He wrote to me first because I intrigued him. I made a reply to an article he wrote online and he thought I was insightful. He was funny. He asked for my email.

We wrote to one another for months. Samuel Sazuki, Political Science Professor at some University on the East Coast. Good private Christian school. He liked talking about anything with me, not just politics.

I wanted to hear his voice. It was the first thing I asked of him. He called. His voice was a velvety, lulling tone. Strong and confident. There was always a smile in it. I loved that voice.

“Your voice is so cute,” he interrupted himself to tell me during our first call.

I didn’t want to hear that.

~*~*~*~

“Baby girl, keep talking to me with that sweet as honey voice,” a hoarse voice moaned in my headset. “I need you to tell me what to do.”

“Put your hands out in front of you,” I ordered. I grabbed my belt firmly and smacked it against my desk. He grunted at the sound. “You like that, baby?” My voice was husky. Men liked to hear that sexy voice. “Lay down on your stomach. I’ve got my long pink feather in my hand to run up and down your back. Slowly. Slower. Barely touching you. Do you feel it?”

“Oh, God. Yes.”

I slammed the belt against my desk again, the belt buckle clanged and he groaned out in pleasure. I tossed the belt back into the white basket by my feet and sighed in satisfaction into the mic, “Feeling better, Bryan?”

“Mm, yes. Thank you, baby. Goodnight.”

“Night, sweetie.” The phone call ended. I took off the headset and sighed. I was tired.

Toxic voices sucked me into the deviant void of tormented fantasies all night long. Bryan wasn’t a bad one, but there were others that asked for worse. There were some who didn’t know what to do and I had to lead.

When I first started, I thought of sex as a convenience store. I would stop, get what I wanted, and then be on my way. It wasn’t full of toys and kinks. It was simpler.

Mornings were my oasis from the nights. They cleansed me of the things I said. I’d immerse myself in the light from my kitchen window. Breathe in, breathe out. Forget. Repeat until the scabrous voices were gone. They never really left though. A continuous dull roar in the back of my mind.

~*~*~*~

After six months, I had a routine with Samuel. He’d call after I had dinner and talk to me before I went to work. Sam’s voice was soothing in the evening. It was tired and deeper since he was three hours ahead of me. I longed to hear it every night.

“Did you follow the story on Cruz’s eligibility? This guy is Canadian. It’s nothing like the Obama case. He’s actually Canadian,” his voice rang with irritation and excitement. A mix that was normal when discussing the news.

“Sounds like he’s Canadian,” I laughed.

“You really are insightful. All the time.”

“Okay, so he was born in Canada, yeah? But he was naturalized at birth because of his parents being American, right?”

“Right, that’s what they’re saying, but he was born in Canada.”

“What’s your point, Sam?”

“My point is I like him. Canadian or not. Didn’t I tell you about when he visited my school?”

“Yeah, you mentioned it. You sent me that picture of you two together, I think. Or maybe I saw it online.”

“He smelled great.”

“What? Like what?”

“Like the essence of man. Camp fires and chainsaws.”

“How intoxicating.”

“You had to be there to smell him.”

“Too bad I live on the other side of the world.”

“There you go with your thinking America is the world again. Seriously, though. When will you come over here?”

“How about when I finish my novel?”

~*~*~*~

“I wish you were here, baby girl. I’d put my hands all over that sweet ass body of yours,” Bryan’s voice tried to seduce.

I was used to Bryan. He was my VIP member for two months. VIP’s got the special deal of calling the women they liked instead of it being random each time. Plus, they paid more for the minute.

“Mm, Bryan. Where would you touch me?”

“Everywhere. I’d start with that fine ass of yours. God, it’s perfect. And then that small waist to those big tits. I’d stay there. Burying my face right in between. I could stay there forever.”

He was talking about that picture the company assigned of a busty redhead as my profile picture. She reminded me of my middle school bully, so I used her name. I shouldn’t have picked Morgan though. I never realized that I would be working for almost a year as Morgan. Morgan. I hated the name.

“I’d like to bite that ass though,” Bryan’s words cut into my thoughts.

“Do it, baby. Make me cry out in painful pleasure.” He liked it when I yelled out his name. I liked it when he led. It gave me time to read online and just make panting noises.

~*~*~*~

I was in the habit of lying next to my phone. Sam’s voice could fill my tiny room on speaker, but I kept it off the majority of the time we talked. I liked hearing his voice in my left ear as though he was whispering his political rants. The republican debate was his favorite topic. He told me everything about it and his opinions. It didn’t matter if I agreed or not, I just wanted to hear him talk.

If I closed my eyes, it was like I could feel him beside me. His breath on my ear, and his body warm against mine. Our hands holding one another.

“I’m ranting again. Sorry,” he stopped himself when he got too worked up. “It’s been a crazy week. Every day, there’s something different on TV.”

“Yeah, I know. I catch the news.”

“That’s when you’re not writing, right?”

“Yeah, when I’m not writing.”

“How’s the novel coming along anyways?”

“It’s almost finished. Just a few more revisions, I think.”

“You’re almost done then?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I’ve been working for ten months on it. Every time I think I’m done, I keep finding new things to add or sections to take out. It’s just a mess.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be reading it so much. You should take breaks.”

“Yeah. Hey, tell me more about what’s going on.”

“You sure? I don’t want to go off on another rant.”

“It’s okay. I like listening to it.”

“Right, but I don’t want to bore you.”

“You never do.”

He kept talking. He laughed at his own jokes, and his infectious chuckle made me smile.

I felt his hand in mine in that moment, and it began to move. It slid over to my waist, and then another hand appeared. Chills ran through me, and his voice got deeper. Quieter. Hushed whispers. Sweet whispers. I lost the words, but I felt his voice around me.

My body was warm as his hands roamed over my stomach. They slid under my shirt. His hands took their time with my breasts, and I felt my pulse quicken. He didn’t go hard and fast. His hands slid back over my stomach down to my sweatpants. One hand went under the elastic band and found my underwear. It glided down further before feeling the moisture there. I wanted him. His hand rubbed against me, and I felt loved. He was slow and tentative. It was all about me.

I was about to reach my peak, but then he asked if I was listening to him.

Did he hear me? I didn’t want to know. I hung up.

~*~*~*~

My cell rang around eight, right as I was cooking breakfast. “Hey, Kim.”

“Hey, girl. Long time no talk, my little night owl. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” I was tired. So exhausted.

“Did you just finish work?”

“Yeah. A few hours ago. Not many calls in the morning.”

“I hear ya. Six to seven is not a sexy time,” she laughed. “I was just thinking about you this morning and was wondering how you were. It’s been, what? Almost a year since you joined?”

“Yeah. Ten months.”

“How’s the novel going? Didn’t you say you were talking to some PoliSci professor about that political stuff? Did that all go as you wanted?”

“Yeah, sure. I got lots of good insider tips on how to approach the political aspect, but there’s more to it than that. I keep finding places where I need to be more psychological, you know?”

“Yeah, I get ya. Hey, so I was wondering if you were free to babysit tonight? Stan and I are going to celebrate his recent promotion.”

“Promotion?”

“Yep. He’s now a chief executive officer at his company. No more phone sex for this lady.”

“Wow, congratulations, Kim. That’s fantastic. Yeah, I’m free tonight. I can watch the kids.”

“Really? I knew I could count on you. Thank you so much.”

I hung up and stared at my phone. Breathe in, breathe out. I was almost done. I just had to finish the novel and then I could go back to my old cliché job of waiting on people. Almost done. Kim was done. She had been doing it for three years. I don’t know how she was able to. How did she separate the voices from her life?

~*~*~*~

Kim introduced me to the job that would give me all the time in the world to work on my novel while still making enough to live in my cheap apartment. The first call was like Kim said it would be. On my computer screen I could see the busty redhead photo with the name Morgan on top of it in that strip club colored neon red. The woman’s body was a complete opposite to my flat-chested, one-dimensional line of a body. The photo wasn’t for my insecurities though.

The first guy had a surprisingly deep voice. I had only heard such a deep voice once or twice in my life. He was uncharacteristically shy.

Kim told me that I would have to lead the way the majority of the time. So I did. I broke the ice by complimenting his voice, and within a couple of minutes, I was telling him what to do with his hands and panting along with him in my empty office. Sound effects worked.

There was a lot of down time to do research and work on my novel. Normally there was a call every hour. Some nights it was quiet. Only four or six at most. I liked working at night by the light of my desk lamp. It reminded me of the writers of old working by candlelight. Maybe I could be like them.

Night after night, I was in my second bedroom turned office working on my novel. I gave up so much to do it. I had to finish.

I got used to living in the night. The quiet. The cold.

~*~*~*~

“Hey baby.” It was one in the morning. Saturday. My fifth call that night. I wanted to stop after that fifth one. I wanted to come up with a plan to deal with Sam. Just one more call then I could call it a night.

“Hey, Bryan,” I cooed out.

“Nu-uh. Tonight, I want you to call me daddy.”

“Okay, daddy. What do you have planned for tonight?”

“Daddy wants to play with his little princess tonight.”

“Aren’t I special? How do you want to play?”

“Have you been a bad girl? Does daddy need to spank you?”

“Do you want a bad girl, daddy?”

“No. Answer me. Have you been bad?” He asked in a harsher tone than usual. I hesitated then answered.

“Yeah, I’ve been bad.”

“Have you been playing with your daddy while he’s been sleeping, little lady?”

“What?”

“Answer me.”

“Bryan, I don’t like this one.”

“Listen, Morgan. We’re just doing some roleplaying like we normally do. I just want my little girl to know she can’t talk back to me.”

“I don’t want to do this kind of roleplaying. Is there something else we can do? How about the backseat one? You like that.”

“No. I said we’re doing this.” I don’t know how I was going to respond. I didn’t get to answer though. I hung up. The image of Kim’s kids came to my mind, and I felt sick. I shut the computer down and went to bed. I didn’t want to live in the night anymore.

~*~*~*~

I stared at Sam’s number on my cell’s screen. It had been days since we last talked. He had called nine times in between. What did he think of me? He didn’t leave any voicemails. Just nine missed calls. I had to explain myself.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I wanted to live like myself again.

I pressed the call button. He picked up on the second ring.

“I finished my novel…”