The yard sale had been a treasure trove — one of those kind of goldmines which only occurred when a kid moved away from home and the parents selling the stuff had no idea what they were getting rid of. Two hundred dollars later I had several thousand dollars worth of mint-condition comic books complete with protective sleeves, another thousand dollars worth of power tools, several hundred dollars worth of furniture, and one brass oil lamp in need of cleaning.

I posted the comic books online at a collectors sale site, put up the tools on Ebay, and had just pulled out some brass cleaner while I waited for the cash to roll in when the room filled with smoke. When the smoke cleared I was no longer alone in the room.

The man waving the smoke away from his face was handsome in a mafia sort of way, with a tailored gray suit, slicked down hair, and a wolfish smile.

“How would you like infinite wishes?” he asked in a voice like sin and molasses.

My brain took a few moments to catch up. “Am I talking to a genie or a devil?”

The smile broadened into a grin. “Does it matter?”

“If I want to hold onto my soul, yes.”

“I don’t want your soul.” So a djinn, then. “What I do want is the ability to use my powers for my own gain, so I’ll offer you a deal. I will give you infinite wishes, as many as you want, as long as each wish for yourself is preceded by a wish for me.”

“How exactly would that work?” I was still trying to process everything which was happening and saw no harm in stalling for time while my brain caught up with the whole ‘genies are real’ thing.

“First, you refrain from blurting out any sentence starting with ‘I wish,’ particularly sentences like ‘I wish I never remembered meeting you’. Sentences like that are how I end up stuck in a garage for twenty years. ‘I want’ is perfectly acceptable, for purposes of discussion, but not ‘I wish’.”

“Makes sense.”

“Second, I write down what I want on a piece of paper and you write down what you want. Once we agree, you read the two wishes aloud and, for a third wish, you wish for three more wishes.”

“I thought wishing for more wishes wasn’t allowed.”

“I decide what isn’t allowed, and if you choose to squander this opportunity, you are correct. Wishing for more wishes will not be allowed.”

I pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of a drawer and tapped the pen on my desk while I considered all this. Even if the whole thing was an elaborate scam and none of the wishes came true, it could be a fun mental exercise. Plus, what could I do against a guy in much better shape than me who could easily get through a locked door into my apartment?

“Very well, what is your first wish?” I asked the genie, pen poised to write.

“Write down, ‘I wish all of my future wishes to be retroactive’, he said. He glanced over the paper to make sure the wording was correct, then nodded. “Now say it.”

I wrote it down, then stared at the paper. All of the stories I had heard about wishes had one theme in common, whether the thing providing the wishes was a genie, a devil, or a monkey’s paw. Where was the catch here?

“I wish, I said, noticing the genie stiffen as soon as the words left my mouth, “that you honestly explain to me why you want the wishes that you do and the potential pitfalls of my wishes as well.”

The genie smiled faintly and a shiver passed down my spine. “Very well, wishes granted. One of my limitations is consent and free will. I cannot alter other people’s choices, but changing their past is one workaround for that. I can’t alter what other people think or choose now, but I can influence those choices by altering the choices they’ve made in the past. As for your second wish, the pitfall of your previous wish is that, for the most part, I decide how to interpret my own wishes. I can decide you can’t string two wishes together by slapping an ‘and’ on it. You have one wish left.”

“And, according to the terms of our original agreement, I owe you two wishes.”

“Terms of our agreement?” The genie drew himself up and gained a foot of height. His tailored suit adjusted, but now fit snugly over the muscles of a bodybuilder. “Weren’t you listening to what I offered you? You blew it the minute you said ‘I wish’ and something we didn’t agree to came out of your mouth.”

For all his looming over me, the genie didn’t grab me, didn’t punch me, didn’t even touch me. Whether this was a limitation on the genie or just self control, I took it as a good sign. A trickle of sweat rolled down my neck behind my ear, but I tried to not let it show on my face.

“What we have here is a partnership more than a formal contract, I said. “You have something I want, and I have something you want. Does it really matter which wish goes first?”

The genie didn’t exactly calm down, but the feeling of threat dialed down a notch. “I’m listening.”

“It seems to me that my request for a little honesty and your desire to alter the past are not equivalent. Before we grant you that much power, I’d like to build a little trust first. I suggest we start small and then slowly build up to fundamental changes to the nature of your power.”

The genie crossed his arms. “What do you suggest?”

I wrote my previous wish on the paper word for word. I had a feeling the exact wording of my wishes could be important in the future. “What would you consider a small wish?”

The cruel smile reappeared. “Since you got two wishes and I’ve gotten nothing so far — and you did say you wanted this to be a long-term relationship — how about I alter your body to make you more attractive?”

“How about we alter both our bodies to be more attractive? The goal is our mutual satisfaction, after all.”

“I want to see what you have in mind, in writing, before I hear the words ‘I wish’ out of your mouth.”

I put pen to paper:

I wish both the genie and my bodies be altered to a form the other finds attractive.

“That is acceptable. Ready to say it out loud?”

“I wish for three more wishes, I said.

“You dare...” The look in his eyes was murderous. It took all of my willpower to remain in my chair, but even I couldn’t stop the trembling as eyes which I swore hadn’t been blood-red a moment before.

“You said I already used two wishes.” I swallowed, laced my fingers together, and pressed my clasped hands against the tabletop in the hope it would reduce the shakes. “And, as I said, this relationship doesn’t work if we don’t trust each other.”

“Trust you? At this moment I hate you. You aren’t getting more wishes.”

Still alive. Still unharmed. The genie hadn’t even broken any furniture. I forced my muscles to relax and tapped the paper between us. “Then you aren’t getting what you want either.”

The genie growled, actually growled, with a sound which was definitely not human. “Very well, wish granted. Don’t push it.”

I smiled and said immediately, “I wish both the genie and my bodies be altered to a form the other finds attractive.”

My jaws were yanked open by a ball gag, and I heard a snap of a lock on the strap holding it in place. The genie still wore a gray suit with a darker gray tie, but the body the suit was tailored to fit was feminine and trim, with a short brunette pixie cut. She reminded me of my childhood crush, Elizabeth Gracen from the Highlander TV show, before she dyed her hair blonde.

My clasped hands now sported a pair of handcuffs. I struggled to say something but the ball between my teeth changed shape, filling my mouth until it touched my tonsils.

The genie strolled up to me, her black stiletto heels clicking on the floor. She grasped my chin in a grip far too strong for a woman her size. “Trust me when I say I find your silence very attractive right now.”

My clothing transformed into ropes, binding me to the chair. My body was changing, but I was unable to look down. With effortless strength, the genie pulled the table away from my chair then leaned back against it as she looked down at me. She loosened her narrow tie and unbuttoned the top of her shirt, her face flushed. “But what I really find attractive is attitude. The mind is part of the body, so consent for attitude adjustments is implied in the wish.”

Under the cloth, something like a thick snake slithered from her crotch halfway down her pants leg and my heart was filled with fear and arousal in equal measure. The ropes on the chair fell away, and I found myself falling to my knees in front of her.