Dan sighed as he sat down on the small love seat in the back room of the shop that had served as his father’s home away from home.  The entire room was furnished just like you would expect an antique collector would furnish his rooms.

Every thing in the room came from a different era and was in different states of use, or disuse, however you wanted to look at it. From the couch to the decorative mirror on the wall, to the frames that held snapshots of his life, all of them were different.

Each had meaning to his father.

“I forgot to ask, what exactly is your name again?” asked the Genie, peeking her head into the room.

“Oh, now you ask me what my name is? Not before you asked me if you could live here?”

“Do you want me to drop you again?” she asked with a slight smile on her face.

“Do as you see fit, I don't care.”  Dan sighed, he was in no mood for her taunts tonight. He leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes, but not before he saw her frown sadly at his remark. “Dan, my name is Dan, what is yours?”  he asked, there was a sigh hidden in there somewhere, he was sighing an awful lot wasn't he?

“Amani,”  she answered, and after some trepidation decided to sit down with him on the antique love seat. Much to her surprise the old leather and brass couch was extremely soft and comfortable.   From her seat she had a good view of the wall where all the family pictures were hung.

“Nice to meet you Amani.”  he said opening his eyes and looking over at her, “Sorry if I am being short with you, I am not having the best day today.”

“Neither am I, so sorry for dropping you and messing up your shop, twice.”  she said, blinking her pretty green eyes. “So what is wrong with your day?” she asked.

“Well, to begin with I had to bury my father.” he said softly looking at one of the pictures on the wall.  Amani looked over at it, in the picture there was a young boy with red hair sitting on top of a grown man’s shoulders with the same coloration, and a woman stood besides them.  All three of them had large smiles and looked for all the world to see happy.

“I am sorry to hear that.” she said softly.

“The world's a lesser place without him, this all of this was his passion.”  he gestured around the room, indicating all the antique objects.

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“Why do you sell old things? Would it not be better for you to sell new objects that have more worth and use?”

He laughed and looked over at her, “You sound like I did when I was younger, I asked the same question.”  he sighed and thought of his father’s words.  ““We don't sell antiques, we sell stories, stories told in objects, stories crafted by hands long gone, but whose work still can speak to us even after they cannot.”” he said with a smile.

“That what your father said?” she asked.

“Yep,”  he nodded with a chuckle to himself.  “He was either the smartest dumb man alive or the dumbest smart man alive, I can't decide which.”  Amani chuckled along with him. “So, your home, what happened to it?”

Amani’s face tightened again, “Gone, all gone.” she said simply.

“Gone how?”

“Tall structures that stab at the sky and laugh at the wind, and paths of winding solid black stone, and horseless carts everywhere.”

“It's been a long time since you have been out of that bottle hasn't it?” he asked.

“Last time I was out the village elder of the small town of Babel wished for the power to build an empire.”  Dan raised his eyebrows, Babel? Did she mean the empire of Babylon?

“Well those tall towers are called skyscrapers.”

“An apt name, I should say.”  Amani nodded, they really did look like they would be able to scrape the skies.

“The solid black stone is actually called pavement or road, and it is not really solid, it is poured in a liquid form and then it hardens, or at least that is how I think it works.”  he smiled at her. “As for the horseless carriage, we call those cars, or trucks, or vans, you know what let's just stick with cars, we call them cars.”

She looked at him, soaking in the information.

“So, what is your plan now?” he asked.

“I figured I could stay here for a while and learn about how the world has changed,” she said, showing him her big puppy dog eyes, leaving him once again unable to say no.

damn this girl was just too seductive…

“For how long?” he asked, breaking himself out of her spell by breaking eye contact.

“The next hundred years or so? I don't know maybe longer?” Dan coughed on thin air as he heard her say that, the next hundred years or so? Meaning he would be stuck with her the rest of his life?  He barely knew anything about this girl and here she was planning on spending the next hundred years with him.

“Hate to tell you this, but we humans live to be about 100 or so, we kind of are a short lived race.”  he said.

“I know that,” she blushed.

“So when you said you would spend the next hundred years or so with me?” her cheeks darkened again.

“Don’t say it.” she muttered under her breath, “Don't make me say it either,” her long black bangs covered her face. She had remembered one of her former master’s wives telling her this, if you wanted anything out of a man you had to offer something, yourself, and seeing as that woman was created by the master’s wish for perfect wives it stood to reason that it knew what it was talking about.

It was only for the next hundred years, and honestly Amani wanted to try to experience something new.

“Whats with the sudden turn around? One second you are dropping me from on high for touching your ass and all of a sudden you are offering to spend the rest of my life with me.” he looked at her, “Seems a little out of character.”

“I-I”

“Why don't we take this a little slower, instead of lifetime let's say, a month, and if in that month you don't annoy me, or anything then you can stay here for another month, sound good?”

Amani looked at him with wide eyes, she had expected him to take her up on the implied offer.  Every other master she had met most likely would, but Dan seemed different.  He didn't take what he wanted, and she knew he wanted her, she could see it in his eyes when he looked at her. He had something that restrained himself, something no one else had ever had for her.

Respect.

It made her happy to see that someone respected her, but deep down she was also a little sad that he had turned her down.

It only strengthened her resolve to stay here, with this man that respected her.