He did.

After that, Ralph became her first paying customer, too.

The phone rang at 3 A.M.

Cynthia didn"t bother to turn the lights on as she picked her way to the chair by the phone. In the three months she"d operated the service, she"d walked the path many times in the dark, often more asleep than not.

The men who called at this hour were more lonely than h.o.r.n.y, a bit more sincere, sweeter, and a little more desperate for simple human contact. Cynthia found that she could talk to these men about things other than s.e.xa"their jobs, hobbies, problems. Sometimes these callers even became so engrossed in their conversations that they never made it to the s.e.x part.

Cynthia plopped into the chair near the phone, answered it without clearing her throat, knowing that these men wanted to rouse her from bed, wanted to hear her raspy, sleep-filled voice. It lent an air of intimacy to what they did, as if they had merely rolled over and awakened a lover curled in bed next to them.

"h.e.l.lo, honey. This better be good."

"h.e.l.lo," came the man"s voice, rough and hoa.r.s.e and whisper-quick.

Cynthia knew from experience that he would say nothing more, only respond to questions or ask short, wheezing queries. In this situation, very few men wanted to take the lead.

She preferred it that way.

"Does your mommy know you"re waking me up? "Cause if she doesn"t, you go tell her it"s two ninety-nine per minute."

"My mommy"s not here," he growled.

"Good thing. Mine"s not here either."

"What are you wearing?"

"Nothing, honey." Actually, she was wearing a pair of panties, but otherwise this was accurate.

"I always sleep naked," she continued. "You never know when the opportunity may . . . arise. What are you wearing?"

"I"m not wearing anything either."

"And I bet you"ve got quite a handful."

"You could say that," he laughed, and it raised goose b.u.mps on her arms, for it was a disturbing laugh, confidential and low, like a rusty engine slowly turning over. She heard a sound, distant, maybe the squeaking of bedsprings, the rustle of covers.

"Tell me about yourself."

"Down to details. My kind of man. I"m five eight, a hundred twenty pounds, brown hair and eyes. Thirty-eight, twenty-six, thirty-four. Like to f.u.c.k. How about you?"

"What do you like?" he breathed, ignoring her question. "I mean specifically."

"I like it all."

"You haven"t been doing this long, have you?" he dismissed, changing his tone as if he were an actor stepping outside character. "That"s the easy answer. What do you really like to doa"more than anything else?"

Cynthia rolled her eyes. Obviously the guy was looking to talk with someone who liked the same things he did. But what?

"I like to be spanked," she finally said, and that was a safe answer. Kinky enough to satisfy wilder men, not so perverse as to disgust the milder ones.

"You do?" he whispered after a moment, lapsing back into his previous hushed tone.

"Yeah," she said, relaxing again. "Do you?"

"Yeah, sure," he responded, a bit distractedly. "Sure."

There was a moment of silence.

"You like pain?" he asked from its depths.

"That depends on who, what, and how much," she said, fumbling for her cigarettes and sensing that control was coming back to her.

"I like pain."

"Great," she said, inhaling. "You like to be spanked? Whipped? Bitten?"

"Cut," said the voice, quivering in antic.i.p.ation. "I like to be cut,"

Here, Cynthia hesitated.

"Cut?" she asked, crushing her cigarette out. "How?"

A deep, rattling sigh from the other end.

"A sharp knife. A razor. A piece of gla.s.s. It doesn"t matter."

If that litany was not unsettling enough, he did something then that almost made her drop the phone in horror.

He moaned, soft as a caress.

"What are you doing?" She swallowed, hoping to change the subject.

"Stroking myself."

"Are you hard?"

"Yes. And so is it."

"Is what?"

"My knife."

"Knife? What are you doing with a knife?" she asked, covering herself with a blanket, sliding her feet up underneath her.

"Cutting myself," he said, and his voice was rapturous. "Little lines across my chest, my abdomen. Around my nipples . . . Ohhh!"

And she felt the shudder in his voice.

"Keep talking to me. I like your voice," he said.

"Are you going to keep doing that?" she asked, her stomach folding in on itself.

"Oh, yessss! OHHHH!"

"Doesn"t it hurt?" she moaned, biting a finger.

"No! Yes!"

"Stop!" she screamed, leaping up, the blanket falling forgotten around her feet. "Please stop!"

"Jesus! OH! OH MY G.o.d!" he yelled, his wavering screams descending into a series of broken sobs.

Cynthia stood shaking, her hand cupped over her mouth.

Neither said anything for a minute.

But neither hung up.

"Are you OK?" Cynthia asked, her hand still not far from her mouth.

"I cut off my nipple."

"Oh my G.o.d," she whispered, her eyes fluttering back in her head.

"I"ve got to go now. I"ve got quite a mess here. But you were wonderful. I"ll call again."

With another moan and a creaking of bedsprings, the receiver clunked into place.

The rest of the night, Cynthia sat upright in bed wrapped in her quilt and stared at the phone. It rang several times, stopping at around 4:30 A.M., but she did not answer it.

She"d heard many things over the phone in the last three months; things that were exciting and intriguing, rude and disgusting, uncomfortable and unpleasant. But this had gone far past those other calls, too far.

Into territory within herself that she found unfamiliar and frightening.

Cynthia replayed the conversation over and over in her head. Each time, the feelings surged back, as strong and vivid as they had been during the experience. Strangely, even though they never talked about s.e.x, the call left her with an overwhelming feeling of being used.

Being out of control.

She hadn"t experienced that yet. Up to now, she had always been in control on the phone.

This man, though, played her as deftly as she played other callers.

There was something else that disturbed her even more, something that clung to the borders of her conscious mind, hid in the shadows.

Cynthia caught only a glimpse of it, but that was enough.

Excitement.

She"d been excited by the conversation, by the man hurting himself.

Enjoying himself.

Unable to think of another explanation, unwilling to accept this one, Cynthia sobbed herself to sleep just as the morning sun poked through the slats of her bedroom blinds. And the phone rang.

Two days later, Cynthia felt good enough to begin taking calls again.

Pa.s.sing the jangling phone late in the afternoon, a soda in one hand, cigarettes in the other, she picked it up on impulse.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"I didn"t frighten you, did I?"

Cynthia stiffened, fumbled a cigarette out.

"You"re still there. I can hear you . . . smoking," he said just as she exhaled.

"I"m sorry if I upset you," he went on after a minute. "I tried to call back for two days."

Cynthia exhaled another cloud of thin smoke, took a drink of soda, sat down. She was going to make sure she was in control before she answered, even though her heart was vibrating inside her chest, her mouth bone-dry.

"I really enjoyed our conversation. It was the best I"vea""

"Did you really do it?"

"Good, you are there," he said, amiably.

"You really cut... it off?" Cynthia couldn"t bear to say the word.

"It only hurt after, and then for just a little while."

"I can"t believe you did that to yourself," she said, her own nipples beginning to ache with imagined, sympathetic pain. She crossed an arm over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, crushed them to her as if to rea.s.sure herself that they were intact.

"Why not?"

"Is that a serious question?"

"Sure."

"You"re not going to do it again ... are you?"

"Who says I"m not doing it right now?"

That stopped her. Of course he was doing it now. That"s why he"d called again.

"You are, aren"t you?" She puffed, keeping the cigarette perched close to her lips.

"You don"t even know if I really did it or not. It excited you, though, didn"t it? Even if it scared you, repulsed you?"