Raven woke from just a few hours sleep. She sighed with pleasure at the warm feeling of the sheets and the skin of the prince of Atlantis spooning with her. She would have liked to just luxuriate in the feel of naked Garth. Why couldn't she just do that, she angrily reproached herself. He's one of the most beautiful boys on the planet. Just enjoy this!

But she couldn't. Her mind was filled with ambivalence. She wished she could have just lay there enjoying the feel of him but she gently slid to the edge of her bed and then pushed a pillow against the headboard, sitting up with her back to it and pulling her knees to her breasts.

She glanced down at Aqualad's bare ass. That was one fine pair of buns. She stretched one leg out and rubbed her foot against the side of his muscular rear enjoying the feeling of the muscular mass of the boy's booty. Finally she sighed and pulled her leg back bringing her knee up to her breasts to match her other leg.

There was no denying that there were certain benefits to being with the beautiful, Atlantean. She rubbed his shoulder with her near hand. Gods! The boy had the most wonderful shoulders, so wide over that little waist. She sighed. To use an aquatic metaphor, she couldn't believe she was throwing back a fish this big.

So why was he not the right one? It was clear that he wasn't. Oh, it had been fine.

No, good!

It had been good! Good!

The boy knew what to do and he was intelligent and beautiful and polite and yet . . . it was like having all the tinder and kindling in the world and gallons of lighter fluid and a thousand matches and barely being able to start a fire.

Raven felt a serious pang of guilt. She had gone to bed with him just to enjoy his body without having the slightest intention that the two of them have a relationship. She sighed and gave an affectionate pat on the head to Garth, ending it with running her hand through his long hair. He stirred and turned slightly and she could see that the royal waking erection was present. Present and accounted for in regal dimension.

Her expression turned from ambivalent to something darker. She glanced at the still visible royal organ. She sighed. There was no denying it. She had held it in her hand. She'd had her fingers and palm pressed to the length of it and it extended past her hand to her wrist. There was nothing wrong with the boy. That was royal endowment. And yet . . she recalled the sensation, in mid coitus, kissing and being kissed and the royal thighs against hers and the royal buns alternately raising and pushing and . . .

And a definite lack of satisfaction.

Aqualad wasn't the right boy for her. He wasn't . . . enough for her. She sighed one final time with relief at the finality of saying it to herself. She couldn't have a relationship with Aqualad. She rolled her eyes. Everyone thinks we're perfect for each other.

But her eye rolling stopped with the acknowledgement to herself that so did she. At least, she had. It still didn't make sense to her. He was everything she wanted. Wasn't he? Which . . which box was not checked? And yet, they didn't click. They were constantly out of synch and, really, he was kind of . . boring.

She enjoyed one more rub of the royal buns, so round and so tight. Gods! And then she slid back down under the covers, raised his shoulder and slid under his arm to enjoy the warmth till he woke, till she'd tell him and then would have to tell the others as they all asked in turn. She wasn't looking forward to it. They'd made such a fucking big deal out of it.

The other Titan girls had all giggled with delight. Raven and Aqualad! Raven! And Aqualad!

"Of course!" and "Finally!" were the two sentiments among the girls. But even the Titan boys had all said to her in advance how the two of them seemed like a perfect pair, all except Beast Boy. Even they jumped on it. And since when were any of them match makers? They'd all immediately accepted Kid Flash and Jinx and she was a villain! As if they all knew that it would turn out right! All of them had jumped on it too, one freaking date. All of them except Beast Boy, but that was just a stray remnant of jealousy from him, wasn't it? And who cared what he thought, anyway?

Robin had gone out of his way to make sure that everybody's schedule in Jump and at East would cover for the two of them. She wished he hadn't made such a production number out of telling everyone how Bee was going to move her schedule to cover Aqualad's watch and how Speedy would switch his usual schedule to cover the next morning and how Starfire and Jinx were going to do the same in Jump.

And every Titan she ran into that day had gone out of their way to wish her luck, like it was a mission and not a date. Was she fighting Brother Blood or going out with Garth for gods' sake?!

Starfire was one thing but even emotional cripple Robin and increasingly withdrawn Cyborg had explicitly wished her a great time on her date with Aqualad. What the fuck?! Maybe there had just been too much pressure on them? Maybe that was it, Raven thought with a sigh. But a second sigh followed along with the acknowledgement that that hadn't been the problem no matter how insane the others' expectations had been.

Her date with Garth had been the focus of the group as much as a mission to save the city. At least Jinx and Kid Flash had joked about it.

"Your father and I will wait up for you, young lady," said Jinx with a maternal brandishing of one index finger before she and Kid Flash waved goodbye to Raven while she pressed the button for the elevator to go up to the roof to meet Garth.

When the elevator stopped, Beast Boy had gotten out onto the 13th floor as Raven had gotten in. She raised an eyebrow once inside. Was he going to be the only one not giving her an embarrassing amount of attention over this?

"Nothing?" she asked.

"He's wrong for you," he casually muttered over his shoulder without slowing just before the door closed.

Hmmph.

What did he know? Since his ridiculously lucky growth spurt had turned him into such a pretty boy he spent all his free time modeling, didn't he? Garth was a lot more substantial than that!

Okay, it felt a bit uncomfortable standing there on the roof wearing that formal black dress but that's what Garth had said. "Dress formally, Rachel and I'll plan a superlative evening together for us." Raven had had to go buy a dress with Starfire, Jinx and Argent. The process had been slightly ridiculous at every turn. Starfire wanted her to buy a designer dress that most people would classify as a bikini. You should show off that you have the pendulous breasts, Starfire had chirped with a perky nod of the head. Jinx and Argent guffawed and joked all through the process and it had been hard to get a decent dress that fit. But finally she had one, a simple small black dress.

She smiled at Garth there in the driver's seat of East's T-Car on the roof. Her dress felt like a bit much but the boy had topped her by wearing a tuxedo.

Okay, fine, she told herself as she opened the passenger's side door of the T-Car and got in, reminding herself to not snicker.

"Good evening, Rachel."

"Hey, Garth."

Even on a date, the boy still made with the formal phrasing of everything. He outlined the evening for her. First, dinner at La Folie, the finest french restaurant in Jump City. Then, to the symphony for a performance of Mahler's second symphony. Raven smiled. Yes! This was more like it. This was the sort of sophisticated life she'd always wanted.

That's what she told herself. That's what she'd always told herself. No more fart jokes and slovenliness and indifference to art and finer feelings. This was not Beast Boy. This wasn't even a relief valve night of sex with Speedy. This was the life for her. And she was going to enjoy it.

Okay, Garth was a bit . . talkative on the ride into the City. As he piloted the T-Car in vertical takeoff then jet modes from the Tower roof to an open lot in the City and then drove through the City streets he went on and on about the "board of fare" of La Folie. Beef bourguignon this. Coq au vin that.

Fine. What. Ever.

It was just food for gods' sakes, but fine.

As much build up as Garth gave the place it still didn't match the self regard the people there seemed to have for it. They, of course, recognized Aqualad and Raven despite their civilian garb but treated them like all the other customers . . . as though they didn't deserve to be in such a fine restaurant. The staff's every word, every gestured oozed with smug self satisfaction. She couldn't resist. She ordered the beef bourguignon and complained to the waiter that they seemed to have skimped on the meat. The waiter and the maitre de who quickly descended on her reacted like seminary students encountering an atheist bad mouthing a saint. Miracles? Those were card tricks!

Blasphemer!

Garth looked horrified and when the staff finally left them alone implored her, "Rachel! That beef bouguignon looked fine. If anything, it looked very rich. Why make such a scene?!"

But it had been fun. When the waiter arrived with the particular dessert wine that Garth had ordered the star bottle of the restaurant's entire cellar, Rachel couldn't resist taking a sip and shrugging with a loud, "Ehh."

The sommelier looked aghast at her. "Ehh?!" he repeated holding the bottle up reverently, "This is a Chateau Rothschild sixty eight. Why it's-"

"It's nothing special."

The man had retreated from their table staring daggers at her, not least because she'd said it loud enough for other diners to hear.

Aqualad had paid and left a generous tip but the staff looked at them with squinty eyed anger. Raven laughed as they got to the T-Car. Aqualad dropped the issue but only because he spent the entire 20 minutes of their ride to Jump Symphony Hall expounding on Mahler's second symphony. Raven knew vaguely of it. This was a highbrow's piece of classical music, not Vivaldi's Four Seasons or Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, pieces that idiots who didn't know classical music from Classic Coke had heard. Garth droned on and on urging her to "listen for the pizzicato resumption of the theme you'll hear in the first movement" and "note the dissonant harmony that you'll hear at that point". On and on.

Raven wanted to shout, "Hey, how 'bout a spoiler alert, huh? Can't I just . . experience it for myself?" But she composed herself and kept quiet as she and Garth left the T-Car and made their way into Jump Symphony Hall. Half the crowd seemed to recognize them. She could see people glancing and nodding their way and some openly pointing. How did Jinx and Kid Flash put up with this? They were always going into the city without trying to disguise themselves and they had pink and orange hair.

Aqualad dealt with it by adopting a regal reserve. He looked straight ahead and seemed to make eye contact with no one. Once inside the building the audience kept more to themselves. Inside, at their seats, Raven found herself snickering at a grandiose attitude not unlike that she'd seen at the restaurant. Garth had gotten them prime seats ten rows back from the orchestra. A middle aged and older audience filled in around them and now the nature of the looks they were getting had changed from celebrity curiosity to a thinly veiled scorn. Upstart vigilantes!

The heavy set man right in front of them had given a particularly harsh look as he'd sat down. And as he did, he farted. There was no doubt about it. The man had supplied his own tuba note to the gentle sounds of the orchestra warming up.

Raven doubled over laughing. All the presumptions of propriety and probity in that fat man and his crepe skinned wife's scowls at them and then -WERT! Now the man and his wife looked at her with true hatred. Some of the other nearby audience members had heard as well and might have kept quiet but took the opportunity to join in with Raven's carefree laughter.

Aqualad was aghast, his hand in front of his face, muttering under his breath, "Rachel! Rachel! I implore you . . !"

Finally, Raven composed herself and moments later the symphony started. She rather enjoyed it. It was a complex piece of music that brought to mind a surprising range of emotions over the course of it. But though she liked it, Raven wished that Aqualad hadn't gone on his extended monologue with prompts to listen for this here and note this there. It seemed to her, afterward, rather like seeing a thriller with someone who'd already seen the movie before and who shouted "look out behind the door!" at the quiet moment just before the reappearance of the bad guy.

Aqualad was elated. "Oh, that was sublime!" he kept saying. "Sublime!"

All through the ride back to the Tower, first as a car on the city streets then flying across the bay as a jet powered vehicle onto the roof of the Tower, their conversation was disjointed and halting. They couldn't seem to get on the same page. When they landed, Raven felt a burst of anxiety. No! Maybe this could be saved.

"Um, would you like to come down for a cup of coffee?"

"A cup of coffee?" he repeated with a slight smile.

Raven nodded with a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Or . . . "

Minutes later there they were at her door, neither having given a moment's thought to caffeine or coffee beans. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She kissed back enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around the beautiful boy.

He spent the night and while it was . . good. It was not as good as she thought it would be and this perplexed her. In the early morning hours, she lay there spooning with him pondering all of this. His was much larger than average . . but still. Raven sighed, glancing around her room wide awake. Everything with him was just a little . . blah. This didn't make sense. This boy was everything she wanted, slender and ultra athletic, intelligent, cultured, well mannered. He'd ordered everything in perfect french at the restaurant. He reeled off all kinds of information about Mahler on the way to Jump Symphony Hall. He was beautiful.

It all just . . it all just lacked excitement somehow. He was everything she wanted, wasn't he? But somehow he was . . . boring. That was it. He was boring. There was no electricity being with him. There should have been because he was everything she wanted. But there wasn't. It didn't make sense. But it was true.

And it definitely would have been better if his was bigger.

She ground her teeth together. Of course, she couldn't say that to anyone. She couldn't say that the sex was okay but she wanted her boy to have a dong that was not just big but epic, a liter soda bottle of love. She certainly wasn't going to let the boys hear that. Oh, gods, no! It would just confirm their crudest, crassest most childish notions. But there it was. Like every girl, Raven had done a little research. The average boy's was six inches. Aqualad was much bigger than that. And yet . . .

Raven sighed contemplating her dilemma. She needed a boy with . . more. But, how to find out which Titan boys might be a bit more . . . masculine?

She was sure that Kid Flash was. He and Aqualad both wore unitards with dance belts underneath and, to judge by the size of the red bulge at his crotch, compared to the navy blue bulge of Aqualad's, the speedster's had to be even larger. It had to be. It was like comparing half a grapefruit to half an orange. But that didn't do any good. He was completely devoted to Jinx and the authenticity of it whipsawed her with ambivalence. The obvious sincerity of their love for each other made him seem even more desirable and yet it meant she could not go after him. As desirable as he seemed, intellectual but not stiff like Aqualad, and with the most incredible abs and tightest, roundest little ass on the planet, a proud behind that she never stopped loving from near or far, he was taken. He was the only Titan boy absolutely taken. Just her luck he was the one that seemed closest to right.

Jinx!

Beast Boy was out of the question. He was infuriatingly hot now, six foot one and 168 pounds of incandescent, verdant boy, the recipient of the kindest growth spurt in history, shooting up 10 inches from five foot three in just a few short months, suddenly having cheekbones and a jaw, a v shaped torso and long legs topped by an awesome booty that attracted the notice of fashion model scouts. Even his scratchy little toad voice was replaced by a deep bass that reverberated with strength. Raven shook her head thinking of it. Who could have expected that?!

But he was not going to be the one and that was as good as set in stone. His persistent attention in the first couple years of the team had been so awkwardly executed at every turn that it became a sort of challenge to her very identity. How could she ever give in to that?! It would have meant surrendering everything that she valued about herself. That's how stupidly he had approached her.

Fine, he was an insane pretty boy now. He had his bare green buns splashed all over that Abernathy and Finch catalog. Not quite Kid Flash quality round but almost and rocket fuel for fan girl interest. Between his one time interest in Terra and now his playing the whole male model game in his free time, Beast Boy seemed to be leaving her alone. Just as well. She couldn't imagine how to transition past their history to an acceptance of him.

Cyborg quietly set himself apart from everyone beyond superficial interaction, clearly crushed at how he increasingly was replacing organs with mechanical substitutes and becoming less and less human. She felt great sympathy for him but that feeling somehow to preclude romantic feelings. He was out.

But then, who?

She got some further clues from listening closely at the next girls' night sleep over in Jinx and Kid Flash's room. Late at night after more than a little wine, the girls got to talking and a tipsy Bumblebee let slip a sort of check list of Hot Spot's good and bad points, the latter mumbled quickly under her breath "he's got a short temper . . and a dong to match . . "

Raven cringed as discreetly as possible. So, the fire throwing Moroccan was definitely out.

Raven also heard Starfire casually remark that, "Robin's generative organ is seven and one half inches long with the erection," nodding cheerfully as she told Batgirl this. You didn't have to do much reading between the lines to glean sexual information from Starfire. Of course casually telling this to Batgirl was about the stupidest thing you could do given her simmering anger over her unrequited affection for the Boy Wonder. The next 25 minutes of the sleep over was, predictably, consumed with Batgirl's venting and then the others expressing sympathy.

But while better than civilian boys, that meant Robin's wasn't as big as Aqualad's and his hadn't been satisfying. Never mind the ridiculous difficulties that were probably involved in having any kind of normal emotional relationship with Robin. So, that was no solution.

Raven sighed and resolved to discreetly pursue further inquiries.

The next morning, after breakfast, Raven encountered Speedy in the Tower library. The red clad archer was walking over to a leather chair from the shelves of chemistry books passing her on the way to the poetry. He gave her a too cool for school nod and a "hey" before dropping down onto the expensive leather chair and slinging his legs over the side.

"Hey back at you," she tossed over one shoulder.

She was almost around the corner of the book shelves, out of sight, when he continued. "So, uh, you and Garth?"

She stiffened and stopped and turned half around to face him. "There is no me and Garth. There's me. And somewhere else there's Garth."

"Ouch. Prince Fish was perplexed. He thought it went great."

"It didn't go that great."

"Good?"

Sigh. "Fine. Good. Okay. Whatever. What's it matter if it wasn't right?"

He held up both hands defensively. "Hey, I'm not interrogating. I'm just a little surprised myself. I thought you two were perfect for each other."

She sighed. That again. She wondered momentarily why this was so frustrating then edged closer to him, glancing briefly around then, despite seeing no one else, lowering her voice anyway. "I . . we . . there was no electricity. There wasn't that . . that bam!"

"What's 'bam'?"

"I . . I don't know! That way that you see Jinx and Kid Flash with each other, where you instantly know it's right."

"Look, he didn't say anything. I want you to know that. He was the gentleman fish like always. But he's . . not the hardest boy in the world to interpret. I was pretty sure that you and he . . . uh . . . "

"Yeah. We did."

Speedy grinned. "I knew it," he chuckled then got more serious. "You bedded the fish but you weren't . . sold?"

Raven sighed and started to speak then sighed again and opened her mouth then finally narrowed her eyes. "You give me something first!"

"What?"

"I'm not going to tell you something until you give me something first. You give me something that I can hold in reserve in case you talk."

"What?!" he said genuinely offended. "Do I have a reputation for ever talking about . . amorous adventures? Do I?!"

"No," she conceded with a sigh. "But just the same. Give me something."

Speedy was only more intrigued now. What juicy piece of gossip was this that she was going to divulge that she was requiring hostage gossip to hold to ensure that it didn't get out.

"Fine. Okay," said the redhead. "I've-I've tried to get Kid Flash and Jinx to have a threesome with me ten times now and they've turned me down every time. There. That-," he stopped.

Her arms were folded across her chest now. Her head tilted to one side and her expression very sour. "That's not a secret. Everyone knows that."

"Not that it was ten times!"

"Not good enough!"

"Really? Fine. Okay, fine. Allright . . . um . . . how about this one?" he said first glancing carefully left and right. "Bee would never admit it anywhere but I had her a week after we moved into our Tower."

"Seriously?"

Roy nodded. "In her room right below her poster of Pam Grier in Jackie Brown. The twins were back in Guatemala and Prince Fish was in Atlantis for some royal something or other."

Speedy looked at her anxiously. Her eyes moved back and forth in calculation. This wasn't embarrassing to Speedy but no doubt he'd promised to Bee not to divulge it so there would be serious repercussions if it got out.

"Okay," she finally declared then moved closer till she was almost next to the leather chair where he sat and dropped her voice further. "I'm sure he's . . I mean, I know he's-he's big . . . ," she glanced down at the archer's crotch. ". . there but I . . . I need more."

To her complete exasperation, Speedy threw his head back and laughed then clapped his hands. "Oh, god! That's right! You can't get a big enough-"

He got no further as she grabbed his throat and squeezed tight with not just her hand but also black magic force. The archer made gurgling noises for several seconds. He tried to break her hold but made no progress. Finally she leaned in close and through gritted teeth put the choices to him.

"Do you want to be strangled or refrain from laughing at me?"

The gurgling noises sounded like 'Refrain! Refrain!'. She let go and he coughed and gasped for air with his hands protectively at his throat. "Okay! Okay! I'm sorry. It's just . . you always made such a point of talking like Beast Boy wasn't an adequate suitor because he wasn't highbrow enough when really it was because he wasn't hung enough!"

She leaned over him menacingly. He flinched.

"What? What? What's not true about that?" he pleaded while flinching. "And I remember being with you. If I wasn't so good with my tongue . . "

He launched into cunnilingus pantomime.

"Enough!" she demanded.

"Well, it's true. If I didn't know just how to flick a bean, it wouldn't have been a good night. I'm bigger than average but being with you is like dropping a golf pencil down a mine shaft."

She took an angry step toward him. He cowered into a fetal position shouting "Refrain! Refrain!".

At last he sensed that he wasn't going to be strangled. He stretched out again, legs over one arm of the chair. "So . . " he began quietly. "You need a seriously hung boy."

Raven sighed. She took the leather chair facing his and gave the faintest nod.

"You know," he continued. "Beast Boy might not have been even average before his growth spurt. I mean, he was barely out of the micropenis category, but now . . !" he laughed.

She shook her head. Not him.

Then, slowly, she glanced around the library, again, in a very calculating way. She realized that the archer had knowledge that could prove very useful to her. All those times in the showers and the sauna with all the other boys. They just walked around naked, didn't they? She gave yet another glance around before whispering, "So . . you know who's . . . well endowed . . on the roster and who might be . . right for me."

Speedy nodded. "Yeah. What about . . . Kid Flash? He's a nerd and he's got a dong like a fricking-"

She reached out and slapped him upside the head.

"Ow!"

"Are you fucking stupid? He's the one boy who's absolutely taken. He's married!" she half shouted.

"You know how many married men and women I've had? I-"

Slap!

"Ow! That hurts."

"He's not only married to Jinx. He's still in love with her."

"Oh, don't pretend like you wouldn't get a seriously tingly kink out of breaking that up!"

She slapped his shoulder this time. "Doesn't matter! He's off limits."

"Too bad," muttered Speedy. "That ass . . !"

Raven sighed and nodded slightly. That ass!

"Doesn't matter. It wouldn't happen anyway. Who else has . . . what I'm looking for?"

Speedy shrugged as if to say, well of course, "Herald."

She gave him a skeptical squint. "Is this some kind of race thing because he's black?"

Speedy chuckled. "Seriously? Let me set you straight. Hot Spot? Maybe civilian average. At best. Maybe. And See-More? Well, you'd see less, okay? Let's just leave it at that. This is not about race. But, Herald! If the guy couldn't break into other dimensions with his horn he might be able to do it with that dong of his. My god."

"Seriously?"

"He's got eight and a half."

"Aqualad was almost that," she said looking down at her hand and wrist trying to figure the exact dimension from that point on her wrist to her fingertips.

"Walking around! He's got eight and a half walking around. Changing printer cartridges or checking how many bars he's got on his phone he's got eight and a half."

Raven leaned back. " . . oh . . "

"Biggest Titan between the legs. He takes the gold and there's no doubt. The silver could be Kid Flash, maybe Captain Marvel Junior. The bronze-"

"Alright! Alright! I don't need a complete ranking of the roster's genitalia! Herald?"

Speedy nodded.

Raven considered this. The more she rolled it over in her mind the better it seemed. He was intelligent and mature but not . . . boring like Aqualad. He was attractive and seemed emotionally open. The whole jazz trumpet thing was cool. Herald.

Of course!

Herald!

Why hadn't she thought of him before?! Maybe because he wasn't around much and when he was he tended to be part of that group that hung around in Jinx and Kid Flash's room along with Argent, Aqualad and Arrowette. She'd always felt a little reluctant to be part of that group what with Kid Flash being off limits and the embers of her rivalry with Jinx still burning somewhere. So, there hadn't been that much time where she'd ever had a chance to interact with Herald. And part of that time he'd been going out with Argent, hadn't he? But she hadn't said anything at all about him the previous night at the sleepover.

So . . Herald.

Raven suddenly took notice of Speedy again, watching her from the chair before turning away from him and heading to the poetry section. His smirk annoyed her.

"What?"

"You're so transparent, girl. Good luck. And, hey, if it doesn't work out with Herald, you can always do it with Beast Boy when he's turned himself into a bull or something."

She narrowed her eyes and he jumped for cover, diving off the chair to the honey-white bamboo floor. She turned on her heel and went to look for that Rilke book.