STANLOUIE

No-one except his mother had thought Ivan handsome as a baby. Their gaze had halted when they got to his roman nose and their "new-baby-smile" had faltered for a fraction of a second. As a boy he didn't attract the girls. He was skinny and his cheek bones just gave him a skeletal look. But by fourteen he was filling out, he had muscles from biathlon training and skiing all winter. By twenty it wasn't just the girl's after him. He had grown into those features, his bone structure was fine and perfectly symmetrical. It was manly. And as he aged he became all the more striking, as a silver-fox he was still asked to grace the cover of magazines over his younger peers. His wife Tina always said it was because with every passing year more of his inner beauty showed on his face, there was softness in the eyes and gentleness in his smile.