As promised, here are my thoughts on Part 2:
Sandrine didn’t reach her apartment till two in the morning, after three aborted leave-takings from Stéphane interlaced with kisses and a promise that they would meet on the morrow for a late brunch.
She felt weary and yet, curiously alert. Rewinding the events of the evening as she would do a movie, her mind kept playing out some scraps of the very… interesting… conversation that had taken place with Luthor and Lois Lane.
It is a pleasure to see how Sandrine has grown as a person. There is someone she loves and how deeply loves her in return. Interesting how her mind sees the events of that evening like a film slowly unspooling revealing matters hidden to the naked eye ...
As he did so, he threw the folds of his cape back with a practiced gesture. Like Rudolf Valentino’s, assessed Sandrine irrelevantly. All these classic movies have finally been of some use to Clark.
Ooh! This is so true! Clark's movements with the cape are very much like those of the silent era movie star! Did anybody ever see how beautifully Valentino moved in those old films? Today they might be seen as campy and a touch over the top, but in their time it was pitch perfect.
Sandrine raised her eyes. They were troubled. “Luthor also mentioned my ‘latest documentary’ which was, as he was seemingly aware, not my Opéra de Paris current project, but an tentative, in-progress enquiry about the closing-down of a paper mill factory in Sainte-Marie-de-Tarnosse… Yet, only Stéphane—he’s my fiancé, by the way!—and the people involved in the protest knew I was interested in it.”
With an effort, she unknotted her hands. “You see, afterwards, I accidentally found out that the owner of American Papers that bought the factory was… Lex Investments: at least, that was what the Mayor of Sainte-Marie-de-Tarnosse told me when I interviewed him…”
Superman bent forward, his stiffness gone in his alertness. “Lex Investments is a subsidiary company of LexCorps.”
Sandrine, Lois and Clark ought to join forces! They can bring down LexCorps on both sides of the Atlantic!
Tomorrow was another day, and Clark Kent wouldn’t be a part of it; Lex would. A slight shiver ran down her spine. I’m really tired, she rationalized, and promptly prepared to go to bed. Or… is there something else? a tiny voice tried to make itself heard in the cacophony of her thoughts.
Sleep silenced them all.
Lois, simply put: wake up and smell the coffee. How can you have come from a date with one man -- in Paris no less -- yet think longingly about another? Lex is not the guy for you.
The steel was raised and lowered again, while in the recording, Madama Butterfly sang: “He will call, he will call / ‘Little one, dear wife / Blossom of orange’”; and, in the wink of an eye, faster than the fake eyes on the pinned butterfly’s wings could sparkle, the captive lepidopteran stood transfixed.
“—my dear Lois…”
This last section makes my skin crawl...
Excellent writing Mille! Hope your health continues to improve and we hear from you again in the future.
