Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here Part 35 Part 36Clark sat at his desk at the Daily Planet, drowning in guilt. It was his fault that Lois had been shot. She might not think so, but he knew better. It was also his failing that her privacy had been invaded, both at work and at home. Superman should have protected her better.
When he had flown her back to Metropolis, Lois had asked for a last second detour. Despite him having removed all the surveillance equipment, she hadn’t wanted to go home. She asked if he would drop her off at Clark’s place instead. Remorse at having to push away his true feelings for Lois once again to safeguard his new secret identity raged through him. She trusted Clark. How could something make him feel both like doing his football end zone dance and the equivalent to mud at the same time? He knew he didn’t deserve her trust.
They had landed on the patio and he had carried her inside without another word. She hadn’t stopped crying the entire flight home.
He had done this. Superman had failed Lois. Superman had hurt Lois. Superman had broken Lois’s heart. It was Superman’s fault; he had to go.
Clark sat her down on his bed and walked back into his living room to give her some privacy. He didn’t want to leave her, but knew she didn’t want Superman to stay. She sat up on the bed for a moment, and he thought she was going to speak. Instead she took off and threw her purse. It bounced along the floor spilling its contents, including her bottle of pain pills. He watched as she curled up into a ball and continued to cry, clearly in pain. He wasn’t sure it was all emotional pain, but he knew better than to ask. He picked up her purse, wallet, lipstick, and pill bottle and set them on his dining room table.
He had heard anguish crying many times in his life. His foster brothers and sisters when they first arrived from being separated from their parents, people he had rescued, and now Lois.
Clark knew that she hadn’t taken her pain pill at the restaurant and didn’t know if she had taken it before he had come to pick her up. He went to the sink and filled up a glass of water. Then he opened the bottle of pills and removed one. He set the glass and pill next to her on the bedside table. Then he headed for the balcony door.
Her sobs subsided for a moment, perhaps at the sound of the door. “Tell Clark where I am, so he doesn’t worry,” Lois murmured, her voice still rough from crying. Her words filled his heavy heart with Kryptonite.
“Goodbye, Lois,” Superman replied, stepped out the door and disappeared into the sky.
It wasn’t until he had landed on the roof of the Daily Planet that he realized that he still had her pill bottle in his hand. It was safer with Clark anyway.
Clark wanted nothing more than to pound his fist through the beam and smash the recording devices to smithereens, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He would have to return to the Daily Planet in the middle of the night and remove them. He both felt helpless and powerless. It wasn’t a feeling he liked.
***
Perry watched Kent return from his luncheon with Lois. He had been gone several hours, more than a normal lunch should take. If he had come back earlier, the Chief hadn’t noticed. He was quite sure that the expression on his reporter’s face was one that only could have been put there by one Mad Dog Lane. He appeared like Perry imagined Elvis had after he discovered Priscilla had been intimate with that karate instructor.
Kent sat down at his desk. ‘Sat’ actually was the wrong word; ‘dropped’ would more accurately describe what the young man had done as if someone had sucked all the joy out of him. The man then pulled open his top desk drawer and dropped in a prescription bottle of pills. What was Kent doing with those? Were they his? Or had he taken them from Lois?
For the next hour, the Daily Planet’s Editor-n-Chief glanced up to see what Kent was up to. Kent hadn’t made any phone calls. He hadn’t typed anything into his computer. He hadn’t reviewed any of the files on his desk. He hadn’t moved. Perry didn’t know what the young man was thinking, but he guessed it had something to do with his star reporter being missing from her desk. Kent hadn’t stopped staring at it since he sat down. Perry needed to give Kent something else to wrap his mind around.
Perry picked up the telephone, figuring it was about time he intervened. If there was anything behind Kent’s hunch, there was only one person who might know the truth, or at least a smidgen of the truth, and this old reporter wasn’t going to take any more evasion.
“Son,” Perry called from the doorway of his office a few minutes later.
Kent didn’t respond. He didn’t even blink.
Perry moved closer between Lois’s desk and Kent's. “Kent?”
“Yes, Chief,” Kent said, blinking his eyes finally and shifting his gaze to his boss.
“Come on, son. We’ve done enough here for one day. How about you let this ol’ Memphis newshound buy you a drink?” Perry suggested. Now, normally he wasn’t one for recommending that his reporters drink. It was an awful habit and he had seen it ruin more than one promising career, including the great Billy Norcross, but Kent looked like he could use someone to talk to.
“I should really get to work on some of those leads…” Kent replied, glancing around at the files on his desk, pretending to be busy.
Perry appreciated the effort, but raised an eyebrow just the same. Was one of his newest reporters actually turning down drinks with the boss? “Son, how’s Lois?”
The man craned his neck to glance at his partner’s desk, despair streaking across his face. Any faster and Perry would have sworn it had super sped across. He then returned his eyes to the files on his desk, avoiding eye-contact. “She’s fine. Resting,” he said.
Boy, this young man was the poorest liar Perry had ever seen in the history of the news business, and he had met some doozies. “Kent, the only time I’ve ever seen that girl rest is when she was up three nights straight on a stakeout and passed out at her desk,” Perry said.
Kent grimaced and drew his notepad to the center of his desk. “Lois wanted me to bring her dinner from her favorite restaurant, but I never heard of it. Have you?” he inquired, while on the notepad he wrote,
I can’t talk about it. Not here.
What in tarnation had gotten inside Kent’s bonnet? But Perry figured he’d play along. Chuckling, he responded, “Oh, Tony’s. No wonder you couldn’t find it. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”
He waited until Kent turned off his computer, tidied up his desk, and switched off his light.
“Thanks, Chief. I’d hate to disappoint her, not after the week she’s had,” Kent said as they headed out of the office.
At the elevators, Perry pushed the button in front of Kent, he mumbled, “Don’t you think, Lois’ll be needing them pain pills later tonight?”
Kent winced at getting caught. “I should have known better than to try to pull a fast one on you, Chief,” he replied softly. “Let me go get them, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
Perry nodded, stepping into the elevator. True to his word, Kent came down the stairs a few minutes later, carrying a cardboard box under one arm. Perry made an obvious glance towards it, but Kent pretended not to notice.
“Is there really a place called ‘Tony’s’ where Lois likes to eat?” Kent asked.
The Chief grinned. “They’ve got the best pastrami sandwiches this side of Gotham.”
Kent made a face that said, he could skip that experience, and said, “Maybe I’ll just whip her up something at home.”
“Oh, son, if you let that woman know you can cook she’ll get her meat hooks into you faster than it would take an Elvis song to reach number one,” Perry said, with a chuckle. “Now, tell me what’s really going on.”
Kent sighed forlornly. “How about that drink?”
***
The bar was dark and smoky. Clark wasn’t one to go to bars, certainly not since he was outed as Superman back in his dimension, and certainly not a dive like this joint. Tobacco products in bars and restaurants in his dimension had been banned in favor of a healthier workplace for their employees, but obviously that hadn’t happened here yet.
Perry raised his hand to somebody across the room who was sitting at a booth at the back of the room. Clark really didn’t feel like using any of his abilities to check out who, if he even knew the fellow. He felt bad enough about evading the Chief to run up to the roof to grab that box of surveillance stuff he had taken from Lois’s apartment.
“Bill,” Perry said, holding out his hand to the man at the booth.
William Henderson, Police Inspector, shook the editor’s hand. “White,” he said, then shifted his focus to Clark. “Kent, I hear you’ve got information to barter.”
Clark shook his hand before he slid his box into the booth. He followed it to sit down. Normally, he hated to lock himself into a seat like this, in case he needed to rush off to make a rescue, but Superman had hung up his suit, so tonight it didn’t really matter. “I may. You still reading from cue-cards about Menken’s death?”
Henderson lips twitched. “Depends. Perry says you’ve got a nose for hunches.”
Perry sat down next to Clark in the booth.
Clark shrugged. “I’m no Lois Lane, but I do okay.”
“How’s Mad Dog doing? That woman has more lives than can be found at a cat shelter. I could tell you stories…” Henderson started. Clark couldn’t help noticing the slight shake of Perry’s head. “Some other time.”
Clark felt he should defend Lois’s honor in some way, but decided the best way to do that was to change the subject. “So what happened to Menken?”
A waitress came to their table and Perry and Clark ordered some draft beers. Henderson was still milking his.
Henderson leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I can’t prove anything…” he started.
Clark shook his head, and mumbled, “Luthor got to him.”
The inspector jerked his gaze to Clark. “What’s this?”
Perry glanced at Clark and then back at Henderson. “We don’t have any evidence, but Kent here has been following some interesting leads,” his boss said before nudging him. “Tell Bill about your source.”
Clark repeated to Henderson about what Menken had said to Superman regarding Luthor, leaving the Man in Blue out of it.
Henderson nodded as he listened. “You mentioned something about that this morning.”
“I go where my leads take me,” Clark answered.
“Menken was spouting that same line last night when I interviewed him. Names and dates of meetings, even. I spent all day tracking down ‘his royal moneybags’; apparently the worst he’s done was attend a prize fight roughly seven years ago in Atlantic City. He didn’t even bet on it. He’s clean as a whistle. The Chief,
my chief, and the D.A. are telling me that despite the taped confession naming his benefactor, with Menken dead it’s near impossible to use that evidence in court, even if we could prove that Menken’s death was a hit, which we can’t.”
The waitress arrived with the beers and the men went silent thinking about what Henderson told them.
“What happened to him?” Perry inquired.
“What didn’t happen to him is more like it. Menken was a regular
Murder on the Orient Express,” Henderson explained.
“How so?” Clark asked. He was familiar with Agatha Christie works.
“Half way through our interview Menken started complaining of not feeling well. We took off his jacket and found that he had a blood spot soaking his right shoulder and realized he must have been shot as well as Lois. Paramedics were called while I filed away his taped confession. He was alone for not more than five minute, ten tops,” Henderson explained. “Some rookie, a recent academy graduate by the name of Carter Landry, brings in those three cyborgs that Superman caught and places them into the same holding cell with Menken. They claim he was dead when they entered the room, but that didn’t stop them from beating him up. Landry says he was told to put the cyborg boxers into that cell by an older man in a business suit who he thought was a police detective.” He shrugged.
“Holding cell?” Clark shook his head. “Didn’t you leave Menken in the interrogation room?”
Henderson pointed to Clark. “Somebody moved him; we’re still investigating who. So, between Luthor’s bullet, the deep tissue massage from the monster brothers, his soda which had been tampered with, and the move from interrogation to the holding cell, during which he may have been stabbed, there’s no real way to determine cause of death.”
“Well, that’s overkill,” Perry said, taking a sip of his drink.
“Sounds like somebody sending a message,” replied Henderson.
“Never turn on your backer?” Clark guessed. “I did some preliminary digging this morning, trying to link a paper trail from Menken to Luthor or vice-versa, and it either isn’t there, or it’s so far buried we wouldn’t recognize it if we tripped over it.”
“That’s what I came up with too. I don’t like him, but if Luthor’s a bad seed, he doesn’t want anyone to know,” Henderson said. “And with his deep pockets, it’s possible nobody will ever know.”
Perry glanced at Clark, and nodded.
Clark glanced down at his beer and not for the first time, wished it would do more to him than wet his palate. “When Lois, Jimmy, and I were held up in the Messenger warehouse back in May…” he began, explaining his thread-bare theory to the police inspector.
“Well, the NTSB didn’t find anything on the bomb casing that came back on the Prometheus transport,” Henderson said. “The chain of evidence was broken, so even if they had found something…”
“I remember doing the follow-up,” Clark said, taking another sip of his beer so his teeth grinding wouldn’t be so obvious. “What did Luthor say when you interviewed him?”
“About shooting Lois? Well, that was just an accident that occurred during the course of defending himself and Ms. Lane against her abductor,” Henderson clearly sounded like he believed this load of bull as much as if Perry told him he had a bridge he wanted to sell him. “Bender, that’s Luthor’s lawyer, argued it was an open-and-shut case of self defense. Clemmons, the D.A., agreed with him and refused to press charges. That it would be a waste of both his and Luthor’s time and the city’s money. When I told him about what Menken had said about Luthor, Clemmons said that it was circumstantial, and we needed more evidence before we could even call Luthor back for another interview. When I tried to reach Luthor anyway, I got the run-around by his staff, eventually being shuffled off back to Bender, who refuses to bring in his client for an interview; citing that Menken was using Luthor as a scapegoat for leniency; therefore, a waste of his client’s valuable time. Bender went on to say that Menken was just retaliating against the man who, acting in self defense, tried to shoot him.” He raised his brows and clicked his tongue. “And he’s right. Without more evidence Menken’s taped testimony sounds like empty complaints.”
“I don’t like it,” Perry grumbled. “Too slick.”
“Like oil,” Clark agreed.
“Welcome to my world,” Henderson said, raising his almost empty glass.
“Well, I better get heading home. Alice is already angry I spent all of Sunday at the office instead of visiting her mother at the home,” Perry said, downing the last of his beer and tossing a twenty dollar bill on the table. “I’ll get your beer, Bill.”
“Thanks, White.”
Clark glanced over at the box sitting between him and the wall. “Sir, if you can wait, there’s something else,” he said, and dropped the box on the table.
“What’s that?” Henderson asked, his brow furrowed.
Perry unfolded the flaps on the top of the box and let out a slow hiss, as Clark took another sip of his beer.
“That’s some nice stuff,” Henderson said. “I wish we had the funds for surveillance equipment like this in my department. Whatcha doing with it?”
“Superman discovered those at Lois’s apartment this morning when he stopped by to check on her,” Clark announced.
Perry dropped back into his seat, his face blanching out of fear for his reporter before shooting back to red in fury. “Kent, that’s insane,” he said. “That’s enough cameras for the mayor’s house.”
“Yep.”
“Who would do that?” Henderson asked.
Clark shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
“He should have let MPD take it out, keep the chain of evidence,” Henderson reprimanded gently.
The reporter shot him a hard look as the editor chuckled.
“I would have loved to see you have
that conversation with Lois,” Perry said.
Clark casually took another sip of his beer, agreeing with Perry. Removing the equipment from Lois’s apartment sooner, rather than later, had definitely been the order of the day. As it was, it still wasn’t soon enough for Lois’s taste. “Don’t worry, Henderson. Superman left the camera in the pillar behind her monitor at the Daily Planet for you guys to remove.”
Perry shot him a glare. “Is that what all that cloak and dagger stuff was? Dammit, Kent, why didn’t you tell me!”
“I didn’t know if there was other surveillance around the Planet. I didn’t want to risk spooking Lois’s stalker,” he said, downing the last of his beer. Not all of that was one hundred percent true, but truth was Superman’s credo, not Clark Kent’s.
Henderson sighed. “You know, I just wanted to head home for the night. See if I remembered what my kid looks like. Thanks, Kent.”
Clark raised his hands. “Hey, you want to bring it up with Lois, be my guest…”
The police inspector’s eyes widened. “Nah, that’s okay. I’m all right with you being Lane’s bearer of bad news.”
Clark looked down, his shoulders slumping. He had done enough of that for one day.
“Did you tell her about Menken?” Perry asked.
The reporter scoffed. “Did you see her in the office today?”
“She’s going to kill you for withholding information from her,” his boss warned.
You have no idea, Clark thought. “I better get home. She was taking a nap at my place, not wanting to set foot in hers after… Superman broke the news at lunch.” He almost slipped and said that he had told her. If she ever mentioned it was Superman… Well, Perry wasn’t editor just ‘cause he was the Memphis Yodeler, and Henderson seemed to have a head on his shoulders too.
Henderson looked at him with smirking respect. “So, you and Mad Dog, huh?”
Clark glared at him for the implication; he didn’t discuss Lois’s social life, ever. “Yep, we’re partners, work partners, and friends. That’s all.”
For now.The policeman chuckled, and winked at Clark’s boss, plainly not buying it. “Still impressive.”
************
Repercussions************
Lois woke up with her stomach grumbling at the smell of food. She could hear someone moving around in the next room. At first, she wasn’t sure where she was; then the memories tumbled back to her one after another like those waves on the beach when she was a child. She hardly caught her breath after the first one when the next one hit, then the next.
She and Superman would never move their relationship past friendship.
KER-SPLASH!
Someone had been watching her every move at home and at work.
KER-SPLASH!
Her arm throbbed in pain, because Lex had shot her.
KER-SPLASH!
For two whole blissful seconds before those memories knocked her around and around, she thought about that kiss she and Clark had shared the night before. She groaned and rolled over. That was a mistake, because she rolled over onto her right arm, and what had been a dull throb turned into shooting, burning agony. She expelled a hiss through gritted teeth, not wanting Clark to come rushing in and ask her what was wrong.
Pushing herself up with her left hand, she finally was sitting at the side of the bed. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to push through the enduring pain and slow her racing heart. She hadn’t taken her lunchtime dose of pain meds, and it was finally catching up with her.
The noise in the kitchen had disappeared with the exception of the food cooking. She wondered when Clark would pop his head around the corner and ask how she was. She hoped he wouldn’t because, frankly, she was sick of the question and nobody believing her answers.
Lois glanced at Clark’s alarm clock. It was nearing six o’clock. No wonder she was in so much pain; she’d gone two cycles on one pain pill. Impressed by her own strength and endurance, she decided not to chance a third. Numbness sounded preferable to this ache in her heart.
There was a glass of water and a pill sitting next to the clock radio. The glass already had stale bubbles. How long had it been sitting there? She picked up the pill, placed it on her tongue, then swallowed it down with a mouthful of tepid water. Ugh.
She rubbed her face with her hand and was glad Clark was giving her space. He was really good for her. She knew she should feel guilty for the way she had treated him over the last few months, but right now she’d rather feel nothing than any kind of emotion.
Lois stumbled into the bathroom. She washed away what remained of her spa make-up and looked at her new self in the mirror. She didn’t like what she saw and splashed water onto the mirror so she couldn’t see her image. All she accomplished was to distort it so that she had the appearance of a woman in a painting by Picasso or Dali. She flung open the medicine cabinet door, so she wouldn’t even see that much.
As medicine cabinets went, Kent’s was bare bones. Toothpaste and two brushes. He had given her a red one to use the other day when she had stayed the night, and it was still there in the cup with his yellow one. Floss. A jar of Q-Tips. A hand mirror. A comb and brush. Shaving cream, but no razors. He must have run out. After shave. She went to take it off the shelf but then remembered she would need two hands to open it. No bandages. No ointment. No lotion. No eye drops. Not even tweezers. No aspirin, cough syrup, or any medicines of any kind. Did he belong to one of those religions that didn’t believe in medicines? That wouldn’t explain the other missing essentials, though.
She closed the cabinet and started going through his vanity drawers. Washcloths. Bars of soap. Extra tubes of toothpaste. Under the sink he had spare rolls of toilet paper, more shampoo and conditioner, and a caddy of cleaning supplies.
No condoms? Maybe he wasn’t a Boy Scout after all.
Lois left the bathroom and headed into the living room. She leaned against the brick archway that separated the two rooms and watched Clark move around in his kitchen. He had changed out of his suit and tie, into jeans and a heather blue t-shirt. It was the first time she could recall him being out of work clothes. No, wait, she had seen him in his PJs the other night, or were those just his boxers? And there was that one time, he came over to her place to pick up the Invisible Man. He had been in jeans then.
Clark had turned on a CD player with soft jazz, and subconsciously his body was moving to the beat of the music, gliding gracefully back and forth through his kitchen. She bit her bottom lip as her eyes watched how his movements tightened the t-shirt, accenting his muscles. Her gaze coasted down his body. When he bent over to take a colander from the lower cabinet, Lois’s breath caught in her throat. How come she had never noticed how incredibly sexy her partner was? Okay, she
had noticed, but she couldn’t act on it because of her non-relationship with the Blue Wonder. Now, that there was no possibility for consummation of that other relationship, she could move forward with her tasty temptation man. She swallowed and licked her dry lips.
He glanced at her and smiled; his eyes sparkled at her and despite feeling frumpy a moment before, she saw that he still gazed at her as if she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. “Hi,” was all he said.
“Hi, back,” she replied, and she suddenly knew how she wanted to spend her night, entangled in that man’s arms and rolling around his bed, forgetting about the day that was.
Clark glanced back at her again and his smile faltered. “Are you cold?”
Was he kidding? It was Metropolis in the middle of August, and she was in a room with possibly one of the sexiest men of her acquaintance who happened to want to do
anything to please her. She could feel the perspiration beading on her neck as they spoke. “No.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding perplexed, but then shrugged and returned to whatever he was doing. “I made pasta with red sauce. Penne pasta, because I thought it would be easier for you to eat than spaghetti. I hope that’s okay. You hungry?”
“No.”
Not for food. She started walking towards him and she got another whiff of his cooking, and her stomach betrayed her with another grumble.
He grinned. “Liar.”
“Okay, I’m hungry,” she admitted. No point in denying it. Anyway, she would need the sustenance to fuel all those calories she was planning on burning off. “What can I do to help?” She was standing next to him now and his biceps were calling out for some hand-on examination.
Clark looked her up and down, pausing at her arm in its sling. “Everything’s ready. Go sit down.”
She was going to offer to set the table, but she saw he had already beaten her to the punch. She noticed they both had glasses of creamy goodness to drink. “Milk?”
“Builds strong bones and muscles,” he explained, setting two plates of pasta and sauce on the table. “Some of us need that at the moment.”
Lois sat down. She had to admit the food smelled delicious. “You know, if you advertised that you can cook, you’d be off the market in no time.”
“I’m not available,” he replied with a wink.
Her jaw dropped. They were supposed to be just friends. Just because she planned on using him to distract her from her heartache, didn’t mean that he should take himself off the market.
“I’m too busy working on my career,” he continued, and she nodded with understanding and a sigh of relief.
He came up behind her and helped her push in her chair. His fingers brushed her arms causing her skin to goose pimple. Snapping open a cloth napkin, he tucked it into the neck of her dress to shield it from any drips. She didn’t know if it was intentional but a longing came over her as his fingers touched the skin under her neckline.
Lois closed her eyes and exhaled, wishing she had worn the dress with the buttons down the front instead. She could picture several different scenarios. Sure, Clark could just rip open the dress in unbridled passion to get at her body, buttons flying everywhere, but that seemed too coarse for him. No, she pictured Clark unbuttoning each of the buttons slowly, tracing his fingers down the inside of the dress as he went. Perhaps adding a kiss to the spot on her body where each button had covered. Pausing at her chest to…
“Lois? Are you still tired?” Clark asked, concern in his voice.
“No, fine,” she chirped, her voice cracking as her eyes flashed open. “How about you? I’m sure that chair didn’t offer you much comfort last night.”
He blushed and zipped into the kitchen. “Parmesan. Do you want some?”
Lois bit her bottom lip. First food, then dessert.
Clark came back with a chunk of cheese and something that looked like a large file.
“Sure.”
He zested the cheese upon her food and the smells wafted over to her. Fresh parmesan? She thought that was only available in restaurants or from those plastic containers at the market.
“Mmmmm. This smells good,” Lois said, picking up her fork and stabbing her pasta. She was slightly embarrassed that she held her fork like a toddler held a pencil, but ambidextrous she was not.
Clark smiled at her. “My pleasure.”
Oh, Chuck, tonight is all about my pleasure. Lois returned his smile and stuck her fork into her mouth, twisting her arm awkwardly to make it there. “Ohhhh. Is it possible for food to taste better than it smells?”
“Thank you,” he said, taking a sip of his milk, but his gaze never left her face. “Do you need some help?”
The liberated woman in her hollered,
NO! But then she saw that Clark was about to retract the suggestion out of some gentlemanly maneuver to allow her to keep her independence. The thought of Clark feeding her coursed through her boiling veins, and she gasped, “Yes,” before she could stop herself.
“Oh. Okay,” he said, standing up and rearranging the table so that he was sitting right next to her.
Oh, yeah, this is much better, Lois moaned as his knee bumped into hers. Luckily, she timed the moan to coincide with Clark placing the food on her tongue. She smiled thankfully at him. “Thank you, Clark. How
ever shall I repay you?” she asked, knowing she was sounding more like that vixen Cat than herself.
“I’m sure you’d do the same for me if the situations were reversed,” he said, and they both knew he was lying. He gazed down at his own pasta and took a bite, before bringing another mouthful up to her.
“You better not be chasing after any bullets to have me pamper you, Kent,” she said with a laugh.
“No, my bullet chasing days are through,” he replied, moving a generous portion of salad onto her plate.
“I’m glad to hear it. I like you in one piece,” she said. She picked up a piece of spinach with her fingertips and brought it to his mouth. “Shall I feed you in return so you don’t starve?”
Clark chewed the bite and then swallowed it down in a gulp. “No, that’s okay, Lois.”
“No?” she asked demurely, bringing her fingers to her lips and licking the dressing off them.
“No,” his voice cracked. “I’m fine. Thanks.” He cleared his throat and took another sip of his milk. “Bread!” he said, jumping up from his chair and rushing into the kitchen. He pulled a baguette out of the oven and the smell was over-powering. He sliced it in large chunks and brought it back to the table, setting a piece on each of their plates. “I think you can handle that on your own, Lois.” He scooted his chair an inch or two further away. “Maybe you should just use your fingers and feed yourself.”
Lois batted her eyelashes and slightly pouted at him in a childish manner for a moment, but on reconsideration, she figured that might be more to her advantage, especially if he needed to help her clean herself up. “Okay,” she said cheerfully and focused on her plate.
She could hear him exhale next to her in relief, and she smiled. He thought the game was up, but it had hardly begun.
The thought of feeding herself with her fingers seemed more appealing and a whole lot more sexy, than the actuality of it. She paused as she reconsidered this option. “You promise no mocking me at the Daily Planet.”
“Never,” Clark replied, sounding hurt that she had ever considered that.
She looked at her plate again. No, she just couldn’t embarrass herself like that. Eat with her hands, and her left hand at that. She picked up her fork.
“Do you want me to feed you, or would you rather I ate with my left hand too?” he asked.
An image of them making out while half-dressed and covered in tomato sauce raced across the forefront of her mind. She shot him an evil grin, and picked up a piece of her pasta, placing it into her mouth.
He returned her smile and went to take a bite with his fork in his right hand.
She shook her head him. “Nuh-uh.”
“Do you really want me to…”
Lois grinned.
Clark rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He set down his fork and picked up a couple of pieces of pasta with his left hand and gracefully dropped them in his mouth, no harm, no foul.
“No fair! Are you left handed?” she asked. She hadn’t thought so. He had been using his fork with his right hand.
He picked up a piece of salad and stuck it neatly into his mouth. “No.”
Lois socked him in the arm. “Ambidextrous? Geez, Clark, isn’t there anything you can’t do?”
“Give birth,” he retorted with a deadpan expression.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” she said with a glower. She wasn’t planning on accomplishing that feat either.
“Come here,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her onto his right knee.
He held her steady with his right arm still around her waist. Taking her fingers to the plate with his left hand, he showed her how to pick up her food and move it up to her mouth neatly. The food made it into her mouth and she chewed it and swallowed. She watched as he picked up another couple pieces of pasta and stuck them in his mouth. She grabbed his fingers as he moved away and brought them back to her mouth, licking each one.
“Lois?” Clark said, his voice cracking.
She turned to face him, her lips hardly an inch away. “Will you make love to me?”
Lois leaned into him, her breath hot against his mouth. Clark only had to say the word.
“Yes.”
***End of Part 36*** Part 37 So, any
Comments besides killing the EW?
