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the house—clean,
comfortable, touches of the owner here and there. Some of the old knickknacks he
recognized. What year did he emerge in anyway? Surely she had a paper or
something around that gave a date.
    He quietly poked around until he found a paper in the
kitchen area. After tossing it on the table, he pulled out a chair and sat.
    The first thing he did was look at the date. October,
two-thousand thirteen. Hayes whistled softly. Fifty years he’d been sealed up
inside that bottle. No wonder he stank of stale whiskey. His last master must
have hidden the bottle away after receiving his last wish. How’d that work out
anyway? Did the guy’s harem of beautiful women granting his every whim give him
the life he expected?
    Hayes laughed. Most likely not. Wishes had a way of
backfiring on people. Put twenty women together and war broke out. The poor
bastard probably ran to the other side of the earth to get away from them.
Served him right. He had a lovely lady already. What the hell did he need more
for?
    Shoot, if he had a chance for one beautiful, loving woman he
wouldn’t risk it. A face from his past popped into his head—long brown hair,
supple body and, what? He couldn’t remember anymore. The passage of a century
played hell on a man’s memory.
    Pushing it aside, he continued glancing through the paper.
Violence, hatred, men stealing from others. Time moved on but nothing changed.
People with more thought they should rule the people with less, and those with
nothing wanted to take what others had. Sometimes he didn’t understand why the
greater power didn’t slingshot this planet right out of the solar system.
    Still, he’d met enough decent people over the years to
balance out the bad. Caring, helpful people, but not caring enough to free him
from his bottle for good and it didn’t appear this one would be any different.
So he’d do his deed and hope the next one saw his plight.
    He heard rustling on the couch. Yep, about time for her come
out of the sleep he put her in. Hayes braced for another round of threats and
shouting. He watched, waited and when he thought maybe she’d drifted back off
for the night, fingers curled around the back of the cushion and the top of her
head appeared along with two wide, brown eyes peering at him.
    He couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his lips.
Damn, but she was a looker. “Mornin’,” he said with a tip of his head. She
glanced out the window and then back at him. “Just an expression. You’ve only
been out ten minutes.”
    Her relief was plain and visible on her face. She sat up,
pushed her long locks back and then rolled her head. “What did you do to me?”
    “Just gave you some downtime before you hurt yourself. Hope
you don’t mind but I needed to catch up on the last fifty years.” He lifted the
paper, showing her.
    “Fifty years? But you don’t look much older than thirty.”
She curled up in the corner of the couch, tucked her legs tight against her
chest and wrapped her arms around them.
    “Side effect of the curse. Time goes on, things progress but
I stay the same.”
    “So you’re how old exactly?”
    Hayes shrugged. He stopped counting after the first one
hundred years. “One hundred and sixty, give or take. Don’t really know for sure
and don’t care.”
    She sat quietly for a moment, turned her head and frowned.
“You called it a curse. Does that mean you haven’t always been a, um—”
    “Genie,” he offered. Yeah, she still hadn’t bought the
story. “No, I was a normal man goin’ about livin’ my life.” Those days were
faded shadows now. Nothing more than wisps of memories he couldn’t call
forward, no matter how hard he tried.
    Another stretch of silence and then she asked, “The old
couple I bought the bottle from, were they your last,” she frowned, bit her
bottom lip and then said it, “masters?”
    “Don’t really know for sure. All I remember is the last guy
to release me wished for bizarre things and