I didn't know that I was starving 'til I tasted you

Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo

By the way, right away you do things to my body

I didn't know that I was starving 'til I tasted you

-Hailee Steinfeld/Gray – "Starving"

His whole life, once he got out of the throwing dirt clods stage, he's pretty much been a stickler about grooming. A neat and tidy appearance does attract the partners, after all, and for a man dedicated to the giving and receiving of pleasure, attraction is key. It's been a daily struggle here though, since it takes Kara's heat vision to provide him with a haircut and the clothes he wears do not have the clean lines and complimentary silhouette to which he's accustomed. So he settles for staying clean, his hair neatly combed and dirt scraped from beneath his fingernails.

But this time, stepping into the shower in the men's locker room, is like sticking his hand into the mouth of a rabid Glarbeast. Mon-El can still smell her on him – her desire, her sweat, her own unique scent, and he'd rather cut off his own arm than wash that away. But he has little choice. He has somewhere he needs to be in an hour and, according to J'onn, he should attempt to look his best.

"If you were any quieter I'd think you were the one that was dead," the achingly familiar voice says

"You do enough talking for the both of us, Ral," Mon-El retorts.

Morgon-Ral had died long ago in the fall of Daxam, his body given back to the Gods of Val-Or while Mon-El drifted, asleep, through the Well of Stars, slowly finding his way to Earth. Though it had been three decades since last he saw his friend, to Mon-El it felt like mere weeks. They had been companions, brothers in bond, since childhood. No one knew him like Ral, and no one knew Ral like he did.

He couldn't talk to anyone on this planet about Kara, about his growing feelings for her, not unless he wished to alienate every last one of them. So, his still-grieving mind created the construct of Ral, not unlike the hologram of her mother to whom Kara regularly speaks.

"I was right, wasn't I?" Ral asks, a slow smile spreading across his cherubic face like spilled honey. "About it being different."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mon-El denied.

"Then why didn't you leave?" Ral points out. "She fell asleep hours before; you could have left at any time. You always leave…as soon as you've exhausted them. You were the master of sneaking away unnoticed. But this time…" Ral chuckles, "this time you left a tribute. And that is not like you."

"Fine! It was different, okay?"

"Why do you have to make this so hard?" Ral wonders. "The only person you're hurting is yourself. It's not like I care about being right. Not anymore at least."

"What if-?"

"She asked you to stay, didn't she?" Ral challenges.

"She never said she wanted more," Mon-El argues. "Besides, she was emotional afterwards, not thinking clearly. Maybe she just wanted to be held. Women can be like that sometimes."

"Sometimes women can also have emotions and make clear choices about what they want at the same time. In fact, sometimes that's when they make the best choices. Emotional or not, it looked to me like she knew exactly what she wanted, my friend. So, congratulations on a plan well executed. Well played on the sad-little-boy gambit, by the way. 'I'm all alone in the world. Hold me'. Masterful," Ral crows, his voice laced with admiration.

"That wasn't a gambit, Ral!" Mon-El protests.

"I know," Ral replies, suddenly solemn. "I was just busting you, that's all. You're so serious all the time now; I hardly recognize you."

"You try losing your entire world and everyone you ever loved!" Mon-El shouts, his voice echoing off the tile and concrete walls. Of its own accord, his hand forms into a fist and the next thing he knows a section of white tile from the shower is shattering around it, ceramic shards raining down on his feet. Shocked by his outburst, Mon-El stares at his clenched fist and the hole in the shower wall, his racing breath struggling to normalize. "See how jovial you feel."

"I think I know what's going on here."

"Oh, I just can't wait to hear this," Mon-El says, the weight of heavy sarcasm in his voice. Reluctantly, he lathers his hands with the bar of utilitarian, multi-purpose soap and begins to meticulously eradicate the memory of last night from his skin.

"You're having trouble accepting that she might want you; this breathtaking woman who is, let's face it, so out of your league she's playing a different sport. But that's not what's giving you trouble. I mean, you're accustomed to that; bedding women based on nothing more than the strength of your charm and that ridiculous smile, or—and it pains me to bring this up—your ranking at court. More than a few ladies tried to position themselves closer to the crown.

"Ral," Mon-El grinds out. It's a warning for Ral to school his words; the action a ghost from better times.

"I've never given you anything but the truth, brother, no matter how much it cost me, and I'm not going to stop now just because I'm dead. Besides, I'm not saying anything that you don't already know on some level."

Mon-El swipes his sudsy hands through his wet hair and lathers the foam cleanser through it, hoping the action will drown out the sound of Ral's slightly imperious voice.

"You can't accept that she might want you even though you have so little to offer; no currency, no bloodline, no titles, no position at court."

"I got it!"

"You're just a simple man now, with naught but his heart to give." Ral throws a courtly gesture, covering his heart with his hand in an overly romantic way, before the smile evaporates from his face. "But worst of all, you've got it stuck in your head that you don't deserve her because of what happened on Daxam. Don't look now, but I think someone's letting emotion cloud his judgment."

"Are you done?" Mon-El snaps.

"Do you really want me go?"

"No," Mon-El replies after a moment of silence, his shoulders slumping. "What am I supposed to do, Ral?"

"You have to find a way to get past this. Find your path. Assimilate. Your old life is gone, brother, and it's never coming back. The days of free-flowing Zakarian ale at the endless banquet feast are over and it's imperative that you accept that. You must make this place your home if you want to prove to her that you can be what she needs. "

"So I'm just supposed to forget?" Mon-El's heart constricts at the thought of letting go of even the smallest part of the things he loved.

"Nobody's saying that," Ral shakes his head. "Beyulat Daxam, brother. But you're re-reading the same chapter over and over, when there's so much more left to your story. Turn the page – that's all I'm saying. Turn just one page and then maybe the next one will be easier, and then the next and the next."

Mon-El stands under the stream of hot water, steam surrounding him and filling his lungs as he considers Ral's advice. He's stumbled around this planet since he got here, only attempting to belong when it suited him, afraid to let go of the life he lead before as if it might somehow come back to him, catching him unawares.

Somewhere inside, he knows that's not the kind of man Kara needs; a beggarly refugee, half in this world and half out. She needs someone to stand by her side and to be there for her. And how can he do that, if he's barely here himself?

"I can't lose her," he mumbles, more to himself than to his companion.

"Then listen to your far superior friend," Ral butts in, "and stop trying to kill this thing before it's really started because of some misguided notion that you don't deserve to be alive. The gods have a plan for you."

"The gods!" Mon-El scoffs.

"Laugh all you want, but I've seen the signs—which means you've seen them too."

"Signs?"

"Don't play dumb. Has it occurred to you that if you and Kara had met before the destruction of Krypton she would have still been a child? Then while she was on Earth growing into a fine young woman—and I do mean fine—you were drifting through the Well of Stars in stasis. It's like the gods were just waiting for the right moment. When you entered Earth's atmosphere you could have landed anywhere on this planet, another country even. But did you? No…you landed right here in National City, home of one Kara Danvers, the angel that opened your pod."

"That doesn't mean the gods of Val-Or exist."

"Some things never change," Ral chuckles. "Even dead, I do love having this argument with you. You're going to believe in something one day. Even if it's not the gods of Val-Or."

"I believe in Kara," Mon-El professes.

"That's a good start," Ral nods.

Mon-El swallows thickly, recalling the power born inside of him during their lovemaking the night before, and wishing he could still be cradled between her thighs now. Standing under the shower of never ending hot water, he leans forward and places he forehead against the cooler tile, considering everything he'd learned last night, both about himself and about her as well.

"Are you going to tell her?" Ral asks, soberly.

Requiring no clarification because it had just been hovering on the outskirts of his conscious thought. It is knowledge he's been struggling with since holding her in his arms, basking in their afterglow. Mon-El replies, "No."

"Is that the wisest choice?"

"Don't you think it will seem a little self-serving?" Mon-El wonders, trapped between what he wants and what he knows is right.

"Someone could get hurt and if that happens you will lose her trust forever."

"I would never let it come to that."

"It starts here," Ral insists, his voice rough and regal in Mon-El's ears. "Being the kind of man she needs means making the right choices, even when they're hard. Even when it means things don't always fall in your favor. Isn't that what you wanted my help with in the first place?"

"I just don't know—"

"She will never be able to take her pleasure with a human man. Not unless she wishes to make him a eunuch. She needs to know that."

"I know," Mon-El snaps, his entire body turning rigid, jaw clenching. He runs a hand through his wet hair, turns around and slumps against the tile, his back to wall. "I know. I just…I just want her to choose me," Mon-El confesses. "Not because I'm her only viable option."

"Did something special happen between you last night?" Ral asks, on the razor's edge of prosecutorial. "When you held her in your arms, gave her pleasure and took your own, did something happen inside of you? Did it open your eyes, brother? Show you the art in a light you've never seen before?"

"Yes."

"Then trust that. Always choose what is best for her, and not yourself. Do that…and I promise she will never see you for anything but the man she needs."

"I want that," Mon-El nods. "For her to always look at me the way she did when I was inside her."

"And you can have it. But not if you run from her now." A slow shift takes place then, the stern intensity in Ral's his eyes shifts to a sparkle and a wide lascivious grin spreads across his cherubic face, and he chuckles deep in his chest. "Besides…how can you leave her now, when there's so much left to teach her?"

"She learns quickly," Mon-El agrees, his melancholic fog lifting slightly.

"Such a sweet, natural submissive you've found. It was magnificent how she surrendered to you. What could possibly be more intoxicating than a woman who can throw you against a wall with one hand, yet will spread her legs for you without question? What I wouldn't give to hear wicked words of pleasure spill from her mouth. 'Fuck'," Ral says, testing the word, hitting the 'k' hard. "It's such a divine word for the art, so primitive and guttural. Altogether satisfying, don't you think? Won't it sound lovely coming from her ripe mouth?"

Mon-El groans as Ral rambles words that burn fire in his loins. He vividly remembers Kara's willingness to comply with his desires, even the ones he hadn't specifically requested. He recalls the way she innocently took him in her mouth, listening intently to his instructions as he tutored her between harsh breaths, his hand sifting through her hair, her head bobbing up and down over his desperate cock. Mon-El remembers her guileless smile of conquest when she accepted all of him and swallowed every last drop.

"Brother, if you don't train your Kryptonian goddess you'll never forgive yourself. Val-Or! I'll never forgive you!"

"She is everything I ever wanted, but didn't believe could exist in one person."

"No wonder you'd take more than one partner to bed so often," Ral waggled his eyebrows.

"I gave up on finding satisfaction in one person."

"But not anymore, it seems. I see your goddess is in your thoughts even now." Ral indicates Mon-El's cock, now standing at rapt attention. "You should take care of that, there's not much time before you have to dress and leave. As you no longer have need of me, I'll just—"

Ral withdrew, leaving Mon-El in the shower with a rigid cock and masturbation his only outlet. To most Daxamites, including Mon-El, it was a repugnant task after reaching adulthood, considered selfish in a culture that revered the exchange of pleasure between two or more parties. But he is no longer on Daxam, and the only partner with whom he wishes to exchange pleasure is Kara Zor-El, who is unfortunately not present to tend to his problem.

Soaping up his hand to provide slick lubrication, he begins by caressing his stiff member, imagining Kara's delicate fingers running along the thick, sensitive vein on the underside and then passing her thumb over the weeping, bulbous head. He leans his head against the tile wall and allows the steam to envelop him, drawing him into his fantasy.

He imagines her kneeling before him and wrapping her lips around his length, before sucking him in all the way to the back of her throat. Circling his forefinger to his thumb at the base, he pictures Kara's lips riding up and down the shaft as he ruts mildly into her mouth. Mon-El bites his bottom lip to suppress the groan rising to his throat.

In his fantasy, he fists his hand in her hair and urges her to her feet. After a languid heated kiss he turns her around to face the wall, pressing her shoulders until she's bent over before him. Taking his cock in his hand completely, Mon-El imagines plunging into her with little preamble, pleased to find her clutch wet and ready. He can hear her cries of pleasure in his ears, distant memories borrowed from the night before and growing fainter with each use.

He speeds his hand, gripping and sliding his fist along the steel of his cock, trying to find the best rhythm. The right rhythm, which will make him forget that he isn't buried in her perfectly greedy core. The fantasy fades like the steam as the water grows colder. He jerks and pulls at his cock in a mad attempt to replicate her perfection, but can find only a poor substitute of sensation.

The pressure in his balls grows until all he can do is drive toward his hollow climax, his chest aching to be inside of her once more. When he comes, it's with a lackluster precision and a dismal groan; a clinical act devoid of the newly uncovered emotions or the sense of fulfillment he experienced with her last night. His seed spills to the tiled floor and—wasted—spins down the drain.

He should feel better, more relaxed, but his desire for her seems to be about as impenetrable as his skin and the release has barely dented the surface, because the desire itself has so little do with the physical. Shutting off the shower spigot, Mon-El is enveloped in the chilly air of the gym locker room, its concrete walls providing poor insulation to keep in the heat. He reaches for a white towel and wraps it securely around his waist, knowing one thing for certain as he steps out of the shower.

That Kara Zor-El has ruined him.

She could shower at speed if she wanted to—if she had to—but this morning, that is not the case. Showers are her sanctuary; a place where no demands are placed upon her and few expectations need to be met beyond the cleansing of her body and the rejuvenation of her mind. Here she can take the time to think.

After washing her hair, she works the conditioner meticulously through the long, thick tresses and then leaves it to sit. While the conditioner works its magic, she pours violet scented shower gel onto her fluffy red body sponge and squeezes it until the suds are worked into a fine lather. Every inch of her skin is sensitized unlike ever before as she moves the lathered sponge over her arms, around her neck, and down her belly.

It's as if Mon-El has turned her on in more ways the one. Completely unaware, Kara Danvers had been walking through life wrapped in cotton batting that had nothing do with the radiation from the yellow sun. Suddenly, she's aware of the spot at the back of her neck that sends a shudder through her when caressed, or the sliver of skin between her belly button and her thatch that has her breath hitching in her throat when she swipes it with the sponge.

Alex had been right. Mon-El had opened a new world to her last night, and she had been ill-prepared for its after effects. She can't imagine that any virgin, for good or for bad, could ever be properly prepared for the feelings that follow the loss of their innocence.

She understands that, for many, the loss of virginity is an event they'd rather not dwell upon, but for Kara that is not the case. Her mind floods with images and sounds burned indelibly in her mind. She can't help but cup her own breasts when she recalls the way he'd fondled them, teasing the nipples until they feel a semblance of the frenzy of need he had built within her.

Before losing her virginity Kara's body would regularly reach a state of tension that begged for the kind of release that comes with masturbation. But had she never felt like she had been dipped in kerosene and set aflame like she did at this moment – like she had last night. She had never felt like a cuckoo clock wound so tight the springs and cogs threaten to fragment.

He had brought her to the peak four times last night, first stoking her desire and then ardently coaxing forth each climax. By rights she should feel the relaxed tranquility of post-coital bliss so often talked about in books and shown on television. Instead, however, her tension is cranked higher than ever before and she needs release once more. Mon-El had opened floodgates within her, a store of sexual energy, which she hadn't known lay buried within.

Her soapy hands travel over the canvas of her skin, pretending that he's there with her, worshiping her body while whispering soft words about her beauty and perfection. Words he gave her last night. Her core throbs with want, starving for him and begging to devour the silk and steel of his cock.

Kara slips her fingers into her wet folds, finding her clit with practiced ease and pressing against it until a shot of white-hot electricity flashes out from her core, spreading to all of her limbs. It steals her breath, but the forgotten shock of it has her crying out his name.

Kara places one hand the shower tiles for support as the press-and-circle of her finger around the bundle of hypersensitive nerves weakens her at the knees. "Oh, God!" she hisses, her throat swallowing air as if it's abruptly become a rare commodity. She bites her lip in concentration her body hungrily reaching out for its impending detonation. It eludes her like a wisp of mist that slips through her fingers.

Needing more, she ups the ante by sliding a finger into the greedy grasp of her entrance and pumping it in and out a few times. She tries to imagine that the digit is Mon-El's but his fingers are longer and more dexterous than hers. Her body refuses to be fooled.

She adds another finger searching for that divine stretch, that feeling of oneness that filled her when he entered her. She recalls wondering if his length and girth would fit within her untried passage, only to feel, when he entered her, like she'd never before been so deeply connected to another person. Beyond the mere casing of their separate skins, there was no discerning where she ended and he began.

Adding a third finger to her endeavor, it becomes increasingly clear that her body will accept no substitute. Kara replays the sound of Mon-El groaning as he labored over her, grunting as he doubled-down on his efforts and finally a deep, resonating growl when his on climax struck. But none of it pushes her over the edge like it should.

Back to her clit, she toys with the bundle, vibrating her own finger against it until the build within her reaches a painful fever pitch. At last, she topples over the edge, falling a disappointingly short distance back to reality. Her orgasm is dismal and unsatisfying, leaving her with the same amount of sexual tension as when she started.

Kara turns and leans back, her head against the tile wall, swiping away a stream of water from her flushing face. Her knees give way beneath her and she slides to the floor. Nothing else—no one else—will do, she realizes; only him. Him. In the beginning her plan had been for Mon-El to rid her of her virginity, so that she could be open to a sexual relationship with anyone of her choosing. But somewhere in the candlelit darkness of her bedroom last night, her carefully considered plan had quite thoroughly backfired.

She could no longer be open to just anyone, because no amount of denial would bury the fact that, at times, he had used his abilities to facilitate their lovemaking. To make it better for her. No human man can provide that, she knows. Perhaps she could have sex with a human, but her pleasure would be muted without his strength and speed.

Not to mention, she would have to spend every moment aware of the fragility of her lover. A human partner might offer emotion and attraction, perhaps even connection, but it would never be true intimacy. The kind of intimacy that would give her the freedom to lose control without fear – to surrender control with complete trust. Kara draws her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her shins, tucking her forehead into the crook there. After only one night together, she is certain of one immutable fact.

That Mon-El of Daxam has ruined her.