The first time she heard it, Caitlin almost crashed her car in surprise. She was driving along I-5, trying to make up a little time after hitting a mammoth rush hour traffic jam caused by rubbernecking, when all of a sudden the DJ came on after the end of a song and said, "And that was the Stones, with 'Satisfaction'. And remember that you'll always get satisfaction no matter where you are with King Pleasure Vibrators."
Caitlin choked back a gasp of surprise and stared down at the radio, her brown eyes widening in shock. On her morning commute, it would have been merely inappropriate; the Chucklenutz Morning Crew frequently used the kind of crude humor that made her change the station as soon as the morning traffic report was over. But this was Hannah Gates, the afternoon DJ. She stuck to weather, traffic, a few headlines, and a little trivia every now and again about the songs she played. She didn't do fake ads.
But she had to be doing one now. "That's King Pleasure, the official vibrator of Station KTRK, the station that never stops! Only King Pleasure Vibrators give you the deep pleasure you deserve whenever you need it. At work, at home, or on the go--anytime is King Pleasure Time!" Caitlin's eyes widened in astonishment as an unmistakable buzzing sound filled her car, followed by a breathy moan that Caitlin had never heard out of Hannah Gates before. She wasn't really--on the air--she couldn't be--
A sudden flare of red light out of the corner of her eye forced Caitlin's attention back onto the road, and she slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting the car in front of her. Oblivious to her near-collision, the DJ on the radio moaned louder and louder until her voice melted into a hoarse, breathy whimper that trailed off into silence. Then the buzzing grew louder again. Then it stopped. "King Pleasure," Hannah sighed, sounding decidedly post-coital. "Find one at a store near you."
She went on to inform her listeners that she was about to play a long set of five songs by Heart, but Caitlin was too traumatized to pay attention. She honestly wasn't sure which was worse, the accident she'd narrowly avoided or her local radio's new foray into hardcore audio pornography. Could they even play something like that on the air at this time of day? Weren't children possibly listening? What could they have been thinking? Caitlin made a mental note to call the station manager and the FCC. She was no prude, but...
"Well," she muttered to herself, her mouth quirking in a sheepish grin, "maybe I am a little." Caitlin was well aware that she was out of step with today's permissive society, even before finding out that they advertised sex toys on the radio now. It wasn't that she didn't get...urges, she thought with a blush, feeling uncomfortably like the drivers in the other cars were staring at her. But that didn't mean she needed to talk about them to everyone who came along. Something like that was best kept to the bedroom.
Caitlin turned off the highway, heading back to her apartment and the relative sanity of two bedrooms, one bath, and no roommates. When she got inside, she tossed her keys on the table and pulled her phone out of her purse. A few minutes of Googling later, and she was dialing the number for KTRK.
They picked up on the third ring. "Hello," a woman said through a drone of static. "KTRK, the station that never stops! How can I help you?"
Caitlin shifted a bit in her chair, hoping to eliminate the hum on the line. It didn't seem to do any good. "Um, yes," she said. "I'm a long-time listener, and I wanted to register a complaint with the station manager, or the director of advertising."
"Oh, okay," the other woman said, sounding more than a little distracted. Caitlin bit back a sigh of frustration--she didn't want to start sounding like a cranky old lady at the age of thirty-five, but couldn't they find someone who didn't sound like she was surfing through Facebook while she was talking? "I, uh, the...the director of sales is out for the day, but I can get you to, um...to our public relations director."
Caitlin rubbed her temples, feeling the beginning of a headache from the insistent thrumming noise. "I was hoping for someone a little more senior," she said. "Is there a, a general manager or something?" She looked at her phone quickly, trying to figure out what was causing the bad signal, but the display showed five bars.
"I, unnnhh, I think..." The girl on the other end trailed off into silence, punctuated only by a long sigh. "He's g-gone, too. If you'd like, I can, can oh ysss...can take a message for him?" The girl's voice sounded strange, her breath coming in panting gasps between each phrase. The droning buzz on the line grew softer for a moment, then louder, then softer again.
"I'd much rather--" Caitlin's eyes widened in sudden realization as a groan of pleasure cut off her words. It took her a few seconds to find them again.
The silence on Caitlin's end was filled by the girl's grunts and moans on the other end of the line. Once Caitlin realized what was happening, she couldn't imagine how she'd missed it before now--the buzzing noise, the distracted tone in the other woman's voice, the little sub-vocal whimpers when she talked--but Caitlin still couldn't stop herself from asking. "Are you..." She struggled to find the words, her face burning with embarrassment. "Are you masturbating right now?"
"J-juss' a little King Pleasure time," the girl groaned out, her voice slurring with arousal. "I'll be done in, oh fuck, in a minute, I promise. Oh, oh guh-guh-gawwwd..." Her words trailed off into another loud moan, punctuated by the sound of the buzzing alternating between loud and soft. No, not soft, Caitlin realized. Muffled. She disconnected the phone in disgust, practically flinging it onto her sofa.
Feeling flustered beyond measure by the whole shocking display, Caitlin decided to have a quick dinner and make it an early night. She'd register a complaint with the FCC in the morning, and write the station manager an angry letter. If nothing else, that receptionist deserved to be fired. The shameless gall of it all!
Caitlin slept uneasily that evening. Her dreams were filled with buzzing sounds.
*****