Princess Star Butterfly was the most unpredictable and wild thing Marco had ever come into contact with in his short years on planet Earth. A lot of that had to do with the fact Star wasn't even from Earth. Her parents ruled over some magical kingdom called Mewni that Marco had never seen but was probably something akin to Wacky Land from those old cartoon shows he used to watch if their princess was any indication. She could cast magic with a super powered wand that the previously mentioned army of evil monsters would stop at nothing to possess. So it was that Marco found himself using the martial arts lessons he'd been taking since he was six with the excuse that "some day I'll need them!" Well some day was here and it was exhausting.
Not that he could complain too much. Star was hyper-active, clumsy and lacked an understanding of basic safety for those around her but... she was just so much fun. Her smile was the kind that just made you feel cheery and she clearly meant well in her attempts to interact with others. Those interactions just usually ended up with things on fire or exploding. Regardless she put a spark in his life that Marco had been missing and even though he didn't say it outright having her around was a blessing. Quite a change of pace for the kid voted "safest in school". Which wasn't even a real category in the year book to begin with, they just made it up to poke fun at him.
While hopping dimensions and fighting monsters was fun and all, Star and Marco still had some problems. Namely the princess was on Earth in the first place to get her to try and calm down and use her magic more responsibly. Marco was tasked with guiding the girl while she was on her intergalactic training mission and that meant integrating her into normal Earth society. Which meant getting her to get used to school life alongside him. Not an easy task for any new kid, especially one that wasn't used to the planet she was on. Today was an occasion where Marco was in his element and Star had to learn to adjust as they both had homework to do. Star had never had homework before, instead being tutored in all her classes on her own home planet in the castle. So Marco was left with the task of helping her learn how to research Earth style; using the internet.
At the moment Marco was in the kitchen putting together some of his special nachos for the two to snack on while Star got used to the computer. It had been funny to watch the girl try to adjust to the idea that all of Earth's information was at her finger tips with a simple box and screen. An idea that seemed beyond reason to a princess that had defeated a minotaur the previous day with a herd of laser firing emus. And honestly that wasn't even the weirdest thing they'd done that week. Though he would have wagered today might have been the strangest for Star. He'd left her alone with the computer while getting the snacks together but wasn't too worried about it, he'd put the search engine she was using with an age restriction to keep her from getting into anything that might have been inappropriate. Marco just hoped his computer hadn't been turned into a tap dancing turtle or something equally insane by the time he got back upstairs.
Marco tasted a chip and noted they were ready for munching. Gathering up the plate the boy walked up the stairs to his room where the blond princess was awaiting his return. His dad was at work and his mother had stepped out for groceries so it would just be the two of them for a while. He thought he heard some noises coming from the room as he approached and wondered if she'd found out how to get onto one of the video sites he'd shown her earlier. Star had been pretty entranced with all the cute kitty videos when he first showed her how to use the computer. Opening the door he expected to find her looking at something similar. "Hey star, how's the research going?"
"Hey Marco! I didn't find a whole lot about manatees or whatever we were supposed to look up but I found some other interesting stuff. Come see!" As he was coming around the corner of his door way to look at the screen Marco's eyes began to get wide as the sounds from the speakers were hitting his ears. She wasn't watching a video about manatees. In fact that wasn't a video about anything animal related at all. Aside from the position the two people on the screen were in.
"Star, what the heck are you watching!?" Marco practically shouted in shock.
"Um... Doggy Style Divas 5? That's what it says anyway but I haven't seen a single dog in this and I've been watching it for-" Throwing the plate of Nachos into the air Marco dived for the computer and closed down the browser window that Star had used to find her way to whatever site it was she'd been on. Collapsing to his knees afterwards the boy extended his arm and managed to catch the plate before it crashed onto the floor. Call him the Safe Kid if you want but those skills came in handy. Star didn't seem to think a thing of it and took a chip from the plate. "These are really good." She said with a big smile.
"Star, I left you up here to look up information on marine life. How did you find your way onto... all of that!?" He couldn't figure out how she did it, the girl hadn't even used a computer before today. Plus he'd put all the blocks on the search engine he could think of to keep something like that from happening.
"Welllll... at first I was looking for the stuff you told me to. But then I remembered you saying that you could look up anything on here if you wanted. So I got really curious and I wanted to see what other earth stuff I could find. Then I remembered you used this button up here called bookmarks." Oh no. Marco began to realize that this was his fault. "So I used that and I found those pictures on the screen that talked about Earth video games and that place with the videos of puppies and kitties and something called 'For Chan'. I dunno, it looked pretty weird. But then I noticed this." Star at that point opened up the web browser again and started to guide Marco down the path to hell. Going through multiple folders in his book marks to get to the sites no one was supposed to find. Maybe it had been a lazy way to hide them but give him a break, his parents hadn't noticed yet so he didn't think Star would. "And that's how I found it." Star was beaming with a smile like an archeologist that had unearthed a hidden artifact. Too bad for Marco it was one that unlocked the secret of his humiliation.
"Guess that answers that question." Marco said with regret as he watched the princess click through various pages of images of naked women. "Um... Star, maybe we should talk about this."
"About what?" She asked with genuine confusion.
"About all of... well this." Marco said motioning to the screen. "About what this is. On Earth we call this porn. Well... pornography. Porn is just the short version of it. It's um... wow, how to explain it?" After a moment Star began laughing and Marco was wide eyed with his own genuine confusion now.
"C'mon Marco, I know what porn is."
"You do!?"
"Well yeah, doesn't everyone?"
"Well... yeah! But you're a princess."
"So?" It was like getting slapped in the brain when she asked that and he was shocked for a moment.
"You're... like, you're royalty. Proper etiquette and dresses and crowns. I didn't think they allowed that kind of stuff."
"I think you're forgetting these!" Star said joyfully as she pulled out her dimensional scissors, the sparkly object that allowed her to cut holes into different dimensions. "I've been to other worlds, silly. I've seen porn before." While that made a weird kind of sense it was still not completely connecting the dots for Marco.
"Wait, so you've seen stuff like this before. But when I told you my computer could get online and access information all over the world you acted like that was amazing."
"It is amazing!" Star shouted in excitement. "It's really really cool and I'm surprised Earthlings don't brag about it more. I mean I've seen video games and television and stuff in other worlds but I've never seen anything like this!" As if to illustrate, Star pulled up the search engine she'd been using when Marco left her and showed him a screen of Nyan Cat flying through space with a happy little song playing in the background. She giggled in amusement at the little cartoon critter.
"That's so 2011."
"I don't know what that means." She said in blissful ignorance as the poptart cat entertained her. Marco had previously been embarrassed but now he was just confused. How much was Star aware of things that were adult in nature? She said it wasn't that surprising to her but it was hard to judge when the person you were talking to wasn't from your planet. Now his curiosity was getting the better of him.
"So... you said you'd seen stuff like that before?"
"Mm-hm." The princess responded cheerfully. "Some people had magazines with pictures like those in them, or they even had screen plays of it." He assumed "screen plays" must have been some other world variation of DVD's with the way she was describing it. "Princess Pony Head and I even sneaked into one of those clubs we were told we weren't allowed to enter once and saw some stuff before they kicked us out." She giggled to herself at that memory, finding amusement in whatever past events those must have been. Marco wasn't too surprised at that story, the first and last time he'd met this Pony Head (the previously mentioned flying decapitated horse head) she'd taken them to a dance club and threatened to impale him on the end of her horn out of fear of him stealing Star away from her. To his relief they'd made amends right before she got sent to Princess Jail, which was another weird thing in of itself.
"Okay. I guess that means there's nothing you haven't seen before." Marco presumed inter-dimensional porn had to be way weirder than anything Earth had after all.
"I guess so. So where's your pictures?" Star asked suddenly as she navigated away from the poptart cat cartoon and right back into a porn site. It was impressive how quickly she'd learned to use the internet after only a little amount of practice.
"My pictures?"
"Yeah, the pictures of you? Are they on here too or do I have to type in your name? I should have just typed in your name and naked pictures! How do you spell Diaz again?" Star was ready to go on the search engine but Marco put a stop to that, not really wanting those combination of words in his search history.
"Wait wait! Do not type that!" Marco shouted and minimized the screen on the computer. "Why would you think I have naked pictures of myself online?"
"Doesn't everyone on Earth?" Star asked. "I mean there were just so many of them, all of different people. I figured everyone on Earth must put these pictures here. It's pretty bold, I didn't expect this kind of thing at all from your world." Well maybe she didn't have quite the grasp on things he thought she did.
"No, listen..." Marco sat down on the edge of his bed having already put the Nachos on his night stand not long ago when all of this got out of hand. "This sort of thing isn't common among people." Star looked at him and the screen filled with pictures of different women in various poses of undress with a questioning expression.
"Are you sure?" She asked with doubt. "There's a lot here."
"I'm positive. Some people do it, obviously. But not everyone on Earth puts naked pictures of themselves on the internet." Star thought about this for a short while as she tried to make sense of what Marco was telling her and the evidence directly before her. A light bulb seemed to go off in her head.
"Oh I get it, have you just not wanted to try yet? I'll take the pictures for you if you want."
"No, that's not it at all..." Marco was trying to explain this to her in a way she could grasp and was finding it more tiring than fighting off monsters to protect the princess.
"We'll need a camera though. Oh, I could make one with my wand! Should I take some pictures too? If it's something all Earthlings do I guess it would be okay even if-"
"No pictures!" Marco suddenly shouted, putting a block on all of this before Star got out of hand. "Star it's not considered a good thing to have photos like that of yourself out there for everyone to see." Star's smile dropped from her face, seeing that he was serious. Even with this kind of matter Marco found it hard to see the girl upset about anything. It was like watching the sun disappear behind a dark cloud.
"Oh." She said quietly looking at the computer and then towards Marco again. "So these people are bad? They're doing a bad thing?"
"Well... they're not doing a good thing exactly." Marco was left wondering how a science report on manatees turn into a debate of the morality of pornography on the internet?
"So it's bad then?" Star suddenly gasped. "Am I bad for looking at it? I don't want to be considered bad while I'm here Marco, I didn't want to get you in trouble!"
"No, Star, we're not going to get in trouble-" She gasped again with another realization.
"This was on your computer-thingy! Marco, are you bad!?" She ran over to the window and looked outside as if she suspected the police to be peering in and spying on her. Closing the blinds she turned with her back to the window. "We can't let anyone find out!"
"Now that I agree on." Marco said with a little bit of a smile. "Star listen, you're fine. Truth is everyone looks at this stuff."
"They do?" The girl was more confused than ever and Marco realized this was going to take some explaining. Sitting her back down in the computer chair Marco began to do his best in describing societies' views on pornography and where judgement laid for the people who did it. Funny enough the princess was quiet through all of Marco's clumsy explanation, hanging on his every word to try and unravel this bit of Earth culture that seemed so odd to her. When he was done she was still trying to piece it together.
"Okay, I think I got it." Star said to him as she voiced her thoughts. "So people who take naked pictures of themselves for the internet aren't always bad people."
"No, not always." Marco explained. "Sometimes they do it for bad reasons but other times it's because it helps them make money to live or they just enjoy showing it."
"And people like to look at these pictures." Star asked and Marco nodded. "But no one likes to talk about the fact they look at these pictures." Marco nodded again. "Because it's considered bad to look at these pictures, even though everyone already does it?" Marco nodded a third time. "Earth is weird."
"I'll give you that on this one." Marco agreed with a smile. "I'm surprised you didn't know all this already with what you said before about seeing things like this in other dimensions." Star blushed a little and it made the heart symbols on her cheeks glow a faint red color that was very cute in a way Marco had never seen before.
"Well, people that wear clothes in places like Mewni treat them like they're really important. So it was just surprising that so many people wouldn't wear them and let everyone see. I just figured 'that's Earth' and thought you guys didn't care as much about it."
"It's complicated." Marco said to try and sum it up, happy they were pushing past this subject. Marco had never really talked about this kind of stuff with anyone before. Let alone a pretty girl like Star who was oddly innocent of the whole thing. Once he was less shocked about having to explain it to her he was starting to wish they could just move on so he'd feel less uncomfortable.
"They do look pretty." Star said as she pulled up one of the pages of women's pictures and clicked on one of a blonde woman with a generous figure in a sitting position. The princess pretended to pose like the model on screen and Marco had to look away before his thoughts wandered into a territory he was trying really hard to avoid. "Maybe I should get some pictures too, just for Earth so that I could get more popular at school."
"No!" Marco suddenly said much more commanding than he expected. "No pictures!"
"Why not, I thought you said even good people can take them?"
"They can but... but it would be bad if people at school saw pictures like those of you. They'd treat you really badly." Star looked like she was losing her grasp on societal rules about these kinds of things again and Marco felt he needed to reinforce the idea. "When people see pictures like these of you they always assume the worst and will be cruel about it."
"Oh... so I shouldn't put pictures of myself on the internet?"
"That's correct, no pictures online."
"Because people will think bad things of me." Star reaffirmed and Marco nodded in response, glad the idea got across to her.
"That's right." He said confidently.
"So I should only show pictures on the internet of myself to people that won't think bad of me." Now she was getting it. Wait, no she wasn't!
"No!"
"No?"
"No! No pictures online of yourself."
"So as long as they're not online I can take pictures?"
"Yes... I mean no!"
"Why not? Am I not pretty enough for them?"
"No."
"No I'm not pretty enough!?"
"No, you are."
"You think I am?"
"Yes. I mean... I dunno!"
"So you don't know if I'm pretty!?" Star's questions were getting Marco flustered as he was trying to respond as quickly as she could ask, their voices raising in volume as they talked.
"I do, I think you're beautiful!"
"Really!?"
"Yes!"
"I think you're beautiful too!"
"What!? Really!?"
"Yes, I do!"
"Why are we shouting!?"
"I don't know!" Star shouted happily and seemed very pleased with the outcome of their yelling match. Marco was thanking every force in the universe his parents weren't home right now. Both of them were breathing hard from yelling and Marco was having trouble trying not to find his best friend's smile to be more attractive than usual. The way she was looking at him didn't help quell those feelings. Saying she thought he was beautiful left him both confused and further distressed. "Hey Marco?"
"Yeah Star?" He asked and swallowed a lump in his throat.
"What if we didn't use a camera at all and I just... showed you?"
"'Showed me'?" Even though he asked a second time Marco knew very well exactly what she meant.
"Showed each other? Is that okay if no pictures are on the internet at all?" This was the moment, he thought. A deciding moment that would make changes going forward in their lives together. This beautiful girl that he'd previously only thought of as one of the best friends he'd ever made was now offering to bear all to him. She was asking for permission and he had the power to put a stop to it or let it happen. What to decide?
He knew the safe answer. The "Safe Kid" answer. Put a stop to it, let her know that boys and girls weren't supposed to share things like this. Even if they did have feelings for each other, he should teach her that she should keep herself restrained. For her own good. That was the right thing to do.
"I guess... one time won't hurt. If it's just us."
He didn't want to be the "Safe Kid" in the first place. Don't judge.
Star had made him turn around on the bed before she agreed to go through with this idea. Flipping himself to face the wall Marco could over hear her slipping her dress off and placing it over the computer chair she'd been sitting in moments before. Out of the corner of his eye the nachos he'd made for them were sitting mostly untouched on the night stand and he started to wonder if this was a good idea. Just a little while ago he was going to study with his friend and now she was getting ready to pose naked in front of him. Was this going to mess things up? He didn't want to lose his "bestie". She meant a lot to him. Maybe he should call it off now while he could.
"Okay, you can turn around now."
His doubts faded. Don't judge, not everyone got to see a beautiful princess in the nude.
Turning around on the bed Marco looked up to see only a half nude Star, though that was enough to make his cheeks red. Star's cheeks too as the little hearts on her face seemed to deepen in color. Her arms were crossed over her chest to hide her small breasts and she was still wearing her stripped leggings that she usually had under her dresses. Keeping her arms up Star walked over to the bed and sat down next to him.
"Okay so, big reveal! I hope you think it's okay." She sounded nervous but excited, something Marco wasn't used to hearing from her but didn't make her exposed skin any less appealing. When her hands dropped from her chest to reveal what was underneath Marco could only say one thing.
"Hearts..." Star giggled in an almost devilish manner at the word.
"Aww, you think I'm that pretty you're saying your feelings out loud!" Kind of, but that wasn't what he was referring to. "Your turn! Lemme see." Marco silently complied to Star's wishes as he was still transfixed on her breasts. Unzipping his hoodie and removing his t-shirt to reveal himself bare chested in front of Star. She made a small noise of approval and put a hand on his chest. "Well it looks like all that 'Karate' stuff you do really pays off, Wild Man."
"Yeah... Star, they're hearts."
"Hm?" Star looked up really confused about what he was referring to and Marco raised a hand to point at her breast, tracing his finger over the shape. "Oh those? Yeah, of course they are!" She giggled at his ignorance. "What else would they be?"
"What else?" Marco had to ask himself. Around Star's nipple instead of the normal circle that her areola would make they were instead in the shape of little hearts. Star rolled her eyes at his fascination with her breast and grabbed him by the wrist, forcing him to press his palm against her skin. "Whoa."
"They're just boobs, silly. They can't hurt you." Rather small boobs at that but true they were just boobs. Soft, tender, cute boobs that were attached to the very beautiful girl currently sitting on his bed. Marco was glad his shirt was off because his skin was beginning to feel very warm. "And of course they're hearts, just like my heart marks!" She used her other hand to point to her smiling cheeks and the small hearts on them. "Just like yours match the mark on your cheek." She pointed to Marco's circular beauty mark.
"But that's... that's because... well I guess you're right." He said having to admit she'd gotten him on this one. Star giggled to herself and as Marco felt his palm rest against her left breast he could feel her heart underneath. "Oh hey, I can feel your heart beat."
"Really? I wanna try to." Star exclaimed and placed her hand over Marco's left breast as well. Both were beating quickly at the feeling of contact between them and looking into the blonde princess' eyes didn't make Marco's heart slow in pace at all. She felt very soft under his palm. Very warm.
"Star... I um..."
"Hugs!" The girl suddenly shouted and threw herself onto Marco. After the surprise tackle the boy was left underneath the princess as she cuddled him, head pressed against his chest and arms around him. Star made a small squeak of satisfaction and Marco didn't dare move as the pressure of her body against his was doing all sorts of crazy things to him now. He was going to need some time alone later after all of this to try and cool off or she was going to make him explode. "Mmm, you're really comfortable."
"Y-yeah?" Marco asked nervously, not moving a muscle.
"I can feel your heart a lot better from here." Usually Star was goofy, energetic and happy. How was it she'd managed to become so cute and alluring in a few short minutes? "Hey Marco? Have you ever had a girlfriend?"
"Who, me? I... well I uh... no. Never."
"Have you ever kissed a girl?" Wow she was really hitting him with the questions now that she had him pinned.
"No..." Marco admitted with a little embarrassment. Normally telling Star this kind of stuff wouldn't bug him. Opening up to her was easy since he was always sure she wouldn't judge him for whatever the truth was. But like this he didn't want to come off as just another nerd to her. "Have you had a boyfriend before?"
"Yeah." Star answered, though she didn't sound happy about it. Things must not have worked out very well between the two of them and honestly he didn't want to know about any other guys that might have seen her like this. His hands raised up behind her back and slid under her long blonde hair, stroking her skin. She let out happy noises of approval feeling him rub her skin gently under the hair. Marco was glad she enjoyed it but really he was buying time, because he knew the next question he wanted to ask her but was scared to know the answer.
"Hey um... have you kissed a boy before?" He expected a similar "Yeah" in response but instead was surprised when she pulled herself up over him a little more on the bed so they were face to face. Leaning in Star gave Marco his very first kiss.
It lingered, probably for less time than what it felt like. Their lips were closed tightly, Star's hair falling around him like a golden curtain and he could feel her heart beat against his own chest now. As funny as it would sound with her being a princess from another world that could cast spells, this kiss was the most magical thing she'd ever done to him. After a few moments it broke and Star sat up on the bed, the hearts on her cheeks a cute red from her blushing.
"I have now." She smiled brightly and Marco couldn't help but smile in return. She was too beautiful to bear.
The teenagers sat in the room for a few minutes looking at one another, trying to decide what to do next. What step do they take? Should he ask her to reveal more of herself? Would she want that or was it going too fast? Should he kiss her again? He wanted to, it was like a fire burning inside himself that needed more from her to keep aflame. But... "I guess we should get dressed before my mom gets home."
"Yeah, you're probably right. I should actually look up what a manatee is too." They smiled at each other and hugged again tightly before getting dressed.
It might not have been the sexual encounter Marco's body was currently craving, but it was special. Special in a way he couldn't really define as he didn't have a point of reference but it made him feel really good. He had his bestie still and things were somehow not weird between them afterwards. She'd gotten his first kiss and he'd gotten hers. They could have that together and still go on adventures as friends like nothing had changed.
The two decided to enjoy some more funny videos and eat up their nachos before the snack food got cold. There was still plenty of time for school work after they had a little fun. While they were watching Star took Marco's hand in hers and laughed just as innocently as she had in the past. If he were to sum up his feelings that night with one word it had to be "Hearts".