Chapter 9
Rose
The tears were flowing before the door had even clicked closed behind Kane. It was strange that I’d been able to suppress them until that point, but on the other hand, it was also completely out of character these days for me to bring a guy I’d met only minutes earlier back to my apartment and let him nail me to the wall. Clearly the events of the day had taken their toll in ways I could never have predicted. One thing was for sure—when I’d let Kane fuck me to hell and back in my shower, I certainly hadn’t been myself.
As I slid down the side of the couch that doubled as a fold-out bed and sank heavily to the floor, I could scarcely comprehend what had happened earlier. It was just too mind-boggling to begin to wrap my thoughts around, and outrageously bizarre on so many levels. Someone had what... hacked into the AV system in the lecture theater during my Bioengineering class? Someone who knew who I was, and maybe even more disturbingly, knew I was going to be there at that time.
Actually, on reflection, the most disturbing part was the fact that, as well as knowing so much about me—my real full name, what high school I’d gone to, and events that had happened during that time—there was someone out there who cared so deeply, and hated me so much, that they’d go to those kinds of lengths to get at me.
A myriad of thoughts swirled around my mind in a big untidy jumble. What was the endgame? Did they want to scare me? Send me a warning of some kind? They’d been successful in both things, to the point where I wished I could somehow respond to them, “Message received, loud and clear.”
Obviously being “outed” in just about the creepiest way possible was definitely a warning in itself. I had so many questions and no idea how to get answers. Had someone found out about me? Or had they already known about me, and been waiting for their chance to pounce? Was I being watched? Or followed? What was their next move, if any? And, most confusing of all, what the fuck did they want from me?
It hadn’t exactly been a lie when I’d told Kane that I’d felt nauseous when I’d hightailed it out of the lecture. As the images and eerie sounds had filled the room, bile had started to rise, burning my throat on the way up. If I hadn’t ended up flat on my ass, I would probably have puked there and then.
As the questions continued to churn in my mind, the sensation returned, and I quickly hoisted myself from the floor and lunged for the bathroom. It was the one time I was grateful for the “compact” dimensions of my place, because had it been any bigger, I wouldn’t have made it in time. As it was, I just managed to direct the vomit inside the toilet bowl, but it was a close call.
When I was done, I slumped against the cooling glass of the shower screen, with tears caused by vomiting and tears of frustration and fear all co-mingling on my face. I stayed that way—knees drawn up to my chest, forehead resting on top, crying like a baby—for as long as I thought I could reasonably indulge my personal pity party.
Then I did what I always did—I got my shit together. I pulled myself up to standing. I brushed and rinsed, then splashed some water on my face, and quickly dried off before straightening up to stare at myself in the mirror. I looked like hell, which made some kind of sense, as I felt that way too.
Back in the living room, I dug my phone out of my backpack to check the time. Shit. I’d signed up for some daytime shifts, and though making fake sexy talk was literally the last thing I wanted to do at that point, I needed the money, so it wasn’t about what I wanted to do, but what I had to do to keep my head above water.
I sat at the small table that served as my eating area, study desk, and office space, and opened my laptop to log in to the phone chat system to start my shift. In all the commotion and upset, I’d forgotten to even check whether it still worked, but was relieved to find that it did. The last thing I needed was the expense of replacing my laptop now—or ever.
I had no idea whether I would get any calls during the day, as I’d only ever done night shifts, but I also had papers to work on, so I figured that if it ended up being a dud, then I wouldn’t have lost anything, anyway, as I would have completed some schoolwork. On the other hand, if it was busy, I would have made some money, but would need to figure out a way to get my school shit done, also.
In the end, it was a largely uneventful and unprofitable shift. I took a couple of calls from what we in the business called Curious Georges. Normally first-time callers who were the phone-sex equivalent of tire-kickers.
They often spoke in hushed tones, as though they were calling from their closet, or their bathroom while the rest of the family had no idea. They were normally hesitant, and frankly boring in their chat, and would seldom go beyond their allotted three minutes of free talk time.
I could generally pick the guys who were going to be like that from the moment they spoke their first words, and so often was tempted to end the call before it even started, but never did, because it would cost me my job. The number one rule of phone-sex operating, apart from keeping the callers talking for as long as possible, was that we could not be the ones to end the call. Never. Ever.
With guys like that, the trick was to try to convert them from freebie seeker to Chatty Carl, and somehow keep them talking longer than they had originally planned. This came mostly in the form of asking engaging questions, and, while keeping things sexy, also trying to slow their climb to orgasm. The longer it took for them to come, the more money we made.
We received training on ways to convert, via roleplaying exercises with fake callers, but in the end it was a case of experience, and working out our own style and techniques, that really counted. Still, Georges very rarely converted, at least not on the first call, anyway.
That was another skill of the job—giving the callers what they wanted, while at the same time leaving them wanting just enough to call back again, and again, and again for more. The ideal situation was, as well as becoming repeat callers, when they called in, they asked for the operator by name. Not only did we receive bonus credits for personal requests, but those regular customers meant more opportunities to build up a rapport, and therefore keep them talking longer, thus earning us more money.
The better we did that, the more likely callers were to view the conversations as less of a business transaction and more of a genuine connection, or friendship, and forget that the “meter” was running as we spoke. However, it took time, effort and energy to build that kind of relationship with a client. I had a few regulars who fitted the bill, but most days it was random guys who I tried my best to wring every last cent from, with the hope of an eventual conversion.
Toward the end of the stint, Callie, the operator for the shift, put a guy through saying he had requested me. I didn’t recognize his name, but I wasn’t going to turn down a request caller, and miss out on my bonus. The fact was, I wasn’t about to turn down any caller.
“Hi there, this is Cherry speaking, what’s your name?” Of course, I already knew the name he’d given Callie, but not only did I want him to repeat it, so that I could double check it, but any pleasantries at the front end of the conversation all added to the overall call duration, so it was worth dragging them out any which way we could.
“It’s Mike.” The voice was oddly metallic, and I recognized right away that the person was speaking through a voice-disguising device. I rolled my eyes and bit the inside of my lip to stop from laughing. We didn’t get many guys who tried to hide their identity to that extent. We assumed every name was fake, as a matter of course, but we could hardly be down on them for that—so were ours, and the clients knew it.