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My one crime, the only crime I'd ever committed, was to love the wrong woman.

I know, that isn't a crime these days, but back in the days when Persia was an Empire only beginning to be challenged by the uncouth peoples on the peninsula known as Greece, it was more than enough to condemn me.

Unfortunately, for me and more than a few others, the father and males of family of the girl I was in love with still held to those ancient traditions.

And I was the outsider, threatening a succession and alliance they all had a vested interest in despite what the girl in question wanted.

I know this is an unbelievable tale, but I stand before you as I am, what I am, and am telling you that it is truth.

Once, I was human. Now I am Djinni.

“Hi honey.” Miriam Connelly greeted me with a kiss and hug when I met her at the student union for lunch.

“Hey, my love.” I smiled, but seeing Miriam always made me smile. At times I still couldn't believe that someone like her loved me. She was beyond just beautiful. Oh much more than that. Intelligent, vivacious, funny, and caring. No one she met could not like her. It's just the way she was.

With her mixed Middle Eastern and Irish heritage she was actually breathtaking if you were only looking at her.

“My Persian Princess.” I grinned and hugged her again.

“Oh, not that again.” Miri grimaced. But she had the almond eyes in a shade of blue deep enough to drown in, the perfectly oval face most women would die to have, and a complexion that was an odd mix of olive and cream. With her thick dark hair and admittedly great body, my girlfriend — no, make that fiance — was a girl who could stop traffic in any city she decided to visit.

“Michael!” she tilted her head and gave me that look. You know the one. That look that means a girl not only doesn't want to talk about something, but won't. “Don't go there.”

She never discussed her father. Other than to tell me once that her mother had gotten away from him, with her, when she was seven years old, and more than that she wouldn't share.

All I knew was that he was from somewhere in the Middle East, was a controlling bastard, and had been really bad with her mother. Miri and her mother weren't even using her mother's maiden name in fear that he would find them.

“Sorry.” I let out a sigh and kissed her again. “Whatever you are, you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and I'm glad you decided to give me a chance.”

“You have a lot going for you, Mike.” She countered, happy to change the subject of her origins. “You're an intelligent, sensitive guy, everyone likes you even if you won't believe that, and for what it's worth, I loved you the minute I set eyes on you.”

“Lucky me.” I grinned and gave her another hug. “Now, let's go get something to eat. I have a class to get to in a couple of hours.”

“You think it would take that long for lunch?” She smirked.

“Depends on what we have for lunch.” I smirked.

“Lech!” She slapped my arm and laughed. We had gotten to what they called third base, meaning we'd gotten naked for each other on occasion and played with each others bits, but had never got that figurative home run. I wanted it, she wanted it, but Miri was adamant about waiting until we were actually married.

Hey! Gorgeous girl who was going to marry me, wanting to save that special moment for our wedding night, but was really sincere about that, not leading me on...

What can a guy do? Me, I was willing to wait.

Oh, yeah. Me. Been talking about Miri up to now. But if you could see her, you'd know why that was.

Me.

Nothing remarkable in the looks department. I wouldn't scare babies, but I was pretty average as far as guys went in appearance. Five Foot Eleven, worked out so I was at least fit if not really buff, dirty blonde hair I usually wore in a very short cut, green eyes that were the feature that the girls really liked.

My nose was too long to be part of handsome, my jaw was a little too square for symmetry with the rest of my face, and I had big feet. Size 12 actually. Just me, and I'd gotten used to that early on.

I had also been runner up for valedictorian at my high school back in Kansas, and was running a four point average in classes up to my senior year — which was going to start in another month. In computer science and math.

“You aren't a geek, darling.” Miri poked me as she seemed to know what I was thinking. “You can party and mix with the best of them when you want to. And you actually care about other people, too. Win win for me, love. I have a man that most girls only dream about.”

“Well,” I shrugged. “Sheila Montgomery was kind of making a nuisance of herself again yesterday.” I innocently put in.

“That blonde bitch is just after a husband who can keep her in shopping money and look the other way when she finds a guy she wants to fuck.” Miri snorted.

“Yeah,” I nodded with a wink. “Told her 'Thanks for the attention, but no thanks' then left really fast.”

“Does she still throw things when she gets mad?”

“Why do you think I left fast?” I grinned. “She was reaching for a really heavy book there in the library. I think it was volume VII of the theory of myth in modern society. Or maybe it was The Encyclopedia Britannica.”

“Good move.” She laughed. “I hear her aim is really good.”

“Oh yeah.” I nodded. “Our star quarterback could take lessons from her.”

“You're impossible!” Miri laughed.

“Just part of my own unique charm, dear lady.” I deadpanned. Much to her amusement.

We had lunch, and arranged to meet later that night.

“You have to leave!” Miri told me the minute she opened her door for me.

“Why?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“My father.” She spat out. “He's here, and looking for me. He is going to take me back to Iran.”

“He can't do that.” I hugged her. “This is America, not some repressive regime in the middle east, there are laws, things that won't let him do that here.”

“Those mean nothing to him!” She told me. “He is powerful, in the old ways, not the new. He will find me, and if he finds you that wouldn't be good at all. He can do things, knows people who can do things, that you don't want to know about.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, alarmed but also puzzled. “Old ways? Is he some powerful Muslim fundamentalist or something?”

“Or something.” She told me quite seriously. “He isn't one of the rulers in Iran, but the ones in power there fear him, and he does whatever he pleases in that country and anywhere else he goes. You have to go away, far away, or he'll do terrible things to you.”

“What about you?” I asked. “I just couldn't run and leave you to face something like that and you should know that by now.”

“Mike.” She gave me the most heartfelt, soulful look I'd ever seen from her. “Just believe me and get out of here. Now. Pack what you need for a few days and go somewhere far away from here.”

“Not without you.” I told her. “We can both go somewhere no one will find us, but I won't leave you alone right now.”

“He'd find us.” She answered sadly. “If there was a chance I would go with you, but wherever I am, he would find me, and then you. Please! Go now and get far away.”

I could tell she was serious, but how could anyone be that good at finding people? We could go somewhere, not use the internet, use burn phones — whatever those were, I'd heard about them and seen them in movies, and just blend in with the people around us. And I was not going to leave Miri to something like she was talking about. Marriage to some Muslim Fundamentalist would destroy her one way or another.

“We go together or no one goes.” I told her firmly. “Start packing.”

Miri gave me a look that was a mix of love, admiration, and sadness.

“Go, get things together.” I told her.

She started to argue, then sighed and went to her bedroom to do what I'd asked, or okay, told her. Hey, no one is perfect, but the love of my life was threatened with more that just being taken away from me. I would have stormed the gates of Hell to keep that from happening. So I went all macho and guy with that one. In my position what would you have done there?

We ran. From New York to Dallas, then to Kansas City, Minneapolis. San Francisco. We got married in Dallas. It was just a civil ceremony, but Miri became my wife and I got my fondest dream. I'm not going to demean that night by telling you about it. Some things are just too private, too personal. But we loved each other, were married, and... Well you figure it out.

We never ended up getting anywhere without what we could carry on our backs. But I'd gotten good about finding and getting things through the internet and local sources. We didn't suffer for lack of basics, or money during that time.

But every time we had started to settle down...

“He's found us again.” Miri told me with worry and fear clear in her expression.

“How can anyone find us?” I asked. “We've changed identities four times, lived in about thirteen different places, and don't stay anywhere for long as it is.”

Miri, pregnant with our first child, an accident, but one we had both decided to live with and love, gave me that almost hopeless look I'd seen before. “My father isn't like normal people, Mike. And he won't give up.”

“Neither will I.” I told her then gave her a hug. “Neither will I.”

So we ran again.

The end came in Topeka, Kansas, in a small and not so nice motel room we had taken.

They're here!” Miri screamed just before the door of the room shattered and a lot of men rushed into the room.

I tried to fight them. I had skills, but the kind of fighting that would have taken to get us out wasn't one of them.

They had me on the floor, bleeding and unconscious before I really knew what was happening.

The last thing I recall from there were Miri's screams of rage, and under that a despair that tore my heart as much as my body had been.

“Hello, Michael.” A voice brought me out of the haze I'd been in and once it had the pain came back too. Abused muscles, a broken bone or two, I was sure from the agony lancing into my consciousness from my right arm and left leg, and the ultimate pain of knowing that I hadn't been able to protect my wife when she needed it badly all told me I was still alive.

“Don't worry about your injuries, my son-in-law. He told me and I looked up to see who was talking to me.

He was nothing impressive if you went by just looking at someone. Maybe five foot ten, dark skinned, with thick black hair and a face with a too long nose and a too small chin. But there was something about him that was impressive. His presence. That man filled the room we were in to overflowing, and he was comfortable with that, as if it was something that just was.

“You are a complication I, and my allies don't need right now.” He told me simply. “My daughter was fated to marry one of our circle, and lend her power to his line. You interfered with that, disrupted the lines of fate and no matter how gifted my daughter is she couldn't hide forever.

“You had the unfortunate luck to fall in love with a daughter of a long line of mages.” He told me. “A daughter who was meant for one of us, not a common, mundane thing like you.

“Though you did show yourself to be resourceful.” He nodded and gave me a thin smile. “Between your abilities and my daughter's talent for obscuring where she was it took us quite some time to track you both down.”

My mind was still fogged with pain, but I did catch most of what he said. “Miri? Magic?”

“Indeed.” He nodded. “Females can't really use the magic, but they can access it if they truly need to. My daughter does love you, which is a problem we need to address.”

“So kill me and get it over with.” I got out between the waves of pain that nearly kept me from being coherent at all.

“Oh, simply killing you wouldn't be enough.” He shrugged. “Maryam would always remember you, and fight what is the birthright she has held for so long.

“No, my Son-in-law, you must cease to exist.”

“Our child!” I shot out, horrified at what he'd told me but more concerned about the son I had in Miri's belly. “You can't kill him!”

“We won't.” He assured me. “Rest easy knowing that your son will be raised properly and if he inherits the magical abilities of his mother, will eventually become one of us. But you have to go. Your presence clouds things, impedes Maryam's joining with the brother who is to be her husband, defiles her and all things involved with her upcoming marriage. That must be stopped.

“As things are in the world.” He went on. “Just making you go away won't work. If you ceased to exist, hadn't ever been, another would come. So to fill the void your absence would make, another must be put there.”

“What?” I didn't understand what he was saying at all.

“Someone else, something else, that would never be able to touch my daughter as you have.” He gave me an evil smile. “Something not human.”

“What?” I shouted, or at least as close to a shout as I could manage. “You're going to turn me into a cat or something?”

“Oh no.” He shook his head and gave me a look that chilled me to the bone it was so detached. “Nothing so simple. But my daughter will watch your transformation. That will be necessary to break the bond you and she have.”

I'd had enough. Pain, exhaustion, and too much information for my poor tired brain finally gave me the release of unconsciousness.

When I regained consciousness I was in a different room. Given what had happened why would that surprise me?

I was on a tile floor and could see some very odd designs there, but that wasn't the important thing. I was chained to the center of that design. There were shackles on my wrists, ankles, and a collar around my neck that would make sure I couldn't move more than a few inches if at all.

More disturbing, I wasn't wearing the clothes I had been.

Instead of pants, shirt, and runners, I was wearing silk. Diaphanous silk that hid nothing even if it did cover me. I was wearing a loose gown, with nothing else, and it showed everything I had even if it did cover me, sort of.

And something was wrapped around my head, a scarf that folded over and covered my whole head, neck and part of my back. Plus, there was something lightly hanging over my nose that flowed down to my chest. I realized it was a veil, even if it didn't hide a thing.

“Mike!'” A familiar and loved voice interrupted that as I turned my head to see Miri. She was being held by a pair of guys who would have given pro linebackers a twinge of fear. She wasn't able to move any more that I was but she gave me a look that held love, rage, and loss all at once. “I won't forget you! I won't let him forget you!”

She touched her swollen belly as she said that and something, a wave of feeling, energy, rolled out from her and ran over everyone in the room.

“That is my last promise to you, my love.” She told me as her keepers forced her to her knees. “I won't forget you!”

I nodded, trying to show her the love I felt for her and our unborn sun with a look, and expression.

Oh, how I wanted to hold her, hug her, kiss her and tell her things would be all right.

But things weren't going to be all right. Not ever again, I somehow knew.

I promised myself then that I would find a way, no matter what happened to me, to make the people who were doing this to me, my wife, and son pay. I would find a way if there was anything at all left of me.

Some time, somewhere, these heartless bastards were going to regret what they were doing.

And I would be the one to make them do that.

“Michael.” The man who said he was Miri's father looked at me and smirked. “You have really imprinted on my daughter. We could have simply changed you into a good Muslim girl, afraid of her own shadow and subservient to any male around you. But then YOU would still be in the world, that essence of what your are would still hinder our plans for my daughter.

“So, we will take you away from this world.” He told me while showing me an ornate bottle. It had a flattened sphere as its base, a long neck, was gleaming purple that might have been crystal chased with gold filigree, and looked a lot like the bottle from that old show I Dream of Jeannie.

“This,” He told me with an evil smile, “will be your home, your prison. In human form you would always give my daughter hope that you will return. So you will no longer be human.

“You will be one of Djinn.” He gloated. “Divorced from this reality until you are called out of your bottle. And you will be a very special Djinni. One who gives anyone who calls their fondest dream, sexually. You will be a magical version of a whore. If a man can pay the price, a small piece of silver, you will be what he wishes, do what he wishes, and that will be your existence. In time, that will kill any connection you might still have with my daughter.

“Your name will be Samireh, which means, Evening's Entertainment.” He told me. “If a man has your price, and pays it, you will lose a bit more of what you once were every time you do what you must.”

“You won't get away with this, you bastard!” I tried to shout, but it only came out as a whisper given what abuse I'd already endured.

“Oh, I am quite sure of who my mother and father were.” He smirked. “They were married, by the way. But let's get on with this, shall we? That bottle needs to be filled.”

Then he, and a lot of others gathered around the perimeter of the circle I was in and began chanting in a language I somehow knew was old when Persia was an empire.

The pain, the sheer agony, drove any other thought from my mind after that.

I was on fire, I was being pressed into other shapes, I was being pulled through holes that thread went to when being attached to a needle.

My very being was thrown to the winds, and came back as something entirely different.

At least my awakening was free of pain. At least the physical pain I had been experiencing.

Things were a lot different when I woke up.

Oh a LOT different.

The nearly transparent silks I'd been wearing in that room now hugged tightly to a shape that was as alien to me as if had awakened as some green skinned, bald alien from a flying saucer.

The first thing I noticed was hair.

Thick, heavy, wavy and long. The midnight tresses spilled over my shoulders in a flood of shining ebony to fall enticingly across my...

Breasts.

The thin silks did nothing to hide the soft, full globes with prominent nipples that were now part of my chest. I could feel them hanging there, moving every time I drew a breath and especially when I shifted my position. It was kind of hard to tell, just looking down at them, but I got the impression that they were beautifully formed, and firm as something like that could be.

Worse, they didn't even feel uncomfortable to me.

Damn them!

The cushion I thought I was sitting on turned out to be my bottom and hips, every bit as generous as my unpleasantly new breasts seemed to be. I was on the floor, with only a vibrantly blue silk rug between me and the surface I was sitting on.

And my hands.

My hands!

Small, long fingered, smoother than I'd seen on beautiful women, tipped with thin oval nails that extended about a quarter inch past my fingers. I stared at those in disbelief for more than a few minutes, or whatever they are called in this place I was in now.

My feet were comparable. Small, nicely shaped, and with very meticulously cared for toenails.

The legs, my legs, that I had to look at once I'd seen my feet were slim, shapely, and long.

I shied away from the swell of my thighs and what that led to.

Nothing, but not nothing. Just different.

My testicles and penis were gone and the smoothness in my crotch was more than a bit unsettling, but what I'd lost on the outside was made up for with what was inside. I don't think born women are aware of this, but what was now between my legs went inside my body from my crotch all the way deep into my belly. It was clear enough with that. I wasn't a man, or male, any longer.

Where I had gotten hard, I knew now that I would go soft, welcoming instead of seeking, giving instead of taking, receiving instead of giving.

That thought sent shivers down my spine, and to other things I was still getting used to having.

Worse, some of those shivers were anticipation.

My shoulders were slim, my arms fit well with my new hands, my back was straight and I found myself pushing my chest out when I stood up.

That was an adventure all by itself.

My center of gravity had changed drastically. Rather than being centered on my chest and shoulders it was now lower, around my hips and I nearly fell back to to floor the first time I stood up trying to balance in they way I had grown up with and into.

Nothing worked as it had there. My hair for one thing, was a weight on my head that tried pulling it back, pulling my neck backwards and downward. My shoulders no longer defined how I moved, my hips did that, and the mass of hair I now had forced me to change how I moved.

My whole body was... wrong.

My hips worked differently just for walking, my shoulders were narrower and my arms were nowhere near as big as they had been, I had to learn a whole new way to just get my body to move to where I wanted it to go.

And things moved in sympathy to my motion, things that I'd never had to deal with before. It felt like my chest, and bottom were shaking with every move I made.

You try walking with mini earthquakes hitting your chest and ass with every step you take.

While doing that with feet that were far smaller than you're used to having.

That was a very 'interesting' hour or so.

At least I didn't bruise when I hit something, or landed on the floor.

“What am I?” I grumbled after about the third fall. “A terminally clumsy immortal?”

There wasn't an answer, which was just as well.

It took some time to get used to my new center of balance, not to mention the pieces of flesh that I had never dealt with before moving on their own every time I moved. But one thing about humans, we're adaptable. I got used to it all after a while, even if it still wasn't comfortable. After a time of cautiously walking around, things just settled into place and I just walked. Even if the differences in that nagged at my hind brain and memory, I was able to walk without falling on my face, or butt.

True, the rolling, hip swinging gait I had to use wasn't familiar to me at all. But it was what I needed to do to just do something so simple as walking, so I accepted that.

That, and other sensations I would never have considered to be mine, just kind of faded into the background as I did that. Yes, they still felt weird, and wrong, but I knew there was nothing I could do to change that just then. Those went into a mental file that was labeled, 'Worry about later' and I knew I had to do that if my mind was going to survive whatever had happened to me.

Once I got past that, I started to look at my surroundings.

My prison, my home, was actually pretty opulent.

Silk and satin hangings on the walls, soft carpets on the floor, low tables scattered all around, a couch that looked as if it could double for a bed and pillows scattered around. Not just pillows like a throw pillow or one on someone's bed. No these were big, and covered in silk, big enough to lie on and feel as if you were in a bed.

The place looked, and felt, like a high end brothel.

“Mistress?” A light sweet voice intruded on my own thoughts and I turned to see a young girl kneeling in front of me. She looked up and I could see the adoration in her eyes. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Your name.” I answered before the full impact of what she had said hit me. “What is your name?”

“I am Souri.” She told me and I knew without thinking that meant 'Red Rose'. “I am here to serve you, mistress.”

I had no answer to that one. Not only was I something else, someone else, I had a servant who was obviously constrained to do whatever I wanted. That was unsettling in itself. I wondered if Souri had been a victim like me, or if she just was.

Your wish, my beloved mistress?” Souri asked as I took in her young, but lissome form, her too perfect face, and long, thick blonde hair. “I am here to serve.”

“Why?” I asked before my brain kicked in enough to think of another question.

“There are so few of your kind in the world now, Mistress.” She told me simply. “It is an honor beyond hope that I am able to serve a princess of the Djinn.”

“Princess?” I asked, really not getting that idea at all.

“Your line is a long one, Mistress.” She answered even though her look was puzzled. “Your people were strong, and feared before the Accursed Solomon bound you. You are the last of your family, Princess, and you have the power, the strength, your ancestors did.”

“I was human, and a male yesterday.” I shot back.

“No matter, Mistress.” She told me. “That was but a mask for what you really are.”

“And what am I?” I asked not at all comfortable with the idea that my lost form had been something I didn't even know about.

“A princess of the Djinn.” She calmly told me. “A Djinni who was hidden in mortal flesh many times to save you the real death others of your kind went through. The magic is coming back, Mistress, and you will soon be able to be what you truly are. Not what others try to dictate.”

That was just a bit more than I could get my fuddled mind around. I shook myself, still very mindful of what moved when I did that, and looked at my — servant.

Rise, Souri.” I told her. “I won't have people bowing to me.”

“That is not proper, Mistress.”

“To hell with proper, Souri.” I told her. “Stand up and look at me, look me in the eye. I won't have someone bowing and scraping in front of me all the time.”

“Mistress?” She asked and the fear was clear in her voice and posture.

“I said stand up, look me in the eye and forget about all that other crap.” I told her. “I wont hurt you, or punish you for doing that.”

She looked at me, lowered her head, then looked at me again, and finally did what I had told her to do. “You are not like others of your kind, Mistress.”

“How so?”

“You are not overbearing, or cruel.” She told me in a soft voice. “You demand that your servant look at you and into your eyes. I still think this is some cruel trick, but I will do as you ask.”

I had to wonder what that was about, but had to let it go as I took her shoulders and looked into her crystal blue eyes. “That won't happen here, Souri.”

“As you say Mistress.” She nodded, obviously uncomfortable with looking into my eyes. “What may your servant do to please you?”

I wanted to just say look at me, but then realized I hadn't even seen myself as I was now.

“A mirror, Souri.” I told her. “I need a mirror.

“It is done, Mistress.” She told me as a full length mirror just showed up in front of me.

That nearly undid, killed, the old me when I looked.

Oh, I knew my new body was one for adolescent wet dreams just from the feel of it.

But it wasn't the large, full, firm breasts standing out almost insolently, or the thin, almost tiny waist that led to very generous hips, slim arms, small smooth hands with long, delicate fingers, or the long, gorgeous legs that hit me.

It was my face.

Staring back at me from that mirror, atop a sex kitten body was a face I would never forget.

Miri was staring back at me.

“Damn you.” I breathed, moaned, then fell to my knees. “Damn all of you to any Hell, from any god that exists!”

I curled up into a ball on the floor and did something I hadn't since I was five years old.

I cried.

Not just tears, but great, racking sobs.

Oh those bastards were going to pay for this.

I didn't know how, or when.

But the resolve had formed and they would pay for this.

Damn them!

God Damn them to Hell!