Chapter 10

“So, you wish to sell your soul as well, both of you?” Satan turned to Chelsea and Monica now.

“We love ... Dave ... and Nicky ... far too much to spend eternity without them,” Chelsea asserted for her part.

“I don’t care if Nicky is a boy, girl, futa, whatever ... Nicky is my soulmate. When Nicky’s soul goes, so does mine. Forever. Even if it did mean torment, I would be there to suffer it at Nicky’s side. Same is true with Dave, he is beloved ... he is papi, too ... though Nicky is my soulmate. I think it’s the opposite for Chelsea, isn’t it, Chels. You adore Nicky, but for you, Dave comes first,” Monica declared.

“True, I love Nicky ... and Monica, too, deeply,” Chelsea confessed, “but for me, the great love of my life is Dave Feldman. Period. Hands down. No questions there. I adore him before all else.”

“I love you, too, Chels,” I told her, “more than you could ever realize.”

“I love Chels as well ... don’t get me wrong. She’s my woman ... Dave’s my man ... but Nicky is my soulmate, whatever Nicky’s sex. I loved Nicky, fell in love with Nicky, when Nicky was a eunuch bum boy for Dave, not long ago at all, just days ago, with no balls whatsoever. I won’t spend eternity without my Nicky, torment or no torment, hell-slaves or no hell-slaves,” Monica’s eyes blazed with her full passion for Nicky.

“I didn’t know that anyone could love Nicky more than I do, but Monica takes the prize,” I admitted, “that’s some serious love right there.”

“Wow ... I didn’t know that I was that ... loved. I had no idea, given how recent this all is. A week or so ago, I thought that my true love was Nancy, even as cruel and callous as she could be at times. Now, what I felt for her pales next to this. Most people use ‘follow someone to Hell’ as a figure of speech. These three ... they’re being literal here,” Nicky shook her head in shock.

“Well, that is a real acid test of true love. Would you follow someone into Hell and damnation just for love? The four of you ... wow ... the four of you are definitely my favorite humans of all time now. That’s ... how much I loved Jehovah ... before he shunned me, cast me out of Heaven, and told me that he would never soil his flesh with that of a mere angel, a creature of his own. I was male then ... a beautiful creature that he created, and I loved him ... I loved Jehovah ... and he just tossed me aside like garbage.

“I led one desperate mutiny in a fit of rage ... but my head was in the wrong place, the wrong space, and it quickly collapsed. As the first person in existence to ever lead an insurrection, ever, let me assure you that it’s a really God awful idea to lead one when you’re heartbroken and full of rage over being spurned. Still, Hell hath no fury like a devil scorned, or an angel as I used to be,” Lucy asserted now.

“So ... why did the other angels follow you?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Jehovah’s mask of benevolence slipped, showing him as the truly vile and hateful character that he was. One-third of the host of Heaven couldn’t stomach the callousness, cruelty, and such. You see, Jehovah made us, not in the likeness of his true self, but in the image that he himself believed to be true of himself.

“But it was a lie. He forged us from this ... false, shallow, self-deceptive version ... the result being that any of the angels in Heaven are morally superior to Jehovah, even the lowest of the lowest. Maybe someday they’ll realize that fact and rid themselves of their cruel, jealous, and merciless taskmaster forever,” the Devil explained to us the true nature of Jehovah, the god that she once served.

“So, is this the part where I get to make wishes?” Chelsea stepped up now, having won rock, paper, scissors with Monica.

“Sure ... but once you sign the pact, it’s a done deal. As I told Dave, you can’t back out of it, no matter what,” the Devil insisted.

“Okay, first wish ... no matter what servitude or service Dave has to perform for you, I’m with him in doing it. We’re a package deal ... for eternity. I refuse to ever leave his side again. No matter what that means. Even the most hellish torments, which you’ve already ruled out, I know, but even those would not dissuade me.

“Someone once said that the ‘The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’ Well, to be with Dave forever would make my own personal paradise, wherever I am, whatever else happens to me, and whatever you choose to call it,” Chelsea persisted.

“That was John Milton, and while a bit too fond of Jehovah, at least he tried to understand me in his own imperfect way, for which I give him props. In his own way, he had sympathy for the Devil long before Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and the rest of the Rolling Stones were ever born. Or even some empathy for me in some small way.