Free Djinn: Cursed by Erik Schubach Page A

this?”  I was over these damn wings already.  She just beamed a smile at me and hopped up.  She stepped over and took the shirt and looked at it and my wings.
    I held my breath as she reached out.  I tried not to close my eyes and savor her touch when she again laid her hand on a wing and stroked it gently.  Then she seemed to shake her head out of it, and she looked over and said as she blushed, “Shut up Stacy.”
    She swallowed then looked back at the shirt, obviously trying to ignore someone.  I knew how my... dead roommate, could be.  And I could imagine what she was saying to the cute mouse woman to make her blush like that.  So I grumbled, “Yeah, shut up Stace.”
    Then Dorian looked around and pushed her full, wavy hair back over her shoulder.  What a difference a shower made in the woman, I tried not to follow her with my eyes as she stepped over to the little closet to pull aside the accordion door.
    She looked through the clothes, then pulled out a plain white button-up blouse and grinned in triumph.  Ah, brilliant.  Then I squished my mouth to one side in the realization that as long as I had these flappy things on my back, I'd be relegated to wearing only button-up tops.  Inconvenient and more expensive.
    I blinked.  How was I supposed to live like this?  How could I finish school?  How could I get a job to pay for the stupid ass shirts, to begin with?
    She bobbed her head down and tilted it into my vision to get my attention and pull me out of the spiral I had gotten myself into.  “Arm up Angel.”  She wiggled her eyebrows, and it was my turn to blush.
    I snatched the shirt from her hand and stepped back into the bathroom saying, “I can dress myself, thank you very much.”
    I almost snorted when I heard her through the door speaking, no doubt to Stacy, “Told you.”
    I pulled the jeans on and rolled up the cuffs.  I felt like a child putting on Hailey's things, she was so much taller than me.  Then I put the shirt on, sliding it up my back, under my wings.  The fabric fit awkwardly, bunching up under the point they connected to me.  It wasn't like the oversize neck hole of the tank top which had stretched to accommodated them.
    I could button all but the top two buttons, and I looked in the mirror.  I looked silly with the shirt all bunched up in the back like that.  I rolled up the sleeves so it looked like I actually had hands, then I opened the door and stepped out, holding out my arms in helplessness and said to the thoroughly amused brunette.  “Help?”
    She chiggled a cross between a chuckle and a giggle.  Then she stepped around me, appraising as she commented, “Only you would ask a crazy woman for help.”
    Before I could comment, she was off like a woman on a mission to the little desk by the door to the studio.  She rummaged around on it then opened a small drawer and said “Ah ha!”  She turned and came at me with a pair of gleaming scissors in hand a toothy grin plastered on her face.
    I looked around wondering where my old roommate was standing and pleaded with the open air, “Hep me?”
    Dorian said in a pleased tone, “She say's you're on your own here, Drake.”  Then she started hacking at the back of the shirt with the scissors.  With each cut, the fabric relaxed until it was sitting around my shoulders comfortably.  I felt guilty that one of Hailey's shirts was being sacrificed for me.
    Then I froze as she massaged the point where my wings connected to my back and good lord almighty did it feel divine.  I moaned in pleasure.
    She said, “Your muscles are all bunched up here, flying must be quite a strain.  Or in your case, crashing spectacularly from the sky.”
    I muttered, “Shut up.”  Hiding my smile as I back flapped, squashing her between my wings.  Then I stepped over to the reading chair by the sleeping Hailey and flopped down, my wings draping over the back of the chair and pooling on the floor behind me.  I noted that my