Make a Wish

"I'm sorry, I overstepped my boundaries," he said. "I'll go." With that, he disappeared back into his bottle. Julie watched, mouth agape, as Marcus faded in a flash of light and then saw a glow from within the bottle. He'd gone back in but she couldn't figure out why. He'd seemed almost… scared? Ashamed? If so, she wondered why. He hadn't said anything to offend her, but perhaps he thought he had.

I could command him to come out again, she realized with a start. No, she couldn't. She thought of Marcus as a friend, and Julie simply did not order her friends about. Marcus was worried, and she didn't want to him to fear her, but she thought perhaps it would be best to wait until the morning, when she had a clearer head. Right now, she was completely emotionally drained. There were too many thoughts spinning in her head.

x-x-x-x-x

Marcus sat in his room, inside his bottle. Well, not exactly inside the bottle. He had heard someone, ages ago, in India, he thought, explain the magical physics about this place, but he lost the thread of it before the man had even begun. All he remembered was the more succinct summary, that the bottle was a system unto itself, and the space inside it was actually on a different plane of existence. Following those thoughts for too long made his head hurt, but it was better than wondering whether Julie was mad at him.

He had had previous experiences with angry masters, and none had been pleasant. All of it because wishes had either not been possible, or not fulfilled in the way the master had anticipated. Marcus was helpless in either case. His power was limited, despite what others might want to believe. Many made their wishes carelessly, with no thought for implications or consequences, and then blamed him afterwards.

However, Marcus discovered that all of this paled in comparison with the idea that Julie was angry with him. He hadn't meant to say that, at least not in that manner. He was trying to help her, to reassure her, but his statement was an imperative and that wasn't done. So -- and he'd be the first to admit it -- he had panicked and fled like a coward. Julie could, of course, make him come back, and part of him hoped she would, although he feared her reaction.

Sighing, he lay down on his bed. He wouldn't sleep, he was sure, but he could pretend.

x-x-x-x-x

The next morning, Julie stared at Marcus' bottle. She was trying to think of how to get him to come out of the bottle. She hated the idea of ordering him, so perhaps she could ask. She supposed it amounted to the same thing for him, but she would feel better if it was phrased as a request.

"Marcus, would you please come out?" she asked quietly. For a moment, nothing happened, but then there was a glow inside the bottle, and then Marcus was kneeling in front of her. She couldn't understand why, and was suddenly at a loss for words.

After a few minutes, she took a deep breath. This was silly, she simply needed to talk to him. There were things she needed to understand, issues she needed to sort out, and sitting here staring at him wasn't going to get them anywhere.

"Marcus, please look at me," she said gently. He did raise his eyes, but only after hesitating for a few more moments. Julie wondered at the apprehension she saw in his face and almost before she knew it, she reached out a hand to stroke his cheek. "What happened last night?" she asked. "Why did you disappear like that?"

Marcus couldn't answer immediately, as he savored her touch. But she was his master, and so he had to respond. "I almost… I almost gave you a command," he said. "I can't do that. It's against the rules. You can… you can punish me, if you like." Not that he hadn't punished himself over and over during the night.

"What are you talking about?" Julie was genuinely puzzled. "What command?" Marcus explained how he had warned her against letting herself sink into self-pity.

"And, because you are my master -- even though you've never acted like that, and you're the kindest master I've ever had -- it's your right, if you choose, to punish me." Marcus dropped his eyes to the floor.

"Marcus, please, sit next to me," Julie said. He did, but kept his eyes lowered. Finally, Julie put her fingers under his chin and gently forced him to look at her. "That wasn't a command, that was good advice." Marcus blinked, realizing she wasn't angry. She continued, "You were right, I can't beat myself up over how things happened with my parents. It solves nothing, and it keeps me from moving on with my life. You weren't giving me a command, you were a friend, giving me good advice."

Julie looked at him intently, pleased to see some of the tension leave his face. His eyes, she noticed, were a dark, dark brown and she could easily get lost in them. That thought made her take a breath and drop her hand from his chin. She shouldn't let herself think like that. Over the past few weeks, she'd become so used to Marcus being there, she had come to consider him a friend. She couldn't even think of him as an employee, which was about as close to the master/servant relationship as she could comfortably get. No, she was growing more attached and attracted to him, and that wouldn't work. He wouldn't be able to stay.

Maybe I can just never wish for anything, and then he can't leave, she thought. Immediately, she rejected that. That was unfair to Marcus, and for all she knew, there was a statute of limitations on wishes.

"I'd like to be your friend." Marcus' voice brought her back to the present. "You've been much more a friend to me than anything else." Julie nodded, not quite able to speak. She gripped his hand in hers and leaned against his shoulder. She didn't want him to leave, that much she knew. So for the moment, she simply let herself take some comfort from his presence.

x-x-x-x-x

After that conversation, Julie and Marcus fell into a comfortable routine for the next couple of weeks. Julie took care of the funeral arrangements, grateful for the time off work that her boss insisted she take. Mindy helped as best she could, mostly listening when Julie was frustrated with paperwork, or simply sitting quietly with her friend as they sipped coffees on their breaks.

Once the funeral was over, there was the will to execute, although that was fairly simple. Her parents had left everything to her, aside from a few charitable requests. Their house, where she'd been living, was paid off with funds from the estate, and she decided to stay there for the foreseeable future.

Both of them felt an undercurrent of tension, but by common agreement, did not discuss it. Julie still searched for a way to release Marcus without having to make wishes, and he calmly bided his time, hoping that the release didn't come too soon.

x-x-x-x-x

"Marcus, have you ever seen a movie?" Julie asked him. Just the other day, a thought had popped into her head that he might enjoy a certain movie. Then she wondered if he even knew what they were. Who knew what went on in those bottles? Did he even stay in it those times when she wasn't around and he had his time to himself? She'd have to ask him.

"Sure, I've seen movies," he said. "We have a lot of time to kill sometimes, us genies."

"Do you, really?" she asked. "I mean, I've been wondering about that. I don't mean to be nosy, but it does seem like it would get lonely and boring, cooped up inside that bottle all the time."

"I can't explain it all," he said as he cooked dinner. He'd gotten quite good at it, using her stove and equipment. He found he could easily do a much more varied menu. Well, he could have conjured things up magically, he supposed, but it was so much more fun to do it by himself. Plus, he had to admit, he loved it when Julie praised his work or thanked him for his efforts. "But someone once told me that the genie world, when we're in our bottles, it's sort of another plane of existence. Parallel, slightly overlapping, something like that." He lifted his pan and flipped the mushrooms and onions he was sautéing. Julie quelled the urge to applaud but couldn't hide a smile.

"So, I actually do have friends I can visit," he said, putting the pan back down and reducing the heat. "And we talk and trade stories and we can even see what's going on in the outside world." He grinned, remembering. "A friend of mine, Josta, he tried having electricity in his bottle."

"Could he do that?" Julie asked, surprised.

"Well, wiring the place didn't go to well, and he tried everything," Marcus told her. "He tried magic, he tried having cords all over the place. Finally he settled for stocking up on batteries." Julie laughed. "It worked okay, although he couldn't play the video games he liked so much."

"Can't you power things, I don't know, magically?" Julie asked, genuinely curious. I've come a long way, she thought, from someone who dismissed all of this and is now talking about it like it's rational.

"It takes too much effort," he said, adding the vegetables to another pan containing browned ground beef. "It wears you out, you'd be surprised. There are books, libraries probably, devoted to this stuff, but it just makes my head spin."

"So how do you watch movies, then?" she asked.

"Well, I've actually been to theaters," he said. "When movies first came out, my master at the time was almost obsessed with them. He was always wishing to get in for free and get the best seats and things like that. Silly things, and I didn't like the owners losing his admission price, but unfortunately, I didn't have much choice. So I've seen movies from the ground up, so to speak."

"Oh, well, then, never mind," she said, disappointed but trying to hide it. If he'd seen movies from their inception, surely he'd seen the one she wanted to show him. It was a nice thought, she guessed, but how do you surprise someone who was hundreds of years old, had lived and watched so much of history, and was magic, to boot? She'd have to think of something else.

Marcus finished building his shepherd's pie, sensing something was amiss with Julie. He didn't know quite what to say, not knowing what was wrong. He cursed the fact that he could only react, only respond when ordered or questioned. Julie had told him he was a friend, so he could probably speak first, but centuries of conditioning -- no of his nature -- held him back. Despite not being a generally introspective person, he found himself thinking about his dilemma nearly all the time. It was straightforward -- he loved Julie but didn't know if he could or should tell her. So why wasn't the solution so easy? If he was human, it would be. But he was a genie, and so it wasn't. He had spoken with some of the friends he'd mentioned to Julie, but none of them were able to help, since they knew of no similar situations.

Like Marcus, they'd been genies for centuries. They'd been that way for so long that any desire to question their being or situation had pretty much died out. No thinking outside the bottle for them, he realized. He would have to figure it out himself. What would happen, he wondered, if he simply told her? Would she order him away? Would whoever watched the magical world smite him down?

He sighed and put the shepherd's pie in the oven. Perhaps, he thought, he would simply have to take a chance and see what happened. He looked over to see Julie sitting at the table, chin in hand, staring out the window. She was beautiful, he thought suddenly. She was beautiful, he loved her and he didn't ever want to leave. He was going to have to take that chance.

Marcus went over to the table and sat next to Julie. "Is everything all right?" he said.

She smiled at him, a little ruefully. "I found a movie I thought you'd enjoy, but I wasn't sure if you even knew what they were. I forget… I forget what you are, how old you are. Of course, you know what movies are. I should have realized that. I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Marcus was taken aback. He couldn't remember the last time a master had apologized to him. Marcus wasn't even sure why she was apologizing.

"For… I mean…" Julie sighed. "I can't explain it exactly. I don't want you to think I thought you were stupid, or ignorant. I just forget, like I said. I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. It's hard to guess what you might know or not know and I should give you the benefit of the doubt."

You are incredible, Marcus thought. "It's all right," he said. He was touched that she thought about him so much and cared about his feelings. He smiled. "It is hard to get used to, let alone understand. I don't even try that hard to understand it myself. Besides, it's hardly insulting to be thought of as younger than several hundred years old." Julie smiled at that. "And it's not like I've seen every movie ever made or anything. Which one did you find?" He was genuinely curious.

Julie blushed and slid a DVD case over to him. Marcus picked it up, read the title and began laughing. Soon he was roaring, throwing his head back as he laughed. As he settled down, he realized he should have guessed. He looked down again at the movie. "Cleopatra" was written in ornate gold letters across the top, with a picture of Liz Taylor in heavy makeup and short, severe dark hair underneath. Rex Harrison and Richard Burton also figured on the cover, as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, respectively.

She remembered, he thought, still chuckling. At their first meeting, she had caught his name and recognized it. She'd never said anything since, and he thought it had gone out of her mind.

"You've probably seen it," she said. What had possessed her to do this? It had seemed like a good, fun idea, and now he most likely thought she was crazy. She dearly hoped he hadn't taken it as any kind of insult. Maybe, if I'm lucky, he'll just not get it at all, she thought. This was so dumb. Marcus had just been so good, so kind, and so very nice to her this whole time and since her parents died. They'd become friends. Julie found herself wanting to do something for him, to spend some time with him, to just have a little fun. When she'd seen the movie on the shelf at the mall, she couldn't help herself. Now she was regretting it.

"No, no, I haven't," he said, sensing her fears and anxious to assuage them. "Really, I haven't. It looks like great fun, though. I'd like to see it." She finally looked at him and Marcus found himself lost in her gray eyes. He didn't know if he'd ever seen eyes like that before.

"Okay," she said, feeling relieved. "It's kind of campy and over-long but I think it's a lot of fun. If you get bored, though, just say so and we'll turn it off."

Marcus refused, though, to let her turn it off. He loved the movie, howling at some of the more egregious historical inaccuracies. At times laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes, he begged Julie for the remote control so that he could review scenes that struck him as most ridiculous. Julie couldn't help but smile as she watched him. She had wanted so much to do something for him, even something as silly as this, and now that he was enjoying it, she couldn't help but be pleased.

After it was over, Marcus kept chuckling to himself while Julie ejected the disc and turned off the DVD player. "So," she asked, "did Richard Burton really look like Marc Antony? Did Liz look like Cleopatra?" She was mostly joking, but also curious.

"He looked more like the General than she looked like the queen," Marcus said after a moment's thought. "It's been a long time, though. I can't say that I remember exactly. I don't think Julius Caesar looked like that, though. Harrison was taller."

"You were really there?" Julie asked, sitting on the floor and looking at him, a little awed. "You really saw them, met them?" She shook her head. "That's just… amazing."

Marcus colored a little. "Well, you have to remember that I was just a lowly legionnaire. Fodder, really. I saw things from a big distance if I saw them at all; I certainly wasn't friends with them."

"I know," said Julie, "but still. I remember being at a rally when I was in high school, and the governor came to speak. My friends and I thought it was so cool, so amazing. That's about the closest I've come to celebrity. I think Caesar and Cleopatra trump the governor."

"I actually did speak to the General once," Marcus said. His eyes lost focus as he tried to go back through his memories. "It was before a battle. There were a bunch of us, young, barely trained, scared to death. He spent just a minute or so with each of us, and I don't even remember what he said, but I felt so much better afterwards." He shook his head to clear it. "I was still sure I would die, but I felt better."

"I'm guessing you didn't, though," said Julie.

"No, not that time," he said. Her expression became puzzled. "It was actually in Egypt," he said. "I was with the army, we were camped outside of Alexandria. This was before that whole love triangle thing broke out," he said with a half-smile. "It wasn't a battle. There were thieves in the desert, and my friends and I were incredibly naïve about such things. We weren't educated, or anything like that. We were sitting around a fire and then suddenly we were surrounded by men on horses.

"One of them took out a bottle and rubbed it, and then there was another man there." Julie's eyes were wide, but he didn't notice. "The first man wished that we would lose our voices, so as not to sound an alarm, and then we couldn't talk. He wished us to be tied up; I guess he didn't want to bother taking the time to do it himself. They took our horses and any valuables, and our food. We didn't know what to do. Then one of the original men came over and decided to slit our throats. To show they weren't afraid of Romans, I guess.

"Before he got to me, the genie came over and said we could switch places. I just needed to say some foreign words, I didn't understand them at all. That sounded a lot better than dying, so I did it. I don't know what happened to that genie, I never saw him again." Marcus fell silent. He hadn't ever told anyone about it, and he hadn't meant to do it now.

"I'd thank him if I saw him," said Julie, coming over to sit in front of him.

"Why?" Marcus asked.

"Because otherwise I would never have met you," she said, gently running her fingers along the line of his jaw. Marcus closed his eyes and savored her touch.

"May I ask you something?" Julie asked after a few moments of quiet.

Marcus looked at her, surprised. "Of course. You don't need to ask me that… you're my master."

"I know, but it's a personal question, and I want you to know that you don't have to answer if you don't want to." Marcus simply nodded. He would have to answer, regardless. "What's your name?" she finally asked. "Your real name. I don't know why, but… I'd like to know." Julie hoped she hadn't made him uncomfortable.

"Cappius," he said, slowly. "They named me after my uncle. I came to find out he wasn't a very nice man, so after I'd been a genie for a while, I decided to change my name."

"I like Marcus," she said. "It's a strong name."

"Thank you," he said. Then, "Thank you for the movie, for everything." He raised his eyes to hers. "I can't tell you how long it's been since someone has done something like that for me. I guess, being a genie, I got used to it. But… well, it means so much to me. A master doesn't have to do those things for a servant."

"But you aren't a servant, not to me," Julie said softly. "You're Marcus. You're my friend." He remained silent, too stunned and choked up to speak.

How will I ever be able to leave her? He wondered later that night. He'd long since taken to sleeping in the guest room instead of his bottle. It will kill me.