Chapter 9

Rachel giggled at the other djinni. I hadn't even given the other djinni a name. I'd have to find a way to keep track of them. I'd never been good at faces: it usually took me a couple of weeks in a new job to remember who all my co-workers and fellow contributors were. It struck me: were. I wasn't going to be doing that any more. Back to the djinni: this one was a brunette. Short, straight hair.

Rachel's giggle interrupted my meandering thoughts. "Lisa did say, 'Somebody entertain him, ' and he's taken care of what he had to do, so let's entertain him."

I was pulled back onto one of the cushions on the floor by two laughing djinni, who proceeded to run their fingers through my hair. My arms were full of squirming djinni. They started to tease me.

"He would look better with long hair."

"And a beard."

"But it's up to Lisa..."

"And her bath will take her a while..."

"Her hair is a wreck..."

"Somebody messed up her makeup..."

"Somebody wrinkled her skirt..."

Rachel sniffed my shirt. "And somebody has been playing stud since breakfast..."

"Oooh, he missed breakfast..."

"So he must be hungry..."

"We could give him something to eat..."

"Or just something to nibble on..."

"But Lisa said that he's all hers..."

"So we could tempt him..."

"That could be cruel. But entertaining."

"And Lisa said we were supposed to entertain him."

"So let's entertain him."

Two knit shirts were stripped off and flung across the room, and my field of vision filled with a pert breast, topped with an erect nipple. I reached out to touch it with my tongue, and it was pulled away.

"Mustn't. Lisa says we can't, until she says so."

I protested. "I'm the boss."

"Un-uh. Lisa outranks. She wins. That's the way it works."

"Don't I get any say in the matter?"

"You did. Wednesday night. You told her it was her decision. And this is all the consequences of that." And another strawberry-topped breast from the other direction blotted out my view of anything else. And was pulled away as my tongue tasted the air around the nipple.

"Oooh. This is fun..."

"We should do this until Lisa finishes her bath..."

"And they finish painting her toenails..."

"And fixing her hair..."

"Then he might muss it again..."

"Then we could fix it again..."

"Ooooh..."

My hands had two warm backsides to explore. As my hands found the edge of a breast, a squirm or a wriggle dislodged my fingers or my palm. My tongue was unable to capture the morsels that kept swinging into view. Otherwise unengaged hands stroked my chest and thighs. When my fingers caught on the belt of a pair of slacks, the slacks ended up tossed across the room. My right hand now had nothing on which it could gain a firm grasp. Hips and breasts were a fingertip away, and yet out of grasp. I tried the same maneuver with my left. The slacks were slid off with some impossible wriggle and tossed across the room.

"Ooof!" Lisa had collected a faceful of slack.

"Uh-oh."

It was echoed on the other side of me. "Uh-oh."

Lisa was wearing her silk robe. She was trailed by four of the djinni. She cocked an eyebrow at my two companions, "Hen party?"

"No-no-no-no-no. You told us to entertain him. So we were entertaining him. We didn't let him hold or caress..."

"So he's been kept entertained..."

A hand stroked my thigh and found my erection. "Very entertained."

"So I could..."

"You said that he was all yours until you said otherwise. And now you do need something to do while you wait for your nails to dry."

"Yes. Oooooh. It's such a luxury getting my nails done. And finally not having to have them look like they're not done. Finally. I should do something..."

"And you don't have to use your hands."

A djinni on each side held an arm as she leaned forward to kiss me. Her tongue found mine.

"Oooh. This could be fun. No hands. I haven't done that since my bicycle.

"Uh, his slacks..."

Djinnihands made short work of my belt, and my slacks, and my boxers. My erection pointed at the ceiling.

"Now let's..."

She straddled me and dropped onto my erection. The only thing under the silk robe was hot steaming Lisa. No djinni hands were necessary for me to find and enter her warmth. A djinni held each of her arms lightly at the wrist, to ensure that she did not mess the drying handiwork on her nails. She rocked back and forth, burying my length in her hot depths.

Lisa's grin was blinding. "Oh, wow. I get to dry my nails. And an audience. And all the assistance I need." She rocked back and forth, sending shivers through my body. "I could get used to this... or maybe I'll never... ooof..."

She leaned forward and kissed me. "You know, love, if anyone had told me a week ago that I would be making love to my fiancé in front of an audience, I would have had them taken to Valley Medical for a 72-hour hold. My life is now so different. Oooooooooooh..."

Her rocking changed from random to rhythmic, from movements that provided warm wet wonderful sensations, to movements intended to result in an orgasm. My hips found her cadence, my upthrusts matching her downbeats.

"Oh. Wow. Fill me. Uhhhhhhhhhh..."

I felt my cock bottom out as she started to cum. I grunted and came, too.

Lisa hung there, held above me in that magical space after orgasm where you float free. A faint smile wreathed her features.

I whispered to Rachel, "My slacks. The ring."

Djinni hands found the ring that I had shoved into my pants pocket, and handed it to me. I suddenly had hands free to place it on her limp finger.

"Now lower her hand a little. There."

Lisa woke from her reverie. "Ooooooh, I could get used to that... My hand. What happened to my hand?"

She worked to force her eyes open, to see why one hand now seemed to weigh much more than the other.

"What? What? When did that happen? Herb. Herb. Herb..."

She leaned forward, her djinni balance guides holding her steady, and planted kisses all over my face.

"You lout! This way I didn't get a chance to say 'ooh' and 'aah' before you slipped it on my finger."

"No, my sweet. You didn't. You just said, 'oooooooh!' before I slipped it on your finger. Anyway, I didn't have a jeweler's box to present it in."

Her eyes focused on the ring. "This is... beautiful... this must be worth a king's ransom."

Eight sets of djinni eyes focused on the ring. Eight varieties of "ooh" and "aah" filled the room.

I was a bit pompous. "It probably was."

"We decided an hour ago. I followed you here. I've been in my bath, you've been being entertained. When did you get this?"

"This morning."

"Oh my God! 'Heir to the riches of Solomon.' Now I begin to understand. The djinni?"

I smiled. "The djinni."

She pointed to my watch. "Time?"

I looked. "We have plenty. We may miss lunch, though."

She smiled, "I'm so full. Lunch can wait until we get out. But I do need a quick bath."

Lisa stood up, more than a tad shaky. Djinni hands steadied her on both sides.

She looked at Rachel. "He should be cleaned and made presentable again. And entertain him, but don't tease him. We need to look like, uh, adults when we get to court." She giggled. Her escorts led her off.

We made it to the court at a quarter to one. We did miss lunch.

Family court is downstairs. I hate that damn basement. For all the Susan wars, every time I went down that elevator, it felt like I was entering the elevator to Hell.

We met Karen in the corridor outside the courtroom.

"Hi, Councilor."

"Hi, Herb. And this is... ?"

"I'm Lisa. As of this morning, I'm the fiancée. On Tuesday, I was counsel, representing Warren in some financial matters."

"Congratulations, Herb." She turned to Lisa, "Ah, a fellow practitioner of the legal arts."

"Mostly banking, financials, mergers and acquisitions. And as of today, semi-retired."

"And you went to... ?"

"Boalt Hall. And you?"

"Hastings." I guess sharks rub noses when they meet. Professional courtesy.

"Ah, a street fighter. Herb needs one of those for this."

"You're right. I guess you don't see too many street fighters in your line of work."

Lisa laughed. "No, we bring in the professional litigators when the long knives fail."

Karen smiled. "Down here in the trenches, you need to be ambidextrous."

"So I've heard. What's the prognosis?"

"Judge Emerson accepted my brief and motion, but Margie wants to argue it. So we argue, and then Judge Emerson rules. Should be straightforward, but with Margie involved, nothing is straightforward."

"This is your case, councilor, so all I am this afternoon is the fiancée. If you need to get rid of me to talk to your client, just ask."

"We settled on a strategy years ago. I fight and he pays. It works."

"Good luck this afternoon."

"Thank you. Let's go in."

The courtroom had the typical courtroom smell of old musty paper, combined with the always damp smell of being in a basement. Lisa and I found seats behind the plaintiff counsel table, and Karen laid out her papers on the table. Four other lawyers wandered in, dropping their briefcases into chairs in the jury box, looking around the courtroom for their clients. There were two other cases calendared, Gonzalez v. Gonzalez, and In Re: Johnson. What I guessed was the (soon to be ex-)Mrs. Gonzalez and an older woman (her mother?, her aunt?) sat behind us. Mr. Gonzalez, a young man with a tufted goatee sat in the very back corner.

Lisa followed my eyes as I looked around the room. "Yes, you would look good with a beard. But you're too... old for one of those little ones."

"I'm too old?"

"For one of those little ones. You're not twenty any more. On you, a full beard." She rubbed my chin.

Margie came rushing in at twelve fifty-eight. She was usually controlled and distantly pleasant, in a prim, sorority-big-sister sort of way. Today she seemed haggard, dark clouds rolling across her face. She dropped her briefcase and purse on the respondent counsel table, and scanned around the room. Her eyes stopped on us for a moment, and she frowned. Finally, she reached over to the plaintiff's table and shook hands with Karen. The insincerity of her greeting was palpable. She was pulling papers out of her briefcase when the bailiff stood up.