Peter Meets Starfire update

The astonishing thing about Kory wasn’t her beauty or even her sensuality, but her openness—a woman so open and nonjudgmental that she brought about openness in others. All she had to do was fly down beside Peter and ask if everything was alright, as his circuit around the city failed to clear his head for the thirtieth time. Then it all came pouring out of him.

Gwen Stacy… Gwen who he loved and cherished and wished to married… he had seen her lying naked, being fucked by Norman Osborn—Harry’s father—a man old enough to be Gwen’s father—

While being careful not to intrude on his personal space, Kory stepped close to Peter, radiating comfort like a space heater sent out warmth. He took her up on the offer and pressed up against her—warm, sweet Kory, who felt like his only friend with Gwen betraying him and even his friendship with Harry tainted by what the man’s father had done. He had pictured sex with Gwen, when it happened, as something beautiful, something between two people who loved each other, much like the embrace he now shared with Kory—not a slap of bodies against bodies, on the floor like two animals… 

I don’t even want to look at her, not after what I saw, he thought to himself. She’ll look into my eyes and see that something’s wrong and her own guilt will have to do the rest. If she even feels guilt. Maybe she’s just been waiting for me to figure it out, laughing about it behind my back—that’s not like Gwen, but neither was that. Who is she even? I don’t know, I don’t know anything, why did this have to happen, why couldn’t we just be in love?

He went from racking breaths to choked sobs as he tried to put his torment into words for Kory, but it was useless, pointless. She was as sympathetic to him as could be, without knowing a single thing about what he had been through. She’d be on his side if he were saddened by having lost the TV remote, taking his feelings into consideration without a moment’s care as to whether those feelings were valid. 

But she did seem to know something of his situation. Peter was dimly aware of her talking to him, whispering words between their embrace. The deep aching persisted, but he was able to stop crying and listen to what she was saying to him, her soft, gentle, droning words.

“Don’t think about her, Peter, she’s not worth thinking about. You’re such a good boy, such a wonderful boy, and you would’ve done anything for her, so it’s her loss that she’s thrown you aside, unappreciated. Let her go. Don’t give her another second’s thought. She’s not worth thinking about, a fool like that, a woman who doesn’t know how good she has it with a kind, sweet man like the one you’re becoming…”

Yes, of course he shouldn’t think about her. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, if he could just write her off, put an immediate stop to all the fret and worry he’d ever wasted on her unfaithful heart, and instead enjoy life none the worse for wear? But it was impossible. He couldn’t cut her out of his emotions, and the hurt she had caused was nestled even deeper into his heart. 

He felt Kory stroking his brown hair lightly, managing to show how she genuinely enjoyed the feel of it even as she sought to comfort him. Then she stroked his shoulder, her hand moving down the slender hardness of his muscular arm. It felt good to be touched, to be filled with the warmth of another instead of the trembling coldness of his shock. No one else could’ve touched him so warmly, in so giving a manner, in this moment of crisis. She was his only friend, and he would’ve given anything to feel her comforting without Gwen’s betrayal—it was impossible to appreciate Kory when all he could think of was Gwen and how she had hurt him, tainted how he felt for her, tainted everything with the perverse knowledge of how former happiness could burn into sorrow. The only thing that felt right was Kory, his safe haven from a cold, corrupt world.

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” he moaned. “I can’t stop!”

“Then you’ll just have to stop thinking altogether,” Kory said. And her lips did erase all thought from his mind.

Her caressing hands did the rest, filling the void with instinct. Savage, irrepressible instinct that Kory was more than happy to indulge.