Doctor M.C.'s Blog

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The Gamma virus brought an apocalypse—a sexy apocalypse

The Gamma artificial virus was created in a laboratory in Jeshyauss Laboratories, Inc.; the Gamma virus was never intended to leave its laboratory.

The Gamma virus was intended as practice for building the artificial Delta virus. The Delta virus, when injected, would give 99 percent of women who were between age nineteen and menopause, the body they’d had at nineteen. The Delta virus would make billions for Jeshyauss Laboratories, Inc.; this was the plan.

But everything changed on the night that the Jeshyauss Laboratories janitor stole a test tube—the wrong test tube. Then the test tube broke, and nine people were exposed to the Gamma virus.

This was a big problem.

Mainly because the Delta virus was not contagious, but the Gamma virus was highly contagious.

Another reason that nine people being exposed to the Gamma virus was a problem? The Gamma virus youthened 99 percent of women who were between age nineteen and menopause, just like the Delta virus did—but the Gamma virus did much more than youthening. Gamma-infected women saw their boobs grow and their butt grow, even as the women grew slimmer overall. An affected woman’s sex drive went supernova during ovulation; then later, at the end of her youthening process, the woman craved sex every minute. In short, the Gamma virus eventually turned 99 percent of virus-exposed women of childbearing years into bimbos.

To make things even more challenging, almost any man, teenager, child, or oldster, even while he or she did not even sneeze, became infectious with the Gamma virus just one day after being exposed to the virus. Anyone whom a woman of childbearing years talked to, could pass the Gamma virus to her without either person knowing.

By the time television news made people aware of the Gamma virus, the virus had spread from Austin, Texas all over the world.

The result? The world was hit with something like a zombie apocalypse, but sexier. For one thing, it was not brains that infected women wanted to gobble.

The novel is 42,000 words.

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A boring Monday, 4:45 p.m.

Employee entrance, Jeshyauss Laboratories

Austin, Texas

Nineteen-year-old Joe Magner, the after-shift security guard, held his chip-embedded employee badge against the outside badge-reader. When the light turned green, he pulled the door open and took two steps inside.

Waiting in the hallway, just on the other side of the door, was Charlie, the day-shift employee-area security guard.

Charlie was grinning; he was seconds away from being able to leave. Before Joe could say a word, Charlie said, “Day shift was quiet, I expect for after-shift to be quiet, the flip phone”—Charlie gestured through the open door of the security station—“and the keys are laying on the desk.”

“And you, Charlie, are eager to go home,” Joe said, grinning.

Charlie grinned back. “Yeah, Joe, it is really nice to get a fifteen-minute jump on five o’clock rush-hour traffic.”

Charlie then put his hands on his head and slowly turned around in a 360-degree circle. “No stolen cash from Payroll in my pockets, no microscope hidden in the front of my shirt, no Petri dish shoved down the back on my shirt. I’m clean.”

Charlie rolled a sectioned table that was on rollers, out of the security station and into the hallway. “Shall I empty my pockets for your inspection?”

Joe laughed. “Go home.”

Charlie reached a hand into the security station and smacked something.

Joe was smiling as he said, “Hey, that’s my job to hit the Okay button now, because this is my shift.”

Charlie grinned at him. “Right now I’m faster than you, because I more want those green lights to tell me ‘bye-bye.’ ”

By the inside of the door was a badge-reader device, which currently showed a red light. But by the badge-reader was a big green light; that light had been red till Charlie had smacked the Okay button. So long as the big light stayed red, the badge-reader would not recognize any badge, and every employee who wished to leave was trapped inside the building.

Which in turn meant that from this minute till Joe himself left Jeshyauss Laboratories at 1:15 a.m., every employee needed Joe’s permission to leave the building.

Meanwhile, Charlie had unclipped his employee badge from the breast pocket of his security-guard shirt. Charlie now was holding his employee badge against the badge-reader.

The badge-reader’s light turned green, which now matched the green color of the big light. Charlie opened the door. “And now I’m off the clock. See you tomorrow, Joe.”

Seconds later, as Joe waved goodbye to Charlie through the glass, the door pulled itself shut. Both the badge-reader’s light, and the big light next to it, turned red.

Joe ducked into the security station, dropped the security-guard flip phone into a pocket, clipped the keys to the belt-loop of his uniform pants, and returned to the hallway.

For eight minutes, Joe stood in the hallway, bored. At 4:53, Joe got his second “customer” of the night: a young woman from Personnel. Joe made a brief search through her purse, then patted down the pockets of the coat that she was carrying. Frisking her was, of course, forbidden.

Joe reached into the security station and smacked the Okay button; the Personnel woman already was holding her badge against the badge-reader. The big light turned green; a half-second later, the little badge-reader light also turned green; then the Personnel woman was gone.

****

5:06 p.m.

Joe hit the Okay button so that Stan, who was the day-shift front-desk security guard, could go home. While the day-shift employee-area security guard (Charlie) had an after-shift relief (Joe), the front-desk guard (Stan) had no such relief. At five o’clock, the front doors locked; no one could get into the building after five o’clock, unless he came in through the employee door and he used his employee badge to get through that door.

Now Stan walked out the employee door, clocking himself out in the process. Joe looked back behind. About fifty employees were standing in line, each waiting for Joe to hit the Okay button for him or her.

Most of the waiting employees were smiling at Joe: The smilers were hourly, and every minute they stood in line earned them money.

****

5:25 p.m.

Joe watched as April, the last of Jeshyauss Laboratories’ leave-at-five crowd of mostly hourly employees, walked out the employee-entrance door. She smiled at Joe and waved.

Joe knew why April was smiling: Until Joe let her walk out the door, she was still on the clock and was still earning hourly wages. The hourly employees liked it when Joe was thorough as a security guard.

Also leaving at five o’clock tonight, and impatient at being kept waiting, had been two lawyers from Legal and some flashy guys from Sales—all salaried. Two salaried medical researchers also had been in the go-home-at-five line; they had borne the wait patiently. Neither of the go-home-at-five medical researchers had been Aunt Brooke; Joe had not been surprised one bit.

Now Joe stood by the door, in the now-empty hallway, for five more minutes, in case more of the salaried employees decided to leave now.

Joe got zilch action for five minutes.

At 5:30, Joe rolled the sectioned table into the security station, locked the security-station door, and began his rounds.

****

Jeshyauss Laboratories did gene-sequencing and other work in genetics, to invent new medical treatments. Jeshyauss Laboratories, so Aunt Brooke had told Joe, was famous in the medical industry for its artificial viruses.

“Aunt Brooke” was 31-year-old Brooke Sinise, Ph.D. She worked at Jeshyauss Laboratories as a geneticist, and Joe thought she was wicked smart—certainly about genetics.

There were always salaried people working well past five o’clock at Jeshyauss—for the past six months or so, Aunt Brooke had always been among them. And sure enough, when Joe’s 5:30 rounds took him past Research Laboratory 17 on the second floor, Joe saw Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker inside.

But oddly, Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker were not doing whatever mysterious research-things they usually did. Now Dr. Baker was grinning as he handed Aunt Brooke a Coca-Cola—in a shaped glass bottle! Aunt Brooke was grinning as she accepted the glass bottle; then Dr. Baker toasted her with his own bottle of Coke.

Curious, Joe held his badge up to the badge-reader by RL17’s door and walked in.

Joe was not the only person curious. Teppo the janitor, a man with a foreign accent, at the moment was collecting trash in Research Laboratory 15; the janitor also watched, through several glass walls, as Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker guzzled Coke.

****

Seconds later

In Research Laboratory 17, Jeshyauss Laboratories

Joe said, “Hey, Aunt Brooke, Dr. Baker, what’s going on?”

Aunt Brooke grinned. “Nephew, you are looking at two future Nobel Prize winners, I’m sure. Not bad for a former yoga instructor and”—she looked at Dr. Baker—“a former Marine corporal.”

Dr. Baker said, “We also celebrate today because any employee who owns shares of JL stock”—his Coke bottle pointed at Aunt Brooke, then at himself—“is about to get filthy rich when certain news gets out.”

Joe asked, “Whoa. What did you guys do?”

Aunt Brooke said, “About a year ago, I discovered a gene sequence on Chromosome 11 that actually reverses the aging process in women of childbearing years. Every human cell—whether belonging to a man or a woman, a baby or a geriatric—has two Chromosomes 11 in the cell. Well, over 99 percent of women have this youthening gene sequence in at least one Chromosome 11. And only one copy of this gene sequence is all the Delta virus needs.”

Joe said, “So you are celebrating because . . .?”

“Five minutes ago, we perfected an artificial virus, the Delta virus, that is 99-percent guaranteed to turn on those youthening genes in any woman we inject with the Delta virus. Joe, can you imagine how many women would want one of those shots to roll back the calendar?”

Dr. Baker grinned. “Can you imagine how much those women would pay for those shots? I can think of several fortyish Hollywood actresses who would consider a million dollars to be a bargain if they could look nineteen again.”

Joe stared. “Nineteen? Your shot will make women truly look nineteen again?”

Dr. Baker said, “Yes. A woman’s skeleton, her muscles, her skin, her internal organs—the Delta virus makes them all become young again. Only dental damage and a woman’s remaining egg-count can’t be rejuvenated. What Ponce de Leon looked for, Dr. Sinise and I have found! Well, for half the population, anyway.”

Joe said, “Hold on. If 99 out of 100 women have this in their chromosome, why do all women age? Why aren’t these genes kicking in?”

Dr. Baker sighed. “Because the rejuvenation gene-sequence in women is part of a bigger gene-sequence that activates under very emergency conditions.”

Aunt Brooke said, “The bigger gene sequence, which we named ‘EBS,’ is of no medical value. We studied it much, using VIRFE—that’s the Virtual Female program. We even went so far as to create a practice virus, the Gamma virus, that would activate the EBS in real women patients.”

Dr. Baker said, “Don’t worry, we’ve never exposed any real woman patient to the Gamma-series virus. Nor shall we, ever. But VIRFE shows us that if we did inject the perfected Gamma virus, or the woman breathed it, the full EBS would activate in that woman, even without any species-threatening ‘emergency.’ ”

Aunt Brooke said, “Anyway, developing the Gamma-series artificial virus was only practice for developing the Delta-series virus that would give women their youth back. And the Delta virus, we have just perfected it.”

Aunt Brooke hoisted her half-empty glass bottle of Coca-Cola. She was grinning, and her eyes were glowing, like a little child on Christmas morning.

****

Less than a minute later, Joe said his goodbyes to Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker, and walked out of Research Laboratory 17. Teppo the janitor watched Joe resume his rounds.

Joe thought it was odd that Teppo still was working in the Research Laboratories area. Well, Teppo has always acted a little odd.

****

Ten minutes later

Joe made a quick walk through the third floor, which contained upper-management’s offices, the Accounting Department and the Legal Department, the conference room—and the HazCon bunkroom.

The HazCon bunkroom, which was on the third floor and next to the fire stairs, looked at first like a cheap motel room. The bunkroom had a twin bed; a nightstand by the bed with an in-house telephone on the nightstand; a card table, a folding chair by the card table, and a deck of cards atop the card table; a microwave and refrigerator; and a television. A door led to a tiny bathroom with a toilet and sink.

But also in the bunkroom, hanging from a special hook, was a Hazard Containment suit; and mounted on a wall of the bunkroom was a stainless-steel cabinet that held specialized cleaning supplies.

Four people at Jeshyauss Laboratories were trained in HazCon, and one of them always stayed in the bunkhouse after five o’clock, as long as there was at least one other research-laboratory employee or production-laboratory employee in the building.

Now Joe opened the door and stuck his head in the bunkroom. “Hey, Larry, doing okay?”

Larry Ross, who was normally some sort of supervisor in the Production Laboratories, held up a book. “Looks like a slow night on TV; only good thing will be ‘Vampire Lawyer.’ ”

“So you expect to be bored tonight, you’re saying.”

Larry nodded. “Bored silly. Unless the book is good.”

****

Five minutes later

Joe finished his rounds for that hour, which consisted of—

• noting which salaried people were working late in the building;

• looking out for spies, saboteurs, and terrorists; and

• checking for signs of forced entry into the laboratories.

While the last two parts of Joe’s job were by far the most important, they were also the most unlikely. So in practice, “making rounds” meant nodding and waving at the scientists and technicians as Joe walked past their laboratories.

Fifteen minutes after Joe finished talking to Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker on the second floor, and five minutes after Joe touched base with Larry on the third floor, Joe was on the first floor. He walked up to the security station that was by the employee-entrance door.

****

5:45 p.m.

Waiting for Joe were seven salaried employees who needed his permission to leave the building. For whatever reason, six of the seven were women. One of the women was Aunt Brooke; the only man in line was Dr. Baker.

“Jeez, took you long enough,” said a pinched-faced woman who had been working in the Legal Department five minutes earlier.

As Joe unlocked the security-station door, he said, “Do you rush through your job? I don’t rush mine.”

Aunt Brooke applauded, while Dr. Baker said, “Good one!’

The woman lawyer glared at the two research scientists.

Joe was just about to give the six female employees and Dr. Baker a quick security screening when Teppo the janitor rushed up to the door.

****

One second later

“I in my car sumsink leaved,” Teppo said to Joe in his unusual accent. “I to go need it to take.”

Joe was already reaching into the security station, to slap the Okay button, when he noticed—

Teppo has a bulge in his pants pocket. A bulge that is just like what a small test tube would make.

Joe’s left hand, which had been reaching for the Okay button, now moved forward and down; Joe grabbed Teppo’s wrist. Joe’s right hand hurried into Teppo’s pants pocket and plucked out—

—a rubber-stoppered test tube, around which was black marker-pen handwriting on a blue label.

“Fuck,” said Dr. Baker.

“[Foreign words]!” Teppo exclaimed.

Teppo broke free of Joe’s grip, as his other hand grabbed the test tube out of Joe’s hand. Now it was Teppo’s empty hand that was trying to hit the Okay button.

Joe tried to grab the test tube back from Teppo, but Teppo moved his hand away.

Dr. Baker rushed forward and grabbed Teppo’s forearm with both his hands; one of Dr. Baker’s hands was pressing down on the janitor’s tendons. “Let go of it, dickwad,” Dr. Baker growled.

Teppo did some kind of twisting and pulling thing with his arm, so that he broke free of Dr. Baker’s grip. But with the restraint on Teppo’s forearm suddenly gone, the forearm acted like a catapult.

Joe saw the test tube zoom up, bounce off the ceiling, and hit the floor between the lawyer-lady and Aunt Brooke.

Glass shattered.

****

One second later

While Joe and Dr. Baker again grabbed Teppo the janitor, a woman in Marketing yelled, “We’re all going to die!”

Nobody else said this, but Joe was thinking it, and—judging by people’s expressions—most of the other people also were thinking it. Only Aunt Brooke, Dr. Baker, and Teppo looked unworried.

Aunt Brooke said, “No, dear, a blue label means it’s harmless.”

The lawyer-lady said pompously, “This is not true. Blue label means that there is a risk of illness from accidental exposure, but the odds of illness are less than 1 percent.”

Aunt Brooke rolled her eyes. “Which means, for anyone not a lawyer, the test tube is harmless.”

While Aunt Brooke and the lawyer-lady were arguing, Joe and Dr. Baker had taken Teppo down, so that now he was lying on his stomach on the floor; the men were not gentle with Teppo. Then Joe used his never-before-used handcuffs on Teppo.

Joe remembered the flip phone he was carrying, and pulled it out of his pocket.

Aunt Brooke asked, “Who are you going to call? Our HazCon guy?”

Joe replied, “No, I’m going to call the police, have them arrest this toad.”

“Nuh-uh,” Dr. Baker said. “Don’t call the police until we get this hazardous spill cleaned up.”

The Marketing woman said, her voice panicky, “But you just told us it was harmless! Were you lying?”

Aunt Brooke said, “It’s procedure. We can’t open the door, even for the police, until this is decontaminated. Joe, call the HazCon guy now, before you do anything else.” Aunt Brooke looked around. “Make yourselves comfortable, folks; we’re here for a while longer.”

“We can’t get rid of that!” said the lawyer-lady. “A crime has been committed, and this broken test tube is evidence.”

“The broken test tube is a health hazard,” Aunt Brooke explained slowly, as to a dunce, “whether its label is blue or magenta,” meaning 99-percent fatal. “Joe, I’m serious, hurry up and call the HazCon guy.”

****

Minutes later

Larry, wearing his HazCon suit, walked into the hallway. He was carrying a stainless-steel box, from which he unpacked a handheld vacuum cleaner, an LED flashlight, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. The handheld, battery-operated vacuum cleaner did not look like something sold in a big-box store; rather, the vacuum cleaner looked like it had been designed by cyborgs aboard a cube-shaped starship.

Now Larry used the small LED flashlight, which he laid flat on the floor, to find every piece of broken glass and every chunk of gelatin. Then HazCon-suited Larry, rather than vacuum up that piece of glass or gelatin, splashed rubbing alcohol on the piece of glass or chunk of gelatin. Soon the hallway smelled like a hospital.

But before Larry alcohol-splashed the broken glass that was attached to the test tube’s blue label, Aunt Brooke knelt and carefully pulled that blue label apart, so that it lay flat on the floor.

“Looks like my handwriting,” Dr. Baker remarked.

Aunt Brooke bent down so she could read the label better. Then Joe saw her whole mood change.

“17-DQ-Gamma-54F,” she read aloud, looking stunned.

Before anyone could ask what this meant, and before Dr. Baker could explain, Aunt Brooke rushed over to Teppo and yanked his head up by his hair. “You spy bastard!” she yelled. “You grabbed the final version of the Gamma virus, and it’s now airborne! Do you know what you’ve done to us women?”

Teppo sneered, “Yess, I to be you the young make. Oh, the life to be so sad is, of you.”

Aunt Brooke used Teppo’s hair to slam his chin against the floor three times. “Idiot! You are an idiot! It’s the Delta-series virus that makes women young! The Gamma-series—”

“Brooke,” Dr. Baker said in a warning tone.

“—the Gamma-series virus does much more than make women young,” Aunt Brooke said.

“Are we going to die?” asked the woman from Marketing.

Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker shared a look.

“No,” said Dr. Baker. “Dying you don’t need to worry about.”

****

A few minutes later

Larry shut off his hand-held vacuum cleaner, and pointed toward the waiting salaried employees. “Joe, the area is decontaminated. You may release them now.”

“I will,” Joe said, “after the police come.”

The lawyer-lady said primly, “When the police come, I will inform them that you destroyed evidence, contrary to the recommendation of a company attorney.”

Larry, Dr. Baker, and Aunt Brooke all gave the lawyer-lady a long, silent stare. Joe said, “Whatever, ma’am.”

As Larry was packing up his gear, the Marketing woman asked, “Is the crisis over?”

Neither Dr. Baker nor Aunt Brooke replied. But Aunt Brooke’s expression said, Lady, your crisis is just starting.

Right after HazCon-suited Larry left the hallway, Joe called the Austin, Texas police. Twelve minutes later, two policemen stood outside of the employee-entrance door.

The policemen looked annoyed when Joe opened the door only to hand the two policemen two flu masks, then slammed the door shut. The policemen were not allowed to walk into the Jeshyauss Laboratories hallway until they both were wearing the flu masks.

The two policemen looked even more annoyed when they were informed by the lawyer-lady that before the police even had been phoned, the evidence of the crime (the broken, scattered test tube) had been tampered-with and removed, presumably to be destroyed.

The policemen stayed in the hallway for an hour, questioning everyone. Larry was summoned downstairs and, without his HazCon suit, he was questioned too. Then Joe took his handcuffs off Teppo the janitor, the younger policeman slapped his own cuffs on Teppo, and Teppo was hauled away.

Then Joe went back to doing his regular job: checking the bags and briefcases of departing employees. Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker were unusually quiet during their bag-checks. Joe did not cut corners at bag-checking, but neither did he dawdle at the task. By seven o’clock, the grumpy and/or frightened salaried employees were bag-checked and out the door. Joe began his rounds then—his six o’clock rounds, an hour late.

Part of Joe’s rounds was to check the Personnel Office. Joe normally spent only ten seconds in an hour there; but this time, Joe walked into the Personnel Director’s office and wrote a note on her desk—

“Teppo the janitor was arrested tonight, for stealing a test tube from Research Laboratory 17. You need to hire another janitor.”

****

The rest of Joe’s work-night was normal: He checked the bags of late-working salaried employees, and he looked for saboteurs, other spies, and other thieves (but caught none). Joe took a half-hour lunch break around 9 p.m. He finished his workday and walked out the door at 1:15 in the morning; no guard took over and relieved him.

The drive home was normal—meaning that Joe’s car always passed at least one cop car that had pulled over a drunk driver.

Once Joe was back in his apartment, he got ready for bed.

On the carpet by Joe’s bed was a desktop land-line telephone. Joe took the handset off the hook.

****

Eight hours later

In Joe’s apartment

Joe woke up, rested well enough. After a shower, he hung up his bedside telephone, then wandered into the kitchen to drink coffee and to make breakfast.

Ten minutes later, Joe’s kitchen telephone rang. Joe rolled his eyes, expecting the call to be a telemarketer or scammer. No, the caller was a young woman who identified herself as “administrative assistant” to “Mr. Lancer,” one of the poohbahs on Jeshyauss Laboratories’ third floor. Joe was told that there would be a meeting of all infected at 4:30 that afternoon, in the third-floor conference room, and that Joe was required to attend.

The administrative assistant, who spoke with more snootiness than Queen Elizabeth would ever use, then tried to give Joe idiot-proof directions how to get to the conference room. Joe stopped her—“Lady, remember I’m the after-shift security guard. I could give you directions to the conference room. You know—the big room with the big table that is next to the executive breakroom, which has the stainless-steel refrigerator and the sky-blue-painted walls?”

****

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Austin, Texas

Teppo had been taken from his cell in the city jail, and brought into a room with many city policemen and two men who each wore a suit and sunglasses. One of the two suited men handcuffed Teppo, then Teppo was dragged outside and was shoved into the back seat of a dark-blue sedan.

After the car was rolling, the driver said to Teppo, “You picked the wrong country to do your industrial espionage in, Russki. The FBI does not like Russians.”

Teppo hotly replied, “I the Russian am no, I the Estonian am.” Teppo would sooner be accused of eating babies.

The FBI agent in the passenger seat said, “Russian? Estonian? Same difference. You’re an ex-commie, or your parents are.”

In the interrogation room, two FBI men—one of whom was huge—tried to question Teppo in his “native” language, using a translator. Stupid FBI, the translator spoke only English and Russian. Teppo did not speak much Russian, but he managed to tell the young translator-man that a) Teppo’s native language was Estonian, not Russian; and b) the translator sexually preferred boys and his penis was tiny.

Teppo was then questioned in English, but Teppo made sure this was a waste of the FBI’s time.

The FBI, it turned out, had its own jail elsewhere in the building. Teppo was tossed into a cell and was ignored for the rest of the day (except for meals).

****

A little after 3 p.m.

Joe’s apartment

Joe got another work-related call—this time from Charlie, the day-shift employee-area security guard.

Charlie said, “Hey Joe, they’ve told you about the 4:30 meeting, right? Please don’t be late. I’ve been told I can’t go home till after you get out of your meeting.”

****

Tuesday, 4:29 p.m.

Third-floor conference room

Jeshyauss Laboratories

As soon as Joe walked into the conference room, the lawyer-lady said, “Took you long enough.”

Joe pointed to the clock above the whiteboard. “You’re funny. Look, I’m early.”

Joe looked around the conference room. All eight virus-infected employees were in the conference room, including himself, Aunt Brooke, and Dr. Baker. The lawyer-lady was now talking quietly with a man in an expensive suit—Joe did not know his name, but Joe knew he was head of the Legal Department. The scaredy-cat woman from Marketing was taking deep, slow breaths—but her face still looked frightened.

Besides the eight infected and the head of the Legal Department, in the room were two men wearing a lab coat, and a man and two women in expensive business clothing.

The man in a suit, and the younger man in a lab coat, both walked to the front. The man in the suit said, “Everyone, thank you for coming. I am Lyon Lancer, the Chief Executive Officer of Jeshyauss Laboratories. The purpose of this meeting”—now he smiled like a car salesman—“is to assure you that your accidental exposure to the viral agent, while unfortunate, is no cause for alarm.”

From the eight infected: silence. Joe saw that Aunt Brooke was biting her lip.

Lancer continued, “We truly expect nobody to take sick days because of this accidental release. But to soothe your worries, Dr. Underwood here will treat for free, any virus-caused illness you get in the next six months. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a sniffle—come see Dr. Underwood and he’ll fix you. We don’t mind—in fact, we would prefer—that you visit him on the clock.”

Joe saw Aunt Brooke whisper something to Dr. Baker.

Dr. Underwood murmured to Lancer, “Um, don’t forget about the blood samples.”

Lancer looked at the eight infected, and now his car-salesman smile got even bigger. “I say again: the virus is harmless. But as a precautionary measure, Dr. Underwood will take 2-cc blood samples from each of you when he feels the need. I’m sorry, but we must insist on this—failure to cooperate will be grounds for termination.”

Next to Aunt Brooke, Dr. Baker said, “I recommend quarantine. Immediately.”

Joe’s heart nearly stopped, and five of the other infected looked as frightened as Joe felt.

Seeing the other infectees’ reaction, Dr. Baker held up a hand and spoke soothingly. “We’re not going to die. None of us will probably even sneeze. But while none of us are infectious now—I just tested Dr. Sinise and myself—sometime between now and midnight, all of us will become infectious. Before this happens, all of us should be put apart from the rest of the world till Jeshyauss cures our infections.”

All eyes were on Lancer for his reply.

Lancer smiled. “Dr. Baker, your concern does you credit. But we will quarantine nobody. What escaped was a blue-label virus, and the contamination scene was cleaned up soon after the accident.”

“But—”

“On the other hand, quarantining anyone would be a public-relations nightmare: ‘Jeshyauss Laboratories must have let a killer virus loose, because why else would they be quarantining people?’ ”

“Besides,” Joe said, “no place in the building is set up for quarantine. Not on the first floor, or the second, or the third.”

Dr. Baker glared at Lancer. “You didn’t design a quarantine area? You made no plans for containing this kind of outbreak?”

Lancer said, “Dr. Baker, whatever plans that corporate management has made, or not made, are not your concern.”

Dr. Baker said, “Ladies, if we won’t be quarantined, then I urge all of you to stop off at the drugstore tonight, buy a flu mask, and start wearing that mask 24/7. Protect your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers.”

This remark prompted Lancer and the head of Legal to whisper in a corner of the conference room.

When Lancer returned to the head of the table, he said, “We will allow flu masks, but won’t encourage them. Our employees seen in public wearing flu masks, undercuts our corporate message that ‘This virus is harmless.’ ”

Aunt Brooke reached into a pocket of her lab coat, pulled out a flu mask, and shoved the flu mask across the table toward Joe. “Joe, you’re going to need this. Dr. Baker and I figure you will turn infectious before you end your shift tonight and can drive to an all-night pharmacy.”

Lancer looked at Aunt Brooke, frowning. “Dr. Sinise, is handing out a flu mask really necessary?”

Aunt Brooke looked at Lancer as if he were an idiot. “It’s just like your mandatory blood test: a quote-unquote precautionary measure.”

One of the infected was a woman who had been silent and watchful in the hallway last night, and who had been silent in the meeting up till now. Now she said to Lancer, “A minute ago, you told us the virus is harmless. I don’t believe you.”

She turned to look at Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker. “I’m Marjorie Hobbs, Investor Relations. Since you guys seem to know, tell me: What will this virus do to us?”

The Legal head honcho said to Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke, “The Non-Disclosure Agreement that you signed, prevents you answering this question.”

Marjorie said to the Legal bigwig, “I’m sure you can make an exception in my case. Or you’d better, or you will be hearing from my attorney. This bug that you don’t want those two to talk about? We’re infected with it!”

Lancer said, “Whatever those two said to you now would be self-serving. The company currently is investigating how much the negligence of Dr. Baker and Dr. Sinise contributed to this problem.”

“What?” Aunt Brooke said.

Dr. Baker growled, “What do you mean, negligence?”

Lancer said, “We are investigating whether you two failed to follow any procedure that, had it been followed, would have prevented the janitor from stealing the virus.”

Aunt Brooke looked at the second lab-coat-wearing man. “Are you part of this, Dr. Nelson? Will you throw Carl and me under the bus if the big boys tell you to?”

Dr. Nelson now was looking down, not returning the glares that Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke were giving him. He gave no answer.

Joe had heard enough. “This is ridiculous!” he said to Lancer. “Dr. Baker and Dr. Sinise are blameless, and you know it!”

Lancer sneered, “Guard, we are talking about laboratory procedures, about which you know nothing.”

Joe said, “No, we’re talking about security, about which I know quite a bit. Look, the only lock to lock—or not lock—in any of the eighteen research labs is one drawer in each of two desks that every research lab has. And I could probably bust a drawer-lock with one well-aimed swing of a fireaxe. But the fancy refrigerators where bad bugs are stored? There is no lock on any of them. None. Wherever that test tube was taken from, I guarantee you it had no lock. But that lab doesn’t need any. Because the badge-reader by the door doesn’t let anyone into Research Laboratory 17 except for Dr. Baker and Dr. Sinise, their boss?”—Dr. Nelson nodded—“the security guard—that’s me or Charlie—and the janitor.”

The scaredy-cat woman from Marketing stared at Lancer. “Why do you let the janitor go into the research labs?”

Lancer gave her another car-salesman smile. “Our researchers have more important things to do than to set out wastebaskets in the hallway every night.”

Marjorie Hobbs looked disgusted. “This is just peachy. I came to this meeting expecting answers. Instead, I get told that I have to allow blood samples or I’ll get fired, and I find out that nothing stopped janitor-guy from strolling in and stealing that test tube. But an actual answer to ‘What will that virus do to me?’ Pfft.”

Lancer said, “Don’t let yourself be upset by the words of one security guard. Remember, he’s the least-educated person in the room.”

Joe grinned. “I’m also the guy who has the easiest time at getting another job with the same pay if I’m fired here. That’s the disadvantage of paying me minimum wage plus pennies, Mr. Lancer: I’m the one guy here who can speak honestly and it not cost me.”

Aunt Brooke smiled at Joe, then turned to look at Marjorie. “Actually, Ms. Hobbs, if you work in Investor Relations, you have another problem: The news media knows something has happened. Soon investors will be asking you, ‘What’s the real story?’ ”

Lancer asked Aunt Brooke, “How do you know the story has broken? Has someone in Public Relations talked to you?”

“How do I know? Someone from the Austin American-Statesman called me this morning. They didn’t know much, but what they knew was true. Well, except the woman mentioned me punching the janitor in the face. I told her, ‘I didn’t punch the janitor in the face. Other than that, I have no comment.’ ”

Lancer looked angry now. “Dr. Sinise, you are not cleared for press inquiries! In the future, I insist you direct all press inquiries to our Public Relations department, since that’s what they’re there for.”

Marjorie asked, “And what will the Public Relations department tell the newsies? Because over in Investor Relations, we haven’t been told diddly-squat about what to tell anyone.”

Lancer and the head of Legal went off in a corner and whispered.

Then Lancer returned to the head of the table and smiled at Marjorie. “We will tell the public that the broken test tube had a blue label, which means that the risk of illness is almost zero, and the risk of death is zero. We will also say that the contamination was cleaned up and destroyed within a half-hour. Both these statements are true.” Lancer gave Marjorie an even bigger smile.

The Marketing woman said, “What is also true is that we watched her”—she gestured toward Aunt Brooke—“read what was written on that blue label, then she ran over to the janitor and yelled at him as she slammed his head against the floor. We saw this! Whatever this germ is, it is not a weak little cold virus! So would you please come clean with us?”

Lancer replied, “I have told you what our public statements will be. If pressed, we will reluctantly add that Doctors Baker and Sinise are suspended with pay, pending an internal investigation.”

Aunt Brooke said sarcastically, “Suspended with pay? Thank you for your generosity.”

Marjorie said, “In the meantime, I still don’t have a straight answer about what this germ is doing to me.”

Joe saw Aunt Brooke turn and give Lancer a fuck-you smile. Then Aunt Brooke looked at Marjorie, the woman from Marketing, the lawyer-lady, and the two other infected women. “You have a 1-in-200 chance that your body will kill the virus within hours; you won’t develop symptoms, and you won’t be infectious. There is another 1-in-200 chance that the virus won’t find the gene sequence it’s looking for; this means you’ll be infectious, but you’ll never develop symptoms. Males will never develop symptoms; girls who have not completed bone growth—”

“Meaning, they are under nineteen,” Dr. Baker explained.

“—will not develop symptoms. Women past menopause will not develop symptoms. However, while men and boys, girls under nineteen, and old women will all be symptomless, 99.5 percent of them will become infectious. ‘But what about me?’ you’re wondering—”

Lancer yelled, “Dr. Sinise, say no more!”

Aunt Brooke ignored him. She said to the infected women, “For the six of us, women who are between nineteen and menopause—”

The head of Legal warned, “Dr. Sinise, you are about to violate your Non-Disclosure Agreement.”

Aunt Brooke smiled at Lancer. “Correction: I’ve been suspended, unfairly; now I’m about to earn my suspension.”

Then Aunt Brooke turned back to the other infected women: “For the six of us, we each run a 99-percent chance of becoming a nineteen-year-old girl with a big butt and big boobs, with a killer sex drive that never stops. Roughly forty-eight hours after infection, our bodies will begin to change.”

Aunt Brooke looked at Lancer again. “Go ahead, fire me. Blackball me professionally if you want. In four weeks, I’ll be working as a pole dancer and I’ll love that life.”

Joe saw that the other five infected women were looking at Aunt Brooke in horror.

****

Lancer ended the meeting right afterward. He was wearing another car-salesman smile; but other than that, Lancer looked pissed.

Once Joe was out of the conference room, he went downstairs to the first floor, to the employee-entrance hallway, and went back to acting like a regular security guard.

Charlie was intensely curious, both about last night’s events and about what had been said in the meeting. But Joe brushed him off, saying, “I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say.”

Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker had moved to the head of the bag-search line by 5:15. Neither Aunt Brooke nor Dr. Baker said much to Joe, and both researchers looked angry.

As Joe was making his rounds at 5:30, a thought occurred to him:

Lancer can threaten us eight Jeshyauss employees, in hopes that we keep quiet and the truth doesn’t get out. But somewhere out there is Teppo the janitor-spy, and Lancer can’t do jack shit to stop Teppo from talking.

In the meantime, us Jeshyauss Laboratories employees being threatened with “Don’t tell the world about the bimbo virus or you’ll lose your job”—this just isn’t right. People out there need to hear about this.

In the following hours, as Joe made his rounds, he thought hard about the problem and how he could solve it.

Tuesday, 7 p.m.

(two hours after the end of the mandatory meeting)

Joe was working at Jeshyauss Laboratories as the after-shift security guard.

Teppo was sitting in his FBI-building jail cell, cursing his own impatience yesterday.

Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke were sitting in her kitchen, drinking beers and talking about hidden YouTube gems.

Marjorie and the scaredy-cat from Marketing (Wendy) were each on the phone, each ranting to a girlfriend about her future being stolen from her.

The lawyer-lady (Bertha) was on her computer, updating her résumé—even though she suspected her effort would be a waste of time. She wept as she typed.

Thirty-two-year-old Louise, who ran Jeshyauss’s technical library, and the other infected woman (Michelle, in Sales) were each sitting in front of a jabbering TV set, but their minds were elsewhere.

None of the three men exposed to the virus would ever show symptoms; such was the nature of the virus. For the six women, it was too soon after exposure; they too were without symptoms (for the moment).

None of the nine exposed people knew it yet, but eight of the nine people were now infectious with the Gamma virus. The ninth person was not infectious now, and never would be.

****

One hour later (8 p.m.)

The Austin Police Department’s Officer Danbury and Officer O’Rourke had been the two policemen who had arrested the Estonian janitor. Those two policemen had been just a tiny bit slow to put on the flu masks that the security guard had insisted that they wear. Unbeknownst to either policeman, now these two men also were infectious with the bimbo virus.

In this blog post, I’m going to write about fiction and fantasy, and my thoughts about writing the two.

****

I can think of three different meanings for fantasy, so let me clarify what I mean.

Fantasy is a genre of fiction; meaning, a classification for marketing purposes. Other genres of fiction are Romance, Western, Historical, Science Fiction, etc. Fantasy-genre fiction is about magic and magical creatures; a Fantasy story might have fire-breathing dragons in it, or a housecat might turn into a puma.

However, please note that nowhere in this blog post will I write about Fantasy-genre fiction, even Fantasy-genre fiction that I myself have written. You’ll need to go to other people’s blog posts if you want to read about shapeshifting housecats.

Fantasy also means an elaborate want or wish. As in “Paul Ryan has a fantasy about becoming president.”

Lastly, fantasy means a simplified story. To explain what I mean by this, I have to tell you what a “story” is.

****

A story (without the simplified modifier) is a writing that is fiction. Well, any work of fiction, whether it’s a children’s story or a New York Times bestseller. contains three elements—

1) The hero has set a goal to accomplish something; he intends to accomplish something positive, or to stop something bad that is happening now, or to prevent something bad that will happen in the future. In pursuit of his goal, the hero makes plans and takes actions.

Note that the hero doesn’t just want or wish for something to happen (or not to happen); he has set a goal of “I will make this happen” (or not happen).

When the hero’s goal is thwarted (as it must be, or there is no story), the hero makes new plans and takes new actions.

2) The hero has opposition. Some person, group of people, or natural force opposes the hero achieving his goal.

3) The opponent is much, much stronger than the hero. Oh, he/it/they has a weakness, but it is a seemingly irrelevant weakness. Conversely, the hero has a strength, but it is a seemingly irrelevant strength. (For example, the evil Army general might be allergic to cat fur, while the hero might be an expert on plants of the Amazon rain forest.) The bottom line: It seems impossible that the hero can defeat the villain, however much you want him to.

Both those words (seems impossible) are important. If the hero sets out to achieve something difficult, but with enough hard work and dedication he can (barely) achieve it, this is not a story. Conversely, if the hero is deluded into setting a goal that is flat-out impossible (for example, a man who is five-foot-two wants to become Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World), readers will cast this story aside, uninterested.

Besides all fiction stories having the same three elements, all fiction stories have the same structure: Normalcy-The goal-Rising action-The crisis-Resolution. At the crisis, it not only seems certain that the hero will never achieve his goal, but he now also faces death or ruin besides.

****

Let me remark that writing fiction is hard. This is because it goes contrary to how real life works. In real life, if you try three times, three different ways, to achieve something—by then, you’ve either achieved your goal or you’ve quit. People do not normally keep trying to achieve something when they keep losing yardage on every play. Also contrary to real life, when the powerful villain has the hero in his clutches and is about to kill him—well, someone usually can’t save himself from this.

It takes lots of thinking and planning on the author’s part, to come up with a story that meets the requirements of fiction. As I said before, writing fiction is hard. Trust me on this.

But I (in my Doctor MC persona) am a soft-core pornographer; so I have an alternative to writing difficult-to-write fiction. I have the same option as what many fan-fiction writers take: I can write fantasy (a simplified story).

****

There are as many kinds of fantasy (simplified) stories) as there are kinds of fantasy (an elaborate want or wish): romance fantasy, vengeance fantasy, money fantasy, hero fantasy, sex fantasy (a.k.a. porn), etc. In fan fiction, any kind of fantasy is called fluff.

A fantasy throws out the universal structure of a fiction story; in particular, a fantasy has no crisis. A fantasy also disregards at least one of the three elements of fiction.

1) If a fantasy throws out “goal-directed action,” you get a story in which events happen to the hero and the hero doesn’t make anything happen. This kind of fantasy isn’t interesting, because the stories don’t move toward anything; such stories come across as “a day in the life of Joe” stories.

2) If a fantasy throws out the opponent, you get stories in which the hero enjoys easy success, again and again. In a vengeance story, the bad guys whom the hero is trying to kill, put up no more resistance than targets in a shooting gallery. In porn, the hero propositions a babe, she says yes, he beds her, the hero propositions a second babe, she says yes, he beds the second babe…

3) If the fantasy throws out the fiction-element that the villain is much more powerful than the hero, you get porn stories in which yes, the hot babe has a boyfriend who doesn’t want his girlfriend boinking the hero; but the babe’s boyfriend is a 97-pound weakling. In vengeance porn, a bad guy might have a bodyguard, but the bodyguard is a fat, slow geezer who spends most of his work-hours sleeping in the guardhouse.

A fantasy (simplified story), because it does not have all the elements of fiction, is interesting to the reader if and only if the reader shares the fantasy that the simplified story is built on. So for instance, a porn story in which the hero works his way through a sorority house, boinking every woman there, would be fascinating to straight men, whereas gay men would react with “Meh.”

(This principle also explains why wives and girlfriends are generally uninterested in porn movies. The porn movie does not have the three elements and universal structure that would make the porn movie be fiction; and the wives and girlfriends don’t share the elaborate want or wish that the porn film is built around.)

****

I write the stories that I would rush over to Amazon.com to buy, if someone else had written those stories. Well, sometimes I buy from Amazon, stories with drama and can’t-put-the-book-down suspense that lead up to the-hero-is-doomed crises. At other times, I go to Amazon to buy porn stories where life for the hero is one nonstop cakewalk. Since I write what I would want to read, sometimes I write fiction stories (which are more difficult to write, but they also give me more satisfaction), and sometimes I write fantasies.

Here’s a listing of my stories, broken down by fiction stories and fantasy stories—

Fiction (containing the three elements of fiction, plus a crisis)

Three More Wishes: Be Kind To Your Genie

The Bimborg: Part Nanobot, All Woman

The Hypno-Talker of Zlar

Nerd Saves Women

The Hypno-Talkers of Zlar FOUR-IN-ONE (Books 1 and 4)

One More Genie

More Genie Problems: Can the Hero Billionaire Hold off Judgment Day?

Wishes, Genies, Sex, and Death: Marvin and Fatima THREE-IN-ONE

Ring of the Wizard Vampire

The Mind-Power Avenger

The Inseminator: A Parody

Fantasy (some of these have a final crisis, just to give the story more kick)

Captive of the Barbarian King

Names Have Power: Tim’s Magic Voice Makes a Harem

Hypno-Talker’s First Download

Revenge at College

The Hypno-Talkers of Zlar FOUR-IN-ONE (Books 2 and 3)

Ye Olde Book of Magic

Bimbo-Midas: His Magic Touch Changes Women

What You Want Most: Magically Given

Any fool can write a story about a zombie apocalypse (this is a dig at my publisher), but what about a bimbo apocalypse? I’m just starting a story in which an escaped virus makes 99 percent of women in the world who are of childbearing age, become horny, busty, younger, and mentally immature.

The two main characters: A woman geneticist who is among the 1 percent of childbearing-age women who is immune to the virus; and her young male relative (brother, son, or nephew, I haven’t decided yet).

The front cover will have a teaser line: “Ohmigod this, like, is the end of the world.”

More details later as they become available.

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Bear with me for a moment, while I seemingly go off-topic.

On the internet is a website, MCStories, where people post stories that have both mind-control and sex. Needless to say, all the author names are pseudonyms. Also needless to say, I visit the site once a week.

My all-time favorite story on that site is “Talked Themselves into It” by Downing Street.

Here is my synopsis—

A crooked politician holding local office (city councillor) dies; and Martin Miller, his chief of staff, runs for his vacated seat. During the campaign, which Martin fully expects to lose, Martin takes a stand on protecting a local park from encroachment by developers. After Martin says this, he is approached by a very odd couple. The woman in the couple is young, blond, and hot, and can get any man she wants. But she is with, and she is utterly devoted to, an old man in failing health. The old man gives Martin a worry stone—a flat stone with a curved groove in it, suitable for rubbing your thumb along. As Martin often is anxious during the campaign (remember, he fully expects to lose), he rubs the worry stone a lot. Then the election happens—and Martin is elected city councillor. This shocks everyone, including Martin. As city councillor, Martin inherits the previous councillor’s staff: four women of different ages, who all are babes. Beautiful women make Martin anxious, so he goes back to often rubbing his thumb over the worry stone in his pocket. And suddenly the women in his office start fetching him coffee, dressing to please him, and giving him blowjobs under his desk. But sexual shenanigans with his staff is the only way that Martin abuses his position: as office-holder, he is honest and upright. It takes Martin a long while to realize that the worry stone, and he often rubbing the worry stone, is what is making everyone around him act oddly.

When I read this story, I liked it for three reasons:

• Virtue is rewarded—Martin is given the magic worry-stone because he proposes to do something civic-minded, rather than what will bring him bribes;

• Martin gets lots of great sex with hot babes (I haven’t even mentioned the nasty developer’s trophy wife, the newspaper reporter, or the lady cop); and

• Martin doesn’t realize that he is mind-controlling all these women, so that he can both be a nice guy and get lots of mind-controlled sex.

Anyway, I liked “Talked Themselves into It” so much that the first mind-control story that I wrote myself, Names Have Power: Tim’s Magic Voice Makes a Harem, had those three same elements in it: a virtuous man rewarded by being given mind-control powers, which he doesn’t realize he’s using, and which brings him lots of sex.

The second mind-control story I wrote, Three More Wishes: Be Kind to Your Genie, also had a good man being rewarded: by his genie making wish-grants that actually went beyond the wording of his wishes. Marvin Harper becomes a 24/7 mind-controller, through his magic touch and his magic pheromones; no surprise, Marvin gets lots of sex.

Note that there is no way that Marvin wonders, even for a second, why women are becoming his sex-slaves. He rubbed a lamp; a genie came out; he spoke wishes; the genie made strange gestures; then the next morning, his life is different. The sex-slave offers are unexpected when he first gets them, but they aren’t shocking or puzzling.

But three months ago, I wondered, Could I combine Names Have Power and Three More Wishes? Could a virtuous man get his wishes granted, and get lots of sex from mind-controlled babes as a result, without him knowing that someone was doing major magic on his behalf and that his wishes were causing all the weirdness?

I played around with that idea, and What You Want Most: Magically Given was the result.

Now buy What You Want Most: Magically Given!

WHAT YOU WANT MOST—First Two Chapters FREE

Kindle

Smashwords—your choice of formats

Kobo

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What if a djinni were granting your strongest wishes, but you didn’t know this? What would life be like?

NOTE: This story is set in the same universe as Three More Wishes: Be Kind to Your Genie and Wishes, Genies, Sex, and Death: Marvin and Fatima THREE-IN-ONE.

Bashira is a djinni of the Green Tribe of Djinn, the same Tribe to which genie Fatima belongs. But Bashira is a free djinni, not bound like Fatima—Bashira does not live in a lamp, and Bashira has never granted a wish in her millennia-long life.

A young man, Brian Maslow, rescues a mother and two daughters from a flooded car, during a scary thunderstorm (with blasting rain, high winds, thunder, lightning, and a tornado warning). Brian is frightened of being outside in the nasty weather, but he saves the helpless mother and daughters. Bashira finds out about Brian’s brave deed and decides to reward him.

Bashira doesn’t grant Brian wishes as such; he doesn’t need to rub a lamp or say “I wish…” But ten times, whenever Brian blurts out “I really want such-and-so,” he gets it, seemingly by dumb luck. Then the dumb luck becomes incredible luck, which becomes “Am I dreaming this?”

Along the way, Brian gains two girlfriends: Steffi, a former TV weather girl with enormous breasts; and Diane, a former top European model.

Chapter 1 has djinni Bashira on the RMS Titanic when it sinks.

Fiction > Fantasy > Contemporary

Fiction > Romance > Fantasy

Tags: alpha male, college life, damsel in distress, djinni, female virgin, female-female, magic, male-female, male dominant, mind control, oral sex, polygamy, romance, straight female to bi, submissive female, threesome, virtue rewarded, wants/wishes, YA, young adult

The novella is 29,600 words.

Now buy it!

WHAT YOU WANT MOST—First Two Chapters FREE

Kindle

Smashwords—your choice of formats

Kobo

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story is set in the world of the “Marvin and Fatima” series. If you haven’t read those stories, check out Three More Wishes and its sequels, which are compiled in Wishes, Genies, Sex, and Death: Marvin and Fatima THREE-IN-ONE.

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October 10, 1911

Port of Southampton, England

Bashira of the Green Tribe of Djinn was dressed like a rich young human woman, wearing a green-velvet dress to match her green eyes. In her hand, Bashira carried a bulging green-velvet bag.

Bashira stepped out of a horse-drawn cab directly in front of the Southampton offices of White Star Line. A minute later, Bashira was facing a young clerk as she dumped out the contents of her bag: many, many gold sovereigns.

With all those little gold coins, Bashira bought a First Class one-way ticket for the RMS Titanic, which would sail on its maiden voyage in six months. White Star was given many, many gold coins because Bashira not only wanted to travel First Class on the Titanic, Bashira wanted to ride on the Titanic in style.

White Star was paid in gold sovereigns because Bashira easily could magick-up gold coins—as many as she needed, with the coins looking however she wanted. Bashira was a djinni, after all.

But while Bashira was unbothered by magicking up British gold coins, she refused to magically create twenty-pound banknotes. Mainly because each Bank of England-printed banknote had a unique serial number on it, and Bashira had not figured out the serial numbers’ pattern. As unlikely as it was that human police would question Bashira as a suspected counterfeiter, she preferred to avoid the risk.

Humans might detect magically-duplicated banknotes, but they could not spot magically-created coins.

When Bashira, ticket in hand, walked out of the offices of White Star Line, she was smiling in anticipation.

Four months earlier, Bashira had sailed on Titanic’s elder sister, RMS Olympic, on its maiden voyage in 1911. Bashira had enjoyed that trip. So Bashira expected that six months from now, again she would eat great food and would talk to interesting humans. Titanic would be a pleasant diversion for ageless Bashira.

****

SIX MONTHS, FOUR DAYS LATER: April 15, 1912

2 a.m. ship’s time

On RMS Titanic, in the North Atlantic

Bashira was deathly afraid.

After the aborted Djinn War in 632 B.C., Bashira had never again felt fear of death. After 632 B.C., Bashira had never again expected to feel fear of death.

Bashira of the Green Tribe of Djinn was a free djinni—meaning, she was not bound to a brass Vessel and was not required to grant wishes to any master. For a free djinni, life was usually great—

All the djinn except for those in Brown Tribe could work powerful magic; all djinn were ageless; and a djinni, being a smoke-bodied shapeshifter, could laugh off injuries that would kill a human.

However, djinn were not immortal. A djinni could freeze to death (as Lodmand of Pink Tribe had learned the hard way). All Tribes believed that if a djinni were immersed in water, even for an instant, that djinni’s smoky body would die. In the days leading up to the angel-prevented Djinn War, Bashira had been terrified that an enemy djinni would water-swap her to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

But that had been in 632 B.C. In April of 1912, death by freezing or immersion was merely theoretical for all the other djinn in the world—something to joke about. But as Bashira stood at the railing on the tilted Titanic and looked down at black water, as freezing-cold wind blew on her, she felt terror.

****

Some of the lifeboats that were already launched, were only partly filled. Bashira saw young men climb over the Titanic’s railing and jump off, fall and fall, and disappear beneath the water—If I did that, I’d be dead now. When the young men surfaced, they swam toward the lifeboats. The problem was that the lifeboats had rowed away from the ship, so the swimmers had a long swim.

But most of the humans in the water had no such plan. They hugged themselves and they yelled for help.

A girl in the water, about ten years old, was clearly panicked. She was yelling, but she was also flailing around—which achieved nothing, and would soon get her tired.

Near to Bashira on the tilted Promenade Deck, two young lifebelted Englishmen also had spotted the girl. One of the men said, “Bastards! Why didn’t they put her in a lifeboat?”

The other man said, “If the popinjays won’t put her in a lifeboat, I will.” So saying, he climbed over the railing.

“Roger!” exclaimed his friend. “What are you doing?”

Roger replied, “Marcus, I’m dead regardless. But this way, I die like a man.” Then Roger dropped. Splash.

The Titanic’s lights were still on. Soon Bashira saw Roger swim out to the girl (with guidance from Marcus). Roger swam out to the girl, put one arm across her chest, and pulled her toward a lifeboat. Often Bashira saw Roger turn his head sideways and speak to the frightened child.

Once the two of them got near the lifeboat, however, Roger went limp and stopped swimming. But by then, the girl had figured things out. She swam to the lifeboat and was pulled in. Bashira, watching, thought, I’m sure Roger was as frightened as I am. But not once have I thought of trying to save anyone else.

****

Soon after

Bashira’s hope collapsed. The Titanic’s sinking would not be stopped, much less reversed; the passengers on deck would not be rescued by another human ship; there were more passengers on deck than there were places in the remaining lifeboats. Not to mention, even if Bashira took a seat in a lifeboat, the freezing night air would kill any djinni. Bashira was doomed if she stayed with the Titanic.

Bashira thought, I can’t stay on this ship of corpses one second longer. The fact that by then, Bashira’s feet were literally frozen solid, was a good excuse.

Bashira took off her lifebelt and her magicked fur coat, and wrapped them around a shocked-looking Second Class woman. Then Bashira moved back into the ship, as fast as her frozen feet would allow.

Bashira eventually reached the passageway that would take her to her First Class stateroom—a passageway that was supposed to be level. But now the passageway was tilted, and walking that passageway reminded Bashira of climbing up a sand dune.

Once Bashira reached her stateroom, she went inside and shut the door. Just then, all the electric lights in the stateroom went out, as the ship groaned.

Bashira’s fear spiked then, making her decision even easier. FOOM—Bashira teleported to Cairo.

Once Bashira was in Cairo, she spent the next sixteen minutes standing outside in Cairo’s early-morning sun, thawing her frozen feet. Bashira then stood in the same spot for another twenty-one minutes, because she craved the sun’s warmth. Bashira was still shaking then, but not from cold.

****

One month later

The sinking of the Titanic had become international news, and many little acts of heroism by ordinary humans had been reported in newspapers.

Bashira, even restricted by Chief Ashnadim’s rule of “Help humans in only subtle ways,” had realized by mid-May of 1912 that she could have given the endangered humans a lot of help on the night of the sinking. But during that night, all Bashira had thought about had been her own danger and her own rescue.

How shameful.

One month after the sinking, Bashira felt ashamed as a coward, and she was humbled that some humans had shown better character in the face of death than she had. Roger the brave Englishman was often in Bashira’s thoughts.

10:30 p.m.

A stormy Friday night in September, 2017

Barrow, Texas (between Dallas and Fort Worth)

Off-duty Pizza King delivery-driver Brian Maslow saw lightning flash, somewhere ahead of his pickup truck.

Eighteen-year-old Brian could not tell exactly where the lightning flashed, because so much rain was hitting his windshield. Even with wipers moving at maximum speed, the view through his windshield was as distorted as if he were looking through shower-door glass.

BOOM! Brian heard thunder to match the just-flashed lightning. C’mon, I’m off work, give me a break, he thought. He had been surrounded by lightning and thunder (and blasting rain), tonight since 8:30. Needless to say, this had made delivering pizza fun. (Not.)

But at least, now he was off work, and the only driving he had to do now was to go home to his apartment. Brian could not wait to change out of his soaking-wet clothes!

Meanwhile, as a result of the blasting rain, Brian’s truck was moving only 10 mph. Fortunately, the storm had scared everyone else off the roads, so Brian did not (much) have to worry about rear-ending the vehicle ahead of him that he could not see.

The wind was shifting constantly. At the moment, it was blowing toward the back and slightly toward the left. Brian’s right-side truck window was getting blasted with rain, while he could actually see out his left-side window—

What was that? Flashing red?

At the moment, Brian was driving west on Richards Street. Richards Street passed over Bentsen Street, which ran north-south, because Bentsen dipped under Richards to make an underpass.

The only problem was, the Bentsen underpass liked to flood during times of heavy rain—like now. And the rain had been blasting for the past two hours.

Did I see a car flooded in the underpass? Brian thought. They might need help.

Brian pulled his truck over to the edge of the Richards overpass, put on his flashers, and shut off the engine. He tossed his keys on the front dash, grabbed his waterproof flashlight, and opened the driver’s-side door.

Brian had to push, to get that door open, because the wind was blowing so hard.

Flash! Pause. BOOM! This was not the time to be outside. Yet Brian would not think of driving another inch until he knew whether someone needed help.

As soon as Brian stepped out of his truck, wind-blown rain blasted his face, hands, and clothing. While Brian was being firehosed by Mother Nature, he walked over to the left-side railing of Richards Street, his waterproof flashlight in his hand. He looked down.

He gasped.

A car set in water that was deep enough to cover the flashing red taillights and part of the rolled-up side windows. Now that Brian was out of his truck, he heard screams from inside the car, and pounding on the car roof.

“HELP US! HE-E-L-P!”

Bright lightning flashed somewhere close; the answering thunder was instant and it was loud. Brian was frightened—

Fort Worth is to the west, Dallas is to the east, and Death is maybe directly above me.

—but he did not hesitate to run to the end of the Richards Street Bridge and try to rush down the grassy slope to where the floodwater was.

As Brian was working his way down the slope—slanted wet grass made it tricky for him to keep his footing—he heard shrieks. He looked over at the car.

Now the car’s lights were out, and the water around the windows was higher.

Right after Brian stepped into floodwater, another lightning/thunder combo happened to the north.

Brian waded out to the car. The windows were fogged up, so he could not see clearly inside; but someone was sitting in the driver’s seat.

Brian pounded on the roof of the car. “HELLO?”

A hand wiped enough of the fog away from the driver’s-side window that he could see a woman’s face. “We can’t open the doors!” she yelled back.

Brian tried pulling on her door. He couldn’t move it. Water pressure is pushing it closed.

The problem had an unpleasant solution: In order to open the doors, he had to equalize the pressure—which meant letting water inside the car.

Lightning flashed; thunder BOOMed.

“WHO’S IN THE CAR WITH YOU?” Brian yelled.

The driver answered, “I and my daughters are here. Yasmeen is eight years old—please help us!” Now Brian noticed that the woman spoke with a foreign accent.

Brian yelled back, “I’M GOING TO BREAK YOUR WINDOW. LEAN AWAY!”

Brian dunked his waterproof flashlight just under the surface of the water, the flashlight’s narrow side facing the window. He tried slamming the flashlight against the window, but the water would not let the flashlight move that fast.

Brian had to settle for holding the flashlight a few inches away from the window and using both arms’ strength to hurry the flashlight. Even so, it was not till the third hit, when he hit the door glass at an angle, that the glass broke.

The driver-lady shrieked when water poured into her lap. But then she said, “Please help Yasmeen!”

Lightning flashed nearby; thunder boomed loudly. Brian thought, If lightning hits this car or the water it’s sitting in, I’m fried.

Meanwhile, Brian had moved to the back door and tried to open it. At first, this door would not budge, either; but when the water level inside the car was almost as high as the water outside the car, Brian opened the door.

In the back seat were a teen girl and a girl of eight; both girls were black-haired. The little girl was standing crouched on the back seat, to keep her head above water.

Brian put his flashlight on the roof of the car, grabbed the little girl, then—as quickly as chest-high water would allow—Brian carried her toward the grassy slope.

“I’ve got you, Yasmeen. Don’t worry, you’re safe,” he told the child whom he was carrying.

Once Brian set Yasmeen down on the grassy slope, he then rushed—quote, unquote—through the floodwater back to the car. The car’s back door had shut itself , he discovered. By now the water level inside and outside the car were the same; still, it took effort for Brian to pull the driver’s door and the back-seat door open. The driver-woman and the teen girl hurried out of the car. The driver-woman, Brian noted in passing, was wearing a hijab; the teen girl was not.

Brian grabbed his flashlight off the roof of the car, then he waded back to the grassy slope where Yasmeen was. Yasmeen’s mother and Yasmeen’s teen sister each had a painfully strong grip on one of Brian’s arms.

Flash! BOOM! Brian wanted out of this water.

Once the mother and both daughters all were out of the floodwater, Brian offered to drive them to their house in his truck. It was only when the four people walked near Brian’s truck that he discovered that a TV-news crew from station WFAA had filmed most of his rescue.

The TV reporter informed Brian that not only was this area getting wind, rain, thunder, and lightning like crazy, but it was currently also under a tornado warning.

“Wonderful,” Brian replied.

****

A week later (Friday)

Bashira saw the whole rescue play out on YouTube.

She thought, This human, Brian Maslow, had many reasons to fear for his life. Yet he did the right thing. He is braver than I.

Bashira was also pleased that this Brian Maslow had rescued three immigrants from the United Arab Emirates. Bashira understood very well that many Americans hated anyone Moslem and/or Arab.

Bashira thought, Brian Maslow deserves a reward. But what reward is worthy of his unselfish bravery?

After more thought, Bashira the djinni clapped her hands. “I have the perfect reward for Brian Maslow. Or rather, ten perfect rewards.”

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Whatever Brian really wants, he gets. Ten times. With a djinni’s secret help.

NOTE: This story is set in the same universe as Three More Wishes: Be Kind to Your Genie and Wishes, Genies, Sex, and Death: Marvin and Fatima THREE-IN-ONE.

Bashira is a djinni of the Green Tribe of Djinn, the same Tribe to which genie Fatima belongs. But Bashira is a free djinni, not bound like Fatima—Bashira does not live in a lamp, and Bashira has never granted a wish in her millennia-long life.

A young man, Brian Maslow, rescues a mother and two daughters from a flooded car, during a scary thunderstorm (with blasting rain, high winds, thunder, lightning, and a tornado warning). Brian is frightened of being outside in the nasty weather, but he saves the helpless mother and daughters. Bashira finds out about Brian’s brave deed and decides to reward him.

Bashira doesn’t grant Brian wishes as such; he doesn’t need to rub a lamp or say “I wish…” But ten times, whenever Brian blurts out “I really want such-and-so,” he gets it, seemingly by dumb luck. Then the dumb luck becomes incredible luck, which becomes “Am I dreaming this?”

Along the way, Brian gains two girlfriends: Steffi, a former TV weather girl with enormous breasts; and Diane, a former top European model.

Chapter 1 has djinni Bashira on the RMS Titanic when it sinks.

Fiction > Fantasy > Contemporary

Fiction > Romance > Fantasy

Tags: alpha male, college life, damsel in distress, djinni, female virgin, female-female, magic, male-female, male dominant, mind control, oral sex, polygamy, romance, straight female to bi, submissive female, threesome, virtue rewarded, wants/wishes, YA, young adult

The novella is 29,600 words.

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I am a lazy sports fan. When I was in high school, I did not travel to away-games to root for the teams.

After high school, I became a college student at a Texas university that was not Texas A&M. I did not travel to A&M for any academic reason, before I earned my degree. Nor did I ever travel to A&M for any sports reason (but you’ve already figured this out, right?)

After I earned my bachelor’s degree, I never traveled to Texas A&M for any reason—academic, athletic, or business-related.

You guys note a trend?

My latest book, What You Want Most: Magically Given, is a variation on the three-wishes genie story. In What You Want Most, my hero Brian lives in Texas, then he becomes a college student, then he majors in meteorology (the science of weather). A little Google-fu told me that the best meteorology undergraduate-degree program in Texas is at A&M—so voila, Brian drives off to Aggieland to pursue his B.S. in Meteorology.

This plot turn meant that I, as Brian’s author, had to learn a lot about A&M. Fortunately, Google made this part of the story-writing be much easier.

Now, I prefer to have my imaginary people live in imaginary places; this way I can “build” their hometown the way I want. If I want to write about Marvin Harper’s hometown of New Paris, “There was a gold mine just outside of town, so all the streets in the town were paved with gold,” I can do that. Whereas if I write such a thing about Lincoln, Nebraska (because I did not do enough research), a reader who lives in Lincoln will chew me out via email. And deservedly so. To prevent errors that Google-searching doesn’t catch, I need to see a real place for myself if I write about that place.

But there are obvious limits to the rule of “When writing about a real place, see it for yourself.” In “Kristin Tells (Almost) All,” the main character became a student at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Well, I live in Texas, and traveling all the way to Northampton, MA just so I could eyeball places that I had written about, was not a worthwhile expense.

But now that same logic has bitten me in the rear; because Texas A&M is less than two hundred miles from my house. Yesterday I went to Aggieland itself, with a prepared list of questions. Because I had done so much research off-site, I was able to get all my questions answered in only three-and-a-half hours. I also visited places on the A&M campus that I had written about; the “Century Tree” (which is actually 126 years old, not 100 years old) freaked me out.

Still, nobody imagines the author of male-dominant, mind-control soft-core porn novels making a research trip, but that’s what I did. I think I’ve caught most of my mistakes, BUT—

If you’re a fan of male-dominant, mind-control soft-core porn, and—

You’re a current or former student of Texas A&M University, and—

You catch an error about what I wrote about A&M, after my book comes out, then—

Please let me know. Thanks.

P.S. Don’t ask me my impressions of Texas A&M. I can’t answer this honestly without somebody’s feelings being hurt.

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The first two mind-control stories that I ever wrote, and my two favorites, are Names Have Power and Three More Wishes.

Names Have Power is about a man who is given mind-control powers—except that at first he does not even know he has mind-control powers. At first he thinks that women around him are acting oddly. To me, the fun of writing the story was the question, “When he’s causing changes, but he doesn’t know he’s causing changes, what does he think is going on?”

Three More Wishes is about a young man who gets a wishing lamp and a genie. Except that I did not only tell the genie-master’s tale (in the original story, two sequel stories, and a bonus story)—I also explained how the genies got stuck in those lamps. If you have read Three More Wishes and its sequels, you know that in that world, there are four Tribes’ worth of djinn, most of whom are not genies. Meaning that most of the djinn of the four Tribes are not stuck in a Vessel (a brass lamp, a brass bottle, or a ruby ring) and these free djinn are not compelled to grant wishes.

One such free djinni is Bashira of the Green Tribe of Djinn, who is a friend of Fatima’s. Bashira was briefly mentioned in One More Genie and in More Genie Problems. In What You Want Most, Bashira got a nasty scare in 1912 aboard the RMS Titanic, and since then Bashira appreciates humans who are brave.

Brian is a young man who does a very brave thing: wading into water during a lightning storm to rescue three stranded motorists. Bashira, who has never met Brian, decides to reward him for his bravery.

But Bashira does not reward Brian by granting his wishes—because a person speaks wishes only when he expects that they will be immediately granted. No, Bashira grants his wants—feelings he blurts out not because he expects them to be granted, but because he is feeling the wants so fiercely at the time. And since granting a want is not as powerful a life-changer as granting a wish, Bashira grants ten of Brian’s wants, not just three.

So just like before, I am writing a hero who is changing the women around him—except he does not realize that he is the person changing them.

THE COVER IMAGE: The woman on the cover has dyed-auburn hair, while Bashira of the story has black hair. But other than this one mistake, the woman on the cover is meant to be Bashira. Note the all-green clothing, nail polish, and jewelry, and the bright-green eyes.