THE DEVIL AND BRIAN

He had come here resolved to prove to Penny that they were meant to be together, that they were in love, and that her reasoning for breaking up with him two days ago was all a giant misunderstanding. They’d been dating for six months and he was wild about her. To be honest with himself, he’d never understood why she went out with him in the first place, he was a skinny guy in his late 20’s still working in a restaurant to pay rent. He wasn’t wild or exciting, didn’t go clubbing or have a sports car. He was just Brian Thompson, movie watcher and waiter. But he loved her. Completely. And that is what he was here to prove.

When the stairwell door opened in the hallway, it startled Brian, who was still standing there with his fist raised to knock. Not thinking, he knocked soundly on the door as a beautiful woman exited the stairs and walked to the apartment door two down from Penny’s. She was wearing a black skirt and a golden blouse that shimmered, her long blonde hair neatly held her sunglasses on top of her head, and when she noticed Brian looking at her, she smiled in return. Embarrassed, standing there with his flowers, Brian turned to stare at the door’s peephole. The regal blonde woman entered her apartment just as Penny unlocked the door in front of him.

Her hair was disheveled, the long dirty blonde locks cascading down around her face had always framed her beauty nicely. Her cool blue eyes looked at him with a vague sense of patience, like she had already resolved herself to the fact that she owed him at least the courtesy of listening to Brian. She’d thrown on a t-shirt quickly, and when she adjusted her house robe around her, Brian noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra, the nipple he could see was stiff.

“Hi.”, he said dumbly after being distracted, immediately regretting that he hadn’t something wittier to say. The silence afterwards seemed to stretch on.

“Hello.”, Penny answered, looking at him expectantly and waiting.

He swallowed, already this wasn’t going well. “These are for you.”, he said, offering the bouquet of flowers still wrapped in the crinkly plastic from the florist. The wrap almost echoed in the silence of the hallway.

She immediately turned regretful. “Brian … no. I told you. I’d made my decision. It wasn’t working out.”

“Just give it a chance.”, he plead. It wasn’t what he’d intended to do, pleading already was a sure sign. “I love you, and I know you love me. We had some great times, how can you throw all that aside?”

“Brian….”, she turned slightly annoyed, that look that she got when he was pestering her for sex sometimes. “It just wasn’t working out. You have to move on. I know you have feelings for me, but I just didn’t feel the same way about you. You’re …”, she shook her head, the long blonde hair shaking with it. “You’re just not what I’m looking for.”

Then, as if that wasn’t enough of a knife to the heart, the twist came from further back in her apartment. “Babe, come on. Come back to bed! That part of me you like is getting cold!” It was Colin, her friend that Brian had always suspected of being a little too close to her.

Penny, for her part, at least had the decency to get flushed, red color filling her cheeks. “Look Brian, you’re nice and all, but I don’t love you and I never will. Please go. I…” She shook her head again, and closed the door.

“I love you!”, he stated quickly just before the door came shut. His only answer was the latching of the deadbolt.

He was there for a while before he heard anything, then he heard two sounds. The first was Penny, moaning again, only loud enough to hear once, and Brian felt tears welling in his eyes. The second was the sound of a door opening. Rubbing his eyes on his shoulders, he looked down the hallway to the same door the woman had walked into, only there was a man leaving, and he looked at Brian as he locked the door behind him. “Tough break kid.”

Brian started to say something but his voice cracked and he had to swallow before he could speak again. “What do you mean?”, he asked, not willing to share his life story with this stranger.

The man walked his direction and smiled. He was about mid forties, wearing a dark blue suit with a nice silver tie on which looked a little old, like the suit had been in style back in the fifties. His hat was a fedora, and completed the slightly dated look of him. When he spoke, he sounded nice though, and genuine, looking at Brian with what appeared to be light blue eyes. “What do I mean?”, he asked with a warm smile. “A young man of your age sitting in a hallway pretending not to cry with flowers on the ground?” He cocked his head to the side. “You’ve obviously been dealt quite a blow.”

Brian picked up his flowers and stood, his back sliding up the wall until he was on his own two feet. “Yeah .. well… thanks I guess?” He turned towards the stairwell, looking to put distance between him and Penny.

The older gentleman followed. “Oh you’re welcome, but it looks like you could use more than warm smile. Guys these days, they have it rough. So many more problems than they used to have, so many more obstacles.” He continued talking as they both made their way to the stairs. “You’d think that technology would have solved their problems … but no.” The man chuckled at his own words. “The main problems remain the same, just have a lot of noise in the background now. What you need…” He looked at Brian. “… is a bite to eat and an ear to bend. I was about to grab some lunch across the street. Come with me. My treat and we can complain about women to each other.”

Brian looked at the man and blinked. He wasn’t in the habit of talking to strangers, in fact, he had to fake not being shy for his tables at the restaurant, but then he asked himself why not? Maybe talking to this guy, this more experienced man, could help shed some light on his life. He got a feeling of trust from the older man, and almost before he could believe it, Brian found himself nodding. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

The gentleman smiled. “I’d like that too. My name’s Luke.” He extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you Brian.”

Brian himself blinked even as he took the hand, noting how warm the man’s palm was. “How’d you know my name?”

The older gent continued to smile. “Thin walls.”

Luke tilted his hat back upon his head, showing a receding hairline. “So Brian, tell me about Penny.”

He felt a wave of emotion cascade over him, and Brian almost found himself tearing up as he explained. “She’s awesome. Well, I thought she was awesome, but maybe that was the problem, that she was always too good for me. Beautiful, smart, sexy… “, he smiled to himself. “So sexy. And she cares too, she wants to become a nurse.” He trailed off, a vision of her in her Naughty Nurse outfit coming to mind.

The older man nodded. “What does she look like?”

Brian smiled. “Beautiful. Long blonde hair down to the middle of her back, blue eyes, those full lips.” He was looking at her in his mind now. “Her eyes, when she looks at you she’s really looking at you, so you know that she’ll hear whatever you say.” He thought that had a familiar ring to it, but couldn’t place it. “And her body…”, he shook his head. “Amazing.” Looking across the booth, Brian almost stopped there because he didn’t want to seem like a pervert or, worse, feed a strange pervert’s head with images. But then two thoughts came to his head. One, that the older guy did come out of the same apartment as the gorgeous woman, and two, that Penny had just dumped him and the first flashes of anger began to arise in him. “Her breasts are a good C, nice handfuls. She’s got that singular line down her stomach that lets you know she works out but not too much. And that ass…”, he shook his head, something inside him telling Brian that he was describing too much but he didn’t want to stop. “So round but tight.”

Luke nodded, but then got a strange look on his face. “Is… Penny the only girl in that apartment you were at?”

Brian blinked, pulled out of his thoughts by the question. “Yes.” He paused. “Why?”

The gentleman pushed his food around his plate with his fork. He hadn’t taken a bite yet. “Just that… you’re acting like she’d just ended the relationship with you. But I thought she had that other boyfriend. I’d seen them kissing and … well groping would be a euphemism. Taller lad. Black hair with a goatee?”

Brian felt a weight land in his stomach and suddenly he wasn’t hungry any more. “Colin. That’s Colin. Her… friend.”

As if to emphasize the point, the man shook his head. “More than friends from what I’ve seen. And for more than a month I can tell you that.”

And just like that, Brian wasn’t sad any more. He was angry. Mad. What the fuck, that bitch? How long has she been fucking Colin behind his back? He almost couldn’t accept it, she’d been so adamant about only concentrating on one person at a time. “Are you sure?”

Luke nodded. “Son, I’ve seen a lot of friends and a lot of lovers. And they weren’t just friends. I believe one term you kids use is tonsil hockey. And he was definitely … well… moving his hands over her chest would be the nice way to say it.”

Brian was now furious, his eyebrows furrowing hard as he stared down at his uneaten food. That whore. Seeing Colin behind his back all the while. Is that why she was less and less attentive to him over the last couple of weeks? It had to be. Why would…

His thoughts were interrupted. “Bet you’d like to get revenge on them right about now.”

He snapped his head up, peering hard at the man across the booth from them. Something was happening here. The man was goading him, fueling his fire. Deep down inside Brian, a warning light went off, and he realized for the first time that this man wanted something. That he had an agenda. “What do you mean?”

The man smiled, but the smile of the fox, not of the friend. “What if I told you, that you could gain the power necessary to get your revenge on them. And more. True power.”

He should run, he thought. Get up. Now. The old man was looking at him, waiting while Brian absorbed those words. Brian knew he shouldn’t be listening, knew he should leave, but he was intrigued. “I’m listening.”

Luke nodded. “You are indeed. But you’re going to need to open your mind for this one.” He leaned in. “I am prepared to show you a world in which you are powerful indeed. And I don’t mean with influence or with strength, though those will surely come in time. I mean with the sort of power only found in fantasy. In movies. As near close to magic as there has ever been on this Earth.” He smiled again. Brian was about to say something when the old man continued. “But I can never convince people with words no matter how hard I try, so I’ll just skip to the demonstration.” The man across the booth sat back and spread his arms. “Look around. Pick a woman. It’ll be better for you if you pick someone you find attractive.”

Brian furrowed his brow again, sensing a trap of some kind. This was weird. He read science fiction. He read fantasy books, had read comics as a kid. So something about this piqued his curiosity. But he also knew that magic wasn’t real, Brian was practical, and sensed some kind of scam. But instead of walking, he wanted to see if he could beat the man at his own game, expose this conman who was trying to use his hurt feelings to sell something. “Sure.”, he answered, and started looking around.

The food court held plenty of people, a little more than half of them girls or women. There were a lot of college coeds here, and a handful of them were fairly attractive. Then Brian saw her. Walking through the food court was a tall red head. She was carrying bags from shopping, a lot of little bags like from several jewelers or something. Her light dress showed a lot of skin, she had large breasts which looked spectacular on her thin frame, and her calf high boots raised her up on three inch heels. She was amazing, and held the eye of every man (and several women) within eyesight.

“Her then?”, the older man asked.

“No.”, answered Brian immediately. If ever he had seen a plant in the audience, that was it. He watched her anyway as she moved outside, watched the way her strut made the tops of her breasts bounce with every step. But right when she hit the exit, in came Sue.

Sue was a girl from his International Food Economy class, he sat next to her in the small classroom and talked with her a lot, just on that border from acquaintance and friend. Half Chinese, she was a cute little number that he’d thought about asking out if he weren’t dating Penny at the time. She was short at a bit over five feet, her body was good and her features had always been exotic to him. She was wearing a loose t-shirt and a denim skirt that went down to her knees. He’d known her for months and he didn’t think she’d be in any scheme against him. Without thinking, he lifted his chin her direction. “Her.” Then he looked to the gentleman across the booth.

He had to turn a little in order to see her from where he was, but he only nodded. “HEY!”, he called out, getting the attention of most of the people in the food court, including Sue. When she looked over, he waved his hand to beckon her. “Come ‘ere.”

And she did, turning her direction without hesitation. Everyone else in the building went back to their own business, but Sue continued closer. She looked confused, but as soon as she saw Brian, she was greatly relieved, he could see it on her face. She smiled. “Hey Brian.”, she said as she walked up to stand at the end of the booth.

Brian smiled back. “Hey Sue. Whatcha doin’ here today?”

That’s when Luke pulled out a pair of scissors and a ruler, handing them to Sue handle first. “Honey, go into the bathroom. Take off your bra and throw it away, then cut off the bottom fourteen inches of your shirt. Cut off the bottom ten inches of your skirt. Put your panties in your mouth and then come stand exactly where you are now.”

Brian didn’t know which to disbelieve more. That the old man had just said all those things, or that as he watched, Sue made a whimpering sound before taking the scissors and the ruler and walking off towards the bathroom. “Wha… Sue…”, Brian turned to watch her walking away, then looked to the man. “And you mean to tell me that she’s going to do all that?”

Luke nodded slowly. “And she isn’t a plant, and she’s not working with me. Neither was the leggy redhead that walked through earlier. And That is the power that I’m talking to you about. Simply put, anyone will do anything you say.”

Brian blinked, not for the first time. “You’re crazy old man, and I don’t know what it is that you’re after, but you’ll have to find another mark.”

The old man smiled again. “Be quiet.” And Brian was quiet. “Lift both arms over your head.” And Brian found himself raising his arms up like he was at gunpoint. “Say you wish your dick was bigger.”

Brian found his mouth opening up. “I wish my dick were bigger.”

Luke nodded. “Put your hands down and you can speak again.”

Although he’d just been given ‘permission’ to speak again, he found that he could not. Brian just sat there looking at the old man smiling, opening his mouth but finding no words to say. Eventually though, he was able to muster enough to ask, “How?”

Luke shrugged. “Think of it as the power of suggestion through instant hypnosis. People will be compelled to do exactly what you tell them to do. Without question. Without arguing about it. Without resistance. They will do what you want, when you want it, no matter how much they may or may not want to do it. Case in point…” He nodded over Brian’s shoulder.

Sue walked towards them stiffly. Her shirt had been cut so short that, since she was no longer wearing a bra, the bottom swells of her cute and pert breasts peeked out from underneath the scissored hem, revealing the expanse of her taut tummy and the small of her back. Her skirt was now so short that her thighs were shown off, and there was no question about what one would see if she bent over. Her face was red, flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and anger, but she remained silent as she walked up and stood there at the edge of the booth.

Brian looked at her. Luke looked at her. Indeed quite a few people were looking at her. She definitely looked as though she were holding something in her mouth. Luke looked down to Brian. “Don’t be rude Brian. Get up and offer her a seat.”

Without thinking, he did so, standing out of the booth. Sue looked at Brian pleadingly, like she desperately wanted to beg him for something, but stayed silent. “Sue, go ahead and sit down.” And she did, sliding into the booth, trying to keep herself covered as much as possible with the scraps of clothing that the commands had left her with. “Sit down again Brian.” And he did so as well.

“Sue, I want you to put your hand between Brian’s legs and gently massage his member. Brian, I want you to let her as you listen to me.” Quickly enough, Brian felt Sue’s small hand slip between his thighs to find his dick, and she gently started to rub him through his jeans. “Now Brian… I am positive that your mind is reeling from all this. But let me get this back on track to a concept that I know you are familiar with.” With that, Luke pulled out some pages that he had folded up in his pocket, spreading them out on the table and turning them so that Brian could read them. “This is a standard contract. It explains that I will provide you with this power and you may use it until you are done with it, as simple as that.”

Brian looked down at the pages, feeling Sue’s fingers caressing him still, the sensations distracting as all hell, and he could feel himself growing. The contract looked like what he expected a contract to look like. Reading as quickly as he could, he noted that his full name had already been applied to the paper, and that … “Wait, the party of the provider of power, hereby known as the Provider, shall be I, LUCIFER???” Several people looked over at the shout, but quickly went back to what they were doing afterwards.

The old man shrugged. “Who did you think, son? You’ve seen this in stories and movies I know. It’s exactly what you saw there. I provide you with the power to tell anyone to do anything you want, and in return, I get exactly what it is you think I want. Your soul.”

Immediately Brian cringed. He wasn’t religious. He had always told people that he believed in God, but when truth came to shove, it was only ‘in case’. Like he didn’t really believe, or even think about it all that much, but he figured things would be better if he was on record as saying he believed. Now though, all of that was crushed under the weight of actually meeting someone who seemed to be Satan. If this is Satan, then there Must be a God. If there is a God, then there must be a Heaven, and a Hell. And if Satan got his soul, then he was going straight to…

“You’re right Brian. It’s all true. But Hell is not so bad a place if you are part of the power structure. Which you would be. Instead of being one of the tormented, you could be a tormentor. Let’s say… you could be the one in charge of making sure bullies get their due. Or that adulterous wives have plenty of people to sleep around with. Or whatever. The point is that you get an early taste of it. People will do whatever you tell them to. Sue, start fingering your clit.” And right next to him, his classmate slid her hand down under the waistband of her skirt, moved it slightly, and then a soft moan escaped her lips.

But Brian was already too freaked out and afraid to pay that much attention. “Well… well screw that. I think I remember enough to recall that Heaven was pretty nice and Hell was pretty fucked up. No way am I going to promise my soul to you.”

The Devil himself looked at Brian from across the table. Brian could feel Sue’s fingers still playing with him, now that he was fully hard she was able to almost grip his tool through his jeans. “Alright Brian.”, Luke nodded. “When I said I feel for you earlier, that was the truth. I like you too, that’s also the truth. I tell you what I’m going to do.” He removed a pen from his pocket, twisted it to get it ready, and then put it to paper. He scratched out an entire section, X-ing through it and scribbling lines across it. “There.” He scrawled a letter L next to it. “Again, I like you. Now the contract only reads that I provide you with this power, and you don’t owe me anything. Go ahead. Read it.”

Brian did, wondering what the Devil was up to now. The feeling in his pants was playing havoc with his ability to reason, but he concentrated and read. Beside him, Sue moaned again and gasped to herself, distracting him some more. But as far as he could tell, the contract said exactly what was stated. He got some power, the Devil got nothing.

“To answer your question, it’s not like I don’t get anything out of it. Retribution is something that I find delightful. I’m curious to see what kind of righteous penalties that you put on people. But there are some suggestions that I would make. First…” Sue groaned, rubbing herself a little faster. Brian was about to explode in his jeans. “… I caution you to restrict yourself to your own private little world. Start doing things like convincing presidents of nations to declare peace on earth and you’ll draw undo attention to yourself. You are powerful, not omnipotent, and you wouldn’t want to find yourself strapped to a lab table while they run experiments on you. Besides, there’s always someone ready to step up and screw up the whole peace on Earth thing. As well as world hunger or any other overbearing problem, as those are basic human problems that will never go away. I’ve seen people try to do it before, and it never really works out.”

Brian swallowed. Sue arched her back, her shirt riding up to expose her small but very hard nipples to the air as she gasped, then quickly re-seated herself again, bowing her head and letting her hair hide her face. Luke continued. “If you want to get rich, be smart about it. Donald Trump suddenly willing his fortune to you and then committing suicide isn’t going to work out as well as you think, but you’ve got a good brain in that head, I’m sure you’ll figure out something.”

Brian’s head swirled. He tried to think of why this would be wrong, why this is a bad idea, and the answer was simple. It was a bad idea because it was unnatural and because it was the fucking Devil sitting across from him.

Luke said, “Plus, Penny would have to do whatever you told her to do. And Colin too.”

That’s when Brian started to think why he shouldn’t do it. He wasn’t risking his soul, he got this incredible power that he could do a lot of good with, and he got to deal with Penny and Colin. It was good. He could do something. Something great. Brian looked at the piece of paper in front of him, and he heard Sue gasp again and then grunt as she started bucking on the booth seat, her stomach tightening up as she nodded her head up and down. He picked up the pen. He brought it to the line.

As he scrawled his name across the dotted line, he felt a shiver flash up from the base of his spine and into his head. A pain began in the middle of his brain, but faded quickly, and then a sensation he’d never felt before, it was like his brain itself was warm. Too warm. He started sweating, and he looked at Lucifer as the Devil folded the contract back up and tucked it into his pocket. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with it.” And with that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a full plate of Chinese food and the smell of sulfur.

Sue’s hand gripped Brian’s thigh, her head shot up, her hand came out from under her skirt, and she opened her mouth to take in a huge lungful of air.

Brian’s eyes went wide and he reached up with his hand to cover her mouth just as she released an ear piercing scream. When his hand muffled it, she ripped his hand away with one arm while she tried to claw him with her nails. Brian shouted, “Stop! Stop!” At which point she instantly ceased … looking at him with terror filled eyes and trembling to herself as she sat there. Brian could feel every eye in the place turned towards him watching him and a half naked girl shivering in fright. Suddenly an idea came to him, and he looked at Sue. “Laugh. Loudly.”

And instantly she moved her mouth into a large grin just before belting out a laugh loud enough to echo in the food court. People were still staring at the spectacle, and Brian moved like he was tickling her. “Now play with my hair and say that I’m naughty.”

Sue immediately put her hands to his head and ran her fingers through his short brown hair. He could feel that one of her hands was wet, and suddenly remembered where that came from. She chuckled some more and opened her mouth. “You’re naughty.” Many people in the court looked away, some continued to watch, but for the time being it seemed that most people didn’t think he was abducting her.

“Okay … we have to get out of here. Ummm….” He looked around. His head was returning to normal but his mind was still racing. “Follow me to my car. Be quiet and don’t draw attention to us.”

Climbing out of the booth, he took a couple of steps back to see what Sue was going to do, but she merely climbed out of the booth after him. Standing there in a cut skirt that barely hid her butt and a shirt that didn’t entirely hide her breasts, she was attracting attention just standing there. Brian took a couple more steps towards the exit, Sue took a couple more steps to follow him. When he turned to stride to the exit, she followed again, and soon he found himself outside in the parking lot with the sun beaming down on him

And an entirely new view of the world around him.

THE END