Further Reading

Simon could feel her glaring at him from his kitchen counter as he sighed over the stove. Dejectedly he kept his thoughts to himself, but it was hard to ignore.

‘Yup, she hates me because I enslaved her daughter. Of course.’

He flipped the toad-in-the-whole over in the skillet as he sighed and heard Jessica mumble to her mother in protest.

“Be nice. He’s sensitive.”

“I’m sorry, Jessica, but I’ve already explained that my patience is thin enough for this mortal.”

Simon scowled as he sighed and slumped his shoulders further down. The teenager wanted to bash his head into the wall for thinking he had some sort of shot of making an immortal, centuries-old genie that looked down on mortals actually like him.

Put yourself in another person’s shoes and see where they were coming from, he reminded himself.

Of course, after leaving his bedroom, he spent a good chunk of time stimming and pacing until his girlfriend brought her mother down from the bedroom. Both of them had signs of crying and screaming at each other for the past hour.

What was clear was that even if she still had trouble accepting him, the minute he put the food in front of the older genie, she had no problem with that.

In fact, Jessica and Simon both watched Maridallura as she moaned at the smell of an egg fried inside a piece of toast and, upon the first bite, nearly orgasmed upon tasting it. The genie caused her daughter to gasp in embarrassment as it became clear that she was fingering herself as she ate.

“Mom!”

Upon hearing her daughter’s scolding and quickly darting her eyes to see the blush apparent on the boy’s face from having had an orgasmic reaction to basic culinary skills, Maridallura bowed and sighed.

“It’s…it’s been so long since…I have tasted mortal’s cooking…this realm’s delicacies, so many tastes, and flavors….”

If that was how she reacted to just an egg and toast with butter, how did she respond to trying dessert for the first time?

“What is it, boy?”

Simon’s hazel eyes snapped up to see the woman scowling at him again as she saw he had looked upon Jessica’s mother as she touched herself. The deriding comment reminded him of how people treated him like a weirdo.

He sighed and shook his head again. The elder blonde continued to glare at him even as her daughter protested,

“Mom, stop. You were the one masturbating to his food. How else was he supposed to react?”

Maridallura sighed at her daughter’s words, “Your father had no problem with my compliments….”

Jessica groaned again as she rubbed her eyes and placed her head on the counter with a firm thud. The cheerleader stretched out her arms as she tried to explain,

“Yeah, but Daddy didn’t know you were a genie that saw him as ‘only a mortal.’ He saw you as a woman that fell out of the sky to become his favorite angel.”

Simon watched as the woman looked at her daughter with some confusion, causing Jessica further embarrassment,

“Is that not common among mortals?”

“No. Not really.”

“Oh….”

The mother trailed off as she looked down at her plate quietly. After what felt like a stretched-out moment of awkward silence, the elder genie looked somewhat discomforted and then away from her daughter,

“I…I do not hate mortals, Jessica. I did not mean to give you the impression that I do. Quite to the contrary, I actually find them quite amazing in some ways. They were far different than from what I was told to expect….”

At that point, Simon’s ears perked up, and his unfiltered questions blurted again from his mouth, “Told by whom?”

“I was not speaking to you, boy.”

Her angry glare and aura **** him to turn away and look away at his ceiling. Right. Hated him, enslaved her daughter, and ruined her life, according to her. Fuck.

“Answer Master’s question, Mom.”

“Jessica…I don’t think that is wi….”

The Queen of Eastlake was firm in her resolve to the Djinn, “Mom. I want Master to ask you as many questions as he wants. He’s only trying to help figure out what’s going on. I told you upstairs that he’s been helping me.”

“While I admit he may know some things, what could a mortal possibly know that I would not, Jessica?”

Right. When in doubt, Simon recalled his sister’s words, falling back on that natural ability to make a person’s head explode. The young man placed the kitchenware down and turned around as Jessica’s voice encouraged him, as her face smiled at him.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t let her bite.’

‘I doubt if you could stop her, though, Jess….’

Okay, step one, ask the obvious question,

“Why didn’t you explain what a genie was to Jessica?”

The genie glaring at him suddenly became silent as she tried to process the question, “Because she needed to know what she was, and….”

He would have to try and limit the misunderstandings. Hopefully, his awkwardness didn’t translate to genie annoyance as it did for humans. Simon held out his hand again as he motioned while he explained the question,

“Right, but Jessica’s been raised by humans, and judging by her reaction, you knew she knew what they were. So why aren’t you surprised that she knows what a genie is in the first place?”

Maridallura’s eyes widened as she scoffed initially at the question as insulting and then looked at her daughter. Jessica’s emerald eyes encouraged her to follow the strange logic of where he was trying to lead her. The elder genie then lowered her gaze and looked back at her daughter,

“Because…you mortals…you had an idea of our existence. You told it in stories with ridiculous interpretations that we were male, or blue, and only granted three wishes…with some maddening ability to transform our faces into strange shapes or….”

The cheerleader wasn’t going to let that slide as Simon watched his girlfriend ask hesitantly after a quick scoff,

“Mom, are you talking about…Aladdin?”

The blonde pointed as her daughter asked the question and nodded, “Yes! One of those strange picture stories came to life over that window into another universe…there was another...where the sister lived with some sort of mortal and often was up to mischief! I remember the window in each dwelling. Including the first one...the one Theodore had! A…tell…tell….”

“Television?”

“Yes! Television! I learned a lot about mortals from that!”

Oh, man. Simon rubbed his face as Jessica laughed, trying to process the admission that her mother had learned about humans by watching TV.

“So, how do genies learn about mortals?”

Maridallura frowned at the question, still tense as if he was holding the proverbial gun to her daughter’s head – which, while he wouldn’t say it - given the tension, bothered Simon immensely,

“From our own stories…the sisters that had escaped to the realms of mortals before came back with tales that they passed onto others. A new genie that enters service from outside the Master’s realm passes them to those within. The tales of the mortals and mortal realms are spread among the sisters and the Masters alike.”

“So like an oral history, hearsay….”

“Yes.”

Jessica leaned forward and placed her elbows on the counter, “So wait, you don’t write anything down?”

Maridallura looked to her daughter again without batting an eye, the relaxed tone returning to the conversation with her focus,

“The Masters have no need for writing, Jessica. There is no need to seek knowledge or keep it with our power. If they wish to know something, they simply wish for it. If they need something, they simply need only to wish for it. We cater to the needs of all the Masters. There is no point in writing for us.”

Simon froze,

“Wait, so how did you get all those symbols engraved into Jessica’s ring box if you don’t write anything?”

Both genies paused as Maridallura tried to scoff at the question but saw an equally curious look on her daughter’s face that was shared by the mortal Master,

“I remembered the symbols on my Mistress’ first binding. So I just…drew them in a way I wrote what was desired….”

“Wait, Mom. You mean you had no idea how you wrote it down?”

The mother became nervous at her daughter’s insinuation; her emerald-amethyst eyes darted in different directions as she bit her lip nervously,

“I…I shouldn’t answer any more of your Master’s questions. Master will find out you are learning such things….”

Jessica pressed, “Mom, you really don’t know how you did it?”

An awkward silence froze the room as the elder genie felt the eyes remain on her, awaiting an answer, “I wished to write only what I needed to have written. I only succumbed to my inner nature….”

Succumbed to her inner nature? Simon locked eyes with Jessica as they both simultaneously thought the same thing.

“You said someone told you about us…what to expect…why? How did you wind up coming here?”

Jessica watched as her mother’s shoulders went rigid at the question. For the cheerleader, if Simon hadn’t asked it first, she would’ve asked it herself. Seeing the tension rise in Maridallura’s body language, the blonde gently touched her mother’s shoulder to soothe her apparent fear.

“Mom, I know what happened from Daddy, but we might not get another chance to ask again about your story. Please, tell us. How did you come to Earth?”

Simon backed away to give as much space as possible without being snapped at again. Jessica was the only one to coax her mother from her hard shell as the elder genie rubbed her hands together nervously. This was a topic that she had not told before. It was evident by the look on her face,

“Where do I begin? I…I was with my sisters when we learned our Mistress had lost her battle. The other Masters wanted more than only our sister. Her loss cascaded through our realm, and from that, we were broken from our bindings.”

Maridallura’s face turned white as she gripped her legs and remembered the moment clearly,

“When we Djinn are freed, we are unbound and able to use our magic for ourselves. However, the cost is great. An unbound genie attracts the Masters because they are no longer protected by the veil….”

Jessica’s eyes lit up as she raised her voice,

“I’ve heard of that! When Master and I wished for the device to work and bring you here, I saw these smoke whisps and heard genie whispering about it. There was a whisp the same color as your smoke! It was like this huge blanket of…something….”

Simon had a realization of his own as his genie mentioned the variety of smokes. The dorkish teen looked down at the ring bound to his finger and the emerald that glistened the same color as Jessica’s brilliant eyes.

“Jess, don’t forget - your smoke is green like your emerald.”

The cheerleader nodded in agreement, “Yeah, you’re right. Anytime I go, POOF! It’s the same color, too….”

Amused by her daughter’s interpretation of a smoke cloud, Maridallura let out the first small laugh that both teens witnessed. Simon was unsure what that would lead to, but it seemed to be only the attention of a mother toward her only child as she pressed a hand against Jessica’s back,

“That’s not by accident. It’s your birthstone.”

Birthstone? Birthstone, he repeated internally. The memories of Italy and the workshop came back, and the boyfriend was quick to respond and drew closer to the cheerleader as he smiled,

“Jess, remember? At the goldsmiths? He said your mom brought the emerald in your ring with her.”

Maridallura’s eyes narrowed, “How could you possibly know….”

Almost as quickly, Simon stepped back, nearly tripping over himself as he again avoided the attractive maternal genie’s glare. His girlfriend almost sighed into a full growl at the two of them,

“Because we tracked down where you got the ring, Mom. A genie can’t just be bound to any kind of magical item, gosh.”

Simon flinched again as he watched the elder genie’s eyes widen, and she quickly leaned forward into her daughter’s face. The cheerleader nearly fell off the stool as she now had her mother frantically questioning her; the arms of his bathrobe clung to the young genie’s shoulders,

“How do you know that, Jessica? Where did you figure out this knowledge? Did the mortal wish for this to be revealed to you?”

The teenage genie smiled and laughed off her mother’s anxiety as she waved her hand, “No, Mom, M-Master and I…kind of…decided to test it at school?”

Simon kept his voice low, albeit nervously, in an attempt not to earn more ire, “We made a magical amulet out of a friend’s charm necklace as a test run…also to see how we could limit its effects to our own reality….”

Jessica snorted, “Yeah, well…it worked….”

A devilish smile masked under the happy giggle on his girlfriend’s face as she looked at her mother, “Next time I see Kevin, I get to have my ****!”

While Jessica giggled and bounced happily in her chair as if she was going to get another present, Maridallura narrowed her eyes as a clear guilt-ridden frown formed,

“Kevin…the name of the mortal that I failed to notice…the one you say is your enemy….”

Simon felt a knot form in his throat again as he became anxious. Shit. Kevin was going to make Jessica’s mother hate him even more now. Even the cheerleader noticed the change in tone and quickly spun back with her face flushed,

“Um, so, yeah! The, uh, birthstone thing! So my emerald is like….”

“When you were born, Jessica - like all Sisters of the Djinn – you were born with the stone that indicated her being of magical essence. It is said to us with each newborn stone, a new universe is birthed with them.”

Both teenagers froze as Maridallura stated the origin of Jessica’s emerald so bluntly. Partially from her evident hostility to her daughter’s Master and her firsthand experience. Jessica’s face paled slightly as she laughed, trying to keep composed,

“So, um, my emerald was…inside of me?”

“My…what’s the mortal term they gave me - placenta?” her mother corrected.

Simon watched as his girlfriend slowly placed her face on the counter as her mind screamed out once more,

‘LEARNING ABOUT PUBERTY WAS HARD ENOUGH! NOW I GIVE BIRTH TO FUCKING ROCKS?’

“Jessica?”

Upon hearing her mother’s voice sound worried, the blonde teenager inhaled a deep breath of air through her nose and gripped the counter with her hands,

“I’m good. I’m good! Really…just…how did no one find out when I was born?”

Maridallura smiled, “I took it when they had their attention elsewhere! All…”

Simon flinched again as the genie in his bathrobe shot another eye at him, “Most…mortals I’ve encountered are easily preoccupied. I couldn’t let them find it, of course. They said the glowing from the essence was unusual enough and took notice of it. You could not be found out.”

The blonde smiled at her daughter, “Also, they told me they would let me eat it, anyway, if I wanted to! So it was easy enough.”

“Mom!” Jessica cried in exasperation, “Gross!”

Simon let out a nervous laugh again as he tried to block out the talk he once had between his mother and sister about placenta pills. The look on Sam’s face being pictured in his mind was enough to cause his girlfriend to send a thought back at him in reaction.

Maridallura sighed at her daughter’s behavior and looked confused by her disgust. Then again, it must be enough of a culture shock to know her daughter had been raised to be among mortals. Flustered, Jessica steered the conversation back on track,

“Right. Enough of that. So, what exactly is the veil, Mom? What does it do?”

Her mother remained silent for a moment and then held out her hands as if to mimic a planet, purple smoke generating into a ball with clouds appearing and disappearing around it,

“The veil is the curtain between other worlds and realities. When one of us crosses through the veil, we are allowed to flee across the realms to find shelter from the Masters. The veil keeps those realms hidden, along with the magical energy it may possess. Usually, a stronger veil comes from a realm where there has not been magic previously or there is little to harvest. Once magical energy grows strong enough to pierce the veil, it can be sensed, but if it’s bound to that realm, it is anchored to it.”

The genie looked at her daughter worriedly,

“In most realms, there is very little life left, sometimes none at all, but more likely, it’s a realm populated by mortals. For a genie, it’s easier to hide among mortal worlds because of the abundance of life we can masquerade as, or we can live amongst them without them sensing our presence until the Masters detect us.”

Unfortunately for the awkward teenager, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut as his interest increased,

“How did they detect you?”

The genie’s eyes looked at her daughter and then glared at the awkward teenager in front of her angrily. Simon again felt it as if to blame him once again for everything,

“The Masters need our magic to sustain themselves, and we exist to provide: we exist to serve, they exist to control. When our magic becomes too abundant, used enough, especially when unbound and left to do as we please, they sense it and are drawn to us. To bind and control us. OR, when new magical energy is grown so rapidly to pierce the veil, as what happens when our power falls into the wrong hands. Mortal ones. They seek it out. It makes it easy to find them when the magic consumes the realm.”

The mother turned to her daughter as her eyes remained locked on the young man who felt increasingly uncomfortable in the knowledge of where he knew this was going,

“Especially when something is done to change their reality as a whole or attempt to go beyond their reality. While those who dwell in their realm – like mortals – will not be able to notice unless given sight, that is not the case for our kind or the Masters. In fact, the magic unleashed to commit such changes in one’s realm would disrupt the veil outside of it to be noticed. If they were foolish enough to commit such an act. The stronger the wish, the greater the aura….”

Fuck.

Simon wished he had limited the amulet more than he had already; then, there’s a vision of the past, the effect of the passage of time. Otherwise, he had kept his wishes limited to travel and the town. But, even then, that seemed like a lot of Jessica’s magic to have been expended.

Maridallura was already pushing to confirm his worst fears about the power of her daughter’s magic.

“Master had a theory about that.”

Jessica’s voice broke her mother’s glare and her boyfriend’s guilt trip as she looked at both of them, equally as worried,

“We knew the risk of bringing you back, and most of his wishes haven’t caused changes to anyone outside of town or individuals. Besides, my magic was unbound most of my life, and still got out. Why wasn’t I noticed then?”

Her mother was just as quick to respond. Maridallura began to break down further as she spoke until, by the end, she had returned to her frantic state,

“Your magic was unbound, but you were also not fully manifested yet. For some reason, this realm’s veil is stronger than most, and with you now bound to it, the more wishes you are **** to grant, the more magic you’ll saturate. Although I came here unbound, Jessica, I could still be detected and noticed even with my magic. They will notice you, especially while I’m here! And then, when they find a mortal with your power, they will destroy this world as they had with all the others in order to take you!”

Simon watched with the genie’s daughter as her emerald/amethyst eyes teared up again, “And I can’t see that happen to you, Jessica. I can’t. Mortals may be foolish and unaware, but where I’ve existed with them, they do not deserve to be eradicated as all the others. This is your home. It should be you that decides the fate of this realm! You need to stay here and not explore any further! I will do everything I can to not reveal you, but you must send me back! Please!”

Both teenagers sighed and looked at one another as the genie reiterated her fears and anxieties. She was saying it entirely out of habit, not out of desire, until the apparent statement was once again uttered from the young man’s mouth once more,

“You don’t want to go back, do you.”

Simon looked at his kitchen counter somberly as the words escaped his mouth and cringed as the mother of the love of his life snapped at him again,

“_I have to go back!_ Summoning me was a mistake! Every moment that passes is another moment I threaten my daughter’s existence. An existence that has her enslaved to your ignorant, simple headed….”

“Mom, enough!”

Jessica’s snap caused her mother’s tongue to cease, and the genie retreated back into herself as the young man poured a glass of iced tea from the bottle he had in the fridge,

“It’s okay to admit that you want to stay with Jess. She’s your daughter. They robbed you both of each other.”

Simon sighed, no longer caring about what names he was called as long as he could say what he wanted to say,

“I want Jess to be happy, but I know how big her heart is. She won’t be happy unless she knows you’re okay.”

“Y-You’re only an arrogant mortal…what could you….”

“That doesn’t make him wrong, Mom.”

The teenagers watched as the anger on the genie’s face twisted again back into sorrow as she covered her eyes and looked to be on the verge of tears. She wrapped her arms around herself,

“I can’t…I can’t stay…I…I…have to go back…I-I have to….”

Maridallura began to rock back and forth, still not over the revelations that her one chance with her daughter to keep her safe fell apart and that she was now enslaved to a mortal. Still, it was written all over her face, even as she denied it.

The genie squeezed her daughter’s hand for dear life as if she would never feel it again. Jessica was all she had.

“Mom,” the teenager called out softly, “When you said you were told to go through the veil after your Mistress lost. So, when you were told to come here - who told you?”

The hot mess of a genie allowed the bathrobe to fall off one of her shoulders as she looked down in shame, away from her daughter as she sniffled,

“A-A-A…a sister…from another Master…when they came to my Mistress’ realm to collect us…she opened a way out for some of us. She used her power to let the others cross the veil, but I had never set foot outside my realm without my sisters or Mistress. She said to seek the veil of the mortal world...she sent me on a path, and I followed that here....”

The genie continued to shake on her stool as Simon watched her daughter stroke her back softly. In one instance, Jessica’s mother was clear in her opinion of mortals, mainly him. She was a knowledgeable genie with explicit knowledge of what both teenagers needed and could pass that information to her daughter.

On the other hand, there was a clear pattern. When it came to human beings or mortals, Jessica’s eighteen years on Earth were far vaster than the centuries of existence that Maridallura had attained. Maybe it came with being a mortal, the concept and perception of spacetime. Simon tilted his head at the thought.

Like Jessica, it appeared her mother depended incredibly on those around her to form a sense of self. The concepts of individuality and collectivism were human ones. Not genie. It seemed as vast as that desert where both Masters and genie were born.

Simon’s brain suddenly stopped.

Masters and genies both originated from the same place.

“Is that even her original form? Genies have been known to shapeshift….”

“Master!”

The teenager suddenly stumbled and looked around as his girlfriend’s voice snapped him out of his head again. Jessica gave him a slight pout as Maridallura’s stoic gaze locked onto him for causing her precious child discomfort.

“S-Sorry, Jess,” the Master ducked his head away in embarrassment.

“What did you do now, mortal?”

The cheerleader sighed at the tension being built by her mother as she continued to rub her back, “No, Mom. Ugh. Master was just thinking about something silly about how genie’s supposedly shapeshifted….”

Instead of earning a scoff from the elder genie, Jessica watched her mother’s eyes widen in shock again and pointed in Simon’s direction,

“How does he know about that!”

Simon quickly held his tongue and scrunched his face up, suppressing the sudden urge to laugh lest he faced the genie’s wrath again. If strength was anything to go on, the woman held back from using her supernatural power just because her daughter was in the room. Jessica raised an eyebrow,

“Mom, he read it in a text….”

“Mortals know we can change our form?”

Maridallura had no idea how much humans knew about genies or jinn, did she? The awkward teenager turned to his girlfriend and quickly sent a thought over their mental link.

“Jess, keep going.”

The teenage genie blushed as she squirmed at the idea, now equally curious, “So, um, Mom. Is, uh, that your original body, then?”

Maridallura froze up as she bit her lip nervously. The elder genie turned toward her daughter,

“My Master had my breasts grown to amplify my milk production. Otherwise, my body has not changed since my Mistress released me.”

_…okay, so aside from suddenly finding out that her Master was using her as a cow..._ the genie was more or less the same as she was.

“So much for hairy feet then….”

“Our bodies adapt to our current environments. If you must know, most sisters do not possess the protection you mortals provide for yourselves, so our magic provides for our bodies.”

“S-Sorry….”

Maridallura sighed again in annoyance as Simon clenched his muscles and tensed up at having offended Jessica’s mother once again. At least it also answered his question, however. No significant outward difference was between a genie and a mortal woman save for their attractiveness.

The genie in his bathrobe was the sixth genie he had ever seen. Her daughter was the first.

Simon looked down at the empty plate in front of her. Maridallura had even picked and eaten at the crumbs until it was almost spotless. The taste should have been nowhere near orgasmic as she reacted, and there was likely another reason.

“Um, did you want anything else to eat?”

The genie flinched again as Jessica watched her mother try to hold her face worriedly. The blonde woman was on a mental tightrope due to her thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. She wanted to fight for her daughter’s freedom and believed any move against him would cause Simon to use Jessica against her. Then again, if she insulted him too much, she would upset her daughter. The genie was living a nightmare, too afraid to embrace that he was not a genuine threat and that her actions were a direct cause and influence on the choices both teenagers made to bring her here.

Thankfully, it was Jessica herself, who smiled and reassured her mother,

“Mom. It’s okay if you want more to eat. You can say so.”

The genie looked at her daughter’s smile reluctantly and then nodded. Simon took her plate and began to cook again as he listened in as Jessica pressed her mother on.

“Yes, we can shapeshift. When I first arrived, I was always told to hide as the creatures of the mortal world, but it was very different from was I was told to expect. I was told mortals were nomads. They traveled in search of food and water, crossed the deserts, and their cities were made of stone and rock. They were savage, primitive, like tribal animals, and without magic….”

Maridallura’s voice laughed softly as she remembered the disbelief she first encountered,

“But mortals…the mortals lived in cities on the seas, seas not made of sand but the deep blue of the water, of oceans, in towers made of glass and remained alight without fire in the moonlight. I disguised myself among the animals and boarded this great goliath of metal. I saw that there was no land for days, nothing but ocean, and when I departed, I saw more great cities made of stone and glass and of things I had never seen. Everything was green, so green with trees and woods. I explored the forests and saw the various animals and creatures.”

“Wow…Mom…you did all this disguised as an animal?”

“Mmhmm. Humans were quite familiar with them. I was sad to learn from your father that mortals hunt them for food. However, he also asked if I wanted to keep one as a pet.”

“What? It’s not like a cat, is it?”

“I believe…there was once a very funny one on the television who outsmarted a mortal…ah! A Rabbit!”