Pleasure & Pain: Chapter Four

I’m not sure when the slimy things stopped, but at some point they did, and fell off or were taken away. My robe was placed over my shoulders again, granting me that comfortable pain, my one companion since I awoke.

I feel a slight pinprick on my arm. The pinprick is noticeable, because the pain from the robe is once more gone. I open my eyes to find Lumiya standing before me. I glance at my arm, and notice the IV feed going to a device hanging beside me.

“What’s that?”

Again, that smile of hers, causing my heart to jump. “Merely a saline solution.”

She runs her hand through my hair, down the side of my face, and cups my chin in her hand. Her voice is purring once again. “You’ve been a very, very good boy, so I don’t want you becoming dehydrated.”

I take in her form again, the smooth skin, the barely there shift, the red hair. “So are you ready to serve me? Or must this pain continue? Please Anakin, it truly hurts me to see you suffer so, you have the power to stop it, just serve me, and it will be over.”

Her look is pleading, breaking my heart, so I let my gaze fall to the floor. “I won’t kill Tahiri.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, my restraints let lose a strong electric jolt.

She turns her back to me, and walks from the room, the pain from my robe picking up as she leaves.

I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad over that.

She returns carrying something small and furry in her hands. I notice that the pain the robe gives lessens as she comes closer to me. She lifts the small furry bundle and I recognize a young whisperkit. Its mews sound weak and pitiful.

I can feel its fear in the Force.

Lumiya’s entire stance and bearing has become aggressive, dangerous. I can feel a surge of lust and adrenaline pour through me.

She touches a small control panel, and the repulser drops me. I stand for the first time in days, and that feeling of wholeness once more fills me.

“Then let us stay with the simple tasks. Kill this whisperkit.”

“What? Why?”

“Must we go through this every time? The small tasks, serving me, these things stop the pain. What other reason do you need? The droid posed no trouble, what is different with this small kitling?”

“It’s…it’s alive?”

“Semantics. From a certain point of view the same could be said of the droid. In fact more so, since some consider droids as being sentient.”

I can remember the screams that the droid made. Whoever programmed it was good, it had sounded so much like a pleading child. “I can’t do that.”

Even as I say the words, I wonder if they’re true. After all, she had a point; I have always viewed Threepio or Artoo as more alive than anything Jace kept in his menagerie.

Her voice takes on a pleading note. “Please Anakin, just kill this whisperkit. That’s all I ask.”

I look up at her, and notice that her shift is opened slightly wider, her free hand moving along the opening. Her voice is now throaty as she continues pleading; it reminds me of Aunt Mara’s voice on our mission to Duro, when she was dressed up as a Kuati noble. “Please Anakin, do it for me.”

I can’t help myself at that. I reach out in the Force, and shut down the whisperkit’s heart, feeling my own break, my soul darkening in ways I can’t describe, and I can feel the tears as they begin to fall.

I hear myself mutter, “I’m damned.”

Yet to my own ears it sounds like someone else had said it.

Then Lumiya is there, her body pressing up against me. Her excitement and happiness are infectious. She leans down and kisses me, and all thoughts of the whisperkit flee. I’m locked in the moment. This time, because the restraints are turned off, my arms move of their own accord and wrap around her. My hands get tangled in her long red hair.

She breaks the kiss, and leans in close to my ear. “Serve me, obey me, and the pain will stop. Please Anakin, for me.”

I shiver at the words, how they feel as she whispers them into my ear. How they feel as they lodge into my mind.

I lower my face once more, and turn from her. I know she won’t like what I’m about to say. “I won’t kill Tahiri.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, my restraints send the strongest jolt of pain through me yet.

Her look is one of sorrow and pain.

She slowly pushes me back towards the repulser and turns it back on. I find myself once more floating slightly above the ground.

Her lips feel like fire on my forehead as she places a gentle kiss there. “Because you did the task I asked Nethi will be in later to provide you some food. I really wish you would serve me Anakin. Then we can stop this pain.”

I say nothing, and absently wonder which pain she is referring to. My eyes are looking down, watching the bottom of her shift as it moves against her legs.

She turns from me and walks from the room. I watch the bottom of her shift as it whispers against her legs as she leaves, my robe granting me more and more pain with her every step away.