Susie Bright, The Best American Erotica 2001.
New York 2001
"What do you want your name to be?" Candy asked.
We were sitting in her office. She was sipping espresso, and I was holding my hands together so she wouldn't see them shaking.
"Does every phone therapist have a pseudonym?" I asked. Candy said they did. "First for protection, but also because for some of us it's easier to separate and become someone else on the phone."
"Alice," I responded, surprised at how easily I had chosen the name. Alice. I could see her. Alice was my graduate student. Able to see the wonder in this new world. Alice, who was bright, brave, and just bad enough to enjoy all this. For the next twenty minutes, Candy briefed me on my first caller.
"Bill and his wife were patients here for several years," she explained. "He's an extremely large man and his wife found it painful to have intercourse with him. After many years of rejection, he developed performance problems and they turned to us. In addition to other therapies, we used phone therapy with Bill to help rebuild his confidence. He's no longer a patient, but he's become a client."
I wanted to know more about the case, but Candy said everything else was confidential unless Sam decided otherwise. "Just remember, Bill's at a stage where he likes to direct his fantasies. All you have to do is be accepting and giving. He's a special man, Julia. So relax. Everything will be fine," she said, as she set me up in the same room where I'd been practicing calls. I settled back in the big armchair with the phone in front of me. From speakers in the ceiling, gentle classical music took the edge off the silence. And then a few minutes after Candy shut the door behind her, the phone rang.
"Hello," I said, croaking out the word.
The man on the other end responded with his own hello.
"Bill?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from cracking.
"Yes. Is this Alice?" and with my eyes shut and the phone in my hand, it was. "Yes, this is Alice."
"So you're new?" Bill asked.
"Uh-huh. How'd you know?"
"Candy told me about you. Are you nervous?" His voice was rich and lyrical.
I laughed. "Oh boy, am I nervous. Can't you hear my heart beating over the phone?"
"Well, you don't have to be nervous with me. You know, you have a very gentle voice."
"Thank you."
"My back was to the door when you walked in because I was talking to another juror, so I didn't see yu, but I heard you asked if this was grand jury room number two. Your voice made me turn round. I was so pleased when you took the empty seat beside me. You've never been on a grand juy before, have you?"
"No." From what I'd learned in training, he was leading me into a fantasy he'd already begun.
All I had to do was pay attention and pick up the clues.
"So you didn't know that once you sat down, that would be your seat for the whole month?"
"No. But ... when I saw you next to me, I was glad."
"Why is that?" Bill asked.
"Because ... because of how wonderful you smelled. I kept breathing it in, hoping you wouldn't notice."
"I wish you'd told me. Is that why you stayed and talked to me during the break?" he asked.
"Yes. I wanted to get closer to that smell."
"I hope I'm not disturbing you, at home like this. I mean, it was kind of sneaky how I got your number - telling you each jury member should have another member's number in case you couldn't get through to the bailiff."
"Isn't that why you're calling? To tell me we don't have to show up for jury duty tomorrow or something?" I asked.
"No. Is it all right I called?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Your boyfriend isn't there, is he?"
"No, he's away."
"He travels often, doesn't he?"
I hesitated. "Yes." The introduction of a boyfriend confused me.
"And leaves you lonely?"
"Yes, he leaves me lonely," I answered.
"What do you do to keep yourself busy when he's away?"
"Watch a lot of old movies."
I answered before realizing that was exactly what I was doing now that Paul was travelling and working late so often.
"Do you cry at the end?" he asked.
"Always."
"If I was with you and you started to cry, I would brush away your tears with my lips," he whispered into the phone.
I was strangely moved by the image. "No one has ever done that before," I said, again telling the truth.
"Are there other things no one has ever done to you that you'd like me to do?"
Bill was taking shape in my mind. Not as a face, but as sensations, colors. He was dark blue velvet.
Heavy cream. A large bird flying through a moonless sky.
"Yes. Are there things no one has done to you?" I asked.
"No, I want to know about you," he answered quickly.
I must have taken a wrong step.
"What do you want that your boyfriend doesn't give you?" He put the focus back on me.
A moment passed. I couldn't think of what to say.
"Alice?" he prompted, and she responded for me.
"He never makes love to me long enough," I answered finally.
"I will," he said. "Where should I start?"
If only he'd talk about his fantasy. This was so difficult for me to do. And then I realized this was his fantasy: to please a woman, to please me. After that, it was easier.
"We'd both be completely dressed, sitting an my couch. There'd be just one light on. And you'd kiss me. Keep on kissing me -"
"So that you could almost come from the kiss?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered, surprised that nothing about this make-believe conversation was repulsive or frightening. I was in my head where I'd been so many times before, only now there was anothern voice in my fantasy.
"Alice, have you ever come from a kiss?"
"No."
"That's what I'm going to do to you now. I'm going to make you come from kissing you. Would you like that?" Bill asked.
"If you kiss me for that long, your lips will be sore."
"I don't care. I want to rub my lips on yours. Wet and slippery. And so, so soft. Can you feel it?"
"Yes, " I said, and I could."I'm unbottoning your blouse and pushing it off your shoulders so I can kiss your breasts. So I can suck on your nipples," he said.
"Your lips are like feathers on my skin. Bill, are you hard?" I'd been trained to ask this question often to gauge whether the call was working; if a man wasn't hard after a few minutes, something was wrong.
"I'm very hard," he said, and I segued into the next stage of the conversation.
"Are you touching yourself, Bill?"
"Yes, I'm rubbing myself while I imagine kissing you. I want to keep on kissing you. Alice, tell me how it feels."
"Wonderful. Our lips are so wet they glide against each other."
"Uh-huh," he murmured.
"And your tongue darts out - oh - it's hard - like your cock." It was my voice, but it was Alice who was thinking up the words.
"Oh ..." His breathing had changed. From the tapes Candy had played for me, I was familiar with this transition. At a certain point, usually minutes from orgasm, a man's breathing changes and his responses become shorter and less coherent.
"Your tongue parts my lips and slips inside my mouth where it's warm and wet. And then just as I start to suck on your tongue, you pull back and withdraw," I said.
"But ... you go after me ...," he told me.
"Yes ... I grab on to your tongue with my teeth and draw it back into my mouth. Your tongue fills up my whole mouth."
"Suck on it ... suck .. on my tongue ...," he pleaded.
"Yes ... I'm sucking on it, going up and down on your tongue. It's filling up my whole mouth. I let you slip almost all the way out and then suck you back inside again. God, I wish your tongue could come, right now, inside my mouth," I whispered.
"Ohh ... God ..."
It was the first time I'd really listened to a man come. Not seen him and felt him, but heard his release through the sounds he made.
"Was it all right?" I asked, suddenly shy.
Bill sounded content. "Yes ... yes, it was wonderful, but next time, I want to make you come too. All right, Alice?"
He'd thrown me off balance.
"Yeah. Okay. Good-bye, Bill," I shivered and hung up the phone.