Once again, I'm delighted with the turnout for the first two chapters. I'd just like to go ahead and tell everybody that I am writing another Angel-centric fic at this time so I might take a long time to update but – I do have the first7 chapters written so you can expect me to have those up at least once every two weeks or so.
Review Responses at bottom.
Once In A While…Chapter Three: The sandman and the witch
Summary: Why is Annette different from the usual prostitute? We're about to find out…
Annette walked into the penthouse, one step behind Kal–El.
"There's only one bed room, the kitchen's through here and everything is pretty much explanatory." Annette nodded, knowing that if she needed something she'd just twitch it up.
"If you need – " Clark broke off, a pained look on his face, eyes gradually darkening. "I – I have to go." He pushed past her, into the bathroom.
Annette's eyes narrowed. Kal-El had seemed pained and there had been a little fear in his eyes. What was going on here?
Clark gasped in pain as the scar on his chest flared with agonizing pain. Ripping off his shirt, he examined it; trying his best to keep from screaming. He knew the only way to stop the pain was to take off the ring.
Groaning, he pried it off and tossed it on the sink ledge; struggling to breathe when the memories and guilt assaulted him. It was his fault – Lex was missing and pronounced dead - if he'd been in Smallville he might've done something to aid with the search. His parent's had lost the baby and that was his fault as well. If he'd just listened to his dad, avoided the spaceship as he'd been told to do, thing's might have turned out differently. His parents, his friends – they were all going insane with worry and that was his doing to. In the end, everything was his fault. But then again, that's how things started out to began with, right? The meteor show, all those deaths…
Somebody knocked on the door.
"Kal-El, you okay?" Clark's eyes widened. Annette – he'd completely forgotten all about her. He could ask her to leave, but for some reason, he really wanted her to stay.
"I-I'm fine!" Clark shouted back, crossing over to the phone and quickly dialing.
"Hello?" Somebody picked up and Clark tried to keep from breaking down.
'Mommy…'
"Hello? Hello?" His mother's voice sounded panicky. "Jonathon, I think it's Clark!" Clark swallowed as there was a shuffle on the other side.
" Clark, son, is that you?" His father's voice pulled Clark out of his trance and he slowly pressed down on the hang up button. "Clar-"
It was better this way, he decided. He didn't need to ruin his parents' lives even more. They would be better off if he just stayed away.
"Kal-El?" Annette's voice drifted to his ears through the door and he sighed; pulling open the bathroom door. What was he supposed to do with her?
Clark walked into the bedroom and froze in his tracks when he realized that Annette was on the bed – completely naked.
"About time, gorgeous." She drawled, propping herself up on one elbow so that Clark could have a full view of her body. After all, for fifty grand, she was willing to bet that the brunette would demand his money's worth from her.
Clark blushed, averting his eyes even though he could already feel himself hardening. He knew it would be wrong to take advantage of Annette like that.
"Something wrong?" Annette frowned at him and Clark hesitated, unsure of what to say.
"I'm – I just don't feel well." Clark lied and Annette sighed, pulling the sheet up to cover her form. "I'm sorry."
"Do you want me to leave?" She asked and Clark shook his head.
"No!" Annette's eyes widened and even Clark was surprised at how much he wanted her to stay.
"All right," Annette patted the empty space next to her body. "Come here." Clark hesitated, inhibited now that the ring was taken off, yet decided to go with impulse for once.
"Okay." Clark wasn't sure or not whether it was okay to get so close to Annette's naked body when she was so – naked – but climbed in anyway. For some reason, the idea of being close to Annette was comforting.
"Shh…" Annette whispered, pulling his head onto her sheet-clad lap. "The Sandman forgot his sand, so let me put him to sleep on my land." If Clark found her words odd, he couldn't voice it. He was fast asleep.
Annette leaned back on the bed's headboard, closing her eyes. She'd sworn off magic for good, but for some reason she'd felt the need to break her oath just to put Kal-EL to sleep.
"Mom…" Clark mumbled in his sleep and Annette smiled. Kal-El was turning out to be nothing like she'd assumed he'd be.
After all, he'd refused to have sex with her – lying badly about how he didn't feel well. But why, Annette couldn't help but wonder, would Kal-El pay her fifty thousand to do something other then warm his bed? What did he want from her?
The ring Kal-El had placed on the vanity caught her eye and she shivered slightly. It gave her a bad vibe and since she was a witch, bad vibes usually meant something bad.
"Everything has a bad feature," Annette made up the spell whimfully. "Show me your true nature." The ring glowed an eerie red and Annette smiled, pleased with her work.
"Wow, that was pretty good." She couldn't help but comment to herself. "For being out of practice anyways." She frowned. "Do feature and nature even rhyme?"
"Annette…" Kal-El moaned in his sleep, unconsciously burrowing deeper into her lap. Rubbing his back until he calmed down, Annette twitched her nose; making a glass of water appear out of thin air.
Drinking it, she set it down on the side table and lay down; unconsciously wrapping her lags around the Kal-El's upper body. For some reason, she wanted to be as close to the brunette as possible.
Okey dokey, so you guys know what's up with Annette. Things are about to get even more interesting as next chapter the two get a visit from a crimelord, visit Smallville (where Annette runs into a woman and her husband), Clark gets lost and an entire choclate sundae is consumed. Check back forchapter four; A Trophy wife.
Review Responses:
Scary-Girly: Love the name. "are you doing all pretty women on me?" Pretty Woman - heard of the movie, wasn't allowed to watch it. I did have somebody else ask the same question so I'm wondering - was it about a prostitute?Anyways, I did base Annette of a housewife from a 60's show. Guess which one...
Kal's Gal:Okay. Here you go.
Liz: "i love reading clark on red k fics. and this one is totaly differnet." Thanx. I hate it when my fics arethe same as everybody else's - I'm unique.
herndon: "Annette's story" Oh god...it's complicated. You get some of it in chapter six though, so that's good."i can't help but start to like her a little already" Thanks. We haven't really seen much of Annette's personality yet. She's sweet and nice and the "perfect" girl - but she also has this bad girl in her (which we say when she was talking to Mr. Dermir). I'm trying to develop heras I go on."looking forward to the rest." You know, all my reviews begged for more - which is the only reason I'm putting this chapter up early (I was going to put it up on the 28th because I update every ten days or so). So, reviewing does help get chapters out quickly - er.
Max : Let's see.. "Near the end, I was getting flashbacks of that movie "Pretty Woman" or something (with Julia Roberts?)" Somebody else asked me this too, so I'm going "Julia Roberts was a prostitute?" I was not allowed to watch the movie because my dad has this thing where he's really strict about, like, everything. I'm fifteen now (lol, when the story starts heating up and I go - If your 18 skip scenes so and so - you're gonna laugh) so I was probably way too young to watch it when it came out."I was paying more attention to my gf at the time" Aww! You're so sweet. My bf always goes 'Don't u have cheerleading practice or something?' whenever I want attention - he's totally self-absorbed. SS4EVA
Celtic Cross: Quick note: You are my fav. reviewer (just cuz I said so). "I'm your first reviewer EVER on this site! I feel honoured." Yay you! I thought I would out this up on and everybody would go 'OMG! She wrote something that isn't totally angsty?' and laugh (all the rest of the fics I have up in my profile arepretty dark -check it out if you get the chance). "What has she gotten herself into?" Lol. I can't wait to write the hilarity! "Did you know that even though I read these stories I have only ever watched about five minutes of one of one of the shows?" LOL. I've NEVER'watched' the show - Iread it. go to h t t p/ w w w . t w i z t v . c o m (retype link w/o spaces) and click on Smallville. They have all the transcripts for each ep. My parents have a 'one hour only' ruleabout the tv and I watch Veronica Mars so I can't watch it either. "something always and I mean ALWAYS comes up" Print it out and read it during school - that's what I do (only to make printing faster, make the print 6.5 and delete all the spaces between the lines)."you are doing GREAT!" See, there's a reason I love you! SS4EVA