Author’s Notes: As always, I’ve played fast and loose with canon and even with the level of technology. I figure, since I don’t own the characters and I don’t own the story, why not have a little fun with them, eh?
The True and Amazing Adventures of Wanda Detroit
By Elisabeth
Lois was having a miserable afternoon, and it was all the geeks’ faults. Every so often the geeks would rise up and complain about the state of the server--the amount of kilomegs this took and how many bandwidthbytes that took. A memo would be issued at a meeting Lois conveniently missed, and that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, this time the geeks were invited to the staff meeting and Lois was regrettably in attendance. Therefore, Perry made certain that she had spent hours sorting through the junk on her computer.
She sorted through old e-mails--deleting recipes, feel-good-o-grams and urban myths, along with out-of-date story tips and evidence. She tackled her voice mails next. (Who knew those were stored on a computer somewhere?) Her computer’s address book and calendar were basically empty anyway--she preferred old-fashioned paper--so she didn’t bother to open them.
It would have been nice if she was as clever as Kent had been. He’d scooted out of the office early, claiming to have forgotten a dentist appointment. As if. She only wished she had thought of it first.
That left her documents. She sorted by date, and then perused the titles. She had eight years of articles--her life’s purpose; her blood, sweat and tears--to go through. How could she possibly get rid of a single one? It seemed criminal.
Jimmy zipped by on some all-important errand, pausing as he looked over her shoulder to make a suggestion. “I would get rid of everything dated before ’91. We don’t have the software to open the old stuff anymore anyway.”
She’d poured her heart and soul into every one of those files and now they couldn’t even be opened? Unbelievable! It felt as if her photo album had just gone up in smoke.
She shift-clicked all of the old files, pausing one last time to scroll through and say good-bye. Her finger was poised on the delete key when her eyes caught something amiss--her novel. She couldn’t possibly delete that.
She control-clicked her novel back into safety and hit the delete key. She tried to do it quickly, like pulling off a band-aid. It didn’t hurt any less, though. What a miserable way to spend an afternoon.
~*~ A few weeks later
Lucy was at it again. By Lois’ count, she had sent eight “inspirational” e-mails, five warnings about women in danger--only one of which was the least bit plausible, two cartoons, five altered photos, one joke about the pains of grandparenting and three about the pains of parenting.
At the bottom of the stack was one entitled, “NaNoWriMo.” That one sounded like it was one delete key away from eternal happiness. Against her better judgment, she opened it before blowing it away.
“National Novel Writer’s Month is just around the corner. Sign-ups begin October 1.”
She skimmed through the content, paying it only the slightest attention. Like Lucy would ever write a novel. What a crock of bologna!
“Lane, Kent, in my office!” Perry barked, interrupting her reverie.
She dropped everything and raced across the bullpen. At last, there was a scoop! She could practically smell it.
~*~
It was seven thirty the next morning before she returned to her desk. She threw her purse in the bottom drawer and slugged the dredges of yesterday’s coffee in the azalea behind her.
“Hey, Clark,” she greeted her partner. He trotted over with a chocolate long-john and a fresh cup of caffeine. “You’re in early. You working on a big story?”
“Nah, just finishing up some paperwork,” he informed her.
“Boy scout!” He grinned at her accusation and strolled over to his desk.
She savored her first few sips of coffee before turning her monitor on and typing in her screensaver’s password. There on the screen was the e-mail from Lucy--only in the light of day, it didn’t seem so silly.
She remembered her recent rediscovery of her partially-finished novel. She had felt so bad knowing that years had gone by since she’d last worked on it. Yet, there was never a news-day slow enough for her to get around to completing it.
She sighed as she read more carefully this time. It was an invitation to join a band of countless others in writing a novel from start to finish in only one month’s time.
NaNoWriMo, as the email called itself, wouldn’t give her the opportunity to put the last touches on “They Called Me Fishface,” but it might give her a whole new opportunity. What if she began with a clean slate?
She dug around in her desk drawer until she found a clean notepad and began to brainstorm. She liked the main theme to Fishface--a woman who never found her true love, but she wanted a grittier setting. She made a note. She wanted to put it someplace she knew--someplace that she could easily write and sound like she knew what she was doing. The back room at Louie’s held a certain appeal. She jotted it down, even though it still didn’t feel right.
Wait a minute. She had a better idea. The Metro Club! A singer, one with a low cut dress and a smoky voice--someone who could wrap men around her little finger sounded just about right. She wrote it down and circled it for good measure.
The e-mail said that writing began on November 1. That gave her only three days to prepare. She might not be allowed to write, yet, but the rules said nothing about outlines. When Saturday rolled around, she planned to be ready for action. She scribbled a few more notes of brainstorming, and then turned the page to set up a timeline.
“You seem to be working awfully hard. What story is this?” Clark asked as he sauntered by.
She tilted her notebook to give herself a little more privacy. This was just a little too personal to share.
“It’s my story, Clark.”
He grinned at her cockily. “Well, if you get in over your head you know who to call.”
“1-800-RESCUE?” she quipped. “Fat chance.”
~*~
She tossed and turned Friday night. Her dreams were convoluted and too busy to allow for restful sleep. Finally she gave up, squinting her tired eyes at the too-bright LCD display on her clock.
It was after midnight--Saturday morning. That meant that she could legally begin writing her novel. Perhaps that was the reason she couldn’t sleep, anyway. If that was the case, a little writing would be therapeutic.
She threw on a robe and padded to the kitchen, flipping a switch to brew the coffee a few hours early. Pen and paper in hand, she began to write, *Wanda Detroit is my name. I sing for drinks down at the docks. But it wasn’t always like this…*
She paused for a moment to assess. It wasn’t the most engaging intro, but then again she could always edit it in December.
The words didn’t come easily to her tired brain. With all of her notes, she hadn’t come up with a name for her antagonist. For now, she would just name him Clark--simply because she could type his name so quickly after all of the by-lines they shared, and not for any other reason she could think of. Besides, if she hadn’t come up with a more villainous-sounding name before she entered it into the computer, she could just have her word processor find and replace the name with something better. She’d worry about that in December.
As daylight neared, her eyelids dimmed. She shuffled off back to bed to get a few hours more sleep before she hit it again.
All in all, it proved to be a fairly productive weekend. She managed to transfer the hand-written notes into her computer at work, as well as write the first 8,000 words of the 50,000 she was shooting for. Even more importantly, she had thoroughly introduced the characters and was ankle deep into the plot. Not a bad beginning.
~*~
Monday was difficult. She was only a few days into her project, and she was already discouraged and tired.
Of course, working at The Daily Planet wasn’t all peaches and cream, either. At least, it wasn’t for her. However, that might have been due to the fact that Clark had been slacking off.
Every time the going got in the least bit tough, Clark had disappeared. He “remembered” the oddest things that he felt the urge to go run off and do. She had tried to call him on it, but he had only run off again. It was maddening.
If he’d had a legitimate need it might have been different. She’d have understood if he was calling his mom every few hours to find out about her chemotherapy, or if he was checking on his kid who was home from school sick, or even if he himself was on some kind of a diuretic where he needed to answer nature’s call all of the time; but Clark didn’t have any of those problems. He just ran off every time the conversation got a little bit too personal for comfort.
Now it was time for her to empty her mind of all of her problems and concentrate on writing. She would zen out her workplace worries and allow her creative side to take over. She took a deep breath and rubbed her hands over tired eyes, trying to immerse herself in the land of her imagination.
“Working late?” the voice of her real-life partner intruded on her thoughts.
“Hmmm?” she answered noncommittally.
“Anything I can help you with?” he wondered.
She fought back her irritation. Annoyance would only stifle her creativity. Still, it was hard not to notice that, once the day was done and the work was complete, now he was ready to help.
“I’ve got this one covered,” she informed him, leaving off the rest of the comment, ‘just like I covered everything else.’
She hesitated. The document was loaded and ready to go. Yet it was awfully difficult to write with an audience.
“Did you want something?” she finally asked him, hoping he would just say his goodnights and leave her alone.
“Not really. I just wondered on how late you were planning on working.” That smile of his could buy his weight in gold. Lois reminded herself that she couldn’t afford to be bought tonight, even if he was only trying to buy her friendship.
“I could be here all night,” she tried to dissuade him.
“Then it might be a good idea if I picked up some takeout. You could make it a working dinner,” he suggested.
The idea had merit. She would eventually need to eat and, if he ran the errand for her, it would allow her more time for writing. Still, if he were hanging out, it might make it difficult for her to get anything accomplished.
“I’m kind of focused on my task right now,” she answered, before another thought niggled at the back of her brain. “Why?”
He flashed that grin at her again, the one that seemed to melt her earlier indignation. “I just thought you wanted to talk to me earlier…”
She was torn. It would be nice to get this issue out in the open and dealt with. But on the other hand, she had plans.
His smile faded to a distracted, worried glance. “But since you’re busy, I suppose we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
He turned on his heel and hurried off. The elevator opened almost immediately.
“Clark?” she asked after him, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her tone.
“I just remembered that I need to sign some papers for my taxes tonight. I’ll talk to you later.” The closing of the elevator doors punctuated his goodbye.
“Sure. Later,” she agreed with no one in particular.
Taxes, indeed. At least her partner would be well-prepared when tax day rolled around next April 15.
She stared at the computer screen. What had she been doing? That was right. She was setting aside her irritation with her partner so she could other things accomplished.
She read over the last section, trying to re-familiarize herself with the last bit she had written the previous night. Somewhere in the process her feelings for the fictitious character merged with those for the real Clark.
She paused for a minute before she began to type. *Clark had a secret he was hiding. I was sure of it. He made me angry like no other man could…*
~*~
Coming in to work the next morning, it felt like she had barely left. Working until the wee hours of the morning was old hat to a newshound like Lois, but of course she had been doing this around the clock for three straight days. Somehow it felt more natural for her to be writing at the office than it did at her apartment, so she barely left her desk. She only left long enough to catch a few hours of sleep, before she was hurrying through her morning routine and going right back to work.
The Daily Planet that greeted her, however, was not the same place that she had left. The place was swarming with unfamiliar faces. She tripped over a power cord that someone had loosely taped across the walkway. The bullpen was a madhouse. The women were dressed like a sleepover at Cat Grant’s with makeup caked on until you could barely see the real face underneath.
“What is all of this?” she wondered aloud.
“You remember,” Jimmy responded, a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth. “Today’s the day they’re using the newsroom as the backdrop for that fragrance photoshoot.”
“Close your mouth,” she ordered, rolling her eyes. How was she supposed to accomplish anything with all of these people running around. Of course, that was both a blessing and a curse. With all of the hubbub nobody would get anything done, which would give her perfect permission to zone out and write on her novel. She was hoping to be past the 10,000 word mark already, but she had only written a few paragraphs since the weekend.
She glanced both ways before opening her word processor. Clark and Jimmy were busy lusting after the beautiful people. Cat was angling for an interview with one of the more popular models. The coast was clear.
She reread the last few lines, trying to focus her mind but there was too much going on.
“I need to move this,” some acne-covered kid insisted, grabbing a corner of her desk.
“I’ve covered so many murders,” she informed him flatly, “that I wouldn’t think twice about committing one myself.”
He froze, looking at her strangely, assessing her threat level. She shooed him away with a flick of the wrist. He made a break for it.
It felt good to be in control just for a moment. Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember a word she had just read. She reread from the top of the page.
It was a description of the character she still called Clark. Her fingers started slowly as she added to her word-count. Were his eyes soft and gentle or were they more…
The smell of fermented skunk wafted over her. She choked back bile, her eyes watering.
“What died?” Jimmy cried. She glanced up to see a gypsy woman flitting about spraying death-liquid behind her. “They call that perfume?”
“…And probably charge three hundred dollars for a quarter of an ounce,” Clark chipped in, as if he had ever bought a bottle of perfume in his life.
“How are we supposed to get any work done?” she complained. Her stomach was still lurching from the lingering smell and her temples were starting to throb, as well. She dropped her head to her hands, resting her eyes for a moment. She breathed deeply, hoping to clear her head. The air was still thick with the smell of last month’s musk. A moan escaped. Her eyes drifted shut.
She must have dozed off, for when she opened her eyes again the lighting crew was packing up. Hopefully Perry hadn’t seen her napping. These late nights of writing were getting to her.
If anyone called her on it, she would just say that she was having an allergic reaction to that perfume. The truth was that she still felt a bit woozy and warm all over.
She glanced around the room, but no one was paying any attention to her. She blinked twice to clear her vision and returned to her work.
She stretched her arms above her head. That nap must have done wonders for her. She felt more vibrant than she had in a long time.
Inspired, she returned to her novel with interest this time. Her hands flew over the keyboard as the description of Clark flowed onto the paper. He wasn’t just lean and dark-haired; he had a richness to his locks that made her wanton with desire. She longed to run her fingers through his hair. But Clark was more than just that. She flashed back to the time she had seen him in nothing but a towel. His tanned, muscular chest. Muscles like steel cords knotted up the length of his arms.
The most appealing thing about Clark, though, was his desire for her.
*I taunted him with my smoldering smile. I knew Clark wanted me, but I didn't care.*
She giggled as she glanced across her desk to where the real Clark Kent sat on the other side of the room. Wouldn’t it be great if he would pose for her, like a model in front of a great artist? She would sculpt him with her words.
She unbuttoned the top of her blouse. All of this writing was getting her steaming hot. A break would feel fantastic right about now. Unconsciously she control-S’ed to save her work.
“Clark,” she called to him, as she sauntered across to his desk. Her head spun. By the time she arrived she was no longer Lois Lane. She was Wanda Detroit, the alluring singer who worked down at the docks. Men fell at her feet and she used them like paper napkins. She would indulge, clean up the mess, and toss them out, never giving more than a half of a thought to her unfulfilled deeper desires. Perhaps it was time for a little trip to the buffet. “What’cha workin’ on?”
Her vision blurred and grayed. She must be napping again. Dreaming about her novel. This was all just a realistic dream.
She awoke with a moan. She pressed the butt of her palm against her eye, waiting for the dreams to fade along with the gray pain.
Mentally, she explored the ingredients in her pantry. She had Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, Vodka, salt and pepper, and lemon juice, but she couldn’t remember if she had any tomato juice left. She hadn’t made up a Bloody Mary since Lucy had moved out. An olive might be nice, too. It might cut through the hairy dog feeling that still napped across her tongue.
She stood slowly, tempting the fates. She must be still a bit hung over, since she couldn’t remember how she had ended up rip-roaring drunk. Blackouts weren’t a good sign though. She was Ellen Lane’s daughter.
She opened one eye experimentally. The morning had just taken a turn for the worse. Not only did it feel like hot pokers dancing in her eyes to look around, but it also confirmed her worst nightmare. She wasn’t in her own home.
She tentatively wandered away from the bedroom. Oh, thank heavens! Wherever she had been, Clark had come to take her home. She was safe.
Clark glanced up as she walked into his living room.
“Lois, I can’t take it anymore,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, far beyond her ability to handle. “If you really want me I’m yours.”
“Are you out of your mind?” She pushed him away flabbergasted. Her savior was taking advantage of her.
She felt a breeze across her bosom as he fell onto the couch. She glanced down in annoyance which quickly transformed to mortification. She was trolloping around in Cat Grant’s play clothes.
“Oh, my…” She grabbed for a well-placed sofa pillow. “Have I lost mine?” She backed from the room, unsure of what the back of her outfit looked like. “If you’ll excuse me…”
“Lois, I-” Clark began to explain himself, but she couldn’t take it. She turned on her heel and fled from the room, hoping she would never have to come back. With the open floor plan, there wasn’t a lot of privacy no matter where she took cover. She grabbed her trench coat from the floor and pulled it over her shoulders, sliding her arms in the sleeves as she hastened around the corner.
It was unlike Clark to leave things laying around. Did that mean that she had thrown it on the floor? She had seduced him when she was drunk? That might explain a few of her wild dreams. Wanda Detroit had been having her way with Clark—the fictitious Clark, of course—on his coffee table.
It was all so very stupid. How could she do something crazy like that? And with her partner, no less.
Clark knocked on the wall. “I made you some coffee.”
“No, thanks. I’m just fine.”
“I’ve got some painkillers as well, if you need anything.”
It was tempting, but she had no intension of showing her face to Clark Kent ever again.
“Maybe you could leave it in the hallway,” she bargained.
“I’ll put it on the coffee table. I’m sitting on the other side of the room.”
There wasn’t much to say to that. He thought she didn’t trust him. It wasn’t about trust though. It was about humiliation. Besides, she didn’t ever want to go near that coffee table again.
“You’re going to have to come out sometime, you know.” There was a shrill, yelling quality to his voice that made the veins in her temples twitch. “It might as well be now.” Was he planning on yelling until she came out, because if that was his plan Lois could out-stubborn just about anybody. “Because you don’t really want to have this conversation at The Planet.” Actually, she didn’t want to have any conversations at all for the rest of her life—at least not with Clark Kent. “But if you need some more time, I’ll just sit quietly in the living room.” Quietly was good. All of his yelling was driving railroad spikes into her forehead just above the twitching veins. “I’m not planning on sitting near the coffee cup and the pain killers either. I’m just planning on sitting quietly.”
His definition of quietly and her definition of quietly were two vastly differing points-of-view. Her definition mimicked contemplating monks and his was unlike children walking down the hallway before recess—many, many children. She heard him inhale again, obviously ready to regale her with another loud promise to be quiet.
She could take it no longer. She synched the belt on her trench coat tightly as she marched out to meet her match. “Have you no shame? Haven’t you ever had a hangover before? Or do you just enjoy causing other people pain?”
“I’m sorry. I-”
“Just shut up,” she instructed tiredly. “Stay on your side of the room and let me drink my coffee in peace.” She plopped onto the couch, pausing for a moment until the swimming of her head subsided, and gulped down three pills with a swig of coffee.
“Actually, the dosage says two pills,” Clark interjected. She silenced him with a glare. Three regular strength were the same as two extra strength anyway. Besides, her pain was intense and she had a fast metabolism, so she probably needed more.
Clark watched her intently the whole time she sipped her coffee. It reminded her of dining with Lex where the butler refilled her water glass every time she took a sip. She was tempted to nurse that one mug of coffee all evening, but she knew it was simply putting off the inevitable. Rarely had she seen Clark back down on anything.
She set her empty mug on a coaster and squelched the urge to run.
“Are you feeling better?” he inquired. She noticed that his voice was pitched a lot quieter.
“No,” she griped, hoping he would go away and leave her alone, but knowing he would keep it up.
“Are you going to talk to me?” he persisted, just like she knew he would.
“No.” Avoiding his eyes added an exclamation point to her resolution. There was no way she was ever mentioning this mortifying slip ever again. It was just too humiliating.
Still the fuzziness of her memories weren’t her ally. What if something happened that was even worse than what she already remembered?
“Don’t worry too much,” Clark reassured her. “I know you weren’t acting like yourself. Luckily you sobered up before you made too much of a fool of yourself.”
She groaned. Just what did he qualify as ‘making a fool of yourself?’
“Did I really…” She chickened out before she could complete the thought.
“…do the Dance of the Seven Veils?” He nodded ruefully. “All seven.”
“I was more worried about the stuff on the coffee table,” she blurted out before remembering that she was never going to talk about that degrading affair.
He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t remember you dancing on the table.”
Dancing? Was that the worst thing that happened? She danced a little bit? She thought back to the state of her attire this morning. While there was a lot of flesh showing, at least the important parts were all covered. Perhaps she hadn’t even danced a complete striptease.
What a relief! “So that other stuff must have been just a dream—not that I was dreaming about you or anything. I was just… Well, I guess I was…”
“Not yourself,” Clark decided firmly. “Just forget about last night. It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you, but it matters to me.”
“The important thing is getting to the bottom of this. Somebody deliberately infected us with this stuff. I have a theory.” Clark scrambled through some magazines which had been dumped on the floor by the sofa. “Do you remember this woman? Miranda?”
She nodded as comprehension dawned. “She was the one spraying that nasty fragrance on everybody. You think she put something in the perfume?”
“That’s my theory, but I’m going to need my partner back to normal if I’m going to find out the whats, whens, wheres, and whys.”
“Give me an hour to wash off that dreadful perfume and change into something more professional.” Her purse lay in a heap next to the door, surrounded by a pile of translucent fabric, undoubtedly the seven veils she had worn over here. She patted down her coat to find her keys in the pocket. “I’ll be back here in an hour,” she confirmed again. “But don’t forget that no matter whose daughter I am, I wasn’t drunk, and no matter who you are, I wouldn’t have seduced you if I was sober. You better be ready to go when I get back here, cause if I ever catch you slacking off fantasizing about something that may or may not have happened last night you’ll be looking for a new partner.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she heard her partner agree as she slammed the door shut in her haste to exit.
Author's Footnotes: Yes, yes. By now you've figured me out. This is another of those attempts to recruit fresh blood to write with us. For more info, visit
www.nanowrimo.org And if you decide to write L&C fanfic, even better.
