by M.J. Rose

Sam and I were driving in his car, a black two-door Mercedes that smelled of leather and wood. It seemed like an ordinary ride until I realized he was in the passenger seat and the car was driving itself. From the back seat, I pleaded with Sam to take over the wheel but he insisted everything was under control, that he knew what he was doing and I should trust him.

Terrorized, I looked through the windshield as we sped down Sixth Avenue and waited for the inevitable accident. "Isn't this exciting?" he asked and smiled as we glided through traffic.

"No. You're trying to kill me," I shouted.

I woke up alone, sweating and feeling my pulse race with fear. As usual, Paul had left to go jogging while I was still asleep, and his showering afterwards had been my alarm clock. Listening to the water hitting the tiles, I relived the nightmare.

I'd had this same dream almost every night since I'd first started training at the Institute. That was two weeks ago. I still didn't understand its symbolism. Lying in bed, I went over the dream once more. As Paul emerged from the bathroom, it occurred to me that it wasn't Sam who was endangering me. It was myself.

While Paul dressed, I tried to talk to him about the pending investigation that we knew, by now, was a certainty. Nothing I said convinced him to confide in me. He continued to tell me only the bare minimum and tried to keep his mounting anxiety hidden. Except I could see his tension in the tight-fisted stance he held all the time now and the deep circles always under his eyes. I felt hurt that he refused both my comfort and counsel.

Hurt, angry and impotent.

Before Paul left that Friday, he came in to say good-bye and tell me his schedule. In the past two weeks he had been home less and less often. When he wasn't traveling to other FIT offices, he was having late meetings with the tax lawyer.

"I'm flying out to Chicago at noon today. I have back-to-back meetings straight through dinner so I'll probably have to stay over."

"Fly the plane safely," I offered as he bent down and dropped a kiss on the top of my head.

Once Paul was gone, I got out of bed.

Lately, it had been taking me a long time to get ready in the morning. Once-ordinary acts had become sensuous moments. I noticed how the coffee smelled, how each sip tasted, how the pellets of water hit my skin in the shower, how the moisturizer glided over my body.

I dressed in my usual jeans and a sweater, but I was conscious of the coarseness of the denim material, of the seams riding my crotch, of the soft cashmere rubbing my neck and my wrists.

As I walked the twenty blocks to the Institute, I felt the weight of my jacket resting on my shoulders, smelled the rose and cinnamon perfume I'd worn and stared with wonder at the trees' drastically changing colors. The streets were littered with leaves by now and when the wind blew more of them fell like flashes of fire swirling to the ground. I was glad the sleepy summer was gone and the weather was changing. The crisp fall air was exhilarating. Being assailed by the sharp breeze was like getting a jump-start.

During the mile walk to the Institute, I'd re-acquaint myself with the graduate student I'd invented that first time I read a phone sex script. Her persona helped me through every day. By the time I reached 65th street, she and I had merged.

For the last two weeks, it had been her confidence and ease that had enabled me to open the door to the Butterfield Institute. She enabled me to walk inside, climb the stairs to the fifth floor, enter the semi-dark office and practice calls with one of the Institute's male therapists. It was her courage that helped me sit down with Candy so she could critique my style.

Candy's main complaint was my initial nervousness at the beginning of a call. She suggested I'd be more relaxed if, instead of relying on my own initiative, I used the Institute's prepared list of questions. That had helped but I was still overwhelmed by the bluntness of what I had to say. Not just the flat out words like "cunt" and "cock" and "fuck," but having to describe what it felt like to have a man inside me, to have him touch me and turn me on.

When I remembered to let my imaginary graduate student take over for me the calls were better. She wasn't afraid. She'd talked to enough men in her bed to know exactly what to say. But even she couldn't stop the panic that Friday when Candy informed me that after two weeks of practicing, I was ready to take a real call.

"What do you want your name to be?" Candy asked.

We were sitting in her office. She was sipping espresso; 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 without knowing where the name had come from. Alice.

As soon as I said the name 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 arm chair 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 you but I heard you ask if this was Grand Jury room number two. Your voice made me turn around. I was so pleased when you took the empty seat beside me. You've never been on a grand jury 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 his 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?"

"Yeah," I hesitated. The introduction of a boyfriend confused me.

"And leaves you lonely?"

"Yeah, 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'd answered without realizing that was exactly what I was doing now that Paul was traveling 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 to me," 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.

"Yeah. 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 on 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.

"Yeah," 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 another voice in my head with me.

"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?"

"Yeah," I said and I could.

"I'm unbuttoning 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 or not 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.

"Yeah... I grab onto 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.

"Yeah -- 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.