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I’d
never make you do anything you don’t want—”
    He was right. She did want him. Even when she closed her
eyes, knowing his influence was gone, she still wanted him. Her clit throbbed.
Her whole body hummed with awareness of his presence beside her.
    “It’s just, well, it’s quite the power you have there. Makes
it hard to think.” She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly and counted stars.
She still felt a little drunk, from sleep and from him.
    “Why don’t we take a break?” he said. “Breakfast is getting
cold.”
    She tentatively opened one eye. He was smiling sheepishly,
seated on the far side of the bed now, away from her, holding the breakfast
plate out to her. She opened the other eye and boldly stared right at him. He
was still handsome but the sheer animal magnetism of him had been dimmed a
little. It would have to do.
    “I need to ask you something.”
    He nodded. “You want to eat, or talk first?”
    “Both, I guess.” She felt a little weak and heady still.
Food would do her good. She took the plate and cutlery from him, stabbing at
the food. The pancakes were perfect. A little cold, but fluffy and moist. She
tried hard not to think of the word moist . She retrieved the other fork
from where it had fallen in their lust behind a pillow and handed it to him.
For a moment, they ate in companionable silence.
    “Last night after you fell asleep, I did some searching on
the Internet.”
    “On the what?” He spoke through a mouth full of pancake.
    “The Internet. On my tablet. Nothing fancy, I just checked
out a few mythology websites and Wikipedia.”
    He furrowed his brow. “Are you still speaking English?”
    “What?”
    He said something in another language. Greek? Then Latin.
She thought. He sounded a little like her lawyer sister, so it had to be Latin. Great job, James, you broke him.
    “I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying.” Then she
glanced down at his pants. Bellbottoms straight out of the sixties. “Wait a
minute—you said you were trapped in the bottle between, uh, customers?”
    “Masters. Or mistresses.”
    Mistress, huh. Sounds kinky. Don’t get distracted again,
James. “Right. Uh. So, when was the last time you were, you know, out in
the world? Do you know the year?”
    “1967.”
    “Ah. Right. Well, I’m going to have to explain a few
things.”
    Jaime launched into an explanation of the history of the
Internet, sounding pedantic even to herself as she turned on the tablet and
took him for a small tour.
    He didn’t need to know about Tim Berners-Lee, really, or
about TCP/IP, cascading style sheets, or social networking, but she found
herself telling him anyway. She knew she was stalling because she didn’t want
to have to ask the questions that wouldn’t leave her brain. But he nodded along
with each point, his eyes growing wide with childlike wonder and he grinned
when she demonstrated how to play Angry Birds.
    She pulled up her university’s alumni site, from a fine arts
school just a few blocks away, and showed him three of her best girlfriends,
photos of Liv and Missy and Giselle. He seemed particularly interested in how
email addresses and Twitter worked, and was amazed that she could contact them
without having to dial a phone (she laughed at his literal use of the phrase dial
a phone , and made a mental note to show him her cell later). Then she
followed links to websites displaying their art.
    “This is amazing,” he said, holding the tablet close to his
face. “I’d seen your televisions the last time I was out in the world,
black-and-white and full of—what do you call it? Static? But this is like a
scrying glass, magic only gods have.” He marveled over a photo of one of Liv’s
oil paintings, a phoenix in flight. “You said you’re not an artist
professionally?”
    “No.” Jaime felt again as though she’d disappointed him. I
think you’re projecting, James. It’s not the god you’ve disappointed. “I
don’t paint