Sociopath?

by Vicki Williams

  “This first time was for Ireland, Mrs Stewart,” he told her tauntingly, “the next time will be for meself.”

  *

  “Cut, cut, cut!” called out Reynard. “It’s a wrap!”

  *

  “Did what I think just happened, really happen?” Sylvia asked in hushed tones. “Did he really fuck her right there on the set?”

  “All I know, Sylvia, is that we’re going to have to send this film out with a warning to fireproof the theater screens to keep them from igniting.”

  *

  They were still on the cot.

  “Hey, we’re done. You can get up and get dressed now.”

  “Turn the lights off when you leave,” Rafe answered back.

  *

  The rest of the Hollywood filming proceeded smoothly. Of course, he moved his things out of his hotel and into her hilltop mansion the first night. Neither even considered for one moment that they wouldn’t be together. It was good that Press Buckley had the kind of sweet, generous personality that he had. He put in his usual sterling performance without resentment although he already realized he was going to be over-shadowed by his new young co-star. He’d known many famous actors in his career but none who oozed pure sex appeal from his very pores the way Rafe did. He was at least Rhiannon’s equal in that department. Some people had it in person but it somehow faded on film. Rafe and Rhiannon weren’t like that. If anything, they were so photogenic, the cameras emphasized their magnetism and the chemistry between them magnified it even more.

  *

  They were lying naked on a double lounger beside her turquoise pool. Each was the only person the other had ever felt they could reveal themselves to. Both had an obsession with maintaining an armor coat of invulnerability yet now they freely removed their self-protective shields, leaving themselves open to the other.

  He’d told her about Laney.

  She shrugged. “If I was your sister, I’d want to fuck you too, Rafe.”

  *

  She told him the real story of her life.

  “Instead of Rhiannon, try Pearl Ann Mosier. Instead of Ireland, try West fucking Virginia. Try a broken down shack in the back woods shared with six other kids, a father who drank and a pathetic excuse for a mother who was glad when he took his violence out on us instead of her. Try brothers and uncles and cousins and neighbors who all considered you fair game when they wanted sex. They had such tender ways of describing it. They’d order you to lay down because they wanted a piece of ass or a shot of leg or they wanted to rip one off or they’d laugh when they wanted a blow job and say, “time for your dinner, Pearlie”. I don’t know when the first time was, Rafe. I can’t even remember back to when it didn’t happen.”

  “Jesus, Ree, that’s awful. I know what I did to Laney probably wasn’t fair but I always loved her and took care of her along with it.”

  “Yeah, it’s a whole different thing, Rafe.”

  “So how’d you get out of that life, Honey?”

  Her smile was sad. It made him want to kiss her but he didn’t because he knew she needed to finish her story. “My dad made us all quit school when we were ten to go to work and bring him in his drinking money. He sent me off to clean house and baby-sit for one of the few semi-affluent families in our area. From my point of view now, they’d still be relatively poor but, you know, they were well off for that place. The woman was nice, really nice. She’d talk to me sometimes about my life when I was polishing her furniture or mopping her floor. They paid me a dollar an hour. Eventually, she told me she was going to give me a raise, up to a dollar and a quarter, but she wasn’t going to tell my Pap. That way I’d have a little money of my own. I saved almost every single penny, Rafe. I couldn’t have spent it anyway because how would I have been able to explain how I had any money that I didn’t turn over to Pap? Most weeks that was two or three dollars. I lived in fear that someone would find out because any of them would have stolen it. I decided I’d leave when I was 14. Even staying that long was a risk that I’d get pregnant. I had almost $700 by then.“

  “My family has always been rich. I can’t even imagine saving that much a quarter at a time.”

  “Well, yeah, Rafe, you told me your ultimate goal was a Corvette but mine was survival. Anyway, I hitchhiked into the nearest town that had a bus stop and I bought a ticket for Hollywood. If I’d known then, how unlikely it was that I’d make a go of it, I’d never have had nerve enough to do it. When I got to California, I joined the street kids but I never let myself get caught up in taking drugs and even though, I traded sex for food more times than you can count, no matter how scared or desperate I was, I never weakened and let myself get hooked on drugs or become part of the stable of any pimp just for the so-called security of being taken care of. I listened and worked on getting West Virginia out of my speech. I hid what was left of my money in the park. It wasn’t safe but was safer there than on my body which was subject to inspection and violation by whoever took a notion at any time.”

  He was stroking the length of her golden back, massaging tense muscles, wanting to show her his sympathy, if not his understanding, because, of course, he couldn’t begin to understand what it must have been like. Not to him who’d never had to submit to anyone’s will except Renny’s and he was mostly pretty reasonable in his demands.

  “Here’s optimism for you. I went to one of the re-sale shops in Beverly Hills and spent a big chunk of my money on an outfit, not the red leather mini-skirt and see-through blouse and stiletto heels the other baby whores wore, but a white silk dress and sandals, not even very low cut. The kind of understated but elegant dresses I saw the rich men’s wives wearing when they lunched on Rodeo Drive. And I tried to hang out places where people would see me who weren’t just cheap johns looking for a quick, young lay. I knew one thing in those years, Rafe, and that was the only possession I had of any value in this world was being beautiful and I meant to sell it for as high a price as I could negotiate from life. I wanted to be a movie star and I never, ever let myself lose my focus, even when I was so hungry, my stomach was cramping, or some slimy piece of shit smacked me around just because he enjoyed doing it, or I had to force myself not to puke when my head was being pushed down on some dirty old man’s smelly dick. The only thing I really worried about was somebody beating me up bad enough to threaten my looks.”

  She took a deep breath. “My plan worked too, Rafe, because one day when I was at the drug store drinking coffee, I met Ted Frazier, and he ended up being my lifesaver. The crazy thing was, I was prepared to offer sex for salvation but Ted didn’t even want that. All he ever asked me to do was get naked and lay across his lap and let him spank me while he called me a bad, bad girl. He did it pretty hard. It hurt, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as going down on someone or letting them fuck me. Except for that, he was good to me. He moved me into his cottage in Hollywood, and he bought me some more nice clothes besides just that one outfit. He had some low-level connections in the movie industry and he finally wangled me an interview with a minor producer. Ted showed me how to dress and wear my make up.

  “’You have to vamp him, Rhiannon’, which is what I was calling myself by then. Don’t just hand it to him on a silver platter. Make him give up something in return’. It was obvious the producer wanted me. He promised me a part in a movie and asked me to move in with him until the right role came along. When I told Ted I was moving out, he said, of course, like it was a foregone conclusion. He told me to remember that this guy wasn’t shit but he was only the second card in my deck, he himself being the first. He said the secret was to keep moving up until I got to the King. I met the next guy at one of the producer’s parties. He was a mega-cokehead and pretty mean when he was stoned, but also slightly higher in the Hollywood pecking order so the places he took me were more prestigious and filled with more important people. My King turned out to be a director who said he thought I’d be perfect in a film they were just then casting and it turned out, he really meant it. Of cou
rse, he wanted sex too but that went without saying. He actually did put me in his movie, which turned out to be, Magic Creek, and the rest, as they say, is history. I always promised myself that once I made it, I would never fuck another man unless it was my idea.”

  She wound her arms around his neck, putting her lips on his ear, “it’s my idea to fuck you, Rafe.”

  *

  “Did you ever kill anyone, Rafe?”

  “Nope. I’ve hurt a few people, was probably responsible for someone commiting suicide but I never actually killed anyone myself.”

  “Would you if you had to?”

  “Sure. I’d rather think of another way ‘cause I wouldn’t want to take a chance on going to jail, but if I was backed into a corner, I would. Are you trying to tell me you killed someone, Ree?”

  “The day I was leaving West Virginia. I thought I was alone, getting my stash out from behind a loose foundation stone in the shed where I kept it. Pap snuck up behind me. He was going to take my money and beat me for hiding it from him in the first place. I couldn’t let that happen or I knew I’d never get away. He was coming toward me, calling me a fucking little cunt. He was drunk and slow and stumbling. I was desperate. I grabbed up the rock I’d taken from the foundation and ran around behind him. As he was starting to turn, I bashed it into his temple as hard as I could. He fell. I felt for his pulse and he was still alive. So I tried to hit him again in exactly the same spot. I waited for while to see what was going to happen and by the next time I checked, he’d quit breathing. I rolled him over onto the stone, hoping it would look like he’d fallen down and hit his head against it and then I ran. Seemed like it would have been suspicious that Pap died the same day I disappeared but as far as I know, no one ever tried to come after me. Probably everyone in Blister Springs was glad the miserable piece of shit was dead. I know I was. Do you think I was wrong, Rafe?”

  “No, not wrong, Ree. I probably wouldn’t have let happen by accident though. I’d have made a plan in advance so I could control the way it went down.”

  *

  He told her about his times ten rule. “God,” she said, stretching sinuously, before pressing hard against him, “being with you is like being let out of a cage. It’s so wonderful to be able to tell you everything. I think we’re kindred spirits, Rafe.”

  *

  “Did you ever go back, Ree, out of curiosity?”

  “Never! I don’t want to ever see that place or any of those people again! They must not know who I am, Rafe, ‘cause they’d come around threatening and begging if they did. That would be the only fun part, watching their faces when I told them I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. I don’t care about anyone from around here. None of them knew where I was from. If I had to make up some story about why I ended up on the street after coming from Ireland, I could make that glamorous if I needed to. The only thing I worry about is someone from West Virginia recognizing me.”

  *

  “Have you ever loved anyone, Rafe?”

  “Just Laney and now you, Honey.”

  “You’re it for me, Rafe. I never loved anyone ‘til you.”

  “What does that mean, Ree? What constitutes love for people like us?” His midnight eyes met her smoky ones.

  “Are you going to ask me to marry you, Rafe?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to ask to live with me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to ask me to be faithful to you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to promise to be faithful to me?”

  “No.”

  She smiled her open-hearted smile. “Then I guess it just means loving, Rafe.”

  *

  They weren’t exactly alike. She was more spontaneous; he was more calculating. She was more likely to mount a frontal assault; he was more likely to set a clever trap. When she got angry, she shouted; when he got angry, he went quiet. She was more like fire and he was more like ice.

  *

  When they fought, it was like the clash of the titans. Sometimes, he won and sometimes she did. For instance, he was adamant that she give up cocaine.

  “It’s not that I’m self-righteous about the drugs themselves,” he told her, “only that they make their users go weak and stupid and I don’t get off on weakness or stupidity.”

  “But, I don’t do it that often. It’s not like I’m addicted. And, Rafe,” she told him, “sex goes better with coke.”

  “If I’m not enough to satisfy you without chemical assistance, Ree, I guarantee you, I’ll walk away. I’d see that as a personal failure.”

  “It’s not like that, Rafe,” she protested.

  He was straddling her, hard, just ready to slide inside.

  “Then I guess you’ve got a decision to make, don’t you, Sweetheart? Why don’t you tell me what it is right now?”

  “Fuck you, Rafe! Nobody tells me what I can and can’t do. That’s another vow I made to myself a long time ago.”

  “Good enough.” He crawled off of her and pulled his shorts on.

  “You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t really leave me!”

  He turned back and smiled his flashing smile but she saw his eyes had gone hard and black, a sign she’d learned to recognize as meaning there was no possibility of compromise.

  “If you wait until I’m out the door, Ree, it will be too late.”

  His hand was on the knob before she broke. “No, Rafe, come back!”

  “Are you making me a promise, Honey?”

  “Yes, I promise, just don’t leave, Rafe, please.”

  He watched her flush the last of the white powder down the toilet.

  *

  She wanted him to let her tie him up just to prove he trusted her. He thought he did trust her but it went so against his grain to let himself be put in a helpless position, even by her, that so far, he’d resisted. The more he balked, the more insistent she became.

  “You say you love me and have faith me in, Rafe, but it must not be true or you’d give yourself over to me, like falling backwards, believing in someone enough to know they’ll catch you.”

  “I trust you, Sweetheart, honest, but it’s just not something I think I can do.”

  “Fine, then, Rafe.” Her eyes were storm cloud gray, her version of his cold black ones. “You thought sex with cocaine was a personal rejection of you. I think sex without faith is a rejection of me. If you can’t prove to me you trust me, then just leave me alone.”

  It went three days of her shunning every overture he made. If he put his arms around her, she slipped away. If he tried to kiss her, she turned her head. In bed, she curled up on her own side as far away from him as she could get so they didn’t touch.

  “Okay,” he finally said, sounding reluctant and miserable. “I give up, Ree. Just do it.”

  She made him lie spread-eagled on the bed, tying his wrists and ankles with scarves, before knotting them to the bedposts. They weren’t tied loosely either to give the illusion of play but snugly, so he knew he couldn’t break free.

  “Jesus, Rafe,” she laughed the pealing laugh her fans loved so much, “you’ve broken into a sweat and you’re stiff as a board. Are you starting to hyperventilate?”

  “Maybe I am,” he panted. “Push my hair out of my eye, Ree.”

  “Just relax, Baby. I don’t want to hurt you, I only want to love you.”

  “It’s not that. I’m not afraid you’ll hurt me. You’d have to kill me if you did. It’s giving over control to someone else, even you.”

  “I know, and that’s why I want to do it, because you never let anyone else.”

  She had pulled a colorful, fluffy peacock feather from one of the flower arrangements and began to dance it lightly down his body, from his forehead to his cheeks, across his lips and down his neck. She tickled it around his nipples and back and forth across his belly. From there, it went to his groin, teasing his cock and balls, before moving on to his inner thighs and down his legs and to the
bottoms of his feet.

  Lust won over anxiety. He was still conscious of the scarves binding him but he’d become hard in spite of them.

  When she’d completed her circuit with the feather, she revisited the same route with her lips and tongue, kissing his face, breathing into his ear, gently kissing his lips, probing the inside of his mouth with her tongue. She nuzzled his neck and licked his shoulders and sucked his nipples. Her tongue traced wet circles on his belly and then her mouth left butterfly kisses on his inner thighs and all around his groin. Finally she massaged his testicles with her tongue, then licked the base of his cock, before lighting on the tip, taunting him.

  By now his submission to her was complete. Lying there, completely immobile, forced to allow her to work her will on him as she chose had him on fire. His cock seemed like a huge and pulsing thing, craving release.

  “ Jesus, Ree, do it now, please, Baby!”

  “Do you trust me, Rafe?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Completely?”

  “Completely, Ree, I swear it!”

  She straddled him and lowered herself onto him although still she didn’t hurry. If his hands had been free, he’d have been grasping her butt, forcing her to move more quickly and bring him fulfillment. But, of course, his hands weren’t free so all he could do was wait until she decided it was time to give him what he craved so desperately.

  Finally, she did, rode him until he stiffened and bucked against her. It felt like his ejaculation was coming from the very depths of his being. He moaned and collapsed limply against the sheets, not even caring that he was still tied and at her mercy.

  She had to cut the scarves to release him, he’d pulled them so tight in the throes of his climax. When he was loose, she laid down beside him.

  “I love you, Rafe. I only wanted to make a point. From the minute I met you I knew I’d found the only person I could depend on to have my back no matter what. I just wanted you to know you could count on the same from me.”