I rolled off of Em, breathing hard. Her body glistened in the dim light that filtered through my cheap blinds. She moved in and spooned me, running her hand along my chest.

"You have a better body than I would've guessed," she said.

I chuckled. "I'm a nerd, so the bar wasn't set too high to begin with."

She pulled the hair of my happy trail, and my legs hopped at the pain. "I'm serious," she said. "You're also more metropolitan than I would have thought. Your apartment is very tasteful."

"You might not think that when I tell you most of this stuff was here when I moved in," I said. "I just never bothered changing it."

"That doesn't surprise me. Judging by your desk at work, I would have expected your place to look like a second-hand computer store. Do you ever throw anything away?"

I slid my hand between her legs. "Lately, just my inhibitions."

She moaned. "Again, we just did it."

"A starving man doesn't stop wanting food just because he's had a few meals," I said, sliding my fingers inside her.

We played with each other until our bodies caught up with our filthy minds. Emily was a drug, and I was hooked. I moved in and out of her, and when I got tired, she got on top. At one point, we lay on our sides, her ass against my groin, as I continued to fuck her. I climaxed hard and lay still against her.

"Can I go clean up, or should I wait for round three?" she said.

I didn't miss the smile in her voice. I slapped her lightly on the ass and let her take care of herself. She came back a few minutes later wearing my bathrobe.

"We need to start thinking of the future," she said.

"Ugh, I was hoping we could just stay here and have sex until we wasted away." I groaned.

"As much as I like your cock, my lady bits are a bit worn out."

"Excuses," I said.

She threw a towel at me. "Wipe down and meet me in the living room."

I wiped myself off and dragged my ass out of bed. I contemplated getting dressed, but that felt too much like moving forward, and I was happy right where I was.

"You could have at least put on underwear," Em said when I walked into the room.

"Hey, you're wearing my robe, so I get to be naked. Counter-balance, right?"

"Whatever," she said. "We need to plan our next move."

I sat down next to her. "If what Jinn says is true, I'm in a lot of danger. While we're bound, I can't access my power on my own."

"Can you trust her, though?"

"I don't have a choice. What she's said, so far, has been backed up by what's been happening."

"That doesn't mean she's telling the truth," Em said. "There are all kinds of ways to lie without saying something untrue."

"Tell me about it. Every time someone makes a wish, I think of tons of ways to give them exactly what they ask for without giving them anything they want. Jinn says it's because I'm not mortal anymore, and humans are the prey of genies."

"So, that's why you said you weren't you anymore?"

"Every instinct tells me she's right, though. She says I'll eventually stop resisting the impulses."

"Let's experiment," Em said. "I'll make a simple wish, and you tell me what your first impulse is, and how hard it is to ignore."

"You're the boss,"

"I wish for the pen on the counter to come to me.”

"I want to make it fly into your eyeball," I said. "But it's pretty easy to resist."

"Ok, so, yeah—you should probably keep a tight reign on those impulses. Let's try something different."

"Hold on." I was shaking from the strain of resisting the wish. "I want to see how long I can go without fulfilling your wish."

"Good idea," Em said. She pulled out her phone. "Give into that one. I'll make another one, and we can time it properly."

I pulled the pen to her on a thread of chance. It landed on her lap, soft as a feather.

We went through several wishes, some simple, some more complex. The results were somewhat counterintuitive. The simpler the request, the less time I could resist its strain. Em wished for the moon and the stars at one point, and I felt no compulsion whatsoever to comply. She asked for her last wish to be nullified, and I felt only the barest hint of relief.

"I think I could have resisted that last wish for years," I said. "Maybe decades."

"It makes sense,” Em said. “An easy wish probably won’t mess things up too bad.”

"Yeah, but that still doesn't explain why I granted Jinn's wish so readily. I didn't even think about it. I just did it."

"Maybe because it was your first wish?" Em said. She didn't sound confident.

"It doesn't matter. There's something else I want you to try. Wish for me to have full control over my powers while I'm bound to you."

She did so. I felt a tremor journey down the golden link between us. Small tendrils broke away, and the rope weakened. The link would break soon.

I could do nothing, and I would have my powers back. Plus, I didn't feel any urge to comply with the wish. Then I saw something odd. Tension built up where the link frayed. It was unbalanced, and when it broke, the backlash was going to slam into Em, possibly killing her.

"Undo the wish! Now!"

"I wish for my last wish to be unwished," Em said.

The golden link stabilized. My breaths came ragged and heavy and in poorly timed waves. "Ok, so that was a bad idea."

"What happened," Em asked.

"Nothing much. I almost just killed you is all."

"I think we should lay off the experiments for now," Em said. "Besides, we kinda went off on a tangent. We need to talk about the future."

"You're right," I said. "Marriage is a definite possibility, but not sure about kids. I mean, we haven't been using a condom, so that might be moot, assuming genies can have kids."

"You—you would be willing to marry me?" Em asked. Her voice was low, and it quivered.

Oops. I knew she was talking about the genie stuff and thought it would be funny to misunderstand her accidentally. You know, Rom-Com style. I didn't have to sit through ninety minutes of Zach Efron going through the will they, won't they crap, to know that I would totally marry Emily, though.

"Definitely," I said.