My phone chirping over the hum of needles pulled my attention away from my friend Frankie’s latest portrait tattoo. Some guy from Detroit had driven all the way here just for Frankie’s unique talent. I still got a kick out of that shit.
When I picked up my phone, a text message from a number I didn’t recognize read like a fucking novel.
Unknown: The Mingan Island Cetacean Study Group has been using photographic techniques to study humpback whales for the last 16 years. In that time, they began to realize that female humpback whales not only make friends with one another, but they reunite each year.
Isn’t that adorable! Such cuties!
If you’ve received this message in error, please text Unsubscribe. If you’re ready for another complementary fact, text Whale Lover.
What in the ever-loving fuck is this shit?
Me: UNSUBSCRIBE
Unknown: If you would like to unsubscribe from Interesting Whale Facts of the Day, text yes. But we really hope you don’t because we’d sure miss you!
Me: YES.
Unknown: YES, PLEASE! You just received a superspecial subscription to Sexy Words of the Day. There’s nothing sexier than a man whispering, “You’re beautiful,” into a woman’s ear.
What the fucking fuck? My fingers tapped violently across the screen.
Me: Goddammit. I don’t want this.
Unknown: We had an issue with processing your request. If you’d like to unsubscribe from Sexy Words of the Day, text yes.
Me: FUCK YES. UNSUBSCRIBE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS.
Unknown: You’re a dirty, dirty boy who just received a free picture subscription to Spank Me Daddy. Are you ready for your first picture? Text yes, if you are.
Okay. I’d been frustrated, but fuck if I wasn’t intrigued by this turn of events.
Me: YES
Unknown: Uh-oh, you just unsubscribed from Spank Me Daddy. We’re going to be so sad you’re leaving.
Me: I said YES, cocksucker. Fucking hell, you need better IT.
Unknown: Did someone just say the secret password?
Oh, yeah! Now we were speaking the same language.
Me: Cocksucker? That’s my secret password?
Unknown: Yes, he did! You’ve just won 30 days of getting to watch Cassie masturbate without getting to touch her. Congratulations, dickwad.
Unknown: Oh, hey, by the way, I got a new number.
Goddammit, this fucking girl. She was pure evil. I hadn’t heard from her since we’d parted ways in front of the coffee shop. I glanced around the crowded tattoo parlor and found no one was paying me or my half chub any attention. It was nearing one a.m., but this was when the place got really busy. Everyone was occupied.
I assigned her name to this number and shot her a reply.
Me: *whispering into your ear* You’re beautiful, Cassie.
Cass: I know. You should see me right now. Bent forward at the waist. Legs spread. And…
Jesus Christ.
Me: And what? What are you doing, babe?
Cass: Touching…Lots of touching…
Yes. Hell yes.
Cass: Phones. Touching phones, you perv. Verizon has a strict pants policy.
Verizon? What the hell? I glanced around one more time before stepping out onto the sidewalk and pushing the little phone at the top of her message.
She answered on the first ring.
“Well, hello, Thatcher. You sure are a naughty boy, Daddy.”
I chuckled. “I’m only as naughty as you want me to be, honey.”
“How are you? Out chasing pussy?” she asked, and my eyebrows pinched together. She sounded like she was fishing.
I looked back inside the shop through the glass door and back down to the sidewalk. “No. At work, actually.”
“Work?” she yelled. “It’s like middle-of-the-night o’clock there too, isn’t it?”
“Ah, but I’m a man of many mysteries. You didn’t think I just had the one job, did you?”
“Well, yeah. I fucking did.”
I laughed. “I told you. I have my hands in everything.”
“I just figured that was a euphemism for pussy.”
Frankie’s gaze jerked toward me through the door at the sound of my booming laughter, and I shook my head at him. “What are you doing with a new number? If you lost your phone, you can just get a new one, you know.”
“Fuck that shit. And I didn’t lose my phone. I’m fucking responsible.”
“Right,” I lied.
“I am. That’s what the number change is all about, actually. The last four digits spell out ‘Cass’ now. How fucking great is that?”
My eyebrows pinched together again. “You changed your number so that you’d have a text acronym at the end?”
“Yes! I had a late afternoon shoot, and then went for a couple of drinks with the guys afterward.”