The Devil's In the Details

Written by Centaur

Chapter One

It was just after 4am when I pulled up to the stoplight at Palm Drive and Beach Road. On my right a misty fog was coming in off the Atlantic Ocean and there was a pink glow around the red light hanging over the deserted intersection. I was dog-tired but contented. I had been working all night finishing up a proposal to get some money from the Feds on a software idea I had. The proposal had to go out tomorrow morning, at the latest, to meet the submission deadline. That's why the all-nighter, but it was done, finally, and now I just had to reproduce it and send it out tomorrow.

As I sat and looked up at the red light I remembered being here four hours ago, at midnight, when this intersection was absolutely full of high school and college kids. It was spring break in Playa Del Sol, Florida and, like most of the East Coast of Florida, we were inundated with young, taut, bouncing, teen-flesh. Beer drinking, naked partying, loud music, and throwing up in the street; all the things for which Spring Break in Florida was famous - or infamous, depending on your appreciation, or lack thereof, for observing the above activities. In my case I just loved it.

By the way, I'm Chris DeLongian, I'm twenty-six, in good shape and I have dark, curly hair and blue eyes. I've lived in Florida my whole life, although I was born on the opposite coast, in St. Petersburg. My folks owned an Italian restaurant so I grew up hanging around a kitchen and talking with all the customers - many of whom were the first generation of Italian parents who had come over from Italy right after the WWII - like mine did. I spent two years studying computer science at a junior college in St. Pete, but I just couldn't seem to settle down into a nine-to-five gig. Along the way though I did manage to get my real estate license so I supported my efforts to build some custom software programs with an occasional house sale - hey it pays the rent and keeps me in pizza. My folks sold the restaurant a couple of years ago and were happily retired into the large Italian community in St. Pete. They'd offered to set me up in something in St. Pete or Tampa, but even though I had recently passed twenty-five I didn't feel any real push to get serious about a career yet. Besides I liked the East Coast, the two hundred miles between us was a nice buffer.

My office is above a tee-shirt shop on Sandpiper Lane just two blocks off Beach Road. The good thing about it is that since it's a converted small house my office occupied the whole upstairs in what was originally the master bedroom. It's a big room with lots of windows and best of all it has a full bathroom with a shower. Also from my desk I have a really nice view of the beach - needless to say an excellent pair of Pentax 12x50 binoculars occupy a prominent place on said desk.

Beach Road is the four-lane road that parallels the very wide, white expanse of sand that makes our little town a preferred destination for partying teens on Spring Break. Well the beach, and quite honestly, a very liberal attitude on the part of the town fathers and local police as to what was appropriate beach wear - let's face it the "breakers" (as we locals referred to them) spend a shit-load of money here. Topless on the beach was totally ignored and even complete nudity after dark was routinely overlooked. Needless to say for someone like me that loved the female form in the twelve to sixteen-year-old age range Spring Break was the highlight of my year. Particularly since the age of the kids on the beach seemed to go down every year. I never figured out where the parents were but young teens seemed in good supply the last few years, hanging out with, and imitating their older brothers and sisters.

Earlier that evening I had been driving back from a quick midnight food break when cute blonde twins crossed in front of me at this very stoplight; both topless, and they couldn't have been a day over thirteen. Their little tits looked like someone had stuck a broomstick in through their backs and pushed their nipples out in front. I had such a hard-on by the time I got back to my office that I had to spend a whole five minutes relieving the pressure before I could get back to work - and picturing those four pointy nipples in my mind I was surprised that it took that long.

My masturbatory reflections were interrupted when a car suddenly pulled up in the lane on my left; looking over at it I was startled. The car was a midnight black Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo with deeply tinted windows. The headlight lenses had a weird red glow from the stoplight. As the light turned green the Porsche made a hard left turn accelerating rapidly down Palm Drive, the turbo whine sounding like the wailing of a thousand lost souls. I got a quick glimpse of the license plate, black like the car with glowing red letters that said GEHENNA. For some inexplicable reason I turned left as well and followed the Porsche. This left turn was going to change my life forever.

About three blocks west the Porsche pulled into the parking lot of the Circle-K convenience store that had closed up a couple of months ago. I pulled in beside the Porsche, stopping about ten feet from the driver's side and getting out of my ancient Toyota Corolla. I stood looking over the rusty top of my car at the low, black Porsche. The engine was idling, a soft throaty bubbling noise coming from its four chrome exhausts. The door opened and a very tall, thin man dressed all in black stepped out of the car; I smelled a faint odor of sulfur and something sickly sweet, like dead flowers. The man had a sharply receding hairline, a pencil-thin moustache and a small, postage stamp sized patch of black hair under his lower lip. His skin was very white, his fingers were long and slender, his fingernails thick and almost pointed. His eyes were black with huge pupils.

"Ahh. Mr. Christopher DeLongian I presume," he said in a rich baritone voice. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Mr. Abaddon," he said, closing the door to the Porsche behind himself.

"How did you know my name?" I asked, glad that there was a car between us, even given that it was a small and very rusty Toyota.

"I know a great deal about you Mr. DeLongian, and about your entire family back several generations actually," he replied, barely moving his thin lips as he spoke. His lips appeared pale and bloodless under the sodium-vapor lights in the parking lot.

"Well what do you want from me? I mean why are you here at this ungodly hour? Is there something that I have that you want?"

"Yes, on both counts. It truly is an ungodly hour Mr. DeLongian, and you do indeed have something I want very much, and I am sure we can strike a deal where you will benefit greatly."

"I think we can assume you don't want to trade cars, and there's not much in my apartment or office that could be of interest to someone that's driving a Porsche that costs three times my annual income. Unless of course you're the Devil and you want my soul," I said with a nervous laugh. He didn't smile.

"Who I am is not really important at this point, but believe me when I say that your 'soul', whatever that may be, is of no interest to me. What I am interested is a gold medallion that fell, quite by accident, into the possession of your great great great grandfather Silvo. The medallion is in a small circular rosewood box that was packed in the crate you received two days ago from your cousin in Italy. The medallion has belonged to me for a very long time, it was stolen many years ago, and I want it back." ......(cont)

.......Read the entire The Devil's In the Details ....written by Centaur.
Copyright © 2008 Centaur. ALL Rights Reserved









This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.


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