I stepped out of the turbolift into a round foyer filled with expensive furniture and decorations.  My feet sank into thick, dark red carpet.  Soft music caressed my ears.  The place even smelled nice; but from somewhere down in my gut, I shivered.  Something was wrong.  Perhaps someone had died here.

I crossed the foyer quickly, shifting my pizza boxes to check the address on the readout.  Yep, this was it.  Senator Palpatine's personal apartment.  Perhaps it was the aura of power that intimidated me, then.  I was quite an insignificant person myself, and despite the several weeks of delivering this new high-class fad food to the people rich enough to order it, I still wasn't quite used to the kind of places in which they lived.

The main door opened before I came up to it.  To my surprise, it was Senator Palpatine himself.

I said brightly, "Pizza delivery!"

Palpatine smiled at me (it made me feel important and beautiful-- is /that/ how he got to where he was?) and stepped back, with a gesture inviting me into his quarters.  The usual way was to put the pizzas into his hand and leave, but this would do as well.  I looked around the place and visions of BIG TIP started dancing in my head.

"The smell is making my mouth water already," he announced.  That was funny, since the pizzas were encased in air-tight warmer boxes.  "May I see them?"

I moved to a table and set the boxes down, opening one of the warmers so he could have a look.  *Now* the smell burst out into the room, spicy and mouth-watering.  It made even me feel hungry, and I was used to it.  No wonder pizza was becoming a fad among Coruscant's fashionable society elite, and even being translated into affordable versions for the more adventurous of the common folk.

"What are these round black things?"  the senator wanted to know.

"They're called /olives/," I said, watching his impeccable manners as he sampled one.  "They have to be imported from a primitive, savage planet called Terra,"  and I gave him the background spiel that I'd given a time or three before, concluding with, "The olive-gatherers go down at risk of their lives; that's partly why pizzas are so expensive."

"Really," he said politely.  "But they are delicious."

"Yes.  Well, I'd better leave you to it, and get on to the next stop.  Enjoy the pizzas!"

/Pay me,/  I mentally commanded, although I doubted that that would work on someone of Senator Palpatine's caliber.

Either it worked, or else he had meant all along to be nice and tip me.  I suspected the latter. But when I saw the amount on the credit chip he handed me, I actually hesitated.  Misplaced a decimal point?  Added too many zeroes?  "Oh, I couldn't take that, Senator," I said.

"Ahh," he said quickly.  "Share the wealth.  That's what it's for."  He patted my shoulder, and my hand put the credit chip into my pocket.  "Just this way, my dear," he said, directing me to another door than the one I'd come in by.  I went through into a rather bare, although still luxuriously carpeted, corridor, wondering whether I had to tell my manager about the tip or if I should just quietly spend it.

The door closed behind me, and I belatedly noticed that the place into which I had just walked wasn't lighted.  When the door clicked shut, it cut off all light.  I was in complete darkness.

"Wait a minute!"  I yelled, turning around and thumping on the door.  It didn't open.  "Turn the lights on!"

"Surely you're not afraid of the dark-- are you?"   That was somebody different who spoke, in a velvety, intimate voice very suited for the darkness.  The speaker was in the dark behind me; I couldn't see him but I could tell that he was much too close.  My skin crawled.  I wanted to jump away.  I would have pounded on the door again, but suddenly I didn't want to turn my back.

"Who is it?"  I demanded, trying to sound bold and polite.

"You have no reason to fear the dark.  Or me."

"Turn some lights on,"  I said.  I had located the door control behind me, and now I pushed the button.  Nothing happened.

"I want to talk to you first."

"Um, no, I don't think so," I said.  "I'm busy.  I have a schedule.  Now please don't play tricks on me.  It's harassment and it's illegal.  But you won't be in any trouble if you just show me the door right now."

The voice was laughing softly, a pleasant sound, as if what I said was really enjoyable in some way I couldn't understand.  The voice purred, "My master is pleased with me and, like a good master,  promised me treats.  The treats have been brought.  Now I will enjoy them."

"Yes!"  I said perkily.  "That's a good idea.  Now excuse me, I'd better not keep you from the pizzas.  My cart is full of pizzas, which will start getting soggy.  Sorry I don't have more time to chat--"

The voice must have hit the end of its patience, and the body attached to it touched me.  At first just a brush of something against my bare forearm, and I gasped and skittered away.  Then a whole rush of warm, heavy clothing against me and a solid body pressing against mine, backing me into the wall.  I might have screamed except for the hand over my mouth, and both my arms were controlled.  It was all very smooth and expert and I was trapped.

I stayed against the wall, and the attacker gave me time to adjust to the new situation.  He removed his hand to let me breathe.  I had already gotten the message, so, feeling completely helpless, I stayed silent, heart pounding.

"Good," he said softly.  "Now will you talk with me a while-- and then share my food?"

It wasn't time for blustery talking or making any threats I couldn't carry out.  It was time to be practical.  Fear had gripped me-- Fear continued holding me and he was very strong.  I nodded, and through Fear's competent grip on my body, he felt the movement.

I ventured to speak.  "You want to /talk/ to me?"

The voice, Fear, was pleased with me.  "Yes," he said.  "Come with me."

He took my hand as if we were old friends and began to lead me off.  When he saw that I was nervous about walking with him in the deep darkness, he put his arm around me.  He wasn't very tall, but had the aura of an endless fount of activity and ruthless strength.

Would I be raped?  An unthinkable fate.  That only happens to "other" people, not to me.

I thought of an incident a week or so ago, when I'd delivered some pizzas to a bunch of wild schoolkids, and they'd tried to get too friendly.  Some of them had put their hands on me in places boys' hands didn't belong.  A punch on the nose of one had sobered them-- as had the true sight of me, when they'd managed to rip off my headdress along with my outer cloak.  I hadn't needed to defend myself further.  They changed their minds about my attractiveness.

In the end, I hadn't even reported the incident.  It had simply embarrassed me too much.  On such a world as Coruscant, where every species from around the galaxy came together, nobody had any right to be shocked about strange appearance.  Head-tails, or tentacles, or multiple eyes or scaly or furred skin were all common.

But humans were still the best bet.  Humans were the standard of beauty in advertising.  Sizes, widths and proportions of rooms, streets, buildings, were all designed around human measurements.  Human tongues had determined the sounds of Basic.

Those boys had thought I was Human, and when they saw that, although I was so close in resemblance, I clearly was only that derogatory (or so it always seemed to me) "Humanoid".  And they rejected me.  They decided I really wasn't worthy to be assaulted by them.

And deep down in my soul, I agreed with them.  I wanted to be human; it's why I hid.  It's why I saved up credits to someday have enough for hair implants, dreaming of the day I'd have a whole head of hair such as Human women took for granted.  Then I would be good enough, I had decided.  My red skin-- I wasn't sure about.  They had treatments for that, too, but despite the advertisements I suspected that they were painful.  I thought, if I picked the right shade of hair, I might be "remarkable" and beautiful.

Fear was laughing at me.  "Yes, this needs to go," he agreed, and just as the boys had done, he tugged the turban and ornaments from my smooth head.

I gasped and clutched at it, too late; and said angrily, "What are you doing?"

"Why do you want to pass as something you're not?"  he asked, reasonably, as a teacher to a wrong-minded student.  We had come into a bigger room, dim but with enough lights to see our way.  Then suddenly the lights came on.  Floodlights, bright as day.  My eyes had adjusted to darkness and I winced at the light, then turned my head as if I could hide my bare skull that way.  As soon as I could I looked around to see if any others besides my companion might be looking at me, but there was only him.  He now released my hand.  He wore deep black robes and a hood that shielded his face.  He had my silk wrappings in his hand.

"See how /you/ like it!"  I shouted, and made a grab for his hood.  He permitted me to get it and to tug it halfway off.  It snagged on some short, sharp horns on the crown of his head, but I got it back enough to see what sort of man I was dealing with.

I stopped in shock.  I stared.  I forgot about pizzas, and everything else in the world and the whole of my existence.  Just at that moment I felt bad memories starting to fall away from my mind, leaving it clear.

He was like me.  This stranger was just like me.  He could be my brother!  I saw patterns on his face, sharp black designs traced all over him for some purpose I couldn't fathom, but I instantly ignored that.  Underneath it, I could see that he was just like me, with deep red skin and yellow eyes.  I looked into his eyes and thought of words I'd never thought when I looked into my own eyes, though they were the same-- words like /vibrant/, /intense/, and /beautiful/.

Just like me.  So, I wasn't a freak of nature.  I wasn't a deformed human.  I hadn't been genetically tampered with by some unknown enemy, or if I had, there was at least another like me.  I wasn't alone.

It was moments like /this/ that made life worth enduring.

I stood there with every emotion in my body and every thought in my mind wiped away, except the feeling of complete fulfillment and joy.

"Hello," I said wonderingly, when I could be silent no longer.  Stupid thing to say.  But I didn't care.

"As you see," the stranger said.  His voice was marvelous, but not designed to show tender emotions.

All the next questions were obvious, and they were clamoring behind my lips, fighting to see which should be spoken first:  who are you, where are you from, are there any others, what are we /called/?

He put one finger on my lips, forestalling all the questions that I knew, somehow knew, he could already feel me wanting to ask.  The finger was topped by a thick, short claw that pressed into my lips.  A claw like mine and I flexed my hands together, thrilled and ashamed.  He had let his grow out; from now on I would, too.  With determination, even, if such a thing were possible, with pride?

"You may call me Khamier," he said.  "There is no other person alive who calls me by that name."

"My name is Mehlkhind," I said.

A brief nod.  "Sister."

It was a formal acknowledgment I'd never heard before but seemed to recognize instantly.  I wasn't his sister.  But I was his-- /sister/.

It thrilled me.  I wanted to answer in kind; I could feel that desire bubbling up instead of the questions.  So I gathered my courage:  "Brother?"

I was in his arms then.  Unbelievable that this had come to pass; from a boring day in a hopeless life to here.  In his arms.  His arms around me and I closed my eyes.

Not too long; I wanted to look at his face again.  "Those horns you have!"  I said, in childish admiration.  "How majestic you are!  And look at me.  I've always felt so hairless and ugly--"

"Ugly?"  I felt his rage right through his clothes, blasting me like a hot wind, and it was rage in a complimentary way, that made me grin in sheer delight as he held my head in both hands and berated me:  "How can you say /ugly/, when you're the most beautiful woman ever born?  /Ugly/, about this?  This perfection, this simplicity, this symmetry, this--"  He ran his hands over my head, and I felt my eyelids close in sheer bliss of it.  He shouted at me, "Don't tell me you'd rather have a mass of colored fluff hanging in your eyes, looking like an unmade bed most of the time, and you thinking men are dying for you because of it!"

I burst into laughter, near-hysterical laughter, but Khamier calmed a little and laughed with me.

I smelled pizza and lifted my head.  Senator Palpatine had come into the room, carrying one of the boxes of pizza, and he had a slice in his hand on which he was munching.  He set the box down and settled himself into a plush couch.

My head was naked and I didn't even think of covering it.

The senator said, "Well, are you pleased, Maul?"

Khamier answered respectfully, as he detached himself from me and sank into an obeisance, "Very much pleased, my Master."

For lack of any better instruction, I joined him at Palpatine's feet.  Doing so felt natural to me, and as I followed Maul's lead to stay on my knees, even moreso.

"And I'm required to watch this?"

"Only as much as you desire, my Master."

"But, Maul, I sincerely believe you when you say you'll have her.  And if I watch I'll end up feeling a little lonely myself, and seeking the company of fallen ladies of the night, and I can't have wind of that getting around to my highbrowed comrades."

"Very wise, my Master."

There were layers of sarcasm beneath that.  A shared joke, then.  I listened intently, part curious and partly feeling more cautious disinterest than I usually did in curious things.  There was more going on here than I could see.

But I didn't care.  I just looked up at Palpatine, and glanced at Khameir, and thought contentedly that if I were struck by lightning and died now, I would have lived enough of a life, and been angry at the loss of only the part that might have contained this man-- my /brother/.

Palpatine had made his way through one of the slices of pizza, and gotten to the crust.  He nibbled off the last of the sauce, and extended the bare crust to Khamier.  I half expected Khamier to refuse it.  He wasn't a dog to eat table scraps.  But he took a bite and chewed, with a gesture of thanks.

Palpatine then offered that same bit of pizza crust to me, with all solemnity.  I took a bite of the salty bread and chewed, and imitated the gesture of thanks.  Pizza crust was all right, after all, though the other part was better.

Palpatine looked at us and said, "All right, dear children, consider yourselves man and wife.  Maul, you may kiss the bride."

"It's a human custom,"  Khamier-- or was his name 'Maul'?-- said, gently rebuking.

"Forgive me, Apprentice."  Palpatine had humor in his voice.  And I had eyes big as saucers; when somebody shows up at your door and tells you you've won fifty million credits, you just don't waste time asking a lot of silly questions.  At my obvious happiness he smiled a little wider.  "She seems to appreciate you as well, Apprentice."

I said eagerly, "Yes--"  then I was at a loss what title to give him.

Maul stood, and lifted me to my feet.  I sensed a certain possessiveness, protectiveness, in the way he turned me away from Palpatine and put his body between us.  Palpatine's voice, suddenly with a cold undercurrent, said, "Enjoy the reward I've given you.  I have no further need of you at the moment."

"Or of this?"  Khamier asked civilly, about the box of pizza, and at an affirmative response he closed the cover and picked it up.  "Perhaps my bride will be hungry later on."

"Keep her out of the way,"  Palpatine said with sudden ungraciousness.  I watched him leave.  The most powerful politician in the galaxy, and the leader of civilian society, wasn't necessarily the most powerful man.  But that might not be all there was to him.  I sensed that it would be a tragic mistake to underestimate him.

Khamier took my hand and I went away with him, to a stark, darkly-furnished bedroom.  It had the air of a barracks, but only one bed.  Khamier closed the door behind us and I looked around, undecided between eagerness and dismay.  Everything was happening too fast.  I was late for my next delivery.  I had surely lost my job by now, but my uncaring about that fact was luxurious.  I was-- /married??/-- to a complete stranger.  I wasn't yet completely reassured that they hadn't brought me here to chop me in pieces and offer me to some cruel deity.

But I was more sure of this man than I had ever been of anyone in all my life.  The  orphanage nurses, though universally kind to me, and some of them even affectionate, had been strangers and stayed strangers.  I kept my childhood friends in a strict hierarchy.  As I matured, I kept my friends at a distance.  The boy I'd been favoring for a potential mate-- but I could scarcely recall his name now-- had been tolerant of my odd appearance, and complained that I never allowed him into my mind or communicated with him.

Of course, I'd never really communicated, never had a long, philosophical conversation,  with this black-patterned man either, and yet I could.  I somehow knew I could.  Whatever I thought to say would not be alien, incomprehensible to him.

There was no need of words.

He looked at me, seeking my pleasure.  He didn't seem the type to worry overmuch about the victim's consent.  I could almost smell blood on his hands.  This was a monster, to some.  I simply /knew/ that too.  And that I had nothing to fear.  I was his--

"Sister."  He addressed me formally.

I took off my outer robe and dropped it on the floor;  it floated by itself to lie neatly over the back of a chair.  I grinned in surprise, and caught myself just in time from a very unwise question.  No, that was obvious:  I /knew/ he was no Jedi.

But powerful!  So powerful.  He extended his hands to me, an invitation to be touched.  I gripped his hands, and felt his power then, flowing through my body, crackling with life and energy and deep knowledge and potential.  I threw my head back, stretched my body, exulting in it.  "Khamier!"  I half-shouted in surprise.  But no, that was wrong:  "Brother,"  I whispered, looking at his deadly golden eyes.  Smiling.

"Get rid of the rest," he spoke impatiently, opening my clothes, and I helped him, and together we could barely get them off quickly enough.  He held me away, looking at my body, and though I had always been a shy kind of girl, I didn't feel shy now.  I pleased him, I /knew/ that, and I was glowing with pride, wishing to walk around naked just to boast of what I was to him.  His hand on my waist, short claws jabbing me, he turned me around.  I turned around a few times, then dipped my head to him, asking for his touch.  He gathered me up.

"Yours!"  I protested.  "Get your clothes off too.  For pity's sake--"  His were troublesome.  Things that looked like they should open in the front opened in the back.  My attempts to help only complicated matters, but there was, really, no rush.  We had just enough time.  We must be together immediately.  Immediately was now.  Everything was progressing at just the right pace.  Frantic.  But unhurried.  Pieces of his velvety black robes joined my drab delivery uniform.

When he was naked I had to sit down on his bed-- for sheer astonishment.  My legs were weak at the sight of him.  So beautiful!  From head to foot, each detail perfect, symmetrical, finely designed.  The deep red of his skin intoxicated me.  It was the same shade as mine.  We matched perfectly.  I thought of our bodies joined together, tangled up, not being able to tell where one of us ended and the other began, and I looked up at him.

But down again, because all of him was beautiful.  He stood in front of me, and with my hands I traced the black patterns, following each one.  Many of them ended at his penis.  I had never touched a man in such a way, but I had no hesitation about doing so now.  Shy?  Not when his flesh, though so different, seemed as intimately mine as my own.

I laid my hand on him, felt him pulsing, one soft, thin layer of skin moving under my hands, over a magnificent thickness and hardness.  I put both hands on him, smiling, and then laughing out loud that turned into a moan.  "Oh, it will hurt me,"  I said.  Statement of fact.  Not protest.

"Put your mouth on it," he said.  This bald statement inflamed me.  Two hours ago I could honestly boast that I'd *never* succumbed to necking in the warehouse like everybody else did.  Now I shivered with delight that life contained such a pleasure as the privilege of putting my mouth on that enormous shaft:  and I did so.  He tasted clean and hot, and I felt the intensity of his desire communicated right through my lips.  He held my bare head between his hands, and I closed my eyes, overwhelmed at the honor of this.  I slid off the bed to kneel before him, and kissed him and touched him.  I wondered about the smooth sac beneath, and I was allowed to feel his testicles.  For a moment I was distracted simply by the newness of experiencing a man.  I backed away a little, so I could look at him.

His hand on my shoulder urged me up.  I felt a warm, lofty sensation like invisible wings helping me up as I rose.  I looked around:  nothing but thin air.  /He/ had done it, of course.  When he saw my puzzlement he did it again, with clearer sensations so I could understand.  It was like a thousand gentle hands bearing me up, with warmth wrapped around my skin, though my eyes told me I was only floating in thin air, then deposited on a rather hard bunk.

I sat up; I couldn't just lie there.  My brother came to me, his magnificent body offered to me, and I knew just what to do, although I had never done it before.  I knew how to open my legs, how to lift to position myself for him.  He held my shoulders just hard enough for his claws to hurt and send spikes of excitement through my arms.  Then he moved his hand down to touch me, and I whispered senseless, eager words of encouragement.

I knew it was going to hurt, and I had a moment of doubt.  But not even a second of hesitation.  I wanted the pain, the more the better, I wanted every last drop of it, because I wanted this, all of it.  I wanted him, every inch of him.  I only hoped he would find pleasure in me.  To be strictly practical-- I hoped he would fit in me!

He stroked my thighs, my belly, with soothing motions.  From somewhere I heard him say, "I wouldn't hurt my sister," and myself respond, "I know, I know," although I didn't know at all.

His hands found the dripping wetness.  He growled with satisfaction, exploring me with his fingers for only a moment before coming close to me.  I watched the huge red organ jutting up under me.  I lifted myself, spread my legs wider and felt the head of it as a delicious solidness pressing beneath me.  Khamier, wiser and more experienced than I, used his hands to rub it in my juices, as I waited, breathless, sensation piling upon sensation.  Then together, working as one, we impaled me on it.

Oh, the force.  It wasn't easy.  It had to be pushed; I let the weight of my body carry me downwards and I held my breath, gritting my teeth all the way, then cried out, more with relief than pain, as he came to rest deep inside me.  We knelt together, arms around each other, my body full to bursting with that strange new presence.

We just stayed, motionless, locked together, excitement growing as we stared into each other's yellow eyes.  It was as I had imagined.  His arms were finely detailed with chiseled muscle and sinew, and mine smaller, softer, more rounded.  But our skin was a visual blending.  We could have been colored from the same pot of dye.

I leaned over to kiss his breast and he growled his pleasure at me.  I would have done it again but he came to my breasts instead, caressing them gently with those hands of his that I knew must be capable of so much harm and death.  I saw his claws against me and didn't fear.  I showed him my hands then, for the first time, which I had spent so many hours clipping and filing to make them resemble human fingernails.  He took them in his hands and said regretfully, "Sister, what have you done to yourself?"

Shame filled me.  "They'll grow back," I said.

"Yes, they'll grow."

He filled me.

That was all that mattered.  I had rested enough, recovered enough.  He moved a little and I cried out at the sheer intensity, the stretching and tearing of my virgin body and the deep  pleasure of his presence.  I shifted my body violently on him, making sure there was no hurt left that I hadn't experienced, nothing unknown that I couldn't know, and my lover held me tight, hissing at me in disapproval.

It simply felt too irresistibly good.  Khamier showed me the more proper movements to make, and I followed along obediently, appreciating the wisdom of the ancient design.  It was comforting to think of ancestors I'd never known, that sometimes I'd doubted whether I had.  Now I knew I did have them, that they must have been /like/ me, that thousands of them had done this before me, and my actions would produce more of them like me as well.  I was no longer a mote lost and alone.  I would be a link in a chain that would continue.

My head had been on his shoulder, lolling in helpless rapture, but at this thought I lifted it and looked into his eyes.

He was not as unknowing as I was.  He had planned this long ago.  He had been watching me for weeks-- I /knew/ this now.  I could almost see myself through his eyes, and I pitied the self I saw walking around doing her duties in her boring, pointless life.  The watcher had seen better things.  That girl becoming a woman, and he, as warped, dark, blackened as his life and purpose had become, living on through her beautiful body.  Children.

And danger.  Hate.  I sensed it; it was immediately muffled from me but I still knew it was there.

"Don't see it, my Sister," the soothing words came close to my ear, the arms around me, protecting me, the warm hands on my body.  "Only love me now.  That's all."

"I do.  I do love you."  I said it as a formality.  We had already progressed far beyond the need to hear those words, far beyond their message, in fact.  We weren't merely in love.  We were family already.  Not brother and sister in reality, but better-- in spirit.

I had to hold myself off him now, holding still before him, braced, tense, receptive as he thrust slowly, deeply, keeping time to that old rhythm.  I moved with him, closing my eyes, absorbing the sensation of that massive hot thickness stroking within me, grinding my nerves with sweet pleasure almost to the point of insanity.  I bore it as best I could; once even lost the motion and tried to struggle, briefly afraid of the thing I was becoming. Khamier's claw-tipped hands on my shoulders held me still.  His mouth claimed mine, muffling my moan of unbearable passion.

Dreadful certainty of what would happen, though it had never happened to me before, and I couldn't wait, and didn't want this to end, ever--

The tension burst around me, the intensity beyond belief.  My body keened with pleasure and I fell into it without resistance, my spirit floating somewhere.  I shouted more senseless words and knew Khamier understood me.  Vaguely I was aware of him growling at me as he came apart too, spurting a hot flood of thick wetness against my womb.

The moment never seemed to end, but when it did, I slumped, wondering if it was possible to die of sheer happiness.  Khamier went with me and we lay together on the narrow bunk for a long time, breathing, wondering, still.  Our bodies relaxing, our breath returning.  Still together.

I felt that hours must have passed.  Years.  I was so different from what I had been when I came to this place.  But when I finally sat up, slowly so that I wouldn't faint, the first thing I noticed was the pizza.  Nobody had bothered to put the lid down on it, but it was still warm and smelled delicious.  "You were right," I said to Khamier.  "Your bride is very hungry.  Ravenous, in fact."

"I ordered the kind that you always order for yourself," he said.

With crispy crust and extra cheese and olives.  Perfect.  I wasn't surprised.  I just curled up in his armpit, the box on my lap, and fed bites to both of us.  Good stuff, it was.  Very good stuff.  I had possibly never tasted it before.  I had possibly never been alive before.  But I was now.

"I love you so much," I said.

"And I, you."

"I wish there were better words than 'I love you'."

"You know what they are."

"Oh, my brother," I whispered, emotion overflowing.
 

END

Feedback:  please!