Sorry, this is going to be a small section, because the next scene is fairly long and I can't afford to lose 15 pages of buffer in one hit!
“Did you ever wonder why he didn’t do it earlier?” she asked. “Why not five, or even ten years earlier?”
Perry opened his mouth to answer, then promptly shut it again and raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very perceptive question, young lady.”
“And that’s a very evasive answer,” she replied briskly.
Alice laughed. “She’s got you there, Perry. But seriously, Lois, there could be any number of reasons why Clark didn’t become Superman earlier. You’d have to ask him.”
Yup, she was being given the run-around. Her old reporter’s instincts, rusty though they were, were screaming ‘cover-up’ so loud she was surprised Perry and Alice couldn’t hear them. “You must have a few theories, though,” she said. “You’ve both known him for a while, and he’s a good friend, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is,” said Perry. “And that’s why we can’t tell you, Lois.” He sighed. “Yes, we do both have a pretty good idea why he did what he did. But it’s personal, it’s private, and it’s for Clark to tell you, if he wants to, not us. Sorry, honey.”
She pursed her lips, frustrated by the brick wall they kept putting up. “Now you’re making me think that something pretty cataclysmic must have happened to him,” she observed. “He’s my friend, too, you know. I care about him – that’s why I’m asking you these questions. I think he’s struggling with something and I want to help. God knows, he’s helped me enough over the past few weeks.”
She saw husband and wife exchange meaningful looks. “It’s...complicated,” said Perry.
“So?” replied Lois. “You’re a politician and an ex-newspaper editor. You should be good at explaining complex things.”
“I guess you could tell her about Lana,” said Alice to Perry. “Most people know about her anyway.”
“Who’s Lana?” demanded Lois immediately.
Perry grimaced. “Clark’s ex-fiancee. I guess you could say she was the main reason he didn’t become Superman any sooner.”
Ex-fiancee? He’d been engaged? “Why? She thought it was too dangerous?”
Perry snorted. “Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
From his derisive tone and demeanour, Lois could see that Perry hadn’t liked Lana very much at all. Interesting – he didn’t usually take a dislike to someone unless there was very good reason, so what had this Lana woman done to earn Perry’s disapproval?
“She didn’t like Clark using his abilities openly,” explained Alice. “She thought that if people found out he wasn’t human, they’d take him away and perform experiments on him. In her own way, I think, she really was trying to do what was best for him.”
“Sure,” drawled Perry heatedly, “and in the process, turned him into mashed potato! If that woman had Clark’s best interests at heart, then I’m Elvis’s long-lost brother from Timbuktu.”
“Perry,” said Alice, giving her husband a warning glance.
“Well, it’s true,” he insisted. “Breaking up with Lana was the best thing that could ever have happened to Clark. He’d never have become Superman if he still had her hanging like a millstone around his neck.”
“Perry!” said Alice sharply. “That’s enough.”
“Hell, Alice, don’t pretend you don’t agree with me,” said Perry. “You were the one who practically threw the woman out after she flayed him alive with that razor-sharp tongue of hers.”
“Yes, but Lois has never met Lana,” Alice pointed out. “Let her form her own impressions.”
Perry harrumphed. “If you’re lucky, you’ll never meet the woman,” he told Lois, ignoring another glare from his wife.
Lois fiddled with her napkin while processing all this new information. Clark had been engaged. Well, that wasn’t so surprising, considering how attractive he was. But this Lana person sounded like she hadn’t understood him, or loved him, in the least little bit, if Perry was to be believed. “So he broke up with Lana so he could become Superman?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” said Alice. “But close enough.”
Lois studied Alice’s impassive features. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Yes.” Alice reached across the table and placed her hand softly over Lois’s. “Talk to him, honey. We can’t tell you everything. It wouldn’t be fair on Clark.”
Lois sighed. “I’ll try. At least I’ve got one thing straight in my mind – Clark really wanted to be Superman, didn’t he? He didn’t do it because he was forced into it.”
“Absolutely not,” said Alice. “He needs to help people, and being Superman is the best possible way he can do that. I will say this, though – it all happened very quickly to him. I don’t think he’d been planning it for a long time-“
“Lana had his head filled with marriage plans and guest lists, that’s why,” interjected Perry sourly.
Alice glared at her husband before turning back to Lois. “So one day he was plain old Clark Kent, and the next day he was Superman. It was quite an adjustment to make.”
Lois nodded, then realised that this was the perfect opportunity to pose the question she’d been wanting to ask all evening. “Is that...is that why he became a drug addict?”
Alice’s face saddened, and another long, meaningful look went between husband and wife. “We can’t answer that, honey,” she said. “I know you’re only trying to understand him better, but that’s a confidence we just can’t break.”
She nodded. “I guess I’ll have to wait for Clark to tell me. If he wants to.”
“Give it time, honey,” said Alice. “Don’t push him to tell you before he’s ready.”
“That might be a very long time, knowing Clark,” she observed.
Alice smiled. “Yes, Clark’s a typical man in that respect, but have patience. Everything will work out in the end, I’m sure.”
***************
Trying to suppress the eager anticipation which had been bubbling up inside her ever since she’d been handed the key, Lois pushed open the front door of the studio apartment and stepped inside. She wasn’t moving in today, but if she liked what she saw and the formalities slotted into place, she could be living here within the week.
Clean, drab, and a bit impersonal, she thought as she walked into the main room. There was a kitchenette adjacent to a small dining area at the far end of the room, and a slightly larger lounge where she was standing. The furniture looked cheap and a bit scuffed, and the previous occupant had been a smoker, judging by the smell.
Still, she thought as she poked her head into the bathroom, it was bigger than her room, and there was plenty you could do to make the place seem more homely. Open the windows, for a start.
And she could invite Clark to dinner. That was her dream – to play host, make him a really nice meal and have a pleasant evening together. Just like the evening the Whites had given her.
She smiled as she glanced over the tiny bedroom. From the way they’d spoken about him, it was obvious that they cared a great deal about Clark, almost to the point where they considered themselves his surrogate parents. Perry’s outburst over Lana had been more like that of a concerned father than an ex-employer. Alice seemed to understand him as well as her own two sons.
For that reason, she’d felt bad about raising the issue of Clark’s addiction with them, and had later apologised and tried to make it clear that she didn’t think any less of him because of his problems.
Alice had nodded. “Clark’s the living proof that these things can affect just about anyone. You don’t have to be a poor kid from the slums. You just have to be vulnerable, and all of us are vulnerable at some point in our lives.”
“And being alone, Clark doesn’t have the support systems most of us have,” agreed Lois.
Perry had sighed heavily. “I saw the signs. I just wish I’d acted sooner.”
Alice had squeezed his hand. “You did good, honey. You got him the help he needed.”
Clark was lucky to have them, Lois mused. She herself had no-one. Her father was dead and her mother was in a long-term care facility for the mentally ill.
She leant her forehead against the cool wood of the bedroom door. She hadn’t visited her mother for years. Before Brazzaville, it had been indifference and laziness which had kept her away; now it was fear. Was craziness inheritable? Here she was, in a mental institution herself, with a mother who’d already lost her mind.
A dry, humourless chuckle escaped her. If her father’s obsessiveness didn’t get her, then her mother’s lunacy would. What hope was there?
She sighed and walked back to the front door of the apartment. She’d take it, despite its drabness and tatty furniture. The future might look uncertain, and the past was a nightmare, but she wasn’t ready to give up the fight yet. She still had unfinished business with Clark Kent.
*****************
Floating. Drifting effortlessly on a bed of air, wafting wherever the gentle breeze took them. Far below, the city hustled and bustled, the distant sounds of traffic filtering up through the clouds to create a pleasant background chatter.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmured in her ear, his warm breath fanning the side of her neck.
His strong arms holding her, solid and secure, warm and reassuring, under her back and supporting her thighs. A very masculine cradle in which to keep her safe.
“Yes,” she breathed. “It’s wonderful.”
“Lois,” he whispered huskily, his face looming over her, his dark brown eyes gazing intently down at her. She clutched at the warm, smooth skin of his neck as he moved closer, so close she could feel him breathing. So close that her breasts pressed up against his chest.
His lips closed over hers, lips she remembered so well from when they’d brushed, gossamer light, over the sensitive skin of her shoulder. Softly kissing, caressing her lips, endlessly kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, suffocating her, his mouth pressing aggressively down until her head tipped back, his weight on her chest forcing the air out of her lungs-
She gasped and coughed herself awake, hands flailing frantically at the empty air above her. The weight on her chest was unbearable – she tore at the bedclothes and hurled them away with all her strength.
Free at last. Her senses still on full alert, she lay panting in the darkness. She was okay. Safe. It hadn’t been real.
And the man hadn’t been Clark. Not at the end. The man who’d been suffocating her had been from Brazzaville.
Hadn’t he?
She tried to recall his face, but all she could remember were his slobbering lips and his crushing weight.
Miserably, she curled up on her side and ignored the cold seeping into her bones now that the bedclothes were on the floor somewhere.
Just a dream, she told herself. Just another stupid dream.
*******************
