The ads on late-night television imply that for about $5 a minute you can speak with an eager nymphomaniac clad in sexy lingerie and writhing about on the satin sheets of her king-size bed. “They’re definitely over 18!” many of the adverts proclaim. The callers probably assume the woman they’re sharing sexual secrets with is doing so from the private comfort of her own home. How romantic (or hardcore) would it be to hold an intimate conversation in a cubicle next to 30 other cubicles?
The phone sex industry exploded in the 1980s with the emergence of 1-900 phone lines. 1-900 phone numbers charged exorbitantly higher rates than regular phone numbers, usually by the minute, and seemed tailor-made for carnal interplay, or psychic readings. Despite the best efforts of puritan government agencies and the later development of technology that delivered porn to your phone, sex chat lines continue to endure to this day. There is a lucrative appeal, apparently, to engage in naughty talk with an anonymous stranger. It provides an outlet for men to engage in a soft-porn fantasy: the long-distance girlfriend experience.
One day I was shipped out to work with someone in downtown Brooklyn and I ended up having one of those “nymphomaniacs” as a patient. It was where my innocent eyes were opened to the elicit world of landline love.
We were sent to an office building in the business district. When the doors opened up on the 6th floor, it looked much like the typical office settings I assume most people work in, though there were some notable differences. The cubicles were larger than any of the cubicles I’d seen elsewhere and the dividers seemed to be covered in a thick soundproofing material. Large billboards near the ceiling, holding messages about bonuses and incentives, had images of shiny, red-painted lips talking into phone receivers held by hands that had shiny, red-painted fingernails.
None of the employees resembled the woman in the pictures hanging overhead. No one wore lip gloss and any manicures were subdued. The uniform of the day appeared to be sweatpants and unmatched leisurewear. There wasn’t a teddy to be found, though there were plenty of hiking boots and flannel shirts. Aside from the relaxed dress code, another thing that let us know we weren’t in the standard American workplace included the two large and very intimidating security guards at the entrance.
A friendly woman greeted us immediately and told us she’d take us to the patient. The woman wore a lanyard around her neck attached to two pieces of official-looking ID proclaiming her name to be “Bambi”, quotation marks included. A quick glance at the other lanyard IDs revealed that a name ending in “i” was likely a prerequisite for employment. We were surrounded by a number of Rikki’s, Tammi’s, Freddi’s, and Toni’s.
As we walked down the path towards the patient we listened in on snippets of raunchy phone interactions. The women vocally expressing their enthusiasm for deviant sex acts did so while filing their non-red nails, thumbing through magazines, and various other multi-tasks. One woman’s attention was intensely directed towards a birdhouse she was building out of popsicle sticks, while at the same time feigning believable interest in bondage. Her face lit up when we admired her handiwork as we walked by.
The whole time we were walking, we were followed by a young man, dressed in a suit and tie, holding something. When we reached our patient, whose lanyard gave her name as “Candi”, quotation marks included, the man propped a prosthetic leg against the wall of the cubicle. He gave a polite nod and left.
“My leg!” shouted “Candi” with delight. “Thank you so much!” She was a fairly large, middle-aged woman with a haircut that resembled a crew cut. It looked as if a tremendous effort was being expended to breathe.
“Bambi” told us that when “Candi” started complaining of difficulty breathing they moved her into a bigger cubicle that had a window, which they opened so she could get some air. “Bambi” proudly told us that “Candi” was their most consistent Gold Star employee and hoped we’d give her Gold Star treatment. Going by the billboards near the ceiling, it meant that she was receiving the highest bonuses.
My partner asked what we were both thinking, “What gets someone a ‘Gold Star’?”
“Call me and you’ll find out,” “Candi” said through labored breaths but with a wink and a sly smile.
“Candi” was sweaty and very pale. Our visual medical impression told us something serious was going on. We got to work quickly putting her on oxygen and assessing her vital signs. When we asked her about her medical history she dumped the contents of her large handbag onto the desk. She dug around through the pile that included her wallet, some keys, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a few candy wrappers, and a very large rubbery dildo, to hand us her medication bottles. They indicated she had hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and a thyroid condition. She also told us she had renal failure and was under the care of a cardiologist. For someone who was only 45, she had an extensive medical history.
She opened up her flannel work-shirt so we could put on the little pasties for our monitor and we listened to her lungs, which were clear. When I mentioned this to our patient, whose other ID said her name was Mary Robles, she gave a somewhat resigned expression. “Then it’s my heart,” she said.
She pantomimed the cardiac monitor paddles from the days of old, imitating the recoil of being shocked by a jolt of electricity, as her thumbs pressed imaginary buttons. She’d obviously been through this before, apparently with machinery using 1970s technology. When I told her we used sticky pads now, not the old-school paddles, she nodded sadly, knowing as we all did, that the pads did not hold the same dramatic effect.
Our modern cardiac monitor indicated that her heart was beating erratically and very fast. At the time we didn’t carry any drugs that would fix it. As Mary/”Candi” understood, a dramatic jolt of electricity was the only thing we could do. But we did have some drugs that would help our patient with the pain of the procedure. We just had to call our MD to get approval.
“Bambi” waved over to the phone on the desk and told me I could use it to make the call. She went over to help “Candi” put her stuff back into her purse without telling me about the numerous assortment of buttons on the phone. It was hard to stifle a laugh as we watched her try to wrestle that dildo back into the overflowing purse. My partner turned his head as he attempted the easier job of starting an IV. Making the phone call turned out to be far more challenging.
For the youngsters who have never used a landline I’ve provided this video:
I had some difficulty figuring out how to get an outside line with their phone. I couldn’t find a button that produced a dial tone so I started randomly hitting each one. It seemed that each button I tried gave me access to the phone calls being made from the cubicles around me. Each call I inadvertently eavesdropped on was long past any foreplay discussion and some involved heavy moaning. It was rather eye-opening conversation and when “Bambi” noticed my reactions as I quickly hit other buttons, she stepped in to assist me.
Laughing, she explained that we were in a “Quality Control Cubicle” and a regular assignment at this office was listening in on phone calls. “If the customers only knew…” she said.
With her assistance I was able to get in touch with our telemetry doctor who gave us permission to use Valium to sedate Ms. Robles. He and I both expressed some concern over the procedure we were going to do, given the overall precarious health of the patient, but the MD admitted there was no other option. The patient, herself, wasn’t the least bit worried, however.
“Bring it on, I’m ready!” she said, loud enough for the MD to hear.
“Looks like everything will be fine,” he told me.
Cardioversion is a heart-stopping experience, quite literally for the patient, but also for paramedic caregivers as well. After you sedate the patient and charge up the machine, there’s usually a bit of apprehension before hitting the button that will deliver a few joules of electricity through the benign-looking pads we use now, instead of the familiar paddles seen on screens large and small. Interrupting the abnormal electrical activity going on in someone’s heart carries the risk of stopping it permanently. It has never happened for me yet, at least in someone who was sitting and talking to me, but there’s a first time for everything.
In the case of Mary Robles, sending those 100 joules of electricity to her heart did nothing but cause her to utter a loud, prolonged, moaning-type of yell, which fit in quite well with her current surroundings. I’m sure the soundproofing material of those cubicle walls did nothing to block the sound to her fellow moaners nearby. Except Mary/”Candi” wasn’t faking it, this time.
Her heart went right back to the very fast, erratic, and inefficient way it had been beating before. This meant we would be pushing that button again, this time with a slightly higher dose of electricity.
Our patient was unfazed. “Fire away!” she said after we shot her up with another round of Valium.
We were far more nervous than Ms. Robles when we pushed the button a second time. Once again, we delivered the jolt which brought forth another yelling type of moan. It was also followed with a relieved kind of “Whew!”
We all carefully watched the monitor with anticipation. Thankfully the jumbled electrical patterns organized themselves into a regular rhythm. Our patient knew what this meant even before we told her and she raised her arms and yelled a triumphant, “YES!”
She told us she felt much better and her vital signs reflected it as well. As she grabbed her prosthetic leg she told me that losing her leg made her better at her job. I gave a confused look and she just smiled. I still wonder what that meant.
As we headed to the hospital, she told me that many of the employees there were customers of hers. I asked her how she knew but she just gave me another wink and a smile.
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