Pt. 25
Jimmy, Lois and Clark stood in front of Perry’s desk. “You two go with Jimmy and get a nice photo of yourselves and we’ll put it in the paper with your wedding announcement.”
They looked at one another and agreed it would be a good idea. It may get some of the tabloids and rumors off their backs.
“Okay, now get out of my office; I’ve got work to do!”
Jimmy took them into a small room down the hall from the main newsroom. It was set up as a photography studio.
“Lois, you sit here,” Jimmy said, motioning to Lois to sit on one side of the bench. “Clark, you sit here. There, that’s good. Put your hands in your laps and fold them, or do you want your arm around Lois, Clark? “
He nodded and put his arm around his sweetheart drawing her close to him, their sides touching. Lois leaned her head on Clark’s shoulder. They held hands. Jimmy righted their clasped hands so they were just right. He stood back to look at them. “Now lean your heads like this. Yeah. No. More to this side. Okay. Lois, you tip your head just so…there, perfect, now hold that pose.
Jimmy backed away and stood behind the camera. After a few adjustments, the camera flashed, then he moved away to fix their pose yet again. “Okay, turn toward each other this time and smile. Good. That’s good. Hold it!” Flash.
Clark was enjoying having his arm around Lois as well as holding her hand, all while their bodies were touching along his side. They’d been very careful not to touch since they’d been bonded together by the globe in his treefort. But tomorrow was Saturday and they’d be getting married in the church in Smallville. Everything was organized. It was to be a very small service with just their parents, Perry, Jimmy and Lois’ sister in attendance.
Lois had ignored her mother’s objections to having a small wedding and to doing it without a long engagement or a lot of fanfare. Her father had been supportive. Clark’s parents had been extremely happy about the whole thing. Martha’d made a cake, which they’d all agreed should be a small one. After the wedding they were to come back to the Kents’ where a few of the neighbors were going to wish them well.
Lois snuggled her head into Clark’s shoulder, knowing that this was the only time they were going to allow themselves to get this close before they were married. It felt so good to be held by him. It was so different now than it had been before the bonding ceremony in the treefort. Their minds being linked made such a difference in how they felt about one another. They’d thought their love was strong before, but this was something completely new to them, entirely beyond their realm of expectation.
It wasn’t a physical attraction. They’d experienced that many times in their relationship. It was something spiritual, something untouchable, unexplainable. With it there was also a magnetism, not a physical desire for one another. No, it was literally like being magnets, north and south magnets that when touching, wouldn’t pull apart easily. It was an unearthly power. It was a bit scary actually.
Jimmy’s camera flashed a few more times. “All done!” When they didn’t make any move to get up but just locked eyes, he suggested, “You may now kiss the bride.”
At that, Lois and Clark both stood up abruptly, dropping their hands to their sides. Thanks, Jimmy.
“No problem! I just hope one day someone’s in here taking MY wedding announcement picture!”
The photo was set to run on Saturday afternoon, just to make sure there were no press showing up in Smallville to ruin the wedding.
Lois sat back down at her desk. Clark’s back was to her. She noticed the newspaper in the garbage can beside his desk and stood up to retrieve it. Clark whirled around and reached out to stop her. --Don’t.--
“Why not, Clark?” --Why shouldn’t I look at it?-- she searched in his mind and saw his fear about the breakdown she’d had. It was all there, everything Ralph had said, all that the papers had blown out of proportion about her relationship with Superman, with Lex and then with Clark.
--Don’t be silly, Clark. I’m fine!-- she reached into the garbage can and pulled out the paper. The headlines glared at her as she recoiled in horror.
Superman is Clark Kent, Daily Planet Reporter. The article went on to explain that he got his behind the scenes disaster information from working so close to the wire services. It explained how Superman had flown into Lois’ apartment but that when this reporter had gone into the apartment, only Lois and Clark Kent were there. Details about the sky being watched with radar were the confirmation the story was being based on.
Clark listened as Lois digested this information. He didn’t bother to turn around from where he was sitting. He just closed his eyes in a quick prayer for help. Now the secret was out. Goodness only knows what would happen.
Maybe if he ignored it as a silly press stunt, it would go away. But what if it stirred the curiosity of those in the underworld.
“Find out if it’s true once and for all,” Lex Luther said to Nigel as he shoved the National Inquirer across the table to him .
“Yes sir. This time my men have been successful. We have acquired the necessary element. We won’t need to use the atomizer at this time. We can perform the test immediately.”
With that, Nigel stood and walked back to the visiting room door. The guard opened it and showed him out before taking Lex back to his cell.
Clark sat on the edge of Lois’ desk, talking to her without words. Now and then their eyes met in laughter as he teased her and she ribbed him back. --Let’s go over those tapes tonight, should we?-- Clark suggested mentally.
She nodded in response. --Shall we go eat together first?--
--Are you tired of my cooking already?--
--No, I just don’t think we should be spending too much time alone at either of our apartments. Public places seem to be the safest.-- He agreed.
They walked down to Lois’ SUV together. “It seems like a long time since we’ve been together,” she said as she unlocked her car door and got in.
--It has been. We’ve not really spent any time alone together in several days.--
--Clark, what about these power-- of mine? I don’t dare do too much, for fear I’ll do something wrong. I haven’t a clue how to control them. What if I burn up my apartment, or freeze my fish?
He smiled at her. She didn’t bother to turn from her driving to look at him. His smile was before her mind’s eye anyway. When she did look at his glowing smile, it was certainly in more living colour than their minds were, however. But it made her want to hug him or kiss him too much if she looked at him, so it was better to just look at the road she was pulling onto.
“Lois, we need to look at these tapes. I think that we can do it at superspeed, though. I can watch video tapes on fast forward. I think you may be able to do that, too. What do you think?”
She nodded in agreement. --Yes, probably.--
“We can probably listen to the cassette tapes on fast forward too.”
“Isn’t that kind of weird, Clark? I mean, do you usually watch movies on fast forward?”
“Lois, these are going to be pretty boring movies, they’re just of us.”
“I don’t know, Clark, it might be interesting to watch ourselves talk and interact. Maybe we’ll learn something about ourselves!” Clark felt skeptical. It wasn’t like Lois to want to learn about herself by watching a tape. She’d never been an emotionally focused person at all. For her things were black and white, good or bad, hard news or wishy-washy, emotion-filled gobbledygook.
She looked at him, smiling. “So, people change, Clark!” she was silent for a minute. All it takes is a minute with the most powerful globe on the planet and all sorts of things can change in life.
He smiled, knowing she was right. He’d never expected anything like this to happen when he’d climbed that ladder to show her the globe. Never. Nothing like this.
--How do you feel about it happening?--
--It’s weird. I love being so close to you, understanding you and all, but it fills up my head with so much. I feel like there’s so much noise in my head now.--
--Noise?--
He smiled. --Noise, Lois. Good noise, but noise nonetheless.-- he paused. --It’s so weird that you can sense emotions like you do now. It’s so, so, unnatural for you.--
She pushed her eyebrows upward, --Get used to it Buddy, till this Kryptonian marriage bond wears off, I think this is the new Lois Lane!--
--I don’t think it wears off, Lois. This is about as permanent as it gets. I think that’s one reason you’ve got powers now, too. But you know what I was thinking?--
--Yes as a matter of fact! Would you like me to relate it to you?--
He smiled and shook his head. --I think that my powers are basically the powers that are male powers, only they’re really enhanced. Yours are feminine powers only they’re really enhanced.--
That was sure to get a rise out of her. He braced himself for her onslaught of anti chauvinistic rhetoric.
But it didn’t come. She knew where those words were coming from, it was the only words that explained the feelings he was having about the situation, his honest assessment of it.
--So we are inherently different; and those inherent differences are being enhanced. The real male and female traits of people. No, I get it.--
--You do?--
--Yes. Mothers are usually the emotional ones. Women cry, men carry hammers around. Don’t look at me like that, no I don’t agree with it, but it is the way it usually turns out. I hem the drapes and you hang them up. You lift heavy stuff, and I read minds like a mother knows what her child is thinking. You can fix what happens but my women’s intuition lets me tell the future.--
--It’s a real enhancing of our own innate strengths. It’s really strange, especially because I wasn’t ever a touchy feely person, you were. So I don’t know why our powers aren’t switched.--
Clark shrugged. --It took me a very long time to learn to control my powers. Have you been having any trouble with them?--
--Well, I’m wondering if I’m going to have to shave my legs and underarms with my eyes! Won’t that be a hoot!--
--Just necessity. Lois.--
--Humm, I see.--
She pulled the vehicle alongside the curb in front of his building. --Do you want to come in for a few minutes?--
She shot him an uncertain look. --No. Just come by for me in an hour and I’ll be ready. We can go eat and work on my powers.--
--What about the tapes?--
--Okay, let’s see what happens if we put it on fast forward.--
She followed him into the apartment. He closed the door behind her as she descended the stairs into the open room.
--Remember when I figured out your identity and then we had the little threesome visit? That was so romantic.-- she could feel herself being drawn to him. She looked at him in shocked awareness.
“Pick me up in an hour.”
She turned on her heel to leave.
--How Lois, am I coming as superman and going to carry you as we fly? We do have to touch to do that.--
--Oooh! Okay, so we’ll take my car.--
With that she was out of the apartment where it was safe.
He went over to the vcr and put in one of the tapes. He sat on the couch and watched it on fast forward. The tape was mostly empty, a view of the living room of Lois’ apartment.
The next three were more of the same. But the fourth one was filled with conversation between them. The fifth one contained a Superman to Clark Kent spin and another Clark Kent to Superman spin. Three more of them were nothing much either. The apartment was dark. Clark could hear Lois’ heartbeat on the tape, but it didn’t exist to the normal ear.
He put the tapes that didn’t contain anything important, along with one of Lois crossing the room, back in the bag. The other one of his conversing with Lois and the spinning he kept out. Actually there were two that had them both in the apartment together.
He took a cassette tape and put it in his tape deck and pushed fast forward. He went to shower and changed his clothes as he listened to it. This one contained a lot of conversation between them. He continued to go through the tapes until he had two piles. Dropping all the harmless ones back into the bag for Henderson, he put the others on his bookshelf. He’d like to just go ahead and burn them, but perhaps it would be good if Lois were to watch or listen to them with him later, once they were living together.
He opened the secret compartment in the back of his closet and put the tapes on the top shelf beside a large bag of Superman mail. He never did get around to showing that to Lois, he realized. He was about to pull it down, but realized they’d not be able to sit around together and read it. Not yet. This Kryptonian bond was certainly making a mess of his regular earth life with Lois. They had to be so careful now.
He sighed and shoved the big mail bag back up onto the shelf and closed the compartment and the closet.
Wearing his ‘going on a date’ suit, he turned off the lights and headed out the door, locking it behind himself.
At the curb he hailed a cab to Lois’ apartment.
She was as lovely as usual. Her hair was up in curls, a bit of it falling on her burgundy dress she’d learned he liked. She’d dabbed perfume behind her ears and her knees before realizing that she’d probably be better off wearing faded blue jeans and her hair in a pony tail than wearing anything tantalizing to poor Clark. They both knew how much trouble staying at arms length had become, thanks to the globe.
Clark had a hard time taking his eyes off her. Her face radiated as much happiness as he’d ever seen her feel before. --I guess neither of us are really dressed for trying out super powers!-- she looked down at what she was wearing and grinned lopsidedly.
--I’ve got a date with my fiancé, that’s all I’m dressing up for!-- he resisted pulling her into his arms and kissing her soundly.
“Shall we go?” Using his voice with Lois sounded a bit foreign. It was nice to be able to talk about secret things without using sound. That was indeed nice.
They headed back down to the curb and waited for a taxi to come along. “Shall we eat along the waterfront tonight?”
--Sure.-- they hailed a taxi and got in. Clark gave instructions over the cabbies’ shoulder, then settled back for the ride.
Did she dare lean against him? It looked so harmless. She sighed. --It’s okay, Lois, let’s just talk. Or think.-- They both felt a bit annoyed that they couldn’t even dare touch each other now.
They were silent for awhile, each lost in their own thoughts. It was certainly interesting not to have to even think in words to communicate. She wondered about the tapes he’d watched. She was glad he’d watched and listened to them all. That was a lot simpler than trying to make an evening out of it. They needed to go to a private place outside for her to practice her powers, but they needed to stay in a public place where they could be in more control of the situation together.
--I liked it when you joined me in my dream last night.--
Clark turned to look at her and smiled. He would have squeezed her hand. --It was a wonderful dream, Lois. Do you have them often?--
--I’m not telling.--
--See if I care!-- there was that teasing voice of his again. She felt him wandering around looking in her mind, simply willing himself to know the answer. She knew when it had made transference to him. She smiled at him and wrinkled her nose. He would have liked to touch her nose. He sighed and looked out the window again.
The cab pulled up alongside a park area. Green grass under the canopy of arching elm trees spread out before them. A street vendor selling ice cream jangled his bells as he headed down the road.
Ring billed gulls flew overhead, heading between the water and the park. They’d slow down and land beside garbage cans, poking at the grass with their long yellow beaks. A few geese squawked in the distance where they floated on the water.
Lois habitually linked her hand through the arm that Clark extended to her before either of them had realized what they’d unintentionally done.
