Chapter 4: Rita

Previously on “I Dreamed of Jeanie:”

I slammed my toes into an ottoman from the living room that had appeared before me. “Shit!” Jeanie stood by, waving her hands in distress as I hopped one-legged around the dining room, holding my painfully stubbed toes in my hands. Eventually I landed wrong and smashed into the table, falling full-length to the floor.

It’s the very worst when you lose those arguments.

A fully-clothed Jeanie helped me up to limp over to sit on the living-room couch. I slumped down and rubbed my offended toes. She sat in my overstuffed chair, looking at me with an expression that mixed wariness and concern.

“Master, has it been that long since you have had sexual release?” She asked. “Was your relationship with your ex-wife that bad?”

I felt my face grow hot. “That’s kind of personal, Jeanie.” Why can’t my hallucination be more cooperative?

“I know that you are feeling better from your operation, Master. It is reasonable that you are starting to feel more sexually aggressive. But I am not the proper person for you to engage with in intercourse.”

“What can I do?” I demanded, “If you hadn’t noticed, to the world I’m bankrupt and unemployed, and pretty much damaged goods on the dating scene right now.”

A sly look came over Jeanie’s face. “Today you drove a red sports car. What could happen tomorrow?”

I sighed and looked down at my wilting erection. “Sorry, Stanley, but it seems that once again we’ve hit a dry hole.” He wilted a bit, in sympathy. My stomach grumbled and I realized that I was hungry.

“Oh, Master! I have neglected you!” There was that BOING sound, and I was seated in the darkened kitchen at the table. The only light in the room was from two candles in the table’s middle. It was covered with a dazzling white tablecloth and set with a bowl of something red and chunky steaming in front of me. To the side was a basket with a linen cloth cover and a glass of dark red wine. The smell of something delicious made by stomach grumble more loudly.

I sighed and picked up the wine glass and tasted. It was a malbec, hearty and fruity. I set the glass down and picked up the spoon and sample what was in the bowl. A lamb ragout that tasted as though it came from a great little place that Denise and I loved, but which went out of business a couple of years back. This was an almost incomprehensible upgrade from the crappy take-out and Hungry Man meals I had been eating for a year now.

I sighed heavily. “So. No intercourse you say?”

“Oh, Master! I did not say that you could not have intercourse! I only said that you could not have intercourse with me!”

I looked around the kitchen. “Who else do you suggest that I have intercourse with?” I took a spoonful of the ragout. It was so good, I had to restrain myself from putting my face down in the bowl. I investigated the linen-covered bowl. A hot baguette. I tore it and dunked a piece into the ragout. Oh my God.

Jeanie smiled brightly. Did the original Barbara Eden have such charming dimples? “Master, if you wish it, you can have intercourse with anyone you choose, except me, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated.

“Why yes!”

“Does you power over people extend so far?” I asked.

“Oh no, Master!”

I was getting dizzy from the verbal whipsaw. “Let’s stop a second and you explain to me what powers you have and what limitations.” I took another spoon of the excellent ragout and a sip of malbec. I sighed. I was getting better food from my fugue-state cooking that I have ever cooked myself. I wonder if food in the State Home for the Unbelievably Confused was any good. Maybe they had taco night. I loved tacos.

“To begin with, my Master, I have been limited by myself and I am limited by nature. Nature sets the limitation that entropy flows in only one direction; therefore, I cannot take you back in time. I could take you forward in time, but you would be stuck there, no coming back.”

I nodded. This was pretty lucid for a hallucination. “What about other people?”

“I cannot make somebody love you, who does not first have the capacity to love you. I can, however, give them small ‘nudges’ in that direction. I have been observing humans since before they became humans, so I have a pretty good idea what motivates people and how to influence them.”

“Any other limitations?”

“Right now, my power only extends for a few hundred yards from where ever you are. As you learn to control the power it eventually will extend to the limits of this star system.”

“So, if I wanted to have sex with a twenty-year old Rita Hayworth, how does that work?” I chased the last drops of the ragout with the last bite of bread. I glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall and noted the time, watching the second hand sweep past the “12.”

Jeanie smiled a naughty smile. Again, with the dimples. I reached out fast and tried to snatch her harem pants leg, but with a “BOING” she was just out of reach. “Oh, Master, I saw that coming before you even thought of it.”

She stepped towards the door of my bedroom. With a “BOING” the kitchen was cleared of dished and spotlessly clean. I looked back at the clock. The second hand showed that no discernible time had passed. My fugue state self must be ultra-efficient. “Come with me my Master!” She stepped toward my bedroom. “I have something to show you!” I sighed and followed.

I stepped through the door of my bedroom and stopped. There was another person there, a red-headed woman in a satin nightgown, sitting on my bed, brushing that glorious hair. I jumped and pulled my robe closed. It was a good thing that I had not decided to walk around naked. The woman threw her head back, making her wavy hair cascade over her shoulders. She looked at me with a smile that was at once vulnerable, confident, sexy, and inviting. My heart leapt into my mouth. I had seen that move dozens of times before. The woman was Rita Hayworth, and the hair-toss was from the film, “Gilda.” That put her age at 28 years old, old enough for her charms to be completely womanly.

“Hello, Dan.” Hayworth’s low voice was the definition of, the chemical distillation of sex; I felt it tingle down in my groin. Her eyes locked on mine. Her lips could barely hold back her laughter. I felt as though I had had a stiff shot of rye, my head swam a bit. “Come here, Big Boy,” She patted the bed next to her, inviting me to sit down close. I gulped, shuffled over, and gingerly sat on the bed. I know that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but as I was the beholder, she looked unbelievably good. I tried not to hyperventilate.

As I sat, I looked around the room for Jeanie. There she was, sitting cross-legged on my dresser, her smile beaming at Rita and me. I felt Rita grab my chin, turning my head so that we were face to face, inches apart. He breath smelled of apples. “Eyes over here, Darling. It’s kind of rude to gawk at another woman when your sweetheart is in your arms.”

Everything about that transaction rang every bell I had, and I had trouble catching my breath. Rita reaching out and touching me. Rita acting jealous of my attention. Rita Hayworth calling herself my sweetheart. Rita freakin’ Hayworth implying that she wanted physical contact with me.

“Ms Hayworth, I so love your movies...”

“Shhhhh,” She put a finger to my lips and stopped me. “No talking about work. No talking about other people. Just us; just here; just now.”