...And Ivan

I may be notorious but in all honestly I am quite dull. I grew up on a pig farm in the middle of nowhere, largely home schooled, and then nothing from age 11 on. I’m not exactly smart. I can’t imagine I’m much to look at with the scars. I can’t get or keep a normal job not only because no one would hire me, but also the fact that I have no skills to speak of.

When Katherine came along and was just so interested in me, I didn’t know what to do. Well, I knew enough. It’s not like I’d never been with a woman but beyond a bedroom I was out of my depth. What was I supposed to think when she started talking to me that day?

“Is he yours?”

I’d known she’d been watching me for a while by then. She’d been appearing more and more often in my daily routine, scattered in here or there. I’d held a door or two for her. Katherine Bellot was not some wilting violet in Twisp. She had gotten there following a soldier she was with at the time, leaving her wealthy family behind. Still, I was surprised when she actually spoke to me.

“Him? Mine? Oh no.” I peered down at Marty Ajax. Through my blindfold the blurred world was in a constant state of twilight. In the years following the fall of The Twelve I did rely heavily on Kael and his family. I had followed Peter for a few years but he proved to be an able soldier who didn’t want or need an overprotective older brother hovering around his deployments. Sophia on the other hand, she had no problem with my smothering. “I just keep him out of the house for a few hours so Mrs. Ajax can have some time to herself.”

“You’re so good with him. He’s quite fond of you.”

I wasn’t a dolt. I could tell I was being flirted with. I may not have understood why, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Ivan, this is Marty.”

“Katherine Bellot. May I walk with you, Ivan?”

I’d never been in love before. That desire to be with her as much as possible, to hear her laugh, just to be around when she was doing mundane things, it was all new to me. It had been a few weeks since I showed up at the Ajax home alone and Kael was quick to point it out.

“So, seems like things are getting fairly serious with you and Kate.” I could hear him smirking. “I didn’t know you two could be in two places at once.”

“Kael, quit teasing,” Sophia stepped in to defend me. By then Emma and Maddie were old enough to know what was going on. From what Sophia had told me Madeline wasn’t in love with the idea that I might have another woman in my life. Turned out she’d had a bit of a crush.

“Ivan is quite the catch. It was only a matter of time before someone realized that,” Sophia insisted. I shifted uncomfortably.

“I think it’s only a matter of time before she realizes I’m not,” I muttered. As much as I was in love with Kate, I was constantly waiting for her to not show up. Maybe I’d get a note about how she’d found someone else, maybe she’d just disappear. I bounced Marty on my lap. Only in a world with Kael would I be allowed to hold a baby named after someone I decapitated. Kael laughed.

“She’s lucky to have you. From what I’ve heard you’re better than anyone she’s ever been with.”

I sat up. Ever been with? Other than the soldier she rode in on?

“What have you heard?”

“Easy! I haven’t heard anything. I’m happy for you.” He paused. “So, what are you waiting for?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. Actually, I thought he was talking about sex and wondered how he would know whether or not Kate and I had done that and was also mortified that he would ask that in front of Sophia. I cleared my throat.

“What?”

I could tell, just by the hint of laughter in the air that he knew what I was thinking. Kael and I had some kind of strange understanding of one another. Sometimes it was handy, other times it was irritating.

“You know, marrying her,” he elaborated. “I married Sophie as fast as I could.”

“Once I started talking to you,” she added smartly. Hmm, marriage was not something I’d ever considered. I hadn’t thought about that since I was a young boy, too young to really even think about it.

“I supposed it never crossed my mind,” I admitted.

“Scoundrel,” Kael chuckled. Sophia snorted and I was powerless to remain stoic.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to treat Kate, to be honest. I’d only ever been with prostitutes and they pretty much wanted the job to be done. I mean, there were a few that got more attached that I ended up killing. Not exactly role models. I’d also worked in that capacity but I couldn’t very well trust my clients’ tastes. I ended up letting Kate lead the way in that area which she seemed to be frustrated about, but it was better that way, even if she didn’t know it.

“Yes, Ivan, go ahead,” Katherine insisted, directing my body as much as I allowed. As I said, it wasn’t that I was a novice or that I wasn’t interested in the activity, but how on earth was I to know what normal women were interested in? I was anxious enough to keep her from thinking I was strange, I certainly didn’t need her to think I was a sexual deviant. That said, I don’t recall her complaining. She ran her fingers over the scars on my chest one night as we lay in bed.

“Are these all from The Twelve?” she asked innocently. I knew what each one was from. I remembered every moment. Some were in fights for my life, some were from the lost fights of others.

“Mostly.”

She traced along the ridges and slices until she made her way to the burn I usually kept covered on my neck. I stared at her round face, big blue eyes gazing up at me.

“Were they punishments?”

“That one was.” I wanted to tell her things. I wanted to tell her things I never wanted to tell anyone. I decided to test the waters a little bit. “It was for helping Kael. They didn’t want me to be able to walk around towns anymore. My eyes were for helping Kael, too. They used to be brown.”

“Like Peter’s,” she finished. She kissed me before laying her head on my chest. I loved when she did that. “Why did you keep doing it if they hurt you so much for it? For helping him?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer her. I never considered not helping. I hoped if I started talking maybe the answer would come out.

“I didn’t have any other opportunity to do anything good. I had to do something.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t ask me about things again. I figured I’d spooked her, said something weird. I don’t like to think about my past, I don’t know why anyone else would want to.

We were sitting at the small table in the house Baldur Ajax had set me up in years earlier. I kept the lights dim so I wouldn’t have to wear the blindfold and I watched Katherine daintily spear a roasted carrot before depositing it in her delicate mouth. Kael’s conversation about marriage kept nagging at me. I didn’t want Kate to think I wasn’t serious or that I didn’t think she was the most amazing woman I’d ever met.

“Do you want to get married?” I realized too late that I should have asked when her mouth was empty because she choked, slapping the table as her eyes welled up. I hurried to her side.

“Sorry! You don’t have to!” I handed her a glass of water. “It was just a thought.”

She took a rattled couple of breaths, waving me back to my chair. She wiped her face with her napkin and I told myself not to take it personally. What was I thinking? Spending far too much time with Kael to believe that any woman would want to be tied down to me of all people.

“Are you asking me to marry you or just asking in general?”

A merciful exit and yet I simply couldn’t take it. I poked my own dinner.

“Whichever you’d prefer.”

It was a pretty miserable excuse for a proposal. Kael told me many, many times over that I would need to make up for that. I didn’t care. I was ecstatic that Kate wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with her. Her parents refused to come to our wedding. I’m not sure if they actually refused or she didn’t tell them since her sister didn’t show either. I married Kate in a hurry and just as quickly, I noticed her boring with me. She was beginning to realize that I was as dull as I told her I was, not like her high society counterparts, and not at all as exciting as she’d imagined. I think she thought I’d be dangerous or rough or somehow wild. I would leave for work and on my way home consider what I could tell her about it to keep her interested, but in the end there was nothing I really wanted her to know. There was nothing I wanted anyone to know. Not about that life. I was preparing for her departure.

The worst was when I came home and just needed a little bit of time. I know she wanted to be a wife, a partner. I know she wanted to show me that she missed me and feel how much I’d missed her, but I had to get my mind straight first. I don’t know what got into her one night. I’d been home a few days, I was building up the confidence to spend the whole night wrapped up with her as we ate dinner.

“This smells amazing, Kate. Thank you for making it.” She was a good cook and had only gotten better. I should have noticed the way she was pushing her food around.

“You know, Ivan, I was just thinking today…”

Something about how she said it put a pinch in my throat. The more thinking she did, the more she would realize I wasn’t good enough for her. She had seen all the scars on the outside, she was bound to notice the ones on the inside sooner or later. I had hoped it would be later.

“Oh yeah?” I asked cautiously. I lost my appetite.

“Just, you know, I was curious. I was just wondering what your older brother’s name was? Or your parents’?”

I didn’t think about them. I didn’t think about them because everything was linked with that last day. It took all of my concentration to keep those bloody images from my head, to keep from screaming, pulling out my hair, tossing the table over. I didn’t want Kate to know that part of me. The dangerous part.

“My parents were Elizabeth and Robert. My brother was Malcom.” I said it as quickly as I could.

“It was a simple question, Ivan,” she scoffed. I could tell she’d taken it the wrong way. “You don’t tell me anything. What am I supposed to think when you act the way you do?”

She was absolutely right. I had no answer for her. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t like her food either so I forced myself to finish. All the while I gathered my resolve to try and let her in without letting anything else out. I took a deep breath and set my utensils down. It had been a bit since I tapped into that shut-off I’d developed to keep The Twelve from hurting me.

“Is there anything else you’d like to ask?” I thought I was prepared. I was wrong. She arched her eyebrow. Katherine sat icily across from me.

“Am I your first girlfriend? Were there others?”

“No, you’re not the first. I’ve had two others. Prostitutes that got too attached really. The Twelve killed one and had me kill the other one.” Girlfriend would have been a strong title. I wasn’t allowed to have anyone on my side, no one I cared about or who cared about me. It made me too human for their taste. I prayed that was all she wanted to know. I struggled not to picture those pretty, sympathetic faces, pale and bluish. “Anything else?”