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Aramis never slept with the Queen of France.
“Then why do you let him ride you like that about it?"
“Because Athos’ disgusted face is too adorable for words. I’ve been alive a very long time, my love. Let me have my little indulgences.”
“That is a good look he gets. Like when the cat finds us kissing on the couch."
“What a charming suggestion, Porthos. I accept."
She does own his lamp, for a time, that much is true. She holds it in her hand, a little something she’d received from the wife of an ambassador from somewhere. She looks at the designs, traces them with her fingers. And when the attractive young man appears in her solar she only jumps, she doesn’t scream.
From the start, Aramis knows she is different. She wants for nothing practical, this woman who lives in a palace and wears a crown. Her only hopes are for friendship, some quiet minutes to herself, a child. Most of all a child.
Aramis can’t give her one, it’s not within his powers, and if she can’t have that, she won’t waste her wishes on things that will grant her only a few minutes of peace. Her wishes are all for other people. She wishes for food and shelter for people she sees in the streets. She wishes for likeminded women to meet each other, and then watches with a smile as they pull in others and do great things.
She rubs the lamp sometimes just for company. Those times, Aramis goes home for a moment and gets his cat. Her Majesty sits by the fire with Aramis’ fat, happy tabby on her lap and strokes it until she grows drowsy. He brings a different one the next time, a silly ball of orange fur and love and she teases it with a ribbon.
“How many cats have you, Monsieur Aramis?"
“Only the two for now, and the puppy."
She demands to meet the puppy and when it licks her face the Queen of France laughs like any other delighted girl.
They are out the next day, she and her husband and their entourage, when she spots a boy, alone in the street. His face, she thinks, looks like hers had the night before. It is far more frivolous than her other wishes, but that boy needs a puppy, needs the kind of joy she’d had playing with Aramis’ dog.
“If I show you the boy, can I wish for a puppy for him? I can’t wish for happiness for him, or that he might have friends, but this I could do.” An idea sparks in her eyes. “And perhaps the means for his family to care for the pet?"
Aramis smiles. “Well, often such an animal can be a large investment of money. They must be fed. Given somewhere warm and out of the rain. Often this is beyond the means of boys such as you saw."
She drags her teeth over her lower lip, thinking.
“If you wish for money, I can not grant it.” His voice drops a bit and he leans toward her. “If your majesty will permit, so often the difference between a good wish and a great wish, between a great wish and an exemplary wish, is care in wording.” He won’t say more, can’t say more, can’t tell her how to cheat the system. But she’s an exceptional woman, she’ll get it.
“Just so,” she says with a bright smile. “Aramis, I wish for that boy and his family to raise that puppy in safety and comfort and in a house not plagued with uncertainty or worry for resources."
He wants to kiss her for this. He wants to plant a great, smacking kiss on her perfectly powdered face. “As you say, just so."
She laughs, bright like a coin landing in a fountain. “This is a wonderful thing to know, I will have to remember this for my remaining wishes. If propriety did not forbid, you would find yourself well and truly hugged, monsieur."
Aramis’ laugh is altogether more strained. “Would that it were only propriety that forbade."
She rubs his cat’s head. “How so?"
He tells her. He tells her about the curse of genies, about the way it would feel if she tried to touch him. In fits and starts he tells her about the ways he has learned the limits. Through clothes yes, but never too tight or too long, never until you can feel their warmth. Animals yes, people no.
She seems fascinated, and Aramis wants to hug her even more for this ravenous curiosity of hers. He finds it her most endearing trait.
“Well,” she says, and Aramis waits. “That certainly explains the cats."
“And the dogs."
She nods. “And the dogs.”
When the weight of the truth settles on her she looks up at him in despair. “Oh, Aramis. How long?"
“Longer than your majesty should concern herself imagining. And besides, it’s impolite to discuss one’s age."
“Enough.” Her voice is warm but hard as stone. "Stop playing at pretty words and tell me. How long, Aramis?"
He stares at her, fingers itching to stroke the cat, the way he always does when his heart hurts like this.
“I have been a genie for sixteen hundred years."
She sounds as though the breath has been punched out of her.
“Without… any…?"
“It has not been so terrible as that. From time to time, I would find another like me. We can touch each other. And if we were between obligations we would… sometimes we would hold each other for days. It sounds ridiculous now I say it out loud."
“It sounds nothing of the kind.” She’s vehement, determined.
“My closest friend, when I see him, though it has been years, we will sit by the fire for hours, reading our books and holding hands. And I have had my pets; I have had soft fabrics and deep, warm furs. So, you see, I have not been entirely deprived.”
She stares at him, takes in the velvet of his coat and the fur at his collar. She thinks about all the times she’s seen him stroking absently at them. He can see her mind working and sees the moment when she tries to imagine just how long he has been substituting creature comforts for the warmth of touch, as though all the furs in the world could ever equal the feel of your lover’s fingers intertwined with your own…
“I wish—“
“No, majesty."
“I said to stop with that."
“No, my friend. These wishes are for you."
She is a slight woman and not tall, but when she draws herself up into the fullness of her royalty, she is daunting even to him. “Do you presume to say that the Queen of France, a daughter of the courts of Spain and of Austria, does not do exactly as she desires? Do you insinuate that she can be so easily led by the whims of others? Do you, Aramis, insult my will?"
He isn’t sure whether to laugh or genuflect. “Never, majesty."
“Then you will do, genie, as I command."
“Of course,” he inclines his head. Not a bow, but a gesture of respect all the same.
“I wish that there be no negative effects to your touch. Neither given nor received."
Once, not very long after he’d taken on this mantle, there had been a wisher who had desired him, who had wanted to bed him. Many would, of course, but this boy was the first of them that Aramis could remember, and perhaps it was because he’d desired the boy in return. He’d told the boy the realities of his life, but that surely a wish could give them the chance.
“I would need to spend a wish on it?” the boy had said, and Aramis had known in that instant that the boy never would. He could have told the boy about all the endless wishes, but who wants to grant that kind of power to a soul who will not spend one of a limited number of wishes on a kiss?
In the more than one thousand years since then, Aramis has never even dared to think of a moment like this, has not even wanted to let it in his heart for fear the absence of it would devour everything else.
It’s here, now. A woman who wants for nothing has given Aramis the only thing he has wanted in dozens of lifetimes.
“For you?” Please, he begs in silence, please don’t make me ask. Don’t make me so selfish in your eyes, so ungrateful as to ask for more. Please remember to be careful of your wording. Please.
“No. For anyone. For everyone. Always, Aramis. For always."
“Your wish is my command,” he whispers.
It isn’t until her thumb brushes his cheek that he realizes he’s been crying since she started her wish. Her touch is a shock, and then a balm. Aramis sobs and presses her palm to his cheek.
When the tears stop for both of them she curls her fingers under his fur collar. “I feel as though I am taking all your first touches but—"
“May I kiss you?” he interrupts.
“Your wish is my command,” she says and there is laughter in her eyes.
He presses bare fingers to her bare neck and sobs again, catching it before he kisses her. It’s more intimate than it might have been on any other day, for while there is much mutual affection, and the acknowledgement that they are both attractive members of their own sex, their relationship has never been one of lust. But the moment is upon them, and he is drunk on the feel of lips against his again after so long, while she is reveling in the feeling of a passionate kiss that isn’t concerned with lineage and heirs.
When he pulls away from her mouth he kisses her forehead, like he’d wanted to do - was it only a few minutes ago? How is it possible that his life has changed like this in so little time? Then again, the last time his life had changed this dramatically it had all been in the time it took to answer the question, Are you sure you want to be a genie?
“I love you so much, my wonderful friend," he says.
She closes her eyes and smiles under the comforting weight of his affection. “I love you, my Aramis."
His Queen holds her final wishes for years. After he tells her that she cannot wish him free, she tells him she wants him to have as many years of freedom as she can give him. He comes back to her often, to talk and to laugh. She shows him her sons and Aramis watches them grow. When they are young enough not to question his presence, he tells them stories and acts out myths with them.
He brings her each new kitten to pet and lets her name them all, from the black one she calls Soot to the calico she insists be referred to by his full title, Captain of His Majesty’s Mouseketeers. Aramis rolls his eyes and she laughs at him, her voice thinner with age but still bright.
When she calls him the last time, he finds her in a convent, tired and weak.
“My friend!” he cries.
“Calm yourself, Aramis. Always so dramatic."
“How long?"
“Has it been like this? Some time. They have some ideas, but I have ceased to care about anything save for how long they say is left. Even that I am letting go, slowly."
He takes her hand and holds her palm to his cheek, an echo of their first touch, his first after so many centuries. “What will I do without you?"
“You will watch my boys, Aramis. That is why I have called you here. My last wish. I wish that you would keep my boys safe, as safe as you can. Louis especially, so much rests on him."
“Your wish is my command,” he says, formal but smiling.
She strokes his cheek. “Always so good to me. Now kiss me and go, I don’t want you to remember me any worse than this."
“If you leave me,” he says, and prays she doesn’t hear the hitch in his voice, “how will I name my cats?"
She laughs again, the end collapsing into a cough. “You are a clever man, my genie. You will think of something."
He kisses her. Her mouth, her cheeks, her forehead at last. “I love you, my friend."
“And I love you, my Aramis. Go."
He goes.
Word of her death reaches him before a new wisher finds his lamp and Aramis takes the time to find Athos and seek sanctuary in his home. Athos puts him in a chair by the fire and listens for as long as Aramis needs to talk.
She’s right, of course. He does think of something, in a way. Because when he finds his next kitten, tiny and fierce and standing up to her littermates, he has no doubt what to call her. Or the next one. Or every one after. There are variations, to be sure. Longer or shorter or different languages sometimes, but always he names them after her.
Even this newest one. Even this one who has always had too much of her own will, more than any of hundreds of Aramis' cats before her. The bell rings when someone enters Athos’ store and every time she’ll leap from Aramis’ lap to investigate. This time he finds her winding her way around the newcomer’s legs.
“Annie!” Aramis scolds her. “Leave Athos’ customers alone.”