Nightfall Honeymoon TOCWhere we left off in Part 16...Lois climbed up the last flight of stairs and paused outside the double set of glass doors. As much as she wanted to run inside, she took a deep breath. Her husband owed her an explanation before she ran into his arms.
Don’t you mean an apology?She opened the door. Clark and some portly man stood in the middle of a very dusty, extremely dirty, run-down room cluttered with debris. She had been expecting Clark to be alone and the addition of this other man threw her.
“What
is this place?” she asked with disgust.
Weren’t you going to stay quiet until he apologized?Clark ignored her question and introduced her to the man next to him. “Floyd, this is my wife, Lois.”
Floyd looked back and forth between them. “How about I give you a few minutes?” the man said with a jingle of old fashioned keys.
Lois passed him on the steps leading from the front door down to room where Clark stood.
At the door, Floyd sighed and said in a mock-optimistic tone, “Take all the time you need, even the weekend. My wife’s cousin is getting married on Sunday and we’ll be busy with that.” Then he rolled his eyes like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to be doing during the last weekend of September.
Take all the time to do what? Leave?“Thank you, Floyd,” Clark said, resting his hand on the decorative end of the banister. It came off in his hand. “Would you mind if we made a few repairs?”
Floyd looked at the knob. “I guess not,” he said before shutting the door behind him.
Repairs? Can’t we just condemn the place and go home?Clark set down the knob and spread out his arms in a ta-da manner, a big grin stretched from one ear to the other. “So, what do you think?”
Part 17GLois crossed her arms, pressed her lips together, and raised an eyebrow.
What did you think of what?Clark dropped his hands – apparently in defeat – but then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her around the room. “Lois, you need to look past the dust, past the stacks of old newspapers, the empty paint cans, and cobwebs.”
She rolled her eyes.
And see what? The cabinet door lying on the floor? The pool of black sludge in the sink?Clark lowered his voice. “Superman could have this place cleaned and fixed up in a matter of minutes. Look at the bone structure, not its current clothes.”
Lois turned and found herself pressed against her husband’s chest. It felt warm and inviting. Steeling her nerves, she took a couple of steps back. “What’s going on here?”
“You mentioned this morning that we needed a new apartment. It has a bedroom, semi-private.” He led her into the adjoining room. “More private if we sleep upstairs in the loft.” Clark pointed to a small room that one accessed via a spiral staircase. “Or… it could also double as a baby’s room.” He placed a hand on her stomach. “Just in case.”
She gulped, glancing down at his hand.
“It’s larger than your current apartment, but not so large that guests could stay here if they visited.” He winked at her and then turned her towards the huge wall of windows facing a brick wall. “Plus, look at that private patio. We can look out, but no one can look in. I could…” He cleared his throat. “We’d finally have some privacy and some natural light.”
She turned his face towards hers. He looked so lost and helpless as he tried hard to impress her. It took every ounce of her determination not to give in to this charm, but she didn’t want to set a precedent. He had insulted her and walked out this morning. Lois didn’t want him to think he could get away with that kind of behavior without an apology. Clark would know better than to treat her that way…
Actually, the old Clark was an apology junkie.Kal – this new Clark – needed to be taught.
The façade fell from his face and he snapped, “You hung up on me.”
Lois tightened the muscle in her jaw. Her gaze became sharper as she refused to rise to the bait of an argument. He owed her an apology and, until she got it, she would wait.
Clark crossed his arms and apparently had decided to wait as well.
Lois flipped up her hand.
Forget it. If he refuses to be man enough to apologize…She turned towards the door.
Suddenly, Clark was in front of her again. “Lois, please…”
Hope came to her eyes.
This is more like it. We accept apologies in the form of begging, pleading, and chocolate.Clark leaned his head against hers, accepting anything she had to offer him. “I’m so sorry about this morning, Lois. Please forgive me. I know you must be extremely angry at me because of how I treated you.”
Angry? Try livid. Irate. Furious.“I’m not mad,
Clark,” Lois told him, emphasizing the use of his name.
Not angry? Who are you?“You should be. I acted like a total jerk …” he went on.
“I was angry, Clark. But mostly, I was hurt,” she admitted.
Oh, yes. Hurt. Hurt is much better than mad.He winced. “I never…”
“Yes, you did,” Lois corrected him and he looked away. “I hurt you and you lashed out.” She cupped his cheek in her palm and turned his face back to hers. “Somehow, I made you feel like I couldn’t love you without your memories. And that isn’t true.”
Clark swallowed and appeared uncomfortable that she knew him better than he knew himself. He turned towards the room again. “I know this isn’t the best place. But I talked Floyd down to nine hundred a month. We could have a fresh start. No tabloid reporters stalking us. This place could be ours instead of just…”
Lois set her hand on his chest, cutting him off. “For the time being, though, I think we should refrain from being intimate until your memories come back.”
Clark’s mouth opened, but before he could say anything she went on, holding up her hand.
“I realize that’s what you were trying to tell me yesterday. I know I’m the one who walked into your shower.” She stepped away from him and wandered around the room, pretending she was actually looking at the space instead of giving them more space.
What? You’re not going to mention that it was his fault that you were turned on in the first place?“So you’re essentially holding your intimacy hostage and ransoming it for my memories?” he inquired with a raised brow. “I don’t think that kind of pressure is going to make them come back any faster.”
His tone was light and teasing, but Lois sighed in frustration anyway. “I cannot do this again, Clark. I cannot make love to you one moment and have you walk out on me the next. I can’t.”
Clark held out his hands. “That’s why I wanted you to meet me here, Lois. I just wanted to show you I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m never leaving you. That I’m looking forward, towards our future. I may say and do stupid things every once in a while, but nothing will stop me from loving you. If I had to choose between breathing and loving you, I’d hold my…”
“Don’t worry, Clark.” She smiled as she interrupted him. “Breathing is required. It’s not optional.”
“Neither is loving you,” he replied, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against his chest. “If I have to spend the rest of my life proving to you that I’m worthy of your love…”
Lois’s heart pounded.
Isn’t that what he said on that beach in Costa Rica, the day Superman made you the fish?“You’ve already said ‘I do’,” she reminded him.
“I know, but I wanted you to know that this new me – this me, without memories – would love you forever, too, if I had to,” he tried to clarify.
“
Had to?” Lois teased, knowing what he had meant.
“If the memories never return…” She heard him gulp, fearful of that future.
“Clark, the memories are already returning. Give them some time,” she whispered, caressing his cheek. Lois glanced around the room for a way to distract him from these thoughts. Then she remembered the loft. “Okay, husband. Fly me up the loft and show it to me. That staircase looks a bit wobbly.”
“It’s perfectly sound. I’ve already used it. You should try it for…”
Lois stepped back and crossed her arms. “Fly me!”
“Lo-is!” He glanced around cautiously.
Nervous about something there, Clark?She raised a brow. “If this place is so private, nobody should see us. Fly me!”
“I think you should try…” he replied, walking to the staircase.
She stood her ground. “What’s wrong, Clark?”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Isn’t he sweet? To lie to you like that?Lois stepped back into his embrace. “You would never intentionally hurt me.”
“Never. Intentionally,” he agreed, kissing her forehead. “It’s the unintentionally I’m worried about.”
She kissed his cheek and headed for the spiral staircase. “Okay. Fly yourself and meet me up there.”
Clark blanched. Yep, she had hit the nail on the head. Superman couldn’t fly.
***
Kal gulped. No, not flying. Not now. Not after she finally forgave him for being a dense idiot. Again. She couldn’t see him fail like that.
Lois returned from the spiral staircase and hugged him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tell her? Tell her what? That he couldn’t fly? What’s a Superman who can’t fly? It was like a man who couldn’t… No, he wouldn’t jinx himself and even think that analogy. Sure, he could still be a hero, but he wouldn’t feel like a hero… His shoulders slumped as he tightened their embrace before whispering in her ear, “What’s a superhero who can’t fly?”
She leaned back and smiled. “Batman?”
Who? Kal’s confusion must have been obvious across his face, because she wiped the response out of the air.
“I know you can fly, Clark,” she said and lowered her voice. “When I woke up this morning, because we had left the shower on, we were floating above the bed.”
His eyes opened wide. Really? “But… I … you…”
“It’s normal.” Her smile grew into a semi-embarrassed grin and she licked her lips. Was it in anticipation of something? “We’ve even been known to make love midair.”
Making love, huh? Maybe he just needed more exposure to happiness and making love to Lois … “Happy thoughts and fairy dust,” he murmured, kissing down her neck.
“Pixie dust,” Lois corrected him.
Kal froze. She had heard him.
“Well, we
could experiment and see what happens,” said Lois, grabbing his hand and walking over to the windows.
Experimenting? Ooooh. That sounded good. Kal smiled as that fantasy of strawberries, chocolate sauce, and Lois flashed across his mind. He definitely had ideas about that. Kal had had a couple of new memories that afternoon he was willing to barter for intimacy. He wondered if they would be enough collateral for that fantasy.
“Or we could tackle the problem head on,” Lois continued, opening the door next to them and pushing him out onto the patio. She leaned over the railing and viewed what was below them. “An alley, good.”
“Good?” He gulped. “Was that ‘good’ as in nobody will see me fly? Or ‘good’ as in nobody will see me fall?”
“You won’t fall, Clark,” she said, patting him on the back. “You know you’re Superman, right?”
He nodded.
Lois patted the cement railing. “Up, up and away, cowboy.”
Kal raised an eyebrow. “Cowboy?”
She waved the name out of the air. “An old nickname.”
“Do I even know how to ride a horse, Lois?” he asked.
“No idea, but something we can easily remedy.” She grinned.
Lois was definitely a ‘brush the dirt off your pants and get back on the bicycle’ type of woman. It would be incredibly sexy if she wasn’t trying to make him fall off of this balcony.
She grabbed his biceps, looked him straight in the eyes, and told him, “You can do this.”
And he believed her. If she believed he could fly, he could do it. He
had done it once before.
Kal handed her his glasses and started to pull open his shirt; her hand stopped him.
“You don’t need the suit to fly. Come on. Up on the railing with you.”
He cleared his throat as he stepped up. Nervously he looked down to the alley below. “I don’t know about this, Lois…”
She grabbed his wrist and asked one last question. “Still invulnerable?”
He winked. “I’m not allowed to die, Lois.”
She smiled at him and let go of his wrist. “You’ve got that right, buster.”
Kal took a deep breath and looked up into the blue, cloud streaked sky. He raised a fist into the air, as he had seen in those photos of himself in the paper, and thought,
Sky. A moment later he was above the city. Kal pumped his fist in triumph. He had done it!
Wait! Had Lois said that he wasn’t allowed to die? She
had married him for his invulnerability, just like Lucy had suspected. With this realization, he started to fall straight down.
“Nooooooooooo!” he called, his arms and legs flailing before he hit the garbage cans in the alley with a crash.
“
Clark!” he heard her call from above him.
He waved feebly from a pile of dented cans. Kal didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to get up. He still couldn’t fly. He was pathetic.
With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. Today had been one complete failure. His memories still weren’t returning as he hoped. He had insulted his wife and walked out on her. He had gotten to the robbery too late. He had made Lois angry by talking to Linda King. And then again when he had called Lois at the office as Kal. He had learned that he had once called Lois a whore. He had picked the worst apartment in all of Metropolis to show to his wife. He had messed up while trying to fly. And to top it all off, he had discovered that Lois had married him because he couldn’t die. This had been the worst day ever.
Lois rounded the corner of the alley breathless as if she had run all the way from the apartment. “Clark! Are you all right?” she asked, flinging herself against his chest.
“I’m fine,” Kal replied tersely, wanting to step out of her embrace. “Invulnerable, remember?” He didn’t like the coldness in his tone, but all of his happy thoughts were gone.
“I’m so sorry, Clark. I shouldn’t have pushed you. It was way too soon. Please, forgive me.” Lois held tightly on to him and the ice in his veins soon melted into mush.
“Why did you want to marry me, Lois?” he asked. “What is so wonderful about Clark that after all the horrible things I’ve said and done, you can still want this wretched, disgraceful man?”
“Don’t say that!” she scolded. “I love you. When you aren’t the biggest, most pigheaded jealous fool in the universe, Clark, you can be gentle and funny and loving. You are so sweet that you care to take my thoughts and wishes into account when making decisions. So thoughtful that you reheat my morning coffee without me asking after it’s gone cold because you distracted me with hot kisses,” she said, turning his face towards her to place a soft kiss on his lips.
It felt like coming home.
“You are so forgiving, it could almost be considered a fault,” Lois went on with a wink, so he knew she didn’t. She placed his glasses back on his face. “When Claude was spouting lies about me, you refused to believe them. You love me more than anyone has ever loved me in my life. You make me feel that I’m worth loving. You always look for the good in people…”
As Lois continued gushing about Clark’s virtues, pictures of the two of them filled his head. All of them memories. Sweet, wonderful, emotional, sensory-filled memories, but the speed of their recovery made them as clear as pea soup. A smile on Clark’s face grew and grew as she continued to list all the things she loved about him.
Lois stopped speaking and stared at him. “Are you remembering something?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’m remembering how long it’s been since I properly kissed my wife,” he replied, dipping her for intense kiss. He was going to make her regret putting intimacy on hold for his memories.
Eventually, he pulled her back up and set her fully on her feet. Her knees weakened and he had to grab her again so she wouldn’t fall.
“Whoa, Clark,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Where did that come from?”
He smiled mischievously, shrugged, and then pulled her back for another kiss. “So, how many memories do I need to trade you for a night of passion?” He bounced his eyebrows.
Lois swatted his chest. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“No?” He pouted before nuzzling her neck. “Because I was thinking we could stop by the store. I’ve been craving sundaes all day.”
“Sundaes?” she repeated, and then her smile exploded in size as if she knew what he was talking about. “You mean like strawberries, melted chocolate, and whipped cream?” She licked her lips.
Had that been a mutual fantasy that they had discussed? “Yeah? How did…?”
“Honey, that’s not a fantasy…” Lois beamed. “That is definitely a memory.”
His jaw dropped. “You mean, you and I…?” He swallowed as the image… the memory flashed across his mind again. “That was real?”
She nodded. “The pasta, also a memory.”
Clark kissed her again, his tongue dancing with hers. Oh, how in the world had he forgotten how delirious this woman’s kisses made him? “What about the bath? And the shower?” he asked between kisses.
“Yes and yes,” she also said between kisses.
If all those fantasies had been real? Had been memories? “How about the cave?” he dared. That
couldn’t have been a memory.
“Oh, yeah. Completely unforgettable.” Lois moaned just from the thought of it. “That was the night you returned to Niagara from your first Nightfall mission.”
Clark swallowed. Nightfall? As in the first time he had fully joined her in his aura? No wonder it was such a strong memory. No surprise it had been that memory that popped into his head when he had kissed Lois by the pool yesterday afternoon. He kissed her again. The more he kissed her, the more the mess of memories in his head straightened into coherent thoughts.
He now knew what heaven felt like. Kissing this woman and remembering all the other kisses at the same time.
“Clark, I love you…” Lois murmured. He could feel her body reacting positively to his stimuli. She didn’t seem to be heeding her earlier request to refrain from intimacy as he kissed down her neck.
“I love you, too, Lois,” he replied. He knew for certain that she loved him. How could he have forgotten that?
“… But I don’t want to join the mile-high club,” she finished. “At least, not over Metropolis.”
The
what? Her words slapped him across the face. Huh? Clark opened his eyes and realized – as she must have already – that they were floating over the city. He laughed.
“Happy thoughts and pixie dust?” Lois asked with a twinkle in her eye.
He grinned. “Happy thoughts and memories.” The way his memories were floating around in his head at the moment they might as well be fairy dust.
Lois smiled along with him.
“I’m so sorry, Lois. I can’t believe what an idiot I’ve been. I’ve done nothing but torture you for last twenty-four hours. Please know that I never meant…” he started rambling before her mouth covered his.
“Welcome back, Clark,” Lois said with bubbling merriment, kissing all over his face.
“Welcome…? How did you…?”
“No one apologizes just like you,” she replied. “You want to get out of here before we get spotted by a passing plane?”
“Yeah. I need to make love to… oh, darn!” Clark groaned.
“What? Someone calling to your super side?” Lois sounded as dejected as he felt.
“No.” He sighed as he landed them quickly and quietly onto the Clinton Street apartment’s patio. “We have to replace the futon mattress I threw out.”
Lois ran a finger down his chest in a zigzag pattern. She bit her bottom lip and smiled seductively at him. “What would you say if I said I have a surprise for you?”
“Surprise?” Clark led her back into the debris-filled apartment. “What? As in reminding me we can make love anywhere? That we don’t need a mattress?” he asked as he wrapped his arm around her waist.
Her pulse and breathing quickened as their mouths joined again. He took that as a ‘yes’ and started to unbutton her blouse.
“Clark!” she gasped. Again, he took this as a ‘yes.’
He lifted her bottom up so that their hips met and leaned her against the wall.
“Clark!” Lois’s voice cracked this time. Her hands unbuttoned his flannel shirt only to find his suit underneath. “Too many layers… let’s go home,” she murmured as her fingers danced across his ‘S’.
“How about a quickie first?” Clark suggested as his self-control diminished with every movement of her hand. “I can undress in less than a second, if that’s worrying you.”
Lois glanced around the room and sneered. “Here?”
“Wait here.”
***
Tentatively, Lois held her blouse together with one hand as she tried to control her raging ardor by catching her breath.
Wait? Why is this man always making you wait?A cloud of dust descended from the loft.
What is he doing?A moment later, Clark dropped in front of her. “May I give you a lift?”
Lois smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you sure, Clark? Floyd could walk in any minute.”
He grinned. “I locked the door. And I’ll hear him if he uses the key.” They floated upwards to the loft.
He had removed the piles of newspapers, empty paint cans, and dust. The small room seemed to sparkle in comparison to the rest of the apartment. Clark leaned her against the wall and started kissing her again.
“Clark!” she moaned more than spoke. She had to get this word out. “Condom?”
He held up a little square foil wrapped package.
“Where?”
“After that night at my folks’ apartment when we had forgotten to bring the condoms along, I started keeping one in my wallet,” he replied. “I found it this morning, when I bought a copy of the Daily Planet.”
“Clark,” Lois whispered between kisses. She really didn’t want to lie down on this hard floor. “I’ve got a mattress in the car.”
He moved his head back far enough to grin roguishly at her. “Later.”
Here they were making love in public. Again. They could be caught at any moment. It was dangerous. It was thrilling. Her body hummed with excitement.
Thank God he found his memories.***
They panted in silence, trying to catch their breaths.
“Clark?”
“Hmmm,” he replied, his head resting against hers, but his brain probably unable to form words yet.
“How did we ever survive without this?” she asked rhetorically. Her fingers straightened his locks. “If I knew what you could do to my body… that I could ever feel like this… I would have knocked down those boxes and pushed you into that freight elevator the first moment you smiled at me the day we met.”
“That would have been surprising.” He chuckled. “And probably not unwelcome.”
“How are we going to work together? Side by side? Day in and day out? With me not able to go without an hour without making love to you?”
“We’ll manage,” he murmured with a slight break in his voice.
“I’ll have to wear skirts more often,” she determined aloud with a nod of her head.
“Skirts?”
I don’t think Clark’s brain is at one hundred percent yet.“This is much easier if I’m not wearing pants,” she explained the obvious. “Especially if someone could walk in at any moment. I could just pull the skirt back down…”
Clark gulped. “Better make that every half-hour, then.”
“Clark?”
“Yes, Lois?”
“You are going to want us to move in here, aren’t you? Now that we’ve christened the place?” she asked softly.
He smiled. “I must admit the apartment is growing on me. I did get my memories back here.”
“Actually…” Lois giggled. “If you want to live where you got your memories back, I’m sure we could get a nice cardboard box for the alley.”
Say what?Clark pressed his lips together with a raised brow. “Ha-ha.”
Lois looked over his shoulder at the loft. “You know, Clark, this area would make the worst baby room ever, don’t you? The spiral staircase. Please! That big drop to the floor down below. And if we put the crib down there and we slept up here, you’d be in charge of getting the baby in the middle of the night so I don’t fall off the edge to my death in my sleep.”
Lois, shut up!Her husband swallowed, but didn’t say anything.
“And if I’m pregnant, there is no way I could navigate that stairwell, especially with a huge belly,” Lois continued with a kiss to his cheek. “But, on the other hand, it would either make a great guest room, storage room, or office.”
“I love you.” Clark pressed a kiss to her lips. “No matter what.”
Great. You’ve succeeded in ruining the mood, Lois’s inner voice grumbled.
Thanks.Lois caressed her husband’s face. “And I love you. Let’s go home.”
He nodded.
“So, we’ll think about the apartment?” he asked her. “I could put down the security deposit. I got… Darn!”
Lois raised a brow and waited.
“When I withdrew the money from my checking account this afternoon for the security deposit, I didn’t have my memory. I completely forgot that I need to help my folks pay for the rent on the café,” he told her. His shoulders slouched.
She fastened her pants. “Do you want it that badly? Floyd said we could have the weekend to think about it.”
He rolled his eyes. “We’ll be lucky if this place isn’t gone by the morning.”
Lois took another look around the dump.
This place could be gone by morning? True, the bone structure of the apartment might make it a place worth living in, once it was cleaned up, but the neighborhood didn’t look that great. She cupped his jaw with her palm. “We’ll take the weekend to think about it. If it’s gone on Monday, it wasn’t meant to be. If it’s still available, we’ll find the funds somehow. I’ve got a little left from the wedding money my father gave me.” She dusted off her pants as he flew off the loft and returned less than a minute later, a plastic Daily Books bag hooked over his wrist. She gazed at him questioningly.
“I put the suit back on,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to carry it out or leave it in the car when we stopped for groceries.”
She nodded and slipped on her shoes.
What was he doing at Daily Books?Clark scooped her up into his arms. As he flew them back downstairs to the main room of the apartment, he started howling with laughter.
Her brow furrowed.
What’s so funny?Clark waved his laughter out of the air. “Batman.” He shook his head as tears of amusement came to his eyes. “A superhero who doesn’t fly.” He continued to chuckle.
*** End of Part 17 *** Part 18G Comments
