Dabbling with the Devil

 Satan’s smiling at me. I don’t know why I’m shocked to see him; I invited him here. He looks much more alluring than I could have imagined. He doesn’t have any horns, nor is he red with a pitchfork. He looks like a pleasant man: good looking and friendly but with eyes that are hypnotically evil. He reminds me of a serial killer I’ve seen in a documentary – one of the affable ones you couldn’t help but like, despite knowing the monstrosities of which they are capable. He is easy to talk to, welcoming, cheery – everything that no one expects him to be.

He stands over me in my house. He is tall and his presence is commanding, but he waits for me to offer him a seat. He acts polite and self-effacing, but he sits down with the authority with which a king sinks into a throne. I wait for him to speak first. I might have summoned him, but I don’t know what to do after that. He has a stench I can’t stand. It’s like burnt rubber. You can tell he’s been in close contact with fire. I try not to focus on it, but it’s overpowering. It assaults my senses, but he doesn’t seem ashamed of it.

“What can I do for you, Richard? Why did you call me here?”

He must already know, but he plays dumb. He wants me to say it – to beg for his help. I just have to relinquish my soul in return. I’m ok with that – I’ve never been much of believer in souls. I just want a comfortable life on Earth, and then, to retire to the soil.

What brings me here, you may wonder? How do I end up having to make a pact with the devil? It’s simple; I started to age. I was getting creases in my face that I couldn’t hide. I’d been told how youthful I looked for many a decade, but the compliments had ceased. I knew I looked my age, if not older. Stress shows on the face, and I’m guilty of stressing over the smallest things. My mum always warned me if I pulled an ugly face it would stay like that, and she was right in the end. My jowly appearance was bothering me day and night. It might seem like a superficial problem, but it isn’t, and I’ll explain why. I’d fallen in love with a younger woman. I’m in my fifties, and she is only in her twenties. I can tell she has feelings for me, but she’d probably never act on them with me at this age.

I’m a university lecturer. Funnily enough, I teach nineteenth century French poetry and I’m always writing about the evil side of life. “Les fleurs du mal” (the flowers of evil) has always been my favourite poetry collection, but I never considered it to be something that could touch me outside my academic life. People think I’m in a position of power, but I have no power over my own destiny. That was why I called in Satan to help me. I’d spent an evening reading old horror by candlelight and it had put me into the right frame of mind for calling in the devil. It was like using a Ouija board; you didn’t know what would happen until you started playing around with it. The reality had exceeded my non-existent expectations.

I thought of the woman I loved. She was a student of mine, but over the age of consent. She’d always been mature for her age. She was in her final year. I hadn’t ever crossed the line with her, but I could feel the connection between us. I knew she must have felt it too, but my worn, tired face was a barrier between us. She probably viewed me as a father figure, and that wasn’t what I wanted. I just needed youth to return to me and give me the chance to be considered a romantic possibility. She was going to be an academic too. I'd predicted it from day one when she entered my lecture theatre. She hadn’t even sat close to the front, but I had noticed her right away, like sunlight beaming through an entwined, matted covering, and somehow prevailing. The rest of the students fitted into a certain stereotype, but she was special. She was a potential PhD student; I could feel it. She’d probably remain in the university for the duration of her career, and I would be forced to be in her company each week, quietly suffering.

The devil smirked at me. “I already know what you want from me,” he said. “It’s obvious how you feel about Clare.”

“I just look so old,” I said. “I feel it too. I feel it in my bones, and I feel it any time I look in the mirror.”

“I can help you. You’ll feel like you’re twenty again. There’s just the small matter of the exchange.”

“The exchange?”

“I give you what you want, and you give me your soul in return.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s a fair exchange,” I said. Had I known the consequences, maybe I wouldn’t have been as quick to agree. Ignorance is ecstasy when it comes to having dealings with Satan.

He stared into my eyes with such intensity I felt like I was being swallowed whole by him. I was no longer a being with free will. I could feel a huge emotional shift even though I was still in the same body.

“I’ll give you everything you want. Just be loyal and return your side of the bargain,” he said, severely.

He got to his feet, and he seemed to glide across the floor and then vanished into the ether. It felt like I could have dreamt it, but I knew in my gut that I hadn’t. I felt like a changed person, just from being in his presence for a short time. I felt contaminated and there was no backtracking. I had to stay committed to our agreement. He had the power to punish me in unimaginable ways.

The next time I saw Clare, I wondered if it had all been worth it. I was in my body from thirty years earlier. Everything felt physically better. I had my full head of hair, my nails weren’t yellowed, my teeth weren’t stained, the lines in my face were smoothed out. Whenever I looked into the mirror, I was happy with the reflection I saw, externally. But inside, I felt terrible. I shook it off and reminded myself of my realised dream. As soon as I started talking to Clare, I could feel her attraction to me. Strangely, she didn’t treat me any differently – she didn’t even mention the change. It was like I had always been that way. She was making moves towards me – a touch of my arm here, a kiss on the cheek there. I’d got what I wanted: the woman that I was desperate to be with.

But I wondered if the strength of my feelings had come from my longing, rather than my desire for her. Now that she was available to me, it felt different. She didn’t look as perfect up close as she had done with the age difference between us. I could see her flaws and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I’d sacrificed my soul: something I thought meant nothing, for something that was merely fleeting.

Clare smiled at me and pressed her hand into mine. She didn’t know what I was thinking, and she never would. We’d never be real with each other, and it turned out that that was all that mattered in the end. I couldn’t even thank the devil for what he’d done for me. I’d been tricked. He’d played me and I’d allowed myself to be played because of a fancy. My soul was forever his, and it was all for nothing. It was the first day of an eternity of bad days.