FEBRUARY 2019
JASPER HAD NEVER BEEN WITHOUT A PREPARED GETAWAY BAG, JUST in case a con or a loved-one-of-a-con became homicidally obsessed once things went sour. It included the stolen driver’s license and social security card of a man named Larry Winkler. He didn’t look like Jasper but had the baldness and the whiteness, so it was more or less believable that Larry had just gotten really in shape. After the Taser incident with Calla, Jasper had followed the coast northward for a few states then used these IDs to secure a custodial position at the Oceanarium, which owned five dolphins. One of whom, the one who somehow seemed up for the most fun, was Bella.
He’d been at this job for over a year, and was planning a jailbreak. He and Bella were going to share a life. It was just a matter of time.
There was the interspecies thing, and she’d need to stay in water, but he was convinced the courtship could be emotionally profitable for both of them. He wasn’t sure whether or not actual sex would happen—he wanted it to, but didn’t need for it to. That would depend on her, was what he decided was ethical. If she tried things like the dolphin in the ocean that day had, he’d let it happen, and even if that meant drowning, it would probably still be great for him. Any dolphin did it for him, but he’d felt a sort of relief when he’d begun to fixate on Bella and the narrative of their future relationship started playing in his mind. He knew the sexual affinity that had overtaken him was bizarre, so he supposed he appreciated how the context of a monogamous life partnership made him feel less deviant. With Bella, at least he could pretend the affliction was specific: he loved her.
The truth was that every dolphin now aroused him to a medically improbable degree. Doing cons, he’d made a living for over a decade by getting turned on—having sex in which each performance was good enough to convince the other party they were soul mates. But he’d never felt anything like this. He couldn’t trust his body at work; beneath his uniform he wore constrictive briefs that were designed to be worn to dance clubs. They helped conceal erections, and Jasper further layered these with a plastic liner. It wasn’t comfortable.
But it was temporary. He had a plan.
Paying cash, he’d bought a large, nondescript station wagon and removed all the backseats. Bella’s height and weight measurements were posted in the informational section by her tank, and going by them, he’d bought an elongated tailgating cooler made for roughly sixty to eighty partygoers from a local fraternity’s annual yard sale. It wasn’t ideal transport; she wouldn’t have room to swim, but she’d be submerged until he could get her back to the studio apartment’s bathtub, and then they’d have a honeymoon night together before leaving for the country rental. This was in the middle of nowhere, with a screened-in pool and a very hands-off landlord he’d already met once in person to give a deposit and a year’s rent up front, also in cash. He’d worn a prosthetic nose and chin that didn’t pass for real, but the landlord didn’t ask. Jasper had gotten the man’s number off a pawnshop flyer. Its fine print suggested that people hiding out from significant tax collection, an amount they did not intend to pay in their lifetime, might enjoy this rental. It wouldn’t be permanent—maybe, for the rest of his life, no residence would. But he was already used to this pattern. They could stay there until he found the next suitable temporary home, then repeat.
But, God. The waiting was getting to him. The Oceanarium was a double-edged sword for Jasper. It was where he got the most stimulation, but it was also where he was reminded of all the stimulation he could hypothetically be getting and wasn’t, yet. He knew he’d do something insane if he didn’t get to touch Bella soon. And if the game plan in order to not go crazy was stealing a dolphin, Jasper supposed the crazy option would be pretty dark.
“Winkler!” Tiny called. Jasper had gotten better about responding to his alias, but it still took him a moment. His boss Tiny was a middle-aged hippie, but because of his height and size and penchant for macabre medieval costume jewelry, he always looked ready to terrorize or kill. His frame stretched T-shirts in a way that made short sleeves disappear; on Tiny the Oceanarium-issued V-neck looked like a cutoff. Tiny’s shoes perhaps were the scariest thing about him; he wore only Birkenstock sandals, but custodial employees of the park had a closed-toe shoe rule to abide by, so Tiny had gotten a kind of metal sandal cage custom made. Sometimes during school class visits Tiny gave talks about the importance of maintenance and cleaning at the Oceanarium. After his speech, when he opened things up to the kids for questions, the first two were always along the lines of “Are you a giant or some other close-to-but-not-quite-human variant?” (No really, the kids would beg, you can tell us, we will keep your secret), and “Why do you have to wear those scary shoes?” They assumed the footwear was part of some court-enforced punishment Tiny was serving, and they hoped this sentence hadn’t been imposed on him for life.
“Is there any way you could work late this Saturday, buddy?” Tiny’s eyebrows’ unchecked overgrowth cast a shadow that made him look like he was scowling even at his happiest. As he focused his eyes on Jasper and his hand went into his pocket, any bystander would guess Tiny was about to produce a switchblade, but his fingers uncurled to reveal a fistful of sunflower seeds. Tiny’s wide, flat teeth were always crunching something.
Working late meant there was an after-hours event that required cleanup; sometimes it took until morning. If the soiree was in the park’s main convention hall, Jasper could potentially have a lot of quiet time near Bella’s tank until the party ended. But if it was a performance in the auditorium, the shift would be a slice of torture; the dolphins would be moved into their nighttime tank after the show. He’d be cleaning up in front of an empty pool of expectant water that would lap in the wind and force him to look up just in case the impossible had happened and Bella had escaped from her holding tank to come greet him.
“I probably can—what’s going on?” He’d do it no matter what of course; Jasper wanted Tiny to feel like he owed him in case any favors were needed down the line. Plus work was a useful distraction. Jasper’s studio apartment was the equivalent of an oversize video booth at a seedy porn store, except the props were more National Geographic than Penthouse.
“That clown Dolphin Savior is having a concert in the amphitheater. They’re choreographing some special dolphin performance to go along with it.”