Ivan Press

[Ivan Press] If he told the truth -- and this does not necessarily happen with any remarkable frequency -- Ivan finds it so fucking hard to reach Hilary today. It's not even the way it was at the beginning, when he didn't understand her, didn't really care to. When the bottom suddenly dropped out from under him and left him wondering what the fuck he got himself into. It's certainly not the way it was on his yacht the night before Lausanne, that very first time they fucked. It's not the way it was in Lausanne. It's not the way it was in San Miguel those last few days, when they reached a strange, poignant little peace in those cozy earth-warm spaces of his hotel suite.

Chicago is a world away from that. Nothing earthy and warm here, not in this season. It's either cold and grey or warm and grey. The whole city is concrete and steel and glass, it seems, the earth waking so painfully slowly from slumber. Here, there seems to be no room for the fragile sort of connection they coaxed to life in San Miguel de Allende. There seems to be no room for them,

not when what's in her belly takes up so much space. So much breath. So much mind.

He thinks of her talking about slipping away from the surface. Always swimming upward. Never able to stay afloat for long. Now, weighed down by a parasite, it seems all the more impossible. He has no idea, none, what she actually wants. He guesses blindly; he seems to have gotten it right. Or maybe he got this much right: she doesn't want to decide. She wants him to decide, and somehow, to show her she was still wanted.

Even if she doesn't even want herself. Or want him to see her.


The Bentley slips into the underground parking lot. It does not belong here. There's no room for it; all four spaces are filled. Sometime in the time Hilary's been away, Ivan has traded his Murcielago for a Reventon: charcoal grey, even more aggressively styled, so fucking low to the ground. The Ducati is still there, though, as is the Veyron. The fourth slot is filled by a new toy, a Ferrari that he would call 'cheap'. Something throwaway for him to whip around town and crash on a whim. Just to see what this one feels like when it breaks.

Some part of him must realize how deeply fucked up he is. Most of him doesn't care.

They pull to a stop. Ivan waits, leisurely, until Dmitri comes out to open the doors. First for Hilary, then for himself. Rising out of the Bentley, he thanks his man, then joins Hilary. His arm slides around her, a firm loop keeping her fast to his side. He guides her toward the elevator, slides his keycard through with his off hand.


They're alone now. The floor rises beneath their feet. He's quiet a while. Then:

"Tell me how to reach you."

[Hilary Durante] He wanted to know her that first time, even. Stood at her back, bared down to lingerie, and asked her why she was there. She was so far away, and she didn't seem to care as long as he gave her...something. And he couldn't figure out what she was getting out of it if she didn't seem to care one way or the other. Maybe Hilary herself still doesn't know why, except that fucking random strong, pretty young men distracted her. Entertained her. Gave her a nice workout, let her get moments of clarity and ownership of herself if she could get them to abuse her enough.

Ivan's different somehow. He doesn't get himself up out of the bed, horrified at what he's done, and make excuses, get the hell out of there without even showering, only to go home and scrub her scent off of himself, ask himself how he could go that far. Ivan ended up holding her in the shower, fucking her again in there, rubbed her back under the hot water, recognized that it wasn't the same at all, she wasn't the same when he faced her, didn't hurt her, didn't push.

And that woman isn't the same, either, as the woman he's got wrapped against his side now. They've been released from the car, and she hasn't looked around at the others he has; they're nothing more than shiny colors in her peripheral vision. She goes silently with him, expecting that her bags will be brought up on a staff elevator, put away without her knowledge, wait for her in some guest room up at the top of the world.

Her head is on his shoulder again as they rise. She stirs when he speaks, and looks at him, her brows tugging together slightly. "I'm here," she says, bewildered. But also, because she knows what he means, what he really means, she adds more quietly: "I am."

[Ivan Press] That's when he kisses her for the first time

in months.

That's when he kisses her: not when they met on the tarmac, though he took her hand then, kissed her knuckles like a Silver Fang. Not when they rode here together in the back of his Bentley, though he sat beside her, then held her to his side. Not any of those times, though surely it's not shyness, surely it's not fear of being seen, gossiped about, found out. He fucked this woman -- in his bed, condomless, when she wasn't on protection -- with his valet standing outside the door, with her mate standing at the foot of the building. It couldn't have been that.

Still. This is when he kisses her. When they're alone in the swiftly ascending elevator. When she lifts her head from his shoulder and looks at him, and perplexity colors her brow, and emphasis colors her words. She barely has the last consonant out before his mouth is on hers, firm, almost insistent, his hand coming up to hold her face right there while he has his fill of her.

The elevator stops before he stops kissing her. How romantic: doors sweeping open on the lovers, kissing. Except the woman is huge with pregnancy. Except the man is scandalously young, and the way he kisses her almost looks like possession.

Eventually he draws away. They're in no danger of the elevator doors closing, the car returning to ground floor. This is where it parks. That's his elevator, his alone; there are four buttons inside in all. Ground. Door open. Door close. Emergency. And a keycard reader.

From a few centimeters away he regards her a moment. Judges, it seems, the verity and veracity of her claim. I'm here. I am. Whatever he sees, he pushes his hand into her hair. The grip of his fingers is just shy of pulling. He kisses her again, ferociously this time, while maids - prealerted by ever-dependable Dmitri to expect their master and an honored guest - avert their eyes to the floor and wait in silence.

[Hilary Durante] She breathes in when he puts his hand on her face and devours her mouth like that, takes her in and owns her, holds her right there while he does what he wants, has what he needs from it. Maybe he doesn't even believe her when she says that she's here, that she's not far away or unreachable. Unreached. She gasps but doesn't part her lips from his, sucking the breath right out of him.

Hilary wants very much to not be pregnant anymore. She knows that the baby may as well be full term now, even if she's not 'due' til early May. She knows it would be fine, that all she has to do is ask him please, please now, please, then in a month or however it long it takes me to recover you can have me again, I'll be fine, I'll be myself again, I can forget this ever happened.

But she doesn't do that.

She doesn't put her hands on him. The elevator doors open and the maids look down and he stops kissing her, looks at her as though to see if it's had any effect. Hilary looks much the same, though the frown is gone. She wants --

well, she wants things she can't have. Still. That's always the case.

He grabs her again, pulls her to him again, and starts mauling her mouth this time, eating at her this time, and her slim, soft hand slips between his legs and caresses him through the slacks of his suit.

[Ivan Press] I'm here, she says, but here is a strange place. He can't tell if she feels any of this at all. Feels anything at all. When he looks at her her face hasn't changed. Her eyes haven't changed. There was that gasp, that vampiric breath drawn from his body, but other than that --

he can't even tell if her hand is on his cock because she wants to touch him, or because she thinks that's what he'd want. It makes him gasp all the same, makes him let out a short raw sound that sends the maids not only looking down but backing silently away, curtseying to a pair of Silver Fangs that are literally unaware of their existence. For a second his hand drops to hers, his grip fierce; it seems he might stop her.

He doesn't. He encourages her a beat later, shamelessly.

Hilary's back hits the wall of the elevator. It's hard to say how they even got here. The first time he kissed her, he turned his head to hers. He's facing her now, his hands on her face, his hands behind her neck and behind the back of her head. Her belly is in the way; he has to lean over it, but he does that, striving for her with the ravenous ferocity of a wild dog. He kisses her raw: his mouth tugging, biting, sucking at hers. His teeth scraping her lip, biting at her neck, leaving red marks on her white skin. Coming back to her mouth to suck her clean of breath.

When he pulls back he's hard against her hand, hard through his slacks and through his boxer-briefs. His chest rises and falls. His hands stroke her face; it's almost gentle. Searching, his eyes rove her face.

Then he straightens. He takes her by the wrist and all but flings her out of the elevator; catches up to her in the foyer and wraps his arm around her waist. By this point of contact he propels her down that gorgeous gallery. He's tall and lean; his strides are long, and she has to hurry to keep up. It's hard for her to hurry right now. He doesn't seem to care. She'll come or be half-carried, half-dragged.

Morning light sets the entire penthouse afire. The servants are nowhere to be seen now, though later her luggage will have magically materialized ... wherever. Brunch will be laid out. Toiletries and towels freshly prepared for the guest bedroom,

though that's not where he'll have her stay tonight.

Up the stairs. They surprise a maid in the upstairs hall. She steps aside, eyes flashing down, dipping as they pass. The master bedroom door slams. He drives Hilary all the way to the edge of the bed, that temple of sin of his, and god he should treat a pregnant woman with more care but he pushes her down, sitting on the edge, facing him.

That sleek tailored coat of his hits the floor. He undoes his shirt buttons as he's stepping up on the platform of the bed, feet on either side of her lap, facing her. He tugs his shirttails free of his slacks and his body is perfect and bare beneath, pristinely hard and pale as stone. He stands over her and she knows what he wants before he undoes his fly, takes his cock out, strokes it once in his lean hand; well before he murmurs,

"Open your mouth."

[Hilary Durante] If there's nothing more than a simple willingness and want to please him in the way she touches him, Ivan can't tell. Besides. Her hand is on his cock, knowing and familiar and skilled, not just cupping him but caressing him, working him up from the moment she touches him. The doors are open. The maids are staring downward, only hearing the way she's breathing, the way Ivan slams her agains the elevator wall.

She chuckles, low and dark, as he grabs her hand and starts to move it on him, get her touch closer, rub her fucking palm just like that, god, yes.

Ivan doesn't even seem to care how pregnant she is, how close to labor, he just wants to -- do this, really. Kiss her, bite at her lips til they turn livid red, til he can taste her lip gloss, taste acrid, bitter remainders of her perfume when he lowers his head and sucks at her throat. She moans for the first time at that, at him digging his teeth into her hard enough to mark her. She hasn't stopped stroking him, though, wrapping her hand around him through his layers upon layers of clothes.

When he pulls back, her expression is the same as before. Her eyes black, glazed, hard to read. His hands are gentle on her face; her face is anything but gentle.

Hilary doesn't yelp when he drags her out, yanking her into the hallway, keeping his arm around a waist that isn't really there anymore. She ignores the servants, too. She doesn't quite realize they're there; she doesn't think they matter much. She wonders if he fucks them. She assumes he does. She doesn't care.

"Slow down," she begs him, breathily, winded, unable to move as quickly as he can, or even as quickly as he might want her to. So he slows, or he doesn't, and she struggles either way. He struggles, too. She's not easy to move, thirty or forty pounds heavier than usual. The light hits her eyes from one of Ivan's vast windows, and she winces away.

Up stairs, so fucking slowly. So. Fucking. Slowly. Hilary doesn't waver on this; she will strike at him, lash out, slap his hands or his chest if he tries to push her to go faster. Holds the railing and holds onto him. It's perhaps the most ungainly he's seen her, and she's vaguely furious with him for having stairs in the first place.

But that doesn't stop her when they get to his bedroom, to that low platform bed where he fucked her, that one time

when he came at her without a condom, when she was so exhausted by her husband,

the one time he had her when it's possible, it's quite possible, he created a bastard for his family line.

The truth is, he can slam her to the wall and throw her on the bed and at this point it's highly, highly unlikely that he's going to harm the baby. It's damn near ready to be born as it is, it's big and it's agitated because there's rage nearby, and her heart rate is elevated, but it's not really in any danger. Hilary knows this. Hilary wouldn't care even if it were.

One has to wonder if she, too, realizes how fucked up she is. If she cares.

So there she is, still wearing her coat, bag still over her shoulder, gasping as he undresses, running her hands over him, glad he's not asking to crawl in bed and fuck her right now, she wouldn't even want to right now, but she does want this.

So she opens her mouth. Touches his thighs, his sides, opens her mouth and does not lean forward to take him in

but waits for him.

[Ivan Press] The last time Hilary had him in her mouth, Ivan came in a span of seconds: grabbing her hair, holding her head down, forcing her to take him, take him, take it all. It wasn't even quite the sort of studied cruelty he inflicts on her sometimes to push her to some brink; boot her right off the edge

just so he can be there at the bottom, waiting for her. It wasn't that at all, but something closer to desperate, mad need.

This time he makes himself take his time. She sits at the edge of the bed, touching him: his sides inside his shirt, his thighs beneath his pants. She opens her mouth for him, so obedient, yes, Ivan, and he doesn't shove his cock down her throat and start fucking her face the way he did in San Miguel. Paradoxical, though: that sort of brutality in those warm, sunlit spaces. This sort of -- if not gentleness, then at least finesse -- here in Chicago's pale grey sky.

He slips his fingers into her mouth first. His left hand, because his right is stroking that cock she hardened down in the elevator below. He lets her suck on his fingers, feels the warmth and wetness of her mouth, thinks of the warmth and wetness of her pussy -- that was her pussy, anyway, and god he's a cold bastard sometimes but he's glad they're going to cut that brat out of her, that it won't wreck that tight little cunt on its way out. "That's a good little whore," he whispers, and with gentle firm pressure he opens her mouth again, holds it open while he lays the head of his cock over her tongue. "That's my good little cocksucking whore. You haven't had a good cock to suck for so long, have you?"

His fingers trail down the shaft of his cock, slow, luxurious, as though to draw her attention to its length, its girth, its hardness. If she looks at his face, he looks - focused, face drawn and blank with intensity, eyes shrouded with lust. He palms his balls for a moment, then takes his cock by the base and slaps it once against her tongue. Gently still.

"You've missed this hard cock in your mouth."

His hands come to her head. He smooths her hair back. Strokes her hair, lovingly, like she's some adored pet, some lovely lovely toy crafted for his pleasure. When his fingers cradle over the back of her head, he draws her forward on his cock,

slowly and relentlessly,

all the way down. Holds her there a moment. One would think he didn't care for her at all. One would think she was a thing, a toy, a possession to buy and break, but

when she begged him to slow down, he did. He turned to her, face taut with want, and then he slowed until she could keep up. On the stairs, he helped her as much as he could, as subtly as he could, when she was already furious that he had stairs, stairs to remind her of how fat and ungainly she'd become; how dare he.

The deep muscles of his abdomen quiver slightly, barely palpable. Then he lets go, lets her slide back. "That's how I like it," he tells her, an undertone. He strokes her hair, her face. Touches her like she means something to him, lingeringly, before his hands drop away to hang lax at his sides.

"Now suck it for me."

[Hilary Durante] It was so sweet, how he apologized after that. How he begged for a moment to recover, how he came in her mouth in that bed in San Miguel de Allende and needed to remember how to breathe in the aftermath, gasping and clutching at her, at the pillows, at the wall, anything that might hold him up. It wasn't the same as all the other times, all the calculated, dominating ways he can take her. It was almost... vulnerable.

This is different. Hilary touching him as though there's nothing else she can think of to do. She hasn't even taken off her damn coat, she's licking her lips and waiting for him to give himself to her and frankly

she's not all that turned on. She's worried about her body's betrayal, about his lust, about losing him forever if she disgusts him in the wrong way at the wrong time. She's not all that aroused, all that wanting --- except in the way that she wants him, wants to please him, wants him to understand that she's here, she's not far away at all, even if he can't feel that way. She's with him, even if he doesn't realize that he's with her, too.

Her mouth wraps around his fingers. Her mouth wraps around his cock.

She adores him. He calls her a whore.

He strokes himself against her soft, flat tongue. She flicks it over the rim, the tip, makes him shudder as he's asking her how long it's been since she's had a good, hard cock to suck off.

"Ivan..." she moans, so very soft, but then keeps her mouth open, welcoming, waiting for him, feeling the first stirrings of her own lust, despite... everything. She feels his long fingers in her hair, smoothing it away from her face, getting it out of the way. She's petted, soothed, caressed as though adored, and she slowly,

slowly swallows his cock, groaning,

then gagging on it, breathing through her nose to try and obey him, take him, please him, receive him. She gasps when he lets her pull back, looks up at him with glazed, vertigo-wild eyes. This is how he likes it; he sees a flicker of reaction, of response, of something very close to warmth in those eyes of hers. He touches her face and he lets go of her and tells to her to suck it for me

and she does. For him. With her hands holding his thighs, his hips, with her eyes falling closed, her painted lips wrapped around the very base of his cock as soon as he lets her suck on him again. Sliding away, plump and soft around the rim, flicking the tiny slit where his precum beads up and salts her tongue.

Hilary puts her hand on him then, and starts to stroke him, pump him into her mouth, as she sucks on him. As though she's not even playing, not pretending. As though right now, all she wants is to get him off. Soon.

[Ivan Press] Ivan lets her stroke him like that. He lets her suck on him, lick him, take him into her mouth and fuck him like that. His hands are lax at his sides, fingertips flicking faintly now and then. His eyes are closed, his brow faintly furrowing; the sleek muscles in his abdomen drawing taut, relaxing, in pulses and waves.

This is entirely different from how it was in that hotel in San Miguel, half a world away. There was something -- vulnerable about him that time. Uncalculated. A little helpless himself, bound to his own desires. And maybe that sort of thing is only possible when he's not here in his own domain, where he owns everything. Maybe it's only possible on a ship, suspended thousands of feet above a black ocean floor. Maybe it's only possible in some tiny little village on the edge of lake geneva. Only possible in some warm, private hotel suite where vanilla faintly scents the air because they've shopped at a farmer's market, bought fresh fruits and vegetables grown from the land, bought a catfish, of all things, to have with mango salsa over rice.

Maybe that's where that absurd, random cape of africa idea came from. Maybe he senses the difference too,

even if she's not pretending right now, not playing; even if there was a flicker of something like warmth in her eyes. It's not the same. Blame it on the baby. Blame it on the city. It's not the same, and --

and he opens his eyes. He puts his hands on her hair, gently, gently. He's panting softly; he's so close when he pushes her off, slides his cock out of her mouth, stills her hands. "Stop," he whispers. "Stop, Hilary."

He's not unaffected by all this. Nothing close to it. As soon as her hands have stopped he starts stroking himself -- half-mindlessly, as though he can't help it. Cock in hand, he steps backward off the platform of the bed. She might think he's repulsed by her after all. Can't even get off, she's so huge, she's so disgusting. But it's not that.

He sheds his shirt by halves, and then he drops his pants, pushes his underwear down. Now maybe she thinks he'll try to fuck her. It's not that, either. He comes back. She sits on the edge of the mattress. He kneels on the platform, straddling her knees, her shins. He puts her hand back on his cock, and even that, that wrap of those slim fingers around him,

lovely, that's her word for everything, isn't it,

is enough to make him shudder. His hands come to her face, and frankly his fingers are wet, faintly sticky from his own precum, from her mouth. He takes her face in his hands and he kisses her, kisses her the way he did in the elevator,

and the way he did in San Miguel in the shadows of the spanish colonnade,

blindly and hungrily, gasping. He's so close now, if she keeps stroking him. He moves against her hand; fucks her as he groans into her mouth as she strokes him, pumps him, finishes him off in her hands

until he's moaning, until he's fucking her hand in smooth, powerful throws of his hips like he's fucking her pussy; coming in her hands the way he came in her cunt, long ago than he cares to remember.

That kiss falls apart eventually. Then he's just leaning his brow to hers, eyes closed, hands braced to the edge of the mattress, shudders going down his back, hips jerking now and then with the jump and pulse of his cock.

His breath comes panting and harsh. Some part of him is almost afraid to open his eyes. Might see her staring at him untouched and unaffected again, waiting for him to have done with it all so she can go back to ... whatever it is she does, or is, or inhabits these days while she's waiting for the baby to just get out. She's here, she tells him. She's with him. He doesn't know if he can believe that.

[Ivan Press] [for bwf!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to Hilary Durante

[Hilary Durante] That Hilary wants him to come is unmistakable. She isn't hesitating, she isn't teasing him, she's not stroking him slowly and luxuriously, prolonging the inevitable as long as possible. If he weren't in her mouth she'd be verbally encouraging him, he might imagine, telling him she wants it, asking him if he's going to give it to her.

Or she might be silent. It's so hard to guess, with her. So hard to tell what she's thinking, what she wants or doesn't want. So hard because sometimes there's nothing in her but a soulless void... or so it would seem. He wants to reach her; she says she's here. She thinks she's here. She's pretty sure she feels like she's here with him, close to him right now, but that doesn't mean she knows how to show it. How, if possible, to show Ivan and make him feel it, too. Hilary doesn't even know how to try. Hilary's not sure it's worth the effort to try. What is that kind of closeness, that kind of connection? What's the point? What's the use of it? What does it really matter to her, one way or the other, if Ivan believes in and feels that intimacy with her?

She doesn't know how to answer her own questions. She does know, to be quite blunt, how to suck cock. How to make his eyes roll back in his head. How to make him twitch, how to make him gasp, how to make him get so close that he almost can't stand it, so close that he he has to push her off, tell her stop, stop, and it takes her a moment to look up at him, eyes looking slightly dazed. Maybe that's his imagination.

Hilary stares at him, baleful and implacable without ever a frown or a glare, with her face as still as though carved from marble, forever looking into nowhere. She just watches him as he steps back, playing with himself, running his palm up and down his own erection thoughtlessly, hungrily. Her head tips slightly to the side as he undresses the rest of the way, but she doesn't open her mouth to protest, to tell him no, no, she doesn't want that, not now, no. She just stares at him, and just as before, it's hard to tell if she feels anything. As wantonly as she worked his cock just seconds ago, he can't tell by looking at her if she's interested at all in what's going on between them.

And then he comes back. And then he manually pulls her touch back to his flesh. She lets him. Lets him curl her fingers the way he wants, move her on him the way he'd like. He makes a mess of her nice clean face, her soft hair, with his disgusting, sticky, moist hands. Hilary doesn't shudder away. She closes her eyes and waits for his mouth, as though she knows. And she does, apparently.

Because he kisses her like that, and she parts her lips and offers him her tongue to taste, and her hand starts to move of its own accord, stroking him again. Her other hand wraps around him, too, warms his balls, even as he's moaning in her mouth, ready to come. Ready to do exactly as he does now: fucking her hand. Coming into her palms, on her delicate wrists, losing himself.

The crude truth of the matter is that he makes a mess of her. She's wearing jewelry; it will need to be washed. She's still wearing her coat; it will need to be cleaned. She'll need to change, most likely. Want to, definitely. She might have to bathe. And he's kneeling over her, naked. He just came, and he's bare, and he's resting against her brow and she's still got her hands touching him and he's afraid to lift his eyes.

Anyone -- anyone -- would be able to see how vulnerable he is. Which isn't the same as weakness, nor the same as frailty or fragility. But vulnerable, absolutely. Scared to look for something he's not sure will be there when he meets her eyes and runs his gaze over her face again.

Hilary sees it. And feels him avoiding searching her like that, too. She looks at him with the slightest hint of softness -- a difference in degree almost too minute to notice -- and whispers again:

"I'm here, Ivan." Her eyes close and open again in a slow blink, not quite carnivorous but almost drowsy. There's no sigh, no exasperation, only the barest trace of something like longing, something he might be able to make himself believe is ache. "I am."

She turns her head, and she kisses his cheek without their brows entirely separating. "I am."

[Ivan Press] There's a glisten of sweat on his cheek when she kisses him. Sweat on his back, sweat on his lean body. He's breathing so hard his entire torso moves with it, sides heaving, the musculature of the abdomen stark and subtle by turns.

His eyes open when she kisses him. He leans into that like he needs it somehow. Murmurs - "I know." He turns to her then, turns into, nuzzles her like the animal he so often pretends not to be. Is.

For what it's worth, this is gentle, not recriminating but aching -- "I just can't feel it very well right now."

[Hilary Durante] Hilary isn't the sort to stroke his hair and nuzzle him, rub his back, soothe him the way he so often soothes her when he's taken her to and past the bring of what any normal person could tolerate. Her affections are rare things, given usually after he's broken her, as though were some kind of wild thing that he can only hold close after shattering --

not her will. No. She's no mare. Shattering, perhaps, the wall that exists between Hilary and herself.

Right now Ivan is half-shattered himself, bare and sweaty and shivering, panting. She doesn't need to nuzzle him; he nuzzles her. He presses into her kiss as though he longs for that contact, that semblance of intimacy which is so often all she can give him of her own accord, without him going on some savage quest to bring her back to him.

She breathes in quietly, silent for now. Maybe he would like it, she thinks, if she touched his face. But probably not at the moment. She sits quite still, holding his cock still, which is borderline ridiculous ...except that if he could have fucked her, he would have. Possibly pressed her down and mounted her in the car, fucked her while Dmitri drove them, come in her just as fast and hard and needful after so very, very long without her. If he could have fucked her, if he'd waited til they got to his penthouse, then he'd be lying inside of her still now, twitching and jerking and softening in her pussy instead of her hand.

Not that Ivan achingly, sentimentally has the tendency to do that. To stay 'joined', to be within her as long as he can. But for some reason, right now, Hilary thinks he would. After all.

He's not moving away from her yet.

It's a very long time before she speaks again, and when she does, it's somewhat tentative, a little distant, not quite sure what on earth is going to help him right now, or at least get him to stop being so weird. They can't have sex. She doesn't want to cook. Other than that, she can't think of many times it's seemed that Ivan's felt... whatever it is he seems to want to feel right now.

"Let's go to a ballet tonight," she murmurs. "Or a dance recital at a school, or ask if we can observe a class at an academy, or... anything. Anything you can find."

[Ivan Press] She's murmuring to him now. Something about dance recital. Ballet. A school or an academy. A flare of frustration rises: he's shaking apart and she's thinking of dancing? -- and fades. He sees it for what it is: Hilary reaching out in her own, broken little way. The same way she asked to cook for him once. The same way she asked him -- no, informed him -- that he might come and visit her.

If he liked.

His body shifts as his weight recenters. He lifts one hand from the bed. It's heavy; he has none of his usual grace, his lightness of balance. It can't be the exhaustion of climaxing a single time, and in her hands at that. It's something else. The exhaustion of having her here again, perhaps, only ... not quite.

His palm covers her back for a moment. He's a sleek, beautiful thing, shoulders wide, limbs long. He turns his head and he kisses her neck, kisses her shoulder. He thinks of the way she laughed in the elevator, low and dark. He seizes onto little moments like that; proof positive that she is, in fact, here.

"I missed you," he murmurs. "I hate that I did, but I missed you."

He takes her hand in his, then. Shifts it gently, gingerly off his cock. Gasping with overstimulation when she brushes the head of it, all the same. He doesn't return her hand to herself but instead presses it to his body, the indent of his solar plexus. It doesn't seem to matter that her hands are sticky and wet, that he's getting his own cum on his body. He sits back on his heels, spine a graceful lazy arc. He looks at himself without shame. He looks at her, and then he breathes a laugh.

"I could have the entire Joffrey Ballet company perform their spring program in my living room tonight," that could be a boast. Flashy, decadent young man showing off, strutting his colors for a classier, older, more experienced lover. It could be that, except -- "if that would be easier for you.

"But if you prefer the acoustics of the theatre, I'll have my people call them now. I don't think they premier the spring repertoire until May, so you may have to excuse a few mistakes."

[Hilary Durante] If she senses that flareup of frustration, Hilary...

No. She doesn't sense it. She can't even tell. He's trembling and naked and all she knows, all she understands is that he just came, and he wants her to be here but he won't believe that she is. That's all Hilary knows. It is more than most of humanity would ever get, for her to try and reach out to him, to try and give him something as though it will make up for all she's done to him.

Though perhaps even that is assigning her more guilt than she could actually be capable of feeling.

Her hand slides off of him easily, thoughtlessly as he moves her and moves away. He presses it to his abdomen and a flicker passes through her eyes; might be a vague sense of disgust, of surprise, of something that doesn't matter. She looks up at him as he says that he hates that he missed her, but did. Her head tips to one side at that, and her eyebrows flick up as he describes what he could have done by tonight, what he could do for her leisure.

"I danced in Lausanne for a global competition," she reminds him, sounding a trifle amused more than haughty about it. "I have seen and learned from and worked with some of the best dancers and choreographers in the world, Ivan." A beat. Then, quieter. "I love dance, Ivan. I would be happy watching little girls in tutus flop through the basics."

[Ivan Press] He's vaguely surprised, to be honest, that she wants to watch dance tonight. Tonight, when she's like this, when she doesn't have a breath of a chance of moving with as much grace. And -- if we're more brutally honest -- when she's already well past the age when she could hope or think to move with that sort of grace ever again.

Still. His mouth moves faintly, amusement, as she speaks of little girls in tutus. He just came. He's trembling and naked, but second by second, moment by moment, he's weaving himself back together. He's reassembling all the hard, shining pieces of himself.

"You'll have to forgive me," he replies, "if I don't share the same appreciation for little girls in tutus."

With the heel of his hand he wipes sweat off his jaw where it's trickled; off his cheek and temple where it begins. Another beat of pause, and then he shifts backwards and stands, one single and singular motion.

"The theatre, then? Or shall I go assign Dmitri his ridiculous task of the day?"

[Hilary Durante] "Amusement, really," she says quietly to him, regarding little girls trying to remember what an arabesque is, how to perform a petit battement, worrying over finishing an entrechat before they hit the ground again after the little hoops they're capable of when they start. Girls who aren't stressed overmuch over their weight yet, who need someone else to put their up up and pin it back, who are so busy learning they aren't even thinking about it, thinking about anything. They worry about being good enough. They don't have time or energy to think about whether or not anyone can tell they're barely even human, prancing out in tidy lines onto a recital stage, tutus bouncing and not a one of them ready to go en pointe yet.

She wants to touch him. Not to jerk him off again, not to comfort him. It just strikes her suddenly, how much she wants to touch him, to bring him close, to press his hands on her belly and make him feel her somehow, feel him shudder in revulsion or fight his way through, how much she wants to be held and hold onto him. It's a rush of hormones, perhaps, just as she could chalk up her whine in the elevator to the same.

Hilary breathes in, drawing her hand back, resting it palm-up on the fold of her coat over her leg. It's ridiculous to sit here, as messy as she is, and to tell the truth her skin is starting to crawl as his cum starts to cool. She's silent a moment.

"We don't have to," she says then, clearly. "You just... seem to want to share something with me. Have me." Her brow furrows. "There just isn't very much of me. But I do love this."

She doesn't talk about him that way. About her child that way. Not about love or endearment or any of that. She loves dance. She loves cooking. She loves these exacting yet expressive arts, that nourish soul and body both, and the contrast between them and what she is is so stark it's laughable.

Hilary takes a breath. "A theatre, though. Your floors are concrete. They'll get shinsplints."

[Ivan Press] Utterly unself-conscious, Ivan steps out of what remains of his clothing. Were this a clearer day, sunlight would light up the entire room through the borderless panes of glass that comprise two out of four walls. Even on a day like this, the room is full of light; the lake sprawling silver-grey to the horizon.

His eyes are on Hilary, not his million-dollar view. She speaks of loving dance. Loving cooking. Liking fireworks -- the ones that look like witches' hats. His eyebrows flicker together for a moment. He never expected to want her so badly. To want her to be here so badly. Not her; not anyone.

He holds his hand out to help her up. "I'll ask Dmitri to start making arrangements. Eight o' clock tonight. Go take a shower," he adds. "I'll use one of the guest bathrooms and then have your luggage brought up. I'm sure you want to change."

A pause.

"If you'd like to nap, perhaps I'll join you a while. Should I wake you for lunch?"

[Hilary Durante] Utterly unabashed, Hilary watches him undress. There is, in fact, appreciation in her gaze, though one wonders if she looks the same way when observing a fine painting, a sculpture, a dance performance. Maybe he'll see tonight Hilary looking at some ballerina with the same quietly, coldly appreciative eyes as she turns on his body this morning. For now, though, what he sees is her dark gaze traveling over his shoulders, his long, lean torso, his filthy cock, his toned thighs.

Then back up to his face. He offers her his hand; she holds out both of hers, messy or not, because the truth is she can't get up from a low platform bed like this on her own, not without supreme effort, and he can see her flick away again inside, or as far from inside herself as she can get, going a little bit farther away as he has to help her up, help her balance so she can even get to her feet.

There's a faint flush of color to her cheeks, an angry sheen in her eyes when she's finally standing, breathing more heavily from that than she did the entire time he was kissing her, fucking her hand, begging her with his body to be with him.

Hilary nods at the timing, at all of it, but there is one change:

go take a shower.

She looks into his eyes then, her lips parted to help herself breathe, and for a moment there's an ache in her, an appreciation that isn't for the fine art of his form. I'm sure you want to change, he adds, and it's entirely possible he stops there, alters his tone, something, because there it is again:

Hilary looking like something starved, being given a morsel to eat.

[Ivan Press] [I DUNNO WHAT'S GOING ON EMPAFEE.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Press] [SILVER FANGS DO NOT FAIL.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Press] [oh, that was diff 7. LOL. WTF!]

[Ivan Press] [THIS IS IMPORTANT.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Ivan Press] Ivan can barely begin to understand the sort of damage, the sort of inward fracturing that results in these glimmers, these phenotypes barely presented in flashes and flickers on Hilary's otherwise cool, smooth exterior. He can drag her to bed, and she'll only grow angry. He can fuck her hand and her mouth, want her so badly, and she'll respond only for his sake, and even that is a stretch for her. He can do all these things and she remains so far away, so far beneath the surface that he has no way to touch her.

And then he tells her, go take a shower. go change. And that of all things anchors her finally. Gives her a point to focus on. Pin herself to.

He doesn't understand it; not entirely. Even now, it's not wholly clear to him why certain things so paradoxically allow her to come back to herself. Fucking her, beating her, until her shell comes apart, forces her under, reveals the raw unformed self beneath and forces her to acknowledge it. Commanding her, demanding of her, telling her what to do, how to do it and when to do it, until her submission to his person somehow removes her fear or revulsion of her own. He doesn't understand it, and he doesn't try to.

He knows it works. And sometimes that's enough.

So Ivan does, in fact, stop for a moment. His tone doesn't alter. It remains low and smooth, courteous, obliging. His words do. "The maid told me you slept on the plane," he says, "but even so you must be tired, flying overnight from San Miguel. I'll have Yuliya prepare something light while you shower. After you've had breakfast, go to sleep in my bed. I'll join you after I've taken care of some details."

[Hilary Durante] Tapping into Hilary's anger is even easier, oftentimes, than stirring Ivan's own rage. The world can thank its various gods that Hilary was born halfblooded, unchanging, because if she had the raw power of a werewolf, she would eventually just have to be put down.

Her disinterest in life sometimes seems like ennui, like mere boredom, but there's elements of solace-seeking in it, a longing for escape that never quite translates into a longing for self-inflicted death. Hilary would call it pathetic. Hilary would roll her eyes. Hilary does not think any more about the 'point' of life than most people do, and therefore does not worry about the possibility that there is none. It simply isn't a necessary question to ask. It doesn't matter. But nor do most things.

His tone changes, and he begins to give her orders. He doesn't ask her if he should wake her for lunch or if she'd like to nap. Ivan simply tells her that the servants he spoke with after he put her in the Bentley at the airport reported to him about her activities, which, frankly, invades her privacy and only seems to underline the bizarre ownership he sometimes claims over her --

utterly unofficial, indefensible, unasked for, illegal, vaporous

-- which, even more bizarrely, she seems to like. To need, even. Hilary watches him as he lays down the schedule: this is how she will bathe, this is when she will eat, this is where she will sleep. She takes a breath and nods to him, then begins to draw back, removing her bag, her coat. She's still wearing her shoes, even, and steps out of those.

Hilary still has a pedicure. Of course.

"These will need to be cleaned," she says quietly, then walks, very slowly, to his bathroom.