There were a lot of troubles that came with helping friends move. You had to pick a day your friend with a truck was available and enough other people had a day off. There was the fact that no matter how many days they planned it in advance, nothing would ever be packed before moving day. Nor would anything be moved to a place where it could be easily loaded and unloaded. There was the laughable idea that anyone knew how many boxes they’d need to hold their entire life, and the business of acquiring all those boxes from whatever businesses their friends worked at. There was sorting through their private paperwork and checking and rechecking which bits of paper were important and which could be made into wrapping paper for the cups and plates. There was figuring out what sort of pizza to get for the five or six people who showed up to help. The answer was always one pepperoni and one cheese, no matter what. And of course, there was arranging the boxes and furniture across everyone’s vehicles to minimize the amount of trips necessary to get the stuff to the friend’s new place while plotting righteous justice for the friend having to spend an hour on the phone talking to their new landlady instead of helping to move their own stuff.
	That was what the coati was failing to do as he struggled to pull a heavy wooden desk balanced on the gate of the truck. Behind it, a fox pushed with all his might. They were the last two still at the old one-story, the coati having volunteered to be the last one to help his friend. And surely enough, that left only the heavy desk and the stand that had supported the bluetooth speakers they’d left blasting through the day.  They groan in unison, letting the desk come to rest lopsided between the driveway and the tailgate of their friend’s truck. 
	“Do you want to try taking out the drawers or something?” the tired voice of the coati offers. 	The fox huffs and puffs, leaning slightly on the desk.  He sighs before letting out a resigned, “Fine.” 
	They’d spent the better part of the last half hour struggling to pull the desk from his mom’s bedroom in the back of the house, down the narrow hallway with the awkward bend, and through the garage door. It was large enough that the coati had voiced his concern with how it had gotten into the house several times since seeing it.
	The coati steps off the edge of the truck casually, letting himself drop to the ground. The fox joins him in front of the desk so that they might together eye the various drawers of the solid wooden artifice, all taped shut to prevent them from sliding open and breaking something. It feels almost blasphemous when the fox reaches forward to nestle a claw under a loose end to pull the tape free from one of the drawers. The coati shivers at the sight, before diving down to the lowest drawer, carefully pulling the packing tape they’d used to seal it to avoid damaging the lacquer. He smiles wide at the petty sin of undoing the littlest bit of their own hard work. Gently easing the drawer from it’s confines,  he looks at the well-organized manila folders still inside. It had, perhaps, been shortsighted to decide that a desk was just a collection of boxes two people could move all at once.
	A soft tap on the ring-tailed man’s bare shoulder is soon followed by the glint of metal. A handful of little pieces of gold and silver slide down his fuzzy arm and into his tank top, clattering across the ground quicker than he’s able to figure out what’s happened. He crinkles the base of his long, thin muzzle staring at it for a second before looking at the red fox staring at the small pile of jewelry on the ground, resting on the false-bottom of the drawer still in his hands.
	“Huh,” is all the coati can think to say before starting to scoop the loose jewelry onto the thin wooden board. Looking at the drawer it fell out of, he sees the little latch made to keep the false bottom of the drawer in place.
	“It was my grandmother’s old desk, before she passed. I guess she was better off than we thought…” The fox just stands there in shock as he says it, staring at the glittering pile in the dimming light of the sun. It was a handful of rings of various material, and some necklaces on thin golden chains. 
	“I wouldn’t want my grandchildren to know I had inherited secret Nazi gold either,” the coati chuckles a little saying it. “She was probably traumatized by the Nazi-hunters killing her dad and all that.”
	“What?” says the fox, shaken from his shocked state by the nonsensical statement.
	“When she had to flee her homeland as a child after the war, and then had to deal with being the bad guys just because her dad was a war criminal. That sort of thing can make secretly hoarding a pile of gold seem like a good idea.”
	“She was French,” the fox replies kneeling down to grab two corners while the coati grabbed the other two. Together, they moved the pile up to the tailgate and set it down. “Her dad was an American GI.”
	“And Vichy France was never a thing? You know those methhead Nazis were knee deep in French whores, paid off with stolen gold from Poland and sweet, sweet amphetamines,” offers the coati.
	“Luis, my great-grandmother was not a whore for the Nazis and I wish you’d stop implying that,” the fox says, frowning down at the unexpected bounty. “You met her all of one time.”
	“During which she gave off distinctly Nazi-cock-sucking vibes,” Luis responds.
	“Homophobia alone doesn’t make someone a Nazi-cock-sucker,” the fox replies. “I mean, she really struck me as more of someone who wished she’d joined the KKK, a natural Klansman. Klanswoman?”
	“Klansperson,” The coati says as if it were some final agreement. He returns to wiggling the lowest drawer out of it’s hole. The jewelry wasn’t really any of his business, all things considered. Just another unexpected boon for his lucky friend. Life had a way of working out for Ricky that most others couldn’t follow: A constant and consistent upward path that, while not impressive, seemed to be fueled entirely by lucky breaks and the interest of others. Luis had never denied his jealousy on that front.
	In fact, he’d often wish that love-luck would swing his own way. Not because he was particularly interested in the fox’s bland charms, nor some hidden lust for his straight friend, but merely because he seemed like the kind of person it’d be easy to have a relationship with. Ricky was approachable, affable, and just physically attractive enough that it was easy to imagine him with just about anyone. He would come up with little ways to surprise his girlfriend, built out of all the thousand and one little things she’d say throughout the week. They had a date-night every Thursday to go to the same restaurant near the store where they’d met, and he’d order for them both. They were moving into an apartment on the other side of town and he was still confident he could find them there every Thursday. It was a small, happy life that they were building together, one where they’d choose to sit side-by-side, knowing each other all the while.
	Luis crinkles his nose, sneering at the thought of just how long it had been since he’d tried dating. Not that he’d asked anyone, but he would, if anyone ever showed any real interest.
	He finishes wiggling the heavy drawer out of it’s nook and catches the end before rising to store it in the truck. And rising, he notices something off in his shorts. A small, hard thing sliding around underneath his balls earns an annoyed grunt from the coati. He walks, quickly, to drop the drawer next to the pile of treasure and free his hands to reach into his jeans.
	Pulling a small ring from his pants, Luis says, “Oh, thank god. I thought, like, a cockroach had gotten in there somehow.”
	“Well, they are called cockroaches because they naturally love your dick in particular. Something about the smell, I heard,” Ricky says, still staring at the pile of jewelry resting on the gate of the truck, “Keep it. I should probably send the rest of it to the lawyers anyway.”
	“I don’t want any Nazi gold. It’s your birthright,” Luis says, holding the ring up to his eye, looking through it at Ricky. He takes a step back when the fox turns to him, trying to maintain a view of the fox speaking through the ring. Ricky leans his long snout in, big golden eyes looking at the ring between the coati’s fingers.
	“That’s brass. It’s green,” the fox says, smiling in that smug way every fox seemed to learn by the time they entered preschool, “And consider it payment for helping out. It means a lot.”
	“Seriously, dude, I don’t want it. You helped me move into my place last year. Remember?” the coati says, throwing the brass ring onto the pile.
	The fox picks it up and is quick to force it back into the coati’s hand, “No, I mean it. Keep your cock-ring and I’ll keep my family jewels. I moved your bedroom, you moved my whole house.”
	The moment hangs for just a second as the coati digests his friend’s gratitude. It tickles weirdly in the back of his brain, a strange sense of guilt.
	“Speaking of helping...” the coati says as he gestures at the remaining drawers in the desk. It was one of the things the coati liked about the fox, really. Neither of them were happy with life being unfair. He pockets the ring, making a mental note to give it back if the fox ever changes his mind. Maybe the good karma of doing that would get him a date or something.
	“Right,” says the fox, grabbing the top drawer on the opposite side of the coati. Working to pile them onto the bed of the truck. They waggle the drawers free, slowly hollowing out the desk before successfully lifting the heavy furniture in the truck only to shove the drawers back into it. Not long after, and they’re driving off, the fox sorting through the small pile of treasures. And the coati spends every stoplight trying to polish his new ring.




	It’s not until two days later that he’s able to get the tarnish off the ring. Squeezing the little remaining lemon juice from the little plastic lemon over the random pile of stuff from his fridge he liked to call a salad, Luis looks at the fresh, clean brass ring on the counter. It’s something of a debate whether or not he wanted to invite wearing jewelry into his life. Could he metaphysically reshape himself into the kind of man who could, with confidence, wear a ring? Would it go too far and would he start wearing necklaces? Or even get an ear piercing? Could he handle the glory? The power? The responsibility? The OSTENTATION?
	Luis munches a bit of spinach and crumbled hamburger leftovers. He was the only person home right now. His roommates had gone on vacation together, visiting their families back in their home town. So, it was just him, letting his mind wander uninterrupted while he walked naked in the kitchen and eating all the food they’d left behind before it could go bad. The coati slips the ring on his finger, just to get a feel for it. He could feel the power as it flowed through him, or he imagined he could, while pulling the phone from the counter. 
	There were funnier people on the internet than him doing bits for himself alone in his kitchen.
	It’s a gentle clatter, almost like drops of rain on a tin roof, that sees him erupting from his seat. His fork is still in his hands and he shakes it menacingly at the noise while his chair falls to the floor behind him. And he stops waving it to stare at the caracal standing in the middle of his kitchen.
	The cat smiles a coy smile as he looks around, observing the space. And the coati can’t bring himself to process it, staring at the cat’s odd state of dress. His body is shapely, with the hints of his muscles visible through his tawny fur, and easily seen through the little golden discs that hang down on strings that cast yellow light all around him. Two thick woven bands less than a hand-span across hold the strings up, stretching from the same point midway up his body. One goes up over the opposite shoulder, the string of discs falling down and just failing to meet the lower band. The other goes down to his hip, the strings just long enough that the fact that the tip of his uncut cock was out had to be an option he’d planned for. A gold ring dangles there, matching the ones in his nipples and weighing down his ears. 
	Sizing him up for a fight, the coati isn’t sure he can win. So, Luis sits there, chewing his food, and watching the cat watch him back. His own body feels lacking in comparison, having none of the obvious power the predator displays. He was skinnier, more built for running away than picking a direct fight. He’d even developed a little bit of fat around his stomach that he was wishing he’d put more effort into converting into muscle. Panicking, words he’d never imagined himself saying burble out of him.
	“There’s olive oil above the stove,” Luis says, flicking his chin at the cabinet. The awkwardness of the statement hangs in the air as the two watch each other. He can feel the blood rushing to his head, as he repeats the words to himself. More to cancel it out than anything, the coati rears the fork back slightly, preparing to strike. 
	The cat nods at the display. He walks with a sway, approaching Luis slowly, who instinctively backs away. The cat’s movements are graceful and airy, too quiet as he moves. His words come out smooth and confident, with an accent that they coati could only place as vaguely middle-eastern, when he speaks out, “My name is Shabir. I am the Jinn of this Ring.” And saying that, he falls to his knees a few feet from the coati. The jinn bows low, arms and folded just in front of where he places his forehead on the floor. “And you are my Master.”
	And the cat being in this lowered position is all it takes for Luis to bolt for the door. Luis isn’t sure why he heads for the front, cursing himself for not risking the jump over the caracal to reach it. Leaping into the dining room, he feels something shoot past him. Something large and predatory, and yet absolutely not present as far as his senses could tell. At first he thinks it’s his adrenaline kicking in, finally. But headed through the archway leading into the living room, he sees it.
	A caracal of stupendous size waits in front of the door. No mere humanoid, it stands feral and proud, easily taller at those tufted ears than the door frame it guards. His heart stops when he sees the creature, larger than any lion and impossible to get past. The weight of gold still tugs it’s ears down, and in a terrified sort of curiosity he notices a little golden ring dangling from it’s feline sheathe as well. It’s large green eyes watch the coati with some sort of passive amusement. Fangs bared in something approximating a smile, it speaks out, “Are you sure you want to go out in such a state? You’ll catch your death of cold.”
	Dumbfounded, the coati pauses. He looks down at his bare body, recognizing his nudity for the first time since he saw the stranger. His tail rises between his legs, the fluff masking his genitals from the eyes of the giant predator. His face, with it’s natural mask-like markings turns to the ground and he takes a moment to breathe before saying, “I’m out of my depth, I think.”
	It’s a long, painful pause as he looks over his shoulder, half-expecting the caracal’s less feral twin to come walking out of the dining room.
	“Take your time,” it replies from it’s post in front of the door. “Would you like me to retrieve your dinner?”
	“Get yourself something as well while you’re in there, please, ummm… Sir?” says the coati, only vaguely aware that he doesn’t want the giant cat eating anything that had recently run from the kitchen. The big cat walks with a skip in his step, silently navigating the living room without so much as brushing a knickknack on a shelf or picture frame on the wall. Just as it’s moving out of sight, he watches the tail dissolve into smoke, flowing actively in the direction that cat had been headed. He shouts after it, “I’m going to get dressed.”
	“I am Shabir, the Jinn of the Ring,” the Jinn explains again, head popping out in it’s more anthropomorphic state. Luis keeps the words in his head, ready to acknowledge them when he could get his brain fully functioning again. 
	When he comes down a few minutes later, they’ve been processed. He’s holding his cell phone in his hand, debating his options. The first was, of course, that a crazy man has broken into his home with a giant cat. He’d seen the ring and made some probably hasty decisions about his identity and the kind of relationship he was seeking with Luis. It wouldn’t be the first time those kind of decisions had hurt the coati. If that were the case, he didn’t want to put the man in danger by calling the police. The second option, of course, was that Luis was suffering some sort of psychotic break. In that case, he didn’t want to put himself in danger by calling the police. And of course, the third option was that the man was some sort of spirit that had spent an unknown amount of time enslaved to the whims of a sorcerer of some sort. If that were the case, he was fairly certain calling the police could put everyone involved in danger.
	Not that he’d really believed in magic after elementary school, but ruling it out seemed a little unfair to Shabir. They had, after all, seen each other’s dicks. That was a bond he shared with depressingly few men. Dismissing him out of hand might ruin things.
 	Having left his place of panic, Luis could finally appreciate the cat. The caracal had taken a pillow from somewhere in the house, and was sitting on it, leaning into the short table in front of the couch. He’d positioned himself with his legs folded underneath him in such a way that the short strands of discs left his ass on almost-full display. The two mounds of flesh were obviously firm, and the way his tail waved in the air ever so slightly while he ate drew the eyes. His back was slightly arched, showing the handsome muscles that Luis was pretty sure were more the result of shapeshifting than exercise. Shabir had taken a bag of wheat bread and had a slice in his hand that he was dribbling olive oil onto. Eating it in quick bites, he’s through with it before he notices the coati descending the stairs. 
	“Um, Shabir,” starts Luis, gaining the feline’s full attention, “I’m going to take your picture, okay?”
	“With a camera?” he asks, ears perking up in excitement. He quickly turns his body to face the coati at the base of the stairs.
	“Yeah, on my phone,” Luis replies. He’s quick to pull the app up on his phone, snapping a few quick shots as the jinn goes through the realization that the phone in his hand can take pictures in a few quick seconds, captured in that flurry of images. The message Luis taps out on his phone is short: “describe this”
	And in a second, Shabir is behind him, peering over the coati’s shoulder to look at his screen. He’s taken aback, staring, and he whispers, “It has a little viewing window.”
	“Yeah…  Were you trapped in the ring? What kind of information do you get in there?” Luis asks, waiting for the reply from Ricky. It felt important that he understand the strange man whose breathe he could feel on his shoulder. The thought sends a tingle down Luis’s spine that he represses quickly. The first goal should be making sure that he was safe, then making sure this “jinn” got to the hospital safely, then maybe he could parlay that into some sort of date. 
	“Trapped isn’t what I would say. Time isn’t within the ring. There isn’t really anything in the ring. Not even hunger,” the caracal replies, smiling, “If I could see from within it I would be driven quite a bit more mad than I already am.”
	“Mad?”
	“With desire,” the caracal smiles, leaning to whisper into the coati’s ear. “There is so very little to do when one is without a body of their own, but one’s need for comfort grows infinitely. I am quite full of need.”
	The coati nods. Luis turns to reply to the caracal, and finds an obstinate refusal on the cat’s part to back away. The cat’s warm breath meets his own, their faces not more than two inches apart. He finally notices the warmth from the cat’s body as well, it being so close that he’s not surprised to find the cat’s dick pressing against the front of his thin shorts. Luis’ cock twitches involuntarily, pushing against the cat’s own. His body stiffens alongside it, leaning back against the banister as Shabir leans forward, eye’s closing. The coati’s heart pounds in his chest and the face looms closer and closer to his own.
	In yet another panicked decision, the coati puts his hands between them. He’s not sure what to do, afraid of hurting the caracal by knocking him down the stairs. Instead he pulls the ring from his finger, intent on throwing it into the living room.
	And the caracal disappears in a puff of smoke. Luis corrects himself, sniffing it. It smells more like rainwater, so he guesses it’s a puff of cloud? It’s quite cool to the touch as it slowly descends onto the stair and the tops of the curios that line the wall beside it.
	Luis’s breath stops in his throat, as he looks around the room. He shouts out into the empty house, “Shabir? You hiding?” And takes a breath to scold himself for being so dumb.
	This turn of events wasn’t as shocking as Luis had thought it should be. The practical impact of it was next to nothing, as far as he could tell. He was safe in the immediate. His carpet was a little wetter. Magic was real, but he didn’t really have any way of telling what that could actually mean for him. The most important thing was probably that the Jinn had left the bread and oil on the living room table for him to clean up. He’d barely eaten a slice of it, but the crumbs had still somehow bounced halfway across the glass tabletop.
	And with a jarring buzz, the little phone that he hadn’t even noticed he dropped reminds him not to leave it on the stairs. The message on the screen isn’t what he was hoping for, “Dick Baggeti: You dragged a stripper home from the bar. It’s good that you’re putting yourself out there again. Everyone’s been worried about you.”
	There was a point where he wondered if he was getting a little mean with the names he put into the phone for his friends. And then he remembered he’d have to go through his phone and change them all one by one. They could suffer. He texts back, “Strippers get dressed before they go home have you tried polishing and wearing all your gma’s nazi gold possibly while naked?”
	Ricky texts him back while he’s still looking around the room, searching for any evidence that he didn’t just detonate a magical cat that was sexually assaulting him on the steps of his roommates’ house, “Dick Bagetti: Yeah, first thing I did with it when I got home. Why?”
	“No reason Shabby is just a sucker for a good piercing wondering if you had any pics”
	“Dick Bagetti: Is this going to be another Zackary-type thing?” 
	“no if I don’t text within the next 2 hours it’s fine don’t be clingy”
	“Just don’t get arrested, please?”
	“you know I’m an expert at not being arrested 0% success rate baby”
	And Luis, satisfied that he hadn’t hallucinated Shabir, takes the ring and sets it in his palm. He stares at it, the light from the ceiling fan glaring off it. The brass apparently contained an entire person. Sighing, he resigns himself to the obvious thing to do.
	The food was made from almost all stuff he’d have to replace before the older couple he lived with got home. That irked him a little. He looked down at the plated ingredients, ready for his guest to assemble into whatever form he wanted. Tortillas, bacon, sausage, eggs, two kinds of cheese, the olive oil, salsa, and numerous other small things he hadn’t bothered to make too much of, not knowing what the jinn would prefer. The smell is strong and vaguely sweet and spicy, but all it does is turn his full stomach. He’d thought just a little about what he’d do with 3 guilt-free wishes. The most obvious thing to ask for, and thus where he would start, was figuring out how to come into a large amount of money that would make itself into even more money with relatively little stress. Something like having the worst billionaire in the world leave him his fortune in stocks and bonds in his will, and then having him die off. That was just getting a ready-to-use power base for his second wish, which would be for some sort of political power, not something so temporary as a presidency or distant as a senate. And then, finally, he’d wish for the ability to take any form he wished simply by willing it, granting a sort of de facto immortality. He’d rule his fiefdom as a mighty and terrible lord, crushing all who opposed him under the heels of his mercenary army and using shapeshifting to rule as it’s lord for all eternity. He’d probably do something like making his people peaceful and happy or something like that along the way, too.
	Smiling, he looks down at the little ring meant to grant whatever wish his heart could desire and slips it onto his finger again. He turns from the meal he’s made and, with a vague certainty, turns back. Sure enough, sitting at the table is the handsome Shabir clad only in gold and a few bands of cloth. He lounges in it, sporting a playful smile. 
	“My apologies, Master, I didn’t mean to overstep my boundaries,” he says, looking at the meal before him.
	“No. I panicked.” Luis gestures toward the meal and the tufts of hair on the tips of the cat’s ears sway like smoke when his ears twitch. The coati continues, “You weren’t gone that long. Just long enough to make you some breakfast. You pile everything you want on the flatbread and roll it up, then you shove it in your mouth.”
	“Ah, like markook!” Shabir says, reaching for a spoon. The cat dives in close, sniffing the food deeply before dropping bits and pieces onto the tortilla. He doesn’t ask what anything is or how it’s supposed to be built, instead rolling copious amounts of meats and cheese into a burrito. It’s a messy business, shoving the food into his mouth as if he’d been offered some bounty of ambrosia. And Luis sits down to pour them both a glass of juice. He sips it, watching the handsome caracal stuff his face, waiting. When the cat is finally full enough to notice something other than the food in front of him, he sees that smiling face. Shabir grins back, hope dancing in waggling eyebrows. 
	“My apologies, Master. Thank you for preparing this meal for me,” he says, placing his hand over his heart, “I can only guess this is a prelude to something? There’s no need for politeness with your servant.”
	“I think you’ll like it. I decided on my first wish,” Luis says.
	The caracal rises from his chair, and stretches his arms over his head, standing on his toes. Luis is aware Shabir is only trying to show off his body. He watches the subtle muscles move, vague shapes visible through the fur on his average frame. The bands holding the dangling strands of gold pull up to show more of his body, revealing his soft penis fully. Luis’s eyes trace the thick veins running up and down and feels a small flutter in his chest, accompanied by a slow start of excitement in his own groin. The groan accompanying the motion is almost sexual in itself, deep and throaty, sending a shiver from the coati’s tail, up his spine, and into his head. It’s not like he hadn’t already seen this forty-five minutes ago, but he felt he could appreciate it now that he didn’t think of him as a home invader.
	And, regardless of that, Luis still freaks out a little when the jinn dissolves into mist. The vapors weave themselves behind him and as he returns to solidity, the coati feels a pair of warm hands rubbing his shoulders. The jinn massages gentle circles as he says, “And what form should this humble servant take for this task, Master?”
	Looking down at the jinn’s hands, Luis notices that they’re new to him, being the meaty hands of a bovine or equine. He notes the shadow the creature casts isn’t remotely cat-like, save maybe the pointed ears. The coati does his best to relax into the beast as he says, “You can take whatever form you want. It’s supposed to be good for you, after all.”
	“Your quite the worldly sort, then? Maybe I’ll take a variety of forms, to satisfy whatever hunger you hold,” he whispers, leaning in close to Luis’s ears. And the voice, though no less sultry than the cat’s, is surprisingly feminine, “I can be whatever you want me to be, Master.”
	“I wish for you to be free of the ring,” the ring-tailed coati says, pressing his legs together as he curls his shoulders slightly away from Shabir. He had no idea how an otherworldly spirit would react to gaining it’s freedom. Te ceiling could very well be brought down on his head, some small revenge against the people who had enslaved him. Luis had considered that when he was frying bacon earlier, but it seemed worth it. Shabir certainly didn’t deserve to be trapped onto the will of his masters for another second more. He uncurls slightly to look over his shoulder at the equine woman looking confused at the man before her.
	“What?” the Jinn says, eerily still, the voice returned to that of the cat. “How should I do that?”
	“You just, y’know, be free?” the coati suggests, caught off-guard by the jinn’s confusion. He pushes his hands forward in a confused gesture of offering, as if to push the freedom onto the spirit. “Go forth and… I dunno. Find your people. Explore the world. Start a travel blog about looking for other genies..”
	“Were it so simple I would have done so ages ago, Master,” the tall equine says in the cat’s voice, and Luis notices that she’s dressed as a flapper, with her mane cut crinkled and wrapped around her face. She sounds amused and her face is more a smirk than a frown.
	“Now, there’s no need for such a long face,” Luis says, uncertain what else to say to the now-horse after hearing that.
	“It’s a command I’d never gotten before. And I’m certainly surprised to have it as a first one. People have burned entire villages to sift through the ashes for the ring,” the woman says, her hooves clopping on the linoleum as she walks around the table to grab a piece of bacon from a mostly-emptied tray. The jinn savors the feeling of the salty-sweet meat at the same time he relishes having a mouth to eat with again. Luis, for his part, simply ponders what he should do now.
	Minutes pass before a conclusion is reached. When Luis looks for the jinn, he’s in the body of the cat again, examining the magnets on the fridge. He coughs to draw Shabir’s attention and asks, “Is there a way to destroy the ring? So you can be free?”
	“I was never told of a way to do that,” he responds, tail batting back and forth slowly.
	“What if I throw it into a volcano?”
	“How would you get it out again?” the cat asks Luis back.
	“Can the ring be like, bound to my finger until death, then? Or something?”
	“It won’t come off unless you remove it. The First Master was quite shrewd. He knew if I were freed or turned against him there would be very little he could do to stop my bloody vengeance.”
	Luis perks his head up at the mention of a previous master, “Who was he? We could look him up and see if he wrote something down or if he’s still alive or something.”
	“The magic of the ring prevents me from naming my masters. I could no more tell you who bound me than I could tear the sun from the sky,” Shabir says, lips pursing as he tilts his head. “There’s no need to worry about these things. I have grown quite skilled in enjoying my masters over my long life. And I will repay it, in whatever manner I can.”
	“Your a slave,” Luis says, crossing his arms. It was getting late, the time spent cooking having extended to when he’d usually start trying to sleep for the night.
	“Among other things,” The jinn says, practically eyefucking the coati when he does. It wasn’t that the jinn’s hunger and lust went unsated in the infinite moments someone wasn’t wearing the ring. No, that he could get used to. It was the sheer lack of it that got to him, the need for nothing at all and the infinite nothing to fill it. He didn’t even have the drive to go unfulfilled, boredom and suffocation stolen from him. Now that he had his body again, he was going to enjoy it. 
	“What are the rules, exactly?” Luis asks. He was growing uncomfortable with this, his plans dashed. 
	“Rules?”
	“What can and can’t and won’t you do? And stuff.”
	Shabir nods and says, “I’m not quite sure, as my first master never explained it to me. I know I cannot tell you about my former masters. I cannot free myself or accept an order that is too close to being free. I must stay close enough to hear your commands and must fulfill them to the spirit of the request, not the letter. I cannot willfully harm anyone without a direct order to do so. Otherwise, I know what little magic I was able to glean from the First Master. And I am, of course, a jinn.”
	“So, how many wishes do I get?”
	“I am not sure what you mean. I will follow my master’s will to the best of my ability, Master. Ask, and I shall answer.”
	“So, if I ask you to have sex with me, you can’t say no? Can you stop if you want to stop? Cause if you can’t, that’s rape.”
	The question hangs in the air as Shabir digests it, a growing frustration in his gut. And yet still, a nugget of satisfaction forms that he can be so frustrated. He whines, pouting as he leans gently into Luis, almost hissing as he says, “I won’t want to stop. If you’re so concerned with finding out what I can do, let’s do something.”
	It was cute, Luis admits. Shabir had a boyish charm that was enhanced by a form that seemed effortlessly masculine. He can see himself in a flash in his head, all balled up with the cat in bed. Their bodies tired in post-coital bliss, outside the covers, sweaty and happy. Shabir pushes his head into the crook of Luis’s neck. And the coati’s reservations break a little at the thought. But the image shifts from the pouting cat in front of him to the large cat, with it’s pierced sheath emphasized in his head, that had blocked his door not long ago, and from their to the horsewoman with her flapper haircut. A new question arises.
	“If we do this, and I’m not saying we will, who would you want to be?”
	“You talk in riddles too often. I would be Shabir, obviously,” the jinn says, leaning far enough against his master that Luis can feel the heat of the cat’s body pushing against him. Shabir’s fingers start to dance against his chest.
	“Sorry.  I meant what sort of body would you like to have when we… do it?” Luis asks, trying to assemble the event in his head. He can feel his heart start to pump in his chest, considering it as more than something to be immediately dismissed. The thought had come up more than once during the scrambling of the eggs that maybe Shabir would reward him for giving the jinn his freedom. The cat would hang around and they could date and maybe someday he’d have a ring for the jinn to wear and… Luis flushes a little at the idea. It was dumb. The only ring here made that impossible.
	“Whatever form you wish for me to take in whatever ways you wish to take me. I’m here to please you. All I’d hope for is that I am not made to mother a child,” he says, laughing a little, “I do so abhor the birth-giving process.”
	“What form are you most comfortable in? Can you show me it?” Luis asks, tucking away the quiet horror at what the jinn had been forced to go through. It was a fair question, he felt. The jinn was apparently set on this, desiring to lay with someone as soon as he could. And as Shabir’s apparent master, was it not his job to see to the needs of his servant? Or that’s what he told himself as his heart pounded in his chest as he quietly hopes that the Jinn will elect to stay the same.
	Shabir smiles a mischievous smile, and Luis catches sight of it just a moment before the feline face fades into mist. And, rather than the expectation that the mist would solidify into fur or feather or scale, it becomes something stranger. The mist grows nearly to the ceiling and expands as far outward, becoming a roiling ball. It thickens, growing into a dark, roiling cloud and it shrinks ever so slightly coming down from the ceiling to start taking the shape of a man. A bolt of lightning fires through it, unleashing a booming crack through the kitchen. Luis covers his ears as another comes, and another, shaking the kitchen with each miniature explosion.
	When the noise dies down, the mist has more obvious arms and legs, and a smooth, white shape emerging from the torso. The shape is something between a dome and a tear drop, with two wide holes in the front and ridges along the most forward part of it. Trailing behind it are two projections, a foot in length and more gray than the central shape, with ridges every few inches as they narrow into points. The reveal of what has to be a jaw is what makes Luis realize what the shape truly is. The skull settles itself atop the forming torso, held up by a thick neck of cloud, a thinner layer of mist dancing along the outside of it, giving it a wet, ghostly visage. And in a second the lightning from the body shoots up into the skull, dancing around inside it, a barely noticeable crackling echoing from inside. 
	The body defines itself further, never quite solidifying or stabilizing into anything besides a dark stormcloud shaped as if by glass. Still, it compresses into something truer to a man. The muscles that form are more guarded by thin waves of mist than the fur Luis would expect, dense and heavy as the tall figure stands upright before him. Behind him, a long tail forms itself of his clouds, whirling like a tornado until it reaches almost four feet in length. With another crack, the long, thick appendage shoots from base to tip with lightning as a sting forms on the end. The legs that form are thick, even if the shape of muscles do nothing to support the spirit of storms and darkness. And in between those legs, visible for only a second, the hefty cock of the jinn lay exposed. The clouds that made his dick were as dark and heavy there as everywhere else on his body, letting it blend nearly into his legs. Luis notes that the misty layer that seemed to cover the rest of his body are thinner around it.
	“Tell me, Master, is this the form you were hoping to have in your bed? Or would you rather I go back to being the cute, little kitty you were watching so lustily?” The jinn asks, jaw still, the sound seeming to rumble out from his whole body.
	“I can’t tell if this is a fear-boner or not, but I am willing to find out,” Luis responds, nodding absentmindedly as he failed to take-in the exact words the living storm was saying. His words were delirious, heated and strangely happy to his ear, even as panic gripped him. His heart was racing and he could feel himself bulging against his thin shorts.
	And the lightning flitting through the skull slows as the rumbling voice projects from nowhere in particular within the cloud, “Men have died of fright witnessing my true form. How should I believe it to be an object of your desire?”
	The coati takes a short step forward, forcing himself to breath normally before asking, “Can I touch you? Without getting shocked, I mean.” A hand reaches out, stopping and waiting for Shabir’s ascent. 
	“I cannot allow myself to hurt you unless it’s what you desire,” he projects. The skull waggles in something that might might be nod, so Luis continues, pushing into the mist. It stops after an inch, the heavy mist covering only a small portion of his hand. His body is clammy, warm, and almost like flesh, save that it’s constantly moving like a somehow solid stream against his fingers. It’s not pulling harshly against him, nor are there veins pumping throughout. Instead, he can feel a gentle tug along his skin where it meets the solid form. There are things that might be muscles or bones or organs that he can feel through the jinn’s outer layer. The hands run through the mist slowly and carefully, feeling out the shape of a very humanoid body underneath. The gentle push and pull of those muscles are nearly the same as those of a man, and he’s only slightly surprised when his fingers trace over what might be the Jinn’s pectorals. Shabir leans in close, a low rumble, as if thunder in the distance, comes from it. Confused for just a second at it, Luis realizes that the spirit is purring at his touch.
	Touching the Jinn’s real body, the coati is more amazed than disappointed. It was nevertheless, far from what he’d expected. Luis looks up into the skull, unsure what he’s looking for. Seeing nothing lightning dance around inside, he grows embarassed and pulls his hands away. “Sorry.”
	The Jinn rumbles, “You are my master. My body is yours to do with as you please.”
	“It really isn’t,” Luis says quickly. He’s annoyed somewhat at his own hesitance. But, he needed to be sure what this was, exactly, before getting into it. It didn’t sound romantic, at least.“Do you want me? I mean, what is it you want?”
	“I want the pleasures of the flesh. I want to feel a warm body pressed against me again after an eternity without one. I want to feel you writhing against me!” The storm booms out, deep voice rising to the point that the coati can feel it in his chest. 
	“You’re desperate. Fine,” says Luis. Uncertain how to react to some angry, hornt weather phenomenon, he backs away a from it. It had been awhile for them both, honestly. And if he was this Jinn’s master, it was his job to see to Shabir’s well-being and happiness. Until he could do it himself, Luis had to make sure the Jinn was fed and watered and stimulated. Especially stimulated. Some distant part of him is shut out as his heart pounds in his chest at the thought of touching the massive man in front of him. Partly hoping to silence it completely, he says, “I’m going to need you to take the lead, okay?”
	“Oh, is it my master’s first time? Has all this trepidation been a blushing virgin’s fear?” The playfulness returning to Shabir’s voice is more comforting than it should be, considering the crackling baritone carrying it. The storm wraps around him, the strange flesh of the creature engulfing him and lifting him from the ground. A sudden rushing sound and he finds himself bouncing off something soft. Looking around, he’s barely able to comprehend he’s been moved to the living room couch before the jinn is upon him, pulling at his clothes. 
	“No! I just don’t want to force you into anything you’re uncomfortable with!” And Luis feels the shorts he was wearing pulled free of his legs, his penis waggling out into the warm summer air. Luis looks around, making sure all the blinds are still drawn from when he was wandering around naked. 
	“If it’s really such a concern, merely say nothing and let me do as I wish,” the Jinn rumbles out, dropping Luis’s shorts onto the living room table. He stands tall, their knees an inch apart as the coati watches him from his seat. A few feet from his face, Shabir’s cock stirs to life, emerging from the thin layer of mist to point almost directly at his face. The appendage moves more like the clouds it’s made of than the body it resembles, drifting upward. It doesn’t grow, a fact that Luis quietly appreciates. It’s already seven inches long and noticeably thicker than his own six inch cock. He turns from it to look up at Shabir’s face, but only sees the skull, lightning dancing through the clouds inside it. And Shabir lets himself fall onto Luis.
	Luis shivers at contact with the strange flesh of the creature. The skull tilting forward and opening it’s jaw, a thick, dark tongue darts out to wrestle with his own. It’s strong, bullying his tongue around in his mouth with casual ease. The flavor of rainwater meshes with the aftertaste of the dinner he’d just eaten, the awkwardness of the bacon-salsa still on his tongue something almost indulgent as the bulky force bears down on him. He forces his body to relax from the sudden sensations, closing his eyes and putting his hands behind his head to allow the man pressing down around him to take from him as he pleases. The kiss deepens as Shabir’s strong hands reach forward to grope at the coati’s fuzzy, soft body. Large, firm hands travel over his shirt, and along his arms before reaching behind Luis’s back to pull him in deeper still, squeezing him in tight to the mist as the jinn lowers himself into  grinding their hips into one another. Pleasure pulses from their cocks as he pushes them into one another. 
	Minutes of dryhumping and kissing see the coati falling sideways onto the couch, the dominating force of the jinn staying atop him as his body is explored by wandering hands. Luis’s hands drop to pull at the cushions he lays on, his mouth invaded by his would-be slave. The thought sends another pang of guilt through him, and that pang is quickly washed over by a wave of pleasure as the strange cock grinds against him even harder. Moans and quakes of pleasure escape the creature of storm and darkness above him, sent out as gentle rumbles. The coati’s body quivers from tail to top and he’s not sure whether it’s his pounding pulse or the thunder shaking him. 
	The jinn rises from atop him, slowly pulling back, the tongue retreating from it’s near-fucking of the coati’s throat. Luis’s hand reaches forward to grab at the jinn’s arm, only for him to stop himself. He guides it back to gripping the cheap cushions of the old couch and contents himself with watching the Jinn rise like mist to a sitting position. 
	Shabir’s hands slide down slowly, taking a moment to tickle along the smaller male’s pelvis and hips. Resting his body easily against that of his master, half floating to avoid smothering him, he looks down at the panting mammal. The storm within his floating skull flashes with lightning as he speaks, “So, I take it you have no problems?”
	Luis mimes zipping his lips shut, smiling contentedly up at the Jinn. Shabir grinds their cocks on one another again, drawing a short groan from those poorly locked lips.
	It’s strange for Shabir, having his master so willingly giving something like this. Many had demanded chastity of him. Most of the rest had simply looked the other way while he fooled around with their servants. And those that had bedded him personally wanted control of his pleasure and form, to make him into something of their own: a lover that would never grow beyond puberty or a wife that would orgasm at the slightest touch of their cock. Once, he was even made a beast that would rape the daughters of the master’s enemies to destroy their value as wives. He feels a tremble run through him as a rumble of thunder, the new possibilities opening up as that mask-patterned face looks up at him, smiling lustily.
	The jinn grabs both cocks in one hand, gently rubbing his thumb over the top of his own while taking Luis’s cock onto his. He starts pulling up on it, slowly, and the coati thrusts his hips up into the motion. The other hand reaches forward, sliding under Luis’s shirt. They both feel his stomach and chest rising, one man against the other, as he breathes heavily the scent of storms and his own sweat. Reaching his chest is accompanied by a painfully slow downward tug from the other hand. It’s warm and clammy, and when one hand reaching his nipple, the thumb toying with it carefully, the other pulls up and down again. Luis raises his arms to let Shabir pull the shirt from his body, but the jinn has other ideas.
	The second the shirt’s over his head, the skull dives in close to his ear, and the Jinn tongue dives out to trace along it. A surprisingly pleasant tingle sends a soft coo into the humid air of the living room. With a small flourish of his fingers, the shirt takes on a life of it’s own, twisting around Luis wrists. 	His arms are trapped, bound to the armrest, leaving his body stretched and vulnerable before the jinn. He laughs, almost a cackle, when hes sees the excited, elated face of the coati.  
	The skull rests imposing atop the massive, dark body. Watching the wincing, grunting man beneath him, he never settles for any one speed or action in his indulgence in Luis’s body. One hand travels freely, roaming down his side or over his chest, grasping or prodding everywhere it can reach. The hand that rubs their cocks together speeds up and slows down, or takes a moment to rub the heads of their cocks together, Shabir taking in every sound and gentle wiggle from the coati. The lightning dances in the skull, shooting through him to light up the inside of his cock before traveling up to the back of his skull. His master grunts and moans beneath him, refusing to say a word as he caresses and explores the most vulnerable areas of the man who holds his very existence in this world on his finger. He pleasures himself on his master’s body, enjoying the stuttering moments of sensation as he pushes himself higher and let’s himself drop just to hear the quiet whimpers and gasps as the coati is pushed and dropped alongside him. He tightens his grip slightly, speeding up and coaxing hot precum from their cocks, coating them both in slick moisture only to slow down once he senses Luis starting to approach orgasm. The warm body beneath him whines but doesn’t speak. 
	Every motion of those hands increases Luis’s passion, even as he’s denied pleasure. He can feel the primal power radiating from the jinn dominating him. The motions of his body carries with it a silent, alien strength he could feel from the moment the jinn let Luis run his hands over it. All he had to do was keep quiet, and the mighty being would have his way with him. His heart leaps at the thought while he shifts his body, feeling helpless under the weight of the jinn’s intentions. Every squeeze or tug brings another bolt of warm pleasure to his body. He wiggles his hips on the cushions, breathy groans joining the rumbling purr of the storm spirit.
	When Shabir pulls away, Luis lets out a short, needy whine. The legs of the jinn evaporate, becoming misty for just long enough to start straddling the trapped coati. Luis shifts his thin hips under Shabir’s meaty thighs, briefly confused before his excitement returns, even rising to new heights. He bites his tongue in his struggle to maintain silence, holding back the medley of lurid compliments and stupid jokes that fill his head. Instead, he quietly whimpers, letting Shabir continue.
	Rubbing the slick cock between his cheeks, he says, “Why not tell me to ride you, Master? Surely you can manage a simple order when it’s what we both want.” 
	Luis could practically hear the smug smile of a cat toying with his prey. The coati wanted to shout it. A pull in his chest told him to beg the creature of storm and bone to bounce on his dick, to grind himself into the undoubtedly warm insides and paint them white with cum, to do whatever he could to blow his wad into that ass. He shakes his head, half to clear it and half to signal Shabir. Letting the gentle teasing roll over him, he looks up at the tempting, manly figure.
	“Don’t know what to say?” Shabir relishes the words, holding the coati to the couch with one hand. The exposed chest seemed almost delicate in places, shoulders just short of what he’d call narrow. His nipples stick up out of the thinner fur of his frontside, and the hand drags down to again feel the softer, lighter fur around his lower stomach. It was pleasant in a way the cooler mist of another jinn could never be. The smile of whoever his master was in the moment was something he’d had to grow accustomed to, a form of communication his people lacked as well, but he delighted in it and the thought that if he felt like it he could take it away in a moment. Shabir lifts his scorpion-like tail, content to grind Luis’s dick against where his hole would be if he were a mortal. He’d open himself up in a few seconds. For now, he’d watch his master struggle underneath him. “Just tell me what you want. You have my permission to speak now.”
	“I need you…” Luis starts, unsure even as all his drives are pointed in one direction. He shakes his head again, and grins mischievously up at the skull, quietly hoping he sees from inside there, somehow.
	“Your need is obvious. And hard. We really should do something with this big old need of yours.”Shabir slides back, prodding against where his hole would be, and lets the coati’s hard member slide into him. He could technically get fucked wherever he wanted, make the muscles squeeze and form sensitive flesh that would drive pleasure through his whole being. But there was something that delighted him in the form of a man. Something about moments like this, being fucked like one, shaped like the strongest among them, they awoke the lightning to flow through his whole being. Another rumble-purr shakes the windows above the couch as he starts to bounce, and the hand that guided Luis into him starts to rub over his own hard rod.
	The gripping, hot body of the jinn is beyond anything Luis had expected. The body grips at him, but is still somehow slick. It pulls him in, hungry for his cock, flexing and contracting. He bits his tongue, trying not to let the jinn have another little victory over him. He’s not sure how much longer he can last, but he curls and uncurls his toes, grunting his pleasure as the exotic hole bounces around his needy member. The binding t-shirt draws his attention suddenly, realizing he was involuntarily pulling at it in his desperation to get leverage to fuck that firm ass. He grinds into Shabir’s exquisitely tight hole, grunting as he arches himself off the cushions beneath them.
	The jinn responds by dropping himself down, earning an audible “oof” from the smaller man. Luis quickly picks back up, fucking into the hole, the quick, shallow movements sending tingles through both of them. Shabir lets the lust that’s been building in him overtake him, jerking himself with abandon. The foreplay had gone on long enough, it was time to let loose. He bounces his hips and enjoys the rolling pleasure of the act, how it both distracts from and enhances the feelings of his cock. The body under him groans and growls, captive between his thighs, a tool to his desires and enthusiastically dedicated to them. It bucks and grinds against the flesh he’s made for himself to enjoy. He exalts in every little feeling that rushes through it in this moment, in every drive pushing him down onto the coati inside him.
	Luis gasps between growls, almost feral in his need to cum into the man above him, nevertheless careful to not speak a word if he could avoid it. It was a game he wasn’t intent on losing again. He watches Shabir’s dark, cloudy body, only occasionally the swirling mists part to reveal the firmer body underneath, with passion and dread. The hips roll down on him and pick themselves up, something he’s more aware of through how the let him fuck into the hole rather than that pleasure being brought down upon him. His eyes are more focused on the thick cock coming from it than anything else on his partner. How something like skin rolls up and down the head, dribbling drops of rainwater pre-cum onto his stomach. He lets himself feel the warm fluids run into his fur. They’re almost annoying for his complete inability to wipe them away, the dominating presence of the jinn making even that little comfort impossible without his permission. He instead focuses on the ecstasy of being used by a creature he can’t tell is even looking at him from moment to moment. The creeping pleasure tingles through his body as he feels his dick being sucked in even as Shabir pulls away. The almost too-tight squeezing of his ass drives Luis to push into it again and again, feeling it flex around his member. He can feel his body reaching the apex of his pleasure, begging himself to not reach it before Shabir reaches his own.
	Shabir watches his squirming master, sees the desperation dancing on his face as he struggles not to beg for release. And he decides to grant that small bit of kindness to him. His hand picks up it’s pace, and he growls and works the cock inside him harder. Bouncing with ever-increasing vigor, he leans forward slightly so that his crackling eye sockets are looking directly down into Luis’s eyes, waiting for the moaning man beneath him to give the tell-tale signs of his orgasm. “You may cum, Master,” the last word said with a barely contained amusement. He slams his hip down with vigor, spraying his copious load across the coati while his tail slams into the couch between Luis’s legs.
	And Luis’s eyes scrunch closed as he groans out, his own orgasm enrapturing his body. His toes curl, legs flexing involuntarily as he paints whatever the jinn has for insides white with his seed. He grunts out an elongated, “Fuuuuuck…” feeling the jinn squeeze every ounce he can out of him and cover him in his own thin, watery cum. The splashes across his body remind his addled mind of getting hit with a squirt gun and he laughs a little to himself as they quickly fade in force and direction, ending in a few light drops mixing with the equally watery precum pooling in his belly button.
	The pair huff together a moment, the jinn leaning deeply into the coati. He let’s the skull atop his body drop forward, coming to rest forehead to forehead with Luis. Together they wait in silence. Simply breathing in each other’s scents, waiting for their afterglows to pass, they let the moment continue for as long as it can last. 
	But it’s not too long until the moment is interrupted by a knocking at the door. Luis groans out in a much more annoyed fashion that any of his groans in the last few minutes. He looks up into the jinn’s skull and says, “I should get that.” The jinn reaches up, undoing whatever charm had bound the coati’s shirt around his arms. Luis takes them out, rubbing his wrists sympathetically with every person whose arms had ever been bound in a movie.
	Shabir then vanishes, the cloud body dissolving into nothing. Luis looks around, at first for Shabir but noticing his clothes on the table reminds him why he got up in the first place. He slips his shorts on and wipes his body off with the shirt he was wearing. The rapping at the door repeats as he approaches casually.
	Opening it, he’s greeted by the sight of two officers of the law. He can feel his blood run cold, staring at the big dogs in their uniforms and shiny badges. He covers himself a bit more, holding the t-shirt up to his chest. “Oh, um… what’s the problem, officers?” He looks nervously back into his home, searching for any sign of Shabir.
	“One of your neighbors called in a noise complaint,” says the taller of the two officers, the husky checking something on his phone, “There’s apparently been a series of explosions?”
	Luis can feel his heart stop in his chest for a second, suddenly realizing that he really did bang a thunderstorm on his couch. He looks between them for a second and then says, “Yeah, that definitely happened. I invited a guy over and he blew up several pressure cookers trying to cook something.”
	“You invited someone over to cook at ten at night?” The officers stare at him, unconvinced. He can see them looking into the house. It’s a few minutes of explanation before they accept Luis’s stonewalling and poorly thought-out lies as all they’re going to get out of him, and when they go Luis is all too happy to watch them leave.
	A second after the door closes, Luis is joined by the deceptively feline form of Shabir, lounging on the couch with an overstuffed burrito in his paws. This Shabir is dressed in what Luis realizes are re-sized versions of clothes he has upstairs, a set of flannel pajamas he hadn’t worn in almost two years. If they didn’t fit Luis anymore, there was no way they’d sit that well on the broad-shouldered cat. Vaguely curious, Luis asks, “So, are you used to hiding from the police?”
	“They seem to be more of a problem with every master that takes me on,” Shabir replies, shoving the tip of the burrito into his mouth.
	“Oh? What happened with the last guy?” Luis says, headed back to the couch. He feels an awkwardness thinking about sitting next to the caracal. Instead, he takes a spot on the opposite end, drawing his legs up to take the space between them. 
	“He got caught up in a war. I was away getting sugar when they killed him. Germany was invading…” Shabir starts.
	Luis bolts properly upright, not even settling into his position fully, to ask, “Invading where?”
	“Polska?” says the caracal, amused, “Why are you smiling so much?”