Regrets Only

by Sally Quinn

  “That isn’t true. But if you do something to hurt my feelings I think it’s better to tell you than keep it to myself. Don’t you?”

  “Maybe. But it just seems that all I ever do is piss you off or hurt your feelings. I’m always doing something wrong. Sometimes I feel as if I can’t do anything right.”

  “Well, let me ask you this. Don’t I ever do anything to make you mad or hurt your feelings? I must have, but I sure as hell wouldn’t know about it.”

  “I can’t think of anything offhand.”

  “Well, at least you’re being honest.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You know, that pisses me off even more. What you’re saying is that you don’t care enough to be hurt by me.”

  “Jesus, I can’t win. I tell you I’m not mad at you, and that means that I don’t love you. This is ridiculous. Now you see why I don’t like to have this conversation. It’s so stupid. Now we won’t speak to each other for days all because you wanted to talk about the fucking relationship.”

  “You never tell me how you feel about anything. I feel angry that I am the one who has to do everything around the house so you can come home from work, put your feet up, and have an Irish whiskey. That is how I feel.”

  “Okay. You want to know how I feel, Sonny? I feel you are an asshole. That’s how I feel.”

  Against her will, Allison’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m sorry you feel angry,” he said finally, after a long silence, “but Sonny, you’re not being honest with yourself. You want it both ways. You’re hurt that I don’t help? Well, I let you do it because I don’t give a shit about it. If you didn’t care about it, you wouldn’t do it, either. Then we wouldn’t be arguing about it this morning, and frankly, I don’t want to argue about it ever again. I’m bored shitless by this conversation. Okay?”

  * * *

  Des made love to her again that night. The room was so dark she couldn’t see even the outline of her hand. Usually he liked the lights on; so did she, though it made it more difficult for her to concentrate. For some reason he had turned them out, and they had lain in bed for a long time in each other’s arms without moving, without talking. Allison felt an overwhelming desire to cry. She felt as if a weight were crushing her chest. She almost expected him to start whispering to her, but there was no sound except for the sound of his breathing. Finally she rolled over on top of him and grasped his chest in her arms, trying to make herself a part of him. She wanted to meld into his flesh, attach herself to him in such a way that they could never be separated. She could hear her heart pounding, and she wondered whether this was what they called a panic attack. She had read about panic attacks. People who had phobias got them when they got scared. What was she scared of? If anyone had asked her if she was afraid of anything, she would have had to say no. Yet now she was frantic from fear, and she clutched Des’s chest so that he finally grabbed her shoulders. He could feel her body shuddering.

  “Hey, hey, what’s this about, Sonny? You are in an emotional state tonight, aren’t you, babe? What’s the matter?”

  Her terror made her blurt it out: “Just don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

  “I don’t have any plans to go anywhere. Particularly tonight. For Christ’s sake, Sonny, don’t be so dramatic.”

  He hadn’t missed the urgency in her voice, but it had scared him too, and he didn’t want to acknowledge it. This was not the cool, together, slightly aloof woman he knew. It jarred him. He didn’t know whether he liked it or not. He was disturbed that she seemed to have lost control. Her control made him feel secure.

  He began to kiss her softly—her cheeks, her ears, her neck, her breasts. This had the effect of a tranquilizer. As long as he was touching her she was fine.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she murmured over and over as he continued to touch her body, to kiss her and stroke her. With her eyes closed, and in the darkness, she could believe that Des would always be there, that he would never leave her.

  That was it. That was what she was afraid of. Being left. Being abandoned. But why now? Her mother had died when she was two; then Chisuko, her beloved Japanese nurse; then Nana; then Sam. Everyone she had ever loved had abandoned her, and it had made her stronger and more independent.

  She had survived. She had managed to deal with her loss each time. Now here was Des and he hadn’t left her. He was here, in her arms, in her bed. He was here, slowly moving his body over hers, his hands moving over her limbs softly and with such strength and love that she had no reason to doubt him. Yet all she could think of was that he too would leave her. Everyone else had; why shouldn’t he? She could understand abandonment. It felt almost comfortable. Des would leave her. Just thinking that gave her a certain satisfaction. She was, much to her amazement, letting herself get off on it, more than the orgasm she was beginning to feel.

  Did she need him to leave her?

  He was inside her now and she clung to him as hard as she could, squeezing her eyes shut to try to block out all thought, to concentrate only on his body and his love.

  “Oh, my God, how I love you, Sonny, how I love you,” he moaned. “I could never leave you.” She could feel her body as it lifted off the bed and floated away, wrapped, encompassed, consumed by him.

  They lay in the dark for a long time afterward as they had before. They were both awake.

  “You gave yourself to me,” he said finally.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. If I talk about it, it will make me more afraid.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll leave you?” He said this with a measure of disbelief.

  “Something like that.”

  “And if I did you’d be in the sack with somebody else in five minutes.”

  “That’s bullshit, Des. That’s really bullshit. And you know it is. Don’t make fun of me.”

  “That’s hardly what I’m doing. It’s just that you’re a hell of a lot tougher than you think. In fact, I think you know perfectly well how tough you are. If you’re afraid I’ll leave you, you’re indulging a minor fear. You’re a survivor, baby. This is a survivors’ town. You’d manage just fine because you’ve still got ol’ number one. Your sense of yourself will get you through anything. Sometimes I wish you weren’t quite so strong. Sometimes I wish you really meant it when you said that you need me, that you’re afraid I’m going to leave you. But I know you too well, Sonny. You don’t need anybody.”

  She could see he really believed that. She decided it was probably just as well. If he knew how scared she really was, he might not love her anymore. It was her independence and her strength that had attracted him to her in the first place. It was so refreshing, he always said, to have a woman who was not clinging to him all the time, who didn’t need him to support her, either financially or emotionally. He felt a great weight off his shoulders, he said. He could finally breathe freely. They were both free agents; they could do as they wanted, unencumbered by obligations, children, money problems. It was perfect. God forbid he should know that she didn’t believe she could live without him.

  * * *

  The drive to West Virginia took only two hours. They left on Saturday morning. The little towns of Middleburg and Upperville with their old stone houses and rambling farms looked beautiful under the autumn leaves. The roads were empty, and smoke curled from the chimneys of the houses they passed. Allison felt peaceful. She knew how Des loved his cabin.

  “I’m going to disappear for a while, baby,” he told her after he’d built a fire. “When I get back, I expect a roast crackling in the oven and fresh biscuits ready to go.” He saw her expression and grinned and swatted her on the behind as he strode out the door and into the woods.

  “Oh, what the hell,” she said out loud, and laughed. She didn’t wan
t to fight or be angry with him. She wanted to be happy and to have a nice weekend. She had brought up a big canvas bag full of political articles she ought to read. She fixed herself a cup of tea, went over to the chair by the fire, and propped her feet up. She also had a few books, mostly by pals and colleagues, mostly about politics. She thumbed through them. She got up, turned on the transistor radio to a country-music station, and sat back down again. She stared for a while at the reading pile, then reached into her bag for a novel, but she didn’t read that either. She was thinking that she was different from the image people had of her. She looked around the cabin at the way she had cozied it up. She was always struck by how they reverted to roles when she came up here with Des. Since there was nobody around to notice, it didn’t bother Allison as it did when they were in town.

  She cooked and shopped and planned. Des chopped wood, built fires and did the heavy work outside. Except for an occasional walk, they didn’t do much with each other during the day. In the evening they sat by the fire and read or listened to the radio; then they went upstairs and made love. It was a pleasant existence, except that it lulled Allison into complacency.

  She didn’t want to lower her dukes. It was too relaxing and then it was harder to get them up again. Des always said that she was the most competitive, combative woman he had ever met, and he always said it with a laugh. He liked her that way. She liked it that he liked her that way. Why was she so angry at him and at herself so much of the time?

  Was it because something had changed with Des? He just seemed different to her lately, more distant. Or was it her imagination, her perverse need to push him away?

  She was still not able to admit to herself that she might eventually want marriage and children, so afraid was she that she might not get them.

  But even the subject was taboo for them. Or had been up until now. So when she provoked fights or arguments with him it always had to be about something else.

  * * *

  She had thrown her canvas bag into the car and was sitting in the front seat as Des locked up the cabin and threw the trash and the food container into the back seat.

  “This T-bird is not exactly what you would call the ideal woodsman’s car,” he said. “I can barely get enough wood in the trunk to last a couple of weeks. Not to mention the fact that the bottom nearly gets torn out every time I go over the riverbed. But Jesus, I hate to give this little baby up.”

  “Well, Des, as long as the cockwagon is imperative to maintaining your image, you simply have no choice.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “I would think that I was enough to make you feel good about your image.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Give me a kiss.”

  “You are such a pain in the ass, do you know that?”

  “That must mean you love me.”

  “My, aren’t we in a frisky mood! To what do we owe this mood?”

  “I was just thinking,” she said, affecting a Southern accent, “how lucky I was to have a great big strong handsome man like you in my life.”

  “Oh, Christ, do I have to listen to this all the way into town?”

  They had crossed over the riverbed and maneuvered their way around the bend in the river and out the rocky road to the highway.

  “Fasten your seatbelt, angel,” said Allison.

  “That has an ominous ring to it.”

  “This is my favorite part of our weekends. When else have I got you my captive audience, strapped in so that you can’t get up and walk out or turn on the TV?”

  “I think I’ll listen to the Redskins,” said Des.

  “It doesn’t start until four, and they’re going to lose. That will put you in a bad mood.”

  “Better I’m in a bad mood because the Skins lose than because you’ve pissed me off beyond endurance.”

  “I want to know why men change after they’ve gotten involved in a relationship. Why men no longer feel that the relationship is worth working on? Before you say anything I want you to know this is not an argument, nor will it develop into one. I would simply like to have an adult discussion about an interesting sociological situation.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “C’mon, Des, you don’t even give me a chance.”

  “A chance? Are you kidding? I’m the one who doesn’t have a chance. If there was ever a no-win conversation, this is it. You just love this stuff, don’t you? You could go on talking about this all night. Well, forget it. I’m not going to play. Look what happened the other night.”

  “I promise you that will not happen. I am speaking now strictly out of curiosity. My interest in this subject is not personal. It is purely clinical.”

  “I don’t believe you. In twenty minutes you’ll either be calling me a bastard or you’ll be crying.”

  He reached over and turned on the radio full blast.

  “First down and nine yards to go.…”

  Allison reached over and cut off the radio.

  They drove in silence for several minutes.

  “I have this theory,” she said finally.

  He didn’t answer.

  “I have this theory that women are always angry at men.”

  “Amen.”

  “Okay—you see? We already agree. Now, the question is, why are women angry at men all the time?”

  “You find the answer to that one, you make a million bucks.”

  “Well, I may have found it. Now I want you to stay strapped into your seat there and just look gorgeous while I explain.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “I think that women feel ripped off. They feel ripped off because they are deceived at the beginning of the relationship when they are just the prey and the male is the hunter. In many situations men will carry on a campaign to get the woman they want. They woo her, take her to romantic restaurants, buy her champagne, flowers, presents, promise her everything. But most important, and here is the key to my theory, they listen. They want to know. They make an effort in the conversation to keep her entertained, they want to be alone with her, they flatter, charm, and win.”

  “So. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, dammit. Nothing at all. That’s my whole point.”

  “What’s your whole point?”

  “Des, how can you be so obtuse? Do you act this dumb in the bureau?”

  “You’re not making any sense, and don’t belittle me. I knew this would end in an argument.”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize. What I am trying to say is that as soon as they have won, they forget everything as though they’d been lobotomized. They show off their trophy to their colleagues and peers as if they had caught a prizewinning fish or shot a ten-point buck, and then they just forget it. It’s as if she were stuffed and mounted and hung up on the wall. Then they go about their business, and except for occasionally glancing at the trophy on the wall and feeling flush at their success for trapping it, they never give it much thought again. That is, unless the woman gets restless and goes off with somebody else and wounds their precious male pride. Then they put the burn on to get her back. If they fail to get her back, they feel wounded for a while and then go after another trophy.”

  “You thought this up all by yourself?”

  “You have to admit it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t suppose there is another side?”

  “Well, what is it? I would be most happy to hear your thoughts.”

  “Have you ever heard the old joke about the Jewish guy who marries this princess, a real piece of ass who has spent the last two years of their courtship blowing him and sucking him and getting him off every way to sunward. Finally, a year later, they are on their honeymoon and she won’t get near him and he’s begging, ‘Just touch it, please, just touch it.’ ”

  This cracks Des up.

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that sometimes it works both ways. The poor guy gets sucked off until hell won’t have it until he
marries the broad and then after she’s got her trophy she cuts him off.”

  “Good thing that isn’t going to happen to us.”

  “Yes. Good thing.”

  * * *

  Later that night, as they lay in bed, Allison thought about the drive in from the country. After the requisite amount of time, Des had turned on the game and listened to it the rest of the way to town. By the time they got to her house in Georgetown, they were barely speaking to each other.

  He took a shower, fixed the drinks, watched his favorite magazine show, then caught up on the papers.

  She heated up a can of tomato soup and fixed some grilled cheese sandwiches and took them upstairs to the study, where he was sitting in front of the fire. He barely acknowledged her as he ate, then ignored the dirty plates, which she took back down to the kitchen and rinsed, slipping them into the dishwasher.

  Back in the study, she took some of the papers and announced she was going to read in bed. She had pretended to be asleep when he got into bed. Now he seemed to be asleep too. Even so, she couldn’t control her anger. And it seemed to her that she was mad at him too much of the time now. When she got like this he would get distracted and remote, and it drove her crazy. He had been like that last fall. She often wondered after they’d been fighting whether he ever went to bed with other women. There was no evidence, but the possibility sickened her just to think about.

  They lay quietly for a while, only the sound of each other’s breathing audible.

  Then Allison felt a hand reaching over in the dark and stroking her abdomen. She didn’t move. The hand moved along her abdomen and up toward her breasts. It stroked both breasts, squeezing each one in a friendly, if somewhat perfunctory, manner.

  Detachment was the only sensation she felt as she lay there. Maybe amusement. There was something quite funny about not being sexually involved and watching your beloved try to rip off a piece of ass under your nose. She stayed silent as the hand slowly moved down toward its takeoff point, the abdomen, then continued down to her crotch, easing in between her legs. The fingers of the hand began exploring the inner reaches of her thighs, moving in and out of her in an attempt to excite her. She tried to stifle a giggle. She couldn’t decide whether to stay angry or to accommodate. She decided the best approach was one of interested observer.