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When Alexander Joseph Luthor goes mad, he leaves behind three things.
The first is a long list of sins, acted out in self-righteous vanity and pride, leaving a wake of debauchery and destruction that tarnishes the once good Luthor name. The second is his company, which suffers in both stock and image in the public eye, ready to collapse at the slightest moral provocation. The third is his sister, young and slightly bewildered, having been wrenched from the bottom rung of the business in Research and Development and shoved into the spotlight unceremoniously and with little guidance imparted unto her.
It’s that fresh-faced younger sister who takes to the podium during the first press conference nearly a month after his descent to darkness. The press wants to eat her alive and she feels it, like being pulled apart to expose her insides for what might be the shadow of her brother’s deeds. No stone goes unturned in their dissection of her character, tearing into her with their teeth, trying to find similar veins of sin and madness between her and her brother.
The irony isn’t lost on her, after all. Before Lex was caught, she was just a name in a byline, sometimes even less than that: Adopted Sister, Lena Luthor. Who knew all he had to do was face God as he walked backward into hell for the press to drop the qualifying moniker of Lena’s origins. Lex Luthor’s sister, Lena Luthor, Takes Over Disgraced Company, they began to write.
His sins leave a stain on everything she is or attempts to be as soon as he disappears.
She doesn’t expect him to ever come back.
So, she ditches the lab coats and safety goggles and starts donning fresh makeup and putting her hair up and her body into modest pieces of formal work wear. She plays the part of an innocent little sister thrown to the wolves by her gluttonous brother’s selfish pride.
Some people buy it, though not nearly enough to save the company completely. She ends up rebranding it, strips its facade of her brother’s grim shadow and begins the arduous task of scrubbing it clean. She feels like maybe she could do it. Two dirty hands rub together to rinse themselves of debris, after all.
Lillian is no help. Instead, she laments the monster the media turned her sweet boy into, finding fault in everyone else but him. Especially in Lena. Always, especially in Lena. Somehow everything terrible Lex ever did is instantly some ploy of Lena’s, something he was taking care of for Lena, something he took the fall for, for Lena. She wonders if that’s why she was adopted—a placeholder, a scapegoat should the family ever need it.
Lena’s always tried to be perfect because of that fear. But there’s darkness inside of her, too. It’s something she harbors deep within herself, shoved as far down as she can get it, pushed into the well of her heart so that it sees no light. She keeps it at bay, mostly, especially in the wake of what her brother left behind. She hides it, that part of herself she knows is wrong . She understands human nature, knows that she resides in grey gradients, despite the world’s need for stark black against severe white.
Rebuilding and rebranding is slow work—meticulous work that feels like every time she takes two steps forward, there’s a media whirlwind that places her one step back. But she does it, somehow. She manages less a 180-degree about-face and more a careful navigation of a sinking ship to safe waters.
She comes out of the other side exposed and raw. The media still doesn’t trust her and treats her as a ticking time bomb. The worst conspiracy theories are the ones that say she’s hiding Alexander, bearing accomplice to his list of crimes. They crave a slip up. Any casual mistake will do; they’ll pick it apart and spread it so far and so wide, her original mishap may never be truly uncovered or acknowledged.
Despite all of this, Lena presses on. She continues in her sisyphean task of maintaining her image, curating a persona both bland and intimidating. Luthor Corp turned L-Corp turns a profit. Lena’s charitable contributions start to see returns. The woman herself receives a printed compliment in a reputable publication. But still. The shadow of her brother lies in wait, somewhere. She fears the day he might rear his ugly head and ruin what she might like to call her own after all the work she’s put into it.
She gets the idea one night in a dream. She dreams of something that leaves her mind’s eye the minute she wakes up, but it lingers in her body, in the tips of her fingers and the edges of her subconscious. It’s something that taps at the surface of her, begging to be remembered, and in her effort to assuage that percussive nagging, she finds a truly unexpected solution.
Lena does the research herself because she has a feeling she couldn’t bear whatever reaction Jess would have in store for her upon request. There’s exactly 3 places in National City that might satisfy her curiosity, but she chooses one because of some nostalgic aesthetic. A picture on the internet of old wood and dark stone seems familiar and when she looks at it, that tap-tap-tapping from her dream dims to a murmur.
She feels a thread of guilt begin to unravel when she peruses the website for National City’s All-Denominational Church. She lingers too long on the photo of one of their famed speakers and spends too much time gnawing at her thumb, reading and rereading the speaker’s bio before she closes her laptop. The satisfying clip of the machine’s magnets signal that it’s time for her to walk away from this for the evening. So she does.
Of course, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t continue to revisit the notion. She ponders the implications of her image, what good or bad it would do to be publically seen in the presence of piety. That thread of guilt stays untucked and loose. She wonders what it would be like to pull on that thread and see what’s left of her after she’s done being unraveled.
She convinces then un-convinces then re-convinces herself no less than 4 times in 2 weeks.
It’s only when she gets there that she well and truly knows that she’s made a mistake.
A mistake she doesn’t mind committing more than once.
--
Kara Zor-El came to Earth at an unknown time. What she does during the day, what her history is, who she is aside from Superman’s cousin is completely unknown. What is known is that, while her cousin chooses to don a red cape and tries to save Earth from itself and others, she is content to stay on the ground.
She keeps the cape though.
It’s said she’s stronger than him, faster than him, more powerful than him. But those are rumors Lena came across on shady internet forums and fansites. The Kara Zor-El in front of her looks less imposing than the gossip. Lena sits in the less traditional seating above the podium, looking down at someone many would call a demi-god. But Kara does not exhibit her powers through her fists. She’s a priestess of Rao and preaches Raoism at the tiny All-Denominational Church of National City once a week on Friday evenings.
Lena tries to pay attention, she really does. But guilt and vile thoughts seep into her conscious like staining white linen—traveling slowly but deliberately until the entirety is consumed. Is this what her brother felt like, in the beginning? How many thought crimes did he commit before he let the white hot rage of his terrible vices scorch the Earth and everything around him?
She doesn’t want to justify it, but if she had to pinpoint the source, she might think that perhaps it’s the outfit. Kara walks deliberately back and forth across the stage in something like an appropriated pastor’s outfit—a navy blue suit ensemble that’s all severe, straight lines, cut only by the white square at her neck and the one-shouldered cape clasped by her family crest. It drapes down her back on her right side, a blood red cascade down past her thighs. The material swishes with her. Cape aside, it’s that damned pastor’s collar that makes Lena’s head swim.
She feels herself tug at that loose little thread and picks at the seam just enough to see how much give it might have. And give it does.
Lena sees herself in front of Kara, imagines running her hands down the flat planes of fabric across Kara’s chest. She bites down on her own lip as she imagines ripping that navy collar apart with her teeth and shudders at the thought of exposing the column of Kara’s neck. Lena strains, feels her teeth ache, beg to understand what it might be like to drag themselves against Kara’s sunkissed skin.
The sigh she releases is involuntary.
Kara looks up and makes eye contact with her.
Lena pulls at the thread and feels herself come undone bit by aching bit.
--
Lena remembers very little of the time before she was adopted. It’s almost completely blank as she attempts to rebuild the earliest years of her life. She remembers her mother’s face, the soft, round lines she has trouble finding in her own features, and the smell of her perfume, but she cannot pick her mother’s voice out from a dream or pluck it from what might be memory but could be a fantasy.
The house she lived in before the Luthor Estate exists in vague shapes and dark staircases and hallways that sometimes lead to bathrooms, sometimes lead to bedrooms. Other things exist in her memory of the place, things like chipped mugs and creaky table sets for four, a well used cast iron always oiled, sitting atop an antiquated stove.
And church.
They say that Catholicism leaves a trench of guilt so wide and deep even non-practicing Catholics feel it when they step inside a place of prayer. When an old friend of her father’s died and the whole Luthor family had to attend a traditional Catholic funeral, Lena found herself reciting prayers she never even knew she had the words to. She stood and knelt and spoke as if going to church was something she did regularly. She’s done nothing of the sort since.
The All-Denominational Church of National City isn’t quite like the vague darkness and quiet reverence of Catholicism she somewhat remembers. It’s bright and light, despite the fact that it shares the same kind of space that exists in her memory—vaulted ceilings and stained glass and dark, wooden pews. The stained glass is a lot more inviting than what she thinks she remembers.
After her first visit, she debates returning, especially with the shameful way her mind had wandered and continues to wander despite having skipped a week. She skips another week, blames it on an intense and unavoidable work schedule, but goes the week after that.
Lena times her arrival with the masses and manages to slip in relatively unnoticed. She sits in the pews on the ground floor, wedged between two other young 20-somethings in business casual wear. Was it still considered Sunday’s best if service took place on a Friday evening?
Kara steps out in that same navy suit, punctual and smiling, her red cape pinned to her right shoulder with the same crest that Superman wears—a symbol Lena knows to mean “stronger together”. The thought alone sends her back to a place she knows defiles the sanctity of where she is and what she’s attempting to attend.
Lena misses most of the service. She notices that Kara is gentle, but passionate—she talks with her hands and emphasizes statements by jabbing the air in front of her. She has a certain amount of flair, too. Lena knows this because of the crisp snap Kara’s cape makes when she spins on her heel as she paces the stage. Kara herself seems to smile at it slightly, every time she does it right.
There’s no singing. There’s no standing or kneeling either, which Lena is grateful for. She doesn’t quite know how her body would react to the physical activity.
She certainly knows how her mind reacts, though. That same, untucked thread snags and unravels and Lena sees herself kneeling in front of Kara, sees that white, square collar against her throat, sees a gentle smile on Kara’s face, like approval or praise. Lena yearns for it.
Kara talks, but Lena is focused on a parallel fantasy, a world where she’s on her knees in front of a goddess who looks at her like she deserves a clean slate. Lena imagines Kara running a finger down her temple, a reward for being good, for being kind, for working hard. She imagines taking a sip from a golden chalice, tasting tannin, before Kara pushes one of those stale, hard crackers past Lena’s lips.
Kara’s thumb pushes the sacramental bread to the back of Lena’s mouth where she can feel it dissolve and start to stick. The rest of Kara’s fingers cup against Lena’s jaw. Slowly, Kara’s thumb presses down, so gently, so softly, right against Lena’s tongue. Lena doesn’t move as Kara drags her digit against Lena’s bottom lip, refrains from closing her mouth over her finger, stops herself from closing her eyes in reverence. It takes everything Lena has to not wrap her lips around Kara, and when she pulls away, Kara strokes her cheek and smiles kindly at her.
“You’re such a good girl, Lena,” she says.
Lena shudders.
The real Kara is wrapping up the service in the name of Rao and people are applauding and Lena feels hot all over, flustered, and terribly ashamed.
When Kara’s eyes sweep across the room, she holds Lena’s gaze for more moments than necessary. It unravels her. It unnerves her. Lena wonders, for a moment (one terrifying moment), if Superman and his cousin can read minds.
She looks it up later just to make sure they can’t.
--
If she were a better person, a less selfish person, Lena thinks she would have the sense to stop this nonsense and find a different place to quell the curiosity of her spiritual journey. But she isn’t a better person and she thinks that maybe this is the spiritual journey she really desires.
After spending so much time acting, fixing the vile horrors left by her brother, repairing what their father left them, surely this one fantasy, this stupidly inappropriate delusion can’t be that bad. If she keeps on pulling at that thread, what terribleness could she possibly expose that hasn’t already been dredged up by some columnist?
So she goes again, arriving inconspicuously and determined to at least learn one thing during the day’s service.
A hush falls over the church as the hour draws close, as Kara has a reputation for being almost annoyingly prompt with an abrupt and cheery greeting. But the start time passes and the minutes drag on and soon the murmurs rev like a motor through the pews. Worried whispers whip about the cathedral and grow in tenor and timbre until the whole church is buzzing like a hive of angry wasps.
A door at one end of the church slams open so loudly everyone quiets immediately. Kara approaches the stage, red-faced and harried, her cape swishing behind her as she walks. Lena notices that with every step, Kara leaves a shallow imprint of her foot in the stone beneath her.
“I’m so sorry, but service must be cancelled today. There’s been an emergency and I’m needed. May Rao guide your footsteps in peace and bless you in its light.”
And then she shoots off, faster than the eye can follow, and another door slams (presumably) behind her. Murmuring revs to a deafening roar as people bewilderedly get up to leave. There’s something frantic and kinetic in the way people are moving, scrambling toward exits. Lena has to execute several ounces of control just to not get swept up in it. She pushes aviators onto her face and masks her expression with something more severe before she’s also up and out of her seat and all but bolting for the nearest out.
Every worst case scenario involving her brother runs through Lena’s mind like invasive, intrusive thoughts. She doesn’t check her phone and fights against her panic until she’s in her car, telling her driver to take her home.
It’s not Lex.
It’s not even on the West Coast. There’s an extraterrestrial terrorist threat in Gotham and it seems big and dangerous from initial reports. Both Superman and the Batman are seen working together in the heart of it all while Wonder Woman seems to bear the brunt of most forces. In some footage, a blue and red streak appears, topped with blonde. Lena knows it’s Kara before her face even appears.
She watches the footage more than necessary. A scene in particular imprints itself onto Lena and yanks at that thread so that whole parts of her come undone.
A building crumples on a hinge, made by some giant impact from some unknown, flung thing . It seems like all the heroes are otherwise preoccupied as it falls, but Kara Zor-El’s blur halts underneath the falling monstrosity to keep it from collapsing on escaping pedestrians. Lena watches her muscles strain and flex under the weight, Kara’s face red from exertion—she’s still in her suit, her cape dusted with debris. Kara yells, strains upward, and then pushes the falling tower up multiple feet until the ground is clear of pedestrians. She lowers the collapsed building down with control and through the screen Lena notices that Kara’s biceps have ripped the sleeves of her suit.
The scrawling text on the bottom of the broadcast says she’s Superman’s cousin, come to help Gotham in its time of need. There’s no mention of what she does or the church that she’s missing the service to. They call her Supergirl.
Lena turns the television off and goes to bed.
In her dream, as in her fantasy, Lena is on her knees. There are the vague shapes of environment around her, a place that might feel familiar, if nothing else—safe and comfortable perhaps, but those are broad ideas, painted in swathes by the part of her brain responsible for creating form and function for this vivid fantasy of wretched hope.
“Oh, Lena,” Kara breathes, touching a finger to Lena’s face that she somehow feels in every portion of her body, like every one of her nerve endings are now alight. “Of course it wasn’t you. Of course.”
Lena shivers at Kara’s voice—smooth and gentle like the surface of a pond. It washes over her, through her, permeates her entire being.
“It could have been me,” she hears herself say.
“It could never,” Kara replies, reassures gently. “You’re such a good girl, Lena. You could never hurt those people. I’m so proud of you.”
Kara smiles, as if she’s endeared by Lena. She traces a path along Lena’s jaw and uses the tip of her finger to tilt Lena’s chin upward. The blue of Kara’s eyes bore into Lena so intensely she feels it at her core, tugging at that thread inside of her, threatening to unravel her from her center.
“Please,” she hears herself say, though she has no idea what she’s begging for. Praise, perhaps. Her life, maybe. Whatever it is, Kara seems keen on wanting to give it to her. She bends at the waist, leans forward so slowly Lena thinks she might never get to her at all.
She pauses, hair's breadth away from Lena’s mouth. With effort, Lena tries to steady her breathing, tries to stifle every urge in her that threatens to come undone in an untimely manner. She holds out, her unraveled self hanging by a gossamer thread. Somehow she knows that this is what Kara desires of her—demonstrated restraint. It’s difficult. It’s the hardest task of Lena’s life.
Kara’s breath is hot against Lena’s lips. She feels the humidity of it, the ghost of her touch right before her.
“May you be blessed in the light of Rao and prosper in the sun of Earth,” Kara whispers. Lena closes her eyes, feels the words roll over her.
Her blaring alarm startles her into wakefulness before their lips can even touch.
Lena thinks she feels the ghost of Kara pressed against her all day.
--
Lena attempts to do what she can to get her brain back on track. She throws herself into her work and attempts to find the best possible avenues to provide Gotham with aid after the attacks decimated a quarter of the city. The Justice League’s efforts are strong and in the 24-hour broadcastings Kara is shown in the background helping the city rebuild. There’s some speculation that the personal involvement of the super powered team in the reconstruction of Gotham is due in part to most of the damage taking place in the financial district. Nonetheless, Lena feels as though Kara truly enjoys helping. She diverts some funds and donates as much construction material as she possibly can while still remaining anonymous.
Her office television always has some news channel running, but it’s never been such a distraction until recently. Lena catches herself with her pen poised, whatever documents she was meant to be reviewing untouched and blank. It happens more often than usual. She means to finish an investor’s report by lunch, but finds herself watching Kara Zor-El, part-time superhero, weld steel beams together with just her eyes.
Lena wonders if she shouldn’t find that so attractive. She feels as though she only just began patching herself up, sewing up the seams of herself that had come undone days prior. But here she is, ready to commit heinous thought crimes once again.
She shuts the TV off and puts her head down, leans into her work because it’s what she’s good at.
Jess doesn’t ask about the powered down set. Lena gives her a raise for no reason at all.
Despite working herself to certain exhaustion, despite trying her best to keep impure thoughts out of her mind, despite all her efforts in trying to trick herself to stop thinking about the cheeky pastor who seems to be a one woman construction crew, Lena cannot help her dreams. As if her mind tries to make up for her insubordination, her dreams become so vivid she can practically taste them in her mouth when she wakes up.
“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”
Lena sits in a cramped confessional, a dark booth that’s slightly hazy, as if burning incense might be at her feet, smoke rising to choke her on its atmosphere—stuck in her eyes and throat like water holding her down.
“Of course you have.”
The voice is Lillian’s on the other side of the perforated wood. Lena cannot see her but she wants to, desperately. She’s so sorry for what she’s done; she never meant to disappoint her.
“Stupid girl, how could you disgrace us like this?”
Lena wants to scream. She wants to yell in her stepmother’s obscured face, beat against the vaneer until it splinters and gives way so that she might be able to look Lillian Luthor in the eyes before she spits in her face and denounces her brother and her legacy and her name; but smoke curls unnatural around her head and climbs into her nose and mouth, sitting heavy on her tongue.
“I’m sorry,” is what she says in a whispered, half-sob, croaked out as a desperate apology. As if she were begging. She feels split between two dichotomies, two opposites with counter intuitive goals. The first only wants to leave Lillian in this booth by herself forever. The second only craves Lillian’s approval and forgiveness.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
The voice is her father’s, now. She tries to stand, but her legs won’t let her. She strains, but it feels as if something sits across her thighs, barring her from standing.
“Dad! Please,” she says. She doesn’t know what she’s pleading for until suddenly it’s spilling out of her mouth too fast for her to catch it and put it back. “I should have stopped him. I should’ve stopped Lex! You would have, wouldn’t you? Dad? Dad!”
Behind the partition her parents voices spar one another in vague allusions. Things she can’t quite hear topple over one another: Lionel’s angry voice weaving with Lillian’s disaffected one. They’re arguing. They’re arguing about her. Lillian is unimpressed and Lionel is defending his daughter. Their voices tear into one another like animals, feral and dangerous.
Lena feels trapped, claustrophobic in the confessional. She wants to see them. She needs to, but she can’t move. She can’t get up. She can’t even raise her hands.
“Please,” she whispers, against the smoke. It curls against her face, pushes into her mouth. She closes her eyes against it and it slithers around her neck before it squeezes with weight. She feels pressure against her throat and tightens her fists, raises her chin to find air, to find a way to breathe. Even with her eyes closed she feels blackness pressing in on her from all sides as the pressure against her throat stays and stays and stays.
“Please,” she manages to say again.
Suddenly the pressure is gone and warmth and relief floods through her body from the top of her head to tips of her toes, rolling in waves against her skin, pulsing out through her core.
“That’s it. That’s a good girl.”
Kara sits on Lena’s lap, her hand no longer pressing against her neck, but still resting there—reassuring and soothing. Her parents voices are quiet, gone. She and Kara are still crammed in that same booth and her hands are wrapped against Kara’s thighs. Her face is so close that Lena can see the flecks of gold in her blue eyes.
“Don’t listen to them,” Kara says.
Her breath is hot against Lena’s open mouth and Lena craves Kara so desperately that her grip tightens against Kara’s thighs as she nods. Kara laughs, her eyes bright, like she’s so delighted, so completely taken by Lena. “What would you like? You’ve done so well, Lena. I’ll give you anything you like.”
Lena feels suddenly out of breath.
“Anything?” she hears herself ask.
Kara giggles, almost. She smiles at Lena like Lena is the source of her happiness.
“Yes, Lena, anything,” Kara answers. Her hand moves, preemptively, already anticipating Lena’s desire. Lena feels as though Kara is tuned into her so acutely that Kara could whisper her exact words at the same time back to Lena. A game of mirror.
The hand that was on her neck now travels down her shoulder, Kara’s palm flat against every part of Lena she touches, maximizing her contact. Lena shudders. She wants Kara to reach inside of her with that hand, to tug at the thread that Lena has tried so desperately to ignore and repair and tuck out of sight. She wants nothing more than Kara unraveling her from the inside out, to yank at that thread and pull and pull and pull until nothing remains of Lena except a singularity.
She wants Kara to be her event horizon.
Lena tilts her head as Kara palms her breast through her shirt. She inhales sharply as Kara exhales, the exchange of air something so intimate and tender and gentle it makes Lena whimper with need.
“Words, Lena. You must use your words,” Kara urges. The palm against her breast squeezes and somehow, impossibly, Kara is even closer. But still, still she’s not where Lena wants. Not where Lena craves. Not where Lena hopes. She wants Kara’s mouth against hers, pouring herself inside of Lena so that Lena can seek fullness, can feel complete and whole and experience totality with Kara inside her.
“I—I want—”
“Yes? Yes, Lena?”
Kara’s other hand cups Lena’s face, her thumb drags across Lena’s cheek until it reaches the corner of her mouth. Lena parts her lips, opens her mouth wider, feels the hot heat of Kara’s breath against her tongue. Kara’s thumb presses across her bottom lip and slides until she’s at the center of Lena’s mouth, hovering over her chin. She bears down, tugging at Lena’s lip, and dragging downward until one palm is against her throat and the other is still against her breast.
“Tell me what you need,” Kara whispers against Lena’s mouth and the hand on her throat applies delicious pressure against the column of Lena’s neck. Lena breaths in while she still can, closes her eyes so that she might be able to feel more, feel all. She wants to feel the gentle power of Kara’s control and the hand that coils against her neck with such restraint. It could be so easy for her, Lena thinks. It could be so easy. All she’d have to do is sneeze and Lena’s neck would snap.
Lena has to tell her, before it’s too late. She licks against her thoat, trying to find a way to speak.
“Forgive me,” she manages to push out, short and clipped.
When Kara answers, she can hear the playful smile in Kara’s voice, even as her head begins to swim.
“You are forgiven.”
Lena wakes up to a sound she very quickly realizes is herself, a moan that rips through her like being struck by lighting—she sits up in bed, heart thundering against her sternum, breath coming in short, shallow gasps. She’s aching between her legs and her hands are fisted in her sheets. Unthinking, she squeezes her thighs together against the pressure there and she comes.
Her chest arches upward and her mouth hangs open as she breathes through her silent orgasm, each breath becoming deeper, more intense as the waves of pleasure rip through her body like a supernova tearing across space in light and color. She feels it in the tips of her fingers and toes. Can practically taste it on her tongue.
When she’s finished, she flops onto her back, her ears ringing with tinnitus. She feels like she just sprinted 5 miles without stopping and her cunt is throbbing with aftershocks. It’s still dark out. She attempts to get her breathing under control and relaxes her hands, which feel as though they’ve been clenched tight for hours. She’s soaked, sweat straight through her thin sleep shirt and her sensitive nipples feel its fabric with every heave of her chest.
She turns over onto her side, trying to ignore the urge to convulse through the aftershocks of her orgasm, like solar flares off of a dying star. She doesn’t know why but she cries herself back to sleep.
--
“Lena?” Jess clears her throat. “Miss Luthor.”
Lena snaps out of her day dream, tearing her gaze away from the skyline and turns her desk chair to face her secretary. She smiles politely.
“I’m sorry, Jess. Did you need something?”
Jess squirms, her face marred with worry.
“Nothing really, Lena. But you told me this morning to remind you when it was 4:30 and—well—it’s 4:30 now.”
Lena flips her wrist, checking her watch. “So it is.”
Jess waits awkwardly by the door to Lena’s office all but wringing her hands as Lena stands and begins the task of clearing and sorting her desk before leaving for the day.
“Go home, Jess. Enjoy your Friday evening,” Lena says, stacking and restacking a pile of folders.
“Are you sure?”
Lena laughs. “Of course I’m sure. I’ll be leaving soon as well.”
She hears the door slip shut after Jess is gone and breathes relief past her lips. It’s a mistake to keep keep going. She feels dirty, somehow. Not that going is vile, but that she might somehow be tainting the sanctity of what church (any kind of church) has to offer anyone. And yet, here she is, packing up her things so that her driver can take her to defile something so good and pure. The opposite of the Midas touch—Lena thinks she must be cursed with it.
By the time she’s satisfied with the state of her desk, she grabs her bag and leaves. Jess is not at her seat and Lena smiles at the empty space, pleased that Jess listened to her and left early without much in the way of protest. She walks to her waiting car under a bright, brilliant sun. Before she ducks her head to enter, she looks up at the sky. A blue and red blur rushes past, behind the tower of L-Corp and in a familiar direction. Without meaning to, Lena feels the corners of her mouth quirk upward.
The drive is slow going, weaving through traffic at a glacial pace. Lena’s always taken downtown National City’s gridlock traffic into account for all her travel needs, so it’s expected. But instead of pulling her laptop out to work as she normally would, Lena finds herself gnawing on the already shortened nail of her thumb and watching pedestrians amble down the sidewalks. She actively attunes her attention to nothing and everything, trying very hard not to settle on some vivid, false, reimagining of reality.
She blinks and suddenly it’s an hour later and her car has slowed to a stop in front of her destination. It seems very odd and quite still as Lena approaches, the lobby empty when usually there are people greeting one another, kissing each other on the cheek after long days, long weeks. Lena is perturbed, but presses forward just to see for herself.
She slips into the church through the usual double doors and sure enough—it’s empty. Of course it is. She makes quick work of her phone to confirm that service had been cancelled. Her mind games with herself are starting to make her clumsy and airheaded. She huffs a sigh at herself and tuts her tongue. She means to leave, but her feet move forward instead of back, the way she came. She moves through rows and rows of empty pews with some sort of nostalgic reverence washing over her.
At the front of the church, on the slightly raised stage, Kara is meditating. Lena feels awkward about intruding, not expecting anybody to be there, let alone Kara herself. She’s so utterly captivating, hovering slightly as she sits cross legged and murmuring in a language that Lena doesn’t understand. Lena accidentally knocks against a pew as she backsteps into it, distracted by the picture in front of her. The noise causes Kara to startle and stand suddenly. There are a pair of glasses, thick black frames, on her face.
“Oh, golly!” Kara says. She pulls the frames off of her face so quickly Lena’s not quite sure she even saw her hand move. She has a curious look of guilt, almost.
“I’m sorry,” Lena says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, please don’t apologize,” Kara says. She taps a finger against her ear. “I should have heard you come in.”
Awkwardly, Lena waves her phone. “Really should have checked this before leaving the office.”
Kara laughs, or giggles, maybe.
“You’re fine. There’s usually someone who’s supposed to be in the lobby…”
She trails off as her gaze scans the empty pews behind Lena. At least, she thought they were empty. She turns quickly, just to check, empty benches all the confirmation she needs. When Kara’s gaze tilts downward and starts to pan back the other way, Lena realizes what she’s doing.
“Ah! There he is,” Kara says, gaze fixed at some unknown point behind Lena and to the left. She shakes her head and huffs. “Winn… he’s supposed to be in the lobby, not playing games in the kitchenette.”
Lena knows that she should leave. She knows that the polite thing to do would be to laugh lightly, apologize once more, then turn around and leave and really think about coming back next week. She does none of those things, however, and instead stays firmly rooted to the spot. She plays with a ring on her finger.
“I didn’t know you could have bad eyesight,” Lena says.
Kara laughs, a little high, a little loud. Lena’s mouth lifts at the sound, lifts even more at the slight pink of Kara’s cheeks.
“Haha. What? No. I have perfect vision. Obviously. I mean not obviously as if I’m gloating. But yea.”
“Okay.”
“Uhm. Well, I’m sorry you came all this way and there’s no service today. I haven’t had the time to plan my next talk between helping in Gotham,” Kara says as she tumbles straight through her brush off of her aforementioned glasses and stumbles on into the next topic of conversation. Lena has never felt so endeared by someone who could so easily kill her, in less than a breath, and without breaking a sweat.
“I watched some of the footage,” Lena admits. She frowns. “Wouldn’t you like to do that more… full-time?”
“That?” Kara tilts her head. “Oh, you mean hero work!” She grins and places her hands on her hips. “Maybe someday, but I like doing this, too. My faith is important to me and I’m the only one who really remembers practicing it.”
“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“Oh no! It’s fine, really.”
Kara’s smile feels infectious, like Lena’s a marionette played by the same strings.
“Please, would you like to sit with me?” Kara asks.
“Oh, I don’t—”
But Kara gestures with an open palm, her other hand ghosting over Lena’s shoulder and suddenly they’re sitting side by side on an empty bench, facing the stage. Instantly, Lena knows that she’s made a mistake, her body hot all over by their proximity. She mentally berates herself for acting like a teenager with a crush, but Kara smiles sweetly at her and Lena realizes she’s somehow managed to have all of Kara’s attention. A god answering a single prayer.
“You’re new to the service, aren’t you?” Kara asks. She seems so… warm. Innocent in a way that lacks naiveté, like she’s something wholly good and isn’t more or less than what she puts out. Lena recognizes herself as Kara’s foil—dirty and manipulative, always in the half-shroud of meaning and intent.
“Yes,” she replies. “It’s a new venture.”
She cringes at the poor word choice; this is a deeply personal institution for many and she’s gone and reduced it to a business transaction. Nonetheless, Kara nods enthusiastically, either ignoring Lena’s turn of phrase or not seeming to be bothered by her choice in syntax.
“Well, I’m glad you’re returning,” Kara says. Lena knows the statement is genuine, somehow. “I apologize for the inconvenient timing of everything. It’s not often that I have to cancel service and now I’ve gone and cancelled twice.”
She frowns and Lena loves the wrinkles in her face, the indignant scrunch between her brows, her pouty lips, the slight scar. How does a god scar, Lena wonders. She laughs anyway.
“You act as if you could have planned for a more convenient time for catastrophe.”
“Unfortunately, clairvoyance is not on the list of heightened abilities Earth’s sun has gifted me.” Kara makes a face. “Actually, that’s probably preferable.”
Kara smiles again and Lena’s only thought is that she is so easy to talk to, so lovely, and so special, and Lena surely does not deserve this kind of catered attention from a being who is, to her core, good. And yet, despite that thought, Lena stays seated, and she converses with a woman who could lift a building with her bare hands. She tries not to think of that image as her knee brushes against Kara’s as they talk in that church.
It’s only when the light fades from the stained glass windows and the church’s inhouse lights come on that Kara’s focus tears away from Lena.
“Oh dear. I didn’t mean to keep you this long—I’m sorry. I tend to ramble when I’m excited,” Kara says. She hunches slightly, the action makes her look sheepish and Lena wonders how the most powerful being on the planet could possibly be so humble.
“Not at a all. I found this very educational,” Lena says.
Kara stands and her cape pools down her shoulder. She brushes her palms against her thighs, straightening the pleats of her navy uniform. Up close, Lena notices that the material is very fine, cut and tailored impeccably. She decidedly ignores the white square collar and just manages to not stare at the tendons in Kara’s neck.
“I hope these inconvenient cancellations haven’t deterred you from future visits,” Kara says. She smiles and Lena catches the flash of her white teeth. “I’d love to see you again.”
“Schedule allowing,” Lena answers. She smiles back and thinks, maybe knows, that she is a different person after this encounter. Whether or not that person is better or worse that who she was previously is still up for debate.
Kara radiates warmth. Lena is swallowed by it, consumed entirely, like standing in a ray of light in a cold house. It warms her, softens the hard edges of her outer persona, and lights up the darkened cave where she hides herself. It makes her feel terribly hallow, how full she’s become by the encounter alone.
Kara reaches and before she does it, Lena knows that Kara will touch her shoulder. She braces herself, but the touch is incredibly soft, practiced to be intimate but not overbearing. Kara’s palm squeezes against Lena’s shoulder, faintly, tenderly. This is a woman who could crush her bones to dust, could blink and obliterate Lena on the spot, and yet she chooses to be good and kind, has probably practiced that gesture a thousand times before using it on Lena.
They part ways and Lena’s heels click neatly as she walks up the aisle, feeling oddly light about the encounter.
“I forgot!” Kara calls as Lena just reaches the double doors for the exit. She turns. Kara is on the stage, by her speaker’s podium. She blinks. Kara is beside her, a shy smile playing on her lips. Lena notices that she’s wearing lipgloss. “I’m sorry. You never told me your name.”
Lena’s mouth twitches. Kara says it so genuinely, but she feels her brain slam through a thousand calculations, trying to assess whether this is an honest question despite herself. She decides it must be. It has to be. She wills this to be one of those genuine moments of other people’s lives, gifted to her by a god answering a single person’s prayer.
“My name is Lena,” she says.
“Lena.”
And oh, Lena did not need to hear Kara say her name like that, testing it in her mouth with curiosity. She is unraveling, a spool come completely undone.
“That’s a pretty name. I hope to see you again, Lena.”
--
“Lena… Lena, are you even paying attention?”
Lena sighs and only just manages to not reach up and message the headache out of her temple. It feels like her brain has been knocking at the back of her forehead all day.
“You want to know what the annual contributions will be toward charitable work and community outreach programs because you’re concerned about the amount of money allocated toward our former weapons development department. But Bill, I know you haven’t been paying attention because I’ve already been crystal clear that those employees talents have been redistributed within the company and that department has been decommissioned. So please, beg again if you must.”
An awkward silence befalls the table, broken only by uncomfortable shifting in leather seats and a pair of throats being cleared. The only other woman at the table holds back a snort, suddenly more interested in her notes than the men surrounding her. It’s midday and the meeting has gone well into and over lunch. The sun slants through the windows and even with the blinds drawn, the entire conference room is warming up minute by minute.
“I think this will be a great point for us to adjourn for the day,” Sam says. She adds a curt smile, like she could chill the room with it if she tried. “Please be sure to field better questions for tomorrow’s discussion.”
Lena stays imposingly seated as the men around her move to leave, gathering their things with passive-aggressive body language. She eyes each of them as they depart until at last the heavy, wooden door clicks shut behind them. Sam sighs beside her, somewhat deflating and rolling her neck and shoulders.
“You’re distracted,” she says. It’s not a question nor is it an accusation. Sam has a way of stating facts just to make sure Lena knows them too.
Lena shrugs. “Is it that noticeable?”
“No,” Sam answers. “It’s your usual air of indifference.”
She rearranges her papers and Lena spots neat script in the margins of Sam’s agenda for the meeting. Jess comes in, looking exasperated.
“I thought they’d never leave,” she says as she starts to clear the conference table of water glasses and coffee mugs. “You two look worse for wear.”
“Lena gets a failing participation grade for this one,” Sam says. She stands to help, but Jess waves her off. “It’s like playing good cop-bad cop and I have to be the good cop.”
“Like that’s a brand new role for you to play,” Jess says.
“I’m sitting right here,” Lena remarks. Sam and Jess look at each other pointedly. “Do I pay you to talk about me like this?”
“No,” Jess quips. “This is mostly out of love.”
“Absolutely,” Sam agrees.
Lena’s usual smirk remains absent and her eyes stray to the large, floor to ceiling windows. She chews on the nail of her thumb. All day she’s been consumed by a fading memory, a dream that’s lingered in all five senses in vague undertones, like moving shapes in muddy waters or distorted music spilling out into side streets.
“See what I mean?” Sam mock whispers.
Lena ignores them. Instead, she runs her thumb against her lip before passing back over with her nail. She imagines Kara pressing against her mouth before she clears her throat and makes her own moves to clean her spot at the head of the table.
“You should both go home,” she decides out loud.
“It’s four in the afternoon. On a Tuesday. With another meeting tomorrow,” Sam scoffs at her. Even Jess pauses in her tidying.
“And you’re putting in good work and deserve to be rewarded for that despite your remarkably casual banter about my headspace,” Lena says. She stacks and then restacks her papers. The fleeting image of Kara’s warm smile flashes through her brain like single frames cut into a movie reel.
“Our overlord is so very kind,” Sam says. Jess smiles at the joke.
“You’re a bad influence on her,” Lena says, pointing an accusatory finger at Sam. “Jess is only this mean to me when you’re around.”
“I am hardly being mean to you!” Jess argues. Sam snickers at her indignant tone. “But yes, I do admit that Miss Arias does make me a bit… bold.”
Lena quirks an eyebrow at Jess’s confession. The word “crush” ricochets about her brain but she leaves it be.
“I’ll have to remember to separate you two more often then.”
Sam laughs and Lena can’t help but find comfort in the sound.
“You can try,” she says and crosses her arms. “But I like having Jess around.”
“Oh good,” Lena deadpans. She stuffs documents into her work briefcase and shuts its clasps with satisfying snaps. “You can both bond over your mutual disdain for me outside of work.”
“You could come with us?” Sam suggests, her voice lilting at the end of her sentence a little too high, like she’s pleading a little too much. She glances at Jess who somehow both nods and shrugs. In Lena’s defense, she does genuinely consider their offer, almost tilts in favor of their outing, but Kara’s smiling face flashes through her conscious for a brief moment and in that small breadth of time, Lena decides that she won’t.
“Maybe next time,” she says. She swipes her briefcase off the table.
“We don’t even have to talk about work!” Sam says. She’s trying and Lena loves her for it. “I’ll even invite non-work friends.”
Lena makes a face without meaning to. It’s the wrong thing to do.
“They’re great. I promise.”
Sam’s attempt is endearing. Lena has an endless fountain of appreciation for Sam, but she’s already made up her mind.
“Maybe next time,” she repeats. She adds a casual smile.
“You know, you could tell us if you met someone,” Sam says casually, like she’s asking about the weather, one hand braced against the table’s surface, the other on her hip. Lena feels that smile fade.
“I could, if I did,” she replies. She feels the corners of her mouth threaten to tug downward and wills her features into something neutral. She shifts her feet, tries not to be too on the defensive. “But I haven’t, so I won’t.”
“Then… then maybe you should,” Sam ventures. “Meet someone, I mean.”
Lena rolls her eyes, notices that Jess has found a wonderful (and imaginary) spot on their pristine walls to scrutinize, and sighs through her nose. She tilts her chin and tries to imagine how this conversation could possibly play out for her if her life was normal. But her life isn’t normal, so this conversation is here to vex her completely.
“Most people wouldn’t touch a Luthor with a 10 foot pole these days, Sam,” she says. It’s just Sam. Sam always means well.
“You’re always so unnecessarily hard on yourself.”
Sam’s posture slackens, the hand on her hip lets go, and Lena knows Sam has resigned to losing in this conversation. A part of herself is proud for holding her ground. Small, petty victories.
Lena loves Sam. Loves Sam for trying even if it makes her feel like a small, broken thing. She knows that’s not what Sam’s intent is, but she feels it anyway. Sam’s always had a soft spot for strays and things that need repair. Lena wonders if that’s why they’ve kept each other around.
Lena heads for her own office, a hidden door at one end of the conference room, accented only by a simple, brass latch.
“Do something fun with your evenings,” she says and passes through the sliding door to step into her office. When the door shuts behind her, it hisses just slightly—an airtight seal for privacy purposes. Lena heaves a sigh.
She sits at her desk, intent on getting some work done, but even in her uninterrupted silence (or perhaps, because of her uninterrupted silence), she finds it difficult to focus on what’s in front of her. As she absently touches the exposed skin of her collarbone through the cut of her blouse, the image of Kara’s hands flit through her mind. Lena imagines her touch warmer than what it is, ghosting her own fingertip so gently across her skin; it’s as if she’s trying to trick her own brain into not recognizing her own touch. She imagines Kara’s pink mouth, her shining lips, parted and speaking her name.
“Lena.”
Lena clears her throat, feels flush all over, buzzing with some kind of energy that makes her restless. Her excel sheets look like mazes and columns of foreign symbols, so she shuts her computer down with a disgruntled sigh, and heads for the elevator. Jess and Sam are pleasantly absent from their posts as she leaves.
On the drive home, Lena lets Scott have his pick of the music. He surprises her and puts on some top 40s station. Slightly worried about his choice, he glances in the rear view mirror as the first repetitive bass beat thrums through the speakers, but Lena gives him a smile. He probably thinks she sits in her penthouse listening to Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky all day. The thought makes her laugh.
They cruise down the highway with fluid beats and bass pumping through the speakers. It takes Lena’s mind off of things, places her solidly in the present. She watches people through the windows of their cars, imagines their lives as simple, linear things or somehow more complex tangles, things more harrowing than her own.
In a beat up truck, two women laugh and kiss each other on the mouth between stopped traffic. Lena wants to live in their pocket of happiness. One grabs the other’s face, playfully nudging her nose against the other’s cheek.
Lena turns away when they kiss again.
She looks out her opposite window where a man and woman argue, gesturing aggressively at traffic signs and yelling at one another. She frowns, thinks that that’s where her life is heading, shudders bodily at it. It’s what her parents did, after all.
Scott pulls up to her apartment building and she thanks him. He leaves with a “not at all, Miss Luthor” and she responds with her customary “Scott, for the last time, it’s just Lena”. It’s never the last time and he always drives away chuckling and she hopes against hope that he goes home to his wife and tells her that the media has it wrong about Little Lena Luthor.
Lena’s home routine goes like this.
She takes her heels off at the door and throws them into an unexpected pile she hides when the rare company comes over. She takes her laptop out of her briefcase and sets it open on her kitchen counter. Sometimes she lets her hair down as she ventures toward the bedroom where she strips herself entirely, leaving her clothes thrown across her bed or her chair or her vanity or her dresser. Then she stands nude before her bathroom mirror and removes her jewelry. After that, she throws on the same, worn t-shirt that belonged to an ex-boyfriend who’s name was Jack and a pair of shorts she drunkenly bought off of Amazon one night years ago. She’ll go to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine and then sits in front of her laptop to get even more work done before she passes out or orders dinner. Whichever comes first.
She gets to taking off her jewelry, standing naked in her bathroom before she pauses while removing an earring. Her hand brushes against her neck and she looks at the pale skin there, frowning slightly.
The overbearing silence of her apartment is nearly suffocating in that moment. There’s something suddenly strange and sad in her solitary routine. Sam’s worried voice passes through her head, that softly prying tone she uses with Lena echos like a broken, skipping record. Sam means well. She always means well. But as Lena removes the rest of her jewelry and throws Jack’s old t-shirt over her head, she once again feels like some sad, broken thing in need of repair.
She pulls her shorts on, foregoing underwear and instead of making her way back to the kitchen to attempt a couple more hours of arduous and mundane bookkeeping and writing reports, she flops onto her back on the bed she always feels is too big for her.
Her head is a mess. She is distracted, pulled in every direction and stretched thin, an unfinished thing on a sprawling loom. Work is work. It will always be a headache—that she can expect. But Sam looks at her with worried eyes more than usual and Lena wonders if it’s because she’s been so terse or if its the bags under her eyes from losing sleep.
Lena groans and rolls over, buries her face in her sheets and feels a bit like a child having a tantrum. She wills her brain to slow down, closes her eyes against the soft of her comforter, and listens to nothing in particular. The noise of traffic leaks up into her tower in the sky.
“Lena.”
She sighs.
“That’s a pretty name.”
Her fingers dance against her sheets, restless.
“I hope to see you again, Lena.”
She lifts her hips slightly, just enough room to drag her hand across her abdomen, palm warm against her bare skin as she toys with the frayed waistband of her shorts. The image of Kara’s face, straining as she holds up a falling building flits through Lena’s mind, flickering against the black of her eyelids like the reel at an old movie theatre. A pile of work and a full inbox nag at the back of Lena’s brain and she shuts her eyes tighter, held fast against the tasks.
Her hand drags lower until her fingers brush against short, coarse hairs before she stills, intimately self aware of what she is on the precipice of doing.
That innocent flash of teeth darts across her thoughts, skims the surface of her brain. Lena whines audibly against her mattress. Is this what it comes down to? A fictional tryst she’s wet for and embarrassed by? A grown woman with a lustful crush? Her blunt nails catch against the hairs at the crest of her thighs.
A siren on the street blares up the avenue in front of her building.
She imagines a tangled mess, what the unraveled bits of her would look like if she started and never stopped pulling at that thread that begged her to undo the seams. What was she really containing behind that woven cloth; what secrets were stitched into the fiber of her?
Mouth open and eyes closed against the world, Lena dips her hand and skims a finger delicately against the hood of her clit. If she’s going to hell, she’s going to hell. So she commits, imagines that Kara’s hand is her own and trembles with want at how blasphemous it is.
Her breath is hot against her sheets and she lifts her hips more, angles so that she can bend her knees and lazily prop herself up as her right hand dips further past the top of her shorts. The noise that escapes her lips is so guttural it surprises her, sounds as if it couldn’t possibly come from her, and perhaps, in some ways, it doesn’t.
This? Touching herself like this? Lena doesn’t do this. Doesn’t have the time or some other stupid excuse she has, docked and ready for the day that Sam gets too bold in her line of questioning. Lena’s inexperienced in her own body—has given only the barest thought to what turns her on and only in vague, generalized ideas: thoughts of sex and desire painted only in broad strokes in her mind.
Kara’s face lights up Lena’s imagination and she gasps as she presses her middle and ring fingers against herself, messy and rough, spreading wetness through her folds and back up against her clit. It’s so dirty it makes her legs quiver. Her brain oscillates between trying to think about anything else and vivid imaginations of Kara Zor-El: her blond hair and bright eyes, the pink of her mouth, the scar between her brows, and the way she says Lena’s name.
That sweet, lilting voice inquires about Lena’s name on an infinite loop as she pushes herself up, part way panting, almost on all fours save for her one hand desperate in its search for that loose thread, that hidden seam where she might finally tug completely and unfurl herself wholly. As she arches her back, Lena gives up entirely on whatever pretense she thought she had and pictures Kara fully against her. That navy suit and red cape are vivid in her mind’s eye as she envisions herself using her teeth to pull apart that pastor’s collar and lick against the exposed skin of Kara’s neck.
Lena bites her lip as she reaches and experimentally slips a finger inside of herself, head swimming with bewilderment at the discovery of different, new textures inside of herself, past that wet, sticky heat. She adds another finger, tries to find something deep inside of herself she’s not even sure exists. It feels good… it feels so good, but it’s not whole enough. It doesn’t feel any better than when she slicks the pads of her fingertips around her clit.
Inelegantly, she slides out of herself while managing to twist her body and collapses onto her back, eyes open, staring at her pristine, white ceiling. Is she really doing this? Is this really happening? The stickiness between her fingers and the way she feels—like she needs to break free of her own skin, like retribution is at the end of this—is indicative enough.
With dirty fingers, she rucks her shirt up past her ribs, bunched against her sternum and palms at her breast, aching when she rolls a nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Her clean hand seeks to dirty itself as well and finds itself a path toward her cunt, the bud of her clit throbbing with need. Everything in her feels desire and she has no idea if she can give her body what it craves.
She touches herself and slams her eyes shut, finding solace in that dark, blank canvas. She begins to paint the scene, shuttling the loom, weaving a pattern stroke by careful stroke.
She sees Kara above her, a golden curtain of hair falling in waves around them, Kara’s arms bracketed on each side of Lena—there’s no sign of strain as she so casually planks above Lena. She imagines the slow descent, bites her lip as she thinks of how soft and delicate it would feel to kiss Kara on the mouth like those two women in the truck.
Would Kara touch her lips to Lena’s hesitantly, like humans were made of glass? Or would she press into Lena with as much fervor as Lena could take? Would she lick into Lena’s mouth, seeking, imploring, discovering? Or would their tongues touch tentatively, begging permission in their pause, dawdling toward a place beyond limits experimentally, together as one?
Lena imagines taking Kara’s clothes off. Does a god have abs? Is there a soft thatch of fair hair that descends from her navel? Is her entire body sunkissed like that? Evenly tan from being powered by the light of day? Lena shudders as she imagines Kara’s mouth enveloping her pert nipple instead of her unskilled fingers sloppily seeking pleasure there like a teenage boy who’s never groped before.
Her fingers work awkwardly against herself, trying to find what feels best through everything feeling so good. In her fantasy, Kara moves down the soft planes of Lena’s stomach and parts Lena’s knees with the barest touch. Lena spreads herself eagerly for her, so lewd and open for someone so good and pious. The unwound string snags on Lena’s lower abdomen, tugs as she works herself through various speeds of awkward self-service, settling on a rhythm where she rolls her clit between two fingers. Her fingers are Kara’s fingers when her eyes are shut and her mind is finally free to indulge.
How hot would Kara’s breath be when her mouth finally gets to where it must intend to go? Would that first pass of her tongue be Lena’s breaking point? Would she know anything after that? How would it feel to have her hips held in place with little to no effort on Kara’s part?
Lena sees it.
As she works herself up to a precipice of pleasure, both hands doing rough, lewd, new things to herself, she sees it. The entire scene, as if from an aerial view—Kara’s scattered cape spilling red against the dark, wooden floor, her navy jacket and white shirt strewn close by, kneeling in between Lena’s legs, her navy pants hugging tight against her ass.
Lena thinks, knows that she doesn’t deserve this.
“You deserve it all,” Kara whispers as if Lena could really hear her. “You deserve good things in your life, Lena.”
Lena keens to her ceiling, sings a strangled, broken sob to her empty bedroom while she touches herself and thinks about a woman she’s had an hour long conversation with once.
“It’s okay to let go.”
Lena imagines tangling her fingers in thick blond hair, pulling until that hot, beautiful mouth is above her aching center. She imagines Kara dipping her head, descending until that pink tongue darts out against her, spearheading bliss straight through Lena from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She rubs tight circles against her clit, feels pressure building inside of her as she paints in the details of her fantasy. Kara’s hands are wrapped against Lena’s thigh and traveling up her stomach. Chiseled shoulders flex minutely to stay Lena’s hips as she imagines herself attempting to buck against Kara’s face.
She’s on the floor of a church, of the church, dark wood and tinted, colorful rays flinging beams of sun across the huge and empty space. Rows upon endless rows of empty pews face them like a waiting audience. A stage rehearsal for the final performance.
Lena Luthor imagines Kara Zor-El eating her out with avid passion and unrestrained desire on the floor of an empty church. She makes herself come with heaving, shuddering breaths, thinking about Kara’s blue eyes looking at her with hunger as she drinks from the apex of Lena’s thighs. She comes and her whole back arches off the bed, the tendons in her neck strains as she feels her cunt grip and clench from being worked over to the point of climax, like a fist held tight in wrinkled sheets.
“K-Kara,” Lena stammers as her muscles contract, her mind focused on what those brilliant blue eyes would look like, coaxing her through her orgasm, accompaniment to a dancing tongue, still unraveling Lena from her center.
A bell tolls in the city. Lena hears it in her fantasy as she rides out an orgasm that feels like a life changing event, like the quakes of it are rearranging her entire being straight from her core.
When she finally comes down from wherever her soul decided to ascend to, she’s breathing heavy and sweat slicked on every inch of her skin. Every one of her nerve endings is lit up and alert and she imagines herself as an undone spool of fine, gossamer thread, strewn across the floor as if by an angry tailor. Her breathing steadies and her pulse dies from thunderous to hammering to a gentle knocking.
She tries not to think about how she imagined a large cross painted in the background of her dirty fantasy when she came.
Instead, she thinks about her inbox, the reports that need doing, the meeting she has tomorrow. She thinks about service scheduled for Friday. She thinks about threading the needle and starting back at the beginning, ready to sew herself back into something resembling human.
When her brother went insane, did he decide he would rather set himself aflame than stitch himself back together loop by tiny loop?
--
“So, if you’re not seeing anybody, where—exactly—are you sneaking off to every Friday evening?”
Sam asks it casually, but it's a testament to how well they know each other that Lena can see the eagerness and impatience Sam harbors when she finally gets to ask her question.
It takes her weeks, but Lena finally relents to Sam’s requests, accidentally picking a time when Jess has prior engagements. It’s how she finds herself seated across from her friend at a new, atmospheric restaurant, the kind where the food is good and the crowd isn’t loud, and she can actually have a proper conversation.
“You wouldn't believe me even if you knew,” Lena says. She sips at her wine. “And either way, you’d laugh.”
“Laugh? At you? Only ever with you,” Sam says.
Lena rolls her eyes, but pointedly decides not to elaborate. A waiter chooses that moment to come by with a charcuterie board. Sam’s eyes go wide with delight as they set it down.
“Ruby always eats my favorites first,” Sam explains.
Lena fiddles with the rim of her glass, eyes trained to the restaurant’s front door. When Sam notices, she glances at it too.
“What if they don’t like me?” Lena asks, suddenly.
Sam stuffs a cornichon in her mouth.
“You’re Lena Luthor, not a 14 year-old,” Sam answers. She shrugs and cuts off a piece of truffle gouda from the board for herself. As an afterthought, she places a piece on Lena’s plate, too. “It’s just a friendly thing. But I promise that these are the least judgemental people I know.”
Lena rolls her eyes, lolls her head in Sam’s direction.
“Okay,” Sam admits. “Alex is very judgemental and sometimes just with her face. But I promise she’s good. You’ll get along with her. She’s smart.”
“And the other?” Lena asks, stress evident in her voice. Sam feels bad for her, but only a little.
“I’ve actually never met Alex’s sister, but I’ve literally never heard anyone say a bad thing about her.”
Lena hums. “Are they always late?”
“Yea, actually,” Sam says with a laugh. “So come on, tell me where you really go on Fridays.”
Lena doesn’t answer immediately, doesn’t know if she should or how to exactly.
“Is it some weird sex thing?” Sam asks in a low whisper. She swipes her own glass of wine off of the table top and lowers her voice. “Like a swingers club or something?”
“Sam!” Lena sighs, exasperated. Sam just laughs to match her and takes a sip of her wine. “I go to a church. On Fridays, I got to a small church.”
Sam sputters and chokes on her wine and that’s how she is when a woman with short, auburn hair comes up to the table.
“God, are you okay?” she asks. Lena doesn’t know the woman, but she gives her a deadpan look anyway. Sam must be okay because her choking turns to laughing and she starts nodding to answer the woman’s question. She slaps Sam on the back a couple times.
“What got you so good?” The woman asks, once Sam’s taken a drink of water. “Oh, and my sister’s right behind me. She’s uh. She’s parking the car.”
“You must be Alex,” Lena says, interjecting as Sam catches her breath and takes a drink of water. “I’m Lena.”
“Pleasure,” Alex says. She takes Lena’s hand in hers and shakes once, firmly. “How’d you almost kill her?”
“Lena said the most ridiculous thing,” Sam finally breathes out. The front door to the restaurant chimes as it opens. “She keeps sneaking off on Friday evenings and I thought it was because she was seeing someone, because—you know—that’s a normal assumption right?”
“Right,” Alex answers slowly, measured in her response, like she’s trying to figure out where the punchline is before Sam can say it.
“So she tells me on Fridays, she goes to church.”
The waiter chooses that moment to interrupt and as Lena turns to face them, she notices something strange in Alex’s face before she forgets everything entirely.
“Thanks! Hi—sorry I’m so late. I had to uhm. I had to park Alex’s car.”
Kara smiles at the table.
She’s wearing a pair of olive chinos and a slim fit, collared shirt. Her hair is up, twisted into a ponytail and a pair of thick, black frames rest against the bridge of her nose. When her eyes pass to Lena, they widen slightly. But Lena knows. Lena knows immediately.
Alex clears her throat.
“Kara, this is Sam—Sam, my sister Kara.”
Kara shakes her head, clears it so she can divert her full attention to Sam and smiles. They shake hands and Lena watches, watches like she’s looking for the truth, like glasses and a ponytail could really deter her from the reality in front of her.
“Kara! I’m so glad to finally meet you. This is my boss. She’s my friend too, but she’s my boss—this is Lena.”
Lena decides that when gods answer single prayers, it’s one stitch at a time—the goal being a vivid embroidery. She reaches across the table and Kara’s palm is warm as it slides against hers.
“Lena,” Kara says, beaming. “That’s a pretty name.”