Joe Boyd pulled into the Hell, Michigan Visitors Center* parking lot. He had been driving past this place for years. However, he was running ahead on this Friday afternoon. It was now or never.
He looked at all the welcoming satanic signs surrounding the place. He stepped out of the red T-bird and onto the gravel parking lot. This might make him late, but he figured he owed himself one. Meg could wait an hour or two.
He crunched his way up to the door to the Visitors' Center. and stepped inside. He looked around for the inevitable Devil and saw him behind the till, taking selfies with a family of unruly red-haired brats. After the Farkle family had shuffled out the door, the devil approached Joe directly.
" I expected to see more people in here late on a Friday afternoon," Joe told the false Satan.
"Well, this place has gone to hell in a handbasket, no pun intended, ever since those damn Yankees moved in after Reconstruction.. No offence."
"None taken," said Joe Boyd.
The demonic cashier began to reminisce. "It used to be that you could have a nice family picnic under a burning cross on your neighbor's front lawn. You try to do that now, and the libs and the drive-by media will crucify you. Whatever happened to family values? Mmm, crucify. There's a thought." the satanic store manager said and began stroking his goatee." He pulled a cigarillo from his pocket and lit it, seemingly with his fingers.
"How did you do that?" Joe asked the pretend devil.
"Oh, I have always been quite handy with fire." Satan patted his new visitor on the arm and winked. "No, I'm just jiving. We do it with nanotechnology and a little genetic engineering, nothing to get to get spooked about, young man. There are tiny nanobots flowing through my veins that enable me to do a lot of surprising things. He elbowed Joe. "Hadja goin' there for a moment, didn't I son?"
"Now, how may I help you?" the faux Satan asked. "Immortality? Fame? Unlimited sex? Your wish is my command."
"The last one," Joe Boyd said.
"Unlimited sex it is then." The clerk walked over to the window and flipped the sign from "Open" to "Closed" and pulled down the blinds.
"Hi, my name is Mr. Applegate, but my friends just call me Scratch," the fake Devil said to Joe, reaching out to shake his hand. Joe noticed that he had a very ruddy complexion.
"That's a bitching sunburn you got there," Joe said.
"An occupational hazard in my line of work, I'm afraid," Scratch said.
"You will of course need to sign one of our standard contracts ceding your immortal soul to me," Scratch Applegate said. He searched through the papers in the top drawer of his desk until he found the proper form and placed it in front of Joe. Don't worry, just a little ipso facto, nothing to get hung about, as the Beatles might say.
"You just need to sign this." he told the horny steel worker.
Joe whipped out a Pilot G-2 pen and lowered it to the contract. Scratch pushed his hand aside and said, "I am afraid this contract must be signed in blood, Mr. Boyd." He pulled a surgical scalpel out of his coat and placed it in front of Joe.
"But I'm afraid of needles," Joe told satanic Visitor Center clerk. "And how do you know my last name?"
"Oh, you'll find that we know a great many things here in Hell, Mr. Boyd. Information is our stock-in-trade. Many of our former clients are CEOs of Facebook, WikiLeaks and other high-scam tech industries. We know you better than you know yourself."
"I'm still afraid of needles."
Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I gave you a scalpel, not a needle. Plus we're going to give you the original copy of the blood-signed contract so that you can hang it on your den wall to impress all your friends."
"I think I'm even more afraid of scalpels than needles," the bumpkin steelworker told his newfound friend.
"What part of unlimited sex don't you understand?" Scratch asked him. He rang the bell and yelled out to the back room, "Lola, would you be an angel and show off your wares.? Don't forget the angel part."
A door creaked open and out walked the most beautiful woman Joe had ever seen. Surely she was an angel if ever there were one. He knew her white wings were just the latest addition to the Victoria's Secret catalog, but he couldn't for the life of him see any seam between her wings and Lola's flesh. It was as though her wings actually grew out of her delectable, flawless skin. Her white wings were chastely folded across her chest.
"Sign and I'm yours forever, stud." she told the hapless former steelworker.
Joe grabbed the scalpel and plunged it into the soft flesh of his index finger. Blood spurted out and he raised his finger to the signature line of the contract.
Lola caught his trembling hand. and gently lowered it to the document . "Don't worry, sweetie, penmanship doesn't matter here. You can just make an X."
Joe smeared an 'X' over the signature line of the contract. "How will they know the signature's mine?" he asked.
"Genetic testing, silly. that's why we use blood," Lola told him. "Even if I could have any man (or woman) in the world (and I can), I'm glad it is you, stud muffin."
She put a finger on Joe's forehead and pushed him as lightly as a feather onto the fuck chair in the middle of the room. He complied with her every gesture. She grabbed his shirt and ripped it from his body. She opened one of her white wings, revealing the perfection of her lush red- tipped breasts and matching scarlet thatch between her legs.
"Hey that was my only shirt." Joe protested.
Lola pressed her naked torso against Joe's burning flesh. "Do you want me to put it back on you?" Lola asked.
"A little late for that." Joe said. pointing to ragged tatters of his shirt, which were strewn across the floor of the Visitor's Center.
"Sweetie you can just buy a new one from the gift shop." She pointed her left wing in the general direction of said shop.
"But Meg will know what's up. She always does."
"Are you actually afraid of that mousy, shrew, man-eater wife of yours?"
"Sure we've had a few spats, a couple of domestic assault citations, restraining orders, brandishments of cutlery , and rolling-pin-induced concussions. But goddammit , she's still my gal, and I love her."
"Honey, you don't know the meaning of the word 'love.'"
Lola circled Joe in the fuck chair and broke into song:
"You know whatever Lola wants, Lola gets, and little man, little Lola wants you..
She stopped behind Joe and ran her arms up and down his naked pecs and abs and resumed her song:.
"I always get what I aim for, and your heart and soul is what I came for.
Don't you know, silly fool, you never can win.
Because you've got me all over your skin.
You've got me deep in the heart of you,
So deep in my heart, you're really a part of me.
I've got you all over my skin.
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
Because you've got me all over your skin."
