Ivan Press

Ivan

Their jet is too small to span the distance from the United Arab Emirates to Montreal without stopping, and -- while quite the sort to live in the veritable lap of luxury -- midair refueling was not yet within their grasp.

So they stop in Italy to refuel. It is the middle of the night. Ivan and Hilary are asleep in their cabin; he does not wake unless she does, and even should he wake, he does not deplane. If she does, he watches her from the bed, smiling faintly and lopsidedly, yawning as she departs his sight.

Soon enough they are ready to fly again. She returns. He makes room for her in the bed. The ground tilts beneath them. They fly.

--

Morning, when they land on the other side of the Atlantic. Montreal is a city of lakes and rivers, bays and mountains, bridges and skyscrapers. There's an old-world charm there, or at least what passes for old-world charm in this continent: winding cobblestoned streets and gaslamps and stone cathedrals. The sidewalks are replete with open-air patios, cafes, bookstores. Everything is in French, though everyone speaks with what must seem a hideous provincial accent to Hilary's haughty ears.

They have a car waiting for them. It is a convertible, because of course it is. They have a penthouse suite in an old and luxurious hotel, somewhere in the heart of old town overlooking the water. It is a drive there, and Ivan slides sunglasses on as he steps off the plane. He has the good grace to open the passenger's door for Hilary, yawning against the back of his hand.

They are in the air, in the middle of the night. Hilary was washed -- so carefully. Ivan combed her hair, more gently than he would ever think to with a child. He helped her into a satin slip of a nightgown, watching it ripple over her breasts, her belly, past her hips, hiding that sweet cunt, as he may or may not have whispered in her ear as his fingers twitched to touch it, palm cupping between her legs through the silk.

Maybe. Maybe not.

She slept in the hollow created by his body, deeply, encircled by him. Her hair smelled like whatever he put into it; it was drying slowly in those soft waves he first saw in Mexico, of all places. Maybe he fucked her; maybe they just slept. But in any case, when the plane begins to tip downward, the pressure changing, it wakes Hilary. She starts, feeling descent as though in her bones, sensing gravity. She wakes, and he feels or even hears her small fright, waking instantly beside her. Holds her more tightly, contained, until she stills. Settles. Mere seconds --

What is happening?, she whispered, tense, uncertain. And so he told her, calmly. And so they landed, and upon touching down, she unwound herself from his arm, pulling on a robe and wrapping it fully around herself, tying it at the waist, slipping into a pair of shoes. Hilary goes outside, ever so briefly, only to stand in the darkness, feeling the air, able to see the sky but not through a window. She is alone for the first time in some time -- as alone as it matters, while a lesser class of people go about refueling. Everything smells of gasoline and tar and metal, of exhaust. But it is still somehow freshened by the openness, the emptiness, of an airfield in the middle of the night.

She returns, her hair dry and more tousled by wind. She does slip out of her shoes, drapes her robe over a chair. Comes back to bed, but does not lie down right away. Just sits there, with Ivan beside her. For some reason, she touches his hair. Strokes his head, idly, which is a little like being tongue-bathed by a tiger: one is never sure when she might choose to snap, bite, claw, instead of nurture.

She does not try to hurt him. She just touches him. Softly. Drowses a bit, until she slides down again, and he holds her again, and she sleeps. But by then, they are in the air once more.

--

Montreal is a place she has never been. Canada, overall, is a place she has never been or seen reason to visit. It's Canada. Hilary knows nothing about Canada except that it is just one of the gauche, unpleasant countries of North America, and slightly less in her estimation than Mexico or the United States. For some reason. She would not be able to articulate it.

But Ivan told her she might like Montreal. And somehow, Hilary has grown a more open mind these days. She is less viciously wary, and she keeps her eyes open. Her hair is straightened again, her makeup done, her earrings in. She wears light, breezy clothing, a pair of white slacks and a multicolored but sleeveless top, and strappy wedges that show off a pedicure she got in Dubai and do not threaten to break her neck on cobblestones as stillettos might.

Her eyes are hidden behind big, dark sunglasses with white frames that have rose-gold Chanel icons at the temples, because perhaps she thought she may as well be gauche and trashy while in North America. Or maybe she actually likes them. This is how she looks as they depart the plane, glancing around, but then she looks at the car he has procured for them. Or which Dmitri has procured for them, because Ivan does not do such things.

Ivan yawns. She catches that. Quirks a brow as she gets into the car. "Did you not sleep well, darling?"

And perhaps there is a faint undertone of mockery there.

"I just don't even know what time it is," Ivan replies, blithely, while he sweeps the door shut. She looks good in the convertible, with her big Chanel sunglasses, her multicolored top. It is not the sort of thing she usually wears. He thinks, anyway. Truth is if one totaled up all the time he has spent in her company over all the years, it would hardly amount to a few months. Maybe only a few weeks. Truth is perhaps he hardly knows what it is she usually wears at all.

Still. The bottom line holds: she looks good like that, even if she seems to be playing gauche, playing trashy. He sinks into the driver's seat, adjusts the mirrors and the wheel. The engine starts with a tight, bass-heavy rumble. It is -- heavens have mercy -- an American convertible. A Corvette or a Viper or something of the sort, something awful and cheap and loud and muscular like that, suited perhaps for the great big flyover states but out of place even in this pseudo-European city.

"Anyway," he continues as he peels away in a wide circle, leaving behind their plane and their people and all their goddamn luggage, "don't mock. For all you know, I flew the plane while you slept."

"I know that's not true," she scoffs, shaking her head. "You can barely drive."

"I can drive just fine," Ivan retorts. "Better than your driver, I'll hazard."

"You just don't like him," Hilary says, mildly but truthfully. She turns to look over at Ivan from behind her shades as he drives through those narrow streets in this inappropriate car. He drives quickly. The truth is: he does not drive badly. He just does not drive sedately, serenely, with a sense of the majesty of his passenger. He can therefore, in Hilary's estimation, barely drive.

"You didn't leave me while I slept, did you?" she says, not quietly, due to the roar of the engine, but not mouselike. Not shy. Not broken.

Ivan is quiet for a moment. The blithe facade cracks; the coolness of his everyday mien slips. Just a little.

"No," he says, thoughtfully. "I suppose I don't. He could take you away from me, if you asked him to. He would." Another moment's thought. "He is necessary," he concludes, "but I don't like him."

Then -- he looks at her, his aviators reflecting her Chanels. His hand reaches for hers. He squeezes her fingers; it is firm.

"Of course not," he says. It is not blithe. It is not cool. It is resolute.

Hilary did not expect that moment of honesty. She thought it was the altercation when she came to get Anton. When Ivan came a step from ripping her manservant's head off for doing what any proper servant would do -- obeying his mistress, even in the face of death. She thought Ivan just hated the man because of that.

She is not expecting the answer Ivan gives. The loathing. The tension. Because this person, just a servant, would take her away if Hilary asked it. She says nothing. And a few moments later, Ivan looks at her and it is hard to tell if she is still looking at him. He touches her hand and she permits this, for a moment, but then

withdraws.

A frisson of tension ripples through Ivan then. He, too, withdraws.

For a time they drive in silence: his left hand on the wheel, his right wrist balanced over the gearshift. Several miles later he speaks again, and now the lightness, the coolness is back in his voice -- a thin veneer over something more edged, more bladed.

"Too much information, was it?"

She says nothing back to him. They've been silent, and she seems content to remain so. He drives. She looks out at Montreal as they drive through it. She smells the air and sees a cafe serving espresso, briefly, around a corner. The door is painted in a pale turqoise, and she is drawn to it, but does not see its name.

Turns to look at him.

"I don't know what you mean," she says. Truthfully.

"Never mind," he says, roughly; no room to argue. "I'm being foolish, and you hardly need to indulge me. Did you want to go to that cafe? I saw you looking."

Because of course he did. He's a Ragabash. He's her vladelets.

Hilary is silent, briefly. "You are always foolish," she says, quite calm about it. "And I am not indulging you. I do not understand what you meant... too much information?"

"When I implied that I worry you might leave me," Ivan replies at once, with an edge of a snap. "When I implied attachment and a certain degree of needfulness. Was it too much information for you? Too embarrassing and uncivilized a display of emotional baggage?"

Again, that long pause. That silence from her as he drives, angrily.

"No."

All she says. One hand idle in her lap, the other draped along the armrest, fingernail tapping the grab-bar thoughtlessly.

"No, Ivan," Hilary repeats. "That wasn't it, at all."

Rarely enough does she speak his name that he looks at her at once when it leaves her lips. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes are unreadable, but his brow is another matter. It furrows; his eyebrows come together. He looks at her a while, longer than is wise in a moving vehicle.

Then away. He has actually drifted onto the shoulder. He guides the car back smoothly, confidently, and without worry.

"What was it, then?"

"That you resent my ability to leave you, if I wish," she says quietly. "That is what I heard."

His eyes flick her way. Perhaps she catches it; at her angle, she can see behind his sunglasses. His brow knits tighter.

"It's not that," he says. "I just don't want you to leave me."

"Then you must believe that I do not wish to. Don't resent my manservant. Only... ensure that I continue to want to stay with you."

Hilary looks at him. She lifts her sunglasses a touch. Strange, how he never sees her smile privately. Almost never. Glowing, vicious thing it can be in public, though she has not been 'in public' for months and months now. Not since that disastrous day that Oliver found her at the docks, smacked her head against the rail, bent her over --

Does not smile now. But the way she looks at him, her black eyes unguarded in their coldness, their aloofness, their strangeness, is far more intimate.

"I do not mind, as much, these days, when you tell me that you care for me."

He is looking at her when she looks at him. It is coincidence, except it is not. Perhaps he can feel her eyes. Of course he can.

So: he is looking at her. And she tells him something, and it is quintessentially her; so understated as to almost not be stated at all. She does not mind. As much. These days.

He does smile. It is faint, and he presses his lips together to keep it back, as though neither of them must betray their inner thoughts now. And he turns away, back to the road. Drives while the smile takes over the side of his face distant to her. Some handful of seconds later, his hand turns over, opens for hers.

Hilary takes his hand.

Don't make a thing of it.

After a while, a sigh: "This hotel is so far away."

Neither of them remark on it. Or even look at it. Their clasped hands. Her red, red diamond ring.

"It's the airport that's far," Ivan says. "The hotel is right where we want it to be. And anyway," a glance over his shoulder at his blind spot, and then a shift in lanes, "we're nearly there."

--

There are gorgeous, sleek highrise hotels in downtown Montreal. There are even venerable old hotels with fashionably modern facelifts. Left to himself, there's no doubt Ivan would have chosen such a residence. He's not, however, left to himself. He is accompanied: his lady on his arm, who demanded -- not so very long ago, nor so very unfairly -- to be treated with a little dignity and respect.

So: they pull up to the St. James. Eight stories of Baroque architecture, embellished with porticos and columns, arches and arabesques. A valet takes their car. A doorman opens the way. They are expected, and need not wait in line like the rest of the peasantry; they are shown upstairs to their suite, which is consummately classical: all wood wainscoting and recessed ceilings, tall windows, ornate furniture. Some hurries to light the fireplace. Someone else turns down the enormous, four-posted bed, in case either of the international travelers felt compelled to nap.

It is not at all the sort of room Ivan typically enjoys; not his style, not his aesthetic. But it is, perhaps, what he imagines Hillary to like. Or at the least: what she is accustomed to, and has come to expect.

--

Departing, the hotel staff inform them that their people will deliver their luggage shortly. There are hors d'oeuvres set out; wine and champagne. Ivan goes to the windows and -- heedless of the central air -- throws a few open. The sheer inner curtains billow. The sound of the city drifts in.

He nearly takes up both lanes as it is, even before he shifts. Hilary wants to slide her hand away now, but note that she doesn't. Not at first. Not until she feels her entire arm like a dead thing attached to her, an emptiness, a phantom. She gently extricates herself then. It is so hard sometimes, when he is sensitive. When he cares.

But still: she doesn't mind so much anymore. She tries not to.

--

The car is stopped and handed over to a valet. Hilary remains where she is until the door is opened and a hand is offered to help her to her feet. She sets her own hand on that proffered one, likely Ivan's, and rises as smoothly as a snake, a cobra lifting its body to intimidate prey. Hilary does not even glance back to see their luggage being ported. She does not crane her neck to look at the building; she observed it as they approached, from behind her sunglasses, and deemed it adequate, which is why Ivan sees no sneer, hears no complaint.

As they go inside, she removes those sunglasses, going with Ivan and the concierge who is taking them up to their suite, directing a bellboy with a fingersnap and a point to light the fire when he sees Hilary give the faintest of shivers. He introduces the champagne cooling in the silver bucket, dismisses the maid who was just finishing up the turn-down service, and in seconds the servants have vanished, as they are supposed to. The concierge excuses himself as well, and Ivan leaves Hilary to go to the windows.

Throws them open, while she is walking over to the sitting area, the fireplace, setting her sunglasses on the table and taking her sleek little phone out of her white leather clutch. She says nothing; she is focused, so intently that her brow wrinkles, as she laboriously looks for her contact list. She doesn't have a screen lock. She had one for a while, and that is why she has a new phone now.

"Ivan, help me," she says, a few seconds later, her voice a strange mixture of snapping demand and anxious plea. "I need -- I need the one where you can see the other person."

It's rather cold outside, all told. The wind slipping through the windows is chilly; makes the fire in the hearth flutter. Sets the heaters spinning up into overdrive. Ivan leans on the windowsill, though, long and lean, enjoying the breeze. His weight drops through his elbows; pushes up his shoulderblades. His head is down, looking at the street far below. This is what he's doing when she calls to him: his name, a second time in as many hours.

He lifts his head. Looks over his shoulder. Straightens, swifter than he would have without that note in her voice. Closes the window as he crosses the room -- because she'd shivered earlier; because she sits by the fire now.

"Who are you trying to call?" He takes the phone from her, swipes through a few screens, finds the Skype icon and taps it. "Anton?"

Hilary just nods, mutely, handing the phone up to him. She has made 3 calls to Miron's number, all of them roughly three seconds long. Because she doesn't want to call. She wants the one where she can see the other person. This is why Ivan got them iPhones. For Facetime. And because it was easier for Hilary to use. Because Hilary cannot use computers. Or phones. Or tablets. Or... microwaves.

There is a clock on her screen. It shows the time in Novgorod.

"He goes to sleep," she says, tensely. And if he thinks of it,

she hasn't seen the boy since she came to him in Dubai.

"It's only dinnertime there," Ivan reassures her. The familiar Skype dialing sound plays; then the steady trill of the ring. "We can talk to him a little while."

He hands the phone back. And after she takes it -- after the briefest of hesitations -- he sits next to her. Soon enough the line connects. Miron's earnest face fills the small screen.

"Hello! Hi!" The young man waves; Hilary, somehow, has not yet abused the enthusiasm out of him. "Miss deBroqueville. Mr. Press! Shall I get Anton?"

"He goes to sleep after dinner, he's a baby," she insists, frustrated at him now. Or aiming it at him. "There's a whole regime." Of course she doesn't say 'routine' to describe the feeding, the changing, the story, the teeth-brushing, the pajama-wearing, the blanket, the special dragon toy he still holds in his teeth, the way Hilary stares at him while his governess rocks him.

The way, once or twice, she has rocked him instead. She even knows how to put him down on his bed. She learned. They taught her. He doesn't cry. She doesn't hurt him.

There are tears in her eyes. All of it so sudden, so dramatic, so intense. But he hands her the phone back and then sits with her and she doesn't even notice the hesitation, because she is waiting on Miron's face to appear. Which it does. Hilary's face... bursts. Sun through clouds. It's not joy, per se -- it's relief, though. She beams, and it's glorious.

"Bonsoir, Miron," she says. "Oui. Bring him here, if he has eaten."

Hilary, demanding as she is, would not necessarily interrupt the training of her son's palate. There is a reason she insisted on a French servant to organize the meals and be Anton's governess.

It is remarkable; after so long, that sudden-breaking expression is still so rare that it makes Ivan's heart skitter. She never smiles like that in public. She smiles, but it is different; it is gorgeous and flashing and thoroughly false.

Miron's voice is tinny and thin across the iPhone's tiny speaker. He says something in the affirmative. It fades with his footsteps as he disappears off-screen. For a while, Hilary has a static view of the background: the familiar walls and decor of her Novgorod home.

Prison. Whatever it is she thinks of it now.

Ivan doesn't think of that at all. He wraps his hand around the back of his lover's head; he kisses her temple, firmly, while she waits for her son to appear. By the time Miron returns, Ivan has let her go. Sits quietly beside her, sharing the view of the screen. The iPhone's camera doesn't catch him, though. Perhaps the edge of his shoulder, but not his face.

And then he's there: Anton, their son, this small and perfect being they have somehow, in all their twisted glory, created. He is nearly two. He is approaching the line between infant and toddler. He is incredibly inquisitive; a curious, bright boy, with eyes turning as dark as his mother's. He stares into the screen. Bats his little hand at it. There's still food stuck to his fingers.

"Look," Miron is saying, holding him while he squirms and flexes and babbles. "Look, it's your mother. It's your mama."

Hilary does not take her eyes off the screen. Ivan cups her head, kisses her, and she stares at the emptiness waiting to see her son. Her soul. It does not occur to her that Ivan is hidden; she does not seem to notice in the screen-within-a-screen that her own face appears, but not her lover's.

Miron returns, carrying the toddler, who is still in his day clothes, holding a piece of buttered bread he refused to let go of, eating it -- then all but tossing it away, reaching for the camera with his buttery fingers. He recognizes her. Even Ivan can see that, though it's arguable that Hilary herself doesn't understand her son's recognition of her face. He cannot reach the camera itself, because Miron holds him just out of reach, but Anton waves his arm that direction, blurring on the video.

Look. It's your mama. Anton whips his head to look at Miron, babbling back at him in a strange mixture of English, Russian, and French.

But that one word in all three begins with the same syllable, the same pressure of his lips together, and it is easy to repeat when Miron serves it to him. He knows how to say mama. And he does, though little else. Mostly gurgles, laughs. Waves his bread around.

Hilary just smiles. She does not wave or coo or try to tickle the screen. She stares at him, as though he is a video and not a live call, smiling, and one might think she doesn't quite grasp how to behave, which is at least partly true. But then she does speak.

"Bonsoir, Anton," she says, as elegantly as she greeted Miron, though with more... warmth? Familiarity? Less crisp condescension? She still does not quite know what to say to him. In person it is easier: she can sit there and hold him, or stare at him, and this soothes her, but nothing is necessarily expected of her. Hilary stalls a bit there, then asks: "Comment était votre dîner?"

Anton waves his bread at her, then shoves it in his mouth. Gnaws, animalistic. Savagely, the way he savages his toys with his growing teeth.

Hilary smiles again. "Pas trop de pain, mon plus petit faucon. Vous allez devenir la graisse."

[translations!
"How was your supper?"
"Not too much bread, my littlest falcon. You will become fat."]

Anton recognizes his mother. Has, one expects, a child's adoration for this magical being, this beautiful, godlike being that he is genetically and spiritually and, once upon a time, physically attached to. He babbles. He reaches for her. He knows some few words now; perhaps even tiny poorly constructed sentences of two or three words. He may even recognize his father, though this is uncertain.

He waves his bread. He gnaws at it, savagely, which amuses Ivan idly. Ivan thinks perhaps he should be proud of his son: such a little wolfling. Ivan wonders how much, how clearly his lover understands her peculiar and particular connection to this tiny squirming ball of flesh and blood that she refers to as her soul.

And by now, Ivan has settled into the couch; is reclining easily, ankle crossed over knee, one arm settled behind Hilary. Not quite around her, but the intimation is there. He tilts his head, watching the tiny screen. He wants to know: "What is a ploo?"

On screen, Anton has dropped his bread. More accurately, he has flung it at the computer monitor. Miron retrieves it patiently, thoughtlessly, and hands it back to the boy.

Bread is flung; butter gets on the keys. Miron will clean those later. For now, he just picks up the bread and returns it to Anton, who considers it carefully. Meanwhile, Hilary is glancing aside to Ivan -- has to tear her eyes from Anton, for that moment -- when he questions her.

"Plus?" she repeats, her lips pursing around the word, the sound of it almost birdlike. "Mon plus petit faucon?"

Anton, bread returned to him, mashes it against his face without quite opening his mouth. Butter on his fat little cheeks, then. Hearing her repeat it, he looks up, mouth open, and then grins.

"My littlest falcon," she says, as though this were obvious, and then her son throws his bread again, laughing, and she turns her head at the sound. Smiles at him, until she sees he has thrown his bread again, and Miron is picking it up.

"He does not want it," she snaps, too severely. "If he does, then he must not throw it." Her brow furrows, her dark eyes on Anton's. "Naughty, messy boy," she says, her tone far too sharp for speaking to a toddler. She actually sounds angry.

And Anton reacts as one might expect. Caught off guard, then afraid, as all children are afraid when adults -- their sole protectors, the ones who feed them, the ones who warm them -- are upset. His mouth is trembling, and then he is getting red in his cheeks, and tears well up in his dark eyes as he looks up, butter on his face, at Miron, turning in the young man's arms to wail against his chest.

Hilary looks crushed.

"Non, Anton. Ne pleure pas," she pleads, distressed. "S'il vous plaît ne pleure pas. Tu es parfait."

She is such a terrible mother.

No; that's not fair. It implies gender, sexism, failure as a female. She is simply: a terrible parent. Ivan reflects on this, too, quietly and behind an impassive face. She looks crushed. He aches for her; he doesn't have the heart to tell her:

you're a terrible parent. stop. let the servants raise him.

So instead: he rubs her back. His warm palm, his elegant fingers: he massages her back and it is, truthfully, not unlike the way a parent might console a child. "Gently," he murmurs. "It's all right; he was just excited, and now he's just startled. When he's older he'll learn not to throw his food. Miron," raising his voice so the young man can hear him, "why don't you have someone find Anton a toy. Calm him down."

Ivan doesn't tell her to stop trying, she's terrible, give up. Ivan does not break her heart. But Hilary is pleading, still in French, telling Anton he's perfect, he's perfect. She never says she's sorry. She just begs him not to cry, as though he could stop on his own.

Ivan tries, though, to reassure her, or at least tell her to be gentle, that it's all right, that Ivan is just... being a baby. Miron, in the meantime, doesn't dare pull Anton away from Hilary even when she's across an ocean; perhaps home life is not so sweet when she is there. Perhaps they have all learned how dangerous it is to get between her and the boy, even for the boy's benefit. Perhaps Ivan can see.

Perhaps all he can see is Hilary's distress. Either way, he steps in. Tells Miron, who is cradling Anton, murmuring to him in Russian -- a language Anton finds far more familiar. Ivan may or may not hear: he's telling the baby almost exactly what Ivan told Hilary.

To shh. That it's all right. That she just wants him to be a good boy, that she isn't angry at him. That she loves him very much. Miron assures Anton of this, even though it's possible that none of them believe it. He looks up at Ivan and nods, though, bending with boy in his arm to search a nearby basket for a toy, a something. It ends up being a very very soft thing, an absurd toy -- a little chicken, with little ticklish feathers on the wings, a cartoonish face, dangly legs. It's stupidly colorful. It's actually quite ugly. But Anton does look up when he sees it out of the corner of his eye. And he sniffs, and blinks, staring at it.

Miron is waggling it.

And Hilary has gone quiet. She stares, Ivan's hand rubbing her back, and watches breathlessly as Anton laughs at the waggling chicken. And makes grabby-hands at it. Miron teases him a little, but only once, and then Anton clutches the toy to his chest, burying his face in it, talking to it.

Hilary, beside Ivan, exhales softly and slowly. She looks, suddenly, content. Maybe even happy.

"See," Ivan murmurs softly, while on the tiny screen his son calms, hugs his toy, is comforted. "He was just startled. That's all. He's not unlike his mother, I think; you have to treat him with respect, or he may be upset.

"Come here." He wraps his arm around her shoulders, urges her to lean back, lean against him. "Next to me, so he can see both of us."

Like his mother. Hilary scoffs, but quietly. "He's only a baby," she says, but not cruelly, as though he therefore does not matter: she would never. She only means that Anton is too young for respect, for being so picky. Or so she thinks.

But Ivan summons her closer, and she leans to him, glances at him, not having realized that Anton couldn't see them both before. "The chicken," she murmurs, as Anton goes on being soothed by his caretaker. "I gave it to him."

There's not even defiance in her, daring him to comment on its ugliness. Perhaps she doesn't see it, understand it. She gave her son something soft. And he likes it. And when he was upset, it made him laugh. Now he is happy. Because of something she gave him.

Of course this soothes her, too.

Hilary looks back at Anton and smiles. "Anton," she murmurs, the French accent touching his name again. Calls to him, and he looks around for her, before Miron points. Looks at Miron's arm, then at the screen again. He babbles. He shows her the chicken. Poulet, he says, insistent.

She beams. "Oui! Poulet." Her hand, on Ivan's leg, clenches happily.

Anton repeats the word. And then makes chicken noises. bok bok bok.

"Did you?" Ivan is genuinely surprised; pleased. She nestles close. He turns; inhales the scent of her hair. Her. Sometimes he thinks he must know what darkness smells like. The space between the stars. The primordial void. It must smell like her: alluring and fatal.

"He seems to like it," he adds. Which is true. Wisely, he holds his tongue: that it's a hideous thing, that it's freakish and ugly and who the hell made it. None of that matters, anyway. Anton likes it. Hilary likes it. It is enough.

"Picking up French too," Ivan remarks, a touch dry. "And chickenese."

All she does is nod. She got it for him. And he likes it. She keeps smiling, as Anton snuggles with his chicken and makes bok-bok noises. He yawns, very big, his mouth wide, and babbles to Miron, waggling the chicken, nearly hitting Miron in the face. Miron is gentle about it; he does not take the toy, or push it away; he just touches Anton's arm ever so softly, peering at the chicken as though to inspect it at Anton's suggestion. Nods to him, murmuring in Russian.

Anton grins, and waves his hand at the screen again, still a bit... crumby and buttery. He's trying to touch them. He sees Ivan, momentarily not distracted by his chicken. And he looks startled. Looks at Miron, and pointing, yells: "Papa!"

He does recognize him. And waggles his chicken at Ivan. And stuffs its neck in his mouth, as he once did with a dragon, gnawing. Then drops it, at least from his teeth, and waves his arm furiously, bapping the chicken-toy by its leg against his own lap. He's quite wriggly, to the point that Miron has to hold onto him to keep him from falling.

So it seems the boy's recognition extends to his erstwhile, terrible father as well. "Anton," Ivan acknowledges, giving his son the most thoughtless, casual wave of his fingers one could possibly imagine. To Hilary, "I wonder how many pounds of stuffed animal stuffing he's already swallowed, chewing on them like that all the time."

They watch Anton wriggle a little longer. And chew things. And wave his crumby-buttery fingers. And soon enough Ivan is restless and bored, looking off to the side, out the window, at the fireplace; sometimes at Hilary, the fall of her hair and the line of her profile, quite possibly thinking about sex. Perhaps Miron notices. Likely Hilary does not. At any rate, Miron eventually hefts the boy in his arm, leaning in to tell them:

"I should probably take him to bed. He gets cranky if he stays up much later than this."

Ivan rouses immediately, sitting up. "All right, Miron," he says; would probably click the Skype connection off instantly if it weren't for Hilary. "Goodnight. Thank you."

"He is a baby wolf," Hilary chides Ivan, her tone scolding. She doesn't worry about toy stuffing. "He has... people," and waves her hand, because Miron and Polina and the lot of them do watch the boy closely. They all know that their very lives could be on the line, if his safekeeping is not attended to.

She leans against Ivan, though, able to inhale his scent, feel the warmth of the fire, watch her child snuggle with his chicken and play with Miron. These phone calls are so strange -- Hilary does not know how to interact. Is afraid of interacting now, having made her child cry. All she wants to do is see him. Watch him. She seldom blinks. It's unnerving, but Miron pretends that it is not. He tickles Anton to make him laugh, and when the boy starts yawning again, starts saying buk? like a request, he knows it's time to move on with the night. Get him washed. Change him into pajamas. Read him a story, and put him to bed, just like they always do.

Hilary blinks, breathing in, her wavering emotions as she watched her son interrupted. She straightens her spine a little bit, and nods. She waves at Anton to get his attention, and Miron helps, makes the boy see her again. Anton gurgles at the sight of her, and yawns again.

"Dormez bien, ma chérie," she says, a little achingly. "Être un bon garçon."

Her fingertips are on the screen, but she can't feel him. Anton can't see her hand trying to touch him. Just her face, so elegant, fine-boned, lovely. Strangely, searingly familiar. He knows the picture in his room, the one in the silver frame, the one of her dancing Giselle, is his mama. He knows she is important. He knows he feels things when he sees her, but he does not know names for those feelings, does not quite understand what feelings are. He just knows her, like he knows his father. It is different from the way he knows the people who take care of him. Those people, he trusts.

But these two, far away and somewhere sunlit, he knows.

Miron says goodnight. Miron clicks off the connection. Hilary, holding her phone in her hand, watches the screen go dark. She doesn't know how to hang up on her own end, even though there is a giant red button in front of her. So she just sets the phone down, and closes her eyes, and leans against Ivan's side. Her hand comes to rest on his chest, over his tailored shirt, over his heart.

And then her mouth is at his neck. And then her hand is sliding down his torso to his belt. Past that strap of leather, lingering a moment over it with trembling fingers, before her palm runs over his groin. Her breath on his throat is heated; her lips are as soft as her teeth are sharp when she sets them in his skin.

"All the more reason for him not to eat cotton stuffing," Ivan replies drolly. He doesn't comment on whether or not his son is a baby wolf. Strange that they both seem to suspect it, assume it, accept it. Neither of them think overmuch on the implications, the dreadfully shortened life expectancy. Then again: perhaps it's Ivan's less-than-stellar example of heroism. Does he even hunt? Does he ever fight? Why bother? He has ... people.

Not too long after, Miron says goodnight. He takes Anton away. The screen goes dark and Hilary doesn't seem to know what to do. Ivan imagines she might sit there for hours, blank as a void, if he weren't here. If her people weren't there. Sometimes she is childlike. Sometimes she hardly seems human, hardly seems alive.

Except she is. He can feel it, when she leans into him. She breathes; her skin is warm. Regardless of psychological state, mental health, life finds a way: it struggles on. Every cell, every fiber, every beat of the heart, every firing of a neuron. Every last scrap of Hilary is alive and wants to remain so, even if sometimes she hardly seems to recognize it herself.

Or perhaps she does. She kisses him. She touches him. She urges him to love her the way she does, that strange naked innocence, and somewhere in his mind Ivan considers the possibility that this is akin to primitive survival instinct, like lionesses going immediately into heat with the loss of a cub. The mammalian drive to fuck when one has lost one's offspring. The mammalian drive to propagate the species when the world is burning down.

Far be it from him to discourage her. Far be it from him to end the species, or whatever one might imagine would happen should he discourage her. She bites him: he hisses through his teeth. He grasps her, his hands on her body rough; hauls her atop him and reaches down onehanded to pull his belt open, pull his fly apart.

The phone goes sliding to the floor. Thuds softly. Neither of them does anything about it.

She ends up straddling him, in those easily wrinkled, pristine white slacks of hers. The fabric of her shirt is soft, a little stretchy, pulling against her flesh when he grabs her. Her nipples press through whatever small, lacy bra she's wearing, visible through her clothes as he excites her. The way he hisses, the sound running up her spine in a shiver of terror. What if biting him makes him angry? What if he hurts her? What if he punishes her?

Hilary gasps, feeling his hand roughly yanking at his belt, her hands on his chest, clutching through his clothes. There's no thought in her mind of why she wants him. If she were pressed to make a connection it would be very different -- saying goodnight to their son. Bedtime for him, an ocean and more away from them. It's time for them to go to bed, too. And in bed, she exists for Ivan. And that thought arouses her, heats her, makes her wet.

"Fuck me," she says, the words a trembling breath. She doesn't sound like she's commanding. Begging, maybe.

Such a soft, sleek shirt. Such a lacy, sheer bra. Something about the frailty of her clothing excites him; if he stopped to parse that out he'd arrive somewhere dark indeed. Some connection between the fragility of fabric, the fragility of her, the fragility of her sanity, maybe; god, does he actually like that she's insane? He must. It keeps things fresh.

Stop; he stops thinking about it. He grasps her by the neck. Sometimes he does this, sometimes he's so rough and so dominant and so brutal, and sometimes she loves it so. He pulls her down by that dangerous, threatening grasp, kisses her while she's begging, bites her lip and it can't be read as anything but vengeance, a bite for a bite.

"Beg," and he does sound like he's commanding. And when she does he all but throws her off him, over against the arm of the sofa; rises ferocious and goes after her and flips her onto all fours. Pushes her down by the back of the neck, the axis where shoulders meet spine. Holds her down while he tears at her slacks, pulls them down to her knees, pulls her panties down and slaps her rump, sharply.

"Beg," he says, again. "Say you to get fucked. Say you want cock."

He always has liked to see things break. Drives cars fast, whips them around telephone poles. He likes the shattering. One has to wonder if he's waiting to find the limit, the point where he can no longer get away with it, when he breaks something and it's too much -- he's punished.

Or maybe he likes the power of it. Being the one who can snap something -- someone -- in half. Maybe, as unsettling as he knows it is, he gets off on the fact that he can take this cold woman with her marble skin and turn her into this soft, sobbing thing, begging for something only he can grant her.

Mercy.

--

Maybe. Maybe he loves her. And knows that this is what she needs. Maybe he loves her, and this is how they like to fuck.

Hilary gasps as his hand wraps around her throat. She startles, and he pulls her down, kisses her, bites her, and she moans, pressing her body closer to his. He tells her to beg. She whimpers, wordlessly, rubs herself against his lap. He shoves her away, bends her over, yanks at her clothes. She's shaking. Holds her down, pulling at her slacks, yanking a button loose. She's wearing panties that are a pale pink, lace-edged, and he pulls those out of his way as well. Slaps her.

She cries. "No... no, not like this." Trembles, half-clothed and bent over. "It's so ugly. So vulgar."

[EMPAFEE: duz she want him to be gennul?]

snail @ 3:58PM
Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 ) VALID

[Noooo. She's partly playing but there's definitely something off. Or NOT off, as case may be. I think she wants her clothes off. Pants around her knees! Just... so ugly! So vulgar!]

She can sense the slightest pause; an intense, inquisitive hesitation. Then his hand on the back of her neck lets up. He pulls her pants off; tumbles her shoes with them, if she still has them on. He pulls her panties off. He wraps his arm around her waist and tugs her upright, and then her top comes up and off, too; he pauses to cup her breasts in both hands, draw them up, feel their softness and heft. Kisses her on the neck, then, savagely, nuzzlingly. Undoes her bra and drops that on the couch.

Then Ivan lifts her. Wraps his arm under her knees, behind her back, picks her right off the cushions. She's quite naked. He carries her past tall, elegantly curtained windows; past a dining set and a wet bar, an entertainment center. Through a door, into the bedroom, kicks the door loudly shut behind him.

Drops her on the bed. He's biting his lip and she can see the points of his canines, sharp; the flash of his eyes as he strips out of that tie he put on for her, unbuttons those shirt-cuffs he buttoned for her, flies through the buttons on that shirt he put on for her.

Of course she still has them on. Hilary is not the sort to walk into a room and kick off her shoes. She doesn't walk around barefoot like a savage, even at the house in Novgorod. Disgusting. But her heels have to be wrenched away, the thin buckles so savagely undone that they leave red marks on her ankles. Hilary looks at him over her shoulder as he lifts her legs, strips her lower half. She sucks in a breath when he pulls her up, undresses her while she stands on her knees on the couch cushions. Peels her shirt off, leaving her in a bra that -- of course -- matches her panties.

He fondles her. Teases her. Hilary's eyes fall closed. She melts against his chest, her legs spreading wider, her back arching slightly. It presses her bare rump to his groin, her skin so soft against his undone slacks. He's nuzzling her, kissing her throat, and she wants his hand there again, wants him holding her by the neck, but she can't speak. It's so ugly. He's so vulgar. She can feel his cock pressing against her how greedy his hands are how wet she's becoming.

Bites her lip when he undoes her bra. Leaves her in her ring, her bracelets, her earrings. She starts to bend over again, starts to move forward as though to take it much like she did on the plane, knees on a couch and pussy angled towards him for his use. But he lifts her up instead, and holds her preciously, which surprises her. She looks up at him, and does not protest. Is carried to the bedroom, and the slam of the door when he kicks it shut

makes her cunt clench. Hilary, bold as she is sometimes these days, starts unbuttoning his shirt, even before he's crossed the room. Only gets a few done, quickly, before she's dropped on the bed. She lays there on one hip, looking up at him as he pulls off his tie, goes on undressing himself. Then she does something she never, ever does.

Hilary's hand rests on her upper chest, where pearls would be if she were to clutch them in ladylike distress. But her fingertips only rest there for a moment before she takes a breath, pantingly, trailing her own touch down her midline to her thighs. Between her thighs. And starts to touch herself, not quite shyly but far from brazen, rubbing anxiously at her clit and giving a needful little whimper as she watches him.

That gives him pause too. Just a beat of it, his eyes following her hand down. Flicking back up, afire now, he strips his shirt off and leaves it on the floor and drops his already-undone pants, leans over her bare and sleek, braced on arms that are toned and hard but never bulging.

He kisses her, hard, while she touches herself. Presses her into the soft bed, the lush bedding. His hand tangles with hers; his touch is rougher, surer, finds her clit with absolutely assurance and when her head falls back he bites her throat. Bites her throat: teeth closing to either side of her airway, as though any moment he might simply choke her life out. They often intimate violence, brutality. There's a strange and unspoken line they love to tread.

And soon enough he's pushing the rest of his clothes off. Stripping as bare as her, not even jewelry left to adorn his body. His hands catch her under her knees, push her legs up and apart. He looks at her cunt, pink and wet. He looks at her body, lowers his mouth to her nipples, pink and erect. Sucks at her hungrily, greedily, while he wraps her legs around his body. His hand cups under her waist, arches her back. He pushes her up the bed a few inches and then he follows her, kneeling on the mattress, one spread-fingered hand bracing for balance.

"Touch yourself," he whispers. "Touch it while I fuck you."

Oh, he looks at her. He sees. And Hilary jerks her hand away like she's done something wrong. She does this just as he's looking back up at her, eyes livid. Maybe she thinks she's in trouble -- or is just ashamed. He's nearly naked though, coming at her, over her. And presses her down with that kiss, making her clutch at the bedspread with her naughty, messy hand. Maybe he grabs her hand and puts it back when he touches her. Maybe he doesn't care, just replaces her touch with his own seconds after she's abandoned herself.

But Hilary's head does fall back. She moans again, softly, her eyes closed. Arches into his caress, shaking as his teeth press into her skin, threatening to crush her windpipe. She's so wet now that his fingers are slippery in seconds, so filled with longing that she can't stop trembling. Oh, she dares, and he can feel the tremor of speech in her neck, against his tongue, his teeth. She is a moment from begging him to fuck her again, use his fingers, give her anything.

Drops again, onto her back, as he lets her go. Her legs drape over the edge of the bed; Ivan lifts them up, spreads her wide, and Hilary looks like she's going to cry from shame, from being looked at. Her thighs are fighting him, aching to close again, but he leans over her, licks her tits, sucks on her, and there isn't much forcing to be done when she wraps her legs around him. Rubs herself against him, eagerly now, her body pleading even more anxiously than her voice.

He moves her, makes her think he's going to give it to her now, fuck her like the dirty little slut she is, but he doesn't. He tells her to touch it again. And tears come to Hilary's eyes. Her cheeks are pink, her chest flushed with arousal, her lips red. "I can't," she whimpers, trying to close her thighs to give her something to rub against. "Oh, I can't."

"Yes you can," he whispers,

gently, mercilessly,

and all the while rubbing against her, sliding the length of his cock over her wet cunt in the slow, filthy intimation of a fuck. "Yes, you can," again, lower, voiced now, muttering it while he takes her in his teeth again. "Touch it. Stroke that sweet little clit, darling. Let me see you touch yourself, my beautiful, beautiful little whore."

He makes her cry. So often. Sometimes by how brutal he is, sometimes by making her feel things she normally doesn't. Sometimes by pushing her, just like this, to the limits she's afraid to cross. Ivan rubs himself against her, and this distracts her. This pleasures her, actually, and the way he calls her darling, the way he calls her whore -- she starts to rub herself against his cock.

Not her hand. She doesn't touch it. She doesn't play with herself. She just starts to melt, thinking -- perhaps -- that if she pretends she doesn't know what he wants, he'll give it to her just like this. Keep giving it to her.

She starts to lose herself: in the moment, in the sensation, in the letting-go.

So he brings her back to herself. Abruptly, and rudely: stopping dead, grasping her by that long, fine, dark hair of hers. His eyes are fast on hers when they open. If they open. If they don't: he gives her head a shake.

"Do it." It's that knife's edge between adoration and abuse: he manhandles her, and then he kisses her, slow and thorough. "Touch yourself or I won't fuck you."

No more soft, tender whispers in her ear, telling her what a beautiful little slut she is. Ivan stops what he's doing, stops moving his cock against that beautiful pussy of hers. At the same time, wrenches her hair, forces her eyes to snap open, her breath to shoot inward. Her hair yanks at her scalp, making her eyes water.

She moans when he kisses her, putting her hands on his body, lifting herself to try and rub against him again. She wants so badly for him to fuck her. She'll do anything. And when he's done kissing her, her eyes are still open, adoring him, wet with tears and brief moments of pain.

or I won't fuck you

Hilary lets out a cry, pleading and protesting and wordless. "Ivan --" the way she says it, that soft accent, the shifted emphasis. The way she always says his name. She wants to lift her breasts to his mouth or his hands. She knows he loves her body. She knows and never acknowledges the fact that he lusts after her, nigh unto constantly. It only occurs to her now, in the moment, to try and distract him, but

he is made of iron right now. And so, crying a little, she reaches down again. Closes her eyes and starts touching herself, trying to pretend he's not there, it's dark, she's alone, she's doing it by herself, even though she can still feel his hand in her hair, his body between her legs. Hilary wants to stroke his cock instead, draw him inside, but she's afraid he'll pull away entirely if she dares. Maybe tie her legs down and force her to play with her dirty little pussy like this while he just watches.

Her lips are open, her head tipped back. Her fingers stroke to either side of her clit, brush the softest circle over it, long before she ever starts teasing it directly. Bites her lip, when she does. Works herself up, slowly, til she's licking those lips, panting softly, moving her hand a little faster.

Unconsciously he mirrors her: licking his own lips, watching her. Watching her face, mostly, when anyone might have guessed his eyes would be fast on her fingers. Fast on her cunt.

Her face, though. That's what he watches. Wants to know it's her, though truth is he'd recognize her anywhere. He'd recognize her by the turn of a knee, the curve of an ear; a silhouette, a shadow, the tip of her littlest finger. So maybe it's not that after all. Maybe it's her expression he craves, the pleasure that looks almost like anguish, the wetness on her lips. He kisses her when she pants. Her hand moves a little faster and he's still so close to her, his body between her legs, his cock against her pussy. She could draw him in if she wanted to.

If she wanted him to stop. If she wanted him to tie her down and make her bring herself off. If.

And he laughs, then: softly, a gentle sound, a cruel sound. His hand in her hair loosens and he strokes strands off her brow. "So you do know how," he murmurs, and perhaps that surprise isn't entirely feigned. How is he to know? The woman has never, ever touched herself in his sight. Not like this. Nothing more than a few searing moments emblazoned in his mind: once or twice, she cupped her own breasts. Once, playfully -- playfully! -- she spanked herself.

And, "That's it," whispered, while she works herself up. He starts to touch her too: not her cunt but her breasts, rubbing his palm over her skin, heavily enough to lift her, move her, heavily enough to feel her heartbeat and the shape of the bones beneath her flesh. "That's it, show me how you do it. This is how you get yourself off, isn't it. When I'm not there, this is how you get off. I always knew you were a dirty, filthy, shameless little slut."

Now his mouth on her breast. Now his teeth scraping her nipple, just as dangerous as the way he seized her throat. Now his tongue, teasing that bit of flesh while he watches her: her hand, now her wet fingers, slip and the slide, the tiny tight needful circles.

"Keep going," he whispers. "Don't stop."

She can only do this by ignoring him. By pretending she's alone, he can't see her. She does it, though; trying to ignore his hard, hot cock against her hand, trying not to listen to him breathing even though

the throb of his cock, the hiss of his breath,

only turns her on more. She whimpers a little sometimes, rubbing at herself needfully now, getting closer, until he laughs, and strokes her hair, and speaks to her. Hilary shudders, opening her eyes and looking up at him, her eyes widened, a deer in the headlights. She almost... winces.

"Don't make me," she whimpers, squirming, as he starts touching her. She doesn't stop, though, because then he might not fuck her. She just begs. She pants for air, while he's fondling her so aggressively, so warmly. Talks to her, makes her wince again when he talks about how she must do this when he's not there. Makes tears come to her eyes again. Turns her face away, her shoulders drawing up, and even when he calls her a slut she still looks upset.

"Ivan, stop it," Hilary pleads with him, crying now, eyes closing, even though she doesn't stop. Doesn't dare stop, while he sucks on her nipple, bites her, watches her. She cries. "Please don't make me."

Ivan stops. He stops sucking at her nipple, at least. He stops playing with her breast. He stops, perhaps most importantly, saying those awful things to her. Sees a line, faded and uncertain as their lines ever are. Sees it, and stops short of it.

His hand on her face, then. It's not the way he grabbed her hair. It's not the way he grabbed her throat. It's gentle, turning her to face him.

"Hilary," he calls to her, soft. "Hilary, look at me. Why are you ashamed? Why? You shouldn't be. It's not dirty. It's not bad. It's beautiful, and so are you."

The things themselves are not really awful. Not more or less than anything else he says to her -- things that inflame her, things that make her utterly succumb to him. But he does sense there is something true in her anxiety now, her discomfort nearing that perilous edge where...

...well, if truth be told, sometimes it is only a loss of arousal that lies over that cliff. Sometimes they are nowhere near trauma, or true pain. Just losing that fever pitch between them, which is perhaps worse to both of them. To be bored. To be bland.

But Ivan, knowing only that something is not pleasuring her, stops. Touches her gently. Makes her look at him, and she doesn't want to, she has tears on her cheeks, eyeliner smudged ever so slightly, and she is still stroking herself. Like she's still afraid that if she stops, he'll go away.

Or perhaps, also, because it feels good. Because her body betrays her in all these ways. It always has, from her attraction to these young, forbidden men and even her horrific reaction to losing her son.

She does look at him, though. Obeys automatically, without thinking, and just shakes her head as he tells her it isn't dirty or bad, it's beautiful, she's beautiful. "Stop it," she gasps, shutting her eyes tightly again, looking away again, wrenching against his hand. "Stop talking about it. Ivan, please. I can't bear you talking about it. Why won't you --"

a small breath here, shuddering,

"-- why won't you fuck me?"

His answer is not verbal.

His answer is complex, and it is physical, and it is held in the depths of his eyes. All wolves have wolves' eyes, even in human form: and his are glittering and multicolored, threads of gold through green. He looks like he aches. He looks like he adores her. He looks like he almost can't hold it -- his adoration, his ache. He cups her cheek in his hand and he kisses her, soft and slow and, yes, drenching.

And, kissing her, he slides his hand down her body. His hand covers hers; stills hers. Like this he gives her permission to stop, stop. He draws her hand away from her cunt, to his mouth, and he kisses her fingertips. Sucks her fingertips, one by one, slowly and savoringly, as though devouring something fine and bloody and rich. When he is finished he looks at her again,

watches her as he shifts his weight over her, fits himself to her. His pupils react when he slides into her, slow and supple. He kisses her mouth again, tastes her lips and her cunt and her tongue and that ineffable taste that is her, her, her. She is purity and madness. She is finery and cruelty and a shocking, terrible innocence.

When he is inside her, he draws her hand back down her body. Replaces it where it was, lovely smooth fingers hovering over her clit. This time he doesn't make her. But it is there, quite literally at her fingertips: her own pleasure, her own complicity, her own agency.

But she can't bear to look at him now. See what there is to see in his eyes. All that love. All that tenderness, which right now pains her as much as it might soothe her. She whimpers when he kisses her, whimpers and endures, unable to kiss him back, writhing beneath him. But he goes on kissing her, and touches her, and she finally relaxes -- sighs into his mouth -- when he covers her hand, draws it away.

Hilary goes soft under his body. She would drape her hand off to the side, useless now, but he touches it, draws it up, and she has opened her eyes by the time he puts her hand to his mouth. Kisses. Licks. She watches him, breathlessly, unable to process what is happening. Feels him, though, when he shifts. Presses against her. Gratitude flares in her eyes, intertwined with desire. Takes him, and doesn't whimper or whine when he kisses her, tasting like her. He's done that before, after he's forced her to let him lick it. She is familiar with this.

Her long, slender legs wrap around him. Slow, supple, soft, resting high on his hips. Takes him more deeply that way, so pleased by it that she almost doesn't mind how boring he's being at the moment -- him on top, her on her back, on a bed, not pulling her hair or slapping her tits or holding her by the neck or even biting her. It just feels good to finally, quite simply, have his cock inside of her.

But he was only holding back for a moment. Before he pulls her hand down. Touches her fingers to her clit. He thinks of it as almost an offer: something he can give her, make okay for her. But he doesn't understand her anxiety over it, not really. It is not his fault that he doesn't; Hilary is never easy to understand. He works with what he knows. He does know her.

So he is perhaps not surprised when, no sooner has he taken his hand from her wrist or her fingers, that she moves it away again. She does not want to. Perhaps only because certain, arcane conditions have not been met, perhaps because it was an accident to begin with, perhaps she really is just ashamed of it. Who even knows, with her.

It's fine.

It's okay.

Maybe she expects him to force her hand back. Maybe she fears he will. But he doesn't. He understands, somehow: wordlessly, and without any real logic. There is a line. It is faint. It is there. He does not cross it.

So her hand moves away. And his hand stays. And he touches her, and truth is he is good at this; he is a very fucking good lover, which is perhaps surprising because he is also selfish, and terrible, and conceited, and...

and.

He is kissing her again. And yes, it is so very boring: they are fucking like prudes, like puritans under the sheets, in the dark, furtive and fumbling. They are fucking like the first man and the first woman to ever discover fucking like this, face to face like human beings instead of beasts. Much is made of man's ability to use tools, to oppose thumb and fingers, to speak, but truth is the way mankind makes love is very nearly as unique as all the rest. And he is making love to her, touching her as he strokes into her, his free hand on her face, his thumb wiping the tear-tracks from her cheeks.

"Krasivaya devushka," he calls her, over and over, whispering. "My beautiful girl."

Maybe she fears what he will make her do. Maybe she dreads him not making her do anything. There was a time when any touch like this -- the way he makes love to her now, more slowly, taking care with her, showing her he adores her -- would make her simply check out. Oh, she'd wriggle and writhe and even achieve orgasm, but her boredom was almost tangible. Her indifference was so cold it sank into him.

She is less capable of indifference to him, now. He knows her secret -- her secrets. All of them, really. He's even heard some of the dark thoughts that she has sometimes, has seen some shadows of how bloody-minded she really is. He is not her heart, not her soul, but he is something like a backbone, a cage of fine rib-bones, a presence that helps her stand, that wraps her close in protective arms both dangerous and safekeeping. He is in her flesh, he has given her a hiding-place inside of himself, and when she shakes to pieces he glues them back together, makes her new again. Hilary adores him. Hilary worships him.

And she still does not like being made love to. Her eyes flicker shut and her breath catches as he fucks her, as he strokes his hand between them. Yes: he is a very good lover. Adept. His hands are deft and warm and unroughened by hard work. And he is not being selfish, or terrible, or using her, which are all the things that attracted her most to him. All the same, she's wet for him. She's not a puritan, not a primitive human.

She's pure. So pure that her sanity is in shambles, her ability to love snapped and stunted and as sharp-edged as a stick found in the woods, occasionally useful but nothing you want to build a home out of. She is so pure that every wolf who sees her wants her -- to protect her, to sniff at her, to fuck her, to breed on her, to possess her, to chase her, to just press against her and try and feel like they're somewhere they belong. She is so pure that any who try to love her are ruined,

as Ivan is ruined. As Anton is ruined. Never had a chance.

Hilary is also... refined. Even her worst thoughts, her messiest dreams and nightmares, have a strange grotesque elegance to them. A poetry, perhaps. They have form. There is always a right way and a wrong way, with Hilary. Art and offal, good form and bad manners. She is prissy, and critical, and demanding, and impossible to please. She expects him to read her mind and is either enraged or heartbroken when he can't.

Or, worst of all, annoyed. And in annoyance, more punishing than she is in any of her other moods. She is a difficult, hateful woman. And he calls her beautiful. Calls her girl. Touches her with worship and adoration. Uses his voice, tells her everything is okay, everything is fine, she's wonderful, there's nothing wrong with her at all,

which makes her squirm in distaste, in discomfort she can't name because she can no longer simply ascribe indifference to Ivan and roll her eyes while he thrusts into her until he's done. She can't. She hasn't been able to do this for a very, very long time, which makes her very anxious right now. She doesn't know another way. Doesn't know how to use her own words and tell him that she doesn't want it like this. She wants to feel pretty and she wants to be abused. She wants her soft, naked skin and her diamonds and Ivan hitting her again and again until her ass is bruised and she's crying, she's coming, she's biting down on whatever he's gagged her with and screaming her orgasm through sobs. She wants to be this goddess he lifts onto marble and cannot take his eyes off, and she wants him to tie her down, fuck her, snarl at her that she's a filthy fucking whore.

Hilary hates telling him what she wants. She doesn't know why.

Underneath him, she whimpers. He's stroking her clit, fucking her pussy just the way he knows she likes. He knows how to fuck her properly, knows how to make her come. He knows, and it's working. Even if it isn't exactly what she wanted, or wants. Hilary doesn't think of this way, wouldn't understand it if it was said to her, but she does want him. She wanted him inside of her. That's all that really matters.

There's a difference between pleasure and engagement; the physical response and -- the rest of it. That place he takes her to where she's paradoxically driven so far out of her own mind that she can inhabit her self, her body, every nerve ending, every muscle fiber. She's not there, and he can tell.

So he fucks her. Just the way she likes. He gets her off, and she whimpers, and arches, and he takes her through it, down the other side. When she comes to a shuddering stillness, he too stops. He's still inside her. Hasn't come with her. Strokes her hair gently; and yes: lovingly.

Ivan kisses the corner of her mouth. He licks her lips in these little soft darts of his tongue, animalistic. He nuzzles her smooth cheek, her lovely chin.

And then he lowers his head to rest beside hers, tucked together like birds. He breathes her in; she feels his chest expand.

"You didn't like that," he murmurs. It is not accusatory, but it's not a question either.

Better that he doesn't stop. Better that he fucks her, and fucks her, and teases her pussy while he does it, the two of them wordless. He doesn't stretch it out; gets her off and gets to feel how she clenches around him, clutches at him, cries a little -- plaintive, like she does. He gets to watch her come sweet and sweating against his body, and if he didn't know her at all, he would think that was very good sex indeed.

But he hasn't come, and Hilary is panting her way to relaxation again, molten, and as her own pleasure softens she can feel that he hasn't reached his. She feels him kissing her, nuzzling her, and she wants to weep.

Hard as a rock inside of her. Cradling her. And he says she didn't like that and Hilary hates herself, hates him for not coming, hates him for being something that she can briefly turn the hate outward onto lest she absorb it all herself, as she did,

once,

screaming in an empty bed where once there had been two others.

She just starts crying.

Hilary has changed since that sunny day on the lake when he met her. The change was slow and it was subtle, but it has been so inexorable that one day the effects stopped being subtle. She is different now than she was.

What's more easily overlooked is that Ivan has changed as well. For a man who used to change cars as often as he changed shirts, and changed girlfriends as fast as he changed cars, this is terra nova indeed. There was a time he couldn't get away fast enough from a crying woman. Now:

now he wraps his arms around her, tight, firm. He rolls onto his back, sliding out of her as they turn; pulls her against his side, his chest, and holds her while she weeps. He strokes her hair. He doesn't say anything. He waits: for the storm to pass, for the crying to subside, for her to be something like all right again. After all, all right is relative for them.

Ivan slides out of her. Hilary chokes on her own tears, her body shuddering in self-loathing. She feels him trying to cradle her and pulls away, her skin crawling. It is no storm, or wasn't: one is brewing, and gathering strength. Only worse, now.

She pulls away, and sits up, and covers her face. Does not want to cry. And the good thing about being, for the most part, an empty-souled monster... is that she can stop these things, sometimes. Stop feeling.

Her back to him, Hilary slaps herself across the face. Her fine white skin turns slightly pink almost instantly; Hilary always did know how to land a solid slap. She shudders out a breath.

And speaks.

Miracle of miracles: she speaks.

"I don't like it when you don't --" of course. She's too prim to say 'come'. Waves her hand instead. Her voice quiets away from that anxious, angry sound it had with those words. Does not quite soften. "I don't like it when I want you to use me, and you won't."

Remarkably, what she says -- hobbled, inexact and poorly developed as it is -- makes sense to him. It resonates, perhaps because he too is such a pretty, pretty, mad thing; perhaps because he too is so taken with what is beautiful, what is attractive, what is memorable, what is striking.

He does touch her then. Reaches forward, wraps his fingers, the curve of his palm over the crest of her shoulder. Rubs her there gently, soothingly, not unlike the way he massages her in the showers they take after their more ...athletic bouts.

"Filthy, but not ugly," he repeats softly. "You'd like being chained to a chandelier wearing nothing but pearls. But you don't want to be hog-tied on a bathroom floor. You'd enjoy being held down and fucked senseless on a nice bed. But you wouldn't like some sordid groping in the back of a dive bar. Am I understanding you correctly?"

Not the hand with the diamond. At least she didn't do that, slap herself with some heavy ring, the metal bruising, the setting of the gem liable to lacerate if she got overexcited and backhanded herself. At least there is that.

At least he does not grab her, whip-fast, when he sees her elbow move. Does not try to beat her to that slap, stop her from the thing that helps her settle herself in the moment. He only slapped her rump out on the couch, not nearly enough to bring Hilary into her body, not nearly enough to make her cry. He knows she needs certain things. And this one seems to help. Does not seem to harm her overmuch. She doesn't do it to hurt herself. She does it to... stop crying. To regain control. To feel safe.

Or maybe the sharp pain just feels good to her. Christ only knows what goes on in that head of hers.

Ivan doesn't try to touch her. This is neither good nor bad, at the moment.

With respect. Like a lady. How many days ago was it, in Dubai, when she was so furious with him, so irritated, so hurt by his laziness? Not that many. The memory is fresh, especially for Ivan -- look at the hotel they are in. Look at the room he procured for her. The fire he had lit. The way he's been dressing, lately, trying to show her how he feels in this paltry materialistic ways that mean so much to her, that speak a language she can understand when words of affection and adoration make her shudder in disgust.

He would do anything for her. And in those moments of lucidity after he has made her human again, Hilary does know that. And loves him for it. Even appreciates him, as much as she feels gratitude for anything, as opposed to mere entitlement to having things her way.

Hilary's brow wrinkles ever so slightly, a furrow appearing between her fine dark brows. "Pants around ankles and knees are... so ugly. I wanted to be pretty." She shakes her head a little, not looking at him, but not on purpose; she just doesn't think to do so. She forgets, quite often, that normal people make eye contact. Crave contact, even, when they want to be close to someone. Are hurt when the one they want to be close to doesn't turn around and look them in the eye.

"I want you to treat me like a lady," she says, quietly, sounding confused. "And I want you to be rough. Use me. Make me... filthy. But not ugly." She is quiet a moment. "I don't know how to tell you what I wanted, right now," she whispers. Her shoulders are rounded, slightly hunched forward. Hiding.

[DLP X2]

Ivan sits up too, swift and sudden, when she slaps herself like that. It's a violent gesture; what she lacks in strength she makes up for in sheer viciousness. He would stop her if she tried again -- sits up to do just that -- but she doesn't.

She speaks. It is a miracle. His brow furrows, listening, and he wants to reach out to her; rub his hand over her back. God, but she's so beautiful: even now he sees it, can't help but see it, the fair skin, the lithe body, the blinding, maddening, mad purity of her.

He doesn't touch her. She pulled away so completely before, and besides: he is afraid she will hurt herself again. He watches her, wary as a cat.

"I didn't know you wanted me to use you," he confesses after a while, soft. It is a hard admission: he knows she thinks of him as omniscient, omnipotent. "When you protested on the couch, I thought you didn't want me to be so rough. I thought you wanted me to treat you with respect. Like a lady."

Not the hand with the diamond. At least she didn't do that, slap herself with some heavy ring, the metal bruising, the setting of the gem liable to lacerate if she got overexcited and backhanded herself. At least there is that.

At least he does not grab her, whip-fast, when he sees her elbow move. Does not try to beat her to that slap, stop her from the thing that helps her settle herself in the moment. He only slapped her rump out on the couch, not nearly enough to bring Hilary into her body, not nearly enough to make her cry. He knows she needs certain things. And this one seems to help. Does not seem to harm her overmuch. She doesn't do it to hurt herself. She does it to... stop crying. To regain control. To feel safe.

Or maybe the sharp pain just feels good to her. Christ only knows what goes on in that head of hers.

Ivan doesn't try to touch her. This is neither good nor bad, at the moment.

With respect. Like a lady. How many days ago was it, in Dubai, when she was so furious with him, so irritated, so hurt by his laziness? Not that many. The memory is fresh, especially for Ivan -- look at the hotel they are in. Look at the room he procured for her. The fire he had lit. The way he's been dressing, lately, trying to show her how he feels in this paltry materialistic ways that mean so much to her, that speak a language she can understand when words of affection and adoration make her shudder in disgust.

He would do anything for her. And in those moments of lucidity after he has made her human again, Hilary does know that. And loves him for it. Even appreciates him, as much as she feels gratitude for anything, as opposed to mere entitlement to having things her way.

Hilary's brow wrinkles ever so slightly, a furrow appearing between her fine dark brows. "Pants around ankles and knees are... so ugly. I wanted to be pretty." She shakes her head a little, not looking at him, but not on purpose; she just doesn't think to do so. She forgets, quite often, that normal people make eye contact. Crave contact, even, when they want to be close to someone. Are hurt when the one they want to be close to doesn't turn around and look them in the eye.

"I want you to treat me like a lady," she says, quietly, sounding confused. "And I want you to be rough. Use me. Make me... filthy. But not ugly." She is quiet a moment. "I don't know how to tell you what I wanted, right now," she whispers. Her shoulders are rounded, slightly hunched forward. Hiding.

Remarkably, what she says -- hobbled, inexact and poorly developed as it is -- makes sense to him. It resonates, perhaps because he too is such a pretty, pretty, mad thing; perhaps because he too is so taken with what is beautiful, what is attractive, what is memorable, what is striking.

He does touch her then. Reaches forward, wraps his fingers, the curve of his palm over the crest of her shoulder. Rubs her there gently, soothingly, not unlike the way he massages her in the showers they take after their more ...athletic bouts.

"Filthy, but not ugly," he repeats softly. "You'd like being chained to a chandelier wearing nothing but pearls. But you don't want to be hog-tied on a bathroom floor. You'd enjoy being held down and fucked senseless on a nice bed. But you wouldn't like some sordid groping in the back of a dive bar. Am I understanding you correctly?"

She does not pull away from his touch. He comes closer and wraps his hand over her shoulder, rubs her, and she lets him. Her shoulder relaxes slightly.

He may remember the night she murmured: I might wear gloves. And he could picture it: her slender, pale arms half-covered by black satin opera gloves, the wrists bound by something shiny and chrome, her dark eyes covered by a blindfold, her naked body on its knees. So pretty.

He knows what he was drawn to, at that jeweler's shop, when he thought of screwing little clamps to her nipples and making the blood throb under her flesh, torturing her: diamonds. A long string of diamonds, fine and glistening, which he could hold in his teeth as he savaged her. So pretty.

They are Silver Fangs; even their filth and brutality must be elegant, somehow. By nature.

--

He speaks of chandeliers and pearls and she is still, breathing nearby. The mention of hog-tying, on a bathroom floor -- she actually flinches. Held down, fucked, a nice bed: Hilary's body is relaxing under his touch. Groping, dive bar -- she squirms a little, as though bothered that he would even mention these things.

He knows, simply by touching her, that he's understanding her even before she answers: a small nod of her head.

"The couch was fine," she says quietly. That's all.

It doesn't have to be a chandelier.

Perhaps encouraged by her relaxation, the lack of a sudden and emphatic withdrawal, Ivan moves closer. He kneels on the bed behind her. He bends his brow to her shoulder for a moment; kisses her there after as though to seal the contact.

"I understand," he murmurs, and he does.

Treats her like an animal sometimes. And that isn't a lack of respect or a lack of love -- far from it. Treats her so carefully, like he knows she's wounded but still dangerous, still in possession of her teeth. Still beautiful, and worthy, no matter how damaged. He could be wrong. But really, in the end, when it's just between them... does it matter?

Ivan touches her more, then. Kisses her shoulder. Murmurs that he understands. And Hilary tips her head to the side, her hair sweeping across her bare shoulder, silk on marble.

"You didn't..." she whispers. Still won't finish the goddamn sentence. But she sounds so bereft. So anguished. It isn't just the vulgarity of the word that makes it hard for her to say it.

Ivan laughs gently -- can't help it. She's so hung up on that one little detail; so anguished by it. But it's not that which amuses him, but her absolute refusal to say the word. Her inability to stoop to those depths, even in euphemism.

"I get off plenty, devushka. A single bout of thwarted passion won't kill me." He gathers her hair in his lean fingers; sweeps it off her back, then lets it fall back like so many strands of spun silk, soft and sleek and heavy.

"We could go shower, though," he adds after a moment. The backs of his knuckles skim her back; trace the dip of her spin. Lovely, lovely. He loves that she's a dancer, has a dancer's bones, a dancer's body, a dancer's agility and poise. "You could suck me off on your knees."

Tears come to her eyes when he laughs. Her shoulders sink, her body curling. She doesn't even quite... hear him. It doesn't matter how often he gets off. And the word itself doesn't matter so much as the shame, the... failure.

Hilary is terribly selfish. Hilary is, simply, terrible. But this is the one thing she can give him. It's what she's for. And she failed. Utterly. Disastrously. Worse: he made her come, and didn't himself. Why can't he understand? How can he laugh?

The tears well, and one drips from her eyelashes when he says they can shower. He touches her spine, as she's actually beginning to curl away from him, brokenhearted. Rejected. He tells her, seductively enough that it flickers through her pain and registers somewhere in that shattered mind of hers, that she could get on her knees. Suck him off.

Her throat moves as she swallows. Pavlovian, almost, how she salivates. How her cunt gets warm again, blood pooling low in her body in response to him.

Says, sniffing a little: "I wanted you inside me. After..." and this isn't sexual, this isn't something she knows how to explain, this isn't something she thinks makes sense at all except it's what drove her to climb on him, touch him, bite him in the first place: "After seeing Anton. I wanted to feel you... come inside me." The word is hard for her. She almost stutters over it, except Hilary would never stutter. Her breath is hitched, held for a moment, before she sucks in a new one, afraid he'll laugh at her again.

He is not a cruel monster. Not at his core; or at least: not to her. He is neglectful, sometimes, and careless, and callous, and oftentimes he laughs when he should hold his damn tongue. But he is not cruel, and he is -- give him this much -- ever so perceptive.

Her pain is palpable. So is her withdrawal, her reflexive curling around herself. So is her arousal, Pavlovian, reflexive.

"I know," he murmurs. And she has not truly drawn away, and so he doesn't lift his hand away. He rubs her back. He kisses her shoulder again, rolls his brow gently against it. Neither of them address the reasons, the psychology, the impetus behind her drives. It is not worth discussing. It is a can of worms, to descend into the causality of her fractured mind. "I know, Hilary."

He bites her, then. A light, delicate scrape of his teeth. And he wraps his arm around her waist. And he rises on his knees on the bed, still gripping her in his teeth, pulling her up with him. He says nothing to her, no indication of his plans, no command for her compliance. He pulls her up to her knees, and then he turns her, and then he pushes her down under him. Surely by now there's little enough uncertainty as to what he's doing; why. His arousal hasn't waned entirely. He gets hard again readily enough, holding her down like that, rubbing himself against her ass.

Oh, he's a monster. Cruel and calculating, savage. She loves this about him. This is not the same as being neglectful, or careless, or lazy -- those things she does not like so much. Hates them, as Hilary is born to hate anything. But the parts of him that are dark and rough, she adores.

That darkness is, in a way, where his love for her really lives. The part of him that loves her fragility, her insanity, her wickedness. The part of him that punishes and worships her at once. This is where they meet each other.

Ivan is still tender, and she still feels rejected,

until he bites her. Her breath draws inward, her chest expanding with it. His arm tightens around her and she elongates, stretches against him a bit. Then he is dragging her, manhandling her -- however gently -- and sinking his teeth in further. Hilary's eyes drop closed, her body going languid in response. He puts her on his knees, but doesn't reach around to stroke her, or fondle her tits. He pushes her down. He comes down over her. Her legs are spreading, back arching, ass lifting to him already, so ready, so hopeful, so eager; the language her body speaks is a pleading one.

"Ivan," she sighs, aching and

grateful.

He knew she would be grateful. He knew she would be willing. He knew she would offer herself up just like that, back arching, legs opening, as primitive and mammalian a signal as any. That's why he pushes her down. That's why he rubs himself hard against her; grinding against her ass in an unsubtle intimation of the fucking he's about to give her.

"Give me your hands," he mutters, and when she does, he pulls them behind her back. Locks her wrists at the base of her spine. It's not often that he restrains her like this; tends to stretch her out instead, pin her hands over her head. He likes that better, truth be told. Likes how it elongates her lovely, lovely body. Likes how, when she's on her back, it lifts her breasts.

She's not on her back. She's on her stomach, pressed into the bed. He holds her fast, reaches down to guide himself into her. She's wet again. Of course she is. He knew she would be; knew she was wet from the moment he set his teeth in her flesh.

He bites her again. Grips her like an animal as he grinds into her; fucks her rather roughly, unchivalrously, pounding into her while he keeps her restrained, contained, controlled with his grip. She hears his breath, harsh. She hears their bodies colliding, slapping together, a vulgar sound, sharp. This time he doesn't even try to make her come. He doesn't touch her, he doesn't play with her tits, rub her clit, none of it.

He fucks her. He uses her: like she's a cunt and nothing more, like she was made for this and little else. It's what she wants. He knows this too. He thinks, anyway.

Instant obedience. It's almost boring, how readily she gives in, folding those arms back to give him her wrists. Which he grabs. Locks against her back. They were talking about hog-tying; on this sumptuous, elegant, brocade-blanketed bed, he plays with the idea. Forces her into this position before he gives it to her. Hilary is panting softly against the bed, opening her legs a little more, a little more, please, please.

He enters her more slowly than one might expect. No sudden, furious thrust right off the bat. Steady, controlled, but firm. Deep. Whole. Hilary groans; her cunt clenches around him gratefully. She opens her mouth against a pillow, biting down on it when Ivan gets going. Grunts her little screams into that gold-accented pillow as he starts pounding at her, panting over her, using her. She wants to cry from joy. She almost does.

She almost comes from the ecstasy of his indifferent, rough, rude fucking. Her skin lights up, a map of stars, a celestial event. He is everything to her, god and sun and center. This is what she thinks, while he's doing this to her. He is everything, and he is perfect, and she is so happy. There are tears in her eyes as she moans, her shoulders aching, her cunt sore from the way he's fucking it. Fucking her.

Making love to her.

One would think he'd be bored by her ready capitulation. One would think he'd be bored by her already, long ago, perhaps around the time she left for Mexico to have her bastard boy. God only knows why he isn't; or perhaps not god at all but Falcon, that mad deity, the one whose insanity stains them all.

It must be a brand of insanity, that he should love her so. They're demonstrably bad for each other. And at the same time: demonstrably the only good thing about one another. Sometimes they almost behave like sane people. Sometimes they almost want what sane people want.

Love. Understanding. A little respect; a little care. It's not the what that's twisted; it's how they show it.

This is how he shows it: by fucking the daylights out of her. By brutalizing her, and sexualizing that brutality, and by god it's fucked up, and by god they love it. He loves that she capitulates so easily. It doesn't fucking bore him. It lights him up, turns him on, so maybe she's right: maybe he is a monster, maybe he is cruel and calculating and savage, maybe he does care after all, and he's not lazy, and he's not neglectful. He's just twisted and dark, and the way he twists matches, inexplicably, the way she twists, and so:

he adores her. Utterly. He never loves her more than when he's pounding her like this, when he's rearing up over her and pinning her and slamming into her, plunging deep and grinding, slapping her out of some savage need for -- some form of violence, some kind of release. At the end he has her wrists gripped in both hands. His fingers blanch her already-fair skin, and later those marks will show up red. He fucks his orgasm into her savagely, head thrown back, shouting his ecstasy for all to hear. They never did know the meaning of shame.

When he's done he pulls out of her. He lets her wrists go, and he rolls her on her back. He pushes his cock into her again, shuddering, overstimulated, snarling with it; fucks her like that for another handful of strokes, hard and fast, watching her face. Does it because he wants to. Does it because he can. Leans down over her, gripping her by the jaw, and kisses her as hungrily as he ever ate meat, devoured flesh.

With Ivan's history, he should have been bored after the first couple of fucks. Should have pulled away from her in annoyance when she showed up at his place that summer, hair up, long skirt, tight top, and off those precious pills that would have kept her from mothering his only child. But no: he followed her to Mexico when he didn't want to see him. He fucked her, as aroused by her as ever, even though fat women, pregnant women are worse than crying women, ugly women, boring women, needy women. She snaps at him in the kitchen and he adores her. She screams and sobs when he hits her and he gets off on it.

None of it is boring to them. Every boring little detail, like the brat and the houses and the emotions of it all -- they can weather that, and still want to be together. Because of this. Because it matches. Because their twisted natures intertwine. Just so.

--

Uses her. Unloads his cum into her, makes her filthy. And she comes again, the hot little slut, sobbing and wailing and biting into that pillow, saliva staining the brocade. When she feels it, hot inside of her, what a mess he's made of her. That's what gets her off. That makes her buck and scream and shudder, makes her pussy pulsate when he finishes with her and leaves her. She moans again, helpless, still wanting. Maybe he knows. Maybe he doesn't even care.

Flips her over though and fucks her again. Hilary sees god. He takes the tail end of that orgasm of hers and grinds another one into her clit, and her tits bounce as he slams into her, and she just whimpers and gasps and trembles through it. Pants into his kiss, crying out a little.

If Ivan was one of those stupid, handsome boys she used to fuck, he'd feel quite proud of himself right now. He'd be quite proud of his dick and what it did to her, how hard it made her come, how many times she went over the edge. She's a shuddering, trembling mess. There are tears on her face. Sweat on her skin. Cum in her cunt.

Maybe he is proud of that. Maybe there's some savage, stupid part of him, too, that's primitively and primordially gratified by all this filth and chaos. Maybe there's something inherently satisfying about taking something so pure, so mad, so untouchable

and dragging her down. Making her roll in the muck with the rest of them, raw and red, thrashing and vengeful, down in the filth where life is one neverending struggle for dominance and survival. Maybe that's something he likes about her, too: she reminds him of these things. Shakes him out of that boring little world where he has everything he could ever want and more. Makes him remember that lust has a purpose. Hunger has a purpose. Rage has a purpose.

He is kissing her so languidly now. Keeps kissing her, these long slow things, lips and tongue, wet, hot. He is nearly lapping her mouth. Tasting her skin. He eats at her even if she can't return it, even if she can barely think, and sometimes he nuzzles at her throat, her ear. Sometimes he bites her. Eventually, he realizes

he wants to fuck her again. He always wants to fuck her. He nips at her throat to get her attention. Wants to know:

"Can you take it again?"

Near the end she's licking him, too. Her tongue to his; her tongue on his sweat. They are animals, dirty things, sweaty and grasping, at home in their own filth. He cannot start her here. He must pull her to it, lure her with satin tassles, chains of diamonds. Catch her eye with things bright and expensive, seduce her into the basement of her own lust.

He bites. He's hard again, or still. She groans at the question. Her body arches, takes him a little deeper. It's a yes. He knows that, sees her nipples hardened and sweet, feels her aching, sore body pulsing under his like a heartbeat.

Pants, quick and soft and secretive like she does: "Grab my throat."

--

It is what it is, after that point. However far he chooses to take her; however far she chooses to let him go. It is always a dance. It is always dangerous. It does not always follow the same steps or end the same way, but it is always about the same thing.

Neither of them can ever quite put it into words.

We will not try to do so now.

--

It is over, eventually. The body begins to feel toxic from exertion, over-exertion. Faint bruises on her wrists; red marks around her throat. Bite marks on her shoulders, pinking towards purple, black. Her cunt is red and sore and her skin glistens and her hair sticks to her forehead and she is glory itself. She is home. She is shaking all over. She's forgotten that she misses her son or that she keeps having these thoughts about a daughter and she forgets that they're looking for a home and yet,

and yet,

she is conscious of all these things, and they do not pain her, or scare her, or confuse her. She simply sits with them, panting, and feels like it's okay for her thoughts to be there. Strange as they are.

Her hand, loosed from his grip at some point, or untied from the pillowcase he may have used to knot her to the headboard, comes to rest on Ivan's upper back.

In the end, they are mortal after all. There are limits; points after which the body can take no more. They exhaust themselves. They wear each other out. He does terrible things to her, he calls her horrible names, she poisons his soul, she leaves him quite the addict. He brings her back to herself and she brings him back to his. She is bruised. He is raw.

He has all but collapsed atop her. There is a strange peace in the aftermath; like floating in the ocean after some apocalypse. His hair is damp with sweat. She lays her hand over his back, and he feels

safe. It is a strange sensation, and foreign to him. Between the two of them, he is more often the protector, the caretaker. And besides, he doesn't consider safety often. It is not part of his everyday calculus, and truth be told, it would not be part of anyone's calculus so long as Hilary is in the equation. And yet that is what he feels, and it is warm, elemental, deep, abiding. He draws a breath, lets it out. He wraps an arm around her, under her narrow shoulderblades. Closes his eyes.

"I do love you," he murmurs. He thinks now, right now, she can hear that and not be disgusted.

Safe.

Doesn't know why she touches his back like that. Who is she to make anyone feel safe, or protected? She can't even do that for her son. He feels safe with Miron, with Polina, with the family who lives at home with him. He even sometimes recognizes Dmitri and feels safe with him, like a grandfather.

Anton is alone with Hilary sometimes. Not for long. Miron is never far, and by Hilary's own desire; she fears what she might do. She fears what might happen if she can't make Anton be quiet, or stop crying, or be happy. She panics. Miron is there to make Hilary feel safe, too. But Hilary cannot comfort people. She cannot hold someone and assure them that it's all going to be okay.

She was a child when her father and mother killed each other, themselves. She was a child when she saw and heard her brother die. She watched the only people who had ever taken care of her grow senile and revolting. Hilary doesn't really know what safe feels like. It's a mystery word, a cipher, a code for someone who is sane.

Ivan is wrong to feel safe right now, because Hilary could never --

she could never. With anyone. She just wants to hold him, close, and keep him from moving away, and show him somehow that she is happy, that this was good, that everything is exactly how she wanted it and needs it to be. Doesn't know he feels safe because of that gesture. Doesn't understand safe. She just doesn't.

This is something to grieve.

--

Ivan breathes, and Hilary is lifted gently by his arm wrapping around her. She closes her eyes. She is told that she is loved, and she believes it. She doesn't say anything, though. She doesn't know how to talk.

Long ago, Hilary told Ivan she isn't often happy. She hardly understands the word. It broke his heart a little. Truth is, callous as he can be, selfish and careless and spoiled as he can be, sometimes there's a vulnerability to him; something a little like naivete. He wants her to be happy. He wants her to understand love. It hurts him, just a little, when he realizes she can't very often. Not easily.

He doesn't know she doesn't understand safe, either. It is better that way. That would hurt more. Safety is deeper, more primordial, more necessary than even happiness, even love. It is a basic, animal necessity. It would break his heart, and more than a little, if he knew she never felt safe.

But: he wouldn't blame her. No one would, or could.

--

For a long time they are thus. Their arms wrapped around each other. Their bodies exhausted. Perhaps he falls asleep for a while; grows heavy and still, breathing even. Before long he wakes again.

Rolls off her, finally. Some distance between and his eyes open. He looks at her, a strange, naked, frank regard. He raises his hand to her face. He thinks she is beautiful, beautiful, perfect. He knows she is older than he is. He knows in the right light he can already catch the lines at the corners of her eyes. He knows even her blindingly pure blood will not stave off time forever. It may take another ten years, twenty, but he knows her preternatural agility will one day fade, and her beauty will tarnish. He knows society would consider her a poor match for him, and he for her; he knows in this, at least, the humans agree with the wolves.

He thinks fleetingly of Grey, Durante, that long-ago husband and mate whose name he has forgotten; the frenchman, the one that took her when she was younger than he is now. He thinks of the red diamond on her finger, the ring that signified neither bond nor matrimony.

He thinks she is his mate. Must be. She is the mother of his child, the love of his life. What else would she be?

He thinks he does love her. But this time he keeps silent; keeps those words behind his lips, in his heart. He thinks he will love her even when she is old. He does not know for certain. But he hopes.

He wants her to be happy. He wants her to understand love. He would want her to feel safe. He wants to love her as long as he lives.

For all his cynicism, he is an idealist after all.

--

The sheets stir and rustle. He sits up. His hand runs down her arm; he takes her by the hand.

"Come on," he murmurs. "I'll wash you."

Maybe someday she will learn. There is a flashlight now. It is not enough to overcome all the rest, but it is something. It is a glimmer. It is a symbol that some things don't have to fail. That some things can stay in her own power, in her own hands, and the truth is, that is the only way people ever feel truly safe in the long run.

But Hilary hated the thing growing inside of her until it was born. Until it became him. Now she believes she has a soul. She never had one before, but now she does. And that's something. That's a symbol, too, and a profoundly powerful one. The beating heart that is her love for her son, however warped and strange that love may be, is the same sort of flickering hope that never existed before. It is not enough to overcome everything that has happened to her, but it's a lot better than a flashlight.

There is not the ability to grant safety and security and comfort in her hand resting on Ivan's back. But there is love. And that's a miracle all its own.

--

Hilary is his mate. Mother of his cub. He will find dens, make dens, buy places where she can live with herself or with him or their offspring. He will take her away from the evil Grey clan who sought to steal her from him and he will shield her with terrible stories and lies and even worse truths so that other wolves may not ever seek her out. He would do anything for her, it seems. He is her mate. Father of her cub. Guardian.

And she is not a good mate.

And he is not a good guardian.

But they are what they are. They are what they have in this dark, fucked-up world. Someone who understands, more or less, who and what you are. This is why, when he touches her face, Hilary does not worry about the lines around her mouth or her eyes. She does not think about time. Anton growing up. Ivan perhaps challenging for rank on a whim. Gray hairs appearing. Happiness. Safety. Being loved, when she is old and not quite so agile. She doesn't think of any of it.

Ivan's fingertips stroke her cheek. She is loved.

--

Her chest expands as he speaks. She breathes in deeply, blinking her eyes open. Wash her. As she tries to move, she realizes she's shaking a bit, like her bones don't quite fit together right. Hilary feels dizzy. So they are slow to sit up, slow to stand. She leans against him as he takes her to the bathroom; wraps her in a robe, makes it filthy, so she won't chill as they wait for the the water to warm. Happens quickly enough; fills the tub fast enough. The water is not so hot that it makes her faint when they sink into it; it is hot enough that the knots in her muscles relax. Hot enough that after they drain the tub and refill it, she begins to feel clean. But not far away.

Hilary leans against his chest, moving when he tells her to, moving away from his hand to stretch a shoulder muscle. Agency. Self. But mostly she stays close to him.

Very little is said, to interrupt the sanctity of this now.