Nightmare -- Part 9
“Love, love, love, love,” Lois said as she flipped through the various ads they had found for Miranda’s perfume shop. “You don’t think she’s obsessed or anything?”
Clark looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “Well, maybe she caters to people in love.”
“And out of love,” she said, holding out one of the ads.
“Wow.” He shook his head. “Ultimate passion, painful rejection, and sweet revenge.”
“Well, we know she’s crazy,” Lois said. “But what else do we know?”
He wrapped his hand around her shoulder, and said, “We know she’s a criminal.”
“We don’t even know her last name.” They had tried to search for anything they could about Miranda’s Perfume Shop, but they had come up virtually empty except for a few small magazine ads.
He shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to wing it.”
She smiled up at him. “Well, at least it’s a store. We can pretend to be shopping.”
“Exactly.” He grinned and pulled her close. “We can be a young couple in love, searching for a perfume that will enrich our love life.”
Lois leaned back and smiled. “And what better way to do what than with a new perfume?”
“Could we just go in there and ask for her special love perfume?”
She shrugged. “What? Like, ‘Hi, Miranda. We know what you did last night. We want to see the perfume with the illegal love drug and then arrest you.”
He rolled his eyes, and changed the subject slightly. “Well, at least she won’t recognize us since we weren’t at work yesterday.”
“Perfect.”
"What's the address?" Clark asked. His hand casually trailed softly down her arm. He knew they were getting close with all the small specialty boutiques lining the streets.
They were going to have to wing it.
"15 River Rd," she announced. They were getting close. River Rd. was a small street, almost like an alley, with lots of tiny specialty stores and trendy, expensive restaurants. Perfect for a specialty perfume store.
"It's on this street," Clark said quickly. He pointed to the left. "Look at all the little boutiques and cafes."
Lois nodded. "A shady perfume store fits right in."
"Or maybe it's totally legitimate." He shrugged. “And she makes the drug on the side.”
"Yeah right. A legitimate store with an illegal lab in the back?"
Clark shrugged again. "It's happened before. A lot."
Lois shook her head, knowing he was right. “If you say so.”
He reached out and grabbed her hand. They each felt a small jolt of electricity pass between them when their skin came in contact.
Lois turned her head up, and smiled at him. It was a meaningful gesture, even without words. A gesture of peace and love. She wasn't sure how she had lived for so long without the soft, loving contact between them.
Together, they were stronger than they ever were apart. Once the hottest team in town, Lane and Kent were now positively sizzling. Now they both knew it would soon get a whole lot hotter.
They turned the corner onto river road, and Lois asked, "Do you see it?" Sometimes having Superman for a partner had its advantages.
Clark nodded. "Yeah. It's right there." He pointed to a small hole-in-the-wall store which was almost obscured by the larger buildings on either side.
"That's it?" she asked incredulously.
He shrugged. “Yeah.” Then he squeezed her shoulder. “What, were you expecting some kind of neon sign flashing, 'Miranda's Perfume Store. WE SELL THE LOVE DRUG HERE'?”
Lois laughed. “Well. Yeah. Or maybe a motto, 'Come on in and leave your inhibitions at the door'!”
“Criminals are stupid, but not usually that stupid.” Clark joined her laughter.
“It would make our jobs a whole lot easier.” She shrugged.
"Guess so.” Then he pointed towards the shop. “There's a small purple sign on the door that says ‘Miranda’s’."
She shook her head, amazed at his abilities. Even though she had seen them so many times when he was in the Suit, she was still trying to come to terms with the image of *Clark* possessing such incredible abilities. It was almost mind-boggling. "Miranda's?" she asked.
"Miranda's," he confirmed. "There it is. I'm gonna check it out."
"Check it out?" He was going to go without her? What! Then the realization dawned on her. "Oh! Check it out!" She made a motion like she was pulling down glasses, and he nodded.
Clark pulled his glasses down his nose, and stared into the store, unsure of what he would find. He had never been to a perfume store before, much less a perfume store run by a crazy criminal!
"What? What do you see?" she asked anxiously.
"I don't believe it!" he said in a harsh whisper.
"What!" Sometimes she really wished she was the one with Superpowers!
He pulled his eyes away from the store and looked Lois in the eyes. He wasn't sure how she was going to react to what he was about to say. But he had to tell her. "Luthor."
"Lex Luthor? What's he doing there?" She scrunched up her face, trying to figure out what the handsome billionaire would be doing at such a hole in the wall perfume shop.
"Talking to her," he said softly. He knew Lois and Lex were friends and possibly a little more. She didn't believe him that Lex was up to no good. But maybe she would believe him now.
"Lex is talking to the perfume lady, Miranda? But why?" She wasn't sure what to believe any more except that Clark was telling her the truth.
Clark took a deep breath. He was going to have to tell her everything he knew about his arch nemesis. He had to start off bluntly. "Lois, Lex Luthor is a criminal."
"What?" she felt her breath catch in her chest. Lex Luthor was a criminal? But he was her friend.
"Lois, you have to believe me on this," he pleaded. "He is a criminal mastermind." He knew this had to be painful for her, but he had to tell her. She had to know.
"Lex?" she said again. She believed Clark, of course, but she was having trouble admitting it to herself that she had been wrong yet again.
"You have to believe me, Lois," he said earnestly. "When I first came to Metropolis, he saw me as a challenge, and he tried to get rid of me in any way he could. He was responsible for the Messenger disaster, the Metamide 5 drug, and so many other things, but I couldn't prove any of it. He always found a scapegoat and an airtight alibi, so he got away. And it’s only gotten worse"
Lois shook her head. How dumb was she? "I believe you," she whispered. "Oh my god. He must know about the drug then. What are they doing?"
Clark focused his hearing and began to pick up shreds of conversation. He found himself cringing as the events unfolded before him. "They're fighting. She's . . . trying to hit on Luthor, but he doesn't seem to want her."
"What?" Lois shook her head trying to comprehend everything. “Argh! Why don’t I have superpowers, too? It would sure make life a lot easier.”
Clark laughed, and chose to ignore her question. "She's trying to kiss him. He's telling her he doesn't mix business and pleasure." He let his words trail off and focused on the conversation again.
"Business? Do you think he knows about the perfume?"
Clark shrugged. "I think he has to. What other business could he have with her?"
"I have no idea."
"Yes. It is the perfume. He knows about it. He said she developed it when she was working at LexLabs." He shuddered at the thought of Luthor getting his filthy paws on that horrible drug. Who knew what he would do with it?
"Really?" Lois shook her head. "She worked at Lex Labs? Do you think he wants the formula because she developed it there? He might think it belongs to him since she developed it with his money."
Clark nodded, his eyes still focused on the events unfolding before him. "They know each other," he muttered. "They met at Harvard."
"Lex went to Harvard?" Okay, she believed that. Lex probably had gone to Harvard. "*She* went to Harvard?"
It was obvious that the men in her life were definitely not what they had seemed. Clark was the love of her life. Superman was Clark. Lex Luthor was a master criminal extraordinaire who was affiliated with the crazy perfume lady. It kept getting stranger by the second. What else was going to happen? Was Perry really Elvis? Was Jimmy really a secret agent? Right now, she was ready to believe just about anything.
"Apparently. They seem like they knew each other pretty well." He wasn't sure what else to say, so he focused on the conversation in the perfume shop again. "He said, 'I'm the first to admit I've made a mistake,' and then she said, 'You're damned right you made a mistake'."
Lois's heart was racing, and she was dying to know what was going on inside the perfume shop. "What kind of mistake?" He couldn't stop talking now! She needed to know *everything*!
He blinked his eyes and pulled his gaze away from the small store. "Lois, you aren't going to believe this."
"What! What?" If he wasn't going to tell her what was going on, she wanted to see it for herself. She started gently tugging him closer to the store so she could look through a window or something.
He wasn't moving; he didn't want to take the chance that Lex Luthor might recognize them. "Wait, Lois! She sprayed him!"
"With the perfume?"
Clark nodded. "I think she thinks Luthor will lose his inhibitions."
"Does she want Lex to fall in love with her?"
Clark nodded. "I think she must." He inwardly shuddered. "Now she's trying to make him kiss her." He felt almost like a voyeur having to watch Miranda seduce Luthor. But the perfume didn't seem to be working.
"Is he kissing her?" God, she needed that vision gizmo thingy, too! Or else she needed to drag him close enough so they both could see.
"No!" Clark was shocked. He had fully expected Luthor to fall at Miranda's feet.
"He isn't? Did she spray him with the right perfume?" Lois couldn't believe Lex was immune to the drug that had so changed her life.
Clark shrugged. "It was in that oddly shaped bottle. It has to be the same one. Oh my god!"
"What!" She tugged on his arm.
"She's wearing nose plugs!" So that was why she wasn't affected. But what about Luthor?
"Figures. But if she sprayed Lex, then why isn't he losing his inhibitions? Does he know? He has to know. Is he blocking his nose, too?"
Clark shook his head. "I don't think so." Luthor didn’t seem to be wearing nose plugs like Miranda. “At least not obviously.”
Lois ran her hand through her hair, and started to pace behind Clark. Suddenly, she had an idea. "What if the reason Lex isn't affected is that he isn't attracted to Miranda? I mean, look at everyone at work. Jimmy is in love with April, a model. I can't explain Perry and Rahelia, but I think it's a fluke. It really comes down to the fact that women are running after handsome men, and men are running after beautiful women . . ."
Clark nodded. She seemed to be on the right track. That didn't explain everything. "But what about you?"
"What? You think I'm not attracted to you?"
He shrugged.
She stopped in her tracks, and softly put her hands on his shoulders. "Oh, Clark, of course I was attracted to you." She squeezed his shoulders reassuringly, and pulled him into a bear hug. "I have *always* been attracted to you. Even if I tried to hide it from myself, the feeling has always been there." Just maybe hidden a little too deeply for anyone to know until last night.
Clark found himself smiling widely. He closed his eyes momentarily, and turned his head for a soft kiss. He finished her thought, "And that's how the perfume works? It lowers your inhibitions, but only if the latent feelings exist already?"
Lois nodded, and kissed his cheek. "Exactly. That has to be how it works." She squeezed his shoulders again. "And that has to mean that Lex must not have any feelings for Miranda."
"I guess not." He focused on the store again.
"Wait! He said he isn't sure about the temporary nature of the perfume."
"Temporary. At least that's good."
Clark sighed. "48 hours, but she is only using a 1% solution."
"48 hours is more than enough time to change someone's life," she said softly, and looked deeply into her newfound love's eyes.
"I know," he answered equally softly, but then he heard something else. "Oh my god."
"What!" She hated it when he didn't tell her exactly what he was hearing! "Clark!"
"If she uses a 100% solution, people will lose their inhibitions forever. And that's what Luthor is paying for!" A world without inhibitions would be a scary place, indeed.
"We have to stop her."
Suddenly, Clark's head jolted up, and he took a step back. "He's leaving! We should hide somewhere. He's going to wonder what we're doing here. The last thing we need is for him to see us."
He tugged her shoulder and they moved into the shadows between two stores. Clark stood in front of Lois, blocking her from any prying eyes.
"It would be way too dangerous," she agreed. Lois gazed down the street. "Oh, there's a car pulling up. Maybe he won't see us."
A large, black limonene pulled up in front of the store, and they watched as Lex Luthor strode out of the store and swiftly climbed into the waiting car.
"I can't believe he didn't have any feelings for her if we're right."
"Maybe we're wrong. Maybe he was wearing something I didn't see. Maybe he really isn't attracted to her. I have no idea." Clark shrugged again.
Lois nodded. "We should check out the store. How long do you think we should wait? Do you think the perfume is still in the air?" She had a feeling that was how she was affected yesterday afternoon. It wasn't going to happen again.
The car sped away, and Lex Luthor was gone beyond the horizon.
"I don't know." Clark considered it for a moment. "They were in some kind of back room." He pulled his glasses down his nose and looked into the store again. "She took her nose plugs out."
Lois nodded. "It must be safe."
"Maybe we should go in now."
"We can't waste any more time."
Clark shrugged. "Let's do it."
Lois nodded, and grabbed his hand. "Let's go, partner."
"Partner," he repeated, a large grin now perpetually plastered across his face. They were partners now in more than one sense. They would be partners forever.
**********
Lois opened the large, wooden door, and some chimes tingled, indicating their arrival. The store was a fascinating array of sights and scents that assaulted their senses.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
She nodded quickly. "I'm worried I might kill her when I see her," she said under her breath so only he could hear her.
He chuckled softly because he knew if given the chance, Lois might do just that.
They waited for Miranda to emerge from the back of the store, and they both took in the cluttered little shop. The shelves on the walls were lined with hundreds of antique and mass produced perfume bottles. Soaps, incense sticks, and candles of every shape and form lined every shelf and counter.
Clark let his eyes wander across the room, until his gaze finally rested on a desk in the back corner with a microscope, some books, and an array of vials full of different chemicals; probably more witches' brews.
"Can I help you? Are you looking for something in particular?" a deep, almost song-like voice rang out over the store, surprising both Lois and Clark, who were lost in their own little worlds of thought.
She looked exactly like she had stepped out of one of the pictures in Lois's pocket. Tall, blonde, exotic, and crazy. Even though she was the picture of politeness, both Lois and Clark could sense a trace of insanity. Maybe it was in her eyes.
Lois was the first to recover. "Oh, um, my, uh, boyfriend and I are looking for some perfume."
Clark felt the grin spread across his face again. He was her boyfriend! Those were words he never expected to hear cross his love's lips, and they felt so good to hear. He draped his arm casually around Lois's shoulders and turned to Miranda. "I wanted to buy my girlfriend a gift."
He planted a soft kiss on Lois's head, and reveled in the soft scent of her sweet shampoo. Even in a place like this perfume shop where his senses were assaulted by so many fragrances, he could still sense Lois's unique, wonderful scent.
"Lovers?" Miranda asked, with a slight sneer on her face. "I have a wide array of fragrances to spice up any romantic night."
Lois looked at Clark and bit her lip slightly, trying to control her impulse to snap back at the crazy woman. She'd bet that Miranda could spice up a night, now if the woman would remember it or not; that was a completely different story.
She wasn't sure what Miranda was going to offer them. Would it be something like 'Jungle Passion'? For some reason, Lois almost hoped she would get to see it! But not smell it. Right now, she really wished she had a pair of those nose plugs.
Clark put his hand on Lois's back and they followed Miranda to the back corner of the store.
"I have a wide array of scents for every occasion." She looked over her shelf for a moment. For a couple like yourselves, a new relationship, a budding love, try my 'Dark Rainy Nights', made from a collection of flowers grown only in the depths of the Amazon rain forest. Sure to enrich your passion for each other." She pulled a large black bottle from the top shelf.
It was a different bottle not the one she had sprayed yesterday. They had to keep their eyes open.
Clark drifted off looking around the store, and Lois knew what he was going to do. He was looking for the weird atomizer.
That meant she had to keep Miranda busy momentarily. "How did you . . ." Lois asked.
"I always know, my dear. Subtle touches, meaningful looks, love at its finest. But it soon fades." Her face took on an angry look, and it was almost like a shadow came over her. "It soon fades."
Lois wondered if she could possibly be talking about Lex Luthor. Maybe he was her love that had faded. "Do you make all these perfumes yourself," she asked, trying to change the subject. Miranda might be the type to turn violent when something upset her so horribly like the subject of love seemed to. Perhaps talking about herself would make Miranda regain her equilibrium.
It took the other woman a moment to regain her composure, but then she smiled. "Yes, of course I make my own perfumes. I was trained at Harvard as a chemist."
"Really?" Lois wanted to add, then why are you here making perfume, but she held her tongue.
Miranda nodded. "Many perfumers are chemists. In fact, the goal of someone who truly perfects her art is to cause a perfect chemical reaction."
Lois raised her eyebrows. "The perfect chemical reaction?" she repeated, hoping to spur Miranda to give more information.
"Humans are animals, governed by their sense of smell. Did you know that there are over one-thousand odor receptors in a human's nervous system, and it makes up a large percentage of the human genome?"
Clark had come up behind Lois again, and put his hand on her shoulder. Lois said, "I didn't realize that." She wasn't sure what else to say.
"All animals are ruled by their sense of smell. Humans included. The goal of any good perfumer is to harness these impulses and use them to their . . . customer's advantage."
A chill went up Lois's spine. This woman wanted to control people through their sense of smell. It was frightening that someone could have that much power.
"Well," Lois said sweetly, unable to really respond to Miranda's statement.
Clark jumped in, "Oh, sweetheart, look at the time. We're running late for our dinner reservations! Did you find the perfume you're looking for?"
Oh yeah, of course they did. Lois was sure that Clark had secured the bottle, and now they were ready to leave. But she couldn't let Dr. Evil know that. "Oh no! I haven't made up my mind." She flashed Clark a thankful look for rescuing her from the almost painful situation. "Can we come back after dinner?"
Clark smiled at her, and nodded. "Your wish is my command, my dear." He knew Miranda probably saw right through them. But right now he wasn't sure if he cared. He had what they had come for. It wasn't like Miranda was going to come right out and admit that she had made a perfume that made people lose their inhibitions. She was going to hint around at it ad nauseum.
Miranda interjected, "I close at 8."
"We'll be back," Lois said resolutely. She looked at Clark and winked. "He promised me a new perfume, and yours are so interesting." And deadly.
They walked out of the store, knowing that they would be back soon but not to buy perfume. They would be back with the police!
**********
When they were out of the store, Lois stopped and looked at Clark. "Did you get the perfume?"
He patted his interior pocket, and said, "Absolutely." He pulled the oddly shaped bottle out. "Is this it?"
Lois pulled a picture out of her pocket and compared the two bottles. "Yeah, that looks like it." She stood up on her tiptoes and softly kissed him on the lips. "My hero, rescuing me from the madwoman, and stealing the love perfume."
Clark wrapped his arms around her, and brushed his lips against hers. "That's what I'm here for," he said. "Rescuing beautiful women and engaging in criminal activity."
"I thought so." She kissed him softly again. It felt so wonderful to be able to kiss him without any inhibition, without any fear. They were a couple and they were in love. It didn't get any better than this. "We should get this to someone who can analyze it."
"Who?" He thought for a second, and only one place came to mind. "We can't take it to LexLabs." It would be like handing Luthor the formula.
Lois shook her head quickly. "No, of course not." She thought about it for a second. "We can take it to S.T.A.R. Labs."
"S.T.A.R. Labs?" He had heard of them, but had never actually been there.
“It’s a government agency, sort of like NASA.
"Great idea."
Lois ran her hand up his arm and smiled. "Why thank you." She brushed her lips against his in a soft, sweet kiss. "I think we need to look into Miranda, too."
"Yeah." He brushed his lips against hers. "We do." Why did they have work to do when so many important things were going on in their lives?
"We have to do it fast." She took a step back and became all business-like again. "I mean, if she has a 100% solution of whatever it is and she somehow lets it loose, we don't know what will happen."
"The whole city will be affected." Clark took a deep breath. "And what if Luthor gets his hands on it?"
"That's why we have to stop them," Lois declared. They could do it if they worked together. .
"Do you want to split up to make it go faster?"
Lois shook her head. "We're a team."
"I was hoping you'd say that." Clark wrapped his arms around her, and stared pleadingly into her eyes. "I'd miss you too much."
Her heart melted from his words and his look. This was one of the many reasons she had fallen for him. "I'd miss you, too." She stood up on her tiptoes, and softly kissed him on the lips.
"Let's get to S.T.A.R. Labs and have them start working on this."
"And then we'll head back to the newsroom, and find out more about Crazy Miranda." She considered it for a moment. "Maybe not the newsroom. It hasn't been 48 hours yet."
"Good point," he said. "But where else are we going to be able to do the research."
She gently put her hand on his shoulder, craving any contact with him. "I have no idea." Shrugging, she added, "I guess we have to go back to the Love Shack."
"The Love Shack?" He sighed. "Maybe the perfume will have worn off by now."
"I hope so." But she wasn't expecting anything; she was prepared for the worst. It hadn't been 48 hours.
**********
Lois had been right. When they got back to the newsroom, it was still a madhouse. Sounds of love still emanated from the copy room. Colleagues were still practically chasing each other around the newsroom. Perry was singing to Rahelia. Jimmy was dressed all in leather, making out with the life sized-cardboard picture of his model.
"Love Shack. It's a little old place where we can get together!" she sang almost under her breath.
"Lois!"
She rolled her eyes. "Come on, Clark; it was funny." If she didn't make light of the situation, she might find herself crying at its sheer absurdity. Who knew that a perfume could cause such chaos?
"Lo-is!" He tried to be frustrated, but he couldn't help laughing. She was right. It was funny in a strange, slightly painful way.
"I know. It's not funny." She sighed deeply and gazed around the newsroom again. "I can't believe it. I must have gotten a really dilute dose." Luckily. Who knew what would have happened had she gotten the concentrated drug. She probably would have spent the entire 48 hours making sweet love to Clark. Looking back, maybe that wouldn’t have been so terrible.
He nodded. "Probably. That has to be why yours didn't last the full 48 hours, or even 24 hours. The chemist at STAR Labs said that the pheromone stuff loses its binding efficiency for blocking every 12 hours proportional to its concentration."
Lois's had been on the phone doing further research about Miranda while Clark had talked to the scientist. Now she was beginning to regret it. "Pheromone?"
Clark shrugged, not exactly sure how to explain it. "The guy was talking pretty fast, and I only picked up about half of what he said. I know they made up a large percentage of the perfume."
Lois nodded. "Okay."
"From what I could smell, I think they are animal based."
"Animal based?" She took Clark's notes off his desk and started to flip through them quickly.
"If I understood him correctly, I think it's a type of substance which animals release . . ."
Lois read from the page, "A volatile hormone or behavior-modifying agent. Typically used as a sexual attractant, and often in sexual aggression." She gasped. "Reducing inhibitions." Wow! It certainly was a very scarily powerful substance!
Clark nodded. "They think this perfume actually makes you sensitive to the pheromones secreted by others."
"Especially the person you're already attracted to?" She shook her head, and flipped the page. "The perfume was designed to interact with olfactory receptors and cause a second messenger reaction in the postsynaptic neuron, exciting an inhibitory interneuron, which propagates through a cascade to upper levels of the brain." She looked up at Clark, unsure about the biology, but knowing the physiological consequences. "Okay, that explains the sensitivity to the pheromones, but what about the reduced inhibitions?"
"I'm not sure. I don't think anyone knows exactly how the brain works, how feelings and emotions are controlled." He shrugged. "I don't know if they've isolated the mechanisms for emotional generation and processing yet, but I'm no neuroscientist."
Lois sighed. Now was not the time for a biology lesson. They knew the one major consequence. "We don't know how it works, but we know that it does work, and very effectively."
"So this drug somehow inhibits whatever part of your brain that controls your intellectual defense mechanisms?"
"I think so." She actually wasn't sure exactly what she thought anymore. "It seems like the feelings have to be there to begin with. All this does is inhibit your, uh, inhibitions, and makes you more sensitive to another person's emitted pheromones."
"Exactly," he said. The perfume was frightening, yet ingenious. No wonder Luthor wanted to control it. If he let the perfume out on the entire city, it would turn into a modern-day reincarnation of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. Metropolis would become a city without restraint, without morality.
"So you can't control yourself," she said. "It's like you're temporarily blinded by . . . love."
He took a deep breath, and stood up. "We *can't* let Luthor get his hands on this drug. If a 10% solution does this," he motioned around pointing out the chaos in the newsroom, "I can't even imagine what a 100% solution would do! It would cause complete disorder, and it would bring the city to shambles."
"A disaster," she said. "We have to stop them. Both of them." They couldn't focus on Lex completely. Right now, until Lex got his hands on it, they needed to stop Miranda, and that would stop Lex before he got the perfume. Unless he already had it. Then, it was anyone's game.
"Right." He ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Both of them." And they needed to do it *now* before it got further out of hand. Luthor was pure evil incarnate, and Miranda seemed willing and able to cater to his every destructive whim. It was a lethal combination.
Lois tried to look at the situation objectively. Since Miranda was currently in possession of the perfume, they had to focus on her first. "What do we know about Miranda?"
Clark grabbed Lois's notes off the corner of her desk, and started reading. "First in her class at Harvard. Chemistry major who aspired for a career in research. She won numerous awards in college and her early years at LexLabs. Worked for Luthor for 10 years."
"And after she left?" Lois peered over his shoulder at the notes she had taken while they were at S.T.A.R. Labs. Had Miranda and Lex been a love affair gone wrong? Was that why she left LexLabs after such an illustrious career? It didn't seem logical.
"It's like she disappeared." Fell of the face of the Earth was more like it.
"And became a perfume maker / mind control artist?" Since that was obviously the logical next step. Wasn't that what every mad scientist seemed to do?
"Exactly." He read a little further down. "Oh! Look at this! She got a grant recently. One guess who it's from!"
Lois shrugged, and offered the first thing that came to her mind. "Luthor?"
"Luthor." He nodded. Of course Luthor. Who else? This was one of his many contacts in the evil mind control division of Metropolis' scientist population. He seemed to have money in about every single illegal operation in the city.
Lois sighed deeply. "Should we call the police? We have the evidence."
"I think we should." He then heard voices coming from the elevator. "Wait!" He reached out and touched her arm before she grabbed the phone. "I don't believe it."
"What?" From the look in his eyes, Lois could tell he was focusing on something with one of his enhanced abilities. Since he was still wearing his glasses all the way up his nose, she assumed it was something he was hearing.
He sighed deeply. "Speak of the devils. Luthor and Miranda are in the elevator." What could they possibly be doing here now? Miranda probably wanted to see the results, and to show Luthor what her perfume could do first-hand.
"Are you kidding?" Lois sighed deeply. It seemed fitting. They were probably there to survey their handy work.
"I wish I was! We have to get out of here." He frantically looked around the newsroom for a place to hide. Miranda was bound to recognize them as the happy, young couple who came to her shop a few hours ago!
"We have to hide somewhere." Instinctively, Lois grabbed Clark's arm, and darted off to the supply closet, which was surprisingly empty.
The supply closet door slammed shut as the elevator doors opened, and Lex and Miranda stepped out into the newsroom.
"That was close," Clark said, as he heaved a large sigh of relief.
"What are they doing?" Lois once again wished she could see through doors.
"I'm sorry, Lois," he said softly. "I wish you could see, too."
"As long as one of us can, that's all that matters." She put her hand on his chest, hoping to reassure him. Of course she was jealous, but she realized how lucky she was to have a partner who was blessed with such wonderful powers. "Now what are they doing? Give me the play by play."
Lois was amazing. She seemed to accept his abilities fully and even if she didn't have the powers, she wanted to use his powers to her advantage. He shouldn't have expected anything less.
"Are they doing anything? Saying anything?" Lois prodded. She proceeded to look for any holes in the door or frame that might allow her to see, too.
Clark pulled his glasses down his nose and quickly burned two tiny holes in the door. "Here. Now you can see, too. They're still by the elevator."
"Thanks." She loved having Superman for a partner! Those abilities came in handy so often! But she had to get back to the issue at hand. "Why are they still standing there by the elevator? What are they saying?"
Clark focused on their conversation again. It was almost difficult to pick out their voices in the noisy newsroom, where the background noise was at a fevered pitch. "As far as I can tell, Miranda is surveying her handy work."
"Of course she is." Wasn't that what criminals always did? "But what is Lex doing with her? Does he want to check out his investment?"
Clark strained to hear the conversation. "Miranda is telling him that she only sprayed the newsroom with a 1% solution, and she wants him to imagine what a 100% solution would do."
"I can imagine," Lois answered. "Emotions running wild. Love running rampant. No control. Chaos and destruction. Sodom and Gomorah."
"Miranda said something like that, 'Emotions run wild. Love turns to despair, depression, hatred . . .' It almost sounds like a sales pitch. And he is obviously impressed. He agreed to go in 50/50 with her!"
"It probably is a sales pitch. She wants Lex to give her more money. 50/50? Wow."
He heard the voices again. "No! Wait! She doesn't only want Luthor to buy it. She wants Luthor to want her." Miranda and Luthor still stood at the top of the steps, surveying the newsroom, but Miranda seemed to be surveying more of Luthor than of the newsroom.
"We saw her spray him before. Is he affected at all?" Lois wondered how Lex could possibly be immune to the affects of the horrible perfume especially when he was sprayed at such a close range. He had to be affected. There was no was he wasn't.
"Oh my." Clark's jaw hung open, not willing to believe what he was hearing.
"What!" Lois hated being able to see, but not hear. It was almost better being able to do neither. No it wasn't. What was she talking about?
"Luthor *is* affected."
"Then why isn't he . . ." She let her voice trail off.
Clark took a sharp breath. "He doesn’t want Miranda."
"What do you mean? Who does he want?"
"You," Clark said softly. His heart raced with both fear and anger. Luthor would do anything to win his ultimate prize. Lois. When that evil man has his mind set on something, he always seemed to get it. And, quite frankly, that scared Clark more than anything else in his life ever had.
"Me?" Her heart pounded in her chest. Lex Luthor was obsessed with her because of the perfume. So that had to mean he was attracted to her. She wasn't quite sure what to think.
If this had happened a few days ago, Lois would have been really excited to have the third richest man in the world in love with her, but now it was plain frightening. She was in love with Clark, and Luthor was the world's biggest criminal.
Before she had time to consider that thought, Clark spoke again, "Miranda is fuming, Lois. She can't believe Luthor doesn't want her. And she blames . . . you." Clark felt positively powerless. He had no idea what to do to protect Lois against a lustful Luthor and a psychotic mad scientist with a love potion. The one thing he knew for sure was that he needed to protect her at all costs. He couldn't let Luthor get close to Lois.
"Oh no," was all Lois could manage to say.
Lois and Clark watched in worried silence as the dangerous duo descended the stairs, and headed towards Lois’s desk. Luthor led the way, and Miranda followed a few steps behind.
The one good thing of this entire situation was that Lois and Clark had dashed to the closet with their notes in their hands, so there was no chance of Lex or Miranda noticing that they had been researching the perfume.
“Lois, he’s talking about you,” Clark whispered forcefully, his fist clenched tightly, trying to hold his anger in check.
“About me? What’s he saying?” She actually wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Well . . .” Clark wasn’t sure if he really wanted to tell Lois what he was hearing. Honestly, he didn’t want to be hearing what he was hearing! It was at times like this, he wished he wouldn’t have heard what Luthor was saying. It was like torture.
The perfume obviously had a horrible affect on Lex Luthor and it lowered his inhibitions. He was no longer acting like the suave, elegant, businessman; he was behaving like an uneducated truck driver: uncouth, lewd, and unruly. What upset Clark the most was that Luthor was making disgusting, sexual comments about Lois’s body! Her legs, breasts, and buttocks seemed to be his favorite areas. Clark tried to push the sound of Luthor’s disgusting voice out of his mind.
“Clark!” Lois saw the hand motions Lex was making, and she had a pretty good idea what he was saying, but she wanted to know for sure. It was going to upset her either way. “Tell me.”
“He, uh . . .” Clark ran a nervous hand through his hair, knowing he had to tell her. “Well, he, um, uh, thinks you’re beautiful, and he wants to find you to, um, ravage you.” He had to fight back his anger. It was almost impossible to keep his voice under control.
Lois nodded. She had expected that much. Hear heart pounded with fear. Lex Luthor wanted to ravage her, and Lois knew that he had the power to get exactly what he wanted. And he wanted her. That meant he would stop at nothing to make her his, whether she wanted it or not.
Clark’s arms tightened around his love’s shoulders. He sensed her quickening pulse, and wanted to help her calm down, even though he was on edge, too. Now, hearing Luthor talk that way about the woman Clark loved made him want to burst out of the closet, grab Luthor by the neck, and make him apologize to Lois for everything he said. He probably wouldn’t be able to strangle Luthor for very long before something would happen and he would let go. He wouldn’t even get the emotional victory. It was a lose-lose situation. His morals would never let him kill or torture anyone, not even Lex Luthor.
Lois leaned back against Clark’s strong arms, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly; the simple feel of her small body against his was enough to settle his nerves a bit. She was safe, and Luthor couldn’t hurt her when she was safe in his arms.
Lois watched the events unfurl before her. Miranda paced behind Lex around the newsroom, and she looked angry. Very angry. Scarily angry. “Look at Miranda’s face, Clark! What is she saying?”
Clark had tried to tune out of the conversation so he didn’t have to hear Luthor’s voice, and it took him a second to focus on the conversation again. “She said, ‘I thought this would be more than a business partnership, but more like it was before’.”
“Like it was before?” Lois shook her head.
“I guess so. But Luthor isn’t having any of it. He said, ‘I think not. I don’t mix business and other people’s pleasure.’” He sighed deeply. “And do you see her face?”
“She’s really mad, Clark.” Mad as in angry, as well as mad as in crazy. It was a horrible combination an angry, crazy person.
“He told her that he never felt anything for her.” Clark cringed, almost feeling sorry for Miranda.
“Ouch!”
He nodded. “She asked him about you.” He felt sick to his stomach, not wanting to hear Luthor’s answer.
“Oh no.” She her stomach drop, knowing the outcome couldn’t be good, but desperately wanting to see and hear it unfold before her. “What did he say? What did he say?”
“Nothing yet.” He saw Luthor’s eyes fill with a longing, dreamy expression. “He looks like he is thinking about something.” Clark clenched his fists in anger, pretty sure he knew what or who Luthor was thinking about.
“Probably more like fantasizing. God, probably about me.” She couldn’t help but feel a little violated, and very sick to her stomach.
“He hasn’t said anything yet, but Miranda said, ‘Soon all of Metropolis will feel the pain of love spurned the pain I am feeling right now. You broke my heart, Lex.’”
“What does that mean?” Lois had a feeling she knew exactly what Miranda meant. She wanted to see if Clark had the same feeling, too.
“I have no idea. Could she be planning to expose the city to one of her perfumes? Love broke her heart, so she is going to hurt everyone else?”
“It’s like love made her insane.” Lois shook her head incredulously.
Clark shook his head. “What sane person makes a perfume that causes people to lose all their inhibitions?”
“Good point,” she said quickly. “I won’t put spraying the whole city above her. My only question is how? How in the world is she going to do it?”
“I have no idea.” She paused momentarily as she watched Lex ignore Miranda completely. He sat on the corner of Lois’s desk, and was picking up all of her pens, and staring at them lovingly. He was practically drooling. Disgusting!
Clark covered her smaller hand with his and squeezed, hoping to reassure her that he was there for her. He knew that it had to be painful to watch someone do something so violating but not be able to do a thing about it. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She squeezed his hand in response, but her eyes were fixed on something else. “Look, she’s leaving.”
“I don’t believe it,” Clark muttered.
“What!” She was getting a little sick of Clark hearing things without telling her. Obviously she needed superhearing, too!
“Fruit flies.”
“What?” Lois looked at him incredulously. Fruit flies. The root of all their disagreements yesterday, and now they were rearing their ugly heads -- or wings -- again.
“She found your research about the fruit fly spraying on your desk.” He almost laughed when he realized that all the fuss she had made over the article yesterday, and now it might actually be a lead to the story of the month, if not the year.
“She’s going to spray the city with her perfume instead of the pesticide.”
“I think so.” Clark closed his eyes and tried to fight back the image of a city in love.
Lois sighed deeply, not wanting to think about the consequences, but finding she could think of nothing else. “Metropolis will feel the pain of love spurned. She wants to distribute her drug to the entire city, and what better way than . . .”
“A pesticide spraying.” He watched as Miranda hurried to the stairs, eyes filled with a blind, raw rage like he had never seen before. She was driven mad by love gone wrong. Miranda was way past the point of no return.
“We should go after her.” Clark ran a hand through his hair. He was torn between wanting to follow Miranda to save the city, and wanting to stay with Lois to protect her from Lex Luthor. “Come on.”
“Go, Clark. Superman should be waiting for her at her store. I’ll fax the police Miranda’s description, and then I’ll follow you in my car.”
“What about Luthor?”
She put her hand on his chest, and smiled slightly. “I can handle Lex. Believe me.” And she could.
“I don’t know, Lois.” He hesitated, worried about what a Luthor with no inhibitions would do to her.
Lois sighed. An uninhibited Lex Luthor. Maybe Clark was right to worry, but she could take care of herself. Even though Clark thought he always had to protect her, he had to learn that she had survived for many years without him. “Believe me, Clark. I’ll be fine. We’re wasting valuable time. We have to stop Miranda.”
She grabbed his hands, and looked into his eyes, hoping to show him that she knew what she was doing, then she reached one of her hands up and started to unbutton his shirt, hoping he would get the hint and change into Superman.
He considered her words for a moment, and he realized that she really could take care of herself. There was no was he could protect her every minute of the day, no matter how much he wanted to. Stopping Miranda from spraying the entire city was more important than watching Lois all day. “You’re right,” he said softly.
“I’m always right,” she challenged, and she inched her face closer to his.
Mouths inches apart, Clark whispered, “You’re always right,” before their lips connected in a soft, loving kiss.
**********
To be Continued
