Chapter 6

I was awakened by a kiss from someone leaning over the bed. I stirred.

"Hush, Master, she needs to awakened, washed, and on the road by six. We will make sure that happens. She will know soon in her heart if this was only a 'mistake, ' or the start of something beautiful. She has been known how to be successful by being hard, since she was a teenager. She has no idea how powerful she could be, by being soft. That is her choice." Some djinni giggles were stifled by a djinni hand. "She is just like you. She is meant for you. If she allows it to be, you two are meant for each other."

Soft feet padded to the other side of the bed.

"Awake, you asked to be on the road by six."

A sleepy voice groaned from the far side of the bed. "Where am I? What did I do last night? Oh, fuck! What did I do? Whatever did I do?"

"Relax. We'll clean you up, get you some coffee, get you out. You can use the drive to decide..."

"Wash? Clothes? Shower? Car? Damm, damm, damm. My head is spinning..."

"Relax. Let us wash you and dress you. Let us take care of you. There are places you need to go, people you need to talk to, decisions that you need to make. All later. Relax for now, and we will take care of you."

"Unhhh."

I heard the rustle of her silk robe being picked out of the tangle we had left on the floor. The bed shifted as she sat up and let her robe be wrapped around her, and helping hands led her away.

A soft missile struck me in my chest. My fluffy robe.

"Master, you should be decent to see her out the door. The kids will be getting up."

I heard the sounds of water running in the bathroom, of half-hearted feminine protests and firm responses. There was a lamp on in the room, but I did not remember having heard the sound of the lamp being snapped on. I had made it to the edge of the bed, with the robe belted around me, when Leah appeared, leading Lisa by the hand. There were both wearing a variant of what I had come to term 'the djinni uniform of the day." Today's golf shirts were a muted royal purple, with 'Farzoun" in gold, flanked by two Assyrian lions, as the logo. In place of the usual tan slacks, there were tan skirts. Leah's other hand held two plastic hangers, holding dark heather colored jackets. A corporate look, all, I knew now, in silk.

"You need to kiss her good morning. Then we can pour strong Turkish coffee into her, and get her on the road."

I stood up, and walked over to her.

"Mmmmfh. I still don't know if this was a mistake. But I owe you, I owe it to you to tell you if this was a mistake. And I'll tell you. And I don't know if it was a mistake. And I'll figure it out before I get back. I'll do that. I owe you. And oh, they're having a dealer showing today at that Estate sale that Leah asked me about that she said that you were interested in. Call Robin at the bank, and tell her that I said for you to go today because there was stuff that you were interested in that the dealers might be bidding on and to have her tell you the address. Just bring my card to get in. And just one simple kiss, because if you kiss me like you kissed me last night, I'll... I won't know what to do, I won't know what to not do, I won't know if it was a mistake or not a mistake and I'll do what I'm not sure is a mistake or not, yet, and I do need to take care of the bank's business while I'm rational. Or still rational."

I performed according to specification. Warmth, but no passion returned. Or was it, no passion provided? I'd have to wait for evening to find out where things stood.

Rachel followed them out, carrying a matched pair of travel mugs that I didn't recognize as having come from my kitchen. I recognized the pattern, but my memory suggested that I had only found the one.

Rachel was humming as she came back into the house. She gave me a soft peck on the cheek, and ran her fingers though my hair.

"We haven't asked Lisa if she likes your hair long, Master. But we will work on convincing her. But if she wants it short, then we will just have to enjoy what we are granted."

Where did the Turkish coffee come from?" I was curious.

"You did buy the French Roast at Costco. The brass pepper mill that you never quite got around to cleaning is a coffee grinder, and a cast iron butter melter takes the heat wonderfully. Leah got mint tea yesterday at the bank, and today Lisa wanted a cup of strong coffee for the road. You should buy some cardamom seeds, Master, and we'll serve you Afghani-style tea. And when you revel in the simple scents of home-cooked food, it makes us happy."

Warren stirred on the sleeper sofa.

"Up, up, lazybones. I'll take your sister to school. Do want to ride or want to ride?

"Cute, Dad. I'll take the bike. That way I can go over to Kumar's, after. We've got a whole raftload of stuff that needs to get packed and shipped. And if you hadn't seduced my lawyer, I might be able to hire someone else to do the packing."

"Great, Warren. You spend one evening laying out eighteen months of adolescent adventures and dreams, and expect that it gets turned into corporate paperwork and structure in two days?"

"Hey, Dad, I can dream. Guess who taught me how? And you told me Sunday night in the car that I could be twelve until I turned thirteen. Deal still on?"

"You drive a hard bargain."

"And one more thing. Could you get your Mr. Subtle djinni to fix the mailing lists so that Kumar and I get the thermal and mechanical and electrical specs from the chip vendors at the same time that Boxx and the other primary vendors do? Having three more weeks to figure out specifications that we don't understand would give us a leg up. And here's a hard one for you, Dad. How do you learn how to understand heat?"

"Well, first, you take calculus and physics and thermodynamics and then you learn a whole collection of equations and you get lots of problems and you take each problem apart and work the separate equations, and then maybe one day you'll look at a problem and you'll see which equations you need to work to find out what you need. It's called, learning how to be an engineer. It's the 'be' part that's hard. The equations are easy, they come out of a book. And when heat shows up for you as something malleable, then you're a thermo-mechanical engineer."

"Bummer. So I've got another eight or ten or twelve or fourteen years until all the parts come together?"

"Or you can just invent it for yourself and then learn the equations that will tell you what you need to know. I'll get you a copy of Feynman's book. He invented a whole bunch of stuff before he came across it in school."

"So, like, Kumar's fish tank of transformer oil can save me fourteen years of work?"

"Not bloody likely, but something like that."

"Oatmeal? You need some sort of breakfast before you ride off into the sunrise."

"Cool."

He grabbed some clothes and headed into the bathroom, and I started some oats on the stove.

The Porsche started on the third try, and I took Sarah to school. On her way out the car door, she turned to me. "I'm having Alex's tia take me to soccer and home. The game should be over by six."

"I remember."

"Bye Daddy."

"Bye, Princess."

When I got home, Rachel poured me into the shower, and then stripped, and followed me in.

"Master, this is not being unfaithful to Lisa. And you have no requirement yet to be faithful to Lisa, or not to be unfaithful." She was direct. "And Lisa will learn the secret, and then we can all have fun together. It was so nice, bathing her the other night. She can be so warm." She interrupted herself for a girlish giggle. "And you need some exercise."

She soaped my member, rinsed it carefully, then pulled my half-hardness into her. My mind swam. I hadn't made any promises to Lisa, and I had no idea where all of this was going to take me. I'd had two glorious weeks of uninhibited djinni sex, and now had no idea if it would come to an end when Lisa officially took the title "girlfriend," or if Lisa would dissipate back into a distant and efficient banker, or if it would all become something inclusive and magical. I had elected more languid pleasures: I had no driving need for raw pounding sex. So a simple cum, pulling my essence from the magical spot that the Hindu mystics call the 'root chakra, '... and I felt her warmth gripping me, pulling me forward, into her, sending warm and welcome sensations up and down my cock. Her body held my cockhead in a loving vise. Her thighs climbed up mine, lifting her onto her toes, her back against the shower wall. And I held her body to me as the warm water splashed over us, turning her breasts into slippery handles that slid in and out of my fingers. I moved my hips, and her warm sheath clung to me. She leaned forward to plant kisses on the side of my jaw. I squeezed a hand across her lower back to drive myself in, and then relaxed it for the sensation of a languid withdrawal. And again, and faster. And her breasts bounced against my chest, and the warm water rushing over us, and I drove myself into her willing depths. And all that mattered was warmth, and out, and pressure on the head of my cock, and warmth, and out, and pressure, and warmth, and warmth, and warmth, and I came in hot jets, leaking cum down her thigh before I finished.

Rachel toweled me dry, lovingly ensuring that no water spots remained on my back, or my thighs, or my now-limp member. I pulled on a blue golf shirt, some jeans.

"You are already late to work, Master. Take the day, go to Tiburon."

I called the office, and asked for Sanjit.

"Sanjit, you are encouraging counterproductive attitudes in this impressionable American."

He laughed. "Herb, you are the one encouraging counterproductive attitudes in impressionable foreigners who have not yet achieved citizenship. I will cover the product status meeting for you. And you should remind Esther that you will be out today."

"Thanks. Why don't you switch me to her."

"Of course." He laughed, and I heard the click of the phone system. I usually just did a flash and hit zero and let my caller deal with the system: Sanjit knew all of the codes, and had routed my call directly to Esther, the Engineering department secretary.

"Hi, Esther, this is Herb. I'm taking the day off for some personal business."

"Fine. You know about the product status meeting?"

"Yes. I'm having Sanjit cover for me."

"Herb, you take too much advantage of Sanjit's good nature. He does more for you than I ever see you doing for him."

"Probably." There was no way that I would admit to all of the times that I covered for him when he needed a morning or an afternoon off to meet with his lawyer. There had been weekly, and sometimes, twice-weekly, sessions concerning the missing INS file and the massive, intricate efforts involved in building a new one, while not destroying the validity of anything and everything preserved in the errant compendium.

"Take care. I'll expect you in tomorrow?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I come in?"

"Herb, your attitude seems a bit flippant in the last three weeks. I'm not sure that you're taking things seriously enough." She seemed concerned that my tenure might be prematurely abbreviated.