Chapter 4

MINE.

The thought reverberated in my head. It was the first time I had ever thought that about anyone besides Kendra. Now it was all I could think of. I feel it behind my eyes. Flashing red, thumping in my brain with irresistible need. Just as before, I felt possessive. The emotions didn’t seem normal. They had an intensity, passion, or maybe a roughness that I had not felt before.

Mine.

It hit me again. I stared down at Genie. She was out of this world gorgeous, always. Her lips were barely parted, and I could see her taking fast, shallow breaths. Her eyes were glassy as she stared unseeing up at me. I wanted her. I wanted that body. I needed to feel her.

I took a step forward towards her.

“Felix!” I screamed. It was a last-ditch effort. I saw poor Genie on the floor. Saw my hand reaching for her, and I knew it was wrong. It was wrong that I was reaching for her. It was wrong that she was unmoving, kneeling before me. It was wrong that I knew what I would do. I felt tears burning in my eyes. Kendra. Kendra, whom I had already left after using her.

I had never seen Felix appear anywhere; that was Genie’s preferred method of travel. Felix walked like a normal person. This morning, he finally appeared somewhere. Maybe he had been in a different dimension. Maybe it was early, and he couldn’t be bothered to walk. Maybe it was the desperation in my scream. For once, he appeared. Not with a pop like Genie. This was a gentle rain. From his shoes up, pieces of him began sliding into place.

It was nauseating and disturbing to watch, but at least it caused me to pause for a moment. After my scream used up the last of my self-control, my hand had resumed its terrible path. I was now only inches from Genie’s face.

When Felix was fully assembled, he looked at me quizically for just a moment before his face became hard. The normally easy-going lines and creases sharpened and seemed to split the light. His mouth, which was normally soft and a twitch away from a half-smile, thinned and pulled tight.

“Warted Gargoyles Genie, what did you do?” He muttered. He raised both hands to shoulder height, palms facing me, and shoved violently outward.

I felt an unseen force hit me in the chest and send me flying backwards. I heard the tinkling of glass breaking and felt a ripping sensation along every inch of skin. My feet and legs seemed stuck and did not move until I felt another blow and heard more shattering sounds. I fell backwards, tumbling head over heels. I ended up lying half on my back with my head looking back towards Felix and my hips and legs vertical above me, pushed uncomfortably against the shop door.

Oh fuck that hurt. I looked at my arms. I felt like my skin was raw and burning, that something had been ripped off painfully. My arms were normal. They were the normal Tom Greenthalw from last week and every day of my life except yesterday and today. What the hell? I let my head fall back to the ground in exhaustion. And now to my other problems lets add me being a dumbass and smacking my head on the ground, yeah great job.

Shit. My stupidity and impending headache were forgotten.

“Shit.

“Felix, what the hell?” I stopped my sentence.

I rolled to my side and started pushing myself up. My head started spinning, and I sank back to all fours. What was going on? Everything hurt, but I couldn’t see any injury. What I could see was something I didn’t understand, where I had been standing moments ago.

I took a moment to gather myself, then I tried to stand again. My head throbbed, but I shook myself and moved back to where I had been standing. Because where I had been standing wasn’t empty, there was something still standing there. Something that looked like me from this morning, but broken.

I walked around in front of it. All of the muscles, the eyes, and the tail were there. Crystalized, partially broken around the edges. The front was mostly intact, but the back looked like it had been blown open. Like an explosion. Or that something had gone flying out the back and shattered it. I looked at my hands. Normal, pale hands with black hair and calluses.

I brought a shaking hand up towards this crystal husk that bore my face. Just before I touched it, a black, powerful, extremely muscular arm smacked my hand away.

“Don’t,” Felix said. “Genie and I need to chat first.”

Genie, oh shit. I looked at where she had been, but there was nothing. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I whirled and saw Genie behind me. She was standing, no longer kneeling. Her eyes were staring at the floor, her hands clasped in front of her. I had seen Genie just minutes ago without her ever-present, bountiful energy, this almost felt worse. Before, when that ... thought was in my head, there was just nothing. Now I was looking at Genie, who seemed more than a little despondent, and it was such a shift that I immediately hated it.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I just ... I thought that umm ... well that wasn’t what I meant to happen. Sorry.” Genie was mumbling and wouldn’t look at me.

I gently moved towards her and enfolded her in a hug. “Hey, it’s ok. No harm done.”

As soon as I said the words, I knew they were wrong.

“Wait, fuck! I’m sorry.” I turned to Felix. “Kendra. I uhh fucked her ... well a lot like half the day and all night when,” I gestured at the crystal thing like that explained things. “Is she...”

I was saved from the rest by Felix raising a hand. He closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened the lines on his face softened finally and he had a small smile.

“Kendra is fine. Once we are done here, you can go home and talk to her. For now, she is sleeping. Genie...” He paused and looked at Genie for a moment. “Genie put a little too much into that spell, and we need to fix that, but there is no permanent damage.”

I felt him clap a hand on my shoulder as he continued. “Tom, we cannot force. Magic, this magic, doesn’t work that way. It’s not mind control. She had a choice. Just like you did.”

I wanted to cry in relief. I wasn’t sure I fully believed him, but it at least helped me put off my worst fears. I had worried that somehow the Kendra I loved, that I had married, was gone. Last night was amazing sex, but I would give it up in a heartbeat to see Kendra smile and hear her make a dirty joke that fourteen-year-olds groaned at.

Instead of crying, I settled for the “manly” thing to do: straighten up, clear my throat, and pretend I didn’t have emotions.

“Ok. So you two need to chat and then maybe you can tell me what the hell happened?” I was actually looking forward to having a minute alone. I thought maybe sorting through some of the junk and actually throwing it out would be a nice change of pace. Yesterday and this morning had been another whirlwind of too many things happening at once.

I snorted. Ever since my parents kicked their damn buckets everything had been a whirlwind. First, it was mundane stuff. Funeral arrangements, cleaning out their house, trying not to dance on their grave while performing pagan celebratory rituals. The usual. Then I decided to clean out their shop, and life had been nothing but unusual since then. Even the island was less restful than I felt it should have been. There was always another thing about magic that I didn’t know until I got kicked in the teeth by it.

Case in point, I was now looking at a broken chrysalis of myself, complete with fiery eyes and tail. I paused and took a moment to study it. Huh. Everyone knew about pecs and abs. I don’t think I have ever seen someone with quite that much bulging muscle over the front of their ribs, though. Somehow, though I had skipped the massive neck so thank god for small mercies.

“Tom.”

“Huh?” I shook my head, realizing I had been lost in my thoughts.

Genie walked in front of me and looked up with eyes that were just shy of overflowing sadness. “Felix says the three of us should talk now. Then afterwards you can talk to Kendra.”

I looked around. “Wait, I thought you two needed to? How long was I looking at this thing?” I stammered in embarrassment.

Genie chuckled. “About 30 seconds. We talked magically, it’s faster that way, and then you didn’t have to hear it.”

Felix clapped his hands together, and a fire pit with roaring fire, complete with flue and chimney, sprang into existence in the middle of the shop. Three massive armchairs surrounding it. The fireplace between the chairs and demon me. Heh, no male model Tom from my Genie makeover. Nope I got fucking crystal demon me.

I settled into a chair while Felix stood in front of his, and Genie perched on the arm of hers.

“Tom, first, my apologies. My role here is to help and guide Genie. I believe she mentioned, it is my magic she is actually directing while she earns her A.S.S.” Felix waved at demon me. “This should not have happened.

“Great. So what did happen? Genie didn’t make me anything. She had a pipe that she said would give me flexible horns or a horn, but I told her no. So this was what? Something rogue? Are there more genies here?” I was leaning forward, staring intently at Felix. Genie had her hands clasped in her lap again and kept her gaze fixed firmly on her interlocked fingers.

“Genie.” Felix prompted gently. He sat down as he gestured at Genie.

I shifted my gaze to her. She didn’t move an inch. I looked at Felix, but he was smiling gently at Genie, so I decided to give her a minute.

“I’m supposed to know or be able to figure out what they, what people, need or want. That’s what I did with Kendra’s corset. I saw her pain, the hate she was letting eat her inside. It wasn’t how she looked, but it was all tied up together. It was ... a big black mess. All tangled. Dripping in self-loathing and guilt. I couldn’t fix that, but I could let her. I just needed to pull a thread. So I made the corset,” she said this with an almost monotone sadness, none of her usual bouncing from topic to topic.

Genie looked up at me finally, and I could see her eyes were still full of sadness.

“I didn’t fix anything, just made it so that she could start.”

I nodded. I knew very well what Genie was talking about. It was something Kendra had alluded to yesterday, but we hadn’t delved into it with everything else. Everything else, like her worrying about me dying and then me turning into a bad caricature of a sex demon.

“Then she talked to me and I explained what it had done. I didn’t think through everything, and she was so concerned about you, Tom. She was really, really upset.” Genie sniffled a little and paused. This was the greatest range of human emotion I had ever seen from her. Previously, it had all been out of control, infectious happiness. I didn’t know how to deal with this any more than I knew how to deal with my own emotions.

“I didn’t want the magic to be a bad thing or to cause more problems. Plus I ... I like this. I like making things. I like you, Tom, and I want to make things for you. Show you there is more. So you came in and I had all these things that I wanted to do for you, but you said no. To all of it. Except for the one thing that I couldn’t do. I got scared.” Genie paused again. I got the feeling that fear wasn’t a normal emotion for her.

“I thought that this might ruin everything before it started. If the first thing I made did harm, actual real harm to Kendra rather than helping. I thought that I would never have a chance. So when you said no, I panicked and umm, I remade your phone. That’s why it was out of your pocket, you have to willingly take what I make.”

Genie glanced over at Felix. He nodded at her to continue.

She sighed. “But I didn’t ask and I didn’t check with Felix that what I had done was what you needed. I just pushed. Really, really hard. There wasn’t time because you were leaving, and I thought I had to do this or what I had done for Kendra would end up hurting her. I needed you to take it, and then it would fix everything, and I could stay here and still make things. I could get my A.S.S. as long as you took the phone because it would make everything fine.” By the end, she was speaking so fast I could barely understand her. What I did understand was that Genie acted impulsively.

“So you threw a bunch of magic at my phone and I became that?” I nodded at demon me. Maybe I should name it? Demon me just wasn’t catchy and lacked intensity.

“I wasn’t completely wrong. You like being able to be in control. You want to be able to please Kendra in any way that she wants,” she said. Like she was desperate for me to say she hadn’t done anything wrong. I just looked at her.

Genie wilted under my gaze. “But umm, I wasn’t 100% sure when I did the magic, so I got some stuff wrong. It was also too much. I shouldn’t have reacted like I did when you came in, but there was too much magic. I got caught in it, which shouldn’t have ever happened.”

Genie looked back up at me. “But like Felix said, it still couldn’t force me. I wouldn’t mind having sex with you.” She paused for a long moment. “Thank you for not though. I don’t think you or Kendra are ready for that yet, and I don’t want to hurt either of you.”