186,000 MILES PER SECOND 
“Oh, Stan, it’s ungodly big!”
“Is it? Is it?”
“A monstrosity!”
“Is it?”
“A pulsating radio star!”
“A what?”
“Don’t stop!”
He didn’t get that last bit but generally Stan loved the things Claire came out with during sex, especially concerning the size of his member, which in fact was only average but they enjoyed pretending otherwise. For a while Claire was calling it a phallus. “Oh, Stan,” she would cry, “what a magnificent phallus!” That was when she was taking a night class in Greek mythology at the nearby community college. She told him he was hung like a centaur.
Claire was always taking a night class, not for a degree but because she was interested. Stan admired that about her, how smart she was and how interested in things like Greek mythology, or art history, or even something like geology. She took a geology class last year and that was all she talked about for a while, rocks. “Enough about the rocks, Claire, will ya?” he finally told her one night, then apologized and asked her to tell him more about the rocks, begged her to, and she eventually gave in.
After sex tonight, lying there relaxed, Stan asked her what she meant when she called his penis a pulsating radio star.
“I said that?”
“What the hell is a pulsating radio star?”
“A rotating neutron star that gives off a beam of electromagnetic radiation—called ‘pulsars’ for short,” Claire answered, from the astronomy class she was currently taking.
Stan asked her what that had to do with his dick.
“The first pulsar was discovered in 1967,” Claire continued, “approximately twenty-three thousand light years away, if I remember correctly.” She paused. “You don’t know about light years, do you, Stan.”
He said he had to be honest.
She told him a light year represents the distance light travels in a year.
“Light travels?”
“Oh it travels, Stan. It travels.”
“Never knew that.”
“Care to know how fast?”
“Let’s hear.”
“One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles—ready for this?—per second.”
“Jesus,” he said, impressed.
“In one second it can travel seven times around the Earth. Seven times, Stan, in one second.”
“That’s bookin’,” he agreed.
“So just think,” she said, pointing at him, “just think how far it can travel in one year.”
“Pretty damn far, I’d say. Listen, I’m gonna get a drink of water. You want one?”
“No,” she sighed. “Go ahead. Get your water.”
Claire didn’t like interruptions, so he was quick about it. And coming back he said to her right away, “Seven times around the Earth in one second—that’s hard to believe.”
“You think I’m making it up?”
“Of course not,” he said, climbing in beside her. “I’m just saying it’s hard to imagine.”
“Yeah?” she said. “Well imagine this. Imagine how—”
“Hey Claire?”
“What.”
“Don’t point at me like that, okay?”
“I’m trying to teach you something here, Stan.”
“I know you are and I appreciate it. I just don’t like being pointed at. You do it a lot. It’s kind of annoying.”
“I see,” she said. “Well. I’m sorry. I won’t point. In fact, why don’t we talk about something else. How was your water?”
“Don’t get like this.”
“Like what, Stan?” she asked him, blinking.
“I want to hear about the traveling light, I really do. I just don’t like when you stick your finger in my face, that’s all. So go ahead. What was the speed of light again? I’m trying to remember.”
She sighed, recited: “One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second.”
“See now, that is amazing to me. I mean, how can anything travel that—?”
“Oh, stop. You’re not interested.”
“What’re you talking about? I’m very interested. Come on, tell me some more.”
She sat up a little. “All right,” she said, nodding. “Fine. Let’s talk about distances, shall we?”
“Bring it on.”
“Do you have any idea, Stan, any idea at all how far away the stars are? Take a guess. Go ahead.”
“Well, I would say . . . approximately speaking . . . millions and millions of miles. Or so.”
She smiled at him sadly. “Okay. Listen up.”
“I was way off, wasn’t I.”
“Stan, let me tell you something. There are stars out there—stars we can see—that are so far away they’re not even there anymore.”
“Explain,” he said.
“Okay, it takes their light—which, remember, is traveling at 186,000 miles per second—”
“I remember.”
“Going that fast, it still takes their light so long to get here? By the time it arrives, the star’s been dead and gone a thousand years—in some cases millions. We’re actually seeing something that hasn’t been there for millions of years. So just think, Stan, how far away that has to be. Can you even begin to possibly imagine the kind of distances we’re talking about here?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Stan?”
“See, I don’t like that.”
She laughed. “What do you mean you don’t like it?”
“Something being that far away.”
“Stan, these are facts. These are scientific facts I’m giving you here.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like it.”
She touched his leg. “And remember: those are just the stars we’re able to see. There are stars out there so far away, so inconceivably—”
“Drop it, Claire, will ya?”
She drew back and cocked her head. “What’s the matter, Stan?”
“Nothing. I just think we’ve talked enough about the stars. It’s after eleven and we should be getting to sleep now.”
She nodded, slowly. “Interesting.”
“Aw, don’t start.”
“Start what, Stan?” she asked him, blinking.
“Psychologizing me.”
Claire took an introduction to psychology class last summer and they had some trouble for a while the way she kept analyzing everything he did, telling him the real reason he was doing it.
“I’m just curious,” she said to him now. “You seem upset and I’m wondering—”
“I’m not upset. I’m tired, that’s all.” He reached for the lamp. “There’s a difference.” He switched it off.
“This is called ‘avoidance coping,’” she told him in the dark.
He found her mouth and kissed it. “Goodnight, Claire.”
“It’s maladaptive, Stan,” she added, turning on her side, away from him.
He scooted close and spread his hand on her stomach.
They lay there.
After a minute she asked him, “Can I tell you one more thing?”
“Is it about the universe?”
“Then I’ll stop.”
“Go ahead,” he told her.
“It’s expanding, Stan.”
“Oh?” He brought his hand up to her breast and softly cupped it.
“Are you listening?”
“I’m right here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s getting bigger, Stan.”
He agreed, gently pressing himself against her.
“I’m talking about space,” she said, and turned around to face him in the dark. “I’m talking about the distance between things—do you understand? What I’m trying to say? It’s expanding, Stan. Every day it’s getting—”
“Claire, are you pointing at me?”
“Ah, fuck it.” She flipped over, facing the other way again.
He sighed and turned onto his back. He dropped his arm across his forehead.
They lay there like that.
After a little while Claire began softly snoring.
Staring up at the dark, Stan pictured them there: in their bed, in their room, in their house, in their town, their country, their planet, the camera receding at 186,000 miles per second, the Earth the size of a basketball, then a softball, then a baseball, then a golf ball, then gone, swallowed up in the dark that just went on and on—endlessly, pointlessly—on and on and on.
“Claire,” he whispered, horrified.