but I being poor have only my dreams;

 I have spread my dreams under your feet ;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

 - w.b yeats

 Clark's surprise left him stunned for a second – in which time Lex felt his brief flash of courage failing as he pressed his own mouth to his.

 But then Clark was returning the kiss with that heated passion his angry tirade had already brought to the surface, and his hands were behind Lex's neck pulling him closer. Their minds were both blinded by their senses, drowning in this sudden wonderful realm they'd entered into; the line they'd never let their friendship cross into; a world of touch and heat, and the sweet violence of their kisses. For Clark found himself losing control, as he pushed Lex back against the wall with a strength that Lex found irresistible. It was a confirmation of his suspicions that there was so much more to Clark Kent, and it left absolutely no doubt of Clark's returning the vast amounts of passion he himself had kept hidden and denied inside him for all these months.

  It was a moment of breathless, uncontrolled pleasure.

 But it was the very perfection of it all that led to its end. Nothing was ever perfect for Lex. He couldn't be given so great a gift, such a sweet instance of release, and not pay the price.

 His eyes flashed open and he was pushing Clark back, untangling himself from his embrace, and stumbling away with a desperately whispered "No."

  He walked away from Clark, his back to him, desperately trying to regain focus. Attempting to slow his panicked breathing, he held his head in his hands as he weakly came to lean against his desk. He felt such rage then. Such angry panic. He couldn't allow himself to do this. He had to stay in control. This was a kid for Christ's sake, a boy…and all Lex's upbringing, all his father's whisperings in his ear told him what he'd done was sick. Perverse. It was a temptation he'd given into, but must never have again.

 Clark's eyes were wide with confusion, and fear at the removal of Lex's touch.

 '"No,please Lex-" he spoke hastily, desperate, the pleading clear, "I know you want this; I want it too." Seeing this thing he'd scarcely dared hope for right within his grasp, he couldn't let this moment slip away from him. He couldn't let his dream shatter.

  But Lex wouldn't meet his eyes, speaking only in a strained, hard voice;

 "I…Clark I don't know what got into me then but ..it has to stop now. I'm sorry." He took a breath trying not to let the choking sound of regret into his words "I'm sorry I did that but…it's not going to happen. Ever. I was stupid to think it could."

 Clark was just staring at him in disbelief, watching how this man he had come to know so well; who had started to let him in tonight, started to share all that he was, now avoided his eyes and spoke to him with the coldness the rest of the world saw in him.

"I have to get back to my guests." Lex said hastily, and began to make his way back towards the door, refusing to raise his eyes to Clark's as he passed, and even when he was stopped by Clark's firm grip on his arm.

 "Lex, please!" Clark cried incredulously, the pain evident on his face, hardly believing that the most perfect moment of his life had descended into this sickening humiliation and hostility,

 "Please don't run away from this." He begged, pleading with all his soul in a way he had never done before in his life, "I'm scared too, I'm-I'm not sure what happens now, where we go from here, but…whatever it is, I want it. Please you can't walk away from me like this. "

  Lex heard his words and his heart tore. Why did he have to beg?

 "I-" He struggled for the words, and found they would not come. "Maybe you ought to go home Clark. Let's just-"

  …forget about it? As if they could. He'd just kissed Clark. He'd just fucking kissed  his best friend. And on the other side of that door were a hundred people all tied to his father, all hating him, fearing him, holding a cool respect for him. If they, if his father, were to find out he was groping about with a schoolboy behind closed doors…

 Lex felt his stomach lurch.  He spoke harshly now, unable to contain his emotion.

 "It was a mistake."

 And with that he was out of the door.

~ ~ ~

  He assumed Clark left pretty soon after that. He didn't see him for the rest of the night, as he mingled amongst the party guests for as long as could, but he knew he wasn't acting himself. He couldn't seem to pay attention to what anyone was saying, or feign any kind of interest in it.  One observant old acquaintance even pulled him aside and muttered that whatever he was on, he should pull himself together before anyone noticed.

  Not even bothering to deny the implication, Lex welcomed the excuse to escape these people he loathed.

He headed straight for his room. Once there he had tried to calm down, he'd gone and splashed water on his face, and he'd sat down on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, savouring the silence, but hating the sound of Clark's confused desperate entreaties that came with it, whirling around in his mind.

 And then there came wild, crazed, shameful thoughts. Thoughts of silencing Clark, moving away, erasing what had happened from living memory, denying that any of this had ever existed. Thoughts of charging back down through his guests and going to Clark, taking him then and there wherever he might be. Thoughts of drinking himself into a stupor. Thoughts of breaking the glass, using it to let the blood flow from his wrists, laughing at his father and showing him how weak he was, telling him of all the things he'd done, all his secret desires.

  All the thoughts came and went in an instant, each one tightening the vice round his mind, preventing him from ignoring it all, letting it go.

That was when Fate decided to provide him with a distraction.

~ ~ ~

Feeling neglected, and seeing him sneak away upstairs, Ella had followed, finding him alone in his room, quiet and secluded.  There were sweet, flirting sentiments, asking if he was all right.

'Trouble with your friend?" she had asked, sympathetically, and he had tried so hard to keep his expression under control, trying not to laugh bitterly as he'd muttered something about some "unexpected developments".

 And then she was there, sitting close to him on the bed, the shadows around them, and her soft breaths on his neck wondering if she could make it all better, all go away.

  Words like that couldn't be resisted and Lex seized the opportunity then, for some release, for some way of clearing his head of Clark.

  He was sure that he shocked her with his aggressiveness that night, and he knew that she had been expecting something more personal, something of the charming pretence he usually put on before the empty promises that dissolved in the light of the morning. But Lex wasn't in the mood for caring that night. And he tried so hard not to compare her kisses with Clark's, to regret the lack of strength, of passion in her slender, graceful form. It was all wrong, it was all such a poor substitute for what he could have had, for what had filled his dreams. He was filled with an anger that he couldn't re-create that fire he'd felt with Clark's kisses, couldn't feel that violent hold on him while his fingers trailed through soft black hair, over pale elegant features…

 Instead he was left with but a momentary surrender, a way of escaping his own fears, and his own conscience. Lying awake afterwards, he couldn't help feeling as empty and alone and the girl beside him.

   He could only wonder if Clark would ever forgive him for what he'd said tonight. Whether he could ever make amends for allowing the fear, the doubts, the shadow of what the world would say, stop him from doing what he'd wanted to do so, so badly.

 He lay there wondering why and when the world had got so utterly screwed up.

 He lay dreading what tomorrow would bring, and wishing he could just curl up and sleep forever, locking the world, his mistakes and his fear away.

TBC

[more CK's POV]

R/R