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Jimmy's Reveal

Jimmy realized, as he watched Chloe and Clark from across the room, that he hated Clark. It was a terrible feeling, being on the outside, and he knew, from Chloe's soft giggles and wide eyes, that she still loved Clark. He could tell that it wasn't a dedicated sort of love; she didn't love him with her entire being, nor with astonishing consistency, but it was always there, floating just below the surface.

A part of Chloe, he was sure, loved Jimmy. With his cute, boyish features and giving, enthusiastic smile, it would be hard not to at least think he was worthy of love. But, from their first fuck in the back of her Beetle to their late night kisses in the phone booth of the Planet, Chloe had never been completely devoted to the cause of Chloe-and-Jimmy.

Pursing his lips, Jimmy considered how bizarre the situation was. He loved Chloe; thought she was beautiful, but it was an awkward sort of beauty. In the same way that people would look at him and say, "sure, attractive boy," they would look at Chloe and say "gorgeous. Sometimes."

Clark, on the other hand, had this ethereal perfection that surpassed any that Jimmy had ever seen before. He would walk into the Daily Planet, dressed like a farm boy and covered in poop, and among the journalists and photographers and diplomats, he would still draw every eye in the room.

And if Jimmy thought hard about the two chatty small town folk across the room, it wasn't only Clark that he was jealous of.

The effortless friendship that Chloe had with Clark tortured him. Clark would walk into the room, shoulders square and jaw stiff, and the moment that Chloe flashed that smile at him, he would melt. For the time that they were together, Clark was the pinnacle of relaxation.

Clark was gone a minute later, and Chloe was left alone. She did not glance at Jimmy, and so he continued to stare, and wondered how, somehow, Chloe seemed less interesting, now.

Soon, even Chloe had packed up, but Jimmy was forced to remain: he had to catch up on the work he hadn't done while staring at Chloe and Clark. When a sudden gust of wind blew his photographs off the table, Jimmy looked up to see Clark standing in the doorway.

"Where's Chloe?" he asked, sounding taken aback.

"Her and Lois went to visit Uncle Sam," Jimmy replied, leaning over to pick up his pictures. When he straightened up, Clark was standing above him.

"You're mad at me," Clark said, a hint of amusement in his voice. "More than usual, I mean."

Jimmy attempted to raise one eyebrow at Clark, as though saying "Why would I waste my time thinking about you?" but quickly broke eye contact when he realized that his forehead was seizing up.

"You were staring at me when I was here earlier," Clark continued. "I was talking with Chloe, but you weren't staring at Chloe."

"How would you know?" Jimmy asked defensively, raising his chin so he could defiantly meet Clark's eye.

Clark smiled cockily at him, and did that perfect, casual, sexy eyebrow raise that Jimmy had just attempted. "I can tell," he said.

Jimmy stood up, knocking his chair backwards. With his neck cricked backward, he could tell that this wasn't really the most impressive of transitions. "I," he said, drawing out the word, "wasn't."

Looking at the shorter boy, Clark felt something stir in him. This boy had the same fiery rebelliousness that Chloe had, but there was a detail that he had that Chloe fundamentally lacked much of the time.

Sex-appeal.

What? He asked himself. He blinked rapidly about five times, trying to clear his head. He had been in love with Lana, so desperately in love with Lana, for so long that he had often attributed his blatant lack of attraction to other women to the way they would fade into the background when Lana was in his mind. But that, coupled with the thought that had just hit him like a bullet (a Kryptonite one), seemed to suggest something very different.

Jimmy looked like he wanted to unhinge his jaw and swallow Clark whole, just so that they wouldn't have to exist in tandem any more. Clark was shocked, however, that his own mind was conjuring a very different image of being swallowed whole. An image that caused a rather uncomfortable stirring in his pants.

Clark swallowed loudly.

With that fierce look still plastered across Jimmy's face, he wondered if he could gather enough courage to hit him.

"What were you thinking, Jimmy?" Clark asked, his voice quiet, almost scared. "You were staring at me for nearly two straight hours. What were you thinking?"

Such a strange blend of emotions hit Jimmy that he nearly stumbled backward into the chair that had already been felled. He felt ashamed that Clark had noticed his rather blatant staring; he was incredulous that Clark would state such an unrealistic block of time for the staring to have supposedly happened and he experienced a tightening in his stomach at the way that Clark said his same.

"What were you thinking, Jimmy?" he had said, so vulnerable.

"It was not two straight—" Jimmy started, sure that defensive was the correct reaction.

"It was," Clark said simply. They locked eyes. Jimmy glared.

"Okay," Clark said slowly, reaching for Jimmy's sleeve and fingering it in a disconcerting way, "I'll make you a deal." He looked down, as though suddenly realizing what he'd been doing, and snatched his hand away. "I'll tell you my secret if you tell me yours."

Jimmy scoffed and pulled his arm back towards himself, not sure why the place that Clark had almost touched seemed to be burning. "What secret?" he asked. He should have just asked Clark to leave at this point. His quiet, mysterious farm boy exterior appeared to be hiding a creepy and outlandish interior that he knew he didn't like.

"The reason that Chloe still loves me more than she could ever love you," he said softly, as though worrying that the words might break the smaller boy.

The words hit Jimmy like a train. It had been, of course, exactly what he had been wondering. It had been one of the largest problems that ruminated in his mind, though there was one other—the one that Clark had referred to, so quaintly, as his secret. It was the one thing that he never considered telling anyone, the one thing that chewed alarmingly on his insides, poisoning relationships and destroying his self-confidence.

But he wouldn't tell that to Clark, no matter how intense Clark's supposed secret was.

He could lie, though. He could double-cross Clark, get him to show his cards first, and then make a run for it. He could make up a secret, alternatively. Tell Clark something shallow and coarse—tell him that he worried about his performance in bed or that he had feelings leftover from his unresolved childhood Oedipal complex. He could tell Clark something that didn't matter.

"Sure," he said finally. "You first."

Before he was sure what was going on, Clark's lips were on his, powerful and demanding. Jimmy's eyes stayed wide open for the first three seconds of the kiss, before the absolute beauty of Clark's kiss lulled his eyes shut. He took in the feeling: the softness; the delicate, probing tongue; the unmistakable masculinity of the entire sensation.

Clark's large left hand had moved to the back of Jimmy's head, pulling him closer with this unearthly confident strength. Jimmy, wanting to not be this passive character in this disturbingly perfect kiss, reached forward and pressed his hand on Clark's chest, which was bent forward over the desk that separated them.

In a self-assured manner that distinguished the larger boy as the dominant, satisfied figure, Clark pulled away. Jimmy found that he was nearly quivering with the residual impression of the kiss, but he felt none of the feelings he'd long told himself he would feel: disgust, self-loathing; pity and abhorrence and contempt for the other boy. He felt absolutely spell-bound.

"I mean," Clark said, as though they'd never touched, "Chloe and I… well, it only happened a few times, but it seems to have been enough, right? I mean… you know?"

Jimmy gaped at him, his lips tingling still.

Clark didn't seem to expect an answer. "It's your turn," he said. "The secret, I mean."

So many thoughts were buzzing in Jimmy's head that he didn't even remember his previous plan. He didn't think of lying, or running, and, before he could stop himself, the truth slips from between his numbed lips.

"I think…" he said softly, "I think I might be gay."

Q