Chapter 1

Nigel Allen was more than simply fed up with his wife, Marcia. She had belittled him too much for any man to stand, not to mention joked too often with her sister Carrie that she should get to fuck other men to make up for his "shortcomings". When he snarled that he would simply repay her that favor, she declared that she wasn't worried, because he wouldn't get any woman twice.

She had also stopped fucking him, complaining that his dick was too short for her. That hadn't been the case when they first wed, so he had to wonder why she felt that way. He found out one morning, when he overhead Marcia and Carrie talking. Evidently, his demented sister-in-law had showed up early that Sunday. He pretended not to eavesdrop, but he caught a great deal.

"Sis, I'm telling you, that was a wonderful idea that you gave me! Thank you for that! I've been fucked so much by that freak of nature that there is no way that Nigel can satisfy me now. Naturally, I don't give him the chance to waste my time anymore. If I'm lucky, he shall get desperate to fuck another woman and get caught. Then I can take him to the cleaners, the silly haberdasher!" Marcia giggled wickedly.

"I'll do him for you. Hubby won't get quite so jealous if I bed a man who can't compete with him. He just cries when he has to share me with real men," Carrie cracked about her pathetically endowed husband, whom she didn't allow much sex at all.

Nigel suspected that Hugh was a wimp or even a submissive, but this simply confirmed it. Carrie was infamous as a slut, though she had never made any passes at him. She was extremely hostile to him, as a matter of fact. That always confused him, aside from the fact that the sisters were like two peas in the proverbial pod.

"Hugh still cries when you cuckold him? How silly! Oh, well, I'd appreciate it. I'm not sure if Nigel is smaller, however. He's just too small for me. Maybe I should get a chance to compare them, by fucking both of them one night. That would solve my curiosity and throw off Nigel's suspicions for a little bit as well," Marcia mocked both men.

"Why the hell not? I occasionally share hubby with my lovers, so why not a rare treat like my sister? It shall be the last woman he gets in a while anyway, since I'm thinking of a chastity device for him. I've even started to restrict his masturbation. What a wimp! You might have a small jerk of a hubby, but at least he has balls! Then again, perhaps you'd rather he didn't, since they get in the way of your agenda," Carrie shocked her sister by agreeing to the facetious idea.

Nigel had heard quite enough of that, so he headed back to the bathroom. Marcia's teasing and denial policy, which now had a clear motive, had driven him off the wagon. He had been in AA for several years now, but he had missed the last few meetings and gotten drunk instead. Last night was no different, for which his wife and relatives would no doubt scold him again. Well, it was her bloody fault, wasn't it? He had been sober for years, until she pulled that nonsense. When she had been a better wife, he had stayed off the bottle.

His hangover and the truth about his wife were sufficient to make him sick at his stomach. He began retching, but stopped when he saw a man behind him. He didn't think that even Marcia was stupid enough to bring home a lover, so was this guy a burglar or one of Carrie's beaus? He looked ashen as he turned around to confront the stranger.

"Neither one," the man grinned.

"Neither what?" Nigel demanded.

"I'm neither a burglar nor one of Carrie's boyfriends. I'm the Devil," the tall, uninvited guest announced.

"Excuse me, but did you just say that you're the Devil? Is that why you can read my thoughts?" Nigel wondered openly.

"Naturally. There are many powers that come with being the Prince of Darkness. One of them is teleportation, along with telepathy, telekinesis, and my personal favorite, mind control. Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'The Devil made me do it'? Most of the time, it's bullshit, but it's occasionally quite accurate," Satan informed him.

"Okay, fair enough, but what do you want with me?" he probed.

"That's easy. I need human foot-soldiers. There is a reward for becoming that, of course. Instead of taking your chances in the afterlife, you're part of the Infernal Government. That means that you get to torment others, not be tormented. Of course, you can kiss your chances of going to Heaven goodbye forever, but who needs that place? It's so dull, I can't imagine why I even wanted to run it now. After you've screwed the thousandth demure housewife, it gets a bit old.

"Silly Jehovah! He keeps them horny on Earth, just so that they will be desperate for sex in the afterlife! Not to mention that he doesn't like too much comparison. I think that he regrets allowing so many men to be so well-endowed, except that he likes to take a few monsters in the ass on occasion. That's why he has so many of those damned rules about sex. Once people die, they no longer apply," Old Scratch rambled for a moment.

"Alright, but why did you come to me, instead of Carrie or Marcia? Hell, even their lovers would seem more to your taste than me? I'm a good guy!" Nigel inquired, more than a little confused about that issue. Wasn't Satan evil, after all?

"Yeah, well, good guys are my favorite foot-soldiers. Especially angry, horny good guys! I wouldn't touch Carrie or Marcia with a ten-foot pole when it comes to recruiting. They're damned anyway, so they don't have any real leverage with me. Nor do I have any use for them, at least until they're purged of their crimes.

"You see, Hell and Purgatory are one and the same. I'll bet that they didn't teach you that in catechism. Hell is the section for the bulk of the populace, while Purgatory is the dungeon, where the true fools and villains are tortured until they atone for their sins. Most of the population has fun at their expense, since they are the only ones who really suffer the 'pangs of the damned'.

"You should see some of the stuff that they do to Hitler down there. Naturally, his victims get to do the honors, just as you will get to do to Marcia in time. Hell, you can get a head start on her not-so-eternal torment in this life, if you wish. All that you have to do is join me. If you do so, you can be a demon earlier on and get to inflict some torments in time to punish your wife. If you wait, all that we can promise you is that you'll get to hurt some woman who behaved in a similar fashion to a different spouse," Lucifer continued his recruiting effort.

"Wait a second. Do you mean that you decide how and if people are punished in the afterlife? I thought that stuff was up to God," Nigel queried.

"God? As if he'd ever dirty his hands like that or step into my domain! Besides, that would violate the Cosmic Treaty. No, Hell is my jurisdiction. I leave Heaven alone, and he doesn't trespass where he doesn't belong," Satan clarified.

"What is the Cosmic Treaty?" Nigel was truly puzzled now.

"Oh, it's the eternal pact that finally resolved the Cosmic Civil War. It happened some 2,000 years ago, so Paul's talk of spiritual warfare was nothing but bullshit. There is no war between Jehovah and me. We ended it with a negotiated peace. I agreed to respect Jehovah's dominion over Heaven, while he conceded all rights to Hell.

"Yes, I'm afraid that you've been misled, my friend. Jehovah is no longer undisputed Lord and Master of the Universe. He shares a co-dominion with me and that ambitious son of his. That was part of the Treaty too. Jesus agreed to take a dive and let my Romans kill him. In return, he received equal status with his father and a religion centered around him. He also won authority over parts of Earth, in addition to complete rule over seven planets. Earth was selected as the world to partition between the three of us, as it is one of the most primitive and unpredictable planets in the Cosmos. That gives the three of us a chance to peacefully compete for the allegiance of the natives, meaning you," Beelzebub explained to the bewildered man.

"There's nothing about this in the Bible," Nigel protested.

"Well, of course not! The Bible was written by the religions centered on Jehovah and Jesus, namely Judaism and Christianity. The Quran is very similar, having been written by more worshippers of Jehovah, namely Muslims. There's a reason that the Abrahamic faiths are so close. Despite their rivalry with each other, Jehovah and Jesus have a very similar outlook on the Cosmos and feel some affection for each other. It's a typical father/son thing.

"Now, if you want a book written by me, my masterpiece is clearly the Iliad by Homer. I tried again with other epic poems, but with less success. The Satanic Bible is alright, but too new and modern to be a real classic. I didn't waste time inspiring the Iliad, by the way. I was Homer. The blind man guise was a personal favorite of mine. All that I did was mention Gods that existed before Jehovah massacred them. Naturally, he didn't want their memory revered by mortals, but dead Gods became myths and legends anyway," the Devil added.

"Very well, but is this one of those deals with where I have to sign away my immortal soul on a piece of parchment in my own blood? If so, do I get any powers or wishes?" Mr. Allen asked.

"Well, whenever you enlist in an army, there's paperwork, Nigel. This is no exception. Yes, you'll be handing me all rights to your immortal soul, but you'll lose that to someone eventually anyway. If you die and go to Heaven, Jehovah or Jesus get it, depending upon your faith. If you die and go to Hell, I get it anyway. This just gives you a place in my regime. Wouldn't you rather have some kind of position lined up, wherever you're going? Eternity can be quite lonely and intimidating, if you arrive in either location as the low man on the everlasting totem pole.

"As for wishes, well, you get none of those per se. However, you do receive powers, which will depend on your function. You'll be a human, but not a mortal anymore, if you get that distinction. You'll be a foot-soldier of Hell, a demonic man. That's the only rank possible for man born of woman at first, but promotion does happen now and then. There are several classes or specialties of these.

"You can become either a warlock or witch, a harvester of the damned, a sentinel of Hell, a vampire, or a sex fiend. The last category might well be more to your taste. The female version is the succubus, the male the incubus. Your duty would be a very pleasurable one. You would have to seduce any woman whom you deem susceptible to damnation. The point is more than simply damning them. You must copulate with them and impregnate them. Not only does that bring the woman in question automatically into my jurisdiction, but it also creates a new born foot-soldier.

"You see, the whole objective is to get as many souls added to my population as possible. The evil or foolish ones suffer the consequences of their misdeeds, thus ensuring true justice. The rest simply become my subjects and find positions in my realm. When the evil are purged of their sins, they can also join the general populace. Hell is eternal, but torment is not. There is no 'lake of fire and brimstone', by the way. That part is pure nonsense. There is no final judgment. Jehovah judges those who enter his kingdom, while I judge those who enter mine.

"I have different criteria, as permitted by the Cosmic Treaty. Adultery and fornication are only treated as offences if they involve deliberate harm to an innocent third party. Even then, they involve milder punishment than you might expect. It's a relative slap on the wrist, mainly a little humiliation by being forced to put themselves into the victim's shoes. It happens for a short period of time, and then the offender is released to become a fruitful member of Infernal society.

"Murder and rape are more serious, as are the punishments for them. Genocide, torture, and child molestation carry the worst punishments of all. Right now, Pol Pot is having his asshole fucked without lube for the 600,000th time. I'll bet that he regrets being such a bloodthirsty dictator now. Jeffrey Dahmer is being dismembered repeatedly. Elisabeth Bathory is being drained of all of her blood for the millionth time. There is no fire, except to punish people who have burned others alive.

"If I could get my hands on Torquemada or John Calvin, they'd suffer a lot. It's too bad that they're outside of my jurisdiction. Jesus went all easy on them, of course. It's bizarre, you know. He lets them off without much of a penalty, but he arranges a gang-rape for Catherine Howard, Henry the 8th's other beheaded Queen, as soon as she arrives. I think that he just likes having an excuse for gang-rapes myself. Like I said, I have different ideas of justice," Satan sneered.