Lois was in a robe.
Clark licked his lips and swallowed. It was obvious she had rushed out of the shower without taking time to towel off first. The robe absolutely clung to her. But her words to him utterly shattered whatever juvenile fantasy his brain was about to cook up:
“Bad dog!”
He cowered down. That was certainly something he hadn’t heard every day. And now that he was on the receiving end, he realized just how a dog felt when getting caught doing something he felt he had every right to do.
And what was worse was that he couldn’t plead his case and say he was hungry. He couldn’t say a word to her.
So he inhaled and gave her his best pair of puppy dog eyes, hoping it would work.
She stared back at him without flinching . . . and then, unexpectedly, she melted. “Oh, fine. I guess you’re hungry. But how about I give you something more appropriate for a dog?” She picked up the Twinkie box and put it on the counter; then she moved toward the refrigerator.
Clark looked down at the bits and pieces of the side of the Twinkie box on the floor. Then he took a paw and pushed the pieces into a neater pile. He couldn’t help throw the pile away, but maybe he could help make it easier to pick up.
Lois got out a hot dog and put it on a small plate, which she then set down on the floor in front of him. “Eat that,” she told him.
Clark stared down at it. He’d been acting more like an animal by the minute, and he was starting to worry maybe he was forgetting what it was like to be human. He placed first one paw and then the other on the plate, squeezing the hot dog between his two front feet. Then, sitting up, he brought the hot dog up to his mouth and began eating it.
“You are so strange,” Lois muttered. “And how you got into that cabinet is really beyond me . . . . ” Shaking her head to herself, she left the room.
He finished up his hot dog and was beginning to wonder if he might be able to coax her to give him another one when he heard her footsteps. He turned his head hopefully, only to drop his jaw in surprise.
Lois was wearing nothing but a white bra and underwear, and she was walking toward him. “I guess you probably want some water, too, huh?” she was saying.
His heart thumping and the words “peeping Tom” going through his head, he turned his head away from her. Temptation. He needed to get rid of temptation.
He rested his chin on the floor and placed his paws over his eyes. Then, he began to recite in his head the names of the U.S. states in alphabetical order.
He heard her pause beside him and then move to a cabinet. There was a noise as she brought out a bowl and then another noise as she began filling the bowl with water. “You are the strangest dog I’ve ever met. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a human trapped in a dog’s body.” She chuckled, but it was weak. She was obviously having a hard time holding herself together.
Clark listened as she walked away from him after setting down the bowl, and a few seconds later, he slowly removed his paws from on top of his head. A quick glance revealed she had left the room. Exhaling, he stepped toward the bowl of water. He obviously couldn’t pick it up and drink it. Releasing another sigh, he stuck out his tongue and began to lap up the water. Fortunately, the motion seemed instinctual.
When Lois came back to the living room, she was wearing a tank-top and a pair of shorts. The urge immediately hit him to stare at her long and shapely legs, but he fought it and brought his eyes to her face.
She sat on the couch and buried her face in her hands. He saw the slight movement of her shoulders before he heard the sound of her sobs.
Lois . . . he thought. He wanted to do something for her—wanted to comfort her, to wipe away all her pain.
An idea hitting him, he trotted into her bedroom. He looked up at her dresser and the bear sitting there. He flew up to the top of the dresser and sat on the pile of clothes. Carefully, he took the bear in his mouth. But as he moved to get into a better position for flying to the floor, his paws slipped on the clothes on the dresser, and he went tumbling toward the ground, the bear dropping from his mouth.
Fortunately, he stopped in the air right before he hit the floor. Unfortunately, a lacey black pair of Lois’s underwear fell on his head.
He floated there for a moment in shock and confusion. Then he touched his feet to the ground. Then he began jerking his head about in a manic fashion to get the underwear off.
Lois’s panties finally went flying across the room like a lacey missile, and it took all of Clark’s mental willpower not to start imagining Lois wearing it. He was on a mission, and he had to remember that. His being transformed and brought to Lois’s apartment was not about animal lust.
Recovering the bear from where it had fallen, he went into the living room and gently placed his front paws on Lois’s legs. The bear fell onto Lois’s lap. Then he brought his paws back down to the floor.
****
Lois opened her water-filled eyes to look down at her lap in confusion. Sitting there was the bear Clark had won for her in Smallville.
It didn’t look like anything special. It was just a black bear with bits of white on it. But when she had been given the choice between a Superman doll and the bear, she had known which one she wanted to take.
To have chosen the Superman doll would have been to taint the moment, to bring another man into the relationship. And the bear was so much like Clark, it had only seemed appropriate to take it. It wasn’t flashy; it was simple and honest and comforting. Like Clark.
She smiled and kissed the top of the bear’s head, squeezing it against her chest. “Thank you,” she whispered graciously to the dog. He had probably simply wanted her to use the bear for a game of fetch, but the action touched her nonetheless.
The dog seemed happy to be spoken to, and he wagged his tail enthusiastically. In the process, however, he knocked over an old glass of water with his long black tail. His brow almost seemed to furrow as he turned to look at the spilled water. He seemed surprised, like he hadn’t known his tail was wagging.
Jumping up, she quickly got a dish towel and cleaned up the mess. The dog looked at her so sorrowfully that she laughed.
She set the towel down and sat on the couch, patting the spot beside her. “Come on. Get up.”
****
Clark had not realized his tail was wagging, and he was embarrassed to have caused yet another mess for Lois to clean. But fortunately, she didn’t seem upset, and when she motioned for him to get on the couch, he complied.
What he hadn’t expected was the hug she gave him next. Even more unexpected was the fact that she was pressing him up against the cleavage which her tank-top didn’t hide. He’d dreamed of being in a position like this—well, something like this—but he did not want his doggy self to get more action with Lois Lane than his human self ever had.
When Lois finally pulled back, he felt both relieved and bereft, and he stared up at her, waiting for her to say something.
****
“My partner died,” she began in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. “He was killed by someone, and it’s all my fault. He died trying to protect me . . . . And I keep thinking about him lying there on the ground, his eyes closing for the very last time . . . . ”
The dog whimpered, and she gave him a tight smile, her eyes filling with moisture once again. “He was so important to me. He was my best friend.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I used to think Lois Lane needed no one. But I was wrong. What I needed was Clark. But he’s gone now. I never could have asked for a better partner . . . or a better friend.”
The Lab placed a paw on her leg, and as she looked over at him through blurry eyes, she felt he was trying to communicate with her. As an animal, he couldn’t really understand what she was feeling, but she nonetheless sensed that somehow he did know something about what she was saying.
“I never told him how I felt,” she whispered. “I never . . . told him I love him.”
And then she buried her face in the dog’s fur and let herself cry. She cried long and hard, and he simply sat there, unmoving, a pillar of strength when she was at her most vulnerable. She finally managed between sobs, “I would give anything to have him back.”
****
Clark hadn’t thought he could feel any worse, but he was wrong.
To see Lois reduced to such a state dropped him even deeper into the pits of misery. He felt so helpless, so useless. And he was beginning to hate those gangsters even more by the second.
He couldn’t understand how people could have such a disregard for life. Didn’t they see how precious a life of love could be?
The revelation of Lois’s love for him had struck him like lightning. He hadn’t known she felt that way. And now that he did know, it was too late. He couldn’t give her a life with Clark Kent—that man no longer existed to the world.
His fur was soaked with Lois’s tears, each one of which pierced straight to his heart. He had to at least give Lois the closure of seeing Capone and his gang behind bars. He owed her that much.
He whimpered and placed a paw on her shoulder, staring at her in concern.
She slowly started to wind down, her sobs growing further and further apart until at last she was silent. She pulled back and stared at him, and he tilted his head. When she gave him a smile that seemed real, his heart lifted a little.
****
“Thank you,” Lois told the dog. She was genuinely glad for the company. She had never been much of an animal person, but this dog had somehow given her great comfort, and for that, she was grateful.
She reached out and gently pushed him onto his side. He looked at her in confusion, but that confusion turned to pleasure as she scratched his stomach, and his leg began to shake.
She chuckled. “Guess you like that, huh?”
****
When Lois had pushed him over, Clark had been startled, to say the least. But the belly rub she had then given him had wiped away all traces of surprise. He would take a belly rub from Lois any day, that was for sure.
She finally stopped, however, and he looked up at her hopefully. “I bet you probably need to go outside before I leave for work. I’m going to go get dressed. Can you stay out of trouble for five minutes?”
He lowered his head guiltily. He hadn’t meant to cause trouble. He had just wanted a Twinkie.
She rubbed his head with a smile and then left the room.
He watched the spot where she had disappeared for a few seconds, and then he turned his gaze to the stuffed bear on the sofa. He pressed his nose against it and inhaled the scent of Lois. It was a smell he would remember for the rest of his life.
When Lois returned, she had on a bulky gray sweatshirt over a white long-sleeved shirt. Her pants were dark gray as well. He guessed it was her way of mourning his death—black would be too much of a call for attention for Lois Lane to use it as her mourning color.
He tilted his head as he looked at her, and he could hear a thumping behind him that must have been a mouse or something because he was not wagging his tail again.
Even while mourning—even while she looked sadder than he had ever seen her before—Lois Lane was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
****
Lois didn’t have a leash, so she simply trusted the dog to stick beside her as they went outside. If they got separated, she would be sad to lose the companionship, but he wasn’t her dog. He was so sweet . . . he had to have an owner somewhere who was desperately missing him. She hated to keep him from his real home.
The dog trotted beside her, looking happy, if a bit overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of the city. He definitely didn’t seem like he was accustomed to being outside.
But though the dog had cheered her, her thoughts kept returning to Clark’s lifeless body. And it would all day, she knew.
What she needed to do was go in to work. Perry wouldn’t expect her to be there, but she couldn’t simply sit around and continue thinking about Clark. Her heart was already on the floor, bleeding. There was no sense in flinging it to the floor time and time again.
Now, she just needed to figure out what to do with the dog.
****
Clark had never seen Metropolis while so close to the ground, and everything seemed new to him.
The sights, the smells, the sounds . . . everything was changed by a simple decrease in height. Even though it was still dark out, he didn’t feel impaired by it.
But though Lois kept giving him expectant looks, he was not going to do his business in front of her. He’d already done a lot of humiliating things in dog form, but peeing in front of Lois Lane was not going to be one of them!
A sudden flash of movement in the corner of his eye drew his gaze, and he whipped his head around to take in the appearance of a tabby cat. And then his canine instincts were taking over, and he was chasing it around a corner and into an alley.
As the cat jumped up onto a dumpster, he skidded to a stop, suddenly comprehending the ridiculous nature of his actions. He wasn’t feeling any better about himself when his nose started sniffing wildly at the myriad of smells like that of an excited terrier.
He turned around and heard Lois whistling for him. Then he sat down and sadly gazed into nothingness. Even his short time as a dog in Lois’s household had been better than the prospect of a life without Lois . . . . And he realized that he had to figure out a way to get out of his dog body and bring Clark Kent back. No matter what it took, he would have to accomplish that. A life without Lois wasn’t a life at all. If he had learned anything from his time as a dog, it was that. He loved her, and she loved him, and that had to be recoverable. There had to be something he could do about it.
He closed his eyes and sighed, and then he felt that strange shifting and twisting. The simultaneous compressing and stretching came, and then with a burst of energy, the sensation released him from its grip. Opening his eyes, he found himself back in his apartment.
Clark exhaled in relief. Though he missed parting with Lois already, he was glad that he was no longer helpless. Somehow, he was going to figure out how to entrap Al Capone’s gang. Then, he would figure out a way to bring Clark Kent back into the world.
****
As Lois jogged into the alley where the dog must have disappeared to, she frowned. He was gone.
The thought made her sad, as he’d been a great comfort to her, but now her mind was pulled back to Clark.
It was too early to go in to the Planet, but she knew she would never be able to go back to sleep. So she returned to her apartment and sat on her couch and hugged her stuffed bear to herself for hours.
****
Clark went to Smallville to talk to his parents. The more he thought about how much he loved Lois, the more determined he became to repair the damage Capone’s gang had caused. And suddenly, a glimmer of an idea came to him. If Capone and his gang could be resurrected, couldn’t Clark Kent somehow be as well?
A quick conversation with his parents revealed a clue as to Dillinger’s whereabouts; apparently, he had been caught sixty years previously coming out of a movie theater. Clark quickly changed into his Superman outfit and flew to Metropolis. After that, finding Dillinger was easy.
Dropping the man from a tall building wasn’t exactly the most ethical move he could have made, but it got Clark the information he needed. One quick trip to the authorities to drop off Dillinger, and then he was flying to Professor Hamilton’s hideout.
He located Hamilton’s manuscripts and perused its contents at super speed. Then he found just what he had hoped he would: an excuse for how Clark Kent could return to life. He felt so happy he could almost start singing. Now, he just had to find Lois.
He flew to the Daily Planet, expecting Lois to be there, but all he found was a morose Jimmy.
“Superman,” he said in surprise. “I, uh, I guess you heard the news about C.K.?”
“Yes,” Clark acknowledged somberly. “But I have some news on that front for Lois. Do you know where I can find her?”
Jimmy shrugged. “She left in a hurry a little while ago. I tried paging her, but she’s not answering her beeper.”
Clark took in a small breath. She was probably out finding trouble. Nobody had a penchant for that quite like Lois Lane. “Could you do me a favor? Do it again, and keep doing it.”
He left before Jimmy could reply.
****
Following the sound of Lois’s beeper, Clark came to a construction site where Capone and his thugs were starting to lower cement down into a hole containing Lois and Professor Hamilton. Clark zipped away and retrieved some rope, and then he snatched all the gangsters’ guns (placing them in a neat pile off to the side) and tied up the gangsters themselves.
Then he turned off the cement mixer and pulled Lois and Professor Hamilton out.
“What’s going on here?” Capone demanded. He looked surprised to be suddenly on the losing side.
“What’s going on is that you are going to jail for murder, attempted murder, and a number of other crimes,” Clark told him in a steely voice. He turned to Lois and Professor Hamilton. “Are you two okay?”
“We’ll be fine, Superman,” Lois said softly. “Thank you for saving us.”
Clark turned and looked at the gangsters. “Do you think you can hold on to them until the authorities get here? I have something I need to do.”
Professor Hamilton picked up a gun, looking at it like he’d never seen one before. Then he held it up where Capone and his gang could see it. “We sure can, Superman.”
With a smile, Clark sped off and called the police. Next, he called Jimmy and told him he could stop paging Lois. Finally, he changed into suit pants, a shirt, and a tie, and he put on his glasses.
Then, in the darkness, his heart pounding with excitement, he walked toward Lois.
She stared at him for a few moments as if she thought he was a ghost, and then she suddenly began to run toward him. “Clark!”
He hastened his step and met her, embracing her just as happily as she embraced him.
“Clark!” she said again. “Is it really you?”
He placed a kiss on her hair, unable to help himself. “Yes. Superman found my body and froze it so there would be no permanent damage to my tissue—he was able to resurrect me by following the procedures in Professor Hamilton’s manuscript.”
“I hoped this day would come somehow, but I never dreamed it really would,” Lois exclaimed, still squeezing him tightly.
“Me too, Lois,” Clark agreed. “Me too.”
****
After the police came and took Al Capone and his gang away, Lois said, “Clark, I don’t want to let you out of my sight, but I need to change—would you . . . do you think you could come to my apartment with me?”
Clark smiled. “Of course.” In hugging Lois, he’d also gotten cement on his shirt and tie, but he didn’t mind. He would ruin a thousand shirts and ties for this amazing woman.
They took a cab to Lois’s apartment, and as they got out, a black Lab went running by. It could have been a coincidence—after all, Labs were a beloved species—but it nonetheless caused both of them to pause.
“You know,” Lois said, frowning as she stared after the dog, “I had a really strange experience while you were . . . well, you know.”
“Oh?”
Lois began moving up the stairs to her apartment building. “Yeah. I’ll tell you about it after we get inside and I change.”
After they entered her apartment and Lois disappeared to change clothes, Clark wandered into the kitchen. He stared at the doorless cabinet with a mixture of guilt and amusement. For him, it might as well have said in plain letters, “A super dog was here.” He had almost begun to wonder if it had all been a dream, but there was the proof right in front of him. Smiling to himself, he got out a Twinkie from the box—with his hands, not paws—and unwrapped it. As he took a bite, he began to wonder if maybe it had tasted just a tiny bit better as a dog.
****
When Lois came back out of her bedroom, she found Clark staring at her door-free cabinet and munching on a Twinkie. “That’s part of my story,” she told him, and he turned around.
“How so?” he asked. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like his eyes were brimming with amusement.
“I was feeling pretty down about your death . . . . And then, this dog came to my apartment. It was strange—like he’d been sent to comfort me.” She looked down at the Twinkie in his hand and gestured toward it. “That’s exactly what he went for, too. You know, it’s kind of strange . . . . I mean, I know I was missing you a lot, so it wouldn’t have been surprising if I thought I saw your face in a piece of toast or in some paint on a wall, but there was something about that dog that reminded me of you. I don’t know if it was his eyes . . . or his sensitivity . . . or what, but . . . ”
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but the more she thought of that dog, the more she thought of Clark.
Lois brought her eyes up to Clark’s face. He was staring at her with a strange expression.
****
It was reckless. It was foolhardy. It was impulsive. But Clark wanted to tell Lois the truth about him—all of it. Clark Kent had nearly died to the world, and Lois Lane had admitted her love for him to a dog. Maybe she’d been confused—maybe she hadn’t really meant it. But who knew what would happen from day to day—all he had was the present, and he wanted to live his life. But what was more—he wanted to live his life with Lois Lane.
“Lois,” he began, “I have a confession. Well—a few confessions. You should—um—probably sit down.”
As Lois sat on the couch, she looked up at him in confusion. “What is it, Clark?”
He started pacing; then he abruptly sat next to her. “I wasn’t dead, Lois. I mean—I was dead to the world. But I wasn’t dead.”
She frowned. “Clark, you’re not making any sense.”
“The man people know as Clark Kent was dead . . . but that’s not all I am.” He took in a deep breath. It was time for plunge number one. “Lois, I’m Superman.”
“What?” she whispered in confusion.
He wanted to go in for plunge number two, but he figured he needed to give her time to process the first one. Still, he wanted to get in a few things before she got angry. As fast as he could while maintaining coherency, he told her, “When I got shot in that club, I didn’t know what to do. If I didn’t do anything, people would realize Clark Kent was bullet proof, and then they would make the connection to Superman. So, I had to pretend I was dead. And then I was depressed—I wouldn’t be able to come in to the Planet again, wouldn’t be able to see you or Jimmy or Perry. Not as Clark Kent anyway. I wouldn’t be able to have a real life here as Superman—Superman can’t be seen going to ballgames with Jimmy or cooking meals for Lois Lane. Superman is a symbol, a figure . . . . He’s not a person.”
She put her hand on her chest, obviously still trying to wrap her ahead around this revelation. Then, as if on instinct, she slipped a pair of fingers through the holes between the buttoned fabric, feeling the Superman suit beneath. Moving slowly, she unbuttoned part of his shirt and stared down at the “S” shield on his chest. “You were alive this whole time?”
Clark swallowed. “Lois, I felt terrible. There aren’t any words for how bad I felt. I was hurting for you so much. . . and then I picked up this talisman I had gotten on one of my travels. I had been told it was magical—but I hadn’t believed it. But then I was wishing I could comfort you, and suddenly, I appeared outside your apartment.”
Lois furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
What he meant was plunge number two. “Lois . . . that dog was me.”
She recoiled from him and stood up. “That isn’t funny, Clark.”
“I’m telling the truth,” he insisted, getting to his feet. “I was the one who ripped off that cabinet door—which I’m sorry about, by the way—and I was the one who got into that box of Twinkies. The dog who brought you that bear I won for you in Smallville was me. Lois, I don’t know how, but I promise . . . that was all me.”
Lois stared at him, and he could practically sense the protests lining up in her mind. It was impossible—yes, he knew it was impossible. But somehow, it had happened.
And now it was time for plunge number three. “Lois, there was something else I wanted to tell you—I love you, too.”
****
Stall.
The word thundered through Lois’s mind as she turned away from Clark. This was so much to take in. She needed time to figure out how to react—it was like her brain was about to go into information overload. So, she began thinking out loud. “It makes a weird kind of sense in a way . . . . I mean, why would a dog go after a box of Twinkies in a cabinet? How would a dog know how to get it? How would he be able to rip off a cabinet door? And those eyes . . . somehow, I knew they were your eyes.” She moved to look at him finally. And then something hit her, and she flushed. “That means you saw me in my underwear!”
And now it was Clark who was averting his eyes from her. She could practically touch the embarrassment dripping from his pores—but she wasn’t quite sure it had reached the level of her own. Hers was tsunami sized.
“I covered my eyes,” he offered weakly.
She stared at him, accusations and reprimands on her lips, but then she tilted her head and smiled as she thought of that poor black Lab in her kitchen with his paws over his eyes. “You did, didn’t you?”
****
Lois was taking this better than Clark had thought she would. He could try to remind her how she had checked out his canine . . . erm, assets . . . but he had the feeling that would just make the situation worse. Not to mention make both their levels of embarrassment skyrocket to the moon.
He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to help you, Lois. I wanted to be there for you . . . . I love you.”
There—he’d said it again. She hadn’t reacted to his declaration the first time, and he was beginning to think maybe what she had said to his canine self had been spouted off in the sorrow of the moment. Still, he was hopeful he hadn’t been—he was risking everything on that.
What she said next caused his mouth to drop: “Did you like seeing me in my underwear?”
“What?” he managed after several seconds, his mouth dry.
“Did you like seeing me in my underwear?”
“Lois—”
She crossed her arms. “Answer the question, Clark.”
He looked down at his hands. He’d already confessed that he was Superman, that he had briefly existed as a dog, and that he was in love with her. What was one more confession to add to the list?
Licking his lips to moisten them, he told her, “Yes.”
She stared at him, bringing a hand up to touch his face. As he moved his eyes to hers, she asked him in a serious voice, “Will you bark for me?”
“Lois!” he growled. Now she was just jerking his chain around.
She laughed. “I don’t know why I believe you after you’ve been lying all this time about Superman, but I do.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’m crazy. But somehow, despite all the craziness of these past few days, I’m still in love with you.”
As she brought her head closer to his, he met her mouth with his own. Fireworks and swelling music couldn’t have made the moment any better. It was just her lips and his, velvet and moisture and passion and love.
As he kissed her, he thanked his lucky stars for the courage and determination his brief stint as a dog had brought him. And while he had once been cursing those gangsters for killing him, now he was blessing them for bringing him closer to this wonderful woman. Sometimes, things happened in mysterious ways. Finding the logic was like looking for a needle in a haystack—it might have been there, but a person could waste his entire life looking for it.
And why would Clark try to waste his life looking for a needle in a haystack when he could be kissing Lois Lane?
“You are going to fix my cabinet, right?” Lois murmured against his lips.
“Only if you continue stocking Twinkies,” he returned, smiling against her mouth.
“Done.”
He pulled her closer to him, mentally saluting that wooden kangaroo talisman lying in his apartment.
