Hmm... I guess no one recognizes this from the first lines? How do I post a hint? Can I post something from later in the story, even though this is the "opening lines" game? <g>
How about this? The beginning of the next scene?
Even at breakfast, Lex Luthor looked like he'd stepped off the cover of GQ. As he wiped his mouth on the linen napkin and stood up, he appeared ready to chair a board meeting, which, in fact, he was scheduled to do in an hour. "Chef Andre surpassed himself this morning," he noted. "Mrs. Cox, remind me to increase his salary."
The beautiful black woman dipped her head in a gesture that seemed more regal than dutiful. "Yes, Lex."
He turned to the woman who sat on his other side. "Are you going to work today, my dear?"
Lois took a sip of rich, full-flavored coffee and felt a sudden nostalgia for the strong, black brew that they had consumed by the gallon at The Planet. "No," she said at last. "My assistant can handle anything that comes up." Somehow, after her wedding to Lex, she had been promoted to some kind of producer, and she no longer wrote or researched stories. She didn't even assign stories to other reporters or head up story meetings like Perry used to. People occasionally dropped by to ask her opinion about one story or another, but that was it. She had never felt so useless.
After the destruction of The Daily Planet three months ago, her world had collapsed. Lex had been there to pick up the pieces, but in the debacle, Lois Lane, world-class investigative reporter, had vanished and never come back.
She swirled her coffee, staring into the tiny vortex as if it could tell her where Lois Lane had gone, and shook her head. "I won't be going to work," she repeated.
Lex studied her through narrowed eyes, then said briskly, "Very well. Mrs. Cox and I have some reports to go over before the board meeting. I'll see you this evening at dinner."
Without looking up, Lois raised her hand in a half-hearted wave. "Bye, Lex." The door closed behind them, and she picked up the paper, glancing down at the lurid headline: "I am a fugitive from a sex slave ring." Her mouth twisted. Perry never would have let a headline like that go out on his paper, but The Star had always been more sensational than The Planet.
Three paragraphs into the story, she had changed her mind, and she looked back at the by-line. Clark Kent. She didn't recognize the name, but whoever he was, he was no tabloid hack. Returning to the story, she lost herself in the narrative, following the terrifying ordeal of Melissa Taylor, a college coed who was kidnapped on her way to a night class and found herself drugged and forced into prostitution as a sex slave. Without sensationalizing his subject, this Clark Kent brought the girl to life, and by drawing his readers into her story, he made a stronger statement against the horrors of forced prostitution than a dozen editorials or sermons could have done.
