An Excerpt From Costa Rica

Well, of course that's merely a metaphor, or a synecdoche, since I'm bringing neither a part of the country nor nor the whole of the first book I wrote about it. What I am delivering below is a single piece, a piece of fiction that has a toe or two in in magic. It is called Riding Bareback

Sex is new.  It is not a first-time newness. No virgin in the room, for certain.  Nonetheless, sex is a new phenomenon, despite its technical familiarity. Why is this, after so many dry years? It is as much a mystery to him as God. He does not complain, does Rafael Figueroa. Of course he does not complain. It was never he who backed away from the marriage bed, never he who said, “Cariño, esta noche, no. Quizás mañana.”

Mañana for the past twelve years!

Now, though, now Felicia is ready several times a week. Rafael feels like a newlywed with the benefit of experience he did not have then, nor (¡Gracias a Díos!) did Felicia. The juices flow and with them the guttural sounds from him, the moans and ultimate scream that comes from her ... well, he is grateful, grateful, grateful, and that is all he prays on this subject now.

          It helps that the children are no longer living at home, that they never drop in unannounced. He had declared that one rule they must honor. In his house, they would always be welcome, por supuesto, until they broke that simple rule. They have not, and they will not, he and Felicia are confident of that. They like their mother’s cooking too much, the use of the washing machine too much, and their father’s small but sometimes necessary loans too much. Ah, the children are good ones, and he offers his hosannas for their respect. No loan has been or was asked to be forgiven. Not all the parents in his acquaintance could make the same claim.

          For several weeks, Rafael takes an extra half hour or more at the time of siesta. While they fancy that the rest of the village sleeps, he and Felicia rumple the bed clothes and each other, sometimes winding up on the cool tile floor. “I am too old for this!” Felicia protests, but they both notice that she does not stand up. Eventually, the two of them find delight in the bathtub, the pantry (so dark and fragrant!), in the hay of the small barn where the donkey placidly chews while watching the humans behave like animals. Or so, Rafael imagines.

          To make up for the extra time spent exercising his lawful lust, Rafael works an extra hour at night. He is the assistant manager for the hardware store, very handy, and in much demand for his expertise about a wide assortment of home building and improvement tasks. Rafael has never seemed happier with his work, the owner of the store comments one day. “What has happened?”

          Rafael smiles placidly. “I find my home more welcoming now that the children are no longer there all the time.” He has not lied, not even a little. Not being a man to leer or to brag, he was not tempted, as some men might be, to make a joke of his wife’s newfound passion or to sully her honor by mentioning it at all.

          The hardware store owner expresses his envy. “I long for that time myself, compadre. Mine? The four of them, they are like barnyard animals, loud, messy, and all over each other.” He was pleased that his illustration made Rafael choke with laughter till he was color of new brick.

          That same night, Felicia confides that she is beginning to miss the children. “Not even one load of laundry this week for Lorenzo, and only one quick message from Catarina. Something might be wrong, ¿verdad?”

          “I don’t think so, Licia. No. We would hear,¿verdad?”

          “Yes. Well, not necessarily. I don’t know! Maybe they don’t need us anymore.”

          “I doubt that, too. Besides, you remember what you told me?” He caresses her forearm, which he finds delectably round and smooth. “You said you wanted the children always to love you and never to need you.”

          “I said that when they needed me, mi amor.”

          “Come here. I need you.”

          “I guess that will have to do.” Felicia wraps her arms around Rafael’s neck and kisses him gently. “It will do quite well.”

          As the days pass, though, even Rafael is wondering if they will see their children before the next major holiday. One day, he entertains the idea of calling them both this same night to tell them that their mother misses them. The idea becomes a decision, and the decision requires an action. Business at the store is slow, and the manager has no objection to giving Rafael a bit of time off. He has come home for his siesta a little earlier than usual. He has on his mind the impulse to ask Felicia if he can use her in that harmless way when he realizes he does not know where she was. He calls her name several times, an unnecessary gesture in so small a house as theirs. When she does not answer and he finds nothing amiss, he goes to their bed, neatly made with the yellow fringed spread and the orange throw pillows, puts his head down and is asleep.

          Felicia does not expect to see her husband for at least another hour, so when she comes home with Santiago, she is startled to hear Rafael’s whiffling from the bedroom.

          “¡Ay!” she exhales. “¿Ahora que?”

          “I don’t know,” Santiago whispers, “but we can’t stay here. I know that much.”

          “I didn’t need you to tell me that.” Felicia is twisting a lock of hair and sticking the end into her mouth. She thinks it helps her think. In a moment, sure enough, she brightens with an idea. “What about your office?”

          At first, Santiago appears to agree with her, but soon his face clouds over. “No, of course not. My partner is using it. If it had been free, why would we be coming here?”

          “We often do it here.”

          “Not when the office is available. I’m a professional. Please try to remember that.”

          “I remember quite well. And I am very grateful for your services. Surely, you know that after all these weeks?”

          He is for a second a bit sheepish. “Yes, I thought that was the case, but then ...”

          “We must do something quickly, Santiago. He will awaken any moment and here we will be, right in front of him.”

          “We are fully clothed.”

          “That’s not the point. He is my husband. More importantly, he is a man. He will suspect something. That’s what men do.”

          Santiago is calm now. He takes Felicia’s right hand in his right hand, puts his left

hand on her back and steers her toward the door. When they are a block away, Felicia takes a breath. “So?”

          “So, we will go to my place. Just this once.”

          “Absolutely not.”

          “Why not?”

          “It’s not right.”

          Santiago is a professional, so he knows not to argue with a feeling or a baseless idea. “You have a better idea?”

          Felicia does not answer at once, but when she does, Santiago must admit he is proud of her.  “What progress you have made, Felicia. I admire your courage and maturity.”

          They have already begun to retrace their steps and soon are back in Felicia’s living room. She puts down her purse and, leaving Santiago standing beside a coffee table on which rests a large glass vase of artificial roses.

          “Wake up, cariño,” she says to her husband’s sleeping form. “There is someone here I think you should meet.”

          Santiago, hearing this, makes a sudden jerking motion that results in his knocking over the vase and scattering the roses amid shards of glass. Rafael is waking up, rather more groggy than usual, as he is unused to a long afternoon nap. Santiago is in the kitchen searching for a broom. Felicia, hearing the crash and crackle, goes to inspect the damage, gives Santiago the broom he still has not found. By the time she gets back to the mess, Rafael is yawning and stretching, making his way into la sala.

          As he sweeps, Santiago thinks: This was bound to happen sooner or later. Such a small town.

          As she stands between Rafael and Santiago, who is methodically sweeping and putting pieces into a trash can, she thinks: This had to happen sooner or later. Santiago is a professional.

          As he sees the man in his house near his wife, Rafael is suddenly alert. He thinks: This is not supposed to be happening! His throat is tight and his voice instead of booming, squeaks, “What is going on here?” The words are little pellets of poison.

          “I have broken a vase,” says Santiago.

          “I have something to tell you,” from Felicia.

          “I guess you do!” Rafael spits.

          “I am--” from Santiago.

          “Santiago.” He and Felicia finish together.

          “He is my sex therapist,” Felicia says so fast that neither man is certain he has heard her correctly.

          When her words do go past his ears and into his understanding, Rafael turns not to his wife but to Santiago. “You are her what?”

          “He’s my therapist, and--” Felicia begins to explain.

          “Did I ask you?” Rafael is obviously angry. The vein on his forehead that always became prominent when the children misbehaved was prominent now.

          “I am your wife’s sex therapist. She came to me because she ... because she,” he stops and sees Felicia’s desperate expression. “Well, I cannot say why, you see--”

          “No, I do not see. Give me something I can see, and quickly, because if you don’t, someone might not be responsible for what he does to someone else.”

          “I have to respect my client’s privacy.”

          “Your client, idiota, is my WIFE.”

          Felicia steps forward and touches her husband’s bare shoulder. “I don’t care about my privacy. Santiago has been, he is, helping me to be more passionate and relaxed about sex. And you, Rafael, must--if you are honest--be the first to admit it has been working, this therapy.”

          “I can explain how it works, Rafael,” Santiago says, his face beatific with hope and love.

          “Did I give you permission to address me by my given name? No, sinvergüenza, I did not.”

          “He is not a scoundrel, mi amor. Let him explain.”

          “What? How he has been sleeping with my wife while I, too, have been sleeping with my wife, not knowing that she is sleeping with him? And stop saying mi amor. I don’t know if you mean him or me.”

          “It does not work quite like that, mi amor. Rafael.” Felicia felt as if she might cry. In front of one man would be bad enough; in front of two, she would not allow. She pursed her lips and willed dry eyes.

          “I just help her to relax and give her imagery, which can be very stimulating, you know. Oftentimes, the couple ...” Santiago’s words trail off when he realizes the two are staring at him as if he were a large cockroach. “Perhaps I had better return to my office.

I’m sure my partner has finished seeing patients by now.” He backs toward the door. “I will send you my closing bill, Feli–señora.”

          “Yes, thank you, Santiago. I’ll be–I’ll be in touch.”

          “Fine. Yes. Good.” Santiago is half in and half out of the room.

          “I don’t think so,” Rafael is walking towards the door. He finds the bellow in his voice. “I don’t think she will be in touch.”

          He slams the door the instant after Rafael manages to be completely outside the house. A picture on the adjacent wall falls off. The glass breaks. It is a record day for broken glass in the Medaris’ household.

          Now the world inside this small living room turns so slowly that it seems barely to move at all. Felicia and Rafael look at the picture of their children on the floor, the frame twisted amidst shards of glass. They look at each other. They look back at the glass and then anywhere but at each other. A rooster crows outside. Roosters do crow at times other than dawn. Most people know this. Still, the sound seems abnormal, like the beating of Rafael’s heart.

          Felicia cannot tolerate the desolation growing in the silence. “I did it for you. For us, no matter what you think. I have read about women who lose their interest and how it doesn’t mean they don’t love their husbands. When I learned from ... someone that we had a therapist in our aldea, imagine! in this small place, I knew I had to see if he could help me, so I wouldn’t have to make excuses to you anymore. You know, when you want to get close and I am feeling like sleep is the most wonderful thing God gives us in this life? So. Santiago. A professional.”

          Suddenly, inexplicably, Rafael sees the humor in their situation. He does not care why; he has always liked a colorful story, and this certainly meets his standards. He begins to laugh; soon he is laughing uncontrollably. Felicia, infected, begins to laugh too. Rafael goes to her and puts his hand on the back of her neck to pull her face to his. He covers it with a dozen little kisses as he pulls her toward the bedroom.

          “But, but,” Felicia sputters, “don’t you have to return to the store? What will–?”

          Her question is stopped by another kiss, this one full and deep. They are in bed at once, she pulling at his remaining clothes, he loosening her blouse and skirt. They are there, in bed, as the sun passes the fireball stage and bows down at the horizon. They are still there when a little while later, the front door bursts open and they hear the mingled voices of their two children.

          “What’s happened here?” Valentina exclaims. “Look at all this glass and the table!”

          “And isn’t that us? I mean our picture? There on the floor?” Mauricio reaches for the photograph.

          “Mother!” Valentina gasps.

          “Papa!” Mauricio shouts.

          “Oh, no,” Felicia and Rafael whisper together from the next room.

          There is no escaping them. The children, looking for dead bodies explore the kitchen and adjacent back patio, check their small rooms off the living room, then head for their parents’ room at the rear of the house. They have given their parents just enough time to rearrange the sheets a bit, covering body parts they do not want

Mauricio and Valentina to see. They lie both posed and poised, ready for the drama.

          “WHAT?” Mauricio says upon seeing his parents entwined.

          “I can’t look,” Valentina says, looking directly at the spectacle of her ancient parents in what cannot be described as anything but a sexual situation.

          “Hello, kids,” Felicia says.

          “You didn’t knock,” Rafael shakes his head in forced sadness. “You broke the contract.”

          “It was never a contract,” Mauricio protests. “It was an unspoken agreement.”

          “Oh, no,” counters Rafael. “It was very much spoken. Now you have broken your word. Please leave.”

          Felicia stares at him in dismay. “Rafael. Really? When they have come so far?”

          “They do not honor their parents’ simple request. They could have come from another planet and they would not be welcome right now.”

          Valentina is the one who laughs first. When they all are laughing, a scent of lavender passes wafts through the room and a dovecote they all know about just two doors down suddenly becomes bright with a gentle song.

           Felicia sits up, holding the yellow-fringed bedspread against her chest. “I’ll put on some rice. Valentina, go down to the pescardero for some fish. Mauricio, bring in your laundry. Rafael ... Rafael, mi amor, put on some clothes. Our children are home.”

          They eat with an exchange of news. The children explain why they didn’t call first and apologize for barging in. Rafael apologizes to Felicia because “I forgot to do that earlier.” Valentina asks what her father is apologizing for. Felicia blushes. Rafael smiles

at her. The question receives no more answer than that.

          Just before bedtime, Mauricio asks his father if he can borrow “a little money” to flesh out a down payment for a used car.

          “Oh, mi hijo,” Rafael groans. “Only two rules we have and you have broken them both.”

          “I didn’t bring any laundry, though.”

          Mauricio looks so proud of himself that Felicia turns the clicking of her tongue into praise. “Well, that is something, anyway.”

          “I did,” Valentina says, “I brought laundry, but I don’t need a loan.”

          So it is that the Figueroa household celebrates the smashing of pictures, vases, and its rules in one short mid-summer’s day. Some of those cannot be repaired, others must be accepted as part of life’s inevitable mix of mystery and change. The afternoons of lawful sex continue with unpredictable regularity. Felicia likes this element of surprise and tries always to be home when she suspects Rafael is planning a long siesta. Sometimes he does not come and she pouts like a teenage girl whose boyfriend does not call according to her schedule. Busy enough always to shift into an activity that wants attention, Felicia shakes off her disappointment and replaces it with anticipation of the time when Rafael does arrive with a certain look she recognizes at once.

          Neither of the Figueroas has quite decoded the changes that all took place on that one day weeks before. So it is while they are still somewhat atilt when on an early fall evening, Felicia brings Rafael a Dos Equis when he gets home from work and watches him drink the whole thing before she delivers her news.

          “You know my birthday is in two weeks, yes?” It is the same question she has asked for the twenty years they have been together.

          “Of course I do. And you know that I do.”

          “Well, I want to have a party.”

          “If that’s what you want.”

          “It is. Family. Friends. Santiago.”

          “Santiago?!”

          Her reason for including the therapist, whom she had not seen since the day of the vase breakage, is immediately clear. “I will turn forty-one carrying your next child.”

          “May I have another beer, please?”

          Felicia already has one ready.

          She gets herself a glass of aqua pina and they toast the new life their new life has created. “A fall and winter pregnancy is best,” Felicia says. “Not so hot.”

          “One thing, cara?”

          “Of course.”

          “If it’s a boy, don’t ask me to name him Santiago.”

          “Oh, but I was so hoping,” Felicia begins, assuming the crestfallen look of someone who has just lost something of great importance. She peeks at her husband from under her cast down lashes.

          Rafael sees that she is playing with him and is much relieved. Months later, the child safely delivered and both he and Felicia glowing with health, Rafael sits in a chair beside the couch where Felicia is nursing Guillermo.

          “Well,” Rafael says looking with growing fondness at the child, “no one can say I am not a man.” He beams at them both.

          “Was there ever any doubt?” Felicia is puzzled that her husband would say such a thing.”

          “Only for a moment, when I first saw Santiago standing beside you in our living room. Only then. I did not trust what we had been doing, did not believe it was real, somehow. For that one moment, he confirmed my fears.”

          “Oh, Rafael. It was because you are a man, because you are my man, and the only one I ever wanted or will want, that I went to see Santiago. I wanted to be the woman you fell in love with so that another woman would not tempt you away from me.”

          “You have never stopped being that woman to me, Felicia.”

          Guillermo is crying now and his parents are holding him like a soft platter, one of Rafael’s hands under his head, one of Felicia’s under his bottom. Slowly, they begin to rock him, suspended over their laps like an angel descending to a cloud.

          “Just one thing I have wanted to ask you, Licia.”

          “Yes?”

          “With Santiago, did you ever? I mean, the therapy, did it involve–you know.”

          Felicia smiles and sits up taller. “No, not in the way you mean.”

          “What do you mean, ‛not in the way you mean’?”

          “I mean, ‘No, not in the way you mean’.”

          “Good, good. That’s very good. Because, you know, the color of his eyes...”

          “Rafael? You are holding your child. Surely you will think of a better story to tell

him than that.”

          “Of course. You are smart as well as beautiful, Licia. Yes, por supeuesto, I will tell Guillermo a different story.”

          And so he told him this one.

_____