The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

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some ninja turtle action. Noah stayed blank faced and stirred his food for a while.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
Noah didn’t make eye contact. “Is what you said about the moon true? Does she love
me just like you?”
Margaret made a mental note to check for weird questions about the moon on the
parent websites. “Of course it was. Mommy would never lie to you! The moon and I
are very good friends and she wants to protect you. It’s like how you are my sun because
you are the bestest most brightest boy in the whole world and I love you so much.”
Noah perked up at the end of her sentence and gave a toothy grin, “Love you too.”
“Hey I have an idea bud. How about after you finish drawing a photo of you and the
tiger shark, you draw a picture of you and the moon!” Noah nodded and scarfed down
the rest of his food with five-and-a-half-year-old enthusiasm. After putting his bowl on
the counter, he bounced back into his room to continue coloring.
Margaret phoned the dispatcher and began her night shift. Like usual, the calls began
to pass by with no significant moments. She had memorized a few scripts from her
first few weeks, and they generally got the job done. Acting similarly to the moon she
supposed, she controlled the tide of the talks. She mostly just found a flow with the
clients and let them think they were guiding the conversation. Most men calling sex
hotlines wanted to believe they held some semblance of power of a measly phone sex
operator, but they were the ones paying to talk to her.
After taking as many calls she could on a Monday night, interspersed with her
checking up on Noah and his drawings, she decided to call it quits. She had been tired
since she woke up and talking to sad horny men hadn’t helped.
When her office friend referred her to the hotline she figured it would be spicier than
the same conversations about how “your sexy voice is making me wet” and how “my
neighbors are having loud sex and I wish I was riding you.” In reality, voices turned no
one on. And listening to her sleazy roommate have sex with her greasy boyfriend in
the bed next to her least favorite semester of college. But the gig did pay and she was
regularly dispatched vanilla calls while her coworkers handled the kinkier clients. When
she first told her sister about the side job, she had been worried about stalkers. After a
few months, the closest anyone got to guessing her true identity was a man who swore
she taught Yoga at the 24-Hour Fitness in Pasadena.
She quickly changed into her pajamas and pulled her hair up into a bun. Honestly, she
thought, it feels like the moon is just screaming at me to fall asleep. She padded into her kitchen
to get a glass of water, checked the time, 9:36, and walked to her son’s room. He was
fast asleep and already in bed with his crayons scattered about his table. Placing the glass
of water on the nightstand she tucked the covers around him and kissed his moonlit
forehead.
This is all for you Noah, I love you so much. You are my sun, and the moon will take care of you.