by Nina Merrill
Samir sighed. He might as well get it over with. She would never rest until she knew the whole story. He knew her too well. “You remember I've told you I am bound to someone in each generation."
"Yes, of course.” Laura sank onto one of the cushions and tugged him to sit on another.
"Centuries ago I never knew where the next designate might be. Remember, your family was cursed to wander by the same sorcerer who bound me."
Her hand crept to the teddy bear and clutched it against her breasts as she nodded.
"As each new master or mistress was born, I was torn from the side of the previous. And so I ... learned to travel light, since I never knew where I would next be called."
"Oh, how terrible.” Laura's brow creased in sympathy. “But"—she looked around her—"I thought you said you didn't have a bottle."
"It is my home, not my prison. I come and go as I please. These are all my things. My shelter, no bottle."
"All your things ... but not that.” She pointed to the tree on the wall. “That is ... that is my family. And I—I'm the only one left."
"Yes, my mistress."
Laura rose from her seat and went to stare once more at the tree. “If I read the tree correctly, my mother must have been the designate before I was, and her father before her. The other lines are all dark. Those lines are ... dead."
"Yes."
"No wonder she never questioned me when I spoke about my invisible friend. She knew all about you.” Her gaze cut to him and he saw her flush. “Did you ever—"
Samir shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. “I never made love to your mother. Distant others of your family, yes. It is true. I am not completely chaste. But Laura...” He took a deep breath. The next words were ones he had never spoken in his very, very long life. “I have never loved another so much as I love you, my mistress."
Her face crumpled. She fell to her knees before him, and covered his hands with kisses, turned them and kissed the palms. Hot tears fell on his skin. “I have loved you for such a long time, but I never understood that. And if I thought about it, I thought you were something I could never have ... you were my family's jinni. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you have a life of your own to live. You have free will."
Laura asked the very question he had pondered so often himself. “Samir, what happens to you if your curse is not broken and I—die?"
He shrugged. “I do not know."
"Is that what the sorcerer meant by ‘sublimation'?"
Samir shrugged again, shaking his head.
"Then there's only one thing to be done.” She looked at Samir fiercely. “I can't let you die, not if I can keep you alive. If we can't break your curse, perhaps another generation can."
Samir gasped. “No, my mistress!"
Laura rose again and stood looking down at him. Tears sprang afresh. “Don't you see? If I don't have a child, we can't be sure you'll live after I die.” She headed for the mouth of the bag, Teddable swinging at her side.
Samir lunged and caught her ankle. He groveled at her feet. “I would rather die when you die, my mistress, than see you love another. I would rather wander the earth alone than see you take another man to your bed. I would rather—"
"Silence, my jinni!” Laura interrupted him with the words of command, and he pressed his hot face into the floor of the bag. The teddy bear dropped beside him, and a moment later, Laura crouched there as well, stroking his hair.
"My mistress, please do not force me to leave you. Please let me stay with you until the end, whatever end it may be. I beg you—"
"I will do what I must, Samir,” she breathed, looking down at him with sad eyes. “I would give my life, as you have given yours."
The bag trembled, negligibly at first, then with more vigor. It was like being in an earthquake as cupboards sprang open and things fell from the shelves inside. Cups, saucers, cutlery. Lamps. Books. Clothing. His magic carpet fell over, unrolled, and began sailing around them as a vortex of force arose. Laura squeaked in fright and crowded close to him. Samir shielded her naked body with his own as the shaking increased and the vortex whirled and spun. Then, with a massive flex, the bag convulsed. Everything inside it shot out at tremendous speed, including Laura and Samir, as if the bag had sneezed.
Samir covered Laura's body while his personal effects rained down around them.
At last, the shaking stopped. Samir rose and stared in dismay at the mess.
On the floor at his feet, Laura was laughing. “Look, Samir, look!” She held out her hand. In her palm was his sky-blue navel jewel, winking like a cold star.
And it was shrinking. A faint mist drifted up from Laura's hand.
Samir stared down at his belly, his fingers groping for the place where the jewel had been for centuries.
"It's not there anymore! We've done it! We've broken the curse!” Laura cried. “It's sublimating! Look at it, going from solid to gas.” A moment later her palm was empty.
Samir fell to his knees, astonished. His curse—broken? The hot, heavy jinni's heart that had pounded in his chest for so many millennia seemed to slow and cool. He looked at Laura in alarm. “What is happening to me? Laura! What..."
Her gaze skittered over him and, to his relief, she didn't seem frightened. “I think...” She ran her hands over his muscular shoulder and nodded. “Yes, you're definitely a little smaller. I think you're not a jinni any longer. Try some magic."
Samir held out his hand toward his belt and dagger, but they did not fly to him. He spoke the jinni word of command, but still they lay on the table where he had left them before carrying Laura to her bed. He looked at Laura, stunned, and for the first time in centuries, afraid. The curse was lifted, but what did that mean?
"Last of my line.” Laura smiled. “I think ... I think the sorcerer must have meant you for me. Someone who would love you back as powerfully as you loved her. Me."
"Can it be? Is the curse lifted?"
"The jewel is gone, so what else could that mean?"
He flexed his arms and torso, feeling the difference in strength. “I am a weakling. I am small."
Laura crawled across the few feet separating them, and kissed his now-empty navel lingeringly. “Believe me, Samir ... you're far from small.” She trailed a teasing finger down his belly and circled his cock once, twice, then closed her fingers around him. She looked up and grinned at him before pulling his head down and kissing his mouth with passion. “But I think you are only human. Men do rather like being touched like this..."
"Oh, yes, my mistress,” groaned Samir.
"And like this...” Her mouth trailed down his neck to his chest, where she bit a nipple.
"Sweet Astarte, yes."
"And like this.” She kissed her way down his belly and pushed him onto his back on the rug, where she spent a heady few moments suckling the head of his organ.
Samir moaned and fought to keep his hands out of her hair. He didn't remember this feeling so good before. Rarely had anyone sought to give him pleasure; instead, they wanted what he could provide.
"Laura!” His gasp made her chuckle and bite down before she pulled her mouth away with a soft popping sound.
"Yes, my jinni?"
"Tell me you love me again."
"I'll tell you every day for the rest of my life.” She straddled him, hands on his chest, and eased her body down over him, encasing him in that sweet, hot darkness once more. “If you'll tell me the same."
"Now that I have a life, most assuredly. I will court you. I will woo you."
"Mmm. I like how that sounds.” She began to move, and Samir clutched at her hips, helping to set the pace. A slow, deep, wonderful tension began to coil in his belly. He arched upward to meet each grind of her pelvis.
She tilted her head, her breathing quickened. “Although ... it is a pity..."
His eyes widened. “What? What is a pity?"
"We'll have to go to the grocery store for avocados now.” Laura's gurgl
ing laugh was followed by her sweet, happy gasps of delight, and Samir knew what it meant to be a man at last, in the arms of his love.
Nina Merrill
Nina Merrill started writing stories in elementary school and wrote her first full-length novel in a spiral-bound notebook at age thirteen, followed by several practice novels. Her favorite Christmas present was a typewriter and a ream of paper. After college, she took a job with a large international corporation, programming computers and writing technical documentation. A few years ago, she rediscovered writing during a prolonged period of insomnia and began to indulge her passion with a vengeance. Nina is currently making the leap from corporate drone to mild-mannered bookseller in an independent bookstore in Washington, where she can feed her addiction to fiction. Nina currently lives with her computer geek husband in a quiet happy house full of books, animals, and dust.
You can learn more about Nina by visiting her website:
ninamerrill.livejournal.com/
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