The Genie who loved

Chapter 1- The dark stormy night

There was something wrong with the night thought Robert as he took another sharp turn down the hill road driving his purple sedan. It was very unusual for this time of the year for rain, or even a drizzle like today. The whole day had been a fiasco. The last argument with his boss had been terrible. It had left a bad aftertaste with him being barely able to stop himself for typing his resignation letter. His boss, CEO had said “just because you cannot move your lazy bum doesn’t mean I can’t speak to your juniors and get a wind of the inside situation”, this had been too much and he had seen it coming as his boss was a womanizer and wanted to have his way with his newly joined sales head Lauretta Mathews. To which Robert had replied, unable to control his temper “If you hadn’t been busy fucking around, you would know the Inside situation anyways which is pathetic because of you”, to this his boss had told him to shut up and get out of the office but couldn’t say more as he was aware that the shareholders loved him and wanted to promote him to take over as the CEO of the company.

Robert Taylor had been working in this cosmetic company since last two years as a sales and marketing head and he had recently recruited Lauretta Smith from a competitor company. This was because their last sales head Barbera Williams had resigned following incessant and shameless flirtatious behavior of their CEO who was famous for his people politics and its use to avoid doing any work even at top most position. Actually they argued he got to the top through his politics. Shareholders had also been keeping a close watch on daily routine of the CEO to find many loopholes that were enough to fire the CEO of one of the biggest cosmetic company of the world ‘Cosmetics for just elegance ’. Moreover the performance of the CEO had clearly been below the expectations of the shareholders. Robert Taylor had been trying hard to explain the shareholders to give the CEO another chance but thought otherwise after today’s argument. His boss had been getting more and more personal even though Robert had told him time and again he was least interested in his frivolous behavior with women, his lack of time for his job and above all coming to office late and drunk and then throwing his weight around. All Robert cared was for his and his staff’s happiness and wellbeing. Robert thought maybe it’s all for the better if they fire him but they can’t as he was the director’s right hand man. Moreover he didn’t want to position of CEO just now as he had just joined the company two years back and had already gotten promoted from Sales head to Sales and Marketing Chief and with the entire marketing department under him, he was more than happy with his team and their cooperation and his salary. So happy that he didn’t want more.

He severed another turn and tried to push the argument out from his head. His house lay at the bottom of a valley quite some distance from the city where his office was in the town of Markham, Ontario. This meant one hour drive one way but as he loved the mountains, he wasn’t willing to migrate to the city. Moreover he felt the cities in Canada were also becoming as worse as those in US with teens getting into drugs and porn and wanted to keep his niece Olivia Jones as far from it as possible. The storm had been gaining pace as though realizing Robert was losing track of where he was going and driving recklessly without checking the directions. He tried to put on the GPS. ‘Fucking GPS’, he thought. ‘Never works when you need it to work’. He knew the way home but as there was a construction due to which he had to take a detour. He wasn’t used to the turns in the detour and now he found himself completely lost. He stopped the car to understand where he was and got out of the car to have a look at the lights of the valley. His grey blue eyes looked into the valley. He had that appearances that made him the favorite of all female gender of the company. Even the director’s daughter had tried her luck on him but he was cold and dead within with no time for nonsense. His sales team contained many females whom he had tried to protect from his boss’ famous appetite and as a result become a topic of gossip among his juniors who looked at him with love and openly teased him by letting out heavy sighs whenever he was around. He replied to this by rolling his eyes or sometimes shouting “don’t you have any work”. Everyone knew he was a sweetheart at heart so no one minded. But he had quite a temper and had shouted openly many times in his office whenever he saw gossips happening. His fair skin, his straight dark grey hair, his blue grey penetrating gaze and his all strong physique drove women mad. Sometimes he thought of coming unshaved so the team would actually listen to him when he speaks and not just gaze at him but as he was strict with discipline, he didn’t dare himself set a bad precedent. He got out of the car and saw he had come in the opposite direction by taking a wrong turn somewhere. He cursed openly and took a u turn. Now it started raining heavily and very soon he had to slow down because of poor visibility and as the leaves of hills were flying everywhere and sticking to the windscreen and blocking the view. He was beginning to get anxious when he got a call, it was from Olivia, his niece whom he loved like a daughter and had practically raised her up single handedly. He answered “Hello love”, he tried to sound sweet as he was sure Olivia would be very angry. It had been six month ever since he got promoted he had been returning late and not spending anytime with her. They use to play earlier and had so much fun until he joined this company two years back. “Where are you Robert” , “Darling I am on my way, be there in ten minutes”, though he knew he was at least half hour away, “Come fast Robert unless you want to eat food cold” , Olivia had been getting old, she was now 15 and called him Robert whenever she was angry otherwise she will say Robbie or sometimes even dad. She had lost her parents when she was 8 years old in a tragic car accident and as she was his sister’s daughter, with nowhere else to go, Robert had adopted her and they had been staying together ever since. Initially she was shy and didn’t open up much but with the help of the councilor, both Robert and she started talking and mixing up and lately they had become really good friends. Robert wondered whether it was his fault she was turning into an angry kid, he was afraid he was failing her, what if she had started smoking and drinking just like the other kids. He knew he wasn’t giving her sufficient time so he tried his best to be sweet, affectionate and caring whenever he was around in spite of his very nature being otherwise. He was a very cold introvert inside who had stopped believing in humans and liked to be left alone and he had a dark history before Olivia had come into his life. “Olivia darling I am caught up in the storm, you have dinner, I think I may get late” “As always Robert, goodnight” and she hung the phone. Storm was getting intense and he was going really slowly to avoid any accident due to the slippery hill slopes. Then as if fate had planned it to be the worst day for him or maybe the best. It happened- he had a flat tyre and he shout “God damn it!!! not now!!!”

He got out of the car and was literally lifted off his feet due to high speed of the winds. It was a thunderstorm, he quickly got inside. He didn’t know what to do. The car was also getting dragged towards the end of the road and to its very end for a fall into the valley. He thought this was the end. He quickly started the car and without caring for the puncture and started driving for a safe turn having hills on both sides. Just some 50 meters ahead he saw a turn on the left, a narrow one having hills on both sides. He drove inside some distance but as he was afraid of the tire getting completely damaged beyond repair, he stopped the car there and waited. As this was like a crack in the hill with the hill rising through both sides of the narrow road, there was hardly any rain or wind. He got outside the car to change the flat tire. He felt he heard voices in a distance and wondered if there was a house so he could use a hand for support. He walked up little further to understand where the voices were coming from. There was another small opening like a tunnel and voices were coming from there, he could hardly see anything inside the tunnel. He lit his lighter, he hated smoking but his dark past had made him a compulsive smoker to avoid pain, to be numb at all times, away from human touch, away from human affection, not to trust or love anyone. But after Olivia’s coming in his life, he was changing, he was healing he told himself and he tried to stick to two to three cigarettes a day. He saw there was no one but at a distance there was some light coming from the far end of the tunnel. A blue light with dark blue at center and surrounded by white. As he went closer and closer he realized there is a strange looking Arabian blue bottle emitting sky blue and white light. He wanted to turn and leave as he was feeling that it’s getting late and he had no business being there but part of him was curious about the strange turn of events leading to this creepy looking bottle. Without thinking much he went closer and heard as if there were voices coming from inside, like someone screaming, like someone crying. As if on an instinct Robert opened the bottle as he was a very soft hearted person and couldn’t bear anyone in to be in pain. There was a lot of smoke for 2 to 3 seconds but strangely it didn’t suffocate or made him cough, it was rather like a perfumed smoke which relaxed him. And suddenly a woman was standing in front of him in red bikini and with an orange veil with most beautiful green big eyes wet with tears and bright orange face with beautiful features like those of Arabian Actresses. Though he couldn’t make out the nose and lips, he felt he was seeing an Arabian actress. But he was afraid, and withdrew several steps backward. When he saw that the woman upper body gave way to smoke that was coming from the bottle, he was beyond his wit and began to run away. But suddenly the woman was there again in front of him as if disappeared from one place and reappeared in front of him, this time she was wearing Arabian shoes red with shining stars and was standing slightly bent with folded arms and eyes closed “Why does master wish to run away from Genie, a Genie can never ever do any harm to the master, The Genie’s duty is to serve the master and so Genie is there in front of the master to serve him. Kindly tell a wish and your wish will be my command!” Saying that she stay there quiet and still as a statue while Robert stared her, unable to believe what was happening.