Starla's Crush - Book 2 Part 1 (Patreon)

Book 2

Chapter 1

“Janey, is it okay?”

“Ali! It’s sooooo good!” Jane moaned.

“You always say that!”

“Because you do it so well!”

“Honestly, girl, I can’t believe you grew up on a farm, and you have no idea how to cook!” Ali plated some over easy eggs and home fries onto Jane’s breadcrumb laden paper plate. She stabbed another potato cube with one of Ali’s plastic forks.

“Ali, we’ve been over this so many times!” Jane replied nervously.

“I mean, it’s just toast and butter and jam! I just push the button on the toaster! What on earth were you making!?”

Not this conversation again! How was Jane supposed to explain that she never had to eat, and that she never actually figured out how a damn toaster worked? Turns out her eye lasers were not properly calibrated to scorch bread properly, instead turning it into ash.

She poured a load of salt onto the perfectly fried egg. Ali grimaced.

“Mmmm! The yolk is so gooey!” Jane gushed.

“I have no idea how you can eat that,” Ali replied flatly.

Jane stabbed a crunchy yet soft square of potato, swirled it in ketchup, salt, yolk, and chewed it with relish.

“You know, if there’s something you want me to try and make, I can give it a shot,” Ali offered.

Jane paused, nearly choking on her overseasoned fried starch.

“Really Ali!? You’d do that for me!?” she asked, spittle flying out of her super mouth. The Gwent family recipe book, handed down for generations, had been one of Joanna’s most treasured possessions.

“God Jane, did you not learn manners!? Chew with your mouth closed!”

Jane covered her mouth with chagrin. “I’d love it if you would…” she mumbled through her closed hand.

“Sure babe. I’d love to try. Your place after school?”

Ali leafed the spiral ring-bound notebook until she found one she liked the sound of: pot roast. They bought all the ingredients after their humanities and current events courses and settled in at Ali’s apartment to prepare. Jane had no cookware or seasonings at her place, which Ali found appalling.

They left the news broadcast running as Ali prepped all the food. She’d long since learned that Jane was absolutely useless in the kitchen.

“In world news, the terrorist organization known as ESAI has taken over the capital of Alidbar. The coup was brutal and efficient. We still do not have a body count…”

Jane watched in horror at the footage unfolding before her. Ali let all of her contempt spill out as she diced vegetables.

“I cannot believe that nobody is doing anything about that!” Ali cried in outrage as she deftly chopped onions and carrots into hearty portions.

“Can you explain to me what’s going on?” Jane asked. “You know I’m not good at world events like you are, and you guys talk about it in your classes.” It was true. Starla was a more local hero.

“They finally put in a democracy for 2 years, and it just turns into this!” Ali’s knife slammed into the cutting board loudly. “The extremist religious nuts are back! Just when women were getting the right to vote, to not have to cover their faces when they go outside, when people could begin to exercise their voice…”

Jane focused on the horrors unfolding on the screen as Ali continued her tirade while searing vegetables in her cast iron. Perhaps Starla should go global…? She clenched her pretty little fist, feeling her neverending power flow through her veins with just a tiny squeeze.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud sizzle and a plume of smoke from the kitchen.

“Ali, are you okay?!”

Jane rushed over with her superspeed, making intimate contact with her girlfriend’s body, ready to whisk her away and cool off the fire with her superbreath.

“Whoa! Jane! I thought you were on the couch! Yeah, I’m fine! Doesn’t this smell good?”

Ali was holding the large cut of roast with a pair of metal tongs, letting it get nice and brown on each side.

“Oh shoot! I forgot to season it! Jane, hold these for a moment, will you? I don’t want you touching the salt! And for god’s sake, don’t burn it or something!”

Jane grabbed onto the metal bit of the tongs, cradling the roast if it were some sort of sensitive, deadly object.

Ali came back with the salt and pepper.

“Jane! Isn’t that hot?!?! Hold the rubber end! Away from the smoke!”

“Hmm? Oh!” She quickly shifted her grip.

“Geez! Are you okay? Let me see your hand!”

“Als, I’m fine! Promise!” Jane wiggled her pristine fingers for Ali’s examination.

“I can't believe it. What are your fingers made of, asbestos?!” She gently tapped the heated metal. “Yowch!!”

“Ha ha, farm hands, I guess…” Jane explained unconvincingly, considering her hands were so beautifully smooth and even.

“Okay girl… well… I’m going to salt and pepper it.”

She gave the roast a thorough dusting of salt and pepper on all sides as Jane turned it. When they had achieved a nice outer sear and accrued some fond on the cast iron, Jane watched in fascination as Ali de-glazed it with a gurgling bottle of red wine. The dark liquid sizzled and hissed, emitting a fragrant plume of steam that lifted all of the flavors of previously seared root vegetables and charred meat off the bottom of the pan, combined elegantly as Ali whisked vigorously. Then, she added all of the pre-prepped ingredients back in, tossed in some dried herbs, and set the whole hearty brew in the oven.

“Is that it?” Jane asked.

“Yup. Now we wait. Are you going to be hungry? It’s going to be… shit! 3 to 4 hours!”

“What about, you know, just increasing the temperature of the oven?” Jane asked innocently, her eyes glowing subconsciously. This was how she did everything, after all.

“Don’t tell me. Is this why all your food gets burnt! Jane, girl, sometimes, I think you are the dumbest person I know! You can’t rush this!”

“What!? Really? I thought it was just, y’know, math…”

“Oh my god! Please never cook again!”

Ali play-slapped Jane’s harder-than-steel arm, then winced and cradled her hand.

“Anyway, we can order something small to nibble on if you want,” Ali suggested.

“Nope! I’m okay!”

“Man, I wish I had your lack of appetite. I guess if I’d eaten like you growing up, I’d be really good at not eating too. It’d be like a trauma! Never mind, sounds miserable.”

Jane giggled.

“Let’s just watch the news on Alidbar, if that’s okay,” Ali suggested.

The two sat down on Ali’s cheap, tough sofa, Jane’s arm wrapping around her girlfriend’s shoulder. Ali grew more incensed as footage of the coup played. Jane merely observed and tried to soak in what Ali was saying.

Suddenly, her finely tuned senses picked up some police blotter on the other side of town.

“Hey Ali, I have to, um, go to… um... the bathroom!”

Ali raised an eyebrow. “Okay? Go ahead. You know where it is.”

“I mean, um, the bathroom at my place! I left something there! Medicine?”

“You want me to drive you?”

“No, it’s okay, I’ll get there myself!” She unwrapped her arm from Ali and headed for the door.

“Jane, what are you talking about? You live on the other side of the city! Come on, I’ll take you.”

“No no, you have to watch the pot roast!” Jane insisted, slipping on her puffy coat, one foot already out the door. “I’ll be back in time for dinner, I promise!”

Jane stepped out and clicked the door shut behind her.

“Jane!” Ali ran for the door and poked her head out into the apartment’s communal hallway, but Jane was already gone.

Chapter 2

Starla arrived on the scene at the housing projects in Burghtown around dusk. The police had gotten reports of a drive-by shooting, probably gang related, but couldn’t track down the car. Hovering a hundred miles above the ghetto, her eyes glowed bright white as she performed a quick sweep of the entire neighborhood. A few bodies lying in the streets. One woman, middle aged and at home, shot in the arm and crying while huddling over her children. The bullet had traveled through the wall and struck her.

Starla’s heart mourned for her. But at least she would live.

Within seconds, she had found the perpetrators. Two youths in a black SUV, hearts racing but faces betraying no outward emotion, sped along the streets. Starla could see with her x-ray vision two handguns in the backseat. The cartridges were not full.

The youth in the passenger seat pulled out his cell phone. Starla brushed her blonde hair behind her ear and eavesdropped with her super hearing, despite all the sirens wailing in the background.

“Hey,” the voice at the other end of the line answered.

“It’s done. Me and Surf are good.”

“Good. Lose the sim.”

“Yeah.”

Starla’s eyes glowed in rage as they hung up. She watched him fumble with the cell phone before pulling a little piece of circuitry out, and tossing it out the open window.

Starla turned into a blur, appearing right by the passenger side of the car with the delicate little computer chip in between her fingers. It was too dark for gang members to even see her. They drove onward with no ceremony.

With an angry stomp that tore up the already potholed tarmac further, Starla zipped in front of the car, directly in the path of their headlights. Her red cape billowed out behind her.

“Yo! Shit!”

“Fuck! It’s her!?”

“Floor it!!”

With one hand behind her back protecting the microchip they tried to dispose of, Starla reached out with her other hand, long fingers extended. The SUV’s engine roared as it surged forward, meeting Starla’s digits.

Instantly, the car stopped in its tracks.

The hood and front grill of the car would have been punctured by Starla’s casual pose had she not easily and instantly absorbed its momentum, pulling her arm back just enough to prevent it from plowing into her body. A precise application of force allowed her to jolt the car to a complete halt, crumpling only the hood but leaving it the vehicle still functional.

The driver, Surf, had the car’s airbag explode in his face as he lurched forward, still at the full 50 miles per hour. His head slammed into the inflating safety device, knocking him out cold.

The caller was saved by his seat belt, merely snapping his fragile body forward, giving his neck a good bout of whiplash. But he still moved swiftly from the rush of adrenaline coursing through his body.

Starla watched this disgusting mother-injuring excuse of a human grab the gun from the backseat and open fire through the windshield without a moment’s pause.

The car was still running. Starla simply placed her boot on its front bumper, holding it completely motionless with her shapely leg.

The sound of the gunshots rang out. The blonde Xenonian watched their slow, lazy path through the air, almost shocked at the damage these little domed pellets could wound, let alone be fatal, to the inhabitants of this planet. Starla took the time to check on Ali with her piercing eyes. She was still there in the living room… watching the police search live on TV! What a funny discussion that would be when she got back!

But no, the police were still nowhere close to finding them. Maybe one of the helicopters would be nearby soon.

Back to the task at hand, Starla allowed time to speed up as she plucked every single last bullet out of the air. She squashed it all into a misshapen lump, displaying it for the murderer to see in the glare of the headlights, before letting it drop to the floor.

Letting a trickle of energy flow into her eyes, Starla fired a weak, blue laser that immediately melted the glass onto the dashboard and struck the shooter’s gun. He dropped it as soon as his brain could register the extreme temperatures, the superheated metal causing his hand to blister.

He cried out in pain, clutching himself with tear-filled eyes, desperately blowing on his scalding skin to try and soothe the burn.

“Kill the engine,” Starla commanded. “Or I will.”

He used his still intact left hand, put the car into park, and turned the key.

Starla pushed off the hood of the car with her boot and hovered around to the passenger side. She nearly yanked the door off the frame, reached in to grab her trembling shooter, and dropped him onto the uneven asphalt.

Looking at the gun in disgust, she sucked it out of the car with her superbreath, letting it bounce off her invulnerable body where it came to rest at her feet. Giving the shooter a death glare, she focused her power on the gun and melted it into slag. Starla’s lasers carved a deep channel into the earth as well, where the molten remains of the gun pooled.

“You understand?” Starla asked ominously.

“Yes yes yes!!” he blubbed.

“Good.”

Starla vanished once again, reappearing at the driver's side door. Still angry, she thrust her toned arm through the window, shattering it into little beads, before opening the door from the inside. Grabbing a fistful of the unconscious driver’s shirt, she effortlessly hoisted him out of his seat as well and brought him next to Surf.

With both men waiting obediently (or unconscious) on the ground, Starla looked back at the sky. The helicopters were still sweeping the streets! Starla directed her gaze into empty space and fired a bright, wide beam into the heavens like a floodlight.

Finally, they directed their searchlights toward her.

“Down here!” she yelled, projecting her voice loudly enough to be heard over the sound of their rotating blades.

Still incensed, but mollified that the mother bystander was being treated by paramedics, she flew off as she heard Ali’s oven buzz. Within seconds, she was back in front of Ali’s doorstep.

She knocked.

“Jane? What took you so long?” She unlatched the door.

“Meep!” Starla squeaked, realizing she was still in her superhero fades! She darted back to her apartment to get a fresh pair of civvies, put it on over her costume, and returned back to precisely where she had been waiting.

Ali was none the wiser.

“Got your medicine?” she asked.

“Medicine? OH right yeah! I took it already!”

“Janey, you were gone for hours! I was getting worried! And… you missed Starla on live TV!”

“Oh I did!? Darn!” Jane pretended to look disappointed.

“Well, I guess you have good timing. Come on, the pot roast is done. It smells really good. We can see the news about Starla.”

As Ali turned back into the house, Jane couldn’t help but float through the doorway, excited to try her adoptive mother’s recipe and listen to her girlfriend’s adulation.

Jane took a bite of the heavenly, tender, melt-in-your-mouth pot roast and was overwhelmed with emotion. She began to openly weep.

“Jane!? Is it that bad!?”

“No… it’s so… good!”

She wished so desperately to have been able to meet her foster parents. Which conjured up memories of her biological parents. Ali wrapped her arms around Jane, crying in sympathy, as Starla’s heroics of the evening played in the background.

Jane spent the night in Ali’s bed. The guilt and jealousy of seeing Yasmin's sour yet amused face in a picture frame on the bedside table was becoming more tolerable day by day as she cradled Ali in her powerful arms.

Chapter 3

Jane, Ali and a group of her friends sat at a small cafe, reminiscing about their early twenties.

“Oh, we were so wild back then!” one named Sheila laughed. “Can you believe we used to go out there, big picket signs in tow? It was just like, 5 of us, but we were out there for hours! We were so convinced something good would come of it!”

“What were you protesting?” Jane asked.

“It was about gentrification and homelessness,” Ali replied with a little giggle. “But we were so wound up!”

“Oh, I know! And we wouldn’t stop either!” Marcia added.

The crowd of girls all laughed as Jane watched on, feeling left out.

“And Jane, did you know? Our little Ali is a superhero!” Marcia continued.

“Oh really?!” Jane perked up. “How so?” Ali was even more of a perfect match for herself than she could ever have imagined!

“Well, we got tired of protesting all these small things, you know? And it was a little embarrassing being out there all by ourselves.

“So one day… there was a case of police brutality out there in the projects. You remember that incident four years ago?”

Jane shook her head.

“Girl, are you kidding?!” Marica asked in shock. “Do you live under a rock? It was all over the news!”

“Ali, you sure you’re dating the right person?” Sheila teased, nudging Ali with an elbow.

Jane didn’t find it particularly funny.

“You know how it is in the projects though, right? Tell me you’ve at least heard of Starla. She was out there just a week ago catching some murderers.”

“Yes! Of course I know Starla!” Jane answered, overeager to belong.

“Right. Yeah. So out there. It wasn’t that bad before, but it was getting there,” Marcia continued to relay the story. “Some cops pulled over an innocent guy, ordered him to get down on his knees, and then brutally beat him to death when he so much as twitched. Turns out, he had nothing to do with anything! The guy they were looking for, they already had in jail!”

“You’re kidding.” Jane’s voice was flat. What kind of a stupid mistake was this?

“No joke. Who could have even conjured such a ridiculous scenario?” Marcia said in disgust.

“So yeah. The city is up in arms about it. There were riots.”

“Naturally, we go to it. We’re fired up! A protest! And blocks of people with signs! People throwing flaming bottles…”

“You could’ve gotten hurt!” Jane cried out.

“Well duh. But we thought we were so young and invincible. Turns out we weren’t.”

“What happened?” Jane asked, heart pounding fiercely.

“Well, we’re pretty far up in the crowd. The police are there with their big plastic shields or whatever, everyone’s screaming, I can barely hear anything over the roar of the crowd…” Sheila’s voice lowered.

“And some people behind us started throwing big rocks or something. And then a molotov cocktail too. It landed not so far from us, right onto the police barricade,” Marcia completed the thought.

Ali rubbed her scar.

“So the police, they’re panicking right? They get out those big batons and start pushing the crowd back. There’s broken glass everywhere.”

“And us, well, there’s nowhere to go. We’re packed up like sardines! There’s no way to move! And they’re telling us to back off, back off, they keep pushing forward.”

“So they’re swinging through the front of the crowd, people are crying out and falling. And they’re getting close to us.” Marcia’s storytelling began to slow as her eyes became downcast. “And… I’m the next one in line. I see the baton coming down, right for my face, and Ali, she, she…”

“She stuck her arm up high to block the swing! It was… bad,” Sheila completed the sentence.

Jane’s eyes glowed. Her fingers snapped off a corner of their rectangular table as she gripped a little harder.

“At that point, I think the police realize that they’ve beaten, y’know, a white girl, and she’s on the ground crying, and everyone else is scattering. So they just, kind of slow down, round everyone up.”

“Ali too?” Jane asked, horrified of the answer that was coming.

Ali nodded.

“Yeah, Ali spent a month in their holding cells. You know how it is with her family situation. Her mom doesn’t make much money. ...And doesn’t approve of her, y’know, ‘lifestyle’. We all scrimped and saved to get her out. But it was mostly Yasmin.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“So yeah!” Ali finally broke the silence herself. “Tada! Me, a superhero! Broken arm, in prison for two weeks, a young kid with a crazy dream,” she chuckled. “Too bad Starla wasn’t around then. Maybe none of this would have happened.”

“Hey Als. I know I say this a lot, but thanks again. Really. You saved me,” Marcia’s voice was somber. She leaned over, caressed Ali’s face with the back of her hand, and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Jane, even with her superspeed, didn’t know how to react. She flaked off more chunks of table with some angry, nervous twiddling of her fingers.

Ali drove the pair back to Jane’s apartment, which was closer to the school than her own place. The car ride was icy silent. Ten minutes in, Ali finally broke the seal.

“Jane. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” she replied.

“It’s obviously not nothing,” Ali’s verbal response conveyed an obvious eyeroll.

Jane huffed. Her frustrated breath was colder and more powerful than the blast of the vehicle’s air conditioning.

“Are you and Marcia…” Jane started.

“NO!” Ali yelled back. “Jane, we’re just friends. It was me and Yasmin. You know that. And you helped me grieve, and you were there for me all the way. I’m with you now, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ali sighed. “It’s not okay, is it?”

“No, it’s not that. I mean, I’ll get over it. I’ll try. It’s something else.”

Ali was getting frustrated. She looked over at Jane’s face as she continued to manipulate the steering wheel.

“Then what the hell else is it?”

“I don’t… I don’t want you to get hurt like that again.” She reached over to touch Ali’s scar.

“Hey, I don’t either.”

“No, I mean it! You shouldn’t do anything dangerous like that ever again!” Her grip tightened unconsciously.

“What? Are you telling me you want to control my life?” Ali was growing indignant. She had no intentions of trying something like a live protest in a dangerous neighborhood, but it was the principle of the matter!

“No! Well, maybe, just not the dangerous stuff.”

“So what? You don’t want me to go to protests huh? What about walking at night alone? Is that allowed, mom? Are you gonna pick out my clothes too? Ow! You’re hurting me! Jane!!”

The car swerved at an intersection. Ali was about to drive up a sidewalk and into a stop sign pole.

“Ahhhhh!” she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, her entire body taut with fear.

Suddenly, the car was still, despite the wheels still spinning. Ali opened her eyes one at a time, dreading what she would see. Still, where was the boom of the crash?

“Oh my god! Star Girl?!!”

The heroine’s emblem was on full display on her proud chest of her blue uniform. She had a hand on the hood of the car. The front bumper seemed to be slightly molded to her leg. But something was wrong. Where was the rest of the uniform? What was with the white blouse sleeves… and jeans...?

“JANE!?” she cried out in shock.

“Shh!” Jane/Star Girl shushed her, her superbreath accidentally slamming Ali into the car seat.

“Oh shoot! Sorry!” Jane/Star Girl hissed. “We need to talk…” And then more loudly, “Um, be careful there, citizen of Burghtown! Have a nice day!”

“You’re… Star Girl…” Ali pinched herself.

Jane/Star Girl blurred from her position next to Ali to whisper into her ear.

“My place. Go. We need to talk. Please. Please come.”

And then she flew off, waiting nervously in her apartment and using her x-ray vision to watch Jane make the trip over.

Chapter 4

Ali flew down the hallway to Jane’s apartment. The door opened before she was even about to knock. Jane was standing there, shirt buttoned up now.

“Jane! You’re… you’re…!”

“Okay Ali, breathe, I know. Sorry, I wanted to tell you so badly!”

“Oh my god! I told you how big a fan I was of Star Girl! I’m so embarrassed!”

“I… I really appreciated it, Ali.” Jane shed a single tear of joy. “Every time you cheered for me, I wanted to rip off my shirt and show you who I really was!”

“I still can’t believe it…” Ali whispered breathlessly. “I’m dating Star Girl…”

Jane floated off the ground, pulling her legs up into a midair cross legged seated position.

Ali gasped.

“I know, I know. It’s crazy, right? My parents, my biological parents, that is, said I would have some powers in this parallel universe. But I’ve way exceeded the numbers they predicted.”

“So your adoptive parents…?”

“I never met them. My parents sent me away from my doomed planet, and I watched the planet explode. And when I got here, the plague had already wiped out the adoptive parents I had spent so much time conversing with while I was back on Xenoi. I…” her voice turned into a barely audible squeak, “I don’t have anyone but you, Ali…”

“Oh Jane!”

Ali ran up to her floating form and tried to hug her. But her face only came up to Jane’s floating knee.

“Thank you thank you thank you for understanding!” Jane extended her long legs straight, hovered down, and enveloped Ali in a tight super hug.

For the second time in as many days, both girls were crying in each others’ embrace. But this time, they were floating in midair. Ali was powerless to break Jane’s unbreakable hold over her body, nor did she want to.

Jane leaned down for a sloppy, tear-filled kiss. Ali obliged.

Their lips met, the taste of their salty tears mixing and dripping into their lips. The two of them broke the kiss and spat, and they began to giggle in tandem.

“Do you want to…” Ali asked as she wiped both cheeks with the back of her hand.

“Yes, please, let’s. I want to do this so badly,” Jane whispered. “I want to let go a little bit…”

“I want to see you let go, Jane. Or should I say, Star Girl?”

“My real name is Starla. My mother was a brilliant scientist, and my father was loving and caring. It means, ‘light of a star.’”

“Starla,” Ali said it, almost reverently. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Starla whispered, planting another kiss on Ali’s moist lips.

“Starla, if I can make a request…”

“Anything for a citizen of Burghtown,” Starla smiled encouragingly.

“Can you… can you wear the costume?”

Starla beamed. Wrapping her long legs below Ali’s butt, she supported her weight in midair with nothing but a gentle squeeze of her legs and hips. She leaned back, unbuttoning her blouse slowly, dragging it out, one at a time. It was a strip tease, only she wasn’t naked underneath. No, it was so much more tantalizing than that.

Ali gasped when Star Girl’s emblem came into full view.

Starla smiled, enjoying her girlfriend’s bald-faced adulation. She leaned back and slipped off her top, revealing the blue sleeves of her leotard.

“You like?” Starla inquired, slightly embarrassed. She flexed her arm, a beautifully toned, feminine bicep coming into view.

“Yes!!” Ali answered zealously.

“Shall we? You want me to fly you to the bedroom?”

“More than anything.”