Nate and the Crossroads Pt. 01

Nate tightened his grip on the controller as he moved his soldier into position. This was his big chance. After several humiliating defeats and virtual teabaggings, he'd finally managed to get an enemy in his sights. He grinned with savage glee as he pressed the fire button and watched his opponent vanish in a satisfying hail of body parts.

"Yeah! That's right!" Nate yelled at the screen. "I just pwned your ass!"

His victory howl abruptly died as the door to his room burst open and his mother's head appeared, her frizzy red hair bound up in a haphazard array of curlers.

"Cheese and Rice, Nate!" She exclaimed in her thick mid-western accent. "Keep it down in here, will ya? It's after nine and your father is trying to sleep!"

Nate rolled his eyes. "Okay mom, God!" He looked back at the screen just in time to see his soldier get obliterated by a rocket to the face.

"Dammit!" He exclaimed. "Now I'm dead. Are you happy?"

His mother was unsympathetic. "You watch your mouth, young man! One more swear and you're grounded!"

"Okay! Okay!"

She disappeared and his door shut with a bang. Nate quit the game and flopped down on his bed, sighing in frustration as he ran a hand through his own wavy red hair. Just another exciting Friday night in the life of Nathaniel Stevens, he thought dismally. Playing video games and jerking off, then in bed by ten o'clock.

Nate knew that somewhere out there, parties were happening. People were socializing and having fun. Some might even be having sex. Unfortunately for him, those people tended to be attractive. Popular. Nate was painfully aware that he was neither of those things. He was a geeky, hopeless virgin, a casualty of his own hormone ravaged body. A body that even at eighteen years old still looked like it was fighting a battle with early adolescence and losing.

No one seemed to take him seriously, not even his family. And especially not girls. Sometimes he felt so lonely and sexually frustrated that he thought he was going to explode.

And speaking of which, it was time he got down to business.

Nate went to his computer and opened a hidden video of his favorite porn star Brooklyn sucking like a champ on some lucky bastard's cock... a sensation that he despaired of ever experiencing for himself. Nate liked Brooklyn because she was a foxy, stacked brunette with a body built for sin. In one form or another she was present in most of his hottest, stickiest fantasies, and Nate would happily have sold his soul for just one night with her -- if he'd thought his soul was worth anything.

He gave a wistful sigh, then set the video on repeat and undid his pants. He was fapping away at a fever pitch when his older sister Stacy suddenly burst into his room without warning.

"Hey dorkus," she began. "Where's... Oh My GOD!"

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Nate yelled, doing his best to cover his dick and hide the video at the same time. He really, really, needed a lock for his door. His sister squealed and fled, hollering as she went down the hall.

"Mom! Nate said the F-word! And he was masturbating!"

Nate pulled up his pants and let his forehead fall to the desk with a thump. Just when he thought his life couldn't get any worse, it still had a way of surprising him.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast, Stacy kept kicking him and sticking her tongue out like a five-year-old. Nate kicked back and immediately regretted it.

"I heard that if you masturbate you'll go blind," his sister declared loudly. "Is that true, Mom?"

"No, honey. It's not," their mother answered, looking at Nate with an awkward smile. He poked at his fruit loops and pretended not to notice, silently praying that a small meteor would crash through the roof and vaporize him.

"Masturbation is perfectly healthy and natural," his mom continued, then turned toward her husband. "Isn't it, dear?"

His dad choked and had to gulp down half his orange juice before he could speak.

"Err, I suppose. But that's hardly a subject to discuss at the breakfast table."

An uncomfortable silence followed. Finally, their father cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Anyway," he said, seeming eager to talk about something else. "What do you have planned for today, Nathaniel?"

"Nuthin' really," Nate replied, though he was entertaining the idea of finding a tall building to leap from, or perhaps quietly suffocating his sister with a pillow.

"Well, would you like to help out at the store?" His father asked. "We just got some new items in."

"Sure," Nate unenthusiastically replied. "Why not."

His dad was co-owner of an antique shop downtown. Nate was allergic to dust and working there wasn't much fun, but at this point he was up for anything that would get him out of the house and away from his mother and sister. Sometimes it was hard to believe that he was actually related to these people.

Especially his sister. Besides being pure concentrated evil, Stacy was his exact opposite. She was barely a year older than him, but she was tall, athletic, and popular. She had also inherited their dad's dark hair. And although he would never admit it, Nate was forced to accept that she was rather attractive. At least as far as sisters went.

Then there was Mom. She'd put on a few extra pounds, but he supposed she was in good shape for being in her early forties. She also seemed a little insane. His mother was always apologizing, worrying, or praying. She acted like everything that went wrong in the world was somehow her fault. Nate saw the clear signs of a guilty conscience, but besides occasionally burning dinner or forgetting to wash his favorite jacket, she'd committed no crimes that he knew of.

Dad was... well, Dad. He wasn't complicated. He had a lame sense of humor, was passionate about his model ships and never drank or raised his voice. He was a tall, stocky man, dark-haired and mildly handsome. Nate couldn't help but wonder if he resented having a son that was nothing like him.

Nate himself seemed to have been modeled after a short, scrawny Tom Sawyer, complete with buck teeth and freckles. Which was forgivable if you were like, nine, but not when you were a senior in high school and old enough to vote.

He pondered the cruel nature of his genes as he accompanied his dad to the antique shop. Once there, he amused himself by poking around through some of the new acquisitions in the back room, finding little of interest until a violent jingle of the door chime suddenly got his attention. He looked out front to see Jack -- his dad's balding, beer-gutted business partner -- come striding into the store with his teenage daughter Claire in tow.

Nate's heart began to beat faster. Claire was very blonde, very pretty, and only a month older than he was. Her dad quickly disappeared into the office and left her alone in the front of the shop. It almost seemed like fate, but Nate wasn't fooled for a second. Claire was just as evil as his sister. Maybe even worse.

Still, she was hot. Incredibly, stupidly hot.

He peeked out from the back room, staring at her tanned and flawless legs as she browsed the contents of the jewelry case. She was wearing jean shorts and a white baby tee, both garments hugging the lush contours of her eighteen-year-old body so tightly that he wondered why she didn't just walk around naked.

Knowing it was destined to be a tragic mistake but still unable to help himself, he cupped his hand to his mouth, checked his breath, and went up to her. He cleared his throat nervously, noting with dismay that she was still taller than he was.

"Hi, Claire. How's it going?"

She looked at him like he was something she'd stepped in and was eager to scrape off her shoe.

"Oh. Hi Nate."

"Hey, we got some new jewelry and stuff that I was just, uh, going through..." he babbled, trying his hardest not to stare at her tits. This was no easy feat, as her breasts were unbelievably perky. They had also been crammed into a shirt that was at least one size too small.

For someone who acted like such a prude all the time, Claire sure didn't dress like one. Besides being a cheerleader and class president, she was also a proud bible-thumper, one of the people that went around school praying for whatever it was that needed praying for, presumably real meat in the Salisbury steak or better pep rally attendance.

An awkward silence fell, and it dawned on him that he'd been stammering. And despite his best efforts, staring. Nate peeled his gaze away from her chest, looked hesitantly into her icy blue eyes and finally focused his attention on the floor.

"Um, what I mean is, if you wanna take a look I could show--"

"Hey, I have an idea," Claire interrupted brightly. "How about you not talk to me, like ever. Okay? Thanks."

"Uh, sure. No problem." Nate slouched dejectedly back to the storeroom, wondering if anyone would notice if he rolled himself up an old carpet and stayed there. He was officially a lost cause. Even when he did manage to keep from acting like a hormone-crazed idiot, no girls ever wanted to talk to him. They either made excuses or just ignored him outright. Some had even tried to beat him up.

"You should know better by now," he muttered to himself as he wandered past shelf after shelf of old junk. "You're going to die a virgin. Get used to it."

Just then an old battered crate caught his eye. It had been left in a dark corner near the back door, maybe part of the new shipment that his dad had mentioned. If so, it seemed to have been overlooked. With nothing better to do, Nate picked up a pry bar and went over to the crate. It looked like it could have been a hundred years old and didn't seem to have a shipping label. There had been something stamped on the side at one time, but the markings had worn off to the point of being illegible.

He wedged the bar underneath the lid and gave it a shove, and with a creak and a puff of dust that gave him a sneezing fit, the crate opened. Inside lay several objects packed in straw. There were a few odd pieces of jewelry, an oil lamp, and a dusty old top hat. But what caught his eye the most was a fancy-looking old book.

Nate picked up the book and turned it over in his hands, seeing that it was bound shut by a pair of tarnished silver clasps and decorated with weird occult symbols like something out of Harry Potter. Just then he felt a sharp jab and recoiled with a yelp, wincing as he saw a drop of crimson beginning to bead on his fingertip. The sight of blood always made him queasy, especially when it was his own.

He bandaged his finger with a bit of Kleenex and picked the book up again, holding it carefully to see what he might have poked himself on. There were no points or sharp edges to be found, however. He decided that he must have poked himself with a splinter somehow.

Still curious as to what was inside, he unhooked the clasps and opened the book, carefully flipping its brittle pages as he tried to decipher the chaotic handwriting within. Sure enough, it was an occult book of spells. Or at least that's what it claimed to be. He saw sections on how to put a curse on your neighbor, how to cure a toothache, and how to protect oneself from witches and demons. The last chapter was the most interesting, and Nate found himself grinning and reading it aloud.

"How to Sell Your Soul for Fame and Fortune."

He read further, his smile slowly fading as he began to process what he was looking at. It was an elaborately detailed recipe for summoning demons; the where, the how, the why, and the precautions you needed to take when bargaining with them. It was basically a road map to eternal Damnation, and Nate couldn't wait to give it a try.

He felt bad about smuggling the book out of his dad's store, but he figured he could always bring it back if it turned out to be garbage. Well, of course it was garbage. That crap about selling your soul at the crossroads only happened in movies. Demons weren't real. Hell, he doubted that souls were even real. Claire and his sister were living proof.

He faked a headache and got his dad to take him home, with his father muttering something about sudden headaches being hereditary as he dropped Nate off at the front door. His research began the minute he got to his room. According to the book not just any crossroads would do, it had to be remote, secluded, and someone had to have been hanged there. Using the modern magic of the internet Nate eventually found a place that would suit his needs, though he was surprised at how long it took. Being in the Midwest he'd imagined that someone had been strung up at practically every crossroad in town. Apparently that wasn't the case.

Next, he had to prepare for the summoning ritual. He took the old tin box that he'd used to keep his army men in and dumped it out, placing inside it a lock of his hair and the wadded-up Kleenex with a drop of his blood on it. Now all he needed was some dirt from a graveyard and a token to represent what form the demon would take. It took him all of two seconds to decide what that form should be, and in another few minutes it was ready.

It was already mid-afternoon as he hopped on his bike and pedaled toward the outskirts of town. The day was warm and he wasn't in the best shape, and he wished for about the millionth time that he had a car. But he tended to panic behind the wheel and had failed the driving test three times before giving up, just another in his long list of life's disappointments.

Nate stopped in the shade of a tree to catch his breath. He'd considered waiting until the next morning when it was cooler out, but it seemed better to try this before Sunday rolled around. Trying to summon a demon on the Sabbath seemed extra wrong somehow.

Not that anything is going to happen, he thought as he resumed pedaling and sweating his way down the road. But hot damn, wouldn't it be awesome if it did?

He stopped off at the old cemetery just long enough to grab some dirt and put it in the box. The place was overgrown and spooky, with the weathered stone angels seeming to watch him as he made his way past. Those things severely creeped him out. They were almost as bad as clowns.

A short while later he skidded to a halt at the crossroads. It was at the intersection of an old dirt road and a two-lane highway that wasn't used much anymore, and supposedly in the eighteen-hundreds a few murderers and horse thieves had been hanged there. Nate could even see the withered remnants of the old hangin' tree standing a little way off the road, the huge trunk split cleanly in half like it had been struck by lightning. The spot was secluded all right. Desolate, even. Rolling fields of wheat grass stretched away in all directions and there wasn't a soul in sight.

It was dead quiet as Nate stepped off his bike and buried the tin box next to the road. Inside was the hair, the blood, the consecrated dirt, and the token... a full-body color printout of his favorite porn star Brooklyn looking all hot and slutty at some awards show in a slinky, see-through black dress.

Hey, it never hurt to dream.

The shadows were deepening as he patted the last handful of dirt into place. All he had to do now was get the demon's attention. He dusted off his hands, stood, and began the final part of the ritual.

"Uh, I-I wanna make a deal, I guess." He stammered. Nate didn't remember the exact words, but he thought that was close enough. He held his breath and looked around, listening for the slightest noise, watching for the barest flicker of movement. There was nothing.

"Hey, Demon!" He shouted boldly, certain now that nothing was going to happen. "I wanna make a deal!"

Nate nearly jumped out of his socks when he heard an answer from right behind him. The voice was female, soft and sultry.

"Oh yeah? What kind of a deal?"

He shrieked, tried to dart sideways, then tripped and fell on the dirt. He whirled around and froze as he saw a woman in black standing there with one hand resting on her out-thrust hip, her full mouth curved in a wry smile. And holy fuck, it was Brooklyn. Her dark hair hung in a stylish pageboy cut, her dress clung to her like translucent gray-black latex, revealing her milky cleavage and every generous curve of her body. Nate could even make out the dark indistinct circles of her nipples and the shadowy patch of close-trimmed hair on her pussy.

He hadn't thought it possible to be aroused and terrified at the same time, but now he knew better. He rose slowly to his feet and cleared his throat, reminding himself that he needed to be in charge, in control.

"Um, hi," he mumbled weakly.

"Hi." The woman stepped forward and extended her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

Nate reached out almost instinctively, then reconsidered when he thought back to the warnings in the book.

"No way. I'm not gonna shake your hand 'till we make a deal."

She smiled and withdrew her arm. "Whatever you say, kid."

"So, uh," he faltered, his eyes roving down her body. "Are... are you really--"

"Brooklyn?" The demon finished, as if reading his mind. "No. This is the shape you wanted, so I took it." She paused to slide her hands downward over her breasts and along the flaring curves of her hips. "Not a bad choice, I gotta say."

Nate swallowed hard, aware of a growing tightness in his shorts. "Ok, then what's your real name?"

"You can call me Maxine," she answered. "And you are Nathaniel Laurence Stevens, aged eighteen and a virgin, seemingly for life."

He blinked at her in awe. "How did you--"

"I know things. I'm a demon."

"B-but you're really a girl too, right?" Nate stammered. He'd seen his fair share of weird hentai and didn't want any surprises.

She was starting to look annoyed. "Yes. I'm a girl. A girl demon. Got it?"

"Okay, then I command you to kiss me." Nate said, leaning forward and puckering up expectantly.

The demon rolled her eyes and snorted. "Listen, kid. I'm not your slave. You bring me here and we make a deal. That's it. So, if you don't mind, let's get down to business. I got places to be." With an abrupt flourish she produced an iPad seemingly from thin air and stood waiting, stylus poised.

Nate wasn't listening. The gesture had resulted in a quick heave of her chest and now he was staring spellbound right at her tits, about three seconds away from full-out drooling.

"Hey. Up here, Romeo." She waved her hand a few times and finally got his attention. "Well? What is it you want more than anything else?"

He thought for a moment, though he already knew the answer.

"I want girls to like me," he said.

"Hmm." Maxine touched the end of the stylus thoughtfully to her bottom lip, and Nate was never so jealous of a writing instrument in his life. "You might want to be a little more specific."

"I want girls to like like me," he added, feeling himself blush.

"Oooh, the double like. That's serious," she mocked. "Lemme ask you a question, kiddo. Are you sure you really want to do this? Are you really prepared to throw away your eternal soul just to get some cheap teenage nookie?"

Nate hesitated. When she put it like that, it did sound a little dumb.

"I thought so." The demon smiled thinly and then turned away. "Go home," she called back, throwing him a dismissive wave as she walked toward the intersection, her large, sleekly rounded buttocks twitching provocatively under her shiny dress. "Just relax, spank the monkey twice a day and wait for college. Trust me, everyone has a chance there."

Nate set his jaw. The thought of going back home to his lonely--and let's face it--pathetic life was more than he could stand. He couldn't take another day of it, let alone another year.

"Wait!" He lunged and caught her by the arm, surprised by his own boldness. Her skin felt very warm, almost hot. Maxine raised one perfect eyebrow and looked at him with an expression of new-found interest.