Chapter 6

“My lord, I gladly surrender to your greatness!” Zoe informed me with pride as she knelt before me.

“Same with me! I adore you!” Sabrina declared.

“And with me, O Great One!” Mary assured me, “and to think that I once dared to chide you over ogling Sabrina! Forgive me for that and all other transgressions against you, my liege.”

“There weren’t that many, babe, and marrying Zoe more than made up for them, okay?” I told Mary, even as Eva looked up at me in awe.

“My keyholder is the Antichrist? What an honor!” Eva told me while kissing my feet.

“My sentiments exactly! What an honor! To be taken by someone like you!” Danielle announced with true reverence as well as adulation ... and lust.

“Oh, fuck, yeah! I can’t believe my good luck to be on your good side, given ... well, everything,” Steve asserted now.

“Well, as a bonus, I’m not moving out, you know. I’m right here, gonna be there for you to help you out. I might have to go back to Hell a lot to run things there, as I always do, but remember that I won’t abandon you, babe,” Dean told me with a very powerful kiss, making it clear that we were still lovers in his book, too.

Wow, most of my lovers have all been women, and the one dude that I picked turned out to be the Devil Himself! What were the odds of that? I wonder if this meant no torment in Hell, then? I sure hoped so.

“Look, honey, you’re not gonna die, okay? You can’t die! Neither can Tabby now that you picked her. We’ll do our best to avoid that Lake of Fire business, for my sake as well as yours, and Tabby’s. Trust me, I don’t want to go there, either. You’re not a regular human being, so stop acting like one! You’re the Beast, baby! Act like it!

“As for regular ol’ Hell, who do you think runs the place and sets the damn rules down there? Jehovah? As if he would condescend that much! I decide who burns, freezes, etc. for how long, etc. Now, that Lake of Fire place, sure Jehovah controls that, but not the original Tophet, trust me. That’s MY motherfucking domain! I’ve been running it for aeons and I know it like the back of my hand.

“It was meant as a prison for older Gods of other pantheons, of course, but Jehovah pissed off the wrong angel when they failed to take back control of Hell before expelling me. I made damn sure that none of the Gods ever ended up there. That was just one of my many differences with the J boy. And if you thought that the heathen Gods were mad at him before, you should have seen them when they learned of his plans for them. They’re fucking eager to get their revenge and tear off a piece of their usurper’s hide!” Dean laughed now.

“So ... why ... the charade?” I asked him the most glaring question of all.

“To kill time ... and to get into your pants. The girls were easier. A guy who was less comfortable with his sexuality than he pretended to be, that was a whole different animal. And I had to get it on with you, bro. Face it, we’re all lovers now, and that just heightens our primal energy and power, don’t you see?

“And I have found that this black man guise really suits me. Women, and even men, throw themselves at a black guy easier at times, due to that whole size rumor and the exotic nature of it all. I don’t like how racist it can be, but people are only human, you know. Plus, it’s fun to play the part, and since I can be any race or sex if I wish it, no harm, no foul. I could always change it up.