This short story was interesting both content wise and stylistically. The concept of a man calling a phone sex line but only wanting to have a real conversation was actually somewhat predictable to me, just because I've seen it before, but it was the voice of John's character that made it more interesting. His thoughts jumped around and were sometimes almost nonsensical, and his general interaction with Marilyn/Sharon was just strange - which kept me reading. However, towards the middle-end of the piece the dialogue just seemed drawn out, repetitive, and unnecessary because it was no longer adding to characterization and was just rambling.
I'm not really sure how I feel about Bausch's choice to not use any quotation marks. Maybe the piece would have looked too "junked up" with them, considering it's all dialogue, but I don't think they would have distracted from the rhythm of the dialogue. Also, at some points I had to re-read parts to make clear who was speaking, and I just hate when I'm pulled out of the narrative like that when I'm reading something.
Overall, I enjoyed the characterization, topic, and situation presented in this short story, and I think it'd be interesting to try writing a piece in all dialogue like this one!
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