The Last Thing I Expected Was a Genie (Patreon)

Lazily stretching in his chair and cracking his finger joints, Mark Flinberg, who had celebrated his twenty-second birthday the day before, looked at the monitor with a satisfied smile, where the title of his thesis was glowing in a bright stroke of text.

Genies as a Cultural Phenomenon: The Origin of the Myth and the Reasons for Its Persistence in the Age of Scientific Skepticism

He did not even know whether he was more proud of the work itself or its title, which, in his opinion, sounded so academic and serious that even Professor Richard Howard, famous for destroying other people's research with nothing more than a raised eyebrow, had nodded approvingly for the first time.

"There really are fools in this world who still believe in fairy tales like that."

*Ding. Ding-ding-diiiiiing.

The doorbell sang from the hallway, forcing Mark to frown in annoyance and tear his eyes away from the screen. He quickly glanced at the clock in the bottom right corner of the monitor.

"Eight in the evening? Who could that be...?"

He stood up from his chair, stretched heavily, and, walking past the bookshelf, automatically adjusted the Sailor Moon figurine standing on the shelf, which he had once brought back from another anime convention.

"If it's Mrs. Wilson again asking me to 'look at her computer,' I'll pretend I'm not home," he muttered under his breath as he walked toward the door.

Ding-ding.

"Coming, coming!"

Approaching the door, Mark looked through the peephole. A delivery courier in his thirties wearing a dark blue delivery service jacket was standing on the staircase landing. In his hands was a small cardboard box sealed with wide brown tape without any logos.

Mark opened the door.

"Good evening. Mark Flinberg?"

"That's me."

The courier lowered his gaze to the electronic terminal.

"Great. Sign right here."

Mark smiled, guessing that the box contained the package he had ordered from Amazon about a month ago, quickly made a large signature on the terminal and, unable to hide his pleased expression, carefully accepted the box from the courier's hands.

"Finally arrived," he muttered, feeling how unexpectedly heavy the purchase was.

The courier gave a short chuckle.

"Have a good evening."

Then he turned around and slowly headed toward the stairs. Mark waited until his footsteps faded one floor below, locked the door and, holding the box against his chest, grinned with satisfaction.

"Great... If the seller wasn't lying, this is a replica of an Ottoman lamp from the late eighteenth century. Although, considering how cheaply he sold it to me, I still think it's probably some kind of plastic fake."

He placed the box directly on his desk, carefully moved the keyboard and a stack of printed articles about Middle Eastern folklore aside, and then spent several seconds examining the brown packaging with childlike impatience.

"Well, let's see what I actually paid forty-nine dollars for," Mark finished with a smirk, hooking his fingernail under the wide layer of packing tape.

The adhesive strip came apart with a quiet crack, the box flaps lifted, revealing a dense layer of yellowed packing paper and bubble wrap. Inside there really was a lamp. Not plastic, not some shiny souvenir trinket from a tourist shop, but a heavy, considering its small size, metal vessel with a long curved spout, covered in darkened bronze and intricate Eastern ornamentation that looked so delicate he wanted to examine it under a magnifying glass.

"Wow..." Mark involuntarily breathed out, carefully lifting the find with both hands. "If this is a modern replica, then someone clearly took the work way too seriously."

2

"Interesting..." he muttered, bringing the lamp closer to the desk lamp. "They even made artificial aging. Or... is it actually old?"

He leaned back in his chair and began slowly turning the lamp in his hands, carefully examining every curl of the ornament as if he hoped to determine not only its age from the style of the engraving, but also the workshop where it had once been created. The pad of his thumb carefully slid over the darkened metal, stopping on a narrow strip of unfamiliar symbols carved around the base.

"Arabic?.. No, more like Ottoman styling," he muttered, absentmindedly pulling it closer and staring at the symbols.

The same thumb began sliding more actively across the row of tiny symbols. Back and forth. Back and forth. Carefully and slowly. And at one moment, a thin, almost transparent stream of grayish smoke escaped from the lamp's spout.

Mark froze.

"No way..."

The smoke did not disappear. Instead, it accelerated, began making hissing sounds and, after a few moments, a figure of a young woman made of swirling bluish-gray mist was already floating in the air in front of him. First, only the outline of her head appeared, then long dark hair tied into a high ponytail and secured with a golden ribbon, after which the smoke began rapidly thickening, transforming into light, semi-transparent Eastern clothing, wide golden bracelets on her wrists and a thin belt with dozens of jingling pendants. Her bare feet materialized last, never touching the floor, along with a pair of bright amber eyes that slowly opened, as if their owner was waking up after an extremely long sleep.

For several seconds, such silence filled the room that Mark could clearly hear his own heartbeat.

The woman yawned deeply, arching in the air as if everything happening was completely ordinary to her, then exhaled heavily in the same way and said with a satisfied smile:

"Mmm... finally."

Mark stared at her without blinking.

Meanwhile, her gaze drifted across the bookshelves, paused on the Sailor Moon figurine, then moved to the open thesis document on the computer screen, before finally stopping on Mark.

She slightly raised one eyebrow.

"Interesting..." she said in flawless English with a light, almost musical Eastern accent. "How much the world has changed in just a couple of centuries..."

Mark continued sitting there, not blinking.

"No..."

The woman tilted her head in surprise, shifting her gaze toward Mark.

"No?" she repeated with a slight smile.

"No," Mark repeated more confidently, forcing a smile onto his face. "This is some kind of prank. Someone decided to mess with me. Jake? Frank? Definitely one of those two. Where's the projector?"

3

He immediately shifted his gaze to the ceiling, trying to find the tiny projector lens hidden among the white panels, then quickly examined the bookshelves, curtains and even the ventilation grille above the window.

"Very funny," he said with a victorious smile. "Almost believed it."

The woman silently watched him, then quietly laughed.

"I like you."

"Yeah. I like you too. All so... stereotypical."

He said it and laughed at his own joke, now staring at her clothes as if he was trying to find a protruding wire, a hidden camera or at least some sign of a cheap stage costume.

"Harem pants, golden bracelets, barefoot... The only things missing are a flying carpet and a couple of monkeys with cymbals. Seriously, guys, you could have at least tried to move away from the stereotypes a little."

The woman quietly snorted, crossing her arms over her chest.

"So you are sure you know what genies are supposed to look like?"

"Of course. Because genies don't exist."

"Interesting logic."

"Absolutely scientific," Mark nodded smugly. "If you really were a genie, you would have already proven it with something... convincing. But right now I see a very high-quality costume, excellent makeup and, I have to admit, impressive smoke special effects."

She stared at him silently for several seconds, after which the corners of her lips slowly lifted.

"People have changed much more over the last three hundred years than I expected."

"Thank you. Compliment accepted."

"That was not a compliment."

Mark only shrugged.

"Very well, mortal," she said, turning away because she felt a small sting of offense, and looking at the shelf filled with figures of characters from dozens of different fictional universes, then shifting her gaze to the neatly arranged collector's editions of "Star Wars," "Dune," and "The Lord of the Rings" and letting out a quiet, almost demonstrative sigh.

"And yet you collect fictional characters," she said, looking at Mark from the corner of her eye without turning toward him, "Maybe you would like to become someone like them?"

Mark laughed so hard that he involuntarily wiped away the tear that had appeared at the corner of his eye, then, still shaking his head, looked at the woman again with an expression as if she had just seriously suggested discussing the existence of hobbits.

"Someone like them? I already can," he replied with a wide smile, standing up and spreading his arms. "Look. I am the great Captain of the Enterprise," he struck a cinematic pose with an imaginary phaser and looked sternly to the sides with his eyebrows lowered, "and now I am... a Jedi."

He immediately turned sharply, stretched his palm forward and said in the most serious voice possible:

"The Force is with me."

After that, he himself quietly snorted and, without changing his expression, made another wide theatrical wave with his hand.

The genie silently watched his performance. A barely noticeable smile appeared at the corners of her lips.

"And now I am Duncan Idaho. No... too simple. Then..." he pointed with an imaginary sword somewhere toward the bookshelf. "Exactly. A frightened Twi'lek," he finished, dramatically pressing his palms against his cheeks and taking several exaggerated tiny steps backward. "Oh no! Not Jabba! Someone save me!" he squeaked in an intentionally high voice, after which he himself burst into laughter, clearly pleased with his own parody.

4

The genie silently watched him for several seconds.

Then she smiled widely.

"I like it."

"What do you like?" Mark asked, still standing in the pose of a frightened Twi'lek, with a wide, smug smile on his face, not even thinking about lowering his theatrically pressed palms from his cheeks.

"How you got into the role."

Mark bowed theatrically.

"Thank you, thank you. Applause is accepted after the end of the performance."

"And do you want to do it for real?"

The genie slowly floated closer, stopping only a couple of steps away from him.

Mark, still smiling widely, snorted.

"For real! Sure, go ahead. Do it!"

His face, with that arrogant smile, showed such genuine confidence in his own correctness that the genie involuntarily laughed quietly.

"As you wish," she replied softly, slightly tilting her head. "But unfortunately, there is one small problem."

"What kind?" Mark theatrically spread his arms. "Magic doesn't work today?"

"On the contrary. It works perfectly. I simply do not have the right to change a person's fate without their consent."

Mark laughed, spreading his arms.

"Okay. Okay. Genie," he said the word with particular mockery, "I wish that you do whatever it is you planned to do. Fine, will that work?!"

The smile on the genie's face turned into a predatory grin, but disappeared as quickly as it appeared, giving way to an almost peaceful calm.

"Wish accepted."

Mark only had time to smirk.

"Oh, now the special effects are sta..."

He did not get to finish.

The light from the desk lamp stretched into long golden streaks, the bookshelves began to blur, and his own fingers suddenly stopped feeling familiar. The room swayed slightly together with his body, as if an invisible wave had passed through the very edge of reality, lingered on him for a few extra moments, and then, accelerating again, continued on its way.

"What..."

He looked at his palms and saw that his skin had become bright blue.

5

For several seconds Mark simply sat motionless, unable to understand what exactly he was seeing. Thin fingers, long elegant nails, smooth blue skin that could not possibly be mistaken for any kind of makeup. A wide smile appeared on his face.

"Now that is something... how did you do that..." he said, and immediately noticed that his voice sounded as if he had inhaled helium.

He raised one hand higher, slowly turning it in front of his face.

"This... this is actually a really high-quality effect," he muttered, clinging to the only explanation that still remained. "Okay. Fine. Jake, Frank, whoever this is... I admit it. You really put effort into this. I..."

Mark froze halfway through the sentence when he noticed a small but completely real pair of female breasts on his chest, rising with his uneven breathing and covered only by the golden fabric of a thin bra, which, to his surprise, had a rigid structure and pressed uncomfortably against his skin while feeling cold.

"This..." he began, lowering his head to get a better look at his new assets, and suddenly jolted when he felt a strange, almost electric sensation coming from behind his shoulder.

For a second Mark completely forgot about his own breasts, the blue skin and the strange clothes. All his attention was captured by the new sensation, two long, flexible appendages that he had previously only seen on characters from his favorite movies.

"Seriously?..." he whispered quietly, slowly raising his hand toward the back of his head.

His fingers touched the smooth surface of one of the lekku, and a strange wave of sensations immediately rushed through his entire body, while a completely new, sharp feeling suddenly flared between his legs, something he had never experienced before. Mark instantly pulled his hand away, as if he had accidentally touched an exposed wire.

"Ouch..." he exhaled, feeling the sensation more from surprise than pain, noticing how his nipples, hardened from that touch, rubbed against the fabric of the golden bra, which now seemed even more ridiculous and irritating.

He froze, breathing heavily, trying not to move, but it turned out to be almost impossible. Any slightest movement of his head caused the lekku behind him to shift slightly, and with it new, completely unfamiliar sensations entered his mind.

"What... what kind of joke is this?" he forced out in a high, trembling voice, raising his eyes toward the floating woman.

The genie slowly lowered herself a little, almost to the level of his face, and shook her head with a slight smile.

"No jokes," the genie calmly replied, looking at him not with mockery anymore, but with some strange curiosity. "Simply the result of your wish."

Mark stared at her as if hoping to find even the slightest sign on her face that she also understood how absurd this situation was.

6

"What the hell kind of wish?" he asked again, although it sounded more like a temptation. "Change me back!"

The genie looked at him silently for several seconds, then quietly sighed, as if she had heard exactly what she expected.

"No. Mark, or perhaps it would now be more accurate to say, Ciara."

"What?! What kind of..."

Ciara did not finish the sentence because she felt something cold touch her neck.

Her first thought was that this was another magical effect from the genie, some final trick before everything ended. But a second later she felt the weight and the unpleasant sensation of something foreign tightly closing around her throat.

"What?..." she breathed out in her new high voice, trying to slip her fingers between her skin and the metal. "No. No, no, this isn't funny anymore!"

She pulled backward, but the chain she had not even noticed tightened with a short metallic sound. The lekku behind her swayed from the sudden movement, and because of that an unexpected wave of sensations rushed through her body. Ciara immediately froze, gritting her teeth and trying not to move.

The room around her was already melting away: the bookshelves faded, the light from the desk lamp stretched into long golden streaks, and the air became thicker and hotter.

The genie calmly watched her, floating nearby and slowly dissolving into the air.

"Wait..." Ciara shouted, grabbing at the last hope and swallowing her pride. "You were talking about wishes. Three wishes. Typical genie and three wishes."

A small smile appeared on the genie's face.

"Oh, Ciara, Ciara," the genie quietly shook her head, and her voice mixed amusement with a hint of pity. "You were so proud that you exposed all the fairy tales about genies. Especially the one about three wishes."

She raised her hand, and the last threads of gray smoke began swirling around her fingers.

"And you know what? In that, you were actually right."

Ciara froze.

"What?"

"Three wishes do not exist," the genie calmly continued. "That was invented by humans who wanted to make the story more convenient. A real wish is only one."

The room had almost completely disappeared, replaced by a completely different place where, instead of the familiar walls of Mark's small room, cold stone slabs, enormous columns and a dim reddish light filtering through tall windows somewhere far above appeared around her. The air was heavy, smelling of metal, sand and something unfamiliar, while her own body felt even more wrong because of every new sensation.

"Wait!" she shouted, trying to grab the edge of the desk, but her fingers passed through the disappearing object. "That's not what I meant!"

The genie smiled and, before disappearing, simply waved her hand. At that moment Ciara was thrown backward, and she landed with a dull slap against something slimy and warm.

7

"Ow..." she exhaled, hitting her back against something soft and warm, but almost immediately realized that it was not the floor or some pillow from her room. Under her fingers she felt the rough fabric of an expensive blanket, and around her came a low, rumbling laugh that sent a chill across her skin.

Ciara immediately froze, unwilling to believe what had just become part of her new reality.

She knew. She knew exactly that she was now in the same legendary pose she had seen hundreds of times on screen with Princess Leia, in that exact scene she had once considered just another funny moment from her favorite movie, but which had suddenly stopped being funny.

Ciara lay on a soft, luxurious blanket, feeling the weight of expensive fabric beneath her back and the cold metal of the chain attached around her neck. Blue skin, long lekku, revealing dancer clothing, all of it looked so absurdly familiar and at the same time impossible that her mind desperately tried to find at least some explanation.

"No..." she whispered quietly, staring ahead with widened eyes. "Not this."

Her voice was thin and feminine again, and because of that everything inside her painfully tightened. Mark Flinberg, the student who just an hour ago had been writing a thesis about cultural myths and laughing at people's naivety, was now lying in the setting of one of the most famous science fiction stories, not in the role of a hero who saves a princess or fights enemies, but as an ordinary sexual slave lying at the feet of some Jabba the Hutt himself.

The chain quietly rattled when Ciara tried to move even slightly away. Her lekku nervously shifted behind her and almost touched Jabba's damp skin, causing a sharp, almost painful wave to instantly rush through her entire body. She sharply inhaled and froze, gritting her teeth.

Jabba lazily turned his enormous head and looked at her with one narrowed eye. His deep, rumbling voice rolled through the hall:

"Quiet... Move soon. Dance. Guests will come. Now kiss me."

Ciara froze, looking down at the massive head of the Hutt and feeling how the chain around her neck tightened slightly from nothing more than her own tension.

"No..." she breathed out in a thin voice, trying to move away at least a few centimeters. "I won't. I... I'm not her."

Her lekku nervously shifted behind her and almost touched Jabba's damp skin. From this closeness another sharp wave of sensation passed through her body, making Ciara sharply inhale and clench her teeth. The golden bra pressed uncomfortably against her breasts, and a wet spot had already formed between her legs.

Jabba made a low, satisfied sound and slowly extended one of his massive hands.

"Kiss. Now."