Ivan Press

[Ivan Press] She'd like that.

It could mean anything. She'd like a new bed. She'd like determining her child's birthday. She'd like determining when, exactly, she can get it out of her.

She'd like going away with him. Throwing her infidelity in her husband's teeth, deal with it, and running away. Going to some barren white waste like something out of an old novel, married woman and her young lover, consuming each other until nothing remains but white bone, white ash, white snow.

White. No darkness. Just white.


He looks at her for a moment. His chest rises and falls beneath her soft palms. A breath, in, let out.

"I know," he says.

It's a last moment of nakedness, of clarity, of true honesty. A glimmer of it before at least some layer of his facade returns. Moments later he's standing by the door, holding it for her, turning out the lights as he leaves. She locks the door. They take the elevator down, and Dmitri picks them up.


Dinner, it turns out, is at some sleek new-french restaurant in river north, a few blocks off the mile. Nondescript on the outside. A closed sign prominently on the door, which Ivan ignores.

Hilary is grotesquely pregnant. She must hate the idea of being seen right now. So Ivan makes it so that she isn't seen. He can't wave a magic wand and make the entire population of Chicago vanish, but he can buy out the entire restaurant, main dining room and lounge and vip dining and salon, for the entire night. Of course he can: this is the man that made his grand entrance to chicago by placing every drink bought by every customer at one of this city's hottest nightclubs on his tab.

The restaurant is empty. A world of dark, luscious colors on the inside. Tables scattered seemingly at random -- one small spotlight trained on the center of each. A single server greets them, a veteran waiter that commands a higher salary than some junior execs, far too professional to fall all over himself serving such important people. The cooking staff is nowhere to be seen, but the kitchen is hot, alive with activity.

The main dining room seems dark and cavernous without other diners, so they go above it - up to the small, enclosed salon. A wall of glass looks over the lesser tables below, but the curtains are drawn.


In this space, they dine. Fine french cuisine, flawlessly arranged. Caviar and wagyu beef, venison, duck. A little wine. Ivan keeps the conversation light and intermittent. He asks her about her time in the Loire Valley; another woman would be amazed he remembers, but perhaps this one doesn't think to be surprised by such things. She has no idea how different she is. He asks her about this Bobby whats-his-name, the choreographer.

He says he's thought about buying a box for the Joffrey Ballet next season. He wonders if she'd be interested in accompanying him to performances on occasion. Perhaps she could shed some light on the technique, the details, the underlying artistry that his layman's eye would miss.

He asks her, toward the end, about her time between her first mate and her second. He starts how she was courted, how that matchmaking proceeded, but leaves off one or two inquiries into the subject. Best left untouched right now. Too tender, too deep.


Toward the end, Ivan tosses his napkin on the table. Dessert are tiny sweet bitefuls lined up on a vast plate, pale green. He samples a few, but mostly, he watches Hilary.

"I'm happy you've come back," he says quietly. "I'm not sad."

[Hilary Durante] As soon as his mask slips down over his eyes again, Hilary's does, too. But she walks a little closer to him, not because he loops his arm around her and holds her there but of her own volition. She leaves a few lights on in the kitchen despite the fact that she won't be back here til tomorrow night; she can't explain why.


At the restaurant he can tell as soon as they walk in that she tenses, seeing all those random tables in the dark, those lonely spotlights, the dark maw of the silent, empty room reaching out for her. If there were someone to lash out at immediately handy she would, some poor hostess, anyone she could crush to feel like maybe, maybe she's not so vulnera--

Ivan takes her upstairs, and it's still dim here, but it's a small room. Her slight relaxation is evident; her decision to choose a penthouse that is not the sort of sprawling mansion she could easily afford to pick up a second of suddenly makes that much more sense. The walls and curtains and tablecloth are white. The shade over the lamp is a pale blue. She's moved to the table carefully, her comfort is inquired into. She does not drink wine now, drinks no alcohol at all -- if he asks, Hilary tells Ivan with some tightness that it's been giving her headaches, so she stopped.

Fucking brat.


When he brings up the Loire Valley, they could have had a conversation about it. Not light. Hilary talks very little, in fact. The food is, compared to what she's craved in her third trimester, bland, though she offers a few compliments on it that never make it to the chef because she doesn't speak to the waiter at all. She ignores him. She eats slowly, and she gives a quiet ugh and dismisses conversation about Bobby McFerrin, she doesn't even like what he does, she thinks modern dance is ridiculous and vapid, thinks improvisers are lazy and scattershot.

But Ivan brings up the place she lived with her first mate and Hilary becomes quiet. She doesn't say much more than she ever has before; namely, that it was lovely. Very beautiful. She liked it there. Any more than that she can't express in light, intermittent conversation over dinner, all vague terms. Ivan gets nothing from the conversation he didn't really have before.

Perhaps he wasn't trying to.

More about ballet, though. Of course she'd like to go with him. She scoffs at the idea of giving him any insight, and there's a flicker of real, dark annoyance in her eyes out of nowhere. Maybe she's tired, but she slept so much earlier today. Still, she must be jetlagged. And it's Hilary; flashes of rage and frustration in her eyes are nothing new, nothing surprising. And not always, necessarily, anything to do with Ivan himself.

He brings up her past again and she glances at him. She's quiet a few moments and, as he gives a second question to follow up the first, unanswered one, cuts him off and says only, "Perhaps we could save the excavation of my past for a night when I'm not choking down venison while my little bundle of joy snap-kicks my ribs every time your voice hits a certain note."

It's said quietly, for whatever that's worth. Without blame. It's simply the truth of the matter: some pitch in his voice and Hilary's expression tightens. Above all, it does tell him one thing he might not have wanted to know: the baby's turned. He's getting ready.

It tells him, too, with that word: excavation, how Hilary sees so much of her past. Herself. Buried, not just interred into the earth but covered by layers, generations, eternities. Every question is an archealogical expedition. No wonder she looks worn out. With the future literally slamming into her bones as she sits there, demanding far more of her attention than the deep, tapestried past.


With a very tiny spoon, the sort best used to stir espresso, she samples a bit of dessert, tastes lime and lavender, thinks it curious but not something she's eager to try again. Her eyes lift to him, though her head does not, when he speaks again after a very long silence. Stares at him for a few moments, her thoughts untouchable.

But then: "I know, Ivan," she murmurs. Looks down at the plate again. "And I'm..."

Is she happy to be back, to be near him, to be here? Is she sad? Is she anything?

"I'm not myself," Hilary finally finishes, sighing it again. "But I would rather be near you right now than away, even so."

[Ivan Press] In all truth, it's not an easy dinner. Who knows what that lone waiter must think behind his impeccable facade of polite service. They must have thought it was some grand event, when the entire restaurant was booked for the night. They must have thought it was a proposal of marriage. Surely something of the sort, something dramatic enough to warrant such lavish expense.

There had been a single table laid out downstairs, in the center of the room, like the lynchpin the universe turns on. They passed it, Hilary and Ivan, without a glance.

And there's no proposal on bended knee. No floral arrangement, no song and dance, nothing. Not even much conversation. Some vague commentary about the Loire Valley that starts and goes nowhere. Some question about Bobby McFerrin that results in an ugh and the end of all small talk thereafter.

Something about ballet, ending with a scoff from the woman. Something about her past, which makes her snap at him, though her voice never rises.


That last blow strikes hardest, and she can see it in the way his eyes flare, the way his graceful jaw hardens. He stares at her for a moment, animal, inhuman. Hurt, and angry because he's hurt.

Then he looks away; his eyes shutter and she can't tell anything at all about him. With a quiet murmur he excuses himself; he goes to the bathroom; who knows what he does there. Washes his hands. Washes his face. Crosses the Gauntlet and howls at the moon. In five minutes or so he returns, and the rest of dinner is nearly silent.

There isn't much left, anyway.


Perhaps he said what he said at the end to convince himself more than her. How would she know? Hilary's insight is limited and sporadic. The most astute thing she's said about him is that he likes things that break prettily. Still; he says it. And she says what she does.

He looks at her a little differently after that. And he's a liar after all, because he looks sad.


Later, in the car, on the way to Auditorium Theatre, Ivan seems subdued; quiet. He's wondering if she's tired already, even though she's only been up a few hours. He's wondering if they shouldn't have eaten something simpler at home. Gone straight to the show. He's wondering if he shouldn't have brought the ballet to his living room, and damn the shin splints.

Thinking of all this, he turns to her. It's almost sudden.

"I wasn't excavating your past," he says; quiet, but intense. Almost fervent. "I was trying to make conversation. The last time we spoke of the Loire Valley and your first mate, you seemed to enjoy the memory. I was trying to bring something pleasant to mind.

"Everything -- " uncharacteristic, he almost stumbles on the intensity of his own words, quiet as they are, " -- every single thing I've done or said or thought since the moment I received word that you were coming back has revolved around your comfort. Your enjoyment. Your contentment, if not happiness. I don't think you know the lengths I've gone to for you, not financially or socially or politically or any of that but emotionally.

"You tell me you're not yourself. I know that. You tell me you'd rather be near me than away. I know that too. But goddamnit, Hilary, you make it hard for me to believe it for long."

[Hilary Durante] Not what the staff expected. Mr. Ivan Press, booking all of Tru for the evening. Just himself and a guest. No, no band to play, no special party or surprise or other guests. It had to be something special.

Not... a much older woman, so pregnant she literally looks about ready to drop, the sort of pregnant that makes people think any day now. Not their stilted, half-silent dinner conversation. Though they share so many plates. She eats bites right off of his; he feeds her tastes that she accepts without romanticism, without flirtation.

He tries over and over again to engage her. In the goddamn Bentley. In his elevator. In his bed. At her new apartment. Here, all but dying for connection, dissolving for it, stretching him so thin to try and reach her that one might think he's going to start dissipating.

She gives so little back. She stays so far away. Even when she's genuinely trying, their outstretched fingertips can't seem to touch.


When Ivan goes away, Hilary... stops. She puts down her utensils. She sits alone in the salon with her hands on her lap, her eyes looking no particular direction. She seems to be listening more than watching, more even than waiting. The waiter pauses at the table and asks her if she needs anything.

"I'm just waiting," she says, and it's the first time she's spoken to him all night, and it's almost the first thing she's said all night that isn't ...mean, somehow.


I'm not sad, he insists, and I would rather be near you, she says, and means it. But he wasn't here when she suddenly lost all touch with where she was, when she was floating, waiting for him to come back, waiting for him to be there again, not quite sure what to do or how to act until he returned to the table. The old words spoken in some sunny hotel room never leave her mouth, but it's the truth again, all the same.

I need you.


In the Bentley again, she has her shawl wrapped around her and she's leaning against his side, resting on him as though any moment she'll fall into a nap before they come to the ballet he's promised her tonight, something she can almost but not quite share with him. It wasn't the first attempt at intimacy she's made today, but this whole plan, this whole idea, was hers. Go watch some lovely dancers together. Share something, do something together that she loves, even if it won't quite bring him as close to her as he wants to be.

Needs to be.

She stirs when he turns, breathing in. She wasn't asleep, wasn't dozed off yet, but she was very quiet, and she meets his eyes as he starts to speak, intense and fervent and at the end, the very end, making her withdraw a little. She looks at him as though he's just taken something right out of her hands, yanked the chopping block away when she was halfway through the pepper.

"Ivan..."

Hilary pulls back a bit. "I do not know how to give you what you want from me. I'm tired of hearing every few hours that you don't believe me, you don't believe what I'm saying to you. If it's such a great effort to try and feel like you fail, then stop trying and just be with me." She glances away a moment, then her eyes cut back to him. "I'm tired. I don't feel well. I'm jetlagged and sore and when waves of hormones aren't making me act like a righteous cunt they're making me want to cry like a little bitch. I don't feel anything like who I think I am. If I had the option of going to sleep and not waking up until after this thing is out of me I would have chosen that six months ago.

"I don't even want to be in my own body right now, Ivan," she says, her breathing harsher than it was a moment ago, her voice shaken. "And you keep pushing me to be content, be happy, be present, be intimate, be comfortable, be casual, be all these things so that you can believe --"

The attempt at speaking falls apart. She clenches her teeth a moment, presses on her belly, he has the worst timing, the little shit, the little bastard, the little jackoff that should have been flushed down in a wad of tissues. Hilary exhales between her teeth and closes her eyes, waits for it to pass, opens them again to glitter on Ivan. "I am here. I am as much here as I can stand, and I'm doing that much because you want me to. So stop telling me how much I'm failing to satisfy you."

It might just come down to that, those last vicious words that leave her. That call suddenly to mind all the times she's been on her knees or stretched out on some bed, chained or arched in some way to give him more pleasure, all the times she's gasped that she just wants to make him happy, let me make you happy,

be happy. Don't be sad.

[Ivan Press] "I don't want you to satisfy me," he's almost snapping at her now, flinging the words back low and hard, "I just want you to -- "

and he breaks off. Hears himself, perhaps. He wasn't there when she went away. He doesn't understand, can't understand, this flashy young man that lives so much in his skin, in the moment, following every whim he has simply because he can -- he can't understand what it's like for her. How far away she wants to be, and is; how hard it is to swim to that distant lit surface.


It's strange; Hilary is terrified of being swallowed up. Devoured. Gone. And yet that would be so much easier for her, in the end: to simply cease to be. No spirit, no afterlife. Just gone.


"I want to satisfy you," he says instead, and it's bitter because it's so ironic. Whatever he says next she doesn't understand, because it's Russian, but surely it's a curse by the way it leaves his mouth.

Yet his arm is still around her. She leaned against his side like maybe he could give her some strength. Enough to get her through the next few hours. Enough to let her share something she loves with him, because he keeps asking her to. Be close, be there, be his, be.

"All right," he says finally, quiet. And then turning to her, pressing his mouth to her hair, to her temple. "All right. I'll stop trying so hard. Pushing so hard. We'll just -- be. Okay?"

And again, softer, as though to himself:

"We'll just be."

[Hilary Durante] Ivan doesn't finish that sentence, and Hilary doesn't need him to. She knows what he wants, just want he wants, what he's wanted all along. Even when he undressed her after stripping for her, he wanted to know more, he wanted to peel the layers off and find out why she was here, why him, why she wanted to meet in some hotel where no one she knew would see them so he could fuck her so brutally that he had to stop, he pulled out of her and even covered himself with a sheet, because it was just

too fucked up, what he was doing to her. What he wanted to do to her. What he knew she was asking of him.

It would be easy enough to be just gone, to push past that final boundary and find nothing left. But that isn't even what she wants. To sleep forever, perhaps. To submerge into some cool depths -- somehow different from being swallowed, to her -- but to go on. To continue to exist. She cannot explain herself. She cannot explain why so much of what frightens her -- to be physical, to be alone, to be swallowed or submerged -- is also what comforts her. Different flavors of the same. Different colors, different temperatures. White and black are both voids.

Hilary sighs and comes back against him, even as he's swearing in Russian, and she doesn't understand. She closes her eyes again, but not in the same restful, post-meal sleepiness, or even jetlag. She closes her eyes against seeing everything she hears. Firm kisses are pressed to her here and there, and she nods absently, exhaling quietly.

"Just a little longer," she promises, to herself as much as him. And in warning to the child inside of her, just a little longer, and then I'm done with you.

[Ivan Press] Not so much longer before they pull up to the theater. Same story here as before, only even more so. An entire ballet troupe, its artistic director and its accompanying orchestra, roused on a few hours' notice. Sometimes the effortless scope of Ivan's sway is staggering, terrifying. He snaps his fingers and his people call their people and those people call their people and somewhere, somehow, some way along the way

things just fall into place for him.

Any other woman, any starved swan, and he'd be doing it to show off. A sort of strange seduction all his own: the appeal of money, of power. Not Hilary, though. She already knows why he does this -- for her, to make her happy -- and it exhausts her. It puts such expectation on her. To be happy. To be something that'll make him happy.

She, who's happiest borrowing his will. Obeying his dictates.


At least he tries to be true to his word. Months ago he told her: all right. No more prying questions. For the most part, he's kept that promise. Tonight, he told her: we'll just be. At least for a while.

Just a little longer.


The theatre is silent and empty, glitteringly lit. A relic of old Chicago, this: a massive romanesque building housing an unabashedly opulent, brilliant and ornate opera hall. There are no ushers, no staff in sight. Dmitri has the keys, and lets them in. A short, dark, narrow hall leads into the main orchestra floor. Through the doors and into the incandescence of the theatre: the stage ringed by lights, the ceiling cascading with them.

They could have any box they want, but they're the only ones in the audience; there's no reason not to take a seat near the front, in the center, at the heart of the action. The curtain is still down. There's a quiet stirring in the orchestra pit -- players craning their heads for a look at who it is that summoned them in tonight on such an outrageous schedule, at such outrageous price.

The artistic director of the ballet stands on stage, hands folded behind his back. A tall man, sandy-haired and handsome, with the lean unmistakable grace of a former dancer himself. He greets them, apologizes on behalf of one of his stars, currently on leave and replaced by the understudy tonight; apologizes that the show is not quite perfected yet. Hopes they'll enjoy it nonetheless.

"There's no need to apologize, Mr. Wheater," Ivan replies, seating Hilary, taking the seat beside her himself. "Thank you for coming in on short notice. We look forward to previewing your spring repertoire."

The director departs the stage. A moment later the lights dim; the curtain begins to lift.

[Hilary Durante] The role of trophy wife suits someone like Hilary rather well; she doesn't bother trying to engage in conversation with Mr. Wheater, though she knows perfectly well who he is and has her own opinions of his choices for the company. She just seats herself and gets as comfortable as she can while he's apologizing for his star, while Ivan is assuring him it's fine, blah, blah, blah. They know how to talk so well. Hilary just doesn't bother, and she looks lovely even in late pregnancy, and waits for Mr. Wheater to leave them alone again.

The curtain rises, and she lays her hand on Ivan's; twines their fingers.


It hardly matters what music the orchestra plays, or what choreography the dancers do. The truth is it's quite standard fare, elegant and balanced. Nothing really shocking or incredible. Ivan can hear Hilary make some small noise, a breath that's almost a laugh, when something happens on stage that he can't even discern -- maybe a mistake made, or something a little too showy and unnecessary. Sometimes a similar noise, a note more like interest, oh look at that, curiosity followed by understanding.

Hilary's reactions, really, are what Ivan wants right now. She asks him to just let her be but the reason they're here, the reason she suggested it, the whole purpose of all this expense and madcap string-pulling, is to connect with her somehow. To be with her. To feel her feeling anything. And when he glances at her, there are moments when she has a small, soft smile. Wistful, at times. A bit of an ache between her eyebrows at some twist in the music, some lift on stage.

Her reactions are discreet. But they are there, and they are in time, in tune, in motion with the dancers they're watching. Almost as though she has a heart.


When it comes to a close, the curtain descending, Hilary applauds without the look of boredom, detachment, and disinterest so everpresent on her face. She ...appreciates. Her hands falling together sounds startling in the quiet of the theatre. During the curtain call she smiles at the dancers, and keeps clapping. When she stops, when Ivan stops, she thanks them aloud.

They would never get to do this at a normal show. The dancers don't seem to know what to think of it. The more experienced ones stand quite still, as though ignoring the whole thing. Then one of the obviously newer ones -- she made the mistake that made Hilary huff, though Ivan wouldn't have seen the mistake, tiny as it was -- glances one side to the other and then says: "...You're welcome!"

And Hilary laughs.

Mr. Wheater sees them as they're exiting, comes out again to shake hands and so forth. Hilary engages with him this time. After a few comments of hers he asks her if she was a dancer -- was, he says. She doesn't look old, she doesn't look middle-aged even, but you don't have to. Of course it's was. She tells him about competing in Lausanne.

Their conversation goes on for only a few minutes, but Ivan is hardly included in it. Hilary isn't exactly animated, but she seems... happy, oddly. Interested. Brighter somehow, like there's still a few sparks of light left in that yawning blackness inside of her. She says they'll have to meet sometime for drinks, after she delivers. At one point she corrects him when he assumes that Ivan is her husband. No, her husband is in Brazil right now. Mr. Press is merely her good friend, keeping her entertained while her husband is away, escorting her to functions and lifting her out of the repression and angst of these last few months before birth.

Mr. Wheater believes it. After all. Ivan's so young, so wealthy, and already in town he's building a reputation. He certainly isn't with an older, married, heavily pregnant woman for the sex.


On the way out to the car again, she wraps her shawl tighter around herself, leaning into Ivan's arm. "That was lovely," she says, smiling. For once it sounds like she means it.

[Ivan Press] It's interesting for Ivan to see her like this. Not quite animated, not quite the suddenly social butterfly, but --

different. More engaged than she was at the beginning, when she sat passive and bored and waiting for the show to start, already. Mr. Wheater might flatter himself that it was the quality of his dancers that caught even the discerning eye of this former dancer in the small, very small audience, but Ivan suspects -- knows -- it's not that. They may as well have been little girls in tutus. It's the dancing itself. The movement, the grace, the beauty that is there merely to be appreciated, not to be judged.

Over dinner, he mentioned Hilary might explain the technical nuances of the dance more to him sometime. There was a flash of true irritation in her eyes. He thinks he knows why now.


Later, on the way to the car, he gives her his arm. Chicago can't seem to decide whether it's spring yet or not. The night air is cooling again. In a few days' time, it'll be frigid again.

"I enjoyed it," he answers. It could be lip service, but he sounds like he means it. His free hand covers hers for a moment, his palms warm, his body warm and his blood hot even though his rarefied features all but radiate cool privilege. "Thank you for suggesting it."

[Hilary Durante] She'd told him earlier it would be just as well, just as fine, if they went and watched a class of new dancers, little girls in tutus, little girls who aren't even going en pointe yet, who are struggling for even a modicum of grace, who are trying to remember all the French. It's what Hilary remembers of a part of her life that was ...happy. It's something she loves. It's as simple as that.

"Of course you did," Hilary says, as though it is ludicrous to need to tell her that he enjoyed it. Even though, a moment ago, she felt it necessary to tell him that it was lovely. The thing is, this time, that there's no flicker of irritation. She just sounds amused by him. She's teasing him.

The Bentley is already at the curb, already warm inside. Of course it is. This is Dmitri they're talking about. And when he opens the door for her so that Ivan can hand her into the back seat, Hilary says to him -- and this may in fact be the first time she's ever made eye contact with the man, the first time she's spoken directly to him withou utter necessity -- "Thank you, Dmitri."


The door closes behind Ivan, and a little while later, behind Dmitri re-seating himself behind the wheel. Hilary glances out the window at the theatre, then looks to Ivan, some of the red-gold lights playing against her cheek. She smiles. That's all, for a moment.

The privacy screen is still up, Dmitri given instructions already -- before Ivan entered the car -- to take them back to the penthouse. Hilary reaches for Ivan and touches his face, her hands cooler than his, not as warm as they are in summer. And she kisses him.

Just kisses him. It's this soft, slow thing, unfolding tenderly as though it's the first kiss of finally-accepted love, finally-found affection. Maybe that's what it is; maybe she just feels youthful, she feels lighter than she did a few hours ago. The kiss reflects it, as gentle and sweet as any a girl has ever given him.

[Ivan Press] Ivan isn't certain he's ever seen Hilary smile so much. Engage so much. Perhaps in Lausanne, in Meillerie -- but that was different; that was just them, escaping the reality of Chicago, a growing embryo, an inevitable and fast-encroaching separation. That was nearly half a year ago now. He's barely felt the time passing. It seems to have stood still, the way it seems to stand still in the oldest parts of San Miguel.

He wants to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her at the ballet, but there was a ruse to keep up. Of course he's not her lover. Of course he'd never be attracted to a woman so very pregnant, so much older, so much someone else's property. Of course not, this sly-smirking young blade who personally caused the unexplained tardiness and absences of many a dancer this last season. He wanted to kiss her as they left the theater, too. He wanted to walk home with her -- it's not so far, twenty minutes' or so on foot, cutting through Grant Park, crossing boulevards and bridges. Thirty if they strolled -- wanted to pause under some barely-budding tree somewhere and kiss her, only

she's pregnant, and she must be tired; it's well past ten.

In the car he watches her as she watches the theater slide away. Dmitri, ever dependable, drives them toward Ivan's glass tower. Hilary turns to him and puts her hands on his face. He closes his eyes as she kisses him; after a moment, his hand comes to her face, slides past her jaw, lifts her hair, threads into it.

When it parts, he lifts his arm over her shoulders, holds her against his side. And he's quiet on the way home; quieter and calmer now, whatever animal howling inside him soothed at last. Just being with her. Just being.