Jim came around slowly. My God, what a wonderful dream . . . he’d had wet dreams before, but never like that. The smell of coffee crossed his nostrils. God. Coffee. Just what I need. Reluctantly he opened his eyes, and couldn’t help but gasp.

Jeanie or Jennie, he’d never gotten the names straight, was kneeling next to him, holding a cup of coffee in her hand. That was no dream . . . he’d never imagined it could be like that. He and Jeanie or Jennie had made it lots. Maybe both of them; now that his mind was clearing a little, he realized the two had switched on them, once, maybe more.

"Jeanie?" he said wonderingly.

"Jennie," she smiled. "I trust the morning finds you well, Master. I must compliment you on your commendable vigor last night."

"I . . . uh," he said as he tried to move. He ached. It seemed like every muscle in his body hurt . . . but holy shit, what a wonderful way to get sore . . . "I guess I’m a little stiff," he said.

"I thought you might be, master," Jennie grinned. "I have a large dose of ibuprofen here for you. We call it ‘vitamin genie’"

"Thank you, Jennie," he said, still barely able to comprehend the last twelve hours. He took the pills from her hand, tossed them down, and took a large gulp of coffee to wash them down.

"Master," she smiled. "I know it’s probably stepping out of place for a mere genie to make this suggestion, but if you were to work on getting into shape, you might enjoy your other two wishes even more and not feel so sore afterwards."

"I play golf three or four nights a week," he protested as he swung his legs out of bed. He could feel the scratches across his back where Jeanie or Jennie or maybe both of them at different times had held on tight with her fingernails as she bucked in orgasm, screaming, "Oh. OH! OH! OH, MY MASTER!!" God, what a memory . . .

"But Master, you use a golf cart, do you not? Walking would be much better for you. In fact, running would be better yet. It’s nicely cool out there this morning. A nice easy jog will do you much good. Just go a mile or so at an easy pace, then come back and shower off, you’ll feel like a new man."

"Jennie, I have to say I feel like a new man as it is."

"Why, thank you Master. I take it you enjoyed last night."

"More than I ever thought possible. Jennie, thank you. Thank Jeanie, too."

"Oh, Master, you can thank her yourself, she’s getting your brother up, and then will stop by to see you. We have a light breakfast made for you, but we must be on our way. There’s no rest for genies, and we have lots to do today. Master, do you need help getting dressed?"

"No, thank you, Jennie. I can manage."

"Very well, sir. By the way, Master, Jeanie and I have discussed it, and it seems likely that we could be back for your second wish next Monday night. That’s not absolutely sure. Like we said last night, we genies never know for sure what’s going to happen. Now, Master, I must go say goodbye to your brother. I’ll see you again in a few days." She quickly bent over and gave him a nice kiss, then walked out the door, just as Jeanie walked in.

"Good morning, Master," she said. "The morning finds you well, I trust?"

"I hurt. I ache. I’ve never felt better in my life. Jeanie, that was awesome. Thank you."

"Master, it’s just part of a genie’s job. Our joy is in our service. Your brother is getting set to go jogging, and I’m glad to see that you are, too. I think you will find it worth your while for your next wish."

"Jennie was saying that. Thank you again, Jeanie."

"That’s what we came for, Master. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to be on our way. See you in a few days."

"Hey Jeanie," he smiled. "Good luck."

"The same to you, Master!" she smiled as she turned and walked out of the room.

Jim drained the cup of coffee Jennie had brought him, then still naked, got up and headed over to a clothes drawer. There were a pair of running shorts in there he used to lounge around in once in a while. He was just pulling them on when Jerry came to his door, dressed in running shorts and a T-shirt, carrying gym shoes. "Holy shit!" he moaned.

"Did that really happen?"

"Christ, it must have, I hurt so bad, but holy fuck, what a night!"

"God, I never dreamed it could be like that."

"Me either. What was all the genie and master stuff, anyway?"

"Just trying to fuck with our heads. Trying, hell; they did it."

"Baiting us . . . "

"Master . . . oh Christ, I’m not going to say it, that’s one thing I’m sure we didn’t do . . . "

"Maybe next Monday, Jennie said. Or was it Jeanie?"

"I don’t know. Jeanie or Jennie or whoever it was said that was a good workout on the basics, next time we’ll do some more advanced stuff."

"Advanced? Oh, my God! I don’t know how we’ll survive it."

"Me either. But what a way to go!"

*   *   *

"Oh, GOD!’ Sandy laughed. "That was fun!"

"We had their heads so fucked up it was unreal!" Dayna giggled, trying to keep the Chevette between the white lines. She hoped a cop wouldn’t spot them. Two women in belly-dancer outfits weaving all over the road at seven in the morning . . . that would take a world of explaining, even sober.

"God, there were so many times it was hard to stay in character, but it was worth it. I mean, they know we’re Sandy and Dayna, but we had them calling us Jeanie and Jennie all the way through."

"You know, we do that heterodyning stuff pretty good," Dayna laughed. "One of us starting a thought and the other one finishing it. I know we worked on it a bit, but we’ve got to work it into the act more."

"It helps when we’ve already more or less got worked out what we’re going to say," Sandy agreed. "From there on it’s just winging it. Next Monday night, then?"

"Yeah, unless we hit a real good pitch somewhere," Dayna grinned.

"Do we do it in costume again?"

"Oh, hell yes, except maybe let’s switch names on them to confuse them. They know it’s a fantasy, we know it’s a fantasy. It doesn’t matter. ‘Willing suspension of disbelief,’ they called it in lit class. God, I actually got something out of that stupid class I mostly slept through!"

"Point for you, Dayna. I’m going to have to go some to come up with a wilder one than that."

"I thought it went better than I expected. What do you say we go home, get out of these costumes, and get a few more hours sleep before we shower and hit the road?"

"Works for me," she said. "Christ, I’m so tired I’m willing to risk having the folks there when we walk into the house wearing these harem clothes. But they ought to be gone, I hope."

*   *   *

The weather was better the next few days. In the time following the Willoughby brothers’ "first wish" it was about as nice a spring as could be asked for. For no particular reason they headed off toward Toledo, and worked some shopping centers there, finding some good bar pitches in the evening, good money but not spectacular, so again for no particular good reason they moved on again. They hit a particularly good pitch one evening in a small Ohio town they didn’t even remember the name of, happening to drive by an ice cream stand just as the youth soccer games were winding up – they kept on playing until well after dark, and the owner of the ice cream stand asked them to stay the night. Friday night they hit another small town festival, and while wearing the harem costumes did well there as well, again playing until well after dark before heading for the renfaire, where they’d left their big tent set up all week to hold the campsite.

The weather continued perfect that weekend, and they had good buckets at the show and good hats wandering the grounds. They got back to their tent in the evening to discover Erik and Kurt set up next to them again. They shared a couple beers and a joint, and went to bed again – this time Dayna stayed with Kurt in the guys’ tent. On balance, she thought Erik was a little better, but both were pretty good, and it was a shame they had a gig in Wisconsin for the following weekend, the last night of the Indianapolis Renfaire.

They hung around late on Sunday night, just hanging with people staying the week and playing some music, then got up Monday morning and drove back to Bradford, where they took a nap, got showers, cleaned up good and prepared for the evening. This time, Dayna’s parents were home, so they headed out to the car wearing street clothes, said they were heading north, and did – as far as a quiet park with a restroom, where they changed into Jeanie and Jennie again.

It was harder to keep from breaking character this time – the guys weren’t quite as buffaloed as they’d been the week before, although the name swap did help confuse them a little. It didn’t matter much, since they were in bed even quicker than they’d managed the week before. The guys did seem to be in a little better shape, and, even better, they seemed to have taken some of the lessons the two girls had taught them the week before to heart.

The next morning Jeanie and Jennie again woke up their "masters" with coffee in hand. Jerry and Jim weren’t quite so sore and aching from their endeavors this time. Since they didn’t want to go back to Bradford to change and shower – and thus advertise they’d slept out all night – they changed the game around a little bit and showered with the "masters," with various backs and fronts being soaped down very well before getting dressed, and then Jeanie and Jennie making the guys breakfast. They left while the guys were eating, with the message that the third wish would be a week from tomorrow night.

They changed back into street clothes in the same little park restroom they’d used the night before and headed north. They had a pretty good pitch around a fountain at lunchtime in Grand Rapids, then a good bar pitch that evening. They headed on over to Lake Michigan, but decided the season was just a little early, so drove back to Grand Rapids, did lunchtime in a different spot, and evening in a different bar. The afternoon between, they spent some time with the newspapers in a library and found a local festival that started the next night not far away; it made a pretty good pitch. It was a fairly long haul to Indianapolis, so they headed south on Friday and found another small-town festival about sixty miles north of the renfaire; that proved to be a pretty good pitch, too.

The last weekend of the renfaire went three days, being Memorial Day weekend. Again, the weather was good, although not the sparkling one it had been the weekend before. With the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, Dayna and Sandy thought the renfaire would be dead, but it proved not to be – in fact, it was probably the busiest day of the whole run. It appeared that by race day there were enough locals sick to death of all the race talk that a visit to the fifteenth century seemed like the perfect getaway.

They stayed the night after the last day of the faire on Monday, then got up Tuesday morning and headed back to Bradford. Again, they got good showers, did some laundry, and got a nap, then took off much like they had the week before, again using the park restroom to become Jeanie and Jennie – with the names again reversed, even though they were starting to confuse themselves by now.

Again, it did not take long to go from front door to bed, although this time, just for the heck of it, it was all one bed, Jerry’s as it turned out, with some heavy-duty group sex and some special oral training. Jennie and Jim did take off to his room when the time came to go to sleep, although it was a while before there was much sleep in either room.

Once again the girls were up before the guys – it was a miracle that they’d managed that little stunt three weeks running. This time, it was a little earlier; again, they showered with guy and girl together before getting dressed, the girls in the genie outfits, of course. While Jennie and Jim showered, Jeanie went down to the kitchen and started to throw together a serious breakfast for the four of them, and not just toaster pastries and coffee either, while Jerry sat in the kitchen sipping coffee, teasing her and getting teased back.

Eventually Jennie and Jim appeared – like Jerry and Jeanie, they’d taken one last opportunity for a good time – just as Jeanie was ready to serve breakfast. The girls served their masters, of course, then got plates and sat down with them. "Masters," Jeanie said once the dishes were cleared away and coffee was warmed up. "Jennie and I would like to have a few words with you before we leave. We have very much enjoyed being your servants through your three wishes, but if we may be so bold, there are a few words of wisdom we should like to leave you with before we vanish from your lives."

"Do you really have to go?" Jerry said. "This has really been a lot of fun, and I don’t want it to stop."

"Yeah," Jim added. "I think we’d both be liars if we didn’t admit that we’re falling in love with the both of you."

"Master!" Jeanie said harshly. "Do not even allow yourself to even think that word. You cannot love a genie. You can enjoy being with her, you can have warm memories of her, but loving her will only lead to breaking your heart. Somewhere out there exist women you can dare to love and make your lives with. We are not those women, we are only genies."

"Master, Jeanie is correct," Jennie added. "That is why you were only allowed three wishes. Any more would have been dangerous for all of us. You are very nice men, both of you, but loving a genie or a genie allowing herself to love you would only have led to disaster."

"But . . . the two of you are terrific people," Jerry protested.

"Master, do you remember your parents introducing you to two women named Dayna and Sandy a few weeks ago?" Jeanie replied. "Your father is a wise man. He commented to them that those two women are like your parents, that they will hear the call of the wild goose wherever they go. The two of you will not. You want to have homes, families, steady, stable relationships, am I not correct?"

"Well, yeah," Jim nodded. "Maybe not just yet, but when we graduate."

"Master, you could not dream of having those kinds of relationships with those two women," Jennie smiled. "If that mistake were made, you would soon hate them for wanting to see what’s beyond the far horizon, and they would soon hate you for keeping them from doing it. Think of your own parents if you don’t understand."

"Dayna and Sandy are women of the world," Jeanie added. "They enjoy many men, and it will probably be years before they could be tied down to one, if it ever happens at all. Trying to tie them down would only lead to heartbreak. They are not the women you need. You deserve women more suited to you. Now, if we may get to the words of advice we wanted to pass along to you. Jerry, you have a year left in college, and Jim, you have two. You are now in the best place you will ever be to find those warm, loving, stable women whom you can make lives and families with. Do not be complacent. Go out and look for them. Look beyond surface beauty, to the beauty that lies within the soul, and there you will find happiness. But you must reach out, for it will not come to you. Somewhere, there is a woman waiting for you to reach out to her. Go find her."

"Point taken," Jerry nodded. "It’s hard. It’s not what I’ve wanted to do, but I really need to do it."

"I do, too," Jim agreed.

"Masters," Jennie said. "It’s our real hope that what we have given you in the three wishes granted to you is some desire to work harder at finding that woman. Now you will have an idea of what to expect, and more importantly, what will be expected of you. But, a word of warning. When you find your woman, she will probably not know some of the things we have taught you. Bring them to her carefully and gently, and you will receive an excellent reward. Bring them to her harshly, and both of you will suffer."

"Thanks, Jeanie and Jennie," Jerry grinned. "That’s putting it delicately, but I can see you’re right. Thank you for your advice, and thanks for everything else, too."

"You’re very welcome, Master," Jeanie said. She let out a sigh, and said. "Now the three wishes are complete, and I fear we must go about our duties, as you must go about yours."

"Are we going to see you ever again?" Jim asked as the two girls got up from the table.

"It is possible you might see us again," Jennie said. "As you might see Sandy and Dayna again. But there will be no more wishes, and you must understand that. Do you not see that more would be too many?"

"Yes, I think I do," he nodded. "You’re right, Jeanie and Jennie. I wish there could be more, but maybe it’s better there aren’t. But the best of luck to the both of you, and you can rest assured we’ll never forget you."

"Good," Jeanie smiled. "That’s exactly how it should be. As I said, the three wishes are complete, so you are no longer our masters. It’s against custom, but would either of you two gentlemen object if we kissed you goodbye?"

"Please feel free," Jerry smiled. "Look, I have to come out and say that the two of you are so full of shit that it’s unbelievable, but you’re damn memorable women, and you’ve opened a lot of doors to me. I’ll always be grateful."

The kisses went on for a long time, and it was with some difficulty on the parts of all concerned that they didn’t end up in the bedroom. But soon, Jeanie and Jennie told them they had to go, and they’d rather they stayed inside and didn’t see them to the door.

"That was kind of hard," Sandy said to Dayna as she drove the Chevette up the street.

"Yeah," she said. "That could have gotten real tempting. And it would have been a big fucking mistake, too."

"I know," Sandy sighed. "It’s not only obvious, but disgustingly obvious. But at the same time, if the circumstances were just a little different, I could see myself walking right into that mistake."

"Yeah, me too," Dayna nodded. "I hope we both learned a lesson from it. I mean, the time might come, but I don’t think soon. And probably not with them. I’m just glad we told them up front that there would only be three wishes. They were falling in love with Jeanie and Jennie, anyway, not Dayna and Sandy. It was hard enough to be Jeanie for three nights. It was a fun role to play, but I couldn’t have played it much longer."

*   *   *

It would not be possible to detail all the places the girls went that summer, all the places they stopped and dragged out the guitars. In later years, they kept a scrapbook and journal, but hadn’t begun it at this time.

Just for the sake of going somewhere different when they left the Willoughby house behind, they headed west, still dressed in the belly-dancer outfits, which tended to draw the eye when they set up in front of a shopping mall in Michigan City, Indiana. They also drew some attention in a couple places they tried in the Chicago area. They headed north through Wisconsin, with the intent of going as far as St. Paul, but got a little diverted and didn’t make it there that trip. They were in no particular hurry; they managed to find tourist places to set up for a while, where hats were good if not spectacular; there were places to camp, although in the north woods they tended to be pretty buggy, keeping them in their tent after dark. They had two and a half weeks before they had to be back for the Maple Leaf Renfaire in Kalamazoo, and they intended to be gone most of them. On weekends, they played local festivals they found out about in various library stops; three were good, and only one, a lumberman’s festival, turned out to be a loser, mostly because they had to compete against the noise of chain saws and worse, so they soon moved on.

On the Tuesday before they had to be at the Maple Leaf Renfaire, they were sitting on Central Avenue in downtown Mackinaw City, a town that made Bradford look huge. But it’s one of the state’s premiere tourist traps, because at one end of Central Avenue is the bridge that leads five miles to Michigan’s upper peninsula, and at the other end are three ferry docks that transfer people to Mackinac Island.

The island is a different place, a step out of time of its own. Except for emergency vehicles, automobiles are banned; the place gets along on horses and bicycles, and hordes of tourists. From being there before, Dayna thought the period outfits would go over well, so they wore the renfaire costumes with the long skirts and corsets, took a ferry to the island, and found a good place near the ferry docks to set up among all the tourists – and it was good, about the best hat of the trip, and obviously a place to visit again some time.

But this day they were on the mainland. Central Avenue is covered for several blocks by small stores that attract tourists, and there’s a steady stream of them walking along from store to store, even better than on the Island. It seemed like a perfect place to do some busking; they found a park bench along a busy sidewalk, sat down, and started playing. They sat there for an hour, getting an excellent hat, until a local policeman came along. While they weren’t doing any harm, it sort of offended his sense of propriety, so he told them to move along. It was hard to give up such a great location, but they knew better than to hassle cops, so they packed up their stuff as the cop got back in his car and drove off.

As they wondered where to go next, a tall, gray-haired man who had watched the end of the scene said to them, "Girls, he’s wrong. This is a tourist town, and people want to have fun. The mayor will have to have a word with him, but it’s never a good idea to get on a cop’s case in public."

"Thanks," Sandy smiled. "Do you think that it would do any good to talk to the mayor?"

"You’re talking to him," the man smiled. "You girls play pretty well, and you were making people happy. If you’d like to play some place where you won’t be hassled, head down to the end of the street, to Shepler’s Ferry Service." He pointed to a sign at the end of the street. "There’s always a crowd of people waiting for the ferries in the mornings, and it’d be something to occupy their time."

"Thank you, sir," Dayna said. "We’ll have to check it out. You’re sure there won’t be any problem?"

"No, the owner of the ferry company understands these things, that people come here to have a good time. You’re welcome to go there any morning you feel like it."

"You have any idea of a place to do it in the afternoon?"

"Sure," the man said. "See that totem pole across the street? That’s actually on private property, not on the sidewalks. Go into that store to the left of the totem pole, you’ll find a woman by the name of Cheryl. Ask her permission to set up by the totem pole, and if she has any question, tell her Bill Shepler suggested it."

The light dawned on Dayna real quick. "Like in Shepler’s Ferry Service?" she smiled.

"You got it, kid. Now have fun and keep some people happy."

Cheryl proved to be an interesting and intense person on her own, and she ran a store full of Alaskan and dogsledding memorabilia, mostly with huge price tags. As soon as the girls suggested setting up to do some busking, she was all for it, and they didn’t even need to drop Bill Shepler’s name. They mentioned that the local cop had been on their case, and she just told them, "If he hassles you out there, tell him to see me."

The totem pole proved to be a perfect location, lacking only a park bench, but the stools from the Chevette solved that problem. The hats were great – people on vacation looking to spend money on having fun didn’t mind leaving a generous part of it with them – and they stayed out there until after dark when it died down some. They were just packing up when another man came along. "Hey, girls," he said. "I’ve been hearing about you. I run the Keyhole Bar down the street. If you’d like to come play, you’d be welcome. No money, but I’ll treat you to the best deep-fried lake trout in the state."

"Sure," Dayna grinned. "We’ll be right down."

It was after midnight when they got to their motel – there are many around Mackinaw City, and some of the smaller, older ones were very cheap, so they’d decided a real shower had its advantages. As one showered, the other one counted bills and rolled change, and it took both of them to finish up after the first honest-to-pete busking-only thousand-dollar day they’d had!

"Dayna, my friend," Sandy smiled. "I think we’ve found paradise! What’s neater, people are coming and going all the time. It’s never the same crowd two days running; there’s always fresh money coming by."

"Sounds like it to me," Dayna smiled. "One thing: we never tell anybody about it or this place would be overrun by buskers. Not even Tim. We found it ourselves, let’s keep it."

The next morning, they got up fairly early, put on the renfaire outfits since they seemed to go well with the atmosphere, had a good breakfast, then strolled down to the ferry docks and started to play. One of the ticket agents was a little upset, but the magic words "Bill Shepler" fixed that in short order. While they were in period clothes, they found that oldies, rather than period pieces from the renfaires went over pretty well, so they did stuff they liked like California Dreamin’ and Cold Cold Heart and a host of others. They had a fairly heavy pocket in the gig bag when they left after noon, grabbed a quick, light lunch, and set up by the totem pole again. On a break, they got to talking with Cheryl, who told them about a neat place out in the forest where they could set up camp for free. Although with the kind of money they were making, a cheap motel room wasn’t out of line; that sounded even better.

They stayed through the morning ferry loading on Friday, then hopped in the Chevette, raced for Bradford, threw a load of laundry in the washing machine, did some other chores, reloaded the car and early in the morning raced back up to Kalamazoo to set up for the Maple Leaf Renfaire.

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