Your Wish is my Command

The setup

A handyman with no money is sent to clean a billionaire's house, and in the safe he finds a lamp. The woman inside is a jinniyah, four hundred years old, who spent four centuries with rulers, soldiers and one bishop, and every client before him wanted gold. The handyman asks her to finish his shift. Intrigued, she offers him something bigger. Episode 1 sets out the rules; episode 2 pushes them. She tells him any woman anywhere can be at his door within the hour, because she has never come up empty when pricing a man. Maybe he doesn't have a price, he says. Then he names exactly what he does want.

Why it earns its number

Magical-wish stories usually reward greed. This one rewards restraint: the more he declines, the more intrigued she gets. That inversion makes it feel different from the rest of the shelf, and it adds humor without sacrificing the heat.

Who should collect it: For fans of fantasy flavor who like their wishes granted with a sense of humor and a heroine unused to hearing no.