Sunday October 12, 2008
Lois sat on the sidelines, clipboard in hands, watching the girls run their warm up drills.
Kate popped her chair open next to her and dropped into it, hands wrapped around a Starbucks cup. “Where’s your car? I didn’t see it in the lot. I thought you were running late.”
“Oh, we came with Clark. No sense bringing two cars.”
Kate looked at her skeptically, the fact that they had been arriving in separate cars all season unspoken between them.
Lois felt her cheeks heat up and rushed to change the subject. “Abby looks good out there. She’s come a long way this season.”
“Mmhmm. Yeah, she’s a real Mia Hamm.”
Lois couldn’t help but laugh. Kate was clearly unimpressed with her blatant attempt to change the subject. Abby truly had improved over the season, but soccer was probably not going to be a long term pursuit. She was already talking about skipping next season to spend more time dancing.
“Ugh,” Kate said, tugging her coat more tightly around herself. “I’m not ready for this cold. Can’t we go back to summer?”
“Seriously. I can’t believe it’s already October,” Lois answered automatically, eyes tracking Clark as he jogged backwards in front of the sprinting girls, urging them on. He looked up, as if sensing her gaze, and gave her a quick grin and a wink.
Kate turned and looked at her incredulously. “Did you-“
“Shh!” Lois cut her off. “And no. We didn’t… We’re just…talking.”
Kate settled back in her chair and took a sip of her pumpkin spice latte with a self-satisfied grin on her face.
On the field, Clark circled the girls up for a team cheer and then sent them to the bench for water and jogged over to Lois’ chair.
“Hey,” he said, dropping to a squat in front of her, one hand on her armrest, the other on her thigh.
“Hey,” she said softly, suddenly shy.
“Kylie’s not here, and that’s not like her. Will you call her mom and see if they are on their way? And start Anna in Kylie’s spot?”
“Sure,” she said, flipping through the papers on her clipboard in search of the team roster.
“Thanks.” He gave her leg an affectionate squeeze, and then reached behind his head and grabbed the collar of his sweatshirt, pulling it over his head and tucking it around her lap in one smooth movement. He gave her another quick smile and then trotted off to join the team at the bench.
Lois pulled out her phone and started tapping a number into the keypad. She could feel Kate’s eyes burning a hole in her, the silence between them thick.
“Go ahead. Say it,” Lois said finally, putting the phone to her ear and listening to it ring.
“I swear to god, if you do not take that man back, I’ll marry him myself.”
Lois laughed, refusing to dignify that with a response, and said into the phone, “Hi, Jessica. This is Lois Lane, Mattie Kent’s mom…”
***
“Mattie, you are ten years old. I’m not buying you an iphone.”
Lois placed a freshly folded towel on the dining room table. After soccer they had taken the kids for hot chocolate to celebrate a successful season, and then had wound up back at her house just relaxing. It was somehow both completely unremarkable and incredibly special.
“Hannah has-”
“I do not care what Hannah has,” Lois said, folding another towel and adding it to the stack on the table in front of her. “You do not need a cell phone, let alone the most expensive phone on the market.”
“Fine! I’ll ask Dad!”
Lois burst out laughing. “Please do. I would love to see his reaction.”
Mattie rolled her eyes, clearly unamused.
“Mattie, have you met your father? If you really think he’s the parent more likely to buy his ten year old a $500 cell phone, by all means, please ask him.”
Mattie huffed a sigh, but seemed to accept her fate. “Can we at least have Chinese food for dinner? The good kind that Dad buys?”
“That is a distinct possibility,” Lois replied. “Why don’t you go ask him.”
“Why don’t YOU go ask him,” Maddie wheedled. “Daddy never says no to you about anything.”
Lois laughed, her cheeks warming. “I can assure you that is not true. But I’ll ask him about dinner.”
Lois grabbed the stack of towels and took them upstairs, putting them away in the linen closet. Then she made her way down the hall to JP’s room, where Clark was on the floor on his back holding JP aloft. They were engaged in the kind of imaginary play that bored her to tears, and her heart fluttered watching the pure joy on Clark’s face. She’d known, from the first time she’d ever been brave enough to imagine a future where they had children, that Clark would be a wonderful father. But she hadn’t imagined what a joy it would be to watch.
She loved her children fiercely, and she’d worked hard to be the kind of mother she wished she’d had growing up. She lavished them with attention and praise, tried to hold firm in her boundaries, and supported their interests. She read to them, snuggled them, helped them with their homework, and never missed a single game or performance. But she couldn’t help but feel guilty that playing with them often felt like torture.
Clark’s eyes met hers, and his smile widened. “Look who’s here,” he said, rotating JP until he faced her.
“Mommy! We’re playing superheroes!” Clark set him on the ground and sat up.
“So fun! Hey buddy, there’s a bunch of clean laundry on the table downstairs. Can you go get yours and bring it up? And tell Mattie I said to put hers away too?” He gave her a hilarious salute and then took off downstairs.
Lois crossed the room to Clark and offered him a hand, which he used instead to tug her into his lap. She threaded her fingers in his hair and pulled him in for a kiss. When they broke apart, his eyes were playful and she couldn’t resist kissing him once more, briefly.
“Your daughter would like to request Chinese for dinner,” she said, when she pulled away again. “And I quote: ‘the good kind that Dad buys’.”
Clark laughed and had the good grace to look chagrined. “I know. I know. Cheater.”
“She also,” Lois continued with an impish grin, “requested that I be the one to ask you, because -- and again, this is a direct quote -- ‘Daddy never says no to you about anything.’”
Clark buried his face in her neck, laughing. “She’s not wrong, but did she have to call me out like that? Does she have no loyalty?”
She slid from his lap and sat on her knees facing him playfully. “Is she right? You won’t say no to any request?”
“Name it. What do you want? The perfect pearl from Japan? Snow from the French alps?” he teased.
She swung one leg over his lap, straddling his legs, and slid both hands up his chest and neck until she cradled his face in her hands. “I want you to keep a lookout while I do this.” And then she kissed him. His hands circled her waist and he dragged her closer, responding to her kisses, but letting her lead. She pulled her mouth from his with considerable effort, and slid her hands into his hair so she could layer kisses on his jaw and neck. “Do not let them catch us,” she whispered between kisses.
She worked her way across his throat and he let his head fall to the other side with a groan, granting her access. Her hands slid down, skimming over his shoulders and down his back.
“They’re coming up the stairs,” he whispered, hands tightening around her waist. “You have thirty sec-” She swallowed the rest of the word with a kiss. “Ten seconds,” he said as she returned her attention to his neck. And then in a flash, she was sitting on the bed and he was standing on the other side of the room, just in time for JP to rush through the doorway, arms loaded down with the clean laundry.
“I’m just… uh, I’ll just go run out and grab dinner,” Clark said, breathing heavily. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Lois smirked as he practically ran from the room.
Tuesday October, 14, 2008
Lois was sitting in bed, legs under the covers, outlining the next chapter in her book when she heard the gentle tapping.
“Who is it?” she called lightly.
The balcony door opened, and Clark stood framed in the doorway, cape blowing in the wind. “Lois, who else knocks-”
“On your third story window?” she finished, watching with a grin as the memory surfaced for him.
“All these years, and you still baffle me.”
“Come in. It’s freezing.”
He stepped forward, spun into regular clothes, and pulled the door closed behind him.
She watched as his amused grin slid from his face, replaced by something far more heated. “Is that my shirt?”
“You left it here...a few weeks ago.” His sharp intake of breath told her he knew exactly when he left it. “I washed it, and I was going to return it, but then...I didn’t.”
She stood, crossed the room quickly, and slipped her arms around his neck.
He slid his hands down the sides of the soft, worn shirt with the faded logo of his alma mater and then traced the bare skin below the hem. “You can keep it,” he whispered, his voice husky.
She tugged his head down and gave over all coherent thoughts about anything except the way his body felt against hers. Slowly she became aware of the fact that he was guiding her gently, tugging her along as he moved toward the oversized chair in the sitting area of her room. As soon as they reached the chair, she pushed him gently, letting him sink into the seat. Then she climbed on his lap, legs straddled, hands in his hair. “I got cheated last time. The kids were back way faster than I had planned,” she whispered.
This time, he wasn’t content to sit passively and allow her to drive. His mouth captured hers, one hand tangling in her hair, the other sliding down her back, over her curves, finding the hem of the shirt. He kept going, his hand splayed, warm across the back of her thigh, fingertips fluttering against the sensitive skin.
She tore her mouth from his, gasping for air, and he began to layer kisses across her throat. She raised a hand to stroke his hair tenderly. “I love you. I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered, unclear whether she meant during their estrangement or during the past two days when they’d been too busy working and caring for the kids to find time to connect.
He raised his head to look her in the eye. “I am completely in love with you.”
Her heart twisted at the intensity in his eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t find the words and settled instead for another kiss. His hands roamed her body, finally sliding under the t-shirt to circle her hips and tug her closer, sending sparks through her as she ground against him. Their kisses grew more frantic as her hips found a steady rhythm.
“Wait, Lois.” he gasped, sliding her hips away from his and slowing their kisses.
She stiffened in his arms, sitting back and looking at him guardedly. “You don’t want-”
“My god. How can you possibly be insecure about how much I want you?” he said, his self-deprecating laugh lightening the mood. “I want this more than anything in the world. But I don’t want just one night. I want a thousand more nights like this. A million. And I promised you we’d go slow. There’s about to be nothing slow about this. I just need…a minute.”
She nodded, understanding washing her insecurity away. She leaned forward, resting her head on his shoulder. His hands softened at her waist, rubbing her back soothingly.
When his voice came again, it was softer, less strained. “When I came to you the first time, two years ago, after the earthquake...I wasn’t even thinking straight. I just knew you were the only thing that could save me.”
She stroked his chest, remembering that night. The brokenness in his eyes. The desperation in his voice when he told her he needed her. She’d had no idea what to do, what to say. She only knew that during their marriage, on nights like those, she had made love to him and held him in her arms. And so she had opened her arms to him.
“I was terrified afterwards,” he confessed quietly.
She sat up and looked at him questioningly.
“I was afraid you would be angry or hurt. Afraid you would resent me. Feel taken advantage of, like it had been some sort of obligation you were pressured into.”
“Oh, Clark,” she said, shaking her head. “Loving you has never been an obligation. Those nights were so special to me.”
“I know that now. I do. But at the time, I was terrified that I’d ruined any chance I might have had to repair things between us. We were just finding our footing then. We’d only just found our way back to being friends.”
“I was scared too,” she confessed. “I was afraid you came to me in a moment of weakness and would regret it in the light of day.”
He cupped a hand around her cheek, stroking gently with his thumb. “How could I ever regret loving you?”
“I know I’m not easy to love. I’m-”
“Loving you is as easy as breathing. It’s the most natural thing in the world. I don’t know any other way to live.”
She leaned forward and kissed him, gently this time. She dropped her head to his shoulder again, struggling to meet his gaze. “It was such a long time before this latest time. I thought you were never coming again,” her voice shook, revealing her secret fear.
He stroked her back gently and took a deep breath before he replied. “It’s so hard to love you and then leave. And things between us were so good. I was so happy. I didn’t know if I could bear to make love to you and then pretend everything was normal. Obviously I couldn’t. Look what’s happened in the last month.”
She kissed him again, unable to talk through the lump in her throat. When she sat back, he stroked her cheek and whispered, “Those nights have been among the best moments of my life over the last two years. But I don’t want more of them. The next time we make love, I want to be able to tell you how much I love you without worrying it will scare you. I want to stay all night and fall asleep with you in my arms. I want to wake up with you in the morning. I need all of you. I need to know it’s not the last time.”
“I want that so much,” she whispered.
“I know you do,” he said gently. “But I also know you aren’t ready. I promised you we could go slow, and I wasn’t just saying that to get what I wanted. I want you to be as ready as I am. This is too important to me to take any chances. And in the meantime, I need us to go slow with this.”
She smiled and leaned forward to kiss his neck sweetly. “That doesn’t mean we can’t just kiss for a little while, does it?”
“Well, if you insist,” he teased, brushing a series of gentle kisses down her cheek.
“Don’t let me twist your arm.”
