Phone Sex

Although the ear, nose and throat guy dismissed it out of hand, I was still convinced that the sleazy advertising executive whose phone number I got at a bar in Soho---where we met and made out briefly while standing next to the jukebox---was the sole reason for my inner-ear infection, and that I had contracted it only moments after my orgasm during phone sex with her the night before. It came as no surprise, really. Because when Charlene came over the phone, she shrieked in a way I had thought until that moment was reserved only for struggling young actresses in the middle of a desperately-off-the-mark audition for a role in some exploitative horror flick.

If the truth be known, I believe that I deserve any hearing problems I get from this charade of intimacy. I really do. I'm nothing but a "phone-orgasm junkie-monkey." That's how an ex-girlfriend labeled me at an emergency counseling session just hours after she caught me (in our bed, alone) fucking someone else (verbally)---or so she thought. She barged into our bedroom with the force of the LAPD on an ill-advised drug bust, flaunting the Polaroid camera she had niftily grabbed on the run from the hall closet, all the while screaming like some aboriginal chieftain.

At any rate, you can imagine my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend's embarrassment when she caught me in bed whacking (concluded on page 196)Phone Sex(continued from page 121) off to the juicy delivery of my phone mate on the other end of the line.

It was none other than Janus, a showgirl from Pittsburgh, an acquaintance I'd met years earlier backstage at one of my concerts. She was on my A-list of aural concubines, as she, much like myself, had suffered through countless years of disillusionment in the relationship game. This, of course, fostered a tremendous fear of intimacy, a predilection to talk dirty, hang up and go about her business-alone. My kind of gal.

And I have to tell you, I rarely cheat on my girlfriends, unless the relationship has pretty much gone south. That's no excuse, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that talking dirty on the phone to an old lover from some distant hotel room, then hanging up and immediately ordering room service, left me much less racked with guilt once I got back home than if I had done the deed in the flesh.

On top of that (and even sadder) is that I firmly believe I'm better in bed on the phone than in the sack. I mean, until the age of 35 or so, I was a pretty damn good lover. My biggest problem was blurting out promises and lies during my orgasm. With one girlfriend I practically yodeled in ecstasy that I intended to abandon show business and hang out in Egypt for a year while she studied King Tut or one of those old guys' remains to complete her master's degree. But then, what with my bad knees acting up all the time and my ever-increasing anxiety over misleading lovers and my libido getting cranky, I finally gave up, opting to just pull back, be alone and talk dirty to Ma Bell.

"Who is this?" I reply uncomfortably over my phone, responding to some provocative sexual come-ons for what feels like the millionth time today.

"Who do you think it is, you flirtatious, sex-crazed, repressed animal?"

"I give up---Marilyn Manson?"

"I'd laugh, but I'm already wet, you maniac. When can I see you again?"

"Oh, Christ, I haven't been feeling too well."

"You never feel well---I want you inside me so badly."

"I'm expensive."

"Fuck you. Are you touching yourself right now?"

"I'll call you right back," I lied. "Some wacko is at my door." I hung up and then kept the phone off the hook as I tried to discern just exactly who that was. I also tried to figure out why and when I'd been intimate enough with her that she would feel comfortable calling me like that after so many months, maybe even years, of not talking. I didn't even recognize her voice.

That kind of call happens to me all the time. I obviously have more problems with the telephone than choosing which long-distance carrier to use.

By the way, I'm not talking about those 900 numbers. Those are bullshit, a pale imitation of the real thing---you know what I mean. A person you really know on the phone is a big difference, isn't it? Maybe not. I mean, statistics can lie, but I have to admit that about 98 percent of the women I've spent most of my time in bed with, on the phone, have had a big problem with it. I've heard things like, "Are you ashamed to be seen with me in public?" or "Since I started dating you, Richard, my phone bill has gone up 75,000 percent and I've never even met you in person." OK, fine, so maybe I have a problem: I'm afraid to get close to a woman. There, I said it. Now that the cat's out of the bag I can admit that, as a member of this frightened species, I've devoted myself to becoming one of the world's best damn phone lovers. I can actually stay home, do my work, have sex on the phone and not go out until my excuses start to get shabby.

I'll admit that telling a rational, fairly sensible woman I'm dating that "an apparition sent from the Lord appeared on my refrigerator door and told me I was quarantined" generally left her cold and me in whack-off hell. I'm starting to freak out about this because it's becoming a problem.

Most of the women I've met in the past few years---who were justified in splitting after I failed to convince them we would have a much bigger psychological safety net if we focused primarily on improving our love life on the phone instead of striving for an honest-to-goodness, adult relationship---left me with no option but to consider using those disingenuous 900-number sex lines. I'm screwed either way. If I give up phone sex with a real woman, I'll be forced to grow up and get real. And if I decide to cave in to the sanctuary of anonymity, my cover will be blown after the first month, when my squeaky-clean accountant clandestinely meets me at a restaurant on the outskirts of town to chastise me for spending $12,786 in June alone, calling the number 1-900-Suck-Mee! He might also, meaning well, think it timely for me to let Jesus into my life.

I'm still looking for a new accountant.

By the way, do you know any hot single women with commitment issues?

Raise your Richard Lewis quotient at playboy.com/comedy.