Damned

By sleepingdraco

On the one-year anniversary of my death the Devil arrived to collect my soul wearing red leather pants and a bustier. I wasn't surprised. Well, I was surprised she was such a knockout and that it took her so long to fetch me.

My soul had remained suspended in the seedy intergalactic bar where my bookie's henchman had shot me. I had let my guard down for one second too long in the presence of that smelly eight-arm weapon-yielding alien. And let's face it, I had it coming. Both from my bookie and the devil. I was a real bastard.

I thought I'd go immediately to hell. But when they dragged my corpse away, I hovered there unseen, watching another batch of space gangsters immediately seat themselves at the booth. My brains were still oozing down the wall behind them. After that, day after day passed, all the same. I watched thousands of thugs from the far reaches of the universe gather and plan innumerable evil doings. It all blurred together.

When she arrived the music and din of conversation stopped. No one breathed. The temperature plummeted as the place became frigid with fear. But one look at the Devil and I couldn't help but feel aroused. I immediately had fantasies of getting tied to the wall and tortured, surrounded by fire for the rest of eternity.

She didn't mess around either. The bartender handed her a steaming shotglass with tentacles wriggling out of it. She slammed the drink, grabbed my hand and dragged me out the door.

"Hussle, buster. We're behind schedule," she said.

The surprisingly junky spaceship she flew sat parked illegally. Despite my impending damnation, I felt the electric thrill of excitement. I was finally going somewhere in the company of one damn hot babe.

The Devil pulled me into the cockpit and began flipping switches in preparation for takeoff. I looked around for any other helpers, demons, droids, or other minions, but she seemed to work alone. Soon we had left the bar and dingy planet far behind. I finally got up the nerve to speak.

"So is it far to hell?"

She didn't answer. At first I thought maybe the Devil couldn't hear me. She continued to focus on the ship, make adjustments to the dials. I studied her face. Up close I could see the faint signs of age. She looked tired, deeply worn, but that didn't detract from her incomprehensible beauty. My eyes were drawn to her ample cleavage. I found myself wondering if she'd be up for a shag. Maybe in return for some extra punishment.

"I'm not shagging you," she stated flatly without looking up from the console.

At last, satisfied with the coordinates, she leaned back and grabbed a beer out of a small fridge behind the captain's seat. She kicked off her sparkly stilettos and put a rather cute pair of feet up on the dash. She took a long swig and watched me eye the beer. She grinned. "I'm the Devil. I don't share my beer either."

Something started beeping and she jumped into action flipping a few switches. Then she relaxed again. "You're a right shyster," she said. "But you aren't going to hell."

"No?" I asked, surprised.

"Nope," she replied. "Real estate got too expensive."

That shut me up. It wasn't the answer I was expecting. Too expensive? I sat pondering numerous questions. Who charges rent in hell? If the Devil wasn't there anymore, who was? Were there regulations on how many souls per square feet could safely be kept in hell? Finally, I had to ask. "So where are you taking me Ms. Devil?"

"You can call me Lucy." She checked the console and smiled. "Someplace far, far away."

"Some dark planet filled with lava?" I asked.

"No," Lucy said, opening a second beer. "Just someplace down enough worm holes that you can't bother anyone again." She watched me chew on that for a while. "And you can relax because you aren't getting tortured for eternity either."

"Why not?" I asked.

Lucy leaned in close, cocking her head to one side and studying me up and down. I noticed she smelled of whiskey even though she was guzzling beer.

"That's not usually the first thing out of people's mouths when I tell them that," she said, "What? Are you into that crap or something?"

"No," I replied, sheepishly. "I guess I had a traditional upbringing is all. I had assumed being a sinner that I had nothing but the standard chains and whips to look forward to."

That made her laugh. I really liked it when she laughed. She had an unbelievably alluring laugh. I think I could listen to it forever.

"Just a poor boy brought up on some religious planet," she snorted. "Did they make you go to Sunday school?" she giggled. "Scare the crap out of you with fire and brimstone if you didn't lead the straight and narrow life?"

I nodded, 'Yes.'

"So did you hope to get a harp and go to heaven then?"

I nodded 'No.' "That always looked really boring to me," I admitted.

"It is!" The Devil slammed her beer down with a thud that made me jump. "And none of that 'eternal bliss' bullshit is real except the boring harp part."

She began to brood, tapping a finger on her lovely chin. "You know I have a real bone to pick with that Pearly Gate guy," she continued. "He hands the good souls their harps and calls it a day."

She leaned in close again and I shivered.

"He's lazy," she hissed. "The way I see it, God should do his own dirty work. He's the one wanting people to behave, not me! I'm cool with sin. If He's the one with the problem with immorality, then He should be the one torturing the sinners not me."

She took out a joint and lit it up. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it."

"You're right," I said, astonished for never having looked at things this way.

She smiled, nodded and passed me the joint. I suppose I couldn't have refused if I had wanted to. I took it gladly.

It was a heady high, like your first time getting high. Like the high you seek for the rest of your life. I couldn't believe I was dead and getting high as a kite with the Devil in outer space.

Lucy got chatty.

"You know when I was a younger gal, I took this job more seriously," she said, taking another hit. "I strung em up by their toes. Did the whole torment routine. But you know what?" She got in my face and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, she was so intoxicatingly lovely.

"What?" I managed to squeak.

"It's a shit ton of work torturing the damned!" she yelled.

I nearly fell back in my chair. The space ship seemed to be spinning. She beckoned for me to come close again, like she was going to let me in on a mystery of the universe. I wobbled in my seat. Lucy steadied me, holding my face in her hands.

"Do you know why God is a man and the Devil is a woman?" Lucy asked, sounding like a school teacher.

All I could do was moan. I wanted her so badly.

"Because it's a shittier job," she said.

"I-I agree," I managed to stammer. "So that's why you decided to stop playing into the patriarchy."

And then she kissed me. I would have given her my soul right there if she didn't already own it.

"You're a good boy." Lucy tussled my hair and stood up. I thought this was probably the end of our time together. That I'd be placed in a holding locker, or that the torture would actually start. But to my surprise, she took off her clothes. We made love awkwardly in the cockpit.

I was torn. On one hand I hoped I was performing suitably. I wanted her to think I was a good lover. On the flip side I was nervous about screwing up morally. It was ironic. I mean, I basically had no morals–that's how I'd gotten here after all–but it seemed like maybe this was going too far. I felt like there might be hell to pay after all.

It turns out I was right. At some point I passed out. When I awoke, I was lying on a soft white cloud wearing a white robe. I looked down and beside me was a harp.

"No," I groaned. But it was no use. There was nothing left to do but to accept my fate.