Gary the Incubus and the Case of Sad Zach

Being summoned to the material plane in proper diabolic fashion is about two things: forethought and presentation.

You don’t want some dime-a-dozen cult leader with delusions of grandeur and a long-lost grimoire poofing you into existence in the middle of a dinner party to shock his unsuspecting guests. That kind of cluster-fuck leaves you all fang-toothed with ripping claws and a cloven hoof upending the gravy boat.

Not only does that scare all the squishy humans, but you end up looking like a complete jackass.

Nope. No, thank you.

Like I said before, forethought and presentation.

So when I was unceremoniously yanked from my cramped office cubicle in the second circle of hell and flung toward the mortal realms for the first time in centuries without so much as a by-your-leave, I simply shook off the rust and got my game face on.

I appeared in the summoning circle with a tasteful flash of glowing embers and only the slightest whiff of brimstone—no need to stink up the place with the smell of rotten eggs. I was trying to impress my first client in two hundred years, after all, and this job relies entirely on word-of-mouth referrals.

My fiendish mind was already clocking in the overtime while I made my interplanar approach. Psychically absorbing modern fashions and social moorings. Sampling the political and moral landscape. Soaking up the latest trends and technological advancements.

Yikes, but you humans have got up to some seriously freaky shit since I was last up here. That internet thingy in particular… so much porn!

I wholeheartedly approve.

“Holy cow! Oh my god… it actually worked?”

I should probably take a brief pause in the narrative here to explain what and who I am to dispel any confusion and shine the infernal light of clarity on the circumstances.

Hello, my name is Gary, and I am an incubus.

For those of you not in the know, that basically means I am a devil-horned fuck-boy from the depths of damnation.

It’s not as bad as you might think. I’m not some villain up to no good. I’m actually a pretty chill dude–albeit one with a severe holy water allergy–who’s totally uninterested in feasting on souls.

Nefarious? Never. I can’t even spell it!

I’m simply a friendly fellow looking to lend a hand to any down-on-their-luck mortal with enough magical moxy to summon me, which, to be fair, doesn’t take much. Anyone can do it with the right magic circle and a simple incantation. I’m not about to complain about being dragged away from riding a boring-ass desk to take a jaunt on the material plane.

This is like spring break in Cacun for my kind, even if it does technically count as a working holiday.

Anyway, back to the current events.

I seemed to have apparated (that’s a fancy way of saying teleported) into the low-rent apartment of a college-aged youth with a shock of greasy brown hair and a skin condition. A quick mental probe into his panicking thoughts told me all I needed to know to best handle this rare opportunity. Hold the applause; reading thoughts and desires is the least of my talents.

It’s a lust devil thing, and I was still getting warmed up.

Zach–that was the guy stomping out stray embers on the cheap linoleum floor and trying not to hyperventilate–was twenty pounds of proverbial crap in a ten-pound sack. Jesus Christ, his life was a trainwreck, only a few bad choices from coming completely off the rails.

…and yes, we infernals can take the Big-Man-Upstairs’ name in vain. Do it all the time. Blasphemy is loads of fun. It’s like flipping your high school principal the bird.

He was a dropout at twenty years of age. Gaining despondent weight since a torn rotator cuff ended both his dreams of becoming a major league pitcher and his sports scholarship fourteen months ago. Now he was barely breaking even as a short-order cook at a chintzy all-night diner down on the interstate.

Let me tell you, flipping burgers and huffing the fryer fat has done wonders for this kid’s ego. It’s practically non-existent! He’s been brought so low by life’s hardships that attempting a satanic ritual found in his grand pappy’s old journal was his final, **** Hail Mary.

Not that she’s got off her saintly butt to help anyone in over two millennia, so screw that bitch. Some of us have to work for a living.

Immaculate Conception, my ass.

You might be wondering what I have been doing while Zach was working himself into an existential tizzy. The answer is… nothing.

The human psyche is a fragile thing, and my unexpected appearance raises a lot of questions for an intelligent observer.

“Since devils clearly exist, does that mean God does too?”

“If hell is a real place, then what about heaven?”

“What the fuck have I actually done?!”

So on and so forth, until they eventually get a grip and turn to face the elephant in the room. That would be me, though the comparison is hardly flattering (I watch my waistline), but have found it is best to project an outwardly calm exterior and not make any sudden movements until they are ready to chat.

“Are you really a demon? You don’t look like a demon.” Zach asked, squinting piggishly at me, and I recognized the denial phase of supernatural discovery immediately. “This is all some sort of messed up joke, right?”

Remember how I mentioned the art of presentation? Well, this was when that really came into play.

I find it’s best to go in for the mostly human look. A sparing bipedal build. Two arms, two legs, ten fingers and toes. No outright devilish features except for a pair of small obsidian horns poking out of my dark hair, clothed in a rather smart, gray three-piece suit sans the necktie.

Professional. Formal yet relaxed. Nothing threatening here.

Most unpracticed folks expect Dante’s Inferno when calling upon mystical forces beyond mortal ken. Don’t get me wrong, ol’ Alighieri got a lot of it right for a fourteenth-century Italian with a drinking problem–shameless name dropper though he was–but that doesn’t mean we can’t change with the times.

“What did you expect me to look like, Zachary?” I kept my tone gentle and polite. No need to scare off the mark straight away. “Animal features, maybe? The whole human with goat legs and a bull's head look went out of vogue centuries ago. Oh, and I am a devil, not a demon. There’s a big difference.”

“Wha–what?”

That sent him reeling again, and I used that time to drink in my surroundings.

Zach’s home was a real shit-hole, and that’s coming from someone who resides in a literal hellscape. While it might not be the forest of suicides where harpies break the limbs of trees that housed the souls of the damned, it wasn’t far off in my estimation.

Yellowing wallpaper peeled off the drywall in curling strips, and the carpet was worn threadbare in winding tracks through donated furniture that was long overdue for retirement in a junkyard. It might have been listed as an open-plan studio apartment when my latest client moved in, but that translated into a lack of any interior privacy walls anywhere except the squalid bathroom, and the ceiling was sagging in one corner from untreated water damage.

Dirty dishes moldered in the kitchen sink. Drifts of unwashed laundry gathered beside an unmade bed. Flies buzzed around bags of garbage stacked beside the entry door.

This poor schlub had really given up all hope. Perfect. That’s where I stepped in.

“What is it your heart’s desire, Zachary?” I asked, watching him stiffen at the repeated use of his birth name. “You summoned me here. There must be something you want to call upon one such as me.”

That broke him out of his pacing, hair-tugging anxiety. Zach gave me a long, questioning stare, evaluating me like a teenager about to buy their first baggy of pot from a stranger. I returned a toothy grin with just a hint of elongated incisor.

“You’re it? The real deal, I mean. No smoke and mirrors?” He sounded ****. Hopeful. My shriveled black heart went out to him, I swear. “You are an actual devil from hell bound by magic to serve my bidding?”

I commended myself for not looking down to check the runes in the amateurish circle Zach had clumsily inked onto the carpet with a marker. I could feel how weak they were. I could have cracked his petty spellwork apart like eggshells, but that was no way to kick off a budding business relationship.

I was there to do a job, and if nothing else, I’m a goddamn professional.

“Certainly,” I said, bowing deeply and adding a touch of servility to my words. “I live to serve. Tell me what you yearn for most, and we will embark on a journey together with your deepest desire as our destination.”

“Holy crap, just like that?” Color began to return to his pimply cheeks. “Anything I want. At the cost of… what, my soul?”

Ugh, would you listen to this chump… five minutes earlier, he was a staunch atheist, and now, he’s suddenly fretting about the dirty dishrag that is his eternal spirit.

“Contrary to popular belief, I cannot steal, eat, or bargain for your soul,” I assuaged in a placating tone. “I’m not that type of devil. Think of me as more of a good-time kind of guy. My job satisfaction is derived from making you as happy as possible.”

That wasn’t entirely true. In actuality, I was very interested in his soul but couldn’t tamper with it directly, as I stated. However, there were other ways to get Zachyboy’s name out of the good books and onto Satan’s naughty list. And some of those ways were a whole bunch of fun.

Okay, yeah. I lied. I’m a motherfucking devil. Sue me, I dare you. Litigation is a favorite pastime in Hell, and our legal teams star some literal bloodsuckers.

“Happy,” Zach said the word as though savoring it for the first time. “You’re a demon that feeds on happiness? I’m not buying it.”

“Devil, not a demon.” I corrected again, holding up a notably clawless finger. I was mired deep in the swamp of his psyche and recognized the first flickers of hope. “An incubus, to be precise. An avatar of lust and hedonism that feeds off your pleasure.”

“As in… sex?” The recently arrived color drained away again as his piggy eyes widened in horror. “You want me to pay you with sex?”

“That card is definitely on the table, Zachary.”

I was prodding, having a little fun. I knew from the outset he was straight as an arrow and flexible as a cinderblock, even if I personally wasn’t averse to the occasional sausage fest.

Hey, don’t judge. You can’t eat fish tacos for millennia without wanting to sample the chorizo from time to time.

Ever heard of a devil’s threeway?

“However, I sense you don’t swing that way. Have no fear. I can reap my rewards in a more… vicarious fashion.” I broke the building tension with a shit-eating smile. Zach resumed breathing again. “So long as you are having the best time possible, I can sustain myself on the overflow of… let’s call it; pleasurable emotions. Why don’t we start with you telling me what it will take to make that possible?”

“Money!” He blurted, pudgy hands clenching into fists. “Can you get me a pile of cash, or gold bullion, or whatever? I wanna be loaded. Filthy, stinking rich.”

Huh. That was hardly a surprise. It's among the three most common human fantasies, but here comes the rub…

I’m no fairy godmother, genie, or wizard. I cannot create something from nothing. So fuck those buttholes. Literally. With a pineapple. My talents lay in a defter touch. I can… nudge certain things. Improve upon what is already there using elements of the surrounding environment.

Not like turning lead into gold, exactly. Nothing so ambitious. But chicken shit into chicken salad?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

For instance, the acne that pocked Zach's sweaty mug? One small nudge of my incubus power to his sebaceous glands, and it was already clearing up. With another nudge to speed his rate of healing, those cheeks would be smoother than a cherub's keister by lunchtime.

“Riches, hmm… What are we talking about here? Bank heist, jewelry theft, some other act of grand larceny? One of my colleagues down below won’t stop bragging about robbing a mail train near Buckinghamshire back in 1963 with a gang of British goons. I’m always down for some criminal mischief.”

It was too much to hope for. I could already hear the alarm bells ringing in his head. Poor Zachyboy had as much spine as an earthworm… for now. Something else for me to work on.

“What? No! Can’t you just…” He waved a hand in a fluttering motion. “Um, magic me rich?”

Ah, this is what the educated set would call ‘a teachable moment.’

“The money has to come from somewhere, Zachary,” I informed him, waving a hand instructively. “Must I remind you that I’m an embodiment of lust, not greed? I suppose we could find some old, wrinkly heiress to glamor into your sugar momma, but that would saddle you with an amorous centenarian until she finally died and left you her fortune. Do you have a GILF fetish?”

He didn’t, and I wasn’t about to bring up the many young, pretty heiress’ available. You know the sort—the high-maintenance princesses from overprotective families with deep pockets and armies of private investigators on call.

Zach struggled to maintain affable relations with the few blue-collar friends he retained after the injury. That Bozo would stand out among the cream of polite society like a turd in the punchbowl.

“Nuh-uh. That’s a big no from me.” He shook his head, “Okay, let’s come back to the money issue later. You keep telling me that you’re an incubus. It’s been a while, but can you at least get me laid?”

The first genuine smile of the day graced my devilish lips.

Attaboy!

“Yes, Zachary. We can definitely arrange something like that, and you may call me… Gary.”

New story, who dis? It's me, your humble writer, Menoetes! This one will be short, silly, and a wee bit crazy. So strap yourselves in, dearest reader, and please let me know what you think in the comments!