Interesting chapter, Terry, and a very good one.
So Nigel is the real bad guy, eh? That is an interesting situation. And Lex doesn't even realize that he is being played for a fool?
In view of the fact that Lex apparently doesn't realize how dangerous Nigel is, this was ominous:
-* Well, I can't tell you what to do, but even Lex thinks you two make a cute couple. *-
-* And how does he know about my private life? *-
-* That was one of our topics of conversation.
So Lois told Lex that Clark and Rebecca are dating? Then Lex will be sure to mention it to Nigel. Rebecca's days are numbered, I'm afraid.
I loved this little glimpse of Lois seen through a policeman's eyes:
Captain Fortier was barely peeking over the back of his squad car when a sudden hand on his shoulder made him yelp in surprise. He spun around to see a bright-eyed young brunette woman staring at him.
“Are you in charge here?”
“What?” he panted.
“Are you in charge? If not, who is?”
Oh boy, that man didn't know who he was dealing with!
I thought Lois was crazy when she tried to get into the museum, but it turns out she had the right idea after all. Clark needed her to get the kryptonite dust off himself. I couldn't help giggling at the conversation Lois was trying to have with Clark, even though I felt sorry for Clark, of course:
-* Clark! Did you breathe in any of the dust? *-
-* Hurts! Get away! *-
No help there. She didn't know how to get the green dust off him –
Unless she washed it off –
-* Clark! We have to wash it off! We have to wash the dust off! *-
-* Hurts – *-
Well, this was horrible for Clark, of course. But at the same time, it was obvious that he wasn't going to get either killed or permanently damaged by this particular incident, so I allowed myself to giggle, just a little. This was funny, too:
Great, she thought. He gets super-simple when he's sick and hurting. Typical male.
Definitely funny!
It was very interesting to see how strongly Lois reacted when she had to wash first Clark's clothes and then her own in the lake, meaning that first Clark and then she herself had to undress down to their underwear. Lois was
incredibly affected by their near-nakedness.
He glanced at Lois, who was standing in thigh-deep water and trying to rinse his suit in the fading daylight. She'd rolled up her pants legs to keep them dry, but to no avail, and had pulled off her windbreaker and tossed it away from Clark, in case it had some green dust on it. He appreciated her efforts and had tried to thank her, but she'd refused to talk to him or look at him directly, and she had even shut down the link from her end. He hadn't gotten the impression that she was angry, but he couldn't tell what she actually had been feeling before the link had gone dry.
Lois is furiously trying to shut out not only the image but also the mental presence of a near-naked Clark. Clark, meanwhile, is completely unaffected by the fact that Lois can ogle his physique, and he can't even figure out why she has shut him out.
It gets worse:
Her eyes bulged and her jaw wobbled. “I – I what?”
“You've got that green dust embedded in your clothing. It probably rubbed off my suit onto you. You can't get close to me without hurting me. You have to get rid of it.”
Slowly, she put her hands on her hips. “This better not be some kind of get-even trick, Kent.”
“What?” The accusation startled him. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean! I've seen you in your Navy blue briefs, now you get to see me in my – my underwear.”
The smile returned before he could control it. “I'll turn around until you tell me I can look, Lois.”
Lois is shocked and horrified at having to undress before Clark. To Clark, the prospect is just mildly amusing.
Clark apparently didn't keep his promise not to look at Lois while she was undressed:
Clark's eyes lit up. “There is one more thing, Chief. Lois is still mad that she slipped in the mud and fell into the water while washing her clothes and that I came to her rescue.”
To Clark it is all so funny. To make it even funnier, he hints to Lois that he has seen her naked and found her wanting:
She spun on him furiously. “You're telling me that you've seen me naked?”
He assumed a Superman pose, with arms across his chest. “Unless you're wearing lead-lined clothes, Lois, you can't hide from me and you know it.”
“What – why – you perverted – no, you super-perverted – “
He didn't let her finish whatever it was she was going to call him. “I have to tell you, Lana looked better.”
And then he and Perry start discussing how Lois's body really compares with Lana's:
“Son, did you mean it when you told her that Lana looked better?”
Clark smiled. “Truthfully? I'd say it was pretty much a dead heat, Chief. And I'm not sure now if she was mad because I'd seen her wearing so little or because she was afraid that she didn't measure up to the standards she thinks Lana set for me.”
Of course, the real reason why Clark is having so much fun teasing Lois is that he is apparently not very attracted to her. Watching her can be fun, but not fantastic:
She certainly wasn't anywhere near ugly, even with wet clothes and disheveled hair and muddy feet.
Then Rebecca's face rose in his mind and he thrust the thought away along with the smile.
He didn't stop to consider until much later why he'd thought of Rebecca instead of Lana.
Rebecca. Yes, Rebecca is the one he is really attracted to.
Rebecca. Lana. Lois. Your Clark is rather a collector of women, Terry. Lois isn't necessarily the one he likes best. Your Lois, on the other hand, is strongly and physically affected by Clark:
As he hung up and leaned back in his chair to stretch, she remembered how well-muscled he was and how well-proportioned his body was. He could have posed for Michelangelo's sculptured depiction of David without any extra enhancements.
He could have won almost any bodybuilding contest he cared to enter.
And she absolutely didn't need to be thinking about any of that. Not now, not ever. She'd promised Lana to watch over him, not to stalk him or to leer at him. Besides, she wasn't interested in him in a romantic sense, just in an "I like to look at good-looking guys' kind of sense.
She wasn't at all interested in him. No way.
Just because Lois insists to herself that she isn't interested in Clark, we can feel how interested she really is.
Isn't Clark at all interested in Lois? Yes, well, he is definitely jealous of Lex. Lex brings out steely determination in him:
Jimmy looked into Clark's eyes and saw something he hadn't seen there before, something intense and almost fierce. “You sure about this? If Lois finds out that you went behind her back – “
“I'll tell her myself when I have solid information. Now get started on this as soon as you can.”
“Sure.” Jimmy hesitated, then asked, “CK, is this personal or professional?”
Clark turned obsidian eyes towards him. “Both.”
Yes, he's jealous, all right. But to me he is a little bit like a polygamist planning to take down a man who's got his sights on one of the polygamist's lesser wives. Then again, maybe Lois really
is more to Clark than one of his lesser women. If nothing else, she is the only one he shares a mental link with.
I take it that Cat is reporting to Nigel, who apparently liked the information about Lois and Lex' successful date.
Now I wonder if the death of Clark's "favorite woman", Rebecca, is imminent.
Ann
P.S. Oh, and we have to worry about Lois's safety, too. Now that Nigel knows that Lex really likes Lois, he can make threats against Lois in order to make Lex do his bidding. If Lex doesn't comply, Nigel can always kill her. And then he can use his kryptonite to kill Clark, too. Ouch.
