Pleasure & Pain: Chapter Eight

Sometimes I wonder if Lumiya is playing with my perception of time. Occasionally it seems as if the visits from her or Nethi are right on the heels of one another and at other times I feel like days or weeks have passed.

In the end, I decide it doesn't matter. I have my pain, and the visits by them.

I feel the robe begin the pain lessening which indicates one of them is approaching. If my memory serves, it should be Lumiya.

And it is.

She is once more in a shift, but this time, it is undone all way to her navel. Her skin glistens with water, and her hair is still wet, as if she had just gotten out of the shower. The swell of her breasts is obvious and they are covered even less than usual.

I wonder if everything she is doing is designed to drive me mad with lust or to distraction with frustration.

Either way, it works.

She steps up close, the bare skin of her breast there before me; she pulls back my head by my hair, her smile is aggressive, sexy.

"Please Anakin, serve me. I need you to stop this pain for me. I suffer so."

Absently, I wonder when she got so good at pushing my buttons, at saying things that I respond to.

Regardless, I repeat my mantra. "I will not kill Tahiri."

My restraints reveal a new function, rather than an electrical shock, they burn. I hiss at the difference.

"I guess there are still a few more small tasks that you can do for me. But I will soon run out, and then you will face the choice of serving me, or to remain in this room, in those restraints until you die. Please Anakin; I don't want that to happen to you. I need you too much."

I brace myself for the pain. "I will not kill Tahiri."

She sighs, as the pain lessens. "Okay, I have this small troublesome task for you. But a couple of differences, today, no heart stopping, and no lightning."

I frown, and she smiles at me, like a child just given a new toy.

Then she turns and walks from the room. Moments later, she returns once more followed by two guards. This time they are escorting what I clearly recognize as a rodian.

As they get closer, I see the glassy eyes, and coral implants of a Vong slave.

The repulser releases me, and I stand. I look at the rodian, and feel my heart sink even further than it already had. "You want me to kill him?"

Lumiya is once again behind me, I can feel the heat of her skin on my back. "Yes. He is merely a slave, he will be better off dead. Can you not feel the pain the coral implants cause him, how it frays his very life essence. End his suffering."

I look at him in the Force, and see the fraying she is talking about. I hear someone asking "How?"

As Lumiya whispers in my ear, I realize that it was me that had asked. "Use the Force to choke him. Reach out and close his windpipe. Crush his throat until he is released from his suffering."

I reach out and grasp the rodian's throat with the Force. I can see the glassiness disappear from his eyes. I can feel his fear in the Force. I can hear him attempt to speak.

I absently realize that I'm crying.

Then I feel Lumiya's lips against my neck, and I smile. The realization that I am releasing this poor soul from slavery fills me. I can feel my anger at the Vong, at this Rodian for not fighting to the death. I want to kill him because he gave in. I press with the Force harder, strangling him, as Lumiya continues to nibble on my neck.

I release the Force and he falls to the ground dead. I feel the satisfaction of his release and the tears on my face.

Once more I hear someone else speaking. "I am damned."

Once more I realize that it was me.

Then Lumiya is holding me, whispering that everything is okay, that if I serve her the pain will be over, that I can posses Nethi, even as she is kissing my face and neck.

Part of me wants to give in; to take what she is offering, to stop the pain, to have Nethi for my own. I find it hard to think of the reason I shouldn't. I open my mouth to agree, to give in.

Instead I say "I will not kill Tahiri."

My restraints deliver my punishment for defiance.

Lumiya grabs me by the arm, and drags me back over to the repulser and places me once more within it.

She looks at me; everything about her screams danger, everything about her excites me. "I grow weary of giving you chances. Anakin, soon you will no longer have the option to serve me."

She turns from me, and picks up the rodian, and drops him in front of me, so that when I recline naturally, I am staring into his dead eyes.

Lumiya walks away from me and the pain spirals up from my heart, outshining what the robe provides.

I feel my tears, and watch the eyes of the dead rodian.