“Truly, Rafe, are you really going to just be home the whole time?”
“Truly, Sweetie.
He rolled over on his stomach. “Do the back now,” he told her, burying his face between her legs. She could feel his warm breath making a damp spot on the crotch of her jeans, sending shivers up into her belly.
“Take your pants off, Lane.”
When she was naked on the bottom, he told her to straddle him, putting her knees on either side of his face. He held her butt in his hands, bringing her down over him where he could reach her. She braced herself on the arm of the sofa as his tongue slowly traveled everywhere but the spot she wanted it most. It went inside and up and down and around. He teased her until she felt her body quivering.
“Rafe,” it was all she could say, just his name,”Rafe.”
Until finally he went where she needed him to go and for a few minutes, it seemed to her that the world just stopped turning on its axis.
He pulled her down until she was lying on top of him. She could feel him hard beneath her.
“Just stay here until I see who wins this ballgame, then you can do me.”
*
She thought it was impossible to be in bed with Rafe and him not know you were awake. He could seem to be sound asleep but the minute you came to consciousness, even if you didn’t make a move or even open your eyes, he sensed it and said, “Mornin’, Honey.” Most often, he woke up first and then she aroused to his lips on hers or his mouth on her breast or his hands between her legs. She would think, “another wonderful day” and try not to let herself count how many were left before it was over.
If she was washing their supper dishes (she never used the dishwasher when it was just their few dishes), he would press up close behind her with his crotch against her rear, then he’d slide his hands up under her shirt and bra and fondle her breasts.
“Keep goin’, Girl,” he’d tease. “Get your dishes washed and when you’re done, we’ll do something else,” with his hard cock pushing into her butt and his finger circling her nipple.
“They can wait, Rafe, I’ll finish them later.”
“Oh, no, Lane, duty before pleasure, you know.”
And she’d keep washing as he kissed her neck and breathed warm breath into her ear until finally she was done and she could turn around and put her arms around him. Then he’d pull her pants down and tell her to lean over the chair and she’d feel him enter her from behind. She’d be so anxious by then, that’s all it took the first time and then she’d have another orgasm a little later when she could feel him getting ready.
As much as she loved it, when he did it to her, she loved just as much doing it to him, feeling him need her. When she had him in her mouth and his hands were wrapped in her hair, moving her, when she felt his urgency, until he spilled himself into her mouth, her heart did flip-flops.
When he crooned in her ear, begging her to make him come, or when it was over and he murmured, “oh, God, Laney, that was so good, you make me feel so good, Honey,” she almost didn’t think anyone could hold so much happiness.
*
“We could run away, Rafe.”
“Why would we want to do that, Lane?”
“So we could be together all the time. We could move to another country and become other people. No one would know. We don’t look anything alike.”
He laughed. “That’s a total fantasy, Sweetie, and you know it. You wouldn’t want to give up everything you have and everyone you know just to be with me.”
She knew he didn’t love her in the same way she loved him, had always known it. She didn’t think if he was here and she didn’t come home, he’d be almost sick thinking about her empty bed like she was when it was him. She thought she would give up everything she had and everyone she knew to be able to be with him. She thought she’d do it without a second thought.
* *
Oh, Lord Jesus, how could she have done such a thing? Rafe would be so furious, he’d kill her, he’d probably just kill her.
Ever since Laney could remember she’d had a secret yearning to ride Destiny. She thought they all did at one time or another, probably because he was like the forbidden fruit. She knew it had been a sore spot with the others that Rafe was the only one ever allowed to ride him besides Renny. She’d heard Annecy muttering resentfully more than once about why Renny trusted Rafe and only Rafe to take his precious stallion when she rode just as well. Lane felt the same way. Rafe made it seem so easy and so exhilarating to go tearing across the field on Des. Rafe himself had taught her to ride starting when she was only about three and she knew she was good, he told her she was good.
If she was honest with herself, she guessed she’d have to admit that there was a little bit of revenge involved too. She was upset when he told her he’d be gone most of the day, their last day together before he had an engagement with the band and he’d probably start to be away a lot again, probably with girls he met at the dances.
So she supposed her hair-brained scheme to take Des out for a ride was partially to get back at him and prove a point although she never meant for him to know. She usually wasn’t that brave about acting out her rebellions so what on God’s green earth had possessed her this time?
The stallion bucked her off almost the minute she settled into the saddle. Now he was still out in the pasture, saddled, with his reins hanging down and she thought she had a broken wrist. She was stationed in the kitchen watching out the back window when she heard the Corvette come roaring down the drive and the garage door open.
Her head and heart were both pounding as she saw him swinging down the flagstone walk toward the back door in that graceful way he had. His hair had grown out from that one time he had it razor cut shorter than normal and that stray lock was, as usual, hanging down over his forehead. He looked pretty happy but that wasn’t going to last long. About ten seconds after he came through the door, she figured.
She was crying by the time he walked into the kitchen.
“What’s the matter, Honey?”
“Rafe, please, I’m so sorry, I know you’re going to be so mad….”
His eyes darkened. “What am I going to be mad about, Lane?”
“I took Destiny out and….”
He grabbed her by the upper arm so tightly she knew she’d have a bruise. “You did fucking what?” His quiet voice was even scarier than if he’d yelled.
“I took him out and he threw me. He’s out in the field. He wouldn’t let me catch him and put him away,” she sobbed. “I think I broke my wrist.”
She’d never seen his eyes look so black. “I’m going to go take care of Des. In the meantime, I want you to sit down on that fucking chair and don’t even move a goddam muscle until I get back, do you understand me, Lane?”
“My wrist….”
“The horse comes first. You’ll just have to suffer, then we’ll deal with your wrist.”
He turned and left. She could see him from the window, opening the pasture gate. Saw him whistling and Destiny coming right to him. Then she saw him leading the stallion into the barn. She figured she had about ten minutes until he got back. She thought one of the best weeks of her life was about to be followed by one of the worst.
When he got back from the stable, he got the Corvette and pulled it as close to the back door as he could get it.
“Get your coat and come on. I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
“Rafe, I…”
“Shut up, Lane, just shut up. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
He hustled her into E.R. and lounged silently in a chair in her room while they sent her for x-rays that confirmed the break and then wrapped her wrist and put it in a cast. He put the release instructions and the prescription for pain pills the doctor had given her in his coat pocket. Then he drove to the drugstore and had her prescription filled.
When they got home, he told her to go take a pill and come back, now he wanted to talk to her.
Sh
e sat in the chair he pointed her to. He stood in front of her. “Don’t even think about getting up, Lane, until I’ve said all I have to say.” She shivered a little just looking at the harsh twist to his mouth and the eyes that were like storm clouds.
“Do you remember, Lane, the time you went to the basement and got lost and I had to come and find you even though I’d left instructions telling you not to leave the nursery while I was gone?”
“Yes, Rafe, I remember.”
“And do you remember me telling you that you always had to obey me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess, technically, you didn’t disobey me this time because I never actually told you not to ever take Destiny out and do you know why I never told you that, Lane?” he asked in a voice that was deceptively casual.
She was gulping and wiping the tears from her eyes and snot from her nose with her sleeve because he’d told her not to move and she didn’t have a tissue within reach.
“W-w-why?”
“It never occurred to me that I had to, because I never thought you’d be stupid enough to pull such a fucking idiotic trick. But, I expect you knew, didn’t you, Laney, even without me telling you, it was an order just the same? ”
“Yes, I knew, Rafe.”
“Quit crying, Lane. I don’t want to see it or hear it. You did this yourself and now, you can sit here and take your goddam punishment without whining.”
She struggled to choke down her sobs.
“So, what were you planning? If it had all worked out for you, you were just going to put him back and I’d never be the wiser?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“But it didn’t work out for you, did it, Lane?”
“N-n-no.”
“Why do you think I got so angry with you when you went to the basement when you were three?”
“I d-d-on’t know, Rafe.”
“Because I didn’t want you to get hurt. And why do you think I wouldn’t have wanted you riding Destiny?”
“For the s-s-same reason?”
“Yes. Christ, can you imagine how I’d have felt if I’d had to call the folks to come home because you had a fucking broken neck or something when they made me responsible for you, Lane? Do you think that would have been a very pleasant phone call to make?”
“I’m s-s-sorry, Rafe, please….”
“Too late for ‘I’m sorry’. Now, here’s the deal. If you’d been hurt some other way, a way you couldn’t help, I’d probably have been all helpful brother. I expect you’re going to have a little bit of a tough time fastening your pants and your bra and washing your hair and brushing it and probably several other things, one-handed. But, you know what, I don’t care much. You wanted to do your little dance and now you’re going to have to pay the fiddler on your own. So don’t come to me for assistance, just figure it out the best way you can.”
He walked closer to her and tipped her chin up with his finger. In a low tone, he told her, “And by the way, Lane, my bedroom door will be closed until further notice. Don’t open it, don’t even knock on it. Do you understand everything I’ve told you?”
“Rafe…”
“Do you understand?”
“Y-y-yes,” no matter what he said, she was bawling in earnest now.
“Good, then why don’t you go on up to your room now? Why don’t you just stay there until tomorrow?”
She stumbled up the stairs and fell on her bed, crying. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep. She woke up when she heard him taking a shower. When she got up to get undressed, she discovered he was right. She had a hard time unbuttoning her buttons and her jeans with one hand. Her bra was even worse. She had to pull the straps down, then work it around so the fasteners were in the front, struggling to undo them left-handed. Finally, she had to lie on her bed and pull her jeans down, little by little, one leg at a time. She was panting by the time she was completely undressed.
She heard him leave the bathroom and heard his door shut. She crept in and went to the bathroom herself and then went back to bed without even washing her face or putting on her gown. Her wrist throbbed but her pain pills were down in the kitchen and she was afraid to leave her room and afraid to knock and ask him if it would be all right if she went and got them.
He came through her door wearing his pajamas bottoms. “Your pills,” he said, setting them on top of her dresser.
“Rafe?”
“What?”
“I’m so thirsty. Can I go down to the kitchen long enough to get a Coke?”
“No, there’s water in the bathroom.”
And then he was gone.
She started crying again.
*
Listening to her from his own room, Rafe grinned to himself. “Just cry, Little Girl,” he thought. He was pretty mad. She could hardly have done anything worse in his eyes than taking the gray stallion. On the other hand, he wasn’t quite as angry as he’d let her think. It was like Rafe’s Times Ten Rule. If you expected someone to obey you and they didn’t, then if you punished them times ten, they’d think long and fucking hard before they bucked up against you again. It was sort of like his version of Shock and Awe.
He reached for his hard penis. If he’d known this was going to happen, he would have made alternate arrangements for something to do with it. As it was, he guessed he was going to have to handle it himself.
*
He was gone when she got up the next morning and he hardly came home the whole next week. When he was there, he just went about his business, never speaking to her. She wanted to beg him to forgive her but his eyes were so cold when he looked at her that she was afraid to even try to talk to him. He did come home some nights but it was so late, all she heard was the stool flushing, the shower running and his bedroom door closing.
She laid in bed thinking, “please, please, please, please,” over and over again, hoping her door would open and she’d hear him tell her she could come over with him but he never did. She’d think in great detail about what they might be doing if only she hadn’t done what she’d done. If he’d let her tell him how sorry she was, she’d swear by the Virgin Mary (the ultimate guarantee in the Vincennes family) that she’d never do anything she knew he wouldn’t want her to do ever again.
*
It was lucky she was still on Christmas break because all she could manage to get on were sweats and sweatshirts and no bra. On the other hand, she wished it was time for school again because at least she’d be around people and have things to do instead of wandering around this enormous, lonely house feeling so dejected and depressed she couldn’t stand it. And being by herself and one-handed so she had nothing much to do but think.
*
He waited until Renny and Magdelene were due to get home the next evening before he opened her door.
“Come on over, Lane, and get in bed with me.”
She didn’t come running but practically tip-toed over to his bed, sliding in like she was trying to be as unnoticeable as possible. She didn’t even touch him until he gave her permission.
“You can come up close, Honey.”
At that, she moved over and pressed herself tightly against him.
“Please don’t be mad at me any more, Rafe. I hate it more than anything when you’re mad. I’ll be so good, I promise.”
“It’s not that hard, is it, Sweetie? I’m not a dictator. There aren’t too many things that would really upset me but you had to know you picked one that would.”
“I know. I was jealous because you were going back with the band and I knew you’d start staying out with girls again. I wanted to hurt you even though you’d never know about it.”
He smiled. “You fucked that up, didn’t you, Lane?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, live and learn. You did learn, didn’t you, Laney, that although I don’t have too many rules, I won’t tolerate the ones I do have being broken?”
“I swear, Rafe, I swear, I’ll never do anything like that a
gain.”
“We’re square then, Honey. So what do you want to do now? From the amount of bawling you’ve been doing, I don’t think you’ve been getting much sleep. Do you just want me to hold you while you go to sleep or do you want me to do some other stuff first?”
“I want you to do other stuff first, Rafe.”
“Then tell me, Lane. Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”
So she did, and he did every one of those things before she finally fell sleep with his arms around her.
* *
“Rafe, remember the Farewell to Middle School dance?”
“Yes, I took Mindy Hardesty when I went. What about it?”
“Well, Cal Burke asked me if I would go with him.”
“And you said?”
“I said I would, Rafe, because all the other popular girls are going to have dates and you told me I needed to start thinking about boys.”
He nodded. “That’s right, Lane. You’re going to have four years of high school to look forward to with lots of fun stuff going on and you’ll want to be a part of all of it.”
She sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll do it then since that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want, Lane. I don’t want to go to Princeton thinking about you back here making yourself a wallflower because of me.”
“There’s one more thing, Rafe.”
“What’s that, Honey?”
They gave us a paper at school, asking if we had anyone who would volunteer to be a chaperone. Of course, I suppose they’re thinking of parents but you know Mom and Dad would never do it. So can I put your name down, Rafe?”
He laughed right out loud, a full-throated laugh, completely unlike his usual ironic chuckle.
“Laney, do you have any idea of the consternation it would cause if I walked into that dance as a chaperone? Half of the teachers think I’m evil incarnate the way it is. They’d see me as the fox in a whole fucking henhouse of little chickens.”
“I don’t care what they think. The kids would love it, especially the girls. Will you do it, Rafe?”
“Sure, Honey. Sign me up. It will be worth it in entertainment value alone.”
Sociopath? Page 11
