His sister

John unlocked the door and opened it to find his sister. He mentally sighed when he saw that, today, she wasn’t wearing anything girlier than a yellow sundress. He also took note that her long dark hair was still reaching down to her waist, not having grown any longer. It was tied in a ponytail with the help of a yellow bow.

“Thanks John!” She said, brushing pass him into the house. “I can’t believe I forgot my keys today.”

He watched as she took off her shoes and made her way deeper into the household. Watching her leave, he couldn’t help but think back to his faulty wish, and the genie’s plea to continue testing his supposedly defective request. Figuring his sister was the best test subject we could find on short notice, he closed the door and ran after her.

He quickly wondered how he could touch her without making it seem weird. As he approached her, he mentally hit himself for being stupid; if his wish had any merit, he could just make it so that she’d be perfectly happy with him casually touching her.

“Hey Amy, wait up!” he yelled out after her.

“Huh?” she said, stopping. “What’s up bro?” she asked when he was next to her.

He quickly reached out and grabbed a hold of her shoulder. Instinctively, she made to push him off, a sudden look of shock on her face. He spoke before she could get him to let go.

“You’re perfectly fine with me touching you.”

But her expression never changed. Instead she looked at him, briefly confused and somewhat concerned. “Um… Obviously…? I always thought that that was pretty clear John, why are you saying that?”

He blinked, confused. Why did he use that to test his power? Amy had always allowed him to touch her; it was part of the reason why he had made this his wish in the first place. Again, he mentally slapped himself with his owns stupidity. He decided to try again.

“I mean, you and I have always been close, right? Closer than any normal siblings typically are.”

He watched as she nodded, again noting that nothing had changed. “Yes,” she replied, concern now visibly shown on her expression. “Why are you bringing all of this up? Is something the matter?”

Why was it that his wish wasn’t working? Surely if the genie had granted it properly, he would have noticed a difference; he’d feel like him and Amy were even closer than usual. Not that it would have made a huge difference, the two of them were as close as siblings could be; they were best friends even.

He suddenly realized what he was doing wrong. He kept trying to test his wish with things that weren’t tangible. He knew it hadn’t worked yesterday because he had tried to make Amy’s hair longer. Had it worked, he would have seen a difference. In retrospect, how could he judge if the two of them got closer, assuming the wish worked? There was no way for him to quantify that.

Time to try something physical. Something he knew Amy would never due, based on what she’d told him in the past.

“You never wear panties.” He said, still holding onto her shoulder.

At that, she got angry. “Is that what you want to talk about? Did mom ask you to talk to me about that?” She brushed his arm off, fuming. John simply stood there, shocked by her sudden outburst. He nodded, not really knowing how to react.

“I can’t believe she’d use you and exploit our closeness like that. The nerve of her! Why is it that she can’t accept my personal choices? I’m not a child anymore, god damn it! I can dress how I want!”

He watched as she left him, heading up the stairs to her room. John sighed heavily, happy that Amy wasn’t angry with him. He was glad she immediately assumed their mom was trying to get into his sister’s personal business again. There was no way he was going to tell her that the only reason he had said that she doesn’t wear panties was to test a wish granted by a genie. That would have been stupid.

Actually, no. What was truly stupid was that, once again, he had tested his wish using something he knew was true. Ever since Amy had turned eighteen, she had decided to stop wearing panties, enjoying the thrill of walking exposed underneath her dress. She had thrown out all of her underwear months ago.

He still needed to know if his stupid wish worked. Maybe he should head out and find someone he could continue to test it on. Someone he didn’t know as well as his sister, so that he could judge the changes himself.

His sister’s voice from upstairs distracted him.