A Conversation With Lucifer

Short brown hair, three day old beard, greenish brown eyes growing less vibrant by the day. My face is not the last thing I saw, but it's the last thing I remember, staring into my rear-view mirror, catching a glimpse of myself while I checked traffic behind me. My wandering eyes of vanity missed the car careening down the center of the two lane road. Who gets drunk at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday? Better yet, who does that and can't find a safe ride home? Unbelievable.

There was no great revelation, no slideshow of major events in my life, no light steadily growing closer. I blinked off, and then I woke up again in this small square room, about the size of my old college dorm minus the twin sets of everything.

Aside from the bed, there were only the bare essentials, a small desk, dresser, and end table all pushed against the wall in sequence next to the bed. While the white walls and unfortunately bright incandescent lighting suggested a modern decor, the center of the room did not. There was a small wooden chair that looked like it had been plucked out of an earlier century, and in it, a pale young woman, though I don't know if I can quite call her that for many reasons. Her tall stature, soft skin, and angular features trapped her in a place between late adolescence and early adulthood that I could not place.

Her eyes were a different story; so bright and blood red that for a moment I wondered if they were contacts. She shook her head softly as though she could read my thoughts and smiled, equal parts disarming and menacing. It made the short sharp horns, twin spires, that pushed through her black hair all the more fitting atop her head, along with the tail that slashed through the air behind her like a crimson whip. I couldn't help but be reminded of a black widow spider, beautiful, striking, and deadly.

"A black widow?" she asked, that coy smile once again creeping across her face. "How...flattering."

"I'm dead," I said, it seemed necessary to get that out into the open as soon as possible.

"That you are," she agreed. "Welcome."

"And you're..." It seemed obvious and yet for some reason I had trouble getting the next word out.

"Satan."

"And this is..."

"Hell."

"And you can evidently..."

"Read your mind."

"Interesting," I said, sitting up and taking a minute to process this new information.

She cocked her head to the side, and for a moment I couldn't tell if she was trying to rip more thoughts from the recesses of my mind, or merely studying me. "You have such an analytical and logical personality, it's no wonder the other side didn't want you," she nodded upwards ever so slightly. "Most people are terrified of me; to them I am the personification of their worst fears."

I nodded, wondering what point there was in choosing my next words if she could so easily lift them from me. "You don't seem particularly terrifying," I said. "Potentially dangerous yes, overtly terrifying, no. Sorry if that's an insult," I added.

She barked out a laugh. "This is why I only occasionally flit in and out of the head of someone like yourself. Your responses are so...unexpectedly entertaining."

"I don't even know where to start with questions," I admitted.

"Most never even get that far," she told me. "We actually have eternity...take all the time you need." She smiled again, a different version. Less menacing, more playful.

"I stopped believing in heaven or hell...when I was alive. But even when I did, you're not exactly what I pictured. Before me she started to transform, growing several feet in height and turning a dark, almost black shade of red. Her feminine features disappeared, replaced by craggy reptilian scales and her horns grew several inches in length.

"Is this what you expected?" she asked in a deep voice that seemed to bounce off the walls and assault me from every angle. I cringed involuntarily both at the sight and the aural onslaught.

"It's closer," I admitted. "I liked the other version better." Before I'd even finished the sentence she'd melted back into the young girl. Another smile, again playful.

"That's why I chose it," she told me.

"Of everything I can think to ask, the first word is the same," I told her. "Why, why are you so different, why is this unlike any hell anyone has ever imagined. Why am I here?"

She stood and gestured towards the door. "Would you like a tour?"

My eyes traced her body again, both trying to elicit some answers and enjoying her considerable attractiveness. She was so pale, something that seemed out of place in the dark realm she oversaw. "That's right, you always did like body paint," she said, blinking to the same crimson red of her horns and tail.

Despite the contradiction with many an artist's rendering of Lucifer, there was no mistaking her demonic nature. Her thigh high black boots, almost intangible miniskirt, and corset that looked more like a series of ebony spider webs plastered across her body than clothing seemed straight out of a Victorian vampire novel. Yet at the same time, I felt no subsequent waves of evil emanating from her. Were the visual indicators not so obvious, she might have looked like one of a number of attractive goth or scene girls that I would have passed on the streets of New York City.

"I want to fuck you so hard that your screams shake the earth above us," I told her as I stood. She laughed again, returning my lecherous stares. "You would have known it anyways," I added, following her towards the door.

"So unexpectedly entertaining," she repeated.
"Your reactions...so unique."

Rather than bother with physically turning the handle, the door simply disappeared, allowing us to step out onto a balcony that ringed around the inside wall of a large cylinder with an empty center that seemed to look infinitely downward. It looked a lot like a fancy hotel, a very red fancy hotel.

"It is my favorite color," she admitted, walking towards what I guessed to be the elevator. "And yours as well I see."

"How far down does it go?" I asked peering over the sinewy handrail. I had never been a fan of heights.

"Your scientists estimate that the earth has housed over one hundred and ten trillion people. Not all of them have fit in with God's teachings. Each story has around a thousand rooms ringing the edge. You were an engineer, you do the math." I peered over the rail again as the number popped into my head. The realization that I was already dead quelled the rising fears substantially.

I followed her through a set of sliding double doors. Though instead of moving vertically, the carriage lurched horizontally away from the interior of the hotel. Rather than concern myself with where we were heading, a question that would soon be answered, I tried to think of the other answers I wanted first. My eyes wandered over to my companion, again studying her. She didn't return my glance, but she smiled knowingly.

"What do I call you?" I asked, then groaned. The question had popped into my head and escaped before my mind had gotten a chance to perform some quality control.

"I am quite fond of Luci," she said after some thought. "I've actually never been asked, most people just want me to get the hell away from them as soon as possible. Curiosity is a lost art."

"I'm standing with one of the most iconic figures in all of human history, what's there not to be curious about?"

"Indeed. I always liked the irony behind Lucifer, the light bearer, the morning star." She turned and focused her red eyes on me. "Never, ever call me Beelzebub. It sounds like the fat character in a children's show." The look she gave was the first terrifying one I'd seen from her, but I laughed. It seemed so petty, so...beneath her.

The elevator stopped moving and the doors slid open once more, revealing a lavish office that looked out a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall window onto volcanic terrain, the first view I'd seen fitting what I thought I knew of hell. The building we'd just exited loomed to the right, rising through black clouds and out of sight. To the left was an enormous cavern that brought the term 'Hell's Quarry,' to mind. It glowed a faint red and the ground seemed to scream in agony.

She stood next to me, peering out the window. "Welcome to Hell." The simple statement seemed almost burdened by conflicting tones. There was pride in her voice, but also despair, and bitterness mingled with genuine affection. It was clear that she had her heart boldly thrust into her domain, and in more ways than one.

"I think you'll find that the pit fits with your preconceived notions of this place," she said. "I can take you down there if you like."

"What's in there?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

She smiled, and this time it was all malice. "The damned."

"So who's in the tower?"

"The 'damned.'"

"What's the difference?"

"Some of you were truly awful human beings," she started, waving her hand towards the pit. In front of it an image appeared like a projection on the window. An emaciated Hitler shuddered atop a bench fashioned from woven strands of barbed wire, painstakingly crafting a drawing with a mangled nub of pencil. In front of him, a group of soldiers huddled for warmth around a massive fire of scrolls and frames, the resting place for the work of the artist.

"And some of you," she continued, the image vanishing as she gestured towards me, "just didn't play by the rules."

"That's why you're here, isn't it?" I asked. "You didn't play by God's rules."

"God is a dick," she spat. "An omnipotent and arrogant bully."

"Is that why he has three whole god damn commandments devoted to himself?" I posed the question with a tone of faux innocence. Luci laughed at my blatant flaunting of heavenly law.

"Yes," she answered.

"So what are you, to God...or what is he to you?" I asked. "Are you lovers, friends...?"

"The only thing he loves is himself. Toys, we're all his toys," she said.

"You seem awful powerful for a toy, almost god-like," I pointed out.

"You humans have children; at first they're weak, beneath you. But eventually they grow, and at times their power towers over that of their creator. We are no different. Angels, cherubim, seraphim, all beneath him, but we are not without our strengths."

"And that didn't sit well with you."

"No. To most of the others, God is like the popular kid in school. No one wants to risk offending him. The rest are afraid of the consequences."

"So you fought, and lost," I said, reciting what I knew of biblical history.

"No, I packed my shit and I left. You can't fight God, but you sure as hell can run away."

"Then why are you even still around if he's so powerful."

"I'm useful," she answered. "You're familiar with religion, you know His stringent rules. I house the bastards who aren't good enough for him. And as you can see there are many. Some of you truly deserve hellfire and damnation, but the rest of you...you can live out your afterlives as you please."

"Doesn't God get pissed that you let some of us 'damned' off the hook?"

"You underestimate how truly arrogant He is. The only punishment He's even concerned about is that those He deems unworthy don't get their time with Him. Everything else is miniscule compared to that."

"So the pit is your doing?"

She turned to me and smiled, the eerie look I imagined had been the last sight of many a serial killer's victim. "And the best part is, you already understand."

"I do?" I asked, still a few steps behind.

"Take this skirt," she ran her hand down her taut body, slipping her fingers between skin and fabric and pulled. The article of clothing fell away, parted at some invisible seam revealing a black thong beneath. With a shake of her hand the skirt stretched away from her until she grasped a long single tail whip between her index finger and thumb. She handed it to me, and before I'd had a chance to lean back and study the parts of her physique that had recently been revealed, she turned, affording me a more complete view
With only a slight hesitation, I reared my arm back and swung as hard as I could. The tail struck her with a loud crack, but rather than obey the laws of physics and continue onward, it pulled the handle from my grasp, returning and reshaping itself back to its place covering her backside.

"Why?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.

"Because I wanted to, because I like it," I answered, catching on.

"So you see, you do have an understanding for some of the delight that comes with my position."

"I guess so," I answered, my eyes flitting away from her skirt with disappointment.

"Is this the standard tour everyone gets?" I asked.

She turned to me and smiled again, this time with an implication that I had not yet seen and could not place.

"No," she said. "There are several viewing areas in the tower, along with windows in most of the rooms, no one needs to see this office. You're the only one besides myself that has."

"Why's that?"

"You intrigue me," she said.

"Over a hundred and ten trillion people, I repeated. Surely I'm not the first that's been intriguing."

"If Hitler were put back on your world, how many would flock to him and how many would run away?"

"There are still neo-nazis," I countered.

"Yes, there are Satanists too," she sneered.

"Revolting parasites, like paparazzi but worse. Unlike some, my arrogance does have its limits and they start with people fawning all over me. Besides most of them are merely contrarians. The second they meet the real thing, they skitter away like everyone else."

"I see," I said, nodding my head in thought. "So what rules do you have here? There must be some."

"Well there's not a whole lot any of you can really do here. You can't kill each other, you can have virtually anything you want so there's no theft. Only what you would call Wheaton's Law."

"Don't be a dick," I recited.

"Precisely. I think with that I will show you back to your room."

"My boring room," I replied, remembering the null white that covered virtually every surface.

"On your nightstand is a tablet computer. With it you can requisition anything you might want or need, including a bigger room or more rooms. Physics works a little differently here. There are plenty of people in the tower to interact with. I'd recommend you stay away from Ty Cobb though. He's not fond of visitors. There are also a bunch of common areas, game rooms, whatever. Make yourself at home because...this is your home now."

"It sounds like heaven to me," I said as we rode the elevator back.

"I suppose," she answered after thinking a moment. "Though you'll understand if I don't appreciate that comparison."

"Of course. One more thing though...what happens if I fall out of favor with you? If you get bored with me?"

"I do not think that will happen," she said as we approached my door. Before I stepped through she turned and winked at me. "But I would not recommend it."