The Devil and Danielle Webster

by Cynthia Cross

  Yeah, I could have guessed. “Josh, you’re lame. You never want to do anything you haven’t planned three months ago. I don’t understand how your son can be so completely opposite.”

  “Probably because he takes after his mother,” Josh fired back. “It was one of the most frustrating things about you. You could never make plans in advance!”

  “You were the problem. You run your life like it’s boot camp, and expect everyone else to do the same.”

  “Life would be a lot simpler if it were run like boot camp. Leann and I both feel being organized is important.”

  “That’s great, but really, Josh, if you haven’t figured it out yet, life isn’t simple, especially once you have kids. Have you ever heard the quote, ‘Life is what happens while you were busy making other plans’?”

  Daemon Lucifer was back. “Do you need some help?” he asked.

  “With Josh? Always,” I blurted without thinking.

  Chapter 8 – The Party of No

  The next instant, Josh, dressed in his tan corrections officer uniform, stood before us.

  “Oh, God,” Patty uttered.

  “Hush,” I whispered. “He’s so annoying that the Devil may just let us all go, just to get away from him.”

  “Danielle, you can’t do this,” Josh said angrily. “I’m supposed to be watching fifty prisoners right now. If they decide to cause problems, this will all be your fault.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “This guy did, do you know him?”

  “Oh, hey, Mr. Santana, I didn’t even see you,” Josh said, holding out a hand.

  “Seriously, you know him?” I asked. My heart sank.

  “He’s the Warden,” Josh told me.

  The Devil winked at me and said, “Miller, you really need to get back to your post as soon as possible. But your wife—”

  “Ex-wife,” we both corrected.

  “—wanted to have an affair with—“ he stopped short. “Ex-wife?”

  “Not a doubt of it,” I said.

  Daemon Lucifer was clearly at a loss, at least for a second or two. Recovering himself swiftly, he said, “So her affairs are no longer a concern of yours.”

  “Not unless she’s having my wife and I look after the kids on her day, just so she can act like a slut,” Josh said with gritted teeth.

  “’My wife and me,’” I corrected automatically.

  “She needs to sign some paperwork with me in order to get home,” the Devil (Mr. Satin? Mr. Santana?) said. “I understand there could be a delay on a birthday party?”

  “Leann and I are not having a last-minute birthday party at our house,” he stated flatly. “We have plans for tonight.”

  “Another nice dinner out?” I asked.

  “Maybe. It’s really not your business. But we just can’t have Mike’s friends over tonight.”

  “’We just can’t DO that,’” I mimicked.

  Doug and Tina were watching all this uneasily.

  “Josh, who don’t you know here?” I asked. “You remember Patty.”

  “Please don’t tell me your mom is here somewhere,” Josh said, turning pale under his tan. I could hear Doug quickly suppress a chuckle.

  “Hi, Josh,” said Patty. “Help us get out of here, and Dannie and I will have Mike’s party at her house.”

  “That’s right,” I said, though I had no idea how he could be of any help at all. If he knew the Devil as the boss of the prison complex, that didn’t bode well for his siding with me. “And Josh, this is Doug, my ex-boyfriend from way back, and his wife, Tina. Doug’s the one I’m supposed to be having a night of passion with, but it’s not working out.”

  “Spare me the unnecessary information, Danielle,” Josh snapped.

  “Please,” Tina agreed.

  The Devil intervened. “I’d like for Danielle to get her business taken care of here just as much as you would, Josh, so she can get home to take the kids. After all,” he said piously, “this is her day to have them.”

  “Mr. Satin,” I said, emphasizing the pseudonym, “you are completely without honor. You are beneath contempt.”

  “Danielle, you can’t talk to the Warden with such disrespect,” Josh told me reprovingly.

  “Danielle and her friends need to sign a document for me,” explained the Devil. “Until then, she, Doug and Tina are under house arrest.”

  “What?” exclaimed Doug and Tina.

  “Yeah, what are you talking about?” I said.

  “You’re off the time grid, remember? I’m just putting it in a way Josh will understand.”

  “What about you, Patty?” Josh demanded. “What’s your part in this mess?”

  “Oh, I’m just here to beguile the time with Mr. Blue Eyes, here,” said Patty, tossing her head and smirking at Daemon Lucifer.

  “Danielle, you come from a family of sluts,” he said disgustedly.

  “Oooh, I’m going to tell my mom you said that.” Even six years after the divorce, Josh had a healthy fear of Evie.

  “Josh,” Patty said in a considering tone, “your problem is that you need to be slutty sometimes. Maybe then you wouldn’t be a bore and a douchebag. What DID you see in him, Dannie?”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” said Doug, then said “oomph” as Tina planted her elbow in his ribs.

  “I married him because he wasn’t you,” I told Doug flatly. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

  “You two got married on the same day,” Patty volunteered, probably hoping her tangent would avoid a budding argument. “I mean, you four.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Doug and Tina got married June 2, 1997, just like you and Josh did. I got invitations to both weddings.”

  “You mean, you were IN my wedding,” I corrected.

  “Yeah, that’s right. That’s why I couldn’t come to yours, Doug,” she explained. “I hope you got the check I sent you. I do know it was cashed.”

  Doug and Tina were both a bit pink in the cheeks. “You were supposed to send out the thank-you notes to YOUR side of the family,” Tina said in an accusing tone.

  “No worries,” Patty said hurriedly.

  “Mr. Santana,” Josh said, “What does Danielle need to do for you?”

  “She needs to sign this bill of sale. I gave her a night of passion and now she’s trying to get out of paying for it.”

  “Paying for sex, huh, Danielle? Isn’t there another word for that?”

  “I wasn’t,” I said angrily. “Your wonderful Game Warden—“

  “He’s Prison Warden, and watch how you talk about him—“

  “He is trying very hard to GIVE me a night of passion, and make me pay for it, and Doug and I want no part of it.”

  “I don’t care what kind of spin you put on it. He’s the top Arizona Corrections Officer, and I trust his judgment over yours. If he wants your signature, sign the damn thing so Mike can have his party tonight.”

  “You have it all wrong,” I said. Doug, Tina and Patty all nodded in agreement.

  “Those are the rules, Danielle,” he said reasonably. “I didn’t make the rules and you didn’t make the rules. Our job is to OBEY the rules.”

  “I’m not signing a thing until you get him out of here,” I told Daemon Lucifer.

  He looked hurt. “You were the one who wanted him.”

  “I wanted help with him. He’s a problem and a stick-in-the-mud.”

  Patty said mischievously, “Hey, Josh, I think your Mr. Santana wants your signature on something.”

  “No, Patty,” Doug said. “That’s just mean.”

  “Wait,” said Tina. “Maybe that would help us.”

  “That’s right, Miller. You’ve taken more than half-an-hour for your lunch break.”

  “Will you sign off on my ERFELT, sir?” Josh asked respectfully.

  “What’s an ERFELT?” I wondered aloud. Josh was in love with acronyms and jargon. He was always talking about his PRT’s and his ACDUTRA’s.

  �
�Employee Request For Extended Lunch Time,” said Mr. Lucifer/Satin/Santana. He signed the form, then indicated to Josh, “Sign here.”

  “Don’t sign anything!” Patty, Doug and I all said in a rush.

  Josh shook his head, saying, “Danielle, just grow up. You should be worrying about Mike’s birthday party and letting me worry about business.” With that, he signed the ERFELT, thanked his boss, and requested permission to return to duty.

  The Devil looked at me, his eyebrows lifted in a question.

  “Please,” I said.

  “Sign whatever you need to, Danielle,” Josh warned me. “The kids will be walking back to your house about noontime.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “It’s 5 AM,” said Patty urgently. “Check your phone!”

  I grabbed my cell in time to see the time stamp fade and turn to 2 AM once again.

  “We’re on our fifth try to get this right,” I said grimly.

  Chapter 9 – Satan Unbunched

  “What are we going to do between now and when Jill sends you that text?” Patty asked.

  “Doug and I need to find a 24-hour pharmacy,” Tina said. “Doug doesn’t travel well. He might need some Tums.”

  “I saw a Walgreen’s about three blocks down,” I said. “It might have been a 24-hour store. With the casinos in Laughlin and the tourism, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Doogie, are you up to walking?” Patty asked with concern.

  “No worries, Pattycakes. I think I just need to take a good dump—“

  “Doug!” said Tina. She grabbed her purse and Doug’s arm.

  “We’ll be back,” Doug said.

  We watched them leave. “You know, Tina would be a great wife for Josh,” I said. “It’s too bad.”

  “Let’s not talk about them. It’s just the three of us,” said the Devil. “How about that ménage à trois you were discussing before? We can lock the door.”

  Patty was indignant. “That was a private phone call!”

  “Nothing’s really private,” he informed her, with a wicked grin. “You only think it is.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with you,” I informed him. “Ick, ewww, and gag!”

  “Really,” he said softly. “That’s not how you reacted the last time we got together.”

  “We never—“ A horrible thought crossed my mind. This guy was a high school religion teacher and a prison warden. What else might he be?

  Our gazes locked. To my horror, as I looked at him, he was morphing again.

  “Are you sure?” he purred. Then he smacked his lips. “Tasty,” he murmured.

  “No, no. This is a joke. PLEASE say you’re not him.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want another round with me?” he murmured, with a seductive grin.

  “Who is this, Dannie?” Patty asked in alarm.

  “Oh, wow,” I said, weakly. My knees felt as if they’d dissolved. “It’s Brian Bunch.”

  I’d told Patty about him. Well, how could I not have? Being on the receiving end of a two-hour session of Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes was too much of a novelty for me. I had to tell someone, so I told Patty the first chance I got. Well, okay, I also told Jill. It was probably a once in a lifetime experience, and since I had no mementos from the event, not even a picture, I repeated the play-by-play to fix it in my memory.

  “Do you guys want me to leave?” asked Patty. “I don’t recommend it, but I’m not going to stick around if things get X-rated between you two. Dannie, if he wants you that much, make him tear up that contract first.”

  “I waited for you to call,” I said. “I texted you.” I tried not to sound accusing, but I guess I did.

  He threw his head back and laughed. “I was out of town on a business trip,” he said.

  “I don’t even know what to call you anymore,” I said. “Why don’t I just stick with ‘Asshole’?” I was trying to keep my wits about me, but I felt stupidly faint. “Every man says he’s been out of town on business when a woman asks why he hasn’t called.”

  “That does not necessarily mean it’s a lie,” he pointed out. “I was away on business. My business took me far out of Phoenix, in fact, to Las Vegas and Laughlin. And I had a small matter to deal with here in Bullhead City, which resulted in an unexpected close encounter with a hot sauce bottle.”

  Some of that rang true. But how much? I looked at him helplessly, trying to decide.

  “You know you want more of me,” he said insinuatingly. I couldn’t stop looking into his blue eyes. What had made me think Brian Bunch was such a loser? My god, he was devastatingly handsome. He had wavy hair smoothed back from his face, a piercing gaze, and had put on the sexiest overcoat I’d ever seen. He looked like a spy. He looked like a vampire. He looked like the Devil incarnate.

  “I don’t get it,” I managed to say. My heart was pounding and I could hardly breathe. “Why?”

  “I was in a bind ‘cause I was way behind, and I was willing to make a deal,” he said. “It’s the sales strategy, baby. Give them what they want for free the first time. Give them a good looong taste of it,” he whispered.

  The room was spinning, and I couldn’t stand. I grabbed his overcoat for balance. He put his hand over mine. His hand was so hot I felt my skin might burn from the contact. Yes, I remembered that about Brian Bunch from the last time. His skin was preternaturally warm. I’d asked him if he was coming down with a fever, and he had said something awkward about how I was the one who was going to be coming, and he was the one who was going down. I’d chalked it up to his nerdy neediness, until he got to work and I was forced to reevaluate him completely. His lips, his mouth, his tongue, all felt like he had a fever. And I hadn’t cared. If he was offering, I was not going to close my arms—or my legs—to him. “Oh god,” I moaned, remembering.

  “I gave you two hours of my undivided attention last time,” he said in my ear. “What do you say to, oh, a week?”

  “I would be dead long before then,” I said. “You’d give me a heart attack for sure.”

  “But we could try for a world record,” he urged.

  “Careful, Dannie,” Patty warned me. “You didn’t know who he was before. You do now.” She addressed Daemon/Brian. “Give me that contract, you gorgeous man.”

  “Come and get it, you gorgeous woman,” he hissed in his most sinister voice.

  I could barely hear either of them. All I could see was a surreally gorgeous Brian Bunch, shimmering like a mirage in a hot desert, and all I could feel was his unusual body heat and the delicious wave of anticipatory heat coursing through me.

  It was already just too much for one frail woman to bear. I fainted.

  When I came to, I had no idea how much time had elapsed, but I could hear Patty scolding. “I said MAYBE, and ONLY if you rip up that contract for Danielle’s and Doogie’s souls!”

  “And I said MAYBE also. You’re far too cocky for a woman. What you need is a little humility. How does that sound to you?” I heard the caressing voice of Brian Bunch.

  “The contract. RIP UP the contract.”

  “Show me how willing you are to please me, and we’ll negotiate. AFTER.”

  “What a prick,” Patty said in disgust.

  “Oh, do you like it?” Brian laughed mockingly. “You’ll like it better when you can see it. I’ve been told it’s one of my best features.”

  “Patty,” I said as I looked close-up at beige carpeting.

  Brian Bunch rushed to me with gratifying speed, and got down on one knee.

  “Tell me you are all right, my darling,” he said dramatically. I didn’t believe it for a minute, but it still sounded wonderful to hear.

  “I’m all right,” I said, “just a little wobbly.”

  He pulled me back to my feet and held me securely in his arms. I didn’t believe that for a minute, either, but it still felt wonderful.

  “I’ll make you fine,” he said. “Let me worship your body.” Now that?—That I didn’t believe for
a half second. In fact, it was a bit over the top. I looked at him, thinking.

  “It’s now or never,” he said to me.

  “I don’t know,” I said faintly. Once again, I held on to his lapels. I never held onto a man’s lapels before. The guys I’d been with wore tank tops, or teeshirts, or corrections officer uniforms. A girl wants to clutch a guy’s lapels at least once during her lifetime.

  “Louder,” said the Devil.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Instantaneously, something cool and crisp was against me. Cool and crisp and cream-colored, and he was placing my fingers around a cylindrical barrel. Thick rich paper. And a pen.

  “I just need you to sign,” he said.

  “What does it say?”

  There was a scuffle, and I heard Patty’s voice. “Three days,” she said, with a suspicious tone. “Three days of intense sensual pleasure for Danielle Joy Webster, to be delivered by Prince of Darkness Enterprises Affiliate Brian Bunch, in exchange for the soul of Ms. Webster, payment date to be determined later.”

  “I’ve already signed something,” I murmured. “What difference would this make?”

  “Indeed,” Brian/Daemon breathed. “What difference?”

  “Don’t trust him, Danielle,” Patty said sharply.

  “I don’t know if I can resist. Where’s Tina with her holy water? Where’s Jill?”

  “You don’t need them,” he soothed. “I can take you away right now, somewhere private. We’ll emerge days from now, and we will see if you remember how to stand.”

  Oh my god.

  “I’m such a pushover.”

  “Then let me push you over.”

  “I need spine. I need backbone. I need a champion.”

  “You need—“ Patty said, but broke off and stared as the door burst open. “—MOM!”

  Chapter 10 – Evil Eye Evie

  “I had this feeling you two might need me?” Mom said. “Am I too late?”

  “No, you’re too early,” I sighed in regret.

  “Dannie, you can’t really mean that,” Patty said, shocked. “Mom just saved your soul!”