Sociopath? (35 page)

“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.”

*

Her mansion was on the very top of a hill in
the Hollywood Hills. She had forty acres of prime real estate.
She’d paid a fortune for it but it was worth an even bigger fortune
now. The house was three meandering levels of French doors and
patios, towering cathedral ceilings and open beams, potted trees
and great bowls of blooming flowers. The outside wall of the master
bedroom was solid glass so that it seemed like sleeping outdoors
with the pool just steps away and the lights of L.A. gleaming
below.

*

Sometimes they heard the thumping blades of
helicopters flying above them.

“It’s the fucking paparazzi,” she said,
“you’ll get used to that. Come on, let’s go inside until they give
up.”

“Fuck, no. They’re not going to dictate what
we do. What do you care anyway, Ree? Let’em take their pictures,”
burying his head between her legs.

*

They went on location to Ireland, a country
they both fell in love with, maybe partly because they were so
enthralled with each other. When they didn’t have to be on the set,
they took long rides past green hills that swept to the base of
mountains and along craggy-cliffed coasts and long golden beaches,
through wooded glens and beside crystal lakes, through villages
with colorful pubs and thatch-roofed cottages and castles and
churches. She said she didn’t really know why she chose Rhiannon to
be her name or why she picked Ireland to be the country of,
basically, her rebirth. She guessed it was just that both were just
as foreign to West Virginia and Pearl Ann Mosier as anything she
could think of. He told her that he was part Irish in that it was
where his mother’s family was from. The studio’s publicity
department sent out elaborately detailed press releases about the
movie star, Rhiannon’s, triumphant return to the country of her
birth.

*

Rafe didn’t actually like moviemaking much -
the long hours, many of which were filled with waiting and boredom.
Repeating scenes because someone got their lines wrong, something
that never happened with Rafe and his photographic memory. He
thought this would be the last time he’d ever want to do this.
Better to be in a car watching the scenery fly by at a two hundred
miles an hour. He would miss Ree when it was over but it wasn’t
like he had to spend every minute of his life with her. She had her
world and he had his. They’d have plenty of time to be
together.

*

About halfway through filming, they changed
the ending.

Rhiannon’s character, Fiona, had been
supposed to finally be rescued by the British and joyfully reunited
with Captain Stewart. Press was the star, after all. But, they
could see that wouldn’t be realistic. Fiona and Kel were so
electric together, audiences would never buy her happily parting
from him to rejoin her huband. No woman, especially, would believe
she’d willingly leave Kel. So, while he still died in the end, now
the movie’s final scenes showed a grieving Fiona, back with a
husband who knew he’d killed the man his wife loved and mourning
his own loss as a consequence.

“It’s actually better this way, more
dramatic,” Reynard told the rest of the production group.

*

The advance reviews were overwhelmingly
positive. The critics were inspired to new heights of over-the-top
description, which usually included some variation of heat, based
on the strength of Rhiannon and Rafe’s passionate performances.

“These two are positively incendiary
together,” declared one.

“They’re like nuclear fusion,” exclaimed
another.

“I expected to see smoke rising from the
screen,” enthused yet a third.

“The love scene of the century,” it was
labelled.

“Of the century?” asked Rafe, cocking one
dark eyebrow, “have movies even been in existence for a
century?”

*

Chas and Vic flew out for the premiere and
Rafe sent Laney a ticket too. She’d bought a dress especially for
the occasion. She thought she looked good in sea blue silk that
matched her eyes. She’d pulled one side of her long blonde hair
back and fastened it with a blue beaded comb. Chas and Vic told her
she looked beautiful although when your competition was Rhiannon,
it took more than that to inspire confidence.

They were already seated in the theater when
Rhiannon and Rafe arrived in their limo to trod the red carpet,
swarmed by reporters and cameras, so they had to watch that part
later on t.v. Rhiannon wore a long low-cut black silk gown with the
bodice trimmed in jet beads, her hair a tangle of sable curls.
(She’d originally planned to wear her hair on top of her head, but
he’d run his hands through it saying, “no, I love it like this,
Ree, wear it down for me.”) Rafe was dressed in black slacks, black
shirt and casually formal black jacket.

“Kiss her,” the people watching began to
chant. “Kiss her, Rafe. We want to see you kiss her!”

“They won’t be satisfied unless we do it,”
she murmured to him.

So, he turned and put his arms around her
waist while hers wound around his neck and he lowered his lips to
hers.

“I love you, Rafe,” they heard her say when
it was over and a small sigh of appreciation went up from the
audience.

Later, he sat watching, seated between Laney
and Rhiannon, both of whom he assumed would want him to spend the
night with them. Could be a bit of an awkward moment unless he
handled it very, very diplomatically. He hadn’t quite decided yet
exactly how he would do that until Rhiannon whispered in his ear,
“remember, Rafe, how I said you could trust me to have your back no
matter what?”

“Yes,” he whispered back.

“It’s been a while. I expect she’s anxious to
see you, so it’s okay, Baby.”

He squeezed her hand and breathed a small
sigh of gratitude.

*

Benchmark popped for dinner at Arletti’s
after the premiere, currently the hippest, most prestigious (and
most expensive) restaurant among the film industry in-crowd.
Everyone involved with No Winners was ecstatic. They’d been around
the movie business long enough to smell a hit when they saw one and
they’d been around long enough to recognize a star when they saw
one and Rafe Vincennes was going to be a star of the top rank,
every bit as big as Rhiannon herself. They were a match made in
heaven as far as the studio was concerned.

It was all pretty old hat for Rhiannon, and
Rafe was more amused by all the hubbub than anything else, but Chas
and Vic and Laney were awed - being chauffeured around in
limousines to up scale restaurants , cameras going off in all
directions, reporters crying out for Rhiannon and Rafe’s attention,
sitting with movie stars like Rhiannon and Press Buckley, other
diners coming up wanting autographs. It was a heady experience.
Most of all, for them, it had been exciting seeing their own Rafe,
larger than life, up there on the screen. Every one of them
wondered if he’d be different now that he’d gotten all this
attention but they were relieved to find he was still the same old
Rafe, no more impressed by movie stardom than he had been about
getting A’s or making touchdowns or winning races.

*

Sitting at the table in her suite later, Lane
asked him, “you love her, don’t you, Rafe?”

“Come over here, Honey, and sit on my lap.”
It was his favorite way to have a serious discussion because he
could make his points with touching as well as talking.

He put his arm around her waist and smoothed
her hair off her face. “I do love her, Lane. But that doesn’t have
anything to do with you, Sweetie. No matter what else happens,
nothing will ever change between us. We’ve been part of one
another’s lives since the beginning.”

“Will you move to California now and just
make movies?”

“I don’t have any intention of ever making
another movie. I’ll be home when all the publicity shit is done,
probably in the next few weeks. I’ll be there when you get your
Christmas break. Now, you know what’s been going on with me, so
tell me what’s happening in your life? Do you like Skidmore?”

“Yes, I really do and I love Saratoga
Springs. All the professors are nice and I’ve made some friends.
I’m getting good grades. You know the best thing, Rafe?”

“What’s that, Lane?”

“Unlike you, I love having people all around
me and everywhere I go. After all the years at Heron Point, just
rattling around by myself and being lonesome, having a roommate and
hearing people in the halls and sharing a bathroom and eating in
the cafeteria seems cozy and friendly, sort of what I imagine the
house was like when all the older kids were there. I used to dream
about how fun it must have been when everyone lived at home.”

He shook his head, “well, different strokes,
I guess, Honey. What about your roommate? What’s she like?”