As You Wish 1

As she locked her door, Zola's foot brushed against a small package.

She frowned down at the parcel, left there in the hall, slightly too big to fit through her mail slot. It was wrapped in brown paper tied with twine. Was it a novel she forgot she'd ordered? But no: when she picked up the box, something was loose inside, small and heavy. The delivery address was to this apartment with no name, and there was no return address.

Biting her lip, Zola checked the time. She had maybe two minutes before her next alarm, the last possible time she could leave before being late for work. She stepped back into her apartment, tugging at the twine, ripping into the paper.

Inside a plain box was a copper snake amulet, tarnished green in the nooks and crannies, attached to a simple leather cord. Zola frowned, checked the wrapping and the box again for a card, note, logo - anything at all to indicate where the package came from. Nothing.

The snake amulet was heavy and warm in her hand. Zola traced its curves with a finger, somehow almost... She took in a deep involuntary breath, the amulet's warmth seeming to spread through her body, a heat like -

"You really live like this?" asked a woman from the middle of Zola's studio.

"What the fuck!" Zola shouted and stumbled backward into the door, ramming the handle into her spine.

Standing there in the center of the one-room apartment was a bald stranger in a ridiculous outfit - some kind of luxurious green double-slit dress that emphasized her tall, lithe, sinuous shape. Zola couldn't quite make out the faint pattern to the stranger's copper-toned skin. The woman stood with her bare feet shoulder-width apart, hands on exposed hips, hissing quietly as she looked around the cluttered apartment filled with painting supplies and hodgepodge furniture.

"How did you get in here?" was the only thing Zola could think to say. Her mouth was dry, her mind racing. Somehow she didn't feel threatened or vulnerable, which was strange, but she'd deal with that later. The other woman hadn't responded to Zola's question, so she added: "You need to leave."

"I can disappear, but I can't leave," the woman said, pointing at the amulet in Zola's hand. Her eyes were strange, golden, the pupils narrow vertically.

Zola reached for her phone, snoozed the alarm that warned her to get to work. "I'm going to call the police."

"My name is Samiya," the woman said, holding out her hands, her voice steady, maybe even a bit exasperated. "You're not going to believe me, but I'm a spirit bound to the amulet in your hand, I grant wishes, and I can prove it."

Zola couldn't hold back an incredulous laugh. "You're right, I don't believe you."

"I can prove it," Samiya repeated.

"How?"

"Make a wish," Samiya said, "But it has to be sexual."

Zola laughed again, much more from disbelief than amusement. "Are you, like, a crazy person? I'm late for work, you need to leave."

Samiya raised a hairless eyebrow. "That's your priority right now? That you're late for work?"

Zola crossed her arms, hefted her phone. "So what if it is?" Somehow this still felt more like an oblivious friend outstaying their welcome - not that she'd had time for that. "I really have to go and I can't leave you alone in my apartment. You have five seconds."

The tall stranger crossed her arms too. On her, the stance seemed far more powerful. "Well, first of all, I don't believe you have time to deal with the police. But, second, just make a sexual wish. Any wish. What do you crave?"

Zola rubbed her face. "This can't be happening," she muttered to herself. A spirit who grants sex wishes? Really? It was completely absurd. But... she saw the time on her phone again; she really did need to go. With a deep breath, she asked: "If I make a wish, you'll leave?"

"Yes," replied Samiya. No hesitation, firm voice.

Maybe she meant it. Was this really Zola's best option? She sighed, put her hand on the door handle, and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I wish... for... I don't know, an orgasm."

Warmth rushed through Zola's body, heat slithering its way up between her legs and through her like a full day of summer sun condensed into pleasure so intense that her toes curled inside her work flats, her eyes crossed, and her legs quivered until she dropped to her knees.

Zola recovered slowly, finding one hand pressed below her belly, the other gripping the snake amulet tight. She loosened her uniform scarf. Beneath her work skirt, her panties were wet. Samiya was gone. "What the fuck," Zola whispered to herself.

She sat there for a long moment, cooling off, until she realized her work alarm was going off again. Zola dropped the snake amulet like it had burned her, though it was merely warm. Body-temperature warm.

She scrambled to her feet, rushed to her dresser to grab the first pair of panties she could find. She hiked up her work skirt, changed, and ran out the door, only just remembering to lock behind her.

Luckily, the last bus of the night was late, and Zola caught it just in time.

It was easy enough for her to decide, on the way to work, that whatever she'd experienced before leaving had been a hallucination. She'd been so busy for so long; her schedule perhaps didn't allow for quite as much sleep as she probably needed. Zola spent her time on transit fiddling with her schedule, trying to figure out where she could shave off a few minutes here and there to allow for a little more sleep.

By the time she got to the hotel, any lingering feelings from the incident had worn off, and she felt completely normal.

Zola relieved the evening desk attendant with an apologetic smile. Zola didn't quite remember her name - probably Lana or Lara or something like that. Lauren was always eager to get home after the eleven-o-clock shift end, and Zola was only professionally friendly with her coworkers anyway. Laura left with a brief wave, and Zola was on her own in the cavernous lobby.

It wasn't a busy hotel: a little too far from city center and a little too far from transit hubs for it to be anyone's first choice. It only got busy during big events or holidays when all the other hotels were full.

Perfect for Zola.

She'd done her research and sent her applications quite deliberately: a quiet night audit meant plenty of time for reading and homework. According to her schedule, if all went well, she'd be able to complete her degree in another year and a half, finally finishing what she'd started eight years ago. The occasional guest didn't bother her - she'd planned around the average number of guests per night based on the hotel's statistics, and even found a few ways to streamline the check-in process.

Strangely, though tonight was busier than the statistical average, Zola felt relaxed. She found it easy to be friendly and patient, and despite the conversation with guests, she finished her paperwork and homework ahead of schedule. She enjoyed the colour of the sunrise coming through the lobby windows, and at the end of her shift, didn't even mind taking the weird early bus home.

When she did get back to her apartment, though, Zola felt like a knot was tying itself inside her, tighter with each step down the hall toward the door. She'd half-convinced herself that the parcel was a hallucination, but when she opened the door, she'd find out, one way or the other. She fumbled with her keys, nearly dropped them, and after unlocking the door, stopped with her hand on the lever.

Zola opened the door.

The amulet was still there, slightly crooked against the edge of the carpet, as though the copper snake were slithering up over the lip.

She stood there staring at it as morning light crept in through a careless gap in her blackout curtains. The snake didn't move. No tall lithe woman appeared in her apartment. Nothing changed in Zola's body except for her anxious pulse slowing back to normal.

She stepped inside, closed the door. She reached out a tentative toe toward the amulet to give it a poke... and decided not to. Maybe if she didn't touch it again, nothing would happen.

Decision made, Zola kicked off her shoes, hung up her bag, and tugged the curtains closed. According to her schedule, if she was quick getting ready for bed, she'd be able to sleep about four hours before she had to get to class. Zola read a page of her romantasy novel as she brushed her teeth - tempted to keep reading in bed, as the shapeshifting dragon prince was finally about to reveal himself - but she didn't have time.

Zola changed into her nightshirt and climbed into her loft bed. She looked around in the near-black to confirm that the odd woman wasn't there, then settled in to sleep.

Zola startled awake to the battle music of a game she played as a kid - her alarm. She couldn't remember the dream she'd been having beyond vague sensations of heat, luxury, and rich warm colour - and she felt interrupted, unsatisfied, craving. Somehow her nightshirt had come off, her plush comforter tossed aside; Zola lay naked, a slight sheen of sweat on her dark skin, her chest rising and falling with quick, short breaths.

The copper snake was in her hand.

"Baahh," Zola grunted, and on instinct tossed the amulet across the room. For her the worst part of horror movies was objects appearing where they weren't supposed to, and she'd definitely left the snake on the floor. The amulet bounced once and skidded to the base of a stack of canvases, clinked against her paint caddy. At least it wasn't a mannequin or creepy doll.

She sat up, reoriented herself. Finding the snake in her hand was a shock, but that aside, the dream was good. Zola couldn't remember what happened, only that she felt the physical frustration of being pulled back from the edge when she'd wanted to dive in.

Of course, her schedule was much too tight to try to get back to sleep. At least she'd already planned time for a shower before class. She let her feelings fade to vague frustration and pulled herself out of bed.

Midweek was Zola's busiest time. Six hours of class during daytime, eight-hour shifts at the hotel overnight, commutes in between, and homework in the downtime left her with very little room to think. Outside of her focus on class and work, everything else was either a blurred rush or dreamless sleep.

Some days Zola allowed herself to read before bed. Sunday afternoons were for painting. And Friday afternoon, before going to work at the bar down the street where she'd spend ten hours behind the bar with David so close they couldn't avoid touching... Friday afternoons were scheduled as Private Time, where Zola could work out her frustrations and fantasies so her head would be clear when David had to reach around her, squeeze behind her, brush her arms and hands as they poured and mixed.

She stripped out of her school clothes and sprawled in her plush armchair. Zola imagined David standing behind her.

The real David had a boyfriend. Zola's Private Time David liked women; he was single and a tease. She knew and respected the difference. The real David would never, ever find out about Zola's version, who existed only in her apartment for up to an hour every Friday.

Zola sighed, closed her eyes, and brushed her braids against her neck and shoulder, picturing and feeling them as David's luxurious beard tickling her skin as he leaned over her.

Her fingernails brushed lightly round her nipples; her lips parted as she took in a sharp breath. She kept one hand on her breast, tugged gently at her firm nipple. The other she slid down her belly, imagining it as David's hand, moving past a patch of short hair she'd been meaning to shave, down between her legs. Private Time David wanted her whether she shaved or not.

She adjusted, lifted one leg onto the arm of the chair, wiggled down a little further into the corner. In her mind's eye she lounged against David, his soft core supporting her, his beard still tickling her neck. David (Zola) teased her(self) with one finger between her lips, and she sighed and closed her eyes as (s)he began to lightly, lazily circle her clit.

She was ready. She leaned forward so David could come around (Zola could grab her vibrator and lube from the drawer) and rub the tip of his throbbing cock (her dildo) up and down her lips. She sighed again, squeezed her breast and nipple as he (it) slid into her.

An intrusive thought snuck into her fantasy. Even if Private Time David really existed, Zola was too professional, too busy, too occupied to give off any vibe that she was a sexual being. That she had needs.

She frowned, eyes still closed, worked harder to banish the thoughts, two fingers insistent on her clit, and she turned up the vibration on her toy. "Fuck, I wish someone could see this side of me," she moaned as pressure mounted and her thighs began to quiver.

"I see it," hissed a soft, sensual woman's voice.

She was much too close; there was no way to stop. Zola came and grunted and shook with a strange woman watching.

And yet...

Time seemed to slow down for Zola as an orgasm rippled through her body, making her shoulders and thighs twitch until her fingers and toes tingled. Isn't this what she wanted? What she'd just wished for? The part of her that thought who is this and what is she doing here felt muted, at a distance, and even that part didn't tell Zola to cover herself.

The bald, copper-skinned woman smiled at Zola, chin on her forearms on the edge of the chair, her golden eyes slitted vertically, her gaze somehow warm and comfortable rather than snakelike.

Zola met her eyes and, still in the throes of ecstasy, felt she had to lean to the side and lift her leg so the woman could see everything.

Sensations subsided and Zola gasped a few deep breaths. She lay there, sprawled naked with her vibrator still inside, and she inspected the woman. Samiya, she'd said before. Something about Samiya - her thin-lipped friendly smile, her calm and unthreatening posture - kept Zola at ease, unconcerned, comfortable.

"Why does this feel right?" Zola asked aloud as Samiya watched her withdraw her vibrator. "Did you do something to me?"

Samiya turned her head back and forth, slowly, keeping those golden eyes on Zola. "Nothing more than granting your wish."

"This, not being - the way I'm not - is this something about you, or is it -" Zola stopped mid-thought: her alarm again. Time to get ready for work.

"Sorry, I have to go," Zola said, and, oddly, found that she was sorry. She stood, ran her hands down her body from shoulders to toes to check for sweat. Not enough to need a shower, which was good, because she didn't have time.

She saw Samiya watching, one brow raised. Did Zola really just show herself off for a complete stranger?

She closed her eyes and shook her head. When she looked back, Samiya was gone.

Time seemed to pass quickly for Zola. She felt relaxed enough to maintain a flow state at the bar, serving and bantering with ease, but she was also distracted, part of her dwelling on how she'd felt with Samiya.

David's friendliness had a slightly hesitant edge, as though he wasn't sure what to make of Zola all of a sudden. Where normally Zola pushed for efficiency, tonight she was more free with words and laughter, unbothered by having to stay after closing for extra cleanup.

The thought that lurked in the back of her mind: is this how everyone else feels all the time? Taking the day as it comes, not perpetually thinking and rushing to the next thing?

Still, she didn't have time to weigh those questions until Sunday: her painting time. Painting was her decompression, time for her unconscious mind take over and sort itself out through colours and brush strokes she felt rather than planned.

Today's piece, barely begun, was already warm with rich oranges, yellows, bound by cooling little splashes of blue around the edges, like a desert oasis containing the sunrise. Today her arm insisted on coiling, circuitous, serpentine shapes which, as Zola worked, became somehow... sensual?

She took a step back and frowned. This canvas had a completely different feel from her usuals stacked against walls and in piles on the floor. Zola's "work her frustrations out" abstracts tended to be too chaotic and splashy to give any sense of a unified aesthetic or style. This one, though, actually seemed like it could be... good.

She circled the canvas, plastic drop sheet crinkling under her bare feet. There were no shapes or lines she could point at that looked like anything specific. The almost erotic feel was something about the way the curves met, something she hadn't done consciously. Impressions, especially where colours combined and strokes intersected. Unfinished, of course, in need of filling. Almost begging to be filled.

Her bare foot brushed against something warm and rigid. Zola looked down - the snake amulet, still up against a stack of canvases where she'd tossed it the other day.

When she looked back up, Samiya stood in front of the painting, most of her weight on one foot, that hip cocked out, the other leg extended. The long, shimmering green dress trailed almost to the floor, yet the slits were so high as to cover only the bare minimum below her breasts. Zola could see the lines where Samiya's thighs became her butt.

Zola moved up to stand beside Samiya, feeling frumpy in her paint-splattered coveralls. Samiya stood with arms crossed, one finger idly stroking her lower lip, head tilted to one side, golden eyes soaking in the painting.

If there ever was any concern over this stranger in Zola's home, it was gone, replaced by a flutter in her gut, a pleasant tingling across her skin, a shiver of thrill that Samiya's eyes searched deep into her art. Zola licked her lips and asked: "What do you think?"

Samiya nodded toward the burst of colour and formless shape, an impression of that colour vaguely reflected in her copper-toned skin. Her voice was low and sultry. "I see tension. Repression, even, where blue contains warmth. But also a desire to reject rigid structure. A longing, a simmering, ready to boil over. A void needing to be filled."

The fluttering in Zola's core rose to her throat. Her mouth went dry. She rolled her tongue and jaw, tried to work some moisture back in. "We're, uh, talking about the painting?"

"Of course," Samiya smiled.

"Well, I'm... working on it. I'm very busy. It might not get... filled... today."

Samiya turned. "Yes," she said, looking down with those golden slit eyes. Zola wasn't short, but Samiya was much taller. The angle of light from parted curtains did something to Samiya's skin, gave the impression of texture on her bald head, her shoulders, her thighs. Almost like scales. "Yes, you're so busy you schedule masturbation," Samiya said.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Zola said. She almost put her hands on her hips, but she was still holding her palette and brush.

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with it." Samiya gave a disarming smile. "Merely observing from your wish and your painting that sex is important to you, but you make it one of your lowest priorities."

"It'll be easier when I finish school next year," Zola said to Samiya the same way she'd said to herself for three years. Somehow, the more of that time she put behind her, the longer the remainder felt. Especially now that Samiya was stirring her up.

"Do you think you might have an easier time coping," Samiya asked, tracing the zipper of Zola's coveralls from her neck down below her belly, "If you let loose a little more often?"

"Um," Zola shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe."

"Have you had an easier time getting through work these past few days?"

Zola looked up sharply. Samiya had cocked her head, was giving Zola a playful little smirk, and stuck out her very long tongue.

"Was that you?" Zola asked. "I mean, it was... work has gone by faster and easier."

"I did nothing," Samiya said, putting one hand on her chest, "Except what you asked of me."

Zola frowned. Was it true? Was Samiya right? She was too pent up, letting that frustration saturate the rest of her life?

"Well," Zola said slowly, tapping her bare foot on the plastic sheet, "Nothing changes the fact that I just don't have a lot of time." She thought, looked at her painting. "Maybe... I could multitask."

Samiya stood there in the light from the window, watching, the highlights of her skin and her dress almost glowing with expectation.

Zola turned back to her canvas, lifted her brush, stuck out her tongue just a little as she thought about what she'd wish for. The other day, she'd thought of David, but today Samiya's presence was more exciting than Private Time David. "I wish," she said, trying to banish the wavering in her voice, "You'd go down on me while I paint."

Once it was out of her mouth, Zola couldn't believe she'd actually said that. Was Samiya changing her somehow, or only bringing out a side of her she'd been suppressing for years? She'd never been interested in women that way, but there was something so magnetic about Samiya. And maybe it helped that she was so tall, lithe, hairless - not exactly androgynous, but also not in the mold of traditional feminine beauty standards.

Zola stood there, brush at the ready, thoughts swirling through her head... until she realized Samiya hadn't moved. She turned, saw Samiya biting her lip. Zola hesitated, felt like she was sinking. "Sorry, did I... say something wrong?"

Samiya blinked and straightened. "No, no. Not at all." She flattened her dress, fiddled with its edges. "It's just... in my experience, people have specific fantasies they want to fulfill. With, um, other humans. Not with me."

"Oh, I mean, that's okay," Zola said, lowering her brush. "I can think of something else if you don't want to -"

"No," said Samiya. She moved fast, a serpentine motion, her body suddenly pressed up against Zola's coveralls, heedless of the wet paint. Samiya wrapped long arms around Zola's neck and shoulders and gave a thin-lipped smile, exposing two sharp fang-like teeth, somehow cute instead of threatening. "Just say it again. Now that I'm ready."

With Samiya's body so close, her lips almost touching, Zola's voice caught in her throat for a moment, along with her breath. Her heart pounded enough that she wondered if Samiya could feel it. "I wish you'd go down on me while I paint," she whispered.

Samiya fixed Zola with those striking golden eyes. "As you wish," she said. She eased down, lifted Zola's braids over her shoulder and kissed her neck, the lightest brush of lips that sent a shiver down Zola's spine. Zola closed her eyes as Samiya's long tongue curled around her jaw, felt her coveralls being unzipped down the front. Her clothes underneath were gone. Samiya's tongue followed down her neck, tracing her collarbone, slithering between her breasts, down, down, pursuing the zipper until it circled her belly button.

Samiya reached up, eased the coverall's sleeves down Zola's upper arms to her elbows. "You're supposed to be painting," Samiya chided gently.

"Oh," sighed Zola, "Right." She reached out with her brush, traced a distracted stroke of red through a curve of yellow, mimicking the line Samiya traced on Zola's body.

Zola's strokes lengthened to match the sensations she experienced. Samiya nudged Zola's legs until they were a bit more than shoulder width apart, and she squeezed her face into the gap. Samiya's tongue was very long. Zola would feel a light circling and teasing flick on her clit, a soft and wet reach back, exploring her folds, a brief plunge deep inside - even the occasional tickle further back. She tried not to overthink the mechanics, pursed her lips and focused on the quick yet gentle, penetratingly intimate sensations. And she tried to paint.

Zola began another brush stroke, then gasped as her arm jerked out of her control in reaction to another surprising tease. "You said you've never done this before?" Zola asked. She looked down, Samiya's face framed by her breasts, half of it buried between Zola's legs.

"I haven't," Samiya said. The slight vibration of her voice heightened the building tension in Zola's clit.

She layered stroke after stroke, blending colours and lines and shapes, sometimes even with her eyes closed, painting what she felt as best she could. It was hard to stand still; Zola shifted her weight back and forth until Samiya grabbed her ass with both hands and forced her to stay put.

Samiya's tongue accelerated, back and forth, still sometimes flicking into pleasantly shocking places. Zola's breath grew faster; she felt drawn to warmer, hotter colours, messier and wetter shapes, splashing colour onto the canvas. Flecks and drops landed on Samiya's bare head, but she only smiled and intensified, so that Zola felt Samiya was simultaneously sucking on her clit and plunging her tongue deep inside.

Zola cried out, dropped her brush and palette, splattering paint all over Samiya's copper skin and green dress. She wrapped her hands around Samiya's head, pressed herself against the woman's face, lifted her hips up. In response, Samiya's tongue seemed to thicken inside Zola, pulsing.

Zola's legs went weak and she sank down. She grabbed at her canvas for stability, dragging her fingers down, smearing paint in five distinct, trembling lines. She settled on her knees between Samiya's bare thighs. Both of them were covered in paint from the throes of Zola's orgasm.

Samiya wrapped her arms around Zola and pulled her face to her chest. "None of the paint got in your hair," Samiya whispered.

"Ha," Zola laughed with half a breath. "That's good." She sighed, closed her eyes, allowed herself to melt into Samiya's embrace.

Her alarm went off. Time to clean up, get ready for work at the bar.

Zola groaned and sighed into Samiya's chest. She rubbed her cheek against the silken-smooth fabric of the dress; she could feel there was nothing else under the thin, delicate material. "That was very nice."

"It almost seems," Samiya said, a bit of a tone in her voice, "You don't want to listen to your alarm."

"There's no almost." Zola pulled away, once again surprised at how easy it felt to be around this stranger, how she felt unthreatened and safe for Samiya to see her this way. "But I have to go."

She stood, her eyes drifting back to the painting. "Oh, wow," Zola said. The lines, the colour, the blend were beautiful and sensual, but the finger marks... the drag through the rest truly pulled everything together and transformed the warmth and heat to a sense of raw lust. She wasn't sure when she'd done it, but the blue was gone, burned away.

Samiya rose to stand behind Zola, hovering over her shoulder, somehow the picture of elegance despite being covered in paint, the colours blending beautifully with her skin and dress. "What do you do with these when they're finished?" Samiya asked.

"Mostly just stack them in the corner." Zola felt her face flush. Why was this the only embarrassing moment between them?

"This one is worth showing off," Samiya whispered, and then she was gone.

Zola considered Samiya's words. The more she looked at this canvas, the more she felt it was her best work yet. She'd never meant for her paintings to be proper art - they were only her private outlet for self-expression, not something she'd ever considered showing to other people. But this one, if she could work through her feelings about how raw and personal and sexual it felt... maybe.

She stripped the rest of the way out of her coveralls, tidied things up to dry while she was away. She showered, glad no paint had reached her braids, wondered if Samiya had any part in that.

Before she left for work, Zola gently lifted the copper snake amulet from where it rested with her paintings. She lifted her hair and slipped the leather cord over her head, letting the snake settle low on her chest beneath her blouse. It was warm.