Master Apprentice
Archive
Dressing Jinn
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She's made the collar a bit too high, but I'll forgive her for that. It wasn't exactly to be expected that my patient seamstress would somehow find the time for two costume fittings at short notice when she hadn't even finished the one she had originally been commissioned to do yet.
And it's not like I'll have to spend the entire day in the outfit anyway - at the best of times, the Fools' God masquerade lasts for about half of the night until the soporific properties of that night's favoured beverage, the Maundying Punch, have reduced everyone to gaudy sleepy bundles curled in comfy untidy piles in the festival halls. This year, I plan to get out of my costume significantly sooner. And not to go to sleep either.
The collar forces me to hold my head up high, seeing as it's made from the same supple but slightly stiff dark grey polymer material that most of my costume consists of. Well, strategically placed bits anyway - wide, snug-fitting bands of it encase my upper and lower arms, thighs and calves, chest and hips and neck, giving the impression of mechanically-striped skin and barely-concealed nakedness. It was my dear costumer that suggested the added strips of veil, claiming they would make me look even more like one of the celebrated Triadic Ballet when in fact she was under strict instructions from her employer, the Queen of the Er, to keep at least a facade of respectability in all the outfits worn by officials and the Royal Family.
Sometimes it's a pain to be a prince.
Still, at least I get to swirl about and brush against people with my trailing strips of silver-grey veil, looking to all the world like a puff of air out of a ventilation pipe or something similarly fast, technical and unreal.
And, more to the point, going along with her suggestions on my own costume freed up more time for the making of the other one. Respectable, of course. The nature of my last-minute guest hardly allowed for anything less.
I'm craning my neck as I skip over the soft tubes of yellow velvet on the floor, designed to channel the dancers. The high collar is a good excuse - he is quite a bit taller than me, and yet I try hard to spot him the minute he appears, and not wait for him to become visible above the throng of shorter life-forms worshipping the Fools' God in dance and drink.
Respectable, my yes. Respectable but not unattainable, not on a night like this one. Not with that glint in his eyes when he accepted my offer to procure a suitable costume for him. Eyes that put the court poets to shame when they rave on about how blue mine are. I am grey like a puff of air out of a Triadic Ballet ventilation tube compared to the blue of his eyes. Well, he is an offworlder, so he gets away with that. And I get to go to town on that blue.
He's only brought everyday business attire, or so he informed me when we were introduced. Well... I would have been inclined to say something witty and very uncharitable about what his kind deem suitable business attire at the sight of these loose, worn-looking brownish robes. If it hadn't been for the way his body inhabited them and made them look rather appealing. Especially in a puddle at the foot of his bed while I undertake a detailed examination of those long legs and the broad chest and trim waist... and the things covered by the modest length of his tunics.
Still, a Jedi dressed up as a Jedi just won't do. Not tonight, and certainly not with the favours and the riches of a Prince of the Er at his fingertips.
Oh. Yes, definitely not feeling chilly despite being only partially covered. Yes, I look forward to being at his fingertips... I have done my reading up, Jedi, and know that affairs are not forbidden to you. And I know how to read that smirk of yours. You're hungry.
Let your hair down.
And that is the first thing I see. His hair, washed and anointed into shiny brown snakes, the hint of grey shimmering almost silver. Hair let loose, gathered in a beaten metal circlet widening into a triangular tiara shape above his broad forehead, the tip covered in fake lichen. It's supposed to look ancient, and it completely fails to hold my attention for a minute.
His face is probably the only one in the crowd that has gone without make-up - even I have liberally applied my favourite dark grey eyeliner - and even without the veil of lust and infatuation clouding my sight, I would contend that he needs none. The blue of his eyes is quite enough, small bright gems in a handsome broad face.
The hair...my fingers itch to touch, and yet I'm not even sure he's noticed me yet. I can see him down to his shoulders now, making small talk with a pair of youths even shorter than myself. His hair covers his shoulders in suggestive slick strands. His naked shoulders. That much I allowed myself. And anyway, if the old pictures are to be believed, this was how the priests of the Un looked before their people sensibly decided to convert to the more lenient religion of the Er. It took a bit of wheedling on my part to convince the seamstress that it was possibly to construct a garment that would start just at the broadest expanse of a man's shoulders, and in the end, she'd only accepted it after having taken the Jedi's measurements off a sneakily shot lumograph of him. These shoulders were broad enough to hold anything - my calves thrown over them as he rams into my greedy arse being a favourite - certainly the robes of an Un priest anyway.
Actually, he is wearing strips and cylindrical shapes too, just like me. Only more respectable, of course. The wide band across his shoulders holds up the sleeveless robe of a thin supple material that does its best to imitate split animal hide, and does so in a stunning blue that perfectly matches his eyes. It's floor-length, tight but not revealing, and slit to the waist at the sides, allowing freedom of movement. Allowing for those long strides I so enjoy watching. Plain grey leggings and soft black shoes (because even the Royal Family's costume halls held no grey ones that would fit feet the size of the Jedi's) very nearly complete the outfit.
The last item I have taken the slightest bit of liberty with. You see, the Un priests wore gloves at their ceremonial office, as befits an organisation whose main purpose it was to slaughter animals and tease omens of the future from their warm entrails. But these gloves were coarse affairs, sloppily done, short and utterly unattractive.
These hands deserved better.
And they will tease different things from different warm things before the night is over. Hoarse screams of pure pleasure are what I'm hoping for actually. Melting under these hands.
And here they are, emerging from behind one of the garishly-dressed youths he's been talking with, settling lightly on her shoulder in confident reassurance. He's about ready to move on.
I'm about ready to melt already. I have been dreaming about these hands for the last three days. And nights as well of course. Oh yes. How they would hold me, hold me tenderly and caress every last hidden bit of skin, hold me down as I squirm and struggle, craving that leonine strength of him, hold me open as he possesses me completely.
They're large, broad and strong, anything else would look ridiculous on this tree of a man, and I had known they would be warm even before I had touched his palm in greeting. Big, warm dry hands. I can feel my skin thirsting for them, want to be grabbed, squeezed, stroked, beaten, caressed, overwhelmed by them. Want to plaster myself against the soft thin blue leather stretched across his chest and be bound in those arms, prey to those hands.
Hands encased in the finest shiny grey satin.
She has cheated a little, my costumer, seeing as she had no opportunity to take the measurements of the Jedi's hands (and had she done so in my presence, I may well have ravished the hands' owner there and then). The material is elastic, making the gloves fit those strong blunt fingers perfectly, covering those broad warm palms in shimmering grey and stretching over the man's arms all the way up to his armpits.
Oh... shiny satin biceps. So much leashed strength in that body of yours, Jedi.
Let it out, Master Jinn.
I see the amused glint in your eyes as I take a running jump across the velvet barriers, mouth open in a triumphant cry, strips of misty grey veil trailing behind me. I must look spectacular. And I couldn't care less.
Catch me, Jedi, in those hands of yours.
Or tumble to the floor under me.
Either will do.
--- The End ---