TALES OF THE CITY Dial L For Lonely

Kelly is cradling the receiver under her chin, swatting her rambunctious dog with her free hand, and padding from one side of the room to the other as she talks. Barefoot, she digs her toes into the pile carpet of her small North Dallas apartment. Her hair hasn’t been washed today, and her mascara is beginning to drip onto her cheek. She wears khaki army pants and an old sweater that has fur balls gathering all over the bodice. Tomorrow her twenty-six-year-old son is coming by to help her clean the garbage out of her utility closet. But right now she is saying:

Evvvvvverything, I want evvverything.

Her voice is low. deep, breathy. I know this woman, but I’ve never heard her talk like this before. Then she elaborates on the meaning of “everything,” in ever more explicit and blunt detail, and as she speaks starts to make quick little gasping noises. They sound involuntary, out of control. She’s looking at a Rolodex card. On it she’s written the name of “Steve R.- ,” a regular customer. Underneath his name are her notes from past conversations-what he looks like, what his sexual “kinks” are, and what she’s previously done with him (so she won’t repeat herself).

“Some people don’t take this much care,1 Kelly tells me later. “There are a lot of girls who think they can do phone sex, because it sounds easy. But it’s a lot of work. Think about it. We have virtually nothing to work with-none of the advantages of porno movies or magazines. We have no visuals, no flesh, no hair, no eyelashes, no smells, no tastes. All the things that are sold to women to make them attractive to men-we have none of that. All we have is the guy’s imagination and our voices. The phone is a very intimate thing. Every intonation counts, every voice inflection. The real erogenous zone is between the ears. And you know what’s funny about it? Some of these guys won’t say anything. I’ll have to sense how I’m doing. I’ll do this performance for twenty minutes, and at the end of that time they’ll say, very quietly, Thank you,’ and then they’ll hang up.”

Recently I found out that four female acquaintances of mine all do “phone sex” out of their apartments. Although I can’t reveal the identities of any of them-they were terrified at the idea of my writing this article-I can safely say that they are all healthy, outgoing, employed women who could do any number of jobs for extra money. Only one of the four is what you would call pretty. The other three either feel that they are unattractive, or feel that at some time in the past they have been unattractive, but have “accepted themselves” now. None of them have trouble meeting men. And that’s about all the sociology I can get into without revealing who they are.

Perhaps I’m naive. Perhaps other journalists have discovered this trend long ago. This is the great new upper-middle-class white sex industry, a business that is light years beyond singles bars, or simple prostitution, both of which carry the risk of killer bedroom diseases. Phone sex is everywhere-full-page four-color ads in men’s magazines, long lists of phone numbers in the newspaper “Personals” columns, and even phone-sex “clubs,” where for a $100 membership fee, you can purchase the right to unlimited phone-sex sessions for, say, a month. At the rate that some guys use phone sex. that can easily pay for itself in five days.

Phone-sex companies range from one-woman shops, with the woman investing in a dedicated phone line and a small advertising budget, to national networks that have dozens of phone-sex girls in every major city. You get into the business by knowing someone who”s already doing it. There are no qualifications, although it helps to enjoy talking dirty during sex. And it’s perfectly legal-as long as the customer and the phone-sex girl never meet. If they do, the phone-sex company is liable to “solicitation of prostitution” charges.

Kelly is known as “Bliss” to her regular customers. Don’t laugh. The guys like it.

They find out about Bliss by seeing her picture or a description of her in a magazine or newspaper. Bliss is blonde-haired, five-foot-four, with “tangerine-sized” breasts (her phrase) and pouty lips.

Whenever a customer calls Bliss, he gets the breathiest “hello” heard since the film career of Lauren Bacall. Kelly-excuse me, Bliss-can make “Hello” a four syllable word.

Hello, baby, thought you forgot all about me..

For first-time callers. Bliss explains in her sexiest let’s-have-a-party voice that the talk ing will cost the guy $25 for the first twen ty minutes and $!0 for each ten minutes after that. Newcomers to the art will fumble around nervously, trying to ask her how to get started, and so she’ll explain that first she’s got to have their Visa or MasterCard number, the expiration date, their name, and whether they’re listed in the phone book. She’s quick to say that the billing will be discreet-a charge to some company like Evergreen Audio-Visual Services-in case a wife or a girlfriend sees the receipt when it comes in the mail. Then, while she con tinues to talk to them about what great aural sex they’re about to have, she reaches for another phone and quickly dials directory assistance to see if they are who they say they are. This precaution is to keep people from using someone else’s credit card. If directory assistance verifies that the caller is listed at the place where he says he’s calling from, then she dials Visa or MasterCard for credit approval. Once that’s done, Bliss really loosens her tongue, so to speak.

Most of her “regulars’-and Bliss has about thirty of them-live in places far from Dallas. For some reason most men like their fantasies distant and exotic, so that a Dallas man using phone sex might be calling some place like Palm Springs. California, or Parsons, Kansas.

Kelly has lawyers, engineers, quite a few college students, and no( one, but three psychiatrists. In the past year, she’s had calls from four women, one of whom has become a regular. “I’ve never had sex with a woman,” says Kelly, “so I just say things to her that I would like a man to say to me. Some girls get freaked out by women calling. That’s very judgmental. I think. Very unprofessional.

“The wives won’t do certain things with them,” Kelly continues. “Wait, let me correct that. Many of them won’t tell their wives what they want, because they think the wife will condemn them for it. In fact, they think everyone who truly knows them will condemn them, Whatever their sexual secret is, they don’t believe anyone will accept it. Except me. I’m Bliss. They know I’ll accept it. I won’t only accept it, I’ll encourage it.”

Most guys want to talk even after the sex part of the call is over. They’ll talk about what they did in court that day. They’ll describe their hotel room. They’ll ask questions about the personal life of Bliss. And eventually they’ll ask her if there isn’t some way, somehow, that they can meet her.

I’d love to, baby, I’m dreaming of it right now, but the people I work for won’t let me do it. Someday I’m leaving this business, though, and I’m gonna have a cottage out in the country and you know you’re the only one I’ll call, babe.

“Of course, they believe it. No, there is not a part of them that knows it’s just a fantasy.” Kelly is adamant about this. I’ve offended her sense of professionalism by suggesting it.



Bliss never lets up once the seduction has begun, once the (low of groans and coos and little-girl noises and slurps and shrieks and sex talk is under way. She’s a superb actress, and every client is a new improvisation. She takes all her cues from what the customer reveals about himself in the first two or three minutes. She tries to give him everything he wants within twenty minutes, but if he’s still interested, she tells him. gently, that the meter is running. She knows when the big hand on the giant metal clock on her desk passes the “4.”

“The wives really ought to love phone-sex services,” Kelly is saying. “It’s safe. He’s not getting diseases. He’s not with his secretary- although some of them want me to be their secretary. The men don’t trust themselves. They don’t know themselves. So they trust me to listen to what they are. They have to tell somebody what they are. They’re lonely.”

I really need you tonight, Randy, please give me what I want.

Kelly works for a phone-sex company that employs seventeen girls, handles all credit-card transactions, and pays her a monthly check based on the amount of calls she’s handled. For the standard $25 call, she receives $10-for twenty minutes’ work.

“I can theoretically make thirty dollars an hour,” she said. “I make good money, but it’s usually not that good. I feel good if I do seven or eight calls a night. It’s about all you can do. This is very hard work. I make more than most, because my customers always call back. Sometimes they’ll call every single night that I’m working-the same guy. That kind of loyalty can last up to four months.”

Four months’?

“That’s the cycle. That’s how long it takes them to get tired of me. These are not monogamous people, even with phone-sex girls.”

What do you want, Stan? What do you realty want?

“Some of them don’t even realize how much money they’ve been spending,” Kelly says. “The long-distance charges can be pretty great, but they don’t notice it at the time. The guy’s lonely. He sees a picture in a magazine. Sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes I even miss a guy that used to call. In my way-I know this sounds funny, but in my way. I love them.”