You might be wondering what, exactly, the best kind of obscene phone call would sound like. Not just heavy breathing, or a muttered stream of someone else’s disembodied sexual fantasies, for starters. No, the best kind of obscene phone call would, I imagine, have to come from the kind of person you were actually excited to hear from, no matter how obscene their end of the conversation turned out to be. I would also imagine that the best kind of obscene phone call would have to strike some sort of chord in the receiver’s state of mind — transforming them from bored and listless, for example, to tickled and titillated. The best kind of obscene phone call might also structure itself around some semblance of a story, I would think; the kind of story that would keep you on the edge of your seat, phone pressed tightly to your ear, as you hang on to every word. The best kind of obscene phone call might very well include graphic descriptions of physically intimate acts, sure, but it also might merely hint at the prospect of sex. And that might be a relief, after all the in-your-face sexual content foisted upon you by Instagram and HBO Max, to say nothing of the algorithmically generated content of your daily porn feed. Which leads me to the number one criteria of the best kind of obscene phone call: the beautiful notion you might get into your head, after hanging up, that the caller’s words of lustful desire were meant for you, and you alone. ❤️‍🔥 —Y.B.D.