Author's Note: This isn't to say I'm completely done with this pair - there's still plenty of options and imagination for interludes after all - but I did want to go ahead and post how their story would end just so you wouldn't have to be forever wondering.
She found it!
In the middle of the street bazaar she spotted it and knew. She could have been blind and the second it was placed in her hands she would recognize it by the feel, the smell of it. The long years had etched every atom of that damned lamp into every fiber of her being.
Holly Jeanne bought it right away from the proprietor of the stall and paid him extra to forget he ever owned it or that anyone had bought it.
She raced back to the hotel she was staying in and locked the room. Her hands shook as she set the old metal lamp onto the hotel room table. After all these years, what were a few more minutes she thought as she went to the bathroom to apply makeup. She still wasn't used to showing her age, but the modern tools of beauty could work wonders. She put on a clingy black dress with a plunging neckline, also hoping her ample cleavage could distract from the lines around her eyes.
Once she felt ready, Holly took the lamp in her hand and rubbed its side. Smoke billowed out from the lamp's spout as the lights in the room changed to a bluish tint.
"Behold I'm free! Now tell your wishes three."
Towering in her room, a vest barely covering his bare, muscular chest and billowy pants disappearing into the lamp's smoke effect, was the most beautiful sight in the world: her long-lost lover, Aiden. She couldn't help but giggle. Each genie made the lamp and their role their own and he did love word play. She hadn't expected him to be rhymer but it fit.
Holly couldn't repress her smile as she blurted out, "I wish you'd make love to me again!"
In the blink of an eye he was across the room, smaller in size and kissing her like she was the only woman in the entire world. They drifted towards the bed as she pulled at his clothes and they evaporated off his body like the morning dew. His fingers brushed her dress and it vanished into the closet, causing her skin to grow goosebumps as the air suddenly hit her. Holly rang her fingers over his shoulders and through his hair as she savored every inch of his lips. It was all so perfect. It was all so magical. It was all...
Empty.
"Stop!"
The genie pulled back, leaving Holly naked and gasping on the bed.
"You want your wish undone? There are no refunds," he said.
"Yes!" Holly snapped with more anger than she intended. Of course she knew the rules. Any wish could be canceled by the one who made it as long as it wasn't complete, though you were still considered to have spent the wish. Once a wish was done, however, it took another wish to undo. It was a favorite of genies to have their masters spend their second wish undoing the first.
Holly wrapped herself in the hotel comforter and put her head in her hands. Aiden had created a copy of himself to fulfill her wish. Had she never known his real touch, his real kiss she might had been fooled, but genies could never make anything real. Deep down anyone could tell the difference between an original and a genie-made copy, so many just usually lied to themselves.
"Aiden, it's me," she said.
"True, my master is you."
