Green-Eyed Monster TOC Part 1 Part 2When Lois awoke it was around two in the morning and she was lying on her futon couch that doubled as her bed. She was still wearing her black dress, but her broken shoes were neatly sitting between her couch and her coffee table.
She had no memory of how she had gotten home. No memory of catching the other bus. No memory of climbing the hill to her apartment building. No memory of unlocking the door to her building or walking through the main building out through the courtyard, past the swimming pool to the back building and her basement apartment. No memory past falling into the street and a pair of strong arms holding her.
Impossible! That couldn’t have happened, she told herself.
Lois dragged her sorry butt into the bathroom, threw her probably ruined dress into the laundry basket and climbed into the shower. As she rubbed shampoo through her hair, she felt a tender bump on the back of her head. Maybe that was why she had no memories of coming home, because she had a concussion from hitting her head on the sidewalk when the dog jumped on her. Her father would tell her she should go to the hospital and have her head checked – if she told him about the incident. But her health insurance didn’t kick in until she had been with the bookstore three months; she had only been there a week. She would just have to deal and hope for the best. Maybe she should set her alarm clock to wake her every two hours, just in case. She closed her eyes and let the water rinse the bubbles out of her hair. With her eyes closed, she once again felt the sensation of falling off the curb and into oncoming traffic.
Her eyes flashed open. How in the world was she alive? There was no logical answer, besides that imaginary man with the strong arms, who smelled of smoke. And that wasn’t a logical answer, that was a fantasy. Lois scoffed at herself. Fantasy. Listen to herself. She had the worst night of her life and the only ‘logical’ solution her brain came up with was that a man saved her?
Great, Lois! Something goes wrong in your life and you expect the answer to your problems to be a man, her mind said, laughing at her.
Typical.Lois shook her head. She had had this argument with her mind many times before.
Turning off the water, she grabbed her towel. But how had she survived? Had she just imagined falling into the street? Lois set her foot on the closed lid of the toilet and rubbed down her leg with the towel. When she got down to her ankle, it certainly felt tender and sore. Hmmm.
Her dress should have been soaked through, but she hadn’t woken up with a chill or smelling damp and musky. After hanging up her towel, she took her dress out of the laundry basket. The dress was dry. How was that possible? She put on her nightshirt and went back to her living room and felt her futon. Dry. She picked up her shoes, sopping wet and dripping on her carpet. She threw them in the trash.
OK. Her shoes were wet, but her dress and couch were dry? That didn’t make any sense.
Lois sat down on her futon couch, her head beginning to throb. She decided not to exert the extra effort to push the futon into a bed. Her purse -- where was her purse? She found it on the floor on the far side of the coffee table. She must have thrown it there when she came in. It was open and some stuff had fallen out. Kneeling on the floor, she picked up her lipstick, her wallet, the five dollars and sixty-seven cents to her name, and her bus transfer.
She sat up. The bus transfer? If she had taken the bus home wouldn’t she have used the transfer? And if Lois had used the bus transfer to come home how could she be holding it in her hand? She swallowed. How had she gotten home?
Lois glanced over at her front door. Only the door knob was locked. Her eyes went wide. The lock someone could turn and then shut the door to lock on their way out of her apartment. She was at her door a moment later, turning the dead bolt and fastening the security chain. She leaned against the door and then slid to the floor. Had someone brought her home? Who? How had
he known where she had lived? Who was he? She knew without a doubt that those strong arms belonged to a man. A man who smelled of smoke.
***
“Hi,” a friendly, male voice said from behind her.
Lois jumped, knocking down a tall stack of magazines. Glancing back, she saw Clark standing in the doorway with yet another cartload of boxes for her.
“Sorry.” He smiled, sheepishly. He stepped inside her cramped cell and extended his hand to her.
With a grunt, Lois blatantly ignored his offered hand and pushed herself back to her feet. Slowly, Clark withdrew his hand. He stood there and stared at her.
“I’m fine,” she snapped more venomously than she should have.
“Are you?” he asked concerned.
Her ankle chose that moment to twinge and she lost her balance again, landing on her bottom this time. As she rubbed her aching ankle, the tears welled up in her eyes. She hadn’t gotten much sleep after her realization that some stranger – some strange man -- had brought her home. Had been in her apartment. Could have done whatever he pleased with her. Could come back. She shivered again with that thought, dislodging the tears.
Clark reached out to comfort her and she pulled away. She didn’t want anyone to touch her. Anyone.
He dropped his hand. “Lois, are you okay?”
“I’m going insane,” she mumbled.
“You’ll get the hang of it. It’s the backlog that’s dragging you down,” he reassured her.
Lois stared at him. He was squatting just a few feet away. He thought she was talking about work.
“Yeah. Right. I’m beginning to think I wasn’t cut out for Metropolis,” she replied, wiping the dampness from her cheeks.
She saw something in his eyes at her words, but could not place the emotion. Pity? No. Fear? No. Sorrow? Disappointment? That didn’t make sense either. The man hardly knew her.
“You had a bad week. Things can only get better.”
Who was this guy? He sounded straight out of Smallville. She thought all city folk were pessimists like her.
Lois swallowed. “Clark,” she whispered. She had to tell someone or she was going to fall apart completely. “I don’t know how I got home last night. The thought terrifies me. I couldn’t sleep. Look!” She held up her visibly shaking hands. “I’m a nervous wreck.”
She looked up from her hands into his eyes and saw fear. Was he reflecting her thoughts with his eyes or was he scared of her?
“I’m not a drinker. And I don’t do drugs,” she snapped, pushing herself to her feet again. She wished she hadn’t confided in him. “I bumped my head. The last thing I remember was falling into the street.”
The fear in his eyes was gone. Now she saw concern again. “Really?”
“Then I woke up inside my apartment. I’m totally freaked. Did I get myself home? How? If someone else brought me home, how did he know where I lived?”
“He?” Clark raised an eyebrow.
Lois waved off his question. “I’m terrified, Clark. What if he comes back?”
“I’m sorry.” He swallowed and appeared dismayed. “Do you really think he would hurt you? I mean, someone – this imaginary man – went out of his way to bring you home, safe and sound. That doesn’t sound like someone to be scared of, does it?”
Lois’s brow furrowed. “Are you defending him?”
Clark stood up and took a step backwards. “No. No. No,” he stammered and then he changed his position. “Yes, I guess, I am. Not everyone is a bad guy, Lois.” He pulled his cart into the room and stacked up the boxes on top of the three he had left the day before.
She looked at him skeptically. “Yeah, well, when I meet a good one I’ll be sure to tell you. But I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you.”
Clark grinned at her with a wink. “I can hold my breath a long time.”
Lois rolled her eyes and started to pick up the magazines that had toppled over when he had entered the room.
“Occam’s Razor, Lois.”
She glanced back at him. “Excuse me?”
“It’s the scientific principle that the simplest answer is usually the correct one.”
Lois stood up and stared at him. “Meaning what?”
“You probably got yourself home last night and the bump on your head caused you to black it out. Makes more sense than some mysterious hero who saved you, flew you back to your apartment, placed you on the bed to sleep and then left, doesn’t it?” Clark raised his brows. “Maybe not as romantic, or terrifying, as the case may be, but more logical.”
Lois pressed her lips together. “Thank you, Spock.”
Clark grinned.
She bent down over her magazines again and found some pieces of plastic. She was about to toss them into the trash when she noticed the security sensors and price labels. “Oh, great. Someone’s been using my receiving room to steal CDs.” She sighed.
“What?” Clark stepped back into the room.
Lois jumped again, having thought he had left. This time he caught her before she knocked over another stack of magazines. She looked up into his dark eyes, murmuring, “Thanks.”
He set her back down in the little clearing between stacks. “No problem. You said something about someone stealing stuff?”
She handed him the pieces of cellophane as she bent back over to see if there were any more hiding behind her magazine stacks. There were. In all, she found seven different CD wrappers. “Great. Just what my day needed. Perry’s going to blame me.”
“Why would he do that?” Clark asked, handing the pieces of plastic back to Lois.
“Because that’s just the kind of luck I’ve been having lately.” She groaned.
Clark smiled at her. “I think your luck can only get better.”
“You’re out of this world, Clark. Who thinks like that?”
He chuckled, taking hold of the handle of his delivery cart. “If it helps, I’ll verify your story.”
Lois looked at him in disbelief. “Thanks, Clark.” She held out her hand to the doorway he was blocking. “After you.”
“Oh, sorry.” Clark stepped out of the way and allowed her to pass.
Although she didn’t want to admit it to herself, Lois did feel better after talking to Clark. He was probably right about the Occam’s Razor principle and all. Perhaps she was over-reacting. She probably had gotten herself home somehow the night before. She didn’t want to think of all the other things that could have happened to her if she had had a blacked out on the streets of Metropolis.
An overhead page requested Perry to come to the main check-out counter. Lois turned around, realizing she wasn’t headed in the quickest route, and bumped into Clark’s broad chest.
She stepped back and growled at him. “Are you following me, Deliveryman?”
Clark pointed behind her. “The freight elevator is this way.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Lois had no idea why that man put her on edge. Or why she felt she could bare her soul to him – a complete stranger. She just hoped she wasn’t going to be this week’s gossip in the break room because of it. She pushed past him to the escalators.
***
“So, we’ve got a thief in our midst,” said Perry, sitting down at his desk.
“It’s not me,” Lois replied, defensively.
Perry wiped that idea out of the air. “Someone is using the privacy of your receiving room to steal from us. Hmm.” He pointed to the seat opposite his desk and Lois sat down. “Well, first off, we’re going to have to close and lock your door when you aren’t working in there.”
“What about deliveries? They can’t be left in the hall. Fire exit.”
“Right.” Perry nodded, flipping through the different wrappers. “Aw. Our thief has good taste.” He held up one piece of plastic. “Elvis.”
Lois rolled her eyes.
“Don’t knock Elvis, Lois. Everything you ever need to know about life you can learn from the King.”
She raised her brows, skeptically, at this pronouncement. O-kay.
“Like make sure your friends are trustworthy.”
“Excuse me?” Lois asked, not catching his drift.
“Cat told me she warned you about Claude,” he replied.
Warning? Ha! her mind scoffed.
Lois’s tongue glossed over her teeth. “Well, telling me that someone ‘needs a warning label’ is kind of a vague indication of his true nature. A bright red skull and crossbones tattooed on his forehead would have worked better.” She shook her head. She would get Cat Grant back someday. “So has he been bragging that he ditched me with the bill at Carlton House last night?”
Perry looked away. “Ah. No, not exactly.”
Lois froze.
“What you do in your off hours, Lois, is none…”
“Oh, God!” She buried her face in her hands, humiliated.
“I would just recommend…”
Her hands dropped. “It isn’t true. Whatever he’s saying about me. It’s all lies. I wouldn’t touch a snake like him if…if…” Lois looked at Perry’s wide-eyed expression as she continued. “…if he was Lex Luthor’s son.” She leaned forward. “He’s not Lex Luthor’s son, is he?”
Perry shook his head.
“Good. Never! Why do you think he ditched me at the Carlton House without paying the bill? Because I told him ‘no’. The no good, lying…”
Her boss grinned at her. “There’s the fire you need to show your co-workers. Show them your mad dog face.”
“What?”
“Show them your mad dog face. Let me see ‘Mad Dog Lane’.”
“ ‘Mad Dog Lane’?” she repeated, incredulously.
“Show them they aren’t going to catch you crying in the ladies’ room later. Let me see that face.”
Lois still just looked at him, perplexed. “That’s not really who I am, Perry.”
“Lois, I wouldn’t have hired you on here if I didn’t think you could stand up to these guys. You work twice as hard as all the rest of them combined and I’m not going to allow them to push you around. But this isn’t school and I’m not your teacher. This is real life, you have to stand up to the bullies or they’re going to knock you down every chance they get. So, show me your ‘Mad Dog’ face.”
She rolled her eyes at him and then barked.
“Aw. What a cute little puppy. Try again.”
Lois was getting annoyed by this line of discussion with her boss. She was the victim here. She snarled at him again.
“Better. Again.”
Her eyes went wide as her tongue went over her front teeth. She scowled at him with a louder growl.
“They can’t hear you on the first floor. Again.”
Again? She snapped, “I’m not a dog and I refuse to bark.” She stood up and growled at her boss, “I’m warning you now I can’t guarantee I’m not going to slap that smirk off that good-for-nothing’s face the first chance I get. If you fire me, then you fire me. But nobody gets away with spreading lies about me behind my back. If Claude wants to lie about me, he better have the guts to do it to my face. Now, if you don’t mind I have work to do.” She turned her back to him and marched to the door.
Perry applauded. “Welcome to Daily Books, Mad Dog.”
***
Lois found a bench in the square across the street from the bookstore. It felt good to be away from the store. Away from the break room. Away from the gossip. The mud she felt dripping down her face and back seemed to fade away here in the bright sunlight. It was harder to cry here than in the ladies’ room. Perry – or the Chief as she learned he was called – had been right about that.
That first day had been the hardest. The looks from her co-workers, especially the ones she still didn’t know, pierced her to her soul. To be labeled a harlot, a slut, before they even knew her name. She had spent most of that day in her cell cleaning, organizing, and avoiding her co-workers.
The day before yesterday she thought things might be better. Nope. She didn’t know which was worse: that they believed those lies about her or that they believed them despite knowing Claude’s true nature and without learning hers. She didn’t deserve this punishment. Wasn’t it double jeopardy after washing dishes at the restaurant?
Only Jimmy continued to treat her with kindness and respect. For that she would be eternally his friend. And Perry. The nickname ‘Mad Dog Lane’ had stuck. She shook her head. And Clark. But he didn’t count, really, because he was a vendor – an outside entity – not part of the hive. Still his bright smile the previous morning had been the ray of sunshine she needed to make it through the rest of the day. If
he didn’t believe the lies… She sighed.
Clark probably hadn’t heard the gory ‘details’ of her ‘love-making’ with Claude. About how she had ‘tackled Claude’ when he came to pick her up for their date. How she had ‘ripped off’ his clothes. How Lois ‘wouldn’t let Claude leave,’ locking him in her apartment. How she had ‘hand-cuffed’ him to her bed.
Her. Lois Lane. Had done these horrible, horrible things to ‘poor innocent’ Claude.
Ha!Lois had tried to proclaim
her innocence. Nobody listened. Her tale of virtuousness wasn’t as interesting. Yesterday she had taken a much needed day off. She hoped this morning would dawn and everything would back to normal. Nope. This morning the story took a new turn – down a darker alley - and her ‘Mad Dog’ face had reared its ugly head. She wished she could say she was ashamed by what she had done, by what she had said, but she wasn’t. Lois grinned. Served Claude right. He would think twice about saying another word about their ‘date.’
Lois closed her eyes, soaked in the sun’s warmth and felt it dry up the metaphorical mud.
That morning Lois had come into her receiving cell only to find that everything had been moved around since before she had left on her day off. She had stormed upstairs and had found Perry setting out the tills for the cashiers. Everyone had been starting to gather around for the morning meeting.
“What in the hell is going on, Perry?” Lois had yelled at her boss. “I take a day off and you give my job to someone else?”
“Good morning, Lois,” Perry had replied with a calm smile.
“Do you think I am unable to do the job you assigned to me?” she had asked bluntly, stepping up to him, toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose. After barking for him the other day, she had thought she had no fear of this man.
He had only raised an eyebrow. Lois had realized she was way out of line with her personal space and had taken a step back, but her anger hadn’t abated. “Well?”
“We are installing shelves for your back stock. It’s a fire hazard having all those magazines stacked on the floor. I had someone move your piles over for you.”
“Next time I would appreciate some heads up before you send someone to unpack my receiving and process my returns. Otherwise you are undermining my authority as Supervisor.”
Perry had smiled with a wink. “Noted, Mad Dog.” Then he had furrowed his brow. “Your receiving was unpacked
and your returns processed?”
Lois had harrumphed at him, throwing up her hands. Obviously someone had felt she couldn’t do the job on her own. Either that or she had a type-A workaholic secret admirer. And she hadn’t appreciated Perry calling her ‘Mad Dog’ in front of all her co-workers, but Lois had decided she would address that issue with him later and in private.
A shadow darkened her patch of sunlight.
“Hi, there, stranger. Mind if I join you?”
Lois opened her eyes to the silhouette of Clark. She raised a brow. “Are you sure your reputation can survive being seen with me?”
He chuckled. “I’ll chance it.”
Oh, so he had heard the rumors. The gossip had finally left the back room. Great. Lois scooted down to the edge of the bench.
Clark sat down and opened a small cooler sized lunchbox. Guess hauling boxes around built up his appetite. The smells of the homemade food drifted over to Lois, making her stomach grumble audibly.
She blushed and turned away.
“I’ve got a roast chicken sandwich on sourdough if you’d like to share,” he offered, holding it up.
Lois pulled the cheese sandwich she had bought at the vending machine from her pocket. “Thanks, but I’ve got my own.”
He looked at her sandwich with skepticism, but then bit into his with a shrug. She could hear the crunch of lettuce and when he pulled it away from his mouth she saw the tell-a-tale signs of mustard on his lip and the drip of fresh tomato down his chin.
Lois realized she was staring and looked away. Her stomach grumbled again and she half-heartedly opened her plastic-covered, plastic-tasting cheese sandwich with little appetite.
Clark uncapped a 32 ounce bottle of Gatorade and drank half of it before going back to his sandwich.
Her attention was drawn back to him when she heard him open a bag of potato chips – a half-pounder. How did this guy eat so much and look so…? Her stomach grumbled again and Lois took a bite of her sandwich.
“Chip?” Clark offered her the bag.
Lois couldn’t resist this time and stuck her hand in the bag with a smile. “Thanks.”
Clark returned her smile with intensity. There was something about this guy in the sunlight. He seemed to positively glow. He closed his eyes, letting the sunshine cover his face.
Lucky sunshine, moaned her mind. Lois shut it up by taking a bite of her plastic sandwich. Trying to fill the silence that her mind would fill with who knew what kind of thoughts, she said aloud, “I’m glad the rain finally stopped.”
“Hmmm,” he replied before taking another bite of his sandwich. “Nothing like a sunny day.”
Lois sighed, taking another handful of chips. They tasted better than her plastic cheese sandwich anyway. “There’s something about the rain – heavy rain – like we had the other night…” She shivered. Not knowing exactly where those words, that dark feeling, that fear came from. Rain had never frightened her before.
Clark glanced at her and she realized she was pouring her heart out to this man again. What was up with her?
“But the sun,” Lois continued as if she hadn’t exposed part of her soul to him. “The sun, like this, recharges my batteries. Makes me feel like I can take on the world. Do you know what I mean?”
Clark gave her another intense look. So intense Lois wondered what he was thinking. He leaned forward just a fraction of a fraction of an inch. There was something familiar about that movement. For the briefest of moments, Lois actually thought he was going to pull her into those strong arms and press those lips against hers.
But then the moment was gone and Clark grinned. “Yeah,” he finally replied, leaning his back against the bench. “I know exactly what you mean.”
That almost a moment, that almost a movement left Lois breathless and… disappointed.
Definitely disappointed, corrected her mind.
Had she wanted him to kiss her?
Yep, interjected her mind again.
Oh, God! Where had that thought come from? She hadn’t thought of Clark like that before. He was a deliveryman, for Pete’s sake. Not her type of man at all.
Clark is all man, Lois. Very much your type of man. That smile. Those muscles…Lois opened her bottle of water and took a long swallow. Perhaps it was time to go back inside. She felt positively flushed with heat.
Lois gave up on her sandwich and dipped her hand back into his chip bag again and again. After her third handful in a row, she stopped herself. What was the matter with her? She was eating half of Clark’s lunch. He obviously needed the calories more than she did.
And yet… that man had not an ounce of flab on him. Her mind positively drooled, imagining her fingers running over that six-pack stomach. Lois pushed her inner mind back down into its jack-in-the-box box and sat down on top of it.
As Lois finished the chips in her hand, she slowly started to lick the salt off her fingers. She had a new paper cut she had forgotten to bandage before heading to lunch and the salt made it sting. She saw Clark glance at her as she stuck one finger than the next and the next into her mouth and lick the salt off.
He swallowed and then took another gulp of his drink. “If you’re ever in the mood for a home-cooked meal, I know a great little café…” Clark started to say.
Was Clark asking her out?
Yippy! She heard her mind shout from inside its box.
Her heart began to race in anticipation. Lois had to put a stop to this before it got any further. “I don’t plan on eating out in this city anytime in the near future.”
“Oh?”
Not after what Claude did to her the other night. How could she? She never wanted to be put in that position again. Lois looked down, feeling slightly guilty for the venomousness of her rejection. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“I promise you, the owners of this café would never force you to wash a single dish.” He smiled, but Lois’s heart hit her knees.
He knows? Even her inner passionate side was appalled.
“Excuse me?” The hairs on the back of her neck were standing at attention.
Was that fear in his eyes?
It better be!Where had Clark learned about her dishwashing stint at the Carlton House? Had Perry told him? Her spine stiffened. “I meant,” Lois continued as he wasn’t going to apologize. “That I don’t date co-workers, Clark. And that includes vendors.” It was a new rule and a good one at that – thought up on the spot.
“I wasn’t asking you out, Lois,” he clarified, stammering. “I was just telling you…”
Lois wiped his words out of the air. Yeah, right, deliveryman. “Either way,” she said, gathering up her stuff. “I can’t afford to eat out right now. Thanks for the chips.”
And for that lava hot look that I’ll be replaying in my daydreams and fantasies until the end of the millennium.Oh, God! Where had that thought come from? She had to work with this guy. “Bye, Clark.”
Her inner voice had obviously pushed Lois off the top of her box. Lois couldn’t stay here with her inner passionate side loose. Out of control and wanting Clark. She couldn’t be anywhere near him. Who knew what she might do or say?
Lois definitely had had enough sunshine. She raced to the street, did a quick back-and-forth look, and then ran across to the bookstore, rushing inside to the cool air conditioning.
***End of Part 2 *** Part 3 Comments
