Lois was almost sobbing. She was clad in a pale yellow sheath dress, and
some Luthor diamonds that could have bought a small city, but she knew from
her perfectly pedicured feet to her perfectly coiffed head, that Lex was
not pleased.
They stood on the wide terrace of the Metropolis Polo Club, presenting the picture of the perfect couple, with Lex leaning protectively towards her and whispering sweet nothings into her hair. Only when one was Lois did one realize that the protective leaning could so easily be threatening looming, and the whispered nothings were actually quite substantial threats.
Her fingers gripped the champagne flute in such desperate tension that her hand was hurting with the unaccustomed exertion of strength. Lois deliberately loosened her grip and took a composing breath.
'That's all he tells me, Lex! And he was back by nine. I remember because I had him look up Metron for the Lionel article, and he worked till midnight to make up for the day. Gus the night watchman saw him leave past midnight. I cannot get any inconsistencies in his story at all.'
Lex was blandness itself as he took her glass and placed it on a passing waiter's tray. 'He is obviously lying. He was in Lana's apartment at midnight. I want more information. Why is he hiding that?'
He looked down at her and said softly. 'Did you find out about his mother?'
'Yes, though that was hard to bring up in a conversation when I was rushing out to get ready for this, and dumping all my work on him...'Lois paused, and continued hurriedly on seeing Lex's expression in the half light. 'S- she's still in Smallville. I called and found out. She picked up the phone. '
'Having met her so many times and knowing her so intimately, you would, of course, know it was her.' Lex mocked.
He stared long and hard into the orange lights of the club as they tried to light up the extensive grounds now covered in darkness, while Lois' embarrassed blush stained her cheek and spread its telling ruddiness to her neck and bosom. She tried so hard to be composed in her company, but when he spoke to her just so—God she really should be annoyed and outraged, not feel so weak-kneed and... but Lex was speaking again, his voice holding her in thrall. She remembered long-forgotten images of Nag and Darzee in an overgrown garden. Kipling's Jungle Book. Images flashed but her mind was full of Lex's mouth as it enunciated each syllable with lethal precision and his cold eyes whispered dangerous allure. Lois always caught the Harlequin romance tinge in her self-referential moments of truth, but always her brain refused to be reigned in.
' I guess you will just have to work harder, Lois.' he said, his breath whispering on her cheek, his hand rubbing sensuous circles on the nape of her neck, and all she could do was nod breathlessly as his other hand slipped around her waist.
From the shadows of the bright lights that lit the Metropolis Polo Club, Chloe Sullivan patrolled the ranks of the deprived. Her working black trousers and practical shoes, merged into invisibility against the light and sparkle of the Metropolis elite. She swatted away a few persistent bugs, deluded into circling the lawn lights until they burnt their wings in a short sizzle of death. Chloe watched, her eyes searching for a lone socialite whom she might accost and get a few choice quotes. She did not rate her chances high. The event at the Polo Club was Old Money, very restrained and with no big-mouthed page three aspirants who would dole away easy gossip for one gape-mouthed picture in the tabloids.
Therefore, Chloe circled the garden paths, soaking up the atmosphere, composing long and stilted periods in her head that would distinguish this event from countless other she had already covered. She looked around her in frustration, wishing her photographer had not disappeared with quite so much alacrity after the staidly circulating waiters bearing hors d'oeuvre.
Then it was as if her senses went on overload and she could feel the coolness of perspiration on her lower back. She sensed him. She turned slowly, deliberately subverting the instinct to whip back and thus alert him to her presence.
He was looking straight at her and straight through her. Fierce, primordial rage rose in her, at last breaking the rigid bounds set in it by years of 'moving on'. In that moment, as he passed her, a beautiful girl on his arm, in full leonine disdain, she felt every threat, every piece of lowly blackmail, every betrayal and every snub she had ever received in her career at once and with all the original intensity. 'Moving on' and Zen meditation and cooling draughts of mint tea, and all the fatalist justification of karma went tearing away on the red haze of building rage. It seemed that she would scream and attack him borne on the sudden uncontrollable flood of memory mired in emotion, but then he was but a disappearing silhouette in the yellow light, and she was standing panting with her nails digging into her palm. Only the crickets in the shrubs accentuated the silence of the night, broken by a titter of polite amusement. Chloe felt completely disoriented. Had she screamed out her outrage, she asked the silence, were they ignoring her tasteless betrayal of pariah-hood? Had *he * felt it —the roiling, surging, vitriolic hatred that had stood by him, though only for a few moments?
Then the leveling oil of cynicism returned to calm her-- he probably would have felt it had she expressed passionate love, or even nonchalant neutrality. Lionel and hatred were probably associated words in every consciousness present at this gathering.
She spotted one candidate immediately; her cousin Lois, resplendent with diamonds around her neck and Lex on her arm, came winding down a path lit with fairy lights. Chloe beat a strategic retreat behind some flowering wisteria, for she did not intend to compete her sensible Nine Wests against Lois' Choos.
Lionel Luthor was not overly perturbed to see Lex at the gathering of Metropolis's beautiful and rich. The pleasure of accosting Lex with a carefully cultivated veneer of parental concern was long lost to him, for Lex had learnt the art of dissimilitude from none other than the master, and would be sure to carry on the pretence with absurd and ill-satisfying ease. Therefore, Lionel left him well alone, concentrating instead on his charming companion for the evening. His mood was further elevated when his handheld buzzed and he saw Lana's ID, before the picture showed Clark Kent lounging in her new apartment. The call was then disconnected and Lionel turned back to Priase once again.
' You need to work harder at this Lois. Perhaps there is a lack of commitment?'
Chloe shrank further into the darkness, reporter instincts clashing with her need to distance herself from the vicious world she had tried to leave behind.
'Lex, I'm doing everything I can. Clark is just so so..It's hard!'
The couple sauntered forward on the winding path and then paused almost in front of the wisteria-clad tree that Chloe was crouched behind.
'I thought you told me his sexual inclinations tended more towards... and yet he is Lana's bed in the middle of the night.' Lex's murmurs were getting blander and blander in tone, and Chloe had to strain her ears before she could hear the words. Lois's higher pitched and protesting voice was mush easier to follow.
'But...' Lois was obviously not getting a word in.
Chloe peeked between two clusters of bloom and saw Lex trace the outline of Lois's ear with one indolent finger.
'Perhaps I should have listened to Lana. At least she still has Clark at her disposal.'
Lois shivered, and in the shadows, so did Chloe. She eased further back into the velvety darkness.
'Why don't you go home? Harris will drop you back.' Just like that, Lois departed and Chloe relaxed where she stood, her shoes buried in garden mould, and the pollen from the abundant blooms around her threatening to make her sneeze. It seemed to her as if the fragrant dark was full of her abnormally loud breathing. She could smell his cologne, overlaid as it was by the rich tones of Lois' Joy and the drowsy whiff of the wisteria and the crushed grass. The sense memory was immediate—bees wax and polished floors in the Smallville castle, reheated coffee and fluorescent buzzing at the Torch, purple and style, and infinite cunning, all Lex, all power, all vulnerable. She breathed him in again and realized the subtle difference—the vulnerability had mutated.
There was a small click as Lex flipped out his handheld and spoke softly into it. 'I believe Lana may yet be useful. Continue observation.'
Silence.
Chloe realized she was stuck there until he decided to leave. Then finally, when she felt she must expose herself with an explosive sneeze that would rouse the birds out of the tress for miles around, she heard Lex stir and walk velvet-footed towards the main building. She waited agonizing minutes before she could trust herself to move. The bark of the tree chafed her back as she stood straight after what seemed interminable years of awkward squatting.
Lana sank back on her leather couch, carefully switching off the handheld. Then she relaxed and saw the hand on the back of the couch shrink back from large and hairy to the familiar contours of femininity. Curled up in an embryonic ball, she felt her head explode in pain while her nose vented her lifeblood with pulsating vigour. She fought off the encroaching darkness and retained consciousness through the process, and got off the couch trembling, yet triumphant.
Then with a satisfied smile she pulled off the large brown khakis she wore and put them away in a laundry basket. She retained the blue shirt though, and went to the large window that made up one entire wall of the living room and pulled up the blinds. The buzzing insect colony of Metropolis at night came into view and she saw herself reflected in the broad expanse of the super-strong plate glass, foreshadowing the entire city.
They stood on the wide terrace of the Metropolis Polo Club, presenting the picture of the perfect couple, with Lex leaning protectively towards her and whispering sweet nothings into her hair. Only when one was Lois did one realize that the protective leaning could so easily be threatening looming, and the whispered nothings were actually quite substantial threats.
Her fingers gripped the champagne flute in such desperate tension that her hand was hurting with the unaccustomed exertion of strength. Lois deliberately loosened her grip and took a composing breath.
'That's all he tells me, Lex! And he was back by nine. I remember because I had him look up Metron for the Lionel article, and he worked till midnight to make up for the day. Gus the night watchman saw him leave past midnight. I cannot get any inconsistencies in his story at all.'
Lex was blandness itself as he took her glass and placed it on a passing waiter's tray. 'He is obviously lying. He was in Lana's apartment at midnight. I want more information. Why is he hiding that?'
He looked down at her and said softly. 'Did you find out about his mother?'
'Yes, though that was hard to bring up in a conversation when I was rushing out to get ready for this, and dumping all my work on him...'Lois paused, and continued hurriedly on seeing Lex's expression in the half light. 'S- she's still in Smallville. I called and found out. She picked up the phone. '
'Having met her so many times and knowing her so intimately, you would, of course, know it was her.' Lex mocked.
He stared long and hard into the orange lights of the club as they tried to light up the extensive grounds now covered in darkness, while Lois' embarrassed blush stained her cheek and spread its telling ruddiness to her neck and bosom. She tried so hard to be composed in her company, but when he spoke to her just so—God she really should be annoyed and outraged, not feel so weak-kneed and... but Lex was speaking again, his voice holding her in thrall. She remembered long-forgotten images of Nag and Darzee in an overgrown garden. Kipling's Jungle Book. Images flashed but her mind was full of Lex's mouth as it enunciated each syllable with lethal precision and his cold eyes whispered dangerous allure. Lois always caught the Harlequin romance tinge in her self-referential moments of truth, but always her brain refused to be reigned in.
' I guess you will just have to work harder, Lois.' he said, his breath whispering on her cheek, his hand rubbing sensuous circles on the nape of her neck, and all she could do was nod breathlessly as his other hand slipped around her waist.
From the shadows of the bright lights that lit the Metropolis Polo Club, Chloe Sullivan patrolled the ranks of the deprived. Her working black trousers and practical shoes, merged into invisibility against the light and sparkle of the Metropolis elite. She swatted away a few persistent bugs, deluded into circling the lawn lights until they burnt their wings in a short sizzle of death. Chloe watched, her eyes searching for a lone socialite whom she might accost and get a few choice quotes. She did not rate her chances high. The event at the Polo Club was Old Money, very restrained and with no big-mouthed page three aspirants who would dole away easy gossip for one gape-mouthed picture in the tabloids.
Therefore, Chloe circled the garden paths, soaking up the atmosphere, composing long and stilted periods in her head that would distinguish this event from countless other she had already covered. She looked around her in frustration, wishing her photographer had not disappeared with quite so much alacrity after the staidly circulating waiters bearing hors d'oeuvre.
Then it was as if her senses went on overload and she could feel the coolness of perspiration on her lower back. She sensed him. She turned slowly, deliberately subverting the instinct to whip back and thus alert him to her presence.
He was looking straight at her and straight through her. Fierce, primordial rage rose in her, at last breaking the rigid bounds set in it by years of 'moving on'. In that moment, as he passed her, a beautiful girl on his arm, in full leonine disdain, she felt every threat, every piece of lowly blackmail, every betrayal and every snub she had ever received in her career at once and with all the original intensity. 'Moving on' and Zen meditation and cooling draughts of mint tea, and all the fatalist justification of karma went tearing away on the red haze of building rage. It seemed that she would scream and attack him borne on the sudden uncontrollable flood of memory mired in emotion, but then he was but a disappearing silhouette in the yellow light, and she was standing panting with her nails digging into her palm. Only the crickets in the shrubs accentuated the silence of the night, broken by a titter of polite amusement. Chloe felt completely disoriented. Had she screamed out her outrage, she asked the silence, were they ignoring her tasteless betrayal of pariah-hood? Had *he * felt it —the roiling, surging, vitriolic hatred that had stood by him, though only for a few moments?
Then the leveling oil of cynicism returned to calm her-- he probably would have felt it had she expressed passionate love, or even nonchalant neutrality. Lionel and hatred were probably associated words in every consciousness present at this gathering.
She spotted one candidate immediately; her cousin Lois, resplendent with diamonds around her neck and Lex on her arm, came winding down a path lit with fairy lights. Chloe beat a strategic retreat behind some flowering wisteria, for she did not intend to compete her sensible Nine Wests against Lois' Choos.
Lionel Luthor was not overly perturbed to see Lex at the gathering of Metropolis's beautiful and rich. The pleasure of accosting Lex with a carefully cultivated veneer of parental concern was long lost to him, for Lex had learnt the art of dissimilitude from none other than the master, and would be sure to carry on the pretence with absurd and ill-satisfying ease. Therefore, Lionel left him well alone, concentrating instead on his charming companion for the evening. His mood was further elevated when his handheld buzzed and he saw Lana's ID, before the picture showed Clark Kent lounging in her new apartment. The call was then disconnected and Lionel turned back to Priase once again.
' You need to work harder at this Lois. Perhaps there is a lack of commitment?'
Chloe shrank further into the darkness, reporter instincts clashing with her need to distance herself from the vicious world she had tried to leave behind.
'Lex, I'm doing everything I can. Clark is just so so..It's hard!'
The couple sauntered forward on the winding path and then paused almost in front of the wisteria-clad tree that Chloe was crouched behind.
'I thought you told me his sexual inclinations tended more towards... and yet he is Lana's bed in the middle of the night.' Lex's murmurs were getting blander and blander in tone, and Chloe had to strain her ears before she could hear the words. Lois's higher pitched and protesting voice was mush easier to follow.
'But...' Lois was obviously not getting a word in.
Chloe peeked between two clusters of bloom and saw Lex trace the outline of Lois's ear with one indolent finger.
'Perhaps I should have listened to Lana. At least she still has Clark at her disposal.'
Lois shivered, and in the shadows, so did Chloe. She eased further back into the velvety darkness.
'Why don't you go home? Harris will drop you back.' Just like that, Lois departed and Chloe relaxed where she stood, her shoes buried in garden mould, and the pollen from the abundant blooms around her threatening to make her sneeze. It seemed to her as if the fragrant dark was full of her abnormally loud breathing. She could smell his cologne, overlaid as it was by the rich tones of Lois' Joy and the drowsy whiff of the wisteria and the crushed grass. The sense memory was immediate—bees wax and polished floors in the Smallville castle, reheated coffee and fluorescent buzzing at the Torch, purple and style, and infinite cunning, all Lex, all power, all vulnerable. She breathed him in again and realized the subtle difference—the vulnerability had mutated.
There was a small click as Lex flipped out his handheld and spoke softly into it. 'I believe Lana may yet be useful. Continue observation.'
Silence.
Chloe realized she was stuck there until he decided to leave. Then finally, when she felt she must expose herself with an explosive sneeze that would rouse the birds out of the tress for miles around, she heard Lex stir and walk velvet-footed towards the main building. She waited agonizing minutes before she could trust herself to move. The bark of the tree chafed her back as she stood straight after what seemed interminable years of awkward squatting.
Lana sank back on her leather couch, carefully switching off the handheld. Then she relaxed and saw the hand on the back of the couch shrink back from large and hairy to the familiar contours of femininity. Curled up in an embryonic ball, she felt her head explode in pain while her nose vented her lifeblood with pulsating vigour. She fought off the encroaching darkness and retained consciousness through the process, and got off the couch trembling, yet triumphant.
Then with a satisfied smile she pulled off the large brown khakis she wore and put them away in a laundry basket. She retained the blue shirt though, and went to the large window that made up one entire wall of the living room and pulled up the blinds. The buzzing insect colony of Metropolis at night came into view and she saw herself reflected in the broad expanse of the super-strong plate glass, foreshadowing the entire city.