Sociopath? (8 page)

Rhonda Fisher was telling them about her
latest experiences in counseling.

“I have so many girls coming into my office
to cry on my shoulder about Rafe Vincennes, it’s an epidemic. I
think I could respond to them in my sleep. ‘Yes, dear, I know how
much you love him’. ‘Yes, dear, I know you think you can’t live
without him”. ‘Yes, dear, I know how he makes you feel when he
makes love to you.’ ‘Yes, dear, I know he broke your heart.’ I’m
beginning to think he’s going to run out of pretty girls before he
runs out of time at Benedict High.“

“Rafe Vincennes,” Linda Dee said with
loathing in her voice, “I’d like to kill that worthless little
prick!”

“Whoa, Dee, we’ve always known you didn’t
like Rafe but that sounds personal.”

“It is personal, because my Chelsea is one of
those girls Rhonda is talking about. As much as I’ve always
distrusted him - and yet I had to sit on the side of her bed and
listen to her cry her eyes out and tell me how much she loves that
little bastard. The whole time I was thinking that if I had my
hands around his neck, he wouldn’t be taking advantage of any more
young girls. She admitted she was a virgin until he got a’hold of
her. He should be charged with statutory rape!”

“But, Dee, how could he be charged with
statutory rape when Chelsea’s 18 and Rafe Vincennes is what?
Fourteen now?”

“Fourteen in actual years, yes, but he’s
always been an adult in that sociopathic brain of his!”

“Careful, Dee, it wouldn’t be smart to let
many people hear you call one of our students a sociopath with no
evidence whatsoever, especially when he’s a Vincennes. That’s a
pretty heavy charge.”

“It’s true though. I suppose you’ve all heard
the gossip that it was Rafe that beat the hell out of Bobby Kelly
and then cut him. He’ll probably always have that scar on his
face.”

“We’ve heard it but no one has ever been
willing to say it, especially Bobby himself. Jacobs called him into
his office and talked to him for about an hour trying to get him to
tell and he flat out denied it was Rafe.”

“But we know it was, don’t we, because who
else would have the power to intimidate them all that much except
Rafe Vincennes?”

They nodded in agreement.

Jeb Kroner laughed. “Well, I think what any
of us who have pretty daughters have to do is go home and make them
ugly until Rafe is gone from Benedict. Maybe we could buy some of
the make up that actors use to make them big gross noses and put
moles with black hair sprouting out of them on their chins.”

Had Rafe been there, he would have chuckled
back and maybe told him, “too late to lock the barn door now, Mr
Kroner, that horse has already left.”

* *

“You know what, Rafe?”

“What, Lane?”

“Today, Mrs Jett, the gym teacher, was out
sick and they told us we could just spend the class dancing or
doing floor exercises on the mats or whatever we wanted to do. But,
some of us just sat around in a circle and talked about sex.”

He cocked one dark eyebrow and grinned in
amusement. “And just what did the girls in your 7th grade class
have to say about sex, Laney? Did they tell you anything you didn’t
already know?”

She giggled. “No. They told lots of wrong
things. Misty Madison is the only one who has ever done it with a
boy and she said he was in and done in less than a minute and he
didn’t have a clue that she was supposed to get something out of it
too. She said most girls don’t have orgasms from sex with boys
anyways, they just fake it and wait ‘til it’s over and then
masturbate. She said her Mom said it’s even that way with grown
women and she had never had a climax from a man! Stormy said her
older sister told her if she gave a boy a blow job to be sure and
stop and finish him with her hand, to never let him come in her
mouth. And Heather said she thought the whole idea of putting a
boy’s privates in her mouth was gross and she would never do it.
Lacy said you could only come if you were in love and probably
Misty didn’t love the boy she was with and that’s why nothing
happened. She said that’s how you could know if love was true, if
the boy could make you have an orgasm. Is that true, Rafe, do you
have to love somebody to have an orgasm? I love you and I have
orgasms all the time.” She giggled again.

“No, Lane, that isn’t true although it’s nice
when it happens that way. I think probably lots of girls have to
fool themselves into believing they’re in love to be able to come
though.”

“But not boys?”

“Nah, Lane, it doesn’t matter to guys, they
can get it off whether they like a girl very much or not. So,
anyway, Lane, what were you saying when this intellectual
conversation about sex was taking place?”

“I was just looking at them with my eyes real
wide like I didn’t have the faintest idea what they were talking
about. Everyone thinks I’m Miss Innocent, you know?”

He stroked her hair. “You are Miss Innocent,
Laney. I might have taught you a lot about sex, but you’re still
Miss Innocent.”

* *

Every Vincennes got a new car for his or her
16th birthday. It was the event Rafe had been looking forward to
more than any other in his life. If ever there was anybody who
needed a car, who deserved a car, who belonged behind the wheel of
a car, it was Rafe, or so at least he thought. He’d always been
older in his head than his age, as noted by Linda Dee, and he’d
always been treated as if he was older, like being advanced so far
ahead of his peers in school. He’d done everything else early. It
had chafed him bloody raw to have to wait until the fucking
bureaucracy decided when he could have a license to drive a
car.

He’d read reviews by the hundreds and had
decided that he wanted a Corvette. It was the fastest street legal
car he might, might, be able to talk Renny into and he was going to
have to do some serious talking to get it done. His father had
always sprung for decent rides for his kids. He couldn’t remember
as far back as Morgan and Wyatt but Gabe had gotten a Mustang and
he thought Denis’ birthday car had been a Monte Carlo. Forget the
girls. Madeline and Jocelyn had both chosen SUVs and Annecy picked
a PT Cruiser of all things. Still, he thought Renny might give him
a little trouble over a Corvette, not only because it was more
expensive than what he’d spent on the others (the ice-blue one Rafe
coveted was $50,000 plus), but there was the cautiousness factor as
well. Would he trust Rafe not to drive it too fast and maybe wreck
the car or kill himself? Maybe not. Could Rafe be trusted not to
drive it too fast? He grinned to himself. Ummm, absolutely not.

There was not much middle ground with Rafe.
He was a person of extremes. Stop or Go. He was capable of being
almost Zen-like in the way he could maintain a level of total
stillness. Teachers had noticed, even when he was little, when most
small boys are full of pent energy, that Rafe Vincennes could
lounge without moving a muscle for longer periods of time than most
grown ups could. He never squirmed or fidgeted. He never
interrupted a conversation and he never rushed out to recess but
strolled gracefully down the hall like time didn’t concern him. His
kindergarten teacher said whatever the opposite of Attention
Deficit Disorder was, that’s what Rafe Vincennes had.

By contrast, when he swung into action, it
was quickly and surely, without hesitation or wasted motion. It was
why he was so good at hunting. He could sit, silent and unmoving,
in a deer stand or a duck blind for as many hours as necessary,
maintaining his focus, until his target was in range and then
within seconds, boom, he aimed and fired and the deer or duck was
dead, his shot invariably hitting exactly the spot he’d
targetted.

He’d heard the phrase, “need for speed” but
couldn’t recall what it was associated with. He knew he had it
though. He thought he must have a lower tolerance for boredom than
most people or maybe it was more of an addiction to stimulation.
He’d never been tempted by substances. He neither drank nor did any
drugs whatsoever. He didn’t even take the pain pills the doctor had
given him the time he got a groin pull on the football field and
that had hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. His avoidance of chemicals was
because he always wanted, not really wanted but needed, to be in
complete control of both himself and others. He had learned that
most people were more controllable than they thought they were. It
was just a matter of discovering their strengths and weaknesses and
what triggers could be used to manipulate either one. Most of the
time, they weren’t even aware of what was being done. Bobby, for
instance. He could have got Bobby to go after him on the spot if
his friends hadn’t saved his ass. Of course, in the end, waiting
turned out to be more fun. Or Laney, you could wrap her right
around your little finger with just a little attention and
affection. But, the thing was, how could you expect to control
others if you couldn’t control yourself?

Rafe walked warily through life. He usually
had his guard up because he had to learn things that seemed to come
naturally to others. Like taboos. He didn’t think he had the moral
boundaries that held most people back in their behavior. (He still
didn’t consider himself a sociopath though). Thank God, he was as
smart as he was and able to catch on as quickly as he did to be
able to adapt to society’s restrictions or at least to be clever
about violating them.

Of course, he’d violated one of the most
serious taboos with Lane but he truly didn’t see why it was wrong.
He’d cared for her since she was a baby when no one else seemed
very interested in doing it. He’d watched out for her and protected
her as best he could and they loved each other so why shouldn’t
they show it with sex when it was so enjoyable to both of them? In
fact, he thought she was probably the only person he did love or
had ever loved or probably ever would love. It was his own kind of
love, he admitted that. And that way maybe wasn’t as committed and
dedicated as the love he saw in the movies, the kind of love that
made you want to forsake all others. He knew he kept her tucked on
a mental shelf for the most part, only bringing her down when he
wanted her. He also knew it wasn’t like that for her. If things
were different and they were boyfriend and girlfriend, she’d be as
faithful to him as anyone could ever be to another. But as much as
he was able to give of himself, he gave to her.

But anyway, back to speed. He loved it and
always had. That’s why he asked to be able to ride Destiny when he
was 10. The gray stallion liked to run as far and as fast as he
could and no one else let him do that but Rafe. They all held him
back but Rafe let him fly flat out. He always felt a kind of bond
between them when he mounted Des, feeling the horse’s eagerness,
like he knew there would be no governor on him as long as Rafe was
on his back.

He felt the same way about skiing. He was a
fearless skier who’d always taken on slopes considered too extreme
for someone his age. Once an instructor had seen him and had
approached him about training for the Olympics. He was sure, he
said, that Rafe could easily make the Olympic team. But Rafe was
honest with him. He didn’t want to work that hard. He loved skiing
because it offered him freedom but it wouldn’t seem like freedom
anymore if he had to follow a ruthless regimen of training. “I’m
too lazy for that,” he told the disappointed coach.

He found the same freedom when he was first
old enough to take the cigarette boat, which wasn’t very old,
because the keys to all the boats and cars were kept right there in
the key safe in the entry way into the kitchen and it was never
locked. And who was there to tell him he couldn’t do it or for that
matter, who would even know? He’d watched when he was a passenger
to see how to work the controls. He knew he could do it. He
practiced when he took it the first time until he had it down pat
and then he went far out, beyond any traffic, and let it rip. He
could still remember the exhilaration of charging the choppy waves,
bouncing across them, feeling the cool spray hitting his body and
the wind whipping his hair, just him and the boat, far away from
anyone else. Speed was his drug of choice. It was the thing that
let him forget people and all their idiotic and arbitrary rules and
how carefully you had to plan to deal with them because it was
their world and not his, not like soaring through the air on skis
or jetting across the water, where he was in his element.

He wasn’t like sweet little Lane, who just
accepted what people gave her. If something was important enough to
him, he’d make it clear to his parents until he got what he wanted
and since he asked for so little, they were always happy to oblige.
Like ski camp. He’d never been skiing (Vincennes family vacations
were a thing of the past by the time he and Lane came along) but he
could tell by watching it on t.v. or looking at pictures of skiers
bulleting down snowy hills that it was something he’d enjoy so he
researched ski camps on the computer and when he found the one he
wanted, he presented it to them and they’d readily agreed. He hated
leaving Laney for the whole week. She was only about six then. He
made them promise they would at least check on her now and then and
make sure she was okay. He guessed they did but the night he got
home and brought her to bed with him, she clung to him at first,
crying, “please, please, Rafe, don’t ever go away and leave me so
long again, it was just awful here without you.” And he never had.
He always listed a skiing trip when he was asked what he wanted for
Christmas but from then on, he confined himself to only going for
long weekends.

About the Corvette, he was ready to pull out
all the stops, fire all the triggers, to get what he wanted.
Probably the most deadly ammunition he had was guilt. He’d remind
Renny of how little they’d ever done for him and Lane compared to
the other brothers and sisters and how they’d considered him a
built in babysitter for her even though he was just a little kid
himself and how he’d accepted that responsibility. He’d bring up
his grades and his athletic accomplishments to show that he had
lived up to Renny’s expectations despite getting almost no
encouragement. God, he could almost feel his foot on the gas pedal.
He just had to talk Renny into saying yes.