Dial Tone

Title: Dial Tone
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Series: Naruto
Pair: Kakashi/Iruka

Summary: It had been happening for six months; calls in the middle of the night. Heavy breathing and erotic noises. Should he have called the police?

Author's Note: OK. In the midst of re-writing the final chapter of my story In Somnium, Aveo Captore, I was reading challenges and caught one having to do with a fetish for phone sex. This doesn't exactly fit into that category, but it's close. Beware the many euphemisms for male masturbation.

--

I: Auto-Dial

It wasn't every day at first. When the calls began, Iruka had just begun his third year as an Associate Professor of English Literature at the local college. He figured that one of his students was having fun at his expense. There were several candidates, just among the graduate students. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed that no one had reason to call him and pretend so convincingly to be pleasuring himself to the sound of Iruka's annoyed voice.

The first time, it was 2:00AM.

R I N G . . . R I N G

“Hnnn...Hello?” Iruka groaned, propping himself up on one elbow in bed. On the other end of the line, silence was broken only by breathing. “Hello? Who's there?” A gasp was followed by a short moan. Even in the dark, he could feel his cheeks begin to heat. “Sick fuck,” he growled, and hung up the phone.

Three days later, at one in the morning, he received another call. That time, it was obvious the guy was beating it. Iruka had been too tired to be angry. The Dean had given him his performance evaluation that day, and once he'd been put through the wringer he had to administer four mid-term exams. Looking back, he probably should never have answered the phone. But he did, and that only encouraged the man on the other end of the line.

“Hello...”

“Uuuh...ahhh...” The voice on the other end of the phone was deep and incredibly masculine.

Iruka lay in his bed, listening with morbid fascination to the sound of skin sliding over skin, panting breaths, and what he believed might have been Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata playing in the background.

“That sounds painful,” he murmured into the phone. “You might try going at it a bit softer.”

A short silence ensued, followed by the rhythmic moist sound taking up an easier tempo. Iruka was vaguely shocked. He'd meant it as a joke.

“Aaaahh...” Iruka heard the man's moan degrade into a sigh as he obviously came to climax. The line went dead.

Puzzled and mildly aroused, he hung up the telephone. Then, Iruka rolled over onto his side and went back to sleep.

--

Two months of occasional calls turned into three nights a week, then five, and finally, a week ago, the man began calling every night. It was almost like he could set his watch by the guy's overactive libido. And call him crazy, but Iruka felt an odd almost affection for the guy. He rarely hung up on him anymore unless he was really, really tired or in a very bad mood. Things had progressed to the point where he wondered if he'd be able to sleep if he didn't get his usual perverted crank call.

The only down side (other than having a pervert half-ass stalker) was that the calls were getting longer. Last night, his friend had choked the proverbial chicken for almost forty-five minutes. Iruka had never been able to keep it up for that long. Eventually, on the longer calls, the noises got to him. He was a lot quieter than the guy on the other end of the phone, and he hated himself for doing it, but...It was like needing to take a piss. When you gotta go, you gotta.

But that episode of getting wound up and then masturbating right along with someone he didn't know and would never meet simply drained him. As he got out of the car and headed into the local coffee bar for what he knew to be the best morning Joe in town, his head felt like he'd downed a fifth of tequila the previous night.

A little bell tinkled overhead as he pushed open the front door of The Dancing Goat. It was an eclectic place, to say the least. Benches were fashioned out of old doors and cushions pirated from Salvation Army sofas, and trestle tables covered with ball-point pen graffiti were the norm. Murals of goats dancing the YMCA, and Andy Warhol knockoffs of goat heads dominated the walls, along with four large bulletin boards advertising anything from pets for adoption to tutoring services.

When he entered, no one was at the counter, but he could hear a loud clanging sound from the back room. “Hello?” He called, upsetting an obviously hung-over student who was nursing what appeared to be a latte.

A disembodied head popped out of the door behind the counter, and he was greeted with a familiar sheepish grin. “The usual, Doc?”

Nodding, Iruka eyed the dark circle under Kakashi's visible eye. Had he been able to see the other one, it would certainly have had one just like it. He was without a doubt the most highly caffeinated individual on the planet, because he professed to get zero sleep. Running this place, it would be hard not to be an insomniac, Iruka thought as he said, “Yeah. And for Christ's sake, Kakashi, you've got to start calling me by name. I've been coming here for how long?”

The eye that Iruka could see began to roll. “Nag, nag. You got it, Iruka. Let me just finish giving my oven a bit of tough love, and I'll get right on that. Sasuke called in, and I'm here by myself.”

Iruka couldn't help the lopsided smile that spread over his face. Kakashi was pretty laid back for a guy that drank espresso like water, but there were times when he was just as nervous as anyone. Flapping a hand at him, Iruka started moving toward one of the tall, rickety tables that Kakashi had gotten from a local bar when they changed out the furniture. “Take your time. Class doesn't start until ten. Any longer than that, and I'm leaving you for Starbucks.”

The pale man disappeared into the kitchen, but Iruka heard him yell in mock horror, “Oh, the humanity!” Iruka just shook his head and sat down.

Ten minutes later, Kakashi emerged a beaten man. “I'm going to have to get somebody to come and put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.” He spoke more to himself than to Iruka or anyone else in the room, and went over to a small dry erase board to write in oven repair just beneath toilet duty and world domination on his TO DO list. Iruka watched as he then went through the motions of making coffee. Kakashi brought the large mug of Columbian medium roast (one sugar, with milk) over to Iruka's table. As he handed it off, he said, “You look like hell.”

One of Iruka's slender eyebrows rose, and he said snarkily, “Right back at you. I think it's time you switched to decaf. At least I have an excuse for my insomnia. Yours is self-inflicted.”

Kakashi plunked himself down on the opposite stool. “You still having your audio-jerk-off sessions with Prince Charming?”

Iruka choked on his coffee, and the piping-hot stuff nearly came out of his nose. “Fuck off, Hatake. I never asked him to call me and include me on his solo adventures. He just does.”

“And yet you never turn off the ringer. You could also block his number. Have you called the police?” Kakashi crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back against an imaginary chair back. Iruka looked away. There was no way he was going to say out loud that he had gotten used to his horny friend. Especially not to Kakahshi. He'd never live it down. Instead of answering, he simply used his middle finger to push his wire-rimmed glasses further up his nose. “Ouch. You wound me, Iruka. And here, I thought you loved me.”

--

“And so,” Iruka capped the dry erase marker and set it down in the trough under the white board, “we see that the Mariner is sentenced to an eternal punishment for his crime. Are there any questions?”
Feet shuffled all around the room, and several voices muttered. Finally, a hand rose. “Yes, Mr. Ishida?”

Ishida Naruse put down his hand and asked, “All that, for one bird?”

Sighing, Iruka could feel a tension headache coming on. “Mr. Ishida, I wish you would actually read the assignment. The Albatross is a symbol. It represented nature as a whole, which many at the time Coleridge wrote in were near worshipers of. In addition to that, it stands for innocence to some, as well as good fortune. The Mariner, in killing the bird, has committed a crime against the very order of the universe. Therefore, he must be punished accordingly, and in an appropriately horrific way.” Ishida nodded, though Iruka doubted he understood. “That's all for today. Please read the last Coleridge poem on the list, Christabel, for next class. Then, we'll discuss the evils of woman and loss of virtue.”

It was three in the afternoon, and all he had to do was begin going over the essays that his classes had handed in. Most of them would be drivel, of course, since they all seemed content to regurgitate what he told them in class. But he had to grad them some time. Iruka thought that perhaps he would go back to The Dancing Goat, but thought better of it. Kakashi was distracting on the best of days, and today was not the best of days.

--

12:59AM

Iruka lay on his couch, papers laying in an untidy stack on the floor. He had just finished grading them, but instead of putting them back into his satchel, it was much more enjoyable to sip a double of Scotch while he waited for his nightly call. He was nothing if not a creature of habit. Every morning he went down to the cafe and got the same coffee at the same time. Dinner was promptly at seven in the evening, and lunch at half-past one. His classes were scheduled and regimented, and he played tennis with Genma every Saturday at noon. And then...every night at exactly 1:00AM, the phone would ring.

R I N G . . . R I N G

“Hello.” Iruka said into the reciever. The man on the other end of the phone said nothing. “I know I've said this before,” he said lazily as he poured himself another drink, “but you should probably get someone to take care of that for you. Doesn't your arm get tired? Or maybe you're ambidextrous?”

Rhapsody In Blue by Gershwin began to play in the background, and Iruka sipped his Scotch. He was beginning to feel its effects, and it was going to start running away with his mouth soon. “I think that I need somebody to handle mine, too. Lately I've been just as bad as you. Getting turned on by the smallest things...” The breathing in his ear got heavier, and he heard the sound of a zipper. “Maybe I should tell you about it?”

A pitiful whimper came through the phone, and he grinned before allowing himself to sink into the cushions. “I like men with deep voices,” Iruka confessed. “There's a radio dj who has this absolutely sinful baritone. He said something about lingerie and I was almost late for work because I was imagining some gorgeous tall-dark-and-handsome man wearing lacy women's underthings. It's like I'm fifteen again.”

Silence.

“Are you there?”

The line went dead. Iruka pulled the phone away from his ear. That was odd. His friend had never hung up on him like that before...