Chapter 31: It Feels so Right . . . . How can it be Wrong?
Step in these arms where you belong.
It feels so right, so right . . . .
How can it be wrong?
--“It Feels so Right”
****
A few weeks passed by. Chinese water torture would have been more pleasant.
Though we danced around the issue a few times, Lois and I couldn’t bring ourselves to discuss what had taken place between us. It was as if nothing had ever happened—and yet, it was also as if everything had happened.
Lois got angry at me for a few Superman-induced disappearances, yet her anger was strangely short lived. But when Jimmy made a mumbled comment about the unresolved sexual tension between Lois and me, she gave him a look so hot it could have fried an egg. As it was, Jimmy had gulped and fled the scene. But he wasn’t the only one to notice the strange air between me and Lois—Perry attempted a few times to talk with me about it, but I doggedly avoided the issue. Lois, I suspected, did the same.
One Friday, Cat missed work. Caught up in my own problems, I hadn’t noticed it, but Jimmy—who had a bit of a crush on her—did notice, and he mentioned it to me. When she came in on Monday, however, I was about to ask how she was feeling when I realized something.
Though the gossip columnist had on a lot of makeup and a dramatic hat, I was able to see a bruise on her face. My heart hardened in dread and sympathy, and I walked up to her. “Cat—can I see you in the conference room for a minute?”
“I knew you’d come around eventually,” she said sensually. But on seeing the serious look on my face and possibly even realizing what it meant, her smile dropped. “Okay.”
We went into the conference room and shut the door. Softly, I asked her, “What happened to your face?” I knew the answer couldn’t be good.
“I ran into a doorknob,” Cat said curtly. Seeing my expression, she sighed. “Not all the men of the world are Boy Scouts like you.”
“Who was it?” I asked. I was fighting to keep my face blank, though it felt like one of my eyelids was twitching.
She gave me a brittle smile. “I don’t need you to go after him like a big brother. Tempting as the thought is, I don’t want you to sink to his level.”
I slapped my hand on the table, and she jumped. I was trembling with emotion. “Is this what you want from life, Cat? To let men in and out of your bed but never your heart?” How could she live like that?
“Why—are you offering?” she managed halfheartedly. But when my somber expression didn’t change, she dipped her head.
“I know being a gossip columnist must mean that you have to subject yourself to a lot—but didn’t you ever want to do something else? Didn’t you ever have a different dream?”
“What—like being a mom taking care of five screaming children?” she returned sarcastically.
“No—like having a career where you can really enjoy and respect yourself.” I wasn’t backing down. This was too important.
She sighed. “There is something. But I’m not telling you.”
Gazing at her in sympathy, I said, “Cat—”
“It’s too embarrassing,” she insisted.
I crossed my arms with a forced smile, trying to make myself calm down. “I won’t tell anyone. Scout’s honor.” I held up my fingers in the Boy Scouts symbol as proof of my integrity.
She stared at me for a moment before lowering her eyes. “I used to want to be an animal groomer,” she murmured.
I touched her shoulder gently. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Cat raised her head. “Did you hear me?” she asked with incredulity. “I just said I wanted to be an animal groomer.”
“And I said there’s nothing wrong with that,” I returned. And there wasn’t. “So, why don’t you go pursue that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
But I was persistent. I wanted her to know this was a viable option. “I’m sure you already know a lot of higher ups in the city who have dogs and cats. Surely, it wouldn’t be that hard for you to start a business. You’ve already got a great name for the grooming business.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that will earn me a lot of respect.”
“Then go by ‘Catherine,’” I suggested with a wry grin. “It might be nice for a change.”
As Cat looked at me, I saw she was actually considering it. Finally, she said with some reluctance, “You know—you might be right. Let’s say—hypothetically—that I did decide to drop everything and go into the pet grooming business . . . . Do you think you could get Superman to put in a good word for me? Maybe give me a little publicity with that dog of his?”
Superman had given a lot of interviews to Lane and Kent, so it wasn’t surprising that she thought I could get into contact with him. But her request made me uneasy. If this was a ploy for her to get Superman into her bed . . . But no. I trusted her. I honestly believed she was finally realizing that she wasn’t getting what she had wanted from life. “Superman might do that,” I told her. “I can always ask him the next time I see him.”
She smiled in gratitude. “All right.” She walked to the door, her hand poised on the knob. But before she turned it, she asked me, “So—when are you going to tell Lois?”
“Tell Lois what?” I asked with a frown.
“That you’ve hopelessly fallen in love with her,” she stated before she opened the door and walked out, leaving me gaping behind her.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. Was I really that obvious? Evidently, I was going to have to be a lot more careful in disguising my feelings. But I certainly wasn’t fooling Cat.
****
When I took Jericho on his after-work walk, I was preoccupied, to say the least.
I kept thinking of random things about Lois. The time I’d seen quite a lot of her legs—a different time when she had cried into my chest—a few brief flashes of the cleft in her chest promising hidden treasures beneath—the way she looked when she told me about how she had told fairy tales to her sister when their parents were fighting. The past made us both ache inside, and maybe that was part of what caused us to gravitate toward each other. But it was also part of what made us so wrong for each other. After all, how could I ever hope to ease her pain when I felt such a load on myself all the time?
I finally tugged on Jericho’s leash to indicate we needed to go home. At least something good might have come out of the day—maybe Cat would rethink her life. She was certainly smarter than she let on, that was for sure. Constantly playing the role of a piece of eye candy had to have worn on her.
When I opened the door to my apartment, Jericho trotted inside. I came in more slowly and closed the door with a sigh. I was thinking about how I should probably do some rounds as Superman when Jericho dropped a dead bird on the floor.
I was about to scold him when the pigeon cooed. As I froze, I realized the bird was definitely not dead.
I knelt on the floor beside it and pushed Jericho’s nose away. A closer inspection revealed it had a hurt wing. I led Jericho away from the pigeon and told him to stay, and then I went and got a towel and a box. I put the towel in the box and then gently moved the bird inside.
The phone rang, and I lightly carried the box to a table and set it down. Picking up the phone, I said, “Hello.”
“Clark!” Lois said, sounding surprised I had answered. “Uh, hi.”
“Hi, Lois,” I returned in amusement. Was she expecting me to be out doing something? And why was she calling, anyway?
“Umm. So . . . how’s it going?” she asked awkwardly.
I looked at the box on my table. “Oh, all right, I guess. You don’t happen to know anything about hurt birds, do you? Jericho found a bird with a hurt wing, and I’m not sure what to do.”
“Actually, I do know something about birds. I—well, I raised exotic birds in high school.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise. “I didn’t know that.” It seemed she was full of surprises.
“Yeah. I did it to make money. I wasn’t sure if my dad would pay for college like he said he would, so I decided I might as well go for it.”
I smiled to myself. “I didn’t know you had a fondness for birds.”
“I don’t,” she returned wryly. “I just wasn’t allowed to have a dog.” I could hear something shifting in the background. “Just hang on. I’ll be over soon.”
I hung up the phone and put it aside. I checked on the bird, which seemed to be okay, but Jericho was staring hopefully upward at it.
“I’m not going to let you eat it,” I told him firmly. “So go lay down.”
Whimpering, he looked toward the couch and then toward me. I repeated myself, and then he reluctantly obeyed.
I sat down and waited.
****
When Lois arrived, she was the epitome of preparation. She had a box which contained vet tape, scissors, a small bird cage, birdseed, and two shallow dishes. I raised an eyebrow and took the box from her. “You don’t do things halfheartedly, do you?”
“Never,” she replied, bending to pet Jericho. He was happily greeting her and starting to jump up on her legs.
“Jericho, get down,” I warned him. “Go take a nap.”
He wagged his tail a few more times before disappearing into my bedroom. I smiled and set the box down. He really was a smart dog. Not always obedient, but he minded when it counted.
Lois examined the bird briefly and then got to work. I watched in interest as she cut about eleven inches of tape. Then she moved back to the bird, working carefully. She secured the broken wing against its body in a natural position, wrapping the tape on the outside of the broken wing and around the body under the bird’s healthy wing and finally securing the tape to itself. As she finished, she told me, “Fill one of the dishes no more than a third of an inch deep.”
As I moved to oblige her, I hazarded, “So the bird won’t drown?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “His mobility is going to be limited, so you’ll have to be careful.”
I filled the dish with water, and she put the pigeon in the bottom of the bird cage along with some birdseed. “We’ll need to change the tape weekly. Hopefully, we will be able to stop in about three weeks. Then, after the wing is healed, we can let the bird learn how to fly again. If he seems to be doing well, then we can let him free.”
All the while she was talking, there was a passionate flare in her eyes. When she went in for something, she really did go in all the way. Her passion was admirable, inspiring, and . . . sexy.
I swallowed, my heartbeat suddenly going a hundred miles an hour. “You’re amazing,” I told her. I meant to add a comment specifically about her bird knowledge, but the words were lost in my simple realization of just how truly amazing she was.
We both reached for the birdseed bag to seal it, and our hands accidentally touched. There was a sudden flare of heat between us, like a spark of electricity arcing from one body to another. Our eyes met again, and suddenly we were pressed together in a passionate kiss. The flames of desire roared in my ears as I relished the taste, feel, pressure of Lois’s lips against mine, the blazing inferno of our need becoming something almost palpable as we enjoyed this simple act. And then we were all hands and lips, touching each other and kissing and tugging at each other’s shirts. She got my shirt off—ripping off a few of the buttons—and I finally succeeded in removing hers. I felt the press of her chest against mine, and as my fingers crept up her back to meet with her bra clasp, she began fumbling at my pants. And then I realized what we were doing and froze.
“Lois,” I said hoarsely. She stopped what she was doing and looked up at me with sultry eyes. I could feel my resolve slipping as fear set in, and I closed my eyes. “I can’t do this with you.”
The flames between us were suddenly doused, and I could sense her backing away. I opened my eyes, and she managed, “I see,” her lips trembling and her face red. Then she was scrambling to put her shirt on as she fled toward the door.
“Lois!” I called out after her, but she ignored me and ran out the door, slamming it behind her.
I sat on my couch, suddenly numb, and buried my face in my arms, my fingers lacing themselves in my hair. I had almost made one of the biggest mistakes in my life. And now . . . well, now it would be a miracle if Lois would ever talk to me again.
I grabbed the phone and sat it beside me, ready to call Lois after giving her enough time to get home. Jericho came into the room with an inquisitive look, and I called him over to me. He got up in my lap, and I hugged him against me. When he licked my face, I gave him a sad smile and whispered to him, “Jericho, I might have just ruined everything.”
He placed a paw against my chest, looking concerned, and I sighed. “Thanks, buddy.”
I finally got up the nerve to call Lois, but I only received her answering machine. If she was home, she wasn’t picking up.
“I guess I’ll just wait till tomorrow to talk to her,” I sullenly told Jericho, who nudged my chest with his nose.
What if I really had ruined everything?
