This Is Just My Face

by Gabourey Sidibe

  The urge to throw up is always there. The same way the depression is always there. But my struggles do not equal weakness. I’m pretty strong and will remain strong. I’m smart enough to get help when I start to lose myself to my emotions.

  But there’s no ending. Food is not a habit that I could ever kick. If I was addicted to heroin, I could go to rehab. Maybe wean off it with methadone or Jesus Christ. But it’s food. I can’t stop eating food. I need it to survive. I guess you can make the same argument for heroin, but still: I’ll never be able to stop eating cold turkey (yum), which means that I’ll never not struggle with my weight, and I’ll never not grapple with the notion that I could just go throw up after I eat. Food’s just going to keep on being delicious. As long as I have emotions, it’ll be my first instinct to change them with banana pudding or macaroni and cheese. (And as long as there is Twitter, I will have emotions yo.) I’m struggling to find the healthy balance between food, feelings, and actual hunger while people on social-media sites continue to make fun of me. Meh. Fuck ’em. I’m prettier than they are anyway.

  12

  Twelve Sixty-six

  Hello?

  —Becky

  WHEN I GRADUATED from my six months of dialectical behavioral therapy, I was twenty-one years old and completely unemployable. I started seeing a therapist once a week, but besides that, there was nothing else to fill my time. I’d been in about five different psych classes prior to and during my depression. So I was hella expert at therapy! (I use the term expert loosely!) I couldn’t go back to City College because my grades had taken a nosedive during my depression. My GPA was so low that I wasn’t allowed to register for any classes unless I had a meeting with the dean to explain what happened. Convincing the dean that I was worthy of a second chance was the only way I was going to be allowed to continue my education at my dream school (it had taken me a year and a half at Borough of Manhattan Community College to earn a place at City). I ended up telling him that I had become sick with a brain disease. I meant to say “depression” but it came out “brain disease.” I immediately regretted it, because I felt as if I were misleading him into thinking I had a tumor or brain cancer. But I was more comfortable with him assuming either of those things than I was with saying, “Um . . . I don’t know. I just got sad for a while.” The dean seemed to know what I meant anyway. He asked if I was okay now. I told him that I was and that I was excited finally to get back to working on becoming a college graduate. He signed the paperwork I needed to re-enroll. Relieved, I left his office and went to register for class. When I got to the registrar’s office, I was made aware of the fact that I had lost my financial aid. I couldn’t use my mother’s low income anymore to qualify, and the bill for my classes was . . . I don’t remember. It was years ago. I just know it was more than what I had, which was nothing. The woman helping me could see the terror on my face. She took pity on me and advised me to wait until I was twenty-four to go back to school. She said that then I could use my own tax statement to apply for financial aid. At the age of twenty-four, I’d be considered an adult financially. I asked if I should consider a student loan, and she said, “No. I advise you to get a job and wait.” For three years? Adulthood felt forever away. After all the work I’d done in therapy to grow as an adult, it felt like I was right back to being a nine-year-old kid again. Pissed off and ready to be grown.

  I searched for a job for weeks. Months. But since I had very little work experience, no offers came my way. To be fair, I was completely unqualified for most jobs that didn’t involve flipping burgers. All I had under my work-experience belt was an unsuccessful one-day stint selling knives during my freshman year of college. Not just any knives! Cutco knives! The World’s Finest Cutlery (according to Cutco). You may know them as the knife set not sold in stores (for some reason) that features a pair of scissors sharp enough to cut a penny in half. My first sales call was to Crystal’s mother, and I had a panic attack while trying to cut the penny and couldn’t stop crying. I knew this wouldn’t count as job experience at places like Forever 21, and it didn’t, but I had also tutored an eight-year-old girl named Kaitey for about two years. She could barely read when I first started working with her, but her mom just tweeted me that Kaitey recently graduated in the top of her class from nursing school! Am I a wonderful person for teaching a child to read? Obviously! I’m basically Jesus. But does that make me employable? Apparently not.

  I asked my therapist what she thought I should do. Therapists never really tell you what you should do. They ask you what you think you should do. If they know the correct answer, they hold it close to their vests as if they were in a poker match in a way that lets you know, “I’m here to listen, but you will be fucking up your life on your own, kiddo.” My therapist told me that I was smart and that she knew I’d make the right decision for myself and to be patient and not think of myself as a loser. To be fair, I was twenty-one years old, lived at home in a crowded two-bedroom apartment, couldn’t afford to go to school, and couldn’t get a job. Plus, I had a six-month gap in my life spent learning to not solve my problems by sticking my fingers down my throat, an educational and workplace hiatus not easy to explain to prospective employers. Was she sure I wasn’t a loser? She said she was, and she suggested I get a job as a hostess or waitress. She asked if I had computer skills and suggested I try telemarketing. I knew that jobs hosting and waiting was a market cornered by actors and models, but telemarketing felt like something I could probably do. I was great over the phone. I had a pleasant speaking voice that didn’t at all match what I look like in person. I thought a job over the phone would probably be ideal until I remembered my failure to sell anything to people without crying.

  Listen, I could lie to you and say that I happened upon phone sex by accident while looking for telemarketing jobs, but who would that fool? We’re friends now! You know me! As soon as my therapist suggested “telemarketing,” I heard “phone sex.” Must be my brain disease.

  I liked reading the Village Voice for its articles about art shows, concerts, and stories about people living “alternative” lifestyles. (When can we stop calling gay people “alternative”? Now, please?) But the best part was the back page. The classifieds! There were all kinds of weird help-wanted and sex-toy ads back there, and I loved reading them. I knew that was where I’d find a listing for the only job I thought I could get. I’m not sure how the ad was worded. It may have said, “Phone actress.” I know it said, “No experience necessary.” Base pay and the potential to make fifteen dollars an hour. Yasss! I called the number provided. A woman answered and gave me an appointment to interview to be a “talker” for the following day.

  Honestly, I thought I’d be walking into a dungeon with girls in ripped underwear chained to radiators who were moaning into receivers in phone booths. (If that’s what I thought this job would be like, why was I showing up for the interview? Desperation. Duh!) I was surprised when I stepped off the elevator to see a normal-looking office. There was a glass door separating the elevator from the actual office, and through it, I could see a young, handsome Puerto Rican man at the security desk wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He buzzed me in and asked who I was there to see. I assumed that the radiators and phone booths were at the back of the office. I was led into what seemed to be a conference room with bright-construction-paper-framed pictures of employees on the wall. Motivational messages and inspirational quotes on colorful banners were hung from the ceiling. This office seemed more like an elementary school classroom than what I thought a phone sex office would look like. More than likely, I borrowed clothes from my mom for the interview, something I thought would look professional, but everyone there was in a T-shirt and jeans. Even the young woman leading the interview, who introduced herself as Gina. A pretty, dark-skinned, and heavyset woman, she looked busy, as if she had a lot of responsibilities. I thought the interview would be the normal one-on-one that I’d grown accustomed to before being thanked for my interest in the position only to never
hear from the interviewer again, but this time I sat down with two other women much older than I was who were also being interviewed to be phone sex operators. I remember silently praying that I would have it figured out by the time I was either of their ages. I felt better about being there because I was still only twenty-one and had time to turn it around. I remember listening to their voices and thinking that neither of them sounded very sexy.

  First, we talked numbers. I learned that this particular company had been in business for about fifteen years and was one of the more successful lines. The talkers made a base pay of seven dollars an hour, but if you were a good talker, you could potentially make up to fifteen dollars an hour in commissions. Commissions usually broke down to about ten cents a minute for every phone call. After ten minutes, though, commissions doubled to twenty cents a minute and tripled to thirty cents a minute after thirty minutes, and so on. There were other ways to boost commissions. If you were a good talker and a caller liked you enough to request you by name, you made two dollars before you even said hello.

  Then we learned how to “talk.” The interview turned into a forty-five-minute workshop about what to say and what not to say to a caller. Tips on how to answer a caller’s questions included: the caller will tell you what he wants you to say and all you have to do is listen and then say it. For instance, if the caller says, “Are you wearing something sexy?” the answer is “Yes.” He told you by asking the question that he wants you to say you’re wearing something sexy. Gina informed us that phone sex isn’t about getting the caller off. It’s about stalling the caller so you can make money. You don’t want to just pick up the phone and start moaning so the caller gets . . . done and then hangs up. A good talker makes the caller forget he’s paying to talk to you. A good talker makes her answers as long as possible to keep the money rolling in. “Are you wearing something sexy?” “OMG! I am! It’s new, too! I went on a shopping spree with my roomie yesterday! We’re the same size in panties, but my boobs are bigger than hers, and I borrowed a bra from her and stretched it out so we went shopping for more bras, and I saw this super-cute lacy teddy. It’s red with black bows on the bottom with these straps that hook to my panties and OH! So these panties make my butt look like a heart when I bend over! They’re black satin with lace around the sides, and the seat of the panties is mesh, and you can see through it so . . . if I open up my legs! But I’m wearing a silk robe over my teddy because I just had a visitor. My weird neighbor knocked on my door to ask to borrow milk. Really? Milk? He’s like obsessed with me. It’s so weird. What are you wearing?” Okay, so I’m jumping ahead here, but see what I did there? If that guy’s not already coming or whatever, he might want to know more about that roommate. He might want to know more about those panties and maybe even that weird neighbor. If the caller is freaky, he might want to know more about that milk.

  Gina told us what we shouldn’t say to a caller, too. That there were FCC rules and regulations that meant we couldn’t discuss certain things on the phone. We couldn’t mention anything of a sexual nature pertaining to anyone under the age of eighteen. We couldn’t talk about drugs of any kind, prescription or illegal. No weapons of any kind, no blood or guts or gore. A lot of men would call and say, “My stepdaughter is eight,” and the talker had to say, “Let’s keep the party for people above the age of eighteen. I won’t talk about anyone under that age of eighteen.” (Talker tip: repeat yourself whenever possible to keep those minutes up.) Some men would then say, “My stepdaughter is eight . . . teen.” Creep. But just so you know, there is more than likely no stepdaughter at all. No wife. Every call is about a fantasy. However gross and upsetting it may be, it’s almost never real. If a caller wants you to stab him or he wants to stab you, you politely decline and make him aware of the rules. You can scratch and spank, but no wounds and no bleeding. Some callers want to be choked to death. You offer to choke them until they pass out, but they are to remain alive.

  Another rule was that you, the talker, were not allowed to be any race other than good ol’ American WHITE! The average caller is a white male. After oppressing the rest of the world all day, that white dude wants to go home, call a phone sex line, and talk to girls he’s seen in porn or on TV. The average porn or TV actress is white. According to what I had already seen at this particular company, the average talker was a plus-size black woman. That’s right, white dudes! You might think you’re talking to Megan Fox, but you’re actually talking to . . . well . . . ME! The majority of callers expect you to be white, but there are times when you get to be other races.

  There are times when you get to act out any and every fantasy. Phone sex is like Netflix for the horny! And it’s all got a label:

  Barely legal: Talker is to be eighteen to nineteen years old. She’s horny.

  College girl: Talker is between eighteen and twenty-one years old. She’s also horny.

  Dom girl: Talker is a dominant mistress who orders the caller around and makes him do embarrassing things like wear girlie panties and laughs at the caller’s tiny penis. Weird thing is, she’s horny.

  Submissive girl: Talker is willing to do everything her master, the caller, asks of her. You’re not going to believe this, but she’s horny.

  Horny housewife: Talker is any age twenty-five and up, and also married. Also, super horny.

  Mature: Talker is age forty and up. Coincidentally, she’s hella horny.

  Trans girl: Talker is a sexy lady with a huge penis. The bigger the better because the white male caller will want to suck it. That makes her so fucking horny.

  Latina girl: YES! Guess who doesn’t have to pretend to be white for once?! You’re a sexy Latina from any country you choose! Maybe you’re American born, maybe you moved to America from Argentina to pursue modeling because you’re so pretty! Maybe you have an accent? Maybe you’re in America because you’re too horny for the men in your own country! Have fun with it! I almost always said I was Brazilian!

  And last, but also least in popularity.

  Ebony girl: GIRL! You made it! Are you horny? Yes? Then get yo black ass in here and tell this white male caller that he better not think about touching your hair! It hurt my heart to cut my words and suck my teeth in an effort to sound more “black” for the caller. I used to think maybe a caller who wanted an ebony girl was a shy businessman who worked at a firm for a black woman and had a crush on her but couldn’t cross the professional line and ask her out. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t be interested in dating a white boy. So he called chat lines to talk to black women to help boost his confidence so that one day he’d gain the nerve to actually ask her on a date. Fantasy works for everyone. Not just the callers.

  But hold on! I didn’t have the job yet! We were still at the interview/training workshop. Now it was time for the audition. We three talker candidates moved to a room set up with some desks obviously belonging to the women who worked in the training department, and across from those desks were what I would learn were “talking stations”—about four cubicles lined up one by one, each with a computer on a desk with headsets plugged into them. No receivers in telephone booths as I had suspected. The computer showed us how many talkers were on phone calls and how many talkers were available and waiting for callers. Gina was now joined by two more trainers, also plus-size black women, who would also be listening in and monitoring each of us on our calls. The older ladies and I were given names to use with the callers based on the sound of our voices. My twenty-one-year-old voice sounded about fifteen years old. Gina remarked, “Ooh, yeah, you sound really young and you got that high voice! They’ll love you. Tell them your name is Becky.” (Yes. Becky was my audition name.) The other women had deeper voices and therefore were given more mature names like Diane and Kathleen. We all sat at our stations and waited for our calls.

  I was so pumped! I was nervous but mostly excited to put into practice all the tricks I had just learned in the training session. I was ready to listen and ready to be sexy! After about a minute, my phone ran
g and I picked up.

  “Hello? This is Becky! Who’s this?”

  “My hand is on my cock and it’s so hard!!!”

  “Oh . . .”

  My forty-five minutes of training left my brain in .045 seconds. I had no idea what to say! I was twenty-one years old! I wasn’t a virgin, but I certainly wasn’t some hot and horny temptress who knew exactly what to do with that hard cock. I didn’t know what to do with it in person, and I didn’t yet know what to do with it in a white-male fantasy. I mean, damn! Where was the romance? I didn’t think I’d have to just get in there and start pretending to . . . wait. It flashed into my brain that Gina had given us very clear instructions that every call should start by getting the caller’s name, location, and age. I was already behind on all of that. I overheard both the older ladies on their own calls and I panicked. I had to catch up. I started all over again.

  “Hi! I’m Becky. What’s your name?”

  Click.

  I lost him. He hung up on me. My very first caller wasn’t having any of my “Hi! I’m Becky” bullshit. The trainers all looked at me and shrugged. Three more calls came through for Becky. Neither of them lasted more than a minute. I wasn’t sexy and I couldn’t even pretend to be. One of the older ladies who had been on a call for twelve minutes was told that she got the job. I knew that I would not be hearing that. Finally, Gina said to me, “Okay, you’re done.” I took the headset off so that I could hear that I wasn’t getting the job, but just as it touched the desk, Becky got another call. I looked at Gina, and she said, “It’s okay. Take it.”