Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Rest and Reproduction, part 2/10

From Chapter One:

He shook his head, mystified, and looked at the sheaf of paper attached to the clipboard. As he began to read, a sense of unreality crept over him, followed by a wave of anger.

"'I hereby relinquish any right of access or custody... child or children... should conception occur...' Lois, what is this?"


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Chapter Two: A Simple Desultory Philippic

She was losing him. Dear God, she'd got him so far, and now she was losing him at the final hurdle.

She stepped forward and lifted her hand to his cheek, then ran it softly down his chest where his shirt hung open. She dropped her voice to a husky tone. "Clark, it's just in case. Sign it and come to bed. Please."

He jerked away from her. His face was hardening. "Lois, when most people talk about taking precautions during sex, they don't mean..." He flapped the clipboard at her. "... pieces of paper!" He took a few hasty paces across the floor, turned back. "Tell me something... just how likely is it that 'conception will occur'?"

She caught her breath. Clark was certainly no fool, even when he was supposed to be lost in a haze of lust. She should have made sure he had more to drink.

Now she had no choice but to lay her cards on the table. She closed her eyes. "Very likely." She heard him suck in a breath, opened her eyes again. "That's why you're here."

His eyes went wide. "Lois, are you crazy? You want to get pregnant?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes, Clark, I do. I have every intention of getting pregnant, right now, right here. And I want you to be the father."

"But you... I... Lois, making love is one thing, but a child... the responsibility..."

She smiled mirthlessly. "I'm not asking you to take responsibility for the child, Clark - quite the reverse. We go to bed a few times, do everything you've been fantasising about, and then, once I'm pregnant, you're out of my life. I bring up the child alone, my way. No responsibility, no interference."

He'd gone quite white. After a long, tense moment, he looked down at the clipboard again. "So you just want a... a sperm donor, that's all. You want me to sign away any right to be a real father to your baby."

She tried to speak, but her throat had closed up. She cleared it and tried again. "Yes."

He raised his head and stared blankly at her, obviously lost for words. She had to act, Lois realised suddenly; after everything she'd already done, she wasn't going to give up without a fight.

She pulled back her shoulders and stepped towards him, letting her hips sway seductively. His eyes flickered involuntarily downwards as her skirt parted. She stopped in front of him, just a finger's breadth from touching him.

"What does it matter, Clark?" she whispered. "It's what men want, isn't it - sex with no strings attached? Make love to me, Clark. You know you want to."

He took a step backward and tossed the clipboard onto the bed. "Is that what you think I'm after, Lois?" he ground out, his hands balling into fists. "Five minutes of mindless pleasure, and then I'll just walk away without a backward glance?"

This wasn't supposed to be happening! She'd never before had to deal with a man who could see beyond the immediate thrill of conquest. Lois felt panic stirring inside her. She had to keep him off balance, destroy his self-control.

"What did you think was going to happen, then?" she said sharply. "Did you think I was going to fall in love with you, and that we'd get married and settle down in the suburbs?"

He sucked in his breath and then let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Yes, as a matter of fact. That's exactly what I hoped would happen, God help me."

She gave a bitter smile. "Newsflash, Clark: Lois Lane doesn't do suburbs. She chews men up and spits them out, haven't you heard?" She raised her hands to the straps of her dress, then, in one deliberate movement, undid the golden clasps and pulled the bodice down to her waist. "Don't you want to find out what that's like? Or aren't you man enough?"

"My God, Lois," Clark choked out. He stared riveted at her naked breasts, his hands clenching and unclenching. "Did you make Claude sign that piece of paper?"

She flinched as if he'd struck her. Without thinking, she crossed her arms protectively in front of her.

His eyes crawled upwards until they met hers. She could see self-loathing as well as anger and lust in his gaze; and beneath them all, a terrible aching loss.

"Go to bed, Lois," he said. "If you're so desperate to have a baby... well, there are other ways. I might even be willing to talk to you about it in a few days. But not tonight."

He moved towards the door. She blocked his way.

"But I'm fertile tonight. This weekend."

"I'm not interested." He grasped her shoulders and shifted her gently but firmly out of his path.

"Then I'll find someone who is."

He froze in the doorway. "What?"

"If you don't want what I'm offering, I'm sure I can find another taker."

He turned, his eyes like flint. "Who? Perry? Hardly. Jimmy would run a mile at the mere suggestion. I can't see you offering yourself to Ralph on a platter. Or are you flattering yourself that Superman would -"

"Lex."

His turn to flinch. That evened the score somewhat, she thought with savage satisfaction.

"You'd ask Lex Luthor to sire your child," he said after a long, breathless pause.

"If I have to. I'm sure he'd be willing."

Slowly, as if his weight had become unsupportable, he leaned one shoulder against the doorpost. His face had gone quite blank.

"So... why choose me rather than him in the first place?"

She chose her words carefully. "Well, you're both fine physical specimens, and intelligent, and you're both charming... when you make the effort." Clark's mouth turned down sardonically, but he didn't speak. Lois hesitated, but she'd be shooting herself in the foot if she admitted that when it came to the crunch, she couldn't stomach the thought of sleeping with Lex. "But he's a big corporate businessman, with big corporate lawyers. If he decided, five or ten years down the track, to renege on that contract and sue for custody... I wouldn't stand a chance."

Clark gave an icy smile. "Whereas I'm a hack reporter and likely to stay a hack reporter for the foreseeable future - no threat to your plans, hmm?"

She couldn't think of any response to that.

Clark straightened and moved forward into the room again. She fell back a pace, her eyes widening, but he ignored her and picked up the clipboard from the bed. He studied it for a minute. "This isn't a contract, it's just a waiver," he said in clipped, unemotional tones. "To be a contract, there has to be an exchange between the parties. Quid pro quo."

"You mean... Are you suggesting I pay you...?"

He raised his head and inspected her coldly. "Not in monetary terms." He pulled the pen from its holder and began to write.

"What are you doing?" Panic was making her voice shrill.

"I'm adding a clause. In return for my waiving parental rights, you consent to have unlimited sex with me over a period of - shall we say, three days? - around the time that you are fertile every month, until such time as conception occurs."

She stood gaping dumbly at him as he wrote, the blood roaring in her ears. This just couldn't be happening. He was actually proposing that she sell her body in return for his cooperation.

And yet...

Wasn't that just what she had been doing, without naming it to herself?

He turned over the top sheet. "You made two copies - good," he said, and proceeded to amend the second copy. Then he handed her the clipboard. "Do you approve?"

She took it mechanically. It said exactly what he'd suggested, dressed up in legalese.

She closed her eyes. This was complete and utter madness.

But how much choice did she have? She needed to get pregnant, and this was the only way. She would be a fool to change her mind now.

She nodded her head jerkily and fumbled for the pen.

"No, don't sign it until the witness is present," he said.

"W..." She licked her dry lips. "Witness?"

"It's best to have a witness, don't you think? To the contract, obviously, not the sex. Of course, to make it watertight we should really get it notarised, but I don't suppose you want to go that far, do you?"

She stared at him. His hair was tumbled over his forehead and his shirt was still gaping open, but his mouth was set in a thin, straight line, and behind the glasses his eyes were hard. He looked like a stranger: a disturbingly sexy, rigidly angry stranger.

"Do you?" he repeated.

"I... uh... no, of course not!"

"Good. I'll call the front desk and get them to send the duty manager up." His eyes swept over her. "I think you'd better neaten up a bit." He reached down and pulled her bodice up over her breasts. She'd completely forgotten that she was naked to the waist; she stood blushing scarlet, hands clenched on the clipboard, while he secured the shoulder straps.

Then she felt his hands probing through her hair, gently removing the pins from what remained of her earlier hairstyle. His fingers combed the strands down around her shoulders. She peered up into his face, trying to reconcile this cold, furious man with her easy-going partner.

"No, I can't fix that," he said. "You might want to brush it out."

He left the bedroom, buttoning his shirt as he went, and a moment later she heard him speaking on the phone in the living room.

She sat down at the dressing table and looked at the clipboard still clutched in her shaking hands. This was what she wanted, she said to herself, trying to quell the dread building in the pit of her stomach. The fact that Clark had somehow turned the tables on her to become the driving force didn't change that. She had won.

So why did she suddenly feel like the hapless victim?


*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A white-hot rage was burning at the corners of Clark's vision. He'd never felt such fury and yet, at the same time, such clarity of purpose.

He'd hoped to find out tonight just how Lois felt about him. And for a short time he'd been under the blissful illusion that she felt the same way he had - that she was in love with him.

Well, now he knew exactly what she thought of him. A "fine physical specimen" - fit to father her child, but no more.

So be it.

If all she wanted was his genetic material, he would oblige. Because there was one thing above all others he was quite determined on: the only man who was going to lay a hand on her tonight was going to be Clark himself. And if she ever did decide to bestow her dubious favours on another man, Clark was going to do everything in his power to make sure it wasn't Luthor.

He stared out of the window, noticing after a minute that there were lights on in an office block across the road. Two men talking near the window. Thank heavens the bedroom curtains had been drawn, or they would had a fine view of the bizarre scene that had just taken place there. Grimacing, Clark tugged the curtains shut and turned away.

What could possibly be going on in Lois's head? He knew, of course, that she'd had problems with men in the past - but deciding to have a baby on her own had to rate as one of the world's worst reactions. But once Lois's mind was made up, there seemed to be no possible way to change it. He'd tried, with that ludicrous contract, to make her see how insane the situation was, but she'd simply sucked up every insulting suggestion he'd made and carried on regardless. And Clark was damned if he was going to be the one to back down.

And now the night manager was on his way up to witness the infernal thing. Clark's hands clenched involuntarily. He couldn't just stand here fuming, though; he had to make a show of normality for the man.

He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it down. He retrieved his tie from the back of the couch and his jacket from the floor, and put them on. Then he righted the room, turning the lights up to a normal level and removing the 'Do not disturb' sign from the outside of the door.

The empty dessert platter was still standing on the table in front of the couch. Clark winced, remembering how, bare minutes before, he had sat there laughing gaily, literally eating out of Lois's hand. Even moments ago in the bedroom, with his hands in Lois's hair, he'd been struck by the urge to grab her and simply kiss her senseless, kiss her until she abandoned this bizarre scheme and fell in love with him instead.

He really was the world's biggest fool.

On the tray stood the silver cafetiere, untouched. Clark felt the side and then pulled down his glasses to reheat the coffee. He was pouring himself a cup when Lois came out of the bedroom carrying the clipboard. She'd brushed her hair and restored her makeup, and looked resolute, if a little pale.

"Coffee?" he said.

"Please." She seated herself in an armchair and folded her hands while he poured a second cup and placed it beside her.

A knock on the outer door broke the tense silence. Clark went to let in the manager, a thin grey man who looked anxiously at Clark. "Mr, uh, Kent? Is there a problem?"

Clark smiled blandly. "No problem. My partner and I are simply finalising a little business. Would you mind serving as a witness for a contract?"

The manager's brow cleared. "Of course not. We try to give our guests the best service at all times." He looked past Clark into the room and nodded. "Ms Lane." His eyes slid speculatively back to Clark. "Are you staying in the hotel, Mr Kent?"

Touche. Clark waved the manager into the room. "I'll be staying in this suite for the weekend," he said. "As soon as the contract is signed, I'll come down and register."

The manager hesitated, looking for confirmation at Lois, who nodded. She looked perfectly calm, Clark thought, if you didn't notice the pulse fluttering in her throat.

He picked up the clipboard from the table and handed it to her. "Lois, would you like to start the ball rolling?"

She took it and looked at it for a long moment, two spots of colour rising in her cheeks. Then she picked up the pen and signed at the bottom.

"Initial the written changes," Clark instructed, and she obeyed silently. Then she folded back the top sheet and signed and initialled the second copy before handing the clipboard to Clark.

Quickly, before he could have second thoughts about the implications, Clark signed and initialled both copies. He added the place and date of signing as a final legal touch.

Then he bent and picked up the welcome booklet from the table and clipped it over the text of the contract before handing the clipboard to the manager. He might have taunted Lois earlier, but he was certainly not going to let a stranger see what was written on that highly embarrassing sheet of paper. Behind him, he heard Lois let out an almost inaudible sigh of relief.

"I trust it's nothing illegal," the manager joked nervously as he took the clipboard.

"If it were illegal, we'd scarcely bother with a legal contract, would we?" Clark pointed out coolly. "It's simply private business."

He watched carefully as the manager signed both sheets without disturbing the booklet, then took the clipboard back. He thanked the man and ushered him from the room, closing the door firmly after him.

Behind him, he heard Lois pick up her coffee cup and drink. The cup clattered loudly as she replaced it in the saucer; she wasn't feeling quite as calm as she looked.

Good.

Tossing the booklet back on the table, Clark separated the top sheet, folded it carefully and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket. He set the clipboard down in front of Lois; she looked at it for a moment, her hands clasping each other tightly, but made no move to pick it up.

"You have your contract," Clark said softly, but with a hint of steel in his voice. "I'll go and register now, and buy myself a toothbrush -"

"I brought a toothbrush for you."

Naturally. Clark smiled dangerously, then reached out and grasped her shoulders, pulling her to her feet. "You think of everything, don't you, Lois? I'll be back in a few minutes, then, to start collecting on our agreement. Because, don't forget..." He shifted his hands abruptly to cup her breasts. She gasped. "... for the next three days, your body belongs to me."

She trembled, and her face tilted expectantly towards him.

He released her, turned on his heel and walked out of the suite.

They say you always remember your first time, Clark thought as he headed for the stairs. There was no way he was ever going to be able to forget what happened tonight.

Lois might be planning to walk away without a backward glance afterwards, but Clark was going to make damned sure that for her, too, the memories would last forever.


*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lois stood staring, stunned, as the door closed with a final decisive click behind Clark. Shocked tears were prickling at the corners of her eyes.

She blinked them away, stiffening her spine. If the gentle man she'd selected to father her baby had vanished, subsumed into this icy stranger - if the bed in the next room was about to become a battleground - then she couldn't afford to show any weakness.

She had what she wanted, she reminded herself once more. Phase three was complete, and she had her contract.

Now phase four lay ahead. The phase she had been careful not to think too clearly about, until now. Now there was nothing else left to think about.

Fear clutched at her vitals. She could still feel the heat where Clark's hands had touched her in that blatant display of ownership.

Surely Clark's unwonted alpha-male behaviour didn't excite her?

She bit her lip. No, the churning in her stomach and the trembling in her limbs were purely the result of fear. And she had to master it before Clark returned. Because she was not going to play the submissive female to his dominant male.

She had to get through tonight - this weekend - with her essential dignity, the force of her personality, intact. Because on Monday morning, she had to be able to browbeat Clark into maintaining at least the semblance of a professional relationship at work. Otherwise her career in the newsroom was over.

Lois forced her jelly-like legs to turn and carry her to the bedroom. Once there, she sank down in front of the dressing table and began methodically to remove her jewellery and makeup.

Sex.

Experience had taught her that sex was a tedious business. She'd had various fumbling encounters at college, followed by the brief, abortive affair with Claude - the affair she'd thought was going to be the love of a lifetime. After that, she'd never felt any interest in trying again.

The best part was the early foreplay, before your partner realised he was going to score. Because at that point in the game, his interest would inevitably shift from giving you a good time to maximising his own pleasure. The rest of the encounter was always messy, occasionally painful, and usually mercifully quick.

She'd had a good time with Clark this evening, up until they'd entered the bedroom. For minutes at a stretch she'd been able to forget what lay ahead and enjoy herself, and he'd been really good company. Feeding each other with chocolate dessert had even been fun, and she hadn't had to fake the desire with which she'd invited him to bed.

Well, that part was over. Even if he hadn't gone all Jekyll-and-Hyde once he'd understood her real agenda, she couldn't have expected much more from him.

Now...

Uneasily, Lois swivelled to regard the huge bed behind her.

He was furious, that much was clear. Was he going to take it out on her physically, deliberately hurt her?

She turned back to the mirror and picked up her brush, started to run it through her hair. The familiar long strokes of her normal bedtime routine soothed her jangling nerves.

Would he hit her?

She thought not.

She hoped not.

Surely anger couldn't change him that much?

Or was this ruthless stranger the real man, the mild-mannered reporter just a mask he wore in public?

No! That couldn't be true. She couldn't be so mistaken about him, after working beside him for months.

Could she?

He was angry, that was all; his ego was deflated because she wasn't pretending to be in love with him. He would probably just focus on using her body for his own enjoyment, ignoring the effect on her, and it would be over quickly enough. He would be fast asleep within minutes, and she would be safe again till morning, at least.

He still wasn't back. How long could it possibly take him to register?

She couldn't sit here dwelling on her fears, or she'd be a quivering wreck when he arrived. She'd probably scream when he touched her.

Would that excite him?

The brush clattered to the table top. She stood up and crossed the floor jerkily to stand in front of the wardrobe door. The full-length mirror showed a hunched, frightened woman. A victim.

Lois drew herself erect and straightened her shoulders. That was better. Now only her eyes showed her fear; they looked several sizes too large for her pale face.

Moving deliberately, proudly, she pulled up the skirt of the burgundy dress and drew it off over her head. She opened the wardrobe door and hung the dress up beside the others, then toed off her shoes and placed them neatly side by side. Her lacy underwear followed, then she picked up the wispy black garment that lay ready on the shelf.

Closing the door, she shook out the scrap of silk and held it up against herself. It was a sheer black teddy, bought two days ago in a sudden fit of nerves, when she'd suddenly found herself unable to believe that Clark could possibly find her sexually attractive. The hem skimmed the tops of her thighs; red ribbons tied at the shoulders and laced all the way up the front. It had bolstered her courage when she'd bought it, and it was no less effective now.

Carefully, her fingers trembling, she drew it on and inspected the result in the mirror. It looked stunning. The silky folds shadowed the curves of her body without hiding anything, and the colours seemed to darken her eyes and hair and redden her lips.

Clark would surely find her body suitably enticing. And the more enticing it was, the more quickly their physical encounter - and the others to follow - would be over.

Turning from the mirror, holding fast to her courage, she climbed onto the bed and settled herself in the centre of the mound of pillows. She tucked one leg up under herself and left the other oh so casually extended. At first she couldn't work out what to do with her arms; she settled on resting one hand across her upper hip and propping her head on the other, elbow supported by the pillows.

Not a moment too soon. She heard a key in the outer door of the suite, a pause during which she held her breath, then a click as the door was closed firmly once again. A rattle as Clark placed his key on the table, and then his voice. "Lois?"

She swallowed, closing her eyes for an instant. "In here," she said firmly.

He appeared in the inner doorway, unbuttoning his jacket. As his eyes fell on her, it seemed that his hands froze and his face went slack. But only for the barest instant; then he was shrugging off his jacket and crossing to the wardrobe.

"Gift-wrapped," he commented over his shoulder. "How thoughtful of you, Lois."

"We strive to please," she returned automatically. Her voice, she was relieved to hear, caught the perfect inflection between mild sarcasm and disinterest.

He opened the second wardrobe door, the one she'd left empty, and hung up his jacket. His cufflinks clattered onto the dressing table beside her earrings. Then he was standing at the side of the bed, loosening his tie, his eyes running slowly down over her body.

Striving to keep her breathing even, Lois quelled the impulse to cover herself with her hands. He must have seen some involuntary movement, though, because the hint of a smile touched his lips and his eyes travelled leisurely upwards again to lock with hers.

"Having second thoughts?"

"Not at all," she lied smoothly. "I'm ready when you are."

She heard Clark's breath hiss between his teeth; whether it was amusement or something else, she didn't know. "You talk a good game, partner," he said, settling onto the bed beside her and reaching for her shoulders. "Let's see how you are in action."


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.../tbc