A Man for Megan

by Darlene Scalera

  Laughing, she looked down at him. “Twist and turn until you’re coiled like the serpent Sinbad met on his third voyage. It doesn’t matter. Your powers are gone. You’re no more than a mortal.”

  He looked up at the specter streaming golden. She was smiling, preparing to enjoy his reaction. He looked down at his own form. He was a man.

  So, it was done. And it mattered not at all—the loss of his powers, the theft of the throne. All that mattered was saving Megan’s life. A singular determination steadied him. “A mortal man won’t survive long in these tiers. Show mercy, and bring death to me swiftly. Surely my death will suffice for the mortal woman’s soul. Let her live.”

  Ishtar descended slowly to the ground. “Twice you’ve sacrificed your life for this woman.”

  “If I had two thousand lives to give, they would all be hers.”

  Level with him now, the goddess gazed at him. The gold lace that was draped high across her bosom evenly rose and fell.

  “Do my eyes deceive me? My ears prove false? Is this the Gilgamesh who would not satisfy a goddess’s desire and refused the riches of the high heavens above? Yet now you freely surrender your throne, your powers, your very life? And for what?”

  “For Megan,” the mortal man replied calmly.

  “Is she a sorceress, a she-devil, a siren?” Ishtar challenged.

  “She is a woman. Let her live.”

  Ishtar tipped her head, and the sun in the sky above became the cool eye of the moon. “You amuse me, Gilgamesh. Normally your disobedience would earn you death, but my good mood gives way to generosity. You will be banished.”

  “Do what you will with me. Send me straight to Hell, if you must, but save Megan.”

  “You’ll go to a sphere of sadness and trouble, tribulations and toil.”

  “Send me now, this second, before death comes any closer to the woman who waits in the world below.”

  “Gilgamesh.” Ishtar’s hand took his, her flesh as cool and smooth as ivory. “I can never say goodbye to you without great regret. Yet, I don’t doubt you will cross my path again. Until then, I will miss you. You were unique among the Jinn.”

  “My heritage predicted my place. My mother’s mortal genes made me what I was.”

  “They would’ve destroyed a lesser being. In you, they became a cause for celebration. You believed your mother cursed you, but you were blessed at birth. And in the end, the curse will come around and become a blessing.”

  “You speak in riddles, Goddess. Come clear.”

  “The answer is inside you, Gilgamesh.” She laid a hand on his chest. “It’s always been inside you. You’ll not disappoint me.” She arced her arms to send him away.

  “Wait. Answer one riddle before I go, or I’ll forever wander in uneasy exile.”

  Ishtar dropped her arms.

  “Does Megan live or die?”

  Ishtar smiled. “You have the answer. It’s inside you.”

  “No, no.” Desperation made his voice tremble. “No more games.”

  “Shh. Calm yourself. Close your eyes, and let me whisper the answer against those lips more tempting than Eden’s fruit.”

  He did as she asked, feeling a cool brush of flesh against his, hearing the words whispered, “Look inside yourself.” Then, there was nothing.

  “Did she live?” He had to know.

  He opened his eyes. Ishtar was gone. All was darkness again.

  “No-o-o-o-o!” The scream that had brought him back to this universe carried him back out.

  “Gino? Gino?”

  Someone was shaking him, calling his name. He opened his eyes, banishing the blackness. His pupils focused, seeing Kitty, her face floating above him.

  “They said one person could go in now.”

  He immediately sat up, aware of everything—the slick pull of vinyl upholstery against his clothes, the walls of innocuous beige with interchangeable floral prints. The carpet was a deeper bland hue, muffling the quick footsteps of people passing by, many of them dressed in white or equally colorless tones.

  “I wanted to go, but I think it should be you.” Kitty’s smile was betrayed by the worry pinching her features. Her eyes were puffy as if tender to the touch.

  He stood up, the fluorescent lights above casting an unreal sheen on the surroundings. Everything seemed too clear and transparent as he’d imagined in a dream scene. Genies didn’t fall prey to the dream demons, but, he knew too well, mortals did. Mortals such as he.

  A woman in white led him down a long hall. The low whoosh of machines circled all around him, soft and rhythmic as embryonic breath. He followed the straight-seamed steps of the woman leading him.

  “I hope none of the reporters got to you. We’re trying our best to keep them away. They’re all dying for a statement from you on Elliot’s arrest,” the woman said.

  Gino stopped, looking up from the rubber heels to the no-nonsense set of the woman’s back. “What?”

  The woman kept walking in staccato time as if she hadn’t heard him. By the time Gino caught up with her, she was saying, “All those months, he’d been charging Crelco for hauling chemicals, but dumping everything in the backyard. I heard on the noon report a few other guys and some old marine buddy who worked at a Canadian company were sharing in the take, but supposedly, as ring leader, Elliot was getting the bulk of it. They’re talking jail time, being he set the explosion and all.”

  “Elliot?” Gino said.

  “Hard to believe, huh? He claims he was only trying to get rid of evidence.” The woman in white stopped before a closed door. “Tell that to his ex-fiancée in there.” The woman opened the door.

  He saw Megan and forgot all else. He looked at her and felt not the joy he’d expected but dark, convulsing pain. She lay on the bed, a sheet pulled up to her bare shoulders. Tubes ran out of her mouth, her nose, and her one arm exposed above the line of the sheet, looking especially disembodied and helpless.

  He stepped toward her. She was so still, somewhere between life and death.

  “There’s been no change in the last seventy-two hours.” The woman in white was straightening tubes, checking wires, fiddling with buttons. “But it’s a miracle she’s even alive after the blast she took.”

  He stood beside the bed, looking down at her. She was motionless, her skin as white as the bedclothes except for the bruises contrasting purple. He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. He reached out, wanting to take her hand. It was so small, a narrow tube strapped to its backside. He didn’t want to hurt her.

  “Go ahead,” the woman in white said. He’d forgotten she was there. “Touch her. Talk to her.”

  He lifted the hand, which was as light as a leaf.

  “And Gino?” The unexpected sound of his name drew his attention to the woman who had brought him here. “I won’t be far.”

  He saw Ishtar’s face, then the woman vanished.

  “Ishtar,” he called. “Come back.” He looked down at Megan, the delicately drawn blue veins along her closed eyelids. “Help me,” he said in a quieter voice.

  He laid his forehead on the bed, unable to bear the sight of Megan so lifeless, so helpless, suspended between Heaven and Earth. Her hand laid in his, cool, inert, unresponsive.

  “Hell would’ve been easier, Ishtar,” he murmured. His frustration and fear ballooned into fury. His head reared up not unlike a caged animal.

  “Punish me,” he railed against the air. “But let her live.”

  His pleas met silence.

  He gazed wildly around the room, the blank walls seeming to come closer, the lingering smell of disinfectant making him nauseous. One of the machines above the bed monitoring Megan’s vitals flashed a steady seventy. Another screen kitty-corner showed a series of small blips. He stared at them, seeing what it meant to be mortal.

  He fought back the hopelessness rising like a black swell and trying to carry him away. Not yet. Not while Megan’s heart still beat.

  His genie powers were gone. He had only mort
al magic now. He knew it existed. As a genie, his human instincts had felt it, been drawn to it. It was this elusive yearning that had stood him separate from his own kind. He’d thought it a curse.

  Could it now be a blessing?

  You believed your mother cursed you, but you were blessed at birth.

  “What was I blessed with?” he asked the nothingness.

  All was still, punctuated only by the rhythmic, electronic beat of Megan’s heart as if it were a perverse lullaby. Then, the numbers on the screen began to drop—seventy, sixty-seven, sixty-five. Gino stood up and ran to the hallway, the sounds of his pleas preceding him: “Help me. Help me.”

  He jerked back the door, meeting only white fog without floor or ceiling. There was no one, nothing. He drew back.

  The numbers were still dropping, the blips barely existent.

  “Don’t die, Megan.” He went to her and picked up her hand, its skin as white as wax. His gaze darted around the room. There was no one, but Megan and he. He was the only one who could save her.

  But how? How? he mutely screamed. What was the answer? He could barely feel her frail pulse. His prayers became frenzied.

  The answer is inside you.

  He shook his head. Any answers he’d ever had were within the woman now lying so unnaturally still before him. All he had inside him now was a feeling for her so powerful, so large, it took his breath away each time he looked at her.

  The answer is inside you.

  If he was a doctor, a nurse, even a faith healer, he might know.

  But he was, now, no more than a man.

  And it was as a man, he kneeled down, bowed his forehead and laid his cheek against his beloved’s and uttered the single sentence more powerful, more extraordinary than any feat ever accomplished with his supernatural abilities.

  “I love you, Megan.”

  And in a heartbeat, Gino became one with mortal magic.

  He felt a twitch against his cheek, so slight he was afraid he’d imagined it. But when he lifted his head, he saw a small spasm beneath Megan’s closed left eye. He bent down and kissed the soft spot where the muscle had moved.

  He felt another flutter against his cheek and was certain he could feel no greater joy. He was proved wrong when he lifted his head and saw it had not been another muscle twitch summoning him, but the caress of an eyelash lifting.

  Megan looked up at him. Her hand rose and went to his cheek, his brow, his lips. The tubes were gone, and there was a glow in her eyes belying the injuries she’d suffered. She smiled, once more touching his hair, his face.

  He turned blindly into her palm, kissing its velvet plain. Her fingers curled around his cheek. Her mouth moved, working at first without sound. He bent down to her, and two words rose to meet him as delicately as life’s first breath:

  “Hi, Elvis.”

  Relief rolled into his body, making his muscles weak. He laid his cheek against Megan’s, his tears becoming hers. All that had almost come to pass welled within him. His shoulders shuddered like a wave breaking, and he clung to her as if he’d lose her again. He felt the circle of her arms, smelled the sweetness of her flesh, felt the softness of her hair, and the wave broke, convulsing his body with sobs.

  She slid her face through the wetness and found his mouth. She soothed him, gently stroking his back, his shoulders. The salt of their tears was eclipsed by the perfume of her breath, the delicate press of her mouth.

  He closed his eyes and calmness came.

  If he was asked how long the kiss continued, he wouldn’t know. If he was asked to describe the touch of her lips to his, the sweet melding of their mouths, the heady taste of her breath bringing life to his starved soul, he wouldn’t be able to find the words. All he knew when their mouths separated, and he could still feel the smile of her lips, was that the curse was over.

  He held tight the woman he loved and came home.

  “What happened, Gino?” she asked him.

  He told her about his return to the Upper Realms, the meeting with Ishtar, the loss of his genie self.

  “You’re a human now? Just like me?”

  He smiled lovingly at her. “I still sport a few different parts.”

  He watched, certain his own joy would only be magnified by her features. Instead he saw her brows beetle. Worry lines wrinkled the bridge of her nose. He became alarmed. “You’re disappointed?”

  “No, no.” Yet pain tensed her expression. “But I wished for your life?”

  He smiled once more, drawing her to him and kissing her lips, pulled tight with worry. “And now, I have my life.”

  “But your throne? Your powers? Your dream?”

  “What good is a throne without a queen? What use were all my powers if I couldn’t love? I have no dream but you, Megan.”

  “You sacrificed everything?”

  “I sacrificed nothing.”

  The tightness was easing away from her mouth. Still she protested. “But, you said you couldn’t save us both? Your powers weren’t strong enough.”

  “My genie powers weren’t strong enough. But I have new powers now, human powers that derive their strength from the single greatest source of power known to man—love. It was that power that saved you…and me. I love you, Megan.”

  She listened to what he said, her lips now lax with wonderment. He saw the same awe in her eyes as she tangled her hands in his hair and drew his head down in a dreamlike descent.

  “I love you, Gino.”

  She kissed him as if tasting him for the first time, the caress of her tongue, the press of her body mutely beckoning. She held fast to him, their mouths moving in a rhythmic give and take, the kiss deepening into a dance without leads, her whispered words of affection met with his replies until all that surrounded them was the repeated joy of love.

  Neither was aware of the nurse at the door until they heard: “You’re awake? And already participating in physical therapy?”

  The lovers looked up. Megan’s lips were full and fat from Gino’s kisses, the flush on her skin speaking not embarrassment but happiness.

  Sunlight angled across the doorway, allowing Gino to see only a female figure outlined in white.

  The nurse walked briskly into the room, Megan’s open chart in her hand. The sun’s glare still obscured her face. She turned to lower the shade against the strong light, and Gino saw the long strand of white-blond hair that had worked its way loose from beneath her cap. He got up.

  The nurse was turning toward Megan as Gino rounded the bed.

  “Miss Kelly, I don’t see a doctor’s order discontinuing your IV? Who took your tubes out?” she demanded.

  “You did, Ishtar.” Gino grabbed the nurse by the shoulders, turning her toward him. “Now let me give you a great, big, wet…” He was stopped by the stranger’s face before him.

  “A great, big, wet what, Sir?” the nurse asked, setting down Megan’s chart and folding her arms beneath a sturdy bosom.

  Megan giggled. The nurse turned back toward the bed, warily watching Gino from the corner of her eye.

  “Miss Kelly, you’ve taken a miraculous turn for the better.” She took Megan’s arm and held it firmly at the wrist to check her pulse. “Still, let’s move a little slower down the road to recovery.” She counted the seconds on her oversize wristwatch. “That means not removing your tubes and restricting activity with your…” She sent Gino a disapproving look. “Friend.”

  She dropped Megan’s wrist, and lifting the sheet halfway, rolled her with automatic movements to one side, then the other. When she was finished, the nurse folded her arms once more beneath her breasts, sucked in her cheeks and looked down at Megan.

  “I’m going to get the doctor,” she pronounced.

  “Is something wrong?” Megan and Gino both asked.

  “No, nothing’s wrong.”

  “So, that’s good?” Gino said.

  The nurse turned at the door. “That’s impossible.” Gino waited until the nurse left, then sat down on the bed ne
xt to Megan. “Something tells me if we don’t make a run for it, we’ll be spending the next few hours explaining your ‘miraculous recovery.’”

  Megan lifted the sheet and looked down the length of her body. “I don’t understand it myself,” she said, looking up over the edge of the sheet. “Did you do this?”

  “My powers are much more mundane now.”

  The sheet fell as Megan trailed a fingertip along the top of Gino’s thigh. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  He smiled. “You’re going to get me in trouble with Nurse Hatchett again.”

  Megan laughed, the sound rivaling the most wondrous musical piece ever composed. “I think a great, big, wet one was exactly what she needed.”

  “Sorry,” Gino declined. “My days of battling beasts are over. My guess is Ishtar took away your injuries.”

  As if in answer, sunlight slanted beneath the half-mast blinds and fell on the two lovers in a warm golden glow.

  “Let’s go home.” Gino stood and walked toward the narrow metal closet.

  Megan, sitting up in the bed, said, “I still can’t believe it about Elliot. I suppose he had it all figured out in his head so it made sense, but did he really think he could get away with it?”

  “He almost did,” Gino pointed out.

  “Still, I know he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I’d really like to help him.”

  “We will, honey. When we get home, I’ll make some calls—one to a businessman I know who gets a kick out of turning around falling enterprises, another to a hotshot lawyer who may be able to get Elliot off with just financial restitution and community service.”

  Megan smiled. “I’m impressed.”

  “It pays to have ex-masters in high places.” Gino pulled back the metal door, exposing the closet’s empty insides. “But before we can do anything, we’ve got to get you some clothes.”

  Wrapping the sheet around her, Megan got up and went to the closet. “Kinda makes you miss the good ol’ days when you could just blink me into something.” She twisted the sheet tighter around her. “Maybe nobody will even notice.”

  “Nobody but the crowd of newspeople hanging around the hospital. If they see you walking out of here like this, we’re talking more exposure than a hospital gown. Listen, wait here. I’ll see if I can find us some scrubs or something. I’ll be right back.”