Succumb

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“Love alters not with
his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even
to the edge of doom.”

William Shakespeare


I sent Dormé away after she had finished taking down my hair from its complicated style. Under normal circumstances I would have welcomed her company. She was a good friend with a genuine talent for helping me to momentarily forget my responsibilities and the often frustrating aspects of being a politician. I could always count on her to make me laugh at the latest bit of Coruscant gossip or Senate intrigue. But that evening I was not in the mood for fussing and idle chatter. Solitude was what I craved. I needed time to sort through the bizarre meeting with Anakin and why he disturbed me so.

A senator’s wardrobe is much simpler to deal with than that of a queen’s but it is still a trial. I almost regretted sending Dormé away as I struggled with the intricate fastenings at my back. Lost in thought I slipped my gown from my shoulders and shrugged my arms out of the long sleeves. I was about to slip the bodice down when I remembered just whose eyes were in all likelihood monitoring the security cams. I froze and felt an uncomfortable prickling sensation at the back of my neck.

Anakin was watching me.

I had known that he was in the lounge area outside my bed chamber for I had heard Dormé speak briefly to him on her way to her own room. He was on watch alone. I had not yet heard Obi Wan returning from his earlier security inspection. Security cams were a way of life for all politicians in the Republic and I had long ago learned to ignore their presence. But now I was being watched by a young man who had made it quite clear that he found me attractive.

Technically he was not doing anything wrong. After all he and Obi Wan were there for the specific purpose of keeping me alive. But protector or not, I was decidedly uncomfortable with that turn of events. I did not want Anakin Skywalker watching me undress.

As I stood there debating how to get out of that potentially embarrassing situation a strange lethargy stole over me. I was still conscious of being watched but it no longer seemed as alarming as it had just moments ago. Even so I dared not raise my head. I had the oddest notion that if I were to acknowledge Anakin’s “presence” by looking directly into the cam I might give in to a sudden and inexplicable urge to let my dress fall to the floor.

That compulsion I cannot explain. I had yet to know the intimate touch of a man but at that moment I had an overwhelming impulse to throw away propriety and stand there in my undergarments under the watchful and hungry gaze of a Jedi just over four years my junior. I trembled as I felt warm waves of desire wash over me. Those sensations were not emanating from me.

I stood there stiffly, my shoulders bared, hands clasping the front of my gown to my chest, and my eyes staring sightlessly at the floor. Panic set in when I found I was having difficulty formulating the internal command to move my legs. Mentally I shook myself, forcing myself to calm down and concentrate. As the panic subsided my body was once more mine to command and I was free.

I fled to the refresher where I changed into my nightgown without fear of an audience, taking a few deep breaths to steady myself. After a moment or two I started to feel extremely foolish. What in Force had just happened? Reason and practicality returned to chase away the disquiet. It had been an emotional day and I was exhausted. I convinced myself that the whole episode was the result of my sadness and guilt over losing Cordé and the stress of finding myself the continued target of an assassination plot. When combined with the tedious journey from Naboo and my worry over the impending vote in the Senate, I thought it little wonder that my emotional state had not been even more tumultuous.

It was so much easier and less frightening to look at the obvious and ordinary for an explanation rather than to consider, even for a moment, that Anakin had been responsible for what had happened. It was too disturbing to think that Anakin would use the Force in such a manner.

Before I went to bed I made sure that the main security cam was covered.

It took me a long while to fall asleep.


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“O who will tell me where
He found thee at that dead and silent hour!”

Henry Vaughan


I was jerked from a sound sleep when my bed was jarred sharply. My heart was pounding furiously and at first I was unable to absorb the chaotic scene unfolding before me. Anakin stood above me poised as if to do battle and an unpleasant burnt odor hung in the air. I heard Obi Wan shout and watched in amazement as he dove through the window shattering the glass with a sickening crash. Anakin instructed me to stay where I was and then he too was gone.

Long after the excitement died down and I had made Dormé retire for the second time that night; I sat up in bed thinking. I relived the way Anakin’s eyes had appraised my form as he stood above me. His gaze had not been just a clinical check to make sure I was unharmed. I self- consciously hugged my legs closer to my chest, resting my chin on top my knees as I tried to figure out what had been happening to me since Anakin reappeared in my life.

I was disturbed by the amount of time I was spending dwelling on that compelling and overconfident young man. It had been less than a day and it seemed that almost every thought I had centered on what Anakin said, what he did, or how he looked at me. I was not use to so much emotional turmoil in my life and I did not like it. It felt as if I were playing a game whose rules I did not know and, what is more, one I had no memory of agreeing to participate in.

Anakin’s attentions made me uncomfortable. But at the same time they excited me. The fact that I even felt such excitement at all alarmed me. All I wanted to do was stop thinking and start reacting. I wanted to wrap myself in the memory of him standing over me in the dark like some holovid hero.

He had been terrified for me. A woman he had not seen in ten years. I found myself wondering where such devotion came from.

“Are you an angel?” he asked me once.

Angels were perfect. I shifted uneasily as I realized part of the reason why Anakin’s attentions concerned me so much. He saw me as an ideal, not as the person I truly was. This growing sense that I could never measure up to the image Anakin carried around was, for some reason, bone chilling in its intensity. We had exchanged almost no words that had not dealt with, for lack of a better word, business, yet his eyes had spoken volumes. I could see myself as he saw me in their reflection.

It can be lonely atop a pedestal separated from the crowd. Already I had a growing fear of what would happen when Anakin inevitably discovered I was a flesh and blood woman and not some paragon of perfection.


****


I was oblivious to the passage of time. It was only when I was forced to change positions to lessen the ache in my back that I realized several hours had passed since the two Jedi had given chase to the assassin probe. I glanced around and realized belatedly that Dormé must have removed the burnt corpses of those evil creatures, though I had no memory of her doing so. My attention returned to the open doorway to find it no longer empty. Anakin had returned.

He approached my bed with arrogant confidence as if he often visited women in their sleeping chambers. I was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy at that thought. Anakin’s eyes glittered in the darkness and my throat constricted. I vaguely remember wondering where Obi Wan was but became too preoccupied with Anakin’s approach and the thought slipped away.

Gingerly he sat down on the edge of my bed beside me. He watched me carefully as if I were some skittish animal ready to take flight if startled. I should have protested his familiarity when he sat down. It was very improper for us to be together on that bed in the early morning hours with no one to chaperon. If someone had seen us it would not have been looked favorably upon by either the government of Naboo or the Jedi Council. Worse, it would have been the unofficial topic of the Senate later that day. I had no desire to be fodder for their vicious rumor mill but, inexplicably, I found the thought of my reputation torn to shreds as inconsequential as what color of ribbon to wear in my hair.

That was what being with Anakin did to me. In an instant he could diminish my immediate concerns and worries to the dim recesses of my consciousness. He made me forget myself. So I did not request that he move away. I ignored that little voice in my head warning me of the impropriety. Instead I listened to the new voice that spoke in a hypnotic whisper, telling me to do something I should not do rather than what was expected.

He smiled at me softly. Something electric arced between us and a darker, more primal look entered his eyes. I shivered as Anakin’s bold gaze wandered leisurely from my sleep tousled hair, over the contours of my face, and then lower, to where the lace edging of my nightgown rose and fell with my every breath. Under his heated stare my ability to breathe normally suffered and my cheeks grew warm. Indeed, I had to remind myself to perform the function or risk passing out from lack of oxygen.

After what seemed like an eternity Anakin’s focus shifted back up to my face. Embarrassed I looked away unable to keep up the pretence that I was comfortable with his being perched on my bed in the middle of the night. I drew back sharply when he lightly touched my heated cheek with his warm fingertips. At my silent rebuke he dropped his hand but continued to study me intently. My level of discomfort rose dramatically under that heated gaze.

I was about to speak and break the growing tension when Anakin broke it himself. I kept my attention firmly focused on the foot of the bed as if it were the most fascinating thing I had ever seen as Anakin related the events of hours earlier. He told me of the dangerous chase around the city that had ended at a seedy nightclub. I winced when he told me of the confrontation between Obi Wan and the assassin. I could not have born yet another death on my account. Anakin ended the tale with how, upon exiting the club with the wounded changeling, an unknown person had killed the bounty hunter before either Obi Wan or Anakin had obtained any useful information.

A shaky sigh escaped me as I considered the unsavory idea that the person or persons responsible for Cordé’s death and the attempts on my life was still out there. My only consolation was that at least neither Obi Wan nor Anakin had been harmed.

Silence reigned for a few uncomfortable minutes before Anakin suggested that I try to get some sleep. My protests drew a determined frown from Anakin and before I knew what was happening I was being gently pushed down by invisible hands. He leaned over me. For one horrible but thrilling moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead he laid his hand against my brow and almost immediately my eyelids grew heavy and began to droop. I did not like being forced to do something against my will but even as I tried to fight it my body relaxed limply into the mattress and all my tension started to dissipate.

Anakin’s hand slid down to lie against my cheek. It was a comforting gesture and I instinctively turned my face into his warm palm. A callused thumb stroked my skin lightly, reassuring and soothing to my troubled mind.

I was almost asleep when Anakin’s touch changed from affectionately innocent to sensual – and completely inappropriate.

He trailed his fingers down my neck to lightly caress the bare skin just above my neckline. Clouded though my mind was, I was still aware enough to hear how his breath quickened. A second later his hand was running down my body with intimate familiarity. Even as my mind tried to work up the energy to formulate a protest at his daring, a sigh of contentment escaped me. Forming a coherent thought proved impossible with the weight of the Force coaxing me down into oblivion. Besides, his touch felt…..right.

Anakin’s hand lingered enticingly at my hip. I could feel the heat of his touch through the thin shimmersilk of my nightgown. When he moved back to once again stroke my cheek I felt strangely bereft.

Did I dream the words that seemed to resound within my head as I finally slipped over the edge into sleep?

// Soon Padmé, you WILL love me //

The softly whispered words were filled with the promise of lips touching, of flesh meeting flesh, of contented moans and limbs entwining. But lying beneath the surface of that seductive pledge was a darker message, one that spoke of obsession, anger, pain, possession and fear.

My heart only paid heed to that first promise.