Lucretia Josephine St. James sat at a chrome table covered in pink Formica. She no longer saw the cream and green tile counters, the faded paint on the cabinets or the worn Linoleum floor covering. She was fifty-three now and the only thing about the house that had changed over the years was her age, which she tried to cover by the application of plenty of make-up, a matted platinum blonde wig and bangles and beads that, together with her loose satiny robes lent a decided black Gypsy look to her persona.

    She sat smoking a cigarette and tried to decide if she could go another week with her blood-red nails, or if she would have to have that little Asian girl do them again before the week was out.

The doorbell rang. Giving no indication that she heard the bell, Lucretia snubbed out her cigarette butt in a large already overflowing pottery ashtray and reached for another cigarette.

    If she heard the door open and close and the approach of footsteps, she gave no indication and only looked up when Alyssa Manners, her seventy-something year old friend hobbled into the room with the aid of an aluminum cane.

    "Morning girl. Whooh, guess what? I dreamed I got laid last night. I knew right away I had to be dreaming because I was getting laid." Without pausing to wait for a laugh which failed to come, Alyssa took down a cup from the rack on the wall and poured herself a cup of coffee. She got it to the table without spilling too much, hooked her cane over the back of a chair and sat down opposite Lucretia.

     Lucretia looked mildly at her friend. "I don't have dreams like that. But I do have dreams. I had a nasty one last night—well, early this morning."