Chapter 2

He sat at the kitchen table and gulped down about half the glass. His heart rate had finally returned to something approaching normal. Now if only he could turn off his brain and get rid of the memories of Afghanistan. By habit he rubbed his shoulder, fingers touching the scars that were a mix of shrapnel wounds and surgical incisions. It hurt less tonight than sometimes. Small blessings. The sheer clutter of the kitchen eventually drew his thoughts away from darker memories. Dale got up, set the glass in the sink, and opened a few cabinets, just looking. A lot of it was a disorganized mess, plastic cups, interspersed with normal average looking dishware and all sorts of paper. Tackling this and the whole rest of the house was going to take quite a bit of time.

Calm enough now that sleep might be possible, Dale went back upstairs.

* * * *

Acquisition of coffee involved a 7-11 run. That had to be fixed pronto. Dale made a mental note to buy a coffee maker sometime that afternoon. Back at the house, he sat on the stairs trying to decide where in the hell to start the clean out process. He was immediately interrupted by a knock on the front door. He opened it.

“I should have called first,” said Carol.

Dale gave her a hug. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ve been up for a while. I’m just trying to figure out which disaster area I should tackle first.”

“Eeenie, meenie minie mo? I’m on my way to work so I can’t stay, but I did bring you a half dozen empty boxes. Right now they’re flat, but I also brought a roll of tape to put them back together. Trash gets picked up on Tuesday. The recycling gets picked up every other week. Since it’s Sunday, that will give you two days to fill both up the first time, unless you’re planning on getting a construction dumpster.”

“Not yet, it may come to that but I think I’ll go slowly for now.”

Carol gave him a rueful smile. “It’s an undertaking. Call me later, if I can bring you something else on my way home.”

“Thanks.”

* * * *

Dale finally decided he should start with the bedroom he was sleeping in. If he got the majority of Aunt Mildred’s accumulated mess out of there, maybe he could begin to feel like the house was actually his. Those boxes Carol dropped off were a start. Dale began excavating the closet in the room he’d slept in. Eight pairs of shoes and eleven purses came out of the floor of the closet. He started on the upper shelf next, thinking he’d deal with the clothing hanging in the closet last. A totally ugly lamp with elephants on the bottom, and four hat boxes were the first things off the shelf. Then came a shoe box labeled black pumps with a tiny picture of a high heeled shoe. He didn’t remember his aunt ever wearing anything high heeled. The box was awfully light. Was it empty?

He lifted the lid. A plume of smoke erupted from the box, swirling up and out. Dale stumbled backward, startled. He fell and landed on his ass. The mini blue-gray tornado swirled up to the ceiling then back down to the floor and coalesced into a…guy. Dale stared at him. What the hell? Where had he come from? And why was he dressed like that? The man was slender with nicely defined muscles. His skin was the warm tan that might indicate Hispanic or middle eastern descent, and he wore exactly one item of clothing, an almost transparent pair of blood red harem pants.

“How may I serve?” asked the man. He pressed his hands together in a praying motion and bent slightly at the waist.

“Uh…who the fuck are you?” Dale demanded. His eyes were drawn to the guy’s crotch. He couldn’t help it. The guy was damn near naked.

“I am Riadh. How may I serve?”

“Where’d you come from?”

The man looked puzzled. “The box.”

“No, really. How’d you get in the house?” Dale demanded.

“I was gifted to Mistress Mildred. Perhaps you should ask her to give you the pertinent details.”

“She’s dead.”

The man looked pained. In fact, he looked as though he might burst into tears. “Then you are my new master if you are the owner of my box. How did she die?”

Dale slowly got to his feet. “A stroke followed by pneumonia and heart failure. She was ninety- four. There wasn’t much they could do. What did you mean by I’m your master? I’m not into the BDSM lifestyle.”

“I am a djinn. I must be owned or I am nothing.”

“You’re what?” Dale tried to connect the word the man had used to the spiral of smoke he’d seen. No, that couldn’t be possible. Weren’t djinn some Arabian Nights mythos thing? Mythos as is fairytale. As in not real.