Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?) - Larry Niven, from All the Myriad Ways, 1971

"Clark!" All ability to think linearly vanished as Martha dropped the plate she had been scrubbing in the sink and bolted up the stairs. Simultaneously, she was thinking, rifle, suicide, my baby, depression, hurt, please oh please God not dead-

"Holy moley," came Clark's newly deep voice through the door, just as Martha reached the landing.

Alive, okay, thank God thank God, Martha managed, before throwing her weight on the door and tearing inside.

"Mom!" A flash of movement, Clark's hands blurring around his waist, then an accusatory glare from her beautiful baby boy. "Jeez, ever heard of knocking?" Martha's heart was hammering too hard for her to take this in, however. Almost as though she had superspeed herself, she had her arms around Clark, kissing his cheek and feeling him anxiously for injuries.

"What are you doing?" Clark's voice was crackling with irritation and extreme embarrassment, and his hands - God, he was stronger every day - were pushing her away.

"That - that sound," Martha stuttered, shaking with gratitude and relief. "I heard a shot - I thought you - I thought ..." What had happened, anyway? Her son was turning ten shades of pink and red, so she couldn't have imagined it. Like a switch flicking in her mind, Martha went into discipline mode. "Clark Kent, have you been playing with something you shouldn't have?"

"Mom!!!" gasped Clark, reaching a new hue entirely, this time in the purple part of the spectrum. "I was just ... I just ..."

"What's going on in here? I thought I heard a gunshot." Jonathan was in the doorway, looking nearly as harried as Martha had felt a moment ago.

"You guys -" this wasn't a new development ... it had been several weeks since the moody Clark had managed a sentence without any italics in it. "I was just ..." Martha realized that Clark's green eyes kept flicking towards his dresser, though he was trying to hide it. She reeled around and took a look for herself.

"Oh, Clark!" she groaned, surveying the damage. There was a hole in the top drawer front, about the same gauge as Jonathan's rifle, and the wood all around the spot looked scorched with the friction. "I can't believe you'd be so careless and foolish, shooting in the house! How many times has your father told you, that rifle is off limits! Now, hand it over, young man!"

Jonathan had stepped forward to get a closer look, and when he made to pull the drawer out, presumably in search of the bullet, Clark made a guttural noise of protest. Jonathan's head snapped back in shock at something inside the drawer - after putting an exploratory hand in, he looked up at Martha with shock and amusement warring for supremacy on his face. "Dad! Don't show her!" Clark urged, seemingly rooted to the spot.

Martha ignored her son's protests and went over to see what Jonathan had found. In the place where she'd expected to see gunpowder and lead marring Clark's sock drawer, she instead saw ... was it really ... "Is this honey?" she asked unthinkingly, before her mind supplied the answer, and she quickly withdrew her fingers just in time. "Oh. Oh. Clark, you were ... oh." She turned to face Clark, expecting him to burst into flames with humiliation at any moment.

It seemed that even for thirteen year old boys, there was a point past which more embarrassment became redundant. Clark sat down on his bed with a thud and buried his head in his hands, clearly completely overtaken by shame. Martha stared at him, mentally trying, in succession, all the things the books said to say. It's perfectly normal for a boy your age ... We'll put a lock on your door and respect your privacy ... You don't need to feel embarrassed ... But all that Martha could think of was, "Well, I guess it's good that it didn't happen in your sleep the first time."

Apparently, this was not the best thing to say. Clark moaned and fell facedown onto his bed, and Jonathan laughed for about half a second before he regained control. "He could have put an eye out," her husband added, apparently unable to restrain himself. Martha cracked a grin briefly, but couldn't give in to hysteria ... not when her baby was in so much pain.

"Honey -" quickly rethinking that particular endearment, she tried again. "Sweetheart, we'll get through this together, all right?"

Clark lifted his face from his pillow, temporarily abandoning his attempt at self-asphyxiation, and glowered. "You. Have. Got. To be. Kidding."

Martha bit the inside of her cheek, hard. True, she and Jonathan couldn't actually take Clark by the hand and teach him masturbation techniques, as if it was some sick cross between gun safety and sex education. Can you get bullet-proof condoms? Martha wondered, and almost burst into another hysterical giggle.

"This sucks. I'm the biggest freak ever."

"No, hon - sweetheart. No, you're not." Instinct told Martha not to approach the bed, although she dearly wanted to wrap her arms around her son and make the pain stop. "We've worked through this kind of problem before - remember when you were nine, and you kept accidentally biting the tines off your fork?"

"Or when you were six, and you set your training wheels on fire because you went too fast?" Jonathan supplied over Martha's shoulder, apparently having composed himself somewhat.

Clark's curly black head descended into the pillow again. "That's not the same," he groaned. "Don't you realize," he continued, looking up at his mother, "that this means I can never have sex? I can't even get off in my bedroom without my parents hiding in the storm cellar."

Part of Martha squirmed to think of her son "getting off" anywhere, but more immediate concerns demanded that she ignore her squeamishness. "Clark, I promise you ... we will find a way to make this work for you. It's a natural part of a boy's development, and your father and I understand your concerns."

Clark made a strangled noise. "Pete has never had this talk with his folks."

"Yeah, well, Pete's not carrying a loaded machine gun in his pants, now, is he?" Jonathan retorted brusquely. Martha turned and scowled at him, but much to her shock, she heard Clark emit the smallest of giggles. She released a breath she hadn't known she was holding, and quietly left the room.

It probably was a father-son thing, now that she thought about it.

Just like the tires of the bicycle, and the tines of the fork, Clark managed to gain control of his natural strength, if under rather more difficult conditions. All he needed was practice (strangely, not a problem for a thirteen year old boy) and a safe place to be alone with himself.

The Fortress of Solitude, as Jonathan jokingly named it once they'd set it up, was probably not ideally situated - it took some time for the livestock to grow accustomed to the periodic cracks and bangs that echoed in the barn - but Martha wanted Clark within earshot, just in case. After all, he probably couldn't put an eye out ... but it made her feel better to know that if he did manage it, she was nearby.