Member-only story
Not Your Ordinary Girlfriend
Do we know each other best after all?
When I first met Fatima, I didn’t realize what she was. The closest I had ever come to jinni lore was through reruns of I Dream of Jeannie when I was a kid — and those weren’t exactly factual, if you know what I mean.
But it definitely took a learning curve to realize that my girlfriend wasn’t really just mine alone whenever I wanted. After all, how could she be when she could be spirited away at any time because of archaic rites tied to an old lamp that had been tied to her spirit so many reincarnations ago?
“So what’s our plan?” I asked one night while we sat in front of the television in my apartment, our hands twined together as she decided what to watch on Netflix.
“Plan?” Her eyebrow quirked at the seriousness of my tone. Usually, when we settled in for the night like this, it was customary for us to get wrapped up in a binge session that would often end with us conking out on each other’s shoulders. It had become enough of a habit that we didn’t even question it anymore but just went with the motions of the moments between us. “What do you mean by plan? What’s going through that silly brain of yours now?”
But I wasn’t smiling. I let go of her hand and repositioned myself until I was facing her full-on. “Haven’t you thought…
