You know, maybe I should have listened when my mom told me to always look left and right before crossing the street, but to be fair to myself, I did make it to twenty-one years of age not following that advice. I thought I had it all figured out. Well, turns out that I did not figure cop cars screaming down the street doing eighty in a thirty zone into my equation, and now I'm paying the price for it, because guess what, I'm splattered across that cop car's windshield now. My last thoughts before blacking out are that someone's going to be getting paid leave for this. And then, darkness.
When I awake, I am astonished to find myself standing before a gargantuan gate of fire, surrounded by dark obsidian walls, a horned, red-skinned man standing at a nearby pedestal and motioning for me to come over. Am... am I in Hell? Shit, I didn't think I'd been this bad in life that I went straight to Hell—do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars. Hesitantly, I get closer to this... devil, and as I do so, the gates swing wide open. "Welcome to Hell, Zeke! The boss's been waiting for you, so just step on in and just keep going straight until you hit a big palace, then go in there. I hope you can do straight, heh," he says, chuckling to himself at his joke. Is this what this is about? Me being gay? I suppose that disobeying is going to be a very quick ticket to a whole lot of punishment, so I best get going.
Walking down this hellish promenade, I see surprisingly little torture and pain going on. Is everybody on break or something? Bank holiday? Bingo? It's such a bizarre sight to see Hell so... empty. Undeterred by this odd situation, I continued onwards, eventually reaching a truly monumental palace surrounded by what can only be described as absolute hellfire. This must be the place. Once more, I step through gargantuan gates that open for me, and I walk along a dark, deserted hallway until I arrive at its end, where I stop, unsure as to how to proceed. But then, suddenly, a massive, loud roar echoes through the halls, I fall to the ground from sheer terror, and a huge, demonic visage appears in front of me, bearing a horrifying expression. Were I not a soul right now, I probably would have shit myself. But to my surprise, the face turns softer just as quickly as it appeared. "Oh, sorry, force of habit. So, er, nice to meet you, Zeke. I'm the boss around here, you know, the Devil with a capital D, but you can just call me Lou," a booming voice says.
It takes me a moment, but I eventually manage to get back to my feet. "Um... nice to meet you... Lou?" I say in return, every word coming out like I don't believe it myself.
The expression on the huge apparition of Lou's face turns friendly, almost chummy—at least as much as the literal Devil can be. "Now, look, I'll be straight with you, Zeke—even if you don't prefer it that way, heh..." he trails off, way too satisfied with that pun. "Uh, anyway. You're not actually supposed to be here. You didn't even come close to the shit you got to do to land down here, but I've got a bit of a problem. Namely, we're down here to do a job, do the whole punishing wicked souls thing and such, but you might've noticed on the way in that there's not a lot of that going on right now. And so while this is a bit embarrassing to admit, there's a slight flaw with the way my demons and devils are wired. With them being both embodiments of sin but also submissive towards me, I've essentially created eternal horndogs that can't fuck because they're just a horde of bottom bitches that couldn't ever penetrate anyone. So they're just way too horny, way too pent up, and productivity is way down. Like, way, way down," he explains, materializing a graph pointing downwards out of thin air to underscore this point.
While I have a sneaking suspicion where this is going, I still play dumb. "What's that have to do with me, and why am I here when I'm supposed to be in Heaven?" I ask.
"Well, to help me with this problem, I made a deal with the big guy upstairs. He sends specific souls down here and I make them an offer. Those specific souls, as you might gather, are gay dudes. And the offer is real simple. You can either go up to Heaven, float around on some cloud and play the harp forever—and trust me, that shit gets boring, that's why I'm down here—or you can stay here in Hell, be exempt from all the punishment and torture stuff, get top flight lodging and amenities, and walk around fucking these demons and devils back into shape. It's a good deal. Believe me, I have to make the deal good. Otherwise, nobody takes it because you up on Earth made making a deal with me some sort of inherently terrible idea, shit sucks. So, what do you say? You get one of the VIP suites in Hotel Hades, whatever food, drink, drugs, or whatever else you desire, and all you've got to do is bang demons, something that I think you're going to enjoy. C'mon, help a devil out, will ya?" he offers me.
This sure is something. Not every day the actual Devil makes you an offer. And yet... it does seem enticing, doesn't it? Like, what are they going to have to eat up in Heaven? Just manna, as far as I can tell. That's going to get boring real fast. Every sensible fiber in my body is screaming not to take this. And so, of course, I say yes.
Lou gives me a giant, toothy grin. "Wonderful! Now, you don't have to worry about keeping quota or whatever, we've got a lot of time down here in Hell, and it's hard enough just to find souls willing to do this, so I don't want to work them too hard. I'm the Devil, but even I understand the value of some workforce quality of life. So just get out there and fuck some demons and devils, Zeke!" he tells me, and then his apparition disappears.
Leaving the huge castle and looking out over what I guess is now my domain to explore and fuck my way through, I wonder where I should start. Should I hit up Hell's restaurants and see what's on offer? Check out the Hotel Hades and take a nap to refresh myself before really getting to work? Or just get out there and find somebody to fuck? Eventually, I decide