Free A Lover's Call by Claire Thompson Page A

was peaceful and undemanding. She loved handling the books, especially the rare old tomes with their fine, thin paper, sometimes gilded with gold edges.
    Work only went so far in satisfying a young, lonely woman of twenty-six. One quiet night while perusing a catalog of historical romance novels, trying to decide between Yvette in Love or The Secret Diaries of a French Courtesan ,she came across an ad looking for women with “sexy voices”. The ad claimed there was much money to be made for a stay-at-home job that only required a telephone. Feeling daring, she decided to give them a call.
    Rachel wasn’t sure her voice qualified as “sexy” but several people over the years had told her she sounded like Lauren Bacall in the old Humphrey Bogart movies. She had rented some of those old films and quite liked being compared to the beautiful movie star, though she believed the voice was as far as it went.
    Her caller was making grunting sounds on the other end of the phone and Rachel kicked into automatic, telling him how hot he sounded and how big she knew his cock was. “Oh baby, yeah,” she murmured, adding her own cries of feigned pleasure to his grunts.
    She moved through the series of calls, her mind barely on her work until midnight finally struck. Stretching, she sighed into the empty room. She would have her cup of herbal tea, read a few chapters of her novel and drift off to sleep. Just another in a series of solitary nights.
    Until the night he called.
    “Hi, Velvet, how are you this evening?” Something about his voice caught her attention. It was resonant, sexy, but not strident. There was a timbre to it, a quality that she couldn’t quite define but which definitely made her sit up and listen.
    “I’m fine, thanks. And I’m here for your pleasure. What can I do for you tonight?” It was a nice bonus that she liked the guy’s voice but this was still business and she would get down to it.
    “What can you do for me? You can talk to me, Velvet. I just want to hear you talk. I like your voice. It’s like melting butterscotch. It’s like hot, wet sex.”
    “Oh.” Rachel was taken aback but secretly pleased. It was rare that the men who used this service said anything more personal than, “Yeah, baby. That’s it, tell me more.”
    She began her usual storyline. “I’m wearing this cute negligee. Black and see-through. My nipples are so hard for you. I’m wet for you.”
    He let her go on for a while without responding. Rachel was used to hearing something on the other end—usually the sound of the man’s breathing becoming heavier and faster as he pumped himself to orgasm, using her voice and her words to take him there. Eventually she became flustered, suddenly not even sure he was still on the line. “Um,” she paused and asked, “excuse me, are you still there?”
    Soft laughter, though not unkind. “I’m here. Just listening to your lovely voice. Not the silly words. Forgive me but that kind of prattle just doesn’t ‘do it’ for me. No offense—I’m sure you’re very good at what you do.”
    Rachel felt affronted. If he wasn’t into this sort of thing, why had he called a phone sex line? What was this guy’s problem? She began to retort, to defend her “craft”, but he gently interrupted.
    “Please, forgive me. I meant no offense. I just called the service on a lark, never expecting to hear that gorgeous voice at the other end. You entranced me. You caught me off guard.”
    But it was she who was caught off guard. This had never happened, not in all the months she’d been teasing men on the phone for pay. This man seemed to want something from her. Something other than a verbal blowjob.
    “Uh, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice registering her confusion. “I really don’t know what it is you want.”
    “I guess I’d like to talk to you. To talk with you. I’d really like to know your name. Your real name. Not that silly assigned name from Sex Goddesses. I want more