Sociopath? (15 page)

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 again.”

“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.”

“You’ll have to dress up a little. Even the
chaperones dress up.”

“I remember, Lane. Don’t worry, I’ll fit
in.”

*

Rafe was accepted as a chaperone, probably
because the new middle school counselor didn’t know his reputation,
only that he was a Vincennes and she had been around long enough to
know that was a name to be reckoned with in Benedict. Certainly,
there were people who would have tried to blackball him if they’d
known in advance.

But, they didn’t know in advance. They didn’t
know until that night when Linda Dee clutched Jeb Kroner’s arm and
said, “oh, my, God, look at the door and tell me that’s not who I
think it is!”

“Holy shit, what’s he doing here?”

He’d borrowed Renny’s Mercedes to bring Laney
and Cal to the dance, the Corvette’s single seat being too small
for all of them. He thought Laney looked gorgeous. He’d taken her
shopping and helped her pick out the long pink Empire dress, then
to the stylist to have her pale blonde hair done up on top of her
head with a beaded ribbon entwined in the curls. Cal was a
good-looking kid too and seemed nice. He’d brought Lane a corsage
of pink rosebuds. Being here with them made Rafe feel all warm and
fatherly. He grinned inwardly at the thought.

To the teachers watching in horror, he seemed
anything but fatherly. He was wearing a tailor-made, charcoal gray
suit with a faint pinstripe along with a dove gray silk shirt and a
pewter tie with red stripes. (Renny insisted that all his sons have
suits custom tailored, even if, like Rafe, they seldom wore them.
He didn’t intend to be embarrassed by poorly dressed children if
the need for a suit arose.)

Rafe had spent so much of the summer in the
sun, he still maintained his deep gypsy tan. His black hair was
combed back right now but Rhonda Fisher knew it was only a matter
of time until that sexy lock would be dangling over his forehead.
The kids crowded around him. Rafe Vincennes was like, well, like a
Benedict hero. The boys looked up to him because of his athletic
prowess. The girls admired him because he was so freakin’ handsome.
Everyone had heard the Bobby Kelly story so there was that element
of daring danger that drew them as well.

“Well, the little son-of-a-bitch certainly
knows how to make a grand entrance,” Linda Dee fumed in disgust.
“You’d think we’d been honored by the presence of Prince Fucking
William or something.”

After he finished saying his hellos to the
students, he walked directly to the teachers’ table, giving them
the benefit of that devastating smile.

“Hi, Miss Dee, Mr Kroner, Mrs Fisher, Miss
Britt. I bet you probably didn’t think you’d be seeing me so soon
again, did you?” a hint of mockery in his voice.

“No, Rafe, we didn’t, but have a seat,” Jeb
Kroner told him. Well, what the hell else could they do? He was
here and that was that. They’d just have to live with it. He hoped
Dee could live with it.

“How have you been, Miss Dee? You probably
don’t even remember me, do you? I was in your second grade class.”
He knew damned good and well that she remembered him. Her daughter,
Chelsea, had told him her Mom hated Rafe with a passion. He
wondered if Chelsea had ever confided in her mother about what a
good time they’d had together. He recalled a 69 episode that was
especially fun. He grinned down at Miss Dee. His smile was innocent
but his chilling black eyes told her another story.

“Don’t even speak to me, Rafe. Not after what
you did to my daughter.” (Well, that answered that question.)

“It was mutual with me and Chels, Miss Dee. I
didn’t do anything she didn’t want me to do.”

Mr Kroner tried to change the subject. He
hoped Dee wasn’t getting ready to stroke out. She seemed to be
gasping for breath at the moment.

“So, Rafe, we thought you’d be off to
Princeton by now. Why are you still in Benedict?”

“I took a year off first. Since I graduated
so early, I thought it would be nice to take it easy for a while.
I’ll be going next year for sure. I’ve been racing sprint cars,
playing in a band, just fun stuff, you know?”

“I read in the Sentinal about you winning the
Regatta, Rafe,” Miss Britt told him. She had no personal experience
with him. She taught Marriage and Parenting Skills. Every Benedict
student was supposed to take her course but Rafe had managed
somehow to avoid it. He wasn’t up for being in charge of a pretend
baby that cried at 2:00 a.m. and crapped its diapers. He’d already
been through that movie for real.

He shrugged off the Regatta win. “I’ve been
handling boats since I was a little boy and I had some good
luck.”

He didn’t shrug her off though. He’d
certainly taken note of Miss Britt’s auburn curls and green eyes
and bee-stung smile and of the voluptuous shape beneath the jade
chiffon she wore.

Linda Dee was watching them with narrowed
eyes. It was obvious to her that Melanie Britt, who was only 24
years old, was far from immune to the Rafe Vincennes charm.

The dee-jay had started now with a slow song.
He could see Laney dancing with Cal. She looked comfortable on the
dance floor. He’d taught her well.

“Would you like to dance, Miss Britt?” he
asked her.

She got up. “Call me Melanie,” she said.
“You’re not a student anymore, Rafe.”

By the time, he brought her back to the
table, they could see the stars in her eyes. “Another one bites the
dust,” thought Jeb Kroner.

“I’ll warn her, but I know it won’t do any
good,” thought Rhonda Fisher.

“I wonder how long it will be before he has
her pants down?” thought Linda Dee.

They danced the next song too, a fast
one.

When the next romantic tune came along, he
asked Rhonda Fisher if she cared to take a turn on the floor. The
answer was no, she positively did not want to dance with Rafe
Vincennes but she didn’t know how to get out of it without being
rude so she got up and took his hand.

And, Lord, she had to admit the boy was a
wonderful dancer, holding her just close enough but not too close,
to lead her smoothly through the steps.

He smiled his gleaming white smile at her,
“don’t worry, Mrs Fisher, I’m not going to cause any trouble here
tonight.”

“Not here tonight maybe, Rafe, but you’re
going to break Melanie Britt’s heart before it’s over, you know you
are.”

His dark eyes caught hers for a moment and he
nodded, “well, maybe that,” he agreed.

*

From then on, the kids took over. There
wasn’t one eighth grade girl who didn’t want to be able to say she
danced with Rafe Vincennes at the Farewell to Middle School Dance.
He was unfailingly gracious, dancing with them all, paying them the
same attention - tall ones, short ones, fat ones and thin ones.
There wasn’t one who didn’t take her seat afterwards thinking he’d
smiled on her a little more brightly than the others.