Sarah Gerard - Binary Star

You’re wearing a leather belt.

I had this before I went vegan. It would be disrespectful to the cow if I threw it away.

Fair enough. But why is it okay to hit someone and not okay to hurt an animal?

Because that guy should know better. A monkey in a vivisection laboratory doesn’t know better. He gets locked in a cage and abused, and he internalizes it, and then when someone comes to hurt him one day, he acts out and bites the hand that hurts him. That’s understandable. That ape at the party deserves to get punched.

Maybe that guy has internalized his oppression, too.

That guy is not oppressed.

People don’t like it when their beliefs are challenged, John. They’re fragile enough already.

We walk past a dollar store and a discount clothing store and two bodegas. I stop to look closely at the ads.

I just didn’t want to leave.

Are you serious? That party sucked. Those people are idiots.

He drinks the rest of his beer and tosses his cup in a trashcan, then asks me for a cigarette. I wonder if he’s right about my friends being idiots.

What do you want to do now? he asks.

Go home.

Really? It’s early.

I just don’t feel like being out.

You’re such a baby. You’re just sad about having to leave the party.

I don’t answer.

I don’t know why you like those people.

I stand at the back of the classroom drinking mate because it’s an appetite suppressant and has as much caffeine as coffee. At six in the morning, I drank eight ounces of rice milk with freeze-dried açai berry powder and followed it with a 24 ounce Starbucks Iced Americano. At ten o’clock, I ate a half-cup of grapes. Every two hours, I allow myself one half-stick of celery from the bag in my purse. At two o’clock, I can have one whole banana and my first sugar-free Red Bull, to burn it off. At five o’clock, I can have half a McDonald’s side salad with no dressing, cheese, or croutons, and a cup of ice water. If the hunger becomes overwhelming, I chew a stick of Orbit. If, by eight o’clock, I’m feeling weaker than usual, I allow myself an apple after doing two sets of twenty sit-ups. Throughout the day, I take Zantrex-3 as needed. This afternoon, I will lead a lesson on common envelopes. A common envelope is a short-lived phase in the evolution of a binary star. It begins when a binary orbit decays or when one star expands rapidly. Write this down.

— The donor star will overflow its Roche lobe, initiating mass transfer onto its companion.

— The Roche lobe is a teardrop shaped region around both stars in which material is gravitationally bound to the stars.

— The apex of the teardrop points toward a binary star’s companion. Let me demonstrate.

I tell my students to stand and we push their desks to the room’s perimeter. They pair off and face their partners and join hands. Right hands hold right hands and left hands hold left hands, so hands are crossed between them. They start to spin.

Make a list of every way in which you’re imperfect, I say.

Tell yourself that each item is correct.

Make a list of fears.

Tell yourself they’re present.

Remember a childhood trauma.

Tell yourself it will happen again.

Think of your sexual inadequacies.

Tell yourself your partner notices them, too.

Think of your other inadequacies.

Tell yourself they’re worse than you think.

Tell yourself you’re ugly.

Tell yourself you’re selfish.

Tell yourself you will never be good enough to have whatever you want most.

Tell yourself you don’t deserve it.

Tell yourself you’re not strong enough to act rightly.

Tell yourself you’re fat and unlovable.

Tell yourself that the only way you will improve is through extreme discipline.

And self-punishment.

Tell yourself you’re lucky to have your partner, as flawed as he is.

Tell yourself that these flaws are the very things that bind you.

They are the only things that keep you from falling down.

Because they are the only things keeping you together.

Tell yourself your partner is too good for you.

Squeeze your partner’s hands until it hurts.

Get closer.

Spin faster.

Closer.

Faster.

Closer.

Faster.

Now spit on your partner.

I tell them to stop and look their partners in the eyes. I tell them to remember what it felt like just now when their partner spit on them, and to imagine that their partner is the only person who could ever do them that favor. They hug and turn in rapid circles until they’re dizzy, then they fall to the floor.

When everyone is eating lunch, I eat my banana and then throw it up in the handicapped bathroom, then look at myself in the mirror.

I take a handful of water and rub it over my mouth and spit and wipe my face with a paper towel, turning my skin red.

I drink a Red Bull to mask the taste of the vomit and burn off whatever banana remains inside me. Then I chew a stick of Orbit.

Returning to the classroom, my mentor comments that I look ill, and tells me to leave for the day and rest.

I want to be envied.

I want to give out advice.

I want to have so many things to say, suddenly there is a book of them.

I want to look at the sky and understand.

I want to feel small.

But important.

Massive.

But beautiful.

I want men to think I’m beautiful. I want at least one to want to touch me as soon as he wakes. I want him to kiss my eyelids.

I want to have an affair that keeps me up at night.

I want it to leave secret marks on my arms and legs.

I want us only to see each other.

I want not to feel alone when I’m alone. I want other bodies in my apartment. They should be young and beautiful like me, so I can belong among them.

When someone is having a party, I want to be invited. I want to come late and bring beer, expensive beer like Space Barley, and I want every person at the party to be grateful.

I want that party to be held in my honor.

I want to want to see other people.

I want to enjoy a birthday.

My twenty-ninth birthday.

When I die, I want to have been on the covers of magazines like Vogue and Esquire. I want to have my own sex tape. I want there to be a star named after me.

I want to be Paris Hilton six years ago.

I want to have taken pictures with telescopes. I want someone to think I’m smart.

I want to want that all the time. I want not to forget I want that.

I want not to want what I think I want. I want not to want what I want.

I don’t want to smoke.

I’m tired.

I want to sleep.

I’m afraid.

I want to be able to sleep in my car in a parking lot before class.

When I lie down, I want to feel something other than fear.

I want to intimidate people.

I want to go out to restaurants and order too much and drink Dom Pérignon and not feel sick with myself.

I want to say I’ve enjoyed something and really mean it, and I want that thing to be unconventional.

I want to be unique. I want to have thigh gap.

I want to see myself on television. I want other people to say they’ve seen me on television.

When I’m on television, I want my body to look damn good.

I want never to see a scale again.

I need to be protected.

I want to go whole days without looking in the mirror.

I want not to own a mirror.

I want to try on clothes at Macy’s, and see myself in three mirrors at once, and look good from every angle.

I want to wear something and feel it against my skin and then forget that it’s there.

I want to feel sexy.