“The rough stuff?” I question, making Margo nod.
I swallow hard and try to keep a neutral face, but it’s a fight made in vain. The roughest things I know are hard water and scratchy sweater fabric.
“When I first started Call Me Anytime, I was a naive little pickle like you,” Margo continues with a pink-lipstick smile in my direction. “I knew the business—I worked at the Crazy Horse as a stage girl for a decade or so—but I didn’t think about how many specialty areas there are and how much more you can capitalize if you facilitate the niche.”
I almost laugh at how strategic she makes it all sound, but something about the overt sounds of sex at ten in the morning has robbed me of my humor.
“I used to have one line, and calls went to first available, but having separate lines for separate desires has worked ten times better and doubled our business. I make more, the girls make more. We’re all happy.”
I nod woodenly.Happy. Yeah.
Next, we pass the orange and purple booths, where the women’s voices are noticeably higher pitched and whinier. “Amber and Amethyst handle most of our role-players. Animals, characters, you name it. They do a lot of the kink.”
The next colors are yellow and pink, and the girls in these booths are calmer—almost subdued, actually. “Topaz and Opal deal with a lot of our alphas who want to dominate.”
I smile, but inside I am crying.What in the living hell have I gotten myself into?
Finally, at the end of the line, sit two more cubicles, one of which glows with bright white light and a sweet-looking young woman with a blunt blond bob and a big smile. She waves at me, and I wave back, trying my best not to look scared to death. “Your neighbor is Diamond. She deals with the rarest, most unusual callers in the whole place. And then,” she says, turning to the cubicle at my back that’s bathed in red light. “This would be your desk. The Ruby line. It’s pretty straightforward, with some mild kink and predilections, but takes a lot of calls.”
A lot of calls.According to Margo, a lot of calls means a lot of money.
“What do you think, hon? You’d really be helping me out of a bind if you start right now.” Margo crosses her arms beneath her chest and leans a hip on Diamond’s cubicle wall. “You can make your own hours, no problem. We’re here twenty-four seven. But I do ask that you keep in mind the commission-like nature of your pay as well as establishing somewhat of a schedule so your callers know when to get you. Trust me, it’s best for everyone. And if you’re not coming, you need to call me. I can’t do any more of this no-show bullshit.”
My mind is as bright white as Diamond’s sex cubicle as I consider taking the job. I mean, it’s bonkers. But also, high payandflexibility. Two things, with my life the way it is, I find impossible to turn down. Truth be told, if I turn this down, foreclosure, bankruptcy, and losing my mother’s caretaker are all in the cards.
Youhaveto take it. No matter how ridiculous it is.
It’s not a diamond necklace, but it is a Ruby phone line. And I guess it’ll have to do for now.
“Sure. I can start today.” The words seem to come from a whole other dimension. A whole other person. This isn’t just weird—this is a different set of time and space parameters, unexplored by man, alien, or skinwalker. I don’t think there’s a single sci-fi movie out there that’s traveled the alternate universe I’m about to.
“Great, hon,” Margo says with a smile as she lights up another ciggy. “Let’s get you set up and acquainted with the equipment, and then you can take your first call.”
Me, the virgin, taking my very first professionalsexcall.
Oh, yeah. This ought to be good.
2
Dominic
12:00 p.m.
The door to the Presidential Suite of the Monarch Nashville stands wide open as I approach, a line of yellow tape stretched across from one side of the jamb to the other.
My partner and buddy, Detective Shane Maddox, talks to Officer Kutch, the deputy stationed outside the hotel room, while pulling on a pair of bright-blue gloves.
The housekeeper who found the body upon entry to the suite is giving her statement to Detective Wilkins at the end of the hall, and for that reason, I’m kind of glad I’m running late.
I know she’s shaken up, and I even understand it. She knocked on a door expecting the guest to be checked out so she could do her job and turn over the room, and instead, she found a woman dead. But a detective trying to get details out of someone who’s barely holding it together is like a dentist trying to work in a mouth without teeth—not completely pointless, but a technical waste of time. The poor housekeeper will interview better in a day or two, once she’s had time to process the shock, and at that point, I’ll be happy to do the legwork.
I take one last sip of my Dunn coffee before pitching it in the trash can that sits beside Shane and Kutch.
“Ah,” Shane says in greeting, an ear-to-ear smile stretched across his face. “The fashionably late finally arrives.”
“You know I always need a caffeine boost before tackling a fresh homicide.” I offer him my biggest eat-shit grin, grabbing my own set of gloves off the forensic cart beside Kutch and wiggling them on.
“Oh yeah.” Shane guffaws. “That’s right, DetectiveDunnhas to get hisDunncoffee before he can do his job. Otherwise, he’s too sleepy to solve murders.”
