The Sound Of Love

The third date went comparatively quite well. The girl, Maxine, was lovely, pretty and was exactly the kind of girl that Michael liked. She was exciting and a lot of fun to talk to, but the best thing about her was that she knew how to listen. She knew how to make it so that Michael felt important, he felt like things he had to say held weight and were important for her. He knew that she was really enjoying what he was saying, too, it wasn’t just something she was doing because she wanted to be polite.

They ended up hitting it off quite well and went on a few more dates. After the fifth date Michael brought her home and they had s*x. However, during the s*x he was horrified to realize that he couldn’t stop thinking about Michelle. He couldn’t stop fantasizing about her, even though Maxine was even prettier than Michelle had been. He felt so guilty that he couldn’t complete the s*x and Maxine left feeling hurt and utterly bewildered by Michael’s odd behavior.

He went back to the counselor who told him that Michelle had turned herself into Michael’s ideal woman in order to get as much money from him as she possibly could. She applied this to s*x as well, fulfilling every single one of Michael’s preferences regarding s*x. Hence, he was going to end up thinking about her inevitably.

The counselor told Michael that it would be a good idea to avoid dating for a while because he was just not emotionally available right now. Michael agreed wholeheartedly. He realized that he couldn’t keep doing this to himself. He couldn’t keep lying to himself and pretending that he was okay.

And so, this brought Michael to the present day. He had invited Carlos over and the two of them were talking about Michael’s problems over drinks.

“I just don’t think I should be dating right now, man,” said Michael. “I’m seriously fu*ked up. I don’t think it would be healthy for me to go out with a woman because I’d either compare her to my ex or somehow get freaked out because something she did would trigger my anxiety and make me feel like she’s just like Michelle. I don’t want to feel that way anymore, you know? I think I need to learn to be alright on my own first, don’t you think?”

“I agree,” said Carlos. “I think you should learn to be on your own first. If you learn to be on your own, by the time you get to date a girl you would be a lot more emotionally available. However, you should also think about getting some kind of interaction with women, you know? You need to keep yourself in the groove otherwise when the time comes you might be starting at square one again. You might not know how to go about the whole thing because it will have been so long since you did anything like that.”

“So what do you suggest I do?” asked Michael. He was eager for any advice whatsoever that would help him get past the emotional state that he was currently in. He just needed to move on in some way, needed to get past the tragedy that had engulfed his life recently.

“Just keep an open mind about this,” said Carlos, leaning forward. “It’s important to remember that I have a good idea about these things.”

“Alright,” said Michael, slightly concerned. What did Carlos have in mind?

“There is a phone s*x service,” said Carlos.

“Phone s*x?” said Michael. “Are you serious?”

“Just listen,” said Carlos. “It’s not a common phone s*x line. It’s a very high end operation, the kind of phone s*x line that people like you and me would call, you know? The girls there are really good at doing their job and they would get you going in no time, trust me. The thing is, you need to have some s*xual experiences that doesn’t involve Michelle. In order to do this you are going to have to start small. Phone s*x would allow you to get used to the idea of being s*xual with a girl without you having to get intimate with her. It would be done through a phone so you would be able to get done and move on. You can do this as many times as you need to. Eventually you’ll be able to get hard without having to worry about what you might start thinking about. You will have put some distance between yourself and the memories of Michelle and that will help you move on.”

Michael was apprehensive. He didn’t know if he would be able to do this. He honestly didn’t even want to but he needed to do something, anything, to at least feel like he was moving forward in some way. He decided to give it a shot. It was better than nothing after all.

“Alright,” said Michael. “I’ll give it a shot. It can’t hurt, right? It’s just the sort of thing that a guy like me would do right now, after all. I’m not all that into paying for s*x but that only matters when it’s actual prostitution. This is a lot different. This is phone s*x.”

“Exactly,” said Carlos, who had clearly been worried that Michael would oppose this suggestion on moral grounds. “This isn’t prostitution. It’s just you talking to a girl and paying her for the pleasure of doing so. When are you going to call the service?”

“Soon,” said Michael. “I’ll probably do it some time tonight. I’d get it over with quickly, if you don’t mind me saying. I kind of just want to figure out if this is right for me or not as soon as possible. I’ll treat it like a bandage, I’ll just pull it off and if it makes me feel good then that’s great, otherwise I will not have wasted a lot of time wondering about whether it would work or not.”

“Okay I’m really glad,” said Carlos. “Let me know how it goes.”

“I will,” said Michael. They drained the last of their whiskey and Carlos bade him farewell. Michael finished up some work that had been pending for a while and had dinner, all the while thinking about how it was going to go when he would finally call the phone s*x line.

When he was finally free he thought about calling the number but the thought began to give him a great deal of anxiety. He found that he couldn’t deal with the thought of calling a number strictly to have phone s*x. It felt wrong, somehow, as if he would be taking advantage of the woman by doing so.

He decided to have another drink before he called. It would make it easier for him to get into the mood, easier for him to take himself out of the situation that he was in and pretend like what he was doing lay within the boundaries of morality.

After downing a shot of whiskey he called the number. After a lengthy intro in which a woman lasciviously welcomed him and thanked him for calling he listened to one operator after the other introduce herself. After listening to a number of different women he finally picked one, a woman with a husky voice that he really liked.

His heart was pounding as he heard the call going through. He considered cutting the call because the woman did not respond for a few rings, but just as he was about to cut the call the woman answered with a sultry, “Hello?”