Chapter 26: The Confession Chair
The air in Shaak Ti’s quarters tasted different. It wasn’t just sandalwood and sweet rot; it was anticipation, thick and cloying, coating the back of his throat. The bioluminescent vines traced patterns of cool blue light across the floor, leading to the center of the room where a single cushion waited, a dark island in the soft glow.Charlie stood on it, the woven fibers prickling the soles of his feet. The rest of him was bare save for the lace.It felt absurdly loud in the quiet room. Every shift of his weight, every small adjustment, made the delicate fabric rustle with a sound like dry leaves.He forced himself to be still. The hum of the Temple’s ancient systems was a distant bass note beneath the silence.
She emerged from the archway to her sleeping area not as a person, but as a shift in the atmosphere. Her montrals seemed to absorb the blue light, casting her face in deeper shadow. She wore simple linen trousers and a sleeveless tunic, her arms crossed.She didn’t speak. She circled him once, her eyes a slow, analytical scan from his tousled hair down to his tensed calves and back up. The inspection was colder, more clinical than any playful prank.“Begin,” she said, the word a soft command.
He swallowed.“Today. In the main eastern corridor, after… after the incident with the maintenance closet.”
“Describe the sensation of the garment in that moment.”
“It… it was there. I was aware of it. It was an edge, a line I could feel against my skin.” The words were clunky.He was describing a physical thing.
“No,” Shaak Ti interrupted, her voice a needle-thin correction.“That is the where. I asked for the how.Not location.Resonance.What did it make you feel?”
He closed his eyes. The memory washed over him: the triumph of seeing Ahsoka ‘caught’, the sharp inversion of blame, the humiliating efficiency of their punishment over the coolant tank. Then the restless, burning energy driving him into the corridor.Seeing Rey’s back. The focused pull of the Force, the crisp snap of fabric, her shocked squeal.
“Power,” he breathed, the word foreign on his tongue.“It made me feel…powerful.For a second. I’d been the one caught, the one getting… disciplined. Then I saw Rey, and it was like the lace was a… a catalyst.It reminded me I could still do something. That I could flip the script.” He opened his eyes, staring at the wall. “But then it curdled.When her trousers fell.When I saw her face.When Master Luminara took them. It stopped being power.It just felt… small.And cheap.The lace felt ridiculous then. Like a kid’s costume.It wasn’t a tool. It was just a… a stupid, purple joke I was wearing while I made someone else feel like garbage.”
The confession hung in the air, raw and ugly.He expected a reprimand, a lecture on empathy.
Shaak Ti was silent for a long moment.Then she moved. Not with Jedi speed, but with a deliberate, grounded grace.She pulled a low, wide stool from the corner and sat on it. She patted her thigh.“Come here.”
His heart hammered against his ribs. This wasn’t the rough handling of Ahsoka and Barriss.This was something else. He walked the few steps and, with a hesitation that made his skin feel too tight, lowered himself across her lap. The position was profoundly vulnerable.The cool air of the room touched parts of him normally never exposed. The lace, the focal point of everything, was now presented, a testament to his shame. Her linen-clad thighs were solid beneath his abdomen.
Her hand came to rest on his lower back, warm and heavy.Not to restrain, but to settle. Then her other hand lay flat against his bottom, over the lace.It was just a touch, a simple connection.“Good,” she murmured. Her voice was low, closer to his ear.“You identified the pivot. The moment the energy turned from reactive anger to conscious shame.That is the feeling you must learn to sit with. Not the anger, not the glee.The shame. It is your teacher.” Her hand lifted and came down in a soft, almost casual pat.It wasn’t a smack. It was an acknowledgment.Tap.“The prank was an outlet.” Tap. “The guilt is the lesson.” Tap.
Each gentle pat radiated through him, not as pain, but as a startling, warm focus.The humiliation of the position burned, but her calm transmuted it. She wasn’t stoking a fire; she was directing a current.
“Now,” she said, her hand resting flat again, absorbing the faint heat it had generated. “How can you make it right?”
His face was pressed against her leg.His voice was muffled. “I have to apologize.”
“An apology is a word.It is a start.What action will give it weight? What will show Rey that you understand the cost?”
He thought of Rey standing in her Porg underwear, her possessions confiscated.He thought of her tears. He thought of the scavenger’s mind, practical and fierce.“She’ll want balance.Not… not revenge, exactly. Equity.”
“Propose it.”
He took a shaky breath.“I… I go to her. I apologize.And I tell her she can… she can pick something of mine.Something to take. Or… or she can do something to me.Something embarrassing. To even the scale.”
Shaak Ti’s hand stroked once over the lace, a considering gesture. “You would offer her agency over your humiliation.That is a more sincere offering than flowers or a chore.It carries risk. She may choose something severe.”
“I know.”
“And you would accept it?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a moment.Then her hands guided him up, not ungently. He stood before her again, legs unsteady, the ghost of her touch lingering on his skin. She looked up at him, her expression unreadable in the dim light, but her eyes held a glint of something like approval.“Then your seven-day prescription has served its purpose. I will remove the lace after your meeting with Rey.Consider its lesson absorbed.” She rose from the stool, her movement fluid. “Go now. Do not let the night dilute your resolution.”
He fumbled for his discarded trousers, his fingers clumsy. As he pulled them on, the lace, now just fabric again, seemed to whisper against him—a final reminder.He hesitated at the door.
“Master?”
She was already turning away, a silhouette against the blue vines. “Hmm?”
“Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say.
He caught the faintest curve of her profile, a shadow of a smile.“Do not thank me.Thank your guilt. It is a better guide than your pride.Now go. Your friend is waiting.”
The hallway lights felt garish after the soft gloom of her quarters.The Temple was settling into its night-cycle quiet.He knew where Rey would be. Not her official quarters. She preferred small, hidden spaces, leftovers from a life spent squeezing into wrecks for shelter.
He found her in an observation blister on the Temple’s lower southern spire, a bubble of transparisteel jutting out into the Coruscant night. The planet-wide glow painted her face in neon and shadow. She sat on the floor, knees drawn up, staring out at the endless streams of speeder traffic.She didn’t look at him when he entered.
“Go away, Charlie.”
“I’m not going away.” He leaned against the curved wall opposite her, leaving a wide berth.“I came to say I’m sorry. It was a trash thing to do.I wasn’t thinking about you. I was just… lashing out.”
She snorted, a bitter, wet sound.“Yeah.I noticed. Made me your punching bag. Real Jedi of you.”
“It wasn’t.” He slid down the wall to sit on the floor, mirroring her posture.The city light bled across the space between them. “Luminara took your stuff. Your… pants.”
“She did.” Rey’s voice was tight.“Said they were a distraction.Maybe they were. But they were my distraction.” She finally looked at him, her eyes fierce with unshed tears. “You don’t get it.You have a dozen sets of clothes.I have three. And one of them is… was… something just for me.Something silly.Something fun. And you turned it into a reason for me to get scolded like a youngling.”
He nodded, the guilt a physical weight.“I know.So… I’m offering you a trade. You get to pick something of mine.Anything.My tool kit from Forman.The data chip with my logs. You can have it. Trash it, keep it, I don’t care.”
She eyed him skeptically.“Or?”
“Or… you get to do something to me.Something embarrassing. Whatever you think is fair.To even it out.”
A flicker of interest cut through her hurt. “Anything?”
“Within reason.No permanent damage.But yeah.Anything you can think of. Public, private.Your call.”
Rey turned her gaze back to the city, her jaw working. The silence stretched, filled only by the faint, deep hum of the traffic below. He could see the scavenger’s mind working, assessing, valuing.
“I don’t want your stuff,” she said finally, her voice quieter.“Stuff can be replaced. That’s not the point.” She looked back at him, a hard, clear light in her eyes. “You took something that was just mine and you made it public. You made me a spectacle.”
“I did.”
“So I get to do the same.” A plan was solidifying in her expression.“Tomorrow. After morning drills.You’ll meet me in the main training hall. And you’ll wear what I tell you to wear.And you’ll do what I tell you to do. For one hour.In front of whoever’s there.”
A cold trickle of dread went down his spine. “What’s the outfit? What’s the task?”
A small, sharp smile touched her lips.It wasn’t friendly.It was equitable.“You’ll find out tomorrow. Do we have a deal?”
He had walked into this.He had offered. The lace, now just a faint line of pressure beneath his trousers, seemed to pulse in agreement. This was the other side of the power he’d momentarily felt.This was the consequence, shaped by her hands.
He took a deep breath, the air in the blister feeling thin.
“We have a deal.”
The deal hung between them in the neon-lit dark, a new and fragile filament. He left Rey in the blister, the weight of tomorrow already settling on his shoulders. The walk back through the Temple’s hushed corridors felt longer, the polished floors reflecting his uncertainty back at him. His own quarters seemed too empty, too silent, after the charged exchange.He needed to tell Shaak Ti.
Her door hissed open before he could knock. She stood framed in the soft blue light, as if she’d been waiting.“Well?”
“I apologized.We made a deal. For tomorrow.” He stepped inside, the familiar scent of sandalwood wrapping around him.
She listened, her head tilted, as he recounted the sparse conversation in the blister.When he finished, she nodded slowly.“You offered agency.You accepted her terms without negotiation. That shows growth, Charlie.” Her stern expression softened into something warmer, rarer. “I am proud of you.”
Before he could process the words, she closed the distance and pulled him into a hug. It was firm and brief, but the warmth of it seeped into the nervous chill under his skin.He started to relax.Then her hands slipped to his waistband. A mischievous glint flashed in her eyes.“Now, for the final ceremonial removal of the prescribed garment.”
She undid the clasp and button of his trousers with efficient fingers, then pushed them down past his hips in one smooth motion. The cool air of the room washed over his exposed thighs and buttocks, raising gooseflesh.The purple lace tanga felt impossibly conspicuous against his skin now, the only barrier. He shivered.She paused.Her smile faded into a sigh of genuine exasperation. “Oh, for stars’ sake.”
“What?” He craned his neck, trying to look at her.
“My shears.The good pair with the durasteel handles.” She clicked her tongue. “I lent them to Aayla Secura yesterday. She was tailoring a new flight suit.”
A wild, hopeful thought struck him.“So… just pull it off? It’s just lace, it’ll rip.”
Shaak Ti’s smile returned, wide and unbearably smug. She crossed her arms, her gaze unwavering.“Absolutely not.That is a garment of instruction. It deserves a proper, clean decommissioning. You will retrieve my shears from Aayla.”
He stared at her, disbelief tightening his chest.“You want me to go to Aayla’s quarters? Like this?”
“Like what?” Her tone was innocence itself.“You have your boots. You have your robe.” She gestured to his upper body, still clad in the simple Jedi tunic. “From the waist up, you are perfectly presentable.The mission is clear. Go.”
Protesting further, he knew, would only invite more creative obstacles. With a groan that was half genuine frustration and half secret thrill, he stepped out of the pooled trousers. He left them on the floor of her quarters like a discarded skin.The chill of the corridor tiles bit into the soles of his feet through his boots. He pulled his robe tighter around his torso, the fabric doing nothing to shield the exposed lower half of his body.Every nerve ending buzzed with vulnerability.
He broke into a hurried, mortified half-jog, the slap of his bootheels echoing too loudly in the quiet hall. The lace rode up with each stride, a persistent, embarrassing reminder. He rounded a corner into a wider concourse used by the cultural studies clans and nearly collided with a tall, serene figure.
Luminara Unduli looked down at him, one perfect eyebrow arching. Her gaze travelled slowly, deliberately, from his flushed face, down his robe, to his bare legs and the glaring purple strap hugging his backside. A cluster of young Padawans further down the hall stopped their conversation to stare, hands flying to mouths to stifle giggles.“Padawan Charlie.” Luminara’s voice was cool honey. “Running in the halls is prohibited. And while the Temple celebrates a certain… freedom of expression, this degree of undress is generally reserved for the ‘fresher.”
“Master Luminara! I’m… it’s on Master Ti’s orders!” he blurted, heat flooding his face.“I have to retrieve something for her. It’s… it’s part of my lesson.”
He saw the recognition dawn in her dark eyes. She knew Shaak Ti’s methods.A slow, knowing grin spread across her face, fracturing her serene composure. She shook her head, a soft chuckle escaping her. “Of course it is.” Her hand, swift and precise, darted out and delivered a stinging, resonant slap to his lace-covered bottom. The sound was shockingly loud in the hallway.“Then do not let me delay your education. Carry on.”
The smack burned, a sharp counterpoint to the cool air. He scurried past her, the giggles of the Padawans now erupting into full laughter behind him. He focused on the quickest route to Aayla’s apartment in the Knight’s wing, his face a furnace.Two corridors from his destination, it happened. An invisible force, playful and powerful, hooked under the front band of the lace tanga and yanked him skyward. He yelped, feet leaving the ground, as he was suspended in a perfect, brutal hanging wedgie. The delicate lace held with surprising strength, digging deep into his cleft and lifting him until he dangled, helpless, a few inches off the floor.
Aayla Secura stepped out from an alcove, her blue lips curved in a wicked smile.Her lekku twitched with amusement.“Well, well. What a fetching little surprise package. And here I thought the Temple’s decor was getting a bit drab.”
“Aayla! Let me down!” He kicked his feet uselessly, the strain on the lace becoming acutely painful.“In a hurry, sweetie? You look like you’re dressed for a very specific party.” She walked a slow circle around him, her eyes appraising.“The purple is a choice.Bold.Girlish. I admire the commitment.”
“Master Ti’s shears!” he gasped, wriggling.“She said you have them. I need them. Please.”
“Ah, the sacred scissors.” Aayla tapped a finger against her chin, feigning thought.“I do have them.They’re very nice. But information and property exchange requires a little… transaction fee.”
He knew what was coming. He hated that a part of him was already leaning into the absurdity of it all. “What do you want?”
“Show me what you’re working with, darling. All that fussy lace is hiding the goods.” She gestured with a hand.“A little show. Jiggle the ‘junk in your trunk’ for me. Let’s see if the packaging matches the product.”
Humiliation crested over him, warm and total.There was no way out but through. He took a shaky breath, then, dangling from the apex of his wedgie, he awkwardly clenched and unclenched his buttocks, making his petite, upturned bottom jiggle beneath the cruel tension of the lace.Aayla’s giggles were bright and melodic, echoing in the hall. She clapped her hands once, delightedly.“Oh, it’s absolutely precious! So plump, yet so pert.A perfect handful. Alright, payment accepted.”
With a casual wave of her hand, she used the Force to lower him gently until his boots touched the ground. The wedgie remained, ferociously entrenched. She produced the sleek durasteel shears from a belt pouch and handed them to him, her eyes still glittering with mirth.“Give Shaak my thanks. The entertainment tonight has been first-rate.”
The shears were cool and heavy in my grip, a solid anchor against the residual humiliation vibrating through me. Aayla’s laughter trailed me down the hall, a sparkling ribbon of sound that made my ears burn. I walked with a stiff, bow-legged gait, the deeply entrenched lace a constant, painful reminder of my detour.
Each step sent a fresh jolt of discomfort, the fabric having migrated so far north it felt surgical. The empty corridors offered no respite, only the echo of my own boots and the whisper of my robe against my thighs. I focused on the weight of the shears, on the promise of release held in their polished jaws.
Shaak Ti’s door was a sanctuary.I slid inside, the soft blue gloom a balm. She stood exactly where I’d left her, a statue of serene expectation. Her eyes dipped to my awkward posture, to the visible strain against the lace, and her lips quirked.“Your mission encountered complications.”
“Aayla,” I managed, my voice tight. “She required… a demonstration.”
“I’m sure she did.” She extended her hand. “The tools, please.”
I passed her the shears. Their metallic click as she opened the blades was the loudest sound in the room.She gestured toward the center of the space.“Assume the position. Present the artifact for termination.”
I didn’t need further instruction. I turned, bent over at the waist, and gripped my ankles.The position stretched the lace even tighter, a final, exquisite agony. The cool air poured over my exposed backside, raising goosebumps.I closed my eyes, waiting.
I heard the soft swish of her robes as she moved behind me. Then the cold, flat side of one durasteel blade rested against the small of my back, a line of ice against feverish skin. She traced it slowly down the knotted ridge of my spine, over the crest of my buttock.The metal was unforgiving.
“This small, foolish thing,” she murmured, her voice low and resonant in the quiet.“It carried a significant lesson. Remember the weight of it.”
The blade dipped into the deep, intimate valley where the lace was most invasive. I held my breath.There was a moment of supreme tension, a focused silence. Then, a crisp, definitive snick.The sound was shockingly loud.The terrible, relieving release was instantaneous. The vicious tension vanished, replaced by a flood of cool air on overheated, sensitized skin. The severed ends of the lace fell away, dangling limply from my hips for a second before she caught them.She tugged the ruined garment free and let it drop to the floor, a discarded purple heap.
I stayed bent, breathing deep, feeling oddly naked in a new, profound way. The ghost of the wedgie still haunted my muscles. Then I felt her hands, warm and sure, cup my bare buttocks.Her thumbs smoothed over the sore, lace-imprinted skin.
“Lesson concluded,” she said, her tone formal yet softened.Before I could straighten, she leaned down. I felt the soft, unexpected press of her lips against the very center of my right cheek, a kiss that was both tender and possessive.It wasn’t erotic. It was a seal, a brand of ownership and absolution. The warmth of it spread through me, a counterpoint to the room’s chill.
“Up you get,” she said, her voice back to its normal, wry melody.I straightened, my body feeling strangely loose and light. I glanced at the lace on the floor, a relic of my week of prescribed humility. She followed my gaze and nudged it with her toe.“I’ll dispose of it. Your penance is yours to carry forward, not in fabric, but in action.” She took my elbow, her grip firm. “Now, let’s get you to bed. You have a big day of reciprocal mortification tomorrow.”
She guided me from her quarters, her hand a steadying presence on my arm. We walked the familiar route to my dormitory in a comfortable silence. The Temple was deep in its nocturnal cycle, the halls pools of shadow punctuated by low, guide-glows. My bare legs were cold, but the lingering warmth on my backside from her kiss was a private, glowing coal.We stopped outside my door. She turned me to face her, her hands on my shoulders. In the dim light, her white facial markings seemed to glow.“You handled tonight with grace, Charlie. Even the unplanned… demonstrations.” A sly smile touched her lips. “Tomorrow, handle Rey’s justice with the same acceptance.No backtalk.No cleverness. Take it.”
I nodded, the reality of my deal with Rey settling back in my stomach. “Yes, Master.”
She pulled me into one more brief, hard hug, then released me with a gentle push toward my door.“Sleep. You’ll need your strength for whatever ingenious, petty, and wholly deserved torment she’s devised.”
The door hissed shut behind me. My room was dark, quiet, a solitary space that felt both safe and strangely empty after the night’s events. I crawled into my narrow bed, the sheets cool on my skin. My mind replayed the cascade: Rey’ hurt expression, the deal, Luminara’s smack, Aayla’s dangling wedgie, the final, decisive snip of the shears, Shaak’s kiss.
I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling.The physical reminders were fading into bruises and echoes. The only thing left was the future, a blank space waiting to be filled by Rey’s imagination. A nervous excitement buzzed under my skin, inseparable from the dread.
I wondered what Rey has planned for tomorrow.