Dancing Girl

'Synaesthesia,' the doctor said. (According to her name badge she was Dr Amanda Sell. But she introduced herself as Mandy.) 'Hearing sounds and seeing shapes. Hearing a name and associating it with a colour. Associating numbers with colours. Ten is red and five is blue. Or the other way around. That sort of thing.

'In your case, you seem to be blessed with the full-on movie version. The sound of music triggering a full vision. It's nothing to worry about,' she said. 'It's not even that uncommon. Perhaps one in three hundred people sometimes experiences some kind of synaesthesia. Although the full vision thing is a little more rare.

'Do you find that there are certain times when it is more likely to occur than others?' she asked.

Were there? 'I think it happens more often when I'm feeling a bit tired,' I told her.

She nodded. 'Yes. That's possible. Sensory deprivation.'

'Is that a problem?'

'No, no. It's not a disorder or anything. In fact there's some evidence to suggest that it might be associated with higher intelligence. Although exactly why is still unclear.'

Mandy studied something on her monitor. 'Have you ever had any kind of head injury? Brain trauma? Anything like that?'

'I had a serious fall when I was a kid. Fell off a high drystone wall. Whacked my head. Knocked myself out. That's how I got this scar,' I said, running the tip of my finger along the horizontal scar beneath my left eye.'

Mandy nodded and studied her monitor again. 'You have a very high IQ,' she said. 'Very high. Your brain would certainly seem to be firing on all cylinders.' And she laughed.

'So I'm not mad or anything?'

'Heavens no. Far from it.'

We chatted on for a while and several times it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that my music-associated visuals were often pretty sexual. They often involved attractive women in various states of undress. But I thought that she might find that pretty weird. So I didn't. Even though, just looking at her, I was wondering what she would look like naked.

'I see that you are on a maintenance dose of Levetiracetam. For epilepsy,' Mandy said. 'How is that going?'

'Fine. I think.'

'No side effects?'

'Not that I've noticed. Gunther did say that I might have more dreams. Vivid dreams. But then I've always had lots of dreams.'

Mandy nodded again and tapped a few keys on her keyboard.

That night, I was lying in bed, naked, with just a sheet over me, listening to a music station, when a furniture delivery truck arrived. The truck was being driven by a woman who looked vaguely familiar. The waitress at The Mad Dog Café perhaps. She was dressed in a pink dustcoat with some sort of monogram on the pocket. As I watched, the woman got down from the cab and walked to the back of the truck where she lowered one of those hydraulic lift platforms. And then she removed her dustcoat, tossed it into the back of the truck, and began to dance.

The music she was dancing to was the Herb Alpert classic, Rise. It had that early-70s Brazilian funk sound. But it wasn't Herb Alpert playing it. It was a guy with a flugel horn. I'm not sure where he came from. Maybe he had been in the back of the furniture truck. I tried to think who he might have been. He definitely wasn't Chuck Mangione or Art Farmer or any of those guys.

And then the woman started to dance towards me. It was only then that I noticed that she was wearing a skimpy bikini top. And that was all. I don't know why I hadn't noticed before. What next? I wondered. But then I thought: Oh, yeah. Synaesthesia. Not real. This is just happening in my brain. And the music track came to an end.

The funny thing was, synaesthesia or not, the dancing woman had my cock standing tall. It was very pleased with itself. And without really realising it, I had somehow got my hand around it. Oh well... never let a stiffy go to waste. At my age, you can never be sure when the next one will come along.

Fortunately, the next track the station played was Feels So Good. And it did. I was about to reach le moment critique when the dancer returned. Mandy. Of course. I should have realised.