The Devil's Match

Chapter 1: Lily

Good book introductions are overrated. Beautiful prose and cleverly written dialogues, coupled with a tragic or thrilling backstory, are the literary equivalent of vanilla soft-serve: staple, boring, and only ever gratifying at very rare times. Also, people ignore it altogether for the more exciting chocolate.

The Dursleys of number four, Privet Drive, proudly saying that they were perfectly normal is the vanilla ice cream. Scandalous, I know.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.

The book is about a pedophile and a predator, but the introduction was, and still is, one of the most unforgettable first lines in literature. It is the chocolate. Exciting, a little intriguing, and without a doubt dangerously indulgent—just like the day a crimson-skinned seductress came for me and my non-existing firstborn.

It was six in the morning, and I was inches away from imminent death. White knuckled grip on red tile, chilly air stinging my exposed skin. I was on the edge of the rooftop of my suburban home and hanging on for dear life.

With a cat in my arms.

The random cat can throw anyone off, but this is how the tone of this story will go: heart-thumping danger with the added threat of instantaneous death looming over my head. But CATS.

"Help!"

I exhausted my throat, screaming for help.

The irony that my desperate screams became the token "chirping birds" waking up my sleepy neighborhood is not lost on me, but my neighbors wouldn't mind. They've done worse things at even earlier in the morning.

"Somebody?!"

While I was dangling from my rooftop, I thought about my neighbors. What a peculiar bunch to begin with. On the house to my left lived Tilda, the hipster spinster who constantly sent me hate mail for killing the planet; and in front of me was the neighborhood crazy lady Sue Ann who gave me a leaf and wished me a happy birthday the other day.

Full disclosure, it wasn't my birthday.

"Jesus, Lily. What are you doing?" my neighbor, Greg said after rounding up around the corner, looking for the damsel in distress. Of course, who can forget Greg? Gregorio Rivera. Silky-haired, six-foot-three Greg. Broad shouldered, sharp-eyed and even sharper wit. He was an interim anthropologist instructor at the local university. In another life, he could be a very convincing bouncer of a nightclub, I suppose. He had a very solid frame. Thick corded biceps, long lumbering arms, and fists that looked like geological specimens. Most of all, he had a thrusting, assertive brawler's aura that might be a trait that bad boys have. If bad boys had degrees in Anthropology, that is.

"What does it look like I'm doing?!" I yelled over my shoulder, finding the man looking me over with a lopsided grin.

The anthropologist and I used to date. Used to being the operative words here. Greg, asshole that he was, "broke up" with me in the middle of the street. His reason: I was a bitch. A fair point, I had to give him that. I was a bit of a diva. But, as if fate had it out for me on our breakup, it was also in the middle of the pouring rain. Terrific. So, what's a girl with a wounded pride got to do? Kick him in the balls and push him in the oncoming traffic, that's what.

It was a very messy incident. The police might have been involved. Greg had to get a couple stitches. Most of all, there were tears, though it certainly came not from me. Safe to say we didn't have a very civil relationship after that fateful trip to the emergency room, so I take back what I said: anyone but Greg.