I used to date a phone sex operator. I didn’t know she was when we started dating though; that didn’t come out until a couple weeks later. We had just finished watching a movie and were sitting on my couch when she turned to me and said, “I have something to tell you.” I thought she was going to say she was actually married or had an STD, so when she told me about her job I was pretty relieved.

She’d needed money in college, so she and a friend had answered an ad as a joke, and ended up sticking with it. She was a psychology major, and with all the grad school tuition to cover, talking dirty to strangers was a small price to pay. Still, the work took a toll on her, she said.

“I can’t help thinking about how my voice means so many different things to so many different people. Some of them hopeless and alone, some of them married, some of them just calling for kicks. And though I’m sure they all know it’s just a job for me, I always feel like I’m deceiving them, that I’m leading on the ones who really need it.”

When I asked if she’d give me a demonstration, she laughed and shoved me away. “No way,” she said, “I leave work at work.”

After that night I could tell she was glad to have it off her chest, and she seemed to smile more, and easier. Occasionally she’d confide in me about a bad day at work, but mostly we didn’t talk about it.

A few weeks later though, after we’d had sex, the thought crossed my mind that maybe her reactions and demeanor in the bedroom were an extension of her work persona. I tried to erase the thought but it had already begun to fester. From that point on, every time we had sex I couldn’t help trying to figure out if it was real or an act. If it was an act, did she act the same way with me that she did with all those anonymous callers? Did she use her real voice at work?

Eventually it got to be too much. I went over to see her, and when I got there the first thing she said was, “We need to talk.” I sighed. “I’m glad you think so too. I’m sorry if you noticed, but I’m just having a hard time distinguishing your work from sincerity whenever we make love. I didn’t know how to bring it up, but…yeah.” She blinked a few times. She seemed genuinely surprised. “Oh,” she said. “I had no idea you felt that way. To be honest, I wanted to talk about your writing.” “My writing?” “Yeah,” she said. “It’s just that whenever we talk I can’t tell if you mean what you say or if you’re just working.”

A few months after we broke up I found one of the cards for the sex line she had been using as a bookmark. I thought about calling it for longer than I’d like to admit, but I ended up throwing the card out.

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