Prologue – 1941
The rain was tapping against the glass as Private First Class Reynolds placed his army-issued coat over the bed. He looked out the window where the neon sign advertising a soda flashed in regular intervals, sporadically bathing the interior of the hotel room with red light. He sat on the edge of the bed, the cheap mattress squeaking beneath him, and removed the lamp from his satchel.
He closed his eyes, took a breath, and placed a hand on the side of the brass lamp. It was old, Middle Eastern in origin if he had to guess, though he was not certain. The brass had grown tarnished over the years, and the right side looked duller than the rest. Reynolds supposed it was due to rubbing over the years, and he laughed alone in the room at the thought. Rubbing a lamp. It was so fairy tale and silly. Unbelievable. And yet, here he was at the precipice of his final wish. All he need do is rub the lamp and speak the words.
Reynolds ran his palm over the curve of the lamp’s side, purplish smoke trickling from the spout. The stream of smoke grew until it was coming in a jet of purple haze, filling the room and making Reynolds squint against the sting of smoke in his eyes.
“Leonard!” the voice came as the smoke dissipated, sucking back into the lamp like one of those vacuum cleaners they advertised in the Sears catalogues.
“Talya,” he said in response.
It was always a small shock when she appeared. Not only was there the base disbelief that a woman now stood in the center of the room, carried on the back of a wave of smoke. It was also the woman herself, a copper-skinned woman with long, dark hair that fell down her back in a thick ponytail. She was clothed in what Reynolds presumed was a traditional harem outfit, light blue and silky, transparent at the belly and arms and legs, while just opaque enough at the breasts and waist to hide the details of her body while suggesting the delicious curves beneath.
“Have you decided on your final wish, Master?”
She moved closer, elegantly placing one bare foot before another as she drew near. She was close enough that Reynolds could smell the hint of foreign spice that clung to Talya.
“I have.”
“Then speak the words and your wish will be my command.”
Reynolds looked out the window again, past the alleyway glistening with rain, to the city beyond where buildings looked haphazardly tossed together, filled with people going about their lives in relative obscurity while he sat in a hotel room with an honest-to-goodness genie.
“I don’t want to die,” he began.
Talya sighed. “I cannot grant immortality to anyone, nor can I make someone love you.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I don’t want to go to war. I want to stay here.”
Talya thought for a moment. “You don’t want to go to war?”
“That’s right,” Reynolds said, his stomach roiling. He felt the shame of cowardice, but not enough to make him rethink his decision. Better a live coward than a dead hero.
“Hmmm… You’ll have to phrase it carefully. Speak the words, Master.”
“I wish that I wasn’t going to war, that I could stay here.”
“Your wish is my command,” Talya repeated, though there was a deep echo to her voice that Reynolds had grown somewhat accustomed to. A low hum came, a deep vibration that rattled Reynolds from inside out.
Talya’s mouth was moving, and Reynolds focused on her pouty lips and the way her tongue flicked against them as she spoke in her foreign tongue.
The room spun, or perhaps it was Reynolds himself, but he could see the window passing by along with the cheap painting of a schooner in a harbor and the standing lamp. Whoosh! Another view of the window, faster and faster. Whoosh! The sailing ship frozen in the harbor, giving the illusion of motion by the whirl. As the images passed before him, Reynolds could hear Talya, her voice strengthened by that otherworldly sound, and Reynolds felt himself rising in the air, his feet pointing down at the floor as his clothing seemed to shred from his body, his thick build withering as he looked down at himself.
Reynolds watched with fascination and horror as his arms grew more slender and his fingers extended, or, more accurately, his nails grew to give his fingers additional length. As he turned in mid-air, he could feel the weight of hair on his shoulders, and a look to his left revealed long blonde locks spilling from his head.
“What’s happening to me?!” he called over the maelstrom, shocked to hear the sound of his voice, lighter and distinctly feminine. He’d barely had time to put the word to his thoughts when the realization came down hard upon him.
“No!” he called in his softer voice, looking down as his penis shrank against his body, then disappeared altogether. His flesh appeared to tremble before splitting open, rearranging into the unmistakable shape of a pussy. Soon, the image was lost as his chest blossomed into round, gravity-defying orbs.
When the cacophony ended and he found himself on his hands and knees, panting as his body ached and rippled with the transformation. Golden curtains of hair fell around his head, and a glance down showed him the hard tips of his new breasts. Rising, his hands traced up his sides, exploring the inward curve of his waist and the swell of his buttocks.
“What did you do to me?”
The voice that answered was deep and rich with an accent that spoke of sand and sea. “You set me free, not that you meant to. Tell me, what is your name?”
“You know who I am! I’m Lenore! Wait, I mean Lenore. Lenore! Why can’t I say it?”
Where Talya stood before, now there was a dark-skinned man, his face obscured by a thick beard and mustache. He was nude besides the golden bands at his wrists and ankles that Reynolds had found attractive on Talya and now generated only questions as he saw them on this dark-skinned man.
“I’m me again,” the man said, his hands patting his chest and groin. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but now that it’s done, you should know what’s going on. These bands,” he said, holding his arms aloft to show off the golden cuffs, “tied me to that lamp, changed me into Talya, the genie cursed to reside inside. Only through a poorly-worded wish can we escape. And you, Mr. Reynolds, have done just that. Which means that He was nude besides the golden bands at his wrists and ankles that Reynolds had found attractive on Talya and now generated only questions as he saw them on this dark-skinned man.
“I’m me again,” the man said, his hands patting his chest and groin. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but now that it’s done, you should know what’s going on. These bands,” he said, holding his arms aloft to show off the golden cuffs, “tied me to that lamp, changed me into Talya, the genie cursed to reside inside. Only through a poorly-worded wish can we escape. And you, Mr. Reynolds, have done just that. Which means that you are now the genie of the lamp.”
“But I can’t be,” the feminized Reynolds protested. “I’m not a girl!”
“Aren’t you?” the man grinned.
As he spoke the word, the bands on his extremities dissolved, as if they had been made of fine golden powder, drifting across the room to Reynolds, surrounding his wrists and ankles and re-forming.
“No!” the gorgeous blonde cried out.
With a rush of purple smoke, tendrils extended from the mouth of the lamp, entangling Reynolds, now Lenore, like an octopus, dragging him inevitably toward the lamp.
“Help me!” the blonde called out a final time before the smoke enveloped the feminine body and sucked back into the brass lamp.
The newly-freed man rifled through the suitcase left by his former Master, squeezing in as best he could given his larger frame. With a last look at the lamp sitting alone on the nightstand, the man opened the hotel door and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him.
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