FOR SALE, BY OWNER

Chapter 1: This Is Business, Not The Want Ads

It was Friday, and I was about ready to tear my computer into miniscule shreds of irony. Don’t they always say that your computer does what you tell it to, but the problem is that you don’t tell it to do what you want it to do? If that’s true, then I must be really confused, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell my computer to send off fifty identical emails, and I’m very sure that that’s not at all what I wanted it to do.

I wanted it to shut down. But we can’t always get what we want, now can we?

Seething at the stupid lump of metal, I feverishly clicked the ‘x’ button in the corner of my email box, eyes locked on the ‘sending’ message in the middle of the screen. Was the program trying to annoy me? The little receiving-box picture kept burping out smiley faces.

I wanted to shoot it. Three rounds to its cheerful, smiley-face head.

I flung my forehead against the computer screen as I moaned, “Why does this always happen to me?”

My answer, of course, was that it was Friday.

--

Let me explain a little bit. Fridays and I have never gotten along. I’m always cheerful on Thursdays, as if by acting especially perky I could somehow distract the wave of Friday un-luck that never fails to mow over me. Every Friday, unceasingly, bad things happen to me.

I wake up in the morning with a mind-crushing headache, like bass beats are throbbing through my gray matter and minor warheads are crashing into my skull.

I’m late for school, and as I race for the door, I step in a convenient mud puddle and the water races up my legs. My jeans never dry off, so I spend the entire day with wet denim clinging to my soggy, freezing calves.

I forget a homework assignment. Either I leave it at home, or I don’t notice it on my syllabus, or I never printed it out… something will invariably cause problems with homework. This sometimes happens in multiple classes, and I often feel like ripping my own hair out and screeching like a harpy. Unfortunately, this would make my headache even worse, so I deny myself the satisfaction.

And then, a million other tiny things will go wrong. I’ll buy the wrong ticket for the bus. I’ll trip over my own feet in front of the people I most want to impress. I’ll stub my toe on an inanimate object. I’ll bite my tongue in the middle of a presentation. I’ll forget to brush my hair. When I get home to relax, the TV will turn on with a Tyra re-run, and I’ll learn all over again how best to complement my ‘natural beauty.’

The mirror is right next to the TV.

With all this Friday havoc, you can see why I’m a bit cynical. Jaded around the edges, if you will. I’d like to think that fate exists, or that someday I’ll grow up and fall in love with the perfect man for me and get married and travel the world and save starving children in Africa. I’d like to think that someday I’ll be happy. But honestly, I’m not a faithful person, and I’ve seen nothing to prove those nice dreams could be real.

That’s why I joined up with the markets.

You see, the markets are a perfect place for creative, cynical people like me. They’re where the human race trades in ideas. We sell—for exorbitant amounts—the things that don’t exist. We commerce in unrealities: in the things that could happen, but never do. The markets are where I freed myself from the unrelenting depression of a job search and started making real money. (Ever since my parents and I grew apart, I’ve worked on providing for myself. You wouldn’t believe how humiliating it is to ask them for money to buy my own clothes.)

So, for the faithless human race, the online markets are the best place to go for new possessions. People buy houses, they buy cars, they buy land, they buy companies, they buy animals. People live to possess things, to be able to say ‘that’s mine’. They want to be justified in their selfishness. So, then, for all those rich moguls who would be willing to buy air if you could guarantee that they’d be the only ones to breathe it, selling ideas is a profitable venture.

I can make up a zebra-animal that has purple and green stripes on a white body, golden hooves, and can dance better than the people in Rio, and suddenly, I have money from the rich guy who’d like to tell all his friends, ‘Look what I came up with! Isn’t it great?’

It doesn’t bother me. The dancing zebra was a stupid idea anyway, and he paid me for it. It’s his, and his money is mine. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

So that’s how I got hooked on the markets. Every few nights, I’d boot up the laptop and make up a few crazy ideas. I’d write long descriptions and invent fantastical worlds that people could lose themselves in.

They paid me even more for those.

And that’s how it came about that on Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my computer, waging a virtual war with my inbox, and wondering whether my laptop had been possessed by the Devil.

And that is how I got the idea.

Pretty soon, I’d forced my computer to shut down, (little thing called a ‘power button’) booted it back up, clicked open my browser and started a description in the markets. Headline: The Devil.

I made up a description, vivifying the hierarchies of hell, the heat and the chaos. I wrote of how magma flames burst upwards, blooming so close that your cheeks could feel the burning kiss of disintegrating air. I described the spires of Hell’s palace, the milling shadows of its busy streets, and then I began to describe the Devil.

Let me intervene here and tell you that there are only two rules when you’re in the markets.

1. All ideas submitted must be original, no repeats, no faking, no clichés.

2. All ideas submitted must not exist.

And that was why, when I pressed the keys, when I began to write about the Devil, I felt a firm tap on my shoulder and my screen went dark.

I turned to meet the eyes of a young man, probably in his teens, with obsidian-black hair and a polite inquiry on his lips.

“May I ask your name?” he requested.

That was when I realized that I wasn’t seeing things, that he was really there. And that meant that the horns…

Yes, he had two thick ram horns jutting from either side of his head. And if he was real, that meant that they were real. I began to feel a little faint.

“Are you…” I began, but stopped. His eyes were watching me closely, and I vaguely recognized that they looked a little strange. The color was off…

“Your name?” he prompted.

“Kali,” I whispered, starting to hyperventilate. I was panicking, I told myself. My body was going into convulsions and my heart rate was increasing dramatically while my consciousness was floating somewhere outside me, observing apathetically as if I were an impartial witness to my own horror.

“You may call me Bel,” he told me, eyes alight. And that was when he smiled, showing all of his sharp, pointy teeth.

I watched my body faint, and then my consciousness collapsed.

--

I was only out for about thirty seconds, according to the clock, but I kind of wished it was longer. Then I wouldn’t have to be dealing with this freaky kid right this minute. Maybe I could delay it for a few hours. Maybe he’d get bored.

Yeah, right. And I’m lucky. It’s not really a Friday, it’s actually a Saturday and Fridays have been forever removed from the calendar.

Have I mentioned I’m not lucky? Not at all? Not in the slightest teensy weensy little bit?

Yes? Good.

It was Friday, I had just fainted, and there was a creepy boy with horns and pointy teeth sitting at the end of my couch and staring at my death-white face. I had the audacity to wonder where all my blood had gone to, and then realized from the throbbing in my head (headache, remember?) that no, it was still there. Owie.

The kid raised an eyebrow when he saw me stirring. In a detached voice, he asked, “Do you faint often?”

I made some kind of a strangled reply, which probably sounded like a frog being asphyxiated and then drawn and quartered and dragged along a gravel road behind a speeding bicycle.

Ahem. My mind gets a tad more creative when I’m terrified beyond all inhibitions.

So, as I’ve established, there was a kid on the end of my couch. He had horns and pointy teeth. He had a sweet pair of Vans. (No, really. They were amazingly cool. All pinstripe-y and things. There were starbursts all over the heels.) He was staring at me curiously, and I noticed once again that his eyes were a little off. I couldn’t figure it out, because they were a normal muddy brown, and his pupils were, you know, human. Aren’t monsters supposed to have scary eyes? Like cats, or something?

“I’m going to assume that was a ‘yes’,” the boy said, breaking into my thoughts. “Like I said before you crashed,” he continued, “You may call me Bel. I’m the Devil. And your name is… Kali. Kali, as in the Hindu goddess of destruction?”

I choked.

Er, excuse me, could you repeat that last bit? Did you just say you were THE DEVIL?

Why yes, I did. Now I’m going to eat you. CHOMP.

I gulped. “Erm, y-yeah.” Oh Christ. “She’s er, uh, more complicated than that, you know.” The line I was so used to attaching to my name after people asked about it somehow seemed irrelevant and petty. I couldn’t drag my terrified eyes from his face, or stop my mind from wondering when those sharp teeth were going to come after me like a juiced-up shark attack. Dun-na. Dun-na. Dun-nananananananana…

“Do I? Whatever. I don’t like gods and goddesses anyway.”

Anything to keep him talking. “Why is that, by the way? I mean, why did you fight with God?”

He sneered. “He couldn’t accept my religious view.”

“Which is?”

“Atheism.”

Disbelief pounded through me, destroying all sense of caution. “What? You had God in front of you, and you decided to be Atheist? Are you an idiot?”

He smirked. “No, just clever. They’re often perceived to be the same thing.”

My last thought before I passed out once more was, Well, that was different.

--

I awoke to a restless demon in my living room. His position was alternating, shifting from standing in front of me and tapping his foot, to sitting beside me, to leaning in to analyze my vacant expression, and back to standing and tapping again. He performed this sequence about 4 times by the time I snapped out of my worried trance and woke up to reality. The Devil was in my house, waiting for me to say something.

What should I do? What do you normally do when an unexpected guest drops in? As if normalcy had anything to do with this situation. You ask them if they want anything to eat or drink, that’s what you do first.

Oh, God—what if he was hungry? Would he eat me? Would he be more interested in a nice, juicy steak, or would that just make things worse? My scared eyes flickered up to check his expression for signs of hunger, and that’s when he caught me. As soon as my stony face shifted, his body paused, his head turned, and his eyes narrowed.

Now I knew what was wrong with them. Rather than being blood red like you think a demon’s should be, they were more of a rust color, kind of a happy candy color. His candy-coated pupils noticed my gaze right away, and instantaneously I found myself in another trance, unable to break the connection with him.

Soon he was kneeling in front of me, hands on my knees and face way too near mine, staring inquisitively into the back of my head. I wanted to draw him off, to keep from ending up like those gummi bears you always bite the heads off of first. Please, God, I prayed, if you keep him from biting off my head, I will never eat another gummi bear ever again. God was with me that day. While all I could manage in the way of distraction was an “Um,” he got the hint and leaned back a little bit.

“You may call me Bel,” he decided, the pools of naïve-automobile-left-to-the-mercy-of-the-weather still seized on mine. He was like a shark, I thought. Or no, he was more like a Navy submarine. I could hear the calls of ‘Radar!’ and ‘target locked’ in my mind now. His face was still empty, waiting, processing information as I gave it.

“Hi,” I managed, feeling more than a little overwhelmed. His erratic moods confused me—one minute he’d been demanding, and careless about the opinions of God, and now he was sitting here like his every action depended on mine. “I’m Kali.”

“You said,” he reminded me, still watching patiently.

“Um.”

“You said that, too.” At this a quirk of a smile flittered in the general area of my mouth. I did my best to quell it, but he saw it and apparently decided that I wasn’t going to faint or die or something. He gave me a satisfied smile and stood up, looking down at me from his higher elevation.

“Can I ask you a question, Kali?” he asked.

“Sure?” I responded tentatively, dread still curling in my gut.

“Is there any reason you insulted me?”

I stared up at him cluelessly. “You mean, by trying to sell you?”

“You realize that you not only tried to sell me, but by doing so you insisted that I didn’t exist. You’ve basically claimed that I have no right to be alive, and therefore, no right to rule. This creates problems for me. Would you understand if I told you I was extremely angry at you?” His blazing eyes turned to me. “Do you understand me, Kali?”

I squeaked in fear, his eyes petrifying me. Bel fell silent and walked to the opposite side of the room, apparently trying to control his anger. I trembled from my place on the couch.

A few minutes of silence went by, in which Bel paced alongside my bookshelves and I sat fretting, worrying the worn threads of my sofa cushions. I couldn’t help the scenarios that his angry gaze had sparked: numerous scenes of him tossing a fireball and setting my house alight, of him dragging my screaming body to Hell and dooming me to toil like Sisyphus, of him eating me alive. From the other side of the room, he sighed, apparently releasing his boiling temper. At this, I could no longer restrain my morbid curiosity, and a question fell tingling from my lips.

“You’re not hungry, are you?”

Bel turned civilly to me and said, “If you’ll show me where your kitchen is, I think I can fend for myself.”

Watching Bel cook was like watching the Superbowl and Alton Brown combined. How that makes sense, I don’t know, but it was definitely fascinating, and definitely a spectator sport. There was no way I was coming between him and his food. He ended up making a stir fry, where he lit the gas stove with a sigh and coaxed the flame higher than I’d even seen it go. I didn’t think you were supposed to be able to get a three-foot high flame out of a kitchen range. His vegetable-cutting methods were also rather unorthodox, as he didn’t bother with a knife but instead sliced the carrots with one measured, precise thrust of about a billion tiny, sharp bristles that grew out of his knuckles when he glared at them. I sat on a bar stool, speechless, though that was hardly surprising, given my previous reactions to his mere presence. Finally, he was finished with all his bizarre methods and sat down beside me, presenting a plate full of perfectly cooked and seasoned vegetables and noodles for each of us.

“No meat?” I asked, wondering if I had the good luck for the Devil to be vegetarian. He obviously heard the hopefulness—and relief—in my voice, because he replied with a dangerous, indulgent smile and murmured, “No. I didn’t want to upset you.” I could see the laughter in his eyes as he turned to devour his food. I ate more slowly, until Bel impatiently asked, “Are you going to finish that?” I slid the half-empty plate over to him and watched as he consumed it with a speed and grace I would have thought impossible. Unfortunately for me, there’s not much that’s impossible when you’re around Bel.

For example, I thought it was impossible that I could ever grow used to his presence. I thought that I would always be jumping when he came in to the room, that the hairs on my arms would leap and my legs would shiver at his proximity. But after only two weeks of living with him constantly moving around me, I got used to his flow. If I didn’t see him for more than half an hour, I had to go looking for him. If he sat down beside me or leaned over my shoulder, I’d find myself snuggling into him or resting my head against his. And every time, I’d ask myself, how did this happen?

I didn’t understand why Bel was here, or how long he’d be here for. I didn’t understand why my parents never came home and why I wasn’t worried about them. I didn’t understand why I didn’t go to school, and why no one called to tattle on me about absences. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but for some reason I never bothered to. All I wanted to do was to soak up Bel’s aura, to listen to his unearthly voice.

One day he let me run my fingers along his rough horns and touch his fangs. I pricked my finger, one single drop of blood staining his snow-white canine. His eyes lit up and he grinned lazily at me. I felt a thrill of fear and stiffened on his lap, but his gentle arm locking around my waist counteracted the tremors up my spine when he told me I tasted delicious in the most threatening sort of way possible.

I constantly had to remind myself that this was the Devil I was dealing with, not some sort of human-like demon. Even demons were dangerous, but this was the Devil himself! Why wasn’t I more worried, why wasn’t I fighting his intoxicating effect on me? Why wasn’t I bolder, more confident? What was wrong with me?

Finally, I felt his spell relax. I straightened from my book with a thankful sigh and Bel looked at me curiously from where he was planted in front of the window.

“You can feel it?” he inquired, eyebrow raised.

“Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to be staring at you doe-eyed for the rest of my life!”

“I didn’t mind,” he responded, amusement lighting his features.

“Of course you didn’t, you’re a male,” I replied, too grateful for release to care about the effect of my words. I finally had my confidence back.

“How do you know?” he asked, with a mischievous smile. I ignored him. He kept talking after he saw that I refused to acknowledge his challenge. “Anyway, the Curtain is finally up. I can get mad at you now.”

“Curtain?” I asked, curiously. Yes! I could finally ask questions!

“It’s the Devil’s curse,” he replied, “the… ‘present’ God gave me after that atheism remark. Every time I ‘meet’ an Earth-being, I have to endure 13 days of peace. Pure, untainted, disgusting, vile harmony!” he spat.

“Hey, you finally sound like a demonic being!” I congratulated him. He stared at me wryly.

“You know, what’s disappointing is that I don’t think I can damn you now,” he said slowly.

“Oh. How… unfortunate,” I provided, trying to look helpful. I failed. He laughed.

“I almost like you. I hate it when God’s miracles actually work.”

“Er, don’t they always work?”

“Exactly.”

I couldn’t help laughing at that. Tears came to my eyes and my head fell back against the couch. I heard Bel’s deep chuckle join me, and then my head bounced into something that was definitely not the couch. I looked up to see Bel’s blurry shape, a mix of blacks and skin tones. His grin flashed at me and I realized that I was once again resting in his embrace, my head on his chest and my body contained by his arms and lap. Only this time, I wasn’t passive. But neither was he. I struggled to continue to look confident as chills ran down my spine. I wasn’t dealing with a spell-stricken, placid, docile demon here. I was dealing with Bel. The real Bel. And that couldn’t be a good thing.

I tried to sit up and squirm away from him without putting him on edge or annoying him, but he wasn’t having it. Either I backed down and waited for his signals, or I started a showdown and got myself beat up or damned or eaten or worse. I wasn’t inclined to do either. So instead, I started talking. I’m pretty sure I asked him about the weather or some such thing, but all I can really remember is that he laughed at me. Or maybe it was with me, even though I wasn’t laughing. It didn’t feel like an attack, but neither did it feel friendly. It just felt like Bel was amused. He grinned and released me, so I quickly escaped and retreated beyond his reach before he could change his mind.

“Like I said, I almost like you. It’s nearly unheard of. But I do. That was rather clever, there. It’s just like you.” He gave me a lopsided grin, which I cluelessly responded to with a “Yeah, that’s just like me.”

“Yes,” he mused, “I hope so.” Then he got up and walked out the door. “I suppose I won’t be damning you this time around, but watch out for next time.”

“Is there going to be a next time?” I asked, warily.

“Oh, certainly.” He stopped and turned towards me then. “Your parents will be home in about five minutes. They will think no time has passed. Actually, you’re the only person in the world who will think time has passed. You can ask me about that later,” he added, watching the question rise on my lips. “Make sure you don’t tell them anything you’ll regret. Make sure you don’t keep anything from them that you’ll regret. And know that next time I won’t be some tame beast coming for a visit. I’ll be… shall we say, temperamental. And I’ll be expecting reimbursement for my… leniency here.” Leniency? What the hell did he mean? But he was already gone. Damn him, and that was too ironic for words to tell.

---

Sooooo…. Voila. The new and improved, rewritten chapter one. I tend to edit while I write, so normally this isn’t necessary, but looking back on version 1 of this chapter, I really didn’t like it. I don’t want FS to end up like Meet Beast, my other devil-inspired story, of which I wrote three versions, all of which are crap. Which, consequently, makes me sad, because Adam (the main character of MB) is one of my favorite leads, just like Bel. Actually, who am I kidding? All of my male leads are favorites. For some reason, I never like the females as much.

AnyhooJust wanted to point out that I’ll probably be replacing chapters here and there. Not completely rewriting them, but adding new things in and taking superfluous things out. I’m continuously reading through my stories, because I work on so many at once, and so I change lots of things in the beginnings that don’t make their way into the story until later. So you shouldn’t be looking for major changes, but a few little things here and there.

Hey, and thanks to Skyler for pointing out the fact that I needed to update this thing. It made sense to me, but not to you guys! Whoopsie.

Alrighty, ciao. And don’t forget to review!! (Not this chapter, sillies, but upcoming ones. Or, if you haven’t reviewed this chapter, do so and tell me what you think of the changes!)

Much love, Sekhra