The Other Regina

By Susan S. Lara

The old Regina, as she began to refer to her former self, would have been leery of going to the beach with Scott that late afternoon, knowing he had been staying in a beach but some-where near. But she was leaving for Manila the following day, and something told her if she did not accept this invitation to life’s undiscovered spaces, she would never know what she could be. Already she had gone on a plane ride to this southern city without taking a tranquilizer; had shown her short stories to virtual strangers at the writers workshop, and accepted their criticism with good grace, something she was more proud of than the praises she got; had forged deep friendships with people she had never met before. She only had to take one more step. What harm could a few hours of companionship do?

A lot, she thought later, her breath fluttering like a rabbit’s as Scott began kissing her in his nipa but after he had given her a cup of coffee that only made her jittery.

“You’re shaking,” he said. “Come, it’s warmer inside.”

He led her to the bedroom and didn’t give her time to appreciate the decor. His wet mouth was upon hers; his tongue searched wildly for her own until she gave it to him; he sucked it until she almost choked. His hand slid up her skirt and turned her to Pulp. Her insides reeled and her blood charged south. He lowered her to the bed and unbuttoned her blouse while keeping his mouth on hers. His hand cupped and caressed her breasts, pinched her nipples ever so gently, then slithered down her belly while his mouth left hers and went first to one breast, then the other, kissing and nibbling them with delicious, maddening slow-ness. He stopped for a while to take off his shirt — his pink nipples shone through a nest of brown hair — and pants.

What was a woman supposed to do while her man fumbled with his belt, button and zipper? Seven years of marriage to someone who expected her to regard sex as a purely clinical, physiological function had not taught her anything. She learned eventually, with Scott, but that first encounter made her feel so grace-less. She was grateful when he began kissing her again, his hand reaching down to remove her panties. His dexterous fingers slid and skated and circled and made figure eights in her moisture until she thought she was losing her mind. And then, at last, he was on top, parting her legs, entering her, exploring her viscera, it seemed. No, there was no truth to the claim that length did not matter. It did. Scott’s long enormous rod reached parts of her that a shorter one could never have reached despite any amount of desperate, pathetic thrusting.

“You are. An incredibly. Sexual. Woman,” he said when they were once more breathing normally.

Me? She panicked. You’ve made a mistake, she wanted to say, this isn’t me, you’ll be so disappointed.

“Did the earth move for you?” he said jokingly, running his fingers through her hair, his blue eyes twinkling in the half light.

“Did thee feel the earth move?” she couldn’t help correcting him, and thought instantly, “There! I blew it already!”

But he only rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Gosh, I should have known better than to fool around with an English major,” he said, chuckling appreciatively as he hugged her again and rocked her gently. I le immediately shot up four hundred points in her score card. Too had she’d waited until the last day for this. She laid her head on his chest and sighed. Here was someone with whom she could be herself. She was vaguely aware of having just contradicted herself in a matter of minutes. Soon she was lulled to sleep by Scott’s gentle rocking and the sea’s sibilant undulations.

The following day he took her to the airport and stayed with her, holding her hand until boarding time. She felt like an amputee as she walked to the plane. Just before going in, she looked back, and there he was, waving his arm behind the glass panel through which no words could pass, and she thought the chunk of pain in her throat would never melt.

She sent him a generic thank-you card from Manila, and tried, with some success, to keep him in the periphery of her conscious-ness. Hearing his voice on the phone two months later — he was in town on a visit — she was pleasantly surprised, and a little disturbed. A part of her didn’t want to cope with Scott as a real person who would later turn out to be a real disappointment. But she had to, because that visit was followed by several more, until it was time for her to fly south again for the workshop, after which his visits to Manila continued once more. She forced herself to think of every visit as the last, especially when his term as volunteer was ending. After two years he asked for a six-month extension, and again prolonged her emotional roller-coaster ride. When the extension was over, they said goodbye. “I wish things were different,” he said.

Letters flew feverishly between Manila and New York for over a year after he left, then, predictably, crawled to a stop, as the experiences they had shared receded into the past. Regina was the first to stop writing, but continued to send birthday and Christmas cards. After the second Christmas card, he wrote to say he was getting married, to another Filipina named Lorna, “who’s a lot like you. I have told her about you and she understands.” Regina sent a congratulatory card, wished them well, cried briefly but lustily, and got on with her life.

The first hint that he wasn’t happy came in a short letter that said, “Marriage is not all it’s cracked up to be.” Well, she wrote back, tell me something I still didn’t know. By then she had separated from Miguel, who had gotten his secretary pregnant. The quintessential macho, Miguel had wanted to have his wife and eat his secretary, too, but yielded in the end and said, “if you ask me to choose between Alice and you, I’d still choose you.” Oh, men are so simple, and their egos so huge! “I’m not asking you to choose,” she said in a voice she meant to be soft, but which came out steely. “You had your chance and you blew it. It’s now my turn to choose, and I’m choosing a better life.”

She loved and relished her quiet, predictable life with her son Mikee, who was now turning seventeen, was plugged into pop culture, and hated being called Mikee. The quietness and predictability were shattered only by Scott’s visits every year or so. Then her body and soul would be turned inside out again. It would take days after his departure before she could get her life back to the regularity of a Spencerian sonnet, and be as sane as Cordelia once more, and people who thought they knew her would smile and say, “She is herself again.”

Now he was here again, sitting across the table in their favorite hotel coffee shop, and seeing him again after a year, she felt the rush of intense, painfully familiar passion. Her throat hurt. She had not meant to love him.

“How are things at the home front?” he said, reaching for her hand.

“Oh, okay. Could be better, of course.” She never talked about Miguel except in general terms. Other people had come to think of this as loyalty, but there was really nothing interesting to say, so she didn’t want to be praised for her perceived discretion. “How’s Lorna?”

“Fine. She’s gained a couple of pounds.”

“Haven’t we all?” she laughed.

“No, you look great. You haven’t changed at all.”

“Man, where do you think flattery will get you?”

“Upstairs,” he said with a smile that gave her the dropping sensation again.

“You’re vicious.”

“I know. Even when I was in grade school my grandmother used to say any girl who’d go out with me twice is no good.”

“Yes, you’ve said that before.”

“Have I?” he said innocently.

“Yes, that’s a very old chestnut indeed.” It occurred to her they were like husband and wife, only better. She didn’t have to pretend to be hearing his jokes for the first time. It also dawned on her that this would not be ending, not this time, not in the next few years. That they would be meeting like this for a long time to come, celebrating what they had always been for each other. It was like a favorite place that they wanted to visit and revisit, because nowhere else could they be free to be themselves.

Upstairs they made love, first in that tentative way lovers do after a long interval. Then, as memory came surging back, their hands and mouths moved upon each other’s bodies with the same skillful familiarity. He went down on her, his tongue a divining rod, seeking and finding hidden wells, until she flowed like a river where life springs and where death is absorbed by a constant rhythm of tides and currents. She raised her legs, propped them on his shoulders, crossed her ankles on his back, received him with a gasp, and panted and moaned and wept as wave upon wave of pleasure dissolved her.

“Welcome home,” she said softly. “I love you,” he said. A feeling of exhilaration washed over her, followed by an over-whelming sensation of certainty and acceptance.