"Ridiculously easy money," my friend informed me and the rest of the Q train, smacking her gum and picking her nails in fingerless gloves. "I get a dollar a minute. I pay my rent in a week, and I'm free to audition. It's fucking awesome."
"I don't know, I think I'd laugh."
"No, I swear it's so easy. You've done theater, you're fine. At least try it. The only thing that sucks is the hours, but I'm up anyway."
I hadn't even thought about phone sex as a thing people did anymore. I figured it had been rendered obsolete by the Internet, but I guess the niche was still big enough to keep moonlighting actresses afloat. It seemed like a fail-safe enough plan: it was anonymous and flexible, and it could tide me over until I found a "real job." I was a few years out of college, then, and unemployed. Actually, I had just come back from a stint teaching in China, and though I now spoke Chinese and had some marketable skills, I got back just before the recession let up a little and doctoral candidates were clawing each other to death for a shot at being a barista. I figured I wasn't above this. There was nothing to really even be above, it's just talking on the phone.
There was no interview process at all. I called the number my friend gave me, and I spoke directly to the owner, Tammi, a woman I never met in person, who ran the operation from an outpost somewhere deep in rural America. I was surprised by how sweet and young she sounded and pictured a woman with fluffy blonde hair who decorated predominantly with pink.
"Phone sex is something I love, and I'm actually getting paid for doing something I love. I really feel like I'm living the dream. I really feel blessed. Do you masturbate a lot?"
"Um—"
"I do. Every call. Every single one. I really feel like that's important, you know?"
"Sure."
"It sets us apart. I care about all my girls and my clients as people. And I want you to know that you're beautiful and this is a safe place for you and you can tell me anything."
"OK."
I had no idea to what extent she believed herself. She asked me what I was into, sexually — what were my turn-ons and what were things I would never, ever do, no matter how into the other person I was. I asked her if all that was really relevant, and she said absolutely. This was all very important for the formulation of my character. Daytime TV blared in the background and she typed furiously.
"OK, so, c'mon, sweetie. What do you like? Are you into S&M?"
"Like, me, the real person? No, but I don't see how—"
"I bet you wouldn't have anal sex. I'm not judging you at all, I'm just getting an idea of who you are."
"What?"
"You're shy, aren't you, honey? I know, I know! Violet! Oh, that's perfect, that's perfect, and we need a girl next door."
"Okay."
From that point on my real name was relegated to my paychecks, and she referred to me as Violet no matter what we were talking about.
When I logged into the website, my character would appear as available and calls to the main line could be re-routed to my personal cell phone. I could sign in and out as I chose, but heaviest traffic time was 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Violet would be assigned an appropriate porn actress stock photo to serve as a profile picture for the site's front page, but I was responsible for fleshing out the rest: backstory, a list of turn-ons and areas of expertise, and a set of headless nude and semi-nude selfies for strangers to beat off to. I thought that would be the most cringe-worthy part of the whole business, until I was told that Violet should keep a blog. I asked what about and she said, "Fantasy!" At this point, I was almost ready to back out, but $60 an hour is nothing to sneeze at. If I can talk the talk, I guess I can commit it to paper.
"OK, great, so I guess this covers everything. Can you be ready to take calls in, I don't know, a few hours?"
"Absolutely."
* * *
I had no idea what to do. Dignity wasn't really a factor in any of this, but I did feel like I wanted to keep it a secret. I was living in a house with four guys at the time, and while we were all friends and they were "artists," the prospect of them hearing me fake orgasms and wax lustful over some esoteric fetish made me uncomfortable, so I took to the attic. Vast and in disuse, it made a suitable office once I lined a corner with carpet samples, the only major drawback being that the windows would have to remain closed, rendering the place oppressively stuffy and absolutely stifling in the summer months.
I sat in the living room with my phone in my hand. I'd done theater, and I'd always wanted to try improv. Maybe this could serve as my time to test the waters. Nothing to be nervous about. Just one human being on the other end. One human being who was paying for my expertise in something I knew nothing about. What if I picked up the phone and some guy wanted me to "dominate" or whatever? If I were paying almost $100 an hour for someone to be my aural dominatrix and all they could muster was, "Oh, you've been so bad, you should be punished?" I'd demand my money back. Oh, what was I thinking?
By this point I had been logged in to the site for an hour, and nothing. I minimized the page and tried to distract myself with YouTube videos, to no avail. At the first ring of the phone, I grabbed it and made a mad dash across the apartment and upstairs, tripping over everything along the way. Pots and pans and roommates tupperware had planted themselves in my path. I threw myself through the kitchen back door. Weeks of neglected garbage blockaded the attic, and I swept it aside in one swift shove, slathering my arm with congealed something.
An automated message informed me that I had received a request for a 30-minute call and had 30 seconds to press 1 to accept it. I slammed the attic door behind me and fumbled with the lock, scrambled up the stairs, sat in my corner, took a second to collect myself, wasn't able to, and hit 1.
"Hello, this is Violet." I was still out of breath, which was probably a good thing.
"Violet, I haven't seen you before on the site, are you new?"
"I am."
"Well, I promise I'll be gentle."
I wanted to vomit already. What should I even say to that?
"What's your name?"
"Mark."
"Hey, Mark."
"Violet, I want to fuck you, but I'm not allowed to."
"Oh?"
"I think maybe you need to publicly humiliate me for my desires."
"..."
"By dressing me up in women's clothes. And beating me. And telling me I'm disgusting."
I heard what I could only assume to be him throwing himself on the floor.
"Oh, no, please, Violet, don't do this to me! Don't tell me I'm disgusting!"
"You're disgusting!"
"Oh no, what are you gonna do to me?"
"I'm gonna make you wear women's clothes."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Please don't hit me!"
I smacked the closest broken chair.
Had I any time to process it, I would have been flabbergasted at my luck, stumbling into a call and response situation like this. I didn't even have time to worry about laughing, even when he told me to say things like, "You will wear this leash and walk around town in my underwear and I don't care who sees you and I don't care if it makes you cry." I don't think I came close to being a convincing actress, but Mark didn't seem to care. Maybe this was auspicious; maybe they'd all be like this. I was actually starting to get confident, but then he turned the tables on me.
"Now, I want you to suck my dick! I want you to suck my dick right now!"
"OK!"
I was not prepared for this intense a foley session. I couldn't suck on my hand, I was covered in garbage. I started making out with my clean arm.
"I'm gonna come so hard on your face, Violet, do you want that?"
"Um, yes?"
"Are you gonna come, too?"
"Um, uh-huh?"
"Are you coming right now?"
Fuck.
I'm Meg Ryan. I'm Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally and we're at Katz's and the whole crew is here, all the union guys and the extras and everyone is in on the joke and we're all gonna laugh so hard at this and then they're gonna tell me I'm brilliant. Even though the dialogue is a little forced. Maybe we all think we're a little bit better than the script, but we've committed to this project, goddammit, and I am a seasoned actress and everyone here is attracted to me! And, cut!
My friend was right. Piece of cake.
Julia Hebner is a Brooklyn based writer and filmmaker, and is currently developing her phone sex experiences into a film. This article is part one in her series. Come back next week for the second installment.
Via
