Habib the Djinni looked nothing like Barbara Eden...yet...

 
Simon felt better after throwing up and washing his face. Gray eyes below the receding light brown hair looked back. His 51 years showed in the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He decided that he needed to shave but put it off for the moment.

The ring on his left pinkie caught his eye and he examined it for a moment without taking it off. He felt reluctant to remove the item. A little doubt about the reality of his owning a djinn ring remained but he was nearly convinced.

When he turned to leave the bathroom, there stood Habib, holding a glass of water.

“Drink this,” said the djinni. The little man had evidently changed his outfit; now he wore a pair of blue jeans, chukka boots and a gray hoodie sweatshirt with the hood back. It looked a lot like an outfit Simon had in his closet except sized to fit Habib. Without the turban, Habib’s hair proved to be the same dark brown as his beard and just as curly and neatly trimmed. A prominent widow’s peak left a single Superman-curl hanging on his forehead.

Simon smiled and drank the water down, it tasted delicious and seemed to be the last element of Habib’s cure. “Thank you,” he said, handing the glass back. The djinni’s new appearance tickled him for some reason.

“You might want to take a bath, too. You still smell like a hangover,” suggested Habib. “I can make breakfast, do you want eggs?”

“That would be nice, I bought rye bread for toast, yesterday, uh, day before yesterday,” said Simon. He tried to sniff his armpit.

“Very good, master,” said Habib, smiling. “Am I correct that you do not have work to go to, this morning?”

“That’s right,” said Simon, starting water running. “I worked yesterday on Sunday, so I have today off.” He closed the door and got undressed. “If you’re still talking, I can’t hear you,” he shouted. Not hearing a reply, he proceeded with his bath, and shaved with his wet-dry electric razor

He didn’t notice if Habib actually came into the bathroom but when he turned off the shower and stepped out, a clean set of clothes hung on the back of the door. He used one of the fluffy hotel towels to dry off and got dressed, smiling the whole time.

Just as he stepped into the little dining alcove, Habib placed two plates of scrambled eggs, buttered toast points and orange slices next to two steaming cups of hot coffee.

“This is nice,” said Simon. “I... will you do this every morning?” He took a seat and the djinni sat down opposite him.

“If that is your wish,” said Habib. “It is my task to serve you, master.”

Simon sipped his own coffee black and watched as the little man put four heaping teaspoons of sugar into his cup. They ate. The eggs were fluffy with bits of cheese and garlic in them. Simon got up to find the marmalade for his toast. Habib shuddered as he watched his human master spread sweetness on rye bread.

“I don’t usually butter my toast,” said Simon.

“I’ll remember that,” promised Habib. He got up to pour more coffee and repeated his performance with the sugar while Simon stole one of the last orange slices off his plate.

Habib smiled and Simon grinned while they sipped their second cups.

“These wishes...” Simon began to ask. “Oh, thank you for breakfast.” He gestured, waving the piece of orange before taking a juicy bite.

“You’re very welcome,” said Habib. His nod conveyed the impression of a cultured bow.

“These wishes,” Simon repeated. “Do I get a set number of them? Or...? Just how does this work?” He realized that he no longer had any doubts that Habib was indeed a djinni, even if the little man did not act precisely like the mystic servants portrayed in movies and on television.

“I am here to serve your needs and desires, master,” said Habib. “There are limitations on what I can do but not on the number of requests you can make of me.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “What kind of limitations?”

“I can’t grant a wish to cause bodily harm to another being directly by magic....”

“I wouldn’t wish that!” protested Simon.

“You might in some circumstances, and indeed I can do so if it is necessary to save your life.”

Simon nodded, thinking about First Law versus Second Law, sort of, but he didn’t say that aloud.

“I can make you wealthy, if you desire, but I can’t conjure more than a pound of gold in a week, or the equivalent in gems, jewelry or other metals or goods or items of value. I can advise you however on investments.”

Simon blinked. A pound of gold had to be worth something like twenty thousand dollars, even if it was in those funny pounds used for precious metals. Twenty thousand dollars a week? Simon was good with numbers, that amounted to about one million a year. He swallowed hard. Would he need to pay taxes on money he wished for?

Habib continued. “I can use magic to ensure that you enjoy a long and healthy life but no one lives forever, not even the djinn, and I can’t save you from your own folly if you insist on....” He frowned. “My last master liked to drive too fast.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “That wreck...?”

Habib nodded. “I’d rather not speak of him. He died because he ordered me not to protect him from doing what he wanted to do. I chose you to find the ring and become my new master.”

“You did?” Simon looked, and felt, pleased. He wondered if any particular virtue of his had attracted the djinni’s attention or if it had just been the luck of place and circumstance. He didn’t know how to ask that so he took another sip of excellent coffee.

They both sipped coffee.

After a bit of staring at his reflection in the window, Simon asked, “What do you get out of it? You seem like a very powerful being, why do you serve someone like me? I’m just an ordinary guy....”

Simon wasn’t sure just what Habib’s expression meant but the djinni looked solemn.

“Three thousand years ago, thereabout, my people were enslaved by a powerful human sorceror and his allies. The sorceror bound the djinn with oaths to serve him and his allies. All of those humans are long dead but we are still bound to serve those who hold the talismans they created. In my case, it is the ring.” Habib gestured toward the piece of jewelry on Simon’s hand.

Simon stared at the ring for a moment. “That sounds horrible!” he exclaimed. “You’re a slave to the ring!”

“It is so,” Habib agreed. “Do not feel too sorry for us master. We were not blameless, being wild spirits of magic with no discipline and no authority over us. Those djinn who could be trusted were allowed to return to our own world but we miscreants who had proven to be dangerous were bound by Suleyman’s magic.”

Something clicked for Simon. “Suleyman? King Solomon?”

“That is a belief so common as to become legend but no, a different man of nearly the same name living about the same time. Suleyman the Sorceror was a Phoenician wizard living in Persia, Solomon was King of Israel living in Jerusalem. They both lived a very long time but Suleyman died while Solomon was only a boy.” Habib shook his head. “A later man, an Arab sorceror and owner of one of the talismans, was also called Suleiman and that didn’t help the confusion.”

“It’s like something by Shakespeare,” said Simon, making a weak joke of it. “Uh, were you there for all that time?”

“It is so,” said Habib. “The original Suleyman, in Persia, cast us down and bound our spirits to objects of this earth. We had been like gods to the humans and did as we willed. Suleyman showed us that our ways were evil.”

Simon swallowed hard. He wanted to know more and he wanted to change the subject at the same time. Habib seemed to have stopped talking for the moment, staring at his cup of coffee.

The little man looked up, “Did you want more coffee, master?”

“No,” said Simon. “Uh, if you must know, I kind of wish you would not call me ‘master’.”

Habib smiled. “You Americans are so emotional about servitude. Since it is your wish, of course, it is my fulfillment to obey. If I call you something else, it will not change the situation, you will still be my master. But what would you like me to call you... sir?”

Simon winced. “Oh, just call me by my name, I suppose.”

“Very good, Simon,” said Habib. He stood up, still smiling. “Shall I clear away and wash the dishes?”

“I...” Simon began but he had no idea what he intended to say. Offering to help with the clean-up just seemed wrong. “Uh, can’t you do that kind of thing with magic?”

“Certainly,” said Habib. “And sometimes I will do so. But really, there is nothing free in the universe, it all has to be paid for someway. And using magic when I don’t really need to might mean that I might not have enough magic when I did need it.”

Simon watched as the little man cleared away the dishes and ran hot water in the sink. “Remember, Simon, I told you there are limits as to what I can do with my magic? There are three kinds of limits. The first, I suppose, is the limit imposed on me by the Seal of Suleyman; the contract of servitude I acquiesced to thousands of years ago. The second limit is the fact that while I am very powerful, I too am really a mortal and do not have a god’s power to do infinite magic--if even the gods have such power!”

He smiled over his shoulder at Simon. “But there is a deeper sort of limit to magic, the very structure of magic itself. Do you know how magic works, Simon?”

“No. In fact, until this morning, if you had asked me, I would have said I didn’t believe in magic.”

Habib laughed. “Modern people often don’t. There is less magic in the world today than there once was and what magic there is, is often hidden. But you see, magic is the control of energies and substances flowing between universes.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “How do you mean?”

“Well, for instance,” said Habib, rinsing the last of the dishes and putting them into the drainer. “If I magicked up a cup of coffee for you, what I would be doing is reaching into another universe and finding the cup of coffee you would be having if you were there.”

“Uhh?” said Simon. “Does that mean that some other me doesn’t get his cup of coffee.”

Habib almost grinned. “Theoretically. But that other you is only a possible you, not a real you. It’s like Heisenberg’s cat. I reach into a space where a coffee cup may or may not exist and I make the choice that it does exist.”

“The only thing I can think of is Bullwinkle reaching into the wrong hat,” said Simon.

Habib chuckled which caused Simon to grin widely.

“Some theorists maintain a magical Law of Compensation exists,” Habib continued on the same topic, “such that somewhere in this universe a cup of coffee disappears in order to balance the equation. Generally, the nearest similar cup and a quantity of coffee from nearby to fill it. It might be your own cup and some of the contents of your own coffeepot -- but that doesn’t seem to always happen and sometimes it is not even possible.”

Simon nodded and frowned. “Huh?” he said. “I mean, I don’t mean to sound stupid, I think I get that but... can you give me an example.”

“Certainly,” said Habib. “Let’s say you requested from me a four-foot-tall terracotta statue of Lindsay Lohan playing a ukelele and wearing a grass skirt. Do you think such an item actually exists in this world? Most probably not. And yet, there certainly could be a universe in which such a thing did exist and I could reach into that world and conjure it into this one. If I did so... what would disappear from our universe in compensation?”

Simon laughed out loud and Habib chuckled again. “Not Lindsay Lohan herself, surely!” Simon choked out and they laughed again.

Habib wiped his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I actually laughed at something one of my masters said. Thank you, Simon.”

“You’re welcome,” said Simon, still grinning. He stopped to think a moment. “So the answer to my original question....”

“Is yes, I will make breakfast for you every morning if that pleases you,” said Habib with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well, after that one then, how many wishes do I get? And, there’s no limit on how many but there are some limits on what you can do?”

“It is so,” said Habib with a nod.

“Uhh....” Simon stammered a moment. “Well, there’s one wish I’ve had since I was a little kid and I don’t know if you can do this or not....” He trailed off.

“Ask,” said Habib.

If wishes were bicycles...

Simon stammered a bit before he managed to say, “I-I’ve always wished I had superpowers.”

Habib squinted at him. “You mean superhuman abilities?”

Simon nodded, swallowing hard, his face red. He looked as if admitting what he wanted had embarrassed him.

Habib gestured at himself. “Wish granted, you command a djinni.”

Simon frowned. “That’s kind of like being Johnny Thunder.”

“Who?” said Habib.

“He was a character in a comic seventy years ago, he commanded a living thunderbolt. But the hexbolt did everything, Johnny just stood around and told him what to do.”

Habib pulled an iPad out of somewhere or nowhere and tapped at the screen a moment then examined the result. Simon craned his head trying to get a look.

“Ah!” Habib exclaimed, turning the iPad around to show Simon the Wikipedia page he had found. Leaning close, they both read quickly.

Simon shook his head and Habib nodded. “No,” said Habib. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to be anything like that fellow, or fellows. There seem to have been more than one of him, and one of them was a her.”

“Well, he’s fictional,” said Simon.

“Hm, mm,” said Habib, putting the iPad back wherever he had gotten it. “What about real superheroes?”

“Uh, there don’t seem to be any,” said Simon, looking disappointed. “A few nuts running around in costumes but no one who has real powers like in the comic books I read as a kid.”

“I’ve read a few of those and seen some of the movies,” said Habib. He wrinkled his brow, pulled on his beard and chewed on his lip. Simon watched the djinni for a bit.

“Can you give me superpowers?” Simon finally asked.

Habib looked up. “Maybe,” he said. “But there is the magical Law of Obscurity, I can’t do anything to attract the attention of the masses. Nothing that looks like I’m working miracles without some available explanation. I’m not the only djinni in the world and if all of us did magic in the marketplace, there would be chaos. There are powers in the world that even a djinni must fear.”

“Really?” Simon’s voice almost squeaked. “What are they? Gods? Demons?”

“It doesn’t matter what you call them, they exist and they enforce their rules,” said Habib.

“Oh,” said Simon.

“I can do a lot for you,” said Habib. “I can make you healthy, strong, quick, sharpen your senses. But superpowers,” he shook his head. “I just don’t know if I can do that.”

“Could-- could you try?” asked Simon.

Habib smiled. “I can try,” he nodded. “But the sort of flashy powers you probably want would almost certainly look like miracles.”

“But,” said Simon, “that’s allowed as long as we don’t get caught at it.”

“Something like that,” agreed Habib. “I can conjure things for you in private, even where a few others can see but not where it would attract a lot of attention.”

“So maybe... someone like the Dark Knight. Moving in shadows, using gadgets that could explain some things. And, and, you say you can make me strong and fast and healthy? Like maybe just a little bit better that anyone else? Not enough so it looks miraculous but is just believable?”

Habib smiled. “It may be so,” he said.

“Wow!” said Simon. “This is going to be so cool!”

“Let me consult with some of my peers,” said Habib. “Is there anything you need before I depart for a short while?”

“Uh, how long are you going to be gone?”

“Not long, no more than a couple of hours, maybe much less.”

“Oh, I guess, I’m fine,” said Simon.

Habib smiled. “You are the most agreeable of masters, Simon. And the least predictable. Most men in your situation waste little time in wishing for at least one houri.”

Simon blinked. Habib blinked out of existence.

“What’s a houri?” Simon asked the empty air. He booted up his home computer and wasted a little time wandering around Wikipedia. Then a little more time on on Toonopedia and finally fiddling for a bit with one of his personal software projects, a database to keep track of databases available on the internet.

An hour seemed to pass with grinding slowness. Normally, Simon could waste time on the internet with the nonchalance of a skateboarder in an empty parking garage. But waiting for Habib to return sucked all the savor out of cute cats and wikiwalks. To waste more time, he dug his laptop out of his backpack and set it up to sync all files with his desktop machine while charging the portable’s battery.

Then he wandered through the tiny kitchenette he shared with the other room on the basement level of the hotel and down the hall to the full bath. His own 3/4-bath did not have a full-length mirror and he wanted to look at himself.

At fifty-one years of age, Simon Paul had maintained himself in tolerably good physical condition. Biking six miles each way in all kinds of weather to his job at the university library did a lot to keep him in shape. The hotel weight room next door to the basement full bath helped to, when he used it which was probably not often enough.

“Nader,” he said to the other resident of the basement rooms coming down the stairs from the dining room on the lobby floor.

“Simon,” said Nader. Seeing Simon walking into the full bath, he asked. “You going to be in there long?”

“Not long,” said Simon. He didn’t explain. Nader got a little proprietary about the big bath since his room did not have one. Once in, with the lights on and the fan running, Simon locked the door and stood back from the mirror at a comfortable distance.

He still had a full head of rusty brown hair cut unfashionably short, though his widow’s peak got more pronounced every year. His brown eyes looked out from under a distinct but not Neanderthal, somewhat furry, brow ridge. His nose achieved beakiness without being Durante-esque. He had a chin and only one. He had tried to grow mustaches and beards at various times but they always came in a dirty blond color which he thought looked stupid with his brown hair.

He stood a hair under six-three and weighed about 190, lean but not skinny. Most of his muscular development was in his legs and back; he did not have an extreme triangular shape like a boxer or weightlifter but a lean, long one like a swimmer or bicyclist, which he was. Despite the fact that he looked like what his lifestyle had molded him to be, he longed for the wide shoulders and beefy arms of the men who played Thor and Captain America in the movies.

Self-consciously, he struck a few heroic poses, laughed then reached over to flush the toilet before opening the door. Just as he had expected, Nader Farhadi came hurrying down the hallway toward him, carrying towels and a clean change of clothes. Nader smiled as he squeezed past Simon to claim the room with the only tub on the basement level.

“I’m glad you weren’t using the room long,” said Nader.

“Sure,” said Simon. He wandered back through the kitchenette to his own room, shaking his head at Nader’s predictability. The man was the same way about his side of the refrigerator and his shelves in the cabinets of the tiny cooking space.

Just as he walked back into his room, Simon recalled that Nader was also Persian, or really, Iranian since Persian was no longer a nationality. “I wonder if he knows anything about the djinn?” Simon asked himself aloud but decided not to ask. Nader was a political science major, not at the same university where Simon worked, and he interned with a city councilman’s office. He did not strike Simon as the sort of person who would answer as random a question as the ones Simon wanted to ask.

He checked the time but realized he had no idea when Habib had disappeared. It must have been at least an hour before but surely less than three. It wasn’t yet noon and Simon still felt satisfied from breakfast, he didn’t feel like making anything for lunch yet.

Desperate for distraction, he pulled a couple of long boxes out from under his bed. In the white pasteboard containers he kept a few hundred of his favorite comics. Thousands more were stored in the crawlspace under the front of the hotel in the small corner allotted to him as a longtime resident and he paid a small monthly extra for twice as much space as most of the hotel tenants had.

He pulled out a recent run of Daredevil and browsed through the covers, remembering the stories as he did so. He didn’t need to re-read them; he exercised the one ability he already had that almost passed for a superpower--a near perfect memory for anything he had ever read. Daredevil’s super-abilities were mostly sensory, to make up for his blindness but ol’ Hornhead also had unbelievable agility and the same kind of uneven weird luck a lot of superheroes shared.

He put the Daredevils back in their box, much as he liked to read the adventures of the blind lawyer, he had no real desire to be him. From the other box, he took a few of his prizes--mostly silver-age issues of Action, Superman, Superboy and other titles featuring the strange visitor from another planet. Some of the books were older than he was and all of them were acquired by painstaking bargain hunting at comic conventions as far away as Atlanta.

And all of them featured someone else gaining Superman’s powers. If you’re going to collect forty-year-old comics and don’t have a fortune, you have to specialize and Simon had picked his theme. It occurred to Simon that now that he had an income of a pound of gold a week, he could afford to expand his collection to some of the rarer issues from the 1940s and early 50s.

Or even star in a few comics about himself. That thought made him smile.

He had issues where Batman, or Jimmy Olsen, or Lois Lane, or Lana Lang gained superpowers; another with an Army private and one with just some guy walking along a beach; even three with a super Perry White. He loved them all.

His memory for artwork was not as acute as it was for text and he loved to look at great comic book art. But he didn’t take his treasures out of their plastic vaults this time, carefully restoring them to their boxes and placing them back beneath his bed, instead.

Restlessly, he wandered through his tiny apartment, eventually ending up in his garden. A light rain fell as it often did in coastal Washington State but sunshine broke through now and then and the waterdrops on Mrs. Dumfries’ flowers gleamed like jewelry.

Standing under the portico, out of the rain, he reached to touch one of the delicately pink roses and captured a drop of water on his finger tip. The beauty of the flower in the rain and sunshine made him think of Habib’s comment about wishing for a houri.

At fifty-one, he didn’t feel old but he knew that probably thirty years before it would have been his first wish. He smiled. He’d had girlfriends, even been engaged to marry twice. But nothing had worked out between he and his lovers. Something about his private intensity made the women in his life feel overlooked. He sighed.

A magical companion who couldn’t leave him for someone else might be just his speed.

The thought deflated him a bit and he moved across the tiny paved area beneath the awning to examine his bike. What rain blew in under the covering had done a fair job of cleaning off any mud from yesterday’s adventure, he decided. But it must be about time to oil the moving parts and rub some leather conditioner on the seat. He wondered if Habib would do that for him.

Then he wondered if he would even be keeping the bicycle. It would seem odd to have superpowers and a djinni to command and still ride around town on a bicycle. Would he move somewhere more elegant? He would be able to afford to. Heck, maybe he could buy the hotel.

With that thought, he went back inside, smiling, just as Habib reappeared in his little sitting room.

The djinni smiled back. “Let us do this thing, Simon. I believe I have fashioned a way to grant your wish.”

Ten Thousand Wishes?

“Superhuman abilities are beyond human, more than human,” said Habib after he had made more coffee for both of them. They were sitting at the little white-enameled iron table on Simon’s tiny patio outside his bedroom window. Habib had already put four sugars into his coffee and sipped at the resulting oversweet liquid with satisfaction.

Simon drank his black, as always. “Well, yeah. How does that help?” he asked.

“What else in this world is beyond human, more than human?” Habib responded. He gestured at himself. “Djinn and other beings from non-terrestrial planes. You humans are folk of earth, we djinn are folk of fire, houris are of heaven, et cetera.”

“Et cetera?” Simon repeated.

“Hm, mm,” said Habib, taking another sip. “I consulted with some of my fellow djinn and a few other personages it is better not to name. I believe I can reach into another universe -- that may or may not really exist -- and pull out for you a different sort of essence. Such as your much-favored Superman. He is after all, not a man of Earth but of Krypton. And what does Krypton mean? That which is hidden.” Habib nodded exactly as if what he had said actually made sense.

“Those are just words,” said Simon weakly.

“And words are a kind of magic, too,” said Habib. “So let us consider what sort of superpowers you would like to have.”

“Well, Superman’s powers....” Simon trailed off. The whole discussion had turned unreal and seemingly childish. He felt like a nine-year-old suddenly, remembering when he had discussed the superpowers of imaginary characters with his friends during elementary school recess. Could Superman do this? Could he pick up Thor’s hammer? Could Spiderman beat Batman? Did Catwoman really run across rooftops in high heels?

Habib held up a forefinger. “And what is Superman’s most important superpower, the one without which he is not really Superman?”

“Huh,” said Simon. “Well, his strength -- no, it’s his invulnerability.” He did know his comic book characters, lots of others were strong or could fly but only someone like Superman could take a bath in the Sun..

“Yes, he is the paragon of invulnerability, almost nothing can harm him. It defines him, he is the ultimate outsider, outside even the pain and fear of death that everyone else faces.” He took another sip of coffee. “It must give the writers of his adventures fits trying to think up challenges for him.”

“Which is why a lot of stories focus on his emotional crises,” said Simon. “Batman is the physical one in stories because his defining characteristic is psychological, the vengeance he pursues.”

Habib looked at him. “You don’t want to be Batman?”

Simon shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think I have that kind of intensity. Blue Beetle, the Ted Kord Blue Beetle, or his clone Nite-Owl from the Watchmen, would be more my speed.” He grinned. “Those gadgets would be lots of fun.”

“Fun,” said Habib with no inflection or apparent judgement. “That is your objective?”

Simon didn’t say anything for a moment. “I suppose it is,” he finally admitted. “I mean, doing good and helping people would be nice, catching bad guys. But if it weren’t fun, why do it?”

“Why indeed?” said Habib.

They both looked around at the wide, beautiful world around them. The pleasure of a late morning in early April surrounded them. Birds twittered in the trees, bees hummed about the flowers. The sun had come out and the greenery gleamed with a green grandiosity, as if the color had just been invented for that particular moment.

Down the hill on the shore of the little lake behind Mrs. Dumphries’s property sat the Indian Summer Folly, a gazebo-like structure with covered patios on all sides and a small enclosed room made mostly of windows. A terracotta brick walkway lined with roses led down from the back of the hotel. It mostly got used for parties, barbecues and such in the fall when the weather turned warm, pleasant and dry, hence the name.

Simon found himself smiling and noticed that Habib was smiling, too. “What do you like to do, Habib?” he asked suddenly.

The expression that crossed the djinni’s face couldn’t be matched in Simon’s memory with any face he had ever seen before. A surprised longing, like a glimpse of bright hope in a night of despair--Simon did not know how to characterize what Habib had revealed.

“What do I like to do?” asked Habib. “I’m not sure I have an answer to that question. You are unlike any master I have ever served, do you know that, Simon? No one, not one in three millennia, has asked me so many startling questions.”

Simon grinned, embarrassed though he could not have said why. “What does that make? Two of them?”

“Even so,” said Habib. “You are one in ten thousand, Simon, one in a multitude.” He lifted his coffee cup as if to make a toast.

Simon kept grinning, he didn’t know what else to do. He lifted his cup and gestured with it. “Habib, I don’t know many djinn,” his grin got wider, “you’re the only one, but I am sure that you are remarkable among your people for wisdom, patience and humility.”

They sipped coffee. “See, that is what I mean, Simon. I’ve never heard of another master since Suleyman the Great who treated a djinni with such respect and courtesy as you show to me.” Habib shook his head as if in wonder.

“Isn’t he the one who enslaved all of you?”

“Yes, but he respected us. He let us write our own terms of servitude which we did willingly since our other choice was destruction.”

“Seems an odd sort of respect,” said Simon.

“Oh, but he knew that to destroy us, he would have been destroyed himself and also much of civilization at the time. We would have wrecked what we could and slain tens of thousands of tens of thousands.”

Simon swallowed too much coffee at once and coughed to clear his airway. It wasn’t so much what Habib had said but the calm emphasis he had given the numbers; it spoke of a calculated savagery that Simon had a hard time matching to the urbane appearance of his magical servant. Besides, Simon was good with numbers, he’d instantly multiplied and got hundreds of millions. How many people had been on the Earth three thousand years ago?

Habib finished his coffee and asked, “Do you want a noon meal? Or more coffee?”

Simon shook his head and held out his cup as Habib collected cups, saucers, spoons and sugar bowls on a gleaming lacquered tray Simon did not remember owning.

“There is a world somewhere in Chance that is very like this world, broadly. Except it has another star in its sky -- a dwarf companion of Kurash the Lifegiver, the Sun. They have named it variously but most commonly it is called Prometheus after the Greek Titan who is said to have given fire to humanity.” Habib carried his tray into the apartment and on into the little kitchenette and Simon followed.

Putting the used dishes in the sink, Habib continued. “The Promethean orbit is highly elliptical and at an angle to the plane of the Zodiac so that when it is at its nearest to the Sun, it is far enough from any of the planets not to present ordinary dangers of heat or radiation.” Habib ran hot water, of which there was always plenty in the hotel, squirted a little soap and quickly scrubbed, rinsed and put the dishes in the drainer.

Simon glanced around, Nader had emerged from his room.

Smiling, Habib greeted the other tenant in what Simon had to assume was Farsi since he understood not a syllable of it. Scowling, Nader replied in the same language then hurried past the little kitchenette alcove, down the hall toward the stairs up to the dining room above.

“What did you say to him?” asked Simon.

“That he would be late to pick up his girlfriend because he spent too much time in front of the mirror convincing himself that he was a handsome fellow,” said Habib.

“Ouch,” said Simon. “He does seem fond of himself, doesn’t he?”

“It is a vice of the overly good-looking that they are pleased to look at their own image. In my youth, I suffered from the same malady.” Habib spoke with a perfectly straight face.

“Not me,” said Simon. “I figure I’m lucky that mirrors survive me looking into them.”

Habib snorted. “You are neither handsome nor ugly, Simon. Your height and smiling eyes save you from being overly average in appearance.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Simon, still smiling.

“We were talking about powers,” said Habib. “Superman has speed, strength, flight and invulnerability but the early character had much less of each.”

“Uh-huh,” said Simon. “The old mantra used to be, ‘faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound and nothing less than a bursting shell can penetrate his skin.’ They left that last one out of the TV show.”

“Even that is a tall order,” said Habib. “How about ‘faster than a cheetah, more powerful than an elephant, able to leap over houses and nothing less than a powerful rifle can do more than scratch his skin?’”

“My skin? Wow!” Simon wanted to laugh out loud.

“Add some vision and hearing abilities and you could be mistaken for Superman on a dark night and a galloping horse.” Habib’s eyes twinkled; Simon didn’t get the joke but he did laugh.

“Are those the powers you’re going to give me?” asked Simon.

“That’s what I’m aiming for, but this is not rocket science,” said Habib.

Simon looked puzzled.

“In rocket science, the equations work out the same way every time, so you can hit what you aim at. This is magic, the equations have only three answers; ‘can’, ‘cannot’ and ‘oops!’.”
Simon slowly grinned. “I know what I mean when I say ‘oops’, what do you mean when you say ‘oops’?” he quoted from a classic Bill Cosby routine.

“Exactly,” said Habib. “Getting back to what I was saying before Nader walked through, the other Earth, the one with two suns, the smaller sun makes magic possible on that world. Magic for ordinary people, unpredictable magic in that it grants what you would call superpowers to random people on that world when its eccentric orbit brings it near the Earth.”

“Huh,” said Simon.

“But that’s not important right now,” said Habib.

“And don’t call me Shirley,” said Simon, grinning again.

Habib frowned at him then apparently got the joke and shook his head. “The important thing is that I can get superpowers for you in this world, by reaching into that one with my own magic. But since part of the process is random, we can’t know for sure exactly what powers you will get.”

“Oh,” said Simon.

Habib stood. “Let us go down to the Folly by the lake before I work my magic. Because if you think about it, the powers you want are a pretty fair description of the Hulk, too.”

“Huh,” said Simon. He stood. “It’s going to be cold and damp down there this time of year. And it may rain on us.”

“The djinn never get rained on unless they permit it,” said Habib. “Wear a jacket.”

Simon took time to put on a rainproof windbreaker and followed Habib down the path toward the Folly. The rain didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind where it had returned or finished for the day. Heavy clouds crowded the mountains to the east but blue sky poked holes in the overcast over the ocean to the west. A few drops stained the maroon of the jacket dark purple where they landed.

With hardly any wind, the chill coming off the lake felt like wading through a waist-high refrigerator but Simon rode bicycles in winter gales, he hardly noticed. True to the fiery nature of djinn, Habib seemed to ignore the cold completely.

The cabin of the Folly was locked and the benches under the wooden patio covers were wet and covered in debris that had accumulated since their last cleaning months ago. Simon and Habib stood in the lee of the little building, looking through the layers of windows at the little lake. Partly man-made, the lake covered about seventy acres and at its lower end merged into a slough that emptied into the White River which emptied into the Puyallup that flowed near the University and into Commencement Bay.

Out of the wind, out of the rain, it was almost warm and Simon took his hands out of his pockets. He stood almost a head taller than Habib but he did not loom over the djinni. Habib’s dignified attitude protected him from being cast into shadow by anyone merely human. Many things amused Simon and he smiled at this, too.

“Just another day in Paradise,” he said, gesturing at the rainscape.

“Indeed,” said Habib, nodding without visible irony.

“Speaking of which,” said Simon, “I read up on those houris you mentioned.”

Habib frowned. “I guess you are human after all. But we can think about that later, I am ready to do this thing now.”

“Here?” said Simon. He wiped a finger across one of the bolted down steel-and-timber trestle tables, it came away grimy. “The place is a mess.”

“I could conjure chairs for us,” Habib offered. “Clean, dry ones.”

“I can stand,” said Simon. “But we’re visible here from the hotel.”

Habib shook his head. “Not if I don’t wish us to be.”

A sheet of rain blew between them and the larger building and Simon turned around at the noise. He couldn’t see the hotel and of course, no one there could see anyone in the Folly.

“But I am willing and able to stand, as well, Simon.” He rubbed his palms together thoughtfully, staring at the window. “I shall do this thing,” he said.

The hair on Simon’s neck and arms stood up and he turned again to face Habib. The smaller man’s face seemed lit by some inner light and his green eyes had darkened almost to black.

Habib’s voice seemed deeper, more resonant as he spoke, like a special effect in a movie. “I reach through the worlds by my magic,” he said. “I claim for my master a piece of the Star of Power.” He made a sudden gesture and pulled back his closed fist then opened it, showing his palm and a glistening, pulsing, dark glow there.

Simon gasped and almost took a step back. Things poofing in and out were one kind of magic, this was something different.

“Only touch it, Simon,” said Habib, “and you will have your wish.”

Got Wishes?

Simon hesitated.

Habib asked. “Is it that you worry that this is not what you really want?”

“No,” said Simon, after a moment of thought. “I know I want this but I’m--I’m feeling guilty. I mean, why me? Why am I the lucky one?”

“Because you were there to find the ring when I needed a new master?” suggested Habib.

“That’s what I mean, it’s just luck. Gaining powers like this ought to have an element of Destiny, or at least karma.”

“Kismet is the Persian word,” said Habib. He lowered his arm, no longer holding the piece of Starstuff out to Simon. “There is no answer to that question. Do you think that you would know Destiny if it were a dog that had mistaken you for a tree?”

Simon smiled. “We would say fire hydrant, these days.”

“Excuse me,” said Habib. “Fire hydrant, then. Destiny does not come with bands playing and fireworks going off, Destiny is the glance of a maiden, the smile on the face of the executioner, the wind from a another direction. Kismet is a bird that poops on your head, Simon.”

“If the Foo shits,” Simon muttered.

“Exactly,” said Habib. “Here is Destiny in my hand but you have already had Destiny in yours.”

“Huh?” said Simon.

“The ring, Simon,” said the djinni. “You have the ring -- that is Kismet, Destiny on Horseback, Fate and a Favorable Wind. It’s all you need.”

Simon smiled. “I always worry about things, I have a compulsive need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. For instance, I can’t help worrying about the gold.”

“Gold?” said Habib.

“You said you could summon for me a pound of gold a week, and being the sort of person I am, I can’t help wondering when the weeks start being counted.”

Habib laughed and shook his head, being careful not to drop the glowing object he still held in his hand. “The weeks get counted from the time you picked up the ring, Simon,” he said. “And if you’re going to worry about the gold, let me summon it now into a safe place in the apartment.”

“A-all right,” Simon stuttered. He blinked several times. “The other thing I keep thinking about is the houri.” With the overcast and rain, it was too dark under the Folly for anyone to see him blush but he could feel the heat in his face.

Habib looked blank for a moment and Simon realized that he needed to shout. “The houri, the houri!” Neither Simon nor Habib had noticed that the storm had grown somewhat. A wind had come up and occasional sprays of fine raindrops reached them under the canopy. It was actually getting uncomfortable for Simon although true to his djinn nature, none of the water managed to touch Habib.

That worthy put his free hand to his mouth, as if to hide a smile. “Really, Simon, we can worry about her later. At the moment, she’s purely hypothetical.” He thrust the piece of Fallen Star toward Simon. “We have one wish already in progress. Just touch the stone and think of the sort of abilities you would like to have.”

Simon still hesitated. Then he took a deep breath and stretched out his hand to touch the stone.

* * *

Any building near a lake needs a lightning rod; a working lightning rod. Unfortunately, the Indian Summer Folly behind the April Morning Hotel had been neglected over the winter and a previous storm had damaged two of the three redundant connections between the lightning conductor on the roof and the grounding wires. A wind had pushed the assembly out of alignment with the steel structure supporting it, the skeleton of the building’s core utilities. Another cable had attached the lightning rod to the plumbing in the building and that now made only intermittent and less-than-ideal connection.

The third wire had been outside the building, connected to the steel posts holding up the patio covers. This wire was simply missing, perhaps removed by a thrifty, if larcenous, squirrel who may have pawned it for its copper content. At any rate, the building had no functional lightning rod.

Non-functional lightning rods are better called lightning attractors.

In the midst of the downpour Habib had summoned to conceal their presence in the Folly, just as Simon touched the piece of Fallen Star snatched from another universe, the inevitable but highly coincidental happened. Twenty thousand amperes plus of current surged through the building, the decayed lightning protection system serving to divert only a portion of it. Water-soaked wood is a good conductor but the water turns to steam when the current is high enough. When that did happen, the Folly, quite literally, exploded.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon leaped forward, instinctively grabbing Habib as he dove for cover, rolling under one of the concrete benches. The explosion of the Folly rained broken glass and burning wood down on everything for fifty feet around.

Habib first gasped from the multiple impacts of being hit by Simon, then landing on the floor and rolling up against the solid bench then said, “What the devil?” in Ancient Persian, or words to that effect.

Simon pushed himself away and looked down at the slender, naked, dark-haired woman he had landed on. “What the hell?” he said in Modern English.

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“Who are you?” Simon countered.

The woman said something about camel dung that Simon did not understand.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon leaped away from the center of the Folly, down the aisle between the concrete tables. The explosion of the Folly hurled her completely out from under the patio cover and into the rose bushes along the terracotta pathway. She may have said something about Mrs. Dumphries’ habit of using organic fertilizer. It wouldn't have been so bad but her clothes had disappeared to. Not that they would have fit.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Habib vanished himself into that pocket dimension where the Djinn resided after Suleyman the Great had denied them the ability to go back to their own world without his permission. It was some time before he could reopen the path to return to the human Earth.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon had his hand on the Fallen Star, trying to think about the sort of powers he wanted and all the comic books he had read and about wishes and houris and how even with magic you couldn’t really have it all....

That’s probably what caused all the trouble.

Raindrops keep falling...

It wasn’t that Simon had never held a woman in his arms. But he had never held a beautiful, naked woman in them. And whoever she was, she was quite beautiful. He had picked her up to carry her out of the burning folly but now he just stood there, staring at her. She had long black hair, bright green eyes, smooth skin, and a long, slender, but well-padded body.

“It’s me, Habib,” she said.

“I’m not Habib,” said Simon.

“No, I am,” she said.

“Who?” said Simon. He smiled down at her, she had the most delightful voice.

“I am Habib,” she said, trying to make things clear. “I’ve been turned into a woman. The stone, the wish, the lightning--something went wrong.” A tiny wrinkle formed between those beautiful eyes.

Simon sighed to see the slightest evidence of pain or displeasure on the face that went with his lovely armful. He lifted her up a big higher, holding her closer.

She lifted her arms and put them around his neck, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. And the most natural consequence for Simon seemed to be to fall in love with the beautiful woman he was holding in his arms. He did it without thought, without effort; much the way he had ended up carrying her when the Folly exploded.

He smiled down at her. “Huh?” he said.

“Are you listening, Simon? Simon?” He loved the sound of his name when she said it. He could listen to her talk all afternoon, ignoring the sound of the rain falling and the fire still burning behind them.

“The fire...” said Simon, half turning to look back. “We’ve got to get back to the hotel.” He glanced up at the roof of the Folly then strode out from under. The rain seemed to be doing a job on putting the fire out but he still wanted to get the beautiful woman in his arms to safety. And to his room in the hotel, the thought of which almost made him quiver like a tuning fork.

Habib kicked her legs and frowned but neither disturbed Simon’s hold on her. He moved quickly, out from under the burning roof and straight toward his own patio, ignoring the paved pathway that wound between rose bushes. In fact, he leapt over the line of greenery marking the edge of the picnic grounds around the folly. He leapt without thought or effort and continued on, smiling to himself because--because he had superpowers--and a beautiful woman in his arms as well.

* * *

The second Simon -- the one who had landed in the rose bushes when she had leapt away from the fire and the force of the exploding Folly had hurled her further than she had intended -- the other Simon, the female one, pushed mounds of soggy hair out of her face with one hand and felt of one of her breasts with the other.

“What the heck?” she said.

She felt of the other breast, just to be sure. They both seemed enormous and when she looked down, all she saw was pillowy boobies.

“Oh, crap!” she said. “I wished myself into being Power Girl!”

Something swooshed overhead while she was looking down. She looked up quickly but she didn’t turn around because the burning Folly caught her eye. Flames from the explosion of the central room had spread to the timbers holding up the patio roof. With the rain still coming down, it didn’t really look like the fire would get anywhere but something occurred to her; wasn’t she now a superhero?

“Hey! Maybe I should try to put that out!” She quickly stood up, the stinky mud of the rosebed clinging to her curves. The rain immediately began washing the filth away.

The rain seemed to be doing the job on the fire, too, but Simon stood in the middle of the rose bushes and huffed and puffed anyway, trying to produce super-breath to blow out the flames.

Nothing happened except she got a little dizzy from hyperventilating.

“Crap, crap, crap,” she muttered, glaring at the fire. The rain was really doing a good job of stopping the flames so super-breath was hardly necessary.

“Do I even have super-powers?” She looked down at herself again. “Besides the boobies.”

She pondered a moment. “I got blown out of a building by an explosion, naked, and I landed in some rose bushes. It’s raining in April in Tacoma. I’m not cold and I don’t think I have a scratch on me.” She beamed, running her hands down her side, slick with rain. She found no scratches or tender spots.

She stopped when she reached her ass. “I’ve got.... Boy, I’ve got a big.... Is all of that me?” She tried to turn around to look but, of course, she didn’t have that kind of super-power.

* * *

The Little World, as the Djinn called their pocket dimension between Earth and the original version of the Djinn realms, had mountains and lakes, forests and rivers. That it was not a whole planet was not readily apparent and each Djinni had a dwelling, modest or imposing as befitted his rank among the Djinn.

The Djinn are ruled by judges among themselves, not kings or nobles but leaders respected for their experience, wisdom and skills. The title of respect for such djinni is Hakeem and large important families may have one, each clan selects an elder to the post and the gatherings of clans select a tribal judge. All of the hakeems together select one of their member to be The Hakeem who serves in that post for as much as a thousand years.

“You knew the rules, Baghadu’ur. Changing someone’s sex, even by accident, even your own, is a forty year sentence of sanctioned powers,” The Hakeem of the Djinn said on the portico of his magnificent dwelling.

“But I didn’t!” protested the djinni who had told Simon to call him Habib but whose real Djinn name was Baghadu’ur. “Look, I’m still male!” He gestured at himself, his real self. Not the slender middle-aged accountant-type body he had showed Simon but his own djinni self; large, muscular, imposing and aggressively masculine.

The Hakeem quirked an eyebrow. “And your client?” With a gesture, the official judge summoned an image of Simon, the female Simon, standing in a rose garden in the rain, feeling her butt with both hands and looking mystified.

“That’s Simon?” asked Habib/Baghadu’ur. “Oh, dear. The wish turned him into...that? He looks like, uh, she looks like Power Girl with Barbara Eden’s face--only more so.”

The portico had a marble floor and colonnades that set off the view of the mountains across The Hakeem’s lands, farmed or him by lesser djinn. A lovely houri made sure that their silver-trimmed crystal goblets were kept filled with the mixture of peach brandy, citron zest and spring water that The Hakeem favored. The houri, young and beautiful as all houris appear, reminded Baghadu’ur/Habib of his client’s altered appearance and he turned back to the view of Earth conjured by The Hakeem.

The two very male Djinn contemplated the image for a moment. “Nice work, in a way,” said The Hakeem. “But this rule is for your protection. If your clients know that you will not be able to grant all their wishes for forty years, they will not be asking you to change your sex or theirs either. So many of them are filthy perverts anyway.”

“But... but...” Habib/Baghadu’ur protested. “My master, er, mistress, is going to need me now.”

“But!” said the Hakim. “But one of the sanctions is that you must stay here an entire Shabat before returning. So you cannot go back until sunset on Saturday.”

“It’s still Monday, isn’t it?”

The Hakim nodded. “And even when you go back, the other sanctions will be in effect.”

“I’ve never crossed this rule before, what are the other sanctions?”

The Hakim detailed the sanctions, it took some time but Baghadu’ur/Habib had almost a whole week to listen. They sipped peach brandy cocktails and ate spicy peafowl breast and other delicacies served by the beautiful houri while they talked.

* * *

Simon, the tall one with muscles, carried the woman who had identified herself as Habib toward the lower back entrance of the hotel, his private entrance into his little two room apartment with the shared kitchenette. Up the slope to the left, the second rear entrance of the hotel led into the two-story utility room attached to the kitchen on the main floor. Directly above Simon’s rooms lay the main dining room with it’s own outside deck, the floor of which was the roof of Simon’s patio.

Since it was raining in the middle of Monday afternoon, no one had been eating on the deck but two people had been munching snacks and enjoying the free coffee in the dining room. The big windows provided them with a view of the burning Folly but the heavy rain kept them from noticing too many details.

One brave soul with an umbrella ventured out onto the deck to get a better look. Lt. Colonel Edgar “Edge” Wyes, US Army, retired, had spent most of his career pushing papers in top secret think tanks in and around Washington DC, Brussels, Tokyo and Moscow but he had military training and felt that he needed to respond to what looked like an emergency. In his late forties, he had retired after twenty four years when he was passed over for promotion to full colonel due to budgetary cuts related to the winding down of military commitments.

Keeping himself fit for two decades in a desk job had become a way of life for the colonel, he ran two miles every morning and sometimes entered long distance races. Which explained the unnaturally bright orange tape on the sleeves and back of his windbreaker as he ventured out onto the rainswept deck.

Edge had a cellphone in his hand and had already dialed 911 to report the fire. Still talking to the dispatcher, he gave details on what he saw. “No, I don’t think anyone was in it,” he said. “This time of year, it’s pretty deserted. Wait, wait, somethings moving around down there....” He held the phone against his chest while he peered into the downpour. He could see movement but not identity and whoever or whatever it had been, disappeared almost as soon as he noticed.

“Maybe it was a deer,” he said into the phone. “We get a lot of them around here.” Then he stopped talking for a moment as he saw something else.

A break in the steady rain showed him someone standing in the rose garden, a person this time, he felt sure. Even on a dark and dreary afternoon with the lights from the hotel masked by the rain he saw something, someone... a girl? An even larger gap in the rain gave him a better look. A naked girl? A naked girl standing in the rose garden, her hands on her shapely ass, her back arched, her magnificent breasts clearly revealed -- and then the rain came down in sheets again and she was gone.

Colonel Edge blinked.

The phone was saying something to him, asking him something. “No,” he told it. “No, I don’t think I saw anything after all, just a trick of the light in all this rain.”

He listened a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll stay on until the firemen get here.”

Behind him, Mrs. Dumfries herself, the owner of the hotel, emerged from the dining room wrapped in a black nylon rain suit and carrying an umbrella with hand painted Japanese flower designs all over it. Her gray hair showed in a curly aura peeking out from under the hoodie of the rain suit and she had a phone in her hand, too. She had called the fire department directly, not reckoning a fire in an outbuilding on a rainy day counted as a real emergency.

She stepped up beside Colonel Edge, as near to the railing of the deck as either of them could get without touching the rain-soaked barrier. “There wasn’t anyone out there, was there?” she asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Edge lied. He knew what he had seen and he knew how to keep secrets.

The Starchild by Erin Halfelven   Chapter 7 Get Around

Simon managed to open the door to his apartment without putting the woman in his arms down; hugging her close to him was no hardship and the rainy patio was no place for someone who was barefoot.

“Here we go,” he said as he eased her down onto his sitting room carpet.

“Thank you, Simon,” she said. She smiled up at him, though the expression seemed a bit strained. “You are still the best master ever.”

“Huh,” said Simon, not sure how to respond. “Habib!” he called out. “Habib? Are you in here?”

“I’m Habib,” said the beautiful naked woman still standing oh-so-very-close to Simon.

* * *

After spinning once like a dog chasing her tail, the girl who thought of herself as Simon realized how ridiculous she must look and contented herself with feeling of all her appendages and accessories. “Jimmies! I’m built like Coco Austin with bigger boobs,” she complained.

She shook her head, flinging water from her hair, her chin and other pointy parts of her anatomy. “Ooo, that was weird,” she said. She looked around to see if anyone had seen her but the rain had began falling harder and she could hardly even see the hotel. Downslope, the Folly continued burning but probably not for much longer. In the distance, she heard the sound of a siren and realized someone must have called the fire department.

“Sugar Pops!!” she said, “I’d better get inside before someone sees me.” She started to trot toward the door to Simon’s apartment but stopped suddenly; the bouncing felt just too weird. “First thing to do is to get Habib to change me back into a guy!” She walked the rest of the way to the door, looking around and calling for Habib several times.

* * *

Up on the deck above the lower entrance to the hotel, Colonel Edge watched the girl he had seen in the rain walk toward him. Mrs. Dumfries had gone out through the front of the hotel to intercept the firetruck and direct it around the building to the narrow track leading to the Folly. Or what was left of that unfortunate building. Edge was alone on the deck outside the dining room.

Alone with a vision of beauty that left him almost breathless. The girl had a shape like an hour-and-a-half glass. Generous, top and bottom, but wasp-waisted almost to an extreme. Long hair that was probably blonde when dry reached to her waist.

She walked toward him through the rain and mist with a background of fire. She did not look up so she didn’t see him on the deck above her. He hung back a little though he could not have said why but he moved forward as it became obvious that she intended to use the lower entrance to the hotel. He kept her in sight until she disappeared almost directly beneath him.

Edge thought there might be a room down there in what he thought of as the basement. He searched his memory to see if he knew who might live down there. He thought he remembered someone complaining that the hotel dining room was directly over his bedroom -- thin, dark fellow, looked like a Mediterranean version of Elvis -- Nader Something?

He debated with himself about going downstairs and trying to find the girl but what would he say to her? I saw you naked on the back lawn looking magnificent in the rain and I wanted to get a better look? He smiled, a little lopsidedly. He didn’t think so, it wasn’t his style. He’d find out who she was before he introduced himself.

* * *

“Crap, crap, crap again,” the girl who thought of herself as Simon muttered as she reached the the patio. She had her arms wrapped around herself under her breasts in an attempt to minimize the distracting motions. “Bounce, bounce, bouncey! Habib! This is not amusing.”

She turned to look back toward the burning hulk of the Folly. “Where is Habib?” she asked aloud. “Habib, if this is your idea of being funny...” She turned back toward the door of Simon’s apartment. Despite it being only about two in the afternoon, gloom filled the space under the first floor deck and two yellowish patio lights did little to make it less foreboding. It was a perfect place to feel a chill run down the middle of your back.

Simon felt a nasty one as she reached for the door handle and heard voices from inside her apartment. One of the voices sounded familiar, kind of like her father who had been dead for almost ten years.

* * *

Across the city, in off-campus housing for the University of Puget Sound, two young second year students woke up bright and early Monday afternoon from their usual weekend drinking binge. Neither of them were far from being expelled for grades and non-attendance and, even with the intervention of wealthy relatives, seemed unlikely to get degrees at this particular institute of higher learning.

Howard Dudat, known variously as Howie (from his first name), Dude (from his last), Bluto (from a supposed resemblance to John Belushi), and Jackass (from his personality), rolled over and groaned. “Am I sleeping on the floor?” he asked no one.

Regardless, he got an answer from his roommate. “Keep it down, Dude,” said Peter Henry Piet from somewhere behind and above Howie. “You ain’t sleeping if you’re talking unless you’re talking in your sleep and if you start doing that, besides the snoring, we are going to be ex-roommates fast.” Pete had several nicknames, too, but usually went by Pete or Piet--who could tell?

Together the friends were known as The Booze Brothers and if someone squinted just right and imagined them in blue business suits with sunglasses and fedoras, they did resemble Jake and Elwood. Either that or a clean-shaven Mutt-and-Jeff.

“Shaddup,” said Howie, with his customary morning charm. He levered his rotund body to a sitting position and looked around the ruins of their apartment. “Dafuck? Who painted shit on the wall?” It did look like shit but was really brownish plum sauce from a local Chinese delivery joint.

Pete, who had been lucky enough to drape his length over the davenport, grunted. “Probably the same chickie who threw up in both of our beds.”

“Both of our beds?” protested Howie. “Now we got to fuckin’ move--again?”

“That or do laundry,” agreed Pete.

With various noises worthy of a logging camp donkey engine, Howie struggled to his feet. “It’s fuckin’ cold in here, too.” Goosebumps covered his exposed flabby flesh and a lot of it was visible since he wore nothing but a stained pair of boxers and a torn Nirvana t-shirt.

Pete hadn’t moved except to put his arm across his eyes. “You know the upchucking chick? Her boyfriend broke the windows in our rooms.”

“Both our rooms? Christ, what an asshole. What dafuck did we invite him for?”

“I don’t think we did. At least, I didn’t,” said Pete. “You, on the other hand, are enough of a dickwad to do something like that.”

“Shaddup,” said Howie, stumbling toward the bathroom. “Didn’t anyone think to close the doors to the bedrooms?”

“Apparently not,” said Pete. “What a good idea. You gonna do it?”

“Shaddup,” said Howie, making tinkling noises into the toilet bowl.

“Apparently not,” Pete repeated.

Howie flushed then brushed his teeth and gargled before saying anything else. “Where dafuck is the Tylenol?”

“We’re out. Take some aspirin,” said Pete. “It’ll work better anyway.”

“You tryna kill me? You fuckin’ know I’m allergic to aspirin.”

“Oh, yeah.” Pete snickered, still on the davenport.

“Smartass,” said Howie, stumbling through the refuse toward the kitchen. He thought he remembered part of a bottle of Tylenol in the spice rack. Tylenol was sort of a spice, wasn’t it? What the hell else would you keep there if you didn’t actually do any cooking?

At the kitchen table sat Pete, buttering saltine crackers and popping them in his mouth between sips from a can of Canada Dry Diet Ginger Ale.

“How can you drink that fuckin’ stuff?” asked Howie.

Pete sprayed cracker crumbs answering. “Mmeef, mpf dmf mf n-nf br-pf,” he said.

“Whadda ya mean, we don’t have any beer?” Howie checked the refrigerator. “Muthafuck! We don’t have any beer!”

“Pt-lmf mu tpf,” said Pete.

“Yeah, yeah, give yourself a fucking no-prize.” Howie shrugged and took a can of diet ginger ale himself and popped it. He took a sip. “Nasty!” he said and took another. He gestured at the spice cabinet but it was out of reach above the stove. The door of the little box glued to the wall flew open anyway and a tiny travel-size Tylenol floated out all by itself.

Pete watched, his mouth full of cracker crumbs. “Mow few noo nadh, Noonadh?” he asked.

“How’d I do what?” asked Howie as the pill bottle orbited his head. He didn’t seem to notice and took another sip of ersatz ginger ale, his eyes slightly glazed.

“Dat,” said Pete, pointing at the Tylenol container.

Howie glanced up then snatched the bottle out of the air. “Muthafuck! Don’t throw stuff at me while I’m hungover!”

Pete laughed damp cracker crumbs all over the kitchen table then took several sips of his beverage to clear his mouth. “It’s not your hangover, it’s your overhang,” he said, pointing at Howie’s belly.

“Shaddup,” said Howie. He wandered back toward the living room, extracting a couple of pills and washing them down with soda.

Still draped across the couch, Pete lifted his arm and squinted at him. “Hey, Dude. Maybe I swapped those Tylenol for aspirin?” he suggested.

“What -- the fuck?” Howie spun around and looked back into the kitchen where another Pete was again buttering saltines and laying them in neat rows. “The fuck?” Howie repeated, spinning back.

Now there were two Petes sitting on the couch, yawning identically. “This is such a crazy day,” they both said. “I think I’m beside myself.”

Howie spun around twice more, spilling diet ginger ale into the detritus of their weekend before fainting dead away.

A fourth Pete emerged from the bathroom and knelt to check Howie’s pulse. “He’s alive,” the triply redundant Pete announced. The two Petes on the couch looked around the room and added, in unison, “If you call this living.”

* * *

Simon, the male one, stared at the slender dark-haired woman. “You mean you really are Habib?” he asked. He sounded distressed by the idea.

Habib, the female one, nodded. “When I made your wish come true, something went wrong, and....” She trailed off looking down at herself, now wearing one of Simon’s white dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up above her elbows.

“Wow,” said Simon. “That’s... something.”

Habib frowned. “It’s perverse, is what it is. Djinn rules are very strict on changing someone’s sex. I think I’ve triggered some sort of.... I cannot....” She frowned. “I think I’m being punished.”

Simon looked wounded. “Does...? Does it hurt?”

Habib shook her head, distracting herself for a moment with the movement on her back of the mass of hair falling down almost to her waist. She reached up with both hands and gathered it off her neck.

Simon took a deep breath.

“No, it doesn’t hurt, but I cannot reach into other worlds, only this one. I cannot make contact with other djinn.” She sighed. “The standard punishment for perversity is forty years of restricted use of djinn resources and abilities.” Her frown came close to turning into a pout. “But I would have thought I would get a chance to explain! I didn’t do this on purpose and neither did you.”

Simon shook his head. He intended never to admit it but the thought had occurred to him to have Habib turn into a Barbara Eden-style genie. And it had sounded perverse to him, too, which is why he would never say anything about it.

“Forty years is not so long,” said Habib. “I once spent half that long as a horse.”

“A horse?” Simon said, startled.

“Yes, not all masters are as reasonable or accountable as you are, Simon. I think I can do this, half the human race manages to be women without to much effort. Eh?” The corners of her mouth turned up.

Simon smiled to see her smile.

She pulled her hair up above her head. “What am I going to do with this? I have no idea how to take care of all this hair. It’s an obscene lot of bother, don’t you think?”

Simon grunted. ”Don’t cut it,” he said in a strangled voice.

She looked at him. “I had thought to, but now I can’t.” She frowned again.

Neither of them moved for a long moment as the realization sank in on both of them that Habib was still bound to Simon’s will by three thousand year old magical agreements.

* * *

On the Little World of the Djinn, Baghadu’ur, the other Habib, the male one, continued to enjoy his luncheon with the Hakeem. The day was bright and peaceful, the land, the food and the houris all beautiful and appropriate. Baghadu’ur felt almost content, though a thought for his master back on earth nagged at him occasionally.

The terms of the djinn sanctions against perversity meant that nothing could be done to change a female Simon back into a male one for another forty years. Habib shrugged, half the human race managed to be women on a daily basis, surely Simon could adjust. And he, or rather she, would have superpowers just as had been wished.

“What in Seven Worlds?” he heard the Hakeem ask and looked up to see where the Judge of the Green Djinn’s gaze was fixed. A very long-eyed race in themselves, Djinn could also magically enhance their vision and Baghadu’ur clearly saw what Hakeem must be looking at.

Miles away, out at the edge of the land around the Judge’s estate they saw a rider moving quickly toward them, driving his horse with almost cruel urgency.

Simon, the female one, realized that she had to reach up to the handle of the sliding glass door that opened from the patio into her apartment. “The heck is this? Habib, you not only turned me into a girl, you made me short!”

She measured herself against the frame and estimated her height. “Being only five feet tall is not a superpower, Habib!” she fumed, reaching again for the door handle.

* * *

Inside, the other Simon was asking, “What’s the word for a female djinn?”

Habib, the female one, said, “Djirini. Someone is outside calling my name.”

“Your name? Who knows your name?” Simon turned and looked but he had automatically closed the drape when he carried Habib inside; something about having a naked woman in his apartment made him cautious about privacy, perhaps. Well, she had one of his shirts on, now, so....

He moved to open the door, saying at the same time. “I can’t keep calling you Habib, isn’t that a guy’s name? What’s the Persian female version? Habibeh?”

“Please don’t call me that!” Habib protested. “Habib means friend, Habibeh means fiancée!”

Simon paused for a moment, started to turn back but a noise came from the door, so he pulled back the drape and slid the door open at the same time, just as the female Simon outside the door tried to do the same.

They stood there looking at each other in astonishment for a moment; one -- very tall, male, and wearing clothes that seemed a bit small for him; the other -- little, female, stacked and naked.

“Dad?” said the shorter of the two Simons. “You look like my dad....”

* * *

Wilson Courage had never expected to end up a member of the police department of Tacoma. His college major had been in Art with a minor in Business Administration, strictly as a fallback. But he’d been recruited as a staff artist for the department and had gone back to school to get a credential in Law Enforcement.

Then he’d found out that no one got promoted above Officer First without time on the streets, so he’d spent six months as a beat patrolman then two years in a squad car, taken the sergeant’s exam and passed with a nearly embarrassing 100%. He still did I.D. art when the department needed it and had a desk in the Detective’s Office downtown, complete with computer and all the drawing software he needed.

That’s where he found out that no one made Lieutenant without time in the detective squad. He’d put in for a transfer to the detective squad last December and it had finally come through, along with a promotion to Detective Sergeant Third. His art desk became his permanent desk in the detective office, with a smaller desk alongside for a phone and a computer.

Tacoma wasn’t a big city, just a middling large one, so they only had one detective squad, commanded by Captain Vance Andrews and Lieutenant Marjorie Ullersen. Both of them were standing near his desk when he arrived that April morning. Andrews was OIC of Downtown Division on weekends and Ullersen was CO of the Detective Squad and Wilson’s new boss.

“Seems funny to say welcome when you’ve been hanging out here for almost a year,” said the Loot. “But I guess I can say, ‘Welcome, Sergeant Courage!’ at least.”

Wilson grinned. He’d sewn the sergeant stripes onto his uniform only that morning. Not that he was wearing his police uniform today, as a detective he would normally be in plainclothes now.

Captain Andrews laughed. “Our new sergeant is an ambitious lad, Marje. Have you seen the webcomic he works on when he thinks no one is looking?” Andrews was a large man, nearing forty, with big hands, dark skin and a receding hairline in front of his mini-Afro.

Marje nodded. “It’s called ‘Captain Courage,’ right? But maybe you’re bucking for my job since I think the character is a policewoman?” She grinned. A tall blond woman with piercing blue eyes that still had a twinkle after ten years of police work, Lt. Ullersen reminded Wilson of a Valkyrie from Norse Legend. Department legend was that she had been a part-time member of GLoW, Glamours Ladies of Wrestling, in her college days.

“Ah, yes, ma’am,” he said. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had modeled his webcomic character after the lieutenant, disguising her with red hair instead of blond. He tried to change the subject quickly, afraid that one of the two would ask to see some of his artwork. “Have you got an assignment for me, today?”

“What do you think, Skip?” Ullersen asked Andrews. “Break the new guy in easy?”

The captain grinned as if what Ullersen had said was funny. “Sure, sure,” he agreed.

Marje nodded. “You’re on ride-around with Sergeant Murrows, all this week, Courage.”

Wilson winced and his two superiors chuckled. Abel Murrows was senior sergeant on the Detective Squad and a bit of a grump. But at least it gave him an excuse to get moving and avoid any further interrogation.

He’d just got down to the parking garage and turned up his raincoat’s hoodie against the drizzle when he saw Sergeant Murrows talking on the phone in a plainwrap cruiser. He hurried toward the car wondering what his first detective assignment would be like.

* * *

“You look like my dad, but you’re not, are you?” the naked girl at the door said to Simon.

“Uh, no, miss, I don’t think I am...” he trailed off. Talking to two naked women in one day made it a very unusual day. This one looked young enough to be a daughter of his, if he had ever had a daughter but as far as he knew, he had not. She even has a vague sort of family look, except that she was so short.

“You’re Simon Paul, aren’t you?” asked the girl, pushing wet strands of hair out of her face. Moving her arms up to do that sort of pushed her rather large chest into more prominent display.

Simon glanced away, his face turning red, just as Habib came up beside him. “Uh, yes, yes, I am, Simon Paul, and uh, this is my apartment. Um, do you need to come in and… and call someone? I think I can find something for you to wear.” He stepped aside.

Blinking, the girl stepped inside, dripping a bit on the doormat. She stared at Habib wearing an oversize dress shirt. “If you’re Simon, who’s this baked goods?”

“Pardon me?” Simon yelped, surprised at the girl’s rudeness. Despite it being mid-afternoon, the overcast day and the roof of the patio had made it rather dark outside. Seen in the interior light, she had a truly astonishing figure and Simon looked away again, swallowing hard. “Th-that’s not a very nice thing to say!” Baked goods? Had she said baked goods?

“It’s all right,” said Habib. “You can call me... Roxanna, I guess. Which....” She trailed off, staring at the girl.

“Huh,” said the tall man and the short girl at the same time.

Simon shook his head, startled into looking at her again. “Let me... look for something for you to wear,” He stammered and headed for the closet.

Roxanna, or Habib, headed for the bathroom. “You’ll need something to wrap up all that hair,” she said. “I’ll find you a towel.”

“I suppose,” said the girl. She looked very downhearted and sank slowly until she sat on the rug in front of the door. She glanced down at herself and frowned, sort of swatting with one hand at her breasts and feeling behind her with the other one. “It’s like a... fahrfegnugen pillow back there,” she muttered.

“You didn’t tell us your name,” said Roxanna, returning more quickly. She knelt beside the girl and offered the big, fluffy green bath towel.

“If he’s Simon,” she muttered, “...I guess... I guess, I don’t know who the jam I am.”

Roxanna leaned in close and whispered. “I think I know who you are.... Simone?”

The girl looked up startled, her blue eyes wide.

Roxanna pointed at herself. “I’m Habib,” she said.

Simon came back into the room carrying a light blue t-shirt with a Superman logo on it. “Uh, this is a bit small on me, maybe you can wear it as a dress?”

The girl’s gaze snapped to him. “A candy-striped dress?” she yelped.

“Well, uh, no,” said Simon. “That’s a Superman logo....” He trailed off, confused.

Habib, or Roxanna, dropped the big green towel over the girl’s head. She held a hand out for the t-shirt and motioned that Simon should leave the room

With some relief, he did, even closing the door behind him.

“What’s the big fudge delight?” asked the girl under the towel.

* * *

Three amateur astronomers in different places all spotted Earth’s new companion about the same time. Later, they would all three be asked to suggest a name to be bestowed by the proper astronomical authorities. The Persian offered Mehrzad, meaning child of the sun because of the object’s brilliance. The Scot suggested Emeraldine because of it’s gorgeous green color.

And the American wanted it named Krypton, meaning hidden, because where had it been all this time that no one had ever seen it before?

Image credit: mariyaermolaeva / 123RF Stock Photo