Cosmo needed to die.
Micah - Present Day
Distorted synthesizer thumped through the dark studio. The bass wasn’t strong enough to rattle the frames on the walls, but it prodded a tender spot in Micah’s brain. Sweat dried to his forehead as he stared at the ceiling, one foot growing icy beyond the edge of the sheets. Faint lyrics drifted, Mark Almond singing about being desperate for love and attention.
Someone was playing Soft Cell. Again.
Groaning, Micah shoved off the comforter and donned his glasses. He snatched the broom from its habitual spot near the headboard and rammed it against the ceiling. Ximena had taken his complaint seriously, but the memo she’d taped to all their doors, reminding people to keep the noise down after nine, hadn’t been given the same consideration.
He switched on the light, then rubbed his face and staggered into the kitchen. The clock on the microwave said2:24.After downing a glass of water, he dropped into his chair at the drafting table and blinked at stray pencil shavings.
After three weeks of the same songs recycled through the midnight hours, the lyrics and beats were familiar enough that he should have been able to sleep through them. But it didn’t happen every night, and the volume fluctuated, so it wasn’t predictable enough to anticipate.
Micah picked up a kneaded eraser and squeezed the gray putty between his fingers. His eyelids sagged. Snippets of song floated, and he questioned again whether it was really the upstairs neighbor. The sound almost seemed like it was coming from the middle of the front room. He’d pounded on other walls though, and the tenants had called him an asshole and complained that he’d woken them up.
The song changed, slinky synth and bright sax filling the room. He was never going to fall back to sleep with this going on. A stretched canvas sat on a nearby easel, the half-finished landscape staring at him judgmentally. Making a dent in it would at least be productive; he hadn’t touched it in so long that the thick oil strokes were probably dry by now. He shouldhave said no to it to begin with, but all his portfolio submissions so far had ended in rejections, and he needed any commissions he could get. When someone asked for a painting of a field, it hadn’t seemed like a challenge. Blue sky, green grass, her grandmother’s barn in the background. But clouds were weird, and trying to paint tiny, thin-stemmed plants was torture. The curves of a body, the way shadows fell on defined thighs or the tendons in a hand, was much easier to get right.
Who was he fooling? He wasn’t going to work on the painting when there was something far more tempting he could be doing if sleep wasn’t an option. After poking through his pencils and selecting an HB, he tore a sheet of paper from the drawing pad and set the materials to one side.
As always, he started this guilty pleasure by opening his phone and scrolling through contacts. Sometimes he dialed random numbers. Those were the most fun, because the conversations could go anywhere, the calls lasting for as long as he and the other person wanted. But most people thought he was either a pervert or a scammer. And starting the conversation withI’m definitely not a pervert or a scammertended to be the opposite of reassuring.
Customer service lines hardly ever worked. Those people only wanted to help him with his credit card, or his health insurance, or computer issues. But sometimes bored restaurant hosts would humor him while they took his order.
The sex hotline was expensive, but it was much easier to find someone willing to tell him whatever he wanted, especially this late at night.
He clicked the number and wedged in his earpiece.
A sultry robo-voice purred: “Thanks for calling, lover. Our operators are aching to talk to you. What gender are you interested in?”
“Surprise me.”
“Hang tight while I find your perfect match.”There was a click, followed by legalese about call privacy and how much he was being charged per minute.
A silky baritone entered his ear, drowning out the beats of Soft Cell. “Hey there. I’m–”
“I don’t want to know your name. Not even whatever pseudonym you use. You can tell me pronouns, though.”
“Alright, you got it. Pronouns are he/him.”
“Mine too. How are you?” Tension unspooled from Micah’s shoulders, and he relaxed into his chair. He sketched loose gestures onto the paper, building a boxy masculine frame.
“I’m good. I’m good. You lonely tonight?”
“Yeah. Can’t sleep.”
The operator’s chuckle rumbled through the earpiece. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I plan on keeping you up. Want to know what I’m wearing?”
Micah tapped the end of his pencil against the desk. “No. I want to picture you nude.”
“Eager, are we? Well, I’m at your service. What are you in the mood for?”
The only problem with calling a sex hotline was the operators expected him to, well, want sex. He’d tried making small talk with them as he sketched, the way he used to with his life-drawing models. In the past, the models would come to the studio and sit on a stool, lounge on the couch, or stand gracefully beside a chair, telling him about their favorite restaurants and pets and hobbies while he drew.
But trying to ask an operator the name of their goldfish while they were faking an orgasm didn’t work very well.
“Describe yourself, please. Give me details that I can picture.”
“I’m Black. Twenty-three. Dark eyes, dark hair. Athletic build. Thick thighs and a bubble–”
