"Come on Vause, it will be funny as shit!" Nicky punched the taller woman's arm playfully. Alex's scowl last no more than a few seconds before softening back into her easy-going expression.
"Nicky, we are not calling a sex line; I can literally think of a thousand things I would rather do, than listen to you have phone sex." Alex picked up the remote to change the channel on the flat screen TV. They had been sitting in the same spots for over an hour, drinking beer and laughing about old times. Nicky just finished her disgustingly entertaining story about pork chops when she suddenly shot up from the leather couch to find her cellphone.
Nicky started to Google a local phone-sex-operators number as she continued to persuade the brunette. The wild-haired woman's girlfriend, Lorna, had been visiting her sister, which meant Nicky was left to entertain herself. Alex gladly came to spend time with her best friend, seeing that she had been finally able to take some time away from her newly formed business. She opened a bookstore three years after leaving the cartel. Kubra was arrested and placed in prison for his lead in the drug ring, along with several connected murders. Alex was cut a great deal; if she testified fully against Kubra, she would only pay fines and do community service, no hard time. With Kubra locked away for twenty-five-plus years along with his affiliates, she took the opportunity to start fresh with all of the money she saved.
"I'll put it on speaker, you know, so it can be a three sum." She smirked at the horrified expression Alex was now sporting. "Lighten up Vause, it won't even be serious; I'm going to ask her some weird shit and see how fast she will choke up or hang up." Her shit-eating grin only intensified as she found a number on her phone. "I just wanna see what it's like, I've never called before but I always see the commercials at 2 am."
Alex sighed in defeat and turned the TV off so they could both hear. It wasn't the first crazy and slightly awkward plan Nicky had ever come up with, and surely would not be the last.
"Fine, but you're doing all the talking, Nichols; don't even try to pull me into this kinky shit" She warned her sternly. Nicky replied with a quick head-nod, purely placating the brunette so she would be a good sport. "I'm serious Nicky!" She added quickly as the phone went to the third ring.
"At first it might be awkward, but let me handle this okay?" She wagged her eyebrows at the raven-haired woman. Alex nodded quickly in agreement. "You're the best! You're like a fucking subway gift card."
Right before the fourth ring, the phone finally picked up.
x-x-x
Piper stared at her bright pink telephone, mentally preparing herself for any freakish activity which was about to occur.
Polly sat in a different room, working on spreadsheets and a laptop. In the beginning, it was Polly's idea to start a phone sex operation; PoPi had been slowly declining for the past few months, leaving both women without an income and a threatening orange eviction notice stapled to their door. After leaving Alex, Piper's life had seemed to spiral downwards, until she found herself agreeing to Polly's crazy plan.
At first, it was extremely awkward and she doubted she would be able to handle it for more than a week. Slowly, she started talking to repeat customers, and building a client base large enough to pay her rent and then some. Her confidence boosted as she heard man after man release himself to the mere sound of her voice.
Polly came to her with the of idea getting their own personal line so she would keep the majority of the profit, instead of earning only one dollar out of every four the company earned per minute.
Piper agreed to be the only operator and Polly would be the billing side of the company. It worked out rather effortlessly for the two, leaving no room for errors.
It was nearly seven when Piper's phone rang for the second time that night.
"1-900-Mmhmm, this is Samantha…" Piper spoke seductively into the pink phone.
x-x-x
"Hey there Sugar tits, what are you wearing?" Nicky tried her best to sound seductive. Alex rolled her eyes with a playful grin. She scrolled through her phone, checking her emails for any business related material, barely listening to the conversation that softly echoed through the living room.
Piper replied with little to no hesitation. Surely, it was her first woman caller, but she had dealt with a fair share of freaky men on the phone. After a month on the phone, she had heard almost every name known to man, each one almost more surprising than the last.
She replied sexily, "I have on a silky black laced bra and I'm not wearing any panties…" She smirked into the phone, as her hand mindlessly grasped the thin, pink, cotton material that she was actually wearing.
"Wow, sexy; what did you say your name was?"
The blonde woman wracked her brain for a moment, trying to remember which fake name she used.
"Samantha" She took a stab in the dark.
"You know, you don't sound like a Samantha, but anyways, what color is your hair?"
"It's Blonde, baby." she answered honestly, most of her customers preferred blonde and the ones who didn't usually hung up.
"Have you fucked a woman, Sam?" blatant as ever, Nicky deadpanned.
Piper hesitated yet again, unusually so; she had learned to think on her feet, making up whatever lie she thought the client wanted to hear. For some reason, a vision of her tall, gorgeous ex-girlfriend flashed into her mind.
"Yes, a few times" She answered honestly, feeling somewhat exposed. The reality was that she spent several years with a woman, but the stranger on the line didn't need to know about her drug dealing ex-girlfriend and their messy past.
"Well, I've got a friend with me, she's a bit shy but she's into some kinky shit. I was wondering if you would be willing to help us out with some wild fantasies."
"Sure" she laughed lightly, feeling her confidence rise; Piper was no stranger to odd requests. She had pretended to do many things for the men who called: pretending to use foods in order to get herself or them off, filling the roles of family members in their fantasies and many other equally strange things which she couldn't even say aloud without blushing or cracking up with laughter. Most men wanted to hear her say she was shoving things in every hole they could possibly imagine. After the first week of being an operator, it took a lot to get her flustered.
"Well first, I want you to start touching yourself" Nicky wore a smug grin on her face as she thought of vile things to request the woman to do.
"I started the minute I heard your voice, I'm already so wet and ready," She easily started.
Alex could help but think the voice was familiar. Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to listen more carefully. Surely, she would be able to place the voice if the phone wasn't on speaker.
"Okay, now, I want you to place two in the pink and one in the stink, you know?" she made the motions with her hands as if Piper could see her.
Piper let out a loud, fake, moan, as she 'obliged' to Nicky's request.
Nicky's eyes widened, clearly not knowing that this was a show. Unlike Alex, she had failed to realize that phone sex operators took many calls every night, meaning that they were not about to get off for freak that called her up. It was rare that Piper did indulge in herself while on the phone, she usually saved it for her repeat callers that had normal requests and would stay on the line the longest, waiting for her to finish.
"Are you a squirter?" Nicky pressed on, failing to fluster the blonde.
"…I did once… caught us both by surprise," Piper answered quickly. Her answer seemed to pacify the wild haired woman for another moment. She let out a few more seductive moans to speed up the process.
"What are you doing to yourself Samantha?" Nicky drawled out, amused as ever.
"I have two fingers deep inside my pussy and my other hand is playing with my hard nipples, wishing it were you." She lied.
"Fuck." Nicky tried to shake her head clear of her thoughts; it wasn't her plan to actually be turned on by the call.
"I wanna feel your tongue on my clit and your fingers deep inside me, feeling how warm and wet I am for you baby."
The brunette sat in silence, trying to place where exactly she knew the woman on the phone from. Piper wasn't sure what Nicky was doing, usually her clients were moaning along with her, telling her what to say and how to act out their fantasy. The blonde haired woman was unsure for the first time, what she was doing. She continued on, hoping that maybe if she pretended to cum that the conversation would end quicker.
It only took another loud moan for it to click in Alex's brain. The realization hit her like a brick wall.
"Oh God," she accidentally voiced out, loud enough for both women to hear.
"Oh look Vause, is that turning you on?" Nicky gladly shifted the focus to her friend, feeling a little warmer than she prepared to be.
Piper's moans immediately stopped.
"What's wrong blondie, cat got your tongue?"
"What did you say your friends name was?"
Alex shook her head rapidly; her green eyes opened wide, begging Nicky not to tell her.
The shorter woman looked puzzled for a moment before her eyebrows shot to the sky in her epiphany.
"Oh fuck, you know her don't you?" She accused Alex, not minding that Piper could hear her crystal clearly.
No reply.
"Do not" she warned quietly, the truth speaking for itself.
"No wonder you weren't on board for this! How often do you call this number? Were you afraid she would recognize a regular caller?" Nicky pressed on, assuming the wrong idea.
"Uh…" Piper wanted to ask if she heard correctly. She didn't know how to approach the elephant in the room without giving herself away completely.
"Alex," Nicky replied to Piper's question with a smirk, knowing she could probably get more information out of the blonde than her best friend. "Alex Vause is her name."
"Oh god." Piper groaned quietly.
Silence.
Both women struggled to find the courage to speak. Nicky waited patiently for one of them to step up. Alex closed her eyes and moved closer to the phone.
"Hi Piper…" Alex moved passed the shock and covered her emotions with a familiar teasing tone.
"Hi… Alex…" She replied with a reserved whisper. If she could crawl to the deepest, darkest hole on earth, she would. The shame and guilt were almost too much to bear, eating her alive, physically forcing her head to bow and her eyes to close.
"Piper? I fucking knew it! You didn't sound like a Sam!" Nicky slammed her fist onto the arm of the couch with excitement. "Wait!" She froze in position. "Holy shit Vause, this is Piper? Piper fucking Chapman? Queen of the heartbreaking assholes?" She motioned for the phone for confirmation. Alex nodded with a tight, forced smile on her lips.
Piper sighed deeply and buried her hands in her face. "Fuck," she groaned lightly, causing a chuckle from the other end of the line. "That's me… the one and only" she mimicked the same awkward expression Alex held.
"So you do like pussy Piper, I mean one would think you like Pipe as your name suggests, but Vause here has set me straight on that, on multiple occasions."
Silence.
"So, how have you been Pipes?" Alex tried to break the silence, glancing around the room filled with invisible tension. The brunette pressed her tongue into the inside of her cheek, half enjoying the embarrassment radiated from her voice. The other half was just as guilty for being in on the sex call in the first place.
"Oh, just peachy, Al" The nicknames for each other rolled off their tongues like velvet. The sarcasm dripped through easily.
"I'm still getting charged by the minute, so let's get back to this sex talk, yeah?" Nicky urged the blonde back to business.
"I can't do this, I'm sorry, not with… not- no, I just can't" She stumbled and stuttered, causing her to blush even further. She was about to end the call before she heard Alex call out.
"Wait! Piper don't hang up!" There was a brief fumble with the phone before Alex took Piper off from speaker and walked out of the apartment for some privacy.
"Hi…" Alex whispered into the phone, repeating her same greeting but with a more sensitive tone.
"Hi," The blonde copied back to her in the same soft whisper.
"This whole thing was supposed to be a joke, but I didn't realize… I mean, I didn't know it would be you." Alex fell into a more familiar conversation with the younger woman.
"Yeah, that was… I mean I didn't realize you were on either, that was really embarrassing, I'm sorry" Piper chuckled nervously.
"I mean, aside from Nicky being there, it was actually kind of hot, but even after all these years I know that was a fake moan and that you for sure have underwear on right now." She cradled the phone to her face with a smile.
Piper laughed more genuinely. "Yeah, you're right on both counts."
"Pipes, what the fuck are you doing answering a phone sex line?"
"What the hell are you doing calling one?" Piper replied defensively.
"It was purely for Nicky's enjoyment."
"Oh so it was your girlfriend's idea, next I'm sure you'll tell me Kubra was in on it as well." Piper mused, biting back a jealous tone.
Alex smirked into the receiver.
"My girlfriend?"
Piper replied with a soft noise.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, never mind,"
"No, what do you mean by that?" Piper could literally see Alex's signature smirk through the phone.
"I said nothing, I said never mind!"
Alex eyebrows pointed towards the sky and Piper mentally kicked herself for the slip up.
"Piper, Nicky is not my girlfriend and Kubra is in fucking prison, so don't hold your breath waiting for him to speak up."
"He's what?" Piper's eyes widened with genuine shock.
"Yeah, life sentence for all the murder's they've linked to him, plus years for the heroin; I've been out of the game for years Piper, I own a bookstore now, I have an actual life." She announced proudly, almost explaining her existence to the younger woman.
The blonde shook her head, more disappointed in herself than anything. How could her life turned to shit after leaving Alex and yet, the brunette's had seemingly worked out perfect.
"I'm happy for you Alex, I really am." She stated simply.
"Look, Piper, I know we have a messy past and I know things didn't end well for us, but I would really like to see you, or at least talk to you again, preferably when you're not… working…" She hesitated for a minute. "I mean, I could care less about Nicky getting charged, it serves her right, but I want to talk to you," Her smile faded to a sad, lost expression; her green eyes haunted with the past. "I miss you."
She paused for a moment, debating whether her next words were the best choice. "I miss you too," a small smile played on her lips. "How about you call back in about an hour and we can catch up, you know, the real way?" Piper fiddled with her blanket beneath her.
"Am I going to be charged per minute?" Alex asked slightly amused.
"Oh, good point; do you still have my cell phone number? It hasn't changed; we can talk freely on there."
"Sounds good, Yeah, I think I still have it... I'll call soon" She would not dare admit she knew the blonde's number by heart.
"Bye Alex." her voice cracked slightly, allowing emotion to seep out of her tone.
"Bye Piper..." She waited a few more moments before ending the call.