Clark and Lois The Lost Years Matchmaker Chronicles Vol 3 16/46
By Ken Janney
This version is rated PG-13
* denotes emphasis *
< denotes thoughts >
[ playback of a recording or TV Commentary] / telepathic communications /
(#) footnotes
As always comments are welcome. (ken.janney@kjanney.com)
Reminder:
Universal Locator Designation
Alpha 023 x Gamma 004 x Tau -120 - Canon Lois and Clark universe also called – Prime
Alpha 023 x Gamma 025 x Tau 036 – Canon Alt Clark universe also called – Alt 1
Previously –
Now that she had decided what she was going to do, she removed her shorts and top. Deciding that she really needed to put on the suits to do a proper evaluation she also removed her bra Now that she had decided what she was going to do, she removed her shorts and top. Deciding that she really needed to put on the suits to do a proper evaluation she also removed her bra and panties. She had been wearing the Speedo previously and putting it back on she looked at herself in it very critically, turning around to see it from all sides before deciding that it wasn’t quite right. It didn’t give the right effect. <No. I don’t think so. This is not the right suit. Besides, he’s already seen me in it.> Next she changed into her brown two piece. This one had metal rings which joined the bottoms at both sides and the top in front between her breasts. All things considered it was a rather modest swim suit and she knew that it showed off her figure to good advantage, but it still wouldn’t convey the right message.
Since she had been gone so long, Charlie was growing concerned so he took a quick furtive glance through the boat to Lois’ cabin to see how she was doing and quickly shut down his vision when he saw her in a brown bikini in front of the mirror. Oh, he was in trouble. His resistance was crumbling.
She looked at another two piece suit but could tell that it wouldn’t do either. There were two more to go. If neither of them would do it would have to be the brown two piece suit. The next one was a white two piece with string bikini bottoms but a somewhat more substantial top. That was the closest to what she was looking for so far. When her gaze finally rested on the last suit she just knew that this was the one.
Lois removed the brown suit and picking up the last one held it up to evaluate it.
Putting on the last one she looked at herself critically in the mirror and she was very well satisfied. <This is the suit that should make him or at least some part of him stand up and take notice.> With a very satisfied smile on her face she picked up her sun tan lotion and an oversized towel. <This is it. Just what the doctor ordered. Watch out Charlie, here I come.>
And now –
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Chapter 16 – Lois’ Sun Bath
May 9, 1992
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When Lois appeared on deck again she was wearing a hot pink string bikini and carrying the oversized towel. Spreading the towel on the roof of the cabin right in front of Charlie she lay down to sun bathe. Making sure that she was *directly* in front of Charlie and that he had an unobstructed view was her objective.
When Lois had first emerged from the cabin she was holding the towel in such a way that all Charlie could really see were bare shoulders and legs. But when she moved to climb on top of the cabin and he saw for the first time exactly what she was wearing, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was gorgeous! He could feel his heart racing. Her body was perfection! His breath was coming in ragged gasps. The way she moved! The way her breasts moved inside the small confines of her top! He could feel his manhood starting to harden. The lithe grace. He could feel himself starting to sweat. He had been in a similar state with Colette at lunch that day but this was more so, this was Lois, *his* Lois.
Lois could almost literally feel his eyes on her the entire time, right from the point when she came out of the cabin. She liked having him look at her. It made her feel really beautiful and *very* sexy with him looking at her like that. A quick glance out of the side of her eyes told her that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. The very obvious bulge in his jeans was a testament to the effect she was having on him and was quite gratifying. To know that she could do that to him reinforced her femininity and sexuality very strongly.
Charlie was having a hard time believing the messages his eyes were sending to his brain. It was too good to be true. <Oh … My … God, she’s going to lay down right in front of me!> He could feel his body’s unbidden response and was wondering how he would be able to get through this. <Hold it together Kent! She has to be teasing me. It reminds me of what Suzanne and Colette were doing. Is she trying to seduce me? That’s not something that Lois would do. But, if she is, I’m willing, but is she testing me? Do I make a play for her or not? No, play it straight. You’re interested but you want more than a fling.>
After spreading out the towel she sat on it and applied her sun tan lotion to her arms, legs, face and torso before she lay down. After about half an hour she felt that she needed to turn over. Under that equatorial sun she was rare and didn’t want to become well done. She called to him “Charlie, I want to turn over and get some sun on my back. Would you be a dear and apply my lotion to my back for me?”
“I’ll be right there!” Tying off the wheel he eagerly moved to comply, but when he actually moved to the roof of the cabin and knelt beside her to perform this task he became aware of some trepidation. When he knelt beside her, she handed him the bottle of lotion and then reached back and untied the strings holding her top in place.
That simple action made Charlie freeze. Just the thought that if she moved she would be exposed almost drove him over the edge. When she finally spoke he snapped out of his daze “Well, Charlie, aren’t you going to put the lotion on me?”
“Yeah, yes, yes of course.” Charlie finally stammered, his thoughts snapping back to what he was supposed to be doing. He uncapped the bottle and poured some of the lotion on his hands. Right then what he was about to do really hit him. He was about to have the most intimate contact with Lois of their entire relationship. He was about to have his hands all over her nearly naked body. All he could do was look at his hands and contemplate the possible consequences of what was about to transpire. There were so many possible outcomes his hands started to shake.
Lois, oblivious to his dilemma, simply said “Charlie? The lotion?”
Snapping out of his reverie, he moved his hands to her back. When he started to spread the lotion on her back he was startled by the strength of the tingle that he felt every time his skin touched hers. It was so strong that it felt like it was traveling up his arms.
When she had asked him to apply the lotion she was testing him some more. At the very first contact she felt that familiar tingle but it was so much stronger she was startled and almost sat up. Just the thought of doing that with her top undone sent a blush to her face.
Charlie knew the significance of that tingle and reveled in the feel of it. Even beyond that though there was the feel of her skin and he marveled at the feel. <Her skin is so silky smooth, so soft to the touch … I love the feel of it. I could do this forever.> His hands moved very slowly as he spread the lotion. His Lois, his hands were on *her* skin.
Once she got used to that tingling she realized that as Charlie was applying the lotion she could almost feel the reverence in his touch. It was like with his touch he was worshiping her and it made her feel *very* special.
Thinking about how it would feel to have her hands on him, he got a silly grin on his face.
Charlie made sure that all of the exposed skin of her back and legs had been covered with her lotion. Before he proceeded any further he asked her if she wanted him to do her hips and bottom.
Startled, Lois agreed easily. “Sure, I need all my skin protected.” He proceeded to apply lotion to the rest of her body and loved stroking her legs. When he was doing her legs, his long strokes from her ankles to the top of her thighs were very sensual and when his fingers came in contact with the sensitive inner thigh area just below her bottom, her body responded to his touch instinctually by moving her legs apart. She felt an immediate surge of desire and actually wished for more contact. A very low moan started in the back of her throat unbidden.
With his superhearing he heard her heart rate kick up sharply as she released a very low moan with this contact, almost like a kitten’s purr. Only someone with his superhearing could have perceived it. His super sense of smell also picked up a spicy tang in the air. His hands went to the exposed portions of her hips and bottom and he started stroking those areas to apply the lotion. As he was doing this her hips started moving and she started to moan even louder. His hands returned to the sensitive inner area of her thighs. Unconsciously her legs spread even further in invitation.
Lois’ breathing was getting heavier as her moans increased which nearly undid his resolve to keep this fraternal. He realized that he was treading a very thin line. This was coming awfully close to a petting session and he was unsure of how she would respond. Thinking that the best course was to try to cool things off he moved his hands to her back and shoulders. Truth be told he had found himself responding to her arousal and if he hadn’t cooled himself off as well as her he might just have done something that he would have regretted later.
Again his hands moved down to her ankles and feet. As he massaged her feet, again he heard her moan in pleasure, this time he had to give himself a stern talking to. <Keep it cool! Don’t blow it now! You want a lasting relationship with this woman. If you go too fast you could scare her off. She likes what you are doing. She is deriving a lot of pleasure from your ministrations. Leave it there. Give her all the pleasure she can take. Yours will come later. Just enjoy giving her pleasure. Right now this is all about her.>
Disappointed when he was finally finished with this task, because he had been enjoying the feel of her so much, Charlie reluctantly stood up. As he wiped his hands off he admired his handiwork, her lotion slick body, and hoped that this wouldn’t be the only time that she would do this.
When he had been massaging her hips, bottom and upper thighs she had to fight off the intense desire to roll over, top or no top, and pull him down on top of her. She was so aroused that she almost felt like ripping his clothes off of him and ravishing him on the spot. But then suddenly Charlie had finished his chore and had removed his hands from her body. Her disappointment was almost tangible.
Lois quickly came to a decision. <I’m **definitely** doing this as often as I can. I can’t believe how his touch makes me feel. It’s almost like what love would feel like if that feeling was tangible. I love the feel of his hands on my skin. Even if the only reason is to have his hands on me this way I’m going to do this every day. I love it, and, most importantly, he is *not* trying to take advantage. This is the first time I have even tried to tempt him and he has shown me that he *is* a gentleman. All this time that we’ve been together, we’ve done a lot of talking and a little cuddling but he hasn’t tried to push me into anything that I wasn’t ready for. He actually has been letting me set the pace. I’m pretty well convinced that he doesn’t just want a fling, he wants something more permanent but, am I ready for that? Well, I just may be.>
<Did I really think that? After what has happened to me in the past, all the failed relationships, the barriers that I erected to prevent just this kind of thing. To even be thinking this way. How did I get to this point? What happened to those barriers? It’s like he has undermined them until they have collapsed of their own weight like the walls of Jericho. He is now storming the city, my heart. In the biblical story the city was laid waste, is he going to do that to my heart? If I offer it up will he trample it underfoot? No, I’m certain that he would not. He is too honorable to do anything like that to me.>
Even with the suntan lotion, it wasn’t too long under that equatorial sun until Lois began to pink up so reluctantly she started to retire to her cabin to get dressed. As she was passing Charlie on her way to the cabin she heard him sigh so she changed course and walked over to him. He was standing at the wheel as she reached up with her free hand and placed it behind his head, laced her fingers through his hair and pulled his face down to hers for a kiss. After a time, apparently out of the blue, she released him and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But, for what? Applying the lotion? It was *my* pleasure!”
She replied, “I *know* it was. It was for *me* too. I was thanking you for being just the person I thought you were.”
“Huh?”
She looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Charlie, you’re a gentleman and not one who is going to take advantage of me. I had a bet with myself that you *would* be and I’m very happy that I won.”
Linda reappeared on deck after a short time in jeans and a top with a book in hand. She pulled one of the deck chairs over near the wheel so that she could be closer to Charlie, sat down and began to read. She said, “I hope you don’t mind if I read for a bit.”
Charlie got a glimpse of the title and quipped, “Romance novels?”
“Don’t tell anyone else, okay. It’ll be just our secret. Someday I hope to write one of my own, in fact I’ve started it, I just haven’t gotten very far.”
“I would think that ‘adventure’ would be more up your alley.” Charlie remarked casually. As soon as he said it he knew it was a mistake. The look on her face confirmed his mistake. He tried to cover up, “I mean, you lead such an exciting life as an investigative reporter that’s more in the lines of adventure.”
The attempt at cover-up hadn’t worked. It had only dug the hole he was in deeper. She was fuming, “Are you saying that I can’t write a romance novel because I have no experience in romance?”
“No, by no means! I’m just saying that you should write about the things you know.” That last word was barely out of his mouth when he realized that he had made things much worse. “Ooops, that didn’t come out exactly the way I meant it.”
With barely controlled anger in her voice she said, “Just *how* did you mean it?”
By this time he was desperate to get back in her good graces. He tried again. “I meant that I’m sure that you could write a fantastic story whether it is romance novel or any other type of novel. I think you would be equally good at writing an adventure novel because you lead such an exciting life. Just look at what we are doing now, if you wrote this up as a novel, I’d read it.”
This had the ring of sincerity to it and thinking about the sun bathing session she had just had and how much pleasure he had given her she decided forgive him.
Later that first day it was just under three hours until they sighted the flotilla in front of them and they maintained their speed as they cruised past. After another fifty kilometers upstream they anchored again. Charlie expected the flotilla to reach their vicinity sometime around 5:00 PM and he planned to follow and see where they anchored for the night. Charlie prepared their dinner which they took up on deck to eat. Right on schedule, as they were eating, the flotilla passed them and continued on its way. Charlie allowed them to get out of sight before upping anchor to follow. This time they proceeded at about 10 knots. When they next spotted the riverboats it was about 6:00 PM and they were already anchored in the middle of the stream and tied up bulwark to bulwark.
Charlie calculated that they had covered about one hundred seventy kilometers in one day. At that pace it would take about a week to reach the pier north of Dongou. They passed them and continued some kilometers upriver before they in turn anchored for the night. Charlie estimated that they would have at least a couple of hours after they got up before the flotilla would pass them again. If they got under way early enough they might stay ahead of them most of the day but, at some point they would need to anchor for a while to allow them to pass again.
The next morning, Charlie woke to a sound on the roof of the Unbutu’s cabin. Were guerillas storming the boat? No, the sound was too soft. Not moving so as to remain quiet, Charlie used his x-ray vision through the ceiling of his cabin and almost had a heart attack right then. His vision revealed Lois wearing a brown bikini doing Tai Chi Chuan as the sun rose over the river. Slapping his hands over his eyes like a small boy, he shut down his eyesight. The last image in his brain was Lois performing the twenty-four move simplified Beijing ‘new style’. The slow motion martial arts moves being practiced while she wore the bikini were extremely enticing and tantalizing. He muttered, “I’m dead on this trip. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold out. I’m dead, dead, dead. Between this and that sun bath yesterday …” <Well, now at least I know how she stays so limber and fit.>
Later that day Linda made Charlie very happy that he had stood by his principles. Since he had, he had lived up to her expectations. As a side benefit he was *very* happy to find that there was a repeat of the sunbath and it was repeated every day of their voyage. Charlie started tying off the wheel and lying with her for a while after applying the lotion when conditions allowed.
Lois decided that turnabout was fair play and the next time, since she knew that he would be laying there beside her for a while she insisted on applying lotion to his exposed arms and face before he worked on her back. They would spend the time talking and enjoying being together. He never seemed to run out of stories about his travels and the people he had met during them.
Charlie took it upon himself to re-tie her top for her when it was time for her to go change. The first time he did this she rolled over on her side facing him and give him a thank you kiss. The second time she pushed him down on his back and half laid on top of him for this kiss with her barely covered breasts in intimate contact with his chest as she did. It was exciting even with his shirt on. Needless to say, Charlie liked the way things were working out.
They were blessed with bright sunny days and no rain for the duration of the voyage, so over the course of the next week they managed to follow the flotilla. Sometimes in front of them and then stopping to allow them to pass before following again. Sometimes as the flotilla came past Charlie and Lois would be playing together in the river. Sometimes they would be sun bathing on the roof of the cabin. They simply appeared to be a young couple on holiday. The seeming innocence of the couple prevented any suspicion being raised in the minds of those in charge of the shipment. Thus, this process was followed, with some variations for the next week.
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May 16, 1992
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When they finally arrived in the vicinity of Dongou they anchored in the river just outside of the marina. Charlie hauled in on the painter and pulled the dingy up alongside, then he helped Lois into the dingy. She reclined in the stern, trailing a hand lazily in the water while he sat amidships and mounted the oars. While relaxed in the stern, she directed Charlie as he pulled on the oars. When they pulled up to a float in the marina Charlie held on while Lois climbed onto the float and tied off a line to a cleat so that the dingy wouldn’t float away. They went to the office of the owner of the marina to arrange for renting a slip. He started speaking with him in French but quickly realized when the owner developed a rather sullen expression that that wasn’t his first language, so he switched to Swahili. The owner brightened up considerably with this because Swahili and Bantu are very closely related languages. While renting the slip Charlie also inquired about hiring someone to watch the Ubuntu at night. The owner of the marina said “My brother-in-law would be willing to watch the boat for a ‘modest’ fee.”
Charlie asked “How modest a fee?”
His reply was “A thousand Francs a night.”
Charlie said “That is a shame. I was only going to offer two hundred.”
“But, he couldn’t do it for less than seven hundred and fifty.”
“I might have come up to three hundred.”
“He might consider five hundred.”
“I think five hundred would be acceptable. I will guarantee two weeks and he can start tomorrow night.” Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He counted out the appropriate number of franc notes and then added one more. “Here is his fee in advance for two weeks and five hundred francs for your trouble. If we are longer than two weeks we’ll pay the balance when we return.”
With a very happy grin on his face the marina owner rolled up the bills and placing them in his pocket said, “You can count on my brother-in-law. It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”
Before Lois and Charlie returned in the dingy to the Ubuntu they went to one of the local eateries and had a meal. This gave Charlie a break from cooking and gave them more time to talk without the distraction of working at meal preparation.
Lois, for a change, had been telling one of her tales of getting and important story. Wrapped in her tale, she at first didn’t notice Charlie’s expression as he looked across the table. When she really looked at him, she realized the best description of his expression was ‘besotted’. She realized,<So he really does enjoy my company, like me, or dare I think, love me. This could be a good relationship.>
After their meal they returned to the Ubuntu and weighing the anchor pulled her into the slip and put out the spring lines and bumpers.
They still spent the night on board. Before retiring to their respective cabins they spent some time cuddling. Clark noticed Lois was wearing her wedding band. She really didn’t need to when they were alone. Hope sprung in his heart at that small gesture.
comments go here To be continued in Chapter 17 – Time to Start Hiking
