Higher Power, Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

The father was a shrimp farmer in Fresno. A million shrimp seething in above ground pools in a hot prefab shed the size of a school gym. Cannibalizing each other. Parents divorced when he got his niece pregnant back in Mindanao. Anita had slept with 300 men. The principal at her high school. Her neighbor across the hall in K-Town. She'd met him when he knocked to tell her he was a sex offender. The shot caller for the Mexican gang on her block. Porfirio. He told her he'd kill her if she slept with another man. It was their second date. She'd been to rehab in Thailand for benzos. Slept with the guy who ran it. Got him to give her pills. He invited her back to film an ad for the place. Gave her 8 grand so he could see her again. He was married to a teenager. Girls who looked just like her were 20 dollars all night. I knew, he said. I knew there was something dangerous about you. From your texts.

Yeah I get guys in trouble.

You sounded like you liked me

Yeah and I don't know you.

And you wanted me to like you.

Do you?

Yes but it might be your pheromones. Four days off ovulation--sperm can live that long.

What's your story you don't tell anyone.

It's like yours. But I tell everyone. And it gets me in trouble.

Do you think we can get better.

Maybe if we don't date each other.

Do you want that

No. I think you're beautiful. I want to hold hands with you and take you for an ice cream cone.

That's fucking gross, she said. Don't say anything like that to me again.

Not knowing what to do he kissed her neck again. Wind humming in the cabin above the snowline. She had body dysmorphia. Her belly flat and perfect like girls on TV shows. He kissed around her armpits and her belly button and hipbones. Smelling her baby ointment sweat. She was lifting her feet up to help him pull off the dolphin shorts. Pushing back into the palm of his hand as he held it down on her stomach pulling the white panties sideways. Fat bald little