Master Apprentice
Archive
Stoicheia 8: Arsenic
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It's antimony, purest antimony, powdered and pasted, shimmering silken black at the tip of the brush. Dusting the dark pink rims of my eyelids into a seductive sultry black. Blanking out the angry red there.
I swear at the rapidly blurring image of myself in the mirror, blinking furiously, a thin vertical streak of black across the white of one eye. Too close.
There is nothing to it but to wait, if I don't want to smudge the slowly drying paste all over my face, over the back of my hand, and back into my eye of course. A thick tear forming in one eye, I stare sullenly at my reflection, waiting for the salt water to wash the powder out.
They say I'm attractive. Of course, they would be unwise to say anything else, seeing as their social and financial existence depends on me, but they make a point of saying it anyway. Not beautiful, not pretty -- attractive.
I'm too old to be pretty anyway, and definitely beyond wanting to be pretty. The face that looks back at me is the face of a predator. A bird of prey. As if my nose was somehow sharper and longer now that the lines have carved themselves into my face, from that nose to the corners of my mouth. Thin masculine lips. They are amazingly soft, as my fingertips tell me quite regularly. I never have been able to stop myself from touching my lips when I'm nervous or excited. I've become very familiar with that feeling over the years.
Ground yourself. Feed the force of your emotions back into yourself. An incredible rush. Scary.
I touch my lips, publicly, almost coquettishly. I like it when they look at me as if they wanted to say, I want you but oh, I can't have you. And then delight in very occasionally proving one of them wrong.
And baring my teeth.
When I can see clearly again, some of the remaining antimony will go towards accentuating my brows. Not that they need accentuating, they're raven black as it is, but tonight... tonight I want them sweeping just so, just a little longer than is natural, and glimmering matte black. Like my hair. I had a good hair day this morning, which is only just. Something's got to restore that balance... and I'm going out tonight, to make up, to conquer, to take revenge on some innocent who will come to love it.
With one eye crying incongruously, I stare into the mirror.
Jinn's back at Temple.
With Padawan.
I don't know what went wrong, and chances are I won't ever know -- my footman had strict instructions to forget all about me and disappear to wherever he'd see fit. But that brat Kenobi's back at Temple, and on the active duty roster with Jinn for the upcoming rotation.
Something's fishy here.
I mean, the arsenic... specifically because it would insinuate itself slowly, gently. Trust me not to give the pup the chance to scream in pretty agony and worry his poor Master to death, stuck as they are on a planet with no medical system worth speaking of. No, it would come over him slowly, dimming his Force signature like a candle deprived of air. In his sleep. Humane, you see? Bah. Never pays to be humane with Jedi.
And the dose was well enough to kill a grown bantha, let alone a wee Padawan. If he'd as much as touched it, he'd have been gone in an hour, no two ways about it. Not on that dump of a planet. Oh, spacefaring culture, my foot. The dim excuse they have for healers waffle on about flows and life energies and gender taboos. Wouldn't see Kenobi naked, much less sort him with an antidote. Truth -- I know people from there, it's not just sources...
And I know Jinn. For all his skills with the Force (oh endless nights spent dreaming about what he could do with that, specifically to me. Specifically to a very _willing_ me.), he can't work miracles, even if his sense of duty demanded that he keep his pitiful Padawan alive.
No, the Padawan simply _stayed_ alive. The poison must never have touched him.
But that's not all I can do, Jinn. Be prepared. (Oh yes, be prepared. With thick glistening fingers sliding up your tight arse. Your own fingers, as I watch. You, naked on the floor, your legs spread wantonly, just because I tell you so, and your fingers fucking yourself to a desperate arousal until you can't _help_ but whimper for me...)
I have this glow on my face again. Anger and arousal make for perfect rouge, did you know that, Master? No, I expect you wouldn't. You've got the wrong kind of skin for that, and you don't know the sweet taste of your very own anger, Master. You enrage me, you and your stubbornness, and your Padawan's stubborn aliveness, and that rage feels... well...
Yes, these pants are tight, Master. They're meant to be. Stretchy and shiny, like a second skin. The shirt deep grey, billowy, translucent just under a certain type of light. The kind of light that you've never seen. The first-hand light. You'll yet go prowling the nightspots with me, Jinn, and you'll love it. You'll ask me, in that proud deep voice of yours, to put the chain on you, and you'll know full well that underneath your calm manly exterior you're begging, begging to be mine. You'll see.
Be prepared.
When your next mission briefing comes up, Jinn, before next rotation, I'll be gathering my forces. And then, in an unprepared moment, I will have been prepared. I'm sure whatever it is, I'll be able to make it look like an accident, like the little pup offed himself through his own incompetence. How would you like that, Master? Disappointed by the flower of the Order? Flower, my foot. A pale growth indeed.
I drag a finger over my closed eyes, smudging the antimony just ever so slightly. Antimony. Just below arsenic in the periodic table. Beauty close to death. Profound, eh?
I'll be back for you, Jinn. When the upcoming mission details go up on the files. Until then, I'll be partying. Prowling the clubs felling the most exquisite creatures with one wave of a hand, one seductive black-rimmed stare. Sinking my hard cock in their bodies and making them scream with pain and lust and need. Rage makes for a wonderful aphrodisiac, did you know that, Master?
No, thought not.
But you'll learn. Oh yes, you will.
I'll see to it.
---The End---