Djinn and Flick

She crept back into her room; tub of ice-cream tucked under one arm, spoon in hand.

She pushed the door to with a bump of her pajama’d bottom, and switched her bedside lamp back on.

And nearly dropped her midnight snack onto the blue bedroom carpet.   Instead she gave a startled half-strangled shriek of disbelief.

Sat cross-legged on her bed was a bare chested, turban adorned, old man, who seemed to be wearing loose fitting red pants.

“Hello, Flick.”   He smiled in a most unthreatening way, and used her family nickname as if he was an old friend.

“Get out!   Get out now!   Or I shall scream and scream.”

“No you won’t.   I’m your Djinn – or genie if you prefer.   You have been waiting all your life to meet me.”

She moved over to her writing desk and half leant against it.

“I …”

“I know.    You have always suspected my presence.    A flicker at the edge of vision, a sense that you were not alone – you never saw me, but always had an inkling that I was around.”

“Who are you??”

“My name is…”   He made a noise like an evening breeze whispering through the autumn leaves of a tall tree as the sun was setting.   “Not easy on the human tongue.   I think you should just call me Djinn.    And it is alright if I call you Flick – or would you prefer Felicity?”

She nodded wordlessly and then quietly added “Flick is fine.”

She pondered for a moment and then the broad beam of a smile that signified understanding lit up her face.

“You’re a genie!   You’re here to grant me three wishes!!   Oh boy, oh boy!”

“I am a Djinn.   I may choose to try to make a wish come true.   But only if I decide to.   And that thing about three wishes is just a fairy story.”

“Huh.   So you are more like a Guardian Angel, then?”

“Heaven’s no.   Angels are made of light and cannot do anything other than that which fate has in store for them.   Djinn’s came out of a smokeless fire -which is why we are usually invisible.   And like humans, we have free will.   And also like human’s, one day we may be judged for things that we did, and did not do, during our time on earth.”

“Good grief.   So– why are you sitting on my bed?”

“I am your personal Djinn.   Every human has a personal Djinn.   You are something of a disappointment to me.   And if I don’t do something about it, it could one day be seen as a failing on my part.”

“Who do you think you are!?   Coming in here uninvited to tell me I’m a disappointment.   For two …”

Djinn puffed his cheeks and turned into a large, long clawed lion.   He growled softly, and flicked his tail.

“Oh my god!”

The lion turned back into Djinn.

“I can take on many forms.   Sometimes I am swamped by the personality of the creature I turn into.   Don’t ever make me turn myself into a tarantula.   Both of us would end up hating that.”

After a few seconds of deep gulps, her pulse rate started to return to normal.

“I’ll be very careful…”

“Good – now to the matter at hand.   Why are you so thoroughly nasty to everybody?”

“No I'mm not!”

“Tell me one person who has not squirmed in fury at you.”

“Er… er… there’s Katie – she’s my best friend – she’s never squirmed.”

“Not even when she found out you were trying to date Peter?”

“Oh.   You know about that.”

“I know everything about you.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“Well, she is still my best friend.”

“Hmmm.    Your Mom used to spank you.   You were far better mannered back then.”

“What?   What on earth …   But you know, don’t you.   Up until I was about seven, I guess.”

“Correct.   She took a paddle to you for experimenting with her make up.”

“Ah – yes I remember.    Dad was pretty ticked off about it.   He never believed in spanking.   And one look at my bruised butt and he put the law down that he was personally in charge of all family discipline from then on.”

“You do know that I know that you made your bruises a lot worse than they were?”

“You peeked at me doing that!?”

“I guess I know what your game was.   Endure the pain of a couple of real bruises – even if they were self-inflicted and then get a life time free from your Mom’s wrath.”

“Yeah.   It didn’t half hurt for a little while – but it sure worked good.”

“Except you are now about the worst spoilt brat in a hundred miles in any direction.    And that is not going to happen any longer on my watch.”

“And what do you plan to do?    Tell tattle tales on me to dad?”

He wriggled slightly and produced the large oak bat he had been sitting on.  He waved it threateningly in the general direction of her tightly clenched bottom.    Ye gods – that thing would really cream her ass.

“You have shown that you have no self-discipline whatsoever.    So I am going to correct the errors of your ways.  Me, personally.    Unlike your dad, I do believe in the beneficial effects of spankings.    From now on, no bad deed will go unpunished.   You are warned.”

And as the air gave a gentle sigh, he vanished from sight.

- - - - -

“Flick, the cleaners are coming today – please tidy your bedroom before they get here.”

“Of course mom – I’ll do it right now.”    She left the breakfast table to complete the weekly chore – but without any of the usual long drawn out wheedling and pleading to let the cleaners tidy up her room themselves.

“Good heavens, Marge.    Did you see that?”

“I do hope she is not sickening for something…”

“We had better keep an eye on her – just in case.”

Her parents nodded in stunned agreement, and returned to finish their morning meal.

- - - -

He was sitting on the end of her bed again.   She had been fairly sure that this was going to happen.

He slumped down on the mattress:  his whole body slumped – even his face slumped.

“You look different,” she said brightly, as if without a care in the world.   It was a bluff, but one that always worked on her Dad.   It was worth a try.

“I can assume any shape.   I thought looking more like one of your fellow countrymen might make me seem less strange to you,”   His voice was like a deep sigh,

“Is there something wrong?”   She continued with her beam of “I am so innocent”.

“You, like me, have free will.   We can always choose which course of action we can take.   And we are always responsible for the consequences of our actions.”

“You mean like what I did yesterday?”   The smile was gone.

“More than that.   We Djinn’s rarely interfere with our charges.   We simply witness their lives.   Sometimes we have to do things.   That time you fell off your bicycle and by happenchance avoided getting hit by a truck.   That was me.”

“I thought it had to be my guardian angel…” 

“That would make no sense.   Angels do what fate has determined they are going to do.   If an angel intervened in your life, then your life would be pre-ordained and you would also have no free will.  We are, however, responsible for the consequences of our actions.”

She nodded glumly.   It sure looked as if he intended to take her to task.

“What you did was bad.   Very bad.   If I don’t beat you for it, I may be held to account for not taking such action.   And yet if I do, that may be the act I am held to be in breach of my duty.”

“wow,” she whispered.    “Isn’t there something else you could do to punish me?”

“You took your sister’s homework out of her school bag.   You threw it in the trash.   You poured a half full bowl of cornflakes and milk over it to ensure it was ruined forever.   And you got her into serious trouble with her teacher.”

She nodded.  That about summed it up.

“And all because she would not share one of her lipsticks with you.”

She screwed up her mouth.  “She sort of asked for it …”

“If you had said virtually anything other than that, it might possibly have saved your hide.   Be thankful we are not in my ancient land.    Such behavior would have warranted a whipping in the market place.”

“A whipping!?   Goddammit!   Who the hell do you think you are coming in here and …”

Her tirade was brought to an abrupt halt as she was hauled across his knee.   It was a simple task to flip her skirt and roll down her panties.

“Not on the bare … OW!”

The paddle was large and flat.   It instantly made two bands of dark pink appear in a line across both pale white buttocks.

It did not take long for them to complete their work.   Another nine cracks of it had turned both cheeks into deeply bruised, red raw globes of pain.

“Stop… please stop…  I’m sorry for what I did. “

“Of course, Flick – enough is enough.”

He allowed her to stand, her skirt dropping back into place.   She left her panties around her knees.   Her bottom was too sore for them to be pulled up right away.

She looked at him with tear stained cheeks.    “Is this what you are going to do to me?   I do something you disapprove of, so you beat me into submission?”

“No.   Probably not.   I am not sure what I shall do with you in future.   It all depends.   On you.   And on me.    It all depends.”

“Please can you leave me now?    I would like to lie down for a while.”

“I shall leave your sight.   But I am your personal Djinn.    I shall always be less than a heartbeat away from you in case you need me.   Even if you think that you don’t.”

There was a sigh of air as he seemed to poof out of existence.

He had left the paddle lying on her pillow.   She picked it up and put it into the middle drawer of her dresser.

And then laid face down on her mattress to gently caress her bruises, and to contemplate on what she could do.