If Horses Were Wishes

I considered that. "What if I move and the moving company loses it? For that matter, what happens if it eventually falls apart? You might have noticed the duct tape."

She brightened up again. "Not a problem. Once I set up shop, it's bulletproof. Better than bulletproof. You could probably get away with nuking it. Second, no need for moving companies. Wherever you consider your bedroom, even if it's a tent in the woods, it will be there. Third, from now on you'll be the only one who can see it. No one will notice it, and no one will steal it. And, finally, fourth, I won't bother you at home if you have company or if you tell me you don't want me around. I promise."

I thought some more. "So, on the off chance I end up filthy rich, I'll still have this duct-tape covered thing sitting in my bedroom?"

"You grew up with it, didn't you?" There was a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "Why would you ever want to get rid of something with such profound sentimental value?"

I hesitated, which she noticed.

"Well then, you're right, you'll be stuck with it. So, let me sweeten the pot. You're a shit negotiator, by the way. You're lucky I'm in a friendly mood, and I want to be sure our relationship gets off to a good start." She emphatically thrust her chest out again.

"A handsome hunk of man-meat such as yourself will get so much further with the ladies, if you have the right wardrobe. Your newly revolutionized chest of drawers will help with that!"

She pointed to the object in question. "There are four drawers. The lower one will be mine, but you'll now be able to fit every single piece of clothing you own into the top drawer. Throw it back in there, and it will even launder, dry and fold it for you. Imagine anything in your wardrobe and it will be on top, clean and ready to wear. But that's not the best part! Next drawer down, second from the top will give you whatever clothes you think would look best on you at the time. Envision almost any outfit, and a copy of it will be there. Third from the top is for when you're not sure what you want. Pull out whatever is in there to find what I think would suit you best at a given moment. Instant, actionable fashion advice."

"And what's the fine print?" I asked. "What's the catch?" I had a feeling this was a question that needed to be asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Nothing that should matter if you aren't trying to be a smart-ass. Anything that isn't yours you pull out of the middle two drawers goes back as soon as it isn't being worn by you, and everyone but you will sort of forget it ever was wherever you left it. Also, the laundry thing won't work on more than seventy-five individual pieces of clothing a day. There are a couple more minor points, but the bottom line is, you have to use it as intended, only for clothes that you wear yourself, and you can't make money directly from it. No selling the clothes. No starting a laundromat. Oh, and no perfect duplicates of one-of-a-kind items you might have seen or heard of. If you try turn a profit, your scheme will backfire, guaranteed. On the other hand, if you only use the clothes as intended and your snappy wardrobe lands you a promotion at work that should be fine."

"Oh, and I'll admit that I want you to trust me, so you'll use your wish." She added. "Every time I grant a wish, I get a little bit more powerful. It's a genie thing. So, not only do I get a place to crash out of this, I'd like to convince you that I'm trustworthy. That, as you say, is the catch. I'm such a horrible manipulative bitch, right?"

I took a moment to think. "Okay. You're a se-, er, lust, genie, right?"

She spread her arms, exasperated. "Duh."

"Well, then. Throw in a blow job and you have yourself a deal."

Her smile was dazzling. "Oh, hell yes! Now you're speaking my language! Here's a tip though: When you're negotiating with a genie, you really should be more specific. I'm guessing you want to feel my lips wrapped around your succulent man meat, rather than the lips of the gay homeless dude who lives under a bridge a few blocks from here and never bathes. Am I right?"

"Uh. Yeah."

She put a hand to her chin, with a thoughtful look. "I could totally get him over here if that's what you're into. His name's Larry. I don't judge."

"Uh, no. No, thanks. I want you."

Her smile was back. "You want me, do you? Well, that's better. For a moment I thought I'd lost my touch. But seriously, be specific. You were doing so well up until the end. Remember, I can offer suggestions, but you're going to have to do the heavy lifting."

"Right," I agreed. "And I want a good, long blow job, long enough that I finish. With deep-throating. Oh, and you need to swallow."

"Baby, I always swallow! Do I look like the sort of up-tight prude who would treat your goods like a three-day old rancid hot-dog? I know how to give a proper blow job, don't you worry. So, anyhoo— The rent, the full-wardrobe dresser and one extra-long blow job from yours truly, with extensive deep-throating, guaranteed to make you blow a big, fat load straight down my throat. No problemo. Do we have a deal?"

I nodded, and extended my hand to shake on it. "Deal."

She took my hand, but instead of shaking it she reached around my back with her other arm, pulled me to her and kissed me.

It wasn't a simple peck, but a long, intense embrace. She had a floral smell about her. I'm not sure what flower it was, but she smelled like a real flowers, not fake flowers, not perfume. It was the smell of a garden on a warm summer's day. Even up close, her skin was flawless and her sapphire-blue eyes were absolutely mesmerizing.

The kiss itself was raw passion.

She pulled away only after what felt like a few minutes had passed. I was panting, catching my breath when I realized there was an important question I'd forgotten to ask. "What's your name? I'm Arthur."

"Lita. A pleasure to meet you, handsome. How about I invite you in for a drink, and we see where that takes us?"

I blinked, still recovering from the kiss. "In?"

"You know, my place. I have a certain obligation to uphold, and I promise you: My bed's bigger than yours."

I eyed the dresser. It didn't look any different. That was her place now, wasn't it? Did she mean she wanted to take me inside of it?

Lita must have misinterpreted my confusion as apprehension. She rolled her eyes.

"Chill. It's not as if I could keep you forever or turn you into a genie or anything like that, even if I wanted to. Subjective time inside is the same as out here, and you can't stay longer than twelve hours unless you explicitly wish otherwise. Also, you can't die. In fact, you can't receive any new injury or affliction that won't heal on on its own within a week. Satisfied?"

"Subjective time? What..?"

She tapped her foot impatiently. "I'm not going to Rip Van Winkle you. Twelve hours inside is twelve hours outside. Come on. Your dick's not gonna blow itself, ya know?"

"Oh-kay" I said, hesitant. "So….?"

Lita bent down to reach for her drawer on my newly-permanent modern art installation, which gave me an exceptional view of her ass. Her black, lacy, virtually transparent thong was still the only thing covering it.

I'm pretty sure she wanted me to look. In a rapid, highly-coordinated sequence of movements, she glanced back at me, winked, grabbed my arm, and opened the drawer.

The world blurred. There was no wind, yet there was a sensation of movement. It wasn't so much as if I was moving towards anything, but rather that the entire world moved past me. My apartment shrank into the distance as I stood still.

When everything solidified again, Lita and I were in a bare, damp room that might best be described as medieval. The walls and ceiling were made of dingy gray stone or maybe brick, lit by a single fiery torch burning on the wall. I couldn't tell whether the floor was dirt, or stone merely covered in dirt. There were no doors, no windows and the only thing that might be called furniture was a single, flat rock, about a three feet high that sat in the center of the room.

On top of the rock was a rectangular box filled with junk. Upon closer inspection, I recognized it as the particle-board drawer from my chest. The junk consisted of everything I'd put in the bottom drawer over the years. The watch I'd bought at the auction lay on top of a heap of old socks. A cardboard tube partly covered in a blue balloon was sticking out, off to the side.

I had the sudden, distinct fear that I'd been lied to, and that this would not end well. "Er, I thought you said your bed was bigger than mine?"

Lita laughed. "My foyer's a dump. Trust me, I know. Sorry for the mess. Gimme a sec."

She reached a hand towards the drawer sitting on the rock. The drawer and its contents began to glow with a blue light. When I looked back at Lita, I noticed it was the same shade of blue as her eyes which now glowed as well.

The light from the drawer intensified until it was the brightest thing in the room. The light grew brighter still, the color shifting from blue to pure white. In less than a minute it became painful to look at directly, so intense that it illuminated the rest of the room as if it were open and exposed to the afternoon sun.

While I couldn't look directly at it, I could see the glowing stuff slowly rise up off the rock into the air. The radiant shape condensed into a smaller sphere about a foot in diameter and began to move.

The glowing drawer-junk-sphere slowly rotated around Lita. Her arm moved with it as if to guide the sphere in its movement around her, giving it strength, letting it pick up speed. While the sphere wasn't physically tethered to her, the way her arm moved with it gave me the impression that she was swinging it around like a mace.

The sphere's orbit around Lita widened, and I had to duck down to the floor to keep from getting hit as it whizzed past.

The path of the sphere expanded further, spiraling outward. I realized what was about to happen only seconds before the sphere crashed into the far wall.

Everything went white. There was a sound, but it wasn't a crash or a splat. It wasn't quite the ring of a bell, or a satisfied sigh, or the sound of a loud kiss being delivered, but the best description I can manage is that it was similar to each of those three very different sounds put together. It was also completely different from any single one of them.

The light began to fade, but a large patch of the wall remained painfully bright. Over the course of half a minute the light dimmed, and I could make out details. The arched shape of an enormous metal door now extended from floor to ceiling.

The door was everything the rest of the room wasn't. While it was consistent with the medieval theme, this was the sort of door you'd find to a throne room rather than a dungeon. The metallic surface was polished to a shine and covered with intricate carvings, a remarkably detailed mural depicting a massive orgy. Hundreds of beautiful, naked women and men were going at it with wild abandon, in every possible way and several I doubted were anatomically feasible.

I got up from where I was crouched on the floor to get a better look.

"See anything you'd like to try?" Lita asked seductively from beside me. "Getting any ideas? Your wish is my command."

"Maybe." I had no intention of committing to anything yet. "But I want to relax and think it over first. You know what might help me relax?"

She grinned back. "Does it by any chance involve a certain red-haired genie swallowing every drop of sperm she can coax out of your balls?"

I nodded. "I'm glad we understand each other so well."

Lita pulled open the door and beckoned. "What are you waiting for, then?"

I stepped through the door into a building that was neither modern or medieval. It was, however, impressive.

The door opened into an enormous high-ceilinged room, three stories tall. A wide staircase on one wall had two landings above the ground floor. The wall opposite the staircase consisted almost entirely of a single floor-to-ceiling window. Dark, polished wood reinforced the glass at regular intervals, but didn't obstruct the view of the lush gardens outside. A large fountain splashed along another wall of the room.

If the light-show earlier wasn't enough proof that I was a long way home, the greenery visible through the window would have confirmed it. Green is not a color typically associated with February in Connecticut.

Turning my attention back to the palatial room, I noticed that the fountain was unusually large. In fact, it wasn't so much a fountain, as a waterfall. The entire wall opposite the door, between the staircase and the window, was made of solid granite. Water cascaded down the length of it.

The waterfall was two-tiered. Torrents of water cascaded into a narrow pool a third of the way up the wall, and then again down into a wider pool about three times the width of a bathtub that spanned the length of the wall at its base. Above the top pool, plants grew where the water provided them with moisture, though the vegetation ended there.

The lip of the pool at the base was stone like the back wall, but that gave way to the polished, hardwood floor of the rest of the room after a few feet. A large wooden table, a set of couches and a few colorful rugs with geometric patterns occupied the center of the floor.

"It's good to be home," Lita declared. She pulled a cord hanging from the wall next to the door, and the sound of a bell reverberated throughout the house.

She seemed to be waiting for something. "It's been fifteen years since I've been back, you know," she told me. "This place has been here all along, only I couldn't get to it. Without a way to power the Gateway, without your drawer, I was stuck on the other side with the rock and the dirt and the torch. That flaming monstrosity doesn't come off the wall no matter how hard you pull. It's always lit, it's painfully hot, and it's the only thing in there that's vaguely the right shape to fill a girl up! Get the picture? Sooooo frustrating!"

Before I could comment on Lita's attempt to use the red-hot iron base of a torch as a dildo, another woman made her entrance through an archway beside the door, to our left. She wore a snug-fitting, low-cut French Maid's outfit, and it took less than a second to recognize her.

Anyone who hadn't been living under a rock for the past fifteen years would probably have recognized her. You've heard her name before, trust me. She had light brown hair and an absolutely amazing body. Seeing her here, in this costume, standing right in front of me was… an experience.

Lita gave the newcomer a brief nod, then continued, as I gawked.

"That watch? There used to be a man who loved to see how many mistresses he could have at a time without the others finding out. His timepiece was his talisman, and he used it to perfectly coordinate his delicious little trysts. One day he managed eight of them. Eight! That thing used to be so saturated with lust I thought it might power the Gateway forever. Unfortunately, when he died an accountant got a hold of it. I'm not sure if anyone ever bothered to explain to him how to use his equipment. He couldn't even see me. Might as well have been a priest! Until you came along that is. You know exactly what to do with your equipment, don't you?"

"Of course, I—" I noticed another woman coming down the staircase. She had pale skin, dark brown, almost black hair and was also instantly recognizable as a celebrity. Her French Maid outfit was identical to that of the first member of the Hollywood elite to put in an appearance.

Then there were two more. Two blondes — a platinum blonde and a slightly darker, more traditional blonde — stepped from behind, the waterfall, the water soaking their hair and their uniforms as the came forward. I knew the darker blonde on the left but the one on the right — oh, yeah. Her. I knew her too. She was a porn star.

Unlike the brunettes, I could clearly see the blondes' nipples through wet fabric of their uniforms. Needless to say, I took the opportunity to study them intently.

I was distracted from this endeavor by a grinding, clanking noise above me. When I looked up, I saw that a platform was descending from above me — a sort of open-air elevator.

A cable ran from the top of the elevator platform, across the ceiling to the waterfall, where it was attached to a bucket, which was now rising, dribbling out water as the platform descended. The bucket had an artistic curve and some ornamentation on it, making it fit in as a natural part of the room rather than a piece of crude machinery.

It occurred to me that the appropriate word for the décor in this place was, in fact: steam-punk. Everything was sophisticated, stylish, but primitive. Modern conveniences were emulated with clever, yet old-fashioned designs.

My train of thought was broken yet again when the woman riding the elevator came into view. She was a very familiar redhead. When the elevator reached the ground floor, she stepped out and took her place next to the four others.

Lita beamed at them. "Hello, ladies."

Five of the most recognizable women in modern media chorused in unison: "Welcome home, mistress."

Lita put an arm on my shoulder. "Allow me to introduce Arthur. Arthur, meet Hazel, Raven, Honey, Star and Cherry."

"Nice to meet you." What else was I supposed to say? "Ah—You're all beautiful and you look exactly like, ah— " I was a bit unsure how to broach the fact that those definitelyweren't these women's names.

All five of them gave me the same mischievous grin. The redheaded maid spoke up, "We can look like almost anyone."

I blinked, and now a different internationally famous redhead stood before me. She was thinner, more athletic. As I processed her words and her new appearance I also noted that her voice was also perfect — she sounded exactly like the person she resembled.

"Think of them as my servants, and in some sense an extension of myself," Lita said. "They can't exit the Gateway, but as long as I'm in here we can communicate with only a thought."

Lita tapped her head. "Each of them can look like anyone with the same hair color. That's how you can tell them apart. Cherry has seniority. Redheads should always be in charge, if you ask me."

"Now ladies," Lita addressed her retinue. "I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in you."

If she could communicate telepathically with them, why was she speaking out loud?

"I realize it's been fifteen years," Lita continued, "but that doesn't change the fact that in this house we have certain rules and protocols which I expect to be observed promptly and consistently. Need I remind you that we have a guest?"

The eyes of six beautiful women all focused on me. Then Cherry shouted: "Off with his clothes!"

What?

"Off with his clothes!" echoed Lita

"Off with his clothes!" All six of them yelled it in unison as they converged on me.

Hands reached for my shirt, my jeans and my socks. I couldn't tell whose hand belonged to who as the six of them worked in perfect coordination to hold me in place as they quickly and efficiently pulled every scrap of clothing off of my body.

I was naked in a matter of seconds. Raven grabbed my feet, while Honey grabbed my hands. They carried me across the room towards the waterfall.

I'd mostly recovered my wits by this point and struggled against their grip. It was pointless.

Honey laughed. "You're super-cute when you squirm, you know that?"

They stopped in front of the pool below the waterfall.

"On the count of three," Lita commanded.