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It all started at the end of a very, very bad day at work. The day began with a special staff meeting where my immediate boss publicly blamed me for all of his recent screw-ups. It got worse from there.
I was tempted to go home at noon after a sudden power outage revealed that the battery backup to the computer at my desk was not properly installed and I lost my entire morning’s work to corrupted files. Yes, I was saving regularly. I was saving everything when the power went out. That’s what screwed up the files.
Just after two o’clock I was even more tempted to tell them to take this job and shove it when my asshole supervisor informed me, loudly enough for the whole office to hear, that since I didn’t seem to be able to get the work done in a timely fashion, he was recommending that I undergo a special “performance review” at the end of the month.
I almost made it to five o’clock, but just after four-thirty, the entire computer system for the office crashed for the third time. I yelled, “The hell with it,” and cleared off my desk. Company policy requires that we leave a clean desk at the end of the day, so I pushed everything into a pile which I then dropped it into the lower drawer of my file cabinet. A few moments later I had slipped out a side door, gone down the stairs to street level, and was coming in the front door of Mickey’s Pub.
Mickey Finn’s Public House is a quaint little bar tucked in between the high rise office towers that form the city skyline. It probably would have been absorbed by the developers years ago except this area of the city has an “open air conduit” ordinance that says there has to be so many hundreds of feet of clearance between buildings over three stories tall. The result is that there are vast open areas between the modern tall towers. In those open areas, along with several parks, stand smaller, older buildings that house bars, boutiques, and other businesses.
Mickey’s Pub is probably the oldest of those buildings, and its interior is even older. The current owner – who is actually an Italian by the name of Walter Damato – claims that the bar and many of the booths were originally part of a public house in Derry, over in Ireland. That may or may not be true, but the long, wooden bar itself is old and massive and made of stout timbers that have grown dark under many coats of laquer, varnish, polish, and spilled beer.
Most nights I would stop by Mickey’s after work to relax and enjoy a glass of my favorite dark ale, which Walt conveniently kept on tap. Tonight, however, I was stopping by not to relax, but because I needed at least two – or maybe three drinks to forget what had to have been a new, all-time, “day from hell” at work. The only problem was that when I got to Mickey’s the place was packed – not just full, totally packed.. There was no space at the bar, and no booths were open… except for Crazy Jack’s spot.
Crazy Jack had been a fixture at Mickey Finn’s for as long as most of us could remember. Every afternoon at three o’clock, Jack would come walking in the front door and go directly to “his” booth where he would stay until closing. During that time he would order four or five or even six rounds of drinks for himself and “his friend.”
Jack would sit there all night sipping his beer and talking to the empty seat across from him. When he finished his beer, he would evidently switch glasses with his invisible friend, because both glasses were always empty when Jack called for another round. Above the booth was a big sign that said “Reserved for Crazy Jack Thompson and Friend.” No one else was ever allowed to sit there. I normally wouldn’t have even thought about trying it, but Crazy Jack passed away last week – most likely from the toll that years of heavy drinking had taken on his body. He wasn’t going to be using his booth tonight, so I did.
The place got suddenly quiet and everyone turned to look at me as I slid into the booth, but when I yelled over to Walt at the bar, “Brink me a dark ale, please,” he merely filled two glasses and carried them over to where I was sitting.
“I only ordered one… for now,” I said as he brought the tray.
He replied, “If you sit in Jack’s booth, you always get a double order.” Then he laughed a deep, rumbling laugh and added, “Trust me, you’ll need it.”
I reached for my drink, but almost dropped it halfway to my mouth. The other glass sitting on the table was now almost one-fourth empty. “What the hell?” I said aloud as I looked around. I took a deep draw on my ale. When I set my glass back down, I could see that the other glass was now half empty.
“I wish to hell I knew what was going on,” I muttered to myself.
A soft voice said, “Wish granted,” and suddenly there was another person sitting in the booth across from me. Maybe “person” isn’t quite the correct word. He was human shaped, about my size, with black hair and a closely trimmed black mustache which blended into a goatee. He was very strangely dressed in a bright blue vest over his naked chest and very loose, deep purple pantaloon pants. What was really unusual about him, however, was that he was vaguely green in color and more or less transparent.
He put his hands around the glass in front of him and said, “Not quite as good as ancient Sumerian beer, but dark ale is much better than that pale piss that Jack liked.”
“Jack could see you?” I asked, dribbling ale on the table as I spoke.
“Of course,” he replied with a laugh. “Crazy people often see what sane people refuse to see.” He smiled at me and continued, “Jack liked having someone to talk to, and I liked having a regular source of beer.” He shrugged, “It was good while it lasted.”
“Who… what are you?” I sputtered. “And why are you here?”
“My name is Julan.” he replied. “I am a Jinn. I think your culture calls me a ‘Genie,’ but the proper term is Jinn.”
“You mean like a Genie in a bottle kind of Genie? … a rub the bottle and get three wishes kind of Genie?”
“Actually you mean a lamp, not a bottle, but that isn’t exactly true either. That myth came about because Jinn’s supposedly appeared in the smoke of certain lamps. Even if they did, the Jinn wasn’t inside the lamp, and rubbing the lamp wasn’t the important thing. Rubbing was just to clean the metal because you needed something really shiny so that you could look back into your own eyes. Looking deeply inside yourself is what enabled you to see the Jinn if it was present.”
“So why are you here?” I asked.
As I spoke, I noticed that people were starting to stare at me. I had seen that look before when new people at the bar first experienced Crazy Jack. I was debating between telling them all to go to hell or paying my tab and leaving when Julan began to answer my question. “I made the mistake of getting caught exchanging vapors with a Marid Jinn’s wife – the chief of the Marid’s no less.”
He laughed in an empty sort of way. “The Marid were the most powerful of the Jinn and he was the most powerful of the Marid. He was really pissed when he found me and Fazeel fused together above the pool at the oasis. I thought he was going to tear us both into wisps of smoke, but instead he plunged his arm deep into the earth and drew out a lump of copper. He heated it in his hand until it glowed red and then he spoke the words that bound me to that lump of metal for all eternity.”
When I looked perplexed, he explained, “That was a Marid’s way of punishing another Jinn. They would bind you to metal for as long as that metal existed and then put it somewhere really nasty. There might have been a Jinn or two bound to the metal of a lamp, or perhaps the metal they were bound to was used to make a lamp… who knows where myths like that come from.”
“Anyway, Fazeel and I were just untangling ourselves when Gazoom threw that glowing lump of metal far out over the sea, and even beyond the sea, into the great waters beyond. I think he intended it to sink forever into the depths of the great waters. Luckily for me, it landed instead on an island where it stayed until some miners picked it up and blended it with some other metals and made that.” He pointed to the brass foot rail along the front of the bar. “That’s the metal I am bound to, and so, I am here as long as that metal exists.”
“What do you mean ‘exchanging vapors’?”
“Well it’s not like we have bodily fluids to exchange,” He said with a laugh. “And little Jinns have to come from somewhere. Jinn sex is a total mixing of our bodies. You are actually both totally inside each other. I’ve tried it a couple of times with human females. They sort of know I’m there, but nothing much really happens for either of us. I’ve been so long without fusing that I think I could screw the smoke from the fire in the steak brazier.”
He turned a slightly deeper shade of green. “I got desperate enough once to actually try something like that.” He grimaced. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“So you are trapped here for all eternity?” I asked.
“I doubt Mickey’s will last for all eternity, but I am trapped wherever that metal is for as long as that metal exists, which seems like about half an eternity so far.”
He reached his hand more or less through the glass of dark ale in front of him. The area around the glass shimmered slightly and more of the rich, dark brew disappeared. “On the other hand, he said with a shrug. “Since I was far away from my home and was bound to a lump of metal, I wasn’t there when the great plague wiped out my race.”
“I thought Genies were all powerful.”
“There is always something bigger and more powerful out there that can get you. Or, in our case, something smaller. I don’t know if it was a disease or a curse that got out of hand, but one day the Jinns started… evaporating. Like a morning mist clearing off in the morning sun, even the most powerful of the Jinns slowly faded away… except for the few of us who were in exile bound to lumps of metal. Its kind of ironic that our punishment protected us.”
“So, are you the last of your kind?” I asked.
“Not exactly the last, but there aren’t many of us left.”
“And you can grant three wishes?”
Julan shimmered himself another large gulp of ale and shrugged. “Yes and no. This wish thing is a little more complicated than that. If someone makes a wish in my presence, I can grant it or reject it. There is no limit on the number of wishes. But the person making the wish can’t actually ask me for something and whatever the wish is has to come from that person. Someone else, especially me, can’t put them up to it.”
“So if I wish for something now you can’t grant it?”
“Nope. Sounds stupid, but I didn’t make the rules of the cosmos.”
“And you can’t ask someone to wish that you were free?”
“Nope. The rules don’t allow for it.” He drained the glass and then looked me in the eyes, “Kinda sucks, doesn’t it?”
I sipped my ale and sighed. “And I thought I had a really bad day at work. At least it was only one day. I wish there were a way to get you unbound or whatever so that you could be free.”
“WISH GRANTED!!!!” he yelled, bouncing up and down in his seat as he repeated again, “WISH DEFINITELY GRANTED!!!!”
I looked around to see the reaction of the rest of the people in the bar, but then realized that I was the only one who could see or hear him.
His smile nearly split his face in two. “You said the magic words. I didn’t ask you to, and you didn’t intend it to be a wish you asked of me. Your wish is granted. Because you wished it, there IS a way to free me… if you are willing.”
“What would I have to do?” I asked.
Julan coughed lightly and pointed at his empty glass. “I’d order a round if I could, but you are the only one who can see me.”
“I wish I had an unlimited tab,” I said hopefully.
“Nope. That one doesn’t fit the rules. Can’t grant it. Sorry.”
“It was worth a try,” I replied and then yelled over to the bar, “Two more, please.”
When Walt brought them over he said with a smile, “I see you have met Jack’s friend, whoever or whatever he is. The previous owner labeled this booth ‘The Haunted Booth.’ Anyone who sat here said they got strange feelings and their drinks kept disappearing. Some of the women said that they felt a little like something was trying to put the make on them, but no one could explain what was happening. Then Jack started talking to “his friend” and I changed the sign. Jack’s gone. Should I put your name on the sign?”
“Not yet,” I answered, “but the night is young.”
After Walt went back to the bar, I turned back to Julan and asked, “So, what’s the deal?”
“It is really simple. Believe me, I have had a LOT of time to think about this. All you have to do is be willing to take over my wish granting powers. I retain all of my other powers, but having changed status I am a different Jinn, so Gazoom’s curse is broken and I will no longer be bound to the metal in the bar rail. It’s a win-win situation. I’ll be free, and you get to grant wishes to people around you.”
“But do I end up bound to the brass rail like you were? There has to be a down side to this.”
“No, it doesn’t work that way… I’m certain it doesn’t…. OK, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. But just in case there is something that we aren’t thinking of, we can do a trial run for say… a week. You take over my wish granting powers for seven days. If it works out, we make it permanent. If it doesn’t, we investigate other options. What have you got to lose?”
“My sanity, for one thing,” I replied. “But I think I have already lost most of that.” Glancing down at my watch I yelped, “And my girlfriend if I don’t get home soon.”
I paid my tab and ran down the block to the Metro station. A twenty minute ride and a short walk took me to my apartment. I was desperately trying to think of what I would tell Sandy when I opened the door to find that the apartment was still empty. She was running later than I was.
Sandy and I have been living together for about three years. She is a lawyer and has a much, much better job than me, but because of being in a supervisory position, she often has to work late with little notice. I checked the answering machine and found her message saying she would be late and asking me to start something for supper. A second message, in which she sounded very frustrated and upset, indicated that she was going to have to redo an important document that was needed for tomorrow and would be at least another half-hour. I was still checking what was on the shelves in the pantry when she came through the front door.
From her appearance, her day had been at least as bad as mine. “I am so tired of being responsible for others,” she said as she set her briefcase on the table by the door. Then she added, “Especially idiots who can’t remember simple instructions or get the wording right on simple, but important, documents.”
She turned to face me and continued, “Growing up, I always dreamed of being master of my own life.” After a deep sigh, she added, “Now, I am. But making decisions for others and telling others exactly what to do all day, day after day, is destroying me. Every day I have to be responsible for others and tell them everything they are supposed to do. I never get a chance to get away from it. I wish I could give someone else total responsibility for my life when I am away from work. I wish I had a master to tell me exactly what to do so that all I had to do was to follow their orders.”
“Wishes granted,” I said softly.
“Strip,” I said loudly and forcefully.
“What?” she answered with a look of surprise.
“You said you wished you had a master when you were away from the office. Your master would like you naked when you are at home.”
Sandy looked slightly confused, but began unbuttoning her blouse.
“Set your clothing with your briefcase.” I commanded. She did so.
“Fix us something to eat. Whatever you think I would enjoy will be fine. You may wear an apron if you are cooking something on the stove, but nothing else.”
She looked at me with a bright smile. I hadn’t seen her smile like that in a long time. “Yes Master,” she replied and walked into the kitchen. I watched her pert ass cheeks bob up and down as she walked away from me.
Dinner was uneventful except that Sandy remained naked at the table. After dinner she said, “Why don’t you relax in front of the TV while I clean up the kitchen?” I silently nodded my head. Actually, I was speechless. Normally her comment after eating was something like, “I fixed it. You clean it up.”
I went into the living room and turned the TV to a crime drama that I usually had to TIVO and watch later on my own. After a while, Sandy came into the room, still naked, and got down on the floor against my legs in that almost kneeling way in which a woman sits more or less on her own legs. She snuggled her head against my upper thighs and remained their silently for the rest of the show.
“What would you like to watch?” I asked.
“Whatever pleases you, Master,” was her reply.
I was tempted to switch over to ESPN, but I know that she really hates to watch obscure sports events with me, so instead I flipped the channel to a game show that we both enjoy. She smiled and said “mmmmm” as she snuggled more tightly against me. Evidently she knew that I was giving this to her as my gift.
We silently watched TV together until the game show was over and then I suggested, “Why don’t we just go to bed early tonight?”
Sandy answered, “Yes, Master,” and walked back into the bedroom. I again watched her ass cheeks bob up and down as she walked. I think I could watch her walk for hours, her ass is so perfect and inviting.
While I was taking off my clothes for bed, Sandy stood in front of the mirror studying her body and lifting her boobs with her hands as if checking how much they sagged. “I wish I had the body I had when I was 25… and could keep it forever.”
I almost said “Wish granted,” but decided to check to see if I could influence a wish at all and still grant it. “Be careful what you wish for,” I said in a very serious tone. “I can see you now as a senile old woman in a nursing home with a smoking hot body.”
“OK,” she replied with a laugh. “I wish I had the body AND mind I had when I was 25 and could keep it forever.”
“Great,” I said, trying to sound upset and amused at the same time. “Now I will be a senile old codger in the nursing home with a smoking hot wife visiting me.”
“All right. I wish that both you AND I had the bodies and minds we had when we were 25 and could keep them forever.”
“Wish granted,” I said softly.
Sandy jumped slightly as though someone had pinched her. “That’s weird,” she said. My breasts and butt suddenly felt funny, like they were tightening up. And now it looks like my nipples are pointing up. They haven’t done that in years.” She cupped her hands under her breasts, lifted slightly and let go. Bewilderment showed in her face.
“Maybe your tits get all perky when you get turned on,” I suggested. Then I added, “Why don’t you come to bed and see how perky I can make them?”
She was smiling as she crawled up the bed to kiss me. “How may I please my Master tonight?” she asked. She was beautiful, and it wasn’t just that she had suddenly lost ten years. Happiness and contentment shone in her face.
“If you are willing, your master would like to try to go around the world tonight.” I wasn’t sure how far this Master thing would actually go, and I loved her, so I didn’t want to do something she really didn’t want to do. I intentionally phrased my command so that it gave her the choice.”
“I was also a little afraid that my mind might be writing a check that my body couldn’t cash. It had been a long time since I was been able to perform three times in a row. But if my body was reset to 25, maybe my sexual stamina was also.
“Why don’t we start in France?” I said with a smile.
Sandy hugged me very tightly, pressing her newly rejuvenated boobs into my chest. She then gave me a wet, open-mouth kiss and began to trail kisses down my throat and chest and abdomen until she reached my groin.
She said, “Just lay back and enjoy this.”
I did.
Sandy had never really liked to give head, but on those rare occasions when she was willing, she was an excellent cocksucker. Tonight she was at her best. As she bobbed up and down on my prick, for some reason a line from an old Arnold Schwartzenager movie popped into my head, “She could suck start a Harley.” As I erupted into her mouth, I could almost hear the roar of motorcycles.
She didn’t spit anything out, but after swallowing slid off the bed and said, “Just a moment.” She walked into the bathroom, and I heard her rinsing out her mouth. Less than a minute later she returned to the bed smelling of mouthwash and carrying a tube of KY.
She handed it to me with a smile and said, “If we are going to Greece next, you have to prepare the way.” She then turned around so that she was facing away from me and straddled my chest with her knees. She lowered her head so that her face was almost resting on my ankles. Then she reached her arms above her head so that her hands were hanging off the end of the bed and her breasts were tight against my thighs. She wiggled her ass at me and said, “Make me slick and make me wet and I will take you through every island in Greece.”
I could feel my prick beginning to become hard again as I squirted some of the lube between her ass cheeks and began massaging it in. As soon as the lube hit her skin, she began moaning. I pushed one finger slowly into her rosebud and her moaning got slightly higher pitched. When I reached up with the other hand and began to massage her clit, both the pitch and the volume increased significantly. By the time I had loosened her up enough for three fingers to slide easily up the Hershey Highway, she was wailing continuously.
“Now! Now!” she suddenly yelled and pulled forward off my hand. She raised herself up so that her upper body was totally vertical, and with a sudden downward thrust, impaled herself on my rigid cock. She bounced up and down for several minutes clenching her anus at the top and bottom of each stroke until I erupted inside of her. She continued for another minute or so and then slowed and finally stopped.
As she sat there astride me, she pressed her hands against her breasts and wiggled her ass from side to side against my lower abdomen, moaning softly all the while. When I finally began to soften, she lifted up so that I popped out and turned to lay flat on top of me. She smiled a crooked smile and looked me directly and deeply in the eyes. “Let’s get you hard again and then you can fuck me silly.”
I was starting to wonder whether or not I had a third one in me on such short notice, but her hands and lips soon had me hard again. She rolled us over so that I was now on top. “Fuck my brains out,” she moaned. “Long, fast, and hard like you have always wanted to do.”
I’m not sure how long I lasted, but I know that I was definitely fast and hard. We climaxed together and lay sweaty and spent in each other’s arms.
After a few minutes I got up to go pee. When I got back Sandy was laying siting up against the pillows on her side of the bed. As I slid into bed I commented, “Might as well watch the news and call it a night. We both have to get up to go to work tomorrow.”
“Both of our jobs seem to have gotten to the point where they really suck,” she said. “I wish you were rich enough that neither of us would ever have to work unless we really wanted to.”
“Wish granted,” I replied.
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Saying what?”
“Wish granted. You’ve said it several times tonight. What is going on?”
“It’s a little hard to explain,” I replied.
I needed a little time to think, so I punched on the TV and said, “How ’bout if we watch the news while I figure out how to put this so you might possibly understand?”
She gave me one of those looks that only a woman can give and crossed her arms in front of herself as if to emphasize that she really didn’t like my response.
“News in just a moment,” intoned the talking head on the television. “But first the lottery numbers for tonight.” After the typical opening, an overly-smiling young woman came on to announce the numbers as they rolled out down their plexiglass tubes. “Our first number is eleven,” she chirped. “Next is twenty-one. Followed by Thirty-one. We seem to have a pattern going. Yes, next is forty-one. Will the final ball keep to the pattern? Amazing, the final number is fifty-one.” She paused to tell us about someone who had won a million dollars the previous week by getting all the white balls correct, and then she continued, “And our Big Ball number is……. number one!” She flashed an especially big smile at the camera and finished with, “If you picked all ones tonight you are four hundred and seventy-five million dollars richer. The number are ’11, 21, 31, 41, 51′ and the Big Ball number is ’01’.”
Sandy screeched, “Those are your numbers.” She was bouncing up and down on the bed. “You always pick all ones. Did you buy a ticket this week? Tell me you have a ticket!”
I was sure I had a ticket, but I scrambled over to my pants and pulled out my billfold to just make sure. It was a multi-week ticket and was still good. I had won the lottery!
“Wait a minute!” yelled Sandy. “You said wish granted when I wished that you were rich.”
“And when you wished for the body and mind of a 25 year-old,” I answered.
“And when I wished that I could be your slave,” she replied, her face suddenly becoming very thoughtful.
“Does that mean you wish you weren’t?” I asked.
“No, not really. I feel so free from everything else by being bound to you. But tell me, ‘Master,’ what in the hell is going on?”
“Mickey’s is open until two,” I answered. “You won’t believe me unless we go down there, so get dressed.”
She looked at me with a look of total confusion and asked, “Mickey’s?”
“It will make sense when we get there,” I replied.
As we walked to the Metro station, Sandy asked me repeatedly, “What does Mickey’s Pub have to do with all this?”
My only answer was, “I’ll explain when we get there.”
Luckily a train had just stopped at the station as we arrived and we were able board immediately. With other people around us, Sandy stopped her questions and rode silently beside me for the twenty minutes it took to get back downtown. Mickey’s was still full, but not packed, when we got there. Jack’s booth was empty, as expected. I slid into the booth and motioned for Sandy to sit beside me.
“It’s easier to talk to you when I am facing you,” she said and started to slide in on the other side where Julan was sitting with a rather surprised expression on his face.
“That side’s taken,” I said quickly and pulled her in beside me. “Two dark ales and a white wine,” I yelled over to the bar.
“What do you mean taken?” asked Sandy. “And who is the second ale for?”
“Julan,” I answered. “He’s sitting on the other bench of the booth.”
“There’s no one there! Have you gone nuts? This is Crazy Jack’s booth! Are you the new Crazy Jack? Is that what is going on? You have gone nuts, haven’t you? I wish I knew what happened to you today.”
“Wish granted,” I said softly and suddenly Sandy gasped and stared wide-eyed at the other side of the bench.
“She can see me now,” said Julan. He looked around at the crowd in the bar. “I think you had better explain things before she starts screaming.”
“Sandy,” I began, “this is Julan. Julan, this is Sandy. Julan is a Jinn who was bound to a piece of metal that got mixed in with the brass that was used to make the foot rail for this bar. He’s extremely old and hasn’t had sex since the Jinn race was annihilated thousands of years ago. He likes beer and liked to sit and talk to Jack who could see him because he was crazy. I can see him because I wished I knew who was drinking my ale and then I wished that there was a way for him to be unbound from the metal and he transferred his wish granting powers to me so that he could be free. Now he is free and I can grant wishes and that’s is why you are my slave and I am rich and we will both stay young and live forever.
I stopped taking at that point because I had run out of breath. I took a deep breath, turned to look at Sandy, and asked, “Did any of that make any sense at all to you?”
“He hasn’t had sex for thousands of years?” is all she answered. She looked over at Julan and said, “Poor man. I wish there was some way we could get you laid.”
Julan’s eyes were wide open. His mouth was gaping. He was pointing at her and mouthing, “Say it. Say it. Say it.”
“Wish granted,” I said, looking back and forth between Sandy and Julan.
“What do you mean, ‘Wish granted.'” she snapped. Her voice was somewhere between question and anger.
“Well,” I began. “If I understand this right, you wished that Julan could get laid. The problem is that Jinn sex is vapor sex where they totally mix their bodies together and exchange bodily vapors. Human sex just exchanges bodily fluids. You wished he could get laid and I granted that wish. I think that means that now Julan will be able to exchange bodily vapors with a human female.”
“Exchange vapors? What would that be like? I mean, for the woman, what would exchanging vapors with a Jinn be like?”
“Would you like to find out?” asked Julan with a very hopeful look on his face.
“Would it be dangerous?” asked Sandy.
“Only if you can die from pleasure,” answered Julan.
Sandy replied. “I’ve already done more tonight than I thought I would ever do, So what the hell. Let’s exchange some vapors.” Then she looked timidly over at me and continued, “If that’s OK with you, Master.” “Go for it,” I answered emphatically. I’m not sure I meant it as strongly as I said it, but it wasn’t like he was a next door neighbor or someone at work. I mean, he wasn’t even human so it wasn’t real sex… was it?
Julan seemed to shimmer slightly and drifted through the table over to where Sandy was sitting. For a moment I could see his shape totally enveloping her. After a few moments, she began moaning and thrashing and yelling, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!’
Every eye in the place was staring directly at this strange woman sitting in Crazy Jack’s booth obviously having the greatest orgasm of her life. Several minutes later, Julan shimmered his way back to his side of the booth and sat there with a smug smile on his face. Walt, the owner, came over and asked, “Is everything all right here?”
Sandy looked at him with a very crooked smile on her face and answered, “Everything’s fine, Walt. Everything is just fine.”
As he started to walk away I called him back and asked, “Walt, did you watch the news tonight?”
“Never change the channel on the TV above the bar,” he answered.
“What lottery numbers do I always buy?” I asked.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “You’re rich! And you bought that ticket here. Double holy shit! My bonus on that could be a couple hundred thousand.”
“That’s right,” I answered. “And I have a business proposition for you.”
Walt and I worked out the details that night with Sandy’s help and a couple of suggestions from Julan. I am now a “silent partner” in Mickey’s Pub with a provision in the contract that I have exclusive and perpetual ownership of the brass foot rail on the bar. The lawyers that drew up the final contract kept asking what purpose that clause could possibly have, and I kept answering, “It has extreme sentimental value.”
Actually Julan was afraid that if the metal was melted down and changed in form, the binding curse might be renewed. So, this guaranteed that if that brass rail ever left the bar it was going to be buried intact in the deepest part of the ocean.
Sandy set up some special trusts with the lottery money so that we can continue to draw from it for as long as we live, which, if things work out will be a long, long, long time. She also set things up so that we could easily relocate every ten years or so before people started to notice that we don’t really age.
It has been five years now. The booth at Mickey’s has it’s old sign over it once again that says, “The Haunted Booth.” Beneath that sign is another that explains that any beer, especially dark ale, left on the table will slowly disappear. It also warns that ladies who dare to sit in the booth might be subject to “Ghostly Induced Orgasm.” Every night the customers at Mickey’s chip in to put a fresh glass on the table whenever it empties, and almost every night there is at least one woman or another who wants to see if the sign is true.
For some reason, Julan decided that he was going to stay at Mickey’s for the foreseeable future. “I get all the free beer and free sex that I can handle,” he says. “Why should I leave? Where would I go?”
The TV program “Hoax Busters” came to film at the bar one night. They had hired a couple of famous magicians who were going to show how Walt supposedly used trick glasses to make the beer seem to disappear. And they had several well-known psychiatric experts lined up to explain that the “orgasms” were just suggestion-induced hysteria. It would have been an excellent episode thoroughly debunking Mickey’s “Haunted Booth” except for one minor problem. The show’s host decided to do the opening while sitting on the bench in Julan’s side of the booth. She had barely gotten through the name of the show and into her own introduction when Julan made his move.
That particular episode never aired, but there are several different YouTube cell phone videos of her suddenly dropping her mike and yelling “God! This isn’t possible. Oh my God! Oh my Gooooooooooood!” In one of the videos, for just a frame or two, you can see a faint image of a green smiling face superimposed over hers as she passes out from the overwhelming pleasure.
Sandy and I stop by every few months to check on things. She insists that it be after hours so that she and Julan can be alone together. Walt and I go into his office and look over the books while she strips naked, lays on the bar and “exchanges vapors” with Julan. I guess I should be jealous or something, but she says it recharges her sexual batteries, and she more than makes it up to me in the weeks between.
I still have the ability to grant wishes. Some are good. A single mother worrying about how she was going to feed her children suddenly had the opportunity for a new, much better job. Some are not so good. An abusive asshole of a husband knocked his trembling wife to the ground and immediately grabbed his chest and dropped to the ground himself with a fatal heart attack. Some are a bit of a surprise. A woman looking at dresses through a mall window suddenly lost over half her body weight. Unfortunately for her, she also lost all of her clothing. Her blouse, slacks and underwear were now so large that they slid to the ground around her and puddled at her feet. I followed her into the store as she shopped naked for an entirely new wardrobe.
I don’t grant every wish. I like to listen to people in crowds and grant things that appeal to me. My mother always used to warn me, “Be careful what you wish for.” With me around, that is very good advice. Be careful what you wish for. I might be listening. And who knows, you might hear a soft voice answer, “Wish granted.”
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END OF STORY
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