With an absolutely devilish smile, Rachel reached into the bag and pulled out a huge, latex dildo. “It’s time for you to have some new experiences,” she said.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Carl.
“No, of course not,” said Rachel. “But your body isn’t the same anymore.”
Pam walked over to Rachel and looked in the bag. “And anyways,” she added while still looking at the bag’s contents, “it’s never been me on the other end, so to speak. Ooh, I like this one,” she said as she pulled out a clear, glass, strap-on dildo. With barely a hesitation she walked to Carl, took hold of his elbow and pulled him toward the apartment door. “See you guys in a little while,” she said cheerfully over her shoulder. Carl raised no objections whatsoever. Once they were gone the rest of us looked at each other and just laughed.
Scott looked at Joyce and said, “I guess you have something in store for me?”
“Sure,” she answered. “But there is one problem. Where are we going to do this? I’m afraid that the bathroom won’t be very comfortable.” She looked directly at me. Obviously she expected me to answer.
I shrugged my shoulders. Unfortunately I forgot the circumstances and said, “Well, I wish I had a bed in the spare room.” Suddenly I realized what I had just said. The fact that some kind of noise came from the spare room had something to do with my realization.
Rachel’s eyes went wide. She understood what had happened. The noise made her ask, “What was that?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said. “Let me go see.” As I turned toward the hallway I sensed the rest of them following me. This was a problem as I didn’t want to face, as I knew I wanted the ring to remain between me and Rachel only, at least for now. So I turned around and said, “I’m sure everything’s fine, so I wish that you would all just stay here.” They had indeed begun to follow me, but they all stopped as soon as I made my wish. Rachel gave me a somewhat discontented look, but I couldn’t address that now.
I walked down the hall to the spare room and entered it. Sure enough, there was a brand new bed sitting there. I looked around the room to determine what caused the noise. At the end of the bed there was a small table that looked like it had been thrown across the room. I remembered that it had been standing in some of the space that the bed now occupied. When I made the wish and caused the bed to appear, it must have just knocked the table out of its way. Interesting, I thought. I thought this could be something to test later. For now I needed to resolve its sudden appearance. My slip of the tongue caused the ring to act, so I would need the ring to act again. I made another wish that everyone except me and Rachel would remember the bed always being in the room.
I exited the room and walked back down the hall. The other three were waiting at the end. While I approached them I noticed Rachel giggling as she said to Joyce, “See, I told you so.”
Since I had no idea what she meant, I asked her, “Now what?”
“Tell you in a minute, love,” she answered.
“So, anyway,” Scott interrupted impatiently. “Are you going to let us use the bed in the spare room or not?”
“Oh, yea, duh. Of course,” I said hurriedly. “All yours.”
“Great,” said Scott. “After you,” he said to Joyce. Joyce took the bag from Rachel and headed for the spare room.
Rachel grabbed at the bag and said, “Hold on.” She fished through the bag again and pulled out something, but I could not see what. “OK. Sorry,” she said. Joyce and Scott quickly ran into the spare room and slammed the door.
“Our turn to vanish,” said Rachel. She held out her hand for me to take. I took it and we rushed into my room. Rachel kicked the door closed and said, “First thing first. What the hell was that?”
I sighed. “A stupid slip of the tongue,” I answered.
“Considering what this ring can do, you’d better think twice before ever using the words ‘I wish,’” she warned.
“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed.
“So why didn’t you let me come with you?” she asked.
I wasn’t entirely sure why she had to know this, but it didn’t bother me. “Because it was easier to say it that way. I wasn’t trying to exclude you. I just talked as fast as I could to avoid them suspecting anything. I mean…” My voice trailed off as I looked at the ring. “I think this should just be between us for now, if not always.”
“You don’t trust your siblings?” she asked. I found it interesting how she didn’t include Joyce, a practical stranger, and Carl, a notorious busybody, in her question.
I shook my head. “It’s not that. It’s what kind of questions might follow. They’re smart. They’d probably figure out that world peace and men turning into women were caused by the ring. I think the fewer people that know about it, the better things will be,” I said.
“So this is just our little secret?” she asked with a purposefully cute smile.
“Of course,” I said. “Now what do you have in store for me with that…thing?”