The Phone Call
Authors note: Just a short stand-alone story inspired by an old joke I heard again recently.
Chapter One:
Francesca 'Frankie' Friedmann closed her brown eyes, shaking her head wearily as the landline in her home began ringing again. There had been a spate of nuisance calls lately, criminals seeking to get personal information, banking details, IP addresses; whatever they could glean from the innocent or the unwary.
RING-RING, RING-RING
As always, she was tempted to let it just ring out but she had done that twice, both times it had been her mother. She loved that woman but on balance the odd nuisance call was a far better deal than the grilling she would get from not taking her mom's call promptly. Frankie had already been getting it in the ear from her for renting her own place in an effort to get some personal space. 'Wasting money, perfectly good room here with me and your father, brought you up to be more sensible than that...' on and on she'd go.
RING-RING, RING-RING
Fuck it! Frankie unfolded her long limbs from the comfortable perch she had settled into and got out of the armchair, walking to the phone. 'Too tall and too skinny' was her mother's constant complaint. In a reflective mood, Frankie would often bemoan the fact that she hadn't inherited her mother's large bosom. Unlike her Frankie just had a 32A bust on a 5'7 frame. However, she would always end up consoling herself in the fact that she also didn't inherit her mother's massive behind.
RING-RING, RING-RING
Frankie tucked her raven black hair over her ear and picked up the phone's receiver.
"Hello?" she answered in a flat disinterested tone.
"Hello, I am ringing about some recent transactions on your bank account. If you can give me some details, I'd appreciate it." said an unfamiliar voice in the sort of tone that only comes from reading out a prepared script.
Frankie rolled her eyes and was about to hang up when a thought occurred to her. She cleared her throat, channelled her mother and began talking excitedly.
"Oh my God, thank God you just called. I've been wanting to talk to somebody about this" she said.
"Uh, what?" came the confused reply.
"You know I was just saying it to my mother the other day when we are at the bank. Do you know my mother? You must do, and Mrs Zimmerman from number 52? Anyway, there we were in the queue at the bank and my mother, now remember Mrs Zimmerman wasn't there...or maybe she was, but I didn't see her. So naturally I said..." Frankie stopped talking as soon as the person on the other end of the line hung up. She had been proud of herself that she hadn't laughed during her performance but she cracked up now, removing her glasses to wipe tears from her eyes.
Her new technique kept her amused over the next hour as she fielded three more calls, each caller frustrated to the point of ringing off.
Frankie made herself a light dinner, some cheese and crackers and some bottles of ale from a microbrewery that had started up just two blocks over. She was settling down with her snacks in front of the TV when the phone rang again.
"These guys just don't learn do they?" she muttered as she went over to the thrilling phone.
RING-RING, RING-RING
"Hello?" she answered, cautious at first in case it wasn't a nuisance call.
There was no answer although she thought she could hear breathing on the other end.
"Hello?" she repeated.
Again, no reply. Frankie started to worry that maybe it was one of her parents, perhaps they'd fallen or had a stroke or something and couldn't answer her.
"Hello?" she tried once more. If no one answered this time then she'd hang up and call home to check.
"I bet..." It was a man's voice, deep, like it was coming from a well. "I bet you'd like me to come around to your place. Break through your door. Grab you by the hair. Pull you up the stairs. Throw you onto your bed. Rip all your clothes from your body. Take out my BIG. BLACK. COCK, and fuck you ALL. NIGHT. LONG."
"Wow!" Frankie said after he had finished. Again, she had surprised herself with her own self-control that she hadn't begun mocking him halfway through his speech.
"Wow." she repeated, "I'm impressed, you could tell all that about me just from me saying 'Hello."
For the fifth time that evening she heard a click as the line was disconnected.
She must have fallen asleep watching the TV because when she jerked awake it was pitch black dark outside and Frankie was still snuggled up in front of the TV. Something had woken her though. Frankie padded her hands on the seat either side of her until she found the TV remote, then she hit mute, silencing the late-night talk show host in the middle of his monologue.
Silence.
But something had roused her. She knew it with the natural instinct mankind developed over thousands of years, the evolutionary sense of caution when a predator was near. She was only wearing sweats and was barefoot having kicked off her sneakers when she'd returned from the grocery store earlier that day. Frankie would have felt more comfortable if she had something on her feet if it came to the 'flight' part of a fight or flight situation. They were in the hallway, so she figured she'd kill two birds with one stone, collect them and check her front door at the same time.
As quietly as she could, she padded across the polished wooden floor towards the house's front entrance. The door was shut. Frankie released a tense sigh of relief and mentally chided herself for overreacting. She went closer so she could throw the security chain on the door, just for peace of mind. As she drew closer however she spotted splintering around the lock of the door. It had been forced!
Frankie backpedalled from the door in fright. Her normally sharp mind stunned by what she'd seen. Instead of immediately rushing out of the house and seeking aid, she instead had fallen further back inside a building that someone else might be in.
She realised her mistake when a hand came from behind her, seizing a fistful of her long black hair. Frankie screamed but hardly a sound made it free of her mouth before a second large hand clamped over her face, stifling her cry of alarm. The size of her assailant's hand was such that it knocked her glasses from her face as it covered her mouth. This put her at even more of a disadvantage as without her glasses she could only see objects that were close to her with any sort of clarity, anything a few inches from her face took on a blurred focus.
The burglar, she hoped it was just a simple case of a home invasion for the sake of robbery, began walking backwards, dragging her along by his two-handed grip on her hair and face. Frankie flailed her arms and kicked back as best she could as she was hauled along her hallway. She landed a few blows on him but none seemed to have any effect. She was sure she'd managed a glancing blow to his groin but even that didn't cause him to utter any sounds of discomfort much less release her.
He began dragging her up her stairs which put her ability to kick at him to an end. She didn't stop trying to punch him though, heedless of the risk that they might both fall down the stairs. And then they were moving on the landing. She heard him use his heel to kick backwards, a door slamming open before she was dragged further into a room.
He spun around, his prodigious strength twirling her through the air until she landed face first onto a bed. Her nose just an inch from the bedspread, she recognized as her own bedroom.
"Stay back, stay back or I'll scream!" she yelled, scrambling up and backwards towards the head of the bed. She tried to make out the figure standing at the foot of the bed but the loss of her glasses and the dimly lit room meant it was all just blur and shadows to her. A massive shadow though. The guy must be nearly seven feet tall she thought, no wonder I couldn't hurt him.
"Why?" The question was asked in a deep voice that seemed familiar to her; she was more puzzled at the question however than the familiarity of the voice.