Chapter 33: The Public Change
The walk from the refectory was a silent, shuffling parade of shame. The warmth trapped in the diaper had begun to cool into a damp, clinging chill that seemed to seep into my bones. Every step produced a soft, sodden whisper, a sound that screamed its meaning to my ears alone. Ahsoka led, her pace leisurely, the datapen spinning idly in her fingers. She was a magnet, and I was a piece of iron drawn helplessly in her wake, trailing the scent of kolto and my own humiliation.
She didn’t head for the private quarters. Instead, she guided us out into the central plaza, where the late afternoon sun slanted across the flagstones, painting everything in long, amber shadows. The air here was cooler, fresher, scented with blooming night-blooms from the terrace gardens and the clean mineral smell of water. The great fountain dominated the space, its constant, gentle roar a white noise that muffled the sounds of the Temple. Jedi moved through the plaza in pairs and small groups, their conversations a soft murmur beneath the water’s song.
Ahsoka found a low, flat bench of polished stone situated halfway between a flowering trellis and the fountain’s broad basin. It was secluded enough for a private conversation, but entirely in view of anyone passing by.
“Here,” she said, her voice devoid of its earlier theatrical malice. It was simply instructional.
She sat on the bench, stretching her legs out, and patted her thighs. “Across. Now.”
My body went cold. “Ahsoka, not here. People—”
“Are everywhere. Which is the point.” She didn’t look at me. She was studying the datapen again, scrolling through the catastrophic data from the refectory. “The test environment is now public, semi-controlled. Lie down.”
There was no leverage, no argument that could penetrate the sheer, placid certainty of her will. The collar was just leather. The true bindings were the data, and her ownership of it. I moved as if through deep water, lowering myself awkwardly across her lap. The hard muscle of her thighs pressed into my ribs and hips. The damp, swollen bulk of the diaper was grotesquely prominent between us. My head hung down on one side of her knees, my legs dangling off the other, fingers brushing cool stone. The world was upside down: the fountain, the distant spires, the strolling Jedi, all tilting at a nauseating angle.
I heard a rustle, then the distinctive rrrip of the adhesive tabs being pulled open. The evening air washed over the exposed skin of my lower back, my buttocks, a shocking coolness. Then her fingers hooked into the waistband at the front and pulled it down, baring me completely from the waist to mid-thigh. The contrast of the cool air on my heated, damp skin was a jolt. My half-aroused state, a traitorous holdover from the refectory’s degrading release, was laid bare to the open plaza.
She made a soft, contemplative sound. “You still need to go, don’t you?”
It wasn’t a question about the past. It was about the present. The reflex was still there, a phantom pressure, a biological echo. My face was pressed against the rough weave of her leggings. I couldn’t speak. I gave a tiny, convulsive nod.
Her hand moved. Her fingers, cool and dry, encircled me. It wasn’t a caress. It was a functional grip, like holding a tool. She aimed me away from the bench, toward a patch of decorative grass and small, blue flowers at its base.
“Go on, then,” she said, her voice casual, as if asking me to pass the salt. “Finish up. We can’t have you leaking during the next phase.”
The command, the utter mundanity of it, broke something loose. A thin, desperate stream spattered onto the grass, pattering against the soil and leaves. It was a pathetic trickle compared to the earlier flood, but in the open air, the sound was appallingly distinct. My eyes squeezed shut. I focused on the sound of the fountain, trying to drown it out.
Footsteps approached on the flagstones. Slow, measured. I froze, the stream cutting off abruptly.
“Knight Tano.” The voice was aged, dignified, and familiar—Master Tera Sinube.
“Master Sinube,” Ahsoka replied, her voice warm and light. Her grip on me didn’t loosen. If anything, it became more deliberate, a statement. “Lovely evening.”
“Indeed. The night-blooms are particularly fragrant.” A pause. I could feel his gaze, could imagine his wise, whiskered face taking in the scene: a Knight seated on a bench with a half-stripped Padawan across her lap, held in a painfully intimate grasp. “Is everything… quite alright?”
“Oh, perfectly,” Ahsoka chirped. She gave a slight, almost instructional squeeze, and the final few drops fell onto the grass. “Just a bit of field medicine. Charlie here had a minor… hydraulic malfunction during his servitude duties. We’re applying some corrective discipline and basic care. Preventing a mess.”
My body was a rod of solid mortification. The cold air on my wet skin felt like a spotlight.
“I see,” Master Sinube said slowly. Another pair of footsteps had stopped beside him. I couldn’t see, but the presence felt like Master Yoda. “Mindful of Temple hygiene, you are, Knight Tano. Unconventional, your methods seem.”
“The war requires adaptability, Masters,” Ahsoka said, and I could hear the respectful smile in her voice. Her other hand came to rest on the small of my back, a parody of comforting ownership. “This one is still learning his systems. Better a controlled release here than an accident in the archives, wouldn’t you agree?”
A soft, thoughtful hum from Yoda. “A lesson in control, this is. Humility, the foundation of all mastery. Proceed, you may.”
The footsteps began again, slow and unhurried, fading back into the white noise of the fountain. They had seen. They had understood, on some level, and they had approved. Or at least, they had deemed it a valid pedagogical exercise. The institutional sanction was the final, sealing layer of my degradation.
For a long moment, Ahsoka didn’t move. She just held me there, exposed and emptying, in the silent wake of their passing. Then, I heard a soft, crinkling sound from her pocket.
With her free hand, she produced a sealed, antiseptic wet wipe. She tore it open with her teeth. The clean, sharp scent cut through the floral air. Still holding me loosely, she began to clean me with a thorough, impersonal efficiency. The wipe was cold, rougher than her fingers, scrubbing away the physical evidence with a clinical detachment that was somehow worse than cruelty. She cleaned everywhere, turning my flesh into just another surface to be sanitized.
When she was done, she balled up the used wipe and tucked it into a disposal pouch on her belt. She pulled the soaked, useless diaper away from my body, the cold, wet padding dragging unpleasantly across my skin before she discarded it into the same pouch. The air on my bare backside was a profound relief and a new vulnerability.
She did not pull my tunic down. She left me exposed, the cool evening breeze a constant reminder of my state.
“Up,” she said, giving my hip a slap.
I pushed myself off her lap, my legs wobbly. I stood before her, the tunic tails still gathered around my waist, bare from the navel down. The world righted itself, but my sense of equilibrium was gone. The fountain roared. A group of younglings laughed, running along a path twenty meters away.
Ahsoka stood, wiping her hands on another clean wipe. She looked me up and down, then her eyes snapped to a point over my shoulder. A genuine smile, wide and welcoming, spread across her face.
“Barriss!” she called, her voice bright. “Perfect timing.”
I turned. Barriss Offee stood a few paces away, having approached in utter silence. Her deep blue skin and serene eyes took in the scene: me, half-naked and flushed; Ahsoka, beaming; the discarded evidence in the pouch. Her gaze was calm, analytical, missing nothing.
“Ahsoka,” Barriss said, her voice a gentle melody. “I received your message. You said you had a… fascinating dataset to review.” Her dark eyes flicked to me, then back to Ahsoka. “I see you’ve been conducting hands-on research.”
“You have no idea,” Ahsoka said, holding up the datapen. “The readings from the last hour are… art. But we’ve hit a procedural snag.”
Barriss stepped closer, her robes whispering. She smelled of pressed herbs and quietude. “A snag?”
“The physical monitor has been compromised,” Ahsoka explained, nodding toward the disposal pouch. “And we have sixteen hours of observation remaining. The subject’s system clearly requires continuous containment, but we also need to assess dermal recovery and physiological response to prolonged exposure.” She spoke like a senior medic discussing a tricky case. “I could just put another one on him, but that seems… inefficient for the dermal assessment.”
Barriss’s brows lifted slightly. She circled me, a slow, thoughtful orbit. I stood rigid, feeling her gaze like a physical touch on my skin, on the fading bruises, on my shame. She stopped in front of me.
“The solution is simple,” Barriss said, her tone gentle and utterly firm. “You require containment, but not occlusion. The skin must breathe to heal, yet control must be absolute.” She looked at Ahsoka. “You have the collar for obedience. You need a different marker for this… specific function.”
Ahsoka’s grin turned razor-sharp. “You’re thinking of the Garn Ritual.”
“A modified version. For hygiene, not ornament.” Barriss reached into a fold of her own robes and produced a small, sleek case. She opened it. Inside, nestled on black velvet, was a thin, perfect circle of polished durasteel, and a smaller, matching ring. They glinted in the fading light. “A permanent reminder. A physical covenant of control. It will serve your monitoring purposes perfectly. And it will allow for the… environmental testing you seem to enjoy.”
My blood turned to ice. I understood. The smaller ring. The cold, unbreakable metal. A different kind of collar, for a different kind of ownership.
Ahsoka plucked the smaller ring from the case, holding it up. It was simple, smooth, and terrifying in its implications. “A covenant,” she repeated, savoring the word. She looked at me, her blue eyes blazing with the pure, unadulterated thrill of the next experiment. “What do you say, Charlie? A permanent solution to your little problem?”
Barriss watched, her expression one of quiet, scientific approval. The fountain roared on, a sound that now felt like the laughter of the entire Temple, and the two most dangerous women in my world waited for my answer.