Ivan Press

Ivan

When Darya goes upstairs, Hilary is brusque, pragmatic, forthright. Let's get on with it. Her lipstick is smeared. Her mascara has run with tears. Her hair is askew and her dress is torn. There are bite marks on her neck. There's cum on her thighs. Her lovers clothes are all over the floor. The shower is wet, there's steam in the air; he didn't even stay to make sure she was presentable again.

None of the servants have much of a romantic outlook on what the soon to be former Mrs. Durante's relationship with Mr. Press is. If anything, Ivan's servants imagine something worse than reality. They never see the way he touches her in the aftermath. They never see how he bathes her, and how he strokes her, how he protects her sometimes when there's nothing left but cinders. They hear her screaming through the doors. They hear the slap of flesh on flesh, and sometimes leather on flesh. They hear chains clanking. Once, they saw him give her to a roomful of strangers.

They think it's all about the sex. Which is in part true: Hilary and Ivan could not be what they are without what they do. But the servants also think it's about degradation, and punishment, and pain. They think it's a form of perversion. A reflection of Falcon's taint.

Dmitri thinks there might be some attachment there; some strange and necessary bond. Max - with her own demons in the closet, with her own unspeakable and very occasional need for a soul-scourging sort of exorcism - is perhaps the only one who can come close to understanding what it is. But Max, frankly, cares very little about it all so long as things stay in a reasonably manageable state.

Hilary cleans herself and she is dressed. Her hair is redone. Her makeup, too. When she exits the room she looks like the past half hour or so never happened at all. Eyes follow her as she moves. A black-haired woman with shocking blue eyes smiles at her. Max - Maximilian Max - has his girlfriend on his arm now and turns red at the sight of her. Jonathan's nostrils flare as he stares at her, and then he turns his face away.

By then Ivan is as bored as his guests, but he plays the part so well. He is so charming; he is so sweet with the children that a few of his guests mentally match-make. He teases the little boy who had to pee earlier, but never to the point of cruelty. The gift is handed over; it's a racecar set. The boy is happy with it. He thanks Ivan and runs back to his nanny, and Ivan looks over the two or three children still waiting for their gifts and

his eyes meet Hilary's for a moment. The corners of his mouth twitch like he wants to smile at her. Smile, and not the way he smiles at all his guests, that sleek superficial charm; not that, but something more unguarded, plainer, genuine.

He changes it at the last moment. It comes out roguish. He winks at her, and some of his guests think to themselves of course, and will gossip later about how Ivan Press was trying to charm the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Durante again, because of course he was, and of course she wasn't having any of it, because of course she wasn't.

After the last of the children get their gifts, Ivan is done playing Santa. His maids move through the crowds; gifts are distributed while Ivan stands to the side, gallantly accepting the thank-yous that come his way, receiving the kisses on the cheek, the handshakes. Conversation is starting up again. People are comparing gifts, commenting on how thoughtful Ivan is! And how clever! And what lovely presents! There will be reciprocation, of course; over the next few days a small fortune of return-presents will pour in, most of which will be filtered down to the servants because, really, everything Ivan wants he has.

Almost.

Soon enough there are only a handful of presents left under that towering tree. And in truth, none of the gifts have been - by Ivan's standards anyway - terribly extravagant. Toys for the children. Keepsakes for the adults; small pieces of jewelry, porcelain, tie clips, pens, cufflinks, tickets to the opera for the season. Two, three hundred dollars apiece. For the most part, the moment the guests open the wrapping is the first time Ivan has laid eyes on the gifts.

And then one of his maids retrieves a rather large box from under the tree. She is walking past when Ivan recognizes it instantly and, handing her his drink, takes the box from her. This is unusual, a deviation from the pattern, and so of course people notice. They watch, curious, as Ivan personally walks the gift over to where Hilary is. Ivan knows he's taking a bit of a risk. Everything about this is a risk. He doesn't care; he holds the present out to his lover, mute,

smiling.

Only Darya sees Hilary much in the aftermath, and even that is rare. She has helped put her back together. She's seen her in Ivan's company, too, after the fact, or on the morning after. Downstairs, she can tell that Ivan's maids have no idea. They don't see the subtle change in Hilary, even when she's still terse with everyone. They don't see the softening afterward.

All Silver Fangs are mad; Darya knows this. The better bred -- which means the more powerful, the wealthier, the more beautiful -- they are, the worse it is. Hilary is quite well-bred. She's quite beautiful, valuable, precious. Darya has never seen pictures or videos of the baby she knows exists -- only Miranda and Hilary have the combination to get into that safe, and only Miranda and Hilary have the passcode to open that iPad, and Darya suspects Hilary doesn't remember either -- but she knows he's out there, somewhere in Russia, and she knows that Hilary is learning Russian. She knows that the father of this baby boy is a werewolf. In their tribe, she knows that the boy himself is part of Hilary's power.

Which means that Hilary must be insane. Ivan, too, and worse because the moon pulls at him as well.

But Darya also knows there's softness there. Hilary, a wreck on the armchair, looking so languid and trying so hard to seem brusque. Hilary, who does not seem to want to leave that exact spot until Ivan comes to get her again. Darya tries to be gentle with her. She gets biting little comments in return, but she feels like she's intruded on something, forced Hilary out of one of the few places where she is comfortable, and happy, and safe. Darya, tonight, has it in her to be patient with that. To feel, ultimately, mostly pity for the woman.

It isn't always so. Sometimes she seriously considers tracking down that cousin of hers that family rumor says is good with poisons and seeing what could be added to Ms. de Broqueville's coffee, drop by drop, over a very long period of time. Catching herself plotting the weeks and months of slow death out in her mind, Darya sometimes pauses, and wonders if this is normal, or if her blood makes her insane, too.

Hilary ignores Max, and Phoebe, and most people. Ivan lifts his eyes to her and gives her that smirky little smile of his, winks at her, and she rolls her eyes. People see that; even Ivan has no way of telling if it's a show for their sake or if she's already reverted, already gone back as though he never gave her anything up there.

The next time he looks up, she's drifted off, wandered into the crowd of people, is talking to the husband of some government official. Occasionally someone is handed a present and all those in a circle around them peer curiously at what it is. Oohs and aahs commence once more. The children play with toys all over the place. It's a great deal noisier now than it was before; more alcohol has been flowing. The parents of those kids, however, are thinking it's time to go home, or at least send the nannies and the children home while they stay at the party.

When Ivan himself brings a gift over to Hilary, the people she's talking with look over, surprised. Hilary raises a droll eyebrow at Ivan, wondering what fresh hell this is -- from her expression, at least. He's smiling, holding the gift out, and she plays patient, she plays like this young man is trying to get himself into trouble by bordering on flirtatious all the time, and she hands her drink to another guest that offers to hold it for her.

Taking the box from Ivan, Hilary plays polite, too: "You really shouldn't have," with just enough seriousness in her words to suggest that she means it. Her fingernails slice through taped-down corners of intricately folded paper, then shred a corner, then rip off the rest. It took close to half an hour to wrap this one gift. It takes her less than half a minute to destroy it.

"No," Ivan agrees, that smile taking on a wry cant, "I probably shouldn't have."

Hilary slices the wrapping paper open. Black and silver parts; beneath, a box, matte black, monogrammed with the initials of whatever ultra-exclusive purveyor provided this gift. Ivan folds his hands behind his back. He is aware of his heartbeat, the air in his lungs; a sense that he stands on a subtle precipice. In a moment a line, invisible but very present, would have been crossed. He can flirt with the lovely wives of other men. It's almost expected of him. But there are certain things that simply aren't done, certain gifts that are not given, certain lengths that are not approached, lest people start to wonder. And talk. And suspect.

There's a certain anticipation in the air. A hush in their vicinity. A lull in the conversation as eyes turn this way. Only the younger children are oblivious, playing with their new toys, running about the terrace and the enormous marble spaces.

Hilary opens the box, and no one could possibly mistake what is within for something inexpensive; something even remotely on the level of what everyone else was gifted with tonight. The fur is thick, impossibly rich, absolutely flawless. The underlayer is night-black, soft and light as down. The guard hairs sheen silver wherever light strikes. The coat seems to go on forever: unfolded, it would drape to the ankles, envelope the form. A quarter of a million dollars or more: given as a Christmas gift to this old friend of his family. This completely platonic, distant acquaintance who is too proper, too boring, too old for his wild lifestyle.

The fellow on Ivan's right blinks once or twice. "Wow," he says.

Everyone has noticed, in this group, that Mrs. Durante no longer wears her wedding ring. Well: the women noticed. A few of the men. Strangers had no clue. That one man out on the terrace -- DuSomethingont -- didn't think to check til she schooled him. The enormous pink diamond that was previously on her finger is gone, as is the band of diamonds that Dion gave her after their first anniversary. Such a short marriage. Such a fickle, horrible man, to divorce her because of a stillbirth. Archaic. Why didn't he just stone her, they wonder? They have thoughts about foreigners. They whisper them.

Poor white woman.

A few people watching recognize the monogram and are already murmuring before Hilary nudges the lid upward and removes it, her face a mask of seriousness. And then she folds back some of the surprisingly silky-soft tissue paper inside and -- sighs. She tries to be polite about it, keep it quiet, but she sighs and other people gasp. She does not pick it up and unfurl it, spread it out, whirl it around herself, coo and squeal with delight. She sees the sable and works, far harder than even Ivan may understand, to conceal the hard clench of lust that captures her then.

A man of their strata might, if he is rather old-guard and old-fashioned, give a simple wrap, or hat, or muff to a 'friend of the family', and even then it might raise an eyebrow or two. For his mistress, if he is rather fond of her, a short cape to wear over her opera gown on a chilly night. You see a man in his sixties out with a woman in her twenties or even thirties and you'll see her stroking it, delighted despite the glares from the more liberally-minded. Some of the people here -- many of the people here, in fact -- are horrified, disgusted, but they also are horrified and disgusted by the fact that he serves lamb. They'll still come to his parties, though, they aren't social lepers, after all. Daddy wouldn't like it if they made a stink about their vegetarianism.

A man -- again, older, and of this very old-fashioned mindset -- may give his wife a fur jacket. Mink, perhaps. A set of lined gloves for her birthday. For Christmas, though, the jacket, swinging around her hips. The level of the relationship does seem to dictate the length of the garment: covering only the shoulders for your aunt, the upper arms for your mistress, the entire torso for your bride. A full coat, like this one, is the sort of thing a man gives his wife... on their twenty-fifth anniversary. Or fiftieth.

This is not the sort of thing you present to a separated woman who is a 'friend of the family', no matter how strong your flirtation.

Hilary does place her hand on the fur. She strokes it once, unable to stop herself, and no one watching can blame her. But then she lifts her eyes and stares directly Ivan, weighing the consequences of every possible action. Wow, says some ill-mannered second son of an idiot. Hilary ignores it, and then gives a small shake of her head, holding the box back toward Ivan. She keeps her voice low, as though half a dozen or a dozen people aren't watching them.

"I can't accept this."

In some ways, the damage is already done. People are already whispering. Everyone in this penthouse will know in moments that Ivan Press just gave a sable coat, a full-length siberian sable coat, to a soon-to-be-divorced woman. The same woman that he took sailing once or twice, didn't he? Oh, and yes, there was that once, that time when he interrupted a tennis game to play with her and stood at the net for minutes afterward talking to her about something. A crush, Hilary's tennis partner tittered them.

Infatuation, they'll say after tonight. Totally inappropriate, of course; who does he think he is? He might have money, certainly, but he's not on Hilary's level. Not really. Look at his family. Russian boors masquerading as high society. Tradesmen; cable-layers and wire-stringers. Their fortune can't be more than a hundred years old, and now,

now this playboy of a scion thinks he can reach for forbidden fruit.

Tainted fruit of a withered tree, Espiridion called his wife, some time after deciding to abandon her; some time before actually doing so. Later that night, he wanted to take her home and fuck her again all the same. There's something to be said for that which should not be touched.

Hilary touches the coat. Just for a moment; just her hand white against that sheening silvery-black. And then she holds the box back toward Ivan, rejecting his gift. He should have expected it. What did he expect her to do, really, after he made it so glaringly obvious that she was special, she is singular, she amongst all these guests here tonight meant something more. What did he expect?

Except - the truth is he didn't expect anything. He had no expectations whatsoever; he somehow put quite a lot and very little thought into his actions at once. Hers was the only gift he personally selected. Hers was the only gift he inspected, measured, weighed and finally found suitable; the only gift he cared about even a little. But beyond that - nothing; no forethought, no consideration of how she might receive it or what might happen; nothing except a certain recklessness:

he doesn't care. He doesn't care if they think he's overstepping, if they think he's infatuated, if they wonder what exactly is going on between the lovely Mrs. Durante and the young Mr. Press. He doesn't care if they all know he's fucking her. He wants them to know, the same way he wanted his Halloween party to see and hear and know, that she's his, his, he's the one she calls vladelets when the doors are shut and her walls are all crumbled away.

There is a beat. He does not come up with some cover story, some tall tale about family businesses in the fur trade, cousins who were fur magnates, a mother or an aunt that absolutely wanted her to have this. Nothing of the sort. Simply a pause, his eyes on hers. His hand takes the box - exerts a gentle pressure, pressing it back toward her.

"Please," he says. "I insist."

The more well-read among them are thinking about Russian history, of Russian literature, of the young Russian men who were or even are actively encouraged to pursue older, married, forbidden women -- as though cultivating the sorrow of an exquisitely, inevitably broken heart tempers them into adulthood. Trust the Russians to view grief, not sex or wealth or even war, as the line between a child and a man.

A crush, they tittered. An infatuation. An obsession. The more cunning will think it's a ploy, new money chasing old money in an attempt to validate itself. The wiser ones will know better: he is just that stupid. He is just that entitled, that hopeless, that lost. They look at her and they can't entirely blame him. And the younger women, the single women here, imagine themselves in her position, or comforting him when she ends up crushing his heart, which they think must be fragile.

He must be fragile, to do something like this. To lay it all out, to show everyone everything like he is. Fragile, foolish, doomed Ivan Press.

Hilary rejects it. He doesn't look hurt; he doesn't even look dissuaded. He cements himselves in the minds of their audience as hopelessly obsessed now, longing for a woman he cannot possibly have, who must have been rejecting his advances on those long-ago sailing trips, trying so hard to be polite to her 'family friend' without encouraging him, who has finally reached a point where she cannot entertain him any longer.

She shakes her head, and she puts the box firmly in his hands, and she lets go, even if he won't take it, but then it drops on the floor and so be it --

"You mustn't," she whispers, and it's so gloriously anachronistic, her face and her voice and the way she says it, that the imaginations of their viewers soar a little to hear her, to see her turn away from Ivan, murmuring pardon me to someone, forgetting her drink in someone else's hand, moving into the crowd as though she fully intends to walk away and leave, leave the room and the party and this insane young man who wants her badly enough that he did something so abominably retarded as offer her a full sable coat in the middle of a society party.

No one is speaking now. Some child somewhere laughs and is quickly hushed by her nanny. The string quartet plays gamely on, but even they're acutely aware. When Hilary presses the box firmly into Ivan's hands and turns to go, the violinist misses a note.

It is hard for Ivan to tell how much of this is pretense and how much is truth. If he could step back enough to look deeper, he could read it in a second. But he can't -- can't step back, can't see the truth for what it is; can't. The box is in his hands again. He holds it, and Hilary turns away and sweeps through the crowd and her small, discreet entourage is rapidly rallying to her.

All around Ivan are the faces of his faceless guests, none of whom matter in the slightest to him right now. The gentlemen and ladies of the old guard are appropriately appalled by his foolishness and his excess. Some of the younger men are smirking: jealous of his wealth, jealous of the luxury and status and sheer oceans of pussy that wealth seems to buy him, glad to see him finally break himself against an impenetrable fortress. Some of the younger women have their hands over their breast.

By tomorrow the whole town will be abuzz. Were you there when he -- , they'll ask each other, and confirm for one another that yes, yes, I was there when she -- and by the end of the week the attendance of the party will have miraculously soared to three or four times its registered guest list, and everyone will have something to say about the coat he gave her, it had to have meant something; the way she touched it, do you think it meant anything?; the way she walked away, the way he looked when she did.

And:

the way Ivan, after a moment, drops the box as though it and its contents were suddenly inconsequential. Miles of sable spill onto the floor as he walks away, his footsteps purposeful and brisk; following Hilary. Some would-be white knight tries to get in his way, says Come on, Press, let it go, but suddenly there's Evgeny, putting his hand on his shoulder and frowning. Some too-curious guests try to follow, and suddenly there's Dmitri, turning the crowd back, encouraging them to enjoy the party, please, enjoy yourselves --

while Ivan, alone, stalks down the gorgeous entryway of his penthouse, jams his foot in the closing elevator door, gets in the car with Hilary. He knows he can't possibly leave with her, just like he couldn't possibly stay and shower with her, just like they can't possibly let the secret out, let everyone even suspect for a moment that this infatuation, this obsession, was anything but one-sided. He knows.

The doors shut. The car doesn't move. He looks at Hilary like something starving and wild.

Hidden by the curtain of Darya's impossibly thick blonde hair is a small bluetooth headset, a small black bar that is of the same angles of a strip of gum but about half the the size. She is away from the other servants and paying attention, out of nowhere, lurking in the crowd, unseen and unheard as her caste is supposed to be, when all of this happens. And as soon as Hilary turns on her heel, Darya takes a step backward from the other guests and reaches under her hair, tapping a small button and calling Carlisle. He doesn't ask her if she knows what Hilary plans to do, because he knows that none of them ever know, but he does start to get the car ready, should she want to leave.

A sable coat? he repeats back to Darya, laughing. Seriously?

Darya rolls her eyes as she heads for the elevator. No, not the one that opens into the gallery. The other one. The plain one with the steel doors that all but blend into the wall, the one that the servants use, the big one that can fit the sort of furniture that Ivan occasionally has sent there. It's cavernous around her petite form, but it is just as fast as the other one. She rockets downward, straight into the garage.

Hilary glides through, ignorant of all this and yet expecting it. If she goes downstairs and has to wait for her car, she'll be cross. If she goes away and Ivan doesn't pursue her, meet her later, call her later, she'll be cranky. If he chases her, she'll be annoyed. If she goes down and Carlisle is holding the door open for her, she'll be huffy.

Never pleased is never pleasing, her caretaker tried to say once, the woman who was her nurse and then her nanny, then her maid and then her nightmare. Hilary remembers, quite young, telling her to shut up. She wasn't interested in pleasing anyone.

The door tries to close and stops due to the intervention of a polished, gleaming black shoe. Hilary looks at it first, then up at Ivan as he pushes his way in, eyes blazing. The way she looks, the way he smells to himself -- it's like he never touched her. Never had her. Didn't fuck her with his hand before going down and playing Santa. If he looks very, very closely on her throat he can see --

absolutely nothing, but how skilled Darya is with some concealer and a makeup brush.

He's looking at her. She looks back at him. And this, this alone, is his sign that it happend, it was real, he did break her for a moment: she doesn't shake her head at him and tell him how foolish that was, how stupid, how could he. Nothing droll, nothing dry, nothing cutting or cold. She just looks at him, breath caught in her throat, like

she's waiting for something.

They are both silent. They are both staring, caught, electric, waiting. And then he moves, and it's explosive, he comes at her and seizes her with both hands, grabs her by the arms and pushes her against the elevator wall and kisses her as hard as he'd kissed her upstairs when she told him no again and again.

She told him no again, just now. He can't blame her. He doesn't know how much of her storming out was pretense and how much was genuine. He doesn't know if she wants to just get away from him, if he's ruined everything, if he was a romantic fool; any of that. He kisses her like maybe he can find out like this. Like maybe if he just tastes enough of her,

touches enough of her,

he can finally understand her.

And his hands are all over her, spanning her waist, cupping her breasts. The kiss goes on forever, and in the end it's only a handful of seconds. Then they tear apart and he looks at her; thinks of fucking her right here and now in the elevator, see if Darya can produce a third dress, see if his guests won't hear her screaming in here.

"Go to the cabin," he says. For all he knows she'll work herself into a black mood on the way. For all he knows she'll be livid when he gets there, she'll want to know what he was thinking, how could he be so stupid, so obvious, such a lovestruck fool, but - "I'll be there soon."

He kisses her again. He grabs her behind the head this time, kisses her until he feels blind, he feels like the floor has dropped under his feet and he's falling, falling.

"Now," for all that, he's only barely panting, "slap me. As hard as you can."

Ivan can feel it as soon as he moves for her. It's in the air, a sound wave hitting a wall and bouncing back to him. It's in the way he grabs her and throws her to the wall and is on her, against her, and she is

submitting to him. Kissing him back, electric and hungry, starving, aching. Her resistance is only because her hands might go to his face, touch him, keep him there, love him. But he grabs her. Hilary can't move her hands until he lets her go and starts pawing at her, feeling her tits through the satin and through her lingerie, running over slender hips, defining her slender waist. Then she does, in fact, touch his face, his hair, kiss him, too.

Go, he says, and there's a flash of agony in her eyes mingled with joy. I'll be there and she calms, she breathes, she bends into that second kiss with her eyes closing, her spine melting.

Then he tells her to slap him, and she looks at him like a normal, sane person might look at him if he told them to strangle their own puppy. She's so upset, and yet, ultimately,

so obedient.

"Vladelets," she says, half a whimper, and then

lashes her hand across his face. As hard as she can.

[dex + brawl][WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

[damage: str + suxx -1][B]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

[D: LAWDY.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Ivan knows her after that kiss. He knows what she feels, he knows what she felt when he gave her those furs in front of all those staring eyes, knows how she felt when he laid the skins of slain animals before her like an old-fashioned man, like a barbarian would, like an animal would. Furs have become so synonymous with luxury that so many forget what a bloody, visceral, primitive offering it really is - but not them. The taste of her mouth tells him that. The way her hands go to his face, keep him so close, tells him that.

And then he gives her a command. And she obeys the way she always does: utterly.

It's no dainty little tap she gives him. The motion comes from her shoulder, involves her whole arm. She fans him across the face hard enough to jerk his head to the side, set his shoulders off-balance. His face is numb, and then stinging, and then aching. When he straightens he dabs at his nostril and finds a thin streak of blood on his fingertips. Ivan, astounded, stares at Hilary for a second. Then he grabs her behind the head, kisses her yet a third time, burns that kiss to her mouth hard and fast.

There are no further goodbyes. When they come apart her handprint is already livid red on his golden cheek. He mashes the OPEN DOOR button with his thumb. Hits the garage button as he's stepping out. The door shuts and divides them. She goes down, and he goes back to his party where everyone's still pretending to be cheerful and holiday-spirited and not at all gossiping ferociously about what just happened, what just went down before their very eyes.

A hundred eyes turn his way when he comes back to the living room. There are gasps, quiet but audible. More fodder for the gossip mill: the raw look to his mouth, that scalding mark on his face. He doesn't meet anyone's eyes. He goes straight toward the abandoned gift that no one's dared to touch, not even to pick up off the floor. His shoulders are tense, and he stuffs the coat back in the box and closes the box and

finally, finally looks at his guests, who are by now more of an audience. Stiffly courteous, he apologizes for his behavior and for the scene he's caused. He hopes they enjoy the rest of their night. There's a beat, like he might say more. Then he simply turns and walks away, and behind him, the puppet show starts up all over again.

No one stays long. Everyone starts making their excuses to leave. Everyone's still talking about what happened all the way to their chauffeured cars, all the way to their opulent north shore homes. It's so obvious what happened, and by the week's end most of them will have insinuated that they saw it all. Half of them might even believe they had: Ivan - foolish, reckless, tragic young man - rushed after Hilary. He caught her in the elevator. He must have done something foolish, perhaps professed his love, possibly even tried to take liberties with her, but of course the unimpeachable Mrs. Durante put an end to that. She seems so gentle. He must have really pushed her. He certainly deserved what he got, and maybe that'll teach him. Maybe he'll know better next time. Maybe next time he'll set his sight a little lower,

maybe he'll be looking to one of them next time to heal his wounded heart. Volatile, heedless, romantic young man that he is.

Ivan, in the privacy of his own room, takes the coat out of the box again. He folds it carefully. He sets it inside, arranges the tissue paper just so; closes the lid. There are two elevators, but both are in use as his guests partake in a mass exodus, so he doesn't go that way. He waits until they're gone, until the elevators are quiet. On his way out, he checks his reflection: his cheek is already bruising, good god. He wants to laugh; at least one blonde kinswoman in this city, though he doesn't know it, would have told him that's what you get.

Hilary's scandalous gift under his arm, Ivan rides the elevators down alone - past the lobby, past the public garage, into his private parking. He gets in his car alone. He sets the box on the seat beside him, buckles in with those seatbelts that Hilary hates, they're so crude, they're so flashy, they have no class; he starts the engine and, alone, drives to meet his lover in the cabin he built for her, and for them.