A Hackneyed Tale of Serious Gravity, Chapter 4

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A Hackneyed Tale of Serious Gravity, Chapter 4

By Portia Bennett

Introduction: I’m sure everyone has come across a story or two about someone finding that bottle or lamp that after the appropriate action releases a genie who will grant a certain number of wishes for the lucky person who happens to find it. Quite frequently, the person finding the genie doesn’t read the ‘fine print’ and the results are frequently not what the person making the wishes desired. The greedy and the dishonest seem to get the worst of it. In the case of this story, I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

Apparently, Becky was not too upset about finding out about Sylvia. It certainly had to have been a surprise, but obviously things did work out. At least our narrator thought they had.


 

This work is copyrighted by the author and any publication or distribution without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.


 

A Hackneyed Tale of Serious Gravity, Chapter 4

 

Chapter 4

I had to make two circles around the parking area before Becky was able get her second bag at the carousel. The attendant wheeled her out to the curb, and put her luggage on the back seat. Becky gave her a nice tip.

“Well, you seemed rather excited about something when we talked last night. Did you find a treasure in your searches for the Holy Grail?”

“I’ll let you decide when you see it. Let’s just say Maxie came through again.”

Being in a rather small city, it took us only 20 minutes to get home from the regional airport. Even though we were in a capital city, our airport had no international connections. I took her bags inside while she struggled to walk the few feet from the car to inside our modest home. She collapsed in her chair while I opened a bottle of Prosecco, and poured a glass for her. That trip was tough, with a change in Atlanta. Atlanta was just an ordeal, and it kept getting worse.

I turned on the gas fire place, and poured a glass of wine for myself. I then carried the perfume bottle, which she hadn’t yet seen, to her. “What do you think of this?” I asked.

“Oh, my god,” she exclaimed, “That has to be Fabergé. Where did you get it?”

“I got it from Maxie, as I said earlier. Yes, it came from the Fabergé shop; however, that’s only part of the story. Watch this,” I said as I took the stopper from the top of the flask. Sylvia must have known exactly what was going on. The smoke display was over the top.

“Holy shit,” Becky exclaimed as Sylvia stepped out of the cloud of dissipating smoke.

“Becky, it’s so nice to see you,” She said as she winked at me. I think she was enjoying this as much as I was.

“Theodore Edwards, I don’t know how you did that, but I won’t have any trollop coming into my house, especially when I’m not at home.

“Young lady, pick up your stuff and leave. By the way, that is certainly not any outfit I would expect a real genie to wear.”

“Would this be any better?” Sylvia asked as she waved her hand. I’m sure the wave was just for the effect. Her very nice business outfit turned into something that had to have been stolen from the set of “I Dream of Jeannie.”

“Oops, I think I owe you an apology. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen. I guess I’ll have to edit my fact file.

“What is your name young lady, and don’t tell me it’s Jeannie?”

“It’s Sylvia,” she replied.

“And I suppose you live in that bottle.”

“Of course not,” Sylvia replied, “I live in Hartford, Connecticut with my family. I’m a writer. My husband runs a plant nursery and landscaping service.. I’m just on call for the magic stuff. I do only one client at a time. When this project is over, I’ll be assigned to someone else.”

“So, is this one of the standard three wish things?” she almost sneered.

My wife could be a bit sarcastic at times. The last thing I wanted was for Becky to piss Sylvia off.

“Yes, your husband has three wishes. We have gone over the rules, and he will explain them to you. Your husband is the only one who may summon me. There is no rush. There is no time limit.

“I need to get home to rescue my husband from a bratty child.” Sylvia gave my wife a hug and a gentle kiss. Then she disappeared in the standard cloud of smoke.

“I guess I’m in for it now. What are you going to do; turn me into a bimbo?”

“Absolutely. You will be a platinum blonde with tits out to here,” I said gesturing with my hands about a foot from my chest. “Wait a minute. I’m impotent. That wouldn’t do me much good at all. This is how it’s going to work. Sylvia and I have gone over all the rules. My first wish is for you. You are going to get your health back. The neat thing is we get to attach all sorts of sub wishes to the main wish. We can work it all out before the wish is implemented on our okay. Sylvia will go over everything with us. There is no rush.”

Becky mulled things over for a while. “I suppose your wish is going to be ….”

“I’m sorry, but that’s a given. I have to do it. Would you please help me do it the right way?”

“If this is real, you know I will. I love you and will support you any way I can.”

***

Becky and I went over every detail time and time again. When we thought we had it figured out, we asked Sylvia to look over what we had written. She made a few suggestions, and pointed out where a comma was needed, and where we should eliminate a couple. There were the legal things we needed to take care of. Our current lives would have to end and new existences would have to be created. One thing we knew for sure was that we wanted to remain together. Obviously, we were going to have to make some adjustments.

When we had Becky’s wish complete, we started working on mine. Besides the sex and gender thing, there were a number of enhancements I wanted. I wanted to increase my IQ. I wasn’t ignorant or stupid by any definition. I had a BS in biology, and an MS in Plant Ecology. I just wanted to be sharper if I was able to do what I wanted. My IQ was in the 130 range, but I wanted to be intellectually more agile. If a question came up, I wanted to be able to address it properly. I wanted to have a handle on the Scientific Method. I wanted to be able to assimilate data, and be able to come to the correct conclusions. I wanted to go to the stars; however, that was not written into the wish. I would have to do that on my own merit. I wanted Sylvia to give my IQ a 50 point boost. She said it wouldn’t be a problem.

If I was to gain knowledge, I was going to have to do it on my own. I had the basics down without a problem. I would be admitted to MIT to earn a PhD in Astro Physics and Planetary Ecology. I would have to earn it. It couldn’t be bestowed by a wish. It had to be ‘real’. It would be tough.

The gender and sex thing was most important. I showed Becky a picture of the template I wanted to start with.

“Well, I must say your taste in women is pretty good,” Becky said as she examined the image of the partially clad young woman. I had other pictures of her that showed a bit more, but I didn’t think Becky needed to see them.

“I want to be at least five centimeters taller with a corresponding weight increase. You have always been my model for beauty, but I don’t want to be a copy of you. Obviously, I fell in love with your mind and intellect, as well as your physical beauty.”

“If you say so, I think I will believe you. I imagine you would like to be a bit bigger in the boob department, although she is quite nice the way she is.”

“I think I would like to be at least a cup and a half bigger.”

“So mine weren’t big enough for you?”

“Yours were perfect for you. It’s just that this is what I want for me.”

“If that’s what you want, I’m going to have to make sure Sylvia acquires the right lingerie for you. We’ll have to have a talk.”

There were many more mundane things we had to go over. I insisted I had to be a fully functional female. That was very important. We’d both decided being disease free was critical. There were a number of other things that Becky insisted on, and I relied on her wisdom and experience. Obviously, she knew far more than I. I knew that deep inside I was a woman; however, for my entire life I’d been relying on lore rather than fact. One can’t really understand what it was like to be a woman without being one. I was going to have to learn the hard way. No, I was going to have to learn the real way.

Yes, I had 77 subparagraphs to my main wish; however, I had to rely on Becky to make sure they covered the essential requirements of being fully female in every respect. We finally decided it was time to take the next steps. We summoned Sylvia.

Sylvia explained that perhaps the easiest thing would be to transition overnight. We would wake up in our new abode on the outskirts of Boston, but close to MIT. She would give us all the basic information we would need. Fortunately, Becky and I had been to Boston several times, so we were not that ignorant of what we would be facing.

The academic situation was something else. I had one hell of a lot to learn. It was up to me to learn what I needed to learn. Fortunately, Sylvia allowed me to remember what I had been exposed to in my previous life. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We woke up the next morning in the flat that was to be ours for at least the next three years. I couldn’t believe how good I felt, and it was the same for Becky. I made love to her. We wouldn’t do it that often, but when we did, it was because we really did love each other. My new self was much more difficult for Becky to get used to than it was for me to get used to her appearance. After all she looked a lot like she did when we were first dating. My appearance was nothing close to the way I appeared before. I don’t need to go into great details, like down to each follicle. I was just a bit over 175 cm tall; the same height I was before. I had dark brown air. My figure was exactly how I had envisioned it. I was not plus sized, and I certainly wasn’t rail thin. I was definitely well endowed. Our effective ages were late 20s, early 30s, and that’s what our documents showed. We were now wife and wife.

One of the things I insisted on was that I wanted no canned memories. I had to learn it for myself. This meant Becky had to be my teacher. I thought I knew a lot about being a woman from reading the literature both scientific and fictional. I knew nothing. My first period was a shocker. Fortunately, my second and third weren’t nearly as bad. Becky was a tough teacher because she cared. The makeup lessons were difficult, but I learned quickly. I wanted to present the correct image professionally and socially.

School was difficult. It was supposed to be. Being a PhD candidate meant there were many responsibilities. I was frequently called on to teach classes and give lectures. Then there was all the research I had to do. Astro Physics is a very interesting field. I wouldn’t be studying it if it weren’t, but I certainly don’t need to go over the details at this time. The ecology part was fun. There had been a lot of speculative ideas thrown out there about planetary ecology, and many of them turned out to be valid.

===

Now it’s time for the Friday night date. Sandy is a good and eager learner. Becky explains to her exactly why things are going the way they are, and it makes perfect sense to Sandy. She will never forget this night.

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Comments

So the First Wish...

...was for Becky's health; the second was for their complete reboot that included Sandy's gender shift. It would seem that the technology level here -- ion drives, space elevators, a Mars colony -- was already present and didn't have to be wished into existence. (At least, not by Theodore/Sandy.) Similarly, it seems that Sandy got the EM job and her promotion to colony boss on merit, not as part of her wish. (Though I suppose the original position with EM could have been one of the 77 subparagraphs, contingent on her earning her doctorates the hard way.)

I guess the Hartford where Sylvia lives is in the same worldline they're in, since the laws of physics apply to her materializing on Mars -- or at least Sandy thinks so. But Sylvia said before that she's not bound by time constraints; she can take 20 minutes to get ready and still show up instantaneously.

Eric

(Really good of Sylvia to edit those commas. That's how a lot of wishes in genie stories backfire.)

Sylvia took a little veering from the truth

littlerocksilver's picture

She was having some fun. She's only good for short trips, nothing extraterrestrial. Only Wizards, Sorceresses and Sorcerers can do it in this universe; not to say they can't take someone with them.

Portia

Am I the only one?

Daphne Xu's picture

Lost on the significance of "EM" or "EM technologies"? I'm often completely out of the loop.

-- Daphne Xu

No. But...

...I've been treating it as Earth-Mars -- and if so, I don't know how people were understanding it in the first chapter.

(And I'm assuming that "plant" is being used in the sense of "factory building", not flora.)

Eric

Factory

Daphne Xu's picture

You were right of course. I was way out in La-La Land, imagining them on a gigantic thing of flora in the first chapter.

-- Daphne Xu

My Kind Of Genie

joannebarbarella's picture

No trickery provided you think your wishes through properly. 77 sub-clauses would take some work.

Your G & S references threw me as I am not an afficionado and did not appreciate the blog association. Ah, well!

Dot every i...

Daphne Xu's picture

Cross every t.
Follow every hypo,
Avoid calamity.
(Sorry, that tune came to mind once I wrote the first two lines.)

So we are now back in the present, or near future, USA as we know it -- except for the existence of genies. And our narrator has become the Sandy of the first part. Sylvia helps with the careful design of the wish, so may we assume that she's not going to be a jerkass genie or a literal, exact-words genie to cause harm. On the other hand, the wish may be so complicated that it may be cognitively impossible to follow the exact terms.

-- Daphne Xu

At the Time...

Daphne Xu's picture

I was still wondering how they'd wind up on that gargantuan (I'm trying to avoid the word -- okay) plant. The genie's involvement seemed to make that more plausible.

-- Daphne Xu

Re: Plant.

littlerocksilver's picture

We have a problem with language differences. In the US the term "plant" can refer to a manufacturing complex i.e. a chemical plant.

Portia

Our Genie-fied Couple

>> Astrophysics is a very interesting field. I wouldn’t be studying it if it weren’t, but I certainly don’t need to go over the details at this time. The ecology part was fun. There had been a lot of speculative ideas thrown out there about planetary ecology. <<

If she is enrolling at MIT, she probably wouldn't have to go too deeply into Astrophysics, which is Einstein's theory of general relativity plus quantum physics, if she were more interested in planetary surfaces. She could get degrees in Planetary Science; that department is doing many extremely hi-tech experiments.

Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee

Thank You

littlerocksilver's picture

It has been literally 60 years since I took physics, and I wasn't very good at it then.

Portia

Sorry, double post; I'm a

Sorry, double post; I'm a little high from my medical marijuana. It's pretty strong; I heard that it's much more potent than the legal marijuana AZ government sells along with the medical.

Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee