Time Out of Time

May we all find our own lamp.

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Duster in hand, Tammy looked around the shuttered shop. Its owner, her uncle, was down with the virus, leaving her in charge of Azdem's Antiques.

Conveniently, the job came with a small furnished apartment above the store. Actually, given that the university had with almost no warning padlocked classrooms, labs, libraries - and residences - for the duration, it was more than just convenient. The offer from her uncle couldn't have come at a better time.

It was a good deal for him, too, she knew, more than just an act of charity for his late sister's spawn. She'd worked here last summer and knew her way around the store. Moreover, while one of the unacknowledged effects of locking down the city had been a sharp drop in residential break-ins, there'd been a commensurate rise in commercial burglaries. With the shop closed until 'whenever', having somebody in the building all the time just made sense.

Then one morning he'd phoned in with a sore throat. And the Test -- the one with a capital T, the only one which mattered these days -- had in due course come back positive and Rick had moved himself into quarantine.

She'd been terrified at first, even though they'd not spent much time in close proximity. The terror had slowly faded to mere anxiety as the days went by, something she could push down under her radar for most of the day.

Nights, of course, were something else.

"I'm sorry, but you're on your own, kid" he'd said to her over the phone. "If you run out of things to do, you can always start sorting out those three triwalls of stuff in the loading bay. They got dropped off just before all this exploded and I didn't have time to do more than sign the receipt before we were ordered to close the doors to customers."

"What's in them?" she asked, curious. This could either be total scutwork or it could be a lot of fun.

"Estate sale," the older man replied. "An old lady's heirs wanting to empty her house to get it on the market. The pictures I saw, well, call it a mix of antiques and junque." The 'que' was an old inside joke. "You tell me - you're the archeologist, right?"

He'd bent forward and began coughing before looking up, his eyes red. "I gotta go, Tammy. The doc says I'll be fine eventually -- probably - but I'm not going anywhere for awhile. Look after the place, OK?"

"Will do, Uncle Rick. You get better, OK?"

His face on her telephone nodded, began coughing again. His hand came up in a slight wave before the screen went blank.

She'd remained healthy, thank God, her unease at having been in close quarters with him subsiding with each healthy day.

Still, while relieved to have dodged that bullet, Tammy was going certifiably crazy with loneliness and boredom. You and about six billion others around the lanet,  she grunted to herself.

Tammy was a social animal. She was essentially alone for the first time in her life and was not enjoying it at all. Rick was her only relative and was too still ill to talk. She'd broken up with her boyfriend at Christmas -- no loss, truth be told, but it left a big gap. And yes, she had friends she could chat with, but it wasn't the same.

I need a hug,  she told herself as she started to dust the shelves in the cluttered store. No -- more than just one. I need a lot of hugs.

The only people she'd seen since getting here were the nervous masked grocery store clerks behind their plastic screens when she shopped for herself and Rick. Every few days, she'd leave a box of food on his front porch, ring the doorbell and step away to wait for him to shuffle to the door. The sound of his coughing always got to the door at least 30 seconds before he did.

He was still on his feet and always waved in thanks when he took the food in, but Tammy was worried for him. He looked terrible, frankly. What would she do one day if he didn't come to the door? That was another thing to fret over.

She caught sight of herself in an old freestanding mirror. She ran the duster over its face, then paused and turned back and forth to examine herself.

She had a fairly cute face, but nothing all that inspiring. Her bright china-blue eyes were her best feature, but the list began there and ended there. Her figure could most kindly be called 'slender'. An A-cup bra was generous for her - when she could be bothered to wear one - and her lack of hips had been her despair since grade-school adolescence. Meh - it was like she'd been on vacation or something when they handed out proper womanly figures.

Not that it matters, she thought to herself, gloomily. It's not like I'm going to meet anybody here in Lockdown Central.

Finishing today's dusting, she went in search of the triwalls -- heavy, thick-walled cardboard boxes, each the size of a small desk. She'd been putting it off, but today was the day.

The boxes, each on its own wooden pallet, filled most of the delivery bay. Tammy picked up the bill of lading and flopped down into an old sofa her uncle kept there for just such moments. After a few moments of flipping through the pages, she tossed it aside as utterly uninformative. She pushed her hair back off her face, rose, found a boxcutter and opened the first box, full to the top with paper-wrapped items.

She paused after an hour. There was no air-conditioning in the loading bays and, early as it was, the day was becoming hot. Sun was pouring through the dusty windows on the rollup door and Tammy was already perspiring. Well, there was nobody around to laugh or be shocked, was there?  She wiggled out of her jeans, leaving her dressed in a long t-shirt, panties and sandals.

Better.

By the end of the third hour, with unwrapped bits and pieces stacked and scattered around the loading dock, it was pretty clear to her that most of the stuff was indeed 'junque' -- mainly household effects of no particular value or interest. Much, she thought, would wind up donated to the Sally Ann when Rick returned.

But not all.

There were several pages of hand-written scribblings she thought would interest her uncle -- initial research notes for President U.S. Grant's history of the Civil War, if the note on the wrapping was to be believed. That was impressive enough, but what boosted it to the top of her list was a scrawled note on the first page addressed to 'Sam C'. It was a matter of history that Sam Clemens -- better known as Mark Twain - had helped the dying Grant finish his memoirs. Two-for-one!  she thought to herself with no little excitement. This business was like that -- a lot of trash with the odd gem, just enough to keep it interesting.

She re-wrapped the old papers very carefully and sealed the manuscript in a box for her uncle's eventual inspection.

The rest of it was however pretty much a waste of time -- kitschy statuettes, faded prints, old romance novels, a couple of stone ashtrays, elderly lampshades. The old woman apparently had had a thing for owls, for there were 17 of them -- statues, framed photos, even a stuffed owl on a stand. And oil lamps -- dozens of those. There were kerosene lamps of assorted sizes and designs, locomotive lamps and one she suspected had been designed for whale-oil. A couple of old clocks -- not old enough to be valuable, but not new enough to run. Collector plates. Dozens of souvenir teaspoons, complete with racks.

Junque.

No doubt Uncle Rick could find a market for some of it and maybe those research notes would allow him to break even, but it was still one heck of a way for an almost-MA in Archeology to be spending her time. Still, she made notes, diligently assembling a list for her uncle's return. It wasn't, after all, like she had anything else to do.

Tammy leaned back, twisted herself from side to side to relieve the stress in her back. She grimaced at a dull 'click', but smiled at the relief it gave her.

Bending over the waist-high edge of the mostly-empty last box, she ran her fingers through a layer of crumpled packing paper on the bottom. Nothing. She shoveled the paper around, much of it spilling out onto the floor where it would eventually be loaded into the bin outside the loading door. She was about to give up when her fingertips brushed against something solid. She fumbled through the mess, found it again.

Her hand emerged into the light and the girl gasped at what she held.

This was worth her attention.

If it was real.

Roman-era volute-style oil lamps were common enough, she knew. There'd been actual factories back then churning them out, by the thousands and tens of thousands. Enough had survived that you could even buy them on eBay now for a surprisingly modest price. But most - almost all -- had been made of tera cotta or pottery. This  one had a solid weight to it and the patina of old age on its bronze surface.

The size of a medium grapefruit squashed flat, it was only a couple of fingerbreadths high. There was a small rounded handle on one side and a short beak or nozzle on the other, with shallow fluting around the edge for decoration. The centre of the body was pushed in to form a hollow, with a small hole to allow the lamp to be refilled with olive oil. A second hole in the nozzle allowed a linen wick to be inserted.

All but the cheapest of such lamps, she knew, had been decorated with some form of image on the centre hollow -- typically gods, goddesses, warriors, animals, fruit or flowers. Most such decorations were, given the nature of the materials, fairly crude. Tammy turned this one against the light to see what it was.

And almost dropped it.

Tammy was no blushing virgin. She liked boys, liked sex (OK, had liked sex, twice) and watched her share of 'erotica' at tequila-fuelled parties and during sleepless, lonely nights. It had its place and she accepted that.

But finding it on a 2,000-year-old artifact was unexpected.

Yet such things had certainly been mentioned in her texts. The Romans had after all been more relaxed in their attitudes towards sex; indeed, explicit sexual imagery permeated the entire culture.

Even the most respectable homes, for instance, had a brazenly phallic column or Herma proudly displayed outside their front door. Brothels painted prices and specialties over their entrances on public streets. Married couples often had erotic images painted on bedroom walls in hopes of improving fertility and many artifacts from Pompeii had been locked away for centuries by scandalized modern authorities.

Could this be one such?  she wondered.

The image was amazing in its realism; the depiction of the act was extraordinarily precise, superbly lifelike in its craftsmanship.

A long-haired woman was being taken from behind by a lean and muscular man. Both figures were standing, naked. The man's hands were clasped around her hips. His eyes were closed, perhaps in concentration. His organ was very large, his lemon-size balls pendulous. The woman's large breasts hung below her as she bent forward at the waist. Her head was lifted up, an expression of indescribable ecstasy on her face.

The depiction was so realistic that Tammy instantly doubted the lamp's authenticity. Ancient Rome had excellent artists, she knew, but this style was completely atypical, far too modern.

She stared at the image, though - entranced, curious. Her finger stretched out tentatively, stroked the surface of the bronze image. Her fingertip seemed to tingle as she touched it.

She turned the lamp over. Very often, such things had the maker's name or mark on the bottom. In this case, there was only a shallow and much less detailed image of a different couple.

Odd.

She turned the lamp over again, took it to a workbench. Setting it down, she turned on a light to get a better look at it. Looking around, she found a magnifying glass.

Amazing detail!  she thought. With the glass, she could discern individual hairs on the woman's head, her eyelashes, the man's fingernails and the veins on his swollen organ. Seeing the woman's bright eyes, Tammy could almost share her pleasure.

Looking at the thing in her palm, she knew it couldn't  be real, not... really. But why would anybody go to all the trouble of making such an obvious fake?

As porn went, it was pretty good. It was even good art, she thought. Looking at it, the girl found herself smiling, felt her nipples harden, just a little. It was an incredibly well-done image, fake or not, but why did it move her so deeply, to her very core?

Tammy hefted the lamp in her hand, turned it to examine the image from different angles.

Her eyes fixed on the woman's joyous expression, Tammy's thumb brushed lightly over the loving couple again.

To her surprise, she felt the lamp almost melt in her hands, flow over her arms, envelop her, welcome her into its depths like an opening door.

She felt herself falling into it, becoming part of it. It seemed to the girl as if she was there beside the couple, watching them in real-life. She could see the joy so evident in the woman's eyes and broad smile. Falling still deeper into the illusion, she could see -- no, she could feel  - her own now-heavy breasts swaying beneath her with the impact of the man's loving assault, could feel the ripples run across the smooth skin of her own bottom every time the man's hips smacked into her.

Tammy gloried in his strong hands clutching deep into the soft flesh of her hips. She sobbed in joy at the sensation of her lover's manhood thrusting in and out of her cleft.

She gasped, shook her head, rose up out of the vision, stared at the old lamp in wonder. For some reason, it felt warmer in her hands now, much warmer than the temperature in the loading bay. She could feel her heart pounding within her, her pulse hammering in her ears. There was a fire in her loins, a heaviness in her own breasts.

Tentatively, she again lightly rubbed a finger over the picture.

And yelped in astonishment as the heavy lamp twitched lightly in her hands.

"What in hell?" she hissed in surprise.

It quivered again. Despite her training, despite the apparent age of the thing, its potential value, she dropped the lamp. It fell from her fingers to the table half an inch below with a dull clunk.

"No," came a deep voice behind her.

Spinning, she gave a small shriek. There on the old sofa lounged a young man dressed in jeans, a white shirt and a tan sports coat. Her mouth gaped as he raised one hand and wiggled his fingers in a casual greeting.

"Hi," he said, then, "But no, it's not in Hell. It's in a very small palace, perhaps."

"Palace?" she quavered, edging back against the workbench and pulling down the hem of her t-shirt. "How'd you get in here?"

"You rubbed the lamp," he answered. His voice was deep, a rich, almost melodious bass. For some reason, it echoed and reverberated deep inside her.

"The...?" Her eyes flickered down at the squat shape on the desk.

"It's traditional," the man smiled, adding, "Mistress."

"Traditional? Mistress? What the fuck?"  Tammy rarely swore, but this was getting out of hand.

"You released me from my lamp." He smiled, revealing amazingly white, even teeth.

"Bullshit," she hissed, almost against the workbench by the door. "Who are you, anyway?"

The man stood. Tammy gasped as his height became apparent. The man was tall -- very tall -- with solid shoulders and a narrow waist. Curly brown hair almost reached his shoulders and his square jaw was adorned with a very short beard along his jawline, one which escaped being stubble only by virtue of careful trimming. Separated by a bold nose, bushy eyebrows hovered over warm hazel eyes.

Under normal circumstances, she would have thought him gorgeous.

He spread his arms wide, his palms pointing up to the ceiling. If the gesture was intended to be reassuring, it failed.

"I am just me," he said again. "At your service."

"You don't scare me," she lied. "Tell me how you got in here!"

Not deigning to reply, the man merely pointed at the lamp again.

"So, you're some sort of freaking genie?" she mocked. Fumbling behind her on the workbench with one hand, she found the handle of a hammer. She kept it behind her back, but felt comforted by it.

"Pretty much," he agreed.

"Right - like I'm five years old!" she snorted. She clutched the hammer more tightly.

The man tilted his head to one shoulder, as if perplexed.

"Hmm," he whispered. Tammy almost jumped out of her skin as he seemed to flicker in front of her.

In front of her, just like that, stood an entirely different being. His head shaved except for one thin, carefully-plaited, arm-long queue, the being was dressed only in a small loincloth of the sort once worn by Mahatma Gandhi. Of the purest white cloth, it almost shone against his dark skin. A large gold hoop hung from each bare nipple.

His face made the Hollywood 'rugged' seem effeminate; a long jaw and high cheekbones were balanced by a low forehead and heavyweight brow ridges. His body seemed to have been assembled from broken bricks and baseball-sized rocks; all angles and planes, his bulging muscles were sharply defined by a web of narrow, dark shadows between them. His biceps were the size of Tammy's thighs, his six-pack seemed cast in steel. It was a physique -- if not face -- to make champion weight-lifters drink themselves senseless in sorrow.

His eyes... Tammy's breath caught at the fearsome, ancient intelligence in the solid black eyes inspecting her.

The the image flickered again, instantly replaced by that of a woman, but one not entirely human. A female genie? Someone dressed, in any case, only in a pair of golden armbands and much jewellery.

Normally sensitive about her own Size 2 figure, Tammy noticed the being's high, shapely bosom and firm buttocks - but only in passing. She was, on the other hand, instantly, madly jealous of the other's reddish-brown hair. Even worn in a head-top pony-tail, the glossy tresses fell quite literally to her knees. They seemed to have a life of their own; the woman tossed her head slightly and Tammy bit her lip as ripples flowed down to the very ends of the woman's strands. Tammy's fingers instinctively went to her own semi-combed, mouse-brown locks before falling again to her waist.

The being turned her head and looked directly at Tammy. The girl again shivered at the primal intellect in those black eyes.

The image shimmered again; the strange woman instantly replaced by the young man in his loafers.

He sat down again on the sofa, casually crossed one leg over his other knee.

Smiling at Tammy, he raised one eyebrow. "How's that again?" he challenged gently.

"What's your name?" she demanded.

He laughed, softly.

"I think you would have trouble with my name," he chuckled. "It's a very old one, mind you - much history and that sort of thing, but it has what...? 15? no, 16 syllables."

He rolled his eyes a bit. "How about you call me..." He closed his eyes for a moment, smiled, opened them. "How about Brian?"

"Brian?"

"Why not, Mistress? Simple, hard to forget. 'Brian' has a lot going for it."

Not quite ready to accept 'Brian', Tammy tried to dodge.

"What's this 'Mistress' stuff?"

The man again pointed a well-groomed forefinger at the lamp. "You released me," he repeated. "It's traditional that I serve in reward. You know."

He seemed very casual about the whole concept.

"What, like three wishes?" she asked, half jesting.

"Not necessarily. That bit got rather tangled in translation."

"Any  wishes?" the girl demanded.