Ivan Press

Hilary

Dubai, then. A private island, a discreet staff. Air conditioned to the point of soft frigidity. White sheets, speckled slightly underneath where Hilary's scraped knees shed tiny welling teardrops of blood as she rolled over, as Ivan held her, as she fell asleep. It was a long trip from Novgorod to Dubai, and she does not sleep well when traveling. It has always been thus, when he is not with her. For years she has substituted pills for warmth, sinking into their fuzzy embrace to protect herself from the yawning dark she is surrounded by otherwise.

Her staff has found that it is both easier and more difficult, in different ways, to get Hilary's preferred medicine in Russia. With the right connections you can get whatever you want, as in any civilized place, but Novgorod itself is remote, and the authenticity and purity of the merchandise can be questionable. They often stock up, but even that has its dangers. Not one of them is convinced that, in a bad moment, Hilary would not decide to go to sleep and never wake up. Thus, Hilary does not know about the stockpile. Her servants bring her what she asks for, and she doesn't question the inventory or how quickly they're able to produce the little silver tray, the lace doily, the glass of water.

Sometimes she likes to pretend she's really taking medicine, and performs the act dutifully, obedient as a child.

Other times she tosses them back with white wine. Darya checks on her then. Makes sure she is safe. Makes sure, with the others, that if Hilary wakes still out of her head, she does not try to carry her son down the stairs, fall, injure or kill them both. Darya makes sure that Hilary stays breathing. Darya is reasonably sure that all of them, the child included, might die in a frenzy if Ivan were to be told that Hilary died on their watch.

But Darya is, like their hosts (save the cook-cum-nanny), Russian. She does not lean easily towards optimism.

--

Hilary did not take pills on her trip from there to here. She wanted to be... accessible, perhaps, when she got here. She wanted him to be able to reach her, to offend her, to hurt her, to see his longing and perhaps feel something other than the easy smirk that used to come over her features once upon a time, before she knew him, or what she really was. What she really needed. When boy-children like her ex-stepson and that child Christian were snacks she nibbled on occasionally, starving for a truth she was not sure existed.

So she did not drug herself, and did not sleep, and the trip was very long and here she is, greeted and torn apart and bruised ever so slightly and fucked, roughly, held down to this very bed, this very soft, very white bed while Ivan snarled at her, bit her, came inside of her. And now she sleeps, for hours.

Maybe he sleeps with her. Maybe he does for a while, getting up later. But Hilary only gets up once, and it is dim outside, perhaps twilight or perhaps dawn it is hard to say -- she goes to the bathroom and she pees. She washes up and rinses her mouth with hot water and says not a word, even if he speaks to her. Comes back to the bed and collapses into it, under the covers again, sleeping moments before her head touches the pillow.

What hour she slept: we have forgotten. What hour she rose: we may never know. But now, it is... now. Whenever that is.

--

She wakes. And sighs in a way she did not, before. Stares at the ceiling. It's dark outside, pitch black, though perhaps he has shielded her from this darkness. Or perhaps the windows are open, showing a view of the city of Dubai, sleepless and bright. Who knows what he has gotten up to, or for how long she's abandoned him for the sake of her strange dreams?

Perhaps he is not even there. And it is all right if he is not. She knows she is with him. She knows he is never too far. She imagines him a wolf, in snowy wastes, tracking his mate and his offspring by scent alone, his footprints dark behind him, snow kicked up behind him, flakes invisible on his white coat. Hilary does not know where this image comes from, only that it is true. She smiles to herself, and gets up.

Then there is a shower, and she straightens her hair. Even out of practice, she does this thoughtlessly, easily. She brushes her teeth and finds her things already put away, hung up, waiting for her. Hilary dresses herself in a white pencil skirt, a sleeveless silk halter top the color of peaches, and puts on jewelry. Makeup. Lines her eyes but not her lips. Softens them with a tint just a shade or two away from what she has naturally. Does her lashes. Her manicure is... fine. She puts on a heavy red diamond from its black velvet encasement, examining it on her finger.

Slips into a pair of neutral high heels, more pink than brown in undertone, and walks past the bed, which has already silently, invisibly been refreshed with new linens, remade. She walks to the kitchen, goes through a few cupboards, and with the unerring navigational skills of someone more comfortable in kitchens than most other places on earth, finds the liquor.

Hilary pours crystal-clear, flavorless vodka into a tumblr, at least a couple of fingers. And downs it. That done, she goes ahead

and pours another

and repeats the process.

Around this time, she is wondering where Ivan is.

The vodka is choice. It is ice-cold, crystal-clear, and almost certainly not just imported but physically moved here by Ivan's staff, in Ivan's endless parade of luggage. The first shot slides down smooth as silk. The second shot tumbles into the glass with that thickness and viscosity that betrays its nature. Hilary downs that shot too.

Her lover is nowhere to be seen. He was not in bed when she woke, but that is not unusual; she sleeps so deep and so sound after one of those rough, intense fuckings, and he is so eminently distractible. Perhaps he went into the city. Perhaps he's on a yacht. Perhaps he's gambling away a fortune in one of Dubai's famed casinos. Or perhaps

he's still in the house. Padding up the stairs from a basement she may or may not have been aware of; leaving wet footprints, dripping water from the smooth slopes and lean angles of his body. He has been swimming, because of course he has. Because of course he would want a house that had a pool; never mind that he is surrounded by some of the most pristine ocean in the world. He towels his face, tosses it over his shoulder. Comes up behind her and wraps damp arms around her. His swim trunks are sopping wet; a scrap of lycra that wraps so low on his hips that his body seems longer, leaner, more golden than ever.

He kisses her shoulder. Reaches around her, hooks a finger into her shotglass, and steals it.

"I thought mimosas were more your taste," he murmurs.

Tumbler, Ivan.

She poured her vodka into a tumbler.

Hilary does not appreciate it for what it is. Surely she's had cheap beers before. Surely she's had poor liquors. But the way she looks, rolling that glass in her hand, cocking it back to drain it, you might think she'd never tasted anything less than this fine, imported perfection, expensive and rare as she herself is.

She is fully clothed in linen and silk, platinum and diamonds. After her shower you can't even see that her knees were scraped up on the dock yesterday. Or whenever it was. Ivan, however, is nearly naked. Wearing some of those tight, small trunks of his, shameless and fine. She glances at him when she hears him, holding her glass, sipping her third serving more slowly than the first that she shot back.

Then she looks at him, while she drinks, water trickling down his body, dripping off of him. Hair turned brassy dark by water, plastered to his scalp. His ears may be slightly pointed; she thinks of biting them. But he walks toward her, towel over his shoulder, assuming she will let him --

Hilary, deft and dextrous as she ever was, slips away from him when he tries to grab her, get her wet with chlorinated water.

"Don't you dare," she mutters, some vodka sloshing out of the rim over her fine, delicate wrist, adorned with white gold and blue veins. Clear liquid runs along one of those veins. She looks him over. Looks at his face. "Don't," she murmurs, more quietly. "I --" and her free hand smooths down that white linen skirt, wordless, graceful even though the emotion behind it may be awkward. She sips her vodka a little more. "Don't," more firmly.

Then, as if she never quieted her voice, never showed him truth, she adds: "It's night. Mimosas are for brunch, ma beau imbécile."

His ears might be a little pointed.

His teeth might be a little sharp.

His eyes might gleam a little too gold, a little too green.

He might be a wolf.

And he is sleek, and he is graceful, and he is quick as a viper -- but so is she. She slips away. Darts. Wards him off and there's that note in her voice, soft and a little broken-edged, which he does not understand. He looks at her with his head tipped, feral. She firms.

Calls him an imbecile.

He laughs, sudden and bright and fierce, teeth flashing. He picks up the bottle, which she left behind when she fled him. She keeps her glass, excuse him, her tumbler, and he upends the bottle. Drinks from the source. Turns his hand and wipes his fine, smirking mouth on the side of his thumb.

"Well, it'll be brunch in six hours."

They are a few feet apart. He watches her, leaning backward against the counter; slouching, which would be unseemly in a man less fit, less beautiful, less graceful. It only makes him look hungry, rakish, dissolute. Exhaling, the burn of the alcohol narrows his eyes, but she's the reason he licks his lips.

"Come back here." He holds out the bottle; quite literally plies her with drink. "I won't try to chlorinate you."

"Then in six hours," she says, measured and exact, "we will have mimosas."

Hilary drinks her vodka while he drinks from the bottle. She mutters something else under her breath, some swear, some curse on his poor manners. "You'll have to dress," she says, turning away, leaning against the opposite counter -- perhaps the island -- one leg straight, the other slightly cocked back. "For brunch," she clarifies.

He also leans. He watches her. Licks his lip. She licks vodka off her lip. She has emptied her glass again and he is offering her more.

"You're not fit to receive me," she explains, and puts the glass down on the counter, arm's-reach away. Where he can get to it, without dripping on her.

And then she watches him.

She turns away. He admires the view. He obliges, too - tips vodka into her glass at arm's reach. Never a waver. Not a drop spilled.

Lifts the bottle when he is done, pours into his own mouth. When he lowers the vodka, he plants the bottom of the bottle against his thigh.

"I'd like to tear your clothes off and have you on the kitchen counter." Beat. "For brunch."

And then he smirks -

"Does that make me fit to receive you?"

Hilary is downing vodka at an alarming rate. This is her fourth shot, and her first was a double. Upon waking. On an empty stomach. He's only ever seen her take a glass of wine or champagne here or there. Easy to imagine seeing her holding a long-stemmed glass of some sort, as slender and pristine as she is. Harder to imagine her swigging from a beer can, or even holding a pint in an old English pub. Hard to imagine her doing shots, no matter how young you make her in your mind's eye. So this is strange, and yet she holds the tumbler with perfect, familiar grace. Yet: she drinks easily, without wincing or coughing or gasping. Sips now, though. Slows down.

Ivan tells her what he wants for brunch, in about six hours. Hilary just stares at him, while he smirks. She doesn't react. She sips her vodka, looking either bored or thoughtful -- though, as he well knows by now, the two are nearly indistinguishable on her fine-boned features.

"No," she finally decides. "Not in your swim trunks."

She lowers her arm, holding vodka by the rim. Lifts, effortlessly, away from the kitchen island and walks away, towards some door made of glass, a dark passage from here out to whatever outdoor space he has here. A patio, or deck, or the lawn itself -- someplace where she can see the city gleaming and sparking on the mainland.

"You can join me when you're presentable," she tells him, lifting her glass again to her lips before she steps outside.

Away she goes. Ghost of a woman. Soulless monster of a woman. Except he knows that's not true. She's not soulless. Just ...

fractured. Some parts irretrievably lost in the cracks. What's left of her incomplete, strange, wounded, hurtful, intoxicating, unforgettable, poisonous. He thinks so highly of her. He adores her so completely, in his own strange, wounded, hurtful way.

A few moments go by; then the door opens, and out into the dry desert air steps Hilary's lover. Lean and beautiful, golden and cruel. He has changed out of those clammy swimtrunks. He is wearing drawstring pants, white, linen, so breathable and light that the tone of his skin is nearly visible through it. He has the bottle. He has a tumbler for himself, which he fills as he strolls out after her. She has had an alarming amount of vodka. He refreshes her drink again.

Across the dark water, the city glitters. Surreal, futuristic, mirage-like: that building that looks like an enormous sailboat. That building that pierces the sky. Modern-day tower of Babel; testament to the hubris of man. Ivan looks across the water for a while; sips.

"How disgusted would you be," he wonders, "if I were to remind you right now of how much I adore you?"

Outside, Hilary just stands. Drinks her vodka, watching the city. She stands easily, in what could be seen as a relaxed 4th, balanced and tall. Her glass is not empty when the door slides again, when he comes out. Comes alongside her. She turns to look at him past her bare shoulder. He is wearing... lounge pants.

Something glints in her eyes. She watches him, unblinking and sharklike, as he pours just a little more vodka into her glass. When she sips, he could interpret it as a polite thank-you, but he probably will not.

Then he looks at Dubai, and she looks at Dubai again, and he worships her with words.

--

She ignores it.

"I liked how you dressed for the airfield better."

Sips her vodka.

Ivan blinks: quick camera-like flick of his lashes.

"Remind me how."

"Of what?" she asks, turning her head to glance at him again. "How you dressed?"

"Yes." He turns too. Beautiful lashes; beautiful eyes; beautiful, beautiful boy. Quite at whim he catches her face: gripping her jaw between thumb and fingers. Kisses her like that, a little forceful, a little sudden. "What made it so presentable."

Hilary jerks, but is held. Her eyes flash; somehow, darkness can flash. Her mouth is forcefully closed when he kisses her.

"You know how you dressed," she says, unassailable. Unreacting. "Like a man. And not a peasant."

He wants to bite her. He wants to pull her hair. He wants to turn her over his knee; string her up; whip her; fuck her.

He wants all sorts of terrible, dark things, and they flicker in his eyes: darkness, flashing. He satisfies himself with this: kisses her again, harder, kisses that haughty resisting mouth of hers, slides his hand back into her hair. It's so cool, so sleek between his fingers. He grips. He pulls. Couldn't resist after all. Raises her chin like that, licks her throat, bites -- nips.

Nuzzles. Kisses. Lets go.

"You're such a sharp-tongued little bitch," he murmurs. And again: "I adore you."

This time she actually winces away, turns her head, unless he grabs her hair without letting go, tightens his grip on her jaw, but -- he knows. Sometimes her pulling-away is so obviously displeased that he would have to be blind, deaf, insensate in a thousand ways, not to realize she doesn't want what he's doing. Sometimes she makes herself clear, even if the reasons behind it are as murky and deep as her nightmares.

Hilary pulls away, upon that first (second) kiss, jerking slightly to try and free from his grip. And he relents. Withdraws. She does not throw vodka in his face. Perhaps he does not even call her a sharp-tongued bitch,

whom he adores,

but whose signals tonight he is barely, if at all, picking up on.

--

"Please, dress yourself," she murmurs, but by then there have been empty seconds of silence, as though her pulling away were a slap, a snarl, something more violent. Perhaps in a way it is: she so rarely means it. "Pretend, for a moment, that I am still deserving of a little respect. Even from you."

She is not looking at him. She sips her vodka,

this time she finishes it. Again.

Sometimes he treats her appallingly. Sometimes he calls her hair-raising things. Does things to her that would make seasoned sadomasochists blanch. Yet for all that, he is not entirely monstrous. They play a dangerous, thoroughly unsafe game, but he does not -- has never wanted to -- truly force her to do anything she doesn't want.

So: she twists away. He lets her go. Stands there furrow-browed, perplexed, until she demands

(beseeches)

that he dress himself. Give her a little respect.

There is a silence; he does not immediately go within. He drinks his vodka. He sets the bottle down on the sunbeaten dock. There's so much light here during the day, so much terrible, merciless solar radiation, that the wood, the house, the very air is baked dry. It seems amazing that the seas don't simply evaporate. Ivan thinks of these things, passingly, as he pulls a deck chair over. Sits on the edge; thinks of other things.

"What's the matter?" -- at last, he thinks to ask this. Of the woman he loves. Whom he has never witnessed well and truly drinking to get drunk.

There is a silence after she speaks. She holds her glass for a while and then just... sets it down somewhere. A patio table, the top of a wooden post. Whatever there is, wherever they are. She stares at the city, so bright that the sky itself is not quite the inky indigo-black that it should be at this hour. She is surrounded by darkness, all the same. The house behind her is only partially lit from within. The city on the other side of the water is gloriously gleaming. She, in light linen and pale silk and fair skin, is her own sort of beacon. The purity of her is as crystalline and rareified as the fucking vodka they're drinking, crystalline and cold as a diamond but throbbing like a bloody heartbeat all the same, ferocious and savage and kinglike and mad

mad

mad

mad

mad.

"I do believe I just told you," is what this beacon tells him, a soft aside, half-spoken to her shoulder and not to him, directly. It should be cold, but she... falters. She looks down, not at the wood beneath her feet but the water at its edge, dark the way that the sky should be dark but isn't, depthless the way that the sky is but does not appear to be. Only the surface is marred by shattered bits of light, chopped by otherwise invisible currents. It could be inches deep; it could be miles.

Fathoms.

That's the word.

She falters: "In some ways I miss the way my life once was. For all that so much of it was false and empty, there was... a grace, to things. I was seen, if not beloved. I was known, if not understood. There were dinners and brunches. Parties on the yacht, or this mansion or that, rooftops. Benefit auctions, cultural soirées, even that silly meeting of the silly Fangs in that silly also-ran of a city."

Hilary's throat moves, but there is no vodka for her to swallow. Lifts her gaze and looks at the city. "I had so much to do. I know it seems very little, and very unimportant, to some eyes. Yet I was often well and truly busy. It left almost no time for me to simply sink into... nothing. I used to take medicine, when I would get like that, and go into a sort of twilight until it was time for the next thing. I always looked so fine. There was always a reason to get dressed. Even shopping had a purpose, then. And even when I hated the people around me, boring and useless as they were, being bored and hateful of them was another thing to fill my time with."

For a spell, she's quiet again. Staring at the lights.

"And you, so properly dressed that even your shabby disheveling had a measure of class, so adept at the pretense of good manners, such a fantastic liar that so many truly believed you were mortal -- and once, my husband believed you were a fag," she adds, glancing at him briefly over her shoulder, thoughtless with that nasty perjorative as she is with so many things that hurt other people.

His beloved, the one he adores, looks away again. "Perhaps it's boring to you. I would be bored of myself, if I were not stuck in it. But I am trying to learn who I am, and what I want, and I do not know the way. And it is very easy to stop looking, to stop wondering, to stop... caring about these greater questions, when day after day life is much the same. Nothing more than a progression through seasons, every moment just part of an inexorable march towards old age, senility, incontinence, and death. There is nothing new, and the only reason for anything is Anton, and..."

her brow furrows then, for the first time, and even in profile Ivan can see how deep that frown is, how sudden, how inward, how unsure --

"...he is only a baby, still." Hilary shakes her head slightly, that silken, carefully straightened hair brushing over her bared shoulders. "He cannot show me who I am."

--

Her slender arms, crossed so long now, unfold and drape elegantly at her sides, effortless in every motion yet

carefully, carefully studied.

"I miss this," she whispers. "And I only wanted you to dress for me as though you gave a damn, as --"

oh, she falters, these last five words so tight in her throat:

"--as I did for you."

It is more, infinitely more, than he has ever heard from her at once. Some days he feels like a beggar: scraping, crawling for a few flecks of her. Not her attention, but merely her: that undefinable essence of who she is; the substance of darkness, of gravity, of mortal attraction itself. Who would have known it was as easy as getting her drunk. Who would have known it was as easy as casting her into the siberian wilderness, stranding her with nothing but servants and an infant, leaving her to her own self, timeless, airless, a vacuum stretching from today to death.

Ivan listens: arrested, stilled, sitting as lovely as a sculpture there on the edge of the lounger. Balanced, legs bent at the knee; one foot folded under the chair just so. He listens, watching her, while she speaks, and falters, and speaks,

breaks his heart.

He looks into the distance. Black waves, golden city. He rises, soundless, supple. Comes to her and slides his arm -- no. Starts to wrap his arm around her waist, but wraps it around her shoulders instead. It is different. It means something else. He pulls her against his side; as though he could shelter her. As though he, trickster prince, liar, backstabber, thief who stole her very love, could protect and care for her in any meaningful way.

Sometimes she seems to believe he can.

Sometimes he almost believes it.

"Let's get out of Russia," he says. "Let's move to Paris. You love that city, don't you? I'll drape you in fur and diamonds. You can go do whatever it is you did; we'll hire an army of nannies for our boy."

Years. Years and years of this uncertainty, this delving. Breaking her down and rebuilding her. Fucking her until he impregnated her. Faking a death, ruining her name to save her from a marriage, all manner of trials he's endured...

and he could have just given her vodka.

--

She breathes in, as he puts his arm around her. She does not want this -- could he not. Put on. Fucking. Slacks.

And she wants this more than anything, right now. So she is held, and she tips her head to rest on his shoulder, while still watching the city. It is a while before he speaks. And she has nothing left to say.

--

Paris. She loves it? Fur, diamonds. He has no idea what she needs from him but by god he will promise it, provide it, however he can.

"We have to get out of Russia," she murmurs. "I like that he has a homeland, but... such a bleak wasteland of a home. A homeland is a thing to be remembered, not something to be lived in."

"I know," he replies, even before she tells him what she likes; what a homeland is. Some dark, aching part of him wonders how she would even know. What is home to a creature like Hilary? Belgium? That mansion, its dark halls, her devoured brother? Christ.

"We'll leave. If not Paris, anywhere else. Anywhere you want."

A homeland,

a home,

is not something to be lived in.

It is only to be remembered.

Of course she knows.

--

"That's the thing. I don't know what I want." She laughs. It's a breath of a sound, nothing really deep.

"Perhaps we should travel. And perhaps we can find it."

How different this is from the way he wanted to grab her earlier, kiss her, maul her, attack her like an animal. This is his arm around her shoulders. This is him turning to face her; his other arm wrapping around her head, cradling her against his body. His lips to her temple, fervent.

"I like that," he murmurs. "I've always liked traveling with you. We can leave today. I don't suppose you'd want to stay in Dubai."

"I do," she breathes, and this is her first answer, sighed like an endearment after an orgasm. Looks up at him, her eyes starry, limpid,

drunk.

"I haven't even been to Dubai yet."

"Ah. Of course." He's amused; mostly at himself. "I forgot you've been asleep through most of your time here. We'll go to Dubai today. Shop. Gamble. And when you're tired of it we'll go somewhere else. Spin a globe, throw a dart."

Hilary just... huffs. Breathes, and it's almost laughter. Close as she gets. She seems to have exhausted herself, opened a vein, bled herself out, and he staunches her.

Vividly, a memory of delirium. Pain. Loose, empty pain, unlike anything she'd ever felt before, her body a chasm. Waking to two sensations, really: water trickling down her neck through her hair, and her newborn son's miniscule foot cradled in her palm, because she found once he was out of her that she could not let go of him.

Ivan, healing her. More or less.

--

She exhales. "I'm... quite...."

And a sigh.

"I'm very drunk, my love. I'm afraid I haven't eaten."