MUSTANG RANCH II: Almost every woman was financially supporting someone else — often her husband, sometimes other family members, and frequently pimps. Carrie, a prostitute in her early 30s, was taking care of her mother, who had turned her out more than a decade ago. …Forbidden to return home until she earned the quota her mother set, Carrie was frequently forced to remain at Mustang for weeks on end.

…From 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Sunday, Mustang’s phone room, a small room off the parlour with four payphones — women’s sole means of communication with the outside world — was locked. When the prostitutes griped, old-timers, like Blanche the floor maid, waxed on about how much more restrictive the phone rules used to be: back in the 1970s, women were allowed two incoming and two outgoing phone calls per week, and no calls were permitted between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. Phone prohibitions had always been justified on the grounds that news from home frequently disrupted women’s ability to concentrate on the job.