The Devil's Lesson

Went down to the crossroads, sank down on my knees,
Went down to the crossroads, sank down on my knees,
I asked the Lord above me, won't you save me if you please."
--Robert Johnson, Crossroad Blues, 1936

Robert Johnson, it was said, sold his soul to the devil on a Mississippi highway one midnight in return for the ability to play the blues like no other man. The devil picked up his hands and licked his fingers and put a little bit of hell in his bones, then wandered off into the moonlight leaving Robert standing there shivering with all that he now saw and felt.

If it worked for Robert Johnson, then why wouldn't it work for Lydia Craine? She was good, she could play, and all she needed now was that last bit of icy fire in her bones to go from being great to something almost supernatural—a phenomenon, the next voodoo child—who didn't play just music but something magical, something that came straight from her heart and out through her fingers.

The Illinois crossroads of County J and Harris Farm Road seemed to be as good a place as any. The land was flat, the tops of the nodding corn plants gold in the moonlight, the sounds of the insects almost deafening. Harris Farm Road was a neglected stretch of asphalt from which the dividing lines had faded long ago and County J was little more than a gravel track. The stop signs there were riddled with ancient buckshot and rust, and there was a big, ancient oak standing on one corner as obvious as a gravestone on a golf course. If the devil ever visited Illinois, she knew he'd pass by here.

Her battered Subaru was parked under the tree, her 63 Strat with the scalloped fret board was in its case in the back seat, and Lydia had dressed for the occasion. Figuring the devil liked evil women, she'd worn her outfit from three bands ago, the Slutz—tight purple satin minidress open to show her black demi-cup bra, fishnet hose, makeup, earrings, the works. If the cops came by—of anyone came by—she'd have some explaining to do, but so far there'd been no one.

She climbed in the front seat but left her long leg on the ground as she uncorked her bottle of Southern Comfort and took a pull, just as the full moon was heaving itself over the black ribbon of Harris Farm Road where it snaked over the only hill in the whole landscape, and there she saw a man walking.

She put down the bottle and squinted her eyes, but it was a man alright. A man in a suit, as far as she could tell, strolling towards her in front of the moon as if he had all the time in the world. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was 11:48 PM. When she looked up again, the man was gone, and she saw a pair of headlights headed for, driving slowly, the way cops drive,

Shit! she thought, and she took the bottle and shoved it under the front seat, but now when she looked back there was only one headlight, and it seemed to be on fire, like a flame moving down the highway, maybe a little faster, but with that same leisurely feel or a person who knows that his party will wait for him for as long as it takes.

Now she got nervous. She half stood out of the car for a better look, and the headlights were back, but much closer now, and as she watched a man walked out from them. Not from behind them, not in front of the, but out from them—they became him. A big man, a black man, tall with wide shoulders, wearing a purple suit and green shirt and a yellow tie. His shoes matched his shirt and everything fit him like a glove. He had a wide-brimmed hat on his head and then he didn't and then he did again, and Lydia felt the Southern Comfort turning her stomach into jelly.

"Good evening, Miss," he said. He stopped in the middle of the highway across from her and doffed his hat. His white teeth were dazzling in that black face and his nails seemed polished. He had a handkerchief tucked perfectly into his jacket pocket and it matched his tie.

All the insects around her had gone silent except for one lone cricket far away, still calling to the moon. The leaves on the oak tree above her trembled briefly and then were still. The man still smiled at her, waiting.

"Who are you?" she asked.

His smile broadened and he spread his arms in a courtly gesture. "Now who would I be out here at this forlorn crossroads at the stroke of midnight? And with that full moon rising behind me? Who were you expecting?"

"Are you the devil?"

"I have been called that, yes," he said. "As your bible says, my name is legion."

She stood there staring at him, unable to speak, half in and half out of her car.

He looked at her kindly, as if sympathetic with her disbelief. He pointed to the ground at his feet. "See?" he asked. "No shadow. I can provide you with one if you'd like."

Immediately an inky shadow spread from his feet, and Lydia looked down to see the shadow of a man in a cape with horns holding pitchfork, like a devil in a cartoon. She gasped. The shadow vanished.

The devil laughed. "I hope I didn't frighten you. I can look like anything you want. Would you prefer something more conventional?"

"No, no," she said nervously. "No. In fact, you look just like I imagined."

He gave a slight bow. "Of course."

He put his hat back on his head and straightened his jacket, then folded his hands in front of him and leaned back. "Now just what is it I can do for you, darling?"

For a moment, Lydia couldn't think straight, and then she said. "I want you to teach me to play the guitar better than anyone in the world. I want to make a deal with you. I'll trade my soul to you if you teach me to play the guitar like that. Like Robert Johnson did."

"Robert Johnson?" The devil seemed to think for a moment, then laughed. "Oh yes. Bobby. Yes, I remember. You play?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm good too. Real good. I just want to be the best."

The devil looked at her sadly. "I'm afraid there's some confusion about that story, Lydia," he said, using her name with pleasure. "For one thing, I don't much deal in souls these days. They're really not worth the trouble—cheap, flimsy things no one much cares about, good for blowing your nose in, but not much else. For instance, you don't even believe you have one, do you?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "That's your business, not mine."

The devil laughed. "Yes! See what I mean?" He shook his head sadly. "If your soul means so little to you, then what am I going to do with it? Decoupage a wastebasket in my study?" He laughed again. "No, the world's full of people nowadays begging me to take their shoddy little souls and give them dark powers so they can impress their friends or shoot their parents or get laid or whatever they think they want at the moment. Why, I could stuff a mattress with the souls of girls who're willing to trade them for shoes alone. No. Souls aren't worth much to me anymore."

"Then what?"

"There's another problem too," the devil said, taking off his hat and twirling it between his hands. "I can make you play, but I can't decide what you play. Robert Johnson was a man. He had a lot ofsoul in the other sense, if you know what I mean. A lot of pain. That's where it comes from, you know. Pain. You may think I'm evil, but a lot of beauty comes from what I do. Most of it I’d say, in fact. Did you know that? I'm very misunderstood."

Lydia shrugged. "Whatever."

The devil laughed again and shook his head in bemusement. "Do you have a lot of pain, Lydia child? Have you been hurt?"

He took a step towards her and she backed up against the car in fear. He laughed again.

"No, no, honey," he said. "Not like that. I'm, not going to pinch your titties or stick a pitchfork into that tasty little ass or breath fire on you. I meanpain. Inside. In your heart. Your life. Tears and despair."

"My dad was a drunk. He used to beat me, and my mom was so doped up on pills she didn't even do anything. They got divorced and her new boyfriend used to come into my room and feel me up while she was high. I've got plenty of pain."

The devil sighed. He stepped into the grass and looked about him, and suddenly a bench appeared, a simple wooden bench, standing there as if it had been there for years. There was no magic sound or ping or flash of light. There was just a bench there, as if it had been there all along. He sat down.

"I'm sure that was very unpleasant and you must be very angry about it," he said, brushing off his trousers.. "But that's not quite what I mean." He looked at her. "You're 24, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Step out here where I can get a look at you, honey."

Lydia stepped out into the grass, away from the shadow of the tree, and the devil looked at her, from her platform shoes, up her legs, over the tight minidress and over her breasts, then up to her hair. His eyes seemed to get a glazed and hazy look that Lydia felt as a tightness in her stomach. She felt her nipples start to harden, and she felt his eyes in her sex, almost as if he had lifted her skirt and was already touching her.

Only one man had ever made her feel anything like that before, the one man she'd loved and given herself to first, and even then he hadn't had this kind of effect on her. She felt suddenly sexual and ready, as if her body were about to break away from her like a wild horse.

The devil kept his head tilted back at her, that hypnotic haze still in his eyes. "I see what we have here." he said quietly. "And yes, I can give you what you need to play. I can teach you to play like nobody's business. But of course I have my price."

"I know," Lydia said. "I knew that."

His eyes looked yellow now. As yellow as the moon. "I don’t want your soul, darling," he said slowly. "Just your body. Just to borrow it for a little."

The air seemed thick as water as she drew a breath. "What do you mean?"

He laughed. "You know what I mean. I want to fuck you. I want to have sex with you. Have you suck my cock and eat your pussy, put my big prick in you and fuck you till you scream, Lydia. That's my price."

"You want to fuck me?" she asked. "That's it?"

"Won't take more than an hour," he said. "Start to finish."

"Right here?"

The devil gestured with his head and there beneath the tree was a big brass bed with pillows and a comforter over tight white sheets, standing in the grass and weeds straight and level. It hadn't been there before.

Lydia looked back at him, her stomach tightening. "What if someone sees us? Or comes along?"

"No one will see," he said, shaking his head slowly. "And no one will come along."

"And there's no tricks? No sending me to hell or hurting me or anything like that? Making me pregnant with some demon spawn?"

"Demon spawn?" He threw his head back and laughed again. "No. No demon spawn, and no tricks. I don't need tricks, nothing like that. In fact, truth be told, I've never tricked a mortal yet, in all the eternity I've been at work. I don't have to. They come to me, honey, just like you, ready to deal."

"But there is one thing, Lydia," he said. "You'll be fucking the devil. I won't hurt you. But maybe you should think about that."

He was a handsome man, as handsome a black man as she'd ever seen, and his confidence, his demeanor, his manners, all were very attractive. More than attractive—hypnotic, seductive/.

"Prove to me you're the devil," she said. "Prove it."

He smiled and took off his hat and held it up so she could see inside.

"Here's where you can be in a year," he said, and looking into his hat she saw an image of herself onstage at some packed amphitheater blazing with lights and lasers. A band was behind her and they were kicking ass, and Lydia was out front playing her guitar. Her hair was longer and her body was gorgeous, her tits spilling out of the tight leather catsuit she wore as she leaned forward and wailed on her strat. And the sounds! The sounds she heard were sounds she'd been searching for, agonizing over, and now they were all so clear and obvious to her—the pure wailing of her woman's heart, screaming through the air like a blazing arrow of feeling, everything she'd ever wanted to say. The crowd was going hysterical and Lydia felt chills as she heard herself play—every note perfect, intense, heart-stopping, and getting better and better.

"Yes, yes!" she said. "That's what I want! To play like that!"

But the image faded and the hat went dark, and the music immediately faded from her memory, leaving only the feeling of perfect emotional excitement and artistic perfection.

The devil dropped his hat on the bench beside him and spread his arms out on either side, leaning back easily.

"Then suck my cock, Lydia."

She hesitated only a moment, looking at the black man in front of her, then she stepped forward. She got down on her knees in the tall grass and reached for his zipper as he lazily spread his legs and watched her.

"No tricks?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly. "Honey, like I said, I don’t have to play any tricks."

She found his cock inside his green silk boxers and pulled it out through his fly, thick, black, a beautiful cock, and circumcised. At this she brushed her long, wild blond hair from her face and looked at him in confusion and he smiled down at her.

"I'm whatever you want me to be," he said.

She was wearing full stage make up—her eyes heavily lined, her cheeks rouged, her lips glossy, fire-engine red. Her mane of blonde hair that looked so wild and unruly had been carefully teased and back-combed to give her that effect, held in place by a black headband. She opened her lips and slid the devil's cock between her lips.

He moaned with pleasure and raised his hips slightly, looking down on her blond head. To Lydia, his cock was the most wonderful thing she'd ever had in her mouth—thick, musky, virile, and throbbing with each beat of his heart, growing in her mouth and pressing against the roof and her tongue. She sucked him in till he grew too big, then she grabbed the shaft and began to bob her head. The devil put his head back and sighed with pleasure.

He wasn't so different from a man. The difference was he was perfect His cock was just the right size, the right weight, the right thickness and the right heat. The lubricant that seeped from the end of his cock was just the right amount, and was like some instant aphrodisiac to her. She loved the feel of his cock in her mouth—like it belonged there, like she never wanted it to leave. In all the cocks she had ever sucked, she wondered why she'd never felt anything so wonderful, so fulfilling, so gratifyingly oral.

Lydia slaved away, and the devil loosened his tie. He removed his jacket and folded it casually as she sucked his cock, then laid it over the back of the bench, pausing once or twice to let his head fall back and groan as Lydia sucked him deeply or let her tongue dance over the tip of his prick. She was getting very excited as she sucked him, so excited that even when she had to pause for breath and take his big thing out of her mouth she kept on licking it, her fingers holding it just the way she held a mike on stake.

He grew and grew—not freakish, but wonderfully big, just right, and as she sucked him he slowly undressed, unbuttoning his shirt and then the sleeves, removing his tie and draping it over his jacket, taking his time, yet all this time he was groaning, sighing, staring down at her as she sucked him, and Lydia couldn't help thinking, "He likes it! He loves it! The devil thinks I'm good!"
.
She took her mouth off him and pumped him up and down several times, his cock glistening with her saliva in the moonlight. She was a creature of such beauty, of such perfection, that she couldn't help herself.

"Oh God!" she moaned as she dived on his cock again, and he threw his head back and groaned with pleasure. "Wrong team," he muttered with a laugh. "But that's okay. My lord you're good, girl. I do believe you could make this old devil come right in your mouth. More, baby, more. And get these pants off. Then give me that mouth."

Lydia stopped to untie his exquisite green shoes and yellow socks, and he obligingly lifted his ass so she could work his trousers and shorts off his legs, leaving his enormous phallus standing up like a monument in the moonlight.

"Be a darling and fold my pants, Lydia. I don't want them wrinkled.."

She did as he said, then fell to her knees again and took his cock between her palms. His balls were huge, hairless, and perfectly symmetric, and his body— His body was perfect, as if carved out of black marble—the tight rolls of his stomach, the broad plates of his pectorals, his shoulders like globes of polished obsidian that ached for her touch. She already knew they'd be rock hard, just like the rest of him, and topping it all off was that noble black head, the hair cut short, the eyes deep and commanding, the lips rich with sensual promise. He was starting to pump his hips up into her mouth, sending his cock deep, bumping against the back of her throat. She felt his thighs trembling, saw his fingers digging hard into the back of the bench. He was close.

"That's enough! That's enough!" he gasped. "Now get on the bed!"

Lydia was in a trance. She didn't want to let that wonderful thing out of her mouth, but she let him pull her up and guide her to the bed and lay her down beneath the moonlight. The leaves of the oak were still, as if waiting, and the devil laid down next to her and looked into her eyes, then leaned over and kissed her.

It was a kiss like nothing she'd ever experienced in her life—devastatingly sensual and sheer ecstasy on her lips, but with the heat of hell behind it, all the distilled passion of an infinity of lovers who'd gone before, refined and contained in that kiss. It was pure desire, pure worship, pure promise, and Lydia had never felt anything like it.

Maybe he was right and she didn't have a soul, but his kiss drew something out of her, something that lived behind her heart and above her pussy and in her throat and her eyes and her ears. His kiss was like a whirlpool of stars, like falling into an oblivion so sweet she could scarcely endure it but thought she might pass out, and then he put his tongue in her mouth.

It was his tongue that saved her, lewd and seeking and tasting her everywhere. The thrill of his tongue in her mouth brought her back into focus and stopped her from dissolving into a million shards of bliss. The devil leaned over her and held her free wrist down and pressed his hard, powerful body against her and slid his tongue into her mouth and Lydia knew immediately that it had been the devil's tongue that had tempted Eve in the garden on Eden, and that no woman would ever be able to resist a tongue like that. It slid into her mouth and knew her, knew every place to touch, every spot to tickle, as if it knew her every secret, and though she knew that tongue had known a million mouths, it somehow found hers the sweetest of all.

Lydia groaned. She was throbbing now and lubricating, and she felt all liquid down there and ready except for her thighs, which ached to open and embrace the steel-like columns of his legs. He let go of her wrist and her hand went up around his naked back, and he was smooth and warm as any man she'd ever touched, but beneath that skin she could feel the hard strength of muscle that could do anything, that knew no limits. Beneath his skin he felt like her were made of steel and polished marble.

This is the Devil! she thought.Evil incarnate, and yet he kisses like a man, only better, and he feels like a man, only better When does this evil start? When does it get scary?

The devil lifted his mouth from hers and he was smiling, and Lydia lay there with her eyes closed and her mouth open both in astonishment and in invitation to be taken again. He dipped his big head and licked her tongue and picked off a strand of saliva, and Lydia groaned, feeling that viscous strand stretch from his tongue to hers, then he kissed her again, hard, taking possession of her as a man takes a woman.