I wonder what those phone-sex girls really talk about, the ones advertised in the back of the dirty magazines I’d discovered under my son’s bed, with 1-800 numbers such as CUM-KWIK or WET-N-HOT. Do they enjoy their job? Could I do it? The reason for all this wondering is that my husband is working in China for three weeks. I miss him in our bed and I want him to miss me, too. I’ve heard about those massage parlors. Who knows what kind of entertainment they’re offering him? I send him an email to make an appointment for us to have phone sex.
This takes some planning, since there is a twelve-hour time difference, but he writes that he has Wednesday morning free and he’ll call at ten p.m., my time. He calls at nine-thirty. I’m wearing gray sweats, haven’t showered, and feel far from sexy. I’m the wrong kind of nasty girl. I’m the “before” version of a woman on What Not to Wear. But, what the hell, just like the man who calls a real HOT-4-YOU honey, he can’t see me.
I’d thought about the things I could tell him, but now that he’s on the phone, they sound lame. I keep thinking that, for him, it’s still morning. How horny could he be? What does he want to hear? Right now, I hear our college-age daughter knocking on the bedroom door, wanting to borrow a pair of my shoes. Knowing she won’t go away till she gets what she wants, I grab the shoes from my closet, open the door and throw them at her. Because I’m hurrying, I drop the phone and it bounces before landing at her bare feet. This is not going well. Snatching it up, I apologize to the man I’m trying to think of as my caller. My daughter asks who I’m talking to, and, of course, I tell her it’s her father. She smiles, feeling sorry for me (parents are so fricking dull), and says, “Oh. Well, bye. I’m going out.”
I flop back onto the bed so we can start over. Then, our son bursts into the house, home from delivering pizzas. Seconds later, he’s in the shower–I can hear him singing and crashing around because, for reasons I won’t go into, the only working shower is in the master bathroom. I groan for nonsexy reasons and tell my caller what’s going on. He says he’ll phone back in an hour. I feel really bad. There’s a long string of numbers he has to use and the connection doesn’t always go through on the first try. Hopefully, he sees this as foreplay.
This time when he calls, I’m all alone, freshly showered and ready to tell him all the yummy things I’d like to do to him. After cooing and purring for five or ten minutes, I ask him, “Is it getting hot over there?” Apparently, he’s so turned on he’s speechless. “Ooh, baby,” I say. “You like dirty?” There’s no response. Oh God, I think. Maybe it’s too hot. Maybe he’s having a heart attack–bad tickers run in his family.
“Hello? Hello?” I say, but he’s definitely gone. The line is dead. I hang up, lie back and wait. As I’m cooling off, it occurs to me that the phone may be tapped. For all I know, we were disconnected by a government censor. It’s a kick to think I’d be so skanky that such a thing could happen, but it wouldn’t be the same kind of kick for my caller. There could be consequences.
Ten minutes later, after I’ve turned on the television and found a political thriller starring George Clooney, he calls and says there’s a time limit on phone calls. Okay, I’m a professional–we’ll make it a quickie. I whisper that we better hurry when I hear a tinny voice announcing that the fire alarm has sounded, but the staff “believes it is not an emergency and everyone is to stay in their room please and do not panic until further notice.” This is spoken in English with a Chinese accent, which is followed by what I assume is the same announcement in Chinese.
Hearing this would cause me to panic immediately. Instead of imagining that I’m getting kinky in a hotel room with him, I see myself laying a damp towel along the bottom of the door in a hotel room, packing my bag, putting my clothes on–just in case. Who knows what he’s imagining.
Then, there’s a follow-up announcement stating they discovered someone had opened an emergency exit and sounded the alarm and there is no fire and that everyone can safely return to business, etc. In English, followed by Chinese.
Then the line goes dead again.
Phonus coitus interruptus.
This is no fantasy. This is worse than real life, as bad as married-with-children life. I get a bowl of double chocolate fudge ice cream and turn the volume up on the movie. The phone rings just as Clooney is delivering possibly the finest lines of his career.
I cannot believe this is doing anything for my husband, but he sure is persistent. Shouldn’t he be working? When he asks me what I’m doing, I tell him, “Oh, honey, I’ve been waiting, wet and panting, just for you to call back.” After all, he’s calling me, not some 1-800 HOOCHIE. I reach for the remote on the nightstand to lower the volume enough so that he can’t hear, and accidentally dump the bowl of ice cream onto the bed.
I’m really glad he’s not here.
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Copyright © 2009 Linda K. Sienkiewicz
