I guess I'm getting to 'that age'. Well... I know that I am. But my advancing years certainly wasn't my first thought when I started hearing voices.

The first time I heard a voice, I was all alone in one of the day rooms, sitting next to the open French doors, reading. 'Can I get you anything?' the voice said. 'A cup of tea? A piece of cheese? A handjob?' I thought that it was probably Miriam, one of the carers, putting on a silly voice. It's the sort of thing that Miriam sometimes does. But then I remembered that she was having a few days off. She had gone up to Harrogate to see her daughter. Still... it's not often that I get offered a handjob these days. So, what the hell?

'Yeah. Why not?' I said.

'Which? Tea?'

'No. A handjob,' I said. 'A handjob would be good. A fuck would be even better, but a handjob would be a good start.' And then everything went quiet. I laughed. 'Come on then. You can't just offer me a handjob and then not deliver. There's probably something about that in the Sale of Goods Act. Something about not following through on a verbal contract?' And then Jennifer came in.

'What's all the shouting about?' she said.

'Shouting?'

'Yeah. Was that not you? It sounded like you.'

'I don't think so,' I said. 'Someone asked me if I wanted a cup of tea.' (I didn't mention anything about the handjob. I wasn't sure that Jennifer would approve.) 'And then there was no one here. No one. Just me.'

Jennifer smiled. 'Perhaps you nodded off. Perhaps you were dreaming,' she said. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

Jennifer is the senior RN. She's in charge of the nurses. Well, of everyone really. She's the boss. I would put her in her late forties. Heading for fifty. I can imagine that she might go to the gym. Or maybe she just lucky on her visit to the gene pool. Some people do. Jennifer certainly seems to be in good nick beneath her slightly shapeless scrubs.

Jennifer wears her blonde-streaked hair cut quite short. On some girls, such a style might look a bit butch. But, on Jennifer, it works. I could certainly imagine myself running my fingers through her hair while I fingered her quim. 'Tea? Umm... no thanks,' I said. 'I don't think so. But a glass of Champagne perhaps. A nice chilled Veuve Clicquot? Just the non-vintage Yellow Label would be fine.'

Jennifer smiled again. 'You wish,' she said. 'Maybe on your birthday.'

The next time I heard the voice (I'm pretty sure that it was the same one) was a few nights later. In my room. I was just drifting off to sleep. 'What happened to you?' the voice said.

'Me? When?'

'The other afternoon. In the day room.'

'Day room? Oh, yes. Handjob,' I said. 'I was there. I think the question is: what happened to you? One minute you were there, the next you weren't.'

'There are only so many hours in the day,' the voice said.

'Meaning?'

'I can't hang around all day. I have things to do. Places to be. People to see.'

'You offered me a handjob. Remember?'

'Did I?'

'Yeah. You offered me a cup of tea or a handjob. I chose a handjob.'

'Good for you.'

'But then you disappeared. And Jennifer turned up.'

'Jennifer? Ooh. Going right to the top, eh? Well... I can't say that I blame you. And does Jennifer give a good handjob?'

'No idea,' I said.

'No idea? You mean you don't know? Or you won't say?'

'Don't know. She only offered me tea.'

'Tea,' she said. And then everything went quiet.

'Are you still there?' I asked.

'Yeah. I'm still here.'

'Why are you sitting in the dark?'

'It's night time. And, anyway, I quite like the dark,' the voice said. 'Don't you?'

'Umm... sometimes,' I said.

'There are things you can do in the dark that you probably wouldn't do in the light.'

'What sort of things?'

'All sorts of things.'

'What are you doing now?' I asked

'Now? Right at the moment? At the moment, I'm just sitting here, giving myself a leisurely seeing to. Spreading my slippery cunt juices. What are you doing?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing? A bit of a lost opportunity, isn't it? Maybe you should take your cock in hand. Perhaps extend an invitation to Mrs Palmer and her five daughters.'

'Yeah, maybe.' I fossicked around in my pyjamas and found my cock. My circulation is not very good these days, and my fingers tend to get a bit cold. Still... I wrapped my cool fingers around my cock and stretched it slightly. And then, little by little, things started to happen. My cock started to stiffen and fill out, just the way that it used to before they started feeding me drugs morning, noon, and night.

'Is that better?' the voice said.

'Yeah. Yeah, it is,' I said. 'Surprising really. I'd almost forgotten how good it can feel. You know, back in the First World War they used to put something in the tea to stop the soldiers from thinking about sex. I reckon they do something similar here. I find I don't think about sex anywhere near as often as I used to.'

The voice - the woman - laughed.

'When you came to talk to me in the day room,' I said, 'when you offered me a handjob, I thought that you were Miriam - putting on a funny voice.'

The woman laughed again. 'Miriam? Not me.'

'Who are you then?'

'You can call me Tissa.'

'Tessa?'

'No, Tissa. With an i.'

'Tissa. That's an unusual name.'

'It's short for Mantissa. But I've never been keen on having a name with "man" in it. It smacks of Man Friday. Definitely a subordinate role.'

'Greek, is it?'

'The name? No. Latin. It's a literary term for an addition of comparatively small importance. My mother was a writer. As a child, I took second place to her real work. I was, you might say, of comparatively small importance.'

'Oh.'

'Writers live in a different world from the rest of us. Well... many of them do. My mother certainly did.'

'I used to be a writer,' I said. (I'm not sure why I felt the need to tell her that.)

'I thought so,' Tissa said.

'Oh?'

'I've noticed that you seem to know a lot about a lot of things. You'd be useful to have in a pub quiz team.'

'Not quick enough anymore,' I said. 'The answers are all in there, but pulling them out at the drop of a hat... I don't think the drugs help.'

'Ask for a review.'

'A review?'

'Of the drugs.'

'I've tried that. But I think the doctors all have their pension funds invested with big pharma.'

Tissa laughed again. 'The devil they know, perhaps,' she said.

And then I think someone must have slammed a car door right outside the front of the building. That's one of the disadvantages with the rooms at the front: you get the noise of people coming and going. 'Noisy buggers,' I said. 'You'd think that people might show a little more consideration at this time of the night.'

For a minute or two, I just lay there, listening, stroking my cock. And then - I don't know why - I suddenly got the feeling that I was all on my own. 'Tissa? Are you still there?' I asked. But there was no reply.

And then the door opened. It was Mruthula (who everyone seems to call Ruth). 'What's all the shouting?' she said. 'Have you lost your bell? If you need someone, just press your bell. Shouting just wakes up other people. Now... what do you need?'

'I wasn't shouting,' I said. 'I was just talking to Tissa.'

'Tissa?'

'Yeah. She was telling me about her mother.' In the half-light I could see that Mruthula was frowning. 'Her mother was a writer. Tissa was a bit of a.. well... distraction, I suppose. She was telling me about it.'

Mruthula nodded. 'You were probably dreaming,' she said. 'Have a sip of water. And try and go back to sleep.'

I didn't hear from Tissa for a few days. And then, one sunny afternoon, I was sitting outside in the garden, on a bench, in a secluded corner, listening to the radio. The Emerson Quartet was playing Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No 8 in C minor. Well... I was listening on my phone actually. Ricky bought me one of those new smart phones that doubles as a radio. In fact, it triples. You can also use it as a camera. Not that I do. What do I want with photographs at my age? Anyway, I was just sitting there in the sun, listening to the music, when this woman approached me. She wasn't one of the staff. She wasn't one of the carers or one of the nurses. I thought that she was going to ask me for directions. I thought that she was probably looking for the main entrance. But no.

'Hello,' she said. (At least I think she said hello. To listen to the radio that's really a phone, you have to have little headphone-things stuffed into your ears.) 'A nice little spot you have here. Nice and private.'

I pulled the little bud-thing out of one of my ears. 'What?'

'This spot,' she said. 'Nice and private.'

'Oh. Yes.'

'Mind if I join you?'

'Umm... no. No. Not at all.' And I moved along the bench slightly.

The woman was wearing a full-skirted floral dress and a hat that would have been more at home at a day at the races than a day on the beach. She was probably forty-something, and she was not unattractive. In fact she was very good looking. 'I thought that I might find you here,' she said.

'Oh?'

'You don't much like this place, do you? This "elder-care facility" is not your idea of fun. You don't like being organised, do you?' she said. And then she said: 'How's the food?'

'Not in any danger of exciting a Michelin inspector,' I told her. And then I realised who the woman was. 'You're Tissa,' I said.

She nodded. 'Yes. Sorry that I had to run off the other night. I thought it might be a little difficult to explain to your little friend Mruthula what I was doing sitting in the corner of your room with my skirt up around my waist.'

'She said there was shouting.'

'Shouting? Really? I wouldn't say shouting. I do sometimes get a bit vocal when I reach that moment of ecstasy, but I wouldn't exactly call it shouting. How did you go? Did you manage to get over the top?'

'No. I think Ruth's arrival must have put me off my stroke, so to speak.'

Tissa nodded again. 'They should give you a little Do Not Disturb sign to hang on your door. Todger Tugging in Progress.'

'I'll suggest it at the next residents' meeting,' I said.

'Good idea.'

'You're looking very nice,' I said.

'Thank you. I think it's important to make an effort, isn't it?'

'I suppose so,' I said.

'So,' Tissa said, 'are we going to have another go?'

'Another go?'

'See if we can get across the line this time?'

'What? Here? What if someone comes?'

Tissa laughed. 'I hope someone comes,' she said. 'I hope we both come.' And she laughed again.

'I mean what if someone sees us?'

'Don't worry. I have my hat. We can quickly cover things up.' And before I knew what was happening, she was lowering my zip and searching out my limp cock. 'Ah, yes. Here we are,' she said.

Tissa's fingers were soft yet firm - if that makes sense. And mine was certainly not the first cock that they had handled. In no time at all, I was as fat and as firm as I had been in my early twenties. And then, once she had me underway, she swapped hands and her now-free right hand disappeared up under the skirt of her floral dress. 'We should do this more often,' she said with a chuckle in her voice.

Oh, yes!

I had only been half joking when I said that I thought they put something in our tea to stop us thinking about sex. In my final days of living on my own, I may have been in danger of having a fall, or putting a perfectly-honed chef's knife through my hand (or foot), or setting the place on fire while making my morning toast, but at least I still had the whatever to masturbate every day or so. Since moving to Parkvale, I sometimes found myself going for a week or two without even wondering what the nurses and carers were wearing (or not wearing) under their slightly-shapeless scrubs. But now at least there was Tissa.

'Well... this beats a day at the races,' Tissa said.

'Is that where you are supposed to be?' I asked.

For a moment, she didn't say anything. And then she said: 'I'm supposed to be wherever I can do the most good. How am I doing?'

'Oh, you're doing just fine,' I told her. 'Just fine.'

She laughed softly and pulled her hand out from under her skirt. Her fingers were glistening in the afternoon sun.

'You don't have any trouble getting wet, do you,' I said.

'Not when I'm having fun.' And she put her hand onto my stiff cock and smeared its head with her magic cunt juices. Oh, yes! Oh, fucking, yes! Perfect! Just perfect! 'Are you going to come for me?' she asked.

I was trying not to. I was trying to 'make the moment last'. But I knew that it was a losing battle. With each stroke she was taking me closer and closer to the edge. Closer and closer. Closer and closer. And then I couldn't hold on any longer. 'Oh... oh... yes. Yes. Oh, yes.'

For several moments, I just sat there on the bench, my body - which had been wound up like a clock spring - gradually relaxing. Golf Alpha zero-seven-niner, you are cleared for landing. Runway two-zero. Repeat. Runway two-zero.

And then Jennifer was standing there in front of me. She had Ravi, one of the carers, with her. 'What's all the shouting?' she said.

'Me? Shouting?'

'Well, there's no one else here.'

'There's Tissa,' I said.

'Tissa?'

But when I looked, Tissa had gone. I was sitting on the bench all alone. And my fly was open. 'We were having a chat,' I said. 'Tissa and I.'

Jennifer smiled. 'And then you fell asleep.'

'I don't think so,' I said.

'Let's take you inside, shall we?' Jennifer said. 'Make you a cup of tea. Oh... and your trousers... Looks like you forgot to do them up.'

'Did I? Oh... yes.'

'Your friend, Tissa,' Jennifer said, as she and Ravi guided me back indoors, 'what do you and she talk about?'

'Just stuff,' I said. 'Just stuff.'