Chapter 7: A Lesson in Devotion
The recycled air in the living quarters always carried a metallic chill, but now it felt charged, thick enough to catch in the throat. Luminara stood just inside the hatchway, her feet planted on the grating, her body encased once more in the simple, grey utility tunic and trousers they’d scavenged. The fabric was coarse, impersonal. It should have felt like armor. It felt like a prop.
Barriss lounged on the low crew couch that was bolted to the far wall. She had shed her own trousers; her legs were bare, stretched out, crossed at the ankles. She wore only a tight black sleeveless undershirt. The casualness of her posture was a deliberate counterpoint to Luminara’s rigid stillness. In the bluish glow of the primary console, her geometric tattoos seemed to shift like ancient script.
“Well?” Barriss said. Her voice was idle, but her eyes weren’t. They tracked over Luminara from head to toe, a slow, invasive scan. “You said you wished to demonstrate your devotion. Your loyalty. Words are cheap, Master. Even now. Show me.”
Luminara’s mouth was dry. The instruction had been clear. Perform. The concept was absurd. A Jedi Master, a commander of legions, reduced to this… theatrical seduction. Her palms began to sweat. She clasped them behind her back, the gesture unconsciously formal, an echo of a thousand diplomatic receptions.
Barriss saw it. A faint, cold smile touched her lips. She shifted, the synth-leather of the couch sighing beneath her. “You’re hesitating. Is it shame? Or is it that the devotion you offered in the dark last cycle was just… expediency? A way to make the pain stop.” She let the accusation hang, then delivered the sharper cut. “I wonder if you even know what love feels like outside of a textbook.”
The words found their mark with precision. They burrowed into the very core of Luminara’s newfound addiction—not to pain, but to the brutal honesty that followed it, to the obliteration of the persona she’d worn for a lifetime. This was the degradation she craved, laid bare not by a weapon, but by a doubt.
“No,” Luminara said, the word emerging sharper than she intended. She unclasped her hands, letting them fall to her sides. “My doubt is not in my feeling. It is in my… execution. This is not a skill I possess.”
“Then acquire it,” Barriss replied, her tone dropping, becoming intimate and dangerous. “For me. Or is your obedience conditional on your competence?”
Another direct hit. Luminara inhaled, the air scraping her lungs. This was the test. Not of her body, but of her surrender. Of her willingness to be clumsy, to be awkward, to be seen trying and failing for the sole purpose of proving that she would try at all.
She gave a single, tight nod. Her fingers went to the closure of her tunic, a simple plastoid clip at her collar. The click was deafening in the hum of the ship.
The first few inches of grey fabric parted. The skin beneath was the familiar green, marked by time and battle, a landscape Barriss had recently reclaimed. Luminara kept her eyes on Barriss’s face, seeking a sign, a directive. Barriss merely watched, her expression unreadable, one hand resting lightly on her own bare thigh.
“Slower,” Barriss commanded softly.
Luminara forced her movements to decelerate. She pushed the fabric off one shoulder, then the other, letting the tunker hang from her waist for a moment before shrugging it down her arms. It caught at the bindings of her wrists, and she had to pause, a flash of helplessness warming her cheeks, before she could work it free. The tunic pooled at her feet. Her torso was exposed, the lean muscle of her arms and abdomen, the subtle swell of her breasts in the simple, practical cloth wrap beneath.
“Better,” Barriss murmured. “Now the wrap. But don’t just remove it. Show it to me. Show me what you’ve kept hidden.”
The clinical phrasing undid her. Luminara’s hands rose to the knot at her sternum. Her fingers, usually so deft, felt thick and clumsy. She loosened the fabric, one slow, winding turn after another. The cloth, once secure, began to slacken. With each revolution, the pressure across her chest lessened, a subtle unburdening that felt obscenely symbolic. She drew the long end out, pulling it across her body with a whisper of sound, until the wrap hung loose. A deep breath, and she let it fall.
The air was cold on her skin. She resisted the instinct to cover herself. She stood, allowing the exposure, watching Barriss’s eyes darken as they focused. There was no lust there, not purely. It was appraisal. Ownership. The pleasure of witnessing a secret made commonplace.
“Turn,” Barriss said.
Luminara turned, a slow pivot on her heel, presenting her back. She felt infinitely more vulnerable this way, the nape of her neck, the knobs of her spine, the fading bruises from the cargo hold grating. She heard Barriss shift on the couch.
“Your waist,” Barriss’s voice came, closer now. She had leaned forward. “Your hips. I never noticed how they curve. You always stood like a soldier. All straight lines and angles. But you’re not. You’re built for motion. For grace. You hid that, too. Under all those robes.”
observation, so casually delivered, felt more invasive than a touch. Luminara completed the turn, facing Barriss again, her hands falling uselessly to her sides. The only garments left were the simple trousers, hanging low on her hips. Her skin prickled everywhere.
"Now those," Barriss said, tilting her chin slightly. "And don't just step out of them. Make me want to see what's underneath."
Luminara’s fingers hooked into the waistband. She pushed the coarse fabric down over the sharp curve of her hips, a slow, deliberate shove that required a slight shift of her weight. The trousers slid down her thighs, revealing more of the green skin, the subtle strength of her legs, the dark hair at the junction of them. She bent, the motion awkward and profoundly vulnerable, to step out of the pooled fabric. She kicked them aside, a small act of defiance that felt pathetic even as she did it. Then she stood, completely naked before her former apprentice, in the sterile glow of the stolen ship.
"Just stand there," Barriss commanded, her voice a low, warm thing now. "Don't move. Let me look at you." Her gaze was a physical pressure, a slow, luxuriating crawl from Luminara’s face, down the column of her throat, over her shoulders and the soft, weighty hang of her breasts. It lingered on the swell of her stomach, the proof of a life lived, of decades her apprentice had not seen. It traced the pronounced curve of her hips, the secret place where thigh met torso, and lower, down the strong lines of her legs to her feet on the cold grating. "Fuck, Luminara. Every part of you. The stretch marks here, the softness there. This is a body that has lived. A woman's body. A mother's body, in every way but one. And you kept it all prisoner in layer after layer of sanctimonious cloth."
“It’s yours to see now,” Luminara whispered, the statement a vow.
“Yes.” Barriss finally moved. She shifted on the couch, making space beside her.“Come here.” It wasn’t an invitation to sit. Luminara approached, stopping a pace away.“No. Closer.” Luminara took another step, now standing directly before the seated woman. Barriss leaned forward, her face level with Luminara’s navel.She didn’t touch, just inhaled, her eyes closing for a second. “Now touch yourself.”
The command landed, flat and unambiguous.Luminara blinked. “I… what?”
“You heard me.” Barriss’s eyes opened, their blue clarity sharpening. “You offered me your passion.Show me where it lives. Find it for me.”
"I don’t… know how," Luminara admitted, the confession shaming her more than her nudity. The Jedi teachings had been about sublimation, about channeling such energy into the Force. Personal, solitary pleasure was an unexplored frontier, a selfishness she’d been trained to reject.
"Then I’ll teach you," Barriss said, her voice losing none of its command but gaining a thread of dark patience. She began to move her fingers in a slow, circular motion over her clit, her eyes locked on Luminara’s. "Start with your neck. Just your fingertips. Feel your own pulse. That’s your life. That’s the engine."
Trembling, Luminara raised a hand. Her fingertips brushed the side of her throat. The beat there was frantic, a trapped bird. She felt it reverberate through her.
"Good. Now your collarbone. Trace it. It’s elegant. Now your breast. Don’t grab it. Cup it. Feel the weight of it in your own hand. You’ve never even done that, have you?" Barriss’s breathing hitched slightly as her own movements continued, a wet sound now subtly underscoring her words.
Luminara obeyed, her palm sliding over her own nipple. The sensation was electric, shockingly direct. A soft gasp escaped her.
"Listen to that," Barriss coaxed. "That’s your body talking. Now the other hand. Down your stomach. Slow. You’re not rushing to a finish line. You’re exploring a planet. My planet." Her own pace increased, her hips beginning a shallow rock against her hand. "Now find where you’re wet. Prove to me what I already know."
Luminara’s hand drifted lower, through the coarse hair, until her fingers found the slick, swollen folds. The contact was so intense she flinched. Her own touch felt alien, scandalous.
"Circle your clit," Barriss instructed, her voice growing thicker. "Just the pad of your finger. Light. Like you’re checking a fragile connection. Feel that? That little jolt?" She mimicked the motion on herself, a sharp, rough circle that made her back arch. "Yeah, you feel it. Now imagine my mouth there. Like in the hold. Imagine my tongue doing that."
The explicit directive, paired with the visual of Barriss pleasuring herself mere feet away, broke a dam inside Luminara. A broken sound, half-whimper, half-sob, left her lips. Her finger moved, applying more pressure, chasing the strange, building tension. It was clumsy, unpracticed.
"Your other fingers," Barriss panted, her movements becoming more urgent, her own wetness audible. "Slide two inside. Fuck yourself with them. Think of me. Think of how good you felt."
Luminara pressed two fingers into her own cunt. The stretch was delicious, a fullness that echoed the phantom memory of Barriss inside her. She pushed them in to the knuckle, a startled moan tearing from her throat.
"See?" Barriss gasped, her free hand gripping the edge of the couch, her knuckles white. "You know what you need. You’ve just been ignoring it for forty fucking years. Now move them. Curl them. Find the spot that makes your legs shake."
Luminara pumped her fingers, the lewd, wet sounds filling the space between them. She crooked them, searching, and a bolt of pure, white-hot pleasure sparked up her spine. Her knees buckled. She swayed, managing to stay upright.
The wet, rhythmic sound of her own fingers moving inside herself was the most honest confession she’d ever uttered. Barriss watched, entranced, her own hand a frantic blur now, her breathing reduced to sharp, open-mouthed pants. “Say it,” she demanded, her voice cracking with the strain of her own impending release. “Tell me what it feels like to finally fucking feel something.”
“It’s… it’s so much,” Luminara gasped, her head lolling back, her fingers driving deeper, spurred by the command. The coiled tension in her belly was a live wire, sparking with every curl of her hand. “It’s overwhelming.”
“Is it good?” Barriss insisted, her hips bucking off the couch now, her muscles corded and trembling. Her fingers fucked into her own cunt with punishing speed, the slick noise obscene in the sterile room. “Tell me it’s good, you sanctimonious bitch. Tell me you love it.”
“Yes!” The word erupted from Luminara, torn from a place beyond dignity. “It’s good. It’s filthy and good and I… oh, Force… I love it.” Her admission, voiced aloud, seemed to trip a switch in her body. The pleasure gathered, crested, a wave about to break.
“Whose is it?” Barriss snarled, her movements becoming brutally fast, her free hand clawing at her own thigh. “Who does that cunt belong to?Say my name when you come.”
The command was the final key. Luminara’s vision whited out at the edges. Her entire universe narrowed to the pulse of her own blood, the exquisite friction, and Barriss’s fierce, possessive gaze. “Barriss!” she cried out, the name a prayer and a surrender as her orgasm ripped through her. Her body convulsed, her knees finally giving way as she rode the violent, shocking waves of it, her own fingers still working through the tremors, milking the last shocks of sensation.
The sight of Luminara collapsing into orgasm, shouting her name, was all Barriss needed. A guttural, raw sound tore from her throat.“Fuck! Look at me!” she demanded, and Luminara, dazed and panting on the floor, forced her eyes open.
Barriss’s head was thrown back, her neck tendons standing in stark relief. Her body arched, rigid, and then a harsh cry escaped her as her climax hit. As her cunt clenched around her driving fingers, a distinct, powerful jet of fluid burst from her, arcing through the air to splatter hot and wet onto the metal grating directly in front of Luminara’s knees.The sound was a sharp, liquid slap. The fluid pooled for a moment, gleaming in the console light, before trickling through the grates. Barriss shuddered through the aftermath, her body slumping back into the couch, breath coming in ragged, shattered gasps.
Silence descended, broken only by the hum of the ship and their labored breathing. The air hung thick with the sharp, musky scent of their sweat and release.
Barriss slowly pulled her hand from between her legs, examining her glistening fingers with a look of detached satisfaction before wiping them on her shirt. Her eyes, heavy-lidded and dark, found Luminara’s. A slow, exhausted, and utterly triumphant smile spread across her face.“Now,” she breathed, her voice hoarse. “Now you understand devotion.”
Luminara’s breath hitched. Her post-release haze evaporated, replaced by a sharp, pulling curiosity. She stared at the fluid on the floor, her mind struggling to categorize it. This was beyond any clinical knowledge, any detached understanding of biology. It was visceral evidence of Barriss’s pleasure, a physical testament ejected from the very core of her.
Fascination coiled tight in her stomach, merging with the lingering echoes of her own arousal. Her mouth went dry for a different reason now.
Barriss’s breathing slowed, ragged at first, then smoothing into a controlled rhythm. She followed Luminara’s gaze to the floor, then back to her face. A slow, knowing smile spread across her features, wiping away the last traces of strain.
“You look… intrigued,” Barriss said, her voice husky but clear. She shifted on the couch, not bothering to cover herself. “It’s just a thing my body does. When the feeling is… particularly potent.”
Luminara could only nod, her eyes darting between the puddle and Barriss’s satisfied expression.
“Don’t just look at it.” Barriss’s tone was low, inviting. She gestured casually with her chin. “Taste it. I want you to.”
The command landed, a new layer of transgression. Luminara’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was a different kind of exposure, a consumption of the proof of her own corruption. Her initial reaction was a stiffening, a lifetime of fastidiousness rearing up.
“Barriss, I…” she started, the protest dying in her throat as she saw the slight cooling in Barriss’s eyes, the silent challenge. Is your obedience conditional? The unspoken echo from moments ago decided her.
She knelt.
The grating was hard and cold against her knees. The puddle was there, within reach, its scent rising—musky, salty, with a sharp, organic tang that was uniquely Barriss. Luminara closed her eyes for a second, then leaned forward. She extended her tongue, a tentative flick against the cool plating.
The taste exploded on her senses. It was complex, profoundly intimate, and utterly foreign. It was sour and sweet, earthy and electric. It was the taste of Barriss’s surrender to sensation, and by extension, a flavor of her power.
“That,” Barriss murmured from above, watching with rapt attention, “is my love for you, Master. That’s what it boils down to. Not poetry. Not gentle words. This.”
Luminara didn’t hesitate a second time. She leaned in again, her tongue swiping a broader path through the slickness. The taste was shocking, but it was also clarifying. It was an addictive truth, searing away the last ghost of her old self with every swallow. A low, involuntary moan vibrated in her chest.
She looked up, her lips glistening, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and hunger.
Barriss saw it all. Her smile turned predatory, soft. She reached down, her fingers tracing the line of Luminara’s jaw, smearing a drop Luminara had missed. “You like it,” she stated, her thumb brushing Luminara’s lower lip.
“Yes,” Luminara breathed, the word a confession more profound than any in the cargo hold.
Barriss held her gaze, her blue eyes deepening. Her voice dropped to a whisper, charged with promise. “Then tell me. Would you like more?”