Faust's Folly

Taking everything from him was supposed to drive him right into the clutches of humanity's oldest adversary...

Since gaining access to a trust fund upon turning eighteen, Wyatt had lived the life of a multi-millionaire playboy; rubbing elbows with New York's elite and enjoying his status as one of the city's most desirable bachelors. Yet wanting for nothing and bedding a different supermodel for every day of the week always felt hollow to the man raised in poverty by a single mother; so much so that he had taken to engaging in increasingly risky hobbies in hopes of feelinganything.Little did Wyatt know that the death of the father he barely knew, and liked even less, would be the harbinger for all the wealth and privilege he had come to enjoy disappearing overnight. Then came the fateful meeting with a malignant supernatural foe, one with a positively devilish offer.

Following Wyatt's refusal to sacrifice his soul, he finds himself on the verge of homelessness. Left with little alternative, he accepts an offer to perform in a series of adult videos aimed at capitalizing on the last remnants of what little fame he had accrued. Overnight, Wyatt finds himself embroiled in the seedy world of pornography. Beset at all sides by scheming producers, religious zealots, and co-stars who are convinced he is nothing but an entitled brat who will lead them to ruin; the devilish tormenter who lingers at the periphery of increasingly fantastical encounters continues to tempt him. Through it all, Wyatt must fight to escape the doomed fate which constantly seems poised to overtake him... and to perhaps find the happiness which has always eluded him.

Author's note:

All sensuality (on page or otherwise) takes place between characters who are eighteen or older.

One

"Thirty seconds, Mr. Magnussen!" an excited voice called out over the omnipresent static of the radio circuit.

Wyatt Magnussen climbed to his feet and reached for one of the overhead handholds before taking a moment to check himself over. Normally, he would have had a companion to assist in such an examination, but in this instance, he was on his own. Confident all was as it should be, he stalked to the rear of the noisy enclosure.

"Sir," the man waiting for him said sternly. "I must once again notify you that we cannot be held responsible if you suffer a mishap. We are outside of what we consider a safe radius by a considerable margin."

"Noted," Wyatt replied tersely.

"There's no recovery craft if something goes wrong," the man before him pressed. "We'll call the Coast Guard, of course, but there's no guarantee..."

"Time!" the voice over the radio circuit yelped.

"Even for a veteran, it would be a close call at this range!" the man at his side yelped. "If you're lucky, you'll end up..."

Tired of the judgement and recriminations. Wyatt removed his headset and clapped the stern looking man on the shoulder as he handed it over. He offered a single parting smile before he stepped past the man and into the void.

Arching his back at once to complete his roll, he managed to orient his body in the same direction in which the plane had been travelling (hopefully without shedding too much velocity). Stretching his arms and legs, he immediately felt the wingsuit he wore bite against the frigid air five thousand meters above the unforgiving North Atlantic below him. He easily spotted the cost of New Jersy, precisely sixteen kilometers to the northeast, and focused on shaping his body into as near a perfect wing as possible.

The head-up display in his goggles, which was connected to a telemetry pack he wore on his helmet, informed him he was travelling at nearly one-hundred kilometers per hour: certainly a respectable figure for someone who had only done four previous wingsuit jumps. It was not, however, enough for him to reach the beach and avoid an undeniably uncomfortable, and possibly deadly, swim in the chilly late autumn waters below him. Calling upon his admittedly limited training, he stretched his body until his core muscles screamed in protest. He was quickly rewarded, however, by a green icon flashing in his display which suggested that he would reach land so long as the wind did not shift.

By the time Wyatt deployed his chute, his display had so many flashing warning icons that he could barely see the beach five hundred meters below him and still at least one hundred meters to his north. He felt the familiar jerk of his chute arresting his fall, made more severe by the fact that he had not shed his forward momentum before deployment. This had the silver lining, however, of yanking him closer to the shore and he managed to land without injury in the breakers just a stone's throw from his target.

As he climbed from the water, he was grateful there was no riptide as it certainly would have grabbed hold of his chute and yanked back out to sea. As he reeled in his equipment, he heard a commotion from behind him. By the time he had his soaked (and suddenly quite heavy) chute rolled up in a small pile on the beach, a small crowd had gathered.

He turned to face them and knew at once that he had found the right house, despite his rather unconventional entrance. The man closest to him was wearing a suit that likely cost more than all of the gear Wyatt was wearing and had the wristwatch and hairstyle to compliment his attire. The women who adorned each of his arms wore extensive (not to mention expensive) jewelry and had hairstyles which likely took hours to fashion; yet neither of them wore a stitch of clothing.

Looking around, Wyatt saw the pattern repeated a dozen times with each well-dressed man accompanied by an average of two-point-four nude companions. The women were varied in color and curviness but were all between the ages of (he hoped) eighteen and twenty-five. The men demonstrated an anti-bell-curve distribution where, with one notable exception, they were all either in their early-thirties or old enough to qualify for their pensions.

The lone hold-out to this pattern was a bald man in his mid-forties. Upon spotting him, Wyatt approached and hugged the man enthusiastically. The object of his affection quickly wormed his way from Wyatt's grasp, grunting, "Dick," as he finally extricated himself. He shook himself briefly before adding, "God dammit, Wyatt! You're fucking soaked. Now I'm going to have to change."

"Sorry," Wyatt retorted, not at all contritely.

"You're such an asshole. Why couldn't you have taken the car we sent for you?"

He grinned almost manically as he divested himself of the sodden wingsuit and stripped down until he was wearing nothing beyond a not-very-modest swimsuit. He enthused, "This was more fun," as he walked past the man who shared his dark blue eyes toward the opulent mansion on the other side of the dunes.

Wyatt heard the zombie-like shuffling of the assembled vice-president of something-or-other's and aspiring models behind him as he approached the house, but the sound of their footsteps was soon drowned out by the music blasting from the pool deck. Even from nearly one-hundred meters distant, Wyatt estimated there were upwards of fifty partygoers in and around the pool. He suspected the neighbors might have harbored the hope that the approach of Halloween might mean that the weekly parties, which had been going strong since Memorial Day, would begin to taper off. However, the combination of a heated pool and a proliferation of propane-powered heaters ensured that the revelry had no end in sight, despite temperature in the mid-teens.

As Wyatt crossed the pool deck, he had to dodge two different couples actively engaged in varying levels of intimacy, the latter of which resulted in the young woman who was being double penetrated (by two men who had apparently refused to remove their suits before engaging in coitus) grabbing frantically for Wyatt's crotch. He heard her wistful sigh as he evaded her grasp and silently wished her many orgasms and a soft place to sit for the upcoming week.

Upon entering the house, Wyatt headed immediately upstairs while doing his best to ignore the Dionysian scene in the expansive common area. His firm commitment to keeping his head down quickly backfired when a thundering sound preceded an expanse of flesh slamming into him. Grunting in surprise, he looked up to find an out-of-breath woman with fiery red hair and a glob of what looked suspiciously like semen beneath her right eye.

She smirked and giggled, "Sorry," before squeezing around him and scampering toward the pool.

Wyatt managed to make it to one of the smaller bedrooms on the third floor without encountering any further bodily fluids. He entered a code on the keypad which looked out of place on an interior residential door, but he had found it necessary to install after finding strangers in 'his' room on consecutive weekends the preceding spring.

He bypassed the king-sized bed and sitting area to find his way to the large en-suite bathroom. He kicked off his swimming briefs and stepped into the shower to wash off the salt and sand. The nearly scalding water felt luxurious after his brief dip in the decidedly cool waters off Long Island.

Emerging from the shower, Wyatt gave brief attention to his appearance. He detested the hairstyles favored by many of his contemporaries, which required massive amounts of gel and spray to sculpt unnatural formations which he felt made them look more like comic book sidekicks than men. Instead, he just ran a comb through his short blonde hair a few times to achieve the hairstyle his friends called the Maximus. He also ignored the rack filled with colognes which had been provided by his father's valet without bothering to find out that Wyatt had never had the need for such obfuscations. Even deodorant was something for which he had never found any use. In his late teens, he had been told by a doctor that his biochemistry was such that, while he sweated as much as other men, the bacteria which normally accounted for body odor could find no purchase on his body.

He dressed in a fashion which fell between the two extremes demonstrated by the other attendees of the party: choosing fashionable dress pants and an open collar button-up shirt. The outfit did a remarkable job showing off his lean one-hundred-eighty-five centimeter frame without obscuring his well-defined chest and arms. He skipped the cufflinks, choosing instead to roll his sleeves up even though he knew his father abhorred the practice.

Emerging from his sanctum, he sought out his father's private office. He glanced at his watch (which would have made a Formula One driver do a jealous double-take) to see that he was a few minutes early for his appointment. Knowing his father was nothing if not a stickler for maintaining a schedule, he paused on the fourth-floor landing to wait.

As he stood, he looked out over the teeming masses of revelers. He spotted a few obviously embarrassed wives who were likely attending their first (and last) of Wayne Magnussen's infamous parties and learning just how little concepts like shame and fidelity meant to his father's friends and employees. Wyatt suspected that not a few marriages would either end in the coming weeks or be redefined as women who decided they were fine with being business (as opposed to romantic) partners found themselves in possession of shiny new trinkets which could be shown off to their 'friends'.

He heard a shout and glanced in the direction of the sunroom to find two nude men squaring off while a trio of similarly dressed women (who he recognized at once) looked on with delighted interest. Wyatt shook his head sadly. Having sampled the women in question, nineteen-year-old triplets who were steadily making their way through the ranks of New York's playboys, he had little doubt they had made it clear that their affections could only be purchased in blood. The triplets had tried to employ a similar tactic while attempting to ensnare Wyatt. He smiled at the memory of their fury at being told they were not worth the effort, and how slavishly they had pursued him once they realized he was immune to their charms. His smile faded, however, when he remembered how their initial anger over his refusal to participate in their power play had paled in comparison to their borderline illegal behavior after he made it clear that their evening of shared pleasure was a one-time event.

Wyatt's watched buzzed with the notification that the time of his appointment had arrived, prompting him to turn away from the burgeoning altercation below. He strode through the antechamber to his father's private office where a pair of glass-topped desks flanked the door to the office itself. At each desk sat a stunningly gorgeous nude woman, like the Praetorian guard from a fifteen-year-old's wet dream. He glanced at them in turn, ignoring their nudity. He suspected this was a departure from many of his father's visitors who either leered at them or tried to pick them up.

Having grown accustomed to his father's increasingly wild antics over his nearly three decades of life, Wyatt merely said, "Afternoon, ladies. Is he ready for me?"

The woman on the left said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Magnussen. Mr. Magnussen is still with his previous appointment, but he asked that you join him when you arrived."

"Do I need a raincoat?" Wyatt quipped.

The woman on the right smiled brightly. "Now, Wyatt. You know Mr. Magnussen doesn't encourage us to speculate on such things."

"Indeed," he replied softly as he passed between them.

The door opened as he approached, thanks to a switch one of his secretaries had pressed. The moment the seal on the door was broken, he heard loud feminine moaning which, unless his ears deceived him, was coming from more than one source. He took a deep breath, steeling his features lest he once again have to endure a lecture about displaying his 'weak emotions'. Upon rounding the corner into his father's office, he saw a handful of men seated on a pair of couches facing each other. On the far end of the couches, his father sat in an easy chair sipping what Wyatt knew was likely a scotch with just enough cocaine stirred in to 'make things interesting'.

On the table which sat in the middle of the group of executives was a pair of women who were actively engaged in coitus. Wyatt sighed to himself and used the presence of a bar to give himself an excuse to ignore the show, at least temporarily.

"Wyatt!" his father's voice boomed behind him. "Glad you could make it."

"Father," Wyatt replied over his shoulder as he muddled some bitters into a sugar cube before adding some rye which was quite literally worth its weight in gold.

He felt the approach of his father and took without outward reaction the expected jolt to his shoulder from his father's enormous hand slapping down on him. He turned to look at Wayne Magnussen and offered him an only somewhat forced smile.

"Happy birthday," Wyatt said sincerely as he studied the man before him.

Despite being nearly forty-five years Wyatt's senior, Wayne looked scarcely a day over fifty. He stood at nearly two full meters, with the same jet-black hair and mustache he had had for Wyatt's entire life. He had shed his suit jacket, showcasing that he had the muscles of a bricklayer.

Wayne's hard, dark grey eyes bored into Wyatt as he said, "So? What do you think?"

"Of what?" Wyatt answered carefully.

"The floor show. Did you see how big that... it's... cock is?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Wayne gestured back toward the women having sex. As a confused Wyatt turned to look, he realized that one of the women was trans and did indeed sport an impressive erection. He turned back to his father and angrily said, "It?"

"Like I can keep up with this stupid fucking pronoun bullshit. Seems Simpson over there has a taste for... whatever you call them. So, I decided that we'd do a field test to find out what all the fuss is about. If you stick around, you can watch it fuck Simpson in the ass."

Wyatt glared at his father for several long moments before finally saying, "You really are a contemptible bastard, you know that? I mean, just unredeemable in every possible way. I genuinely can't imagine what my mother saw in you, even if it was only for one night. I came to this fucking thing because I was told you had something important you wanted to discuss with me, but when I get here all you've got for me is hateful, bigoted bullshit on top of your normal detestable parade of horny sycophants and brain-dead drug addicts? Don't invite me to any more of your fucking parties, Wayne. In fact, don't contact me again. I've fucking had it with you."

"Wait!" Wayne called out as Wyatt angrily fled from the room.

Wyatt ignored him and kept walking until he had exited the front gate and stood shaking with rage on the private road upon which the house sat. He stood fuming for several minutes, willing his blood pressure to lower before he allowed himself to consider his next move.

He heard the gate behind him open and turned to spot the man who he had affectionately attacked on the beach, now notably wearing a fresh suit. Wyatt sighed wearily and muttered, "What are you doing here, Wilson?"

The oldest of Wyatt's half-siblings glared at him and said, "What the fuck did you do? Dad's fucking furious."

"I told him the truth. Shocking, I know. What'd he do, send you out here to punish me?"

"If only I could," Wilson grunted.

"I'm done with him. This was the last fucking straw."

"Why? Because of the tranny?"

"That's enough!" Wyatt barked. "I won't deck an old man for hate speech, but you're fair fucking game."

"Fine," Wilson said, his hands raised in surrender. He waited several long beats before adding, "You will, however, need to apologize to that old man, as you call him."

Wyatt glared at him and said, "Never."

"He brought you here today to offer you a job. It's time you took your place in the family business and started learning the ropes."

"Just like you did?" Wyatt sneered.

"Your trust fund won't last forever, not with all your extreme interests. What then, Wyatt? You dropped out of high school the day you turned eighteen and you don't have anything approaching a marketable skill. What he's offering you means you get to continue living a life of luxury forever. It's not like he'll even make you work that hard. He just needs someone he can send to the occasional meeting to wine and dine a particular subset of potential business associates. One's who would be particularly susceptible to your particular brand of charm."

"You mean he wants me to seduce them," Wyatt observed darkly.

"There are worse things in life than having been born with the body of a Greek god. It's not like he's going to send you out to seduce pensioners out of their reverse mortgages. He's willing to put in writing that you won't be required to bed anyone over forty-five. Fifty tops."

"You two are fucking unbelievable," Wyatt snapped as he began walking west along the private road.

"What about his offer?" Wilson called out behind him, but Wyatt did not deign to offer a response.

Two

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" the twenty-something woman with long dreadlocks and a breathtaking affinity for body modifications asked as she stared at Wyatt through the rearview mirror.

Wyatt looked at her tolerantly and said, "I've done some commercials which you might have seen." It was his stock response to being recognized as it had the dual benefit of being both true, thanks to some questionable decisions made in his early twenties to capitalize on his relative level of fame, and misleading.

He stared out the window rather than what he suspected was the more normal behavior of purveyors of rideshares: staring at their phones. He had a smart phone, of course, but he had developed a healthy mistrust of them when several acquaintances had fallen victim to hacking. As a result, he only used his phone when absolutely necessary, and never for things like social media.