Phillip glanced at the clock, over an hour to go until lunch. Folding his newspaper, he dropped it on the desk and sighed. He had to admit, this was the easiest job he had ever had, but also the most tedious. He was not the most hard-working of men, but even so he needed something to occupy his mind. When Phillip had arrived that morning, his in-tray was bare. Fortunately Joy had bustled in at that point with the mail, reciting her daily litany of appointments and deadlines before bustling out again, leaving a few morsels in the in-tray for Phillip to deal with.
She had also left him with a slightly stiff cock. To look at her, Phillip's secretary was an unremarkable woman in her late forties; short blonde hair and sensible shoes, slightly on the plump side of average. But her eyes always held a twinkle, and her voice had a lilt suggestive of hidden depths. That, combined with the sweet, earthy scent she always wore, was enough to engender all kinds of fantasies in Phillip.
As usual, it had taken him barely an hour to deal with his workload. Then he managed to fill another twenty minutes or so with his first scan of the newspaper, just reading the articles that caught his eye. Still bored, he went through the paper again, this time reading everything he had skipped the first time. That was marginally more interesting than doing nothing. Finally, he had resorted to the business section; some of his colleagues read nothing else, but to Phillip five minutes of that was as good as a cup of cocoa before bedtime.
Phillip still had an hour to kill and nothing to kill it with. Idly, he picked up the paper again and found himself flicking through the classified ads near the back. God, he thought, how bored must I be to do that? But then a new group of adverts caught his eye, a section headed 'Personal' that appeared to offer something different to the usual garden sheds and dining-room tables. The words 'Hot Chat' appeared over a smudgy black and white photo of what was clearly a model, below which was a number. Phillip sneered. He'd read all about chat-lines, how sad lonely men got their rocks off talking to sad lonely women, all of them pretending to be someone else. But in a corner of Phillip's mind a small voice was telling him not to be judgemental; don't knock it until you've tried it.
Phillip sneered again. He was the kind of man to whom it came naturally, his face falling into that cynical, sarcastic expression by default. Still, he thought, in the interests of fairness, I should do some research before I condemn these pathetic losers out of hand. He dialled the number, careful to use his own phone rather than the landline. He could just imagine himself explaining that phone-bill to his boss!
The number rang several times and Phillip was about to hang up when he heard a recorded voice.
"Welcome to the Singles Bar," the female voice purred. Phillip snorted derisively. "Press number one to chat to horny girls, online now!"
Phillip didn't wait to see if there were any other options. He pressed number one. The next step was to "record an introduction for other callers to hear." That stopped him for a second. Shit, he thought, what if someone recognises my voice?
It actually took him several attempts to get through the menu system and record his message. He decided he would be 'Gary', a suitably anonymous name.
At last, 'Gary' got to hear other people's messages. He found the way it worked quite interesting; everyone recorded their own personal message, then you got to hear everyone else's messages in order. If you fancied talking to someone you had the option to send them a message, or even talk live. Most of the callers seemed to be men, but there were a smattering of women. Phillip heard nothing to change his opinion about the kind of people who used chat-lines, though that small voice was still in the back of his mind. You ARE the kind of person who uses chat-lines now, 'Gary'.
Suddenly, a recorded voice was telling him he had a message from 'Julie'.
"Hi Gary," Julie was saying. "You sound nice. If you would like to chat, come on back."
Phillip held the phone away from him and stared at it in astonishment. One of these sad creeps actually had the nerve to try and talk to him! He quickly ended the call, but that didn't silence the voice in his mind. What did you expect 'Gary', that's what people do on chat-lines. They chat.
Five minutes passed. Nothing happened. Thirty minutes until lunch. Phillip found himself back on the chat-line. There was Julie again. "Gary? Hi, I sent you a message, but you didn't reply. I just wondered if you would like to chat." Oh, that's just pitiful, he thought. She's so fucking desperate. He cancelled the message and quickly moved on.
Then he came across something different. A husky female voice, no name, but just begging some horny guy to come and have some fun with her. Phillip sniggered like a schoolboy as he recorded a message for her.
"Hi baby," he breathed, putting on his best porn-star voice. "I've got ten inches of rock-hard throbbing meat for you. What would you do with that?" A couple more key presses and the message was on its way.
Phillip listened to the rest of the callers while he was waiting for a reply. There were a few new ones, he supposed people must be leaving and joining the line all the time. There was one in particular that intrigued him, some woman offering "no-strings fun to generous guys." It sounded to Phillip as if she was looking for a sugar-daddy. Or maybe she was a hooker? That made sense to Phillip, for a hooker to advertise on a chat-line frequented by lonely, horny men. Though he couldn't for the life of him imagine any of these losers having the guts to approach any woman in real life. Strangely, Phillip felt a kind of bond with this woman; like him she was there for a purpose, not just to get her jollies. He thought of sending her a message, but he didn't know what to say to her. He didn't want her to think he was as sad as the rest of them.
