A Different Sort of Way

If she were being truly honest with herself, Lois had been attracted to the kid the first time she met him. After Doomsday supposedly killed Clark and with the rise of four different "Supermen," the kid had been the only one who felt true. Sure, Steel embodied the spirit of Superman and Cyborg had the body (well, half of one anyway), but the kid had his soul. Lois' reached out to it as soon as they were face to face. Their honeymoon had barely ended. And she was pushing thirty; their sexual peaks were nearly compatible.

Within moments, social conditioning kicked in, of course, and she recognized that she was checking out a fourteen year old boy which was all sorts of wrong even if he really was a de-aged Clark. Except, a wicked corner of her mind piped up, could you really wait another five years before he became legal?

Fortunately, all hell broke loose again before the wrong, wrong, wrong thoughts could percolate. Then Clark came back-- really came back-- and she was just too happy to hold her husband again. They didn't leave their apartment for a week. Lois told herself that guilt had nothing to do with it.

One of the keystones to their relationship was truth, always the truth, no matter how painful it would be to voice those truths. Clark admitted that he was attracted to Diana. Not only did she physically embody the collective fantasies of womanhood but he knew he wouldn't have to be careful with her. In the beginning, sex between Clark and Lois was a very, very, very complicated affair entailing toys, re-enforced furniture and liberal use of sex manuals. Rough sex meant a trip to the Fortress but nothing killed a mood like giant statues of your husband's biological parents meeting you at the door. Thank God Clark got over his strength hang-ups.

He also told her that he'd never do anything with Diana and Lois believed him because, how could she not when he trapped her with his big blue eyes and caressed her cheek like she was made of spun sugar?

It took a while longer for her to admit to her attraction to Kon-El but Clark sensed something was up. They'd known each other long enough to sense when something was off, kind of like a badly-tuned clairvoyance. She knew that he knew because she could tell by the way that he acted around the kid-- aloof, uncertain, pensive.

She was going to tell him. She just wanted to word it properly.

As always, the confession happened in the bedroom. Over-sized pillows and a chunky down comforters softened the harshness of the world outside while Clark's arms around her supplied a psychological type of privacy. "If I met him in high school, I'd be all over him. He's like a bad-boy version of you."

"And this is good?"

"You gotta admit, you're the only boy scout I've ever been attracted to."

"Are you saying you want me to start wearing a leather jacket and styling my hair into a fauxhawk?" teased Clark.

She threaded her fingers through his damp curls. "I did like your hair better long. Better grip."

"Your grip is just fine, Mrs. Kent."

"Mrs. Lane-Kent," she corrected. "Besides, he's much too young."

"But when he's older..."

Lois kissed his cheek. "I love you. I would never knowingly do anything that would hurt you."

He kissed her back, his knee wedged between her legs and all thoughts of anyone except Clark and his marvellous, wonderful attention to detail disappeared until he stopped in mid-thrust to ask, "But you'd still like me to buy a leather jacket, right?"

She loved him most of all because he made her laugh.

"I don't hold you enough."

"You're busy. We're both busy."

"And sometimes I smell like protoplasmic ooze or soot."

"That too. I hate soot."

"There's nothing I hate more than knowing you're in bed alone, hugging a pillow when I should be there hugging you."

Cracked, crazy things happened in Metropolis and one of them was the age switch between Young Justice and the Justice League. That broke a lot of barriers. Because of that event, Lois got to know Kon a lot better as did Clark who worked with him more and more often since Kon's move to the continental USA. They still tread on eggshells around each other.

Kon and Clark, that is.

Or perhaps, now, Lois and Clark.

Which was why Lois was surprised when Clark took Kon home for dinner.

"Do you mind, honey?" he asked, hands laden with take-out bags. "We owe him for his discretion at least."

Kon beamed at her, waved and, oh God, something punched Lois right under her navel. It was Clark's smile, the one that he kept secret, the one that radiated through his skin and told her that she was the most wonderful sight he'd ever experience.

"Not at all," she said. "How are you with chopsticks?'

"Awful," said the boy-- he's just a boy!-- and they all sat together in a sesame-seed-scented apartment, passing kim chi and soy sauce with ease. Kon dropped most of his chap jae on his lap and sprinkled his shirtfront with oil. Clark laughed and offered a bib while Lois sat there wondering when the hell Mxyzptlk would show up, sniggering.

"So," Clark said when they were in bed and Kon was out of listening distance.

Lois curled around his body. "So."

"Not just the leather jacket."

"Clark." She brushed his hair back, petting him. His ears stuck out. She traced the whorls. "You trust me, right?"

"Always." He didn't hesitate.

When he kissed her, he was rough about it. Well, rougher. Clark could never really be that forceful. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Lois shoved her knee in the dip over his hip bone, against a sensitive spot they discovered sometime in Week 2 of the honeymoon. Clark bucked off the bed, throwing her straight off and she landed on her ass, laughing. Without missing a beat, Clark slid down beside her, scooping her legs over his shoulders. She grabbed fistfuls of his hair as his head dipped down.

There was this. This complete loss of power when he made love to her, when he had sex with her, when he fucked her. Just as she knew about that kryptonian gland behind his hip, he knew how to play every single one of her sweet spots. Sometimes the sex was a power struggle that often ended in a stalemate. Sometimes, she liked losing.

Kon came over more often, which amounted to approximately one visit a month. He did live and work on the west coast. Lois couldn't help but be affected by the delight he took with each visit. Sure, he tried to hide it-- teenagers had a thing about affecting ennui-- but he nearly vibrated with excitement at dinner. He hung onto every word Clark tossed out and he shamelessly flirted with Lois. After a year, she stopped feeling guilty about her stupid crush and just had fun. What woman in her mid-thirties wouldn't be flattered by the attention? Besides, Clark was there and she loved Clark.

"Would it be okay if Conner dropped in once in a while when I'm away?" Clark dropped that on her not long after the third anniversary of his apparent death. They always did something special around that time to celebrate life. Tonight's special comprised of dinner and dancing at a local lounge followed by a fizzy soak in the tub where they rubbed each others' feet.

"You mean for him to drop in and check on me?"

"Guilty as charged."

"Aren't you afraid that I'm going to jump his sweet young bones? He's seventeen now; so close to being legal." She said it facetiously but he peered at her through his lashes, fiddling with his glass of wine.

"What if I said that I wouldn't mind?"

Lois dropped Clark's foot in the water, splashing vanilla-scented water over the side of the tub. "Run that by me again?"

He spun the stem of his goblet between his thumb and forefinger. The candles shot red-purple spots through the cab-sauv and against the tiles. "It was just a thought."

"Well, think it again. Elaborately."

"I... You shouldn't be alone. I hate knowing you're alone."

"So you're pushing your Mini-Me at me? Christ on a crutch, Clark!"

"I said it was just a thought." He set down his glass and lifted her foot up to his lips for a kiss. "A dumb thought."

"A dumb thought that you felt strongly enough about to vocalise." She floated to his side of the tub to lie flush against his body. "What's going on inside that head of yours, Smallville?"

Clark cupped her shoulders, rubbing circles against her collarbone with his thumbs. "I just... he's practically me. He looks like me, he's got most of my powers and, well, he's a genuinely good kid once you get over his awful taste in music, television and clothing. And... and you like him."

"I'm sexually attracted to him," Lois said baldly.

"Yes."

"So if one day, I said I was okay with you sleeping with Diana, would you?"

Clark flushed. "I couldn't. All that time, I'd be thinking of you."

"What do you think I'll be doing if I sleep with... with someone else?"

"Not someone else. Just Kon. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Mini-Me, just like you said."

"But he's not you."

"He's close enough."

Clark invited Kon over a week after Lois said she'd think about it. Damn that man. Nothing happened other than Clark telling Kon about his concerns for Lois' safety. Kon immediately assured him that he'd look into her as often as possible while Lois snarked about being a general's daughter who had absolutely no allergic reaction to kryptonite.

His drop-ins were nice despite it all. She did worry a lot and having Kon deliver news from the front, so to speak, or even to play sounding board took a lot of weight off her chest. And if her eyes lingered too long on the width of his biceps or the pinkness of his lips, Lois forced herself to forget it as soon as he left.

After four months of this, all three of them had dinner again. The kid looked tired; he welcomed the distraction of a movie with an effusiveness that couldn't hide the darkness behind his eyes. He'd grown up not only in the physical sense but in that core naïveté that made him so adorable.

But then again, speaking of grown up...

Lois had a lot of Clark's high school pictures from Ma. Literally a corn-fed boy on the football team, Clark at seventeen pretty much had the breadth and height that he did currently. With a haircut and a plaid shirt, Kon would look exactly the same wanting only the slightest angularity around the jaw and shoulders. A couple more years of stopping planes in mid-air would harden that straight out.

Clark popped in a movie. Damned if Lois could remember the title. He sat on one side of the couch, Lois on the other, Kon sandwiched between them, nodding off but trying not to.

"What is this? It's in--" Kon cocked his head to one side. "--German?"

"It got an Oscar nomination last year," said Clark.

"Oh, one of those. You guys are trying to make me think, aren't you? Well, it's not gonna work, wretched villains. I'm totally devoted to my pop-culture trash. Bring on Wendy and MTV!"

Clark threw his head back and laughed as Lois playfully punched Kon's shoulder. "It impresses the girls," she said.

"Does it impress you?" Kon leaned forward and waggled his eyebrows at her, his beautiful grin in place, radiant.

Lois leaned the rest of the way to kiss him.

Kon jumped back as though scalded. "Lois! I... I... Clark! Lois! Clark!" His head swung crazily between them. "OhshitI'mtooyoungtodie."

Clark coughed and Lois glared. She knew he was trying not to laugh. He clapped a hand on Kon's shoulder and the boy whimpered. "It's all right. I'm being called away anyway."

"You're going to make me explain this?" Lois stuck her tongue out at him. "Bastard."

He shook his head. Turning Kon around-- there was pitifully little resistance on Kon's part-- he said, "I need you to look after my wife when I'm away."

"But... but..."

"I want you to look after my wife when I'm away. Do you understand?"

Kon gulped. "I... I think so but I also think I'm going to wake up real soon with a hell of a stiffy and an embarrassing explanation about why I need to wash my sheets at three in the morning. I had to do that before and Bart wouldn't stop going on and on about why my sheets should have holes concerning the, uh, y'know, force of it and then there was the time I actually floated and crashed down and broke the bed and oh my god I'm so dreaming this."

Wanting a say in all of this, Lois pulled him around to face her again. "Do you want to do this, baby? We can forget everything if you're not comfortable. Literally. We've got devices for that."

Kon's jaw dropped. "Are you... geez, Lois, have you looked at you lately? You're, like, gorgeous."

She sat a little straighter, inwardly preening. Who wouldn't?

A pleased look on his face, Clark leaned over Kon's shoulder to kiss Lois. Kon was squashed between them, his breath hot on her cheek as Clark's tongue slipped between her lips. Lois looped her arms up over his-- their-- shoulders. Her fingers threaded through Clark's hair, nails scratching his scalp. She felt Kon's heart thudding.

"I love you," Clark murmured against her mouth.

"I love you," said Lois.

He pulled away as she turned her head. He guided her limp arms around Kon's shoulders.

What Kon lacked in knowledge, he made up for in sheer enthusiasm. It was quite refreshing to be the one in charge, wholly in charge instead of the back-and-forth battle for dominance with Clark. Sure Clark let her top but she knew he was literally letting her; his control was too fine for him to fall apart very often. But Kon...

He clenched his eyes tight and sobbed for breath, muttering nonsense as he jerked up blindly, roughly, completely without sophistication. Lois rode him out, more turned on by his frenzy than his actual technique. Being kryptonian, he was thick enough to hit the necessary nerves with every other thrust. She floated on a comfortable plateau, shivering with little orgasms as she watched him writhe underneath her.

Finally taking pity, she clamped her teeth on the tendons of his neck. As she leaned down, her elbow dug into the flesh just above his hipbone.

Kon screamed, his entire body shuddering hard enough to shake the bed.

He still came over just for dinner or a movie or both. They still chatted about life in general. Without speaking about it, the three of them mutual agreed that what happened in the bedroom (or the couch or the dining table) would stay in the bedroom (et cetera). A few nights, Kon brought up his girlfriend problems. Lois wriggled uncomfortably through dessert as her conscience battled with her libido.

"Do you think his girlfriend knows about this arrangement?" she asked Clark when Kon left.

He thought a moment then shook his head. "It's hard enough to explain between us. I don't even want to imagine the fall-out with a teenager."

"I don't think it's fair. To her."

"She's Diana's protégée if it makes you feel better."

"Only a little. She's not as stacked as Diana and she doesn't eye you with visions of spawning a superior species. Does she?"

"Erm, not that I know of, no."

"I suppose she'll do."

Most of then time when it happened, Lois went to bed with Kon and woke up with Clark or vice versa. Both exuded warmth, both enveloped her in it, one leg slung over her hips. Clark liked to kiss her temple before going to sleep face-to-face while Kon preferred to spoon. Clark was gentle, thorough, wringing her out over several hours; Kon went straight for the goods and attacked with fervour. Clark loved to do oral on her; Lois loved to do oral on Kon.

"Do you know it's me?" asked Kon breathlessly.

Lois looked up, letting his dick fall out of her mouth with a soft slurp. "Yes."

"Honest?"

"Of course, baby." She crawled up to kiss him, rocking her hips against his leg once she was high enough to kiss him. Kon was one of the best kissers she'd ever known, surpassing even Clark in their early dating years.

"I love... I love doing this with you," he whispered into her neck, his hands drifting up to her breasts. That was the other thing: Kon was definitely more of a breast man while Clark loved her legs.

"Me too."

"Please. Can you please... can you go... down again?"

"Can you please let go my breasts?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He chuckled nervously, his cheeks red even in dim lighting and God, he was so cute she could eat him with a spoon. He was still too shy to watch her, preferring instead to close his eyes as he half-led her head up and down. He whimpered a lot; Lois ate that up too.

Just as Kon was arching up in a climax, a shiver licked up Lois' spine. Replacing her mouth with both hands, she looked over her shoulder. Clark stood by the window, leaning against the pane with his hands in his pockets. He was in a shirt and pants, not his uniform, and his glasses were off. Shadows hid his expression but Kon's superior vision must have caught it; he softened in her hands.

"You don't have to stop," said Clark quietly.

"It's weird," Kon said, wriggling. He cupped his groin self-consciously. "Are you... I mean, I could go?"

Lois sat up, a little peeved at the interruption. "Shows aren't free, Smallville. You help out or pay up."

Clark's smile flashed white. He ambled closer to the bed then, after a pause, brought the storage-bench from the foot of the bed to the side. "She's beautiful when she does that," he told Kon. "You should watch."

The air left Lois' lungs. If she wasn't already kneeling, she'd've fallen; her knees were shaking that badly. Heat shot from her throat to her womb, wetness pooling out of her. God, the image he brought up with his words--

Unfortunately, Kon didn't look as certain, his hands still over his groin as though expecting twin heat rays from Clark's eyes to burn them off. "I, uh, I… I..."

"Want us to demonstrate for him, honey?" Casually as that, Clark spread his legs wider, the hand in his pocket taking on a whole new implication.

Grinning, Lois crossed her arms. "Uh-uh, buster. I've had my turn oral. You demonstrate how to do it on me."

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Lois didn't know whether she won over or lost to Clark working his mouth and fingers between her legs and Kon paying lavish attention to the rest of the erogenous spots north of that. She was pretty sure she won despite Clark's chuckles which only sent vibrations against her already sensitive-- oh. Holy. GOD.

"I think I love you, you know."

"Oh. Oh, baby, I..."

"Look, I know it's not like Clark's love and I know you're not going to love me like you love him and I know it's not exactly what I feel for Cassie but, y'know, it's there. I just... wanted to tell you."

Clark tucked his head under Lois chin, resting most of his weight on his arms as he leaned back into her. She had her arms around his shoulders, popping the top button of his shirt on and off. Lunch break in the park in the summertime was a luxury they refused to give up no matter that it meant later nights. "Do you love him?"

She hummed. "I care about him. I wouldn't do what I do if I didn't. You're not jealous, are you? This was your idea, after all."

"Not jealous, no. Jealousy connotes insecurity and I know that our marriage won't break up."

"Cocky bastard."

Clark gave her The Smile.

"I have to admit," said Lois, "I'm a little... perturbed about how deeply he's starting to feel for me. For both of us, actually."

"You weren't expecting feelings to develop from this whole cracked scheme?"

"Slander. I expected feelings; I just didn't expect deep feelings."

"Because of his age?"

Lois blushed and punched his chest lightly, just enough so he could pretend to get winded. "Okay, so I underestimated his emotional capacity based on his projected identity. Sue me." She sighed. "He's just... a really good guy, you know? I don't want to mess him up."

"I know." He thumbed a spot beside her knee. "Kryptonian society wasn't strictly monogamous. For legal reasons, most kept to one spouse but as long as you made sure the proper legacies passed down the legal spouse's children, people had lovers."

"But you keep telling me that you're Kansas, Wonderbread and sweet corn on the cob."

"I know."

A chance breeze lifted the stickiness of summer humidity from Lois' bare skin. "I think I do love him. In a different sort of way."

For Kon's eighteenth birthday, Lois and Clark surprised him with a fully furnished bedroom in their condo.