Книга: Orange Phone
Orange Phone
I found a company in the yellow pages, called them up, and went to their downtown office for an interview, which was actually a form-filling session and a rundown of time sheet and logon procedures. I already had the job, based on my initial phone voice, I guessed. The place was called Orange Phone, and the time sheets were pale orange. I was to work from home, logging on whenever I liked via the telephone keypad and marking the calls I got on the time sheets-but I'm not sure why, as calls were logged by the computer as well. I couldn't lie. I had to record a ten-second intro that would play in a menu of girls' voices for the callers, who would choose their favorite one before punching in credit card information. If it cleared, the call would be forwarded to that woman's house and would begin.
My instructions were to get a guy off in no less than four minutes, and no more than fifteen. For any time amount within that range, I got paid four dollars. That was it: four dollars a call. If the guy wasn't "done" at fifteen minutes, it was my job to cut him off and make him call back if he wanted more. (If I went over fifteen minutes, it didn't matter; I still only got four dollars.) So I would lie and say, "The computer's going to cut us off," at around fourteen and a half minutes and then just hang up in the middle of a sentence. I loved that, cutting off my own moans. It was my favorite part. "Oh, oh baby, you-" I figured if I got four calls an hour, it was double the wage of my day job. But for sex work, it was nothing. And, of course, because I had to be at home and wait for calls, it was hard to do anything else. So I didn't log on very often. The biggest check I ever got was for about eighty dollars: pathetic.
Somehow, I developed interactions with a few regulars who'd find me whenever I was on. I'd had fun recording my message: "Hi, I'm Eve. Tell me your fantasies, and I'd love to indulge you." My voice was deeper than the other girls' and my hope was to stick out from the crowd. There were usually only eight to ten girls logged on at a time. When I'd get a call, I had the choice to accept it or not. But there was this whole list of penalties-if I refused a call when I was logged on, I'd get docked one dollar. Or if a call was less than four minutes, same thing.
I almost always accepted calls, and this was my approach: we'd do introductions, during which I was generally asked what I was wearing and what I looked like. I'd make some shit up, depending on my mood, though usually I was the black-haired girl in nothing but underwear, touching myself. Then I'd say, "What's your fantaseeeee…" It was easier to work with whatever idea they already had in their heads than to make something up. A lot of times, the guy would do most of the talking, and I would moan and sigh. Real easy. I was never really naked or touching myself, though occasionally I'd get turned on. (At that point in my life, this disturbed me. Now, it wouldn't.)
I had one guy named John who would call me over and over for up to an hour at a time. He was great: he'd have a porno on his TV and tell me he was a director who traveled the states making them. He'd call me from " Atlanta," " Dallas," " Denver." He was probably just a businessman. But he'd say, "Listen to this scene. Can you hear it?" (I barely could.) "This is my favorite. I directed it; this actress is hot. Can you hear her? Does she sound hot?" and I'd moan and say, "Yeah, she's really hot. I love to listen to her," and wouldn't have to say anything else for a couple minutes while he got it on with himself and his pay-per-view.
But he couldn't get off unless I was on the phone with him. The voyeur needed a voyeur.
I heard from several men who picked my voice because I sounded bisexual. They all then arrived at the conclusion that I was willing to fuck them up the ass with a dildo. This dumbfounded me. Really, several guys made the leap from my voice to the dildo, all in their separate worlds, a synchronicity of thought. It was amazing, and I would fuck them all. A few men would also ask for my home number. A common misconception among Johns was that what I really wanted was a boyfriend and not the money. One guy, Steve, would want me to talk him through jerking off, and I would dance with him around his cock, make him travel up the back of it slowly, make him thrust with his hips, then linger at the tip, then jerk up and down, up and down the shaft and he'd say, "You're really good at this. You sound like you have one of your own. Are you sure you don't have one of your own? You really know what you're doing."
One day I accepted a call from a person with a severe stutter. His name-I eventually got-was Jimmy. "I-I-I-11-live… with m-my p-p-p-parents." He said, "I-I'm… s-s-slow." We had a little get-to-know-each-other session, and I figured out that he was almost forty and lived in Southern California. He wanted to know what I really did for a living, and by the time he got to that question, I had such a soft spot for him I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him I was a kid in San Francisco, trying to create my own life, but struggling with being poor… But it was better to uphold the fantasy, I think, that I was just there for the callers' needs and that I waited for them and loved it.
Jimmy became a regular. It was great because his language challenge drew the calls out, and he'd call back three, four times in a session. He started to tell me more and more about his life. "My… b-b-b-broth-th-ther b-b-b-beats me… i-in th-th-th-th-the b-back… yard… I-I-I-I'm worth… less. H-he kn-knows it." I was not able to hide my own concern, but I didn't want to play therapist, either, so I said, more cheerleader-like than parental, "You're not worthless! You're great!" And he'd reply, "N-no. I 1-1-1-like it." I was starting to understand. "It t-t-turns me on."
Jimmy wanted me to abuse him, too. After we'd established a certain level of trust, he asked me to tell him to do things. "What kind of things, Jimmy?" "I-I-I w-want to h-hurt m-m-m-m-my-self." I was eighteen. I had a hard time being a creative S/M top, let alone knowing his situation. But he was paying me. "And… s-s-s-s-silly th-things. I-I-I-I-I c-c-can do s-s-s-s-silly th-things." "Okay, Jimmy, cluck like a chicken." "Wh-what?" I could hear in his words that he was smiling. "Cluck like a chicken, and jump around the room. You're a chicken." He put the phone down, slowly, and did it. I could hear stuttered clucks approach and recede, and it broke my heart. When he got back, he said, "I-I ha-have a ha-hard-on." "Touch yourself," I said. "I want you to touch yourself and cluck like a chicken. Keep clucking." This was a successful session. He had what sounded like a great orgasm, with these stuttered clucks. I almost cried.
Jimmy kept calling back, week after week, and it got more and more difficult for me. I'd make him tie fabric around his wrist until his hand turned blue, while he was jerking off. Or I'd make him slap himself. Or hold his breath. I was running out of ideas. I'd make him jerk off until he almost came, then make him stop and wait. He loved that one. His stuttering would get excited and almost fluid.
"E-eeeve. I h-h-h-have t-to a-a-ask you s-s-s-s-s-some… th-th-thing," Jimmy said one day, as soon as I answered the call. "Go ahead!" I replied. "W-w-w-will you t-t-t-tell m-me how to k-kill my-s-s-self??" He was quiet, waiting for me to respond. "Jimmy, are you serious?" "P-p-p-please… p-p-p-lease," he began to beg. Was he serious? Was this a fantasy of autoerotic asphyxiation? More of the self-punishment vibe? "P-p-p-p-p-please." "Jimmy, I don't want to do that. Let's do something else. Do you have a fantasy?" I asked. "I-I t-told y-you," he replied. That was his fantasy, but where was the line between a story and reality? I tried to soften the wish and told him to place his head under a pillow while he jerked off, knowing that as long as he could talk to me he was getting air. But he was persistent. "I c-c-c-could j-j-jump o-o-o-out th-the win-d-d-dow. I h-h-h-hate m-my f-f-f-f-family. P-p-p-please. T-tell me to j-j-jump."
How long had Jimmy had this fantasy? I tried to talk around it, but he called back several times in succession, and it became clear that he was fixated on wanting to jump. I was getting paid. Was this my job? Would verbalizing the command just give him a huge instant orgasm? Or would he jump out the window? I couldn't take the risk that he would actually do it. I just wanted to get him off at this point, I really did, and I was attached to him. "Jimmy. I'm sorry." "Wh-wh-what!" He said. He knew what was coming. "I'm sorry. I can't do it." I thought about making him call 911, encouraging him to leave his family and live on his own, telling him that he was valuable and that his life was worth having. "I'm sorry, Jimmy," I said again. "B-b-bye," he stammered, sadly, and I hung up. He never called again.
____________________
Laurie Sirois, after nearly a decade in San Francisco, has returned to her home state of Maine. She now enjoys her rural environs, both as lifestyle and inspiration. The majority of Laurie's time is spent telecommuting to a technology company in San Francisco and caring for her dog, Otto.
____________________
"Orange Phone," by Laurie Sirois, © 2000 by Laurie Sirois, first appeared in Tricks and Treats, edited by Matt Bernstein Sycamore (Harrington Park Press, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.