"I'm a woman, obviously," you reply.
"What is your favorite color?"
A strange question. Still, who are you to argue with the big booming voice?
"Blue," you reply.
"What is your deepest desire?"
That one's easy. You think about how hard it is being a gay woman in this very socially conservative town. The loneliness, the risk of alienation if you tell friends what you are, the years of sexual frustration starting when you were 13. All those classmates and co-workers you could never touch...
"That's easy. I'm tired of being a repressed virgin. I want all the prime pussy I can handle -- wall to wall hot women for the rest of my life. My long and healthy life," you ammend, in case this is one of those hidden cost deals.
The voice laughs. "Don't worry, I won't screw you over like that. It's much more fun to see if you'll screw yourself over once you're given that kind of power. Every now and then one of you doesn't -- in a way that's even funnier."
You decide that you just don't get aliens' senses of humor. Or gods'. Or whatever this thing is.
A sapphire ring appears at your feet.
"Wear that ring and you can control the bodies and minds of any woman you meet -- with one limitation."
"What limitation is that?" you ask.
"There's a reason I asked the questions I did," the voice replies. "You should be able to figure it out from that, with a little trial and error. And if you can't--"
"--that's funny too," you say.
The booming voice laughs. "You're starting to catch on. You're cleverer than most humans. Let's find out if you're clever enough." You sense that whatever it was that was talking to you is gone. You pick up the ring and slip it on your finger. It's quite fetching, the way it catches the light.
"Let's find out what you can do," you tell the ring. Then thinking about the riddle of the ring's limitation, "and what you can't." |