Ivan Press

Ivan

Christmas comes and Christmas goes. For a few days -- perhaps nearly a week -- Ivan stays in that little lakeside manor. He takes the boy on outings, Hilary and all the servants in tow. They buy gifts; more than the boy needs, more than he could even want. They buy blocks and children's xylophones and wind-up cars and bouncy balls; they buy stuffed animals and mobiles and noisy little toys whose only purpose seem to be to annoy adult caretakers. They buy on sheer whim, sometimes picking things out almost faster than their people can take note, and when they get bored they leave the boy with his servants. They get coffee. They get drinks. They wander through city streets and museums and he buys her all manner of things.

On Christmas Eve they have dinner in a restaurant on the observation deck of Novgorod's highest building. It's not much compared to Chicago, but the view -- white with snow, grey with winter -- is still breathtaking. They are alone there, because they bought the place out. The boy is in the corner, tended by the servants. They dine in front of the windows, the lights low, and as night settles all the lights of the city come alive at their feet.

He gives her jewelry; he gives her gems. She drips with gold and platinum. Later on he makes her drip again. Bends her over the bed and holds her down; gets her off with his hand and then punishes her for it, for being such a horny little slut, for having no control, no shame, no modesty.

Ties her to the bed and doesn't even fuck her that night. In the morning they open presents around an enormous, fragrant tree. Anton tears wrapping paper with enormous glee, bites at boxes, grins and laughs and bounces on his bottom. Ivan nurses his way through a few fingers of vodka, pretending at a paternal smile while his eyes gleam every time he looks at Hilary. While the servants clean up the mess he takes her upstairs again.

Fucks her this time. Over and over and over again, athletically and ravenously and sometimes brutally; until in the end they are both worn out, and he is gentle with her.

The sun sets so early in this cold land. It is mid-afternoon and already darkening when he draws her a bath. Lies with her in the warm water, sleepy and replete, silent, his fingertips tracing the delicate tendons beneath the skin of her hand.

In the morning he leaves.

--

Days before she hears from him again; and then just a text. Happy New Year, from whatever exotic locale he has run away to. A couple weeks later the gloves and hat from his parents arrive; he'd forgotten to give them to her.

And then a stiff envelope by international express. A sheaf of glossy photographs inside; houses and properties, a dozen or more. In Vancouver, in Seattle, in Los Angeles; in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia. Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Milan. They come accompanied by infosheets. There's a USB thumbdrive in there as well, that Miron will have to help her load: personalized video tours narrated in Max's cool, professional, ever-so-slightly bored voice.

And lastly: a text message on that cell phone she barely seems to know how to use. Ivan.

Like anything?

A second one follows:

Coming home tmrw.

On Christmas day, the downstairs and the nursery of the house in Novgorod are piled with so many toys that after a while the bouncing, laughing boy is overwhelmed, crawls away, stuffs his old toy dragon in his mouth and lies curled up under the table until he falls asleep. His father stares at Hilary, gleaming and wanting. Hilary ignores Ivan almost hatefully, watching Anton, watching the tree. She opens gifts from Ivan without comment or gratitude. She refuses to look at him.

He follows her upstairs later, when she goes to have a nap after the morning's festivities. Luxurious thing, taking off her earrings as she goes, napping before noon. And when he reaches for her she's vicious, her anger bringing tears to her eyes. Scratches at him, has her wrists caught. Has to look into her eyes, to know what it is she really wants.

Has to pin her to the bed, hold her down, to break her to his will again. To fuck her while she cries, to snarl in her ear that he does want her. He always wants her. Can she feel it?

Later, in the bath, he washes tear-stains off her cheeks, wiping gently with a soft cloth.

--

In the morning, he leaves to return to the airfield. And Hilary, silent and distant but peaceful, somehow, walks out to the porch. He kisses her hand. And as he withdraws she tightens her grip, sudden and unexpected.

Says nothing, looking at him for a long moment. A long, silent moment that conveys, blunt as a suckerpunch: don't leave.

She bids him stay, and so -- for a while -- he stays. But it can't last. He can't stay for long. The closeness of the house, the sheer boredom. Hilary cannot stand him for that long. Every time they have tried to spend longer together, they have torn each other apart. So he stays,

but then he goes. Perhaps he leaves her in the middle of the night, or before she wakes up one morning. Leaves her a note. It's better that way.

--

Hilary has nothing to do on New Year's Eve and sinks into a wallowing depression. She does not answer Ivan. She sits in a house filled with peasants and a baby and only throws up what she eats, disgusted with herself and her life. After a couple of weeks she has recovered a bit; she takes the hat and gloves his parents sent along and she calmly throws them in the fireplace, along with the box, the paper, the ribbon.

--

The photographs confuse her. She goes through them, forgetting what they're for, what this is about. Scowls at them all, and yells for Miron, but he's outside. It's Polina, instead, who gets Hilary set up on a laptop, bites her tongue at Hilary's impatience to know what 'downloading drivers' is about, and then is dismissed once Hilary knows how to navigate the video player. It's hours later before she looks at her phone and sees a message from Ivan.

Scowls at him, through the phone.

Flicks something on the screen, because she's learning. She is. Like all things: slowly.

Wherever he is, whatever time it is: Ivan's phone rings.

The phone rings one, two, three, four times. Goes to voicemail. Hilary leaves a message or -- more likely -- she doesn't; either way, the call disconnects.

And then, barely two minutes later: her phone rings. It's Ivan on the other end. He sounds far away, though perhaps that's just the imagination. There's no lag; communications move so fast these days. The world is so small. He could be at her side in a matter of hours. Sooner, if he steps through to the other world, that spirit realm to which she has no access.

Scarcely anything keeps Hilary and Ivan apart these days. Not Dion, not Grey; not even the tribe. They are beginning to lose interest. She is past her prime, so far as they're concerned. She may as well be barren, so far as they're concerned.

Hilary and Ivan keep themselves apart. It is the only thing -- the only barrier; the only thin thread of their own sanity.

--

He sounds like he's somewhere warm. She can hear water. She can hear voices. A pool, perhaps. A yacht, a cruise ship; who knows. He should be getting on a plane soon. He must be somewhere equatorial, or perhaps the Southern hemisphere. It's a long flight to Novgorod.

"Mademoiselle," he greets her; whimsical.

Hilary does not leave a message. Does not pick up when he calls two minutes later. Tag. He leaves a message, or he doesn't. Some minutes later, Miron calls him. Or rather: Hilary on Miron's phone.

She hears water and she hears voices and he can hear... her breathing. Steady and even, low.

"I hate you," she spits, viscerally. And then

begins to cry.

It's not as though Ivan ever expects his bizarre lover to respond to his whimsy -- his capricious moods, which are, in truth, singularly cruel in their lightheartedness. That he can be so light. That he can laugh, and play, and sun himself in some summery clime while his beloved and his child are abandoned to the endless Russian winter --

and yet still. Still: he is startled, taken aback. There is a long silence.

Then his voice, softer across the line: "Why?"

"I hate it here," she says, choking on rage and tears and self-pity and vomitous self-loathing for that pity. Nevermind that she chose to be here. That she longed to be here and could not be parted from it.

No: from Anton.

"You left me in the middle of nowhere on New Year's," she says, regaining some of her composure with that twinge of self-righteous affront. "You're out... finger-fucking beach maids in bikinis while I sit here reeking of toddler shit."

One would think after years of knowing her -- and her madness, and her moods -- he'd have some idea of how to deal with her. He doesn't. There's a change in the background noise though; a lessening. He is moving away from the others. Then there's a click, a door latching. It becomes quiet.

"I'm not fucking anybody." He gets that out of the way first. There's a touch of affront there. He wants to argue with her: tell her she chose to stay, tell her they would've fought. He bites it back. Wouldn't do any good anyway, and so he draws a breath, lets it out smoothly.

"I'm coming back tomorrow," he tries again. "And we'll go away from Novgorod. We'll find somewhere else for Anton and the rest of them."

She sniffs when he says he's not fucking anybody. He can hear it, distantly; she turned her face away, ladylike. Can hear a rustle -- maybe she's reaching for a tissue, or a handkerchief. Hears her take a breath that trembles.

"I'm so... bored," she says, a rush of genuine emotion with the word, though that emotion is hard to name. Relief, almost, to say it aloud. She's so bored. She's so sick of it here. It's cold and dark and lonely and the only other people she sees are servants and a baby.

"Can't I just come to you?"

Across the line, Ivan huffs -- disbelief, amusement. "I'm in Dubai," he says. "You'd absolutely hate it here."

Beat.

"Come, then. Have Miranda send me your itinerary. Or should I send a jet?"

Hilary does not care how they arrange it. His people and hers end up chartering a jet directly from Novgorod to Dubai, one way. Miranda sends the itinerary to Max. But on the phone, in that moment, Hilary is very quiet at what he says. She says nothing back for a few moments, and quietly -- demurely almost, though that tends to imply a decision made in some fractured corner of her mind to be ladylike, and this is simply... a fracture -- she hangs up.

--

A day or two pass before her scheduled arrival. When she does, she is alone. Well, excepting Darya, who seems to travel everywhere with her, if only to be roundly abused. She is easy to miss, though. Easy to overlook, especially when Hilary exits the jet.

She wears a maxi dress, deep blue and covered with birds of paradise and peacocks, great swirls of bright color. It seems strange on her. Her pashmina is white, covering her otherwise offensive shoulders. She has on large sunglasses, but her hair flows freely. Loosely, tousled, in waves.

He will think of Mexico.

Walks toward him, then, as reserved as a queen waiting to be given fealty.

That bewildering conversation, now ended, quickly enough vanishes into the rearview mirror of Ivan's mind. A few hours later there is an email from Max containing an itinerary. Dmitri is cc'ed; it is assumed he will be driving. Ivan taps a quick message back:

No need. I'll handle it.

--

A day or two later, a small chartered jet touches down on the tarmac. The engines power down and the main door folds down to become a set of stairs. In the summer months Dubai is blisteringly hot; even now, it is comfortably warm, very dry, sunny and cloudless. In the distance, the city rises out of the desert like a proverbial mirage: a forest of glass and steel dwarfed by the impossible dimensions of the Burj Khalifa.

There's something disingenuous and hypocritical about a city like this -- so wholly man-made, brought out of a lifeless desert by sheer will, raised to dizzying heights by sheer money. Behind the city, the Gulf. Across the Gulf, all those war-torn states of Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq; places that may as well not exist here, for all the heed anyone pays to them. Here there is only capitalism, greed, the best shopping in the world; the tallest buildings, the most exclusive clubs, the most pristine beaches, the most luxurious housing developments quite literally built ex nihilo into saltwater. Even the dress code -- a nod to traditional Arabic modesty -- is something of a sham. On the tarmac, Hilary must cover her shoulders. On the beach, she could wear as skimpy a bikini as she wished.

Not that she would. But still.

So: she descends from the jet in that strange, brilliant dress. It seems strange on her indeed: so tropical, so bold, when she seems more a creature of winter and ice and monotones. Blackness at the core. Her sunglasses hide her eyes. Her hair

reminds him of those strange days in Mexico, halcyon and unsettled at once.

Hilary's lover meets her alone. He has no entourage; he has no driver, no limousine. Simply a car, a classic aston martin in a classic shade of british racing green. It is a convertible. The top is down. He straightens up from where he leans, hands in the pockets of his trousers. He is wearing a light grey suit; a light lilac shirt. The jacket is in the car. The vest is cut close to his lean body. He comes to her, meets her halfway between plane and car. Puts his hands on her waist and draws her in, until their lower bodies press together, until his legs tangle with her flowing dress.

He slides her sunglasses up to the top of her head. So deft is his touch that he doesn't snag or pull a single hair. Now he can see her eyes, and he tips her chin up with a forefinger. Kisses her mouth lightly but possessingly, claimingly, as though he had some right to this.

There's been communication between assistants: Max to Darya. Ivan is driving out alone. Max will send a car to collect Darya, which will helpfully not be seen by the Silver Fangs. These things happen outside their view, as though they must. As though these pretenses are the surface tension holding fragile sanity together, floating along beautifully. Remind the truly pure bred of reality, and they might break. Whole worlds might end.

When Hilary disembarks she becomes still, and Ivan goes to her. Immediately he touches her, pulls her close, and feels how limber she is under that dress, how soft, how warm. And Hilary, looking at him in those tailored clothes, remembers that she fell in love with him, too.

That he wasn't just another young wolf howling at her gates in the rain, pleading for entry. That when his eyes went black and he hit her as he fucked her, she felt... known, for the first time in years. That she thought he was lovely, and brutal and refined. That while his adoration and his cruelty please her in equal measure, the truth is that her own subjugated worship of him is sincere, if hyperbolic. It's when he breaks her down that she is able to love him, and it's when he breaks her down that she is least capable of showing it to him in anything but submission.

She does love him. And misses him when he is gone, and longs for him, and is abjectly terrified of him, hateful toward him, for stirring such things in her.

Hilary's sunglasses are removed and, having napped, her eyes are sensitive. She closes them, and turns her head a bit, and when his finger touches her jaw to draw her up, make her look at him, make her kiss him, Hilary resists. She wraps her arms around him, though public displays of affection are darkly frowned upon here. She lays her head on his shoulder, inhaling his scent, holding him for some time.

"Oh, mon petit faucon," she murmurs. "Tu me as manqué."

He doesn't speak French. Speaks less of it than she does Russian -- by a long stretch now, after so many months; so many stumbling lessons from Darya, from Polina. Who is mean. And therefore, in Hilary's estimation, a better teacher by far.

Still, perhaps he catches some sense of what she has said to him. That embrace speaks for itself. The way she leans into him, wraps her arms around him. He puts his arms around her too: shoulders, hand covering the back of her head. He has lovely, long fingers; lovely long limbs. They are both so very lovely. Occasionally, they are loving of one another.

Sometimes. Not very often.

For a long time they are silent on the tarmac; dry desert wind billowing through her skirt, ruffling his shirt pleasantly against the skin of his back. In the places where her palms affix the fabric to his skin, there is only warmth. After a while he loosens his embrace; turns and slides his arm around her waist. Guides her like that to the car. Neither of them give a single thought to luggage, servants, things like that. Such details have a way of working themselves out, after all.

"I've a house on the water," he says. "We'll stay here as long or as little as you like."

His hand cradles her for a moment. That is what it is: cradling. Caring. Protecting her, perhaps even from her own vulnerable heart.

Hilary closes her eyes and lets him. She breathes the steady, even breath of a child in sleep, though she's quite alert. It's Ivan who stirs them, directs them, though once upon a time Hilary had no trouble snapping her fingers and leading them around. It would inevitably irritate him, and he'd punish her. And she loved him for it. She does not feign to be that woman very often anymore, not with him. He knows her for the fragile, frightened thing she really is. She wonders sometimes if he covers her in silks and jewels to try and make her feel like that well-kept, east coast second wife she once was. She doesn't think so. But it's not the same as the way he buys gifts for Anton, either.

Ivan stirs. Loosens. Moves in such a way that he can guide her bodily. She walks with him. The door is opened for her, either by Ivan feeling chivalrous or some unobtrusive person who is paid for such things. Hilary sits in the smooth leather of the passenger seat, tucking in her long legs, her long skirt, readjusting her pashmina as the door is closed for her. Ivan tells her, as she warily looks at the lowered top of the car, that he has a house on the water. She looks at him.

She wonders if he's staying in a house on the water like the lake house he made for her. If that's why he stays on the water. If he thinks of her. If it's simply the most luxurious place he could find to wile away his hours. She does not ask. She would choke herself on her own self-pity if she did.

"What do you mean, a house on the water?" she asks instead, somehow both curious and imperious.

There are no others. At least, not yet. They are hiding somewhere: like mice, like magical fairies and elves, beings created from fancy to serve their masters. So it is Ivan, feeling chivalrous, who opens the door for Hilary. Who hands her in, her fingers in his palm. Who helps her sweep her skirt into the confines of the door; closes it carefully to avoid catching the fabric, the waft and weave.

Then he circles around. Showing off for his female perhaps, he leaps the door agilely; settles into the driver's seat without his seatbelt. She is looking suspiciously at the open top. He pretends to sigh but obliges: puts the top up and locks it into place.

Windows go up too. Shade and coolness, which are welcome. It is not yet February. It still gets hot here; the sun so blistering, the air so dry.

"I didn't feel like crowding into a hotel with all the nouveau-riche of the world," says he, which is rich indeed: prince of the nouveau-riche that he is. "Max leased a house on one of the islands. The house is ours and the island is ours. The servants aren't but they do a passable job.

"We'll drive to the harbor and leave the car, take a speedboat out." He smirks at her sidelong. "Jetskis are also an option, if you're interested."

There's a tenderness in the way he leans over, touching her dress to keep it from the seam of the door. A delicacy. Hilary receives it without comment, but that does not mean she does not notice. Perhaps for Ivan it seems the simplest, most obvious act of chivalry. To Hilary, it carries some other weight. So many things do. She is only just beginning to recognize this.

He hops in and her eyebrow arches dryly for a moment. She has not buckled herself in either. Looks at him when he pretends to sigh but does not speak; does not smile when he locks the top in place and raises the windows to protect her delicate skin from the dry desert wind, protect her hair from being unnecessarily disheveled. Hilary tucks her pashmina closer around herself, settling back in her seat while he explains why he's leasing a house on the islands. The man-made islands.

She reaches over with one hand, laying it on his thigh. Mid-thigh. Could be mistaken, excused for appropriate. Just an inch too high, though. An inch too close, her fingertips smoothing too easily over those soft grey slacks in the direction of his inner thigh. The gesture is slow. Graceful. Uncompromising.

"The boat," she murmurs, and that is all.

Her touch brings him to alertness, instantly. His eyes flash to hers: pale green and glittering gold, wolf eyes, falcon eyes. He has an image of pouncing on her, carnivorous. Dragging her out and railing her on the tarmac, maybe thrown over the hood of the classic convertible, maybe just on the concrete. Hands and knees and tangled hair.

He has these images and he lets them go; lets them slip his fingers like water. Like her hair, gripped firmly by the roots and then combed through, let loose. Ivan covers her hand with his and squeezes.

"All right," he agrees amenably. And they drive, swinging a wide circle under the wing of the swift jet that brought her here. As they depart the tarmac, two other cars fall in behind them -- the distance between respectful, courteous.

Long straight roads outside the airport; a straight shot into the city and past it, out to the shores of the gulf. Ivan does 90 most of the way there, weaving past slower traffic. Afternoon just beginning to tip toward evening as they pull to a stop. On an adjacent dock, overindulged youths in keffiyehs and swim trunks are loading up an enormous white yacht while their girlfriends sun themselves at the stern.

Their transport is, for once, not the flashiest of the flock: a simple, sleek speedboat riding high in the water, with a sharply sloping keel. Who knows how their servants are meant to get out to the island; that boat surely couldn't hold more than six. Four, with luggage.

Two, when it's just them. Ivan parks; Ivan comes around to open Hilary's door. On his way out onto the floating pier he lifts a messenger bag out of the miniscule trunk; slings it over his shoulder cross-body as he goes. With his free hand he takes Hilary's.

Luggage moved from jet to tarmac, from tarmac to cars, all without Hilary or Ivan noticing. Darya collected into a car containing Ivan's people. But that is all behind them. Inside the slick little Aston Martin there's just Hilary, touching Ivan's thigh, warming to him as he drives. Tightening, as he speeds. She isn't afraid; it's not that kind of grip. Her nails briefly dig into his flesh through his slacks; they scrape once, very lightly, and through the fabric there's a shivering, scintillating effect.

When he finally stops at the dock, she looks at the youths and the yachts through her sunglasses, unseen and unnoticed. Stares without compromise, then looks away without interest. She sits in the car waiting to be handed out of it, and rises from the passenger side with the same effortless grace he's seen in her since the beginning. Waits for him as he gets his bag; she carries nothing, knowing Darya cannot be far. She stands there until he takes her hand, her palm resting on his rather than letting their fingers interlace.

Looks at him, and then goes with him as they approach the speedboat. She lifts her hem slightly as they step onto the craft. Speedboats are unfamiliar to her; she has been on so many sailing vessels that the ones with engines disturb her a little. So she does whatever Ivan instructs her to do, settling in and finally letting that silky shawl slip from her fair shoulders, exposing them to the sun.

She does slip off her shoes: sandals in camel-colored leather with a thick wooden heel. Unbuckles them with deft fingers and leaves them somewhere, stretching out in her seat, looking out on the water with that oddly curious little expression again.

To be sure, it's a smaller vessel than that svelte power yacht of his; that glamourous sailing catamaran of hers. This one isn't so much designed for overnight trips as it is geared for short, thrilling rides. Two captain's chairs; behind that, a seating area that accommodates another four. Ivan leaves the choice up to her, but she doesn't seem to know what to do, and so he shows her to one of the bucket seats up front. She takes off her shoes. He catches her heel in his palm; raises her leg up to kiss the inside of her ankle.

Smoothly he lowers her leg again, after. Takes his seat beside her. The sea breeze flutters his shirt, her skirt. Lifts her hair and tosses it behind her. The color of the water is a clear, surreal blue, varying here and there with depth. Ivan starts the engine; guides the boat out into open waters.

Acceleration pushes her back in her seat. They arc out into the water, trailing a wake of white foam. The windshield screens her to some degree, but it's imperfect. If her hair was tousled before, it's wild by the time they slow. Ivan brings the boat around; docks at the end of a small, narrow pier. Jumps down from the deck to rope the craft into place, then swings a short gangway across for Hilary to disembark.

The island is small. They can see from one end to the other easily; it's no more than a quarter-mile long, not even so wide. It's all sand and palms and an embarrassingly large villa. Must cost a fortune to cool in the summer: so many south-facing windows, gazing back across the water to the city. So many north-facing, east-facing, west-facing windows. An unnecessary and unnecessarily large pool sprawling beside a tennis court; a outdoors wet bar and several loungers in the shade of an oversized deck umbrella.

Ivan comes to stand beside Hilary, looking upon this ridiculous house he's rented. "So?" he prompts, smiling. "How gauche is it?"

Startles her a bit, when he grabs her heel. Doesn't show, though. Her eyes come up to find him, quick and alert, but she doesn't gasp or look worried. Hard to see anything behind those enormous sunglasses anyway. He kisses her ankle, lifting her leg like he owns her, like she's a doll, and Hilary watches him, her skirt sliding rapidly up her leg to her now bared thigh. There are glances from the youths on the dock. Neither Hilary nor Ivan notice. He lowers her leg, he does not drop her; he helps her with her skirt, or he leaves it rucked up as it is.

If he does, she leaves it, too. As though to cover herself now would be rude somehow. Disobedient.

Out on the water, Hilary does not huddle or shrink. She lets the wind have her hair. She lets her shawl slip around her elbows, her waist, uncovering her shoulders and arms. Sea spray salts her biceps, her cheeks. She does not WHOO or lift her arms or beam at the sun like some sort of twenty year-old child, but that is not to say that -- somehow -- she enjoys herself a little bit. They slow again, and she smooths her hair down, combs it a little with her fingers while Ivan hops out of the speedboat and secures it to the dock.

As with the car, she waits to be handed out. Lifted up, given his hand to rest her own upon. Her skirt falls around her long legs, her ankles. Her feet remain bare, the sandals forgotten in the floor of the speedboat, and so the hem of the dress brushes against the dock ever so slightly as she walks. Lifts her free hand to remove her sunglasses, observing the island, the palms, the house and its amenities. Turns her head slowly to look at him at that So?.

How gauche.

Hilary regards him silently for a few moments. She's been so silent since she stepped off the jet. That smattering of French; very little else. She is silent now, when she smoothly undoes the tie around her waist with one pull. Reaches up, loosening the straps over her shoulders before sliding them off, down her arms. Bold, bright chiffon ripples down her body, leaves her in pale pink lingerie of silk-soft cotton: strapless bra, seamless panties. Even the fair color is bright against how fair her skin is. They are still standing on the dock. She takes a step forward him, her hand on his jaw, her mouth on his mouth, her body coming flush against his own.