Chapter 6: Genie

“Well, I suppose that’s a thing,” Sam laughed as David vanished. He shook his head in disbelief. “Can’t say I wish I was in his shoes right now.”

Parisa’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “I think you are underestimating David.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow. “You think... ?”

Parisa nodded. “This is not the first time such a thing has happened to a man who has married a djinn. I am told that it was easier in the old days, when we worked much more closely with humans and it was more common for a man to have more than one bride. But David has a bright spirit. I am sure that the two of them will be able to work something out.”

“You know, that’s really what I find the hardest part to believe about this,” Sam said. He began to twirl his finger in a circle, causing a large sphere of ice to start materializing in front of him. “This used to be the closest thing I would ever come to real magic, just special effects in movies or the graphics of a video game. Now you show up, and suddenly magic is real. It’s all real. So where has it been all this time?”

Parisa shrugged. “I do not know much, but from what I am given to understand, the world just ... moved away from it.”

Sam frowned. “What do you mean, ‘moved away from it’? How does the entire world just move away from magic?”

Parisa snapped her fingers, and a pair of large divans materialized beside them. A small champagne bucket stood within easy reach, filled to the brim with ice and glass bottles of soda. She took one for herself and motioned to Sam that he ought to help himself. The djinn waited until he had taken a seat before continuing, “Magic is like gravity, or electricity or any of the other forces man has learned to harness for himself. It was one of the first forces ever tamed by man, right alongside the wolf and the flame. But just because a dog is tame does not mean it will respect just any man as its master, and magic is much the same. True, there are those who have a natural talent for it; usually those who are some way blooded by a race from the Outter Realms. But for most, controlling and using magic is the result of a life dedicated just to that purpose. It normally takes long hours and much work to develop new spells, and even then they must be practiced time and time again to be sure that they will work as needed, when needed. Very few people ever truly had the wealth or leisure necessary to spend their lives that way, and as mankind’s numbers grew, it found more and more ways to do without magic. Life was easier that way.”

“Life was easier without magic?” Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Not for nothing, Parisa, but after seeing everything you’ve done since yesterday, I can’t quite see how that’s possible.”

“But that is because you have only seen me grant David’s wishes,” Parisa pointed out between sips. “And even then, he has not asked very much of me. But even if he spent all his time trying to come up with new wishes for me to grant, David is but one man. Eventually, his needs would be sated or he would sleep and I would find my own rest. But how many people live in this city of yours? How many are going hungry right now, or have taken ill, or need to revenge themselves upon someone who has offered them a slight? And this is not even a large city! There would simply not be enough time to answer all their needs and wants!”

She held up her bottle of soda. “But this! One man and his machine can make thousands of these drinks in mere hours! Then they are turned over to another man, who, with a single truck, can deliver them all over a city in less than a day. The shelves never empty, the people can eat or drink at their leisure.”

Sam nodded. “So you’re saying technology killed magic.”

Parisa shook her head quite vigorously. “No! Technology can no more kill magic than it could kill gravity. It simply made magic irrelevant. Why tolerate one man spending years learning to call the thunder when an entire army could be handed it in the form of a gun?”

“But you don’t have those limitations, do you?” Sam threw his ball of ice into the air, where it exploded into a million sparkling snowflakes. “How does that work?”

Parisa shrugged. “How does your heart know how to beat?”

Sam opened his mouth to reply, then actually stopped to consider the question. His teeth clicked together as he frowned, deep in thought. Parisa let the silence stretch out, until he finally asked, “So does that mean I could learn magic?”

“I do not see why not,” Parisa answered honestly. “Is that something you truly wish to do?”

This time Sam didn’t even pause. “If the answer is yes, I can, then yes, I do. I can’t see how my life is going to return to anything like normal at this point, so why not embrace it with everything I have?”

Parisa clapped her hands with delight. “Wonderful! I will send a message back to my brothers then, and see what they can send you. I suppose they will have to translate some of the tomes before hand, though. Or, by any chance would you happen to speak --?”

Sam’s brain froze at the bizarre series of clicks, squeaks, and hums that followed the word ‘speak’. He blinked hard when the noise stopped. “Um, no. What was that?”

Parisa sighed. “That was the language of the stars. It is the language of the first spells, those hand down to us directly from the angels themselves. It is not entirely necessary to learn it in order to study magic – spells can be cast in any of man’s tongues – but understanding the stellar tongue makes it much easier to develop your magical ability.”

Sam matched her sigh with one of his own. “And let me guess, you can’t just wish the knowledge into my head.” When she nodded in agreement he asked, “Well, is there an English-Stellar dictionary anywhere I might be able to pick up?”

Parisa’s lips twisted in uncertainty. “I will see what my brothers can arrange.”

Sam took a swig from his coke, letting the carbonation sting his tongue for several moments before swallowing. “Is it just me, or do they seem to be taking a while?”

He frowned when Parisa’s only response was a knowing smirk. It took a little too long for all of the pieces to fall into place, but once they did, Sam snorted in amusement. “You don’t mean... ?”

“My husband has a very bright spirit.”

“And this doesn’t bother you in the least?” Sam asked, genuinely curious. “I can’t think that most women would be enjoying the thought of their guy sleeping with another woman, especially not when you’ve been married for less than twenty-four hours.”

“That is because humans are much needier creatures than djinn.“ Parisa shook her head when he started to protest. “It is true! You need food, you need sleep, you need shelter. For the djinn, those are only indulgences. Our powers allow us to fulfill any of our physical wants with a mere thought. We were made that way, so that we could help take care of your needs. The only thing we cannot simply wish into existence are the emotional bonds that come with knowing other people. It is the one thing all djinn crave.”

Sam took another sip. “I’m not sure that I follow.”

Parisa looked at him askance. “What do you desire most out of this life?”

Sam frowned. “That’s not one of those, ‘Where do you see yourself in ten years’ things, is it?”

“No, I mean, what would you like as your epitaph?”

Sam blinked. “Damn, woman, that is dark!“

Parisa snarled in frustration as she materialized a pillow to throw at him.

“Okay, okay!” Sam laughed as he caught the pillow and tucked it behind his head. He stared up at the clear blue sky overhead, digital clouds rolling by with a serene grace. “Honestly, I never really thought about it. A good job, I guess. A nice place to live. Not to have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, that sort of thing. Someone nice to share it all with, of course.”

“Exactly!” Parisa exclaimed. “We djinn have no need of the first, and never worry about the next two. The only thing we cannot control is our loneliness. We need companionship almost the same way you need to breathe. The loss of a friend or family is our greatest nightmare. Isolation is our greatest torture. So the thought of coming between David and Christine is a painful one for me. That does not mean that I would be willing to give him up for her - far from it! - but I would much rather they work it out. Especially if it means I get to know her as well.”

Sam coughed in surprise as his drink went down the wrong pipe. “Know her, or know her know her?” When Parisa blinked in confusion, he tried, “I mean, are you telling me you’d sleep with a woman?”

“Of course!” Parisa giggled. “It would hardly be my first time! There can only ever be one man in a harem, but there are always plenty of women!”

“Ah...” Sam’s mind boggled at the new information. “Just how many women?”

“In my father’s harem?” Parisa frowned and silently started ticking off numbers on her fingers, darting back and forth between her thumb and her index finger as she tried to come up with a suitable calculation. “A thousand? Perhaps more? I don’t believe I ever met everyone, just my sisters and my mothers.”

“Your father has a thousand concubines?” Sam was openly gaping by that point. “How? I mean, why? I mean, how? Where does he find all the time?”

“Im-mor-tal,” Parisa answered slowly. “Some are women he took a fancy to, others were gifts from various families and foreign dignitaries. It is a common enough practice to gift a lesser daughter when traveling between the realms as a token of friendship.”

“And he manages to keep them happy?” Sam did some quick calculations of his own. “Okay, well, I suppose if he hooks up with three of them each day, that’d still leave him a day off for the weekend...”

Parisa laughed and shook her head. “Only three a day? What, and leave each woman to wait a year between visits? No, he makes sure to visit them all each day.”

“What is he, the fucking Flash?”

“The what?”

“Does he run really fast or something?”

“Oh!” Parisa giggled. “No, he simply divides himself into different bodies so that he can make sure to give each of his wives sufficient attention to keep them satisfied. Speaking of keeping people satisfied...”

Parisa wiggled her nose. Sam felt a puff of air over his face, forcing him to close his eyes. When he opened him again, Christine and David were both standing there, her hand in his. Parisa glanced at Sam and winked.

Christine forced herself to breathe evenly as everything she knew about the world went ass over tea kettle. One second she was standing in her apartment, the very next she was standing in a vast green field, dressed in a skin tight black leather outfit very similar to the one her character wore in Dragon War Finalis. Scratch that: not similar, but exactly the same. She even had her bow strung over her shoulders. Surprise was written across her face as she turned towards David. “What the hell, David? I thought we were supposed to be going back to your apartment!”

“This is my apartment,” David chuckled. “Or at least part of it now. We were trying to upgrade our computers earlier to something more powerful for the game. Instead of getting a super fancy laptop, we got a super fancy virtual reality simulator instead.”

“So, we’re actually in the game?” Christine’s grin started out huge, then faltered for a moment. “Wait, we don’t get hit by some sort of electric shock if we get hit, do we?”

“Heh, no,” David answered. “We were playing for a bit before you got on. The worst that happens is the game ignores you if you get killed.”

“Awesome!” Christine’s grin widened again. Then she brushed past David to stand in front of Parisa. The human woman’s eyes raked the djinn from stem to stern. Christine began to circle Parisa, examining the younger woman the same way a potential buyer might examine a prized bit of horseflesh or a fine piece of furniture, stopping just shy of asking to check Parisa’s teeth. She did, however, pay particular attention to the djinn‘s extremely ample bosom. After a snort of amusement, Christine couldn’t help but comment, “Mmm, so you’re Parisa, then. Well, I don’t suppose you have a hard time in a bikini.”

Parisa might have found the examination a little bit insulting if she hadn’t gone through a similar examination every year since she was five. The only thing that hadn’t followed the normal pattern was Christine’s last comment. “What is a bikini?”

Christine looked over Parisa’s magi outfit and burst into giggles. “What’s a bikini? You’re wearing one. And not even much of one, at that.”

“Oh.”

Christine held out her hand. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. You were ... are ... quite a surprise, if I’m going to be honest. Dating you is going to be interesting.”

“I...” Parisa was becoming more and more confused. “I am sorry, but I am quite sure I do not understand. Date?”

“Mhmm.” Christine nodded. “You, me, dinner and a movie. Or something like that at any rate.”

Parisa shook her head. “Now I am positive that I do not understand.”

David cleared his throat. “I explained to Christine that you were open to the idea of me taking other wives, and while she’s not against it herself, she thought it might make sense for her to get to know you before joining our ... Actually, I don’t know what to call this. Our marriage, I guess?”

“I don’t know what else you would call it,” Sam replied. “You’re married. It’s a marriage.”

“Ah, I see!” Parisa relaxed as she caught on to what Christine was implying. “So, you, me, and David will-”

“Nuh uh,” Christine cut her off. “Just you and me. No David. Be a girl’s night out kind of thing.”

“And David, he is ... okay with this?” Parisa glanced worriedly up at her husband.

David held up his hands. “Honestly, yeah, I think this is a good plan. Christine needs to get to know you, and you need to be around people other than me so that you can get used to this world. Even if everything doesn’t work out between you two, the experience alone ought to be worth it.”

“Hey, Angela and George just signed on,” Sam announced as he consulted one of his scrolls. “They’re warping over to meet us. You all ready to go?”

“Yes,” Christine answered as she held out her hand to Parisa. “How about you? Ready to game?”

Parisa smiled as she shook Christine’s hand. “Let us game.”

The legnashim hated the moving room. True, there were many different images for the spirit to possess, and it truly enjoyed the sensation of being able to move, but oh, what chaos! Many of the images were terribly ugly and only lasted a few moments before the djinn and her party demolished them. The legnashim was forced to keep jumping from host to host, picking the ones with the longest of those strange red bars over their heads as they seemed to last longer. When there were no other monsters around, it found the best way to stay with the group was by inhabiting the medallion worn by Sam. That left it with a very limited view of the proceedings, at least until the next mob of creatures spawned.

It was a good thing the legnashim didn’t really have much in the way of a personality, or it just might have felt the need to complain.

“Go, go, go!” David yelled as he slammed his mace into a fire giant’s kneecap. The beast roared as it attempted to return the favor, but David was faster. The giant’s flaming club bounced off of David’s shield. The giant took a programmed step backwards as it set up for it’s next attack, but before it could make its move a fireball and an ice spear met together in the center of its face. The giant’s roar turned into an electronic shriek of agony as it toppled backwards.

“Damn, you guys hack the game or something?” George asked as his knight jogged past David’s cleric. Once the party had gotten together they’d managed to get the simulator tied into the chat program the guild normally used, making communication much easier. “I’ve never seen animations like you’re using!”

“Nah, nothing we can get in trouble for,” David answered. “My grandfather is an investor in the company, and he got us into a beta test for some new game accessories. They uploaded most of the software into the game already, but the hardware side is just getting into stress testing.”

“Aww, and you got some of it for Christine but not us?” Angela asked. She pitched her voice to sound upset, but David could hear the laughter in the back of her voice.

“Yeah, well, I have a special way of asking for these sort of things!” Christine laughed.

“Hey, I can ask nicely!” Angela retorted.

“Uh, I think George might get a bit upset with me if you tried to ask the same way Christine did,” David answered. It was a good thing the game was only replicating their movements, because there was no way to hide the way he was blushing.

“Damn right I would,” George growled as Sam and Parisa’s characters caught up to the foursome. “But what about Parisa? Don’t tell me that she asked the same way!”

“No,” David answered quickly. “She’s, ah...”

“I am also part of the beta test,” Parisa lied. The others had managed to convince her that she should keep her true nature and the reality of her relationship with David a secret, at least for a little bit. She still wasn’t entirely sure of their reasoning, but what her husband wanted, her husband got. Still, she wasn’t very good at lying, so she decided to rely on a story as close to the truth as she could manage. “My family has known David’s for a very long time. When his grandfather offered it to David, he offered it to me as well.”

“Makes sense,” George said. His avatar began to twirl his sword in a wide circle as the group stood there and waited for their mana and hit points to refill. There was just one last room left in the dungeon, and it was none other than Surtr’s lair. It was important to be properly prepared before taking on the big boss.

“So, are you living in America?” Angela moved to stand next to her husband. “I can’t quite place your accent.”

Parisa glanced at David before answering, “Yes, I am. Actually, I am living with David and Sam. It was something that our families arranged.”

“Did they?” George asked. “Hmmm. Your family, they’re from overseas as well? Very traditional types?”

“Yes,” Parisa answered honestly. She had completely missed what George was trying to imply. “My father is a very big believer in tradition.”

The conversation froze for a moment. Parisa couldn’t help but wonder why David, Christine, and Sam all chose that exact same moment to slap themselves in the forehead.

“It’s not like that, George,” David said. “Her family’s not that traditional. They just wanted someone familiar to keep an eye on her while she’s here.”

“Suuure they do,” George laughed.

Parisa leaned over to Christine and whispered, “What is going on?”

Christine whispered back, “They think your family sent you here to get married to David.”

“But they did send me here to get married to David!”

Christine nodded and grinned mischievously. “Right. But George and Angela know that David and I have been sort-of-not-quite seeing each other for the past couple years. So now they think you’re here to steal him away from me because of your family’s connection to his family. But because they know David is a good person, he’s not going to cheat on me with you, so they’re teasing him about it.”

“But David is a good person!” Parisa sounded completely exasperated by Christine’s explanations. “What is so wrong about him being with both of us?”

Christine shrugged. “It’s just not a thing in this part of the world. Some men do have a mistress and a wife, but it’s not really considered to be polite if they flaunt that in public.”

“But you are not a mistress!” Parisa insisted. “You are his first wife!”

Christine’s brow furrowed in confusion. “First wife?”

Parisa frowned, but nodded in confirmation. “Of course. Well, you are not his first wife yet, I understand that, but if you choose to join us, then you will be his primary wife and I will be subservient to you.”

Christine was caught completely off guard by the revelation. “Excuse me? But you married him first!”

“But I am not human,” Parisa replied. “I am djinn. We were created to serve mankind. Therefore, it would be entirely inappropriate for me to be in any position that would place me above you.”

Christine blinked. “You have got to be joking.”

Parisa only shook her head. “Why would I jest about such a thing?”

“So, what, I’d be able to make wishes as well?”

Parisa shook her head again. “No, I can have only one Master, and that is David. Your preferences and desires, however, would take priority before mine. For example, if he offered us the choice between two doors, one to the left and one to the right, and you chose the door on the left, then it would be my duty to support you even if I thought the door on the right would make a better choice. I would, of course, try to offer my advice in the matter, but once you had made your decision than I would be bound to obey it. You would also be able to give me simple orders in regards to maintenance and upkeep of the household, though any instructions you might give me could of course be overridden by David.”

“That is...” Christine began to rub the back of her neck as she considered the implications of what Parisa was telling her. “I can’t tell if that is sick or awesome. I could tell you to do anything and you would have to do it?”

“If it was in regards to the household, yes.” Parisa nodded to emphasize her words. “But only in regards to household duties and chores. If you asked me to clean a room or make dinner, then I would be obligated to do so. If you asked me to jump off a building or attack someone, then of course I could make up my own mind to obey.”

“Huh.” Christine zoned out as she thought about just what she was getting into. It wasn’t that she wanted to be in charge of Parisa, so much as how natural the younger woman made it all seem. ‘How can anyone be so ready to just ... serve someone? We haven’t even known each other for a day and she’s already talking about serving me as if it would be the most natural thing in the world! Is this something I really want to get involved with? I mean, okay. The simulator is cool. And Parisa seems nice. But she’s so... ‘

“Christine? Christine!”

“What?” Christine snapped. David was saving his hand back and forth in front of her face, so she slapped it out of the way. “Will you knock that off?”

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Sam laughed. “Everyone is topped off, and we’re ready to start popping buffs. You back to Earth and ready to join us?”

“And finally knock Surtr on his flaming ass?” Christine grinned. “Yeah, let’s do it!”

Twenty-three-and-a-half minutes later...

“Ow, ow, ow!” Christine rubbed her ass, which was quickly turning into one giant bruise. David, Parisa, and Sam were all in a similar state. Sam was sprawled out face down on the floor, while Parisa and David were sitting back to back, slowly passing a bottle of water back and forth.

“Damn, I think we did even worse that time than we did yesterday,” George groaned in dismay.

“Does that hurt as much as it looks like it does?” Angela asked a little more sympathetically. Her avatar was standing almost right on top of Christine and, as if to add insult to injury, had started dancing due to a lack of inputs from its player.

“If you are asking if we really need to spend more time in the gym, then the answer is yes, “ Sam moaned.