Aidan hurried home from the pawn shop, clutching his find so tight his knuckles turned white. He was so excited, he nearly dropped his keys trying to unlock his apartment. Locking the door back, he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it onto the floor in the vague direction of his coat rack, too focused on the brown paper bag in his hands. He tried to withdraw the contents but grew frustrated with the effort and tore the bag apart instead, setting down the Styrofoam box on the coffee table in front of his couch.
He took a moment to breathe and calm his nerves. So long spent searching, daring to hope, and here it was at last.
And the Styrofoam was taped shut.
With a frustrated sigh, Aidan got up and fetched some scissors from the kitchen. It was more of a nook behind his couch in the little two room apartment he rented. Less than a half dozen steps there and back, but even this delay felt unbearable. Cutting the tape holding the two Styrofoam pieces together, he lifted off the top to reveal a very old bronze oil lamp. Just like in the movies.
Growing up, Aidan always loved stories about wishes and would study every one he could find. He learned what inscriptions to look for on items that represented power, and even heard that "tickling" an object would cause it to shudder if a djinn or some other being was trapped within. He had always thought of that more as a joke, until this lamp shook in his hands.
He carefully lifted the lamp free and took a moment to admire it in the light. It looked every bit a relic of centuries - if not millennia - in the past. He took a deep breath and began rubbing the side of the lamp.
It wasn't a plume of smoke, or an explosion, but a faint steam that emitted from the end of the lamp. It drifted to Aidan's left and settled on the floor, gathering more and more into a column, until a woman emerged from it.
"Greetings, Master," she said as she bowed. "What are your three wishes?"
At that moment, Aidan couldn't have told the woman his name, much less his wishes. She was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. Well, maybe some of the actresses on TV or movies were prettier, but never had one of them been so close to him. Her dark red hair fell straight down to the middle of her back, framing her face just enough to give it an air of mystery. That along with her large, dark eyes, slight upturned nose, and pouty lips created a perfect blend of the adorable girl-next-door, and sultry vixen.
Her body was absolute perfection, as if it had been chiseled from marble by the greatest artists, and was on fully display with only a black bra and black panties to cover her. He took a moment to appreciate the black, sheer stockings that climbed up her shapely legs to midways up her creamy thighs. Numerous black straps crisscrossed and connected the two pieces of a clothing or joined the black collar around her neck. Her firm breasts, at least a C-cup heaved up and down as she breathed in the fresh air and when she turned around to examine her surroundings, her panties accented a perfect bubble butt.
"This is... not what I expected," she said in a voice that sounded like pure honey, with just the slightest hint of an accent.
"Sorry," said Aidan, his eyes unable to leave the sight before. "I don't got much."
She smiled and Aidan thought his heart would explode from the sight. "That's what I'm here for, yes?" She took a step closer to him. "What do you want first? A palace, perhaps?"
"Your name," he blurtted out.
The genie stared at him. "That's... your first wish?"
"That's what I want right now."
She chuckled. "Ok, Master. I'll give you this for free. Call me Jen."
"I'm Aidan," he replied, holding out his hand.
As Jen gingerly shook his hand, Aidan noticed that she wasn't cold, but didn't feel warm either.
"You don't have to call me 'master' if you don't want to."
"Is that what you want, 'Aidan'?"
He shrugged. "I don't care, whatever you want."
Jen stared at him until Aidan began to wonder if he had done something very wrong. "Ok. Master. What is your first wish?"
For years he had planned, and thought about the wishes he would make. Aidan knew the stories - he knew wishes would always go back, always be twisted. In that moment, all of those plans were forgotten.
He looked at her, and could think of nothing else in the whole world.
"I just. I just wish I could like... make you happy for one day."
She was suddenly leaning over him, her hands placed on the back of the couch on both sides of his head, her face filling his vision. Aidan looked into her eyes and saw for a brief moment, a deep sadness behind them. He really did wish he could take away that sadness. He wanted Jen to know only joy.