A little later, an announcement was made over the Sail Barge's intercom; they were halfway to the Pit of Carkoon. Shortly after, Jabba ordered Leia to dance for him. The Max Reebo Band played a colorful tune, casually paced but with enough of a step to its tempo that Leia's recently learned moves were able to keep up quite nicely as she twisted and writhed near the end of the throne, by his coiled, slithering tail. She really put some emphasis on her pelvis at she swung it back and forth, "bumping" her almost-exposed backside at times in tune with some of the drum fills, much to Jabba's approval. She liked dancing no more than when she had started her lessons a couple of weeks earlier—but she had to admit she was a lot better at it.

Once it was done, she turned back to Jabba and actually stared. He had another goblet of wine in his hand! How many had he had at this point? And then, more hopefully, she wondered just how much alcohol could a Hutt put away before he felt the effects? Hopefully not much more, she told herself. Leia suddenly realized that she had still not been given her own drink; perhaps—she hoped—Jabba had forgotten about delivering that little "reward."
She could imagine his intent in giving her something to drink; subdue her, make her do unforgiveable things…and it wouldn't be the first time. Drink up, she thought at the Hutt. See how you like losing consciousness. Her wish was a double-edged sword, however; after all, on one hand, she could hope that Jabba drank himself into a slumber…but if his previous bouts with having too much to drink were any indication, he might become rowdy, even violent, and that could make for some very unpleasant times as she "fulfilled her purpose." Leia suppressed a shudder at the memories.

Jabba then yanked her chain, and she came to him and pressed herself into his arms. He positively reeked of wine. He upended the goblet over his lips and sloppily guzzled its contents, then belched; it was a horribly loud, wet, smelly affair that made Leia, even now, having come so far in becoming accustomed to his loathsome touch, turn away with a flinch. "Care to take a look?" Jabba said, gesturing past Leia.
She parted her lips, a half-formed question materializing and dying on her tongue as she turned to see what he was pointing at. Not a table, not a guest, but…what?
"Your friends," Jabba said, and Leia froze and turned coldly back to him. "It's your last chance. They'll be gone soon, and you'll know your place is with me." He licked his lips, and Leia's heart suddenly became very, very heavy. Of course, Jabba would say something like that; he wanted Leia to be scared, to lose hope and faith. It was no doubt a part of his enslavement process; breaking more than just the body and the will of his captives, but their very desires to do anything except obey. Leia removed one hand from Jabba's belly and balled it into a fist by her side. We'll see about that, she swore.

"Go on!" Jabba shouted, and suddenly planted a hand against Leia's chest and pushed—hard. Leia was caught totally off-guard, and her arms swung wildly as she pitched backward. She yelped—then stopped, suddenly rocked forward, saw the chain for one glinting moment, taut in the air before Jabba's retracting arm. Then the chain was snapping into a crazy, serpentine shape as it took Leia's center of gravity in the opposite direction, and she pitched forward, landing against Jabba's flesh face first. Then her knees painfully struck the throne as she fell upon them, and she fell on her side with a groan. Above her, Jabba was laughing.
Leia rolled onto her knees again and pushed herself up, glaring at the beast. Nearby, several spectators to this painful display of humiliation were laughing; Anther and Forch were among them. Leia felt tears sting her eyes once again, and she pushed herself up to her feet. Jabba kept laughing at her, but he made no move to gather the slack.
Leia turned and jumped off the throne and walked the short distance between the throne and the hull of the Sail Barge, moving past a few glimpsing guests as she made her way toward the windows. She peered out past the upturned panel, saw the golden desert and blue sky passing by, and sighed. She couldn't even see anything. Behind her, Jabba was still laughing, but after a moment, he stopped. Then suddenly, there—a narrow, dark shape appeared. It was a land skiff; and there, on top, there was—a couple of guards.
Leia's heart felt like it shriveled up and dropped out of her chest. For the first time since her capture, Leia felt she truly hated Jabba, and hated him with a passion. He'd molested her; raped her, made her call him Master…made her learn to press up against him if he yanked on her chain…and now he was taunting her by telling her she had one last chance to see her friends—before he killed them, she reminded herself with fire—and only then revealed that there was nothing to be seen. Leia bit her lip…and felt herself begin to cry.
It wasn't fair; it was horribly, horribly unfair. How life, how the Force, could let such things—
She perked up with a sniffle.
There was another skiff.
There were several of them, she knew, as she'd gotten a glimpse around the hangar when Jabba was driving them both aboard the Sail Barge on his throne. But when she craned her neck and counted the seconds as it maneuvered around a dune, she became very, very still—for it was then that she saw a glimpse of white and black and—
"Han," she whispered.
There they were. The three of them.
Leia smiled; she couldn't help it—hell, she grinned, positively beamed when she realized that it was really them, that they were alive, well (it seemed), and—
Her smile faded.
Not for long, she realized. Not if Jabba has his way.
"Luke…" she whispered, and if he heard—or felt—her reaching out to him then, he didn't comment.

Jabba said something in a low, gleeful voice, and the chain jingled. Leia ignored it, but a moment later the chain pulled slightly, and she turned and glared back at Jabba; still drunk, still drinking, he mumbled something and chuckled; if anything, the tug was an accident, and Leia turned back to the window.
It looked like Luke and Han were talking. Leia squinted; it was hard to see at this distance, some shifting hundred or so yards away; she parted her lips, and almost could discern Lando smirking about something that Luke had said, the confident swagger back on the smuggler's face; she wondered if he was still half-blind from the Carbonite freeze—
A hard, painful tug on Leia's chain brought her back from the window with a choked yelp.
Leia staggered back, grabbing at the collar and twisting instinctively around to avoid being choked again. She grunted as she almost ran into someone, almost fell forward; she caught herself, took a big leap up onto the throne—
—and only as she rose up before Jabba did she realize what she was doing, even after all her impassioned awakening of hate of the Hutt. All at once, she straightened and pressed her half-naked body into his, dimpling his belly with knee and pelvis alike, her ponytail whipping round her bare shoulders to the side of her bosom, the wet squishing sound of pulpy, greasy, slime-dribbled and wine-slippery flesh most repulsively loud as it pressed against her—and she against it.

She had obeyed him like she would have on any other occasion…because it was what she was supposed to do.
She closed her eyes from the shame she felt pressing against her where disgusting Huttese flesh did not, opening them only when she suddenly felt something touching her back—something rough and narrow and sharp somehow—and she realized suddenly that it was a hand. She dared not look to see to whom it belonged; she had a guess that Bib and Jabba had laid aside their differences, and that the majordomo was trying to be of assistance once again.
Why, why, why? Why was she acting so weak? She hated Jabba; she knew that now. She knew that her friends were on their way to certain deaths, and even if they somehow miraculously made it—be it the work of Luke's carefully-laid plan or blind dumb luck—they had been put into that situation by the very beast before her…the very beast that she had come running to like a trained…pet. Leia sighed and looked away again.

"Soon,"Jabba said, low with venomous intent, all signs of his drunkenness gone from his voice, "you will learn to appreciate me." Leia turned and saw that his goblet was once again full, and he held it closely to their faces in a shaky hand.
Leia glanced at Jabba's mouth, watching for any other words, then turned to look at his huge amber eyes. His wrinkled lids narrowed, causing his irises to swell into dark pits, and then they shifted slightly to the right. Leia followed them, saw they were looking at the goblet…
...which he curiously held sideways…
"Augh!" Leia barked as the first of the wine splashed onto her chest. She yelped even louder as the shock of the liquid, the action, the intent all overcame her, and Jabba began to laugh.

Nearby, there was a clatter of metal on metal—not Leia's chain, but something else—followed by the clatter of spilled dishes. There was a rise of familiar pairing of a voice and a series of beeps…but Leia didn't pay attention to the conversation that followed.
Leia tried to push herself away, to arch her back and get her messy upper body away from Jabba, but Bib's hand pressed more firmly between her shoulder blades, and she flinched at the painful pinches of his talons on her flesh.

Before her, Jabba licked his lips…and then, very abruptly, her breasts. Leia groaned in repulsion and tried to pull back again, and was again met with the pain of Bib's claw. "Perhaps," came the Twi'Lek's disquieting whisper, "you would do best to let your Master have his way with you. He's been more than accommodating for you today."
Leia suppressed a glare at Bib, partly to avoid any more trouble than she was getting and partly because Jabba's tongue had narrowed into a long, dribbling cone that slid most grotesquely up and down between her bikini-clasped breasts. A whimpering "Nnhhh…" was the only sound Leia could make.
Bib inquired something, and Jabba's huge head nodded, puffing hot, rank air straight from his throat, making Leia nauseous. She felt Bib's other hand suddenly also on her back, off to the side…tickling as it crept and probed and felt and—"Ow!" –pinched its way beneath her armpit…finding where one of the crossed straps on her back was fastened to the gold bands that kept her top in place!
"No!" Leia hissed, reaching up to grab at Bib's hand.

Then there was a pressure of something pushing on her butt, and before she could protest again, a powerful sensation as two long, fat digits pushed into her buttock. Leia cried out… she dropped her hand to his and grabbed it…but she didn't make a move to remove it.
Bib undid her strap, then removed his other hand from Leia's back. She made no move to pull away. She didn't try to stop Bib as he reached for the other strap and worked it loose. She just lowered her head, face contorted with whimpering sobs, as the gold-framed cups were lifted away from her wine-splattered breasts.

"What are you?" the Hutt suddenly asked her, and Leia grew very quiet.
He had asked her this before; several times, in fact. It was the first in a series of questions he'd ask her to show her loyalty to him, and Leia had learned how to get around them…but it was never easy. The first time she was confused, and in a world of disgust and pain and fear; she hadn't known how to answer. The second and third times, she had been told what to say by fearful (and sometimes disturbingly confident) slaves in the Dancer Pit, but she had flat-out refused to repeat it to the Hutt. The fourth or…maybe up through the sixth times, she hadn't answered, but hadn't shouted her protests as she had before. In the past week and a half, however, she'd learned that sometimes, an answer was better than none, and so she'd started to say it. But when she said it now, she felt something loosen in her, something distressingly mobile, something that lifted the words far above being merely words. Still, she pressed on, knowing the routine.
"What are you?" Jabba repeated, his voice harder as he dragged his fingertips along the most sensitive areas inside Leia, and she yelped loudly.
"I-I'm a slave!" Leia hissed. "I'm a slave."

It wasn't true, she reminded herself. It was just to give Jabba what he wanted to hear. It worked, because Jabba went right on to the next question in this game.
"Who's slave?"
"Y—"Leia's word turned into a loud, warbling moan as Jabba pushed his fingers, still spread out, deeply up inside her. When she had the chance, she took it: "Yours…."
Fingers narrowed and slid slowly down. "What am I?"
"Mmm…"Leia whimpered, her chin trembling. "Muh...muh-hy..." Come on, say it already, she urged herself. "…my...Master."
His fingers pushed into her buttock again, hard. Jabba didn't ask the next question; Leia didn't need to hear it to say the last part.
"You're...my…Master." Leia closed her eyes and felt tears come again as she finished the exchange. "I'm your slave…and you're my Master."

"Remember that," Jabba said. He removed his fingers and placed his hands on Leia's bottom and pressed her closer to himself and he began licking her face.

Leia was once again his in moments; she turned her head away, unable to think of anything but the conflicting feelings surging through her body and soul.
And when she came for Jabba, for what would ultimately be the last time, she vowed right then and there that if—when, when—Luke's plan unfolded, she'd be ready. No matter what Jabba had done to her, no matter what he was still doing to her, no matter what he may yet do in the hours ahead…by the power of the Force, Leia would be ready.