Could you please write about a lawyer who finds a genie's lamp, and came fully prepared with an ironclad contract for his three wishes? And maybe the genie is deeply impressed with the lawyer's thoroughness, despite himself? I just really want to read a piece where the malicious genie doesn't win for once, and might even be the one tricked.
The lawyer had always rather pitied genies. There was something tragic about a creature, bound forever to a tiny bottle or lamp, released only to grant the wishes of others. With that said – Hakim had heard stories about the genie of this particular lamp for some time. The tales, spread across the centuries, never ended well. At least, not for the human who dared to want something more than they already had.
The rules of a genie were deceptively simple; the genie had to grant exactly three wishes and one could not wish for more wishes, and one could not summon the genie again after the three wishes had already been granted. But, when summoned the first time, the genie had to answer. The genie had to grant the wishes, no matter what they were. Refusal was not an option.
When the genie materialised, in a brilliant flash of light, Hakim was ready.
“I am the genie of the lamp. What are your wishes three?”
The genie had appeared in the form of a handsome young man – though the lawyer knew that the creatures were talented shapeshifters. There were very few recorded instances of anyone seeing a genie’s true form. One would typically have to use up a wish for the experience, and in the grand scheme of finite desires, only a dedicated scholar of the djinn would do such a thing.
- “Hello,” the lawyer said. “I am Hakim.” He offered the contract he had written up, agonised over, since he’d first come across the lamp.
The genie glanced down at the papers, taking them with a slight furrow in his brow. “What is this?”
“A formal contract.”
“I am already under contract. Or perhaps,” the genie smiled maliciously, “you imagine I take pleasure in providing you your every heart’s desire? I live to serve, after all.”
“My first wish,” Hakim said, unflinching, “is that you sign and are bound by the terms dictated in the contract you are holding. You may read it now first if you would like.”
The genie gave him a look, somewhere between loathing and an air of being reluctantly impressed by the deft manoeuvre. He glanced around the room – the lawyer’s study, with a quick assessing flick of his golden gaze – before sitting down on the edge of Hakim’s desk in a display that was obviously supposed to irritate him.
Hakim simply waited, quietly, as the genie read. He watched the creature’s face, and, if he was not entirely mistaken, the further into the contract the genie got, the more the expression of being reluctantly impressed transformed to a deeper, if nonetheless entirely begrudging, admiration.
“It is not enough that I am caged, you would bind me further?” the genie demanded.
“Consider it my appreciation of the fact that you are very good at loopholes,” Hakim said. “You would make a legendary lawyer.”
“You do not need to flatter me, I have to grant your wishes regardless.”
“I know.”
The genie’s head tilted, something in their gaze at the simple response. No, the lawyer did not need to praise the genie, or acknowledge the rather stunningly creative solutions the creature found around the restraints they were under. He could have made sure the genie could not act against him with an air of smug triumph.
The genie flipped to the beginning of the contract again, reading it a second time, no doubt searching for a way out of the ironclad trick of it all.
The lawyer’s heart hammered, but he kept his expression impassive.
The genie read through the contract a third time, before huffing.
“You are as cruel as I am,” the genie said, softly. “As devious.”
“You do not need to flatter me,” the lawyer replied, raising a brow. “This is a business transaction, and the terms are already agreed.” He fished his pen out of his pocket and offered that across the desk too.
“I know,” the genie said. He took the pen, sighed, and signed with an elegant swirling script of the likes rarely seen in the world anymore.
The next look they traded was not, exactly, business like. It was not exactly friendly. But there was…something there.
Once the genie granted the wishes, after all, there would be no cause for either of them to see each other again. And Hakim…well, he’d dedicated the better part of the last few years researching the genie in front of him, thinking out and crafting the contract that the genie held. Even beyond all of that, the genie was so clearly magic, so clearly extraordinary, that Hakim couldn’t help but feel life would be a little duller and more colourless when the creature was no longer in it.
The terms were simple enough: upon signing the contract, the genie could not grant further wishes with malevolent intent or deliberate desire to harm. Not Hakim’s wishes, and not the wishes of the next person who came looking for a genie to solve all of their problems. It would not be much of a trap if the genie was the careless kind, but Hakim knew he was not. All of the genie’s clever loopholes were deliberate. The genie also could not kill or set out to harm Hakim once the final wish was granted, in vengeance against the contract. The contract could not be destroyed – not unless someone else wished for it to be.
The genie would have to be good, have to be helpful, have to work in good faith.
The contract also detailed the second and third wishes, just to be safe. Just to make sure that the genie could not find some way to screw him over. Money, for one. A simple wish. But one that, in the world they lived in, could grant him greater freedom to support his other desires.
So, Hakim had not exactly wished for more wishes, but the contract granted far more than three simple wishes would allow.
“Your wish,” the genie said. “Is my command.” He appeared at Hakim’s side in an instant, sliding the pen back into his pocket. Up close, he smelled like sand and desert nights, of cool water and ancient stone. Of power crackling beneath the surface of his skin. “Would you like me to grant them now, or would you like to wait in case you change your mind?”
There was a danger to waiting too, Hakim knew that. He knew the temptation. Knew that it was harder to command a creature if one knew them, emotionally, if the genie managed to make him consider him as a friend. That was how people ended up wishing to free genies, with all the best hearted intentions, only for powerful creatures that had been trapped for a reason to be unleashed on the world without restraint.
Hakim still swallowed. He still wanted to, for a moment.
“Now, please.”
“Please.” The genie seemed taller than before, looming. “So polite, for a trickster.” Still, the genie hesitated a moment – a rare moment, if the anecdotes Hakim had read about were true. Like, maybe, he didn’t want to leave. His eyes were intent, sharp with interest, with something more alive and thrilled than when they had first seen each other.
Hakim held his breath.
Desire. Such a strange thing.
Then, the genie flicked his hand, and the wishes were done.
All that was left was the lamp and the contract laying neatly on the table, signed with a name.
Razon.