Victoria

Hell only knows it’s been done to death often enough, over the years. First - you sell your soul to the Devil and then we get to screw you over."

I took another mouthful of my revolting wine. I knew someone was having fun at my expense, so I decided I might as well have some fun of my own.

"So how do I go about selling my soul to the Devil?" I asked. "Tell me that."

"Do you have a cross-eyed female child with extra fingers and toes, under the age of five, with a birthmark on her chest of an inverted cross, whose throat you can slit with a knife washed three times, in the urine of a black pregnant goat, that’s only been fed the entrails of dead rats for a week?"

"Of course not. How would I manage to keep a pregnant goat in the shitty little basement apartment I've got? Anyway, I don’t have any dead rats lying around at this present moment. All the rats that live here are very much alive. And doing rather well for themselves - as it happens."

"Just checking, David," Victoria replied merrily. "You never know when someone might manage to pull it off. Not to worry - there is another way we can do this."

"What’s that?"

"Just tell me; you’ll believe it when you see it and I’ll instantly appear before you in a puff of smoke. We’ve done away with rising out of big crack in the floor these days. Not since Hollywood started using it."

"I’ll believe it when I see it," I laughed.

There was a rather weak pop of thunder and a puff of greasy black smoke. A most stunningly beautiful woman, in a very expensive full-length low-cut black shimmering gown, stood before me. Her face was heart-achingly angelic. She had a figure that would give any male cemetery resident an erection. The dress looked like it had been put on with a paint roller.

"I’ve brought the contract, David," Victoria announced, with a disarming smile, waving a sheet of paper.

Fortunately, my alcohol levels were sufficiently high enough by then, to prevent me from dying of cardiac arrest.

"And what if I don’t sign it?" I managed to ask.

"You don’t have to," she laughed, sitting gracefully into the chair opposite me. "This is only a copy for your records. We keep the original. You should read the advertisement again - more carefully next time."

"What’s the Devil going to do with my soul?"

"Absolutely nothing," she chuckled. "The Princess of Darkness, Queen of Lies and Mistress of All Evil and Really Nasty Stuff, simply doesn’t want the other side to get it. That’s all. These days, it’s more of a habit than anything else. We’ve always done it and it gives us all something to do. No one really knows why anymore. Hell’s already got more souls than it knows what to do with. We got so many, we’re bursting at the seams with them."

"And how will I end up looking?"

"Do you like the way I look?" she asked, crossing one extremely shapely long leg over the other and barely concealing an especially attractive knee through the long slit in the side of her gown.

"Sure."

"Fine," she smiled. "Well, I’m glad we’ve got that all sorted out.