Chapter 5: The Mechanic’s Performance
The music was a physical thing, a wall of sound that pushed against Rose’s skin. She let it move her. Every thump of the bass was a bolt she’d torque into place. Every synth wail was a system alert she was troubleshooting. She wasn’t a woman on a dais; she was a diagnostic program running in a hostile environment.
Her body knew the geometry of survival. A sharp pivot, a roll of her hips that made the chrome belt plates shift and shimmer. The repulsor kicked in with a barely-audible hum, letting her drop into a low crouch and spring back up with impossible grace. The purple holo-trail bled into the smoky air, a ghost of her movement. The crowd roared, a wave of sound that broke against the calm focus she’d built inside herself.
She saw their faces in flashes: a Klatooinian leering, a Twi’lek laughing into a tankard, a Rodian’s multifaceted eyes reflecting the strobing lights. They were just components. Inputs. Noise.
From his elevated, slime-dripping platform, Rotta watched. His tiny, deep-set eyes tracked her with a lazy, possessive interest. A long tongue snaked out to curl around the leg of a roasted gorg, pulling the entire creature into his maw. He crunched, swallowed, and rumbled something to the massive Gamorrean standing like a slab of granite beside his throne. Grakkus. The guard’s piggish face split into a wet, tusked grin.
Rose ignored them. She focused on the strain in her quadriceps, the burn in her core. This was just another kind of endurance test.
But then the rhythm got its hooks into her. A new track swelled, its beat more complex, syncopated. Her mechanic's mind, always seeking patterns, latched onto it. It became a problem to solve with her hips, a counterpoint to answer with her shoulders. The precision of it felt good. Clean.
She wasn't thinking about Rotta, or the crowd, or her name. She was thinking about the space between beats, the perfect moment to snap her head to the side. A fizz of unexpected pleasure, bright and cold like a spark, crackled through her veins. This wasn't resistance. This was flow.
The synth-leather halter top was soaked with sweat, sticking to her skin. It was just another part of the machine now, and it was malfunctioning. It was restrictive. Without breaking her momentum, she reached behind her neck, fumbled for the clasp. Her fingers, slick with sweat, found the tiny mechanism.
A sharp tug and it gave way. She shrugged the straps off her shoulders, peeling the damp material away from her skin. She let the top drop from her fingers onto the dais. It landed with a soft, insignificant slap.
The music didn't stop. But the air changed. It tightened.
A collective, greedy inhale sucked the sound from the room for a fraction of a second. Then the roar hit her, a physical wall of noise and leering energy. Whistles, guttural shouts, the pounding of tables. It was animal, raw, and entirely focused on the weight of her bare breasts, heavy and glistening under the hot stage lights.
Rose didn't freeze. She used the energy. She turned it into torque. She spun, letting the centrifugal force pull at her, the motion making her breasts sway in a wide, undeniable arc. She arched her back, presenting them fully to Rotta’s platform, her hands running up her own stomach to cup the undersides briefly before throwing her arms wide.
A cheer erupted. She was giving them the mechanics they wanted. The physics were undeniable. Each bounce was a metronome tick synced to the bass.
She lost time inside the noise. It became a blur of sweat and light and the simple, muscular satisfaction of motion.
A hand landed on her bare shoulder, breaking the trance. Melina was beside her, a fixed, professional smile on her face that didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s seen enough of the show,” she said, her voice low but cutting through the din. “He wants to inspect the merchandise firsthand. Come.”
Melina’s grip was firm, guiding her off the dais. The crowd jeered, someone throwing a rotting piece of fruit that missed. Rose walked through the gauntlet of heat and hungry eyes, the cold air of the hall raising goosebumps on her damp skin. The walk to the throne felt longer than the corridors of the Supremacy.
Rotta’s massive bulk loomed, smelling of damp cave and rich, spoiled meat. His tiny eyes gleamed with avarice. Grakkus grunted, his hand resting on the vibro-ax at his belt.
Melina stopped her a few feet from the Hutt’s reach. “The dancer, my lord,” she announced, her voice clear. “As requested.”
Rotta rumbled something in Huttese. A long, mucus-strung arm lifted, one fat finger crooking.
Melina gave her a gentle, unyielding push between the shoulder blades. “Closer. He wants to feel the quality.”
Rose took one stiff step forward, then another. The scent of him was overpowering. His hand, large enough to encircle her waist, came up. The back of his knuckles, cool and slick, stroked the curve of her breast.
She flinched. The movement was pure instinct, a circuit snapping closed. Rotta’s breath huffed out in what might have been a laugh. His touch became more deliberate, a grotesque parody of appreciation. He palmed the full weight of her, his thick thumb brushing over her nipple, making it pucker traumatically against the chill air and revulsion.
Then his head lowered. His tongue, wide and cold as a slug, lashed out. It dragged a wet, glistening trail from the underside of her breast to the tip. The sensation was vile, shocking in its intimate wrongness. Rose’s stomach clenched. She fixed her eyes on a cracked jewel embedded in the wall behind him.
His other hand snaked down, blunt fingers hooking into the waistband of her synth-leather briefs. With a single, rough yank, he pulled them down to her thighs, then let them fall completely to the marble floor.
She stood utterly exposed. The crowd’s murmuring grew feverish.
“That’s enough, okay?” she heard herself say, her voice thin.
Rotta grunted again. He barked an order in Huttese.
Three guards moved in from the shadows. Not Gamorreans. Humanoids with cold, efficient eyes. One knelt, his calloused hands closing like manacles around each of her ankles. His grip was industrial, unbreakable. He spread her legs wide, anchoring her to the spot.
Panic fired through her nervous system. “Woah, woah, wait wait—” she stammered, her body trying to recoil but held fast.
The third guard stepped behind her. His arms slid under hers, locking around her shoulders and neck in a brutal full nelson. He lifted, pulling her upper body back against his armored chest, her feet now barely touching the floor. The guards at her ankles adjusted their hold, lifting her legs higher. Her balance was gone, her body suspended in their merciless grip.
They maneuvered her like a piece of furniture, positioning her lowered pelvis directly over Rotta’s waiting, gaping mouth. His breath was hot and humid against her most intimate skin.
She could only stare, horrified, at the swirling, mucus-lined maw beneath her. “No, please don’t—”
His tongue emerged again. This time it was not a lash, but a slow, probing invasion. It was broad and insistent, and disgustingly skillful. Rose gasped, a sound ripped from her diaphragm. It wasn’t pleasure. It was a violation so complete it short-circuited her brain.
But her body, stripped of control, betrayed her. The initial shock of wet heat was followed by a traitorous, unwelcome flicker of sensation. The mechanics of it were efficient, targeted. A fucked-up, embarrassing heat uncoiled low in her belly, separate from the screaming in her mind. Shame washed over her, hotter than the spotlight.
He worked with a grotesque patience, and against her will, against every cell of her pride, her hips gave a minute, involuntary jerk. A moan, choked and small, escaped her lips. The crowd roared its approval.
She bit down on her own tongue to stop another sound, tasting blood. It was no use. Her nerves were singing a traitor’s song. The guard behind her shifted, his grip tightening, and the pressure sent a jolt of something else through her trapped body. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut.
The pleasure built, a sickening wave cresting atop the revulsion. It was too much. Her control shattered.
“Fuck~,” she keened, the word a broken surrender.
Her whole body arched violently in its restraints, a live wire spitting sparks. Her head rocked back, her hands scrabbling uselessly behind her, her fingers tangling in the guard’s hair, gripping his face in a frantic, convulsive clutch. The climax tore through her, ruthless and complete, wracking her suspended form with tremors as she cried out against the roar of the court.
A final, shuddering pulse left her gasping. They lowered her, letting her slump, boneless and dripping, onto the cold marble at Rotta’s side. His great tongue swept over his own broad lips. The crowd was on its feet, screaming.
In the shadows by the pillar, Melina watched. She didn’t smile. She just gave the faintest, approving nod.
The faint nod from the shadows was a switch thrown inside her. The screaming crowd faded to a dull buzz. Her body, still trembling from the forced climax, went still. This was just another system malfunction. A catastrophic one, but she was still the mechanic.
The humanoid guards didn’t release her. They shifted their grips, hauling her upright on wobbly legs. Their hands were impersonal clamps on her biceps. They marched her the final few steps to the raised dais until she stood directly before Rotta’s mountainous bulk.
His great, gelatinous belly shifted. A slit parted in the pale, mottled flesh lower down. Something emerged, thick and tapered, slick with the same mucus that seemed to coat everything here. It was utterly alien, a pinkish-gray and veined.
Rose’s eyes went wide. Her breath hitched. A cold, clear understanding settled over her. The dance, the inspection, the public violation—they were all just preliminaries. This was the core transaction.
She let out a slow, shuddering sigh. The sound was lost in the arena’s noise. “Okay,” she whispered, to no one. “Okay.”
She dropped her gaze from Rotta’s smug face to the flesh in front of her. Mechanics. Physics. She leaned forward, her sweat-damp skin coming into contact with it. It was surprisingly warm, and the texture was strange, smooth but with a subtle ridge.
Ignoring the guards’ hands on her, she used her own. She lifted her breasts, heavy and sensitive from the dance and Rotta’s earlier attentions. She pressed them together around the base of him, creating a tight, warm channel of slick skin.
She began to move, a slow, rocking motion from her shoulders. Her eyes, flat and dark, lifted to meet Rotta’s. He watched, his tiny eyes glittering, a low grumble of pleasure vibrating through his bulk. She held his gaze, her expression unreadable, as she worked her flesh against his. The movement was pragmatic, almost clinical, but the heat it generated was undeniable.
After a minute of that, she pulled back. Saliva mixed with the mucus on her skin. She didn’t hesitate. She leaned in again, this time opening her mouth.
The taste was the first shock. It wasn't foul. It was musky, saline, with an oddly sweet undertone like overripe fruit. It was nothing like the synthetic lubricants she knew or the grim realities of the prison block. Her tongue pressed against the underside experimentally. Rotta shuddered, a massive quake that rattled the platform.
She found a rhythm. Her mind, desperate for an algorithm, deconstructed the act. Pressure variance here, a twist there, the careful use of her lips and tongue in combination. A low, guttural groan escaped the Hutt. The sound should have repulsed her. Instead, it fed a strange, burgeoning pride in her own efficiency.
She lost the algorithm. The mechanics dissolved into sensation. The sweet-salty taste flooded her senses, a bizarre counterpoint to the putrid air of the court. The more she worked, the more her own body responded. A traitorous heat, separate from shame, uncoiled deep within her. A soft moan vibrated against him, swallowed by his flesh.
She wasn't thinking of the Resistance, or the war, or her name. She was thinking of the pulse under her tongue, the way her own breaths synced with his rumbling. Her hands, which had been braced on her own thighs, crept up to cradle him, to feel the strain and throb of his response. Her motions became less precise, more hungry.
When the end came, it was a flood, not a trickle. He made a sound like a crumbling mountain. She didn't pull away. She drank it down, the taste even richer, more potent than the substance Melina had shared. She swallowed every drop, a deep, rhythmic pulling that emptied him completely. She did it not because she was forced, but because she wanted that final, intimate proof of a job done to perfection.
She sat back on her heels, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her lips felt swollen. Her breath came fast. Rotta’s head lolled back, his immense body sagging in sated bliss. The crowd was in a frenzy.
In the shadows, Melina was gone. Only the cold eye of a security droid watched now, a red light blinking steadily. Rose slowly, shakily, got to her feet. The taste lingered on her tongue, a secret, saccharine victory in the stinking air.