"You're not ordinary girls anymore, you're houris. You need to take on that role, which shouldn't be so hard if you try. But if any one of you gives us away to our visitors, she'll have to die immediately." The girls were seized with fear. They kept quiet and worked diligently. "Oh, what's the use," Fatima remarked at last. "What will be, will be. I've been in a harem where we had to act and pretend constantly. Men, especially when they're still young, aren't all that bright. It's easy to fool them. Playing houris in these gardens won't be that difficult either."

Vladimir Batrol, "Alamut"

The door to his quarters finally opened, but he wasn't eager to step inside. And yet there was nothing unpleasant to expect: The room seemed intact, and those few things he had kept stored on shelves were exactly where he had left them. There were no signs of a fight, either. The only thing that was oddly out of place was Rey, standing in the middle of the apartment in complete silence. She had bathed and changed into simple black clothes, prepared for her by the droids. Her hair was still curly and wet. When she heard him walking through the door she turned to face him. Although in her eyes he could no longer see the storm of thoughts and feelings, he spotted a particular glint, which—over the last few weeks—he had learned to recognize immediately, and which never meant anything good.

"I want to get my things back," she said instead of a greeting. "And I want you to take this thing off your face."

"I don't grant prisoners' wishes."

"Prisoners?" She snapped. "I gave up without a fight!"

"Indeed." He let out a snort of amusement, his voice distorted by the mask's modulator. "Because I told you that otherwise I would cut your beloved teacher's head off of his neck."

Rey didn't let him provoke her.

"I came here freely and I don't plan on escaping." The tone of her voice suddenly softened. "Give me my things back, Kylo."

Before he had a chance to think his arms lifted, his fingers instinctively looking for the button unlatching the complicated mechanism. He had this fleeting thought that it is exactly what she told him to do, but screw it, he needed air to breathe. With a hiss the mask was gone; with a metallic thud it fell to the floor.

"Your lack of respect for any rules… Your ignorance of any rules! It is…" He stopped, words already failing him. He made a gesture as if he wanted to shake his hands—something that Ben Solo used to do then he was distressed—but fortunately, he managed to stop himself.

She tried again. "We could talk this through."

"You are in no position to make such proposals!" he exclaimed. "You don't understand any of this, do you?"

She didn't, at all.

When he was a kid, C-3PO taught him chess rules. In the beginning he played with his mother; later he practiced on his own, and soon no one except for the droids could beat him. He enjoyed the times when Uncle Luke visited them. He never refused a match or two. Luke, raised on a desert planet, spent all his youth working on a farm. He knew only the basics of the game. Sometimes he managed surprisingly effective moves: seemingly absurd and irrational, moves that no droid would advise. Yet this unpredictability often gave him upper hand.

Every fight with Rey was just like a chess match. The most disgraceful, perhaps, was his failure on the surface of crumbling Starkiller Base, but their verbal duels were even worse. He felt that he was losing every time Rey decided to open her mouth.

Now it was her voice that brought back him to reality.

"I haven't tried to escape," she said, lowering her head. "And I can promise you that I won't do it. But I want to get my things back."

She looked him in the eye, and suddenly there was resolve in her gaze. As if she decided on a matter known only to her, she crossed the space between them in a couple of small but steady steps. He should have stopped her, yet somehow he didn't, and now she was standing inches away. She tilted her head, determined to see his face. He too could see her better: her skin darker in the places where the merciless sun touched her on Jakku, pale and delicate where the layers of fabric covered her arms. She was standing so close that he could smell the grey soap from her bath and an underlying scent of rust and grease. For a brief moment he wondered how long would it take to wash it off completely and if he would like it or not. But there was something more, something sweet, salty and undeniably feminine. Flavor that made him gasp for air.

His cheeks and ears were burning.

"You know I can give you whatever you want."

His own words reversed and voiced by her lips sounded crude. He used to think better of himself.

"That wasn't what I meant," he protested.

"I don't know many things," she said, "but I know some things for sure. I know about men and woman and how they fit together. I saw many travelers in Niima Outpost, and I saw how hungry they were. You may have a ship, guards and clothes made of silk, but you are no different. I know what it means, this look in your eyes. Don't lie to me."

He moved his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Without a warning she grabbed his tunic and tugged at it, forcing him to bend lower. He observed rather than felt as his body slowly gave in until he was practically bowing before her, and that was when her lips met his. He froze, his mind a flurry of incoherent thoughts, but then he pushed, their noses and teeth colliding as he forced his tongue clumsily into her mouth. She didn't seem to care. One of her small hands grabbed his wrist to guide his palm under the band of her trousers.

She didn't have underwear. He cursed against her lips and grabbed her thigh; it was soft under the touch. The higher his fingers went, the warmer her body seemed, until he reached her folds, wet and sticky. Without thinking he pushed deeper, too preoccupied to notice Rey's grimace. Yet when she let out a moan he noticed that one of her eyes was slightly open, still watching him carefully. He felt a sting of fear in the pit of his stomach, and he imagined for a second that something terrible might happen if he entered any further, like something sharp and pointed might await him there. This thought was ridiculous, but it stopped him. Rey blinked, disoriented.

Things were getting out of hand.

"My bedroom is behind that door on the left. Go there. Stand beside the bed," he ordered. "Now!"

Rey barely made it to the bed when she saw him approaching. She turned to face him.

"No. Turn around," he said. "Lay flat on your stomach."

She heard a clink of metal as he took off his belt and a rustle of cloth. He slipped his hands under her hips, grabbed her trousers, and yanked them down in few rough movements. She tried to change the position of her head to see him better, but he collapsed on her, pinning her to the mattress. He grabbed her wrists and held them tight; his mouth was on her ears, neck, his fever-hot body on top of her.

She felt his cock, hard and thick between her legs as he pushed, clueless and desperate, always missing, yet he repeated these uncoordinated attempts to the point where her thighs were totally wet. He moved his hand to hold her by the neck, then he grabbed her head, and finally he broke away from her in frustration, only to seize her hips with sweaty palms.

She could feel his weight shifting to the left, then to the right, and she imagined that probably he was trying to get a better look at her to figure out what to do.

"If this is the first time…"

"No more talking!" he barked, and dropped on her, but this time she didn't have a chance to come up with a response, because he entered her with one surprisingly effective and painful thrust. Rey stifled a cry of pain and tried to focus on her breathing, waiting for the sensation to recede.

Her body was a useful tool to her: strong legs that let her run fast and jump far distances, and that carried her through miles of desert land in search of goods. Nimble hands, seizing every crack and fissure in the walls she climbed, skillful fingers, able to find and extract treasures from wrecks. At the same time, her body served as a valuable currency that helped her survive when illness or injury made it impossible for her to work. Finally, it gave her pleasure when the outpost was visited by handsome boys from unknown lands who—just like her— didn't want to spend nights alone on this cursed planet. She gritted her teeth and decided to endure just like she always did.

All of it ended abruptly, just the way it had started. Kylo made few last awkward thrusts, then suddenly stopped. With a feral growl he fell, his limp body forcing all of the air out of her lungs, almost crushing her. His tunic was damp, his hair, now falling on her chin, was soaked with sweat.

For a moment she thought that she was really going to suffocate, but then he rolled on his side, taking her with him, wrapping her in a strong embrace. He curled around her and buried his face in her hair. They lay like that, without speaking, until Rey couldn't stand the awkwardness any longer.

"Kylo Ren!" she exclaimed. "You will give me my stuff back!"

She felt rather than heard him holding his breath, then, without a warning, he released her and stood up. He fastened his belt with shaking hands.

"Get dressed!"

She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, but obeyed. They didn't talk when Kylo put his mask on or when they walked out of the room, Kylo leading her through the corridors back to her cell. Rey's hair was tousled, her clothes disheveled, black pants stained and thighs sticky. If the stormtroopers guarding the entrance to her cell noticed a change in her appearance, they didn't show it in any way.

She stepped inside in silence, but she refused to look away from him. He made a move as if he wanted to leave, but stopped.

"Search her backpack," he ordered. "If you find anything that might help her escape, confiscate it. Her other things, apart from weapons, can be brought into the cell. Her lightsaber should be stored in the training room."

He avoided her gaze, a silent admission of defeat.

She smiled a little, an expression spiteful but hollow. Rey was born a fighter: she fought hard, gracelessly and dirty, and the wasteland of Jakku had made her a winner, not out of ambition or pride, but out of necessity. There were no second chances in the desert.

Kylo Ren was a killer. He knew death and suffering, but it was rather a matter of morals and choice for him, not survival. He had never spent a night outside during a sandstorm. He hadn't robbed the dying and or stolen from the dead. He was never thirsty, and he had never starved. But he had known a gentle touch and longed for it, a secret that made him weak and ultimately would make him yield. She knew that.