Response to 1-900

            This particular story was intriguing as well as a little creepy. A man, who seems to be extremely lonely calls into a phone sex line, however he doesn’t really seem to have an interest in participating in the phone sex until he has gotten to know the girl on the line. As the two continue to talk about very personal matters, the girl on the line seems to get a little freaked out by this mystery man who is telling very personal things about himself as well as trying to learn personal things about the young woman on the line.

            I definitely thought the story was interesting, and it kept me reading because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen exactly. A lot of times in stories you get to hear the characters speaking as well as what is going on inside of their heads. I liked the fact that we didn’t really know what the characters were thinking. We got clues throughout the dialogue as to how they felt, however it never right out said what they man and were actually feeling. At some points you start to think that the girl, Marilyn/Sharon will start opening up to John. As soon as she shares a detail though, she begins to shut down again.

            At first I thought the story was simply about a lonely man who misses his wife and kids, and genuinely doesn’t feel like he can talk to anyone. I began to change my mind about his intentions towards the end of the story though. After Sharon shares a few personal things about her life, including the fact that her boyfriend doesn’t tell her he loves her, John begins to tell her he loves her. While I found the fact that a man would be calling a phone sex line just to talk creepy in the first place, I really began to get a bad feeling about John once he started saying I love you. We never really find out what John’s intentions are, whether he really just wants someone to talk to or if he has some other perverted or sick motive.  In the end Sharon hangs up, and we are left trying to figure out what John was really up to.