For A Good Time, Call...

by Gadziala, Jessica

  One

  “Oh, yeah baby, stick it in there. Right there. Like that. Mmmhmm. Yes, baby. Fuck me harder,” I was screaming into the phone. Loud, obnoxious, porn star groaning. I propped my legs up on the headboard, looking at my newly painted toenails. Hazard pink. I reached upward, wiping at a line that had smudged onto my skin. “Fuck. Oh, fuck. Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  I could hear his violent masturbation through the phone. The wet, squishing sound of his hand yanking on his mediocre penis. He was close. He was always easy. A little bit of heavy panting, some filthy talk, then just incoherent mewling and he was screaming out “Mommy” and coming all over his chest.

  “Oh. Oh. I want to feel your hot cum inside me. Now, baby. Now!”

  I hung up a minute later and held a pillow over my face, laughing. I tried not to judge. I really did. Everyone has their thing. The guys who can't get off unless you tell them what a useless piece of shit they are, how their pencil dick is the most pathetic thing you've ever seen. The guys who need you to slap yourself hard so they could imagine they were spanking you because you were such a naughty, naughty girl.

  Then there were men like Bob. Bob with his mommy issues. Bob who Freud would have loved. Bob with the oedipal complex. Bob who secretly wanted to fuck his mother.

  I tried not to judge.

  But it is really hard to keep a straight face when someone is pulling furiously at their peter and cries out for their mother in a pained, little boy voice.

  That shit was hilarious.

  I got up and went to my small kitchen, walking straight to the coffee machine, the panda face toe separators making me arch my foot up awkwardly as I moved around adding grounds and fresh water.

  I spent almost no time in my kitchen, save for coffee refills when it was too early or too late to go out and get it from the closest coffee house. My oven wasn't even hooked up. My refrigerator had next to nothing in it but milk for my coffee and leftover Chinese takeout cartons.

  Still, I had spent a lot of time decorating it. White cabinets. White walls. Bamboo countertops. Clean. Modern. I had a habit of needing things neat. Blame the hell hole I grew up in.

  I was never one of those girls. The girls in the pretty pink dresses with their perfectly french braided hair, skipping rope, making up back stories for their barbies. I wasn't the girl who was read bedtime stories about a snail who wanted to be a triathlete. I wasn't the girl who was told that she could be anything, anything at all that she wanted to be.

  So after a few rounds unsuccessful odd jobs... I became a phone sex operator.

  “Your parents would be so proud,” my grandmother sneered when I told her. To be fair, I only told her because I knew it would piss her off. I knew it would offend her sensibilities. I was the shame. Never mind the human garbage that was her son. I was the black sheep. I was the disgrace.

  I took a work call at her dinner table that night, shoving my beer neck into my throat, gagging on it, as I gave the best fake blowjob performance I could muster. I guess it could be said that I have rather poor impulse control. But the look on her face had been priceless.

  I took my coffee out onto my tiny little balcony in my long-sleeved t-shirt and pink undies. No one would see me from that high up anyway. Not that I would care if they could. Oh no! There's a woman in... panties! People needed to get a grip. My bare legs were the least offensive thing about me.

  It was getting cool. Fall was coming on with the smell of moldering leaves and musty dampness. I took a deep breath, greedy for the change. Hot August was never good to me. Spending my days wiping sweat from my brow and hoping my makeup wasn't running. The whole thing made me irritable and short-tempered.

  But September was finally releasing it's hold on summer and letting Autumn have it's reign. I could already feel myself relaxing. My body sinking into the turnover. I could take on the city streets again, walk aimlessly, spend too much money on clothes and shoes and makeup.

  I glanced down at my legs, still pasty pale. I had avoided the sun like the plague. Partly because it was just stupid to crisp your skin for the sake of vanity and partly because my thigh tattoo was still healing. It was a black and gray tree, a huge ax sticking out of the trunk with the proverb, “The ax forgets, but the tree remembers”. I had been waiting a long time to get it done. A lifetime really. And now that it was there, I couldn't stop looking at it. It was probably partly why I never wanted to wear pants.

  I leaned my forearms on the flimsy railing that better sense told me I needed to replace before it gave way under my weight one day.

  Below, the city lived up to its promise. People milling around in endless droves. Men and women in suits, tourists with their cameras, the homeless with their cans or soap boxes. No one giving a good goddamn about anyone else. No pleasantries. No masks. Everyone was just a proud asshole. They were my kind of people. They were the reason I moved to the city in the first place.

  Four years and going strong. I'd come a long way from those first days. A backpack in my arms full of clothes and what little money I had. Those days of clawing hunger and filth and cold and fear. Those days of not having a roof or food or safety. Those days that still managed to be better than what I was running away from.

  A sound at my right had me turning. The sound I recognized because it was the sound my sliding door made every day. Someone was opening the door to the balcony of the apartment next door. Which was impossible. Because it had been vacant for the past year and a half after the last tenant od'd on the heroin he was always stabbing into his veins. Three days and the smell was foul enough to send me down to the super and bang on the door until he got his drunk ass up to check things out.

  I don't think they had ever even put an ad up for the vacancy.

  But the door was opening, and a man was stepping out onto the small space, five feet from me. Invading in my perfect little privacy.

  He looked over at me. He wasn't supposed to fucking look at me. Those were the rules of the city. But he was looking at me.

  Two

  He was tall and wide, shoulders like a linebacker, and solid down the middle. Arms that strained against the material of his black t-shirt. His arms, I noticed with a deep sense of appreciation, were covered in sleeves. Black and gray ink. He had on loose fitting bluejeans, the unmistakable rectangular bulge of a cigarette pack in his front pocket.

  He had a strong square jaw that gave him deep cheekbone hollows. His hair, long enough to need to slick back or tuck behind his ears, was black as were the severe-looking eyebrows over his shockingly pale blue eyes. There wasn't a hint of laughter or smile lines. His lips didn't look like the kind that found amusement easily. In fact, he looked like he probably spent all of his time scowling. He was six-feet and three inches of intimidation..

  Great, my new neighbor, the psychopath.

  Not that I could expect any different in my neighborhood. In my building in particular. For all I knew, there was a meth lab one floor below just waiting to explode and take us all down with it. That was the kind of place I had set up camp in. On purpose really. I could afford a better place. Phone sex operators actually make bank.

  “Are you just going to stare at me all day, or are you going to introduce yourself?” he asked, his voice a deep, gravel sound.

  If he wasn't supposed to look at me, he definitely wasn't supposed to speak to me. Neighbors didn't get to know one another. They didn't show up with a welcome pie. That was small town comfort stuff. This was the big, bad city.

  And I sure as hell wasn't the girl next door.

  “Neither,” I said, turning my attention back to the street below. The yellow cabs speeding by and slamming on their breaks. The lights changed an
d huge hoards of people crossed the intersections at the same time.

  “You know if you're going to keep dressing down for me,” he said and I fought the urge to glare at him. “I prefer thongs.”

  Then there was the double swoosh of the door opening and closing.

  That fucker.

  I sipped my coffee, fully aware that he was probably sneaking glances at my half-bare ass through his glass door, and not particularly caring. Go ahead and stare at it. I have to spend endless hours running on the ancient treadmill in the makeshift exercise room the complex boasted of to keep my shit jiggling just the right amount. For nothing other than my own vanity.

  So I had a new neighbor. It didn't matter all that much. I made it my business to mind my own goddamn business. I ducked my head if someone entered the hall at the same time that I did. I couldn't point anyone out in a lineup. But I knew things.

  Like the couple across the hall consisted of a dominant wife and weak husband. The nagging that woman was capable of was impressive. The guy on the other side of me was a hermit and a good three-hundred and fifty pounds. He had groceries delivered and made meals to post on his pretentious foodie blog. The people below had three teenage boys who had knock-down, drag out fights daily.

  In the end, it didn't matter that he was new. I would find out his thing soon enough. His drug habit. His drug dealing that brought around all kinds of unsavorable types around that I needed to be aware of. The pets. The psychotic banging on the walls. Whatever his deal was, I would find out sooner rather than later.

  I went back into my apartment. My living room was a pale gray color with all white accents. White sofa. White coffee table. White cabinet I kept my television on. The brightness felt clean and safe. Almost hospital-like in its sparseness. I had no use for knickknacks. I got my news and fashion fixes online. And I kept my clothes clutter in the luxuriously large closet I had sacrificed a few feet of my already small bedroom to. I didn't need that much space to sleep. But I did need space to hang the endless dresses and jeans and shirts and the shoes. Oh, the shoes. My room itself was painted with thick horizontal gray and white stripes, ten inches thick at each turn. I liked it to streamline from the living space and hall.

  The inside of my closet, however, was painted a bright, crayon yellow. Shoes were stored in their boxes on the floor, four boxes high underneath the massive closet system I had bought online. Bright colors spilled out of the drawers and down from the wire racks.

  I reached in, grabbing a red off-shoulder crop top, a pair of black high waisted jeans, and a pair of patent leather heels that matched the shirt. Night would be coming on soon enough and I needed to be prepared.

  The days were fine. The days I spent taking calls, cleaning, looking around online, watching TV. The days I kept busy. The nights were the hardest to get through alone in a small apartment with the memories making the walls close in tighter. The memories that could fill up a room and drown me in them.

  I almost never stayed in. I was never 'not in the mood' to go out. It didn't matter if it was a Monday night. It didn't matter that I was always alone. It didn't matter. I needed to get out and in a city that never sleeps, there was always something to be found to do.

  I put my clothes on the counter in the bathroom, which wasn't really a counter at all. I had had the typical square cabinet torn out and replaced with a long oval ornate antique table with scalloped edges that I had painstakingly painted white then distressed, then painted a pale robin's egg blue, then distressed again until the white was peeking through. I had a guy cut the hole for the sink and put the thing in place in front of an enormous floor to ceiling mirror. I put a small upholstered stool in front of it and used it like a vanity to do my makeup, kept in a white box that opened into a dozen little compartments. The walls were the same robin's egg blue as the table.

  I took pride in my apartment. I spent a lot of money getting it how I wanted with. Even though no one saw it but me. Literally. No one else had stepped foot in it in the two years since I moved in. But there was something in taking something as ugly as a cramped New York City apartment and turning it into your own personal sanctuary that gave me the tinglies.

  I grabbed a fluffy white towel, reaching in to turn the water in the shower on, then stood in front of the mirror and started to slip my shirt off, then my panties. I had a certain kind of appeal. Five foot seven with thick thighs and a small waist. My boobs were the envy of the girls I went to school with, high and round, ample enough to fill out a blouse nicely without making me look like a cartoon character. My hair was long and blonde, falling in a beach-wavy mass toward my chest, just brushing my nipples. My face was round and soft with a small rosy mouth and big green eyes. My best feature was my skin. Pure and milky. Flawless naturally.

  That was, if you could look past the scars.

  My hand moved downward, touching the scars that cupped my breasts underneath. Thick bands. Very pink still even after all the years and smooth. Scars are so weirdly smooth to the touch. I reached downward toward the outer side of my thigh, the one without the tattoo, and stroked those scars. Those were different scars.

  A few dozen tiny little straight lines in various stages of healing. Violent red reminders of why I needed to go out at night.

  There were other scars. The worst scars. Old and almost skin toned. Almost. Too awful to let myself think about. The ones I avoided looking at. Or allowing anyone else to see.

  I sighed and climbed into the shower, letting the hot water wash away the growing sense of unease I was feeling. I would take an hour and put myself together, towel drying my hair, applying mascara and eyeliner, getting dressed. By then it should be late enough for me to hit the street. Get something for dinner. Grab some coffee. Maybe find a band playing or an art exhibit or a poetry slam. Something to take me away until for a few hours before I had to change tactics and hit a bar.

  Shame walk home at 4 AM still half drunk on a Tuesday morning. Ready to slip out of my clothes, scrub off my makeup, and fall into bed around five. Then sleep until eleven. Get up, have some coffee and get ready for my lunch calls. My quickie guys.

  The “I want you underneath my desk sucking my cock while I have a meeting” guys. The “I want to bend you over the fax machine and fuck your ass” guys. In other words, my upper-middle class, married, businessmen. Those guys paid my rent each month.

  Then the day would be a mismatch of calls. I would do video calls for my executive clients. The stockbrokers. The judges. The CEOs. The ones who paid a pretty penny to have me tell them how I want to suck them off or fuck their brains out. Or tell me to touch myself. And I would pretend to play ding-dong with my clit until they came neatly into a tissue. Those guys made my shopping obsession and endless nights out possible.

  I slipped into my shoes that pinched my toes and were bound to keep me in constant pain all night. Which was good. In a twisted way. Pain was always a good distraction. I could sink into it. It could save me from downing the last few shots of the night. The walk home would be excruciating enough to block all the ghosts out.

  I was halfway out my door when I heard his open. I looked down at my feet, clutching my keys in my fist as I quickly moved past him. I wasn't embarrassed. At least, I was never usually embarrassed about my nights out. No one paid much attention. And everyone needed their own kinds of salves for their wounds. It was a fact people in bad neighborhoods generally just accepted about each other. I wont judge you for dropping acid to forget if you don't judge me for drinking too much to forget.

  But I felt embarrassment as I shuffled past him.

  The sooner I found out his flaw, the better. He wouldn't be the random guy next door with the piercing eyes and great ink. He would be just another fucked up tenant I could feel normal around.

  Three

  I had put up with it three days in a row. Which was generous. Especially for me. Especially given how cranky it was making me. That it was costing me money because I was sleeping p
ast noon.

  The new guy started bang-bang-banging around six-thirty every morning. And I don't mean that kind of banging. The banging with the moans and the grunting. I could sleep through a fucking orgy on the other side of the wall. No, this was the sound of hammers on nails and wood and god-knew what else. I tried to let it go. I had done more than my fair amount of improvements since I moved in too. But I had the decency to do it in the middle of the damn day when no one was trying to sleep.

  I tried burying my face in my pillow. I tried turning on the TV. Turning on music. I tried everything in my power to keep to myself. To not have to go over there.

  But by the third morning, I was running on empty and no amount of coffee was going to make up for this kind of lack of sleep.

  I crawled out of bed in my white silk pajama pants and matching tank top, throwing open my apartment door and storming next door. I was slamming on the door violently, making it shake in its jamb and one of the copper letters tilt out of place.

  “Keep you panties on,” I heard from inside, followed by some slamming and shuffling. The door pulled open without and sliding of a lock. Which in any neighborhood was foolish, in ours it was downright asking for it. He pulled the door open, keeping a hand on the side of it and looking down at me. I saw his eyes dip down to my breasts, the nipples sticking shamelessly out of the thin, cool material. Typical. Then his eyes found mine. “What?”

  What? What? That was what he was going to go with? Well, I was going to tell him what. “The fucking banging,” I said, running a hand through my wild hair. He stood there dumbly, cocking an eyebrow as if he was going to need more than that. “It is six-forty-five in the morning.” More eyebrow cocking. “I am trying to sleep,” I added, hoping that would make the idiot get the point.

  A smirk toyed at the edge of his lips. “It's not my fault you're a vampire,” he said, shrugging a shoulder and slamming the door in my face.