Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men - By Regan Wolfrom Page 0,3

gave them a sniff.

“They’re beautiful,” I said.

“Everything in my life is beautiful,” Maggie said. “Especially you.”

I blushed.

I took a bag of my cookies out from my My Little Pony backpack, opened it up, and then I passed one over to her. She thanked me and took a bite, and I watched as a few crumbs tumbled delicately onto her spotless white carpet.

She chewed a little, then smiled, and then a little more before she swallowed. She smiled again.

But then she stopped smiling.

“Heather,” Maggie said, “I need you to be honest with me.”

“Sure.”

“Is there something funny in these cookies?”

“Nothing funny,” I said, “just some ganja.”

She jumped up from the couch and threw the cookie onto the floor. “Are you kidding me?” she said, her cute little nostrils flaring.

“What’s the problem?”

“You just fed me dope and didn’t even warn me. Did you think that I would just go along with something like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you were planning on selling these marijuana cookies at our bake sale!”

I took her hand and tried to nudge her back onto the couch but she pulled back.

And then she kicked me in the shin.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t have to sell them. I don’t see why you’re so upset with me.”

“Mia was right about you. I should have known you were trouble, but you’re just so goddamned pretty.” She turned her back to me. “I’ve lost control... perspective. You’ve starting sucking up so much of me I’m not sure what’s left.”

I smiled and shrugged. “That’s pretty much what love is.”

“I didn’t want that.” She looked back at me and slowly shook her head. “I feel so stupid. Goddamn you, Heather Smith.”

“It’s Smythe,” I said. “Please... don’t ask me to go.”

“I’m asking,” she said.

She looked so sad now, and it made me ashamed. She was once so strong, that warrior woman from the drive thru, the one who knew her way around an aggravated assault. But now she loved me and it showed, and she was standing in front of me like a little lost puppy.

I couldn’t leave her like that.

The other girls were worried about Maggie, wondering why she’d left without saying goodbye, but they all seemed to feel a little bit better as my special cookies became the hit of the bake sale, bringing in twenty dollars for a net gain of approximately thirty-eight cents.

I think Mia was suspicious, so I took her out for dinner on a quiet stretch of beach off Pacific Coast Highway. I laid out a feast of scallops and white wine on a set of Maggie’s porcelain dishes and Riedel crystal, all sprawled out on the sand atop a white linen tablecloth.

I knew after that there would be questions from Juanessa, so I brought her out to a picnic lunch in the scenic wilderness just off Tuna Canyon Road. The tree-covered hills there make you feel like you’re hours away from the city, and I chose a place for us with a view of where the rugged landscape meets the endlessness of the ocean and the blue sky above. I think she knew what I was planning but she didn’t seem to mind.

By the time I’d chewed my way through the entire group, I realized that something had changed in me.

I said goodbye to LA and the meth labs of the valley beyond. Ads on craigslist and some rather mediocre fan fiction had led me to believe that there were more women like me in Portland.

I’ll find them and I’ll love them, and then I’ll eat them and make it look like an accident.

But I know that one day I’ll meet someone special, a beautiful woman I can love and mentor just as Maggie had done for me.

Whether I want to or not, I know I’ll give myself over to her, that she’ll be everything I am and more.

And then, if I’m lucky, she’ll bash me over the head with a long-necked crystal vase and eat every last piece of me.

If I’m lucky she’ll love me enough for that.

The Zombification of Amanda Hackensack

“I WANT you to neigh for me,” she said.

I had no idea who was talking to me.

I’d already figured out where I was, from the smell of manure and the rustle of wood shavings beneath my sweaty running shoes.

She was giggling while she said it; I couldn’t see anything but I could definitely hear it, the kind of chuckle the cool girls in high school use on pretty much every other girl to keep