[CHAPTER 8: Date] Clark smiled as Lois' Uncle Mike led him to the corner table at the back of the restaurant.
"Shall I bring out the special menu?" Mike asked knowingly as he placed two drinks on the table. A root beer for Clark and a cream soda for Lois.
"Yes, thank you," Clark said.
"Very good, and remember, desserts are on the house," Mike said with a smile.
Clark nodded his thanks.
Clark had become a regular at the cafe after dealing with the men who had been sent by Intergang to burn the place down. As thanks, Mike had offered free meals to Clark whenever he wished but Clark had insisted on still paying. In the end, they compromised. Mike would make a portion of the meal free for him, and since Clark had a big sweet tooth, the solution was simple.
A minute later, Lois arrived. Clark quickly stood and pulled out the chair for her.
"Hi, Clark," she said, a little more dressed up than usual.
"Hi. You look amazing," he complimented as she sat down.
"Thanks. You too," she said, feeling the flutter of a dozen butterflies in her stomach as she returned his smile.
This was their third date, and she knew they were nearing the next step, but she wasn't sure what that meant exactly. How much did Clark expect? What did he want? Would he really be alright with going slow? Did she even want them to go slow?
"I read your article. It's nice to see Intergang's end in print," Clark said.
"Perry was beside himself," Lois agreed. "And getting that interview with Mr. Church. . . . I never imagined someone could change so much. Talk about a one-eighty. Granted, he did say his change of heart was due to Superman," she said with a smile.
"In the end, however, the choice was still up to him," Clark said with a shrug.
"I doubt he would have made it without Superman's prompting though."
"True," Clark admitted, before Mike returned and took their order.
"Twin order of lasagna coming up," Mike said with a flourish as he left them alone again.
"So," she said, uncertain on how to move the conversation to what they needed to discuss. Or at least to what she did.
"So . . . ?" Clark asked, shifting himself toward her, sensing her unease.
"I'm not sure why this is so hard to talk about," she managed.
"Do you mean where we should go from here?" he asked, now just as hesitant.
"Yes. I mean, this is our third official date, and I have no idea what . . . I mean, well, I assume we're going steady now, so does that mean. . . ?"
Clark grinned. "We're officially boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"You make it sound so simple," Lois said with a soft smile, though her eyes revealed her still present unease.
Clark gently took her hand. "I think I know what you mean. We haven't really talked about expectations or much about our pasts before," he said calmly. "Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've dated anyone. The last person had been years and years ago and it hadn't been serious at all, although at the time I thought it had been. Only later did I learn Lana was just . . . well, intense high school drama," he said with a shrug of remembered embarrassment.
"Oh. So you don't . . ." Lois frowned, now really unsure of things. So he had never had an adult relationship? Did that mean he . . . was a virgin?
Clark sighed and glanced around, confirming no one was in earshot.
"Lois, I'm not from here. So I've always held myself back. I've never let. . . ." He paused, trying to find the best words. "If you're worried about . . . man, this is hard to talk about."
Lois smiled at his honesty.
"Ok, so, histories?" Lois asked, growing a little more confident after seeing she wasn't the only one uncertain.
"Alright. Well, as embarrassing as this is, I've only had two girlfriends, both in highschool. Rachel Harris and Lana Lang."
Lois blinked in genuine surprise, the information truly sinking in. "No one after? Not even a single date when you were in the Air Force or in college?"
"No one. And I didn't really go to college, I just self studied and the military took care of the rest. It was for a top secret case. Anyway, I decided not to take the risk of cultivating a relationship," he stated before smiling. "Until I met you anyway."
Lois smiled shyly. "Okay, so, highschool?"
"Well, with Rachel, it lasted for about a month in my sophomore year before we both decided we were too young and broke it off. It was all very tame, I suppose. I was barely brave enough to kiss her cheek," Clark admitted, failing to hide a blush.
"And Lana?" Lois asked, trying not to enjoy his discomfort too much.
Clark sighed, suddenly not as relaxed. "I was with her for about six months. Started mid junior year. I thought she really liked me and I began to think I could tell her about, well, everything. I'm really glad I didn't."
"What happened?" Lois asked, quickly sensing this wasn't as lighthearted as the previous relationship.
"She was going behind my back two months in, getting with other guys and gossiping with the cheerleaders. It was a competition between a group of girls, to see how many boys they could get with while hiding what they were doing from their unsuspecting boyfriends."
"That's despicable!" she gasped, disgusted.
"It was pretty humiliating. Probably the worst humiliation I've experienced, if I'm honest. But I learned a great deal. They were very hard lessons though."
Lois brought her other hand and placed it on top of his which was still holding her other.
"What did you learn? Other than that girls can be cruel?" she asked.
"I discovered the need to verify and not just automatically trust. I learned to be vigilant and to inquire when something feels off. If I had done that, I would have discovered the truth sooner and spared myself and others some grief. It wasn't just me they were messing with, after all."
She nodded understandingly and waited for him to go on.
He softly sighed. "I also learned not to care too much about what people think of me, especially when the scale they're judging me on is skewed or broken."
"So she gossiped about you to her friends?" she asked sympathetically, easily imagining what might have been said.
"Compared my habits to the other boys with her friends, how well I kissed, what I liked to talk about with her, but ironically the thing that seemed to be their main focus where I was concerned was that. . . ." He glanced at her, suddenly hesitant. "I wouldn't sleep with her."
Lois blinked but kept her expression steady. Somehow.
"There was plenty of opportunity, and she wasn't shy about what she wanted - at times she even became insistent - but I didn't . . . it didn't feel right. So I said no, every time. And that's eventually how I learned the truth of what was going on."
"Don't tell me you learned from one of the guys she had been with," Lois breathed, horrified by the thought. How degrading that would be! Granted, no matter how he had learned the truth it must have been horrible.
Clark shook his head, both touched by her concern and amused by how absorbed she had become in the time of his life that was now so far from him that the emotions it still managed to bring forth barely felt like a flutter to him.
Although it was a flutter of intense hurt.
"No, she did. By accident. In the barn, after I refused again, she became so frustrated that she just blurted it out. 'None of the other boys resist like you do! Even goody-two-shoes Al immediately came on hard last week!' She instantly tried to say she hadn't meant what it sounded like and tried to give a dozen excuses before saying it was
my fault because I wouldn't please her. And then, to try to hurt me - which admittedly succeeded - she just laid it all out, saying I was a laughing stock and the whole school knew and that there must be something wrong with me since the other boys had done it, etcetera, etcetera."
Lois gaped, speechless.
"Of course, only a pocket of the school knew what was going on initially. Many of the boys she and the two other girls had been with kept quiet, afraid their unfortunate boyfriends would beat them up if they learned. It was certainly a scandal when the truth finally came out, although the teachers did a fair job of hiding details from most of the student body, but the gist of what happened couldn't be covered up. One girl had even become pregnant from the whole mess."
Lois coughed. "Wow. And I thought stuff like that only happened in city schools."
"People are people everywhere," he said lightly.
"I suppose we both learned hard lessons before we met each other," Lois said, meeting his eyes.
"Yeah," he said.
"So what happened then? I mean, did they finish highschool there or what?"
"The pregnant girl moved. I heard she gave the baby up for adoption, but I don't know anything beyond that. I do wonder about her sometimes, because, of the three girls, she was the least . . . manipulative. The second girl moved as well, although I think it was more for her parents' sake than for hers. They were so ashamed of what their daughter had done, it was sad. As for Lana, she kept her head down and finished high school in Smallville before moving and starting a life far away. Florida, I think."
"And the boys?" she asked.
"The boyfriends licked their wounds and moved on, more hesitant of relationships in general. Myself included. As for the father of the child conceived, I never learned who it was, but I do hope the child was adopted into a good home and can find the answers they want if they ever do begin to wonder, which they likely will. I know what it's like to not know."
Lois stilled, suddenly realizing that she hadn't spared a thought of what had happened to the child or even if the father had been informed, not to mention what had happened to the teen mother after it all. She didn't know how to feel about that.
And then to be reminded that Clark had not always known where he had come from or why he was different. It was impossible to imagine how hard that must have been.
"Concerning the rest of the boys, they either shrugged off the event or became leery of possibly being used for the amusement of others again. Al especially was hit hard by it all. He felt so ashamed, even though his parents were pretty understanding. He's a priest now, helps out in a halfway house last I heard."
Clark eased back, releasing her hands before Mike came out with their food a moment later.
"Do either of you require anything else?" Mike asked, setting down their plates.
Each lasagna dish, rich with cheese, had two bread knots and seasoned asparagus as a side. It smelled really good.
"No, everything looks great," Lois said with a smile before Mike left them to eat.
They slowly dug in, both anticipating her turn to share.
"Well, you already know about Claude and what I learned there. He was my last . . . relationship. I can't even say he was a boyfriend, which just makes what happened even worse," she huffed before moving on. "Before him was Paul Newman. I was with him for about four months. He was the editor of MU's college newspaper in my junior year of college, but then Linda King happened. That had been a blow. Never thought my best friend would steal my boyfriend. Granted, I suppose stealing isn't the right word. It's not like he went to her against his will. And when it was all said and done, he left her for some other lady a few months later. So he was just another slime ball. Taking what he wants from women before moving onto the next clueless girl."
She shook her head and took a bite before continuing. "From that experience I learned to never go out with a superior, and that even good friends can make horrible mistakes. I'm just glad Linda and I are working our way back to being friends again," Lois said before taking a few more bites and adding. "Even if he hadn't been a womanizer, looking back, that relationship hadn't been healthy. He was too controlling. But then, I was a naive college student, thrilled that a man in a position of any power was interested in me."
They ate in silence for a moment, each enjoying the layered seasoning and creamy cheese.
"My last relationship of note was with an Irishman, when I had been a foreign exchange student the summer of my Freshman year in college. Patrick Sullivan. It was very brief, but we soon knew it wouldn't work. Long distance relationships rarely do and neither of us were willing to make a life change for the other, which was telling in itself."
She took a few bites of the asparagus and shrugged.
"Everything before that was typical highschool dates that were both tentative and awkward. The longest relationship then was two months that rarely went beyond the slow stretch-arm-over-the-shoulders phase. So glad I'm no longer in highschool," she said with a shudder.
Clark smirked. "Me too."
"So, I suppose we're back to: what now?" Lois asked.
"What do you want now to be?" Clark asked.
Lois gave a happy sigh, deciding to be forward. "I'm torn. I want more, but I also don't want to go too fast," she said, taking his hand again.
"I don't want to go too fast either. You already know more about me than anyone else, other than my parents, so I'm fine with a steady progression, and if we want to be in a holding pattern for a time, that's fine too," he said, looking much more assured than when they had started.
"What is a steady progression to you?" Lois asked.
"Well, I don't have my heart set on this exact schedule, and I don't want to pressure you, but if everything were to work out, I imagine maybe six months to a year of dating, maybe longer, and then engagement. After that, another few months or so, and then . . . marriage? Like I said, I'm not set on anything, that's just what I think when I say 'steady progression'. No moving in with one another unless we both agree, although I think it would be best to do so after marriage, if only for the sake of the legality of rent payments and stuff. Granted, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tad traditional, although I suppose you likely already guessed that, considering, well. . . ." He pinked up and Lois couldn't help but smirk and think it was adorable, even though her heart was still pounding over the marriage bit.
"I think that's reasonable, and leaves room for adjustment as we go," Lois said, relieved they had cleared a few things up, although now she had a lot to think about, but at least it filled her with excitement more than unease or fear.
Clark smiled and took a moment to finish his lasagna before growing still. He made sure no one was in hearing range again before speaking.
"So, uh, are you alright with me, uh, not having crossed the . . . threshold before?" he asked.
The words confused her for a split second before her mind grasped their meaning. She couldn’t stop herself from laughing out loud.
"I'm sorry, I've just never heard it phrased that way before," she said, forcing herself to calm down.
He continued to wait for her response and she quickly realized how important this was to him.
"Well, I'll admit I was surprised. I mean, you're very attractive and I had imagined you had, at least once. But what you said makes sense. You're . . . not from here, and . . . well, to put it delicately, how different are you?"
Clark sagged with relief. "I'm like any other man. Except for my . . . powers," he said quietly at the end before resuming normal volume, "I'm like any other male, at least as far as I can tell."
Lois smiled, trying to continue to put him at ease, before she grew contemplative.
"I do wish I had waited though," she admitted. "Especially since my prior relationships were pretty much federal disasters."
"Well, then we will both be each other's first non-disasters," he said, beaming.
"Alright," she said, smiling.
"So, shall we have dessert?" Clark asked, now that they had finished the main course.
“Please,” she said, content with where she was now confident they were heading as a couple.
“So, chocolate brownie or chocolate pie?” he asked, although by the look in his eyes, it was clear he already knew what she would say.
“Made by my uncle? How about both?” she suggested.
Clark smirked. "Alright, but remember I want to have some too."
She swatted his arm playfully.
"Alright, but only if you take me flying later," she said.
"Deal," he said with a grin, suddenly feeling he had just agreed to begin the next stage of his life.
Maybe he had.
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End of Act IIComments
