FICTION: Questions and Answers, Part 2
Oct. 31st, 2004 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblinlenoreI have stayed in most of the weekend with teen!whore!Lex and morally!challenged!Clark, and they have kept me good company. *g* I said I was going to write more about what happened at Club Zero and here it is.
Title: Questions and Answers
Author: Lenore
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Cross-dressing! Prostitution! Clark trying to figure out what to wear to a night club!
Previous installment of Questions and Answers
Questions and Answers, Part 2
by Lenore
Back in journalism school, one of Clark's professors, a squat little man with a wandering eye, liked to lecture them about focus. "If you're going to be any good in this business," he would say, "you need to have one thing on your mind and one thing only."
Clark goes through his day like a well-oiled news machine. He drinks the usual too-many cups of coffee and answers his phone with the same brisk "Clark Kent" and pounds away at the keyboard with the clumsy determination of someone who never took typing in high school. In the empty chinks of time, the split second before the coffee hits the mug, that lost moment before the other person's voice pulses over the line, in the space between letters and words and sentences, he has one thunderous, overriding thought. Club Zero. Not exactly what his professor meant when he preached the value of single-mindedness.
In the background, there's a monotonous droning, remarkably like the teacher's voice on the Charlie Brown specials he used to watch as a kid. He does his best to block it out, head down, concentrating on his two-fingered typing. When the noise abruptly stops, he looks up, startled by the silence.
Lois is frowning at him. "You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"
He blinks. "What?"
Her eyes narrow, and he expects to dodge a few bullets of sarcasm, but she leans in, looking interested, and that's much, much worse for him. "So who is it?" she asks.
"What who?" he asks in confusion.
She rolls her eyes. "Whoever is making you act like even more of a space cadet than usual."
The question and the way she's looking at him make him feel as if layers of his skin have been peeled back, his unsightly insides put on display, and he snaps, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
She shakes her head sadly. "You never do, Smallville. You never do."
***
The week goes by in daisy petal fashion. Yes, he will. No, he won't. Until Saturday rolls around, and he finally just does. He waits in line outside Club Zero for a good hour, quarantined on the loser side of the velvet rope with a few dozen other people whose coolness is also in question. At last he makes it up to the bouncer. The guy rakes his gaze mercilessly over his jeans and black v-neck sweater, the hippest outfit he could find in his closet. For some reason, he's allowed inside anyway.
He pushes through the heavy double doors and understands at once why he's never heard of the place before. It's not exactly his corner of the world. Everything is eye-piercingly modern, all hard surfaces, glass and tile and polished chrome. The bass line of the music throbs along the floor as if there's an impending earthquake. Strobe lights pulse in synchronized attack. Girls and boys float past him, shiny with glitter and sequins and more money than he can even begin to calculate.
He tries to find an out-of-the-way spot to wait for Lex, but enthusiastic couples on their way to the dance floor keep knocking into him anyway. He desperately casts around, trying to catch a glimpse of a bare head, the familiar sinuous body, but there is just the chaos of strangers. He's turning to go when he's waylaid by a blonde in the shortest, pinkest skirt he's ever seen.
"Hey, darlin', where do you think you're sneakin' off to?" she asks in a drawl so phony that if she's from Texas he's from the Klingon home world.
He gestures vaguely in the direction of the door. "I was just--"
She grabs his hand, not waiting for an answer, and whirls him out onto the floor.
"I don't really dance," he tries to shout above the music, but she's holding the hair off the back of her neck, swaying her hips, not listening at all.
Clark shuffles his feet and glances longingly at the exit sign. His mother has always been vehement on the subject of abandoning a partner on the dance floor, recounting the sad story of her own junior prom and what a big jerk Billy Taylor was, declaring that no son of hers is ever going to treat a girl like that. Clark hopes to make his excuses as soon as the song is over.
Unfortunately, it doesn't actually end, just segues into the next long dance track, not even enough of a pause to babble a hurried, "gotta go." The blonde loses interest in him eventually, but he's immediately commandeered by a girl with an aqua mohawk and pierced everything. He gets passed along from one set of grabby hands to the next. By the time he finally manages to escape, the sweat is running down his back, and if he didn't have impervious skin, there would be finger marks all over his ass.
He retreats to a safe corner, searching for a path to the door. As he's looking around, he catches sight of Lex, and that knocks the wind right out of him. Lex is sitting at the bar, balanced gracefully on a stool, wearing a midnight blue halter dress, made of fabric so light and filmy it moves like a cloud around him. It's cut low everywhere, showing off his shoulders and the bare, beautiful curve of his back, giving him an unexpected air of vulnerability that makes Clark's throat clench.
It takes a moment to realize that the guy sitting next to him is not just some random lucky bastard, but an actual date, or possibly a trick, a hair-gelled impediment standing between Clark and what he's been dreaming about all week. The man leans close, whispering in Lex's ear, something that makes his lips twist into a smile, but when the man tries to kiss him, he turns his head, offering his neck instead. This gives Clark a spark of hope until he sees the boy's head fall back, his eyes close, fingers curl into the folds of the man's jacket.
He should just leave then, but some masochistic impulse sticks him to the spot, and he watches as the man's hand settles on Lex's knee, pushes up the hem of his dress, exposing blue silk stocking and creamy skin. The man strokes along the garter and watches the boy's face. What he sees must look like permission, because his hand disappears under the skirt. Lex's eyes fly open and his mouth goes soft and round, and then he closes his eyes again, hard, as the man's hand goes to work beneath his dress.
A sharp, hot prick behind Clark's eyes, and it scares the hell out of him. He hasn't had problems controlling his heat vision in years, and it was always lust, never jealousy, that set it off. A broken phrase of cartoon dialogues floats through his head, "Puny Earthling!" He's thought about human fragility before, often in fact, but never like this, never with arrogance, profoundly aware of how easy it would be to just take what he wants and trample anyone who tries to get in his way.
There is a seed inside him of the thing Jor-El wanted him to be, and even though he's fought it at every turn, never allowed it to take root, the potential is still there and always will be. It's the part of him that wakes him up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, imagining worst-case what-ifs. The part of him that still puts a hint of fear in his father's eyes even after all these years.
It has always been Clark's saving grace that he's never wanted anything badly enough to give in to his worst nature, but he feels his inner overlord rattling at its cage now, strong with the desire to bend Lex over the bar, throw his filmy skirt up over his head, and fuck him and fuck him until everyone in the place gets the message. His. All his.
The sweat goes cold on the back of his neck, and he turns abruptly, pushes his way through the crowd, desperate to get the hell out of there. Outside, fresh air hits him in the face like an open hand, and he runs all the way home, not like a super-powered alien who could just take whatever he wants, but one heavy footfall after the other, like an ordinary man, as if that is some kind of reassurance.
***
For a week straight, Clark sets his VCR to tape Oprah and Dr. Phil and watches when he gets home in the evening, eating cold pizza on the couch, listening to weepy confessions of porn addiction and the nightmare of being a shopaholic. He's sure other viewers must feel sorry for these poor, obsessed basket cases, but he can't help envying how confined their destructiveness is. The retired tractor salesman from Duluth can get off on wearing red satin mules all he wants, and the world isn't going to be in any mortal danger.
His mood grows steadily darker with each passing day. By Friday he's yelling at telemarketers who happen to call his cell phone and cursing every time he spills his coffee. His rampaging prompts Lois to glance up from her notes and say with a grin, "It's nice to see you acting human for a change, Smallville."
At night, everything is worse. The desire for Lex doesn't go away just because he wishes it would. He jerks off viciously, heels digging into the bed, making holes in the mattress, the friction of his sex-blurred body leaving scorch marks on the sheets. He shoves into his clenched fist and imagines it's the boy. He tells himself this isn't cheating. That it's the equivalent of methadone if he were a different kind of addict. He tries to hold onto the image of a soft, pink mouth, pale, spread thighs, but no matter how hard he concentrates, something always intrudes, the guy from the bar, some faceless john, laying claim to what ought to be his. When he comes, he has the boy's taste in his mouth and a sick, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.
After five days of miserable longing, he finally gives in and goes back to Suicide Slums, wondering if this is what people mean when they talk about the slippery slope.
The first night Lex isn't there it feels almost like a reprieve. But the pull is too strong to be denied for long, and he goes back again, once, then twice, then more and more, and still there is no Lex. When he finally runs into Glenda, he's nearly as relieved as if he'd found the boy himself.
He asks if she's seen him, but she only shrugs. "He stopped coming around."
"Did-- something happen to him?" His hands clench with worry.
She notices and pats him on the arm. "I'm sure he's fine, sugar. He wasn't out here for the money, Lord knows. I expect the thrill just wore off."
He knows she's probably right. Teenagers do get bored, and if something had happened, he would have heard about it by now, the whole world would have. This was Lionel Luthor's son they were talking about, after all.
He finds comfort in this for about a day, but then niggling worry gets the better of him. He goes over everything he knows about Lionel Luthor, how averse he is to bad publicity, the iron-fisted control he exerts over the entire city. The truth is that Lex could turn up dead in some alley somewhere, and no one would ever know about it, not if Lionel Luthor didn't want them to. He could say that Lex had been sent off to boarding school in Europe, and later news would come of a tragic skiing accident or highway pileup. There would be footage of a dangerous-looking snow bank, smoking wreckage of a mangled sports car, interviews with so-called witnesses and weeping "classmates," the cover-up so perfectly engineered that no one would be the wiser. No one would ever know what really happened to Lex.
It spurs Clark on to make further inquiries. Even if Lex has grown bored with walking the streets, he is too young to have sworn off nightlife altogether. Clark makes the rounds of trendy clubs and discos and in-places to eat. He asks waitresses and bartenders and other club-goers. No one has seen Lex, and they all seem puzzled by his mysterious disappearance from the social scene.
At work, Clark scours the Internet, searching for clues about Lex's life. Of course, everyone knows where he lives. The family estate is a sprawling mansion in the heart of the city, a landmark building snapped up by the Luthors during the real estate downturn of the 90s, but the house is too much of a fortress to even think about going to look for Lex there. The more Clark searches, the more obvious it becomes how much Lionel Luthor must spend to keep details of his son's life out of the public record. Clark does find a blurb about a LuthorCorp donation to a local private school buried on the back page of the Metropolis Philanthropic Society Newsletter, and the hair prickles on the back of his neck. Gotcha, he thinks.
Still, it's just a hunch, and he needs some way to confirm that this is where Lex goes to school. He listens to Lois make up ridiculous stories at least five times a day, but lying has never come naturally to him. He makes notes to remind himself what to say and tries to channel his partner's shamelessness as he dials the prep school's number.
A woman answers, and Clark clears his throat. "Yes, hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Metropolis Secondary Education Association. I'd like to speak with one of your students, Alexander Luthor, in regards to a recent essay competition we sponsored."
The woman is clearly unimpressed. "I'm sorry. That's not possible."
"If we could just verify the student's enrollment--"
"I'm not at liberty to release any information," she says in a rehearsed monotone, as if she's repeated this same line a million times before.
"The student's entry form wasn't filled out properly. We'd hate to have to disqualify him just because--"
"I can't help you," she says with a note of finality. "Try sending a letter."
The line goes dead in his ear. Clark sighs heavily.
A few years ago Lois got into some rather serious legal trouble passing herself off as a guidance counselor at a Catholic girls school, trying to confirm rumors of a U.S. Senator's affair with a staff member by pumping his teenaged daughter for the details. Perry has made it clear ever since that schools and kids are strictly off limits. Clark lets this hold him back for about twenty minutes before giving in to his desperation and heading over to the Boyer Academy.
As a tribute to caution, he parks his car a few blocks away. He glances around to make sure no one is watching, uses his strength to bend the iron bars fencing off the school and slips onto the grounds. He lurks around the campus, hiding behind trees and among bushes, waiting and watching. For the better part of an hour, nothing happens.
Finally, a bell rings, and kids start to stream outside, groups gathering on the front lawn to chat, lolling casually on the grass. Clark looks and looks for Lex and is almost ready to give up when he comes strolling out at last, a girl with long dark hair close at his side. Clark's heart lurches when he spots him--alive and well--and he should just go, now that he's seen him, now that he knows. But his knees lock, as if something inside him is just too stubborn to reason with, and he stands there watching as Lex and the girl drift away from the other students, coming closer and closer to where he's hiding.
Clark has never seen Lex in anything but feminine clothes, and he stares at the gray flannels and navy blazer of the school uniform. Lex looks so different in it, so painfully young. Clark frowns when he notices a purplish smudge on his cheek. He squints and can picture the full-fledged bruise it must have been only a few days ago. He pushes his way through the shrubbery without stopping to consider strategy or even the consequences.
Lex looks startled at first, and then his expression freezes. "What do you want?"
The girl gives Clark a brazen look of appraisal, lingering so long on his crotch that it makes him blush. "Who's your friend?" she asks Lex.
Lex presses his mouth into a thin line. "No one, Victoria." He glares at Clark. "If you're looking for money, my father has people who handle that kind of thing. Embarrass me at school, and you won't get a dime."
This makes no sense to Clark--hasn't the cash always flowed the other way?--and he can't stop staring at the faded bruise. "Are you okay?" He lifts his fingers to Lex's face, but the boy flinches, so he drops his hand. "Who did that?"
Lex's eyes meet his, boring into him.
The girl, Victoria, leans in close. "No one, huh?"
"Don't you have a history exam to study for?" Lex asks in an expressionless voice. "Or has Sir Harry suddenly made peace with having a B-student for a daughter?"
Victoria throws him a dirty look. "Fine. I'll go. But if the two of you ever decide to branch out, you know where to find me." She winks at Clark and takes off across the grass.
Clark shuffles his feet. It's sad that high school girls can still make him feel so totally out of his depth. "She, uh, seems--" He grapples for a word. "Nice?"
"She's not," Lex says distractedly, all his attention focused on Clark. "What are you doing here?"
Clark feels rather stupid as he says, "I went to the usual corner. A couple of times." More like twenty, but he doesn't have to admit every pathetic fact. "And you were never there. No one had seen you. I thought-- maybe something had happened to you."
Lex narrows his eyes, a shrewd light shining in them, and then he seems to relax. "I'm afraid I've been out of circulation lately. One of my father's business associates got his hands on some rather-- colorful pictures of me. Used them as leverage to renegotiate a deal. Needless to say, my father wasn't pleased."
Clark lightly brushes his fingers along Lex's cheek, and this time Lex doesn't pull away. "Is that how you got this?"
"Business always comes first in my family," Lex tells him bleakly. "When I saw you here today, I thought--" He shakes his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." He tugs at Clark's sleeve. "Come on."
He follows Lex down a path, around a bend, and they come to a little building tucked away amidst the trees. "What's this?" he asks.
"Gardener's shed." Lex unlocks the door with what looks like a skeleton key. When Clark doesn't go right in, he says impatiently, "Or would you rather explain to the Head Master what you're doing lurking around in the lilac bushes?"
It's low-ceilinged and cramped inside, and Clark concentrates on navigating the exposed beams while Lex scoots a heavy sack of fertilizer in front of the door.
"What are you--"
Lex is on him in an instant, looping his arms around his neck, kissing his questions away. The unexpectedness of it knocks Clark off balance, and only his super-charged reflexes keep them from tumbling into a nearby bin of grass seed. It has been so long, and Clark's focus is perfectly singled-minded now that he's stringing kisses along Lex's jaw, grappling with his jacket, trying to get his hands underneath it, trying to get closer to skin.
"I can't get caught in here again," Lex tells him between kisses. "So let's not waste any time."
The notion of someone finding them should send a cold shock through Clark, should give him visions of mugshots and lawsuits and the look of where-did-I-go-wrong on his father's face when his son the superhero is accused of child molestation. None of that keeps him from pushing the boy back against a wooden pillar and pulling his starched white shirt from his waistband.
Lex smiles, eyes simmering, as if to say, "Anything you want."
Clark sinks to his knees and opens Lex's pants with shaking hands. The boy is wearing simple cotton briefs, which comes as something of a surprise.
"Disappointed?" Lex asks with a smirk.
Clark presses his face against his underwear and breathes him in. Lex makes a strangled little noise, and Clark can feel his erection stir against his cheek. He wants very badly to make this good, and he's not sure who he's trying to measure up against, Lex himself with his nimble-tongued skill or everyone who's gotten here before him and had their mouths on the boy's big, beautiful cock.
He starts off slowly, breathing across the head, nibbling along the shaft. Lex sinks his fingers into his hair and urges him on, not gently. He tastes of heat and salt, like everything Clark has ever wanted, and that doesn't make him any paragon of patience, either. He opens his mouth wider and closes eager lips around straining cock, the vein pulsing hotly against his tongue, and Lex cries out, "Fuck, yes! Suck me!"
Clark has lines in the sand carefully drawn all over his life--secret identities don't come without an advanced degree in compartmentalization--and he's always been scrupulous about not using his powers during sex. All that sensible caution goes right out the window here, and he opens up the way no human with a gag reflex ever could, and hears Lex moan as his cock slides into the greedy grip of Clark's throat.
Lex has always been so cool, so in control, and Clark gets a dark satisfaction out of seeing him lose it now, hands locked in a death grip on Clark's shoulders, body flailing as he wildly fucks Clark's mouth. When he comes, he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, just to keep from shouting.
Clark rests his head on Lex's belly when it's over. The muscles jerk beneath his cheek, and he can feel the skittery rasp of his labored breathing.
Lex strokes his hair, all the rough urgency gone now, his touch light, almost affectionate. "You're pretty good at that," he says dryly.
Clark smiles up at him, gets to his feet and helps Lex straighten his clothes, just to have a reason to keep his hands on him.
Lex pulls him close and kisses him, his hand snaking between their bodies, cupping Clark's cock through his pants. "Now, what can I do for you?"
A rustling noise outside interrupts the answer, and they dart to the door. Through a chink in the rough wooden planks, Clark can see a man in a weathered John Deere cap headed straight toward them.
"Shit! It's Mr. Worley. The gardener. I'm not exactly his favorite person around here."
Clark can easily imagine the things Lex has done to get on the man's bad side, all the inventive ways he's debauched the gardening shed, but he tries not to dwell on it. Blind, stabbing jealousy isn't exactly conducive to clear thinking, and he really needs to get them out of this mess.
Happily, dumb luck takes care of that. Mr. Worley appears to have forgotten something, turns on his heel and heads back the same way he came.
Lex gives Clark a hasty kiss. "I'm sorry about this." His fingers glide along the front of Clark's pants, tracing his still-hard cock. "I'll make it up to you tonight. Your place. You can fuck me if you want."
There is an instant parade of pictures in Clark's head, and the mental drooling makes him a little slow to ask, "Um-- don't you need the address?'
Lex is already out the door. He flashes an amused grin over his shoulder as he runs back toward the school.
It should be unsettling, knowing he's been investigated, something he can hardly afford with all his secrets, but that's the thing about Lex. He has a knack for making the most unlikely things seem unbearably hot. Clark blurs past Mr. Worley on his way out, slips through the hole in the fence and straightens the bars behind him. He gets in his car and heads back to the office. It's going to be a long day of tide-me-over trips to the bathroom, he can tell, but at least at the end of it, there will be something to look forward to. There will be Lex.
Happy Halloween! And a very, very happy belated birthday to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raincitygirl!
Title: Questions and Answers
Author: Lenore
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Cross-dressing! Prostitution! Clark trying to figure out what to wear to a night club!
Previous installment of Questions and Answers
Questions and Answers, Part 2
by Lenore
Back in journalism school, one of Clark's professors, a squat little man with a wandering eye, liked to lecture them about focus. "If you're going to be any good in this business," he would say, "you need to have one thing on your mind and one thing only."
Clark goes through his day like a well-oiled news machine. He drinks the usual too-many cups of coffee and answers his phone with the same brisk "Clark Kent" and pounds away at the keyboard with the clumsy determination of someone who never took typing in high school. In the empty chinks of time, the split second before the coffee hits the mug, that lost moment before the other person's voice pulses over the line, in the space between letters and words and sentences, he has one thunderous, overriding thought. Club Zero. Not exactly what his professor meant when he preached the value of single-mindedness.
In the background, there's a monotonous droning, remarkably like the teacher's voice on the Charlie Brown specials he used to watch as a kid. He does his best to block it out, head down, concentrating on his two-fingered typing. When the noise abruptly stops, he looks up, startled by the silence.
Lois is frowning at him. "You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"
He blinks. "What?"
Her eyes narrow, and he expects to dodge a few bullets of sarcasm, but she leans in, looking interested, and that's much, much worse for him. "So who is it?" she asks.
"What who?" he asks in confusion.
She rolls her eyes. "Whoever is making you act like even more of a space cadet than usual."
The question and the way she's looking at him make him feel as if layers of his skin have been peeled back, his unsightly insides put on display, and he snaps, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
She shakes her head sadly. "You never do, Smallville. You never do."
***
The week goes by in daisy petal fashion. Yes, he will. No, he won't. Until Saturday rolls around, and he finally just does. He waits in line outside Club Zero for a good hour, quarantined on the loser side of the velvet rope with a few dozen other people whose coolness is also in question. At last he makes it up to the bouncer. The guy rakes his gaze mercilessly over his jeans and black v-neck sweater, the hippest outfit he could find in his closet. For some reason, he's allowed inside anyway.
He pushes through the heavy double doors and understands at once why he's never heard of the place before. It's not exactly his corner of the world. Everything is eye-piercingly modern, all hard surfaces, glass and tile and polished chrome. The bass line of the music throbs along the floor as if there's an impending earthquake. Strobe lights pulse in synchronized attack. Girls and boys float past him, shiny with glitter and sequins and more money than he can even begin to calculate.
He tries to find an out-of-the-way spot to wait for Lex, but enthusiastic couples on their way to the dance floor keep knocking into him anyway. He desperately casts around, trying to catch a glimpse of a bare head, the familiar sinuous body, but there is just the chaos of strangers. He's turning to go when he's waylaid by a blonde in the shortest, pinkest skirt he's ever seen.
"Hey, darlin', where do you think you're sneakin' off to?" she asks in a drawl so phony that if she's from Texas he's from the Klingon home world.
He gestures vaguely in the direction of the door. "I was just--"
She grabs his hand, not waiting for an answer, and whirls him out onto the floor.
"I don't really dance," he tries to shout above the music, but she's holding the hair off the back of her neck, swaying her hips, not listening at all.
Clark shuffles his feet and glances longingly at the exit sign. His mother has always been vehement on the subject of abandoning a partner on the dance floor, recounting the sad story of her own junior prom and what a big jerk Billy Taylor was, declaring that no son of hers is ever going to treat a girl like that. Clark hopes to make his excuses as soon as the song is over.
Unfortunately, it doesn't actually end, just segues into the next long dance track, not even enough of a pause to babble a hurried, "gotta go." The blonde loses interest in him eventually, but he's immediately commandeered by a girl with an aqua mohawk and pierced everything. He gets passed along from one set of grabby hands to the next. By the time he finally manages to escape, the sweat is running down his back, and if he didn't have impervious skin, there would be finger marks all over his ass.
He retreats to a safe corner, searching for a path to the door. As he's looking around, he catches sight of Lex, and that knocks the wind right out of him. Lex is sitting at the bar, balanced gracefully on a stool, wearing a midnight blue halter dress, made of fabric so light and filmy it moves like a cloud around him. It's cut low everywhere, showing off his shoulders and the bare, beautiful curve of his back, giving him an unexpected air of vulnerability that makes Clark's throat clench.
It takes a moment to realize that the guy sitting next to him is not just some random lucky bastard, but an actual date, or possibly a trick, a hair-gelled impediment standing between Clark and what he's been dreaming about all week. The man leans close, whispering in Lex's ear, something that makes his lips twist into a smile, but when the man tries to kiss him, he turns his head, offering his neck instead. This gives Clark a spark of hope until he sees the boy's head fall back, his eyes close, fingers curl into the folds of the man's jacket.
He should just leave then, but some masochistic impulse sticks him to the spot, and he watches as the man's hand settles on Lex's knee, pushes up the hem of his dress, exposing blue silk stocking and creamy skin. The man strokes along the garter and watches the boy's face. What he sees must look like permission, because his hand disappears under the skirt. Lex's eyes fly open and his mouth goes soft and round, and then he closes his eyes again, hard, as the man's hand goes to work beneath his dress.
A sharp, hot prick behind Clark's eyes, and it scares the hell out of him. He hasn't had problems controlling his heat vision in years, and it was always lust, never jealousy, that set it off. A broken phrase of cartoon dialogues floats through his head, "Puny Earthling!" He's thought about human fragility before, often in fact, but never like this, never with arrogance, profoundly aware of how easy it would be to just take what he wants and trample anyone who tries to get in his way.
There is a seed inside him of the thing Jor-El wanted him to be, and even though he's fought it at every turn, never allowed it to take root, the potential is still there and always will be. It's the part of him that wakes him up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, imagining worst-case what-ifs. The part of him that still puts a hint of fear in his father's eyes even after all these years.
It has always been Clark's saving grace that he's never wanted anything badly enough to give in to his worst nature, but he feels his inner overlord rattling at its cage now, strong with the desire to bend Lex over the bar, throw his filmy skirt up over his head, and fuck him and fuck him until everyone in the place gets the message. His. All his.
The sweat goes cold on the back of his neck, and he turns abruptly, pushes his way through the crowd, desperate to get the hell out of there. Outside, fresh air hits him in the face like an open hand, and he runs all the way home, not like a super-powered alien who could just take whatever he wants, but one heavy footfall after the other, like an ordinary man, as if that is some kind of reassurance.
***
For a week straight, Clark sets his VCR to tape Oprah and Dr. Phil and watches when he gets home in the evening, eating cold pizza on the couch, listening to weepy confessions of porn addiction and the nightmare of being a shopaholic. He's sure other viewers must feel sorry for these poor, obsessed basket cases, but he can't help envying how confined their destructiveness is. The retired tractor salesman from Duluth can get off on wearing red satin mules all he wants, and the world isn't going to be in any mortal danger.
His mood grows steadily darker with each passing day. By Friday he's yelling at telemarketers who happen to call his cell phone and cursing every time he spills his coffee. His rampaging prompts Lois to glance up from her notes and say with a grin, "It's nice to see you acting human for a change, Smallville."
At night, everything is worse. The desire for Lex doesn't go away just because he wishes it would. He jerks off viciously, heels digging into the bed, making holes in the mattress, the friction of his sex-blurred body leaving scorch marks on the sheets. He shoves into his clenched fist and imagines it's the boy. He tells himself this isn't cheating. That it's the equivalent of methadone if he were a different kind of addict. He tries to hold onto the image of a soft, pink mouth, pale, spread thighs, but no matter how hard he concentrates, something always intrudes, the guy from the bar, some faceless john, laying claim to what ought to be his. When he comes, he has the boy's taste in his mouth and a sick, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.
After five days of miserable longing, he finally gives in and goes back to Suicide Slums, wondering if this is what people mean when they talk about the slippery slope.
The first night Lex isn't there it feels almost like a reprieve. But the pull is too strong to be denied for long, and he goes back again, once, then twice, then more and more, and still there is no Lex. When he finally runs into Glenda, he's nearly as relieved as if he'd found the boy himself.
He asks if she's seen him, but she only shrugs. "He stopped coming around."
"Did-- something happen to him?" His hands clench with worry.
She notices and pats him on the arm. "I'm sure he's fine, sugar. He wasn't out here for the money, Lord knows. I expect the thrill just wore off."
He knows she's probably right. Teenagers do get bored, and if something had happened, he would have heard about it by now, the whole world would have. This was Lionel Luthor's son they were talking about, after all.
He finds comfort in this for about a day, but then niggling worry gets the better of him. He goes over everything he knows about Lionel Luthor, how averse he is to bad publicity, the iron-fisted control he exerts over the entire city. The truth is that Lex could turn up dead in some alley somewhere, and no one would ever know about it, not if Lionel Luthor didn't want them to. He could say that Lex had been sent off to boarding school in Europe, and later news would come of a tragic skiing accident or highway pileup. There would be footage of a dangerous-looking snow bank, smoking wreckage of a mangled sports car, interviews with so-called witnesses and weeping "classmates," the cover-up so perfectly engineered that no one would be the wiser. No one would ever know what really happened to Lex.
It spurs Clark on to make further inquiries. Even if Lex has grown bored with walking the streets, he is too young to have sworn off nightlife altogether. Clark makes the rounds of trendy clubs and discos and in-places to eat. He asks waitresses and bartenders and other club-goers. No one has seen Lex, and they all seem puzzled by his mysterious disappearance from the social scene.
At work, Clark scours the Internet, searching for clues about Lex's life. Of course, everyone knows where he lives. The family estate is a sprawling mansion in the heart of the city, a landmark building snapped up by the Luthors during the real estate downturn of the 90s, but the house is too much of a fortress to even think about going to look for Lex there. The more Clark searches, the more obvious it becomes how much Lionel Luthor must spend to keep details of his son's life out of the public record. Clark does find a blurb about a LuthorCorp donation to a local private school buried on the back page of the Metropolis Philanthropic Society Newsletter, and the hair prickles on the back of his neck. Gotcha, he thinks.
Still, it's just a hunch, and he needs some way to confirm that this is where Lex goes to school. He listens to Lois make up ridiculous stories at least five times a day, but lying has never come naturally to him. He makes notes to remind himself what to say and tries to channel his partner's shamelessness as he dials the prep school's number.
A woman answers, and Clark clears his throat. "Yes, hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Metropolis Secondary Education Association. I'd like to speak with one of your students, Alexander Luthor, in regards to a recent essay competition we sponsored."
The woman is clearly unimpressed. "I'm sorry. That's not possible."
"If we could just verify the student's enrollment--"
"I'm not at liberty to release any information," she says in a rehearsed monotone, as if she's repeated this same line a million times before.
"The student's entry form wasn't filled out properly. We'd hate to have to disqualify him just because--"
"I can't help you," she says with a note of finality. "Try sending a letter."
The line goes dead in his ear. Clark sighs heavily.
A few years ago Lois got into some rather serious legal trouble passing herself off as a guidance counselor at a Catholic girls school, trying to confirm rumors of a U.S. Senator's affair with a staff member by pumping his teenaged daughter for the details. Perry has made it clear ever since that schools and kids are strictly off limits. Clark lets this hold him back for about twenty minutes before giving in to his desperation and heading over to the Boyer Academy.
As a tribute to caution, he parks his car a few blocks away. He glances around to make sure no one is watching, uses his strength to bend the iron bars fencing off the school and slips onto the grounds. He lurks around the campus, hiding behind trees and among bushes, waiting and watching. For the better part of an hour, nothing happens.
Finally, a bell rings, and kids start to stream outside, groups gathering on the front lawn to chat, lolling casually on the grass. Clark looks and looks for Lex and is almost ready to give up when he comes strolling out at last, a girl with long dark hair close at his side. Clark's heart lurches when he spots him--alive and well--and he should just go, now that he's seen him, now that he knows. But his knees lock, as if something inside him is just too stubborn to reason with, and he stands there watching as Lex and the girl drift away from the other students, coming closer and closer to where he's hiding.
Clark has never seen Lex in anything but feminine clothes, and he stares at the gray flannels and navy blazer of the school uniform. Lex looks so different in it, so painfully young. Clark frowns when he notices a purplish smudge on his cheek. He squints and can picture the full-fledged bruise it must have been only a few days ago. He pushes his way through the shrubbery without stopping to consider strategy or even the consequences.
Lex looks startled at first, and then his expression freezes. "What do you want?"
The girl gives Clark a brazen look of appraisal, lingering so long on his crotch that it makes him blush. "Who's your friend?" she asks Lex.
Lex presses his mouth into a thin line. "No one, Victoria." He glares at Clark. "If you're looking for money, my father has people who handle that kind of thing. Embarrass me at school, and you won't get a dime."
This makes no sense to Clark--hasn't the cash always flowed the other way?--and he can't stop staring at the faded bruise. "Are you okay?" He lifts his fingers to Lex's face, but the boy flinches, so he drops his hand. "Who did that?"
Lex's eyes meet his, boring into him.
The girl, Victoria, leans in close. "No one, huh?"
"Don't you have a history exam to study for?" Lex asks in an expressionless voice. "Or has Sir Harry suddenly made peace with having a B-student for a daughter?"
Victoria throws him a dirty look. "Fine. I'll go. But if the two of you ever decide to branch out, you know where to find me." She winks at Clark and takes off across the grass.
Clark shuffles his feet. It's sad that high school girls can still make him feel so totally out of his depth. "She, uh, seems--" He grapples for a word. "Nice?"
"She's not," Lex says distractedly, all his attention focused on Clark. "What are you doing here?"
Clark feels rather stupid as he says, "I went to the usual corner. A couple of times." More like twenty, but he doesn't have to admit every pathetic fact. "And you were never there. No one had seen you. I thought-- maybe something had happened to you."
Lex narrows his eyes, a shrewd light shining in them, and then he seems to relax. "I'm afraid I've been out of circulation lately. One of my father's business associates got his hands on some rather-- colorful pictures of me. Used them as leverage to renegotiate a deal. Needless to say, my father wasn't pleased."
Clark lightly brushes his fingers along Lex's cheek, and this time Lex doesn't pull away. "Is that how you got this?"
"Business always comes first in my family," Lex tells him bleakly. "When I saw you here today, I thought--" He shakes his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." He tugs at Clark's sleeve. "Come on."
He follows Lex down a path, around a bend, and they come to a little building tucked away amidst the trees. "What's this?" he asks.
"Gardener's shed." Lex unlocks the door with what looks like a skeleton key. When Clark doesn't go right in, he says impatiently, "Or would you rather explain to the Head Master what you're doing lurking around in the lilac bushes?"
It's low-ceilinged and cramped inside, and Clark concentrates on navigating the exposed beams while Lex scoots a heavy sack of fertilizer in front of the door.
"What are you--"
Lex is on him in an instant, looping his arms around his neck, kissing his questions away. The unexpectedness of it knocks Clark off balance, and only his super-charged reflexes keep them from tumbling into a nearby bin of grass seed. It has been so long, and Clark's focus is perfectly singled-minded now that he's stringing kisses along Lex's jaw, grappling with his jacket, trying to get his hands underneath it, trying to get closer to skin.
"I can't get caught in here again," Lex tells him between kisses. "So let's not waste any time."
The notion of someone finding them should send a cold shock through Clark, should give him visions of mugshots and lawsuits and the look of where-did-I-go-wrong on his father's face when his son the superhero is accused of child molestation. None of that keeps him from pushing the boy back against a wooden pillar and pulling his starched white shirt from his waistband.
Lex smiles, eyes simmering, as if to say, "Anything you want."
Clark sinks to his knees and opens Lex's pants with shaking hands. The boy is wearing simple cotton briefs, which comes as something of a surprise.
"Disappointed?" Lex asks with a smirk.
Clark presses his face against his underwear and breathes him in. Lex makes a strangled little noise, and Clark can feel his erection stir against his cheek. He wants very badly to make this good, and he's not sure who he's trying to measure up against, Lex himself with his nimble-tongued skill or everyone who's gotten here before him and had their mouths on the boy's big, beautiful cock.
He starts off slowly, breathing across the head, nibbling along the shaft. Lex sinks his fingers into his hair and urges him on, not gently. He tastes of heat and salt, like everything Clark has ever wanted, and that doesn't make him any paragon of patience, either. He opens his mouth wider and closes eager lips around straining cock, the vein pulsing hotly against his tongue, and Lex cries out, "Fuck, yes! Suck me!"
Clark has lines in the sand carefully drawn all over his life--secret identities don't come without an advanced degree in compartmentalization--and he's always been scrupulous about not using his powers during sex. All that sensible caution goes right out the window here, and he opens up the way no human with a gag reflex ever could, and hears Lex moan as his cock slides into the greedy grip of Clark's throat.
Lex has always been so cool, so in control, and Clark gets a dark satisfaction out of seeing him lose it now, hands locked in a death grip on Clark's shoulders, body flailing as he wildly fucks Clark's mouth. When he comes, he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, just to keep from shouting.
Clark rests his head on Lex's belly when it's over. The muscles jerk beneath his cheek, and he can feel the skittery rasp of his labored breathing.
Lex strokes his hair, all the rough urgency gone now, his touch light, almost affectionate. "You're pretty good at that," he says dryly.
Clark smiles up at him, gets to his feet and helps Lex straighten his clothes, just to have a reason to keep his hands on him.
Lex pulls him close and kisses him, his hand snaking between their bodies, cupping Clark's cock through his pants. "Now, what can I do for you?"
A rustling noise outside interrupts the answer, and they dart to the door. Through a chink in the rough wooden planks, Clark can see a man in a weathered John Deere cap headed straight toward them.
"Shit! It's Mr. Worley. The gardener. I'm not exactly his favorite person around here."
Clark can easily imagine the things Lex has done to get on the man's bad side, all the inventive ways he's debauched the gardening shed, but he tries not to dwell on it. Blind, stabbing jealousy isn't exactly conducive to clear thinking, and he really needs to get them out of this mess.
Happily, dumb luck takes care of that. Mr. Worley appears to have forgotten something, turns on his heel and heads back the same way he came.
Lex gives Clark a hasty kiss. "I'm sorry about this." His fingers glide along the front of Clark's pants, tracing his still-hard cock. "I'll make it up to you tonight. Your place. You can fuck me if you want."
There is an instant parade of pictures in Clark's head, and the mental drooling makes him a little slow to ask, "Um-- don't you need the address?'
Lex is already out the door. He flashes an amused grin over his shoulder as he runs back toward the school.
It should be unsettling, knowing he's been investigated, something he can hardly afford with all his secrets, but that's the thing about Lex. He has a knack for making the most unlikely things seem unbearably hot. Clark blurs past Mr. Worley on his way out, slips through the hole in the fence and straightens the bars behind him. He gets in his car and heads back to the office. It's going to be a long day of tide-me-over trips to the bathroom, he can tell, but at least at the end of it, there will be something to look forward to. There will be Lex.
Happy Halloween! And a very, very happy belated birthday to
raincitygirl!![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 03:41 pm (UTC)I'd love a better sense of what's going on in Lex's head along with all teh HAWT, but I trust you to get there, too...
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:19 am (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2004-10-31 03:41 pm (UTC)Yes, its Dirty!Dirty!Wrong!Wrong! but that is sadly what I love about it. But I also like how Clark is not just looking to get off - he really wants Lex and is worried about him. Sexually obsessed Clark is also fun as that is usually seen as Lex's role. I like that Lex is a mystery.
Re: Yay!
Date: 2004-11-01 09:34 am (UTC)I like that Lex is a mystery.
I'm glad that works for you. I figured Lex wouldn't give away too much information about what he's thinking or what his motivations are before he understands where Clark is coming from.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 03:52 pm (UTC)Hope
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:42 am (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying it!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 04:05 pm (UTC)ready for more whenever youa re!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 04:08 pm (UTC)For some reason, the thought of Clark's inner overlord makes me giggle. Heehee! :)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:53 am (UTC)I am making Clark such a pervert in this! I just can't help myself. It's so much fun! *g*
For some reason, the thought of Clark's inner overlord makes me giggle.
*whispers* It makes me giggle, too.
I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Thanks so much for letting me know, doll!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:05 am (UTC)I love Superman as perv.
I'm glad I'm not the only one! I mean, when I start writing this, I thought cross-dressing teen!whore!Lex was the transgressive part of the story, but really, it's the Super perv.
I have lots more of the story already mapped out in my head. I just don't know how it ends yet. I mean, what good could ever come of something like this? The shit is going to have to hit the fan sometime.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 04:59 pm (UTC)More! More!
When I read the part about 'tonight', I almost believed for a second that you meant you would post more tonight. *sigh*
So good.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 06:32 pm (UTC)*sigh* You weren't the only one.
Lenore, I don't suppose you could have more ready on the 3rd, could you? Probably not, Real Life and all, but I figure we'll need it come Hell or High Water.
I shall now re-read this until the pixels flake right off the monitor.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 05:18 pm (UTC)Lex in a school uniform! Guuuhhh!
There is a seed inside him of the thing Jor-El wanted him to be, and even though he's fought it at every turn, never allowed it to take root, the potential is still there and always will be.
I love this, you've captured the 'Kal' inside of Clark perfectly. It's still there, and he knows it's still there. Lovely
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:52 am (UTC)I'm so glad you're liking this! And I'm glad you liked the part about Clark realizing that it's so much more dangerous for him to be obsessed than an average person because he has to keep "Kal" in check. I didn't start out with that idea, but as I was writing along, imaging a super-humanly strong being this hung up on someone, it occurred to me that it would be kind of scary!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 05:36 pm (UTC)I love this universe so much!
I can't wait for the next part!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:I finally did one!
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 06:40 pm (UTC)This was a fun installment. Loved Clark looking for and fretting over Lex. I love him stalking Lex to school. I got a kick out of Lex not needing his number. Those boys are just obsessed with each other and I like it that way. *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:58 am (UTC)I'm a diabolical one, all right! *g*
Yay! I'm glad you enjoyed this. Young Lex is so much fun. There's pretty much nothing he won't do. It's a writer's playground!
Also, your icon? *Serious* guh.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 11:05 am (UTC)Garden shed sex at the private school. So hot!
This little scenario stars in a lot of my daydreams. I just can't help myself! *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 06:55 pm (UTC)Somehow I missed seeing the first part when it was new. I'm so very glad there was a part two, to bring it to my attention.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 12:17 pm (UTC)You know, I posted the first part of this on a day when the flist was exploding with squee over that week's SV ep, so I think it got kind of lost.
I'm glad you enjoyed this!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 07:38 pm (UTC)Thanks for the birthday wishes, hon. You're only two days late. That's not all that belated.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 07:39 pm (UTC)P.S. I'll send you more feedback on Inversion as soon as I'm slightly less busy. I have more to say about it than I did last week, after all!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:10 pm (UTC)I owe you a response to the wonderful feedback you sent me on Inversion! It gave me so much to mull over. It's just the best gift ever. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me! *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:15 pm (UTC)I'd really like to know what's going through Lex's head during all of this.
I'm hoping to get to more of that in the next scene. I figured Lex wouldn't reveal too much of himself until his relationship with Clark was less...commercial.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 09:14 pm (UTC)I know Clark has it in him to release that inner overlord, at least when he finally gets to fuck *his* Lex.
I am so glad to see more of this series!!!!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:24 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the story! Yay!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:28 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoying it, doll!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 12:12 am (UTC)More?
Because this is hot, and also tragic, but mostly hot. Clark is in *so* much trouble. *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 03:17 am (UTC)I only wish you can write at the light speed and give us the next part already.
*loves*
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:46 pm (UTC)