Determined

It didn’t feel good this time.

Simon’s face was etched into a cold scowl as he remained seated under the shower with his eyes closed. His genie focused purely on massaging his scalp and washing his body the best she could in that moment.

Even though it was about an hour ago when she finally stopped crying.

It was ****.

Pure, absolute, unmerciful **** to have to watch Jessica go through with witnessing that part of her life. There was no getting around it or pushing it down under the surface. The words and actions of Jessica’s parents, and the realization from the discovery of her magical abilities as a child, broke her in a way other things had nearly done today.

He could hear her crawling around him on the shower floor when her task was done, her eyes on him as the sound of her meek voice spoke weakly at him.

“Did I do good, Master?”

Her voice was practically begging him for any sort of praise. Anything-Anything to let the genie know that her existence had any sort of meaning at this point.

She was ****, and felt as if she was unworthy of anything. It wasn't her fault, she was only four and hadn't noticed, but taken with all the other words and names she had been called.

****. Purebred Toy. Wind-Up Doll. Little Doll. Pet. Miserable little thing.

His hazel eyes shot open and looked up at the naked blonde bombshell sitting on her knees nervously. She looked away at the sight of his eyes on her, like she believed she was unworthy of being even looked at. Her identity now associating herself with those words in the face of no longer being what she believed she was.

"I'm not human. I'm not NORMAL. I'M NOTHING. I'VE ALWAYS BEEN NOTHING! WORTHLESS! USELESS!"

She had spat it out as she cried, and retreated in on herself to find anything that would give her an answer of what she was supposed to be or do. So she coped the only way that seemed to work, by letting herself go. It was her urges taking over her. Using them as a defense mechanism to keep herself from having to acknowledge or accept what was happening to her.

"Master? Did I please you? Did I do a good job, Master? I tried to do my best, I'm sorry if I-"

He smiled warmly to her, trying to make sure she knew how much he loved her, that her world wasn’t over yet. Even though he knew that was failing.

“Yes, Jess. I liked it very much. It was wonderful.”

The blonde smiled brightly as she giggled to herself and blushed from the praise of her Master. The only person she was even capable of standing to look at, or have look at her.

The genie got on all fours and crawled towards him, speaking softly and hesitantly, asking him as if it were to bring the world crashing down upon her for doing so.

“May I… please suck your cock, Master?”

Simon patted her head, cupping her chin so she would look up at his face, instead of at his member. He wasn’t really in the mood for it again, even though she desired it.

It was a false desire, trying to make herself feel better in any way she could.

“Not right now, Jess. I need to think.”

The blonde genie looked down at the corner of the shower, biting her lip and nodding quietly in acceptance.

“Okay, Master. I’m sorry, Master.”

He stroked his hand down her neck and the length of the young woman’s back to her perfect backside several times as a way to soothe her even more.

“Don’t be sorry. You need to rest.”

Jessica nodded somberly and crawled away over his legs like a pet and curling herself up into a ball next to him on the glass wall and door that was the exit out. Simon watched her as she continued to look down at her knees curling into her chest, the lost quality they had to them as the girl remained silent. He continued watching her as his face turned to worry.

“Jess. Look at me.”

Her face turned upward and to her right to look at him smiling at her against the back base of the shower. The life started coming back into the genie’s emerald eyes as her face scrunched, and she crawled back over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders tightly. Holding onto him for dear life.

Simon was left to think over the ramifications of what the two teenagers witnessed. Jessica remained attached to him as he wrapped an arm protectively around her naked body and his mind continuing to whirl and turn.

She was a genie. She was always capable of using magic, even as a child. Being unbound meant there was a greater chance of chaos if people hadn’t been careful around her. If anyone figured out that she could be capable of granting wishes, then it could have unleashed that same chaos on the people around her.

Now he had a possible reason, a most likely culprit in causing their friendship to suddenly to stop, for Jessica’s repressed psyche, the way people were acting or had acted. A genie granted wishes, but that didn't necessarily enable them to have control. His laser metaphor came back to him in that moment. A Master, a binding, those were the things that could control the magic of a genie. A genie granted wishes, the manifestations of the desires of others, through those wishes. Born with power like that, they would be incapable of wielding their own magic on their own. That was considering if they had even ever been capable of doing so at any point.

Jessica really was powerful. So powerful, that even as a four-year-old she could hear the wish of his younger self and bring something as small as a flower back to life in his hands. It must’ve been weaker and easier to mask the younger she was. Her mother waited until she turned 18 years old to bind her to the item on his finger.

He took the ring off his hand and stared at it in the light and water of the shower. The concentrated effect of magic, the act of binding in itself, must have become so ingrained in genies that it caused not just the focusing and control of their abilities, but also their pleasurable release upon granting a wish. It could be considered a clever, if not more twisted, means of positive reinforcement. Jessica had no knowledge of having that sort of reaction previous to her binding. Otherwise she would've noticed something wrong sooner when she started going into the prime stages of adolescence.

So it was the binding process that caused the reaction to exist in the first place.

A wish was a command, to grant one gave the genie a reward via their own energy for obeying their orders. It was meant to reinforce control.

They were the ones making the effort. All the Master, Mistress, or whoever controlled the genie, were was the wielder, the mind, the planner, the voice and instructor for what to do. That's probably why it was so easy for the Masters to treat them as tools.

You could bring one person back, or wipe out all life with a single wish, but the genie would simply be following orders, and rewarded for doing what they were commanded to do.

What was that phrase he read before in one of those stories Kevin had showed him? Obedience is Pleasure?

The young man placed the ring in his fist and clenched down on it, trying to see if there was any chance of damaging the piece of jewelry or not. He opened his palm a moment later.

Nope. Not a scratch.

He pinched it in-between his fingers again and remained frowning in thought at the small item that meant total control of the woman he loved.

For something to be so small and have affected so much, and of all the people brought to Jessica’s party, one way or another, in the most minuscule of circumstances…

…fate had landed upon his forehead.

He placed the ring back on his finger and glanced down at the blonde genie, her emerald eyes staring off into space as her face had become frozen in a somber state of ambivalence.

Jessica.

After witnessing her life, and seeing the moment in time, those brief moments of excitement she had upon seeing them together again. The happiness it brought her. The happiness in her younger self upon seeing him, and knowing the world that had surrounded her.

This whole damn day.

A fucking microcosm of both bullshit order, and resolved chaos. Completely inhuman, and yet, absolutely human. The constant paradox life thrust at him and his mind.

Power.

The want of it.

The need to overcome it.

The willingness to take it or refuse it.

A clouded height that could not see what was beneath it, and that ignored determination or decisiveness. The lack of it creating an addiction, easily mixed, and confused with desperation when faced with withdrawal.

Those with it could eventually wish for whatever they wanted, and then just didn't care what they caused. Hadn't they been told these stories before?

When did having a wish come true not come with a consequence? What if the consequences were the thing someone made a wish for? Controlling the outcome. Wielding power was more difficult than having it. The same could've been said with knowledge, but Simon liked knowing things. It was mostly a question of how one used it.

Simon stopped himself from thinking any further, knowing it would lead further and further down the rabbit hole.

A wish had once only been something that could come true in real life if one applied themselves to it. If you want something work for it.

But those with power often laughed at the concept. His father and Jessica's father were an example of that. Patrick Harris put effort into something, and it paid off. Theodore Edwards had achieved power, wealth, and influence, and no longer cared about what restrictions there were. And with all of that he barely made any effort in wanting to be a good father. He just expected it to happen.

Why couldn’t people just make the effort?

Effort.

“Jess, what did you want to do after high school?”

She adjusted herself against him as her mind suddenly uttered the first couple of words in some time.

“After… high school?”

The depressed cheer captain managed to mumble, her voice still thick with hesitation and shame at her answer.

“I… I don’t know. I never stopped to think about it.”

Her mind was far more willing to elaborate, “Tiffany and the other girls Sammy and I hang around... they always said and told me that High School was going to be the best time of our lives. I just really bought into it. Being popular, cheerleading, parties, prom, it all just seemed so perfect….”

Simon couldn’t help but let out a snort at her first thought, making the blonde girl start to feel some energy returning as she became defensive.

“How’s that funny?”

“High school? You think high school is supposed to be the best time of your life?”

“It’s SUPPOSED to be!” Jessica emphasized as she began to get up on her feet while looking down at her Master.

“I worked really hard to become Captain after the last one graduated. I did well enough in all my classes that I could go to every party of the year, every Friday night was the game, every Saturday a trip. How could something be better than that?”

Simon rolled his eyes at all the cliché moments that Jessica clung to show him as evidence for why she was right.

“College is better,” he stated bluntly.

After all, it was true. High School was just the last gate out of standardized secondary schooling. The didn’t give out the diplomas at Eastlake with any sort of Majors or Minors. You're confined and ground into the machine and the system.

College was also a system, but one that had different standards, different rules. So long as you paid, you could learn what you wanted.

“You can study abroad and have your own place in college.”

He also pointed out the other major benefits, “Also everyone gives you discounts on drinks and everything because you’re a student. Plus you can always make friends with someone that can just buy you a drink instead of having to bribe Jason’s brother every time. The College town where he’s at nearby, it probably outdoes any party in the neighborhood every week. I’ve seen it when I’ve gone to take photos over there. You’re free from the rules back home, so you can experiment more with everything.”

He smirked as she pouted trying to think of a comeback to that, but she knew it was true. Plus college freshman were more appealing to high school seniors from that automatic maturity card.

“A college guy wanted to date me, once,” the genie admitted shyly.

“Steph…” Simon listened and watched as Jessica stopped herself from saying the woman’s name as the sadness of a newfound frown appeared as she clenched her fists front of her naked self.

“My Stepmother said no.”

The Master watched his genie sigh and look away embarrassed about this topic of conversation was going, “Anyway, I would’ve probably taken a year off to figure it out, but I would’ve probably been sent away….”

“I don’t know what she and Daddy would have wanted me to do.”

The blonde girl sighed as her depression reemerged at the memory and reminder of what she started to believe she was. A **** and defeated acceptance of what everyone in her life had treated her as nothing more, “Then again, Dolls don’t have to worry about having a future. I wasn’t meant to have one either.”

She smiled sadly at him, her eyes looking down and away in embarrassment as she admitted the true feelings she was holding in now.

“You really don’t have to ask me for what I want anymore, Master. Please, do with me as you like. It’s better this way. I don’t care anymore.”

Bullshit.

Simon knew his Jessica too well. He looked skeptically at the genie as he stood up and walked over to her, and let out a shrug. Yeah. He was going to prove that wasn’t true to her, and that she knew it, in the easiest way how.

“Okay Jess, if you really think that way, and only if you truly believe that to be one-hundred percent the case. Then I want you to go to Sam’s room right now and ask her for something to stick inside yourself.”

The genie suddenly blushed in a sudden onrush of embarrassment as she felt her voice trying to maintain a whisper while losing her composure, “W-What?”

Simon wasn’t done.

“And tell her that you’re dropping out of school to become my personal maid, and that you’ll be moving into my room, but will gladly clean her room in exchange for special treatment.”

The anger and protest sparked from the embarrassment inside the young woman’s heart as she clenched her fists and started yelling out in protest.

“I… I will do NO SUCH THING!”

The young man crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, “Oh, and why’s that, Jess?”

That indignation, that fire in her belly had been trampled on and nearly put out. It just needed a bit of gasoline to reignite it.

Jessica was still raised to have standards and make her own beliefs, even for a genie. Simon knew it wouldn’t take much to show her she still wasn’t ready to just let her life be taken and made into one from her nightmares.

If he told her to do anything for him, with the way she was acting, he would most likely have had no resistance. His best friend had gotten on her knees in front of him without having to be asked. She was willing to go as far as he was willing to go with her. That was a world of infinite possibilities.

Reminding her or telling her to be that way with others, however…

“Because I’m not a toy! I don’t belong to Sammy! She’ll never let me hear the end of it! I can't do it!”

He smiled, satisfied that she was starting to regain her spunk, but his work was not done yet, “And do you want to know why that is?”

The boy chuckled as the genie fumed in front of him, red as a tomato, but Simon’s arm wrapping around her waist and placing his hand on her bottom yet again to stroke it, caused her to be off guard and wait for an answer.

“Because you’re still you, Jess. Yes. This is a big deal, but it doesn’t change anything about how I feel about you. If anything, it makes you even more incredible to me. You’ve managed to go your whole life without knowing or getting caught using magic! I think that’s amazing.”

Her emerald eyes opened wide to look at him, as the irises trembled upon hearing his words, and he still wasn’t done. He pulled her closer and held her possessively as she looked into his hazel eyes, “If you really didn’t care, Jess, you wouldn’t have hesitated or protested what I said. In fact, you’d be at Sam’s door telling her what I told you to do and say, right now. Think about that.”

Her face scrunched as the genie began to realize that he was showing her that the high school cheerleader still hadn’t lost her identity.

Simon made sure she was listening and looking at him, not able to look away, “We’re going to figure this out together, Jess. I’m not going to let you go through this alone. You’re MY genie, and I’m YOUR Master. We're just at the start of this. And if that’s how it’s meant to be, then that’s how it’ll be, but I won’t let you suffer alone. We’re going to be together like we told ourselves. Like we promised each other. No matter what.”

“Master…”

The sound of her voice made his spine shudder. Crud, he hadn’t meant to rant on again about he felt, it just sort of happened as a way of reassuring her. Emerald eyes continued to stare up at him in a similar sense of awe and child-like amazement. That moment where the illusion of complete loneliness was tossed away from her before she could wrap herself further in it like a blanket.

“You really haven’t forgotten about me. You and Sammy never left me.”

He shook his head as he grabbed the nearby towel and began rubbing her body dry as she continued staring at him without looking away. Simon could feel her eyes on him even as he was focused on drying her off. Her breasts, her ass, her arms, her legs, stomach, and hair all being rubbed down as she remained unmoving and staring up at him.

That was the voice of the Jessica who had been the one to run and greet him at her parent’s wedding. The one that had reemerged with the memories he had kept locked to himself for so long.

It was true, he hadn’t been able to forget about her, and Sam hadn’t abandoned her either.

If it hadn’t been him, it had always been Sam that Jessica had around her.

But speaking of his sister, that raised the other issue from this afternoon. Simon wasn’t going to just let his sibling keep catching him with Jessica in the act. Sam needed to know. He was not going to put up with the way she acted toward them.

“We’re your family, Jess. Your real one. We want you to be yourself. Which is why I’m going to take care of something.”

He paused, looking back at the still staring blonde.

Fuck it. He wasn’t going to put up with people saying he couldn’t do things anymore. That’s not what she believed.

Jess told him, repeatedly told him, that he could do anything.

Simon walked briskly back over to the blonde and planted a long and deep kiss on her lips, their tongues having it out again as Jessica let out a moan from the sudden and prolonged attention. Okay, now her Master was ready to go into the lioness’ den.

“I’m taking you on a date before school, tomorrow.”

The genie nearly hopped in surprise with the young man still cupping her face with both hands just after their kiss.

“A date?”

He nodded, his eyes growing more determined.

“I’m telling Sam that, too. She’s my sister, and your best friend. I’m going to tell her that we’re a couple now, and she’s just going to have to live with that.”

The blonde girl suddenly moved quickly in front of him, her nerves returning as she looked worried at the very idea. The towel draping around her shoulders.

Jessica’s voice was still somewhat soft and anxious, “Master, she won’t react well. She didn’t react well last time, or the time before that. I’ve always had to wipe her memory after she finds out. Sammy doesn't know how to handle it.”

Simon watched as Jessica bit her lip, her eyes darting around as she looked away nervously. The cheerleader was clearly hesitant about telling his sister anything about them. It was almost as if she was scared to.

Though that made a lot of sense. Jessica had always made it clear the one person she didn’t want to find out about her heritage or secret was Sam. She didn’t want to lose her friend over what was happening to her, and the way Simon thought about it, Jessica was already losing the sense of who she was person-by-person. The blonde genie was in distress again after the view into their past.

So he would hold off again on putting Sam in the loop, but that didn't mean he was going to let Sam tell him 'No' either.

“She’s just going to have to get used to it,” he declared of his sister, "If she hears it from me, it'll land differently."

“Master, please don’t tell….”

He held his hand up, preemptively ready for her request.

“I won’t tell her you’re my genie, don’t worry, but I am telling her you are mine,” he informed his blonde bombshell as she stood naked, eyes on him.

He sighed as he openly remarked about something that he had noticed, “However, at some point we're going to have to stop hopping back-and-forth between houses. I need to find you a place where you can feel safe about being yourself, Jess. Like a base or something. Somewhere where you won’t need to hide who you really are, and where I can figure out stuff without being disturbed. Where we can figure it out, together.”

Simon watched as the young genie smiled at the thought of having somewhere she could be free to be herself without the fear of being noticed.

“That… that sounds nice, Master.”

He cupped her face and stroked his thumb in circles on her left cheek. The blonde responded by letting her head rest in the palm of his hand, moving it like a pet wanting more. Jessica was willing to cling to any sort of affection at that point.

The words were almost instinctive at that point, even if it didn’t seem as possible as the first night he said them, Simon had his own urges and impulses. The one that told him to keep going.

“It’ll be okay,” he repeated to her again soothingly.

Jessica’s emerald eyes looked up at him as she paused, confused for a moment. The sense that there was some unsure façade that would exist in her for some time.

“I’ll MAKE IT okay,” his mind unintentionally allowed to escape from his head. Simon believed that would only make him seem entirely unwell to the young blonde.

Instead, following her blank stare and confused gaze, her face smiled and eyes closed in comfort.

“Right.”

“I know you will. You can do it. You can do anything, Master,” the genie’s mind began to slowly crawl out of its broken and lonely shell.

She was still feeling sad, it was obvious that those feelings weren’t going to just go away any time soon. Jessica had gone into the week feeling like she had a chance to still be in control of her life because of him. Now that was gone, and when she went looking for answers, something to make her believe she was right, the truth only crashed down on her even more than it had before.

“The only one who can break you is yourself.”

“Master?”

He blinked as he had gotten lost in thought after she had told him again that he could do anything. Simon finished staring off into space for the moment as his blonde bombshell genie looked confused by the thought that had leaked out of his head.

“Jess, you said it yourself, remember? You’ve become wrapped in everyone’s expectations of you. Because you want to make people happy. Even at the expense of who you are.”

Simon looked down and felt a sense of guilt as the words made their way out.

“If I had been there for you, maybe I could have stopped it from happening. I could have stopped you from doing things you regret doing now because that was how you felt you needed to be. That’s why I never really expected you to be anyone else, Jess. That’s why I always forgave you when you would mess with me. You were just doing what other people expected you to do.”

Her eyes widened again as she looked continually on him, never moving, never looking away, listening to every word as if Simon had discovered something new. Even though, this wasn’t exactly news. It was just obvious.

If anything he was probably just repeating himself. Being redundant after their conversation in the hallway that day.

“You shouldn’t want to wish to be normal, Jess. It’s okay not to be normal.”

The concept sounded new, almost foreign to her as she registered what he was saying in her head.

“Okay… not to be… normal?”

He nodded as the memories of his life, the constant need to fight his hypersensitivity, the therapists, the appointments, certain extra classes. There were days he would wake up feeling completely like an alien from another planet. Only to be visited by the blonde angel who told him he always capable of doing anything, who accepted his quirks, long before she had forgotten and exploited them. To not be like everyone else.

His mother’s warm and bubbly voice to him as a child as she gave him a hug, “Simon will always be Simon.”

He had told the young girl that when they were playing together, and she took the simple phrase and ran with it. Now she was the one who had to accept that it was okay that she wasn’t normal, a genie and not a human. Just simply raised as one, and surrounded by examples of both good and bad.

“I’ve never been normal to begin with, anyway,” he admitted, removing his hand as he moved back toward the door.

Sam would probably be falling asleep soon, so he needed to get to her room and get this over with.

“You should want to be yourself, Jess. You’re just figuring out who that truly is, and if you think there’s something wrong with who you want to be, it’s okay to ask for help. And if you feel like it goes against everyone’s expectations for you, then, well, fuck them. They’re wrong.”

Fuck their expectations. Let Jess be Jess. She should decide who she wants to be. All that mattered was that he was with her. They both wanted to be together.

How she wanted them to be together, it wouldn’t matter to him. If she wanted to be an Empress, she would be his Empress, if she wanted to be equal partners, then she would be his equal.

If she truly wanted to be his ****, then he would be her Master.

He smiled and laughed nervously at the sound of being so serious in the past few moments. He glanced back while snapping his fingers to get her dressed for bed as he went out the door, grabbing his cell phone after placing on a pair of pajama pants.

“Wish me luck.”

Jessica smiled softly and stayed in her same spot, a slight blush appearing on her face from the remark.

Sometimes it was fun to tease her with puns.