Handshakes

"So," Perry closed the door behind the young man's back and gestured to the chairs in front of his ornate desk, inviting him to sit down, "Have a seat."

The two stepped around each other as they moved away from the door; Perry went over to his desk while the stranger moved towards the chairs. The upholstery was muted in the dim light while the dark wood looked warm and sophisticated. Still, the large chairs were meant to be intimidating in the mindgame of authority. At this point in his career he had just redecorated his office for the fifth time: now it resembled an exhibit (Early 20th Century Editor) and he liked it that way.

Perry would remember this day as a perfect example of springtime in the city: people had started walking their dogs in the parks again instead of on the icy sidewalks, the scents of the gutters were starting to fester again, and heavy coats were shed by noon. Perry liked this time of year, it reminded him of religion, and that was interesting. It was 10 in the morning on a Wednesday that felt like a Friday, the sun was bright on a clear and (more significantly) smog-free day, and everyone was suddenly using French vanilla creamer in their coffee because Ned forgot to buy milk. The paper was taking a deep breath from the recent political scandal that had kept them all busy over the last three weeks and Perry's instincts were restless.

His eyes rolled over the awkward posture on the man trying to pull the chair gently out from its place, coming to a million conclusions and forming that inevitable and unforgettable 'First Impression.'

Perry did not sit down.

The younger man looked nervous and uncomfortable and he had the quick thought that he was squirming in unfamiliar clothes. He seemed to exude helplessness, and for a first impression it was relatively accurate. Perry picked up the resumé, which was the only sheet of paper on the desk mat, and read the heading.

"Let's see, Clark Kent, hailing from Smallville, Kansas, and," he flipped to the next page, glancing towards the middle of the text, "graduated Vassar. Hmph. Can't say I know anyone from Vassar," he slammed the paper down, as difficult a task that was with something so light.

"My name is Perry White, and I am the editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet, graduated Harvard," he said it with pride, importance, and authority, "Every-once-in-awhile I get bored with my job and I hire someone. Do you think it's your lucky day?" Perry crossed his arms, being sure to embellish his image as much as he could. If the young man knew anything about this world, he knew exactly who he was talking to.

Frightening a person is a good way to get to know them.

"I don't believe in luck."

"What's your angle?" he shot back. Interviews in this world should run like cross-examinations.

"I think luck is a fiction of the human imagination. I prefer Seneca's observation that 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.'"

The editor had stopped pacing in front of his drawn blinds and turned to glance around at this farm-boy quoting Roman philosophy. Clark looked up at him, trying to hide behind his glasses and shy in his forthrightness, but rock solid in his courage.

This observation put Perry off-balance, and against his better judgment the shy idiot before him with the huge glasses and the knowing stare had his attention. He moved to stand over the desk.

"I've seen a million like you, right out of college, assuring me that they deserve my every ounce of respect because they're educated when all they really are is cocky. "

He paused half a beat for emphasis.

"I'll tell you that the last thing I need is another Lois."

And as if in the cosmos were interested in dramatic punctuation, Lois Lane took that exact moment to slam her palm up against the glass of the editor's office and yell, "CHIEF!"

Clark jumped in his seat, startled, and Lois wrenched open the door. She stalked directly to the desk and faced Perry right in the eye.

"What is this?" she brandished a handful of papers in his face.

"That is your next assignment! And not now, damnit! OUT!" he yelled back.

Snickers from the Bullpen were audible through the fast closing door and remained inside Clark's ears after the soft swoosh of the felt lining the door swept back into place. Unable to control his senses in the new city, Clark blinked as Perry's voice echoed painfully in his mind.

"I'm not covering some fucking theater thing, do you realize what you're interrupting?"

"OUT!"

Clark winced again and shifted in his chair. Like a cat picking up a noise, Lois' head snapped around to regard the New Thing. Her eyes raked his prone form as something like Rapture rippled through Clark.

She was gorgeous.

My god, who was this woman?

"What is this?"

"That is my interview process -GET OUT OR YOU'RE FIRED! MONTY, CAGE THIS WOMAN! I swear I'll give you to Monty if you don't-"

"Fine," she tossed over her shoulder on her way out, reoriented towards the door almost instantly and walking away as if she wasn't just fighting with the rage of a thousand volcanoes. The collection of papers came up into the crook of her arm and Lois yanked open the door with purpose. Clark lamented that she should leave so soon, but was grateful for the fact that he didn't have to engage her. His eyes just would not listen to his brain, however, and followed her with the same naked expression on his face.

Just as she was about to be eclipsed by the door frame Clark saw her eyes snap back to him, giving him a different kind of a look, a curious look. The door swept shut behind her and Clark felt his heart pounding in his chest. She was terrifying!

He turned slowly to look at the editor and cautious of the man's heightened temper, in this, his dream job interview.

"Um, Lois Lane?"

"Lois Lane. Who also walked into my office demanding I recognize her unique godliness. I sent her down to the basement for 18 months. Because I run a base, not a newspaper; I'm the General, you're the Private."

So Clark did something wholly unexpected, and rose to his feet as if coming to Attention. The perspective in the room shifted suddenly as the tall mast that was Mr. Kent towered above Perry's stout frame. The older man had to look up to meet his gaze, but recognized the gesture of respect.

"I merely meant, Mr. White, that that we can never really know one way or the other. So, rather than trusting my talent on my word, why not give it up to chance?" he tried to sound confident about it.

Perry shifted on his feet, interested despite himself. Was this a bet?

Clark took that to mean he was indeed willing to listen and continued, "Let's say you hire me for one day. Today. On the notion that tomorrow you'll be happy you have another reporter. Maybe a bomb will drop or a government will collapse."

"You're betting on the news?"

"As a true journalist should, yes."

"And that means you believe you are a true journalist?" he asked this with suspicion.

Clark surprised him again with a blush and a shy shrug. Suddenly this quarterback looked like a child, caught in a scheme. Perry couldn't believe this guy. He picked up the resumé again and scanned it...

Graduated Salutatorian in high school... member of various social organizations including the BSA, 4-H Club, and the Free and Accepted Masons...

Perry looked up, intrigued. He knew a few Masons, but none so young...

... Graduated with Honors with a BA in History and Journalism from Vassar, four years on the school's paper, three honor societies, one published paper in an undergraduate Humanities journal... one year of grad school...

"Didn't like grad school?"

"I didn't like myself. Did some soul-searching instead, learned who I am."

"Oh really? When did that stop?"

"When I got invited to this interview," he paused. "Yesterday," he added plainly and without a bit of humor, although it probably was funny.

"And what did your soul-searching consist of, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I hiked across the country."

Perry waited to see if he would say anything more. But finally his curiosity got the better of him, because there was something about the way he'd said it:

"You mean the entire country. You hiked across the United States."

"Yes."

And Perry believed him.

"Huh."

He looked back down at the paper, pretending to scan the accomplishments a little further while his mind turned. This boy had spunk. And so in the next instant Perry White made yet another of the risky decisions that he never regretted, another of the kind of serendipitous moments that helped write his legacy in the newspaper business:

He came around the desk with his hand out-stretched, all business, and growled, "You're on."

Clark shook it firmly, unable to hide a smile.

"Payroll will hold a check for one day's pay. In case you should be lucky, it will be delivered to you weekly on Thursday after 5. In case I should be lucky it'll wait for you to pick it up for one week. Go to the 15th floor, see Blueberry Pie Marge (not Marge Marge) and ask for an I-9. Fill that out, bring it to the 21st floor, give it to Tom, come back here and pull up a garbage can. I'll have an intern find you a small story. OUT!"

Clark jumped and hurried out of the office, forgetting his briefcase and kicking the doorframe.

Perry sighed and turned around, shaking his head and falling into his chair. He reached over, picked up the phone, and dialed three numbers.

"Kathy, send the next one."

Perry White was no fool, and when the next day dawned and Clark Kent walked back into the Bullpen with a satisfied smile on his face it meant a lot more than the fact that he had a job. In fact, Perry knew that Clark might have been the only person on Earth who seemed to know that Superman was coming. That was something. And not only did he anticipate it, he used that knowledge to hedge a bet against Perry and win a job Upstairs.

Perry still grinned about it every time it crossed his mind.

The Bullpen was loud and confusing and contained the most people Clark had ever seen work in the same place. There were twice as many desks as this room was meant to hold, aisles were crooked paths of wastepaper baskets and legs sticking out at odd angles and everything was stacked in messy piles. There weren't as many things as scents, and this was confusing. It was overwhelming and complicated, and his senses were so barraged with voices, sounds and smells that all his thoughts were only half-completed before he had to think of another thing to think.

"See that? She's why women shouldn't tuck their shirts in," a 30-something woman who tied her bun with a pen gestured to the news monitor above her desk, her arms were covered in notes and she was barefoot, "Tommy where's my proof, come on!"

"You've got 800 words and I told you 600 words, THIS is why you're getting fired," a man spoke very quickly.

"I'm not getting fired," another man sighed, "I don't work here, Ryan."

Coffee steamed from next to every monitor, at least twenty perfumes and fifteen colognes were in his nostrils, and everyone was yelling into a phone or at a computer or with someone else and there was so much to listen and comprehend that without learning how to ignore it, Clark feared he might go mad.

"I give it fifteen minutes."

"No way."

"Yes, fifteen minutes now leave me alone and go away."

"Twenty dollars?"

"YES! Leave!"

"What did he say to that?"

"He said, 'fine, get out and take your cat with you.'"

"Aw Laura, you know he'll come around."

"Oh I know he will, I have his laptop. I FedEx-ed him the Scroll Lock key yesterday. I figured it doesn't really ruin the computer."

"I've got 134,763."

"I've got 278,213."

"Give me that fucking calculator, you must be stoned or something. Come on, I needed to give this to Circulation yesterday."

"Does anyone remember where the- HEY! LISTEN! Does anyone remember where the-"

"NO! YOU LISTEN!"

"Oh shut up Kyle, come on, does anyone remember-"

"Who keeps printing on the fucking copier STOP IT! I've been trying to fax something for fifteen minutes and one of you assholes WON'T STOP PRINTING!"

Clark looked on, horrified, as papers flew into the air by the copy machine, "I don't care how many things it does, I say offices should have different machines for different tasks, damnit. And the next person who hits Print gets a magnet on his hard drive!"

The sound of ringing phones followed in the silence left by Lois Lane's explosion. Somehow, despite the noise, Lois managed to redefine 'shouting.' Clark saw two men who managed to look both amused and concerned start to exchange money. Clark realized that she had apparently surprised even them, the two co-workers plotting her destruction. He thought about this when suddenly-

"Hey Mister!"

Clark tried to determine if that was coming from nearby or across the room... people were turning back to their business.

"Mister uh," Clark turned around to see what appeared to be a teen-aged boy holding up his briefcase and squinting at the little brass plate on the broad side, "...CK. Heh," he gave an awkward laugh and looked up at Clark.

"Mister CK?"

Oh, he was older than he looked. But still younger than expected in this-

"Chief told me to give you this, and tell you to stop wandering around like a bleeping lost puppy and find Lois."

-environment. Clark reminded himself to speed it up a little. His brain tried to wrap its mind around approaching that beautiful whirlwind as he took his briefcase.

"Hi, I'm Cl-"

"Jimmy! HA!" Lois came out of left-field and swatted the young man on the arm, "Where the fuck have you been, it's been a week, I need my pictures and you owe me twenty dollars."

"Um..."

Clark looked on, frozen, since this time he would certainly have to say something. Lois was wearing a long brown skirt that flared at the bottom, her blouse was pale and drifted off her shoulders in disorganized chaos and he couldn't help noticing how beautiful curves looked under waves. There were bits of paper in her short brown hair, the little circles from a hole puncher, and she looked like she was engaged in mortal combat with Time itself. He couldn't believe how brazen and really quite inappropriate she was, or how much he seemed to love it. It fascinated him. He knew within these few minutes that he had never met another woman like her.

"And what is with the bow ties? I've known you six months and it's still with the bow ties. How many do you have?"

Jimmy's hand came to the tie around his throat, and he looked down shyly. Clark noticed the strap around his shoulders, evidence of a photographer. He looked familiar somehow, and Clark looked around for anyone even remotely this young. He must be 18 or 19...

"My mom gives them to me. She likes it when I wear them and I kinda got used to it. She gives me a few every Christmas."

Lois gave a small laugh, the kind of mocking subtly Clark would learn she was famous for. She grinned and went on to ask about her photographs.

Clark took this moment to run a finger under his own tie, bringing the fabric up across his hand and looking down at it fondly. His mom gave him his ties, too. Jimmy looked up and met Clark's eyes, giving him an embarrassed smile. Clark smiled back, waving the end of his tie at him and indicating they shared that legacy. Jimmy grinned.

This silent exchange between new friends was noticed, and Lois snapped her eyes around to regard Clark waving his tie.

"You again. What's your story?"

"I, um, don't have a story, that's what I was-"

"No, who are you?" she said it slowly, and he got to look into her face for the first time. He saw raw spirit in her eyes, the kind of determination that could lead to madness, like Van Gogh in his self-portrait-

"Helloo?"

Oh, right, speed up, "Clark Kent," he put his hand out. Lois shifted, giving him an eye.

He honestly didn't expect her to shake it, but a small hand came out and gripped his with purposeful strength, "Lois Lane, Metro. Welcome to paradise."

She swept her other arm out across the collection of cursing, screaming, frustrated and caffeinated people.

"Here's a story," and she slapped the sheaf of paper that was the aforementioned Theater Story into his chest and walked away in the next beat. She was there, and now she was gone. That was it. He watched her go.

Jimmy watched her turn away, and after catching Clark's eye again stuck out his small hand, "Jimmy Olsen! Photographer-on-call, Daily Planet, at your service!" He looked like saying the statement was worth everything to him.

Clark reached out, pressing the now battered story awkwardly against his chest with his other hand gripping the briefcase while he tried to shake Jimmy's hand.

"Clark Kent. I'm here for uh, the day. Maybe. Um, do you know where I could sit down?"

"Sure! Follow me!"

"Oh my god please please please please holy shit, oh! Shit shit shit!"

Hands were clawing at his chest and arms, legs were kicking loosely against his and Clark couldn't believe his luck! For there, squirming in his arms, Lois Lane was making her third first impression on him that day. This time, she was the definition of a panicking woman and Clark could not believe his disguise was going to be tested so soon. He just got started for goodness sake! Life really did move that fast in the city...

He turned to sweep his arm under her legs, pulling her up and against him like a child. The swift shift in posture made Lois finally look up into his face, her legs sticking up at a weird angle,

"Calm down, you're not falling." How ridiculous. Clark immediately realized he was going to have to work on his bedside manner.

"Who the fuck are you and ah, okay, okay," he felt her body expand and contract with heaving breaths, felt the soft tissue under his grip trying to come to terms with reality through the floods of adrenaline and instinct that was coursing through her. He looked left and debated flying her back to the Daily Planet building, but decided he might be better off lowering her straight to the street. He shouldn't indicate that he knew where she was most likely to head next.

The pencil Lois had been holding was digging into his bicep under her hand and she shifted, trying to get the crook of her knee over his arm and scooting her bottom up so that she didn't feel like she was slipping through a crack.

"We're floating, why are we floating, I thought you were dangling from that crane what... what..." her faculties were definitely returning, he watched intelligence click behind her eyes and she opened her mouth to ask a thousand questions. The hand braced against his shoulder was white-knuckled and terrified still.

"We're floating because I can float. I'm an alien and this is one of my powers on your planet..." Might as well just try the truth, right? He almost laughed at how it sounded.

She stared at him, nonplussed. He could tell she was about three seconds from laughing in his face, but observation was really putting a damper on the fun. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth to say something, and closed it again. She came to a new thought:

"Is this a prank?"

He cleared his throat, "If it is, it's very well-timed," they were spiraling down towards the sound of cars and horns, the murmur of conversation, the noise of the subway. She sat up in his arms, trying to look at his face.

"Prove it."

Somehow Clark didn't think this would be the typical reaction to this kind of situation. She was, for all her sharp words, quite the student.

"Hold up your pencil."

Lois looked startled, and only then sensed a pressure against her hand. She slowly moved her arm, testing her stability in his grasp, and looked down at the pencil like she'd never seen it before. There was a ridged mark embedded across the palm of her hand, evidence of the terror that had gripped her mere seconds ago. She held up the pencil between them so that they could both see it clearly. Her expression was still suspicious, but the circumstances really left no other course of action.

"No, the other end," he tried not to smile at her impatient look. He was slowing down without really meaning to, trying to make this encounter last as long as possible. This was the first time he had ever spoken to someone without trying to hide, it was the first interaction as this new man, and he knew this was going to break his story wide open. Oh, and he had one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his arms. Her hair was billowing gently in the breeze and Clark watched, full of mourning, as the little hole punches finally succumbed.

Lois flipped the pencil between her fingers and gave an amused look, as if to say, 'Okay, hotshot.'

Clark concentrated on the graphite tip. Lois didn't notice anything until the first tiny wisp was blown away in the wind, and just as she was about to comment, the tip of the pencil combusted into a tiny flame.

"No...," she half-whispered, and stared at the flickering fire as it struggled in the wind. It was a good thing he'd slowed down after all. A million possibilities flirted with her mind, a million ways he could pull all these tricks off, but when it came down to it they were suspended (and moving!) in mid-air and she knew his hands had not moved.

Interestingly enough, she didn't panic despite the fact that he definitely possessed some ability to harm her, whether by dropping her or setting her on fire. He seemed too genuine to be dangerous.

"Now watch..." Clark blew softly towards the pencil, and kept on long after the pathetic flame had been extinguished. Lois watched, enthralled, while a white frost enveloped the tip of the charred stylus. She touched the tip to her lip to feel that it was cold just as Clark's boots made contact with the sidewalk, yet she never took her eyes off his face. With the care of a true gentleman he slowly lowered her legs to the street, bending a little to help her get her footing. Lois glanced left and right, taking stock of the many people on the sidewalks and in cars, none of whom seemed to spot anything out of the ordinary.

Clark looked around, too, suddenly terrified and naked in this new suit, in this new city, in this new persona. He looked down at Lois, now pinching the cold pencil between two fingers. Her eyes came around to him, rolling over his body like they had in Mr. White's office and lingering on the shield right in the center of his chest.

Life went on around them, people brushed past them where they stood rudely in the middle of the sidewalk and Clark winced once again from the constant din of this steel-on-steel world. He waited, unsure why, intimately aware that they had just descended from heaven and no one had noticed.

"I still don't believe you. You look like a man," she gestured to his body in all its skin-tight glory, but ended up just bringing attention back to the pencil still clutched between the fingers of her active hand. She waved it between them, "Just a super-man."

"I am telling you the truth, and despite the fact that I'm not gray and slimy I do stand before you an extraterrestrial."

"Yet I've never heard of you."

"It's my first day."

Lois' left eyebrow rose in the sexiest way Clark had ever seen and he watched her mouth twitch. He'd almost made her smile, which Clark would later come to see as just the same as the real thing when it came to Lois. She stared straight at him with her keen and confident eyes, "Oh really? Well then that makes you my story, no matter what the story is. Because you're a liar with good tricks and I'm interested in exposing both, before you hurt somebody or kill yourself. But of course you obviously think you're here on a mission, too, why does this city always attract the crazies?"

Clark was sent off-balance by this observation, they were still standing in the middle of the sidewalk and talking over the traffic; he suddenly wondered if she could hear him properly because he never could communicate in loud pla-

Wait, what?

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're wearing a fucking shield and an outfit, like some kind of crusader. Please. Give me a new one, okay? There are no aliens, and if there were they wouldn't look exactly like us. That shit does not happen, this isn't Asimov or L. Ron Hubbard-"

Clark couldn't help it, he chuckled at her.

"Oh, great, it's funny."

"I'll just have to prove it to you someday, Ms...?"

"Lane. Lois Lane, Daily Planet," she stuck out her hand, professional in a heartbeat.

He shook it slowly.

"And you are?" she gave him a look over their tactile exchange.

"I guess I'm just Super-man," he took his hand away, "Good afternoon, Ms. Lane, and you're welcome."

He stepped back and away from her, a smile somewhere behind his face, and turned to look up at the sun. Lois watched as his eyes looked directly into it, the white-hot glare on his face almost too bright for her irises to stand. A moment later he moved up from the ground, arms out to either side of him and creating an aura of godliness about him. He was out of sight a second later, arcing into the sky and leaving Lois Lane confused out of her mind in his wake.

"Super-man, eh? We'll see about that."

"And what's your name?" A beautiful woman with intelligent eyes had just sauntered over to him from across the room, her heels clicking a perfect beat across the granite floor and her eyes roaming over him in a very bad way. He was standing in the lobby of his hotel, in Metropolis, with his luggage, and he hadn't been here two hours when suddenly slim legs and confidence were filling his vision. He saw ice cubes bobbing in what appeared to be a very alcoholic beverage, and swallowed.

"Richard," he said, and it sounded even to him like he meant to say more. But he didn't. He was dumbstruck. He actually went to look over his shoulder, to see if he really was the person she meant to talk to, despite knowing that there was no one down the empty hallway behind him.

"Richard, hmmm," the woman interjected quickly, "I've never known a Richard. I like meeting names for the first time." She looked him up and down as he tried to take stock of his circumstances: he was standing in an archway which led off to the elevators, it was past midnight, the lobby was dim, and everywhere yellow lights refracted off whatever it was in granite that made it sparkle. The air smelled like fresh flowers, overwhelming and obnoxious, and there was only the murmur of music and laughter from the hotel bar in the ambient silence of elevator music being piped through the speakers.

"My name is Lois. New in town?" Lois rested her elbow on her hip as she stood in perfect contrapposto, the ice cubes jingling and her posture sleek.

'Could people just walk out of bars with drinks? I guess so. How could it be that she's never met a Richard? Was that a line?'

"Ac-actually I was born here..." she lit up unexpectedly at his stutter; it unnerved him even more when a finger reached out and smoothed its way down the front of his shirt, "... but I've been gone a long time."

'Does this really happen? Do beautiful and mysterious women actually throw themselves on strangers? That only happens in beer commercials. Could it really ever happen to him?'

She had nodded at his response. Richard had the distinct impression that she didn't even care and was only feigning interest... perhaps to make him more at ease for what she said next:

"Why don't I take you over to the bar and buy you a few Welcome Home drinks?" She gave him a coy look, a look meant to be suggestive, and nodded towards the bar. Her long earrings dangled past her hair, which was tied in a messy bun, and Richard watched as they glittered with the movement of her head.

His mouth was dry, this was all happening very fast, and the scent of sweet alcohols and expensive perfume made its way through his cranium, swirling into every receptor it could find. She was intoxicating. He would never normally have spoken to a woman like this, they frightened him; they were too wild, too crazy, too beautiful.

But he was thinking about it, of course he was. His eyes moved down her figure, and he didn't feel the need to hide his appraisal, as she was so glorious in her frank observation of him. She was wearing the classic Little Black Dress, fit for all occasions, and his eyes followed the curve of her body as she stood with most of her weight on one foot. The yellowed lights of the lobby made the exposed flesh of her neck glow in the warm light, and if he squinted she would be just a chest and a pair of legs to him in a heartbeat.

All he had wanted to do was pay the cabbie, buy a newspaper, and go upstairs to sleep. But...

He cleared his throat, "Would you mind if I deposited my things and freshened up? I just flew into KR and it's 5 am for me..." he at once hoped this wouldn't deter her and that it would be enough of a delay to make her go away. Conflicting morals and frank disbelief were running through him and Richard felt very grimy either way. This was certainly no state of dress in which to be seduced, either.

"Oh I don't mind, just don't keep me waiting too long." My god, how could such a simple statement go straight to his imagination with the dirtiest spin it could handle?

Richard hit the Up button, and Lois gave his backside an appreciative look as she tapped her way back across the lobby towards the bar. Richard turned to regard his reflection in the shiny brass of the elevator door and shared a hopeless look with himself.

"What am I doing?"

The door opened and he busied himself with wheeling various suitcases into the tiny space.

"Did that just happen?"

The suitcases offered no comment as they rose together into the building. Richard looked at his keycard and sighed, realizing that he had completely forgotten his room number. He had to dig through all of his pockets before the elevator door Dinged! open and he pulled the information out.

Ten minutes later and after a quick shower Richard was throwing toiletries all around the room looking for his cologne. No matter what his head was consistently saying to his Moral Compass, his body had made many good counterpoints in the shower, and now he was desperate to find his cologne, run his fingers through his damp hair, find his good dress socks and get back downstairs in time. He kept glancing nervously at the bed, all but convinced that he was going to share it with some random siren later that evening, and began to panic.

Here he was, trying to start a new life in this haunted city... but could he deny himself this chance? What did it matter, to just sleep with her? What a thrill it would be to get a woman like this for one night. She was the kind of woman who made not wearing panties sexy, she had legs that Richard yearned to spread apart, and quickly his mind shifted to imagining what he could do to her, if she was willing.

It was amazing, the way he could think about a woman he would never have to see again, the way his mind went simply and brutally straight to the point. He would get to strip the clothing off her body, get to fuck her in this strange bed. He could see how intoxicating a feeling this must be, and it gave him a clue as to what kind of person he was dealing with.

He came to a decision; a wild, out-of-character decision:

Fuck the cologne.

One minute later Richard was hopping on one stocking foot, trying to get into his nice slacks and kicking various shaving and cleaning products under the bed. Thirty seconds more found him shutting the door behind him, staring at the bed as he did so, and walking towards the elevator. Another two minutes and he was moving through the lobby, past the obnoxious flowers, and into the haze of a smoky bar with rich, red carpeting. It might have been a play of the light, but he could have sworn the bartender shot him an amused look.

Lois was waiting at a table in the corner, her legs crossed and exposing far too much skin. She uncrossed them as approached, using one leg to kick out the chair in front of her (which, had anyone else done it, would have been ridiculous). There was a small candle and two drinks; it was about 12:20 on a Saturday morning and that was about the last thing Richard remembered for sure.

The next hour was a blur, as he was soon drunk and hypnotized. The heady feeling of alcohol and danger made the air cold in his lungs as he looked at her, and he realized that this was really happening to a guy like him. He stared at her face, into the hollows of her neck and down to where a single teardrop sapphire hung on a silver chain, dipping into the curve of her breasts.

They were making small talk, he told her about his trip, and she was talking about politics with the detached cynicism of someone who just really didn't care. Richard was turned on and really quite powerless to help it. Just when he thought that he couldn't stand the tension for one more second the most incredible thing that ever happened to him happened:

A small, curious foot started making its way up the inside of his leg, and the next thing he knew things were really blurry.

"What do you say we go upstairs?" Lois acted as if nothing was happening, speaking as casually as if she was shaking his hand instead, and sipped her martini. Richard couldn't believe her.

"Who are you?" Because this doesn't actually happen!

'Come on! She's either going to rob you, kill you, or frame you for something...'

Lois licked her lips, trying not to arose his suspicions, and gestured with her martini glass, "I am a self-aware woman with a pretty crazy sex drive who refuses to be tied down, ergo, I seek out attractive members of the opposite sex and fulfill my basic desires. And when certain desires run too high, when it's been too long since I've wanted something actually within my reach," she seemed frustrated by this, emotionally maybe, sexually probably.

"I take a specific stance: I say fuck the formalities, screw the third date, look someone straight in the eye and invite them to bed for consenting, anonymous sex. Also, by the way, I will not murder you. I'm only what I appear to be. And if I look like a woman who could drive you crazy," the tips of her toes pushed firmly against the taut fabric between his legs, "then it would have to be true."