Chapter 2

Sunday morning I was lying in bed in that sort of pre-waking state, with, y'know sort of silly things, disjointed dream bits running through my brain, and then, influenced I suppose by the events of yesterday, an old joke about a bloke who finds a genie entered into my dreaming state.

The genie, big hairy one in a turban, probably with no legs where he's come out of the lamp, grants him one wish.

The bloke thinks about it. 'Well, I'd like to go to America, ' he says, 'but I'm scared stiff of flying, and I suffer from terrible seasickness, so I'd like a bridge.'

'All the way?' asks the genie. 'That's a hell of a wish, can't you think of anything simpler?'

'Hmm ... I would like to understand the mind of a woman.'

'Right, ' says the genie. 'Two lanes in each direction OK?'

I kind of chuckled to myself, and then I sort of half realised that there was someone else in bed with me, pressed up against my back. I squirmed back feeling breasts against my back and crinkly pubic hair on my bottom.

"Mmm... Ælfthryth..."

I knew in that instant, as you do, that I had said the wrong thing.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit, what was I thinking? I had more chance of being shagged by the devil than finding Ælfthryth in my bed.

My girlfriend Caroline had arrived from nightshift at the local hospital, where she is a sister, and had crept in and joined me. Caroline is a voluptuous brunette, not quite at the stage where you need to keep a piece of chalk handy in case you get interrupted when you're making love, but she was getting there. If she has one fault, and to be honest she has more than one, it is a tendency towards jealousy, and an amazing inability to believe what I say, or even take the words at face value. So I knew trouble was coming. She makes up for this by being good company and an interesting and inventive bed partner.

Ok, ok, ok, I know that doesn't sound like a very good write up for the woman who was in my bed, but there are extenuating circumstances. Honestly. The thing is that I didn't pick Caroline. No, she picked me. It was after I'd been on my own for a while, and was happily getting slightly pissed at a party one evening when she found me. Or rather managed to get me on my own, because she had had her eye on me for a while I found out. Anyway, as you do, I ended up looking at her first thing the next morning. Not too bad, and let's be honest, if you can put up with looking at it first thing then pussy on tap ain't such a bad thing. And being a nurse she ought to be clean. But...

Obviously she thought I was a good catch, and since I'm an easy going sort of bloke she would be able to mould me to what she wanted. Wrong. I'm easy going to all appearances, but only up to a point. I told Ælfthryth, that I'm an illustrator, and a fairly successful one, so I'm not poverty stricken, but like most artists I have an image. My image. So although I spend time wandering around fields with a metal detector, I do not take kindly to suggestions that I should play the country squire in tweeds and brogues. Not me at all. I can in fact get dressed in the dark, because everything I own is black, so if I get out a shirt, jeans, socks, and a sweater I know there'll be no matching problems, no problems with clashes: they're all black. And that wasn't the only aspect of me that she wanted to change. There were several more, the most important of which was my single status.

So you see I was already fed up with her and looking for an excuse to get rid of her.

"Mmm ... are you having a dream about one of your Saxon maids, Harry?" enquired a sleepy Caroline with a little giggle.

"Hmm..."

The trouble that I knew was coming arrived rather sooner than I anticipated, when, a minute or two later, the bedroom door burst open and Ælfthryth appeared.

"Master! I was worried"

"Yes, Ælfthryth?"

"Master, I did not know where you were ... Oh!"

The last exclamation was because she had seen Caroline as she sat up.

"Who the hell is this and what is she doing here? Why are you using that daft lingo, is she one of your funny friends? Wait a bit, what did you call her, Eefrith? That's what you called me just now isn't it?"

"No, honestly..."

Caroline cut me off. "I suppose you're going to tell me you dug her up yesterday?"

"Well, as a matter of fa..."

"Don't lie to me, I'm not stupid and I don't believe in magic." As she said this she was getting out of bed, which she had to walk around to get to the door, and of course to Ælfthryth. "She's a student, prostituting herself no doubt. Look at that dress, a real hippy type. You picked her up last night didn't you?"

By this time she had reached the foot of the bed.

Now I don't know whether you've ever experienced this, but it is perfectly possible for two women to reach a state of mutual hatred in a lot less time than it takes you to say 'Jack Robinson'. Whoever the hell he was.

Ælfthryth clearly didn't understand what Caroline had said, but she equally clearly didn't have to. Neither did Caroline understand when Ælfthryth spat 'Fat whore' at her, and she didn't have to either. It was enough to make her leap forward, screeching, tits flying in all directions, and ... fall sideways onto the bed as she literally froze in mid flight.

There was silence.

Ælfthryth had a look of surprise on her face. Caroline had fallen onto her back with a vacant look in her eyes.

"I did not know I could do that," she said in a small voice.

"I think it is very likely that there are many things you don't know you can do. I think we will probably find out more as we go."

"Yes, Master," she quavered. "What should I do now?"

"Do you know how long she will be like that? Or can you undo it?"

Ælfthryth thought for a moment.

Her face took on a look of concentration, and then a light went on as she realised what I had said.

It was about fifteen minutes before she came down. I handed her a glass containing a soluble painkiller.

"Sit down and drink this, and I'll get breakfast."

"I should do that Master," she seemed almost in tears. "But I do not know how."

"Watch me and I will explain as we go along."

She was standing alongside me as I worked, nothing more than bacon with eggs scrambled over them and hot buttered toast. The coffee was already filtered. It occurred to me that my genie smelt none too fresh. In fact she positively ponged.

"You were in that jar for a long time," I stated. "What did you do before that?"

She seemed deep in thought for some time.

"Nothing, Master. I did not exist. I was..." she seemed at a loss for words, "nothing. Just an essence within the jar."