Magical Gains

by Nicola E. Sheridan

  Suddenly she heard the door click open behind her. Her chest tightened with panic as the door clicked again, shutting with frightening finality. Gingerly, she turned around. Ian stood enormous and radiating anger, blocking the only exit from the room.

  “Your friend in there refuses to speak to me…” Ian began angrily, casting a murderous glance over his shoulder. “What am I to think, Primrose? Who is he? I come home and there is this guy—and you in the shower? It doesn’t look good.” His questions were fired like arrows, each making Primrose jerk with nervousness.

  “He is Imran, a…a...friend from university. He will be staying with us for a while, until he…sorts out alternative accommodation,” Primrose stuttered.

  “What? I live here too, Primrose! You should have consulted me,” Ian yelled explosively and stepped forward using his considerable size to intimidate her.

  Primrose cowered slightly from him.

  “That is true,” she conceded, “but Imran is my friend, and this is still my house.” She spoke extremely softly, stepping back away from him until she collided with the bed. She stumbled in shock, nearly falling over. Ian sneered in distain.

  “I knew this would be a problem!” Ian cursed. “I knew we should have moved into my apartment! Instead, I gave in to you and am stuck living in this dump with your blow-ins!”

  Primrose crumpled a little under the assault. She loved her home, and agreeing to marry Ian had been on the proviso that they lived in her house. The thought of living in his sterile apartment in the city had horrified her.

  “It’s not a dump and Imran isn’t a blow-in,” she said.

  “I know nothing about this guy, yet you just let him come waltzing into our lives! You really know how to piss me off, don’t you?” Ian stepped toward her again, and Primrose flinched as his hand clenched by his side. Ian hesitated a moment, his head tilted as if he heard something. With a guttural growl and surprising speed, he turned and pulled open the door. The hallway was empty. Ian stared, for a second, down the hallway toward the living room, where Imran was visible beyond the doorway. His eyes narrowed. “We’ll talk about this later!” Ian muttered before stomping loudly from the room.

  Primrose sank down on the bed for a moment, trying to steady her rapidly beating heart. She felt foolish and embarrassed, and more than anything wanted to hide in her room until this awkward situation was over. Knowing there could be no resolution made by hiding, after a few moments of procrastination, Primrose returned to the living room. Ian was sitting stiffly, tapping and jostling his knee with agitation. Imran however, in his black suit and open shirt, was lounging on the couch looking completely relaxed. Primrose was struck by a physical yearning to touch him. She stood still and stared, battling to control her feelings.

  “Primrose,” Imran interrupted, drawing Primrose’s attention back to reality. “I hope my presence here isn’t going to be a problem?” He threw a questioning glance at Ian, who tried unsuccessfully to turn his grimace into a neutral face.

  “No, mate. Sorry, I’m just a bit stressed at work,” Ian replied, and although his words were conciliatory, his body language was still tense and angry.

  Imran remained impassive as Ian awkwardly thrust out a big meaty hand.

  “I’m Ian Beckwith,” he growled.

  “Abdul Imran,” Imran replied after a moment’s pause. He eyed Ian’s large paw with distaste, but took it and shook firmly. “I see I have arrived at an inopportune time. You are obviously going out.” His eyes locked on Primrose.

  “Err, yes,” Primrose said softly. “Perhaps, Ian, I might stay in tonight and get Imran settled. I didn’t know he was arriving and haven’t sorted out the spare room.” Her gaze stuck on the new brass lamp that sat on the coffee table. “Could you give my regrets to Emma and Theo?”

  Ian’s face hardened again, but he gave a curt nod. Primrose knew that despite his boorish behavior, Ian was upset a stranger witnessed him manhandle his fiancée. Primrose knew she had an irritating habit of managing to be late or out of contact when it was most inconvenient. Sometimes Ian couldn’t stop himself, she reasoned, even though he wanted to—at least some of the time.

  Ian leaned over to Primrose and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry. I overreacted,” he whispered and gave her backside a rub for Imran’s benefit. “I’ll make it up to you.” His voice was a gruff whisper.

  “Bye,” Primrose muttered, daring a glance in Imran, whose face showed nothing but disgust as Ian clunked awkwardly from the room.

  The silence between them was heavy as they listened to Ian’s car reverse away.

  “Well, who was that charming piece of chewed carrion?” Imran asked, knocking Primrose from her morbid musings.

  “Oh. Ian, my fiancé.” She tried to hold his dark gaze but failed.

  “You deserve a prize for picking such a fine miscreant.”

  “Oh, be quiet,” Primrose snapped. “You caught him on a bad day.”

  Imran looked rather skeptical on that account, and remained silent.

  “Look, Ian can’t find out you’re a Genie,” Primrose began. “It would ethically compromise his work…”

  “Ethically compromise his work?” Imran retorted. “Ian’s entire existence is one large ethical compromise by my reckoning…”

  A snort of amusement threatened to erupt into a hysterical fit, but Primrose soon had it under control.

  “Please don’t be mean,” she whispered, still unable to hold Imran’s unflinching gaze. “What are we going to do, then?” Primrose asked, sinking down onto the couch. “I can’t accept your three wishes. They will find out.”

  “I don’t know. This has never happened before,” Imran replied, watching her curl up and drape a blanket over her knees. “When do you have an RMIT? Ah, what are they called? Magical Traces test? Perhaps if we did the wishes after you have one of those?”

  “They are random tests! RMIT stands for Random Magical Ion Test so, obviously, I don’t know when I will have one,” Primrose said rather heatedly. “Look, besides that,” she added in a softer tone, “I don’t have anything I want to wish for, not really.”

  Imran laughed. The sound of his voice was melodious, rich, soft, and smooth. Just like liquid chocolate. Primrose shivered despite herself.

  “Don’t do that,” she gasped.

  “Laugh? That is a crime now?” Imran laughed again, his eyes creasing with amusement at her evident discomfort. “Do not tell such pitiful lies to me, Primrose. Everyone has wishes. Even you, despite your churlishness, must have some.”

  Primrose frowned at being called churlish, but thought for a moment.

  Imran watched her.

  What Primrose would have liked to wish for wasn’t something she could readily admit to. She wished Ian wasn’t so harsh and aggressive, she wished her friends hadn’t become Ian’s friends, and she wished their sex life was better. She wished her life choices had been better ones, but most of all, she wished for a happily ever after, and it wasn’t with Ian. However, admitting these things would confirm her failure—her failure to be a good partner, a successful daughter, and a strong woman. Primrose could barely admit to thinking these thoughts, let alone tell them to someone like Imran.

  “No,” she replied a little sullenly. “Nothing you could help with.”

  Her unspoken thoughts hung, obviously, between them.

  Imran looked down and ran his hands through his hair in a gesture that this time epitomized his frustration. “You wouldn’t like to earn more money?”

  Primrose felt a hot flush of attraction. Surely not all Genies were this attractive.

  “Of course, but I work for the Department of Magical Culture and they have magicians to ensure no one cheats by getting pay raises through magical means.”

  “How dull,” Imran replied. “Well, let me know when you’ve thought
of something. I will be in the spare room...if you want me,” he added with a slight laugh before stalking out.

  Primrose began to say something, but then saw black swaths of smoke billow from the spare room and she rushed in.

  “Don’t use magic!” she shrieked, but her mouth fell agape as she saw the transformation of the spare room. “Oh, gosh!”

  Imran was reclined on a large oriental bed. His shirt was gone, revealing a toned, tanned, and muscular body. From the ceiling hung red silk curtaining that surrounded most of the bed. The room was warm, and smelled intoxicatingly spicy. It looked like something from a Sultan’s harem.

  “I gather you like it?” Imran said softly, patting the bed with a suggestive wink.

  Primrose did like it, very much. It fitted in with the Persian theme of her home beautifully.

  “That’s beside the point,” Primrose blustered, “if the DMC know you did this with magic!”

  “How will they find out?” he interrupted. “Do you intend on telling them? They don’t test your home, do they?”

  “Now there will be magical ions floating all around my house! They might contaminate me!”

  “Oh, for the love of all that is sacred, you are difficult! You of all people should know you cannot ‘catch’ ions like that! You must be touching me while I am performing magic! Unless they test your home, and come into this particular room, no one will know!” Imran cried, his face taut with frustration.

  Primrose shrank back, feeling stupid and inferior. She collided with the door frame, and turned, ready to leave. In an instant, Imran swept himself up off the bed and appeared before her, his gaze now full of remorse.

  “My apologies, Mistress.” He inclined his head and his warm breath blew her hair lightly. “I didn’t mean to treat you with disrespect—it is not a Genie’s way.”

  Primrose looked away. Her cheeks suddenly felt hot, and it had nothing to do with feeling stupid. Awkwardly, she excused herself to the kitchen.

  Primrose stood in the kitchen, looking over the dark garden. She really did not know how to deal with her wildly fluctuating feelings toward this Genie. She sighed, the trees whispered in the light wintery breeze, and the moon began to shine weakly. Suddenly Primrose felt quite empty and alone. She wished she could telephone someone. However, what would she say? What could she say? None of her friends knew anything of Ian’s darker moods as Primrose never had the strength to talk about them. Besides, it wasn’t Ian she wanted to talk about anyway. It was the strange magical being in her spare room, who looked like he just stepped from the pages of a magazine. He was gorgeous and witty and had an air of confidence Primrose could only hope to possess. More than anything, she wanted to wish herself away from this mediocre existence, but that, she knew, was not an option.

  Sighing and bottling her rioting emotions and hormones in the darker recesses of her mind, she busied herself making something to eat. When she had eaten and felt a glimmer of confidence begin to warm in her gut, she knocked on Imran’s door.

  “There is some dinner here if you want it,” Primrose said a little more brusquely than she intended. She placed the plate on the floor near the door and walked back to the living room, without waiting for an answer. Primrose wasn’t exactly sure whether Imran would want to eat his own magically created food or her plain fare. At any rate, it seemed common politeness to offer, and despite their awkward circumstances, she certainly did not want him to think ill of her.

  Suffice to say, Primrose spent the rest of the evening in front of the television watching reality TV and occasionally mopping the errant tears that kept falling from her eyes, although she didn’t quite know why.

  Chapter Two

  It was about ten thirty before Primrose decided to retire for the night. She walked past Imran’s room and noticed the food was gone. She hesitated there for a moment. “Good night, Imran,” she called through the door.

  “You’re welcome to spend it with me,” he replied with a smile in his voice.

  “Thank you, but no.” She laughed softly. “I think Ian would definitely have a problem with that.”

  It was shortly after midnight when Primrose awoke to the sound of a strange car in the driveway. She then heard the awkward fumbling of keys and the doorknob. Ian was home, by taxi, and he was drunk. This meant only one thing—drunken sex. Primrose cringed as Ian’s silhouette loomed in the doorway.

  “Prim?” he whispered loudly. “You awake?”

  “Shhh. You’ll wake Imran!” Primrose whispered, equally as loud.

  Ian closed the door behind him and switched on a bedside lamp.

  “Jeezuz, I’m sorry, Prim,” he said and knelt beside the bed. Primrose squinted in the sudden light. His face was close and his breath was laced heavily with beer. Primrose despised beer. “I don’t know why I get so angry…” He kissed her wetly. Primrose fought her revulsion and kissed him softly back before pulling away. “Let me make it up to you…” He kicked off his shoes, heaving his massive bulk onto the bed and pinioning Primrose under the covers.

  “I’m not in the mood, Ian. I’m tired,” Primrose whispered, hoping Imran couldn’t hear through the thin cement sheeting walls.

  “I love you, Prim,” Ian groaned, kissing her again and weaseling his way beneath the covers. He lay next to her a moment, his breathing heavy. Primrose remembered a time when she found Ian Beckwith the most romantic and loving man in the world, but that had been years ago. Bit by bit, Ian’s shining personality corroded and tarnished, and Primrose wasn’t sure why. She lay there musing over this fact as Ian’s big hand roved toward her, lifting up her nightie and rubbing her stomach. It was rough from the rugby he played, and so big its span spread the width of her belly.

  “Ian, I’m really…”

  Ian gave Primrose another gut-curdling beer kiss to silence her, and his hand ventured lower and grappled roughly, although not intentionally so, with her most sensitive parts. He groaned excitedly and released himself from the confines of his trousers. Primrose could feel the hot, hard length of him press between her thighs.

  “God, I love you,” he said thickly, and without further foreplay he thrust forward heavily. Ian groaned noisily in satisfaction, while Primrose moaned in dismay and discomfort. As he pummeled backward and forward, Primrose knew this wasn’t going to be a short coupling. After drinking, Ian—like many men, Primrose presumed—found it difficult to climax, and became more brutal and determined to reach it. After fifteen minutes, Primrose felt raw and close to tears. “Stop, Ian, please,” she gasped into the cloth of his shirt.

  “I’m…almost…there,” he grunted and thrust.

  A loud sob erupted from Primrose “Please…you’re hurting…”

  Ian silenced her with yet another wet kiss and thrust even harder and quicker to achieve his goal. When Ian was finally sated, Primrose bit her lip to stop from crying.

  “God, Prim. I love you,” Ian whispered as he rolled off her.

  Primrose gasped in relief, and rolled out of the bed.

  “Where ya going?” he murmured sleepily, tugging off his clothes and crawling back into the bed.

  “I need a bath,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears.

  “Yeah? Well, don’t wake up Imran,” Ian replied, without a trace of irony.

  Primrose said nothing, but slipped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. She noticed there was no light coming from the cracks in the doorway from Imran’s room and she prayed he was fast asleep.

  Primrose put some sandalwood-scented bath salts in the bath and waited until it filled. She stripped off her nightie and sank into the hot brackish water. She stung where she had been used, and the tears she held onto fell fast and furious down her cheeks, plopping into the steaming, scented water.

  Primrose didn’t know why she put up with this. She really didn’t. Some part of her reasone
d that at thirty-one, she ought to be married and Ian was the only one willing to take the job. Additionally, Ian would support her when they had children, so she could stay at home and rear them. Not many men could, or would, do that these days. Was it such a bad compromise, she wondered?

  When the bath water cooled and the clock read 2:30 a.m., Primrose crept back to the bedroom. She felt much better, and as she walked past Imran’s room, a red light glowed. Hesitating at the doorway for a moment, she wondered whether she should enter. She decided not to, and slunk back unwillingly to Ian, who was fast asleep and snoring loudly. Primrose sighed heavily, dug out her earplugs, curled up next to the behemoth, and went to sleep.

  The next morning was a Saturday, and Ian arose early and nosily to ready himself for rugby training. He already asked Primrose to drop him off at the oval, as his car was still at Emma and Theo’s. Tired and unsettled, Primrose really wanted a sleep-in, but knew there was little she could do but comply.

  Reluctantly, Primrose dressed in the bedroom, and slipped on a warm, pale blue tracksuit and white socks. Now that she was up, at least she could get to the gym early.

  Ian was in the kitchen, and much to her surprise, had made her a breakfast.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said softly, throwing a worried glance at Imran’s still-shut door.

  “Which part?” Primrose asked archly.

  Ian looked confused for a moment. “About in the shower, I shouldn’t have cuffed your head. I’m sorry.” He roughly patted her back.

  Primrose looked down, barely acknowledging the patting. Arguments and acidic remarks flooded her brain, but all that came out was a “That’s okay,” when she knew it really wasn’t.

  Both Ian and Primrose fell silent, and he gently passed her a hot cup of mint tea.

  As she sipped at the tea, Imran appeared. He was dressed in tan corduroy trousers and a V-neck white sweater. He looked refreshed and confident, the antithesis of Primrose, who nervously neatened her hair into a low ponytail.