Please don’t look at me like that.
Please don’t touch me. I’ll explode.
Objectified? Disrespected?
No.
No.
This is what I want. I just want.
To cling to you.
To cling to your shoe.
What about the fish that die for rubber?
Follow your star to the dark horizon.
Redshift.
I just want all of you.
In the spring, I fly to Chicago because it’s my turn. We’ve been apart for a month. My flight lands early, so I take my time getting to the baggage claim, and walk through the duty-free Hallmark store and Hudson News. I buy a Chicago snow globe for ten dollars even though I have no one to give it to. While I’m paying for it, I buy an extra pack of Orbit gum and a sugar-free Red Bull just because.
During our time apart, John registered for his summer class and we began planning what will happen in May. It’s now early March. I’m surprised by his uncharacteristic show of initiative but I don’t say so. I don’t want to embarrass him.
In the car, I say that I want to go to the Adler Planetarium. John agrees, but instead we stay in and order Chinese food. I throw it up in the bathroom while John sits on the leather couch watching a documentary about the Zapatistas and drinking a case of Corona. I come out and stop by the bedroom, take two Hydroxycut from my purse, and drink them down with the broth from the vegetable soup without him noticing. I break open a fortune cookie but don’t eat it. The fortune reads, A journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step. I show it to John. He doesn’t care and he doesn’t suspect anything.
We finish the documentary and he turns off the TV and tries to remove my shirt. At first I resist, but he tries again and I don’t want him to feel rejected. We kiss and he goes down on me. I try to enjoy it.
I want you to be rough, I say.
How?
I don’t want to fuck you. You have to make me.
We pause and he grabs my legs and pushes them down. He’s drunk.
Make you what?
Make me fuck you.
Ow.
Make me fuck you.
I grab his hair and yank it.
Make me fuck you.
No.
Make. Me. Fuck. You.
Ow.
Hurt me. Get angry.
I hurt you, didn’t I? Now you have to hurt me.
He goes to his room and brings out a basket from under his bed. There are nylon ropes inside.
This is the only way I can do it.
Fine.
Turn the fuck over.
He ties my hands and feet together. The ropes are soft and come untied with the slightest pressure. He has to keep stopping to retie them. This happens three times and then we give up and he tells me to pretend.
Don’t be a fucking pussy. Make me hurt.
This is how I used to do it with Michele.
He holds my shoulders down and pretends to spit on my face. I picture Michele in my position. I picture his cock deep inside her.
I don’t like that.
She hated it.
So do I.
Good. Shut up.
I’m serious.
I hold my wrists together because the ropes don’t do it. I hold my feet together above the leather couch, so he can pretend they’re bound there. I drift across the room and see him above me, see me lying still beneath him. He finishes on my ass and falls asleep. I stare at the dark TV.
Back in New York, I call him and lie.
I just threw up my food.
Why’d you do that?
I don’t know. I just did.
He’s quiet for a minute. Then he says, You said you wouldn’t do that anymore.
Are you mad?
Yeah, I am.
Good. I want him to be mad.
It really hurts my feelings that you would lie to me, he says.
I didn’t know how to tell you.
Are you doing it all the time?
Just sometimes.
Well, stop. Do you need to see a therapist?
I don’t think so.
So you’re going to stop?
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah. I’ll stop.
You better. You know I’ll tell your mother.
What the fuck?
I’m not putting up with it.
THE THIRD DREDGE-UP
THE RED GIANT DEPLETES THE HELIUM SUPPLY IN its core but continues fusing hydrogen into helium.
It builds in a shell around the core, and reignites in a flash, leading to a thermal pulse within the star.
Helium, carbon, and s-process products are brought to the surface, outweighing oxygen.
This is the third dredge-up.
John calls me three times a day in the month after he leaves to make sure I’m eating and keeping my food down. Sometimes I’m honest and sometimes I lie to him. When I’m honest, he’s upset and I like this. I find being honest and lying equally useful. I text him a picture of a meal that I’m about to eat and then text him a picture of my empty plate half an hour later. Then I text him a picture of my mouth, open without food inside. This only seems to prove something. It’s what he wants to see but he also wants me to call him later to tell him I’ve lied. He doesn’t say so, but this message is as important as the first; it keeps us connected, circling.
We want to be concerned. It’s what we have to talk about. It gives us something to do.
Someone to blame for our own behavior.
I really don’t want to lie. I really do want to get better.
I’m afraid of this.
I want not to do this anymore. Not to think about what, when, how much, and what to do afterward.
I feel myself growing dimmer by the day.
I feel I’m growing cooler.
A white dwarf can cool to zero temperature but still have high energy.
I weigh myself once an hour when I’m home. Now that I’m eating for John, I can’t help but eat all the time. I don’t feel hunger when I feel it all the time. Now I know when I’m hungry — when I should be. I hate this.
I hate.
When I’ve eaten, I feel the food moving inside me. I buy groceries but don’t digest them. They’re gone within a day, down the toilet.
I can’t stand the feeling of food. I feel it on my organs, feel it weighing me down.
I purge and then fear that I haven’t purged it all and take pills to burn the remains.
I drink Red Bull like water.
I think of other ways to be empty.
He sends me articles about the dangers of constant purging but I find them motivational. He tells me he won’t find me attractive without any teeth, but I think this won’t happen to me.
I don’t care if it does.
I also know it will happen but feel powerless to stop it.
Many times I kneel before the toilet not wanting to do what I finally do.
Many times I walk to Walgreens without deciding to do so. I find myself standing in the diet aisle and I don’t know how I got there; it seems I was compelled.
I take Hydroxycut to the register and while I’m there, I buy Star Magazine. I don’t know how it happens.
Miley Cyrus’s Tiny Workout Clothes. Christina Aguilera Shows Off Sexy, Slim Figure on Music Video Shoot.
The 10 Ugliest Celebrities. The 15 Sexiest Sports Moments. Ask Yourself These Questions: Know If It’s Moods or Depression.
Win It! A Year’s Supply of Pocket Protein.
I’m not dropping weight because I’m not always purging. I think about the zero-sum ways I abuse metabolism: I store more fat because I only starve sometimes. I eat more when I eat because I only starve sometimes.
I gain a couple of pounds because I can’t purge constantly. I’m storing water because I’m dehydrated. I feel bloated all the time. I know that I smell bad.