It was a woman. A woman! A female caller is actually really rare. Women don’t pay for sex in any form with the frequency that men do. Women buy sex toys and watch porn, yes. But they don’t usually invest in prostitutes or phone sex lines. I didn’t know why Connie was calling, but I was glad she did. We ended up talking about Victoria’s Secret bras for more than forty minutes. (Talker tip: Women are the easiest calls because once you start talking about sexy stuff with a lady caller it feels normal to go off on a tangent about what the best way to get a stain out of silk might be, because who has time to run to the cleaners for one little spaghetti stain? Like do you even know how often I get stuck at work because my stupid boss makes me recount all the twenty-dollar bills in the petty-cash drawer over and over again at the end of the day? I mean HELLO! Just because he has OCD doesn’t mean I have to miss spin class, right? See that? Tangent!) I forget how the call ended. I think Connie just ran out of time or something. I don’t think she got off. I’m going to be honest with you; I have no idea how to get a woman off. I know I have lady parts so theoretically I should know, but I don’t. I know what gets me off, but I can’t be sure that delicious pizza and being left alone to play The Sims on my laptop will do it for other women.
When the call was over, both the older ladies had gone. I was offered the job! I felt I had really accomplished something! It had yet to dawn on me that the accomplishment involved men breathing heavily into my ear. The trainers explained to me that every girl who becomes a talker is assigned a number. The numbers are in chronological order, and if I left the company for any reason and then came back, my number would remain. My number was 1266 because I was the company’s 1,266th employee. Theoretically speaking, my number is still 1266. If a caller wanted to request me, he would be able to do it by number and/or by name because there were never two girls with the same name working for the company at the same time even though talker names were recycled. Gina asked me what I wanted my name to be. I chose Melody, figuring I had the melodic high-pitched voice to pull it off. I was Melody, girl 1266.
One of the trainers walked me over to human resources. YES! There was a human resources department. This was a real place of business! Isn’t that weird? I met with another plus-size black woman; this office was beginning to look like my family reunion. She gave me a packet of paperwork to fill out and explained to me that they couldn’t offer me a medical plan. This meant nothing to me as I was still, remember, twenty-one years old. She explained the rules of the company and made me aware that I was on probation for the first three months of my employment there. She informed me that working at the company would be a fun experience as there were random tea parties and holiday celebrations all the time. Every girl’s birthday was celebrated, and there were lots of games talkers played to boost morale. Each talker had the ability to gain “stars” for calls longer than ten minutes. Stars could be saved up and then turned in for Best Buy and Target gift cards and other prizes. There were talkers who saved stars to buy Christmas presents and furnish their homes. The HR woman took me on a tour of the office. I met the receptionist and the supervisors. I met the operators. Operators are not talkers. They take the callers’ credit card information and then put them through to the talker requested. (Talker tip: Make friends with the operators. If a caller requests a girl who isn’t currently at work, an operator can suggest that the caller try a new girl. You! They’ll send you a note detailing what the guy is into, and when you get the request . . . that’s right! You make two dollars before you even say hello! But operators only do this for their friends. Remember this.) I was showed the nap room. This was a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week company. We were open on New Year’s and Christmas and every major holiday in between—those days paid time and a half, which meant you could make $22.50 an hour. You could choose your own hours, working from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for a more traditional workday or 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. if you preferred. Even better, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., when the base pay shot up to nine dollars an hour. For those who liked to work overnight, falling asleep was a real hazard, so you could reserve some time in the nap room and spend your hour-long break in there taking a snooze before you got back on the phones. This was going to be an amazing place to work. I asked how I could apply for a position other than talker. I was informed that every woman at the company started out as a talker and that while it takes years to move up in the company it could, in fact, happen if I worked hard enough. But when the HR woman introduced me to Girl 150 who was still just a talker, I got how long it could take to move up in the company. What hope did Girl 1266 have? I was sent home to develop a life and character for Melody as if I’d be with her a long time.