Ivan Press

Hilary

The rain goeson through much of the night, its impact and submersion on the ocean creating a backdrop of rushing, splattering noise. That wall of sound rested just behind the more immediate pattering and dripping on the roof of Hilary's den. She lies awake listening to it for a long time after Ivan falls asleep beside her, his arm heavy over her chest, his hand wrapped around her opposite forearm even in sleep. It is dark inside, too dark from stormclouds to even let in moonlight, and four senses flood the absence left by the one that ismissing.

Awake, Hilary thinks of many things, all only loosely connected before they break apart completely. The feeling of his cum inside of her makes her think of sex, and pregnancy, and one of the greatest shifts she has ever experienced in her life: how quickly she moved from hatred, from revulsion, to something like a panic of love, a terrifying wave of emotion for the baby she had just had. She remembers thinking it would pass, if she waited, if her body returned to normal, if he was gone and she forgot him. She remembers that it didn't pass, and she remembers losing her mind when Ivan dared mention their baby aloud to her. She couldn't bear what she had done. All their careful plans, all her certainty that she would not love this thing: shattered. Nothing would ever be the same again. She would never be the same again.

She thinks strange, primordial thoughts about her den, the darkness, the storm, her mate sleeping beside her, her cub sleeping up the hill in his own dark den, under a different roof but asleep to the sound of the same rainstorm. She thinks about being pregnant again, but then her mind folds in on itself; she goes back to Anton. She wonders, sleepily, if she would just repeat the same experience over and over. She wonders if she would truly hate another child, if perhaps Anton is singular, if Ivan would hate yet another burden, another anchor, another confinement in the form of more children.

So she thinks then of how mad Ivan is. He must be very insane, if even she can love Anton the way she does and he can't. But even Hilary can't lie to herself very effectively in the dark. Ivan is closer to sanity than she is. That's why she trusts him. That's why it is hard for her to tell him when he is obviously, dangerously wrong: getting married would be a terrible idea. Even if he never hated her, never wanted to leave her, why would she ever take such a risk? He is the only thing keeping her sane. He is one of the only things keeping her from simply walking off the face of the earth. He gives her a reason to try and not let go completely. He is why she tries, very hard, to be a person. She would not survive it if he didn't love her anymore.

Her mind then turns, of course, to the swimming pool idea. She recoils at the very thought of it: the gauche, new-money, suburbanite essence of the desire. It's almost as strong as her terror at the thought of swimming in the ocean. She is not even comfortable putting her head completely under water yet. Holding her breath and putting her face into the water is the most she can stand, just yet. But strangely, at the thought of never swimming again, never finishing this project, never learning what she's set out to learn, she feels something almost like... guilt. Embarassment, perhaps. She's not sure. It doesn't feel good. Ivan wants her to learn. Ivan doesn't like the idea of her falling into the water somehow and being unable to keep herself alive. The childish part of her wants to insist that it would never happen, and someone would always save her, but

Hilary is not actually a child. And she is far from a moron.

Her eyes close in the darkness. Ivan's breath is more audible, by the smallest degree, than it was a moment before. She begins to breathe along with him. She never resolves any of her thoughts. She falls asleep.

--

It is morning, now. Instead of being cocooned in the sound of rain, the little cabin is flooded with sunlight. The windowsills still bear little puddles of rain, left open most of the night. The breeze has changed directions and now carries in the scent of the woods around them rather than the ocean. Ivan wakes in a rumpled, sun-warmed bed that still bears the lingering scent of fucking his mate the night before, bringing to him the memory of holding her in his teeth, going at her harder and harder until she cried out, until she screamed at the edge of pain, until he left her wrists reddened from the friction of holding her down. Past that, he smells a rich, bold French roast. If he focuses, he can smell that the beans were a bit stale. They must have been sitting in the little cabin the whole time they were gone.

Hilary is sitting at the little table near the kitchen, wearing a long silk robe. It is black, with a woven pattern of vivid, shimmering peacock feathers. Her hair is wet, draped over one shoulder in a loose, long braid. The kettle is off the stove, sitting on a trivet, its spout still steaming. The French press is on the table, filled with coffee. She has a white mug in front of her, taking her coffee black as -- he may realize -- he already knew was how she took it, when she drinks coffee, though that isn't often. She is looking out one of the windows. She is not looking at him. She is watching a small yellow-breasted bird singing not far from the window, curious and quiet.

It is in the small hours that Ivan is closest to his wolven nature. It is then that the polish and the gloss falls away, the wordplay and the quips. What is left behind is, in its essence, savage.

By moonlight, once, he looked out over the land of his ancestors. He did not think. He did not consider. He was simply filled with, and embodied, an ancient sense of claim and responsibility. His land. His mate. His cub.

Last night, he fell asleep quickly -- sated and satisfied, at peace in some intrinsic way because he was home on his land. With his mate. And with his cub. There were no thoughts then, either. His mind did not follow Hilary's down those twisting paths. There was only a deep, dark stillness, a primitive sense of belonging. He held his lover's breast in hand as he slept, her pulse beating against his wrist.

--

Morning, now, and the little cabin smells of coffee and woods and last night's rain. He wakes slowly, the way he does when nothing more than his own natural rhythms rouse him. His limbs unfurl into an endless stretch. Then the tension snaps, and he relaxes. Dozes a little longer.

Flips the covers back, quickly, when at last the impetus to rise from bed strikes. His feet thump the floor, which is a rarity. He sees Hilary at the little table as he passes from bedroom to bathroom, but she is not looking at him. He brushes his teeth, washes his face, towels off. On the way back he finds last night's shorts -- pure summer yacht club chic -- and steps into them otherwise bare. The sun adores him as he emerges; all that golden skin. He sweeps an arm around Hilary's shoulders from behind, kisses her shoulder the way he does when he can't easily kiss her mouth.

"I could buy you a book about birds," he offers. Emotional acuity might elude him, but when it comes to the finer physical details, he misses nothing. It is his livelihood, his very reason for being. He straightens, taking a mug out of the cupboards, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Drizzles in a little cream.

Her dark eyes glance over to him when he first wakes, making a small rustling ruckus with that stretch. She observes. He dozes again. She looks away. Again.

She is sipping her coffee, some time later, when he decides to get up. Gets up with an energy that is somehow singular to young men like him. The steam no longer coils from the spout of the kettle, and Hilary's coffee does not burn her tongue as she sips. This time she doesn't bother looking at him, but she hears the bathroom door, the water running.

There is a damp towel hanging on its bar beside the clawfooted tub, water droplets hanging from the showerhead that towers above it, a sheen of moisture clinging to the sheer curtain around it. All of it shimmers in the light from the window in the bathroom that faces the trees, looks into the depths of the forest that surrounds Hilary's house. Hilary's den.

Hard to tell that Ivan knows it, understands where he is, the way he strides around, acting like he owns the place. Which, technically, he does. The land, the den. And spiritually, he owns the woman inside of it, the creature who lives in this cottage in the woods. But less than technically, and more spiritually:

they both know that he understands. It's in the way he knocks. Once invited, he is her vladelets; her master, body and soul. But if she sends him away, he must go. If she does not welcome him in, he cannot stay. They both know this. And somehow, rather than adding tension between them, it is a comfort.

At least to her.

And god knows she is a creature who, deep down, needs much comforting.

--

He embraces her, kisses her, and she feigns annoyance. The bird outside, sensing a predator nearby, takes flight from its thin branch, leaving it swaying and rustling, leaves scattering dew and rain alike.

Ivan serves himself. He goes for cream in her fridge but finds it emptied of all but a few long-lasting items, the rest cleaned out by the maid who snuck in while they were away to tidy everything. Of course there's a moment of consternation: even having only returned last night, it would not be entirely beyond the pale for Ivan's people or even Hilary's people to have refreshed their groceries, set out fresh linens, all the rest.

And they did. In the main house.

The maids are afraid to buy groceries for Hilary without express instruction.

Very afraid.

--

So no cream to cloud his coffee. But coffee. No frittata. No croissants. Just Hilary, glancing at him as he mentions a book about birds.

"What sort of book about birds?" she asks, at a loss.

"There's no cream," he says, in a tone midway between bewilderment and annoyance. At least, it would be there, midway, except it is also midway between invested and uncaring. Well; to be truthful, closer to the latter.

He comes back. He has coffee. He pulls out a chair at the table -- as though her invitation were blanketing, as though he does indeed have a right to be here when they both know very well this is, was, and will always be her exclusive domain -- and he sits. Now the sunlight hits his shoulders, warms a patch of his side. It is so vivid that sitting across the table, Hilary can see the texture of his skin, the fine blond hairs that are otherwise invisible, the subtle intimation of ribs and muscle beneath. Evidence of life. Evidence of mammalian descent, when so often their kind seem rarefied and surreal, half-breed children of the gods.

"I don't know," he continues, sipping, eyes tracing the space where the bird was. "A book that names and identifies them. Or a book full of pretty pictures. Or both."

There's no answer to his... well. Not complaint. His statement of fact: there is no cream. There is no need to answer him, of course, but a more agile and eager conversationalist would at least bother to acknowledge that he has spoken.

Hilary does not.

When he sits across from her, the smallness of the table brings their knees together. Silk from her robe brushes against his bare knee just before the fabric slides away, the side of her calf now resting to the side of his calf. The sunlit chair is the one he sits in; she is in the shadow -- even if one can hardly call it that, on a day so bright. But it's enough of a difference to feel fated, and to also feel correct.

"Oh," she replies, thinking about this. He looks at the branch; she looks at him, now. Considers this.

"I would like a book to identify birds," she says, finally landing on an opinion and, to the surprise of all, also expressing that opinion clearly. "I would like Anton to have a book of pretty pictures of birds. We can look at it together."

There's a pause, quite a long one. Something comes to her. The pieces of it find each other in her mind and seal together: "I can tell him what they are, the ones in his book, when I have learned their names. I would like that."

Hilary sips her coffee. Changes the topic:

"I have been thinking about the pond. In Novgorod."

Ivan looks perfectly pleased. "Then that," he says, "is what you'll have."

During the pause he sips his coffee, which is still hot enough to steam. He watches the sunlight dance through the trees. He blinks slowly, lazily, and then turns as his lover speaks.

"And?"

One could wonder if his pleasure is in how clearly, how decisively she stated what she liked, what she wanted. Or if, perhaps, it's the idea of his mate learning to identify birds and then teaching this knowledge to their cub that makes him smile. But then, in the end, it's also just as likely that Ivan is pleased because he enjoys giving presents to Hilary.

This last one is quite likely, in fact, to be the motivation behind his delight. The bookshelf around the corner and the nightstand by her bed and several spots throughout the villa are littered with the gifts and tchotchkes he has brought to her: jewelry, trinkets, shells. Much of it is cheap, meaningless stuff, bought because he takes pleasure in the act, kept because Hilary does, in fact, love him.

"That is what we should do," she tells him. "Perhaps not as large as the one at his house in Russia. Not as deep." She furrows her brow a bit, trying to find the right words to describe her idea. "Like a pool. Clean water, clear enough that I can see. But not... concrete and tile and glaring lights and deck chairs. Nothing like that. Like a pond. With grass and plants around it, so it looks almost natural. But a place we can swim and play that isn't... that isn't..."

She falters, and waves a hand dismissively, with an annoyed sigh. It's a cover. The word she's looking for is frightening. The feeling that rises in her, forcing that pretense of indifference, is the panic that keeps her from entering oceans and lakes, had her clinging to him in tremors of anxiety when he first started teaching her to swim.

There's something quick and effortless and oddly innocent about the way he reaches across the table then, catching her hand in his. She's seen this sort of motion before. It's how cats flick their paws at moving things. It's how Anton sometimes grabs at the ends of her hair.

His hand shifts. He holds her hand, her fingers tucked into his palm.

"It won't be garish," he promises her, "and it won't be dirty or dark or pounding. It'll be nice."

Though her true fear is not that it will be ugly and classless, the fact that he addresses this first comforts her. It maintains the lie that she is simply a very refined sort of woman. The sort of woman who lives in an old-world sort of place, an old-world sort of home, who does not want some gaudy concrete abomination marring that comforting sense of antiquity.

And that is true: she is refined. She does live in an old world. She is comforted by things that do not remind her that she is a stranger in the real world, and does not belong to it.

But beneath all that is something else entirely, and they need not speak its name and give it any more permission to manifest in the room with them right now. She lets him catch her hand. She looks at him. He makes his vows to her. She realizes he makes many promises to her. She realizes, too:

he keeps his promises to her. Sometimes with great difficulty. But he does not fail her. And he does not lie when he promises.

Not with her.

Hilary nods. "Yes. That is what I want. Then... I will keep learning to swim."

"I'm glad," he says, to both.

And squeezes her hand. And rises from the table.

"Let's go have breakfast."

"I have to dress," she says, with an air of vague protest, though it never quite reaches any intensity. She waves him off a bit and rises, silk rippling around her legs when she stands. She has a wardrobe near her bed, which she walks to and opens.

Ivan only sometimes sees her do these things: considering what clothes to wear, picking out her undergarments, deciding on earrings. Perhaps he watches her this time, or perhaps he finds it dull. If he watches, he sees her panties: a gusset of cotton so soft it feels like something else entirely, the rest made of lace so soft it feels like cotton. Her bra, also soft lace and softer cotton, the same silvered grey. If he watches, he sees her choose from the clothes she keeps here: things lighter, softer, more comfortable than some of the finery that lives in her closet at the villa. She takes out a light-colored linen dress, sleeveless, loose, something that in another era would be little more than an undergarment itself: a shift.

She does not take her hair from its still-wet braid. She removes her robe and drapes it haphazardly over the bed. She dresses like she's somewhere else in her mind, detached from motions ingrained in her fingers, the roll of her shoulders, the shift of her weight from one leg as the other lifts, the way her foot presses against the floor to hold that weight.

Hilary slips her feet into a pair of light sandals, soft white leather thongs tied around her ankles in loose bows. Then earrings, teardrop pearls hanging from small white-gold hoops. A bangle that matches: white gold hoop around her wrist, teardrop-shaped pearl dangling.

Perhaps he watches all this: the slide of lace over fair skin, the ripple of linen, the flash of jewelry. The calm on her face, the distant way she inhabits the world, almost never completely here, completely in her body, completely in a room, completely with him.

Perhaps he watches and, half-consciously, compares it to the times when she is utterly inextricable from her body, when she is wholly present,

entirely his.

--

When they leave the cottage, they leave the shower wet and the towels draped wherever they fell. They leave the kettle cooling, the French press filled with sludge and coffee, their cups on the table. The bed is unmade, her wardrobe left open.

One of the maids who serves at the villa has a knack for noticing when Hilary has left the cottage, when she seems like she'll be absent for a while. She has her instructions from Dmitri and advice from Darya about caring for Hilary's cottage and Hilary's dance studio. When she sees them approaching the villa, she'll steal away, as quick and mysterious as some benevolent house-faerie, and when Hilary returns:

the bedlinens will be changed, the towels refreshed, the dishes cleaned, the pantry and fridge re-stocked, the clothes laundered.

Like magic.

--

The villa is awake and alive. Miron is on some errand, Polina in a Skype meeting with Miranda and Max, coordinating and updating financial matters as they relate to the upkeep of the villa, the costs of the recent travel, budgeting for the future and the like. Other servants are completing morning chores. Deferential nods are given to the lord and lady as they drift through the villa to the kitchen.

Elodie is baking bread. Anton is helping, but receives far more attention and instruction from his nanny than he got while trying to 'help' his mother with her baguettes in Corsica. Hilary abandons Ivan to go to him, laying her palm on his downy head, refraining from comment on Elodie's baking. She must be in a good mood.

There is already a loaf on the counter, still warm from the oven. Windows are open, in lieu of more typical climate control. Elodie offers to make them breakfast, which is less of an offer and more of an acquiescence, but Hilary waves her off. She leans over and kisses Anton's head, causing the boy to grin up at her, and then she begins to make something for herself and Ivan.

It is a good day, so far. And one might think, looking at this villa, their yacht, the jet they flew in on, and imagine they have nothing but good days.

One would be wrong. But no matter; it is inconsequential how many goods days a life has, or how few. Whether they are rare or plentiful, they are each precious, and fragile, and fleeting.

They each deserve to be cherished.

Ivan

Eventually they tire of Corsica, which is to say: eventually Ivan tires of Corsica. Though they sailed here, he can't be bothered to sail back, and so it is Dmitri is saddled with the task of arranging transport for L'Impératrice de la Lune back to Nice. That, of course, is in addition to all the other minutiae he must see to: closing out the house, settling the account, arranging for whatever accoutrements his masters have collected to be transported back to Nice, bringing over the jet, filing flight plans, obtaining permits and passes, etcetera, etcetera.

The parts move behind the scenes. Ivan, as ever, neither knows nor cares. He drives his small family to the small airport in a vintage MG and gates magically unlock; paths magically open. His jet is magically waiting, engines idling and boarding ramp lowered. He carries his son in one hand, holds his lover's hand in the other. She precedes him up the stairs. He hands the boy to Miron as he steps into the cabin.

The flight back is scarcely an hour. They rise up over the Mediterranean, blue as a jewel. As they descend into Nice, they can see their city spread along the shoreline -- low buildings the color of sun and sand and flowering plants; winding cobblestone streets. If they pay attention they can pick out their villa along the sea, though not Hilary's hidden retreat.

It is late afternoon when they return to the villa. There is a humidity in the air, a warm wind off the ocean. A storm is gathering on the horizon -- a summer squall, brief but torrential. All the second-story windows and most the first are open, that warm wet wind passing unhurried and unimpeded through the halls. The architecture of the house keeps its interior cool. No one's bothered with the climate control.

They part ways for a while. Anton is taken to his rooms, and likely fed and bathed and possibly put down for a nap. Ivan takes a shower, washing travel and the scent of unfamiliar places from his skin. He reemerges casual, chino shorts and a linen shirt so light his skin is an undertone to the pale sea-green of the shirt itself. It's begun to rain outside, a grey curtain sweeping up the shore to drench the villa, to turn the ocean the soft silver of a mirror's back.

He finds Hilary wherever he finds her. By then he has a drink in hand. Two, in fact: one for her. Something iced and tartly sweet, vodka-based, served in a collins glass that's already sweating. He hands her her drink and kisses her shoulder.

"I think we should put in a pool," he says.

This time, however subtly, Ivan notices that Hilary is tiring of Corsica, too. It's such a mild undercurrent of irritation that even he has trouble noting it, separating it from the more general irritation she usually feels towards life itself. But it's there, and it's different, and after a few days it reveals itself to him as what it is: she is tired of Corsica. She misses their villa, and her cabin. She misses her routine, her quiet little corner of the world, what has become her Real Life -- the first she's ever really had. She does not have words for what she feels, does not quite realize herself that she misses her home, but perhaps Ivan understands.

Has it confirmed, then, when he says they should go back to Nice, and there's a flash in her eyes that isn't quite pleasure, is close to excitement, but seems most like... relief.

--

After that, it does not matter to her if they sail or fly. Things are packed for them. The house they've been staying in is cleaned for them. They go to a meal together while everything is being sorted for them, and then they go to the airfield. Ivan carries Anton, who is almost three and can walk and run and climb and even swim, all of it almost entirely on his own. But Ivan carries him from the car to the jet, and Anton likes this very much. He babbles. He points at the plane. He says 'plane', first poorly in English. Then poorly in Russian. And Hilary says avion to him, and he repeats it, and it is perfect.

But then, it has no L sound in French. And he doesn't quite have L down yet.

Miron is the one who supplies this last piece of information: after all, no one wants Ivan thinking his son is developmentally delayed. In any of his three languages.

Hilary seems pleased with Anton, though. Pleased with Ivan for carrying him. So when they board, she takes Anton instead of Miron, holding him until the stairs are tucked away and the doors are shut, then letting him walk around until Miron takes him to buckle in for takeoff. Anton has no apparent fear of flying. He is curious. He asks many questions, but directs them to Miron. His beautiful, distant parents have drifted away from him again, sitting together, Ivan's hand over Hilary's, Hilary's eyes on the window.

--

The flight is short, and Hilary reads a book she got in Corsica instead of trying to make conversation. That's not unusual: the book is new. The lack of conversation isn't.

As they approach Nice, she hears Miron pointing out their villa to Anton. She looks, too, casually, her eyes scanning the shoreline. She sees the dock. She sees the ruddy tiles of their roof. She looks for her refuge, her safe place, and she cannot see it. She cannot see the path that leads to it. She can only barely make out the edge of another building, a hint of her little dance studio, and that is the only way she knows where to look. It makes her quietly pleased. A small smile tightens her lips.

She looks at Ivan. She smiles a bit more. She does not say why.

--

Anton is complaining about hunger on the drive to the villa, and it's annoying, but he seems to forget about it when they get home. He takes off, tearing through his house, rapidly climbing up towards overtired and overhungry and he is going to be a nightmare in roughly fifteen minutes, but that is Miron's problem. That is Elodie's problem.

His beautiful, gold-and-silver parents move more slowly. Hilary drifts from Ivan. She can hear Anton squealing as he's scooped up somewhere on the second level. She goes to the courtyard, where the fountain gurgles along, and sits there for a while. Ivan goes to her suite of rooms, which are nominally his as well, and showers. Somewhere else in the villa, Anton devours a quickly prepared little lunch. He has his face and his hands washed. He is laid down for a nap in his bed, in his room, in his house, in his home.

Hilary rises up as things get more quiet. She walks from the courtyard out to the path. It's not yet raining. She can feel it in the air and realizes she's never noticed that before: the sense of rain coming. She pauses on the path to look at the ocean, at the heavy sky, and inhales deeply. Smells it. Wonders at it, in her distant and blank sort of way. Then she keeps walking.

--

Her refuge is not open to the air like the villa was. The air inside is staler. She opens the windows. The door that leads to the dock. She leaves the main door, the one off the path to the house, closed. It's symbolic, though she doesn't quite realize it. Or maybe she does realize it: in the primitive way that encouraged humankind to create walls and doors in the first place. It begins to drizzle, and she goes around her refuge, touching things. She puts the book from Corsica on her little shelf with other books she's gotten here in Nice. She sits on her bed. She goes to her bathroom and turns the water on. Then off. She goes to the little living room area and stands in the doorway, looking down the path to the dock as the drizzle turns to rain and pours from the sky. She is amazed at the smell of it. She wonders how she never paid attention to the smell of rain before.

A knock on the door, then. The flash of her mate through one of the open windows. She calls for him to come in. She smiles at his wet shoulders, his damp head, his sweating drinks. Her eyes are hooded and her smile is something dark and almost sly as he kisses her bare shoulder, hands her the drink.

She must be in a good mood, because when he makes his disgusting and absurd suggestion, she doesn't pitch a fit. She just smirks and looks back at the rain, the horizon, the ocean as the rain falls onto it, into it. "No," she says, almost playfully.

The days are long, but the storm has prematurely darkened the sky. The sound of the rain is different here in Hilary's little cabin. In the villa, mostly, one hears the flat splashes of raindrops on the terra-cotta of the atrium and walkways. Here it is closer, a million tiny drumbeats overhead, resonant on the roof, softer on the foliage. It is a backdrop to their conversation; masks the clink of ice cubes in the glasses.

The air smells of rain. Smells of salt sea and wet earth, of that peculiar acrid scent of rain in civilized places. That, too, is a backdrop: when Ivan comes close, he smells of the lemongrass in his shower gel.

Something in her eyes makes him kiss her mouth, too, soon after his lips touch her shoulder. He leans in for that one, his shirtfront a cool layer between his chest, her arm.

Then they share that view of the horizon through the trees. He sips his drink. Smirks at her. "I thought you liked swimming now."

Her eyes close when he kisses her. She has a way of letting him kiss her: she has many ways of letting him kiss her, without quite kissing him back. The ones that make him stop and ask her if everything is all right. The ones that are simple in their receptivity, thier acceptance. The ones that feel like she is receiving a tribute. The ones that seem to indicate that she is going to make him work for it if he wants her to kiss him back.

This is that last one. Withholding, daring, mischevious.

Well: as mischevious as Hilary is wont to get.

--

"I am learning to swim," she corrects him. She hasn't quite started enjoying it yet. At least not as she measures enjoyment.

"And:" she adds, but doesn't go on. She simply gestures at the sea.

He makes a little sound, a hm, but amused. He tastes his drink. He tastes her mouth. He has a pathetic thought she would be disgusted by: something about which of the two was more intoxicating. He keeps it to himself, a secret that makes him smile.

"Really. The ocean? I thought you would be averse."

That gives her a moment's pause. It was a deflection, in a way: look at this giant body of water, why would we need a pool? But what he says makes her imagine actually swimming in it. The idea of a scream, more than a scream itself, bubbles up inside of her, tickling her throat. She sips her drink.

"But it's so nice here, the way it is," she says, half sigh, half petulant complaint. "I don't want it to be like the house in Corsica."

Oddly, he does understand that. They were both tired of Corsica and the house there. They are home now, and it seems right, somehow, that they make their home unlike Corsica.

"No pool, then," he says. "Just the ocean, when you're ready for it."

He turns away, slips back into the little house. Returns a moment later with a folding chair, which he sets outside, just under the overhang where he can stay dry. Unchivalrous creature that he is, he takes the seat for himself, crossing an ankle over his knee. His feet are bare beneath his sandals.

"I like it," he adds after a moment, a soft non sequitur, "when you're coy."

[HE NOT MOOB CHAIR DER CHAIR PREPAERD FOR :D]

This doesn't satisfy her, and he can sense it under the surface: she doesn't know if she'll ever be ready to swim in the ocean, but at the same time, she's done so many things she never thought she would do. She's becoming someone else. Maybe this person she's turning into will learn how to swim in the ocean and not want to scream, and scream, and scream, and scream.

She also does not want a pool. All concrete and tile and hard edges. The villa is somehow softened, even at its sharpest corner. The roof tiles are rounded. The fountain in the courtyard is round. Everything, courtyard and rooms and the surrounding landscape, is green and lush and shadowed. She doesn't want all that exposure, even to the sun.

But Hilary just sips her drink. Perhaps they will talk of it later. Find a compromise.

--

Ivan sits, dragging a chair under the overhang. She stays in the threshold of her little house, observing his dampened shoulders, how the linen clings to his shoulders. She drinks, the liquor warming her belly and setting a gentle flame licking the inside of her skin, watching him. She hates his sandals and his laziness and his sometimes gauche sense of style, but at the same time:

his fair hair, his lean body, his golden skin, his style -- when it is more classical, more refined -- and his deft, long-fingered hands. These things she loves.

Of course she doesn't think to say so. Not even when he tells her that he likes it when she's coy.

"I am not being coy," she argues, perhaps simply to argue, or because she doesn't think of herself as coy. She thinks coy is for girls, and she was perhaps never really just a girl.

But then: "What do you mean?"

On a slow blink he drags his eyes from that hypnotic rain, that ocean. He looks back and up at her, rare lines on his brow as he raises his gaze. He smiles.

"I love it when you make me work for it," he clarifies. It's perhaps too detailed, too gauche a description for her, but then -- she did ask. "I can never take you for granted."

A slight lift of one brow, barely perceptible. A turn of her chin. The subtlest change in her expression, which seems to say oh? is that so? even as she processes what he's said.

What he is saying. That he can't take her for granted. She thinks to herself that on occasion, he has. Has seemed to, at least. Which makes her think of something else. Less coy. Less playful.

She steps closer to his chair, but doesn't reach out for him. "Do you know that I love you?"

This, suddenly, is quite earnest.

He does, however, reach out for her. Nothing conventional; not her hand or her wrist or even her arm. His hand turns over on the arm of the chair; his fingers trail and snag at the hem of her top, graze the outside of her leg before wrapping around the back of her thigh.

"I know," he says softly. There isn't a shred of dismissiveness to it. "I do know that, Hilary."

A strange embrace. A strange, intimate, primal embrace. He seems to lay claim to her like this: her body, every artery, every pound of flesh. She does not fight him. Her eyes do flash, though. Something in her, rather than wanting to fight, is comforted by the way he touches her. Like he owns her. Has mastery over her.

Isn't that why she calls him vladelets?

"I do not mean to leave you," she says to him then, quietly, with the air of a vow. She does not intend it. She does not plan for it. She does not want that.

There's a softening in his eyes, but a darkening as well. He tips his head back. Rests against the chair, looking at her. Beautiful, eldritch creature that she is.

"I know," he says again, softer still. "And I will not leave you."

[perception + empathy! we can do this, hilary!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (8, 9) ( success x 2 )

[he feels tenderly toward her, but also ... sort of possessive? not in like. NOT LET HER DO ANYTHING ON HER OWN-way. but just in a ... SHE IS MINE-way.]

A flicker of concern, deep down, that she said it wrong. That she's bored him. That she misread things. Her brow furrows slightly, her eyes intent on him, and then:

it clears. She exhales. She does not worry about making him work for it right now.

She sets her drink down on the planks of her patio, turning to face him where he sits, placing herself on his lap. She straddles him, puts her hands on his face,

kisses him. Does not simply permit him to kiss her.

Kisses him. Hard enough to push his head back.

He has an inkling of what she wants when she sets her drink down. It becomes a suspicion by the time she faces him. It is a certainty when she straddles him, and yet -- this time -- he doesn't immediately rise to meet her.

He stays where he is. It's so rare that Hilary initiates anything. He wants to see where she goes. And where she goes is right here: putting her hands on his face like she, too, has a claim to him. Kissing him hard enough to push him against that wood-slatted chair.

He takes the kiss. He returns it, all silent intensity. Rain is pouring from the skies, falling like a sheet at the edge of the patio, but here they are sheltered. The air is electric. Humidity has her hair setting into its natural waves, and that's where his hands go first: fingers running through, grasping at the roots, gripping her as firmly as she grips him.

He feels it, against his lap and in his arms: that shudder that goes through her when he grips her hair, holds it like he has a right now, tightens that hold like he's unafraid of hurting her. He isn't going to hurt her. Has he ever hurt her beyond what she could bear, beyond what she wanted from him? Has he ever treated her like that delicate flower in a walled garden that so many before him have made her out to be?

Hilary's hands move to his shoulders. She kisses him deeply, not slowly: hungrily.

"Stay," she tells him, a breath in between kisses, her mouth and her body lush against his now. "Stay with me here tonight."

Somehow, he thinks, it sounds less like entreaty, more like permission. This cabin is her domain. The house is her domain too -- but it is also Anton's, and it is his even if he does not always sleep here. The cabin, though, is all hers. He requires permission to stay here. He requires invitation, now given.

His hands loosen in her hair. He follows her back down. Flexible spine, slender body. He thinks she must have been quite something, dancing. He knows she is quite something, dancing, and otherwise.

"I'd love to," he murmurs. He finds the hem of her shirt. He rucks it up, caring little of where they are.

Up the path at the villa, their son sleeps. He's a small child, less a baby now, and he has strong opinions and likes and dislikes and a large volcabulary, even if his mouth cannot quite master certain phonemes yet. This is his house. The house in Novgorod: that is his, too. One day he'll be given papers to sign, things to review, and he will learn just how much he owns, just how much he will inherit, what all he is entitled to with the name his father gave him. He will see how much that father gives him, as the only heir, even if in the most traditional circles he will never be considered legitimate.

One day. Years in the future. A decade, a decade and a half: the boy will see just how much he owns, how much money he has.

How much power.

And even then, if they are all very lucky, he will know: one does not barge in on his mother. One does not come without invitation. One does not assume their welcome. He will be entitled to much, as his father before him was, but there are certain boundaries, certain laws of the heart, that transcend the laws of nature and the laws of man.

There are territories one has to earn passage into.

--

In this little house, with its secret luxuries mingled with rustic charm, the back of Hilary's shirt rucks up against Ivan's warm hands. Cold rain hits the patio, splashes off the wet wood onto his shins, onto her lumbar. She kisses him with soft, gasping eagerness. He hears her words as invitation, as permission, and not as entreaty. He is not wrong. Even Hilary, who has never felt that what she has is hers, has that now: this place is hers. Nothing is to be done to it that she doesn't approve of. No one is to enter that she does not welcome. It is her territory, her den, the way no other place ever has been. And Ivan -- even Ivan, even her vladelets -- must be invited here before they know they can stay.

She parts from the kiss, her eyes heavy on his. Hers are so dark; his so fair. Her hand is still on his jaw. The touch is not possessive; it is almost worshipful, despite how she came to him, kissed him this time.

"I am glad we came home," she whispers. It is at odds with the heat of her body against his, the hunger of his hand on her body, but it is somehow tied to these things, all the same.

onoz!!!

HALP

It is not a hesitation, but it is a pause nonetheless. A moment to consider. His hand is motionless on her skin. His eyes sweep between hers, down to her mouth. Back.

"Me too," he murmurs. It is a realization even as he speaks it. His hands guide her closer. He kisses her again, slower than before: as though that was hungering, and this is feasting: "Me, too."