Night Shift

by Wrestlr

[M/M]

Synopsis: Ray works the graveyard shift at the Qwickie Mart just down the street from the gateway to Hell.

Disclaimer: The naked hypnotist strides confidently into your room. His lips curl in what might be a smile as he dangles his shiny crystal pendulum before your eyes and announces, "Listen and obey. If you are not of legal age, or if you offended by sexual situations, you will leave this place immediately. From here on, no matter how realistic it may appear, everything will seem like fiction to you, a pleasant dream where scientific possibilities and laws may change according to my suggestion. Now, if you are willing, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride."

Copyright - 2012 by Wrestlr. Permission granted to archive if and only if no fee (including any form of "Adult Verification") is charged to read the file. If anyone pays a cent to anyone to read your site, you can't use this without the express permission of (and payment to) the author. This paragraph must be included as part of any archive.

All trademarks mentioned in this story belong to their respective owners.

Comments to wrestlr@iname.com

Wrestlr's fiction is archived at the following URLs:

- http://www.asstr.org/~wrestlr (MC and general M/M stories)

- http://www.asstr.org/~mcstories/Authors/Wrestlr.html (MC stories)

Night Shift

by Wrestlr

1.

Working the graveyard shift at a convenience store is hell. Everybody knows that. That cliché has been around ever since some unholy sadist got the bright idea of combining convenience stores and graveyard shifts. Big deal.

Working the graveyard shift at a convenience store just down the street from a portal to Hell? That's another matter.

Yes, that's right. The real, true, actual Hell.

I'd have been scared shitless if it weren't so damned boring most of the time. I worked seven nights a week, with a double shift on Tuesdays. I got all types in there. Every night at midnight sharp, the gateway to Hell opened up in the empty lot half a block down, and all sorts of creatures stopped by Qwickie Mart on their way to heaven knows what chores as the embodiments of pure evil. Make that Hell knows what. But I didn't care about their agendas, and I didn't ask. My job was to stand behind the counter and sell them whatever junk food they wanted to buy.

Working the graveyard shift at Qwickie Mart wasn't hard; I needed the money; and after a while I found that I didn't mind it, really--just one more soul-sucking indignity on the endless downward spiral that was my life so far. At least the Hell creatures gave the job a unique angle--though the store owner didn't tell me about that part when he hired me.

That first night, I was wondering why this Qwickie Mart had the biggest junk food selection of any convenience store I'd ever seen. Then, midnight rolled around.

Bat-winged demons reeking of brimstone? They love hotdogs and energy drinks. Green-skinned succubi? Can't get enough powdered sugar doughnuts. My friend Frankie?--Loves Slurpees. Blue raspberry Slurpees.

What?--You were expecting them to eat soul-kabobs or fried virgin? Me too, at first. Who knew the emissaries of pure evil would be so ... banal? Yes, I can use words like banal. I have a liberal arts degree. Or did you think the only reason I worked at Qwickie Mart was because of my pervasive apathy? Yeah, well, maybe that too.

Sure, we got regular humans in there from time to time. Believe me, they were always more trouble than the Hell residents. Humans came in tired and drunk and surly. Humans came in and got all pissed off at me because they didn't have enough money for that bag of potato chips, like it was my fault they spent too much of their paycheck on beer and hookers at the bar two streets over. At least the Hell residents were polite--and usually had correct change. I never asked where beings from Hell got human money. And I never once had a Hell resident pull a pistol and try to rob me. That particular vice was all humanity's.

Frankie told me the bigwigs in Hell had a standing order: Don't eat the help. I was off-limits and therefore safe from the residents of Hell. If convenience store clerks kept going missing, the convenience store closed. If the convenience store closed, Beelzebub couldn't get his nightly Ho-Ho fix the moment the Hell portal opened. Trust me--no one wanted to be the cause of Beelzebub not getting his Ho-Hos. So when I started working there, after a day or two of thinking I was having a psychotic break and wanting to scream every time some nightmare creature stomped in and headed for the candy bar aisle or the drink case, after Frankie explained about the portal to Hell and gave me the low-down on the don't eat the help rule, everything settled into the same boring routine. Microwave burrito? That'll be two-oh-seven with tax. Corn dog and coffee? Five twenty-five, and please stop dripping acid drool on the checkout counter. Thank you. Come again.

The first time I saw him was a Tuesday. I remember because I always work double shifts on Tuesdays, second and graveyard. I was tired, and right then it was just past midnight and the usual Hell crowd was crowding in. Belphegor? Loves his barbecue-flavored Fritos. Asmodeus? Addicted to Diet Coke. My friend Frankie got there early--he always does--and he leaned against the counter and sucked on his Slurpee straw while I rang up some snake-demon's Juicy Fruit purchase.

That's when he walked in. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and immediately did a double-take. Frank saw me notice him and raised an eyebrow and turned around to see what was what.

He was gorgeous. Dark-haired, well-built, and completely ... human-looking. Was he human? He wore normal human clothes, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; lots of vampires and succubi and other mostly humanoid types did, so they'd fit in better I guessed. Mister Gorgeous didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary about the line of beings waiting to pay for their beef jerky, their crullers, their motor oil. Hey, don't laugh--apparently a whole subcategory of minor fire demons considers motor oil a delicacy. We stocked a heavyweight detergent-free brand they loved.

I lost track of him in the store as I kept ringing up various imps and fiends and demons. Then someone dropped a pack of red licorice on the counter in front of me, and I glanced up, and it was him. Holy Mother of Pearl, was it ever him.

"H-hi," I stammered, and nearly knocked my Yoo-hoo off the cash register.

"How much?" he prompted, with just this little trace of a closed-lip smile. Dammit, I couldn't see his teeth--couldn't tell whether he had fangs, or a giant sucker mouth, or a forked tongue, or any of the standard oral giveaways.

"Uh," I replied cleverly, swiped the licorice over the scanner, and stammered out the purchase amount, as if he couldn't read it off the display himself.

He handed me a five-dollar bill for a four-thirty-one purchase. Like I said, the Hell residents usually paid with correct change--even the ones who didn't have clothes or pockets. Maybe not having correct change was a good sign. "Keep it, cutie," he said.

"Thanks," I managed--and reminded myself to stop grinning like an idiot.

He winked at me, picked up his licorice, and walked out.

I don't believe in love at first sight, but let's just say I was more than just smitten.

"So," I asked Frankie after the last shedu left with the last box of Milk Duds, "that guy who came in ..." I tried to act casual by taking a swallow of my Yoo-hoo. I didn't begrudge the Hell residents their junk food because I was practically addicted to Yoo-hoos myself. In fact, one of the few perks of working at the Qwickie Mart was all the Yoo-hoos I could drink. At a reasonable employee discount, of course.

"Which one?" Frankie asked. "The cute new one?" Because apparently immortal demons don't have time to beat around the bush.

I tried to sound all casual, just two guys hanging out and discussing the cute new guy: "Yeah, him. Do you know him?" Because if Frankie knew him, that meant the mystery man was a Hell resident, and I knew better than to fall in love, or even lust, with an immortal monster out to devour my very soul. Working at the Qwickie Mart was eating away my soul just fine already, thank you.

"Never seen him before." Frankie grinned big. "But I'm thinking somebody wants to see him agaaaaaain."

I blushed and wished I had one of those blessed crossbow bolts right about then.

Frankie isn't his real name. "Humans can't pronounce it," he told me once, and proceeded to make this sound that started with Fraah-, then resembled a mockingbird in a blender, and a final -eee hinting of fingernails scraping figure-eights on a chalkboard. "So just call me Frankie." Frankie's a Rakshasa. For those of you too lazy to Google it, thats a Hindi shapeshifter demon. He normally looks like a cute early-twenties skater dude. His shtick is taking the form of whomever a human trusts the most and using that form to get close enough to devour the human's flesh. Apparently a lot of people trust early-twenties skater dudes. Not me, though. No, Frankie got really infatuated with me when I started here at the Qwickie Mart, but ... Well, let's just say that apparently the person I trust the most is my mom, and seeing the cute skater dude turn into my mom saying things like, "Oh, come on, Ray--just give us one little kiss," while trying to lip-lock me was easily scarier than all the junk-food-buying hordes of Hell. And anyway, Frankie and I hit it off better as friends. Besides, as I always teased him, you can't go around eating every Qwickie Mart night clerk, or who'll make your blue raspberry Slurpees with extra syrup the way you like?

2.

"I think I'm in love."

"Again?" my ex-boyfriend-and-now-just-roommate Jason groused, rolling his eyes theatrically. "Who is it this time? It's not that weird guy you hang out with all night, is it? He creeps me out."

"You mean Frankie? Ew, no--trust me--Frankie and me--just friends. He'd probably eat me alive." Literally, since Rakshasas devour human flesh. Jason didn't need to know those details.

Jason met Frankie once when Jason came into the Mart for some reason after the nightly rush. I introduced them. Frankie knew my history with Jason was complicated--he had, after all, listened to me bitch for nearly the last year about how Jason dumped me for Tommy and, rather than move out to live with his new boyfriend, had moved the new boyfriend into our place and relegated me, the old boyfriend, to sleeping on the sleeper sofa even though it was technically my apartment. I put up with it because I couldn't afford to move out and I needed Jason's help to make the rent payment each month. Besides, the lease was in my name, so I couldn't walk away. So Frankie sided with me by pretty much dismissing Jason's attempt at being friendly, saying, "Go away, little monkey--I don't like it when my food talks to me." Which made perfect sense if you knew Frankie was a Rakshasa--and no sense at all if you thought he was just some random cute skater dude sucking on a large Slurpee, which is what he looked like most of the time. Jason had raised an eyebrow and looked to me for confirmation that Frankie was crazy. I just shrugged and mouthed, Drugs--which was easier than trying to explain the truth.

Hey, you try telling people how there's a portal to Hell just down the street that opens up and spews out demons and devils every night at midnight, and how most people can't really see them for what they really are, and how some of them look like hot skater-boys who love Slurpees. They'll lock you up in a nice padded cell. Which, come to think of it, might be an improvement over working the graveyard shift at Qwickie Mart.

But back to my love-sick moping about Mister Gorgeous. Yes, I admit it: I was love-sick and I was moping. If you have to ask why, you obviously missed the part about him being gorgeous. Try to keep up.

Since I took the job at Qwickie Mart, right after our breakup, my time at the apartment overlapped Jason's and Tommy's for half an hour in the morning as I was getting home and they were heading off to their jobs, and again for about an hour in the evenings when I was getting ready for the graveyard shift and they were getting home from whatever social life things they'd spent their time doing. Mostly we ignored each other, but sometimes conversations broke out. This particular conversation was happening after I got home from my shift. Jason and I were still trying to do the friendship thing, which kind of worked as long as Tommy wasn't around. I didn't much like Tommy, for reasons that weren't any complicated than him being younger than me, cuter, dating my ex, and living in my one-bedroom apartment with us. See?--Not complicated at all.

Fortunately, both Jason and Tommy kept their hands off my Yoo-hoo stash in the refrigerator. I'm pretty sure drinking my last Yoo-hoo would be grounds for justifiable homicide. Could I go to Hell for that?

Back to the I think I'm in love conversation. Jason didn't really sound that interested, but he went through the motions of asking, "Then who? What's his name?"

"Uh ... I'm not sure. We haven't actually introduced ourselves yet."

"Explain."

"He came into Qwickie Mart last week, and he's been back every night since, and he's soooo gorgeous."

"That's it? He just shows up and you're in love? At least tell me you've talked to him."

"Oh, sure. Lots of times." Meaning, I always told him the price, and he handed me a five dollar bill and told me to keep the change. Jason didn't need those details either. At least Mister Gorgeous always winked at me. That kept our interactions from being completely pathetic.

"And you don't know his name yet? What do you know about him? Is he a friend of Frankie's?"

"I dont know. They might know each other ... or be distant cousins or something." I made a mental note to do an Internet search for a demon family tree. If I hooked up with Mister Gorgeous and Frankie was going to be an in-law, I wanted to know it in advance.

Of course, that was assuming Mister Gorgeous was some sort of demon, which hadn't been proven yet one way or the other.

Jason and Tommy seemed revoltingly head-over-heels in l-u-v love, so I thought maybe Jason could help me figure out what to do about Mister Gorgeous. I never had many role models for how to be in love when I was growing up. Jason and me?--We never had one of those cue-the-swelling-music-and-run-across-a-field-of-flowers kind of loves. We were in love, at least at first, and when we broke up after three years we still liked each other enough to try to make friendship work. Jason moving Tommy in put a real strain on things from my perspective, like Jason was trying to force me out of an apartment that was technically more mine than his. But after a year of all three of us living together, no matter how tense things felt sometimes, Jason was still the closest to somebody I could ask about matters of the heart. Especially since Frankie, the only other advisor I might have trusted, thought hearts were best ripped fresh from the source and eaten raw.

I tried not to drool that morning when I got home and found them in the kitchen making coffee and French toast. Jason was gracious enough to make me some French toast too and I ate it at the little kitchen island, since they'd already commandeered the table and it wasn't big enough for three. I opted for Yoo-hoo instead of coffee. A year ago, I'd probably have gotten a condescending remark from Tommy about my Yoo-hoo. Yeah, maybe he and I were at least learning to tolerate each other.

But Tommy did raise an eyebrow and decided to join the conversation a little late. "You don't know his name?" Yeah, well, I'd figured out long ago that Jason didn't love him for his brain.

I couldn't decide who started it, but Jason and Tommy passed this look between them. I was pretty sure Jason and I never had a look back when we were together. Hell, back then we usually couldn't even manage to communicate with words. Just bodies. The sex had been pretty good, just not good enough.

After the look went on for a few seconds, Tommy got up and carried his plate to the kitchen sink.

"You going to tell us what's going on? Or are you going to sit there being all cryptic while you mix sugar-water with French toast?"

I was kinda impressed Tommy knew what cryptic meant. I disguised it with a wisecrack: "You saying it's not the breakfast of champions?"

The thing was, when this thing with Mister Gorgeous came down to the bottom line, I didn't have much beyond a little weirdness and coincidental timing to go on. And who hasn't acted weird once or twice? I'd almost made a career out of it.

Tommy grabbed my nearly empty bottle of Yoo-hoo. "Let's try an experiment. Let's see which is harder: your skull or this bottle."

"Blow me."

"Get me drunk enough and we'll see." Tommy batted his long lashes in my direction.

"Too easy. Jason, your boyfriend's a slut." I lunged after the most nutritious part of my balanced breakfast, but Tommy wouldn't give me my Yoo-hoo back.

"Wow. Here's an idea." Tommy put the bottle back on the counter. "Talk to him."

I grabbed the bottle to prevent future abductions. "Thanks for your brilliant psychological insight. Just-forget it."

Jason said, "Seriously, Ray, we just want you to be happy. If you think there's something there between you and this guy, you should go for it, no matter what. At least talk to him. Ask him out or something."

"On a date?"

Do demons date? Do they like a little foreplay first, or do they prefer to go right for the soul-corrupting?

Or if Mister Gorgeous was a human with purely coincidental timing, would he be willing to date around my schedule? He probably had a job and worked normal hours and just came in after midnight because his insomnia was acting up or something.

"Yes, a date."

"Yeah, right," I sneered, as I popped the last bite of French toast into my mouth.

3.

I heard glass crash from the far end of the store. Worry about that later, I told myself, since I was halfway through checking out some arch-fiend's purchase of pretzels and cheese dip, and you just don't keep an arch-fiend waiting. They tended to get all huffy and storm out without completing their purchases, which meant more work for me because I had to re-shelve all the shit they left on my counter.

"Excuse me," said this low-to-the-ground demon thingee that looked like a disembodied lion's head walking on seven goat legs as it approached the checkout counter. It spoke with a distinct British accent. "Sorry for the trouble, but one of the paramafaits accidentally broke a bottle of beer. I guess it can't hold its liquor." Lion-head thingee grinned at its own joke, but there's nothing like working the late shift at Qwickie Mart to kill your sense of humor. I stared and waited. "We'll pay for the merchandise, of course, but I was wondering if you might have a mop handy for the cleanup?"

Hell's residents are both unfailingly polite and helpful.

"Second door on the left," I said, nodding toward the little hallway in back marked Employees Only.

The lion-head thingee thanked me and clip-clopped away on its goat hooves, while I wondered how it would use 'em to manage the door knob, much less the mop. Maybe it would make the paramafait handle the cleanup? What the hell is a paramafait, anyway?

"Okay, nobody move! This is a stick-up!"

The human who'd been examining the hot dog rotisserie case had pulled on a ski mask and now waved a gun overhead. Oh, great. Another tweaker with a gun and a jones for quick money. Why the hell did tweakers always go after places like Qwickie Mart? Did somebody publish an Idiot Druggie's Guide to Quick Cash on the Internet or something?-- Step one, get a gun and head to your local convenience store ... Like I said, it's always the humans that cause problems.

Most of the Hell residents standing in line holding their junk food selections indeed didn't move. They just stared at tweaker-gunman-robber dude. It's hard to know sometimes whether immortal embodiments of evil are up on current slang from, oh, the last two hundred years or so. Did they even know what a "stick-up" was? Or were they familiar from watching cops-and-robbers flicks on television? Did they get cable in Hell? I made a mental note to ask Frankie later. Assuming nervous tweaker dude didn't shoot me dead first.

Tweaker-gunman tromped up and banged the pistol butt on the checkout counter for emphasis. He sounded jittery, like this was his first convenience store heist. "Empty the register, put all the cash in a bag, and hand it over. Now! Do it, and nobody gets hurt!"

Frankie made a big sucking sound at the bottom of his Slurpee: Slauur-pfuhfuhfuuuh!

Tweaker-gunman jumped at the sound, and his pistol went off, deafening at the point-blank range.

"Fucking ow!" Frankie cursed. This little maroon spot, sort of blood-colored without being exactly blood-colored, appeared around the hole in his shirt. Frankie glowered and brushed at it. "I just had this shirt dry-cleaned."

The gunman ranted, "Ohfuckohfuckohfuck! See what you made me do? I said nobody-- Wait. Why aren't you dead, dude? I shot you right in the heart. Why aren't you fuckin' dead?"

"That wasn't a crossbow bolt blessed by Brahma, you idiot."

"Excuse me," said an authoritative voice. The arch-demon Mammon had clamped his tentacle down on the gunman's shoulder but spoke to me. The gunman's eyes behind the ski mask went saucer-wide, as if he was seeing the Hell residents for what they were for the first time. Or maybe he was just then realizing they weren't part of his tweaker hallucinations.

Mammon said, "Since this poor soul technically belongs to us anyway, would you mind if we took him off your hands now without involving the local constabulary?"

Hell residents like to be discreet.

"Please do," I said. The last thing I needed was to spend time giving statements to the police and explaining to my boss why the store had nearly been robbed yet again. "And thanks. Your peanuts are on the house tonight."

Mammon saluted me with the snack-sized bag of nuts in his other hand--tentacle--whatever. "Come along," the arch-demon told the tweaker and hauled him from the store by his shoulder like a rag doll. To his credit, the gunman didn't start screaming until they got to the far edge of the parking lot.

"Quite some excitement there," the last being in line said, dropping a pack of red licorice on the counter. Him. Hello, Mister Gorgeous. "I'm new around here. Does that sort of thing happen often?"

"Sometimes," was all I could think to say, trying not to stare at his little smile, the bemused expression around his eyes. Fuck!--I'm such an idiot!

"Oh, and give me a pack of Marlboros too, please. And a lighter." Cigarettes? Did Hell residents smoke? Other than Astaroth, I mean. Astaroth was the only one I knew that smoked, and he preferred Virginia Slims Menthol. I grabbed a pack of Marlboros and a two-pack of lighters from the wall behind me and ran them past the scanner.

He paid and collected his cigarettes and licorice. He headed toward the door.

"Hey, you forgot your lighters!"

"So I did. I guess you'll have to bring them to me out back when you take your break in a few minutes," he said, and winked, and walked out.

When my heart began beating and I could speak again, I said, "Uhm, Frankie, do you think you could please watch the register while I take my break?"

I rounded the corner as nonchalantly as I could. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it just happened to be my break time. Why, yes, I just happened to decide to spend it loitering behind the Qwickie Mart in the wee hours. Completely innocent. Completely coincidental.

I said, "Uh ... I brought your lighters." Meaning: Hi, my name is Ray; what's yours? Are you a fiend from Hell, or a normal human who just happens to live in the area and has a nightly craving for red licorice? Oh, and can we have hot monkey sex now, please-please-please?

"Thank you," he smiled, showing a hint of teeth. Normal, human teeth. A good sign, I guessed. "But I don't smoke."

"Oh," I yammered, feeling somehow deflated; then, "Oh!" again as I figured out the underlying complement.

"I'm Garreth," he said.

"Ray."

We shook hands. At least that part of this ritual was familiar.

He smiled again. "Most humans don't see us as we really are. Their minds are too narrow."

Well, that settled that question: Hell resident. Fuck.

Maybe a quickie was still on the table? After all, I was pretty sure that don't eat the help rule applied even when the help was on break.

"Oh?" I said, leaning back against the wall in what was probably an ill-fated attempt at looking cool, like I hung out with Hell residents all the time at Qwickie Mart. Which, remembering Frankie, I probably did.

I said, "Well, you look human to me." Meaning: What are you? Are you going to try to eat me, or just corrupt my immortal soul? And whichever it is, can we have that hot monkey sex first, please-please-please? Then I realized he might not consider looking like a human to be a compliment.

He moved in closer, smiling that lazy, seductive smile, looking me directly in the eyes. His voice practically curled around my ear. "Do you like how I look?"

I felt myself getting lost in his eyes. Wait--hadn't he asked me a question? "Oh, yeah," I agreed. Meaning ... Never mind; that part meant exactly what I said.

"Good. I can appear to you in whatever form you want ... But I'm glad my natural form pleases you." He moved in close, body nearly touching mine, lips nearly brushing my ear as he whispered, "You have a beautiful aura, all that pent-up passion. I'll bet you taste as good as you look. Don't worry--I don't bite, at least not in ways you won't like. I'm the son of an incubus and a vampire, so I give excellent head." Followed by the barest touch of his tongue along the edge of my ear.

Oh, holy fuck!

My dick was demanding, Skip directly to the hot monkey sex, now-now-now, in my pants.

I'm sure I came back with the perfect comeback, just like in the movies--something sparkling and perfect for the situation that impressed Garreth with my wit. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I said, "Uh ..." Which at least wasn't as embarrassing as it could have been.

"Shall I demonstrate?" His finger traced along the so-very-erect edge of my erection in my pants.

"Uh," I said again. Meaning: Why, yes--yes indeed, I would very much like you to demonstrate, please-please-please.

He knelt, never breaking eye contact with me, tugging gently at my belt before starting on the fly of my pants. "Just look into my eyes, and I'll make all your dreams come true." I couldn't not look into his eyes. They seemed to cast this spell over me. This languid happiness filled me, like being high without the chemical itchiness, or a sugar rush without the jitters. "Don't worry. I'll just take a little taste of your life force in return. Just a little nibble. You won't even miss it. It recharges quickly anyway."

And then my cock was sliding deep into the wet sucking vice of his throat. Oh, sweet Jesus!--or is it blasphemous to call on Jesus when you're getting the best blowjob ever from a half-incubus, half-vampire resident of Hell? None of the gay sex guides I'd read on the Internet covered demon blowjob etiquette.

Any nervousness I may have had disappeared in the face, so to speak, of the act itself. Garreth's mouth did the most incredible things, nursing away at me like a hungry calf, all tongue under and around my shaft and cock head, even tonguing my ball sack while his throat-muscles did a little mamba-samba-rumba 'round my rod. His hands were up under my shirt, tweaking at my nipples, rubbing my pecs, and doing a hundred little things to add to the pleasure that swallowed me whole, while he swallowed my cock.

Being sucked by Mister Gorgeous--Garreth--felt different from the blowjobs I'd gotten in the past, and infinitely better. Sure, all my prior partners had been humans, as far as I knew, but apparently half-vampire-slash-half-incubus types had a whole 'nother bag of tricks. Maybe it was the way I could feel his suction tugging on something inside me, like that life force thing he'd said he was going to nibble on, or maybe it was just the slide of his tongue, muscular and enthusiastic as a hungry eel, around my cock. Or maybe it was just how frickin' gorgeous he was, kneeling in front of me and feasting on my cock. Whatever it was, my balls felt like they were being boiled, and my cock was on fire, and then I was cumming and cumming, so hard I was about to black out, and cumming some more, and then blacking out for real.

The next thing I know--huh?--what?--I'm waking up, standing behind the Qwickie Mart checkout counter.

So much for my ten-minute break and my twenty seconds of heaven.

"Oh," Freddie groused around the straw of what had to be his third blue raspberry Slurpee with extra syrup that evening, "you're finally awake. Good--because I never thought I'd say this, but 'vampire thrall' you is even more boring than 'everyday' you ... though not by much." He made a loud sucking sound on his straw.

4.

We fell into a kind of routine. It was a good routine. When things calmed down after the midnight rush, Frankie would cover for me, and I'd meet Garreth behind the store for a little hot-blowjob-and-life-force-nibble exchange that seemed to make us both happy. Well, it made me very happy anyway, and Garreth seemed to have no complains. He never wanted me to reciprocate, though I offered every time to blow him before he did me. I couldn't have competed with the incubi or vampires or whatever he normally hung out with, but I was willing to give it my best shot. Each time he blew me, I came so hard I passed out for a little while, which he said happened with most of the people he fed on during sex, and after I passed out I was in no shape to blow him.

Frankie didn't mind either. When I'd come to, he'd always have some snarky comment ready. Plus, I think he helped himself to a free Slurpee or two while I was out of it--which seemed a small price to pay for mind-blowing blowjobs every night.

Still, I wanted to go further--maybe have a real date with Garreth, get to know him outside of licorice purchases and quickie soul-snack blowjobs behind the 'Mart.

Then one Friday night, as I dropped my pants behind the building, I said, "I have tomorrow night off."

I stood there in my tee-shirt and brand-new designer underwear, hoping Garreth liked the scenery. The underwear had comic book characters on it, with Superman flying out of the crotch.

"So ...," Garreth said, bending forward to trace Superman's head with his tongue, "I won't see you tomorrow night?" At least he was polite enough to sound disappointed.

"No, silly. I thought maybe we could go out on a real date. You like me, right? I like you too, so let's go out on a real date. And afterward, we can have sex in a real bed for once." I followed this with what I hoped was a flirtatious grin and wink. My brain and dick harmonized on a chorus of, Please say yes, please say yes.

"Ah, I see ..." he said.

Which wasn't yes, but ... wasn't no either. Then that little voice in the back of my head reminded me that he hadn't said no, but he hadn't said yes either.

Oh, crap!--Had I pushed too hard? We'd only known each other a couple of weeks. Was I in the process of making a huge fool out of myself yet again? Time to backtrack and try to save face.

I tried not to babble. "Listen, I get it. What we do--I guess it's more like 'playing with your food' for you--"

"No, it's not that."

"--or maybe you're just not ready to make a commitment with somebody mortal."

"That's ... not entirely inaccurate. A relationship with a mortal, outside of my duties of corrupting the innocent, is strictly forbidden."

"You're kidding about that 'corrupting the innocent' part, right?" I shook my head and told myself to stay focused. "No, really, I get it. I'm not asking you to turn me into a demon or something--not that there's anything wrong with you being one--but ... uhm ... Okay, so no relationship. All I'm asking for is one date. Think of it as taking your pet mortal for a really long walk one night if that helps."

"You're persistent. I like that. It's such a ... mortal trait."

Garreth smiled that pure-seduction smile of his and said, "I'll meet you in the parking lot at one minute after midnight. Don't be late." And then he proceeded to give me an even better than ever blowjob that had my toes curling even before I climaxed.

5.

I pulled my ancient clunker-car into the lot at fifteen minutes before midnight and waited. I kept tweaking my hair in the rearview mirror, trying for a look that said sexy but stopped short of trying too hard. And may I just add: Parking lot lights are really unflattering.

When I saw the crowd shambling my way from down the street, I knew the Hell portal had opened, right on time. Man, I sure hoped that don't eat the help rule still applied when I was off-duty.

Joe, who worked the day shifts and was covering the graveyard shift for my night off, wouldn't notice. He was too old and too blind to notice the sun wasn't shining.

"Hey, Ray!" Frankie waved from near the front of the throng and pushed his way over. "Gonna miss hanging out with you, man. You haven't taken a night off since ... well, since ever, right? I hope he's worth it." I caught sight of Garrett coming our way, his wry smile, the new crimson shirt he'd worn for the evening that set off his eyes and dark hair. Frankie turned and saw him too. "Oh, yeah--definitely worth it." When he turned back, Frankie had done that Rakshasa morph into the person you trust most thing into my mom again. "You boys have fun, and don't do anything I wouldn't do ... sexually, I mean. Though admittedly that only rules out dead monkeys." He waved and toddled off.

I was still cringing from the thought of my mom getting sexy with everything except a dead monkey when Garreth walked up.

"Hey," with a little bob of his chin that made the streetlights catch his hair. Crap, he could make even monosyllables sound sexy. "What's with the expression?"

"Nothing. Uh, just something Frankie said. You look hot as hell--well, you know what I mean."

He chuckled. "Thanks."

"So, uhm, you ready to go? Thai food okay?"

I knew from his nightly licorice habit that Garreth could eat food, normal human food. Maybe he didn't need to, but--let's face it--creatures that don't like to eat at least once in a while don't stop by Qwickie Mart for junk food. Besides, the only restaurants nearby that I knew were open at that hour were a greasy diner and a Thai place, and I wanted our first dinner together to be someplace nice. That meant no diner.

After dinner, after a little walk-and-talk, we ended up at my place. Dinner itself had gone perfectly. Turns out, Garreth loved Thai food, and--best of all--I managed not to spill my beer on myself, or collide with a waiter, or do anything else embarrassing. My credit card even cleared. Then we took a walk around the neighborhood and continued getting to know each other. I told him all about how I felt I was destined for bigger and better things, if I could just get out from under the soul-crushing inertia of working at Qwickie Mart. We told each other a little about our childhoods: What was it like growing up in Hell as a half-vampire, half-incubus? Oh, nothing special, to me it was just an ordinary childhood. What was it like growing up on earth as a human? I dunno; probably about the same except less brimstone. Shit like that. It was ... nice. Weird because of that whole demon-from-Hell thing, but he probably felt the same way about being on a date with a mortal who otherwise would have been just a snack for him. But it was nice, y'know? I hadn't been on many dates since Jason and I broke up. Certainly I'd never dated anybody as hot as Garreth before. He looked at me as if he was really seeing me, y'know?--Looking right into me. Maybe he was. I felt like I was seeing the real him too.

After dinner was when things got bumpy. We got back to my place. I'd already explained the whole fold-out bed thing, just so Garreth wouldn't get his expectations up. Normally, I only see Jason and Tommy for a few minutes in the morning when I'm coming home from my shift. Right then it was after two a.m. I thought for sure they'd be asleep, but no--they were wide awake and making out in front of the television, sitting on that same folded-up couch that I was expecting to use in its unfolded state with Garreth.

I cleared my throat, and Jason and Tommy looked at me. Jason's surprise turned to a scowl. "Oh--hi, Ray. What are you doing home?"

"I live here, and I have the night off, remember? Don't you have to be at work in about six hours?"

Jason apparently chose not to take the hint. "No one goes to bed this early, Ray. Who's your friend?"

I made the introductions.

I'd have begged Jason and Tommy to clear their asses off the couch, except I knew they wouldn't have listened. They'd have stayed put just to spite me. To say Jason and Tommy were smitten with Garreth would be an understatement. They kept staring at him like they couldn't decide whether they wanted to tear his clothes off right then and there in front of me, or drag him to their bedroom for a three-way, or both. Whatever, it was pretty clear I wasn't going to be invited. Garreth just took it in stride, like he was used to people practically throwing themselves at him and yelling, Take me, Garreth, make me your love-slave! I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to beg him, once we got Jason and Tommy out of the fucking way, but that love-slave part did sound weirdly interesting.

Garreth noticed my growing frustration. I had planned for my dick to be growing right about then, and instead we were making nice-nice with my ex-boyfriend and his current replacement boyfriend, who both looked like they wanted to jump my hopefully soon-to-be-boyfriend's bones as if I wasn't right there in the same room with them.

I wondered: If I got a steak knife from the kitchen and stabbed Jason and Tommy repeatedly until they were dead, would Garreth help me hide the bodies? Was a first date too soon for that sort of thing? Yeah, probably too soon.

Plus, Garreth seemed to like how un-homicidally the date had been going up until that point--in contrast, for example, to this one vampire he'd told me he dated a few decades back who thought slaughtering a convent full of virgin nuns was foreplay.

In the end, I didnt have to go track down the steak knives. Garreth took care of things for me. He leaned closer to me and whispered, "You don't mind if I ..."

"What're you two talking about," Jason interrupted, suddenly Mister Jealousy.

Garreth looked at them and his voice dropped into that low, seductive tone. "I was just telling Ray here how very late it is. I bet you two are very tired. Look into my eyes. Yes, so very tired ..."

"Yeah," Jason breathed, staring back at Garreth. "Tired ..."

Tommy nodded and yawned.

"It must be time for sleep. Why don't the two of you go to your bedroom and get ready for a good night's sleep."

"Okay," Jason said. "Bedroom." He and Tommy rose unsteadily to their feet and shuffled off down the hallway.

I leaned in and hissed, "How did you--?"

"I have the seduction powers of both a vampire and an incubus. Puny mortal minds cannot resist me." He smiled to let me know he was joking. At least I hoped that was why he smiled.

"Just promise me never to use those mind-tricks on me. You haven't, have you?"

"Well ..." he cooed playfully, "I havent needed to since that first--"

"Never mind. Question withdrawn."

We folded out the bed. My dick was practically cheering in my pants: Can't wait, now-now-now, please!

Garreth looked at me. "Would you mind if I ...?"

"Down the hall," I said, thinking he needed the bathroom. "You can't miss it." While he was gone, I sat down on the bed. Did vampire-incubus hybrids even need to go to the bathroom? I guess it made sense--that Thai food and beer had to go somewhere.

But I didn't hear the toilet flush.

Garreth strolled back toward me. "Hey, sexy." He climbed onto the bed with me, nudging me with his cheek and shoulder until I lay back under his weight.

His breath, when he teased me with a near-kiss before sending his mouth elsewhere to play over my skin, smelled of mouthwash.

"Uhm, did you ... Jason and Tommy ...?"

"Don't worry about it, handsome," Garreth purred. "Now that I've taken the edge off my hunger, I can concentrate on you."

The air was filled with clothing--shirts yanked off and hurled aside, shoes and socks practically projectiles, belts and pants and underwear flung as if by gale-force winds.

Garreth grinned at my erection and laughed, "Let's see if you mortal men know how to fuck." He rolled onto his back and pulled his legs into the air. I laughed too, but then felt Garreth's smooth ass cheeks against my thighs and jutting cock. His ass was smooth, solid as polished steel. The hardness of it amazed me. Then I was staring down at his crinkled asshole. That position left Garreth's hairless crack wide open and vulnerable. Between the cheeks, the pouting hole convulsed and drooled in little spasms. I rolled on a condom--I didn't know whether humans and vampire-incubi-whatevers could share diseases, but I wasn't going to chance it. I lubed up, planted my cockhead at the entrance, and rubbed it into Garreth's anal maw.

I merely poked my cock at the gaping center, and suddenly it sucked my dickhead inside. The burning heat of his hole, alive with passion, made me gasp. I grinned and shoved. His ass clamped hot around my cockhead and sucked me deeper like a hungry mouth. I shoved, driving my big pole all the way home. Garreth's body bucked. His hole clamped over my cock, and his cock leaped and drooled against his belly. I started to fuck, pulling out and then sliding back in. Garreth angled his butt to get more of me inside as I ass-fucked him.

His body was flushed. He made these little gurgle-sounds while I rammed my cock relentlessly in and out of his suctioning fire-pit asshole. Garreth's cock swelled larger and redder against his belly and jerked every time I thrust my cock up his wet asshole. Knowing I was the cause of that made my dick swell even more too. Then he leaned upward and clamped his lips over mine. His mouth tasted of minty mouthwash. I jammed my tongue between his lips. I rammed into his hole faster and faster while we kissed savagely. I came hard, still kissing him as my balls drained and filled the condom up his ass with my steaming goo.

Garreth pulled his ass off my dick. Grinning, he flipped himself over on top of me before I even knew what was happening. "My turn."

I thought he was going to suck my dick, but instead he reached for a condom.

Before I could stop myself, I blurted, "Hey, what diseases should we ..." Well, fuck, that was an ill-timed mood breaker.

Garreth just laughed as he unrolled the condom over his unflagging erection. "No diseases, but I don't want my cum to turn you."

"Oh. Is that why you won't let me suck your dick?"

"Something like that. Turning someone is a big step. It creates an eternal bond. The one who turns is responsible for the ones he turns, for training them, caring for them, taking responsibility for their actions. I've never turned anyone, and I'm not sure I'm ready for a commitment like that."

Uh-oh. Serious conversation involving naked bodies and the C-word. That little voice in the back of my head was ringing the danger bell, double-time. Time to sidetrack the conversation in my inimitable way. "Hey, Garreth, if you turned me, would I be as sexy as you?"

Garreth laughed again and hoisted my legs into the air. "Shut up," he whispered sexily as his eyes found mine and I felt him doing that vampire-incubus-whatever thing in my head again that had me roaring with lust. "Shut up and let's fuck."

Garreth dropped my spread legs onto his shoulders. I reached down and spread my ass cheeks for him as he placed his cockhead against my hole and pushed.

The head slipped past my sphincter, and the shaft slowly followed. I felt some initial pain, but that soon melted into pure pleasure as Garreth began to pump me. He'd pull all the way back and then push in 'til the head of his dick was getting friendly with my prostate. He pushed his face closer to mine and we kissed.

I opened my lips and stuck my tongue into his mouth, feeling the sharpness of his teeth, letting him know how badly I wanted his hard dick to fuck me harder.

"You really like meat, eh, Ray?" Garrett asked me, slapping his cock in and out of my ass. He already knew I loved it because I was moaning like a bitch in heat. Yeah, sex is even better than an ice-cold Yoo-hoo, and getting fucked by Garreth was the best sex I'd ever had. This was every fantasy I'd ever had come true. Trust his incubus side to know how to fulfill my desires!

"Your butt is sucking my cock," Garreth swore. "It feels great, Ray."

Garreth stuck his tongue down my throat, and I began to suck on it too.

Sweat was flying off me as Garreth fucked me and I pushed back to meet his thrusts, fucking my ass on his dick just as hard as he fucked his dick up my butt. I wasn't sure if vampire-incubi-whatevers like Garreth sweated--he seemed one hundred percent cool and in control. He'd break the kiss and stare deeply into my eyes with that hypnotic gaze of his, then dive in for another kiss, over and over, never breaking his dick-ass fuck rhythm.

My dick hardened again and I stroked it, awash with head-to-toe ecstasy. "I'm close," I groaned, because my shaft and balls were signaling my orgasm was less than a minute away. Make that fifteen seconds away. "Real close."

"Me too, sexy," Garreth hissed through a mouth clenched up with his own pleasure. "Hot ass. Gonna cum."

Garreth looked into my eyes, and I swear I felt him start to cum, like we were connected somehow. In that moment, we weren't human and demon--we weren't even two beings--we were one long burn of sexual bliss.

Can love be "made"? If so, we were a virtual factory.

Garreth gripped my legs, and I felt jets of my sticky juice spurt up between us, and he grunted again, and threw his head back as he buried his cock deeply in my ass and came. Our orgasm seemed to go on forever before he released his grip on my legs.

"That was fucking great, Garreth," I said, as I slowly disentangled myself from him and his semi-hard dick and sprawling out on the mattress as he dealt with the condom and I reached for a towel I'd stashed earlier. I set to work cleaning my cum off my torso. "I can practically still feel you up inside me." This tingly feeling up inside my gut had my stomach muscles still fluttering.

"That's not sex you're feeling," Garreth said ominously. "Ray, I'm so sorry."

"What are you talking about?"

"The condom broke. You have my cum inside you ... Ray, you're going to turn."

"Into what?" Okay, sometimes I'm not so quick on the uptake.

"Well, that depends on your affinity. I'm part vampire and part incubus--you could take after the vampire side, or the incubus, or you could become a hybrid like me. I've never turned anyone before. I'm not sure what you should expect."

I said, "Oh," because, well, what was I supposed to say to that?

"Ray, I'm so sorry ..."

At least we wouldn't have to worry about him being in a relationship with a mortal now.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Hey, does this mean I have to go back to Hell with you?"

"Yes. We'll need to find someone to help you through the change--"

It creates an eternal bond, he had said earlier. Was he sorry because I would be turning, or because he didn't want to be bonded with me? I'm not sure I'm ready for a commitment like that, he'd said earlier. Great. Was he going to find somebody to foist me off on? Do they have Adopt-A-Pet days in Hell? Or a Humane Society for unwanted former humans?

"--and then, once we see where you end up on the vampire-incubus scale, I'll teach you want you need to know. I'll be there for you, Ray. But you can't stay here on earth while you're changing. We'll have to be in Hell before the gateway closes at dawn."

Well, I did say I thought I was destined for more than wasting my life at Qwickie Mart. Hell had to be an improvement. Plus, I already had a lot of friends there--well, acquaintances maybe, but that was more than I had in the human world.

But then I had a sudden thought. "Hey, we can have sex again first, can't we?"

Garreth grinned at me. "I don't see why not."

6.

In the whole time I'd been working at Qwickie Mart, I'd never been down the street to see the Hell portal. Why would I need to? Working at Qwickie Mart was hellish enough. If you've seen one Hell, you've seen 'em all--though Frankie told me the real one was mostly kind of nice. He said it got a bad rap because some of the human visitors got shown the worse neighborhoods as a joke, the places where the damned souls were kept, and then they generalized. Kind of like the people who visit an armpit like Newark and assume that's what all of New Jersey is like. Wait--bad example.

Anyway, the residents let the bad press stick because it kept the pesky tourists away. From what I'd seen of human nature, I kinda agreed with that logic.

With dawn approaching and the fluttering in my stomach turning into little cramps that he said might get worse once I really started turning, Garreth and I stopped by Qwickie Mart on our way to the portal.

Garreth went inside and came back with a pack of red licorice for himself and a six-pack of cold Yoo-hoo for me. "Drink this," he said, handing me a bottle and a straw. "Maybe it'll help you feel better."

Oh, man!--If it wasn't love before, it sure was now. You gotta love someone who cares enough to bring you Yoo-hoo.

"Hey, what about my job? Who's gonna work the graveyard shift?"

"Don't worry about that. I talked to Frankie."

I looked through the window. I saw another "me" leaning up against the counter next to where half-blind Joe was cluelessly ringing up some imps who were buying last-minute Swiss Rolls. That "me" grinned and saluted us with his Slurpee cup.

"He's going to stay here in the human world for a while as you. He's going to 'give notice,' as you call it, and cover your shift until the store hires a replacement."

I wondered whether Jason and Tommy would notice they were living with a flesh-eating Rakshasa instead of me. Probably not, as long as Frankie didn't leave his leftovers in the 'fridge.

I grinned at Frankie through the window and saluted back with my Yoo-hoo.

"Oh," Garreth added, "he also said to tell you, 'Welcome to the family, cuz.'"

Frankie as an in-law? Oh, joy.

Just keep smiling, I told myself. I knew I should have looked up that demon family tree on the Internet. Well, I'd have to worry about that later, because my brain was already thirty seconds from overload.

As Garreth and I joined the line walking down the street to the gateway to Hell, I started thinking about all the things I'd miss. Pizza. Monster truck rallies. Jason's French toast. Yoo-hoo. Man, how would I survive without my Yoo-hoos?

I paused just as we were about to step through the portal, with dawn minutes away. "Hey, Garreth, do they have Yoo-hoo in Hell?"

He smiled and gave me a little kiss on the neck. "No, but I know this great little convenience store ..." Then he led me through.