Page 4

Entry the fouth, twenty days since moving into Titans Tower.

The first instinct I have is to tell the interesting parts of the story first, so as to save the anticipation. However, it has occurred to me that not only is this bad for the telling of the stories, but it also leaves out the detail that makes the event more the full of meaning. For example, if I had not previously recorded the embarrassment that friend Robin suffered when we were out on mission, it might have made my horribly foolish attempt to surprise him seem malicious, or perhaps perverse. By giving the understanding of the situation, I hope that even my own train of thought can be made to make the sense to a human reader, even though I am to assume this book will have none. This linearity of speech is present in my home culture, but some of us struggle with it. It is less strict, so it comes into focus how truly alien my way of thought can be when compared against another. A joke on Tamaran may be structured with the punchline first, then with the setup second. These jokes go over very poorly when told to humans, though it seems that even my standardly structured jokes also go over poorly. Regardless, as the intent of the diary is not to document my thoughts, but to translate them; I should translate them.

From the end of the previous entry, I was told I would have a few hours before the movie would start, so I could spend my time how I would like. Raven had been working in the training dojo, and had since moved to the showers, so I decided to wait for her to emerge from them to broach the question of her joining us for the movie. Since Raven has historically been the only female member of the team, she is still highly uneasy with having company in the room of the lockers, that and the fact that she is one of the persons that favors the privacy. I am generally very much the respectful of these wishes, but time dragged on without her leaving the showers as I studied more reproductive material with my door open. I have never made a point to close my door for this, though I do understand now that it is seen as something that one does in the privacy. This was the first time that I had had any other members pass my door while I was in the viewing, since most of the time it is done either very early in the morning or very late at night, as both are the times we are most likely to be free. At this time, since nobody was busy or asleep, Beast Boy happened to pass my door while I was watching one of these documents. He seemed quite shocked.

"You watch this stuff?" He asked me, his voice was funny; like he was shocked and yet intrigued.

"Of course," I told him, "I need to study human behavior to grow accustomed to this planet, this is a mode of human behavior I have not observed in person."

Cyborg, who had followed him, spoke to me with the voice of a parent speaking to a child. "This isn't really human behavior, Star, these people are acting."

I looked back at the monitor, around this time the cheerleaders had started to lick each other's private parts.

"I am aware that these women are not truly cheerleaders," I responded.

"I don't think that's what he meant." Beast Boy said, watching the display with interest.

"No, no!" I responded. "I have yet to see them perform any sort of routine other than the shaking of the pom-poms. I am quite sure that they are not leaders of the cheering. Plus they are far too old to be high schoolers-"

Cyborg interrupted me, "I didn't mean they were actually cheerleaders, I meant that... they're acting."

"Yes, like the movie actor, or the political candidate, but these women perform the human mating instead." I agreed with him, none of this was news to me.

"What I'm trying to say is that this isn't really... love."

At this point, I paused the video because I wished to continue watching it at a later time, I wished to more closely observe the techniques of the tongue that the woman with the scars under her grebnacks was performing.

"I wasn't watching these to learn about love," I protested, feeling oddly defensive. "This is neither the Diary of the Bridgette Jones movie nor the Book of Notes movie that Raven keeps hidden in her film collection, this is a mating movie."

"Right, but real human mating isn't just two people finding each other sexy and doing the dirty." Cyborg lectured.

"There's more kissing," Beast Boy said, sounding disgusted by the idea, "And talking."

"I must concede, the spoken words exchanged by these women did not seem heartfelt." I agreed.

"Right, because that's what porn is... it's "pretend" sex." Beast Boy claimed.

"But I do not understand, the sex they are having seems to be real."

"It's not..." Cyborg seemed to have more to say, but seemed frustrated and unable to get the words out, he and Beast Boy eventually left very awkwardly.

I found what they were trying to tell me a mixture of completely obvious and impenetrably confusing. This has been the case in many situations with human behavior, especially when it comes from Beast Boy and Cyborg. I have been told by both Raven and Robin to "not take it seriously" and ask them about it. I took this, combined with my frustration at how long Raven had lingered in the shower and the room of the lockers, as my invitation to join her inside. She is not wholly opposed to me joining her inside, but she treasures the privacy quite highly. I would be at risk of angering her if I acted improperly. As it turned out, I acted very improperly but got away with it.

When I entered the room of the lockers, I could hear the shower running, as it had been when I had checked close to half an hour before. I decided that if I joined her in the shower, it would be an equally disarming situation and that she would not object since we are both female. So I undressed and left my outfit near where hers was sitting on the bench. When I stepped into the actual showers, I found friend Raven floating in meditation under the warm water. She had her headphones in, phone and headphones both wrapped in a light layer of magic that kept both from getting wet without hampering their audio playback. Friend Raven seems to live and die on how capable she is of keeping her earbuds in much of the time. I have heard what she often listens to and found it far less relaxing than she seems to. Most of the time, she listens to something that sounds like gunfire and screeching metal. She calls it "noise rock" and insists it is perfectly normal human music. On one occasion, I heard her listening to something far softer and nicer. She called it "bubblegum pop", and made me swear never to tell the others it was in her playlist. I stepped into the shower next to her and turned it on cold, as I find more comfortable.

When she heard my shower turn on, she opened one of her eyes very slightly and saw me. She greeted me with a simple and undisturbed "Hey." I read this as confirmation that I had not yet acted in a way that upset her. She even turned her volume down to hear me better! This is quite the opposite of what she often does when close to Beast Boy and Cyborg. When she turns the volume up around them, she says it is because she does not want to hear them. Since she turned it down and not up, I assumed that meant she did want to hear me. It was a very pleasing affirmation to be receiving.

"Hello, Raven!" I greeted her, then remembering some older conversations, I asked "Am I interrupting you?"

"Not really," She shrugged as she said so. Her voice told me she was in the good mood, though she was clearly somewhat embarrassed by showering with a friend. "Came in here for some alone time, but I was just getting ready to go back out."

"Most well-timed!" I responded to her. "The others have discussed going to a showing of Cyborg T-Rex Versus the Monkey from Space, you have been given the offer to go if you wish."

"Great, action schlock." She responded in the voice she often reserves for Beast Boy. "I can think of nothing that I would love more."

I frowned, I understood the sarcasm, but I was wondering if the concept of being with her friends was not enough to override her distaste for the movie in question. When I did not respond, she cracked one eye again and observed my frown.

"What?" She asked, her voice far softer.

"I was just wondering if the prospect of our company did not outweigh the weakness of the movie?"

Her eyes opened fully and she lowered down from her meditative hover. "That's not it, it's just... have you ever been to a movie theater?"

"No! This would be my first time!" I responded.

"Okay, here's the thing Star, going to a theater isn't like watching a movie at home. We all go to a dark room to watch a movie, but we have to be quiet the whole time. Hanging out with you guys is great, but we wouldn't really be hanging out."

What she said made a great amount of sense to me. When we watch the movies at the Tower, we all talk a great deal. The joking and the talking is what has made this one of my favorite activities to do, and the prospect of just watching a movie but not making the jokes did seem very much the dull.

"I guess I see," I told her.

"If you still want to, I'll go with you for your first time, but we would have more fun at home."

The thought of spending some time at home compared to the thought of the dark room, even with the movie on the screen, made it a difficult question to consider. I also found myself thinking improperly, about Friend Raven. At this point, it was not the first time that I had seen her undressed as she was, but unlike the previous time looking at her body in a different light. Raven, like myself, has a most unusual skin for a human, though I am not sure that she is fully and properly human and not some manner of the demon. Her skin is an odd sort of silver or grey, like the color of dust, or fish scales. She has the female parts, both on the chest and in between the legs, but she keeps her body hair under intense control, not allowing a single dark hair anywhere but her head. Sometimes, I see a stubble of hair beginning to break through, but if I point it out, it is gone within no time at all. As a Tamaranean, this is not an inconvenience I have to deal with, but it seems that it is a matter of contention among human women especially whether it is better to be with or without hair around the genitals.

Friend Raven must have caught me staring, because she asked me "Uhhh, Earth to Starfire..."

"I am sorry," I responded, "I hope this is not too personal, but I find it curious how dedicated you are to the removal of bodily hairs."

Her response was curious, as if she could not decide whether she wanted to be embarrassed or not, "What about it?"

"Well, I have seen some human women, such as yourself, take great effort to maintain a hairlessness when it comes to their body, but some seem to actively cultivate certain areas of hair, and some seem to let the hair grow without concern."

She turned her shower off, so I did the same. As she was walking to grab our towels, she informed me that "I don't like it, it feels gross."

"Do you refer specifically to the hair around the sexual organs?"

When she turned back, she tossed me her towel, and simply responded with a croaking "Yes."

"It is curious to me," I told her as I followed her into the locker area. "We Tamaraneans do not grow bodily hair, so this custom is most foreign to me."

Though she did not say it to me directly, she mumbled "Sounds nice" under her breath loud enough for me to hear.

When we stepped into the main area, Raven began to towel off more thoroughly before lifting the towel with magic and drying her hair with it. She dropped the towel back down as she bent to pick up her robes, but she was not in time to hide her rear end when she did. What I saw was most intriguing!

"You have a crystal in your butt!" I told her in shock.

No sooner had I finished saying it than she jumped into the air in shock! When she turned to me, her face was both angry and embarrassed! Perhaps she was angry that she had allowed a crystal to enter her butt unnoticed and embarrassed that I had been the one to find it? Either way, she immediately shushed me!

"Star! Quiet!"

"But friend Raven!" I responded in a whisper, "I saw a pink crystal in your butt when you bent over!"

She looked around, then floated over to the door to make sure it was still locked, which it still was. When she came back, she spoke to me as Beast Boy and Cyborg had earlier, in the tone of voice a human adopts when they are trying to explain something human to a Tamaranean.

"Listen, I know about the crystal."

"You knew about the crystal in your butt?"

She groaned in frustration, "Yes, I know about the crystal in my butt."

"But why is it there? Is it stuck? Who put it there?"

She responded to my questions with what the others on the team have called the "trademark Raven sigh" before whispering, "I put it there, Star."

"What?" I exclaimed, unable to control myself, "Friend Raven, why would you put-"

"Keep it down!" She both shouted and whispered.

"Why would you put a crystal in your butt?" I finished in a whisper.

She sighed again, "It's not a crystal, only the outside part is, the rest of it is metal."

It took me a moment, but I figured by her embarrassment that I could make an assumption, "Is it one of those... toys of the sex?"

She blushed even more! The most I have ever seen anybody blush, including Friend Robin! Made more noticeable by the fact that when Raven blushes, her skin turns almost black. She again looked around us, as if she would find some previously hidden enemy waiting to pop out before responding.

"Yes," She said very slowly, "It's a... butt plug..."

"But why would one make the plugging of one's butt?" I asked, my whisper rising in volume uncontrollably. I am not sure why asking her these things made me lose my composure such as they did, but perhaps it is because I had encountered a most perverse secret being kept and the thought of it excited my mind from the place it has come to take up in the gutter. "And why in the shower?"

She looked angry, but also tired. Like she felt she had no way to get the questions to stop except by telling the truth. "It's a... a game."

"A game in which you plug your butt?"

"Not usually. Look, I lost a bet, so I have to..." She trailed off, seeming to be too embarrassed to explain the concept to an outsider.

"A bet? You mean it is a game of sex?"

"Something like that." She grumbled.

"Perhaps I could help, or be invited!" I could feel the dumb and pheromone-influenced part of my brain begin to take over. As with before, I could watch it happening to me but do nothing to stop it.

"Help? That's not really how this works."

"I assure you, I am equipped to do any number of things to help you."

"Look, Star, I'm on day twenty out of thirty, I'm doing fine."

It did not occur to me then how the beginning of the game lined up with the day of my arrival.

"Do you need to keep your butt plugged for those thirty days?"

"No, Star. For one, that wouldn't really be possible. It's more... denial."

"Denial, do you mean like the edging and the gooning?"

I swear, she nearly jumped a full foot in the air!

"First of all, how do you know about that?"

"I have seen many people speak of such challenges on the net of inter! Do you mean to tell me you have been doing the gooning?"

"Star, I don't even know what that is."

"It is when one performs a prolonged session of the edging and enters a trance-like-"

"I... did not need to know that. And now I can't ever unknow it."

She turned away then and sat on the bench, but I floated over to her and grabbed her shoulder. "Oh, but friend Raven, I do not think you should partake in the edging, it seems like it would be most unhealthy."

"Star, it's none of your business," She said, beginning to revert to her usual bored voice, "Besides, I've gone for longe- HEY!"

She cut herself off in protest because at that moment I floated up to her and pressed our lips together! It was my first real kiss with a human being, not like the one I gave Robin when we first met so I could learn his language. It was between me and friend Raven, as I had wanted it to be, though I would not have chosen the location. That or our positions, I must admit, floating at a 90-degree angle from her, I had to twist my neck very uncomfortably to make our lips meet. When I pulled them away, Raven had regained her deep blush, but there was some amount of anger in her face.

"Star," She told me, her voice weaker than before, "You can't just kiss people without asking."

I looked her in the eyes, floating with my face very close to hers and chin resting in my hands as if I was laying on an invisible hammock. She had leaned back away from me, eyes looking at me without anger but with great confusion. Even through my own dumb-dumb brain in that moment, I could tell that she was having as much of the conflicting feelings about our kiss as I was. I decided to push my luck, though if I had wanted to stop, I do not know that I could have.

"I apologize for my rudeness, friend Raven, but in my studies of humanity it seems that a kiss is the most successful way to make somebody you care about to make the shutting up."

"Star," She started to chide me again but seemed to fail in finding the words. I admit it is gratifying sometimes to leave humans as incapable of conversing in their languages as I feel. A moment later, she repeated my name, but as a gasped "Star!"

At that moment, I had lowered myself suddenly between her legs and wrapped my hands around her thighs. When she tried to close them, she could not do so around my head. This action, as I look back on my time here, is probably the most regrettable thing I have done. I invaded friend Raven's privacy in that moment and touched her without her permission. However, I do not need to apologize to the diary for it, and I have already apologized to Raven herself, I merely hope to make it understood why I performed the action. Both in the situation with friend Robin, and as I have observed in the studying, one often has to be forceful and take initiative in matters of the human sex. I understand now that what I did was too forceful, and it should not be looked at as a triumph, no matter how Raven responded to it at the time or later. I say this because after gasping my name in protest, she clamped a hand over her mouth and did not protest further. As I rubbed my nose and closed mouth over Raven's pussy, she squeaked at me through her hand, but said nothing. The smell and feeling of her seemingly burning-hot private regions made my brain go even fuzzier than before.

"I cannot allow you to injure yourself with these games!" I told her from between her legs, "If it helps, you can tell whoever you were competing against that this was merely pretend, like they do in the pornography."

She took her hand from her mouth long enough to say, "Star, shut up." Before clamping it back down even more forcefully than before when I stuck my tongue out and flicked it like a frog going for an insect between her legs. As I continued to flick my tongue over the dusty-colored bud of flesh that seemed to be her clitoris, her hand proved to not be enough and she had to bite down on a mouthful of my towel, which I had set on the bench beside her. Her eyes seemed to roll into the back of her head! It was a most extraordinary effect to achieve with just a few mild flicks of the tongue. If it has always been that easy to please a female human with one's tongue, I can only feel sympathy for those women in the mating videos whom the male does not please in this way. As it is, I did not have the "cock" to attempt the other things seen in the videos, and the changing process to get one would have taken too long, so I focused myself on what I could do with just my hands and my mouth.

When I brought one of my hands up to slide a finger inside friend Raven while my tongue continued to play with her clit, she made a great groaning heave of breath, then drew it back in with a shudder. Still holding the towel in her mouth, she seemed to grind her teeth from one side to the other around the fabric with the frustration, squeezing her eyes shut. I stroked my fingers inside of her toward my tongue, like I was trying to make them meet through her skin, and her ragged breathing only got more unstable. Speeding up my tongue and fingers, it caused her to take panting breaths and made her legs shake around me. Her pussy had begun to leak most concerningly at this point, but the taste of the fluids whenever I would drop my tongue from her clit to lick the folds of her sex was quite exquisite. It was musky, yet warm and intimate like Tamaranean margleflarm. Perhaps that explains why it was considered by some of my kind to be an aphrodisiac? I have not tasted Tamaranean fluids to compare.

While I was performing the acts of the mouth on friend Raven, she made several attempts to speak to me, each of which ended by her pressing her hand back over her mouth to quiet the sounds she was making. As my performance continued on for longer and longer, the comments she would make became weaker and harder to understand, in direct correlation to how wet her sexual organs became. At some point, she seemed to realize that she was growing near to her orgasm, and that I did not intend to stop until she achieved it, so while continuing to cover her mouth with one hand she grabbed a handful of my hair and held my face in place between her legs. Sometimes the noises she made were high ones, like a squeak, but more often they were deep and groaning, like the sound of great pain or the sound of waking up. I was not concerned by the prospect that she was, in fact, experiencing the great pain, as when I have studied material on the edging, I found the groan of relief to be commonplace, and often indistinguishable from the groan of pain. On the net of inter, I am told this is because that a human body "no longer knows how to react" to the moment of relief after extended denial.

As it turns out, even if Raven's body also experienced that crisis of purpose, it still performed the intended job without complaint. After she took a few very quick breaths she let out the loudest and longest groan yet, throwing her head backward and staring up at the ceiling. I would have looked up to check what it was she was observing, but at that same moment, her thighs closed in around my neck and held me firmly in place! Her legs, even shaking very much, were clamped strongly. She removed her hand from my hair and punched the bench beside her, like she was trying to bury the sensations she was feeling. I had seen some footage where a female does the "squirting" before, but when previously viewing it I had assumed it to be a waste product. With my face buried against friend Raven's pussy, I could not avert my mouth from catching some of hers, as she produced a very messy one indeed! However, when I tasted it, I concluded that it tasted far more like the fluids of the pussy and not the product of the waste. The squirting that I did not catch in my mouth would up all over my face and chest, as I had ceased my floating at this point because I wished to stand. However, Raven's legs still hold me in place, and did not release me until she had finished her experience with the orgasm, which seemed to last a very long time for her.

When she did let me up, she dropped back onto the bench, which she had been sitting on the edge of. She lay on her back, breathing heavily and muttering under her breath. When I leaned in close enough to hear her, it was almost entirely human swears! I realized that I would now need to perform another shower, and that she likely would as well. I told her this and left her to regain her strength, as the occasional tremors she experienced while laying there made her shudder.

When I had finished my second showering, I re-entered the room of lockers and found that friend Raven had left, not partaking in the re-shower to clean her inner thighs of the fluid she had gotten on them. This was confusing, as I have always assumed that is what happens as soon as the films of the pornography end, that everybody gets into a large shower. Perhaps it is not the case, and sexual fluids are not seen as the gross by humans. Or perhaps some are and some are not. Or perhaps some humans find them gross and some do not. One of the things I can say with the utmost of the confidence since my arrival is that there is rarely a rule unbroken in human society. Even if almost every person behaves one way, there will be one human that behaves another. Even things like the biology are not true laws. I have seen women with the sexual organs of men and men with the organs of women. The only thing one can say with certainty about the humans is that nothing is the certain.

I am afraid that after this period, there is a long section of time where nothing worth the documenting happened, and I am unsure how I should describe it. Whether it is my goal in the telling of events to attempt to make interesting even the uninteresting parts of the day, or my duty as the arbiter of what is to go into the book to only include the interesting parts. In the essence, all that happened from leaving the room of lockers to the next event of note is that I learned from Robin that our trip to the movies would be canceled, as we lacked currency to pay for it after needing to cover damages from our last defeat. After that, we passed a day of the laziness, watching some of the television but mostly keeping to ourselves. Friend Raven did not show her face, and friend Robin seemed to be maintaining distance after our previous meeting, so it came that I passed the time with Beast Boy and Cyborg, which lead to the next event of note. Before I write of it, I could expand on some of the smaller details of the day, such as that I suspected Robin was making the fib when he talked about money, as we have never had an issue of such a nature before and I suspect he merely wanted to make the excuse to get out of watching the movie. I could write about how, since I watched him doing the jerk, he has become awkward enough around me for the rest of the team to begin the taking of the notice, a situation which I remain in ignorance of how to remedy. I could mention how, when I got him the alone afterward, I told him I would be happy to make with the watching of the jerk again, but he told me that he needed "time to recharge" before nervously making the excusing of himself. I could tell of all of these things, or the television show that I was watching with Beast Boy or Cyborg before the next events I would deem interesting happened, but these details would go nowhere. Again, I am faced with the ethical question. Do I treat the diary, and the story within, as something which I have a duty to make interesting, even in the retelling of events which lack the interest? Or is it better to treat the expression of events as the personal expression of the story that I would want to tell by the diary, and only to convey the parts of interest and to let the boring segments atrophy? If the book serves my interests, it will be a very singular recounting of heroic duty and human mating, as are the two things which most interest me. This may be better to read, but is a diary meant to be read? Would it not be better to capture the texture and tone of the day, as a picture would a moment? I am afraid that I have no answer to this. To the question of whose interest the story being told is to serve, I have no answer. As I am to assume a diary is to be read by nobody but myself, I will make it serve my own interests, even to the detriment of the rules of diary-writing, if such things exist.

Even with this approach, I feel that there are still details to these stories that require the giving of the context. By this rule, there are two things that must be explained to give the full picture of the story I am about to tell. Firstly, that finding nothing of the interest on the television, I retired with friends Beast Boy and Cyborg to the room of the training. Training with each friend is different. When one trains with Robin, no room is made for the joking or the resting. Friend Robin trains with much intensity for a short period, if you train with him he expects you to match his pace. This leads to a great deal of the sweating and the panting, but the experience gives the feeling of the reward. This is almost the opposite to the training with the friend Raven, though similar in the lack of the joking. Raven trains by the meditation and the occasional practice of using her powers. While friend Robin seeks to become stronger by his work, friend Raven seeks to be more precise. She has a bottomless well of power, but needs to learn control. These trainings are quite the boring, if you are not in the mood for them, but can be just as giving the reward as a session with friend Robin, just a different reward. Friend Beast Boy and Friend Cyborg "practice" by play-fighting and joking. It is unrewarding, but it is the most fun.

Secondly, I am only very rarely out of my heroic outfit. Some nights, when I have the trouble with the sleep, I will change into Tamaranean pajamas, but otherwise, the outfit is comfortable and self-cleaning. When I am out, flying where I can be seen, I have to wear an undergarment beneath my skirt, as most humans do not accept public nudity, even from those who save them. When I am relaxing at home, as I was on this day, I often forgo this undergarment. It is something I am not the used to wearing. It is uncomfortable, a human invention and not a Tamaranean one. One born of the desire not to be nude, not the desire for comfort. Like the "bra" that I have tried wearing before. Still, to this day, the only gift I have ever made the burning of. To cover up my "pussy" is an acceptable concession at times. To uncomfortably restrain my grebnacks, articles already covered by my "top", seems like the madness, or intentional **** of the self. The bra burned satisfying, though I cannot be sure if it was my own hatred for the object, or how nicely the white fabric turned black.

It is with these two pieces of information that I have set the scene of myself, without my undergarments, though without any reason to be concerned about this fact, in the training gym with friends Cyborg and Beast Boy, making the jokes and occasionally the shoves of each other. I recall what they were saying being something like this:

"Well, what are you going to do about it, Motor-head?" Beast Boy taunted. The playful insulting of each other is something they do. Perhaps it is because they know each other's limits and how to get a response out of the other person without going too far and making it hurtful?

"Same thing I always do, kick your butt you little dork."

"Try me, microchip breath."

"You really stealing insults from Beastwars now?"

"Only good thing to come out of that dumb show."

"If I could kick your butt with my mind for what you just said, I would."

They often do this before do the wrestling. It is something like the flirting or the kissing before the intercourse, in a way. Normally, I am more than happy to sit around and wait for them to finish and the fighting to start, as I am likely to at least learn some new smack talk if nothing else. But all of their insults today were either too much the lame or too much the specific to the other. As well, I will admit that I was feeling somewhat the restless after a long day of lazing around, so I decided to take initiative and make my own fun. I grabbed a pair of training dummies without them noticing and hurled them at the pair.

"Think quickly!" I shouted.

They both turned in time to see what I had done and responded appropriately. Cyborg blasted the one aimed at him with his laser, while Beast Boy turned into a very large monkey and slapped away the one aimed at him. Themselves defended, they took the opportunity to turn on me. Cyborg fired a stun blast at my chest, which I ducked under. Beast Boy followed up in perfect synchronicity by slamming his gorilla fists down toward me. Of course, if I hadn't dodged out of the way, he could have transformed in time to avoid serious damage. And even if he didn't, it would take more than that to seriously wound me. But, treating the exercise like I was truly in danger, which is a universal concept, I dodged out of the way. It was too quick for me to take flight, so I leaped back, pushing myself backward off of my heels and standing on my hands to catch myself and regain my footing. My form was tight, as soon as my hands touched the ground I let my head fall so that my body could pass over, even clicking my heels together when I achieved a perfect stand of the hands. I have performed this move many times since I was a child, but I suppose I had never done it in training. Never while wearing a skirt and no undergarments in front of humans. While my heels clicked together in the air, the skirt dropped down and inverted, the rim now covering my exposed stomach and not my privates. As a result, Beast Boy and Cyborg both saw my behind, as well as my privates since my legs were open. It only lasted for about a second, and I barely registered it. If they had not called attention to it, it might have gone unremarked. However, remarked it was.

Cyborg immediately aimed his arm cannon at the floor and said "Woah." But he said it very long, and with the air of trying to make the calming down happen. So it was more like "Woooooooooooooooooooooooooah!" Beast Boy simply turned back to human.

"Aha!" I shouted, "I have caught you both in the napping!" I flung myself at them preparing to attack.

When they did not ready themselves to fight, instead holding up their hands in the sign of the stop, I stopped.

"Hey Star... you uh, kinda gave us the full moon there." Cyborg told me.

I was confused, "I am confused." I told them.

"It's an expression," Beast Boy continued for his friend, "It means you showed us your butt."

I was confused again, "My butt? Is there something wrong with it? Earlier today friend Raven-" I only stopped because I remembered that humans are embarrassed about these things. I was worried that they had seen something wrong with my butt. Like a bruise, or a crystal that I did not want to be there. I must admit, even knowing about the nature of the one Raven had, I have since become quite paranoid about crystals invading my butt.

"No, nothing wrong with it at all! It was a nice-" Beast Boy started but Cyborg stepped on his foot to stop him.

"It's just that, you might want to put something on under that skirt. Can't just go around showing everybody your butt."

"And why not?" I asked, still most innocent. "I know that some humans fixate on the butt, but I am unconcerned about showing it to my friends. After all, we are not in the public when we are at the tower."

"You aren't just going to start walking around naked, are you?" Beast Boy asked, trying to sound teaching. However, Cyborg glared at him and whispered "Dude!" under his breath.

"I had not intended it, but it was for your comfort and not mine. While we may not walk around the naked on Tamaran, we are also unconcerned about being seen in the naked, especially if it is among people that we are caring for." I shrugged. "Stigma about nudity and sexuality is very much a human thing. I will abide by the rules I am told, but you should not expect me to make understanding of them."

"Alright, well, one of the rules is, you leave your room, you gotta have clothes on." Cyborg responded.

"But, I do have clothes on?" I asked confusedly.

"Underwear counts as clothes." Beast Boy answered.

"Do you mean to tell me I am expected to make with the wearing of a bra?" I asked indignantly.

"I guess you don't have to with that one, I don't think Raven does." Beast Boy answered.

"She doesn't" Cyborg added.

"But, similar to with the underwear, if my shirt lifts, my grebnacks will be seen." I told them, lifting my shirt to demonstrate, "Why does it apply to one kind of underwear and not the other?"

Cyborg turned his head and tried to pull my shirt back down for me, but I held it open for a reason. Beast Boy did not avert his gaze, instead staring at my grebnacks with a very blank but embarrassed expression.

"Whatever it takes for you to not flash us, that's what you gotta wear!" Cyborg insisted. I dropped my shirt back into place.

"What is this about flashing? Earlier you said I mooned you."

"Mooning is a kind of flashing!" Cyborg said loudly, turning his head slightly to see if I had replaced my shirt.

"What? No, it isn't!" Beast Boy argued.

"Yeah, dude, it is."

"No, dude. Mooning somebody can be a flash, but half the time it's meant as an insult. Would you show your dick to somebody you wanted to moon as an insult?"

"Okay, well, the insult comes from the flash-"

"Dude, the insult comes from the fact that you showed somebody your ass. It's the reason you can mimic the motion of pulling your pants down and it counts."

Cyborg started to argue back and I must admit that at this point, I was losing interest in their fight. As they continued, I simply left the room and they did not notice. As it was already past the time of dinner at that point, I simply retired to my room.

It occurs to me that, during this telling, I have exemplified several moments where it may seem that I was perfectly well-equipped to make the writing of the diary. The truth is that I probably could have, but the thought of writing the diary did not enter my mind. That, in a way, is a kind of being busy. To be so consumed by other thoughts that one does not think to make the writing. For example, when I returned to my room that night, I was occupied with thinking about the argument between myself and my friends in the training room. The lines that they tried to enforce seemed completely arbitrary! If they simply desired me to act in a way that did not make them uncomfortable, they should have said the things that make them uncomfortable so that I could avoid doing them! From what they told me, some levels of nudity were inappropriate but others were not. Before I went to bed that night, I did much researching online about dress codes and the level of acceptable nudity in public. The answers were very inconclusive. In some videos, a woman walks naked for a long time without any issue. In others, a man is naked for only moments and he is arrested! If it is just a matter of humans enjoying female nudity and not male nudity, that does not explain the discomfort on the part of Cyborg. Perhaps it is something about me that he finds distasteful? Perhaps the color of my skin, or the shape of my body.

Some time later, I had gone to bed, changing into my pajamas because I was again having the trouble with the sleeping. When I was dozing, nearly asleep, I heard a quiet knock at my door. When I went to go answer it, Beast Boy was outside, also in pajamas.

"Hey, Star... did I wake you?" He asked me quietly. He seemed nervous, shifty even.

"No, I was having much difficulty with the falling asleep." I told him.

"Yeah, me too." He responded, then did not make a follow-up, so it began to get awkward.

"Would you like to come in?" I asked him, trying to break the silence. He nodded and followed me into my room. When I shut the door, I floated over to the bed. He sat down apart from me.

"Nice... pajamas..." He commented, trying to make the talk of the small.

"Thank you, they are one of my remaining artifacts from-" Is as far as my response got before her interrupted me.

"Can I see your boobs?" He blurted out. But he did so very suddenly and uncontrollably, meaning it sounded more like "CANISEEYOURBOOBS?"

"My..." I placed a hand on my chest, "My grebnacks?"

"It's just you said you didn't care earlier and I was just wondering-" He started to blurt again, I lifted my shirt if only to make him slow down. When I did, he stopped talking, then looked away.

"It is true, I do not have any issue with showing my body to people, especially my friends," I told him. "Did you come in here just for that?"

"Yes? No? It's complicated..." He mumbled.

"Would you like me to take my shirt off while you explain?"

He seemed to blush, it was hard to tell with his green skin, "I'm not sure you would understand."

I took my shirt off anyway, "Even if I do not, you trusting me enough to let me try has meaning."

He sighed, then started "So, like, you're an alien, right?"

"That is correct, I am a Tamaranean, from the planet Tamaran."

"On Tamaran, are there other animals? Like here on Earth?"

I thought for a moment, "There are none like the ones on this planet, but some of them have similar characteristics. A garmflarp is similar to a dog in that it runs around and produces an excess of drool, but it is most unfriendly."

"So like, humans and Tamaraneans, on a certain level, we're all just animals, right?"

This was confusing, but I recognized an earth idea I had heard expressed in it. "In the obvious biological sense, we are not made of different components, but it depends on how you mean the word animal."

"That's what I'm saying. I can be any animal I want, but I'm still me. Is it something about me, being a human, that makes me still be me when I'm an animal, or do all animals have the same sort of value as a human or a Tamaranean?"

"I understand what it is that you mean, though I do not understand why it would involve seeing my "boobs" versus just talking to me."

"I'm getting to that. I don't eat meat any more because I've been some of those animals, I've seen through their eyes and felt it. Even if I'm not in danger from birds, I still spend most of my time as a mouse or a rabbit terrified for my life. At a certain point, it's hard for me to see the human experience as anything but another animal I am sometimes."

"Is it a crisis of what makes you human, or a crisis of what it is to be human?"

"I suppose it's kinda both." He did the shrugging. "Sometimes, when I'm an animal, I get the pheromones of some female of that species and even if I know that's a pigeon and not a hot chick, I can't stop my brain from wanting it. Then when I saw you earlier, it felt the same way, just for the human part of me. I wanted to see it, but I also wanted to be upset like Cyborg."

"You felt in that moment that your reaction was like that of an animal?"

He nodded, but did not respond. I grabbed his hand, as I have seen done sometimes, and set it on one of my grebnacks.

"Humans are indeed like animals, as are Tamaraneans. Humans also produce pheromones, that is no different than an animal. But inside a human is a heart that beats and a brain that can recognize it wants to be upset even when it isn't."

"That's... the wrong side for a human heart, Star."

I shifted his hand to my other grebnack.

"Even if the human part is just another animal, it is the animal you choose to be the most of the time. Because of that, it must be the one you want to be. If what it wants is to not eat animals because it sympathizes with them, that is not wrong. If what it wants is boobs, that is also not wrong."

He smiled then, seeming to be happy with my answer, even if it was not a good one.

"Try telling that to Cyborg, or Robin."

"I am somewhat in the know of why Robin is so unemotional, but why does Cyborg act the way he does? It is like he is wholly uninterested in my body, is there something the matter with it?"

"Yeah, it's not Raven's." He told me.

"Do you mean to tell me that him and Raven are... together?"

He did a scoff, "All but. They'll never admit it, not to us and especially not to each other. They make these weird bets and-"

For once, I interrupted him, "I have learned about the bets, friend Raven was... well, she had a..." I found myself having trouble describing what I had seen without revealing a potential secret.

"Was it a weird sex thing?"

"It was indeed a sex thing, and one that most humans would find weird."

"Yup," He sighed, taking his hand from my body and laying back on my bed. "That's them alright. Raven and Cyborg, Robin and Starfire, Beast Boy and... some female vole somewhere."

I also laid back on my bed, "If it is any consolation, Robin and I are not... together."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. I like Robin very much, and we have been... something like intimate, but we are not the item. If you desire Robin, I would be willing to respect your relationship."

He laughed, loudly enough that I worried for a moment he may be heard, but I remembered that the walls in the Titan's Tower are completely soundproof. "Star, I'm not gay."

"Gay?" I asked.

"I don't like boys."

"I have heard the term before, I guess it is simply confusing. As a largely gender-locked species, some of you find one gender or the other more attractive."

"And you aren't?" He asked me, seemingly very shocked.

"Not at all, if it is just a question of sexual organs, I can enter a transformative state and become biologically male in a few hours."

"Huh," He said, "Do you feel like boy Starfire would be different?"

"He would have a penis."

"That's not what I meant, would you be any different as a person?"

"I suspect it is something like one of your transformations, I would still be Starfire, just with a different body and the desires that come with it."

"Lucky you, you'll never have to deal with wanting to eat out of the garbage while on a mission."

"Is that not a boy thing? Judging by how your breath smells-" I joked.

He laughed, then flung one of my pillows at me. Whatever I said to him, it seemed to put his mind at ease, enough that soon after he felt comfortable going back to his own room.

"Thanks, Star." He told me as he was leaving.

"Do not mention it, my friend!" I told him, "Any time you wish to make a conversation, or to see my boobs, you need simply to ask."

Sometime after he left, I was finally able to fall asleep. It was only when I woke up that I realized that I had never put my shirt back on. I know some humans fall asleep without clothes on. I have avoided trying since my arrival, both because at times people will enter my room while I am sleeping to wake me for work, and because my pajamas are comfy. If I have continued success falling asleep naked and continued trouble falling asleep clothed, I will have to consider it an option, and simply warn people who would enter my room while I slept.

This is where I now stand, or rather sit. Having gotten back into my usual outfit, I am suddenly feeling even more clothed than usual, since I have spent the last night without anything worn as a top. We are set for another boring day, and I remain unsure of what I will do to pass it. As I see it now, I am given the choice between my friends to pursue. Whoever I decide on, I shall likely spend the whole day with, with or without the others. I am left undecided, but when you, friend Diary, hear from me next, I will already have made the choice. What an unfair blessing you then have, to not have to experience the moments of indecision.

Goodbye!