Archive of Our Own

Face to Face

O is my heart betrayed thus to my eyes
Now seeing clearly what some feeling knew -
A secret, silent kept until surprise
Did startle knowledge forth for mind to view:
A face & form that have too well known pain
But too, transcendent joy and lover's gaze;
Stern principled and sensitive, and vain
In valor's due, but never slow to praise;
A passionate intelligence & skill
Honed sharp and sure, hard tested by travail;
Charisma and compassion matched with will
That shirks not duty, nor in care would fail
   This was and is a spirit I would serve
   With all I am & have, nor from him swerve.
                                                          JGT

Qui-Gon

We are men, not droids. Flesh, not metal. Flesh learns, has needs, desires, inclinations; can be taught to control, act on and meet those needs. As Jedi, we are taught to learn. Taught to know our bodies, to work and act with them, not against them. Taught to recognize, respect and meet the needs, desires and functions of the flesh, the heart, the mind and spirit, as they develop from infancy to adulthood and beyond. Never to the point of indulgence of course, or to the detriment of or distraction from our calling and duty as Jedi. But to ignore those needs would equally be detrimental and distracting.

Sex/sexuality is a natural, powerful and deeply rooted function of the body, affecting the heart, mind and spirit as much as the flesh.

Obi-Wan

The Piiresti held my Master for almost three months. The Kiir of the Shekhet kept and used him as a sexual gratification object nearly the whole time.

I wasn't there, for which he is grateful. I don't know if I am grateful or not. I have read the report, though.

The Kiir didn't damage him, physically, was not cruel or thoughtless or neglectful of any of his chattels. They are a people that pride themselves on what they call 'good stewardship.' If anything the man was over-attentive. (I could almost wish he had been neglectful!) The report says that my Master was 'required to attend upon' the Kiir 'several times a cycle'. I can read between those lines, and given the little that Qui-Gon has said, I suppose it is fortunate that our training involves a good deal of physiological control.

We are taught to learn - our bodies are particularly taught - through practice, repetition, touch, awareness. We are taught to know and care for our bodies as we are taught to know the Force, as vessels of the Force. My Master is the most strongly connected person to the Living Force I know. One of the most controlled.

But ... I also think that had he not been brought up a Jedi he would have been an unabashed hedonist.

The fact that ultimately he gained the Kiir's respect even from the position he was put in and forced to work from, talked his way out of captivity, and managed to get the cease-fire agreement without further bloodshed, only adds to his reputation. It could not make me love or care for him more than I already do -- merely adds layers to it.

Now the Piiresti are calling his captivity a 'communications error,' a 'misidentification,' a 'regrettable confusion,' and have proffered apologies all round. Big of them.

I am unspeakably glad to have him back & relatively unharmed. But now I do not know what to do, how to help. He is suffering.

The body learns, becomes accustomed to exercise and stimulation. It never occurred to me before that this could be a problem.

Qui-Gon

To the degree that adrenaline and endorphins assist fitness and fighting abilities, the fact that they are addictive is an acceptable, even unavoidable, dependency. I have known since before I reached physical maturity that appetite for sensation was a thing I would have to guard against, keep in check, without in any way desensitizing or blunting my instincts, senses and awareness. I could not let the physical get out of balance with the meta- and non-physical aspects of my self and life. Moderation, discipline and control were my watchwords for the body.

Xanatos accused me of being overly spartan, of unnecessarily circumscribing my, and his, existence. But in truth (as I eventually realized) I was not strict or spartan enough with him. He was too like me in inclination and not enough in discipline. With Obi-Wan I think I have found a better approach/balance - and he helps me more than he knows in keeping my own balance.

But this, now. It is as I feared - assumed - defended myself against.

My body's (and, I must admit, the rest of me as well) capacity for and responsiveness to - indeed willing indulgence in - sensation, once unleashed from the control I kept it under, allowed me to not merely endure and survive what Kiir Twari required of me, subjected me to. (He was - is - very highly sexed, and took as much if not more delight in giving stimulation - pleasure, as he saw it - as receiving it. Vigorously. Four to seven times a day. Beginning at four, and as my body learned acceptance, working up to as many as seven.) But also to eventually earn his respect and political attention sufficient to retrieve the mission and get the cease-fire. This I cannot regret.

Now, though, it is as if my body has changed shape or substance and the controls and disciplines that once worked no longer fit, no longer function as I need them to. While the chemical residues were still being worked out of my system this was no surprise.

I felt it far more important to keep my mind clear - deactivating, breaking down, and dissipating the psychoactives and slow poisons - than to waste energy on the sensitizers and aphrodisiacs which were, in any case, natural elements of nearly every foodstuff I was given. Weakening myself would not have been a good idea. The healers assure me that I am now clear of all the chemical and biochemical agents, if not all the psychological artifacts.

I will not let my body rule me. I cannot. The healers have done what they can, have purged the drugs, patched the 'decorative' holes, declared me free of any bodily injury. They offered me counseling. Master Eren is a dedicated healer and has helped me in the past, but there was nothing he could tell me about this that I did not already know. What is left is mine to deal with. Alone. But I begin to fear that I have not the resources, that I cannot/will not be able to cope sufficiently by myself. Self-stimulation is not enough. I am not sleeping. I find myself distracted, jumpy, irritable and at a loss.

Then there is my apprentice.

Obi-Wan wants very much to help, to do something, without the least idea of what it is I need. Obi-Wan. My Padawan, my responsibility and charge, my delight and despair and relentless temptation. My caring, prickly, passionate and Code-abiding virginal Obi-Wan, twenty next half-year. When I left on this mission I could still, just, see the boy in him. Now I cannot help but see the man. Over the years I have fostered the growing adult, dealt sensibly, sympathetically, dispassionately with adolescent upsets, youthful crushes. Never allowed my mind or my feelings to see him as other than much loved student and friend. No longer are my feelings so comfortably contained. I had been celibate by choice and without hardship since Xanatos reached adolescence. I was not a week on that ship before I knew the touch my body yearned for was Obi-Wan's: his hands, his mouth, his mind and cock and come. The drugs and the relentless attentions had weakened too many of my defenses.

He was waiting for me on the landing platform when I finally made it back to the Temple. His embrace, his joy at my return and unquestioning/uncomplicated care for me were almost my undoing. Even weak from withdrawal, weary, stressed and ill, my body - I - wanted him: fiercely, frighteningly, inappropriately. I was grateful to have enough mental strength to keep that desire from the training bond we share. Grateful for the exhaustion that denied/prevented a physical display. He is my student. I love him too well to put him to such a question, in such a position. He must, must be allowed to make his own choice freely in such things, quite separate from any shadow or intimidation of my authority. I am not free to ask that love, that much of him.

But he is free. A Senior Padawan, adult and of age throughout the Republic. He is free to ask, to come to me, should he so desire.

/I will not picture you, my Obi-Wan, my oil and honey and pepper-powder apprentice, as I work to ease and satisfy my body's need. I want you in the flesh, not in fantasy. It is too much like coercion/ non-consent/using, not loving. I did not do it then and I will not do it now. I want you freely or not at all. But your name is there, silent on my lips all the same./

Obi-Wan

I saw him. I saw him and I watched. His door had slid open in that way it does sometimes and I went to close it for him and saw him and froze, transfixed, watching.

Gods of all stars but he is beautiful. My Master: more than twice my age, scarred and strong and ill-used and so beautiful, all that pale length stretched out on the bed, limned in the nightside lights of Coruscant. He was pleasuring himself - masturbating - he didn't see me, and I could not look away.

Even now, alone in the shower, my mouth was still dry and my flesh still heavy although I had brought myself to completion once already. I turned my face into the spray, letting the water slide over me, hot and smooth, and remembered it all again, lovingly, paying attention to the details (there's a novel use for Jedi awareness training!), fixing it firmly in my mind.

Qui-Gon, my Master, was half-lying on his side with his back mostly to the door, the covers turned down and his shoulders propped with pillows and all the fine strength of him exposed in the dim light. One hand was gently fingering his cock, rising to his nipples, combing through the dark hair that curled at the base of his shaft. The other, glistening, moved on his ass cheeks, sliding slowly deeper and deeper between them. With a hot jolt straight to my groin I realized he was stroking his anus, rocking a long, blunt finger in and out. Then he shifted, curled his leg, pushed in with two fingers as his breath quickened. My own breath was getting heavy, but I kept it silent as he stroked himself, front and back.

There was a towel with things laid out neatly on it on the bedside table. Without my quite following the motions, he had taken up a rounded, thickish shaft and was slowly sliding it in where his fingers had been, a stretching thickness, piercing deeply. His other hand was still moving slowly and steadily between his legs, on his cock. His breath was harsh and he made tiny, need-filled noises as he tossed his head against the pillows, eyes clenched tightly shut. He thrust deeper and faster with the thing until he held briefly, shudderingly still, then slowly, slowly withdrew it. I held my breath. It gleamed wetly, a sheen of light oil, like the sheen of sweat that made highlights of the planes and angles of his body. I could see the fine tremors running through him.

He had taken something else from the array of things, this one shorter and thicker with a blunt, round shape on top and a slightly narrower sort of stem at the base that flared out to a ring. It gleamed also, and I realized that everything, including his fingers, was oiled, that he had prepared everything beforehand. My heart beat heavily in my chest as I watched him, his hands steady, thighs trembling, press the thing into himself, until he gave a faint gasp and it stayed, held fast at the narrower part. I could just see a glimpse of the stretched pinkness of muscle around the thing, the curve of buttock. My own anus was pulsing in a way I had never before felt, wide awake and interested, my groin hot and tight.

With the thing filling him, he rolled onto his back, legs splayed wide, eyes shut, mouth open, both hands working on his big cock, weeping & dark with arousal, cupping and squeezing his balls as his hips bucked and his breath caught and sobbed. He was coming, liquid pulses ribboning out on his belly, held breath, a look that was almost pain on his face - pain and need and a strange mix of shame and acceptance that eased into release and wearyness, something that was perhaps contentment. His hand crept up, smoothed lazy circles on hip and belly and chest, rubbing in the semen, his hips still rocking gently, letting the aftershocks roll through him. He looked wanton, not at all the dispassionate Master I was used to when the subject of sex came up. I didn't know whether I was more shocked or aroused to see him so.

After a few moments he stilled and seemed to draw into himself, then reached to flip the edge of the towel over the things on the nightstand and draw up the covers. His eyes had opened briefly, blindly, as he curled around the pillows, but I am sure he did not see me, did not know I was there, watching, because they fell closed again. He rubbed his cheek across the pillow, once, twice, hair in silver-touched disarray.

I am sure it was only my imagination, my wish, that I thought I heard or maybe felt my own name just before my Master's breathing deepened into the slow cadence of sleep.

Nothing had prepared me. This sight, image, the mere idea had never occurred to me before and it heated me like fire: Qui-Gon Jinn, my serene, reserved Master, pleasuring himself, masturbating before sleep, falling asleep with a ... thing? phallus? - I didn't know what to call it - up inside him and my name on his lips. I could not breathe, could barely move. Somehow I got the door fastened shut in silence and escaped, head whirling, to my own room. I stripped frantically, trying to stay quiet. I was painfully - deliciously - hard, but his sleep (always light) had been so fitful and broken since he had gotten back, and I really didn't want to do anything to disturb what rest he could get. The sound of the shower would not be a problem, we showered at all hours and the room was well insulated. It would cover any noise I made and in a moment I was going to need one anyway.

Hardly time to get under the spray and I was coming in my hands, biting my lips against a threatened shriek. Oh Force. Oh gods and stars above.

I had the memory fixed now, details of sight and sound, of scent and Force and my own kinesthetic responses. I could get a little past the haze of arousal and revelation (my Master, doing that, wanting that....) and think about the what and how and why and what-now of my own strong, even extravagant, response, physical and otherwise. (Coming myself so hard and so fast from only watching, listening, wondering....)

I had been relieving my own tension - 'doing the one-handed kata' - regularly and sensibly for many years. I had dealt with the physiological and hormonal changes of my growing body with little fuss and Qui-Gon's supportive, unobtrusive and unintrusive help.

The male form I found rather more interesting than the female (though that had its attractions too) and I'd certainly had urgent moments before, but I had never thought of Qui-Gon that way - hardly thought of myself that way. I'd long since decided that sex, and sexuality, and the (visibly apparent! carried out in the halls!) embarrassments and time-consuming complexities of intimate relationships were not for me, not now, now yet, maybe someday, in the future. I had other things to do, things I needed to do, like learning to be a Jedi, taking care of my Master, going on missions & watching his back, getting the Sith-damned Seventh Slow Kata down so that my Master and I could do it together properly, the way it was supposed to be done. And my body had (mostly) gone along with the program. I had pleasured myself before, but I had never felt what I had just felt, was still feeling. I'd never even fantasized much when I touched myself, happy in the simple physical sensation. Now tonight's remembered images, thoughts, ideas, were fizzing hot in my groin, trickling along my nerves, stiffening my shaft again.

In the shower, under the endless, inexhaustible warm stream, my hand began to mimic the slow, almost negligent touch I had witnessed, just sliding the foreskin over the head and back, no pressure, little friction, just smooth, delicate sensation. The drops of water were a startling ecstasy on my exposed flesh, each one distinct, then wet and clasping warmth, sliding, over and back, more delicacy, more pattering ecstasy, gathering in the base of my spine, the palms of my hands. His hands had done this. A pure sensation warmed me in the here and now. I imagined it to be my Master's - Qui-Gon's - big, gentle hand touching me so, as he had touched himself. A shiver thrilled through me; my cock twitched in my hand, (it certainly liked the idea.) I imagined my hands on him, learning him, his shape and weight and heat, and I twitched again, harder, nearly rigid once more. (Oh, well & truly interested. My body liked where this line of thought was going....)

I put soap in my other hand, slicking it over the invisible dusting of hair on my chest, around my belly, not disturbing the slow, wet movement going on lower. I let my hand curl back, paused to grip and knead the handful that was my cheek. Not thinking, just feeling, experiencing the sensations I was giving myself. Sliding my fingers between my cheeks, reaching to touch, to explore the muscle there, a place in myself I had hardly ever given thought to, and never erotic thought. It was soft, warm, a pleated pucker that responded eagerly to the tentative touches I was giving it. I clenched my inner muscles and it moved against my fingers, inviting entry. Qui-Gon had done that. Had pressed his fingers into himself, a glaze of pleasure on his face, enjoying it. What could it possibly feel like?

I wiggled a soapy fingertip gingerly against the center of the pucker, glad I had attended to my nails that morning. A tight warmth, a short, snug channel (... just the length of the narrower part of that ... thing ...) the muscle spasmed against my finger, a pleasurable jolt, and I pushed further, deeper in, vague memories of some class or other telling me the rectum lay just beyond, a crumpled, larger space than the anal sphincter. There it was, folds and valleys yielding and smooth to my touch. The second knuckle was an interesting stretch. But now I wanted more soap, more slipperiness, and what about two fingers? Two would go deeper, it had looked like Qui-Gon had used at least two, would stretch more.... Relax. Breathe. Use that carefully taught individual muscular control - a new muscle to learn. Oh that felt good.... What an interesting sensation, tingly and hot and somehow open, exciting & scary both. My heart was speeding and my cock was weeping in the loose grip of my other hand.

It was only myself making me feel this way - exalted, exhilarated - what if it were Qui-Gon's fingers opening me, slow and sure and gentle. What if it were his cock pressing into me, filling me? (/Oh, trusting me with that part of him! Trusting me with his need and desire!/) I couldn't breathe, my heart was a trip-hammer. To have that, to know that, to give that.... And I was coming again, long pulses hard against my palm, the muscles surging and clenching against my fingers. Again I wanted to scream, to cry out my Master's name over and over, to shout with this overwhelming sensation, but I only cried out in tiny wails, whimpers (just as he had -- /Oh Master, is this what you were feeling? Oh Master,/) so as not to risk waking him, he needed sleep so badly....

My legs had gone boneless and I sank down to the tile, letting the corner hold me up as I knelt, water cascading over me, washing away the white streamers of my semen. I wanted what he had been feeling to be like what I was feeling. I wanted him to have gotten pleasure while I watched him, felt the wonder I was feeling. I wanted to see him come again, without any of the sense of loneliness, of suffering, of pain or shame or need the Force had hinted at. I wanted to see joy on his face, pleasure and release and love.

I wanted his hands to do what I had imagined them to do to me. I wanted to know if it was enjoyment that had him thrusting that long thing hard and deep into himself (I so wanted it to be enjoyment, not a Kiir-made Kiir-twisted need). I wanted to know if he would want to take me into that place. (Oh, I wanted that! Just the idea, me in him or him in me!) I wanted the how and why and what of the slow push in of the stemmed thing, his wanton movement against the sheets. I wanted pleasure for him. I wanted him.

I was still - again? - feeling that heat & shimmer & pulse in my groin, my anus.

Perhaps it was time to reconsider the celibacy idea. Review those parts of the Human and Humanoid Sexuality class I hadn't paid much attention to at thirteen & see if there were considerations I didn't yet realize, things I didn't know. This would be a significant decision, pursuing sexual activity. (I wanted to touch him, have him touch me....) I needed knowledge, thought, discussion, meditation. And whatever I decided I needed to speak with my Master about it.

I realized with a little surprise that while I was somewhat afraid of the possibility that he might say 'no,' that he didn't want me 'that way', I wasn't at all wary of actual rejection - I do know he loves me.

I stood up and started to wash properly and thoroughly, scrubbing my hair, getting my circulation going. Now I was tired, wanting my bed and the cool embrace of sheets.

I have loved my Master a long time. This physical fire is new, and I know I could probably apply it to someone else, (some other place, some other time, as other people do) but he is whom I want. In a strange way having added lust to my feelings only shows me how deep-rooted and complex my caring for Qui-Gon actually is. I know we will be able to talk about this, somehow. And the Force is telling me all will be well. (Not if I will get what I want, here. It doesn't work that way.) All will be well. I trust that feeling.

Qui-Gon

I awoke this morning with a lighter heart, having slept surprisingly well. I had decided that expecting my body to re-adapt immediately and completely to its mundane, pre-Kiir state was unreasonable, and had, after easing the day's accumulation of need, left the big plug in.

For nearly three months I had never been without it, or one like it, for any length of time except when bathing or while with the Kiir - and in that case its absence was only the preliminary to different sensation. More than merely growing accustomed, my body -- no, my body is not separate from my self, this is a habit of thought I must stop, now. I no longer need/require to make that separation, and to continue will only make acceptance, healing and moving forward harder - I enjoyed the sensation, the feeling of being filled and stretched, the clench and release of my inner muscles around it. I could allow myself a reasonable amount of indulgence in it here, in the Temple, at home.

Furthermore, for all that time, being so filled had meant not being fucked/about to be fucked and thus it provided a physical reassurance and comfort that I had to admit I also needed. A signal my body had learned to understand: that it was safe to sleep.

I stretched out on my sleeping couch, savoring the clean scent of the linen, the familiar weight of the coverlet. There was more to my lightness and relief this morning than having come to an acceptance of a need.

Obi-Wan's resonance in the Force was different, reaching for a new harmony with my own, trying out new notes within himself. There has been a shift in his physical presence, a brighter fire now shines in him.

There had been no indication of such a shift last night when I retired. I knew he had been having some trouble coming to terms with aspects of what had happened to me, and I had been careful to deal with my needs in private, so as to give him space, and minimize discomfort for both of us. I wasn't hiding - I never locked my door, or hardened my shielding beyond what was usual for day to day privacy and individuality - but I did not want him to have to know the lengths to which I went.

(There had been almost nothing that Kiir Twari did or had done to me that my body had not found enjoyment in. The piercings were an exception to that, and I was very glad to have them gone. Pain had not been his interest or desire, but sensation had, giving and receiving, and he possessed an extensive repertory of techniques and devices, toys, most of which he had tried on me/subjected me to. His skill in reading people was not inconsiderable either. When I had finally induced him to sign the cease-fire and let me go, he had looked at me with a smile in his orange eyes, unrepentant and proud: "I enjoyed you. Teaching you. Learning from you. I trust you will remember all our lessons, overt and ... otherwise. I know I shall." His glance had flicked to the signed scroll, conceding defeat, then back to me, dressed again in my robes, but somehow naked beneath all the Jedi layers, wearing what he had bade me wear (cleaned, oiled, plugged, more than half hard in the ring, the brush of silk and linen alien against my skin, my sensitized nipples) by choice, by need, by will and the honor/strength of my word, and took the victory back again. He knew what he had taught me of myself. "I have left you ... a gift. A remembrance." The smile was satisfied, but the look in his eyes had shifted to reveal a hint of true depth, a rare sincerity. "I hope it will please you, to use it." And he had bowed to me as to another of his own rank. When I got to the transport and looked over my luggage - as promised, everything had been returned in good order - I found a beautifully lacquered box, the sort exchanged between Piiresti high-status partners-in-joy, fitted out with a wide array of pleasure-toys obviously custom made and new. Works of art of their kind, and surprisingly free of the stamp of coercion and struggle that tainted so much of the place I was leaving. I was chagrined at how grateful I felt, ashamed/ chagrined to know how deeply he had seen into me, how much I would, indeed, need them. And I did use them, though I was not in a place where I was pleased, precisely, to so do.)

My nightly physical meditations. Thinking back I recalled that I had thought I had heard the soft snick of the door re-opening itself, but had been too tired, too deep into myself to get up to close it. Had Obi-Wan, then, and seen?

Yes. And seen ... nearly the whole, until release and sleep had taken me. Not what I would have chosen him to see, had I been choosing. I would have wanted something more of joy and less of need, of desperation.

I examined what I could feel of him through the bond with care. No distress. Some confusion, embarrassment, delight, self-consciousness, the first hints of resolve, shafts of arousal, pure physical joy that spiked to my own groin - Oh. He was stroking himself, had woken aroused, was attending to his pleasure and need with all the focus he had previously reserved for other things. I tightened my shields a bit and addressed myself to the demanding need hard between my own legs.

My Obi-Wan, dedicated, lively, virgin, deliberately chaste, long physically mature, was now coming into his sexuality.

Previously, sex had been a thing of only fairly limited intellectual interest to him. He had clearly decided to put other concerns - study, training, meditation, 'learning to be a Jedi' - before developing any kind of physically intimate relationships, much less engaging in casual sexual exploration. I had wondered a little at the time, even as I found myself pleased at his dedication and focus, but did not worry overmuch. He was too well trained in perception and observation to be oblivious to sexual interest directed at him, but he was uninterested, and always polite in deflecting or turning down advances. Simply a personal choice, not a stand on principle. Something he would think about and possibly act on some time in the future.

That some time appeared to have arrived. Now I understood the images shaping my dreams - the strength and suddenness of Obi-Wan's revelation had flowered in the Force, and I, attuned to him, had dreamed flashes of him: coming in the shower, touching himself, exploring.

So. The next few days should be interesting. The next few hours. I kept any personal hope under strict control. I may have inadvertently been the cause of his revelation (and looking closely at my feelings revealed little shame or guilt there - this was a natural and long due step in Obi-Wan's development, and if it had not been me it would have been someone or something else) but how much, or even whether he turned to me was - had to be - his free and unfettered will. I would not influence him. Not even by wishing. My wishes had power.

But I could not help but worry and wonder if my very need was not influencing him. My need is for stimulation. My desire is for him. The desire I can, and do, control. The need, it seems, I can merely restrain. If it is my need affecting him, where and what is my responsibility in this? A thorny subject for the day's meditations.

Best to be getting up, then.

Obi-Wan greeted me with a startled glance and a smile. I nodded to him, noting that indeed the Force flowed in greater harmony with his movements, reflected his finer awareness of his physical self in physical space. His eyes were bright and busy with thought, a clear blue-grey that marked his presence in the moment, the engagement of his formidable powers of observation and analysis.

I firmed my shields a touch, and did not allow myself to contemplate what colour his eyes might become under ... other circumstances. His half-conscious sensual and sexual presence was far more powerful than the unconscious had been. Once he had gained full awareness, new lessons and exercises in control would be in order. His interest and arousal were palpable in the Force, my body responding to his with dismaying eagerness. I strengthened my shields still more and deliberately subdued my reactions, grateful for the drape and thickness of my night robe.

How was my apprentice going to approach integrating this new awareness, these new ideas? His body was well on its way to a very nearly gleeful acceptance - the Force-patterns not unlike those of a plant that had been given a bigger growing space after being in a pot that had become just a little small. A very timely development. But mind and heart and spirit are more complex. It occurred to me to hope that I had not been delaying him with my restraint. Not a useful line of thought. Awareness in this moment was sufficient.

I settled myself at the table and watched as he set out our usual morning meal. Obi-Wan has always taken pleasure in the minor housekeeping duties traditional to the Padawan, the more so since I have never demanded them of him, (or of any of my apprentices). This morning he was particularly attentive and precise. I did not hinder him.

He jumped very slightly every time our eyes met, and would smile or frown or worry at his lower lip. His glance kept wanting to drop, not to the floor, which would have worried me, but to a mid-point - the edge of the table, the seat of my chair, a middle distance - as if drawn by some irresistible force. He was not usually so self-conscious, and I was briefly puzzled as to why.

When he finally sat with an entirely new and almost imperceptible kind of shivering wiggle and the loud sense of 'I won't ask', I was suddenly aware of my own body, of the plug filling me. Realized that he would have seen me putting it in, that fascinated curiosity warred in him with embarrassment and respect for my privacy. He wanted to know 'what' and 'why' and 'was it still there' but could not quite formulate the questions, had not yet found the words. Was not necessarily certain he really wanted or was ready for those answers.

I wondered what form his questions would take when he did find words. We ate in a pregnant sort of silence.

"Master," he said abruptly, putting down his teacup, "do you think there is value in either abstinence or activity as far as sex goes? For a Jedi?"

Ah. Starting at the Outer Rim and working inward. A carefully remote question, obviously thought out while he was polishing his plate. His mind and heart were still studying the concepts while the body was eager for details.

"Value?" I watched his face as I answered, noting the way he steadied down in anticipation of data and ideas to process. "Neither course is to be valued over the other, either in an absolute sense or without consideration of other factors. Sex is both a physical function, individual and addressable to an extent with either sublimation or masturbation, and a matter involving relationships, ranging from the ephemeral to the long-term, and the continuum of emotions. There can be value in either course, depending on the person or persons involved, the situation - context - they are in, other considerations. As Jedi, we are taught to be aware of our drives and needs to a very precise degree. We are also taught to be aware of the situations we are in and the implications of our actions. Thus, for Jedi, the choice between activity and abstinence may be made with a greater awareness of the whole, and with the guidance of the Force, but that choice is still to a very great extent situational, not absolute." He was following me. Just. Good. "Did you have a specific situation in mind?"

"Not a situation so much. But, well, Padawans are encouraged to wait, or do some exploring with each other and then wait, and a lot of the people out there in the Republic seem to think we all either take vows of celibacy or go at it like chiriks in heat, and Master noMuurR goes on and on about the 'focusing value of chastity' and, well...." He trailed off, trying to work his way through his tangled thoughts and feelings. I waited for him, not prompting.

"I guess the situation would be if someone had pretty much decided on abstinence, and was comfortable with that, and then something happened, and that decision doesn't seem so reasonable any more, or doesn't work, or...." He trailed off again. I could not tell if he was asking purely hypothetically or was in some way addressing his situation, or mine, or somehow both. I decided not to attempt to second guess him, and again answered what he actually asked.

"Re-assessing one's choices at points of change is always valuable, Padawan. And changing one's mind in light of new or different circumstances does not devalue the choices made before." No, the trouble arises when the change is forced, imposed, and the choices limited to the distressing and the unacceptable. I had chosen to accept Twari's use of me, of my body, whatever the personal cost, because the cost to innocents if I did not was utterly unacceptable, unthinkable. I was past resenting the situation, and I did not regret the choice; I regretted being forced into it, and the means used to so force me. I regretted that my pain was now spilling over to my apprentice, requiring him to make choices he was not sure he was ready for. I was grateful that his options were of paths of growth, and not of sacrifice.

I had paused too long. Obi-Wan was looking at me with concern, a crease between his brows. I went on, and the line smoothed out. "It is important the choice be informed, if at all possible. Usually, with relationships, it is possible to take the time necessary to gather data and think things through."

He grinned at me, and I knew he was thinking of all the times I went with instinct and the Force of the Moment, all the way back to that pivotal moment in the mines of Bandomeer. I acknowledged his grin with a raised eyebrow. "Or to trust one's feelings and the Will of the Force." Mock repressively. "Not lightly, in any case." I knew Obi-Wan occasionally despaired of what he called my impulsiveness, but however impulsive those actions seemed, they were never lightly made. On some level he knew that. I had faith that some day he would trust that in himself, and then he would be a Knight.

I got up and began to gather the dishes while he sat and watched me. "A determined period of celibacy can have a usefully focusing effect, as Master noMuurR says, and there are times when circumstances require abstinence or reliance solely on oneself, but celibacy as a way of life has its drawbacks."

"But what about the Code? 'There is no passion, there is serenity'?"

I was almost surprised that it had taken this long for him to bring the Code into the conversation. Obi-Wan likes neat structures, and the Code is very neat. I gave him a mild glare.

"Are you equating sexual activity or desire with passion, and abstinence with serenity?" The arrested look on his face told me he had been. "Don't you think Master noMuurR is passionate about chastity?" He hadn't thought of it in quite that light before. He nodded slowly. The parallel lack of serenity in my own situation was obvious to me, but would not be a useful point to make. "The Code does not proscribe strong feeling, or the fulfillment and exercise of the needs and desires of the body. We are told to listen to our feelings, and attend to the needs of the body. Give me another interpretation."

I washed the dishes while he thought. It didn't take him long.

"Is it more like passion equals obsession and serenity is balance, Master?"

My bright Padawan. "Yes, that is a good way to look at it. Given that interpretation, what are the implications of your earlier question about the value of sexual activity or abstinence for Jedi?" He started to answer but I forestalled him. "Think about it, find the answers for yourself."

He nodded again, filing the instruction away. There was already a greater harmony between his mind and body. He got up from the table and began drying and putting away the dishes. I was very conscious of his nearness, the warmth of him. He seemed to be equally conscious of me, aware of the space between us in a new and subtly charged way. Another sign, had I needed one, of his changing state.

"Is there anything specifically in the Code or the Law and Tradition about relations between Jedi?" He asked, rather suddenly. Unaccountably, he had flushed.

Quite a bit, actually, and it would be easier for both of us if he read it himself, rather than have me tell him about it. Not to mention that if he spent time in the Archives, he could look up information on all the details he was carefully not asking me. I know him too well for it to be otherwise.

"Yes, there is." (In fact, hadn't 'Humanoid Sexual Health and Hygiene' covered that? But it had not seemed relevant to him when he had taken the class, and so it hadn't been remembered.) "We have nothing on the schedule today. Why don't you take the time for study and meditation on these questions?"

"Yes, Master."

"With your passion for research, you should be able to find all the applicable commentary in short order." I kept my face straight, my tone deliberately dry. "Perhaps I should ask for a summary paper."

He looked at me in startlement, "Are you teasing me?" Mock outrage.

Of course I was, gently. Obi-Wan should know that. He did know that. He was teasing me. I smiled at him, what felt like the first real smile in a long time. He smiled back, brilliantly, warming me through. All the simmering arousal that had dimmed during the serious part of the conversation was back, glimmering in his Force-signature. Oh, he was a force to be reckoned with, my Obi-Wan, even at this nascent awareness. My conditioned response had me hard again, my muscles clenching and pulsing around the thick stem of the plug. I was once again glad of the concealment of my robe.

"To the Archive, then. Shall I join you for mid-meal?"

"No, take the whole day. Late meal." I would need the hours as well.

He bowed to me as he left our quarters, not at all mocking, and I could tell he was relieved to be in search of data and temporarily out of my presence.

I will be patient. I will give us both time. For truly, it could not have been easy for him, waiting and wondering while I was gone. It pleases me that even while I can feel the desire that has sparked in him, he is seeking knowledge, centeredness, thinking and meditating before making a decision in this.

As it behooves me to meditate and think likewise. I am continually learning from him. For me to help him find balance and acceptance, I must find balance and acceptance of my own.

Obi-Wan

When I got up this morning I knew that what had happened last night was not a quirk, a dream, a passing, ephemeral thing. My morning erection was urgent and demanding, and every image, every thought and feeling and physical response felt printed on my skin, woven in with my bones. There had indeed been some deep change in me, an awakening, a fundamental shift.

The Archive is quiet, with nooks and corners designed for study and contemplation. I went there directly after first meal, my head buzzing and my whole body tingling with new feelings.

I got one or two startled glances as I made my way through the halls, until I took a deep breath and remembered to damp down & shield my Force-presence. I realized with some chagrin that not only had I not been shielding, but that I had been very nearly broadcasting, and if the passersby in the hall had picked up on it, my Master could hardly have missed it. But he hadn't said anything beyond answering the questions I asked, and one gently teasing remark to which I had responded in kind.

I kept seeing the vision of him touching himself, feeling again the pleasure I had brought myself in the shower and thinking of him this morning. Remembering the light of Qui-Gon's smile. I couldn't think of the last time I had seen him really smile, and wondered a little in retrospect about that teasing exchange - had he been laughing at me, at my circuitous, cautious approach? But no, that was unworthy of me, that was uncertainty and embarrassment speaking. It had been quite clear in the training link that he was pleased with me, even though I could feel very little else of him beyond his simple presence, nothing at all of his other feelings, or of his physical state.

One thing puzzled me: if his suffering - need - was about sex and love and physical desire, as the preponderance of evidence suggested, why hadn't he just come to me? I was well past my majority however one might count it, and the more I thought of it, the less I felt I had imagined the sense of my name coming from him last night. There had to be a reason, a compelling reason, and that he had sent me to the Archive gave me hope that I would find it here.

I settled myself in one of my favourite corners and started downloading things to the display terminal. The annotated and expanded text of the Code, the _Law of the Temple and Traditions of the Jedi Order_ (the Law & Tradition for short), Master Iyrrd's 'Commentary' on same, a couple of promising essays on passion & serenity (Master Esahrra Qew and Knight M'Faei for starters), the Piiresti mission report, complete with all the appendices, logs and related files, '_Human Sexual Health and Hygiene_' and after a moment of thought and a brief attack of acute self-consciousness I recalled the title of the book Bant and Garen and I had once laughed uncontrollably over, and asked for it, too: '_How to Please a Partner - Tips, Tricks and Toys for the Male Who Prefers Males, (Human)_' - it was one of a series covering most of the peoples of the Republic, arranged, logically enough, by species, gender and pairing preference.

The stemmed thing that had (and continued to have) such an effect on me was called a butt plug. Knowing its name did not lessen its fascination, but did allow me to put the idea aside for a bit. In fact, the whole volume looked to have a wealth of useful information, though I made myself wait to read the rest of it.

The Law & Tradition first. Stars, an entire volume on 'On Relations Between Jedi'. Surely I wasn't going to have to wade through all of that - no, here was the section I wanted: "Interpersonal, Intimate: Masters/ Padawans: No Master or Knight may approach a Padawan, regardless of age, in a manner sexual or inappropriately intimate, lest the Learner be or feel pressured in any way by the status, power or influence of the Master. Masters may not approach their own Padawans in particular, as the potential for damage to the Learner's trust, confidence and self-image is unacceptably high. Under no circumstances...." It went on at great length and detailed numerous painful examples. Oh, Master. And this would be an instance where his convictions and the Code coincided.

But it could not be the whole story - there were Master and Padawan couples. I scrolled further down the index. A ha.

"Interpersonal, Intimate: Padawans/Masters: ... once of age ... a Padawan may approach a Master, making their sexual interest clear. The Learner must take the initiative in the offer, and demonstrate their independence, maturity and general readiness for such a relationship. Special care must be taken if the Padawan wishes to initiate a relationship with their own Master. ..."

I skipped further down until my eye was caught by the intriguing header: "On First Night Offerings and Virginity." I read the whole section, and the commentary, and went back and read the Master's section on First Nights and thought for a long time. Maybe that was my answer, but there was a lot more information I needed. I keyed up 'Health & Hygiene'.

As I read, I realized that very little of this information was new or surprising. Most of what the textbook had to say, and the commentary, covered ground I had already known, but that had never really registered, hadn't been particularly relevant to who I was or what I was concentrating on doing. I'd never had any trouble on missions mapping relationships, intimate or otherwise, but I'd never applied any of that observation to myself, or to my Master.

Time for that to change, obviously. The switch had most definitely flipped.

I approached the Piiresti mission report almost gingerly, half afraid of what it would tell me now that I was so much more aware. I made myself read through it carefully, paying attention to the cultural addendum, the conclusions, what my Master had not said in the detailed log.

The Shekhet Piiresti are conducting a running conflict with the Tri'ee'at, and are freetraders as well. The cease-fire involves a specific volume of space (see Map 1) containing both non-combatants and protected planets, as well as Shekhet and Tri'ee'at outposts. The details of the agreement are as follows: ....

The terms of the cease-fire were agreed to after three months (Republic standard) of the agent's on-site presence, necessary in order to gain the requisite status and attention to convince the leader, Kiir Twari of the Shekhet rath, of the need and value of the agreement. This involved personal submission of the agent to the Kiir, under threat of failure of the mission and damage to the above-referenced populations. ....

The decision was made to approach the Shekhet rath, rather than the Tri'ee'at, as it had been confirmed that the Kiir - roughly 'seniormost' and equivalent in authority to a Republic fleet admiral - had had previous contact not only with the near neighbors of the Piiresti system, but also with the Republic, and was determined to be a likelier prospect in terms of awareness of and openness to ideas of a wider universe. This assumption ultimately proved correct.

Notes and Observations on Piiresti Culture, Biology and Physiology. (Humanoid, Class VIxa1, Sub-group A'lans, Type R27a)....

Significant sexual dimorphism. Previous Jedi - Republic - contact had been with the predominantly female planetary population. Moderate familiarity with that culture gives an incomplete picture of the mobile and space-going male (rath) culture.

A 'rath' is composed exclusively of males, and is organized on very strict lines of status, age and skill. The Shekhet rath is a grouping composed of the population of some two dozen large and self-sufficient ships, numerous support and small ships and one very large 'flagship' under the leadership of the Kiir and the collection of Tiirs. If the Shekhet are typical of rath structure, then these lines and relationships may be clearly seen and analyzed. See Appendix D for notes, observations and extrapolations, as well as detailed charts modeling the structure. ....

Their biology and physiology encourage quite separate lives for males and females; procreation is almost wholly divorced from companionship, and is done by arrangement. All children are raised by their mother(s), and at adolescence the males are sent to join their father(s).

Intimate relations are all m/m and f/f, the two sexes are only intimate across gender to procreate, usually in doubled pairs.

The Piiresti are aware that they live in a wider universe than themselves, and outsiders are known. Beings of obviously 'alien' physiognomy are treated largely with a polite indifference, without overt hostility, but also without interest or attention. Aliens fall entirely outside the caste system, and as such, interaction is unpredictable, and questions of such things as information exchange or trade are left up to the discretion of the highest caste person available.

There are some not well understood status/sexual dynamics between high-caste and low and/or non-caste individuals, ranging from elaborate 'inspection' and 'marking' activities to outright sexual taking, possessing or spurning. ....

While largely Human in appearance, the Piiresti have both similarities and significant differences from Republic Human standard physiology and biology. These differences are particularly marked in the areas of reproduction, digestion and genitalia. ....

The sex drive is generally quite strong, though the Kiir's is particularly so, and it is culturally expected that people have sex frequently. Custom varies widely as to scope and extent of intimacy in public. Many social gatherings are strongly sexually oriented, with suitable supplies and locations set up for the purpose. There is no stigma placed on public displays of affection or attraction, even when quite overt. Disruption of public functions or neglect of one's duty or responsibilities however is strongly frowned upon. ....

They have very sensitive & responsive anal passages. Both the rath and planetary cultures have codified behavior regarding anal hygiene and 'modesty'. To be without an anal plug is considered either rude and provocative or inviting. Specific plugs can be indicative of social status, relationship status, or other preferences. One of the formal greetings between males of differing status involves what amounts to butt-sniffing, where the lower caste person acknowledges the higher caste's right to inspect his plug. Males and females wear them, usually from the time they are out of diapers.

Plugs and anal toys are favored courting gifts. In witnessed 'Partnerships-in-Joy' - the functional equivalent of marriage - 'pleasure-boxes' are customarily exchanged between the pair. This consists of an elaborate set of toys and plugs, as well as probes, rings and other sensory and insertion devices intended for anal and genital stimulation and pleasure. Usually they are all new, presented in an artistic arrangement in a pretty container. This exchange symbolizes a variety of things: hope, cleanliness, untrammeled beginnings, a wish for mutual pleasure. ....

Normal dress for a male is a pair of trousers - literally, two separate legs that overlap in front, supporting and covering the genitals, and are fastened around the waist or hips, merely meeting or gapping in the back, allowing exposure of the separation of the buttocks.

Vests and split surcotes are common overgarments. Shoes are commonly not worn except by personal preference, unless part of a uniform or out of a safety, work or environmental requirement. Covering the whole body is usually done only at need, such as while working with volatile substances or where the atmosphere may become compromised. ....

Jewelry is popular: nipple rings, piercings, necklaces, hair decorations, finger rings, bracelets, anklets. Again, status indicators, but more in material and workmanship than type or quantity.

Cockrings are not jewelry, though they may look like it. Older & high status males wear them as a matter of course, (the biology again encourages this), and receiving one's first cockring is an important mark of maturity. To call someone 'unRinged' when they have been 'Ringed' is a very strong insult, usually requiring an overtly sexual reaction or answer. ....

Mammalian: bearing and nursing females have four breasts, non-lactating females and males have prominent and sensitive nipples. Multiple births are the norm and 'sibling-groups' typically consist of four children, essentially quadruplets, usually 3 males and 1 female. 'Fifth' siblings are rare, and are viewed with some suspicion and trepidation. A 'Fifth' is always male (unless the birth is 5 females, which has only happened once in record) as it is not birth order that determines number, but other considerations, and females count first.

The words 'litter' and 'littermate' are considered extremely rude and insulting, and are only applied in a derogatory manner, or in reference to those non-sentient animals which share the trait of multiple-birth reproduction.

Incest taboos apply only to ones sibling-group and one's parents (all four), but not to other sibling-groups even if of the same parents, and not usually to the parents' fellow-sibs. ....

Foodstuffs, brought in from Piirest, grown naturally on the larger ships of the fleet and hydroponically on the smaller, occasionally imported from other systems, are almost without exception highly chemically active, and many are mildly toxic to the Human system. Several of the compounds are addictive. The principal side-effects of ingestion are heightened physical sensitivity, particularly to touch and scent, increased sexual responsiveness and desire, a distancing of the Force-sense, and a gradually increasing difficulty in extracting needed nutrients from the available food. Long-term ingestion by Humans, even Jedi, is not recommended.

See the Healer's report for specifics. ....

The Healer's report was, as usual, dense and obscurely written but I made myself read it anyway. Chemicals and procedures, short and long-term consequences, projected physical recovery schedule. Though extensively detailed it still skirted the things I most wanted to know and at the same time gave me the feeling of prying into privacies. One sentence was particularly disturbing: "Given this individual's history (see medrecord-QGJinn) and known idiosyncrasies re: intervention/psychological integrity and personal relations, long-term psycho-physical prognosis as regards integration of mission consequences uncertain but hopeful." In other words 'he's come through bad things before and we just have to trust in his strong will and pig-headedness to pull him through this one.' They didn't actually know. The detailed addendum was screenfuls of med-speak and I gave up on it.

(Indeed, the report as a whole was oddly stilted & distant, not a typical example of my Master's reporting style. But then, he had still been in the healer's hands at the time.)

The information the Council had on the Piiresti was such that I had been ordered to stay at the Temple: one older agent was thought to have a reasonable chance of success, where my age - too old to class as a child, too young by their lights to make decisions or add to my Master's status - would make the job more difficult. Re-reading the report showed me quite clearly that in this instance, and little as I liked it, the Council had made the right decision. Not only was it likely that I would have been instantly subject to harassment both physical and sexual (which I would not have been and was not now prepared for), but my presence would have added significantly to my Master's dilemma, not eased it.

As I read and thought and put things together from my new perspective, I made several realizations, including that much of my Master's current suffering came out of his strength, not from something broken or fragile. If the Kiir had hurt him physically, used pain or straight threats and torture rather than sensory pleasure and psychological pressure, all of his defenses and controls would have worked for him, as I had seen happen in other situations. Patently they hadn't worked this time. I wondered if perhaps Qui-Gon felt in a way betrayed by his body, somewhat in the same way I was being surprised by mine. I couldn't know - had no idea of how to ask or even if it would be a useful question for either of us.

The Piiresti looked Human. And acted ... almost Human. As Qui-Gon had undoubtably looked Piiresti, and had deliberately worked to act in accordance with what was known of the culture.

He had presented himself to the Shekhet rath as 'like' them, rather than emphasizing his differentness - alienness. He obeyed the prompting of the Force in this, and was ultimately successful because of it. He had been accepted immediately, taken as he presented himself - and the lack of knowledge and understanding on our part of the differences in the rath culture from the planetary culture gave the Kiir the opportunity to willfully misunderstand that presentation.

In the end, the Force had been right: peace, balance and a greater understanding and cooperation had been achieved in that sector between all the people there, and all because of my Master's perseverance, strength, endurance and skill. He had achieved the needed status from within the structure, by way of the Kiir, and the cease-fire had been signed and upheld, had become a productive peace in the meantime.

But by what harsh means, and at what high cost. Not the highest, certainly, but high enough. My Master was still paying the price of that peace in lost focus, impaired and unpredictable reactions - I was even yet the only person who could walk up from behind him without making him flinch, though he startled much less strongly now than he had at first - broken sleep and difficulty meditating. Paying in a continuing need that manifested as a hunger for physical - sexual - stimulation, an ache that even his impressive shields had not completely kept from me, though I had not understood it or really registered it until now. The body learns, adapts, even to extreme circumstances.

Nothing in the report, though, gave me reason not to approach him, not to offer him my love, my help, my curiosity and my growing urge to explore the possibilities of my body and his.

I turned back to the textbooks and essays, looking for the facts, the terms, information to aid me, fuel and fodder for the deep meditation I knew I needed to thoroughly integrate and understand all the factors. Thinking I wanted wasn't enough. I had to know, and knowing, make my decisions and choose my actions within the Force.

My body sang with alert awareness, a new kind of arousal that was both sexual and not. That alone would help shape my meditation, but I could not let it dictate it or allow it to rule me. This whole thing was much too important and the Force too insistent for me to be other than patient, cautious and thorough. Grounded. Centered. Unified in myself in heart and mind and spirit and body. Mindful of all the lessons my Master had taught me.

When I had read through pretty much everything, which took a while, I stood and stretched, hyperaware again of each muscle and joint - a continuation of the state I had woken up in. I realized I had better visit the toilet and relieve myself, particularly before settling in for what might well be hours worth of meditation.

I finished my standing business, lost in thought, and sat to do the other, paying attention to previously ignored sensation. It was yet another surprise, now that I had noticed it, how satisfying and, well, pleasurable, this perfectly natural & needful act was; this private moment where I could appreciate how unexpectedly enjoyable the smooth functioning of my body could be. Almost a Living Force moment, a glimpse of the ever-present net of light that I knew my Master was always aware of on some level.

There was something here. Centered in the body, a center of the body.... Meditation called to me, perhaps even the Fourfold Centering, and it would be rude, not to mention quickly uncomfortable, to tie up the most convenient restroom in this area. I washed my hands and returned to the study corner I had taken over.

Start with the body, kneeling, knees apart. Aware of that deep center. Breathe into the belly, all the way down. Relax the deep muscles, feel the fire at the base of the spine, coiled in the groin. Start there, at the root of the pillar.

Centered in the Force, centered in the body. (/Would - could? - sex between two people be like that, what I had just felt, smooth and natural and joyful? Be a Moment in the Body of the Force? My body wanted this, was ready for this./)

Centered in the Force, centered in the heart. (/Two people, Qui-Gon and myself, making light, creating beauty and love together. Oh my Master (my love) how could a being be so callous, about beauty, about your beauty, such wonder, to force intimacy? To smirch themselves with such selfishness, greed, violence? To damage, break defenses I hadn't even known were there, that were depended upon by him, by me, by others, until I saw the effect of their loss, the suffering my Master could not hide from me. Let me help. Let my love help, whatever form it may take. The Desire of the Heart in the Force..../)

Centered in the Force, centered in the mind. (/I have knowledge now to recognize this desire in myself as natural growth, natural feeling. I recognize in my Master both desire and need, though I know not the full nature of either his need or desire. I have both hope and reason to believe I am his desire, that desire is the natural upwelling of his body and heart and spirit. His need is clouded to me, beyond my knowledge but present to my senses, a disturbance in his Force, an internal conflict, sexual, very much part of this situation. A need for which I am part of the resolution. (Oh, my Master, have I made this harder for you, all unwitting?) He cannot, will not approach me in this. He will not countenance the least breath of coercion. The Will of the Force in the Informed Mind. But I can approach him./)

Centered in the Force, centered in the spirit. (/It is love I feel, and love he feels for me. It was right that I should have come to this place in myself, this realization, this desire. It was meet and right that I follow the Inspiration of the Spirit of the Force, offer Qui-Gon my love in this way, my First Night, ask for his love - and his knowledge, for I shall most surely need it, even as I have needed his knowledge and love and guidance in so many other things./)

Centered in the Force, Living and Unified in the Moment, Shaped by the Past, Creating the Future. My inspiration, my choice, my will and desire, this moment and going forward, together in the Force.

I opened my eyes. The world was laced with color, light shimmering and dancing in the air, sweet and spiced with the incense of knowledge. I had always before had limited success with the Fourfold Center. Now I understood it better. I breathed deeply, just outside ordinary awareness. There was still something not quite settled in my feelings.

Right. That.

How it was that Qui-Gon had come to some of his knowledge, the suspected source of his need, cause of his present suffering. A hot squirmy feeling prickled through me. My Master, reserved, passionate in his serenity, private in his habits and person, while giving in his nature, had been coerced, forced to acquire knowledge and need I couldn't help but think he hadn't wanted. Made to endure the use of his body (in public! By strangers - a stranger - who should have known better, who had known better, and held the power of life and death of innocents over him.) Made to suffer that use and knowledge and threat. We had been over this. It was over. But I couldn't seem to let it go. I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I couldn't seem to release this squirmy feeling to the Force.

There were things I wanted to know and didn't know how to ask, answers I didn't know how to find out, whether I even could find out, or ought to know. My curiosity had gotten tangled with my outrage and I didn't know how to unravel the knot. I had read the report now twice, but there was so much it didn't say, and my publicly outspoken Master is a very private man. How could I ask him to help me understand my feelings when the reason my feelings were in a twist was because he had been, well, raped. (That's how I see it. None of that was by free consent, not his desire; his choice only in the face of worse consequences.) And now I wanted to love him, and do some of those very same things, even though I was not perfectly sure what some of those things were. What if things went wrong when I did ask? (Because I was going to ask. All my meditations had pointed that way.)

I certainly couldn't go to any of my friends with this. It was not my story to share. The mere idea of going to one of the Council revolted me - they had sent him there! (Not a terribly rational reaction, but this was about feelings, not reasons.)

I was paging through the report again, as if something new would leap out at me. I hadn't understood much of the Healer's addendum, as they were even more cryptic in their notes than Master Yoda most of the time. But a line did stand out: 'Post-mission counseling - Master Healer Eren Daret.' I knew him. My Master knew him, had known him for years. He had counseled both of us after we had come back from Telos the first year of my apprenticeship. I could trust him, if I had to.

I really was going to offer my Master my First Night. Now. Tonight. This was right and the right time, but it was still a comfort to know there was someone we both could talk to, if, well ... we needed someone else to talk to. Someone other than ourselves.

I could feel my thoughts skidding and took a deep breath, centering, calming. /Don't center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan, focus on the outcome you want, not the one you fear./ I could hear Qui-Gon's patient delivery, every nuance exact. The underlying care, the love. No matter what the outcome of my asking, we would still be all right, Master and Padawan, friends, and maybe, maybe we would be lovers as well.

I'd spent enough time in the Archives. Now I wanted do something with the energy my meditations and decision had given me. Sparring with the initiates was always good for that.

It turned out that sparring partners weren't needed, but supervisors for unstructured playtime were, as was often the case. While I was with the young ones, the fives and sixes just out of the crèche, I kept finding myself grinning and laughing, almost wanting to skip, as they enjoyed dashing about the atrium lawn garden.

Flashes of my meditation kept returning to me, the tactile, physical sense of the body-center rushing along my nerves and muscles as I ran after the children, the light and sense of expansion of the spirit-center splashing & sparkling around me as I paid heed to the exuberance of the young, just forming Force-presences around me. My heart-center still burned hot, my awareness of and connection to Qui-Gon (not the Master, or not wholly, but the man, the person) a palpable thing, a beacon, a lodestone. My thoughts and feelings reaching for him, for the sense of him along the training bond, just for the pleasure of knowing he was there, would be there.

Oh, but I had been blind, hadn't I. A very selective, long-term, close-focus blindness.

This was being in love, not just loving. Actually in love. Obi-Wan Kenobi in love with Qui-Gon Jinn. I felt as if I could float, or fly, as if a fountain were bubbling and welling in my heart, my chest. And here I'd thought my friends had been exaggerating when they had told me about their own feelings. If anything they had understated the case.

I had a marvelous time playing with the initiates.

My Master was still out when I got back to our quarters, meditating in one of the gardens, probably. It was still fairly early in the evening. I was glad for the chance to bathe and dress in my newest and cleanest robes. As I did I was still very aware of myself, how the soap felt as I scrubbed, the swirl of the water around my feet, the texture of the towels. I paid particular attention to my genitals and anus. I'd read about ways to make sure of being clean inside & out, but I wasn't quite ready to do that, even if I could find something suitable to use. So I was thorough with the bathcloth and did some more with soap and water and my fingers, practicing.

All that attention reawakened the slow fire that had been with me all day. Getting dressed I could feel the weave and weight of each garment, the glimmer of Force in each once-living strand of linen and wool. Clothed in light. Aware and respectful of the gift of the animal and plant life that clothed and sustained us. Aware of the light & life within me.

Qui-Gon returned as I was setting the table with a small supper of bread and pickles, cheese and fruit. Tea was the evening beverage of choice for both of us, so I had made a pot of chamyss, one of his favourites.

I looked up as he came in, and my body suddenly felt too small for my heart. This was definitely in love. As if there had really been any question. I made myself breathe steadily.

He looked tired, worn, much of the lightness of the morning drained out of him. He did brighten as I went to him and took his heavy cloak, hanging it up by the door. I bowed him to the table with a smile and he sat gratefully.

"Thank you, Padawan." Softly, as I poured the tea.

I wanted to lift the invisible weight from his shoulders, smooth the creases from his brow, pick a fight with who or whatever had undone all the good last night's unbroken sleep had done him and returned the grey wearyness to his spirit. I had hoped for another smile like the one I'd gotten at breakfast. I would just have to work for it.

So, begin as I meant to go on.

I sat and began to fill my plate. "I took your advice, Master, and consulted the archives before meditating. The information was very helpful. I was able to use the Fourfold Centering."

"Very good." He had filled his own plate, but was not yet eating. "Did you reach any useful conclusions?"

Even through the privacy shielding we were both maintaining I could tell that he wasn't feeling as dispassionate about the answer to that question as it sounded, but I also knew he would never pry. But I wasn't quite ready to fully answer, either.

"Yes I did. How was your day?" Shift the subject, just a little.

"The Council sent for me this afternoon."

Oh, damn. That would certainly explain the lines of wearyness. "Why didn't...."

"They wanted me. You were with the initiates. There was no need." His hands were making patterns with the bread and cheese. "They wanted to know how much longer it would be before they could give us another assignment." New patterns on the plate.

A new assignment? We weren't ready for a new assignment, certainly not the kind we typically got.

"I had to tell them I ... didn't know. Master Koth was quick to point out I had already had more than three weeks, and would I be so kind as to let them know as soon as possible when I did 'consider myself fit' or know when that would be."

Oh, that had to have hurt. It had hurt. My Master takes his duties very seriously, as he has taught me to. And one of the things he takes seriously is that both of us be at least minimally fit and prepared for whatever our duty may throw at us. And he wasn't, not yet. Not that conviction made asking for time any easier.

He sighed and finally began to eat his food instead of arrange it.

"Any idea what they want us for? Maybe it's something undemanding like an inauguration or a wedding. A survey of water resources on Golalat." I put a smile in my voice, little-boy hopefulness. (Golalat was an ocean planet that I had consistently gotten confused with its arid system-sibling Farlateen when I was first a Padawan, and a running joke between us.)

I got the snort I was hoping for.

"Not likely, Obi-Wan." He sighed again, but his mood had lightened to a mere grumble. "No. I don't know. Or why they want us in particular." He pushed his now-empty plate away with a frown and curled his hands around the teacup, gazing at the greeny-gold depths. "They disapprove of my actions and solutions, and then want to turn around and send us out again immediately."

An old and well worn grumble. I didn't say anything - what could I say? It was perfectly true - just refilled his cup and nudged the fruit-bowl closer. We had had similar exchanges hundreds of times, but I had never before been so aware of the dynamic between us, how I could affect him, his feelings, with my words and actions. I'd learned to do it quite consciously on missions - so much of what gets called 'Jedi mind tricks' are really only kinesics and spacial awareness, vocal controls and nuances, perceptual training and the like, that are not restricted to the Jedi (Chancellor Valorum is quite skilled and completely Force-blind) - but I had not thought further to realize that of course it applied to daily life as well, conscious or not. Rather a frightening thing to realize, in a way, frightening and exhilarating to know that I had that power, that it was mine to use, lightly, responsibly, with those close to me as well as for the common good in the service of the Force.

A final revelation in a day full of them; I felt as though most of the last cycle had been spent in a place with all the doors and windows open, a kind of receptive, revelatory trance-state. Now I knew, knew, not only why my Master had not come to me, but why he, consciously, had been so careful of me lately, and I, unconsciously, had picked up on that & responded by being equally circumspect. Because sexual awakening and awareness should be, must be, arrived at naturally, not forced. /Oh My Master, I have made it harder for you, haven't I./

"Padawan?" [CorCom to Padawan, CorCom to Padawan....]

Force. I'd been staring at the fruit bowl without seeing for who knows how long. Lost in a trance indeed. But there was humor and deep affection in his mental voice.

"What? Oh, I just put two and eight together."

"I see." There was a hint of smile in his voice. "And you got...?"

"And I got twelve. Or something. I ...." I stopped, not quite sure where I was going with that, and gave him a smile of my own, then stood up and started clearing the table to give myself time to put my words together. He watched me patiently, eyebrows raised in undemanding inquiry. Finally I left the tea-things and led him over to the couch in the common room. We sat down, facing each other.

I took a deep breath. Ground and center. Here goes. "Master, I have questions in need of answers; answers personal to and of you. May I ask, and will you answer?" Stars, a formal question request. Where had that come from? But somehow it felt right.

"Ask your questions, Padawan. I will answer." Deep voiced. Still and serious face. His hands were braced in his lap, flat on his thighs; I don't think anyone else would have seen the tension in them.

He had given me leave to ask, an unqualified promise to answer. I had his full and unwavering attention, and he had not invoked anything that would give him an out or a loophole. Another rather frightening and exhilarating thing, to know that. To know that he would not flinch from answering, from giving me what he knew or believed to be right or true, no matter the personal cost. I vowed to be careful with my questions.

"First. Master, the Law of the Temple states that no Master may approach a Padawan in any manner sexual, lest there be damage to the Learner's self-awareness and confidence, or influence over the Learner's free will and choice. I ask: do you believe this, follow this?"

"Yes." Low but steady. Watching me as I watched him. I could not read what I saw in his eyes. This answer was no surprise.

Another deep breath. "Second. You know you can influence people, even me, in very subtle ways, without their knowing it. You have taught me this skill, and have in the past and for good reason, used it on me. Have you ever influenced me in this, tried to bend or shape my desire in any way?" (Oh, a hard question to ask, hard and necessary; an answer we both needed to know.)

Qui-Gon's eyes had gone very dark, the lines on his face pronounced. His voice, when it came, was extremely quiet and grave. "No, Padawan. I have never tried to influence you, your desire or sexuality, consciously or by intent. I have, to the best of my ability, worked not to."

But he was afraid he had anyway, I could see that doubt, that misery, in the moiling edges of Force around him, in the tense set of his mouth. He didn't know, because he was an abstract thinker and philosopher-poet who saw the connections between all living things and believed in shades of grey, not absolutes. Thus the qualified no, which was assurance enough, more than enough, for me. I could certainly forgive anything which might have unconsciously slipped past his formidable skill and intent.

He could read me much more easily than I could him. I felt the Force ease around him just a fraction even as I made a tiny nod to myself. I rolled my shoulders to loosen my own tension. I wasn't quite finished yet. Another deep breath. This was hard. One of the hardest things I had ever done.

"Third. I gather that a lot of what happened to you during the Piiresti mission was ... sexual. And coercive. And affected you more than ... affected you personally, physically and emotionally, and ... some of those things are still affecting you, physically and, um, sexually?" My hands were twisting, clenched tightly in my lap. I could feel my cheeks flaming and was sure I was red to the ears with embarrassment at what I was asking, but I still had to ask. "Was it, ... did he, ... didKiirTwarirapeyou? Is that ... how you think of it?"

I knew my Master would never hit me for asking a question, even that one, why was I hunching my shoulders as if against a blow?

It was not the question he had been expecting me to ask. He cocked his head thoughtfully for a moment and I tried to recover my composure. Eventually he let out a small sigh.

"Technically, yes, it was rape."

I flinched at the word, and saw my reflexive response echoed in him, but he did not allow it to stop him. I had asked the question, I was entitled to the whole answer.

Carefully, he went on, eyes still distant with the abstracted look of interior observation. "I do not think of it that way, though, not really. I ... am not quite sure what I do think. My feelings are ... not very articulable on that matter." He refocussed on me, and I could nearly feel his gaze, an imponderable weight. "As to the first part of that question, yes, I am still ... trying ... to come to terms with the effects of long-term ... use ... as they continue to manifest. And the effects I am having the most difficulty with ... are sexual."

I didn't miss the 'try', nor the otherwise carefully neutral and dispassionate language in a voice that was colored by feeling that was anything but. He was not finding it any easier than I had to talk about. It struck me then that he was also still operating under the handicap of having to avoid influencing me as to my own desires.

(How could I not love this man? Even if that love was never expressed physically, in the joining of our bodies? And while some of what I had learned tonight both clarified and added complexity to my desire, none of it diminished it, or the sense of rightness that I had felt at the end of my earlier meditations.)

Suddenly I had a question I hadn't thought of before, but seemed relevant. What number was I on? It didn't matter. "Is my changing - increasing - developing sexual awareness and interest making it hard for you? Is that any part of why you couldn't give the Council an answer?"

"No, Obi-Wan. I am sure that you would comport yourself admirably in regards to that area, were we to find ourselves on a mission tomorrow. No. It is my own concentration and reflexes that I feel are ... not yet recovered."

"But getting called before the Council didn't help, did it?" I hadn't actually meant to ask that, but Qui-Gon answered me anyway, a hint of a smile tilting one corner of his mouth.

"No, it did not."

Now there was only one more question that needed to be asked this way, within the strictures of the ritual request. I was reasonably sure I knew the answer, but needed to hear it formally. Wanted my Master to hear himself say it, for his own need and comfort.

"Lastly. Master, do you believe I am come to years, knowledge, discretion and perception sufficient to willingly and freely offer my love to another in a physical and sexually intimate relationship?"

His eyebrows rose slightly at the language, (I had gotten the words straight out of one of the books I had read this morning) but he did not laugh. His voice was quite serious and deliberate as he spoke, and his eyes held mine for a long moment.

"Yes, Obi-Wan. I do believe you are of an age and sufficiently prepared to choose to make such an offer."

I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding and bowed my head to him as much to hide the sudden silly grin on my face as to offer him my quite sincere respect. I hoped he could not hear the racing and pounding of my heart.

"Thank you, My Master. I am fully answered of my asking. I am honored by your truth and teaching."

"As I am honored by your trust and seeking. Well have you asked, my Padawan; may you use the knowledge you have gained with equal wisdom."

He stood to stretch, and grimaced at the stiffness in his back and shoulders. I winced in sympathy, but mine weren't much better.

"I think, Obi-Wan, that I shall take a bath. Would you care for a game of cennit when I'm done?"

A game we often played, both interesting & relaxing. It sounded like a good idea, even if I couldn't figure out how to get from where we were now, to where I wanted to be. Where I hoped he wanted to be. All the questions asked but one, and that the most important.

"Yes, I'd like that. I'll tidy up and make some more tea."

Qui-Gon

I have always enjoyed hot baths. I have done some of my best thinking immersed. I had quite a lot to think about, and a headache from tension and need. My groin and anus/passage were sending insistent, heated, tiresome messages. As I went about my preparations I worked through my whole repertory of tension-release breathing with minimal result. I was not calm.

Obi-Wan's questions had brought many things into focus for me, touched on issues I was still struggling with. The confrontation with the Council, while unpleasant, had been straightforward. This working of things through for and with my apprentice was a mine-field of complexity. I recognized my retreat to the bath chamber as retreat, and my need to regroup as both real and necessary.

I was allowing - encouraging - him to think, explore, experiment, be present in the Moment with his body in this. Why was I finding it so difficult to give myself the same permission? My old controls and methods no longer worked for me, as the past weeks had clearly demonstrated. New strategies - witness last night and six unbroken hours of sleep - were there to be found, needed to be found.

Indeed, it seemed that Obi-Wan, from his harmony with the Force, of his body with mine, the effervescent light of his spirit, had a greater comfort and acceptance of my sexuality than I currently did. Not a situation I could allow to continue so unbalanced, for myself, for either of us.

As the bath filled I stood before the mirror. One of Eren's long ago suggestions had proved unexpectedly helpful: carefully revisiting the Exercises for Clear Sight. I had not yet fully managed to see myself as Twari had, but I was more confident of Obi-Wan's viewpoint.

Seven deep breaths, balanced, resting stance. Settle the Force-sense in the vibrant light of Obi-Wan's Force- signature. Open inner and outer eyes to See the outer presentment.

/Height. Power. Beauty. (Beauty? He saw me as beautiful?) Pain and repression overlying a deeply passionate serenity. Subtle humor, comfortable authority, stubborn willfulness twinned with integrity. A pattern of Jedi strength. A hint - /protect, ward, hold, help - of brittle and tender privacies, vulnerable humanity, frustrating empathy. (Oh, he was perceptive, now even more so.) Teacher, partner, guide, friend, lover-in-potential. Balance/poise/equilibrium with him, between us. (Thank the Force, grown and mature enough indeed.) Eyes to drown in, burn in, be pierced by, warmed by, Seen by. Immense physical presence, size, magnetism. Sexually fascinating. Scarred, experienced, ... raped (own the word, the truth of the term, of the experience. Own it, acknowledge it, Master Jinn.) Desirable. Ageless. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, Master, Qui-Gon, man, beloved. (Oh, Obi-Wan, let this indeed be your perception, that you see so much of the truth of me....)/

Close the eyes, take seven deep breaths, leave go the outer focus and settle the senses in the root of the self. Open eyes inner and outer on yourself from yourself and See how you see yourself, descriptors only, leaving aside all judgement for this. See the body, the flesh, the present vessel of spirit and Force.

/Tall. Underslept, verging on underweight. Swordsman's build, muscles, strength, agility. Middle years, mid-length hair, bronze-brown beginning to thread with silver, Master's hair. Big hands, long bones, long feet, crooked nose. Male. Quiescent organ, restless groin, empty ass (raped, forced, used, enjoyed, pleasured, loved). Ragged breath and too-revealing eyes. (Shame and pain and pleasure and need.) Capable, scarred, experienced, worn, confident, damaged, reserved, exposed, proud, desired, desiring. Jedi, Jinni, Qui, Qui-Gon, Yoda's student, Knight, Obi-Wan's teacher, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, Master, man, me. (Oh, this was hard, it was always hard, heart-poundingly difficult.)/

Close the eyes, take seven deep breaths. Center and focus.

Now, recall the first image, accept the perception, the insight it offers. Understand the reality and the ephemerality of it. Match the image with your own self knowledge without resistance or condemnation of either. This is a place of knowledge, a path of understanding. Note and remember those things that are disharmonious, incomplete, inaccurate. Grow with the knowledge and let the emotion flow within the Force, acknowledge, learn and let go. Let go. Let go.

Seven deep breaths and return again to present and single awareness.

It was a very subjective exercise, but it had served me well in the past, and my perceptions in it were usually proved correct. I refused to place dependence on it, however, particularly now. It was extrapolation and intuition, not objective fact, and the situation required I not act. He had to come to me. There was one question he had not yet asked, and until he did, I was constrained.

The bath was full, steaming, waiting for me. I got in and let the hot water soothe the aches in both body and spirit.

His questions had been careful, thoughtful, deliberate. He had been reaching for knowledge and acknowledgement from/for both of us.

Consider what those questions had been: my adherence to the Code in the matter of intimate relations - sex - between Masters and apprentices, between he and I. A question that showed he had read and understood those strictures, and an answer that upheld my beliefs and confirmed his analysis - an intellectual assurance.

Then the question of possible deliberate influence on him and my qualified response. I was part of the equation that was his life, his environment. I could never be wholly sure or objective about such a thing, was (and I acknowledged to myself, would continue to be) aware/afraid of the unconscious influence I had/could have on him, and frequently had to remind myself to give that fear/awareness/ anxiety to the Force, that most of what was, just was. My answer, qualified as it had been, had comforted him, eased much of his worry/ trepidation, though it had little effect on his anxious excitement.

My answer to his third question both justified his intuition/suspicion and gave him concrete terms to work with - a knowable situation, a solvable problem. For me, it had made me put into simple words the heart of my immediate, personal, unsimple dilemma and acknowledge an aspect of the situation that I had been avoiding (if I didn't call it that, then I didn't have to deal with it that way.) It had been rape. It had. (And more and less and other, but....) And now I could put the word away for the present and continue to work on coping with the results.

Then there was his unconsidered question as to his effect on me, and whether that had a part in my reply to the Council. Obi-Wan's own burgeoning sexual presence and awareness was actually less wearing in some ways than his obliviousness had been, even though I had not - could not, must not - quite answer that part of that question. It was a pleasure to watch him grow so well into himself. No, it was the part I had answered that gave me cause for concern, urgent need for reflection. My concentration, reflexes, presence in the Moment and in the Force were not what they should be, needed to be. I felt they were compromised, and not merely 'not yet recovered.' Why had I not given Obi-Wan that word, that answer, when I so clearly thought it?

Because I was afraid of that word's truth, not certain.

Such of my controls and disciplines as did still serve me would not let me speak so out of fear, to him. Until he had asked, I had not known, had not made that distinction for myself. Now that I had, I could do something about it, because objective observation told me that nothing was damaged beyond recovery, nothing changed or reshaped past acceptance, effort, recognition and will and use. I could let go of that fear. (My wise apprentice, continually teaching me myself.)

His final question, the witness-query, words that created reality in their asking and answering. That demanded and demonstrated maturity in the asking, as I acknowledged it in answering. Well done on his part, even to the traditional words. Very well done. It surely could not be wrong of me to be proud of him in this. For I was proud.

I sloshed about in the bath. It had cooled from almost too hot to a pleasant and penetrating warmth. A touch to the heating controls and it would stay that way for as long as I wished. The heat had relaxed my muscles, eased the tension of stress and conflict and not enough exercise. I began, deliberately, attentively, lovingly, to wash, soaping and scrubbing each part of me, starting with the feet.

I could accept the knowledge, the gift, of my body's willingness and pleasure in physical and sexual stimulation. I could not let it rule me or distract me. I could, I would, starting now, with this bath, develop new rituals and controls - meditations and disciplines incorporating and using my strengthened needs and new self-knowledge. And if Obi-Wan was indeed going to ask the question he had not yet asked, the one I was not allowing myself to hope he would ask, then we could work together toward this discipline, this ordering and acknowledging and use, for both our need, our knowledge and pleasure. Serenity in acceptance, serenity in knowledge, serenity in exercise, serenity in love and looking out for each other. Serenity in passion.

So. I had scrubbed all over, my skin tingled, flushed and alive, like and unlike after the astringent and spiced bath the first night on the Shekhet rath flagship, before the formal reception, the mission still only potential, the pattern events would take yet unfixed. New rituals, new beginnings, actions and preparations that would allow for possibilities but not assume.

I submerged myself completely for a moment, wetting my hair, letting the warmth caress my face, then knelt in the waist deep water. I had scrubbed myself clean; now I would acknowledge that heightened sensitivity/ sensuality I had been struggling with, respect those places in myself I had fought/thought to subjugate, repress, and needed instead to harness and accept. Honor my body as I would Obi-Wan's, as a gift for him, for myself, as an offering to and vessel of the Force, the Light.

The stargrass oil soap, a fresh bathcloth. Feel, don't think. Sliding warmth over skin, the peaking tenderness of one nipple, the other, the spike of heat curling down and through my groin. Yes. Underarms, collarbones, the skin at nape and behind my ears. Elbows and wrists, knees and ankles, feet and hands and belly. Gentle worship, laying foundations that could uphold, withstand the fire. Shoulders and back, sending runnels of water and heat down the line of my spine. Face, brows, nose, lips, ears. The coil and spring of my beard-hair, my mustache as I lathered and stroked, combing my fingers through the short, dense strands. Outer and inner thighs, buttocks, reaching for the deep crease between my cheeks, that center of me, laving the eager muscle. Yes. Yes, there. More hair, curls clustered thick at the root of me. The heavy softness of my scrotum, the weight and shape of my testicles, the crumpled skin over them. The heat and length and thickness of my half-hard cock. Water and soap sliding under my foreskin, exquisite smoothness on sensitivity, the welling slit and the space where the one ring had been, that I had considered keeping. My flesh. My vessel. My skin and responses and sensitivities and strengths. Reclaimed for my use, for my pleasure, my delight in the service of the Light.

I drained the bath and stood under the shower to rinse and to wash my hair. Cool droplets washing away excess oil and soap and strain. Turning under the water, life pattering down on my face.

Thick towels are another happiness. I dried myself briskly and thoroughly, wringing out my hair, combing and catching it back with a clip. I paused a moment, sorting through ideas and impulses. How clean did I feel the need to be?

Just one more place, one more specific ablution. (Could I reclaim that, too, for my own use? I could. I would. Daily ship-regimen or no.) No soap, just water: warm, cleansing, filling, renewing. My focus determines my reality. Voiding that water would void the taint of violence, my lingering rage, anger at Twari, at the Council, at myself. As the water gushed from me I could feel the shame and embarrassment I had locked away even from myself begin to drain as well, my belly cramping in release and relief. I breathed through the strong sensations, relaxing the deep muscles, releasing, letting it all flow from me, resting in the moment. Emptied. Cleansed. Saving only the capacity for pleasure, the memory of pleasure/sensation, the knowledge and skill, health, wholeness.

A careful wipe with a warm damp cloth, the soft towel, as if dressing a wound that had finally begun to heal. What a remarkable feeling of unity/balance with myself. I felt light, filled with light and fire. Into my sleeping chamber to dress and finish readying myself. Prepared for possibilities, assuming nothing, acknowledging my need, my desire, finding the balance within myself, within the Force, between Master and Qui-Gon, Padawan and Obi-Wan, flesh and spirit.

Make of myself a fit gift for Obi-Wan, whether or no he chose to ask for it; fit again within myself, if not yet physically or emotionally ready for the work of my - of our - calling. One evening, one ritual did not yet make me fit for missions, but I would be, we would be, and by grace of the Force, in the Light and with love, now I believed I knew how to get there.

In the privacy of our quarters my night-robe would be sufficient, the rest was made simple by long practice, new acceptance and the seeds of anticipation.

I worked the oil deeply into my passage with a generous hand, stroking and stretching my anus with two fingers, three. No need or desire for the plug just at present, though I had one laid ready, all the pleasure-toys cleaned and prepared.

Deep breaths. Wrapped in my night-robe, wrapped in the Light, body washed and oiled, hair combed and caught back, flesh and spirit, mind and heart made ready, prepared. The Force sang within me, between us. My part was presence, stillness, attention. Not action. I had achieved a kind of calm, the beginnings of peace within myself, but Obi-Wan's nearness/presence/brilliance vibrated in my bones, made my knees tremble with desire for him. Deep breaths. Mastery, this moment, and the next and the next. Let the feelings flow through me into the Force. His choice. His asking.

I was as ready to face him as I was going to be. I went out into the common room.

Obi-Wan

Cennit is a card game played with a deck with forty-eight greater trumps, sixteen minor trumps - face cards - & forty suit cards. Players, usually two to four, play through the deck, making up sets of two, three or four cards - pairs, triads or quads - with groupings consisting of obvious logical or numerical associations, as well as less obvious symbolic, alchemic, historic or literary associations, depending on the variation being used. The higher the number needed for the set, the more cards used and the wider the allowed associations, the harder the game, numeric pairs of suit cards being the easiest. Extra points are given for making 'great pairs' (or quads) in a pairs game. The version my Master and I most often played was middling simple, with the major and minor trumps but not the suit cards, using both numeric and symbolic associations.

Qui-Gon was very quiet as we played, though not distracted enough to let me win, I had to work for it. We played our usual pairs game, and I kept seeing him and me in the doubled images. Tree and vine, rain and wheat, field and plow, Force and flow. This was right, our being together, Master & Padawan, friends, partners, lovers-in-potential. Now that I knew to look I could see both the need and desire in him, the hard control constraining him, the care he took physically and within the Force to give me the space he felt I needed. I had no doubt of the strength of those controls, no doubt that he would eventually find a new physical equilibrium - I could see that even just over the course of the evening, with whatever he had meditated on in the bath, he had gained a small, new measure of peace within himself - but I hated the strain in him, the almost-distance between us.

The tower-fortress and the knight. I looked up from the cards and knew I loved him. Was in love with him. Wanted him. Wanted to love him, wanted to learn from him and make him laugh. Knew myself to be in love, old enough to recognize that gift as having value. Knew that what I felt was more than a desire to ease his distress or explore my own lust and curiosity, though it contained both. Knew that I did not require his approval in this, my new sexual awareness, but that I wanted it; that I had a confidence in his strength and love and Light that he perhaps did not, and a confidence in my own strength and love that I would have to show him. Words were only a way in. Feel, think, act.

The lady and the moon. His hands shook almost imperceptibly as he laid his own last cards down next to mine - the day-star and the lord - making the two pairs into the quad known as the Great Lovers, celestial and terrestrial, living and unified. The will of the Force. He closed his eyes and swallowed. The cords of his wrists stood out in sharp relief. /"O is my heart betrayed thus to my eyes...."/

I left the cards where they lay and went to him. He was holding himself very still, breathing in strict order. I could smell the damp warmth of his just-washed hair, the clean musk of his body. He opened his eyes as I sat next to him on the couch, our thighs not quite touching. I could live forever in that fathomless blue....

"Master, Qui-Gon, let me help." I reached towards him, my fingers tracing a tentative path along the line of cheekbone and jaw, very aware of the texture of his skin, the coarse softness of his beard. "Let me love you." I raised my chin; not far to look to see his face, not that much shorter than he now, and let my eyes speak for me. His eyes were clouded and dark, but neither hard nor forbidding. /Please let me love you. Please love me back, I love you, I know you love me, love me that way..../

"Are you sure, Obi-Wan? Are you certain this is your desire, and not mine coloring yours through the bond?" He had to ask, even after all that had been said earlier.

He had taken my hand in his own, looking seriously into my face, weighing what he found there. His touch was both gentle and electric. I could feel the faint tremor that marked the effort of his restraint vibrating in me.

"Yes, Qui-Gon. I have searched my feelings and meditated on this."

I opened my thoughts and feelings to the training bond, letting him see the results of my day's work, even the embarrassment at ignorance, my shyness at being inexperienced in the face of his knowledge, the squirmy feeling I still hadn't dealt with at how he had gotten, been forced to learn some of that knowledge. It was suddenly very important to me that he understand - in heart as well as head - how seriously I had taken the choice, the asking, that I would not devalue what we already had together by making a life-decision ignoring what he had taught me. That he had taught me well enough to know my own mind and heart and feelings.

I was getting the sense of him along the bond now, a lightening and thinning of his shields and a trickling hint of how much he did want me, of his body's ache for me, as well as the great wash of warmth and love and friendship that I had known for so long. I could only guess at the strain caused by his fierce, constant suppression of any hint of lust, his desire for me, complicated and compounded by all the Piiresti had done, lest he influence me somehow.

(Oh, I could pass happily into the Force now - his desire is for me, beyond question or doubt he did want me that way, loved me.... The struggle in him - my Code-defying Master - to do the proper thing in this, not because it was the Code but because he deeply believed it to be right, only made him dearer to me, sharpened my happiness, for I could make it all right. My choice, my asking, his need answering my own desire.)

I pressed a kiss to his palm. "This is my desire: that I, Obi-Wan Kenobi, share love with thee, Qui-Gon Jinn, and give thee the gift of my First Night, and however many nights thereafter as the Force may will."

He curled his fingers over the spot I had kissed, cherishing the offering, face pale, eyes wide and dark and deeply moved. After a moment he replied, low-voiced, "I am most honored by thy love, thy trust and thy most generous offer. I answer thy desire with my own: that I, Qui-Gon Jinn, would share love with thee, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and accept the gift of thy First Night, offering thee in return the secrets of my body and my knowledge of and delight in the acts of love as they are shared between men, this night and however many nights thereafter as the Force may will." /Thou hast my heart already, accept this damaged/aged flesh as well./

Yes. He said yes.

"Only beautiful to me, Qui-Gon. Only beautiful." I whispered, answering the thought I did not think he meant for me to hear. "And you've had my heart for a long time, I just didn't know it."

I was going to start babbling in a moment if I wasn't careful. Now of course I was nearly lightheaded with relief and terror and excitement (he said yes!), where a minute ago I had been the perfect picture of serenity (not so, I lie....) Quoting that rogue Guerra to myself now, I was babbling. Too much, too much.

I folded myself into his embrace, as if I were thirteen again for just a moment, reaching for basic lessons - ground & center. His arms were hard around me, his breath disordered, sweet on my face.

We sat there, just holding each other, for a long time.

Qui-Gon

He came to me. My beautiful, careful, thoughtful Padawan made me a formal First Night offering. I sat there - we sat there - need and desire and love shuddering through me and I felt it echoed in him, resonating along our bond. Freely offered, oh so joyfully accepted.

Asked and answered and we were both too wrung out from what had gone before to want anything more than comfort and closeness in that moment. All we did was sleep together, as we had on countless missions, but never before in the Temple, in my bed, that I hoped would now be our bed.

Later, though. Later I trusted we would sleep soundly from physical satiation, and not emotional exhaustion. I pillowed my cheek on the soft brush of Obi-Wan's hair, enjoying the silken warmth of lying naked together and joined him in slumber.

I awoke after some few hours, refreshed, suffused with a sense of happiness and well-being that had been long absent. Such an unlooked for gift, to wake with Obi-Wan in my bed, in my arms. He lay with the sheet rumpled down at his hips, one hand possessively splayed on my stomach. Entirely beautiful in the dim light of nightside. He has grown from the gangly, awkward, intense boy I first knew into an assured and beautiful man of compact, elegant strength, and lost none of his fire or intensity.

I felt him come awake, aware of my gaze. I had the delight of watching as he stretched and reached out for me in uncomplicated happiness: simple, joyful arousal. He knew exactly where he was, was precisely where he wanted to be, except that the feeling self, rousing before the thinking mind, wanted to be on top of me, not merely alongside. Neither my thinking nor my feeling self minded in the least. I gently kissed his eyes open, curled a hand under the nape of his neck and briefly worshiped his lips.

Taking my kisses as leave, he was on top of me, and he began to kiss me, touching and exploring with increasing enthusiasm. The brush of his braid painted tickling lines along my ribs, across my stomach as fingers and lips and tongue went dancing and tasting all over my torso, while I lay, holding myself still for him, enjoying this unexpectedly playful turn.

"Aren't you going to help?" He said throatily, kissing my fingertips and rubbing his face against my palms. "Want you to touch me."

I was happy to oblige, and we enjoyed a mutually delightful interlude of tactile exploration. Smooth skin over muscle, the fine play of sinew and the finding of sensitive places. Obi-Wan is not generally ticklish, but I was making him laugh and wiggle all the same. His own ministrations and discoveries were having a very similar effect on me. My apprentice is nothing if not a quick study.

Presently I wrestled us over so he was lying outstretched in joyful abandon on the pillows beneath me, flushed and grinning and shining with happiness and desire. I knelt above him and filled my eyes, my heart and spirit with the sight - so beautiful, so eager and ready to grow into himself and into the wider world. He moved sinuously, holding my gaze with his slow smile, arching his hips, his shaft rising dark and stiff and proud. Breathtakingly beautiful.

"Love me." Almost a plea. "Please love me, Qui-Gon Jinn." Knowing he wanted, but not entirely what. Knowing he wanted more, wanted me.

/Oh beloved./ "Oh, I shall. I do. I will." My voice very nearly a growl, a purr. /Forever, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I shall love you forever./ I knew the thought for truth, but not for speaking, not yet, this between us was too new, too unformed and I feared as yet too close to conflagration, for declarations such as that. I would not let obsession have us.

My words and my own heated look made him shiver with pleasure.

"Let me show you" I murmured, "how it can be between men."

He stilled beneath my hands, breathing very fast. I ran my palms in long caresses down his limbs, arranging him among the rumpled linens. A pillow, there, under his hips, raising him up and exposing all his hard beauty as his legs fell open and his head fell back on the bed. He'd never thought of putting a pillow there, and I could tell from the gasp and long purring moan just how much he liked this position. I liked it too, and kissed him deeply, letting him know.

I began to worship his body all over again, sensuously deliberate, thoroughly attentive. Working my way slowly to the eager, hard center of him.

I reached for the oil, and the movement caught his eyes, wide pupils tracking my fingers. He swallowed and shivered a little.

"Aren't you going to use those?" Glancing over at the box that rested by the bed, where the dish of oil sat convenient. Panting as my hands and lips and tongue found sensitive places. A hint of trepidation colored his voice.

"No. No need. Later perhaps. Those are icing, extras. I am going to use my mouth." He gasped, a breathless, eager noise and I smiled, suiting deed to word. He whimpered as I mouthed the head of his cock, sliding the foreskin slowly down, gently tonguing the weeping slit. [And my hands.] Again suiting deed to word, my oiled fingers traced his cleft, exploring that lovely secret country. Just the tip of my finger petting at the opening, and he gasped again, pushing, wanting. I laved and suckled his eager flesh as I slowly, so slowly, I would not have the least shadow of pain taint this, eased my finger into him, the velvet heat of him pulsing in me and around me. There was the nub I was seeking. He shouted and jerked, sheened with sweat. I rubbed it again as I sucked and smiled around the sweet hardness in my mouth. [That, my Obi-Wan, is your prostate.]

"Oh Gods above...." Mostly incoherent vocalizing, delightful music as I moved on him, in him. His hips were making little circles, tiny thrusts. He didn't want to hurt me, lose the pulse, wanted to move with me, didn't quite know what to do.

[Let go, love. I've got you.] I relaxed my throat and let him slide deeper, my nose buried in musky curls, my finger sliding further inside him. He bucked and wailed in surprise and delight and I used just a touch of the Force to keep him with me. I was suddenly glad for what I had learned, however I had learned it over the years, for all my varied experience, since it let me give such pleasure. My Obi-Wan, more beautiful in passion than I could ever have imagined. And eager and responsive and a delight to please. I was aching and hard and shivering with the need of him, the nearness of him ... he was so close....

Aroused, his eyes are green. He closed them as he came for me with a breathless scream, spilling himself into my mouth, his muscles tight and hot, clenching fiercely around the finger I had pressed deeply into him. So beautiful. The bitter-salt-sweet flavour of him fired through me, a stronger drug than any Twari might have used.

I did not come with him, though it was a close thing. I intended my first climax this night to be when he was in a state to know it as a pleasure he had given me, to realize and appreciate a little of what he was to me, what he could do to me.

His first climax had done no more than take the edge off of his youthful exuberance, and that was only to be expected, but I could sense he was not quite ready for more for himself just yet. Furthermore, there needed to be balance between us, give and take. I held him as his breath steadied and his heartbeat slowed, my head cradled in the warm hollow of his hip. He moaned and trembled as I eased my finger from him. The wanton pleasure in that sound made me tremble in turn.

He slid off the pillows and tangled his legs luxuriantly with mine as I moved up to lie beside him, keeping contact. We touched and caressed with light fingers, just the feeling of skin against skin a sensation to cherish.

"See, nothing else necessary."

He chortled. I drew a line of nuzzly kisses along his jaw, my beard just brushing at his neck, tickling at his collarbone. He sighed and rubbed back against me, buried his face in my hair. I could feel/sense words in him, working their way out.

"I watched, you know. Last night." Almost inaudible, muffled, felt as much as heard. A sudden wave of strong feeling - not quite guilt or shame, but youthful self-consciousness mixed with embarrassment and fascination, stiffened with conviction that there needed to be a particular kind of honesty between us, in this. I was so open to him that I could feel the corners and nuances of each emotional element. Fascination and, unexpectedly, care, were winning. I made an encouraging noise.

"Watched you ... using ... those things." He shivered against me again as he said it, his body confessing interest, fascination. "That plug. I wondered...." He pulled back a little, enough to see my face, look down into my eyes. This was difficult for him, this desire to talk, to ask, to know, even while his body desired nothing more than to do, but silence would have been harder for us both. "What it felt like," he whispered. "If you liked it, or if it was...." He swallowed and I smoothed my hand over his shoulder, gentling, accepting. "... need instead. I liked ... watching you." He blushed and swallowed hard; it was charming and it warmed my heart further that he wanted me to know, to have this known and understood between us. "I wanted it to be because you liked it." He buried his face in my hair again, hugging hard. Anxious spikes of emotion prickled through him.

I had forgotten the nervousness and embarrassment of virginal ignorance, innocence. (Not that Obi-Wan was truly innocent or ignorant in the broader sense of the words.) But this was an easy fear to assuage.

"It is all right, Obi-Wan. I know. It's all right." I rocked him in my arms and kissed the neat cleft in his chin. [And I do 'like it.']

Spoken through the Force he could feel as well as hear the truth of my words, the clarity of my feelings. He gusted a sigh that was mostly relief. "Oh, good."

There were still questions tumbling around in his head. After a warm, silent moment another emerged. "But, there was - is - need, too. I can feel it. An almost ... angry hunger." /And distress./

Obi-Wan sometimes is remarkably articulate. And I have often been surprised at the acuity of his perceptions. 'Angry hunger and distress' described it very well.

Honesty. With myself, with him. Straight forward honesty. Nothing else would serve. "Yes, there is. It distresses me, to feel out of control, at the mercy of my body. I have a ... 'need,' ... a hunger, as you say, for physical, sexual stimulation that is new to me. That I do not, entirely, know how to deal with." Or even if I can deal with it, alone. Fear, not certainty, implied, not said.

He was angry and distressed for me, on my behalf. He leaned up abruptly and looked away toward the window, face tight. "How could he do that. How could anyone do that? And why?" He turned back to me, eyes gone grey. "Why you?" he whispered.

The true heart of his question, his need to know. Why me, indeed. I reached for him, sifting my hands through his hair, winding his braid through my fingers. He curled into me, ear pressed unconsciously hard against my chest, seeking the reassurance of my heartbeat, my incontrovertible presence. "Hush, Obi-Wan. All will be well." This storm had been coming for some time now. I was not surprised that it arrived in conjunction with his own psycho-sexual awakening. Now to find words that would explain, give him the answers he required.

"This need was not created in me, placed in me, artificial or constructed out of whole cloth. It grew from that which was already part of me, emerged out of my own person, my needs and desires and inclinations. The potential for it was always there. Kiir Twari was the catalyst, not the cause of it. Do you understand?"

He nodded, a sharp movement against my chest. My careful speaking was letting him hear the words, as well as the comfort. "That potential was what allowed me to accomplish the mission. Twari likely would have done what he did, whoever had been sent. That it was me, and that I chose to let that ... hunger ... flower in me, also let me bring peace to all those people, and return to you, only a little ragged around the edges." I felt him smile, humor returning. "And knowing more about myself. Knowing more about giving and receiving pleasure."

I used the advantage of my height and mass to lever us both up until we were half-sitting, propped on the pillows shoved against the headboard. That way I could see him better. The tumult of painful feeling was evening out, fear and anger draining away. This was not the last of it for him, but now he knew that he was not expected - that I did not expect him - to deal with his feelings alone. Another useful lesson for me to remember as well. I was alone in this no more than he was. We had each other.

I let him think and feel through what I had said for a moment before continuing. He was watching me, the green in his eyes overtaking the grey as he properly parsed my last sentence and returned to a sense of where we were and what we were doing. I went on. "I have new and stronger desires and impulses to contend with. Just as you" he looked up, startled, "will have, as a result of accepting this next stage in your own developing sexuality and choosing to grow with it and act upon it. Do you understand?"

A not-so-long moment, and he was nodding again, wide-eyed and serious, but not solemn, not at all downcast. Perhaps in explaining what had happened to Obi-Wan, I could continue to explain it to myself as well.

"Jedi first." He said, extrapolation and affirmation both relevant. Then an irrepressible grin curled the corners of his mouth. "I've been thinking about that ... plug ... all day." Color was rising in his cheeks as he showed me through the bond his abiding fascination, his inarticulate thoughts about penetration, taking, being taken. Powerful imagery, but we were not ready for that quite yet. I took a deep and settling breath, ignoring for now the insistent heat of my own desires.

"Have you now." I was smiling at him and he nodded again, a quick bob, still grinning. We both recognized the serious point underlying the banter. I held his glance. "An illustration of the issue at hand. That kind of - fascination - is to be expected, especially at first, and it is important to not let it become a distraction. But it is also important to note and understand the things that catch your attention, so that the real needs and desires that underlie the fascination may be met or dealt with, appropriately."

He was listening attentively, his curiosity undimmed by the lecture and his pleasure growing again from our proximity. The resilience and strength of youth.

"As with anything else new, you are not expected to have complete control or understanding at the outset, but understanding and control must be striven for. We will both need new meditations, new disciplines as we discover what has changed, and how." I found one of his hands, twined my fingers with his. He was old enough, and certainly wise enough to be able to hear his Master ask him for help, even this kind of help. He should surely know by now that being a Master did not mean omniscience, and that by asking I was affirming my trust and faith in him. "Together, I believe we can both find that discipline and control." His smile was growing. "And help each other to remember when to be disciplined, and when to relinquish control."

The look he gave me was enough to dazzle, his expression unshadowed by any dark or fear. "Jedi first," he repeated on a breath, absorbing the lesson, "but also people, men, with needs that can and should be met."

His hand on my hip was reminding me sharply of those needs.

"About that plug...." The low note in his voice vibrated between us, bringing us both back into this moment, this place. More than enough of lecture. This was Obi-Wan's First Night, my first night with Obi-Wan. Time to let go some of that control.

I had prepared myself, hoping but not expecting. I had made the box of pleasure-toys ready, habit and instinct. Obi-Wan, my information- and experience-sponge Padawan, had made his interest and curiosity abundantly clear. Why not share this with him now rather than later?

I untangled us from where we sat, leaned over and opened the box, letting him see all the varied array. "About that toy." I twisted back to kiss him, [And my liking it.] I nipped at the soft lips under mine, heat in my thoughts. "Shall I show you?"

His eyes had widened again, and the Force stirred between us, shafts of green and blue sparking and spiking, bright with anticipation. His tongue darted out to lick where I had kissed him, tasting me tasting him, almost unbearably erotic. "Yes." Wonder. "Yes, oh, yes, please." Heat and demanding glee.

Yes.

I guided his hand back to my hip, down to the top of my cleft, wanting his touch, watching his face, rousing again at the green fire in his glance, the warmth of his fingers as they began to explore.

He swallowed hard as he saw the sheen of oil, felt the slickness between my cheeks. "You're ... already oiled ... there ... aren't you." Not a question. Breathless, husky voice that went straight to my cock. I could see the flush of new arousal pinking his skin, pulsing at his groin. So. Preparedness was a turn on for my apprentice. It was somehow not a surprise.

His eyes went to the open box on the bedside table, his hand tightening on my hip. "And all the ... things ... are oiled, too." A little sound escaped him, between a gasp and a whimper. The toys were a turn on for him as well. The actuality of them, not just the thought, the idea. I was beginning to feel breathless myself, enjoying his discoveries.

"Yes, love. Ready to use, should you wish. They all have their pleasures." As I spoke I was arranging myself for him, a pillow under my hips, one in my arms, my legs spread wide for him to kneel between. My body knew very well what it wanted. I let the eagerness wash through me. Breathing with it. Letting him set the pace.

"I don't ... know enough." Almost inaudible, worry and want and desire all mixed. I twisted up to meet his eyes, still green and hot. "I don't want to ...."

/Hurt you, do it wrong./ Both thoughts hung in the air.

"Go with your feelings, Obi-Wan. You won't hurt me, and there is no wrong way that gives pleasure." I cupped his face, drew him down for a kiss, stroking my tongue across his lips, into his sweet mouth. I could feel his cock hardening against me. "Slow on entry is always good." Enough direction for comfort; I could feel his curiosity and fascination in the Force around us, flowing between us, sparking along my skin. Now I was truly grateful to Twari for the gift of the pleasure-box, since the contents - the ideas, the possibilities, the chance to explore - gave such delight to Obi-Wan, would give such pleasure to us both.

"Yes, Master." I shivered at the soft determination in his tones, the smile in his eyes as worry vanished, replaced with heat and tempered with love. He hesitated a moment, letting his feelings guide his choice. Then he settled between my legs and I clutched at the pillows and buried my face with a caught breath as a cool hardness probed gently below my balls, slid up to press against my anus. I leaned back into it, deliberately relaxing as it entered me. Obi-Wan, not Twari. My, our, desire and choice. The brief spike of aprehension was subsumed in heat as a delicious shudder rippled up my spine, as one of Obi-Wan's hands spread me and the other gently worked the probe further in. Obi-Wan, not Twari. I rocked against the pillows, his knees brushing my thighs. It felt so good. I could hardly breathe for joy and love of him.

He was a natural at this, the giving of pleasure, a credit to the Light. Deeply powerful sensation washed between us, interpenetrating us, wringing sound from my throat, my heart, noises I had never thought to hear from myself.

Wonder and surprise coloured his voice. "You like this, don't you? You really, really like this."

"Yes. Oh yes." More moan than language but he had chosen to use the slender shaft-probe with all the bumps and ridges and was sliding it in and out of me now with a fascinated slow thoroughness, exquisite sensation, and that it was his hands, his curiosity doing this to me, for me, his love enfolding me.... I abandoned words and writhed for him, wanton and gasping, mewling in pleasure. I could hear his breath catch and the sound caught at my heart. Oh, my Obi-Wan....

"And would you like me, there?" He purred throatily in my ear, air tickling my nape as he licked and nibbled the tender skin, nipped at the lobe, twitched the toy deep inside me, sliding it against that special place. I shouted and convulsed against the pillows, shuddered under his hands.

"Yes! Yes, stars, yes!" I was coming, shattering in light, pulsing myself out in long waves. I wanted him in me with a fierceness that was almost desperation. That I was coming, had come was no matter - if there was one thing I had learned from Twari it was that pleasure did not stop with climax, that I could come again and again if I wanted. And I did want. And would teach that pleasure to Obi-Wan.

He held me, nuzzling at my neck and stroking and petting my ass, my flanks, until the spasms subsided and I could almost think again.

"Oh, my." Wondering laughter. "I thought you said you weren't a screamer." Said with a smile in his voice. I twitched and shuddered under his avid gaze as he drew the knurled thing out of me with slow relish, leaving me empty and oh so ready for him. He may be yet a virgin to much of what we might do - that I wanted to do - but not for much longer, and he had always been inventive in ignorance, never naive. I could not remember ever having screamed before, not in love/sex play, and would have to tell him so, later, when I had breath and words again.

A moment wherein I could catch my breath and pull myself together a little. Curious, inventive, reasonably well read and quite observant, but my Padawan-love had as yet only theoretical knowledge of the particular act he - we - were contemplating. I very much wanted this to be a delight, a pleasure for him. I needed more of my awareness.

He had wiped down the toy and put it on the towel rather than back into the box (my fastidious Obi-Wan) and was straddling and sitting on the backs of my thighs while he ran his hands in longs sweeps down my back, gentling the tremors. It felt lovely. I could feel myself coming back to where I needed to be for him. Someday, I would be able to abandon myself to the moment, the sensation of him, knowing he would catch me, hold me, anchor me from being wholly lost, swallowed in the Moment, in the Physical.

But not today. Not for this. Not to mention I was so enjoying his discoveries.

Suddenly he chuckled, a quick chuff. Now he was feeling shy, a little uncertain. "You know, I never imagined this. Not before last night, anyway."

"Imagined what, love?" It was as if my voice were syrup, dripping out of me. He shivered at the sound, at the love.

"Sitting on you." He bounced, a tiny, cheerful motion, causing me to chuckle in turn. "Touching you, making you come like this. Any of it."

I had never allowed myself to imagine any of this at all, and that it was happening was a joy almost so deep as to be pain. He was tracing the line of my spine over and over, lightly, relishing each bump and dip, circling slowly in that so-sensitive triangle just at the base. I was going to be whimpering again in a moment. Twari had cultivated that sensitivity, but Obi-Wan, all unconsciously, had reclaimed it and was now reaping the benefit.

"Your skin is so soft here." Wonderingly. His fingers began making tentative forays again into the cleft between my cheeks, gentle, inquisitive. I moaned when he touched me, just there, a kiss of his fingertips, love making all the difference. For all that Twari had taught me of myself, stretched me to accommodate his pleasure, I had not realized until this moment how much I had kept from him, how much I had reserved, that was now Obi-Wan's, freely, for the asking, for him to take. How I wanted him to take it.

"So soft."

I had to swallow before I could speak, broken, need-filled syllables. "Up, love ... let me ... situate myself better." He knelt up and I folded my boneless, too-long legs under my stomach to give him easier access this first time, and an angle that would let him fill me deeply.

He had reached for the oil, was smoothing it onto himself, dripping a little more onto me and rubbing it in, all over my cheeks. I was relaxed and ready enough not to need more, but the sensation was lovely. I arched under his hands, murmuring encouragement.

He whimpered as he entered me. I groaned at the sweet pressure, his bulk stretching me. My Obi-Wan is not small (not as thick as Twari, but inches longer) and to feel him slowly pushing into me, filling me, entering into that secret place where I so wanted him to be was almost unbearably wonderful. That he had the control to go slowly spoke well of his increasing ability to take lessons from one area and apply them to another, and such a pleasurable application....

"Oh stars. Oh Force. Oh stars and moons above." Fully sheathed, he rested against me, breathing in gulps. I could feel his heat, the hammering of his heart against my back, my own pulse where we were joined, beats that phased apart and pounded together, making music, the drumbeat of a dance as old as human time. I was hardening again, making my own needy, eager noises; he began to thrust, reaching for the rhythm, losing it, finding it, hands gripping hard at my waist as he cried out in hot and senseless words. I rocked beneath him, equally incandescent. [Yes! There! Harder, faster, don't stop don'tstopdontstop.] He was moving in me deeply, sliding and slapping against me, my balls, my cheeks, rubbing and pushing along my prostate with fierce need, faster and faster pistoning strokes echoed in both our breathless cries.

"Qui-Gon!" Screaming my name and shuddering against me he came, and came, and came, jerking, pulsing, planting his seed far inside me. One hand had fumbled from its hold on my hip to grope beneath, clasp my own aching length, spasm around my cock, and I was coming at his touch. (His hand on me, his heat and cock and come.) Long temblors, shaking us both. Obi-Wan is not light. I did not have the breath to scream, and this release was far too deep for sound.

After a timeless moment I tipped us over onto our sides, and we lay there, shaking, filled with light, tangled together, still conjoined. Oh, this between us had such power, such capacity and force. But we would rule it, not it, us, lest we lose our way. We would make a balance, and this fire would serve the light as the rest of our lives and action did. We would. We must. Inarticulate conviction and resolve twined between us both, affirmation making harmony in the song of the Force.

I must have dozed then, for I awoke turned in his arms, his hand stroking through my hair, tracing my beard and brow and lips. Gentle, reverent hands. I opened my eyes to his - greeny almost violet.

"Oh, Master. I had ... no idea. None. That was...." He stopped and swallowed. "I love you, you know."

"And I love you. I have for a very long time." More slow touches between us, the conscious, warm comfort of being woven together, flesh to flesh, heart to heart. Our hands made paths for the light to follow, graceful curvettes of energy and delight. The night was by no means over, dawn still hours away, and there was the prospect of all the nights to come as well.

I desired to see him come for me again, particularly as I had not seen his face the second time, lost in my own ecstasy. He lay curled in our embrace, mouthing at my nipples as I traced swirls and patterns down his back. His youth had served him well, and I could see he was not sleepy, merely languorous, one leg hooked possessively over mine. His Force-presence bright and serenely hot, happy.

I reached down to fondle his flanks while I nuzzled at the prickly softness of his hair. "D'you want more, love, or are you happy with this for your First Night?"

He grinned up at me, eyes sparkling. His hand snuck between our tangled legs and began to play teasingly with my re-awakening cock. Always inventive, never naive, and with a natural sensuality that had only wanted the permission of his mind and heart to be released. His teeth nipped lightly at a nipple, then sucked and soothed. [More. I want....]

He could feel me hardening under his hand, the catch in my breath as he tongued the peaking nub. I filled my hands with his firm buttocks and circled my thumbs at the top of that sweet divide. Encouraged, he wriggled back against my grip.

"In me. I want you ... in me."

Oh, my wondrous Obi-Wan. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breath, find my voice. "You are sure you want that." I had to be sure, I would not push him faster or further than he was ready for. I would not hurt him. There is too much pain and hardship already in our lives, as Jedi. Hard lessons had no place in our lives as lovers, not yet. Certainly no more this night.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure." There was no apprehension in him, only growing eagerness. "I want to feel ..." He was bracing himself up against my shoulder, pressing me into the pillows. "What you felt. With that thing ..." Holding both our cocks together in his strong hand. "In you. With me ..." Rocking, hard against me, voice low and intense "In you. I want you there." And he swooped down on my mouth in a devouring kiss as I arched beneath him. "Want you in me."

A joy to teach, a bursting joy to love. [Yes. Oh yes, beloved. So you shall have.] He might not come from penetration this first time, some never did. But then again, he might well, given what he had said, his fascination with the toys, his gratifyingly strong response to my earlier touch, my finger there. And I certainly had skill and experience enough to give him pleasure. We would go slowly, carefully.

So many new sensations to offer him with this worship of his body. I turned him over onto his stomach, admiring the view. He half-twisted back up to look at me.

"I want to see you, your face. We can do it that way, can't we? Want to see you."

"We can indeed, and so you shall, Obi-Wan." I soothed, and kissed him, deeply, tasting his sweetness as he drunk eagerly of me. [I would see your face as well, beloved. But let me prepare you, this is not a thing to rush at, not for a first time.] I released his mouth and he lay back down among the pillows. "Trust me."

He wiggled invitingly. "I do, I do. Ohhhhhh."

The lightest touch on the sensitive, tender fold just where buttock meets thigh, my thumb just brushing there, over and over, then down inside his thigh, up along the curve of muscled ass, only definite enough to be a caress and not a tickle. Then both thumbs, both cheeks, a firmer touch and he was really wiggling now. Kisses and nibbles to the skin above the cleft, working down, between, spreading his legs wide, encouraging the needy arch of his back. His knees were shaking and he was making wonderful noises into the pillows. He cried out and jerked in a long shivering tremble as I reached my goal, kissing and licking and laving.

I have always liked rimming, giving and receiving. There was little Twari could teach me of that art that I did not already know. I hoped that Obi-Wan would discover it to be a thing he enjoyed, and set about pleasuring the hidden center of him, to my great delight as well. His heat and musk and the music of his voice were going straight to my groin, and I knew I would be ready for him long before he was ready for me. A sweet and fiery torment.

[Like that, do you?]

[Stars! Yes!]

Even his Force-telepathy was improving, the advantage of a new and novel application. I loved him with my tongue a little longer, occasionally venturing down to suck and fondle his balls, tease at his perineum. His moans were nearly continuous. No doubt of his enjoyment. It pleased some deeply visceral part of me that this small thing could so delight him. But he wanted more, a more I very much wanted to give him. I tongued deeply into him one last time, rejoicing in the pulse of the loosening muscle, the sharp taste of his musk, the breathless music of his voice. Then I kissed my way up between his cheeks and away, leaving him panting and wiggling at the loss.

[Wha'?]

I soothed him with a hand on his back. "Hush, love, it's all right. Time to do something a little different. It may feel strange. Let me know if there is any pain, any discomfort at all, or if I should stop or slow down. Will you do that for me?"

He nodded in little jerks against the sheets, his words blurring together but the intent clear. "Yes. Yes, Master. Qui."

"I will not hurt you, love. I will not."

"I trus' you. 'Ll say."

"Thank you." I kissed between his shoulderblades, a sensitive spot discovered earlier. "Good. Now relax, that's right, relax...."

He had taken one finger earlier without trouble. I used plenty of oil and it slid in again as he sighed and arched with pleasure. My other hand roamed up and down his back, caressing, touching, as I gently stretched him and very gradually introduced a second well-slicked fingertip. He was tight, but not painfully so, aware enough to work with me to relax. With my second knuckles well inside him I stopped for a bit, letting him adjust. I murmured low syllables of of love and reassurance as he gasped and clutched at the linen, even as his muscles spasmed and pulsed around my fingers. Sweat was beginning to sheen the planes of his back and my own breath was short, but we still had a long way to go. I wanted him to enjoy all of it.

"Ready for more?"

For answer he pushed against my hand, sinuously trying to drive my fingers deeper.[Yes. Yesyes.]

So I shifted and scissored in that tight heat, nudging his prostate as his moans grew louder and more breathless. So beautiful. I knew I could come just from watching him writhe on my hand, but that was a pleasure for another time, not tonight. I withdrew slowly and he bucked and cried out as I smoothed on more oil. Held his breath as I began to press - oh so carefully - three fingers in.

"Still with me, Obi-Wan?" I could feel his legs trembling against my knees as I knelt between them.

A jerky nod and an explosive, wailing "Yes!"

So beautiful, and so responsive. His hands were shaking as well, tiny spasms as he clutched the pillows. I began to understand Twari's insistence and delight in doing, in giving this sensation, this intense, indescribable pleasure.

Three fingers, deeply seated. I was still for longer this time, letting Obi-Wan find his breath, his center. He had not asked me to stop, made any indication of distress under my close watch, but I knew this for an overwhelming sensation, this stretched openness, taunt and fine-edged and just this side of pain. And my hands are not small.

His erection had flagged a little, so I cupped and stroked him, fondling him, pleasure and distraction both. Relief bloomed in me as he hardened quickly at my touch and began to move again, rocking almost imperceptibly between my hand on his cock and my hand in and on his ass.

"So beautiful, my love. So beautiful." I started to curl and slide my fingers in and out with his rocking; stopped when he gasped sharply and stilled.

"No. Good. Don' stop. Jus'... slower. Li'l slower. Good slow."

His breath rasped harshly, but beyond the one spike of what was as much my fear as his momentary discomfort there was no distress. I breathed again and powdered his back with kisses, and moved in him as he asked, very slow and smooth. My eyes stung with love and acknowledgement of trust. Not afraid to direct me, not afraid to ask for what he needed - wanted - desired - from me. I was doubly glad because this was not a rhythm that would have occurred naturally to me; but by the deep resonance of his moans, the way he was again moving in slow waves and the easing of the tightness around my fingers I could tell it was obviously giving him great pleasure.

After some minutes of this his cock was hard and weeping in my hand and his moans were becoming punctuated with whimpers and gasps. [Want you. Want you. You in me.]

I stilled again, letting him rock against me.

"One more thing, love, and then you shall have me."

[What?] Less slurred, a little more present. "What thing? Like your fingers." He flexed his inner muscles and we both gasped. I could feel sweat trickling in rivulets down my back. Oh I wanted him.

"I like it too." Breathe. Remember to breathe. "But you wanted to see me, and I, you. This will make that easier."

"Oh." Another rocking wiggle against my hand.

I smiled and started to ease my fingers out. "And you were curious about the toy, the one I was using last night." His breath caught and a long shudder went through him as my hands left him. "What it felt like."

"Ohhhh. Oh." His back arched as if seeking my absent touch and I steadied him, one palm rubbing circles at the base of his spine. He hummed and moved in happy response to the renewed contact. "Oooo." His 'ohs' were remarkably expressive. I felt each one in my belly, stoking the fire in my groin.

I had found the probe I wanted, gave it an extra drizzle of oil. Approximately the same thickness as my own shaft if rather shorter, it was smooth-surfaced and resilient, with several gentle undulations as it broadened slightly from tip to base. I slid it slowly and steadily into him, mindful of the angle, adjusting carefully as I went. Listening to his quick, excited breath. My anus was pulsing in time to the fluttering of his hands and I was so hard it hurt. He took it in easily, moving and pushing with me until his muscles clamped around the slightly narrower part below the last undulation.

"Force! Oh! Stars that's good!" His whole body was trembling.

I kissed up and down his spine, across his shoulders, lavished an extra kiss at the spot between his shoulderblades, giving him a moment or two to adjust. Then I turned him over, scattering pillows. I kept a touch of pressure against the probe with the Force, and knelt back to watch as he processed the sensation on his back, as the shaft found a new angle within.

It was like watching an earthquake, a birth, intensely personal and glorious. He gasped and writhed against the sheets, gleaming with sweat, making little noises of need and wonder and building desire, all the while looking at me with such love and happiness in his face. I was hard put not to come at the sight, and he knew it, that small struggle for restraint increasing his own delight. At last he held himself still, little ripples and eddies of sensation continuing to float through him, through the Force.

"Stars, Qui. No wonder you like this." Another involuntary shudder curled through him. "But I still want you."

Green, green eyes traveled from my face to my weeping erection and back, scorching me with heat, with love-desire.

He reached up for me, as I oiled myself with shaking hands. All his muscles tight, mouth open as he gasped for air, I helped him kneel up, drew the probe from him - drawing a shout from him - and positioned him over my lap, lowered him onto me, onto my exquisitely, agonizingly hard cock. Slowly, slowly, slowly filling him with myself.

Obi-Wan was keening by the time we were fully conjoined. I could not speak for lack of air. I took his face in my palms to look in his eyes though I could hardly focus, to make sure he was with me, assure him I was with him. Wordless connection and affirmation and love passed between us, sparked in the Force around us. Glorious fulfillment.

We clung together, shatteringly happy.

"Oh, Qui. Oh." He whispered brokenly, wrapping limp but strengthening arms around my shoulders, his hips shifting in tiny movements until suddenly he was fully impaled, sheathing me entirely in sweet, slick heat. We swayed together, a rocking dance, bathed in sweat, in Force, in love and the intensity of the Moment. He was drinking from my mouth, my lips were swollen with his kisses, his swollen cock filled my hand. We were in the place we most wanted to be, together in this moment, in this bed, piercing and pierced by each other. [More. Oh, more. Come. Make me come.]

Enough of small and restrained. He wanted me to move, wanted to move, to take and be taken, to give and be given. Dance the dance to completion.

One last deep kiss and I found the strength to lay him back against the pillows, his legs splayed wide across my thighs. Encouraged, egged on by his frantic cries and my own tempestuous need I began to move in him as we both desired, hard and deep and starting slow, then stroking faster and faster and harder and angling deeper. So good, so sweet, Obi-Wan pliant and eager and iron-hard beneath me, urging me on and on and on.

There was no air, only fire, this heat between us, within us. No earth but our conjoint bodies, our straining seed, no water but slick sweat and the thunder of blood in our ears. Nothing at all but light and desire and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.

My orgasm seemed to come from the soles of my feet, the very roots of my being. Such a gift he had given me, the worship of his body, the wakening and nourishment/encouragement of his sexuality. There was not sound enough on Coruscant to express my joy, the depth of my feeling, so I came silently, a cresting wave of Force and feeling and semen/seed that roared through me to spill forth into him, around and through us both. I could not think, could not breathe, and he was coming even as I finished pulsing within him, his muscles milking the last of my seed from me, his own ecstatic Force and feeling merging with mine until the room glowed blue-green in the shadows. At last he lay in a boneless, wanton sprawl across my lap, mouth open, eyes closed, transcendent with joy. We were both breathing in great sobbing gasps, some ingrained discipline taking over to keep us from hyperventilating, from simply dissolving in the Moment.

I eased myself slowly from him, enjoying him enjoying the shudder and twitch of the aftershocks, a gradual descent from the airless peaks of ecstasy.

It was only a moment, and I was collapsing, utterly spent, into his arms. He gathered me to him, kissing away the tears that spilled down my cheeks, that seemed to well up from that same deep place our climax had come from. Slowly the breath that labored in my lungs smoothed, and thought and coherence returned. I sensed no worry in him, not even at my unusual emotions, only a steady peace, a joy that sparkled throughout the room, the satisfaction of self settled firmly in self. Some part of him knew better than I did that my tears were from an equal joy, connection, a profound and anchoring release.

We were well matched in this, as in so many other things. Well met, well matched, well mated. Intimacy between us would not - could not - always be this moving, but there was no reason not to look for a great deal of continuing enjoyment, connection, deeply satisfying pleasure. I could already feel the beginnings of balance between us, a trust and acceptance in us both that we could each look to the other for needful things in this without fear.

This love between us is not a path to the dark nor is it dangerous, so long as we do not lose sight of who and what we are. Balance. Discipline. Appropriate controls. I lay my head down within my Obi-Wan's embrace and let weariness and sated comfort wound through with love carry me into sleep.

Obi-Wan

So that was what sharing love could be like. Somehow I was sure that this was not typical of first times, that I had been given something quite special and glorious in the love of Master Qui-Gon Jinn. I was fiercely glad I had waited, glad I had come to this with an open heart and seeing eyes as well as willing flesh. With an open mind and joyous spirit. So very glad that it was my beloved Master, Qui-Gon, I was with. That he slept, at peace, cradled in my arms.

I had awoken first this time, and was enjoying the pleasant lethargy, Qui-Gon's head nestled comfortably in the hollow of my shoulder, hair soft and damp against my ribs, one arm curled around me. His weight on me felt right, satisfying. I don't think I had ever seen him so relaxed. It shook me a little to realize just how much strain he had been under, now that it was gone.

I was watching as he opened his eyes after some little time: refreshed, unshadowed. Not at all like other times recently, when I had woken him, thrashing, wet with the sweat of nightmares, or seen him wake with a cry and a start at nothing I could perceive. The report had not enlightened me about any of that. He smiled when he saw me, a curve of warm happiness.

I hardly realized where my thoughts had gone, or that I was speaking them aloud until I heard my voice.

"I read the Piiresti mission report, you know. It was hard to read. Parts seemed like they were in shorthand, and, well, there's a lot it doesn't say. That I knew happened. Things that can sort of be deduced from the Healer's Report and by reading between the lines. I mean, all that stuff in the Cultural Notes about the sexual dynamics and how it affects the day to day running of things. And, well, the Council isn't known for sweet-coating incidents in the internal reports, however pretty the public reports look. Just look at the grilling they gave us after Ma!droon and all the tiny details they wanted."

He had startled and stiffened a little when I began talking, but not for long, just keeping his arm more snugly tucked against my ribs. I could hardly believe that it was my mouth saying all this - I knew I needed to process it, but out loud? In his (our, maybe, I hoped,) bed, with him, both of us naked? He was listening, the silence attentive. Words kept coming.

"And I know it was bad. I didn't - don't - know how bad. And I wanted to help. I still want to. And I want to understand." There. That seemed to be everything that wanted to spill out of my mouth. I was sure my ears were flaming.

He stirred against my shoulder, kissed my collarbone softly, then the dimple in my chin, the tip of my nose, the space between my eyebrows as he leaned up on one elbow. His mustache tickled. His face as he looked across at me was serious, but not unhappy, not forbidding. The sense of peace and serenity that warmed the room had not diminished. I hadn't broken anything by speaking.

"No, Obi-Wan, there is no harm in asking." He answered my feelings, the expression on my face first, and I breathed an unexpectedly heart-felt sigh of relief. "Your observations on the report are quite accurate. What is there derives from my notes, particularly, as you saw, the Cultural Notes and of course the wording of the treaty, its implications and ramifications. But I did not actually write most of what is there. No, that report is largely my Master's doing."

His closeness was a comfort, the strong beat of his heart, the weight of his arm across me. His expression was untroubled, but I could tell that he was not finding it easy to give me the words. Finding them for me anyway, helping me understand. Force, but I am lucky to have him for my Master. I tightened my arm around his waist, hugging, holding fast.

He went on. "I was ... quite ill, when I got back, as you recall." I recalled that the initial contact team had been Calamarian and Twi'lek, distinctly alien in physiology from the Piiresti, and the food-compatibility issue had not come up. Another of the assumptions made.

"While I was still in the Healer's tender care," (Said in an especially dry tone. My Master is not fond of Healer's Hall, though he appreciates their presence, and the necessity of their skill.) "I gave, told, Yoda what I could, and of course he had the recorder with the official signed holo-copy of the treaty and my daily log and notes. When I was well enough, several days later, to report to the Council in person," He smiled at me, the little sideways 'my Padawan' smile that always warms me to my toes. I grinned back. "I remember how indignant you were, though you carefully did not show it, that you were not allowed to accompany and support me in that meeting." His voice softened and he brushed another kiss across my temple. "I honored you for that feeling, and also for your control. Your presence in that meeting would have made things very difficult, but by waiting in the antechamber you helped, just by being near, within my Force-sense, centering, anchoring me."

Qui-Gon laid his head back down on my shoulder and we held each other silently for a moment, re-anchoring.

"They did want details, but even Master Piell was squeamish about putting some of them into the official record. I do not remember who, but one of them started to say: 'Well, we know so much about how their sexual functions and dynamics work now, and all because maverick Master Jinn obeyed the Will of the Force and became a sexual submissive to the Shekhet Kiir before the negotiations even got started.'

"'In order to get the negotiations started' someone else broke in, correcting. Then Master Yoda thumped his stick and lowered his ears and everyone stopped talking.

"'You are not to put it that way. Embarrass my Padawan you will not!' And he proceeded to determine what would and would not be put in the report.

"I was ... quite glad ... that he took that view. What I learned was invaluable, both the knowledge of the Piiresti, and the knowledge of myself, but...."

This was hard for him to speak of, even yet. Words could define reality even as one's focus did, and this was not a reality he wanted made any more real than it already was. I laid my cheek against the top of his head, my throat tight.

He took several centering breaths and went on. "But not the sort of thing one wants to have casually detailed in a record as widely available within the Order as that which is filed in the Temple Archive. Even for such a successful mission and significant learning experience."

I could feel him smiling wryly against my skin. A little puff of warmth tickled me as he snorted in gentle self-awareness of a sop to his pride and privacy. The wavery sense of suppressed distress dissipated in the faint note of humor in his voice. I opened my mouth and I found myself asking the question I had been trying to understand for weeks, but had never meant to actually ask.

"But how is it that you.... How did you bear it? How are you bearing it now?"

My Master was silent for a moment. Then he turned a bit in my arms, settling himself more comfortably.

"I could understand, once there only a very little while, much of what drove them, through the Force, observation, experience. So much of impulses and motivations that we had had no notion of. The pre-mission briefing was inadequate to say the least, and sheer ignorance caused many of the initial problems. We, I, did not know enough about the situation I was going into. The Will of the Force was for peace and understanding achieved from within the rath, the Shekhet, and not imposed upon it. I saw no reason not to follow that prompting.

"Unlike the victims of coercion, violation of various kinds we have seen and tried to help on other missions, I was not a victim. I did choose to accept the mission, to listen to and follow the will of the Force. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, while there was a power and a status aspect to my submission to Kiir Twari, it was never about violence or depersonalization; use and even abuse, yes, but arising out of Twari's desires & expectations and the Shekhet rath culture, and no little about their biology as well.

"I did not, and do not, excuse Kiir Twari for what he did, but understanding it (and having used that understanding to resolve the whole situation, resolve it well) allows me to accept what happened. No, it was not right what he did, but it is over now. Yes, some of the consequences are taking time to heal and some of them are a real nuisance. And it was never a question of danger to my self-hood. There was too much at stake for the innocents in that quadrant. I had as well... too much to come back to, you in particular. Too much I would not let myself lose sight of, even when the Force was only a dim ringing in my ears."

The Force-distancing side-effects of the drugs, the food. I shivered involuntarily. All Jedi are trained to cope with being cut off from one's Force-sense, but that doesn't make having it happen, even partially, anything other than horrible. He had endured most of the three months with his usually intense connection to the Force severely attenuated, relying on his ordinary, unenhanced (though not inconsiderable, either) perceptions & skills to carry on. It was as if that hadn't effected him at all, though I knew that could not really be true.

Sometimes, amazing as it seems, I forget that he is a Master, and just what that means. Just being Jedi, a Padawan, so often means doing hard and thankless things. I was suddenly very glad that I had not been with him, that by staying at the temple and doing a quarter helping teach in the crèche and working with the initiates, I had let him work the mission as a Knight, a mostly independent agent, and not required him to also be Master, with immediate responsibility for my well-being in an intolerable situation. Sometimes the Council really is right. I hugged him hard.

He gave me a little half-smile and reversed our positions, so I was cradled on his chest, surrounded by the green-gold warmth of his presence.

"Submission, rape, was not a known hazard of the mission. I did not choose to put myself in harm's way. It happened. It was not pleasant to endure, but now it is finished. We go on. I cannot regret the peace gained, the knowledge gained, both personally and for the wider good. I am myself. I know that self better now."

The rich tones of his voice were soothing me, centering me again. He had found his own center and serenity again, more surely than at any time since he had returned. I was unexpectedly touched. I had had no expectation of being given this much of his confidence, entrance this far into the privacies of his feelings.

"You know more of yourself now. We have begun to know more of each other. There is only light in that. Besides, and in retrospect...."

I looked up to see a deep twinkle in his eyes and the suppressed grin I was beginning to love and dread. (Impish. Who would have thought Senior Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn could be impish?)

"Some of it was really quite fascinating, as well as educational, surprisingly pleasant and interesting. Shall I tell you about the first night there? I thought of how much you would have enjoyed that reception, and the getting ready for it, beforehand."

He was well settled into narrative mode, giving free rein to his natural skill as a storyteller. His eyes were half-shut, his sight inward. I snuggled further into the curve of his arm and listened attentively, enjoying the warmth of him, the scent of his skin, the comfort of his callused hand on my hip.

"I was met on arrival by Tiir Wanik and two boys: 'Brothers and not the youngest, nor the most ignorant of the unRinged, but certainly young enough' was how they were introduced to me. Wanik made a graceful gesture and Fann and Klaa (they told me their names later) led me to the cabin-quarters made over to me, talking energetically the whole way. Did I know about the party in the Kiir's honor that night? Celebrating his return to command and oh, yes, of course, my honor too. Not often that the Shekhet received such a visitor as I, a principal of a rath they had not known before. What a splendid color my hair was - was it the fashion on my own ship to highlight hair with silver? (Piiresti hair thins with age, rather than changing color.) They would have to try it themselves. Perhaps I could tell them how I did it? Before I had to field that question, we had arrived. I would like the cabins, they were sure. The best in bathing facilities, and surely I wanted to get out of all those clothes, now that I was on safe-ship-ground and no longer in hazard-space."

He described the size and opulence of the rooms, the astonishing array of personal hygiene equipment, making me laugh at his own bemusement, letting me see through his eyes the first clues that there was far more to this culture than had been known.

I reveled in his voice, in the textures and images that came through the training bond. The pleasant bite of the cool, spiced soap, the soothing touch of hot, oiled water in a bath administered by the two boys, giggling and vying for good report. Having them explain each and every implement and unfamiliar item in the room while letting Fann and Klaa think it a privilege to be so tested. (I could so easily see the look of aloof serenity my Master used to disguise the fact that he was drinking in every word, every nuance and morsel of feeling and information, processing it in his quick and capacious memory. I'd seen that look many times, knew how useful it was.)

He went on to tell me of the rest - the dynamics and interplay of the people at the reception, the jewelry, the food, the status games and dances. It was all quite pleasantly erotic and different, and I began to get a better picture of the Piiresti as a people, and not as, well, villains. Qui-Gon's words brought the dryly written facts of the report to bright life in my mind's eye. My Master is a closet sensualist - his description of the clothes he was given to wear was particularly vivid.

As he spoke I thought of the picture - the marvelous vision - Qui-Gon Jinn must have made in that outfit: broad shoulders and nicely muscled chest bare, the subtly defined bulge supported in front, the sweep of the pleated fabric and the tantalizing curves of cheek just visible in back. My groin began to heat again, my flesh to stir. I enjoyed the feeling without the least need to do anything about it at present. He was right, I did enjoy the tale, and thought that if by telling me what he could, by processing in word and flesh what had happened, owning and acknowledging the knowledge, the good, the achievement, however hardly bought, and acknowledging and letting go the pain, we would both be served, and the Light would be served in the healing.

When the tale was done, he fell silent, and began peacefully tracing meditative patterns on my breast with his hands. Suddenly, almost irrelevantly, I remembered the question he had set me at firstmeal, all those hours ago. The teasing way he had suggested a summary paper. Looked at from a particular point of view, I'd even given him one, or we had made one together, if flesh were paper and delight ink. I kissed the bit of him that was nearest and sought my voice.

"Sexual activity is valuable for Jedi when it helps us maintain our balance and serenity, within ourselves and among those closest to us. It can be valuable as a learning experience, and separately, as an expression of caring, love and trust. I love you, Qui-Gon." I snuggled deeply into his embrace, feeling as never before the Force-ful harmony between us, our bodies, minds, spirits, hearts. [Master and beloved.]

His arms tightened around me and his lips ghosted across my hair. "And I love you, Obi-Wan." [My bright Padawan. Beloved.]

I slept.

Qui-Gon

What I learned among the Shekhet rath, from Kiir Twari, was invaluable for the Jedi, for the continuing interaction between the Republic and the Piiresti. What I learned personally was of incalculable value, and some part of me knew that, hoped that, even in the midst of feeling as if some essential part of me was being unraveled, fearing that my own self/integrity had been so breached (and with my own complicity, if not my will) that re-integration, reconnection with those things that made me Jedi, and Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan's Master might not be possible. The report that Obi-Wan had read had been assembled out of shorthand, in great desolation of spirit. I thank the Force that feeling was only fear, and not foresight.

The body accommodates, even to extreme situations. Humans are actually very flexible, versatile, adaptive, and as Jedi we are potentially even more so. The Piiresti mission stretched me - stretched both of us, Obi-Wan as well - in many different ways.

Kiir Twari's true parting gift to me was not the pleasure-box, grateful though I am to him for it. No, it was the knowledge I have now of myself, and of my feelings for Obi-Wan, and what we can create between us. How deeply we can please each other. How much we can teach and learn of each other.

With my mind and heart and spirit satisfied, my body is willing to be as well. - Free, finally, of the desperate empty ache, the clawing need.

My Padawan has gained a degree of independence, of self-assurance. Knows himself better. He too, has started to integrate and work through his feelings, put unhappiness behind him without loosing sight of the knowledge to be gained. He will be a great Knight, a great Jedi. From a certain point of view, Kiir Twari brought us together in a new way. I cannot but be grateful to him for that. I will have and hold this gift for as long as life and the Force allows. I will not take lightly this delight, this warmth, this love in the here and now, for our lives are not easy, and little in them is assured for long.

But in this moment we are Master and apprentice, lover and beloved. Jedi, and men.

As we lay tangled warmly in sated stillness, our separate selves enfolded in joint embrace, I watched the growing dawn that would bring in the new day, and all the days and nights ahead. We are taught to learn, grow, know ourselves in body, heart, mind and spirit. Obi-Wan sleeps in my arms and in this Moment, I know peace.