Geniekind [part 1]

[inanimate TF]

Tony had a mouthful of Deborah’s birthday cake when Sheila, from accounting, tapped him on the shoulder. “I was walking by your desk earlier,” she said, smacking her lips, gesturing with a fingerful of frosting, “and I caught the picture of that STUDLY daddy you’re dating!”

Tony smiled politely. “Uh… please don’t call my boyfriend ‘daddy,’” he said. This was the third time he’d said this to her.

“Gosh, I just look at you gays, and I’m like… I wish I were gay!” Sheila said. She ran a hand through her asymmetrical haircut and adjusted her prune-colored pantsuit. “I mean, why do all the great hotties have to be gay!”

Tony sighed. That morning, he and Johan, his boyfriend, had finished their discussion of Johan’s idea to “open the borders” on their relationship. Tony had made it clear that he had no intentions to have sex with other men. Johan made it clear that he couldn’t continue dating Tony if he weren’t allowed to wander. “I’ll still be coming HOME to you, always,” Johan affirmed. Tony had told Johan he could have whatever he needed. Ever since, he’d felt nauseous, and the oily frosting on the store-bought sheet cake wasn’t helping.

Neither was discussing his boyfriend’s charms with 58-year old Sheila, who flashed her lipstick-smeared crooked smile with a wink. She gave Tony’s arm a squeeze, making him jerk away. He glanced around the gathering of his officemates, some still tooting on their birthday horns. No one noticed as he backed toward his desk, tossing the teal and magenta party plate in the trash.

Back at his desk, he saw an e-mail onscreen: “Report to HR department immediately.” He sent a text to Johan: “What do you want for dinner tonight? Maybe go out?” He felt his posture deflating as he realized it was a pathetic attempt for romance. Did he even know how to keep Johan interested after all this time?

He heard wind chimes as he opened the door to the HR department–a new feature, certainly, but he glanced around and couldn’t find them. HR was usually bustling with activity, especially since they had installed a nitro-fueled cold brew keg in the center of their office, but it was surprisingly empty. Tony glanced around at the office doors, into the cubicles, and found no one was there. “That clock is wrong,” he said, glancing at the grandfather clock against the wall, it’s pendulum making a resounding thunk every time it swung to the left. The hands were pointed at noon, but it was 4:15. He walked toward it, wondering when someone had placed a wooden clock in their office building. The second hand was turning backwards.

“When you’re ready, I’ll see you,” said a voice. He heard wind chimes again. Tony turned around and saw the door to Lars Vericort, the head of HR, open a crack. Lars’ name had been erased from the door.

“I’d heard there were lay-offs going on,” Tony said as he walked into the office that bald, monotone Lars used to inhabit to find, instead, a spritely young man with wavy emerald hair sitting on the desk in a baby blue suit. “Didn’t realize they would clear out all of human resources.” The man smiled. How had he gotten a job with that strangely colored hair? His eyes glinted gold.

“Call me Deidrich,” the man said, hopping off the desk, extending a slender hand. The unseen wind chimes seemed to tinkle every time the man spoke. “What do you think of this form? I’m appearing as something you find pleasing. What a delightful choice!”

Tony weakly shook Deidrich’s hand, then glanced behind him. A solid wall stood where the door used to be. Tony glanced around and found no exit. “What the fuck is–”

“What’s happening,” Deidrich said, suddenly lifting off the floor and floating back to gently touch down on the desk, “is that you’re getting fired right now. ‘Laid off’ is the term they’re using, budget cutbacks. They randomly selected underperforming salesman to get rid of.”

“Underperforming?” Tony repeated, the word stinging so hard that it cut through the other weirdness in Deidrich’s office.

“Let go of it,” Deidrich said, his smile somehow easing the ache in Tony’s stomach. “Because I’m here from another office to offer you another job. This is simply what you’re seeing while your physical body accepts its termination. Once we’re done talking, you’ll be back in your mundane world with a severance pamphlet in your hand. Just listen to my offer.”

Tony took a step forward. Gravity felt unsteady, like he was on a plane. He had the feeling that the room, itself, was floating or falling. He couldn’t understand why he felt so calm. “What offer?”

Deidrich smiled. “What’s your fantasy, Tony?”

Tony blinked. He felt so relaxed, he sat down in the empty chair facing Deidrich. “What fantasy? Like, winning a million dollars?”

“I mean your sexual fantasy, Tony,” Deidrich said. “Sorry, this probably isn’t a topic you’re used to engaging in on company time. May I open you up and look inside? You probably have more than one sexual fantasy.”

Deidrich’s eyes started to glow. Tony felt warm. The glow was penetrating him. He held up his hands to block it, but it was no use. It was pleasant, like steam from a hot shower.

Tony smelled leather before anything else. Then he felt a tickling all over his face. He blinked and looked around, shocked to be standing. He was wearing tight leather pants, stroking a long furry beard, leaning against a motorcycle. “Well, she-it…” he said with a deep Southern accent. A gloved hand stroked along his leather-clad crotch to find a massive bulge. His bare chest was oiled and shiny.

Deidrich waved his hands and a full-length mirror appeared. Tony saw a confident, bare-chested leatherman stroking his long, furry beard. His stance–the way his hips and groin were poised–exuded powerful sexuality. He raised an arm and caught a whiff of a thick musk–it was him! He felt the bulge in his groin starting to twitch.

A moment later it was all gone. He was seated again, wearing his starched office attire. His face was smooth. His crotch was average-sized.

“Interesting!” Deidrich said, clapping his hands together. “So, that’s your fantasy, hunh?”

Tony blinked. He felt disappointed that it was gone, like waking from an erotic dream. “How did that… how is this…”

“That’s our power!” Deidrich said. “Or at least, people of our bloodline. Heard of a genie? You’re probably familiar with the air and fire elemental versions… we–me, and your great-great-great grandfather, among many others–are known as Marids. And when we exist on this plane, we have the ability to reach into men’s deepest fantasies and make them real.”

Tony hopped to his feet. This couldn’t be real, of course, but he felt a tingling in his veins. SOmething in him was reacting to what Deidrich was saying. “Is that what job you’re offering me? Sex genie?”

Deidrich shrugged. “Basically. I’ll be your direct superior, and I’ll show up to you astrally… like I am now… and give you quotas. Then you just get out there and satisfy them!”

Tony shook his head. “Satisfy… how… how do I even…”

The room seemed to be elongating. Tony’s chair and Deidrich’s desk were growing further apart as the office stretched out to hundreds of feet long, and growing. “Just go out there and make some fantasies come true! Start today. Maybe with that boss who seemed to think you were so easily dispensable?”

Tony heard the wind chimes again, then a door slammed behind him. He was outside the HR department, a green folder in his hand labelled, “Devincenzo, Anthony: Severance.” He could still hear his coworkers tooting their birthday horns down the hall.

He blinked, stunned. Was he hallucinating? He just got fired… he couldn’t remember it happening, but he knew it had.

But he also remembered just getting hired…

He should go clean out his desk, he knew, but something else was calling him toward his boss’ office. Manfred Winch, Regional Director… He thought of Deidrich’s glowing eyes, then tucked the green folder into the back of his dress pants and headed for the door.

For the first time ever, he burst into Manny’s office without an appointment. Chet, Manny’s administrative assistant, hopped to his feet. “Uh, excuse me! Mr. Winch is actually in the middle of a very important teleconference…”

“It’ll just take a minute,” Tony said, holding up a hand to keep Chet back as he burst into Manny’s office. Manny sat behind his desk eating a sandwich. He had a blue silk napkin tucked into the collar of his navy blue shirt. He froze, mid-bite, as Tony closed the door and smiled. “Hi Manny!”

“Uh, Tony…” Manny said, setting down his sandwich and wiping his napkin. “Are you… did you report to HR? Is that what this is about? Severance package not acceptable?” He crossed his arms. Manny was still the cocky fratboy he’d been in college, just ten years older. His muscular body had filled out a bit, with a small amount of booze-bloat, the hairline below his well-coifed blonde hair having receded a bit.

Tony wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing there. He felt delirious–was Deidrich real? Had he hallucinated it all? But he remembered the light from Deidrich’s eyes and felt the warmth in his own chest. He took a deep breath and let it out.

“What the fuck–” Manny blurted out, but his jaw dropped as he stared into Tony’s glow. Tony smiled as he walked toward Manny, no longer threatened by his height, his strapping body, or his powerful title.

“I can SEE you!” Tony said aloud, but Manny seemed weak on his feet. He blinked, a dollop of drool hanging off his lip, but Tony could see THROUGH Manny, into his past. He could see the dark crevices of Manny’s mind, the sultry little ideas he kept buried throughout the day. It was like gazing into Manny’s pornhub search history: Tony saw images of cops handcuffing Manny, one of an entire soccer team kicking balls at his groin, and one of Manny bathing in a hot-tub filled with piss.

“Jesus!” Tony said as he scanned through Manny’s fantasy file. He felt clumsy, as if he were moving muscles he never knew he had. It would take time to practice this power enough to become proficient at it. Every time he tried to grab onto one fantasy, it slipped through his fingers. The vivid images in Manny’s subconscious were like warm wax, impossible to fully hold. Finally, Tony grabbed one–not with his hand, of course, but with some ghostly new appendage he had developed since he’d spoken to Deidrich.

“I… I…” Manny’s face went pale, then the rest of his body followed. He gasped as his body suddenly squashed flat, a two-dimensional version of the former jock executive, then all of it washed out with white. The flattened man started to coil up on itself, spinning wildly until a roll of cottony-soft toilet paper landed gently on Manny’s padded office chair.

Tony picked up the roll and squeezed it. Manny was still in there. He was still conscious, could feel Tony’s big hands squeezing into him as pure erotic pleasure, but to all appearances he was now an ordinary roll of toilet paper. Tony turned around and left Manny’s office. Chet was seated at his desk again, casually typing at his computer.

“How did your meeting go?” Chet asked.

“Didn’t you just tell me he was busy? Didn’t you JUST tell me I couldn’t see him?” Tony asked. Chet shrugged.

“What are you talking about? Did you have too many drinks at lunch or something?” Chet asked.

Tony set the toilet paper roll of Chet’s desk. “Manny asked me to have you put this in the bathroom,” he said. It was an illogical request, of course, but Chet took the roll without another word.

“Thank god,” he said. “I was just about to have to go myself.” Chet, who spent most of his days being bullied by his bullheaded boss, headed to the bathroom to take a shit without any idea he’d be wiping with the man who tormented him.

And Manny would love every minute of it.

“Marid,” Tony said as he walked out of the building, regarding the world outside with new eyes. “I’m a Marid!” A man walking a bulldog sneered at him as he passed. Down the sidewalk, fedora-wearing hipster slid quarters into a parking meter. Tony reached out with his power, ready to unleash their fantasies, but he felt nothing.

“The fuck…” he said, frustrated. Maybe his power needed to recharge, he wondered. Maybe he was limited to one use per day. “Deidrich?” he said aloud, but there was no response. With a sigh, Tony pulled out his phone and called Johan. He got his voicemail.

“Hey, babe?” he said. “I just wanted to say… I’m sorry about the way our last conversation went. I’m all about you getting exactly what you need, okay? When I get home, let’s have a little sit-down. You and I, let’s talk… about exactly what your fantasies are.” Tony was rock hard with the possibilities of making Johan’s fantasies a reality.

*