When in Mon Cala...
Somewhere on Mon Cala
Next, they were led back up the narrow stairway and over to a large rotunda set northeast from where they had eaten and undressed. This time, thankfully, when their hosts guided them by the shoulders and indicated where they should stand, they found themselves facing away from one another - back to back.
Leia then found herself surrounded by several female quarren. They were all holding squat, open containers with a thick, murky substance inside. The one female who had been their host said something in her native language and then dipped her fingers into the murky substance and slathered it down Leia's right arm. It was cool yet abrasive and its odor was pungent and citrusy. Some sort of exfoliant, Leia surmised. The hostess seemed to be waiting for some signal and Leia nodded to indicate her consent.
At around the same time she heard Han say from behind her, "Sure, go ahead. Knock yourselves out."
The quarren worked silently. Rubbing the gritty substance all over Leia's body. At times the pressure and roughness was intense and Leia considered trying to sign or stumble around for the word "softer". In the end she decided to bravely endure it, taking deep breaths and searching for the pleasure in this odd experience.
Once she resigned herself to it, the ritual was relaxing in its own way. Different from the steam bath but still...oddly satisfying. The only area they avoided on her body was the peaks of her nipples and the section of skin covered by her thin sarong.
When they were finished, Leia wouldn't have been surprised to find several layers of her skin decorating the floor beneath her, like a verpine serpent during shedding season. But they didn't allow her to investigate the area very closely. The other quarrens were already starting to clean up while her host handed her a bucket and motioned toward a raised area off in the distance.
Han's host had done the same and he turned to look at her, bucket in hand. His gaze traveled the length of her body and back up as he said, "I can't say that putrid paste is the best look on you, Princess."
He was covered with the dark, slimy substance, too. The whites of his eyes and his teeth the only thing about him that wasn't darkened and muddy. "I'd have to say the same to you," she agreed.
"Shall we rinse?" He asked with a wide, white, toothy grin.
"Let's."
They walked together and climbed up the few steps onto a raised dais. There was a large, deep fountain there with several spouts in the shape of indigenous marine animals, clear water spewing from their opened mouths. In spite of the clear water coming from the spigots, the water inside the fountain was dark and ominous looking.
Leia surveyed the situation and tried to deduce what was expected of them for this next leg of their journey.
"Are we supposed to pour the buckets over our heads?" Han asked, apparently doing the same figuring as Leia had been.
"I don't know," she looked around. The area they were in, like the rest of the bathhouse, was meticulously clean and didn't seem designed for them to shower in.
"Bakka," one of the quarren called over to them and clapped his hands together and motioned like a fish diving down. "Bakka," he repeated.
"In?" Leia replied, pointing down at the dark water.
"Bakka," the quarren repeated, nodding his head.
She looked over to Han. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Bakka?"
Leia looked down into the fountain. This was ridiculous. The only good thing about all this ceremony and confusion was that she had almost forgotten that she and Han were still practically naked.
"Bakka it is," she replied, placing her bucket down on the ledge of the fountain and stepping gingerly over and into the water.
The water was pleasantly warm, just a fraction or two above normal body temperature and Leia gratefully sunk into its inviting warmth. It was deeper than she had imagined, the surface of the water coming up to her chin if she crouched down onto her haunches. And there must've been some mineral property that activated the exfoliating substance on their skin, because it began to tingle and sloth off easily when she ran her hand along her arms and legs. She splashed her face with it and tasted the salty tang on her lips, rubbing the slippery substance away with her hands.
Han was mimicking what Leia was doing and she watched as he stuck his head under one of the clear water spigots and then tilted his face up and tasted it. "It's from a spring," he said, shaking the water from his hair. "It's good, taste it."
Leia repeated what Han had done and then went back for more. She hadn't eaten or drank anything like he had at that table and she was thirsty and getting hungrier by the minute.
When she looked back at Han he was contorting himself trying to get the exfoliant off of his back.
"Here," she said, gliding over towards him, keeping her body beneath the water.
She ran her hands along the plane of his back, over his shoulder blades, up his neck and down his flanks. The dark substance was coming off easily but she still found that it took at least two or three passes before she could convince herself to call the job complete.
She liked the way her alabaster skin looked against his tanned back. She imagined the contrast of their full bodies pressed against each other. Her chest against his. Bellies pressed against one another. Her arms around his neck. His fingers spread across her hip, thumb digging into her hip bone.
She let her hands slide away and down into the water.
"Done?" Han asked, turning around.
Leia nodded, sinking into the murky water, her chin dipping down into the water when she did so.
"Want me to repay the favor?"
She looked at him. There had already been a measure of trust agreed upon between the two of them during the steam bath. But this seemed like another line to cross. Somehow his hands on her pushed the envelope into a whole other stratosphere that her hands on him had not. Once again, she wondered at the fairness of that. How was her touching him any less intrusive than him touching her? It wasn't. It was just that it would be happening to her and she wouldn't be in control.
"C'mon," he said. "I can tell you're overthinking it and I know you're not going to walk around with black goo on your back all day, so just…" He made a swirling motion with his finger. "Turn around."
She silently and obediently complied.
Her eyes closed when his fingertips first touched her. His touch was exhilarating, like jumping into the cool waters of Lake Aldera. And it was comforting, like a warm cup of kaffe by a fireplace. But it was also frightening. Like the empty space left in the solar system where Alderaan had been. Her feelings fragmented. Swirling around in space. Absent of the calming constant of a gravitational pull.
His body was closer to hers now. His hands, as hers had done, were gliding across the planes of her shoulder blades, moving her hair away from the nape of her neck, tracing a fingertip down the column of her spine and wrapping long fingers around the curve of her rib cage. As she felt him reach around to slide his palm across her belly she allowed it for longer than was probably appropriate, leaning her back against his chest, sinking into his warmth. Her head resting against his shoulder as she accepted a gentle kiss against her temple.
But when his large hand brushed against the bottom of her breast, she pulled away from him. "Thank you," she said, glancing back at him and running her hands along the length of her arms.
"You okay?" he asked, his tone tentative and laced with concern.
"Yeah," she said, meaning it.
Whatever this was between her and Han wouldn't be figured out here today and she was perfectly capable of centering herself in a universe where there might be something to figure out between her and Han and leaving it at that for awhile.
"How about you?" she said, putting a teasing lilt to her question. Smiling and trying her best to burst the oppressive bubble of awkwardness that had settled around them.
He smiled a wolfish grin and said, "Alright," with a shrug. "That rotten corpse thing was a stroke of genius. I'm amassing quite the body count, though."
She laughed, not daring to touch the unwanted pregnancy angle with a hundred centim pole. "I'll take that as a compliment."
He winked at her and then said, "What do you think happens now?"
Leia turned her neck to look around. "I'm almost afraid to ask."