I knew when they came to get me for lunch today. 

Sometimes I’d miss it.  Sometimes, I’d come back and find myself sitting in the dining room with ole “Barney Rubble” trying to get me to open my mouth so she can shove some Gawd-awful mess inside.  (I call her “Barney Rubble” on account of her face.  That poor woman has a bad face, but I never tell anybody that.)  Usually, when I'd come back during lunch like that, I’d just blink my eyes to clear my head, scowl at her a bit so she knows it’s really me… and then I let her feed me. The food is really not as bad as I make it out to be, but they would think something was wrong with me if I made it easy for them. 

Beside’s… what I usually do at lunch time is look around for the woman in 9-South.  Something about that woman just brings my gift alive!  I know that's right. 

The doctor’s and my family think that I suffer from blackouts… periods of time when I am disconnected from their world and lost in one of my own.  But that’s because they don’t understand my gift.  I can’t really explain it to you… but I can damn-sure describe it.   Hee hee… I can damn-sure do that!!

My name is Alexander Cheney.   Nooo... dag nab it!   No relation to that big head boy they just took out of office.   Damn fool. If he was related I wouldn't tell folk.  Uh uh ... nope, I wouldn't.     

Anyway, I was born in 1919, which makes me older than most people… but not in here!   This here Nursing Home is where they take care of folks like me that have taken good care of themselves and lived long enough to see some of the things they can do today.  And can't they do some things!

But I like it in here.  Some of the women here are obviously in their 90’s like I am, and then some are in their 80’s, and a few of the young honeys are only in their 70’s.  My gift, however, is a real blessing for someone in a place like this… because when I look at one of these women well seasoned with time and the happening of life… it lets me see the woman that I think they must have looked like back in their prime.  I call that woman my "Cheney Girl."  

The amazing thing is that I can identify the "Cheney Girl" in some of these residents with my gift as clear as day.  I can see ‘em… I can touch ‘em… and I can hear and feel them talking and touchin’ me!  Oh my Lord.. yes I can.  Hee hee.  

But when I am using my gift… nothing else get’s in.  That’s when they think I’m having one of my blackouts. 

Ssshhhh....  I let them think it.   They wouldn’t understand it anyway. 

For example, when I see the woman in 9 South…  I know she is riding a wheel chair just like I am, and I know she's got some years on her.  I am even well aware of the fact that she isn't paying any attention to me at all. But I can also see the way she holds her mouth … and purses her lips together just so.  It's like the corners of her mouth want to turn up just a little .. but they won't. And that's what tells me who she is right away. 

She was someone who once looked almost exactly like Ingrid Bergman.  She might have worn her hair a little differently and she might not have been as saucy as Ingrid was...  but my gift doesn't care.  It just takes a single, immediately recognizeable attribute.

So my gift lets her become... my Ingrid.

Ingrid Bergman was one of my favorites back in the 40’s.   She could say more with just a look and a pout than most women could say in twenty minutes of talkin’. 

Now Ingrid gets up and sashay’s over to me.  She is wearing something real filmy and see through.  And the lighting changes and becomes perfect... so that I can see her pretty boobies right through the material.  The points are standing right up for me.  Hee hee.  Then she comes over and steps one leg over me, (the wheel chair is now gone) straddles my now-youthful legs, and eases herself down on my lap just as pretty as you please.  

I can feel her running her hands through my hair…. which is another thing about my gift, because I haven’t had any hair since Ike lost to that Kennedy boy.  It gives me the benefit of experiencing me in my prime as well. 

She is so elegant.. this lady.  She is looking at me like I was Claude Rains or somethin’… deep and romantic.  Looking deep into my eyes and pulling me closer.  The filmy nothing that she is wearing gapes open as she pulls my face down to her bosom… and now I have Ingrid’s rock-hard nipple in my mouth. 

I smack my lips…..

And “Barney Rubble” is calling my name again…. damnit.  

Somebody get a leash and walk this girl so she will leave me alone!!!    I am about to give her another one of my scowls reserved just for “Barney Rubble”… when I notice…. I’ve got wood!  I've got wood.. and it's a good one.  Oh hallelujah, hallelujah… I’ve got wood.   I think “Barney Rubble” knows something is “up” (hee hee) because she is frowning at me again… but I don’t care.   I’ve got wood!!!

As one of the other girls wheeled me back to my room after lunch, we had to stop and wait for another woman about the same age as “Ingrid from 9 South” who was slowly making her way along the hall by herself.  

They have these handrails all along the hallways, so the residents can use them to pull themselves along while they walk in their wheel chairs if they care to.   This woman was a chair-walker.  She looked familiar, but I didn’t recognize her as the woman from 16 North, until I looked over at her as we passed her slowly moving form. 

She had badly thinning hair, almost bald in spots... and this woman never smiled.  But she had the most beautiful skin coloring you could imagine… as if regardless of what else might have happened to her throughout the years… she had taken great care of her luscious brown skin.  

This was my Dorothy Dandridge.  

No sooner did I recognize her… then we rose from our chairs together as if it was choreographed.  She did smile at me now.  It was a devilish and wanton smile, as she took my hand and danced across the lobby floor with me in smooth and elegant dance steps.  Then she spun me around once so that I fell back into a table chair so that I could watch her.  There were boys in uniform sitting at tables all around, while some were leaning against the brick wall.  They were all enraptured by the melodious sound of her voice as she sang to us.  At some point she had started singing while she pranced and strutted and danced with the rich background music.   She wore a black, low cut blouse off-the-shoulder, with a bright red skirt, and a red rose in her hair.    

She moved like a cat.  While they all drooled as they watched her every movement, she looked around at the soldiers with what looked like contempt.  Then she looked back at me... with hunger. 

I watched as she, in clear view of every swinging dick in the room, bunched her skirt around her thighs, and deftly leaped up on top of the table that I was sitting at. 

Still singing with the music, she rolled her ample hips and swayed to the melody.  With her skirt bunched in both hands on either side of her legs… she slowly pulled the crumpled hem of her bright red skirt higher and higher… slowly revealing more of her perfectly formed thighs. 

She was now grinning at me fiercely as she moved to the music, inching her skirt up now above her knees and showing me the beginning of gleaming thigh muscles.  They flexed for me as she danced… rippled as she raised the dress higher.  I idly noticed for the first time that her toes were painted the exact same shade of red as the skirt… and the rose. 

She wore no necklace or jewelry around her neck at all… displaying a lovely expanse of breast bone that I wanted to lick and smother with kisses.

Then… as the dress was now raised high enough that I could just see the beginning swell of one ripe butt cheek.   It grew up from the glorious hamstring tendon that began just behind her knee and went on forever.  As I watched the “gluteus magnificence” begin “the grand reveal” I heard her calling my name.   “Cheney.”

It occurred to me for the first time that she might not be wearing underwear, and a thrill of excitement raced through me.

“Cheney!”

This was the woman whose image and climactic dance number in “Carmen” had plagued my dreams for years.  Now she was here for me… giving herself to me.  Odd, that her voice doesn’t quite match the overall image though.  I began to…

“Mr. Cheney, are you gonna go to the bathroom… or am I gonna have to put you on the bed pan?”

 I swallowed and looked around.  It was Boomer from the night shift.   That meant it was after 3:00 PM already.   Boomer was a little thing as far as the nurses’-aides went… but what a mouth on her!   You could always tell whether Boomer was out in the corridor of your wing or not.  Big mouth little buzzard.     

I recalled a fleeting memory of Dorothy as Boomer realized that I was back… and wheeled me into the bathroom.