What Lies Beneath

Chapter Two: Bad People Do Good Things, Too

TWO WEEKS LATER

Erasmesheev Tiberius Palpatine—the Sith Lord Darth Sidious—chafed again at the unfamiliar sensation of being caught. Caught, as if in some strange webbing holding him between two worlds—one, Darkness, his natural home, and the other, the improbable scenario he found himself waking to every morning.

He realized that he was unused to this infernal experience of having someone around all the time: Sereine Lumisol, his former and future campaign manager, consultant, speechwriter ... and his mistress, he supposed. At last she left his fresher, one towel around her body and another around her hair, and crossed his bedchamber to his mirror.

He wished he could make her disappear.

It hadn't been his feeling last night, or any of the other nights since she'd returned from her last campaign. Lust, inflamed by absence, had seen them fused in the sort of frenzied carnality one thinks will never end ... until it does. But two weeks of intense pleasure did a lot to slake even the strongest libido, and with the slackening of desire came the need for solitude, for dark side meditation.

He took her place in the fresher with a small sense of relief at having some moments he didn't need to speak to her. And yet, he found himself conscious once more of how much better he was feeling physically, as he always did about two weeks after she arrived home from a long absence. His body felt lighter, his head clearer, his senses sharper. New and unfamiliar joint pains had receded into memory. His solar plexus tingled in a sort of glowing hum. He never realized just how off  he actually felt most of the time until she had been home for a bit.

Privately, he believed it was the regular sexual release that had this salutary effect on him. Her opinion was much more pragmatic; Sereine said it was two weeks of full nights of deep sleep. Nonetheless, as he readied himself for the day, he found himself wishing that when he stepped out again, he would find she'd simply left.

Until he did step out again and found her before his mirror in her sheer dressing gown, brushing out the auburn waves that, in the fashion of all women from their home planet, spilled down her back, long enough for her to sit on. Something in her pose, the shape of her buttocks, the subtle curve below her navel, the way the sunlight from the window lit her figure, caught him.

She turned. He held up his hand.

"Stop. I think I need a holo of this."

She smiled and turned again, presenting a pose he found even more appealing. In an instant he found himself at her side, his hands on her and his lips on her mouth.

He pulled away. "I will not be late this morning."

"If you don't take your hands off those, I won't give you any choice."

He laughed and strode away from her.

Only to succumb to annoyance once again as she sat beside him for breakfast. He didn't even eat breakfast; yet it was necessary to feed her. It annoyed him that even as he sat beside her and nibbled at bread and fruit, he still felt compelled to speak to her somehow.

Lord Sidious was compelled to do nothing.

And this is why the Order eschews attachment. This kind of distraction over mindless trivialities.

She took a bite of egg and scrolled through her datapad.

Silence pulled the words out of him. "Anything interesting this morning?"

And that was when she looked at him and said, "Bail Organa. Asking for my advice on a Jedi matter."

"Is that so?" He reached for her datapad and drew it across the table to peer at the message himself.

She crossed her arms. "You. Are. Reading. My. Mail."

"Yes. Yes, I am." The message didn't say any more than she had, and he returned it to her. "Well, this is cryptic. What are you telling him?"

She tapped a message in. "I'm telling him I don't know one thing about Jedi and he would be better off consulting someone else."

Then again, with Sereine Lumisol, one never knew what tidbits could be drawn from her for the price of some inane conversation. "A pity," said Palpatine. "I should have liked to hear more of that story."

"Wait ... he wants my advice about speaking to the Supreme Chancellor about a Jedi matter. Well, that, I can help him with."

Palpatine, quickly warming to the idea of breakfast with her after all, sipped some kaffe and took a bite of his own eggs. "Indeed." Sometimes, the less he said, the more she would say.

"He wants me to meet him for lunch." She tapped something back.

"And?"

"I can't meet him for lunch. I have an appointment at the hairdresser's I've been waiting for for weeks."

Palpatine tried to soften the growl that escaped him. "Two things. One, this isn't something one puts off. And two, if you cut that hair, I will hang you. Personally."

She rolled her russet eyes to the side. "I can reschedule Bail Organa if I please." Considering she served far more important clients these days, she actually could. "And, I'm not going to cut very much off. You have to keep the bottom trimmed up on hair this long, or it gets shabby and tattered and it doesn't look nice anymore."

The pad pinged and she looked down once more. "I guess Bail isn't on the floor today. He says he'll be in the office all day and I am welcome to stop by at my convenience."

Palpatine waited a moment and glanced down at the breakfast he didn't really want. "Do please share the outcome of this ... earliest convenience. I'm quite curious."

"So am I," said Sereine. "I'll share it if I think I can." Which made yet another irritating thing about this particular mistress.

One could never order her to do anything.

He looked down at his plate and realized he did in fact feel a bit hungry, and he could stand to eat a little more.