Chapter Text
There’s a family that moved in next door with a son in high school. I’d know nothing about him if his mother didn’t make it such a point to tell me he’s joining the Navy in the Summer. She’s probably just eager to be rid of him; he’s an annoying kid. He plays his music too loud, which I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t shit music and if it didn’t interfere with my work. I went over one night and knocked on the door, past midnight after I got hung up on for the second time in a shift. I told the confused mother that he needed to turn down his copy of Limp Bizkit’s Greatest Hits or cover my paycheck for the night.
The next day, the little prick is stepping over to my side of the duplex. I’m sitting on my front porch, smoking a cigarette. I smoke them outside. Trying to kick the habit. The special effort makes it easier to cut back slowly.
I regard him with a challenging glare, lowering my cell phone and the text message I’ve been composing. I take a drag as I wait for him to speak. Behind me, my dog is having a fit, noticing the stranger and jumping against the screen door.
“What do you do for a living?” He asks. No apology, not even a courtesy hello.
“I’m a phone sex operator,” I answer him, ashing on the stoop.
“Yeah, right,” he rolls his eyes and scoffs, adjusting his backpack and turning for his own house again, “asshole.”
I put the cigarette back between my lips and flip him off as he walks away, hoping he’ll get thrown in jail for all the drinking and driving I know he does, and never make it as far as the Navy.
--
“He didn’t believe me and he called me an asshole,” I explain to Rosie on the phone, laughing. She sighs heavily, and I lower the plate I’ve been scrubbing. “Oh, what?”
“Don’t just go telling people you’re in the sex trade, Dom. Believe it or not, you can get evicted for that in some cases.”
I give her my own sigh and rinse the plate off, moving it to the rack for drying. “Sorry.” Rosie owns the lines, which makes her, effectively, my boss. She wires the money to my account, at least, and is kind enough to keep in touch. She worries about me, because I live alone. I live alone because I hate other people, really. I like dogs and I like Captain Morgan, but besides that there are few people in my life. It’s pretty blissful. I don’t think I lack anything.
“Sorry. He’ll probably just think it was a joke, like my way of telling him to fuck off. If his mom gets all suspicious I’ll just use the old stock trader story.”
It’s a common story in the business. If you have to run home suddenly to dial in for work, you explain that you trade stocks online and that Tokyo’s business day starts in an hour. I’ve actually become rather familiar with random facts and figures about trading. I’m an actor, after all. It helps to have at least a little knowledge to run an effective game.
Sad testament to the state of the arts: it is approximately a million times easier to get work as a phone sex operator than it is to get work as an actor. Even a well-educated, highly experienced, and (by all accounts) quite attractive actor who played everything from Hamlet to Henry Hill. No one likes actors. At least I’m not waiting tables on the side. I’m just too obsessive-compulsive to deal with food.
I play specific roles, and answer for four different lines. For one, I’m a horny high school boy. My alias is Garrett, for that one. My friend Jackie came up with the name, selling it by asking “When was the last time you saw a fug guy named Garrett?” Another one of the lines is more or less vanilla, which is usually where the closeted husbands or secretly bi frat boys call in. I go by Nick for that one. The third, I’m a sub named Cody. The fourth, I’m a mouthy, argumentative little bastard named Heath who makes you work for the honor of fucking him.
Going with different pseudonyms is key, or else I’m liable to slip into one character and stay in it the rest of the night. Sometimes asking a caller to “say my name” is more of a nudge to my memory than anything else. On those nights, it takes all of my acting power to take one call as Heath and switch right over to shy little Cody.
I feel most like Nick, though. Fitting, it’s the first name I ever took, the first line I ever answered for, and the name that’s practically my own. My calls as Nick tend to be a bit more complex. Sometimes there are the guys who call in with the express intent of getting off, and those are difficult to hang on to, but as Nick I’m more likely to have to talk someone up to it. Often, I get first-timers, guys who have never even been with another man. There are the strange cases, too. There’s one older man who calls me up just to talk, some nights. His mother just died and he’s had a rough go of it. We progressed past phone sex long ago. He says I’m a good friend, for listening.
And sometimes, that’s what it is. I listen to people and I can’t believe some of the things they’re willing to tell me. They open up about their problems, their anxieties, much more than just their kinks. As Nick, I’ve had people confess their sins and their secrets, and whenever one of my few friends asks if my job is degrading or dehumanizing, I just think back to those conversations.
The rate of pay goes up ten cents every twenty minutes, then it caps off at fifty cents a minute after an hour. I pay good attention to those guys who like to talk and confess and be friends with me. I can make $30 an hour on them, and never once do I feel sorry for them or think I’m any better just because I never have to call a sex hotline. Quite the opposite, actually. Some of them are just hopeless addicts to it, but where some people would just be gambling or boozing it up, or even going to strip clubs and spending triple that in a night, they’re sitting around talking to me about how fucked up their tenth grade Summer at camp wound up being.
I’ve become actor, prostitute, confidant, babysitter, advisor, and priest. All at once. It’s not a bad gig. And it pays exceptionally well. For all the shit calls that require me to bite my tongue just to keep from laughing, or end with me being swore at and hung up on, there are the nights when line 1 lights up, and I answer the phone, and everything is interesting for as long as I can manage to keep the other person on the phone.
Rosie kept me on the phone only a little longer, just chatting about her neighbor’s relationship drama and how she and her husband were considering a new apartment in Soho. They’d probably do it as long as they decided not to start up the website. Rosie’s husband, a photographer (yes… that sort of photographer. Birds of a feather meet at sex trade conventions), was trying to convince her to open a site for webcam chat and photo galleries. It would take a lot of capital, which meant they would probably stay in their current digs in Long Beach a little longer, until the site started generating revenue. Rosie and Dean were both graduates of NYU in business, so they knew their shit. I personally wanted the site to take off; Dean was already talking me up in a way he never had before. He had only met me in person once, and was asking for a portfolio. I was trying to get my nerve up to admit I would be willing to work the webcams. For the moment, though, I enjoyed the phones too much to give it up. Typing and writhing live wouldn’t be the same as spinning stories in my own voice for an audience of one.
“I’ve got to go, Dom. And I can hear that someone else thinks it’s about time, too.”
“You’re right about that. He hasn’t shut up for the last hour,” I look down at my little Boston Terrier and raise my eyebrows as if I’m patently unimpressed by his skittering about. “Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Dom.”
This isn’t the phone I use for business. My cell phone is nothing but my personal phone, and for that reason it’s rarely used. On purpose, I leave it on the counter as I retrieve the leash and head for the door. “Come on, Wembley.”
--
“Hi, this is Nick. How are you feeling tonight?”
Rule 1: you always introduce yourself. It gives them a chance to call you by a name, which 90% of the time they want to do. People who call phone sex lines like a bit of play-acting, and the personal touch means a lot. Rule 2: Make it sexy. I answer Line 1 in my own voice, I don’t put on a dialect or an accent at all. It’s just a little bit teasing. Cheerful. Inviting. Then there’s Rule 3: Ask how they’re feeling. People are shy when they call in, most of the time. However they answer that question, it directs the rest of the call. I get “nervous” as often as I get “horny”, and then I just go with the direction it leads.
“Hey, Nick,” kind of a tentative voice. A newbie, but he doesn’t sound like it. At least he’s a newbie for me. I don’t recognize the voice. But he sounds like he might know me, so I’m listening. I’m also folding the laundry with my wireless headset on. I usually do chores while I’m working. Because of it, my house is spotless. “I’m doing well.”
I smile immediately. I like calls that start this way. Usually, there’s a good thirty minutes in these, at least.
“Oh, yeah? That’s great. What are you up to tonight?”
“Not much. Beer, TV. Got sort of bored.”
“So you gave me a call?”
“So I gave you a call.”
I’m silent for a few moments. It’s almost frustrating. He had already played the repeating game. I was in a corner. Does he want me shy and flirtatious, or to the point? Oh, well, I’ll find out soon enough. It was such an awkward beginning to the conversation, that I have to follow my instincts and laugh. Not at him; just an inward, nervous laugh. Shy.
“What’s the matter?” He asks quickly, amused himself.
“Nothing, just thinking it’s lucky,” I start to fire up the bullshit. “I was waiting for someone to call. Getting sort of lonely tonight.”
“Mmm,” he doesn’t sound like he takes bullshit well. I hear him drinking, quickly, and he lets out a quick ‘ahh’ after. “Yeah, this is going like I’d have expected, then.”
“Your first time?” I decide to go for the direct approach.
“My first time calling one of these, yes,” he makes sure to specify. They always make sure to specify. I’m grinning as I abandon a yellow t-shirt mid-fold and concentrate. He talks fast. I have to concentrate.
“I can easily say something unexpected, you know.”
“Oh yeah?” He sounds challenging, cocky. Smart, probably. “Shoot.”
“Floccinaucinihilipilification.”
He cracks up, immediately. Cute laugh. Strange laugh. “What?”
“It’s a big word,” I shrug my shoulder.
“Definitely unexpected. Round One goes to you, Nick. That’s your real name, is it? Nick?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” Not actually a lie, either.
At this I’m walking around the living room, arranging the various printed pillows on my black sofa set. I went with black, but not with black leather. I wanted black leather, but I wanted a dog more. And, true to my suspicions, Wembley turned out to be a champion destroyer of furniture.
“What’s your name?” I’m being challenging right back at him, crossing my arms.
“Matt,” he answers, almost laughing again. “God it sounds like we’re on some terrible dating show or something.”
“Like one of those MTV shows. Yeah, sort of does. Well, if you called me you called for a reason. Don’t know that it was awkward small talk,” I pause. He takes another drink, “Matt.”
“Hm,” he makes a very pleasant sound around the lip of his bottle, and I hear it pop out of his mouth before he replies, “hey now, say that again. That sounded really good.”
Excellent. The defenses have dropped. He’s ready to brave the world of sex over the wire. “Matt.”
“You’ve got a sexy voice.”
“It’s a job requirement.”
“It would seem so,” he pauses. “So what do you look like?”
I’ve never lied about my appearance. I considered it, before, but I’m too damn vain. If they don’t like what they’re seeing in their heads they can damn well hang up the phone. “Blond, kind of short. Thin. But I’ve got great arms and a great back.”
“Keep going. I like it,” I always roll my eyes a little, at that. Of course you like it.
I wonder what he’s into. I hate rattling off the laundry list of my physical attributes without a specific focus. “I live by the beach, so I’ve got a nice tan,” it’s only Virginia Beach, but I don’t want to ruin his idea of a California surfer boy if he has one, “long thighs, perfect arse, and the main attraction would be my big, pretty, circumsized cock.”
“Do you really look like that?” They always ask.
“Uh huh.” The truth goes a long way in projecting confidence.
“I almost feel like asking for pictures.”
“Pictures are not currently offered, I’m afraid,” I laugh coquettishly, moving toward the bedroom slowly and hugging the walls as I go. If it weren’t for my hang-ups with personal space, and the fact that I do what I do for a living, I might be a huge, unapologetic slut. I like talking about sex, I like thinking about sex, I like being sexy and making other people talk and think about sex. What can I say? It’s fun.
“Tease.”
“Not a tease at all,” at my bed, I pause and chuckle, “I’ll do anything you want me to do, right here.”
“Then I intend to get my money’s worth.” His voice falls from sweet and amused to its own peculiar and almost alarming brand of suddenly sexy. I’m almost stunned. Some guys can’t talk this way to save their lives.
“Good, good,” I’m fingering the hem of my shirt, waiting for him to go on, “you know, your voice is pretty sexy, too.”
“Thank you,” ahh, he might be a little vain, himself. It sounds like it. Maybe the sort of vain that never wants to admit it. That’s the most attractive sort. All that confidence but all that modesty.
“Will you tell me what you look like?”
“Short and dark and skinny,” he answers simply, giving his beer another swig, ending on a triumphant, “ta-da!”
I chuckle very deep in my throat. One of my secret weapons. “Don’t stop there. I’ll bet there’s a lot more to you.”
“Not much, no.”
“What color are your eyes?”
He pauses imperceptibly. Didn’t expect that, did you? “They’re blue.”
“I love blue eyes,” I tell him, adding a quick sigh to heighten the mood. “It’s getting a little hot in here.”
“Well, sounds like you’ll have to take off some clothes, then.” He pauses. Here it comes… “Sounds so trite and cliché to ask this, but what are you wearing?”
I quite love my wardrobe, so I always dress for the job. “Not trite at all. Most people actually don’t ask that,” I’m such a liar, but I’m a good one. “But I like to be asked. I’m wearing a plain white t-shirt. It’s really thin. Sort of tight. It’s got a low neckline. I wear it around and you can see my chest a bit, just a little. People stare.”
“Sounds lovely,” he laughs, “are you a hairy guy, Nick?”
“Not at all. I’ve got a little, here,” I reach in to touch it, actually, the smattering of light golden hair at the center of my chest. “It’s hard to see out of the right lighting.”
“Mmm, I love blonds.”
Most people do, even if they don’t want to admit it. “That’s good. I’m blond everywhere.” With this, I take the shirt off, leaving him to think about it for a moment. I have my microphone taped securely in place, and I just let the fabric scratch over it as it goes. “There we go, one part down. I’ve got on some really tight jeans under this. Should I take them off too?”
“We’re moving kind of fast, aren’t we?”
“Are we?” We are. I play dumb and turn to the full-length mirror I have across from my bed. It helps fuel my powers of description. I run my fingers over my belly, smiling as I wait for him to drag the conversation out. I’ve got one of those long, lean torsos, with my belly button so high above my waistline that it always looks like my pants are slung a few inches lower than they should be. Admittedly, I do wear them rather low. And at my height and weight, it’s quite easy to find slutty low rise jeans in the junior girl’s department. “Don’t chicken out, now.”
It’s only my fourth call of the night, but already it’s my longest.
“Never,” he scoffs. “I only just met you. I want to know what you want me to do.”
“What I want you to do?” I grin wide, showing my teeth at the mirror. “Matt, I already told you I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t call to talk to a doll. I called so someone could talk dirty to me. You know, about what you like, about things that turn you on. And now I’ve got this image of you in my mind. Can’t get it out. So if I was there… what would you ask me to do?”
These are my favorite calls. “Really, you want to know?” String him along, keep it going, be a tease. He likes a tease, I can tell already. Moving kind of fast, indeed.
“Of course I want to know. Not many people ask you what you want?”
Again, I’m a good liar. “No. Not much. I’m used to just doing what other people want.”
“Mmm,” I’m fueling his ego. He’s a giver. He’s a time-taker. I can always hear when someone starts to ease into the foreign task of talking with a stranger so intimately. On the phone, it’s easy to pick up on those little signals. A breath. Clearing the throat. I’m making him feel special, and now he wants to stay. “Not this time. Tell me exactly what you please.”
“Would that make you hard?” I whisper into the mic, pulling out another one of my secret weapons but swaying back and forth giddily while I do.
“Oh, yes.”
“You ever given head before?”
“Of course I have.”
“You ever eaten a guy out before?”
A pointed break. “No.” That one, it is important to point out, is almost never an ‘of course’.
“First time for everything. So if I take off my jeans,” I turn around and open them up, pushing my pants down over my hips. I leave on the white briefs beneath, for now. I’m not quite hard yet, but I look absolutely glorious in these things when I am, “and get up on the bed, would you come over here and lick my ass?”
“You go straight for the point.”
“Do you not want to?” I feign disappointment. “It’s a really, really nice ass. And I actually get waxed, believe it or not.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I do. I really do,” he pauses when he stops defending himself and catches up to what I’ve said, “you get waxed, you said?”
“Uh-huh.”
He pauses. “That’s really nice. I’ve got a pretty long tongue, you know.”
“And I’m delicious, so stick it in.”
He lets out another one of those bizarre, high pitched giggles, then clears his throat. I could swear I hear him screwing a hand against his face. “Sorry, sorry. Can’t help it. I’m not laughing at you.”
“Don’t worry,” Rule 4: unless expressly told, don’t make fun of callers once the sex starts ramping up. Too volatile, too risky. It’s awkward for everyone when feelings get hurt. “I didn’t think so. You want me to say it another way?” I glance back over my shoulder as I get up onto my knees, on the bed. I scratch my stomach again, holding my tongue between my teeth as I wait for him to respond.
When he gives me another moment, I reach down and start to pet the package between my legs. I actually limit myself, usually. I don’t like to get off for just anyone, and there’s no way I can, considering the volume of calls on some nights. But every now and then, there’s that special call of the night, and I find my favorite secret weapon for keeping them in my clutches. “Mmm, maybe I can just kneel here and keep touching myself.”
“You’re touching yourself?” He seems so surprised by this. No doubt, he’s a hardcore cynic. All of this makes him uncomfortable, because none of it makes much logical sense. Why would you do this with a stranger? But, just like the rest, he’s still a man. Mention the right thing, and there’s no turning back. Loads will be shot. My goal, though, is to draw out that crucial process. That’s why I like being a tease.
“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”
“Not yet, no. But please, go on.”
“Would you like to watch?”
“I’d like to hear, for now, but I wouldn’t mind a little watching, no. Still trying to get up the nerve, here. I called you to do the dirty talk, I’m not good at it personally.” He says it all so fast. I blink and give my brain a few moments to understand it.
“Well, I’ll work with you on that, then,” I’m breathing a little heavier. Turning just enough, I catch a glimpse of my cock hard and slipped perfectly into the pocket of fabric between my thigh and my hip. Such a pretty picture. I hope Dean lets me on the webcams, eventually, just to hear what people think of this. Then I never have to put in the effort again. Just gobble up the compliments and walk away with the money. On the good calls, at least. But it’s easy for me to get over the pointless insults.
Matt, though... I wanted to give him a reason to come back. I hadn’t landed a new regular in weeks.
“Work with me? What, is this a seminar?”
“If you want me to get this over with quickly, just tell me,” I inform him gently, but as I do I’m sliding the underwear down over my hips. To get in the mood, I drag my tongue over my teeth and moan. My cock springs free. It always feels good, that little moment. “But I just got my underwear off and I think you might want to stick around.”
“Fair enough,” he’s intrigued. “Tell me more.”
“I’m really hard,” I throw in the requisite moans here and there, “thinking about your long tongue, how good you are with your mouth. I’m not picky, you know. You can get over here and wrap your lips around my cock if you want, instead.”
He’s breathing harder, now. I hear him shifting. I pause with my cock resting patiently in my unmoving hand, giving him a few moments to get situated.
“I’d like to do that,” he grunts. It actually succeeds in turning me on. Sometimes the job transcends acting, and it gets a little enjoyable. All in a night’s work, though. He might be repulsive, in real life, or he might be the sort of personality I wouldn’t go near on a bet. But I push that out of my mind and do my own imagining of him. Short. Dark. Skinny. That’s enough to work with that I can make him suitably attractive. “Tell me about your cock.”
Maybe you need to be vain to do this right. People ask me to tell them about my body all the time, and sometimes in very specific detail. I love being able to sell mine without having to imagine a thing. I turn toward the mirror, on one side, still kneeling on top of the bed while I pull at the length of it. Slowly, teasingly. “Should I go the same route you went? Long and pink and fat?”
He’s sharp enough not to be offended by my joke, and laughs a little at this. The short pocket of silence on the line indicates to me that he’s just been given a time notification. Has it been so long already? Not long enough. “How long?”
He’s not asking about the time. “Seven, maybe eight inches.”
A low, humming moan at this.
“You like that?” I prompt him, making my eyes dark and big, looking up from under my brow the way I might if he were standing right in front of me. When he lets out an ‘mm-hmm’ in response, I keep on. “Are you getting nice and hard for me? Matt? Are you going to lick my ass and then fuck me with that?”
He stammers before the word finally comes out: “No.”
“No?” Maybe I can’t draw this one out as much as I wanted. He’s jerking madly away while I’m still going at it with long and lazy tugs. “What, do you want me to fuck you, then?”
A sharp moan tears from his throat. Bingo.
“Oh, I’d really like that,” I lay back and open my legs up on the bed, spreading my arms up and feeling the softness of my silk duvet beneath. He’s going to come soon, but I want to make sure he does, in fact, get his money’s worth. That’s what might bring him back. So many other things to find out. Why he was so suddenly bored. Whether he’s involved. Whether he’s gay. Whether he’s married. “You wanna get fucked, is that it? Fucked hard by a big cock? I can do that. I can do that a really long time. Lay down on the bed, here, and I’ll take care of you.”
I can’t help it. I have to know one thing. “You ever been fucked before?”
“No,” he gasps, what was potentially a secret spilling out as he draws closer and closer to orgasm. I’m smirking. I’m fascinated. I’m actually quite turned on. I love the virgins, they make me feel like a king. I’ll bet he was lying before. He’s probably never given head, either. I’ve got an image in my head, now. Shy little Matt, smart and sexy Matt, using my voice as a stepping stone to the real thing.
“Oh, you’ll love it. I’ll make you feel so good. I’ll fuck your sweet little ass so hard, so right. Is that what you want?”
A lovely whimper comes back over the line. I smile and keep going, warm and tight between my legs.
Just keep going, Nick. I tend to get dirtier as the caller gets closer. “Yeah, of course. I’ll come deep inside you. Do you want to feel that? Do you want me to shoot my load all thick and hot in your tight virgin ass?”
“Oh, God,” he gasps for me. I gasp right back, around a smile. Licking my lips. I’m nowhere near the finish line, myself, but sometimes this feels just as good. Bringing someone to an orgasm the obviously desperately need. “Oh, God, yes.”
“You going to come for me?”
“Yes!”
“You want to come in my mouth?”
He stops and whines, a sharp “nnn!” before his breath goes even shorter, even harder and faster. I’m fired up, now. No way to stop until he tells me to. “I want you to. I want to open my lips so you can shoot your spunk all over my face. I want to lick it off my lips and taste it and--”
“Fuck!” The interruption means it’s over. I stop talking, and I’ll bet I actually look a bit professional, waiting patiently for Matt to announce himself as I let my palm circle lazily over my cock. I wonder where he is. Just on the couch, in front of the television? I’m strangely intrigued by him, the way I try not to be. It’s something about his voice. Something about the direction of the conversation. Something about how quickly he came for me when I started on my A-game. “Oh, fuck. Fuck. That’s it, that’s great.”
I try not to ask questions. I lay there, waiting, my free hand running up and down the middle of my chest, teasing the hair he was detail-oriented enough to ask about. I wonder if the image in his mind is near enough to what I really am.
Immediately, I want to talk to him again.
I’m about to open my mouth, to ask the usual question of whether he enjoyed himself, but as soon as I form the first syllable, I hear his deep, quick breath cut off. The line goes dead. He’s hung up on me.
I press the button on my headset that holds the line from incoming calls, and decide not to save this erection for anyone else. This one was Matt’s. I make quick work of it just because I need two more calls, at least, to make it a worthwhile night.