PART 4
Our call to "Tara" wasn't rehearsed. We agreed that I would stay quiet at first, Eddie would start talking, and I would interrupt pretty quickly.
<ring>
"Hello?"
"Hey Tara... it's Eddie!"
"Oooooh! Eddie! I was waiting all day to hear your sexy voice again", Tara purred.
"Yeah, well, I've been waiting all day for this, too. So, Tara, I'm just wondering... have you been totally truthful with me about everything?", asked Eddie.
"Of course! What would make you ask me that?", replied Tara, the uneasiness in her voice starting to show.
"I don't know... maybe my friend here can explain it better...."
"Hi Tara. Remember me?", I interrupted. "I think it's time we all had a talk."
"Todd? Is that you? How do you know Eddie?"
"Eddie's been my friend for a long time," I replied. "I know you didn't realize that. You also probably know by now that we compared notes. You were telling both of us at the beginning that each of us was the only man for you, and that you had been waiting for each of us your whole life. Remember?"
"Uhh.. well.... I....", she stammered, "I had a hard time. I liked both of you so much, and uhh... I felt weird admitting to either of you that I had feelings for two people. I knew I couldn't continue doing that, which is why I told you to stop calling me, Todd. I had to choose one and I chose Eddie. I'm really sorry. I liked you a lot, too, but you never seemed... ummm... comfortable with me. Eddie was. So I made up that excuse about you being a hacker as the reason I didn't want to talk to you. I'm sorry for hurting you."
"Tara, I'm not worried about you stopping talking to me. That's not the issue at all right now. The issue is that you've lied about a lot of things. You said you live with your parents, right?", I asked.
"Uhh... yes, I do. Why are you asking that?"
"If you live with your parents, how come the only two phones in the house are registered to an older Filipina woman and a guy named David Duler?", I replied, starting to turn up the heat.
"I don't know! I don't know what you're talking about! I live with my parents! I told you guys both the truth! Why are you doing this to me?"
"Tara, we know you're not what you claim to be. We're going to need some answers here, or things are going to get pretty bad for you," I stated matter-of-factly.
"This is too much! I don't know why you guys are doing this to me! I liked you so much! I don't want either of you to call me again!"
<click>
And she was gone.
"See? I told you that would happen," said Eddie. "That fag's never gonna tell us the truth."
"We'll keep calling back until he does," I replied, and I dialed Tara right back on 3-way.
"Hello?"
"Tara. Don't hang up again. You need to face what you did here. I'll cut to the chase", I said, ready to drop the bombshell. "I know everything. I know you are really a guy named David Duler. I know you are unemployed and live off of an older Filipina woman. I know that you're gay, and aren't actually attracted to her. I know that after she falls asleep at night, you sneak out of her bed, get on the party line, and get your real sexual satisfaction over the phone with men whom you trick into believing you're female."
"You're crazy! What do you mean I'm a man named David? Do I sound like a man? Do you understand how insane you sound? Just leave me alone already!"
"Tara," I said calmly. "We're not leaving you alone until you own up to what you did and explain yourself to us."
"I have nothing to explain! I told you the truth! I'm an 18-year-old girl who models for FHM and other magazines. I don't know this David, or some older woman from the Philippines, or anything else you're talking about! I don't know where you got all this. Please, just stop calling me and let me be."
"I'm losing my patience here. We aren't going away. The best thing you can do for yourself right now is tell the truth. Now let's try again. Who is David Duler, and why is your phone in his name?"
"I don't know any David Duler!! How many times do I have to...."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!", interrupted Eddie. "DO YOU HEAR ME??? SHUT THE FUCK UP. Now listen. I've got a rifle here, it's in my hands right now. Do you know why I'm holding it? Do you know what I want to do with it? Because when I found out about what you did to me, all I've wanted to do was FUCKING KILL YOU, and that's still what I want to do."
<Sound of a rifle being loaded is heard in the background.>
"Did you hear that? That bullet's for you," threatened Eddie. "Every moment you lie to us, every moment you treat us like fools, it makes me just want to come over there RIGHT NOW and put that bullet in your fucking idiotic head. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"Eddie, please, you're scaring me, I don't know what you're saying, and....", she said with a trembling voice.
"SPEAK IN YOUR MALE VOICE NOW!", commanded Eddie, in a psychotic tone of voice.
"Eddie, I can't do that. I'm a girl. There's no way I can do..."
"SPEAK IN YOUR MALE VOICE! I'm fucking warning you you're running out of chances. SPEAK IN YOUR MALE VOICE OR YOU'RE DEAD!"
"Please, please... you're making some mistake", a crying Tara pleaded.
I was getting uncomfortable. Eddie was even scaring me. And part of me was actually starting to feel sorry for Tara. What if we were wrong?
"Hang on Eddie," I said, "Let's calm down a bit, let's give Tara a chance to...."
"NO I'M NOT FUCKING CALMING DOWN! SPEAK IN YOUR MALE VOICE!!! I'm fucking loading this thing right now and I'm coming over. That's it. I don't care what happens to me. I'm gonna make sure this fag doesn't do this again to anyone, and..."
"Wait, Eddie, don't! Let me explain," interrupted Tara.
"I DON'T WANT YOU TO EXPLAIN. I want you to SPEAK IN YOUR MALE VOICE! DO IT!!! DO IT!!! Let's hear it!! Let's hear the male voice, you pathetic fag, or I swear, I'm coming down right there and you're not gonna live through the night. SPEAK IN YOUR MALE VOICE!"
An uncomfortable silence filled the line for about 5 seconds.
"Okay, fine," said the clearly male voice on the other end.
"OH MY GOD!!! OH MY FUCKING GOD!! It's true!! It's true!! You're really a man! Oh my fucking God!", exclaimed Eddie.
Tara was gone. We were on the phone with David.
"David, so nice to finally meet you," I said sarcastically. "We have a lot of questions for you my friend."
"Yeah okay. Go ahead. What do you want to know?", asked David, in his calm, nondescript, male voice.
"So we already know you are Tara. But was I right about the rest of the stuff? You're gay and pretending to be straight so this older woman can support you, and you're sneaking out of bed late at night so you can get off on the phone with men, right?"
"Uh, yeah, that's pretty close," he said. "Look, I know I fucked up here. If I told you guys the truth, you wouldn't have talked to me. I can do that Tara voice really well, so I figured I'd' just do that, and nobody would ever know. I used to work in phone sex... as a girl. Not a single person ever guessed the truth. I knew I could pull it off, and I felt it wasn't hurting anyone."
"You weren't just having phone sex," I explained. "You were pretending to get emotionally attached. This wasn't just empty phone sex. You were trying to make us believe you were falling for us. What was supposed to eventually happen? Obviously you couldn't ever meet us."
"I never thought that far ahead," David replied. "I just said what I thought sounded good. No, I wasn't going to meet anyone. I was going to find ways out of it. Look, as I said, I fucked up. I'm really sorry. I'm living a double life here. It's hard."
"I don't understand. If you're gay, why not just go be with another man? Why be with a woman, pretend to love her, and then trick straight dudes into having phone sex with you?"
"Because gay men are disgusting," he replied. "I don't like them. I want a straight guy. This is the only way I can have one. I really do wish I was a girl."
"Can you believe this lying queer?", asked Eddie, still somewhat in shock that his dirty female phone friend was this dude matter-of-factly describing his manipulation of straight men.
"Yeah, Eddie has a point here," I said. "This is really nasty what you're doing to guys on these lines. This has to stop. You hear how angry Eddie is? That's not an act. If you want us to forget about this, and forget about you, then I want you to retire from these party lines forever. Go away and don't ever let us hear from you again."
"I don't see why it's your business if I continue to call these lines. I won't bother you guys anymore, so I don't see why..."
"ARE YOU STUPID?", yelled Eddie. "I was about to blow your head off a few minutes ago for the bullshit you did to me, and now you're trying to tell us you're gonna go right back on the party line and do this shit to others? Are you fucking serious? Do you know who you're talking to here? Do you think I'm kidding? Do you think this anger is fake?"
"Okay, okay, I'll stay off the lines. Fine. I promise. I'm done with this. You have my word," replied David.
"All right, David. We're going to be checking. You had better not let us hear you out there, or there's going to be some big trouble coming your way."
"You won't. I'm done. I'm really sorry for what happened. Can I go now?"
"Yeah, David, you can go," I answered. "Just remember what I said. We're not joking."
I could tell Eddie wasn't satisfied. Now that we verified Tara was David, he wanted revenge. I had never seen a violent side of Eddie before, aside from the fascination with his rifle. He had always seemed like the most softspoken, agreeable guy. The crazy, ranting Eddie I heard that night was like a different person. He clearly wanted to inflict pain upon David for what he did.
I tried to understand. I was too skeptical to fall for Tara. I wouldn't take her phone sex bait. Eddie had. He fell hook, line, and sinker. Not only did he feel like a mark, but he was thoroughly disgusted that a gay man had essentially phone raped him. His strong Catholic beliefs probably also played into the anger.
"Do you really believe him? You think that fag is gonna stay off the lines? There's no chance," Eddie opined.
"He seems pretty spooked," I replied. "Besides, why would he come back? He knows that we will hear him and tell everyone, anyway. I think that's the last we'll hear from him. Let's just drop it. No one will ever know about this, and I won't tell the rest of the group about what happened. I won't tell anyone."
"Yeah, okay. I guess it's just too fresh and I can't get over it yet. I will. You're probably right," conceded Eddie.
------------------------------
ONE WEEK LATER ON THE PARTY LINE:
<ding>
"Hey, who just called in?"
"Hi... who are you?"
"My name is Mike. I've never heard you on here before. Are you new? What's your name?"
"My name's Tara. You're right, I'm brand new here. You have a really sexy voice, Mike. Can I call you?"
END PART 4
Conclusion part to be posted later today.
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Originally Posted by RealTalk
