Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (125/???)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

When we last saw Lex Luthor in Part 124, he had been watching a private camera show of Lois at the Daily Planet… (If I recall, I warned you then that Lex’s POV scenes were only to get creepier)…

Lex watched as Lois jotted down their date in her agenda. She then leaned back in her chair again with a very satisfied expression on her face. She reacted to something off-screen, causing her to sit upright, and Lex clicked the volume button to hear her response, now that he didn’t have her on the telephone.

“Well, what, Cat?” Lois snapped. “Do you think I’m going to share my private life with you after you put my lunch date all over your column?”

“Who’s always saying, ‘A scoop is a scoop is a scoop is a scoop’?” he could hear Cat Grant faintly respond.

“I’m not having dinner with Lex so that you can fill column inches,” Lois informed her co-worker.

Personally, the photo had pleased Lex. It wasn’t as nice as the one he had of Lois in his private study, but he loved the concerned expression on her face, and was thankful that Cat hadn’t used any photos during the time Lois had pulled off his sunglasses.

“Mmmmm. Inches, huh?” Cat replied in her seductive tone. “How many?”

“Leave the sexual innuendo to your fan club. I’m not interested in hearing it,” Lois said, holding up her hand.

Lex heard a chair move, the click-clack of heels, and suddenly Cat was sitting within view next to Lois. Cat was resplendent in another one of her hot-pink skintight low cut dresses. No one could show off her assets like Cat Grant, except maybe Arthur Chow’s current wife. ‘Exotic dancer?’ Lex shook his head sadly at Chow’s ignorance. One didn’t have to marry the exotic dancer; she would give it away freely. With Arthur at the head of the Chow fortune, it wouldn’t be long before Lex surpassed him in wealth. All it took was one good divorce lawyer. He chuckled, jotting himself a reminder to make sure that the new Mrs. Chow had received a business card from the divorce attorney at Bender’s firm. All was fair in love and war.

“Sooooo. I heard you made a date. Spill the beans. Totally off the record of course,” Cat begged. “I’m all ears.”

“Buzz off, Cat. I’ve got work to do,” Lois said, pushing the woman off the corner of her desk.

“Is he picking you up in the limousine?” Cat probed with bouncing eyebrows. “I especially love the Bentley.”

Lex liked using his Daimler Limousine. Even if a woman didn’t know about cars, such as its make and model, an automobile as luxurious as that always impressed and made her feel like royalty.

Lois looked askance at her colleague. “Have you ever ridden in it?”

“No,” Cat admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know a nice car when I see it.”

The truth of the matter was that Cat Grant had been in his limousine. It must’ve been back ten years ago, now. Lex had just entered the Metropolis social scene. He hadn’t amassed the bulk of his fortune yet, and wasn’t known on sight as he was today. Between marrying Arianna and some not-so-legal business moves, Lex had acquired enough wealth to buy the Daimler Limousine. That night, he had wanted to treat himself to sex with a living woman, instead of his cold fish of a wife.

Part 125

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Compromises
************

There was a knock on his office door, and Lex just had enough time to switch off his surveillance of Lois’s desk, before Arianna entered. He stood up and crossed over to her, and greeted his ex-wife with a kiss to her cheek. “Ari, I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I had a scheduled conference call I had to take,” he said, nodding to Mrs. Cox to shut the door.

Arianna slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. “That’s okay, Lex, I know you’re a busy man,” she said, sitting down on one of the high-backed armchairs away from his desk.

She had consistently refused to be delegated to that realm of his life; she was personal, not business. She always considered herself somewhat more important to Lex than her title of ex-wife allowed her, and she would be right. He wished he could say it had only been for her father’s huge fortune, which became theirs after his sudden death during their honeymoon, that Lex had proposed to Arianna. He wished he could honestly tell himself that he wouldn’t have given Arianna more than the time of day, except for her unhealthy obsession with him, which he knew would be his key to getting his hands on her father’s money. Unfortunately, he could not. Mainly, he kept Arianna around to remind himself never to become emotionally involved with a conquest again. It had broken his heart that he hadn’t been able to give his wife pleasure on their wedding night. No, not his heart, he amended, his ego. He had allowed Arianna to step on his pride. Never again.

Thankfully, she had been more than welcoming of his dalliances on the side during their marriage; actually, Ari claimed it as her idea. ‘Better you do that to another woman than me,’ she had informed Lex when their honeymoon revealed her abhorrence to her marital duties.

As long as Lex kept it to nothing more than sex, she allowed him to do as he liked to whom he liked, whenever he liked, and he did. He didn’t know if it was because she already suspected him of stepping out on her, which he had, or if it was because she didn’t want to ‘lose him’, which she had, too.

Lex told her the only reason they needed to divorce was to keep up his image of law-abiding citizen of Metropolis, not philandering cad, but that in his heart he would always be married only to her. It was a bucket of horse urine, which Arianna had bought willingly as fine wine.

“Mrs. Cox said that there was some problem with the Luthor House for the Mentally Unstable,” Lex said, prodding her to speak.

Even to this day, Arianna would sometimes become awed in his presence when they were alone, amazed that he loved her, which he didn’t, and so acted differently than when they were with others. He had seen Lois act this way in public no less, on occasion, with Superman, and wished Lois would look at him in the same subservient manner.

Arianna had asked for the mental institution for her birthday several years ago, and it had finally come to fruition. Had Lex not brought his ex-wife in to oversee the L.U.X., the institution would be occupying most of her time. Moreover, it would be a terrific and completely legitimate place to lock away one’s enemies, pests, and disgruntled employees.

“No, no problem. I have set up my flat next door, as you suggested, darling, and I thought…” She blushed and glanced away. “We could christen it, when we met for our anniversary dinner.”

Once a year, on the date of their anniversary, Arianna let Lex have his marital rights with her. It was her anniversary gift to him, because they both knew she had a fear of intimacy and endured it out of her desire to please him. In addition, Lex had claimed if they didn’t share their bodies at least once a year, the courts would no longer consider them ‘married’, even if the legal paperwork said they were divorced. Lex enjoyed forcing her to relent year after year, making the night last the entire night through to get his money’s worth out of her.

During the terms of their premarital contract, Lex had negotiated complete control of their joint finances, which included her entire inheritance, and should they ever terminate their marriage, for any reason, he would continue to control Arianna’s share of the money as trustee to a lifetime trust in her name. Arianna had agreed to these terms, Lex guessed, because she suspected he would want to divorce her after he learned of her ‘phobia’ and this way she could be guaranteed contact with Lex, albeit forced, as trustee to her post-marital trust. They had eloped, without her father’s knowledge, so Arianna had also signed the paperwork without her father or his lawyers’ advice.

Lex smiled, and leaned back. “I am looking forward to Sunday night, my dear, as always,” he murmured, brushing her cheek with his fingers and delighting in the shiver of alarm, which passed through her at his touch.

Arianna’s eyes widened. “No, Lex. Saturday night is our anniversary.”

“But Sunday is the twenty-sixth, darling,” Lex corrected, moving his fingers down to the neck of her shirt.

She jumped to her feet, as he knew she would. “No, Lex,” she said with more ferocity than he had ever heard from her before. She crossed to his desk and started to shuffle through the items there.

“Ari!” Lex scolded, grabbing her hands and pulling her away. “You know you are never to touch my things.”

He took his desk calendar out of her hands and saw that she was correct: Saturday was March 26. He glanced at the tickets to the opera, which were still sitting on his desk, and saw they too were for March 26. Damn. It wasn’t like him to make serious scheduling errors. He set the calendar down and brought Ari’s hands to his lips. “Ari, darling, no problem. We’ll just celebrate on the twenty-seventh this year, after our usual Sunday night dinner.”

“But, Lex, if we don’t…” She shivered again in horror. “Consummate our marriage every year within the year, our divorce will be legal. I distinctly remember you saying that when I signed the paperwork, and I cannot… cannot let that happen,” Arianna said, leaning her head against his chest. “I cannot lose you, Lex. I love you too much. I’m willing to do anything to keep our marriage alive; you know that... otherwise… otherwise, I wouldn’t…”

“I know, darling, but…”

“But, what? Are you planning to have sex with another woman on our anniversary, Lex? On the celebration of our love?” Arianna demanded.

Lois had finally agreed to go on an official date with him. Even with the most stubborn of women, he had been able to succeed with the opera. Although, once he did a quick review of the most difficult women he had seduced over the recent years, he concluded they were the ones with whom he couldn’t be seen in public: Claudette Wilder (because she was married), Lena Harrison (same, this had been before he had fired her husband), Amber Lake (same, moreover Lex discovered both she and her husband were candidates for Ari’s mental intuition), Toni Baines (being that she was spying on EPRAD for him), Toni Taylor (same with the Metro gang), Diana Stride (double agent with Intergang), Gretchen Kelly (since the Medical Ethics board frowned on doctors sleeping with their patients), and Lois Lane (Superman’s love interest). He had also recently dated Lisa Rockford, the model, after his run-in with Superman in November, but she didn’t want to be seen too much in public with one man, due to her suspicious Nazi friends, whom she didn’t think Lex knew about, but he did.

Anyway, Lex wanted to try Miranda’s Revenge on Arianna for their anniversary to see if she became fierier, and he would hate to wait a year for his next opportunity. He doubted the Revenge would do much to her, being that Ari was already obsessed with him and had no passion to begin with, but he was curious… even if it meant disappointing Lois. His chest ached at the thought of canceling or postponing his date with Lois, and he wondered if it was something that he had eaten at lunch.

While Arianna might love him now, he knew from personal experience how quickly love could switch to hate. Lex knew he needed to keep Arianna happy because she knew more than her fair share of his secrets. If he used her any night, other than their anniversary, then that could change. Arianna would become a formidable enemy. True, he had enough on her to lock her up in her own mental institution, if he so cared, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that, just yet. Arianna could be vocal, and if anything she said arrived at Lois’s ear, it would be twice the trouble to undo it.

Also, he looked forward to this date. It was the one night a year he was allowed to do whatever he pleased to torture his ex-wife, literally instead of just figuratively. He had never forgiven her for bruising his pride. Death would be too good for the woman. Yet, if he knew Lois would be willing… no, he would not turn down a guaranteed show of power with Ari for more patience with Lois.

He would figure out some way to be in two places at once. Perhaps he could dine with Lois, only to have Lex-C attend the opera with her. The clone wouldn’t have to speak much, except during the intermission, and Lex would lay down ground rules about his conduct. Yes, that was the answer.

“I shall never make love to anyone but you, Arianna,” Lex reassured her, lying through his teeth. He had never ‘made love’ to any woman. That act was for wimps. “Saturday night is our night. I’m only teasing.”

“Oh, Lex, I knew you still loved me. I was worried when I saw that photo of you and that woman, holding hands, in the Daily Planet the other day,” Arianna said.

“Don’t worry about her, my dear. She means nothing to me,” he said, pushing down an uneasy feeling that Lois could mean more to him than a way to end Superman. Having Lois meant nothing more to him than possessing her, he reassured himself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be giving her up for a night with Arianna. Still, there was that burning sensation in his chest, which he concluded must be heartburn. “Did you come all the way over here just to speak about Saturday night, darling?” He ran his hands over her neat bun, recalling how it felt to stream her hair through his fingers before he held it tight in his fists. “Remember, I like your hair down.” He kissed down her neck, and Arianna stepped quickly away. He used to hate her discomfort at his touch, but he had quickly grown to love the terror in this woman who kept returning for more. It gave him an overwhelming sense of power. No, he couldn’t miss their anniversary, and all the rewards that came with it.

“Actually, Lex, there’s something else. A problem is developing in the L.U.X.,” Arianna said, sitting back down in the armchair in a most businesslike fashion as she flipped open a notebook. “One of the men is getting suspicious. His name is Kirk Devlin, PhD. and he’s a physicist in the science division. He has natural paranoid tendencies exacerbated by claustrophobia. He’s been complaining to Dr. Rogers, the psychiatrist you recruited, that he believes you’ve faked the whole asteroid impact. He’s worried because you haven’t let anyone go back to check the surface world since the impact, which he claims was too small to have incurred the wreckage expected. He believes that if Nightfall Minor, which he calls ‘Nightfallite’, had actually hit the Earth, his instruments in the lab should have felt it more strongly. He’s been seen whispering in the hall with a small group of others, who want to protest staying underground and mount an expedition to the surface world to determine damage.” She looked up at Lex.

“He didn’t like my little gas main bomb blast, apparently. It damaged two levels of my parking garage and a subway tunnel nearby well enough,” Lex said wryly. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You’re right, someone like that could undermine the whole Luthor Underground Experiment. I shall have Nigel talk to him and see if he can calm his fervor.” Otherwise, Mr. Devlin sounded like the perfect test subject for their vitamin regime.

Arianna smiled at him with admiration, hero-worship in her gaze, and he felt nothing. It used to please him to no end to have her look at him as if he were Superman. Only, now… He stared at her face, and for the briefest of moments, replaced her face with Lois’s in his mind. Suddenly, this whole body tingled, his heart began to race, and he felt something… else, something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time: longing. He held out his hand to Arianna. She set her hand in his and he drew her to her feet as he kissed her hand. She smelled off, funny, wrong. He knew what he would do. He would give Arianna a bottle of that perfume that Lois wore and it would be as if he had his way with Lois after all. All he would have to do was close his eyes.

Lex looked deeply into his ex-wife’s eyes. “I’m looking forward to Saturday, my dear,” he said with a slight catch in his breath.

“And I look forward to… being married to you for another year,” Arianna replied, the catch in her voice more from dread than anticipation though, but Lex didn’t mind. He really didn’t care in the least.

He watched as Dr. Carlin walked out of his office, and then he forgot completely about her; ‘out of sight, out of mind’ worked best with his ex-wife.

Mrs. Cox entered the office with a notepad and pencil, shutting the door behind her. “You wanted me, Mr. Luthor,” she drawled.

Lex smiled. He picked up a remote on his desk. One push of the button turned on the room’s soundproofing, something he picked up when Honeybraun went down for the count.

“Oh?” Mrs. Cox inquired, setting her notebook down on Lex’s desk and reaching up to loosen her hair. “In the mood for some noise today, Mr. Luthor?”

Lex’s smile grew as he pushed another button on his remote. His wall of antique weapons spun around and was replaced with a metal wall with a set of dangling handcuffs and ankle manacles. “I’d thought we’d try something new today, Mrs. Cox.”

***

Cat was dressed in one of her more slutty outfits. This one Perry had even deemed too risqué for the Daily Planet newsroom. He told her that he personally had liked the dress, but it was too disruptive to some of the male reporters on staff with the exception of Glenn in travel. He told her that the day she had worn it, almost every reporter had turned in late and incomprehensible stories, with the exception of Cat, Lois, and Preciosa Valdez. (Once, early in her career, Cat had dared to call Valdez ‘Preciosa’ and still had the scars to show for it. Mad Dog Lane had nothing on Volcano Valdez before she had mellowed with age. There were few left in the newsroom who knew that Steve in Sports didn’t limp due to an old baseball injury.) Cat was sure that Perry had exaggerated about her dress, especially since Alice had come into the office for lunch that day, but bowed to his position as boss to refrain from wearing it to work again.

She handed the guard her fake ID with the name Trixie Smith listed on it. There wasn’t a single person who ever bought that this was Cat’s real name, but the ID was genuine. It was good to have a friend at the DMV, who was willing to bend over backwards to show someone like Cat how licenses were created.

When Toni Taylor walked into the visitors’ room, gone was her make-up, her fancy business suits, and hairstyle. Cat hardly recognized her as the same woman she had seen those couple of times she had gone to the Metro Club, prior to Lois becoming a lady of the evening. Cat pocketed that memory of Lois to laugh over again later. The shocked expression when Mad Dog Lane had realized that Toni had sold her to Lex Luthor for his pleasure: priceless.

The ex-head of the Metro Gang looked Cat up and down, shrugged, and then sat down across from her. She lifted up the phone, and Cat did likewise. “Do I know you?” she asked.

“No,” Cat replied.

“What do you want then? Take over my corner of the street? My business doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m not a prostitute,” Cat exclaimed.

Toni looked her up and down again. “Sure about that?”

“This is a disguise,” Cat replied, getting annoyed that everyone seemed to jump there first due to her wardrobe. Come on, her outfits were classier than that. Granted, not this one. “I’m looking for a hot tip on a mutual friend.”

“I don’t have any friends,” Toni said after a moment’s hesitation.

“Sure, you do,” Cat reassured her. “Charlie King said to tell you that you could trust me.”

“Charlie?” Toni echoed, her mouth cracking a brief smile. She glanced past Cat. “You didn’t happen to bring the big guy along with you, did you? It’s been a long six months.”

Cat hadn’t actually told Clark that she was coming to see Toni Taylor, or he would have come with her… undercover assignment at the Metropolis Star or not. “He is a box of eye candy, isn’t he?” Cat agreed.

“That he is. So, who are you? Are you working with that piece of trash who put me in here?” Toni asked suspiciously. “Lola… something or other?”

“Lois Lane? Gosh, no. We’re bitter enemies,” Cat exaggerated slightly. “Actually, I’m trying to out-scoop her on a story. Want to help me totally embarrass her?”

Toni considered that. “I’m listening.”

“When I said ‘mutual friend’, I really meant ‘mutual enemy’. She’s dating your ex-beau.”

“Charlie?” Toni asked.

“No, not Charlie,” Cat grumbled, and adding that lie to her tally sheet of things, for which Clark owed her. She pulled out a copy of the photo she shot of Lex and Lois at lunch the other day and set it down. “Anyone look familiar?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let him buy her when he had never had eyes for any of my singers before,” Toni said, appearing annoyed.

“Want to talk about that?” Cat asked.

“Not particularly. I like living,” Toni replied. “So, what, they going steady now?”

“Did he threaten you?” Cat whispered.

“What do you think?” Toni said with a raised brow, and then continued in a dry monotone, “Of course, he didn’t threaten me. Why would he? He’s a real philanthropist. On that one and only time we met, I offered to sell him protection for the area of Riverside he wanted to purchase… and eventually did purchase for his ‘redevelopment project’.” She emphasized this phrase with sarcastic finger quotes. “But he wasn’t interested. He wanted the property dirt cheap, and I figured he wanted me to do something about it. You know, I scratch his back and maybe he’ll scratch mine. I guess I figured wrong. That’s why I’m in here, and he’s still one of the ‘good guys’.”

Cat could tell that Toni was lying about everything. Either the woman had nothing left to live for, or she knew they were being bugged, and the transcripts of their conversation wouldn’t show her sarcasm. “I don’t care about any of that,” Cat said. “I was hoping you’d let me know if you own one of these.” She pulled out a blow up of Miranda’s wrist and the obvious silver Gucci watch on it. If someone was listening in on their conversation, Cat wasn’t going to give her hand away.

“What the hell?!” Toni griped. “It’s supposed to be in storage with the rest of my personal effects.”

Well, that answered that question. Cat set pictures of Antoinette Baines, Monique Kahn, and Miranda in front of her. She pointed to the first picture. “This is Dr. Baines. She worked on the Messenger program, and she had one of these. She died when her helicopter exploded after it was discovered she was the one who sabotaged EPRAD’s space program.” Cat put Monique Kahn’s photo on top of the picture of Dr. Baines. “This woman was Monique Kahn. She worked at LexLabs until she suddenly decided to jump off a slightly shorter building than Lex Tower, despite having a fear of heights since her childhood. Unfortunately for her, Superman saved her.”

“Unfortunately?” Toni asked. “I understood Superman to be a good thing.”

“The next week, Monique disappeared. Gotham County Sheriff’s office believes that someone held Ms. Kahn against her will for three months, starved, tortured, and then hunted her to death with a bow and arrow, or a high-powered crossbow, in the woods between Gotham City and Metropolis. The arrows were then cut out of her body with a hunting knife, and her naked body was left for scavenging animals. According to someone close to her, before her dive off the Chandler building, she had been bragging about being in a secret romance with someone high up in LexCorp, someone who gave her one of these.” Cat pointed at the watch again, before setting Miranda’s picture on top of the photo of Monique. “This is Miranda…”

“Oh, wait,” Toni interrupted, tapping the glass. “I heard about her. She’s that perfumer who made Metropolis love-crazy and then offed herself.”

“Yes. She developed a perfume that could make someone go irrationally crazy for anyone he or she was attracted to,” Cat went on.

“I could’ve used some of that stuff,” Toni mumbled.

Cat ignored Toni’s aside. “The last time Miranda was seen alive, she had just left a business meeting with our ‘friend’. He claims that she had not only tried to sell him the patent the perfume, but herself as well. He told police that he turned her down on both accounts.”

Toni scoffed.

Cat glanced up, but Toni waved her on. “She was found hanging of an apparent suicide inside her shop. You’ve already identified hers as being the same as yours.” She pointed at the close-up of Miranda’s watch again.

“Other than the same taste in jewelry, I don’t see what I have in common with these women,” Toni replied between gritted teeth. She glanced over her shoulder and then back at Cat.

“I thought you might have something you’d like to get off your chest, while you still have the chance,” Cat said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you’re trying to frame someone, you’ve come to the wrong person. I only met Lex Luthor that one time at the Metro Club, and he was a perfect gentleman,” Toni said, her voice low and menacing.

Cat knew she was lying because Toni had already told her that Lex had come to the club more than once, when she admitted ‘he had never had eyes for any of my singers before’. It was a lie of self-preservation, and Cat could understand why Toni wouldn’t want to speak the truth to a stranger. Cat also knew she could use that will to live against her.

“I’m guessing he didn’t visit you at your place, which the Metros probably had under a watchful eye, so you must have gone to his penthouse. I know you didn’t waltz in the front door because none of his doormen recognized your picture…”

“You showed my photo to his doormen and asked about me?” Toni shook her head. “And you thought my days were numbered.” She chuckled.

“How did you enter the building?” Cat said, changing the direction of her question.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Toni replied innocently.

Cat scooped up the photos and dropped them into her purse. “Fine. Don’t help me nail him and embarrass Lois. I’ll let my editor know to advertise my ‘tell-all’ interview with you in the evening edition, and we’ll see how that works out for you.”

“Are you nuts? I didn’t tell you anything,” Toni hissed, glancing around.

“Yes, but I’m the only one who knows that,” Cat replied, moving to hang up her telephone.

“Gilbert Street,” Toni said.

Cat moved the phone up to her ear. “What about it?”

“I used the entrance to his parking garage on Gilbert Street. I always drove myself,” Toni explained.

“Uh-huh. Go on,” Cat said, doubting the ‘always’ from Toni’s pronouncement.

“Go on?” Toni replied. “That’s it.”

Having tailed Lois inside through the Gilbert St. entrance to Lex Tower when her coworker had dined with Lex the night before, Cat knew that the elevators led directly to the lobby, unless one had a bypass key. Without the key, the person had to switch from the parking garage elevators in the lobby and go through building security to access the building elevators. Lois wasn’t hiding her visits to Lex, as Cat was sure Toni and Antoinette and who knew how many other women had, so there had to be another way.

“How did you get up to the penthouse without going through the lobby?” Cat asked again. “Did someone unlock the elevator for you?”

“Usually. Wait… One time, he picked me up at the airport and drove me back to the Metro Club in the middle of the night.”

“He drove you, himself?” Cat didn’t even know Lex had a driver’s license.

Toni waved this idea. “No, no, in the limo. We stopped by the penthouse first. There was another elevator, a private elevator,” she said, recalling. “I remember because Lex chose a bottle of champagne from his wine cellar before we went upstairs. We were celebrating…” Her gaze drifted off.

Now, we’re talking. Cat put her hand into her purse to check that her mini cassette recorder was purring. It was. “Celebrating what?” she asked, leaning forward to make sure the mic hidden in her hair picked up every word.

“Never you mind!” Toni insisted, her eyes widening in fear as she realized what she had just revealed. She leaned towards the Plexiglas partition dividing them and pointed at Cat. “I’m not saying another word.”

It had been worth a shot. Cat had been able to trick Toni into confirming that she had dated Lex. Unfortunately, without it explicitly on tape, it would only be Toni’s word against Cat’s that was who their the conversation was about. Anyway, Lex and Toni dating was only gossip, not news, unless Cat could prove that Toni’s watch had a tracer in it as Lois’s did. The link of the silver Gucci watches was something, but still circumstantial. Now, she was curious where the ‘storage’ of Toni’s personal effects was.

Cat had already known about the public Gilbert Street entrance to Lex Tower, but she had wondered about another entrance to Lex Tower, a private entrance. She had walked the entire parking garage, not finding either Lex’s black stretch or his old fashioned limo, and she wondered where he parked them. She figured her time with Toni was almost up and she might as well try for one last question. “In that case, mind telling me if he was any good?”

Toni laughed, and then shrugged non-committally.

Cat took that to mean ‘not really’.

***

Saturday, March 26th, 7:30p.m.

Clark wished he hadn’t put off filing his taxes merely because he didn’t want to draw the IRS’s attention to the fact that he’d never filed before. Actually, that wasn’t exactly true. He hadn’t filed because he hadn’t thought about it until Lois brought it up as what she’d be doing this weekend instead of flying out to Kansas with him.

He guessed he deserved that response. It wasn’t as if Lois had an ankle monitor on or anything. Superman could have taken her to Smallville for twenty-four hours and nobody would’ve been the wiser. Only, he would have known he was flouting the law, and he really didn’t want Lois to be remanded to jail. She was annoyed at him, because he hadn't even asked Superman if he would do it. Clark guessed he could see her point of view, even if he didn’t agree with it.

He had decided to work on his taxes at the office due to all forms being there and the adding machine. The other nudge had been finding a package from Jonathan. When Clark had returned from his undercover assignment at the Met Star the day before, he’d opened the package to find a copy of the birth certificate for the Kents’ son, Lois’s True Clark, and his social security card inside. Jonathan’s brief note suggested that Clark might find these come in handy. Clark was once again touched at the Kents’ generosity in offering these items to him, but it didn’t feel right taking this dimension’s True Clark’s life over as his own, even if that was what he had essentially done by moving here and keeping his identity. At the most basic level, it was fraud. It was a fraud that allowed him to have a real life, but in his gut, he was still conflicted about using it as his lifeline.

Being Clark Kent in his old dimension wasn’t a fraud. The birth certificate had been created for him. He had lived in Smallville, been raised by the Kents for the first ten years of his life, and had gone to Kansas State. He was Clark Kent.

But in this dimension, officially Clark Kent died as an infant. In this dimension, legally he was more Superman – visitor from another planet – than he was son to the farming couple Martha and Jonathan Kent. He hadn’t lived in Smallville, attended Midwest University, or even written those articles he had shown Perry during his initial interview at the Daily Planet. It was these small white lies, which Clark hated most about relocating to this new dimension.

Then Clark realized that failing to pay his taxes would also in itself be illegal, and if he was going to be a full-fledged member of this dimension, Clark Kent would have to be law-abiding in paying his fair share of taxes. Luckily, and mostly because he didn’t know any better, he had chosen the option where the Daily Planet took out the largest amount of withholding from his paycheck as possible, so he might even end up with a refund. If he could ever figure out exactly what these forms meant. It was so different from the fifteen percent across the board taxes everyone paid in his dimension… well, twenty percent, since he had lived in Metropolis.

Did everyone end up banging their head against their desks when working on their taxes in this dimension, or was it just him?

Jimmy and Perry arguing over the items in Perry’s office wasn’t helping either. So much for a nice quiet evening at the office.

***

Nigel St. John walked into Lex’s living room, paused, and waited quietly for Lex to address him. Even though he seemed to be everything one had heard about in stories, television, and movies about British service, he still gave off this weird vibe, which made Lois uneasy in his presence. The man never gave any outward appearance of dislike, but Lois could feel he didn’t approve of her friendship with Lex, whatever that might be. Truth be told, she didn’t really care for the man either. He was too observant.

“Nigel?” Lex inquired after wiping his mouth with his napkin, when he caught Lois looking at his employee instead of him.

Even after all this time, Lois wasn’t quite sure of Nigel’s title or position in Lex’s household or company. If Mrs. Cox was Lex’s personal assistant that would make Nigel… what? His butler? His second in command? Thankfully, Mrs. Cox had been absent during their evening meals together. Strangely, though, Lois hadn’t seen his other manservant Asabi recently and wondered what had happened to the man. He had seemed such a fixture of Lex’s household last summer when they had gone on those few dates, even acting as chauffeur. She made a mental note to check on Asabi’s whereabouts.

“Sir, you asked me to remind you when it was seven thirty as you needed to take that phone call,” Nigel said, speaking in a soft voice.

“Phone call?” Lois asked Lex. It was odd that he would schedule a call during their ‘date’. Usually, Lex asked Nigel to make sure that nobody interrupted them during dinner. Was something up? Also, she hadn’t heard the phone ring.

“A conference call that I wasn’t able to reschedule, my dear. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes,” Lex answered vaguely. He stood up and looked at her as if memorizing her every feature. He took her hand in his and drew it up to his lips to kiss the back of it. “Although, after seeing you in this evening, I’m seriously reconsidering being out of your presence for even a moment.”

Lois bowed her head and turned away, pretending to blush. Her black evening dress looked good on her, she knew, but it wasn’t more fancy or revealing than any other of her black cocktail dresses. She knew she looked good, but not gushingly good. More often than not recently, Lois wondered about Lex’s growing attachment to her as resembling his attentions while affected by Miranda’s Revenge perfume. Was that how he normally wooed a woman, or was he treating her differently? She had teased him about considering this outing a date instead of evening entertainment between friends, but she could tell he had taken her at her word. “You’re all flattery tonight, Lex,” she replied, taking a last sip of her wine.

He smiled. “Aren’t I usually flattering, Lois?”

“Of course, Lex,” Lois hastened to reassure him, even though his treatment of her didn’t feel flattering. He usually was subtly patronizing, sickeningly suave while issuing backhanded compliments, and coolly charming as he tried to maneuver the conversation and her opinions to where he thought they should be. He was good at it too. Sometimes, it wasn’t until she was back home and rehashing in her mind their conversations for any nuggets of information worth retaining or exploring that she would realize that he had done it again.

Lex squeezed her hand lightly and then let go to follow Nigel up the stairwell to his private rooms down the hall from the mezzanine.

Lois’s brow furrowed. Why was Lex taking a conference call upstairs in his private living quarters instead of in his office? Standing up, Lois decided she wasn’t going to waste her time, sitting and waiting at the dinner table for him to return.

***End of Part 125***

Part 126

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