Pumpkin Spice

So much for absolutely, positively having to be there overnight.

"Unfortunately for you, that notice was not made, so, Mister Seiver, your father may have escaped without paying his debt to me but that debt is still owed and I still aim to collect. So how do you intend to make payment?"

I often listen to the radio while working on the tractor so I knew the local consumer affairs guy always warned to never, ever agree to pay or even make a payment on a debt that you feel has been legally resolved either through payment, through the legal system, or through the statute of limitations. Doing so can reset legal obligations, so I shook my head and said, "I don't. And I won't. Ever."

"That's regrettable, since the debt grows over time and you or those you love will pay, willingly or not, in time."

I was really pissed off by this point, so I growled at him, "Listen, asshole, I don't know who in hell you think you are, but you have no hold over me, legal or otherwise, and if you ever threaten those I love again, I'll make you sorry."

"Oh, really?" he held up a hand and squeezed.

My stomach suddenly contracted, putting me in great agony. As it did, I felt the urge to bend over to get some type of relief, but it was only then that I realized I hadn't moved the entire time I'd been speaking with the guy. At the same time, I realized that no one around me, including any of the dancers on the floor in front of us, had moved other than the man in the devil costume. It was as if they were all stopped in time...or maybe like in a superhero movie where the Flash or Quicksilver runs around and everyone else doesn't appear to move because they're going so slow in comparison. And the sound, so noisy as Connie and I approached the dance floor, had been dull, present but unchanging, allowing me to hear his voice. Or maybe, his thoughts?

His hand opened and the pain, over a few seconds, subsided. While my head didn't move, I could see the people all around me, still unmoving like myself, with Connie to my side where I couldn't see her and could only hope that she was okay.

Perhaps the man in the devil costume realized he'd lost my attention for a moment for his hand squeezed shut again for a moment. Pain shot through my stomach again and then was gone once more as he opened his fist, his long, bony fingers outstretched.

"I can keep that up all night, Mr. Seiver, or you could agree to my terms. Oh, and to answer your question, yes, it can be worse. Much, much worse."

That was the logical question so I shouldn't have been too surprised at his knowing what I was thinking, but it was then that I noticed the smoke that seemed to come out his ears and the flash of red in his eyes. Something about him...

Combined with everything else I'd seen in the last couple of minutes, I was beginning to question, as much as I hated to, whether the man in front of me was a man in a really good devil costume or if it was much, much worse, the actual Devil himself, and, if he was, if he could read my mind.

"No, Mr. Seiver, I can't actually read your mind but I've worked innumerable deals over the millennia. You could even say I'm the world's foremost authority on human nature, so there's little that you can think, do, or say that will surprise me. You see, I've seen it all before."

"I don't believe this," I spat. "I don't believe you, what you're saying, or any of it, and most of all, I don't believe my dad would have done it."

"Of course not," he said, again as if on cue. "Please forgive the image quality, but it was from well over twenty years ago." He waved his hand in front of my face and one of our fields facing the road came into focus with my father hunched over the gate looking at the field of pumpkins. A man came into view—it was the man in the devil costume, I realized—and approached my father. I couldn't hear what was said because there was no sound, but they talked for a bit before my dad finally accepted a—a quill?—touched it to the inside of his elbow, and signed a document that looked identical to the one the devil man was holding as we spoke.

Then the image faded and the devil was looking at me again. "Well? Do you believe me now?"

"Hell no," I replied. "You did something to him to get him to sign that."

"'To him, no, but for him, yes, I did. I gave him hope when he had none left. Reading the market projections and knowing the need for rotating crops, he'd taken a gamble on raising pumpkins instead of corn on a sizable portion of his farm but it hadn't worked out and he was on the verge of losing his farm when the rains and the markets didn't cooperate. I offered him hope and he took it, not wanting to let your mother and you down, so he signed.

"It rained that night and rained just the right amount through the growing season, and he sent his pumpkins to market just as that ubiquitous coffee place got consumers interested in that horrid pumpkin spice shit. Ah, I see from your expression that we finally agree on something." To my surprise, he chuckled, making it an awful, sickening sound. "Anyway, your father was a leader in the pumpkin craze and he paid off the loan he'd taken out on his farm early."

"The county fair," I breathed. "Dad won the biggest and best pumpkin prizes at the county fair for the next fifteen years after he sold the pumpkins that first year. You did that," I accused.

"No, that wasn't part of the deal," replied the man. "He ended up being naturally good at raising pumpkins after he got by that first big hump. Unfortunately, lots of other people got into it, too, and now that awful pumpkin spice shit is everywhere. It's more ubiquitous and worse than sweet tea used to be down south."

I'd seen the video or whatever it was that he'd shown me, but I still couldn't believe he had anything to do with any of what he claimed or that my father had willingly participated until he mentioned sweet tea. That reminded me of the story my father once told but never completed. Could it be?

I wanted to shake my head in reply but I still wasn't moving at more than a paralyzed snail's pace and the devil in front of me had had enough, squeezing his hand and sending another round of resounding pain crashing through my body.

My stomach felt as if it was going to explode and my lungs cried out for relief as he released me. "Have you reconsidered, Mr. Seiver?"

"Just what do you want?" I tried to add "You asshole" at the end, but it was only then that I realized our conversation must be through telepathy or whatever that ESP stuff is and that my mouth wasn't moving so he'd cut me off before I could say it.

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew. I want your soul, of course."

It was as I'd feared, but I said no again, trying to put him off, to buy time while I thought, wondering all the while if he'd lied about not being able to read my thoughts.

"You're lying," I said. "I don't know what's happening, but you're a fake, you're lying, and you're trying to trick me."

"Of course I'm trying to trick you, Mr. Seiver. Deception is the first and foremost thing in my job description. But I'm decidedly not fake and in this case, I'm not lying to you. Observe."

I could suddenly move again as people on the dance floor moved in wild gyrations to the beat of spooky music suitable for the season. Not too far into the crowd, I saw Louis XIII from our recent encounter and the beautiful blonde courtesan who was probably young enough to be his granddaughter dancing, though slower and more restrained than many around them. Suddenly, Robert, I recalled, went stiff and collapsed to the floor. In the brief moment he lay there, I could see he was limp and appeared to be gurgling, having trouble breathing before others swept in to help him.

The devil next to me had his hand outstretched before him with his palm facing up. He brought his long thin fingers and thumb together and then motioned, as if pulling his hand up toward himself. As he did, I saw a gray apparition ascend from Robert's body and move toward my torturer. The devil's fingers sprang open, the gray ghost streaked into open palm and disappeared, and the young blonde screamed, "He's dea—"

The noise and the movement were gone, everyone frozen once again.

"Any other questions about my authenticity?" he asked. "Or do you need another demonstration?"

"No!" I replied quickly, in case I'd somehow been responsible for the strange death I'd witnessed. "What happened there?"

"It was his time. Oh, it's actually been his time for a few weeks so I allowed him a bit of hope that he'd dreamed it all while his wife finished her plan to pay him back for cheating on her with that insatiable blonde bimbo, among others. Now, the wife thinks she's gotten away with it, but she made a mistake that will do her in eventually and I'll be back to collect her in a few years when her time comes."

"You're cruel and evil," I hissed at him, causing him to smile.

"While not actually in my job description, that is implied, but back to business. I want your soul but you don't want to give it up so we have an impasse to break. Therefore, Kenneth Wayne Seiver, I have a deal for you!

"What I'm offering you is a lifetime of love and happiness with the wife—you're not gay or even bisexual, as I recall—of your choosing. In this deal, you'll both live out your natural days, you with the wife of your choice, with all the health, happiness, and wealth you want, within reason, of course. In return, I'm not asking for your soul; no, I want hers, the soul of the woman you choose as your wife, but only when she dies at the end of her natural days. And of course, she'll never know that you did it to her, since, as one of the stipulations of our deal, you'd never be able to tell her."

I was talking over him even as he tried to explain his awful plan. "You can't do that," I growled at him. "One spouse can't do that to the other. One person doesn't own the other and one doesn't own the other's soul!"

"No? Well, there's that little thing the other side claims, that two become one in 'holy matrimony.' It's their claim, not mine, but I'll take what they give me." He gave a cruel chuckle. "So tell me, Kenneth Wayne Seiver, what will it be?"

"No! I can't do that."

He squeezed his hand toward me and I screamed in anguish, though it was obvious that no one around us heard me or even could hear me, for that matter. He relaxed and shook his head. "Keep this up, Mr. Seiver, and you'll be offering to give me your soul just so I'll stop. However, I like how this new arrangement is working, so let's continue, shall we? As I see it, you're in the rather enviable position of being loved by not one but two women at this event. Your Connie loves you, of course, though I don't think she's told you yet, but that sweet little tart, Maxie, has a heart of gold and loves you with every fiber of her being, even today after you sent her away recently. Ah, I see you don't believe me.

"Think about it, Mr. Seiver. Remember your first time together when you realized your worst enemy's little sister loved you far more than she ever loved him? And then you let her go, not only because you had some minor issues with her but primarily because you couldn't put up with him! Talk about cruel and evil, I'd say you're a good candidate for my job if I ever decide to retire. Oh, she hurt after that because she dreamed of having you, over and over and over, and bearing your children but then you left her, hurting her beyond belief. She finally moved on from you, for quite a while actually, but her love has been rekindled recently and she would now do anything for you, even give up her soul for you."

"I'd never ask her to do that."

"No, of course not, but she'd do it willingly, only you'd have to agree, too, since the deal would be for the two of you to be together in happiness for all of her—or your—natural days. Look, here she is now."

Sure enough, Maxine was next to me and was now the only person around. She slid her arms around me and was pulling my t-shirt over my head before I could stop her. It was half-way off when she stopped pulling it up and started kissing my chest while the shirt covered my face. I tried to protest, but my tongue felt tied and I had no control over my muscles.

The t-shirt came off and went flying and she was pushing me back on the bed. She'd somehow stripped bare while holding my t-shirt in front of my face; her skin was red and sunburned except for little white triangles that barely covered her big pink areolas and the smooth, white mound between her legs.

She was over me then, atop me, pushing my hands up. A pronounced "click" startled me and I looked up just as a second click sounded; she'd put handcuffs on me.

"Kenny, I'm sunburned, so I don't want you touching anything red! Keep those hands over your head, mister, or I'll handcuff you to the headboard, but you can kiss the white parts—oh, and the pink goodies!—as much as you like."

Maxie had sported 32DDs since we met again after my college days, so she leaned forward and let the tip on one graze my cheek before sweeping it across my lips. I sucked it in, for just a second before she swept on by. However, Maxie has quite the pair and the second one struck just after the first made its escape, leading her to giggle when I tried but missed on capturing it.

She raised up then, putting her great tits on full display as her hands braced her on my chest and I felt her sinking down on the erection I didn't even realize I had. She was soft and wet, and she squeezed her walls tight just after my mushroom head was fully inside. It was an incredibly tight fit, slow but exceedingly delicious as she sank down on me, taking hours it seemed, prolonging the pleasurable sensation, making me earn it a tiny bit at a time.

When I was fully buried within her, she started to ride, slow and steady at first and then faster and faster, making me feel the buildup far more quickly than I would have expected until my world exploded in a brilliant flash of light and my balls exploded into her.

I felt a great euphoria as the fog around me cleared. I was standing, dressed in my Halloween costume once more with Maxine nowhere in sight. My devilish opponent stood in front of me as before, with the unmoving party guests all around us. As that fog cleared, so did my memory.

"You jackass, that wasn't real; it was Panama City Beach, on our summer vacation, shortly before we broke up, when I went to the range to shoot and she fell asleep on the beach and got burned. Only it didn't happen quite like that."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Call it creative license, okay? You get the point of what you could have with that hot little slut."

Maxine loved sex but she was a sweet girl and she'd always had certain boundaries. Most of all, she'd never been what I'd call loose; she'd only had two partners before me, each for a very limited time, so I was her main experience before the jerk who deserted her. The Devil's comment angered me.

"Stop it. She's not a slut. She's—"

"No, not now, but she would be your slut. She hasn't liked some 'degrading' activities in the past but she'd do anything for you, let you have your way with her, whatever you want. Whatever hole, however you want it, it will be yours as often as you want it...if you agree."

He raised his hand, his index finger pointing up in the air and scooped it around as if wiping dust from something. Putting it up to his nose, he took a long deep breath and then grinned, as if a guy getting a sniff after fingering a girl for the first time.

"Ahh," he sighed. "She is an absolute delight. So sweet, so sexy, so...insatiable. And Kenneth Wayne Seiver, she could be all yours, all the days of your natural lives, in happiness and harmony. You just have to say the word and agree."

He shook a bony finger at me. "Of course, taking sweet Maxie means 'bye-bye, lovely Connie,' though that young lady would return home, bitter at you perhaps, but she'd get over it eventually. Or perhaps, you'd rather skip the sexual dynamo that would keep your cock pleasantly sore and your nuts drained from now on to go with option two, that very Connie, the sweet schoolteacher who'd still do quite enough to keep you happy but who might also make you a better-rounded person in the process."

"No," I growled only to see him clench and feel the pain surge through me again. "I won't..."

"Wait! I have it!" he said, imitating an old TV game show host. "Carol Merrill, show Mr. Seiver what we have behind door number three! Perhaps, in a somewhat unusual arrangement for your area, you get both girls for as long as each of you live but then, well...I would, of course, get both their souls."

He grinned at me, his smirk looking as cruel and evil as I'd said. "Decision time, Kenneth Wayne Seiver, what will it be? Will you take door number one and spend your life in joy and happiness with your sweet Connie, your current number, and give me her soul, or will you choose to protect her, to let her go, and take door number two to spend your life with that delectable dish Maxine—ha! I know! I'll sweeten that pot, sweeter than it already is. If you decide on sexy Maxie, I'll do you the favor of taking out her brother! After all, your life wouldn't be perfect if you had to run into him all the time, would it? Of course, I get her soul when her time comes, but your Connie will be forever free. Which do you—oh, I almost forgot! Or you can go radical on me and choose option three, both of them, for both souls. The choice is yours. Now choose!" he roared.

I glared at him in my unmoving state, thoughts of what he'd said swirling through my mind. I loved Connie and wanted so desperately to be with her in joy and happiness, he'd promised, but I could never, would never, hurt her, even if that meant that I'd never spend another second with her.

Likewise, I had loved Maxine, my Maxie, and knew that if circumstances had only been a bit different, we would have been married by now and probably be working on a child, or maybe even a second one. I'd chosen to end it, but though we were no longer together and I no longer loved her like before, I still cared about her and could never hurt her either, even if it meant that Connie would be free and that Maxie and I would be happy together until the end.

I was about to move on from that consideration when another thought struck me, one that caused a horrible chill to pass through me. If I were to choose Maxie and the promised lifetime of happiness with her, it wouldn't be the heaven that I'd been led to believe. No, giving her that lifetime of happiness but taking her soul would have another effect that old Lucifer or whatever his name was hadn't mentioned.

Betraying her would subject me to unending guilt, putting me in my own special hell all the days of my life. With each passing day of supposed happiness, we would get closer and closer to the time my actions would betray her, with me never being able to tell her or do anything about it. While I would supposedly not give the Devil my soul, I would be sentencing myself to a permanent Hell on Earth...and Maxie to Hell permanently.

Never, I said to myself with as much determination as I could muster.

Considering that his option three meant hurting both of them, I didn't waste time on it.

"Have you made your choice?"

"Yes, I have, I said. I won't give you my soul and I won't allow you to take either of the others so I choose none of the above. Therefore, if you're going to torture me to death, you'd better get on with AAAAGH!"

Pain, far worse than I felt earlier, crashed through my body. Interminable, unending, it went on. Screams were everywhere, all around me for the longest time before I realized they were my own, echoing over and over.