Just in time for the holidays: Love letters from Eliot Spitzer's pimp and madam

FORTUNE -- Mark Brener and Cecil Suwal, the unlikely couple who ran Emperors Club VIP-the high-priced escort service patronized by New York governor Eliot Spitzer-have finished their prison terms, renewed their romance, and gone back into business.

No, not that business.

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The 65-year-old former pimp and his 26-year-old former madam have instead launched a website, cecilsuwalmarkbrener.com, where they're selling 22 private love letters they exchanged from behind bars. The glossy site also announces they're writing a book about self-help, spirituality, and business-and includes a two-minute slide show, incongruously intercutting images of themselves with symbols of wealth (think yachts and Warren Buffett) and famous June-December couples (such as Rupert and Wendi Murdoch). A photo of Spitzer and his wife Silda also appears.

In an interview, Suwal told FORTUNE that she and Brener -- who both served time on two felony counts -- were married on August 10 at the New York City marriage license bureau in Lower Manhattan. Because both remained on probation, prohibited from associating with anyone else convicted of a felony, their union required special permission from federal authorities. This was quietly arranged by Brener's criminal defense attorney, Murray Richman, who also attended their civil marriage ceremony.

At the time of her sentencing, back in January 2009, Suwal and her attorney insisted she had severed all ties with Brener, and blamed him for leading her into a life of crime at 18, when she was a college student at the University of Miami with a serious drug problem. (Suwal had started working with Brener as a prostitute during a summer vacation after her freshman year in college.) As evidence of his "sick" hold on her, Suwal's attorney described a "strategically placed" tattoo -- reading PROPERTY OF MARK BRENER -- just above her private parts, and declared that she had "permanently severed the umbilical cord from Brener." Suwal tearfully told the judge she wasn't the same person who had been "deluded" into committing crimes.

The argument appears to have made an impression with the judge. Though prosecutors were pressing for a two-year prison sentence, Suwal got just six months. (Brener was sentenced to 30 months a week later.)

Today, Suwal insists her comments reflected her genuine feelings about Brener at the time, not just a cynical story offered to win a lighter sentence. "When I was in court that day, that really was my view of the situation," she says. "I hadn't spoken to Mark in a year." But she says she quickly fell back in love with him after he wrote her a comforting letter from behind bars, as she was preparing to begin her own prison term. "I was scared out of my mind," says Suwal. "All of a sudden when I received his letter, I responded right away. Despite everything that had happened, what we had and what we continue to have was undeniable.'

Suwal was released in November 2009 and resumed her undergraduate studies at Fordham, where she is majoring in psychology. Brener remained in prison until May 2010, and they wrote to one another throughout that period. "Despite the fact that we were separated that whole time, I thought this is the person I wanted to be with," says Suwal. "His perspective regarding the whole course of events was much more beautiful and appealing than anyone else could offer."

Suwal and Brener now live in a one-bedroom co-op in Cliffside Park, N.J. -- the same apartment from which they ran Emperors Club VIP for more than three years and from which they were arrested at 6 a.m. on March 6, 2008. Their escort service, which charged between $1,000 and $5,500 an hour, employed more than 50 prostitutes, and grossed more than $1 million. FBI agents found a plastic garbage bag stuffed with $981,483 in cash inside a safe in the closet.

Spitzer had been a regular customer of Emperors Club for at least two years, dating back to the time when he was New York attorney general. The federal investigation of the escort service, which led to the arrests of Brener, Suwal, and two phone bookers for the ring, began because of his involvement.Spitzer announced his resignation as governor on March 12, 2008, two days after the New York Times linked him to the Emperors Club. After keeping the matter open for another seven months, U.S. attorney Michael Garcia announced that there was "insufficient evidence" to bring any criminal charges against the former governor. (Spitzer is now a talk show host on CNN, which is owned by Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), Fortune's parent company.)

Suwal appears prominently in "Client 9," a new documentary about Spitzer by Academy-Award winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, which premieres in New York on November 5. (Disclosure: I collaborated with Gibney on the film while writing a book about Spitzer, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.) In a recent feature story on the film, New York Times writer David Carr called the former madam "a giggle box of truth."

Those giggles carry over into the prison letters that Suwal and Brener are selling. Their website offers 22 letters, available in six sets for a grand total of $32.50. The website says 22% of the proceeds from the sale of the letters will go to charity. Comments Suwal, about the letters: "It's an inside view of our personal relationship."

Indeed. The exchanges include stick-figure cartoons Suwal drew for Brener and smiley-face illustrations he sent to her. He calls her "spiritual royalty" and "smart vanilla cookie"; she calls him "buttercup." There is considerable discussion of Kaballah, meditation, proper salads, raw vegetables, and pickles (Brener is a fierce advocate of macrobiotic diets). But there is only passing comment on their illegal enterprise. Brener insists that their personal, financial, and "human kind" goals were right, but that the "vehicle, path that we chose was wrong." He writes that "it was never my intention...to break the law," that he saw "our business" as "controversial but not more.....things get out of our control." Suwal writes that she contemplated suicide after learning that she would need to serve time in prison.

Throughout, Brener writes of his desire to marry Suwal after he is freed. "I believe that we can be the hottest couple darling in the nation. Think about this." Suwal seems quickly convinced. She tells him she is pining away for his release, at one point writing: "I wish I could be with you to eat your salads with you...."