DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE. I OWN NOTHING.

KISS ME

oXo

CHAPTER EIGHT

CLARK

I'm wearing something halfway between pants and tights, a red cape, a royal blue tunic to match the something halfway between pants and tights, a gold sash around my waist, and red boots – the clothes all way too tight because apparently there's a royal decree to see the outline of all the muscles on my body just like the T-shirts I wear from Virgin Land. At least the blue tunic is long enough to cover Clark Jr. Otherwise I'd have to take my red Calvin Klein briefs off and put them on over the blue tights just for a little bit of modesty – and nothing comes between me and my Calvins.

I crack the door (which is ten feet tall) open and look into the hallway. A guard rushes toward me, probably to keep me from leaving. Even though I'm a guest of Lois. And as a guest, I can check-out anytime I like, but I can never leave. Welcome to the Hotel California.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Um, is there any food around here?"

The guard looks down to the stone floor. "I shall check, sir." He doesn't move from the doorway blocking the entrance. Yup. Hotel California.

I close the door, my stomach growling like the dirt bikes Pete and I used to ride back home in Smallville, before I had my accident and fell into the Kawatche Caves and opened up a can of worms weirder than this one. It's been four hours since I kissed Lois and woke her and everyone else up from their three hundred years sleep. I know that from checking my cell phone, which is now useful only as a clock. I turn it off again to save the battery. It's not like there's any place to recharge it. Too bad it's not solar operated like me and we could both just lie in the sun – if it would just peak through the clouds for a hot minute.

Of course, Oliver took the sandwiches with him when he ditched me to go back to our hotel to notify Maddie that we weren't dead. But he doesn't come back to get me because he probably got sidetracked by some chick. That just makes me feel less guilty about keeping the beer. Serves him right. Too bad it doesn't affect me so drinking it all won't make this room feel any less like a fancy dungeon.

I go to the window for about the tenth time, since there's no chance of escaping out the door without confronting the guards and I'm still too weak – whether it be from lack of sun or something else. The hallway is crowded with guards and servants waiting to do my bidding at Lois's orders, but no one wants to help me escape – and really…where could I go and what could I do in these blue tights and red cape?

I return to the window to see how high up it is when someone knocks at the door. "Come in!" They knock again. The door's so thick they can't even hear through it. I walk across the room and open it. "What?"

"I beg your pardon, sir. His Majesty, King Samuel apologizes for the delay in getting supper. There have been…difficulties."

My stomach growls loudly. I normally don't have to eat but my weakened state has made everything about human nature more heightened and basic. Even so, I'm scared to find out what these people eat. My mom's a real worry wort about microbes and microorganisms and bacteria and viruses since we don't know how they affect me. I never got mandatory childhood vaccines that other people got to attend elementary school – any and all official birth and health records about me are forged and fake. This doesn't seem like the type of place that has sanitary cooking facilities or even a decent oven. Didn't people used to die, at like, age thirty-five in the 1700s, or even younger? And didn't they have plagues with rats and stuff? My mom would so be freaking out right now. Dinner could be my doom.

If today is Doomsday…I hope I don't die in tights.

oXo

What we're having for dinner is meat. Meat, meat and more meat. Lots of meat and mushrooms and strawberries. Looking at all the meat makes me wonder what they killed so quickly to get it.

Lois's parents are here. Her father, King Samuel, is a gruff looking Army General that appears to have a permanent frown underneath his crown. "I apologize for the fare," he's telling the group surrounding the dinner table. Besides Lois and me, there's Lady Lutessa, Lois's mother, Queen Ella (an older version of Lois) and a bunch of other people introduced as Lords and Ladies. There are also two women Lois says are fairies, but I must've heard her wrong because there's no such thing as fairies. "But, you see, all our crops died when my careless, thoughtless daughter put us to sleep for three hundred years, and the food we had has long since rotted and spoiled. Anyway, eat up."

Lois looks away, but I can see her hands are balled into fists like she wants to punch someone. She looks amazing though, especially in that dress she's wearing, a green one you can see down and shows off her beautiful…assets. She sits beside me and keeps staring at me with those gorgeous hazel eyes of hers – green mixed with brown with flecks of amber. The green dress brings out the green in her hazel eyes and really highlights the flecks of amber.

"Yes, General. I have ruined the world. Can you pass the salt please, Daddy, so I can rub it in my wound?" she says.

"Lois, please." Her mother, Queen Ella quietly reprimands from her seat next to the King.

"What! He started it, Motherella!" Lois replies to her mother.

When King Samuel just grunts in response, I see Lois glance toward the door. I decide to change the subject. Taking a mushroom into my mouth, "So where'd you get the mushrooms…um, Your Highness?"

"Your Majesty. But just call him General. It makes him feel more like a Commander in Chief," Lois whispers.

One of the women Lois called a fairy turns to the other she called a fairy, and when she does, I see that there are wings sprouting from her back – am I hallucinating? Are these magic mushrooms? She whispers, "Him? He's her destiny?" The other woman tries to quiet her by whispering "Shush," but neither woman has mastered the art of whispering because I hear every word, even without what Oliver likes to call my canine hearing.

"That is quite all right, boy," King Samuel says. "I am certain you are unused to dining with royalty in…Kansas, is it?"

I nod.

"Native lands, in the Americas, if I recall, and rather a wasteland. Has it changed much in three hundred years?"

"Um, a little, sir,"

"The hunters found the mushrooms in the forest," King Samuel continues.

"Are they okay to eat?" I ask. It might be a rude question, but considering how rude his own daughter is being, it probably only registers a two on the Richter Scale. Besides, a hallucinogenic mushroom could hit the spot right now after the day I've had.

The King shrugs. "Does it truly matter at this point?"

Lois shoots up out of her chair, pounds her left fist into her right palm, and says, "You want to take this outside, General?"

The King takes a large forkful of mushrooms, chews and swallows them. "They are acceptable," he says finally. "A bit tough after three hundred years." The King glares at Lois. "But they will have to do."

Lois goes to lunge for her father, but I catch her around her waist and pull her back into her chair beside me.

"Enough you two! Lois, sit down! We have guests!" Lois's mother, Queen Ella yells.

Wow. I thought my parents were rough. This guy's acting kind of like a dick. I can see how his daughter ended up so bossy, stuck-up and rude. Apple doesn't fall far, does it? Again, I try to change the subject.

"The meat is…different. I'm not sure I've had it before. What kind of meat is it?"

"Is not the peacock excellent?" Queen Ella says.

"This is peacock?"

"Certainly," the Queen says. Like…Yes, we eat the NBC mascot every Sunday.

"Wow." I've tried it now. I can't un-eat it. It's sort of gamy and tough, like duck in a really bad Chinese restaurant. I move it around on my plate picturing the feathers.

"Do you not have peacocks where you are from?" Lois seems even more eager to change the subject than I am.

"We have peacocks. We don't eat them, though."

"What do you eat, then?" Lois asks.

I think about it. "Lots of stuff. People in America are from all over the place. We're like one big pot luck dinner. So we eat pizza, which originally came from Italy…"

Lois sighs loudly. "I've ever been to Italy."

"…Hamburgers, which came from Germany…"

"I've never been to Germany, either, and they are our neighbors…"

"…French fries…"

"I have not been to France…"

"…Tacos from Mexico, although we put the Texas twist on anything Mexican…"

"I do not even know where that is. Either place. Mexico or Texas. Would it not be amazing, Smallville, to run off and see the world?" She gazes at me with those gorgeous hazel eyes, smiling the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. I have to catch my breath.

"Lois Joanne…" The King seems to be having some trouble with the chewy peacock and the chewier mushrooms. Sill he opens his mouth to speak to her. "That will be enough."

"Enough of what? All my life, you have made me stay in this castle, doing nothing, all for the fear of spindles."

"Obviously, we did not do enough for fear of spindles. Perhaps we should have locked you in a cage."

"Nobody…and I mean nobody…is locking Lois in a cage," I say through clenched teeth before I even realize what I'm saying. All eyes at the dinner table widen and everyone turns and stares at me in shock. Except for the King. His eyes narrow and he looks pissed. "General, sir." I stare right back. Lois smiles at me with that breath-taking smile again.

"Sam…" Queen Ella's voice is whispery.

The King breaks eye contact with me. I guess I win this round. "It is the truth," he says. And then grunts.

"No, it is not!" Lois bursts out. And the smile is gone. "There was nothing you or I could have done to prevent it. The curse said, 'shall prick her finger.' It was preordained – my destiny. It was going to happen no matter what. You would have been better off had you pricked my finger with a spindle yourself, at a date and time of your convenience, making certain a prince of your choosing and to your liking was on hand to kiss me. This is all your fault! Your fault!"

Wow. It's weird hearing Lois quote me, like I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter for the Daily Planet who just broke some huge political scandal. Nah. I'd never be a reporter.

"If that is the case, you would have been awakened by your true love. Where is he, then?" The King says, smirking at Lois.

Lois points at me. "Uh Hello! Right here! Smallville! He loves me."

There is silence. Uncomfortable silence. The Lords and Ladies stop in midchew. From the fairies, I hear a small voice say, "He could not be her true love. But how could my spell have gone so wrong?" With a small sigh, she flies off. The other fairy follows.

The King glares at Lois. "This boy does not love you."

"Dammit to hellfire and brimstone! By all that is holy yes he does!" Lois cries.

"Lois Joanne," her mother Queen Ella cautions. "Do not swear."

"I will swear, Motherella. I am done with this entire spindle situation. The General can see fit to treat me any way he so chooses, but I will not stand to see him treat with such disdain the person we are all indebted to for saving us. Had Smallville not tenderly and sweetly kissed me –

"He what!?" The King Roars.

Uh-oh. Did he not know that?

"Kissed me. That's how I happened to awaken and the curse was broken. I told you that, General."

"No, Lois Joanne, you told me he had pillow soft lips and that he woke you up. You never mentioned a kiss. For all I knew he kicked you!" King Samuel seethes through his teeth.

"Uh, Hello. How else do you think I would know how soft and silky his lips were and how his tongue tastes –"

"You!" The King shoots up out of his chair and points a finger at me. "You, a commoner from Kansas, dared to take advantage of my daughter's sleeping state to –"

"I didn't know she was a princess, General, sir." I push my chair aside. "I think I've overstayed my welcome."

"No! You will go nowhere! You have defiled my daughter!" The King yells.

"Are you kidding me!? It was just a kiss!" I yell back. I turn to Lois. "Tell him."

Lois walks up to me and gets so close that I almost thinks she's going to kiss me again right in front of her parents. She stares into my eyes – hazel connecting with aquamarine. Then she whispers a plea so soft and low I barely hear her, but I do. "Please take me with you Clark."

I close my eyes, severing the connection. I hate what I'm about to say. "I'm sorry Lois, but I can't."

"Yes, General." I hear Lois say with my eyes closed. "He defiled me."

My eyes snap open. "What!?" I yell. "I barely touched you!" I want to grab her and show her what defiling actually is, but I try to keep my control, which is becoming increasingly harder around her. Manhandling her would definitely get me in more trouble than she's gotten me in already. "Tell the truth, you bossy, stuck-up, rude little brat! I wouldn't defile you if you paid me! I can't stand you!" Oops. That slipped out. You should never say the quiet part out loud.

Lois glares at me, and then continues addressing The King. "It is true. I am quite compromised. Sullied. Tainted. There is no other honorable gentleman who will have me. There is nothing for me to do but marry this young man and go to Kansas with him immediately."

"Marry you!? Mar –"

"Can it Clark!" Lois snaps at me.

"Enough!" The King nods at the guards behind me and I feel hands on my arms. "This young man is an offender of the most contemptible kind, a rogue who would take advantage of a young lady's – a princess's – sleeping state to…desecrate her. Death is too good for such an offender. He must be brought to the royal dungeon to await a suitable punishment. Take him away!"

Three guards start dragging me down a very long, dark flight of stairs. To the dungeon. As if I need any more darkness to make me weaker. To her credit, I hear Lois protesting my imprisonment and begging her father for a punishment of marriage instead. I think I prefer the dungeon. I see her at the top of the stairs with her father, so I make sure I channel my inner Kal and get the last word.

"Lois!" I yell, getting her attention. Hazel eyes connect to aquamarine. "When I get out of here…and I will…I'm gonna make sure you go back to sleep…but this time you won't wake up."

She smirks and rolls her eyes. The connection is severed. "See 'ya around, Smallville."

As the guards close the dungeon door, I laugh and blow her a kiss.

She just had to have the last word.