Lex Talionis

by Rushlight (n_sanity75@hotmail.com)



Archive: MA

Pairing: Obi/Maul

Category: non Q/O, S/M, angst

Rating: R

Summary: A Jedi Padawan falls into the hands of the Sith.

Feedback: yes, please!

Author's Note: This is my very first Obi/Maul fic, as well as the very first story I've ever written in the first-person POV. I'm thinking about writing a sequel to this one (that would be Q/O), but I'm really not sure. I'd love it if y'all would give me your opinions on the matter.

***WARNINGS!!***: This story contains graphic RAPE and themes of S/M. Please do not read this if you are offended by either of these things. You have been warned.



It was my Master who taught me that pain can be a source of power. Just as fear can be an impetus to drive others to our will, and hatred can be the driving force that fuels the obtaining of our dreams. Pain is a benediction, the altar at which we bring our sacrifices in pursuit of our unholy gods. Our gods are Power, and Lust, and Vengeance. I know them each by name.

This man kneeling before me knows the meaning of fear. I can see it in his eyes, for all that he tries to hide it from me. Arms bound behind his back, naked chest heaving with the force of his heated breaths, thin braid trailing down over his shoulder to brush against one sweat-sheened nipple. He is a work of art, this weakling, this Jedi. Although I despise his very existence, I can see this. I am not blind.

I remember my Master laying the cord across my back when I was a child. It stung like the bite of a viper, but I never cried out. Pain is strength, and strength is power, and power is life. How many times had my Master told me that? I began to know this truth intimately during the lessons we shared together, and I came to look forward to the pain, to ache for it, for the clarity of thought and purpose that it brought me.

I wonder if this one would be as amenable to these lessons? Somehow I think not. I cannot hide the small smile of speculation that crosses my face, and I see my captive's eyes widen almost imperceptibly at the sight of it. What wondrous terrors must be spinning through his mind, I wonder? What does he imagine I think of when I look at him with such predatory hunger?

The lessons had never ended with the pain. There was always service afterwards, as my Master dropped his blood-soaked flail to the ground and moved forward to accept my rapt and humble worship. Breathing hard, his body limned with sweat, his hands would find my face, my throat, my eyes, and I would do for him what I had come to think of as the purest form of service. Lips, tongue, hands, skin, all of this was his to command and command it he did, until he found his pleasure deep in the eager temple of my body, marking both my pain and my soul as his and his alone.

My breath quickens as I contemplate the unwitting feast before me. He looks so very young, so innocent, and I cannot help it when my smile widens. The expression terrifies him; this is not what I had intended, but I drink it in regardless, eager for more. He fears me, as well he should. He is mine now, mine to possess, mine to command. Perhaps I will teach him the lessons of pain and pleasure that my Master has so painstakingly taught to me. Perhaps I will let him pleasure me. Perhaps I will let him give me pain.

He tenses as I approach, those wonderfully expressive eyes turning wary as I draw near. I touch the bottom of his chin with one large hand, and while he stiffens at my touch, he does not draw away. His eyes do not move away from mine, and I marvel at his courage.

"You will serve me," I tell him.

He shakes his head, however slightly. "Never."

I smile again, and this time he makes no reaction to it. No matter. Soon enough, his every reflex will be mine.

"What has your Master taught you of pain, young one?" I ask him.

Again, there is no reaction in the crystalline planes of his eyes. I want to possess those eyes, want to make them attendant to my presence alone. I want to be the moon and the stars to this man, the focus of his every waking thought for as long as he may live. I want to be his demon, his incubus. I want to make him mine.

My hand moves back along his jaw to touch his braid. He shifts almost imperceptibly away, but I clutch the braid and pull him close. "You are mine," I tell him. "I will do to you what I will."

Desperation now, and my soul swells in joy at the sight of it. He knows. He knows what I plan to do with him.

Gentle stroke along his throat, trying to relax the painfully tight muscles there. "You will serve me," I say again.

And now he understands what this phrase means. He is shaking now, the faintest quiver in the muscles of his shoulders that sends shards of pleasure rushing through me. I will have this body, I vow silently. It will be mine, bent and broken to my will. And the tender soul that inhabits it will also come to my possession. I will own it all.

I move around behind him, and I can feel his displeasure as I pass beyond his gaze. He feels blind now, and vulnerable. I touch his back, trailing fingers down the sweat-sheened spine. I am reminded of other flesh, bared so that I may give it pleasure. This time, the flesh under my hands will be giving *me* pleasure.

I drop to my knees and press the softest of kisses between the two shoulder blades, feeling him tense under my hands. Such perfect, unbroken skin, it seems to glow with its own luminescence. This man is innocence and beauty personified. I want to defile this body, to rend its perfection until it is nothing but a battered, bloody shell, but I refrain. Even its light is painful to me, and I would not give up that perfect torment for all the world.

He tastes like salt, like air, like the ocean tide that I remember from my brief stay on Altara II. My Master had had many lessons to teach me there, at the place where the sand met the sea. I can still hear the calling of the birds overhead in the slate-grey sky, a steady counterpoint to the cries that I myself refused to make. Cries of pain and, at last, cries of pleasure. I learned a lot on that day.

My hands move around him now, moving to caress the warm peaks of his nipples. They are already hard for me, and I smile again, enjoying his distress at his body's betrayal. Smooth skin, sliding like satin under my palms. His muscles quiver under my hands, and I am quite certain that it is not entirely from revulsion at my touch.

"What do you know of pain?" I ask him, letting my breath fall hot on his ear. He arches, the smallest sound coming from the depths of his throat, but he makes no other acknowledgment that I have spoken. "Has your Master taught you that pain can be pleasure?"

Denial then, thick as blood between us. I want to laugh, but then I am tasting the skin of his face, my tongue following its own course as it swirls into the depths of his ear. He tries to move away, but I hold him tightly. My nails scrape down across his chest, drawing forth a small gasp.

He is breathing hard now. I can feel it in the flutter of the pulse at his throat, as well as in the shuddering of his body that I hold in my arms. He tastes good, like winter wine, and I want more. I want to taste his essence on my tongue, to draw him into me until there is nothing left of him that I do not possess.

With the grace that has been born of my long years of training in service to my Master, I slide around in front of him. I want to see his eyes, and I am disappointed to find them closed. The skin of his face is pale, his lashes a dark charcoal smudge against his cheeks. He is exquisite in his fear, and in his arousal. He denies this, and it is the denial that brings him pain. How little he understands.

He is clothed from the waist down. I touch his stomach, the slightest brush of fingers, and his muscles spasm there as if I had touched him with a heated brand. His eyes remain closed, but I can see the lashes twitching. His breath has become shallow and even, showing me how hard he is struggling for control. But control is an illusion, at least for him, in this place. Now for him there is only the need, and the fulfillment of it.

My fingers slide under the waistband of his pants, loosening the laces with slow purpose. I watch his face carefully, enjoying the strain I see present between his elegantly sculpted brows. His lips are moving, just barely, and I cannot make out the words that he is saying. Doubtlessly it is something meant to give him strength, or a last futile denial of what is happening to him.

The fool. He does not understand where strength truly lies.

But he is beautiful, and I sigh as the laces of his leggings fall away at my touch. Unable to resist, I run my hand over the concentration of flesh between his legs, feeling the hardness of his arousal through the fabric of his clothing. He gives another small gasp, this one sounding pained, and the line of distress between his brows deepens. His hips undulate faintly under my touch.

He is such a passionate little animal. Has his Master ever taken advantage of this, as I am? Somehow I doubt it. I wonder if this man is virgin, and the thought excites me beyond what I think I can endure. He gives a strangled cry as my fingers tighten around his cock, and I realize that I have hurt him. No matter. Belatedly, I gentle my touch and pet at him lightly, fighting back the sudden wave of lust that has risen in me. This must be handled delicately, if I am to teach him what he needs to know.

"Lay down," I tell him, and he whimpers. He actually whimpers, and I am struck by a conflicting wave of condescension and arousal at the sound of it. I can practically smell the fear rising off of him. It is almost as strong as the scent of his own arousal.

He does not obey me, but then I did not expect him to. So I make the movement for him, pushing him down onto his back on the floor. With his arms bound behind him, there is not much he can do to stop me. What little resistance he does make is tempered by the light touches I give to his chest and the insides of his thighs. His body obviously wants what he knows is going to happen to him, even as his mind rebels against it. Such ambiguity is another cause of much needless suffering; if only his Master had taught him to give into the needs of his flesh, to let his body be his guide. But instead he is trapped in this prison of his own making, the bars of which are made of his own groundless fears.

"Relax," I tell him. If only I could explain to him that pain can be good, that it can be better than pleasure. If only he could understand. I am consumed by the image of him, lying there helpless in front of me, his skin glowing in the amber light, his fear and his passion on blatant display for me to devour. Does he know how very beautiful he is? I doubt it.

I slide the pants down over his hips, and he makes another small sound, almost animalistic in its high, keening need. Need for what, I wonder? I doubt if he knows for sure. He believes that he hates what is happening to him, that he hates me, and this is acceptable. Hate is its own form of strength, and if it is what he needs to get him through this, then I will not take it away from him.

Now he is naked before me. For a moment, I cannot breathe, and my body tenses in sudden anticipation as I take in the smooth, well-honed sight of him. He is exquisite. The light pools along the lines of his muscles, which are clearly delineated underneath his pale-silk skin. Shadows hug the curves of his hips, pooling between his thighs, emphasizing the lean perfection of his form, spread out for my perusal. I stare, just for a moment, drinking him in as if he were a banquet laid out for my consumption. I can taste him on the air as I breathe.

Extending one finger, I trace the underside of the straining flesh that rises unashamedly from between his legs. He bucks under my touch, and now he does try to move away from me, but I hold him down with an effortless pressure from the dark Force. I can feel his frustration as he grasps for his own tentative link to the Force, but the drugs he has been given prevent him from connecting with it. It is a crude method of detainment, but effective. His eyes are open now, and the look he spears me with is full of brimming hatred.

Good, my young one. Use your anger. Use your hate. It will get you through this when all of your Jedi tricks have failed. As long as you cling to your humiliation and rage, you will not lose yourself here. There will be some small part of you that belongs to you and you alone, no matter what pleasures I inflict on you, as long as you hold on to your hate.

But I do not believe you can.

I can see the trepidation in his eyes as I bend to taste him again. This time, I trail my lips across the planes of his stomach. The muscles there jump as my breath caresses them, as if they seek to escape my touch. The scent of his arousal is thick around me. Unable to resist any longer, I take him into my mouth.

Careful, careful. My intention is to teach now, not to hurt. The sounds he makes are most gratifying, and they fuel my own already rampant arousal, which pulses like a living thing between my legs and brings such exquisite agony with my failure to relieve it that I almost come from the ache alone.

He tastes like satin on my tongue, slick and yielding. His scent surrounds me, invigorates me, as I suck on his flesh in long hard gasping pulls. He is convulsing beneath me now, and the hot, panting curses that he utters are music to my ears.

Come for me, love. Scream for me. Let me hear your liquid anguish as it shoots down my throat. You are close now, so very close, and the energy rising from your shuddering body is almost blinding. Why do you fight this? Why do you struggle against that which we both know you desire?

There. Oh, beautiful, the way his body sings to me, and it is a symphony that only he and I can hear. His face as he comes is stripped of all defenses. The cry he makes reaches to the roof above us, to the sky, to the stars. It is a cry that is made for me alone.

His eyes are dazed as I draw up beside him. You looked debauched, my young one. I wonder what your Master would say if he could see you now?

I kiss him. At first he resists me, and I am not sure if it is the thought of my touch that repulses him, or that of tasting his own reluctant pleasure. I am insistent, however, and he soon falls quiescent under me. His mouth is a warm cavern of light, and I want to explore every plane of it with my tongue, to fill it with my spreading darkness. He allows it, too weak, perhaps, to resist any longer. Mute and unresponsive, he gives in to my demands.

My scorn for the Jedi increases as I feel this weakness in him. What weak, pathetic creatures they are. Not physical weakness, for this body that I hold all unwilling in my arms is hard and strong, but they are weak in spirit. That this man, this Jedi, can be brought so low, and by such a simple thing, is difficult to believe. It amuses me.

He is pliant as I strip the bindings from his wrists. There is pain in that, too, but he hardly seems to notice it. His eyes look right at me, but do not see. Strange, how the mind refuses to accept what the body knows to be real. This is weakness, too, but it is more than I have the desire to address here.

"You've done well," I say, and I smile at the flinch in his eyes. I have just twisted the knife, I know, but it proves he is still aware of me.

I turn him onto his stomach now, and for a moment he does fight me again. He is no match for my superior strength. I can see the panic in his eyes, the primitive terror of being placed in so vulnerable a position with his enemy above him. I bind his hands again over his head, and it is against this that he fights most of all. He does not like to be bound, to be made so completely subject to my will, but it is necessary.

His struggles are almost as endearing as his cries. His body feels like molten sand under me, smooth and shifting, so hot it burns. My weight pins him to the floor, and it is maddening to feel him writhe beneath me. I sink my teeth into the back of his neck, unable to stop myself, and I taste blood. It is the taste of rapture, the taste of ecstasy searched for and then found.

Sweet. His skin tastes sweet under my questing tongue. He is still now, except for the sobs that he is doing his best to suppress. I understand this; I too shed tears in the beginning, before I learned to embrace the pain for the joy that it is. This he will learn, in time. For now I will allow him his tears.

My arousal is demanding that I attend to it, and for a moment I keep still and silent, allowing myself to feel the quiet agony of unfulfilled need. Then, very slowly, I reach down between our bodies to free my straining desire from the prison of my clothes.

A shudder passes through him, a subdued, agonized expression of need. He needs this, needs to know what I can teach him. Even if he does not want the knowledge, his body craves it.

Knowledge is a powerful weapon, my Master has always told me. Every bit of it that we obtain changes us on a fundamental level, so that what we are is never quite the same as what we have been. Change, in its most basic form, is a terrifying thing. It means that what we were has died, and given birth to something new, like a monstrous insect emerging from a cocoon. Oftentimes, such discoveries are best left in the darkness.

"It is only pain," I tell him, trying to calm his fear. Fear has no place between us, not now. My hand strokes down his side, soothing the tremors out of him until my fingers curl around his hip. "Embrace it."

I can feel him listening to me, every cell in his body attuned to my words. It is a moment of awakening, and I savor it.

And now I claim him, driving forward into that winsome body with all the strength that I possess. I can hear him screaming, but it is nothing to me. I am aware only of the hot dark heat that surrounds me, clutches me, making me moan deep in my throat like a wild thing as I thrust and thrust deep within him. How seldom I have been given this luxury, to take instead of being taken. I give into it with all the wild abandon I possess.

He is sobbing, a high, wild, pleading sound that strikes into the very heart of me. And despite his protests, despite his terror, despite his hate and his heat and his pain, he is straining as much to press into my touch as he is to get away from it. This realization horrifies him most of all, and vindicates what I already know to be true.

It cannot last for long, even with my endurance. His body is limp under me now, and this pleases me. He is not fighting. He is letting the pain hold him, carry him, deliver him to that place where he needs to be. The thought makes me cry out in my passion, and then I am lost as the pleasure roars through me, consuming me in its fire.

It is not enough. It never is, without the pain. Feeling vaguely disgusted, I shove the Jedi away from me. He lays unmoving where I have cast him, curled in on himself as if he seeks to hide from the truth of his pain. I can see the blood that stains the insides of his thighs.

And what did I hope to gain here? Did I think that by claiming this man, I would somehow find an end to the emptiness that my Master's teachings can never quite fill? Pleasure is a transient thing. It is only pain that endures.

I wonder if the Jedi would inflict my Master's lessons on me if I asked him. I think, just maybe, that he would.

With an angry jerk of the dark Force, I remove the bindings from his wrists. This earns me a sudden gasp of surprise and pain. Pain. He does not even know what it is.

"Leave me," I tell him. I can feel his eyes on me, questioning, hot as blue flame. It irritates me. "Go," I say, tiredly. "Before I change my mind."

It is all that is required to make him scramble to his feet. He snatches up his clothes and dresses in seconds, and then he is obeying my command.

I stop him at the door, holding it closed with the force of my power. He hesitates, casting a last, wary glance over his shoulder at me. He looks beaten, subdued. Inside, he is in excruciating turmoil.

"Remember me," I say, as my last parting gift to him.

Then I release my hold on the door, and he leaves. I watch the space where he has gone for a very long time.

For a moment I regret my decision to set him free, but the emotion soon fades. For now I understand what I have only outwardly accepted until this moment. As much as I would love to have seen him crumble and fall, teaching my Master's lessons to this Jedi would bring me no pleasure. For I am the one who needs to be taught, who needs to be trained, who needs to feel my Master's hand raised in tender violence against me. I am a creature who needs to be possessed, and there is no joy for me in the possession of others.

I have failed. But even so, I have opened one young Jedi's eyes to the pleasures that are inherent in the infliction of pain. The knowledge is with him now, a part of him, and it will not leave him. I wonder what new creature will be born out of the chrysalis of the man I had first brought with me into these rooms.

Stretching luxuriously on the floor where I lay, I stare up into the light, and laugh.

End.