Ivan Press

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.