By Curtis Craddock
It fell to Henry to clean out the old house and ready it for the estate sale. The house and the few acres surrounding it had been in the family for four generations. Great Grandpapa had guilt the place after he’d come home from wanderings after the Great War. He had been a surveyor for the army, and had spent considerable time as a very small cog in the machine that carved up the old Ottoman Empire and helped create every crisis in the Middle East.
But Great Grandpapa has long since passed, the family moved away, and it was time to pass the property on to someone else. After two weeks of work, the house, work shed, and garage were all but empty, their contents spread out all over the yard. It had to get messy before it got clean. Tomorrow the appraisers and adjustors would be here to tell him which bits were worth auctioning off and which were junk to be hauled away.
The last thing to get cleaned out was the tack room in the barn, which had been used as an ad hoc storage room after his Grandpapa sold off the livestock, and in the back of that was an old U.S. army footlocker. Henry tried to lift the lid. The hinges screeched and gave way, and the whole box collapsed in a heap of rotten wood. The rust must have been the only thing holding it together.
The chest would have been a trove of information about Great Grandpapa’s far-roving life if most of it hadn’t moldered away. The rotting trunk held heaps of moldy letters, scraps of clothing, rusted bits that might have been belt buckles or grommets. The only intact thing was a big bronze bottle, its patina as green as the statue of liberty. It was heavier than he expected, but did not slosh when he shook it.
Henry emerged from the dim tack room into the bright humid heat of a summer afternoon and held the bottle up to the light. When he squinted, he thought there might be etching under all the corrosion. Great Grandpapa must have picked it up during his travels. Perhaps the appraisers coming tomorrow would know its monetary value.
The bottle still had a plug in it. Curious he gave it a tug.
Stuck.
He took a better grip, muttering, “C’mon lets get you out of there.”
With a bang like a gunshot, the plug shot from the neck of the bottle and flew across the yard. Henry fell into the grass and the bottle spun away, gushing a fantastic cloud of jasmine smelling white smoke. He coughed, wiped at his stinging, and slowly regained his feet.
When the smoke cleared, there stood… no, that was impossible.
He blinked several times, but the apparition remained.
She was short and slight and had skin the color of midnight with eyes like molten gold and long pointed ears. She wore gauzy sirwal pants and a white coat embroided in gold.
She smiled and bowed to him, “Good health and good afternoon to you, good sir. Thank you for freeing me. Only Marduk knows my true name but you may call me Khalida.”
“Khalida,” he said, still stunned. He must have hit his head. Clearly he was hallucinating. “My name is Henry Orwell. Are you…uh, a real genie.” That was a dumb question to be asking a hallucination.
“Yes,” Khalida said in a lilting voice. “I am a djinn, or at least part of one.”
“I don’t understand. How can you be part of a djinn?” Henry asked. Asking questions was better than gawping like a fish.
“That is a long story,” Khalida said.
“Ah… over coffee, then?”
“I adore coffee,” she said in a way that made Henry wish he was himself dark roasted. Khalida met his gaze, and the rest of the world seemed to fall away for a moment. There was no more junk yard, no more dilapidated house, just those warm deep eyes. He could drown in them.
He might drown in in them if he didn’t remember to breathe.
He swallowed hard found his voice and said, “Come inside.” He led her into the house. On the one hand, it was nearly bare of furniture. On the other hand, it was actually clean, unlike him. He was acutely aware that he was in the presence of a very lovely stranger, quite possibly a figment of his imagination, while dressed in dirty sweaty work clothes.
“Is this your home?” she asked.
“It was my great grandpapa’s,” he said. “I’m getting it ready for sale.” He gestured the old couch, the last bit of mid last century furniture he had yet to drag out into the yard. “Please. Have a seat.”
She sat, or rather reclined on the couch, and glanced up at the ceiling fan slowly stirring the heavy humid air. “What is this magic?”
Henry imagined trying to explain electricity to her and instantly decided against it. “No magic, just clever machinery.”
“This would have been a great marvel in Sumer,” she said.
“It’s a great marvel now,” he said. All of science was a great marvel; it was just the people who used it that had become jaded. “We have lots of great marvels.”
He rummaged about in the kitchen to come up with two mugs, which he cleaned while the coffee brewed.
After a short forever he returned to the living room with two steaming mugs, half expecting to find his head cleared and the lovely Khalida gone, but she remained reclining on the couch. His heart skipped a beat again, as if he was seeing her for the flirt time. First time, he corrected himself.
He wanted to touch her, which was a frightening as it was rude.
He hadn’t been this instantly attracted to a woman he’d just met since college. But Khalida wass a stranger here, a refugee not in space but time, and she was a guest, and he was master of his urges.
He offered her a cup. She tasted it tentatively and a huge grin spread across her face, showing white teeth with pointed incisors. “This is marvelous, and you are a most gracious host.”
Despite himself, Henry blushed. “Thank you.” With no place else to sit, he eased himself onto the opposite end of the couch. “You were going to tell me about yourself.”
She took another sip of coffee and said, “Yes yes. I am part of a djinn. Once I was a great djinn, trapped in a bottle much like I was when you found me. Someone threw me into the sea and there I stayed until she was pulled up by a poor fisherman.”
Henry thought he’d heard this story before in the Thousand and One Nights, but he declined to interrupt. He’d never thought to meet one of the subjects of that book.
“Of course the fisherman, thinking the bottle might be full of wine, pulled it open, and out I came, as tall as mountain side, as dangerous and beautiful as a storm at sea, with molten eyes, and teeth of mother of pearl, and so on and so forth, epithets for miles.”
She waved her hand and Henry found himself standing on the shore of a nameless sea, where a thick squat, man with rough clothes and bare feet cowered before a genie who was tall as the sky. Henry could see Khalida in the figure, but only if she was somehow a monstrous kaiju with tusks and claws.
“I was grateful to be released of course and, by ancient custom, offered to do the fisherman a service for his kindness.” The great genie’s voice boomed like cannon fire as she converse with the fisherman.
“A service?” Henry asked. “You mean like a wish?”
Khalida laughed at this, her voice like bells. “A wish? Is that what they say these days? No no no. Djinn are not gods, and even if we were, it is a terrible idea to give wishes to mortals. Mortals don’t understand wishes, and no matter how much they try, they always end up fucking the goat.”
Henry snorted coffee through his nose at those words from her mouth.
“We djinn offer services, which only consist of things we can actually do. Well, this man saw my beauty, many times greater than any mortal woman’s, and he asked me to be his wife. Never mind that he already had a wife. More than one was not that uncommon.”
“This was a service I was willing to perform, but there was no way that I, a mighty djinn was going to spend so many years in a little fishing village married to an illiterate peasant who had no imagination or ambition beyond having a second wife. So, I carved off a little piece of myself to be his wife, and that little part is me.”
The image faded leaving Henry and Khalida back on the couch is what Henry tentatively designated the real world.
Khalida said, “I am but a shadow of what my progenitor was, but still far more than my husband could ever hope to understand. Even so, I was completely bound to the deal that had been made.”
“I am so sorry,” Henry said.
“What for?” Khalida asked
“I don’t like seeing people being forced into marriage, or into anything.”
“But I am a djinn, and once we make a commitment we are bound to it come what may,” she said, and her eyes darkened with the first hint of gloom he’d seen from her.
“That doesn’t make it right. No one is free unless everyone is free.” It was only a platitude, but it was all he had right now.
Khalida gave him the strangest look, her liquid gold eyes growing a bit rounder. “You really mean that. But you know it never works out that way. Mortals always want power and more power. They are like ticks, once they get the head stuck in, they keep right on sucking until they are the size of fist. Sometimes they get so bloated they pop.”
“Just because we mortals keep getting it wrong doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to get it right. I work with people who try to make things better. We help people rebuild after disasters and wars.”
“Truly that is a worthy endeavor.” She lifted her coffee cup to him in salute and then took another drink. “As I was saying, I was his wife, the perfect wife, never jealous always obedient, always willing to his bed. His other wife was furious, for how could she compete with me? I am fabulous am I not?”
She was dammit, if everything she said was true, it was probably part of her magic, unlocking all the channels between his brain and his long-neglected loins. Her voice, her eyes, every curve of her body stirred up his carnal impulses.
Khalida went on, “I went out of my way to make her life better, though, so she forgave in time. In the end it was his jealousy that ruined things. He became suspicious of me, accused me of infidelity and other sins so vile that I will not retell. I could not have been unfaithful to him if the gods demanded it. I was bound, but he could not believe me. He demanded I swear my devotion to him, and he spied on me when he thought I would not know. I was only a fraction of she from who I had been formed, but I was still too much for him to tolerate, like very strong drink.”
Henry’s anger grew at this long dead husband of hers. “Coercion tactics. Loyalty has to be freely given, and it has to work both ways or it’s no good.”
Khalida’s expression grew curious. “Are all the men in this new world as enlightened as you?”
“Unfortunately not,” he said.
“A pity. Soon his jealousy got the better of him. He forced me back into the bottle and threw me into the sea, where I have lain sleeping ever since, unto you, Henry, set me free, and showed me hospitality. I should offer you—”
“Don’t,” Henry said. “I don’t want to bind you.” There was lot he wanted right now, and she was sitting right across from him, but not at the cost of her freedom.
“—a favor,” she finished. “Which is like a service but without the commitment. Now is there anything you’d like?” She leaned toward him. “I can hear your heart racing, you know, and smell your lust.”
“The lust is the problem,” he said. “I don’t trust my judgment.”
Khalida leaned back, and drew her sexual aura with her. His ardor diminished to a tolerable level. Her smile never faded. Her amusement filled the room, but joyfully. “So what do you want?”
That question was far too much to answer in one go. “From you. First to make sure you cannot be bound again.”
“Yes,” she said, in a voice like honey.
“Second,” he said, without knowing how he was going to finish. “To get to know you.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing?”
“Yes, but—” but what?
“Does it bother you that I do not put my carnal desires last on the list of things to share?”
That stung. She’d found a hole in his armor that somehow he’d never suspected. In the stories that made up the foundation of his romantic world, sex always came at the end of the movie. “But—”
She leaned forward and put a finger to his lips. “You do have a beautiful soul. I adore everything about you that I have seen, but remember I was made with desires of the flesh, and I have just awoken from a three-thousand year drought. Please help me remember what it feels like to be alive.”
When she put it like that. “Yes. Please.”
Between one blink and he next she wasn’t wearing any clothes, and neither was he, and he lay on a really thick fur rug on the floor, and she straddled him in all her glory. She was strong and soft and full of silky fire, and they gave themselves to each other with utter abandon.
+++
The sun was well up the next day by the time, Henry woke, still on the fur rug, and with Khalida draped on top of him, happily sated. The fact that he was rested in happy instead of exhausted and injured suggested supportive magic had been involved.
Khalida She opened a drowsy eye and yawned. “Good morning to you friend Henry. I trust you are well rested.”
Henry mumbled, “Amazing.” He wrapped his arms around her, loved the feel of her. Their hearts beat in time. He could stay like this forever…except that he couldn’t. “At some point, we are going to have to… do other things.” He made a circling motion with his finger to indicate the whole rest of the world.
“True,” she said amiably. “There is much of this world I would like to experience, and also there is the matter of coffee.”
“Yes. Coffee good.”
Reluctantly he rose and dressed in clothes that were miraculously clean and mended. Coffee was procured and consumed, and pancakes and sausage, which he warned her were made of pork, which turned out to be a prohibition invented long after she was immured in the bottle.
“Do you actually need to eat?” he asked.
“No, but I like to, and I delight in the happiness it brings you to provide.”
Through the rest of breakfast he suggested other things that might make her happy, things like a visit to New York with all its attractions, or Tokyo, Rome, or Cairo, all of which excited her, and each of which she wanted to do first.
Puzzled by her galloping enthusiasm, he asked, “How can you be impressed by anything we mortals do. If you wanted to build a mile high-tower, presumably you could.”
“Yes, but that’s just the point. I could make a tower, command it to be there and it would be done, but I wouldn’t have learned a thing from the experience. If you were to build a mile-high tower, first you’d half to want to, and then you’d have to figure out how, and that’s something I could never do.”
“Why not?” he asked. “Surely you could learn like anyone else.”
Once more Khalida gave him that thoughtful stare. “How?”
He shrugged. “Studying, practice, finding someone to teach you, lots more practice.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Anything I know,” he said. “But I don’t know how to build towers.”
“Not towers specifically,” she said.
“Whatever you would like to know, I can probably find you a teacher.”
“My last… my husband never would have allowed that. He only wanted me to be his slave.”
“Well I’m not your husband,” he said. “I’m not anyone’s husband, come to that.”
She tilted her head. “Why not?”
He took another bite of sausage, chewed and swallowed. “I work in conflict zones, trying to clean up the messes other people’s wars leave behind. It’s stressful and dangerous and tedious and not at all conducive to forming or maintaining romantic relationships.” Which brought forth the question of what exactly Khalida would do when it was time for him to return to his duties.
There came at rapping at the doorframe at the front of the house
Henry glanced out the window and saw two very respectable looking gentlemen standing on his porch.
“The appraisers,” he said. “Damn.”
“Are these enemies?” Khalida asked.
“No. No. I asked them to come. They’re here to appraise all of this for sale at auction.” He gestured vaguely at the house. “I just got rather distracted by a very lovely djinn and lost track of time. Also, I have no idea how the wide world is going to react to a djinn.”
“Ah, This I understand.” Her golden eyes twinkled and just like that she was a sloe-eyed Persian beauty in a executive secretary’s skirt suit, and he was dressed in his favorite business suit.
He examined his suit and found it perfect in every detail. “How?”
“Djinn,” she said. “Or did you forget?”
“I mean how did you know what to make?”
“Oh that. I just sort of channeled the magic through your sensibilities.” She stood up and wobbled a bit on stiletto heels. “I must say these are awkward.”
“You can make those flats if you like,” he said. And since when did his sensibilities run to high heels and pencil skirts?
“Practice and more practice, but you don’t want to keep your guests waiting.”
“Right.” There would be plenty of time to introduce Khalida to modern fashions later.
He hurried to the front door, noting along the way that last night’s love nest had reverted to its former shabby state. Just how real had it been it?
He opened the door and said, “Mr. Bowling and Mister Tate, I presume.”
The men beamed and Mr. Tate said, “Indeed, and you must be Dr. Henry Orwell.”
Henry gestured them inside. “Come in. Can I interest you in coffee?”
“Of course,” said Mr. Tate.
Mr. Bowling entered and in one hand carried Khalida’s bottle. “This is a fascinating piece. These markings are Sumerian cuneiform, but the Sumerians didn’t make bronze of this quality. Where did you get it?”
Henry’s heart skipped a beat. Of all the damned fool things; he’d been so enamored of Khalida that he’d just left her bottle lying in the yard.
Dishes rattled and Khalida made a squeaking noise. She’d just come out of the kitchen with a tray loaded with four matching cups of coffee. She looked like she’d stumbled in the stilettos, but her gaze was fixed on the bottle, and her face had gone pale with terror. If the legends held even a scintilla of truth, whoever held the bottle could control her. Take away her free will and independence.
“Oh that,” Henry said, extending his hand. “Let me show you.”
Automatically, Mr. Bowling handed the bottle over to Henry. Quickly Khalida regained her composure.
“This is just a chotchke my great grandfather picked up in a market in Bahgdad after the Great War. The story of how he got it is more interesting that the thing itself: an American farm boy in the Orient, as they called it then. At any rate, my father had the thing examined and the cuneiform is just some Sumerian mumbo jumbo that doesn’t actually say anything. We keep it for sentimental value.”
“Coffee?” Khalida asked in a very Tehranian accent.
Mr. Tate pulled up short and blinked hard at Khalida. “Dr. Orwell, I don’t believe you’ve introduced us to—”
“My colleague, Professor Khalida. She’s an expert in ancient Mesopotamian languages.” Men like this weren’t likely to be as automatically dismissive of women as so many were, but it was still a good idea to pad Khalida’s resume.
She arched an eyebrow at him and one corner of her mouth turned up in amusement. Ancient Sumerian was her native tongue.
“Oh, really?” asked Mr. Bowling. “Well perhaps you could help the firm with verifying the authenticity of some cuneiform tablets we’ve been presented with.”
Khalida picked up smoothly, “I am currently otherwise engaged.” She served the coffee.
One good thing about including Khalida in the conversation was that the appraisers completely forgot about the bottle.
At his first chance, Henry put the bottle in the glove box of his car and left it there until the appraisers left several hours later, having satisfied themselves of the authenticity and probable value of a few dozen antiques.
When he produced the bottle again, Khalida, still in mortal guise, shuddered.
“This thing is a danger to you isn’t it?” He said.
“In the wrong hands, yes.” She said and smiled at him. “Not that I think you are the wrong hands.”
“Any hands but yours are the wrong hands. Here.” He extended the bottle toward her but she yelped and backed away.
“No. No. No! I can’t touch it. It will just suck me back in.”
Henry glowered at the bottle with revulsion. “That is cruel.” Then he met Khalida’s gaze. “Do you actually need this thing to live? Would destroying it hurt you?”
“No and No,” she said flatly, like a witness at trial giving very precise answers to very narrow questions.
Half an hour later, after his great gandpawpaw’s metalworking crucible had been fully heated, Henry dropped in the bottle and they both watched it heat up to a white hot blaze and then melt down to a puddle.
Golden tears of relief poured down Khalida’s midnight blue face. “It’s gone. All the bindings are gone.”
“What bindings?” Henry asked, alarmed that he might have hurt her
She floated up to him wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, and fiery and passionate. When she finally let him up for air she answered. “The ones that could force me back in there, and render me powerless, and most of all the one that would have forever prevented me from destroying the bottle or asking anyone to do it for me.”
“So you’re truly free,” he said. “You can go wherever you like, be whoever you want.”
She bumped her nose to his and said in her lilting laughing tone. “Yes I can, and where I want to be is right here with you. I know gold when I see it in hand, head, and heart. You are a colleague, an equal, a friend, a liberator, a lover, and a provider of coffee.”
“Coffee is a priority. But I also have other duties.” He didn’t want to talk about this right now, but he must sometime and better sooner than later.
“Helping people rebuild in dangerous war torn places. Yes, I will help you with that.”
“It’s not always pleasant. Sometime it’s downright tragic.”
“And you don’t think I’ve seen those things before? I understand violence and sorrow, but it is in my nature to be helpful, and there is no need for you to bear that burden alone.”
“And the danger?” he asked.
“I am danger,” she said.
Henry took a deep breath for courage. He could not protect Khalida without diminishing her. He let the breath out again.
“How would you like some pizza?”
“I will love pizza,” she said.
“You don’t even know what it is.”
“I will enjoy finding out. And then we will have coffee.”
“You can have pizza and coffee at the same time.”
The most delightfully wicked of all smiles grew across her face. “Good. That will leave more time for sex.”
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