“What the hell did you wish for?”
She didn’t sound upset exactly… confused, worried, a lot of things.
Jon wasn’t sure how to act, he was nervous looking at the ground. The fact that it picked Karyn felt even harder to deal with than if it had been a total stranger.
“Well… uhm I was lonely… it seemed wrong to make anyone like me with stone so… I made a wish for someone compatible to find each other. Uh… it was supposed to pick from every woman I’ll see over the next month. But…”
“I… see, why a month… it seems like you’d see almost every woman in town in about a week?”
“We’re flying out for my Grandpa’s funeral in two weeks, passing through two busy airports… spending a weekend in a large city… every woman I see is a possible match…”
“... and it picked me?”
“Yeah.”
“I… uh…” Karyn was overwhelmed, and just as unsure as Jon about how to feel and act, “I… need to think about this… and we need to talk more… probably… a bit more private than the school yard.”
“I… yeah.”
“Why don’t we go to my house… my parents are going out for the night…”
“OK…”
“Do you have the stone?”
“Yeah, in my pocket, in its box. I added a little padlock from an old diary Zoe didn’t need anymore… after yesterday I’m afraid of accidents.”
Karyn glanced down at her chest. “Yeah…”
They walked mostly in silence, both thinking about what Jon's wish had revealed.
As the door to Karyn’s house latched behind them Jon took a deep breath.
“Uh, Kar, there’s another part to the wish I should tell you about before… you make any decision.”
“OK… go on.”
“I uh… well I’ve spent lots of time on the internet, and well I’ve heard that some people that stay with the first person they date get bored… or wish they’d had uh… variety, and it causes problems…”
Karyn frowned, unsure of where Jon might be going with this.
“I… well I didn’t want that to happen so I added on that if… whoever I match with and I actually start a relationship we’d uh, ‘always be able to satisfy each other’.”
Karyn’s frown deepened. “That’s… vague. A little worryingly vague…”
“I know… but well I didn’t know how to… make it do what I want with more specifics… since I don’t know what… well what it should do.”
“Jon you dork, you still have the stone. You can make wishes later!”
“I… well… Yeah I messed up a bit there… but it shouldn’t be too bad… and we could wish to find out what it would do before…”
“Probably a good idea… let's go sit somewhere so you have somewhere to put down the box.”
They headed into the living room, and both sat on the couch, Jon placed the box on the coffee table. It took him another moment to fish the key to the tiny lock out of his pocket. It wasn’t much of a key, more of a lever to reach the mechanism, any stiff enough bit of wire would work to open it. It wasn’t meant to be high security. He flipped open the box, touched the stone with his index and middle finger, and spoke.
“I wish Karyn and I would know how the second part of my wish would be granted if we decide to start a romantic relationship.”
There was the flash, and both of them experienced a moment of confusion and a slight headache as the stone shoved information into their minds. A simple small fact.
It would grant them each abilities to bring about the other’s deepest fantasy, or desire. An ability to do something otherwise impossible. It would be under their full control, and could be turned on and off.
Karyn shook her head, trying to clear the strange lingering sensations from being forced to remember something she didn’t previously know.
“Well… that’s not bad…” As she spoke she looked over at Jon who was still recovering. “Not bad at all really… though uh… finding out that kind of stuff right away might be a bit awkward.”
“Huh… oh… yeah.” Jon had only really caught the second half of what she said as his thoughts sorted themselves out. “So… I guess that only leaves… the question of…”
“Do we date? Yeah.” Karyn took a deep breath. “Heavy. I… well… I think given the sheer number of people the stone is picking from… well I doubt I’m likely to meet a guy who’s a better match… since well, if I know anything about you, you wouldn’t be happy unless it was just as good both ways… So uh… I’m on board.”
“Really?”
“What? Is it that surprising? You’re not bad looking and apparently we’re perfect for each other. Why would I walk away from that! Not every day you get a guaranteed good prospect. Well maybe, that second part could have gone… weird.”
“I… yeah. So uh is that it then? We’re dating?”
“I suppose so.”
As soon as Karyn spoke that second line there was another moment of discontinuity and disorientation, they remembered things that they didn’t know. Information on what desire or fantasy of the other’s they had the ability to fulfil and how that ability worked.
As the fog of the invasion of their minds cleared, they both found themselves looking at the other one.
Karyn was looking at Jon, her head slightly sideways, like a puppy when you’ve done something it has never seen as she tried to fit what she had learned into her experience of knowing Jon.
Jon’s eyes simply widened in surprise as he stared back at her.
