"Yeah, you like that, don't you? You little slut."
Christine turned the page of her magazine and made a choking noise. Every thirty seconds or so she'd gasp for breath and wheeze out some variation of "choke me, daddy! Harder, daddy!"
She'd managed to get halfway through the article she was reading when the man on the other end of the phone's breathing began to grow heavier. Christine eyed the egg timer she had on the table and frowned. The call was closing in on the fourteen minute mark, but she was counting on reaching at least twenty.
"I don't think you've taught me a lesson," she cut in. "I think I still feel like a dirty little whore. I need a man who can punish me...aren't you man enough to teach me a lesson, daddy?"
The man growled and instantly began his verbal onslaught once more. Christine pursed her lips with a grim smile, confident she'd staved off his orgasm for another few minutes. She'd learned more than a few tricks of the trade over the course of the last three months, and while she was no top earner, Christine was at the very least holding her own.
The second woman she'd talked to the night she'd called seeking help had the right of it: she was by no means rich, but for the first time in the past year and a half, she hadn't been struggling to pay her bills. She'd been able to catch up on her utilities, had more than ramen and yogurt in her kitchen.
On a rare girl's day with Meg, she'd bought herself an adorable dress-french blue with a box-pleated, A-line skirt and bell sleeves. It was the first time she'd been able to treat herself since father died, and she'd hung the dress carefully on the back of her door when she'd come home that day. The woman had been right-the regulars liked to to stay on the line.
Christine had amassed a handful of regulars at that point, men that would call her a few times a week; invisible benefactors who kept her lights on and gave her the ability to start making small payments on some of the medical bills her father had accumulated, for the meager recompense of helping them orgasm.
Her maestro had smirked that it was because her angel's voice alone could make a man achieve ecstasy, and she had sassed back that he was the only one who seemed to manage that particular feat.
There was Billy, a nervous-sounding man she estimated to be in his mid-forties who liked for her to pretend to be a stranger he was masturbating in front of. She would act out watching him on the subway, at the park, at the movie theater...Christine felt as though she were doing a public service, for if Billy was keeping his exhibition fantasies confined to the phone with her, young mothers at the playground and women on the subway trying to get home in the evening would be safe, at least from him.
There was the man who wanted her to pretend to be his boss, the man who wanted her to pee on him, the man who could only ejaculate if she scolded him like he was a naughty school boy. There was Bud, who called every Wednesday and Friday, the man she was currently egging on to reach at least twenty minutes. She wasn't sure who the poor woman was that he fantasised about verbally punishing, but if acting out violent fellatio meant she could maybe get her nails done next month, Christine would choke and gag over the phone all night.
And then there was Friday Night Guy. He never gave a name, never told her anything about himself at all, only wanted to verbally berate her. He didn't care what name Christine gave him, didn't care about building any fantasy or roleplay...Friday Night Guy got off on abusing her, not any of her alter egos.
You're a disgusting slut, having sex on the phone for money. Would you let me fuck you for real if I paid enough, you little whore?
The first time he'd called, she'd spent the hour after he'd hung up crying on the floor of her shower, until the scalding hot water that had rained down on her chilled. After the third and fourth calls she'd been upset, but knowing what to expect helped, and she found she was able to shake it off.
Now when Friday Night Guy called, Christine bit back, insulting him for every barb he threw at her. It made him furious, which still frightened her, but she'd discovered that his anger prevented him from finishing quickly, keeping him on the line longer.
The increased financial solvency she now enjoyed had certainly come at a cost.
She had learned that if she stayed logged into the service during the day she'd wrack up more calls, but the men who called in the daytime hours were looking to pop immediately. She didn't want to go back to the dreary, unprofitable monotony of listening to countless orgasms for little pay, so taking Meg's advice, Christine managed to secure a hostessing job at a little bistro within walking distance of her apartment.
Four days a week, she'd don a fitted black apron over a white button down and black skirt, and escort business men with expense accounts and fussy older ladies to their tables for the early lunch crowd. She'd come home by late afternoon, would hang up her blouse and skirt, make herself a snack after changing her clothes, and log into the service to wait for her first call.
It was there at the bistro that she'd been chatted up by a smiling young man, one of the expense account suits. He always made a point of lingering near her little hostess counter, and had once given his number to his table's server to pass to Christine.
She'd laughed and crinkled the slip of paper before throwing in the trash. She spent enough time on the phone, and wasn't looking for a relationship in which she was expected to do the hard work. The smiling young man wasn't deterred, however. The following week he was back, all shiny blonde hair and blinding white teeth, lingering at the hostess stand, waiting to talk.
She'd been out with him several times since then; had let him take her to the kinds of places she'd never been able to afford-dinners at restaurants with table-side sommelier service and salsa dancing at a chichi club. On their third date, she'd let him take her back to his apartment, had let him unzip her new blue dress, had let him cover her body with his own.
Christine made all the right noises, had gasped and moaned and urged him on, unconsciously counting the minutes. When he'd shuddered above her, she stared unseeing at the ceiling, wondering if it was her alter ego's sex kitten voice that she'd used, or her own.
Raoul was a nice guy, was exactly the sort of good catch she was always told she should try to snag, but it mattered little now.
She was damaged goods.
Christine didn't need to wonder what the gregarious young man would think if he knew that her evenings and weekends were spent helping strangers achieve orgasms over the phone for money. He'd be horrified to know the same little gasps and moans he'd heard came at a charge, that she could pretend to be his sister or teacher with ease. The fantasies of the men on the phone had desensitised her to what she'd previously considered deviant and bizarre; Brandi and Vanessa and whoever else she might have been for the night didn't mind the names the men called her and wished to be called in return.
She'd never be able to go with Raoul to his sister's Hamptons wedding, an event he'd made a point of mentioning several times, and talk about what she did. She'd have to lie. Lie to the fancy strangers she'd meet, and lie to him.
Somehow, in her imaginings of having a funny story to tell one day, she'd forgotten that the story was too salacious for polite company, too dark and vulgar and explicit, and that she was the unfortunate main character.
Christine hadn't counted on actual intimacy being tainted for her, now that she was paid to provide the illusion of it.
She'd slipped soundlessly out of his bed that night; had dressed in the dark and tiptoed down the hall of the big trust fund-paid apartment on the upper west side. She felt as though she were still on the clock, and desperately wanted to get back to her own world, where she could be Christine once more. It was a short walk to the subway that took her back to her dingier neighborhood, teetering in her chunky Mary Janes, an even shorter walk back to her building, and then she was home, far away from that life that wasn't hers.
Christine hung the dress on the back of her door, thinking she could probably febreeze away the smokey club smell without needing to have it cleaned. Lingerie in the hamper, a white cotton tank top pulled over her head before slipping between her cool white sheets, her cordless phone in hand.
She'd glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table as she dialed; it was nearly three o'clock in the morning, but she knew he'd answer. He always did.
Three rings, as usual. On the fourth, she'd been prepared to concede defeat, when the line abruptly picked up. His voice was rough upon answering, tinged with sleep and she smiled softly.
"Did I wake you?"
"No, I was working. What are you up to tonight, sweetheart? It's late."
She'd hummed in disapproval, ignoring his question, the smile still on her face. "That means you fell asleep at your piano again. That's not good for you, you need to go to bed once in a while."
His dark chuckle still turned her inside out at that point, no matter how many times she'd heard it, and she'd squirmed beneath her sheets.
"Fine, I'm going to lie down on the couch. Is that good enough?"
She rolled onto her side, listening to him flop down onto his sofa, wherever he was. "It's a start, I suppose."
"What's wrong?"
His voice had been so soft, barely a whisper of velvet at her ear, and Christine had once more felt pressed back by its resonance. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it was the delicious weight of his body easing her deeper into her mattress, instead of just a magic trick of his larynx.
"Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice."
"Mhm. It's the middle of the night, you're wide awake, and you just wanted to hear my voice...are you sure that's all you wanted?"
She'd hummed, drawing her knees up and pressing her thighs together.
"I have no idea what you're implying, sir. I would never presume to know what you wanted," she said as primly as she was able. "Maybe I just wanted to say goodnight. You're the one answering the phone at three in the morning after all."
He laughed again and her toes curled. "Well, rest assured, you don't have to presume. I always have an appetite for you."
Christine preened, snuggling deeper into her comforter. Somewhere along the line, she'd stopped feeling like he was just feeding her lines, the same ones he fed to the paying customers.
Some things, she'd learned, were just for her.
"I had a date tonight," she found herself whispering.
"Oh? How did that go? Pretty well I'd guess, if you're just getting home…"
Christine twisted in disappointment at his nonchalance. She wasn't sure what she wanted from this man, why she was telling him. He'd already told her they couldn't meet, that it wasn't possible. Jealousy? Possessiveness? Traits that would normally send her running, but for some reason it was all she wanted to hear from her maestro.
"Good for him, I guess. He's really nice, but I don't think I'm that interested. Not in him, at least."
The pause on the other end of the line was weighted, and Christine had held her breath, hoping against hope for...something.
"Well, maybe that's for the best," he'd said in a quiet voice that seemed to shift in the bed next to her. Christine turned her hip, instinctively making room for him."You need to be focusing on your auditions right now. I'd like to hear the Puccini tomorrow, I think. For now I think you should get to bed."
"Okay," she'd murmured, settling into her pillow. A curious mix of emotions played within her-disappointment, relief, anticipation for her next lesson with him, but above all a longing that twisted her insides until she could scarcely breathe.
"Goodnight, Maestro."
"Sweet dreams, sweetheart."
.
.
"Are you still in school or do you-"
"I'm taking a semester off," she'd interrupted. "I-I wasn't able to afford tuition, that's why I'm doing this." She spoke in a hurry, apologetically, as though she might hurt his feelings by disparaging their shared profession.
"Ah," he said softly. "I'd suspected it was something like that. Are you hoping to return to school eventually? It would be a shame to let your training lapse, you have such a beautiful raw instrument."
"Y-yes," she squeaked out in Christine's nervous stammer. "Next semester, hopefully. The money I make doing this and the lawsu-"
She'd cut off abruptly, wondering how wise it was to reveal anything about herself to this stranger. You don't know anything about him, idiot! Just because he has a sexy voice you're ready to give him directions to your apartment? He could be a sexy-voiced serial killer!
"A-a lawsuit. Class action, against the city," she continued in a halting voice.
She trusted the man on the phone, she argued with herself. It was the second time they'd talked, and to her acute relief, he'd sounded extremely happy when she'd shyly said hello after he'd picked up the line.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to bother you," she'd fretted after he'd answered. Gripping her cordless handset tightly, she'd tucked her legs up beneath her on her small blue-striped sofa. "I hate tying up your line-"
"No, it's fine," he'd assured her quickly. "I don't actually do much during the evenings. The women who call...well, husbands and kids are home after 4pm. It's a daytime indulgence."
Her face flamed at his words, and she'd envisioned bored housewives calling him from their upper east side bedrooms, their Magic Wands providing a jarring, discordant counterpoint to the deep, dulcet sound of his honeyed voice.
"Once the lawsuit settles, the money from that and whatever I make over the summer doing this...I'm hoping to go back in the fall. I just hope my voice isn't too rusty by then," she'd laughed.
It wasn't until their next conversation that he'd suggested working with her on her voice, after asking if she was currently studying with anyone to keep up her technique, something she certainly couldn't afford.
"I could help you," he'd murmured, and Christine thought she'd felt her lungs physically turn inside out with the force of the breath she'd sucked in.
He'd already told her he was also a musician, had played a rolling melody like flowing water on a piano as he spoke, as if to prove his point. "I have experience with voice work. I've done some dubbing for foreign work, and narration for smaller projects, I compose...I don't sing professionally, but I am a musician."
She'd smiled at the slight note of defensive pride in his tone. "I'd need to be deaf not to believe that," she'd laughed, and his dark chuckle had joined her; a swirl of dark, cloying smoke playing around her shimmering, silver tone like a caress.
"Then I suppose I'll have to call you Maestro," she'd murmured, feeling a stab of desire just from saying it aloud. It seemed an inherently sexual title, at least for him.
When she'd asked him what she should call him, that second time they'd spoken, he'd returned unhelpfully with "you can call me whatever you'd like, Angel."
After that first night, when she'd talked to him in her bathtub, she'd ceased being Angel for anyone but him. And now here he was, offering to help her keep her voice in shape, free of charge...Christine couldn't help but feel as though he'd been dropped in her life's path for a reason, that he was the angel.
His deep, dark laugh over the line had drawn her shoulders up as she felt it lick down her spine. "Mmmm, I think I could very used to hearing you say that, sweetheart. Tell me about what you're going to wear to your first big performance."
"That depends," she trilled, feeling a throb of heat bloom through her. "Are you there helping me get dressed, or are we back in my dressing room after the show?"
"Oh, after the show, definitely. We're in your dressing room, and there's a giant mirror on one wall, a little low table...hmm, I wonder what you decided to wear under your dress…"
Building a fantasy, it turned out, was an easy undertaking, at least with him.
.
.
Back in her kitchen, Bud was grunting out his release furiously, demanding that she choke on it as he wheezed and strained. Twenty three minutes. Christine smiled, closing her magazine. Six minutes better than last week. She rose from the table with a stretch as Bud disconnected the call. She'd already fielded several calls that evening; she needed to make dinner and mentally prepare herself for Friday Night Guy.
She'd mentioned Friday Night Guy to her maestro a few weeks earlier. Christine could barely remember what they'd been talking about, or how they'd gotten on the subject of callers. It was something they simply didn't discuss, each of them preferring to pretend they knew each other through some other, more innocent connection.
"You need to report him," he'd told her firmly, after she'd confessed to the jittery nervousness she felt after the man's rage-filled calls. "You need to report him to the switchboard so they can block his number. I'm not kidding, Angel. You don't need to put up with that."
Christine had balked at his suggestion, and quickly changed the subject. The truth was she'd tried to report Friday Night Guy already. The answer she'd gotten from the switchboard had only made things worse.
"You are not authorized to prematurely terminate any call," the woman from the office had told her. "Doing so is grounds for automatic dismissal. These calls are our business, Miss."
She'd tried to tell them that he made her uncomfortable, that it wasn't the same as the other callers, but the terse-voiced woman on the phone was unsympathetic. "You're not being paid to judge their kinks," she'd snapped at Christine. "If you can't handle it, then maybe this isn't the right line of work for you. I've never had one of our operators actually have the nerve to complain about having a regular."
It was after the call to the switchboard that she'd started snapping back at Friday Night Guy. If you can't hang up on him or keep him from calling, he's going to pay for it.
Her Maestro had called her the week after she'd told him about the abusive calls, shortly after the man himself had disconnected. Fourteen minutes of calling her a whore, of hate and rage that felt so personally directed, Christine was still trembling when she lifted the receiver on the ringing phone ten minutes later. It had been a mighty struggle to keep the waver from her voice, to answer the phone with the coyness she'd perfected.
"Hello?"
"Hi, princess."
The low warmth of his voice had lapped around her, and Christine had sunk to her chair with a shudder, bobbing on a resonant current of sticky-sweet honey. He'd never called her before, not before that night. She's always been the one to call him, using the switchboard line Meg had given her and his extension. He'd asked for her own extension shortly after they'd started their lessons, Christine assumed he was contacting her the same way.
He'd kept her on the line for nearly an hour that night, speaking in a soothing, gentle tone until her the stress and fear from her weekly encounter with Friday Night Guy had ebbed away. The genuine affection she felt coming through the line made Christine feel restless in her skin, made her face heat, and she had been sure he could probably hear her heart beating. He'd called again the following week, had once more calmed her frayed nerves with his voice, his dry wit and humor.
They never played, not on those nights.
That particular euphoria was reserved for the days they made music together; for the golden afternoons when the exhilaration of sound and notes and harmony mingled with curled toes and breathless sighs. The words he spoke were so vivid, so weighted in her ear that Christine was able to feel his hands upon her, his body moving against hers. His words mingled and danced with the music she would sing for him, culminating in a physical release so satisfying, Christine usually needed to take a nap after they disconnected.
Singing for him during her lessons was strenuous and instructive, and for the first time since her father had gotten sick, she felt excited about performing again.
Singing for him after her lessons was an altogether different experience, erotic and breath-stealing.
His new habit of calling her on Friday nights was meant to soothe and comfort, and it did just that. Christine thought if her penance for getting to hear his voice on an additional day was dealing with Friday Night Guy, it was a price worth paying.
Once she'd disconnected from her call with Bud, Christine puttered around her kitchen, heating up the eggplant parmigiana she'd brought home from the bistro the afternoon before. Raoul had been there earlier in the week, had craned his neck from the table he shared with another man from his office to peer at the hostess stand, looking for her.
One of the girls from the waitstaff came to find her once their check was paid and the two men were leaving. "He's gone, Chrissy," Hannah had whispered. "Although I can't imagine why you're hiding from that one."
Christine had given the tall girl a thin smile of thanks from the back booth she sat tucked into, rolling silverware in the furthest corner of the small dining room. She had only spoken to Raoul twice since the night she'd left his apartment while he slept. She knew it was probably unfair, the way she was blowing him off, with stilted, non-committal conversation the two times he'd caught her at work and dodged phone calls when she was home.
I'm sorry, I can't see you anymore, she'd practiced saying a dozen times in the mirror. It's not you, it's me. I'm working on myself right now. I'm not in a good place to be in a relationship. I'm in love with my voice coach.
All true, she thought ruefully.
She was just placing her rinsed plate in the drying rack when the phone rang. Christine closed her eyes for a heartbeat, steeling herself, pushing Christine away as she pressed the handset's answer button, silencing the sharp brrrringing.
"Hello?" she answered in her practiced, sultry tone, waiting for the rough, hate-filled voice to hiss at her, greeting her as a whore.
"Did you know that the London Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to be on the Titanic? They changed travel arrangements at the very last minute, apparently. Isn't that fascinating?"
Christine sagged against the counter in relief, her sigh catching in her throat and nearly escaping as a sob. "I did not know that, and it is fascinating," she laughed.
Thirty six minutes of happy, flirtatious chatter followed, and Christine felt her smile stretch even as her heart twinged. They had such an easy rapport, such a natural chemistry...she didn't have to be anyone but Christine when she had him in her ear. She couldn't understand why he was so resistant to them meeting.
.
.
"We could just meet for coffee," she'd begged him once before. "If it's weird and we don't hit it off, then we know, and nothing needs to change! But it won't be, I know it won't be!"
It was a Sunday afternoon, just after her lesson. Sundays were family days for his regulars and it was still too early in the day for hers.
"Nothing needs to change," he'd scoffed, and Christine had heard a note of bitterness in his voice that was so raw that it'd made her hunch in pain. Bitter, weary experience, that's what his voice conveyed as he went on, speaking in short, aggravated bursts, so unlike his normal, smooth, rolling tone. He'd been hurt before, she'd intuited, and he wasn't willing to take a chance on her.
They'd never discussed it again after that afternoon, and he seemed content to pretend it had never happened, that she hadn't been a shuddering, weeping mess once she'd hung up the phone.
"I don't want to make you cry, Angel," he'd told her once he heard her little hitching gasps. "I'm sorry sweetheart, but it's not possible. Believe me, I wish things could be different...but they can't be."
She'd made an effort to calm her voice, to hold herself together until after he'd disconnected, but hadn't been able to bite out one last remark as he said his goodbyes.
"I'll talk to you on Wednesday, okay? Have a good week, beautiful."
"You don't know that I'm beautiful," she'd snapped. "You don't know anything about me, and you're clearly not interested in learning."
It was a long moment before he spoke, and when he did, the sadness in his voice made her face crumple, and she'd barely been able to hold back the sob that bubbled up her throat.
"You are. I can tell that you are."
.
.
On the thirty seventh minute, the lights in her apartment flickered, and her phone disconnected. Christine jumped, instantly spooked, but the lights came back on after a moment and a dial tone droned in her ear. When the phone rang just a minute later, she answered with a laugh.
"Why the fuck are you not picking up your line, you little bitch?"
Friday Night Guy's voice snarled at her, and she froze. She'd not been prepared for him, hadn't worked herself into the numb, detached mindset that she needed to exist through his calls. At that moment she was still Christine, and Christine was a frightened little mouse, not able to tolerate the violent, brutal things the man on the phone claimed he was going to do to her.
At the six minute mark, her thumb, practically acting on its own accord, hit the button to disconnect the call.
Silence filled her ear, and the wave of relief she felt as she slumped against her counter was instantly replaced with one of panic.
You are not authorized to prematurely terminate any call...Doing so is grounds for automatic dismissal.
Shit. Shit.
Christine felt the tears start brewing at the tips of her toes, felt them shudder up her body in a rippling tide, quivering her spine and tightening her lungs. She couldn't afford to lose this job, not when she was so close to being able to go back to school.
When the phone, still pressed to cheek, began to ring again, she answered it, heedless of her sobs, of the epinephrine-fueled tremors that shook her body. She couldn't lose this job.
"Angel?"
His voice; his deep, plush, comforting voice wrapped around her, and Christine sunk into it, dropping to the floor with a wheeze.
His voice compelled her, and she was helpless to resist his orders. She picked herself off the floor several minutes later, and drew herself a hot bath, as he instructed. He was able to wheedle out of her what had happened once the tremors no longer wracked her body, and the steaming hot water calmed her.
Somewhere between the floor and the tub she'd keened out her name. He was speaking in a soothing tone, trying to calm her, and had called her Angel once more.
"Christine, my name is Chris-tine," she'd sobbed out, desperately needing to give him something real, needing him to be real in return.
When'd he'd ordered her to bed, she drained the tub and obeyed.
"I'm going to stay on the line until you're asleep, sweetheart. No more tears, okay?"
She was floating somewhere between sleep and consciousness, able to hear him, but not able to make her lips form a response. He'd been speaking softly, comfortingly, and apparently was satisfied that she'd drifted to sleep at last.
"My name's Erik," he murmured softly, so softly she would wonder in the morning if she'd indeed been dreaming.
"Goodnight, Christine."