Introduction: I’m sure everyone has come across a story or two about someone finding that bottle or lamp that after the appropriate action releases a genie who will grant a certain number of wishes for the lucky person who happens to find it. Quite frequently, the person finding the genie doesn’t read the ‘fine print’ and the results are frequently not what the person making the wishes desired. The greedy and the dishonest seem to get the worst of it. In the case of this story, I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

Back to the present, sort of. Rick has shaken Sandy to the core. Everything she thought about herself is eroding away, and rather quickly, I might add. Yet, she cannot find anything in the original wish that would indicate why this is happening to her.

This work is copyrighted by the author and any publication or distribution without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Chapter 3

Sunday was Sunday just like everywhere else. I did my 20K lope and returned for a relaxing shower. There was that damned itch again. I was a bit surprised when I arrived here the first time how strong the religious community was. I had no problem with it. If someone sought comfort with an imaginary deity that was fine with me. That just wasn’t the way Becky and I operated. That was one of the reasons I loved her so much, and still do.

Becky knew about the inner me early in our marriage. Before cancer set in, our love making was frequent and very satisfying. I wasn’t a cross dresser, and that was never a problem. It was much deeper than that; far deeper than I thought she understood. I was quite wrong about that. For me, making love to a woman was perfectly okay. For Becky, it wasn’t. She was only interested in making love to a man. She was not bisexual.

As far as EM Industries was concerned, we were wife and wife. By this time, spouses were welcome. The corporation wanted to do anything they could to keep the transportation costs down, and having a family unit migrate just insured a longer tenure for migrants. I was one of those in the company who established the policies for migration.

As far as the company was concerned, I had been with them for three years. I was 33 when I received a double PhD in Astro Physics and Planetary Ecology. The latter might have been considered rather speculative; however, the science was good. We knew what to expect under the conditions specified. Mars was the first one where we had a chance to prove the science was real. The government wasn’t at all keen on it, so EM Industries stepped in and took charge. The government of this country or any other country wanted nothing to do with it. There were enough problems on Earth as it was; still are for that matter.

Of course there had been government funded explorations. Russia sent explorers several times, as did China. The second US expedition ended in disaster when was consumed by the sun. That soured the US on ever attempting anything like it again. The costs were just more than they could handle, emotionally and fiscally. There was a functional operation on the moon that was shared by several countries. There was even a small tourist business for those who could afford it. Some elderly who were mobility challenged on earth moved there to spend their last years in the one sixth gravity.

What happened to make Mars feasible? EM Industries came up with a very workable space drive that did not require space ships to coast to their destinations after a very powerful acceleration. That was just too expensive and too stressful. What they developed was a workable ion drive. The concept had been around for decades; however, they were the first to make it work. They also pioneered the Earth to space elevator, and it’s smaller companion on the moon. These were tethered geosynchronous and lunar synchronous satellites that allowed passengers and cargo to be hoisted to and lowered from the satellites. There was quite a bit involved; however, once the systems were put into operation, transportation costs were greatly reduced. The up and down wasn’t speedy though. It took several days from earth to reach 35,000+ kilometers. There were some people who just vacationed going up and down the elevator. They were catered to. Of course EM Industries also installed the first and second elevators on Mars.

I had developed a number of new approaches to environmental concerns-that proved to work very well. The terraforming process accelerated by twenty-five percent. Suddenly, I was the fair haired woman in the organization, in spite of being a brunette. I’d made two trips to Mars to check on the implementation of the new procedures. Things were going very well, and it surprised me about the respect I was receiving.

Becky made the second trip with me. There were a number of perquisites being in the position I am. Becky loved it. Maybe it had something to do with the 38 percent G. It really got to her. She could do things she’d never been able to do before. Then she met Arnold Gerstein. I knew right then that our marriage, what there was to it, was over. The divorce was just a matter of some paperwork. She was free, and married Arnold a month later. I was her maid of honor. I left her there, and returned to clean up things that we’d left behind on Earth.

While back on earth I was promoted and given the position of being in charge of the settlement, at least the physical operation. I was taken aback about the quickness of my ascension to this position, but then I realized I probably knew more than anyone about its operation. That had been my plan all along. I just didn’t think it would happen this quickly.

So, here I am contemplating what the hell is going on. We had arrangements, and it was all on paper. It wasn’t signed in blood, but I thought I could trust her. There hadn’t been a hitch in all the years since we’d worked out all the details. I was happy, Becky was happy, and our previous lives were neatly taken care of. We had died in a terrorist attack in Marseilles. The attack had really happened. We just weren’t there. Our children and grandchildren were rather well off due our existing insurance policies and our small fortune in antique silver. As we found out, neither of us had more than a year left as it was. That was the easy part. They had to create two existences out of nothing; however, that didn’t seem to be much of a problem for them.

Everything had been going quite well as far as Becky and I were concerned. She was healthy for the first time in decades. She had a loving husband, two children with a third on the way. She couldn’t be happier. Things were just as fine as far as my life was concerned. Maybe I was a bit of a workaholic, but that came with the job. I enjoyed what I was doing very much. I was accomplishing something, something that might help mankind.

That wasn’t the problem. The problem was Rick Andrews. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I had never been attracted to a man in my entire life; both of them. I mean Rick was a nice guy. There wasn’t anything wrong with him as far as I knew. I had reviewed his entire file many times. He had married when in college. It didn’t last. He didn’t have any children. He was an honors graduate at Humboldt State, Master of Science from California State University at Davis, and PhD from the same. He’d taught for several years before applying for the job with EM Industries. I had interviewed him and was impressed with his intellect. Now that I realized it, there was that twinkle in his eye.

I didn’t really know what to do. When I returned to my office on Monday, I half expected to see an email or message from him. There wasn’t one. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed. Tuesday, he called me through my secretary.

“Dr. B, Dr. Andrews would like to talk to you. He’s on line 2.”

“Rick, what’s up?”

“Good, you’re still speaking to me.”

“Why wouldn’t I be speaking to you?”

“I thought you might be a bit upset about Friday night. I sort of took advantage of you.”

“You did no such thing,” I said. “You were a perfect gentleman.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly honest when I asked you out for a drink. Originally, I was thinking about asking you out for dinner. Then I realized I might be pushing it a bit. After all, the only time we’d had a meal together before Friday was during company business.”

He was right about that, but I did recall taking him out to dinner in San Francisco when I interviewed him for the job. However, that was on the company tab. That was just business.

“Rick, it wasn’t a problem. I really did have a good time.”

“Would you be upset if I asked you out this Friday?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied a bit hesitantly.

“You don’t want me to ask you out?”

“No, I think I want you to very much.”

The words came so easily, and I wasn’t sure why. Yes I liked Rick, but only in a professional way, or so I thought.

“May we meet for a drink after work, only a drink? I promise.”

“I think that would be nice. Same place?”

“Sure, I’ll meet you there. I have go out to the Cannabis farm. It’s really working out well. I may be a bit late.”

“I’ll see you there.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have a lot on the schedule because I was a lost cause. This was not how things were supposed to happen. I went through the list she’d agreed upon. There was nothing about me falling in love with a man. I was gay. I liked women. I always had. Now, here I was finding myself enamored with a man who was ten years my junior. I accessed a secure file and pulled up the document we’d agreed on. There were 77 subparagraphs to the main wish. Not one of them had any reference to me falling in love with a man.

I went to the agreement we’d put together concerning Becky. Becky had agreed to everything in it. We had put it together jointly; agreed on everything, and as near as I could tell, things were going exactly as we’d hoped it would. There was no question I was going to have to talk to Sylvia about what was going on, but that would have to wait until I got home after having a drink with Rick.

Rick wasn’t there when I walked in; however, the greeter led me to the same table we’d been to before. “Your friend called a while ago. He said he would be here in about five minutes from now,” the greeter said while checking his watch. “He ordered for you. He thought you would like a Margarita like the last time you were here. Or, if the lady would prefer something else?”

“The Margarita would be fine. It was very good last time.” I looked up to see Rick approaching. He stopped at my side of the table and took my hand in his. He had an inquiring look. I tilted my head and smiled. I didn’t pull away and he lightly kissed me on the lips. I could have turned to take the kiss on my cheek, but I didn’t. Shivers were running up and down my spine and to my ‘you know what’. This was so wrong, but it wasn’t.

“You were absolutely right about the Cannabis. I read your papers on it when I was in grad school. We’ll be able to eliminate ninety percent of the plastic importing in just a few years. We’ll be able to make our own paper and cloth. And the building material side of it is fabulous. It loves the carbon dioxide atmosphere, and those few hundred acres are turning out tons of oxygen. You really hit the nail on the head with your research.”

“I was really following up on a lot of early research and trying to apply it to what we knew we’d be facing here. Hell, they were using it for all sorts of things 3,000 years ago.” Our discussion went on for a while, and I certainly don’t need to go over it in this discussion. There was one thing, though he kept talking to my eyes. I had a plan in mind just to see how focused he was.

Fortunately, our discussion drifted away from the environment to more pleasant things. I hadn’t realized it, but Rick was a classical music fan. We both loved opera and the music from the romantic and post romantic eras. We got into a heated discussion as to what was better; Dvoŕak’s Eighth or Ninth Symphonies. Before I knew it we were again having dinner. I didn’t mind. Then we were in an air cab heading to my flat. I didn’t invite him in; however, I might have, had the timing been better. His goodnight kiss literally curled my toes. My god, he could kiss! I had to talk to Sylvia about this. I needed to talk to Becky about this.

I rather shakily entered my flat, and stared for a moment at the Fabergé perfume bottle on my faux fireplace mantle. We were currently exactly opposite each other in our orbits, i.e. Earth and Mars were about 20 light minutes from each other. There was one thing that was pretty absolute, and that was the speed of light. If I opened the bottle, it would take 20 minutes for Sylvia to know I was wanting to talk to her. It would then take another 20 minutes for her avatar to get here, and another 20 minutes for our conversation to return to earth. That was ridiculous. I was on my own. We couldn’t really converse unless we were physically together.

You might ask why I had the Fabergé perfume bottle. It seems I hadn’t ever used my third wish.

This wasn’t what Sandy had planned on at all. Apparently, Becky was in on it from very early on. That’s pretty evident. I guess it’s time to find out more about the two wishes, if we can.