Almost Lois (Chapter Twenty-Seven)

He waited, hovering above her roof. The street was lined with elms. No one could see him, but he had a clear view through the trees. It would be tonight. He'd tell her everything. He'd give her the exclusive. As much as he still disagreed with Grady, he was right about one thing. Clark did want to live his life in the open, at least the half he could.

Superman could reveal those things Clark never could. Superman could, hopefully, keep the trust of Metropolis. If he couldn't, well... he'd still help. Mistrust of the majority didn't stop Green Arrow from doing what he could. Being considered a freak didn't turn Victor against people. To be cautious, though, there were a few things he would not reveal.

He would not share his weakness. Much of the criminal element of Metropolis had been silent lately. He knew they were planning. The knowledge of kryptonite would be their biggest coup. They didn't need to know about it. He'd prefer they think he had no weaknesses. He'd heard whispers of Intergang reforming. The fall of Morgan Edge years ago had brought an end to half the crime in the city. These thugs were petty and nearly harmless split up. But they could gain strength in numbers. If it came to it, he'd fight them all.

He was tired of hovering. He sat on the edge of the roof, letting his boots dangle above the trees. They were new. He very nearly liked them. His mother had found a pair of white pleather boots and dyed them deep red. They were easier. He could slip them on. She'd even sewn a small pocket inside one boot. That helped, too. He could keep his key there, his wallet if he needed it. Still, changes were a hassle. He'd begun to wear the outfit under his suits, It was easier just to strip the suit and tie off in the supply closet, on the roof of some building, once in a phone booth. That had been his least favorite.

He wished there was a way to just strip mid-flight. He'd actually tried it once, but had lost his dress shoes. He'd had to go back to his apartment and find something else. The something else had, unfortunately, been sneakers. Lois had noticed that. "Clark, if you want to make it in this business, you need to start dressing the part." It was as if she thought he wore sneakers with a suit every day. "It's bad enough that you're constantly running off on these breaks..."

Murray had promised to help him with some of those daily headaches. He was apparently working on something. He was anxiously waiting for the day he'd call. Clark knew his life would never be easy, but he'd settle for easier...

He saw her then, getting out of one of the many cabs busy professionals were exiting along the tree-lined street. He wanted to make his move before she went in. He really didn't want to knock on her window like some peeping tom. He jumped down and softened his landing at the side of the outside steps. He'd been here before. Clark had waited in the shadows here in a suit with a corsage. She was walking up the steps as he stepped out. "Lois?"

He had this momentary fear she'd turn around again and pull out mace and look at him like he was a creep. But she didn't. She turned slowly, her eyes wide. "Oh, my... Hi! Wow... uh... it's you!"

"Yes. Me."

She suddenly ran a hand over her hair and pulled at her suit jacket. "I wasn't expecting... I mean, I didn't even know you knew where I lived..." She tilted her head. "Um... How do you know where I live?"

This was tricky. Her number was unlisted, her address was not exactly easy to find. It was probably a part of the precautions she'd taken after Star City. But he saw her face. It was surprised and pleased and he doubted she'd give Superman half the guff she'd give Clark. "I've flown over and seen you sometimes."

"Oh. And you uh..." She shrugged. "You didn't really stop and say hi. You know, because you did promise me that interview and I was wondering when..."

"I've been busy," he said quickly. "I really have been wanting to get to you... get back to you," he corrected slowly. "And... Well, here I am."

"Now?" She looked around her. He did, too. Many of the people on the street were going about their business a little slowly. The rest were openly staring. She smiled and turned to the door. "Sure. Yeah. We could..."

"No," he cut in. If he was seen entering a woman's apartment... Well, it wouldn't be right. "Maybe we should just schedule a time when..." Her face had fallen. He couldn't disappoint her. "Maybe just... not here. We could go somewhere more... appropriate."

She smiled widely. "Great. Uh... There's this cafe. I've had some interviews there and..."

A cafe might be worse. Superman had never actually gone to a restaurant. He had once picked up a bagel and some coffee when he was in a hurry one morning. The cashier had been surprised, but pleased. He noticed that the place was proclaiming that Superman was there. He hoped they didn't start using it to endorse their store. He'd had some offers, but he wouldn't take them. More people had put themselves in jeopardy just to talk to him. It was silly and dangerous. This article could clear up his views on that.

He suddenly held out his hand to Lois. He deepened his voice. He always deepened his voice. Clark Kent was still a nonentity in Metropolis, but he couldn't risk anyone noticing. "We should just find somewhere private."

Her mouth seemed to be stuck. "Uh... Oh..."

"I wouldn't want our interview to be interrupted."

She suddenly laughed. "Yeah. Um... Me neither..." She stared at his hand, then back at his face.

He kept it held out. "Are you afraid of heights?"

She blinked. "I'm not sure." She took a shaky breath and took his hand. He pulled her forward and placed an arm around her waist, letting the other settle around her shoulders. He hadn't been this close to her in so long. Even the nights that followed his return from the fortress, there hadn't been this closeness. And there definitely hadn't been this trust in her eyes.

"Hold on to me," he said in a choked voice.

******************************

It was more than she'd ever dreamed of. She was floating upward, her arms around his neck. It felt strange, yet somehow familiar. Perhaps she'd been dreaming of this moment. Her dreams were the strangest things. There was a shout below.

"Woo-hoo! Yeah, Superman! Get some!"

She found herself laughing and she removed a hand from his shoulders to secure her purse. "I hate teenagers."

He'd been looking up, but he glanced down at her now, a small smile on his lips. He had the loveliest lips. She wouldn't tell him that, not only because most men wouldn't enjoy the adjective lovely in connection with them, but because she didn't want her schoolgirl crush to be any more obvious.

"Where are we going?" she asked, gripping him a little tighter as they rose. The trees were far below them now.

His grip didn't falter. "I don't know."

"I don't know, either. I've never had this method of travel at my disposal before."

He smiled. "Where have you always dreamed of having an interview?"

"The White House?"

He laughed. "I probably can't deliver that one. I don't exactly know the president."

"You will," she said confidently. "I think everyone and their grandmother is dying to meet you."

"I guess that's why the interview seemed like a good idea." He suddenly looked east. "I got it. Hold on."

She couldn't think of a better thing to do. His grip stayed strong as they picked up speed. She gasped as she felt their bodies turn slowly horizontal as they moved. They flew. Her feet dangled and her purse hung from the hand that was on his shoulder. But as they flew higher, faster, she felt them pick up.

He glanced over at her. "Do you trust me?"

"I do," she said, not even surprised to hear the words leave her mouth. He took her right hand and removed it from his shoulder. The purse hung down and she gripped it tight, her hand shaking. She felt like she might fall, but then the speed picked up. It was the strangest thing. She felt like there was weight beneath her, like the autumn wind had a density. It was like speeding along the highway, letting your hand hang out the window until the wind felt like a solid thing that pushed you backward. Except it wasn't pushing. It seemed to coax and cajole her higher. She laughed and turned to him.

He smiled as he placed one hand on her stomach, letting the other slide from her waist, over her back, and to her left arm. He held onto it as the hand left her stomach. "You okay?"

Her eyes were wide, she'd smile if she could unfreeze her face. "Better than okay."

He smiled almost sadly and she couldn't take time to wonder why. His hand slipped down her arm to her hand and he gripped it.

"Oh, my God!" At this moment, she felt as if she was flying nearly separate. The wind seemed to cushion her, his hand seemed almost unuecessary, but she gripped it back. This physical contact with him was as thrilling as it was necessary as city lights and quilts of farmland rushed by beneath breaks in the clouds.

She recognized the skyline from movies and pictures. New York. She laughed. She'd been there once on a class trip. It had been second grade and she'd lived in... Metropolis? That couldn't be right.

"Almost there." He pulled her in again and she settled her arms around his neck. She saw them approaching a tall, triangular building.

She giggled. "The Flatiron building?"

"Empire State might be too crowded and I... Well, I thought it should be somewhere kind of... cool."

She laughed again as they touched down. "It is cool." She liked the way it plowed through the traffic like some strange ship. She stepped away, looking at the city around her. There were taller buildings and lights like pinpricks all around. She looked back at him and he was silent, looking out as well. She suddenly felt like a preteen on an awkward first date. Though this wasn't a date. Not at all. It was an...

Her stomach growled and she groaned. What a way to ruin the mood?

He turned to her. "Are you hungry?"

"Y-you heard that," she stammered.

"It's just... something I can do." He looked away, then back at her. He seemed almost nervous. That couldn't be right. She was the one who should be nervous. She'd just taken a cross-states flight without a plane with a man in such... tight tights.

She kept her eyes resolutely on his face, as if that helped. "I didn't have dinner yet."

He furrowed his brow. "Wait here."

"Okay, I'll..." She trailed of as he was suddenly gone. She looked around. There were gray boxes, probably containing generators or tar buckets. She saw a shed at one end and squinted at it. She was suddenly assaulted with a vision of herself being pushed backwards to it, nearly flown backwards as a man's lips... Strange sort of fantasy. Spending too much time with Superman must have that effect on a girl. She sat on the edge of a dark skylight and waited.

She didn't have to wait long. It was only moments before he was back, a brown box in his hands. "Um... hot dogs."

She smiled. She couldn't help it. It wasn't every girl who ended her day on top of the Flatiron building having hot dogs with Superman. "So... you can hear very well. I mean... a stomach growling on a windy night. Not exactly something your average guy picks up."

"I'm not exactly average." He sat by her and put the hot dogs between them.

She dug in her purse, her mind as hungry as her stomach. "Oh, I don't doubt that."

*****************************

"Krypton?" She moved the tape recorder closer to him and licked a blob of mustard from the corner of her mouth.

He looked away and took a bite. "Yes."

"I've never heard of it."

"It was destroyed," he said quickly. "I'm the only survivor."

"Oh..."

His eyes moved back to her face. She looked indescribably sad.

"You must be so... lonely."

He looked away again. "I have a few friends." He looked back. "I'm sorry I put this interview off. I just... I wasn't sure how much I should say. People might not respond well to where I'm from and..."

"I don't think that," she said firmly. "I think everyone's glad enough you're here." He stared into her eyes. There was so much faith there. But then she'd always believed in this part of him, the part that had a "saving people thing," as she once said. "You're not just a guy who flies around stopping speeding buses and bullets. You're a symbol of hope, of what we all should do." She looked down and smiled. "Even with our limited abilities." She glanced back his way. "But there's one thing that bothers me."

"What?"

"The x-ray vision. Is it like skeletons or..."

"I can see through anything, at any level, really. I just have to concentrate." He wouldn't tell her about lead. It wouldn't do for anyone to think he had a limit, a weakness.

"So if you get nervous and want to try the old Brady Bunch trick..." She giggled. "I mean, you actually could see everyone in their underwear."

He found himself laughing. "I guess."

"Even me?"

He quickly looked at the skyline again. "I... I would't do that to you."

"Even if I..." She trailed off and there was a tense silence, before she suddenly spoke up. "Good. You know. You're obviously a gentleman."

He doubted she'd say that if she remembered. "Um... Thanks." He stood and picked up their trash, putting it in a pile on the roof's surface. He focused his heat vision and stared at it until it was incinerated.

"Cool," she breathed.

"We should probably get back. I mean, you probably have enough to..."

"One more thing." She stood and brought the recorder close to his face. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you do... what you do?"

"I just want to help. I had no home and this planet gave me one."

"But what do you see as the ultimate result of your work here? What do you stand for?"

The reporter in her was staring up at him almost voraciously. And she wasn't going easy. She wanted some perfect answer and he'd just never thought that far ahead. "I guess I... stand for truth." Or he wanted to. If it was possible, he would live all of his life in the open. "Um... Justice." That was true. "And uh... the American Way." Those had been Ollie's words and they'd flown into his head with the rest of their argument. Was he centrist and provincial? It was possible...

"Do you mean that should foreign powers be in danger, you wouldn't..."

"Oh, no... Uh... It's not like that. I guess it's more about wanting people to have simple lives." Unlike mine. "Lives where they can pursue their goals in freedom and safety and... I don't know. Maybe what I do can help that along." He looked away. He'd never been a great orator. words were her talent. Maybe her words could make him sound better than he was. She always made him better than he was.

*******************************

She felt as if she was still on a cloud when she watched him float up through the elms on her street. For an interview, it had been the best date she'd ever had. And maybe a regular girl couldn't interest a guy like him. She closed her eyes and thought of his body. He was all muscle and sinew. She could tell. Those tights hid very little. Was it wrong to lust after a superhero? Was that like lusting after a saint?

As wrong as it was, she indulged in it. When the night around her was quiet, she let her hand slip into her pajama bottoms and indulged. She saw his eyes, the bright flash as he'd incinerated their small pile of trash. She saw it again, but now they burned for her, only her. They covered her body with warmth and she could nearly feel strong hands that ran down her waist to her hips.

She closed her eyes.

The hands stopped at her hips and pulled her forward. She was wearing a small skirt and a tight top.

Not her usual uniform, but okay. She'd go with it. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

"I don't want to do this again. What about her?"

"You don't really care about her." He stroked the skin between her shirt and waistband with one finger. "Not when there's this." He hooked a finger in the waistband and pulled her flush against him, one hand on the small of her back. His eyes flashed red.

His hair was shaggy and fell into his eyes and they were in... a bathroom? And who was this her? She shut her eyes tighter. Whatever her mind wanted, she'd go with it. As long as it kept up. It all felt so real...

"Are you crazy?" She pushed at his chest, but he held on tight. "There are about a hundred people out there and one of them could come in any..."

He walked her backwards and she let herself be pulled along, still against his hips, against his jeans and the bulge that sent shivers from the place it touched on her stomach to echo in answering tremors all over her body. "You don't care about them, either." He leaned his head down as he pulled her backward. "You just want to be fucked," he whispered in her ear.

"I... No... You..." Her protest fled into the night like a scared little girl as his teeth nipped her earlobe. He was right. She didn't care. All that mattered was that her body was coming to life under his hands and his lips. He lifted her high against him and walked them back to a stall. His lips glanced over the front of her neck before settling on her pulse point. He sucked then and she used the hands on his chest to dig in, nails raking over his pecs as he drew back, letting out a deep moan.

"Mmmm. You hope someone comes in. You almost want it to be her. You want her to see me fuck you."

"No," she moaned, but her pulse sped up and the legs that had hung down in front of him opened and climbed over his hips.

He pushed her against the wall of the green stall and her hands left his chest, feeling up the wall to the top, grasping there. He ground his hips against her through his jeans, her thin skirt, the panties that seemed like no barrier to him. She madly wondered if he could screw her right through them. Just rip through as if they were made of mist.

"God, so fucking dirty," he breathed. "You really want to fuck in a bathroom?"

"No," she panted. "I want a silk bed covered in rose petals, you twisted creep." She pushed herself against him and he shuddered, his hands nearly losing their grip on her hips. "You're the one that pulled me in here. Are you suddenly feeling squeamish?"

He half-smiled as his eyes bore into her, flashing red again. "I want you to dump him."

"That's not gonna happen."

One hand held her up as the other moved to his jeans. "It was cute at first. I even let you have him for a little while..."

"Let me?" She watched in heated fascination as his hands brought out his cock.

"You don't belong to him."

"Maybe not." She swallowed hard as he ripped her panties with one quick tug at the side. They slid and hung from one thigh. "But he belongs to me and you can't take him away. I need something good. Something pure. You had that, didn't you? You had your ethereal... Aaah!... princess." He was entering her now, his eyes hard on hers.

"Mmmph!... Just me. Only me."

She squeezed him inside and his head fell against her shoulder. "No. The way I see it, we both have something on the side."

His chest heaved as he raised his head. "I won't move unless you... Unnnhhh!"

She'd squeezed him inside again and he shook. "Then I guess I'll do all the work." She gripped the top of the stall tighter and pushed at him, drawing him deeper. It would get tiring quick, but she knew she wouldn't have to wait long.

She was right.

His hands slipped under her top and gripped her waist as he pushed deep. She let her thighs ride higher as his full strength supported her. The grip on the stall was just a nod to the idea that she had some control.

His mouth fell slack against her neck as his hips snapped back and forth, impaling her every time, bringer her closer to the kind of orgasm they always shared... absolutely, unbeatably mind-numbing.

This was his favorite position. He liked her against the wall, the door, now a stall. He liked the idea that he held her suspended, in his complete control. But it was an illusion. The only reason he had her where he wanted her was because she let him. She could say no. She might even want to someday...

He lifted her higher and she felt him enter even deeper, rising up and she let her harsh breaths turn to tiny moans. It took all of her concentration not to scream. They'd hear it. The crap indie artist outside was whisper-singing his tales of lost love as the idiot girls outside gazed adoringly, wanting to heal his pain. She could nearly see it all. But she was much more interested in what was happening here, in this ladies' room that smelled like bleach and coffee and hints of awful perfume that those idiot girls probably doused themselves with on every trip.

She hooked her feet together behind him and he grunted harshly, biting her shoulder. It was light enough not to break skin, but hard enough to send the message. He'd mark her if he could. He never had yet, but he wanted to.

Her head was nearly over the stall and she let it fall back as he banged away inside her. The angle was hitting her just right and she didn't know if she could control her voice when she did come around him. It was just too good. It was always too good.

She shut her lips tight as her body began convulsing. She heard his grunts grow louder and she used what little brain power she had left to lift her head from it's lolling position. She opened her eyes to see his, hard and desperate and so red now...

She swooped in and captured his mouth, letting him moan into hers instead of into the echoing bathroom. She took his moans, breathed them in, then gave him hers until they leaned against each other, limp and exhausted.

There was sudden applause and she wondered whether the audience had moved on to the better show. She moved her head to the side and opened her eyes as her feet suddenly hit the floor. She stumbled forward. He was gone. The stall door swung on its hinges and she quickly pulled it closed.

"Are you in there?" It was a female voice. It was...

Linda? She squeezed her eyes shut again. Her body had long ago succumbed to this mad fantasy about... adultery? But her mind wasn't done with it. It chased the moment feverishly.

She looked down. Her panties sat around one ankle and she stepped out and bent to retrieve them. "Yeah. I'm in here. Just finishing up." She hurriedly stuffed the panties in the tiny trash bin mounted on the wall.

"Well, you're missing it. Mr. Sensitive is now singing about his dead dog. I can't suffer alone, Chl..."

Her head suddenly went blank as a sharp pain shot out behind her eyes. She sat up, reaching for the aspirin she always kept handy on her nightstand. Grady had told her the headaches must be something physical. She had no time for a physician. Still, she was starting to seriously doubt it. She spent most of her day thinking of others, of the stories they had to tell. But late at night, whenever she thought too hard about herself, the pain came.

"Dwelling on the past only leads to heartache," he always said. His sage words sometimes annoyed her. What was he? Twenty-two? How did he know so much?

"Heartache," she mumbled, gulping the aspirin with some water. "More like a damned headache."


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