“I’ve been afraid of you most of my life, you know.”

“And that’s my fault?” he asks, smoothing the front on his Italian suit. Though impeccably tailored, I find it a tad ostentatious for a morning meeting at Starbucks. Still, I’m not about to comment on the Devil’s attire.

“Technically, no,” I say. “The nun at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic School introduced me to you.”

“Not to me,” he says. “To the concept of me. You Catholics are the absolute worst.”

“Whatever, you’re still the Devil.” I question why I asked him to join me for coffee in the first place.

“I am a fictional character created by man to keep other men from doing things they oughtn’t.”

“Fear keeps people in line,” I agree. “Fictional or not, you’re terrifying.”

“I’ve just dribbled latte on my tie. How terrifying is that?” he says, dabbing a napkin on the stain.

“You do look quite normal. I admit I expected something else.”

“Red horns, cloven hooves, pitchfork?” he says. “Who comes up with this stuff?”

“I had nightmares about you until I was in my 30s,” I say and squirm in my chair remembering the horrific images that filled my nights. “When I was a child, the nuns told me you would visit me unless I sprinkled holy water on my bed.”

“You have grounds for a lawsuit. I bet you’ve spent a fortune on therapy,” he says. “But you say the nightmares have stopped?”

“Yes, for the most part,” I admit.

“Why do you think that’s so?” He’s amused, or so his smirk-smile suggests.

“I’m reclaiming my power,” I say.

“Exactly!” He slams his fist on the table and my arm shoots out, knocking over my coffee. “It’s the powerless who latch onto the idea that they are not in control of their destinies. It’s either follow God or follow Satan.”

“Is Satan a feminist issue?” I ask trying to throw him off guard. The pool of coffee widens and threatens to cascade onto the floor so I mop it up with napkins I’ve snatched from a nearby table.

“Possibly,” he says taking the bait. “Pioneer feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman said, ‘The Devil is a necessary component in male religion because a God without an adversary is inconceivable to the masculine mind.’”

“But what about the evil in the world?” I ask.

“Oh, great. Here comes the tired line of reasoning that I’m responsible for the Holocaust, Jeffrey Dahmer and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers. ‘Let’s blame Satan! Then we can sleep at night!’”

“Then why do those things happen?” I ask.

“Beats me. I’m nothing but a metaphor,” he says. “The human brain must not be wired to accept the horrors men bring upon themselves.”

“People have said evil is the absence of God.”

“Evil is the absence of good,” he counters. “Add another o.”

“Are you saying God doesn’t exist?”

“Do we need a God to be good?” he asks. “Both concepts have no place in the modern world, but who’s going to believe me?”

“I have a tee-shirt that says ‘Satan is a poo-poo head,’” I say. My stomach has stopped lurching. I’m not afraid.

“Brilliant. Whatever makes you feel safe,” he says.

“I am safe,” I say. “That’s why the nightmares have stopped.”

“Then why did you call this meeting?” he asks. He’s disinterested, cutting his eyes to the blonde in the mini-skirt at the counter. “Therapist ask you to face your fears?”

“Curiosity, I suppose. I didn’t come here to do battle.”

“That’s good, because I don’t do battle,” he says. “There is no great struggle between good and evil. There are only the struggles that you create for yourselves and within yourselves.”

“You’re going to be around as long as man is around, aren’t you?”

“Afraid so.”

“I don’t need you around anymore, though,” I say. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he says and gets up to leave. “And sorry about that nun thing. Bummer.”