“I’m offering a whole night of the dirtiest, nastiest stuff you could ever imagine,” she says, breathing into each word like her body’s so hot even she can’t handle it. My imagination is running wild. “We can do it slow…or we can do it fast…I’ll be like hot chocolate in your mouth…”

“How can I refuse…”

“…for only three grand.”

A cold shower could not have crippled my hard-on more. “What?! Are you fucking kidding me?”

Her voice is all innocence now. “What’s the matter, honey?”

“I thought this was a hook-up app, not a hooker app.” That’s one thing I don’t do.

She giggles. “It’s worth it, sugar. If I like you, I’ll even give you a discount.”

“Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. Paying for sex kinda kills it for me, you know? Good luck.”

I cancel the call and let it show me the big ‘chat’ button again. I take a healthy swig of the whiskey in my glass and decide to give it one more go.

I push the big button, bringing the phone to my ear. Someone picks up on the other end, but for a few moments all I hear is silence.

“Hello?” I say. Another quiet beat. I’m about to hang up when—

“Um…hello?”

The voice sounds quiet, feminine, definitely over the age of consent, and too nervous to be a hooker. So far so good.

“Well hello there.” It’s not my best line, but her hesitation tells me she’s new at using the app, which means I’ll have to take it slow so she doesn’t hang up before the fun even gets started.

“Hi,” she finally replies back. There’s an awkward silence.

Wow, we’re off to a great start.

“So…” I say, trying to sound friendly. “What’s your sign?”

She laughs, and it sounds nice. Genuine, soft, real – the kind of laugh that you don’t get in Hollywood too often. I laugh a bit too.

“Truthfully?” she says. “I’m…a Scorpio.”

“Oh really,” I reply, drawing out the word, insinuating this actually means something.

“Why does everyone always say it like that? I don’t even know what it means! It’s the sign of revenge, right? And jealousy? But that’s not me at all.”

“It’s also the sign of sex, death, and reinvention,” I tell her. “You know, like rising from the ashes. Big emphasis on the sex part, as it were.”

“Oh.” She giggles nervously, and I can practically hear her blushing over the phone. “That explains a lot, I guess.”

“Does it, now?” I’m intrigued. “Explain it to me. I’m all ears.”

She huffs out a breath, exasperated. “That’s not what I meant! I meant, it explains why people assume things about me, not that I’m some kind of nympho or something. I mean, it’s garbage, right? Nobody really believes in this stuff.” She laughs again, and I can feel the warmth in it. Or maybe it’s the drink, because at this point I’ve lost track of how many in I am.

“How very sensible of you,” I say.

“I don’t know if I’m sensible. I mean, I’m talking to a stranger on a booty-call app.”

“Booty-call app? I thought this was for ordering pizza.”

She giggles again, letting her nerves out, and something about it makes me smile.

“Sorry, this is my first time using this. Have you done this before?” she asks.

“What? Spoken to a woman with an incredibly cute laugh? Sure. Not that often, though.”

“Haha! Very charming. But I meant used this app.”

“A couple of times,” I say, figuring the white lie will help increase her comfort level. “You? Any internet dating, or—?”

“Never. It’s not really my…thing. I guess you’d say. This is pretty out of character for me.”

“Oh yeah?” There’s just something so undeniably appealing about breaking in an uninitiated new booty-caller, I’m happy to listen to her talk about her lack of experience.

“Yeah. I just saw something about it on TV and figured I’d give it a shot.”

“People still watch TV?” I tease.

“Haha! Yeah…I dunno. It was kinda like…fate. The timing was just a little too…perfect.” She sighs. There’s clearly something upsetting her, and although normally I’d do a 180 at the first sign of baggage in a woman, right now it’s nice to know I’m not the only one having a rough time.

“So signs are garbage, but fate is a thing?”

“Haha, I know. I’m a mess.” She tries to laugh again, but I hear a tremor in her voice.

“Maybe. Aren’t we all?”

“I don’t know. You sound like you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Believe me, I really don’t.” For some reason, being honest with her is coming to me easily. Partly it’s the whiskey, but she’s just shown me her vulnerability, too. Normally I’d put on my game face and flirt my way past anything heavy, but with the anonymity of this app I can actually just be…myself.

“Oh yeah?” Her voice is genuinely curious, coaxing more out of me. And I realize: I want to tell her more. Some part of me needs this.

“Yeah. Right now I’m all alone in a house that’s bigger than the neighborhood I grew up in, I’ve drunk an entire bottle of whiskey since I got up this morning, and if this booty-call app thing doesn’t work out, all that’s left for me to do is hit the gym for the sixth time today.”

“You still sound better off than me,” she says. “My roommate just kicked me out and I had to move into a studio apartment that’s about the size of my parents’ bathroom, I’m drinking something that’s supposed to be alcohol but which I’m sure is some kind of tractor fuel, and I don’t even know if I’ll have a job to go in to tomorrow. So…yeah.” Her voice catches on this last line, and then I hear her sniffle and take a sip of something.

“Sounds rough,” I say, meaning it. “But things could be worse.”

“How?”

“You could have been connected with somebody else, for one. Rather than this charming drunk Irishman with an absolutely out-of-this-world six pack that you’ll just have to take my word about, unless you’d care to see it for yourself.”

She laughs, and I can hear a rustling as she adjusts herself. The nerves are gone.

“Confident, aren’t you?” she says, a little sultriness entering her voice.

“You’ve got to be, in my line of work.”

“And what is that?” she asks.

Shit. If I blow my cover, the fun is over. Sure, being a celebrity has its perks, but I want to keep my anonymity intact. I just want to be a regular guy talking to a regular girl – a girl who’s turned on by the person I am, not the person she thinks I’m supposed to be.

“Um…animated chicken?” I blurt.

“Ha! Right. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

I relax and don’t speak, letting the silence gather some weight. I listen to her breathing, until she breaks it.

“So you’re Irish, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought this app was supposed to connect with local people?”

“Well, I’m in LA. They haven’t banned us from America. Not yet, anyway.”

She laughs again. “Sorry.”

“I can do an American accent, if it makes you more comfortable.”

“Ok. Sure.”

I put on my worst Southern impression.

“Gurns. Jayzus. Cowbuwoys.”

“Enough!” she says, laughing. “Now I’m the one who’s offended.”

“Welcome to my world.”

This time she’s the one who leaves the silence, and the tension that rises in it is starting to get me going. I’ve been trying to have a proper conversation with people all day and ended up feeling like a chump for it, but this girl has me feeling like I could spend the whole night just listening to her laugh. My mind races trying to put a face to that voice.

I don’t even realize it, but my hand is on my cock, massaging the increasing stiffness that’s responding to this girl’s voice even faster than my brain.

“I…oh Christ…I probably shouldn’t say this…” she says, after a while.

“Say it,” I say, softly.

“I…just got out of a relationship. I don’t know what I’m doing…”

“Why did you break up?”

She pauses, debating whether to reveal the reason. “He cheated on me.”

“Ouch.”

“With my roommate, my best friend – well, ex-best friend.” Her breath hitches.