Three More Wishes: Be Kind To Your Genie (36 page)

By now Paula Sarin was standing. She took one wobbly step, and then one strong step, and then she was standing in front of Marvin. She looked like a healthy woman who’d stolen clothing from her zombie twin: Her top had a hole in it, that showed healthy skin; and her top and jeans both were drenched with still-wet blood.

Paula’s hand snaked into Marvin’s pocket; her hand came out holding her cel phone. “Here’s the deal, sweetie,” Paula said. “Call me a cab, and give me twenty bucks, or I call 9-1-1 and—”

Whap!
Virgilia didn’t see Marvin’s hand move; but the cel phone got knocked into a wall hard enough to break it into pieces.

Marvin told Paula, “Don’t push your luck before Fatima gets back. Or else.”

Paula laughed in his face. “Sweetie, you can’t bring yourself to kill me. So go ahead, threaten
anything
, it’s just jibber-jabber.”

And then Virgilia saw Marvin’s face change into something frightening. “You’re right, Paula. Without a weapon in your hand, I won’t kill you. But that doesn’t mean that you won’t be killed.”

FOOM.

Fatima was back. But with her, Virgilia saw a man with long blond hair, a trimmed blond beard and moustache, a black cast-iron helmet with rose-pink horns coming out of its sides, Barbie-pink rawhide leather boots, and rose-pink leather clothing with Barbie-pink wolf-fur trim. Except for his pink eyes(!), the newcomer looked like a swishy Viking.

Fatima said, “Master, this is Sigvard, Chief of the Djinn of the Pink Tribe.”

Virgilia saw Paula’s face go pale. Paula made a dash for the staircase. She took only one step before Marvin had her in his grip.

Sigvard thumped his clenched fist against the ribs in front of his heart. “Greetings, Marvin Harper of the Six Wishes. I thank you for inviting me here. So this is the human master whose order killed Vessel-bound Jerngert?”

“She’s the one,” Marvin said. “But before you—”

“LET GO OF ME!” Paula ordered Marvin, as she tried to pull herself free. “Unless you call the police, you have no right to hold me. I
demand
—”

And then Paula’s jaws moved apart, and a bright-pink ball gag appeared in her mouth.

Marvin said to Sigvard, “As I was saying. Before you take Paula away, let me explain something to her.”

Marvin turned to Paula and said, “In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. As punishment, Zeus had him chained to a rock, and every day an eagle ate out his liver. But every night, his liver grew back. Same with you, now. For 9-2/3 years, no matter what the Pink Tribe does to you, their tortures won’t kill you. You’ll heal each night, so that they can hurt you that much more each day.”

“MMMMMP!” Paula said.

Sigvard flicked a hand—

FOOM.

—and both he and Paula were gone.

****

Thursday, 3:36 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

I stood outside the door and asked very quietly, “Where is it?”

Fatima (who was now dressed in American clothing) consulted her scrying ball, then quietly told me where “it” was.

I didn’t knock on the door of the LeClerc twins’ bedroom. I threw the door open, rushed into the room with Fatima following close behind, and then I flipped the light on.

“WAKE UP, ELVIRA!” I yelled.

Both Almira and Elvira, in their respective twin beds, gasped and sat up.

Almira said in a puzzled voice, “Marvin, what the fuck?”

Meanwhile, Elvira looked like she was facing Judgment Day.

I grabbed the sheets and bedspreads that were covering Elvira, and threw them on the floor.

Then I grabbed Elvira’s wrist. With much less force than I wanted to use, I pulled her out of bed and moved her to stand by Fatima.

Then I grabbed the mattress of Elvira’s bed, lifted it free of its box spring, and threw it on the floor. WHUMP!

Laying on the box spring was an unsealed tan envelope. As I grabbed it, I heard Elvira mutter, “Oh, shit.”

I looked at Almira and said, “You asked, ‘What the fuck?’ Here’s the fuck. While I was at school yesterday, Elvira brought Paula Sarin into the house and straight to the attic. But not for free—Elvira shook down Senator Sarin for fifteen hundred bucks.”

I turned the envelope upside down and shook it. Twenty-dollar bills rained onto the floor.

Almira glared at her twin. “You
betrayed
Marvin? You broke your promise to keep this woman out of his house?”

Elvira said, “Hey, I never actually promised. And Paula Sarin tried to pull some hypnosis shit on me, so
no way
was she getting in for free. Besides, she had money and I needed money.”

Then Elvira turned to me and asked nervously, “So where is Paula Sarin now?”

I answered, “Doesn’t matter. Because you’ll never see her again.”

I turned back to Almira. “Paula Sarin came here with a 9-mm pistol. Not only did she endanger Fatima”—okay, that was a lie—“and me, but that gun was powerful enough to punch through drywall. Paula Sarin could have killed one of my housemates while she slept in her bedroom, and
your twin sister
brought that witch into my house.”

“I didn’t know about the gun, Almie, I swear!” Elvira said. “I thought she was here just to steal stuff, right? Jeez, he’s a billionaire, so what’s the harm in her stealing from him? C’mon, he’s younger than us, and he’s a fucking
billionaire
!”

I said, “Elvira, I have good news, more good news, and bad news. The first good news is that I’m not going to take your money, or tell you how to spend it. Nor will I let Almira take your money, or tell you how to spend it. Because in a sick way, you’ve earned all this. You can bank it, or spend it however you want.”

“Um, okay,” Elvira said. Then she nervously asked, “What’s the other good news?”

“I won’t punish you. I won’t hit you, rape you, take your money, ban you from meals, or take you back to jail.”

Elvira was sweating now. “What’s the bad news?”

“
Almira
will decide your punishment, and Fatima will enforce it,” I said.

I gestured for Fatima to leave with me, then I looked at Almira and said, “Make Elvira regret this.”

Almira said, “When Elvie could’ve gotten you killed by that Alaskan windbag? And come to think of it, I still owe my twin for dipping my Barbie in black paint. Oh yeah, I’ll make Elvira
very
regretful, just you wait.”

Elvira went pale.

****

Thursday, 3:52 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

By now, Virgilia had changed into (what was for her) modest clothing. Meanwhile, I’d requested for Fatima to change back into her Middle East duds.

Back in my bedroom, I looked at Virgilia and Fatima and said, “I’m nervous about this. Up till now, I’ve told only two people about Fatima being a genie. But I
knew
I could trust my parents.”

Virgilia nodded. “Whereas Sheila Johansson is a stranger, and you don’t know her mind at all.”

I nodded. “But here’s what I
do
know: Paula Sarin will disappear from human society, so Sheila Johansson must disappear too—nobody sees her, and she doesn’t talk to any of her relatives, friends, or coworkers. Because if the Feds can find Sheila, Paula will get traced to me.”

Fatima said, “And the only way to completely cut Sheila off from her old life is to kill her, enslave her, or bribe her.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Those are my only choices.”

“Master, may I say something? Paula was right—you’re too nice to kill anyone. Even if killing Sheila were the only way to keep her quiet, you would wait too long.”

“Even though I was Paula Sarin’s one-man ‘death panel’?” I asked. “But you’re right, ‘You know too much, so now you die’ isn’t my style.”

Virgilia said, “As good as you are to your slaves, I’m glad I’m not one of them anymore. Besides, any former thrall of Paula Sarin’s deserves
not
to be enslaved a second time.”

I nodded. “So that leaves only bribery. I buy Sheila Johansson’s eternal silence with either cash or magic. But for magic to be an option, Sheila must
know
that it’s an option. Hence, my spilling the beans about Fatima.”

I looked at Virgilia and Fatima. “No more talking. Let’s do this.”

****

Fatima stepped between Virgilia and me, and took our hands. My ears popped, and then the three of us were standing in a dark motel room.

The room TV showed two young women talking in a diner—a sexless scene, but the corner of the TV screen declared that this was part of the Sapphic Love Channel. The TV’s light showed Sheila in bed; she lay propped up with pillows but was asleep. She held the TV remote in one limp hand, with her other limp hand resting between her legs. By her bed was a night table, and on the night table lay a cel phone.

So this was Sheila, who was about to be told a secret about Fatima that only five humans knew. Looking Sheila over, she was shorter than Fatima and Virgilia by several inches. Sheila was pear-shaped, with small tits and wide hips. She had an ordinary face, hair-colored hair, and eyes-colored eyes. The only thing attractive about her was that she was in her twenties.

“Sheila, wake up,” I said.

Sheila’s eyes flew open, she gasped, then she looked wildly around the room. She looked at Virgilia in puzzlement—
What’s a stripper doing here?
—but Sheila looked at Fatima and me in fear.

“You’re Marvin and Fatima!” she said. “How’d you get in our motel room? Where’s, um, Tina?”

“Who’s Tina?” I asked.

“Paula’s alias here in town,” Fatima said.

I said to Sheila, “No human will ever see Paula Sarin ever again, which is why we’re here. As for how we got in? Magic. Notice, the chain is still on the door.” I gestured toward the door behind me. “Fatima, please turn off the TV.”

Fatima didn’t even look. She made a gesture over her shoulder, and the TV went off. The room went dark. (Whoops.)

Sheila immediately turned on a reading light. “Bullshit,” she said, “there’s no such thing as magic. Oh jeez, you
killed
Paula?”

Sheila grabbed the cel phone off the night table—

“Foom the phone!” I said.

—and the cel phone disappeared out of Sheila’s hand and appeared in Fatima’s. Fatima handed me the cel phone (which I turned off and pocketed), as Sheila looked panicky.

I muttered to Fatima, “Silence Box.
Now,
please. She’s about to scream.”

The Silence Box appeared from nowhere. It enclosed Sheila and all three of us visitors, and all outside sounds got silenced. Both Sheila and Virgilia looked startled.

“What just happened?” Sheila asked, her voice shaky.

“It’s a Silence Box,” I said. “If you scream, nobody hears.”

Sheila studied Fatima’s construct, a box with green-smoke walls and bright-green smoky edges, which shouldn’t be keeping its shape, but was. Sheila said, “Oh crap, it really is magic, isn’t it?”

****

Minutes later, the negotiations were going poorly—

Sheila glared at me, her arms crossed. “You’ll have to kill me. Because I’m
not
about to become your sex slave.”

Virgilia said, “And I don’t want you be
made
into any man’s sex slave. Been there, done that, got two t-shirts. I don’t want to see you die. So let’s figure out an offer that you can’t refuse.”

“Stripper Girl, weren’t you listening? Marvin wants me to disappear, to be completely off the grid, right? Okay fine, he gives me money. Say Fatima geniefies a million bucks cash, right here on this bed. How can I spend it without the FBI kicking my door in, sooner or later? I can’t.”

“So that leaves magic,” I said. “What can I do magically for you, to buy your silence for a lifetime?”

Sheila’s chin jutted out. “There is nothing I want that you can give me, Marvin Harper.”

I wanted to put my fist through the nearby cinderblock wall. “Maybe you’re overlooking something, or forgetting something. Fatima has a way to read your memories—”

“How like a man, to think you know my mind better than I do. You’ve been fawned-over by your girly-slaves too—”

“SILENCE, SHEILA HEATHER JOHANSSON!” Fatima yelled. “STAND UP, BE QUIET, DO NOT MOVE, AND LET ME TOUCH YOU!”

Sheila jumped out of bed and came to attention, fast enough to amaze a Marine drill instructor.

I had volunteered myself several times for memory-reading, but I had never seen it done to anyone else who was awake. As soon as Fatima touched Sheila’s forehead, Sheila’s eyes shut tight. But rather than act “trance-y,” Sheila’s fingers twitched and her eyeballs rolled around behind her eyelids.

Six and a half minutes after Fatima had started, she pulled her hand away.

“Wow,” said Sheila. “Intense.”

Fatima looked at me and she was smiling. “I know how to solve this.”

Once Fatima shared her idea, Sheila was overjoyed.

Virgilia, however, took persuading.

But soon Sheila and I made a deal, and Fatima fulfilled it. I got what I wanted, and Sheila was clearly joyous about her side of the deal—but it sure wasn’t the deal I expected to make when I was
foom
ed into Sheila Johansson’s motel room.

Redmond, Washington
March, 2013

I walked into the hotel restaurant of the Redmond Hilton. I was looking for Harold and Natasha. I didn’t see them.

A little over two and a half years after my battle with Paula Sarin, I had figured out why Uncle Warren had attended stockholder meetings several times a year, instead of merely signing and mailing back each proxy form. The reason that I discovered? I love my city and I love my women, but every once in a while, I want to see someplace new! And stockholder meetings gave me a tax-deductible way to see someplace new. This was the only way, other than when I took Fatima and the harem on our annual exotic vacation, that I got away from my city.

Correction: Once a week, I visited Almira and Elvira at the state women’s prison. But the drive there and back was boring, and my time at the prison was depressing. But visiting the imprisoned twins once a week was something that I felt that I should do. Besides, there was entertainment value in watching Elvira struggle to stay bitchy toward the only person to visit her in prison. (When Michelle had learned that her twin daughters had supposedly “volunteered” to be French Maids, she’d quit visiting the prison.)

Second correction: “Call of Duty” had become a popular TV show by 2011, and I’d escorted Olivia Robb twice to the Emmys in Los Angeles. The second time, she’d won.

Anyway, now it was an hour after I’d checked into the hotel in Redmond; my evening was free, but in the morning, I would attend Microsoft’s stockholder meeting.

And before I forget to mention it: Former school slut Kelly Brown was monitoring Microsoft and my other stocks as an ongoing project. Kelly now was a junior at Gorshin University, majoring in Finance, so her project with me was helping her education. Also, Kelly kept assuring me that she attended Sexaholics Anonymous meetings. (A claim that Fatima regularly confirmed.)

Anyway, why was I about to meet Harold and Natasha here at the Redmond Hilton for dinner? To explain this, I must back up a month to my twenty-first birthday. Which was celebrated in the Nimfo Club. The same Nimfo Club that was owned by Natasha’s father Yuri, you recall.

It was a wild party. All you need to know is One, I walked into the place with ten strippers or former strippers; and Two, Nimfo Club’s V.I.P. Area was very dark. But skipping through the times that I was getting sucked or fucked (by harem slaves or former harem slaves), or envied (by other men there), let me tell you about the conversation that I had with Dimitri.

Dimitri was a bartender at Nimfo Club. Like many immigrants’ kids, he spoke to me in unaccented American English, and then he and Yuri could carry on a private conversation right in front of me. Dimitri was in regular email contact with Natasha, and so was able to keep Virgilia well informed about Natasha’s and Harold’s doings; likewise, Dimitri always was pumping Virgilia for information about me, which he then passed on to Natasha.

That’s how Virgilia had informed me that Natasha and Harold were going to college in Cheney City, American Columbia (known as Victoria, British Columbia before the Canadian War).

Anyway, the previous month at my birthday party, I had mentioned to Dimitri that I would be in Redmond “next month.” Two days later, I had gotten a call on my cel: “When is will you in Redmond beink? I and Helenka, we do down to you drivink.”

So the plan for tonight was to meet Harold and Natasha at this restaurant. But evidently they were running late.

I looked around the restaurant again, and I couldn’t help but notice the porn-tits blonde who was sitting at the bar.

Her tits were gigantic, as big as Virgilia’s—which is to say, as big as cantaloupes. Her long hair was piled up on her head in an elegant beehive, with not even a hint of dark roots. Her fingernails were a full inch long and were bright red. She wore very-high-heeled blue shoes, a velvet dress in matching blue that was slit up to the hip, a pearl choker necklace, and dangling blue earrings. That blue dress revealed that the blonde had toned arms and shoulders, and it gave glimpses of well-shaped, muscular legs. She wore “sophisticate” makeup, all carefully color-chosen and understated, except for her lipstick. Her lipstick sent a definite message.

The blonde was elegance itself; she also was sex on a stick.

Feeling my gaze on her, the stacked blonde turned around, and her eyes met mine. She put a big smile on her face as she slid off the bar stool, then she started walking toward me.

At the blonde’s crotch area, I saw that the blue-velvet dress sported a blue-velvet rose.

It’s
very
seldom that I’m out in public without Fatima or one of my thirty-three harem slaves. But when I’m out in public and alone, always I’m approached by women or girls. Such women/girls fall into three types.

If she approaches me with hesitant voice and downcast gaze, the magic pheromones have pushed her to offer herself to me. Such encounters don’t usually happen till ten minutes after I’ve sat down near the woman, or she’s sat down near to me.

In which case, unless the girl or woman is exceptionally attractive, I say to her, “Let’s just be friends,” and then I send her back to her seat.

But the blue-velvet blonde had stood up within seconds of my walking into the restaurant. From this I deduced that she wasn’t pheromone-addled.

Which meant, the blonde either intended to get together with me for “fun,” or else she was a hooker about to solicit me.

Over two years after Fatima had granted my wishes, my policies remained the same: I didn’t pay for sex, I didn’t have sex with women who were married or committed to someone else, and I didn’t do one-night stands unless I was the person who was starting the party.

That was in my home city. When I traveled more than a hundred miles away from the mansion, I often went celibate (unless I’d brought harem girls or Fatima along to cool my blood, or Fatima
foom
ed over to my hotel room till I fell asleep).

I, celibate even briefly? Does that surprise you? At the mansion, I now had my computer schedule my daily sex: a wake-up blowjob, a late-night blowjob, and four fucks a day; plus Fatima and I had a standing fuck-date for Saturday afternoon. Not to mention, Anna Kay made sure that I got
plenty
of gift blowjobs! So I wasn’t going to die of blue balls if I spent up to three days away from the mansion, getting no sexual relief.

On the other hand, when an out-of-town girl fucked me or sucked me, she instantly got made into my harem slave, and I then had to decide the rest of her life. I didn’t want to screw up the life of someone whom I barely knew, and the only way to avoid that responsibility was to avoid the sex.

And so it was decided: If the blue-velvet blonde offered to fuck me for free, I’d politely turn her down. If she solicited me, I’d politely turn her down—unless I sensed that she was being abused by her pimp.

In which case, I’d rescue her. By this time, I’d rescued four prostitutes already (not counting Gregory’s Girls).

As the blue-velvet blonde walked toward me, I began to wonder whether she were a showgirl instead of a call girl.

The woman was wearing five- or six-inch heels, which I knew from first-hand observation, women couldn’t walk in easily without
lots
of practice. And yet moving across the floor was no more of a problem for the blue-velvet blonde than if she’d been wearing bunny slippers. If she’d had a book on her head, that book wouldn’t have wobbled even slightly.

Then too, the blonde was walking with one foot directly in front of the other, which really shook her ass. Only tightrope walkers and runway models walk like that.

But the blonde was no runway model. Have you ever seen a runway model wear any expression other than bored scorn? Well, the blonde had pasted on a beauty-queen smile as she sashayed toward me. That smile was well-practiced, so I figured that the blonde had spent her teen years entering pageants (when she wasn’t cheering the quarterback).

The only thing out of place, to make me be less than convinced that this woman was in fact a casino showgirl, was her height. By now I had plenty of first-hand observations of women wearing very high heels, and this woman was too short to be a showgirl. I guessed that in bare feet, she was somewhere between 5′5″ and 5′7″.

A man intercepted the blue-velvet blonde’s walk toward me. He wanted something from her. His manner was aggressive.

The man and the blonde were too far away for me to hear most words, but I’d spent enough time around Natasha to recognize the words that I did get. The man was speaking to the blonde in Russian-accented English.

The blonde’s body was still facing me, and she glanced my way when the man wasn’t requiring her immediate attention. Yet though she had to find it unpleasant to talk to this man, her beauty-queen smile never flickered.

Then he put his hand on her arm, not actually holding her in place but making a clear threat. The blonde stepped away from his hand—while continuing to smile pretty at him.

Natasha barreled up to the man, putting herself between him and the blonde. Natasha began speaking loud Russian. When Natasha yelled the name “Yuri Vasilivich Ludmenkov,” the man got nervous.

But only for a second. Then the Russian’s manner got cocky; clearly he was thinking, “Your father is scary, but he’s not here to help you two.”

Meanwhile, I was wondering: How does Natasha know the short showgirl, and why is Natasha sticking up for her?

Then the blue-velvet blonde said something to Natasha. Natasha looked around the restaurant till she saw me. Natasha pointed me out to the Russian man.

****

As before, the man got nervous for a second, then he got cocky. Just from his body language, I could tell what he was saying—

“You’re bluffing, Natasha. You don’t know that big man at all!”

Natasha said something, and the blue-velvet blond showgirl resumed her trek toward me. Now she was covering distance quickly, and yet that imaginary book on her head didn’t wobble.

She stopped at my table and said, “Hello, Marvin. Natasha asks if you’ll help her out. That guy doesn’t think you know us.”

It was the
us
that stopped me dead. I looked at the beautiful blond person in front of me and said, “Harold? You’re
Harold?
”

Only then did I notice that the blonde’s elbows were “wrong” for a woman’s body.

She (I couldn’t think of the blonde as “he”) replied, “Yes, except I go by ‘Helen’ now. Um, not to rush you, but Natasha really needs your help.”

Reader, remember what Arnold Schwarzenegger looked like in his young days, when he was winning bodybuilding awards? Well, that’s what I looked like on the
second to
last day of my transformation. For the almost-three years since that day, I’d been clearly the strongest man in the group,
any
group. I’d been stronger than every bouncer I’d met, every bodyguard I’d met, and every professional athlete I’d met.

In the almost-three years after my transformation, I hadn’t met a man as strong as me, and I hadn’t seen a photo of a man as strong as me. (Although some of those weightlifters in the 2012 Olympics came close.)

Men as strong as I was now, existed only in artwork. And those men were either superheroes, supervillains, or gay-male fantasy.

Besides being strong, the transformation made me
tall
. In the almost-three years since my transformation, I’d met only three men taller than me.

So now in 2013 in Redmond, Washington, it was no surprise that when I stood up and walked away from my table, the entire restaurant went silent.

When I got close to Natasha and the Russian man, he said to me, “Anya is sayink, you do know she and Helenka. Is child story, yes?”

I answered, “Sorry, it’s all true. Natasha and I and—and Helen all graduated from Plato Smith High School in May 2010. Now, I have to tell you...?”

“Nicolai,” Natasha said.

I said, “I have to tell you, Nicolai: Leave my friends alone.”

Two guys walked up to Nicolai, and there was a quick conversation in Russian. Then the two guys moved to stand at either side of Nicolai, and facing me. Their “smile” at me reminded me of wolves.

Nicolai gave Natasha and me a wolf-smile of his own. “You do let we have Helenka for playink, no things do get hurtink.” He ran his fingertips along a bulge in his front pants pocket, which I’m guessing meant he had a knife.

“Shit!” Helen/Harold said.

I didn’t give the three Russian men a wolf-smile back. I just flicked my fingers, and my sports jacket was unbuttoned. I pulled my sports jacket off, handed it to Natasha, and unknotted my tie. Seconds later, my shirt collar was open, and Natasha was holding my jacket and tie. Now only a tailored cotton shirt covered my bulked-up upper body.

To my right, I heard a man exclaim, “Look at the lats on that guy!”

Another man’s voice agreed: “He’s got a chest like a steel safe!”

Meanwhile, the three Russian men were staring at me. They looked worried.

Since fighting Gregory the pimp, I’ve been in three more fights to the death. (Why do pimps always want to fight me?) Thanks to Fatima’s wish-grant, I’ve won every fight that I’ve been in. Still, I try to avoid fights. And I’ve found that the best way to avoid a fight is to convince the other man that you want to fight more than he does.

And so, while eyeing the three Russian men, I said, “Translate this. ‘We go outside. Now.’ ”

I was surprised that it was Helen/Harold, not Natasha, who translated. He spoke the words in the womanly voice that Fatima had given him, in the same soothing tone as flight attendants use.

Soothing tone or not, Helen’s words clearly frightened the Russians.

Nicolai said, “I want to mop ground with you, but I do remember I have appointink. Giorgi, Ivan? [Russian words],” and then the three men hurried away.

“
Spasibo
, Marvin,” Helen/Harold said. “Oh, by the way, ‘Natasha is in the bathroom.’ That’s what I originally went over there to tell you.”