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Shorelineby C.M. Decarnin |
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I'm not looking for another as I wander in my
time,
Walk me to the corner, our steps will always
rhyme.
You know my love goes with you as your love
stays with me,
It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline
and the sea,
But let's not talk of love or chains and things
we can't untie,
Your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
-- Leonard Cohen
Chapter Two
"'Sex with a guy is just never going to turn me on'," Clark gasped.
Lex's naked legs tweezed tighter around Clark's thrusting hips, as his head lolled open-mouthed and half-conscious with the empleasuring ache. "Harder --" his plea a long-drawn oscillating whine, opening into a wordless cry as Clark complied, plowing in deep with pounding bumps that pushed Lex across the sheet, writhing.
"'I just don't swing that way'," Clark huffed.
"Shut up."
Clark got a hand under Lex's ass and lifted, angling into him harder. The lover in his arms seemed to be trying to climb inside his skin, fighting for contact on every millimeter of his genitals, sweat-covered limbs simultaneously clutching him and straining against him to increase the tension against his inescapable grip.
"'It's probably genetic'," Clark panted.
"Clark," Lex pled. "Clark -- Clark! Ah! No!" And he started the final struggle, all muscles freed to battle full strength what was taking him, rending, within the stretch and push itself, unutterable beauty from the last denial of flesh against itself, power expended to the furthest limits of contradiction, tearing against the invasive embrace in the certain trust that Clark would never, ever release him -- all of his body, finally, contracting, into the tight tornado of ecstasy Clark felt within his arms as a set of very slow, measured convulsions, Lex's breath held, body only intermittently giving a slight writhe as his love-liquid spurted out of him. Clark tried a last thrust that brought an estrus-like yowl from Lex's lungs, and finished Clark off in surges of sudden orgasm. His rocking into him as he came yielded little Lex-yips and whimpers of aftershock ecstasy. Every jerk and cry rippled Clark with extra bliss and possessiveness. He began kissing Lex's neck and chest blindly, inching his arms closer around him, wanting to contain him forever. A long low moan undulated in his throat, echoing the pleasures of nerves and muscles shimmering throughout his body, coalescing and dispersing still in his cock, finally fading to exhausted satiation.
He loved how Lex's instinct was always to deny, at the last ditch, the one thing that could make him not-Lex, for those needing, bliss-filled, mindless moments, the dread in his voice mixed with want, utter desire coming out in the word 'No'. He had decided it was simply because that was the word Lex had always heard whenever he'd wanted anything with passion and honesty, until it became embedded deep in his heart.
As he gradually withdrew from him and moved his weight to the side, he extended one arm and leg across to keep him under his dominion. Lex was his. He could hardly believe it, and jealous possessiveness filled him every time he touched Lex, like nothing he had ever felt before. A deep, fearful part of him knew that Lex was too good for him, too grown up, too beautiful, too richly intelligent and experienced, and far too sexually exquisite. For those moments when they were both so turned on that naked ego guided them, it felt as if they'd been born for one another. Now, right afterward, the wonder at his incredible good fortune seeped back. His hand moved down over Lex's body, to feel the smoothness and the strength. Form as perfection.
"You're perfect," he breathed onto Lex's shoulder.
Lex's eyes were closed, his whole being at peace. The smallest change in the angle of the corners of his lips showed he heard Clark, and basked in his adoration.
Wanting to sleep a bit, knowing it wasn't a good idea, Clark slowly reached for the damp cloth they kept ready and gently wiped them both clean. When he laid it back on its tray, movement at the balcony's glass doors caught his eye. A ghostly falling screen of white shapes continually replaced --
It was snowing.
The pale December sky had finally let go and all of the dead fields were turning white and beautiful. He could see bare tree limbs in Lex's grounds already carrying proud ermine trim on every twig.
Dad would be needing him to keep the paths and barn entrances clear pretty soon. But he smiled just with the happiness of the first snowfall. It looked like a wet one and would be a pain if it got deep, or iced on the roads, but he was close enough to snowsuits and sleds and Christmas mornings that snow's excitement always went straight to his veins, awe, anticipation, and exaltation mixed better than any designer high.
"It's snowing!" He hopped out of bed and ran to the window naked. "Lex! It's snowing!" He looked back and saw Lex peering at him questioningly. "Snow!" he explained. "Look!"
Curiously, Lex sat up and padded over to the ice-breathing panes. Then, as he always did when he got up, he threw open the glass doors and stepped out onto the balcony.
He stood there, augustly surveying the new state of his grounds.
There were already two inches over the dormant lawns. White, as far as you could see. Away to the left huge Norway spruce with white sifted onto their solid dark greenery, near the drive compact shrubs like white-frosted cupcakes. The distance dimmed with the falling snow, and everywhere there was a deep silence. The winterbirds sitting this one out, no wind, and a sacred sense to the quiet.
"Clark," murmurred Lex thoughtfully, "I can honestly say, I have never felt this close to truly freezing my ass off." He shot back inside, leaving Clark to carefully shut and lock the balcony doors as Lex made straight for the shower.
Lex's shower was actually a tiny tiled room, like, Lex had told Clark, everyone had in Denmark. There was ample room for Lex and six or seven friends, multiple showerheads with some settings Clark still hadn't figured out, tiled bench inset into one wall, metal hoses with various sprayers on the ends, and bathing paraphernalia beyond the dreams of avarice. Clark's favorite was a four-foot-long bottle-brush with handles at both ends, that you could scrape across your back and hips and get every itch you ever had or thought of having.
By the time Clark got there, steam was already afloat in the air and Lex was soapy. Clark quickly shut the door behind him. Lex turned to him, vast bath sponge poised, and Clark smiled. It was a real ocean sponge, bulbous and natural-colored. He stepped under the hot spray. Lex squirted more soap on the sponge, and ran it over Clark's chest, then back the other way in little circles. The feel of the sponge across his nipple made him lift his head back and catch his breath. Lex wouldn't want to go again this soon. But he himself -- sometimes he thought he could do it all day. Lex said he'd grow out of it. And clearly had no aversion to abetting his teenage body in buckling his knees, bringing him down, getting him off, watching Clark respond, wonder and worship in his eyes. Or, as often now, mischief. Lex's own raw, erotic brand, barely visible curve of lips, quarter-open eyes, low lilt in his voice -- all melting into pure love as Clark would get near coming, a madonna-like protective watchfulness after he came; and they would lie languidly entwined, petting and murmurring love-thoughts like two goofusses.
Lex had one arm around him now as he sponged with the other, and Clark slipped both arms around him, impeding his cleaning progress. Lex's body felt so good, strong and slippery, long and smooth-skinned and warm and mobile, bending to rub the sponge down Clark's thigh, straightening again as he sponged deliberately right under Clark's testicles, soapily, sliding upward.
"Fuck, oh Lex --" and Clark was erect. He could no more have stopped it than he could fly, and when Lex touched it with his bare fingers, he gasped and pushed against him, all over, begging.
"Something I can do for you?" Lex purred.
But he was massaging Clark's hard-on between them even as he spoke, and started stroking it up and down when Clark could only give a little pleading whimper. As the slick fingers slid thrills of pleasure through his length, his hips moved in a slight circle, trying to express and increase the shuddering beauty of his sensations. "Lex," he whispered. Thank god, thank god Lex had loved him after all, thank god. Days of looking at Clark curiously. Speculatively. Then sneakily, when he thought Clark wasn't watching. Which was unlike Lex. And then the confrontation with Desiree when he'd had to throw Lex down and smother out the fire on his back. It should have been a horrible, lasting burn.
But Lex was back from the hospital in only a day. Clark had practically flown over, trembling and agitated. When Lex had finally taken off his shirt and proved there were only a few small patches of bandage, he'd closed his eyes on tears of relief.
"I heal fast," Lex had shrugged, glancing at him.
Later, when Lex had vowed never to let passion rule him again, Clark's disagreement had been mild; he hadn't wanted to upset Lex, or alienate him even a little, after the turmoil that had come between them. But over a few days, as Lex repeated it in different ways, he gradually realized Lex was trying to do the same thing: reassure Clark that nothing would make Lex turn on him again.
"But that wasn't real, Lex," he urged gently. "We think she had mutated pheromones or something -- you weren't acting that way because you really loved her, or even responding to how beautiful she looked."
"It felt real," Lex said quietly.
"It wasn't." Clark was firm.
"Well, what difference." Lex shrugged.
"I think you can trust real passion. Because..." Clark groped for what he meant. "It will lead you to real experiences, not lies and illusions like she did. You said when you'd been away from her awhile you always started to think logically again -- that shows it wasn't a lasting thing. More like a drug."
"So you're saying I'd be better off with a passion that wouldn't wear off and let me see reason once in a while?"
"I'm say-ing," Clark responded to the slightly teasing tone, "real passion doesn't block out logic in the first place. Real love doesn't lower your I.Q."
"But you'd be willing to admit it could lead you into an unwise course of action."
And suddenly Lex wasn't teasing at all. Ripples of hurt passed through Clark. He supposed it was fair, alluding to his mistake in the summer. Fair to point out that passion had given him a bum steer.
"I don't mean you couldn't still be wrong about something," Clark said painfully. "But your feelings would be true. And... I did take 'no' for an answer."
Lex stepped closer quickly. "I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of -- pizza night." But his eyes were still locked with Clark's. "I only meant that -- some relationships -- aren't a good idea."
Clark's heart started beating harder. Lex still holding his gaze.
"Why?" he breathed.
"Age differences," Lex said, looking hypnotized. "Families. Legal reasons."
"None of that matters," Clark whispered, sweeping aside thousands of years of literature, history, and case-law.
Lex licked his lips. "Don't you think fear -- caution -- is there for a purpose? To warn us --"
"It's always there for something new. It doesn't mean that everything new is bad."
And Lex just stood there and stared into his eyes. Finally admitting tensely, "I'm not used to feeling like Little Red Riding Hood."
And Clark had smiled as if his heart were breaking with happiness. Lex laughed joyfully, incredulous, as he'd later explained, at that smile of love, Clark's beauty and generosity.
A long conversation, repeated and expanded over the following weeks, as Lex tried to convey unique feelings that had started overwhelming him when Clark had broken him away from Desiree. It had worried him that it might be leftover pheromones, or just gratitude after the horror of fire, but hearing Clark's words he knew that Clark was right. Real passion centered him like the truth.
"I still don't understand where it came from. I've never had a gay bone in my body. Or so I thought."
"I think 'gay' is kind of an imaginary category," Clark said. "Once you start having those feelings for someone, you realize it's no different from the way you felt toward a girl. And you have to wonder, what's the big deal?"
Lex countered, "Still doesn't explain why I didn't feel anything for a male till -- well, you."
"Socialization. Blinders. Misdirection. Everything teaches you to look at girls, that certain things only girls do are what's sexy." Clark shrugged. "It's enough to keep your attention. Half the human race is a lot to choose from."
"What about people who are only gay?"
"What am I, Dr. Ruth?"
"You've obviously been thinking about it."
"Well, I thought about a lot of different reasons for a lot of things, but I don't know if any of them are the one right answer about any particular person. People are different."
Lex was quiet. When he spoke slowly, Clark could hear the raw seriousness, as if the words were being torn from some inner anatomy. "I've never let go like this. For anyone. So it isdifferent; for me. I keep thinking maybe I owe a debt to her --" Lex never uttered Desiree's name, Clark had learned, if it could be avoided. "For knocking loose some bolts and hinges so rusted shut they might never have opened without a shot of her WD-40. I -- really don't like that idea. But..." His eyes turned a bit covertly toward Clark and away again.
"I don't like it a whole heck of a lot either," Clark responded. And he didn't. But then he really didn't like any thought about her and how Lex had carried her like a black widow on his clothes into the community she had nearly devastated.
"What would have happened to you if your father --" Lex put his hands over his face a moment and breathed deeply. Clark knew it tormented him, the damage the woman had wrought in her brief tenure over Lex's senses, and how incapable he'd been of perceiving it.
Clark put his arm around Lex's shoulders.
"She looked so beautiful," Lex said. "In her wedding gown. In that little transparent dress they let her teach in. But there was... no soul inside." Clark knew he'd been thinking, putting two and two and two and two together, about the dangers that assailed Smallville, the creatures hardly human any more, and how the meteors had touched them all. "If the meteors kill a person's humanity..." He seemed unable to go on. But he forced himself. "I know I'm different from other people."
"No, Lex."
"What if it's not because of my father, or money, or natural forces at all? I was here, in the meteor shower, it changed me physically. What if I'm just as soulless as the rest of them?"
"Lex! How can you even ask that? You're nothing like them! Thousands of people were in the meteor shower, and only a few had any effects like that. You're nothing like them!"
"Have you thought about why you suddenly became attracted to me when all your life you were in love with Lana Lang?"
"Hey, Lana was in the meteor shower too, you know. Okay," he backtracked, "not a good argument for meteors not affecting my love-life. But I could remind you you weren't even there when I first started thinking about you that way." He held up both hands. "Look, Ma, no pheromones."
"Maybe I have the power to cloud men's minds through their dreams." But there was a hint of the curl of a smile, and he could sense Lex relaxing a little.
Only a little.
"You wouldn't be thinking like this if you were one, you'd only be thinking of your own agenda, like getting me in the sack."
Lex's smile burst forth full power.
"Okay, again, not a good example." Clark
was smiling back, and jiggled Lex with his embracing arm. "But meteor
mutants have no sense of humor. I rest my case."
Finally, just the past week, haltingly, Lex had confessed the most difficult fear. "I'd never felt anything like that about a man, or another boy, when I was young. And I'd just been shown how deluded I could be about romance..."
"You thought I might be another Desiree." Of course. God, of course. "Oh. Man." He tried not to show how it hurt his feelings, because it was really, really understandable. It must have been so hard for Lex to trust his own emotions after her! Never mind trusting another person.
"And it happened so fast. Almost like a rubber band snapping back, as soon as her spell was broken. I believed it, but intellectually I had to question that belief."
"Yeah, I can really see where that would be -- weird." He wished he could think of more to say to console and reassure him.
Lex added wryly, "Self-doubt is not a thing Luthors know how to deal with."
"Lex." Clark squeezed him tight. He
wished he could take every doubt, every hurt away from him. Lex's
head on his shoulder had to be his solace, the certainty that he brought
him this surcease, the shelter of strong arms, and happier smiles than
he had ever seen on Lex's face.
Against the shower wall, Clark came, all his muscles tightened, mind melted into love. The water raining over both of them like a blessing, like waves of micro-massage erotic over his skin and the wetness joining them in a slick hot union, as Lex pumped the spunk out of him, with one arm around his neck and words of passionate worship gasping against his throat, echoing Clark's orison. Oh thank god, thank god! Thank god.
Lex loved him. He shook in Lex's grip like canvas flapping unpredictably in a gale, Lex pushing him against the wall at the very end, holding him into his last orgasmic stretch, and relaxation, hard, so that it was good, wonderful, so good, making him feel taken, owned by, belonging to Lex, even as astounding pleasure elevated him into the most self-sufficient being on the planet. He had everything, lacked for nothing, the wealth of him would beggar any Luthor, Gates, or Rockefeller. He couldn't even utter Lex's name, the single word that could describe it all.
He came down off the balls of his feet and slid a couple of extra inches down the tile wall. The shower still pummeled down on them both, Lex's kisses slowly safariing across his face. So strong, so knowing, best of all so brave. Clark clung with both arms around Lex's neck, his cheek on Lex's shoulder; while Lex cherished him as if he were a delicate, ordinary, fragile boy, needing two strong arms to hold him up. He moved his lips in a kiss on Lex's neck, and Lex held him harder.
Finally they pulled apart, to let the water sluice Clark's cum off. With the shower in their faces they couldn't very well express much subtle emotion, and had to settle for squints and smiles. Lex looked around, picked up the sponge and soap bottle off the floor, and detailed Clark like a chauffeur. He'd never felt so clean. They didn't get out until their fingerprints were wrinkly.
Lex toweled them both down while Clark blow-dried his hair. He could tell his parents they'd been swimming, but he'd rather they didn't ask. It wasn't exactly lying if he just never mentioned he was having sex with Lex...
He couldn't even imagine what they would say. Except he remembered how they'd reacted when Desiree had come on to him. That did not bode well.
Getting dressed in Lex's bedroom still felt strange. Secretly, it was kind of thrilling. Like they lived together and they were getting ready to go to work in the morning.
But it also always meant goodbye.
At first, it had seemed only natural that he had to drive -- or sneak -- back home. That was how kids always lived, in the interstices between prescribed activities and parental presence.
Now he sat on the bed and tied his shoes. And looked over at Lex who had just pulled his socks on. They locked eyes.
"I don't want to go," he heard himself saying.
"But you have to?"
"Yeah." Even he had been having to do some creative time management to get his chores and homework all done. Lex reached over and took his hand. They sat there, wordless in the poignancy of their age difference and all that it meant.
There was nothing to do but stand up and pick up his jacket. Lex got his shoes on, glancing at the window where snow still fell in a hushed special whiteness of the light. "I'll drive you."
Clark could go much faster by himself. But at least they could be together a few more minutes.
Wretchedly, he wound his arms around Lex's silk sweater and held tightly.
"Come on," Lex said after a few moments. "Don't make me have to kick your ass out of here."
Clark looked sad at him. "You'd kick my ass?
"Literally, not so much as... maybe nibble it pretty hard."
Lex's body felt so good in supple knitted silk that it was even harder to let go than usual. He nuzzled Lex's cheek, and felt Lex's breathing slow. "God, Clark."
Drooping, Clark let Lex pull him out into the hall and down to the garage. As they buckled in in the silver Porsche, the garage door slowly raised, revealing the ghostly falling snow. One of the luxuries Clark still noticed, reminder of the chasm between them: Lex's cars were always parked nose-out, so Lex never had to back out of the garage, even though he left them parked nose-in when he drove cars in there himself. Like so much else in his life, it was taken care of.
They skidded a couple of times on the snow before Lex accepted that winter driving parameters were implacably in force.
Clark sneaked his window down a crack to get a whiff of exciting snowy air. He smiled innocently over at Lex who looked at him out of the corners of his eyes.
"It's almost Christmas," Clark said. "Are you going to put up lights this year?"
"No one would see them but you and the servants."
"You'd see them."
Lex just smiled. "Where did you tell your parents you were today?"
"Pete's." And he had been. For about twenty minutes.
Lex nodded. It meant he'd let Clark off out of sight of the house instead of pulling up by the back door. Sometimes he told them the truth, hoping they'd gradually acclimatize to his spending more time at Lex's, since it was too cold to hang out in the loft. Maybe by spring...
If Dad only knew. How hard he'd had to work to get Lex to give in and go to bed with him. He smiled again, with triumph and tingling excitement. His lover! Lex was his lover! This time Lex, glancing over, smiled back spontaneously at his over-the-top happiness, not having to ask what it was about. The Porsche fishtailed a little and Lex put his mind back on the road. There was hardly any traffic, it being a Saturday when people didn't have to force themselves out onto the snowy roads before the snowplows came around. There was a frisson of adventure being out in it with Lex, any approaching cars and pickups blurred a little at first by the thick-falling whiteness.
A short adventure.
Lex pulled up in their usual spot and Clark got out quickly, not wanting passing neighbors to see the Porsche there. He leaned down and waved through the window, Lex made an air-kiss and then revved back onto the road. Clark watched the silver vehicle until it turned and was out of sight; tempted to run after it and make sure Lex made it home okay.
He smiled, and slogged up the road till he got to the Kent mailbox.
There were Mom and Dad's usual bills and circulars, but also a package addressed to him. He looked at the return address and yelled, "Yes!" before he thought about it. He checked around self-consciously, and made himself not superspeed to the house with it, in case anyone in the very few nearby houses happened to be birdwatching with binoculars. Practically everyone in the country had a birdfeeder, and you just never knew. He stomped and shook off on the winter porch around back and again inside where they hung coats and shucked boots. He'd meant to go straight out to help his Dad but he just had to look first.
He could smell baking. It led him without thought.
"Hi, Mom. I got the mail." He laid it on the part of the kitchen table not covered in mixing bowls and cooling racks. "Are any of these for us?" Muffins were generally verboten but he had hopes for the chocolate chip cookies.
"Sorry, honey, I got an order from the Colesons."
Clark smiled anyway and started opening the small box.
"What did you get?" his Mom asked.
Clark shook the rolled-up t-shirt out and laid it on the table. "It's Lex's Christmas present."
She looked at it upside down, pausing in the splodging of more cookie-dough onto a baking tray. "What is it?"
"It's from a movie he likes. I found it on-line."
It was perfect.
"Does Lex ever wear t-shirts?"
Clark grinned. "He may frame it."
His mother nodded, with an expression that lumped billionaires and teenage boys into a single aberrant sect. "I think your Dad could use some help."
"Yeah, I'll go right out."
He dropped the t-shirt off in his room, and went down and got into boots and a down jacket, and tromped out into the silent snow. They'd have to hook the snowplow onto the front of the tractor so he could clear the driveways and the back lane, and they usually plowed out a couple of neighbors who didn't have their own equipment. If it kept on like this he'd have to do it all again in the morning, but it was a lot easier if you didn't let it get deep. After dark when nobody could see him he'd shovel the walks and steps at superspeed. Since his Dad had broken his leg he'd had more of a sense of being responsible for his parents -- how fragile they were, how unthinkably mortal. He tried to channel it into action instead of worry. He had insisted on taking over both morning and evening milking regardless of his Dad's arguments. He'd brooked no denial. But the pre-dawn alarm clock had become a hated enemy and he gave blissful thanks that the last milker had finally gone dry. By the time the herd came into milk again Dad should be in shape to gradually take over. Still, he'd realized once and for all that both his parents did more work than even the other hardworking farmers around, old-fashioned equipment saving them tens of thousands of dollars, but taking its toll. He felt that the dairy operation was the worst because you couldn't let it slide at all, not the milking, not the cleaning, not the care of the animals. He wasn't milking now, for instance, but in this weather the cows would be indoors and there'd be a whole lot of shoveling to do.
Still, he couldn't keep from smiling when he had
to blink snowflakes off his eyelashes. It was almost Christmas, everything
was going to be okay, and he had the perfect present for Lex.
Christmas night before dawn he whooshed to a stop under Lex's balcony.
Hard as he had tried, he hadn't ever been able to make himself float on purpose.
He was getting darn good at jumping, though.
He sprang up to the balcony railing and as quietly as he could, climbed over, and left his brightly wrapped package close in by Lex's glass doors under the overhang, though it wasn't supposed to snow any more tonight.
Then he jumped back down, eyed the line-of-sight
of the railing as he walked out into the fresh white, decided on a good
spot, and lay down.
Lex rolled over in bed luxuriously. Christmas morning. Yesterday he had put in the obligatory appearance at his father's annual Christmas party for the rich and worthless, and for some reason this year almost everyone there had seemed even more inane, spoiled, and boring than he remembered. And he had had to speak personally to them all. Every. Last. One.
But today was all his own. He would see Clark.
His eyes opened in a smile. He pushed back the covers and got up and opened the drapes. White snow-light reflected from the Christmas-card white vista that was his view. Something red caught his eye and he looked down. Just outside his balcony doors was a Christmas present!
Instantly he knew it must be from Clark. How had he got it up here?
Carefully he opened one door and picked up the package. The paper was red with blue ribbon and a big yellow bow, and there was a note attached. It said, "Look down."
There was nothing else on the balcony. Lex stepped to the railing and looked over.
There. Down in the snow. A bird --
No, it was a snow-angel.
Spread wings and skirt impressed into the deep white. And red, in the middle of its chest, a big heart made of roses, their stems stuck down into the snow, blossoms full blown.
Clark.
Oh.
Clark.
He realized finally there was a huge grin on his face.
Clark.
His hands clutched the red package. His bare feet were freezing. But he continued to look down at the most beautiful message he had ever seen.
I'm in love with a teenager, his brain finally translated the sheer dazzle of zinging sensation. The very idea would have humiliated him if he'd been able to stop laughing, had anyone ever suggested it as his approaching fate. Love. It was a high indescribable. And Clark. Who was synonymous with love. He felt... carbonated. And happy. He was Lex-loving-Clark, a new thing under the sun.
Shivering with happy cold, he looked down at the present in his clutch. It was so pretty he didn't want to open it, wrapped by Clark's own hands. Yet, inside was something Clark had also touched, and had meant just for him. With a last gaze down at the rose-hearted angel, he tore himself from the balcony, closed the door, and found his room's ambient temperature significantly chilly now. He sat cross-legged on the bed to thaw his icy feet. It might prove clever to start keeping a pair of slippers by the balcony doors.
Carefully he detached all the ribbon and bits of Scotch tape. Inside the paper was a dark plastic bag, for weather protection he surmised. Out of it he pulled a black t-shirt with white lettering. He unfolded it, and laughed spontaneously. Across it was written "Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems".
Without thinking he dived for his phone and hit speed-dial.
"Clark! I love it!" Even as he said it other feelings were catching up with him. It was... that had been the first night Clark had... Oh.
It was... like an anniversary present.
That other dimension entered his smile and his voice.
"I'm glad you like it," Clark was saying. "It's kind of an antique."
"It's the best present I ever got." It was. Incomparably. That someone had cared enough about what he liked, not what they wanted him to become. And cared so centrally about being with him as to mark the event... "I love you Clark."
"Me too." He knew from the tone and phrasing Clark's parents were near him.
"Oh -- I didn't mean to interrupt your Christmas morning. You're opening presents?"
"Just about to." He could hear the smile in Clark's voice.
"I'll see you later then. I..." What did you say about an angel in the snow with a heart like a Valentine? "I loved the angel too."
They said good-bye and Lex sat there thinking. How Clark had made him so happy without even being there, had made his day a happy one, his Christmas...
His life...
When Clark leaned his head around the door of the office and looked this way and that, his expression made Lex's lips quirk. "The coast is clear. Don't worry, I would have warned you if my father were going to be here."
Clark's cheeks, pink from the cold, got a little more blush to them as he came on in. "I didn't want to interrupt if -- you know. Christmas and all."
"A Luthor family moment? Those you'd hear long before you got to the doorway."
Smiling, Lex met him half-way and kissed him, having seen his green eyes flick down and take in that he was wearing the t-shirt. He loved how Clark smiled as he was being kissed, and then pulled him closer and murmurred, "I didn't realize you'd also look really hot in it. Bonus for me."
"You realize I'm probably going to have it archivally preserved."
Clark giggled. It was the only word for it. Jesus God, sixteen.
The giggle ended up against Lex's neck, tickling, and he flinched a little and Clark's hand settled in above his hip and all of a sudden it was Christmas in several other meanings of the term. Hot breath and warm skin and cold outerwear in his arms, over the utter warmth and strength of Clark's body, the gentleness of his kiss and his touch, all-encompassing embrace lulling Lex into what was almost -- almost -- surrender. The most weirdly thrilling sensation of his lifetime, one he had never experienced before he started feeling it with Clark. Unbelievably dirty and lewd and luscious. And holy.
"Open your present first," he admonished without conviction.
And Clark whispered, "I am"; and Lex felt his warm fingers edging up under the precious t-shirt. Firm on his skin.
He bent inward like a bow against immovable Clark.
"Did I mention the servants have the week off?"
Clark looked concerned. "You'll starve."
"They left me frozen things in little casserole dishes." He could see how Clark's heart smote him at the thought of his being so alone on Christmas Day. "They're good," he offered.
"Yeah, well, not today."
He had been trying to avoid that thought. It was a ceremonial observance Clark seemed bent on, the lorn singleton being drawn into the circle of family for holiday warmth, the one day when he had tradition on his side to bring Lex into his home.
Sooner or later they had to get used to him, he supposed.
"What time do we have to be there?"
"In about an hour. Sorry I couldn't come earlier, I'm trying to do everything for Dad. I don't want him out there breaking his other leg on the ice."
"You are a model son."
Clark grinned. "I keep telling them that."
"I could provide a testimonial. 'Speaking as someone who has known Clark in every sense of the word...'"
"Yeah, that'll work."
"We'd better not be late today of all days."
"I guess not." Clark looked charmingly disappointed.
Lex leaned in and breathed, "So if we're going to fuck we'd better go up to my room and do it fast and hard."
Clark went paralyzed in his arms, except for the harder breathing.
"So we can shower off really quick and get off all the sweat and cum and saliva --" And Clark was pulling him by the hand out the door.
They hit the bed like a ton of bricks but Lex immediately commanded, "Clothes off." He didn't want to bring Clark into the Kent house with mysteriously ripped and rumpled clothing. He had a weird tendency to tear things even when it didn't seem like he was being all that abandoned. Clark seemed to be thinking the same thing, as he unzipped and divested with conscious care. Watching him get more and more naked, Lex realized his mouth had slowly fallen open. It was always the same. Clark hardly looked real. He looked like an ideal male of the human species. Every proportion more beautiful than could be imagined until you saw him. And every time he bent or turned, it just revealed a different perfect vision. It wasn't sexy, it was -- religious.
What was sexy was green eyes finding Lex's hands stalled halfway down the buttons of his shirt, and looking up into Lex's naked face.
Okay the half-hard cock reddening at the tip was sexy too.
Clark stepped over and started helping get Lex's clothes off and suddenly, he was the god of sex. And Lex was the virgin object of his intention. Trembling so hard Clark had to pull the band of his underwear out and down over his awkwardly stiffening organ to get him naked. Clark threw the covers back with a single one-handed gesture so they could have the soft sheets, and had retrieved lube out of the endtable by the time he bore Lex down onto the bed, and was massaging his opening slipperily before he could do more than gasp. Then Clark's whole body spread his legs wide and Clark's big hand was guiding hot, thick, hard length into him. The hand withdrew and Clark thrust deep. Lex cried wordlessly. For an instant, he felt he didn't want this. It was too much. Then Clark thrust again and his body convulsed, out from his prostate like a bomb-blast. Another bang hit him in the same spot. Oh -- god. Oh -- god. His hands pressed for leverage at Clark's shoulders so he could arch... arch... into him... be him... be the thing that was devastating ecstasy taking him over. "No," he whispered. And Clark's hand was flat on his cock, pressing it up against Clark's moving belly while Clark moaned and wildly thrust him full, and again, and again and again forcing the orgasm open into waves of heat and sweetness sweeping him, crucifying him with electric paralysis every time Clark's cock buried in his target. Cries torn from him. Every time it hit him he thought it had to be the last, but his lover tirelessly thrust pleasure into him and he kept on coming even though he had long since shot his semen all over them both and Clark's hand had pulled out. It was against the mattress. Between his thighs he felt Clark's body gathering, and then he was pounding harder, bruising, insistent, too fast and heavy for Lex to do anything but ride it, the deepness of Clark's penetration into his soul complete as he finally came and pulsed his orgasmic essence inside Lex. He would swear he could feel it, like a tiny meteor shower. Clark moaned and rocked with the pleasure. Slowly he stopped, and Lex's nerves and muscles gave a last shimmer, and let him collapse, breathing like a racehorse. Clark slowly slid out, and off him, and onto the bed. He looked as stunned as Lex felt.
Lex got up on one elbow, knowing in two more seconds he would be asleep if he let himself. Clark, panting, was covered with sweat and cum just as he had foretold, though they hadn't had time for any saliva -- Lex leaned over and lavished his tongue along Clark's wet pectoral. It tasted sharp and salt -- with near the nipple a spritz of cum. He leaned up to kiss at Clark's panting lips.
Clark was still looking amazed, and a little dubious. They stared at each other for a moment.
"You did say fast and hard," Clark offered meekly.
Lex tried to hold it back but it was no use.
He burst out laughing and fell across Clark's chest, helpless.
It was a long tube lying on the coffee table. The wrapping paper was black with swathes of glittering stars. Silver ribbon in a long elegant helix held down a small silver card. 'For Clark,' it read, 'Merry Christmas, Lex.'
"It's beautiful."
Lex smiled. They were dressed and clean and Clark looked perfectly innocent. "Open it."
Carefully Clark detached a minute bow sealing one end and eased the paper back enough to screw the cap off the metal tube. When he tilted it, rolled paper slid out, tied with wide silk ribbons. Clark glanced at him wide-eyed and loosened the bands. On the bare coffee table the roll opened beneath his careful hands. Clark gasped. It was a star map. But not just any map. Clark had wished, once, that there were such a thing as a map showing the known celestial objects not as they looked from Earth, but as they would lie in an outside view. Lex had looked and indeed finding no such map available, had commissioned one from an assembled team of astronomers and cartographers. They had explained why the task was technically impossible and Lex had explained how much he was willing to pay for it.
The result was beautiful. Sweeping across a dark background, tilted only enough to show the separate arms, lay their galaxy of stars, made to look like a photograph rather than a stark chart. In the section that was unrolled he could see the locations of many named stars indicated, with tiny print giving their mysterious particulars. In outer areas lay dozens of dim objects, far galaxies, also minutely labeled. It was not, needless to say, to scale, but you couldn't have everything. Apparently. The paper was very wide and much too long to unroll all at once on the table, but Clark unrolled sections, like a Chinese scroll, as he kept saying, "Oh, Lex!" at each new revelation. Around the border were small photos of nebulae, galaxies, the planets and moons, framing it in a band of color interspersed with facts and figures. Clark's eyes were shining. He let the two scroll-ends roll together and enveloped Lex in a huge hug.
"Thank you!" Clark's voice was actually both excited and a little choked with emotion. "It's so wonderful!"
It was, it definitely was. Anything that
could make Clark's eyes sparkle with such awe and happiness, Lex would
forever call wonderful.
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End of "Shoreline" Chapter Two
Posted 2/13/05
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