Sarah was a bad decision. Maybe I should have hired someone old enough to be my grandmother, because she's not making the right impression on the press. If anything, she's reviving my image as the playboy billionaire as tabloids suspect our relationship to be more than one of business. I'm reading through one of the articles, asserting that I've made another girl fall in lust with me. The picture on the page is of us at a recent press conference announcing the acquisition of Covergirl cosmetics in order to legitimize Luthorcorp cosmetics as well as boost sales through brand recognition. The press seemed to catch her at a particularly unfocused moment as she's staring at me with eyes which, if I didn't know any better, I would call "gooey". Maybe it's that she smiles too much. Especially in that way which looks absurdly happy, a way which in private I may envy but in public I must scorn. I've never seen someone predisposed to smiling quite in the same way.
Except maybe Lana. Lana loves to smile. Without thinking, she lights up a room with an innate charm and affection. There's honesty in that smile. And it's not ditzy, not like Sarah's. Sarah's smile makes her look ten times dumber than I know her to be.
But I'm not dumb. I can tell that Lana's smiles have been getting few and far between recently. And I can't help but feel that I'm a part of that. Some of that unburdened glow has become marred by emotional and psychological trauma. And when she's around me, she restrains her smiles, as if she knows its effects on me and through some act of altruism, keeps them from me to grant me some sort of chance at recovery from the affliction she has done on me.
A part of me, some festering aspect which grows like an infection in my soul, can't let go of her. It latches onto me and, though I fight it, I feel the incessant need to possess each and every smile. Some monster within me which has always lurked just below the surface, which bears my father's hide and whispers in the voice of something in multitude and in singular chorus, calls me to conquer and dominate that which I want.
And I have always wanted Lana. Though everything good in me resisted, I have, in entirety, longed for her. Even if it wasn't really her that I wanted. Maybe I wanted her goodness, her sweetness, her strength. Maybe I wanted her simply because I knew that Clark Kent wanted her too. But deep down, something writhing within me in uncomfortable assurity knows that to have her is to win.
Sometimes I want to destroy the monster, I beat it down and starve it. But I can't give it up completely. That same monster is my power, the reason I'll surpass my father. So I play a balancing act, a battling of wills as I try to leash the beast.
I turn my attention back to the article in front of me. It posits that Sarah's "smitten as a kitten in a mitten". When I try not to gag at the line, I look up to catch Sarah lazily tracing circles on her lips with the end of her pen, eventually propping her lower lip on the pen and drawing her eyebrows together while she looks at her computer screen. As if she can sense me looking at her she snaps her head towards me with a quizzical expression. Instead of shying away, I walk to her desk and slap down the tabloid in front of her.
"What's this?"
"Bad optics." She begins to read through the article, her cheeks flushing as her eyes descend down the page.
"This is ridiculous!" she cries, finishing the article and throwing it down. My stomach twists. Is it so ridiculous to think someone might like me?
"Yes, it is."
"Well, what do we do?"
"We wait it out, you keep up the good work. You act as professionally as you can. And I'll do the same." She looks at me and nods, though she traces my movements with her eyes.
"Ok."
I hesitate, wary about what I'm about to say. I don't want her to freak out. "Unless, of course, this tabloid nonsense has something to it?" If I thought she was red before, I now know the true meaning of scarlet.
"What?"
"I mean, and don't be offended or anything, I trust that this is merely a precautionary question; is there a chance that the tabloids have caught onto something?"
"No!" She nearly jumps out of her seat.
"You seem eager to deny it. Not to mention, extremely embarrassed by the allegation." I'm poking the bear now, I know I am. But I continue on anyway. "Are you absolutely certain you don't have…feelings for me?"
"Of course not! I'm only embarrassed because I have to tell my boss that I'm not attracted to him. Which is uncomfortable, to say the least." She trains her eyes on the desk, scraping off dirt from her keyboard.
"Fine. Sorry I asked." She nods, still looking at her desk as I pick up the tabloid again. But before I go back to my desk, I can't help but think of her face in the photo, how she looked at me with that little sparkle in her eye. "It's just…" I try to work my lips in a way to keep words from coming out but they spill out anyways, "many women have found me attractive. It's not so outrageous to think you might as well."
"Maybe it's because I know you." She mumbles under her breath. I whip around on her and she cowers into her screen.
"Care to elaborate, Miss Vanderhaul?" She whips her head up to me, eyes narrowed.
"No, Mr. Luthor." She keeps her head down, avoiding me, but I can tell she's seething. Her cheeks are blazing red and she hasn't scrolled down in a full minute even though she's staring at the screen like she could burn a hole through it.
"Miss Vanderhaul-"
"I mean, who cares? Even if I did have a crush on you, which is such a juvenile sentence I could fucking scream, who cares? I do my work well, don't I? I am professional at work, save for that one time with the whip cream. And I am an adult. I can control my emotions."
I almost burst out laughing but am too shocked to do anything other than say, "Clearly. You have great control of your emotions."
She glares at me but stops, her gaze softening and cowering when her eyes meet mine. "I'm sorry. I freaked you out, didn't I?" She collects her things and heads for the door. "I have to meet with one of your clients today so I can get some information on a proposal he sent. If you'd like to speak to HR during that time, I encourage you to do so. I will be back in approximately 45 minutes, maybe a bit longer if you'd like lunch when I get back. And if you would like to fire me, please do so in the next ten seconds, because I really don't want to go to this meeting." She looks at me expectantly, her hand on the doorknob. I can almost see her lips move in the form of One Mississippi…Two Mississippi…
When she gets to Ten Mississippi, she turns on her heel and walks out of the door.