Three Wishes
The Kiss
When I was fourteen I should have died of cancer. Leukemia to be precise. I fought hard to live but was going to loose my battle. I was going to die. The doctors knew it, my family knew it, and I knew it.
I distinctly remember the day I didn't die.
I was lying in my hospital bed, reading a book and feeling miserable as usual, when he knocked on my door and walked in to my room. He was gorgeous. A chiseled face, distinct muscles in all the right places, and a slightly abstracted melancholy look that was impossible to describe. He was enough to make a girl forget she was going to die, only to remind her a moment later that she was going to die a virgin.
"Hi Angela. Your grandmother sent me." He said, staring straight into my eyes in a way that send flutters thought my body. "Do you mind if I come in for a minute?"
"Yes, I mean no. I mean of course you can come in." I sounded like an idiot of course but I was fourteen and not used to being talked to by guys who looked like he did.
He walked over to my bed and said the last thing in the world I expected.
"Angela, I need to kiss you if that is ok with you."
"Um, um, ok." I replied. Sure he looked like he was probably in his mid twenties which should have made that creepy as hell, but somehow it wasn't. Besides, I was a fourteen year old girl who expected to die soon and did I mention he was gorgeous. Did you expect me to say no?
He bent over and kissed me, I won't say the kiss was't sexual because it certainly felt that way to me, but it also felt like it went beyond being sexual. It felt like every nerve in my body from my traitorous bone marrow on out was being touched by that kiss. I don't know how long it lasted, it could have been a few seconds or several minutes, but eventually he pulled away looking as shaken as I felt.
He smiled down at me almost wistfully and said, "Call your grandmother and tell her I visited you, then you have a good life Angie." Then he turned and walked out of my room. It would be almost twenty years before I would see him again outside of my daydreams and sexual fantasies.
I felt a lot better overall when he left than when he had walked in, but at the time I chalked it up to the thrill of that kiss.
However my white blood cell count started improving that day. Within a week it was back to normal, within three weeks there was no sign of the cancer in my body and I went home. I went back every month for a year for blood tests to see if the cancer was coming back, and once a year after that till I turned eighteen and stopped going. The doctors couldn't explain my recovery and eventually called it a miracle. I haven't been sick a day since then. Not even a cold or flu.
For a long time I thought he must have been an angel. Which made me feel rather bad when I fantasized about his doing more than kissing me. But I rationalized that if angels didn't want to end up being fantasized about they shouldn't look so damn sexy.
I never told anyone except my grandmother about the kiss. My mom would have freaked out, my brothers would have just thought it was gross at the time, I don't have a sister, and I didn't have any friends I felt I could tell at the time.
Inheritance
I was thirty-three, still single, and working as a librarian when my grandmoter died of a heart attack. Perhaps that kiss had spoiled me, but I never met anyone whose kiss, or even sex, could match the electric feel of that kiss way back then in the hospital. That wasn't the primary reason I was still single, but it was a factor. Mostly I just hadn't found a guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
I am my grandmother's only granddaughter, and I spent a lot of summers growing up with my grandmother at the lake cabin where she retired. My two brothers visited a few times, but they were too into sports to spend a whole summer there like I did. Maybe that was why she left me the cabin when she died.
My mother and brothers all got a good bit more money than I did, though not quite enough to match the value of the cabin, but no one complained about that. They knew I loved the place.
In her will she left me the cabin, everything in it, and a sealed letter with instructions to open it a the cabin alone. I took a few weeks of accumulated vacation when she died and headed to the cabin to honor her wishes and open the letter there.
The cabin had a stuffy feel when I arrived, having been closed up since she died, so I opened a few windows then sat down at the kitchen table to read the letter.
My Angie,
I know a grandmother isn't supposed to have favorites but you know you were always my favorite grandchild.
I smiled at that, remembering her calling me her favorite growing up then went back to reading.
Along with the cabin I left you a surprise in the safe in my bedroom.
I love you,
Your grandmother,
Margarie
I wiped away another tear then and curious I left the letter on the table and headed back to my grandmother's bedroom where I found the small safe she kept her jewelry in growing up. Seeing it brought back memories and I spun through the combination I had memorized as a teenager, right to 45, left passed 88 to 88, right back to 17, spun the lever and pulled open the door. The safe was empty except for what looked at first like a copper or bronze vase. I pulled it out and laughed realizing it was a bronze lamp like genie's were supposed to live in, remembering how my grandmother had teased me about my love for the movie aladin growing up.
I smiled at the memory, and my grandmother's sense of humor, then rubbed the lamp with my hands. I dropped the lamp and fell over backward hitting my head on the wall when a huge poof of smoke popped out of the lamp. A couple seconds later the smoke cleared and HE stood there, almost exactly as I remembered him looking, not more than a few years older than he had twenty years before, and as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
"Margie." He called out, then almost accusingly, "You aren't my Margie."
"No. I am Angela. Now who the hell are you and where did you come from?" I asked, starting to get angry at him for scaring me so bad.
"Angie?" He asked, staring down at me, then stumbled to the bed and sat on the edge. "But if you summoned me and not Margie that means Margie must be dead." He stated, then looked over at me again with tears in his eyes and said, "Oh my, I seem to have made a mess of this. I am Giap. I am, was, your grandmother's genie. I guess I am your genie now. Sorry this is taking some getting used to."
"A genie?" I asked honing in on the unbelievable statement. "You expect me to believe you are a genie?"
"Not really." He replied, smiling at me in a way that sent flutters though me like a schoolgirl crush. "If you like I can hop back in the bottle and try not to materialize so fast next time so you can satisfy yourself that I really am showing up out of thin air when you rub it. You might want to move it somewhere else to eliminate at least the mirrors possibility of this being a smoke and mirrors magic trick."
"Ok." I said, not believing him but willing to play along.
He stood, stretched to the ceiling, showing off his muscles in a way that should have been illegal, bowed to me with an ironic looking smile, bent over to set the lamp back upright, and dove into it, disappearing right before my eyes in a smaller poof of smoke, leaving me staring at where he had been just a few seconds before.
"Shit, shit, shit." I swore, scrambling over to look in the closet just to make sure he hadn't hid in there somehow, not believing what my eyes were telling me.
When he wasn't in the closet I just sat back against the bed, staring at the lamp like a rattlesnake, not daring to touch it.
After a few minutes of sitting there staring I slowly crawled over to the lamp, gingerly picked it up by the handle, and carried it into the middle of the front room, away from all the furniture and anything else he could be hiding behind. I set it in the middle of the floor sat back as far as I could and still touch it, and reached out and rubbed it with my right hand, pulling it back as soon as I did so.
This time the poof of smoke was less violent and I could see through it as he seemed to poor out of the lamp and materialize out of thin air.
I just sat back starting and he smiled down at me with that haunted look I remembered from so long ago.
"Let me try this again." He stated, "I am Giap, a lamp genie, and you get to make three wishes. Standard genie terms. I can't do the impossible, I am a genie not God. But if you wish for something I can't do I will tell you and that wish won't be counted against your quota."
I just sat there staring then asked rather stupidly, "Are you really real or am I hallucinating or something?"
Giap
Giap just stepped around the lamp and held a hand down to me. "It might help you believe to touch me." He stated.
I thankfully didn't say I wanted to do a whole lot more than just touch him if he was real, but I did think it. I held up a hand and tentatively took his, letting him help me up, and feeling just a bit of the tingle I remembered from our long ago kiss where our hands met.
Giap seemed to feel it too as he got an odd look on his face and seemed a bit reluctant to let go of my hand after I was standing. After a few seconds he finally did and stepped away.
"I am hungry." He stated, walking back through the door into the main part of the house and into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"
"A little I guess." I answered, following him into the kitchen. "I am not sure what we have to eat though."
"Do you like bacon and eggs?" Giap asked, rummaging through the fridge and pulling things out. "Margie loved bacon and eggs."
"I know." I replied, "And yes, I do like them."
"Good." Giap answered, "Because it looks like we are running low on ingredients for anything else. This milk has gone bad I am afraid," He added, sniffing the milk and making a face. "but the eggs should still be good and Margie always kept plenty of bacon in the freezer."
I collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and just sat back to watch as Giap competently set about getting ready to make bacon and eggs, pulling bacon from the freezer and plopping it in the microwave to thaw, then pulling out a frying pan and the crate of eggs.
"Now we just need the bacon to thaw." Giap stated, coming over to the table and taking the seat across from me.
"You cook." I stated, rather obviously.
"I cook, clean, and do all kinds of household chores." He answered with another one of those smiles that made me feel like a schoolgirl with her first crush. "I even do a bit of plumbing when the need arises, though that isn't my favorite task in the world. Did you think your grandmother took care of this place on her own all those years?"
"She said she had someone who would work for food come in to help her around the place." I answered distractedly, then added. "Wait, that was you?"
Giap just laughed at that, then nodded. "Yes, that was me."
"How long have you known my grandmother?"
"Close to forty years." He answered.
"Forty years?"
"Almost, yes."
I just stared at him for a minute before commenting, "You are a genie and have been part of my grandmother's life since before I was born and she never said anything to anyone. I wish you could make this whole thing make sense to me."
"Is that a real wish or just an idle statement?" Giap asked seeming to focus in on me in a way he hadn't till then.
"It WAS just an idle statement." I commented. "But now I think I want to make it a real wish. I wish you would explain this whole situation so it will make sense to me. Including the whole genie thing, how you came to be with my grandmother, and while I am at it what that whole kiss thing back when I was a kid was all about."
The Story
Giap just stared at me for a moment, before nodding formally and stating, "Your wish is my command." Then he broke into a grin and added, "I like you Angie. You could ask for almost anything in the wold and you ask to understand. Your family is weird but I like you."
The microwave beeped then so he got up to pull the bacon out and lay out about half the pieces in a frying pan.
"Where should I start?" He asked once the bacon was frying.
"With the whole genie thing." I replied, getting to the heart of things immediately.
"Ok." Giap replied nodding then asked, "Are you religious? I ask because it helps to know if you believe in a non-physical reality already or if I have to explain that to you."
"I am nominally religious." I replied, "But assume you need to explain it to me anyway."
"Ok." He nodded. "What you see, hear, touch, taste, smell, KNOW as reality is not the only reality that exists. Outside, or alongside of this physical reality there is also a non-physical one that is just as real as this one is and just as full of thinking beings. Not all of those thinking beings are interested in this reality, but those that are can choose to cross over to this reality and take on physical form."
"So you are a non-physical being?" I asked, trying to believe him.
"Not entirely." Giap replied, expertly flipping the bacon with a pair of tongs. "I am one quarter human and three quarters faery or spirit being." At my look he just smiled and nodded. "Yes, faery beings can mate with humans and have kids. If you know your bible its mentioned in Genesis, or if you are more into Greek or Native American mythology it is talked about there as well. My grandfather was human, so my mom was half human and mated with a faery and thus I am one quarter human."
"How old are you really?" I asked before realizing what I was asking.
"That's a complicated question." Giap replied. "I was born in the year 1643, but my physical body is currently in the late thirties in age. I only age when I am here in the physical world and my body gets younger again up to a point when I spend a lot of time in the faery realm."
"Ohh kay." I replied, trying to process that. "How did you end up here with my grandmother?"
"That's simple." He replied smiling, "Your grandfather found my lamp in a village in Vietnam. I suppose you could say his troops were looting the enemy village, which doesn't sound very nice I admit, but everyone from that village was dead already so they weren't going to need any of the stuff he and his men were taking. I don't mean to speak ill of your grandfather but that's what happened."
"Everyone in the village was dead?" I asked, trying to process the story with what I knew of the Vietnam war.
"Yes. Everyone." Giap replied more somberly.
"Did my grandfather or his troop have anything to do with their deaths?" I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
"Not directly. No." Giap replied carefully.
"But other Americans did?" I asked.
"Not directly." Giap answered again.
"What does that mean, 'Not directly?'" I asked.
"Their deaths were a result of the war, and they died to save a lot of American lives, but their deaths were not the result of actions taken by American troops or their allies."
"Were they killed by their own side?" I asked, curious now.
"No."
"Then how did they die?" I asked, knowing I was pushing, but needing the answer somehow.
Giap turned to me and seemed to deflate before answering. "I killed them."
I thought I would drown in the sadness in his eyes then and found myself getting up from the table and pulling him into a tight hug before asking the obvious question, "Why?"
"I had been with that village for almost a hundred years, given to each male villager on their thirtieth birthday to make three wishes for the good of the village. It was a good arrangement all around till I was given to a man who had lost his wife and children in the war. He wished for a weapon that could kill all of his enemies. I tried to talk him out of it. I even went to the village elders, but they agreed with him and his wish. So I granted his wish and gave him the weapon, then I set it off rather than see it used to wipe out half the country, and it killed everyone in that village and all the villages within a thirty mile radius." He was crying full out then, so I just held him tight till the bacon started burning and set off the smoke alarm.
Giap pulled away from me to pull the bacon off the fire and turn off the stove then, before turning and saying "Thank you."
I just smiled sadly back at him and said, "Any time." before changing the subject and asking, "What did my grandfather wish for with his three wishes?"
"Actually your grandfather and grandmother both only ever used one wish each. Which is pretty much unheard of in genie circles by the way. Your grandfather wished I would take care of his wife and then sent me to your grandmother in the mail."
I nodded at that thinking it fit the stories I had heard about my grandfather, a career army officer who died in Vietnam. "So you showed up in the mail at my grandmother's house and spent the next forty years taking care of her?"
"We spent the last forty years taking care of each other." Giap corrected me gently. "She did as much to take care of me as I did to take care of her. I was in pretty bad shape emotionally after killing off everyone in a village I had spent years serving. As you can tell it still hurts to think about."
"Were you in love with my grandmother?" I asked without thinking.
Giap laughed at that, a rolling laugh that made me smile and want to make him laugh again. "Maybe a little." He replied then nodding. "But Margie never stopped being in love with your grandfather. Even years after he was gone."
I nodded at that as well, knowing it was true, then asked, "So what was the one thing my grandmother wished for?"
"Nineteen years ago your grandmother wished for me to cure her granddaughter's cancer and thus save her life. In all those years, even when the arthritis got bad, or her heart started failing she never wished for anything for herself. It made me so angry sometimes! I practically begged her to wish for me to cure her heart disease, but she wouldn't. She never explained why either. She just shushed me and said no she wouldn't do that."
I found myself crying for her again, wishing she hadn't been so stubborn, but knowing she wouldn't have been who she was if she hadn't been. Finally I pulled myself together and asked, "So that kiss all those years ago WAS what cured my cancer. I always thought so but never understood how that was possible or why I would have been chosen to be healed when so many others were not."
"Yes. The kiss was what healed you. And you were chosen because your grandmother loved you more than anything else in this world."
"Was kissing me the only way to heal me?" I asked, teasing him a little.
"Well, I WAS re-writing most of the cells in your body and the more touch involved the easier it is to do something like that. The ideal way would have been sexual intercourse." He added making me blush, "But that didn't seem appropriate given your age at the time and the cultural mores. Second best was kissing you. Third best would have been something like holding your hand, but I wasn't sure I could fully cure you just by holding your hand."
"Ok." I nodded, "That makes the kiss make some kind of sense now."
"Of course I also wanted to kiss you." He added smiling down at me. "And I was brought up in a culture that doesn't have all the taboo's yours does, so it didn't really occur to me at the time that kissing a girl as young as your were might not have been appropriate even with her willing consent."
I just nodded at that, not sure what to say, then asked the next question that popped into my head. "Can I wish you free or does that not work in real life?"
Giap laughed his rolling laugh again at that before replying. "No. You can't wish me free of being a genie, though I am flattered you would want to. I know a genie who consulted on the movie Aladdin and we both find that idea funny. That would be like wishing yourself free of being a human or a woman. I am a genie, thats simply what I am and I have no need to be freed from that. My lamp isn't a cage like in the movies, its a portal to the faery realm. Full faery beings can transition back and forth at will without a portal, but since I am one quarter human I need a portal to cross back and forth. I can come back here without anyone rubbing my lamp if I want to, and I don't have to come when my lamp is rubbed if I don't feel like it. The rubbing of the lamp thing is sort of like ringing my doorbell."
"What about the three wishes thing?" I asked. "From your story about the village it sounds like you are bound to give people the things they ask for."
"Yes. That is true up to a point. I am bound by my magic to give each person three wishes and grant those wishes within reason. But as illustrated by that tragic story I am also free to twist those wishes if I see fit. Thats why we genies are often considered untrustworthy in the legends, because we are not just wish granting machines. We are thinking beings capable of acting independently of the wishes we grant."
"That still sounds like a prison of sorts." I replied.
"Maybe." Giap answered. "But if so it is a prison formed by what I am and is no more of a prison than the skin and bones humans have to live in as part of being human."
I considered that for a minute, then nodded. "Ok, I guess that makes sense."
"Have I fulfilled your wish then?"
"Yes, I think you have. I understand as well as I think I can. I am still having a bit of trouble believing this is real. But I think I understand."
"Do you know what you want to wish for with your second wish then? And please don't be like your grandparents and never use your wishes. Having people refuse to wish for anything is really hard on a genie."
"I think I know what I want to wish for, but I need to ask you about it first."
"Ok." Giap answered.
My Wishes
I stepped closer to Giap then, putting a hand on his chest to gage his reaction and said. "I want to wish for something, but I don't want you to do it just because I am asking. I don't want you to feel like you have to grant this wish. I only want you to do this if you really WANT to, ok."
"Ok." Giap replied, staring down at me.
I took a breath to recruit my courage and said, "I wish you would take me into my bedroom and make love to me."
Giap's eyes lit up at that and he pulled me closer into a long passionate kiss that sent sparks down to my toes. "Save your wish my Angie. That's something I REALLY want to do and I don't need any special genie magic to do it."
If you ever get a chance to make love to a genie, take it. The sex was amazing in that way you always think it will be as a teenager. Literally spine tingling is the best descriptor I can come up with, seemingly setting every nerve in my body pleasantly on fire.
Quite a while later after Giap had more than fulfilled my wish several time over and I had fulfilled a few of his as well I sighed, pulling my head up from where it was resting on his shoulder and said idly, "I wish you could stay with me and didn't have to go back to wherever you came from."
Giap just smiled down at me and asked, "Is that a real wish my Angie? Please say yes that is what you really want, because I can't think of anything that would make me happier than to spend a lifetime with you."
I laughed giddily at that and said, "I didn't mean it as a wish wish, but yes, that is what I really really want. I wish you would stay here in the physical world with me for the rest of my life."
Giap laughed himself at that, then bent his head over to kiss me again before looking into my eyes and saying. "I love you my Angie. I think I fell a bit in love with you all those years ago when Margie wished for me to heal you, and have been missing you since then. You have one more wish my Angie what other wish can I grant you my love?"
I stared back at him, not sure what to wish for, then knew exactly what I wanted. "I wish you free." I stated.
Giap just laughed and said, "I already told you it doesn't work that way. You can't wish me free of being a genie."
"I wish you free of ever having to do anything for me again because you have to. I only ever want you to do things for me from now on because you want to. I wish you free of having to grant me any more genie wishes. You have already given me more than I have any right to. You gave me back my life all those years ago, you took care of my grandmother all those years, and now you have freely given me your love. What more could I ever ask for my Giap, my love."
Giap seemed to stop breathing for a few seconds then, just staring down and me, then he said simply. "Wish granted, but I can't imagine your wish ever not being my command my Angie, my love."
