped bail on some pretty heinous rape charges, and so I made a fake Instagram account and messaged him. Hook, line, and sinker—he wanted to meet up for a date.
I showed up at the bar we’d agreed on—no bulletproof vest or gun for me, just my usual high heels and miniskirt.
But before he could get near me, Paulie and his partner jumped out of his truck screaming like psychopaths for the loser to get on the ground.
They arrested him, and I went inside and got myself a drink.
* * *
IN MOST WAYS, PAULIE AND I had a quiet life together when we were at home despite the occasional drunken fights. One time, we yelled at each other so loud the cops came and dragged his ass out, but Paulie never once put his hands on me. I picked him up the next day and bailed his ass out.
For the first couple of years, we lived in a house in Henderson and then moved around the area.
And one day, a check for $25,000 showed up out of the blue.
I hadn’t expected settlement money for that car accident where I broke my neck, but there it was—not nearly enough, if you ask me, given that all these years later I still can’t turn my head to the right.
But we went to the bank and rolled out of there with $25,000 in stacks of $100 bills.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
“Let’s fucking get married.”
My mind raced. Here we go again. But maybe this time would be better—and I wouldn’t be marrying someone to keep him out of jail. I truly did love him. It was the best relationship I’d ever had, and I loved his family too.
Paulie and I flew out to Hawaii and got married at the town clerk’s office.
I wore a long, white wedding dress and a veil—since I hadn’t done so my first time—and Paulie was in a black suit, a pink bowtie, and metal-studded belt.
After signing the paperwork, we took a limo from the county clerk’s office to the beach and took pictures standing out on the rocks as the waves crashed around us.
It was beautiful. We were young, free, and happy.
* * *
WE DID EVERYTHING AT THE highest possible intensity.
We got fucked up all night, every night.
The thing about drugs and drinking is that it’s never enough, and over time, your consumption just grows and grows.
It’s impossible to sustain a real relationship when all you do is party.
I’d started webcamming, and this was the beginning of what would be my eventual online following.
I’d even use Paulie as my stunt dick to make videos.
We got really good at taking money from old dudes—while I have a lot of love and respect for plenty of my sugar daddies, some were just creeps.
Paulie would take my phone and call up one of my lesser sugar daddies and put on some fake-ass voice.
“This is Dale Callahan from Pep Boys. Your girl’s rims are out and it’ll cost nineteen hundred dollars to replace them.” And they’d send me over the money right away. Thanks, Sugar.
I figured out a new way to rob tricks too.
I’d set up a date, take the money up front like I always did, and then bam!
Paulie would show up screaming or pounding on the door, yelling that he was my boyfriend and was mad as hell that I was out cheating.
He’d pull me out of the bar or hotel room and we’d drive home together, counting our money and laughing our asses off.
There was a hell of a lot of truth to that last hustle though.
Paulie knew I didn’t have any intention of stopping seeing clients.
But he was starting to get jealous that other men had their hands on me, even if it was just a job.
He was jealous of my sugar daddies buying me things, even if I never touched many of them.
I wasn’t about to hang up my high heels for any man.
Paulie wasn’t much for ambition or a successful career after working as a kid, and he wasn’t providing for us.
He could barely take care of himself, so being an escort or a call girl or sugar baby or cam girl or whatever the hell you want to call it was paying our bills. I had no other choice.
And I was always straight with the dudes I was with that I was going to provide for myself no matter what.
I will always choose money over you, I told them.
I was never, ever going to be under some man’s thumb.
Not my father’s. Not a shitty boyfriend’s.
Not a husband’s. Sex work was keeping chains off me, and I am absolutely hell-bent on being free.
* * *
I KEPT BUGGING PAULIE TO work. He decided to become a tattoo artist, so I forced him to get up and get hired at a shop.
He got hired at the best fucking tattoo shop on the Strip.
For a while, things calmed down, and he was making good money.
It finally felt like we were a real team.
This was marriage, right? You ride the waves with someone for the rest of your life even though it won’t always be rainbows and butterflies.
When Paulie’s parents got evicted, they moved into our house.
I couldn’t see any other way—I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them sleep on the streets.
This was a mob family that had been raided by the FBI and indicted on RICO charges, money laundering, and racketeering.
They were facing ninety years between them—and they were coming apart.
I knew it might destroy my marriage, but they were family, and I couldn’t turn them away.
The reality is that we were all functioning addicts, and we were all starting to spiral deeper into the pain.
Even if we kept trying to make ourselves better, we just couldn’t dial in.
We were treading water on our best days.
Paulie and I made it five years before we started to unravel completely. Our fights were getting worse. I’d kick him out and he’d end up in jail and I’d go get him and then . . . we’d do it all over again.
Before Paulie, I’d caught Eric with porn that definitely didn’t resemble me.
Now, I don’t give a shit if dudes watch porn, but those women had extra parts that I don’t have, and it felt so hurtful because I knew I could never compete.
It felt so sneaky and secretive—like he was hiding what he really wanted.
When I caught Paulie watching porn with brunette college-teen-slut types, my polar opposite—it brought up that same hurt.
I had gotten boob jobs and lip fillers. I’d bleached my hair just to be these dudes’ fantasy girl.
And now it felt like even that wasn’t enough.
It would be years before I’d realize that I was enough, and that my beauty, my brains, my self was for me and me first. That I didn’t need to squeeze myself into smaller and smaller boxes until a man would give me the respect I deserved.
The resentment became so intense—it was like Jenga, where you stack and stack and stack until something breaks.
I’m no angel. I’m a verbal sniper, and back then, I would push men to cheat.
It was almost like I wanted to see if they’d do it just so I’d have an excuse to either do it back or to leave them for good.
Hurting people and pushing them away was one of my specialties—and in all of my relationships, I share the fault.
Finally, I kicked Paulie out of the house in a blind fury during an argument and didn’t speak to him for days after. He ended up cheating on me with some crackhead, and even though he came to me and admitted it, it was all I needed. Jenga!
* * *
THE MARRIAGE WENT UP IN flames. There’s something from that time, though, that will be with me for the rest of my life—that reminds me of how I tried my hardest and how I fight for love.
What I carry with me most came from his mom—she was a beautiful woman with blond hair and blue eyes, just like her son.
Around the time the family was getting indicted, she started calling herself “Kittie.” I never knew why—but maybe it was a way to be someone else for a little bit.
One day, we were in the kitchen, acting like a happy little family, and she waved me over.
“Come over here, honey,” she said. “I absolutely love you. You’re my little bunny.”
And just like that, I became Bunnie.
I added the Xo later.