From Part 1:
“This is fun,” he said carefully, “but I think really getting to know each other could be fun, too.” He hoped he wasn’t pushing too hard and held his breath as he waited for her response.
But her only answer was a sigh and a slight shake of her head before she rested it on his shoulder. He supposed he had his answer, and if that was the case, then he would just enjoy whatever time he had left with her.
In a rare feat of daring, he tipped his head slightly and brushed her cheek with a soft kiss.
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Part 2:
Lois knew that she was lost from the moment Clark Kent’s lips caressed her cheek. She’d always scorned weak-willed women who claimed they couldn’t resist a man, but in that moment she became a card-carrying member of their club. If Clark had chosen at that second to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out to the back alley to have his way with her, she’d have gone without a single word of complaint.
In fact, he didn’t seem inclined to take things any further than that one sweet gesture, so she took the initiative, reaching up to cup his cheek in her hand and lifting her face to meet his lips with her own. Every cell in her body seemed to shiver with pleasure at that first tentative touch. She gasped, and he drew back and searched her face. Whatever he saw there must have been encouraging because he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, and this time she could swear she saw stars. Surely the singer was still singing. Surely there were still other couples dancing around them. Surely the Earth was still spinning, but just then, Lois couldn’t have proven any of it. Clark Kent’s kiss had the power to blot out the rest of the world.
“Wow,” he breathed, when he finally drew away from her.
“Yeah,” she agreed, too dazzled to be articulate.
He caressed her cheek with the back of one hand. “I didn’t mean to get so carried away.”
“I did,” she said boldly, because she was Wanda tonight, and at some point in the middle of that kiss, Wanda had decided that this time, a little flirting wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Dancing cheek to cheek was all well and good, but she had something a little more stimulating in mind. She moved back into his arms, pressing her curves to his muscles, her softness to his hardness.
“Wanda…” he said, sounding a little dazed.
“I want to feel you against me,” she said. “Dance with me, Clark.”
“As if I could say no…” he murmured.
They swayed together on the dance floor, their lips occasionally finding one another and clinging briefly. They were making a spectacle of themselves, but Lois didn’t care - had quit caring some time ago. Her desire for this man was wiping out every other consideration.
“I love this song,” she said as the piano began a new tune and it worked its way into her consciousness. She rested her head on his shoulder, singing softly along with the Lounge’s vocalist. “I’ve got a crush on you, sweetie pie/ all the day and nighttime, hear me sigh/ I never had the least notion that I could fall with so much emotion…”
“Wow!” Clark said. “Your voice is amazing. You should be on that stage.”
“No, thanks.” She smiled up at him. “I’m pretty happy right where I am. Unless…”
“Unless what?” he asked, looking adorably worried.
“Unless you’d like to go someplace where we can be…alone?” Her heart was hammering, and she hoped she didn’t look as rattled as she felt. Because even though she was Wanda tonight, and Wanda had just recklessly propositioned a near-stranger, Lois was still lurking in there somewhere, and Lois hadn’t been ‘alone’ with a man in a very long time.
She saw his eyes widen in surprise and felt him miss a step. “Sorry,” he said automatically. “Uh, Wanda…”
Wanda. She was Wanda, she reminded herself. Lois Lane was about to panic, but what would Wanda do?
“I’ll sing you a solo you won’t forget,” she murmured into his ear before nipping gently at his earlobe.
“Oh, God,” he breathed, and she felt his hands tighten briefly where they rested at her waist. He seemed to take a moment to gather his thoughts.
“It’s not that I don’t want to. You have to know that I do…want to…a lot. I just don’t usually jump into a relationship quite this fast. I know that probably makes me sound like a complete loser….”
“No, it makes you sound like a gentleman,” she assured him, feeling wistful for some reason she couldn’t fully understand. “The thing is, Clark, I’m not offering you a relationship. I can’t.”
And even though that was one thing she was certain of, she still felt a pang as she said it. But she was in his arms under false pretenses, and if he liked Wanda Detroit, it was a sure bet he wouldn’t want a thing to do with Mad Dog Lane. Even if he did, by some miracle, forgive her the deception and want to pursue a relationship with her as Lois, she was sure he’d be one of those men she’d eventually run from and disappoint. Every relationship she’d ever had had been a federal disaster, and she had no reason to think a relationship with Clark would be any more successful. Wouldn’t it be far better to have one magical night – something perfect they could both remember for the rest of their lives?
“Wanda, are you married?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “No,” she said quickly. “Absolutely not. And I’m not engaged or involved with anyone either. Clark, I….” She broke off. Worked up her courage. “I want you to know I don’t make a habit of this. And if you say no, I’ll respect that. But I feel something for you that I haven’t felt for anyone in a long time.” She gave him an embarrassed look. “And now I’m the one talking in clichés.”
“I feel the same way,” he said, his tender smile reassuring her. “But if that’s the case, why can’t we take our time…get to know each other? I’d love to take you out on a real date.…”
“I can’t,” she repeated softly. “I know you don’t understand, and I can’t really explain it to you. I’m just not…relationship material. I can only offer you one night, Clark, but I think that one night could be really special.”
“Is it because I don’t have a job right now? Because I will, Wanda, I promise you….”
“No, Clark. I swear, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It has to do with me – with things about me you don’t know and I can’t tell you without messing up this whole evening. And it’s too incredibly perfect to mess up. We’re too perfect together.”
It was cheating a little, but she punctuated that statement with a hungry kiss and some dance moves she was pretty sure his Nigerian princess had never shown him.
When she heard his breath hitch with pleasure, she knew she’d won.
____________________________
“We need to get out of here.”
The words escaped Clark’s mouth in a gasp as he jerked away from the woman in his arms. He was within seconds of monumental embarrassment, and all he could think – if you could even call it thinking – was that for the first time in his life, he wasn’t going to be able to talk his body out of what it wanted. He wasn’t even going to try. All the reasons why it was a bad idea to go home with this woman had deserted his brain completely, and if they dared to come back, he fully intended to send them off with stern instructions not to return until morning.
He had been saving himself for someone special, telling himself that he would know when the time and the woman was right, and everything he had was telling him that the time was now and the woman was this one. Wanda Detroit was the woman he’d been waiting for, and if he couldn’t get her to promise him more than just the one night, then he would take the one night and pray that something he did or said would convince her otherwise.
Because she was right – this was special. This was magical. This was desire on a scale he’d never experienced before, had never even known existed. And if this was his one chance at the kind of passion he felt for Wanda Detroit, then he was going to take it.
He caught her hand in his and led her from the dance floor, and then together they threaded their way through the maze of tables, not even pausing at their own, where his beer and her glass of wine sat abandoned. He didn’t slow down until the door of the club swung closed behind them and he was taking deep breaths of crisp autumn air. The fresh air revived him a little, and he felt his brain gaining some slight bit of control over the rest of his anatomy.
“Where are you staying?” she asked, giving his hand a slight squeeze.
“Oh.” That brought him up short. “It’s not very…I mean, you might be happier at your place, if that’s all right.”
“It’s fine, Clark. Wherever you’re staying is fine. My sister is staying at my place right now, so….”
“The place I’m staying, it’s really a dump, Wanda. I figured until I found a job, why spend the money, but I don’t mind taking you somewhere else. Maybe you could recommend someplace….” He had a credit card, and for this he’d use it. His parents would loan him the money, wouldn’t ask questions. They were great that way.
“No.” She wrapped her arms around him, kissed him again, though lightly this time – a kiss to reassure rather than inflame. “I don’t care about all that.”
“Are you sure?” he whispered against her lips.
“Positive,” she said, in that sexy, throaty voice that sent his blood thundering through his veins and immediately undid the fresh air’s good work. “We’ll make our own ambiance.”
He swallowed hard. “It’s the Apollo…about a block from here.”
“Lead the way.”
He held her hand, enjoying the feeling of her fingers laced through his. The contact could have been perfectly innocent, but instead it was like a conduit for the desire that leaped between them. By all rights, he should have been nervous, but whatever nervousness he might have felt couldn’t seem to penetrate the haze of arousal.
With the reality only a few steps away, he let himself imagine actually making love to her. He pictured himself removing her clothing piece by piece, like unwrapping a beautiful gift. He’d start with the tiny buttons on her sweater, he thought – undo them slowly one by one - and then he’d slide it from her shoulders so gently that she’d shiver at the brush of his hands. He’d take a moment to admire her in her bra, perhaps teasing her by lightly tracing the pattern of the lace. When neither of them could stand it anymore, he’d unzip her skirt and lower it to the floor. He pictured her stepping out of it still wearing her high heels…and he nearly ran smack into a lamppost.
He dodged it just in time, a faint blush rising to his cheeks.
“You OK?” she asked, smiling up at him.
He was a million miles from OK. He was so blinded by lust that he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. “I’m fine,” he said, amazed when his voice sounding almost normal.
Just imagining you without your clothes on.
He needed to redirect that train of thought quickly, he realized, or he’d have bigger problems than a dented lamppost. This was the woman he’d been waiting for, and he was going to keep waiting for her as long as necessary, he instructed his body sternly. She was expecting a ‘really special’ night, not a ‘really special’ three minutes, and….
Suddenly an urgent thought intruded – a single sensible thought that had somehow fought its way through his fantasy and into his consciousness. He felt the blush return with a vengeance, and he knew he had to say something but had absolutely no idea how to go about it.
“Wanda, um….”
She looked up at him, and her glazed eyes and flushed cheeks suggested that maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d been engaging in a few fantasies along the way.
“We might need to stop…somewhere….”
“You want to stop?” Her eyes widened and she looked almost desperate. “Why?”
“Just for a minute to get…um, I don’t have any….”
Well, this was certainly going well. He wanted to crawl into the nearest manhole and just let the earth swallow him up. What single man in the nineties not only didn’t have condoms but couldn’t even bring himself to say the word? He was an idiot, he was in over his head, he was going to ruin everything….
“Oh,” she said, sounding almost as embarrassed as he had. “Don’t worry about it. I, um, have some.”
…he was going to make love to the woman of his dreams!
For the space of perhaps three steps, he lost touch with gravity and floated beside her before bringing himself back down to earth.
Fortunately, Wanda didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t want you to think I, um, planned to do this,” she said hurriedly. “I really didn’t, and I meant it when I said I don’t do this kind of thing often…or at all, really. It’s just that my mother is…well, nuts would be one way of putting it. And she’s a nurse, and she doesn’t trust men – or me, for that matter – and every time she comes to my apartment she puts condoms in all my purses and goes on and on about how a girl can’t be too careful and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and…you probably didn’t need to know all that, did you?”
“I’m not sure I followed it all,” he said truthfully, “but I do think I’m going to send your mother flowers. Would that be all right?”
She giggled. “Only if you promise to write on the card exactly what they’re for.”
He squeezed her hand and smiled down at her, his embarrassment forgotten.
“For the best night of my life,” he said simply.
_________________________________
Later, their night together would come back to her in wisps of sweet memory.
She would remember his hands. They were like the rest of him – strong but gentle – and they had shaken slightly as he fumbled with the key to his door. Then, only a few minutes later, those hands had moved nimbly down the row of little buttons on her sweater before caressing her with something like reverence.
She would remember her first pure glimpse of his eyes when she slid the heavy glasses from his face and set them gently on the desk. He hadn’t had that bare, unprotected look she’d expected. He had smiled at her, his eyes crinkling up a little at the corners, and she’d reacted with an odd shiver of intimacy, somehow knowing that she was seeing a side of Clark he didn’t show to many people. Those beautiful eyes would haunt her later, when she let herself remember his look of absolute wonderment at the moment their bodies were finally joined.
She would remember the way her heart had stuttered briefly and then started to race when she slid his shirt up and caught her first sight of his chest...the way her hands had just been drawn to his smooth flesh, touching and exploring each incredible inch of him without any instruction from her brain.
She would remember that the place was a dump, just as he’d said, but that neither of them had cared. Just the right amount of light had filtered through from the neon sign outside the window to bathe their night together in a soft glow, like moonlight.
She would remember the ache she felt as she wrote the note with a cheap pen that kept fading in and out. She would remember the exact way it looked when she placed it on the pillow next to him – the way his name looked in her handwriting. She would remember how wrong it felt to see the name ‘Wanda’ at the bottom of that note, because already, Wanda was disappearing, and Lois Lane was the one left with the memories.
Clark –
Thank you for the most wonderful night of my life.
Love,
Wanda
For a weak moment, she wanted to snatch it back and throw it away, to crawl back into his bed and wake with him in the morning. She forced herself to turn away. Tears stung her eyes as she tiptoed to the door with her ridiculous heels in one hand and turned the knob as quietly as she could so as not to disturb him. She slipped out into the hallway and paused just long enough to put on her shoes before hurrying outside to hail a cab.
When she crept back into her apartment at three in the morning, Lois was relieved for once to find that Lucy was still out doing whatever it was that Lucy did. Another night, another bar, another guy...and now Lois was no better, not that she’d ever confess as much to Lucy.
But Clark was different, her heart insisted. She wanted that to be true, but she didn’t really believe it. Perhaps Clark could have been different if she’d had the courage to be honest with him...but no, she didn’t really believe that either. Clark wanted Wanda Detroit, not Lois Lane, and Wanda Detroit didn’t exist. She had turned back into Lois Lane the minute she’d left a note on Clark’s pillow, and she hadn’t managed to conveniently leave any glass slippers behind. She would never see Clark Kent again.
As she slipped between the cool sheets of her bed, she told herself that it was for the best.
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Acknowledgements: “I’ve Got a Crush on You” – Ira & George Gershwin, 1936.
