A few years ago, my knowledge of prostitution was essentially limited to what I'd picked up from Belle Du Jour and Pretty Woman. And yet, for reasons still unclear to me, I pitched Details magazine a story on the subject and ended up spending about six months infiltrating a world of email hacking madams who told lies longer than their client lists. Among my misadventures: sitting in a most definitely unhinged pimp's apartment while he demanded money I didn't have in exchange for information, interviewing a porn star who did "side work" as a prostitute as she stripped at the Spearmint Rhino, and getting a hold of the contents of a laptop belonging to a former partner of a madam who was locked up in a Cuban jail.

Alas, the piece ended up being this story, which really only skimmed the surface of what I'd unearthed.

So I decided to fictionalize what I'd learned, weaving in what I'd gleaned from a decade of living in Hollywood -- about trophy wives, struggling actresses mysteriously finding themselves in Cote D'Azur despite the fact that the one commercial they'd ever landed stopped airing five years earlier, and the various ways all women (not to mention plenty of men) sell themselves out to get what they want.

Bought is the result.