Free 100 Women Volume One by Lexington Manheim Page B

hint at it with anyone else who might answer the phone. Thank
you for calling. I look forward to answering all your questions.
Remember, when you hear the tone, leave me a name, a phone number,
and a password. (beep)
     
    Admittedly, I puffed
things up a bit by insinuating there were multiple researchers
involved—which there weren't. But I thought that made it sound more
prestigious than saying it was just a one-man operation.
    The password was my way of
fending off the pranksters who'd think it funny to leave the name
and phone number of some unsuspecting woman. The last thing I was
looking for was a sexual harassment suit.
    With everything set, now
all I had to do was wait for my first volunteer.

 
1. Annie
     
    Annie wasn't the first
girl to call. For the first few days, responses to the ad garnered
mostly a recorded collection of telephone hang-ups, sophomoric
jokes, and impolite chastisements—the last coming from aggressively
antagonized women who seemed to be under the impression that the
study was somehow some sort of anti-feminist plot. Also tossed into
the mix were a few choice messages from guys who generously offered
their services as masturbators of any female masturbatees.
Additionally, there were two calls where women actually left a
name, number, and password. However, when I returned the calls, one
was an obvious prank and the other resulted in the woman telling me
she had changed her mind.
    No, Annie certainly wasn't
the first to respond to the ad. But she was the first to actually
volunteer to participate.
    Her recorded message was
as sparse as could be.
    "Annie. Red."
    Then she gave a phone
number and hung up. That was it. The entirety of the message. Two
words and a phone number. They were rattled off so quickly and with
so little conviction behind them that it was almost as though they
were being forcibly extracted from her mouth. I remembered thinking
that a little reticence wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It
suggested to me that the caller was genuine and made the call only
after having undergone significant mental wrestling of the pros and
cons of volunteering for this type of study. This was probably
someone who really wanted to do this despite all the internal
voices telling her not to. It might take a little convincing to
push her over the line. However, since she'd already convinced
herself to make the phone call, it seemed to me that she was really
just looking for someone to give her one last shove.
    She had given no
restrictions on when I could call back, so, as soon as I got her
message, I wasted no time in dialing the number. As I did, my heart
began to race. I had a good feeling about this one.
    There were two rings, and
then I heard a voice.
    " Hello."
    "Hello," I echoed with a
restrained amiability meant to sound pleasant but not eager. "I'm
calling for Annie."
    There was a second's pause
before the meek response.
    "Yes."
    "Am I speaking to
her?"
    "Yes."
    "Do you have a password
for me?"
    Her answer was spoken
hesitatingly, but she managed to squeeze out the word,
"Red."
    It was her. It was Annie.
Confirmed by the password. (Curiously, "red" turned out to be by
far the most common password chosen by those who responded to the
ad. I had suggested in my recorded message that a color might be
used as a password, and it seems many took that as a
cue.)
    "I was very pleased to get
your call," I continued. "Is now an okay time to talk?"
    "Yes." Annie was a woman
of few words.
    I made a brief
introduction and an abbreviated rendition of what she'd heard on my
recorded message, then concluded with "You can call me Troy. Do you
have any questions?"
    "Well," she began, with
the halting start of one thinking it over even as she asks the
question, "how is it anonymous if you put it in a book?"
    " No real names," I assured her. "I won't even use the name you
give me…just in case. I'll just make them up in some random
fashion. You might not even be able to recognize yourself in the
book. And no