Ivan Press

Ivan

Dawn breaks softly through the windows in the morning, unnoticed by the royalty sleeping within. Shadows of ivy and roses pan slowly down the walls; light turns grey, turns pink, turns gold as the sun rises. Birds trill. A thin mist clings to the riverbanks, giving way as the day warms.

Sometime between the hours best classed as early morning and those better called late, Ivan wakes. The bed is soft and the sheets carry their scent. Her back touches his chest, and his arm is draped over her waist.

He is in no hurry to rise. He lazes abed a while, eyes closing, drowsing. A fellow guest returning to his room next door wakes him again -- the faraway thump of a door closing. He rolls over carefully, rising to find the room a touch chilly. He turns the heat on. He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face. He finds a Keurig machine -- the modern age has arrived even in this sleepy little fairytale of a town -- and he makes himself a mug of coffee.

Their window looks out on the garden, the river. Standing at the sill, he can see their little yacht. There are guests having breakfast outside, eggs and coffee steaming in the crisp morning. Details lost to nighttime are vivid by day: the blue of the river, the fall colors in the trees; the chalk-white of the exposed cliff faces, and that ancient stone castle still commanding its bluff.

Their suite at the bed and breakfast is not terribly unlike Hilary's own cottage, in ambience if not in precise style. There is a blend of the French and Spanish in her cottage, with a vague sense of a something you might find in a darkened wood, perhaps made out of gingerbread. This place is wholly and entirely French, unapologetically so, and its memory seems to stretch back even further than that of Nice. Flowers erupt out of boxes and out of terra-cotta pots. Vines drape over walls. The sun edges everything in gilt. It's beautiful here, as though it would find it difficult not to be. It's as though the village itself is so unaware of its loveliness that it has never tried to be anything more, and is incapable of being anything less.

Perhaps that is why nature goes mad so much more rarely than mortals; they are too aware of their beauty, their brilliance, their gifts. They strive or they despair, and either one might break them.

Some of them. Creatures like the ones inside this room, certainly. Them most of all.

--

Hilary is awake when Ivan leaves the bed. Perhaps it's the daylight, or the thump next door, or a shiver of air insinuating itself between their bodies as he moves away, exposing her bare shoulderblades for a moment before the covers fall over her again. She opens her eyes slowly but does not move. She seldom startles when she wakes. She does not yawn and stretch energetically. So for some moments, he is unaware that she has woken. But she has; she listens to the radiator kick on. She listens for his footfalls, but even without trying he walks so quietly. She listens to the water running in the bathroom.

When he comes back out, she has turned over in bed, but remains lying still. He makes himself a cup of coffee, and she can smell it. He goes to the window and his back is to her now, so she shifts her eyes and watches him. Flashes of last night play through her mind: walking around Paris until her feet hurt in those shoes he picked out for her. Sitting for that rolled-up drawing. The stupid painting he bought. She remembers dinner, and Ivan fucking her with his hand under the tablecloth while they waited for more vodka. Apple. Lemon.

That interminable yacht ride. She thinks she wouldn't have agreed to it if she'd realized how long it would be. It was cold and she hates the cold.

She likes this place, though. It is familiar enough to comfort her, remind her of a home she has finally found an has flourished in. It is different enough to catch her attention in a new way, to look brighter somehow, the colors more saturated, the shadows giving everything more depth.

Hilary closes her eyes and thinks of her son stuffing his face with croissants. Chocolate on his face. She makes them sometimes. She wonders if Ivan knows that. She is not a very good baker, she knows. Not as good as she is at cooking. But Elodie makes them, and Hilary has watched her, and she thinks she is getting better at croissants. She knows Anton likes them, even though he gets messy. She wonders if he knows that she makes them for him. She wonders if he realizes that she is the one who ordered them for his breakfast this morning. He probably doesn't care. He's just a baby, she thinks, though it has been some time since he was really just a baby. He's almost a little boy.

Her eyes open. Ivan has glanced back in the room. He finds her watching him, her body motionless.

Her eyes, open. Her body, still. He sees her by chance, watches her by design. There is no startle when he finds her looking back. His eyes move over her face, down the shape of her still draped in the sheets, the bedding.

He takes a sip of coffee. He makes a little movement, a gesture with the cup -- draws her attention to what's outside. A branch of those linden trees falling close to the glass. A bird perched and singing.

Coming back to bed, he leans down to kiss her, then sits beside her. He has pulled on boxer-briefs, which are rather uncharacteristically plain black, and little else. His back to her is a work of art, tapering and smooth, columned in lean muscle. In the silence of the room they can hear occasional footsteps, voices, but not clearly enough to make out words.

Perhaps the gesture means nothing to her, or she simply doesn't care; she doesn't gaze out the window at the linden, the bird. She watches him. She accepts the kiss he gives her, and is silent for a while as he sits there. It's peaceful.

And then:

"You're very rude," she says, her voice soft and rough from disuse.

This brings a laugh forth. He turns, tilting one shoulder down a little to see her better.

"Because I didn't make you coffee?"

"Didn't even offer," she says with a put-upon sigh, closing her eyes and rubbing her face into the pillow for a moment.

They open again, looking up darkly at him.

Ivan steals a tiny smirk in those moments Hilary's eyes are closed. He wonders sometimes if she knows how delightful he finds her. Likely not. Likely if she did, she'd only think he was laughing at her, which isn't it at all.

When her eyes open again he leans over, one hand beside her pillow. He kisses her again, slower this time, smiling into it. When he straightens, it's without a word. He walks around the bed and over to the Keurig machine, where he disposes of the spent cartridge and loads another.

While coffee brews, he prepares a mug. "Cream and sugar?"

This time she doesn't accept his kiss. He leans down and makes to press his lips to hers and she scrunches up her face, turning away. She looks disgusted, but at least does not release an ugh at him. He leaves. He goes to the Keurig, which also disgusts her, but at least she doesn't send him out, demanding French press, something real, how dare he.

She must be tired. And yet, she sits up in bed a bit more, sliding the pillows behind her to lean against the headboard, one arm holding the sheets over her body. Her free hand reaches up. She runs her fingers through her hair, disheveled from its updo last night, the bath, the fucking.

"Just cream," she says. Hilary has no particular way she takes her coffee. It seems to depend on the coffee. The locale. The meal. Her mood. "But quite a lot of it."

Quiet, now. She looks out the window finally at the branches of the linden trees, frowning vaguely at the songbird. It isn't an annoyed frown, though; it's sort of thoughtful. Eventually -- quickly, because the coffee takes no time at all -- he brings her the coffee, pale with cream, the mug warming rapidly to the touch. She takes it without thanking him, briefly inhaling the scent of it. Must be habit; the powder inside the pods is hardly the stuff of a true French cafe. But then she sips. Looks at him.

"It's lovely here," she tells him, "but I don't want to stay too long."

There's a pause, then, filled with something else she isn't saying.

That his kiss is rejected doesn't seem to faze him terribly. He goes about his business, brewing her a rather mediocre cup of coffee that she nonetheless accepts.

Soon he's back beside her. She sips the coffee. His is merely warm now, no longer hot; he drinks. She tells him something, and then a small pause opens.

He prompts, "What is it?"

Hilary does not play coy. She doesn't wince or screw up her nose or refuse to look at him. A gentler person does those things; one who thinks, always, of how others might feel. The hesitances is something else; comes from a place of being vulnerable, of admitting something about herself, about the two of them, that is easier to pretend not to notice.

Regardless: she looks him in the eye as she says it.

"I know you like to be alone with me. Away from... everything. Everyone. Just the two of us. But... I want us to be in Paris. With him."

She tells him. She just tells him. She doesn't make him guess; she doesn't whisper it so she can pretend it was never spoken.

She tells him. And his mouth tilts faintly, something like a smile.

"I know," he says. "I thought perhaps we'd have breakfast in the village. Then we'll take a car back to Paris. Maybe take Anton for a walk by the river."

And that is fine. His plan, that is: breakfast in the village, a car back to Paris. Walking with Anton. But Hilary is watching him. Carefully.

"Is that..." she doesn't want to know if it's okay with him. She knows it is. He will do it because it is what she wants. "Is that what you want?"

Only a moment's consideration before he answers. "Yes," he says. "I think I'd like that. I thought we'd go back after breakfast, at any rate."

He gets up. That half-finished coffee -- the one for which she called him rude when he didn't make her an accompanying cup -- he upends over the bathroom sink.

"Let's find some better coffee," he suggests. Neither of them have a change of clothes. He starts putting on last night's outfit again.

Ivan thinks before he answers her. He usually does. She has noticed that; he is so glib with everyone else. He is often glib with her. But he senses when it matters to her. If he is to be honest, he reflects. He gives her what he can, in terms of honesty, rather than dismissing it as unimportant.

Hilary tips her head, and then she nods. "You're hungry," she comments, as though she isn't. She is.

The next thing she says is after he dumps out his coffee, proclaiming that they should find something better. She exhales heavily, putting her mug down on the nightstand. "Thank god," she mutters, none too thankfully. She looks at him dressing in yesterday's clothes and winces. "I wonder if there's anyone we could send for something else I could wear," she says, a bit pathetically. Whiningly.

Ivan huffs a breath of a laugh. "I don't think so," he says. "We're pretending to be plebeians, darling. But I'll go buy you something to wear, all right?"

She pouts. "You might be," she says, of pretending to be a plebeian. "You don't have to wear high heels and filthy panties."

But she won't, either; he is going to find her something. She nods to that, leaning forward, the sheet across her body slipping downward. "Good," she says, imperiously. "I'll shower." She looks at him, her eyes lazy and shadowed. A bit condescendingly: "I'll even leave my hair the way you like it. As a thank you."

Ivan is thinking something tawdry again. She can tell. He's looking at her the way he does, his eyes following the sheet down, and he's smirking the way he does. A beat; then he pulls his gaze back to her face.

"Well, I suppose I'm easily bought. It's a deal." He pulls last night's shirt on, buttoning it. "See you when I return, hm?"