Binary Star by Sarah Gerard

horizon. We follow a featureless four-lane highway through acre after acre of grey parking lots and squat concrete strip malls with tattered awnings advertising pawn shops, check cashing places, Mexican restaurants, and used sporting goods stores. John takes my hand across the console and tells me about a documentary on the May ’68 Paris uprising he thinks I should see. As he talks, he becomes more lucid, and I wonder if his prior confusion wasn’t just the residual grogginess of an in-flight nap.
    A wide pink scar wends its way down the left side of his face. I’ll have to get used to its being there.
    We begin to talk about what we should do this first night together. John jokingly tells me to stop at a strip club we pass, then together we decide to do it. I turn around and drive back half a mile. We’re laughing as we pull inside. The sex shop next door has a mannequin in the window wearing a teddy shaped like Saturn’s rings.
    The club is sparsely attended. Four dancers and a handful oftired veteran patrons pass each other and keep walking toward opposite sides of the room. The red of the velvet booths folds into shadows on silver-speckled black carpet. The walls are covered in black vinyl peeling away at the corners. John orders us drinks: a Red Bull and vodka for me, and a Scotch for himself. He leaves the bar and two strippers take his place. The bartender fixes them drinks without them having to ask.
    John sits next to me and hands me a blister pack.
    What’s this?
    Ativan.
    Is this your new prescription?
    He nods.
    I’ve never heard of it.
    It’s for anxiety. Take one.
    No, I don’t think so.
    Trust me. They’re not strong.
    I turn the package over. The thin aluminum on the back pops open easily and a small yellow pill falls into my hand.
    What’s it going to do to me?
    Relax you.
    He pops another out for himself and washes it down.
    We turn our attention to the stage. A bored stripper does basic tricks on the pole, looking nowhere in particular. Another checks her phone. A third dances for two businessmen sitting on the far side of the stage. They seem amused and talk to each other.
    How long does it take to kick in?
    Half an hour.
    I walk around the room and see my students working together. Every time I pass my mentor’s desk, I take a sip of my coffee. Last night, I told my only remaining friend that John and I are happy together. Whatever she may think she knows about him is not based in fact, I said. Remember that.
    I left my friend at the table after dinner and purged silently in the bathroom.
    I splashed my face with water and returned to the table. She suspected nothing.
    I have even done it in restaurants with people in the stalls next to me, but not in a long time. I haven’t needed to, as I don’t go to restaurants anymore. This night was a rare exception.
    My students are making visual aids of spiral-ins. Not messy enough, I say.
    It’s violent. They’re gas. They won’t hold together.
    Picture one star eating another. Picture them both devastated.
    Imagine bodies tearing through bodies.
    I drag my hand in circles through a desk covered in plastic jewels. They scatter on the floor.
    Like this.
    Nothing is preserved but the cold, dead cores of the components. Sometimes not even those remain intact.
    I want Styrofoam balls all over the floor. I want glitter everywhere. Broken pencils.
    I want the floor covered in your partner’s hair. Cut it off.
    Here, use these craft scissors.
    Don’t be afraid to bleed a little.
    A tooth will get you extra credit. A finger: automatic A+.
    And if I find you in hard, little pieces at the end of the class, I’ll make you dinner.
    But not eat it.
    I watch headlights approach and recede in the black distance from our ship in the strip club lot. John sleeps next to me, unaware that we’ve left the club. We’ve been asked to leave. They hurled us free.
    Light pollution obscures the stars, but most things happen unseen. A spotlight on the neighboring