Operator

You know when you get those feelings of confusement, causing you to scrunch up your face in question and, or disgust?

Yeah, well, I’m getting one of them now.

“...what.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, making me go impatient.

“I said I was masturbating to you last night.”

“Uh huh…” I say back, the top of my lip curling back and my eyes beginning to grimace, “...that's what I thought you said.”

“Huh?”

I sighed. “How can you even jack off the someone you've never seen before?”

“Don’t know,” he says, me almost hearing the shrug in his voice. “I just did. I imagined you talkin’ dirty to me, like you usually do whenever we talk.”

“But that’s by accident,” I reply back to him, resting all my weight on one hip.

“Yeah, I know,” he tells me. “But I imagine you did it on purpose and that's what gets me hard.”

Oh that’s lovely...

“...and when I get hard, I need to get off...”

Thanks for telling me, my life is now complete.

“...and when I need to get off, I masturbate by fucking myself with my hand and a dildo.”

I can die happy now.

“Yeah…” I respond, my lower lip curling back. “…thanks.”

“Do you fuck yourself with a dildo?”

“Uh…”

“’Cause it’s much harder, I think. And it hurts. Does it hurt for you?”

I don’t say anything. He continues to talk anyway.

“It hurts for me, you know? Well, I guess it’s a lot bigger than your fingers, right? I mean, like… it’d be weird if a dildo was the size of your finger.”

I’m tempted to just hang up. I put him on speaker instead..

“I never got the idea of fisting. It’s like, how can you fit your whole hand inside of you? It’s like trying to stick a watermelon or something into your sink drain. It's just fuckin’ impossible.”

Watermelons… are they even in season?

“I guess it’s easier for girls. I mean like, they’ve got their uterus’ or something to put your hand into.”

I’m thinking of buying one.

“But how do they get like, turned on or whatever? It's like you’ve got a fucking hand up your vagina, whoop dee fucking do, you know?”

But I’d probably collapse from trying to carry it. I walk over to the cupboard and begin rummaging through it. I find spaghetti noodles.

“And like, they don’t have prostates like guys do, they have fucking g-spots or whatever. You can never find ‘em, right?"

I take out a pot and fill it with water. I put it on the stove and spill the entire contents of the box inside of it.

“Honestly, I prefer guys. They’re nicer and they don’t judge as easily as most girls do. I mean like, around guys, if you’re fat, you’re fat.”

God… why is it taking so long for the noodles to cook?

“…but around girls, if you're fat, you’re stereotyped into some grotesque ugly monster, just ‘cause you’ve got a little extra baggage.”

I look at the dial and squint. It’s not on. I fumble with it, trying to turn the knob.

“Are you fat? ‘Cause you don’t sound fat.”

I’m getting angry now. The stupid stove won’t turn fucking on.

“I used to be fat, in high school, I mean. It was terrible—“

“STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!”

The line goes silent as I curse the appliance. I’m fucking pissed now.

“I’m a stupid motherfucker?”

I turn to look at the phone. "No, I mean the oven. It won’t turn on."

He pauses. "...you want to turn me on?"

The cat’s back. I want to kill it. I’m wearing rubber gloves and a ski mask this time, just in case it decides to try and rearrange my face again.

It’s still mewing, like I'm its goddamn mother and it wants milk. It probably has fleas. Or an STD from being injected from all the heroin needles, used as a lab-rat to make sure the illegal factory's aren't going to be killing anyone and used needles that had already been escaped from its sterile packaging, thus someone using it afterwards realizing that cats don't have the same DNA structure as humans do.

I begin to wonder if it's wrong to kill an animal. When I was little, I remember my father having this obsession with hunting. I remember him coming back home, a deer and two ducks hanging lifeless over his shoulders. I remember me having some sort of weird fascination with his gun. I remember finding it and accidentally setting it off.

I also remember after that, the neighbors thought we were part of the Italian Mafia and didn’t let go of their judgement, even when my mother went over to give them a cherry pie she baked that afternoon.

Mew.

I squint. The phone’s ringing again. The cat is still mewing. And I want to kill them both.

Not taking my eyes off the animal, I back away slowly, making my way over to the phone. I recognize it as Gordon. I flip it open and press speaker.

“This better be important,” I snap, just as the cat leaves long scratches against the glass of my already mutilated window.

...curse those demolition sites.

“I thought I told you, no more personal calls! Not on this phone, at least! I’m paying for your god damn bill!”

Funny, not even a cheer filled hello.

“Uh huh…” I manage to mumble back quietly before I advance towards the window, flicking the lock open.

“If you don’t stop this, I’m going to track his number and hunt that motherfucker down!”

He’s mad. I can tell.

“Okay, you do that,” I say.

“And if you think I’m bluffing, just wait ‘til you hear about the murder of Stacy-somebody…”

“Aha!” I scream, wrenching the window open and pouncing on the cat, its body so tiny that I can wrap a hand around its waist. I hold it up to my face.

“Not so tough now, huh shortstuff?”

“IERO!” I hear him scream. “You’re not even listening to me!”

Upon hearing my name, I blink and quickly turn my attention to the receiver. “Yeah, what?”

He sighs, obnoxious and loud. “Look, if you don’t cut down the numbers on your bill, I’m afraid I’ll have to…”

A flame burrows itself it my chest and it swells up in hopefulness. “To...”

Please… just say the words.

“I’ll uh, I’ll have to…”

Just say it.

“Um… have to…”

“Just say it already!” I scream, making the cat squeal loudly and wriggle around in my grasp.

He lets out a deep breath and says the next part real fast. “I'm afraid I'll have to let you go.”

My heart is leaping for joy and my mind is clouded with euphoria.

“You’re serious?” I question. “Like...for sure?”

He says from my open state. “You’d like that, wouldn't you?”

“No,” I roll my eyes with a sarcastic tone. “Because I just adore having to pick up the phone and having a sex filled conversation with some guy on the other line, jacking-off to it.”

The cat’s still moving. I wonder if I can find my dad’s shotgun.

He laughs out loud, “good to know.” And he hangs up. I turn my attention back to the wriggling thing in my hands.

“Now,” I seethe through my teeth, looking through the eye holes of my ski mask before I tear it off, pointing to the red lines cut across my face and I point to them. “Do you see the damage you’ve done here?!”

It looks up from the carpeted flooring.

“You’ve marked my face, you piece of fucking furry shit!”

I can't help but let out a soft sigh as I see it open its eyes wide enough for me to think it’s cute.

“Fuck it,” I say, it yelping as I let go of my grasp and it drops to the floor. “I can't hurt animals for shit.”

I bury my face in my plastic covered hands and I blink, turning my head to the side slightly as I see it cock its head, sitting its butt down on the floor and it looks at me with this weird expression.

“What're you still doing here?” I ask, starting to get annoyed. “Get! Before I change my mind and kill the shit out of you!” It stays put and I’m getting frustrated.

“I said get out!” I holler, getting up and keeping my fists clenched to my sides. “I don't want you here!”

It mews. The phone rings. I feel like dying tomorrow.