Colin & Krupka Accounting is a large city building, boring and gray and tall, filled with people as lively as the desks they work at. Ruth - her passive beauty hidden behind almond-shaped glasses, a charcoal skirt and jacket, her dark hair tied up in a bun - types at her computer, pausing occasionally to scribble a few figures on a cluttered notepad on her desk.

Her office is nice; a moderate, understated room in slate and earth tones, well-stocked with heavy, boring books. Across from her own is the desk of Marie, a woman who shares the office. Ruth adores Marie, a graceful and sunny black woman who always seems to bring cheer to the small office. Her desk is adorned with pictures of her husband and two children. Ruth has often looked at Marie's desk with longing, as her own is plain and organized with nothing but her computer, a cup full of pens, a calculator (always kept straight against the edge of the desk when not in use) and a plastic shelf for important papers.

Marie is away on maternity leave and Ruth is somewhat glad for the emptiness, feeling important at having an office all her own.

Ruth works today with a determined and feverish attitude, fighting the threat of distraction with all of her energy. The keyboard seems to smoke under her fingers as she punches figures in a blur. Having gotten almost no sleep last night, she is now jittery from deprivation and unhealthy amounts of coffee. She had fallen asleep when Satan was making lists of things he can do with his newfound policy and he'd left at sunrise, pausing to tug the covers up to her chin.

Only minutes after Satan left, Ruth's alarm rang.

"Stupid demons," she growled, pulling the covers over her head.

Now she types fervently, resolved to let no thought of the devil enter her peaceful dojo of building numerical dullness.

"Hey Ruth!"

"Ah!" she jerks and her vision snaps up from her work. "Oh, not you."

"Terribly hospitable of you," the devil says, Ruth's reaction not dampening his ebullience.

"What are you doing here? What if someone sees you?"

"They won't," he assures her. "Listen, I've been thinking about last night and those things you said and you're right! And I[base ']ve been hatching all of these fantastic ideas. There's this fellow in Alabama who I'd love to just -"

"Sh!" Ruth holds up a finger, signaling him to stop.

The doorknob turns and she hisses at Satan to get gone. Rolling his eyes, he flickers out of sight as the door opens and the round figure of Jim Dobson saunters in, his chubby face - cheeks pecked with the traces of teenaged acne - focused on a small stack of papers he carries. Ruth fumes slightly - he rarely makes eye contact, something that infuriates her to no end, and when he does, his small, piggy eyes show nothing but weasely condescension. Ignoring his physical toadliness, Jim Dobson is tolerable and tends to give big bonuses at the end of the year.

Even were he continually a demonic reptilian vampire with the courtesy of well-aged bat shit, Ruth is too shy to treat him with anything but the utmost respect.

"Here are those account reports from last month," he says, not glancing away from the papers until they're on her desk, then turns his eyes to scan the room lazily. "Not bad."

Ruth wonders at this. The lethargic fuck never brings paperwork to an employee personally, choosing instead to send forth a cowering intern or mail boy. Feeling pressure on her to do something, she stands, taking the reports from her desk. Perhaps this is a test.

"Thank you, sir," she says. "I'm glad they were... satisfying."

I'm an idiot, she thinks.

He makes no secret of taking a long, healthy look at her breasts before turning his vision to Marie's empty desk.

"Your colleague is still out?" he asks, his voice quieter.

"Yes sir, she won't be back until the end of next month."

"Next month?" he says softly, a cruel edge to his tone. "That's ridiculous."

"She's having a baby," Ruth says, feeling the need to enunciate clearly to give him a better understanding of "baby".

"Highly unprofessional," he shakes his fat head. "Still," he glances up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time. "It must be nice to have the office to yourself."

A test? She speaks carefully.

"Yes sir, I -"

Ruth stops, feeling herself being backed against her desk, her boss's hand on her waist. Her breath catches as he slides his chubby hand down her leg, pausing at the hem of her skirt to change direction and slide it up. Ruth[base ']s hands fly to her skirt, trying to tug it back down.

"It's okay," Jim Dobson says quietly. "You don't need to do anything."

He nudges her into a sitting position on top of her desk, pushing the loose gray skirt further up her thighs. Her heart pounds furiously as she tries to speak, to stop him, but as her voice dies in her throat and her boss sets his hands on her bare knees, pushing them slowly apart, she realizes with a dead thudding in her chest that this will happen and she will be too frightened to stop it.

As his fat hand slides up the inside of her thigh, an explosion takes place in the opposite corner of the room. Both turn to see the devil, rising red and huge in the room, his eyes burning white, his hands growing long claws, his horns sharp and terrible.

Jim Dobson's hands fall away from Ruth as he stares, slack-jawed, at the growing beast in the office, surrounded by flames that lick the ceiling and the walls, burning nothing.

"Hands off," Satan's voice fills the room, huge and commanding, like nothing Ruth had heard from him before.

A blinding flash of light issues from the devil's open mouth and when Ruth's vision is cleared, she is alone in her office with the devil.

"Are you all right?" he asks, resuming his traditional form.

"Yeah, Jesus, what'd you do, you didn't kill him, did you?"

"No," he says, extending a hand to help her hop down from the desk. "I just sent him away."

"To Hell?" Ruth asks, eyes wide.

"Close," he grins. "Detroit."

Ruth tries to conceal a smile.

"I dropped him in the rough part of the gay mecca. He'll be back in a day or so with some bruises and a few embarrassing secrets, if you follow me."

"He sorta deserves it," says Ruth, brushing off her skirt as if some stain of his putrescence lingers there. "Fucking pig."

Satan smiles.

As a very frightened Jim Dobson tries to call for a cab while simultaneously learning that his wallet is missing, His secretary, Frieda - a middle-aged woman with a kind smile and prematurely gray hair - receives a manilla envelope among the usual mail at her desk. She picks up the envelope and inspects the front, on which is printed nothing but 'Miss Frieda Church' in a spidery hand.

With a slight frown, she plucks the letter opener from her side drawer and cuts open the top. She tilts the envelope, letting its contents slither out onto the desk. As she flips through the photographs, all stunningly good quality, her eyes widen in shock at the sight of her boss, in every one of them, caught in flagrante with a very unhappy looking pig.

(Copyright 2003, Kit Fox) (Dave's daughter)
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