Introduction 2

A booming voice filled her head, seeming to come out of everywhere and nowhere.

"I will grant your wish, but only if you answer a few questions for me."

"Um... okay?"

"Have you ever had a wish granted before?"

"Not so you'd notice," she replied, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

"What is your favorite color?"

A strange question. Still, who was she to argue with the big booming voice?

"Blue," she replied.

"What is your deepest desire?"

That was an easy one. She thought about how hard it was being a gay woman in this very socially conservative town. The loneliness, the risk of alienation if she told friends what she was, the years of sexual frustration starting when she was 13. All those classmates and co-workers she could never touch...

"That's easy. I'm tired of being a repressed virgin. I want all the prime pussy I can handle -- wall to wall hot women for the rest of my life. My long and healthy life," she amended, in case this is one of those hidden cost deals.

The voice laughed. "Don't worry, I won't screw you over like that. It's much more fun to see if you'll screw yourself over once you're given that kind of power. Every now and then one of you doesn't -- in a way that's even funnier."

Margaret decided that she just didn't get aliens' senses of humor. Or gods'. Or whatever this thing was.

A sapphire ring appeared at her feet.

"Wear that ring and you can control the bodies and minds of any woman you meet -- with one limitation."

"What limitation is that?" she asked.

"There's a reason I asked the questions I did," the voice replied. "You should be able to figure it out from that, with a little trial and error. And if you can't--"

"--that's funny too," she said.

The booming voice laughed again. "You're starting to catch on. You're cleverer than most humans. Let's find out if you're clever enough." Margaret sensed that whatever it was that was talking to you was gone. She picked up the ring and slipped it on her finger. It was quite fetching, the way it caught the light.

"Let's find out what you can do," Margaret told the ring. Then thinking about the riddle of the ring's limitation, "and what you can't."