There are billions of billions of stars spread throughout billions of galaxies in our universe. And, taking on average, about six planets around each star, this would give plenty enough planets for each human that has ever lived to have their own custom made Heaven or Hell. Maybe this is how the system works.
He’d just died. It had been a heart attack; a mounting pain followed by blessed relief. Now he was elsewhere. It was not burning hot, nor was it full of exalting angels surrounding a gateway, in which stood St. Peter taking names. It was just a place. There was ground beneath his feet, and sky above. The sun was shining overhead- not too hot, though. There were no birds; no animals; no people or their civilization. There were a few trees dotted about here and there. The grass was short and smooth. The gentle breeze gave the day a pleasant, early autumnal feel. The trees were in full bloom, though, which discarded that idea. He was clothed in his normal clothing; a T-shirt, jeans, casual shoes. The only things out of place were himself and the little leaflet on the table in front of him. This was held down by a stone. He read it; it was addressed to him.
You are in Hell. Not the traditional Hell, which does not actually exist, except for nasty and evil people. This is a moderate Hell, although you will discover that even a moderate Hell is an unpleasant place to be. This particular Hell is yours, for all eternity. Until the universe ends, which will be a long time. You will suffer, that is certain that is intended. You are not an evil person, you just haven’t used your given gifts and capabilities for any kind of good.
Well, you have, but not enough. We don’t just give these things away. You are expected to use them properly. You were given enough guidance in your life as to what was the right path, and you didn’t do enough. So, here you are.
A little moral for you. It is torture to give someone a raving thirst, then put a large jug of the sweetest water on a ledge out of reach. Then we give him some tools to make a ladder, but not the equipment to fashion it out of. There may, however, be some materials suitable somewhere in his world to enable him to achieve his goal. The emphasis is on the word “may.” He may search for eternity for this goal, for he would be eternal. An eternity of extreme thirst, with a solution possibly somewhere in his reach. That is what we give to you. Hope.
You have the tools inside you- your personality. You may push it to the limit. It may be enough, but can you be sure? Oh, you have been judged by yourself, the most accurate judge of all. This is called Guilt, and is how you know when you have done, or will do, wrong or right. The accumulation of Guilt has determined the level of your Hell. Yes, this could be a whole lot worse. . .
Not very friendly, he thought. However, then Hell isn’t meant to be. The idea of demons having the time of their lives extracting parts of your body from you with pitchforks and knives is an ancient one, from the middle ages. A society’s view of Hell is going to be based on their current world. Thus, a person from the Bronze age wouldn’t be tortured by a computer. He wouldn’t understand.
His reminiscing was interrupted by a call- a female voice. She was calling his name. He put the leaflet in his pocket and followed the sound of her voice. Through the trees, he travelled, that soon thickened into a forest. Passage became harder, but still the voice called him, more urgently now. He recognised the voice, but wouldn’t dare give a name to that voice. It would be getting his hopes up. Still he travelled, not being bothered by thirst or hunger. Mile after mile she called him still, coaxing him just that little bit further.
Only one person could do this to him, but still he wouldn’t let himself think her name. He wasn’t dreaming this, as the memory of his journey so far stayed in his mind, where as in a dream he would have forgotten within a few seconds. For hours and hours he mindlessly followed the calling. It seemed to him it was the opening gambit in a game, a game that may stretch for all eternity. He had to go through with it- it was instilled in him to follow.
Suddenly the forest finished and he emerged, cut and bruised, into a clearing. This clearing was roughly circular and about a mile across. In the centre was a little hillock, on the top of was placed a grandiose chair. Looks like a throne, he thought as he approached. Sitting in this chair was the caller. As soon as he saw who it was he felt a surge of sexual desire electrify throughout his body, accompanied with nervousness and fear. It was her. It was his first mind-blowing love, in the flesh. The woman he’d fallen in love with- she’d gone to the top of his mental charts on appearance alone some years ago. She looked as he remembered she looked, as well as he could for the memory had distorted over the years, and it all came back.
“Heather!” He called, afraid that she would leave him for so long again. She stood up, said nothing, and walked slowly down the hillock to him. She wasn’t wearing any sexually stimulating clothes, such as a one-piece leather body suit, just the plain practical, average clothes she normally wore when he had been with her. She had never been dressed any other way when he had been with her. She wasn’t one to show off her body, but that didn’t matter to him. If she had, he’d possibly have exploded with overload. She was still 5 feet 10 inches; she was still a shou lder-length natural blonde; she still looked a lot like Sharon Stone did in the film Sliver, although after some time he came to regard Sharon Stone as looking like Heather; she still looked serious, as if she’d thought too much about life; and she was looking at him without moving her gaze as she walked. He was frozen to the spot, like a rabbit caught in headlights. All the old fears came back to him. He wanted to run, in case she gave him a mouthful for just being there. He’d never wanted to upset her, and so took no risks. It was a dilemma, and he normally resolved it by avoiding the issue. Better the image in his head, then the reality. The last time he’d possibly had the chance to see her he’d turned it down, and left, because he was frightened of her. He was impossibly attracted to her, and yet the pedestal he’d put her on- even when he was with her week in, week out- had distorted his image of the person. He knew that she was just a human being but to him she was, at times, an angel.
Heather approached him, with that almost scowl on her face. He’d seen it too often to know that was probably just the way her face was. Almost angrily beautiful. She was 22 years of age, and yet her face was set for life in sobriety, almost frown-like. No mindless silly smiles. No vacant stares. He had seen her smile, and it had almost seemed out of place.
She was now only about twenty yards or so away. He knew she wanted him for some reason, so he was allowed to be there, but still the nervousness flowed. He wanted to rush to her and take her in his arms, to tell her how much he loved and cared for her, but was sure that if he did she would verbally savage him for doing so, so he stood his ground.
Five yards now. Still she hadn’t spoken. He felt as if he would explode. The juggernaut was almost upon the rabbit, and still it hadn’t moved. This juggernaut, with jeans, flat shoes, and cardigan, was now face to face with him. His fear got the better of him and he ran. None of her calling could get him back.
The shame of it.
That evening, sitting behind a large tree, he wondered why he wasn’t hungry, or thirsty. The moonlight was enough to enable him to re-read the leaflet. Somehow he learned that he didn’t need food or drink in Hell. He wasn’t there to eat; he was there to suffer and regret his sins. Now he knew. His ultimate love was the torture. Was he destined to run from her for all eternity? Knowing otherwise, but instinct taking over and him running away with nerves and fear and shame, century after century after wretched century?
He thought back to when her had first met her. It had been an interview for a social skills group at the local hospital. He had been sitting in the waiting room at the foot of a large staircase when this tall blonde woman had come down- can’t be for me- and asked if he was the person she was to interview for the group. The dream, or nightmare, had started there. He’d followed her to a bench in the hospital garden where she’d interviewed him and, feeling that telling the truth was the only way to play this, he told all to her probing and personal questions. All too soon it had all finished, and they’d separated.
A couple of weeks later he’d learned the time of the first meeting. The group was far bigger than he’d expected. There were nearly thirty in the room, in a building about a quarter of a mile from the hospital, arranged in a large circle. Heather had introduced herself and her associate, explaining that she had a fiancée . Maybe she did this to stop potential chat-ups- as the group was mostly male, and she was a pretty young woman. Still, she started taking the group and her intelligence soon came through. The weeks passed, and the number of members of the group dropped. Soon it became more intimate, as people started to know each other. Heather was now taking the group on her own, and it was becoming personal- one to one, not one to group. Walking back to the hospital after one session he’d asked Heather about her large black leather coat. She’d explained where she’d got it from, and how much it had cost, freely enough, but still she didn’t seem fully concentrated on the person she was talking to- it was part of her job, not through choice. She’d talked to the next person a little too readily, or was it just his paranoia and fears?
The weeks passed. The group ended. He’d amassed a collection of notes, but the only thing he remembered from the group was Heather. It was late November . A couple of weeks later he sent her a Christmas card, thanking her for her time and effort. As he was still being assessed for his blood pressure tablets he saw her in the hospital from time to time, and one day she came over and thanked him for the card. She seemed genuinely surprised that he’d bothered. The smile seemed genuine.
In February he received a letter asking if he would like to take part in a follow-up group, with Heather and a different associate. Midway through this second course that associate moved on- it was planned- and Heather took the final few weeks on her own. It was during this second set of meetings that he fell hopelessly in love with her. She let lose little snippets about herself- such as when she formally introduced herself to the group she said that she had a boyfriend, not fiancée. His heart leapt; she was downgrading him! Also she said that she was a bit of a prude- again his heart leapt as at times he felt that life was producing too many annoying things and he was becoming a bit of one himself. She also admitted to liking 80s music, which again resonated with him. But the final give away was the final meeting. All the night before he’d been thinking of ways to touch her (in a way more than a hand shake)- a simple “may I stroke your cheek?” or even a small peck on the cheek. It turned out that at the end of the meeting he was talking to her- the only ones in the room- and she took him in her arms. He held her, looking over shoulder down her back semi-looking for her wings! Looking back should he have gently moved in for a kiss, giving her lots of warning what he was planning so she could have moved away? Was it just a goodbye hug, or more?
During that time he’d been writing- very slowly- a SF novel, and had shown what he had written to her. She’d said that he should finish it and get it published, as it was worth it. Well, time passed and late that year he finished it. He tracked her down and delivered her the first completed manuscript at her place of work on Christmas Eve, but when asked if he’d like to see her he declined in case she had a go at him for tracking her down- was he stalking her?
He got a card from her a few days later thanking him for the full version and giving her home address, as she was now living back with her parents. He’d written to her at that address but had never got a reply- was it a dupe address just to stop him writing to her at her work?
Anyway, that was five years ago, and still she was his number one. He’d met other girls but somehow none of them lived up to Heather- the legend?
He awoke. She was calling again. He tried to ignore it, but he just had to go and see her. Sure enough, she was in the clearing, as before.
“Why did you run?” She called, when he came into view. Tongue-tied, he looked at her, shuffled a few steps towards her, then the fact that she was raising her voice at him was enough for him to rush away again. “Come back! Please come back!” She called. He ran harder. How he loved her, and wanted to be with her, but he just had to get away.
That night he dreamed she was calling, and woke to find her gently shaking him on the shoulder. How had she found him? It didn’t matter. He took fright and fled, his heart aching for her. Running further and harder into the forest, he thought of why she hadn’t replied to his letters- was it because it had been a medical meeting, the old nursing maxim “Don’t get involved with the patients?”
The weeks passed. He didn’t hear or see her. He was too busy running in the other direction. Oh, how he wanted to walk to her, end up in her arms, be kissed by her, make love with her, but it was like two magnets with like poles- he was repelled by her.
Then the visions(?) started. She was naked, calling, crying to him. There were cuts across her body where she’d walked through the forest and been cut/slashed by the undergrowth. He wanted badly to go to her and heal her pain and wounds, but still his fear held strong.
Then she appeared one morning. “Is this what you want?” She had four breasts. She ran her hands sensually over them. “I grew them just for you! I can be anything for you. Watch me!” Fascinated, he watched as she turned red, grew a forked tail, and her feet turned into hooves. The two horns from her head glinted in the sunlight, and her fanged mouth and luscious lips were inviting him to be kissed lusciously forever. “I’m your horny succubus!” She called. “We can make love for all eternity!”
He woke up with a massive erection, sweating. It had seemed so vivid! The moonlight had given her an unearthly quality. He ran further in the, what he hoped, opposite direction to her. Another night he dreamed that she had massive elfin wings and had flown to him in his hiding place on the other side of the world. She was standing, naked, with her four breasts again, on a rock showing herself off in the morning light. She was eye-burningly beautiful, and he longed for her, but he mustn’t, he just mustn’t. He knew he was becoming more and more irrational as the months past. All his time was devoted to avoiding her, but she came in his dreams, in his vision, or she actually found him- they were becoming all the same. He was torturing himself, with his remembering of her, his imagining of conversations with her, real (in the past) and imagined (the present and future). He talked out loud to her- he apologised to her for running away; he explained his fears; he bellowed his love for her; he cried his love for her, as he drifted into sleep.
His visions of her became more extreme. He dreamt that he was making love with her and that she was a mermaid; that she had six breasts in two rows of three; that she had four legs, like a centaur; that she was a Pegasus centaur, swooping above him, with her six-foot hair and mane sweeping out behind her like a jet trail. Then she was in a nurse’s uniform with enormous breasts straining at the front, or in a rubber outfit with a whip, horse’s tail and high heels. Then she was fully human, and was lying on her back, stimulating herself, groaning and asking him, pleading with him for him to join her.
Then one day he awoke to find he was tied to a tree. She was standing in front of him, normally dressed. No makeup- she hardly ever wore makeup (didn’t need it)- and no fancy outfits or bodies. Just her, waiting for him to wake.
“Right, you can’t run now. I’ve wanted to avoid violence because thats how I am, but I’m suffering, you know, so I decided to try this. If it ends my time in Hell, fine. If I end up somewhere else because of it, fine. I just have to sort this out, for once and for all.
“Heather,” he stumbled. He was fully awake; this was no dream or vision. Somehow he knew that with absolute certainty.
She moved closer. “Yes? What do you want to say?”
Tears seeped out from under his closed eyelids. “I l-l-l-love y-you.”
“And I love you. Unconditionally.” There was the sound of a movement, and he tensed and expected something terrible. \par She was all over him, holding him tight to her, and kissing him all over his lips and face. He opened his eyes to see her eyes leaking tears like a waterfall. He kissed back, expecting maybe the pain- the carrot and the stick? But no, she swiftly reached behind him and undid his wrists, and he automatically reached back, held her close and kissed again. “Are you going to run? Can I untie you?”
“No. And yes.”
She untied him and they hugged and hugged until they both had cried themselves dry. “I found a note,” she said. “It said that I was in Hell. That I should have made better use of my opportunities. And then you appeared, and I wanted to be with you again, but you ran, and when ever I got near you ran. Then one day I found I could change my appearance, so maybe I could be more appealing to you, as I wanted more than anything to be with you. So, I tried anything I could, that I thought would be attractive to men. I know men like breasts, and mermaids, and erotic things, so I tried all of those. I didn’t care if I disgraced myself, or made myself look stupid. Anything at all, because if it worked.” He started to speak, but she laid a finger on his lips. “None of them worked! You still ran, so I tried violence. I had to snap you out of your fear of me. I wasn’t going to eat you, and yet you wouldn’t listen. I’d heard you shouting out that you loved me, and wanted me. I heard the pain and longing in your voice. And yet you ran. Why?”
He told her, the whole story.
“I was prepared to be dismissed, happily, for falling in love with you. But I was in two minds. Had I read you correctly? Would I make an almighty idiot of myself if I made the first move? I’ve been bought up to think that the man should be first to start anything, and that if he didn’t he wasn’t much of a man. I now know thats rubbish, but conditioning by family and friends is a powerful thing.”
He moved her finger. “So, you loved me all along?”
“YES!”
He looked at her and thought for a few seconds, then said. “So, this place was your Hell as well.”
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I was tortured by having my heart’s desire reject me, and you with your fears of being rejected.”
“When did you fall in love with me?”
“When you sent me that card. The first Christmas. No-one had made such a gesture to me like that before. Normally people just took. Same question to you.”
“I think it was when you said you were a bit of a prude. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Either that or when you said you, as a 22-year-old, liked the wrong decade of music.
“I said I was a bit of a prude?”
“Yes. It fitted. You are not a happy-go-lucky bimbo, are you. You’re a serious person. A thinker. I wouldn’t want you if you were an airhead.
“I know I lost a few potential boyfriends by not being too shallow. I don’t work that way. It’s not easy having a brain.
He sighed. “I wish I had one. I might have worked out that you were in love with me. Ah, why didn’t you ever reply to any of my letters or Christmas cards to your parent’s address?”
She looked at him, and a tear trickled down. “Too frightened. Even when you wrote that one that said you loved me- your last letter. I cried, but felt too unsure to reply.”
“Still,” he said, mentally shaking the conversation and himself. “We’re together now.”
“Yes we are. I just wanted to be with you.”
“Same to you.”
“Fancy a bit of love making?”
“Teach me how you like it, so I can do it right for you.” She smiled.
“You silly. I’ll like it because it’s you.”
She removed her top. “How many breasts would you like?” Another pair swelled out beneath her normal pair.
“Two will do fine.” Her extras shrunk back. “Hey,” he added. “Can I do that?”
“I could teach you.”
“Teach me how to make the best possible love with you, and then we’ll work on the extras. She smiled, a full smile with eyes flashing and cheeks rosy. Then they made love.
Once they had mastered the basics of pleasuring each other, it was time for the extras- including the breasts! It was Heaven.
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