Ivan Press

Hilary

She cut her hair recently. Not terribly short, still around her shoulders, but he seems to like it long and unruly. As the weather has cooled, she wears it straightened more often, her hair a dark sheen across her pale cheek, paler throat. She has gone out more, as though her blood itself is attuned to the social calendar and somehow knows that the true Season begins only a few months hence. Sometimes it is just to dinner in Nice proper. On a couple of occasions Ivan has learned second- or third-hand that Hilary required transportation arrangements made, whether by car or even by demanding use of Ivan's family's jet, to take her Marseille, or Paris, Barcelona, Florence -- to see a play. To have a specific dinner. To attend the ballet. To shop. Once or twice, she has even taken Anton with her.

In some ways, Hilary has become shockingly independent. But all he has to do is look back, remember before Anton was born, before she was pregnant, when they first met, when the idea of Hilary going out on her own or even having acquaintances to socialize with wasn't so strange at all. It was expected. It is sometimes hard to remember, being so close to it, that nothing could have prepared her for what came between them, or what happened when she had a child. That it broke her. And in a way, broke her open.

She seems to be recovering something, though it is hard to say what. It isn't her 'old self', which was hardly a self at all. There are still bottles of pills stashed in her bedroom, little pellets of varying shades of blue or white, that she can use to take time out from the world, but the volume does not go down quite as fast as it did when she was married to Dion and kept under stricter watch. She doesn't go through them as quickly as when she was in Novgorod and had longer stretches between visits to civilization to procure more, growing depressed in the lull, unable to get away. In Nice she seems to remain present most of the time, but she is not the same woman she was when Ivan met her. She is nothing quite like that woman, or any woman she has been before, and Hilary more than anyone is learning who and what she is now.

Much of the same.

Some other things, newer.

--

There has not been a repeat of their strange tryst with the tequila. She has not requested -- demanded -- that he lower his mouth on her her body, use his tongue. She has not spoken of it again, and has reacted the old familiar way if he has tried to do it again to her -- not to say that this stops him. Simply that she refuses to acknowledge that at least that once, she wanted it. Needed it. Seemed even to enjoy it, even if she hated herself for enjoying it. Nothing like that again. Not yet.

Things are, more or less, the same. Sometimes Hilary goes out on her own, even travels on her own. Sometimes she visits Ivan at his townhouse. Sometimes he shows up at the villa, stays an hour or a week, lazes by the sea or hunts the woods at night. Sometimes she summons him. Sometimes he comes to her on his own, has to seek her out by scent and simple understanding of her, finding her in that odd, colorful little cottage where she has retreated away from the sun she fears and adores, the servants she relies on and despises.

Sometimes he does not see the villa or the cottage for long stretches, and every difference is that much more pronounced because of the absences between them. So perhaps it does not take him long at all to notice that Hilary has started to collect things. Not clothing or shoes or accessories or jewelry, though her wardrobe grows as regularly as it did when she lived in a proper city. Not cookware, though she occasionally has additions there, as well. None of this would be noticable or remarkable.

But the books are.

It isn't that she was ever illiterate; she was expensively educated, however much of it was in private. It's just that he's never come across her reading for pleasure. Sitting on a couch, reclining by the pool, staying up at night -- she does these things but he has not seen her doing so with a book in her hands. She has some cookbooks, some of which are very clearly worn from use and have gone with her from place to place, but Ivan's never really seen her read so much as a magazine. She hardly even reads menus. So of course it would catch the notice of someone of Ivan's attention to detail -- scout of the Nation that he is, after all -- that there are more books around the villa. And the cottage.

They are not pieces of Anton's library, which is significant and mostly increased by Miron and Elodie, curated and edited ruthlessly by Polina because she thinks so much of what they think is cute or funny is garbage that will infect Anton's brain.

They are not Miron's books, though the young man is an avid reader. He keeps his books tidy and put away in his own room. The same goes for Polina, who reads quite a bit but mostly online or via her e-reader. They are not Elodie's, because she uses the library, reads one book at a time, and takes a very long time to read them all the way through because Falcon has hooks in her mind like all of them, and shifts the words and phrases around on the pages, sometimes replacing them entirely with gibberish.

It takes very little reasoning to decide that they must be Hilary's.

--

They are left wherever she leaves them, and apparently the staff has learned not to move them, because she gets angry when she can't find a book where she left it, and if it is not where she left it, she can't necessarily remember what she was reading or where she was in the book. She does not like bookmarks. She does not like dog-eared pages or leaving books spread open, pages down; it seems vulgar. But if they are left where she puts them down, she sits in this chair or that and remembers where she was

They are in French, mostly. Several in English. A couple in Russian.

A few are cookbooks that she didn't have before, or treatises on techniques, memoirs of famous cooks.

There is some history.

There are also stories: some novel-length fiction, some collections, some poetry.

Some are modern. Most are not.

At one point, sitting on a table beside a bench in the atrium, Ivan discovers that his beloved is reading Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers.

The first time Ivan spotted a book in Hilary's cottage, he assumed one of the servants had left it there.

It was some lazy morning-after; the sun scintillating off the mediterranean, the sea breeze winding humid and cool through opened windows. He'd shown up under cover of darkness, found the front door unlocked -- knocked on her bedroom door softly in the dead of night. Found her under the covers by scent and touch, and loved her. Saw nothing but shadows and shapes until the light of day when, snacking on fruit and buttered bread, his gaze happened upon the book. An assumption was made. Certain unkind thoughts were thought -- who might have been so careless, whose fault it may have been, how dare they sully his beloved's den with their silly detritus. He took the book to the villa on his way out and deposited it in the library, tossing it on a side-table and promptly forgetting about it.

Conscientious servants masking as good fortune saved him, though. Elodie was the one to discover the book. Darya, the closest thing to a handmaid Hilary has, was the one to spirit it back to the cabin. And so the episode went undiscovered, and Ivan remained unenlightened.

--

Some time later, he discovers more books in the cottage. There is a shelf for them now, even if she does not use it. There are sophisticated novels and professional-level cooking treatises; there are volumes of poetry. There is Harry Potter. And slowly, with some disbelief, Ivan comes to realize Hilary is reading. It is nearly as shocking as her requesting -- demanding -- oral sex. It is more so.

And so one evening, mid-autumn, with the wind off the mediterranean turning just a touch cool, he joins her in the kitchen. He plays sous-chef the best he can, which is not very well at all. He mashes things. He peels things. He does not get to chop things.

He mentions offhandedly, as though he had to approach this topic sidelong, "The rest of the Harry Potter series is in our library."

Witlessly, Ivan caused quite that panic that morning. Thankfully, Hilary never knew that he took her book away. She never saw it gone and blamed servants. But those poor souls conscripted to serve them by blood-duty and spiritual recognition of purity (and not inconsiderable pay) were in a tizzy when they found that Hilary's book had been moved from where she wanted it.

But the next time, he sees the little shelf. It was purchased at some shop in Paris, on some side-street, and the wood is dark and worn, as smooth as glass. It is narrow. It only has a few shelves. There are books on those shelves, in no particular order and without any apparent tidying. It is tucked away not near her bed, but in a forgettable spot in the little living area. There are at least a couple of books clearly for Anton on that shelf, too, heedlessly stacked on the bottom shelf.

Hilary is reading.

Hilary may even be reading, sometimes, to Anton. Or with him. Or something.

And Ivan is stunned.

--

They are in the cottage this evening. Hilary has a glorious kitchen in the villa. She uses it quite often, in fact. But when Ivan comes here, he often wants to be with her in the cottage, and this usually is either pleasing to Hilary or at least doesn't annoy her. On some level she even understands why he likes it. She thinks she might like it, too; she thinks maybe this is part of why she wanted it. It reminds her of Mexico and Lausanne. It confuses her, because she was not happy in either of those places, but something about the air of it feels good to her.

In any case: she gives him a few jobs to do while she cooks for them. He can cut up the chicken she had marinating in the fridge. He is allowed to slice up the chorizo. He is criticized for slicing it too thinly. He can crush the garlic and the tomatoes. He is not permitted anywhere near the saffron. Hilary makes him scrub the clams. He is not trusted to de-vein the shrimp. He is not allowed to stir or go anywhere near the paella when she is actually cooking it.

To Hilary, spending two or more hours on a meal does not seem like very much. She was going to make this anyway. He showed up and wanted to help.

He apparently wants to talk, as well. He mentions the library, and Harry Potter.

Hilary pauses a moment, then looks over at him with a bland stare.

Ivan is dutifully and diligently scrubbing clams. His eyes are on his work, partly because he doesn't want to make her self-conscious; partly because he needs to watch what he's doing so, or else he might lose a clam or two down the drain. Mostly the latter, actually. It is quite clear he does not need to worry about making her self-conscious. Her level stare tells him that.

And he glances her way, too. With his eyes safely back on the clams he adds, "I couldn't help but notice you were reading the first volume."

At this, one of her eyebrows slides upward.

As slowly as that eyebrow moved, she also turns away again, refocusing on her work. It is a moment before she mentions: "I know we have a library and that there are books inside. I live here."

She is right, of course. Ivan knows it. He becomes quiet; subdued, even. He continues to scrub, and water continues to run.

After some time he answers, "Yes. I know. I was only trying to make conversation. I didn't know how else to bring up the ... reading."

And this is as strange as her demand for oral sex after a half-dozen shots of tequila, as strange as the appearance of her books and the evidence that she is doing this quiet, solitary thing that is neither self-destructive nor vacant but in fact self-nourishing, self-improving, self... loving, in a way.

'This' newest strange thing is that she sees how quiet he gets, how quickly.

And it bothers her.

Hilary has finished folding in the rice, and needs to stir it, and move the pan, but she pauses this for a moment. She moves a step or two in his direction. She is dressed simply, casually, like perhaps she would on her way to practice, in capri-length, charcoal grey leggings, a blue camisole, and a thin dancer's wrap sweater in black. She is wearing no jewelry on her hands or around her throat, just a pair of gray pearls in her earlobes. Her hair is straight, and shines, and is tucked behind her ears.

She knows he is quiet and she is not sure why but she knows it is not good, he is not happy, she reacted in a way that made him... tense? Withdrawn. She doesn't know words for it. She can't name what it is. It does not make her happy.

She does not know what to say, either. She has come this far, recognizing something and realizing it is not something she wishes to ignore, and it's like reaching the end of a circle of light. Everything past it is darkness. She can only feel her way.

"...Do you want to talk about books?" she asks.

Guesses.

There has been progress - tiny, incremental, painful, but progress. Drawn across long enough stretches of time, one can almost begin to map the trend. She has grown, and changed, and molted into something altogether new. He has changed... not nearly as much, perhaps. But changed.

See: he is not vicious, or bladed, or petulant. He too sees something he might not have before. He sees that she sees. He sees that she tries.

And he smiles, and it is only a touch wounded. He glances at her with that quick smile, and then gives the clams one more good scrub before he starts scooping them out of the water, rinsing handful by handful as he goes.

"I want to talk about you, reading," he replies. "I want to acknowledge it. And encourage it, I suppose. Miron told me about a bookstore he likes. Perhaps we can go there sometime."

He smiles! So he wants to talk about books, she thinks, and this presents a whole new set of obstacles. She does not know if she wants to talk about books. She does not know if she likes that he brought it up or not.

But he adds to it. He tells her what he wants. Her brow furrows when he says he wants to encourage it. She is quiet. She returns to the paella pan and begins moving it around, coating the rice in the spiced oils, the crushed tomatoes. She focuses on it, but has not forgotten and is not ignoring their conversation.

"Why did Miron tell you about a bookstore he likes?" she wonders. She suspects.

"We were stocking the library then," Ivan replies, and perhaps this proves her suspicions right, and perhaps it proves them wrong. Regardless, he goes on unaware that she had suspected anything at all, "and Miron had all sorts of suggestions on where to go to shop for books.

"I just told him to buy whatever he liked," he admits. "And the classics of course. Tolstoy and Hugo and Dickenson and Dumas. The sort of thing educated adults should have on their shelves. I've never been to that bookseller's myself. But I thought -- if you wanted -- perhaps we could make an afternoon of it sometime."

It would not be unlike Ivan to inquire with Miron about booksellers in the area after discovering that Hilary was reading and having an interest in it. It would not be strange at all, hence her suspicion that he asked Miron specifically because of her. But that is not how it happened, this time.

Hilary returns her focus to cooking, but goes on speaking with him.

"I know the bookshops in the area," she says, though without an icy layer of defensiveness to it. "Miron had nothing to do with it."

Perhaps there's a least a bit of frost to that. Defensiveness. Vulnerability. Privacy.

She gestures to a plate nearby, holding the already browned chicken, sauteed chorizo, and peeled shrimp. This apparently means he should push it closer so she can move the meat into the paella pan. Which she begins doing, without looking at him. She dusts saffron across the pan as well.

"Do you like books, Ivan?"

They have worked together like this often enough, and he is astute enough, that he has no trouble intuiting her meaning. He moves the plate of half-cooked meats closer. He also nabs a bit of chorizo and eats it, licking his fingers shamelessly afterward without even the pretense of ... not sneaking food from the plate.

Her question catches him by surprise. He considers a moment.

"I don't dislike them," he says. "I didn't fail literature in preparatory school, if that's what you're asking. But I can't say I've sought out much reading material of my own volition."

Hilary doesn't slap at his hand or hiss at him. Usually she at least tries, pretends to, snaps at him somehow. She doesn't this time. She tucks clams into the rice, the pan now veritably overflowing with meat.

He admits he's not really a reader. Literate, educated, but not terribly interested. This isn't surprising. Hilary gives the pan before her a solid shake, then leaves it be for a while, turning to wash her hands again, pat them dry, and begin preparing a couple of lobster tails. As she does, she processes her thoughts. She is quiet for long periods. She is not sure how to... say what she wants to say. She has to begin very simply.

"I... do not think I want to 'make an afternoon' with you at a book shop. If you don't like reading, yourself. It... that isn't how it works."

This makes Ivan -- sad. What a stranger that sensation is, this sadness; not the sort of dramatic, furious, howling sadness that would overtake him were she to, say, leave and threaten never to come back, but something much smaller and gentler and less consequential.

She does not want to make an afternoon of book shopping. It makes sense; he doesn't even particularly enjoy books. But he is sad anyway.

"That's too bad," he says, lightly. "I would've liked to spend the time with you. While you did something you enjoyed."

Stillness. Simmering paella. And this small sadness between them.

Which she seems to understand.

Which she seems able to reflect.

"I would, as well," she says quietly. "If it was something you enjoyed."

In the quiet they can hear the paella bubbling as it simmers. They can hear the sea -- but then they can always hear it, so pervasive and rhythmic that it fades into the background like a heartbeat.

"Isn't it enough that I would enjoy being with you?"

"No," she says, with a slight lilt at the end, almost a question. It sounds like she thinks that her answer should be obvious, but she isn't trying to be cruel. She isn't saying it with disdain, or mockery. Just... no. In this, his pleasure at her pleasure wouldn't be enough.

Her slender eyebrows tug together. "I do not go to book shops with Miron. I would not want to. I would with you. Go, and read, and... maybe... talk, a little. But if you go only for me, listen only to me, it isn't the same. It... wouldn't be enough. I would rather go alone, then."

"Mm."

He makes this small sound. It is acknowledgment and, perhaps, some measure of understanding. Again Ivan considers his lover's words. Again he considers the situation, the lay of this strange and new land.

And then, rather suddenly: "What else do you like?"

Small sound. Small sadness. She looks at him while the paella goes on simmering, but he doesn't fight her. He doesn't howl or coax. He understands. Maybe even accepts: there is something that is hers that he cannot share in. Some private piece of herself. Most certainly that is new, and strange, and the terrain is uncertain.

A soft rain falls upon it.

Hilary blinks, taken aback, and actually looks affronted for a moment. "Idiot," she calls him, bordering on a scoff. "How long have you known me?"

Ivan laughs, but it is not a cruel, cutting laugh. He laughs at himself. The idiocy of his own question.

"Too long," he admits, "to not know the answer to that. I'll admit I do know some things you like. You like to dance. You like to cook for pleasure. You like to watch me swim. You like ... a lot of things, in bed.

"But I didn't know you liked to read. And that makes me wonder what else I don't know."

Hilary

Hilary's smooth, pale forehead wrinkles when he says 'too long', her pride and perhaps even her shriveled little heart wounded, but he is only beginning a sentence. Her brow smooths as he goes on. He has known her for only a few years, but that should be long enough to know what she likes. That she likes things, however few and sparse and strange they are.

He mentions dancing, which is perhaps the most obvious. Cooking, which is the most immediate.

(She has not yet added the lobster tails, waiting for the clams to go on cooking in the steaming hot rice.)

He mentions that she enjoys watching him swim, which causes her eyebrows to arch at him, but of course there is no argument to be had: she has said it to him, admitted it in the dark the way she admits so many things that make her anxious in daylight. She does not usually want to get in the water with him, but she has found that she likes watching him in a way that is different from watching, for example, her ex-stepson and his friends. She has even confessed it.

Ivan says she likes many things in bed. Hilary does not blush or look away. Hilary does not need to. Hilary knows that, sexually speaking, she is very special. She is not unlike that glorious red diamond he gave to her: both rareified and unsettling, refined and vicious. He is lucky to have come upon her and been granted the chance to experiment with her. To discover her, and unearth her appetites.

She assumes he knows this: how lucky he is.

She does not think to tell him that she is lucky to have found him. To have been understood, though at first she did not think he could stand it. To be taken care of in this profound, precious way.

But he did not know that she liked to read, and now his curiosity -- always fervent, when it came to her -- is renewed. She finds she likes that. And so this is the first thing it occurs to her to say in answer:

"I like it when you are interested in me," she says, which might shock him more than anything. She has been so cruel to him for prying to answers, for digging around for explanations. She so rarely had any to give him. She so often is defensive and mean when he shows any interest in what she's doing or what she likes. Perhaps this helps him see: it is not because she does not want him to be interested.

"My mates were not very interested in me," Hilary also says, not to compare him, perhaps not even to explain what she means. Perhaps getting at, sideways and awkwardly, why she is so defensive, so tense, so wary when he shows interest.

She is not very used to it, even now. And now, more than ever, she is learning that she --

"I like to have things to myself," which he may know already. Her cottage. Her studio. Her books. Ivan himself. Sometimes Anton. Mostly just:

herself.

"I... like nice clothes. And things like that." Jewelry and handbags and shoes, lingerie, all of it. Fine things. He probably knows that, too. Or assumed it, and here it is: confirmation. It is not simply what she is most acquainted with.

"I like being barefoot, too," Hilary adds, with a small frown, like she is not sure what to think of that, herself. Her frown deepens. "Sometimes I make things in the sand with Anton, and I think I like that. When you... dig out a channel, and the tide fills it. You make a little pool for the sand castle. I like to watch the water fill the riverbeds and pools we made."

There is such brittleness, such fragility in this admission, lengthy at it is. If he mocks her now, cannot hide his little smirks, she may not forgive him. Sometimes she likes to play in the sand with her son.

"I like sailing with you, or being out on a yacht. Which we never do anymore," she adds, with a touch of reproach against him.

But she turns away, back to her paella, to add lobster tails and a lid to steam them. "I don't know," she finishes, despite having just listed off several things she likes, which all seem inconsequential and cannot be what he means, because none of them are quite like reading books. "I did not know I liked to read either, until recently."

There is no sous-chefing for him to do right now. His attention is quite entirely hers, and he makes no pretense otherwise. His arms are folded across his lean chest; he leans against the counter. He faces her profile while she speaks, while she adds lobster tails, while she puts a lid on the pan.

Only once does he interject, and softly: "I am always interested in your. Surely you must know that."

Otherwise, he is silent, and attentive, and curious. He watches her as she speaks, the fine structure of her face seeming still as a statue even when she moves, speaks. There is much about her that sometimes seems inhuman, cool, marble-like, but he knows it is not so. She is warm when he touches her. She sweats, she weeps, she grows wet when he touches her. She is capable of anger, and resentment, and love.

Sometimes she slaps him for his insolence. Sometimes he catches her by the wrist and sees the fire rise in her eyes.

He straightens, and reaches across her to turn down the fire a little. Then he takes her hand to lead her outside.

"You like fireworks, too." He remembers this small detail quite suddenly. "Let's have Cielo brought over. I like it better than Krasota. When she gets here we'll go sailing. I'll have them sail Krasota out too. Set off fireworks from her deck so we can see it over the water."

Hilary looks back at him as he mentions he's always interested, surely she must know. It's a difficult look to read: not quite disdainful or dismissive, not quite impatient, but her features flicker in and then out of the expression so quickly. She goes on speaking. She finishes speaking. Ivan is watching her still. She is rather used to this.

There is nothing for him to do in the kitchen right now, and yet he insists on mussing everything up. This is what Hilary is thinking when she huffs, slowly and with great irritation, as Ivan turns down the fire on her stove, in her kitchen, fucking up her paella. She gives him a scathing look and brushes his hand away from herself, turning the flame back up to its appropriate height.

It isn't that she doesn't understand: she gives him her hand after she has corrected his mistake, but is not as worried as he that the paella will burn, the cottage will catch fire. She knows how long it needs to cook like this, untouched, left alone by -- for instance -- Ragabashes who could not cube a block of tofu properly without ruining the knife, the block, and of course the entire meal and everyone's evening. She has a timer in her head. She will walk away from him when it dings, whether he is finished speaking or not.

She likes to cook. And she likes paella. She thinks Ivan will like it, too, especially because she made it, and because he loves her so much. And she loves him, too: she wants, in her strange and flinching way, to please him, to satisfy him, for her god to think she is good.

So she will be damned if she lets his idiocy ruin it.

They step out of the small cottage and onto her patio. They can see the water easily; it is a short walk down her little path to the dock that she shares with the villa, though her path is a bit more concealed by landscaping and shadow. She can see so many things; she can not easily be seen. This is why she likes being here. This is how she feels so safe. They don't go far, though, because she is cooking.

Her fingers smell like saffron.

Perhaps with some delight in himself, or delight in her, he mentions that she likes fireworks, which she always forgets is true. She tips her head. He says he wants to bring Cielo over and her brow instantly wrinkles, tightens. She looks almost repulsed.

"It's sold," she says, like this is obvious, like he should know, and she does not call the yacht 'she'. "Ages ago. I think. I told Miranda to sell it." Her frown deepens. "It was a gift from Dion, and I didn't want it anymore. He divorced me because he thought I killed his baby." She is almost scowling.

And then, as suddenly as the storm came on, it passes. She is indifferent again, heedless, careless, says easily: "You can buy me another if you like. It was better than yours."

The fire goes back up. Ivan, as is his way, lets it be. It does not concern him. It wouldn't concern him even were the paella to burn and smoke, even were her little cabin to burn down. He'd just build her another one.

Anyway. He trusts her. He expects she'll know when she needs to go tend to her stove.

So they wander outside, but not very far. She does not have the astonishing, wide-open view of the ocean that they have at the villa. She does not want it. She prefers this: to be hidden, to be secret, to peer out at the world with cold curiosity, because neither she nor the world fully understand one another.

"Ah," he says, mildly, unalarmed by Cielo's sale. "Well. I shall buy you another. We can go catamaran-shopping tomorrow. You should start thinking of a good name."

Hilary looks -- not annoyed, not affronted, but simply...

... is it wry? Does she have the humor, the gentleness, the lightness to be so?

"I don't know the first thing about yachts, Ivan. Buy whatever you would like me to have. Name it... whatever you think it should be named."

She is standing beside him, and it is eventide, and at this time of year the sun sets earlier and earlier. It turns the sea molten, makes it look golden and viscous, with hints of rose and flame, indigo and twilight. He will sense her hand near his before it touches, as though two opposing yet complementary fields of energy are vibrating against one another. He will feel her touching him before he feels her skin.

Hilary so seldom does things like hold his hand, or touch him with simple, casual fondness. She holds his hand now. She slips her soft, slender hand into his, her fingers tucked, more inviting him to hold her, grip her, than meeting him in equality and strength. That is not her way. Her way is one of surrender. It is the only thing she has to give,

most of the time.

Take whatever is left of me.

Tell me it is enough.

"I do not care much what it is, or what it is called." This is said quietly, evenly. There's a rare steadiness to her in this. He asked her what she likes. She realizes she has thoughts on this, she knows where she is more than she realized.

"I like sailing with you. That's all."

Strange, but he may never have told her she is enough for him. She is more than enough. It may never have occurred to him to tell her such a simple, profound truth, simply because it has never occurred to him that she might think otherwise.

He does think of her much like a blood-red diamond, see. Unspeakably rare, inexpressibly exquisite. He does think he is very lucky to have found her. He is quite thoroughly taken with her.

Loves her, one might even say, to bits.

And here is her hand in his. And here is his hand taking hers, his own frame lean and graceful, his own hand rather narrow but long-fingered, incredibly agile. The things he can do with a knife. Not that she is impressed by any of them; she considers it quite uncouth, likely -- that whole messy business of knives slid between ribs and into kidneys and across throats, all that. Nothing so neat and precise and metronome-steady as the rapid flight of her knives across a cutting board, certainly.

Her paella is still cooking. They will have to go back in soon. But while they are still out here, looking at the reddening evening, he turns to her. The cast of the sunlight gives some warmth to her complexion, which is otherwise pure and royal winter. She is, after all, a Silver Fang.

"Have you been on a sailboat?" he wants to know. "One of the little ones. Twenty feet, maybe thirty."

It is new to her, to hope that she is enough. The thought never entered her mind before... recently. Perhaps it was Anton, and deciding she wanted to be with him, and when he shouted and cried in her arms and, unthinking and instinctive and panicked, she gave him her breast. She hoped it would be enough. She hoped she would be good enough. She hoped she could be something to him, anything,

worthy.

Across the time that has followed, there have been distractions, there have been arguments, there have been other things for her heart to contend with, and she hasn't returned to that searing need she felt in that moment. But it comes in now, like a rising tide lapping at the shore, because her life is quiet now. She is not distracted. She and Ivan only have the smallest, pettiest of fights. She is glad to be here, and have her cottage and her studio and her son and her lover nearby, and to be left alone, and to be forgotten by the world at large. In the quiet left behind by a stillness that is not quite as unbearable as it once was, sometimes thoughts and feelings silently braid themselves into her existence.

What she has is enough for her.

She still hopes she is enough for Anton.

She realizes she hopes she is enough for Ivan, too.

She never really thought about that, before.

--

They never speak of his wolfish nature. She does not know or care to know his rank, his status, his anything. They never speak of it. She's seen him once, perhaps, when they were still quite new to one another, when she was either just newly pregnant or about to be pregnant, and the memories are fleeting. If she knew what he could do with a knife, with his claws,

she might be fascinated. Grotesquely, profoundly interested. Frighteningly so.

So perhaps it is better that she does not know, and that they never speak of it. Better that he never has to hear some of the thoughts that plague her, and have plagued her since she was very small. Better that he never knows the girl she was, crying bitterly not because she was punished for trying to cut apart a dead thing she found on the estate grounds, but because they took it away from her.

--

He asks the stupidest question. She gives him a brief flicker of a glance, disdainful, and looks away again, back to the sunset which is so ostensibly pretty and which does not deeply touch her at all.

"Of course I have," she answers, dripping with condescension.

He is unscarred by her derision. He is, if anything, amused. Smirks as he replies, "Well, I didn't know if you would ever deign to board such a small vessel."

Then he grows serious: "There's a little sailboat in storage here. If you'd like, we can sail out in the morning. While you wait for something more appropriate, of course."

The withering, cruel things she could say. The jokes she could make. She doesn't. She does, after all, love him in a way that terrifies and sickens her. She just holds his hand, and he mentions that there is a sailboat. She never knew; but he didn't realize that the books lying around were hers for a long time, either.

Hilary just gives a small nod. A morning sail. With him. Just the two of them.

--

She begins to speak, after a few more moments of silence. She has her eyes on the water, on the sunset, and her hand in his, when she says:

"My first mate had a little lake on his lands," she says, softly, almost...not dreamily. She is not dreaming, nostalgic; she is in a sort of trance, remembering things she never speaks of, seems sometimes to have forgotten.

"He took me out on a little rowboat sometimes, because he --" she stops there. It doesn't matter why he did. What he liked about it. He's been dead some time now. "And sometimes he would leave me there. He knew I was afraid of the middle of the lake, and how deep the water was. That I didn't know how to swim. So he would kiss me, and bite my lip, and then slip out of the boat into the water and swim away. He'd leave me there alone."

They both watch the water as she speaks. Initially, anyway. But soon enough Ivan's eyes turn to her. He watches her -- not carefully or sharply, no, but simply to watch her. Simply to see her, and to turn every shred of attention he can to her.

Her first mate, she says. She has had two; she almost had a third. And of the lot of them, this first one was the youngest, the most beautiful, the cruelest, the most glorious. The shortest-lived. He was quite likely younger than Ivan is now when he died. He left her nothing at all, because he thought he would live forever.

One supposes all this ancient history makes Ivan her fourth mate, only he never was -- still isn't -- her mate at all. Not really. And yet in other ways, he knows he is her first true mate. She is certainly his.

So he listens to her story. And he tries not to let his own thoughts color his perception of it. He thinks about it, and when she is finished he asks, "What was that like for you?"

"I didn't like it," she whispers. "I was not strong enough to row, nor did I know how. Or which way to go to find the right shore. Often it would get dark, and I would be cold, and the water would be dark and there were always so many things swimming beneath me.

"Sometimes they would make the boat rock, and I would scream."

Hilary is not here with him for a moment. Perhaps there were things in that lake, monsters, carnivorous things that wanted to swallow her whole as she watched her brother be torn apart and devoured. Perhaps the wind moved the rowboat and it startled her, and she had nothing, no defenses, no safety to hold to. Only darkness. Only terror.

She is back there, relaying this to him. Softly.

"I did not like it," she says again, just as quietly as before. "He always came back eventually," she goes on, but not in defense of him, nor in forgiveness. Just fact. "I would feel so grateful. So relieved.

"He would be very wet from the swim, but he was still warm, and he would comfort me. And sometimes he rowed back first and other times he took me in the boat itself, but he usually fucked me after."

Stillness.

There is a touch of horror to what she is saying.

"I usually came very hard," she says, her voice low. I think that pleased him. I wanted him to be pleased with me."

Her brow furrows as she watches the sun sinking ever so slowly to the horizon, knowing that eventually it will simply blip! and vanish, the last curve of golden light disappearing beyond the waves.

"I was always afraid, though. Even at parties. I never knew when he was going to leave me alone like that."

Hilary shrinks slightly, almost wincing in that frown.

"I... don't think I liked it, Ivan." Her hand briefly tightens in his, on his. "But there were things about it that I did like. But I didn't like it when he left me like that. I didn't like being so afraid."

Hilary's feelings toward water are strange and dual. She fears the depths and the darkness. She either does not enjoy swimming or still cannot. And yet she is drawn to it as well. She wants to go sailing. They almost always travel to places near lakes, rivers, seas, oceans. There are things about it she likes. And things about it she doesn't like.

So Ivan understand -- viscerally, if not quite entirely -- what she means now. What it means for her to say, I don't think I liked it. But there were things about it that I did like. It makes a certain illogical, intuitive sense.

In some ways, Ivan himself has more in common with that first mate than any other. Something about the relationship there; the savage dominance, the implied cruelty, the enjoyment of seeing beautiful things break. There is a difference, though. Even Ivan knows there is a difference. There is a question -- however masked, however unspoken, however blurred and half-seen -- of consent.

And he is quiet, listening as she tells him another little piece of her history. Another strand in her tale which, just like all the rest, are dipped in horror. She would be a pitiable figure if she weren't so haughty, so cruel, so terrifyingly strong in her own way.

Strange, that he thinks that about her now. The woman who barely seems strong enough to pick up two gallon-jugs of milk at once, who barely seems strong enough to pick up her toddler son: strong.

He pulls her to him. He wraps his free arm around her shoulders, cups the back of her head. Kisses the crown of her head, silently, and then embraces her for a moment.

"Does it bother you when I leave you?"

-- and perhaps for a moment one might think he means leave in the general sense; all those times he vanishes off the face of the earth and reemerges days or weeks later freshly tanned from some foreign beach, or stubble-jawed and with dark circles under his eyes because he's been partying in some foreign city. But no, what he means:

"When we play."

Of course there were things she liked about it. The sex. The roughness of it, the sense of being possessed, the relinquishing of control she never feels like she has over herself anyway. The relief flooding through her after being abandoned. And it would be simple enough, even for a layperson, to draw the connection there between her early life and her adult personality's feelings about abandonment, fear, and being saved... even if it is by the person who left you alone in the first place.

Ivan does none of that. He sees the similarities alluded to in her rarely-spoken-of first husband, but he can certainly see the difference. He does not terrorize Hilary to see her cry, beg, and break. He does not wish to see her truly afraid, as the other male did. He does not keep going when he senses she has reached her limit; he does not push her beyond it, even if in the moment his baser self might want to pretend he doesn't see the line he is crossing. He does what he does to her because it seems to please both of them; it is not hard to see that her first husband likely did not care much if he was doing what Hilary wanted or not.

She might be baffled if he said he thinks she is strong. She does not think of herself as strong or weak. She does think of herself as good or bad, and mostly the latter. She does think of herself as broken or whole, and mostly the former. But strength and weakness were never words to run towards or away from as she was being brought up. The only place strength mattered was when she was dancing, and that is more about endurance than power.

They both watch the hateful, mesmerizing water, and then he pulls on her. She jumps slightly, only a little bit, stirred from her thoughts, and turns with his tug to face him. He wraps her closer, cradles her skull, and kisses her brow. She is placid, which is not the same as her blank indifference. It is just a softness to her that is about as close as she gets to contentment. Or peace. Or the sense of being safe.

She thinks he means when he leaves: to go into the world alone. He knows that sometimes bothers her, and also knows that they both realize this is the only way it can be. She would hate him if he were always around; he would hate his life. So she wonders why he asks,

until it becomes clear that's not what he's asking at all

She is quiet a moment, then shakes her head. "But you don't do that."

"I have, once or twice," he says, though perhaps the leaving he speaks of is not at all the sort of leaving she remembers -- hours-long, until it grew dark, until she was all alone and cold and frightened and every shadow seemed to creep with unknown horrors. "Perhaps for a few minutes."

He thinks a beat.

"Maybe I think too much of it. Would you tell me outright, Hilary, if I did something you didn't like?"

"Not like that," she says softly, when he says once or twice. He says a few minutes and she frowns, shakes her head. "That is not the same. And you don't --"

They are talking over one another now. He is saying he thinks too much of it. She is anxious, though not intensely, not quiet yet; he asks her if she would tell him and she is a bit fluttery, her hands trying to gesture, to make sense.

"You do not... you are not the same. You don't think it is funny when I am scared. You don't enjoy it more when I am crying. I was not telling you to make you --"

That internal timer clicks. She blinks. She swiftly turns, and goes inside, and he might think she is storming away from him, unable to cope with this, but she slips quickly into the cottage, heading for the stove right away.

He's doing it all wrong. Even he can tell. Even he knows he's fucked it up; she was telling him about herself, what she likes and dislikes, and he does understand -- he did -- but somehow he couldn't find the words to tell her.

He started asking about himself instead. About them. The present. Now. And now she thinks he doesn't understand at all, and she's anxious, and --

she's walking away. Ivan is baffled. She goes swiftly inside, and he thinks she must be angry, but she doesn't seem angry. He follows her. She's at the stove. He stares. Perhaps she's about to fling a pan of paella at his head?

Hilary is fixing the paella. Turning the heat up to very high, silently counting. Suddenly as he's getting closer she clicks it off and moves the paella pan to a trivet beside the stove to rest. When she turns, to slice some lemon wedges and chop some parsley, she sees him again. The smell of toasted rice on the bottom of the pan is filling the little corner of the cottage that serves as kitchen. Her windows there are opened slightly, cooling the hot corner, taking the scent to the surrounding woods.

She does not look angry or upset. Or even anxious. She slices lemons and there's no anger in the way she wields the knife, no sense that... well. That he fucked anything up, really.

A million years ago, he might have been a wolf skulking cautiously through the opening of his den. There is still something of that in his motion, the light balance, the slow and careful movement.

She does not throw anything. Or hurl anything. Or whip anything. She is... cooking. Her knife tat-tat-tat-tat-tats across the cooking board. It is so precise, so easy, so rhythmic. It smells good in here, like rich seafood and spanish spices. Gradually he relaxes.

"I know I'm not like him," he says eventually. "I know what we have is not ... that. I know what he did to you was ... " here he pauses. What is the word? He bats about in the recesses of his mind. He manages to find something.

"I understand why you didn't like it. Even if you liked some of it."

She is mixing the parsley into a bowl of cooked peas. She uses her hands, the last of the saffron particles dusting the vegetables with flavor and scent. Ivan is relaxing, slowly, from his initial posture of wariness.

Ivan has no idea why she was anxious. Thinks he understands, but she is changing so rapidly now. It is hard to apply the laws of nature that have long stood between them in quite the same way. But he tells her he understands what she was telling him. Which is fine, too.

She looks at him, and then back at her work, moving the bowl closer to the pan and removing the lid. Steam coils upward from the paella, the mouthwatering smells intensifying. She begins scattering the peas and parsley across the top, carefully, artfully adding splashes of green to the red and orange and pink.

"I was not trying to say anything about you," she explains, because she has found the words. "Or you and I."

Lemon wedges are added here and there, tucked lightly into the dish. Only one is retained, and she squeezes it gently, flicking droplets across the surface. That slice is set down on the cutting board again.

"You talked about a small boat. And it reminded me of something. That's all."

That is all. No point to it, really. No agenda. Nothing, in the end, for him to see beyond the curtain. Just a memory.

Because he is always interested in her.

She goes to wash her hands. "You need to pour the wine."

"I know," he says, and he does. Not unaware of the irony, he adds, "I was overthinking. Forgive me."

She has finished cooking. He is sent to fetch the wine, pour it. It is a small kitchen and he reaches over her, lifting large wineglasses out of the shelf. Plates, too. Silverware from the drawer. The bottle is already on the table and he sets the table, picks up the wine, peels the foil, turns the corkscrew. It is a low-tech, manual thing, a basic T of steel screw, wooden handle. Ivan gets the cork out easily, with a smooth twist of the wrist, and pours.

When she brings the pan over, he steps aside for her. He adds two glasses of wine to the place settings, and then he draws out a chair for her. Slides it in. The last of the twilight glows through the windows. Absurdly, he wants to light candles.

"I like it here," he confesses. "Away from the big cities. Near the sea. With you. And with Anton. And even with Miron and Dmitri and the rest of that gaggle."

He asks for forgiveness, sort of. She seems to ignore him entirely. As he goes to get the chilled wine to serve with their dinner, he'll see a copy of Charlotte's Web, in English, clearly well-used before she ever bought it. It's just laying out. She leaves books out now. How odd.

Carrying the pan, Hilary begins plating paella and lobster tail for each of them, shaking her head at the place settings, though. "Let's eat outside," she mentions. Doesn't know he wants candles. Perhaps he will have to: there is only the moon outside now, and stars, and the little light on the wall outside her cottage.

He says he likes it, and she is handing him a plate with lobster, paella, lemon wedge. What he says he likes

actually makes her smile. A small, dreamy sort of thing. He includes Anton and she feels warmth, and love, and gratitude.

"I like it, too," she says softly. "I like it very much here. I... have never liked being anywhere the way I like it here."

So they move outside. He brings the wine, the glasses, the silverware, the napkins. While she's plating the paella, he goes back inside, and yes: he finds a candle. Just a single taper candle, perhaps tucked in the side of some drawer or other, which he affixes to a holder and brings outside.

The table out here is a little smaller, but still room enough for their plates and their wine. He is lighting the candle as she comes out with the plates. He stands, like a gentleman, taking the plates and setting them down before helping her with her seat.

They confess little things to each other. She smiles. He thinks she looks beautiful; but then he always thinks that. He could say something hopelessly romantic now, about loving anyone the way he loves her, but he bites it back. He does not, in this moment, want to be mocked for his adoration.

So instead he lifts his wineglass. "Good," he says, and means it. "To our having found a home, then."

Possibly for the best. She, who is so starved for love, sometimes gets nauseated if she has too much too quickly. But this, she can handle: he came here, and is having dinner with her. Treating her like a lady, which he sometimes forgets to do but is being better about these days. The candlelight makes him golden; it burnishes her, warms her somehow. She is relaxed, dressed simply and casually. She is hungry, too, and she has not made paella in a long, long time. She looks forward to it.

Her fingertips lift her wineglass. She smirks at him and taps her glass to his. "To home," she agrees, however shortened, and sips.

Ivan

The -- hug? -- takes him by surprise. He is reminded immediately and startlingly of Anton and his odd little goodnights, the way he leans sometimes against Ivan's leg or arm or chest, never quite putting his arms around his sire. She is there and gone so quickly he hasn't time to respond. Has only started to lift his hand to touch her, or embrace her, or hold her when she's gone.

She flees down the stairs, swift as a phantom out of some old tale. He doesn't worry that she'll fall. She's too graceful by half, even drunk. A moment later he hears the elevator open, then shut, then rattle its way back down.

Left alone, bemused, Ivan looks at the wreckage. A hundred fifty euros. Golden bangles on the floor. He sighs; he picks her jewelry up one by one, carefully, and sets them on the nightstand. He'll bring them to her later, after he's showered.

He picks the money up too. And he leaves it on the nightstand. A tip for the maids.

--

Ivan showers quickly. He is going home, and he is likely going to get in bed and sleep there soon after, and so it is ridiculous, but: he brushes his teeth. He shaves. He puts on aftershave. He dresses, and not in shorts. By the time he takes the elevator down, half an hour has elapsed. Hilary is likely already at the villa.

He follows her in his own car. It is a classic Alfa Romeo, because he thought that would be appropriate for the French Riviera. He sort of hates it, though; it underperforms and on cooler mornings it leaks smog. He'll switch soon, get something new and flashy and fine-tuned that Hilary will hate.

Still. Top down and night air all the way down the winding seaside road: it's nice. It feels right.

--

It's quite late when Ivan pulls up to the cobblestoned roundabout, and the house is almost totally dark. Anton has been asleep for hours at this point. It is not out of consideration for sleeping parties that Ivan is quiet, though. It's only instinct. He leaves the car where it is, the keys in the ignition; someone will park it in the garage when they notice. The front door is not locked, or if it is he unlocks it at a touch, thoughtlessly. He rarely bothers with keys these days.

The foyer opens again to the atrium. It is all very airy and warm. Ivan goes toward his son's wing, stands at the bottom of the stairs and looks up. Listens. Inhales. He doesn't go up. He crosses, and he goes up the other side instead. This is his wing, and his mate's. The servants live downstairs.

Perhaps there is still a light on. He follows it, if there is. And he takes the bangles out of his pocket as he goes. They clink in his hand.

Perhaps she learned from Anton. Perhaps it comes naturally to her, or her bloodline. Sometimes Hilary, at least, puts her arms around people she loves. Like Ivan. Like Anton. When she isn't afraid of rejection. When she isn't repulsed by contact, by intimacy.

She darts away, runs for the hills, clanking open the elevator and putting on her shoes only when she gets to the lobby. Carlisle is waiting for her there, to open the cage. He of course does not comment on her wet hair, her robe, her assumed nudity beneath it. He doesn't comment on anything. He simply escorts her to the waiting towncar, opens the door, helps her in, and then returns to his post. He drives her home.

--

At the villa, Carlisle escorts Hilary out of the vehicle, waits for her to go to the villa itself and go inside, and then he goes back to the towncar. Drives back to his apartment. He'll wash the car in the morning. It's gotten late now, and he wants a beer.

--

Hilary does not lock the door; no one is around out here. No one ever is. And she doesn't think about it. She walks inside, her heels clicking, and goes up to her suite. She sets her purse down in the little sitting room, on a long, low dresser. There is a spot for it there. She steps out of her heels and leaves them there; one tips over. She goes into the next room, her bedroom, and passes through to her dressing room. There she sits at her vanity table, removing her earrings and setting them on a velvet tray. She unwinds her hair, dropping the pins on the vanity's surface. Her hair shakes out, still damp and ropey, lost in loose waves.

Standing again, she lets her robe unwind and fall, draped over the bench. Naked now, she turns to a tall, narrow chest and opens one of the slender drawers. She considers, then withdraws a short satin nightgown, soft lace at the edges. She lifts it up by the thin straps with delicate fingers, looks it over, and then removes it completely from the drawer, shutting the chest again. She draws the slip on over her head, lets it shimmer down her body, and then turns out the single light in her dressing room, returning to her bedroom.

The covers are turned down, of course. She climbs onto her bed and slides under the covers, and just about then:

she hears a soft clinking sound.

There is a light on after all. Just one, in Hilary's dressing room. Ivan follows the glow. Up the stairs, feet silent, bangles clinking. He takes the interior hall tonight, and not the long balcony that runs along the atrium. He suspect that was the path his lover took. She does like her hidden places.

In the little anteroom, he finds her heels. One has tipped over. And just as he'd picked up her jewelry, he picks up her shoes. Feels a little like some fairytale prince, actually, as he sets them aside on top of the dresser. He would never think to pick up after himself. Or Anton. He does it for Hilary without thought.

The bedroom door's handle turns. Then the door opens. Then Ivan lets himself in. He dressed for her. His slacks are pressed and his shirt is even tucked, tonight. She is already under the covers. This is their bedroom, in their shared house. Tonight, it feels like it is hers. He looks at her for a moment. Then he steps in, shuts the door. Smiles a little.

"When did you get that nightgown?" He doesn't remember having seen it. "It looks good on you."

He comes nearer. Bends to place her bangles on her nightstand: like an offering.

The door to her suite opens and closes. There is shuffling. Hilary isn't afraid. She did take the atrium balcony; she likes it. She likes that it faces Anton's rooms. She likes the elegance of the mezzanine. She doesn't know which door Ivan entered through, though; she just hears him, barely, and wonders what he's doing in there. Later a maid will find shoes on top of a dresser and be baffled.

She is laying in bed, not quite propped up on her pillows, her upper half exposed but nothing else. She sees he is not in shorts and some unbuttoned shirt. He looks sharp. Clean. Modern. In a way, this will always be more her room than his: he never stays here for very long. Days on end, but not weeks. Not months. He doesn't live in a house with a child.

Still: it's his bedroom, too. As if they were married, mated, real, official. There is a nightstand that is clearly meant for the bride and the other for the groom: one has a tray for incidentals lined with mother-of-pearl. One has a small, hand-carved watch stand of dark cherry wood. There is a dressing room for Hilary with her closet and lingerie and vanity; there is a dressing room for the husband she does not have, filled with pressed slacks and fine shirts and shined shoes. The bathroom has two sinks, and one of them is accompanied by shaving accoutrement, the other with moisturizers, powders. The bed is too enormous for one person, even a selfish person like Hilary. There is a spot in the sitting room where one can sit in a leather wingback, drinking a glass of scotch and staring out a window. Hilary never uses that spot. Ivan doesn't really, either. But it's there, to indicate masculinity. To imply that the woman who really lives here has a mate overseeing her, protecting her, claiming her.

All of these are signals and flags that are supposed to mean something socially, but neither of them is terribly social on any intimate level. No close friends who might have occasion to really tour their homes. But Hilary has them anyway; Ivan had them decorate according to the notion that this was his home, his and Hilary's. Even if only one of them spends the majority of their time here.

--

Hilary glances down at her breasts, covered by curving triangles of satin and lace. She looks back up at him, as he walks nearer. "I have a lot of lingerie," she comments, like he should know this, though she seldom dresses up for his pleasure. Truth is, he probably has seen this nightgown before: it's the sort of thing she wears to bed when she wears anything at all, which means: when he has not fucked her. Which means: usually when he is not around.

He sets her bangles in the little tray on her nightstand where things are supposed to go when she is in bed and cannot put them away. That would require getting up, after all.

She looks him over: all dressed, pressed, ready to go out. Looks up at him again. "Are you staying?"

In the dark, it's hard to see how her hand is clutched tightly around the bedspread.

Ivan aches a little. He doesn't straighten after setting her bangles down: gold and gold and gold. Even the silvery one is gold. She wouldn't wear silver. He doesn't imagine it's for his benefit; he assumes it's because she was taught not to, and taught so young it became second nature.

He sits. His weight depresses the edge of the bed. He reaches for her hand, covers it where it clutches the bedspread. "Of course," he says quietly.

He thought of fucking her again when he saw her. Of course he did. He thought of it, but the thought was not allowed to rule him. He has set it aside. There is something else on his mind now, churning there, making him frown at the bangles on the nightstand. Perhaps she can even tell, quiet as he is. Or perhaps not.

"You were right." Quite suddenly, he broaches the subject on his mind. "Earlier, when I was upset, I should have told you. I should not have attacked you. It was inconsiderate of me, and counterproductive.

"Forgive me."

She almost worms her hand away, but doesn't. He covers it, and she forces herself to relax her grip.

He apologizes. Tenderly, in the dark, in their shared bedroom, in their shared house, where their son sleeps down the hall.

These things give her memories that haunt and horrify: what will become of them? What if it is familiar?

Hilary breathes in slowly, and exhales. And does something strange:

"I'm sorry that I... put... money. On you."

Strange. And awkward.

He huffs -- it is a laugh, but he has the decency, or at least the cunning, to stifle it.

"Well. I quite literally asked for it, didn't I?"

A pause. Then, quieter, "I would like it if you would tell me, sometimes, what it is you want as well. Like tonight. When you were leaving. I didn't know you wanted me to come home to you. It might have been easier, if I had."

"Oh."

Says that again. And a moment after, her brow wrinkles. She looks troubled.

"This is difficult for you," he ventures.

Hilary looks at him from under her beetled brow, suspicious at first, and then nods. Then stops. Then shakes her head.

"I don't like doing that," she says, trying to sound firm, but with a trace of doubt in her tone. A hint of waver.

[EMPAFEE: WAT IS DAT DOWT]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

[She doesn't like saying what she wants! And she is suspecting that Ivan is not going to let her get away with that/that maybe this is unfair. LOL]

"I know," Ivan says. And he does. God, he does know: all those times she whispered something to him, secretly, like she hoped she could forget afterward that she'd said anything at all. "And for the most part, you needn't. I almost always know.

"But sometimes I don't. And then, you must tell me."

She still looks troubled. Absorbs it like she's being scolded, like this is a punishment she simply has to suck it up and deal with. She sighs after a little while.

"I thought... if you wanted to come home, you simply would. And I wouldn't have to say it. And then I thought you didn't want to be around me, because you were unhappy with me."

"I did think about leaving for a while," he admits. "Storming off like a petulant child. But even if I had, I would have come back. And anyway; I didn't leave. I'm here. I'm staying."

"I know," she says, hesitant and yet defensive all the same. "But that is why I didn't say anything."

Ivan thinks on this a moment. "I understand," he says. "I think I do. You don't want to tell me what you want in case it's not what I want. Is that it?"

Her face shows woundedness, fear. She looks uncomfortable. "Yes," she says, but that isn't the whole truth of it. "Or if it's bad," she whispers.

If she's not supposed to want something. If it will be one of those things she is supposed to know, beforehand, isn't okay to ask for.

This makes him sigh a little, but not in exasperation. It's something closer to tenderness. He moves onto the bed in proper: swings his legs up on the mattress, puts his back to the headboard. He is closer to her now, where she can lean against him if she wanted.

"If I don't want to do something, I won't. And if you want something that's truly so bad that I can't do it, I won't. And neither will end the world, devushka. Do you see that?"

"But you won't love me," she argues.

And this is what she says when he tries to convince her the world won't end.

This is what she says when he tells her he simply won't do something if he doesn't want to, or if it's bad.

It isn't about what he does or doesn't do. What he feels he has to do or doesn't feel he has to do.

And she argues it with such annoyance, because he keeps saying he understands, and he clearly does not. It's about the asking. It's about how he will see her when she asks for something he doesn't want. Or something that is bad. And she sounds so irritated with him when she tells him her argument, not even close to cuddling up against him, that one could be forgiven for --

but no. There isn't any way she could say those words that would be easier to hear. Less gutting.

Ivan is truly, thoroughly taken aback. He can say nothing for a moment. There are no words.

Finally, he finds a few:

"That's simply ... not possible. For me to not love you. It is not possible."

He is too stupid.

She tries to explain to him: "But you won't like me anymore," she insists, or rephrases, trying to get him to grasp what she's talking about, because he is very young, and dumb. He will think differently of her. He will be disgusted by her. He will be ashamed to have fucked her, to have had a child with her, to have ever associated with her. Been tainted by her.

He is so stupid.

Another pause; this one different. It's not that he's flabbergasted, knocked speechless all over again. He's thinking this time. They are sitting side by side, but not shoulder to shoulder. She is stiff; angry. Beneath that,

frightened. He thinks she's frightened, anyway. He thinks -- painfully -- that on some level Hilary must always be frightened. She must always be wounded. Why else would she lash out so quickly, so icily?

His hand turns over on his lap. He holds it out to hers, but it is a small, subtle gesture. That is self-protective, see. It will not hurt as much if she does not take it.

"I know you, Hilary," he says, softly. "I know you're ... not right, as you say. I know there are dark things in you, depths that are better left untouched. I know that sometimes you must think things that would terrify most people. I am not naive. I am not ignorant. I've seen some little part of it, and I know what I haven't seen dwarfs what I have.

"I love you anyway. I don't love you blindly, and I don't love some idealized version of you. I love you. And nothing you show me could change that, nor make me think unkindly of you.

"Not you, anyway. There is a difference between not liking something you say, or do, or think -- and not liking you."

Strange how calm she feels. When she's annoyed, when she's irritated. When it hasn't quite become depthless rage or overpowering hurt. When she can just calmly tell her lover how things work, how reality functions, when he's too obtuse to really get it on his own. She can feel relaxed like this, separated from the actual emotions she feels.

Like depthless rage.

Like overpowering hurt.

Like helpless, terrifying love.

--

At first she does not notice his hand. It's dark in her room, you see, with just some moonlight through the gauzy curtains. There are no streetlights outside, no other buildings nearby that gleam in the night to disturb their slumber. But she does look down while he is talking, flinching away from what he says. It hurts to be seen. It hurts for him to relay back to her what she has said: that she is not right, and he knows it. It sickens and scares her for him to remind her that she has told him a few things about growing up, about her story, about the things she thinks about. It makes her physically nauseated to think that he knows it's all much worse than that, it goes deeper than that, he knows she's worse.

She tightens up a little, chin low, eyes ducked down, arms close to her body, and that is when she sees his hand, turned and offering. She doesn't want to take it. She doesn't think that this will hurt him, she doesn't think he will feel rejected because what she feels is so much worse than rejection. It's just that she can't... do things like that. Hold hands and talk about their problems. She can't stand it, it seems so normal, and she knows she's not. She knows she doesn't deserve to feel things like normalcy, like calm, like acceptance. She doesn't take his hand. She can't.

What she does, as he goes on telling her he loves her in spite of how rotten her core is and how there is a difference between not liking something she says and not liking her, a difference that Hilary cannot see like other people might be able to,

is sink down farther under her covers, sliding down the bed, as if to hide. She tucks herself in, and lays herself down, and puts her forehead against the outside of his leg, right beside his hand. Almost under it.

He sighs again; this time it is ache, and it is a small measure of defeat. Foolish of him to think he could fix her with a few words. Foolish of him to think he could convince her, clear away the cobwebs of her intrinsic nature, in just one conversation.

Foolish of him to think he can make her mind well again. How could he possibly? He can't even fix himself.

But:

she tucks herself against him. And he recognizes this. She has done this before, or something like it. And at least here, he knows what to do.

Ivan lays his hand over her head. He strokes her hair gently, softly. And, at least for the moment, he stops talking.

She sighs, too. When he strokes her damp hair, touches her cool forehead, cups her crown in his palm. Exhales softly, closing her eyes, soothed. She can't hold his hand while he tells her such things, but she can do this. She can accept this, tolerate it, understand it. It is intimate but requires nothing of her but that acceptance. She doesn't have to pretend to be normal.

This is, of course, what she means when she says she thinks he would understand: that he, and he alone, does not expect her to act like a sane person. Like the kinswoman she was supposed to be, if everything hadn't happened. Like she's a good mother, a good mate. He doesn't think she has to smile that smile and wear those shoes and be sweet all the time and pretend she likes getting fucked normally.

Ivan thinks she is rejecting his words when she tightens up like that, flinches away, hides herself under covers and under his hand. Thinks she is refusing them, ignoring them perhaps, pretending he isn't saying such stupid things.

She does hear him, though. And it hurts terribly, but it helps when he tells her that she isn't right, and he knows, and he loves her anyway. She doesn't really comprehend this, or understand what it means. She can't frame it in her own experience: that Anton screams and bites and made her fat and then went away from her and sometimes throws things and sometimes cries even though she isn't really being mean to him, and she loves him anyway. None of it matters very much, when it comes to her loving him. She won't stop loving him because he says something she doesn't like. She won't stop loving him because he likes something she is scared of.

What Ivan says to her sounds so false, and Hilary cannot -- on her own -- translate it in the reverse, though the reverse makes perfect sense to her. She despises Ivan. She thinks he is an idiot. She hates his flashy cars and his lazy fashion and his inability to mince an onion without wasting half of it. She thinks he is a liar, through and through. She thinks all sorts of unkind things about him. She thinks about cutting open his body and tucking herself into it and hiding away there forever, but there's simply a glitch in her brain that sometimes cannot phrase this as the metaphor it is meant to be: that she conceals herself in his heart, and this keeps her safe, and that she is so grateful to have met him, and to have him, and to be loved by him. She cannot take what he says to her and know that it's true, even though she knows that nothing he has ever done or said to her, no matter how upsetting, has made him any less necessary to her. Any less needed.

Wanted.

Loved.

After all: Ivan is not like Hilary. What he feels cannot be related to how she feels. She knows that. She knows she's not... right.

--

Her breathing steadies. She isn't asleep but she will go that direction soon enough. She even yawns. He hasn't asked her about earlier. About the why or how or will she want that again or what spurred it or maybe even why she hates it so much yet seemed to need it so badly tonight. Maybe he will. Hilary isn't thinking about it right now. Isn't worrying or anticipating. She just lets him stroke her brow and her hair, and lets it soothe her, and accepts that it is okay for her to be soothed right now.

Ivan

Ivan doesn't ask. He doesn't speak of it. Perhaps, for once, he has decided to leave things be. They just talked about it, after all. Why she doesn't ask him for ... more. Things, acts, words, whatever it is she might ask for. Why she doesn't want to.

Though: he thinks of that. And he thinks to himself that someday, one day, he will have to broach the topic with her. Because otherwise she might it was bad, or wrong, or disgusting. Because otherwise she might think he thought that of her.

And he doesn't.

He wouldn't.

--

For now, though: silence. Just his deft fingers stroking gently over her hair. Gently, but not lightly: there is a firm pressure in it, in his fingers against her scalp, his palm over the dome of her skull. She is so beautiful that sometimes he forgets beneath the skin she is the same flesh and bone, the same messy entrails and snapping sinews as anyone. She is only human. She is only kin. She is only half-wolf, when it comes down to it; only his lover, his mate, the mother of his child, the love of his life.

After a while he stops stroking. His hand simply rests on her, warm, an unspoken reassurance.

Hilary could sleep like this. His hand stroking her, then simply covering her, protecting her. Ivan seems capable of soothing her when she is at her most rattled, though to be fair: Ivan is one of the only people capable of rattling her. Most of the time she cares so little about what is going on around her that she invests nothing, remains unabatingly calm.

He soothes her now, and she feels safe again. Protected. He might be surprised to learn one day that he can make her feel this way -- she who is so, so far removed from feelings like safety, contentment, calm. But sometimes he does that for her, gives that to her. Often, in fact. It is so profound a difference from her usual terror that Hilary cannot understand how he could love her and need her the way she loves and needs him. She gives him nothing like this. Nothing so valuable. Nothing so vital.

She closes her eyes and she rests, but she does not sleep. She breathes steadily, lying under the covers while he lies atop them. And as she rests there, her arm moves. She stirs a little, and then: she wraps her arm around him. Covers his lap -- more like his knees, almost -- with her arm, covering him. She does not think she is protecting him from anything. She simply holds him. Without being told to or asked to. Without him ordering her to put her arms around him.

Just holds him.

It is vanishingly rare for her to do such things, and quietly, profoundly, Ivan is moved. He says nothing. He is afraid a word would disperse the moment. He simply touches her head and strokes her hair, much as he has been. And after a while, gently as one might reach out to a wounded wild thing, he covers her hand, too.

Some time goes by. Perhaps enough that she thinks he has fallen asleep. Perhaps enough that she nearly does fall asleep. But then he speaks, very softly.

"I wish I could ... dispel everything that frightens or hurts you."

There should be more, but he cannot find the words. He could barely find what little he did say. And now that he has spoken, he falls quiet again; uncertain.

She breathes in when he covers her hand. Not quickly, not a breath of sharp startlement, but slowly, inhaling, as though she feels something like... satisfaction. She didn't think she was waiting on anything from him. Still: she is glad when he touches her hand. When he acknowledges that she has done this big, brave thing. Showing him that she cares for him is so much for her, after all.

When he speaks, she is not asleep. He murmurs something from a fantasy story. He makes a wish into the darkness, as if there were angels or other magic creatures listening, waiting to grant him whatever he desires. Everyone knows that magical creatures don't exist, though; just monsters. Vampires and werewolves, for example. No fairies or unicorns or leprechauns.

Hilary does not answer him. There is nothing she can say. He cannot unravel time and take away the origins of her most profound nightmares. He can't undo it, and he -- comparatively -- is so small. These memories loom large and shadowy in the recesses of her mind. They are dragons breathing curls of smoke in the dark, terrifying when heard and murderous on the rare occasions when they reveal themselves. Ivan is no warrior of his people, and if he were, he would just die at the feet of those dragons like all the rest. His bones would litter the entrance to the cavern, a warning to the others to come. And when Hilary thinks to herself that he is not strong enough to conquer her fears, it is not a cruel thing, not a hint of her general disdain for everyone. It is just the truth: no one is strong enough. Her fears are her gods. Her fears are her devils. They rule the heavens and earth below. All she can do is survive in their shadow.

Her thumb moves on the outside of his leg, though. Strokes him through his slacks, which he put on for her, because he so rarely dresses for her. And while she never misses a chance to scoff at him for his shabby appearance, she certainly never thanks him when he makes an effort.

Doesn't now, either. Just makes that little gesture, as though to tell him that she heard him, and she knows he'll never get his wish, and... as much as it can be, for them, it is all right.

--

She does fall asleep, for a while. She's safe, and she's still drunk, and she's warm, and Ivan is with her. She falls asleep without deciding to, and in fact without really wanting to, but it happens. And she is mostly unaware when Ivan slips from beneath her encircling arm, undresses, and then climbs in under the covers. The satin she's wearing is warmed from her flesh and transmutes that warmth to his skin; it feels like nothing at all, in a way. And it feels so different from skin that it is intoxicating, too.

But she stirs when he settles beside her, putting his arm around her or coming close enough to her that she can feel him. She breathes in again, very deeply, and her eyes flutter open. She looks at him in the dark, across one pillow to the other. And is silent at first. And then, tentatively -- though not hesitatingly -- she puts her hand on his chest, the duvet over them rustling, the sheets too fine to make a whisper. She waits to see if he lets her touch him. And then, if he does, her hand slowly strokes down his side, her fingertips feather-light at first. Her touch only gains warmth and solidity when she gets to his hip. His abdomen. Then her palm is flat against him, following the shape of his body, her manicured fingernails lightly but deftly lifting the elastic of his shorts to permit her hand to slide into them.

It is enough. Her hand moving ever so slightly; that small, gentle acknowledgment. It will have to be enough; there is nothing else. What could she possibly say? What could he? He was foolish to wish it at all -- but then, in the end, Ivan for all his cynicism can be such a fool. When it comes to Hilary. When it comes to what he wants for her, wishes for her, dreams for her. Just look at how he's tried to protect her from the tribe, the world, all of it. Everything that he can possibly protect her from, which ultimately is dwarfed by all that he could never protect her from.

Her fears rule the heavens and the earth. All she can do is survive in their shadow. All he can do is try -- as much as he can, as much as his own neuroses will allow -- to stay by her.

--

She falls asleep, after a while. And he is touched, and he is endeared. He slips away from her very carefully, so that she does not wake. He can do this. He is a no-moon. He is born to do this.

He undresses, and washes a little though he hardly needs to after having showered and shaved and dressed anew barely an hour and a half ago. Moving through their suite, he turns out the lights. The windows he leaves open -- moonlight washing in, the sound of the ocean hushing in the background.

When he climbs into bed she wakes. He is facing her, and then she turns to face him. There is only a little room between them. She reaches across. He looks at her hand, delicate as a bird or a flower. It touches him. He lets her, of course he does: his chest rises against her palm as he inhales. Her hand traces his body, the lean and toned flesh, the intimation of supple, subtle musculature. She finds no elastic, no shorts. He isn't wearing a thing.

When she touches him his eyes change a little; soften or darken. He reaches for her, then. He finds the hem of her nightwear and he tugs it up, just a little, just far enough that he can touch her hip and feel for her panties. Push them down.

Ivan finds the same thing Hilary did in her careful discovery: she is wearing that slip of a nightgown. She is not wearing anything else. Her skin is bare under the satin. The lace edge hovers atop his wrist. Hilary is aware that he's touching her, but her focus is elsewhere. Earlier, he took her hand and guided it to his cock. She rejected him, and he took it in stride, as he is so wont to due with her strange whims.

But Hilary has not forgotten that she did not do what he wanted her to do. She hasn't forgotten that he was angry, and hurt, and that he asked her to acknowledge -- to admit, really -- that she knows he has a heart to wound. To act like she knows it. To act like it matters to her. Nor has she forgotten that she gave him nothing tonight: that she had her craving, that disgusting indulgence she asked him for and drank herself blind to tolerate, and he gave her what she needed. But in her attempt to go on and pretend like it had never happened, she wounded him. She left him naked, her taste on his tongue, and Hilary is not stupid: she has been forced to lie back and take it enough times to know that Ivan likes it. That it turns him on, and it isn't just the domination of her will that makes him hard when he's licking her.

She says it often enough, but it is true: Hilary is not stupid. She is not truly oblivious.

Her hand slides over his cock, purposeful and -- frankly -- knowledgeable. She knows what he likes. She's hardly some untouched virgin. He does whatever he is going to do, but for her part, Hilary -- staring at him still from her pillow, her lips faintly parted -- starts getting him hard.

From the first time they fucked she knew how to arouse him. After their time together, perhaps she's even learned -- has bothered to learn -- his quirks, his idiosyncrasies, all the little details lovers learn about one another's bodies.

So it doesn't take her long. She strokes him, and his eyes hood; his breathing changes. He closes his eyes for a moment. He opens them. He touches her face, strokes her lower lip.

"I liked that tonight," he whispers. "What I did for you. What you asked me to do. Do you know that?"

A ridge that, when licked with just the tip of her tongue, will make him shiver. A spot too easy to tickle. A place to bite when she wants him to grab her and pin her down and fuck her harder. A place to bite when she wants him to simply gasp. But Hilary often doesn't think through these things she knows. She does them thoughtlessly, incoherent as any other part of her. She mostly just wants him to fuck her, and use her, and redeem her in this way. She wants him to destroy her so that she can exist for a few short minutes at a time as nothing but herself, accepted for what she is, and believe in that acceptance.

But yes: she knows how to please him. She even knows that some of the things she never lets him do, never wants to do, please him a great deal. Yet she doesn't do them.

Ivan's cock grows heavier in her hand, firmer, rising away from his body. She strokes him more firmly, more fully, doesn't stop even when he touches her face. He tells her he liked it. He doesn't say what it is, which is for the best: Hilary can barely stand to think of it. There's a slight flinch in her eyes when he brings it up. He just tells her: he liked it. And her gaze flinches, and he knows that the thought makes her uncomfortable, but she isn't stopping.

She nods. She leans forward, slowing her strokes while tightening her grip ever so slightly, and she kisses his mouth, deeply. Passionately, even; but Hilary has never really been dispassionate. That's only ever a mask. The kiss goes on for a while, wet and hot, but when she pauses to let him breathe she does answer him:

"I know. I know you like that."

It's almost soft. Like he's confessing something awful to her. And for once, she can accept him for his wretched inclinations, and not the other way around.

Hilary is leaning against him, but this is when it starts to become clear that she's not just intending to jerk him off against her thighs, make him come under the covers and stain her pretty nightgown. She kisses him again, and doing so, starts to ease him onto his back. Starts to -- if he lets her -- climb on top of him, the edge of her slip rucked up over her bare hips.

That, too, is enough. Another small acknowledgment, which may be all that she can bear. It satisfies him. He kisses her this time, as deeply and as passionately, his hands coming up to cup her face.

He would have rolled her onto her back in another moment, but she does it first. And this is almost as new and almost as unexpected as what she did earlier -- but perhaps Ivan is only capable of being truly surprised once a night. He doesn't stare. He doesn't startle, or resist. He rolls onto his back, and his hands clasp her waist, pull her slip up a little further while she slides a leg over him. While she climbs over him he pulls that intimate, luxurious scrap of lingerie up; pulls it over her head, up her arms. It billows out as he tosses it aside, lands on the thick rug that cushions their bed.

His hands hold her by the hips, suggesting without quite guiding. He closes his eyes when she guides him into her; exhales a short, caught breath through his nostrils as she sinks down. When she starts moving, he bites his lip. His eyes glitter when they open again. He cups her head, brings her close, kisses her hungrily while she rides him.

She lets him. Take off her lingerie; she even removes her hand from his cock for a moment so he can raise the scrap of satin and lace off of her body, throw it aside. But her hand returns after a moment, because she is going to fuck him now, see. She is going to guide him into her and take him in a way she never does, has hated to do since the beginning, only does when he makes her. When it's important that she make him happy. But he's not asking for it now. He's not making her do it. Still: she takes him, sliding down slowly onto his body. Rocks slightly, working his cock into her cunt more deeply until she is resting against his body.

Hilary is still for a moment, watching his face, watching him adjust, watching him live inside of her. And then, slowly, she starts to move again. Rocks at first, as before; then here and there, circles her hips atop him. His eyes open. He reaches for her, pulls her closer, kissing her, eating at her mouth with only a little more gentleness than he ate out her pussy earlier tonight. Hilary gasps, letting him. Works him inside of her, doing her very best to fuck him well.

There's a rawness to the kiss. His grasp is rough. He nips her lower lip; holds it delicately and dangerously between his teeth for a second. Two.

Releases on a gasp, because she's riding him. Her very best is very fucking good. And beyond that: it's a rare and exquisite pleasure, see, to be able to lie back. Close his eyes. Enjoy it. Enjoy her body, her cunt, her loving; enjoy it without wariness, without vigilance, without a constant awareness of unspoken lines and unseen borders, things he must not do -- for both their sakes.

To trust her, for once. To know she will not hurt herself in pursuit of her own darker tastes, for once. To know she's doing this ... for him? It's a hairpin turn his mind can't quite navigate, and it leads places that would trouble him if he let it. If he thinks too much he'll wonder if she wants it; if he's taking advantage somehow; if, if, if. Perhaps it makes him selfish, or a bad person, but he chooses not to think on it right now. He chooses not to stop, wait, ask, clarify. He chooses -- terrifyingly --

to trust her. For once.

In the moonlight, her skin is ivory here, silver there. It turns her nipples a soft, dovelike grey, and he can see that they're hardened, perked, even though watching her breasts is more challenging when she starts to ride him faster. He can watch them bounce slightly. He can watch the muscles in her torso flex, coil, unfurl. When her breathing hitches he can see it in the subtle tremor beneath the skin of her belly.

Occasionally he looks at her and sees her face. Her beautiful, refined face. Her dark eyes, one of the few things that is always black, even in the light. Her hair looks so dark right now, too, framing that porcelain-colored face. He can see how it is drying in the soft waves he favors on her. He can see how she watches him, intently, with an almost unsettling focus.

As though Hilary's focus could ever be anything but.

For once, she's fucking him. He is getting fucked, enjoying getting fucked, and he doesn't have to worry and pay such close attention to make sure he is doing all the things she needs right then and none of the things that will upset her always delicate balance between nonexistence and shrieking insanity. There's just Hilary, who is beautiful in such a way that sets his skin on fire, who smells of all the things it is in his blood to adore and protect, who is miraculously unscarred despite all he has done to her -- despite all that this life of hers has done to her. Just Hilary, with her high breasts and lean hips and her perfect fingernails digging into his chest, ever so slightly, as she grinds down on his cock.

That isn't to say she's insensate. That her focus removes her from this. She is watching him closely, yes, but he knows she loves it when he fucks her. He knows because she does everything she can to make him do it often, to do it harder every time. He knows because she's screamed it sometimes for him, said his name and worshipped his cock on command, and her outcries have been so lusty and eager that it would be hard to sneak a lie through their earnest pleasure. But he's not forcing her now, or tying her up, or slapping her to make her go faster. And in fact he doesn't have to: Hilary knows at what point he wants her to go faster. When he wants her to really fuck him, when he's close.

And when she does, when he is, Ivan can also hear her gasping, her panting, the little noises she so rarely makes because usually they're much louder, riding the edge of screams. These noises are softer, and more plaintive, yet no less needful. He is not wrong: this is for him. She's doing this for him. She's trying to please him, and give him exactly what he likes, in a special way he rarely gets, it's a treat, it's something else deeper and more important to her than that too, but

she likes it. She likes to fuck, period. And she likes fucking him. And the closer he gets the harder it is to focus on, but she's there with him, and now she's riding him with these quick, frantic bounces, and her little noises have a bit of a needy, whimpering undercurrent to them. It's so rarely like this it's almost unrecognizable, if he didn't know her so well. If he couldn't feel, on a level deeper than the sounds she's making or how fast she's fucking him, that she's going to come soon, too.

Very soon.

She looks like ivory and silver. She looks like marble, porcelain, something fine and cold and untouchable. She plays that role so well: remote and untouchable, a beautiful face glimpsed in a passing limousine. A beautiful face behind huge sunglasses. A beautiful face under a wide-brimmed, old-fashioned hat.

She's not untouchable, though. She's not cold, and she's not insensate, and she's not removed from the world. Not always, anyway. Not when he pulls her back, pins her to the moment, carves her open and shows her: look. She's alive. This is her life, which was made for living. This is her body, which was made for loving. These are her hands, which were made to touch and caress and cut and grip; this is her mouth, these are her eyes. This is what he does for her, and it breaks her sometimes, and she loves him for it. This is what he's done for her over and over and over, until now,

sometimes,

very rarely,

she doesn't even need him to do it anymore. The connection sputters; it is imperfect. But sometimes she can make it. All by herself.

So: she fucks him. She works at it. She sweats; she gasps. She feels it, because it is her body, and she lives in it. And she can tell he's close when he stops watching her face, her body, her cunt, her thighs. She can tell when he grips her waist, when he drops his head back, when there's strain on his face and tension in his body; when he fucks her back, matching her rhythm and then exceeding it, accelerating it. When he comes he arches off the bed; he pulls her down against his momentum; he grinds her on his body, shuddering.

Fuck, he exhales, when the crest of it passes. When he collapses back on the bed, when every passing aftershock of the orgasm makes his breath hitch, makes the deep musculature of his torso jump. It is a curse and an invocation, a naming, a praise. Oh, fuck.

Pulling her down, his hands stroke her body. She is long, narrow, lovely. He kisses her shoulder, wraps his arms around her. Her hair is drying into those waves he likes so much. He has strange and inexplicable tastes sometimes. Small preferences that make no sense.

Her life. Made for living.

And she would echo: for living with him. Her body for loving him, her hands for touching him, her mouth for his mouth, her eyes to see him. To see the way he looks at her and try, so very hard, to understand what he sees. How he sees what he sees. How he knows what she is, and understands her so well, and loves her anyway.

Hilary does not understand. She may never really understand, no matter how much she loves Anton, no matter how much she grows or changes or learns. She might never truly grasp it. Like everything else in her hands, it might break. It might fracture, the pieces floating along with the rest in the black abyss of her mind.

But sometimes even those pieces will glimmer at her, and she'll remember: she is, maybe, more than just darkness.

--

She sweats. She gasps, and she fucks him, and she likes it. He's going to come and she can feel it, but it is steadily, quickly being eclipsed by her own orgasm. She's so grateful when he starts to fuck her back; she's not sure she would be able to come if he didn't. She's not sure she would able to reach there if his hands weren't digging into her, if he weren't slamming his cock up into her the way he does, pulling her down to grind harder at her. But he does, and she groans in relief at the first onslaught of her orgasm. She digs her nails into his chest, crying out, riding him all the way through it. It doesn't hit her like a thunderclap as before, when he had her in his bed, when he did to her what she won't speak of. It comes on more slowly, which sort of hurts her, makes her scared, makes her hold onto him more tightly.

Objectively, it's a very good orgasm: the slow build, the sudden break where it tips into headlong pleasure, the endless waves of it. But she is too aware, too alert, and she is too unbroken in this moment. It frightens her how good it feels, it makes her wonder if she's about to die. She can't breathe. She can dimly hear him saying fuck, oh fuck while hers is still lingering, and she starts to fall over him, lays her body down on his chest, clinging to him as she squirms, working the last of her orgasm out with these helpless little circles of her hips.

He strokes her. Feels the sweat on her back. Kisses her as she starts coming down, whimpering and sounding for all the world like she's about to cry. She is shaking, though right now it's more from the orgasm itself. She trembles, too, on a purely msucular level, her inner thighs quivering.

--

It takes them both time to come down. It takes them both time to return to their bodies, re-inhabit their minds. Hilary does so with her eyes closed, clinging to Ivan's upper body to a point that is almost unbearable in terms of shared warmth. She steadies her breathing. She works at it. And after a while, when their sweat is cooling, and when she feels him sinking into pure post-coital relaxation, she whispers:

"Did I make you happy?" She knows she made him come. She is asking something different. She wants to know: did she make it better?

A little while before he answers. She can't mistake it for sleep; he's breathing too quick and deep, still. Perhaps she just thinks his mind is still fractured, too scattered for words. Perhaps she's right.

Eventually, though: "Yes." And it aches a little say that, just as it aches a little that she asks. He is quiet a little while longer, wrapping her up in his arms, squeezing her close.

"I wasn't unhappy for very long, devushka," he adds, softly. "You needn't worry about that."

He is cradling her. He is still buried inside of her body, his cock only gradually softening inside of her cunt, but he is also kissing her softly, holding her tight in his arms and against his chest.

These are the things he does for her when he's been shattered. When his mind is in pieces. If she needs him to.

--

He tells her she needn't worry, and she wrinkles her brow as she realizes she wasn't. She wasn't worried that he was still upset with her; he came, didn't he? He drove over here, dressed nicely, and he got into bed with her. He held her hand and he stroked her hair. She knew he wasn't still angry.

"I know," Hilary whispers, and those words almost never leave her lips in this sort of context. "But... I made you unhappy." The smallest pause, there. "I hurt you." A longer pause, though not by much: "I didn't want that."

She could tell him that she didn't mean to. That she felt bad for it. Still does, a little, though it fades in the glow of her orgasm, and his. She could tell him, perhaps most impotantly, that she's sorry that she hurt him. But she doesn't have to words. Not the right ones, not ones that feel genuine in her mind, not ones that sound meaningful to her. She won't say them if they're going to feel so false.

She does what she can manage. Even if it isn't very much.

Against odds, he does understand this time. He knows what she's trying to say. He knows it's not easy for her. He kisses her temple this time, his lips hot against her skin.

"I know, darling. It's all right now." He thinks a moment; wrestles, internally, on whether or not to say it. Does, in the end: "It's forgiven."

And against odds,

she believes him.

Hilary closes her eyes again, feeling his kiss. He tells her it's all right. Tells her he forgives her, in such a way that makes it sound forgotten, too. In such a way that minimizes the hurt she did, makes it no longer the sort of thing that would cause him to give up on loving her.

But she remembers that she made him angry and sad. That her emotions were not the only one in the room. That Ivan was there, and he was wounded by her treatment, and that she cared. Not simply because she fears losing him, or being abandoned again, or facing the emptiness she feels alone again. Just caring. Just because it's him.

And she does love him back. As best she can.

--

She breathes in deeply, exhaling slow. He feels the relaxation in her back. In her limbs. In that long, slow breath. He feels her shift on him. She is getting more comfortable. Unconsciously almost, like an animal.

Whispers to him, then.

Not a soft I'm sorry. He told her she is forgiven. Just:

"I love you, Ivan. I do."

There's something primordially comforting about that. His lover breathing deeply. His lover relaxing. His lover shifting to get more comfortable, settling for the night.

He takes a breath too. Deep, lifting his chest, lifting her with him. He turns a little; slipping out of her at last, kissing her again as though to make up for it.

"And I love you, Hilary," he murmurs. And perhaps she believes that, too.