Zack stood up and stretched his arms above his head, rising onto the toes of his red Converse sneakers. His joints popped pleasantly, and the hem of his shirt rode up over his flat stomach. One of the major selling points of becoming a phone sex operator was the dress code, or lack thereof. Since his clients couldn’t see him, it didn’t matter if he showed up in street clothes. His boss certainly didn’t care, so long as he made money. It was Casual Friday all week long.

Zack poked his head out of his cubicle and surveyed the room. More cubicles and desks dotted the open space, but the similarities to a normal office ended there. Murmur Inc. was located in a disused recording studio. An assortment of old mixing consoles, audio workstations, and equalizers were piled haphazardly in the back. At night, the blue walls and olive carpet looked gray beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting. Zack preferred to work the afternoon-to-evening shift. When sunset rolled around, warm light flooded through the windows on the west side of the building, casting the office in gold and shadow. It created the perfect atmosphere for seduction.

Zack stepped out of his cubicle and glanced toward a desk that was two up and one over from his. To his immense pleasure, it was occupied. He strolled up to a woman with multiple facial piercings and shockingly purple hair that had been shaved on one side. She was perched on the edge of a desk identical to Zack’s, and seemed utterly absorbed in the task of filing her neon-green nails.

Zack waited for her to acknowledge him, but she just kept filing. Zack fought a smile and stepped closer. And closer. And closer, until their knees were nearly touching. The corner of her mouth twitched up, and Zack knew he’d won.

“So, Alexa—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Don’t even think about it, Zack.” Her deep voice was at odds with her petite frame. “I’ve given you enough already.”

Zack pressed his palms together in mock supplication. “Please? Pretty please? You know I left my pack at home. Plus, if you come with me, I’ll tell you about this freaky caller I had.”

“We all get freaky callers,” Alexa protested, but she tossed her nail file into the pencil holder on her desk and stood up. “Fine. I’ll do it, but only because you look especially hot today.”

Zack glanced down at himself. He was wearing his “working on my car” clothes: a black, fitted shirt and old jeans that sported several oil stains. He had to admit, he looked rugged. “Darling, I’ll wear this every day if it’ll make you happy.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Alexa opened the top drawer of her filing cabinet and extracted a pack of cigarettes. Zack was far from a regular smoker, but he indulged more often than he liked to admit. It was a combination of peer pressure—his coworkers all smoked—and the fact that he worked in the sex industry. Postcoital cigarettes were a fact of life at Murmur Inc.