Monday morning, Chloe found herself hanging out in the back of Luthor mansion trying to chat up the house staff. Taking a big drink of her triple shot café mocha, she knocked on the back door.

A rather conservatively dressed man in his mid-twenties opened the door . Chloe remembered him from several months ago when she had visited Lex to talk about Lionel.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah. You're Enrique? Right?"

"Yes"

"I'm Chloe, Clark and Lex's friend."

She extended her hand to him and he took it, shaking it briefly.

"Mr. Luthor is not in at the moment." He volunteered.

"That's ok, I sort of wanted to talk to you."

"Me?" Enrique asked in disbelief.

"Yes, you." Chloe drawled, smiling brightly, "How have you been lately?"

"Fine" Enrique answered warily.

Chloe continued to flirt while leaning in to use her cleavage to its best advantage, "That's great."

Enrique sighed while pointedly not looking down her shirt, "I feel obliged to point out that I'm seeing someone and you're in high school."

Chloe blushed and stammered, "No, I didn't mean…"

Lex's butler looked skeptical, "Why do you want to talk to me?"

Chloe scrambled for an answer, "I, um I…just thought you might be a bit lonely with being up at this castle all the time. You and I could be friends."

Enrique huffed sarcastically. "Yes, because my entire life must consist of being at the beck and call of Mr. Luthor since I am a lowly servant. I must not have any friends, especially" he looked her up and down, "age-appropriate friends."

Chloe looked abashed, "I didn't mean it that way."

"I'm sure."

They stared at each other for a bit.

"Fine" Enrique bit out.

"Fine what?" Chloe didn't follow his line of thinking.

"We're friends." Enrique said briskly, "Now what do you want?"

"Well," Chloe tried a more direct method, "I wanted to know what's been happening between Lex and Clark?"

Enrique rolled his eyes, "I don't believe I can discuss that with you."

"Come on! I'm just trying to help two of my friends mend their troubled and strained relationship back together." Chloe didn't mention Lana's idea of what back together would mean.

"And it could mean my job" he replied.

"They've both been miserable fighting like this…" Chloe pleaded.

Enrique said dryly, "My heart goes out, really."

Chloe continued on, "…short tempered, hostile, and altogether just plain pissy."

"It has been a trying time for all of us."

Chloe used her most convincing voice, "Think of it as self-preservation with a bit of altruism thrown in for good measure."

He caved, "When you put it that way…"

"So dish, what's the scoop?" Chloe asked excitedly.

"First, will you give me your word that not a word of this will be published or traced back to me?" he asked.

"I protect my sources at all costs," she replied crossing her heart.

"And will you give me your word that you'll quit bugging me and leave afterwards?"

"Yes, whatever you want." Chloe agreed.

"I believe Mr. Kent found Mr. Luthor's private room." Enrique stated.

"His private room? What's that?" Chloe asked while thoughts of torture chambers and bad cable movie S&M scenes ran through her head.

"It was his hobby and sort of his sanctuary when board meetings, his father or other things would get out of hand. Mr. Luthor would retire there whenever he had a particularly hard day," Enrique explained.

"So what upset Clark so much?" she inquired.

Enrique exhaled, "It had different, shall we say, relics of Mr. Luthor's little adventures with Mr. Kent, as well as some other stuff."

"Adventures?" Chloe decided that what she was currently imagining was probably way off the mark and she blamed Lana and HBO for it.

"You know with…" he lowered his voice to a whisper, "meteor stuff and mutants."

"OH! Oh man," Chloe exclaimed finally getting the picture, "Clark hates that."

"Well, yes, there was quite a fuss." he admitted.

"What was the other stuff." Chloe wanted as much information as possible.

Enrique muttered under his breath, "Very large pictures of Mr. Kent"

Chloe strained to hear, "What?"

Enrique repeated himself louder, "He had several pictures of Mr. Kent."

"What kind of pictures?" HBO came back to her in full force.

"Head shots mostly, although there were a couple really good full length pictures."

"Does he still have the room?" She asked.

"No, no. He went and took it apart after Mr. Kent found it."

"What about the stuff in it?"

"Well he moved all the weird stuff somewhere else, he had the car he hit Mr. Kent in crushed and he moved the pictures to a different room."

"He kept the pictures?"

"Sentimental value." Enrique drawled out while moving his hand in a rather crude manner.

Chloe's eyes got big, "Oh. I see."

"Uh-huh" he said slyly.

"Ok. I'm going now," Chloe said as she turned to head back to her car.

"You do that."

Enrique shut the door with a loud click.

"Clark, how you doing?" Chloe brightened when she entered the Torch later in the day to find just the person she was looking for.

"Fine." He didn't look up from the computer screen. "I'm just checking my e-mail in between classes."

Chloe was determined to prove Lana wrong. In her opinion Clark Kent was not gay, simply an old fashioned, small town bred, virginal prude.

"I wanted to talk to you about something." She said trying to sound as guilty as possible.

He looked up from what he was doing, "Is it about your Mom?"

"No, um, it's about me actually." She launched right into it, "I've sorta been seeing someone."

Clark looked surprised, "Well, that's good isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's great actually."

"Anyone one I know?"

"No!" Chloe responded quickly, "They're not from around here."

"Ok."

"Um, anyway, what I was going to talk to you about is…um…sex." She felt her face blushing.

"Sex?" Clark went redder than her shirt.

"Yeah, you see I sorta had it."

"Sex???" Clark stuttered.

Chloe was certain her suspicions about him would be confirmed.

"And um, have you? Cause I could really use someone to talk about it."

"No…no I haven't." Clark suddenly found the years of dust bunnies collecting in the far corner of the room absolutely riveting.

"Well what do you think about it."

Clark choked. "I don't think about it! I mean I think about it, but…"

Clark grabbed the soda he had sitting on the edge of the desk and took a big drink.

"…shouldn't you talk to someone else about this? You know…like another girl."

"Well, since Pete left," Chloe used the guilt Clark obviously felt anytime someone mentioned Pete's name, "you're my closest friend."

Not that Chloe would've ever talked to Pete about sex.

Clark managed to look guilty, repentant and sick all at the same time.

"Well ok. What do you need to talk about?" He was now staring at the soda bottle in his hands.

"Do you think I'm a bad person…you know, for doing it?"

Clark's face scrunched up. "No. You're not a bad person."

"Do you think I should've waited until marriage?"

Clark seemed to think on that. "I think that if you thought you were ready and you care about this person and you were safe, than it's alright."

Crap, Chloe thought. He's not a prude.

"Well what about you? I mean…I know you're a virgin, but would you if you had the chance with someone…like Lana for instance"

"Um, I don't know. There are other things for me to consider." Clark looked up at her, "things I can't talk about."

"It's just that I know you thought what Lex did was wrong. You know sleeping around like that."

Chloe watched as Clark squeezed the bottle hard enough to pop the cap off without unscrewing it. Her eyes followed it as it went flying into the corner with the dust bunnies.

"He was just…I mean he…He used those women." Clark stated finally.

"But didn't those women want to, you know, be used? I mean Shannon only turned psycho cause she was already seriously disturbed. None of the other women seemed to have a problem with the affairs."

Clark didn't have an answer to this. Chloe noted that he was clenching his jaw rhythmically.

"Clark. You're not angry at Lex because he had casual sex? Are you?"

"No!" He responded vehemently.

"So you wouldn't be mad at me?"

"No, of course not." He softened a bit.

"Good."

"Is that what you wanted to talk about, cause I need to get to class?" He started to collect his things.

"Yeah, thanks for discussing it with me."

"Sure. No problem." He moved past Chloe and out into the hall.

"Shit." Chloe said when she heard the door shut, "Lana was right."

"Lex and Clark need to get together." Chloe stated as she flopped down on the couch next to Lana.

"Uh-huh" Lana muttered, absorbed in watching repeats of Will & Grace.

"You were right." Chloe said incredulously.

"I know."

"So what are we going to do about it?" Chloe asked.

"We're going to convince everyone we've fallen in love and are now dating." Lana responded in a tone entirely too flat for the statement she just made.

Chloe looked like a fish out of water, "We're going to pretend to be lesbians to get Clark and Lex together?"

"Lesbians in love," Lana explained patiently all while watching the TV and apparently taking notes.

Chloe couldn't follow the logic, "Why exactly?"

"Because Smallville's not exactly the most forward thinking town." Lana answered.

"And what about Jason?" Chloe prompted.

"He's ok with it. He says it'll throw his mother off my scent."

"Uh…" Chloe didn't quite know how to respond to that.

Lana launched into her plan, "We come out of the closet first and we'll take the brunt of the reaction. It won't matter as much for us because it isn't real. Also, people respond better when two women are together, especially if they're pretty. Not only that, but it'll help get Clark thinking along the proper homosexual lines to steer him towards Lex."

Chloe considered Lana's reasoning while factoring in that she was right the first time, "I didn't know you were so manipulative and cunning."

"Most people don't," Lana said in a disturbingly sweet voice, "that's how I know I'm doing it right."

"Hey Lana, what are you doing here?" Clark called down as Lana started to climb the steps up to the loft.

"Came to admire your stall mucking abilities, but I guess you're not doing that today." She said sarcastically.

"No, I was just reading." Clark gestured with his book .

Lana took a deep breathe and launched into what she'd planned to say, scrunching up her face, "Clark, I want to know if we can be friends again. I know it sounds cliché after all that's happened, but I really don't want to loose you entirely from my life."

Clark seemed to hesitate for a second, but then nodded his head. "I suppose we could. I mean I don't want to loose you from my life either."

"So, what book?" Lana asked

"Huh?"

"What book are you reading?" She pointed to his hand.

"The Portrait of Dorian Grey"

Lana suddenly thought of something, "You know I've got copy of an updated version of that story. It's called 'A Face Without A Heart'. I could lend it to you."

"Okay…um"

"So…"

"So…"

"Have you talked to Lex lately"

Clark visibly stiffened. "Um...no. Why?"

"I was just wondering how he's been dealing with the crazy stalker girl trying to burn him and his father being in prison, and then the nightmare virus thing that went around. He doesn't really talk to me about those kinds of things."

Clark stared blankly at her. "I wouldn't know."

"I just figured you'd be more concerned about your friend." Lana pressed on, trying to get a reaction out of him.

Clark sighed, "I don't think we're friends anymore."

"Don't you still care about him?" Lana feigned bewilderment.

"Yeah, but it's really complicated now."

Clark seemed to draw in on himself physically.

"How so?"

"It's just…" He hesitated, but then looked into her eyes, "there are boundaries a person doesn't cross when you're their friend. You don't follow them around and keep track of their actions like there's something suspect about them. And you respect the fact that you can't know everything about them sometimes. And you don't lie to them repeatedly."

Lana nodded her head sympathetically, "Oh Clark, I'm sure he'll forgive you if you just ask."

"What?" Clark asked with a clearly confused look on his face.

"He called you on it, didn't he?"

"On what?"

"You know, the really blatant lies that you've been telling for years when anyone gets the least bit inquisitive about you. The way you've been following him around lately like you're trying to catch him at something. Breaking into private property to dig up evidence just because someone told you he might be doing questionable things instead of just asking him. Jumping to accusations when he's been the victim. Only going to him for favors now…"

"Uh, I, um...I didn't think I …" Clark tried to protest.

Lana cut him off. "Although I did hear that you went to his father behind his back twice, and that might be a bit harder to get over."

"But, I had to! Lex was going to get himself hurt. And then he was going to go to jail and I needed the help."

"So you went to Lionel to protect and help Lex?"

"I had to! He was the only one powerful enough to help the first time and the second time, I didn't really go to him for help. It just worked out that way."

"Isn't that a bit like trying to help the little pigs by going to the big bad wolf?"

"I wouldn't put it that way" He said defensively.

"I mean I've always got the impression they were more enemies than family."

Clark grudgingly relented. "It may not have been my best idea."

"Probably not. Look Clark, I wish I could discuss this more, but I've got to pick up Chloe for dinner and a movie." She tried to put as much insinuation into her voice as she could, initiating the next part of her plan.

"Dinner and a movie?" Clark asked, echoing her tone back to her.

"Do you have a problem with two really close girlfriends going out together… to dinner and a movie?"

"Ah, no, it just sounded…um, never mind"

"What Clark?"

"Um…nothing Lana, have fun and tell Chloe I said hi."

He blushed.

Lana smiled brightly. She got up from the edge of the couch where she'd sat to walk down the stairs.

"Sure Clark. Why don't we discuss this tomorrow? You could stop by the house sometime and I could give you that book."

"Ok, bye" He called back to her as she walked out of the barn.

"Bye"