Sociopath? (34 page)

They played it for real. She fought as hard
as she could. Her body writhed under him, seeking escape. She spit
in his face, her saliva running down his chin. When she bit him on
the shoulder, he yelped in pain. When she freed one hand and clawed
his back, bright red streaks of actual blood appeared. But nothing
she did stopped the deed from happening. The cameras showed his
hips thrusting and his panting breath and the way he slumped
against her in the end. And they filmed her look of defeat and the
tears welling out of the smoky eyes and running down her face.

“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 course, 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.”