Chapter 1: Ch.1: Moved In

Tatiana Barrett was still setting up her recording equipment when she heard a grunt. It wasn’t pained, like hitting your knee against furniture. It sounded more annoyed, and the volume wasn’t discrete. 

 

The tone of it did sound like her wife. Who said she was leaving for work almost ten minutes ago. Tatiana figured it could only be her spouse seeing as there were only two keys to the house. One was on her desk connected to a UFO keychain.

 

One quick trip down the hall and her theory was confirmed. The sight of her wife frantically going through papers and folders wasn’t anything new. But, this was the first time Dante Barrett ever said, ‘I’m leaving for work’ and then didn’t.

 

“Morning Professor,” Tatiana said in a coy manner. She leaned against the open door watching Dante continue to search desk drawers.

 

“Hey sweetie,” Dante said in a hurry. “Have you seen my ‘How To Spot A Fake’ reference?”

 

Tatiana began scanning over the disorganized files by the laptop. Dante was a minute away from sweating. She also didn’t seem to be interested in reading the actual papers she was scattering about.

 

Raising a brow, “You don’t have that on a drive?”

 

“It’s not a file,” Dante huffed. “It’s a gold oil lamp.” She moved to the closet, “Like, a genie lamp. Only it’s fake.”

 

Tatiana dropped the papers so she had room to put her hands on her hips.

 

“You got me looking around for something you bought at the dollar store?”

 

“No!” Dante passed her on the way toward the storage containers in front of the closet, “I got it from the museum. Some idiots tried to pawn off some counterfeit stuff.” She had begun opening the unopened plastic containers, “Director Sobeck let me borrow one of them for my lecture today. And-”

 

Tatiana finished, “You’re gonna need it anyway.” She neatly collected the papers. “Last place you saw it?”

 

“Downstairs, in the kitchen,” Dante left the folded clothes and shoes, not finding what she needed. “On the counter.”

 

Tatiana slowly turned her head back toward Dante. Her glance, as Dante could see from the corner of her eye, was unimpressed.

 

The professor sighed, “It wasn’t there, and you didn't even know I had it until now.”

 

Dante had now broken into a sweat. She did try to wipe it away with her palm, but she did so while moving the desk to look behind it. Something she could’ve done by bending a bit to look underneath.

 

“Babe, you’re panicking,” Tatiana informed.

 

Dante had her whole head inside a drawer she had already checked.

 

“No I’m not!” she bellowed. 

 

Tatiana patted her lover’s back. She guided the professor out of the furniture and into the chair.

 

“Babe,” Tatiana calmly said, “chill for a minute.” She kissed her wife’s cheek and massaged her shoulder, “I’ll go downstairs and check again. We’ll find it. Okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

 

Dante smiled and nodded. She kissed her wife’s hand as a thank you. Then, she gave Tatiana a peck on the lips, just because.

 

“I’ll be right back.”

 

The women’s eyes locked onto one another while Tatiana headed toward the door. Their gazes were flirts without words.

 

Dante saw Tatiana. This healthy black woman who had the most adorable little afro puffs. Her short stature and star tattoos on her arm were often the first things people noticed. Instead, Dante noticed how her nose scrunches when she laughs.

 

Tatiana saw Dante. A dark-skinned and petite woman who revealed the cutest dimples when she smiled. Her pixie-cut hair made her look younger than she actually was. The way she sat with her legs crisscrossed despite being on a chair added to that.

 

Tatiana smiled, staring so wistfully at her. She didn't even realize the wall was there until she bumped into it.

 

“Oh my God!” Dante howled.

 

Fighting her own swelling urge to laugh, “Shut up!”

 

Tatiana continued down the hall to the stairs. It was mundane. Nothing worth noting. They were stairs in a two-floor house after all. The only thing that had her direct attention was the faint sound of sizzling.

 

She got to the first floor, turned the corner, and immediately spotted the lamp on the kitchen counter by the stove. It was gold in color but didn’t seem to have any sort of polish or hard texture. The pink gems around the pouring hole and the ‘sapphires’ around the base did help to make it seem like a treasure. As did the chain linking the top of the handle to the lid. But, even as someone without an archeology degree, Tatiana could see it was a fake.

 

What was real, was the five-foot-tall, brown-haired, brown-skinned woman sauteing some steak with Tatiana’s favorite skillet. She seemed too focused on cooking the meal to even notice Mrs. Barrett. Mrs. Barrett was still processing that there was some random kid in her house. 

 

How did she get in? None of the windows were open or broken. Dante had one key and Tatiana had the other. So, did Dante let her in? She seemed to be making herself comfortable. Then again, stupidity was a very common drug. 

 

Tatiana sent a text to Dante. It was a picture of a young, toned woman with a ponytail wearing a pink vest and gold jewelry pouring sauce on a steak from an oil lamp.

 

‘Who is this cutlery bitch?’ Tatiana texted.

 

Dante answered the question with another question.

 

‘Did you unpack the bat yet?’

 

“Morning!” The mystery woman greeted with a smile. 

 

She appeared to be Middle Eastern and Tatiana figured her to be in her early twenties. That being a decade younger than herself and Dante. Her skin carried no wrinkles or scars or any sign of imperfections. 

 

The next thing Tatiana noticed facing this person was the design of her vest. Instead of buttons or a zipper connecting the sides, there was a crisscrossing string. It did almost nothing to cover her midriff or the center of her chest. 

 

“Are you hungry,” the burglar asked. “I made this for Mistress Barrett, but I can make another if you want one.”

 

Tatiana took her earrings out, “Okay! You Know What!?”

 

She started stomping across the carpet toward the intruder impersonating a cook. But suddenly stopped when her feet hit the kitchen tiles. Tatiana’s voice dropped to a breathless whisper. 

 

“What the hell?”

 

The design of the kitchen had a bar acting as a border between the kitchen and living room. So, Tatiana couldn’t see that the woman had no legs. Mind you, not in a sense of being disabled. Beyond the woman’s blue belt weren’t her hips. Instead, a concentrated smoke took form originating from the spout of the lamp. It was a mix of the colors, blue, pink, and yellow, shifting around like a forming cloud but never changing in size.

 

The mystic being crossed her arms and raised one of her straight eyebrows. She scrunched her round nose and pursed her bow-shaped lips in annoyance at Tatiana’s reaction.

 

“Wow, that was rude.” The genie leaned forward a bit. “You never seen a genie before?”

 

Before Tatiana could come up with any approach, footsteps were heard. They were loud and charging down the stairs. Tatiana’s eyes broke from the impossible to her small wife storming in with an aluminum bat in hand.

 

Dante shouted, “Batter up!” She laid eyes on the genie and froze in her tracks. Screaming, “WHAT THE HELL!? Why don’t you have legs!?”

 

The genie had hearts in her eyes seeing the archeologist. Not in a figurative sense. No. Her brown orbs had physically morphed into pink valentines. 

 

The scream Dante let out didn’t even phase the genie. At that moment, Tatiana, who was backing away in confusion while shielding her wife, didn’t even exist. There was no one else in the room. Just the woman who she owed.

 

Cheering, “Mistress! You’re awake!”

 

The genie sharply inhaled before holding her breath. Suddenly, legs started inflating from her waist like a pair of balloons. When ‘full’, her legs hit the floor, just as solid as the rest of her. Blue Dhoti pants with golden sparkles kept her decent in front of the couple.

 

The Barretts’ jaws dropped. Not literally to the floor like the bat. However, the laws of physics had just been destroyed right in front of them on three separate occasions. So it wouldn’t surprise either of them if their jaws did.

 

The genie got on one knee and bowed her head.

 

“My name is Jiji. As a Jinn, I was imprisoned inside of this lamp. One-thousand years later, you placed your bare hands on it, thus, releasing me. For freeing me, I am bound to you, Dante Barrett. 100 wishes, and my servitude as a genie, are yours.”

 

She hopped back to a standing position.

 

“So!” Jiji snapped her fingers and into existence poofed a clipboard and a quill. The items floated in the air with the feather moving across a paper to the stroke of Jiji’s finger. “Now that my contractually obligated introduction is out of the way, you want some steak?” 

 

She snapped her fingers again and the clipboard faded away in a puff of glittering gold. In its place was the steak from the skillet, now presented on a golden plate. 

 

“I made it myself! I read that you Americans like that!”

 

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Jiji flung her finger toward Dante and the plate flew in her direction. The professor gingerly held her hands out as the steak carefully set in her grasp. 

 

Dante looked at her wife, almost in a panic. She couldn’t help but try to explain herself.

 

“I swear to God, I thought the lamp was fake.”

 

Tatiana sat down on the barstool. She was still trying to comprehend that there was an actual magical creature in her house flirting with her wife.

 

“No shit, babe.”

 

For a moment, the only noise was the clock ticking on the wall. The regularity gave Dante time to think. To wrap her head around what was going on. 

 

Until Jiji teleported to the barstool next to her. Breaking both her concentration and scarring her out of her seat. Fortunately, she landed on a blue cloud instead of the floor

 

“You alright cutie?” Jiji asked. 

 

Dante layed there. She just stared at the genie. Her attractive brown skin. Fluffy brunette hair. An endearing smile. Then, she narrowed at the sapphire cloud keeping her off the ground. 

 

“Ok!” Dante sat up, using the magic item like a bean bag chair. It felt just as cozy. 

 

“So genies are real! Which means magic is real!” Dante flung her arms up. Scoffing, “Of course I know magic is real! I'm sitting on a cloud!” She continued on, getting off the cloud, “But if magic is real, then what else is real?! Vampires? Are the people who obsess over bigfoot actually right? Are street performers just pixies or some shit?”

 

Tatiana tapped Jiji’s shoulder, “Are pixies real?”

 

Jiji just shrugged as she continued to innocently rock side to side on the barstool. She did let out a little muffled noise that sounded like an ‘I don know’ while doing so. She was also giving Alice a warm smile while their eyes met.

 

“I’ve only been ‘alive’ for about a day, soooo,” Jiji’s eyebrows went up with her arms, “I know just as much as you.”

 

“But, how is this real?!” Dante questioned, “How are you real?!”

 

Jiji tapped her heel against the stool. A blue mist shot from the impact, traveling around the seat in a spiral until it was completely engulfed. Once it was, the smokey veil dropped like a curtain revealing a brand-new bar stool. An active blue cloud in the shape of a column.

 

Tatiana lightly swung her leg at the seat. Her foot phased right through the cloud with mist trailing off her toes only to rubberband back in place. The sitting genie wasn’t even moved or affected by the brief loss of mass. She even crossed her legs after the experiment, showing off more of the cloud’s sturdiness.

 

Jiji simply answered the woman with one word.

 

“Magic.”

 

Dante sharply inhaled. Her closed hands were vibrating and her brown eyes bulging. She then stuck both of her index fingers up and gulped.

 

“Uhm, can you,” she stammered, “stop breaking reality for...1 minute? Please?”

 

Jiji popped a happy salute, “As you command, mistress!”

 

“And my name is Dante,” she halfheartedly corrected.

 

Sincerely, “As you command, Mistress Dante.” 

 

Dante’s lip twitched. A vein on her forehead could be seen. She needed to change the subject.

 

“Babe,” Dante looked to her wife. 

 

Tatiana was swinging her legs while eating the sauteed steak. Her smile only went away when chewing. It had only been a few minutes, but she was already on her last piece.

 

“Why aren’t you panicking?!” Dante asked.

 

Tatiana swallowed and stated, “Girl, I’ve been telling you for years aliens were real.” 

 

Jiji looked at Tatiana with a rumpled gaze. Lips open just a tad, but not saying anything. 

 

Tatiana rolled her eyes while stabbing another cut, “Okay, so this ain’t one for one, but still. It isn’t exactly a surprise for me.” She then took a bite and shrugged, “It kind of is. But, you know what I mean.” 

 

“Aw!” Jiji swooned. Her hands clasped together in a slow and factious way, “You believe in me?” She puckered her lips and shimmied her shoulders. “Aren’t you just a cutie-pie?” 

 

Tatiana’s brow dropped. Her head tilted down and her eyes narrowed. She was not laughing.  

 

Jiji’s smile was blown away. One woman was leering at her. The other was rubbing her own arms and not engaging with the flirts. 

 

“Did I say something wrong?” Jiji asked. 

 

“Stop flirting.” Dante said plainly, “We’re not interested in a teenager.” 

 

Jiji was eager to protest, “I’m not a teenager!” She stood up to boast, “I’m 1,209 years old! If I were a human, I’d be,” she stopped talking and looked at her hands. 

 

Neither woman could understand what the Jinn was muttering under her breath. However, her moving fingers made it obvious. As well as the gold abacus that appeared in a glittering puff of gold smoke behind her head.  

 

“20!” Jiji said. A bead on the abacus shifted. “Or, 21?” The bead went back and forth on the rail as Jiji rubbed the back of her neck. “Maybe I’m 19 for a human? 20? No! I’m...yeah, 20! Definitely 20!”  

 

Dante sighed, “Ok. So you’re,” she did the finger air quotes for the words, “‘old enough’,” and continued, “to be one of my students. Plus, I’m married. I understand that you may be feeling libidinous after being locked away for-”

 

Professor Barrett’s heart sank. Her own words rang in her mind as everything else ceased to exist. The entire reason she had been frantically looking for the lamp ten minutes ago, had just been repeated. 

 

“My Class!” Dante screeched. “Oh no! There’s no way I’ll make it now!” Her hands clawed at her hair and she slumped her shoulders. “I haven’t even been working at the University for a month! There’s no way I’ll keep my job after something like that!” 

 

“Mist-” Jiji was stopped by Tatiana’s elbow nudging her arm. It went right through her arm the same way Tatiana’s foot went through the stool, but the message was delivered. “Uhm, Madam Dante?” 

 

“There’s gonna be so much traffic on the highway! The backroads might be better. But I’m gonna have to speed to make it! If I get pulled over, that’s even more time wasted and a ticket! Or I could get arrested!”

 

Dante couldn’t hear Jiji calling her over and over. Or anything for that matter. Something Tatiana was used to at this point.

 

“G,” Tatiana said. 

 

“T,” Jiji responded, mimicking her tone.

 

Ignoring the jab, “You said you grant wishes right?” 

 

Jiji gave a thumbs up, “100 wishes are at Mistr-, I mean, Madam Dante’s disposal.”

 

Dante stopped her rambling and dropped her arms. 

 

“Jiji!” Dante shouted.

 

“Dante!” Jiji called back. She giggled to herself feeling a small sense of freedom.

 

Dante grabbed Jiji by her shoulders. Her hands actually landed on skin and not smoke. While Tatiana noticed this, Dante was just desperate for help. 

 

“I need you to wish me and the lamp to ‘Starlight University’! If you don’t, I’ll be in a lot of-”

 

Jiji abruptly snapped her fingers. 

 

Suddenly, pop!

 

There was no fanfare. There was no showmanship. There was no fancy varnish. Dante & Jiji suddenly teleported out of the room instantly without any trace or prelude. 

 

Tatiana’s plate dropped. She rocketed off the counter looking around for her wife. Her neck frantically turned and her feet pivoted every half second. She was all alone in the house.

 

“Honey?” she called out. She then ran a hand over her scalp and cursed, “My wife’s been kidnapped by a gay genie!”

 

End

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